Wednesday, June 3, 2009

The Hieros Gamos

Many people have asked about Hieros Gamos. Some might remember having encounter this concept in the movie "Da Vinci Code". Here is an account of what it means:
The Hieros Gamos is Greek and it means Sacred Marriage. Marriage as in a union, more literally, sex. It dates back more than two thousand years. Egyptian priest and priestesses performed it regularly to celebrate the reproductive power of the female. However, it is not understood today and it has nothing to do with eroticism. It is a spiritual act. Historically, intercourse was an act through which male and female experience God. The ancient believed that male was spiritually incomplete until he had carnal knowledge of the sacred feminine. Physical union with the female remained sole means through which man could become spiritually complete and ultimately achieve the gnosis- knowledge of the divine. Since the days of Isis, sex rites had been considered man’s only bridge from Earth to Heaven. “By communing with women, man could achieve a climatic instant when his mind went totally blank and he could see God.”

Physiologically speaking, the male climax was accompanied by a split of second entirely devoid of thought. A brief mental vacuum. A moment of clarity during which God can be glimpsed. Meditation Gurus achieved similar states of thoughtlessness without sex and often described Nirvana as a never-ending spiritual orgasm. It is important to remember that the ancients’ view of sex was entirely opposite from ours today. Sex begot new life- the ultimate miracle and miracle could be performed only by a god. The ability of the woman to produce life from her womb made her sacred, literally a god. Intercourse was the revered union of the two halves of the human spirit- male and female- through which the male could find spiritual wholeness and communion with God. The Hieros Gamos is about spirituality; it’s a ritual and not a perversion. It’s a deeply sacrosanct ceremony, which is practised around equinox, mid-March.

Early Jewish tradition involved ritualistic sex. In the Temple, no less. Early Jews believed that the Holy of Holies in Solomon’s temple housed not only God but also His Powerful female equal, Shekinah. Men seeking spiritual wholeness came to temple to visit priestesses or hierodules- with whom they made love and experienced the divine through physical union. The Jewish tetragrammaton YHWH- Yahweh, meaning, I am that I am- the sacred name of God- in fact derived from Jehovah an androgynous physical union between the masculine Jah and the pre-Hebraic name for eve, Havah.

For the early church, mankind’s use of sex to commune directly with God posed a serious threat to the Catholic power base. It left the church out of the loop, undermining their self-proclaimed status as the sole conduit to God. For this obvious they worked hard to demonise sex and recast it as a disgusting ad sinful act. Our ancient heritage and physiologies tell us sex is natural, a cherished route to fulfilment and yet modern religion decries it as a shameful teaching us to fear our sexual desire as the hand of the devil.


“ I was with you in the beginning, in the dawn of all that is Holy, I bore you from the womb before the start of the day. The woman whom you behold is love. She has her dwelling in eternity.”

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