[Mantak_Chia,_Michael_Winn]_Taoist_Secrets_of_Love(BookFi.org)

Sex In the Esoteric Traditions 55
discovered the mercury cure for syphilis. Yet, he came to the same
conclusion as the Taoist masters of what was known as sexual
alchemy—the seemingly magical but entirely natural transformation
of the sexual seed.
Paracelsus experienced the seminal fire with as much reality
as an ordinary person feels when his hand is burned in a hot oven.
Regarding the constituent elements of the substance, he wrote:
"All the organs of the human system, and all their powers and
activities, contribute alike to the formation of semen . . . The semen
is, so to say, the essence of the human body, containing all the
organs of the latter in an ideal form." This position is strikingly
similar to the Taoist description of "ching chi," or sexual essence.
Taoist cultivation also emphasizes balancing the subtle energies of
each organ, which one then fuses into a single higher spirit.
Paracelsus distinguishes between the sperm fluid and the
"aura seminalis", which is the light or energy of the sperm. Scientists
today might call the "aura" the biophysical energy of the
seminal fluid. Paracelsus claimed energy could be distilled from the
physical fluid: "This emanation or separation takes place by a kind
of digestion, and by means of an interior heat, which during the
time of virility may be produced in man by the proximity of
woman, by his thoughts of her, or by his contact with her, in the
same manner a piece of wood exposed to the concentrated rays of
the sun may be made to burn."
This statement rudely translated into modern language means
that contact with an attractive woman may stimulate the production
of high quality biophysical energy. Taoist alchemists realized a
thousand years before Paracelsus practical ways to retain these
valuable energies in order to profit from them.
If we turn from the Renaissance alchemist to the great British
authority on Indian Tantric practice, Sir John Woodruffe, we find
the same principles. In his classic work, The Serpent Power, Sir
John speaks plainly to those who know how to hear: "... the force
of the latter (sexual centers), if directed upwards, extraordinarily
heightens all mental and physical functioning." He notes that
mind, breath and sexual function are interconnected. The spiritual
aim of the yogi is to "carry his seed high." This seed releases
pranic energies, also known as the Kundalini power, rising up the
spine to higher chakras or centers of spiritual function.
Another great modern spiritual authority, attuned to the