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Archive for the ‘tantra’ Category

Four of Wands

Symbol- He is lost in romantic fantasies about her.

She is lost in service to others.

Meaning- seduction

As her supply of volatile spiritual energy leaves she attempts to live out her fantasy life by becoming active in altruistic activities. If he isn’t ready she will go on without him. Life is for living.

He is in love with love and thinks he is in love with her. He is obsessed with her and his romantic fantasies are more real than she is. He lives entirely in his head. He sees nothing, hears nothing, says nothing. All his energy is caught up in his obsession about her and their imagined relationship. Worldly affairs and other relationships suffer because they seem vague and unreal to him.

Male experience:

His romantic fantasies are more real than she is. In daydreams he finds joy and peace. He doesn’t care about worldly affairs or friendships with others and they suffer. He sees her loosing interest in him and all his energy goes into making her exclusively his. He feels fear and apprehension at the possibility of loosing her. He is obsessed with her.

Female experience:

She offers herself to everyone without thought of self or personal gain. All she wants is to live her fantasy. She is only compassion and feeling for others as she helps them.
She finds him hostile and threatening in a world that is chaotic. She has fear and apprehension about exposing herself to his violence and negativity. The worries and cares of the world become all too clear. She is pulled in deeper and deeper and can’t get out.

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Three of Wands

Symbol- male forming life for them both out of ocean water.

She is the ocean.
Meaning- attraction

The sparks really fly between the sexes at this stage and everyone is very unexperienced with sharing this energy and excitement. Puppy love always is greater than real life and we are always afraid it is too good to be true. There is a lot of anxiety knowing that the relationship is build upon sparks and not upon solid realistic sharing.

Each feels unworthy and acutely aware of their own short comings. The male is forced to work through these feelings and confront them completely. He is the first to learn humility.

In relationships the first energy to be exchanged is volatile spiritual energy. This energy is the most abstract and idealistic. Here the male and female share deeply held religious beliefs and their visions of the perfect life, the perfect partner, …ect. This is puppy love at its most extreme. There is static electricity everywhere when these two get together.

His energy merges with her energy to form astral constructs of these idealizations. In effect, he shares his most secret dreams and beliefs with her and she understands him perfectly. This exchange is very powerful because the mutual understanding is so intense.

This harmony can’t last because as a male he has an unlimited supply of this spiritual/abstract energy. This is because his primary source of energy is light and the sun. Her supply is limited to the amount she was given at birth and stores in her body. This is because her primary source of energy is the earth. At some point she will run out of spiritual energy and rather than transform her sexual energy into spiritual energy, she will loose interest in long abstract discussions. He will wear her out and bore her with endless talk about dreams and fantasies.

He must transform his abstract/spiritual energy into mental energy. He must seriously think about how to achieve his idealistic goals and dreams in the real world. Otherwise he is nothing but talk.

Male experience:

He shares his dreams and aspirations with her and she understands him! This is an incredible experience and he is likely to think they were meant for each other because this mutual understanding is so intense.

His thoughts and dreams take on a form and clarity never before experienced. He is preoccupied with dreams of creating the perfect life for them both. He is rigid, inflexible and very idealistic. He doesn’t care what she wants. He thinks he knows what she wants. Their combined energy acts to clarify his thinking and make his dreams very vivid.

Female experience:

She has an immediate grasp of what he is trying to share. She understands but gets bored hearing the same thing over and over again. Especially if he doesn’t act upon his ideas.

She understands so perfectly she feels she will never again have to think about those issues. Her thought is now we agree upon the ideal life, lets do it. Don’t contemplate, actuate. But he is not ready.

Its hard for her to understand that he is stuck while she is ready to move on.

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Two of Wands

Symbol- Boy encounters angel of death.
Meaning- movement

This is the first exchange of energy between the male and the female as they are drawn toward each other. We feel shy, modest and vulnerable in our first encounters with the opposite sex. We are drawn toward the opposite sex but we don’t know if we can trust. We don’t want to be hurt.

Male and female energy is generated and stored within our physical bodies. It disperses itself through the body via the nervous system and circulatory system. As this energy moves throughout the body it becomes bio-electrical energy, nerve energy, sexual energy, emotional energy, mental energy, and spiritual energy.

