Studies of religious and mystical movements in contemporary Java, even those well grounded in knowledge of local conditions, have mostly begun at the top, with the most articulate and best-educated representatives. Only Clifford Geertz – the most vivid of Java's ethnographers – starts from the grass-roots. The risks of such an approach (risks happily circumvented by Geertz) are easily identified: an inattention to wider organizational patterns and a tendency to miss the ‘figure in the carpet’ from being too close; but the advantages, though real, are less apparent. If the anthropologist first comes to his subject in its local context he can surely understand its relation to other local factors better than one who approaches it equipped with the ‘official’ view and finds only deviations. This may be a poor recommendation for one about to study (say) local Islam, where some notion of supra-local orthodoxy is always present; but in the case of Javanist sects the relation of local forms to the wider civilization is different.

I came to know about Sangkan Paran in much the same way as ordinary villagers – through background discussion at lontar readings, attendance at the Cungking shrine (which is popular with members of the sect), and in numerous conversations over points of Javanese custom. Like other villagers who go to Sangkan Paran members for advice or illumination, I generally found that it was these veteran Javanists who offered the clearest explanations, whether I was asking about the meaning of slametans, spells, or what Banyuwangi Javanese had made of Islam.