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When mentioning Tantra or Tantrism, westerners often think of formidable techniques for sexual performance or the use of sex for spiritual purposes but how did this Indian set of traditions become part of western esotericism and what role does Tantra play in the development of sex magic. I bet I caught your attention huh? Naughty you!
Hello everyone. I’m Dr. Angela Puca and welcome to my symposium. I’m a Ph.D. and a university lecturer and this is your online resource for the academic study of magick, shamanism, esotericism, and all things occult.
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Tantra is a Sanskrit word meaning a loom, to weave, stretch, extend, and refers to a heterogeneous set of texts, traditions, sex, and ritual practices that spread throughout the Hindu, Jain, and Buddhist communities of South and East Asia from approximately the 4th and 5th century of the common era onwards. As for the category of Tantrism, there is a Western invention of Orientalist scholars of the 19th century. Equally recent is the identification of Tantrism with sexual practices, as the tantric rituals encompass a wide array of practices, only some of which entail a sexual element. As David Gordon White highlights, the Indian sexual rites bear little resemblance to the practices of sex magic in the West. Yet, both share the rejection of moral norms as well as transgressive and antinomian behaviour, such as the use of taboo foods and substances for religious purposes.
Hugh Urban explains that in the late Victorian era, men and women had an ambivalent relationship with religion and sexuality. They saw in the exotic other, found in Tantra, a way to free themselves from the oppressive prudery of the 19th-century Christian society. The first, most influential esotericist of mid-19th century America who incorporated sex magic in his practice was Paschal Beverley Randolph. Randolph claimed to have learned such practices in Jerusalem and Bethlehem, where he met a dark Arab maiden who first revealed the spiritual mysteries of love. After that, he would acquire more knowledge thanks to his interactions with a group of fakirs or Sufis who initiated him into various occult and alchemical arts.
For Randolph, the sexual climax is both dangerous and powerful, with the potential of leading upward to higher states of transcendence or downward to depravity and corruption. Sex can, therefore, be ritualistically employed both for spiritual purposes and for improving one’s life on a more mundane level. Randolph referred to these practices as ‘sciencia sexualis’ – the science of sex. He believed that the fluids produced by the act of lovemaking had immense alchemical and transformative power, which he called the ‘lymphication of love’. Key, for Randolph, is the union occurring between male and female who need to, ideally, have a simultaneous orgasm to obtain the most potent results. Randolph also thought that the two partners should be married and in love, as any sexual practice outside of heterosexual marriage, whether solo or with others, was believed to lead to depravity.
So, as you can see, we have in Randolph the inception of sexual practices in magic, allegedly sourced from the Sufis, yet within very strict rules based on what was considered normative at the time.
IIt is with our beloved and utterly controversial Aleister Crowley that we see sex magic opening up to non-heteronormative practices as well as a link to Tantric traditions, especially those of the left-hand path. While other Tantric schools will develop different ideas on how to ritually engage with sex, such as semen retention and sublimation of various kinds, one of the oldest schools of Tantra, the Kaula Tantra, from ‘kula’ – which means lineage or family, employed the oral consumption of the sexual fluids so that the initiated would become part of the esoteric lineage and source from its powerful essence. Krishnanda further maintains that once these fluids are placed in the sacred vessel and consecrated by the goddess, they are turned into the divine nectar Amrita, which, consumed, will lead to supreme bliss and the fulfilment of worldly and otherworldly desires.
Crowley, in his Sex Magic, employs these concepts as well as well as the ritualistic transgression that breaks the social norms found in Tantra. In The Law is for All, he writes that the sexual act is the sacrament of will. Here’s talking of what will be pivotal in the Crowleyan system of magick. In many ways, as Urban argues, Crowley was continuing the tradition of sexual magic that began with Randolph, which was then incorporated by the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor and later by the Ordo Templi Orientis, OTO in short, which Crowley joined in 1910. Crowley developed several new rituals for the OTO, including a gnostic mass infused with sexual symbolism that tried to creatively re-imagine the alleged rites of the early gnostics – before they got corrupted by Christianity. However, the knowledge Crowley had of Tantra was likely quite rudimental and tainted by the Orientalist biases of his time. There is, in fact, stronger evidence of his acquaintance with Yoga than there is regarding Tantra. Crowley seemed particularly attracted by the sexual, sensual aspects of Tantra, which is why he considered it a valid form of religion that includes the body, the earthly sensations, and emotions instead of excluding them from the individual’s spiritual journey. However, he overemphasized this element – a key departure from Tantra. The centrality of sex, in Crowley’s view, is indeed in contrast with the much more marginal role it plays in Tantric traditions.
Another interesting figure is Kenneth Grant, the English, Thelemic, ceremonial -magician who founded the Typhonian order and has been described as the pioneer of Western Tantra. As Manon Hedenborg-White highlights, Grant associated the OTO and Crowley with Tantra due to the use of sex to access the invisible worlds and other planes of consciousness. Interestingly, in Grant, we see an emphasis on the left-hand path, seen as associated with the lunar aspect of creation and the divine feminine, as opposed to the right-hand path, perceived as more linked to the solar and masculine sides. As a consequence for Kenneth Grant and his Typhonian System, the female sexual secretions had a primary importance in the magical act and were defined as vital elixirs sought after by alchemists and adepts of old. Grant also criticized Crowley, deeming that he failed to explore the female role in sex magic and acknowledge its crucial importance in such practices. This is exemplified by the primary importance of female genital fluids, or Kala, generated by Tantric rites, compared to which the male ones act as mere catalysts. The power of the Kalas, in sex magic, is ensured by the priestess being of an equal if not a higher degree of initiation than the priests.
To sum it up, sex magic was introduced to the Western, esoteric milieu by Paschal Beverley Randolph, who claimed to have sourced that knowledge from the Sufis and saw its employment as reserved for married, heterosexual couples. The association between sex magic and the Western understanding of Tantra first occurred with Aleister Crowley and the OTO. Crowley’s understanding of Tantra was limited and overemphasized the sexual component of the magical rites. However, he followed the Tantric attitude of transgressing the moral norms of his time and opened sex magic to homosexual and solo practices. Kenneth Grant explored more the feminine role in sex magic, which he deemed central to the left-hand path, in Tantra and developed the practice towards a further inclusion, if not even a prevalence, of the divine feminine.
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REFERENCES
Urban, H.B. (2006) Magia Sexualis: Sex, Magic, and Liberation in Modern Western Esotericism. 1st edition. Berkeley, Calif, University of California Press.
Urban, H.B. (2003) Tantra: Sex, Secrecy, Politics, and Power in the Study of Religion. Berkeley, University of California Press.
White, D.G.G. (2006) Kiss of the Yogini: ‘Tantric Sex’ in its South Asian Contexts. New edition. Chicago, Ill., University of Chicago Press.
White, M.H. (2020) The Eloquent Blood: The Goddess Babalon and the Construction of Femininities in Western Esotericism. Illustrated edition. New York, NY, Oxford University Press.