Book Review: Ghosts of the British Museum
It is perhaps not surprising to discover that the British Museum, founded in the eighteenth century at the former mansion of the Duke of Montagu, has more than its fair share of ghosts.
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Posts tagged ‘Orientalism’
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Book Review: The Subtle Body
I’ve been intending for a while to do some writing on the various tantric presentations of the ‘subtle body’. Before doing so, however, I’m going to review Simon Cox’s recent book, The Subtle Body: A Genealogy (Oxford University Press, 2022, Hbk). This is an important work that sheds much light on how the concept of the subtle body took off in the English language, and the many twists and turns taken in developing a concept that has become a staple of contemporary esoteric practice and thought.
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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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Theosophy and Race V – Some general observations
I began this series on the relationship between the Theosophical movement and race in order to contest the popular view that it is through the writings of Theosophical authors – Madame Blavatsky in particular – that the concept of the ‘Aryan’ passed into Nazi ideology. In the first post in this series, I outlined the ‘birth’ of this concept in the work of Sir William Jones and Max Muller. In the second post, I discussed how the concept of the Aryan was entangled with nineteenth-century racial science. The third post outlined how the notion of the Aryan was taken up in India, and the fourth, how Blavatsky and Olcott’s notion of India’s shared Aryan roots led to a brief alliance with the Ārya Samāj until both organizations discovered that their notions of who could be ‘Aryan’ were quite distinct.
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On the ‘Queering’ of Ganesha
You create this world. You maintain this world. All this world is seen in you. You are Earth, water, Fire, Air, Aethyr. You are beyond the four measures of speech. You are beyond the Three Gunas. You are beyond the three bodies. You are beyond the three times. You are always situated in the Muladhara. You are the being of the three Shaktis. You are always meditated upon by Yogins. You are Brahma, you are Vishnu, you are Rudra, You are Agni, You are Vayu, You are the Moon, You are the Sun, You are Brahma, Bhur-Bhuvah-Svar.
Ganesa UpanisadWhat makes a god ‘queer’? How – and perhaps more importantly – who makes that identification, and when does it become canonical?
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Kali: the Furious
“Will the Bengalee worshipper of Shakti shrink from the shedding of blood? … The worship of the goddess will not be consummated if you sacrifice your lives at the shrine of Independence without shedding blood.”
Jugantar“Mother, incomparably arrayed, Hair flying, stripped down, You battle-dance on Siva's heart, A garland of heads that bounce off Your heavy hips, chopped-off hands For a belt, the bodies of infants For earrings, and the lips, The teeth like jasmine, the face A lotus blossomed, the laugh, And the dark body billowing up and out Like a storm cloud, and those feet Whose beauty is only deepened by blood. So Prasād cries: My mind is dancing! Can I take much more? Can I bear An impossible beauty?” Ramprasād Sen
As Mike Magee’s new book – Kālī Magic – for my Twisted Trunk imprint nears completion, I thought I’d do a brief essay on the goddess Kali and her key characteristics – the most enduring of which is her fury.
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Theosophy and Race IV – India’s Aryans – II
“We place ourselves under your instruction. Perhaps, we may directly and indirectly aid you to hasten the accomplishment of the holy mission, in which you are now engaged; for our battle-field extends to India: from the Himalayas to Cape Comorin there is work that we can do.
Colonel Olcott, letter to Dayānand Saraswatī, February 18, 1878
You venerable man, who have learned to pierce the disguises and masks of your fellow-creatures. Look into our hearts and see that we speak the truth. See that we approach you not in pride but humility, that we are prepared to receive your counsel, and do our duty as it may be shown to us. If you will write us a letter, you will know just what we wish to know, and will give us what we need.”In the previous post in this series, I gave a brief examination of one of nineteenth-century India’s reform movements – the Brāhmo Samāj, founded by Raja Rammohun Roy. For this post, I’m going to examine the Ārya Samāj, founded in 1875 by Dayānand Saraswatī. It is here that the Theosophical Society enters the picture – as the TS briefly allied itself with the Ārya Samāj, and it is arguable that Dayānand Saraswatī played a key role in the Society’s eastward turn.
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Theosophy and Race – III: India’s Aryans – I
“We see a reunion of parted cousins, the descendants of two different families of the ancient Aryan race.”
Kenshub Chandra Sen, 1877In the opening part of this series, I examined the roots of the notion of the Aryans in the work of Sir William Jones and Freidrich Max Müller. In the second post, I briefly outlined the emergence of nineteenth-century racial science, and how the concept of Aryans became associated with white supremacy and racial hierarchies.
Aryan racial theory, as it developed, seemed to raise as many issues as it purported to solve. If Indians and the British shared a common ancestry, this threatened the belief that Indians were inferior to Europeans. The answer, for some, lay in a Darwinian notion of racial degeneration. This led to the notion that whilst the European Aryans had maintained their vitality, the Indian Aryans had degenerated, by intermingling with the aboriginal natives – weakening their bloodlines and adopting superstitions and primitive practices. In the pens of the European racial theorists, India’s Aryan past became a kind of golden age, from which India had sadly declined into superstition and idolatry. These ‘explanations’ had far-reaching consequences.
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Theosophy and Race – II: Nordic Aryans
In the previous post in this series, I briefly examined the influence of Sir William Jones, then followed through with Max Müller’s two-race theory of India, and his popularization (much to his later chagrin) of the term “Aryan” as a racial category. Continuing from where I left off, I will now turn to a brief discussion of how nineteenth-century race science deployed the concept of the Aryan.
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Theosophy and Race – I: Orientalists and Aryans
The East, formerly a land of dreams, of fables, and fairies, has become to us a land of unmistakeable reality; the curtain between the West and the East has been lifted, and our old forgotten home stands before us again in bright colours and definite outlines.
Max Müller, 1874It’s frequently asserted that Nazi racial ideology came directly out of nineteenth-century esoteric movements – in particular, the writings of H.P. Blavatsky and other members of the Theosophical Society. This is an over-simplification of a complex subject, and one worth examining in detail. In order to do this comprehensively, I will first take a look at some of the background context – the ideas about race that were circulating prior to the advent of the Theosophical Society. I’ll begin with a brief examination of the term “Aryan” and its tangled historical trajectory prior to its adoption by Theosophists, focusing on the influence of two orientalist scholars, Sir William Jones, and Max Müller.
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