Tag: Tibetan Buddhism

The Illusion of Consent

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Kurukullā, the red goddess of magnetizing, depicted in a traditional Tibetan thangka style, embodying the tantric power to attract and bind.

Western seekers approaching Tibetan Buddhism are usually drawn to its most humane face. Chenrezig practice promises the cultivation of boundless compassion through visualizing Avalokiteśvara and reciting his mantra Om Mani Peme Hung. Tonglen “taking and sending” practice trains the mind to breathe in the suffering of others and breathe out relief. These sincere aspirations are the public face of Tibetan Buddhism. Yet this religion also preserves a hidden curriculum. Alongside compassionate practices sit the four activities that structure tantric ritual: pacifying, enriching, magnetizing, and subjugating. This fuller picture is rarely presented to beginners, and yet it has consequences for any claim to informed consent.[1]

The four activities: not just compassion

The four activities, known in Sanskrit as caturkarman, classify tantric rites by their intended effect:

  • Pacifying (śāntika) calms illness and obstacles.
  • Enriching (puṣṭika) augments longevity, merit, charisma, retinues, and wealth.
  • Magnetizing (vaśīkaraṇa) draws people and circumstances into a chosen orbit.
  • Subjugating (abhicāra) compells or destroys enemies.

These four are standard categories across tantric manuals and commentaries.[2]

While Western students are typically introduced to the activities of pacifying and enriching, the other two, magnetizing and subjugating, remain obscure, despite being prominent in tantric ritual literature. Historian Jacob Dalton has shown that violent tantric rites were not marginal but integral, even harnessed by Tibetan states to consolidate power in the medieval period.[3]

Kurukullā: the red goddess of attraction

Kurukullā, a red goddess associated with Amitābha and Tara, epitomizes magnetizing. In traditional texts she is praised as the deity of attraction, and in Tibetan sources she is sometimes known as the “Magnetizing Tara.” She is depicted holding a arrow, bow, flower and hook, all instruments of enchantment. [4]

Contemporary dharma centers sometimes describe her as a deity of love and influence, a kind of esoteric Cupid. But Tibetan ritual manuals, as catalogued by Stephan Beyer and translated in part by modern scholars, show that Kurukullā rites include binding the loyalty or desire of others.[5]

The omission of this material in introductory teachings is significant. Students often hear of compassion, not of enchantment and coercion.

Subjugation and tantric violence

Subjugating rituals, by contrast, can be overtly violent. Dunhuang manuscripts detail effigy rites and “liberation” practices, in which enemies are ritually slain to protect practitioners and their patrons. Dalton notes that these methods scaled from local shamanic forms into state-sanctioned tantric technologies by the 13th century.[6]

Even today, wrathful practices remain part of Tibetan public culture. Cham dances of Mahākāla, staged annually in monasteries, dramatically enact the destruction of obstacles. While these are often seen as symbolic, their presence keeps alive a framework where wrathful force is ritually mobilized against perceived threats.[7]

Samaya: the binding vow

In Highest Yoga Tantra empowerments, disciples take vows of refuge, bodhisattva vows, and tantric samaya commitments. Samaya is described as a “sacred bond” with the guru and the deity. Root downfalls include disrespecting the master or revealing tantric secrets. Breach is said to bring spiritual ruin.[8]

This means that students who take empowerments without understanding the full scope of tantric practices, including magnetizing, subjugating, and punishment rites, are effectively giving consent under partial information. Despite not understanding fully what they are entering into, the bond of samaya can become a blanket mechanism of control.

As the 17th Karmapa indicated in teachings earlier this year, samaya breakers are spoken of in language that implies wrathful retribution, both spiritual and physical. The retribution he described is not symbolic but actual. See my essay, “Read Between the Lines,” for more on this.[9]

Survivors’ voices

Accounts from survivors and critical practitioners suggest that magnetizing and wrathful practices are not just metaphors. Women have described experiences of sexual energy being manipulated at a distance, sometimes calling it a form of “astral rape.” Whether one interprets this as energetic manipulation or psychological intrusion, the perception of violation is real.

Lion’s Roar published testimonies arguing that samaya has been used as a principal mechanism of coercion in abuse cases. Independent investigations of groups like Shambhala document patterns where devotion and secrecy prevented victims from speaking out.[10]

Buddhist communities are now grappling with these realities. Some organizations are introducing explicit consent policies, recognizing that the charisma of a guru, altered states of consciousness induced during a ritual, and the binding reality of vows can impair a student’s capacity to freely choose.[11]

Historical context does not erase ethical duty

Scholars such as Ronald Davidson have contextualized tantric violence as a product of medieval frontier politics and kingship.[12] This explains how such rites developed. But historical context does not remove the ethical obligation to disclose them to modern students.

Without disclosure, the vows taken in empowerments are not truly informed. The student consents to Buddhist compassion, but is bound to a system that also contains sexual enchantment, psychological manipulation, and deadly punishments.

Conclusion

The compassionate practices of Chenrezig and Tonglen have a genuine power to transform, yet Tibetan Buddhism’s esoteric side contains hidden technologies that are not peaceful but harmful: the rites of magnetizing, subjugation, and punishment. These are attested in texts, preserved in ritual, and acknowledged by scholars and survivors alike. Until these dimensions are more fully disclosed, the vows taken in tantric empowerments remain shadowy. Consent given without knowledge of the whole spectrum of practice is not true consent. It is, as this essay argues, an illusion.

Source Notes

1. Rigpa Wiki, “Four activities,” accessed 2025.
Rigpa Wiki is a practitioner-maintained encyclopedia that summarizes key Vajrayana concepts. Its entry on the “four activities” clearly lays out pacifying, enriching, magnetizing, and subjugating as the classical categories of tantric ritual. It is not a critical academic source, but it reflects how contemporary Tibetan Buddhist institutions themselves present the material.

2. Study Buddhism, “What is Samaya?” and “Empowerment.”
Study Buddhism is a project led by Alexander Berzin and colleagues, offering accessible introductions to Buddhist theory and practice. These entries explain samaya as a binding relationship with a guru and empowerment as the ritual granting of authority to practice tantra. They are useful for showing how Tibetan teachers explain vows and empowerments to Western audiences.

3. Jacob P. Dalton, The Taming of the Demons: Violence and Liberation in Tibetan Buddhism (Yale University Press, 2011).
Dalton’s book is a landmark study of ritual violence in Tibetan Buddhism. Drawing on Dunhuang manuscripts, he shows that wrathful rites, including violent subjugation and “liberation” rituals, were integral to tantric practice. Dalton’s work challenges romantic views of Buddhism as purely peaceful.

4. Wikipedia, “Kurukullā”
The Wikipedia entry gives a concise overview of Kurukullā as a magnetizing deity across Buddhist cultures.

Tomlin, Adele. “MAGNETISING RED QUEEN, KURUKULLĀ: ‘Outshining the perceptions of others and bringing afflictive emotions under control’ teaching of 8th Garchen Rinpoche,” Dakini Translations, 8 June 2021. Available at: https://dakinitranslations.com/2021/06/08/magnetising-dancing-queen-kurukulla-outshining-the-perceptions-of-others-and-bringing-afflictive-emotions-under-control-teaching-of-8th-garchen-rinpoche/

5. Stephan Beyer, The Cult of Tārā: Magic and Ritual in Tibet (University of California Press, 1973).
Beyer’s study remains a foundational ethnography of tantric ritual in Tibet. His translations of ritual manuals include examples of both compassionate and wrathful practices, including rites of attraction and subjugation. It is particularly valuable for showing how deity practices were embedded in everyday Tibetan religious life.

6. Dalton, Taming of the Demons; see also Jacob P. Dalton, “A Crisis of Doxography,” in Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 28, no. 1 (2005).
In addition to his book, Dalton’s article “A Crisis of Doxography” analyzes how violent rites were classified in Tibetan scholastic traditions. He shows that even systematizing scholars struggled to reconcile wrathful tantric methods with Buddhist ideals, which underscores their presence and their tension.

