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  1. Multiplicious Becomings: tantric theologies of the grotesque – I

    “It can be said that becoming-animal is an affair of sorcery because (1) it implies an initial relation of alliance with a demon; (2) the demon functions as the borderline of an animal pack, into which the human being passes or in which his or her becoming takes place, by contagion; (3) this becoming itself implies a second alliance, with another human group; (4) this new borderline between the two groups guides the contagion of animal and human being within the pack. There is an entire politics of becomings-animal, as well as a politics of sorcery, which is elaborated in assemblages that are neither those of the family, nor of religion nor the State. Instead, they express minoritarian groups, or groups that are oppressed, prohibited, in revolt, or always on the fringe of recognised institutions, groups all the more secret for being extrinsic, in other words, anomic.”
    Gilles Deleuze, Felix Guattari A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia

    One of the major projects I am exploring here on enfolding is the sidling towards an (unnatural) alliance between Continental Philosophy, tantrisms, and queer theories. An obvious point of intersection between these three areas is the emphasis on multiplicities, metamorphosis, hybridity and the grotesque. Continue reading »

  2. Occult gender regimes: Polarity and Thermodynamic bodies – I

    “Star and nerve-tissue are parts of the system-stellar and nervous forces are correlated. Nay more; sensation awakens thought and kindles emotion, so that this wondrous dynamic chain binds into living unity the realms of matter and mind through measureless amplitudes of space and time.”
    Edward Youmans, 1869, The Correlation and Conservation of Force

    This post will examine the arrival of thermodynamics in the nineteenth century and consider its wider cultural impact – in particular how it was used to reinforce gender regimes. Continue reading »

  3. Sakti bodies – I

    “By you is everything supported, by you is the world created: by you is it protected, O Goddess, and you always consume (it) at the end (of time).
    At (its) emanation you have the form of creation; in (its) protection (you have) the form of steadiness; likewise at the end of the world (you have) the form of destruction. O you who consist of this world!
    You are the great knowledge (mahavidya), the great illusion (mahamaya), the great insight (mahamedha) the great memory and the great delusion, the great Goddess (Mahadevi), the great demoness (mahasuri).”
    Devimahatmya 1, 56-58

    Sakti is one of the most fundamental aspects of Tantra – and potentially, one of the most bewildering. Continue reading »

  4. Pan: Adolescent Panics in Forster and Saki

    “God went out (oddly enough with cricket and beer) and Pan came in.In a hundred novels his cloven hoof left its imprint on the sward; poets saw him lurking in the twilight on London commons, and literary ladies in Surrey, nymphs of an industrial age, mysteriously surrendered their virginity to his rough embrace.”
    Somerset Maugham, quoted in Hutton, Triumph of the Moon, p48

    For this post, I’m taking a cue from Patricia Merivale’s Pan the Goat-God: His Myth in Modern Times (Harvard Univ. Press, 1969). Merivale’s book is particularly useful as she focuses on the great upswell of appearences of Pan in English prose between 1890 and 1918. Literary representations of Pan in the fin de siècle change dramatically, from Pan as an essentially benevolent and transcendental figure, to a much darker character. Continue reading »

  5. On the notion of Pagan “Elders”

    The term “Pagan Elders” has never rested well with me as a cultural convention.  Believe me, I am grateful for those who have gone before, those who have courageously blazed the trails, taught, led and agitated.  I am so delighted to honor these people, but I do so at my own judgment, not because I am compelled to by convention.  I find this term, elders, problematic in that it apes our perceptions of “respected tribal elders”, and thus smacks to me of appropriation.  Continue reading »

  6. Intensities: a quiet epiphany

    dip in
    to the sea
    of possibilities…
    Patti Smith

    I feel as though I am on the edge of vertigo – thoughts, ideas, bits of conversation whirling around me, yet at the same time, it’s quiet. Continue reading »

  7. Metaphor, Metonymy & tantric interpretations – II

    It seems likely, for example, that advanced practitioners of yoga and other psychophysical practices would develop rather distinctive image schemata appropriate to their experiences and sadhana, transmitted by specific gurus and teaching lineages.
    Quoted from Glen A. Hayes in Whicher, Carpenter, p164 (2003)

    Continue reading »

  8. Pan: an odd sort of god

    “Down the long lanes and overgrown ridings of history we catch odd glimpses of a lurking rustic god with a goat’s white lightning in his eyes. A sort of fugitive, hidden among leaves. and laughing with the uncanny derision of one who feels himself defeated by something lesser than himself.”
    D. H Lawrence, Remembering Pan

    Continue reading »

  9. Shamanism and gender-variance: uncovering a history

    As I read through the various commentaries and observations in the wake of this year’s PantheaCon I came across people asserting that what happened was particularly reprehensible because Paganism has always been welcoming to LGBTQI people. This might well be the case in the USA, but its certainly not true for the UK. Continue reading »

  10. Sexual Outlaw, Erotic Mystic: The Essential Ida Craddock – A Review

    Sexual Outlaw, Erotic Mystic: The Essential Ida Craddock (San Francisco: Red Wheel/Weiser, 2010) by Vere Chappell is a welcome contribution to a growing body of literature related to Craddock (1857-1902). After a long period of neglect, the life and writings of this amazing woman are finally emerging from obscurity. Continue reading »