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  1. 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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    May 11th 2023

    Posted by in Occult, tantra

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  2. 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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    May 9th 2023

    Posted by in Occult, tantra

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  3. Some reflections on Kleshas – I

    “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
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    May 8th 2023

    Posted by in Occult, tantra

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  4. 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)

    Uḍḍiśatantra

    I 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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    April 13th 2023

    Posted by in tantra

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  5. 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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    April 3rd 2023

    Posted by in History, tantra

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  6. 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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    March 25th 2023

    Posted by in Occult, Pagan

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  7. 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.

    January 30th 2023

    Posted by in Announcements

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  8. Book Review: Cloven Country

    You don’t have to travel far in Britain to find that the Devil has left his mark on the landscape. He has raised dykes, built bridges, causeways, and chimneys; left boulders, bolts, and dug ditches. He is the haunter of woods, the president of ghoulish feasts in graveyards. This is the territory, and its associated folklore explored by Jeremy Harte’s Cloven Country: The Devil and the English Landscape (Reaktion Books 2022, 296 pages, Hardback, illustrated).

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    December 30th 2022

    Posted by in Book reviews, History, Occult

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  9. Reflections: On Lovecraft, landscape and urban wonder

    I was recently asked to write something about what were the main influences that shaped my short book on Cthulhu Mythos magic – The Pseudonomicon. Reflecting on this was difficult at first, as some of the ideas that went into it had been rattling around in my head since the early 1980s. My first experiments with Lovecraftian Magic were enacted in 1980 or thereabouts, so trying to think back to that time was a challenge, to say the least. At this time of my life, I was studying for a degree in the Behavioural Sciences – a joint honors degree that encompassed Psychology, Sociology, Social Policy, and Philosophy at what was then Huddersfield Polytechnic. I’d been interested in the occult for about three years at this point and was still dipping my toes into actual magical practice in any sustained or coherent way. Some of the ideas and suggestions for Cthulhu Mythos magic in The Pseudonomicon were shaped by my dissatisfaction with how Lovecraft’s themes had been treated by other occult authors. Yet at the same time, those authors had an influence on me, insofar as they at least opened the way to the connection between fictional horror and magical experience.

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    October 25th 2022

    Posted by in Occult

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  10. One from the vaults: Occultism: A Postmodern Perspective

    Other projects have turned me away from my usual writing schedule for enfolding, so this month, here’s an essay from “the vaults” (found on an old archive drive). Written in 1988 and no doubt dated, I still find points of relevance to contemporary occultism. I hope you do too.

    “Our world is so crowded with marvels and miracles that they have become commonplace to us; especially when we no longer see ourselves as miracles. We swim through the world, deafened by the buzz of machines and the flicker of the Videodrome, our senses are dulled from the information overload. Yet, shifting to another position, we suddenly find that the world is magical.”

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    September 24th 2022

    Posted by in Occult

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