Unfoldings #4
Book Launch: Queerying Occultures
The launch for Queerying Occultures at Treadwells Bookshop went very well and it was great to see so many old friends. Some interesting questions came up at the Q&A that might prompt some further research. My heartfelt thanks to Christina and all the staff at Treadwells, past and present, who have supported me. If I were to draw a map of places in London special to me, Treadwells would be at the centre.
Queerying Occultures is available direct from Original Falcon Press in print or digital editions. There is now a hardback edition of Condensed Chaos available via Amazon.
Also available from Amazon is my new book Acts of Magical Resistance.
On Kenneth Grant’s Typhonian Tantra - I
I have, I have to admit, an uneasy relationship with the writings of Kenneth Grant. I first read the first of his Typhonian Trilogies when they were published by Muller in the late 70s, along with Images and Oracles of Austin Osman Spare, which I found in the public library of my hometown. I found Grant’s writing fascinating in places, but also I was irritated by what seemed to me to be a streak of wilful obscurity in his writing style. Plus, I never took his weaving of Lovecraftian themes into his work to be all that interesting, and as early as 1980 rejected his assertion that Lovecraft himself was an unconscious channel for extra-dimensional vibrations (see Reflections: On Lovecraft, landscape and urban wonder for some recent thoughts on Lovecraft and magic).
By the early nineties, I had more or less come to the conclusion that Grant’s magical writings were themselves, a fictive arcanum, designed not so much to present, even obliquely, a kind of ‘workable’ magical system or group of systems, but rather, to induce in the reader a kind of sensitivity – an openness to the ‘mysteries’ that lay behind his torrents of ideas, the linking of disparate concepts through gematria, the leaps between history and fancy. In a manner akin to a Zen Koan, the tumble of prose, the constant melting of metaphor and concept, Grant’s writing is a distraction for the ordering cognition, an overload for our pattern-making ability; whilst at the same time, gradually slipping between thoughts, subverting the reader’s subconscious.
Yet at the same time, Grant’s concept of the tantras continued to exert a fascination for me, particularly as my own tantric practice deepened. Is Grant’s representation of tantric practice a synthesis from the available sources and translated texts? Had he stumbled across or discovered a secret that has remained hidden from the gaze of ‘Western’ esotericists and scholars – a secret even hidden from the majority of practitioners? I’ve wanted to do some exploration of Grant’s approach to Tantra for some time now, and recent conversations with Joel Bordeaux and Mike Magee (who knew Kenneth Grant very well) have recently stirred me to attempt this. It’s going to be a long job though.
Perhaps the clearest exposition of Grant’s presentation of tantra is in his book Beyond the Mauve Zone, Starfire Publishing, 1999 (hereafter BMZ) in the three chapters headed The Kaula Rite of the Fire Snake. This is the point from which I will begin to try and unravel Grant’s approach to tantra – with occasional dips into his other works.
Straight away, Grant leaps into action, asserting that the Śrīcakra “constitutes a map of magico-mystic forces and of power-zones in alien dimensions to which most other ancient signposts have been obliterated by time or distorted by misrepresentation.” He informs us that these three chapters constitute an attempt to restore a “lore that has all but been lost”.
Of course, such declarations - revealing lost secrets and correcting misinterpretations have been popular ever since European and American scholars, romantics, and esotericists began to discover Indian esoteric literature and traditions. Even today there is a steady stream of books purporting to provide the reader with the “truth” of the tantras. Anyone familiar with tantric scriptures and practitioner communities will also recall that much of the content is presented as secrets being revealed for the first time by Śiva or another divine narrator, or by an ācārya.
It may be surprising to some that Grant has chosen to focus on the Śrīvidyā tradition. After all, Śrīvidyā is the most popular surviving tantric tradition, both in India and beyond. In South India in particular, it has become domesticated, practiced by Smārta Brahmins and Śaṅkarācāryas that have purged its original Kaula elements and merged it with Vedānta and Vedic orthodoxy to the extent that some practitioners deny that it is ‘tantric’ at all – at least in the way that tantra is commonly understood.
