Shakti and Shâkta : essays and addresses on the Shâkta Tantrashâstra

SHAKTI AND SHAKTA

has the adherence not only of savage and barbarous people (who always believe in it) but also of an increasing number of “civilised ” Londoners, Berliners, Americans, Parisians and other Western peoples. They differ in all else but they are united in this. Even what most would regard as downright superstition still abundantly flourishes in the West. Witness the hundreds of thousands of ‘* touchwood ” figures and the like sent to the troops in the recent war, the horror of “ serving salt,’ of sitting 13 to a table, and so on. In fact, from the earliest ages, magic has gone hand in hand with religion, and if for short periods the former has been thought to he dead it always rises again. Is this, assome say, the mark of the inherent silly credulity of mankind, or does the fact show that there is something in the claims which occultism has made in all ages? India (I do not speak of the English-educated community which shares in the rise and fall of English opinion) has always believed in occultism and some of the Tantra Shastras are repertories of its ritual. Magic and superstition proper exist in this country but are also to be found in the West. The same remark applies to every depreciatory criticism passed upon the Indian people. Some have thought that occultism is the sign both of savagery and barbarism on the one hand and of decadent civilization on the other. In India it has always existed and still exists. It has been well said that there is but one mental attitude impossible to the educated man, namely blank incredulity with regard to the whole subject. There has been, and is,a change of attitude due to an increase of psychological knowledge and scientific investigation into objective facts. Certain reconciliations have been suggested, bringing together the ancient beliefs, which sometimes exist in crude and ignorant forms. These reconciliations may be regarded as insufficiently borne out by the evidence. On. the other hand a proposed reconciliation may be accepted as one that on the whole seems to meet the claims 58

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