Материал: Snote

Aboriginal Australian painting on bark, depicting three "Rainbow Serpents."

Private collection.

certain Australian Aborigines. The Aboriginal Dreamtime imagery of Rainbow Serpents, energy fields, connected plexuses, and so-called X-ray imagery is reminiscent of the secret mythology, symbolism, and rites of Tantra, and its artistic expression is now referred to as Tantric art.

One of the most consistent features that connects Tantra with archaic pagan spiritual cultures the world over is belief in the efficacy of magical rites. These rites are commonly conducted over actual or symbolic representations of the sexual organs and involve the repetition of power Mantras, the making of mystic gestures, and "worship" by offering sensual ingredients such as food, drink, flowers, scent, music, dance, and sex, with the aim of attracting and pleasing higher spiritual energies, thereby obtaining mystic powers or spiritual blessings. Many of the precious artifacts recovered from sites once inhabited by archaic peoples still seem to resonate with the original transcendental visions of their makers. Though but fragments of the distant past, these timeless treasures open doors to spiritual dimensions.

In addition to these archeological discoveries, the last twenty years has also brought forward a large amount of new information, covering a broad spectrum of topics, that allows the "secrets" in this book to be much more available and relevant to today's world.

It has now been 20 years since Sexual Secrets: The Alchemy of Ecstasy was birthed. I still recall vividly my level of excitement when I met Nik Douglas and started expressing some of my most heartfelt inner revelations about relationships and sexuality. It was then that I found a profound mirror in the body of wisdom known as Tantra—not a wisdom based on secondhand knowledge, but the deep wisdom of experience, tried and tested in the alchemical vessel of real practice. What a joy it was for me to find such a point of reference that resonated with my own direct experience!

It was from this fecund soil that Sexual Secrets took form. Initially we felt that the "secrets" were meant only for advanced practitioners, not the uninitiated. On the other hand our feeling was that this knowledge and understanding could do nothing but good if it was disseminated—and that people would only be able to absorb that which they were ready to receive. After all, I myself had received such an enormous blessing through this connection, couldn't we share this far and wide?

Twenty years later, this approach seems to have held true. Even now I can open the book and learn something new. In our play of Yin and Yang, Nik represented the accrued knowledge that he had gathered from years of dedicated study in the field, and I the artistic conduit helping to channel the secrets into a highly visual and accessible form. I remain very happy with our labor of love.

So, why an anniversary edition at the dawn of a new millennium? I firmly believe, and it is a growing and expanding belief, that Tantra is the spiritual path of choice for the new millennium. By its very nature (one of the meanings of the word Tantra is to expand), Tantra has the built-in potential for expansion. What we have seen of Tantra is how it has arisen and blossomed in Eastern cultures—and what a beautiful blossoming it has been! But now we have the opportunity to see how the seeds of Tantra can take root and grow in other cultures in the world.

N o n - s e c t a r i a n , oblivious to caste and creed, Tantra of-

fers us a new global kind of spirituality that is

available to anyone w h o wishes to consciously reunite

with spirit in the weave of their total existence. Tantra is the supreme path.

Unfortunately, many in the West who are discovering Tantra are under the misconception that it is the "religion of sex." Tantra is not a "religion," it is a spiritual path. Also, although this book focuses primarily on the sexual application of the principles of Tantra, Tantra is by no means limited to sex. It just includes sexuality in its tool kit for transformation and liberation rather than excluding it as do most major religions. Tantra as a way of life is a means of approaching every aspect of worldly existence as an act of worship.

Tantra also opens us up to the realm of the Goddess. As the energies of the planet shift into the new alignments of the millennium, the feminine spirit is reemerging as the active principle in this much needed change. In the spiritual arena, Tantra stands supreme in giving the Goddess her due.

Shakti is seen as the active principle of creation moving through everything and honored as such. When we penetrate to the esoteric heart of most major religions, we find the Gnostic balance of male and female in the core, but Tantra expresses it through every level of its teachings.

The Goddess, as the feminine face of God, is here to help us reintegrate flesh and spirit, heart and mind—as above so below. Here is our chance to cut through all the dualistic thinking that has kept us in bondage for centuries. All this shame and guilt and separating doing good from feeling good.

The Goddess energy is coming to the planet to help us change all that and reveal to us that it is all sacred. Given the gift of freedom of choice, it is up to us as humans to choose this path of evolution—the wise and fruitful choice, and to understand that

In man and woman are found all the materials and experiences of the world. When they unite, these experiences and materials can be distilled into a vision of and a harmonization with the dynamic unity underlying all of reality. For centuries this vision of unity has been obscured by individuals and institutions that have promoted a schism between body and mind, between religious feelings and sexuality. The fear of mysticism has only been overshadowed by the fear of the inherent liberating power of human sexuality. The very repression of both mysticism and sexuality in the West serves only to reflect their secret marriage. For it is in sexual union that the ecstatic and uplifting experience of the mystic comes within reach of all who love. This ecstatic experience feeds a spontaneous spiritual awareness that dissolves conventions and frees the spirit to seek its origin.

Sexual Secrets: The Alchemy of Ecstasy is the definitive study on sex and mysticism. No book of this magnitude has ever appeared on this subject, representing as it does a major as well as a vital contribution to our understanding of sexuality. It explores the path of love and mysticism, drawing upon the heritage and wisdom of the great cultures of the East. Created by a couple (writer and artist), it is meant to be experienced as well as read.

Sexual Secrets is based on more than two thousand years of authoritative Oriental texts on medicine, philosophy, and sexual practices, many never before seen, let alone translated, in the West. Nik Douglas studied Oriental art, philosophy, medicine, and related sexual practices while living for eight years

in the Himalayas. He studied with Indian physicians, adepts of Tantra, and

Tibetan lamas and at

the same time mastered Sanskrit as well as the Tibetan lan-

guage. He has drawn u p o n a

unique blend of living experience and a facility with ancient tongues to make these texts as vital and contemporary as they were when first written.

Penny Slinger has created more than five hundred illustrations to enhance the experience of the text. Her arwork is accompanied by numerous period examples of erotic imagery from Nik Douglas's private collection. Illustrations of more than two hundred sexual postures are included to create a complete illustrated Kama Sutra, Ananga Ranga, and the major Taoist love treatises, all of which have been newly translated. Drawing from some of the finest examples of Tantric art and working from life, Penny Slinger has created a completely new style of erotica that blends the images of the West and the sentiments of the East. This artistic achievement crowns the greatest and most diverse collection of illustrations expressing the erotic sentiment ever to be published.

The fruit of more than a decade of research, Sexual Secrets heralds the marriage of love and mysticism, presenting a natural lifestyle, philosophy, and practice in which the alchemy of love produces the ecstasy of liberation.

EHUD C. SPERLING