“Surely the reason humans were designed with so much sex energy was to ensure that the species would be propagated. I mean, other animals have a mating season; we mate all year round. It’s ridiculous how much time we spend obsessing over sex.”
This theory was put forth one humid summer morning by one of the psych techs at the clinic where I worked. He was one of the more bizarre members of our staff. He was a small, owlish, young man, who wore wire-rimmed glasses, and parted his short, black hair in the middle of his head. He had a BA in Psychology and was planning to study for his MA and then his doctorate. He enjoyed bad movies and sometimes spoke of them as if he were a connoisseur of mediocrity. Once I was invited to his house for a party and he rented a projector and an eight-millimeter copy—this was before videos and DVDs—of a movie called The Bed-Sitting Room, an English film about the aftermath of a nuclear war where people turn into pieces of furniture.
“Of course it’s a joke,” he went on to say, “that people here talk to me, or any of us, about their sexual problems. What do we know? We went to school and read the books, but most of us have our own sexual issues to deal with.”
Probably about a third of our patients talked to us about their sexual problems, and we, in turn, discussed their sexual problems at our morning staff meetings. The other two-thirds never talked about sex with any of us, but that didn’t keep the psychiatrist, and some of the other staff members, from occasionally making comments about what their sexual problems might be.
In the two years I spent working on the ward the picture I formed about sex and mental and emotional problems was something like this: if sexual problems weren’t at the root of mental and emotional problems, then they, at least, went hand and hand with many disorders. The disorders I’m talking about are problems like depression, paranoia, manic-depression, obsessive behavior, and emotional trauma.
Of course you don’t have to work on a psychiatric ward to see that we as a society are obsessed with sex. Our TV shows and our movies, particularly our comedies, paint a picture of a culture that is preoccupied not only with sex but also with young beautiful people. All you have to do go to a popular concert, or a department store, or a sporting event, or even a political debate to observe our society’s preoccupation with sex.
I think it is fair to say that we expect a lot from our romantic relationships; we expect our relationships to provide us with life goals like happiness, identity, security, and a sense of empowerment. But, as important as sexual relationships are, it’s my belief that we expect too much from them.
Still it has to be said that there are good reasons why we expect so much. For instance, there is a great promise—an anticipation of something higher—in the energy of sex. Sex is meant to empower us, but only in the sense that it gives us a taste of greater possibilities.
There is saying in medieval alchemy that states: ‘In order to make gold, you need to have gold.’ This saying is actually about our inner alchemy—the production of higher energies in the body—and it refers to sex or, more correctly, to sex energy. The theory is that if we didn’t have some experience of higher energy automatically programmed into human activity, it would be impossible, or at least very difficult, for us to know anything about the workings of higher centers. So in this case sex energy can be seen as the gold that we need to have to make gold, and higher centers can be seen as the gold that we create from the gold that we already have.
In order to understand this saying, you first have to be able to distinguish sex energy from sex. Sex is a natural result of sex energy, but sex energy can be used for almost any activity. The sex center is a separate and independent function—separate from the instinctive, the emotional, and the intellectual centers—but its energy can manifest through all the lower centers. So the energy from sex can be used for activities that have nothing to do with sex. It can be used, for instance, to write a song or a poem, to climb a mountain, to sell a car, to debate a political theory, or to preach a religious sermon. It can be used, or expended, in the expression of negative emotions, or to feed a weakness, or to commit a crime. When sex energy gets into activities besides sex, the resulting behavior is characterized by extremes and by an excitement that isn’t justified by the activity.
Sex energy has the same level of vibration as the energy produced by the higher emotional center. But there are three important differences. The first is place. Sex energy is produced in a different place in the body and in a different place within the energy production process. The second major difference is that sex energy is coarser. The difference can be felt. Think about it this way: sex energy is an unconscious representation of higher energy. Because sex energy is unconscious it can easily attach itself to any number of weaknesses, identifications, and perversions that exist in the mind, the body, and the emotions. This is what Gurdjieff called ‘abuse of sex.’ The third difference is the most important: sex energy is mechanical. It is produced in the machine without conscious effort.