In our encounters with the opposite sex Spiritual energy is the most volatile and the first type of energy to be exchanged. This exchange of energy can be done simply by being in the same room as the other person. We feel this energy transfer as an attraction. It is an energy exchange and there is an energy flow that is noticeable.

Our physical bodies are capacitive in nature and will store a charge of male or female energy in the same way a battery will store a positive or negative charge. We store the energy that flows to us or the other person gets our energy and stores it.

During sleep this “captured” energy is blended with our own and released from the physical body through dreams. Collectively we call this combined sex energy “Astral” energy.

Astral energy is a perfect mix of male and female energy blended together. It remains connected to our physical bodies and a connection remains to the person we have exchanged energy with. This blended energy is controllable and gives us a sense of being more complete. We are drawn to this person because their energy makes us feel more complete.
Even though both sexes exchange energy and store it within their physical bodies there are major differences in how this actually happens. The male uses this blended energy to create and strengthen “self” or his non physical body. The female uses this blended energy to create a rich “astral” environment. The astral environment is our dreaming environment.

Male experience:

He instinctively recognizes her taking his energy as emptiness and death to him. If all of his energy went to her it would mean death of awareness as he knows it. He feels himself being drawn into her and part of him fears this. At the same time part of him longs for this.

In this first experience his energy flows to her and hers does not flow to him. He gives her energy even though he fears what it might do to him. For the first time he confronts the power of raw sexuality, both his and hers. She is and always will be the angel of death to him as she takes his energy. This is part of her “Goddess” power.

As he gives her energy he realizes “outer” and “inner” realities are intimately connected. His dreams become vivid and he feels emotions that are not familiar or pleasant. His rational outlook falters and he is uncertain where he stands.
He confronts his own feelings of guilt and unworthiness. He is brought face to face with his worst fears and demons. The pits of hell open before him.

Female experience:

She gives all she has to others without thought of self or personal gain. She experiences selfless giving and aspires to spiritual goals. She is the completion and end of all things. She is emptiness. Nature is bountiful and there is enough for everyone. Everything has its place and all is good. While he is thinking of her she is thinking of everyone else.

She is receiving energy from him and in control. She enjoys his attention. She should be aware that in male-female relationships the energy transfer will at some point change and she will loose energy to him. One day she will be at a male’s mercy. She will then give to him as she has received. The balance must be fulfilled.

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The Order Logo2

We enter into this lifetime with plans and goals that we want to achieve. Sometimes we reach our goals and other times we don’t. This particular lifetime is very special because Gaia and all life upon her are going through an ascension into a higher vibratory existence. Light workers have spent the past several years trying to raise humanity’s vibrations so that as many people as possible can ascend to a new level of conscious awareness.

There are many old souls here on Gaia at this time and I’m one of them. I’ve experienced many lifetimes here and have learned to love Gaia and all her life forms. I’m one of the fallen ones that has finally found their way back to the light and this time is a graduation for me as well as for Gaia. We celebrate together!

The symbol I have  posted at the top of this post belongs to me. It is the symbol of the Spiritual Order to which my soul belongs. I have the authority to use it as I have for countless lifetimes. I share it as a sign that my work is finished!

Over the past few months I have shared in my posts the entire western mystery tradition of this Order as I understand it and as it has been passed down to me through the ages. These teachings are ancient, yet powerful and I share them freely, openly and without reservation of any kind. They are the teachings that will guide this next great cycle of human evolution. Take from them what you will and leave the rest.

This was my great burden in the lifetime and I now consider it done! I am released!

Blessing to all of you in the coming days, months and years!

Bright blessings,

Joe E. Bandel FRC

 

 

 

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Today we are going to talk about the hermetic tradition and Rosicrucianism. I’ve been trying to trace Organic Gnosticism through the centuries and we made it to the 13th and 14th centuries and then hit a big mess because that’s where it seemed like everything was happening.

One of the things that we have not really talked about is the hermetic tradition, which is related to alchemy and to the Rosicrucian’s. What I’m interested in is what I call Organic Gnosticism, which is soul development through a combination of mysticism and tantrism.

