The practice of Western Tantra, outlined in my book "Secrets of Western Tantra", is a powerful method of bringing love and sex back together without the obligation of commitment as instilled by our culture. The only commitment is to the Third principle in Tantra -- the God-Form -- the Essence. It is transpersonal. By this I do not mean that a couple should not have a commitment to each other, but that the WORK doesn't require ordinary forms of commitment. What it requires is the desire that sex and love be one as an experience. This is accomplished when there is orgastic response and not a mere sexual response.

Western Tantra heals the mind/body split by allowing the true nature and power of instinct to live. When we do this, Instinct itself is transformed and the true gifts of human life become accessible. The fear of being overwhelmed or taken over by the power of the instincts no longer terrifies the individual who is then free to consciously participate in his or her own evolution. Repression and denial are replaced with differentiation. This creative function also allows us to see the true nature of instincts. Instead of perceiving them as being opposed to consciousness and civilization as we have been taught from the Christian-Judeo world-view, we see them as the loving root from which rationality itself springs.

We begin to see our development and yearn for the opportunity to embrace our multiplicity in a more holistic fashion, and the world of either/or becomes the greatest fiction.

Love, Death, & Sex: Another Taboo

True orgastic bliss is very similar to death. The only reason death should be feared is that most people have never lived. Joy in death, letting go completely, is akin to the results obtained by practicing Western Tantra. However, orgastic bliss can only be experienced if love and sex become one. Much like love and sex have been split in the Western world, life and death have been split. Complete orgasm embraces and heals the splits between life/death and sex/love. Once the healing has occurred the need for and dependence on ordinary religion also vanishes. Thus the priests and the politicians have fought hard against the orgastic response. This is even true of many forms of Eastern Tantra, as well as the ancient Kabbalists who realized the power and implications of the sex act. (However, both groups demand the giving up of pleasure, and/or the sanction of the priest.)

Western Tantra as described in this book demands neither. It combines aspects of the Kabbalah with the discipline of Eastern Tantra. More importantly it provides the methods necessary for freeing the body/mind from the pains and chains of early training. Thus it functions first as an Opening, then a Meditation and then Death. The Death I speak of is the Death of Union, where all division merges back into itself.

• Complete orgasm is a Death. 

• Complete orgasm is a Birth. 

• Complete orgasm is Life.

Western Tantra is a means of returning to the awareness of the Primal Urge, the Alpha -- Ain Soph, the creator of form.

Form becomes a deadly illusion when it "acts" as if it is the Essence. Form is simply the playground of the silent beginnings. The Essence can not be known. It is not part of the TimeSpace continuum.

When form "thinks" itself the essence, then it is time for it to dissolve. Complete orgasm takes one back to the "beginnings" -- the primal urge of unity desiring to know itself through its possibilities. When form, be it a person or a social institution is willing to let go -- to die -- then death is not painful. Pain is a result of a struggle, the belief that the form is the essence.

Dr. Regardie used to say that when a student studies the Kabbalah he begins to believe in the validity of its categories. If he studies enough and studies well, all the categories collapse. In this sense, and in this sense only, does he experience a Satori. From this point of view Kabbalah is like Zen. However, the danger is that most students do not get past the first few steps.

Death in the sense that Westerners view it is an illusion. This illusion results from believing the form to be the essence. This is a necessary device by which Spirit enjoys itself. However, the forming process and the disintegration process are only process.

They are not things. Death as we understand it can only happen to things, not to processes. Ultimate orgasm removes the Thingness from life and throws you back to the Primal Process -- The No-Thing.

All form is necessary as part of the process of experience. The danger lies only in losing awareness that form is simply form -- the way in which the Essence knows and experiences its Infinite Possibilities. In Spiritual as well as Mundane matters, humans have the awful tendency of really believing that the form is the essence. One doesn't have to look far to find this. Churches, governments, families, jobs, words, all are forms which have been mistaken for the Essence. Unless this process is slowed down or more deeply understood, man himself will become more of a thing to be processed and engineered in service of the Form. This is the true Fall, believing words are knowledge and that knowledge is Essence. An interesting way of understanding that the form is not the essence is the following model.

The shell of an egg contains the living primal force. The shell is also an aspect of that primal force. If the shell is too hard the new being can not break out. If the shell is too soft the new being cannot be protected. 

The image of a new being emerging from the shell is the image I would like you to keep in mind. Get a feeling of this image. Now imagine that you are breaking out. Use the shell as food, as energy to help you reach the next step. As YOU reach the next step do not allow the new shell that you have created along the way to hold you back. Break out of it. Let go of it. Emerge again, again and again. Once you believe that the shell you have made along the journey is the primal force then you are no longer alive.