Because sex energy is just energy, it means that it can be used for anything, including conscious evolution.
The role of the sex center in creating a general equilibrium and a permanent center of gravity (in the work) can be very big. ~ G. I. Gurdjieff
The problem in using the sex center for self-remembering is that the lower functions regularly rob the sex center of its energy. The results can be disastrous. When the mind tries to use sex energy, it becomes obsessed; it can’t stop thinking about a person or a subject. When the body tries to utilize sex energy, it becomes tense and overwrought or it runs around in a panic for no reason. And when negative emotions become connected to sex, you end up with emotional dysfunction, impotency, irrational fears, and almost any other psychological problems that can be imagined.
Abnormality, or perversion, in relation to sex is probably best understood as connecting pain, anger, violence, fear, or anything that is negative or repulsive to sex. One of the most important things to understand about sex is that it should have no negative side. Either there are pleasurable and joyful sensations, or there are no sensations at all. Any negativity connected to sex means that the energy from the sex function is being robbed by the lower centers.
The weaknesses, identifications, and perversions that can become attached to sex need, to a large extent, to be overcome before any kind of semi-permanent connection to higher centers is possible. There are a number of reasons for this. In the first place there is the question of energy. The same energy that is expended in weakness and perversion is needed for higher centers to manifest. (It must never be forgotten that consciousness has an energetic side.) We produce a large amount of energy, both through sleep at night and through the process of transforming impressions, air, and food, and if we are serious about connecting to higher centers, a certain amount of that energy needs to go into practices like self-remembering and transformation. The second issue here is transparency. To become more conscious necessarily means that your inner world becomes more transparent and unified, which means that you cannot hide things so easily from yourself. And you cannot connect to higher centers without awakening the emotional center, which means a kind of emotional awareness of yourself and others, and people who live surrounded by negativity and perversion need to stifle their emotions in order to survive the humiliation of their vices.
Sex is often seen in terms of control or liberation, both of which become problematic when taken to an extreme. Trying too much to repress sexual desire will lead to sex energy unduly affecting the rest of your life. This in turn tends to result in extreme behaviors like overeating, rushing, impatience, chattering without thinking, and, in general, a volatility or a certainty in relation to subjects that require, not passion, but balance, generosity, and considered thought. Sexual promiscuity on the other hand tends to lead to a kind of emotional apathy in relation to other important aspects of your life. The passion for conscious evolution—as well as for other pursuits like art, friendship, family, and work—are used up in the pursuit of pleasure.
Both the road to indulgence and the path of repression can lead to abnormalities in sex. In indulgence there is a greater and greater need for stimulation, so there is a tendency to seek energy from negativity and violence, which are the most common expressions of energy in modern culture. In repression the stress of non-expression often connects the stimulation of sex to emotions like panic or fear, or, if they exist, past memories of sexual trauma.
Sex and sex energy play a large part in our sense of who we are. This is so because our feeling of identity is largely dictated to us, not by our daily, commonplace moments, but by our most intense experiences. Intense experiences, sexual or otherwise, force us into ourselves in ways that other, more humdrum experiences cannot. They force us to think and feel at a level that either exhilarates or frightens us. Eventually it becomes possible to have intense experiences without identifying with them, but only by first learning to not identify with ordinary experiences, and that, like so much in the work of conscious evolution, takes practice and time.
