The Cult of Tara

THE PROCESS OF GENERATION
MAGIC AND RITUAL. IN TIBET
It is into this realm of contemplative reality that the yogin magically
manifests the divine power: he controls the unfolding of the
divine appearance in reality just as he controls the appearances of
events in nonreality, by manipulating the magical simulacrum of his
visualization.
Let us say that a great yogin wishes to perform a magical operation
in public nonreality, to subjugate, for example, an evil king
or a fierce and troublesome demon. He makes an effigy of wax and
"generates" it as the person to be subjugated: that is, he dissolves
the object contemplatively into Emptiness, and contemplatively recreates
it as a visualized image. Into this effigy he then summons the
awareness of the victim, in the form of a small syllable A colored
bright red: he threads a copper needle with red thread spun by a
young maiden, and with this he draws forward the person to be
subjugated, "sewing" the syllable into the womb of the effigy; and he
"binds" him therein, piercing it with iron hooks of light and fettering
it with a brilliant noose. While he is visualizing this he recites the
mantra OM KURUKULLE HRlH such-and-such a person VASAM
KURU "Subjugate" HOH ! AKARSAYA "Sumon" HRlH SVAHA!
The practitioner takes the effigy at dusk and torments it over a
fire of khadira wood, holding it over the flames and letting it melt
and trickle into them, all the while reciting the mantra. Then he
takes the effigy and tramples it underfoot; no sooner does he do so
than the victim is subjugated. 153
There can be no doubt about the magical nature and intent of this
operation, but what makes it work is the visualization, which creates
the magical link not only between victim and effigy but also between
effigy and yogin. It is one thing to play violent games with a wax
doll and another to possess the effigy, to control it absolutely. To
subjugate the effigy is to subjugate the person, but such power of
manipulation belongs only to its true owner. There are thus three
basic steps in the contemplative sequence: (1) The effigy is generated
as the victim, "known" in essential Emptiness and thus truly
pliant to the yogin's control; the wax object becomes but the expression
of this contemplative image, and its manipulation but the
bodily acting out of a contemplative drama. (2) Into this receptacle
created for him is summoned the real victim—his awareness—using
as simulacrum the visualized syllable; here is forged the link with