Sexuality, Magic and Perversion (6 page)

⁴
When reading this account for the first time I was inclined to dismiss it as fiction but on comparing it with the surviving examples of Sellon’s pornographic fantasies I found that the style was so markedly different that I became confident that Sellon was telling the truth—although possibly embroidering it.

⁵
This choice of career is not as odd as it may appear at first sight. Young bloods of the period prided themselves on their ability to handle a four-horse team in much the same way that their present-day equivalents are proud of driving an Alfa-Romeo or an E-type Jaguar car.

⁶
Gamahuche was the most commonly used nineteenth-century word for oralgenital contacts. It survives in abbreviated form, as the vulgar expression “gam”. I cannot trace any etymological relationship with the colloquial American term “gams”—meaning legs—which seems to be derived from the Italian.

⁷
According to the title page this book was
Printed for Thomas Longtool, Rogerwell Street
. The real publisher seems to have been J. C. Hotten. The extract I give comes from pp. 21-2 of the second edition (1870?).

⁸
This letter was printed in full by Ashbee in
Index Librorum Prohibitorum
(1877). As this book is now virtually unobtainable (only 250 copies were printed), however, I feel that the letter is worth reproducing in full, particularly as it so well illustrates Sellon’s peculiar outlook on life. A condensed version of the
Index
has recently been published as a paperback in the United States, but the letter I reproduce was excluded from it.

⁹
This poem, which is not indecent, was for some unknown reason reproduced in
Cythera’s Hymnal or Flakes from the Foreskin
which, according to its title page, was published in 1870 by the Oxford University Press. The date may be correct!

¹⁰
Long live the penis, it will not rise again.

¹¹
Sactya Rites among Mussulmans
. According to Buckingham, “Between Zohaub and Kermanshah there are a people called Nessereah, who, like those of the same name in Syria, pay divine honours to the Pudendum Muliebre, and hold feasts resembling ancient mysteries of Venus.” (Sellon’s Note.)

¹²
In alluding to Bhavani (Pavati) as distinguished by a variety of names implying Nature, and among others using that of Shacti, Paolino in his
Voyages
, p. 327, gives an account of the Magna Mater of the Hindus. “She changes,” he says, “and transforms herself into a thousand shapes, and appears sometimes as a man and sometimes as a woman. Her votaries paint the Medhra” (in Bengal called yoni), “which is represented by two side strokes, and a red one in the middle” (on the forehead). “This mark represents the womb of Bhavani,” in its conventional form.—
Paolino’s Voyage to Malabar
. (Sellon’s Note.)

¹³
As. Res., viii. 393. (Sellon’s Note.)

¹⁴
Idem, viii, 426. (Sellon’s Note.)

¹⁵
“Prakriti is inherent Maya, because she beguiles all beings”—As. Res., xvii. (Sellon’s Note.)

¹⁶
On the base of Minerva’s statue at Sais, whom the Egyptians regarded to be the same as Isis, a goddess who bears so striking an analogy to the Hindu Prakriti or nature, there was this inscription: “I am everything that has been, that is, and that shall be: nor has any mortal ever yet been able to discover what is under my veil.”—Plutar. de Iside et Osiride, s. ix. (Sellon’s Note.)

¹⁷
Thus in the Kuma-Puran, c. xii., we read, “His energy, being the universal form of all the world, is Maya, for so does the Lord, the best of males, and endowed with illusion cause it to revolve. That Sacti of which the essence is illusion is omniform and eternal, and constantly displays the universal shape of Mahesa.”(Sellon’s Note.)

¹⁸
Thus in the Siva Tantra, Siva is made to say, “The five scriptures issued from my five mouths, and were the East, West, South, North, and Upper: these five are known as the paths to final liberation. There are many Scriptures, but none are equal to the Upper Scripture.” Kulluka Bhatta, commentating on the first verse of the 2nd ch. Menu, says, “The Scruti is twofold, Vaidika and Tantrika, that is Tantra.” (Sellon’s Note.)

¹⁹
Vide the Sanscrit copies of the Tantras in the British and Indian Museums. (Sellon’s Note.)

