New Interview
I recently did an interview with Luxa Strata discussing Queerying Occultures and Acts of Magical Resistance.
Queerying Occultures is available direct from Original Falcon Press in both print and ebook format. Acts of Magical Resistance is available via Amazon in print and ebook editions, or in print (signed) from Treadwells Bookshop.
On Kenneth Grant’s Typhonian Tantra - II
Continuing my observations on Kenneth Grant’s revealing - or perhaps reconstruction would be a better term, of tantric secrets in his book Beyond the Mauve Zone (with occasional references to other works). If you want to read along with me, I’m starting at page 52 of the first chapter dealing with ‘The Kaula Rite of the Fire Snake’.
Now Grant dives into “the system of microscopic power-zones” – the subtle anatomy of the chakras. Grant names the chakras as Muladhara, Svadhisthana (sacral region) ruled by Fire; Manipura (solar plexus), Anahata (cardiac region), (Sun); Visuddha (throat), Ajna (cerebral), Lambicara (Moon); and finally the Sahasrara Chakra. In a footnote, Grant says: “We are not here concerned with the one-thousand-petalled lotus, Akula, located beneath the Muladhara Chakra.” He doesn’t say why though. In the Yoginīhṛdaya (YH), akulapadma is the seat of Tripurā and is identified with the Bhupura.
What follows next is a short discourse on the relationship between the Fire Snake, “the three syllables of the pranava”, and the “fractional number” – the ardhamātrā. The glossary translates this latter term as “the half-letter” and relates it to chandrabindu – ‘moon-seed’ - “the kala of the sixteenth ray.” Praṇava can be translated as “to worship profoundly”. More technically, the praṇava are those seed-syllables (bijas) exhaled with prāṇa. Grant relates praṇava to AUM, although this is a Vedic association, and there are many praṇavas in tantric scriptures. The Svacchandra Tantra, for example, describes 12 levels of praṇava. Ardhamātrā can be thought of as a state in which all sounds, forms, distinctions, etc., merge. It is a signifier of the experience of pure consciousness. The Vijñānabhairava Tantra (v.39) states:
“O Bhairavī, by uttering the Praṇava and by meditating on the void at the end of the protracted sound, one attains the state of Void [Pure consciousness] by means of the Supreme Śakti of the Void.”
Grant then gives a short description of the “original ritual for awakening the Fire Snake by magical means” (BMZ, p53):
"It involves the participation of the Suvāsinī and her twenty-nine consecrated attendants. Four of these attendants, the Akashanis, are stationed in the Bhupura, the four outer gateways. Sixteen other attendants, the Yoginis, occupy the outer ring of lotus-petals, and a further eight, the Vasinis, occupy the inner ring." ... the Lambika Yogins ... use the mouth and tongue to extract the nectar shed by the lotus when the heat of the Fire Snake vapourizes its cooling kalas. The 29th kala, the Suvasini herself, occupies the pericarp of the lotus within the trikona, the inmost yantra."
This description is proved (or muddled, depending on your perspective) by Grant’s gematria connections and leaps between bits of esoteric lore. Nevertheless, it becomes clear that Grant’s idea of the ritual involved living participants rather than the installation of deities, as detailed in both the Vāmakeśvarīmata tantra, Yoginīhṛdaya, and later works. He then goes on to state that the “living embodiments of the goddess” were later represented by the allocation of Sanskrit letters to mandalas, petals, and the Śrīcakra, in order to veil the magical processes “in a shroud of secrecy”. He refers to this arrangement as the Kailasa Prastara. Prastāra is a term often found in the śilpaśāstras and vāstuśāstras – texts dealing with crafts and architecture, where it denotes a parapet or entablature. In tantric scriptures, however, it usually refers to a grid or diagram that is used in the generation of mantras. The Manthānabhairavatantra, a Kubjikā tantra, describes for example the Meruprastāra - a triangular grid containing the fifty letters of the alphabet and identified with the Yoni of the goddess.
