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Vivat Lingam

Non Resurgam ¹⁰

So ended the life of Edward Sellon, pornographer, soldier, coachdriver, and, as will be seen from the extracts from his writings which follow, the man responsible for introducing a Tantric strain into the occultism of the West.

Sellon’s interpretation of Tantricism was crudely materialistic, for while he seems to have had a fair knowledge of the practical techniques of the cult it does not appear that he had any real understanding of its underlying philosophy. Here he was very much a man of his own time, interpreting the subtleties of Hinduism in accordance with the vulgarly anthropomorphic conceptions of deity that were familiar to him from the writings of theologians of the evangelical school. He wrote:

“As the Saivas are all worshippers of Siva and Bowanee (Pavati) conjointly, so the Vaishnavas also offer up their prayers to Laksmi-Nayarana. The exclusive adorers of this Goddess are the Sactas.

“The cast mark of the Saivas and Sactas consists of three horizontal lines on the forehead, with ashes obtained, if possible, from the hearth, on which a consecrated fire is perpetually maintained. The adoration of the Sacti¹¹ is quite in accordance with the spirit of the mythological system of the Hindus in Bengal, at least three-fourths are Sactas, of the remaining fourth, three parts are Vaishnavas, and one Saivas.

“Independently of the homage paid to the principal Deities, there are a great variety of inferior beings, Dewtas, and demi-gods of a malevolent character and formidable aspect, who receive the worship of the multitude. The bride of Siva, however, in one or other of her many and varied forms,¹² is by far the most popular goddess in Bengal and along the Ganges.

“The worship of the female generative principle, as distinct from the Divinity, appears to have originated in the literal interpretation of the metaphorical language of the Vedhas, in which Will, or purpose to Create the Universe, is represented as originating from the Creator and co-existent with him as his bride, and part of himself. We read in the Rig-Veda the following—

“ ‘That divine spirit breathed without afflation, single, with (Swadha) her who is sustained within him, other than her nothing existed.’ Again, ‘First, desire was formed in his mind, and desire became the original productive seed.’¹³ The Sama-Veda also, speaking of the divine cause of creation, says, ‘He felt not joy, being alone. He wished for another, and instantly the desire was gratified. He caused his body to part in twain, and thus became male and female. They united, and human beings were produced.¹⁴

“Prakriti,¹⁵ the mother of gods and men, one with matter, the source of error, is identified with Maya or delusion,¹⁶ and co-existent with the Omnipotent, and his Sacti, his personified energy, his bride. According to Wilson, ‘these mythological fancies have principally been disseminated by the Puranas, and were unknown anterior to those writings’. The whole subject is given in extenso in the Brahma-Vaivaartta Puran (a Purana which is not considered orthodox), under the head of Prakrita Khanda, in which the legends having reference to the modifications of the female principle are narrated. It is further stated in this Puran, that Brahma, having determined to create the universe, became androgynous, male and female; the right half having the sex and form of a man; the left, that of a woman. In his images he is sometimes thus represented, and is then termed Ardnari. ‘This is Prakriti of one nature with Brahm; illusion, eternal, as the soul so is its active energy, as the faculty of burning is in fire.’¹⁷

“In another passage of the Sama Vedha it is said that Krishna, being alone invested with the divine nature, began to create all things by his own will, which became manifest in Mula-Prakriti…

“Although the adoration of the Sacti is authorised by some of the Puranas, the rites and formulae are more clearly set forth in a voluminous collection of books called Tantras. These writings convey their meaning in the similitude of dialogue between Uma (or Siva) and Pavati.

“The followers of the Tantras profess to consider them as a fifth Vedh, and attribute to them equal antiquity and superior authority.¹⁸ The observances they prescribe have in Bengal almost superseded the original Ritual, but the question of their date is involved in considerable obscurity. From the practices described in some of the Puranas, particularly that of the Diksha, or rite of initiation, from the Agni Puran, from the specification of formulae, comprising the mystical monosyllables of the Tantras, in that and other similar compilations; and from the citation of some of them by name in different puranas, we must conclude that some of the Tantras are prior to those authorities.

