CraigJustCraig

Tag: spirituality

  • Bondage as an Energetic Tool

    At its core, rope bondage is a practice of energetic intention—a shared journey between top and bottom that invites both to explore the intersection of body, mind, and spirit. It is not simply the act of restraining, but a form of ritualized awareness. Through the placement of rope, pressure, position, and breath, the body becomes a sacred map—and bondage, the language we use to explore it.
    Pressure and position shape not just the physical experience, but the energetic flow beneath the surface. Rope can be a whisper or a command; it can soothe or provoke. It creates pathways for energy to rise, to circulate, to open or be held. This isn’t arbitrary—it is deeply rooted in the body’s energetic system.
    I often think of body language as a universal tongue—spoken by all, but interpreted through the unique lens of each person’s lived experience. We each carry a fragment of understanding, and yet, in the act of tying and being tied, we find a way into a shared dialect of sensation and spirit. Through the rope, we touch something collective, ancestral, and timeless.
    The experience of being immobilized in rope can act as a gateway into deeper embodiment. For many, it reduces anxiety, silences racing thoughts, and pulls them out of dissociation by anchoring them into the present. The body, held in tension, becomes undeniable. Each breath becomes more pronounced. Each sensation, louder. Rope asks you to _feel_, to _stay_, to _listen_.
    Tension becomes a tool—like the hot and cold touch in tantric practice. Some ties mimic the warmth of a heated palm, drawing blood flow, attention, arousal. Others mimic the sharp clarity of cold—awakening, heightening, even startling. Rope can replicate these contrasts through placement, texture, and timing. The way a tie compresses the chest may feel like fire—passion, intensity—while a slow, firm wrap around the thighs might feel cool and grounding, like ice on a fever.

    When applied with awareness, rope can stimulate and direct energy through specific pathways—mirroring the movement of kundalini or chi. Each area of the body holds emotional memory and energetic charge, and rope becomes a practical tool to access and influence those zones:

    • At the base of the spine, around the legs and feet, ties activate the root energy—our grounding, survival, and sense of belonging. Tension here can connect us to the earth, stabilize our nervous system, and awaken primal erotic energy.
    • Around the pelvis and lower abdomen, ties speak to sexuality, creativity, and intimacy. This is where power is born. Ties in this region can unlock shame, release suppressed desire, or amplify pleasure. When opened with care, they free the body’s capacity for both eroticism and creation.
    • At the solar plexus, rope can stir self-esteem, confidence, and the will to act. This is where fire lives. Rope compression here can facilitate cathartic release—shedding stress, fear, or stored emotional pain. Some call this a rebirthing, an energetic reset through the belly.
    • Around the chest, breasts, arms, and hands, rope touches the heart center. It draws in compassion, self-love, and connection. Focused breathwork during ties in this area can create deep openings for vulnerability and erotic tenderness. Here, sexual energy often begins to merge with love, dissolving the illusion of separation.
    • The throat, often ignored, is a portal of voice, truth, and creativity. A collar, a rope tracing the neck, or tension across the collarbones can activate the fear or power of expression. Ties here often bring forward themes of asking, choosing, and surrendering with clarity.
    • The face—eyes, ears, mouth, and third eye—is tied to intuition and perception. A blindfold can awaken vision beyond sight. Gags can shift inner awareness. Touching these regions can activate inner knowing, psychic sensitivity, and the witnessing of one’s own inner truth.
    • At the crown, the top of the head, bliss and spiritual energy reside. Hair ties reflect, the totality of the tie—when intention, breath, energy, and emotion align—can open this space. What results is not just orgasm but _orgasmic presence_—a full-body energetic cascade, where the physical and spiritual climax together.

  • reflections of the bald one

    Today, I had a fascinating conversation about why I use tantra and energy work in my rope practice and how I started down this path. It was such an insightful reflection that I wanted to share it here.

    When I first began tying, it was simply to learn a new skill. But as I practiced and studied—reading books, taking classes—it quickly became something I loved. The shift happened when I learned about somatics and tantra. I started seeing rope as a spiritual practice. Somatics taught me that we are connected beings, not only to each other but also to ourselves. Our bodies reflect our emotions, and unless we embrace all emotions, even the difficult ones, we remain influenced by invisible forces. It reminded me of the saying, ‘Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will rule your life, and you will call it fate.’

