Chapter Four
The observations from LSD psychotherapy and from the experiential nondrug techniques have shed new light on the conceptual controversies among the competing schools of depth psychology by providing unique insights into the complex and multilevel structure of various psychopathological syndromes. The rapid and elemental, spontaneous unfolding of the therapeutic process that characterizes most of these innovations of psychotherapy minimizes the distortions and restrictions imposed on the patient during verbal forms of therapy. The material that emerges through these new approaches seems to reflect more genuinely the actual dynamic constellations underlying clinical symptoms and frequently comes as a total surprise to the therapist, instead of bearing out his or her conceptual bias.
In general, the architecture of psychopathology manifested under these new techniques is infinitely more intricate and ramified than it appears in the models presented by any of the individual schools of depth psychology. Although each of the conceptual frameworks of these schools is right in a certain limited sense, none depicts correctly the true state of affairs. In order to reflect adequately the network of unconscious processes that underlie the psychopathological conditions encountered in clinical psychiatry, one must think in terms of the extended cartography of the psyche described earlier; it encompasses not only the analytical-recollective biographical level, but also the perinatal matrices and the entire spectrum of the transpersonal domain.
Observations from experiential psychotherapies clearly suggest that very few emotional and psychosomatic syndromes can be explained solely from the dynamics of the individual unconscious. Because psychotherapeutic schools do not acknowledge transbiographical sources of psychopathology, they have very superficial and incomplete models of the human mind. Moreover, therapists of these schools are not fully effective in their work with patients because they do not utilize the powerful therapeutic mechanisms available on the perinatal and transpersonal level. There is a wide range of clinical problems that have their deep roots in the dynamics of the death-rebirth process. They are meaningfully related to the trauma of birth and to fear of death and can be therapeutically influenced by experiential confrontation with the perinatal level of the unconscious. Thus, systems of psychotherapy that incorporate the perinatal dimension have, ceteris paribus, a much greater therapeutic potential than those limited to biographical exploration and manipulation.
However, many emotional, psychosomatic, and interpersonal problems are dynamically anchored in the transpersonal realms of the human psyche. Only those therapists who acknowledge the healing power of transpersonal experiences and respect the spiritual dimensions of the human psyche can expect success with patients whose problems fall into this category. In many instances, psycho-pathological symptoms and syndromes show a complex, multilevel dynamic structure and are meaningfully connected with all the major areas of the unconscious—the biographical, perinatal, and transpersonal. To work effectively with problems of this kind, a therapist must be prepared to acknowledge and confront successively the material from all these levels; this requires great flexibility as well as freedom from conceptual orthodoxy.
In presenting the new insights into the “architecture of psychopathology,” I will first focus on the problems of sexuality and aggression, because these two aspects of human life have played a crucial role in the theoretical speculations of Freud and many of his followers. Succeeding sections will systematically describe specific emotional disorders, including depressions, psychoneuroses, psychosomatic diseases, and psychoses.
The sexual drive, or libido, in its manifold manifestations and transformations, occupies an extremely significant role in psychoanalytic speculations. Freud, in his classic study, Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality (1953a), traced the problems of human sexuality back to their origins in the early stages of infantile psychosexual development. He postulated that the child passes successively through several distinct stages of libidinal organization, each of which has an association with one of the erogenous zones. In the course of psychosexual evolution, the child thus derives primary instinctual satisfaction, first, from oral activities and, later, from anal and urethral functions during toilet training. At the time of the oedipal crisis, the libidinal attention shifts to the phallic area and the penis, or the clitoris, becomes the dominant focus. If this development is normal, the individual’s partial drives—oral, anal, and urethral— are at this stage integrated under the hegemony of the genital drive.
Traumatic influences and psychological interferences in various stages of this development can result in fixations and conflicts conducive to later disturbances of sexual life and specific psycho-neuroses. Freud and his followers have elaborated an intricate dynamic taxonomy linking specific emotional and psychosomatic disorders to fixations in various stages of libidinal development and to the history of the ego. In everyday psychoanalytic practice, the relevance of these fixed connections has been repeatedly confirmed by the patients’ free associations. Any theory that would challenge the explanatory system of psychoanalysis must deal with the problem of why sexuality and biographical data of a specific kind seem to show a uniquely causal connection in regard to various psychopathological syndromes, and it must offer a convincing alternative interpretation of this fact.
A close look at the history of psychoanalysis shows that several of Freud’s followers felt the need to modify the ideas he put forward in his Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality. It became obvious that Freud’s descriptions of the individual stages of libidinal development and their implications for psychopathology represented ideal abstractions that did not exactly match the observations from daily psychoanalytic practice. In the actual clinical pictures presented by psychiatric patients, the problems related to various erogenous zones do not come in a pure form, but are intimately interwoven. For example, many patients tend to block sexual orgasm for fear of losing control over the urinary bladder; for anatomical reasons, this fear is far more common in women. In other instances, the fear of letting go in a sexual orgasm is associated with concerns about inadvertant passing of intestinal gas or even about loss of bowel control. In some patients, analysis of the factors underlying the inability to achieve erection or orgasm reveals a deep-seated and primitive unconscious fear that the loss of control involved would result in the act of devouring the partner, or in being devoured.
Sandor Ferenczi attempted to explain these and similar clinical problems in his extraordinary essay, “Thalassa” (1938). He postulated that the originally separate activities in the individual erogenous zones can show secondary fusion and functional overlapping, which he called amphimixis. In basic agreement with the theories of Otto Rank (1929), Ferenczi also believed that a full psychological understanding of sexuality must include an unconscious tendency to undo the trauma of birth and return to the maternal womb. However, he was even more radical than Rank in recognizing behind this intrauterine regressive tendency a deeper phylogenetic drive to return to the conditions that had existed in the primeval ocean.
Wilhelm Reich (1961) generally accepted Freud’s emphasis on the sexual drive, but saw it as an almost hydraulic force that had to be freed by direct energetic manipulation if therapeutic effects were to be achieved. Two more important revisions of Freud’s sexual theory by his disciples should be mentioned. Alfred Adler’s psychology (1932) put primary emphasis on the inferiority complex and will to power; for him sexuality was subservient to the power complex. The most far-reaching criticism of Freud’s sexual theory came from Carl Gustav Jung (1956), for whom libido was not a biological force but a manifestation of a cosmic principle comparable to élan vital.
The observations from psychedelic therapy and some of the experiential nondrug techniques present sexuality and sexual problems in an entirely new light; they strongly suggest that these problems are far more complex than any of the previous theories suspected. As long as the process of self-exploration remains focused on the biographical level, the experiential material emerging from these therapeutic sessions seems to support the Freudian theory. However, only seldom can one see significant therapeutic results in patients with sexual disorders and deviations, as long as the sessions focus primarily on biographical issues. Patients working on sexual problems will sooner or later discover the deeper roots of their difficulties, on the level of perinatal dynamics or even in various transpersonal realms.
Conditions that involve considerable reduction or total absence of libidinal drive and sexual appetite are typically associated with deep depressions.1 As we will discuss later, this usually indicates a deep dynamic connection with BPM II. An individual under the influence of the second perinatal matrix experiences total emotional isolation from the environment and complete blockage of energy flow; both of these conditions effectively prevent the development of sexual interest and the experience of sexual excitement. Under these circumstances, one can frequently hear that sexual activity is the last thing in the world the individual would possibly consider. However, sexual material from the past or present life often emerges in this condition and is reviewed by the individual in the negative context of agonizing guilt and disgust. Occasionally, depressive states with lack of sexual interest can also have transpersonal roots.
