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Ashé Journal ~ 2 57
Table of Contents
True Spirituality 259

Earth and Sky Gods of India and Greece, Dirk Dunbar, Ph.D. 261
All Things Are Like This, Master Dogen Zenji 293
Commentary on the Tibetan Book of the Dead, Brendan Connell 295
A World Divided, Zen Master Gudo W. Nishijima 301
The Savage Buddha, Sritantra 304
Freedom from Karma, Nissim Amon 316
Radios and Mantras, Nissim Amon 319
Nissim Amon 324
Portfolio: Ernest Williamson III 325
Astroplankton Break Dance, Sarah Knorr 331
The Acoustic Hajj, David Keali’i 336
Camelopardalis, David Keali’i 339
Invocation, David Keali’i 341
Cultural Engineering With Eyes Wide Shut? Playback/Feedback
Magicks And The Archaeology Of The Now, Tristram Burden 343
Reviews 349
Cover Photograph: Vladimir Pomortsev, Bohdi tree at Wat Prha

Mahathat Temple in Ayutthaya, Thailand.
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JOURNAL OF
EXPERIMENTAL SPIRITUALITY
Fall 2006, Volume V, Number 3
ISSN 1558-4690 (print)
ISSN 1558-4704 (electonic)
EDITOR: FRIENDS & ADVISORS

Sven Davisson Nathaniel Bamford
Baba Raul Canizares
ASSOCIATE E DITORS: Christopher DeVere
Diane Chase Peter Fuerst
Eric K. Lerner Trebor Healey
Bobby Shiflett William J. Malay
Mogg Morgan
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True Spirituality
The Buddha, India, 6th century BC
One day, a monk approached The Buddha and said:
Sir,
It just occurred to me as I was in meditation
That You have set aside
And left some important things unexplained:
Is the world eternal, or is the world temporary?

Are the soul and the body identical,
Or is the soul one thing and the body another?
Do the enlightened exist after death,
Or do they exist no more?
If you know the answers to these questions,

Then please tell me;
If not,
Then admit that you do not know.
If you do not give me an answer

Then I will cease to be a Buddhist.
The Buddha replied:

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O monk,
Did I ever say to you,
‘Come lead the spiritual life under me,
And I will answer all your questions?’
O monk,
The person who refuses to live the spiritual life
Until I have answered all their questions,
This person will have to wait until they die.
The spiritual life is not about

Whether the world is eternal or not,
Nor about opinions on body and soul,
Nor about beliefs concerning the afterlife.
Always bear in mind

What it is that I explain,
And what it is that I do not talk about.
I have only taught those things

Which have to do with true spirituality:
Teachings that facilitate serenity;

Teachings that terminate suffering;
And teachings that lead the way to freedom.
Taken from The Book of Dharma, translated and edited by Nissim Amon
Earth and Sky Gods of India and Greece:
Finding the Feminine in Masculine Myths
Dirk Dunbar, Ph.D.
I affirm that the presence of God is

manifest, in the profound experience of
the psyche, as a coincidentia
oppositorum [a coincidence of
opposites], and the whole history of
religion, all the theologies bear witness
to the fact that the coincidentia
oppositorum is one of the most
common and archaic formulas for
expressing the reality of God. (1977, Debasis Das
229-30) –Carl Jung
We are all born with a “call of the

wild.” Myths and symbols of every culture express the need to identify with
the force that mothered us into being. Many of the related archetypes, such
as the Great Goddess and her fertility consorts, signal that we belong to the
cosmos, that our flesh and bones are part of the earth’s body, that mind is a
property of nature shared by all being—inanimate as well as animate. The
instinctual or so-called feminine impulse binds us to nature and reveals the
planet as home, the source from which we spring and return. Many of us
Ashé! Journal of Experimental Spirituality (2006) 5(3) 261-292

©2006, www.ashejournal.com All rights reserved.
262 ~ Ashé Journal
living in urban industrial complexes have alienated that impulse by

habituating the innate call to sense the world as alive and sacred. While our
obsession with technological progress has enhanced that loss, the roots of
our alienation reach back to the ancient elevation of sky gods and
vilification of earth deities concomitant with the integration—forced or
otherwise—of Indo-European and indigenous cultures. India’s gods,
Vishnu and Shiva, and the Greek gods, Apollo and Dionysus, provide clear
and profound examples not only of the distinct cultures, but also of the
sense of balance that has been lost by the desecration of earth god and
goddess archetypes.
The gods’ relationships are long and complex, but can be summarized
in terms of the Hindu and ancient Greek propensity to revere balance. The
bipolarity of Apollo and Dionysus and Vishnu and Shiva began with the
marriages of apparently distinct cultures, but, more importantly, evolved
hand in hand with the long and complex blending of the unique
worldviews. Apollo and Vishnu serve as solar-sky gods who, by promoting
human welfare, being patrons of the aristocracy, and establishing laws
regarding human behavior and propitiation, evolved into protectors of
culture. Shiva and Dionysus, the sky-god counterparts, are lords of
mountains and forests and represent the life force of animals and
vegetation. Their domains include eroticism and ecstasy, androgyny,
possession, dance and theater, as well as creation and destruction. While
the ordered rites and worship of Apollo and Vishnu contribute to social
structure and hierarchy by stressing humanistic self-knowledge and social
responsibility, Shiva and Dionysus serve as archetypal expressions of primal
peoples’ communal relationship with nature, and their worship marks the
awareness of the unity between the self and the cosmos.
I believe that the balance implicit in the relationships of Shiva and
Vishnu and Dionysus and Apollo symbolizes the fullness of human worth.
While attempting to avoid eulogizing pre-Indo-European peoples of
Aegean and Indus Valley regions and unfairly denigrating Indo-Europeans,
my goal is to show how the union of the distinct cultures is expressed

through the blending of the sky gods with the earth gods, respectively. I
will suggest how that blending, if appropriated a clear feminine impulse,
could provide insights into causes of and potential remedies for Western
culture’s alienation from nature, the feminine impulse, and the call of the
wild.
THE CULTURAL OVERLAY OF MYTHS, RITES, AND SYMBOLS
Much has been made of the so-called Indo-European conquests of native,

Mother Goddess worshipping cultures. Evidence, or lack thereof, from
archaeology, linguistics, and mythology has been used to support or refute
theories related to the conflict, absorption, and assimilation of cultures that
are distinguished by virtue of their unique artifacts, languages, race, myths,
and symbols. Much of the archaeological and linguistic evidence for a
recent version of the incursion theory stems from the work and impetus of
Marija Gimbutas (1982), who concluded that the overlay of Indo-
European and Old European cultures resulted from several waves of
invasions that occurred somewhere between fifth and second millennia
BCE. A patriarchal people with a male sky-god pantheon, the Indo-
Europeans—whom Gimbutas called “Kurgans”—supposedly used their
abundant weaponry, horse-drawn chariots, and combative energies to
conquer and subdue Old Europe’s Goddess-worshipping matrilineal
societies that were purportedly peaceful agriculturalists. Reportedly
stemming from the steppes of Russia through northwest Asia, the Indo-
Europeans allegedly invaded peaceful societies from Crete to India. Riane
Eisler (1988), a disciple of Gimbutas, offers a catalog of examples: Aryans
assailed India; Kurgans, Eastern Europe; Hittites, the Fertile Crescent;
Luwians, Anatolia; and Acheans and Dorians, Greece.
Joseph Campbell (1976) helped popularize the purported clash and
subsequent merger as an overlay of hunting and planting cultures. While
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hunting societies of the cold and barren north depended mostly on killing
animals for food, planting cultures of southern climates grew food for a
living. That explains, if Campbell is right, why the Northern nomadic
hunters—such as the Kurgans/Aryans—created dominantly masculine
cultures and worshipped virulent sky-gods, while planters such as the
Minoans of Crete and the so-called Dravidians of the Indus Valley
Civilization created more matrilineal, matrifocal societies and worshipped
earth gods and goddesses. The pinnacle in the popularization of the
invasion theory may be Eisler’s proposal that the distinctions between the
androcentric dominator model of the Indo-Europeans and the egalitarian
partnership model of the Mother Goddess worshipping cultures could
provide a paradigm of change for us today.
Clearly, much of the “history” of the cultural interplay is agenda
driven (Gimbutas and Eisler are avid ecofeminists). That fact, along with
the lack of data, has led many contemporary critics to not only reject the
invasion theory, but to also question the very existence of, for instance, the
Aryans and Dravidians.1 It is beyond my scope here to affirm or refute the
invasion theory and much that goes along with it.2 I will say that the fall of
1 One such critic, Padma Manian (1998), argues that the typical Eurocentric projection of
the clash between the Harappan and invading Indo-European cultures can be explained in
terms of three related versions of the invasion theory. The first is “the racial theory”
introduced by the nineteenth century Sanskrit scholar Max Mueller, who regarded the Rig
Veda as linguistic and literary evidence for the light-skinned Aryan conquerors and their god
Indra’s destruction of the dark-skinned Dasyus, who were Dravidians. A Biblical literalist,
Mueller considered the advent of imposed Aryan culture as a boon to the inferior
Dravidians. The second version, introduced by Sir Mortimer Wheeler, accepted the racial
aspects but professed that the Aryans were the barbarians and the Dravidians victimized,
peaceful natives (Gimbutas, Eisler, and other ecofeminists support this version). The third
version, which many scholars maintain today, is that the Harappan civilization fell to natural
catastrophe and the Aryans might have simply migrated into the area following the collapse.
After disputing the viability of all three versions, Manian adds another possibility: the
Aryans entered long before heretofore considered.
2 Similar kinds of debates exist regarding the so-called Kurgan invasions of Old Europe.
Perhaps the strongest indication of an Indo-European invasion is that of the Mycenaeans,
who in the middle of the second millennium BCE conquered and subdued—with
apparently minimal violence—the Goddess worshipping culture of the Minoans in Crete. It
the Indus Valley Civilization (which centered more along the Saraswati
than the Indus River) probably owes to natural catastrophe—such as
drought and/or the shifting or damming of rivers—and not Aryan
incursions. Nevertheless, the Aryans did migrate to India. As Mathew
Fitzsimons (1970), who rejects the invasion theory, assesses:
The advent of Aryans (circa 1500 B.C.) to India cannot

be questioned but one may wonder when they came and
how they came, all at once or in installments, and what
they did upon their arrival. To note the lack of evidence
for invasions is not to rule out later Aryan dominance in
India. (16)
While there is too little evidence to affirm that the pre-Aryan people
of Indus Valley Civilization were Dravidians (I will follow the tendency of
contemporary scholars to call them “Harappans”), the Indo-Europeans
who entered India were referred to—and even called themselves—Aryans
(meaning “noble ones”). Setting aside the stereotypes owing to the terms’
association with early British scholarship as well as Hitler’s so-called
favorite race, I believe reports that Aryan passions probably did include
hunting, drinking, gambling, brothels, and animal sacrifices. It also seems
likely that they are largely responsible for the indoctrination of India’s caste
system, and for the oral transmission of the Rig Veda, the first of four Vedas
for which the Vedic Age is named. However, the subtle yet thorough
integration of the pre-Aryan and Aryan cultures makes it difficult to affirm
distinct characterizations.
It is important to add that the notion of the Aryans being a white race
and the Dravidians being a black one is highly debatable, if not indefensible
(for certain, the Dravidians are not a genetically distinct “race” as
appears that the overthrow occurred following an earthquake and tidal wave that had
destabilized Minoan culture.
266 ~ Ashé Journal
nineteenth century scholars posited). On the other hand, the Rig Veda
does support warfare between two distinct peoples. It may be, as David
Frawley (1995) suggests, that the Vedic Age warfare refers to forces of light
and darkness, not to light or dark-skinned peoples. In either case, the
notion of conflict between two discrete cultures, whether they are engaged
in localized battles or are part of a good-versus-evil cosmic war, belongs to
the formation of the Vedic Age.
While the archaeological, linguistic, and literary notions of conquest
remain problematic, the proliferation of Indo-European cultures can be
traced, according to scholars such as Robert Graves (2000), Charlene
Spretnak (1984), and Ralph Metzner (1999) through the mythological
desecration of the Mother Goddess archetype.3 Typical myths of this sort
include a sky god—such as the Nordic Thor, Vedic Indra (the fierce
warrior god of the Aryans), Babylonian Marduk, and Greek Apollo—who
kills the serpent or dragon figure closely allied with the Great Goddess; or
the rape of a goddess figure such as Persephone by Hades and Europa by
Zeus (who had transformed himself into a bull, symbolizing the Minoan
fertility god, to seduce her). Goddess figures such as the Canaanite Astarte,
the Sumerian Lilith, and the Babylonian Ishtar are stripped of their power,
demonized, and/or deposed. Havah, which means “Mother of All Living,”
becomes Eve in the Torah/Bible, a mortal who, created from Adam’s rib, is
responsible for succumbing to the serpent and damning humans from the
sacred garden. While Mother Goddess consorts such as Pan, Shiva, and
Dionysus became prototypes of the horned Devil, the fact that there is no
Mother Goddess co-partner in Abrahamic traditions, wherein the Father in
3 The Mother Goddess tradition may not be as monolithic as a number of

archeomythologists such as Marija Gimbutas suggest; however, the expanse and diversity of
that tradition is indisputable. Gimbutas’ work (1982, 1994) describes in superlative detail
Mother Goddess rites, myths, and symbols. A. L. Basham (1959), Merlin Stone (1976), and
Monica Sjoo and Barbara Mor (1987) also provide abundant examples of Mother Goddess
worship. Erich Neumann’s The Great Mother (1991) not only offers psychological
interpretations of the archetype, but also contains an appendix of the remarkable collection
of Mother Goddess artifacts that were photographed at an Eranos conference.
heaven creates ex nihilo and sustains a patriarchal hierarchy, also testifies to

the rise of sky gods and subsequent disappearance of Goddess archetypes.
My point is: regardless of whether Northern, patriarchal, war-faring
cultures victimized matrilineal planting societies there exist inescapable
indications of a cultural overlay of rites, symbols, and myths that
correspond to distinct, culturally unique worships of sky gods and earth
gods and goddesses. More importantly, the marriage of those unique
myths, rites, and symbols provide meaningful insights into the past, present,
and potential relationship between humans, nature, and the divine.
THE VEDIC MEETING OF VISHNU AND RUDRA-SHIVA
While the Aryans may have brought the Rig Veda, which is 1028 hymns
that honor their gods, into the Indus Valley, the Sama Veda (a guide to
rituals that correspond to the Rig Veda), the Yajur Veda (a compilation of
prose that pertain mostly to sacrifice), and the Atharva Veda (a sort of
manual for spells and incantations) were composed in India. The Aryan
pantheon included gods such as the dragon-slaying Indra, who galloped
across the heavens in his horse-drawn chariot; Varuna, the universal
preserver of divine order; Agni, the god of fire; Soma the divine
hallucinogenic plant; Mithra, the god of storms; the god of sun and stars,
Mazda, who embodied truth and justice; and, of course, Vishnu. Vishnu is
mentioned 93 times in the Rig Veda, and often with reference to his
infamous three strides, which reflect his association with the sun’s trek
across the daily sky. Described in the Brahmanas (appendices to the
Vedas), Vishnu, incarnate as Vamana, challenges a demon king who holds
the world hostage. Disguised as a dwarf, Vishnu convinces the king to give
him as much territory as he can cover in three paces. After reclaiming his
true form, Vishnu takes the infamous “three strides” that cover the earth,
sky, and beyond, thereby reclaiming the planet for humans and echoing his
wholly beneficial role as a sustainer of human culture. Considered by many
268 ~ Ashé Journal
scholars as a solar deity early in his evolution, Vishnu personified order,

