Twice a year I am supposed to report to my supervising bishop regarding what I have been up to. This year, he asked me, “What additional work, if any, did you do this semester in order to develop your proficiency in the Gnostic Mass?”

Mom, I forget if I gave you my blog. Please skip this one.

I realize I am now in the awkward position of explaining to a man I have never met a set of practices regarding erotic energy. I am hoping that by writing a public blogpost I will be able to give the practice up to community for discussion and keep myself accountable for describing this without being crass. Tau Pythagoras is a very nice man who lets me run half feral through Pennsylvania and Ohio. Let’s not ruin a functional supervisory relationship.

Predictably, I feel I owe it to St. Aleister to explain this to the best of my ability.

As most of us have experienced, pent up erotic energy can alter our consciousness. I am sure many of us have come to a place where you are logically fully capable of pausing yourself, but emotionally doing so feels like it would take the effort of turning a tidal wave. In most people, this fire comes and goes without much deliberate cultivation. Different people process the energy differently: procreation, exploring and affirming various bonds within the community, sensory diet, etc. Religions and those concerned with social order have spilled a lot of ink talking about how this energy can and should be used because it does seem to have some effect more than just pleasure. It is an acknowledgement of some weird Subtle Fire.

It is an intuitive part of my practice to cultivate this fire for various uses: creative pursuits, magic, and devotional mysticism. I have felt called to start, build, feed, hold, and release this fire. The results for me have been alchemical. It has burned away false pride, impatience, and the nasty habit the human mind has of viewing others as objects rather than subjects. Submitting to the lessons of the Subtle Fire is teaching me to wake it from a dead sleep, to feed it in the worst conditions, to hold large or small as needed, to hold it steady and at a desired intensity for long periods without losing my reason, and to approach other human lovers with sensitivity and skill in the ritual-game of seduction.

It is my firm belief that the cultivation of this fire is one of multiple mystic practices being pointed to by Liber XV, and that the moment of the Fractio being placed in the Graal by the priest and priestess should come with a release of this fire. This is not to say I believe a priest should literally orgasm at that moment, rather I believe orgasm can teach a priest how to release this fire in a physical form so he can then release it with the magical lance.

The more subtle experiences I have had, and this is why the fire is magical and not literal, is to become a riverbed, a body that holds the water of consciousness-time from the viewpoint of the Eternal Now. When I chase a lover, I chase knowing I may lose everything and can only give thanks for the gaping wound. When I must abstain, it is tempting to leave the riverbed dry, but this is when something in me feels I must turn most diligently to prayer and cultivation. It called me to learn and extend the cycle of snowmelt and summer dryness. In the face of a lover who cannot yet come to union, that pull calls me to develop ever-readyness. I am not the fire but the oven, not the water but the riverbed. Except I am also the fire and the water and the source blah blah you’ve read this before.

Every boring, banal, humiliating moment of building right relationship is part of my practice. Each step in the dance has become the end and not the means. The fire-water of erotic energy runs through me and I choose over and over to relax into ecstasy.

I learned it all because the Subtle Fire taught me. The Bridal Mystics taught me. I reread Gibran and Rilke and Hafiz and Crowley often. The erotic body to me is not a subset of the body, it is the whole body and the greater Body of physical reality.

I am starting to believe that Crowley left hints in his writings to something he could not describe, either because it would have gotten him arrested or because the world wasn’t ready for it or both. There’s something in his travels with the Beast to his Scarlet Woman, Victor Neuberg, that rattles around in my head in the wee hours.

It seems to me an unsaid thing is that surrendering to an active lover is a way of learning to submit the self to the Self, the I to the All, the known to the Unknowable. In the interim, erotic receptivity can be used to cultivate the abilities of a scryer. Since St Aleister could not talk about this openly, I believe a lot of Thelemites have a base level understanding of the principles. I don’t think you can wield the lance without becoming the eucharist. Over and over I chased a lover and ultimately wind up a vessel for Love, Ineffable Love, a plaything of something using my life for a shadow play. I could only give praise and surrender, to let my will become my Will.

Some Thelemites think of the scryer as unskilled, or we do not think of them at all. The scryer designs the ritual. The bottom dictates the pace and foreplay. As a lance-wielder, I believe we chase the icon only to be chased by the One who sits in it, and in this we are also cherished. Who would Love-Nuit cherish more than a pure vessel, a virgin who has been destroyed by the presence of the uncountable zero?

Poetry aside, the actual practice is orgasm denial, chastity play, and edging. Partner play is more useful to me than solo play because of the unique challenges it provides to the ego. I don’t feel I will learn the whole mystery without also learning how to build community and platonic relationships. All other philias and toys serve this. My body is the teacher, and it demands complete submission to the hard realities of itself.

“What additional work, if any, did you do this semester in order to develop your proficiency in the Gnostic Mass?”

I am learning to trust my ability to listen to the body of my lover and to report with compassionate honesty what I feel. I am becoming a scrying mirror for the eyes of another while keeping my own fire lit. “Responsive, not reactive. Presence not perfection.” The goal of a priest in my opinion is not to command the attention of the room, but to draw the mind of the congregant to the priestess, to be the vehicle for the congregant’s journey toward Nuit. In that service, we must aid Priestesses in their own journey to know, communicate, and fill their needs as clergy. It is not “How do I want to perform the mass as a priest?” Rather, we should ask, “How can I fulfill the role in a way that supports my priestess?” If my priestess wants me to speak softly and intone long notes, I will croon to her. If she wants me to be commanding, I will lower my vocal timbre. If she wants me to be playful, I will recite with joy. If she wants to feel as consecrated as she truly is, I will speak with gravitas.

It is not enough to do these things. They must be an expression my own multifaceted, skillful, and unique self. If a priestess prefers to be crooned at, three priests crooning will croon three different ways. For two to become three, they must first be two. I believe that making oneself an offering of solar-phallic energy before Nuit means making one’s self an offering, not a blank slate. To be solar is to be illuminated, laid bare, visible in one’s entirety. The spring sun and the summer sun are the same sun. The role is one of service topping, and part of that is coming with a menu of play.

See you in July!