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“Black Art of the Crudest and Filthiest Kind”: Tantra in Orientalist Discourse “Black Art of the Crudest and Filthiest Kind”: Tantra in Orientalist Discourse
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The Ordo Templi Orientis, Aleister Crowley, and Sex Magick The Ordo Templi Orientis, Aleister Crowley, and Sex Magick
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The Left-Hand Path: Radical Transgression and Self-Deification The Left-Hand Path: Radical Transgression and Self-Deification
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The Tantrik Order in America: The “Loving Guru,” Pierre Bernard The Tantrik Order in America: The “Loving Guru,” Pierre Bernard
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Osho-Rajneesh and “Neo-Tantra” Osho-Rajneesh and “Neo-Tantra”
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“Nookie Nirvana”: Tantra, the New Age, and Consumer Culture “Nookie Nirvana”: Tantra, the New Age, and Consumer Culture
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Conclusions: From the “Pizza Effect” to the “Curry Effect” Conclusions: From the “Pizza Effect” to the “Curry Effect”
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Notes Notes
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References References
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45 Modernity and Neo-Tantra
Get accessHugh B. Urban, The Ohio State University
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Published:18 August 2022
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Abstract
This chapter examines the complex transformations of Tantra in the context of modernity, globalization, and capitalism since the early nineteenth century. In the eyes of most European Orientalist scholars, British colonial authorities, and Christian missionaries of the Victorian era, Tantra was seen as dark path of sexual deviance and black magic. Yet for many European and American authors of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, such as Theodor Reuss and Pierre Bernard, Tantra was embraced as a much-needed path of sexual liberation and the celebration of the physical body. During the 1960s and 1970s, Tantra became a key part of the counterculture and sexual revolution, as global gurus such as Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (aka Osho) began to promote the practice of “Neo-Tantra,” now defined primarily as a kind of “spiritual sexology.” Finally, in our own era, Tantra has become a ubiquitous part of global popular culture, mass marketed through texts such as The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Tantric Sex. To conclude, I discuss and reevaluate Agehananda Bharati’s famous concept of the “pizza effect” as a way of understanding the historical exchange between India and “the West.” Instead, I suggest that something like a “curry effect” is perhaps a more accurate metaphor to explain the different trajectories of Tantra in modern South Asia, Europe, and America.
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