control, moderation, and benevolence—particularly to those who
propitiated him.
Aryans were the most apt to receive the blessings of Vishnu and the
other sky gods of the Vedas. Part of the reason may involve the caste system
apparently established by the Aryans. The caste system is based on varna, or
“color.” Though there is still debate, it seems plausible that varna referred
to colors associated solely with the characteristics of the various castes and
not skin color.4 Whether or not Dasyus meant “darkskins,” they were
apparently despised by the Aryans and were often classified as Sudras, the
serfs or commoners whose purpose was to serve the upper castes. They had
few rights or opportunity for financial or spiritual mobility. Dasyus often
became “untouchables” (chandalas) who—still part of Indian culture—
lived outside the communities they served and had to bear distinguishing
marks and clap wood to signal their approach, which was allowed only to
perform duties such as scavenging, sanitation, executions, and cremating
dead bodies.
The highest varnas—the Brahmins (priests), Kshatriyas (warriors),
and Vaisya (merchants)—were, at the outset of the bi-cultural integration,
composed mostly of Aryans. Those castes, because of their initiation into
the Vedic “sacred thread,” were often consecrated as dvijas or “twice born.”
The Brahmins, who were always “twice born,” maintained their authority
via the sky gods for whom they spoke, interpreted hymns and incantations,
and offered rites of propitiation. Vishnu was clearly such a Brahmin god,
from his ability to destroy evil and save humans to his avatar Krishna, who,
in the Bhagavad Gita, offers freedom from rebirth to all who are righteous,
but, as author of the caste system, correlates “caste-mixture” with “universal
destruction” (1972, 47-51).
4 For a discussion of the meaning of the various colors as they relate to specific castes, see
Manian (1998, 26-27).
In the localities that the Aryans did not inhabit, tribal chiefs and
village shamans were often initiated as Kshatriyas and Brahmins to
accommodate the surge of Aryan culture. Vedic Sanskrit—a cognate
language of the Aryans—became the major language in Northwest India or
Aryavarta (“the land of the Aryans”), which remains culturally and
politically different from the Tamil peninsula, or the Southeastern plain.
Still called Dravidian India, much of the peninsula, while embracing its
Vedic cultural legacy, has retained its native tongues—such as Tamil,
Telegu, and Kannada. Separated by the dry and hilly Deccan plateau, the
Aryan and the pre-Aryan cultures have provoked and expanded each other
and helped create the tolerance and flexibility to accept and assimilate
diversity, whether social, religious, or linguistic (there are over 7,000
dialects in India). That flexibility has helped Hindu thought endure the
spread of Buddhism, Muslim rule, and English colonization.
Much of the established Vedic law and social stratification carries
patriarchal inferences (an injunction of the Brahmanas states that the
populace should treat men well, while Code of Manu—though written
much later—is clearly man-centered). Even Hinduism’s most profound
spiritual treatise, the Bhagavad Gita (which is part of the world’s longest
poem, the Mahabharta), is based on Arjuna’s dharma as a Kshatriya to fight
against friends and relatives in a battle that stems from a lost gambling bet.
Although it became a philosophical doctrine of right action based on ego-
transcendent behavior, dharma in practice still has caste-related overtones.
Karma—the law that one reaps what one sows and thereby dictates one’s
station in the next life—does not apply to Sudras, let alone untouchables.
Whether or not the Aryans subjugated the pre-Aryan Mother
Goddess and her vestiges, well before the Gita, the Trimurti or holy
Trinity—Brahma (the masculine manifestation of the gender-neutral
Brahman), Vishnu, and Shiva—was portrayed as male; though Shiva is
often depicted with feminine traits. Moreover, samsara (the cycle of
rebirth), Lila (Brahman’s divine play), and Maya (the force of worldly
270 ~ Ashé Journal
illusion) not only serve as obstacles to samadhi (enlightened consciousness)

and moksha (union with Brahman), they are often regarded as feminine.
Similarly, the powers of Prakriti (the primeval feminine matter governed by
Maya), the Apsarases (the mystical female seductresses), and the Terrible
Goddess Kali are to be avoided or supplicated.
Despite the apparent patriarchal nature of the Aryan gods, much of
the Vedic religion appears to have been largely absorbed in the pre-Aryan
worldview. The pantheistic, feminine impulse was and still is glorified, due
in part to the prominence accorded Shiva and his female counterparts. The
earliest form of Shiva, the horned deity, belonged to the Harappans, who
apparently worshipped him as a Mother Goddess’ fertility consort. Shiva’s
evolution is reflected in his early epithet, Pasupati, the Lord of the animals,
and his later one, Nagaraja, the eternal dancer on whom creation,
destruction, and transformation depend. Besides worshipping a Mother
Goddess, it appears that the original inhabitants of the Indus Valley
Civilization had no fortifications, that their stone and metals were used
mostly for agriculture and ornamentation, that they had domesticated
plants and animals, and that they had developed systems of irrigation, city
planning, and granaries for food distribution. Their script remains a
mystery, but their fecundity remains indisputable: the Indus Valley
Civilization comprised over 70 cities, some of which apparently had 30,000
to 40,000 inhabitants.
The primal Shivan impulse was reflected in shishna (phallus) worship
and erotic dancing, two clear signs of his connection to Harappan culture.
The pre-Aryan Shiva appears on seals and as small sculptures in the form of
a horned, ithyphallic god sitting in a yoga position and surrounded by
animals. Though the Brahmin philosophy emphasized Shiva’s ascetic side
and the Tantric cult on his sexual side, the god appears—as Wendy
O’Flaherty notes—”far more often in his dual aspect than in either one or
the other” (1973, 6). Linga or shishna and yoni (vagina) worship have been
traced to Neolithic times by virtue of archaeological finds of phallic stones
and ring stones in Madras and Gujarat. The worship of the linga and yoni
links Shiva to the goddess Shakti, one of the heirs of the Mother Goddess
cult. Shakti’s fusion with Shiva ignites the tantric force that allows
followers to unite with Shiva through dance, meditation, and other forms
of ecstasy. Shaktism—which is associated with a number of cults such as
that of Amma, the pre-Aryan name for the Great Mother—permeates
Shiva’s mythology, as attested by the creation stories in which Shiva gives
Brahma creative female power. Shakti’s incarnations, Sati and Parvati, are
wives and conjugal partners of Shiva and, as subjects of yoni worship,
emphasize the joy and ecstatic experience of sexual oneness. The recurring
depiction of Shakti’s and Shiva’s passionate embrace in temple statues
reveals the Hindu recognition of the sacred dimensions of the sensual, an
appreciation supported by works such as the Kama Sutra.
Shiva was bound to the Terrible Goddess as well. The lord of dance
was known also as the “flesh eater” and recipient of blood sacrifices in
honor of both Durga and Kali, the goddesses of night for whom he carries
the often depicted severed head. One with Kali and Durga, Shiva
represents nature’s brutal force of death, destruction, and terror—as
reflected in the gruesome rites and practices of groups such as the Thugs.
Much of the goddesses’ brutality may be part of her assimilation into Vedic
mythology, yet, as Hindu scriptures and philosophers (such as the Shaivite
Shankara) have emphasized, it is the deadly, destructive potential that
makes rebirth or transformation possible (and why sex and death are so
important to Shivan mythology). Hence, Shiva’s relationship with Kali and
Durga is as necessary as his relationship with Shakti. The source of creative
and destructive forces as well as the source of inner energy which adept
Kundalini practitioners channel through the sacred chakras, the feminine-
Shivan relationship shares the cosmic dance that destroys the old to create
anew. Symbolized in the animal skin he wears, his horns, his matted locks,
the drum he carries, and his androgynous nature, Shiva’s ties to the Mother
272 ~ Ashé Journal
Goddess distinguish him as a god of fertility, dance, darkness, brutality,

birth and death, and, in general, the earth.
Shiva was assimilated—in a series of modifications—with the Aryan
prototype, the Vedic god Rudra (rud means “cry” and Rudra means
“howler,” and Shiva was known as “The Howler”). In the Rig Veda, Rudra
and Vishnu were connected to Agni, connections that typify both the
opposition and tension between Rudra and Vishnu. Rudra represents the
anger and brutality of Agni when the two are brought together, whereas the
powers of Vishnu and Agni are beneficial when invoked conjointly, usually
as a combined effort to conquer evil. In the later Vedas, Shiva begins to
usurp Rudra, first as an adjective to describe Rudra’s “terrible” nature and,
finally, as a replacement for the god altogether. Vishnu means “pervader,” a
term that appropriates his unreserved acceptance in the Hindu pantheon,
and much of his symbolism—such as his throne, the lotus, conch shell,
discus, and golden mace—were well established in the Vedic period and
represent the powers of salvation that he offers man throughout his and his
avatars’ reign. Although little was made of the bipolarity of Vishnu and
Shiva in the Vedic Age, the tension as well as the potential harmony
between the two was clearly established.
THE OYYMPIAN CONCESSION: APOLLO GREETS DIONYSUS
A preeminent god, Apollo either accompanied the Indo-Europeans into the

Aegean region in the second millennium BCE or was assimilated rapidly by
them after their arrival. The absorption theory warrants that Apollo’s
nature was not determined solely by one culture, but by a series of fusion of
the myths, rites, and practices of Indo-Europeans and native Aegean
cultures. How, when, or where Apollo usurped other gods remains unclear,
but the consequences of that fusion are apparent in the pervading goal of
the Olympian system: to assert control over animistic, earthly powers.
Apollo’s success was due to three major sources—namely, the Indo-
European conquest of indigenous cultures, the Homeric worldview, and his

absorption of other major savior gods.
If Homer recognized the tension between Dionysus and Apollo, he
stressed the triumph of only one side, the Olympian. Apollo’s role in The
Odyssey is minimal, but his arrows are recognized as bringing sudden and
painless death, and the day Odysseus kills the suitors falls on an Apollonian
festival. The Iliad assured Apollo’s prominence in early Greek culture.
Dionysus does not play a role in either epic; however, he is regarded
implicitly as the god of wine and explicitly as the accuser of Ariadne in The
Odyssey, and, in The Iliad, he is reported to have been chased into the sea by
Lycurgus. Which is to say, the epics of Homer helped subdue the final
vestige of the Mother goddess, Dionysus, who was omitted from the
Olympic pantheon for a century or more after Homer refused to place him
there.
Apollo’s brutal relationship to earth gods and goddesses is nowhere
more apparent than in his forced usurpation of the Mother Goddess figure,
Gaia (or Ge), at Delphi. Described first in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo and
later in Pausanias, Plutarch, and Pindar, Apollo’s slaying of Tityos (the
giant who attacked Leto on her way to Delphi), the female dragon
Delphyne (the root word meaning “womb”), and Delphi’s guardian dragon
Python (the son of Gaia) are common themes. While some stories claim
that it was his twin sister Artemis who slew Tityos and other versions that
the Python was subdued and not killed, the conquest proved complete.
Not only was her surviving vestige, Dionysus, a male, following Apollo’s
usurpation, the “white feet of women” were not allowed on the Delphic
altar. More importantly, the priestess Pythia had to undergo purification
before she fell into her ecstatic convulsions. Possessed by Apollo but
deprived the right of direct speech, the priestess sounded incoherent and
had to be interpreted by a male priest or priests who remained rationally
detached from the spirit world. In some myths, she was chained to a rock
and tortured. In this manner, Apollo imposed control on the divine
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mysteries, eradicated direct experience of ecstatic wisdom, and dispossessed

the powers of the Mother Goddess.
Apollo’s role as a polis god is also marked at Delphi, where he was
named “god of colonization,” given epithets such as “founder,” “ancestor,”
“father god,” and “guardian of boundaries,” and served as a physical “healer”
and spiritual “guide” and “savior” (see Lindsay, 1965, 44). From the eighth
to the fifth centuries BCE, his oracle established the Apollonian impulse as
masculine, rational, all knowing, and virtuous, helping him become the
ultimate single force that sustained the Olympian system. By expanding his
cult image, Delphi generated Apollo’s individual character and universal
appeal and inspired his classical image as god of music, poetry, medicine,
science, mathematics, and “moderation in all things.” Apollo was called the
patron god of Socrates (who the Delphic oracle recognized along with
Euripides as the wisest men in Greece) and the Father of Plato (who
claimed that all rites of purification should be done in accordance with
Apollo’s as practiced at Delphi).
Delphi introduced urban Apollonian values while maintaining, in a
secularized form, tribal connections to the spirit world—a process that
allowed the Olympian system to perpetuate itself as the State religion. Its
flexibility to assimilate and canalize the Mother Goddess and other
chthonic powers proved to be its source of vitality, and the prime example
of the harmony in discord relationship between Olympian and non-
Olympian powers was Apollo and Dionysus. The balance of the gods is
attested at Delphi by their sharing of the temple and its activities: Dionysus
presided over it bi-annually for three winter months and Apollo resumed
control the following spring (when Dionysus was ritually buried between
Apollo’s holy tripod and the Omphalos or sacred stone which was guarded
by the python); Apollonian paeans were addressed to Dionysus; and the
Apollonian oracle started with the Dionysian rite of sacrificing a goat. As
indicated by a fourth century BCE vase painting, which shows Apollo and
Dionysus shaking hands at the Delphic temple, Dionysus’ tie with Apollo
at Delphi assured him entrance into the Olympic pantheon.
An Aegaen earth god, Dionysus emerged as a bull, a goat, a snake, and
a satyr—all part of his role as the dark, ecstatic, and unpredictable force of
nature. His thyrsus (a scepter/magic wand), like the Phallophoria (festive
processions filled with phallic symbols), represented Dionysus’ fertility
powers. Vase paintings render both Dionysus and Semele as “earth born”
(Semele means “earth” in Phrygian), while his epithets “the frenzied” and
“the raving one” refer to the madness with which he possessed his followers.
As “the sufferer” and “the rich in joy” he spoke to society’s repressed and
offered them ecstasis—the ability “to stand outside” oneself. His feminine
qualities are marked by the epithets “the womanly” and “the hybrid,” and as
“the initiated” he vitalized the spread of the mysteries across Greece. His
role as “liberator” is reflected in his festivals from the Anthesteria (the
opening of wine casks in the spring to commemorate and participate with
ancestor spirits) to City Dionysia—when, purportedly, business stopped
and jails were opened for the celebrations that even slaves and women were
allowed to attend.
As a god of women and, in turn, the lower classes, Dionysus served the
spiritual needs of those repressed by the newly formed state. That
Dionysus’ original worshippers were women is indisputable. The earliest
known cult in Greece was practiced by the infamous wild women, the
Thyiades of Thrace and Phrygia, who performed the maenadic dance revel,
the oreibasia, which served as a communal means of fusing with Dionysus.
Every two years during the winter period attributed to the awakening and
reign of their god, the female devotees dressed in fawn skins, roamed
mountainsides, played ecstatic music, and danced themselves into altered
states of consciousness (wine, hallucinogenic ivy, and/or lack of sleep may
have aided the process). In their frenzy, they may have engaged in orgies,
sparagmos (the tearing apart of young, wild animal) and/or omophagia
(eating the animal raw)—rites in which Dionysus played the paradoxical
276 ~ Ashé Journal
role of leading the hunt and being the sacrifice. After bringing the women
to a state of delirium, he offered his incarnate flesh and blood in the
sacrificial animal, thereby entering the body, mind, and spirit of the ritual
participants. The wild women may have practiced human sacrifice, but
such sacrifices were more likely part of the myth and not of the cult. The
significance of the rites is obvious: by fusing with Dionysus, women were
empowered in a religiously meaningful sense. Free from the auspices of
patriarchal control, the rites offered a legitimate means for women to vent
their oppression in a way that conflicted with and transcended the
Olympian system. Dionysian worship is reflected in the god’s relationship
to wine, which, along with the group possessing song and dance, initiated
the hysteric spread of his cult through Greece. His presence in the wine
made the act of intoxicating oneself with it a means of summoning and
fusing with the god.
Although too little is known of Vishnu’s and Apollo’s prototypes to
discern a direct historical connection, Dionysus is clearly a descendent of
Shiva. The diffusion of the symbols associated with his cult (the bull and
snake, the horns and erect phallus, his yoga position) could be, as Alain
Danielou insists (1984), the result of cross-cultural contact. Their
devotees, the Indian bhaktas and the Greek bacchantes, share the same
rites, iconography, and epithets regarding their respective gods—such as
“The Raving One” and “The Terrible One.”
Orphism—the most equivocal phenomenon in Greek religious
history—also presents a unique connection between Shiva and Dionysus.
A derivative of the Neolithic Mother Goddess tradition, Orphism draws
from ancient mythological beings such Gaia, Chaos, Eros, and the cosmic
egg to describe the pantheistic nature of ultimate reality. Orphism (as does
Pythagoreanism) also shares many of the millennia-old Hindu tenets and
practices such as tantrism, karma, reincarnation, vegetarianism, and
compassion for all things. While the link between Orpheus and Shiva is
more philosophical than historical, Orpheus and Dionysus are drawn into
association by numerous ancient sources, such as Aeschylus, Plato,

Pausanius, the Eleusinian Mysteries, and the Orphic Hymns. The so-called
founder of many Dionysian initiatory rites and sects, Orpheus also shares
much with Apollo—such as his musicianship, piety, and respect for order,
control, and reason. As an Apollonian hero, Orpheus calls for personal
redemption and decrees an afterlife based on reward and punishment; but,
at the same time, he serves as a secret daimon of the divine mysteries. As
such, Orphism expresses the Greek attempt to marry the distinct myths,
rites, and values that characterize the Dionysian and Apollonian union in
early classical culture. Karl Kerenyi calls that union “the greatest miracle in
culture history” (1976, 331).
THE UPANISHADS, HINDUISM, AND BRAHMAN’S RIGHT AND

LEFT HANDS
While the Vedic and Olympic Ages introduced Shiva and Vishnu and
Dionysus and Apollo as all-powerful gods, the Upanishads and the birth of
Greek drama helped the gods eclipse their progenitors, Brahman and Zeus,
respectively. The Brahmanas, commentaries on the Vedas, are regarded as
the last texts of the Vedic Age, while Hindu philosophical thought began
with the writing of the Upanishads and coincided with Shiva’s and
Vishnu’s rise in popularity in North India, approximately 800 to 600 BCE .
The Brahmanas were aimed at educating priests in Vedic sacrificial rituals
and, like the Vedas, were supposedly written by the rishis, or the Aryans’
legendary “seers.” Appendices to the Brahmanas, the Upanishads (“sitting
near a teacher”) and the Aranyakas (“the forest books”) were compilations
of the teachings of mystics and monks of various sects, or India’s first gurus.
The Upanishads (of which 108 survive) revealed Brahman, Vishnu, and
Shiva in ways that transcended Brahmin dogma, which is one reason that
the Upanishads mark the emergence of Hinduism.
278 ~ Ashé Journal
The Upanishadic Brahman firmly established the Hindu pantheistic

worldview. The Mundaka Upanishad states that, “Heaven is his head, the
sun and moon his eyes, the four quarters his ears, the revealed scripture his
voice, the air his breath, the universe his heart. From his feet came the
earth. He is the innermost Self of all” (1957, 45). By calling that innermost
Self “Atman,” the Upanishads still laid claim to Vedic truths that regard
Brahman as the universal macrocosm, but added Atman as the microcosm
or inner Self that can be realized through various processes of
enlightenment—such as yoga, chanting the sacred syllable OM, and
meditation (the Taittiriya Upanishad claims that “Meditation is
Brahman”) (1957, 59). The duality of Brahman and Atman becomes a
unity upon enlightenment, as the Vagnavalkya Upanishad avers, “so man in
union with the Self, knows nothing that is without, nothing that is within .
. . .” (1957, 107). Or, as the Svetasvatara Upanishad testifies:
Of all religions thou art the source.

