I. VAMA MARGA Foundations Of The Left-Hand Path - staticfly.net

erotic metaphysics that is quite unknown to the Eastern acceptance of the
left-hand path's place as a legitimate – if subversive – method of spiritual
development. One need only consider the case of Aleister Crowley, to
perceive the difficulties of erotic initiation in a sex-negative religious and
social climate. There's no doubt that Crowley's often melancholy struggle
with his sexual demons broke barriers freeing contemporary sex magicians
from many an inhibition. And yet, how ultimately joyless and reactionary his
"sex magick" seems in comparison to the liberatory aims of the Eastern lefthand
path. To be sure, the relative freeing of human erotic potential since the
so-called sexual revolution allows contemporary sex magicians a much more
conducive climate for left-hand path initiation than the one with which
Crowley was forced to contend. But even now, a residual sense of sin and
guilt clings to many a Western magician's pursuit of awakening through Eros,
a hangover from the oppressive demonization of carnal pleasure that so
characterized the Christian era.
As the Western world haltingly awakens from the long nightmare of
exoteric Judaeo-Christianity and its stifling influence on Eros, Western
magicians can find a model of erotic initiation in the Tantric Vama Marga
that is refreshingly free of the anti-sexual hysteria and moral overtones of
good and evil that haunt Occidental sex-magic models. Even outside of
Tantra, the Indian approach to deity – just as the pre-Christian West of
antiquity once did – exalts a pantheon of gods and goddesses who act on their
libidinous desires. This sublime erotic understanding of the divine naturally
leads to the thought in left-handed praxis that human self-initiation to deified
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levels of consciousness does not only occur from the neck up. Phallus and
vulva are accepted as important – indeed essential – aspects of one's total
initiation. In the Christian West, the only religious role models to have been
accorded the dignity of an active sex life are the Devil and His demonic
accomplices. Thus, the nascent left-hand path in the West, such as it is, has
largely been stuck in the rather limited rut of Satanic imagery to the
exclusion of any deeper models of initiation.
Although the Indian left-hand path has its own limitations – its
sometimes paradoxically narrow view of the female initiate being the most
galling of these – the Vama Marga allows the initiate a much wider scope in
which to develop. By way of contrast to Western sex-magical practices
turning back to ancient methods, the Tantric left-hand path can still be
studied as a fairly organic, dynamic whole operating today, not simply the
nostalgic recreation of a long-vanished past. Authentic teachers of the Indian
left-hand path are still transmitting the methods of the sinister way as their
predecessors have for centuries, in an unbroken chain of tradition. Their
lessons can be melded to the needs of modern Western sex magicians,
evolving an ancient legacy in new and unexpected directions while retaining
the undimmed power that only a truly vital tradition can provide.
To accomplish such a synthesis, and to make the case for a Western
form of the left-hand path, it also becomes obvious that there really isn't
anything very "Western" about it. The most influential strains of sexual
magic that have developed in the Western world – when they are not directly
derived from Indian Tantra – are actually drawn from a variety of Middle
Eastern sources. With the exception of European witchery – which may or
not represent a genuine survival of a pre-Christian sinister current – such
ostensibly Western sex-magical themes as Gnostic libertinism, the Templar
heresy and its god/dess Baphomet, the cult of Babalon, the Grail quest, and
hermetic alchemy are not native to Europe at all.
Due to its ubiquity and adaptation into local forms, it is also easily
forgotten that the dominant spiritual tradition in the West – Christianity – is
yet another Eastern cult, utterly alien to the native European religious
impulse. But is the sex-hating exoteric Christianity that has so twisted the