By Justin Patrick Pierce

Originally published October 2020 · Updated February 2026

In the first three articles of this series, I covered the Eastern traditions that have shaped Western sacred sexuality — Taoist Sexual Kung Fu, Hindu Tantric Shaivism, and Tantric Buddhism. Those traditions are ancient, rooted in centuries of lineage and scripture, and each addresses a fundamental problem of human existence — whether it's the draining of vital force, the cycle of samsara, or the suffering of dukkha.

This fourth influence is different. It's messier. Louder. More controversial. And in many ways, more directly responsible for the world of sacred sexuality as we know it today.

Western esotericism doesn't have a single Problem → Solution → Purpose the way the Eastern traditions do. It's not one lineage. It's a wild, often contradictory collection of individuals who took the Eastern teachings, filtered them through Western frameworks — philosophy, psychology, occultism, counterculture — and created something new. Some of these figures were brilliant. Some were reckless. A few were both. And whether or not we like everything they did, we can't tell the story of sacred sexuality in the West without them.

The Trailblazers: Bernard, Crowley, Gurdjieff, and Osho

Let's start with the man who lit the fuse.

Pierre Bernard (1875–1955) — known as "The Great Oom" — was an Iowa-born occultist who founded the Tantrik Order of America in 1905. He was the first person to bring the philosophy and practices of yoga and Tantra to the American public. He ran "tantric clinics" in New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, and Cleveland, and attracted the patronage of Gilded Age heiresses and high-society New Yorkers. He was also arrested, scandalized, and accused of running everything from a cult to a white slave ring. The charges were dropped, but the damage was done — and in many ways, Bernard established the association between Tantra and sex that persists in the Western mind to this day. The actual teachings he transmitted were far more sophisticated than the tabloid headlines, but the headlines are what stuck.

Aleister Crowley (1875–1947) — the English occultist known as "The Great Beast" — took things in a very different direction. Crowley developed an entire system of ceremonial magick (his preferred spelling) that incorporated sexual ritual as a means of directing willpower and spiritual force. His core teaching: "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law." This wasn't license for hedonism, as it's often mischaracterized. Crowley meant something specific: discover your True Will — the deepest purpose of your being — and align your entire life with it. Sex, for Crowley, was one of the most potent tools available for that alignment. His influence runs through virtually every Western occult tradition that touches on sacred sexuality.

G.I. Gurdjieff (1866–1949) — the Armenian-Greek mystic and teacher — brought something the others lacked: a system for waking people up from the trance of everyday consciousness. Gurdjieff's central teaching was that human beings are "asleep" — mechanically going through life driven by habits, reactions, and conditioning, never truly present. His methods were designed to shock people into awareness, often through physically demanding work, paradoxical instructions, and the deliberate disruption of comfortable patterns. While Gurdjieff himself didn't teach sexual practices per se, his framework of self-observation and the "work on oneself" profoundly influenced later sacred sexuality teachers who recognized that without a developed capacity for presence and awareness, any sexual practice is just another form of sleep.

Osho (1931–1990) — born Rajneesh Chandra Mohan Jain — was arguably the most visible and most controversial figure in the modern sacred sexuality landscape. He was the first major spiritual teacher to publicly and unapologetically address sexuality as a spiritual topic, drawing from Tantra, Zen, Sufism, and Western psychology. His ashram in Pune, India became a magnet for Western seekers in the 1970s and 80s, and his "dynamic meditation" and encounter-group methods blew open the doors that previous teachers had only cracked. Osho's legacy is complicated — his Oregon commune collapsed in scandal and criminal activity — but his impact on how the West thinks about the relationship between sexuality and spirituality is undeniable.

Adi Da and the Way of the Heart

And then there's the figure whose work most directly shaped my own understanding of sacred sexuality: Adi Da Samraj (1939–2008).

I'm going to spend more time on Adi Da than the others, not because he was more famous — he wasn't — but because his diagnosis of the human condition is, in my view, the most precise and the most relevant to what Londin and I teach.