The term Śrīvidyā is a compound formed from Śrī – an honorific, and Vidyā – a feminine mantra, and exoterically, knowledge or wisdom. The early texts of the tradition do not use this term though, rather, the tradition referred to itself as the traipuradarśana (doctrine of Tripurā) or sometimes, the Saugbhāgyavidyā (Saugbhāgya denotes good fortune, happiness, and success). It is sometimes referred to as the ‘last sampradāya’ – the most recent of the nine classical Śaiva tantric traditions. The principal or ‘root’ text of the tradition, the Vāmakeśvarīmata tantra has been dated to between the 10th-11th century CE.
Grant goes on to relate that the Śrīcakra is connected to the “six power-zones (shatchakras)” through which the “Fire Snake” passes on its ascent from Muladhara to the Sri Chakra at the crown of the head. There’s a brief zoom into the relationship between the Fire Snake and UFO phenomena, then Grant goes back to the passage of the Fire Snake along the Sushumna. He makes a distinction between Mystics – who take the Fire Snake up to the Sahasrara Chakra, and so achieve liberation from Samsara, and Magicians – who bring the Fire Snake back down to the Muladhara, a process that brings about Siddhis (magical powers, achievements).
According to Grant, the theory behind this process is that the ‘nectar’ carried upwards by the Fire Snake is released by the brain, streams down the Sushumna, and gathers at the Muladhara, culminating with the “ultimate exudation … at the genital outlet of the woman chosen to represent the Goddess of the Śrīcakra during the ritual.” Grant will go into the finer details of this process later.
Grant further whets the readers’ appetite by noting that “This practice was anciently deplored by the Samayas – who apparently charged the Kaulas with only worshipping the Goddess in the lowest chakra.” He goes on to say that this is the heart of the dispute between the Dakshinacharins (i.e. the followers of the right-hand path) and the Vamacharins (i.e. the followers of the left-hand path).
I must interject again at this point. The division between the Samayas and the Kaulas is, in actuality, fairly recent, originating with Lakṣmīdhara, who wrote a commentary on the Saundaryalaharī (SL) in the Sixteenth Century (See Reading the Saundaryalahari – an aside). Equally, the supposed opposition between right-hand and left-hand “followers” is of fairly recent provenance, as originally, these two streams were not in opposition to each other (as is often supposed) – see On the dakṣiṇācāra and the vāmācāra – I for more discussion.
Grant next turns to an analysis of the layers of the Śrīcakra, beginning with the outer four gates (commonly referred to as the bhūpura), occupied, he says, by the four akashanis. The glossary expands on this term: "A class of women qualified for Shakti puja in the Rite of the Kaula Circle. The word means literally 'those who eliminate'. The reference is to the objects of the senses which the Akashanis are trained to abolish in the pujari." Ākāśanī could also be translated as “sky-woman”. I wonder if Grant’s use of the phrase ‘Kaula Circle’ comes from the Elizabeth Sharpe novel - Secrets of the Kaula Circle? See this post for some background about Sharpe and her novel.
I can only say that we will, as with so much else, have to rely on Grant’s word here, or the secret source he is drawing on. Something I found maddening in my early dive into the tantric traditions is that the deities installed in the yantras and cakras are not fixed – they vary according to scripture, lineage, and the interpretation of particular commentators. As I move through Grant’s descriptions in BMZ, I will note similarities and differences between what he describes and extant Śrīvidyā scriptures and texts. In particular, the Vāmakeśvarīmata tantra (VM) which is widely considered to be the foundational scripture of the Śrīvidyā current, and the later (13th century) Yoginīhṛdaya (YH) -which shows more of a Trika influence. According to the VM, the deities to be installed on the Bhūpura are the familiar eight mothers of the directions - Brahmāṇī (West), Māheśvarī (North), Indrāṇī (East), Kaumārī (South), etc.
Grant next turns to the circle of 16 petals which he says are occupied by the 16 Yoginis, which he identifies with the 16 Nityā goddesses (Nityā can be translated as ‘eternal’, btw). The VM names this circle the Sarvāśāparipūraṇa Cakra – ‘the fulfiller of all hopes’ and populates it with 16 goddesses who attract various things – the various senses, memory, self, body, etc.
