EXPANDING
SEX
CHERO is
the physical life energy. I created the word "chero" by
combining "chi" and "eros". Eroplay is
intense nonlinear physical touching, rubbing, licking, exploring
for physical pleasure for its own sake. Eroplay is foreplay
which is released from the linear goals of reaching genital orgasm. PANTAN combines various kinds of orgasm (explosions of energy) with ontonse (a regular implosion of energy) within an intensely small/intimate nonlinear play. MAGIC is the science/art of non-linear change. In cherotic magic, it is the
practical focus of the person to reshape reality into more humane forms
by using the magical dynamics of relationships. SHAMANISM is the direct experience of reality. Eroplay was the first tanpanic trance I "discovered", Eroplay is intense nonlinear physical touching, rubbing, licking, exploring for physical pleasure for its own sake. Eroplay is foreplay which is released from the linear goals of reaching genital orgasm. When I first wrote about eroplay, I lumped both the physical and psychic play and the energy released by that play as eroplay. But that has made it hard to talk about both the energy and the play as clearly as I have wanted to. I have since started calling this attracting, pleasurable, healing energy of excited calmness "chero". In the western culture, chero is known as "sexual energy" or as the "sexual urge". This is because in this culture, adults usually call chero forth by means of sex and use chero mainly for sex. However, sex is just one way to use chero. Moreover, sex is just one of the ways to call forth chero. Chero is the life force. It is what attracts. Chero is what attracts other people to you. It is what the shamans used to heal and melt other realities into the normal reality. It is what Tantric Buddhists used to reach the higher spiritual spheres. They used the sex act to arouse chero, which they then used in their spiritual quest. Sex is a cherotic act. But Chero is by no means simply a/the sexual energy. There are many ways of calling forth chero, and many ways of letting chero direct or guide you. One of the oldest ways of calling chero up is what I call "vere". Vere is what most writers would call the use of pain to attain spiritual ends. But vere is no more pain than eroplay is sex. Vere is physically different than the normal pain, releasing different chemical and psychic reactions in the body. Vere and eroplay are related. Because of the crudeness of the language, it is very difficult to explore these realms. At one time, long before so-called civilization permeated our culture, humans cultivated this pleasure to transcend into higher dimensions of consciousness, beyond the material, animal orgasm. Thousands of years ago, people had achieved a high degree of awareness and an alchemical formula for converting what we know as sex energy -- called by many names such as Chi, vital force, soul, etc. -using it to enter into a state of Divinity. Their spiritual philosophy held sexuality as a divine rite and an expression of union or yoga. This period was 4300-1700 BC. At the end of this period, civilization became masculine and aggressive, it also lost this deep spiritual connection to this vital energy that we are calling chero. Tantra is the art of spiritualizing "sexuality", transmuting fear and attachment into love and universal responsibilityÉa way to reverse the negative on the planet. Put simply, Tantra is the total surrender, or letting go of all mental, emotional and cultural conditioning, so that universal life energy can again flow though us like a river without any effort. It is a letting go to universal oneness...to love. When fear is removed, Tantra remains. The word "Tantra" has many definitions, and perhaps its real meaning has been lost to antiquity. Some scholars claim it comes from the Sanskrit or Hindi word for fabric or tapestry, meaning that it is woven into one's life. Others say that is comes from two Sanskrit words tanoti and trayati. Tanoti means to expand consciousness, and trayati means to liberate consciousness. One might then say that Tantra expands and liberates consciousness, making it the fabric of existence. While not a religious philosophy, Tantra embraces a deep spiritual understanding of life, and an ancient art of living in harmony with existence. It is a poetic science of "super sexuality" (tanpanic play) that dates back thousands of years, not only to India and Tibet, but to the Far East, Polynesia, and indigenous cultures of all parts of the world, including North America's native Cherokee culture. It was used as a vehicle to achieve cosmic consciousness and union with divinity. Tantra treats sexual energy (chero) as a loving friend, rather than something to be suppressed or talked about secretly in low tones. It does not deny sex, or consider sex a hindrance to enlightenment or Heavenly Grace. To the contrary, Tantra says that sex (playing in all of its forms) is sacred, and not a sin, or something against God. There is a word for sex in the Sanskrit language, and that is Kama, which means sex-love together, undivided and indivisible. In Tantra, sex is always loving. Almost everyone is familiar with the 7th century classic the Kama Sutra, a Tantric treatise on lovemaking. Kama is also the name of the Hindu Goddess of love. And love is what Tantra encourages--total unconditional love, including the mind, the spiritual and the body. Tantra supports development of this vital energy to achieve union with Life. The essence of Tantra is the full expression of being--a