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Here is a treat for anyone who has wandered round a historic site, bored by the expected and provided routes and interpretations. Counter-Tourism by Crab Man (Triarchy Press 2012) is a challenge, an invitation and a license for the gentle naughtiness of doing the unexpected thing. Continue reading »
The Bauls of West Bengal and Bangladesh are a religious group renown for wandering the countryside, begging for alms, singing and performing their music. In practice and belief, they combine elements from the wider Vaishnava community and unorthodox esoteric elements from tantric-oriented groups such as the Sahajiyas and Sufism. Bauls are opposed to the caste system, sectarianism and argue that truth cannot be found in texts, rituals, or temples. They hold women in high regard and view them as gurus in relation to their male partners. This “ideal” image of Bauls, as nonconformist mystics dominates both academic and popular representations, but says little of their actual lives, and in particular, the lives of women Bauls. Continue reading »
“Initiation is of three kinds: Initiation by touch (Sparsa), Initiation by sight (Drksamjna) and Initiation by thought (Manasa) – all these three are done without Rituals and without exertions. O My Beloved! Initiation and instruction by touch is likened to the slow nourishing of its young with the warmth of its wings. O Paramesvari! Initiation and instruction by sight is like the nourishing of its young by the fish through its seeing alone. Initiation and instruction by thought is like the nourishing of its young by the tortoise by only thinking of them.”
Kulanarva Tantra, transl. R.K Rai
“Now I am going to reveal to you this devotion to the Guru, give me your undivided attention. Just as the river Ganges joins the sea with its wealth of water, or the Vedas enter the abode of the Supreme or a chaste wife dedicates her life with its good and bad points to her husband, so he dedicates his heart along with his senses to the family of his Guru and becomes verily the temple of devotion to him. Just as a wife keeps on thinking of her absent husband, the thoughts of the place where his Guru dwells crowd his mind….”
Jnaneshvari (13, 371-375) transl.M.R. Yardi
“Religion becomes queer when it breaks up the desiring self, when it refuses to confess an identity, when it refuses to say who we are, and acknowledges a plural self with polymorphous desires. To queer religion is to queer the foundations of theology, its monotheism, its monosexuality and its monopoly of truth”.
Jeremy R Carette, Michael Foucault and Theology: The Politics of Religious Experience
Not long after my post on queering deity I received an email inviting me to participate in a “Queer Pagan Mysteries” workshop (that’s “participate” with a price tag, of course). My answer was that I wasn’t sure what constituted “Queer Pagan Mysteries” but that I’d be interested in finding out what was being referred to here. Continue reading »
How do we approach the sex lives of our forebears? In much of contemporary esoteric literature, there’s a tendency to assume that the identity categories we are so familiar with nowadays are universal and can be applied unreflexively to premodern cultures in Europe and beyond. Indeed, there is a trend towards looking for evidence for the existence of those same sexual identities in the past, in order to legitimise them – and to argue that “the ancients” for example, were really, just like us. There has been a considerable amount of scholarship contesting such assumptions of course, but its not always accessible to a non-academic reader. Sex before sexuality: A Premodern History (Polity Press, 2011, 200pp, p/bk) provides a useful introduction to contemporary theories on the interpretation of attitudes to sex in the premodern period. Continue reading »
Having discussed the “discovery” and publication of the Kamasutra, I will now examine some aspects of its history and influence beyond the confines of Burton’s closed circle of gentleman erotophiles. For this post, I will discuss the some of changes in representation of the Kamasutra in the West throughout the twentieth century. Continue reading »
I was chatting to a friend recently about her deepening involvement with Vajrayana Buddhism and whether she should take the initiatory step of formerly taking refuge. Her dilemma was whether to “enter the stream” of the tradition or simply continue to benefit from the techniques being taught. For me this highlighted some questions that I’ve been musing on with regards the nature of what initiation is and how it may (or may not) be of benefit. Continue reading »
The Heart is the subtle vibration of the triangle which consists of the incessant expansion and contraction of the three powers, and it is the place of repose, the place of supreme bliss. This very Heart is the Self of Bhairava, of that which is the essence of Bhairava, and of the blessed supreme Goddess who is inseperable and nondifferent from him.
Abhinavagupta, commentary on Paratrisika-laghuvritti, transl. Paul Muller-Ortega
So, Mind, call out “Kali! Kali”;
meditate on the Mother’s form.
In this way, that cloud-coloured Syama
will dance, always
dance, in your heart.
Kalyankumar Mukhopadhyay (transl. Rachel Fell McDermott)
Placing one’s chosen deity in the heart is a core element of tantra practice (see, for example Reading the Saundarya Lahari – III-2 for some related discussion and an example from the Todala Tantra.) I have been doing this now (as the beginning phase of formal puja, as formal meditation, and, increasingly, as a day-to-day, moment-by-moment rememberance) for nigh on twenty-five years, so it’s probably high time for me to make some reflections on this particular aspect of sadhana. Continue reading »
A key feature of contemporary Paganism is our relationship to place. Curiously though, there seems to be little in the way of in-depth exploration from within the Pagan community of how we make and sustain our relationships with places, nor of place-making as a social or political practice. There are some excellent scholarly books examining place-making – such as Corinne G. Dempsy’s Bringing the Sacred Down to Earth: Adventures in Comparative Religion (which I reviewed
back in July) and Adrian Ivakhiv’s Claiming Sacred Ground: Pilgrims and Politics at Glastonbury and Sedona which argues that “sacred spaces” are heterotopic – where meaning is created, contested, and negotiated by different groups. Hopefully, The Wanton Green (Mandrake Books, Oxford, 2011, 222pp, p/bk) – an anthology of contemporary Pagan writing on our relationships with places – will inspire further explorations of Pagan approaches to place-making. Continue reading »
Concrescent Press have just released a new anthology – Pathways in Modern Western Magic, edited by Nevill Drury – to which I have contributed a short essay – The Magic Wonderland of the Senses: Reflections on a Hybridised Tantra Practice. Continue reading »
