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Trump The Tantric Politician
The essence of Tantra is the reclamation of excluded, forbidden, or stigmatized viewpoints and practices as a source of power.
Leave aside for a moment everything you think you know about Tantra (or check out my recent article about what it is and is not here). The essence of Tantra is the reclamation of excluded, forbidden, or stigmatized viewpoints and practices as a source of power.
Ok, now bear with me for a brief history lesson before we get to Drumpf.
Tantra arose in 5th century India after the triumph of Vedic Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism in the religious sphere. Despite their differences all three religions were similar in what they stigmatized as unethical or impious.
Tantra arose as a group of esoteric traditions that offered access to excluded practices to the initiated. The more genteel version was called right hand tantra (dakshinamarga). It’s focus included new innovations in ritual and meditation, invocation of under-emphasized aspects of the divine, white magic incantations, and experimental use of the body as a spiritual tool. Right hand tantra was the more popular, “mainstream” tradition.
The less genteel, and more infamous variety, was known disparagingly as left-hand tantra (vamachara) because in India you eat with the right hand and wipe yourself with your left…