One time I was in a museum that was exhibiting erotic Japanese art. Looking at the blatant depictions of sexual positions and acts was indeed stimulating. There was a distinct ‘electric’ sensation coursing through my body. My wife became one of the objects of my sexual desires, as did the ladies to whom I was attracted at the exhibit. Lots of eye contact…
Then all of a sudden the exhibit changed from erotic art to other subjects and the first image was a beautiful depiction of the natural affection between mother and son. What made this image all the more distinguished is that Japanese woodblock paintings are not known for capturing the inner-life of the subject or subjects, yet this picture captured perfectly (the facial expression, the postures of the subjects, the eyes – especially the eyes) the natural affection that exists between parents and children. The difference of instinctive and emotional sensibilities between the erotic images and this lone image – at least for myself – was strikingly different. The sexual energy that was being produced by the one was altogether courser that that produced by the second image. Indeed the artist had beeb able to capture the inner life of his subjects so adroitly that it only needed this one image to evoke a higher emotion of affection and familial love. As Gurdjieff might have said in similar circumstances – ‘that indeed was art!’
George Gurdjieff also had a few things to say about sex, some of which I’ve verified. For instance he states that sex is different for different people. My understanding of what he meant by ‘different people’ is different types – that is a marshal type will have a different relationship to sex than that of a lunar type, for example. One person may need to engage in sex regularly, whereas for another, abstinence or even celibacy is required. All this though is in relation to what is needed to produce the energy that’s needed to awaken the soul which in turn implies that a man who knows himself, knows what he needs in relation to sex. This also, more than implies, that contrary to contemporary science, one protocol in relation to sex for men or women is not applicable.
Lastly, your essay reminds me of Peter Ouspensky’s advice to not let anything negative come into sex.
Sex to me is like anything else. If sex was not a great feeling the human race might just die off. You have to get something out of the deal. Another way of looking at it is working toward something to make something happen. There is life then there is the hunt for what comes of that. Then there is the feast. This is what comes out it at the end.
I have recently employed an exercise where I have placed myself in the shoes of a blind person to get a greater sense of being present to the sounds and touch around me but obviously doing it while my eyes are open. What I found was the constant need of my sight to attach to things around me to distract me and one that stood out more than other distractions was when I see someone of the opposite sex.
I found this interesting considering that I am married and have no desire towards others and yet this exercise made me aware of the many distractions that seem to attempt to snare me amd would love your toughts on this.
Dean: it’s an interesting exercise. One of the things that has struck me about my work is how dependent I am on visual impressions for divided attention. I hardly ever, for instance, use sound by itself as a way of trying to connect to higher centers because my emotional response, which is so important for self-remembering, seems to be tied to what I see. When I do use sound successfully it is very often part of visual impressions. I know a blind man who practices the work. Though I have only met him once, he seemed to take quite a bit of emotion from his other senses. So I know this is possible. By yourself, you can try the same exercise with eyes shut. Just move around your home or apartment using your other senses to navigate. It good way to observe the intellectual part of the instinctive center.
The sex center is a powerful distraction, and you are right, it doesn’t care about marriage or other social niceties. If it is interested in someone, it is interested in them and that’s it.
“my emotional response, which is so important for self-remembering, seems to be tied to what I see.”
Thanks William..I have learned something here.
I have been a self-taught musician (mainly guitars, keyboards) for over 25 years and when I first started out as a kid I was forever playing and rewinding the cassette player to listen to the guitar riffs, or the bass line etc.
It reminds me of a story where my wife and best friend and I were sitting watching TV and an ad came on, after which my wife and friend laughed only to turn to me to inquire as to why I didn’t find it funny, to which I replied, ‘sorry about that I was actually listening to the guitar in the background and was completely oblivious to the ad itself’, which evoked more laughter from them!
Recently I was listening to some classical music as an exercise and found the ability to separate much easier the moment I fastened on to an instrument.
I never realized until reading your response how much the emotional center is playing a role in divided attention.
By the way, I did try to walk from my bedroom to the lounge with my eyes shut, and the focus of my attention was mostly on preventing myself from stubbing my toes! The King of Clubs?
“The sex center is a powerful distraction, and you are right, it doesn’t care about marriage or other social niceties. If it is interested in someone, it is interested in them and that’s it.”