7. Associated Press, “Wrathful deities in Tibetan Cham dance,” 2024.
This news report covers annual cham dances in Tibet and in exile communities, where wrathful deities like Mahākāla are invoked to repel obstacles. It illustrates that wrathful practices are still a living part of Tibetan Buddhist culture, even if framed from the public as symbolic or theatrical.

8. Study Buddhism, “Samaya”; Rigpa Wiki, “Empowerment.”
Both entries describe the vows and commitments made during empowerment rituals. They confirm that samaya includes strict obligations to the guru and to secrecy. Their language highlights how the bonding process is explained to new students, and how much is left unspoken.

9 “Read Between the Lines: A Glimpse Into the Dark Heart of Guru Devotion,” Tantric Deception, April 4, 2025.
This essay analyzes a teaching by the 17th Karmapa, where he discussed samaya and hinted at punitive consequences for breaking devotion. It shows how even contemporary high lamas continue to invoke the discourse of samaya enforcement, reinforcing the concerns about consent.

10. Lion’s Roar, “When Samaya is Used as a Weapon,” 2018; Buddhist Project Sunshine Reports, 2018–2019.
Lion’s Roar published reflections by teachers and survivors on how samaya language has been used to silence or coerce students in abuse cases. Buddhist Project Sunshine was a grassroots effort to document sexual misconduct in Shambhala and other Tibetan Buddhist organizations. These sources provide survivor-centered evidence of how samaya functions in practice.

11. Buddhist Ethics Working Group, “Consent in Vajrayana,” 2021.
This collective statement from Buddhist practitioners and ethicists proposes new standards for sexual and spiritual consent in Vajrayana contexts. It emphasizes enthusiastic, ongoing consent and rejects the misuse of tantric language to excuse coercion. It is an attempt at reform efforts from within the tradition.

12. Ronald M. Davidson, Indian Esoteric Buddhism: A Social History of the Tantric Movement (Columbia University Press, 2002).
Davidson’s historical study situates tantric Buddhism in the political and social context of medieval India. He shows how esoteric practices were bound up with kingship, warfare, and elite patronage. His work helps explain how violent and manipulative rites could become integral to the tradition, even if they clash with Buddhist ethics.

“Books of Spells” in Tibetan Buddhism: Magnetizing and Subjugation Rites, and the Problem of Sexual and Spiritual Abuse

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To view Tibetan Buddhism as purely meditative and philosophical is to miss a large and still under-mapped terrain of ritual manuals and spell collections. A 9th to 10th-century Tibetan “book of spells” from the Dunhuang cave library (British Library IOL Tib J 401) shows that Tibetan monks compiled practical ritual instructions covering healing, protection, exorcism, and subjugation. It is the earliest surviving compendium of Tibetan Buddhist magical ritual and looks exactly like what we’d call a grimoire: a working handbook of spellcraft.¹

Moving forward in time, the 18th-century polymath Slelung Zhadepa Dorje (Sle lung Bzhad pa’i rdo rje) assembled a large tantric cycle centered on the Jñānaḍākinī. Within that cycle, scholars have identified several distinct grimoires of spells that are, again, practical instruction sets embedded in a broader tantric collection. As one study notes: “This paper seeks to examine such techniques in several grimoires of spells found in the tantric cycle of Gsang ba ye shes mkha’ ’gro… compiled and edited… by Sle lung Bzhad pa’i rdo rje (1697–1740) in the 1730s.”²

“Magical practices in Buddhism are still one of the least studied aspects of the religion.”³

Despite strong indications that there are many such grimoires, from Dunhuang through later ritual cycles, there is no comprehensive catalog. Scholars themselves admit the field’s patchy mapping. Sam van Schaik emphasizes the neglect, and others underline that studies too often treat magic as a literary trope rather than as practical ritual.³ ⁴

Personal experience

I do not come to this subject as a detached scholar. I was targeted by two different lamas at different times, one of whom used coercion to draw me into a sexual relationship and then employed what I can only describe as black magic when I resisted, questioned, and tried to break free. Living through those experiences is what drove me to investigate Tibetan spell craft.

“From the inside, the grimoires of Tibetan Buddhism do not feel very different from the grimoires of Western occultism.”

Although I practiced intensely for years in long retreats, I was never taught these darker rituals, yet I witnessed unsettling rites performed by my lamas. After rebuffing the advances of the first guru, I experienced what felt like severe magical attacks that reverberated for years. The cognitive dissonance was crushing: I believed these teachers were fully enlightened buddhas, yet I suffered severe trauma and PTSD.

“Fear of vajra hell kept me clinging to the practices, even as abuse intensified.”

My second guru was later exposed publicly for sexual and psychological abuse. Being caught in his orbit, I became the target of annihilation rituals. Surviving and recovering has been extraordinarily difficult. I now see that while some teachers avoid such practices, others weaponize spells of magnetism and subjugation to manipulate students, especially women, for sex and energetic vampirization. This gray area of practical magic within Tibetan Buddhism is vast and dangerous.

What the rites actually claim to do: magnetizing and subjugation

Classical Vajrayāna sorts ritual aims into four “activities”: pacifying, enriching, magnetizing, and subjugating. These are not marginal ideas; they are a standard frame for tantric ritual. Magnetizing (Tib. dbang du sdud pa) is explicitly defined as bringing others “under one’s control,” while subjugation names violent rites directed at overcoming obstacles and destroying opponents.⁵ ⁶

Texts and prayers for magnetizing circulate broadly, for instance, the “Wang Dü” prayer attributed to Mipham, described as “magnetizing or bringing under one’s control.” None of this is esoteric in the sense of being unknown; it is central to tantric categories and practice rhetoric.⁶ ⁷

From ritual claims to real-world power: how coercion maps onto communities and individuals

A ritual manual promising to attract, influence, or subdue doesn’t automatically produce abuse. Still, the rhetoric of magnetizing and subjugation sits within a social system that grants absolute authority to gurus and expects strong devotion from students. When high-status teachers have access to rites whose very names project attraction and control, the risk of translating ritual language into interpersonal domination is real.

Recent history demonstrates the danger. In 2018 Rigpa, the international organization founded by Sogyal Rinpoche, published the results of an independent investigation by the law firm Lewis Silkin that validated numerous allegations of physical and sexual abuse and identified serious safeguarding failures.⁸

The published report recounts patterns of violence and coercion including “slapping,” “punching,” “hitting with a backscratcher, phones, cups and hangers,” and documents testimonies of sexual abuse, concluding that the community had failed to protect students.⁹

This is not to claim that tantric ritual texts instruct teachers to abuse students. It is to note a combustible mix: magical mechanisms of control, asymmetries of authority, sacralized obedience, and the frequent absence of external accountability.

Bringing the strands together

  • Books of spells are the norm: Tibetan Buddhist literature contains actual “books of spells” and multiple grimoires embedded in tantric cycles. These are not aberrations but part of the tradition.¹ ²
  • An under-researched domain: Leading scholars explicitly acknowledge that this area of Buddhist practice is still understudied.³ ⁴
  • Control as a ritual aim: The four tantric activities include “magnetizing” and “subjugating,” both routinely glossed as bringing beings or circumstances under one’s control.⁵ ⁶
  • Abuse linked to ritual rhetoric: Documented cases in Tibetan Buddhist communities show how claims to ritual power combined with intense guru-devotion can provide cover for coercion and severe abuse.⁸ ⁹

Where the research gap still matters

A fuller picture of “how many” grimoires are in Tibetan tantric collections requires systematic cataloging across canons and private libraries. Right now we have case studies and local inventories rather than a master list. These texts need to be thoroughly studied in their historical and contemporary contexts and exposed to the world for what they really are–recipes for white and black magic–not sugarcoated as quaint and innocuous artifacts.³ ⁴

Without naming and analyzing how these are taught and performed, it is hard for communities and individuals to protect themselves from magical attacks.

