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Swaveda - Articles - Lucci And Her Hypnotized Cobras
By Shreekumar Vinekar | Sep 08, 2005
Abstract: These are true stories. No patriotic Indian will forget these stories. Her name was Lucci (pronounced “Loochee”). She came to India, as a woman traveling alone, from Rome in the early nineteen-sixties. Adventurous and dreamy-eyed, she promoted herself as a representative of “WHO” (World Health Organization) and a researcher interested in “Science behind Superstition.” Many Indians, and mostly Hindu Indians, cannot but take pride in the “mysticism” and “mystique” that India seems to have inherited from their ancestors. Of course, Lucci’s interests were so deep, her credentials (although not ever verified) so impressive and not to mention her white color which as usual gave her a tremendous mileage and head start in India. She had access to all levels of the Government of India, all the Yoga Ashrams, and even all the Tantrics and magicians. If she published her findings and explained those in the scientific journals, she would surely be a candidate for a Nobel Prize. Of course, she moved around very freely all over India. She introduced herself as an Internist and Endocrinologist, practicing in Rome Italy. Like Michelangelo and Galileo Galilee, she had an impressive and memorable name, “Lucci San Angel Antonio.”
In case any one tries to impute any negative to her Italian background based upon the later developments on the Indian political scene, let me at the outset place a disclaimer that this is not an article directed at the Nehru-Gandhi regime or their connections in Italy. On the surface, like most Europeans (from all over the world) and Americans that come to India with deep interest in Yoga, Hindu Religion and Mysticism, she was a good soul, erudite and well read, as most of them are. She was, however, a cut above them. She was courageous and adventurous. She also had a state of the art camera and I am not all that sure if she carried any tape recorders or any other electronic equipment. (This was before video cameras were invented.) From the time of Rudyard Kipling and especially because of his writings, India held an appeal for the European and American youngsters. There is something magical about India and this “intangible” about Hinduism needed to be understood and explained, or else, pooh-poohed and discredited as a superstition of the gullible Hindu minds that needed a dose of Christianity to make them “rational” (as if Christianity was not resting on one gigantic superstition and as if its adherents were not at all superstitious!)
Bless her heart; Lucci did not represent any Departments of Religious Studies that have an interest in the Hindu scriptures nor was she officially representing Christian missionaries or the Roman Catholic Church although she was from Rome. She did not do any harm to her host society that welcomed her with open arms. She was a decent human being and a very friendly lady who had a “mission.” What her “mission” was in those days remains a mystery even to this date as her “scientific work” never saw the light of the day-- at least to the best of my knowledge.
Why would an endocrinologist be interested in superstition, and why would WHO sponsor and fund a study of superstition were questions that would not ordinarily occur to polite and hospitable Indians. Besides, most Indians would in those days, and even today, feel extraordinarily honored and flattered if a foreigner of her caliber, representing an august body such as WHO, showed deep interest in “proving” to the world that Indians were not just gullible but truly possessed arcane and esoteric knowledge that cannot only be verified as a “fact” but the science also should either be able to explain the mechanisms underlying such “magic” or it is within the scope of science to understand these phenomena. Of course, it was not polite to ask Lucci how her background in endocrinology would give her the special expertise to dabble into these matters.
There were other more famous persons in the world, who also had shown interest in such matters. Mark Twain, Aldous Huxley, Arthur Koestler, J.B.S. Haldane, Agehananda, to name a few lay authorities. The “scientists” like M. A. Wenger, Ph.D., Elmer Green, Ph.D., were, at least psychologists. Alfonso Caycedo, M.D. claimed to be a psychiatrist and hypnotist, (a Sophrologist), from Columbia (South America). For the field of practice of “animal hypnotism” through tantric techniques though, there was no legitimate discipline of science that would tackle that subject. Once this article is published, there will be many from the Departments of Religious Studies from the U.S. like Emory or University of Chicago that will be more than happy to get “funded” to do “research” on this topic too. They do not seem to lack funds to do “research” on “Indian Marriages,” “Sati,” “Mahabharata,” “Tantra,” “Kali,” “Shivaji,” and “Ramakrishna Paramhansa” and “Caste Systems” In fact, I am entirely certain that one of them will come forward to complete the research project started by Lucci. Needless to say, their research will be fraudulent as most of their research is.
