Astral plane, Pathworking & Divine Eroticism
“I wouldn’t recommend sex, drugs, or insanity for everyone, but they’ve always worked for me.”—Hunter S. Thompson
Part I: Regarding the
Astral Plane, Dreaming, and Pathworking
Just what is the “astral plane” anyway?
The astral plane is the vaguely defined and overlapping area between thoughts, emotions, and the five senses.
The astral plane ebbs and swirls around us during dreams, idle reverie, while playing “mental movies,” even when you mistake something out of the corner of your eye for something else. All these are events of the astral plane.
Is Yesod the astral plane?
While the astral plane can most simply be attributed to Yesod, it also includes influences from Hod and Netzach and the paths radiating between all three. In practice, the lower spheres and paths become increasingly hard to separate from each other the closer you get to Malkuth. The emotions of Netzach affect the “rational mind” of Hod all the time, for example.
In this book, the astral plane and Yesod are interchangeable for the most part, but the astral plane is a more open-ended term, while Yesod is much more specific.
Meaning in Chaos
In Yesod, the mind loves to find patterns in chaos. This is the part of the mind where life’s “coincidences” turn into “synchronicities” and “omens.” This part of the mind tends to label things and find patterns where there may or may not be any.
Yesod is the sphere that becomes overactive when cut off from external sensation (Malkuth), which is exactly why powerful hallucinations and extreme anxiety occur in sensory deprivation chambers. However, if the practice of sensory deprivation is taken far enough it can lead to experiences at the very highest levels of the Tree of Life—much like meditation. At the beginning of meditation, all is distraction (an itch or an obsessive thought, for example). If one can make it through this unpleasant and uncomfortable stage of delusion and distraction, enlightenment soon draws near.
The astral plane is also the realm of addictive fantasy situations ranging from online role-playing games to real-life swinger’s clubs. All these “alternate” worlds thrive in the lower spheres of Netzach, Hod, and Yesod. It also explains why people who are excessively into these types of fantasy scenarios can be so imbalanced. They have lost connection with the higher aspects of the Tree of Life, and hence writhe around blindly in the lower aspects of their psyche, unconnected to true Godhead.
As the light of the Moon is but a reflection of the Sun, so is the light of Yesod but a murky reflection of Tiphareth. Do not get stuck here. The light of the astral plane is false and illusory.
Synchronicity and Omens
Synchronicity is finding meaning in the juxtaposition of what we are thinking (or feeling) and what is happening in the outside world. Omens are basically the same thing—something outside resonates with what we are thinking, and we stop and ask, “Was that a sign?”
Synchronicity and omen-watching are not bad things in themselves. In fact, they can be very useful for developing our intuition (and receiving messages from daemons as noted in the last chapter). However, the key to accurate omens is being balanced on the Tree of Life, and having a connection to Tiphareth (a.k.a. your True Self), which is the ruler and king of these lower spheres. If you have a good connection with Tiphareth (as conferred by the meditations and exercises in this book) then nothing of the astral plane can harm or mislead you.
Regarding Delusion
I can’t really overstate that everything about Yesod and the astral plane should be taken with a grain of salt. The visions of this sphere tend to delude and complicate rather than clarify and enlighten. There is a tendency toward obsession and even a touch of “lunacy” if you mistake the astral plane for reality.
Very little real and lasting magick can be done from just messing around this low on the Tree of Life. The utility of the astral plane in magick has been overrated. Lasting joy comes from harmonizing the entire Tree of Life.
Truth, Lying, and Falsehood
“In the beginning doth the Magus speak Truth, and send forth Illusion and Falsehood to enslave the soul. Yet therein is the Mystery of Redemption,” from Crowley’s Liber B vel Magi, illustrates a magickal axiom: everything other than the direct experience of God is a lie.
On a practical level, however, truthfulness is something to strive for because it creates congruency in your psyche. Lying, distorting, and deliberately manipulating facts is always an ego-mind exercise. The higher self is content with the simple truth, therefore if you follow this, you will find many of your ego-shackles fall away.
Lying that has congruency is not lying but history. In other words, a “truth” is only as good as it holds up in the face of what “facts” are present. But in almost any scenario, the space between the facts takes up far more space than the facts themselves. Our history books are full of endless lies, i.e., things that can now be proven to be false but were at one time taken as fact.
This space between the facts can be exploited in a positive fashion through magick. There is always a “grey” area in life. Words and memories distort recollections from the way they actually happened. There is nothing wrong with putting the best “spin” on everything. Focus on the best of life, and you will be more likely to attain it.
The bottom line is that the more open and truthful you can be with yourself and others, the more truthful your visions and intuitions will be.
Scrying
Scrying usually means looking into some sort of medium such as a crystal ball, smoke, a dark mirror, random patterns (Rorschach tests and tea-leaves), etc.
You can also sit in a darkened room, close your eyes, and scry into the blackness. This is the method I recommend, as you will never be dependent upon any specific medium to probe the astral, as well as the higher levels of the Tree of Life.