merging with, rather than a withdrawing from. It is the ultimate yoga, which is Sanskrit for union. In Tantra, the orgasm is with the universe. You become part of the primal energy of everything. In the Kama Sutra, genital contact is but one of the many kinds of intercourse. Tantra teaches how to make love with everything, letting go of all barriers. Sex (play) becomes sacred when you approach it from your heart and body, rather than your mind. The body is only layers of invisible energy in form, and it can be awakened if we let go into the play. This is the way of Tantra. It affirms the life energy within you in totality, so that those on this path find themselves whole and self-confident, with a positive panoramic view of everything. Tantra changes one's view of relationships as well. Relationships are less co-dependent, jealous or neurotic. They tend to be harmonious, fun and energy-filled. In the way of Tantra, you also discover that the relationship you seek outside is already within you. In Tantra, sexual energy (chero) is used in healing as the ignition for firing the Kundalini force, the body's biological life-energy system, merging it/you with universal energy. Unlike Taoism (which actually stemmed from ancient Tantra) that says bring your energy inside for longevity, Tantra says let it go..let it all go! There is no reason to hang onto anything if eternity exists. In Tantra, sex (tanpanic play) is used to create the polarity charge, or potential, that connects with the primordial energy from which everything in the universe arises. Tantra uses sexual energy in an extended way, using the electromagnetic force field created/released by playing with (an)others. Tantra welcomes the full expression of bodily pleasure, recognizing that in the body is hidden the "bodiless," or the spiritual. The body is only layers of invisible energy in form, and it can all be awakened if we let go to the sexual energy. We should realize that experience was not originally broken up into inner and outer, nor into the seven body centers. It was one enveloping sensation transmitted through the nerve organ, the skin. Even today, each of the body centers has the capability of becoming any of the other centers, has the capability of both transmitting and receiving all types of energies. For example, it is possible to switch the site of the orgasm from the so-called sexual organs to any other part of the body. Western medicine has taught this technique to spinal-injured patients who have no feelings in their lower body. But this technique has been kept away from the general public by the power combine, although this technique would halt aids and other sexually transferred diseases; would halt the creation of unwanted babies; would break down personal isolation and frustration; and would lead to other physical trance states of enjoyment. It has been in the vested interest of the power combine to keep the total direct intimate experience of existing/creating/being away from people through religious and political means. Having an orgasm in each center of the body has a different effect, each opens a different door than having an orgasm in another part of the body. For example, it is fairly common for nursing mothers to have orgasms while they nurse. In this context, the orgasm should not be seen as sexual, but as an aspect of human nourishing love. By just revealing this hidden fact of the capability of moving the site of orgasm around the body, of using the different aspects of the orgasm other than the usual sexual, it opens up a richer more complex, more empowering life. But this is only the beginning. This is true of all of the functions that are traditionally limited to one part of the body. You see with your heart, belly, mind, cock/pussy, etc. You do not see just with your eyes. This is another way of saying that light, as an example of all sensual forces, has many more aspects than the ones we have been told about. Light, and every other sensual force, interacts with all of our body centers, exchanging cherotic packets of possibilities, creating a total interactive experience. Ontonse is the fairly regular level of implosion of cherotic energy into the body during physical trances such as eroplay. Cherotic energy is the nonlinear stream of the subatomic packets which our body breathes in and out through every center of the body. Ontonse can be physically as intense as an orgasm. But because it is a level implosion of chero, rather than a peak explosion as the orgasm is, it can last much longer than the orgasm. Its effects are different than orgasm. Ontonse can arc between two eroplaying bodies, creating a united body during the trance time without genital intercourse. We have been led to believe that there are at most only a few ways to experience instinct, to physically communicate, to love and feel and speak and listen and think, to be spiritual, to breathe with the whole web of ultimate reality. By being denied the awareness of these other ways, our erour, our vulnerable strength, is taken away from us. We are funneled down into a narrow existence, most of which is abstract. These many ways, many channels of cherotic breathing are in reality fragmentary parts of the whole tanpanic experience, direct experience of reality, the primal experience. This total experience is deep love. Within the apprenticeship, the shaman guides the student back into this primal direct experience to perform magical work. For this to be successful, the student has to willingly put up every aspect of herself