    Exploring tantra was initially challenging; I struggled to connect it with somatics. But when I began to see energy as a force that can be directed with intention, I gained clarity. This led me to explore intentionality, lifestyle mastery, and the art of loving, eventually guiding me to sacred kink, paganism, sex magick, and erotic hypnosis. Sacred sexuality became a path toward carnal alchemy, transmutation, and even entheogenics.

    I now seek a coven that embraces mysticism, ritual, and ordeal. I want to build a community with those who don’t avoid shadow but embrace it, who revel in wicked desires, and who see ordeal as a crucible for transformation. I seek those who view intimacy and the erotic as a powerful, expansive force—one that isn’t about control or reduction but about embracing the uncontrolled and the limitless.

    Reflecting on this journey reminded me of how much my rope practice has evolved. I’m still learning and growing, but it’s beautiful to see how far I’ve come and where I hope to go.

  • Last Night’s Scene: The Awakening

    I’ve noticed the changes our scenes have caused already. You’re more aware of your boundaries now. You defend them better. You advocate for them with ease. When we started, you knew no fear. That was admirable, but also dangerous—a blindness to the wisdom fear provides. We must have fear; it gives us information we’d otherwise miss. Fearlessness is not the goal; courage is. To be courageous, you must first know fear. Feel it. Confront it.

    I wonder what deadened your fear before. What shock or loss buried it deep? In time, I’m sure I’ll learn, as all truths reveal themselves. For now, we continue this process of awakening. Tonight, we honor the intentions you’ve set for yourself, the path you’ve chosen, no matter how difficult it may be.

    Your intention is clear: to stay true to yourself, to walk the path meant for you. My intention is equally resolute—to help you manifest that.

    We set the table, laying out the tools one by one. You watch, nervous yet curious, asking questions in a soft, wavering voice: “What’s that for? Are we using that too?” I see you trying to piece it all together, but tonight isn’t about certainty. It’s about trust—trust in your resilience and in the path you’ve chosen. Doubt and hesitation are killers of magick, and we won’t let them take root.

    I smile as I move slowly, methodically, setting everything in its place. I see the tie settle into your body, and I feel your nervousness climb to new heights. Life, like a sadist, waits for consent—neutral until given direction and purpose.

    When I lay you on the table, I ask for a mantra, a truth you want to make real. Your words are beautiful, full of power, and I tell you to hold them close as we begin. You’re secured now. I ask you to move, and you laugh nervously: “Wow, I really can’t move.”

    “You only know the half of it,” I reply, securing my favorite cuffs to ensure your helplessness. Tonight, you must endure.

    Small bites along your body tease the reality of your immobility. I let the helplessness settle over you like a weighted blanket. My aura expands, filling the sanctuary, feeding off the pain and pleasure you radiate. I return to the rack and carefully select the next tool.

    Your nipples, so sensitive, now house my clamps. A bear claw rakes your flesh, drawing out gasps and shivers. Tucked securely in your bonds, I let the knife skitter across your skin, leaving surface-level nicks and cuts—just enough to imply the danger.

    You’re slipping now, retreating into the world we’ve created together. I hear your mantra echo in the space, grounding you as I step through the door you’ve opened. Your subconscious is waiting for me, beautiful and raw.

    “Lovely what you’ve done with the place,” I tease, as the ritual begins.

    I take the wax and trace the rune we prescribed. Tonight, it’s leadership—a heavy burden, but one you’re ready to bear. The wax drips slowly, deliberately, searing its purpose into your skin. Your screams shift to moans as the heat transforms into acceptance.

    You slip further into the trance—not quite as deep as during the Table Challenge, but deeper than before. Your consciousness takes a back seat, and your subconscious takes the wheel, repeating the mantra like a sacred hymn.

    By the time we finish, you’re utterly still, the ritual’s purpose etched into your body and soul. I pour the same care into aftercare as I did the scene, cleaning and soothing with precision. We read together, grounding ourselves in the mindset needed for this work—the awareness, the responsibility, the magick.

