Although modern magicians often look to the East for the source of sex magic, they often neglect the references within the Western Esoteric Traditions, especially the Kabbalah. In The Cosmic Shekinah, published recently by Avalonia Books, which I co-authored with Sorita d’Este, reference is made to this.
The sixteenth century Kabbalist, Rabbi Moses Cordovero (1522-70 CE), who systemised the Kabbalah into the root of what it is now, wrote about the Shekinah and sexual union. His teachings are extremely clear, and perhaps surprisingly graphic in their instructions to husband and wife considering the period they date from. They parallel the practice of a couple identifying with the Hindu goddess Shakti and god Shiva in tantric rites. In a commentary on the Zohar (included in Or ha-Hayyim, Azulai, C17th CE) he wrote:
“Their desire, both his and hers, was to unite Shekinah. He focused on Tiphereth, and his wife on Malkuth. His union was to join Shekinah; she focused correspondingly on being Shekinah and uniting with her husband, Tiphereth.”
Cordovero may have drawn inspiration from the fifteenth century writings of Ephraim Ben Gershon, who in his Homily to a Groom, gave very clear instructions for the magical process to be enacted during the sexual act (Homilies, Ephraim B. Gershon, C15th CE):
“Thus do Kabbalists know that thoughts originate in the rational soul, which emanates from the supreme. And thought has the power to strip off and rise and reach its source, and when reaching its source it attains communication with the supernal light from which it came, and both become one. When thought once again stretches down from on high, all becomes one line in the imagination, and the supernal light comes down through the power of thought that draws it down, and the Shekinah is found down below. The clear light then spreads to the thinker’s location. So did early priests reach communion with the supremes through thought in order to draw down the supreme light, and all beings would thus grow and multiply and be blessed in accordance with the power of thought.”
The divine marriage is also expressed every week in Judaism, with the Shekinah being the Sabbath Bride and Queen, who is united with God every Friday evening. The Zohar (Zohar 2:128a, C13th CE) emphasises this equation of the Shekinah as Shabbat Bride:
“Then this pavilion was sanctified with supernal holiness and adorned with its crowns, finally rising ascendantly in a crown of tranquillity and given a sublime name, a holy name: Sabbath.”
David Rankine 