"People used to believe that things like graves and big trees were sacred," says Muhammad Goodwill Zubir, a leader of Muhammadiyah, an organization focused on peaceful ways to purge the Muslim faith of pre-Islamic influences, including the "heretical" reverence for volcanoes. "As Muhammadiyah spreads in those areas, such beliefs have died out," Zubir says. His movement boasts about 30 million members and runs thousands of mosques, schools, and clinics to promote the orthodoxy. But how to explain a painting of what looks like Merapi hanging outside Zubir's office in Jakarta? "It's just art," he shrugs. Nothing more.

Still, there are men, like Satria Naradha, who believe that mysticism will not merely survive, it will flourish. Naradha owns Bali's top newspaper and television station. Locals admire the fortysomething media mogul for conducting the lavish rituals that President Yudhoyono so pointedly dislikes.

"Volcanoes are the thrones of the gods," he explains. "They are nature's greatest force, one which can sustain life or destroy it." Naradha is helping underwrite an ambitious program of building Hindu temples across Indonesia, particularly on active volcanoes. In addition to raising nearly one and a half million dollars to complete a temple on Lombok's Mount Rinjani, he has plans to build on Sumbawa's Mount Tambora, site of an 1815 eruption that was the biggest in recorded history. Naturally, he hopes one day to erect a temple on Mount Merapi.

Building Hindu temples in predominantly Muslim areas might seem a dangerous provocation in a country prone to religious and ethnic strife, but Naradha is undeterred. Temples help strengthen Balinese culture by harnessing the spiritual power of the volcanoes they're built on, he explains. Most of all, they help restore the harmony between humans and nature. "This helps all Indonesians, not just the Balinese," he says.

A happy thought, except that harmony seems hard to come by in a nation splintered by multiple beliefs and languages, and the incessant tug-of-war between the modern world and ancient traditions. Revivalist Hinduism, militant Islam, ancient mysticism: Which will prevail? Perhaps all. Perhaps none. Globalization is sweeping through Indonesia like a monsoon. A young Internet-savvy generation worships not volcanoes, but Asian boy bands and English soccer clubs.

But don't count the volcanoes out yet. Recently, Golkar, Indonesia's largest political party, held its annual conference in Yogyakarta. Its ambitious leader, Vice President Jusuf Kalla—he of the inauspicious name—is expected to run for president in 2009.

In the teak-paneled ballroom of the Hyatt Regency, Kalla introduces the guest of honor as a man who is "resolute and able to make decisions in any situation or risk."

It's Mbah Marijan, of course. Who better to launch a campaign for the nation's highest office than the President of Merapi?