In Aleister Crowley and the Hidden God (ACHG) Grant says that Kailasa Prastara is a posture where the goddess towers over her worshippers like Mount Kailas, allowing the ‘healing cool of her snows to float down’. As far as I know, this particular interpretation is unique to Grant (and his initiated Kaula sources of course).
Grant continues his exposition of the true meaning of the ritual. It is an alchemical and transformative process that depends on the skill of the Suvāsinī’s attendants to help generate the ‘elixir’. This elixir can generate magical powers (siddhis) but the Anuttara Amnaya regard the awakening of such siddhis is to be avoided and considered their use as ‘black magic’. Grant also asserts that in this particular tradition, the Suvāsinī was never physically touched by any member of the circle during the ritual. The participants seem to use a combination of mantras and mudras – Grant relates these as ‘magnetic passes’ (suggesting mesmerism perhaps); pranayama practices, olis, and locks. In ACHG he refers to a privately circulated ms by Eugene Grosche that utilized such magnetic passes. Olis, the glossary says, refers to a number of Yogic methods for directing ojas – defined in ACHG as “Electro-magnetic energy peculiar to the chakras or power-zones when vitalized by the Fire Snake.” Ojas is a wide-ranging term that generally refers to brightness, vitality, grandeur, and inner strength.
NB: The relationship between yoga, the chakras, and mesmerism was a popular theme in Theosophical works, for example, Rama Prasad’s 1890 book, Nature’s Finer Forces. See Chakras into the west: Rama Prasad’s Nature’s Finer Forces – I for my discussion of this work, and Chakras into the west: Rama Prasad’s Nature’s Finer Forces – II for my discussion of the controversy the book up stirred in Theosophical circles.
The Suvasini, Grant states, directs the flow of the ritual with her side-long glance: apanga. Apāṅga is a term that relates to the eye. In Ayurveda, for example, there is an Apāṅga marma, located at the tail end of the eyebrow. More relevant though here, is that the sidelong glance is a stock phrase in Indian erotic poetics; an element of the Śṛngāra Rasa, the erotic sentiment. Bharata's Nāṭyaśāstra (2nd century C.E.) describes 36 types of glances, the most powerful of which are those associated with Śṛngāra Rasa. An example of the flirtatious sidelong glance can be found in Kālidāsa’s famous poem Meghadūta (the Cloud Messenger):
“Though you come, O cloud, at any other time to Mahākāla Temple, wait at least until the sun descends from sight that you may play the drum to the Trident-bearer's evening danceand thereby win reward forever for your low-pitched thunder.
The temple girls their girdles jingling at each footstep of the dance, their arms weary from graceful waving of the yaktails with their jeweled handles, will welcome you with sidelong glances as long as swarms of bees for your drops of rain soothing to the lovers' nail wounds on their bodies.”
Just as the god of love, Kama, was destroyed by the full gaze of Śiva, so he was reborn by the sidelong glance of Lalita, as recounted in the Lalitopākhyāna. The goddess’ sidelong glance can be erotic or compassionate. Her devotees consider it a darśana - a dialogic meeting of gazes.
“His bow is made of flowers, the bowstring of bees, five are his arrows, Vasanta (Spring) is his adjutant, the Malaya breeze his war chariot, and yet, by himself, O daughter of the snow mountain, when but a bit of compassion he has got from a side glance of yours, the Bodiless One (Kama) conquers this world entire.” Saundaryalaharī, v6.
Back to BMZ. Grant says that the moon-flower blossoms as the 16th kala as an ‘elixir of immortality’. “The light is transmitted by the Suvāsinī on her throne.” In a footnote he says: “In that form of the rite known as the Meru Prastara.” The glossary says that this is “Mount Meru, applied metaphorically, to the Suvāsinī in her ‘mounted’ or ‘enthroned’ Mudra.” Somehow, this does not make Grant’s meaning any clearer for me. The elixir is then “garnered from the bhurja leaf” – the glossary says this is a ritual accessory used by the Kaulas. Bhurja, less exotically is a kind of birch leaf, often used for writing, the creation of talismans, amulets, and so forth. I doubt that its usage is specific to the Kaula traditions.
