Gnostic Esoteric Study & Work Aids: What are Carnal Passions?

Sunday 19 March 2017

What are Carnal Passions? – (1601)

Introduction

I’ve read on several occasions and in several books Master Samael saying that carnal passions must be eliminated, and each time that I read it, I didn’t really know what he meant. I always asked myself: “What really are carnal passions?”. Finally, I understood what they are and this post is a brief explanation of what I understand them (carnal passions) to be.

Carnal Passions

I understand them to be the passion or enthusiasm or liking or excitement for things of the flesh. That is the liking or enthusiasm to experience the body of another person.

When people like certain body parts and like bodies that look this way and that, they are expressing their carnal passions in one way or another I think.

Carnal Passions and the Appreciation of Beauty are Different

Obviously we have to be very intelligent here. To tell yourself: "I am not going to have carnal passions and I am not going to like the physical body anymore of anyone" is a recipe for disaster because, we end up suppressing without comprehension our egos of carnal passion, and we then end up in time swinging with gusto over to the other side. This is a law.

Obviously, also the physical body is a creation of the Divine Mother or mother nature and so it has its beauty. This beauty can be respected and appreciated without carnal passions. When carnal passions take hold, one then ends up as Dante says losing their reason to carnal passion, and what follows is error and regret.

So always the middle way, which is the wise way and the intelligent way, is the solution. To suppress is wrong, to fall into it is also wrong, so the middle is the right way which is the wise combination of both sides. Which would be to respect, appreciate and comprehend beauty as a creation of the Divine Mother. This appreciation does not reject and does not produce a blind falling into or attachment to.

Element of Lust

Carnal passions are a large part of the egos of lust. And it can be this element alone that can be a secret driving force behind many processes and actions of lust.