What better safeguards look like

  • Name the risk: community materials should explain what “magnetizing” and “subjugation” denote in practice and how these can and will be used against students at the guru’s discretion.
  • Independent oversight: adopt and publish external safeguarding standards and reporting channels. The Rigpa case shows why self-policing fails.⁸
  • Informed consent and boundaries: spell out that teacher/student sex, even where allowed by law, requires adult consent free of spiritual pressure, and that the bar for “free of pressure” is very high in asymmetric relationships.
  • Don’t assume that all Tibetan Buddhist lamas have pure intention and integrity.

“The safest course is to avoid Tibetan Buddhism altogether, since in practice the guru’s needs and moods often override the Buddha’s teaching of non-harm.“

A closing note on method

This article is a call for transparency and insistence on precision. Tibetan Buddhist archives contain grimoires. The tradition attracts students to its supposedly compassionate practices while concealing that darker “magnetizing” and “subjugation” practices are core ritual elements. Scholars say this area is understudied. And history shows that these techniques of control, in the hands of unaccountable authorities, can easily become abusive, even deadly.

Footnotes

  1. Sam van Schaik, “The Early Tibetan Book of Spells.” Analysis of British Library manuscript IOL Tib J 401 from Dunhuang (9th–10th century). This manuscript is recognized as the earliest surviving Tibetan compendium of spells and rituals, containing instructions for healing, protection, and exorcism. See: Sam van Schaik, Early Tibet blog (2008), and also referenced in his book Tibetan Zen: Discovering a Lost Tradition (Snow Lion, 2015).
  2. Sle lung Bzhad pa’i rdo rje’s Jñānaḍākinī cycle study (Academia.edu). Scholarly paper examining several grimoires embedded in the tantric cycle of Gsang ba ye shes mkha’ ’gro, compiled and edited in the 1730s by Sle lung Bzhad pa’i rdo rje (1697–1740). The paper highlights ritual techniques, their organization, and their status as practical spell collections within a broader cycle. Available on Academia.edu.
  3. Sam van Schaik on magical practices in Buddhism. Statement that “magical practices in Buddhism are still one of the least studied aspects of the religion.” Quoted in his writings on Buddhist magic, including his blog Early Tibet and in Tibetan Zen (Snow Lion, 2015).
  4. Cameron Bailey, “The Magic of Secret Gnosis: A Theoretical Analysis of a Tibetan Buddhist ‘Grimoire’.” Journal of the Korean Association of Buddhist Studies 84 (2020): 145–176. Available via Academia.edu. Bailey notes that “magic power in Buddhism has been studied more from the perspective of a literary trope than as practical and exactingly specific ritual techniques,” and examines grimoires embedded within the Gsang ba ye shes mkha’ ’gro (Secret Gnosis Dakini) cycle compiled by Sle lung Bzhad pa’i rdo rje in the 1730s.
  5. Vajrayāna framework of four activities. Standard tantric taxonomy of ritual aims: pacifying (zhi ba), enriching (rgyas pa), magnetizing (dbang sdud), and subjugating (dbang ’joms). Discussed in multiple Vajrayāna handbooks and summaries, including descriptions in online resources such as Rigpa Wiki and introductory texts on Vajrayāna Buddhism.
  6. Definitions of magnetizing. Magnetizing (dbang du sdud pa) is routinely glossed as “bringing others under one’s control.” See standard glosses in Vajrayāna dictionaries, sadhana commentaries, and contemporary teaching materials (e.g. Rigpa Wiki, “Four activities”).
  7. “Wang Dü” prayer attributed to Mipham. A widely recited prayer describing magnetizing activities, attributed to the 19th-century scholar Mipham Rinpoche (1846–1912). Circulates in Tibetan and English translation as a practice of magnetizing or bringing beings under one’s control.
  8. Rigpa Independent Investigation, Lewis Silkin LLP (2018). Commissioned by Rigpa International following widespread allegations against founder Sogyal Lakar (Sogyal Rinpoche). The final report documented physical assaults, psychological abuse, and sexual exploitation, and called out systemic safeguarding failures. Full report available through Rigpa’s website and media coverage (2018).
  9. Findings on abuse in Rigpa/Sogyal Rinpoche’s communities. The Lewis Silkin report and subsequent coverage summarized multiple testimonies: repeated slapping, punching, use of objects to hit students, as well as sexual coercion and exploitation of women. Findings were corroborated by survivor accounts and reinforced calls for reform in Tibetan Buddhist organizations.

The Grimoire of Secret Gnosis

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A Hidden Side of Tantric Buddhism

Buddhism is usually presented in the West as a religion of mindfulness and compassion. But hidden in its tantric wing is something darker. In the eighteenth century, Sélung Shepa Dorjé (Sle lung Bzhad pa’i rdo rje) compiled a sixteen-volume cycle called Secret Gnosis Dakini (Gsang ba ye shes mkha’ ’gro, or GYCK). This was not just a collection of esoteric philosophy, but also a grimoire filled with magical spells.

According to Cameron Bailey in The Magic of Secret Gnosis: A Theoretical Analysis of a Tibetan Buddhist “Grimoire,” grimoires of spell instructions are common in Tibetan Buddhism. They often appear inside larger tantric cycles like the GYCK or in the collected works of great lamas. As the scholar Berounsky, cited by Bailey, put it, the operations in such texts are “an amalgam of tantric interventions combined with popular magic.” [1]

Volumes four and twelve of the GYCK preserve dozens of rituals for worldly power. The twelfth volume in particular reads like a magician’s handbook. It does not hide its intent; it offers ninety-two spells to heal, protect, enrich, and subjugate.

Rituals of Control

Among these spells are some dedicated to domination. Far from the common image of Buddhism as a purely gentle path of liberation, the Secret Gnosis spells allowed practitioners to bind and control others. One entire text, The Magic Lasso, instructs adepts on capturing their targets through visualization and mantra. Other spells direct them to create talismans and effigies, ritually charged to influence or destroy enemies.

Bailey emphasizes that these rituals work by merging tantric deity yoga with ritual techniques: the practitioner visualizes themselves as a wrathful god, projects light rays at the target, and seals the action with mantra. Your meditation becomes, in effect, a weapon.

The Spellbook as Technology

The grimoire aspect of the Secret Gnosis cycle cannot be overlooked. It contains practical instructions for bending reality to one’s desire. Substances like herbs, turquoise, and even urine or flesh are prescribed as tools of ritual practice.

Bailey notes that these spells are framed within a bodhisattva ethic. They are said to protect the Dharma or defend communities. Yet to modern eyes, they read unmistakably as instructions for control. This is where interpretation diverges. Bailey highlights the philosophical and ritual integration, while a critical lens reveals the coercive logic beneath the compassionate rhetoric.

A Tradition of Ambivalence

Figures like Milarepa warned against sorcery, even though his story is entangled with it. The Buddhist tradition as a whole often drew a line between miracle powers that “arise naturally” from meditation and deliberate ritual magic. But that line was blurred from the beginning. The Secret Gnosis makes clear how deeply magical domination was preserved within the canon.

Conclusion

The Secret Gnosis Dakini cycle exposes a side of tantric Buddhism rarely acknowledged publicly. Bailey shows that its grimoire-like sections are integral to tantric practice, not just marginal curiosities. What I emphasize here is that these spells—especially those of subjugation—show a system where manipulation was not an aberration but an option built into the tradition. What is presented today as a path of compassion was also, sometimes, a path of great harm.

[1] Cameron Bailey, “The Magic of Secret Gnosis: A Theoretical Analysis of a Tibetan Buddhist ‘Grimoire,’” Journal of the Korean Association for Buddhist Studies 93 (2020): 535–570.

America’s Freemasonic Roots and the Hidden Rise of Tantra

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The United States was founded as a nation with Christian underpinnings. Though explicitly rejecting a state church, the culture, law, and moral sensibilities of the early colonies were undeniably rooted in European Christianity. The Puritans brought Calvinism to New England, Anglicans established themselves in the South, and Catholic missions flourished in Spanish-controlled territories such as California and the Southwest. Later waves of immigration brought Lutherans, Methodists, Presbyterians, and Baptists who carved out religious strongholds across the Midwest and South.

