Tantra: It’s NOT What You Think

People have a natural interest in sex. Without sex, we wouldn’t be here. And yet, we seem to have a love-hate relationship with sexuality. To many Westerners sex is a gift from God but we should only experience this gift under certain limited situations. To others, sex is at best a necessary evil and shouldn’t even be discussed.

But people will talk. If it’s not polite to talk about what your friends do in private, it’s okay to talk about people in a far-away country. That way, you can work out your psychological need to discuss sexuality while taking an pseudo-anthropological approach to this discussion. This is exactly what happened in Victorian Britain, where “proper” people who would never discuss sex would attend salons where it was permissible to discuss what “those people” in foreign countries were doing.

We’re still interested in sex: the adult film industry remains enormous; popular films include depictions of sexuality, etc. But many adults also want to keep sex a secret from their children. As the ruler of Siam said in the film, The King and I, “Is a puzzlement!”

Selectivity

When we look for something, we ignore everything else, no matter how apparent it may be. If you check out the YouTube video at the following link, you’ll see what I mean: Selective Attention Test: The Basketball Game.

So if people are looking for sex, that’s what they’ll find. When it comes to Tantra, people were looking for sex, and that’s all they found. But Tantra is much, much more than just sex. Virtually every spiritual practice that comes from “The East” is actually from the earliest Tantrics (what I call “proto-Tantrics”) who lived thousands of years ago at the west of India. This was a time before the Hindu sacred scriptures, the Vedas, and the multiplicity of religions collectively called “Hinduism” developed. Included were:

• • Chakras
  • Energy paths and acupuncture
  • Multiple spiritual bodies
  • Herbalism
  • External energy flows (Vastu) known as “Feng Shui” in China
  • Martial Arts
  • Meditation
  • Astrology (it has major differences with Western astrology)
  • Magick
  • Deities
  • Festivals
  • Rituals
  • Massive cycles of time

This just barely scratches the surface of Tantra, one of the world’s oldest, continually practiced, Pagan spiritual systems.

I hope to share more of this in the future. I think you’ll be fascinated, especially in relation to Tantric Magick.

If you want to get some insights into this, I highly recommend Dr. Jonn Mumford’s book, Ecstasy Through Tantra. This book was originally published in an unusual oblong hardbound format of only 5.5 inches tall and 8.25 inches wide. When first published in 1975, it was groundbreaking in showing the similarities and differences between Western and Eastern spiritual systems. Then, it was titled Sexual Occultism: The Sorcery of Love in Practice and Theory.

Today, that first edition is incredibly rare, selling for as much as $100.00 or more! However, the new version, Ecstasy Through Tantra, has been re-written and expanded with additions by people such as Carl Llewellyn Weschcke, Israel Regardie, myself, and Sri Mahendranath Maharaj (Dadaji).

On Saturday, July 16, I’m giving a workshop in the Los Angeles area where I’ll share information on such topics as opening the senses, crazy wisdom, meditation, breathwork, and magick, from a Tantric point of view. You can find out details on this LINK.

Wow! Just back from a tour of the Midwest, I’ll be at the Starwood festival giving workshops later this week, and just after that I’ll be giving this workshop on Tantra…no rest for the you know! More info on these events in the previous link.