Cult of Ecstasy



The Cult of Ecstasy (also known as Sahajiya, a term derived from the Sanskrit word Sahaja which literally means spontaneous or natural) is a Tradition of mages and visionary seers who transcend boundaries and limitations through sacred experience.

To achieve that the Cult use things like drugs, music and sex, but they're just means to an end. The objective is to achieve a mental state that transcends the physical world, a trance that allows the mage to see beyond his normal experience and go outside all the lines that keep most people and mages penned in. Cultists take the word ecstasy in its original meaning: a sudden, intense rush of feeling that catapults the subject into an altered state. It doesn't have to be a pleasant feeling, but given a choice, most Cultists definitely prefer it that way. The Cult of Ecstasy breaks down barriers and self-imposed limitations to give people a rush of eye-opening experience.

Lakashim
The heartbeat of the world, Dhambia, The Serpent Road... It has many names, but the concept lies in that creation has a heartbeat, a pulse that everyone can feel if they want to. All the emotions, passions and uncouncious minds tap into this pulse, with the intellect blocking the perceptions but also focusing them, being a perfect conciousness the one that sends the person above mere intellect and sensations, using both to achieve a communion with the Lakashim.

Achieving such state means to suspend in time and being able to alter reality on a whim. The Ecstatic magic usually focus into achieve that ideal whenever is possible, with many paths being based into enhance sensations past the normal human limits, as the Lakashim waits beyond all those boundaries.

Ananda
Human counciousness remains blind to the cosmos, as the vastness of reality and creation would drive human beings crazy. To avoid that, humanity look at its world and the things in it giving them names and looking at them in a way that they choose to understand. What the Ecstatics want is to break such self-imposed boundaries and take a peek at the vast scope of creation as it really is, even if such a thing can burn their eyes forever. Most Ecstatics would choose to get blind and being able to take a peek at raw reality than to live the rest of their lifes with a blindfold.

Being able to catch a sight at the true face of reality gives to the Seers indescriptble moments of exaltation, a bliss that stops time. This is what they call Ananda. That bliss makes them able to work magic by sidestepping reality and gives them an understanding and newfound respect to all aspects on creation. Ananda can't be described, only felt, and most faiths and magics are just ways to capture this bliss. As most people are never able to catch more than a glimpse of it, they are drove into despair and fanaticism, creating war and conflict.

Ojas
The vital force, brought by fusing passions and perceptions, is what allows the Ecstatic to get to a higher state and look behind the boundaries that blind human beings all the time. Everyone can feel this, but most of the time is only felt during times of extreme bliss or stress. Time feels slower and everything is much more alive. The Cult of Ecstasy mages are able to attune into that energy, to perform miracles and focus in any task.

Avatar
The Daemon, the Muse. In a really Ecstatic manner, there is no common agreement as to what Avatars really are but mostly agree in the obvious part, that their are an aspect of the mage that assists into the life's path. Some say it is the uncounciousness saying what the mage knows but don't want to hear, others think that they are future selfs, spirit-totems, past-lives, demons, angels, platonic ideals or a wide range of other possibilities.

Ascension
When a mage is able to advance to the highest reaches of the path of enlightment, it is when she is supposed to be able to discard the mortal blindfold completely and achieve an state of everlasting Ananda, comprending everything in creation in a single eternal heartbeat. This is Ascension a personal moment so there is not a single way to achieve it, so each individual has to find her own way to find it. Even so, many Cultists find this whole idea terrifying, preferring brief flashes of truth than a single endless pleasure, with the ideal Heaven being that where you can get a moment of short break from the moral world and after that go back for another ride. To them, life is more interesting than an eternity of anything.

Spheres
Even if like the other Traditions they accept Nine Spheres of Magic, the Ecstatics see them in their own manner due to being hard to make an statement on the Cult approach as a whole, but some broad generalizations can be made. For the Ecstatics nothing in the universe is its own independent thing, for example, body and soul have no fundamental differences. Pain begets pain, healing begets healing, the Ectsatic paradigm is filled with sympathetic reactions, and the same can be applied to the Spheres. Changing one thing changes all the others too. Every interaction, thought and sensation cause changes in the world, and an Ecstatic knows the effects his actions can produce.

