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Posts tagged ‘David Curwen’

  1. Book Review: Aleister Crowley in India

    Anyone interested in the passage of South Asian esoteric traditions into Western occultism can’t really ignore the influence of Aleister Crowley. I recently had to re-acquaint myself with Crowley’s work as part of my research for my lecture at Treadwells last year on Yoga and Magic, and just after the lecture, picked up a copy of Tobias Churton’s new book Aleister Crowley in India: The Secret Influence of Eastern Mysticism on Magic and the Occult (Inner Traditions, 2019, Hdbk with dustjacket). Continue reading »

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    May 10th 2020

    Posted by in Book reviews, Occult, Reviews, tantra

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  2. East meets West: New Thought, Thelema, and The Holy Order of Krishna

    We are once again being taken to task for some of our writers quoting often the slogan of verse I8.63 of the Bhagavad Gita “Yatha ischasi tathha kuru” – of which we accepted Crowley’s “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law” as the best English paraphrase; and if there is so much public opposition to the very mention of Crowley’s name we have to bow thereto, and do so. But that is not to deny that Crowley had been trained in India of men who were great Yogis such as Karunananda, Sabapati Svami’s disciple. In deference to occidental opinion we shall paraphrase the Gita dictum by the English in “Fulfill thy Will”.
    The Kalpaka, Volume 26, 1931, issues 4-5

    Much has been written about the westward transmission of Indian esoteric themes in the early twentieth century – via movements such as the Theosophical Society, esoteric groups such as the OTO, and charismatic teachers such as Pierre Bernard, but instances of transmissions in the other direction – of Indian esotericists engaging with western occultism, seem to be rarer. Continue reading »

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    July 1st 2013

    Posted by in History, Occult, tantra

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    5 comments »