The purpose of Taoist teachings is to help us develop balance and harmony with the source, pattern, and substance of everything that exists. Our sexual energy is a powerful expression of that life force. And yes it can be trained consciously in a way that brings about healing and vitality.
Yanshuf Kadesh is an accredited instructor of Neidan, the closely guarded ’Inner Alchemy’ practices of Chi Gong, which were first brought to the West by Dr. Mantak Chia. Yanshuf had a former career as a Clinical Psychologist with an interest in transpersonal psychology. He also has extensive Kabbalistic training in Israel. We discuss how cultivating sexual life energy through Tantric and Taoist practices can lead to deeper healing, higher consciousness, and evolutionary change. As we move towards possible dystopian futures with artificial intelligence, Yanshuf believes that we desperately need to reground ourselves in our basic sexual nature and to reconnect with our wholeness.
Highlights:
- Cultivating Sexual Life Energy with Taoist Chi Gong
- Sacred Sexuality in the Modern Age of Technology
- Evolution of Consciousness
Resources:
- Healing Love Through the Tao: Cultivating Female Sexual Energy by Mantak Chia
- Taoist Secrets of Love: Cultivating Male Sexual Energy by Mantak Chia
- Ohad Ezrahi
- The Way of the Superior Man by David Deida
- On Method by David Bakan
- ISTA International School of Temple Arts
- Iron Shirt Chi Gong by Mantak Chia
- Red Moon by Miranda Gray
- Francesca La Barca
- Isabel Burr Raty
- LEA Art Grant
- Universal Healing Tao
- Yuval Noah Harari
Listen:
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Full Transcript
Thal:
Welcome Yaacov to the show.
Yanshuf Kadesh:
Good to be here.
Thal:
Thank you.
Adrian:
We’ve been asking our guests recently to share with us their spiritual orientation as they were growing up. I think that’s a nice place for us to get a sense of what it was like around from the home front, whether there was any orientation at all and how that possibly put you on a trajectory to being here today.
Yanshuf Kadesh
Well, to be honest, I would have to say classic rock, you know. Enhanced with cannabis. That would basically be my first shamanic practice, I would say. Like Big Stadium Rock and Psychedelic Rock, Progressive Rock and becoming a bass player and being very immersive with the music. Um, I grew up in a Jewish family, but non practicing essentially, really quite assimilated and um, yeah, that sort of became important to me later. But, um, growing up it was really the music that, to me, I later understood to be my way of reaching for, uh, that sort of whatever you want to call it, transpersonal or, and there’s something in the, I think that there’s, um, there’s intimations of infinity within the… when you have the overdrive of the guitars. So if you listen to the guitar, like Jimi Hendrix and also if you also, um, Robert Fripp who uses the sky saw sound, which is a compression on the sound. And so that you play the note business and just, it will go infinitely. As long as there’s a power source, the, the note will continue on forever, uh, using, you know, using compression. And, um, so I think that when you’re listening to that music, there is that sort of, there’s a, there’s a certain feeling of the infinite that comes that I’m sure other people gained from classical music or other things. But for me it was, uh, was the Rock and Roll. For sure.
Thal:
Certainly music is a powerful tool into the transpersonal realm. Were there any specific moments, um, that you’ve had that kind of experience while playing music that you remembered?
Yanshuf Kadesh:
Well, yeah, I mean, I definitely have had times in different, uh, band situations, even more in an open jamming situations where you sort of dropped into the groove and just everything’s happening. And, uh, it’s really an amazing thing with other people to be sort of seemingly moving into some kind of a space where nothing wrong can happen. Everybody’s in the zone. And, um, and I did begin to think of it as a, that there’s a muse, you know, there’s some sort of a being or an energy or something that is desiring to come down and it’s, that is the muse of this moment or in this people in this situation. And it’s a question of to what extent do we sort of merit to be a channel for what’s coming through.
Thal:
To allow it.
Yanshuf Kadesh:
Yeah. And, um, you know, if you allow yourself to inquire with those types of things then uh, yeah, I can open things up.
Thal:
How old were you? And where were you brought up again?
Yanshuf Kadesh:
Um, born in Montreal.
Thal:
Okay.
Yanshuf Kadesh:
And moved there out of there when I was I think three or four and grew up in London, Ontario.
Adrian:
I think I read somewhere in one of your bio’s, um, you having an interest in hockey as well?
Yanshuf Kadesh:
Yeah, I grew up playing competitive hockey. Uh, it wasn’t, I don’t know, say it was really an interest, it was just sort of what one did. If there was a religion, you know, a local religion, it would have been more probably hockey. Uh, an I did that till I was I think 13, 14, and then it got my bass and that was it. I was no longer …and just sort of waking up to the notion of like, why am I getting up at four thirty in the morning and pitch black and minus 20 degrees to go and skate, figure eights for hours so I can be on the competitive … I respect that, athleticism and people. I have friends that went really into it went far with it. But yeah, for me it just wasn’t… I didn’t want to be doing that. Plus I was too skinny. Like I get smacked around, I was playing in London, Oakridge hockey. And you know as soon as you start traveling out to Aylmer and whatever the sort of, you get these farm boys, corn fed, Ontario farm boys that come start.. They will kill you. [laughing] So I had a couple of bad hits and I think my mom was there for one of them at a tournament. And uh, yeah, it was enough of that.
Adrian:
A natural weeding out process.
Yanshuf Kadesh
Yeah, I was definitely, weeded out. Yeah.
Adrian:
How did the academic life enter the path? Because I know at some point pursued psychology and study in academics.
Yanshuf Kadesh:
Um, it’s interesting. I mean I graduated high school, um, and then I went east. As soon as I graduated high school I had my Bar Mitzvah money. Cause even if you’re not really religious, you still get to have your Bar Mitzvah and you get a little bit of money there from that. So I flew to Southeast Asia and I was searching for teachers and practices and things that I could connect me somehow to whatever it was. And, um, eventually I, uh, after some time in, um, Buddhist monasteries and also in Dharamsala and with the Tibetans and wandering in India and meeting different people. And then I ended up going to Israel. Uh, I’d picked up a book while in India about Kabbalah, which I didn’t know existed before, but I saw a star of David on a book and I was like, oh, what’s that about? What’s it doing here in India? And so I was reading about Kabbalah when I was wandering around in India, and it inspired me to go, and, you know, I’d never known there was this mystical dimension to my own ethnic background. And, uh, so long story short, um, fell in with the Hasidim and, uh, a group that was particularly devoted to the, I think we’ll be called the ecstatic Kabbalah. So really the meditative dimension of the Kabbalah. You mentioned Sufism before
Thal:
Yeah. So there’s the ecstatic Sufism.