Most of the serious disturbances and deviations of sexuality are psychogenetically connected with BPM III; the understanding of this liaison requires a discussion of the deep relationship between the pattern of sexual orgasm and the dynamics of this matrix. Extreme amounts of libidinal tension, and driving energy in general, represent one of the most important characteristics of the final stages of the death-rebirth process and constitute an intrinsic and integral aspect of BPM III. This tension can take the form of undifferentiated energy that permeates the entire organism or find, in addition, a more focused manifestation in the individual erogenous zones—oral, anal, urethral, or genital.
As described earlier, the phenomenology of the third perinatal matrix combines the elements of titanic fight, destructive and self-destructive tendencies, a sadomasochistic mixture of aggressive and erotic impulses, a variety of deviant sexual drives, demonic themes, and scatological preoccupation. In addition, this unusually rich combination of emotions and sensations occurs in the context of a deep confrontation with death and reliving of birth, which entails extreme physical pain and vital anxiety. The above connections represent a natural basis for the development of all clinical conditions in which sexuality is intimately linked with, and contaminated by, anxiety, aggression, suffering, guilt, or preoccupation with such biological material as urine, feces, blood, or genital excretions. A simultaneous activation of all erogenous zones in the context of perinatal unfolding can also explain why many clinical disorders are characterized by a functional overlapping of the activities in the oral, anal, urethral, and genital areas.
The deep functional interconnectedness of all the major erogenous zones in the context of biological delivery—for both the mother and the child—is clearly manifested in situations where the preparation of the mother does not involve enema and catheterization. Under these circumstances, the mother can not only experience a powerful sexual orgastic release, but also pass gas, defecate, and urinate. In a similar way, the child can show reflex urination and pass fetal feces, or meconium. If we include intensive activation of the oral zone and engagement of the chewing muscles that occur in both mother and child during the final stages of the birth process, and the buildup and release of sexual energy in the child generated by suffocation and extreme pain, we have the image of a total functional and experiential amalgam of all major activities that Freud refers to as erogenous.2
The clinical observations that Sandor Ferenczi tried to relate to the secondary fusion of partial drives, or amphimixis, simply reflect the fact that the Freudian successive development of activities in the erogenous zones is superimposed on the dynamics of the perinatal matrices, where all the functions involved are engaged simultaneously. The main key to a deeper understanding of the psychology and psychopathology of sex is the fact that, on the perinatal level of the unconscious, sexuality is intimately and inextricably connected with the sensations and emotions associated with both birth and death. Any theoretical or practical approach to sexual problems that fails to recognize this fundamental liaison and treats sexuality in isolation from these other two fundamental aspects of life is necessarily incomplete, superficial, and of limited efficacy.
The association of sex with birth and death and the deep involvement of sexual energy in the psychological death-rebirth process are not easy to explain. However, the existence of this link is unquestionable and can be illustrated by numerous examples from anthropology, history, mythology, and clinical psychiatry. The emphasis on the triad of birth, sex, and death seems to be the common denominator in all the rites of passage of various preindustrial cultures, temple mysteries, rituals of ecstatic religions, and initiation into secret societies. In mythology, male deities symbolizing death and rebirth, such as Osiris and Shiva, are frequently represented with an erect phallus; similarly, there are important female goddesses whose functions reflect these same connections. The Indian goddess Kali, Middle-Eastern Astarte, and pre-Columbian Tlacolteutl are important examples. Observations of delivering women show that the experience of childbirth has a very important sexual component, as well as a strong element of the fear of death. This connection does not seem particularly mysterious, since the genital area is instrumental in the process of delivery, and passage of the child obviously entails a strong stimulation of the uterus and vagina, with a powerful buildup and subsequent release of tension. Also, the element of death is clearly logical, since childbirth is a serious biological event that occasionally endangers the life of the mother.
However, it is far from clear why the reliving of one’s own biological birth should involve a strong sexual component. It seems that this connection reflects a deep physiological mechanism built into the human organism; its existence can be illustrated by examples from many different areas. Thus, extreme physical agony, especially if it is associated with severe suffocation, tends to elicit intense sexual arousal and even religious ecstasy. Many psychiatric patients who have tried to commit suicide by hanging themselves and were rescued in the last moment, have related retrospectively that a high degree of suffocation resulted in excessive sexual excitation. It is also well known that male criminals dying on the gallows tend to have erections and even ejaculations during the terminal agony. Patients suffering from the so-called bondage syndrome feel a deep need to experience sexual release in connection with physical confinement and choking. Others use various contraptions, such as scarves and nooses attached to nails, doorknobs, or branches that enable them to masturbate while they experience strangulation.
It seems that all human beings, when subjected to extreme physical and emotional tortures, have the capacity to transcend suffering and reach a state of strange ecstasy (Sargant 1957). This fact can be documented by observations from the Nazi concentration camps, where human subjects were used for bestial experiments, by material from Amnesty International, as well as reports of American soldiers who were tortured by the Japanese in the Second World War, or as prisoners of war during the Korean and Vietnamese conflicts. Similarly, members of the religious sects of flagellants have all through the ages severely tortured themselves and their peers to evoke strong libidinal feelings, states of ecstatic rapture, and eventually the experience of union with God. Experiential transcendence of inhuman suffering in the religiously motivated torture and death of martyrs also falls into this category. Many other examples of spiritual pathology could be mentioned in which self-mutilation, torture, sacrifice, sexuality, fear-provoking procedures, and scatological maneuvers are combined into a strange experiential amalgam and woven into the fabric of religious or quasi-religious ceremonies.
Additional observations of a similar kind are related to the psychology of wars, revolutions, and totalitarian systems. Thus, the atmosphere of vital danger in bloody battles tends to induce sexual excitement in many soldiers. At the same time, the unleashing of the aggressive and sexual impulse in war situations seems to be associated with perinatal elements. The speeches of military leaders and politicians declaring wars and igniting masses for bloody revolutions abound in metaphors pertaining to biological birth. The atmosphere of concentration camps combines sexual, sadistic, and scatological elements in a most unusual way. The sociopolitical implications of these facts are discussed in detail in chapter 8.
A possible neurophysiological basis of such phenomena might be the anatomical arrangement and functional characteristics of the limbic system of the brain. This archaic part of the central nervous system contains in close association areas that are instrumental in the self-preservation of the organism, and thus related to aggression, and those that play an important role in the preservation of the species, and are thus connected with sexuality. It is conceivable that these centers could be stimulated simultaneously, or that the excitation of one could spill over to the other.
The rich spectrum of phenomena related to human sexuality cannot be adequately described and explained, if theoretical speculations remain limited to elements of biological nature and to biographically determined psychological factors. The observations from psychedelic psychotherapy demonstrate beyond any doubt that, subjectively, sexuality can be experienced on many different levels of consciousness and in many different ways, although its biological, physiological, and behavioral manifestations might appear quite similar to an external observer. Comprehensive understanding of sexuality is impossible without an intimate knowledge of the dynamics of the perinatal and transpersonal levels of the unconscious.
