Donald Michael Kraig graduated from UCLA with a degree in philosophy. He has
also studied public speaking and music (traditional and experimental) on the
university level. After a decade of personal study and practice, he began ten
years of teaching courses in the Southern California area on such topics as
Kabalah, Tarot, Magic, Tantra, and Psychic Development. He has been a member
of many spiritual and magical groups and is an initiated Tantric.
Precis: While there are many Neo-Pagan traditions, one path has been
infrequently explored, although many of its concepts have been used in other
traditions. This is the path of Tantra, which is not just about sex as many
Westerners think. This article explores the nature of Traditional Tantra and
explains why the misconceptions occurred.
A DESIRE FOR MORE
One of the things which I have noticed over the past decade is that many
people who follow a Pagan path are not completely satisfied with what they
have found. While it is true that many, if not most Pagans are completely
happy with their spiritual direction, I have found that many are seeking
something...more. This "more" falls into one of two main
categories:
1) Something that is genuinely old.
Few people today believe that most modern Pagan traditions are an exact
duplication or direct descendant of ancient traditions. Rather, they are
attempted reconstructions. These reconstructions may include everything from
actual historic practices to concepts that are foreign to the original
tradition. The introduction and acceptance of the foreign elements comes
about through eclecticism or a hope that they have some sort of connection
with the tradition; or if they didn't have a connection, they should have had
one.
There is nothing wrong with these amalgamations, and for many they are
perfectly satisfactory as well as life-affirming and capable of giving full
spiritual meaning to their lives.
I am not criticizing these paths at all, I am merely reporting on what I have
seen. This includes the fact that some people are looking for a path which
can genuinely be directly traced to ancient times.
2) More spiritual or magical practices.
Some followers of Pagan paths are looking for more ceremonial magic
structures without going into the Golden Dawn/O.T.O. patterns - if they can
find something which is not newly invented. Others don't find enough
spiritual techniques in their systems.
Let me make clear again that I am not criticizing any path or the people
following that path. What I am saying is that some people are looking for
more than what has been available. This search has led to reconstructions of
Pagan traditions from smaller and smaller areas in Europe. More recently,
this has begun to accept Latino forms of Paganism (Brujeria, Macumba, etc.)
and those of an Afro-Caribbean path (Voudoun, Santeria, etc.). This all has
been valuable in opening up research into a wide variety of Pagan ways.
But there is another way which has not yet become intertwined in Western
Neo-Paganism, even though many of its ideas, although foreign to traditional
Western Paganism, have been accepted by Witches, Wiccans, ceremonial
magicians and others.
When discussing the notion of foreign additions to ancient Paganism that
appear in Neo-Pagan traditions, many come to mind:
The Tarot (probably invented in India and brought by the Gypsies to Europe in
the late 13th century).
Karma (although there were some concepts of cause and effect in ancient Pagan
traditions, the term is from India).
Chakras (another concept from India).
Tattvas (although currently used by more ceremonial magicians than Neo-Pagans
per se, the Tattvas are certainly moving into greater popularity).
Kundalini (an Indian concept)
Shiva, Shakti, Kali, Ganesha (Indian deities)
As you can see, there are a wide variety of concepts which have been adopted
in modern Western Neo-Paganism that seem to have ancient India as their
source. Gardner, of course, spent many years in India and some have
postulated that his version of the Craft may have had some influences from
that country. Indeed, Ann Moura, in her book, Origins of Modern Witchcraft,
makes a case for the source of modern civilization in an area called Sind.
Although this area is now in Pakistan, it gave us the name "India."
From Sind, the ancient religion of Shiva and Shakti spread out around the
world. The author reveals that virtually every aspect of modern Witchcraft
can be traced back to the ancient Sind religion: The notion of the triple
goddess (a Maiden, Mother, and Crone) comes straight from there; The idea of
the God being horned is derived from an image of Shiva; Many of the mythic
images we associate with Greece and Rome originally came from this faith.
To answer the needs of seekers for "more," it makes sense to see if
there is an ancient form of Paganism which is still alive in India today. If
so, is it genuinely old and does it offer a wide range of spiritual and
magical practices? Surprisingly, the answer to these questions is,
"Yes."
PAGANISM IN INDIA
For many people in the U.S., Paganism is any religion which is not Judaism or
Christianity. More and more, this definition is moving to include Islam.