Yanshuf Kadesh:
So there’s a very strong affinity there. Uh, so I was doing that and um, it’s what happened I think was first of all my own emergent struggles at that time with a sense of identity and having grown up in one cultural context, language and so on. I was really, when I went into this, I went really deep. So I went into, um, you know, it was all Hebrew speaking, very traditional environment, um, all male, you know, uh, environment and studying the texts and practices. And I started to have some nervous symptoms that I began to explore and understand what was, why was I feeling these discordant feelings and it had to do the struggle with identity and “who am I?” and all of that. Um, so I was starting to read psychology and it was also attempting to implement the meditative practices and understand them. Understand like what are the changes, because I was partially blocked from progress because of my emotional difficulties. But on the other hand, I was sort of, I was also taking flight but not in a very integrated way. And so the immersion in these mystical texts and so forth was opening certain things up for me. And at the same time, I was trying to understand how can I do this in a way that I really feel like it’s authentic, I’m gaining traction and is integrated. And I think that, that, those were the things that drove, drove me to be…I picked up, I think it was Jung initially I was reading and, um, I put it in the bathroom of reading it in the bathroom. That’s the tradition amongst Jews is you sort of put the secular reading or they not…you know, the books you read outside the bathroom was all holy books have to be holy books only. So you put the psychology and the bathroom, but now I’m spending more and more and more time in the bathroom.
Thal:
Although Jung is holy in a way. [laughing]
Yanshuf Kadesh:
Yeah, sure. So now that whole distinction for me is problematized so yeah. At the time I was like, okay, well if I’m going to spend so much time in the bathroom because I’m reading Jung in the bathroom, maybe I should just go study psychology. So that’s what I did, yeah.
Adrian:
Oh wow. That’s fascinating. Because it sounded like you became opened up to mysticism, became a student of mysticism first and then that eventually drew you towards studying psychology?
Yanshuf Kadesh:
Yes. And I think my entire project within psychology turns out to have been primarily about how do we, how do we engage processes of, um, again, it’s always a problem with language, but, um, let’s call it higher human development. Something like that. How do we do that in a way that is grounded and that, you know, the psychology gives us a wealth of tools to understand just our emotional lives in our, the way we work in cognitive functioning and um, desire, you know, also the whole Freudian legacy and the existential psychiatry and all, you know, all these strands that um, you know, you can use them, but you can also sort of get stuck in it.
Thal:
Yeah.
Yanshuf Kadesh:
Uh, and so for me it was the, using the psychology to become grounded and then in order to be able to cultivate and enter sort of more of a practice mode rather than a therapeutic mode, enter a practice mode and evolve from there. Yeah.
Thal:
It’s like, you know, just sharing your story, it’s, I find so many connections to my story where it’s like reading Jung was like, oh, I see what I was doing there with Sufism. Like I did a lot of bypassing too. Whereas where I really find a lot of the Sufi texts, I’m sure it’s the same with the Kabbalists. It talks about all these higher levels of human development and it is psychological. A lot of it is psychologically minded but removed from our modern context, and like the Sufi books, at least a lot of it is removed from the modern context where psychology can create that link.
Yanshuf Kadesh:
Yes. It can, but it’s not, it’s not that it is going to do it. It’s that we need to do it. Yes. And that’s part of the issue is that when you sort of, when you have this empirical model of say psychology based on statistical methods and so on, where you have to sort of always be, um, faithful to a corpus of knowledge, which of course we now know is highly problematic. You know, uh, I sort of understood early on in my psychology that there was a big problem with the psychological literature, uh, because I had a professor David Bakan, recently, he passed away a number of years ago, but he was one of the first to really get into critiquing the methods as they were being used. He wrote a book book called On Method. I think from the 60s, maybe like 66, 67 really worth looking that up. David Bakan and uh, he was the head of humanistic division, you know, he was an examiner for the college and so he was really, he did a lot of fascinating things in psychology, but he sort of tuned me in early to the fact that this is a real problem, psychology. And he was a huge advocate for speculation. And psychology. He says, you know, from speculation. It’s like with, it’s like speculation with entrepreneurship and so on. You speculate and you can have great gains. You know, you can also lose, but you can, you can, if you don’t speculate, then where are you ending up? And so where are, where I’ve ended up with my speculation or into these, these eastern energy-based practices, um, you know, the tantric sexuality and so on. Um, you know, when you can always trace your way back to some statistical study or another. Um, so, uh, you know, outcome research is often helpful. But anyway, yeah. So the psychology has to be… It’s a field and we have to be willing to think within the field and not just you know, run a series of comparisons on SPSS and have that be… Cranking out the knowledge, you know, uh, there’s a lot more to human beings. We’re fundamentally mysterious and I think it’s important to honor that. And as we explore, as best we can.
Adrian:
Yaacov, I’d love to hear how you ultimately discovered the Neidan Sexual practices that you’re deeply into at the moment and teaching and practicing.
Yanshuf Kadesh:
Um, okay. So the trace that back I have to go to, there’s someone named Ohad Ezrahi and he was someone that I sat together with in the Kabbalistic training in the early nineties. We were both students of the same Rabbi. And, um, years later, maybe like 10 years later, I bumped into him and he handed me this book, which was David Deida, The Way of the Superior Man, which Ohad had translated into Hebrew. So that was my first introduction to the field of sacred sexuality, let’s say, through David Deida. And so, um, when I was practicing in here in Canada and psychology and was personally engaged with the David Deida work, uh, and doing both individual therapy and also, um, couples therapy, I began to inevitably to begin seeping in some of the ideas about, um, sexual polarity began to be start to stand out for me in situations. And, um, so I’ve actually went and did two intensives with David Deida in California and really immersed into that. And, um, at a certain point I decided I need to take a hiatus from my clinical work in order to more deeply explore this field, which I guess with David did, it would probably be described as Neo-Tantra. Um, and it was through that exploration that I learned about Mantak Chia’s system, in terms of particularly the practice around male sexual empowerment and control, basically. Being able to bring consciousness to one’s sexuality in a way that had not previously been aware of. And so within David Deida, he also talks about those things more, I believe from the yogic in the tantric tradition. However, it’s really, I believe in the Chinese tradition that you, you have the really, um, fleshed out, um, pragmatic technical. I mean it’s drawing from, um, traditional Chinese medicine and as well as martial arts, um, Chi Gong, you know, the Neidan integrates all of these, all of these influences. And so that’s basically how it ended up. It was sort of through David Deida and finding in the field and then within the field seeking, um, I guess the most efficient way for me to um, progress within my own, uh, my own practice.
Adrian:
For those who might not be familiar. Um, just to give context, should we zoom out and look at sort of Taoism as a larger system and within that, how these practices kind of fit in that umbrella? Is that a way we can describe it in detail?
Yanshuf Kadesh:
Uh, sure. You can. However, I will say that when I was coming out of my orthodoxy, my Jewish Orthodoxy and moving into these fields, I became highly allergic to, well, put it this way, I basically, um, after spending my entire life, particularly my adult life as a voracious reader, uh, and, and completing my doctorate and the rest of it. When I started getting into these practices and after that initial exposure to, as I mentioned, my friend Ohad who handed me this translation I pretty much didn’t read at all for like about two years because I knew, I knew…
Thal:
I like that [laughing]
Yanshuf Kadesh:
I knew that as soon as I started to read about the practices that I was doing and interpret them within broader philosophical, traditional frameworks, I would be immediately interpreting, comparing, contrasting, all of that stuff. And I just didn’t want to not want to be in my head in that way. And in language in that way, I was connecting with the energy. I was starting to feel it. And it felt revolutionary to me. And to be ground to that, it felt like I needed to really to avoid. And even to this day, um, I’m so cautious about when I feel myself zoop up into my head. Um, I mean, it’s, uh, you know, the Jewish people are called the people of the book, right? And, uh, I, you know, I do believe that what our ancestors for engaged with has a strong influence on who we are. It doesn’t, it’s not all of who we are. And we can choose how we want to manifest and we can connect with other traditions from other human beings who’ve done different things and expand that way. And these archetypes are all available to us regardless of how they came down in particularly in our, in our bloodline, let’s say. Um, but, um, it’s strongly felt to me that if I start activating this sort of intellectual process, which I do periodically, but I don’t, it feels it’s not balanced.