Correspondence — Illusion of Space
Distance is an illusion, all things are connected and all things depend of each other. The enlightened should be able to be everywhere at once, in communion with all creation, achieving an existance that allows them to free themselves from karmic bonds and mundane shells. With this Sphere, an Ecstatic can communicate across long distances, extend her own senses and combining it with time, she can exist anywhere at anytime. As a natural extension of their natural affinity with the Time Sphere, the Cultists see both as illusions of placement in a given continuum that can be manipulated. A common focus is to achieve an altered state of mind using music, exercise, pain, starvation, drugs or other methods.

Entropy — Karmic Cycle
Entropy is the force that controls karma, fate, probability and eventuality. Everything breaks and returns to the endless cycle so the Ecstatic can use this idea to liberate other people from their karmic ties or to strenghten them, but Cultists don't use that much the overly destructive effects of the Sphere. It is often used in combination with Time to read future events. It can be also used to stop decay or prevent danger to a someone or something. Meditation is a way to achieve a way to temporarily trascend the cycle and alter karma, but there are other methods like sex, ritual binding or formulae.

Forces — Illusion of Different States
Forces and Matter, similar to Time and Correspondence, are the different sides of the same coin. Forces is just the state of the Illusion of Physicality that Matter represents, so movement or heat are nothing more than properties at a given time that can be altered the same way that time and matter can. By moving into the realm of spirit and the trascendent the Ecstatic can alter the realm or physicality and enforce her own vision of reality, so she literally can prevent fire from burning, overcome someone with the weight of his karma or float in the middle of a meditation. This can be achieved via trances, drugs, complex mathematics, near-death experiences and other foci.

Life — Lakashim
The pulse of life. Synonmous with what is sacred abut existence to the Ecstatics, a culmination to the body and soul. An ever-changing dynamic force, without it there can't be trascendence. A Ectstatic strives to empower their own life pulse to break karmic illusions. By using it, a Master can live thousands of years, align the Ojas to purge illness or increase pain sensivity. There are many methods and approaches to use Life, like Tantra, martial arts or herbalism.

Matter — Illusion of Physicality
The material world is just a side effect of the great falsehood of the self, so by trascencing it and enforcing the personal views on reality can be proven as something malleable than can be shaped by a mystic. This is why the Cultists use altered states to approach this Sphere, being using drugs (like LSD) or self-mutilation to achieve a similar result, in a sympathetic effect when the object affected is damaged in a akin way to the mage.

Mind — Illusion of Self
As all things in the universe are one, one mind can affect another. The greatest magic between selves is when two bodies connect as one, as pure love is a bond in a physical and spiritual level. This is when the self is shattered and the glory of unity is shown. Tantra is the most common foci to achieve this, but music or pain is also used to move into higher states.

Prime — Ojas
As the universe is changing and retaining power within itself, the Ojas, or concentrations of power, can be found in everything. This is untapped potential, what it is referred in Tantra as Kundalini, the coiled serpent. The Ojas are physical locations where the illusion shatters and pure possibility appears. Exercise can enlarge the Ojas, sex can align them between partners and Tantric positions can concentrate them. The Kundalini or Shakti is the energy of the Ojas, the building blocks of the universe that can be tapped to achieve something.

Spirit — Dreaming
The spirit is the emanation or reflection of the soul of a human being. If the spirit of people and the land is corrupt, the spirit of that place is corrupt. The opposite is also true, when good things are dreamed, these things also manifest into the spirit world. This is why Cultists see the spirit world as something more real than the physical world. They often use altered states of mind or perceptions to see the abstractions of said world.

