Attanucci Timothy

Beth David

Brenner Summer

Breuning Olaf

Buchina William

Bunnell Dave

Coronato Petra

Croteau Jeffrey

Dantini Michele

Doutreluingne Pauline

Doy Gen

Ferrante Denise Palma

Foxwell Adam

Fresco Jacque

Gavron Assaf

Glaser Bruno

Goldwyn Mara

Green Linda

Guo-Qiang Cai

Hill Patrick

Horvitz David

Huanca Donna

Hugo Pieter

Idnert B. Zlatan

Kempenaers Jan

Lin Tao

Lu Tammy

Maisel David

Malone Alison

Maximishin Sergey

Mendoza Connie

Mitsios Apostolos

Morrison Rachael

Morton Timothy

Neutelings Jan

Nielsen Nikolaj

Oennerfors Andreas

Okón Yoshua

Patt Lise

Petrovszky Konrad

Porrati Serena

Quehenberger Susanne

Rameau Max

Rau Milo

Roc Ailen

Shapiro Alan

Situ Studio

Small Gary

Thompson Cosette

van Haarlem Dr. Michiel P.

Vanden Eynde Maarten

Walmark Ulrika

Wei Chen

EDITORIAL
Rachel de Joode
Emilie Florenkowsky
Hili Perlson
Anja Wiesinger

DESIGN
Aleksandar Todorović
CODING
Veit Wießner
Anja Wiesinger

META MAGAZINE
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XI. ARS DE REX—Sexual Magic, the Art of the King By Ailen Roc, translated from German by Hili Perlson

Magic is a skill, and just like any other skill, there are only few individuals who master it fully and successfully. This excursion into the world of sexual magic is directed at the Exoteric, the uninitiated reader. However, since this is an essentially esoteric article, I will use some terms from the field of Magick. While anyone experienced with magic is familiar with terms such as Beast, Priest, Priestess, Magician, Temple etc., an outsider might find them gruesome, ridiculous, or simply over-dramatic and, as a matter of fact, magic can generally be said to be interspersed with drama.

The system I will describe is that of the Ordo Templi Orientis lodge. Other lodges may have slightly different systems. Generally, the scheme is:
Works of the VIII degree: consecration
Works of the IX degree +: inspiration
Works of the IX degree - : desecration
Works of the XI degree: materialization and revitalization.

But before we proceed to the practical part, I would like to warn readers that sexual magic should by no means be practice without the preliminary steps and fundaments. The first steps in the practice of sexual magic are the basic prerequisites for a serious and successful practice and must be followed strictly. These include:

–An intensive knowledge of one’s own body and its control. This can be obtained through different Yoga Asanas and exercises in bio-energy.

–Breathing exercises and techniques, preferably Pranayama.

–Acquiring control of thought and spirit, for which regular meditation and visualisation exercises are necessary.

–Learning to know one’s energy net and being able to influence and master its flow.

Additionally, control over the power elements is fundamental to the practice of any kind of magic:
â—¦ Fire (energy, spirit)
â—¦ Water (feelings, emotions, intuition)
â—¦ Wind (intellect, power of the mind and thought)
â—¦ Earth (manifestation, materialisation, action)

Containment of these elements is the “carpeting in the temple” so to say, while the temple itself represents anyone from the priest to the pupil. The carpet alone may be pretty and precious, but things become more interesting as we start to build the temple around it. In order for us to make this temple as splendid as possible, we first have to clear the ground of any debris. As a result of our upbringing, education, conditioning and socialization, as well as due to time and culture specific influences and values, we are strewn with debris which leads to our having a poorly conceived, if not completely distorted image of ourselves and our surroundings. Sexual magic, however, requires the transcendence of restraints which prevent us from understanding ourselves. Contemporary sexual magic draws largely on Aleister Crowley’s Book of Law and especially on the maxim “Do what thou will. Love is the law. Love under will.” Unfortunately however, love is often based on misconceptions. Because of his heteronomy and unclear self-image, the common man is unable to differentiate between true love and the emotional confusion often mistaken for love. The unreflecting individual does not truly love their partner but rather confounds projections, guilt, pity and nature’s baffling trick of biochemical attraction, with love. True love can only exist between equal partners with autonomous personalities. The goal of the first stage of sexual magic is therefore to become a self-determined individual, a star who conceives themselves and their fellow men as unique stars and who forms and follows their own orbit.