Thal:
It’s a prison cell in a way. It can be.
Yanshuf Kadesh:
Yeah. It can become a prison cell. It can also open up doors as it did within the Kabbalistic mysticism. I was studying where this very sort of very intense intellectual engagement brings to sort of appreciation of paradoxes. And it’s a lot of contemplation of sort of different varieties of infinity and almost like in an Aristotelian typology of nothingness. There’s different styles, degrees of nothingness and this sort of stuff. And so yeah, it takes, it doesn’t necessarily end up in just a maze within the intellect as it might in other, um, sort of less metaphysical context. But, uh, but it doesn’t necessarily, it tends not to, um, if you’re preoccupied on that level and that’s your main focused and you might be losing track of your, your heart center. Yes. You know, your gut, what your, what your gut is, is communicating and your sexual center. And, and I, and I had learned, I had enough of those initial experiences in these practice spaces that I was being exposed to for the first time of how healing and how empowering it is to, as a human being, be connected with that sort of core life force energy in oneself. And, um, so it’s, I did most of my life in one way. And so maybe you need to sort go to the other extreme for a time and then hopefully I’ll be more balanced at some point in the future. Yeah.
Adrian:
Can you share with us, um, you, you mentioned you’re starting to feel some of these energies and, uh, so again, without us, because we are using language to try to communicate these things, it’s difficult, but I do want to bring that into focus is how the subtle energies are a big part of some of these traditions and practices. Can you talk about your experience with this new awareness?
Yanshuf Kadesh:
Boy oh boy. Uh, yeah, it’s, it’s a tough one because it’s sort of, if you don’t want to be the person who’s just constantly just talking about energy all the time, energy, energy. Energy is everything. What else is there besides energy? I mean, I guess Tantrically speaking, there’s consciousness and there’s energy and all there is is energy in motion. Um, in terms of the sexual practices. So within the Taoist work in particular, you do begin to discern different qualities of energy, different types of energy through practice. And there is uh, a very well developed framework within traditional Chinese medicine that talks about the meridian system and the different qualities of energy that move through that system. Um, yeah, I feel like I don’t really feel like I’m, I’m really the person to talk about that authoritatively. I haven’t had that kind of training and as I say, even in the training I have had, which is based on the same energetic map, I tend to allow things to emerge in practice rather than sort of learn them first on the way it’s supposed to be. And then in my practice to have that expectation, it’s like I’m always testing the ground, excuse me. The system of the system of Taoist work that Mantak Chia who my teacher is teaching, uh, in the Chinese is referred to as Inner Alchemy, Just Practice Chi Gong. It’s a very strong emphasis on practice. Just practicing. With that said, I can say that having worked immersively within this system now for several years, that I do feel clear difference between, um, an energy, which is a more feminine energy of experienced as Earth based, connected with the earth. It connects with certain parts of the body and sexual center in particular versus, uh, the Shen or the spirit energy, the fire energy, um, you know, these sort of archetypal qualities of different energies. And so you begin to, that’s a very basic discernment between the, basically like the fire and water energetically and, uh, a lot of what’s referred to as the Alchemy. And the, no, the more advanced practices are called the Fusion Practices or the Immortality Practices of the Tao. Uh, there’s a lot of working with these energies and learning to mix them, um, and it becomes quite esoteric quite quickly. And, uh, but for me even to have gotten to the point now where I feel like I can ground to earth and also feel upwards through the top of my head in a way that really actually is very strongly empowered by my previous experiences with Kabbalistic practice to sort of connect to this sort of heavenly force or presence above. And to have both of those things present, uh, feels very, very, um, empowering and energizing that there’s this arc of energy between this sort of masculine and feminine, is another way to talk about it. Yin and Yang. To be able to stand as a human being and to be in touch with both of those brings a lot of positive benefit.
Thal:
So anyway, you’re integrating, you know, the, the head part of your life and and the body and connecting with life force. Um, in your opinion, what is the importance of cultivating that sexual energy? Like how is, how is that beneficial in our life?
Yanshuf Kadesh:
Well, that’s, that was the thing, like, one of the things I really really like about Mantak Chia is the … you start from the foundation, you start from the foundation. So the sexual center is like, even in the Indian tradition, Mul, like Muladhara is the foundation. It means foundation. And also in Kaballah itself, Ilsold, that’s Fiera, right? That’s fear of the sexual center. It’s also named foundation. So what is it about the sexual center that’s foundational and if you’re going to build a building, where would you want to start building the building from? And to me it became very obvious that as human beings, we are born from this sexual force life force, that it does have a polarity nature to it. And that being in touch with that and being healthy and whole and having a flow of that force within is the best foundation for developing of our other capacities in what I call a grounded way. And so you avoid the types of problems. There are many types of problems when they are transpersonal practices that sort of bypass the sexuality piece or consciously suppress it or repress it which is even more dangerous when it’s sort of an unconscious process and a cast it into darkness, so to speak, of the unconscious. And then it, of course will reappear in different ways. Um, so to me an approach that, and I would almost say speaking now really more as a transpersonal psychologist and being able to stand apart from any of the particular was a parochial interests of the different religions or anything an approach to me that begins from that foundation and helps people to be healthy and whole and happy and learned to cultivate their sexual energy, which then when you cultivate it and draw it up upwards, which is what all of these traditions are doing, draw the sexual energy from the sexual center upwards into the other centers. Uh, it does, it doesn’t always, it doesn’t continue to be necessarily a sexual thing, right? It becomes sort of a magnifier of other centers. So if you draw sexual energy up say to the heart center, it takes on a different quality energy. It takes on different quality. Uh, if you bring it up to the mind, it’s expansiveness and energizing of the mind. Um, yeah. So I kind of lost the thread there. Tell me how to remember it.
Adrian:
Yeah. I almost feel like, um, you mentioned foundation and grounding it in practice. And in a way, I’m also trying to find a way to allow this conversation to flow and not lose sight of that too, is to ask it in a way that’s practical based.
Yanshuf Kadesh:
Yes.
Adrian:
Um, can you share with us what are some of the core practices of cultivating sexual energy? What does the beginning look like for a new student who’s exploring these practices and what are some of the goals if you can even use that word?
