Most of the older religions drip with sex; while the Christian New Testament might be a liturgical exception, a good majority of our global traditions are fueled by lust. To deny the primal, biological instinct for intimacy is almost a denial of life itself. We are primed, pumped and prone to fall head over heels in physical love. If you’re lucky, you find someone who can reciprocate. And that’s where the power of Svadisthana, the second Chakra, lies.

Sex magic can be traced back throughout antiquity. For instance, the Egyptian myth of the birth of Horus, the child of Isis and Osiris, centers on a wooden dildo (Isis had to physically re-member Osiris. She found all of his anatomical parts, save one).

If you’ve been following our Monday Moonsday posts, you know that Zeus/Jupiter has a habit of exchanging sex for favors, though curses often came along the way.

Moving into the 20th century, we find Jack Parsons and L.Ron Hubbard (yep, Lord Xenu himself) engaged in a masturbatory ceremony designed to invoke the Scarlet Woman (more on that later, along with a primer on Chaos/Sigil magic).

Forget all that for now: long story short, sex and magic share the same beats.

This is core to Tantric cosmology: some religions have a god; some religions have a goddess. Tantra insists on both.

Called Purusa (consciousness) and Prkriti (matter), Tantra depicts a universe in which these two opposing forces playfully create all of space and time. This love play, called Leela, stands in stark contrast to the more bleak conception of Maya, or Illusion. In a Maya centered world view, life is a something to be escaped; from the Tantric view, life is something to be cherished and enjoyed. Tantra presents a take on life in which sex is sacred, life is beautiful, and mortality is sweet, because it defines who we are by placing finite limits on us. We are born, we live, and we die. Tantra embraces these facts, acknowledging the truth of mortality while taking in the counter-point:

Love beats death, at least in the movies. Or so the poets say…

So now, onto the magic…

If you want to project your will (which is the central theme of the next Chakra, Manipura, which we’ll dive into next week), you have to start with projecting sexual energy, rhythmically.

So how do you do it?

You find an image. You find a sound.  From a Tantric perspective, here is an example:

That is the sacred image, or mandala, and this is the corresponding sacred sound, known as a mantra: Vam.

It dances to the rhythm of Svadisthana, the second Chakra.

Love is a prayer, sex is a gift;

Use with wonder, use with care..

Aum.