Western magical tradition has a definite teaching concerning sex magic.
This doctine, although similar to Tantra, sometimes differs in the
goal sought. Power, not spiritual conscousness, if often the object of the
magician who practices libidinous ritual. This is so frequently the case
that Dion Fortune enequivocally states that sexual acts used as an adjunct
to ceremonial magic are tantamount to black magic and the practitioner automatically
defines himself as a follower of the left-hand path. Few modern occultists
would agree with her simplistic viewpoint, for it is the end sought, not
the means used, which determines the shade of magic.
Sex magic rests upon the fact that the most important psycho-physiological
event in the life of a human being is an orgasm. Sex magic is the art and
science of utilising sexual experience for the concrete materialisation
of desire and the expansion of the inner life.
Successful sex magic involves an interplay of four factors:
1. All aspects of extrasensory perception are heightened during sexual
excitation. The non-verbal communication and responsiveness of partners
attuned to each other's needs during love-making is one example.
2. Immediately before, during and after climax, the mind is in a
state of hypersensitivity, soaking up all suggestions like a sponge. Many
sexual problems, frigidity and impotence in particular, have their origin
in a careless comment uttered by a partner prior to or just after climax.
A person engaged in intercourse is highly vulnerable to positive or negative
influences.
3. Consistency of peak sexual sensations facilitates access to the
unconscious realms, or the 'astral worlds' of the occultist and the kundalini
arousal of the Tantrist. Prevalence of post-coital dreams, visions and kaleidoscopic
effects provides ample evidence that this is so.
4. During orgasm many people have experienced, at least once, a true
samadhi involving timelessness and a total dissolution of the ego,
accompanied by subjective sensations of being absorbed by their partner.
Western Tantra, similar to some Eastern aspects, is greatly concerned with
the use of body substances for occult and alchemical purposes. One branch
of this frankly venereal magic composes potent aphrodisiacs, perfumes and
draughts, utilising sympathetic magic and the laws of correspondence as
revealed by the Tree of Life.
The key secret of the Western tradition lies in the demonstation that the
sexual function has deeper implications that procreation. Twentieth-century
life builds up psychic tension, and the correct, occult use of sex may act
as a safety valve for such accumulated nervous energy. Individuals who become
fully aware of each other's needs in this regard may develop an extremely
practical outlook upon the whole concept of sexual relationships.
The sexual dynamic represents the most significant physical experience the
occultist has at his disposal, and it lies within his power to turn this
function into a spiritually regenerative act and a psychologically integrative
practice.
To experience Tantric ecstasy, the psyche must first be freed of negative
attitudes toward sex and have achieved a basic sexual awareness. Several
flat statements are required in discussing the psychic aspects of sexuality.
The sexual experience is dependent upon integration of the nervous system.
If one considers the achievement of orgasm as analogous to launching a rocket
to hit the moon (i.e. a climax), then it is an unequivocal fact that so
far as the neural pathways in the nervous system are concerned, the method
by which the sexual skyrocket is launched is of absolutely no consequence.
The only concern of the nervous system is that contact explosion in inner
space. The firing modality, be it masturbation, homosexuality, or heterosexuality,
is irrelevant. Theoretically, only the end result (orgasm) is important
and any form of sexual behaviour is but a means to an end - the cessation
of fluctuations of the mind, producing timeless transcendence.
When it comes to practice, of course, we find our ability to achieve orgasm
limited by attitude, the intervening variable between genital and brain.
Only attitude, a product of social conditioning, prevents many from exploring
their inherent bisexual nature or fully reaping the psychic benefits of
auto-eroticism and heterosexual copulation.
In the latter half of the twentieth century we know intellectually that
most sexual predjudices are irrational - but we may continue to react emotionally
to some possibilities of sexual variation. Psychologists are rewriting textbooks
in view of the fact that a concept of sexual deviation or abnormality is
no longer tenable. (In ancient China and India the concept that some forms
of sexual behaviour were abnormal was virtually non-existent). The idea
of 'sexual crime' is limited strictly to those cases that interfere with
the free will of another person, e.g. rape.
Many people, because of tension and negative conditioning, will only permit
themselves a sexual experience when absolutely everything else is correct
in both the external and internal environments. In other words, everything
has to be right; no headaches, no stomach'aches, no cramps, no emotional
turnoil, and then maybe they will go and relax in a special room and have
something they call 'sex'. The problem is that very seldom on any given
day is everthing 'just right' or 'perfect'.
The occult approach to sexuality is that one doesn't wait for the
right circumstances to have some sort of internal erotic experience - rather
one does ahead and has a sexual experience to readjust the psychic equilibrium
of the nervous system and thus make things go right.
Some occultists misuse sexuality for the purposes of 'black magic'. In fact
sexuality is a specific antidote to black magic. The deliberate trying to
injure another person, mentally or physically, through psychic channels
is only resorted to by those who are psychologically ill and feel themselves
to be impotent in negotiating life. Paranoid personalities riddled with
feelings of envy, hostility, suspiciousness and oversensitivity characterise
those prone to practice black magic, and these very traits trip them up
because they are susceptible to the idea that their own spells will rebound
upon them. Black magic is a type of mental judo in which an attempt is made
to surface the victim's innate, and normally unconscious, negativity and
fear, turning it against him while simultaneously convincing him that the
force is external to himself.
Psychological maturity confers immunity to black magic.
Sexual sorcery is an excellent expedient for strengthening a shattered psyche
or pulling together a sick ego. Esoteric psychology teaches that the powerful
force fields created by mutual orgasm repair lesions in the auric shields
of the male and female by virtue of the intensity of 're-pairing'.
Tantric sexuality is the dimension of sex employed for consciousness
expansion. One possible translation of the Sanskrit prefix tan
is 'expand', while tra means 'liberate'; so Trantra becomes that
which first 'expands' and then 'liberates' the mind. A collogquial translation
of Tantra would be 'mind-blowing'.
In terms of profound sexual experience this consciousness expansion is produced
by the far-reaching effects that tactile or touch receptors exert upon brain
states and personality.
The path to psycho-sexual power begins not only with recognising and overcoming
restrictive sexual prejudices, but also with cultivating intense gonadal
awareness through conscious tightening of the pelvic floor. This is accomplised
through deliberate, selective contraction and relation of the anal and urethral
(urinary) sphincters.
These exercises have been traditional for thousands of years in Tantra Yoga
and throughout the Middle East. The techniques have recently been rediscovered
by Western gynaecologists and sex therapists such as Dr Kegel and Drs Masters
and Johnson. We should remember that the word discover etymologically
means to uncover, so in actuality there is nothing new under the sun. The
encounter movement in psychology still has much to rediscover or
uncover from Tantra in regard to touch therapy.