Yanshuf Kadesh:
Okay. So I mean that question I prefer to take as someone who’s really syncretic in my approach. So I have been strongly influenced by David Deida’s work, uh, which is drawing more from the tantric tradition and also Mantak Chia and also very influenced by the ISTA process, International Schools of Temple Arts, which integrates Tantric, Taoist and what we call sexual shamanism maybe. There’s a ritual element to it as well. Um, so just speaking, I guess as myself rather than from some particular situation. I think that for modern people today that want to explore these things, the very first thing to do is, um, first of all, get really well schooled in this whole area of boundaries and consent. And if it’s going to be an interactive thing, you can also practice solo. Uh, and you really have to practice solo as well in terms of the alchemy work in order to do that, such as something you do with other people. Um, but if you’re going to be moving into quote unquote practice spaces within sacred sexuality and Tantra and so forth, then one way or another, you need to become acculturated to boundaries and consent and also understanding about owning your own, uh, needs, learning how to really articulate what you need, um, and learning about, you know, sort of what types of interactions you’re getting into and what this is about you and what you’re seeking. Not blaming others, not being quick to, um, you know, there’s the drama triangle, it’s another very important tool that’s used within the ISTA field, um, victim, aggressor and savior. And so when anybody moves into one of those roles, it will tend to elicit others to move into complimentary role. So somebody is moving into a victim role then they will tend to draw. First of all, the victim role will itself imply already an aggressor or persecutor of some form of their president or pass or what have you. And then, and then likely there are people who are going to be drawn and wish to go into a savior role. So learning to own your own stuff and not project onto other people and have that sense of sovereignty within yourself I think is really, really basic for all this. And in terms of practice, you know, um, it’s a bit different for men and for women. For men, as soon as you’re going to start to work with essentially sexual Chi Gong, let’s call it. So you’re going to be moving energy, working with energy. Chi Gong is the skillful use and interaction with life energy. And if you’re doing that with sexual arousal, then you’re going to come up against, uh, this question of ejaculation rather quickly. Um, so there’s kind of this tough thing at the beginning for men needing to gain some control of their ejaculation and there are techniques for doing that and it can be cultivated and so on for women that, that extra pressures is not there in the same way. Yeah. So it’s, I think it’s kind of a little bit hard to speak to technical, um, aspects of the Neidan practice, um, just in words. But I think that basically grounding is super important. It’s something that not everybody understands if they just are watching on the internet or reading a book, uh, I think it’s important to stand with a teacher and someone who is, or someone who’s at least knows how to ground themselves energetically and feel it, feel what that means. And, um, we’re just so used to floating around in, in this, um, sort of mental realm and living within these mental frameworks.
Thal:
And even sexuality is you know, approached from the head.
Yanshuf Kadesh:
Yes. Yeah. And visual! Oh my God. Like now we’re in a situation of a whole generation that has been just so fused with the visual stimulation in order to connect with their own sexual energy. Uh, so then you have problems, let’s say like young men, let’s say, uh, having erectile disfunction, um, in there like early twenties, and just things that are just unheard of previously and, and addicted to the visual, not just visual, but sort of ever changing, ever more stimulating, more, uh, in order to even function sexually. Uh, so yeah, really important. So then from that angle, I would say that learning to pleasure oneself in a loving way without it needing to be about any other image or form that you place in your mind.
Thal:
More conscious.
Yanshuf Kadesh:
Conscious. It’s conscious and it’s, it’s also letting go in a way of your intentional consciousness and just being in a flow. Um, a loving flow with oneself. That’s something that I think just in the culture that I grew up in didn’t really have a place for that. Uh, you know, masturbation and shame just the shame around sexuality. So that’s, that’s a huge one. Like right off the top, we can say that. Coming to terms with that, like, do you really think that we are sexual beings? I don’t think that’s in any way disputable. We’re sexual beings. So if we’re sexual beings, should we be ashamed of our really most basic sexual, uh, ways of being? If we’re sexual beings? I mean, pretty much everybody masturbates I mean, some form. Why do we need to be ashamed about it? So asking those questions and progressing with others in intentional spaces, let’s say, where there is a lot of work around things like boundaries and consent, um, and, and finding one’s voice and all of that, and beginning to see, okay, so if I’m a sexual being so, um, and that’s so essential really to our embodied lives. To what extent can I be a sexual being first of all, with myself, right? Or is this shame of some kind of projected other looking at me in the face of whom I’m feeling ashamed. So it’s this internalized observer that I’m, you know, working with whole that whole situation and then actual other people. To what extent am I able to be a sexual being in the presence of others? What does that bring up? So for example, is a lot of women who… first of all the site of a penis is, uh, can be.. it raises up all kinds of stuff, you know, it’s a hugely powerful, impactful thing. Well, it’s just, just human being has one has this organ and like, let’s just start from the basics and then see what is coming, what comes up if you’re in the face of that. Um, and what if the penis is erect? What then? Like a lot of women will see an erect penis and it feels like they have to serve it some way. That they must respond, they must provide or they must avoid or they must be afraid or they, um, so, you know, I don’t know, like I don’t have answers. Um, but I am part of a kind of a subculture today that is willing to explore the questions and, um, with the foundation of a lot of really good communication skills and ingrained ethics, um, to, um, you know, explore these things and, and to see where we may be able to get to that is just healthier and provides a better foundation for our further development as human beings and in our cultures to, uh, just be, just be more fully ourselves I think. And, and then from that foundation, there seems to be other, um, there’s further for us to develop and evolve. You know, we’re not at the pinnacle of our human sort of achievement. I think that there’s, in particular, in relation to the whole question of the Internet and algorithms and surveillance society and robotics taking over. I think this is a good moment as human beings to reground ourselves into our basic nature and to be empowered from it. And then to meet the future and meet the challenges and um, you know, from that more, more whole, more at peace place.
Adrian:
Yeah. I, I wanna I want to actually explore the male practice a little bit if you don’t mind.
Yanshuf Kadesh:
Sure.
Adrian:
Um, you mentioned, one of the paradigm shifts, uh, when I was started to explore these practices is the idea of, um, holding ejaculation or to prevent it while engaging in sexual practice. Can you describe that a little bit? Because it is a radical shift in paradigm to I would imagine a lot of western minded people.
