I. VAMA MARGA Foundations Of The Left-Hand Path - staticfly.net
I. VAMA MARGA Foundations Of The Left-Hand Path - staticfly.net
I. VAMA MARGA Foundations Of The Left-Hand Path - staticfly.net
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earth-bound physical reproduction.<br />
<strong>The</strong> female sexual partner in the Sacrament of the Bridal Chamber<br />
was considered the living embodiment of the divine Sophia. Illustrating the<br />
universal nature of the sinister current as it manifests in different times and<br />
places is the fact that Sophia, understood as the male Gnostic's inner alter ego<br />
made flesh was known as "She of the <strong>Left</strong> <strong>Hand</strong>", a lunar force. This<br />
overwhelming female power incarnate in a human female is practically<br />
identical to the Tantric left-hand path's shakti. Among the Gnostic Christian<br />
sect known as the Ophites (Ophis is Greek for snake), who revered the<br />
Garden of Eden's serpent as an incarnation of She of the <strong>Left</strong> <strong>Hand</strong>, Sophia<br />
and Christ were thought to be divine siblings. <strong>The</strong> left-flowing power Sophia<br />
and the right-flowing power Christ were said to be the daughter and son of a<br />
feminine Holy Ghost whose incestuous sexual coupling created a bipolar<br />
erotic energy that descended into the human magus known as Jesus during<br />
his baptism. Thus, Ophites attempted to recreate this physical integration of<br />
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the opposite sexual forces within themselves as way to self-deification. <strong>The</strong><br />
resemblance to the Indian left-hand concept of the coupling of Shiva and<br />
Shakti being activated in the adept's body is obvious.<br />
It should be remembered that just as the left-hand path siddha of<br />
India is practicing a heresy against orthodox Hinduism, Christ and his<br />
disciples were heretics against Judaism. Tantra is heavily influenced by the<br />
Hinduism it broke away from, and Gnostic Christianity is stamped with older<br />
Hebraic concepts rejected by orthodoxy. Sophia, She of the <strong>Left</strong> <strong>Hand</strong>, can<br />
be traced to a much older Hebrew female divinity, the Shekhinah, whose<br />
worship dates back to the time before the adoption of a monotheistic male<br />
creator god. One of the meanings of Shakti is the "wife of the god", and<br />
Shekhinah is often translated as "secret wife of the king" – in both beings, we<br />
are dealing with a Feminine Daemonic source of sacral kingship and<br />
authority flowing sexually from female to male. Both the early Hebraic<br />
Shekhinah and the Gnostic Sophia were described as descending into the<br />
human body, "the Temple of the Holy Ghost", sometimes in the form of a<br />
dove – the masculine Holy Ghost of orthodox Christianity's Trinity is but<br />
Shekhinah/Sophia given a sex change.<br />
<strong>The</strong> male principle, the Shiva force, in Gnosticism, analogous to the<br />
Logos of Christ to whom the Sophia was coupled, was referred to as "He of<br />
the Right <strong>Hand</strong>" and was understood to be both the "sun" and the "son of a<br />
god". Exactly as in Tantra, the Gnostic sexual yoking of the lunar, female<br />
<strong>Left</strong> <strong>Hand</strong> to the solar, male Right <strong>Hand</strong> was a wedding of opposites that<br />
created the inner androgyne. In the Gnostic Gospels, the dialogue of Mary<br />
Magdalene with her fellow disciples includes several references to this<br />
creation of a spiritual androgyny, although the exact process to be used to<br />
reach this state is left unclear. We read that gnosis can "[make] a woman<br />
male", and that the seven female disciples are capable of "becoming male."<br />
This initiatory transformation bears similarities to the left-handed Buddhist<br />
idea that "a woman can become a Buddha." <strong>The</strong> Gospel <strong>Of</strong> Philip suggests<br />
that at some advanced level of consciousness female becomes male and viceversa.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Gospel <strong>Of</strong> Thomas also states that "unless a man became a<br />
woman, and a woman, man, thou canst not enter the Kingdom of Heaven".<br />
<strong>The</strong> Kingdom of Heaven, as understood in esoteric Gnosticism, has nothing<br />
to do with the popular Christian fantasy of harp-strumming angels and pearly<br />
gates – it is clearly a state of being that the gnosis conferred by the union of<br />
Sophia and the Logos.<br />
"Eat My Flesh And Drink My Blood"<br />
In one of the apocryphal Gospels, Mary Magdalene asks Christ: "We have<br />
heard that there are some upon the earth who take male sperm and female<br />
menstrual blood and make a dish of lentils and eat it, saying 'We believe in<br />
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