Tag: wrathful rituals

The Darker Side of Tormas: Ritual Implements of Subjugation and Harm in Tibetan Tantric Practice

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Tormas, those colorful, often conical sculptures made of barley flour, butter, and symbolic color, are widely recognized in Tibetan Buddhism as ritual offerings to deities. They are often seen as objects of devotion, used to accumulate merit and cultivate compassion. But there is another seldom discussed dimension of torma practice: their use in rituals of subjugation. These are aimed at destroying enemies, silencing dissenters, and even killing.

This article isn’t written for shock value or out of cultural disrespect. It comes from a deep need for transparency. I practiced within Tibetan Buddhism for decades, and what I discovered about the weaponization of these ritual objects came not from hearsay or internet rumors, but from firsthand experience, insider teachings, and years of quiet observation that finally crystallized into understanding.

What Are Tormas?

Tormas are empowered physical representations of deities as well as their palaces and mandalas. They also serve as offerings to the deities. Some types of tormas are used for offerings to spirits, and as weapons against obstructive spirits or humans. Other types of tormas known as “effigies” serve as targets. They are not merely symbolic. In Vajrayana practice, the effigies serve as “substitute bodies” for the consciousness of beings, meaning that a torma can become the ritual stand-in for an actual person. When a torma is offered, burned, stabbed, buried, or fed to spirits, it is not just a prop. It is, ritually speaking, a direct vessel for action.

In general, use of tormas can be for peaceful or wrathful purposes.

Categories of Harmful Tormas

While Western practitioners are often taught the “peaceful” or “blissful” uses of tormas (such as offering to bodhisattvas or for pacifying illnesses), most Tibetan tantric lineages include  the “four activities” of pacifying, enriching, magnetizing, and subjugating. These last two, magnetizing and subjugating, can lead to dangerous territory.

Here are some of the more occult, wrathful uses of tormas:

1. Subjugation of Enemies

Tormas are used to summon wrathful deities, who are then directed to “crush” or “bind” an enemy’s consciousness. This includes ritual domination of the enemy’s will, health, and spiritual power.

2. “Black Torma” Killings

Some lineages include advanced practices where a torma is empowered as the life force of a person. The torma is ritually destroyed: stabbed, burned, or fed to spirits. The goal is to destroy the target’s body, mind, or soul. In some cases, the practitioner prays explicitly for the target’s death.

3. “Torma of Speech Destruction”

These are used to silence critics or opposing religious figures. The practitioner invokes wrathful deities to sever the “enemy’s” speech, discredit them, or even cause them to go mad.

4. Sending Spirits via Tormas

Tormas can serve as carriers or offerings to nefarious spirits, binding the target’s consciousness to entities tasked with tormenting them. This can result in psychic invasion, night terrors, loss of mental clarity, or obsession.

Why This Needs to Be Talked About

These rituals are rarely, if ever, disclosed to outsiders. In fact, many lamas downplay them entirely until a student is “ripe” for higher teachings. But many practitioners have felt the effects of these rituals without knowing what they are. Unexplained breakdowns, spiritual confusion, sudden illness, and relational collapse often follow a break with the guru or a breach of samaya. We are told it is just our karma, but sometimes, it’s a ritual backlash.

If this sounds unbelievable, I understand. It sounded unbelievable to me, too, until I experienced it firsthand.

These practices are not just theoretical. They are happening now, in retreat centers and monasteries in India, Nepal and the West, in ritual rooms, behind closed doors. And their effects are very real.

Who Is Most at Risk?

  • Former students who break samaya or speak out
  • Critics of the guru or institution
  • Those perceived as spiritual “competitors”
  • Women who reject inappropriate advances
  • Outsiders who get too close to the truth

Reclaiming Truth

This article is not an indictment of all Tibetan teachers or practitioners. There are sincere people within the tradition who reject the use of harmful rites. But silence around these rituals has enabled a culture of fear, manipulation, and unchecked spiritual abuse.

It’s time to talk about it. The torma is not always what it seems. What looks like a simple offering on the altar may, in some cases, be a vessel of vengeance. We must not look away. If we really care deeply about the benefit of “all sentient beings” we must expose the truth about the dark side of tormas and their harmful uses in tantric Tibetan Buddhism.

Wrathful Rituals and “Black Magic” in Tibetan Guru-Disciple Relationships

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It is not far fetched to assert that it is the lama himself bringing about the karmic retribution on the student through black magic rituals using effigies and curses.

The Tibetan Buddhist tradition, especially its Vajrayana (tantric) aspect, contains teachings on wrathful rituals and even sorcery-like practices. These practices have occasionally been used (or misused) by gurus to punish or frighten disciples who violate guru devotion or samaya (sacred vows). Both classical texts and modern accounts document such phenomena:

  • Scriptural Warnings of Dire Consequences: Tantric scriptures and commentaries explicitly warn of terrible karmic punishment if a disciple betrays or criticizes their guru. For example, the Kalachakra Tantra says that even a moment of anger toward one’s guru destroys vast amounts of merit and causes rebirth in hell for eons (The Disadvantages of Incorrect Devotion to a Guru | Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive).

  • Another text states that simply failing to properly honor a guru after receiving teachings can result in “rebirth for one hundred lifetimes as a dog” and then rebirth as a low-caste person or even a scorpion lamayeshe.com. In short, breaking samaya is portrayed as spiritually catastrophic, leading to suffering in this life and the next. These warnings, while couched as impersonal karmic law, create a climate in which gurus are held almost above criticism.

