num_pages: 22
description: This is a revised version of a paper read at the 3rd International Conference of the Association for the Study of Esotericism (Charleston, SC: May 29 – June 1, 2008).There is a great deal of difference between the theory and practice of Indian tantra and the sexual magick associated with the exploits of Aleister Crowley. However, as Hugh Urban has argued on several occasions, a curious outcome of Crowley’s influence on Western esoteric traditions lies precisely in the (re)interpretation of tantric teachings as being centered on the ritual use of sex. Contemporary Western “neo-tantra” seems to be even more emphatically oriented towards the pursuit of prolonged orgasmic pleasure, an attitude that often provokes outright dismissals of this type of spirituality as inauthentic and based on misunderstanding. Nevertheless, there is an interesting parallel, a sort of mirroring, between ideas about the properties of human seed in certain traditions of tantric yoga and in Crowley’s teachings. In both cases, the male seed is considered to have great magical power and, in the final instance, ambrosial attributes. But the reflected image is upside-down: while the yogis attempt to sublimate the sperm by forcing it to traverse upwards from the genitals to the head, where it turns into elixir of immortality, in Crowley’s case the sperm moves downwards, it is ejected and made use of as elixir in its material form.In other words the yogis, and I have in mind particularly the Nāth Siddha yogis, are predominantly engaged in the transformation of the semen from the gross into the subtle form. The method thus consists of the spiritualization of the material: in Western alchemical terms, and with respect to the famous formula of solve et coagula, this process may be designated as solve. It may also be considered as the path of the serpent, which may be related to the “serpent power”, kuṇḍalinī, which—when “awakened”—rises from the lowest cakra at the base of the spine to the top of the head. In Crowley’s case, conversely, the material form of the semen is sanctified as a form of Eucharist and taken, inter alia, as a symbolic representation of the natural human body that has become divine. We may interpret this other method as the materialization of the spiritual, or, in alchemical terms, coagula. This may also be designated as the path of the dove, which may be related to the descending dove represented on the seal of Crowley’s magical order Ordo Templi Orientis In this paper, my intention is to explore formal characteristics and implications of this thematic parallel and these methodological differences.
language: English
title: Solve et Coagula: Attitudes Toward the Ambrosial Aspects of Human Seed in Certain Yogic Traditions and in the Sexual Magick of Aleister Crowley
publisher: Koninklijke Brill NV