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Secrets of Sorcery, Spells and Pleasure Cults of India
P. Thomas
P. Thomas's *Secrets of Sorcery, Spells and Pleasure Cults of India* is a popular survey of the occult and erotic undercurrents of Indian folk religion—witchcraft, charms, curses, fertility rites, and the tantric fringe. Thomas wrote a string of accessible books on Indian custom and belief for the Bombay publisher D. B. Taraporevala Sons, and this one, in print again in 1983, sits squarely in that tradition of the informed generalist writing for curious lay readers. It gathers a great deal of colorful material—magical practices, cult lore, folk superstition—and presents it briskly rather than academically. Modern scholars would want firmer sourcing, and its tone belongs to an earlier era of writing about 'exotic' custom. But as a browsable introduction to the stranger corners of Indian religious folklore, it remains genuinely wide-ranging and entertaining.
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The author
P. Thomas was a prolific popularizer of Indian religion, myth, and custom whose illustrated volumes—on Hindu deities, epics, festivals, and social life—were published for decades by the Bombay house D. B. Taraporevala Sons. He wrote for the general reader rather than the specialist, aiming to make the sweep of Indian tradition accessible in single, browsable books.
The book
This volume turns to the shadow side of that tradition: sorcery, spells, black magic, fertility and 'pleasure' cults, and the folk beliefs that cluster around them. Thomas collects a wide range of practices and lore and lays them out in short, digestible sections, more interested in color and coverage than in deep analysis of any single custom.
How it has aged
The framing is dated—it belongs to a mid-century idiom of writing about Indian folk religion as exotic spectacle—and it should be read as a popular gathering rather than a rigorous ethnography. Taken in that spirit, it is a lively survey that points curious readers toward subjects they can pursue in more scholarly work.
For more context
Serious readers can follow its themes into academic studies of tantra, folk Hinduism, and South Asian magic and witchcraft.
Sources - Amazon listing - AbeBooks (1983)
- Type
- Book
- Author / Maker
- P. Thomas
- Publisher
- D. B. Taraporevala Sons
- Place of publication
- Bombay
- Year
- 1983
- ISBN
- None
- Shelf
- Spirituality & Philosophy
- Location
- Colorado
Places