Yanshuf Kadesh:
It is. I think like most men simply assume that, uh, if you’re going to be sexual, it’s going to lead towards orgasm and ejaculations always accompanies orgasm. Well, it turns out that’s not necessarily the case. And so what’s happened within the last half century is that exposure to some of these eastern systems from India and China in particular, there are others, but mainly those, uh, it turns out that, you know, there’s a lot to be to be adjusted and worked with in terms of that way of masculine being. And, uh, you know, women are freer in their sexual expression and sexual experience because they don’t, when they, there’s not this, they do ejaculate but they don’t lose.. they don’t ejaculate and then have to have a refractory period and the energy drain that’s involved in producing the sperm, which is just so, such a powerful substance. And so that we’re producing that. When men learn to move sexual energy in the, within the body in ways that it doesn’t, it doesn’t need to express itself through ejaculation. But you can almost “in-jaculate” is a term that people use up the spine and begin to move the energy around. So then types of orgasmic feelings at different parts of the body. Um, you know, it can have a brain orgasm or you can have a heart orgasm and things which are more common for women to feel actually quite natural for many women to feel the sort of whole body states varying degrees and intensity. Um, so it turns out men also can have that once they train their sexual as some of this is actual physical training. Training the muscles basically to gain control of the spasms, you know, of ejaculation. So then you’re able to play without orgasmic feeling that is there and yet you’re not a jocularity. If the feeling is they’re already sort of resonating on that orgasmic frequency, let’s say. Um, and then you can, and you can move it around, breathe it around, intend it around to different places and then join. Also if you’re with a partner can begin to synchronize the energies and a lot of, uh, truly amazing things that I don’t think that our western sciences really even begun to understand at all. But when you, I mean, it’s like a, Ken Wilber mentioned some people that critique in a different context, like meditative methods and so on. You comparison to the churchmen that refuse to gaze through Galileo’s telescope, you know, because they just were “nah”, you know, so if somebody’s willing to come and engage with these things, then yeah, we can show you the magic. The magic is there. It’s real. Um, once these energies are in motion and you can move this around and you, and I’m perfectly willing to have people describe it using different language, for example, then the traditional Taoist ways or the Traditional Chinese Medicine ways of talking about it. I have no objection to that. I mean, it is a practical system of healing for about a billion people. So there’s that, you know, something’s working there. So, uh, yeah, these practices are to truly extraordinary and revolutionary and I think, um, have the ability to really entirely remake our culture really, I would say.
Thal:
What about, um, since we brought up the male practices, what about females? Um, is it the reverse?
Yanshuf Kadesh:
Well, so I’m cautious when I teach women always to say that the way I approached these practices is as a man. And so there is, there is that difference. Um, so I’m somewhat aware of, uh, of the, of the way that women practice. Um, what is your question specifically?
Thal:
Maybe what’s the, or, how do women practice the kind of, um, practice that you teach? There’s that. Also, right away I’m thinking about people who are maybe gender nonconforming. How would they practice this kind of tradition?
Yanshuf Kadesh:
Okay. So those are two really important questions. Um, let’s go with the first one. So I would say that like a lot of the things with the Neidan at the beginning phases, there are practices that are fundamental practices about, um, clearing the body of unwanted emotional, like negative emotion. Within the body because when you start to work with sexual energy, you will magnify whatever feelings are there. So if there’s a sort of a latent anger or if there’s a tendency to depression, um, you really need to be very cautious about how you approach this. When you begin to move the sexual energy around and amplify it tends to amplify. So if you can get yourself to a calm, centered, positive before you begin to amplify your emotions through the, the sexual Chi Gong, you’ll be in a lot better position. Um, so the early practices are, I believe, fairly identical between men and women. The inner Smile practice, um, the six healing sounds are practices that Traditional Chinese Medicine uses to clear, as I say, negative feeling states from the body. And, um, and then you move into things like the, uh, the practices for grounding to the earth. Um, in my experience it seems that women are more readily sensitive. And it’s like every other thing where there’s a normal curve. It’s overlapping, there’s exceptions, but I mean, women generally seem to me to be more sensitive to energies per se. And more readily able to ground in the way I’m talking about. Those practices I believe are virtually identical with what are known as the Iron Shirt Practices, which overlaps with Chi Gong, Kung Fu and with Neidan, all of them utilize these practices for different purposes. Um, it’s about opening the Meridians in the body so that these lines of energy are clear and that you can move energy in the question of Neidan. Um, initially you’re going to move into this sort of the Chinese tantra aspect. You’re going to be moving sexual energy through the Meridians. All very similar. I think that there are, the practices that are, are clearly different for women that are of central significance are two. One of them is the jade egg practice where women will insert an egg shaped stone into the vagina and to begin to… first of all just holding it there, toning the muscles of the vagina and with time learning to control the positioning of the stone, moving it upwards and downwards, um, developing a kind of a suction ability an ability, which as a physical ability corresponds with an energetic ability to draw energy very forcefully. Um, and then they go from my larger stone, which is easier to hold, to a much smaller stone over time and, um, become stronger there. In the context of these original, when these practices originated, it had to do with the imperial court of China and you know, the concubines and so on, um, who were expected to be able to control the ejaculation of the emperor so that the emperor who, I’m not sure if he’s training himself or not to control himself, but when a woman trains with these practices, she’s able to gain such strength in her vagina that she can actually close off by squeezing base of the penis. She can prevent the man from ejaculating. So that’s, you know, these things can be, can be trained to really high levels. But even just, you know, the women that I’ve spoken with about it and my own teachers, I have my primary teacher now is a woman, Francesco La Barca in Israel. And, um, the things I, what I’ve understood is, um, you know, just even having, putting it in there for 15 minutes, holding it in the body is, is a very, very, very strong practice for a woman. It brings awareness to that area. It energizes the area. It’s toning the muscles. And, uh, when it comes to drawing, the energy moving energy become much more effective. The other practice, very significant practice is the ovarian breathing. Very, very interesting. And it’s analogous to things that we as men, that we do in using the testicles to generate energy, and then we can move that energy around. So like an engine. So for women it’s the ovaries and it’s specifically timed. So just after the completion of menstruation and the pre ovulatory phase of the menstrual cycle, uh, the women do this practice and during that phase, so according to Chinese medicine, that’s the phase where there’s a lot of Yang energy, a lot of active sort of fiery energy in the ovaries, which is preceding the formation of the, um, you know, the ovulation process. So the energy’s there. And then the energy triggers the ovulation process. So what women do is they, with breathing, with intention, with visualization, they connect with this process. They connect to their ovaries. Very important, by the way, for both women and men to have a kind of conscious sense of their own sexual organs and this connectedness with them. Um, and so the women, they tune in to their ovaries during this phase of the cycle. And they, using the breath and intention, so on, they direct the energy away from the ovaries. They draw down through sexual organ area, uh, into, um, down to the Hui Yin at the base, um, which is the point between the anus and the vagina for women. And then they bring it up the spine and you drink it all the be all the way to the crown. And so when women do these practices, what they report is, uh, a lessening of the amount of blood during menstruation. They report a lessening of pain during and prior to menstruation. Women who practice these things intently can actually cease menstruation. Uh, it’s a choice. They can always back off a little bit and allow menstruation to continue or they can dress so much energy and bring it to other centers, other purposes, uh, that they, um, will cease menstruation. And then if they, and they back off the practice for a time, then menstruation will resume for women who are in there in the phase of life where they are menstruating. Um, so it’s, it’s quite fascinating and yeah. Yeah. I really invite you to, um, to speak with female practitioners more about what that’s like for them.
Thal:
I’m just thinking when you mentioned the yang energy, there is some kind of agitation that happens before the PMS. So, I guess, you know, if I’m someone that’s more in tune with my body and I’m intentionally meditating, doing these meditative practices, then I’ll probably shift that agitation into something more positive. Maybe feels like that when you’re talking,
Yanshuf Kadesh:
Uh, give me an example?
Thal:
Like, just like in, in terms of like maybe I’m thinking psychologically as well. Like you know, to me, I see that connection between the energy, you know, and psychologically, just before the period there’s this energy and agitation. And so if I’m doing these meditative practices, then it’ll be like, there’ll be more consciousness, more awareness. And it’s not just this low grade, you know, agitation, anxiety.