Scrying often involves divination of some sort, but as I mentioned in Chapter 8, I believe divination is rarely necessary. However, the insights to be had by being receptive can be priceless—just don’t trust your premonitions of the future unless you can establish a proven track record of results.
A better use for scrying is to explore and understand the different paths and Sephiroth of the Tree of Life. This is an entirely useful habit and leads to a deep understanding of magick and a continuous level of joy. The Tree of Life Ritual given in the next chapter is a good way to invoke specific energies for “scrying into.”
If you have a hard time “scrying,” it’s generally due to the conscious mind giving you negative feedback. Just ignore your internal dialogue, and focus on your other sensations.
Don’t judge your visions. Don’t stop to ask if they are “real” or not. You may not “see” anything but instead hear things, or your may not see or hear, but only get impressions in some other way that makes sense to you. Simply let the images or feelings float through your consciousness and write them down afterward. Writing your visions down, however imaginary you think they are, will improve your astral abilities as much as the practice itself.
Magus and Seer
Magicians who spend countless years working on self-discipline and self-control can often not let go enough to be good at scrying, which requires intense mental submission and receptivity. Traditionally, magicians have often employed the use of a seer whose job is to scry the results of whatever energy is being invoked.
Seers may or may not be good at magick so long as they excel at being receptive to subconscious and astral imagery. Seers are quite often female, but psychically gifted men are employed as well.
Dreaming
Yesod, sphere of the Moon, has a special connection to dreaming and the dream world. This is the sphere to invoke to enhance your dreams in any way you need.
Dreams have some advantages over waking-life visualizations:
1. You have to dream anyway. Why not make them productive?
2. Dreams are directly tied to our subconscious and never lead us astray deliberately. Usually the contrary is true—they are trying to right the course that our conscious mind keeps screwing up.
3. They can be extremely intense and powerful when combined with magick, more so than even hallucinogenic drugs.
4. All symbolism is personalized for you.
5. They become more powerful with regular use.
Sounds great, but how do I use my dreams?
Start writing your dreams down. Even if you think you don’t dream, you do. Keep a pad by your bed and wake yourself up with an alarm once or twice a night if necessary to prove that you are dreaming regularly. Rewrite the notes into your journal first thing in the morning after you wake up. Simple, but it does take dedication.
Once you feel you are comfortable with your dream recall you can do rituals right before bed with the intent of visualizing the results in your dreams (you may state this explicitly in your ritual). These dreams are to be considered sacred and special care should be taken to write down all that occurs.
This is a bit of an advanced subject, but with practice, some people will be able to do wonders with this method.
What about lucid dreaming?
Lucid dreaming is when you know you are dreaming, and hopefully have some control over your dreams while in that state. Many of us have experienced this accidentally at one time or another.
Once you can lucid dream with some regularity, you can perform rituals in your dream, which can be mind-blowing, to say the least.
Everyone can learn to lucid dream, though it is tricky for some. Here is one method to get you started:
1. Keep a dream journal!
2. Several times every day, stop dead in your tracks, whatever you are doing, look at your hands, and ask yourself, “Am I dreaming?” Really stop and pay attention to how you know if you are dreaming or not. Do this with as much passion and conviction as you can. Eventually, during a night dream, you will ask this same question and realize that you are dreaming. The more you want to lucid dream the faster it will happen. This practice also has the positive side effect of keeping you present and in the moment during your days.
3. After your first lucid dream, you may accidentally wake up from the excitement. You may also wake up when you try to control your dreams too much, especially at first. Practice will work out any kinks.
Be patient; it could take weeks or months to have your first lucid dream.
Once you have some ability with lucid dreaming you can visit wherever, or whomever you want, and have a lot of fun doing it. Perhaps best of all, you can travel anywhere on the Tree of Life.
How do I perform rituals in my dream?
Traveling the Tree of Life, and otherwise performing rituals in lucid dreams is easier than it sounds. The difficulty lies in having regular lucid dreams.
Once you can lucid dream, you’ll find that rituals are vastly simplified when you perform them in a dream. For example, just drawing a planetary symbol in the air can be enough to overwhelm your dreamscape with its energy. Simply chanting the name of a Sephirah can take you to that sphere. Dreams are powerful stuff, though admittedly they are more unreliable, and more open to distractions than waking-life magick. Long, complex rituals are difficult to perform while in a lucid dream, for example. And sometimes, even though you have self-control in lucid dreams, you often end up doing something completely different than what you planned before bed.
Lucid dreaming is not a requirement of this book. I merely throw it out there because it’s exciting and can be a powerful tool in the arsenal of any magician. Lucidity will come more naturally to some than to others, so I leave it to each student whether they want to develop this ability or not.
I will also note that any dream work, not just lucid dreaming, is always elucidating. Even just paying more attention to your dreams can unclog you spiritually and emotionally.
Pathworking
Pathworking is “experiencing” a specific place on the Tree of Life, whether it be a path or Sephirah.
