Sex

[Sothoth]

There is already a topic about death. But death alone would be nothing without its great counterpart sex. Death is destruction of form and sex is the power that produces new forms. It's the attraction of two fundamental opposites, Shiva and Shakti. Shiva is the sovereign immutable king on the throne of nothing and everything and Shakti is her mistress, a pure force of great unknown unconsious matter. These fundamental opposites would be nothing without each other. Shiva couldn't operate in the world of manifestation without Shakti and Shakti would lack her spiritual centre point (laya) without Shiva.

I have found sex a very difficult power, because there isn't one single and simple answer to its problem, both individually and collectively. One can just strive towards truth. But at the same time it is a power that never stops to fascinate. Sex is linked to the form as it is the creative power in the universe but paradoxically one can never find permanent delight in this form because the form is never simply what it seems to be. A concrete down-to-earth example: You fall in love and are in seventh heaven but after this honeymoon this feeling fades and problems arise. So falling in love wasn't a permanent solution after all. Patient love is the key. Patiently loving you can confront those arising problems (which are actually potential powers rightly understood).

[Nefastos]

Patient love is the key.

Indeed. If we think love - be it erotic or of some other kind - as something that should elevate us without ourselves doing any work, that's shallow & superficial thinking. But when we are willing to dedicate ourself to our loved one, we can become able to really feel that great uplifting power that is true love. The thing is the same whether we love a god or a woman (/man). From sacrifice given in happiness flowers even greater joy, and ability to grow.

By the way, fra Wyrmfang's translation of the article considering the different kinds of love will be added soon to our website. Patient love is a form of the Saturn's love, thus important part of our Satanism.

One big possible problem considering sexuality (as with love at large) is the one of hubris and humility. For as in Luciferian adoration, both of these are needed. Without some "pride in serving", we can't really be or understand men; and without some "humility in being served" we can't really be or understand women. Too much pride, and we fall; too little, and we fail.

[Fomalhaut]

A concrete down-to-earth example: You fall in love and are in seventh heaven but after this honeymoon this feeling fades and problems arise. So falling in love wasn't a permanent solution after all. Patient love is the key. Patiently loving you can confront those arising problems (which are actually potential powers rightly understood).

Patiently loving is important and also patience-itself- is important in any part of life. But there can be exceptions to the example you gave. But I agree there has to be a balance.

[Nefastos]

Less philosophically, more practically, I opened another discussion concerning the same subject. It focuses on that unity of energies that sexuality helps to achieve:

Sex, Kaula & brotherhood(s)

[Dracerium]

Well, sex is complicated. Sometimes it seems to be healing power and sometimes it seems to crush all we have. It can control someones life and someone can be controlled by it.

And usually if sex doesn't work it affects to the relationship and all start to go down in some way.

Its really incredible how something this natural happening can affect so many things so easily. And sexuality usually comes some kind hand in hand with sex. At least, i haven't seen any virgin with so much self-confidence than those who aren't. I cant say that it could't be possible but I haven't seen anyone, yet.

[Nefastos]

At least, i haven't seen any virgin with so much self-confidence

Virginity is an interesting concept in occultism indeed! The early theosophists put much emphasis in it, Blavatsky herself above all. She constantly made it the major topic, relating real adepthood explicitly with the demand of sexual abstinence.

Considering that the time (the late 19th century) was already starting emancipation & the power that theosophist women held wasn't held back in other areas - let's consider Annie Besant's power in politics, for example - the attitude towards sex was very strict and filled with something one might call sexual guilt.

It was nightmarishly frustrating, to the point of spiritual paralyzation, to be at the same time ardently striving theosophist & have great amounts of sexual energy, which was the position I was before I became a Satanist. It just seemed so violent & wrong to suffocate sexual feelings in a way the early theosophical doctrine clearly and often implicitly demanded. That is one of the important reasons why I left the more conventional Right Hand Path.

"Virginity" is "purity", and of this purity I think it's the pristine state of the uncreated Meaning - the sacredness itself! - what is & has been meant by the ancient traditions. It is "suchness", the Sanskrit Sat & Tat, "That" which is everywhere and is yet hard to grasp. The allegories of a virgin giving birth is part of this mystery of the sublimation of the forces; the same goes with the astrological sign of Virgo, that is one under which the harvest (and so the opposition of asexuality) falls.

[Insanus]

Obviously the first topic I'm going to post to is sex: Venus in Virgo ftw.

Falling in love is one thing, standing in love is another. I think it was good old E.Fromm who put it that way.

Virginity and self-confidence is a very interesting topic indeed. Pretty close to sexuality & creative power. I hope my English won't fail me now as I'll try to form a couple of thoughts in it.

Having sex is obviously one way to channel sexual energy, but not the only one and not necessarily the best or even the most pleasing one. Let's put it this way: all energy is sexual and all energy is transforming all the time. Or in a more poetic way: the universe is having sex with itself all the time, and our job as occultists is to find a way to join the fun. Problems arise when we, as human beings, channel it into wrong -by which I mean unsatisfying- forms.

