Two intense desires rule and govern mankind and control all man's thoughts, his joys and sorrows. They are man's two appetites, hunger for food and craving for love. Curiously enough, while man takes great pains in the education of the young to prepare them for the gratification of hunger, the much tabooed question of sex has been excluded, in our present civilization, from every discussion.

Yet love lies at the foundation of society, it permeates unconsciously the thoughts, aspirations and hopes of mankind. Love is glorified as the source of the most admirable productions of art, of the sublime creations of poetry and music; it is accepted as the mightiest factor in human civilization, as the basis of the family and state. The egoism of passion and the power of love are absorbing all other considerations. Virgil calls love the greatest conqueror: "Love conquers all; let us yield to it." Solomon sings: "Love is strong as death."

The word love is, as a rule, employed very loosely and made to do duty for almost any attraction, whether purely physical or wholly sentimental. Even great philosophers and distinguished writers rarely differentiate between animal passion and human love or between pure sensuality or the physical part of sex, and mental attraction or the psychic phenomenon.

Plato says that love between a man and a woman is mere animal passion, far inferior in nobility and importance to love for boys, to friendship, or to filial, parental or brotherly love. According to Plato, Socrates understood nothing by love except its science. Eros Uranos (heavenly love) incites only youth, the more intelligent sex, to love and this only at a time when their good character and high culture are beyond doubt.

Plutarch says: The passion for women causes at the best the gain of sensual pleasure and the enjoyment of bodily beauty. The Greeks, therefore, applied the celestial kind of love only to friendship and boy-love, never to the love between men and women.

Guiseppe Sergi finds the cause of love in the stimuli of the reproductive organs, and in the senses of touch and temperature.

Ernst Haeckel says: The oldest source of sexual love is found in the chemical attraction which the male and female sexual cells exercise upon each other. This sexual affinity is found even in the lowest stage of plants as in the protophytes, where both cells swim toward each other to unite.

Johann Karl Friedrich Rosenkranz finds in nature only an empire of love, of a love that penetrates all things and leads them to a common end. Gravitation is love dominating nature. Organic life is a continued phenomenon of love. Even in inorganic nature the combination of substances, one with the other, is a trait of love. The appearance of heat and the flash of light that accompany the chemical process are, in a manner, the heralds of lust felt by the substances while uniting. Love of the sexes is a love for things that is ignored and unknown and which is not yet even in existence. The lovers must perish that love may continually rise to new life; the individual dies that the species may live. Love is not the aim but the means, serving life and development.

Love is the joy at another's existence and is stronger than the delight at one's own existence. Love transforms the nuptials into a jubilee even where it is the eve of death. It is hence as strong as death. There exists not only a natural love, but also a spiritual love that is stronger than death. Natural love is not the true love, but only a stepping-stone. True love is no longer blind and necessary, but conscious and free.

Arthur Schopenhauer sees in amorousness an individualized sexual impulse. The growing affection of the two lovers is, in reality, the will for life of the new individual that they could and might beget. The species has a prior, nearer and greater claim upon the individual than the frail individuality itself. The exact destiny of the individuals of the future generation is a much higher and worthier end than the extravagant and transient bubbles of the enamored. The beauty or the ugliness of the mate has nothing to do with the gratification itself, so far as it is a sensual pleasure depending upon a pressing necessity of the individual. Yet beauty is a matter of great consideration, because it represents the will of the species. Every lover finds himself deceived after the accomplished great work. For the delusion has vanished by which the individual was deceived by the species.

In defining human love, Schopenhauer says that every individual exercises a sexual attraction proportionate to the moral and physical perfection it possesses which we attribute to the ideal of the human species. The attraction of two individuals will be the more energetic the more the deficiencies of the one will be counterbalanced by the virtues of the other, and the union of the two promises a child more conforming to the type of the species. Thus the greater the disparity the stronger will be the attraction.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau says: The physical desire is the one which drives one sex to unite with the other. The moral one is that which determines the desire and fixes it upon a single object exclusively, or at least gives a greater degree of energy for this preferred object. Now it is easily seen that the moral element in love is a factitious sentiment born of the usage of society and glorified with assiduity and care by women to establish their dominion.

Franz Joseph Delboeuf looks for the basis of love in the chemical action by which the female sex cells, or ova, exercise an attraction, magnetic in nature, upon the spermatozoa, and vice versa.

Baruch Spinoza defines love as “a pleasure accompanied by the thought of its external cause.”

Alexander Bain finds the cause of love in the charm of dissimilarity.

Paolo Mantegazza defines love as a desire for a particular beauty.

Eduard von Hartmann says: Man is moved by instinct to look for an individual of the other sex to satisfy his physical necessity, imagining that in this way he will enjoy a pleasure he would look for in vain elsewhere. This pleasure, one lover dreams to find in the arms of the other, is only a delusion. Subconsciousness uses these deceiving means to oppose the egotistic reflection and to dispose the individual to sacrifice its own interest to the interest of the future generation.

Herbert Spencer says that the passions that unite the sexes are the most complex and the most powerful of all feelings. Admiration, respect, reverence, love of approbation, emotion of self-esteem, pleasure of possession, love of freedom, love of sympathy, they all unite in the one powerful feeling of love. They represent a variety of pleasurable ideas, not in themselves amatory, but have an organized relation to the amatory feelings. The complex sentiment, termed affection, can, therefore, exist between those of the same sex, but it is greatly exalted in love.