Cobras and snake-charming have always fascinated the foreigners until the phenomenon was “demystified” as a natural, attention-keeping reflex of the cobras to focus on the moving tip of the “poongis” (blowing gourds of the snake-charmers.) The rope trick has become extinct. If hypnotizing cobras is a tantric skill that is in any fashion connected with the Hindu religion, the Christian faculty (meaning faculty members who are not practicing Hindus) of academic Departments of Religion will quickly get funded to explore this topic.
Why? It still sells! It has a market value! After all, cobras and snakes do represent “phallus” in Freudian psychoanalytic parlance. Pointing it out to lay-people gives these “scholars” from the Departments of Religious Studies, like Paul Courtright and Wendy Doniger, a ring or a halo of “scientific investigators.”
Lucci’s story is not of that kind. She was a practicing Endocrinologist with an office located at 110 Via Salaria, Rome, Italy. Hers was a prestigious address in the downtown business district of Rome, Italy. She was not a psychiatrist, nor a psychoanalyst. “Hypnotizing cobras” will be a “how fun” topic for the likes of Wendy Doniger and Paul Courtright. It will provide a treasure of sexual connotations from the psychoanalytic “view point.” If they could obtain the Mantras, the Tantric uses to hypnotize cobras, every word therein may be pregnant with meaning for Courtright Emory bunch and Doniger and her children, (see Emory Phallic Fixation). Lucci on the other hand was a sincere investigator and had none of the ulterior Christian missionary motives of the Methodists or Catholics.
She had photographs of snakes (cobras) (at least ten of them) hypnotized by the Tantric that she had accompanied into the remote jungles of India. They were performing a drill, following the “commands” of the Tantric. These cobras could be brought to any football game half-time show and be part of the cheer-leading team. They were docile, and performed wonderful feats. They could almost stand “erect,” turn their hoods to the left or right and rock sideways and up and down. She said she wanted to take close up pictures, and moved closer to them. Suddenly the cobras became restless. The Tantric, who had invited the cobras or attracted them, through the power of his mantras and techniques, became somewhat alarmed. Losing his polite stance, he suddenly asked Lucci in a blunt manner, “Are you in your monthly period Madam?” She promptly replied, “Yes.” He then urged her to quickly move away from the cobras. Interested in the neuro-hormones and how the wild animals can smell the catecholamines or “fear hormones” in their prey or “aggression hormones” in their predators, she was intrigued that the cobras were endowed with such sensitive olfactory sense.
Interestingly, it is to be noted here that Hindu ritualism disbars menstruating women from participating in the religious rituals at close quarters. Departments of Religious Studies that are tuned into defaming Hindu culture have not yet made a big deal about the manner in which ladies in their child bearing years are disenfranchised from participating in religious rituals during their monthly periods by orthodox Hindus.
It is none of their business what Hindus do in their personal or private worships. Nevertheless they seem to always try to make it their business. For Hindus, most unfortunately, it is just an anachronistic tradition, taken for granted without any thought about how it would make our girls and women feel.
Why should the women announce publicly that they are in their monthly period, and why should it be the business of the Tantrics whether Lucci was going through her monthly period? This aspect of Hinduism requires an internal reform in the 21st Century Hinduism. However, was there any substance to the cause and effect relationship between Lucci’s menstruating status and the agitation of the cobras? Lucci was least interested in this spin-off topic that would be ripe to be exploited to denigrate Hinduism because what she witnessed was so “out of this world.” Not only that, but it was proven to be true by her camera. She was not in the least offended by the Tantric’s intrusion in her privacy. She had already collected the proof she was looking for her research subject on “Science behind Superstition.”