Yanshuf Kadesh:
Yes, yes.
Thal:
Yeah. So it’s psychological healing as well.
Yanshuf Kadesh:
Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, honestly, I’ve, I’ve lived a number of years now with, with mainly amongst people, amongst women who really value their cycle and who view it as an essential part of their spiritual practice. Really.
Thal:
Yeah.
Yanshuf Kadesh:
And this notion of moving through archetypes. There’s a really wonderful work of Miranda Gray, a book called Red Moon, and she’s got an organization worldwide called the Womb Mothers. And really exploring these things. So for her, that premenstrual phase of the cycle corresponds to what’s called the Enchantress Archetype. There’s a heightening of psychic intuition.
Thal:
Yes and I sense that in my life. Yeah. Become very highly intuitive and yeah.
Yanshuf Kadesh:
So the difference between context practices, cultures, subcultures that want to work positively with those energies are just be bringing awareness to it at all. And the culture. For example, I remember looking at a TV commercial not long ago and it’s a picture of a woman and she’s swinging into the lake, you know, on the, on the rope and having a grand old time. And because this Tampon she won’t even notice that she’s having her cycles is sort of an attempt to sort of erase that. And that’s a really deep thing, a really, really deep thing. Like why that is, how did that come about? What is going on with that? I think that, you know, the Red Tent as well. I think that the premenstrual phase in particular, also menstrual phase is a kind of a, you know, there is, as I mentioned, sort of a heightened psychic energy and I think that there was fear.
Thal:
Yes. Yeah.
Yanshuf Kadesh:
I think that women who really go deep into that energy.
Thal:
It’s powerful.
Yanshuf Kadesh
Very powerful forces at work there.
Thal:
Right.
Yanshuf Kadesh:
And I think that that men in particular were scared of it. Scared of it. And it’s associated, I think with the spiritual power of women flowing out from nature rather than from various types of philosophy, ideology about God and so on. But this sort of…
Thal:
Definitely not in the head [laughing].
Yanshuf Kadesh:
No it’s not head based. It’s this other thing. Uh, so I think one of the things I would say that, uh, has been, uh, just coming out of Jewish Orthodoxy and the whole question of Nida and, um, you know, the women are sort of, it’s separated after that time. It’s considered an impurity and so forth and switching into a tantric work.
Thal:
It’s a big shift.
Yanshuf Kadesh:
It’s a very big shift. It’s a very big shift. So it’s just, yeah. I don’t know. Um, yeah, I’m not sure what else I can say about that. I can say a lot more, but I lived with a woman for a time who, this was her main thing I’ll actually cite, her name is Isabel Burr Raty. B. U. R. R. R. A. T. Y. It’s a plug. She’s a performance artist based in Brussels, Belgium. She’s from Chile and uh, yeah, she grew up in Chile. She became a full on through contact with the Mapucha people, southern Chile. She went through some sort of shamanic initiation and she was a TV actress and anyway her main research for a number of years now has been these things. And um, yeah, I encourage people to check out her work and see what she’s doing. She’s working with a lot of stuff. Very radical kind of stuff.
Thal:
Cool.
Adrian:
Yaacov, would you be willing to share your personal experience with these practice. Um I’m specifically curious about the early challenges perhaps when you began performing some of these exercises on your own and some of the positives and the early changes that you noticed in your own experience of life. And what was that like for you?
Yanshuf Kadesh:
So you were referring to the, like the physical aspect, the Sexual Kung Fu?
Thal:
Yes
Yanshuf Kadesh:
Okay. The challenges of Sexual Kung Fu, um, I would say for me, discipline, uh, I call myself a lazy mystic and anything that demands, you know, but you sort of, there’s certain things you need to do kind of on a daily basis, you know, train your perineum muscle and really strengthen it up. Uh, and there’s just, you know, the challenges of making the transition to being highly sexually aroused, full erection and full arousal and then not ejaculating. Not ejaculating. Breathing the energy around, doing various practices of movement of the energy and then sort of, okay, you know, moving on with your day and that’s an adjustment. That’s a really big adjustment. And so, you know, all the, first of all, I made all of the mistakes that people make. Building up too much energy, not clearing the energy, practicing and while not being grounded properly. I didn’t really understand that until I actually got to Tao Garden with Master Chia himself and was in the presence of people who were grounded. Like really grounded, strongly grounded to Earth. And then I was like ah, okay, now I get it, you know, so the energy can equalize. I don’t need to carry excess energy in the body because I was a thing like you start to work with the sexual energy and you’re not ejaculating so initially the tendency is for just to build up in the sexual area, you get blue balls and all the rest. So, um, that, that was a challenge. And then what, what does it do to your mental state when you have all this sexual energy? It’s just like how did adjusting to having more energy and uh, and then there’s, there’s sort of, um, common plateaus that you reach. Like there’s a phase where for a lot of, a lot of, I don’t know if it’s just men, I’m assuming women as well, like you start to build energy in the sacrum area and the energy is willing to go from the sexual center up to the, through the tailbone and up into the sacrum, but doesn’t really want to go past that. And so then there, you know, there’s things about massaging the area using silk to massage. Warming the area. And really it’s about moving also into a Chi Gong posture practice and Iron Shirt Practices where, um, you’re, you’re learning to do packing breathing. Like you’re opening the areas and opening the Meridian so that the energy flows more readily. But until that time, you’re like walking around with this energy charge, which on one hand is great because it’s, it’s, uh, especially for men who are a little older and there can sometimes be a question of erection, not erection circumstances. It’s like you’re carrying, you always sort of feel you have the potential for erection is there. It’s just not, it’s not sitting in your, in your penis. It’s sitting in your, in your sacrum or your tailbone, uh, and then eventually it sits in your, in the center of the body in the dan tian. Like in, around the intestinal area, you just store your orgasm, let’s call it your potential orgasm. You learned to store it in different parts of the body after circulating it, using the energy to open things up. That’s just, it’s extraordinary. It’s really hard. I’m sure it sounds really weird to a lot of people to sounds really weird, but, uh, it’s choosing to live in a kind of an energetically, erotically energetically loaded state. With some of the women in particular who practice these things, it can get to extraordinary levels where, uh, you know, women who are choosing to really embrace this, you go deep into this energy that you sort of allow it to animate you. Um, so you just, just from like a breeze comes and a person will have shutterings of orgasm, different parts of the body or a butterfly flows by, you know, or the or, or she sees the gleam in the eye of a, uh, an older person sitting on a bench in a park and it’s orgasmic. You see it’s life. It’s this positive life affirming energy. It is life. It’s not the words that we’re saying about it’s this, it’s that. It’s is what it is. [laughing], So for me, it’s been just incredible. Just incredible. You know, and these are longevity practices. And not just longevity with a Taoist tradition, the Neidan is the Inner Alchemy. Wudan is the external alchemy. And that’s the use of plants and all the Chinese medicine. And to come to these elixirs and, um, to cultivate immortality actually is the goal. And that’s not something you take seriously until you, until you spend some quality time with, with people who are practicing these things on a high level and progressing beyond all this Taoist sexual alchemy that we’re describing into what are called the Higher Fusion practices and the Kan and Li fire and water alchemical practices and uh, um, and then you start to really feel it, you know. And you meet people who are literally reverse aging before your eyes and you can’t believe how old they are. Uh, there’s people today that I am so curious to. I mean, I hope to live another hundred years if I can, if I can succeed in what I understand is to be happening, uh, so, and I think I don’t have to stick to what I thought of stuff ran out of things to say. It starts to sound really odd I think to people. Uh, it’s the thing, you just have to kind of look through the telescope. Like Galileo was challenging the inquisition. Well why don’t you take a look if you know?
