Will I love Tantra?

Urban was among the first scholars who took seriously connections between Indian Tantra and some strands of Western occultism, even while remaining critical of the latter’s take on the former.

This book is a study of Western fascinations with (often amounting to a series of misunderstandings about) Tantra and its conflation with sex, in the process of which it is misconstrued as “the cult of ecstasy.” Urban applies to the Victorian discovery and captivation with Tantra, the well-known Foucault’s contention about sexuality–that, far from being repressed by a scandalized silence, it is, in fact, incessantly and obsessively talked about.