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

the intellectual/cerebral aspects of initiation, while actively discouraging the
expression of the traditional erotic component that provides the very
definition of the phrase Vama Marga in the first place.
There is a less obvious third factor that discourages group sexual
activity in modern left-hand path organizations. Despite some dramatic
advances in erotic liberty in the Western world, the orgy is still generally
regarded as a socially taboo activity. The orgy unambiguously calls into
question the sanctity of the monogamous relationship that forms the basis of
society's approved consumer demographics, breaking with the societal
collective orientation toward breeding and family.
From a sociological standpoint, we have noticed that many of those
drawn to joining structured magical organizations – in contrast to those lefthand
magicians who work alone or with only a loosely linked group of
associates – are motivated by a sometimes unconscious desire to strongly
affirm their social acceptability, despite their explicit involvement in
organizations that are largely disapproved of by society in general. This not
uncommon human desire to "have one's cake and eat it too" leads to a certain
amount of philosophically inconsistent fence-straddling. Although nominal
left-hand organizations in the West pay lip service to the unequivocally
rebellious nature of the Prince of Darkness as that hypostasis is manifested in
various cultures and epochs, there is still a strong collective urge encouraging
an essentially safe – or purely symbolic – expression of dissent that almost
never actually crosses the border into activity that really does challenge one's
comfortable place as a harmonious unit in the social vector.
This brings us to one of the ironies of the orgy as it applies to the
sinister current in the modern world. The orgy is a group activity requiring
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that several magicians work on a "team effort" of the most intimate kind.
Paradoxically, it is the very fact that erotic magic is being performed within a
group setting that contributes to separating it from the larger group mind of
social control, which still overwhelmingly disapproves of sexual activity
performed outside of the romantically linked or procreative couple. Romantic
love between two partners, as defined within the limits of collective
conformism, is at least potentially related to melding the couple into a larger
societal framework. The orgy, perceived as a possible threat to the
couple/family unit, is no longer accorded any useful social function, as it was
in the very different psychoerotic atmosphere prevailing in earlier times.
Religious Orgies Of Antiquity
It must be recognized that the notion of separation and taboo attached to the
orgy is really only applicable to the current era. In antiquity, the
metaphysically motivated orgy was a recognized rite of organized religion for
thousands of years. To many ancient civilizations, including Greece and
Rome, the sacred orgy was as much a part of the established orthodoxy of
societal belief as a religious marriage ceremony is in our own era.
Ancient orgiastic ritual activity in the Western world was almost
always condoned by the religious authorities, and understood to serve a
greater and collective social good, rather than an individual magician's
personal purpose. Obviously, magical activity of any kind that tends to
appease external social or religious convention cannot be considered germane
to the left-hand path, a fine point easily lost when viewing the orgies of the
ancient world from the contemporary standpoint.
The extent to which the fading but still virulent Judaeo-Christian
morality continues to distort our perceptions of the pre-Christian world forms
an obstacle to understanding the orgy in its proper light. Since Judaeo-
Christianity and Islam have so roundly condemned the "wickedness" of the
pagan age, particularly the perceived sexual depravity of orgiastic religious
customs, some left-hand path magicians have mistakenly assumed that these
ancient practices are all intrinsically relevant to the activation of the sinister