By the 19th century, the so-called “Bible Belt” had emerged in the South, Methodism had spread explosively through revivalism, and Catholicism had grown with Irish and Italian immigration. By the mid-20th century, America was demographically and culturally a Christian nation. According to Gallup polls from the late 1950s and early 1960s, more than 90% of Americans identified as Christian, with the largest groups being Protestants (roughly 70%) and Catholics (about 25%).

The Cultural Explosion of the 1960s

Then came the 1960s, a decade that tore through old structures. The Vietnam War, the civil rights struggle, the sexual revolution, psychedelic experimentation, and anti-establishment sentiment all converged. The cultural consensus rooted in old forms of Christianity began to fracture. Simultaneously, the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965) radically reformed Catholicism, introducing liturgical changes, opening the Church to interreligious dialogue, and softening the rigid boundaries between Catholic identity and “the other.” For the first time in history, the Catholic Church officially entertained the possibility that truth could exist outside its walls. This, in turn, prepared the ground for interfaith openness and even syncretism.

At the same time, young Americans disillusioned by the war machine were searching for new sources of peace and meaning. Buddhism, with its emphasis on compassion, nonviolence, and meditation, arrived at exactly the right moment. For the counterculture, it offered a path to peace and love in stark contrast to the devastation of the Vietnam War.

Gurus, Lamas, and the Tibetan Diaspora

The timing was uncanny. In 1959, Tibet fell to the Chinese Communist takeover, and a vast exodus of Tibetans fled into India and Nepal. Among the refugees were lamas who carried tantric teachings preserved for centuries in their monasteries. In the late 1960s and 1970s, the first wave of Western seekers, hippies from the US and Europe, traveled to India and Nepal, encountering these masters in exile. For the Tibetans, these were years of profound trauma, dislocation, and cultural upheaval. For the Westerners, it was a spiritual gold rush.

Out of this strange meeting of East and West emerged the first Tibetan Buddhist centers in America. By the mid-1970s, figures such as Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche and the 16th Karmapa had established institutions across the country, often structured exactly like churches: religious nonprofits with tax-exempt status, complete with community rituals, hierarchies, and devotional practices. The Dalai Lama’s influence would come slightly later, after his first U.S. visit in 1979. Scores of young Americans, many from Christian families, converted to Tibetan Buddhism, convinced they had found something far superior to the “hollow faith” of their parents.

The Hidden Face of Tantra

Buddhism, in its ethical and philosophical dimensions, does indeed share much with Christianity such as compassion, ethical restraint, and renunciation of greed and hatred. But hidden within the Tibetan stream lies tantra, a system of occult practices and magical invocations that have no basis in the teachings of the historical Buddha. Instead, they represent a grafting of Indian tantric traditions onto Buddhism. Tibetan shamanic practices were also woven into the mix—rituals of spirit invocation and magical rites—which only reinforced the occult dimension and pushed the system even further from the teachings of the historical Buddha.

Some early Tibetan teachers in the West even made cryptic statements hinting at the true nature of their teachings. One unsettling quote, difficult to substantiate, yet chilling in its cynicism, was attributed to a Tibetan Vajrayana Buddhist master: “Satan is Vajra Jesus.” Indeed, after decades of immersion, it became clear to me that “Vajra” is not merely a symbol of indestructibility as is taught, but a coded reference to occult power, Satanic at its core. The genius of the system lies in its camouflage: cloaked in the ethics of Buddhism, the darker currents of tantra flow undetected.

Tibetan Buddhism and Freemasonry: A Parallel

The comparison with Freemasonry is instructive. Many of America’s Founding Fathers were Freemasons, and while the fraternity appeared on the surface to be a benevolent society, its higher degrees revealed allegiance to Lucifer.* At the lower levels, members encountered moral lessons and fraternity; only later, through oaths and initiations, was the deeper reality disclosed.**

Tibetan Buddhism operates in a strikingly similar way. Entry-level students learn meditation, ethics, and compassion. Only after deeper commitment, vows, and initiations are they gradually exposed to tantric practices: rituals involving wrathful deities, consorts, and occult visualizations. By then, they are bound by vows and loyalty to their teachers.

Full Circle: From Freemason Roots to Tantric Fruits

In this light, the embrace of Tibetan Buddhism in America seems less like an alien import and more like a continuation of an esoteric undercurrent already present in the nation’s DNA. The United States, born with strong Christian roots but also intertwined with Freemasonic structures, has become fertile ground for tantric infiltration. Just as Freemasonry concealed its Luciferian essence under a philanthropic veneer, Tibetan Buddhism cloaks its demonic core under Buddhist compassion.

The cultural revolution of the 1960s cracked open the shell of Christianity in America. Into that breach poured the lamas and their tantric systems. What appeared to be a message of peace and healing, at precisely the moment of American disillusionment, carried with it an occult agenda. In that sense, the story of tantra in America is not just about East meeting West, but about a deeper pattern repeating itself: a hidden, Luciferian tradition resurfacing under new guises.

*Not every Freemason engages in satanic practices, or even knows about that aspect of it. It is only at the 33rd degree and beyond that initiates are allegedly confronted with a Luciferian element. This is somewhat like the staged vows and initiations of Tibetan Buddhism that lead beyond basic Buddhism into communion with a pantheon of tantric gods that are not merely symbols or archetypes. Each level of Freemasonry opens the way to higher oaths and allegiances, ultimately directed toward Lucifer and other demons.

**While many of the Founding Fathers were Freemasons, probably some of them really did have noble intentions and wanted to make Washington, D.C. a kind of beacon of light. But there were very deep, dark, hidden forces that lurked within Freemasonry.

The Question of the Soul: Christianity, Hinduism, and Buddhism

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The question of what the soul is, whether it exists, and what happens to it after death lies at the center of the world’s major religious traditions. Christianity, especially in its Catholic tradition, affirms the soul as eternal and God-given. Hinduism has multiple schools, often affirming an eternal self or ātman. Buddhism, including Tibetan Buddhism, rejects the idea of a permanent self or soul and instead speaks of mind and consciousness as a conditioned stream of awareness without enduring essence.

The Christian and Catholic Understanding of the Soul

Christianity teaches that every human being has a unique, immortal soul created by God. According to Catholic doctrine, the soul is the spiritual principle of the human person. It is eternal in destiny, surviving bodily death, and directed either toward communion with God or separation from Him.

Scriptural sources include Genesis 2:7, where God breathes life into Adam and he becomes a living soul [1]; Matthew 10:28, where Jesus warns of the danger of losing the soul [2]; and the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which affirms that the soul is created by God and immortal [3]. In this view, the soul is not an impersonal principle but a personal identity, judged and redeemed by God.

Hindu Views on the Self (Ātman)

Hinduism is diverse, but most of its classical schools affirm the existence of ātman, the true self. The Chandogya Upanishad teaches “tat tvam asi” (you are that), affirming the identity of the self with Brahman [4]. The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad declares, “This self (ātman) is indeed Brahman” [5]. The Bhagavad Gita teaches that the self is eternal and indestructible [6].

Distinguishing Hindu and Christian Concepts

Both Hindu and Christian traditions speak of something enduring at the core of human existence, but they do so in different ways.

Christianity teaches that the soul is created by God, personal, and accountable before Him. It does not preexist from eternity but comes into being by His will and remains dependent on Him for existence, judgment, and salvation.

In Hindu thought, Advaita Vedānta emphasizes the identity of the self (ātman) with Brahman, dissolving individuality into the absolute. Dvaita and many Bhakti traditions instead teach that the self remains distinct yet eternal, existing in relationship with the divine. In all of these cases, the ātman is uncreated and co-eternal with ultimate reality, not brought into being by God.

Thus, while both traditions sometimes use personal and sometimes abstract language, the Christian soul and the Hindu ātman play very different roles. The soul in Christian theology is a created person before God; the ātman in Hindu philosophy is an eternal essence, whether one with Brahman or distinct in devotion.