No one was going to suspect any longer that she herself was hypnotized, and that what she saw was a product of hypnotic suggestions creating visual hallucinations in Lucci. No one can photograph contents of visual hallucinations. Now it was a matter of replicating this experiment. It was necessary though to find others who could believe that her photographs were authentic and that there was no trickery involved. There were very few Indians who had even heard about this ancient art of a “Mohini Vidya,” leave alone who had first hand experience with it. There were even fewer Indians who knew about the application of Mohini Vidya in the area of animal hypnotism. It was one thing to hypnotize an animal to subdue it, but it was entirely another matter to communicate with the animals and make them follow commands. This was not an ordinary every day circus. Subjecting wild animals to human will without prior training was a research topic that would be a new territory in Science, deserving consideration of a Nobel Prize.
Once discovered and publicized, it could be sold as the product of Western civilization, much as we are all aware has been the case with likes of Reserpine (Indian contribution to the first effective pharmacological intervention for hypertension and psychosis), “Christian Yoga,” Digitalis (Lanoxin) used for centuries by the Native Americans, and even the use of Turmeric as an anti-septic. There was an attempt recently to patent in the U.S. the use of Turmeric as an antiseptic, Basmati Rice as a specially invented variety of rice, and patenting of a “tongue cleaner” for the wine tasters and winning an award for inventing it to sell it as a Western invention while such devices have been used in India for centuries. These are trivial matters but these give inkling to the Indians as to why there would be such an interest in animal hypnotism and its special techniques. These could possibly be “patented” or copy-righted requiring credentialing and sold as a technique taught to only select candidates deserving certification and licensing at high cost, with malpractice insurance attached to it with a host of regulatory agencies supervising and monitoring the use of these techniques. It has great potential in the Health Industry for both Human Medicine and Veterinary Medicine!
It has been an interesting thing to watch how quickly these foreigners can find what they seek in India, while many Indians might have been looking for the same thing for many years without finding any leads. They read about these obscure and very rare indigenous and intrinsic Indian phenomena somewhere and decide to verify them. The next step is like finding a needle in a hay-stack. How do they find the truly skilled Tantric willing to demonstrate his skills to them and how do they complete their research project in a matter of three months to six months while it takes many years for the local Indians even to locate the existence of such phenomena? There must be something to the field of Indology taught in the foreign Universities to these students that is different from what is taught in India that makes them so resourceful. Is this knowledge going to be more easily available in this Internet cyber-age? Or, is it going to be a closely guarded secret as it has always been in India?
However, isn’t it ironic or even quite mysterious that we should find an Emory University faculty member within a block or two of the London bombing and also present in Pune when the Bhandarkar Institute was vandalized? Can these be viewed as mere coincidences? She was ostensibly there to hold a seminar on Mahabharata and to study Tantra. It certainly raises curiosity as to what all things do these people know ahead of time. Do they have access to an infrastructure of a network of people that keep them posted and perhaps lay the groundwork for their safe travel in India and wherever they travel? Are they connected with one another as members of a mutual admiration society or, worse still, as a group engaged in secret activities? Are there networks of people working behind the scene for these Indologists? They must have access to more than a run of the mill travel agency!
There was no Internet in the sixties and not even in the eighties when Prof. Paul Courtright found Mrs. Vinod, the widow of Dr. Vinod, Professor of Philosophy, to give him personal lessons in the “mythology” of Shri Ganesha while he was touring Maharashtra. She would, no doubt, roll in her grave if she were to know what he has done with the stories she told him …that is, if she were not cremated per Hindu custom.
Lucci left India with her pictures and continued to correspond with us from her prestigious address in Rome. She was even gracious enough to send a note inviting us to look her up when in Rome. And we did.
We tried and failed to locate her telephone number and then we found out that her office was only a few blocks away from our hotel. We went up and down the street looking for her office. We found out that the address from which she was communicating with us did not exist. The number was for a room on the second floor of a shopping center on Via Salaria. The room was closed, and the people there had no knowledge of a Dr. Lucci San Angel Antonio. We stood on the pavement asking for help to locate her in that very block. We must have spent about half an hour going up and down that street asking for her to whomever could understand a few words of English. Then suddenly a very nice lady accosted us by saying, “It is so wonderful to hear someone speak the English language in Rome. I have missed talking to people in English.” It was a cold morning just before Christmas in 1966, and the business district in downtown Rome was all decorated. We were led to believe that this charming old lady had not met anyone who spoke English for many years. She gracefully invited us to join her for a drink, and to have a small chat with her in a basement apartment very nearby the shopping center where Lucci’s official mailing address had been located …the very address from where she had communicated with us only a few weeks before this incident.