In what follows, I will focus on various sexual experiences and behaviors and discuss them in the light of observations from modern consciousness research conducted both with and without the use of psychedelic drugs. The problems involved fall into the following thematic categories: (1) “normal” sexuality; (2) disorders and dysfunctions of sexual life; (3) sexual variations, deviations, and perversions; and (4) transpersonal forms of sexuality.
1. “Normal” sexuality. Although it is generally recognized that a full sexual experience should involve more than merely adequate biological functioning, present medical criteria for sexual normalcy are somewhat mechanical and limited. They do not involve such elements as deep respect for the partner, a sense of synergy and emotional reciprocity, or feelings of love and unity in the everyday interaction between partners, or during sexual intercourse. It is generally considered sufficient for adequate sexual functioning, if a male is capable of developing an erection and maintaining it for a reasonable amount of time before ejaculation. Similarly, women are expected to respond to a sexual situation by an adequate lubrication of the genitals and the ability to reach a vaginal orgasm. The concept of normalcy for both sexes also entails heterosexual preference and a sufficient degree of sexual appetite to perform the sexual act with statistically established average frequency.
LSD subjects and individuals undergoing experiential psychotherapy frequently experience profound sexual changes during the course of treatment. Sooner or later, their understanding of sexuality expands considerably and they find these criteria superficial, insufficient, and problematic. They discover that the sexual orgasm, male or female, is not an all-or-none phenomenon: there are many degrees of both the intensity of the experience and the completeness of release. In many instances, individuals who, before therapy, thought they had adequate sexual orgasms experience a surprising increase of orgastic potency. This is usually directly related to a new capacity of surrendering to the process and the letting go that occurs as a result of the experiences of death-rebirth and of cosmic unity.
Another important insight involves the fact that our present definition of normal sex does not exclude even severe contamination of the sexual situation by preoccupation with dominance versus submission, use of sex for a variety of nonsexual goals, and maneuvers that have more relevance for self-esteem than for sexual gratification. In our culture individuals of both sexes commonly use military concepts and terminology in referring to sexual activities. They interpret the sexual situation in terms of victory or defeat; conquering or penetrating the partner, and, conversely, being defeated and violated; and proving oneself or failure. Concerns about who seduced whom and who won, in this situation, can all but overshadow the question of sexual gratification.
Similarly, material gains, or pursuit of a career, status, fame, or power can completely override more genuine erotic motives. When sex is subordinated to self-esteem, sexual interest in the partner may entirely disappear once the “conquest” has been accomplished or the number of partners seduced becomes more important than the quality of interaction. Moreover, the fact that the partner is not approachable or is deeply committed to another person can become a decisive element of sexual attraction.
According to the insights from psychedelic therapy, competition, maneuvers involving self-esteem, lack of respect for the partner, selfish exploitation, or mechanical emphasis on discharge of tension during sexual interaction—all represent serious distortions and reflect a tragic misunderstanding of the nature of the sexual union. Such a contamination of sexuality usually has important biographical determinants, that is, specific traumatic memories from childhood; however, the roots of such problems always reach deep into the perinatal level of the unconscious. When the perinatal energies are discharged and the content of the perinatal matrices is worked through and integrated, individuals automatically move to a synergistic and complementary understanding of sex.
To persons so integrated, it becomes absolutely clear that there cannot be selective victories or losses in a genuine sexual interaction. Since it is by definition a complementary situation that involves mutual satisfaction of various categories of needs, both partners are either winners or losers, depending on circumstances. Sexuality can be experienced in many different contexts and it can satisfy an entire spectrum of hierarchically arranged needs that range from the biological to the transcendental. Sexual interaction that focuses only on primitive needs is less a problem of moral inferiority than one of ignorance and missed opportunity. High forms of sexual communication that satisfy the entire range of human needs necessarily have a spiritual emphasis and involve the archetypal dimensions, as it occurs in the oceanic and tantric sex described later in this section.
2. Disorders and dysfunctions of sexual life. In the course of LSD psychotherapy and other forms of deep experiential treatment, the sexual life of clients undergoes dramatic changes. These involve both sexual experiences and behavior during the therapeutic sessions and dynamic shifts that can be observed in the intervals between treatments. In certain stages of therapy, various sexual disorders can be alleviated, completely disappear, or be strikingly transformed and modified. Conversely, confrontation of certain areas of the unconscious can be associated with the appearance of new symptoms and difficulties in sexual life that the client had not had before. Careful observation and study of these dynamic changes and oscillations offer unique insights into the dynamic structure of sexual functioning and malfunctioning.
It has already been mentioned that the dynamic influence of BPM II is associated with a deep inhibition of sexual life. When the client is experiencing elements of the second perinatal matrix toward the end of a therapeutic session and does not reach resolution, he or she can show in the postsession interval symptoms of an inhibited depression, characterized by a total lack of libido and disinterest in sex. In addition, under these circumstances, anything related to sexuality may be perceived as illicit, dirty, sinful, disgusting, and fraught with guilt. Although one might find more superficial biographical determinants that seemingly explain the presence of this problem in a patient, the therapeutic context in which it occurs clearly suggests that it is rooted in BPM II.
Most functional disturbances of sex seem to be related to the dynamics of the third perinatal matrix and can be logically understood from its basic characteristics, described in chapter 2. When, during the termination period of a therapeutic session, a person is under the influence of the sexual facet of BPM III and does not reach resolution in the transition to BPM IV, this can result in an enormous increase of sexual appetite, which is clinically termed “satyriasis” or “nymphomania.” In this condition, the insatiable drive for repeated sexual intercourse is typically associated with a sense of incomplete release and lack of satisfaction following sexual orgasm. It thus represents a strange combination of hypersexuality with orgastic impotence. On closer inspection, it becomes obvious that this situation appears sexual only on the surface; in reality, it is pseudosexual and has very little to do with sex in a narrower sense. The core of the problem is that the individual is flooded with perinatal energies that are seeking discharge through any possible means. Because of the similarity between the pattern of sexual orgasm and the orgasm of birth, the genitals, under these circumstances, become an ideal channel for peripheral discharge of these energies. Since the reservoirs of perinatal energies are enormous, repeated sexual intercourse and even orgasms bring no relief or satisfaction.
It is not uncommon under these circumstances for a male to have sexual intercourse as many as fifteen times in a single night and have a complete but unsatisfactory orgasm each time. Within a matter of minutes after coitus, the perinatal energies, present in enormous quantities, tend to recreate a state of tension sufficient to induce an erection and initiate another intercourse. Hypersexuality of this kind in both men and women is frequently associated with promiscuity. This seems to be related to the fact that because of the lack of orgastic release the sexual act is unsatisfactory. It is common under these circumstances to blame the partner instead of recognizing that the real problem is the perinatal outpouring of energy. Frequent change of partners also seems to reflect a tendency to compensate for an abysmally low self-esteem that is typically associated with the perinatal unfolding, as well as a strong drive toward erratic behavior due to chaotic energies seeking discharge.
If the intensity of the perinatal energies is excessive, the possibility of discharge can be perceived as extremely dangerous, although the nature of this danger might not be clearly defined. Under these circumstances the individual might sense deep fear of losing control of these elemental forces and unconsciously block the sexual experience. Since the discharge pattern of perinatal energies is inextricably connected with the pattern of sexual orgasm, this situation will result, for men, in an inability to achieve or maintain an erection and, for women, in an absence of sexual orgasm—conditions that old psychiatry and colloquial jargon refer to as “impotence” and “frigidity.” Traditionally, impotence was seen as a symptom of energetic deficiency or lack of masculine power, and frigidity was interpreted as a lack of erotic sensitivity and of sexual responsiveness. However, these concepts are completely erroneous and, as a matter of fact, could not be further from the truth.