    You’re more receptive tonight, still unfolding from within yourself. That’s okay. Your journals will help guide you until next week, when we’ll take the next step in this journey.

  • before you engage, know this

    I do not hide who I am.
    I don’t downplay it. I don’t dress it up.
    I don’t lie about who I am.
    I show up exactly as advertised.

    You don’t need to decode me—I’ll tell you flat out:

    I’m a sadist.
    I move in the realms of fear, pain, pleasure, and surrender.
    My path is intense. My kinks are dark.

    I am not here for your comfort.
    I celebrate my darkness. I honor and seek the abyss.
    I show you my fire, my darkness, my pleasure.
    I don’t tone it down.
    I don’t offer comfort. I offer intensity.
    I don’t want fans. I want energy, I want honesty, and I want devotion.

    This is the body, mind, and soul set ablaze.

    My kinks are not cute. They are not digestible.
    They are dark, deep, and dangerous to the unprepared.

    This is edgeplay, pain, degradation, fear, sacrifice, ritual, and power—expressed with precision, purpose, and consent.

    I walk the path of hedonism, debauchery, and indulgence—

    Pleasure is my power. Indulgence is my devotion.
    The erotic is my altar. The shadow is my sermon.
    And this practice is my truth.

    I don’t offer entertainment. I offer awakening.
    And awakening is not comfortable.

    I negotiate with clarity and intention.
    If I tell you I’m going to do something, and you agree to it—you are responsible for that agreement.

    If you choose to dance in darkness, step into the abyss, and merge with my will—you must also accept the consequences.

    Once you step into my temple,
    once you sip the wine,
    once you kneel at the altar—
    you are accountable.

    If you chase the flame,
    you don’t get to be shocked when it burns.

    If you comes into my space without intention, without honesty, without readiness—
    you will be removed.
    Not out of pettiness, but because I have a responsibility to protect my work and my energy.

    I don’t tolerate dishonesty, disrespect, or shallow engagement.

    If you’re not grounded, focused, and serious, then you do not belong in this space.
    That’s not a punishment—it’s protection.

    This is a sanctuary.
    A path for the devoted, the willing, the aligned.

    This is sacred, sadistic, shadow work.
    This is practice(cultivate experiences connecting with something beyond your self). philosophy(systematic study of existence, knowledge, values, and reason,). power(the ability to act, influence, or produce change).

    I mix the erotic and the spiritual. I use ritual, altered states, shadow play as tools of expansion.
    Pleasure isn’t just something I enjoy—it’s something I use.
    This is the fire of shadow and flesh.
    This is the unrelenting truth of ecstatic soul.

    this is a path of integration and reverence.

    I seek the disciplined, the passionate, and the willing to engage deeply.

    Those who understand that showing up here comes with expectations.

    I give my time, my energy, and my presence fully.
    That must be reciprocated—whether through time, contribution, support, effort, or service.

    Access is granted only through alignment, action, and sacrifice.

    If this feels like too much
    If this does not resonate,

    If this path does not stir your soul,
    if this current does not call you home—

    turn back now.

    This will swallow you whole.

    But if it does…

    if it speaks to something deep inside you

    If you want depth,
    if you’re ready to be broken open and reshaped with care, cruelty, and intention—step forward.

    Strip bare.
    lay down your offering.
    And step into the flame.

  • Quote, from Lao Tzu’s Tao Te Ching Making sure I dont lose this again

    This describes the Tao, or the Way, as something beyond human perception and description. It is invisible, inaudible, and subtle, and these qualities prevent it from being captured by language or defined through description. The quote emphasizes that the essence of the Tao can only be understood by acknowledging these paradoxical qualities and blending them together.

    “We look at it, and we do not see it, and we name it the ‘invisible’. We listen to it, and we do not hear it, and we name it the ‘Inaudible.’ We try to grasp it, and do not get hold of it, and we name it the Subtle.’ With these three qualities, it can not be made the subject of description; and hence we blend them together and obtain The One.” …bars

    There is a saying in the Tao Te Ching:

    “The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao. The name that can be named is not the eternal name.”