This nice lady claimed she had never heard about anyone named Lucci or of any Dr. San Angel Antonio practicing in this neighborhood. She told us how she had grown up in China as a daughter of a British missionary and fallen in love with an American soldier. (Of course, as we all know many Indologists and faculty of Departments of Religious Studies in the U.S. and in Europe have this background of being children of Christian Missionaries who worked for a number of years in China or in India, or who supported missionary activities from their own Churches) Her husband had been stationed in Italy and they had remained there ever since, she said. It was a fascinating story of a widow who missed her deceased husband and her “homeland” (Great Britain) and had chosen to make a life for herself in Italy. (We could tell that the story of her life was kind of like the story of Pearl Buck). It was a conversation we had in the candle light in a semi-dark basement living room, seated in front of her fire-place that kept us warm. The goblet of wine was designed to keep us warm, too, so that we could walk to our hotel with some ready calories to burn.
After we left her apartment, I said to my wife, “Do you know, we just spent half an hour with Lucci? She never let us know that it was her, but I have a distinct feeling that she knew who we were.”
Around the same time Lucci came to India, there were others who came with similar interest in the Occult. Two of them come to mind. One was a Frenchman with his name sounding like Monsieur Bourigor. He, too, traveled widely throughout India. One evening he came up with severe acute abdominal pain, but he absolutely refused to consult a physician. He had his reasons. He knew his diagnosis and did not want to be misdiagnosed and operated upon. I will talk about the second one in a sequel to this article if I am permitted to publish a “Part II” of this article.
Now arise two questions. Was that charming Englishwoman Lucci or not? What was the diagnosis of Monsieur Bourigor’s abdominal pains, if you were to be told that he was a POW of Hitler’s forces during the Second World War?
No definitive answers can be given. It is highly unlikely that the elderly lady with whom we had the good fire-side chat could still have been menstruating just a few years before our meeting. Yet, who would have dared ask Lucci if she had not had her menopause yet when she visited India and told her cobra stories. Monsieur Bourigor was so desperately suffering from the abdominal pains, and yet was begging not to be taken to the doctors. He did give a more plausible story. He was sure he was poisoned by the Nazis. They had given him lead in his food. As a result he was suffering from lead poisoning.
What goes on with these “complex” people besides their interest and scholarship in Indology, Yoga, Tantra, Hinduism and its mysticism? It is anybody’s guess. We must not forget that in the cold war days, and even now, New Delhi was and is still the International capital of espionage. I will not impute that all those who come to India from Departments of Religious Studies are connected with CIA or the State Department of the U.S. Indeed, if I were to have any say in running these agencies, I would certainly train my staff to learn Arabic, Sanskrit, Hinduism, Buddhism, and other Indian languages and arts and music. I would require them to gain knowledge of Occult Eastern practices, and serve as “interns or residents” in Hindu organizations such as the Hare Krishna or other Hindu “cults,” organizations that would give them the mobility needed to enter the interiors of India or to go near its borders and the necessary vocabulary or lingo. Chester Bowles’ “Dynamics of Peace” may give the answer from the geopolitical view-point to the question raised at the beginning of this paragraph.
India still remains a geopolitical hot-spot or region of interest for many reasons for the super powers. It is a region of great interest for the expansionist religions. It is also now more than just a region with some natural resources but a country with technologically educated population that equals the population of the U.S. which can be very useful to the multinational corporations.
So the message of this communication is: “Let us not forget Lucci.” There are many who might be financed and funded by the secret foreign agencies that show interest in the social and cultural peculiarities of India and Hinduism. They come to India under many pretexts. Some of them are funded by Christian Missionary groups. Some of them are funded by espionage related groups. There is much overlapping of the motivations in these kinds of “Indologists,” although some are authentic scholars. There are other kinds of visiting scholars and I will examine their motivations in my second part of this article.