“The Tantras are too numerous to specify them further, but the curious reader will find them under the heads of Syama Rahasya, Anandra, Rudra, Yamala, Mandra, Mahodahi, Sareda, Tilika, and Kalika-Tantras.¹⁹

“Although any of the goddesses may be objects of the Sacta worship, and the term Sacti comprehends them all, yet the homage of the Sactas is almost restricted, in Bengal, to the consort of Siva. The Varnis, or Vamacharis, worship Devi as well as all goddesses. Their worship is derived from a portion of the Tantras.

“According to the immediate object of the worshipper is the particular form of worship; but all the forms require the use of some or all of the five Makaras²⁰—Mansa, Matsya, Madya, Maithuna, and Mudra—that is, flesh, fish, wine, women, and certain mystical gesticulations with the fingers.²¹ Suitable muntrus, or incantations are also indispensable, according to the end proposed, consisting of various unmeaning monosyllabic combinations of letters, of great imaginary efficacy.²²

“When the object of worship is to acquire an interview with, and control over, impure spirits, a dead body is necessary. The adept is also to be alone, at midnight, in a cemetery or place where bodies are burnt. Seated on the corpse, he is to perform the usual offerings, and if he do so without fear or disgust, the Dhutas, the Yoginis, and other male and female demons become his slaves.

“In this and many of the observances practised, solitude is enjoined, but all the principal ceremonies comprehend the worship of Sacti, or POWER, and require, for that purpose, the presence of a young and beautiful girl, as the living representative of the goddess.²³ This worship is mostly celebrated in a mixed society; the men of which represent Bhairavas, or Viras, and the women, Bhanravis and Nayikas. The Sacti is personified by a naked girl, to whom meat and wine are offered, and then distributed among the assistants. Here follows the chanting of the Muntrus and sacred texts, and the performance of the Mudra, or gesticulations with the fingers. The whole terminates with orgies amongst the votaries of a very licentious description.²⁴ This ceremony is entitled the SRI CHAKRA, or PURNABISHEKA, THE RING or full Initiation.²⁵

“This method of adoring the Sacti is unquestionably acknowledged by the texts regarded by the Vanis as authorities for the impurities practised.

“The members of the sect are sworn to secrecy, and will not therefore acknowledge any participation in Sacta-Puja. Some years ago, however, they began to throw off this reserve, and at the present day they trouble themselves very little to disguise their initiation into its mysteries, but they do not divulge in what those mysteries consist.

“The Culanava has the following and other similar passages: the Tantras abound with them:

“ ‘Many false pretenders to knowledge, and who have not been duly initiated, pretend to practise the Caula rites; but if perfection be attained by drinking wine, then every drunkard is a saint; if virtue consists in eating flesh, then every carnivorous animal in the world is virtuous; if eternal happiness be derived from the union of the sexes, then all beings will be entitled to it. A follower of the Caula doctrine is blameless in my sight if he reproves those of other creeds who quit their established observances. Those of other sects who use the articles of the Caula worship shall be condemned to a metempsychosis during as many years as there are hairs of the body.’

“The Kauchiluas are another branch of the Sactas sect; their worship much resembles that of the Caulas. They are, however, distinguished by one particular rite not practised by the others, and throw into confusion all the ties of female relationship; natural restraints are wholly disregarded, and a community of women among the votaries inculcated.²⁶

“On the occasions of the performance of divine worship the women and girls deposit their julies, or bodices, in a box in charge of the Guru, or priest. At the close of the rites, the male worshippers take each a julie from the box, and the female to whom it belongs, even were she his sister, becomes his partner for the evening in these lascivious orgies.²⁷

“Dancing formed an important part of the ceremonial worship of most Eastern peoples. Dancing girls were attached to the Egyptian temples and to that of the Jews. David also, we are told, ‘danced before the Lord with all his might’. And to every temple of any importance in India we find a troup of Nautch or dancing girls attached.