to be used in the magical work, has to willingly let go of all old comfortable ways and forms of knowledge. This reality of total direct experiencing is the reality at the point where self-awareness, the awareness of personal responsibility enters the evolution. Within this experience, the primal human related to everything in his environment as himself, as within himself. He was the rocks, the land, the plants, the animals, the others in the tribal grouping, and the gods and demons. And they were him. Because of this, he took responsibility for them, could communicate with them, could effect change in them. He saw the animals he killed for food as parts of the same body as he was. In this context, killing and eating was circulation of transforming forms within the environmental body. This experiencing the other as yourself is what is meant by deep love. This is not an abstraction. When the buffalo was killed off, the indian, who was in magical relationship with the buffalo, also in a very real sense died. This is not because the buffalo was the food source, but because the indian was the buffalo. Kill off the plants, the land, the tribe, or the reality of gods and demons, and you kill off the primal person, his personal context of being. This concept of deep love is very hard to grasp in our reality of helping, sharing with, learning from, conquering, making love with, leaving, coming together with, etc., another as two separate, isolated entities. In social communications, we are made to think that the only way to be effective is through the mass channels. In truth, the magical, private, interpersonal channels are more effective and accessible. The same is true with the channels of the body. Society focuses us onto the face and the "sex" organs for our normal communication channels. The more open and free the person is, the more he expands from these channels. Over the years of experimenting, we have often noticed that people's physical appearance changes, sometimes radically, after they eroplay. Their physical features soften, the way they hold their bodies relaxes, their bodies have a glow very similar to the glow that many pregnant women have. All of these signs are visual, physical signals which attract open people to the chero‑enriched person...and thus attract more opportunities to him. It is also important to point out that these changes are temporary, lasting from a few hours to a few weeks depending on the physical and emotional environment. Continued release of chero is needed to have these changes be longer and longer lasting. There are other changes that occur during eroplay. By touching, rubbing, rocking, moving, the energy centers of the body are randomly activated, releasing a flood of blood with chemicals that produce the sense of well‑being in all parts of the body. This is a warming well‑being. This is deepened by the special breathing that is gentle laughing. This is why eroplay is playful and fun at its most healing level. Laughter has its own special healing quality. Sometimes the release of chero is blocked by confusion and guilt when the person feels the pleasurable, turned‑on feeling which he in the past associated with sex. But now he feels it in a nonsexual, nonromantic situation. If he can just let the pleasurable turn‑on wash over him without thoughts, it carries him to a new realm of relaxed enjoyment. Eroplay as a spiritual, healing technique balances chero through all the energy centers throughout the body. This is different than other techniques such as Kundalini Yoga in which the energy which I am calling chero is raised through a very dangerous process from the base of the spine to out the top of the skull. In eroplay, chero is called forth in all parts of the body, creating an energy center out of the whole body. There is a widely held misconception that the physical and the spiritual planes are in opposition to each other, that to reach the spiritual, you have to avoid the physical. This is overlooking a great number of disciplines that use the physical in various aspects to reach spiritual treasures. The physical is one aspect of the spiritual, the aspect most accessible to us. As we eroplay, many changes take place. The changes are both physical and psychic. We have already talked about some of the physical changes. One of the physical signs that can occur is the male erection when certain energy centers (and not necessarily the cock) are aroused in certain ways. This male erection has become the most sexual symbol in our culture and perhaps the most taboo. The female erection is not outwardly visible, and hence is usually ignored. But in reality, the "sexual" organs are no more or no less sexual than any of the other energy centers in the body. In eroplay, erection should not be thought of as sexual or a turn toward sex. This region of the body is just one of the main centers of energy. The other physical changes caused by the arousal of chero through eroplay are a slight enlarging of the pupils, a slight change in scent from the sweat glands and nipples, the chero blush, and a difference in body tone. All of these are so slight that they usually are only picked up on the subliminal level. The changes in one body can be transferred to the bodies of others through these subliminal sensory signals. This is one reason why physical nudity is important in this work. It gives these signals a more direct channel to affect others. But to understand better what is happening when chero is aroused by eroplay, it should be remembered that the