Ask the Loveologist: Transcendent Sex

posted by Wendy Strgar Sep 1, 2010
"I had the weirdest experience while making love to my partner the other night. I was literally transported out of my
body and felt like I was flying and in some other universe entirely. I
was connected through him but also barely there. I don’t know how or
why it happened and even as I tried to explain it to him, it sounded
ridiculous as the words came out of my mouth. Have you ever heard of
something like this and what does it mean?
The experience you describe is referred to as both transcendent or
sacred sex. A research study on the phenomenon by Jenny Wade PhD is
recorded in her book Transcendent Sex: When Lovemaking Opens the Veil.
Earlier studies suggest that as many as one in twenty individuals
have a transcendent experience and that over 80 percent of them keep the
experience a secret even from their partners. All of the people in
Dr. Wade’s study had no previous experience or training in transcendent
practices and most had no real language or framework to understand their
experience.
Interestingly the variety of experience was as vast and unique as the
survey sample itself. The range of experiences sited in the book cover
everything from the shift of space and time as you described, to a
sense of electric light filled bodies, or transformation of self and
other and a sense of timelessness and vast emptiness. All of the
experiences carried a transformative recognition of the intersecting
paths of spirit and sexuality.
For many people this spiritual awakening is life changing. It
reorganizes their beliefs about sexuality and god. In fact, of all
life experiences that open the doorway to intensely spiritual
experience, sex is the most common and ordinary, which is to say that it
is available to ordinary people through the act of physical love.
Perhaps it is because sex provides the most intense and immediate
experience of the divine that most if not all religions have distanced
the practice from its followers. Even historical Tantric texts teaches to move beyond orgasmic sexuality as soon as possible.
In the Garden of Eden, the forbidden fruit is the orgasmic experience
that Eve shares with Adam, because this is how they come to an immediate
face to face experience with god.
The French term for orgasm is “le petit mort” which means the little death. In many ways, this
transcendental sex is a death of sorts. We lose touch with our smaller
ego driven self as the truth of our connection to each other and the
universe is known. This is probably the element of our sexual selves
that drives the mystery and fear that is associated with our sexual
selves.
Finding the doorways to meaning in our lives are a rare and precious
opportunity. Wade’s book provides some instruction on the techniques
and practices you can engage in to create more opening to these
experiences as well.