India and the Occult: The Influence of South Asian Spirituality on Modern Western Occultism

by Gordan Djurdjevic, Aleister Crowley (Coontributor), Dion Fortune (Contributor)

At the beginning of the twentieth century, Indian Yoga and Tantra become attractive to some major exponents of Western occultism. In a gesture typical of the syncretic tendency in Esotericism, Yoga is by these Westerners often identified as an Eastern form of magic: the two disciplines were considered to share similar theoretical perspective, the differences in their methods notwithstanding. India and the Occult explores the reception of Indian spirituality among Western occultists through several case studies. Unlike existing works focusing on the activities of Theosophical Society, it looks at the 'hard-core' occultism, in particular the British twentieth century currents associated with Aleister Crowley, Dion Fortune, Kenneth Grant, and related individuals and groups. Without denying the specificity of its Western historical manifestation, it suggests that esotericism is a category that may be applied as a conceptual tool in order to interpret aspects of non-Western religious thought and practice.

Genres: India, Academic, Nonfiction

203 pages, Hardcover

First published July 31, 2013

About the author

Gordan Djurdjevic, Ph.D. (Asian Studies, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, 2005), is Sessional Instructor in the Department of Humanities at Simon Fraser University, Canada.

Reviews

[C]

Very good read for many reasons. It is a "short" book but it is "dense" the whole thing contains a lot of information. A good chunk of the back of the book is references and notes. For me personally it expanded my knowledge and gave me further areas to explore pertaining to Dion Fortune. I also thought it was interesting to see some more academic take on tops I feel are more obscure in that realm, such as Kenneth Grant and Andrew Chumbley. This book expanded my general knowledge on the subject of Tantra and its connection and melding with western esotericism.

[Keith]

I've been hoping finally to start in on this soon, and keep getting bogged down elsewhere. Meanwhile, however, there is a rather thorough and professional review available in V11#1 of the academic journal Magic, Ritual, and Witchcraft by Professor Emerita June McDaniel, which is now freely available online.