Adi Da's core insight was devastatingly simple. He said: the root of all human suffering is not desire, not karma, not samsara, not ignorance in the abstract. It is Narcissus — the activity of self-contraction, the chronic and continuous avoidance of relationship.

Think about the myth. Narcissus is the young man who falls in love with his own reflection in a pool of water. He stares at it, transfixed, unable to look away — and eventually wastes away and dies. Adi Da took this image and turned it into a spiritual diagnosis: every human being is doing this. In every moment. We are contracting away from direct, unmediated contact with reality — with each other, with our own bodies, with the present moment — and instead gazing at our own reflections. Our thoughts about the relationship instead of the relationship itself. Our concept of our partner instead of our partner. Our story about what happened instead of what is actually happening right now.

The avoidance of relationship is not a problem you solve once. It's an activity you're doing in every moment, whether you realize it or not. And the recognition of that activity — what Adi Da called Radical Understanding — is itself the beginning of liberation.

Here's where this gets important for sacred sexuality. One of the things Adi Da's physician-devotee, Daniel C. Bouwmeester, MD, made extremely clear in The Complete Yoga of Emotional-Sexual Life is that Adi Da's teaching is not sexual therapy. It is not a technique for better orgasms or a method for using sex to achieve enlightenment. It is not supportive of the illusion that sexual techniques contribute to spiritual growth or cause Realization. What it is, is a wholesale criticism of the avoidance of relationship — including the avoidance that happens during sex, through sex, and in the name of sex.

That distinction changed everything for me. Because what it means is: the "problem" isn't that you're not doing the right sexual technique. The problem is that you're avoiding relationship — with your lover, with your own body, with the fire that is trying to move through you — and all the techniques in the world won't fix that avoidance. Only understanding it will.

If you've read anything about the Spiritual Path of Intimate Relationship as Londin and I teach it, you'll hear echoes of this everywhere. Our entire framework is built around recognizing and dissolving the patterns of avoidance that keep us from showing up fully in relationship. Not through technique. Through understanding. Through presence. Through the willingness to stop staring at your own reflection and actually meet the person in front of you.

Why This Matters: The Western Bridge

What all of these Western esoteric figures share — for better and for worse — is that they took the Eastern wisdom traditions and wrestled them into forms that Westerners could access. Pierre Bernard brought yoga and Tantra out of the ashram and into New York City. Crowley gave the West a framework for sexual energy as spiritual technology. Gurdjieff gave us the demand for honest self-observation. Osho gave us permission to stop pretending that sexuality and spirituality live in separate rooms. And Adi Da gave us the precise diagnosis: the problem isn't the sex, the desire, or the body. The problem is Narcissus — the avoidance of relationship itself.

Without these figures, the Eastern traditions covered in the first three articles of this series would have remained academic knowledge for most Westerners — beautiful ideas in dusty books. The Western esotericists, for all their flaws, made sacred sexuality a living practice in the modern world.

That's the foundation Londin and I build on. In Playing With Fire: The Spiritual Path of Intimate Relationship, we draw on all five of these streams — Taoist, Hindu, Buddhist, Western esoteric, and psychological — and synthesize them into a complete path for modern couples. Not a collection of techniques. A path of understanding. And if you want to practice with us, we lead monthly live calls for men, women, and couples through our Yoga of Intimacy Patreon.

Summary of Western Esotericism

Problem (Adi Da's formulation): Narcissus — the activity of self-contraction, the chronic avoidance of relationship in all its forms. This avoidance underlies all suffering, all seeking, and all strategic spiritual effort.

Solution (Adi Da): Radical Understanding — the direct recognition that the avoidance of relationship is the root-activity of the ego, giving way to the Realization of unqualified relatedness, or Consciousness Itself.

Purpose (Adi Da): "There is no dilemma." The recognition that there never was a dilemma to solve — only an activity of self-contraction to recognize and release.

Polarity: Varied across teachers. Crowley: Will and Surrender. Gurdjieff: Sleep and Awakening. Adi Da: Self-contraction and Unqualified Relatedness.

Key Principles of Western Esotericism in Sacred Sexuality

• The avoidance of relationship (Narcissus / self-contraction) is the root of all suffering — not desire, not the body, not sex itself.