We, Indians, need to have the savvy to be discriminating enough to sort out the sincere and authentic scholars from the fraudulent ones; to identify those with ulterior motives, and to not be such boobs as to honor them through Brahman Samaj or other Hindu organizations without reading their books (as our brothers did in Atlanta, Georgia) for their fraudulent “research,” in spite of the accolades they may receive from their peers or politically oriented Western organizations. They receive encouragement, favorable publicity, and support by biased Western media like the Washington Post, all of whom are royally duped by them all.
Most Hindus who want to get political mileage or recognition in their communities are likely to fall for such manipulation by the likes of Emory, Paul Courtright and their ilk. Wise up my friends! The world is very complex. Even a “sepoy” “Professor” in another department at Emory could be duped, as illustrated by his “naive” sounding but condescending and cagey comment to his “Hindu friends” that he would like to have Paul Courtright as his best friend in his next life if he and Paul were to be reincarnated and if there was anything like reincarnation. He would choose no one else but Paul to help him learn how to read and interpret Hindu Shastras. The Emory administrators including Dean Paul listened to this faculty member without raising questions as to when and where he acquired the knowledge to distinguish an authentic scholar of the Shastras and Psychoanalysis from a fake one. Isn’t it interesting that he forgot mentioning emotional need for his current wife to be his best friend in his next life! That kind of “affinity” goes along with the “unconscious homoerotic focus” so rampant in the writings of Paul Courtright in his book on “Lord Ganesha.” Needless to say, that it (the homoerotic tendency of Shri Ganesha discovered after “painstaking” research by Prof. Courtright) originates nowhere in the Hindu scriptures and is a entirely a product of Paul Courtright’s own unconscious. Indeed, Prof. Courtright’s confusion between facts and his own fantasies was evident in his admirer also. Shri Ganesha’s alleged love of “oral sex” also discovered by Prof. Courtright is not ever documented in any Hindu scriptures as admitted by Prof. Courtright himself. Little does he realize that by projecting such “perversion” on Shri Ganesha by saying Ganesha engaged in oral sex, Prof. Courtright is reflecting his internalization of his own culture (a million dollar sport a la Monica Lewinsky in the late 1990’s) and perhaps his own unconscious tendencies. Any one familiar with Freud’s dynamic formulations regarding the origin of paranoia will not miss the connections between these tendencies in Prof. Courtright’s unconscious and his paranoia. He likes to present himself as a victim because he is studying religion in the age of “terrorists,” a far fetched label he would like to apply to his Hindu scholar critics to create another smoke-screen to cover up his mischief and his incompetence in the area of comprehending Hindu religion and philosophy.
Remember Lucci and her fascination for the cobras? How do you think Paul Courtright would interpret it? Look at Shiva’s picture with a cobra around his neck with a raised and “standing hood.” Also, look at the picture of Ganesha with a snake around his obese abdomen and the hood of the snake barely visible. Emory Phallic Fixation will come up with a “scientific interpretation,” with “research” on this topic, and soon all reputable Western Universities and curators of Museums will accept it as a “scientific” discovery by Paul Courtright especially since it will be backed by a reputable University like Emory that “honors his academic freedom!” This is the kind of malarkey in academia that passes as academic research, in the Departments of Religious Studies and other departments in the area of Liberal Arts or Humanities. Hindus are blamed for protesting against it. Look at the background of Paul Courtright and his funding when he wrote the book on Ganesha. The story is not very different from the background of the mysterious charming lady that was so gracious to us in Rome. Similar background will be found if one scrutinizes the background of the Chairs of the Departments of Religious Studies in some of the reputable American Universities. Why is money poured into this type of “research?” Indians now have to question these people when they enter India. These visitors now have to have a different visa for doing research or missionary work in India and the government needs to scrutinize what kind of research they are “up to” and who they are connected with. They are not just ordinary tourists. They are not just ordinary “sincere scholars.” They have other agendas. Thanks to Lucci, we have to learn our lessons. Now you may ask what the point of this whole story is:
……To be continued.
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