The poet, Philip Sidney declares love to be the most intense desire to enjoy beauty, and where it is reciprocal, the most entire and exact union of hearts. The instinct, on the other hand, is absolutely sensual; it makes the exterior its object and has no other end than sensual pleasure. Every individual, therefore, loves more or less spiritually or sensually in proportion as it approaches to the spiritual or bestial nature.

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel says: Love is the complete surrender of the "ego" to another "ego" or to an ideal. Not the sacrifice of the possession or wealth of the ego, but the "I" itself must be given away.

Finally, Pierre Janet declares love to be complete madness in its origin as well as in its development and mechanism.

These philosophic definitions of love all have an interest for the reader, since they help to indicate the difficulty of classifying or of describing the emotion. However for a practical study of love it may be sufficient to show two distinct types of love; i.e. "sensual" love and "sentimental" love. Sensual love is the instinctive form of the emotion such as is found in all nature. Sentimental love, although grounded in the self-same instincts of self-preservation and racial perpetuation, has added to it the mental qualities found only in civilized human beings.

Gustav Teichmuller says: In sensual love, Nature makes use of the individual only incidentally by making the propagation of the species a personal concern of the individual. She gains her end by a mystification. The individuals, by virtue of the innate impulse, consider the external aim of nature as their own personal concern, for which they voluntarily hazard everything, even life itself. Teichmuller further claims that in physical love only the state of irritability and the sensibility of the nerves of the subject are important. The object is only concerned as a soliciting casualty. The natural impulse cannot aim at lust, for lust is not an end, but only expresses the coordinate state of the subject during the actions. Every desire aims at a specific action as its end. The musician does not long for lust but for music. The pleasure connected with it ensues coordinately with the success of the performance.

Of sentimental love, Teichimiller says, the individual loves an ideal that it has itself created in its thoughts and fancy and with which the actual need not harmonize at all. For that reason the "treasure" lies not without but within the lover. The beloved person outside is only the key that understands how to unlock the treasure. The key is not able to create the wealth. Whoever is poor and desolate within, for him no key can unlock the treasure of love.

When a man, for instance, is attached to a woman because of her outward harmonious appearance, i.e., beauty, it means that she pleases his sense of sight. If he is fascinated by her beautiful voice, then his sense of hearing has been appealed to. When he falls in love by the touch of her soft little hand, then his tactile sense has been excited. The meaning of all such attachments is the desire to satisfy the senses. Hence the love is sensual. For any of the five senses may be the starting point of sexual desire.

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Love has been exalted by the ancients in song and story and extolled by priest and philosopher. "To the Spirit, to Heaven, to the Sun, to the Moon, to Earth, to Night, to the Day, and to the Father of all that is and will be, to Eros." Such an invocation was possible only among the ancient civilized nations. They recognized the importance of sexuality in life. They could not see any moral turpitude in actions regarded by them as the design of nature and as the acme of felicity. They discovered in Love the focus of life. For this reason sexuality among the ancients was an object of pure reverence as the fundamental force of life. The divine adoration of sex was the practice of every tribe and nation of prehistoric antiquity. Even the organs of sex were considered beautiful and pleasurable objects, and were admired accordingly. The phallus, or the male sex-organ, and the yoni, the external female genitals, were symbols of the worship of the ancients and were objects of special religious rites.

In the remotest antiquity the worship of the generative principle was the only religion known to men. Sex-worship was not confined to any one race. It was the form of worship common to all primeval nations of the globe. The Hindus, Chaldeans, Hebrews, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Gauls, Celts, Teutons, Britons and Scandinavians, all shared in phallicism and yonism.

The study of sexual activities and of generation was the basis of ancient Hindu theology. Siva had on his left arm a ring on which was portrayed the sex organs in the act of procreation. The Greek bacchanalia, and the Roman saturnalian mysteries, the free love that prevailed during the festivities in honor of Mylitta, Anaitis, and Aphrodite were still relics of sex-worship. Herodotus' statement that in Babylon women offered themselves, once at least in their lives, in the Temple of Venus, and that only after so doing were they considered free to marry, and his further report that the women on the vessels sailing for Bubastis to the festivals of Isis uncovered themselves in the presence of the men, show that sex-worship was not unknown among Assyrians and Egyptians.

In the historic time sex worship was almost replaced by other forms of religion. Yet there are traces of the cult of the phallus to be found everywhere in ancient profane and sacred history. The temple in which the emperor Heliogabalus was brought up was represented on a bronze coin of his reign; an ionic peristyle with a peek into the Cella; but instead of the statue of a god was a gigantic phallus. Even the Hebrews worshipped in the phallus the principle of the production of life before the adoption of the cult of Jehovah. Records of phallicism can still be found in the Old Testament. Instead of invoking the Deity in taking a solemn oath, Abraham orders his servant to place his hand upon his phallus, because the phallus was still kept in its former high veneration. The slain enemy was, for this reason, deprived of his phallus. David bought Saul's daughter with a trophy of two hundred phalli, taken from the slain Philistines. Circumcision also shows the incorporation of phallic ritual with religion.

In the same light and with the same veneration as the phallus was the yoni worshipped. In the yoni was worshipped the receptacle of life, the divine ark, within the hidden enclosure of which was contained the mystery of life. Its interior was considered the holy of holies. The yoni was for that reason often represented by an ark, which was the holiest of all symbols in the worship of the Ancients. The worship of Osiris took place before an ark; the sanctum sanctorum of Jehovah's temple harbored an ark 

Yonism was the adoration of the vulva, as the organ through which the sexual powers are manifested. It is through the woman that the divine sexual emotions are aroused; it is the sight or thought of her that calls into activity the man's generative nature and powers.