I bought two magnets for my children after I was set a task to hold attention while drinking from my cup because the activity elicited a vision where I was picturing holding the positive ends of two magnets together where it requires constant effort. I thought it would be fun to see if I could teach a little about the fourth way using magnets.
I said to them in a round about way – If we want to understand the emotional center and how it responds to life’s impressions, we take the positive and negative and put them together and we will notice it attracts with an almost driven or passionate action. When we want to understand the intellectual center, we take both positives or both negatives and try to hold them together and will notice it takes constant effort (incidentally, if we hold both positive’s or negative’s together but then turn one clockwise or anti-clockwise 90 degrees, the amount of effort required is reduced – although I have not found any use for this yet).
However I have struggled to understand the sex center as it relates to the other centers. Because I can visualize the lower centers through the playing cards, I struggle to place the sex center among these or in relation to them.
As a truck driver, which consists of a lot of mundane work, I find the most exciting part of my job is those moments where I am forced to think outside the box – where I am required to fasten a difficult load and where the law has not had the foresight to provide guidance for such situations. There is a forced moment of creation where I must invent something to get the job done whilst fulfilling all other duties. Does the sex center have a role in these situations?
Though it need not, sex energy can play a role in anything we do. For us there are a couple of important points about the sex center. The first is that its energy can be used for self remembering. The second is that a good amount of wrong work in the lower centers can be attributed to the energy from the sex center being expended through the instinctive, moving, emotional, and intellectual centers. To observe the sex center work with it’s own energy requires a fairly advanced level of work. Rodney Collin believed that it was easier to control the higher emotional center than it was to control the sex center.
I believe I understand in part what Rodney Collin meant by saying it is easier to control (properly access?) the higher emotional center than the sex center. I find that my highest experiences of sexuality–i.e. making love–which could be seen as an exercise in which moving/instinctive center, emotional center, and intellectual center are blended to form something higher–involve love, kindness, spiritual communion and other emotions that belong to higher emotional center. With a proper partner, led by higher emotional center, sex energy finds its proper place.
But I do not have a partner, and it has been a long time since I have made love, let alone had sex, with anyone; so aside from reminding me of my need for a partner, and to keep my sexuality straight for any partner I might someday find, I am not sure how useful this observation is for me. Without a partner, I can’t use sex energy to hit world 3, world 6, or world 24; and to the extent I am on world 48, it is simply to experience what I do not have, whether in terms of emptiness, loneliness, or lust. Maybe that’s what I need to motivate my search for a partner. Maybe that emptiness is a precious commodity….
Like a lot of men, I have spent a lot of years masturbating to the internet. Over time, the images became increasingly unhealthy, until I finally put a stop to it. Nowadays, I refuse to look at, or to fantasize about, any sexual image that has an element of violence. I am taking a stand on world 12. Thank God!
Where does this leave me? I have no partner, I go to the gym constantly, and I lust (politely and discreetly) after many of the women I meet and see there.
Best to find a partner, I think. Even if it is more healthy animal sexuality (world 48) than making love (world 24 or higher). But what to do in the meantime?
Is it all right to fantasize about an image on the internet? Playboy seems relatively harmless. There is no element of violence or disrespect, so this seems fairly clean. I would not be poisoning my mind or my heart, although I would be spending energy that is properly directed at real women on fantasies. I would still be on world 96, just a higher level of it.
Still on world 96, but a higher level up, it seems better for me to fantasize about women I encounter on world 48. This group of women actually includes potential partners. Better to use my imagination than an image on the screen. But the women in Playboy have consented to men fantasizing about them. Would the women at the gym mind being used in my fantasies? Does it matter that some of them are married? As long as the fantasies are kept to myself, and I see the difference between fantasy and reality, does it matter?
I don’t want to get stuck in La La Land (even one that involves healthy fantasies). I have spent far too much time there already, and there is the risk that fantasies simply lead to more and more fantasies, as addiction reinforces itself. Still, given the tension and the desire that I experience, perhaps it is acceptable to bleed some off through masturbation. At worst, this would be an explosion in the factory of myself, which Ouspensky describes, wasting precious energies and materials that could be used for higher purposes. Not good. But on the other hand perhaps it is necessary to blow off some steam from time to time, as with a vent on an old-fashioned radiator.
