Tantra IV - iv Group Transcendence

The original tantric communities in India would gather socially in what have reasonably been considered to be group sexual events. The theory was that what was done with sex between two could be multiplied in terms of transcendence not so much through a multiplication of partners as through the spontaneity of a random partner found within a much larger set of potential partners.

The nearest we have in the West to this is the 'swinger party' and perhaps the occasional outburst of cultic behaviour in new age contexts but the former does not even pretend to be engaged in anything other than hedonistic pleasure and the latter, being cultic and rejectionist entirely of the prevailing culture (rather than an elaboration of it), is not really analogous with historic tantric practice, although perhaps we should not be wholly dismissive of its attempts to be true to the original source.

This group sexual behaviour is highly problematic in most of the modern world, not only because it seems to counter all moral understanding that is not based only on hedonism or on a prior social or counter-cultural rebellion but because we simply cannot reproduce the total cultural model that might have permitted it as 'natural'. There is simply no cultural space for it any more. Even if a group of swingers decided to explore transcendence or a group of cultic rebels decided to leave the margin and openly advocate (which it is unlikely the tantrics had to do) a re-envisioning of society to normalise their practices by engaging with it politically, economically, culturally and socially as citizens, the results are likely to be unsatisfactory to the participants. It might be argued that parts of Northern California have reached that libertarian state but not elsewhere.

Group sexual transcendence is thus likely to be treated with horror and disgust by many but, more damaging in fact to the proponents, by utter lack of comprehension and indifference. It simply does not fit into the mental maps of post-Christian and post-Marxist world views and into a range of models related to personal safety (because of disease transmission), family (because of the carefully calibrated links between sexuality and emotional bonding), gender relations (where, though polyamory might be accepted, and swinging accepted as a pleasurable pursuit for those inclined, neither is the norm) and attitudes to spirituality (where few can see any possible connection between group sexual behaviour and the 'higher purposes' assumed to be central to all expressions of 'spirit').

At least some of those constraints work heavily against spontaneity - modern cultists heavily ritualise their behaviours in the direction of 'feelings' and responsibility to the other in a way that works entirely against the spontaneity of the original model. Thus, in our general exploration how tantric thought can be managed away from the gobbledygook use of an ancient language out of context and into our world where it might be, if not 'normalised', found acceptable and functional, we finally come up against a cultural barrier that no amount of intellectual engagement is likely to breach. Even where the cultural barrier appears to be broken, we find the spontaneity without the transcendence (swinging) and the attempt at transcendence without the spontaneity (cultic practice) but never or rarely the association of transcendence with sexual spontaneity in quite the way the tantrics appear to have managed things.

This is not that the ancient culture found such methods acceptable but that those who engaged in such methods could still work within the language and assumptions of that culture. Today, anyone reproducing those methods would be working so completely against the language and assumptions of their culture that they would have to self-marginalise themselves in ways that would destroy the sole point of the exercise ... power over oneself in order to function better in the world as given.The matter thus has to be closed at this point as part of the project started in April 2014. Nevertheless, it might be useful to go back to try and see how the tantrics themselves might have projected their practice into the modern world. The exercise in radical cultural difference will tell us something about our own limitations and constraints without diminishing the strengths that make us generally resistant to communitarian-traditional modes of sexuality.

The idea was precisely that the rituals were not primarily hedonistic but were designed to create a state of ekstasis where all the participants reflected each other 'in harmonious union'. Indeed, the best analogy in the West is with nothing sexual at all but with the dance party where young people in particular become ecstatically lost in the music and the movement. This may result in sexual encounters that are transcendent but that is more luck than judgment. A lot of people may go along hoping to 'score' but there is very little consciously directed at the transcendent results of sex rather than the sex itself.

