Listen to Light of Sex by The Whip Angels
“You will learn the falsified language when you come down from the Mountain to speak to the sons of the Earth.”
- Maria de Naglowska, The Light of Sex: Initiation, Magic, and Sacrament
Maria de Naglowska’s The Light of Sex: Initiation, Magic, and Sacrament, translated from French by Donald Traxler, attempts to unite light and dark forces through the terminology of sex and the Biblical creation myth. Naglowska also developed rites veiled in occult imagery to achieve such reconciliation. The underlying and most crucial theory of the text Naglowska calls “The Triangle.”
The angles of this triangle represent the very course of all existence, and it acts as a template that can be applied in a variety of ways. In one instance Naglowska assigns the angles the following names: Night, Noon, and Evening. Since the beginning, the sun rises and sets again, creating light and darkness respectively. Therefore, within this three-pointed cycle there are two qualities, light and dark, which are to be balanced.
Naglowska replaces light and dark with Man and Woman à la Adam and Eve. In this case, the form of the triangle is still present, but in terms of sex through the familiar story of The Fall.
Had Adam been alone, he would not need Eve to provide balance for him (balance, which could be considered neutrality or as Naglowska says, “nullity”) yet without each other, nothing could exist. Eve’s very creation out of Adam plants the seed for the everlasting desire to unite and reconcile the polarities that they represent since The Fall.
For a time Adam and Eve only had the “Will to Live” and upon eating the fruit of Death, (aka The Fall) they now also knew the “Will to Die.” With the awareness The Fall brought upon them, “Eve knew the first shudder of love and revealed the secret of it to Adam.” Thus, The Fall sets the triangular cycle in motion.
Naglowska’s philosophy is intriguing particularly due to the shortage of women who have written this type of material. If the title drew you in and you picked up this book looking for an erotic novel or a sex manual, look elsewhere. The rest of the book is Naglowska’s attempt create a ritualistic scene through an exposition that is saturated in occult terminology and imagery. My personal reading interests lie outside the orders of the occult, yet I found Naglowska’s description of the rituals to be a legitimate attempt at creating, through words, the sense of wonder and longing for the initiate. Naglowska’s rituals create an atmosphere of a twisted occult version of Eyes Wide Shut meets Sleeping Beauty.
“We forbid our disciples to imagine Satan (= the Spirit of Evil of the Spirit of Destruction) as living outside of us, for such imagining is proper to idolaters; but we recognize that this name is true.”
- Maria de Naglowska,
Sex as a path to oneness, or union is an age old idea. However, union as Naglowska explains, is the complete and balanced heart that is formed with the joining of two others, thus forming the third angle. While this notion resonates with my own beliefs, my departure is in Naglowska’s expression of her philosophy in words, whereas I prefer visual art and song.
However, I appreciate this “Satanic Woman” for writing the account of the ritual from the point of view of a man. Creation is God. Reason is Satan. According to Naglowska, God is also Life and Satan is also Death. As she puts it, “Death cedes to Life, since the world continues to exist.”
The Light of Sex: Initiation, Magic, & Sacrament is available from Inner Traditions.
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Jenna Kraus took her B.A. in Philosophy and Religious Studies at St. Thomas Aquinas College and currently explores the relationship between sexuality and spirituality in her music, art and on her personal blog while living in New York’s Hudson Valley.