The female principle in nature was hence not considered simply as a passive medium, but was exalted and worshipped as a potent factor in the mystery of creation and reproduction. The earth itself was considered feminine, and all natural orifices have been regarded as typical of the part that characterizes woman. The vulva, therefore, was the sacred symbol of the female principle in nature.

The Ashereh, so often mentioned in the Bible, was nothing but the image of the yoni. It was a symbol of Ashtoreth, or of the union of Baal and Ashtoreth. The Ashereh was made of wood and had in its centre an opening or fissure as the door of life. Above the fissure was a small elevation as an emblematic representation of the clitoris.

The most common forms of the feminine symbol were those made,in representation of the mons veneris. The mountain of Venus was represented by mounds, columns and pyramids. Mounds and hills were considered holy. The graves of Egyptian kings were erected in form of huge pyramids in honor of the feminine creative deity. The yoni worshippers of the Old Testament had the temples of their feminine deity on high hills. The obelisk, pillar, column, altar, mount and cave, all have their origin in the pristine symbolism of yonic worship.

Even the present belief in the lucky horseshoe is connected with the ancient emblems of the female genitals, the yoni. In Ireland the yoni seem to have been the symbol of sex-worship most in use. Even in the arches over the doorways of Christian churches a female figure, with the person fully exposed, was so placed that the external organs of generation at once caught the eye. In olden times, the people were in the habit of making charcoal drawings of the female genitals over the doors of their houses to ward off ill luck. Now, the horseshoe has a great resemblance to the form of the vulva. Hence the drawings over the doors resembled a horseshoe. From this symbol originates the horseshoe's alleged power to ward off evil and to bring luck. Father Dubois found that the lingam that the devout Hindus attach either to their hair or arms or is suspended from the neck is a small amulet representing the organs of both sexes in activity. Even the symbol of the cross has been identified with the earliest records of sex-worship.

Thus with the ancients the passion of sex and the fervor of religion were closely interwoven. Accordingly every ancient temple had within its confines a number of consecrated women whose office it was to submit to the embraces of any man upon the payment of a specified sum. The money was used for religious purposes. To the mind of the ancients no more appropriate nor holy means could be devised for raising money for the maintenance of the temple than a sanctified indulgence in the divine act. It was the most sacred and sublime of all human functions. Hence the temple-courtesan was held in high honor and was considered as sacred as the priest. The Old Testament calls the temple-courtesan "Hakdeshoh," the consecrated, the holy; and it was not in the least degrading to associate with her in the early history of the Hebrews, as the story of Judah and Tamar shows. Later on, Amos complains that the Hebrew maidens received the embraces of men at every altar. Hosea distinguishes between the common prostitute and the temple-courtesan.

The lapse of Israel into the former sex-worship, at the time of these prophets, caused a reaction against any sex-manifestations. This reaction is especially noticeable among the faithful adherents of the religion of Jehovah in the latter days of the second temple. The pious men sought the greatest virtue in chastity and celibacy and looked with contempt upon sexuality. In the beginning only individual persons took to celibacy, as did Elijah and Elisha. Later on these celibates became more numerous and formed different orders, of which the order of the Essenes was the most important, because Christianity took its origin within the folds of this order.

In accordance with its origin, Christianity never looked with favor upon sexuality of any kind. The immaculate virgin is the ideal. Even holy matrimony was only tolerated. "It is good for a man not to touch a woman," writes Paul to the Corinthians. Christianity, therefore, always surrounded with a halo those who vowed chastity. To overcome the passion of sex was always praised as the highest virtue, and asceticism was held in high veneration. Justinus says that total sexual abstinence is a high virtue, and that sexual activity is unnecessary to life. Hieronymus claims that God and the Church requested singleness and only permitted marriage. Christianity entirely overlooked the tremendous strain upon the physical, mental and moral forces such an unnatural life must carry with it. For though complete abstinence is possible and feasible during the period of adolescence, men and women, when mature in years, suffer under such enforced abstinence, and although the final act, or the culmination of the sex-attraction, may be suppressed by the will, yet its emotions are irresistible. The neurotic nun who imagines herself being embraced by a saint thinks that she has subjugated the instinct of sex, but in reality her emotions have a sexual origin.

Actions caused by great sexual excitement may be found in the life of many a saint. St. Augustine, in his confessions, says: "My heart was burning, boiling and foaming with unchastity; it was poured out, it overflowed, it went up in licentiousness." Origen found sexual abstinence too difficult and castrated himself. For that reason he never was canonized. For the spirit should kill the flesh. Parkman's report about Marie de l'Incarnation is highly interesting in this respect. While in a trance she heard a miraculous voice, Christ promising to become her spouse. Months and years passed, when again the voice sounded in her ear, this time with the assurance that the promise was fulfilled, that she was indeed his bride. Now ensued phenomena that are not infrequent among female devotees, when unmarried or married unhappily. In her excited imagination, the divine spouse became a living presence, and her language to him, as recorded by herself, is of intense passion. Her prayer is, "O! my Love! when shall I embrace you? Have you no pity on the torments that I suffer? Alas, alas, my Love, my Beauty, my Life! Instead of healing my pain you take pleasure in it. Come, let me embrace you and die in your sacred arms."

