I. VAMA MARGA Foundations Of The Left-Hand Path - staticfly.net
I. VAMA MARGA Foundations Of The Left-Hand Path - staticfly.net
I. VAMA MARGA Foundations Of The Left-Hand Path - staticfly.net
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sexual initiation. <strong>The</strong> best place to begin this inquiry into defining the lefthand<br />
path is by examining its historical beginnings, and isolating its essential<br />
principles. It is to the left-hand path fountainhead in India that we must first<br />
turn to truly comprehend the sinister way of carnal self-transformation.<br />
<strong>The</strong> roots of the left-hand path are very ancient indeed, grounded in<br />
dark goddess oriented sexual cults extant in the highly advanced Indus Valley<br />
civilization long before the Aryan conquest of that region occurred. After<br />
being suppressed by the Aryan occupying force sweeping into India by way<br />
of Afghanistan, the methods of left-hand path sexual initiation enjoyed a<br />
reawakening within heretical sects in the India of approximately one<br />
thousand years ago. Although left-hand path sexual practices are alluded to in<br />
some of India's eldest sacred literature, they seem not to have been explicitly<br />
shaped into a codified, written teaching until the coming of Tantra. <strong>The</strong> lefthand<br />
path took on more exact form in the secret doctrine of medieval Tantric<br />
sects, but by the ni<strong>net</strong>eenth century, another occupying force – this time the<br />
sexually repressed paladins of the British Empire – attempted to wipe out the<br />
cult again.<br />
So to speak of the Indian left-hand tradition is then to refer to a<br />
doctrine of erotic illumination dating back at least 2500 years, to the still<br />
relatively uncharted pre-Aryan history of the sub-continent. And to<br />
20<br />
comprehend one of the causes of the Vama Marga's secretive nature, the<br />
modern magician must understand that this is a liberating force that has<br />
consistently fought to survive the hostility of repressive authorities made<br />
uneasy by a sexual approach to spiritual awakening.<br />
It is possible to narrow our definition of the left-hand path down to a<br />
few core elements. <strong>The</strong>se principles are applicable to both Western lefthanded<br />
sex magic and its ancient Eastern source. A left-hand path approach<br />
to initiation, no matter where it is practiced, or by whom, or under what<br />
cultural conditions, will be seen to include certain key factors.<br />
In essence, the left-hand path is:<br />
1.) <strong>The</strong> transformation of human consciousness to divine consciousness<br />
via the manipulation of the sexual currents of the physical and subtle<br />
bodies through erotic rites.<br />
For the male initiate, this sexual gnosis is traditionally attained with the<br />
collaboration of a female consort-initiatrix. <strong>The</strong> female sexual initiatrix is the<br />
presiding source of the left-hand path; the motive energy of the sinister<br />
current flows directly from her. During the ritualized sexual act, something<br />
more than ordinary intercourse occurs – a magical exchange takes place, a<br />
transference of power transmitted through the subtle vehicles of desire,<br />
attraction and erotic fusion.<br />
Together, the couple celebrates a cult of ecstasy which has no less an<br />
aim than their own self-deification. Something of the crucial importance of<br />
sexuality to the left-hand path can be gleaned from the fact that the defining<br />
difference between the left-hand path and the far more commonly practiced<br />
right-hand path is primarily the emphasis on physical sexuality found in the<br />
former, and the absence of same in the latter.<br />
Although the left-hand path focuses much of its attention on the<br />
physical interplay of erotic polarities embodied in male and female sexuality,<br />
it is concerned with the ecstatic transcendence of all seeming opposites,<br />
including good and evil, death and life, darkness and light, flesh and spirit,<br />
the beautiful and the hideous, ad infinitum.<br />
2.) A sexual exaltation of the female principle of power in the universe,<br />
known in Sanskrit as Shakti.<br />
This universal feminine mystique, which we will sometimes refer to in its<br />
transcultural aspect as the Feminine Daemonic, is the driving factor for both<br />
male and female initiates of the left-hand path. For male magicians, left-hand<br />
path initiation includes the attainment of this feminine power within