SEXIS WRONG

ted in her life made absolutely no difference in this flood of
unconditional love and light. God was nothing like she expected.
Instead of learning how she didn’t measure up or being
given an assignment for what she was to accomplish in life,
she realized that she was perfectly loved just as she was,
regardless of what she had done or would do.
When she came back to the ordinary world, Alice was euphoric—and
violently ill for some hours. The terrible nausea
did nothing to dampen her ecstasy. She and Chester had
eaten exactly the same meal, so they knew there was no
physical reason for her sickness, and that was part of why
they were frightened and sought my counsel.
Alice and Chester wanted to know if anyone else had ever
gotten sick after a transcendent episode during
sex, but this was a first. However, Alice
gave me some important clues when she was
telling me her story. The expressions she used
for feeling remorse and shame was that she
always “swallowed her guilt” and “pushed the
guilt down into her stomach.” Recently that guilt had become
overwhelming, since Alice felt she had failed in a God-given
mission to work with orphaned refugees overseas and had
had to come back to the United States.
Now with her new understanding, there was no reason to
retain the guilt. Alice said she recovered completely in a few
hours and was still ecstatic when I met her weeks later. Of
course, I had no expertise she needed beyond the truth of her
own experience, but I could tell her that her experience was
not unique. Chester’s knowing what to do had provided the
ground for her transformative episode to occur, and it deepened
their love and faith so that both of them were changed.
Alice and Chester’s story illustrates another point: Since
otherworldly sexual experiences can come upon people unawares,
lovers may be far more vulnerable than meditators or
others who are deliberately cultivating altered states. People
who are unprepared—especially whose worldviews don’t
include spiritual or supernatural events—can be frightened
and even destabilized by such a “break” in their normal reality.
Some underwent several years of psychotherapy or other
professional intervention to come to terms with their experiences.
me. He was in almost suicidal despair, which had lasted for
several months. He worked in a high-tech industry and had
no religious beliefs at all. In fact, he didn’t believe in the supernatural.
As he was making love with his girlfriend of over
a year, he was suddenly swept into an ecstasy he could only
describe as spiritual. The experience was so powerful and
profound, it completely changed his understanding of the
world, and it also seemed to convey to him that his relationship
with this woman was “meant to be.” The net result was
that Cameron felt he was “a thousand times more in love
with her” than ever and that there must be a meaning and
purpose to his life of which he previously had been unaware.
Unfortunately, Cameron’s girlfriend, who had not had the
The fact is, the ordinary
act of lovemaking can be the most
widely available path to higher
consciousness for most people.
experience and was not inclined to a spiritual point of view,
couldn’t come to terms with the change in him, and she broke
off the relationship. He was devastated. He searched vainly
for support from therapists and even joined several religious
groups to see if anyone could help him understand what had
happened—and help restore his relationship.
Eventually, Cameron did receive help and understanding, but
he is still afraid that he’ll never fall as deeply in love again as
he did with the woman he now believes must be his “soulmate,”
even though she quickly became involved with a series
of other partners. He is afraid he’ll never be able to enjoy
sex again or even desire to have it with another.
Cameron’s case is hardly an isolated one, and it serves to
point out the difficulties people can have coming to terms
with these experiences and what they mean, just as people
who have had other nonordinary “openings” involuntarily
(such as near-death experiences or “alien abduction” experiences)
are often seriously destabilized. There are steps
people can take to prepare themselves for this eventuality
and to avoid putting themselves in harm’s way in potentially
dangerous liaisons with powerful partners, such as exploitative
gurus or sexual predators who may use their capacity to
induce paranormal states to influence the unsuspecting.
It’s important to understand how powerful these sexual
events can be. Their dark side can lead to an addictive need
to be in a relationship, delusions concerning the partner and
“rightness” of the relationship, and have a negative effect on
the person’s ability to function.
In a mild example, a young man I’ll call Cameron came to
For the most part, though, people reported very positive impacts
from these sexual episodes, like those of other spiritual
openings. Two stories, one from a woman and the other from
a man, show how powerfully ecstatic they can be and how
they come about. The woman describes a state similar to the
experience of the Void in Buddhism or Hinduism. Similar de-
TRANSCENDENT SEX 15