Impotence and frigidity of psychogenic origin are due to the exact opposite—a tremendous excess of driving sexual energy. The problem is not only the enormous amount of these feelings and sensations, but also that they express not pure sexual energy but sexually colored perinatal energy. Consequently, this driving energy is associated with sadomasochistic impulses, vital anxiety, profound guilt, fear of loss of control, and a gamut of psychosomatic symptoms characteristic of BPM III. These involve fear of suffocation, cardiovascular distress, painful muscular and intestinal spasms, uterine cramps, and concerns about loss of control over the bladder or anal sphincter. In the last analysis, this energy represents the unfinished gestalt of birth and an organismic state of vital threat.
A person suffering from impotence or frigidity, then, does not lack sexual energy, but is literally sitting on a volcano of instinctual forces. Since, under these circumstances, the sexual orgasm cannot be experienced in isolation from these forces, letting go in orgasm would unleash an experiential inferno. The unconscious fear of orgasm and loss of control thus becomes equivalent with the fear of death and destruction.
This new interpretation of frigidity and impotence is supported by the dynamics of therapeutic changes observed in the course of successful treatment. When the excess of perinatal energies is discharged in a structured nonsexual situation, one can observe the development of transient hypersexuality—satyriasis or nymphomania—before the client reaches a state in which the remaining sexual energies can be comfortably handled in a sexual context. Finally, when in the course of the death-rebirth process the individual experiences elements of BPM IV and BPM I, he or she becomes fully sexually competent and, in addition, the orgastic ability tends to reach unusual heights.
In psychoanalytic literature, the problem of impotence is closely related to the castration complex and to the concept of vagina dentata, or the vagina seen as a dangerous organ that is capable of killing or castrating. These issues deserve special attention from the point of view of the extended cartography of the unconscious that includes the perinatal level. There are certain aspects of the castration complex that classical psychoanalysis with its biographical orientation failed to explain in a satisfactory way. The castration complex can be found in both sexes; Freud presumed that males experienced actual fear of losing the penis, while females unconsciously believed that they once had it and lost it because of bad behavior. He tried to relate this to the masochistic tendencies and greater proneness to guilt found in women. Another mysterious aspect of the castration complex is that, unconsciously, castration seems to be equated with death. Even if one accepts that the penis is, psychologically, grossly overestimated, its equivalence with life makes little sense. Moreover, in free associations of psychoanalytic patients, suffocation, separation, and loss of control seem to be images that occur in close connection with castration (Fenichel 1945).
Observations from LSD psychotherapy bring an unexpected solution to these inconsistencies; here, the castration fears represent only a biographical overlay and secondary elaboration of a far more fundamental problem. A deepening of the therapeutic process made possible by the catalyzing effect of psychedelics or some powerful nondrug techniques will inevitably reveal that the castration fears have their roots in the cutting of the umbilical cord. They are thus derivatives of a fundamental biological and psychological trauma of human existence that has life and death relevance. It is a common occurrence that typical castration themes, such as the memory of circumcision or the operation for preputial adhesions, develop into reliving of the umbilical crisis. This regularly involves sharp pains in the navel, radiating into the pelvis and projecting into the penis, testicles, and urinary bladder.3 These are frequently associated with fear of death, suffocation, and strange shifts in the body anatomy. In women, the umbilical crisis typically underlies memories of urinary infections, abortions, and uterine curettage. The reason why there can be experiential overlapping and confusion between perinatal umbilical sensations and genital or urinary pain seems to be an inability to localize pelvic pain clearly; this is true in general and in early developmental stages in particular.
Cutting the umbilical cord represents the final separation from the maternal organism and, thus, a biological transition of fundamental significance. Following it, the child must achieve a total anatomical and physiological reconstruction; it has to create its own system of oxygen supply, removal of waste products, and digestion of food. Once we realize that the castration fears are related to an actual memory of a biological event that has relevance for life and death, rather than to an imaginary loss of genitals, it is easy to understand some of their otherwise mysterious characteristics, mentioned earlier. It becomes immediately clear why these fears occur in both sexes, are closely associated with separation anxiety, are interchangeable with fear of death and annihilation, and why they suggest loss of breath and suffocation.
Also, the famous Freudian concept of the dentate vagina appears suddenly in an entirely new light when the cartography is extended beyond the biographical realms to include the perinatal matrices. In psychoanalytic literature the unconscious representation of the vagina as a dangerous organ that can damage, castrate, or kill is discussed as if it were an absurd and irrational fantasy of the naive child. Once the possibility is accepted that the memory of birth is recorded in the unconscious, this simply becomes a realistic evaluation. The delivery is a serious and potentially dangerous event, and during birth female genitals have killed or almost killed a number of children.
For a male in whom the memory of the birth trauma is too close to the surface, the image of the vagina as a murderous organ is so compelling that this organ cannot be seen and approached as a source of pleasure. The traumatic memory has to be relived and worked through before the way to women as sexual objects is free. A female psychologically close to the memory of her birth will have difficulty in accepting her own femininity, sexuality, and reproductive functions, because she associates being a woman and having a vagina with torture and murder. Working through the memory of the birth trauma is essential if she is to become comfortable with her sexuality and female role.
3. Sexual variations, deviations, and perversions. The inclusion of perinatal dynamics into the cartography of unconscious processes offers some unexpected solutions to problems that have plagued psychoanalysis almost from its beginning. The key to this new understanding is the phenomenology of BPM III, a matrix that involves an intimate association of sexual arousal with anxiety, physical pain, aggression, and scatology. It was above all the existence of sadomasochism that challenged Freud’s belief about the hegemony of the pleasure principle in the human psyche. If the pursuit of pleasure were the only leading principle and motivating force of mental life, it would certainly be hard to explain the determined and consistent search for physical and emotional suffering that characterizes masochistic patients. This issue became a real crux for Freud’s theoretical speculations; it forced him finally to change the entire structure of psychoanalysis and include the controversial concept of the death instinct, or thanatos, in his thinking.
The speculations about the death instinct in connection with sadomasochism reflected Freud’s intuitive insight that this clinical phenomenon involves matters of life and death relevance. Consequently, it cannot be explained from some relatively trivial biographical situations in which active aggression and pain are intimately connected. Explanations offered by some psychoanalysts focus on traumas that do not provide a convincing model for the depth of sadomasochistic impulses. Kucera’s* (1959) theory linking sadomasochism to the experience of teething, when active efforts of the child to bite become painful, is a case in point. However, it was not only the combination of active and passive destructiveness in sadomasochism that psychoanalysis found puzzling, but also the peculiar fusion of aggression and sexuality. The model of perinatal matrices can provide a very logical explanation for the most relevant aspects of this disorder.
