I've had less sex in my 44 years than most the 17 year olds I know have had already. Never mind the long boring details of why, but as a summary, it mostly involves starting a bit late in life and two ten-year periods of semi-celibacy (one on a vow, one just because I was single and am very conservative so don't sleep around. "Semi" means I had no sex with others but had no restriction on masturbation.), and a current friend-slash-boyfriend that I only get to see like once a year which is only slightly different than celibacy frankly.
Part of this in all honesty is because I came of age in the AIDS generation. Just as I was truly opening up to the sex idea, the media was filled with the 11-zillion ways you can get something disgusting or fatal from having sex. My terror of this actually happening has prevented a ton of sex I could otherwise have had in my life but really did not want to risk myself with.
Despite having had so little of it with other people, sex is a pretty powerful subject with me. I discovered a long time ago, by spontaneous "anomalous experience," that some of what I call sex, entities call merging, and that sexual energy has a very powerful effect on basically anything that you might hold in your mind during masturbation, and if you "give your energy" on climax to a given focus, that seems to have a powerful effect.
I have no formal education on sex magick or tantra. Now and then I've lightly-skimmed something on it; doesn't mean much to me. I'm technically part of a tantric magickal order (OTO), about which I know almost nothing and likely never will. It was part of my experience-set in 1994 based on profound dreams with Alastor and Israel which were "shared parts of a larger soul" with me in some fashion, I 'took Minerval and 1st degree' then, and it has had little to do with my conscious life or interests except temporarily, and once in a rare while in cycles, since. I don't expect to ever delve farther into that (and the tantric part doesn't even start in that until 4th degree, I've heard) so whatever I might learn from experience is all I've got.
Sex magick, as in masturbation with 'intent' and 'channeling of that energy' involved, is an occasional part of what I consider my spiritual and meditational work. So, I'm going to talk about it here.
Tantric Terminology and Directing Energy
Like many topics, when I read about sex magick or tantra on occasion, I see that people get lost in semantics. Terminology is too limited for our experience-set.
When I am really tuned in ideally to something as a magickal focus during sex, the so-called climax isn't-quite the normal thing. This can vary a little in detail and degree, but basically it feels like sexual energy is many things, on many levels, winding through both the physical and energy bodies.
Our normal definition of 'sex' is very simplistic and crude and limited. It's like defining 'love' as 'sex'. Sex can be involved, doesn't have to be involved, can range from abuse to worship, plus love itself is a zillion things beyond, besides, or apart from, sex. So that definition would be retarded, except for people who honestly don't know the difference because so far, they either always come together for them, or love in a fuller sense has simply not happened to them, either by chance or by inability of their psychology to allow that.
Well, defining sex as pleasure followed by physical climax does make a little more sense than that, but mostly only to people who have never tried using the process for any other purpose. Once you have for awhile, and have realized the variety and depth of experience involved, then the words 'sex' and 'climax' become generalities that have a lot of different categories inside them.
The term climax in particular gets lost in the words. It is the "peak of the cycle" but that does not always mean the typical physical result most of us learned to call sex. That is what normally happens at the peak of the cycle if you are not bothering to do anything with that cycle except feel good and then vent the energy.
The 'ejaculative fluids' of either gender are just one part of a sexual act. I think the physical climax could be thought of as a sort of "physical overflow valve". Maybe we need that; maybe if we didn't have that and we were not focusing the energy on something specific, it would end up 'intensifying' everything physical and it wouldn't be good. Sexual energy might be like nuclear energy, you can channel it into something as 'energy' and that's good, but a simple explosion of it is quite bad. If there's a way to "divert" any explosion into some "safe outlet", that seems useful. I think that is essentially sexual climax as our culture thinks of it. Not a bad thing. The common default thing. Needed-for-children thing. Just not the ONLY thing.
When you really focus and gain rapport properly, at the point you would normally hit climax, the energy goes -- er, elsewhere. I mean literally. It is quite weird sometimes. It's like all of the energy sometimes just disappears as it pours into whatever your focus was, and you're left suddenly having gone from edge-of-climax to nothing -- as if you were just standing there considering the weather and it is no part of you at all -- because now-its-with-that-other-thing. On the bright side, you know what you were doing worked when this happens, that energy is very powerful and it goes SOMEWHERE. On the down side, it is not so much fun at that point as it would be if you were venting it physically. OK, not fun at all, actually!