I know Gurdjieff took a dim view of masturbation; but when I consider his own sexual misconduct, I cannot help but think that he might have done better to have expended some sex energy on world 96 rather than seducing his students and the wives of his “friends.”
Otherwise, I also see the possibility of sublimating sex energy–i.e. using it for different purposes–which I also see in my life–although the observations above are well taken: “When the mind tries to use sex energy, it becomes obsessed; it can’t stop thinking about a person or a subject. When the body tries to utilize sex energy, it becomes tense and overwrought….”
Given the potentially obsessive nature of sex energy, noted above, whatever I do, I see a need to ground myself on world 12, the world of will. If I can’t be in the loving relationship, guided by higher emotional center, I need will and self-restraint. Even in the loving relationship, I need to work on myself so I can be the best man I can be for my partner. Prayer and self-remembering also seem to be vital elements. For me, too, perhaps there is a need for something like courtly love. I might do well to reread Chretien de Troyes or Marie de France, if only to feed myself with some different impressions.
I have a lot of material here. Thanks for a provocative post. I don’t expect anyone to have “the answers” for me, but other people’s insights and observations are certainly welcome.
This was posted 4 years ago, so I imagine that you will most likely not see my response. But, if you do, I have a few suggestions for you to consider.
Sex energy is indeed powerful, and can be a potent tool to aid in awakening, to “being born again”. However, possibly because of its taboo nature, few specific strategies seem to be available to “the masses” on how to use this energy to, essentially, create your soul.
E-mail me at CustomBuiltSD@aol.com
“When the mind tries to use sex energy, it becomes obsessed; it can’t stop thinking about a person or a subject. When the body tries to utilize sex energy, it becomes tense and overwrought or it runs around in a panic for no reason. And when negative emotions become connected to sex, you end up with emotional dysfunction, impotency, irrational fears, and almost any other psychology problems that can be imagined.”
These are absolutely the worst predicaments I find myself in. When this happens to me while meeting a new partner, the relationship may start off very well, my emotional center is functioning at a decent degree and getting along hers as well. But somehow or other I end up with every one of these issues/results, not all the time at once always, but none the less all of them. The same pattern occurs every single time;
First stage in meeting and getting acquainted with this partner starts off smoothly, then slips into a happy-excited obsession, and as a result of this obsession I end up in “sexual promiscuity”, which soon leads to emotion apathy. Then in some cases, it is talked about to have an open relationship, but this does little most of the time as obsession is still running it’s course, and is heading towards negative obsession, (Why can’t they be on time, I bet they are cheating, they are so naive, etc). With obsession heading negative and apathy setting in, my emotional center is nearly completely repressed, and then the only thing that can happen happens; negative emotion becomes tied to sex. At this point I have results of impotency, irrational fears, depression, etc.
This is all very good of me to be aware of I know, but how do I get through this situation? The only way I have gotten rid of this collection of interdependent sex problems is to leave my partner, but that is a cheap shot because it simply avoids confronting any issue.
I hope, but hope not, that some of you have previously experienced this and found a way through it without abandoning the issues and person. I’m am OK with a relationship ending, but for acceptable reasons (distance etc). It is obvious to me, although I may be wrong that when you bail out of these “relationships gone wrong”, you don’t learn anything really, you just watch it all happen, bail out, and then inevitably get into that situation again because you didn’t work through it without abandonment. I have been through this three times, and I am looking for a way through it, not out.
One idea is to take advantage, fully, of the fact that the relationship is open, although the problem with that is that now I have turned unattractive emotionally (apathy, depression), and physically (Impotence, overwrought, tense, bad posture, etc) so finding others to engage in sex/lovemaking is difficult, but not impossible. I have never tried this.