The aforementioned steps aid us tremendously in freeing ourselves from accumulated debris; within a few months of yoga asanas, we learn to control our bodies. The daily practice of meditation and visualisation enables us to direct our thoughts—a significantly more strenuous task than controlling the body, simply because for us, thoughts are much more fleeting than material (anyone would find holding a stone for an hour to be an easy task, but when asked to hold a thought for one hour, the untrained man will most likely fail). The average person is incapable of holding a thought or visualizing one image for longer than one minute. Anyone unable to hold a thought for 2-5 minutes—the average length of an orgasm—puts themselves at risk by trying to skip the preliminary steps and engage directly in the practice of sexual magic.

In order to free ourselves from heteronymous conditioning, sexual magic deploys the technique of “reversal of signification.” I will explain this technique very briefly and simply: the pupil must comprise lists of the things most agreeable to them on the one hand, and the things most appalling to them, on the other (this can be anything from favorite snack to sexual preferences to phobias). The different entries are rated on a scale of positive 1 to 3 for the most agreeable and negative 1 to 3 for the most appalling.
For example:
Chocolate +2, kittens +1, round breasts +3 vs. cod liver oil -3, spiders -2, saggy breasts -1.

The pupil must now work on reversing these ratings to the point where a spider will suddenly appear to be appealing and a kitten—grotesque.

The purpose of this practice is, of course, not to turn our values around but rather to think about the reason why round breasts, for example appear more, and saggy breasts less agreeable: is it fear of aging? Of death? Is it due to social conventions reinstated through visual media? This technique thus allows us to gain great insight into the trained and conditioned conformities that we take on from our environment. In effect, with the “reversal of signification” technique, we aspire to readjust ourselves. But transformation alone is not enough. The real goal is transcendence. The energy taken up by our fears, aversions and complexes is extremely precious and must be unchained and put to better use.

Will in the average person is, more often than not, corrupted by social conditioning. Our conditioned reflexes lead us to merely react to a situations like a Pavlov’s dog, rather than put our critical thinking to use. We are commonly unable to differentiate between our own wishes, compulsive aversions, hopes, urges, misguided motivations and true will. But will is the key instrument in both sexual as well as ceremonial magic. He, who doesn’t recognize his true will, would not know his path. He, who doesn’t know his path, would stumble blindly in the dark. The degree of darkness reflects one’s relations to their subconscious and to their higher selves. It is with the techniques of sexual magic that we would learn to recognize our true will. Furthermore, because sexual magic is based on the belief that our greatest power is to be found in sexual energy, its goal is to explore and learn to redirect this potential.

In the practice of Kundalini yoga, for example, sexual energy is symbolized through a snake which lies curled up in our pelvis. There are concrete exercises which focus on revealing this “snake,” rousing and controlling it. The first results of such exercises can be frightening or simply surprising since, as I mentioned before, the temple must first be freed of debris. In the process, one sometimes confronts hideous images, unpleasant emotions and even physical side effects which are brought about, varying from anxiety to any hallucinations (a phenomenon known as the “inflation of the subconscious” in psychology).

Therefore, the tasks mentioned earlier for gaining control over body and mind are vital to safeguarding one’s physical and mental well being, and must be followed for several months before we can continue to the practical side of sexual magic. I’ve experienced the fatal consequences of unfunded work with magic, and could witness them on other pupils or even priests and priestesses. In such cases, magic is believed to protect itself from being acted out by the curious and untrained masses.

Without a basis, the power of Kundalini has not been woken and the flow of energy is simply too weak to be used for any other goal than that achieved by engaging in normal sexual activity. The only difference may be the fantasies used. However, it is precisely these fantasies that can pose a danger, since loading fantasies with energy brings one in contact with certain energetic levels—the so called astral levels—which shouldn’t be available to the average man.

On this matter, I see an interesting connection to the widespread popular practice of S&M: while utilizing certain elements of sexual magic, people practicing S&M are often unaware of the implications. Each fantasy or image we direct energy to—i.e. load with emotions and thoughts—creates something or, to use sexual magic terminology, gives birth to something. When paired with emotions, thoughts and sometimes even actions, the imagination can give birth to beings. (When we concentrate on a certain person while masturbating, for example, we actually engage in an act of sexual magic. When done on a regular basis, energies come about which, when undirected, might gain their own existence and can manifest themselves in intensified over-energizing or extreme exhaustion. In addition, we often experience mental fixations in relation to the person or phantasm we think of when masturbating. I have discovered that most people find it perfectly normal to concentrate on a certain person when masturbating).

While birth in itself is a wonderful thing, it also entails enormous responsibility and requires ever greater efforts because, after all, the child wants to live, grow and be entertained. While I would like to steer away from the Dramatic, anyone who has engaged in rituals of sexual magic without sufficient preliminary practice and who has experimented with S&M could attest that fantasies become “greedier” and can easily get out of control.