Certainly if any religion could be conceived of as a major faith on the level
of these three religions, it must be Hinduism. India is currently the second
most populous country in the world and most of the people there are Hindus.
But that is like saying that the major religion of the U.S.A. is
Christianity. Both of these descriptions are true, and both are false.
In the U.S.A. there are thousands of denominations of Christianity. Although
they have some (or many) similar beliefs, there are many Christian sects
which are decidedly at variance with each other's philosophy and theology.
The same is true of Hinduism in India, but to a greater extreme. Christians
(for the most part) worship the deity Jesus. Depending upon the sect, Hindus
worship one or more of the members of a triad of deities, or their consorts,
or an incarnation of one of those deities, or a lesser deity. Thus, different
Hindu paths not only have different traditions, but they also seem to worship
different gods.
And yet, for the most part, Hinduism is tolerant of various sects (as well as
other religions who are not proactively trying to convert them). One person
worships Krishna, another Shakti, another Ganesha. Although, as in any
culture, there have been fanatics, they generally recognize each other as
Hindu. This is a far cry from the West were people have been persecuted for
worshiping a different god or a different version of the same deity.
The reason for this tolerance goes back to the earliest of spiritual notions
which seems to fill all of Hinduism. Specifically, a basis of Hinduism is
that there is one ultimate deity, known as Brahman (who should not be
confused with Brahma, part of the primary Hindu trinity), who is basically
unknowable. All other deities are simply aspects of Brahman. Each manifests
certain qualities of the Divine. It is for this reason that Hinduism has been
called a monotheistic religion with thousands of gods.
This is Hinduism today. It is the mainstream of Hindu thought. If we follow
the comparison above and say that Wicca/Witchcraft/Neo-Paganism are
re-establishments of certain styles of pre-Christian belief in the West, what
is the comparison in India? What preceded Hinduism?
The surprising answer: Tantra.
TANTRA: THE NEW
Today, there are two major trends in Tantric philosophy, belief and practice.
The most common form seen in the West (and the focus of most of the
pop-culture books on the subject) has been called "neo-Tantra" by
Georg Feuerstein in his book, Tantra (p.xiii). The focus of neo-Tantra is on
bliss resulting from certain mental, physical, and spiritual practices. The
goal in neo-Tantra is to extend this period of Tantric Bliss for many minutes
or hours. Most of the books on Tantra today only discuss neo-Tantra and
define it as Tantra per se. Some of the techniques used by neo-Tantrics are
taken from foreign sources, including Taoism, Reichian therapy, Esalen
massage techniques, and more. As I write this, a friend of mine is attending
a course in "Tantsu," or Tantric Shiatsu.
It is neo-Tantra that most Westerners think of when they hear about Tantra.
Thus, most Westerners think that Tantra is only about bliss and sex.
Sex is a very delicate subject in the West. Comedians and films joke about
it, but honest discussions of the subject tend to be either clinical and dry
or lurid. Such discussions often cause nervous tittering in audiences. In my
experience, most people come to neo-Tantra for one of two reasons. Either
they are (in the term used by Colin Wilson) "Outsiders," societal
adventurers looking for more in their sexual and spiritual lives, or they are
so dissatisfied with their sexual lives that they are willing to break
through deeply-felt societal barriers to improving sexuality in order to see
if neo-Tantra can help them.
To these brave souls neo-Tantra is nothing less than a revelation. Most
modern western spiritual practices - primarily praying, reading sacred
scriptures, and meditating - are strictly mental in nature. Neo-Tantra, on
the other hand involves great physicality. Along with the mental work of
understanding the philosophy and visualization, neo-Tantra can include
massage, movement, breathwork and yoga, as well as eroticism.
Although neo-Tantra is not the same as the historic Tantra, is does reveal to
its practitioners a wide variety of spiritual truths, including that the body
and sexuality can be spiritual and that what many, if not most Westerners
consider to be sex is just a tip of an enormous, spiritual, blissful iceberg.
TANTRA: THE TRADITIONAL
Just as the sexual revelations of neo-Tantra indicate that what is commonly
considered sex is just a small part of a much broader possibility, so, too,
is neo-Tantra but a small part of the very ancient ideas of what I call
Traditional Tantra.