Sometimes you can keep 'part' of the energy with you and part with whatever if a "merge" is the real goal. It will reduce the power of the climax as "some" of the energy pours into the Other.
You can keep it all "in-body" with an ordinary peak of physical-venting, but imagine "sharing" that energy, like you can do with archetypes, and that is a lot of fun and I think effective too (I feel that I've seen this have positive emphasis effects in archetype work), but I think that while that is a lot more enjoyable because you get to physically "keep" the physical part of your climax, it doesn't have anywhere near the same degree of power the first option does.
Parallels, such as Energy Work
This reminds me a lot of hands-on energy work. When you are really attuned to the divine of the person/you/God, it's like a trance with an impossible depth through your middle, and the energy just goes through you like a channel--you aren't even consciously doing much besides "holding the physical gateway of body+intent open" you might say--and there is the sense, later when you can get left-brain about it, that the energy poured into them was profound and powerful and deep. To the person, that was just 'nice', felt spiritual. But what really feels GREAT to someone getting a healing is when you "let the energy overflow" and it basically can be thought of as bubbling over onto/through the skin and surface energy body. Now at that point, the moment you feel that the energy you are pouring in has 'filled' and the 'overflow' reaches your hands or senses, it is time to move on. But the overflow feels really good to the person under your hands, as that is the "warm energy shivers" that are so physical. Much of energy work they are consciously oblivious to, especially the deepest stuff. The mostly-useless stuff that is just "stroking" so to speak, is what 'feels' best.
I think it is similar in terms of using sex. I'm referring to anything including masturbation in this case, which I have zero inhibition or embarrassment about, and I do not [unlike some authors] consider this any kind of a negative thing. The most spiritual stuff, the most powerful stuff, works "through" the physical body but then is fully transformed into something else, I have no idea what exactly. Probably all kinds of people have long boring tomes of dictation about this stuff but I really could not care less about all the philosophy, to me, it's experience, and I can think through-it with the help of that experience; books don't do much for me in this topic.
The least spiritual stuff, but that with the most physically kinesthetic or enjoyable experience, stays with the physical body, and the major point of enjoyment is actually in the "overflow" -- which is not even very useful, energetically, just a lot of fun.
Some tantric philosophies consider ordinary sex, aside from having-children, to be inherently bad. From 'disappointing' to actual 'black magick'. I mean seriously, to hear some of these people tell it, if you masturbate you're already one with demonic forces. Give me a break. I really wish that tantra could, like remote viewing in a way, have the critical parts of it dragged into a more scientific+experiential approach, free from the eons of philosophical baggage, religious garbage and mystical muck it is usually found drowning within.
It seems to me, and this is my informal experience talking and I'm no sage mind you, but it seems to me that the more physical energies are just crude in form. Every kind of energy has a sort of "gradient of levels", from the most crude (let's say masturbation to pornography, mental or physical) to the most divine (spiritual union). The difference is I don't consider the physical stuff to be inherently evil, any more than I consider washing the dishes evil. You can use washing the dishes as a spiritual meditation. You can analogy, allegory the experience to many things and manipulate your archetypal map of reality based on this. You can commune with divine parts of yourself and use a slow, warm-water, slippery-soap, cleansing-ritual as a very sensual form of kitchen worship. Or, you can just wash the damn dishes because it needs doing or because you're chilly and the warm water idea felt good or because it gives you a sense of accomplishment and room to mess it all up again. Not as much fun as divine merging via plate-buffing, granted, but not necessarily the left hand path of darkness, either.
I do not consider the physical world or body to be inherently bad. I consider the doctrine of Original Sin to be the greatest evil ever perpetuated on mankind, and much of the knee-jerk denouncement of things like masturbation to be a side-effect of that philosophy -- even in the eastern models, which have their own uniform of doctrine too. To all things there is a season, as the saying goes -- I think sometimes it is appropriate and fun to be 'crude' and have sex for the sheer joy of having it -- zen, by nature, is 'living' -- and sometimes it is appropriate to make it a divine tool. I consider myself a spiritual conglomerate and a symbiote of sorts, with a nature-spirit that is the physical body but also-me while I merge-inhabit her (although the definition of "I" includes her while this is so).
