Shakti and Shâkta : essays and addresses on the Shâkta Tantrashâstra

SHAKTI AND SHAKTA

the law could in any case be violated but dealt with the question whether any particular act was such a violation. Antinomianism of several kinds and based on varying grounds has been charged against the Manichaeans, the Gnostics generally, Cainites, Carpocrates, Epiphanes, Messalians (with their promiscuous sleeping together of men and women), Adamites, Bogomiles, followers of Amalric of Bena, Brethren of the Free Spirit, Beghards, Fratricelli. Johann Hartmann (‘‘a man free in spirit is impeccable” ; the pantheistic “ Libertines” and ‘ Familists” and Ranters of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (“ Nothing is sin but what a man thinks to be so”: ‘God sees no sin in him who knows himself to be in a state of grace’; see Gataker’s Antiiomianism discovered and refuted A.D. 1632) the Alumbrados or Spanish Illuminate (Prabuddha) Mystics of the sixteenth century ; Magdalena de Cruce d’Aguilar and others (Mendesy Pelayo—* Historia de los Heterodoxos Espanoles) whose teachings according to Malvasia (Catalogus onmium haeresium et conciliorum) contained the following proposition ‘“‘ A perfect man cannot sin; even an act which outwardly regarded, must be looked upon as vicious cannot contaminate the soul which lives in mystical union with God.” The Alumbrada Francisca Garcia is alleged to have said that her sexual excesses were in obedience to the voice of God and that “carnal indulgence was embracing God ” (Lea’s Inquisition in Spain ITT 62.) Similar doctrines are alleged of the French Illuminés called Guerinets of the Seventeenth Century; the German ‘ 'Theosophers ” of Schonherr: Eva Von Buttler: the Muckers of the Eighteenth Century; some modern Russian sects (Tsakni “ Ta Russie Sectaire *) and others. Whilst it is to be remembered that in these and other cases we must receive with caution the accounts given by opponents, there is no doubt that Antinomianism, Svechchhach4ra and the like is a well known phenomenon in religious history often associated with so-called “ Pantheistic ” doctrines. Some Antinomian 366