In the early part of the nineteenth century, electricity was thought to be the force most likely to prove the existence of the elan vitale or life force of Naturalphilosophie. Schelling, at the turn of the century, for example, proposed that heat, light, magnetism and electricity were all byproducts of a single universal life force. The arising of electrical models allowed polarities to be discovered within organisms – and between discrete classes of persons. Thus maleness or masculinity was assigned to the positive pole, and femininity to the negative. The gendering of electricity and energy continued in the nineteenth century, particularly in respect to medical theories and the notion of “nervous energy”, and the rise in popularity of Spiritualism. Continue reading »
Hail to the Lord of Vows, hail to Ganapati, hail to the First Lord, hail unto you, to the Big-Bellied, One-tusked, Obstacle-destroyer, the Son of Shiva, to the Boon-Giver, Hail, hail.
Ganesa Upanisad
Inspired after a recent Ganesa Puja in Wales, and reflecting on the fact that I have been a devotee of Ganapati for well over 20 years now, I thought it would be appropriate to write a short series of posts on some of the more obscure aspects of this much-beloved devata. Continue reading »
The parrots of heaven will be cracking sugar
As we laugh together
From Rumi’s Divan of Shams of Tabriz (translated by James Coleman)
Of late, I have been re-reading some of the writings of Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī, the thirteenth century Persian Sufi mystic whose poetry is so beloved in the contemporary West. Continue reading »
A couple of years ago, prompted by a footnote in Logomancy of Zos to the effect that Austin Osman Spare was one of the witnesses for the defence at the trial of Radclyffe Hall’s The Well of Loneliness (1928) I became interested in attempting to trace this connection. Continue reading »
The Tantrists do not seem to go higher than the six visible and known plexuses, with each of which they connect the tattvas; and the great stress they place on the chief of these, the Muladhara Chakra (the sacral plexus) shows the material and selfish bent of their efforts towards the acquisition of powers.The Mahatma Letters (Letter CXIV, p480)
In the last post I reviewed how the notion of the “left-hand path” and much of the themes which relate to it emerged out of nineteenth century Indology. I will now turn to how the concept of the left-hand path” was used by Madame Blavatsky and other early Theosophists. Continue reading »
In popular occult discourse, the concept of the “Left-hand Path” is often stated as originating within the tantric traditions, and sometimes, its popularisation within western occultism is laid at the door of Madame Blavatsky and other popular Theosophical pundits of the late nineteenth century – to the extent that the conceptualisation of the idea of the LHP in wholly negative terms (as can be seen in the writings of successive western occultists – Dion Fortune for example) is something that begins with Madame Blavatsky. However, although she may have been one of the first occultists to write extensively about the Left Hand Path, its identification with moral (and spiritual) degeneracy certainly did not begin with Blavatsky. Continue reading »
“In taste, in learning, wit or science,
Still kindred souls demand alliance:
Each in the other joys to find
The image answering to his mind.
But sparks electric only strike
On souls electrical alike;
The flash of intellect expires,
Unless it meet congenial fires.”
Hannah More, The Bas Blue 1786
For this series of posts on the theme of polarity discourse, I’m going to focus on representations of polarity which make an appeal to forces – to electricity, magnetism, etc. Continue reading »
When women want to escape from exploitation, they do not merely destroy a few “prejudices,” they disrupt the entire order of dominant values, economic, social, moral and sexual. They call into question all existing theory, all thought, all language, insamuch as these are monopolized by men and men alone. They challenge the very foundation of our social and cultural order….Luce Irigaray, This Sex Which is Not One
Continue reading »
It often seems to me that many occult representations of gender are rooted in nineteenth century formations, so I thought, for this post, it’d be interesting to examine some occult theories that emerged in this period – such as representations of the connection made between reincarnation, masculinity & femininity & the soul’s evolution, and the so-called “Uranian” temperament which emerged from various Theosophical sources in the late nineteenth & early twentieth century. Continue reading »
We shouldn’t be surprised that contemporary occult representations of gender mirrors and reifies the binary oppositions of masculinity and femininity central to western culture. One aspect of this that does interest me is how appeals to non-western cultural concepts are deployed to further legitimise this regime. Continue reading »
