Home > Posts tagged ‘jottings’

Posts tagged ‘jottings’

On Becomings

How do we learn to be magicians? Do we just pick up a book or two, do the exercises and rituals, and take on the beliefs and perspectives that ‘feel right’ to us? Maybe do an online course with a teacher whom we have come to respect? Go on social media and engage constructively (or not) with other practitioners. Join a small group or a large magical organization? It is not, I feel, a simple process. Well at least, it was not a simple process for me. I was not initiated by fairies at the bottom of the garden, as one of my friends says he was. I did not have a magical granny or the memory of a past life being a high magus in Atlantis. I did not receive messages from a spiritual master on the Inner Planes. I did not experience a sudden spiritual awakening or a summons by a goddess.
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December 22nd 2023

Posted by Phil Hine in Occult

Tags: jottings, Practice, reflections

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On Agency and other matters

One day in 2020, I ambled into my study and turned on my computer, and … nothing. My heart skipped a beat. I felt a sense of dread steal over me. Checking the startup options, I saw that not only had the SSD drive on which the operating system lives failed but also one of the disks in my RAID array had gone too. It was a palpable shock. All that was on the computer – work in progress, layout jobs for clients, photos, games, videos, half-sorted digital libraries … gone. More than that, I was cut off from the wider world of social media and the internet, extended knowledge repositories, news, friends; and the full panoply of digital life in networked culture.
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December 18th 2023

Posted by Phil Hine in Occult

Tags: jottings, Practice, reflections

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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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May 11th 2023

Posted by Phil Hine in Occult, tantra

Tags: jottings, Red Flags

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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 Phil Hine in tantra

Tags: chakras, jottings

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Jottings: Edith Nesbit and the Golden Dawn

Shortly after completing my recent post on Henry O’Brien I started thinking about who would be a good subject for continuing my series on Pan, and Edith Nesbit came to mind as a possibility. Pan gets a walk-on part (although he is not named directly) in Nesbit’s 1907 children’s story The Enchanted Castle. I thought that might be a good starting point to look at Pan as a figure in Edwardian children’s literature, perhaps then going on to more well-known stories such as Barries’ Peter Pan and Graham’s The Wind in the Willows. What would also, I thought, make a look at Nesbit interesting is her connection to The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, so I set out, as a matter of first business, to find a reference confirming this. Continue reading »

February 19th 2021

Posted by Phil Hine in History, Occult

Tags: jottings

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Jottings: Some “Red Flags” in the representation of Tantra – I

Something I find fascinating – and at times infuriating – is how a great many people claiming to be advocates, teachers, or representatives of “authentic” Tantric lineages or practices continually recirculate tropes that effectively erase any recognition that Tantra has any historical or cultural specificity. Continue reading »

April 26th 2020

Posted by Phil Hine in History, tantra

Tags: jottings, Red Flags

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Jottings: On Kubera, wealth and character

I’ve been neglecting enfolding of late, as I’ve been absorbed in other writing projects that have diverted my attention (more of which, another time). It struck me recently though, that one way of getting back into a regular posting regime would be to try and write about some of the material I’ve been reading of late.

Most recently, I’ve been doing some research on Kubera, the Hindu god of wealth. Google Kubera and you’ll see that he is indeed a popular Indian deity when it comes to petitioning the gods for matters of finance and money and there is an abundance of websites detailing Kubera’s mantras, yantras, and puja: even online pujaris willing to do Kubera Puja for you for a reasonable fee.

You might expect then, for a god of wealth, there would be a corpus of material dealing with Kubera’s character and highlighting Kubera’s generosity and willingness to part with his treasures for the needy and the worthy. But no, it’s not that simple. Indeed, one might say that he has something of a reputation for being miserly. Some of the stories in which Kubera makes an appearance seem to me to indicate a tension in the relationship between wealth and the other major life-goals (Kama, Dharma, Moksha). Here are two sources which I think illustrate the complexity of Kubera and these tensions. Continue reading »

October 12th 2018

Posted by Phil Hine in tantra

Tags: Ganesa, jottings, Kubera, reflections

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Jottings: on comparative demonologies

At my May 2017 lecture at Treadwells Bookshop examining Tantra & Trance Possession, I gave a very brief outline of “afflictive possession” in both Ayurvedic & Tantric texts – and what is sometimes referred to as bhūtavidyā (‘the science of spirits’) including some remarks on how this subject is treated in the Netra Tantra – an eighth-century Kashmiri text, possibly composed in court circles, which has much to say on the subject of possession, exorcism, and related topics. Continue reading »

May 21st 2017

Posted by Phil Hine in Occult, tantra

Tags: jottings, mandala, reflections

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Jottings: On tantra and heteronormativity

“To fit perfectly a man needs a woman, a woman needs a man. They are polar opposites, and that polarity is needed. It is just as if you are trying to create electricity without polar opposites, without positive and negative.”
Osho

If liberation could be attained simply by having intercourse with a śakti then all living beings in the world would be liberated just by having intercourse with women.
Kularnavatantra

In the wake of some of my posts discussing approaches to gender in a variety of Indian contexts, I’ve been engaged in some thought-provoking correspondence. One correspondent recently commented – “don’t you find that traditional tantra is well, really heteronormative?” Continue reading »

April 8th 2014

Posted by Phil Hine in Gender, Queer, tantra

Tags: bodies, jottings, polarity, sexuality

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Jottings: On the sacredness of text

Back in December, I ran into a friend who asked me what I was occupying myself with, and I told him that – amongst other things – I was struggling with my series on the Saundaryalahari and that my original estimation of how long it would to take me to write a commentary on its verses had become mired in difficulties – because, as one might appreciate, it was opening up questions – and avenues – that I hadn’t expected to have to deal with or traverse. He was sympathetic, but asserted “Well, Pagans don’t have sacred texts”. Looking around us – we were having this conversation in one of London’s largest esoteric bookshops – I pointed past him to the shelves and replied – “no, Pagans have an abundance of texts”. Continue reading »

January 28th 2013

Posted by Phil Hine in Occult, Pagan

Tags: jottings, reflections, text

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