The Tree of Life Ritual given in the next chapter can be used as a pathworking. I’ve marked a point in the ritual where you can stop being active, and become receptive. At this point you can sit, close your eyes, and just experience the thoughts and visions that arise. Write them down afterward.
The real power of pathworking is experiencing multiple paths in succession over a period of time. You can use the Sephiroth, the paths, or both together.
The path of the serpent on the left,
and the path of the flaming sword on the right.
The path of the serpent on the left,
and the path of the flaming sword on the right.
For example, you could devote yourself to invoking all Sephiroth from 1-10, called the path of the flaming sword (or lightning bolt). Or you could use what is known as “the path of the serpent,” which is to travel only the paths up from Path 32 to Path 11, thus a twenty-two part pathworking.
Is it better to climb up the Tree of Life or down?
When you work down the Tree, it tends to be more invocatory, as if you are bringing the divine intelligence down to a level you can appreciate.
When you travel up the Tree of Life, however, you are entering the mansion of God, i.e., God’s own home. These types of pathworking can confer actual initiations, which will strip your ego down to the bone (and give you immense power as well).
I recommend learning to work down the Tree of Life for an extended time before journeying back up.
How do I pathwork?
Pathworking can be done with a variety of techniques and at various intensity levels, but I recommend the Tree of Life Ritual given in the next chapter. It’s easy to learn and adjusts to your own level of understanding and abilities.
The important steps in a pathworking are:
1. Clear your headspace with the Equilibrating Ritual of the Pentagram.
2. Invoke a specific path or Sephirah on the Tree of Life (using the ritual given in the next chapter).
3. Enter a receptive state of mind where you can experience the essence of what you invoked.
4. Write down your results.
5. Chain together entire workings, winding your way up and down the Tree of Life as you see fit. One path (or Sephirah) per day is a good choice.
Scrying into your tarot cards is another potential avenue for pathworking. This won’t work for everyone, but for others it will come naturally. After performing the Equilibrating Ritual of the Pentagram, sit, relax, and stare at the chosen tarot trump for awhile. Notice all the details. Now close your eyes, and use your imagination to step into the card and sense what else is in there. Notice if there is anyone else there, or animals, or sounds, or landscapes, or architecture of any sort. Whatever you imagine is valid, since you are starting from the tarot trump. Write down everything that popped into your head afterward (or record your voice while it’s going on).
Another common way to pathwork is to lie down and listen to a voice (in person or recorded), which then leads you into a pathworking with guided imagery. There are books and websites for this, but unless they specifically take you through the Tree of Life, or at least tarot cards, they aren’t quite the same type of pathworking as given here, which is quite structured.
Pathworking is one of the most powerful things you can do to improve your visualization skills. Also, pathworking helps unclog old blocks and allows you to naturally attract more of what you desire. Extended pathworking can lead to magickal initiations by angelic spirits, occult mysteries being revealed, and vastly improved intuition.
Other Information on Pathworking
I recommend Crowley’s “Wakeworld: A Tale for Babes And Sucklings”139 from Konx Om Pax, as a good example of how a pathworking might be written in the form of a short fairy tale. Reading it is a mini-pathworking, and if someone reads it to you while you actively visualize what you hear, it is a full-fledged pathworking.
Another good book that has guided meditations through the entire Tree of Life is called the Shining Paths.140 This book has shockingly effective symbolism for each path and Sephirah, and has reverberated intense changes through my life every time I’ve used it.
Also, you might consider researching the Enochian Aethyrs online or in the dozens of books written about it. The Aethyrs are thirty spiritual realms, one outside the other in ever-expanding concentric circles. These realms can be pathworked in a fashion similar to how we work the Tree of Life. The Enochian system has its own methodology, which is outside the scope of this book, but Enochian is neither excessively difficult nor dangerous. It should dovetail with everything you’ve learned here.
What about “out of body” experiences?
This is the type of “astral projection” where you leave your body and can wander around homes, see your own body on the bed, and walk through walls, etc. While certainly a tantalizing ability, it is not common, and need not be considered at all necessary to your magickal progress. If you do have this kind of advanced visualization skill, then so much the better.
Altered States of Consciousness
All magick requires some sort of “altered” state of consciousness, though these can be as simple as quieting your mind, having an orgasm, or being so caught up in a ritual that you “lose yourself.” Altered states of consciousness do not have to be extreme and can be effective even if the altered state is a subtle one.
For scrying and pathworking, being passive and observant is enough of an altered state of consciousness to have results. Practice will increase your astral abilities and increase these experiences. These types of “trance” states can become quite intense with enough time and passion.
Lucid dreaming, or simply invoking before a regular dream, are both good ways to experience altered states of consciousness for pathworking.
How can I have more intense pathworkings?
It would be remiss of me not to mention that anything that alters your state of consciousness has a potential use in magick. Hallucinogenic drugs, sex magick, sleep deprivation, BDSM, etc., can all be used to make your visions more intense. Ultimately, how you decide to experience an altered state of consciousness is left to your own imagination and good judgment.