The Creator God in Christianity and Hinduism

Christianity affirms one personal Creator God who brings the universe into being from nothing and sustains it in existence.

Hinduism presents a wide range of views. In Bhakti traditions, deities such as Vishnu, Shiva, or Devi are worshiped as supreme creators. Vedānta schools affirm Brahman as the ultimate source, though in Advaita this is not a personal act of creation but the manifestation of māyā. Other schools such as Sāṃkhya and Mīmāṃsā reject a creator altogether, viewing the universe as self-arising.

Thus, while Christianity grounds the soul in a personal God who creates and judges, Hindu thought ranges from devotion to a personal creator to cosmologies where no creator is necessary.

Buddhist Rejection of the Soul

Buddhism arose in part as a rejection of the Hindu doctrine of ātman. In the Anattalakkhana Sutta, the Buddha declared that none of the five aggregates of existence constitute a self [7]. The doctrine of anātman (no-soul) became central.

Mind and Consciousness

In Tibetan Buddhism, mind and consciousness are viewed as a stream of awareness, conditioned by karma. The Abhidharma-kośa describes consciousness as momentary and dependent [8]. Unlike Christianity and Hinduism, which affirm an eternal principle (soul or self), Buddhism denies it, calling belief in permanence a delusion.

Yet questions arise. If there is no soul, then what suffers in the hell realms described in Tibetan texts? The Bardo Thödol warns of the horrors of the Vajra Hell, a realm said to be utterly without escape [9]. The Hevajra Tantra declares that those who violate tantric commitments “will not be liberated for as many eons as there are atoms in the universe” [10]. The Cakrasaṃvara Tantra and later commentaries also teach that breaking tantric vows leads to vajra hells without release [11].

This presents a paradox: if there is no enduring self, who is suffering eternally?

Tibetan Buddhist Schools Under Examination

Madhyamaka – Nāgārjuna’s Mūlamadhyamakakārikā argues that all phenomena, including the self, are empty of inherent existence [13]. But if the self is an illusion, how does karma persist? If Vajra Hell is eternal, how can something that does not exist suffer forever?

Yogācāra (Mind-Only) – The Yogācārabhūmi Śāstra introduces ālayavijñāna, the “storehouse consciousness,” which preserves karmic seeds [14]. Though intended to avoid affirming a self, it functions much like one: carrying memory, identity, and karma. Hinduism here provides a comparison: the Bhagavad Gita teaches that the self carries karma through many births [6]. Yogācāra denies the term “soul,” yet reintroduces something strikingly similar. Christianity differs again: not a karmic storehouse, but a personal soul created by God.

Dzogchen (Great Perfection) – Dzogchen teachings, such as the Kunjed Gyalpo (All-Creating King), speak of rigpa, primordial pure awareness that is timeless and luminous [15]. Though Dzogchen denies that rigpa is a soul, the resemblance is striking. If rigpa is eternal, pure, and the ground of all experience, how is this different from what Christians call the soul or Hindus call ātman? The denial seems rhetorical rather than substantive.

Vajrayāna and Deity Possession – Tantric scriptures describe deity yoga, in which practitioners invite deities to merge with them [16]. If there is no self or soul, what exactly is being merged with or possessed?

Conclusion

Across Christianity, Hinduism, and Buddhism, the question of what endures, what we might call the soul, self, or consciousness, reveals fundamentally different views of human identity. Christianity anchors personhood in a created, immortal soul made by God and accountable to Him. Hinduism envisions an eternal ātman, uncreated and either one with or distinct from the divine. Buddhism, in contrast, denies any enduring essence, seeing the sense of self as a conditioned process. Yet in its Tibetan forms, teachings on karmic continuity, primordial awareness, and tantric transformation often edge back toward affirming something that functions like a self.

From long immersion in both Catholic and Tibetan Buddhist traditions, I have come to believe that the Christian vision alone sustains coherence between moral responsibility, continuity of consciousness, and the promise of redemption. It affirms not only that we exist, but that we are known and loved by the One who created us. Against the shifting alternatives of an impersonal absolute or an empty stream of awareness, in my opinion, the Christian understanding of the soul remains the clearest expression of what it means to be human before God.

References

[1] Genesis 2:7, The Holy Bible (ESV).
[2] Matthew 10:28, The Holy Bible (ESV).
[3] Catechism of the Catholic Church, Part I, Section Two, Chapter One, Article 1, §366.
[4] Chandogya Upanishad 6.8.7, in Radhakrishnan, S. (trans.), The Principal Upanishads.
[5] Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 4.4.5, in Olivelle, P. (trans.), The Early Upanishads.
[6] Bhagavad Gita 2.20, in Zaehner, R. (trans.), The Bhagavad-Gita.
[7] Anattalakkhana Sutta (Samyutta Nikaya 22.59), in Bhikkhu Bodhi (trans.), The Connected Discourses of the Buddha.
[8] Vasubandhu, Abhidharma-kośa.
[9] Bardo Thödol (Tibetan Book of the Dead), in Evans-Wentz, W.Y. (ed.).
[10] Hevajra Tantra, Snellgrove, D.L. (trans.), The Hevajra Tantra: A Critical Study.
[11] Cakrasaṃvara Tantra, in Tsuda, S. (trans.), The Samvarodaya Tantra.
[12] Hevajra Tantra, ibid.
[13] Nāgārjuna, Mūlamadhyamakakārikā, Kalupahana, D.J. (trans.).
[14] Yogācārabhūmi Śāstra, Xuanzang (trans.).
[15] Kunjed Gyalpo (All-Creating King), in Namkhai Norbu (trans.), The Supreme Source.
[16] Cakrasaṃvara Tantra and Hevajra Tantra, ibid.

Lin Kai’s: “Meanings of Violence in Tibetan Buddhism”

mim

In his essay Meanings of Violence in Tibetan Buddhism, Lin Kai develops themes first raised by Elliot Sperling: Tibetan Buddhism has never been simply the peaceful, pacifist tradition imagined in Western romantic projections. Both history and ritual demonstrate how violence was woven into Tibetan religious and political life¹, continuing into the present. As Kai underscores, and as Sperling noted before him, both Western interpreters and Tibetan voices have often gone to great lengths to overlook or obscure this troubling facet of Tibetan Buddhism.

Kai highlights how rulers, including the Fifth Dalai Lama, relied on military force to consolidate power and punish rebellion. As Sperling documented, the Dalai Lama issued explicit orders in the seventeenth century to annihilate enemies, words that expose a stark contrast to the modern image of Tibet².

The Fifth Dalai Lama’s commands were phrased in brutal, almost ritualistic terms:

Make the children and grandchildren like eggs smashed against rocks;
Make the servants and followers like heaps of grass consumed by fire;
In short, annihilate any traces of them, even their names.²

This edict was aimed at other Tibetan Buddhists, mind you. Amidst such warfare, Kai notes, not all monks accepted this with ease. Some were unsettled by the amount of time and resources demanded for war rituals, though few dared openly resist their lamas. A particularly striking passage from the Fifth Dalai Lama’s autobiography shows him wrestling with his own position as a Buddhist leader at war. He recounts the following dream:

“Looking through an open window on the eastern side of the protector-chapel, stood the treasurer [Sonam Rabten] and a crowd of well-dressed monks with disapproving looks. Shoving the ritual dagger into my belt, I went outside. Thinking that if any of those monks said anything, I would strike him with the dagger, I walked resolutely straight through them. They all lowered their eyes and just stood there. When I awoke, my illness and impurities had been completely removed; not even the slightest bit remained. I was absolutely overflowing with amazement and faithful devotion.” — Fifth Dalai Lama¹

This moment captures the tension at the heart of Tibetan statecraft: the bodhisattva ideal of compassion colliding with the felt necessity of violence. Kai also emphasizes ritual violence, where wrathful deities and fierce imagery symbolize the annihilation of obstacles to enlightenment. These practices were not simply symbolic. They paralleled real political campaigns, where violent suppression against human beings was justified as protecting the Dharma¹.

