Do you have a sense, deeply felt, that sacred sex is your spiritual path? If so, you’ve probably run into some esoteric materials that sound less like a sacred path and more like sexual psychopathy. It’s not your imagination. There is indeed some very dark stuff out there posing as profound sexual wisdom. Give it a wide berth!
What’s a sacred sex seeker to do?
Be discriminating. That’s always sound advice, yet it can be confusing to know which signposts indicate the “straight and narrow” when it comes to sex as a spiritual path.
Unfortunately, you can’t judge a tradition by its terminology. For example, in the hermetic and tantra traditions, carefully veiled terminology led some observers to confound the controlled flow of sexual energy exchanged between partners (in order to move toward spiritual oneness) with ingesting bodily fluids!
Nor can you evaluate the merits of a tradition by its claims. Grandiose claims often prove empty or dangerously misleading.
Warning signs
Here are some questions to help sort the wheat from the chaff when it comes to sacred sexuality paths. If the answer is “yes” to any of these questions, be extremely wary.
- Does the path you’re evaluating claim to be based on “secret knowledge” hoarded by a select, exclusive few?
- Does it urge you to choose novel partners or “hot” partners, and engage in intense foreplay and performance driven sex in order to pump up arousal levels during sexual union?
- Does it tend to treat sexual arousal like a drug or search for intense sensation rather than encouraging sex for heartfelt, effortless connection?
- Does it promise to teach ways to force your kundalini to rise?
- Does it tout the benefits to you as an individual, rather than to you and your mate as a couple?
- Does it suggest that orgasm (with or without ejaculation) is part of the path—at least sometimes, or after a build-up of arousal?
- Does it encourage visualising selfish, ego-based benefits for you, or both of you?
Too late?
If you should happen to experiment with a suspect technique, use it as a valuable learning opportunity. What do you (or did you) observe?
- Regardless of short-term “highs,” has the level of chaos, emotional drama, or scarcity (of time or resources) in your life noticeably increased?
- Do you feel increasingly impulsive, filled with doubt, or anxious?
- Have you given control of your life to another person, group or entity?
- Have you been assured that you’re special, superior or chosen?
- Has your connection with Spirit grown less comforting?
Keep in mind that sex that lowers our vibration over time can leave us vulnerable to manipulation by astral forces with dubious motives. Targets of such manipulation may mistake impulses and moods coming from astral entities for the targets’ own impulses and moods. The risk is that the targets then act on them without adequate reflection or guidance.
Stay safe
Continent sexual activity with a loving, trusted partner helps inoculate lovers against all dubious influences—from shady politicians and advertisers to astral nasties. So do other spiritual practices that raise our vibration, such as meditation, selfless service, gratitude, prayer, and so on.
Another safety measure is cultivation of an unwavering desire to align with divine will in every aspect of our lives. This takes some getting used to. It can feel like you’re forcing yourself to fly on instruments in the face of compelling visual cues that would lead elsewhere.
Yet aligning with divine guidance has definite advantages. For instance, it can help you sidestep karmic encounters, which would otherwise lead to painful detours. This is particularly true in the choice of a mate. To be sure, turning mate choice over to divine guidance is one of the most difficult things to do. It’s very hard to ignore, or release our desire for, irresistible infatuation in favour of Spirit’s choices for us. The latter are much more likely to feel sane and nurturing rather than “magical” or “fated”.
Equality
Sacred sex is never about hierarchy. Humility and receptivity are essential, but any two lovers can practice it – even without intercourse itself! Lovers need not yet be with their ideal partners. As long as they nurture each other with non-orgasmic sexual affection they both benefit. Spirit will move the pieces in the future as needed.
If you are lucky enough to have a partner, start with the one you have – unless clearly guided to do otherwise. Your generous, principled loving will come back to you one way or another. In the meantime, view it as an energy gift to a planet lashed by the ugly repercussions of sexual desire employed recklessly, and sometimes psychopathically.
Consistency and a period of training your sexual energy are very helpful. But a belief that other practitioners, gurus, or teachers are superior is not. This path is open to all. It’s about meeting the necessary conditions for progress, not about pursuit of degrees in secret societies or submitting to hierarchies peopled by other human egos, however awe inspiring their accomplishments.
Steer for the light
The dark influence of sexual psychopathy is why so many spiritual people recoil from the suggestion that sex could ever serve as an elevator to higher states of awareness and closer union with the divine. And, given our poor results to date from both sexual repression and sexual psychopathy posing as revealed wisdom, we need to stay vigilant when choosing a sacred sex path.
As the Taoists warned, sex is like fire and water. Both can aid a person or kill them. The Tibetan Buddhists taught that sex is the way humankind fell into its current limitations and misery. Yet it’s also the way we rise.
Choose your sexual path, and let the results speak for themselves.