Perhaps this means that all we need to do is shift the emphasis culturally from sex to dance. The tantric ritual was essentially about sex with the emotional excitation of the partners being mutual in a classically magical sense. The perception of shared pleasure created something greater than the parts and the obvious element is that these people had no inhibitions whatsoever - another reason why it would be almost impossible to repeat this model in the West outside its neurotic-cultic or hedonistic-materialist contexts. Even the dance party model sees the drink and the drugs as removing inhibition under conditions were the participants often wish to be in denial about their own subsequent decisions, seeking excuses to disinhibit and giving the option of disclaiming subsequent responsibility if it all goes wrong, whereas the tantric community is seeking aids actively designed to disinhibit as a willed act.

The festivals are, of course, more than about sex - dance and song are specifically understood to assist in making the community lose its aspect of being a lot of individuals and become one as a community. Again, we have analogues in dance parties, football games, shared public events, remembrance services - when a shared emotion of sadness appears in a group of people at the end of 'Les Miserables', this same phenomenon is taking place: a sense of loss of self into the whole or perhaps the whole simply sharing one part of the self. Whatever is involved here is antipathetic to the individualism of most of the preceding postings where the participants are concerned with self-transcendence as persons known to each other, who respect each other and who intend that precise set of acts. In the community case, transcendence requires a loss of self into the community and, in an age when congregational religion is declining, this immediately makes many of us in the modern world nervous after the experience of watching the rallies at Nuremburg or the great May Day Parades at the high point of Sovietism.

Tantric communities were small communities of people who all knew and trusted one another and so there must have been some basic respect - another argument against their usefulness in the modern world since how many of us actually know and trust many outside our own family and closest friends (if even they) often scattered geographically across the world. Certainly the ones we most trust are not going to be the ones who are suitable for this sort of thing. Modern intimacy and geographical proximity are pretty well disconnected outside the family and the family is a no-go area sexually (or certainly should be in all societies). That tantric world is gone and, given its exploitation of minors and women and extreme poverty and caste difference, few would want it to return - even the sociopaths would want it returned only if they could be guaranteed their position in the ruling elite.

The key point for these communities was that they identified with the entire event, its sights, sounds, smells, tastes, movements. The individuals were happy to lose themselves in the whole. The community event allowed the elimination of barriers to action such as envy or jealousy (we can see where this is heading as inhibitions fall away). A charge is made that if any individual remains an individual separate from the loss of self in the whole, then they should be kept away because their very presence would act as a 'dampener' on the proceedings'. One supposes that this is why anthropologists with their quizzical and critical eye have not been encouraged to attend any surviving events. The secrecy that surrounds them is as much about not attracting those unable to lose themselves in the ritual aspects as concern at being 'brought to the attention of the authorities' (though both are likely to be important).

Flowers and perfumes are offered to a personification of the goddess - more devotion and offerings alien to the Western way of thought - but the smells are designed to affect desire as much as anything eaten or drunk or heard or seen or bathed in. We have a total sensual experience here that is not going to be reproduced in a draughty English village hall on a wet Thursday night. The rest is much as we have decribed in previous postings. There is no difference in essentials other than that, instead of engaging with one other, the 'adept' is engaging with a community and, if they cannot gear themselves up to loss of self in that community, then they should just do what they can do on their own. There is even room for transcendence never actually requiring any physical contact - the moment referred to in other postings might simply arrive from the total experience prior to anything sexual at all. This is not presented as the likely norm but certainly as a possibility.

The point is that the eventual sexual contact in a community setting of this sort assists the adept by being detached from the usual personal dynamics involved in relationships, mimicking the same detachment to be found with a female specialist. Both sexual partners simply disappear as entities in the world (albeit briefly) and it is the spontaneity of the contact that creates the ability to enter into a state of freedom and bliss. Of course, there is, as always, a weaker Western analogy, the complete lack of responsibility in an animalistically-driven one night stand and perhaps the tantric 'guff' is really no more than cover for this experience (allowing a little cynicism to intrude). But the erotic element stands - a social event involving maximal sensory stimulation creates the conditions for a dynamic erotic engagement that is spontaneous and that results in consciousness expansion. We will return to our main theme in the next posting as we draw closer to the tantric understanding of that brief moment of 'bliss'.