    Tao is the paradox.
    It is what you can hold in your hand—and also what slips through your fingers.
    It is what you see and cannot see, what you hear and cannot hear.
    It is form and formlessness, presence and absence, action and stillness.

    “It Is and It Is Not”: The Paradox of Tao

    Many traditions point toward this paradox. Taoism names it explicitly. But for me, much of this thinking first came alive through African Traditional Philosophy—a cosmology where spirit, form, and formless energy are always in relation. Recently, I encountered this paradox again in The Art of Loving by Erich Fromm, where he contrasts Taoist logic with Aristotelian reasoning.

    Fromm describes Tao not as a static concept but as an unfolding—something to live rather than define. Where the West often seeks truth through dominance, Tao finds balance in contradiction. It says: both things can be true. And that’s the key.

    Acceptance Is the Natural State—But It’s Not Passive

    As one commenter, @L_D_F, said:

    “Tao is everything and nothing. The most important lesson I draw from it is that acceptance is the natural state of things.”

    But then they asked: How much acceptance can we actually tolerate?
    That’s the question sacred kink—and intentional spiritual practice—takes seriously.

    Because acceptance is not passive. It is not resignation. It is not spiritual bypass. It is a full-body embrace of paradox, of shadow, of contradiction. It is action. It is presence. It is alchemy.

    Sacred Kink as a Path to the Paradox

    When we engage in sacred kink, especially in extended or altered states of consciousness—subspace, top space, breath states, trance states—we often experience this paradox directly. We return to the truth that contradiction is not a problem to solve. It is a condition to inhabit.

    We don’t choose either/or—we become the AND.

    We experience pain and pleasure, surrender and control, resistance and release, chaos and structure. We allow ourselves to seek both conflict and harmony in the same breath. That tension creates resonance. And that resonance becomes a portal to deeper knowing.

    African Philosophy and the Tao: A Synergy

    Taoism speaks in symbols and silence. Western thought speaks in conquest and clarity. But African cosmologies? They speak in relationship—in conscious, spiritual coexistence with the universe. They hold reality not as something to dominate or define, but something to dance with. Something alive.

    This is where I feel the deepest synergy. Precolonial African philosophy and Taoist paradox both resist binary, rigid truths. They invite us into the liminal, into communion with the seen and unseen, into non-linear time and cosmic responsibility.

    And this is also what sacred kink opens: a space where body and spirit can meet outside the constraints of linearity, morality, and shame.

    The Way Is Not a Straight Line

    So, where does that leave us?

    With a Way that cannot be held, but can be lived.
    With a truth that cannot be named, but can be felt.
    With a path that must be walked in the dark, guided only by breath, sensation, trust, and paradox.

    This is the space sacred kink dares to enter. Not as entertainment. Not as escape. But as embodied metaphysics.

    As the Tao says:

    “When nothing is done, nothing is left undone.”

    We don’t fight the paradox.
    We let it tie us up—and teach us.

  • History of Magick in the West

    Buckle up I’m about to ride the timeline of Western Sex Magick. Don’t worry, I’ll keep it fast, and mostly factually accurate according to my sources Modern Sex Magick by Donald Michael Kraig.

    Evidence suggests early Hebrews practiced sex-based fertility rites 70 CE: Destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem. Mystical knowledge (including Kabbalah & sex magick) begins to disseminate

    1118 CE: Knights Templar founded. Accused of heresy and magick, possibly learned sex magick from Sufis, who were influenced by Tantric India.

    1312: The Templars are suppressed; survivors carry secret knowledge underground.

    Hasidim (1700s): Orthodox Jewish mystics focused on meditative Kabbalah there were like were like, “No more sexy rituals, suppressing older techniques. bodies + ecstasy = divine contact.

    Paschal Beverly Randolph (1815–1875):Enter the Black occult daddy himself. Created new sex magick systems and founded the Eulis Brotherhood. Crowley copied his homework later, but make it racist and chaotic.

    Emanuel Swedenborg (1688–1772): Explored spiritual sexuality through trances and automatic writing.