²⁰
They are enumerated in the Syama Rahasya. “Mudra and Maithuna are the fivefold Makara which takes away all sin.” (Sellon’s Note.)

²¹
Here Sellon slipped up badly. While in ordinary language
Mudra
means mystical finger gestures in the “twilight” or “intentional” language of Tantricism it means kidney-beans or some parched grain attributed with aphrodisiac qualities.

²²
“It is the combination of H and S called Prasada Mantra, and described in the Kularnava.”—Wilson, As. Res. (Sellon’s Note.)

²³
The female thus worshipped is ever after denominated Yogini, i.e., “attached”. This Sanscrit word is in the dialects pronounced Jogi or Zogee, and is equivalent to a secular nun, as these women are subsequently supported by alms. The word from custom has become equivalent with Sena, and thus is exactly the same as Duti or Dutica (doo-ty-car). The books of morality direct a faithful wife to shun the society of Yogini, or females who have been adored as Sacti.

The Sacti system bears a striking affinity with Epicureanism. It teaches Materialism and the Atomic system of chance. (Compare the Ananda Tantram, c. xvii. with Lucretius, lib. iii.)

The worship of women and the Sacta h’oma vidhi are grounded on passages in the Veda which orthodox Brahmins regard as of doubtful authority. (Vide Rig Vedam, Bk. ii. c. viii. sections 13,14, 2nd attham, 8th pannam, ricks B. 14, which contain the Sucla Homa Mantram, &c.) (Sellon’s Note.)

²⁴
Wilson, on Hin. Sects. vol. xvii., As Res. (Sellon’s Note.)

²⁵
Ward, on the Vaisnavis, p. 309.

The leading rites of the Sakti Sodhana are described in the Devi Radhasya, a section of the Rudra Yamala. It is therein stated that the object of worship should be either “A dancing girl, a female devotee, a courtesan, Dhobee woman, a barber’s wife, a female of the Brahminical or Sudra tribe, a flower girl, or a milkmaid. Appropriate muntrus are to be used. She is to be placed naked, but richly ornamented with jewels and flowers, on the left of a circle described for the purpose, with various muntrus and gesticulations, and it is to be rendered pure by the repetition of different formulas, being finally sprinkled over with wine by the peculiar mantra.

“The Sacti is now purified, but if not previously initiated, she is to be further made an adept by the communication of the Radical Mantra whispered thrice in her car, when the object of the ceremony is complete. The finale is what might be expected, but accompanied throughout by muntrus, and forms of meditation very foreign to the scene.”—Wilson, As. Res., vol. xvii. 225, on Hin. Sects.(Sellon’s Note.)

²⁶
This sect appears in the Sankara Vijaya as the Uchchishtha Ganapati or Hairamba sect, who declare that all men and all women are of one caste, and that their intercourse is free from fault.—Vide Ward’s Works, vol. ii. 5, on the above subject.—Wilson on Hin. Sects, vol. xvii. (Sellon’s Note.)

²⁷
Yet these Sacteyas (or adorers of Sacti) look upon all but themselves as “pasu iana”, mere brutes! (Sellon’s Note.)

²⁸
In Egypt we learn that Typho sometimes bore the name Seth, “by which they mean the Tyrannical and overbearing
POWER,
or, as the word frequently signifies, the
POWER
that overturns all things, and that overleaps all bounds.”—Plutar. de Iside et Osirides, xxxvi. (Sellon’s Note.)

²⁹
Ananda Tantram. (Sellon’s Note.)

³⁰
They are enumerated in the Syama Rahasya. “Mudra and Maithuna are the fivefold Makara, which takes away all sin.” (Sellon’s Note.)

³¹
Simon Magus is supposed to be the founder of Western Gnosticism, he it was who corrupted the Nicolaitanes (vide Apocalypse, ii. 6, 15). They held sensual pleasure to be the true creed.

In the
Foreign Quarterly Review
, p. 159, 580, the following passage occurs: “The grand object of the magic of the Christians in the middle ages was to obtain the command over the services of demons: such were the pursuits of witches. But these were always looked upon as criminal. The belief that men possess the power to control spirits was not peculiar to the Gnostick Christians. The liturgies of the Roman and Greek churches contain several rules on these subjects.”

