Tantric Pilgrims: Marc Gafni

posted by Marc Gafni assistant: Marc away for Holiday.

The Tantric Pilgrims

First, to everyone reading, thanks to my assistant for posting and Shanah Tova U-Metuka; a good and sweet year for everyone.

Three times a year pilgrims would gather in Jerusalem from all over the land of Israel. These gatherings were called the Holidays of Vision (Chag HaReiya).

One can well imagine that on these holidays the adept among the pilgrims practiced visualizations, chanting, meditations and a host of other spiritual techniques. These mysteries were passed from the Temple initiates in Jerusalem to the Greco Egyptian community of Alexandria. It was disseminated by Solomon to all of the surrounding cultures. Indeed two great 19TH century mystical masters, Mordechai Lainer of Ishbitz and his teacher Simchan Bunim of Pshischa already hint at a systematic program of spiritual teaching partially rooted in Goddess mysteries, initiated by Solomon and his wives.

Just so that we make clear what we are saying here; Mircea Eliade already notes that there are profound parallels between Indian yogic tantra of both the Hindu and Buddhist variety and Western mystery traditions from Hermetic, Gnostic, Early Christian and Greco-Alexandrian sources. What Eliade fails to note is that these traditions had their probable source to a greater or lesser degree in the mystery cults of Solomon’s Temple. The mystery of the cherubs are then not a Hebrew version of Indian tantra. Quite the opposite; they are a possible source of the Indian yogic traditions as well as much of the great Western mystery tradition. My point here is not a kind of temple triumphalism or a we had it first kind of chauvinism; rather I am just noticing that the tantric mystery upgrade of sexuality has been around for a long time and is core not only to the eastern traditions but the foundational teachings of western esoterica as well. Total Good!

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