• Understanding — not technique — is the primary vehicle for transformation. Sexual practices that bypass understanding simply become more sophisticated forms of seeking.

• Honest self-observation is prerequisite to all genuine practice. Without the capacity to see what you're actually doing in each moment, no method will liberate you.

• The Eastern traditions must be embodied and lived — not merely studied or imported. The Western esotericists, at their best, showed how to bring ancient wisdom into contemporary, lived experience.

Key Figures

Pierre Bernard (1875–1955) — "The Great Oom." First American to bring yoga and Tantra to the public. Founded the Tantrik Order of America (1905) and the New York Sanskrit College (1910). Established both the possibility and the controversy of Tantra in America.

Aleister Crowley (1875–1947) — English occultist and ceremonial magician. Developed sex magick as a practice of aligning with one's True Will. Author of numerous texts on occult practice. Influence runs through virtually all Western esoteric traditions that incorporate sexual ritual.

G.I. Gurdjieff (1866–1949) — Armenian-Greek mystic and teacher. Taught that human beings live in a state of "waking sleep" and developed methods (the "Fourth Way") to shock practitioners into genuine consciousness and presence.

Osho (1931–1990) — Indian spiritual teacher and founder of the Rajneesh movement. First major teacher to publicly integrate sexuality and spirituality, drawing on Tantra, Zen, and Western psychology. Impact on the modern sacred sexuality landscape is enormous despite his controversial legacy.

Adi Da Samraj (1939–2008) — American-born spiritual teacher. Taught the "Way of the Heart" — the recognition of self-contraction (Narcissus) as the root-activity of all suffering and seeking. Key texts: The Knee of Listening (spiritual autobiography) and The Complete Yoga of Emotional-Sexual Life (by Daniel C. Bouwmeester, MD, applying Adi Da's teaching to sexuality and relationship).

FAQs: Western Esotericism and Sacred Sexuality

Q: What is Western esotericism in the context of sacred sexuality?

A: Western esotericism refers to a diverse group of Western teachers, mystics, and occultists who brought Eastern spiritual traditions — particularly Tantra, yoga, and meditation — into contact with Western philosophy, psychology, and culture. In the context of sacred sexuality, these figures include Pierre Bernard (who brought Tantra to America), Aleister Crowley (who developed sex magick), G.I. Gurdjieff (who taught radical self-observation), Osho (who publicly integrated sexuality and spirituality), and Adi Da (who identified the avoidance of relationship as the root of all suffering).

Q: What does "avoidance of relationship" mean in Adi Da's teaching?

A: Adi Da taught that the fundamental activity of the ego — which he called "Narcissus" — is the chronic contraction away from direct, unmediated contact with reality. This avoidance of relationship is not a one-time event but an ongoing activity happening in every moment: pulling back from presence, substituting concepts for direct experience, and gazing at one's own reflection rather than meeting what is actually in front of you. In the context of intimacy, this means avoiding genuine contact with your partner even while physically close — through distraction, emotional withdrawal, or strategic behavior.

Q: How does Adi Da's teaching differ from the Eastern traditions?

A: While the Eastern traditions each offer a specific practice or path (conservation of energy in Taoism, devotion in Hinduism, transmutation in Buddhism), Adi Da's teaching centers on understanding rather than technique. He argued that every conventional yoga, meditation, or spiritual practice — including sexual practices — can become just another form of Narcissus: a strategic effort to dissolve the separate self in order to feel good. True liberation, in his view, begins not with a better practice but with the direct recognition of what you are already doing — avoiding relationship.

Q: How does Western esotericism relate to the Yoga of Intimacy?

A: Western esotericism is one of five major influences on the sacred sexuality taught by Justin Patrick Pierce and Londin Angel Winters. Adi Da's teaching that the avoidance of relationship is the root of all suffering is woven throughout their work — particularly in their emphasis on understanding over technique, presence over performance, and the willingness to meet each other directly rather than through the filter of ego. Their book Playing With Fire synthesizes all five streams into a complete path for modern couples.