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Archive for November 2011

  1. Occult gender regimes: Polarity and Thermodynamic bodies – II

    “…there is no word in any language I know which is an exact synonym for vril. I should call it electricity, except that it comprehends in its manifold branches other forces of nature, to which, in our scientific nomenclature, differing names are assigned, such as magnetism, galvanism, &c. These people consider that in vril they have arrived at the unity in natural energetic agencies, which has been conjectured by many philosophers above ground…”
    Bulwer-Lytton, 1871, The Coming Race

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  2. Practice notes: on the garland of names

    “What you’ve done can’t be helped;
    the day is almost over.
    On a jeweled island
    Siva sits in Siva’s house.
    Contemplate Her always.
    Prasad says,
    Durga’s ambrosial name liberates.
    Repeat it without ceasing;
    drench your tongue in nectar.”
    Ramprasad Sen (trans. Rachel Fell McDermott)

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  3. Group Book review: Indian Goddesses

    As a follow-up to the group review of books related to Kali in August, I’m going to present short reviews of three books focusing on Indian Goddesses that I’ve found to be very useful – The Divine Consort: Radha and the Goddesses of India edited by John Stratton Hawley and Donna Marie Wulf; David Kinsley’s Hindu Goddesses: Visions of the Divine Feminine in the Hindu Religious Tradition and Lynn Foulston and Stuart Abbott’s Hindu Goddesses: Beliefs and Practices. Continue reading »

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  4. Sakti bodies – III: Geographies of power

    “O twice borns! wherever the pair of feet and the other parts of the dead body of Sati had fallen, Mahadeva being attracted and out of deep attachment to Her stayed Himself, in all those places, assuming the shape of a linga.”
    Kalika Purana 18:46

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