As Lecturer on Occult Literature to the University of London, our Contributor finds reason to deplore the Interest taken by fiction writers in the Sorcery side of Occultism, especially of the Tantric Philosophy, the Spiritual side of which is for the most part ignored or overlooked.
Not the least of the symptoms of the spiritual bankruptcy of our age is the ever - growing interest in those systems of ritual and belief which,have been evolved from a conception of the powers latent in man’s interior being. The popularity of Yoga and other cognate systems is only one of the attempts of twentiethcentury man to escape from the prison - house of his own largely self - imposed limitations into the atmosphere of a more essential freedom.
Yet it is commonly asserted that these exotic modes of concentration and belief are by no means an ideal trainingground for the West. Yoga exercises, we are told, were evolved for bodies of far superior ductility to our own, and the effort involved in adapting them to our own more stubborn systems is fraught with the gravest psychic and physical dangers. Our attention is frequently called to the evils of disintegration involved in a vessel being too puny for its own desires; and the road to Hell is, alas, paved with good occult intentions.
When we come to Tantric investigation, confusion is even worse confounded. There surges up in the mind of the general public visions of oriental indecency unparalleled even in the imagination of the writers of thrillers; and decorum has agreed to relegate these problems to the realm of the non tacenda. Only here and there we find the subject raising its head in the pages of bhat type of fiction which takes illicit experience for its province.
In one of the finest of Mr. Oliver Onions’ stories of the uncanny, “The Master of the House”, we read of an evil and vampirish manservant who has gained a powerful psychc hold over his master by the Tantric method of “prayer and fastin, the wrong way round” - by a close study of the methods of Indian adepts which has enabled him to surpass the natives themselves in lengthy immersion in the waters of the Ganges - and by an ability to turn himself into a werewolf, to the scandal of a quiet Surrey countryside. Again, through Mr. Talbot Mundy’s Om there flit hints of ritual and invocation in which lurk conceptions which are calculated to make the average Englishman cross himself in self - protection.
It is significant that, even in these quite estimable productions, it is the left - hand Paths of Tantric Magic which absorb the attention of the authors. There is next to no mention in these pages of that overwhelming impulse towards psychic economy and spiritual completion to which the Tantric texts, at their best, provide the key.
There is, of course, considerable excuse for this attitude. The whole subject is still largely uncharted to the student, and to anyone conversant with the Indian scene certain extremely ambiguous saturnalian festivals will spring to recollection at the mention of the name of Tantra.
Primitive superstition holds sway in East as well as West, and the records of Hindu theology are full of accretions of a not entirely reputable character. But the oriental fear of Evil has almost invariably been accompanied by a much greater joy in the processes of fleshly enjoyment than have the more languid taboos of the West. A single glance at the perfervid embraces of Siva and his wife Parvati in the well - known image in the London Indian Museum will serve to show how the idea of sin can be swamped in the idea of ecstasy.
One might instance the festivities of the V5.michSris in Bengal and the Tujans of Malabar as flagrant examples of cults which push religious superstition to a dionysiac excess. These orgies, which are made as secret as possible, are based on the notion that, before the soul can attain salvation, it must get rid of its temptations by yielding to them. That is, the senses must be satiated with all that they can desire until, cast off and decayed, they leave the spirit free to take a calmer path. In other words, they illustrate in practical form Blake’s curious precept that “the palace of excess leads to the Temple of Wisdom”. Students of Russian religious history will recall a similar advocacy on the part of the Klystki Sect, and the equivocal example of the monk Rasputin is fresh in living memory.
Mention may also be made of the festival to Kali (Siva’s wife), held every year at Crananore in Malabar. Pilgrims to this celebration are granted immunity against cholera, smallpox, and most infectious diseases. But in order to secure the fullest efficacy from their devotions they must sacrifice a large number of cocks to the goddess and employ as many obscene words and gestures as they are capable of, in the process. They must hurl objurgations against everyone they meet, and gallons of intoxicants must be drunk during the journey.
Kali is also worshipped by the Devangas in the Madras Presidency. In this context she is made the focal point for a highly masochistic display on the part of the audience, who vie with each other in sword - balancing and self - mutilation.