Traditionally, 1378 is the birth date of Christian Rosenkreutz who was the founder of the Rosicrucian order. That was the 14th century, and there was a whole grouping of alchemists alive at that time.

In the 15th century, we see Martin Luther as one of the main figures. Now I’m a Rosicrucian elder. That’s my spiritual school which my soul has found again and again lifetime after lifetime.

I spent over 22 years in the Rosicrucian Order AMORC and according to the first Imperator H Spencer Lewis, Martin Luther was the Imperator of the Rosicrucian Order in Germany during his lifetime. This would place the Rosicrucians in the 15th century. His coat of arms had a cross with a garland of roses in the middle which was highly symbolic for Rosicrucians.

From there the Rosicrucian movement seems to go to England to Sir Francis Bacon in the 16th and 17th centuries. That’s when the first Rosicrucian manifestoes came out in 1616. But it’s also a time of Rosicrucian writers and hermetic writers such as Jakob Boehme, Robert Fludd and Elias Ashmore.

These are well-known names and we want to just throw them out there. But I am saying that the teachings I received had this Rosicrucian movement beginning in Germany with Martin Luther and the Protestant revolution.

Sir Francis Bacon began Freemasonry as a social experiment, especially high-grade Freemasonry in the 17th century according to the teachings that I received through the Rosicrucian Order. Freemasonry continues on into the present day.

Freemasonry exploded and soon there were all kinds of masonic lodges and teachings all over the world. John Yarker tried to unite a lot of these teachings into his own masonic order which became known as the Rite Of Memphis and Mizraim.

Albert Pike was another prominent Freemason who created the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry. These men were in conflict with each other. The Scottish Rite was Kabbalistic in nature and the Rite of Memphis and Mizraim was not.

I find it interesting that even though I studied the Scottish Rite and the writings of Albert Pike I was never initiated into the Scottish Rite. I have been initiated into the York rite of Freemasonry, the Rosicrucian Order AMORC, the Traditional Martinist Order and even the OTO of Aleister Crowley.

So my own lineage follows that of John Yarker. Theodore Reuss inherited John Yarker’s position as head of this branch of Freemasonry and of course Aleister Crowley continued the OTO after the death of Theodore Reuss. But Crowley’s teaching were Kabbalistic!

Crowley’s OTO involved the development of the soul and its powers under a Kabbalistic framework and included the secrets of sex magic.

There seem to be three threads that come out of ancient Rosicrucianism.

H Spencer Lewis and the Rosicrucian Order, AMORC, which I am an elder in also came out of John Yarker’s school. Both Aleister Crowley and H Spencer Lewis were initiates of the rites of Memphis and Mizraim.

Something else I find interesting is that the OTO continues with the Gnostic Catholic Church which Papus created. But but the Rosicrucian Order AMORC continues with the Traditional Martinist Order which Papus was the head of.

The Rosicrucian Order AMORC is very intent on mystical Christianity and the path of mysticism which leads to the development of Cosmic Consciousness. The OTO is more interested in combining magical and mystical paths together in a Kabbalistic framework.

I discovered a third branch that was previously unknown through my translation work of Hanns Heinz Ewers and Stanislaw Przybyszewski. I call this third branch Organic Gnosticism. This was the development of the soul and its powers through love relationships and tantric practices. It was also known as German Satanism.

Both Przybyszewski and Ewers show the same dark current or black current of sexual energy in their writings that Crowley’s writings have been accused of. I personally believe that it is highly likely that Aleister Crowley was initiated by Ewers in New York during the time they were together there.

Hanns Heinz Ewers had been lecturing about German Satanism [Organic Gnosticism] for approximately 7 to 10 years before he knew Crowley and was well-established. It was widely thought that Ewers was the spiritual successor to Przybyszewski.

Letters exist where Ewers calls Przybyszewski the equivalent of Worthy Master, indicating that they belonged to the same spiritual organization.

Here are a few lines about Przybyszewski’ s funeral.

“He was the author of many publications and a highly successful public speaker. His funeral procession, headed by a four horse carriage with State insignia was 3/4 mile long and included State and Church dignitaries, chancellors of colleges and universities, writers and journalists.”

Anyone that has a funeral procession that large with so many respected people attending was not just some unknown writer!

