Originally published in Shared Visions, Vancouver

The rift between sexuality and spirituality, installed within Western culture as the doctrine of original sin, has been a source of much human pain. On the one hand, we are sexual beings, driven to satisfy a powerful urge and, on the other, we absorb cultural messages that steep our sexuality in guilt and shame.

These undercurrents of sexual angst have their origins in the fathers of the Christian Church who were unable to reconcile their sex drives with their service to God. "Wherever sexual passion is at work, it feels ashamed of itself," wrote Saint Augustine, who went on to make original sin a central feature of Catholic doctrine. Christianity, of course, has been the dominant spiritual force in the Western world ever since; sixteen centuries after Augustine, we still view our erotic selves with ambivalence.

Nevertheless, sexual repression foments its own kind of rebellion and the voices of libertines can be heard through Western history (William Blake, D. H. Lawrence, and Wilhelm Reich, for example.) The liberation of sex from guilt, shame and condemnation may be applauded for its own sake, but the trick has always been to find some way of forging a link with spirituality -- not just to unfetter sex, but to sanctify it. In this way, sex is seen as something not merely natural, but sacred, a rhythm of life rooted in the cosmos.

Wilhelm Reich, one of the most famous and certainly the most controversial of Freud's pupils, was an important forger of the link for this experimental legacy. Reich believed that the antidote to human neurosis -- which he believed was caused by emotional armoring -- was sexual energy. His therapy aimed at dissolving energy blockages in the muscles with deep breathing exercises and vigorous body massage. Once de-armored, the patient was ready to experience the big Reichian O -- an orgasm to be sure, but transformed into a stream of erotic energy flowing through a clear channel.

Reich's legacy may be seen in rebirthing and various other new age therapies, but usually devoid of any sexual focus. Sex is still too hot to handle for most therapists. An exception is Collin Brown, who leads Body Electric workshops to make sex and spirit whole again.

Collin Brown is the director of the Body Electric, a school of the healing arts headquartered in Oakland, California. Their courses, entitled "Celebrating the Body Erotic", borrow On Reich's work and the traditions of Taoism, Sufism, and Tantra. They are held in 25 -cities throughout North America and now in Australia and explore "the healing potential of erotic energy". The original workshops were designed for men, but the school now offers courses for women as well as workshops for men and women together. "The work was developed as a response to helping gay men stay erotically alive in the time of AIDS", said Brown. The work now attracts people of all sexual orientations and spiritual paths.

Here’s how one participant writing in the “Village Voice”, described the Body Electric massage:

"For an alternative to ejaculation that would satisfy the Western urge for climax, Body Electric borrows from contemporary Taoist master Mantak Chia an exercise called the Big Draw. After an extended period of breathing and continuous genital massage, you take a deep breath, clench all your muscles from head to toe, hold the breath for half a minute, and then release it. The combined flooding of breath and erotic energies can trigger a full-body orgasm with profound effects. Some people hallucinate, weep, or have physical contractions that create deep vibrations throughout the body".

Brown says that the mix of gay, straight, and bisexual men who attend the workshop offers an opportunity for men to explore and share equally the healing potential of male erotic energy. "Many men, both gay and straight, are beginning to realize there is more to sex than they have been led to believe," he says. "Exploring erotic energy has always required dealing with cultural taboos. Showing up anywhere to enhance your erotic awareness requires courage. Most men are surprised to find how much more there is to raising erotic energy than sex. By opening their bodies emotionally, spiritually, and sensually, they feel a connection to the divine and many experience for the first time a sense of erotic brotherhood." Brown acknowledges that most men are still in the process of emerging from the erotic closet. "Our workshops create a supportive community space for people to explore the connection between eroticism and spirituality," Brown says.

Getting to the experience of the pure erotic energy means dissolving one's barriers and attachments. Carla Timmons, coordinator of the women's workshop in Oakland, spoke about the process: "The safety is essential so that the group can deal with each other. The exercises layer upon one another, and we start with building community and trust and getting to know one another face to face and eye to eye. As the group comfort level builds, you go deeper and deeper and deeper; as the layers of armor go, so go the layers of clothing."

Graduates of the workshop are said to experience more ecstasy in their lives and to be much more present about who they are in the world. More confident and conscious of their erotic selves, they can approach their relationships less from a place of need and with a greater capacity to give and receive.