Drugs and the Astral
Use of hallucinogenic drugs stimulates the astral. Not surprisingly many drug trips also tend to delusion.
The use of mind-altering drugs has been a part of shamanism, magick and occultism since antiquity, so ignoring their use would be silly. However, the main problem with many popular entheogens, which are generally psychedelic, is that they are illegal. The ones that are still legal in many places, such as Salvia divinorum, are in danger of becoming illegal due to improper use and the posting thereof online. Whatever you decide to do, make sure you do it responsibly. No drug experience is worth incarceration, especially as there are so many legal ways to get mind-altering experiences, including meditation and magick.
If you do end up working with entheogens, keep a few things in mind:
Balance yourself first. Like a rocket on the launch pad everything must be properly aligned or your fantastic journey might explode into a “bad trip.” So always perform the Equilibrating Ritual of the Pentagram before you take off.
Another crucial task with any sort of hallucinatory drug work is grounding the energy afterward into some actual physical work, whether it be artwork, writing, rituals, meditation, or even exercise. Ground these otherworldly experiences back into your waking state and realities, and they will have a far more lasting and viable effect on your life as a whole. Otherwise the results tend to evaporate. Grounding the energy of a single trip can take days or weeks, much longer than the intense experiences of the entheogens themselves.
Another thing to point out is not to take your visions too seriously. Drug experiences give wild experiences far outside the bounds of normal-day consciousness. Some people are disappointed when they misinterpret these images during magick, and are further disappointed when spells or visions don’t manifest like they thought they would while under the influence of the drug. So be patient, and keep your expectations in check.
What kinds of drugs can I use in magick?
Hard drugs such as meth, crack, and heroin are undoubtedly detrimental to any spiritual progress. I would also include cocaine and ecstasy use to this harmful list of drugs, but other magicians may disagree.
As mentioned earlier, light marijuana or alcohol use can have some advantage on occasion. For example, if you rarely smoke weed or drink, then doing a little before a ritual could possibly enhance it. If you smoke or drink every day, then you would most likely have a stronger effect by abstaining for a day or two before the ritual instead. Whatever is “outside the normal” will create more psychic tension and make a bigger mark upon your subconscious.
Entheogens, like LSD, peyote, mushrooms, Ayahuasca, DMT, and Salvia divinorum can profitably be used in magick and there will always be a subset of magicians who are seriously into these types of drugs. I went through that stage, and my advice is if you are going to take that road, take special pains of “grounding” whatever lessons you learn while on the drugs. In other words, these drugs open up the spiritual world quickly and easily—the problem is the door shuts just as fast after the drugs wear off. This “closing off” to the spiritual energies after the drugs fade can be so pronounced that sometimes the magician actually backslides in spiritual progress. This need not be the case, however, if the magician actively works to bring his drug-induced visions down to the material plane in some fashion, such as meditating, daily rituals, writing, painting, or otherwise incorporating what he learned into his or her day-to-day life. In other words, if you want results that actually last, you will have to follow up any drug trips with real magickal work, as well as properly prepping for each trip.
Prescription drugs can also adversely affect magick, including Opioids and Benzodiazepines. I’m not saying get off any medications you might be on, but you do need to be aware that all drugs have effects on your spirituality including ones the good ol’ doctor gave you.
Part II: Sex Magick
Blake said that the body was the soul’s prison unless the five senses are fully developed and open. He considered the senses the ‘windows of the soul.’ When sex involves all the senses intensely, it can be like a mystical experience.—Jim Morrison
Yesod governs the sexual organs so now we throw sexuality into this whole astral mishmash we have down at the lower planes. Venus already dominates sexuality in Netzach and now we get another dose of sexuality in Yesod—the most illusory sphere on the Tree of Life.
This section is distinct from Chapter 7’s lesson of love magick, which was about finding romance or a mate. This section is about using sexual energy, solo or with partners, for various magickal goals.
The first thing I’d like to get out of the way is that gender is not relevant for most sex magick. Far more important are the roles you play during rituals. Either sex can perform any role with a little imagination. A woman can invoke Mars, and a man can invoke Shakti—it’s all good.
Sex magick, or divine eroticism, is about bringing your spirituality into close contact with your sexuality. I will explain some basic concepts of sex magick and then give you some sample rituals. More than any other chapter, allow yourself to use your own imagination in discovering ways to use sexuality in your magick.
Chastity
Though promiscuity is certainly not frowned upon in magick, there are still valid reasons to practice chastity—discipline and temporary denial make the payoff even more delightful. For sex magick a brief period of chastity is always beneficial.
It really boils down to immediate pleasure vs. the buildup of future pleasure. To get a feel for this sensation, try sex games that include some sort of delayed gratification, from a few hours of “torment” up to weeks or months. The more pressure that builds, the greater the climax, which is especially important in sex magick.
What is sex magick?
Sex magick is using sensuality, sexual energy, or orgasms in a ritual setting. It is not a religion or a belief system, but an open-ended and evolving system of techniques.