A curious instance of perversion in religio-sexual feeling, bordering on zooerastia, is the case of St. Veronica. According to Friedrich she was so enamored of the divine lion symbolizing St. Mark, that she took a lion whelp to her bed, fondled it, kissed it "and suckled it at her breasts."

Thus the preaching of the Church on the subjugation of the flesh was no great success even among the saints. If the ascetics are not frigid they remain subject to the emotions of sex. Mankind at large is surely ruled by the dictates of the sex-urge in our day no less than at the time of sex-worship.

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Spirit Babies. Reviews the book, Spirit Babies: How to Communicate with the Child You're Meant to Have by Walter Makichen (2005). When do babies become conscious? Is it at conception, at some time in the mother's womb, when they take their first breath? Ancient wisdom from various peoples around the world offers differing answers. The author of this book states that it all starts before conception. And, he says, there is not a one-directional conversation. There is a contract, made by all participants, although sometimes broken. What sets this book apart from many on soul, spirit, out-of-body experiences, near death tales and the like, is that it will likely be understood and acceptable to both those who are devoutly religious and to agnostics. It offers additional insights for those who already believe that human beings come into a body having made a plan for this lifetime. Makichen's perspective is indeed convincing, illustrated with numerous stories of the author's work with clients who have come to him over the years for a variety of reasons. The topics Makichen covers include ones that many pregnancy and birth books leave out – prematurity, miscarriage, abortion and stillbirth – and he seems particularly wise on these subjects yet offers no platitudes nor cookbook remedies. Makichen does offer a wide array of simple yet profound processes for parents-to-be that he calls "meditations." Each of these processes is a combination of inward focusing and quieting down, with visualization and prayer or chants of different kinds, which places the woman or man in a state of calm readiness. He reminds the reader that each prospective parent has a natural connection with their spirit baby. What he offers just enhances that connection, helping the baby to be born healthy.[1]

Emotional architecture of the mind. In recent years, through our research and that of others, we have found unexpected common origins for the mind's highest capacities: intelligence, morality, and sense of self. We have charted critical stages in the mind's early growth, most of which occur even before our first thoughts are registered. At each stage certain critical experiences are necessary. Contrary to traditional notions, however, these experiences are not intellectual, but rather, subtle emotional exchanges. In fact emotional rather than intellectual interaction serves as the mind's primary architect. Our research points towards a new understanding of how the mind develops in the earliest stages of life, one that integrates the child's experience of emotional interactions with the growth of intellectual capacities and, indeed, the very sense of self.[2]

Boot camps for babies. The essence of the advice books is that they treat the baby as an enemy. It is a hostile invader. The mother must arm herself against her baby in order to train it effectively. They inculcate highly anxious parenting. To rock, cuddle a baby to sleep, or slip in an extra feed when no one is looking, makes a woman feel very guilty. If she does not obey the rules to the letter she is failing as a mother. Failure to interact with a baby in an intimate, loving way and offer generous pleasant sensory experiences, such as comforting touch, may have long-term consequences in the development of personality and the ability to form social bonds. There is evidence that the vasopressin and oxytocin neuropeptide systems, important for the establishment of social bonds and the regulation of emotional behavior, are profoundly affected by early social experience. The evidence from history, and from cultures all over the world, is that, by and large, ordinary, spontaneous, loving mothers who are alert to their babies' needs, and who are supported by other women, do better than all the experts put together. Our babies are not our enemies. You don't need an MBA in baby management to be a good mother.[3]

How much do babies see? The visual apparatus in humans is used from birth as an important part of the infant's interaction with the environment. It is a developing sensory modality that at birth is ready to function without prior experience. Eliciting visual behavior in the neonate appears to be positive evidence of central nervous system function. It is difficult to study visual perception in human infants. Direct methods do not work-one cannot ask a neonate what he/she sees since they do not talk. They do, however, initiate limited motor actions and behaviorally and physiologically react to visual stimuli. Indirect assessment methods, such as recording visually evoked potentials (VEP), can become extremely complicated with the data often difficult to interpret. The goal of most of the published literature on infant visual behavior has been to determine infant visual competence as a function of age and/or to describe precisely the corresponding visual behaviors. Gestalt psychology has demonstrated that the individual parts of objects, visual features such as oriented line segments, or incomplete parts of objects, can be organized into coherent wholes. New theories by researchers are moving in a direction that are inspired by and consistent with the tenets of ecological psychology.[4]

Baboons, brains, babies and bonding. On the basis of the extant literature, and inspired by theoretical considerations, we believe that unconscious mimicry serves two important purposes. First, it is an indispensable tool for binding individuals to their social group. Second, and related to that, mimicry may provide a very effective way for the transmission of cultural ways and habits and for the continuous adaptation of individuals to changing social conditions.[5]

The role of familiar names in speech recognition. How do infants find the words in the tangle of speech that confronts them? The present study shows that by as early as 6 months of age, infants can already exploit highly familiar words--including, but not limited to, their own names--to segment and recognize adjoining, previously unfamiliar words from fluent speech. The head-turn preference procedure was used to familiarize babies with short passages in which a novel word was preceded by a familiar or a novel name. At test, babies recognized the word that followed the familiar name, but not the word that followed the novel name. This is the youngest age at which infants have been shown capable of segmenting fluent speech. Young infants have a powerful aid available to them for cracking the speech code. Their emerging familiarity with particular words, such as their own and other people's names, can provide initial anchors in the speech stream.[6]