Next is the eight-petalled circle which Grant states are occupied by the Vasinis, explained in the glossary as "A class of female attendants characterized by their close proximity to the Suvāsinī in the Kaula Rite." Again, the VM names this chakra as Sarvasaṃkṣobhakāraka – ‘agitator of all’ and populates it with eight directional goddesses, all of whom bear the epithet anaṅga – indicating that they are bodiless or limbless. Lakṣmīdhara, in his commentary on verse 17 of SL, says that the Vaśinīs are the presiding deities to be installed on the petals of Manipūra Cakra. Vaśinī, as v17 implies, is a goddess of speech (see Reading the Saundarya Lahari – IX).
What is becoming clear though is that Grant considers the ‘true’ Śrīcakra ritual to be composed of several circles of practitioners – such as the various classes of female attendants – together with a male officiant and a priestess – the Suvāsinī.
Grant then jumps straight for the centre of the Yantra which he states is the abode of the Suvāsinī – a key term in his presentation of this secret rite of tantra. It indicates – for Grant - much more than its exoteric meaning of a woman of good repute or a married woman. In Aleister Crowley and the Hidden God (ACHG) Grant defines the Suvāsinī as: “the chosen vehicle of the Supreme Goddess, or Magical Power (Mahashakti). Her body contains zones of occult energy intimately related to the network of nerves and plexuses associated with the endocrine glands. As the Supreme Goddess, she is represented yantrically by the Shri Chakra and mantrically by the secret vibrations that invoke the primal Creative Energy in its lunar, or feminine form..."
The term Suvāsinī does appear occasionally in Śrīvidyā scriptural and exegetical works, for example, Umānandanātha’s Nityotsava, a text that is mostly concerned with ritual procedure. In this context the term in all likelyhood refers to a male practitioner’s wife. Mike Magee has summarized the contents of the Nityotsava.
This definition – “the network of nerves and plexuses associated with the endocrine glands” - highlights a key problem in Grant’s representation of Tantra. Throughout his books, Grant implies that this secret interpretation of the Śrīcakra ritual is ancient, demonstrating its embeddedness in his version of the primordial tradition. Yet the identification of chakras with nerve plexuses and endocrine glands is recent – beginning in the late 19th century. Grant could doubtless argue that this is an example of esoteric knowledge that was lost or made hidden by adepts in order to preserve it from the uninitiated.
Grant then describes the Bindu – the point at the centre of the Śrīcakra as “the Primordial Desire of the mother to manifest as self-consciousness, whereby – on becoming a conscious object – Her subjectivity is reflected outward as the objective universe. I’d say this is a fair enough – although clunky to my mind – comment. The Bindu of the Śrīcakra is commonly understood to represent the birthing of the entire cosmos. The YH has more to say about this. It has been translated into English by André Padoux & Roger Orphé Jeanty: The Heart of the Yogini: The Yoginīhṛdaya, a Sanskrit Tantric Treatise (Oxford University Press, 2013).
Grant goes on further, stating, quite rightly, that the Mother is identified with the matrikas – the letters of the Sanskrit alphabet. He then dismisses as unworthy of interest the prayogas associated with the verses of the Saundaryalaharī. In a related footnote, he states that the misuse of some of these systems for “merely magical ends” brought about the “degeneration of their priesthoods” so that the real initiates had to keep their knowledge secret. This footnote rather reminds me of Blavatksky’s distinction between magic and “true occultism”. Also, during her many arguments with Indian members of the Theosophical Society over points of philosophy and doctrine, Blavatsky would also assert that she was right, whilst the Indians had lost the true wisdom. Perhaps Grant will expand on this distinction as we get further.
Again, this is not borne out by the textual tradition – there is a great deal of sorcery in tantric scriptures from a very early period, and there is now good reason to believe that the Śrīvidyā tradition itself had its roots in an earlier tradition devoted, for the most part, to love magic, where Tripurasundarī’s consort was Kāmadeva, surrounded by between nine and 11 subsidiary Nityā goddesses.
I’m going to hold it there for now. More Kenneth Grant in the next newsletter. Thanks for reading.