Many of the most insecure people I've ever known have been, well, very sexually active to say the least. And some who are not (so sexually active) have shown great potential in their own area of expertise, be it art (as it often obviously is, though being "artistic" in the sense of being very sensitive doesn't necessarily mean that a person has the urge to paint paintings or sing songs. Of course not.) or something else. But I get the point.
Being sexually "choked" or otherwise incapable of expressing one's self, due to strict moral codes, or other psychological blocks is hell, though it also might be a great time for some analysis of one's own self or maybe even to go through some kind of mortification: more death, less sex :/

About virgins by the way: It's very fascinating to note how, in popular culture, horror stories & such, Satan worshippers often times sacrifice especially virgins and children to their Master. As to symbolise how it takes extremely pure blood to get in touch with Lucifer spiritually.

[Vavrinec]

I know I am new to this forum & I have alot to learn about Luciferian Gnosticism, that's why I'm here, to learn & to grow. My experience with sex is that it has 2 uses, procreation or pleasure. In ritual it is the highest form of magic that can be used to influence & pursue a desired outcome. I have used sex in ritual magic very effectively over the years with both positive & negative results. In ritual magic it carries the same connotations as sex used for procreation, both carry the ideal of a creative result. One for a new life form & one to pursue a desired result. One thing I have learned concerning sex is that love has nothing to do with it. Sex is all about desire, ie, lust. There is no such thing as 'romantic love'. Whether between man/woman, woman/woman, or man/man, love just isn't there as long as the sexual element remains a part of the equation. Love forms & grows when sex is no longer a part of the relationship. As for the pleasure principle of it, I find sex to be a burden. I could care less about getting some because I've chosen to remain abstinent, excepting within the confines of ritual magic. My life is about the pursuit of knowledge. Why would I want to stop that pursuit in order to fulfill an animalistic desire? I'm much to old to be fathering children, & what children I do have are fully grown, deciding their own path in life. But that is beside the point. I see no point in sex outside of ritual magic & I view having children as a sin. Until we can stop the flow of souls to feed the demiurge, we can never truly stop the evil & be able to return back to the Source.

[Nefastos]

Thank you for your post, Vavrinec! I respectfully disagree.

My experience with sex is that it has 2 uses, procreation or pleasure.

When taking as a form of love, I don't think that the word "use" is even very interesting here, since love (by which I don't mean any puppy-eyed sentimentality, but a power that dwells in the inner levels of existence as a certain kind of sacred Fire) is an absolute value, a value and accomplishment by itself. Of course, it still works miracles – of both good and evil kind – but in its core there is absoluteness.

One thing I have learned concerning sex is that love has nothing to do with it. Sex is all about desire, ie, lust.

Yes, that is the first step. But far from the last. From that, the real Work with sex just begins.

There is no such thing as 'romantic love'.

But there is. What you must mean is that in 99,9+ % of times, those things that are needed for that romantic love to be created and able to survive are so lacking that people who think they are experiencing romantic love are only living in a pleasant delusion, and just a peek into their lover's mind could shatter that bubble. That is a fact, yet there still are two kinds of an actual romantic love, the love of Venus: 1) pleasant astral glamour, which has its beauty and uplifting uses, although it is not completely "true" in a deep spiritual way, and 2) true self-sacrificing romantic love between two people of the opposite gender (i.e. sexual magnetism: an occult "gender" can be different one to that of one's physical gender); although that is rare in its total form, we often see some percentage of it even in fairly common relationships.

I view having children as a sin. Until we can stop the flow of souls to feed the demiurge, we can never truly stop the evil & be able to return back to the Source.

The problem is, we do not create those souls, but they are existing already. Simply choosing abstinence is not going to end the prison-world, since life, like a plant that grows through concrete, will always find a way. What is needed to "defeat the demiurge" (to use a partly allegorical form of speech) is work in those very souls, i.e. the minds of beings, to unchain them from wanting anymore that kind of imprisonment, and slowly raising the matter – which is built on minds with vitality, "the will to live" – out of its present dense & chaotic turmoil.

[Heith]

From my own personal experience, being often quite a asexual person, I have to say that for me there can not be sex if I do not love my partner. Indeed, I go years without having intercourse as I am slow to love, and I very rarely give in to any kind of whims. To have coitus with someone without loving them would be a completely void and hollow experience for me. It has a shattering effect, rather than a elevating one. From my book I would have to scrap the the "use" of sex as means to procreate as well, because I do not wish to have children. Of course, this does not mean that my body would not seek to connect in order to reproduce, but I intellectually choose to stop this from happening.

Then the opposite, of being in love and then becoming closer to being one with my partner, can be and usually is a magical experience. It's an expression of ultimate trust. The idea of trusting my safety, emotion and loss of control to someone I do not love is completely impossible.

I also think that being a woman it's not always so clear that sex brings ultimately heightened pleasure, at least if we consider things such as orgasms. There are many who never experience that.

Sex is a complex thing, because I have sometimes felt sexually connected to nature, during spring when everything is happening therein and I'm on a stroll in the woods. I don't walk around thinking "that's one damn hot tree right there!" but rather I sense and feel those currents around me, and it's very powerful. I understand that they are not of me, but an outside current that passes through me; it's that energetic flow that Nefastos mentions I think, a sacred Fire that one can sometimes sense. A bit like, watching a film and feeling for a character in that film. I understand that it's not my story or emotions per se, but I empathically feel about it and be a part of it. Ok, not the best way to explain it, but I assume it's not an experience everyone gets anyway.

Let me conclude in quoting the excellent character Lito from the series Sense8

The pleasure of your lover must become your own. But at the same time, you must also remain… selfish, because wanting someone so much that it feels the same as the need… to eat… or to breathe… this is where desire becomes love, I guess.