Thal:
Yeah. Something that you mentioned before that before we start recording that that sexual energy goes, moves into the heart. And was it like, you know, and I’m thinking about spiritual, spiritual love and spirituality and so like some of the things that you described, I feel like it, I’ve happened to me before where I’d like, like that orgasmic feeling in my heart, but I didn’t, I didn’t cultivate it consciously. I didn’t know that it was that, you know, like there’s not necessarily a separation between our sexual energy and love and spiritual love.
Yanshuf Kadesh:
That’s a really critical piece. And I feel it almost every time we say the word sexual, I feel that split, that tension.
Thal:
Yes. Like it’s connected to this, to sex in these images come to mind.
Yanshuf Kadesh:
Yeah. Sex and it arouses all this stuff. All this fraught stuff.
Thal:
Shame.
Yanshuf Kadesh
Yeah. Shame. Yeah. Resentment, anger or trauma. Um, all this cultural stuff, historical stuff, all the stuff about patriarchy. All of the gender wars, all of it comes up. And so we’ve, you know, we’ve got to work that stuff through and in dialogue and in conversation, so on. But also if we can sort of go direct into the energy, even just as a solo practice without engaging anybody else, uh, it can entirely alter our perception of what…
Thal:
Which, which actually takes me back to that question that we mentioned. If you answered it about the gender nonconforming, because if we’re talking about energy, then really the binaries kind of dissipate a little but we, we are still aware that, you know, that this teaching, the female teachings are quite distinct from the male teachings. So how do we address that?
Yanshuf Kadesh:
Yes. So, um, that becomes a, you know, a kind of a, a larger, um, philosophical, intellectual conversation. Okay. Uh, so I could sort of mark out the basics of the way I see that. But to me, both of these traditions that I have been working with, the Neo Tantra and the Taoist tradition and also the Kabbalah. All traditional wisdom traditions are in some important sense essentially list in the sense that they all talk about, uh, kind of a masculine feminine polarity in the nature and the cosmos.
Thal:
Yes.
Yanshuf Kadeshe:
Um, whether it’s, uh, you know, the Parsufim, in the Kabbalah, you know, this father and mother and all this, the whole metaphysics around that Yin and Yang, um, Shiva and Shakti. Um, so right away I think it’s important to acknowledge and to be intellectually honest..
Thal:
Yes.
Yanshuf Kadesh:
That any form of, um, analysis that relies on a socerian postmodern, um, literary devices. If you’re viewing everything is text based, right. And that gender is simply a function of how we’re going to assign a certain meanings and so forth. So then that’s not in, I don’t think that is going to be at all compatible with, uh, these wisdom traditions, which do talk about actual forces that are out there that you can name them. However you choose to name them. And you know, and the, there’s the goddess has many names, right? And God has many names. Um so I think it’s important to have that at clear at the beginning cause I think a lot of people who are, let’s say going through their undergraduate training within a deconstructionist or postmodern or however you want to frame that, um, philosophy, um, Foucault is a big influence and this is with fraught with sort of the power dynamics around language, around meanings and all of this. Um, yeah, there’s a lot of tension in the culture right now about this philosophical approach. And, um, so what could I say, um, I would say that the, any true Shaman, let’s say. Like to be shamanic is to be, be able to attune both to the feminine and the masculine. You cannot be whole, truly whole a human being if you cannot resonate with both of masculine and feminine energies, energies and their varying combinations. And just to be alive and aware to that. And I think that people that want to train as healers and even just within psychotherapy, like when you do depth psychotherapy, like longterm, uh, psychotherapy with someone of the opposite gender, uh, with their different experiences and you do, you start to resonate with it. In Taoist tradition, we have physical bodies that are characterized by one or another of the masculine and feminine. And then of course there are various variations, human variations, but the variations, our variations within that basic polarity, I think it’s fairly, it should be fairly, fairly clear. And then of course there’s the energy body within all of these traditions is both masculine and feminine. So that means that every human being has a masculine pole. And every human being has a feminine pole. This came into the western psychology in the form of the Anima and the Animus of Jung, uh, it lives within a Taoist tradition, you know, as the, as the energy bodies and the various Meridians and so forth. So, I mean, I feel my feminine pole down the front of my body and on the left side and it’s an immediately felt conscious part of my experience and I can choose to move into living, experiencing, uh, connecting with another person more through my feminine pole and I can choose to go into more my masculine pole. And there are times in which I practice as a practice consciously to go out to my masculine pole or out of my feminine pole. And this is, this is Tantra, this is, this is also any of these systems that engage with the sexuality in this way acknowledge this. So there is, there’s, so I personally don’t feel that I need to wear women’s clothing in order to, uh, express my feminine pole. Um, I will say in the last few years of my, my shirts have become a little bit more colourful and a, yeah. And I like my long hair and, um, I allow myself to, you know, there’s also sensuality and like there’s a lot of men still who have this thing of they can’t really be sensual. It’s already shameful not to be sensual to whatever it is, you know, care about your appearance or, um, so I think that right now there’s a bit of tension. Like even in Toronto, I’m aware of people coming into practice spaces and wanting to feel accepted and welcomed. And I can say that for me, myself as a teacher and everyone else I know that works in this field, we find nothing shocking about people who are living out varying combinations of their physical bodies to apparently or not.
Thal:
Different forms of expression.
Yanshuf Kadesh:
Yes. Forms of expression and I’m all for all kinds of exploration and experimentation with being beyond gender. Um, you know that also in the Taoist tradition, there’s the physical body characterized by varying combinations of these masculine, feminine polarity. Then there’s the, then there’s the, the, the energetic body, which can be all of them cause it’s not manifest physically. It’s, it’s all of those potentials we all carry. And then there’s what the, what’s referred to as the original spirit, which is beyond the Yin and Yang.
Thal:
Yes, yes.
Yanshuf Kadesh:
And a lot of what we’re doing with these practices by cultivating the ability to go out to a pole and with a partner who goes out to the opposite pole so that you’re heightening the polarity, you’re heightening the difference, that there’s a magnification of the amount of energy there. Um, and so that you’re drawing down with you drawing down from that, which is beyond the Yin and Yang. But that’s the intention is to be connecting with that mysterious, whatever it may be. The Tao, right? That, uh, is, is actually the source of both. And so there’s peace, there’s a place of peace there. Uh, I just think people who view themselves as being, um, either gender queer or, um, other, you know, all the various genders today, just, you know, enter into these spaces. Please come. First of all, we need you. Um, many of you are people who would, in other times in places be seen as gifted and would be sent to the Shaman, or the Shamaness to enhance and to practice and bring out your unique ability to move between these poles in unique ways and create beautiful expressions of, of, of being through that. Like, like, like we need you, you know, um..
