ABSTRACT
This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on the key concepts discussed in the preceding chapters of this book. The book demonstrates the ways in which the study of tantric Buddhism can be enriched by the insights of Durkheimian sociology and Jungian psychology. Tantric Buddhism explores a number of significant relationships, including the one between an individual and the deities with which they engage. This engagement, involving simultaneously, the body, the emotions, and consciousness, is both alchemical and transformative. The book explores transgression's relationship with the ambivalence of the sacred and suggests that there is an uneasy, but mutually dependent, relationship between the structures of social order, and the passions that make this order possible, such as the energies of collective effervescence. It suggests that the concept of the transgression of time and space can not only illuminate the subtle aspects of ritual eroticism, it can also be applied to instances of communication where the actors are separated geographically or historically.