Intimate contact with your baby. Reviews the book The Vital Touch: How Intimate Contact With Your Baby Leads to Happier, Healthier Development by Sharon Heller (1997). This book is the best, most comprehensive guide to good, early parenting on the market today. This book synthesizes all of the current research on attachment parenting issues, such as baby-wearing, breastfeeding and the family bed. These issues and the corresponding research are vitally important to our babies, who aren't allowed a second chance at childhood. The first third of the book heralds "the power of touch" as "the first connection" and "the rock of love." Touch, or lack of it, profoundly affects birthing practices, newborn stability, the quality of mother-infant attachment, and how much developmentally important sensory stimulation our babies receive. Part two discusses the cultural habits that put us out of touch with our infants: all the containers in which we nest our babies; our prudish sense of our body, which leads to a withholding of affection, unsuccessful nursing, and a distortion of normal sexual development; our lack of support for the nursing mother; and our taboos against co-sleeping. Part three discusses how modern parents can compromise, between nature's call for closeness to their babies and our culture's "plea for distance."[7]

Mothers, Babies and their body language. This book describes, through an eighteen-month research and observational study from pregnancy to the earliest months of life, the complex interactions between mother and baby. Learning to interpret babies' language is a useful basis for getting in touch with his or her needs. This capacity to understand the baby's sign language and needs enhances our communication skills and attunement in other relationships. This book is intended for parents to read through while thinking back to their experience. It is a guide for discovering the space of their body self image, a space to sense, to feel, and to think about, in order to be able to have their needs met. I believe that it is only by acknowledging their own needs that parents can meet the baby's needs and become attuned to her or him.[8]

Mothers’ emotional investment in their babies. In sufficiently mature women, pregnancy and the birth of a baby bring about an adaptive transient increased flexibility in otherwise stable psychic structures, with, specifically, an increased flexibility in ego functions engendered by the anticipatory need to be ready to accommodate to the coming infant, an organism only vaguely known prior to its birth. Once born, the increasingly experienced infant compels accommodations in the mother to which many a mother is surprisingly fluidly responsive. The infant too accommodates to the exigencies imposed by the mother's reality-based needs, expectations, and wishes. The reciprocity and the accommodations both parties make to this childcaring/mothering process require of both much give and take and evolving compromise.[9]

A century of denial in medicine. During the 20th century when medicine rose to dominate childbirth in the United States, it brought with it a denial of infant pain based on ancient prejudices and scientific dogmas no longer supportable. The painful collision of babies with doctors is seen in neonatal intensive care, infant surgery without anesthesia, painful obstetric routines, and genital mutilation of newborn males. This presentation includes a historical review of experiments on infant reactions to pain, the persistence of medical practices causing pain, and speculation about the reasons for professional indifference.[10]

Infant rearing practices in Egypt. Discusses the choice of close contact and low contact child rearing styles among Egyptian mothers, and considers the effects of mothering style on infant personality and behavior. Uneducated mothers living in extended families and educated mothers living in nuclear families in the same village were observed. While uneducated mothers chose the close contact style, educated mothers chose the low contact style. It is suggested that close contact style is selected by mothers who desire an obedient child with strong family attachments, while a low contact style is selected by mothers who desire a more independent, achievement oriented child.[11]

Communicating with the prenate. After a struggle of many decades, the true dimensions of fetal consciousness are emerging, thanks to a growing literature of firsthand reports from parents and abundant observations of life in the womb. In retrospect, scientific views of the sensory, emotional, and mental nature of prenates and newborns, grounded exclusively in a brain-matter paradigm, were grossly inadequate. A new paradigm is replacing it based on baby awareness and knowing. This presentation offers some initial guidelines for parents and birth professionals who seek two-way communication with babies before birth--a dialog that promises greater safety, meaning, and satisfaction in pregnancy and childbirth.[3]

Born with a purpose. In each individual there is a life project, which can be traced back to conception. The life project exists in the depths of a child's being, close to their essence; from there, it influences all the internal and external processes. The life project contains what a person needs to realize personal potentialities that are present from conception. The life project seldom appears clear to the parents from the beginning although unborn children send signals of their existence and their character. Unfortunately, in our materialistic culture signals from the unborn are systematically ignored, deflected and then forgotten by parents. Education begins from conception and can be properly achieved by parents only if they establish a deep contact with their children, communicating with them, and coming to know their life project.[4]

Fetal awareness of emotions during pregnancy. Contemporary research indicates that the mother's emotional state and that of her unborn child are far more closely related before birth than was thought to be the case only a few years ago. The purpose of this study was to explore possible correlations existing between the primary emotional states of birthmothers during their pregnancies and the subsequent awareness of these emotional states of birthmothers by their offspring. To achieve this goal, 12 pairs of mothers (ages 44 to 85) and their offspring (ages 9 to 61) were hypnotically age regressed to the time of the pregnancy. Hypnotherapy/ideomotor technique was employed, in separate sessions with each mother and each offspring, by licensed professional psychologists, who were selected because they routinely used hypnotherapy in their private practices. Within the findings across all 12 pairs, there were 79 identified instances of correlation, derived from a content analysis from the regression session transcripts. The data from this study yielded a striking variety and quantity of detailed information about prenatal consciousness and a wide range of recalled prenatal experience by the offspring, as well as supporting information from the birthmother.[5]