Western audiences, however, have often distorted this history. Kai argues that Orientalist fantasies, especially those that cast Tibet as a timeless land of peace, obscure the record of blood and retribution¹. Sperling made the same point, noting how the Dalai Lama’s reputation as a Nobel Peace laureate stands in sharp tension with the historical evidence².

“Violence in Tibetan Buddhism cannot be neatly categorized as either barbaric or compassionate. It exists within a worldview where wrathful action and compassion may coincide, depending on context and intent.” —Lin Kai¹

In this worldview, compassion and violence were not opposites. Wrathful action could be seen as alright when it was thought to protect the Dharma or eliminate obstacles, even human ones. What emerges, then, is a very complicated and unsettling picture: violence was not an exception but an integral part of Tibetan Buddhist practice.

Kai’s work reinforces Sperling’s warning: if we want to understand Tibetan Buddhism as it is, rather than as we wish it to be, we must confront the ways in which violence was and still is sacralized within the tradition.

This type of linga resembles one depicted in the Secret Visions of the Fifth Dalai Lama, a visionary autobiography. It shows two figures to be ritually ‘liberated’ or killed, typical of effigies used in Tibetan Buddhist rites against so-called ‘enemies of the dharma.’ Such effigy sacrifices remain part of Tibetan Buddhist ritual practice today.

Footnotes

¹ Lin Kai, Meanings of Violence in Tibetan Buddhism, Substack, 2025.
² Elliot Sperling, Orientalism and Aspects of Violence in the Tibetan Tradition, Info-Buddhism, 2004.

Truth Behind the Myth: Violence in Tibetan Buddhism

mim

In his article Orientalism and Aspects of Violence in the Tibetan Tradition, Elliot Sperling uses the term Orientalism in the sense made famous by Edward Said. It describes how Western scholars, writers, and media have often portrayed Asian and Middle Eastern societies in ways that are exotic, stereotypical, and distorted (Sperling 2001, p. 317). [1]

In this context, Elliot Sperling is pointing out that Tibet, especially Tibetan Buddhism, has been framed in the West not as a complex, politically active society but as a mystical and pacifist Shangri-la (Sperling 2001, p. 318). That romanticized portrayal fits the Orientalist mold because it projects Western fantasies and agendas onto a culture instead of showing it in its full, often messy, historical reality.

Here, Orientalism is not just about misunderstanding or stereotyping. It is about how those misconceptions feed into selective histories, in this case downplaying or erasing the tradition’s capacity for political maneuvering, power struggles, and violence.

It is important to cut through the sugar-coated narratives about Tibetan Buddhism as an always peaceful, otherworldly faith. Historian Elliot Sperling, a top authority on Tibet and China history, attempts to do this in his essay. He shreds the romanticized “compassionate lama” image and reintroduces the messy, political, and yes, violent realities of Tibetan history (Sperling 2001, p. 320).

  • Tibetan Buddhism was not pacifism incarnate. Sperling points out that the Fifth Dalai Lama did not shy away from military force when Gelugpa interests were on the line in the 17th century. In the early 20th century, the Thirteenth Dalai Lama actively sanctioned armed resistance against Qing forces in Lhasa (Sperling 2001, pp. 323–324).
  • Modern Western portrayals have softened the truth. The prevailing global image of Tibetan Buddhism, as inherently gentle, infallibly peaceful, and untouched by politics, is largely a product of Western assimilation and the Tibetan exile community’s framing of their own image (Sperling 2001, pp. 317–318).

Why It Matters

If you are buying into the “peace only” ideal, Sperling’s essay demands reconsideration. He forces you to recognize Tibetan Buddhism as a tradition entwined in power and violence when necessary (Sperling 2001, p. 317). The strident idealism selling Tibet as a spiritual Shangri-la does not hold up under scrutiny. In 1660, the Fifth Dalai Lama faced a rebellion in Tsang. Declaring he acted for the good of the people in the region, he issued uncompromising orders for the complete destruction of his enemies, men, women, children, servants, and property, leaving no trace of them. This directive, written in his own hand, reveals a leader willing to use extreme military force to secure his government’s power, a stark contrast to the modern image of the Dalai Lama as an unshakable symbol of peace.

[Of those in] the band of enemies who have despoiled the duties entrusted to them:
Make the male lines like trees that have had their roots cut;
Make the female lines like brooks that have dried up in winter;
Make the children and grandchildren like eggs smashed against rocks;
Make the servants and followers like heaps of grass consumed by fire;
Make their dominion like a lamp whose oil has been exhausted;
In short, annihilate any traces of them, even their names (Sperling 2001, p. 325).

This brutal passage, is a powerful and chilling indictment. It underscores the darker potential within any ideology. When power, anger, or fear take hold, even so-called peaceful spiritual traditions can sanction annihilation. Sperling’s work reminds us to stop buying into the marketing of Tibetan Buddhism as a compassionate, peaceful idyll. His historical analysis and the many examples of tantric annihilation rituals used against human targets says otherwise. It is time to drop the myth and acknowledge the tradition for what it truly is: a living, political, and sometimes violent force (Sperling 2001, p. 329).

  1. Elliot Sperling, “Orientalism and Aspects of Violence in the Tibetan Tradition” (2001), info-buddhism.com, originally published in Imagining Tibet: Perceptions, Projections, & Fantasies, ed. Thierry Dodin and Heinz Räther, Wisdom Publications. Available at: https://info-buddhism.com/Orientalism_Violence_Tibetan_Buddhism_Elliot_Sperling.html

Yamantaka and the Truth About Violent Rituals in Tibetan Buddhism

mim

The following is based on Aleksandra Wenta’s article “Tantric Ritual and Conflict in Tibetan Buddhist Society: The Cult of Yamāntaka” (2022).

Public perception paints Buddhism as the ultimate religion of compassion. The Dalai Lama’s cheerful smile and monks chanting in maroon robes conjure images of peace in the Western imagination. But the historical record tells quite another story, one most Buddhist institutions would prefer to bury. Violent ritual has always had a place in Tibetan Buddhist practice, and the cult of the wrathful deity Yamantaka is one of the clearest examples.

The Deity of Destruction

Yamantaka, whose name means “Ender of Death,” is no serene Buddha. In tantric lore he is a ferocious, multi-headed, weapon-wielding deity invoked to annihilate enemies. These enemies might be inner demons in metaphor, but in many cases they were very real human targets. As Wenta’s research shows, Tibetan Buddhist ritual specialists used Yamantaka rites as deliberate acts of destruction, both spiritual and physical.

Politics and Ritual Warfare

The historical examples are difficult to dismiss. In the ninth century, the Buddhist master Gnubs chen Sangs rgyas yeshes allegedly used Yamantaka magic against King Lang Darma, a ruler seen as hostile to the Dharma. Centuries later, during the political struggles of the seventeenth century, the Fifth Dalai Lama employed Yamantaka rituals to consolidate power over rival factions. These were not fringe experiments, but state-linked religious acts intended to remove opponents.

The reach of these rites went beyond Tibet. The Manchu Qianlong emperor adopted Yamantaka worship to project legitimacy over his subjects, while Mongolian and Japanese traditions incorporated similar ritual violence into their own religious-political frameworks.

Violent Compassion as Justification

Practitioners did not see these rites as morally corrupt. They justified them through the doctrine of “violent compassion,” the belief that killing or harming could liberate an enemy from a worse rebirth. Wenta notes that tantric philosophy, particularly the doctrine of emptiness, was used to argue that concepts like killer or victim do not ultimately exist. In this logic, an enlightened being could commit an act of violence without accruing negative karma.

Ritualized Destruction

From the Mañjuśriyamūlakalpa’s “Ritual Against the Wicked Kings” comes one of the most explicit and brutal examples. The text instructs the practitioner to paint Yamantaka in terrifying form, then perform fire offerings of human blood, flesh, and powdered bone mixed with poisons and toxic plants to unleash plague, famine, storms, and demonic infestations upon the target. The king’s family is to die in sequence: son on the first day, wife and ministers on the second, the king himself on the third, while his court is overrun by flesh-eating spirits and his land struck by drought, fire from the sky, rockfall, and invasion. A human effigy bearing the victim’s birth star in cremation-ground charcoal is trampled during mantric recitation so the enemy dies, goes mad, or is devoured by demons. This is ritualized destruction in its most literal, calculated form.

