The Art of Sexual Magic Pt. 2

I have been reflecting a lot over the past six months about the state of the world. One theme that stands out to me based on what has transpired in Gaza, for example, is that liberalism does not equal liberation. The western liberal tradition was built on individual rights and self-expression that were later codified into social and political structures of universal human rights possibly best represented by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Geneva Conventions governing humanitarian laws during wartime. In practice, however, liberalism is a framework of selective empathy and the selective application of liberation depending on race, nationality, religion, and gender (etc). Western feminist organizations rallied around the stories of mass rape of Israeli women on October 7th which have been found to be false but have remained largely silent to the deaths of 25,000 Palestinian women and children and the rapes and killings of Palestinian women. True, many of these organizations have sought to protect their funding from Zionist backlash should they speak the truth, but their silence was utterly deafening. For months, barely a peep was uttered and continues to be uttered about the crimes being committed against Palestinian women and their children that the International Court of Justice has warned might amount to genocide.

This realization about liberalism’s truth-telling or unveiling has made me reflect further on western sexual liberation. Are westerners and those societies that widely adopt western liberal values really that sexually liberated? Dating apps seem to epitomize sexual liberation and yet, as my broken record lecture to my single friends suggests, because I am a long-time proponent of sex only in marriage or a deeply committed relationship, women lose their power when they offer their bodies to men who are not committed to them and often for sex that is completely unfulfilling and one sided, usually designed for the short-term pleasure of the man. On this, it should be noted that women release oxytocin during an orgasm which is the bonding hormone, but men don’t release oxytocin during an orgasm unless they love the woman. This is one reason why sex in non-committed relationships is disempowering for women. Women get attached and their partner does not. We have all heard tales of this dynamic which fuel an entire industry trying to manage people’s relationship disappointments and confusions about love. This is apparent sexual liberation that is actually repression of the self.

Bringing this back around to the social and political sphere, repression of one’s physical, psychological, and higher self might be at the heart of all social and political ills. In my mind, there is an emerging thread between what is happening in Gaza and the unbelievable lack of empathy among western political elites on Palestinian human rights and other socially repressive behavior such as female genital mutilation (FGM) which I advocate against in my art and music. Let’s take the selective empathy of western liberalism on gender-based violence and the selective empathy of the patriarchies that condone and sanctify gender-based violence. The Gambia parliament is, right now, tabling a motion to reverse a ban on FGM that was implemented in 2015. Should this ban be reversed, this would be the first time in human history that a anti-FGM policy designed to protect girls’ human rights is turned back to the stone ages. My central question to these two highly divergent frameworks is, since your liberation is not universal in application, whose liberation are you in favor of?

I am personally in favor of everyone being liberated. I also believe that repression of self takes many forms and is the source of a myriad of issues in our society. Let’s dive into sexual liberation for its own sake. 

In the previous article, I talked about Margo Anand’s pioneering work, The Art of Sexual Magic. In a world where people are quite literally at war with women’s sexual organs and women’s sexuality, one of the most revolutionary acts a person can do is to double down on women's bodies' legitimacy and significance. Sexual liberation in safe, committed contexts is a vehicle for self-knowledge, divine connections, enhanced consciousness, and realizing dreams and goals. Anand cites Chogyam Trungp, “Western culture splits the feminine between the prostitute and the madonna. In Tantra, we see the emergence of female images which are sexual and spiritual, ecstatic and intelligent, wrathful and peaceful” (Anand, 1995: 28). Accessing ecstatic union is about cultivating an energized space where primordial wisdom and the divine feminine can be accessed to transcend the limitations of the human ego to build union with all things in the cosmos and/or to manifest earthly desires.

In contemporary liberalized relationships and patriarchy, there is an ironic capacity in both to call the instant gratification of the lovers, sexual grounding. In most patriarchal contexts, there is not a heavy emphasis on the experience of the woman in love-making, at best it is an afterthought, made subservient to the man’s experience with dire consequences for the woman’s sense of self-worth. Women in liberal contexts often delude themselves into thinking that giving a man sexual access to her body and orgasming with him is empowerment and personal expression. A counter-culture on this assumption is emerging in western society that is repeatedly warning that, in fact, deep psychological, physical, and spiritual connections are what creates the transformative potential of sexual magic and, by extension, long-term relationships.

Anand writes,

"This inability to honor the woman as an equal is, in my opinion, the main reason why initial attempts to practice sexual magic in Western culture have failed. It is the love between a man and a woman, working together as coexplorers, sharing together as intimate partners, that introduces the quality of the heart into sexual union. Without it, sexual magic tends to be used as a way of boosting the individual’s sense of power, control, and sexual prowess, often becoming a self-destructive addiction."

Today, women have the opportunity to enjoy sexual magic on the same terms of their male partners. This is important in terms of engaging the sexual energy of both partners, for as long as either one plays a subservient role the creative power of their sexuality cannot be fully tapped, released, and channeled into magic (Anand, 1995: 31).

Given the fact that men do not bond with women through sex if they do not love them, one wonders why women continue to engage in practices that rob them of their heartfelt desires for deep and meaningful companionship with a man who is seeking sex to release his testosterone in order to build his own temporary and fleeting sense of power. So much of a woman’s power starts and ends with sex, how available she makes herself and to whom.

So, let’s get into some of the core premises of the art of sexual magic which will be covered over a series of newsletters. Everything on this planet and in our universe is made of energy. Some this energy vibrates in ways that make things appear concrete and accessible to our five senses. The table that I am typing this newsletter on is one example of this kind of energy or my human perception of concreteness. Other energy exists in unseen ways, creating a force field that holds all things together through the expression of divine and human will.

Anand refers to this force field as the Astral Network. It is a “continuously vibrating web of gravitational and electromagnetic fields that includes not only all material objects but space and time as well” (Anand, 1995: 32). In this vibrating network, all matter is energy capable of transforming into new things. This Astral Network or web of morphic fields can be perceived as rigid where events unfold in particular and unchangeable ways, or it can be perceived as a field of pure potentiality where human beings can use their intention to create new realities. When human beings create a vision that resonates with a particular morphic field with the larger energetic fields of the Universe, these smaller morphic fields can respond sympathetically to our desires. One reason that sexual energy is so powerful is because it can magnetize and charge a vision within this energetic web. Sexual energy rather than just positive affirmations can be an enduring fuel for manifesting a vision into reality.

If you seek to utilize this energetic field to get what you want in life, it is important to convert your desires into a blueprint that then becomes a symbol that can be held in your (and possibly your partner’s) mind during lovemaking. The symbol is yours to own and conceive. It is relevant to your reality and life experience. What matters is that you repeatedly invoke the symbol during sex (or when you are alone), free yourself of control and inhibitions, and let it be the thing that enters the deepest recesses of your mind when you orgasm. See what happens over time. Write your experiences and discoveries down in a journal. Your dreams are so accessible. I encourage you to be courageous in using this practice to manifest what you want in life.