Ask a young American Tantrik

[Kapalika]

I'm a 26 year old female (trans) living in the eastern United States. At the age of 18 I started to get into magick and Satanism and when I was 20 I started to do what I would now consider Tantra. When I was about 21 I met a Tantric who introduced me to Vajryana and Kashmir Shaivism. He augmented his own practice with western esotericism and so saw an opportunity to show me a healthier approach. He was actually living in India at the time, but was from America as well.

After that introduction I found Kashmir Shaivism and the 36 tattva system to be almost a mirror image of my beliefs and divinations. I stuck with it for a little while but later left to explore the Orthodox Hindu religions and philosophies to gain a better context and understanding, as well as making sure Kashmir Shaivism was really for me. I eventually concluded that this was the case, and have been comfortable with it ever since.

I consider myself a musican but I'm really more of a composer, creating something between psychedelic trance and electro-industrial with dashes of metal and hip-hop influences. I consider this a religious endeavor as all of my music is heavily themed after my spirituality. I am obsessed with the old school Goa Trance albums and artists, and to a lesser extent some of the newer stuff, as well as with well a lot of music. Music and religion are the two most important things in my life.

So with that super serious introduction/history out of the way, feel free to ask me anything and don't mind my sense of humor!

 

[Brickjectivity]

What do you think is the future of US culture over the next twenty years?

 

[Kapalika]

What do you think is the future of US culture over the next twenty years?

Not the kind of thing I was expecting, but okay.

I honestly don't know. I think a lot of it will depend on how things play out the next 3 years. We are at such a pivotal point and I believe that the current elections are representative of a huge cultural war/struggle right now. I think there will be a clearer picture after the midterm elections.

If I had to guess though, our culture will become more focused on the working class and their concerns. I think social issues might take a backseat if not a reversal. People already jump down other's throats claiming they are extremist "social justice warriors" for something that 10 years ago was perfectly acceptable. I think we will see more racial tensions as more minorities grow and whites become less of the majority. I think the further effects of climate change will throw a huge wrench into consumerism.

I think Christianity will continue to decline and "alternative" religions like Neo-paganism, faux-eastern religions ect will flood the market more than it already has and we will see more Muslim immigrants. I think religous and political diversity will greatly increase particularly after the GOP and Democrats fracture and fall apart. One suggestion I've seen is that the GOP and Democrats will likely merge into the conservative party as one or both fall apart and a new political party centered around working class and socialism-lite values will rise.

I think we will watch less movies as shows/series reign supreme and electronic music will become a huge mainstay in the mainstream, more so than now. People might become privy to all the nuance and genres or might not. Pop music won't sound nearly the same and metal will become more and more like jazz over time.

That's the best answer I can give.

 

[The Holy Bottom Burp]

So here are three questions for you:

1) How do you find the cultural differences (I'm assuming you grew up in a Westernised culture) becoming a Hindu? Easy or hard to feel "part of it"?
2) Has your gender identification ever been an issue, or does nobody know/care about it?
3) Are you polytheistic, pantheistic, monotheistic, monistic, agnostic, atheistic or humanist (I do like the 'broad church' of Hinduism!)

 

[SabahTheLoner]

I understand that Hinduism is a philosophy as well as a religion, like Satanism. I haven't really studied Hinduism very much, however. I would like to ask how the two compare and why the combination makes sense. (Give all the details you like, syncreticism in religion interests me a lot)

 

[sayak83]

I'm a 26 year old female (trans) living in the eastern United States. At the age of 18 I started to get into magick and Satanism and when I was 20 I started to do what I would now consider Tantra. When I was about 21 I met a Tantric who introduced me to Vajryana and Kashmir Shaivism. He augmented his own practice with western esotericism and so saw an opportunity to show me a healthier approach. He was actually living in India at the time, but was from America as well.