Prenatal memory recall. Focuses on the experience of healing through prenatal and perinatal recall. Interviews were conducted with 7 adults who variously attested to having healed conditions of: syncope, phobias, arthritis, asthma, migraines, depression, suicidality, obsessive-compulsion, side pain, and dysfunctional interpersonal patterns. Intentions were to: (a) illuminate the experience, (b) examine the benefits and drawbacks, and (c) underscore the impact of obstetric intervention. Existential-phenomenological research methods were used with Hycner's (1982) 15-step analysis for interview data. Two in-depth interviews, a demographics form, and a follow-up question were the instruments used to access data. Data analysis revealed seven individual, two unique, and two general themes. All 7 remembered pre- or perinatal trauma, and subsequent child abuse. Three remembered deleterious effects from obstetric intervention including long-term depression, slowed labor from anesthesia, pain from forceps, and vertigo from inversion at birth. After treatment all co-researchers felt the mitigation of psychological and/or physical conditions they had suffered. Results imply fetal/neonatal memory/consciousness and the need for research into the long and short term effects of obstetric procedures.[6]

Psychospiritual guidance before birth. This paper examines the cross-cultural appearance of myths, stories, customs, and legends that refer to images of protection and guardianship of a fetus before, during, and after birth. Included in this discussion are the Jewish angel Lailah, the Christian guardian angel, the Greek daimon, the Roman genius, the Chinese goddess Kuan-yin, the Mauri goddess Hine-Titama, the Egyptian god Bes, as well as a look at indigenous peoples' mythologies that appoint guardianship status to trees, land, animals, and inanimate objects. An attempt is made to make sense of these images through an examination of the biological aspects of prenatal development and birth, as well as through a more transpersonal or spiritual perspective on human development. It is concluded that further research into these images can help shed light on specific aspects of human development including understanding our need for inner images of protection and guidance, and comprehending the deeper passions or stirrings of "the genius within us," who assists us moving through our lives.[7]

Reliability of birth memory. Compared the birth memories of 10 mother-child pairs to determine the reliability of the memories of the children obtained via hypnoanalysis. Child subjects, who were between 9 and 23 yrs old, had no conscious birth memories. Mothers were 32-46 yrs old at the time of the study. All subjects were capable of hypermnesia. Hypnotic induction was used. Mother and child reports of the same birth varied in perspective, content, and detail, reflecting the fact that the birth experience was somewhat different for each of them. Reports of mothers and children indicated that (1) children's birth memories appeared to be real rather than fantasy; (2) birth memories contained errors; and (3) memory contents suggested a sophisticated level of physical, mental, and emotional consciousness at birth.[8]

Consciousness before birth and after death. Veridical evidence of a physically transcendent source of consciousness comes from both extremes of the life span when central nervous system functioning is compromised, suggesting that some form of personhood can exist independently of known cellular processes associated with the body. In pre- and perinatal accounts, veridical memories have surfaced of events in the first two trimesters, long before the central nervous system is fully functional, continuing through the third trimester, when measurable brain activity begins, until just after birth. In the empirically verifiable out-of-body phase of near-death experience (NDE) accounts, a source of consciousness has been shown to record events when measurable metabolic processes, including brain activity, have ceased altogether. These two states have similar phenomenologies, suggesting that a physically transcendent source representing individual consciousness predates physical life at the moment of conception and survives it after death, and that its maturity and functioning do not directly reflect the level of central nervous system functioning in the body.[9]

In connection with this question of being in love we have always been struck by the phenomenon of sexual over-estimation—the fact that the loved object enjoys a certain amount of freedom from criticism, and that all its characteristics are valued more highly than those of people who are not loved. If the sensual tendencies are somewhat more effectively repressed or set aside, the illusion is produced that the love-object has come to be sensually loved on account of its spiritual merits, whereas on the contrary these merits may really only have been lent to it by its sensual charm.

The tendency that falsifies judgment in this respect is that of idealization. But this makes it easier for us to find our way about. We see that the love-object is being treated in the same way as our own ego, so that when we are in love a considerable amount of narcissistic libido overflows on to the love-object. It is even obvious, in many forms of love choice, that the love-object serves as a substitute for some unattained ego ideal of our own. We love it on account of the perfections that we have striven to reach for our own ego, and that we should now like to procure in this roundabout way as a means of satisfying our narcissism.

From being in love to hypnosis is evidently only a short step. The respects in which the two agree are obvious. There is the same humble subjection, the same compliance, the same absence of criticism, towards the hypnotist just as towards the loved object. There is the same absorption of one’s own initiative; no one can doubt that the hypnotist has stepped into the place of the ego ideal. It is only that everything is even clearer and more intense in hypnosis, so that it would be more to the point to explain being in love by means of hypnosis than the other way round. The hypnotist is the sole love-object, and no attention is paid to any but him. The fact that the ego experiences in a dream-like way whatever he may request or assert reminds us that we omitted to mention among the functions of the ego ideal the business of testing the reality of things. No wonder that the ego takes a perception for real if its reality is vouched for by the mental faculty that ordinarily discharges the duty of testing the reality of things.

The complete absence of tendencies that are uninhibited in their sexual aims contributes further towards the extreme purity of the phenomena. The hypnotic relation is the devotion of someone in love to an unlimited degree but with sexual satisfaction excluded; whereas in the case of being in love this kind of satisfaction is only temporarily kept back, and remains in the background as a possible aim at some later time.

