Sex Magick?
I've been thinking alot about sex lately - so tonight I listened to melissa gira's whorecast and I found her podcast quite helpful in laying the groundwork for my ideas on this topic.
a few questions currently running through my mind:
what is the best way to piss off a wiccan?
must sacred sexuality immediately mean tantra?
is recreational sex the next big tourist industry?
will procreational sex dwindle in favor of artificial wombs?
why is there such a division in most books on magick between rituals and sex magick? (peter carroll is a notable exception with liber null & psychonaut. I also believe Prime Chaos by phil hine also was straightforward, but not having a copy on hand I can't go back and check at the moment)
isn't it odd that Astarte was renamed Ashtoreth, and did this linguistic manipulation begin the long slow descent into patriarchy? What with all the emphasis on Lilith in the woman's movement I think Astarte is getting a little overlooked. & of course, then there's Mary Magdalene, the real "beloved disciple" of christ...
I find the religious overtones a little heavy-handed though.. magick, and spirituality, and experience - those are my watch-words, not religion. So I'm going to try and peel away from religous doctrine & it's finer points - words words words like the bard says, and focus instead on my own experiences - I don't have kids, I don't want kids, I'm not a goat - so I won't be going into procreational sex either, except in the most superfluous round-about way - Instead I'm going to examine sacred & recreational sex, and possibly why this is being cracked down on by the dominator paradigm out there. The arrest of chris, who made headlines because he traded porn for unfiltered photos from the iraq warzone isn't much of a surprise.. who didn't see that coming? But shutting down a text-only site? Freedom from speech, don't you know...
joseph max's article on sex magick is a good read - from there, a perusal of real magick's related articles provides a good overview
So this is sex magick, but is it sacred?
Does sacred sexuality mean only tantric or hermetic practices? Sacred, sacral... and what is this Heiros Gamos?
here's a passage that sheds some light on the topic:
Neither-Neither: Austin Osman Spare and the Underworld by Marcus M. JungkurthAs in the famous mythological motif of Hades' abduction and rape of Persephone which, as we have to remember, is not just psychopathy but a central iniatory mystery in the Eleusis myths, the archetype of Hades bears an intrinsic erotic component whilst, as indicated above, it is at the same time turning matters upside down. No wonder, then, that also in Spare's interior worlds Thanatos merges with Eros, the spirit and principle of life, who however in this context is to be regarded the brother of death and not the principle that will save us from it. Eros as an archetype also bears distinct female qualities relating him to the anima principle, both referring to the reflexive instinct which Jung associated with the basis of consciousness, and so he defined her as the archetype of life itself, as the personification which unconsciously involves us with larger collectivities of both inner and outer worlds. In this sense we can speak of the anima as the projection - making actor, the Shakti and the Maya that gives life to a person and in the artist serves as his muse. The concepts of death and sexuality are thus intimately interwoven which explains why in ancient mythology many of the early Goddesses like the Phoenician Astarte or even Aphrodite in Sparta and on Cyprus were both Goddesses of Love as well as of War and Death; many other examples can be found in Egypt, Mexico and Mesopotamia.
In other words, A.O.Spare may be the most important western magician because he gazed unflinchingly into the true face of the sacred marriage. "divided for love's sake, for the chance of union" = "AHA: We are united for Art's sake For the chance of division"
we're getting closer to the line of demarcation between sacred sexuality and sex magick... and I'm trying to keep from moving into eastern thought, because I don't know much about it. I recommend checking into the American Nath Society, because shivanath is a contributor to key23, and he has put a lot of effort into trying to explore and explain this in plain language.
okay.. I think that's all I have right now for this post.
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