Inteview with Patrice from France

Name: Patrice Wayan

Age: 50

Where do you come from? (City, Country): Nice, France

What other countries have you lived in?: Japan

Why did you come to Bali?: I was travelling in 1971 and ended up in Bali.

How long have you been here? : How much longer do you expect to be here? I’ve been here since 1971. I expect to be here a few thousand years.

What business are you in? How do you make a living? : Art, culture, antiques, writer, photographer.

How has the Bali bombing affected your business or its view of its Bali operations?: I never go to discos so I don’t know, its another world.

What is your favourite part of Bali?: The one where no tourists goes.

What is your least favourite part of Bali?: Kuta area.

Did the bombing change your feelings about those places? If so how?: Kuta no, anyway its doomed to get worse because it’s a satanic area. No good karma for those areas.

Do you travel outside Bali? If so where, why? What do you like best there?: No

What advice would you like to pass on to folks that are coming to Bali or planning to?: Don’t come. If you have good intentions about helping the culture then sure, but not just for exploiting the culture.

What are your travel plans for the future?: I don’t really have any travel plans. Just go to the mountains. Maybe Japan if I’m forced to make money.

Patrice tell us about the collection of figurines that you own.: The figures are part of my museum of animist art and culture.

What makes that special? : The origins of Balinese evolution is time before the materialism.

How were you able to come across the figurines? : By living in the mountains the locals brought me the first figurine in the 70’s. They would sell these to get money for the ceremonies, pigs etc.

Now the animist doctrine is left away because of tv. I think 1995 was the time when I really noticed it happening. It represents animist doctrine and old traditional, very local idolatry. Modern life makes them think the old ways are not worth anything.

This place was the last area in Bali to be explored. This ( mountains in Karangasem, - Munti gunung ) was the area that was feared by people because it was a dangerous area - people would kill you. They never accepted strangers. Hindu’s and foreignors came for the slaves. Trunyang was an ancient village - feared black magic. Famous for organ removals in sacrifice. Dead bodies were found with parts missing. They are still aggressive. Locals have been to the city and are now more like thieves. They are kind people but as a reaction to the outside bring back new ideas.

So how old are most of the figurines?: Most of the pieces are made of wood - 100 years old. Balinese don’t like old stuff so I got mine from people who were storing them. They like to re carve or paint the old ones.

Why do you like collecting these figurines?: This is to re trace the old civilisation. The old culture that came from Laos, Yunnan China and even Tibet 5,000 years ago.

The statues are spiritual entities. The spiritual entities gave the makers the idea to make them. The entire collection is like a receptor of life energies and its purpose is to preserve this. It will enable us to transcend dimensions of time and space. All the figurines are elements and together they can conduct energy.

I don’t want to sell them I want to preserve them in a museum collection or a private collector. Splitting the collection would destroy the energy of the whole thing.

Besides Bali what else were you doing on your travels?: I spent time in India, in Pune with Bagwan Sri Rajneesh. I was at his ashram at the very start when there were 20 or 30 people. We would talk about enlightenment a spiritual things and back then it was really real.

How did Rajneesh’s ashram get so popular?: Well people would be travelling and stay for a while, then leave and tell other people ,’hey I stayed at this really cool place’, you know and more people came.

Up to 1976 it was still not too many people but then the Germans and Americans started to arrive and it all changed. Everywhere the Germans go they want to control things and fuck, the Americans just want to make money. They said they want to help run things but it turned into a business and it was never mean’t to be like that. Later on they would say things like if you wanted to fuck go ahead, or if you wanted healing you could use the spa, completely changed.

I heard a quote by Rajneesh where he said there were enough gurus for the poor, he wanted to be the guru for the rich.: You can take any quote out of context. With Bagwan you had to take each comment in the moment or it was gone. Each sentence is surrounded by a context and you can just take a sentence and make something new. Like in chemistry or biology…but its not natural. These kind of things were pushed forward by the Germans not him.

Would you get to talk to Rajneesh each day?: We would have communication, but after 1976 instead of being 30 people, it got to be 200 then 500 and it was all different. They started making rules and I deliberately ignored them and eventually they asked me to leave. I built a copy of the ashram with some other guys not too far away and each day would go to meet Bagwan.

When I heard he had moved to Oregon some time later I went to check it out and for me it had all changed from what it was originally intended to be. One time he was driving down the highway and I followed him and his bodyguards asked me to stop because I was bothering him.

People do not know reality anymore. The whole education system nowadays conditions people in a way that is not natural. Its teaches them how to be clever at getting what they want. There is no longer personal karma but rather a kind of national karma or group karma, which enables us to avoid personal responsibilities and just go ahead and do what we want. In a way we’re all criminals.

That’s interesting you mention reality because for someone living in LA driving to work everyday in the traffic, that is their reality. I guess the question is ‘WHAT is reality?’: There is a definite reality that we have gotten away from.

I think this modern society is turning to shit, it is doomed, it has to be. It will be forgotten about. People do things and pretend its good or that they are helping this or helping that but really its just to get something, to help them control everything or act in a selfish way.

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Patrice is interested in selling part of his collection including these ancient kris.

If you have questions for Patrice or are interested in purchasing or supporting his collection contact him at :
patricebali@yahoo.com