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symbol- meaning-union

This is the starting point for love. The Ace of Wands represents the new born male and female child. They have not yet met in a meaningful way. The union represented by this card is the union and harmony of the universe itself. The universe exists in harmony even if we can not sense that natural harmony. The world is right and the world is perfect. There is nothing that needs to be changed. We are born into this world in a balanced way.

The male and female experience life very differently. The male regenerates energy by tapping into photon or light energy and the female regenerates her energy by tapping into the atomic and molecular energies of physical matter. From a sexual point of view the male is constantly generating and loosing sperm. The female is born with all the eggs she will carry the rest of her life. These differences are profound in their effect on each of us.

The old nursery rhyme tells us, “Drums and snails and puppy dog tails, that’s what little boys are made of. Sugar and spice and everything nice, that’s what little girls are made of.” The physical body we are born into determines many of our life experiences.

This difference between the sexes is also a difference in polarity. It attracts the male and female together for an energy exchange and attempts to balance and neutralize the inequalities between each of them. Our souls may be both male and female but our physical bodies are not.

When these two meet it is “Puppy Love”! Each can see the God and Goddess in the other. They don’t really see the real person. In that sense this card represents Spiritual Love.

Ace of Wands

Male experience:

The Ace of Wands symbolizes light/electricity bursting through the barriers of old ideas. Conscious awareness and intuitive awareness are one and the same. Here is the spiritual experience of being at one with God or the Cosmic.

The boy child has the experience of becoming part of all things and finding his true destiny in play and nature.
The limitations of language make this experience indescribable and it can be shared with no one. This is very difficult for him to accept. Especially when he tries to communicate with the opposite sex.

This card symbolizes the life force, the phallus and God in physical form. The spirit of life within us is sacred and holy.

Spiritual Light manifests as life energy.

Female experience:

The Ace of Wands symbolizes her union with the spiritual light. She achieves a great understanding in the form of illuminations. She has a strong awareness of being a girl instead of a boy. Instinctively she is aware of the life force in the phallus and of boys being Gods in physical form .

She wonders what it would be like to live forever but no one understands her. Many things remain a secret between God/dess and herself.

She feels small and helpless as she ponders the mighty forces of destiny and the male dominated world.

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The Princess of Wands contains the essential elements of the Tarot Trump cards THE EMPRESS, HIEROPHANT, CHARIOT, THE LOVERS, THE HERMIT, and THE WHEEL OF FORTUNE.

THE Princess is also related to the ACE of Wands, ACE of Pentacles, TWO of Wands, TWO of Pentacles, THREE of Wands and THREE of Pentacles. Her Element is Fire.

The Princess of Wands contains all things within her and is a mirror that accurately reflects the unseen worlds. She is very intuitive and able to perceive things the way they really are. She has a strong sense of being part of the entire universe. She knows she belongs and is happy in that knowing.

She has true vision into astral events and is a natural psychic. She enjoys ideas and abstract thoughts. She reads lots of books and is good at planning things. Her basic outlook on life is set in stone and she will resist all attempts to change the things she believes in. She is extremely opinionated and strong willed.

The Princess of Wands has a deep ability to love that can overcome all obstacles. She has strong bones and nervous system and has the ability to think imaginatively and creatively about things. She enjoys the fine arts and good music.
You might recognize her as someone you have seen at the library or the local art store. Perhaps you have seen her art or heard her music. One thing is certain, she is an artist and loves the fine arts.

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Today we are going to finish off this three-part series on the 13th century and courtly love. The 13th century and courtly love was very significant in the women’s movement and in a span of 50 years, women went from being totally disregarded to the status of honored lady and this happened on such a profound level and in so many different areas of life that it’s worth talking about. Especially because in today’s world we are dealing with a similar reemergence and rising of the feminine,

It’s interesting to speculate on what is going to happen to modern society in the next 50 years. But what happened back in the 13th century can give us some clues.

A new type of literature was invented called the romance. The romance was adventurous fiction combined with love and romance and the ladies loved it!

Some of the most popular romances were about King Arthur and the Knights of the round table. This was also the beginning of the age of chivalry where the knight errant went on a quest in search of or doing something for his lady.