The light of thy knowledge shining,
There is nor day nor night,
Nor being nor non-being . . .
Neither male nor female art thou,
Nor neuter;
Whatsoever form thou assumest,
That thou art. (1957, 126)
That unity-in-duality was attributed also to Shiva and Vishnu. The

Kaivalya Upanishad asserts that one can see Shiva and Vishnu in Brahman
by meditating, through devotion, and by consulting a guru. Called the food
that sustains the universe, the goal of the soul’s journey, and the light at the
highest point of the universe, Vishnu “dwells in the hearts of all creatures”
as “the ruler” and as “the great Light, shining forever.” His counterpart,
Shiva, is infrequently regarded as Rudra in the Upanishads, then only to
proclaim Shiva’s assimilation of the Aryan god. The Svetasvatara

Upanishad describes “the all-pervading, all-present Shiva” interchangeably
with Rudra as the maker and destroyer of “all the worlds” (cited in Basham,
1959, 253).
By creating a cohesive, philosophical understanding of the Brahman-
Atman union and the Shiva-Vishnu bipolarity, the Upanishads transmuted
Brahmanism’s focus on rites, magic, and propitiatory paths to salvation into
paths toward self-actualization through various practices, including right
action—the precursor to the dharma of the Bhagavad Gita. By seeing
“beyond all dualities,” the “knower of Brahman”—as the Brihadaranyaka
Upanishad contends—is free of the ego’s cravings and enjoys harmony with
the universal Self. When that Self permeates all action, all desire and
distinctions recede, and nothing is as it once appeared—as the Vagnavalkya
Upanishad acclaims:
The father is no father, mother is no mother; worlds

disappear, gods disappear, scriptures disappear; the thief is
no more, the murderer is no more, castes are no more; no
more is there monk or hermit. The Self is then
untouched either by good or by evil, and the sorrows of
the heart are turned into joy. (1957, 107)
The Upanishads not only initiated Hindu thought, but they also
opened doors to religious reforms, to new religions (particularly
Buddhism), and to the so-called six schools of Hindu philosophy. Part of
the shift from mechanical, propitiatory paths of salvation toward self-
realization included cultivating the vital force (prana) that connects the
body and mind with nature and the universe. Proper breathing
(pranayama), for instance, is regarded as an art form that mirrors cosmic
principles: exhaling represents the force that pushes life into existence, and
inhaling destroys the past and secures the transformational power of the
280 ~ Ashé Journal
present. A significant means in all yogas, from kundalini to tantric dance,

proper breathing balances the body and mind with cosmic being and
consciousness.
Inspired by the Upanishads, by the emerging guru tradition, and by
the rise of Jainism, Buddha rejected Brahmin liturgy. Considered Vishnu’s
ninth and latest incarnation (who was, among other Hindu assertions, sent
to stop animal sacrifice), Buddha and his teachings profoundly impacted
Hinduism. The Upanishadic focus on Brahman-Atman, yoga, OM, and
the Shiva-Vishnu bipolarity along with Buddha’s emphasis on self
realization and dhamma (a caste-free version of dharma) helped stimulate
the rational framework for the development of Hinduism’s six orthodox
systems of philosophy—or “the six systems of salvation.” 5 It is during that
period when the irrational nature of Shiva was modified to the point of
appropriating him as the all-god worshipped in Hinduism, which helps
explain why aspects of Shaivism that developed centuries later have such a
scientific and philosophical emphasis as opposed to the ecstatic nature of
his cult.
While the Upanishads initiated Hindu philosophy, the Bhagavad Gita
inaugurated the cults of Vishnu and Shiva and the Age of Devotionalism.
Not only does Krishna—Vishnu’s eighth avatar—pronounce in the Gita
that “I am Vishnu” and “I am Shiva” (1972, 89), the Gita also decrees the
ultimate Hindu vision of Brahman: “If man sees Brahman in every action,
He will find Brahman” (1972, 53). The cult of Vasudeva, which was
inspired by the Upanishads as a devotional path to salvation, became
associated with Krishna in the Gita. Vasudeva’s cult appears to have existed
5 The six systems of the so-called intellectualizing period are grouped in pairs. The
Vedanta or “the end of the Vedas,” called “intellectual Hinduism,” is paired with
Mimamsa, perhaps the last school to adhere to the sacred and authoritative nature of
the Vedas. Nyaya (“analysis”), the school of logic and epistemology, complemented
Vaisesika, or the study of physics that promoted a sort of spiritual atomism. Sankhya
(the oldest school) taught a bipolarity of feminine matter (Prakriti) and masculine soul
(Purusha) and was aligned with Yoga, which taught various forms of psychic training
based foremost on Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras.
by the fifth century BCE and may have merged with Krishna’s cult by 200
BCE, when the name Vasudeva-Krishna was simplified to Krishna.
Vishnu’s most popular incarnation, Krishna appeared in the third age of
human history to bring divine love and free people from sin and suffering.
Though the devotional yoga, bhakti, is related to any number of gods, in
practice it blossomed with Krishna.
True to the spirit of Vishnu, all of his avatars issue in a “golden age”—
as is typified in Rama’s just conquest, one in which the priestly caste
overcame the warrior caste in a brutal and bloody battle. Kalki, the tenth
avatar who is yet to appear, prophetically represents Vishnu’s mission to
violently sweep away evil and place the holy and virtuous in control of
worldly affairs. Each incarnation helped Vishnu become a household god
capable of providing physical and spiritual sanctuary for his followers. The
worship of Shiva also proliferated in the early part of the devotional period.
Tree and snake worship are ancient Shivan traditions that helped cultivate
the bhakti dimensions of his legacy. His union with Shakti, the focal point
of the Tantras, also encouraged the popular devotion of Shiva and became a
focus of transcendental meditation. Proper worship of Shiva, the god of
healing herbs, ensured a long life of health and well-being, a conviction that
dominates contemporary Shaivism.
Vaishnavism and Shaivism grew out of the gods’ cults over a period of
six or seven centuries, becoming full-ended religions by the fifth century
CE. Since then, the two religions have vied for supremacy in an ebb-and-
tide manner. Although the gods have retained their essential
characteristics, their differences have been gradually declining and the
similarities rising, partly because of the Hindu propensity for assimilating
gods into gods. For instance, Shiva has become less threatening and more
benevolent. Some Shivan sects insist that devotees make vows of
nonviolence, chastity, poverty, and vegetarianism (a long-standing Hindu
practice). Later Shivan sects ascribe Vishnu-like avatars to Shiva. Also,
Vishnu’s relationship with Radha suggests aspects of Shiva’s and Shakti’s
282 ~ Ashé Journal
union, particularly in terms of tantric eroticism and as an allegory of the

union of a Father God with Mother Nature.
Inevitably, the conjoined forces of Shiva and Vishnu led to their pre-
eminence and Brahman’s waning significance. That prominence was
foreshadowed in the Puranic presentation of a unity of Vishnu and Shiva in
the god Hari hara, who, half Shiva and half Vishnu, represents the
coincidence of opposites characteristic of Indian thought. The ancient
Indian creation gods, Yami and Yama, also reveal the Hindu awareness of
nature’s opposing, yet harmonious impulses—an awareness that made
Vishnu and Shiva the right and left hands of Brahman. Much like China’s
first depictions of the Dao, Brahman was originally a cosmic egg that
represents the living universe and the unity of all being. After an
immensely long incubation, the egg split into heaven and earth, creating a
polarity that is distinguished eventually as the respective realms of Vishnu
and Shiva. In most Indian creation stories the primal entity—whether a
giant, lotus, or egg—becomes the universe. Perennial philosophy’s “That
Art Thou,” Brahman permeates the Vedas, Brahmanas, Upanishads,
Puranas, and the Bhagavad Gita. Shiva and Vishnu, however, assured the
evolution of Brahmanism into Hinduism and remain the primary gods of
Indian worship.
GREEK DRAMA AND “MORE POWERFUL BIRTHS”
What the philosophy of the Upanishads and the sense of devotion captured
in the Gita meant for Hindu culture, the rise of Delphi and the birth of
drama meant to Greek culture. While Delphi introduced and helped
institute Apollonian values while canalizing the Dionysian impulse, the
evolution of dramatic performances provided a release of the Dionysian
tendencies in ways that could be assimilated into the goals of the polis. The
roots of Greek drama began with the dance rites of the original “wild
women” of Dionysus, who found release from patriarchal control. Women
did not remain the sole worshippers. A lower-classes’ adaptation of the

oreibesia, the dithyramb—also a song and dance that honored Dionysus—
was performed by a chorus of men who, dressed in animal skins and masks,
represented the mythological goat men or satyrs who attended Dionysus.
The first dithyrambs were song and dance improvisations performed in
celebration of the god’s gifts of wine and fertility. The earliest reference to
the dithyramb comes from the seventh century BCE Ionian poet,
Archilochus, a missionary of the Dionysian cult and a Delphic “servant of
the Muses” who claimed that he could lead the dithyramb when he was
“thunderstruck with wine.” Also, the saying, “when you drink water, it isn’t
a dithyramb,” was apparently shared among seventh century practitioners
and/or spectators. By all accounts, the dithyramb originated as a peasant
festival that invoked laughter, lamentation, and rapture through drinking,
dancing, singing, and shouting.
Like the oreibasia, the original dithyramb involved vigorous dancing,
utilized instruments such as the aulos, hand drums, and rattles, and
centered on group fusion with the god. As women used the oreibasia as a
religious outlet, the lower classes used the dithyramb to criticize the social
injustices created by the rise of the polis. As in the divine mystery initiation
rites, the dithyramb consisted of things done, the dromena, and things said,
the legomena. The legomena served as a means of interpreting the meaning
or power of the dromena’s magical ritual acts. The hypokrites, or in Ionic,
the exarchon, was the actor or dithyrambic leader whom the chorus danced
around and with whom they verbally interacted. While the early
performances were vulgar, the interaction between the exarchon and chorus
became more sophisticated in theme and scope until the dithyramb
became, eventually, a full-ended drama. The distinguishing element of that
development involved a shift from the unconscious to the conscious use of
words. The screams and word chants of the bacchantes that were part of
the subconscious invocation made during the trance inducing ritual became
messages of conscious intent with the dithyramb.
284 ~ Ashé Journal
Between changes that Arion introduced in the seventh century BCE

and the 534 BCE performance of Thespis’ goat song (tragoedia), the
conscious use of words became an essential part of the drama. Arion
poeticized the dithyramb by presenting satyrs speaking in meter, which
fostered anti aristocratic purposes by turning the spontaneous,
unregimented dithyramb into a planned and practiced performance. That
development converted the ritual forms of the female revolt into a medium
of protest, which, in turn, led to the change over in the function of the
dithyramb from a religious to a secular one, from a female-oriented ritual to
a glorified drinking bout to an organized public dramatic festival.
Long before 534 BCE, when the state sanctioned the folk festival,
City Dionysia, the devotees convinced authorities that their allegiance to
the uncivilized god was not something to be taken lightly. By accepting and
honoring Dionysian ritual, the state tamed and re channeled the Dionysian
impulse and secularized the dithyramb. The culmination and the synthesis
of the political aims of the state with the religious and social aims of the
consolidated lower classes produced a powerful aesthetic expression of
society’s needs, spiritual as well as economic. As significant as the
development of drama was, it was only part of the manifestation of the
Zeitgeist that transformed Attic culture. In other words, while sixth
century BCE Greece gave birth to the democratic city state, it also created
an aesthetic means to express the newly formed, but deeply rooted spiritual
and political hopes and needs of the populace.
From the Homeric worldview to the secularization of the dithyramb,
the Greeks gradually recognized the Olympian chthonic tension would—
through conflict—necessitate the union of Dionysus and Apollo. The rise
of the Apollonian impulse as contemplative, rational, law and-order
oriented is attested to by almost all post Homeric depictions of Apollo.
The bow not only signified his function as the “hunter god,” “protector,”
and “averter of evil,” but also became a symbol of justice used to fight
barbarism. His lyre served as a constant reminder that the muses were his:
poets praised his intellect, sculptors made him an ideal of physical beauty,
and musicians shared his ordered, therapeutic power. By the middle of the
sixth century BCE, the highly popular Pythian games (held in honor of
Apollo at Delphi) epitomized his prominence in Greek athletics and the
arts. Known very early as the “speaker of truth,” Apollo taught
moderation—as is indicated by his decrees “know thyself” and “nothing in
excess”(maxims inscribe at his sanctuary in Delphi). Once a pastoral deity,
he evolved into a purifier, patron of male rites of passage, and, ultimately,
the god who replaced Zeus. Fittingly, Aeschylus and Pindar gave him the
epithets, “holy” and “pure” (see Otto, 1954, 63). In short, Dionysus and
Apollo reflect the tension between tribe and polis, nature and culture, and
instinct and reason.
That tension is marked in their respective forms of music. The
dithyramb and the aulos, both renowned in Greek history for their loud
and intoxicating effects, juxtapose the calming and healing effects
associated with Apollo’s more formal paean and soothing lyre. According
to Plutarch, Aeschylus called it “fitting” that the loud and euphoric
dithyramb should accompany Dionysus and that the structured paean and
the gentle muses should be used to worship Apollo (see Harrison, 1922,
440). Pindar exclaimed that the differences of the gods’ cultic hymns were
not only marked in rhythm and harmony, but “ethos” as well. Signifying
Dionysus’ assimilation into the Olympic pantheon, dithyrambs were
eventually addressed to Apollo and paeans to Dionysus; however, the
notion of conquest persists here too, as is evidenced by the myths in which
Apollo kills the flute playing Pan (from whom he forced the secret of
prophecy). Apollo also brings the Thyiades down from Mount Helicon to
Delphi, where he tames and leads them in ordered and decorous dances; he
beats the flute playing Marsyas in a musical contest and, hence, in the
position of determining punishment, has him flayed. Those victories
consecrate the Greek conquest of the region’s native music, as is suggested
by the resulting predominance of stringed instruments over wind
286 ~ Ashé Journal
instruments. Yet, even here, the notion of balance exists—for instance,

