Otherworldly ECSTASY
(page 2)
 |
Creatures of the Sea © Justine Tot Tatarsky |
Was nirvana your interpretation at the time of your experience? Do you mean that as a metaphor, or were you already familiar with spiritual practices and non-ordinary states of consciousness?
I knew what nirvana was from my research into different spiritual practices, and one of the reasons I was laughing was because I was amused that I had had a Buddhist experience when most of my spiritual practice comes out of the Christian contemplative tradition. I was as much surprised by that as anything else. I'm not a spiritual adept, and I'm certainly not a love goddess. I was brought up in a conservative Methodist and Southern Baptist home. And, frankly, I don't consider myself a particularly gifted or sophisticated lover.
How did you get from your experience to launching a research project?
Since I'd had more than one experience, and my lover's experiences were nothing like mine, I was mildly curious. But when I was asked to write a chapter for an anthology on direct spiritual realization that was both scholarly yet coming from personal experience, I proposed doing a chapter on sexual encounters. I knew there was a vast literature about altered states of consciousness, and I was sure I would find plenty of data for my article. Abraham Maslow had talked about such events in his work on creativity and self-actualization, and every large study on spirituality had turned up sex, and every large study on sex had turned up spirituality.
When the deadline approached, however, I ransacked the literature without any luck. All the researchers said these things happen, but nobody said what "these things" were really like. I quickly scavenged my acquaintances to come up with enough material for the article and was surprised when there was virtually no overlap across any of the experiences. That was what got me really curious, and then I determined to start studying this in a serious way.
Sex and God are obviously emotionally charged topics. How did you go about finding research subjects? And what criteria did you use to distinguish what you call "transcendent" sex from the most intense "regular" sex?
At first I tried to find people through my colleagues in altered-state research, many of whom have collected a vast number of records in their files. No luck. So I put the word out to all my friends and professional acquaintances, and began recruiting by word of mouth and referral everywhere I was lecturing or presenting.
I kept the criteria deliberately vague, asking for people to talk with me who had experienced a "transcendent, mystical, non-ordinary or altered state" during sex when not using drugs or practicing Tantra or Taoist sex or other erotic arts designed to bring about an altered state. I wanted to find people whose experiences were spontaneous and unexpected. I learned quickly that most people who had had one knew it, even though they weren't sure what they had experienced met my criteria. If someone even said, "I'm not sure this is what you're looking for but..." they usually had. In all the time I was recruiting only one person's experience out of 92 who came forward did not fit my criteria.
My criteria, which I never revealed, were the clinical standards commonly used in the medical and psychological professions: orientation to consensus time, space, and person or agency [known as the "three spheres of reality"]. These are the markers used, for instance, in an emergency room to determine whether someone has normally functioning mental processes: Do they know where they are and what day it is [are oriented in the here and now]? Do they have a normal sense of self and other, and the rules governing the relationships among animate and inanimate objects? Change in any one of these dimensions is considered an altered state of consciousness--meaning non-ordinary or out of the normal range in the culture.
 |
Universal Kiss © Justine Tot Tatarsky |
You must have had some assumptions about transcendent sex at the beginning. Did your findings challenge those assumptions in any way?
I set out to discover the range of sexual spiritual experiences, in other words the "variety of sexual religious experiences." What kinds were possible? How did they affect people, especially since the people who had these experiences did not have a readymade framework to understand them? What did they think was happening? I had a lot of "common sense" assumptions: that perhaps women would have more or different transcendent experiences than men because their arousal curve is different, as is the ability to have multiple orgasms; that perhaps certain techniques might bring about the states; that the states might be related to orgasm in some way; that people who were trusting and open and in relationships where they felt psychologically safe would be more inclined to have such experiences; and that people who were adept at experiencing altered states because of a meditation or contemplative practice might have more experiences and that their experiences would match the kinds they achieved in their practice. My findings completely confounded every single one of these assumptions.
So transcendent sex simply "happens" regardless of circumstances, readiness or beliefs?
That's right, and in that sense it's exactly like direct spiritual experiences that happen to people outside of established religious traditions and practices. In all the institutionalized religions, the pleasurable aspects of sex gradually changed from a celebration of divine forces to a distraction from the spiritual path--and from a distraction to a hazard. For some, it was only a small step from a hazard to a sin. But no matter how hard societies tried to stamp it out, the divine play of sex and Spirit didn't disappear. It was just driven underground. Transcendent sex has always been a well-kept secret, but like any secret, it leaks out.
Is it something that can be practiced, like hitting golf balls at a driving range?
There are many practices people can use to facilitate their ability to have transcendent sex, and I talk about a lot of them in my book. But it's important to remember that the capability to have transcendent sex is an innate human potential, which most people in clan and tribal societies enjoy as a natural way of life because they were never taught not to enjoy their bodies or to live in their heads so exclusively as most people in "civilized" societies. People can practice the techniques mentioned in my book or can take Tantric or other workshops, but most of the people I talked to were reluctant to try to regulate their sex lives, preferring the spontaneity. Focusing too much on the goal is counterproductive in transcendent sex, just as it is in meditation, however you go about it.
Opening up to the possibility, staying present and focused without attachment to any particular outcome--especially including orgasm--is one of the first steps. Letting go and being willing to fall into whatever arises, getting lost in the moment. Of course, sometimes people don't even have to do that much: They can be carried away on the wings of Spirit even before they know what is happening to them.
1 | 2 | 3 Next Page...
