Dark Webs: Tantra, Black Magic, and Cyberspace (original) (raw)
Related papers
Encountering the Other: Tantra in the Cross-cultural Context
2011
This article focuses on the cultural appropriation of Tantra in India and the West. The term ‘Tantra’ evokes one sentiment in contemporary India, the birthplace of Tantra, and a widely divergent meaning in the West. In these contrasting understandings of Tantra as the black magic or as sex, the sacred of some has been turned into an object for appropriation and commodification for others. This shift relies on identifying Tantra as the ‘other’, in relation to what the mainstream culture defines itself as the ‘self’. Due to secretive nature of Tantric tradition since the classical times, Tantra has never found its own voice, and with the mainstream culture claiming the power over truth, marginal voices repressed within the rubric of Tantra have never been heard. The emergence of religious consumerism has assisted in peeling off this secretive Tantric body, bringing the heart of sacred practices from India to the consumers in the West.
Tantra, Magic, and Vernacular Religions in Monsoon Asia: Texts, Practices, and Practitioners from th
Asian Affairs, 2023
The contributors provide nuanced insights into Tantra’s practices and beliefs in Monsoon Asia through meticulous analyses of texts, fieldwork, and historical contexts. This volume significantly contributes to Tantric studies by adopting a chronological approach, from the medieval Indic period to the present, covering several geographic areas and drawing on fields including anthropology, religious studies, history, and philology. Tantra, a practice focused on results, is often associated with black magic due to its outcome-oriented nature. It encompasses both altruistic and karmically expensive practices, depending on whether the focus is on the divine or a narrow goal. Overall, Tantra, Magic, and Vernacular Religions in Monsoon Asia is a valuable resource for scholars and students studying religion. It will appeal to those interested in the psychology of religion, South Asian religions, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Southeast Asian religions.
2023
This book explores the cross- and trans-cultural dialectic between Tantra and intersecting ‘magical’ and ‘shamanic’ practices associated with vernacular religions across Monsoon Asia. With a chronological frame going from the mediaeval Indic period up to the present, a wide geographical framework, and through the dialogue between various disciplines, it presents a coherent enquiry shedding light on practices and practitioners that have been frequently alienated in the elitist discourse of mainstream Indic religions and equally over- looked by modern scholarship. The book addresses three desiderata in the field of Tantric Studies: it fills a gap in the historical modelling of Tantra; it extends the geographical parameters of Tantra to the vast, yet culturally interlinked, socio-geographical construct of Monsoon Asia; it explores Tantra as an interface between the Sanskritic elite and the folk, the vernacular, the magical, and the shamanic, thereby revisiting the intellectual and historically fallacious divide between cosmopolitan Sanskritic and vernacular local. The book offers a highly innovative contribution to the field of Tantric Studies and, more generally, South and Southeast Asian religions, by breaking traditional disciplinary boundaries. Its variety of disciplinary approaches makes it attractive to both the textual/ diachronic and ethnographic/synchronic dimensions. It will be of interest to specialist and non-specialist academic readers, including scholars and students of South Asian religions, mainly Hinduism and Buddhism, Tantric traditions, and Southeast Asian religions, as well as Asian and global folk religion, shamanism, and magic.
The Ethnography of Tantra: Textures and Contexts of Living Tantric Traditions
SUNY, 2023
edited by Carola Lorea and Rohit Singh [this is just an old version of the proof pages of our Introduction: please do not cite from this pdf but from the published book.] This is the first collection of essays to approach the topic of Tantric Studies from the vantage point of ethnography and lived religion, moving beyond the centrality of written texts and giving voice to the everyday life and livelihoods of a multitude of Tantric actors. Bringing together a team of international scholars whose contributions range across diverse communities and traditions in South Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Himalayan region, the book connects distant shores of Tantric scholarship and lived Tantric practices. The contributors unpack Tantra’s relationship to the body, ritual performance, sexuality, secrecy, power hierarchies, death, magic, and healing, while doing so with vigilant sensitivity to decolonization and the ethics of fieldwork. Through diverse ethnographies of Tantra and attention to lived experiences and life stories, the book challenges normative definitions of Tantra and maps the variety of Tantric traditions, providing comparative perspectives on Tantric societies across regions and religious backgrounds. The accessible tone of the ethnographic case studies makes this an ideal book for undergraduate or graduate audiences working on the topic of Tantra. https://sunypress.edu/Books/T/The-Ethnography-of-Tantra
Convenors: Dr Monika Hirmer and Dr Fabio Armand Presenters: Prabhavati Reddy - George Mason University, Virginia, USA Stefano Beggiora - University Ca' Foscari, Venezia, Italy James Mallinson - SOAS, University of London, UK Lidia Guzy - University College Cork, Ireland William Sax - Heidelberg University, Germany Annette Hornbacher - Heidelberg University, Germany Ruth Westoby - SOAS, University of London, UK Lubomír Ondračka - Charles University, Prague, Richard David Williams - SOAS, University of London, UK Fabio Armand - Lion University, France Monika Hirmer - SOAS, University of London, UK SOAS, University of London, BG 01, Brunei Gallery 20-21 April 2023 In collaboration with: European Association for South Asian Studies (EASAS) SOAS Centre for Yoga Studies (SCYS) Lyon Catholic University SOAS, University of London ___________________________________________ OVERVIEW AND AIMS: This two-day international workshop has brought together scholars from France, UK, India, Germany, Italy and Ireland to discuss their latest research in the field of tantric, shamanic and folk traditions in South Asia, with particular focus on these traditions’ relevance to contemporary times, also as potential resources.