    Franz Anton Mesmer (1734–1815): Developed animal magnetism—trance states through sexual energy, laying groundwork for hypnotic and energetic healing traditions.

    William Blake (1757–1827): Poet, artist, and Freemason; merged Swedenborgian, Druidic, and Kabbalistic ideas into visionary art with sexual undercurrents.

    Golden Dawn (1888): Founded in London. Secret rituals hinted at sex magick. Members included Moina & MacGregor Mathers, Aleister Crowley, Dion Fortune

    Aleister Crowley (1875–1947): Overtly practiced and popularized sex magick through the Ordo Templi Orientis (OTO) and Thelemic doctrine.(He’s like: “All of this? Mine now. Add sex. Add drugs. Add a goat.”
    He took Randolph’s notes, put a British accent on them, and boom)

    Austin Osman Spare: Developed automatic drawing and sigil-based sex magick; which became the foundation for Chaos Magick.

    Surrealist artists (1920s–30s) like Salvador Dalí and André Breton used sexual and dream states to channel unconscious energies, echoing occult sex-magickal principles.

    Gerald Gardner & Wicca: Introduced the Great Rite, a symbolic (sometimes literal) sex magick rite within Neopaganism.

    this history ignores the wider reality of sex magic namely it didnt state in the west (taoist, vajrayana, shinto, kemetic, ifa and orisha, to name a few), and this also implies sex magic remained unchanged over the last 2000 years it did not. any way now You carry the bones of a people who prayed with their hips. Sex magick is old. You’re the latest in a long, sweaty line of sluts keeping the flame alive.

  • Review: The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem by Nathaniel Branden

    Before I get into the review, I want to lay some groundwork. I don’t choose books at random. Every book I pick, I do so with the hope that it will crucible for me—not just as a person, but as a mage, a prophet, and a healer.

    My background is… strange. I’m a former preacher, a former school teacher, and now a former research scientist. So I come to magick from three angles: as a member of a congregation, as a student, and as a research topic or research area.

    Here, my lab, my equipment, and my facilities is myself. In Existential Kink by Carolyn Elliott, she states, “The truth is sensational.” Truth resonates—it has a feeling associated with it. That is my metric, those are my notes for further examination, and that is what I’m going to share with you.

    But also, while I will share that with you, I will also talk about two things: association and recollection. As the student, these are essential for my understanding, and I will bring up other books, other quotes, other authors, and other notes to help bring my point into focus.

    And finally, as an area of research and study, let me share my methodology for evaluation. Unlike Western culture, which calls for “scientific” backing to split reason from emotion, and reality is understood perceived and organized, in linear sequential relationships.

    I will use Marimba Ani’s Yurugu definition for study: knowing a subject involves knowing the surroundings. Knowledge involves immersion, and through sympathetic participation, meaning is revealed and understood as Symbols—these symbols—are the words I will share with you.

    I don’t usually talk about this, but because this book is something I’ve newly finished, I wanted to reinforce my ideas, beliefs, and practices with you.

    So let’s begin.

    Branden defines self-esteem as “the immune system of consciousness.” That stuck with me. He breaks it down into six practices: Living consciously, Self-acceptance, Self-responsibility, Self-assertiveness, Living purposefully. Personal integrity

    What came to mind in reading that was: your self-esteem is a credit card with unlimited funds, but that bitch will decline

    And while the tone of the book is undeniably Western—individualistic, capitalist, and sometimes awkwardly obsessed with Ayn Rand—I was surprised at how much of it aligned with magical theorems and esoteric principles. what came to mind as I read were these theorems:

    Theorem 1: All action is magickal.

    Theorem 2: Magick is not something you do; it’s something you are.

    Theorem 4: Creation on the spiritual plane leads to creation on the physical plane.

    Theorem 6: Let go—and let the magick work.

    Theorem 8: Magick is both a science and an art.

    Theorem 9: Magick is synergistic.

    Theorem 16: The sexual trance opens many doors.

    There’s a strong resonance between Branden’s core idea—that self-esteem is the backbone of conscious, embodied living—and the magical premise that alignment between mind, body, and spirit (or soma) is the first step in unlocking your true power.