After that introduction I found Kashmir Shaivism and the 36 tattva system to be almost a mirror image of my beliefs and divinations. I stuck with it for a little while but later left to explore the Orthodox Hindu religions and philosophies to gain a better context and understanding, as well as making sure Kashmir Shaivism was really for me. I eventually concluded that this was the case, and have been comfortable with it ever since.

I consider myself a musican but I'm really more of a composer, creating something between psychedelic trance and electro-industrial with dashes of metal and hip-hop influences. I consider this a religious endeavor as all of my music is heavily themed after my spirituality. I am obsessed with the old school Goa Trance albums and artists, and to a lesser extent some of the newer stuff, as well as with well a lot of music. Music and religion are the two most important things in my life.

So with that super serious introduction/history out of the way, feel free to ask me anything and don't mind my sense of humor!

I am an Indian Hindu, but have never met a tantric.
How do you practice?

 

[Brickjectivity]

Why do you want to push for new kinds of music, and haven't we already reached the limits of human musical capability, the potential for music appreciation limited? I mean, what more can there be to invent? Can there be more than one "Buddy Holly?"

What music decade is the most creative in your opinion, the 1980's or some other creative musical decade?

 

[Kapalika]

I'll get to the others in a bit. Too complex of answers to do on an empty stomach right after a nap lol

So here are three questions for you:

1) How do you find the cultural differences (I'm assuming you grew up in a Westernised culture) becoming a Hindu? Easy or hard to feel "part of it"?
2) Has your gender identification ever been an issue, or does nobody know/care about it?
3) Are you polytheistic, pantheistic, monotheistic, monistic, agnostic, atheistic or humanist (I do like the 'broad church' of Hinduism!)

1) To some degree I'm shielded from the cultural differences except when interacting online with other Hindus or when watching or reading something that brings them up. This isn't intentional just a result of not personally knowing any Hindus IRL. I will say though that I think America is in dire need of a lot of Hindu/Indian family values. Specifically, responsibility to and caring for one's family. In America way too many grandparents are left in nursing homes and we have too many horrible parents and too many spoiled children and too many siblings who hate each other. Neither system is perfect but I think America has a LOT to learn in that respect.

2) It's been an issue for only some people on the side of my family I rarely talk to in the first place. I suspect it's been a problem for some other people I know and I just wasn't aware. I've had issues getting any doctor around here to do the hormone treatments despite having a referral for it. My insurance doesn't cover it for political reasons and there are a lot of barriers and people who don't understand how medically necessary it is. But on a personal level I choose my friends and acquiescences wisely. I started doing hormones by myself a short time ago, so I might see people react more negatively in the future just out in public. I hope not though, I really just mind my own business, don't ever really mention it or make a big deal out of it. I find it a rather private thing like most medical conditions.

3) I don't like the term as much as I used to due to some connotations, but pantheism fits. I'm closer to the monism shoe than the dualism shoe but not by too much. Technically I'd consider my self an emenationalist but I just normally say nondualist. I'm atheist to the extent that deities are not as real as many other things and should be treated non-supernaturally as much as possible since I don't believe in the supernatural. Although sometimes I find myself believing or wanting to believe in causes and effects that could be described as superstitious.

 

[VioletVortex]

Do you feel that ancestry has a role in Eastern religion?

 

[The Holy Bottom Burp]

I'll get to the others in a bit. Too complex of answers to do on an empty stomach right after a nap lol



1) To some degree I'm shielded from the cultural differences except when interacting online with other Hindus or when watching or reading something that brings them up. This isn't intentional just a result of not personally knowing any Hindus IRL. I will say though that I think America is in dire need of a lot of Hindu/Indian family values. Specifically, responsibility to and caring for one's family. In America way too many grandparents are left in nursing homes and we have too many horrible parents and too many spoiled children and too many siblings who hate each other. Neither system is perfect but I think America has a LOT to learn in that respect..