Apollo at Delphi encouraged the use of the aulos: Sakadas of Argos won
first prize at the first Pythian games for his flute solo honoring Apollo’s
victory over the Delphic dragon.
The Apollonian-Dionysian tension is relayed also by authors of
dithyrambs and tragedies. Pindar, a disciple of Apollo, emphasized formal
Olympian structure over ecstatic chthonic tendencies in developing and
ordering the dithryamb’s tragic elements. Pausanias tells of “the Chair of
Pindar” at Delphi where Pindar used to sit and sing his songs to Apollo (see
Lindsay, 1965, 323). However, Pindar also wrote dithyrambs to Dionysus.
Aeschylus—who transformed tragedy by adding a second actor, increasing
dialogue, and reducing the role of the chorus—promoted a more
sophisticated Zeus, Apollo, and Athena in an attempt to purify tribal
religion and customs and to elevate law to a rational, civilized form of
justice. His tragedies tended to support Olympian order and the rules of
the polis. The patriarchal nature of that law is exhibited in the play
Orestes, wherein Aeschylus has Apollo cast the deciding vote that
exonerated Orestes, who killed his mother. Yet, Aeschylus recognized the
necessity of the Dionysian spirit, as evidenced by the chthonic elements in
all of his plays. Aristophanes called Aeschylus “our Bacchic King” and
Pausanias reports that Dionysus came to Aeschylus in a dream and told him
to write tragedies (see Lindsay, 1965, 344). In a well-known fragment
attributed to Aeschylus, he claims that he dared (in an unknown drama) to
depict Apollo and Dionysus as equal, balanced gods.
The Delphic priest Plutarch may have been the first to explicate the
harmony in discord relationship between Apollo and Dionysus in terms of
principles.6 He described the sharing of the temple as a “matter of due
6 The tragedian Euripides may have been the first to demonize Dionysus. His play,
The Bacchae, described the terror associated with the Dionysian impulse, as Agave's
beheading and parading of her son’s head illustrate. By being completely out of touch
with their Dionysian side, Pentheus and his Mother became the god's unwitting
victims. As such, we are all victims of what Euripides would consider the unfortunate
proportion” of Apollonian “moderation” and Dionysian “craving” and

maintained that their balance is exhibited in Delphic worship, in their
respective celebrations, in the dithyramb and paean, and in sculpture—
where Apollo is “ever young and ageless” and Dionysus has “many forms
and shapes.” Plutarch concludes that all expressions of the two gods convey
polar principles: “In a word, they attribute to the one [Apollo] uniformity
and order and an earnest simplicity, but to the other [Dionysus] a certain
incongruousness owing to a blend made up of sportiveness and excess and
earnestness and madness” (cited in Harrison, 1922, 440).
The actualization of Dionysian and Apollonian impulses within the
ancient Greek mind allowed the two gods to not only outlive their
Olympian counterparts, but to display the genius of early Greek culture in
terms of a balanced expression of human worth. In the words of Friedrich
Nietzsche:
Through Apollo and Dionysus, the two art deities of the

Greeks, we come to recognize that in the Greek world
there existed a tremendous opposition, in origin and aims,
between . . . two different tendencies [that] run parallel to
each other, for the most part openly at variance; and they
continually incite each other to new and more powerful
births. (1967, 33)
The balance not only marks the merger of two cultural forms of art,
religion, and values, it inspired and inspires still the unfolding of the West’s
worldview.
beast within. It is that vision of Dionysus that Plato and other Greek philosophers
shared and attempted to expose and conquer (but that is another story).
288 ~ Ashé Journal
THE RELEVANCE OF THE GOD’S ALLIANCE
Shiva and Vishnu and Dionysus and Apollo share distinctive differences. It
is because of those differences that the earth and sky gods emulate the
balance necessary for healthy social and environmental relations. The earth
gods reflect the powers of darkness, instinct, emotion, creation and
destruction, mystery, the feminine, synthesis, intuition, and the
unconscious while the sky gods represent principles of light, civility,
intellect, order, constructiveness, sensibility, the masculine, discrimination,
reason, and the super-ego. Friedrich Nietzsche may have been the first to
recognize the overlay of the unique propensities of the Aegean earth
wisdom captured in Dionysus and the Greek humanism that accompanied
the rise of Apollo and the polis. When viewed as principles, Nietzsche
insisted, the gods delineate opposing wills and attitudes which define two
unique ways of looking at the world which “belong together.” Or, as the
rational principle of individuation and the emotional urge for fusion or
immersion of self in nature, Apollo and Dionysus “need each other.” The
same is true for Shiva and Vishnu, as Louis Renou observes: “Vishnu and
Shiva have developed by successive modification until they have been
sufficiently deprived of their personalized aspects so that, not without
reason, they have at times been called ‘social principles’” (1963, 20-21).
Nietzsche may have also been the first to distinguish an imbalance in
the West’s logos-dominated worldview based on the “demonization” of the
Dionysian impulse by Greek philosophy and Christian theology and its
categorical dismissal by science. As I have shown elsewhere (1994),
beginning with the Olympian myths and ending with the “value-free” myth
of science, Nietzsche describes and vociferously attacks ways in which
Western morality has eulogized reason, order, and control while banishing
the ecstatic Dionysian drive from acceptable human behavior. Although
his work is filled with pro-patriarchal, anti-Semitic, and anti-feminist
elements, his insistence that Western culture desperately needs to
incorporate Dionysian proclivities related to instinct, ecstasy, and nature
helps account for the contemporary revival and relevance of his work.
Dionysian-Shivan spirituality remains a link to ancient Earth wisdom
traditions that are, though forgotten, still part of the Western ethos. As
Alain Danielou submits, “A rediscovery of Shivaism-Dionysism would
allow an effective return to the source and the re-establishment of that
almost-broken link with a multi-millenarian knowledge of which we are the
unwitting and ungrateful heirs” (1984, 7-8).
Although part of Goddess worshipping cultures, Shiva and Dionysus
are male gods and lack a purely feminine impulse, a fact that must be taken
into account when assessing the nature of balance in each tradition.7 The
lack of a feminine impulse in Hindu culture is not meant to incriminate the
Aryans, but India’s Earth wisdom tradition is heavily pre-Aryan. Often
depicted as half male and half female, Shiva remains one of the strongholds
of the Mother Goddess impulse in Indian civilization. The Vedic alliance
of Shiva and Vishnu, though tenuous, helped ameliorate and unify the
worldviews of the distinct cultures, and led to a unity-in-diversity that is
uniquely Indian. The overlay of Aryan and Harappan cultures, on the
other hand, may have something to do—at least in part—with reasons that
practices such as sati, female genital mutilation, and female infanticide can
exist in land known as Mother India (Bharat-ma), where rivers, such as
Mother Ganges, are worshipped for their feminine, nurturing powers.
Western civilization’s lack of a divine feminine principle is
exacerbated by its eulogy of sky gods and vilification of earth gods. Not
7 Despite a certain lack of feminine archetypes, Hindu gods tend to be more

polymorphous and their myths, rites, and symbols are richer and more open to
balanced archetypes than the Greek. For instance, there are vastly more expressions of
feminine qualities in Hinduism, as is indicated by the unions of Shakti and Shiva and
Shiva and Kali, and the existence of pantheistic Mother Goddesses such as Prithvi.
Moreover, Shiva and Vishnu are fully united in Brahman, while the oft-antagonistic
Dionysus and Apollo are sons of Zeus, a penultimate patriarchal sky god.
Furthermore, Zeus fathered Apollo with the Olympian Leto and Dionysus with
Semele, a mere mortal whom Dionysus resurrects from the underworld after she is
turned to ashes by seeing Zeus in his “full glory.” Although the Mother Earth
Goddess, Gaia, is highly regarded in pre-Homeric Greece, she is usurped by the
Olympians.
290 ~ Ashé Journal
only is the relationship between Dionysus and Apollo more tenuous than
their Hindu counterparts, but the West has also glorified the Apollonian
and demonized the Dionysian. As forces such as logos, Apollo, and the
divinely ordained human spirit evoked the light as right and separate from
the “dark side,” it followed that the Mother Goddess, Eros, Dionysus, and
all other “primitive,” animistic notions necessarily embody evil and attempt
to defile the souls of humans. The moral distinctions between spirit and
matter, God and the Devil, and control and ecstasy are part of the West’s
heritage, which is why the affirmation of and reverence for Shivan-
Dionysian powers has been traditionally lacking, and why there exists such
a need for an integration of the spiritual dimensions of the body, the earth,
and the feminine.
To find the feminine in the earth gods Shiva and Dionysus and to
reconstitute their true value, one must not only look to the original
traditions in which the gods served as consorts of a Mother Goddess figure,
but also refine the principles in accordance with contemporary culture.
That, I believe, is precisely what is happening today. The renewed interest
in Asian religions, Native American Earth wisdom, Wicca and other
Goddess traditions, like the mainstreaming of yoga, feminism and
environmentalism and the advent of holistic health and green politics, all
bespeak an attempt to integrate a distinctly sacred feminine impulse into a
dominantly masculine tradition. That integration could help procure a
place for Earth wisdom in a contemporary worldview.
Works Cited
Basham, A. L. 1959. The Wonder that Was India. New York: Grove Press.
Bhagavad Gita. 1972. Trs. S. Prabhavananda and C. Isherwood. New York:
Mentor.
Campbell, Joseph. 1976. Masks of God: Primitive Mythology. New York:
Penguin.
Danielou, Alain. 1984. Shiva and Dionysus. Tr. K.F. Hurry. New York:
Inner Traditions International.
Dunbar, Dirk. 1994. The Balance of Nature’s Polarities in New-Paradigm
Theory. New York: Peter Lang.
Fitzsimons, Matthew. 1970. “The Indus Valley Civilzation.” The History
Teacher, Vol. 4. No. 1 (Nov.), 9-22.
Eisler, Riane. 1988. The Chalice and the Blade. San Francisco: Harper &
Row.
Frawley, David. 1995. The Myth of the Aryan Invasion of India. New Delhi:
Voice of India.
Gimbutas, Marija. 1982. The Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe. Los
Angeles: University of California.
-----. 1994. The Civilization of the Goddess. New York: HarperCollins.
Graves, Robert. 2000. The White Goddess. New York: Farrer, Straus, and
Giroux.
Harrison, J. E. 1922. Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion.
Cambridge: The University Press.
Jung, C. G. Speaking: Interviews and Encounters. 1977. Eds. W. Mcguire
and R. F. C. Hull. Princeton: Princeton University.
Kerenyi, C. 1976. Dionysos. Princeton: Princeton University.
Lindsay, Jack. 1965. The Clashing Rocks: A Study of Early Greek Religion
and Culture and the Origins of Drama. London: Chapman and Hall.
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Manian, Padma. 1998. “Harappans and Aryans: Old and New Perspectives
of Ancient Indian History.” The History Teacher, Vol. 32, No. 1.
(Nov.), 17-32.
Metzner, Ralph. 1999. “Sky Gods and Earth Deities.” In Green Psychology.
Rochester, Vermont: Park Street, 114-131.
Neumann, Erich. 1991. The Great Mother. Princeton: Bollingen.
Nietzsche, F. 1967. The Birth of Tragedy. Tr. W. Kaufmann. New York:
Vintage.
O’Flaherty, Wendy. 1973. Asceticism and Eroticism in the Mythology of
Shiva. London: Oxford University.
Otto, Walter. 1954. The Homeric Gods. Tr. Moses Hadas. New York:
Pantheon.
Renou, L. 1971. Hinduism. New York: Pocket Books.
Sjo, Monica and Barbar Mor. 1987. The Great Cosmic Mother. San
Fransisco: Harper & Row.
Spretnak, Charlene. 1984. Lost Goddesses of Early Greece. Boston: Beacon.
Stone, Merlin. 1976. When God Was a Woman. New York: Barnes and
Noble.
Upanishads. 1957. Tr. S. Prabhavananda and F. Manchester. New York:
Mentor.
Dirk Dunbar is the director of the AA to BA Interdisciplinary Humanities

program at Okaloosa-Walton College and the University of West Florida,
where he teaches courses in Philosophy, Religion, and Environmental
Humanities. His book, The Balance of Nature's Polarities in New-Paradigm
Theory, and recent essays survey the tradition of modern and contemporary
ecocentric thought in terms of art, religion, philosophy, and psychology.
All Things Are Like This
Master Dogen Zenji, 1200-1253
When you sail on a ship

Deep into the middle of the ocean,
Looking around, all the water that you see
Appears to be circular.
But the ocean is neither round nor square;

Its real form is infinite in variety.
It only appears circular
As far as you can see.
All things are like this:

Though there are many features
In our great world,
You see and understand only as far
As your eyes or your practice can take you.
In order to learn the true nature of things,

Remember that they may only appear
To be round or square,
But their true features
Are infinite in variety.

294 ~ Ashé Journal
Whole worlds are there.

It is so all around you,
Directly beneath your feet,
Above you,
And even in a single droop of water.
Commentary on the Tibetan Book of the Dead
Brendan Connell
The third century Indian

philosopher Nagarjuna said
that if a person were to heap
together the bones from the
bodies of all their previous
rebirths, the pile would be
higher than Mt. Everest—
and that, in the future, if one
does not exert oneself on the
path, they will have to
discard even more skeletons
than that!
This fixation on death
is not something unique to
Buddhism. Indeed, all
cultures probe the subject,
whether it be through
folklore or literature. Plato
Mass grave of Khmer Rouge victims in Choeung
has his Phaedo, Dante his Ek, the Killing Fields, near Phnom Penh,
Inferno. Homer and Virgil Cambodia. (Photo: Vladimir Pomortsev)
both describe trips to the

296 ~ Ashé Journal
netherworld. The Hindu Katha Upanishad describes a boy’s encounter

with Yama, the god of death, and what he learned from him.
In Buddhism, the most famous piece of death literature is certainly
The Tibetan Book of the Dead or Bardo Thödröl. Most people with any
interest in Eastern mysticism have heard of it, but not all have read it. Few
of us, involved as we are in the rush of life, care to look to such a morbid
source for reading material. Generally it is a book that one reads upon
experiencing the loss of a loved one, or during a period of fear about ones
own mortality. At that time we pick the book up with grave curiosity. We
want to know what exactly does happen when we die.
It would be difficult to read the book and not be in some measure
effected. Essentially, it is a road map or guide for our inevitable voyage
through the Bardos, or intermediate stages between death and rebirth,
meant to be read to the dying person by his or her guru, who begins the
ceremony by saying, “The factors which made up the person so and so are
about to disperse!”
The first part of the death experience, when the respiration and the
pulse stop, is described as one of great clarity, and agrees very well with
present day accounts of “near death” experience. It is said to be blissful and
like an empty, cloudless sky.
The text states that this state soon degenerates, and spirals into a
series of increasingly ghastly situations. The descriptions we read of these
conditions are often times chilling. They remind us of nightmares. The
images are vivid, and described with an almost scientific precision.
“Whenever you try to rest, monstrous forms rise up before you. Some
have animal heads on human bodies, others are gigantic birds with huge
wings and claws. Their howlings and their whips drive you on, and then a
hurricane carries you along with those demonic beings in hot pursuit.”
There is talk of smoke, lights of various shades, winds, channels and
multitudes of both peaceful and wrathful deities, Dharma protectors and
warrior deities, the latter decked in ornaments made from human bones,
beating skull drums, waving flags of human skins and burning seared flesh
incense. One deity is described as having three faces, six arms, and four legs,
with ‘fangs that gleam like new copper.’ His body is adorned with black
snakes and a freshly severed head garland. His consort offers him sips of
blood from her skull bowl. The text goes on to describe ghouls of ever
increasing morbid ferocity, and all the while admonishes us not to panic or
be afraid of these visions as they are self created and do not actually
objectively exist.
“Your form is voidness itself,” the text says, “so you have nothing to
fear. The death deities are your own hallucinations and themselves are
forms of the void . . . Voidness cannot harm voidness.”
Yet the whole thing is alarming. It can also all be rather confusing,
especially when we consider how it pertains to our own selves. It reminds
us, through every phrase we read, that we ourselves are going to die. It
makes us think about this undeniable fact, a fact that is extremely hard to
face, yet certainly beneficial. Sogyal Rinpoche says that by reflecting on
death, realising you could die at any moment, life becomes very precious.
One important aspect of the text is the movement from death to
rebirth. To be able to make a conscious choice in your rebirth is in fact a
goal for much of tantric Buddhism. A person’s fate depends on their karma,
and if one is not in control of the situation, it is said that one could be
reborn in any state, even in that of a hungry ghost or an animal, a dog, pig
or even a worm! The Tibetan Book of the Dead describes how Yama, the god
of death, holds up before his victim the shining mirror of karma, in which
all the person’s deeds are reflected. It then goes on to say that it is you
yourself who pronounce your own judgement, which in turn determines
your own rebirth. So really, the book is as much about birth, or rebirth, as it
is about death.
Its message is both frightening and uplifting. It essentially says that we
reap what we sow. The problem is of course, that very few of us are totally
confident that we have planted nothing but virtuous seeds, and no one
298 ~ Ashé Journal
wants the result to be rebirth as a hungry ghost! However, according to

