38 of 39 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Highly Recommended, June 5, 2005
The book discussed in these pages is brilliant, well done and highly recommended. I have just finished reading it, more or less non-stop, in 2 full days. As with his earlier work (The Alchemical Body), the author's research is detailed and professional - and anyone calling it "pathetic" (anonymous review May 26 2004) or "saddening" (anonymous review May 29 2004) only admits in so doing that he or she has personal problems with the sexual aspects of Tantra as they are discussed in "The Kiss" open and honestly by David Gordon White.
Someone else called his conclusions "controversial" (anonymous review June 16 2004), yet the only "controversial" thing I can find in this book is the author's honesty - and one can only congratulate him for this - and of course he's intelligent enough to have foreseen that his theme and stance won't be liked by many - both in India and within the "New Age Tantra" community across the hemispheres.
To everyone who has read actual Tantric texts - even in translation - White's conclusions are fully in concordance with previously published material AND with actual practice - the real merit of this book lies in presenting us with more and new material (translated by the author), and by connecting and combining previously difficult to relate evidence.
So what is the book actually about that shocks so many sensitive minds? It is the fact that White establishes more firmly than has been done (in scholarly circles) before, that Tantric ritual makes use of the fluids that arise from the genitals - both female and male. And we're not only talking about orgasmic emissions, we're also talking about the magical blood we call menstruation. And we're talking about oral sex. So the author must have known that he'll get plenty of `flames' for various reasons - and I wish him that he is immune to it.
Congratulations, DGW, for this great book - and for the Vira balls to write it. May the Yogini grant you many more sweet en enlightening Kisses.
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32 of 34 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A thought provoking book and indispensable research source, May 8, 2006
David White gives clear, detailed insights into the origins and evolution of Tantric practices. Serious students of South Asian religious history will find his meticulous work a wealth of information filled with practical examples, diverse sources and original accounts rarely, if ever, this accessible in English.
The work's logical analysis of Tantric traditions visits its roots, components, rituals and development through the centuries. White states his goal "to reconstruct a history as well, perhaps, as a religious anthropology, a sociology, and a political economy of (mainly Hindu) Tantra, from the medieval period down to the present day." Indeed, this is what his book accomplishes. Unlike other works focusing on a particular aspect of Tantra, White takes a holistic approach that includes texts, imagery, politics, art, architecture, social relationships and practice in his sources.
His linguistic abilities enabled him to include translated excerpts from more than 25 ancient Sanskrit works. He also references many modern sources that had me frequently returning to Amazon to order more books!
White's creative vocabulary delights and stimulates; Acoustic phoneme, aestheticize, cosmeticized, countercasuistry, dissimulation, doctrine of radical nonduality, gerocomy, gnoseological, homologous, hegemonic, nondiscursive agglomerations, occulted, photeme, photic grapheme, polyvalence, postmodernisme oblige, semanticize, scholasticist, soteriology and typology are a few examples of the verbal tools he wields to make his finer points.
The resulting prose is necessarily dense; a complex treatment by an expert immersed in his topic. Most paragraphs cite multiple sources, all thoroughly described in his bibliography and copious endnotes. The book also includes more than 25 helpful illustrations that give visual representations of many concepts.
My only suggestion to improve future editions is that it would be helpful to add the following graphics: [1] Timelines - to illustrate chronological relationships of literary works, religious traditions and teachers referenced; [2] Hierarchical diagrams - to illustrate relationships among the multiple systems of gods, goddesses, demons, deities, yogis, yoginis, dakinis, etc. and; [3] Maps - to show geographical and temporal relationships in the spread of Tantric practices and related political systems.
Finally, I must comment on a few of the poor "reviews" of this work that sadly appear on Amazon. It is obvious that some people have not read the book. Like most fanatics, they leap to judge something they don't care to accept or understand.
In his five page preface, and in many other chapters, White makes it quite clear that he is a scholar with tremendous respect for Indian and Hindu religious traditions. His years of investigative effort in original sources establish strong pedigrees of origin that, in fact, enhance the basis of these traditions. The only groups White directly criticizes are "New Age" proponents of Tantra who have hijacked Indian culture and distorted it for commercial gain in the West. His historically accurate report is no threat to any tradition based on truth.
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