So you don't go to a temple on a regular basis? I was thinking of the heavy Eastern cultural influence on Hinduism, if it were me I'm not sure how I'd feel about dress codes, religious observances, dietary changes and so on. I'm pretty sure a person raised in the Hindu tradition would feel the same way about my culture btw, I was just curious.

2) It's been an issue for only some people on the side of my family I rarely talk to in the first place. I suspect it's been a problem for some other people I know and I just wasn't aware. I've had issues getting any doctor around here to do the hormone treatments despite having a referral for it. My insurance doesn't cover it for political reasons and there are a lot of barriers and people who don't understand how medically necessary it is. But on a personal level I choose my friends and acquiescences wisely. I started doing hormones by myself a short time ago, so I might see people react more negatively in the future just out in public. I hope not though, I really just mind my own business, don't ever really mention it or make a big deal out of it. I find it a rather private thing like most medical conditions.

Sure, it is your own business, but sometimes religious people make a big thing out of gender/sexuality. I cant imagine most Hindus would have an issue with trans people, but there again I've known very few Hindus in my time!

3) I don't like the term as much as I used to due to some connotations, but pantheism fits. I'm closer to the monism shoe than the dualism shoe but not by too much. Technically I'd consider my self an emenationalist but I just normally say nondualist. I'm atheist to the extent that deities are not as real as many other things and should be treated non-supernaturally as much as possible since I don't believe in the supernatural. Although sometimes I find myself believing or wanting to believe in causes and effects that could be described as superstitious.

So a little from shelf A, a little from shelf B, a little from shelf C etc.? Hinduism is quite a complicated animal! Thanks for the reply.

 

[Kapalika]

I am an Indian Hindu, but have never met a tantric.
How do you practice?

Lately I've been focusing a lot on meditating, mantras, and being more aware and in control. I find myself taken over by a Bhakti of sorts a lot but it's distinctly darker and I am trying to learn to focus that better for meditative ends. I've gotten some back into working with Mandalas/Yantras and light work with energy and spirits but nothing too heavy yet. I'm at a period where I'm trying to improve my foundation of ability so I don't make the same mistakes I've made in the past. In my mind, meditation and hypnotic states are the basis of the magic I do and so that's what I've been focusing a lot on the last year or so. A lot of my spiritual energy has went into worship and music (I see the music as a form of Bhakti) so I've not done as much Tantra Tantra as I wish I had.

Overall I've done anything from necromancy to using my blood for making sigils and yantras (which I then burn) to summoning spirits to divination and a bunch of other stuff. Funny enough the making of the sigils and yantras and burning them I find has a lot of parallels to the Mandala work done in Vajrayana. Back long ago I used to work with Dakini-like spirits, but the couple of times I had tried to summon an actual real named Dakini I freaked out and got scared because I revered them too much and didn't think I was ready. But then again the ones I was thinking of summoning were beyond what my skill level was at the time. I might try it again sometime. Maybe i had worked with a Dakini before and didn't know it. I've gotten that sense at least once when talking with a spirit.

There have been a group of some spirits I've worked with off and on over the years. About a dozen of them. I used to think of them as some kind of almost angel like beings but not terribly long ago I realized that they are much closer to Rakshasas. They seemed to be noble, and had a strong sense of honor. In particular they considered themselves warriors but never wanted to harm anything without very good reason.

I'm trying to get more into Yantra meditation but I'm kind of bad with sight visualizations so I just end up focusing on mantras more (I'm very sound oriented). So I'll then just use an image of the yantra to focus on. Sometimes I will fixate on a picture of a deity and meditate to that. Generally any magical or hypnotic type of thing to help me feel some level of nonduality with the object I'm focusing on whether it be a yantra, mantra, a song, a picture, or whatever.