Time — The Illusion of Fixed Time, The Ecstatic Principle
As the Cult magic is based in breaking the barriers of space, matter, probability and other variables and principles, Time is seen as the secret to break all of them. By achieving infinite time, everything can be broken and anything is possible. Also, things are dynamic and change, and this is a propierty of Time, not Entropy alone. Without Time, everything would be in absolute stasis and nothing would be able to change, so there would not be Entropy. Time is then, for the Cult of Ecstasy, the key to the Tapestry as a whole. The most common way to use Time in the Cult is for divination, given the roots of the Cult itself, and even being a dangerous magic, they always have achieved the best results with it. As foci they use mostly the same as with Correspondence, trying to touch ecstasy through dance, drugs or music as a way to overcome the fetters of time. After focusing in one sensation to the point everything is unchanging, time ceases to exist and the Ecstatic can alter it as she see fit, seeing, moving, stoping or altering its flux.

Tenth Sphere
The Ecstatics don't really have a word for the Tenth Sphere, and they equate Ascension to a everlasting Ananda and becoming one with the Lakashim during moments of ecstasy, where time ceases to have meaning and instead becomes a transcendant experience, the Ecstatics seek to connect with every living things, allowing for universal exchange that will result in Ascension.

Tools and Practices
Many see the Cultists as little more than wanton hedonists, but the truth is more sophisticated. While it is true that many of them employ sex, drugs, music and dance in their magic, their true goal is indicatd in their name: Ecstasy comes from the Latin ex stasis which actually means 'out of stasis'. The Ecstatics seek to transcend the illusions of reality and see the world without boundaries where their consciousness spans all space and time.

There are many kamamarga, or paths of ecstasy, tools and techniques to induce ecstatic awareness. Even if few Cultists stay in one for long, all of them have favorites. Some use tribal inspirations like tatoos, piercings or rites of passage to focus their magic, other use advanced gadgets to stimulate their own bodies, using music, video, virtual reality and cybernetics into wild new art forms... Tantric and Taoist arts, sexuality, mass pleasure rites, ritualised self-mutilation, fasting and extreme physical activities, ancient yogi disciplines, summoning of zeitgeists (spirits of an era), there are many ways to perform magic, and Ecstatics are there to experiment them. The best description is as follows: The Cult thrives in the eternal second at the height of an elegant dance, the shuddering sensitivity of total exhaustion, and the lateral thoughts of an opened mind.

Sex
Sex excites the body and mind in unique ways, in a glimpse of the unknowable, a rush, communion and social activity in one. Sex is also sacred in the form of the union of the female and male forces of Shakti and Shakta, so it is more than simple procreation and also a form of worship. During sex, being willing or not, the ojas are summoned and power circulates through both bodies. Most Ecstatics consider non-consensual sex as something monstruous and unforgivable. No form of consensual sex is considered taboo by the Cult, and many of them are actually omnisexual, as simple orientations are just barriers to break. They usually divide sex into high sex, lovemaking and low sex. The first raises the ojas and channels energy from one to another in a ritualistic and disciplining fashion. Tantric magic comes as an obvious way to exemplify it. Lovemaking is the sharing of affection and energy between lovers or friends, more spontaneous than the first, it expresses pure emotion and it is usually made by mentors and pupils as the Diksham bond between both it is usually that affective. Low sex is just an outright sexual relationship without nothing else, done for the sake of pleasure, but it can be powerful as the other if done right, getting to see the Lakashim during the climax.

Drugs
As their are powerful tools, many Ecstatic Initiates have a penchant for them, giving the Tradition some of their most common stereotypes. To Ecstatics they are not simple chemicals, they are tools to expand their minds and turn their perceptions inside-out. The danger of losing the sight of their way is there, so the trick us using them without becoming dependent on them and at some point growing beyond their usage and using kamamarga that doesn't need artificial chemicals to touch ecstasy. Cultists usually classify drugs into three categories, Running Toward, Running Away and Bad Shit. The first group are gateways to the uncouncious, drugs that create energy and foster activity, bolstering courage or action. The second group are the ones that relax energy, turn one into the self and leads to inability to act. The third group are uncontrollable chemicals that cause dangerous side effects, just causing problems and not helping magic at all.

Music
Music is one of the safest kamamarga, and even if slow offers an experience that no other focus can replicate if done correctly. Young Ecstatics consider that even if all music have potential, rock music brings a resonance only matched by primitive drumming. The most important point behind music is the passion, when there is caring and the artist is trying to say something with it, the music itself carries the power.