physical is only one aspect of what we are. Around our physical body there is a force field made up of thoughts, emotions, and other psychic material. This field is usually a fraction of an inch out from the body, but we have the ability to broadcast this psychic force outward. When we release chero through eroplay, we focus this force and with the willingness to be unlimited, we radiate this force outward, creating a rapport into which others can be drawn. This rapport has physical, mental, and psychic qualities. In my performances, this rapport, in the form of an altered reality or a spell, is created by arousing chero between two people by rubbing bodies, by rocking together, moving together, making noises. These two generating people are sometimes isolated in a tent or a box. But the rapport generated physically and psychically by these two leaks out of the enclosed space, putting those on the outside into an altered state. The deeper the chero rapport is between the two, the more complete the outer reality will be. At first, the generating chero rapport may feel uncomfortable, forced, and/or strange to the apprentice. This is because we are using things that in the western culture are usually contained only in sexual and/or romantic contexts. The apprentice should not be thrown by this forced, uncomfortable feeling. It is the breaking of old patterns. it is one of the first stages of this work. To understand what eroplay, chero, and bodyplay both are and do, it is necessary to have some idea what sex is and does. The sexual urge is the urge to merge with, to combine with, to become one with another. Sex is a physical symbol of this becoming one. This being one is a long‑term process of bonding. Sex is a combination of eroplay as foreplay, sexual intercourse, orgasm, ejaculation, and erection. Each one of these may release different chemicals into the body with different results. Sex is the sum of these parts. We have mentioned how sexual intercourse within the normal social context of the modern western context starts and promotes the bonding patterning in the brain which creates the merging oneness with one of its functions being child‑rearing. If the reality of the relationship does not match this being a living unit, then it will, sooner or later, cause very painful confusion which usually translates into jealousy and rejection. In this materialistic culture, the being one with another turns into owning one another. "I am you" becomes "you are mine." Because eroplay does not have any kind of physical intercourse, it is not about becoming one with another. It is to communicate, to share, to exchange on all levels by connecting the centers through physical contact. Because eroplay is not connected with producing children, there is not ejaculation or sexual orgasm. In sex, orgasm combined with intercourse and ejaculation, shoots energy as well as the sexual material outward into another's body. To ensure sexual mating, the sexual orgasm is felt in the "sexual" organs as violent peaks of intense releasing pleasure in the middle of the well‑being of eroplay pleasure. These two kinds of pleasures create a physical trance. Although orgasm is felt in the "sexual" organs, the actual orgasm happens in the brain. In eroplay, there is no peak of released chero outward. instead, the level of chero is raised within the body, creating a physical trance which I call "ontonse". Ontonse can be as intense as an orgasm, but ontonse is not a peak of chero; instead, it is a high plateau. When ontonse fades, the extra chero produced stays within the body, healing and calming. This extra chero slowly radiates out later as an attracting force. We call this force "erour". Erour usually is called sexual power. Within ontonse, creativity and magic can be done. Ontonse can be felt in different parts of the body or in the entire body. Since ontonse is not a peak of chero, it can be maintained and turned into a doorway to deeper dimensions. Since chero has been hidden within sex, it has been difficult, because of social‑moral taboos, to use ontonse directly as a healing magic. This is what the student will learn to use. The hands are transmitters of chero. This is because your hands are the only parts of your body that can touch almost all of your body. They are healing wands of chero. Laying on of hands is powerful magic. But rubbing body centers together is much more powerful, therefore more taboo. This magic requires two or more people being physically intimate together. Within the magical experimentation in which I have been involved for over 35 years, it became clear that each component of physical play had its own alchemical, biochemical, physical and psychic effects and properties. The orgasm that is felt in the genitals within intercourse begins a long-term bonding pattern within the brains of the playing lovers. When this is realized, it becomes obvious that using this type of orgasmic sex in any other relationships than in the context of a long-term relationship would be counterproductive. It would be like removing a screw with a hammer. This removes the distorting morality that has hidden most aspects of experience from us. In the magical experiment of which this book is a channeling exchange, the first "new" form of play to be drawn from the veil of sex was "eroplay". Eroplay extends well into the everyday communication exchange between you and the rest of the world. This is the real meaning when somebody says everything you do, every communication, is sexual. But this real meaning is