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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
“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.
Continue reading »Thus far, I haven’t really brought the subject of Chaos Magic up on enfolding, as I wanted to use this blog as a space to develop other interests. But here’s a little something I wrote after I spotted the image below on Twitter.
“Chaos Magic is not about discarding all rules and restraints, but the process of discovering the most effective guidelines and disciplines which enable you to effect change in the world.”
Condensed Chaos
When I wrote that statement (probably in 1994 or thereabouts) it doubtless seemed to me to be a reasonable and accurate statement to make about Chaos Magic. Now, 28 years later, I’m not so sure.
Continue reading »Seeing is one thing,
looking is another.
If both come together,
that is god.If you look for an elephant,
he comes as an elephant.
If you look for a tree,
he’s a tree.
If you look for a mountain,
he’ll be a mountain.
God is what you have in your mind.
Annamayya
Reflecting on the theme of beauty back in May reminded me that I wanted to start a series of posts on the subject of visualisation – particularly with respect to tantra sadhana which – together with gesture and utterance – is one of its central practices. Continue reading »
Scene: meeting of Leeds Anti-Fascist-Action, some time in 1986:
“Okay, I’ve been asked to come and facilitate a magical action. I know some of you are very skeptical about this, which is okay by me. Feel free not to participate. You might think it’s all a bit silly. You could just think of it like some of the Agit-Prop stuff Danbert and co. did in the town centre a couple of years back. A lark, nothing more.
So … you won’t mind then when I ask you to meditate on the swastika….” Continue reading »
The King of Mantras, O dear One! is at all times engendered by the union of Śiva and Śakti, and by that of the Yoginīs, the Vīras, and the Vīrendas. Thus constituted, delighting in the utmost bliss, the Goddess, whose nature is vibration [spanda], of innate beauty, once known, is to be freely worshipped.
Yoginīhṛdaya 2, 17-18 (transl. André Padoux & Roger-Orphé Jeanty)
At the end of the last post in the Saundaryalahari series, I promised that I would say something on the subject of mantras. This is a vast subject, and even with over a quarter-century of study & practice at my back, it is still a topic which I would approach only slowly. Before diving into the historical & philosophical complexities of mantra, I thought I’d begin then, with some reflections on my own early encounters with mantra-practice. Continue reading »
“Enveloping, embracing, and caressing me both inside and out, moving in ripples along my skin, flowing between my fingers, swirling around my arms and thighs, rolling in endless eddies along the roof of my mouth, slipping ceaselessly through throat and trachea to fill the lungs, to feed my blood, my heart, my self. I cannot act, cannot speak, cannot think a single thought without the participation of this fluid element. I am immersed in its depths as surely as fish are immersed in the sea.”
David Abrams, on air, The Spell of the Sensuous
“The tantric practitioner lives within the maṇḍala, lives within the yantra, lives within the vision of divinity such that the symbolic world of the text becomes the lived world of the body. Representation in text, icon and rite coalesce in the experience of the lived body.”
Gavin Flood The Tantric Body
To continue from the previous post in this series I now want to focus on approaching particular tantric body-practices. Continue reading »
“…those who always ponder over this [fivefold act of the Lord], knowing the universe as an unfoldment of the essential nature [of consciousness], become liberated in this very life. This is what the [sacred] tradition maintains. Those who do not ponder like this, seeing all objects of experience as essentially different, remain for ever bound.”
Kṣemarāja, Pratyabhijñāhṛdayam
Now for some brief discussion of verses 26-27 of Anandalahari. Continue reading »
“The most immediate and concrete means of persuading people of the reality of divine power is to involve their bodies.”
Thomas Csordas, Somatic Modes of Attention
I’m going to progress this series by considering various themes related to the “tantric” body-in-practice. This is a massive subject, and I’ll begin by outlining what I mean by the “body-in-practice” and why this is a useful way of considering practice(see Tantra keywords: Embodied for some earlier reflections). Attempting to discuss the various different modes of tantra practice can be a tricky proposition, as it is, I often find, difficult to seperate them easily – as they work across different domains. In exploring Nyasa for example, at some point one will have to deal with how nyasa intersects with mantra-vidya. In considering mudras, it might be desirable to discuss how mudras ‘work’ across several registers simultaneously – from the broadly cosmological, the social, and the personal; as energetic movements through space and and at the same time, public, dialogical gestures. Continue reading »
The ancient masters have shown how to suppress it [the mind] through detachment and repeated practice. [Instead], we will teach how to obtain suppression with no effort. (v.12)
This is just like what happens when a rumbling thunder gradually vanishes: once the thunder has completely vanished, the mind too, due to its resting on it, becomes extinguished. (v.14)
The adept should fix his exclusive attention on any pleasant sound coming to his ears, till the moment in which the sound, having disappeared, becomes the cause of the supression [of the mind]. (v.15)
In this practice, the sensorial faculties, which are the instruments of perception, are to be brought to a state of ‘equality’. Equality comes from escaping from attachment, as well as from the extinction of aversion. (v.18)
If one is running without being determinately aware of his own efforts in making steps, and, consequently has his mental activity free from intentions and constructs, the supreme Self shines in him.(v.24)
Whatever longing he may experience for any object, like food and so on, he should satisfy it as far as possible. Thus he will become full and without support.(v.28)
Verses from Svabodhayamañjarī (transl. Raffaele Torella)