The Tantric Alchemist Quotes

“It is inevitable that a loss of faith in media would contribute to a loss of faith in the content itself. Where writing began as divine communication and literacy was the privilege of a very few, writing—and the media to promote and publish that writing—is now accessible to everyone, even to the functionally illiterate. This means that the quality of available information has been degraded considerably along with the structural weaknesses of primary and secondary school education. It is now difficult to determine between what is investigative journalism, for instance, and what is baseless conspiracy theorizing. As no demands are made on the writers of media content, the demands have correspondingly increased on the readers of that content to practice a form of what Fundamentalist Christians call “discernment,” to greater and lesser degrees of success.”
― Peter Levenda, The Tantric Alchemist: Thomas Vaughan and the Indian Tantric Tradition

“Karezza.”
― Peter Levenda, The Tantric Alchemist: Thomas Vaughan and the Indian Tantric Tradition

“the Orphic Egg. Orphism was the mystery religion that gave rise to the Dionysian mysteries.”
― Peter Levenda, The Tantric Alchemist: Thomas Vaughan and the Indian Tantric Tradition

“star-fire”—”
― Peter Levenda, The Tantric Alchemist: Thomas Vaughan and the Indian Tantric Tradition

“Pārvatī,”
― Peter Levenda, The Tantric Alchemist: Thomas Vaughan and the Indian Tantric Tradition

“Big Dipper)”
― Peter Levenda, The Tantric Alchemist: Thomas Vaughan and the Indian Tantric Tradition

“We have astronomy here under our feet; the stars are resident with us ...27”
― Peter Levenda, The Tantric Alchemist: Thomas Vaughan and the Indian Tantric Tradition

“This may be at once the curse and the blessing of the modern age, that the ready availability of printed books—and now, electronic versions easily downloadable from virtually anywhere on earth—has enabled teachings to be preserved and passed down, passed around, and disseminated to anyone with even a glimmer of interest. It's a curse, because this ready availability cheapens the teaching by making it that much easier to obtain without all the psychological preparation of periods of intense study, fasting, purification, and other conditioning techniques. The effect of this is noticeable on social media and websites in which serious studies of various forms of esoteric tradition are airily dismissed by casual readers who have difficulty understanding their specialized terminology due to a lack of years of preparatory instruction or even a basic classical education, but still feel competent enough to pass judgment. Yet books are what we have in lieu of the secret society, the midnight initiations, the training by an experienced guru. Books also have preserved essential information from being lost due to persecution by enemies or opponents, or to execution or death by natural causes of lineage holders in sacred traditions (the Chinese invasion of Tibet comes to mind, and the decimation of various sects in Iraq and Afghanistan by the Taliban, the Islamic State, and others beginning with the oppression of the Kurds under Saddam Hussein). A deeper question than we can address adequately in this place is what happens to a tradition if its human teachers are all dead, unable to pass on the oral instruction or the psycho-spiritual techniques of initiation?”
― Peter Levenda, The Tantric Alchemist: Thomas Vaughan and the Indian Tantric Tradition