Buddhism, through certain practices, one can be assured of a good rebirth.
These practices revolve around the replication of the death process in the
body. If you are familiar with the process, if you are used to it, then when
the time comes for actual death you will have no problem in doing it well.
According to Sogyal Rinpoche, death is not something to be feared as
a tragedy, but instead is an opportunity for transformation.
In Buddhism, there are many meditations surrounding death – from
tantric practices of incredible complexity, to relatively simple meditations,
such as visiting a cemetery or burial ground and contemplating on the
certainty of death and that, due to the instability of life, it might strike at
any time. The yogis of old India carried trumpets made of human thigh
bones and cups made of human skulls for this very purpose – to always keep
the thought of death before them. Gampopa, the disciple of the great yogi
Milarepa, said that by reflecting on death and the impermanence of life, we
are incited to live spiritually. Geshe Kelsang Gyatso says that by
contemplating our own death we will be inspired to use our life wisely by
developing an inner refuge of spiritual realisations.
One of the most interesting death yoga practices is the yoga of
transference of consciousness, or pho wa, of which a mention is made at the
beginning of The Tibetan Book of the Dead.
Pho wa is one of the six yogas of Naropa, an Indian master of the tenth
century. It is a method for circumventing the bardos and entails shooting
the consciousness through the top of the head, and forwarding it to a Pure
Land, or higher rebirth. There are two types of the yoga: one in which the
practitioner, upon seeing the signs of approaching death, transfers his or her
own consciousness to a Pure Land or higher rebirth and another wherein a
lama performs pho wa on a dying person and transfers that person’s
consciousness to a Pure Land or higher rebirth.
Most tantric practices are quite complicated and require initiations,
intense discipline and training, and are therefore out of the immediate
reach of most of us. Even so, we can all practice the relatively simple yoga of
meditating on the impermanence of life.
In the Lam Rim tradition of Tsong Khapa, there is a yoga called The
Nine Point Meditation on Death, which is relatively simple and excellent
for anyone to practice. The points to meditate on are A) Death is definite:
1) everyone must die, 2) the span of our lives is constantly diminishing, 3)
the amount of time we can devote to spiritual practice is very small. B) The
time of death is uncertain: 4) the life-expectancy of a human being is
uncertain, 5) there are numerous causes of death, 6) the human body is
extremely fragile. C) Only spiritual insight can help us at the time of death:
7) our possessions and wealth cannot help us, 8) our family and friends
cannot help us, 9) our bodies cannot help us.
Pabongka Rinpoche said that we should conduct ourselves like visitors
who are about to return to their homeland. Such individuals avoid any of
the activities that persons who are planning an extended stay might
undertake.
The Tibetan Book of the Dead is attributed to the great eighth century
yogi Padmasambhava, who is said to have been miraculously born from a
lotus that sprung up from Lake Danakosha, in Afghanistan. According to
tradition, he hid the book on a mountain in Tibet where it was discovered
some five hundred years later by the famous mystic Karma Lingpa. It is a
book written specifically for practitioners of the Nyingma branch of
Buddhism. It was not meant for casual reading, but to serve the specific
purpose of providing death instructions for followers of their sect.
Though the book was not written for the uninitiated, it doesn’t mean
that we cannot all gain something by reading it. True, it’s hard to make
sense of much of it; but it does give us insight into the dying process. It
shows us what we might expect when we die, and in that sense, the book is
invaluable. It does, after all, shed light on one of the truly great mysteries.
300 ~ Ashé Journal
Brendan Connell was born in Santa Fe, New Mexico, in 1970 and
currently lives in Ticino, Switzerland, where he teaches English and writes.
He has had fiction published in numerous magazines, literary journals and
anthologies, including The Journal of Experimental Fiction, McSweeney’s,
Adbusters, Leviathan 3 (The Ministry of Whimsy 2002), Album Zutique
(The Ministry of Whimsy 2003) and Strange Tales (Tartarus Press 2003).
His first novel, The Translation of Father Torturo, was published by Prime
Books in 2005; his novella Dr. Black and the Guerrillia was published by
Grafitisk Press the same year. He also translates.
A World Divided
Zen Master Gudo W. Nishijima, Japan, b. 1919
The inherent harmony and beauty of the natural world

Has been noted in the work of countless poets.
There must be few indeed who have not sensed that harmony
At some point of their lives.
When we take a walk in the forest,

The peace and quiet of Nature
Seem to communicate something to us.
Isn’t it interesting that nature,

That accumulation of meaningless matter and energy,
Should have such an effect on us?
Could it be that the division between

Man and Nature is an artificial one?
A convenient intellectual model

That somehow became accepted as fact?
Could it be that our common-sense view

302 ~ Ashé Journal
Is again only an interpretation?
In fact,
Our usual understanding of the world
Is rooted in duality.
There is the mind and body,

Thinking and feeling,
Spirit and matter,
Heaven and earth,
But why do we see the world in this way?
The answer is quite simple.

We see things the way we do
Because of the nature of seeing itself.
We cannot think about one thing,

Nor can the mind perceive one thing in isolation.
There must always be two.
“This” must always be seen or considered
In relation to “That.”
So the activity of the intellect
At its most basic level,
Is to find differences.
The mind divides, cuts, breaks down and rearranges.

We seek to understand things
By seeing them in contrast to other things.
We separate the world into parts
And oppose one part to another in our minds.
Buddhism challenges our belief in the common-sense view.

Buddhism claims that the common-sense view is just that:
A view point.
It may be useful and efficient,

But it is not always reliable,
And,
It is not reality itself.
People and Nature are different faces

Of the same One,
That One Thing is Reality,
It is the real situation of our lives,
We are the great universe itself.
The Savage Buddha: Notes on Gautama & the
Kāpālika-vrata
Sritantra
GAUTAMA’S EARLY PROTÉGÉS
From viewing a number of my online articles, certain readers have formed

the impression that I strongly identify with a remote class of Asiatic
asceticism. They furthermore presume my “tradition” (yes, hard to get
beyond this decadent term) to be essentially shamanic, but with a particular
penchant for seeking out secreted oases. Finding this not too far off the
mark, I should like to suffix some orienting surfaces.
First let me make something absolutely clear: I am not a shaman.
Second, since we have become so gripped by the “Buddha” thing, let us be a
little scientific for once. Anthropologically we are speaking here of the
bhikkhu sangha, or community of Bauddha ascetics, as a “living fossil.” But
a primitive stratum of yogic savagery was already current with the
parivrājaka and anāgārika trends of “abodeless ascetics,” and with the
śrāmana movement in particular. The bhikkhu or almsman is of a later
appearance. So we have to understand the bhikkhu or “beggar” in the light
of the śrāmana (ascetic wander). We must also keep in mind the historical
fact that in the earliest times Gautama ‘himself’ was not called the Buddha,
but the “shamana.” This confirms that Gautama was something like a
shaman.

Question: But how can anyone be so sure what was going on more than
two thousand years ago?
First of all, one needs to discern between history and legend. One then
needs to make some private, in-depth, ethnographic studies. However, in
the end it is up to everybody’s own interpretive and/or re-creative
imagination.
Q: How might one see it then?
In the first twenty years of Gautama’s mission he sent forth untold

numbers of disciples that had undergone training at his bleak encampment.
We visualize a broad assortment of outcast mendicant bowl beggars and
wearers of robes sewn together from the rags they had scavenged from fetid
cadavers1 left to be gobbled by carrion, rat and worm. This is even more
impressive in knowing that the carcasses were flung from society’s
nethermost rung. These were no mere untouchables, but unseeables! —
Indeed, those whom ‘proper’ caste-society deemed inherently abominable
and whose chief social function was the disposal of the most abhorrent
pollutant conceivable—namely, woman’s menstrual discharge. Not only
the touch, but the mere sight alone of these intrinsically despicable sub-
human pariahs was enough to defile a proper caste-Hindu. Hence were
these virtual miscreants-by-birth compelled to lead nocturnal existences,
and upon their demise they were literally “flung to the jackals” at designated
sites. These gruesome haunts proved veritable conservatoires for ascetic
endeavors currently in vogue.
1 It is worth here noting the archeological evidence contained in a commentary to the

Samyutta-nikya, the Sratthappaksin (Pali Text Society, 1932, trans. Woodward:
199.27-200.9 [XVI.11]) where Sakyamuni is depicted in a charnel ground picking up a vile
rag ‘teeming with growth’ (Pali, tumbamatta). Did Gautama have in mind a robe? See
Jonathan Silk, “A difficult Pali word,” Archives of Indology, 14 Feb 2001, online post.
306 ~ Ashé Journal
These were the places where Gautama’s earliest protégés flocked and
established their provisional yogic encampments. They begged through the
silent streets of dawn with bowls likely fashioned from human skulls. Some
wore matted hair Rastaman-style while others pulled their hair out strand
by strand. Some engaged in arcane rituals that involved the eating of human
flesh... They kept to the woods and undisturbed places conducive to ecstatic
technology. When rarely emerging from their no-man’s lands, these
wayward characters were sure to inspire revulsion and awe in the delicate
hearts of the civil population. For it was tacitly inferred that such a class of
men who dared to transgress all social restraints became privy to the
magical force of chaos.
THE ORIGINS OF THE KĀPĀLIKA RELIGION
We have talked about the “savage” nature of early Bauddha asceticism. The
picture becomes increasingly clear as we gather more data on the distinctive
mold of early generic Indian asceticism,2 which stems from the little known
Kāpālika religion.
Q: What exactly is the meaning of kāpālika?
Literally “skull-ist,” (“wearer of skulls”), kāpālika denotes an early and

primarily southern Indian medieval tantric cult regarded as an offshoot of
Śaiva Pāshupata. Their permissive attitude toward caste distinction and the
general iconoclastic and anti-social nature of their practices was an overall
attack on the divinely ordained Indian social order based on Varnāshrama-
dharma. They are pictured as sitting in a cemetery ground (śmaśāna)
wearing garlands made of human bones, their bodies smeared with human
corpse-ash. They eat their food from human skulls. No texts survive. As for
the Sanskrit root kapāla, again, it simply means “skull.” But the origin of
2 Especially as seen in its vrata or “ordered observance.”

the term is not entirely clear. According to Manfred Mayrhofer, opinions

differ between its derivation from Indo-European *kap- ‘take, grab, seize’
(vis-à-vis Latin capere, capula, etc.), its association with the Latin cognate
caput as well as Old English hafola ‘head.’ Otherwise it may be entirely of
non-Indo-European origin, perhaps more marked by Austro-Asian
influence.3 Nevertheless it is worth pointing out that in the modern North
India Bhojpuri language, kapāt denotes “head.” We may also consider the
feminine form “kapālikā,” which is a name for Kālī, “the skull wearing one,”
and the masculine “kapāli,” a name for Śiva. Interestingly, kapāla likely
shares the same root with German kaputt.
BRĀHMACIDE – THE KĀPĀLIKA OBSERVANCE
The Kāpālika religion is itself believed to have originated from a very

strange brāhmacidal penance prescribed in the ancient Dharmasūtras. 4
According to the English scholar Robert Mayer (1990), the Kāpālika
observance came to be adopted as the principal ascetic practice of the
earliest Tantric sect, the Lākulas. It subsequently came to pervade all tantric
Śaiva and Bauddha sects, and to varying degrees, nearly all forms of Asiatic
asceticism. It stems from the Ancient Indian Legal Code or Dharmasūtras
and the punishment it prescribes for a brāhman who commits
“brāhmacide,” that is, killing a fellow high-caste member. The specific
penance is called Kāpālika-vrata. It has remained a constant and
unchanging feature of Indian legal literature from around 600-400 BCE to
3 Manfred Mayrhofer, Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Altindoarischen, 1986.

4 See Alexis Sanderson (i) “Purity and Power Among the Brhmans of Kashmir,” 1990 in
The Category of the Person: Anthropology, Philosophy, History, ed., M. Carrithers, S. Collins
and S. Lukes (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press) 1986; and (ii) “Saivism and the Tantric
Traditions,” 1988 in The World’s Religions, ed., Steward Sutherland, Leslie Houlden, Peter
Clarke, Friedhelm Hardy (Routledge, Kegan, Paul) 1988.
308 ~ Ashé Journal
the present day.5 This outrageous penitential observance has always

comprised the following:
(i) Banishment to a cemetery.
(ii) Living only by alms, to be accepted from all castes.
(iii) Wearing only rudimentary clothing, often only a
lower garment made of animal skin.
(iv) The constant carrying of the skull of the brāhmin one
has killed.
(v) The use of this skull (kapāla) as one’s begging bowl.
(vi) The constant carrying with one of a khatvanga,
literally “the leg of a bed,” i.e., a staff or trident with a skull
attached at its top. (This implement has no other
recorded usage; it is a unique emblem of a convicted
brāhman brāhmacide).
(vii) The sustaining of this entire regime for twelve years.
(viii) The acceptance that one is highly ritually impure for
the duration of the observance, and therefore one remains
socially isolated and observes avoidance behavior in the
presence of brāhmans.
(ix) The dedication of oneself to intense moral reflection
and spiritual purification for the duration of the
observance (all quoted from Mayer).
MODERN REMNANTS
Q: How does this relate to contemporary monasticism, particularly

Bauddha monasticism? Does the Kāpālika religion or something like it
still exist today?
5 Robert Mayer 1990. “The Origins of the Esoteric Vajrayna,” a seminar paper for The
Buddhist Forum, London School of Oriental and African Studies, Centre of Religion and
Philosophy, October 17, 1900.
These questions are key. For the all-important fact that nearly everyone
ignores is that many of those early, far-wandered disciples of the Buddha
never returned to the Teacher at all.
Q: So where did they go, and with whom did they eventually mix?
It was during my search for answers to such questions that I came to regard
my own yogic quest as analogous to a sentiment stemming from strata that
predate the advent of the codified bhikkhu. We are talking about a savage
expression of asceticism that is essentially shamanic in structure.
Now as time went on the Kāpālika penance was adopted by both the
Śaiva and Bauddha orders as their central religious observance. But why this
happened I barely have a clue. For it is actually quite hard for me to fathom
the extreme morbidity of the early Indian ascetic customs. However, Mayer
has a very clear idea. For Mayer the strange Kāpālika observance expresses a
kind of ‘intensification of the Indian ascetic’s predilection to perform his
own funerary rites at the time of his initiation (dīkshā).’ In other words,
according to Mayer, it is the intention of the Indian tantric ascetic to
ritually perform his own murder. Allow me to quote the distinguished
author:
Living in that most polluting of all conceivable places, the

cemetery, constantly smearing his face and body with
those most polluting of all conceivable substances,
menstrual blood, semen, grease from a human cadaver and
the ashes of a burned corpse, he drank wine and ate meats
out of a bowl fashioned from a human skull, while
enjoying frequent rituals of social, commensal, religious
and above all sexual intercourse with untouchable women.
Far from attempting to purify himself of this
inconceivably vast weight of impurity by the three-fold
daily bath, instead he enjoyed a grisly parody of such
310 ~ Ashé Journal
purification by “bathing” himself in human corpse ash,

thus merely compounding the intensity of his pollution to
the best of his ability and in accordance with the precept
of his sect.
Now most would consider this pretty weird stuff. Indeed, this is freak
asceticism at its most extreme. We are fathoming the life of a serial
Brāhmicide, these very annotations inscribed on human parchment, corpse-
ash ground with blood for pigment, a sharpened bone for cryptic stylus. It’s
the charnel ground method, what do you expect.
Q: But what exactly is the writer’s point then? Does this have any
relevance in the Twenty-first century?
Well, perhaps it takes strange historical tid bits such as these to wake up all
you Bauddha-monk worshippers to a sensible perspective on the objects of
your worship. Or maybe the writer simply has an axe to grind. I’m in no
position to say. But to me such facts lend a priceless glimpse into the
character and life of the quasi-historical Buddha who, once again, during
his lengthy monk’s career was apparently not known as “The Buddha” at
all, but rather, the śrāmana, that is, something on the order of a “shaman.”
THE SAVAGE BUDDHA
Q: Are we making the Buddha out to be some sort of witch doctor?
We have to be prepared to
recognize “Buddha” primarily as a
literary device; as either a
shorthand allusion to the dressed
up protagonist of the Pali texts on
the one hand, or a code-word for
the “authors” of the scriptures
themselves on the other.
Obliquely conceding this tacit
qualification, along with the urge
to suspended disbelief, one then
becomes privy to a quasi-
historical data-source that avers
to the ‘fact’ that the ‘mythical’
Buddha took part in the ritual
disciplines known widely in India
as śavavāda. Śavavāda literally means “corpse-way.” The practice involved
certain extreme necrophilic beliefs that were common to ‘Hindu’ and
‘Bauddha’ Tantric cults. Its practitioners were notorious for their deep
involvement with scatological matters, death and the dead. It entailed
erotic attraction to corpses and eating the putrefied flesh of semi-cremated
and exhumed cadavers. The śavavāda discipline was also distinguished by
yogins’ repeated performance of their own symbolic funeral rites. The
cemetery thus became a fundamental iconographic motif that underpinned
the role of “initiatory fear.” This was typically symbolized by the terrible
appearance of Goddess Kālī.
312 ~ Ashé Journal
As “the black one,” Kālī, represents not only fear of death, but more
importantly the death of fear. For fear is that over which the yogin must
triumph in order to cut through the fraudulent mass of ego-consciousness.
Such death is followed by the birth of liberation. This is why Kālī is black
and naked. Icnographically her face is terrifying. She wears several wreaths
of skulls around her neck. Every detail is significant—the snake or nāga that
serves as her sacred thread, the thousands of amputated hands about her
hips, her bloodstained body, the two infant corpses in place of earrings. The
Goddess also treads upon a naked Śaivite ascetic. He seems to be a Nātha or
a Kānphatā yogin, as the huge wooden earrings inserted through the split
cartilage of his ears would indicate. He wears nothing but two nāgas, one
around his neck the other around his waist. His facial expression is that of
spiritual illumination. His third-eye is opened. In his right hand he holds a
small damaru or ritual hourglass-shaped Indian drum.6 The setting of these
rituals is a smoldering śmśāna or “charnel ground” It is littered with a
child’s severed head and other body parts upon which birds and jackals
feed.7 The scene thus illustrates the fundamental aspects of the śavavāda or
“corpse-way” sacrament, distinguished by extreme necrophillic beliefs and
by the repeated performance of the ascetic’s own symbolic funeral rites.
6 F.B.J. Kuiper treats domba [retroflex d] together with other words for drum in his Proto-
Munda Words in Sanskrit (1948: 84-87). See Domba, 87, under the heading (Rigvedic), and
dundubhi, ‘drum,’ 43. In regard to these listings, Witzel mentions “a comparison to many
other words for drum with similar shape: Skt. dunduma, DiNDima, tumbukin, ADambara
(Vedic), lambara, Dimbima, Pkt. heramba, Pali dudrabhi.... Finally,” writes Witzel, “Kuiper
connects [Munda] Santali DoDom DoDom ‘sound of drumming,’ and with a slightly
different -o-, DoDom DoDom ‘sound of Doms drumming when arriving in a village,’ with
the word Dom designating a ‘certain low Hindu caste...small agriculturists and...drummers’
= Hindi Dom(b), Skt. Domba, [and] Pkt. Dumba (who cook dogs!).” See Michael Witzel,
Re: .dombii as scavenger woman, Archives of Indology, 23 Apr 2000, online post. Bracketed
words mine. For more on the Doms see my “Digression-Loop: The Sacred Dombi” in my
Mystical Eroticism (revised 2002).
7 It may also be the case that “jackal” is the right or wrong translation for Hindi gdar, “wild
dog.” The Latin name for gdar is likely Canis aureus. There is great similarity between the
wild gdar and certain domesticated dogs, but the gdar does not look at all like what one
thinks of as a jackal. See Jaap Pranger, cooking dogs [was: .dombii as scavenger woman],
Archives of Indology, 26 Apr 2000, online post.
Q: But why have ascetics so long carried out these bizarre procedures
while living in the fiery environs of cremation grounds?
Performing yogic practices amidst the evanescent ambiance of death and in