It is little wonder that Protestant missionaries, having taken one hurried glance at the frescoes on the base of the Temple at Tanjore and having realized how different all this is "from the home life of our dear Queen - , should have rushed into the most unbalanced condemnation. The whole attitude is on a par with that of the American schoolteacher who, after a six weeks’ visit to a continent which housed a mighty civilization long before the Americans were heard of, indulged in a world - acclaimed denunciation of a system of whose tenets she was completely ignorant.
In medias res - there is nothing to be gained by rushing to conclusions in matters to which we do not possess some kind of key. Sir George Woodruffe (whose pen - name is Arthur Avalon) has provided such a key in his monumental researches into the doctrine and basis of Tantra.
This eminent scholar, a judge of the Calcutta High Courts, was, it is interesting to record, a Roman Catholic; and it is extremely probable that his attention was first drawn to this highly recondite and difficult subject by noticing the strong analogies between the ideas of ritual inherent in the higher reaches of Hinduism and in his own perhaps cognate religion.
It is certainly extremely significant that he condemns so wholeheartedly in his Introduction to Principles of Tantra the only previous English investigator in this field, one Rev. W. Ward (A View of the History, Literature and Mythology of the Hindus) on the grounds of an ignorance based to a large extent on a Parti - pris animosity against a religious system remarkably unlike his own; a system which not only condones the presence of images but which insists that liturgy and ritual are the only decorous and traditional gateways into the Kingdom of the Spirit.
Here is no fanatic with an axe to grind, but a deeply erudite and conscientious scholar anxious to see the truth in things alleged to be fundamentally evil , and he rises from his researches with an enhanced respect for a liturgical legacy of almost overpowering intricacy and luxuriance. He sees in it, not the seeds of decay, but the promise of a more abundant life to those able to separate the wheat from the chaff and to assess at its true value an organum of faith and practice whose methods are in accord with the latest findings of psychoanalysis and psychotherapy.
The only caution one must give to the layman embarking on a study of The Tantra of the Great Liberation, The Serpent Power, the Principles, and even Woodruffe’s shorter pamphlets is that some knowledge of Sanskrit is practically indispensable for the elucidation of the great scholar’s multifarious array of technical terms, in which the novice will otherwise flounder like the intruders into"theexotic jungle of oriental vice" of which we hear so much in our more improving Press. Tantric scholarship is no meat for intellectual babes !
Now what has the fearsome - sounding apparatus of Tantric Magic to give to the Western consciousness ? To what extent can we gain anything of value from a study of its technique ?
It must be quite definitely realized that Tantra, quite apart from any possible perversion, is merely a highly differentiated form of Yoga, mainly concerned to arouse the goddess Kundalini (or that which is coiled) to its full potency within the human system.
Kundalini Shakti (or Power) in individual bodies is Power at rest or the static centre round which every form of existence as moving power revolves. In the universe there is always in and behind every form of activity a static background. The one Consciousness is polarized into static (Siva) and kinetic (Shakti) aspects for the purpose of “creation”. This Yoga is the resolution of this duality into unity again.
The Indian Scriptures say, in the words of Herbert Spencer in his First Principles, that the universe is an unfoldment from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous and back to the homogeneous again. It may be, as Kant suggests, “every cosmic magma predestined to evolve into a new world has been the no less predestined end of a vanished predecessor”.
At the time of Dissolution there is in consciousness the potentiality or seed of the universe to be. Each individual exists because his will desires worldly life. This seed is therefore the collective or cosmic will towards manifested life, that is the life of form and enjoyment. Consciousness has a twin aspect, its liberation (Mukti), a formless aspect, in which it is as mere Consciousness - Bliss; and a universe or form aspect, in which it becomes the world of enjoyment (Bhukti). One of the cardinal principles of Tantra is to secure both Liberation and Enjoyment. This is possible by the identification of the self when in enjoyment with the soul of the world.
How is all this accomplished in the self - sustained ritualistic discipline which Tantric training involves ? It must first be remembered that we are in contact with a system which holds, like the enunciators of the Jewish Kabbalah, that there is nothing in the universe which is not in the human body, There is no need to throw one’s eyes into the heavens to find God. He is within, being known as the “Inner Self”. The body is a vast magazine of power, and the object of the Tantric rituals is to raise these various forms of power to their full expression. The Tantras say that it is in the power of man to accomplish all he wishes if he centres his will thereon.