One section of the same text reads like a manual for calculated devastation. The practitioner is instructed to heap human blood, flesh, powdered bone, poisons, and the roots of deadly plants onto a ritual fire in front of the painted deity. After 1008 offerings, not only is the enemy destroyed, but their family, ministers, and allies are swept away as well. The text promises droughts, plagues, famine, and storms, even fire and rocks falling from the sky, while demonic forces overrun the victim’s court. In some variations, a single datura root is enough to drive the target insane, or a few spoonfuls of spiced offerings can induce fatal fevers within days.

The text also states, “If he wants to kill someone, then having made a puppet (kṛtiṃ) he should write a name: the deity name or a nakṣatra (‘asterism under which the target was born’) using a charcoal of the cremation ground, which should be placed on the ground in front of the paṭa. Standing on [the puppet’s] head with his foot, he should be in a wrathful state, and do the recitation. He (the king) will become overpowered by a major disease, or he will die on the spot. That lord of men will be seized by piercing pains for no apparent reason, or he will be killed by an animal, or he will become crippled. He will be eaten by fierce rākṣasas, and various impure beings that have arisen from non-human birth (kravyādin), pūtanas, piśācas, pretas and the mothers, or he will be killed immediately by his own attendants.” 1

Conflict Inside the Tradition

Even within Tibetan Buddhism, the legitimacy of destructive rituals such as these was contested. Some figures, such as Rwa lo tsā ba, became famous for their wrathful practices but were denounced by peers as frauds or heretics. Reformers like Yeshes ’od tried to curtail the most extreme acts, replacing “live liberation” killings with symbolic substitutes like effigy destruction. But these reforms did not erase the underlying acceptance of ritual violence; they only tamed it for public consumption.

Another Piece of the Puzzle

Wenta’s work adds yet another piece of hard evidence to the growing pile that Tibetan Buddhism has long included practices designed to harm or destroy. These rituals were not simply metaphorical, and they were not limited to obscure sects. They were woven into the political and religious fabric of Tibet and beyond.

For those willing to look past Tibetan Buddhism’s carefully crafted PR image, the cult of Yamantaka exposes a reality in which the language of compassion hid a persistent undercurrent of deliberate harm.

Footnotes

1) Aleksandra Wenta, Tantric Ritual and Conflict in Tibetan Buddhist Society: The Cult of Yamāntaka, in Esimoncini, 19 Wenta CHIUSO, available at https://tibetanbuddhistencyclopedia.com/en/images/0/0b/Esimoncini%2C%2B19_Wenta_CHIUSO.pdf. ↩

Sacrifice, Favor, Repeat

mim

Before the modern age romanticized pagan religions into New Age panaceas, ancient worship was known to be raw and brutally pragmatic. In our modern spiritual-industrial complex, it is often sugarcoated into some kind of warm, earth-loving ceremony filled with personal empowerment and divine intimacy. But if you’re reading this, you’re probably already suspicious of that narrative.

In fact ancient religion, pagan religion, was highly transactional. The gods didn’t love you. They didn’t weep over your suffering or aspire to protect you.

A passage from Behold the Christ: Proclaiming the Gospel of Matthew by Leroy A. Huizenga makes this brutally clear. Pagan worship, he writes, operated on the ancient principle of do ut des: “I give so that you give back.”(1) In other words, the gods and humans used each other. You offered sacrifices, incense, food, or praise not out of adoration, but because you wanted something in return: good crops, protection in war, fertility, rain, wealth, healing, vengeance, and victory. And the gods? They wanted to be fed, praised, and kept relevant. It was mutual exploitation dressed up in sacred costume.

“That is, the worshipper provides a sacrifice to a god that pleases and empowers the god, who then turns around and does the worshipper favors. Because the gods are often indifferent to humans, worshippers engage in repeated ritual to reach out and get a god’s attention.”

This paragraph says more about ancient spirituality than most modern New Age books on “manifesting” or “connecting with the divine.” The ancients weren’t confused. They understood that the gods were powerful, unpredictable, and not especially interested in human wellbeing unless there was something in it for them.

And this wasn’t limited to Rome or Greece. Versions of do ut des appear in Vedic sacrifice, Mesopotamian temple economies, and also Tantric Buddhist practice where offerings are made to wrathful deities to invoke, control, or appease.

Nowhere is this transactional logic more systematized and ritualized to the point of industrial precision than in Tibetan Buddhism. While cloaked in the language of enlightenment and compassion, the tradition is saturated with mechanisms that mirror the ancient do ut des economy: elaborate offerings, incense, butter lamps, mandalas, and tormas (sacrificial cakes that replaced blood offerings when the Buddhist principle of ahimsa “non-harming” took root). These were given not out of unconditional reverence, but to elicit specific outcomes from specific deities. Monastic liturgies are not just meditative recitations, but are negotiations with a pantheon of wrathful and peaceful beings, each with their own preferences, powers, and temperaments. Moreover, the non-harming sentiment in Tibetan Buddhism only extends so far. While Buddhist tantra forbids blood sacrifice, its subjugation rituals, aimed at both spiritual and human enemies, can involve some of the most brutal punishments found in any ritual religion.

Drupchöd ceremonies, held in large monasteries, exemplify this beautifully. These are days- or weeks-long ritual marathons involving collective chanting, visualization, music, mudras, and vast offerings, all designed to propitiate deities into bestowing protection, wisdom, and worldly benefits like health and prosperity. Whether invoking Mahakala to remove obstacles or Tara for swift blessings, the assumption is clear: the deity acts when properly fed, praised, and invoked. The gods (or enlightened beings, depending on your doctrinal parsing) are not passively watching; they’re participants in a cosmic economy, and Tibetan Buddhism, more than almost any other tradition, has mastered the bureaucratic apparatus needed to transact with them. It’s not just about personal devotion. It’s about correct performance, correct offerings, and the correct “exchange rate” of ritual. The love of the gods is not assumed. Their attention must be earned over and over again.

Modern Takeaways and a Warning

This transactional pattern isn’t limited to ancient paganism or esoteric Tibetan ritualism. You’ll find the same spiritual economy alive and well in the darker corners of contemporary occultism. Take it from someone like Riaan Swiegelaar who’s lived on the other side: former Satanists and occult practitioners routinely speak of offering sacrifices, especially blood, to demons in order to negotiate outcomes.(2)

He described it well: “A lot of people ask me, ‘Why are there so many sacrifices in Satanism? Why is there blood?’ The answer is simple: blood has currency in the spirit world. If I want to negotiate with demons, I need to bring an [animal] sacrifice because that blood holds value. It functions as spiritual capital.

“But here’s the contrast: the blood of Jesus is the highest currency in the spirit world. It covers everything. That’s the authority we stand on. And every ex-Satanist or ex-occultist who’s encountered Christ will tell you the same thing. I might be the only one talking about it openly, but this is real: we engaged in negotiations with demons, offered animal sacrifices, and got results. That’s how the system worked. Then we experienced the blood and love of Christ and there’s no comparison. It’s not even close. His blood is infinitely more powerful. In spiritual warfare, people need to grasp that reality. The blood of Christ is free, but it is not cheap, is it? It came at the highest cost. And what happened on the cross? That wasn’t a one-time transaction in history: it remains as valid, active, and potent today as it was then, and always will be.”

This is so important that it bears repeating: no spiritual currency, no ritual offering, no demonic pact compares to the raw, unmatched power of the blood of Christ. This is the rupture at the heart of Christianity: the economy of sacrifice is over, not because gods stopped demanding payment, but because one sacrifice bankrupted the system.

