CarnalNation

The previous column reported that some Catholic priests feel their Church lacks adequate training in celibacy, and discussed how that might contribute to the problem of priests engaging in pedophilia. I suggested that the Church could support its priests and its community by setting up independent facilities to study ways of healing pedophilia. It would be a good way for the Church to make amends. 

After the typing stopped, the fantasizing didn't. The Church could do so much more. A friend of mine likened being a truly celibate priest to being a Jedi Master (thanks, DB!). A Jedi Master follows a calling and undergoes considerable training, practice and experience. This is true of authentic sexual masters regardless of their tradition. Most spiritual traditions have some sort of sexual teachings, usually revealed only to initiates. And here's where the fantasizing really got going: rumor has it that the Vatican has the world's largest library of esoteric teachings from all the world's religions.

What a great service it would be if Church scholars studied those sources and taught priests sexual mastery skills, celibate and otherwise. Even better, what if they then taught others who were interested how to become sexual masters themselves! (What a great service it would be if the Church would even just share all those esoteric documents with the rest of us.) It would be fair reparation, don't you think?

Well—sigh—it's not gonna happen. So let's move ahead without the Church. Again.

There are sexual masters of various types; here we're focusing on the folks who practice working with erotic energy as a route to spiritual connection. There are both celibates who refrain from sex and sexual adepts who engage in sex practices intentionally as their path to the divine. The problem with the routes that use sex is that practitioners can get carried away to places that look a long way off the path.

This might be why so many famous “sex gurus” have had hugely public scandals. The scandals are not always about sex issues, but the sex draws attention, that's for sure. Osho, for instance, was known for having a sex-positive philosophy. A number of excellent teachers spent time at his ashram learning and, in some cases, helping teach. There are stories of wild sex events at which anything could happen, from enlightenment to (alleged) rape. Osho's organization imploded after several of those closest to him were accused of crimes and convicted. The crimes were not sex-related, but news stories often included references to sexual goings-on however tangential they might have been.

Aleister Crowley, known for researching and codifying “sex magick” rituals, was also publicly known for all sorts of debauchery, including sex rituals involving drug use, cluster fucks and bestiality. If you think that might sound evil to 21st century Americans, just imagine how Brits in the early 1900s took it.

Even Mahatma Gandhi, probably the world's most revered modern day celibate, engendered some wonderings during his wanderings. He took the vow of brahmacharya, or celibacy, at age 37. In strict Hindu practice, that meant having no contact with the opposite sex at all if possible. But as Gandhi traveled India teaching passive resistance, he slept with young naked female assistants. In this context, “sleeping” means sleeping, not the euphemism for having sex. He claimed he wanted to test his resolve and, uh, stay warm. He also confessed to having nocturnal emissions into his late 60s. Maybe that was his body practicing passive resistance.

From the perspective of a sexual master, one who has the ability to control every aspect of his discipline, nocturnal emissions show a lack of control. And as you might remember from sex education classes if you went to a US public school before the 1990s, nocturnal emissions are a natural result of having sexual urges without ejaculation while awake. Or in the case of sexual adepts, without successfully sublimating or re-directing all of that energy.