In the process of perinatal unfolding, sadistic as well as masochistic manifestations and experiences appear with great constancy and can be related quite naturally to certain characteristics of the birth process. Physical pain, anxiety, and aggression are combined, in BPM III, with intense sexual arousal, the nature and origin of which has already been discussed. In the memory of the birth process, the introjected assault of the uterine forces coincides and alternates with active aggression oriented outward, representing a reaction against this vital threat. This explains not only the fusion of sexuality and aggression, but also the fact that sadism and masochism are two sides of the same coin and constitute one clinical unit, sadomasochism.
The need to create a sadomasochistic situation and exteriorize the above unconscious experiential complex can be seen not only as symptomatic behavior, but also as an attempt to expurgate and integrate the original traumatic imprint. The reason why this effort is unsuccessful and results in no self-healing is the absence of introspection, insight, and awareness of the nature of the process. The experiential complex is acted out and attached to the external situation instead of being faced internally and recognized as a historical replay.
Individuals experiencing elements of BPM III show all the typical elements of sadomasochism, such as alternation between the role of the suffering victim and that of the cruel aggressor, a need for physical confinement and pain, and rapture of peculiar volcanic ecstasy that represents a mixture of agony and intense sexual pleasure. It was mentioned earlier that the potential for transcending extreme suffering and reaching ecstasy seems to be inherent in the human personality structure, although it is most clearly expressed in sadomasochistic patients.
Some extreme cases of criminal sexual pathology, such as rapes, sadistic murders, and necrophilia, clearly betray definite perinatal roots. Individuals experiencing the sexual aspects of BPM III frequently talk about the fact that this stage of the birth process has many features in common with rape. This comparison makes a lot of sense if one considers some of the essential experiential features of rape. For the victim, it involves the element of serious danger, vital anxiety, extreme pain, physical restraint, a struggle to free oneself, choking, and imposed sexual arousal. The experience of the rapist, then, involves the active counterparts of these elements— endangering, threatening, hurting, restricting, choking, and enforcing sexual arousal. While the experience of the victim has many elements in common with that of the child in the birth canal, the rapist exteriorizes and acts out the introjected forces of the birth canal, while simultaneously taking revenge on a mother surrogate. Because of this similarity between the experience of rape and the birth experience, the rape victim suffers a psychological trauma that reflects not only the impact of the immediate situation, but also the breakdown of the defenses protecting her against the memory of biological birth. The frequent long-term emotional problems following rapes are very probably caused by the emergence into consciousness of perinatal emotions and psychosomatic manifestations.
The involvement of the third perinatal matrix is even more obvious in the case of sadistic murders, which are closely related to rapes. In addition to a combined discharge of the sexual and aggressive impulses, these acts involve the elements of death, mutilation, dismemberment, and scatological indulgence in blood and intestines; this is an association characteristic of the reliving of the final stages of birth. As will be discussed later, the dynamics of bloody suicide is closely related to that of sadistic murder; the only difference is that in the former the individual overtly assumes the role of the victim, whereas in the latter, that of the aggressor. In the last analysis, both roles represent separate aspects of the same personality, that of the aggressor reflecting the introjection of the oppressive and destructive forces of the birth canal; that of the victim, the memory of the emotions and sensations of the child during delivery.
A similar combination of elements, but in somewhat different proportions, seems to underlie the clinical picture of necrophilia. This aberration covers a wide range of phenomena from sexual arousal at the sight of corpses to actual sexual activities involving dead bodies and taking place in morgues, funeral homes, and cemeteries. Analysis of necrophilia reveals that same strange amalgam of sexuality, death, aggression, and scatology so characteristic of the third perinatal matrix.
Although one can always find in the history of the individual specific biographical events that seem instrumental in the development of necrophilia, these are not its causes, but only necessary conditions or precipitating factors. Genuine understanding of the problems involved is impossible without acknowledging the paramount role of perinatal dynamics.
Necrophilia occurs in many different forms and degrees, from fairly innocuous to manifestly criminal. Its most superficial varieties involve sexual excitement produced by the sight of a corpse or attraction to cemeteries, graves, or objects connected with them. More serious forms of necrophilia are characterized by a strong craving to touch corpses, smell or taste them, and indulge in putrefaction and decay. The next step is actual manipulation of corpses with a sexual emphasis, culminating in actual intercourse with the dead. Extreme cases of this sexual perversion combine sexual abuse of corpses with acts of mutilation, dismemberment of the bodies, and cannibalism.
The observations from clinical work with LSD also provided new insights into the peculiar sexual deviations of coprophilia, coprophagia, and urolagnia. Individuals showing these aberrations indulge in biological materials that are usually considered repulsive, become sexually aroused by them, and tend to incorporate the excretory functions into their sexual life. In the extremes, such activities as being urinated or defecated on, smeared with feces, eating excrements, and drinking urine can be a necessary condition for reaching sexual satisfaction. A combination of sexual excitement and scatological indulgence is a rather common occurrence, both in psychiatric patients and normal subjects, during the final stages of the death-rebirth process. This experience seems to reflect the fact that, in the old-fashioned deliveries where no catheterization or enemas were used, many children experienced intimate contact with feces and urine; blood, mucus, and fetal liquid are, of course, biological materials commonly encountered in the course of childbirth.
My clinical experiences with patients from this category clearly indicate that a deep root of this problem is fixation on the memory of the moment of birth. The natural basis of this seemingly extreme and bizarre deviation is the patient’s having experienced as a newborn child oral contact with feces, urine, blood, or mucus at the moment when, after many hours of agony and vital threat, the head was released from the firm grip of the birth canal. Intimate contact with such material thus became the symbol of this fundamental orgastic experience.
According to psychoanalytical literature, the infant is originally attracted to various forms of biological material and only secondarily develops aversion as a result of parental and societal influences. Observations from psychedelic research suggest that this is not necessarily so. The deepest attitude toward biological material seems to be established during the birth experience. Depending on the specific circumstances, this attitude can be extremely positive or negative.
It certainly makes a difference whether, on the one hand, the child simply encounters mucus or feces as symbols and concomitants of physical and emotional liberation, or, on the other, it emerges from the birth canal choking on this material and has to be freed from it by artificial resuscitation. In several instances of unsupervised home deliveries, patients were left in the biological material for a long time before help arrived; the accuracy of these memories relived in psychedelic sessions was later verified in interviews with the patients’ mothers. Thus the birth situation has a potential for both positive and negative encounters with biological material, and the individual’s specific experience will then become the basis for further biographical elaboration.
The same factors that underlie the above aberrations also operate, in a more subtle form, under the circumstances of everyday life. Thus the memory of the encounter with biological material during the birth experience can determine a man’s attitude toward oral-genital sex. It is well known that the reactions to cunnilingus cover a wide range, from intense disgust and aversion to preference and irresistible attraction. There is no doubt that on the deepest level these attitudes are determined by the nature of the experience of the oral contact with the maternal vagina at the time of birth. Similarly, the reaction of both sexes to the contact with the mucous membrane of the mouth and tongue during deep kissing is colored not only by the memories of nursing, but also those of the contact with the vaginal mucous membrane during delivery. A woman’s intolerance of the physical weight of her partner during intercourse, or revulsion from close embrace, is based on reluctance to face a combination of sensations characteristic of BPM III. Similarly, one of the important reasons for a deep aversion to fellatio seems to be the memory of the combination of sexual arousal and choking during birth.