From blood-soaked altars in Babylon to ritual offering tormas in Himalayan monasteries, humanity has always traded devotion for power and offerings for favor. But the cross flipped the script. There is no more need for bartering, manipulation, and performance to win divine attention. What Christ offered wasn’t another payment into the cosmic vending machine but a final act that rendered the machine obsolete. And if that’s true, then every attempt to re-enter the old system, whether through pagan ritual, tantric bureaucracy, or occult negotiation, isn’t just a return to tradition. It’s a rejection of victory.

(1) Leroy A. Huizenga, Behold the Christ: Proclaiming the Gospel of Matthew (Emmaus Road Publishing, Steubenville, Ohio).

(2) Riaan Swiegelaar, former co-founder of the South African Satanic Church, in various public testimonies including interviews and livestreams (e.g., “Riaan Swiegelaar Testimony,” YouTube, 2022), has spoken openly about blood sacrifice as spiritual currency and his eventual conversion after experiencing the love of Christ.

How Tantra Masqueraded as Buddhism: the Vajrayāna Deception

mim

Vajrayana Buddhism, also known as Tibetan Buddhism or Tantric Buddhism, stands out for its rituals, deity worship, and complex esoteric practices. Its mantras, mandalas, and meditations on wrathful and yab/yum deities bear clear resemblance to Hindu Tantra, Vedic ritualism, and indigenous spirit cults.

So how did it convince anyone, especially devout Buddhists, that it was authentically taught by the historical Buddha?

The answer lies in a strategic combination of hidden teaching narratives, scriptural mimicry, ritual power, and imperial patronage. Let’s explore how this transformation occurred and what it means when viewed through the lens of Catholic faith and biblical discernment.

Secret Teachings: “The Buddha Taught It, But in Secret”

Vajrayana scriptures claim that the Buddha did teach tantra, but only in secret, to highly realized disciples. These teachings were said to have been hidden in celestial realms, entrusted to beings like Vajrapani or dakinis, or taught in the Buddha’s “enjoyment body” (sambhogakaya) form in other worlds such as Akanistha.(1)

This tactic mirrored earlier Mahayana developments, where new sutras like the Lotus or Avatamsaka were claimed to be higher revelations spoken by the Buddha, but not understood by his early disciples. The concept of esoteric knowledge reserved for the spiritually mature made these late texts seem like rediscovered treasures, rather than innovations.

Scriptural Mimicry and Retroactive Legitimization

To reinforce their authority, tantric scriptures deliberately mimicked the structure of traditional sutras. They often began with the familiar phrase, “Thus have I heard,” and depicted the Buddha teaching not only in celestial realms surrounded by bodhisattvas, but sometimes in radically transgressive settings such as charnel grounds, encircled by ḍākinīs and wrathful deities. These texts introduced elaborate cosmologies, detailed ritual instructions, and esoteric vows, presenting them as timeless wisdom, even though they were composed many centuries after the Buddha’s death.[2]

Authors also invented lineages, claiming that tantric teachings had been passed down secretly from Vajrapani to Nagarjuna, or from Padmasambhava to Tibetan kings.

Syncretism with Hindu and Folk Traditions

Instead of denying its similarities with Hindu Tantra, Vajrayana reinterpreted them. Wrathful deities were said to be enlightened Buddhas. Sexual rituals were described as a symbolic means to transform desire into wisdom. Offerings of blood, bones, and taboo substances were spiritualized as purifications of dualistic perception.

By repackaging Vedic and folk practices into a Buddhist framework, Vajrayana could absorb local traditions and declare them “Buddhist skillful means.”

Imperial Support and Monastic Integration

Tantra spread rapidly through the support of kings and monasteries. In Tibet, tantric masters were invited to subdue native spirits, secure political power, and perform rituals for prosperity. At Indian centers like Nalanda and Vikramashila, tantric scholars and monks practiced Mahayana logic by day and tantric visualization by night.

With the backing of the state and the academic establishment, Vajrayana was not seen as a fringe practice but as the “highest vehicle” of Buddhism.

Ritual Power and Psychological Experience

For the average practitioner, tantra “worked.” It offered visions, emotional catharsis, ritual protection, and the promise of fast-track enlightenment. The experiential pull of mantra, deity yoga, and initiation ceremonies gave people tangible results even if the doctrinal basis was historically shaky.

In the end, many believed not because of historical evidence, but because the system delivered experiences of spiritual intensity.

How Christianity Views This: The Domain of the Second Heaven

From a biblical and Catholic perspective, this raises serious concerns. The spiritual beings Vajrayana practitioners encounter, wrathful deities, dakinis, yidams, do not proclaim Christ as Lord and Savior. They do not point to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. They offer power and enlightenment through self-transformation, not redemption.

The Bible is clear: Satan is the prince of the power of the air, ruling the spiritual domain between heaven and earth until Christ returns (Ephesians 2:2). What some refer to as the “second heaven” is where fallen angels operate, deceiving through false light, hidden knowledge, and seductive spiritual experiences.

Teachers like Derek Prince and Dr. Michael Heiser have explained how fallen entities inhabit unseen realms and impersonate divine figures such gods, ascended masters, or beings of light. Applying this view, the Buddhist realm of Akanistha, where the Buddha is said to teach in his sambhogakaya form, may not be a divine domain at all, but a carefully constructed counterfeit, orchestrated by spiritual powers aligned against the Kingdom of God.

This helps explain how a system like Vajrayana could emerge long after the Buddha’s time, imbued with supernatural power, spiritual visions, and doctrinal sophistication, yet still operate in direct opposition to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Final Reflection: What About the Historical Buddha Himself?

This raises a deeper question: What about the historical Gautama Buddha?

His teachings, centered on renunciation, ethical conduct, and insight, seem far removed from tantric fire offerings, deity visualizations, and magical spells. He did not claim to be a god. He emphasized detachment from craving and moral clarity. So, was he simply a wise man? Or was he also deceived?

From a Catholic and biblical perspective, any system that does not point to Christ as the way, the truth, and the life (John 14:6) must be seen as incomplete at best, and spiritually dangerous at worst. Even teachings that emphasize compassion and morality can become a snare if they direct people away from the living God.

It is possible that the historical Buddha, though perhaps sincere and ethically inclined, encountered spiritual influences he did not fully understand. If he received his insights through meditation without divine revelation, then he may have opened himself to guidance from fallen beings presenting themselves as enlightened or falsely divine. This is a sobering possibility, but one that must be considered if we are to remain faithful to biblical truth.

The gospel does not offer esoteric techniques. It offers a person, Jesus, who does not ask you to awaken into the realization of emptiness. He calls you by name into communion with him, into truth, and finally, into eternal life.

Footnotes:

(1) Akanistha, also spelled Akaniṣṭha, is considered in Mahayana and Vajrayāna cosmology to be the highest of the seventeen or eighteen heavens in the form realm (rūpadhātu), and specifically the realm where Buddhas in their “enjoyment body” (sambhogakāya) manifest and teach advanced bodhisattvas. It is portrayed as a pure, radiant dimension beyond ordinary perception, where tantra and esoteric teachings are said to be revealed. From a Christian perspective, such realms existing in the unseen spiritual domain, may correspond to what theologians like Derek Prince and Michael Heiser describe as the “second heaven,” a sphere under temporary dominion of fallen angelic beings capable of impersonating divine figures (see Ephesians 6:12, Daniel 10:13).

[2] Alexis Sanderson, “The Śaiva Age: The Rise and Dominance of Śaivism during the Early Medieval Period,” in Genesis and Development of Tantrism, edited by Shingo Einoo (Tokyo: Institute of Oriental Culture, University of Tokyo, 2009), pp. 124–126. Sanderson provides detailed evidence that Buddhist tantras were modeled after Śaiva texts and appeared centuries after the Buddha’s life.

David B. Gray, The Cakrasamvara Tantra: The Discourse of Śrī Heruka, (New York: American Institute of Buddhist Studies, 2007), Introduction, pp. 18–25. Gray discusses the charnel ground setting and the structure of tantric texts, including the invocation of ḍākinīs and wrathful deities, and their divergence from earlier Buddhist sūtra literature.