  • Oath-Breakers and Protector Deities: Tantric cosmology includes Dharmapāla (Dharma protectors) bound by oath to protect Buddhist teachings and teachers. Those who break their sacred vows or harm their guru are sometimes called “samaya-breakers” or oath-breakers. Historical texts indicate that oath-breakers were targeted by wrathful rituals. A striking example comes from a 13th-century Tibetan master at Kublai Khan’s court, Ga Anyen Dampa. In a decree mixing politics and magic, Dampa forbade harming his followers through curses or demons, but warned that if anyone disobeyed him, he would “unleash the fierce punishment of the Dharma Protectors” so that their heads would split into a hundred pieces (War Magic: Tibetan Sorcery | Rubin Museum). In other words, the guru swore to call upon wrathful deities to brutally destroy anyone who violated his command. Such records (in this case preserved as a protective charm) show that invoking black magic and protective deities as punishment for disobedience was not unheard of.

  • Effigies and “Black Magic” in Tantric Practice: Tibetan lamas developed elaborate ritual technologies to deal with enemies or detractors. Human effigies and dough figures (torma) are traditional ritual implements used to represent a target in magical rites. According to scholars, a “wide array of images, such as human effigies…or ritual dough-offering sculptures, were employed to…subdue or destroy one’s enemies” (War Magic: Tibetan Sorcery | Rubin Museum). In wrathful rites (such as the gTor dabs or torma-throwing ritual), the lama empowers an effigy with mantras and offers it to wrathful spirits or deities, directing the ensuing harm toward the intended victim. War Magic was even used at state levels, for instance, 12th-century Lama Zhang, a militant yogi, sent cursed tormas and spells against his foes and had protector goddesses like Shri Devi “assist” in battle (War Magic: Tibetan Sorcery | Rubin Museum). These historical uses of violent sorcery, while aimed at external enemies, set a background against which a guru might also target an “enemy” disciple who they feel has betrayed them.

  • Historical Case – The “Cursed Boots” Plot: In 1900, an incident in Lhasa suggests the reality of such magical punishments. The 13th Dalai Lama survived an assassination attempt involving black magic: a certain gifted pair of boots, which caused illness to the wearer, upon close inspection had “a harmful mantra hidden in the sole.” (Treasury of Lives: The Case of the Dalai Lama’s Cursed Boots – Tricycle: The Buddhist Review) The inquiry revealed that the boots were prepared as a curse by a lama famous for sorcery, acting on behalf of a former regent. That sorcerer (Lama Nyaktrul) confessed he was recruited to enchant the boots “as a means to sap the vitality of the Dalai Lama and cause his eventual death” (Treasury of Lives: The Case of the Dalai Lama’s Cursed Boots – Tricycle: The Buddhist Review). The plotters, including the ex-regent, were arrested, confirming this was not mere superstition but a documented attempt to use ritual magic to punish or eliminate a high lama. While this is a political case, it shows that Tibetan lamas did employ curses (mantras on effigies or objects) to secretly harm human targets. It’s a short step to imagine a vindictive guru doing similar things to a personal disciple who is seen as a traitor.

  • Even when literal demons aren’t invoked, the threat of supernatural harm is a powerful tool. Some Vajrayana insiders have noted that gurus sometimes wield samaya as a weapon of fear, warning that if a student breaks their devotion, it will hinder the guru’s life or send the student to Vajra Hell. This can psychologically terrorize students into silence and obedience.

  • Samaya and Guru Devotion as a Control Mechanism: The reverence for gurus in Tibetan Buddhism, while spiritually meaningful in that system, can be abused. Devoted students are taught to see the guru as embodying all Buddhas (The Disadvantages of Incorrect Devotion to a Guru | Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive), and therefore criticizing the guru is equivalent to criticizing the Buddha himself. This makes any challenge tantamount to sacrilege. Teachers who demand absolute loyalty may invoke wrathful consequences to enforce it. In the lore, breaking samaya not only brings karmic punishment but may incite the guru’s protector spirits to take revenge. For instance, many guardian deities are oath-bound to “strike down those who break their vows” to the guru or teachings. A protector like Dorje Shugden, controversially, is believed by his devotees to punish monks who “betray” their lineage, an idea which has led to real-world fear and schisms ( Go On, Break Your Samaya | Tsem Rinpoche). Thus, within the context of guru devotion, the line between religious oath and curse can blur: a disciple who disobeys is told they invite not only bad karma but possibly violent divine retribution.

  • To go one step further, it is not far fetched to assert that it is the lama himself bringing about the karmic retribution on the student through black magic rituals using effigies and curses. These practices are particularly potent because the disciple would have opened themselves up to being possessed by the guru’s yidams and protectors through the empowerments and teachings they received from the guru. In addition, the guru is able to enter the mind and body of the disciple magically. See Tantric Astral Projection, the Guru’s Power to Liberate or Condemn. So basically, the potential enemy is already camped within the body/mind/spirit of the victim, waiting to strike should there be any samaya breakage. Although the tantric methods contain practices to repair broken samaya, the student/victim is not always aware that he has offended the guru and been condemned as an “unripe vessel” until it is too late.

In summary, credible sources, from canonical texts to academic studies and personal testimonies, support the claim that some Tibetan Buddhist gurus have used wrathful magic to punish dissenters. Traditional scriptures describe horrific fates for disciples who violate samaya, and Tibetan histories recount lamas employing curses, effigies, and protective deities to destroy enemies and “oath-breakers.” These examples, past and present, illustrate how the immense power ascribed to Vajrayana masters can morph into a tool of coercion, a “dark side” of guru devotion that Buddhist scholars and leaders are increasingly acknowledging. The evidence is admittedly esoteric, but it paints a consistent picture: under the pretext of protecting the Dharma or upholding sacred vows, some gurus have indeed used wrathful magic, rituals, or effigies to inflict harm on those who oppose or disobey them.

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