OEITH #117 Magical Formulations on Gender and Sex

Occult Experiments in the Home

We explore how gender identity and sex might free or constrict us, and what magick can bring to this, noting along the way: fire kasina meditation and "travels"; a transsexual travel and the experience of self as a different gender; gender and sex in relation to magick; the reality of dreams and visions; the biological and the cultural in mainstream discourse on sex and gender; biological destiny versus cultural fluidity; the common factor of manifestation; the mainstream discourse in the light of dependent co-arising; the Buddhist concepts of "name and form" and "body"; the apparent correspondence of these with the socio-cultural perspective and the biological; the concept of "soul" as the level of manifestation giving rise to both of these; soul as a personalised instance of universal consciousness; soul as the level immediately beyond gender or sex; the possibility of a uniquely magickal perspective on gender and sex; the myth of Tiresias; his seven years lived as a woman; the liminality of Tiresias, his relationship to duality, and the dimension of soul; the myth of Psyche and Eros; the mortal and the divine aspects of soul; the relationship between soul and desire; soul as the realm of transcendence; freedom versus manifestation; how capitalism hijacks feminism; Gloria Steinem and the CIA; manifestation as conflict; liberation versus assimilation in the struggle for LGBT rights; marriage as equality or as a lure; privilege and power as freedom from and ignorance of suffering; soul as a dimension of transcendence and liberty; biological perspectives on what it means to be male; the minimal participation of males in the biological act of reproduction; Charles Darwin's study of barnacles; the origins of the male in a quasi-parasitic relationship to the female; the function of the male as the diversification of DNA; the scarcity of egg cells and the cheapness of sperm; the impact of testosterone on the male mind; the social dominance of men as a reaction formation to asymmetries on the biological level; the features of toxic masculinity; the current crisis of being male; questions around masculinity; David Bowie as a master of masculinity; the negative impacts of the ubiquity of pornography on young men; the externalisation of sexual experience among men; the mistaking of porn for reality; how this might lead to rape; how real sex includes an internal dimension that men might be conditioned to disregard; the tendency of men to want to discharge sexual feelings; a vision of the goddess Kali; the practice of non-ejaculation; the distinction between orgasm and ejaculation; turning the attention towards sexual sensations; postponement of ejaculation by relaxation and oxygenation; how breathing heightens physical sensations; recognition of "the point of no return"; the "body orgasm" and its features; non-ejaculation as a meditative practice incorporating both vipassana and concentration; why ejaculation is not all that great anyway; afterglow in spite of hard-on; benefits of non-ejaculation; ejaculation as a possible lure into "hedonistic depression"; the incel mindset and non-ejaculation as a possible antidote; transcendence versus escapism.

Cory Morningstar (2021). Gloria Steinem discussing her time in the CIA, https://tinyurl.com/fwh2p48t(youtube.com).

Marsha Richmond (2007). Darwin's study of the cirripedia, https://tinyurl.com/388br9t5 (darwin-online.org.uk/).

Mantak Chia & Douglas Abrams Arava (1996). The Multi-Orgasmic Man. London: Thorsons.