The Memoirs of Scipio di Ricci, of Pistoja, reveal some remarkable facts, plainly demonstrating that Sacteya ideas had found their way into the monasteries and convents of Italy in the latter part of the last century. (Sellon’s Note.)

In pre-Communist Tibet a strange story was told about the fifth Dalai Lama. The “Fifth”, who died
circa
1680, was unique among Dalai Lamas in that he was a libertine, a rake and a notorious womaniser. Until recently the love-songs he wrote were still popular with the common people of Tibet and, in Lhasa, certain houses, where tradition averred that he had held assignations with one or other of his mistresses, were marked with a mysterious red sign and were the subject of a furtive and unofficial veneration.

The story runs that the Dalai Lama was on one of the upper terraces of his palace. He was being subjected to the reproaches of his advisers, who found his sexual immorality little to their taste.

“Yes, it is true that I have women”, he admitted “but you who find fault with me also have them, and copulation for me is not the same thing as it is for you.”

He then walked to the edge of the terrace and urinated over it. With the force of gravity the stream of urine flowed down from terrace to terrace, finally reaching the base of the palace. Then, miraculously, it re-ascended the terraces, approached the Dalai Lama, and re-entered the bladder from whence it had come.

Triumphantly he turned to those who had been abusing him: “Unless you can do the same”, he said, “you must realise that my sexual relations are different from yours.”

The inner meaning of this curious tale is illustrated by another story, this time told of Marpa, who flourished in the eleventh century
A.D.
and was the teacher of Tibet’s great yogi Milarepa. Marpa wished to ensure that a married disciple of his should become the father of a child intended to be the physical vehicle of incarnation of a great lamaistic
teacher. To this end Marpa first gave a special initiation to both the disciple and his wife, following which the couple retired, separately, for a prolonged religious retreat during which various rituals were conducted and the Bodhisattvas were invoked and asked to give their blessing to the operation.

At the end of the retreat a further initiation was given to the two, after which they retired into the private oratory of Marpa. Here Marpas at on a throne with his own wife, the semi-divine Dagmedma, by his side, and at his feet lay the newly-initiated couple, writhing in silent copulation. When orgasm had been achieved the sperm was received by Marpa into a shallow bone dish, the brain-pan of a human skull—a type of bowl still used in certain Tibetan rites—and mixed with certain magical herbs, following which it was drunk by the disciple and his wife.

Both these stories reflect the sexo-yogic practices of Buddhist Tantricism and they also illustrate the major non-theological difference between Buddhist Tantricism on the one hand, and Hindu and Jaina Tantricism on the other. For while ritual sexual intercourse (in either actual or symbolic form) is the central religious act in all Tantric cults, there is one considerable variation between Hindu and Buddhist technique; in Hindu rites the sexual act ends in the male practitioner ejaculating his semen into the vagina of the female, while in Buddhist rites the semen is retained by the male and no ejaculation takes place. Thus one Buddhist text instructs the adept that he should “place the
Vajra
in the
padma
but should retain the
bodhicitta
”. This sentence is a good example of the code in which most sexo-yogic treatises are written; the literal meaning of
vajra
is thunderbolt, that of
padma
is lotus, and
bodhicitta
means mind of enlightenment, but here the words mean, respectively, penis, vagina and semen. A variation of this technique of seminal retention has sometimes been used. In this variation ejaculation did take place but the semen was then re-absorbed by the male through the urethra. To the western reader such a practice may seem to have been physiologically impossible, but there is some evidence that this improbable feat has been achieved and certainly the technique was taught in several treatises on hatha-yoga, the novice being instructed to learn the required muscular control by sucking either water or milk up his urethral canal. It is, of course, true that semen re-absorbed in this way would have entered the bladder and not, as at least some Tantric adepts seem to have believed, the testicles. It seems likely that the Fifth
Dalai Lama was, rightly or wrongly, supposed to have been trained in this technique and that the story of his miraculous urination was a symbolic presentation of seminal re-absorption.