constant contact with decomposing corpses was believed to instill a
heightened awareness of the utter meretriciousness of “ego” experience.
The symbolism of the cemetery (śmśāna) and the meditations performed
while sitting on corpses plays an important role in a number of Indian
ascetic schools. Writes Eliade (1954),
The cemetery represents the totality of psychomental life,

fed by consciousness of the ‘I’; the corpses symbolize the
various sensory and mental activities. Seated at the center
of his profane experience, the yogin ‘burns’ the activities
that feed them, just as corpses are burned in the cemetery.
By meditating in a śmśāna he more directly achieves the
combustion of egotistic experiences; at the same time, he
frees himself from fear, he evokes the terrible demons and
obtains mastery over them.8
This arcane symbolism played an important role in a number of other

Indian ascetic schools as well, and which gained popularity especially from
the 12th century. But exactly how, when and where these early morbid
practices began is not plainly known; most likely they emerge from a
remote pre-historic past. But this we know for sure: the Kāpālika Religion
acted as the model for many such later ascetic orders that emphasized the
teachings of yoga-tantra. These show close affinity with the Bauddha
8 Mircea Eliade 1958. Yoga: Immortality and Freedom, trans. W. Trask (London: Routledge
& Kegan Paul) 1958: 296. First published in French as Yoga: Essai sur l’origine de la mystique
Indienne in 1933.
314 ~ Ashé Journal
Vajrayāna, the tradition of the Eighty-Four Siddhas and the Indian

alchemists, too.
For many it is strange and understandably difficult to imagine that the
Bauddha ever involved itself with such eerie and anti-social goings on. To
waylay doubt, I would direct the patient reader’s attention to the Mahā-
Sīhanāda Sutta,9 a Pāli discourse that the Bauddha seems absolutely
horrified to quote. In this extraordinary document the Buddha is heard to
be almost boasting over having undergone more extreme austerities than
any of his yogin contemporaries. He then recites his comprehensive catalog
that includes, for one thing, sleeping on human bones in cremation
grounds. Here we find the fundamental śavavāda sacrament where the
Buddha symbolically performed his own funeral rites while living in a
cremation-ground. Also included in the Buddha’s list of extreme austerities
is crawling into cow pens to eat fresh cow dung, a typical custom of the
govrata, or “cow-vow” practice. Based on this scripture, then, we know that
the Buddha spent a certain amount of time living and eating like a cow. We
furthermore hear the Buddha making claims of having consumed his own
urine and fecal matter. In the words of Oxford Professor Richard F.
Gombrich, “the author of the text” appears to be saying, “Anything your
guru has done, ours has done better.”10 At any rate, this data needs some
time to sink in.
9 Majjhima-nikāya, 12. It has been brought to my attention that the title of the discourse is
actually associated with the culture of Śiva, Mahā-Sī = Mahā-Shiva. See Maha-sihanada
Sutta (“The Great Discourse on the Lion’s Roar”), trans. from the Pāli by Ñanamoli Thera
1993, ed. and revised by Bhikkhu Bodhi.
10 Richard F. Gombrich 1996. How Buddhism Began: The Conditioned Genesis
of the EarlyTeachings (London and Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Athlone) 1996:
78-9. See also Axel Michael's review in Numen, vol. 45 (1997): 222-23.
Sritantra is described in studied succinctness as an ascetic researcher, writer

and artist who left his native Los Angeles at the age of 22 and who has lived
nearly all of his adult life abroad in Asian and European countries. He is
furthermore depicted as having been inducted into the Bhikshu
Sampradāya in 1978 at the Mahabodhi Temple, Bodhgaya, India. It is
additionally declared that his spiritual father is nobody less than His
Holiness Śrī Satyānanta Sarasvatī Svāmin more commonly known as Saint
Guru Chod (1900-1988). Venerable Sritantra currently resides in
Singapore at his private Jasmine Hermitage & Centre for Research.
Portions of his writing are accessible at http://sritantra.co.uk/ and
http://www.blogger.com/profile/.
Freedom from Karma
Nissim Amon
Fate, according to eastern

philosophy, is not that which
is inevitable or must
eventually happen. Fate is the
accumulation of many sub-
conscious imprints on our
minds, the outcome of our
general tribal heritage, and of
the significant incidents in
our personal pasts. Fate is
everything that we are, as
manifested at this present
time. It is our burden, our
Vladimir Pomortsev
“karma,” our binding iron

chain. Only if we drop it, can
we truly set ourselves free.
The Buddhist doctrine
of karma says that we are like puppets, being constantly pulled by many
strings. However, unlike a real puppet, we think that we are responsible for
the movements, and we assume that it is our dance that we dance. Some of
us choose to rebel against one of the strings, like a puppet that has decided

there is a certain string it will not put up with anymore. Such “wars” are
usually waged against religion, education, work, marriage, or anything else
that we are bound to. In most cases, we tie ourselves to other strings that
pull us toward the opposite extreme.
Whether we accept our strings or resist them with other strings—
either way we are still bound. The Buddha did not speak about accepting
our karma or about fighting it. The Buddha spoke about freedom from
karma.
But this freedom is not so easily attained. You can renounce
everything and travel to the farthest corners of the globe, yet still carry
within you the bondage of your strings. To be free from your karma, first
you must be aware of it. Luckily, karma is not a theoretical thing at all, we
can actually see it with our own eyes. Take a close look at your parents and
the family you came from—they are your karma.
Being aware of this karma will help us start distinguishing some of the
strings that bind us. However, there are so many of them that it would be a
never ending task trying to untie them one by one. Some of them are so
delicate and hidden, that it is impossible to know if we are aware of them or
not. If we wish to remove them one by one, it would be extremely difficult
to know where to begin. The Zen approach to this tangle of strings is a
wholesale one, not retail. A Zen teacher will help you go deeper, to the very
root of this multitude of strings.
A man once asked the monk Seng-Chan:

“Please show me the way to inner freedom.”
The master replied:
“Who is tying you up?”
That which binds us to our karma is not its grip on us, but our grip on
it. It is our unconscious insistence on holding on to the strings that bind us.
The way to freedom is simply to release this grip, and thus let them all go at
318 ~ Ashé Journal
once. To be more precise, we are not holding all our karmic strings. We are
in fact holding only one—we follow our Minds. We believe them, obey
them, and moreover, identify ourselves with them.
To let go of this grip, we need to accumulate moments in which we are
free from thinking about ourselves, free from our memories, free from our
personalities. Moments in which past and future are at total rest, and only
pure presence remains. This is where meditation aims. When a critical
amount of such moments is accumulated, we can suddenly realize that we
are much more than our minds, and will eventually be able to master them.
If only we could release the grip on our Crow

And encourage it to fly away,
Not only would we have peace of mind,
But all the karma of our Crow
Would fly away with it.
Radios and Mantras
Nissim Amon
There are certain things that

are a waste of time to try to
understand—a vanilla-cream
cake, hugging a baby, the
blossoming of the cherry tree
in your backyard, and also
meditation. Sometimes
experience is everything, and
understanding is not even
necessary. For this reason, in
Japanese monasteries, they
will make you sit for two
weeks facing the wall, and
Vladimir Pomortsev
only then the teacher will

have a word with you.
After the first two
weeks, most newcomers still
do not exactly understand what meditation is all about, but one thing they
do understand—it is not an easy thing to sit quietly. The only instructions
you receive are to rest in the gap between the thoughts, but there seems to

320 ~ Ashé Journal
be an Inner Radio inside your head which continuously broadcasts, and the
space between the thoughts is very difficult to enter, much less rest in.
You sit motionless, but your mind cannot stop working: What is the
purpose of doing nothing? How can you get wiser by sitting in front of the
wall in a quiet room? Isn’t doing nothing a complete waste of time? What
can be gained by such an autistic pastime?
From its own standpoint, Reason is right. You could have used this
time more effectively—to water the plants, do the laundry, or read the
weekend magazine. If it was up to your Reason, the rich cream cake,
dancing madly at a party, or peacefully sitting by yourself—are all
unreasonable.
When you put aside both desire and thinking, some of the benefits of
“just sitting,” doing nothing, start to be revealed; and a gateway is opened,
leading to a pleasant feeling of happiness.
The Taoist symbol of Yin and Yang describes two complementary
opposites that balance each other into one circle. According to this
teaching, the two contrasts we need to balance are “Outside” and “Inside.”
“Outside” includes our home, work, family, friends, arrangements,
problems, pleasures, and everything that occupies us during the week.
“Outside” is the role that we have in the theater of life, the role which
repeats itself daily and thus gives us a feeling of stability. And yet, this is just
one role out of an infinite of others that we could also have taken on.
Meditation will take you “inside,” to the actor itself, regardless of the
role he or she is playing on the stage. It is a journey to strengthen your inner
core, a journey to touch something which is neither your head nor your
body. These two are only temporary costumes that you wear, and they are
part of the general setup of your environment. They are not who you really
are.
So you buy yourself a plane ticket, say goodbye to everyone, arrive in
Japan, and get accepted in a Zen monastery. For the first two weeks, you sit
in the meditation posture on a black cushion, and your head keeps showing
you scenes from the play you wish to leave behind. Meditation is an inner
exploration, but before you can have a pleasant time on the black cushion,
surfing freely above time and space, there is one great difficulty to face and
one great fear to overcome.
People fear that by going in, they might uncover memories that they
normally attempt to forget, dreams that they have given up on, and
anxieties they might usually prefer to overlook. It might be like opening
Pandora’s Box. This is a fear one should overcome.
The big difficulty is in trying to mute your Inner Radio’s voice. Every
one has his own Inner Radio, and usually it is fixed on a station which does
not broadcast many optimistic programs, and it is almost impossible to
switch the radio off. The Indian yogis have investigated this issue deeply,
and the conclusion they reached was that if you cannot switch the radio off,
you can at least change the station. According to the Yogi method, all you
need to do is to play a mantra disk on the inner recorder. The meaning of
the mantra is irrelevant; but by doing it repeatedly, eventually you will
achieve a more relaxed station.
The mantra technique is widely in use, both in Hinduism and in
Buddhism. Usually, it has a very open meaning and a very abstract message.
This way, it offers a gateway to places which are beyond words, sentences,
or daily thoughts. The modern “positive thinking” methods
(autosuggestion) are a development of the old Indian trick. The modern
idea is that the content of the disk you are playing in your mind can make a
difference. You can include clear messages that will support your self-
confidence and remind you of your recent important spiritual decisions.
322 ~ Ashé Journal
After realizing that the solitary listener of your radio station

Can actually change the station if he is fed up with the old one,
New possibilities open up with new channels—happier ones.
The next stage on your journey will be to “zoom out”,
Calmly looking from the outside at the whole play of your mind.
When this happens, you can choose to hear yourself think,
Or you can choose to hear reality itself,
Without the background sounds of thinking.
The greatest discovery is that the best mantra is “No Mantra”:
Just keep your mind quiet
And allow the two contrasts of “Inside” and “Out” to become one,
The same one who is reading and breathing right now.
Taos-Greece
Nissim Amon
Nissim Amon
Nissim Amon was born in 1963 in Jerusalem.

He was ordained in Korea by Zen-Master Soeng-Sahn at the Hwa-
Gey-Sa Monastery, with the designation of monk and Meditation Teacher.
Later he traveled to Japan, and studied extensively with G.W. Nishijima, a
Soto Zen-Master, who taught him how to catch the Dragon. After ten years
under the teaching of Nishijima Roshi, he received a Dharma Transmission
and got his Zen-Master title.
As a wandering monk, he was also trained in the Forest Monasteries of
Thailand and in Tibetan Monasteries in India and Nepal. In Puna, India,
he taught Zen Practices at the famous Osho Center, where he was exposed
to a revolutionary approach to heal emotional wounds, a tool that is used to
achieve inner balance. In Tel-Aviv he established ”The Faculty for High
Consciousness” at the “Medi-Cin” College, and taught there for six years.
Nissim Amon has since published three books and released a CD of
world meditation music.
He currently resides with his family on the island of Paros, Greece.
It is here in this peaceful place that Nissim, along with partners and
friends, have created Tao’s—a center for the study and practice of the Art
of Happiness.
For more information see: http://www.taos-greece.com
Ashé! Journal of Experimental Spirituality (2006) 5(3) 324

Portfolio
Ernest Williamson III
Ernest Williamson III is a self-taught painter and pianist, who has

published poetry and visual art in over fifty online and print journals. He
holds the B.A. and the M.A. in English/Creative Writing from the
University of Memphis. Currently, Ernest is a doctoral student at Seton
Hall University in the field of Higher Education and he a member of The
International High IQ Society based in New York City. Ernest is 29 years
old and he appreciates your criticisms of his work.