hidden the second it is revealed, by using the word "sexual", herding us back into the accepted, life-denying, controlled channels of relating. Instead, we should say everything you do is cherotic. Eroplay is for communicating, for getting to know, to reveal, to exchange, to be vulnerable, to play, to enjoy, to explore. For this reason, eroplay, even at its most intense naked physical play can be done with anybody you like and enjoy...can be done in clarity in even social situations once it has been clearly and purposefully taken out of the usual sexual context. Romantic monogamy, celibacy, and sexual sex all hide this primal channel of satisfying successfully these needs of play, exploring, and communicating...hide by misdirecting these needs into channels which are not capable of satisfying, or even holding, these types of living needs. The result of this is frustration, isolation, and draining the energy of creation away from the personal level along with personal responsibility. In short, the result is life-denial being created by the dimension of power. But eroplay is only one of the states of physical trance long hidden within sex by the life-denial of power. Each state has its own aspects, nature and effects. Each state is complete within itself, although one state may contain the other states within its special context. For example, sex contains eroplay as foreplay within it. But there is not a linear ladder. That is, eroplay should not be seen as a step towards sex, something less than sex. If you look at eroplay and sex in this way, the true qualities of both will be hidden from you. We have said orgasm as the physical sensation can be located in each of the body centers, including the skin. Each center has its own special effect. So where an orgasm occurs has its own magical effect and context. Moreover, when we realize it is possible to feel an orgasm in different centers, or even in all of the centers at the same time, we begin to see that even orgasmic sex is a much more rich and complex experience. This is not the place to go into these orgasmic sexual states in detail. But it should be again pointed out that genital orgasmic sex, especially when it includes intercourse, is suited only for long-term living relationships when done within the normal social and cultural frame. This is because of the bonding pattern this sets off in the brain. Ontonse is the fairly regular level of implosion of cherotic energy into the body during physical trances such as eroplay. Cherotic energy is the nonlinear stream of the subatomic packets which our body breathes in and out through every center of the body. Ontonse can be physically as intense as an orgasm. But because it is a level implosion of chero, rather than a peak explosion as the orgasm is, it can last much longer than the orgasm. Its effects are different than orgasm. Ontonse can arc between two eroplaying bodies, creating a united body during the trance time without genital intercourse. When ontonse occurs on a regular basis, eroplay has been transformed into "tanplay". Since you can not work linearly toward having an ontonse as you can to some degree work toward having an orgasm in sex, you can only enter the tanplay state by enjoying play for itself, enjoying being with the other person just for being with that person. Then the state of tanplay will settle in. Tanplay is a state of close friends...warm, slow and gentle...willing to go anywhere the tanplay takes you. Because the ontonse arcs into the body, it can effect people not physically within the tanplay. A lot of the formal cherotic magic takes place within this tanplay trance. Tanplay is serious folly. The student should enter the following two physical trances only at the direct bidding and direction of the shaman, the teacher. The shaman within these two trances may use the student's body as his own to accomplish things he can't in his own body. The student might be playing both for/as herself and for/as the shaman. In one of these states, "tansex", orgasm has not the linear goal peak quality it has in sex. In tansex, both orgasm and ontonse are just two of the many possible ports that the play may carry the ritual into. Tansex, although it can be intense, has a magical evenness to it. Everything has an equal value. If there appears a linear goal such as to have an orgasm, this transforms tansex into some other trance state with different effects. Tansex has a nonlinear relaxed floating quality of things just happening following the playing without forcing or trying. As in the other physical trance play forms (other than sex) that we have been talking about, there is no genital intercourse within tansex. The effect of tansex in the normal reality is to express and to explore the depth of a long existing friendship. Because of this, it only makes sense to be in tansex only within a friendship which has lasted for two years. This is within the normal western cultural reality. During the apprenticeship, however, the student should regard tansex as a ritual to be performed only upon the direct instruction of the shaman. In this magical ritual, the student is acting both as herself and as the shaman. Another
physical trance of play is PANTAN. It combines various kinds of orgasm
(explosions of energy) with ontonse (a regular implosion of energy)
within an intensely small/intimate nonlinear play. Pantan melts reality,
which combines things in new, softer forms...forms which remove
power and control...which is why it is dangerously subversive...especially
now! |