It is interesting to see that it is precisely those sexual tendencies that are inhibited in their aims that achieve such lasting ties between men. But this can easily be understood from the fact that they are not capable of complete satisfaction, while sexual tendencies that are uninhibited in their aims suffer an extraordinary reduction through the discharge of energy every time the sexual aim is attained. It is the fate of sensual love to become extinguished when it is satisfied; for it to be able to last, it must from the first be mixed with purely tender components— with such, that is, as are inhibited in their aims—or it must itself undergo a transformation of this kind.

Hypnosis would solve the riddle of the libidinal constitution of groups for us straight away, if it were not that it itself exhibits some features that are not met by the rational explanation we have hitherto given of it as a state of being in love with the directly sexual tendencies excluded. There is still a great deal in it that we must recognize as unexplained and mystical. It contains an additional element of paralysis derived from the relation between someone with superior power and someone who is without power and helpless—that may afford a transition to the hypnosis of terror that occurs in animals. The manner in which it is produced and its relationship to sleep are not clear; and the puzzling way in which some people are subject to it, while others resist it completely, points to some factor still unknown that is realized in it and that perhaps alone makes possible the purity of the attitudes of the libido that it exhibits.

It is noticeable that, even when there is complete suggestive compliance in other respects, the moral conscience of the person hypnotized may show resistance. But this may be due to the fact that in hypnosis as it is usually practiced some knowledge may be retained that what is happening is only a game, an untrue reproduction of another situation of far more importance to life.

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The Psychology of Buddhist Tantra. In contrast to the approaches of conventional religion, tantra does not attempt to soothe the turmoil of existence with consoling promises of heaven and salvation. The tantric practitioner chooses to confront the bewildering and chaotic forces of fear, aggression, desire, and pride, and to work with them in such a way that they are channeled into creative expression, loving relationships, and wisely engaged forms of life.[1]

Long-term practice of ceremonial sexuality. Sexuality in Western culture is often complicated and confusing. As a major aspect of the human experience it is an important area of study. A subculture exists that explores alternative sexual experiences as a spiritual practice. Twenty participants of Tantra, Quodoushka, and Taoist sexual practices participated in the study. This study found that the long-term practice of ceremonial sexuality is a viable spiritual practice. The experiences of the participants included instances of altered states of consciousness, direct experiences of the Divine, enhanced self-esteem, and intimate connection to others. Each participant found that his or her life had been enriched through practicing ceremonial sexuality, and each reported challenges and pitfalls. These included challenges in relationships with primary and family relationships, relationships with teachers of ceremonial sexuality, and cultural taboos. Background and family history of the participants varied, however the majority reported that they came from conservative homes in which sexuality was not discussed openly. Several reported repressive sexual education or sex-negative messages from parents or religion. For these participants engaging in ceremonial sexuality included the challenge of breaking through these early experiences. Both women and men reported body image issues that were healed through the practice of ceremonial sexuality. Penis and breast size, body type and shape, and idealized body expectations were all encountered as challenges. Learning to love and appreciate their bodies as they were led to enhanced self-esteem and confidence. The practice provided all of the participants with tools for creating better relationships with significant others and deeper intimate relationships in general. The practice creates challenges in relationships, such as jealousy over partners engaging with others in ceremony. Overcoming these challenges is a focus of maturity in the practice. Seventeen of the 20 participants stated that they found an increased sense of spiritual connection through their practice of ceremonial sexuality. When asked if they felt they had benefited from the practice all of the participants enthusiastically responded yea. The fact that all continue their practice is evidence that for these twenty participants the benefits out weigh the pitfalls.[2]

Testimonials of practitioners. In a combination of personal narrative and theoretical presentation, the life of the polyamorous tantric circle "Cherry Blossom" (founded in 1985) and the teaching of the tantric Master Aba Aziz Makaja are presented. The disassociation of body and mind and consequent separation of sexuality and spirituality are left behind through a concise presentation of Makaja's "Theology of Sexuality." The narrative shows how, on the one hand, sexual intercourse can support a person's spiritual efforts and accelerate his or her self-realization or realization of God; on the other hand, how spiritual growth increases one's ability to love and therefore enjoy. Through the example of her intimate life, the author, who lives polyamorously, shows that the essence of Tantra is the disciplined training of virtues, including love, truth, and consciousness. Through this training jealousy is transformed into joy as a result of one's partner's happiness. Sexuality becomes conscious and ecstatic, and the realization of God is accelerated.[3]

Religious insight in psychoanalysis. Religion and psychoanalysis move toward a shared sense of the apprehension of the highest quality of mind as object. Whether this be self as Jung thought of it or Godhead, personal or impersonal, may be merely a matter of terms. As we actually experience them we may simply be unable to differentiate clearly the human from the divine, just as we cannot distinguish the object as a thing in itself from the phenomenon as the mind constructs it. Contemporary psychoanalysis has taken the object's primacy to development as Klein described it and brought out its duality in the internal parental couple. Of all religions, it is tantric Buddhism that anticipates this development. The importance of the couple symbolizing the object and its psychic contribution to container/ contained is reminiscent of the Oedipus complex and its dissolution. The religious repudiation of the senses finds its equivalent in the psychoanalytic technique of abstinence. This can be seen in religion to be a matter of making room for religious experience and not just moralism. This is explained by Bion in the idea of saturation and the way the senses may obscure the direct apprehension of mind. It may be that as religion passes from the exoteric belief in the unprovable to the esoteric discipline of religious experience, it ceases to be religion at all and becomes an empty concept, something we can know only by experience and cannot possess as an object of knowledge.[4]