Another risk related to the uneducated practice of sexual magic is manifested in the caricatures and misunderstandings of gender roles. It is definitely true that the male part embodies the active, formative principle and that the female part embodies the passive, receiving and submissive principle - please be reminded that magic uses symbolic and dramatic language, as I mentioned earlier! Nonetheless, any attentive pupil will have understood that a person, whether biologically male or female, is made up of both elements of gender. The male (yang) and female (yin) elements may exist in different combinations within different individuals, but there is absolutely no such thing as a completely male or completely female makeup.

The active, male party must unchain the “beast” within during the sexual act. The female party must find the so called “scarlet woman” within, become one and merge with her. Again, these roles have very little to do with biological gender; it is not without reason that homosexuality plays an important role in the practice of sexual magic. Whether two men, two women, or a man and a woman engage in sexual magic, it is pivotal that one partner takes on the active, penetrating and giving role while the other is passive, submissive, receiving and reflecting. The roles may vary according to the ritualistic act or even within the course of one act. For example, in the case of fellatio the man must remain passive and give himself up completely without applying any form of self-stimulation or influencing the act with any movements. In the act of cunnilingus, the woman must give herself up completely without trying to control the flow of the act. In the sexual intercourse itself, however, the roles can be changed depending on preference and goal of the act. One of the main goals of sexual magic is to expand and intensify the orgasm with the help of visualizations and concentration on specific aims. The more advanced one is, the more intensive the orgasm would be. The untrained person might think or imagine different things even right before the moment of climax, resulting in the enormous amounts of energy released in the moment of sexual climax being dissolved into ether instead of being directed at a certain goal. Bearing all this in mind, we can now proceed to some practical aspects of sexual magic. The system described here is that of the Ordo Templi Orientis lodge: Sexual magic has three degrees of practice: the VIII, the IX and the XI degrees. The VIII degree is divided into exercises that can be carried out alone (VIII0- and VIII.0+) or in pairs (VIII2+ and VIII2-). Similarly, the IX degree also has two levels. Alongside with these main subcategories, other levels exist which vary according to skills and tendencies of the people practicing them.

VIII.° Masturbatory and Oral Operations:

VIII. 0- Priestess alone:
For rituals of consecration, benediction of talismans, materializations of new partners. Not for consecration of new ideas or projects, for which XI° is used. Using battle masks for witchcraft and for the creation of illusions (oceanic witchcraft).

VIII. 0+ Priest alone:
For rituals of consecration. Using masks for Lycanthropy (transformation into animals) and calling on atavism.

VIII. 2+ Performed by the priestess on the priest:
Using the tongue to create trance and visions. Using the hand to create ecstasy and receive the oracles.

VIII. 2- Performed by the priest on the priestess:
Using the mouth for her magical nutrition and renewal of sexual vitality. Using the hand to symbolize her body as an instrument of sexual splendor and great attraction.

IX.° Operations of the Sun-Ra and Khephera:

IX. 0+ Priest und Priestess supernal:

Natural unification for works of creation, intuition and inspiration.

IX. 0- Priestess and Priest infernal:

Unnatural unification for works of Zombie-ism, comatose and death-like experiences, dream manipulation and darkness (painful states).

XI.° Operations of the mouth:

Priest und Priestess:

During the moon’s crescent or lunar eclipse for works of materialization and vitalization of dreams, images and visions. It is believed that by repetition, visions can materialize.

Again, the scheme is generally:

Works of the VIII°: consecration

Works of the IX°+: inspiration

Works of the IX°-: profanity

Works of the XI°: materialization and revitalization

The last word is dedicated to the notion of will. It goes without saying that as long as the physical and mental well-being of the sexual partner is safeguarded, then “to each his own.” Here, I would like to return to Crowley’s maxim “Do what thou will. Love is the law. Love under will.” “Do what thou will” is by no means to be understood as “do whatever you fancy or feel like,” as was the case with Charles Manson and his family. Will in itself is life-sustaining and love-oriented. However, not all of us have been given or experienced sufficient amounts of love. Furthermore, most of us didn’t grow up in an environment which encourages pursuing or even getting to know our true will; in this sense, we are all invalids or handicapped. The purpose and goal of sexual magic is the healing of our handicap. It is both the instrument as well as the way towards wholesomeness.

Interview with David Beth, esoteric philosopher, follower of Michael Bertiaux’s Voudon Gnosis and practitioner of sexual magic.

Ailen Roc: There are many misconceptions regarding the term sexual magic. How would you explain the idea behind it?