“These women are generally procured when quite young, and are early initiated into all the mysteries of their profession. They are instructed in dancing and vocal and instrumental music, their chief employment being to chant the sacred hymns, and perform nautches before the God, on the recurrence of high festivals. But this is not the only service required of them, for besides being the acknowledged mistresses of the officiating priests, it is their duty to prostitute themselves in the courts of the temple to all comers, and thus raise funds for the enrichment of the place of worship to which they belong.

“Being always women of considerable personal attractions, which are heightened by all the seductions of dress, jewels, accomplishments and art, they frequently receive large sums in return for the favours they grant, and fifty, one hundred, and even two hundred rupees have been known to be paid to these syrens in one night. Nor is this very much to be wondered at, as they comprise among their number, perhaps, some of the loveliest women in the world.

“It has been said already that among the classes from which a medium for Sacti is selected, is the courtesan and dancing-girl grade; they are indeed more frequently chosen for this honour than the others before enumerated. A Nautch woman esteems it a peculiar privilege to become the Radha Dea on such occasions. It is an office indeed which these adepts are, on every account, better calculated to fulfil with satisfaction to the sect of Sacteyas who require their aid, than a more innocent and unsophisticated girl.

“The worship of Sacti (as already observed) is the adoration of POWER,²⁸ which the Hindus typify by the Yoni, or womb, the Argha or Vulva, and by the leaves and flowers of certain plants thought to resemble it. Thus in the Ananda Tantram, c. vi., verse 13, we find an allusion to the Aswattha, or sacred fig-tree (the leaf of which is in the shape of a heart, and much resembles the conventional form of the Yoni, to which it is compared) …

“In Ananda Tantram, cap. vii. 148, and other passages, reference is made to Bhagamala. She appears to be the goddess who presides over the pudendum muliebre, i.e., the deified Vulva; and the Sacti is thus personified.

“In the mental adoration of Sacti a diagram is framed, and the figure imagined to be seen inside the Vulva. This is the Adhamukham, or lower face, i.e., the Yoni, wherein the worshipper is to imagine (mantapam) a chapel to be erected.²⁹

“All the forms of Sacti Puja require the use of some or all of the five—Makaras,³⁰ Mansa, Matsya, Madya, Maithuna, and Mudra—that is flesh, fish, wine, women, and certain mystical twistings or gesticulations with the fingers.

“Such are some of the peculiar features of the worship of POWER (or Gnosticism)³¹ and which, combined with the Linga Puja (or adoration of Phallus), constitutes at the present day one of the most popular dogmas of the Hindus.”

Such was Sellon’s description of Tantricism. As far as the Facts of Tantric worship were concerned it was not too far from the truth, but Sellon’s failure to arrive at any faint conception of the inner philosophy of Tantricism completely invalidated his interpretation of the cult.

¹ This and the succeeding quotations come, unless otherwise indicated, from Sellon’s posthumously published pornographic autobiography The Ups and Downs of Life. I have been unable to obtain access to a copy of the first edition (1867) and have been forced to rely upon (a) a wretchedly printed continental edition (c. 1900) which had both been heavily cut and had added to it, by some semi-literate hack, a great deal of extremely filthy and boring homosexual material and (b) extracts printed by Pisanus Fraxi (Ashbee) in his Index Librorum Prohibitorum (1877).

² This, the only literary production of Sellon that would not have been out of place in a Victorian drawing-room, was not published until 1848. From internal evidence it is nevertheless clear that at least a first draft of the novel must have been completed as early as 1842.

³ According to Sellon’s own account this resignation took place in 1844, shortly before his marriage. Curiously enough, however, his name still appeared in the East India list as late as 1847.

⁴ When reading this account for the first time I was inclined to dismiss it as fiction but on comparing it with the surviving examples of Sellon’s pornographic fantasies I found that the style was so markedly different that I became confident that Sellon was telling the truth—although possibly embroidering it.

⁵ This choice of career is not as odd as it may appear at first sight. Young bloods of the period prided themselves on their ability to handle a four-horse team in much the same way that their present-day equivalents are proud of driving an Alfa-Romeo or an E-type Jaguar car.

