Authentic esoteric spirituality is not social or political.
It is not a type of morality.
Its essence is not “correspondences.”
As a portrait captures the sitter, esotericism captures the Mysteries that, beautiful and terrifying, burst forth in blinding light, casting a dark shadow before them.
Thus, it is sometimes called the Magnum Opus (“Great Work”).
We shall all face the Mysteries when we die. And the religious person is content to wait. He might be sensible to do so.
But, impatient and drawn to them as if by an invisible force, the esotericist wants to face and behold them while still alive.
This is the force of Eros or the “erotic” (not in the modern, secular sense of the word, but in the sense of a cosmic attracting force that pushes us forward, even into the dark: Fate or Wyrd).
Esotericism: Veiled With the Taboo
The philosopher Slavoj Zizek has called himself a “communist” precisely to remind himself of the dangers (i.e., dictatorship and gulags) of the ideology that he partially identifies with.
Authentic esoteric traditions have, likewise, often embraced dark and frightening imagery, or imagery that is otherwise shocking to society. The things that make us fear or desire are transformed into things of contemplation that reveal a deeper aspect of reality.
Hence, in Freemasonry, we find the imagery of the skull and crossbones (or sometimes a corpse), a sword pointed at a heart, and a sacred book guarded by another sword.
Other esoteric Orders have adopted similar imagery. Hence the image of a skull impaled with three daggers found in the ninth-degree emblem of The Order of Knight-Masons Elect Priests of the Universe (more commonly, the Élus Coëns).
Although quite different, we must note that while wine is forbidden (haram) in Islam, Sufi Muslim poets compared their mystical love of God to being drunk on wine.
Relatedly, remarking on the Catholic culture of South America, the anonymous author of Underworld says that Santa Muerte “is often referred to as a divine alcoholic.” The author further notes that “Alcohol is a gateway to another state of mind, which is why it is used liberally in rituals all over the world” (Underworld (Theion Publishing, 2023), p. 111).
And, of course, sexual imagery is central to mysticism, both East and West.
Esoteric Spirituality is Erotic
The Biblical “Song of Solomon” is interpreted by the Catholic Church as “Christ’s love for his Church” despite being overtly sexual:
“Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth! For your love is better than wine.”
The Carmelite nun St. Teresa of Avila spoke of a beautiful angel appearing and penetrating her body with a golden spear, causing a sweet agony that made her moan. The sexual metaphor is clear in Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s sculpture “The Ecstasy of St. Teresa” (1645-52).
The Zoroastrians believed the dead would meet a woman (or spirit) on the bridge that stretched between this world and the next. If the believer had been a good person (in substance, rather than appearance), she would appear beautiful and lead him across. If the character of the deceased was malefic in life she would appear ugly and would cast the deceased from the bridge.
Likewise, the ancient Norse believed that a beautiful woman would appear at the death of a man, and would take him from this world to one beyond. Those slain in battle were met by a beautiful Valkyrie (sometimes described as a “Wish Maiden”).
Sexual imagery is also central to Hindu and Buddhist Tantra and European alchemy. Hence, in Michael Maier’s Atalanta Fugiens, we see the male and female interacting in various ways.
In one metaphoric illustration of Atalanta Fugiens (Emblem XX), we see a knight in armor, penetrating a raging fire. Following him is a beautiful, naked woman.
In other illustrations in Atalanta Fugiens, we see the sun and moon, with human bodies. In one such image (Emblem XXX), they stand next to each other. On the earth, between them, is a rooster and a hen. The female moon points at the rooster. In Emblem XXXIV, we see the sun and moon copulating in a lake.
Esotericism: The Journey Down
Esoteric spirituality, initiation, and initiatory traditions take the temptations and horrors of the world—sex, violence, and intoxicants—and present them as physical representations, or embodiments, of the sacred. In this way, such things are purified.
Desire is not respectable.
Love breaks taboos.
It strikes us like lightning. It seizes us when we least expect it.
Like the alchemist who follows Nature, personified as a beautiful woman, such initiation into the Mysteries requires a guide.
Like love, the Mysteries are not for public consumption. Hence, they have always been conducted away from the masses, in caverns or lodges, sometimes passed from a single initiator to a single initiate.
The modern esotericist makes a fatal mistake. He thinks that, through his esoteric speculations, he is traveling upward, away from the material world. He comforts himself that even if his path is unorthodox, it is moral—more moral, even, than orthodox religion. (Hence, despite the evidence, the Kabbalist who claims to be practicing the tradition that Jesus practiced.)
But the authentic esotericist has already been to the heights. Like St. Teresa, he, or she, has been seized by visions or, at least, feelings of ecstasy. In the initiation ritual, the initiate senses the presence of the Divine.
When someone falls in love, the whole world looks different. So it should be with the Mysteries.
Thus, esoteric spirituality is not the journey upward to non-duality, to non-being, non-duality, to the Divine, floating around out there in the clouds. That is the ecstatic moment; mystical rapture; the petite mort of gnosis.
Esoteric spirituality is the journey downward, back to earth or, deeper still, to ancient underworlds where primal memories dwell and live again through us.
Our contemplation of symbols and correspondences is akin to poring over love letters to be reminded of our beloved. It is going into the dark with a bright, flaming torch.
Illuminated, here in the world below, we find even the hells are sanctified. Sex, and intoxicants all seem to speak, not of the ego, but of the Mysteries; not of escapism and craving but of the Erotic attraction to the Divine (embodied in the supernatural woman who appears at death or in dreams and in the imagery of the Mysteries). Images of death cover the Mysteries as a black dress on a beautiful woman.
Within us, as within the poet, the primal and Divine make love.
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