This is to be achieved by the circulation through the system of the " Prana", or life force, by which existence gains its intensification and reality. But there are definhite steps in this process which must be sedulously observed and obeyed. The body is mapped out into six focal centres, or chakra, and into two main areas - the seat of Mind, located between the eyebrows, and the seat of Matter, in the five centres from the throat to the base of the spine.
Enlightenment, which includes perfect bliss, is attained by strict and graded concentration on the Centres and by the enunciation of certain mystic syllables known as “mantrams”, which bear some relationship to the Christian idea of prayer, although there is inherent in this conception much mre of the element of the physically powerful and disruption than is usual with us. Lettered sound, it is held, is eternal. It existed before, as it exists after, its manifestation, just as a jar in a dark room which is revealed by a flash of lightning is not then produced, nor does it cease to exist on its ceasing to be perceived through the disappearance of its manifester, the lightning.
The natural Name of anything is the sound which is produced by the action of the moving forces which constitute it. He therefore, it is said, who mentally and vocally utters with creative force the natural name of anything, brings into being the thing which bears the name. Each man is Siva, and can attain His power to the degree of his ability to realize himself consciously as such.
On the physiological side, the Tantric theory of the Centres is strongly concerned with the knowledge we possess of the vertebral column, which is divided into five regions which, commencing from the lowest, are the coccyx, the sacral region, the lumbar region, the dorsal region, and the cervical region. The central system has relation with the periphery through the thirty - one spinal and twelve cranial nerves, which are both afferent and efferent or sensory and motor, arousing sensation or stimulating action. It must, however, be noted that the Yoga Nadis are not the ordinary material nerves, but subtle lines of direction along which the vital forces go. These Nadis are the conduits of Prana or Vital Force. Through them its solar and lunar currents run. Could we see them, the body would present the appearance of those maps which delineate the various ocean currents. The physical purification of the body and its Nadis is necessary if purify of mind is to be gained in the extended Hindu sense; for just as their impurity impedes the ascent of Kundalini, their purity facilitates it.
An Indian physician and Sanskritist has expressed the opinion that better anatomy is given in the Tantras than in the purely medical works of the Hindus (Dr. B. D. Basu, of the Indian Medical Service, in his Prize Essay on the Hindu System of Medicine, published in the Guy’s Hospital Gazette [1889]). But before we expose a too ready assent to this dictum we must remember that the genuine Tantric adept is concerned, not with the gross body, but with the emanation and sublimation of this, known as the subtle body (or Linga Shariyra). In a sense we can connect with these subtle centres the gross bodily parts visible to the eye as plexuses and ganglia. But to connect and correlate and to identify are very different things. Indian thought and the Sanskrit language possess a subtlety which in its expression has a peculiarly penetrative and comprehensive quality which enables one to explain many ideas for which, except by paraphrase, there is no equivalent meaning in English.
The Centres are. said to be composed of petals designated by certain letters. Professor Saskar expressed the opinion that these petals point to either the nerves which go to form a ganglion or plexus, or the nerves distributed from such ganglion or plexus. The letters in the six Chakras are fifty in number, namely, the letters of, the Sanskrit alphabet. The Tantra cor relates sound, form, and colour. Sound produces form, and form is associated with colour. Kundalini is a form of the Supreme Shakti (Power) who maintains all breathing creatures.
Why are particular letters assigned to particular Chakras ? Probably because in the utterance of particular letters the centres at which they are situated are brought into play.
Certain Siddhis or occult powers are acquired at each centre as the practitioner works his way upwards. At every centre to which he leads Kundalini he experiences a special form of bliss (Ananda), and gains special capacities. If he has a distaste for these he carries Her to his cerebral centre and enjoys the Supreme Bliss, which in its nature is that of Liberation, and which, when established in permanence, is Liberation itself on the loosening of the spirit and body. She who “shines like a chain of lights” - a lightning flash - in the centre of his body is the “Inner Woman” to whom reference was made when it was said, “What need have I of any outer woman ? I have an Inner Woman within myself.” When She awakes a:hd Yoga is completed, man sleeps to the world and enjoys super - worldly experience. The end of Kundalini Yoga is beyond all Heaven world. No Yogi seeks “Heaven”, but union with that which is the source of all worlds.
