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9
"The so-called sexual revolution of the last two decades in Europe and North America has brought
about a renewed interest in the Tantric tradition....Notwithstanding the publications of sumptuously
illustrated books...it would not be untrue to apply a Bengali saying to the state of Tantric studies: that it
has remained in the same darkness in which it always was...We have gone from one extreme to the
other. While early scholars were unnecessarily apologetic about the sexual...practices of Tantra, modern
scholars revel in the sexual aspects and have coined such colorful expressions as 'cult of
ecstasy'" (Pratapaditya Pal, Hindu Religion and Iconology According to the Tantrasara [Los Angeles:
Vichitra Press, 1981], p.vi).
10
Thus the Kularnava Tantra states that "true sexual union is the union of the Parashakti with the
Atman [Self]; other unions represent only carnal relations with women" (5.111-2, in Mircea Eliade,
Yoga: Immortality and Freedom [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1971], p.262).
11
On the technique of vajroli or the retention and sublimation of the semen, see David Gordon White,
The Alchemical Body: Siddha Traditions in Medieval India(Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1996), pp.199-201. "maithuna is never allowed to terminate in an emission of semen Otherwise the
yogin falls under the law of time and death like any common libertine" (Eliade, Yoga, p.267-8). Many
Tantric techniques also involve, not just retention of semen, but the actual extraction of the vaginal
fluids from the partner into the male body. According to the Hatha Yoga Pradipika, "The semen that is
about to fall into the woman's vagina should be drawn back up ...If already fallen he should draw up his
own semen [together with the woman's secretions] and preserve it...When the semen drops death ensues.
By holding the semen there is life" (Georg Feuerstein, Tantra: The Path of Ecstasy [Boston:
Shambhala,1998], p.233).
246
12
See Brooks, Auspicious Wisdom: The Texts and Traditions of Srividya Sakta Tantrism in South India
(Albany: SUNY 1992), p.xix; cf. Sir John Woodroffe, Shakti and Shakta (Madras: Ganesh & Co.,
1975), p.158f; Alexis Sanderson, "Purity and Power among the Brahmins of Kashmir," in The Category
of the Person: Anthropological and Philosophical Perspectives, eds. M.Carrithers, S. Collins and
S.Lukes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985).
13
Brooks, Auspicious Wisdom, p.149.
14
See Hugh B.. Urban and Glen A. Hayes, eds., In the Flesh: Eros, Secrecy and Power in the
Vernacular Tantras of India(Albany: SUNY, forthcoming); Hugh B. Urban, "The Remnants of Desire:
Sacrificial Violence and Sexual Excess in the Cult of the Kapalikas and in the Writings of Georges
Bataille," Religion 25 (1995): 76-90.
15
Weeks, Sex, Politics and Society, p.6-7; cf. Foucault, The History of Sexuality, v.I, pp.45ff.
16
Ward, A View of the History, Literature and Religion of the Hindoos (London: Kinsbury, Parbury and
Allen 1817), v.I, p.247. On the genealogy of Tantra during this period, see Hugh B. Urban, "The
Extreme Orient: The Construction of 'Tantrism' as a Category in the Orientalist Imagination," Religion
29 (1999): 123-46.
17
See Urban, "The Extreme Orient," pp.123-46. "Tantra...was regarded as an extreme example of the
degeneration...believed to have affected Hindu religion since its glorious classical past in the Aryan
civilization" (Kathleen Taylor, "Arthur Avalon: The Creation of a Legendary Orientalist," in Julia
Leslie, ed. Myth and Mythmaking [Richmond: Curzon, 1996], p.151).
18
Quoted in Woodroffe, ed., Principles of Tantra: The Tantratattva of Sriyukta Siva Candra
Vidyarnava Bhattacarya Mahodaya (Madras: Ganesh & Co, 1960), pp.3-5.
19
Nik Douglas, Spiritual Sex: Secrets of Tantra from the Ice Age to the New Millennium (New York:
Pocket Books, 1997), p. 183-4.
247
20
On Woodroffe, see Taylor, "Arthur Avalon," pp.150ff, and Urban, "The Extreme Orient," pp.134-7.
According to Woodroffe, "The Sakta Tantra simply present the Vedantik teachings in a symbolic form
for the worshipper, to whom it prescribes the means whereby they may be realized in fact" (Shakti and
Shakta, pp.587). In his Principles of Tantra, for example, Woodroffe' provides a detailed, point-for-
point comparison of the liturgy of the Catholic Mass and a Tantric ritual (p.63f).
21
Boswell, "The Great Fuss and Fume Over the Omnipotent Oom," True: The Man's Magazine,
(January 1965): 31.
22
Bernard, quoted in Douglas Spiritual Sex, p.204.
23
Dr. Charles Potter, World Telegram (May 7, 1931), cited in William Seabrook, Witchcraft: Its Power
in the World Today(New York: Harcourt Brace, 1940), p.359. As Monica Randall comments, "the new
media followed his every move. He was a showman an occultist with psychic abilities that were
astonishing. He delighted in bizarre publicity stunts[N]eighbors accused him of hosting orgies and
abducting virgins to sacrifice to his elephants" (Phantoms of the Hudson Valley: the Glorious Estates of
a Lost Era [Woodstock: Overlook Press, 1995], p. 78).
24
The few studies of Bernard's life and works include Nik Douglas' discussion in Spiritual Sex, pp.191ff
and the web-site devoted to him at www.vanderbilt.edu/~stringer/pab.htm. The latter includes a fairly
extensive bibliography of all the published materials on Bernard. The most interesting of these include
contemporary newspaper reports, such as: "Oom: Omnipotent Doctor Bernard Makes News Again,"
Newsweek (July 1, 1933): 22; John Lardner, "Out of a Book," Newsweek (May 19, 1939): 24; Eckert
Goodman, "The Guru of Nyack: The True Story of Father India, the Omnipotent Oom," Town &
Country (April, 1941): 50, 53,92-3 ,98-100; "Oom's Animals: Nyack Summer Theater Performs in Yoga
Disciple's Private Zoo," Life Magazine 17 (1942): "The Ascent of Peter Coon," Newsweek 46 (October
10, 1955): 46ff; 53-6; Kenneth R. MacCalman "Impressions of Dr. Bernard and the C.C.C. as Viewed
by a Nyack On Looker," South of the Mountains 14, no. 4 (1970): 2-8. There is also some recent
scholarly literature which deals briefly
248
with Bernard, such as: J. Gordon Melton, "Pierre Bernard." In Biographical Dictionary of American
Cult and Sect Leaders (New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1986), pp. 32-3, 138; "Pierre Bernard," in
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