We’ve talked about the importance of education and literacy and how literacy belonged only to the aristocracy. The common people were not literate, however these new types of fiction stories had people talking. Plays did the same thing and they gave the general population opportunity and exposure to these new concepts and ideas that they wouldn’t normally have access to. This was profound and the common people were getting introduced to new ideas for the very first time.

These concepts crept into the Church itself. The divine feminine came into being with the Virgin Mary becoming Holy Mary Mother of God and Our Lady. She was seen as a warm, compassionate mother to the poor and wretched.

Now this was not in the original plan of the Church. It was an embarrassment to the Church which they didn’t really know the best way of dealing with. So they just let it be. At the same time sexuality became widely accepted. This was a very sexual and sensual period in world history. It was accompanied by the spread of incubus and succubus experiences in association with courtly love.

Let’s face it, the incubus and succubus are actually personality fragments that we give off when generating too much sexual energy and they go out and are attracted to appropriate people. But it’s unconscious. It’s not happening on a conscious level and these experiences are distorted so they were causing a rampant increase in so called demonic attacks.

The monasteries and convents were filled with monks and nuns that were horny as hell. They were having these weird dreams and these incubus and succubus experiences were happening at unprecedented rate. It was even worse than it had been back in the dark ages.
This happens anytime many people are working strongly with sexual energies. These are magical energies and they are happening on the lower astral levels.

So you are going to get a corresponding revival or interest in magic, witchcraft and demonic activity. I said demonic because the incubus and succubus are always considered demonic in origin and not understood for what they really are.

These were the things that led up to the holy inquisition and the persecution of witches.

I’m just going to bring up a few numbers so you get an idea of what was happening.

In the Swiss canton of Vaud 3,371 witches died between the years 1591 and 1680. In the year 1562 in the little town of Weisensteig in Germany 63 women were burned. In Obermarchtal, 54 persons, or 7% of the population were burned at the stake in two years. In Oppenau 50 out of a population of 650 were burned at the stake in nine months.

Just think about these numbers for a minute and realize that this was happening all over!

The Church was trying to deal with rampant sexuality and the chastity belt was invented in the late 14th century or early 15th century.

French and German historians refer to the 15th century as the age of bastards! There were so many illegitimate children being born. Prostitution flourished and for the first time temple prostitution came to Europe.

This might be hard to believe, but there was a Church brothel in Avignon where the girls spent part of their time in prayer and meditation and the rest of the time servicing customers, but only Christian customers, of course, Pope Julius II was so impressed that he founded a brothel like it in Rome itself.

This was also the age of Philip Philip the fair, the king of France. He’s the one that had the head of the Knights Templar arrested.

The church was really having a hard time trying to get a grip on things.

Let’s say just a little bit about King Philip’s daughters-in-law. Margarette was charged with sorcery and thrown into a hole in the ground. His second daughter-in-law Jean was strangled and a third was raped and became pregnant by the hangman’s assistant while in a dungeon.

Philip the fair himself, and his wife were poisoned. All of these things were symptoms of rampant sexuality because they were dealing with lower-level astral energies and the accusations of sorcery and witchcraft. It was a very magical time in human history.

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The Prince of Wands is related to the Tarot Trump cards HIGH PRIESTESS, HIEROPHANT, EMPEROR, THE LOVERS, STRENGTH and WHEEL OF FORTUNE.

The Prince is also related to the ACE of Wands, ACE of CUPS, TWO of Wands, TWO of CUPS, THREE of Wands, and THREE of CUPS. His Element is Fire.

The Prince of Wands has fully developed his body of light and can astral travel in full awareness at all levels of the astral planes. His awareness can travel through the cosmic circuit as light and photon pulses. This gives him deep insight into nature and life itself.

The interesting thing is that even though he is born with the second sight he will often fear it and repress it. He sees too deeply into things and prefers to not look at times. This makes it hard to share personal things with him because it feels uncomfortably intimate.

He is the farmer that loves working in the field growing crops, being close to nature and animals. He is their protector and guardian spirit. He is tough and weathered like an oak tree.

A natural outdoorsman, he is a deeply spiritual person that can make friends out of enemies. He is not an emotional person and any emotional thoughts are painfully destroyed as soon as they appear. He would rather trust his intellect instead. He has a strong body and nervous system that can withstand the rough treatment of being constantly outdoors.