⁶ Gamahuche was the most commonly used nineteenth-century word for oralgenital contacts. It survives in abbreviated form, as the vulgar expression “gam”. I cannot trace any etymological relationship with the colloquial American term “gams”—meaning legs—which seems to be derived from the Italian.

⁷ According to the title page this book was Printed for Thomas Longtool, Rogerwell Street. The real publisher seems to have been J. C. Hotten. The extract I give comes from pp. 21-2 of the second edition (1870?).

⁸ This letter was printed in full by Ashbee in Index Librorum Prohibitorum (1877). As this book is now virtually unobtainable (only 250 copies were printed), however, I feel that the letter is worth reproducing in full, particularly as it so well illustrates Sellon’s peculiar outlook on life. A condensed version of the Index has recently been published as a paperback in the United States, but the letter I reproduce was excluded from it.

⁹ This poem, which is not indecent, was for some unknown reason reproduced in Cythera’s Hymnal or Flakes from the Foreskin which, according to its title page, was published in 1870 by the Oxford University Press. The date may be correct!

¹⁰ Long live the penis, it will not rise again.

¹¹ Sactya Rites among Mussulmans. According to Buckingham, “Between Zohaub and Kermanshah there are a people called Nessereah, who, like those of the same name in Syria, pay divine honours to the Pudendum Muliebre, and hold feasts resembling ancient mysteries of Venus.” (Sellon’s Note.)

¹² In alluding to Bhavani (Pavati) as distinguished by a variety of names implying Nature, and among others using that of Shacti, Paolino in his Voyages, p. 327, gives an account of the Magna Mater of the Hindus. “She changes,” he says, “and transforms herself into a thousand shapes, and appears sometimes as a man and sometimes as a woman. Her votaries paint the Medhra” (in Bengal called yoni), “which is represented by two side strokes, and a red one in the middle” (on the forehead). “This mark represents the womb of Bhavani,” in its conventional form.—Paolino’s Voyage to Malabar. (Sellon’s Note.)

¹³ As. Res., viii. 393. (Sellon’s Note.)

¹⁴ Idem, viii, 426. (Sellon’s Note.)

¹⁵ “Prakriti is inherent Maya, because she beguiles all beings”—As. Res., xvii. (Sellon’s Note.)

¹⁶ On the base of Minerva’s statue at Sais, whom the Egyptians regarded to be the same as Isis, a goddess who bears so striking an analogy to the Hindu Prakriti or nature, there was this inscription: “I am everything that has been, that is, and that shall be: nor has any mortal ever yet been able to discover what is under my veil.”—Plutar. de Iside et Osiride, s. ix. (Sellon’s Note.)

¹⁷ Thus in the Kuma-Puran, c. xii., we read, “His energy, being the universal form of all the world, is Maya, for so does the Lord, the best of males, and endowed with illusion cause it to revolve. That Sacti of which the essence is illusion is omniform and eternal, and constantly displays the universal shape of Mahesa.”(Sellon’s Note.)

¹⁸ Thus in the Siva Tantra, Siva is made to say, “The five scriptures issued from my five mouths, and were the East, West, South, North, and Upper: these five are known as the paths to final liberation. There are many Scriptures, but none are equal to the Upper Scripture.” Kulluka Bhatta, commentating on the first verse of the 2nd ch. Menu, says, “The Scruti is twofold, Vaidika and Tantrika, that is Tantra.” (Sellon’s Note.)

¹⁹ Vide the Sanscrit copies of the Tantras in the British and Indian Museums. (Sellon’s Note.)

²⁰ They are enumerated in the Syama Rahasya. “Mudra and Maithuna are the fivefold Makara which takes away all sin.” (Sellon’s Note.)

²¹ Here Sellon slipped up badly. While in ordinary language Mudra means mystical finger gestures in the “twilight” or “intentional” language of Tantricism it means kidney-beans or some parched grain attributed with aphrodisiac qualities.

