12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Tantra for Western Occultists, January 24, 2001
This review is from: Tantra: The Way of Action: A Practical Guide to Its Teachings and Techniques (Paperback)
While satisfactorily conveying the concept of Tantra as a "technique of action" rather than a philosophical or religious construct, King espouses the view that no Westerner can successfully practice Tantra because its techniques correspond and can only be understood and fully utilized within their own cultural mileu. He therefore takes an interesting approach to attempt to "westernize" tantric practices (notably the ritual of the five Ms and kundalini visualization). More than half of the book is devoted to drawing parallelisms between Tantra and Golden Dawn ritual magic, and comparisons with the work of western occultists like Aleister Crowley and S.L. MacGregor Mathers. The appendices contain interesting material, including a description of preparatory rituals for engaging in the visualization excercises described in the book, and a very lucid exposition of Chinese Internal Alchemy and its similarity to Tantra.
The subtitle of an earlier edition of this work was "Tantra for Westerners." I think King addresses this work specifically to the Western OCCULTIST, and a person who reads this text as an introduction to Tantra without prior knowledge of it or Western Occultism will have a very hard time reading through the book, and is bound to be very confused at the end. Students of Golden Dawn magic and followers of Aleister Crowley will find in this book an extremely interesting, lucid, and straightforward introduction to Tantra, but people interested in Tantra itself will glean very little from this book.
In all, the book is astoundingly well researched, and makes an extremely engaging and entertaining read. However, there is very little material on Tantra itself. I give it three stars because all the topics discussed by the author are presented in a lucid, well-researched, correct, and readable manner.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Raising Kundalini With Kabala, March 10, 2008
This review is from: Tantra: The Way of Action: A Practical Guide to Its Teachings and Techniques (Paperback)
"Tantra...is...a technique of action--a physical, mental, and spiritual discipline which incorporates meditation, yoga, and sacramental worship...All the actions undertaken...are...a means...to the transformation of the individual, his or her rebirth to a new existence on every level of consciousness...Tantra is a way of liberation." That said, the author proceeds to make the point that instead of asceticism, tantric practitioners use indulgence of the senses as a shock treatment to transcend the senses, which is termed a hedonistic mystical movement. This reasoning is along the lines of eating yourself sick on your favorite food, and then you don't want to bother with it again for a really long time, yet you are not obsessed with longing for it, either. Indulgence cures obsession.
"All mystical and magical techniques can be divided into two broad categories, the cathartic and the hedonistic. The mainstream of the mystical tradition follows the way of catharsis, or purging...The hedonistic tradition eschews the pains of asceticism for the pleasures of the body; it pursues spiritual liberation through life affirmation, not physical restriction." The spiritual aim is the dissolution of polarity, opposites, into a higher unity where duality becomes meaningless. The negative element of polarity is regarded as being male and named Shiva; the dynamic element of polarity is regarded as being female and named Shakti. "The Shakti element in humanity is symbolized as a serpent (Kundalini)." Raising the Kundalini energy from the base of the spine to the top of the head to join with the Shiva polarity is what effects the spiritual transformation. The Shiva and Shakti polarity of Tantra is another way of expressing the Yin and Yang of Taoism. The author emphasizes in several places that Tantra is a way of action, not a belief or thought system, and that whatever theories exist in Tantra came about after the fact, as an attempt to explain why the techniques worked.
The author gives explicit step-by-step instructions for breathing, meditation, and visualization exercises, as well as ritual magic techniques within the Western magical tradition to effect the same transformational changes for Westerners that the Indian techniques produce for their population. Mr. King explains by discussing the Ritual of the Five M's, which would be useless in shock value for Westerners. He discusses Shiva and the kabalistic Tree of Life, as well as mentioning tantric symbolism in the tarot. He details use of the tattvic symbols as a basis for tantric meditation, and doorways to an altered state of awareness. In this connection, he lists Western occult symbolism and the sephirot of the kabalistic Tree of Life as it relates to the chakras, or energy centers, of the human body, and the psychic abilities which normally manifest as a result of activating the various chakras. The author explains why the Middle Pillar Meditation of the kabalists will never raise the Kundalini energy, because it goes in reverse. He also gives the scientific reason why chanting produces an altered state of awareness.
In Appendix D, Mr. King is kind enough to include in one place, for the reader's convenience, instructions for the rituals of the Kabalistic Cross, Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram, Invocation of the Archangels, and the Invocation of the Bornless One. The last item uses the feminine pronoun, since it is archetypal feminine energy being raised, instead of the masculine pronoun in the Golden Dawn version of the same ritual.
The book ends with a timely warning. "It is safest to avoid all supposed gurus and to rely on the ancient Buddhist tantric tradition that the sincere aspirant will eventually obtain any initiations that are necessary from a disembodied initiator. It is worth remarking that each and every one of the great Buddhist exponents of Tantra received an initiation, or initiations, of this sort...initiation is an interior process which the aspirant must carry out for himself...what a book can do is to outline the nature of the tasks to be performed...This book is an endeavour to provide a map of that road, an occult psychogram of the path of the senses which leads to the transcending of the senses."
I give this comprehensive, well-written, well-researched book four stars instead of five. Abundant use of charts, colors, illustrations, and other types of visual aids would have made the book more user-friendly, instead of such a ponderous read. If he had included a CD of the rituals in Appendix D that would have been terrific. Geared for the serious occultist, not for beginners.
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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
James Papadakis, March 28, 2007
This review is from: Tantra: The Way of Action: A Practical Guide to Its Teachings and Techniques (Paperback)
The late Francis King in this book does an excellent work translating the Eastern tantra into Western ritual magic. Noone before him attempted such a serious effort (except maybe J Evola in his "Yoga of Power" [ASIN:0892813687 The Yoga of Power: Tantra, Shakti, and the Secret Way]but this was rather a digestion and a summary of the tantras).
Francis' great scholarship is obvious in this greatly informative and also very practical work.
It is the first attempt to explain the terms and practices of the East with Western words, ideas and rituals. And he had the quality of mind to do so. He had DISCRIMINATION the first quality for the Occultist as well for the Scholar. That's why his work has meaning and value because every comparison and every conclusion and outcome is tested and explained logically.
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