    Branden writes that self-esteem is made up of two parts:

    Confidence in your ability handle challenge. AND Confidence in our right succeed.

    This reminded me of something else: Magick requires neither your understanding nor your consent. Like self-esteem, it simply does what you ask of it—whether consciously or unconsciously. And as Jung said, “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will rule your life and you will call it Fate.” or “As above, so below; as within, so without.”

    This is the first step, we must take: walk in one accord—mind, body, and soul: not rejecting or fragmenting any part of ourselves. That is the real beginning of a magical practice. That shit is hard believe me

    which lead into this quote “Self-acceptance is my refusal to be in an adversarial relationship with myself.” That is the first pillar of self esteem and bring to mind what is talked about it in the body keeps the score “feeling free to know what you know and to feel what you feel without becoming overwhelmed, enraged, ashamed, or collapsed.”
    But this is where the work begins he says that “Without self-acceptance, self-esteem is impossible.”, impossible not hard, not unlikely … impossible. Let that sit for a second. This fundemental key force to life is impossible to achieve without acceptance.

    Then he goes on to say self-acceptance is what an effective psychotherapist strives to awaken in a person this mirrors what The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk who says “Psychological problems occur when our internal signals don’t work, when our maps don’t lead us where we need to go, when we are too paralyzed to move, when our actions do not correspond to our needs, or when our relationships break down.” in other words ” realities we cannot avoid. Regardless of what we do or do not admit, we cannot be indifferent to our own self-evaluation. That our actions shape our self-esteem, and our self-esteem shapes our actions. That is magical causality. That is the “as within, so without.” Causation flows in both directions.

    Where I pushed back was the overemphasis on productivity, efficiency, and efficacy, The Western lens of radical individualism

    As a practitioner, my goal is to live congruently—body, mind, and spirit aligned in desire, and in purpose. Reading this book reminded me that esteem is not just a quality. It’s a magickal potential.

    I recommend this book—not as gospel, but as a tool. Take what resonates. Burn the rest.

    I’d love to hear what you’re thinking about it.

  • I was thinking about queerness in magick and community

    I wanted to share this quote about queerness from spirit of intimacy by Some Sobonfu the wife of Malidoma Patrice Somé who is the author of ritual the current book im reading she says:
    ” The words “gay” and “lesbian” do not exist in
    the village, but there is the word “gatekeeper.” Gatekeepers
    are people who live a life at the edge between two worlds
    the world of the village and the world of spirit. What
    they do, they dont like to communicate to anyone. It is
    their right to keep what they do to themselves. Every
    body in the village respects that because without
    gatekeepers, there is no access to other worlds.

    The gatekeepers stand on the threshold of the gender
    line. They are mediators between the two genders. They
    make sure that there is peace and balance between women
    and men. If the two genders are in conflict and the whole
    village is caught in it, the gatekeepers are the ones to bring
    peace. Gatekeepers do not take sides. They simply play
    the role of “the sword of truth and integrity.””

    Just thought that was interesting queersness just a few more things i thought was interesting.

    • gatekeepers have “one foot in all the other worlds and the other foot here,” and the “vibration of their body is totally different from others”.
    • “Now as to their sexual orientation, nobody cares about this question, they care only about their performance as gatekeepers.”
    • gatekeepers are not perceived as “the other” and are not compelled to form a separate community to survive. Instead, they are encouraged to fulfill their inherent role and contribute their gifts to the community’s benefit.
    • They possess insight into both genders, allowing them to help men and women understand each other more effectively in daily life. For instance, a group of women might consult a male gatekeeper for village issues, and a female gatekeeper might join a men’s circle for similar purposes.
    • This perspective on homosexuality different from the West, because all sexuality in the village is considered “spiritually-based”.
    • Gatekeepers are crucial for maintaining “alignment between the spirit world and the world ” as they are “the keepers of the keys to other dimensions” and without them, “the gates to the other world would be shut”.
    • Their knowledge differs from that of mentors and elders because gatekeepers have access to all dimensions and can open any gate, often being called upon by elders for assistance in understanding the spirit world or opening specific gateways.
    • Some states that gay and lesbian individuals in the West are often very spiritual but disconnected from their spiritual role, which might lead them to seek other ways of self-definition and to appear as if they do not have a unique purpose.
    • Some also mention that gatekeeping is part of one’s life purpose, declared before birth, and is developed through rigorous training to prevent the misuse of its power. It is not a role sought for power or sexual orientation, and a true gatekeeper is responsible for the entire village and tribe.

