I. VAMA MARGA Foundations Of The Left-Hand Path - staticfly.net

strong and savage. Elixir, nearly all absorbed: Alostrael [the magical name of
his longest-lasting Scarlet Woman, Leah Hirsig] could only get a few drops."
Less enthusiastically, he might note: "Elixir, nothing special – good though
when duly mixed."
From such observations, he pronounced prophecies and divination.
These auguries were rarely of a spiritual or initiatory nature – they tended to
focus again on the material aspect of maya; impending windfalls of money, a
new source for heroin, luck in some literary venture. Occasionally, an opus
of sex magick was dedicated to such vague aspirations as "Rededication of
myself to my prophetic mission," "establishment of the Law of Thelema" or
even the surely needless request for "lust and the power of lust." Whatever
the Beastly wish may have been, he usually shouted it out at the moment of
orgasm, a much more assertive version of Randolph's "nuptive moment." In
the many records of these sorcerous couplings that Crowley left behind, one
does not get the impression that much in the way of mental imagery or
psychic focus was going on; Crowley seems to have considered a strong
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orgasm and a bellowed wish sufficient to do the trick. (The exception to this
is his sexual invocations of god-forms, during which he theoretically
transferred his consciousness to the mind of the imagined god at the moment
of climax.)
As for Crowley's form of union with his partners, this was usually
entirely conventional penetration of one orifice or the other; the prolonged
state of ecstasy sought by left-hand path adepts was apparently not of interest
to him. His diary, The Magical Record Of The Beast 666, among other
private journals, provides us with a fairly complete account of his sex
magickal practice. In these chronicles, we learn that many of Crowley's
sexual partners were completely unaware that they were participating in any
kind of magic at all. (We will discuss the possible benefits and disadvantages
of sex magic with an unknowing accomplice in a later chapter.) For all of the
relatively more formal workings of the "Royal Art" with his various Scarlet
Women, there are just as many hurried XI° buggeries with unknown men in
Turkish baths, encounters with apathetic prostitutes, and other anonymous
quickies. These abbreviated trysts would hardly seem to allow time for the
attainment of the altered state of consciousness magic requires, let alone the
cultivation of ecstasy. Of course, the mark of' a genuine magician is the
ability to create alteration of maya under any circumstances, eventually
transcending the need for visible ritual altogether. We leave it to our readers
to decide if this was the case with Crowley, or if some of the nameless
ruttings to which he ascribed initiatory significance were merely non-magical
outlets to assuage what he once described as his "blind, horrible ache for
[sexual] relief."
Crowley is constantly comparing the strenuous orgasms he
undergoes during his workings to near-death experiences – a juxtaposition of
death and Eros we have already encountered in the traditional left-hand path.
"The most favorable physical death is that occurring during the orgasm," the
Beast cryptically wrote, hinting at one of his most frequently employed
methods of consciousness alteration. His rapturous descriptions of utter
physical exhaustion after his couplings reflect an important part of his
magical teaching in the O.T.O. In his De Arte Magica, he advises the adept
to deliberately exhaust the body during coitus, so that the aforementioned
trance of "eroto-comatose lucidity" can take hold of the consciousness. In
this state, Crowley or his partners – usually with a little chemical assistance –
would attempt to separate the subtle body from the depleted carnal shell to
travel on the astral plane. In the left-hand path rite, it is the prolonged union
of sexual opposites, and the sustained exchange of sexual energy that
transforms the couple's psyche.
In Crowleyan sex magick, the union and the orgasm are often only