Grant says that the “fully operative Chakra” – meaning the ritual – could have as many as 72 or 73 participants. He then elaborates this with a torrent of gematria-fuelled correspondences that set the mind whirling back to primordial aeons of mystery. He reflects on the effects of nuclear radiation on the human psyche – he relates this to the fall of Atlantis, alien intelligence, and UFO phenomena. Again, he warns against the seeking of siddhis in the Tantras (not true at all, but that was certainly a popular perception) and returns once more to the supposed division between the Kaulas and the Samayins (I commented on this in the first part of this essay - see Unfoldings #4). He seems to sidestep into a discussion of fractional numbers and their relation to alien evils and relates this to the three-and-a-half coils of the Fire Snake. Out of this, he produces a justification for the Kaulas supposed worship of the Fire Snake ‘sleeping’ in the Muladhara – a claim made by Lakṣmīdhara (see the previous newsletter) although Lakṣmīdhara does not cite any sources to back up his assertion. Note: I am currently doing some writing for enfolding about the history of Śrīvidyā in support of these Grant essays.
Here is a condensed version of what Lakṣmīdhara has to say on this matter, in his commentary on v.32 of Saundaryalaharī (SL). He begins by discussing the secret mantra of the goddess and related matters. He then turns to the prohibition of outward worship, saying that the twice-born (i.e. Brahmins) should not perform it. He then lists the groups who do perform it - the Kaulas, the Kshapanakas, Kāpālikas, Digambaras, and those who advocate the Itihāsas and Āgamas. As far as I know, Kṣapaṇaka is a term used to indicate religious mendicants, particularly Buddhists or Jains. However, the commentator who is discussing Lakṣmīdhara in the edition I am using says that the Kshapanakas are worshippers of the ‘female generative organ’, as are the Kāpālikas and Digambaras. (see “The Antics of Drunkards” – ascetics and Indian Satire for some notes on the Kāpālikas and their dodgy reputation.
The Kaulas, Lakṣmīdhara says, worship the devī in the Mūlādhāra alone. The Itihāsas and Āgamas are those who follow the Bhairava Yāmala and other such scriptures. These are all traditions that Lakṣmīdhara considers to be outside the Vedas and therefore beyond the pale. We should remember that he is writing during a period (16th century) when Śrīvidyā was being domesticated - brought further into Vedic orthodoxy, a process that had begun in the late twelfth century.
Returning to BMZ. Grant ends up the chapter by proclaiming:
“Those of their number, therefore, who merited the jibes of the Samayins were, like them, pseudo-Kaulas – who substituted for Madya, liquor; for Mamsa, meat; for Mina, fish; for Mudra, ritual gestures; and for Maithuna, sexual congress.”
This is an interesting statement to end the chapter on – the implication being, I suppose, that these terms (collectively known as the pañcamakāra) familiar no doubt to anyone at all familiar with popular accounts of tantric sexual practices, did not originally denote their given meanings.
This is not an unfamiliar refrain – that the references in tantric scriptures to sexual intercourse, orgies even, or the worship of Bhairava in a pot of wine, etc., should not be taken literally. It is sometimes asserted that they are codes for something quite different, esoteric, and non-transgressive. Sir John Woodroffe championed this view in his books on Tantra. Perhaps Grant will have more to say about this in the next two chapters.
For now, though, I will close with a passage from the circa-thirteenth-century Kaula scripture, the Kulārṇava (8.67-74):
“Excited by passion, treating other men as their own beloved, the ladies act wantonly. Men, also exhilarated in extreme ecstasy behave likewise. Intoxicated men embrace men... Yogis take food from each other's vessels and putting the drinking pots on their heads, dance around. Filling wine in their mouths they make women drink it from their lips. Putting pungent items in their mouths they transfer them to the mouths of their beloved. Some sing songs whose words are indistinct, and tottering dance around. Exhilarated Yogis fall upon the women, and intoxicated women fall upon men.”
I wonder what Kenneth Grant would have made of that? More KG in the next newsletter.
That’s all for now. Thanks for reading.