You might recognize him by this phrase,”that just doesn’t make any sense”. It is easy to be intimidated by him because he is competent at so many things.

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Today we are going to continue our discussion of the 13th century and courtly love, but we are going to go back in time a little bit to a person by the name of Guilhem in the 11th century, who was the seventh count of Poitiers and the ninth Duke of Aquitaine. He was the most powerful nobleman in Western Christendom and very influential in the development of this entire idea of courtly love which we are exploring.

He fought against the church doctrine that the fires of hell were stoked especially hot for adulterers. He apparently liked his ladies and he wrote love poems. He argued that love was an exultation, not an abasement of the soul. It was not a sordid sin but a divine mystery and the lady who offered that special gift was a goddess to be adored and worshiped.

He basically proclaimed that sexuality elevated the soul and what he was doing was bringing Tantric philosophy into the Western world. This is one of the first appearances of the sacredness of sexuality and it became a favorite theme of scholars, singers and poets.

Now remember this was during the time of the Crusades and the man of the house was gone. The ladies were lonely and they needed some way to spend their time so they wanted to hear love songs that were meaningful to them. And gradually a convention, or a script came into being, which was of a great lady who fell in love. She was loved by a romantic hero of the lower class and this romantic hero struggled to become worthy of her and win her love. In the end he did win her love. That story was repeated over and over and over in many variations through the centuries and it still is today.

It was a couple generations later, in the 12th century that the prerequisites of virtue and chastity were added to this mix. These songs and poems were acted out in the fashionable world of the nobility and they brought courtly love into existence.

It’s just like what happens today when Hollywood creates something and then the general population gets caught up in it and play make-believe acting it all out. That’s what was happening then. But it really caught on! Poets declared that elevating love to the immaculate plane of chastity cleansed their own souls of all carnality and left it free to soar, to lift them up high into the spirit realm.

This was different than the Arab world where a special place was created for women in the harem. But virtue and chastity became the European harem.

The basic story went like this. The heroine was a lady of high and noble birth who was married to a very powerful husband and somehow she was not satisfied. She was missing something in her life, and her lover, who was of a lower stature strove to become worthy of her and finally, at last succeeded in attracting her love. But it had to remain secret. It was a mystery that they both shared and set them apart from other people.

The interesting thing is the power that this theme had among the population because it is still popular today. But back then, the minstrels and the troubadours never sang of consummated love. They only sang of unconsummated love. The chaste love, the kiss, the embrace and modest contact with the nude lover was permitted, but not the final act of consummation.

These are such fascinating things that have metaphysical and Tantric implications. One thing is the love triangle. This is even such a powerful concept that the tarot card of the lovers has three people in it, not just one.

The man has to choose between the angel or the physical woman. There is something in this fantasy of courtly love that satisfied the needs of both the body and the spirit for generations. Even today the love triangle interferes with so many people’s experience of love.

Tantrism teaches about the power in the exchanges of sexual energies and not just about physical sex. An important part of it is talking about chastity, the embrace and the holding back. That’s how the energies develop and strengthen between two people, especially when it’s never allowed to be consummated.

Dion Fortune, the famed occultist, in England talked about the deliberate use of magic by building up those sexual tensions to an electrical point where they were almost unbearable and intolerable. Then they would use those magical energies in a conscious, deliberate way to work magic. This was not sex magic the way it’s commonly thought of. It was actually the tension that was created and not allowed to be consummated.

This tension of sexual energy that’s built up is actually what Tantric teachings are really all about. It is the sharing of these energies on the nonphysical planes, that actually develop the soul. They help to complete a person inside and they allow males and females to become more sexually balanced.

So this idea of courtly love went crazy within the nobility. This was the educated class. This was the higher class and they were tapping into this high form of tantrism even if it was not recognized as such.

But what was happening to the sexuality of the common folk? They were playing the same games, but they were a lot more undisciplined about it and sexuality ran rampant among the common folk. I mean they were just out there having random sex without knowing how powerful it was.

Sexuality was rampant among the entire population and the Church was having a very difficult time with it. It was happening in the monasteries and in the convents. It was happening to the nuns and to the priests and monks.

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