Essays
The Tibetan Book of the Undead
Vampires (or zombies—vetalas/vetalis/rolangs) play a key role in early Buddhist Tantra.
October 22nd, 2009
Buddhist tantra transforms negative emotions into wisdom. Disgust is the easiest and safest to work with.
May 13th, 2010
An essay series
We are all monsters, because we fail to fit fixed concepts of what counts as human.
June 10th, 2010
Eating the shadow means incorporating aspects of reality that you have rejected because they seem monstrous—unacceptable.
July 2nd, 2010
Jung's “shadow,” and Robert Bly’s monstrous interpretation of it, resonate with Buddhist Tantra; but Romanticism obstructs a translation.
February 27th, 2017
To discover your shadow qualities you have hidden from yourself, you must go hunting on the path of attention.
February 28th, 2017
Absorbing your shadow means embracing your monstrous power while cultivating your human nobility.
March 1st, 2017
Integrating monstrous aspects of experience, that you have rejected, frees energy for creativity and play—and is the path to nobility.
March 1st, 2017
Stephen T. Asma's book On Monsters is a project parallel in some ways to Buddhism for Vampires. A brief review.
June 12th, 2010
"Next time you die, pay attention" is the essence of the Tibetan Book of the Dead.
August 5th, 2010
Some versions of Buddhism say that it is right to kill human beings when that is necessary to prevent a greater disaster.
August 11th, 2010
Buddhist Inner Tantra emerged in a time of social collapse, political chaos, and forced change.
August 18th, 2010
Dakinis were fearsome witches who ate human flesh. They were also the enlightened goddesses who made tantric Buddhism available to humankind.
May 17th, 2011
Tantra, sex, and romance novels
As in romance novels, Buddhist sexual practice (karmamudra) becomes meaningful only in context: the Tantric world-view.
July 29th, 2011
We are meat. That is the human predicament—but it is not without compensations.
November 20th, 2011
An edible epistemologist and the first formal system. An Indian philosopher, not an Italian sandwich.
January 25th, 2012
An illustrated guide to making a human thigh-bone trumpet, plus some explanation of its use.
May 6th, 2012
The Buddha and the necrophiliac witch
Scripture, a sub-genre of fantasy fiction, offers a choice of heroes—and heroines.
October 2nd, 2012
Zombies play important roles in both Western and Buddhist philosophy of mind.
December 22nd, 2012
Can we hunt p-zombies with fMRI?
An experiment that might explain metaphysical disagreement, zombies, consciousness, and Daniel Dennett.
December 28th, 2012
Dark culture and tantric transformation
An essay series
Black magic as liberating transformation and as art.
February 18th, 2013
Defining black magic; dispelling confusions. Black magic is whatever social consensus, or authority, considers taboo.
February 18th, 2013
Black magic, transformation, and power
“Black magic” can be liberating in the real (non-magical) world, if you have been brought up in an excessively narrow moral code.
February 18th, 2013
Dark culture and black magic are ways of working through the emotional implications of nihilism—the discovery that the universe is monstrous.
February 18th, 2013
Dark culture: black magic as art and play
Dark culture demonstrates that beauty, love, and freedom can be found in the midst of the nightmare.
February 18th, 2013
Lovecraft, Speculative Realism, and silly nihilism
How understanding why nihilism became silly may improve your attitude to life considerably.
May 23rd, 2013