  •  Intentional Kink Modalities For Healing?

    “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will rule your life and you will call it fate.” — Carl Jung

    Jung’s words ring especially true in the realm of sacred kink. Our unconscious desires—especially the taboo ones—shape our reality, even if we don’t recognize them as “ours.” These disowned parts of ourselves, the ones we repress or ignore, still manage to fulfill themselves. And because we’re disconnected from them, we often misread their arrival in our lives as tragedy rather than fulfillment.

    But what if we could see them? What if we could meet those desires in ritual, in sensation, in play? That’s the heart of intentional kink—a sacred, embodied practice of conscious transformation.

    Seven Axioms of Sacred Kink

    To begin practicing sacred kink intentionally, we start with these seven axioms—guiding truths that reframe sensation, shame, and desire:

    1. Having is evidence of wanting.
    2. We have a choice as to whether we experience sensation as pleasure or pain.
    3. Every happening in life is a “stroke”—and we can get off on all of it.
    4. The degree to which we’re turned on or off is shaped by approval.
    5. Desire evolves through fulfillment—not repression.
    6. Shame is the magic killer.
    7. The truth is sensational.

    These axioms challenge us to stop resisting life, to stop pathologizing desire. They ask us to lean into the body, the breath, the truth of what’s happening right now.

    Intentional kink teaches that our thoughts, like our desires, are tools of creation. The mystical and the neurological meet here. As Urban Tantra reminds us:

    “Every thought you think is creating your future… With self-acceptance and self-love, you can create or change anything in your life.”

    This echoes the neuroscience laid out in The Body Keeps the Score: the only way to access and change the emotional brain is through self-awareness—through interoception, or looking inward. When we engage in kink consciously, we activate this internal gaze. We stop outsourcing our lives and begin witnessing ourselves again

    There’s a darker truth, too. For many, trauma and pleasure have become entangled. As Bessel van der Kolk notes, “fear and aversion can be transformed into pleasure.” Trauma lives in the body and builds patterns that repeat until we interrupt them—through ritual, through embodiment, through sacred play. This is where kink becomes alchemical: it transforms the pain of the past into the power of the present.

    At its deepest, sacred kink is about radical, soul-deep acceptance. When we surrender to what is—when we stop resisting our fears, our shame, our desires—we reclaim the “alarm system” of the body and restore it to its sacred function. The body knows how to care for us. Through intentional kink, it remembers.

    As Dossie Easton describes in The New Topping Book:

    “Play directed to the purpose of attaining altered states of consciousness… becomes a quest for vision, guidance, personal truth, or spiritual communion.”

    Kink becomes a ritual container for trance, surrender, and revelation. It isn’t just play—it’s pilgrimage.

    There are many ways into this sacred terrain. Here are eight powerful modalities—erotic gateways into transformation:

    1. Rhythm – Dance and movement as portals into ecstasy.
    2. Ordeal – Challenge and intensity (rope, balance, endurance) to confront fear and awaken strength.
    3. Flesh – Pain as revelation, skin as scripture.
    4. Ritual – Daily devotion, service, worship, and structure as spiritual discipline.
    5. Breath – Erotic breathwork, connecting energy circuits and expanding presence.
    6. Horse – Roleplay and possession, invoking archetypes and the divine.
    7. Asceticism – Erotic monasticism, obedience, simplicity, and quietude.
    8. Sacred Plants – Entheogenic tools to expand consciousness and dismantle ego.

    Each path opens a different door in the psyche—offering catharsis, communion, clarity, or collapse. And each one, when practiced with intention, brings us home to ourselves.

