Al raises a point (below) that i find very interesting in a wider context, that of how "natural" and geographically "local" any magical tradition is, and i'd be interested to see people's thoughts on how "imported" traditions integrate into various "local" practices under study in academia. I think it was Marion Bowman who wrote about "Cardiac Celts"- people who go for Celtic paganism in a big way regardless of location and their own genetics, 'a choice made in the heart' (or words to that effect); and i have seen a lot of stuff on the web about the spread of regional Trad Witchcrafts (especially Cornish styles) into other countries, especially the USA, to those who are not genetically Cornish in any way, and the popularity of Santeria and Vodoun (spellings vary) with various white Europeans who possibly could not find Haiti on a map, if pressed. There is also of course the Santo Daime ayahuasca church, a South American import which is quite big in Holland, an!
d growing
in the UK
is it "just" the intermelding of cultures, or is it a response to the dizzying variety of available methods out there in our 21st Century consumer world, or what?
cheers
dave e
There is a lot of tradition with
centuries of feuding, etc. to be swallowed if you want to practice
Vajrayana. You can say "Oh, hey, I don't need to do this stuff over here,
right?" and point to some of it but unless you are 100% conversant with the
tradition and trained, how do you know that you aren't just playing to your
own ego and culture and discarding the useful and necessary materials?
Also, for better or worse, a Western practitioner can learn his techniques,
begin actually practic!
ing and
when he or she gets what seems to be results,
work with others in a way that makes sense to them without being beholden to
anyone. Unless you've gone on a three year retreat, you are unlikely to have
that freedom in a Vajrayana setting unless you are willing to be completely
heterodox. This also means that, for example, you are going against the
teachings about the Dharma Protectors and the like as well.
These are issues that I've struggled with as a practitioner. I'm more free
as a Western practitioner of "local" systems but then I'm pretty much
completely self-taught and the others doing this may or may not know any
more than me.
Al