David Beth: Well, we could maybe say that sexual magic would be the harnessing of one’s own sexuality and sexual energies with intentionality. Sexual magic allows us to activate energies and forces and reach states of consciousness in which we are able to become magically creative and facilitate change within and without.

What are the origins of sexual magic? How is it connected to Tantra?

I believe the origins of sexual magic to be ancient. From the earliest forms of fertility cults to the sacred prostitutes/priestesses of Babylon and Sumer, we find many traces of ritualized sexuality. People in all times and cultures have understood the latent transformative powers in the energies of eros and have tried to utilize them accordingly. Unfortunately, with the rise of the orthodox Abrahamic religions and their dominance in our cultures, sexuality and eros as methods of divine intoxication and paths to higher states of consciousness have been suppressed. This way we have managed to profanisize eros in our world and cut us off from a vital tool of personal and universal transformation. Both Sex and eros have become a commodity and despite a seemingly liberated and oversexed society they still are tightly connected to a false morality and fear of the body as we can see by the way we obsessively treat the body as an object rather than truly connecting with it.

Is sexual magic an important component of Voudon ?

Classical voudon has many aspects which we could classify as physical, ecstatic and even erotic but is not outright sexual magic. However, there are voudon cults which very much work with sexual magic like the groups that I am associated with, the Ordo Templi Orientis Antiqua and La Couleuvre Noire. Here, the transformative and elemental power of sexuality is acknowledged and the “fuel” of our work is sacred sexuality in [its] various forms. We have a very elaborate corpus of teachings about sexual magic, much larger and more complex than other well known western esoteric groups like the Ordo Templi Orientis or the Fraternitas Saturni. Also, the use of eros and sexuality in a magical context is not limited to physical sexuality but may be an internal process “only”. Like certain tantric groups in the East, we base our work on a complex understanding of the alchemical body with the energies and substances generated by sacred sexuality and eros as its power source.

As a group with roots in Voudon we also interact and engage with spirits/loas. Unlike exoteric Voudon groups we do not support animal sacrifice and have for a long time understood clearly the superior power of sexual magical energies as an offering and connecting agent to the spirits of our Voudon continuum. (For anyone interested in more information on this particular topic and an inside look into Voudon Gnosis I would suggest my book “Voudon Gnosis” published by Scarlet Imprint and available from the publisher.)

How are gender specific roles represented in sexual magic?

There is not universal answer to this question—different tradition and different groups treat this very differently. I only want to speak from my own point of view. I believe that while men and women share many of the same abilities there are differences—in the physical but also esoteric body/persona. And magical work and also sexual magic needs to address this. Women for example are able to produce other magically charged substances through physical processes than men. All substances are of course interesting for the magical operator. Also the different polarities, active for man, passive for female are important in magical work. There are teachings which teach the return to an androgynous primordial state which the magician needs to achieve in order to realize higher consciousness. The way to achieve this is to work with female and male energies and to absorb those qualities into his (esoteric body) which he is lacking (usually female qualities in male and vice versa). We also recognize the esoteric qualities of lore such as the grail stories to relate to us certain initiated ideas of love, male and female and their appropriate magical offices.

Do you see a connection between S&M and sexual magic?

Not directly, I believe S&M has always existed but recently it has become much more public and open in the wake of sexual liberation and also as part of a thrill seeking modern world. Society is experiencing a spiritual emptiness and void and many people seek to fill this by a materialist indulgence and superficial thrill seeking. I do believe however that BDSM can be useful in providing tools of magical exploration, especially also in the sexual magical real. After all, carefully administered pain for example has been employed by some occultists in all ages to create changed states of awareness. The same is true for the use of deprivation of senses.

What are the goals of sexual magic?

Goals of sexual magic are amongst other things the creation and use of very powerful energies which help us to create the change within and without that we as magicians want to facilitate. Sexual magic also helps us to re-connect with our deep primordial self and allows us to become complete again, to reconnect with our bodies and through our bodies. It helps to unlock our true potential in a spiritual and magical way and thus for us to reclaim our true divine position in life and universe.

How many people do you think practice sexual magic, and how many of them actually achieve these goals?

I think that real sexual magic as an initiatory science is only being worked by very few people. Sexuality may have a short-lived transformative effect on many people who have experienced a mind-blowing orgasm or are deeply in love, but people who are able to consciously to raise, control use the sexual energies in our bodies and the universe in its form of cosmic libido are few indeed.

Even most self-proclaimed magicians are mostly amateurs without a truly initiatory knowledge and understanding of the very complex matters that comprise sexual magic, sexual alchemy and the laws of Kosmic Eros. It takes years of continuous dedicated studies in theory and practice in order to be able to unleash these awesome forces that are at our immediate disposal.