Sex and Women
Perhaps the single thing I agree with Freud about (I am a Jung fan, not one of Freud at all except where they agree) is that the clitoral orgasm is an "incomplete" release of energy, and this tends to be the type of orgasm that most women most commonly have.
This is in part because external stimulation is just so much easier; because internal stimulation tends to be based on the man more than the woman as far as how its gone about, rythym and for how long (and position matters; for many women it's much more likely to happen if she is squatting above rather than in front of or below the man), and because--in all honesty--it is more trouble to bring about usually, takes awhile in most cases -- and it's messy as hell! When men ejaculate they need a hand cloth. When women ejaculate they may need three towels and the mattress takes a week to dry out. At least this is my experience and that of many women I've talked with. So, often "G-spot orgasms" are not pursued simply because they are more trouble and inconvenient.
(Until not very long ago, the 'G'-spot was considered a myth. I find that difficult to believe, like I find many of the things related to women and changes in culture and science in the last century. I myself assumed it was a myth and knew nothing about it but then again, I knew nothing about sex at all. When I discovered this was real, I was so ASTOUNDED by it (I spent weeks wondering, "Where did all that fluid COME FROM?! Has it been sitting there for 33 years?? Where does it GO if I don't do that??") I sent an email to everybody, even my parents, heartily recommending they try finding and utilizing this fabulous area of the body, with instructions no less. OK, I might have been a little temporarily insane. That was also the first time I discovered multiple orgasms, and that women's get more intense with each one until you genuinely fear that you might DIE somehow, so it was a bit impactive an experience!)
But I agree with Freud that the clitoral climax is incomplete. I say this because this never fully relieves sexual energy for me. It does relieve/vent a bunch of it for "that moment" and for years I THOUGHT it was taking care of it for me, until I learned more about myself and paid more attention to myself and realized that even when that happens, sure on the surface I feel better, thanks I can move on with my day now, but at core I am still 'simmering' (and can do so for a long time -- days, longer) waiting for a more complete release. The G-spot orgasm involves my entire body, not just the genitals, and I can feel the difference not just as a focal point but as a more powerful "energetic" experience.
I have never tried to redirect a g-spot orgasm into a magickal focus. This is mostly because I don't bother having them all that often and am more interested in the experience. Most the so-called tantric work I do with meditation is either partial usually on purpose (not fully to any kind of climax, but a build-up of energy), or a clitoral orgasm. I imagine, since it is so much more body-wide and powerful, that it would be really powerful for magick work. I guess until I've had a lot more of them and can be more blase about having them, I am too selfish though, I would rather have the pleasure.
Using Tantric Focus or Sex Magick in Meditation
Like most things in theology or psi or both, sex magick is in part a no-brainer anybody can teach themselves the hard-but-experiential way, with innate intuition and learning-from-experience. But like those things, it has been canonized into a thousand roads of doctrine, with gurus and our-way-is-the-only-way and more. If sex were half as complicated as magick and psi have been made out to be by self-appointed authorities, our whole species would have died out a few million years ago.
I have three different major ways that I "think about" whatever I am focusing on during a sexually-assisted meditation. I am referring now to using masturbation as a tool. As far as sex with other people goes, it is most ideal as a form of worship, and I am sure readers can figure that one out for themselves. Here I am talking about using a gradual "building-up and intensifying of energy" in the body(s) to work with, merge with, etc. anything -- and I really do mean anything -- even 'abstract concepts', situations, relationships, can be made archetypes, in any form/gender, and approached like this. (Works just as well with two people.) Obviously other "identities", from aspects-of-self, to entire Godforms[a], can be approached this way.
- I simply imagine that whatever focus, energy, topic, archetype, etc. is in question, I am literally having sex with in some fashion, and the pleasuring and semi-worship elements come in then.
- I imagine that the focus is 'merging with me' like some kind of Energy-Being and the "suffusion" is sensual and feels good, and that we are gradually "sharing molecules" and getting brighter and so on.