Some of the most Tantric Tantric stuff I've done is meditate naked covered in ashes in a graveyard. I did that a few years ago under the instructions of the Tantric who introduced me. It was a fairly powerful experience but I hadn't done it since for fear of getting in trouble. I have meditated in graveyards clothed without ashes however since. I've also worked on Kundalini meditation a lot, focusing on my chakras from the spine rising. Although for some reason 2 of my chakras irrespective of where I am in the process. One of them that feels like it's on my midback will often radiate and I'll sense patterns and circulations go around it and me bigger than me corresponding to the main yantra I use. A lot of these sensations though are not super vivid more like it's on the cusp of perception, I can feel it and know it's there, but I'm not seeing seeing or feeling feeling it in the normal physical sense. A physical sense of perception has happened a few times, and it's always freaky when it does and rather spooks me.

Lately I've been focusing a lot on death and decay to overcome my fear of death and dead things. So I'm taking some inspiration from the Aghori but so far it's mostly been mental and meditative for me. I'm trying to try to maybe meditate in graveyards more and am thinking of what I can do that is more actually involved while staying within the confines of the law.

I'm always trying to find ways I can be more Tantric in general. I think in terms of actual practice I'm kind of close to the Kashmir Shaivite Kaula way where Aham (the heart) is seen as the ingredient for the path towards Moksha and so many pursuits like music and other things can be a way towards that. However I can't be Kaula as it's very guru and communal based. However I am like it in that it's a householder LHP path. And well I'm not imo at the point where I can live ascetically.

I want to get there eventually. I try to live without as many things as I can. But as with most ascetics I don't think I will be one until much later in life. I more see what I do now as a gradual path towards something like that. Part of why I want to be more and more "Tantric Tantric" in the normal traditional sense is that coming from where I am, it's an evolution over time I'm aiming at. It's been a calling for me, weirdly since before I knew anything about it. I don't know if I will ever be fully ascetic in the same way as the traditions like the Aghori ect but I aim to get close. One plan I have for the relatively close future, within the next 1-3 years is to move to a wandering life style and give up most of my possessions, keeping only religious items and whatever I'd need at that point to produce music since music is so religiously and spiritually important to me. I'm not totally sure what I should do day to day then, other than focusing on spiritual improvement and on music and taking in the vast wild nature in the United States but I suspect I will find a calling helping whoever I can along the way. All I know is that I have felt compelled to do this for a few years now. And it eats away at me that I can't do this in a practically safe way yet and leave behind the shackles I feel entombed in right now.

EDIT: Whenever I say divination, I mean trying to discern things about the nature of the universe, deities or myself through insight and magical means. It's more closer to revelation than something like fortune telling which I don't believe in.

Also I forgot to mention sacrifices but basically I just offer fruit and the like sometimes, or even those yantras I make as I burn themThe more artistic ones I make with pencil and color feel like a bigger sacrifice to me as they take a lot more mental effort to make.

Do you feel that ancestry has a role in Eastern religion?

It does for the Chinese and Japanese at least. For me personally to some degree but not exactly in the sense that most might think of it. I more look to named ancestors as helpers and spirits to respect more than something to worship.

So you don't go to a temple on a regular basis? I was thinking of the heavy Eastern cultural influence on Hinduism, if it were me I'm not sure how I'd feel about dress codes, religious observances, dietary changes and so on. I'm pretty sure a person raised in the Hindu tradition would feel the same way about my culture btw, I was just curious.

It would be nice to go to a Temple but none are nearby. I'd like to dress to some degree more inline with Hinduism but it's also a paradox for me because I'm not Right Hand Path and so I'd technically be on a different set of rules and yet I kind of want to follow more of those RHP rules BECAUSE it's not the expected and out of American rules and customs. The LHP is very context specific, and in the context of American culture I might do something (for example not eat beef or pigs) to differentiate myself from others. So it might be considered more orthodox in India but I'm doing it more to be not like the normal American as a sign of my religiosity. So to me, I see that as me doing something LHP. I go back and forth on how to treat many dietary things. In Vamachara (LHP) they permit wine and meat and other stuff but that stuff is already "the norm" in America.... so am I RHP or LHP by defying that norm? That's the conundrum I sometimes ask myself. But I mostly just say "meh. I'll do what I'm convicted to do" and just move along.

