Women as gurus I: the Kali Practice
Having abandoned everything, O Goddess, the aspirant should make great effort to seek out the company of women.
Brihannila Tantra
One of the most contested topics in contemporary tantric studies is the question of how much agency women had within historical tantric practice. Although many new age and occult representations of tantra speak of it as a “cult of the divine feminine”, more skeptical commentators stress that despite the fact that tantric texts frequently valorise women, tantra is predominantly a masculine practice, in which women are little more than passive objects and sources of power for the benefit of male adepts. Continue reading »
