Hidden Forces Available to Purchase

Reports by credible men about incredible phenomena challenged modern concepts of nature and knowledge—and reputations. This chapter tracks accounts over time of an extraordinary incident that occurred in 1831: A strange “rain of stones” inside a colonial official’s home. Witnessed by an army officer whose career put him in the highest ranks of the regime, it was recalled in print at regular intervals. Now often remembered as inspiring Louis Couperus’s 1900 novel The Hidden Force, this and similar incidents prompted speculative explanations. Some took them as evidence of extraordinary Indonesian skills in legerdemain; others as due to occult forces, possibly at the command of Javanese. Accounts translate these events through metropolitan developments--stage magic versus spiritualism and psychical research.Indonesian responses offer other possibilities.