An Indian Tantric Tradition and Its Modern Global Revival: Contemporary Nondual Śaivism

"This book analyses the contemporary global revival of Nondual Shaivism, a thousand-year-old medieval Hindu religious philosophy. Providing a historical overview of the seminal people and groups responsible for the revival, the book compares the tradition's medieval Indian origins to modern forms, which are situated within distinctively contemporary religious, economic, and technological contexts. The author bridges the current gap in the literature between "insider" (emic) and "outsider" (etic) perspectives by examining modern Nondual Shaivism from multiple standpoints as both a critical scholar of religion and an empathetic participant-observer. The book explores modern Nondual Shaivism in relation to recent scholarly debates concerning the legitimacy of New Age consumptive spirituality, the global spiritual marketplace, and the contemporary culture of narcissism. It also analyses the dark side of the revived tradition, and investigates contemporary teachers accused of sexual abuse and illegal financial activities in relation to unique features of Nondual Shaivism's theosophy and modern scholarship on new religious movements (NRMs) and cults. This book shows that, although Kashmir Shaivism has been adopted by certain teachers and groups to market theirown brand of "High Tantra," some contemporary practitioners have remained true to the system's fundamental tenets and teach authentic (albeit modern) forms of Nondual Shaivism. This book will be of interest to academics in the fields of religion and Asian philosophies, especially South Asian, tantric, neo-tantric and yoga philosophies, alternative and New Age spiritualities, religion and consumerism, and new religious movements (NRMs) and cults"--