TYPE 4

WITCHCRAFT & SEX PART ONE

…䕓⁘䅐呒传䕎†††††††

WITCHCRAFT & SEX MAGIC BY DOREEN VALIENTE. PART ONE.

Witchcraft does not need to apologize for involving sex magic.

It is other religions which need to apologize for the miseries of puritanical

repression they have inflicted upon humanity.

We are today in the commencement of a sexual revolution. People are beginning

to wake up to the fact that they have a right to sexual satisfaction in this

life, that they have no need to feel guilty about being human beings. I

believe that one of the most important tasks of the Old Religion in our day

is to help to nail the Great Lie which humanity has been told for so long:

namely, that sex is something which was ordained solely as a means of

procreation within " holy wedlock" & nothing else. If all that was required

was the continuation of the species, then the elaborate complex of

sexuality, both physical & psychological, would not have been necessary on

the part of Nature.

There are many organisms in this world,from the amoeba upwards, which

procreate by means of simple fusion or by virgin birth. but they are all on

the lower rungs of evolution. The joys & pangs of sexual love are something

we have risen towards, not fallen into.

I think, too, there is a profound truth in the slogan " Make love, not war".

Is it really a coincidence that the hideous events of killing & maiming

which have taken place in Northern Ireland within resent years have come to

pass in a community which is ruled in a religious sense by anti-sex

repression, both Catholic & Protestant? Let us look, too, at other countries

where horror & bloodshed abound. How often do we see this accompanied by a

sexual ethic which advocates repression?

The majority of people today of all ages are not free in the sexual sense.

Even when social customs, divorce laws & so on have been relaxed, even when

contraception is more freely available than it ever was before, people are

still imprisoned behind bars of their own minds. They are still in bondage

to the false teaching & illusory concepts which they have unquestioningly

accepted in their formative years. More over, this bondage is often

something the people themselves are not conscious of; it applies even to

many who regard themselves as enlightened & progressive.

Sheer promiscuity, however, is not the answer to the real sexual needs of

anyone. It is quality, not quantity of experience which brings sexual harmony

into a persons life. If it were not so, then the happiest & most well

balanced people would be prostitutes & playboys; when, as a matter of fact,

they are usually insecure & neurotic.

There is an indefinable magical element about sex, which people have been

conscious of ever since the dawn of time. This is why it has always been

hedged about with so many rules & regulations by those who sought rulership

over their fellow humans. In particular, the subjugation of woman, the

dangerous temptress, has been built into most of the world religions of our

Not long ago, admission of women into the priesthood was discouraged by the

Church of England on the grounds that priestesses were associated with the

orgiastic types of religion.

In the Old Religion of witchcraft however, the priestess still retains her

ancient dignity; though I personally consider that neither half of the

polarity should be dominant over the other, otherwise the situation is bound

to become unbalanced. Working in true polarity is a potent operation.

Social attitudes in our day are sufficiently relaxed for a most significant

exhibition to have been held in resent years at the Hayward Gallery in

London; an exhibition which in Deon Fortune's time would have resulted in

instant prosecution & closure , but in our own was sponsored by the Arts

Council Of Great Britain. I refer to the exhibition of art associated with

the Eastern Cult of Tantra, held in the autumn of 1971, which has served to

awaken a lively interest in Tantric ideas among occultists & other seekers of

truth in the Western world.

Like witchcraft, Tantra has in the past been associated with " unspeakable

rites" " nameless orgies" & so on. In fact, one of the earliest writers about

the Tantra who addressed himself to readers in Britain, W.Ward, whose book "

A VIEW OF THE HISTORY, LITERATURE & MYTHOLOGY OF THE HINDUS " was published

in 1822, literally he could not bring himself to describe what actually

happened at a Vamacharin Tantric Circle! He hinted that a naked woman was the

object of worship, but added that " Here things too abominable to enter the

ears of man, & impossible to be revealed to a Christian public' were

contained in the Tantric Shastras."

It was left to an extraordinary adventurer named Edward Sellon, who was

famous for his contribution to the rich field of Victorian pornography, to

bring a full description of the material side of Tantric to the West.

His book " ANNOTATIONS UPON THE SACRED WRITINGS OF THE HINDUS " appeared

privately printed, in London in 1865. Although materialistic & inadequate,

Sellon's presentation of Tantra had considerable influence, notably upon the

author & student of Rosicrucian matters, Hargrave Jennings & through him upon

the American occultist, Paschal Beverly Randolph, who regarded Jennings as "

one of the master Rosicrucians of England".

The spiritual side of Tantra was first described in books having any wide

degree of publication among English speaking people by Sir John Woodroffe,

who wrote at first under the pen name of "Arthur Avalon ". His book " SHAKTI

& SHAKTA " set out to defend the Tantras from their detractors, both British

& Hindu. In it he describes the worship of the pre- Aryan Great Mother

Goddess of the East, in terms which are often strongly reminiscent of

European Witchcraft, though he shows no signs of being aware of this.

However, in his book we read of the secret circle, often held at midnight, in

which men & woman worshippers were seated alternately. It was under the

direction of a leader, & the object of adoration was a beautiful naked

priestess who was regarded as the incarnation of the Goddess. A ritual meal

was partaken of, which was followed by sexual intercourse as an act of

worship to the divinities invoked.

This ritual was called Panchatattva, meaning the 5 Elements, because the

constituents according to it symbolised Earth, Fire, Air, Water & Spirit or

Akasha. It was also called the Panchamakara, or 5 M's, because each of these

constituents according to its name in Sanskrit began with the letter M:

Wine = [ Madya], Meat = [ Mangsa ], Fish = [ Matsya ], Grain = [ Mudra ], &

Sexual Union = [ Maithuna].

The wine corresponds to Fire, the meat to Air, the fish to Water, the grain

to Earth & Sexual Union to Spirit.

The word Tantra simply means a treatise, something spread abroad, from the

root tan, meaning " to spread ". There are both Buddhist & Hindu Tantras, the

earliest surviving complete texts being Buddhist, & dating to CE 600. Many

early Hindu fragments have been found. But it may be that Tantric ritual pre-

date both the Hindus & Buddhists who have just adapted the rites to suit

their own religious purposes. The great stronghold of Tantric practice in

India is Bengal, while Tantric Buddhism was widely practised in Tibet & is

still to be found in countries that border upon that land.

BLESSED BE.