Shakti and Shâkta : essays and addresses on the Shâkta Tantrashâstra

SHAKTI AND SHAKTA

of occultism. For instance about a century or so ago it was still believed that a person could inflict physical injury on another by means other than physical. And this is what is to be found in that portion of the Tantra Shastras which deal with the Shatkarma. Witches confessed to having committed this crime and were punished therefor. At a later date the witchcraft trials were held to be evidence of the superstition both of the accused and accusers. Yet psychology now allows the principle that Thought is itself a Force, and that by Thought alone, properly directed, without any known physical means the thought of another, and hence his whole condition, can be affected. By physical means I mean direct physical means, for occultism may, and does avail, itself of physical means to stimulate and intensify the force and direction of thought. This is the meaning of the magic rituals which have been so much ridiculed. Why is black the colour of Marana Karma? Because that colour incites and maintains and emphasizes the will to kill.So Hypnotism (Vashikaranam) as an instance of the exercise of the Power of Thought makes use of gestures, rotatory instrum ents and so forth.

The Magician having a firm faith in his (or her) power (for faith in occultism as in religion 1s essential) surrounds himself with every incentive to concentrated, prolonged and (in malevolent magic), malevolent thought. A figure or other ebject such as part of the clothing, hair, nails and so forth of the victim represents the person to be attacked by magic. This serves as the ‘immediate object ’ on which the magical thought is expended. The Magician is helped by this and similar aids to a state of fixed and malignant attention which is rendered intense by action taken on the substituted object. It is not of course the injuries done to this object which are the direct cause of injury to the person attacked, but the thought of the magician of which these injuries are a materialisation. There is thus present the circumstances which a modern psychologist would demand