A rich source of illustrations and examples for many of these issues is A Sexual Profile of Men in Power, by Janus, Bess, and Saltus (1977). The study is based on more than 700 hours of interviews with high-class call girls from the East Coast of the United States. Unlike many other researchers, the authors were less interested in the personalities of the prostitutes than in the preferences and habits of their customers. Among these were many prominent representatives of American politics, business, law, and justice.
The interviews revealed that only an absolute minority of the clients sought straight sexual activities. Most were interested in various devious erotic practices and “kinky sex.” A common request was for bondage, whipping, and other forms of torture. Some clients were willing to pay high prices for the enactment of complex sadomasochistic scenes, such as that of an American pilot captured in Nazi Germany and subjected to ingenious tortures by bestial Gestapo women. Among the frequently requested and highly priced practices were the “golden shower” and “brown shower,” being urinated and defecated on in a sexual context.4 After sexual orgasm, many of these extremely ambitious and influential men regressed to an infantile state, wanting to be held and to suck on the prostitutes’ nipples—behavior in sharp contrast to the public image they had been trying to project.
The authors offer interpretations that are strictly biographical and Freudian, linking tortures to parental punishments, the “golden shower” and the “brown shower” to problems related to toilet training, nursing needs to a mother fixation, and the like. However, closer inspection reveals that the clients typically enacted classical perinatal themes rather than postnatal childhood events. The combination of physical restraint, pain and torture, sexual arousal, scatological involvement, and subsequent regressive oral behavior are unmistakable indications of the activation of BPM III.
The conclusions of Janus, Bess, and Saltus deserve special notice. They appeal to the American public not to expect their politicians and other prominent figures to be models of sexual behavior. In light of their study, excessive sexual drives and an inclination to deviant sexuality are inextricably linked to the extreme degree of ambition that it takes in today’s society to become a successful public figure.
The authors thus suggest a solution to the old conflict between Freud and Adler (concerning the primacy of sex or will to power as dominant forces in the psyche) by proposing that these are really two sides of the same coin. This is in perfect agreement with the perinatal model. In the context of BPM III, excessive sexual drive and self-assertive impulse, compensating for a sense of helplessness and inadequacy, are two aspects of one and the same experience.
Homosexuality has many different types and subtypes and undoubtedly many different determinants; it is therefore impossible to make any generalizations about it. In addition, my clinical experience with homosexuality was rather biased, since it was limited almost entirely to individuals who volunteered for treatment because they considered homosexuality a problem and had a serious conflict about it. There is a large category of persons who clearly have homosexual preference and enjoy their way of life; their major problem seems to be a conflict with intolerant society rather than an intrapsychic struggle. My patients who were homosexual usually had other clinical problems, such as depression, suicidal tendencies, neurotic symptoms, or psychosomatic manifestations. These considerations are important in approaching the following observations.
Most of the male homosexual patients I have worked with were able to form good social relations with women, but were incapable of relating to them sexually. During treatment, this problem could be traced back to what psychoanalysis would call “castration fears”; I have already pointed out that the castration complex and the Freudian image of the dentate vagina can be deciphered during psychedelic therapy as fear of female genitals, based on the memory of the birth trauma. In addition to this problem, which might be interpreted as an unconscious fear of repeating in relation to female genitals the role of the child during delivery, there seems to be another element underlying male homosexuality, apparently based on identification with the delivering mother. This involves a specific combination of sensations characteristic of BPM III—the feeling of a biological object inside one’s body, a mixture of pleasure and pain, and a combination of sexual arousal with anal pressure. The fact that anal intercourse tends to have a strong sadomasochistic component can be used as an additional illustration of the deep connection between male homosexuality and the dynamics of the third perinatal matrix.
On a more superficial level, my male patients frequently showed a deep craving for affection from a male figure; although the real nature of this desire was the need of a child for paternal attention, in adulthood the only way to satisfy it would be in a homosexual relationship. I have also encountered homosexual subjects with minimal conflicts about their sexual life who were able to trace their sexual preference to roots in the transpersonal realms, such as an unfinished gestalt of a previous incarnation as a female, or as a male from ancient Greece with homosexual preference.
My comments concerning lesbian tendencies must be presented with reservations similar to those on male homosexuality, since my sample was equally limited and biased. In general, female homosexuality seems to have more superficial psychological roots than its male counterpart. One important factor is certainly an unsatisfied need for intimate contact with the female body, which reflects a period of serious emotional deprivation in infancy. It is interesting that female subjects frequently experience homosexual fears when, during deep regression into infancy, they approach periods of emotional starvation and start craving contact with a woman. This fear usually disappears when they realize that for an infant girl the need for the physical affection of a woman is quite normal and natural.
Another important component in lesbianism seems to be a tendency to return psychologically to the memory of release at the time of birth, which occurred in close contact with female genitals. This factor would be essentially the same as that discussed earlier in connection with male heterosexual preference for oral-genital practices. Another element related to the memory of birth might be the fear of being dominated, overpowered, and violated in the sexual act. Very frequently negative experiences with a father figure in childhood represent additional motives for seeking women and avoiding men. In general, female homosexuality seems to be less connected with perinatal dynamics and issues of life and death relevance than it was in the male homosexuals I worked with. Lesbian tendencies reflect a positive perinatal component of attraction toward the maternal organism, while male homosexuality is associated with the memory of the life-threatening dentate vagina. Society’s greater tolerance of lesbianism than of male homosexual manifestations seems to support this view.
Even if the emphasis in the interpretation of the sexual variations and deviations described above was on perinatal dynamics, this does not mean that biographical events are irrelevant for the development of these phenomena. As a matter of fact, the psychogenic factors discussed in psychoanalytic literature have been consistently confirmed both by psychedelic work and in experiential nondrug therapy. The only difference between the Freudian point of view and the explanations presented here is that the biographical events are seen here not as causes of these problems, but as conditions for their development. Biographical factors are of such relevance because they selectively reinforce certain aspects or facets of perinatal dynamics, or seriously weaken the defense system that usually prevents the perinatal energies and contents from emerging into consciousness. It is also important to emphasize that in many instances some of the conditions described above have significant transpersonal components. These cannot be described systematically and must be discovered in each individual case by unbiased and open-minded experiential work.
4. Transpersonal forms of sexuality. In sexual experiences that have transpersonal dimensions, the individual has the sense of having transcended his or her identity and ego boundaries as they are defined in the ordinary state of consciousness. This can involve experiencing oneself in a different historical, ethnic, or geographical context, or in full identification with other persons, animals, or archetypal entities. Experiences of this kind can occur as entirely intrapsychic phenomena when the subject is not involved in actual sexual activities but, rather, in a process of deep self-exploration, or they can occur as part of an actual sexual interaction with a partner. In the latter case, the altered state of consciousness can precede the act of love making—as in partners who have sex while under the influence of marijuana or LSD—or can actually be triggered by it.
