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

chapter – eventually bestows upon the adept certain siddhis, or magical
abilities. These sorcerous skills are said to be engineered within the
interconnected complex of the physical, subtle and causal bodies by drawing
kundalini energy into the brain during extended orgasm, and absorption of
the female sexual partner's erotically heightened shakti power. Or, in
simpler, more prosaic terms, the specific altered states of consciousness
attainable through prolonged ritual sex open the mind to magical ability.
Among these are the ability to bring other minds under one's own
mental control, and an ability to fascinate which Westerners have often
compared to hypnotism and mesmerism. The power of telepathy, and the
transference of thoughts into the mind of others is also commonly
engineered through sexual rites of the left-hand path. Spontaneous telepathy
is commonly experienced between left-hand path sexual partners, and
celebrants who enjoy an especially good rapport can often develop this
talent by practicing on each other.
Readers familiar with the Western caricature of "egoless" Eastern
spiritual practice may wonder how an egoless being can – or would want to
– perform magic. This misunderstanding is often based on a common
Western assumption that what is referred to in English as the "ego" is
equivalent to the self. In fact, the destruction of the illusory aspects of
socially conditioned personality actively sought through Vama Marga
procedures is intended to clear the dust away from the will of the true self,
allowing awakened action in the world. It does not mean that the initiate is
left as a zombie without a will, as has been so frequently misreported.
Exercise and control of the personal will through magic is one
aspect of the left-hand path adept's effort to fully understand maya. Granted
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to the sexual adepts of the sinister current are such magical abilities as
maranam, the power to destroy, ucchatanam, the power to banish magic cast
against the adept by hostile magicians, and vasikaranam, the establishment of
psychic control over other humans. Traditionally, the left-hand path
recognizes six "malevolent rites". Obviously, the spectrum of maya-shifting
operations open to the left-hand path magus is not limited to these six modes
of sorcery. The necromantic use of recently deceased spirits for magical
purposes is also frequently observed, especially among the Aghori sect of the
Vama Marga, of whom more later. The yoking of the wills of a male and
female adept during the shared altered state of consciousness created by ritual
copulation is the primary medium through which these – and many other acts
of erotic sorcery – are accomplished.
Probably the most commonly encountered Western model of the
magician's relation to the universe posits the active, living will of the
magician manipulating a cosmos which is fundamentally dead, mindless and
inert. In this prototype, the magician is merely pulling the strings of a static
creation, a sterile concept inherited in part from the Biblical concept of the
human being as the great master of a world utterly alien – and wholly inferior
– to him.
The left-hand path practice of sexual magic suggests a very different
connection between magus and cosmos, one that ecstatically rejects the
theory of a simple causal relation between the magician's kinetic force and
the immobile object he or she wishes to transform. Left-hand path sex magic
is based instead on the concept of magical creation as the joyful process of
play or lila, in which the magician seduces, – and is seduced – by maya to
create the desired alterations of reality he or she desires.
Left-hand path sexual magic creates play in the universe, understood
not as a fixed, perfected and inert creation but as an incessantly adaptable
living force, a work in progress that can be endlessly adjusted, subject to the
sport of the sorcerer. The Vama Marga sex magician transforms this force
primarily through ritualized orgasm and recreation of the act that sustains