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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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often allows for its emission, regarding the ejaculation as a sacred sacrifice.<br />

In some teachings, if the male initiate ejaculates in his shakti's vagina, he is<br />

urged to reabsorb the bindu through his penis, redirecting it upwards through<br />

his body. Alternately, the male adept may orally ingest the intermingled male<br />

and female fluids, which is also thought to reintegrate the bindu back into the<br />

initiate (Chinese Taoist sexual rites also call for the ingestion of the mixed<br />

elixirs of yin and yang.) In both the Indian Vama Marga and Chinese Taoist<br />

sex magic, it is not the physical substance of the fluids that is thought to be<br />

beneficial. Rather, it is the indwelling subtle energies, which are theoretically<br />

reintegrated into the spiritual body.<br />

<strong>The</strong> essential principle here is more than the containment of the<br />

spiritual power of the seed. <strong>Of</strong> equal significance is the inversion of natural<br />

sexual processes – the willful backwards action of currents in the physical<br />

organism mirrors the adept's increasingly god-like ability to shape the world<br />

of matter through contrary action.<br />

While we do not believe that learning this technique is absolutely<br />

necessary for the practical accomplishment of left-hand path sex magic (in<br />

fact, ejaculation is very often a useful tool for sex magic) it should at least be<br />

understood philosophically as one of the many backward-flowing actions of<br />

the left-hand path's Viparit Karani. <strong>The</strong> reversal of the male ejaculation also<br />

creates a profound state of rapture in the initiate which can greatly contribute<br />

to the attainment of a deified psyche.<br />

As always, every action taken in left-handed erotic rites can be seen<br />

to possess many layers of meaning. For the practical magician, by far the<br />

most important is the effect that a given action will exercise upon in his or<br />

her consciousness, a factor that can easily be divorced from less relevant<br />

cultural overlays. This obsessive guarding of the precious seed seems to us to<br />

be the least useful aspect of traditional left-hand path practice.<br />

However, the application of opposite-doing to other aspects of the<br />

magician's life, inclusive of his or her erotic sphere, is extremely relevant to<br />

left-hand path initiation in any cultural background. We have already<br />

described one dramatic example of viparit karani, the Tantric juxtaposition<br />

of the body's sexual pleasure with thoughts of inevitable decay of that same<br />

body. <strong>The</strong> possibilities for opposite-doing are infinite, exemplified by the<br />

left-hand path adept's frequently described determination to "turn day into<br />

night". Perhaps the most commonly utilized method of initiatory inversion in<br />

a sexual context is the practice of transmuting the adept's initial repugnance<br />

for any given sexual act into a tool of ecstasy. In such cases, opposite-doing<br />

serves to deprogram one's own sexual conditioning while viscerally<br />

76<br />

demonstrating the fragility of seemingly fixed aspects of maya. Once sexual<br />

boundaries are broken, expanding the established perimeter of the magician's<br />

being, others can follow, eventually reaching into the boundary between<br />

human and divine consciousness.<br />

Kundalini – <strong>The</strong> Many Faces <strong>Of</strong> <strong>The</strong> Fire Serpent<br />

On a sexual level, the male Tantric left-hand path initiate's most supreme act<br />

of opposite-doing is the awakening of the goddess Shakti within his own<br />

body, a psychosexual transmutation that allows him to actually become the<br />

goddess. One Tantric proverb states: "What need have I of an external<br />

woman? I have a woman within me." <strong>The</strong> walker of the Vama Marga seeks<br />

to become that sexually opposite being, creating a fully integrated<br />

androgyne, facilitating the universe-creating coitus of Shakti and Shiva<br />

within his or her own consciousness. One of the many forms of Shiva<br />

venerated by Tantric adepts is known as Ardhanarisvara; in this guise the<br />

deity is depicted as an androgyne; the left side of his body is female, the<br />

77<br />

right side is male. (<strong>The</strong> mysterious Western hermaphroditic egregore called<br />

Baphomet symbolizes the same principle.) <strong>The</strong> left-hand path magician

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