In spite of the central role of “Eros” in many if not all ancient Mystery schools (we’ll have a look at it in a moment), a majority of the writings about them totally ignore this part. That’s even true for texts originating from spiritual men and women, who show the great power of that time’s practices (including the death-rebirth experiences).

May be the Eros part is one of the most feared (and therefore avoided) one’s of the mystery schools. For many reasons…

• Many spiritual people have rather grown in spiritual traditions where sexuality was avoided or seen as lust, taking us away from “higher” spiritual intentions and hindering our freedom. So integration of sexuality in a spiritual path is considered at least suspicious (if not evil, temptation, deception)

• Sexuality is a powerful force, experienced as animalistic and therefore needs apparently to be controlled, caged, restricted.

• Although the western societies went through movements like the “free love” of the 1960’s, in spite of the FKK movement since the early 20th century, still the traces of puritanism are deeply ingrained in the collective psyche of our present time. Nakedness needs to be hidden. Sexuality much more!

Certainly forming modern times’ mystery schools will make it necessary to let go of these inhibitions and limitations. On this path learning from the Eastern tradition of Tantra has helped to bring a broader awareness of the power of sexuality in a spiritual context in the past and we will continue to grow in knowledge and experience in this field.

Oneness Experience through Sex

The mystery school has a very different view on sex. Sexuality is the primary natural tool given to man to reconnect to the original the Oneness we experienced before coming into form. While in form everything is submitted to duality, this duality dissolves in the sexual act. Poles come together and for a moment we experience complete Oneness. Unfortunately for most people this really lasts only for seconds, if at all, too heavy is the mind control which binds them to limitations of time and space, seperate individualities through an ego-perspective on the experience. “I want lust” or “I am insecure if I am sufficient” and many other “I”-sentences can be formed related to the sexual experiences, fixating in the mind and not allowing what sexuality really is designed to allow.

Altered States of Consciousness and Eros

When we drop out of the mind and get deeply present, even without aid of any substances, we find ourselves in a state were we are able to deeply dive into what the sexual experience holds. This powerful energy can literally shoot us into oneness for an extended period of time. If the experience is even amplified through consciousness-widening medicines we can start to have an idea why these two elements were brought together in the ancient mystery schools and will, according to my view, be brought together in those to come.

Eros between Life and Death

As the Mystery Schools bring us into community (not only mental knowledge which anyway would not be possible) with the Mystery behind all Being, they have to lead us to the place where life (=limitation into our known dimensions) ends and begins. And this is exactly what was the meaning of the Greek god Eros. He was a primordial god, speaking about transitioning into and out of life. In the orgasm we experience dissolution into the all (“petite mort” - little death, the French word for orgasm) just as the result of the intercourse is the beginning of a new human life.

The Sacred Orgy

The word orgy (today used in quite a different way) is a word that we have inherited from the Greek Mystery schools: Orgia (ὄργια). While the Kukeon (κυκεών, the potion they drunk) served as a medicine to allow the initiates to experience the state in which they were able to perceive Oneness with the wider field of dimensions, the Orgia was the practice in which they were able to connect in this deepest sense with other Humans on all levels, including the physical and or sexual one. This was an interaction that was not driven by the mind, by plans and goals but based on a communal surrender to the source of all being, experienced in the own sexual energy and the one of the others while they flowed together, at times in wild ecstasy.

In a later post I will write more about the Sacred Orgy, my first experiences with it and how we lead into it. For now: imagine a room where a group of e.g. 12 people are sitting in a circle, blindfolded, dive deep into consciousness and presence and after a while are guided to start stretching there hands out, realize another body, continue to follow just in the way the energy moves them. Finally they start to move there bodies till eventually bodies are piled-up above one another and all kinds of ecstatic interactions arise. The separation between I and you fades. All is one and the experiencing Human gets a deep notion of what Oneness means, even after diving out of the experience which will feel like without time.

Stay tuned for further posts in this section…