 

[Kapalika]

Why do you want to push for new kinds of music, and haven't we already reached the limits of human musical capability, the potential for music appreciation limited? I mean, what more can there be to invent? Can there be more than one "Buddy Holly?"

What music decade is the most creative in your opinion, the 1980's or some other creative musical decade?

I'm not drawing from anything "new" IMO. Psychedelic trance, and it's form before the 2000's Goa Trance have roots in the early 90's as Dance Trance from the beaches of Goa India. It was made from fusions of psychedelic rock, acid house and a bunch of other stuff with Indian themes. Granted today it's a much different beast... some things released still maintain some of these roots as do some sub-genres. Electro-Industrial has roots all the way back to Skinny Puppy and Front 242. This was before stars like Nine Inch Nails in the 90's.

But generally to answer... I like what I like. I don't give a damn if it's new or old. I listen to baroque, neo-classical, jazz, rap, metal, pop, country, dubstep, house, Drums and Bass, Techno, many genres of Trance or whatever else floats my boat.

We have by far not reached the limits of human musical capacity. The avant garde masters of the past showed us this and it paved the way for electronic music which still today is a rising force. All the time there is innovation and new techniques and sounds being created. A lot of this is in sound design, and indeed that is still very unexplored compared to pitch combinations which has been perfected as a science over the centuries but even that doesn't account for native musical styles with micro-tonal intervals or different turnings all together. Consider that almost all music composed today is for equal temperament and no one knows how to tune anything any different or often that there are other ways to tune it other than equal tuning and drop tuning.

The only thing limiting the musical progression of the future is people's lack of imagination. I suck in a lot of obscure music all the time. I think most people who think that creativity is dead don't go around hunting for the kind of gems I try to. However I mostly focus on electronic so maybe it's because of how that is pioneering in totally new ways of doing music and combinations of both new, old and bizarre and different that keeps it so interesting for me. The complete hypnotic nature of say Hallucinogens track LSD is mesmerizing and it captures the essence of counterpoint and mode and key changes along with the acid sound designs and psychedelic instrumentation and composition. It was made with a meditative mindset in mind. That was made back in like 1994 or something though.

Which brings me to the point that I would say my favorite time for electronic music was probably the mid to late 90's, leading up to and right at/before it's huge popularity and eventual collapse from which it artistically never fully recovered IMO. At least in the realm of Techno and Trance. I can't comment on European Trance but that is how it was for a lot of Trance outside of the genres originating in Europe. I guess I'm mostly thinking about psytrance. On the flip side I think there is a lot of cool stuff coming from Dubstep and it's derivatives. It itself as it's known today (which is technically "brostep") came from the old school dubstep much different than what we hear today (much more sub-bass focused without the aggressive midrange focus of dubstep), that being from dub and two-step... dub being from Reggae...

Psytrance is a pretty funny genre, it practically is a meta-genre unto itself. The insane diversity within it is fairly staggering. Although I admit some styles like dark psytrance does tend to sound like a lot of the same what with that 180 tempo and same bass style with atmospherics. But that isn't universal to all the styles.

I'm not sure what decade would be the most musically creative. We tend to forget a lot of the crap from the past. If I had to guess though probably when Jazz and the like started to become huge. It really paved the way for music today, and part of that was because of the invention of recording technology. I imagine electronic genres are starting to pave the way into unforeseen ways in a similar fashion and we have yet to see what can happen. Part of the problem is that the first people to create synthesizers were masters of music, not of their gear. And today people are masters of their gear, but not masters of music.

Whenever we have a generation that is both masters of music and their electronic gear, we will see a musical revolution unlike ever before, I imagine. And I hope I'm alive to appreciate it.

