Tantric Concepts in Western Occultism

Many elements of Tantric magic have become absorbed into the general magical lore of the West. Such elements include concepts such as Kundalini, the Chakras, Karma, Yoga, etc. Concepts such as the Chakras have been widely taken up by new agers and spiritualists, many of whom would be horrified if told of the roots of these concepts in tantrism. To think of Tantra only in terms of sexual rites is a gross oversimplification. In fact, Tantrism is a complete magical system in itself, incorporating a wide variety of magical methods and metaphysics.

The dodgy reputation of Tantra is partly due to the efforts of the European chroniclers of Indian religious life. The Abbé Dubois for example, author of the seminal work on Hindu life, Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies (1807), wrote in much detail of the "abominable debaucheries" of sakti worship. The Abbé's work contained the first detailed account of the orgiastic ritual that came to be known as cakrapuja (circle-worship), and his book did much to fix the European notion that Hindus were depraved. The Abbé's descriptions of sakti worship was passed down from author to author, and still colours some modern notions of Tantra. Similarly, the Rev. William Ward, writing of famous tantric texts such as the Yoni Tantra, reverted to asterisks occasionally whilst describing "...things too abominable to enter the ears of man, and impossible to be revealed to a Christian public..." By the mid-Nineteenth Century, Tantra has acquired the glamour which surrounds it even today - of 'forbidden rites', 'orgiastic ceremonies', 'ritual murder' and 'oriental mysteries'.

Another is the influence of organisations such as the Theosophical Society and the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. When many Indian esoteric concepts were imported into Western occultism, they were mutilated in the process. Phil Hine[1] gives the example of Chakras to illusrate this process:

Chakras have become a fairly basic element of what is known as the Western Esoteric Tradition. So much so in fact, that it is more or less taken for granted that the Chakras have some factual basis for existence. The original tantric texts which describe the varying systems of Chakras (some describe six, others, seven, nine, or even eleven) use a great deal of symbolic language and metaphor, much of which western authors have mistakenly taken literally. Sir John Woodroffe, in his book The Serpent Power, gives an example of this when he presents a critique of C.W Leadbeater's book The Inner Life. Leadbeater claims to have counted the number of petals of the Sahasrara Chakra and says that the number is not 1,000, as is often given in tantric texts, but exactly 960. Woodroffe points out that the Indian use of "thousand" is a metaphor for a great magnitude, and not a literal count. Leadbeater has mistaken a metaphorical statement for a literal one, which makes nonsense of his assertion. Unfortunately, many Theosophical notions such as this are passed from book to book.

It was largely the Theosophical Society who spread the notion that the so-called Left-Hand Path of Tantrism was tantamount to Black Magic, due to the prevalence of sexual gnosis. For Theosophists, as much as their Christian brethren, there was no way that sensual enjoyment could be seen as 'spiritual' in any sense.

Hine finds a third source of obfuscation has been the somewhat biased work of scholars, both European and Indian. According to some scholars, particularly those influenced by orthodox Hindu or Western ideas, Tantra was a degeneration from the rarefied atmosphere of Yoga, into witchcraft, alchemy, and astrology. This is erroneous. There is an increasing body of evidence pointing to the emergence of Tantra from the rituals and concerns of the tribal peoples. A very early Tantric manuscript, the Kubjika Tantra, written in the sixth century, is concerned with the rituals of potters. From the prehistoric period, the pot has been the symbol of the Great Mother goddess. Some scholars believe that Tantra emerged from the blending of alchemy and agricultural magic.

Finally, he says, the image of Tantrism has been colored by the antagonism of modern India. Indian attitudes towards the sensual have shifted considerably, due to the influence of first Islamic, then Anglo-Saxon prejudice. Professor Bharati, in his classic work The Tantric Tradition, remarks that 'official Indian culture', as formulated by Vivekananda, Gandhi and Radakrishnan, very much considered Tantrism to be very much beyond the pale. Alain Daniélou, in the introduction to his translation of the Kama Sutra, notes that:

Mahatma Gandhi, educated in England, sent squads of his disciples to smash the erotic representations on the temples. ...Pandit Nehru was irritated by my having photographed and published the photographs of sculptures showing homosexual relations, dating from the eleventh century, when he claimed that such vices in India were due to Western influence.

It is widely believed that, although Tantra as we know it is largely a medieval phenomenon, that this 'revival' is a direct descendent of Palaeolithic Goddess worship, and that its magical and psycho-sexual practices evolved from a wide variety of cults and mystery schools.

[1]Phil Hine, Aspects of Tantra

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