"In making love with a sense of the sacred, your body becomes a temple and your partner’s body a shrine."
Sex Magick Revisited
The idea of “sacred sex” frightens some people. The independent erotica author Roy Askham recently started a blog called Sex and Spiritual Life. Its purpose is to ask the question, “Can sex be incorporated into a spiritual path?” Askham has written a novel that combines BDSM themes with the theme of spiritual progress. The protagonist, Edward, discovers that sexual desires and spiritual seeking are not incompatible. Askham has received both positive and negative feedback on the combination. One blog commenter wrote, “I think our earthly desires have little to do with our spiritual path, unless we allow them to interfere.”
Are sexual desires a form of spiritual interference, or a tool in the metaphysical toolbox? Early in 2010, I explored the subject of sex magic, culminating in the article “Blood Sugar Sex Magik.” It’s not an entirely easy topic to investigate, and armed with the little knowledge I had, I approached it with some reverent awe and trepidation. My witch-friend P.F. Newman warned me, “One of the classic ways of sexual magic is to invoke Venus, and should you wish more information on this subject, I suggest you summon her and beseech her for an interview. But beware of her price.”
Venus sounded scary. When I turned from Western to Eastern sex magic, I read in Kenneth Ray Stubbs’ classic Secret Sexual Positions: Ancient Techniques for Modern Lovers that Tantra requires an intense commitment to meditation. I concluded, “This is another reminder that sex magic is something very powerful and not to be entered into lightly.”
In a comment on the original article, Airen Wolf urged me to lighten up. “Really it's nothing to fear and can be wonderfully powerful and bonding between partners (or solo),” she wrote. “The energy is wild, chaotic and primal[ly] wonderful as the sex that generated it!” As I reread my sex magic article of over a year ago, I see that I’ve been too guarded, too timid. Once again, my mind was not fully open. Fortunately, I had another chance to explore the topic as I read Cassandra Lorius’ The Sacred Sex Bible: A Guide to Sex and Spirit in the East and West (Firefly Books, 2011).
Are sexual desires a form of spiritual interference, or a tool in the metaphysical toolbox? Early in 2010, I explored the subject of sex magic, culminating in the article “Blood Sugar Sex Magik.” It’s not an entirely easy topic to investigate, and armed with the little knowledge I had, I approached it with some reverent awe and trepidation. My witch-friend P.F. Newman warned me, “One of the classic ways of sexual magic is to invoke Venus, and should you wish more information on this subject, I suggest you summon her and beseech her for an interview. But beware of her price.”
Venus sounded scary. When I turned from Western to Eastern sex magic, I read in Kenneth Ray Stubbs’ classic Secret Sexual Positions: Ancient Techniques for Modern Lovers that Tantra requires an intense commitment to meditation. I concluded, “This is another reminder that sex magic is something very powerful and not to be entered into lightly.”
In a comment on the original article, Airen Wolf urged me to lighten up. “Really it's nothing to fear and can be wonderfully powerful and bonding between partners (or solo),” she wrote. “The energy is wild, chaotic and primal[ly] wonderful as the sex that generated it!” As I reread my sex magic article of over a year ago, I see that I’ve been too guarded, too timid. Once again, my mind was not fully open. Fortunately, I had another chance to explore the topic as I read Cassandra Lorius’ The Sacred Sex Bible: A Guide to Sex and Spirit in the East and West (Firefly Books, 2011).
Comments