Sex magick is neither difficult nor dangerous, but it is an advanced topic because it strings together almost every other concept covered in this book.
It is not necessary to perform sex magick to be a magician. It is not “better” than the non-sexual magick taught thus far, but simply another way to accomplish similar ends.
That said, a little sex magick can enrich your enjoyment of magick and life in general. It can supply a whole new dynamic to your magickal proceedings, and gives you yet another set of techniques to add to your ritual-building toolset.
What about Tantra?
Tantra is a rich and complex Hindu spiritual system that includes sexual techniques for achieving unity with the divine. Tantra is much more than sex magick, and is a topic far outside the scope of this book. What I teach in this book is not Tantra, though some of the ideas presented may be similar to or inspired by certain Tantric practices.
What about the Kundalini?
In Hinduism, Kundalini141 is a female serpent of energy, coiled at the base of the spine. She travels up each chakra to end in an explosion of light at the 1000-petaled lotus above your head.
You have already started working with your Kundalini every time you use the Middle Pillar Ritual, which will gently open all your chakras to their fullest bloom.
There also exist techniques, called Kriya,142 to raise the Kundalini more directly if this is something that deeply interests you. As with all genuine yoga practices, they are powerful, but they can be difficult and uncomfortable exercises if you are not accustomed to them.
Common Goals for Sex Magick
Sensuality, romance, and orgasmic-trance states blend perfectly into the ritual framework you’ve been learning in this book. You are free to use sexuality anywhere in magick and for whatever purpose.
Here are a few powerful and specific uses for sex magick:
1. Raise and channel sexual energy to charge a talisman or sigil. This is similar to what you do in rituals already, except that orgasm becomes the climax of the ritual.
2. Use the orgasm and resulting juices as a sacrament. This naturally follows after orgasm since the only sacrament and holy oil you’ll ever need is produced by your own sex glands. Either one or both of the partners consumes the resulting elixir, or it can be used to anoint a talisman.
3. Invoke the divine into your partner and make love to a god or goddess. You can invoke any god, goddess, planetary, or elemental force into your partner and make love to them.
4. Using post-coital states as a clairvoyant trance. After long and extended periods of sex, when one is completely worn out, there arises a passive state conducive for any sort of clairvoyant work, such as daemon invocation.
5. Feeding a daemon or servitor. You can make a pact with a daemon that you give it all the energy from a sex magick ritual in return for your desire.
6. Increasing romantic and sensual pleasure. This is a side-effect of all sex magick, but can become a primary goal if that is your desire. Your sensitivity to the joys and harmonies of the body and its subtle energies will be increased, as well as your ability to reach deep levels of intimacy with others.
These goals are not mutually exclusive. You can easily perform many of these actions in one ritual.
Don’t be intimidated by constructing your own sex magick rituals. Use your imagination. While it’s true with all types of magick, it’s even more true with sex magick: Nothing but experimentation will teach you anything valuable. A week in the field is worth centuries of book learning.
I’ll give a few examples of sex magick rituals at the end of this chapter, but please understand these are just samples. There is no limit to what you might come up with on your own.
La Petite Mort
La petite mort means “the little death” in French. More than just a metaphor for orgasm, it hints at the deep physiological and psychological link between sex and death. This link can be seen in the mirror (our sexual organs are next to our excretory ones), in biology (where there is a strong link between death and reproduction all the way down to the cellular level), in sociology (where violence over sexual concerns is known to arise in all cultures), in pathology (where sexually transmitted diseases have long been a cause of human fatality), and in our movies (which enjoy mixing sex with violence for titillation value).
There is also a strong connection between sex and generally risky, reckless, and even violent behaviors that overcome our natural fear of death. Sex turns the potential of death and danger into something exciting. Path 24, attributed to Scorpio, is a symbolic representation of this inextricable link between sex, death, and transformation.
La petite morte also refers to that moment in orgasm where you lose yourself, or perhaps even “black out” for a moment. Some people use techniques, often dangerous and not described here, to enhance that “black out” effect both for pleasure and magickal reasons.
Sexual Trance
While a sex magick ritual may start much like regular sex, you and your partner should take extra care to make sure everything is treated in a sacred fashion.
For example, if your goal is to invoke Venus into your partner, you must take time to build her up in your imagination to such a state that you feel you are truly making love to a goddess.
If you are planning to charge a sigil that you have painted onto your partner, then you should concentrate more of your energies upon the sigil the closer you get towards orgasm. Indeed, you should almost acquire a “fetish” for the sigil, making it as erotic and as engrossing as your imagination allows. In other words, use the sexiness of your partner to get yourself going, but as the ritual progresses, learn to focus exclusively upon your primary sigil. This is the way to ensure potent orgasms fully empowered with your magickal intent.
Pornography
Whether to include pornography or erotica into your rituals is a matter of personal choice. I personally see it being of more value in a solo sex magick situation than with a partner or group, but ultimately these choices will be decided by the type of ritual and the aesthetics of the magicians involved.