In all these instances, one can either experience only one’s own feelings in the sexual situations involved or have simultaneous access to the emotional states and physical sensations of a partner. Thus, on a number of occasions, LSD subjects have experienced what seemed to be the sexual feelings of their mothers at the time of the symbiotic union of pregnancy, delivery, or nursing. Sometimes, the intrauterine experiences were associated with a sense of witnessing parental intercourse from the point of view of the fetus; this was associated with a distinct sexual experience of its own kind. Less common were instances when a person in a nonordinary state of consciousness had a convinced sense of reliving the sexual experiences of one of his or her ancestors. Sometimes, this involved more immediate ancestors, such as parents or grandparents; at other times, these episodes seemed to have come from very remote historical periods and had the quality of a racial memory. Occasionally, LSD subjects experienced themselves as participants in complex sexual rituals and ceremonies of different cultures, such as fertility festivals, rites of passage, ancient temple prostitution, or scenes of phallic worship. Experiences of this kind frequently convey very specific and detailed, historically or anthropologically correct information that was not previously available to the subject. When such phenomena lack the feeling of an actual biological link with the persons involved, they can best be described in terms of Jung’s collective unconscious. Occasionally, they can be associated with the sense of identity and a deep spiritual link with the protagonists and have an experiential quality of a memory. These are the characteristics of one of the most important groups of transpersonal experiences—karmic, or past incarnation, memories.
A fascinating category of transpersonal sexual experiences involves full identification with various animal forms. Whether these are other mammals, lower vertebrates, or such invertebrates as insects, mollusks, and coelenterates, these episodes entail the corresponding body image, emotional and other experiential responses, and characteristic behavior sequences. All the sensations involved appear to have a very authentic quality; they are always quite specific and unique for the species in question and typically far beyond what the fantasy of an uninformed person could contrive. Like the experiences of the collective and racial unconscious they frequently mediate a great amount of accurate information that far transcends the educational background and training of the individual involved.
Accurate new insights obtained during such episodes can be related not only to animal psychology, the dynamics of instincts, and specific courting behavior, but also to the details of sexual anatomy, physiology, and sometimes even chemistry. Usually this involves identification with just one specific life form at a time, but occasionally many of them can be combined into a complex experience. The resulting constellation then seems to represent the archetype of love making in nature, or to express and illustrate the overwhelming power and beauty of sexual union. Experiences of this kind can occur as part of oceanic sex and during the divine unitive experience of the Shiva-Shakti type (which will both be described later), or in the context of the opening of the second chakra when sexual energy appears to be the most dominant force in the universe. On several occasions, LSD subjects have also reported sexual feelings in connection with plant identification, such as, for example, conscious experiences associated with the process of pollination.
Another important and common transpersonal form of sexual experience is that of divine intercourse. There are two distinct varieties of this most interesting phenomenon. In the first, the individual has the sense of sexual communion with the divine, but maintains his or her original identity. The ecstatic raptures of Saint Theresa of Avila could be mentioned here as nondrug examples of this experience. Spiritual states of this kind also occur in the practice of the devotees of bhakti yoga. The second variety involves a sexual experience in full identification with the divine being. It can occur in a more or less abstract form, as the cosmic union of the male and the female principles, like the divine interplay of yin and yang in the Taoist tradition. Its more elaborate archetypal manifestations are the mystical marriage or hierogamy, the alchemical mysterium coniunctionis, or identification with a specific god or goddess, experiencing sexual union with the appropriate consort (e.g., Shiva-Shakti, Apollo-Aphrodite or the Tibetan tantric deities with their shaktis).
Three transpersonal forms of sexuality are so distinct that they deserve special treatment; they are the satanic, oceanic, and tantric. The first of these, satanic sexuality, is psychologically related to the birth process, and more specifically to BPM III. Images and experiences of satanic orgies appear quite frequently in the final stages of the perinatal unfolding. They are characterized by a peculiar mixture of death, sex, aggression, scatology, and religious feelings. In one important variety of this theme, individuals have visions of or even a sense of participating in complex Black Mass rituals. The element of death is represented by the favorite setting of these ceremonies—graveyards with open tombs and coffins. The rituals themselves involve the defloration of virgins, the sacrifice of animals or little children, and couples fornicating in open tombs and caskets, or in warm entrails of sacrificed and disemboweled animals. A diabolic feast with a menu that includes excrement, menstrual blood, and cut-up fetuses is another frequent motif. Yet, the atmosphere is not that of a perverted orgy, but of a peculiar religious ritual of uncanny power—service to the Dark God. Many LSD subjects have reported independently that the phenomenology of this experience involves elements identical to the final stages of birth and seems to be meaningfully related to it. The common denominators of the satanic orgies and the culmination of biological birth are sadomasochism, a strong sexual arousal of a deviant nature, the involvement of repulsive biological material, an atmosphere of death and macabre horror, and yet a sense of the proximity of the divine.
Another variation of the same theme is the imagery of the Witches’ Sabbath, or Walpurgis Night, and the experiences associated with it. This archetype, available in unusual states of consciousness, was actually manifested historically in medieval Europe, where certain covens of witches knew the secret of psychoactive potions and ointments. The plants used in such preparations were the deadly nightshade (Atropa belladonna), henbane (Hyoscyamus niger), thorn-apple or Jimson weed (Datura stramonium), and mandrake (Mandragora officinarum); sometimes animal ingredients were added, such as toad or salamander skin.5 Following the ingestion of the potion, or application of the ointment on the skin or in the vagina, the witches had relatively stereotyped experiences of participating in the Witches’ Sabbath.
Although this phenomenon is well documented historically, it comes as somewhat of a surprise when similar experiences occur spontaneously in certain stages of the psychedelic process or in the course of nondrug experiential psychotherapy. The general atmosphere of the Witches’ Sabbath is that of wild excitement and an arousal of otherwise illicit instinctual drives. The sexual element is represented in a sadomasochistic, incestuous, and scatological form. The president of the Witches’ Sabbath is the devil in the form of a large black male goat, by the name of Master Leonard. He conducts painful ritual defloration of virgins with his gigantic scaly penis, copulates indiscriminately with all the women present, receives adulatory kisses on his anus, and encourages participants to engage in wild orgies of an incestuous nature. Mothers and sons, fathers and daughters, brothers and sisters get involved in the course of this peculiar ritual in unbridled sexual interaction.
Fig. 28. Scenes from the Sabbath of the Witches showing the traditional vehicles of the magic flight—Billy-goats, hogs and brooms (painting combining elements from medieval carvings and etchings).
The scatological element is represented in the form of a strange diabolical feast involving such biological materials as menstrual blood, semen, excrement, and cut-up fetuses served with condiments. A characteristic aspect of the Witches’ Sabbath is blasphemy, mockery, and the inversion of Christian symbolism. Little children play with ugly toads in puddles of holy water; the toads are dressed in little pieces of purple cloth, suggesting a cardinal’s robe, and fed the Eucharist. The mock Eucharist used in the Witches’ Sabbath is produced from dough that has been kneaded on the buttocks of a nude girl.
Fig. 29. A scene from the Sabbath of the Witches showing adoration of Master Leonard, the devil in the form of a large black Billy-goat who is the president of the meeting; the ritual involves kissing of his anus that emits indescribable stench.
An important part of the ceremony is the vow of the neophytes to renounce Christ and all Christian symbolism. This element seems to be of particular interest, since, in the perinatal unfolding, identification with Christ and his suffering represents the next archetypal step of the death-rebirth process, which frees the experient from the nightmarish atmosphere of the satanic orgies, or the Walpurgis Night and mediates experiential transition to pure spiritual opening. The renunciation of Christian elements thus commits the participants of the Sabbath ritual to perpetuation of its macabre activities, arrests the archetypal unfolding, and prevents them from reaching spiritual liberation.