    Here’s the truth: we are always doing magic, whether we know it or not. Intentional kink simply teaches us how to do it well. When we repress our truth, when we deny what we feel, we don’t stop creating—we just create chaos. As Erich Fromm warns:

    “Avoid the company of zombies—people whose soul is dead although their body is alive.”

    To dissociate is to disappear. But to feel fully—to accept and embody desire, sensation, pain, pleasure—is to come alive again. Magic works either way. Sacred kink lets us choose how.

    To truly heal, we must also confront the stories we live inside. Our ideologies, our fantasies, our inherited myths—these shape our consciousness just as much as our actions do. Until we understand what divides us—internally and culturally—we cannot complete the alchemical journey. This final step, often referred to as “meeting Yurugu,” is the confrontation with the colonial, fragmenting force within us and our society.

    But that’s a whole blog post on its own.

    Sacred kink is not about performance or preference—it’s about presence. It’s about confronting ourselves in the mirror of eroticism and asking: what do I really want? What is my truth? What am I ready to feel, love, and integrate?

    If you’re practicing kink without intention, you’re still doing magic—but you’re blindfolded, spellbound, and chasing shadows. Sacred kink removes the blindfold and hands you the wand.

    The work is deep. The stakes are real. But so is the transformation.

    Welcome to the path.

  • Nihilomancy: “divination from nothingness”

    I’ve been reviewing some old material for an upcoming class on bondage as a tool toward spiritual release. This book is one of my hard-to-find treasures: Earthly Bondage by Brigett Harrington. https://www.passionandsoul.com/blog/soul/earthly-bondage

    I’ll be teaching this class with Goddess Dior and the House of Diamond, About the Many Path Of Earthly Bondage and one of the core paths we’ll be diving into is the art of Nihilomancy: divination through nothingness.

    “I call upon thee, wisdom in darkness…”

    From that invocation, the chapter plunges us into a world where silence, restraint, and the absence of external stimuli become gateways to the divine.

    The practice of Niihilomancy dark and sensuyal exploration of how sensory deprivation can be used not just for kink, but for deep inner work, divination, and astral travel. It walks a fine edge between mysticism and embodiment, showing how blindfolds, hoods, vows of silence, bondage, and mummification are not only tools of restraint, but instruments of revelation.

    By removing outside distractions (sight, sound, movement), the body and mind enter an altered state where messages can rise from deep within the soul, and from the spirit world.

    It’s where the world is stripped away until only the question remains:

    • Where do I go from here?
    • What choice is mine to make?
    • What truths lie beyond the body?

    Their is a ritual to preparing for this; laying out sacred items and calling upon spiritual forces before entering the sensory void. With each layer :rope, hood, scent, silence. you get closer to the inner realm where wisdom lives.

    What stands out most is the gravity of ritual. Each object whether rope, oil, or spandex becomes charged with intentionality. There is a rhythm to the preparation, an architecture to the ritual that feels devotional, erotic, and sacred all at once. The ritual explores both the somatic and the spiritual experience of sensory deprivation as a threshold art: the portal.

    Think less “nothingness” in the empty sense, and more the void, the liminal space, the fertile dark.

    Whether through fasting, purging, or embedding sigils within the wrappings and around your ritual space, it evokes/invoke something powerful. Death lingering in the margins: the surrender of control, ego, movement, consciousness. But instead of despair, it offers a promise… answers.

    while doing this ritual it describes you’ll feel the shadows settle around you. You’ll hear the call to your own dark silence.

    what is clear the path is laid in layers:
    Fasting or purging .
    Setting the ritual space
    Laying out tools.
    Invoking spirits guides or ancestors.
    Embedding sigils.

    With every layer, with every sense denied, a different kind of awareness opens.
    Sometimes, that leads to wisdom from self.
    Sometimes, it leads to channeling a presence.
    Sometimes, it leads to delicious dissolution.

    Let’s be clear:
    This is erotic mysticism: raw, reverent, and real.

    For those in our coven of kinky mystics and sensual scholars, that aren’t afraid to talk about getting ridden by godforms.

    Because even in darkness, we need witnesses.

    If you’ve ever longed to use your body as a spell, your silence as a question, and your restraints as a roadmap to spirit
    this one’s for you.