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

equivalent violation of taboo. All that can be said is that deliberately
performing sex magic with a partner of either gender who breaks your own
established norms could be advantageous to creating the appropriate energy
for a sinister current working.
In both India and China, it is said that women who have given birth
have lost too much of their feminine essence – respectively understood as
shakti power or yin – to make for powerful erotic initiatrixes. This concept is
connected to the Eastern magical cult of the virgin, in that it was said that
virgins are the best erotic initiatory partners for men since they are
supposedly oveflowing with untainted feminine essence. Sexual contact with
the alleged magical properties of the virgin's abundant power is claimed to
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be a great boon, preserving the youth of the male adept who absorbs it
during intercourse. From an exoteric perspective, we consider both of these
ideas to be subjective cultural traditions akin to the Eastern insistence on
retaining the sperm lest male essence be weakened, and of little meaning to
the pragmatic Western sex magician.
However, there is another esoteric layer of relevant meaning
encoded in this traditional concept – the manifestation of Shakti most
relevant to the left-hand path is always the wild, untamed feminine power in
its pure state, outside of social boundaries. Therefore, the woman whose
identity as wife and/or mother is of paramount importance to her would not
be the ideal left-hand path sexual initiatrix. The maternal woman is a
creature of nature, bound to natural law, and the respectable social status that
motherhood bestows. Therefore, going beyond the biological level of
childbearing, the woman who has not yet connected to the world of natura
through childbirth can esoterically be understood as the more appropriate
incarnation of the dark side of the feminine principle in left-hand path sexual
initiation.
The ancient concept of virgin, in contrast to the modern
understanding of the word, did not necessarily imply sexual chastity – it
described all unmarried and unattached women, including prostitutes.
Several Tantric texts recommend that only a nayika is appropriate for lefthand
path sex rites. In the tightly defined social structure of India, the nayika
was a class of woman that Sir Richard Burton, that pioneering scholar of
Indian erotic custom, described as --any woman fit to be enjoyed without
sin." Virgins, women married more than once, and courtesans, were all
referred to as nayika, and were thus commonly employed by the left-hand
path shakta as a physical incarnation of shakti.
Typifying the often contradictory nature of left-hand path Tantra,
these very specific qualifications for a female sexual partner are often
negated by another dominant Tantric doctrine: it is frequently said that every
female is an incarnation of Shakti on earth, regardless of age, appearance,
caste, or training. Therefore, in some Vama Marga sects, very old women
representing Shakti in her crone aspect are chosen to be one's sexual
initiatrix. Now, the Western reader might erroneously imagine that this
practice indicates that the Eastern left-hand path has utterly transcended the
discriminatory "ageism" of the West. But it should be understood that one of
the reasons for selecting such a mudra is to force the male adept – normally
accustomed to only experiencing desire for smooth, toned, youthful bodies –
to sustain the same degree of sexual ecstasy with what he perceives as an
elderly hag with wrinkled skin and sagging breasts. Part of the methodical
system of general deprogramming and deconditioning of natural instincts
and preferences that all left-hand path adepts must undergo, such
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experiences also deepen the initiate's understanding of the transitory nature
of maya and its effect on the senses.
The supposed purity of literal virgins' sexual energy is sometimes