Addiction and Obsession
Addiction to anything, whether to casual sex, masturbation, drugs, or money, has no part in a magician’s life. However, we don’t quit behaviors—we can only replace them.
That’s usually easier said than done, but the study of this book in its entirety lays a blueprint for a new life on your own terms. There is no easy answer I can give in a few steps, or a single ritual that can cure all addictions. Addictions are just a symptom of all the nastiness of the ego-mind I discussed in Chapter 5.
The first thing is to accept your obsessions or addictions, don’t repress them. Everyone has behaviors they want to replace, some behaviors are just more detrimental than others.
Most of us are born straight away into addictions taught to us as children by mainstream media, such as addictions to buying, social status, money, sex, cigarettes, oxycodone, and caffeine to name just the legal addictions. Those along with the illegal ones are all perpetuated by an out-of-control ego-mind.
At some level, addictions and unwanted obsessions are just misplaced energy. There is a biological imperative for evolutionary good buried beneath all your impulses, even the ones you think are negative. The goal is that they find a proper outlet or be otherwise sublimated back into your entire Tree of Life.
To make a spell to help cure an addiction or obsession is the same as any other intent. Decide where on the Tree of Life you think your obsession or addiction might originate. Then perform meditations and rituals with that path or Sephirah and the connecting paths around it.
For example: Many obsessions are sexually related, and many of those occur at a blockage in the Netzach, Hod, and Yesod area, including the connecting paths, as mentioned when discussing Path 25 (Art) in Chapter 3. So you would adapt the Tree of Life Ritual, given in the next chapter, and invoke these paths and Sephiroth, experiencing their energy fully and releasing any psychological blocks you have there.
Keep all this in mind when doing magick rituals that involve sex, as everything is amplified. Issues with sexuality can and will come boiling to the surface in intense, and occasionally very unpleasant ways. Only perform sex magick with people whom you really trust and in a setting with which you feel totally comfortable.
What if I’m obsessive compulsive?
It’s just like all the other problems mentioned in this book: it’s ego-mind based. The ego-mind is trapped trying to find safety in routine—such as hand washing, hoarding, and every other obsessive-compulsive behavior.
The ego-mind needs to be shattered. I urge you right now to get comfortable with the idea of being “vulnerable.” Accepting vulnerability does not mean you are weak. It means you are accepting the vulnerability of the ego-mind to be destroyed so that something better is left behind.
BDSM Magick
Mix magick with BDSM (bondage and discipline, dominance and submission, sadism and masochism), or any other violent or masochistic/sadomasochistic role-play, and you’ll run into more or less the same concerns as someone mixing in heavy doses of drugs. It makes everything extremely intense—so intense that it will be a bad trip for many newbies to BDSM or magick.
Magick mixed with anything else makes it more intense, and often times, brings out issues at least one of the participants didn’t expect in either themselves or their partner(s). So be on top of your magick game before you attempt to add the extremes of BDSM to your rituals.
Masturbation
Masturbation releases energy and can put you into a trance similar to actual intercourse, therefore sex magick can be performed solo.
The only warning I give regarding masturbation is that every time you orgasm, even when alone, you are releasing a potent burst of energy. This energy is frittered away if you masturbate without some sort of magickal intent or purpose. Even worse, compulsive masturbation can lead to the accidental creation of negative thought forms (i.e. mini-servitors), which can adversely affect your life.
Consider finding a purpose for all your orgasms even when you are without a partner. Dedicate them to a god, channel them into a sigil, or feed the energy to a daemon. It does not matter so much what you do with your orgasms so long as you treat each one as holy.
Make every orgasm count, and the joy of the moment will spread throughout your entire life.
Sex Magick for More than Two
Ménage à troi and even orgy scenarios are not unheard of in sex magick. If you are in the enviable position of having multiple partners available for sex magick, you should have no problems adapting the rituals given herein to your own uses.
Frankly, adapting the rituals is the easiest part. Real-world complications make these sorts of multiple-partner situations delicate and tricky because of emotions and real-life problems getting mixed in with the magick.
Even without sex magick, magickal orders have a hard time keeping it together sometimes. The original Golden Dawn busted up over petty squabbling and egos. When you throw sex into the mix it can get even crazier. It takes diplomacy, tact, and strength of character to run workings with more than one partner.
The Sacred Whore
Sacred whores have existed since antiquity and include such notables as Isis of the Egyptians, Ishtar of the Babylonians, Inanna of the Sumerians, Mary Magdalene of the Christians, and Vesta of the Greeks, for whom the famous Vestal Virgins practiced sex magick rites in her honor.
Throughout the centuries large religions all the way down to small cults used some form of sacred prostitution at their temples. However, by the time Christianity had risen to dominance, sex had been made into something ugly and in need of being repressed. Not surprisingly, the priests did not stop having sex, but instead became perverts.
As poet and visionary William Blake wrote, “repressed energy breeds pestilence.” Worshipping a sacred whore helps unblock any repression and raises our love and lust to the very highest levels of divinity.
