CG JUNG - Countryside Anarchist

INTRODUCTION
gious rediscovery of the mystery of woman.” 22 The different outlook of
tantrism was reflected in its practice, which often utilized elements absent
from traditional religious rituals. Zimmer stated that tantrism “insists
on the holiness and purity of all things; hence, the ‘five forbidden
things’ . . . constitute the substance of the sacramental fare in certain
tantric rites: wine, meat, fish, parched grain, and sexual intercourse.” 23
In what are known as the “right-handed” schools these are used in rituals
symbolically, whereas in the “left-handed” schools they are used literally.
Apropos the contemporary perception of tantrism Jacob Needleman
aptly noted that “the moment one hears the word ‘tantrism,’ various wild
and lurid associations spring forth in the Western mind which add up to
a pastiche of psychospiritual science fiction and sexual acrobatics that
would put to shame even the most imaginative of our contemporary pornographers
and quite eclipse the achievements of our hardiest erotic
warriors.” 24 The intersection of the new age movement and the sexual
revolution in the sixties led to increasing interest in tantrism in the West
accompanied by numerous “how to do it” manuals that focused on its
ritualized sexual practices—often glossed in the process was that in tantrism,
such practices were directed not toward the liberation of sexuality
per se but toward liberation from the cycle of rebirth.
Jung specified his psychological understanding of tantric yoga as
follows:
Indian philosophy is namely the interpretation given to the precise
condition of the non-ego, which affects our personal psychology,
however independent from us it remains. It sees the aim of human
development as bringing about an approach to and connection between
the specific nature of the non-ego and the conscious ego.
Tantra yoga then gives a representation of the condition and the
developmental phases of this impersonality, as it itself in its own way
produces the light of a higher suprapersonal consciousness. 25
At a time when psychology was characterized by the reign of behavior-
22 Eliade, Yoga: Immortality and Freedom, 202. For a reevaluation of the role of women
in tantrism, see Miranda Shaw, Passionate Enlightenment: Women in Tantric Buddhism (Princeton,
1994).
23 Heinrich Zimmer, Philosophies of India, edited by Joseph Campbell (London, Bollingen
Series XXVI, 1953), 572.
24 Jacob Needleman, “Tibet in America,” in Needleman, The New Religions (London,
1972), 177.
25 Résumé of Jung’s lecture “Indische Parallelen” (Indian parallels), 7 October 1931, in
Bericht über das Deutsche Seminar von Dr. C. G. Jung, 5–10. Oktober in Küsnacht-Zürich, edited
xxiii