326 ~ Ashé Journal
Talented Man Overwhelmed

Dedicated Shepherd
328 ~ Ashé Journal
Priest In Abstract
The Giving of Genius

330 ~ Ashé Journal
World Peace Held

Astroplankton Break Dance
Sarah Knorr
Just because this never happened does not mean it is not true. I have lived
it thousands of times in my mind, force blooming it to reality. This iron
lung keeps me breathing but the journey keeps me alive. It is the truest
thing I know: truer than polio, truer than loneliness, truer than love. It is a
teeming drop of life plopped into a well slide, properly lighted and
longingly catalogued. It is a personal mythology of root, stem, bloom and
seed; a morphology of becoming. It is truth in full blossom.
I spent my youth preparing for it, rambling the back woods until I got
down, then reading and rereading the odd selection of books relegated to
the county’s lending library. Many of these were the gift of a retired
biologist, old college texts with micrographs of dinoflagellates, photos of
Africans with elephantiasis, and a favorite about Gregor Mendel’s plant
research.
You may think genetics would be of little use to a man encased in a
breathing machine, but you would be wrong indeed. I self-selected out of
the gene pool—yes I say “self-selected” because I went swimming despite
Mother’s grave warning. But I was nine then, what did I know of
pheromones, pair bonding, the unrelenting hunger for intimacy? What did
I know of biology’s imperative: procreate, procreate, procreate?
And now that I know these things, I’m in rather a narrow niche of the
singles market, more hardware than most women crave. A talking head, all

332 ~ Ashé Journal
my generative paraphernalia enrobed in this damned suit of armor. But

inside this head, with its flirty eyes, lies a knack for synthesis so intense!
When I see clouds ‘round the moon I read them like an old time
pigeon racer reads the rings in the eyes of his birds, mining portent where
others see halo and speck.
I cannot make the earth move, myself, but as though to make it up to
me, she whispers her secrets at night. This, then, is the distillation of the
earth’s very breath, told on the wing to her sessile, adoring scribe:
“Have you heard a radish singing after warm spring rain? Did you know
that moss dreams in color? That rocks are light at heart? The blinders your
kind wears – so literal, so linear! The mosquito’s hum is sweeter to a rock
than to an itching warm-blood!
“Seen through the eyes of a leaf, what color is the sky?
“Humans are so fond of classifying and categorizing, so proud of
believing you invented writing and history. But history is written every day
in dirt, in air and in eggshells thinned by DDT. Insect intaglio script under
log tells no less than your dusty tomes. Scout bees dance, ‘Lots of food forty
meters northwest of the hive.’ A dingo sprays his updates on the landscape
for his brethren to read.
“You are tiny expressions of a vast completeness, bit players in a cast of
billions, and the only one of them all so presumptuous of your own
superiority. Robbing yourselves of your place in the wild continuum,
you’ve traded your birthright away. Only a few still dance with creation;
you are the still-fertile seed.
“What you know in your bones began lifetimes ago, before bones,
before brains, before lungs. It has been accreting through the eons. Unless
you reclaim your vision, your access to the timeless will expire.
“Bipeds are a sprout at one tip of an unimaginably grand family tree, a
sprig of consciousness that could be snapped by a freeze or a bomb or a
virus, by war or pollution or greed. But the tree goes on; its roots are deep.
As long as a drawerful of roaches survives, nature has a fighting chance.
“Humans gasp at geysers and bioluminescent tides, but equivalent
amazements occur every second. The gentle vibration of earthworms rocks
you to sleep every night. You miss so much, but you do have wonder, and
therein lies your hope.
“And you, child, are one of my live wires. So choose: tell me what you
miss the most and it will be yours for the night.”
“Playing otter. Spinning myself dizzy. Laughing ’til I cannot breathe.”
“You shall have them all. Close your eyes and hit that mud slide
flying.”
And so I was granted release. Stillness is a blessing, but so is
extravagant physical freedom. I’m one of the few who has been given both.
After I wore out my childhood favorites, the surprises began.
Awakening inside an endless black opal, the sky flashing curtains of color;
the journeys of fire and of dust; a season as a gecko; a river soak with the
hippos.
When I tried to thank her, the earth said simply, “I want to keep
feeding your roots.”
I had forgotten the sacred smell of dirt from decades of living three
feet off the ground, and that ground almost always disinfected. It revived
me to awaken on the forest floor. The aromas of life and rot and
regeneration reminded me that I am a slowly unfurling seed. I gained faith
in the dirt I belonged to, which I had never left, just hovered above in
suspended animation. My fledgling roots burrowed in and anchored me to
my source.
“What do you think embers are for? And deep sea vents and
lightning? They are the ways I call out your dreams.”
She gave me a turn as the cambium in an ancestral chestnut tree, to
record its history ring by ring. Tree time is unhurried. It is an incremental
334 ~ Ashé Journal
respiration through drought, flood, heat and cold, faithful to one green
task.
“Stillness is the precursor to flight. Glory rests in the commonest
things. Every strand is integral to the whole. Sometimes the threads shine
through, as when a manta ray enfolds you in its pulsing wings. Listen! The
enchantment is worth the terror.”Now that my wings are clipped, I surge
with an oyster’s dream of flight. When I was a dust spore surfing the
updrafts, I clung to the goal of post-touchdown peace. In my orbit ’round
the sun I have changed from wriggling larva to sessile polyp, than bloomed
into pulsing argonaut. Freedom and stillness, bimorphic amazement: two
lives for the price of one ride!
“For all your foibles, there is something about you as hopeful and
brave as frog eggs. So vulnerable! So improbable to believe you will grow
into tadpoles and later sprout hopping legs. You are forever just beginning.
“Ancient seeds germinate after centuries in storage. DNA is a magical
beanstalk. You humans may yet reclaim your wildness and exult, like kelp
strands stretched by the current, like maple wings spinning through air.”
I next awake as a basil flower, tickled by the attentions of a foraging
bee. I give up my nectar and swoon in the breeze, adrift in the honeybee’s
song. Months from now, crunching his toast and honeycomb, my neighbor
will start at the wildness infusing his bones, transmuting his ballast to
wings.
In the way that wind carves stone and water carves stone and roots carve
stone I sculpt the course of time by simply outdancing the obdurate.
Stranded like a fossil cast in rock, I am a breathing geode, all my treasure
hidden inside. Here in my stainless cocoon, I sing like a flute in prevailing
winds. Within my alien pod, this glistening carapace my receiver-
transmitter, I listen to the music of the spheres.
What better protective coloration in a high-tech world than a
gleaming iron lung? In my dreams I am a feathery tubeworm waving my
fronds in the warm salt sea, fomenting beauty and rebellion from my
burrow. Waking, just another hermit crab, straining to drag my shell with
me everywhere I hope to go.
Even rooted in my tin can, there are wildernesses to explore. Most
plants never move far, but watch the world through wild, wide eyes. But for
one component or two, chlorophyll and hemoglobin are the same. Seen
through the eyes of a leaf, what color is the sky?
A childhood friend once did an electronics project that seemed to
transform music into a flashlight beam. When the light came on, the music
played across the room.
Without lifting a finger, we twirl about at a thousand miles each hour.
Not bad for a planet still becoming, and for all of us star struck motes of
being, turning in the light. Motes? Notes? We are musical dust:
simultaneously humble and celestial. And every day the sun comes up, the
music starts again. We are astroplankton, looking for a place to bloom.
If ever I have a child I shall name her “Cnidaria” for that phylum’s
primordial splendor. Unconstrained by bones, they invented multicellular
motion, Terpsichore’s art, and gave it to us all. They sting, but the pain’s a
small price for the joy of the dance.
Sarah Knorr works, dreams and votes for a place at the table for all. Her
stories and poems have appeared in Tough Times Companion, Streetlight,
Moondance and the [forthcoming] anthology Sisters Singing: Incantations,
Blessings, Chants, Prayers, Art and Sacred Stories by Women.
The Acoustic Hajj
David Keali’i
I tore down the walls of God

That surrounded me so that I could
Further seek the beloved…
This put me on a journey that
would bring me all over the world.
First, I came across a stone Buddha sitting amidst

A grove of cedars
And I thought that he might be the eternal Tao within.
Then, I remembered that, “The Tao that can be named
Is not the eternal Tao.”
So onward I went
The 8 Immortals my companions
Each one shimmering with razor sharp light.
At the mouth of the Ganges River we stopped
All 8 motioning for me to step into the
Running waters
In the waist deep currents I felt

The path to better births ahead of me

So it seemed that there was a way to realize

My ultimate self.
But, as I stepped away I realized

That this road only leads to more of samsara
I did not want that
So I left the 8 Immortals with Ganga Ma
And the offerings of marigolds that
Line the holy river.
I continued on my way criss-crossing oceans and islands

Until the journey ended.
In Istanbul, at a café in the shadow of what was once Haga Sophia,
The great Byzantine Cathedral,
I sat with Jel-al-uddin Rumi and Kahlil Gibran

Sipping mint tea sweetened by amber colored honey.
They spoke to me about love and the self
Which when entwined
Is as beautiful as Japanese calligraphy.
They whispered into my ear that Narcissus

Was not wrong know your self
by looking into yourself.
Use water, ink, or tea…
The window to the soul IS your eyes.

My only response was to grin and nod
As I looked deep into my cup of tea
My eyes
Pools of twilight.
338 ~ Ashé Journal
And I knew that the beloved

Had never been far off.
Camelopardalis
David Keali’i
For Rane
Wake me when we crackle the

indigo cathedral of midnight.
Remind me that there is more to
life than striding second by second
through existential hell.
Especially when I was spoken too via
luminescent guitar chords that broke
quantum physics into a melodic intrusion.
Is life only a song that defined high school?

Not when I grasped the elusive embrace,
not when the Sufi's whirl cut
the layers of five senses to reveal:
creation.
Jean-Paul Sartre was not one-hundred percent correct.

No, life must be more than angst dipping into
roller coasters of whipped insanity.
Tell me, how often will we fall into

one another till we finally see how
340 ~ Ashé Journal
valuable we are?
Do you believe that all of this is enough?
I hope that question is not too
Platonic.
Take your time answering,
and
wake me
when we crackle the indigo cathedral of midnight.
Invocation
David Keali’i
Night calls across the waters

gently breaking upon the shores.
Do you hear the pulsing
of the depths?
It is the marker for the dance
the beat by which we shall chant.
For now is when we make that

evening journey, the time of
the rising sun maybe far off, but
we are together
the movements of our hands tell the story.
The time of the gods whisper

in the breeze.
Our worlds draw closer as
the sand nearly sings from
the light of the moon.
Did we ever leave the waters?

When did our feet land on the ground?
The night still calls.
342 ~ Ashé Journal
Its voice is pleasant, not harsh,

calming like the stories told to children.
This is our time to again slip
into indigo seas.
We have made our hearts ready
open to one another, to the world,
to what lies beyond.
David Keali’i has been the host of a weekly poetry open-mic for about 4
years. He has been published in the November 3rd Club. He lives in
Springfield, Massachusetts. His book, Komohanaokala: Entering In of The
Sun, was published in June 2006.
Cultural Engineering With Eyes Wide Shut?
Playback/Feedback Magicks And The Archaeology Of
The Now
Tristram Burden
Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut is a

film about relationships and sex:
particularly the dogmas towards them
specific to gender and native culture.
But what Kubrick seems to weave,
from a magickal perspective, is a vast
healing spell, designed to untie the
cultural knots that bind culture and
society within recurring behaviour Darko Novakovic
patterns. What Wilhelm Reich

termed the emotional plague is still
rife within us, and the reflection and
representation of ourselves through
the media, though it can serve to fractionalise and de-specify meaning,
perpetuates the very behaviour patterns we’d be wise to change. Cinema
can serve both purposes: as a perpetrator of outmoded and destructive
cultural paradigms, as for example the transmitter of racial-sexual and
narrative stereotypes that betray a limited view of the potentials of our
species. Or as a perpetrator of positive shifts within cultural narratives,

344 ~ Ashé Journal
either by design, folly, or the manifestation at strategic points of a gestalt

human will.
There is the argument that the representation of old subcultral themes
reabsorbed and re-represented as a mainstream cultural artifact serve to
make bland what was once fresh and inviting: but the increase in the
production and dissemination of information, an accelerating new orgy of
producing, consuming, reproducing and consuming, heralds the death of
the banal. Everything is always new and perpetually recreated and reflected
through the lenses of mind and culture, the giant, all seeing, mirror of the
mind. The dependence upon television perhaps emblematic of
contemporary western culture was forewarned by Harlan Ellison and his
1960’s column, entitled “The Glass Teat.” While everything within the
refracted and reflected lens often looks new, its banality is seemingly
obvious to those not caught in a loop of false consciousness. Progressive
cultural paradigms can be implemented with stealth through the teat,
secreted as an antidote to the psychic toxins which likewise seep through.
Eyes Wide Shut is perhaps emblematic of cinema that is designed to change
something about the way we behave, or show us a way out.
The film’s narrative seems constructed around the central scene.
Included in the centre is a powerful piece of music formed around a
backwards Romanian prayer. The piece was constructed by Jocelyn Pook,
not specifically for the film, but Kubrick wanted it, perhaps aware of what
the original prayer was: a section from John 13:34,1 “God said unto his
disciples: ‘A New commandment I give to you, that you love one another;
even as I have loved you, that you also love one another’.” Another line in
the prayer, sung by the tenor priest, translates: “We still pray for the mercy,
the life, the peace, the health, the salvation, the scrutiny, neglection(sic) and
forgiveness of the sins of God’s servants, worshippers, almsgivers,
benefactors of this holy site.” 2
1 Four numbers which add up to eleven, the number of the Great Work.
2 Info garnered from http://www.eeggs.com/items/29092.html
Reversal is a classic magickal technique, utilised in the search for an

authentic Satanism, that can symbolise the undoing of influence, in this
case perhaps to unwind portions of the Judeao-Christian paradigm and its
still-strong grip upon our sexual behaviours. At the beginning of the
psuedo-masonic masked ball, when the music is played, it is a patriarch that
commands, with the ritual stamp of a staff, a circle of eleven woman to go
out from the circle and fuck whom they please. The individual female will
under the severe direction of masculine authority.
During the ensuing orgy, just before the central character is unmasked
as an imposter, men and men and woman and woman are seen in congress
in the only place in the film. Only when the masks are on, the eyes wide
open, do we behave sexually as we want to, masked so as to conceal our
identity, refusing to associate ourselves with these deep animal drives, but
allowing it just for this pocket of time under the explicit instruction of a
masculine power. Perhaps it is Kubrick’s intent to unwind these
behaviours, determined by socio-religious norms and values and reflected
and refracted through the media and culture. Because when the masks are
off, we shut our eyes from ourselves and our deepest animal nature and
from each other, in fear of what may emerge as our deepest will, to allow the
play acting of civilised society. This is the emotional plague that Wilhelm
Reich perceived; the pushing down and suppressing of our natures,
intrinsically linked to sexuality, preventing impulses from finding safe and
natural outlets.
Many of Kubrick’s films deal with the animal within us and it’s
manifestation in our past and future: In 2001: A Space Odyssey, the
narrative was a cosmic/mystical journey into the heart of human creation,
direction and evolution; A Clockwork Orange was a representation of our
drives towards violence and causing great pain, and a critique on the
cultural shift towards the acceptance of such behaviour as something banal
and integral to our cultural narratives. There’s no certainty that Human
nature is disposed towards violence and causing pain, except in the name of
346 ~ Ashé Journal
some ‘greater’ good, whether it be the individual ego’s survival, or the

cultural ego’s survival—a drive thinly veiled under the panic-button
ideologies of Patriotism and Nationalism. Another film of Kubrick’s,
directly related to the human disposition to keep out of harms way and not
cause pain onto others, is Full Metal Jacket. This film destroyed army
stereotypes, and presented a bunch of fearful, fucked-up males going
through an ordeal of primal terror triggered by an ultimately futile war, a
consequence itself of human fear and terror.
Eyes Wide Shut tackles the same subjects from a different view, the
consequence of fear and terror on our sexual and more general human
relationships. The film’s message is contained within a labyrinthine
narrative that leads into the centre, presents a ritual that the audience
participates in through the subliminal imbibation of backwards prayer, and
then leads out of the centre again back into mundane time and space. The
main character himself is taken down the rabbit-hole by smoking weed
with his wife. During the smoke, she presents him with a view on gender
contrary to his own assumptions through the confession of a surprise sexual
fantasy she once had, just when he thought their relationship was perfect.
This leads him on a quest to forge jealousy within her, as she has forged it
within him. After encountering a prostitute and sex-play between an
adolescent and two Japanese business men, he is taken to the masked ball,
after which he discovers that the adolescent’s father has come to an
arrangement with the business men, and that the prostitute he nearly
fucked is HIV positive. The narrative, mirrored in this fashion either sides
of the central masked orgy, is possibly a play on the mirror of culture,
reflecting and refracting different effects from different cultural paradigms,
ricochets from the wheel of karma3 and suffering. Though prostitution is
often hailed as the oldest profession in the world, therefore attempting to
give it some legitimacy and its rightful place in culture, perhaps it only exists
3 In the actual true sense of the word: cause, effect and the interdependence of phenomena.
Not the popular simplification of reward and punishment.
because sexual expression is so inhibited, preventing the sex we want but

can’t get without the right currency. Indeed the first words of the film are
from Bill, the main character, to Alice his wife: “Honey, have you seen my
wallet?” - a possible critique of the Western male’s obsession with power
and profit over awareness, compounded by his remark later in the scene:
“How do I look?” Asks Alice.
“Perfect.”
“Is my hair OK?”
“It’s great.”
“But you’re not even looking at it.”
Eyes wide shut in our relationships, sleepwalking through the most
primal congress, the meeting of polarities and its successful maintenance.
When we open our eyes, and fall down the rabbit-hole, we get a glimpse of
the mechanics behind our relationship’s, which Bill witnessed compressed
into symbolic ritual form at the masked ball.
The only way out is to break free of the loop, and one possible
solution to the problem is presented as the final word of the film, spoken by
Alice to Bill: Fuck. Sex unbound by ritual and words, sex beyond the clouds
of meaning and structure we inhibit it with, experienced as it really is –
genital to genital, arse to cock, cunt to mouth and heart to heart. Once we
worry less about what goes where, who does who and who’s on-top, the
unwinding of the ties that bind us will perhaps begin, enabling a more
precise expression of ourselves as we are.
Movies as a magickal platform seems under-discussed, if not ignored
altogether. Though directors like Kenneth Anger make a conscious
decision to take the audience through an actual magickal transformation
through his films, and magickal artists and practitioners are exploring the
transposition of ritual into film,4 cinema like Eyes Wide Shut is emblematic
4 See the Fotemicus project, well documented in Now That's What I Call Chaos Magick by
Gregg Humphries and Julian Vaine from Mandrake of Oxford Press. And Orryelle
348 ~ Ashé Journal
of a magickal process occurring through and into a mass-audience, using

tried and tested psychological techniques and perhaps engineering culture
towards a fruitful given end. The same could be said of The Matrix, and
perhaps even the two Star Wars trilogies. Whether Kubrick had intent
behind his magick we may never know, but with the emerging interface of
media and sorcery, with artists like Jodorowsky creating purposely magickal
films and the increasing experimentation with playback and feedback
magick,5 it hopefully won’t be long before the tools implicit in the ‘black
magic’ of advertising and mass-media are consciously utilised in the more
multi-colourful and powerful magick of the modern magus.
With Grandparents who were practicing Christian Scientists, a grandfather

who was a yoga enthusiast and who studied eastern mysticism, an uncle
who studied Theosophy, a father who was a Freemason and aspiring
Rosicrucian, a mother who was a member of esoteric Christian sect the
White Eagle Lodge and an Anthroposophist, from an early age Tristram
Burden was surrounded by Esotericism. A technical hitch during an Astral
Traveling experiment when he was sixteen introduced him to Kundalini,
and on his journey towards understanding the phenomenon he has had
close encounters with a wide range of beliefs and practices He is an
empowered Sekhem practitioner, an Adi-Nath and a member of the Horus-
Maat Lodge and the Order ov Chaos, and studied contemporary and
alternative religions at degree level. He has contributed material to a variety
of publications, amongst them Prediction Magazine, Silverstar, and Silk
Milk Magi-zain. He is also resident New Age correspondent at the on-line
nexus of culture and society, Suite101.
Defenestrate's film work at www.crossroads.wild.net.au is another powerful platform of

experimentation in this area.
5 See “Playback” by Cabell McLean in Ashe 3.1.
Reviews
Tibetan Magic and Mysticism, J.H Brennan