As Moura revealed, the earliest sources of what became Tantra and Hinduism
began in the northern parts of the Indian subcontinent and expanded in all
directions. Originally, it was strictly a growing, oral tradition. The books
known in India collectively as The Tantras (of which there are traditionally
108, which is a number of numerological importance) were not written down for
thousands of years, however most scholars acknowledge that the roots of
Tantra go back 7,000-10,000 years or more. Even today there are Traditional
Tantric paths which can trace their roots, leader by leader, back many
hundreds, sometimes thousands of years. It is, indeed, an ancient Pagan
spiritual path. For a modern look at the ancient traditions of Tantra as well
as neo-Tantra, Witchcraft, and even Western sex magic, I highly recommend Dr.
Jonn Mumford's unique book, Ecstasy Through Tantra.
As a Pagan religion, there are two major directions. One worships Shiva and
his consort. The consort is usually seen as the goddess Parvati, also known
as Uma by and several other names. The other direction worships Shakti and
her consort, Shiva. If this sounds a bit confusing, remember that all the
gods and goddesses are simply variations of Brahman, each expressing
different qualities of the divine. The sounds of the names are triggers to
releasing the qualities of Brahman (which is why they are used in spiritual
practices) that are identified by the name.
Each direction has many sub-paths, ranging from asceticism to the more famous
spiritualizing of sexuality. Most Traditional Tantrics accept all of these
paths as necessary for various individuals, even if their personal path
differs from those of others.
There are numerous holidays on the calendar as well as daily rituals and
practices. The rituals can be as simple as lighting a candle and chanting to
very complex ones that take more than a week to perform. The holidays are
celebrated differently in various parts of India, even having different names
from location to location. They range in attitude from somber to the joyous
holiday known as Holi, where people spray each other with colored water or
powder. Generally, there is at least one religious holiday per lunar month.
Traditional Tantra has various religious traditions which can only be defined
as Pagan. Modern Hinduism bases itself primarily on the Vedas, a series of
books which were written earlier than the books known as The Tantras.
However, the Tantras were initially an oral tradition, and many believe that
the oral version of the Tantra predates the Vedas by as much as a 1,000 years
or more.
NEO-PAGANISM AND TRADITIONAL TANTRA
Beside having numerous spiritual paths which honor both a god and goddess,
modern Western Neo-Paganism and Traditional Tantra have numerous other
similarities. For example, divinatory systems used in Neo-Paganism may
include the Tarot, runes, astrology, palmistry, etc. In Traditional Tantra,
both palmistry and astrology are popularly used. The astrology practiced by
Tantrics is not the same as is practiced in the West. Westerners usually
follow tropical astrology while Tantrics follow sidereal astrology and
include concepts usually not considered important in the West. As a result,
western astrology tends to focus on the personality while Tantric astrology
focuses on predictions, dates, etc. Even the basic design of the horoscope
chart is different. In the West we have the familiar circle divided into
sections. In Tantra, the most frequently used designs are rectangles divided
into subsections. Curiously, one such design remains in use by practitioners
of astrological geomancy in the West.
One of the popular practices of Neo-Paganism in the West is doing healings:
for self, for others, for the Earth. The same is true of Traditional Tantra.
It has an enormous medical system using herbs and spiritual energy
(collectively known as ayurveda). The methods of working with energy are
often copied in western Neo-Paganism, and include breathwork, visualization,
raising the energy (technically called laya yoga, but more commonly known as
kundalini yoga), an understanding of the spiritual and physical bodies of
humans, and much more. Rituals and techniques to send healing energy remotely
are quite well known and practiced. For a full set of lessons on this from a
Traditional Tantra point of view, there is currently nothing better than the
lessons found in A Chakra & Kundalini Workbook, also by Dr. Mumford.
Another aspect of modern Neo-Paganism is the belief in, and use of, magic. A
wide variety of practices are used. In India, Tantrics are known for their
magical abilities. The primary methods include herbal magic, chanting, and
the use of special symbols.
In short, virtually every aspect of Neo-Paganism can be found in Traditional
Tantra.
SOMETHING'S BEEN MISSING
Those of you familiar with my writings know that I come from both a
ceremonial magick and Neo-Pagan background. So there was, for me, something
missing in Traditional Tantra.
One of the amazing things about ceremonial magick is its use of numerology.
This is most commonly found in the form of Gematria, a system which takes
Hebrew letters and converts them to numbers. Words with the same numeration
can be seen as having an important relationship to each other. In this way
you can find hidden meanings in spiritual texts, most traditionally, the
Hebrew bible. However, this has been expanded to other languages and texts by
ceremonial magicians.