As opposed to the notion that the Tantric Ritual is a mere vehicle for physical lust ("mummery and Black Magic - , Brian Hodgson calls it), we see that it enhanced the mental and moral qualities of the self - operator as they existed at the time of its discovery. The common charge of an unhealthy concentration on the sexual centres is in itself misleadin, for the Chakras are not in the gross body, and concentration is done upon the subtle centre, with its presiding Consciousness, even though such centres may have ultimate relation with gross physical function. The aim of a Yogi is, in Sanskrit phrase, “to carry his seed high” by making his image in bull - dung and the rest, and dwell on what is of enduring value to all sentient beings who would seek an oasis out of the twentieth - century confusion.
Mosso, the great neurologist, has recently informed us that the neurasthenia and general discontent of our day are due, not to any essential fatigability of our nervous system, but to the absence of any galvanizing dynamic current which would serve to retone the organism with a new vigour. Once this reorientation is found, the nerves, no matter how hard pressed, seem to work on apparently inexhaustible.
But this condition can only be obtained by some enormous emotional motivation of instinct and belief which is utterly opposed to the dryly “rational” modes of the hour.
The contemplation of a system which openly advocates the cultivation of a definite ecstasy may be of overwhelming value to spirits dying of their own inertia. All the more so, as this ecstasy is based, not on any windy metaphysical vapourings, but on the ineluctable laws which govern the economy of the human body.
“All religions”, said the cynic, “are equally true and equally futile.” This loose and arrogant dogmatism can be disproved in a moment by anyone who has witnessed the chemistry of a genuine religious revival - an affair of rapture and efflorescence and bloom.
It is not suggested that all the disconsolate wanderers of our age will find a spiritual haven in Tantra. It is a religion for strong heads and stout hearts, and there are many who would fall, in misconception, by the wayside. t.
But the individual of honest and fair intelligence will find much to intrigue him in a system which teaches that the happiest stoicism is founded in the rock of the "Here and Now - , in a ritual which, contrary to the parochial restrictions of the Vedas, pays a higher tribute than does even Catholicism to the dignity and worth of womanhood - the Suft Author of the Dabistan says of Shakti, the Mother of the World, that “The dust of nothingness does not move round the circle of Her dominion” - and teaches that in this world there is nothing common or unclean, and that everything which lives is holy. Above all, we may obtain invigoration from the doctrine that the essence of the Godhead is the denial of waste, and that even if fulfilment escapes us for the moment, it awaits us in the rhapsody of that Ida and Pingala, that Moon and Sun of our delight, which know no wane.
The Cloud Of Ignorance
By Louis Bronichorst (Author of The Book of the Seven Seals)
The Cloud of Ignorance that separates Man from God must be dissolved by the Sacrificial Fire of the Lower Self. This Is the meaning which our Contributor reads Into the symbolism of the Burnt Ofrering of Biblical times.
One may divide the reading and thinking public into three great classes. All have heard of the great Drama of Life. The first group buys the Play, reads it, and accepts every printed word as gospel. Such people have no wish to see the, Drama acted. .They have read the words, and for them this is sufficient. In daily life such people are hard - boiled materialists, even though they may be apparently religious. They are content to go to church and pay a priest to do their praying and thinking for them.
The next group of people wish to see the Drama. They gaze upon it in rapture and devotion, hoping that seeing is believing; and when they have come to the end, they go home and forget that they themselves have - done nothing at all.
The third group is different. The people of which it is composed read the script of the Drama, and then want to learn all they can about it. They study the technique of stagecraft and management before and behind the scenes, from the work of the humblest cleaner up to the great task of the author and producer. Then, in due course, they qualify to undertake such work themselves. They act, they play their role, until proficient. From the ranks of such people come the men who will reach the highest pinnacle, the men who attain the degree of Master of Life. Knowledge and training enable them to do this.
The most deadly of all sins is ignorance. Trace back every mistake, every wrong deed, every criminal action, and the origin may always be found in lack of knowledge of the consequences of the deed.
This ignorance hangs like a cloud over one’s entire being, shutting out the Light which could come from heaven to guide us on our way. It is the real “dweller on the treshold” of heaven, holding us back, whilst on the hither side the heavenly Watcher is seeking a chance to descend as soon as the cloud is removed by a flaring up of the indwelling light of the individual, which burns its way through this dark obstruction. So the Watcher keeps his vigil. As soon as the obstructing clouds have cleared, His Light shines forth and “all is one”.