Insight into a tantric community. By constantly developing the ability to love consciously and unconditionally, it is possible to transcend the problems of a monogamous partnership, as well as the jealousy that often accompanies it. Here is a personal account of the transformational process of one of the first members of Komaja's tantric circle Kamala, which has existed for thirteen years and has fifteen members. This demonstrates her struggle to be free from the limitations and expectations acquired from parental and social belief systems, as well as the illusions surrounding sexuality. Included are several practical examples of how the spiritual schooling of Aba Aziz Makaja, founder and spiritual master of the international community Komaja, assists in the cultivation and spiritualization of sexuality, as well as the development of conscious love. The fruits of this transformational process lead to intensive spiritual development, a happier and healthier love-erotic life, and long lasting relationships. Here is a glimpse of what could be the possible future of marriage.[5]

Mysticism distinguished from psychosis. Examining the fundamental conceptual organization of psychotic and mystical mental states not only elucidates the observed similarities between them, but can highlight the differences, and the processes by which negatively evaluated pathological features can be seen to emerge. Oriental philosophical systems such as Tibetan and Zen Buddhism, and Tantric Hinduism, provide conceptualizations of mystical states of mind, from which a model can be drawn, while the epistemologies of these systems provide an illuminating metaphysical perspective on both psychotic and mystical experiences. It is concluded that mystical and psychotic experiences can be distinguished not only by emotional and behavioral consequences, but by real differences in the states themselves; certain features, such as loss of subject/object boundaries and loss of the relative dimensional structure of perception, are common to both processes.[6]

Experiences of tantric couples. One area that has engaged some couples is the goal of combining sexuality and spirituality. Some couples in the United States and Europe are experimenting with and practicing ritual and techniques that are being termed tantra, sacred sexuality, or spiritual sex, and many hold the belief that these practices bring them considerable benefit. The purpose of the present study was to understand the meaning that the ritual of sacred sexuality/tantric practice has for couples who engage in this practice. Additional goals were to understand how these practices affect relationship satisfaction for the couples, and how couples that practice sacred sexuality experience their relationship. Participants in the study were ten couples who had been practicing sacred sexuality consistently between one and ten years. Data collection was completed by personal interview, with each interview taped and transcribed. The analysis was informed from a qualitative perspective, and data inspected by an interpretive phenomenological analysis. Detailed review of the original interview transcripts revealed five major themes and three minor themes. Major themes were: (1) feeling of deepened connectedness with each other and relationship satisfaction; (2) feeling of spirituality or spiritual experience; (3) experience of altered states of consciousness or mystical experiences; (4) experience of viewing the relationship as an opportunity for relationship and personal growth; and (5) experience of deepened connection and involvement with the community at large. Data analysis supported the general view of the couples that the practice of sacred sexuality had a positive impact on the relationship and on each partner. It was also apparent that the area of sexuality and spirituality is a relatively unexplored and that it offers many opportunities for further research in its depth.[7]

Tantric brain states. We studied autonomic and EEG correlates of Tantric Yoga meditation in 3 groups of Ss as they progressed from normal consciousness into meditation. The groups consisted of 10 college student controls, mean age 22.9 yrs, 10 "trainee" meditators, mean age 23.7 yrs, and 10 "expert" meditators, mean age 25.8 yrs. Measures of skin resistance, heart rate, respiration, autonomic orienting response, resting EEG, EEG alpha and theta frequencies, sleep-scored EEG, averaged evoked responses, and subjective experience were employed. Unlike most previously reported meditation studies, proficient meditators demonstrated increased autonomic activation during meditation while unexperienced meditators demonstrated autonomic relaxation. During meditation, proficient meditators demonstrated increased alpha and theta power, minimal evidence of EEG-defined sleep, and decreased autonomic orienting to external stimulation. An episode of sudden autonomic activation was observed that was characterized by the meditator as an approach to the Yogic ecstatic state of intense concentration. It is concluded that these findings challenge the current "relaxation" model of meditative states.[8]

Tantric cannibis use in India. The sacred beverage described in the Veda texts was probably made from a hallucinogenic mushroom, but it was replaced by hallucinogenic hemp in the 7th-21th centuries. Oral ingestion of marihuana and sexual intercourse were ritualized into a ceremony of great liberation.[9]

A Jungian seminar on tantra. At the invitation of the Psychological Club of Zürich (the circle surrounding Jung), the Indologist Hauer of Tübingen held a seminar on the Yoga in October, 1932. He treated especially the Kundalini or Tantra Yoga on the basis of the Sanskrit text The Six Bodily Centers, which is known in the West through Arthur Avalon's translation The Serpent Power (London, 1919). These centers (Chakra) represent psychic experiences which in time, place and expression are widely separated from us and can be understood only by persons having an inner affinity for them. Approaching the subject through religious history, Hauer brought out the dual man-woman principle, which is the distinguishing characteristic of the Tantra Yoga, and the predominance of one or the other aspect at various eras. A similar rhythm occurs in other religions, including Christianity. Hauer discusses the Hindu methods of experiencing the divine and their working-out in the attitude toward death and evil; also the different forms of Yoga, their metaphysics, the misunderstandings of the West concerning them, and the interpretation of the Chakra. The Tantra Yoga is an attempt to bring harmony into a life which threatens to succumb to a chaotic outbreak of its deepest forces. For this purpose it has created symbols which are the organic forms of experiences that could not be grasped otherwise. The central idea of the Chakra is a hierarchy of the unity of opposites.[10]