Traditional Tantra does have a means of working with words and finding hidden
concepts by giving words multiple meanings. Philologists refer to this as the
use of "intentional language" while Tantrics call it Sandhya Bhasha
("Twilight Language"). However, I had never seen anything along the
likes of Gematria.
That is, I never saw anything like it until I read The Eastern Mysteries by
David Allen Hulse. In it he writes, "...in the copious writings of both
Blavatsky and Crowley we are unable to find the correct numerical key to the
Sanskrit alphabet. However, 20th-century scholarship has uncovered and
translated the texts which contain these codes without fully appreciating or
detailing these keys" (p.224).
In The Eastern Mysteries, Hulse finally does exactly this work, opening up an
exciting, new way to work with and understand the ancient texts of India and
Tibet. Sanskrit (known as the Devanagari alphabet) has fifty letters, twice
as many as English or Hebrew. The brevity of this article makes it impossible
to share these complex systems. Hulse explains that there are eight
numerological systems which can be used with Sanskrit. He presents four of
them which can immediately be used.
I think it is fair to ask, "Does such numerology work?" There is no
simple answer to this question. So far, I've seen is no scientific evidence
which gives an objective, cause-and-effect proof of numerology. Perhaps it
would be better to ask, "Does using numerology of this sort give
results?" As many thousands, perhaps millions of people over the past
several thousand years can attest, numerology has produced positive results
in their lives. Was this due to the direct activity of numbers or did the
working out of the numerology act as a gateway, opening a practitioner's
creativity, subconscious powers, or psychic abilities? Perhaps numerology
gets results due to a blending of two or more of these potential causes for
its success. The bottom line, however, is that it works.
There is another powerful way of working with the letters revealed in this
book. As many people reading this know, each Hebrew letter has a meaning. For
example, the fourth letter, Dallet, means "door." Here, Hulse
reveals the symbolic meaning for each of the Sanskrit letters. Although I
cannot easily reproduce the letters here, I can give you an intriguing
concept: the Sanskrit letter which sounds like our "g" means
"Buddha-nature; going, moving, being; a song, hymn." The
"d" means "mixture, blend, riot, uproar, tumult, bombast,
confusion." I can see how it would be very easy to create a divinatory
deck based totally on the ancient Sanskrit alphabet.
This just scratches the surface of the codes and information revealed in this
book about one of the world's most ancient languages. For those of us who
also want to have a mental acrobatics understanding of a system, Hulse's book
had made clear what was missing. I think we owe him a great debt.
WHY SOME MIGHT CONSIDER ADOPTING THIS NEW PATH
I can only answer for myself. Specifically, Traditional Tantra is genuinely
an ancient path. Many of the versions of it can be traced back a thousand
years or more. Many of the techniques expand upon the repertoire that is most
commonly used in the West by Neo-Pagans. It is not better than any other
path, but it is a path that is available to those who are seeking
"more" and have not yet found it.
Editor's Note: All quotes used by permission
RECOMMENDED RELATED TITLES AND OTHER TITLES BY THIS AUTHOR:
MODERN MAGICK - ELEVEN LESSONS IN THE HIGH MAGICKAL ARTS:
A series of progressive lessons in ritual magick, including work with Qabalah, talismans, astral travel, the Keys of Solomon and sex magick, with reveiew self-tests and rituals.
MODERN SEX MAGICK:
This is one of the first books to clearly reveal the secrets of Western sex magick without relying on Tantric theory. It explores the latest scientific discoveries in the field of human sexuality.
TAROT & MAGIC:
Three methods of exploring the connection between tarot and sex magic, info on how to create your own tarot spells, and the tarot as map to the Astral Plane.
ORIGINS OF MODERN WITCHCRAFT:
This book sheds new light on the ancient origins of religion to give Wiccans, Witches, and the Neo-Pagans a sense of where they belong in history.
INVOKE THE GODDESS: VISUALIZATIONS OF HINDU, GREEK & EGYPTIAN DEITIES:
This magickal workbook leads you into a direct encounter with a powerful archetypal deity whose symbols and presence will make a profound impression on your subconscious.
ECSTASY THROUGH TANTRA:
Now you and your lover can engage in specific sexual techniques and positions for ritual intercourse that will flood you with overwhelming physical ecstasy which triggers expanded states of consciousness.
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