²² “It is the combination of H and S called Prasada Mantra, and described in the Kularnava.”—Wilson, As. Res. (Sellon’s Note.)

²³ The female thus worshipped is ever after denominated Yogini, i.e., “attached”. This Sanscrit word is in the dialects pronounced Jogi or Zogee, and is equivalent to a secular nun, as these women are subsequently supported by alms. The word from custom has become equivalent with Sena, and thus is exactly the same as Duti or Dutica (doo-ty-car). The books of morality direct a faithful wife to shun the society of Yogini, or females who have been adored as Sacti.

The Sacti system bears a striking affinity with Epicureanism. It teaches Materialism and the Atomic system of chance. (Compare the Ananda Tantram, c. xvii. with Lucretius, lib. iii.)

The worship of women and the Sacta h’oma vidhi are grounded on passages in the Veda which orthodox Brahmins regard as of doubtful authority. (Vide Rig Vedam, Bk. ii. c. viii. sections 13,14, 2nd attham, 8th pannam, ricks B. 14, which contain the Sucla Homa Mantram, &c.) (Sellon’s Note.)

²⁴ Wilson, on Hin. Sects. vol. xvii., As Res. (Sellon’s Note.)

²⁵ Ward, on the Vaisnavis, p. 309.

The leading rites of the Sakti Sodhana are described in the Devi Radhasya, a section of the Rudra Yamala. It is therein stated that the object of worship should be either “A dancing girl, a female devotee, a courtesan, Dhobee woman, a barber’s wife, a female of the Brahminical or Sudra tribe, a flower girl, or a milkmaid. Appropriate muntrus are to be used. She is to be placed naked, but richly ornamented with jewels and flowers, on the left of a circle described for the purpose, with various muntrus and gesticulations, and it is to be rendered pure by the repetition of different formulas, being finally sprinkled over with wine by the peculiar mantra.

“The Sacti is now purified, but if not previously initiated, she is to be further made an adept by the communication of the Radical Mantra whispered thrice in her car, when the object of the ceremony is complete. The finale is what might be expected, but accompanied throughout by muntrus, and forms of meditation very foreign to the scene.”—Wilson, As. Res., vol. xvii. 225, on Hin. Sects.(Sellon’s Note.)

²⁶ This sect appears in the Sankara Vijaya as the Uchchishtha Ganapati or Hairamba sect, who declare that all men and all women are of one caste, and that their intercourse is free from fault.—Vide Ward’s Works, vol. ii. 5, on the above subject.—Wilson on Hin. Sects, vol. xvii. (Sellon’s Note.)

²⁷ Yet these Sacteyas (or adorers of Sacti) look upon all but themselves as “pasu iana”, mere brutes! (Sellon’s Note.)

²⁸ In Egypt we learn that Typho sometimes bore the name Seth, “by which they mean the Tyrannical and overbearing POWER, or, as the word frequently signifies, the POWER that overturns all things, and that overleaps all bounds.”—Plutar. de Iside et Osirides, xxxvi. (Sellon’s Note.)

²⁹ Ananda Tantram. (Sellon’s Note.)

³⁰ They are enumerated in the Syama Rahasya. “Mudra and Maithuna are the fivefold Makara, which takes away all sin.” (Sellon’s Note.)

³¹ Simon Magus is supposed to be the founder of Western Gnosticism, he it was who corrupted the Nicolaitanes (vide Apocalypse, ii. 6, 15). They held sensual pleasure to be the true creed.

In the Foreign Quarterly Review, p. 159, 580, the following passage occurs: “The grand object of the magic of the Christians in the middle ages was to obtain the command over the services of demons: such were the pursuits of witches. But these were always looked upon as criminal. The belief that men possess the power to control spirits was not peculiar to the Gnostick Christians. The liturgies of the Roman and Greek churches contain several rules on these subjects.”

The Memoirs of Scipio di Ricci, of Pistoja, reveal some remarkable facts, plainly demonstrating that Sacteya ideas had found their way into the monasteries and convents of Italy in the latter part of the last century. (Sellon’s Note.)