Sex is a taboo topic for most people. We have an aversion to talking openly about it and because of this we have lost touch with the most basic truth of our existence – lust lays at the base of everything we do. There are some people who believe that sexual urges are not just a basic animal drive, but that the entire universe is a dance of feminine and masculine forces essentially, well, fucking each other. I know it seems pretty out there, but it’s what inspired me to turn my sex life into a spiritual practice.

It all started during a coaching session with my friend and confidence coach, Dan Munro. During a discussion one day, we drifted onto the topic of porn and he told me he believes that porn ruins lives. This was an uncomfortable topic for someone who dabbled in his fair share of nudie videos. But what he had to say blew my mind. Erectile dysfunction, depression and addiction are just some of the prominent problems of people who watch porn long-term. I thought I was in the clear since I only watched soft-core “point-of-view” videos. But that was not the point. The main reason that porn was so toxic was that it was taking the most sacred form of human expression and turning it into another form of consumerist fodder.

Porn is taking most sacred form of human expression and turning it into another form of consumerist fodder.

It was from that moment on that I decided to quit porn and start a practice of sexual meditation. When I learned to tune into my experience in the present moment, without a fantasy to escape into, I felt truly alive. It was this palpable feeling of freedom from such a limiting constraint that led me to a more advanced form of conscious sexuality; Sexual Alchemy.

During an Internet spiral, I stumbled across a website that focused on ancient techniques to harness the power of sexual attraction. The site explained that almost all mystical traditions had some form of sexual alchemy, where the practitioner would raise their sexual energy up the spine to nourish their higher energy centres for creativity and spiritual progress.

Ancient techniques involved raising sexual energy up the spine, nourishing higher energy centres for creativity and spiritual progress.

Napoleon Hill, in his book Think and Grow Rich, dedicated a whole chapter to “sexual transmutation”. The chapter explained that many of the most successful people in the world were “sexually charged individuals”. According to Hill these individuals owed much of their success to their ability to channel this sexual charge in the direction of their ambitions. To do this, a person would use a technique that takes the sexual energy, which resides in their reproductive organs, and raise it up the spine to the crown of the head and back down again, thus completing the energetic orbit in the body. So I decided to try it out for myself.

A chapter in the book Think and Grow Rich claimed that many successful individuals owed their accomplishments to channeling their sexual energy. So I decided to try it out for myself.

I began with a book called Taoist Secrets of Love: Cultivating Male Sexual Energy written by Mantak Chia. There is also a female-centred version of the book called Healing Love through the Tao: Cultivating Female Sexual Energy. Within the book, Chia talked about the long lost practice of transmitting the base energy that is generated by male sperm and using that energy for creative purposes. The problem with sex for men is that the sperm, and its vital energy, is lost upon orgasm. Chia lays out the methods used by ancient Taoist monks to maintain the sperm during intercourse while still having a killer orgasm.

Chia lays out the methods used by ancient Taoist monks to maintain the sperm during intercourse while still having a killer orgasm.

The website, Sexual Kung Fu breaks down the two most fundamental methods of sexual alchemy: “testical breathing” and “scrotal compression”. They are mostly preparatory methods for generating and channeling the vital energy, not for maintaining it, during sex.

The effect that this method has had on my life since learning it has been absolutely profound. I feel so much more alive and vital than I did before. I have much more confidence and clarity when it comes to my relationships and connection with other people.