Stoking the heart-fire
During a recent interview in which I spoke briefly about my tantra practice, I was asked to give an example of a simple exercise. Here it is.
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On the “third-nature” – IV
Thus far in this series, I have been examining early Indian textual sources for glimpses of how persons of non-normative sexualities or gender presentations were represented. For this post – as I promised at the end of the previous installment – dealing with ‘changes of sex’ – I will examine a text from a much later period, a 16th-century Tamil version of the Brahmottara-Khaṇḍa, featuring the famous Queen Sīmantinī. The Brahmottara-Khaṇḍa is a section of the Skanda Purāṇa, that has been dated to between 700 -1150 C.E.
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Some reflections on Kleshas – III
In the previous post in this series, I outlined the representation of kleśās within the Pātañjalayogaśāstra – a.k.a the Yoga Sūtras of Patañjali (YS). For this post I want to discuss a more complex issue – are kleśās “tantric”? This is something I have pondered, on and off, for some years. As I explained in the first post, I was introduced to kleśā practice through initiation into AMOOKOS, and the kleśās were presented to me by my mentor – with the support of the AMOOKOS grade papers (published, in part, in the book Tantra Magick) – as a core component of daily practice. As I said, I spent a decade or so using the kleśā schema as a means of self-observation and analysis. This was very fruitful. Perhaps it should have been enough. Gradually though, it began to dawn on me that the perspective underlying the kleśā practice was very different from that of the tantras.
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Jottings: Some “Red Flags” in the representation of Tantra – II
In the first post in this very occasional series, I discussed the assertion, often found in many popular books on tantra, that it is “many thousands of years old” and linked it to the notion of the authentic archaic. More recently, I have examined the Pasupati Seal, which is often drawn upon to support these assertions. For this post, I’m going examine another “Red Flag” – the widely-held view that tantra is not religious in character. I first addressed this contentious issue back in 2010 (see this post) but I want to return to it and say more about how this assertion is constructed and reinforced.
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Some reflections on Kleshas – II
In the previous post in this series, I outlined how I began my practice with the five kleśas as presented in the AMOOKOS practice manual, Tantra Magick. Now I want to turn to an examination of how the kleśas are dealt with in Patañjali’s Yoga Sūtras (YS). Before doing so, however, I want to give a brief introduction to the philosophy that underpins the Yoga Sūtras.
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Some reflections on Kleshas – I
Continue reading »“The five kleshas must not be regarded as petty foibles, weaknesses or minor failings or amusing defects which can be considered for a short moment and then dismissed and forgotten. They form the foundational obstruction in Twilight Yoga as in Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras.”
Dadaji The Exegetikos -
Jottings: The Colours of Magic in the Tantras
“In the subjugation, bewitching, and agitation (kṣobha) rites [the deity] should be visualized as red-colored. In rites of subjugation (nirviṣīkaraṇa), pacification, and prosperity increasing rites [the deity] is white. (1.33)
For the immobilization the deity is yellow, in eradication smoky-colored, in bewildering rites color of a cochineal insect [i.e. red like a ladybug], but in the killing rites the deity is black.” (1.34)
UḍḍiśatantraI recently listened to Amy Hale give a wonderful lecture on how theories of colour developed in Western Esotericism, I thought it was high time that I had a stab at some notes on the use of colour within the tantric traditions. This is a vast subject, and I’m going to take it slowly.
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The Puzzle of the Pasupati Seal
Back in 2020, I briefly discussed the notion sometimes encountered that Tantra is thousands of years old – that it predates the Vedas, Buddhism, and Jainism. To illustrate the post, I used an image of the infamous Pasupati Seal that is often pointed to as evidence of Tantra’s antediluvian origins. So for this post, I’m going to take a closer look at the Seal and its tangle of interpretations.
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On Reading Occult Books
“Few people ask from books what books can give us. Most commonly we come to books with blurred and divided minds, asking of fiction that it shall be true, of poetry that it shall be false, of biography that it shall be flattering, of history that it shall enforce our own prejudices.
Virginia Woolf, “How one should read a book”, The Second Common Reader, 1925.How do we go about reading an occult book? It seems like an obvious question to ask, but thus far, I have yet to see any attempt to explore this issue in any depth. This is strange, given how much occult books are part of contemporary occult practice. The effort and expense we go to acquire them, how we cherish them, and how books influence our trajectories and shape our ideas.
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Unfoldings: A Substack Newsletter
I’ve started a Substack Newsletter – Unfoldings – for those who want to be informed of my various projects – upcoming lectures, new books, and Twisted Trunk publications. Whilst there will be some crossover with enfolding, the newsletter will mostly feature different content to what I post here – observations, reflections, ruminations and passing fancies. Sign up using the link below.