I understand that Hinduism is a philosophy as well as a religion, like Satanism. I haven't really studied Hinduism very much, however. I would like to ask how the two compare and why the combination makes sense. (Give all the details you like, syncreticism in religion interests me a lot)

I'm still trying to think of how to answer this without writing a huge essay... this is a question I think I've never been asked and always wondered why. But now that it has, I'm not sure where to start. I'll try to come back to this one when I can think of a concise way to go about it since it's so layered in my mind and I've not really ever explained it before. Otherwise we will be here all day.

 

[Kapalika]

Sorry if any of those answers were too long. I figured I couldn't go wrong with going with more detail. And it took me so long to figure out what to say I said "screw it" to revisions and went with the first drafts lol. plus you probably get a more complete picture.

 

[SabahTheLoner]

I'm still trying to think of how to answer this without writing a huge essay... this is a question I think I've never been asked and always wondered why. But now that it has, I'm not sure where to start. I'll try to come back to this one when I can think of a concise way to go about it since it's so layered in my mind and I've not really ever explained it before. Otherwise we will be here all day.

Really? It's interesting that others don't seem to be as curious. I would have expected at least several others to ask before me.

 

[Kapalika]

Really? It's interesting that others don't seem to be as curious. I would have expected at least several others to ask before me.

I actually feel really bad I forgot about this topic, but some point after you asked I decided to try to address it in a blog post that did an overview of my beliefs and I actually made a topic about it here: My Tantra of Shiva and Satan

This is the blog page itself.

There are some parts that can be skipped but I address it in a lot of the later halves. Throughout I offer where they relate to one another and there is a part here that might interest you:

Part of what I think makes Satanism and my form of Shaivism work is a lot of the general ideas from Kaula (Kulamārga) that is that of Aham (“heart”, sounds like “I Am” doesn’t it?), the idea of there being no pure or impure (the extreme Aghori sect who have heavy Kāpālika influence see it the same way), the focus on sacrifice, freedom, and the antinomian practices… all done in secrecy really resonate with me.

In Kashmir Shaivism Kaula is a householder path, unlike many other Tantric paths that are ascetic. Meaning one can practice them while living a fairly “normal” life. Kaula (Kula, Kulamārga or Kaulācāra) is actually very tame in comparison, but still falls within what many other Tantric paths are known as, as Vamachara (Vāmācāra or Vāmamārga) which is modernly known by occultists as “Left Hand Path” although “Left Hand Attainment” or “Left Hand Way” are more literally correct translations.

I also explain how I had developed a very thought-out system through Divination and other means as a theistic Satanist and only after the fact realized I had rediscovered ideas in Shaiva Tantra.

The only reason I even found out (and the rest of this explanation isn't in that blog post) is that a Boddhisattva I knew an online who was a practicing Luciferian, initiated Buddhist and Kashmir Shaivism Kaula living in India. I knew he was legit as I had known him for at least a year at that point and we had skyped and I learned his background and some of his work and home life.

I didn't really understand much of what he said about Hinduism or Buddhism for the longest time but he did post on Luciferianism some and other western esotric topics so I understood that. I had been developing my system for a while before meeting him and he encouraged me to continue despite all the haters. In a lot of ways he was one of the few on that site who didn't think I was a joke (most satanists were seen as a joke there back when though). when I started working on my "Puzzle Box" he took a very intense interest in it's development.

I liked his interest and he was unusually quiet whenever I explained. I knew something was going on. So after a couple of weeks I finally asked him why he seemed to fascinated by it. And he showed me some really od Tibetan Mandala designs. I had never heard of them before, and he showed me a bunch of different stuff.

We than began a little bit of a teaching relationship. At one point, and now I'm not sure where it fits chronologically, I was going to do some ritual on halloween and he "dared" me to do something really silly . I did it, had a fairly powerful experience and then he showed me a documentary on the sect who's ritual I imitated.

So ya, I just kind of slowly learned about Tantra and found it worked with, in fact was even a more mature understanding in many ways, of what I had already developed.