Philosophy: Sahaja
Cultists employ their methods in pursuit of Passion(emotion), often the Nine Sacred Passions, knowing that only passion can take them high enough to surpass human boundaries and perceptions to reach the eternal moment. Some are more enlightened than others as to the true purpose and source of emotion, but the pursuit is the same.

The Ecstatics have a set of guidelines, known as the Code of Ananda, that has been passed down from the Cult's founding organizer. The Code's purpose is to protect Ecstatics and others from misapplication of their passions. Central to the Code are rules forbidding the forcing of your passion or experiences on another (such as swapping the mushrooms in your friend's pasta with hallucinogenic mushrooms), as the Cult believes each person must want to find their own kammamarga ("path to enlightenment"). Ananda is a Sanskrit word which means "bliss", and the use of such Indic terminology among Ecstatics is one of many examples showing the mutually formative influence between the Cult of Ecstasy and the culture of India. In India the Ecstatics' central philosophy has been known for hundreds of years as Sahaja, which is a Sanskrit word meaning "[passionate] nature". From this comes the descriptor for one who subscribes to the Cult's central philosophy, sahajiya, which translates as "follower of [passionate] nature".

History
Being the Tradition that has taken the seat of Time, trying to describe their history in any sensible and continuous means is understandably difficult. Keep in mind that any Ecstatic that is asked the history of the Cult may, quite readily, laugh at the questioner. Some may take pity and attempt to explain a thing or two. Certain events can be pointed to, but fixing their exact location on the timeline is not necessarily even possible.

Think of the Cult's history as a stone skipping across the waters of the timestreams and you've come to as close of an analogy as possible to the truth of it. Given that, the following events can be pointed out.


 * The earliest influential members of the Cult were sahajiya in Asia, which is why the title Sahajiya ("follower of [passionate] nature" in Sanskrit) is still used as a nickname for any member of the Cult.


 * When the Sahajiya and other factions were first organized into a formal magical Tradition they were known as the Seers of Chronos. They were later renamed as the Cult of Ecstasy in 1867; this came following the Sh'zar's reappearance and decision to change the Tradition's name because they were straying from their true mission.

Historical Factions

 * Erzuli Jingo
 * Fellowship of Pan
 * Kiss of Astarte
 * Maenads


 * Fifth World Tribe: Los Sabios Locos
 * K'an Lu
 * Sahajiya
 * Vratyas

Dissidents Against Ananda

 * Aghoris
 * Acharne
 * Hagalaz

Progressivists

 * Joybringers
 * Dissonance Society
 * Klubwerks

Political Factions

 * Children's Crusade
 * Cult of Acceptance
 * Silver Bridges

Introduced Elsewhere

 * Dervish
 * Confrérie de Chango
 * roda do jogo
 * los sangradores
 * Studiosi
 * umilyenye

Culture
The view from outside the Cult is that life is one never-ending party. For some younger Ecstatics, this might be true, as they drunkenly lurch from one debauchery to the next, trying to find enlightenment. Most of the Ecstatics know that most things are best sampled in moderation, lest their passions become blunted and thus ruined for them - although a Cultist's idea of "moderation" might be quite different to the average person's.

If you look beneath the stereotyping, the Cult itself is filled with contradictions and controversy even among its members. Most of whom seem to quite enjoy the lively and passionate debate. Even things passed down through the ages are often debated. One such is the Code of Ananda, upheld by some and outright rejected by others. These guidelines act to protect Cultists from their passions and each other, but are not accepted by all Ecstatics. A second is a book written by Tali Eos called the Nine Sacred Passions, which is less in itself debated, but more the approach to pursuing passions.

It truly is that the only constant there lies within the Cult is the constant of Change. Although there is a persisting belief that Lakashim (Synonymous with Life) is holy. There are, however, some individuals who care little for the lives of Sleepers and quite happily sate their lust for perversion, rape, murder or worse on those around them. Such individuals are severely punished by the Cult - if they can be caught. William Ethrac is one such notorious individual who has so far eluded all attempts at capture.