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

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purposeless.<br />

However, some explorers of sexual frontiers have been aided by<br />

considering the omnipresent mystery of Eros from two sharply divergent<br />

perspectives. <strong>The</strong> first, the esoteric point of view, goes some way toward<br />

providing a rationale explaining the tremendous power to fascinate possessed<br />

by sex. It derives from the Tibetan sacred text Bardo Thödol – popularly<br />

known as "<strong>The</strong> Tibetan Book <strong>Of</strong> <strong>The</strong> Dead" – technically, a guide fur the<br />

recently dead aimed at the avoidance of reincarnation.<br />

<strong>The</strong>re, we learn that in one of the Bardos, or levels, of after-death<br />

consciousness experienced by the bodiless spirit, the soul freed from its<br />

physical vessel is enthralled by the sight of copulating couples. If the soul<br />

does not exercise the most severe caution, it will be drawn inexorably<br />

353<br />

towards the orgasming bodies, descending into matter. This descent<br />

guarantees rebirth as a male or female through the medium of sex. Henry<br />

Miller once joked: "Sex is one of the nine reasons fur reincarnation. <strong>The</strong><br />

other eight are unimportant." If there can be said to be any objective truth to<br />

the Bardo Thödol, Miller was right: our daemons return again and again to<br />

fleshly form because of the absorbing power exerted by sex.<br />

Looking at sex from an entirely exoteric angle, through the prism of<br />

science, we find no less mysterious hidden factors at work. For even if we can<br />

erase some of the sexual conditioning imprinted in our minds by<br />

social/familial influences and modern media, millions of years of<br />

evolutionary and ge<strong>net</strong>ic imprinting has made each of us especially receptive<br />

to particular sex partners. We follow the unspoken commands of desire and<br />

attraction built into our brains by ge<strong>net</strong>ically conveyed erotic aesthetics that<br />

respond to specific smells, shapes and patterns totally beyond conscious<br />

control.<br />

With good reason, the unmistakable experience of "falling in love"<br />

has often been compared to the effect of drugs. As it turns out, this is literally<br />

true. When we encounter someone who accords to that inbuilt evolutionary<br />

ideal, the brain is automatically flooded with a pleasant rush of calming<br />

morphine-like endorphins, sealing our attraction with chemical reinforcement.<br />

Oxytocin, secreted by the pituitary gland during sex, secures the bond with a<br />

chemically-induced blast of tranquillity. Three potent naturally produced<br />

amphetamines are also pumped through the transfixed lover's brain;<br />

dopamine, phenylethylamine, and norepinephrine, all of them creating a<br />

euphoric high that can last as long as three years (an interesting statistic when<br />

compared to the average length of many marriages).<br />

Between the two esoteric/exoteric extremes of Tibetan reincarnation<br />

theory and the clinical measurements of Western sexology lays the mystery of<br />

your own erotic universe. Examine its uncharted secrets with the poetry of the<br />

mystic and the precision of the scientist; the sinister current adept is a<br />

meticulous cartographer of his or her sexual self.<br />

Sex Profane And Sacred<br />

We have also found that the most successful Western initiates of the left-hand<br />

path maintain a satisfying sexual existence independent of their sex-magical<br />

practice. This is only one of several reasons why we actively discourage<br />

magicians from transforming each and every sexual act into a ritual, and why<br />

we argue against attempting to use every orgasm she or he experiences in the<br />

course of daily life as a magical tool. Although this is a rather common<br />

practice among certain sex-magical schools and traditions, we have found that<br />

this overuse of sexual magic runs the risk of trivializing sex-magical work<br />

and diffusing the necessary supply of sexual energy fur any meaningful<br />

354<br />

working. In reducing the powerful force that can be unleashed by sex magic<br />

to a commonplace occurrence, as routine as brushing one's teeth, one almost<br />

certainly lessens the potential usefulness of the act to the magician's goals.

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