Thank you for reading if you have.
A couple of suggestions: try to observe your friendships that are not sexually charged. You will be trying to distinguish between a friendship based in personality and a friendship based in essence. Essence friendships have a level of confront and trust and have a definite energy of companionship. Friendships based on personality are more competitive and there will be a part of yourself that is always a little wary. If you learn to distinguish between essence and personality in you friendships where it is easier to observe, you will be able to bring that understanding to your sexual relationships. In romantic relationships essence always wins. Sexual relationships based solely on attraction with no essence connection will be plagued with all the issues you speak of.
The second suggestion is to relax and observe. If things are as bad as what you describe, then you have nothing to lose by taking an attitude of curiosity with no expectation toward the future. Don’t think about the relationship, observe yourself in it. If you can bring your higher centers into the picture, understanding will come. And once you understand, you will know what to do.
Perhaps others will more suggestions.
Such a complex subject, and one that I, as a woman, have given a lot of thought and pondering. I notice there are no female comments here, and that seems to be quite usual in conversations about sex. I grew up when girls were taught nothing more than “you have to do it” and “just grit you teeth and it won’t hurt.” Now I see sex everywhere, on tv and in the movies, and magazines tell us how to have better and better orgasms. I wonder about the current generation. They will grow up knowing so much, but I think they may be just as unprepared as my generation for the interactions between men and women that give us such delight and terror.
It has taken me three marriages and some adventures to come to the conclusions I have. The best information I got was from the Work (and more recently from a lovely book entitled “Come As You Are.”) The comments I read here from William are consistent with what I was taught also. But even after the Work, I have wrestled with questions about sex. My first two marriages were in personality. The third is in essence, I’m sure as it has lasted for decades, but even in an essence relationship, both partners go through changes. I have felt myself move from deep in Venusian to deeper into Mercury. My energies changed, my needs changed, my interests changed. Also if both or either are aware and learning about themselves, they change. What to do with this is the question each couple has to answer.
I wonder if men understand women enough. I know that I did not understand men well at all. This lack of understanding kept me from natural discovery, from being able to trust, from making allowances in relationships that would have prevented great difficulty. Some things involving sex are not taken up even in The Work. They arise when a man and a women come together, and all their functions and parts come into play. I would say, if you are a man, talk to the women you trust (the more enlightened the better) and ask them how women feel about relationships. You may learn a lot. I learned more by talking honestly with many men, including my own husband, than I ever did by having sex with them. And talk about feelings, because both men and women have them and they are more important sometimes than technique. I have been tempted to respond to a man who says “I want you” by asking “but what do you want me for?” The better you know yourself, the better you would be able to answer this question.
I am still asking questions about sex energy. I am quite aware of my own (Advanced age means little, it is all still there even if it is buried or not working as intensely.) and I can feel it in others. I do agree that this energy and this desire is quite different in each of us due to type and center of gravity, but the nature of the energy remains the same – or does it? Does our sex energy carry what I have heard referred to as a “signature?” The Work suggests that sex energy, in connection with the moving and instinctive functions perhaps, can recognize a suitable sex partner. How does it do this unless here are characteristics there to be recognized? There is also a suggestion that the sex energies blend in the zygote when there is conception; what do they blend? Is it characteristics, or simply dumb energy? I have heard more than one story in which a woman has had an affair or a deep relationship with one man, but married another man, and then had qualities of the first love revealed in the child born to the new couple. If sex energies are “sharable” through leaking, touching, closeness, then there must be some kind of quality there. I have been told my qualities are noticeable. I have felt qualities of men and responded quite strongly to them just by standing around them. Or perhaps it is the subtle body that is transmitting information.
I am a Libra, Libra rising and a Venusian-Mercury with some Saturn. Relationships are paramount for me. I never felt I got enough information about them in the Work, I’ve worked on that ever since. Enlighten me more….
Who wrote this wonderful article ?
Thanks
My name is William Page. There is a little about me on the About Page.