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

creation, which he once described as the "fluid vehicle of the Spirit, the Elixir
of Magick." Just as he thought that the spilling of animal blood was
necessary for theurgic operations bringing god-forms to earth, he was
convinced that ejaculation attracted invisible demons, which could
conceivably take on substance through its life-creating powers. This idea
mirrors Church demonological teachings concerning the succubus, which
claimed that these sexually voracious elementals were given form from the
magical properties of semen spilled during nocturnal emissions.
Superficially, Crowley's near-idolatry of semen may seem to accord
with the principles inspiring the sperm-retaining practice of some left-hand
path adepts. A major difference is that the Tantrika seeks to draw on an
invisible spiritual and psychically transformative inner power – the bindu –
contained within the outer form of sperm. But Crowley's sex magick is
unequivocally materialistic; he considered the physical matter of his semen
itself to be magically potent. And of course, he considered its frequent
ejaculation to be as necessary for attainment as some Tantrikas consider the
withholding and externalizing of ejaculation.
From the sinister current perspective, the natural procreative powers
of the human body generated during ritualized sexual arousal and orgasm do
not effect transformation of maya due to organic factors, such as the emission
of semen. Magical change can be created because of the adept's redirection of
the physical process of sexual creation to a subtle, psychic mode of being
that manifests in the non-natural realm.
One of the most controversial and misunderstood passages in
Crowley's Magick In Theory And Practice, entitled "The Bloody Sacrifice
and Matters Cognate" states that "a male child of perfect innocence and high
intelligence is the most satisfactory and suitable victim." With tongue in
cheek, he proceeds to write reverently of himself in the third person: "It
appears from the Magical Records of Frater Perdurabo [one of Crowley's
many magical names] that He made this particular sacrifice on an average of
281
about 150 times every year between 1912 c.v. and 1928 e.v." The "male
child" is of course his own seed, "sacrificed" through the working of sex
magick.
Here we have some correspondence with the left-hand path idea of
the semen as a sacrifice offered to the yoni-altar of the Goddess; but for
Crowley, yoni and Goddess are both besides the point. Although Crowley's
reference to the spilling of his semen as a sacrifice and his consumption of it
as a eucharist resembles Eastern left-hand path erotic alchemy involving the
libation and reimbibation of sexual fluid, Crowley differed from the Vama
Marga interpretation due to his entirely phallocentric vision. The Scarlet
Woman's sexual fluids could not compare in importance to his own. After all,
she was but the "shrine" of the God – it was Crowley alone who was the
God. In such a union, despite some similarities of method with the sinister
current, it should be evident that the deeper principles are completely at
variance with one another.
Inspired by Reuss's earlier O.T.O. version of Spermo-Gnosticism,
Crowley-cum was the central sacrament of Thelema, the equivalent of
Christ's body consumed in human semen during the Gnostic Mass we
described in the previous chapter. Indeed, one of the contributions Crowley
made to Reuss's O.T.O. was his writing of a Gnostic Mass, literally dripping
with not-so-cryptic sexual symbolism.
Crowley adopted Reuss's theories to his own magical practice, and
considered it essential to drink his own semen from the orifices of his Scarlet
Women, primarily as a medium of sorcery. Like a connoisseur of fine wine,
Crowley kept meticulous records documenting the exact consistency, flavor,
and amount of his semen. Typical is this diary entry, written during his
ruinous attempt at creating a Thelemic commune in Sicily: "Orgasm very