Musical instruments made of bones, skins, and wolves’ tails add to the bizarre atmosphere of this extraordinary ritual. As in the satanic orgies previously described, the strange mixture of wild excitement, deviant sex, aggression, scatology, and the spiritual element in the form of a blasphemous inversion of traditional religious symbolism betrays the deep connection between this experiential pattern and the third perinatal matrix. In contrast with the hellish elements of BPM II, the experient is not a tortured victim of evil forces; he or she is tempted to unleash all the forbidden impulses from within in an ecstatic orgy. The danger here is that of becoming evil rather than being a helpless victim of evil.
Fig. 30. A painting illustrating the blasphemic element of the Sabbath of the Witches. It shows children playing with ugly toads in puddles of holy water, feeding them eucharist and dressing them in cardinal’s robes.
It is interesting that many of the procedures used by the Inquisition against the actual satanists and witches, as well as thousands of innocent victims, bore a strange similarity to these rituals of the Witches’ Sabbath. Diabolically ingenious tortures and other sadistic procedures, mass autos-da-fé, endless questioning about sexual aspects of the Sabbath and satanic orgies or about the devil’s sexual anatomy and physiology, examination of the genitals of alleged witches for signs of intercourse with the dark god (signadiaboli) —all this was conducted with a sense of religious fervor, rather than a perversion of immense proportions. According to the insights from the psychedelic process, there was little difference between the state of mind of the Inquisitors and the satanists or witches; their behavior was motivated by the same deep unconscious forces related to BPM III. The advantage for the Holy Office of the Inquisition was that its practices were backed by legal codes and actual worldly power.
The elements of these archetypal patterns can be found in a more mitigated form in a variety of deviations and distortions of sexual life and, to some extent, even in sexual activities that, according to present criteria, would pass for “normal.” All the sexual phenomena we have so far discussed have a common basis in the sexuality that was experienced during the life-death struggle with the maternal organism. Those individuals who connect experientially with the elements of BPM IV and BPM I tend to develop very different approaches to sexuality. These are based on the memory of the intrauterine and postnatal state, in which libidinal feelings were experienced in a synergistic and complementary interaction with another organism. Such forms of sexuality have a very definite numinous or spiritual quality; the most important examples in this category are oceanic sex and the tantric approach to sexuality.
Oceanic sex is a concept of sexuality, approach to it, and experience of it that is diametrically different from those derived from the dynamics of the third perinatal matrix. I coined this term myself after having failed to find in the literature an appropriate name for this form of sexuality or even a description of it. Its development is associated with the experience of cosmic unity and, on a more superficial level, with the ecstatic symbiotic union between the child and the maternal organism during pregnancy and periods of nursing (good womb and good breast experiences). It is a new understanding and a new strategy of sexuality that tends to emerge spontaneously after full experiential confrontation with BPM IV and BPM I. Once experienced, it tends to persist indefinitely in everyday life as a philosophical concept and ideal, if not as experiential reality.
In oceanic sex, the basic model for sexual interaction with another organism is not that of a liberating discharge and release after a period of strenuous effort and struggle, but that of a playful and mutually nourishing flow and exchange of energies resembling a dance. The aim is to experience the loss of one’s own boundaries, a sense of fusion and melting with the partner into a state of blissful unity. The genital union and orgasmic discharge, although powerfully experienced, are here considered secondary to the ultimate goal, which is reaching a transcendental state of union of the male and female principles. Although the ascending curve of the sexual orgasm itself can reach numinous or archetypal dimensions in this form of sexuality, it is not considered the only or final goal. Some of the subjects who have reached this form of sexuality, when asked what function the genital orgasm has in it, would respond that it serves the purpose of “removing biological noise from a spiritual system.” If two sexually charged partners attempt to fuse, they will experience, after a certain period of interaction, localized genital tension. This tension has to be discharged in a genital orgasm before a more total and diffuse unifying experience is possible.
A characteristic aspect of this approach to sex is a tendency of the partners to remain in close physical contact and loving nongenital interaction for long periods following the sexual orgasm. Intense forms of oceanic experiences always have a powerful spiritual component; the sexual union is perceived as a sacrament and has a definitely numinous quality. The partner can assume an archetypal form and be experienced as the representative of all the members of his or her sex. The situation has a paradoxical quality, being simultaneously the sexual interaction of two human beings and a manifestation of the male-female union on a cosmic scale in the sense of the Chinese yin and yang polarity. At the same time, the partners can be connecting with mythological dimensions, experiencing themselves and each other as divine personages, or tapping various phylogenetic matrices. In the latter case, the sexual union is experienced as a very complex, multilevel and multidimensional event that portrays sexuality as an overwhelming natural force of cosmic proportions. The partners, while making love, can also be recognizing that parts of their bodies move in patterns and rhythms that represent the courtship dances and mating behavior of other species and life forms all through the evolutionary pedigree.
The last distinct transpersonal form of sexuality is tantric sex; the goal of this approach is the experience of transcendence and enlightenment, and the genitals and sexual energy are used simply as convenient vehicles. It is questionable to refer to this form of interaction as sexual, since it is a spiritual technique of yoga and not an activity striving for satisfaction of biological needs. In this sexual strategy, the genital union is used to activate libidinal forces, but does not result in orgasmic discharge and ejaculation; as a matter of fact, biological satisfaction through a sexual orgasm would be considered a failure.
The followers of Vama* marga*, or the “left-hand path” of tantra, participate in elaborate rituals called “Pancha-makara*.” This name refers to five important components of these rites that all begin with the letter M: madya (wine), mamsa* (meat), matsya (fish), mudra* (parched cereal), and maithuna (sexual union). The ritual sexual union is performed collectively in a special location and at a time carefully chosen by the guru. The ceremony has great aesthetic emphasis, using purification, ritual bathing, fresh flowers, beautiful costumes, fragrant incense and perfumes, music, chants, and specially prepared food and wine. Ayurvedic herbal preparations combining powerful aphrodisiacs and psychedelic mixtures are important parts of the ritual (Mookerjee 1982).
While the “right-hand path,” or Dakshina marga*, remains in its practice on a symbolic and metaphorical level, the “left-hand path” is concrete and literal in conducting the ritual. Its fundamental principle is that spiritual liberation will not be achieved by avoiding desires and passions, but by transforming those very elements that ordinarily make us fall. During the culmination of the ritual, the partners assume special sexual yogic postures, or tantra-asanas*. They breathe and meditate together in full genital union in a concentrated effort to prolong and experientially explore the very last moment before the orgastic release.
This activity awakens and arouses the dormant spiritual energy in the sacral part of the spinal cord, described in the tantric literature as Kundalini, or the Serpent Power. In its active form, or Shakti, this energy then flows up the spine through conduits in the subtle body called the “Ida” and “Pingala” and causes opening and activation of the seven centers of psychic energy, or chakras. Under these circumstances, the tantric partners experience a sense of cosmic union of the male and female principles and a connection with the transcendental divine source.
Unlike oceanic sex, in which the localized sexual tension is discharged prior to the male-female fusion, here the genital union and tension is used as a vehicle and the sexual energy is transformed into a spiritual experience. In many instances, LSD subjects discovered the tantric approach to sex quite spontaneously in their psychedelic sessions and continued to practice it in their everyday life, usually alternately with oceanic sex, or even more conventional forms of sexuality. Transpersonal sexual experiences and deep changes of sexual life can also occur in the context of various nondrug experiential approaches.