The fires from below have found their way upward to meet the saving beam from above.
Man, who stood below the cloud, and could not see the Light, was burning inwardly with a strong desire to meet that which he intuitively and instinctively knew to be there. That burning desire is symbolized in many biblical books by the sacrificial fire of the priests,the very flavour of which sacrifice was said to be Pleasant in the nostrils of the Lord.
What actually happens is the burning of a way through the cloud of ignorance by the fire of love, and desire for union. Well may the fumes from such burning represent symbolically the 30y in heaven over the repentant sinner. To tell us, however, Ahat heavenly beings rejoice when innocent lambs or calves are slaughtered for sacrifice by ignorant people is one of the grossest distortions of truth of which man has ever been guilty. Such materialization of Bibleteaching is revolting. It is really the .chief reason why thinking people keep away from the Church, while yet they may be better Christians than those materialists who pay the priest to do their work for them.
The priests themselves are often under a denser cloud of ignorance than their congregation, though morally, as far as their light goes, they may be worthy people. The Light is still further obscured by the dogmatism of the priests, which is a direct result of their lack of spiritual Ihsight.
An attempt to clear away some of this cloud of ignorance has been made in tle pages of a notable book from the pen of William Kingsland. He calls it The Gnosis or Ancient Wisdom in the Christian Scriptures ’ - * with the sub - title, “Wisdom in a Mystery”. A further extension of the sub - title might well read: “Or the Reason why Independent Thinkers leave the Church”. For this book has done more to bring the reason home to me than anything else could have done.
We read on p. 51 that “intellect is more apt to belittle and materialize Religion than to expound it; ast’indeed is plainly to be seen in those formulated religious systems which have derived from some of the greatest religious teachers of the world, and which, in their creedal form, are so much in question today. Intellect can only invent creeds and dogmas within its own limitations; and these presently become overpassed, outworn, and obsolete, let alone the bitterness and dissensions to which they give rise among themselves.”
For driving away independent thinkers from the Church, the author blames the creed - makers. A man may be highly intellectual, a quick, clear thinker, and yet a spiritual ignoramus. The purely intellectual. man may know by heart the contents of all the books in the British Museum and have hardly a thought of his own. All he knows is what others have said before him. They are his authority. He has very little, if anything at all, from himself.
Intelligence, with the aid of intuition, will always lead to the hidden or veiled truth, where learning merely brings us back to what others have imprinted on our mind.
On p. 53 of Mr. Kingsland’s book we note, again
"Religion, therefore, 1 define as: The instinctive recognition by man that he possesses a spiritual nature, and the effort which he makes to realize that nature.
"All history shows that man is essentially and instinctively a religious animal. What has not man done and suffered; what will he not do and suffer for what he calls his religion
Quoting from james’s well - known work The Varieties of Religious Experiences, Mr. Kingsland reminds us that the overcoming of all the barriers between the ndividual and the Absolute is the everlasting and triumphant theme of all mystical tradition.
When the seeker from below has burned through, the clouds are cleared. Man recognizes his origin, beholds the One on high, and muses, “That am I,” and flies upwards. The twain meet, because they belong to each other. For a short while all is heavenly union; a moment of bliss is enjoyed. But the pilgrim task on earth is not yet finished, for man has to return. Coming out from the sea of Light he realizes for the first time his being as Spirit, Soul, and Body. As Spirit, he is one with the entire creation. That is the fruit of his conquest. He looks around him, and, blessing the earth and all upon and within it, he now says “I am that.” He has realised his true being and his powers.
The value of a book intended to teach something depends on the lesson we draw from it. This, in essence, is the lesson I drew from this remarkable work.
One might feel inclined to ask: “Did not the author attempt too much?” The retort may well be: "Is this possible, where the spiritual well - being of all mankind is concerned ? Is it not high time that Light and Truth regarding the relation between God and Man should be broadcast P’
Happiness and lasting improvement in the relation between man and man can be the only result, instead of the hatred which now divides man from man as the effect of religious or political dogmatism. One man belonging to this Church must not associate with people of another’, a man in a factory may not work with a non - unionist, etc., etc. It is monstrous and absurd. When we have learned that we are one, we shall be wiser, better, and far happier than we ever were before.