(Llewellyn, 2006, 218pp, $12.95)
I often find I have misgivings about authors who seem

to write on a never-ending succession of topics. J. H.
Brennan’s credits include forays into spying, Martians,
Atlantis, the I Ching, time travel, fantasy gaming and
other topics de rigueur for the paranormal eclectic.
Tibetan Magic and Mysticism expands on Brennan’s
earlier book Occult Tibet. Within a few pages, one
realizes that Brennan has more than a cursery knowledge of his subject.
Brennan provides an overview of Tibetan Buddhist mysticism and magical
techniques, delving deeper into the body’s energy systems, gurus, spirit
guides, prayer forms and dream yoga. The book also includes a glossary to
assist the reader with some the specialized Tibetan terms used. Diving into
the immense ocean of knowledge that has flowed forth from once-secluded
Tibet, Brennan produces a highly valuable book for anyone seeking to begin
their exploration of Tibetan magic. Of particular note is the section on
death, examining when the point of death occurs, contrasting Western
scientific observations with Tibetan. Brennan then proceeds from the state
immediately post-death, through the bardos—the stages that the soul passes

350 ~ Ashé Journal
through after death detailed in The Tibetan Book of the Dead—to rebirth.
Brennan brings his other knowledge and interest to his approach to his
Tibetan subjects. He draws comparisons to the work and theories of such
Western mystics as Aldous Huxley and Aleister Crowley. Tibetan Magici
and Mysticism stands a solid introduction to an extremely complex science
of complimentary techniques—one enmeshed in Tibetan Buddhist legend.
Brennan’s book provides an overview from whence the inquitive reader can
jump and explore Tibetan commentaries and source texts, such as the
Tibetan Book of the Dead or Tenzin Wangyal’s Yogas of Dream and Sleep.
Enlightened Courage: A Commentary on the Seven Point Mind

Training, Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche
(Snow Lion, 2006, 120pp, $15.95)
Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche (1910-1991) was a highly

respected teacher within the Nyingma lineage of
Tibetan Buddhism. He was widely recognized as one of
the greatest Vajrayana meditation masters within the
traditions of Mahamudra, Mahayana and Great
Perfection. Rinpoche was born in the Denhok Valley of
eastern Tibet. After the Lhasa uprising of 1959, he
escaped to Bhutan. Over the following years, he travled throughout Asia
and the West giving teachings on diverse topics. The talks that comprise in
Enlightened Courage were given during a month long seminar at Shechen
Tennyi Dargyeling, at La Sonnerie in the Dordogne département, France.
In these talks Rinpoche gave a detailed explanation of the Scven Point
Mind Training first brought to Tibet by the Indian Buddhist master Atisha
and further expounded by the Tibetan teacher Thogmé Zangpo in the
fourteenth century. The Seven Point Mind Training is the practice at the
very heart of Tibetan Buddhism. It explains Bodhisattva practice in a
concise way. The training covers topics ranging from tonglen (the practice
of taking on the suffering of others, giving happiness in return) to

transforming obstacles into aids along the path. This volume produces the
entire root text by Chekawa Yeshe Dorje and also repeats the text line-by-
line throughout as Rinpoche comments upon it. In the preface, gthe
editors acknowledge that the talks were originally given to an audience
comprised mainly of practitioners well versed in Buddhist teachings. This
is evident throughout the book. The editors have addressed this, however,
by providing footnotes and a glossary to assist with unfamillilar terms and
philosophical concepts. Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche was truly an exceptional
teacher and this shows through in these talks. Enlightened Courage is an
indespendable work for any practitioner’s library.
The Hundred Verses of Advice: Tibetan Buddhist Teachings on What

Maters Most, Dilgo Khyentse and Padampa Sangye
(Shambhala, 2005, 192pp, hardcover, $19.95)
The Hundred Verses of Advice were composed by the

twelfth century Buddhist teacher Padampa Sangye,
know in India as Paramabuddha. He traveled several
times between India, Tibet and China. He spent much
time teaching in the Tingri valley, located between
Tibet and Nepal. Fearing the time of his passing, his
followers asked Padampa what they would do once he
was no longer with them. He composed the Hundred Verses as a gift to the
people of Tingri, so that they might continue to live by the sacred teachings
and learn how to further apply them throughout their daily lives. These
simple verses have been studied by countless Tibetans over the centuries
since Padampa’s departure. This book comprises the complete translation
of Padampa’s verses and a commentary on each by Dilgo Khyentse given in
talks during 1987. Padampa, and Khyentse in his commentaries,
eloquently and beautifully illustrate how to turn the challenges of daily life
352 ~ Ashé Journal
into aids along the meditator’s path. Each verse consists of two couplets
imparting a simple practitioner’s truth. Dilgo Khyentse then extends this
verse through a lively discussion of a delicate page or two. “If you wander in
distraction, you’ll waste the freedoms and advantages of human life; People
of Tingri, make a resolute decision now,” advises Padampa in verse twenty-
eight. “If there is one constant tendency of our fickle and ever-changing
minds, it is our strong predilection for ordinary distractions,” begins
Khyentse’s explication. “Until we learn to master our thoughts and attain
true stability of mind,” he continues, “our commitment is bound to be
hesitant and we run the risk of being distracted by activities with little true
meaning, wasting our life and the precious opportunities for the Dharma is
has brought us. To postpone the practice of Dharma until tomorrow is
tantamount to postponing it till we die.” With such clarity, these two great
teachers provide a timeless wisdom that is universally valuable to all
spiritual seekers.
The Complete Magician’s Tables, Stephen Skinner

(Golden Hoard, 2006, 432pp, hardback £30)
“Tarot without number” which is one possible title for

this review. Now a revision of ‘Crowley’s’ 777 or as its
known in the trade, The Qabalah of Aleister Crowley,
might seem a bit nerdy. We’ve probably all been
tempted at some time or another to prepare our own
revision of what’s seen as the essential text—well
actually not me but I know a few who have been so
tempted. By the way—the apostrophes around Crowley are meant to
indicate that the old bull’s authorship of said text is not without its
doubters, as Stephen Skinner points out in his introduction.
What’s it for—I hear you say? Indeed, it’s a while since I looked at my
battered old copy but there is a school of magic (I’m not saying how old)
that recommends that all magical operations should be beefed up with

information from such a book of tables. It all goes back to the old doctrine
of signatures and correspondences. The power of magick seems to reside in
the ability to assign the many things in our imaginal world to various
classifications. The ancient pagan world was full of classificatory systems—
perhaps that was then the nature of knowledge—the obsessive making of
lists?
As very many of these lists have come down to us from posterity
principally via the grimoires and kabbalistic texts such as the Sepher
Yetzirah (Book of Formation), The Bahir (Book of Light), The Zohar
(Book of Splendour) etc, etc. Rescued from obscurity by the Hermetic
Order of the Golden Dawn, these books and their lists were given a new
lease of life and form the basis of much modern magick including the
schema underlying the Tarot, perhaps the ultimate ‘list.’
If you’re not a list maker yourself how might you use them? Well
received wisdom says that if for example you want to construct a ritual to
Seth, the Egyptian god of Chaos, you might use the traditional
‘correspondences’ of that god—color red, constellation Ursa major, planet
Mercury or Mars, depending whether you follow the views of the ancient
Egyptians or the later traditions. They can also be used to check on details
of a vision—this usually done during a practice called Path working. This
entails an imaginal journey over the various ascending paths of the Tree of
Life. I should point out in one of his many revisions, Skinner recommends a
return to the Lurianic Tree i.e. that of Isaac Luria (1533-1572) as opposed
to the Golden Dawn version, constructed by Macgregor Mathers, but
considered by most experts to be inferior. Even so, Skinner acknowledges
these Golden Dawn attributions have become a discreet if problematic
tradition in their own right. So for completeness and easy comparison both
sets are listed often side by side for easy comparison, as on page 133 of the
Tables. So if our astral traveler received a toothy vision he or she might later
conclude that they were either on course on the path between sphere 10 to
354 ~ Ashé Journal
9 at the bottom of the tree or had strayed into the ‘path direct’ and was
actually on 3 to 2.
In a sense all classificatory system have an arbitrary quality. It’s like
astrology, many swear by the use of the tropical Zodiac—despite the fact
that it hasn’t quite be in synch with the actual constellations for a while
now. It’s a conventional system, where the relationships between the parts
is maybe more important than the underlying reality.
Well that’s just to discuss the issues raised in one of the many hundred
of seminal tables presented in this crucial book. Although at its strongest
when dealing with the material related to High Magick, the Grimoires,
Alchemy and the Kabbalah, I was glad the author had ditched that piece of
cultural imperialism, that reduced Kabbalah to a mere filing system then
‘used’ to bury every other system under a semblance of false knowledge.
Kabbalah is far from the last refuge of the lazy thinker. I’m glad to see the
message is getting through at last—that all belief systems need to be
embraced in their own context.
Skinner’s revisionism is extended to the Tables, which ditch the
clunky and confusing system adopted by Crowley, whereby everything was
mapped onto a 33 row table (10 spheres, 22 paths and a couple extra for the
awkward ones that don’t fit.) Skinner instead returns to the older more user
friendly ZEP system whereby everything is classified according to either the
Zodiacal, the Elemental or the Planetary attribution.
—Mogg Morgan, Mandrake Speaks
(mandrake-subscribe@yahoogroups.com)
Pan’s Road, Mogg Morgan

(Mandrake of Oxford, 2006, 232pp, £7.99/$14.99)
Mogg Morgan’s new novel Pan’s Road opens with a

contemporary archaeological dig that unearths a
magician’s box from the rubble of an Egyptian tomb in
Coptos, Upper Egypt. The opening of this box “propels
us on a supernatural journey across space and time” to
an ancient and very threatened Coptos where we join a
small group fleeing the Roman army by taking the route
along Pan’s Road and eventually into the City of
Ombos—Citadel of Seth, the Egyptian God of Chaos.
Well written, beautifully crafted and interspersed with exquisite pieces
of verse from ancient Egyptian tomes Pan’s Road, is quite simply a
wonderful book that fulfils in style, polish and content many of the
promises and potentialities laid before us by its predecessor The English
Mahatma (Mandrake of Oxford, 2001).
Pan’s Road successfully animates and peoples a time in the long distant
past and for those like myself with a patchy, at best, knowledge of Egyptian
culture and history there is a small but a much appreciated glossary of
terms.
However this novel will be appreciated all the more if it is read in the
context of Mogg Morgan’s other writing. Mogg Morgan’s body of work,
which is primarily focused on Egyptian and specifically Sethian magick,
needs to, like a hall of mirrors, be explored in totality to fully appreciate it.
Pan’s Road should be read alongside its non fiction counterpart, The Bull of
Ombos (Mandrake of Oxford, 2005) and just as a gazer into a mirror can
lose the sense of which is the true reality so can the reader of these two
works wander the dreamscape of what was/what could be and what is
perhaps, just imagined.
356 ~ Ashé Journal
One of the incidents that most aptly demonstrates such parallels is

when The Bull of Ombos describes a visit to the Victoria and Albert
Museum to view the Was Sceptre found in the Ombite temple of Seth
whilst a scene from Pan’s Road describes a similar pilgrimage.
These are haunting, memorable and different perspectives which
prove to be pivotal points of the two books.
Then there are the Pan’s Road connections with Tankhem; Seth and
Egyptian Magick and the aforementioned The English Mahatma which
precipitates further wandering on the readers part through halls of mirrors
and alternative and literal realities; interconnected paths with different
routes and endings which seem to shift as much as the sands of time on
which these roads travel.
Perhaps I seem wax a little too lyrical; I don’t think so though. To read
a book that takes one on a journey that absorbs, entertains, educates AND
inspires dreams deserves more than just a little lyrical praise, in my opinion.
—Charlotte, Mandrake Speaks
(mandrake-subscribe@yahoogroups.com)

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Ashé Journal ~ 2 57

True Spirituality 259

Cover Photograph: Vladimir Pomortsev, Bohdi tree at Wat Prha

EDITOR: FRIENDS & ADVISORS

One day, a monk approached The Buddha and said:

Is the world eternal, or is the world temporary?

If you know the answers to these questions,

If you do not give me an answer

The Buddha replied:

The spiritual life is not about

Always bear in mind

I have only taught those things

Teachings that facilitate serenity;

I affirm that the presence of God is

We are all born with a “call of the

Ashé! Journal of Experimental Spirituality (2006) 5(3) 261-292

living in urban industrial complexes have alienated that impulse by

my goal is to show how the union of the distinct cultures is expressed

THE CULTURAL OVERLAY OF MYTHS, RITES, AND SYMBOLS

Much has been made of the so-called Indo-European conquests of native,

The advent of Aryans (circa 1500 B.C.) to India cannot

3 The Mother Goddess tradition may not be as monolithic as a number of

heaven creates ex nihilo and sustains a patriarchal hierarchy, also testifies to

THE VEDIC MEETING OF VISHNU AND RUDRA-SHIVA

scholars as a solar deity early in his evolution, Vishnu personified order,

illusion) not only serve as obstacles to samadhi (enlightened consciousness)

Goddess distinguish him as a god of fertility, dance, darkness, brutality,

THE OYYMPIAN CONCESSION: APOLLO GREETS DIONYSUS

A preeminent god, Apollo either accompanied the Indo-Europeans into the

European conquest of indigenous cultures, the Homeric worldview, and his

mysteries, eradicated direct experience of ecstatic wisdom, and dispossessed

association by numerous ancient sources, such as Aeschylus, Plato,

THE UPANISHADS, HINDUISM, AND BRAHMAN’S RIGHT AND

The Upanishadic Brahman firmly established the Hindu pantheistic

Of all religions thou art the source.

That unity-in-duality was attributed also to Shiva and Vishnu. The

proclaim Shiva’s assimilation of the Aryan god. The Svetasvatara

The father is no father, mother is no mother; worlds

present. A significant means in all yogas, from kundalini to tantric dance,

union, particularly in terms of tantric eroticism and as an allegory of the

GREEK DRAMA AND “MORE POWERFUL BIRTHS”

did not remain the sole worshippers. A lower-classes’ adaptation of the

Between changes that Arion introduced in the seventh century BCE

instruments. Yet, even here, the notion of balance exists—for instance,

proportion” of Apollonian “moderation” and Dionysian “craving” and

Through Apollo and Dionysus, the two art deities of the

THE RELEVANCE OF THE GOD’S ALLIANCE

7 Despite a certain lack of feminine archetypes, Hindu gods tend to be more

Dirk Dunbar is the director of the AA to BA Interdisciplinary Humanities

When you sail on a ship

But the ocean is neither round nor square;

All things are like this:

In order to learn the true nature of things,

Ashé! Journal of Experimental Spirituality (2006) 5(3) 293-294

Whole worlds are there.

The third century Indian

Ashé! Journal of Experimental Spirituality (2006) 5(3) 295-300

netherworld. The Hindu Katha Upanishad describes a boy’s encounter

wants the result to be rebirth as a hungry ghost! However, according to