Kritik am Buch „The Shadow Of The Dalai Lama ... - Neues von Shi De

tantric dogma on the issue of sperm gnosis as well. His theory of the manipulability of love offers us
valuable psychological insights into the soul of the lover and the beloved manipulator. They also help
us to understand why women surrender themselves to the Buddhist yogis and what is played out in
their emotional worlds during the rites. As we have already indicated, this topic is completely
suppressed in the tantric discussion. But Bruno addresses it openly and cynically — it is the heart of
the lover which is manipulated. The effect for the manipulator (or yogi) is thus all the greater the
more his karma mudra surrenders herself to him.
Bruno’s treatise, De vinculis in genere [On the binding forces in general] (1591), can in terms of its
cynicism and directness only be compared with Machialvelli’s The Prince (1513). But his work goes
further. Couliano correctly points out that Macchiavelli examines political, Bruno however,
psychological manipulation. Then it is less the love of a consort and rather the erotic love of the
masses which should — this she claims is Bruno’s intention — serve the manipulator as a “chain”.
The former monk from Nola recognized manipulated “love” as a powerful instrument of control for
the0 seduction of the masses. His theory thus contributes much to an understanding of the ecstatic
attractiveness that dictators and pontiffs exercise over the people who love them. This makes Bruno’s
work up to date despite its cynical content.
Bruno’s observations on “erotic love as a chain” are essentially tantric. Like Vajrayana, they concern
the manipulation of the erotic in order to produce spiritual and worldly power. Bruno recognized that
love in the broadest sense is the “elixir of life”, which first makes possible the establishment and
maintenance of institutions of power headed by a person (such as the Pope, the Dalai Lama, or a
“beloved” dictator for example). As strong as love may be, it is, if it remains one-sided, manipulable
in the person of the “lover”. Indeed, the stronger it becomes, the more easily it can be used or
“misused” for the purposes of power (by the “beloved”).
The fact that Tantrism focuses more upon sexuality then on the more sublime forms of erotic love,
does not change anything about this principle of “erotic exploitation”. The manipulation of more
subtle forms of love like the look (Carya Tantra), the smile (Kriya Tantra), and the touch (Yoga
Tantra) are also known in Vajrayana. Likewise, in Tantric Buddhism as in every religious institution,
the “spiritual love” of its believers is a life energy without which it could not exist. In the second part
of our study we shall have to demonstrate how the Tibetan leader of the Buddhists, the Dalai Lama,
succeeds in binding ever more Western believers to him with the “chains of love”.
Incidentally, in her book which we have quoted (Eros and Magic in the Renaissance) Couliano is of
the opinion that via the mass media the West has already been woven into such a manipulable “erotic
net” (rete). At the end of her analysis of Bruno’s treatise on power she concludes: “And since the
relations between individuals are controlled by ‘erotic’ criteria in the widest sense of that adjective,
human society at all levels is itself only magic at work. Without even being conscious of it, all beings
who, by reason of the way the world is constructed, find themselves in an intersubjective intermediate
place, participate in a magic process. The manipulator is the only one who, having understood the
ensemble of that mechanism, is first an observer of intersubjective relations while simultaneously
gaining knowledge from which he means subsequently to profit” (Couliano, 1987, p. 103).
But Couliano fails to provide an answer to the question of who this manipulator could be. In the
second part of our analysis we shall need to examine whether the Dalai Lama with his worldwide
message of love, his power over the net (rete) of Western media, and his sexual magic techniques