Crowley’s version of the sacred whore is Babalon, whom we have mentioned previously. She is the divine whore unto whom magicians offer the blood of their ego so as to be reborn.
I prefer to worship Nuit, however, who is a step higher than Babalon. Babalon is good for certain initiations and magickal workings, but Nuit is the true seductress—the one you find in every moment, every song, every flirtatious glance received from another—that is Nuit. Chase her, and your connection to your HGA will come naturally, and your ability to love and receive love of all types will increase by leaps and languorous bounds.
Practice for Sex Magick
You can jump in and start performing the rituals, if you feel ready. However, here are some preparations you can take to ensure you and your partner are properly raising and directing your magickal energies together.
1. Spend a week or two practicing the Middle Pillar Ritual together in a non-sexual fashion. Focus on keeping your breath in rhythm with each other, but stand at least a foot or two apart.
2. Practice the Middle Pillar for another week or so, but this time face each other nude. Synchronize your breathing to be opposite your partner. When you breathe in, they breathe out, and when you breathe out, they breathe in. You may also have light physical contact. Notice the difference in sensation from when you performed without such intimate proximity. Be aware of your chakras and your partner’s chakras. When you circulate the light, imagine you and your partner’s light as being in perfect synch. In actual sex magick you will not always be in perfect synch with your partner’s breathing, but this practice will increase your ability to raise energy in tandem.
3. Take this practice to the next level by adding caresses, touching, fondling, while still maintaining focus upon each other’s breathing. You can now step out of the typical mold of the Middle Pillar and become more fluid and spontaneous. Don’t worry about chanting, just focus on keeping your breathing harmonious with your partner’s, and your mind and heart present on the energies you should now sense swirling around you and within you. At the end, you can channel all the energy raised into each other’s body as you see fit.
4. When you and your partner are ready, you may take this practice to its obvious conclusion, i.e., intercourse or orgasm. This is also a good place to practice simultaneous climax. Though synchronous orgasms are not necessary in the following rituals, it is always nice when you and your partner can pull it off.
This practice will teach you the core ability of raising and channeling sexual energy, which you and your partner may put to good use in the following rituals.
Sex Magick Rituals
This section assumes you are familiar with the entire book, including the Tree of Life Ritual in the next chapter. It also assumes by this point you have been practicing all the exercises given thus far. If so, you should have no problems making your own rituals from the instructions given here.
The examples are not as detailed as in earlier chapters, because too much detail would just be tedious at this point. I want to allow you greater flexibility in tailoring the rituals to your own desires. Trust what you have learned so far and dare to experiment on your own.
Simple Sigil Sex Magick
This ritual is as streamlined as you can get so you may add to it as you see fit. It illustrates the essentials of a sex magick working.
1. Instead of making a full talisman, you merely need one sigil symbolizing your intent.
2. Draw the sigil onto paper or poster board and place enough of them strategically around your temple (the area you will have sex in) so that no matter where you look, there is a sigil.
3. Also paint or draw the sigil onto each of the partners, in whatever areas you see fit.
4. Perform the Equilibrating Ritual of the Pentagram as normal.
5. Make love for as long as you desire.
6. When you both near climax, start really focusing on the sigils. You may focus on any of the sigils you have drawn within your temple and each other’s bodies.
7. Climax as close together as possible. Simultaneously is not necessary, but each of you must focus totally on the sigil while having your orgasm.
8. Take your time cuddling and winding down.
9. Perform the Equilibrating Ritual of the Pentagram again or at least the Qabalistic Cross.
10. Throw away all the sigils and wash the symbols off your body. Allow yourselves to completely forget about the sigil and your original intent.
11. Write about the experience in your magickal journal.
Do both partners have to know the intent?
No, but you both should be aware you are performing sex magick. The actual purpose behind the sigil need not be known to all participants however.
Host of Heaven Ritual
This is a simple ritual to charge and consume a sexual Eucharist. The instructions are written for a couple but could be adapted for solo use by consuming one’s own elixir. It can also be adapted for multiple partners.
In the following instructions, the active partner is considered male, and the adorant, who receives the communion, is female. The roles can be reversed, or changed to a same-sex scenario, but understand that there will be subtle differences in the results. Invoking divine light into semen is symbolically and spiritually different than invoking the light into female juices. This isn’t to say that you shouldn’t experiment, only that such distinctions can make a difference.
1. Ritual bath, shower, massage, etc.
2. Perform the Equilibrating Ritual of the Pentagram up through and including the “Invocation of Archangels” and the second Qabalistic Cross.
3. The adorant should begin fellatio upon the magician.
4. When the magician feels he is ready, he should now continue the Equilibrating Ritual of the Pentagram with the start of “Drawing down the LVX.”
5. When the magician is ready to climax, after he says, “may the divine light descend,” he shall visualize the divine light rushing into his “magick rood” as he ejaculates into the aspirant’s mouth.