- I imagine that the focus is 'sharing my body' and we are mutually enjoying the pleasure. This is usually the approach I use if my focus is an identity (eg archetype) that is another woman.
When you start approaching the "ramp to climax" is when you have to start paying more attention. Left to its own default behavior, the body will take that "extra energy" and "vent it via outlet" and it will be an ordinary experience. You have to take more control of "directing" via "Will/intent" the energy at this point.
There is a variety of stuff you can do here.
You can attempt to build it up in one or more chakras, in order to give some energy and emphasis to the qualities/energies/experiences that chakra is a gateway/sponsor for in your physical and energy bodies. For example your solar plexus chakra stores energy well and can be related to strength of will; your heart to understanding ('compassion'); these have psi effects (SP in dowsing physical relationships and heart in conceptual data; the throat chakra in audio-type info and forehead in visual, etc.). Some people might want the side-effects of this. It also simply helps intensify and open that chakra.
I might add that this energy is very powerful and to some degree can sort of 'burn through' energy blocks in the energy body, and while this has some good points it also has some concerning points; you can overdo it and kind of harm yourself, not eternally I assume but for awhile, just like you can when moving furniture, lifting weights, or anything else in life -- you can "overdo it" with energy work too sometimes and this can go beyond being sore and literally into being injured, and if you're thinking this is all some woo-woo energy thing, you only need to screw this up really well once to understand the effects can be quite physical.
So spending a solid hour building up massive energy, and then attempting to use that to 'burn through all blocks' and 'totally open' your heart chakra, is probably not wise and it'll help to have a good health insurance plan. Such things are better done gradually and in balance with all the others.
You can intentionally raise the kundalini energy to be a very powerful connection between all the chakras. I've only done this a few times because I've only tried a few times. Basically you want to really focus on the energy at the base chakra and then imagine it moving upward. I've had the best result with this in visualization, imagining that the feel on my genitals is like a serpent 'swallowing' that part of me very slowly, energetically swallowing "my whole spine" at that point, and then I gradually move it 'up' and if done right the energy does move 'up' the spine.
It helps, if you want to make this work, it's a little like some of the more powerful archetype meditations: you really need to WANT it. I mean really focus on "the wanting" it every instant, teasing and tempting it, talking to it in your head, that it wants to consume that whole spine, and that there is a powerful energy at top that wants it to reach that goal, and that you want to be consumed by it, all the way around that circle-of-want, perceive it like a powerful identity, of its own, you are having sex with THAT part of yourself then.
The only caution about this is that if you do it right often your whole body will arch into rigid and this can stay that way for a LONG time, and I mean you really are paralyzed beyond conscious ability to change it at that point, and this can be really scary. I had someone whom I assume would know, once tell me that it was important not to have fear here, that it could create powerful energetic blocks if that got out of hand. He also told me that some people will intentionally stiffen/force a stop in the body-climax of this at some point (say, the neck, meaning the throat chakra) to intensify the effects there. I haven't tried that so far.
You can visualize the prep/setup for whatever or whomever it is you are focusing on for this, preparing to receive with great passionate wanting, all that energy, and imagine that the channel is set up that all this energy is transferring directly to/into them as it comes. This will generally cause the energy to just sort of "flow to them/it" and it's GONE in body-feeling, if done ideally.
But this isn't always done ideally. So a lot of the time it is more of a variable, by-degree, spectrum-experience ranging from "total transmutation of energy" to "physical venting climax" and every possible place on the scale between.
Crowley wrote about sex:
The battle will rage most fiercely around the question of sex... Mankind must learn that the sexual instinct is in its true nature ennobling. The shocking evils which we all deplore are principally due to the perversion produced by suppressions. The feeling that it is shameful and the sense of sin cause concealment, which is ignoble, and internal conflict which creates distortion, neurosis, and ends in explosion.I happen to agree with that view.
PJ
2 comments:
Quote "I really wish that tantra could, like remote viewing in a way, have the critical parts of it dragged into a more scientific+experiential approach, free from the eons of philosophical baggage, religious garbage and mystical muck it is usually found drowning within."
The Currency of Sexual Energy by Y.S. de Jong teaches about the art of sexual transmutation in a modern tantric form, just as your wish describes.
Thanks for that ref, I see that is your book. I will check it out!
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