6. Finish with the Qabalistic Cross.
Step 5 is the crucial section. The divine light comes down and enters into the ejaculate. A secret of magick is that divine light most easily finds a host in sexual secretions. So when the adorant eats the communion, he or she is partaking of the highest aspects of God.
This is a sacrament, meant to be consumed daily, weekly, or whatever cycle you see fit.
Can we share the elixir?
Yes, in any way you and your partner see fit.
Role-play
Role-play, always important, should be practiced with especial gusto during sex magick.
If you are going to play a god, then you should research that god in detail. Understand his or her nature just as if you were an actor preparing for an opening-night production.
If you are going to be the worshipper, then understand that though you are mortal, you are the highest and most fit of the human race to make love with this god or goddess before you. Take care of the desires of your god or goddess, and don’t forget to ask them if there isn’t a prayer of yours they might grant in return.
Ambrosia of the Gods Invocation
Sex magick is sacred and sexy. Invoking a god or goddess into your partner and then making love to them is a distinct pleasure in itself, or you can use it as a prequel for charging a sigil or talisman. In this ritual we will invoke a god or goddess into one of the partners and eat the resulting ambrosia.
1. Choose a god or goddess. You need not be limited to Greek, Roman, or Egyptian gods and goddesses; you may take from any culture. Take time to discuss with your partner what would make your ritual sexy, powerful, and fun.
2. Instead of the usual talisman preparations, prepare a delicious fruit of your choice to be an edible talisman. The easiest way to encode your intent is to use a simple sigil for your desire. Then with a needle, stipple your sigil into the fruit. (If you have a bowl of strawberries or cherries, you need not do this for every single one, but make sure you both get a bite of the one with the sigil on it.)
3. Extended relaxation period, ritual baths, loving massages, etc.
4. Use the Tree of Life ritual given in the next chapter to invoke the Sephirah, or path, that you best feel your chosen god or goddess belongs to. For example, if you were going to invoke Aphrodite then Netzach is appropriate.
5. Make love for as long as you see fit. Lovemaking can occur at whatever level you and your partner are comfortable with. Actual penetration is not necessary. The mortal partner will
worship and cater to the needs of everything the god or goddess desires.
6. You may invoke a second god or goddess and it will be as if you and your partner are two divinities making love to each other. However, I recommend the partners experience the roles separately before moving on to invoking gods into both partners simultaneously.
7. When you and your partner are ready, channel your final climax. Depending on your tastes, you can ejaculate on the fruit and then consume it together in a kiss. Or if that doesn’t appeal to one or more or the participants, you can eat the fruit while having orgasms (or immediately afterward.)
8. Finish with the Equilibrating Ritual of the Pentagram, or just post-coital cuddling.
9. Feast. Most rituals benefit by eating and drinking in a celebratory fashion afterward.
Lunar Solo Sex Magick Talisman Ritual
Solo sex magick was probably more successful before the sexual revolution. There is little taboo in masturbating anymore, in fact many of us (especially men) do it far too much. The proliferation of porn and the common sense knowledge that almost everyone masturbates at least once in awhile has taken away much of the mystique that solo sex magick would have had in Crowley’s and A. O. Spare’s time.
Magick works best when the conscious mind is overwhelmed with spectacle. That’s why I encourage variety and experimentation in your magick. Keep your conscious mind fully engrossed while you slip the intent deep into the subconscious. The more intense the sensations, the better the ritual, and who will deny that newness excites more than the old?
Therefore, one ritual with a single solo orgasm is not going to do much good if you usually masturbate five or six times a day. Your conscious mind will not be particularly impressed.
So what should you do? You can find a partner, of course, and take your magick to the next level, but sometimes it is necessary or desirable to work alone. In that case, the following ritual is effective:
1. Make a talisman for your intent. Understand that for this spell you need to consider the material basis with particular care as you will be anointing the talisman with your sexual secretions every single time you masturbate.
2. Start on a full moon. The spell will last 28 days and end on the following full moon.
3. Perform the Equilibrating Ritual of the Pentagram, drawing down the light into your talisman or sigil. You need only do this on the first and last day of the ritual.
4. For the entire moon cycle, dedicate every orgasm to your talisman, anointing it with your orgasmic juices. You may do this as many times as you can. Push your limits. You may use pornography or whatever else to get yourself started, but make sure your focus is on the talisman when you orgasm.
5. At the end of the 28 days, on the next full moon, finish by performing the Equilibrating Ritual of the Pentagram, and drawing the light into the talisman one final time.
6. Hide your talisman for two more lunar cycles. At that point you may destroy or recharge the talisman depending on how you feel about the results you have had so far.
This lunar ritual could be adapted to sex magick with a couple or group, though it’s easier to keep to such a schedule alone.
Exercise 9: Perform a sex magick ritual.
This is optional, but fun and recommended.
139 . Public domain PDFs of this can be found easily enough online like many of Crowley’s writings.
140 . Try to find the first printing though, as the second printing is unfortunately riddled with typographic errors.
141 . Kundalini in Sanskrit means “that which is coiled.”
142 . From Sanskrit, means “action, deed, effort.”