Thal:
And in many ways the deconstructionist narrative, um, or critique is born out of a culture that’s like rigid and, and, and, you know, and limited within language and the Cartesian duality. But you know, when you’re talking about this world, sort of the wisdom traditions and the Taoist, then really the polarity, right away, there is no real polarity. Like you, like you, you know, it’s more paradox and in a way it’s more inviting for different forms of expression. It sounds.
Yanshuf Kadesh:
I’m not sure I understood.
Thal:
Um, so when you were saying that, you know, um, queer folks, please come, right? Like, so that paradigm, that paradigm is not as, it’s not, it’s not the Cartesian duality paradigm.
Yanshuf Kadesh:
What is the, what is not the Cartesian duality?
Thal:
When you were talking about the wisdom traditions, Taoist, it’s, it, it offers, um, a way of being that allows paradox and that allows different forms of expression.
Yanshuf Kadesh:
Yes, absolutely. In other words, I don’t see any problem with with openness to all different forms of expression and playfulness. And the opposite, it’s, it’s, it’s part of the, it’s part of the practice to explore out all those things. It really is. And even taking them to extremes at times. Um, it’s the, it’s when it’s, when people are highly invested in a particular way of interpreting and ascribing meaning to these different ways of being and that they’re coming into the space and demanding not that they themselves as people be accepted, but that particular way of thinking about it all, um, which can become quite ideological at times rather militant. So then you come into the practice space with that, it’s inevitably going to create certain tensions and so on. So I would just say come with an open mind, um, and just ground into practice. And then, and then I would love it. Actually, I had a partner at one time was called herself gender queer and, um, you know, I, and she had some critique, you know, a of things that she saw in some of these places. And, um, and I think that, you know, once she raised it and I was like, okay, yeah, I see what you’re saying there. Um, so we need people who are going to come in from, from that, from that side of things already with the fluidity or the, you know, and to, and to genuinely immerse into these practices. Not to worry about the religions around them, the philosophies. The practices of the energy itself. And as you are, you know, doing you connecting with these entities and see what it does, what does it do, how does it affect yourself and not just go in a little bit, do a few weekend workshops and then begin to sound off, right. No, we need people who are going to immerse and become full blown Shamanic witches and whatever you want to call the warlocks and the non-gender version of all of that. We just, we need you to become, we want to magnify your way of being and, and, and, but go all the way because none of us that are really into this as a practice really have patience for anybody’s too much talking that it really, we just don’t, you know, cause once you really get into, you get hooked into the potential of being a truly grounded and sexually flowing. And even that word bothers me. The word sexual, it’s just life energies, life force, energy, you know, plug in and see, and for each individual person it shines a different way. And, and depending who your ancestors were and where you’re coming from or what you’ve been reading and it, the archetypes will, will, will, will awaken in a certain way. And yeah, let’s just dance the dance and not be stuck in language and hung up.
Adrian:
Yeah. I love that. Um, on that note, how do people start this dance? Um, where would you direct them if they specifically um, for whatever reason can’t access or go to one of your workshops, where would you recommend they begin?
Yanshuf Kadesh:
Well I’ll tell ya, it’s been a couple of years in this ISTA organization now I just did their level two training. I’m going to be assisting at a level one training in Majorca, Spain in May. I’m very honored to be engaged with that. I’ve met some extraordinary teachers there. Um, as with everything that’s an organization, I’m always testing the ground as I go. Uh, there’s always shadow aspects. There certainly were in the traditional religion that I was involved with. Uh, there certainly are with ISTA. There certainly are with every other thing where we try to make something static in some way. ISTA’s just doing a pretty good job. It seems to me opening up a lot of people and uh, I think it’s a really good entry point. It’s unfortunate that some people can’t afford, it’s a week long immersive training and um, yeah, that’s going to copy you, cost you over thousand dollars. Uh, but it’s full room and board. You know, it’s worth to me if someone has the bug, it’s worth selling, literally sell the walls of your house and go. That’s what I would say. Um, and it also, there’s something called the LEA Fund, which is I think specifically for young people who wish to explore this but don’t have a funding. There’s a LEA Fund. Um, you can look that up. It’s stuff stands for International Schools of Temple Arts. Uh, it’s been an amazing journey for me. You know, I went to the festival, I did level one, level two, um, um, I’m living part time in a community in Israel, which has a lot of people there. And engaged with the organization with sacred sexuality and Tantra and various practices around that. So I say dive in. The ISTA level one training to me is potentially… You have to be ready for it at, uh, so it will involve nudity. It will involve sexual contact, even full sexual contact. Everybody in, in that space is always at choice. And the training that I did, it’s the first full two days was just boundaries and consent and experiential training in boundaries and consent. Um, and then with time you begin to open things up and it’s a kind of an experiment with how can sexual energy exist within a social space. And working with oneself. It’s a kind of an upgraded version of what were the, the aspects, sort of the tantric aspects of the cosmic consciousness stream of the 1960s counterculture. So those people sort of continued on some of them in their practice. Some of them ended up in mountains or in monasteries in Tibet or wherever, uh, you know, others did fried out on psychedelics and um, you know, but, but some of them continued on with these practices and have gone through a few decades now of evolution. And taking account of things like, for example, their sexual exploitation that came out of the free love time where there were a lot of, a lot of people that were, you know, there was, everything was cool and all that, but it really wasn’t so cool. You know, there was a lot of people being taken advantage of and there’s a lot to work through. So the culture has worked some of that through. But in these, in these particular practice spaces in particular, I’m thinking in particular people as well that, you know, they’ve really evolved the thinking and the practice in ways that it’s much more, it’s much more perfected now. I’m saying I’m not perfect, but it’s that you can enter into these spaces and um, there’s a container, you know, there’s a container, a defined space. It’s an intentional space an encounter group type format. Um, and just, yeah, come up against your being. What is it like for you, what comes up for you and taking ownership and all that. That’s a, that’s a huge one. Uh, Universal Healing Tao is the name of the Mantak Chia system. There’s a bunch of different branches and different teachers who have taken it in different directions, but the sort of the mother ship remains Mantak Chia’s Universal Healing Tao system. There are a lot of instructors around, not everywhere has an instructor, but that will, that addresses these themes. Um, David Deida is an extraordinary teacher, very expensive to see him. Uh, his intensives. I don’t even know if he’s actually active now with intensives. I saw he was giving something for men. Um, he’s been sort of semi hiatus. I think. That’s great, it’s a burgeoning field and a, yeah, if you think you’ve start looking, you’ll, you’ll find, but, but I encourage people not, not to, not to just rely on simply reading. Reading is great, but getting into a space with other human beings, with at least one person in the room who understands how to facilitate processes and start to test and explore, experiments. I think that’s the direction.
Adrian:
I think on a, on a closing note, I want to hear what you think is the potential for these practices within the social context. You mentioned about the, um, oncoming AI revolution, robotics surveillance with a sort of technological crisis, if you will. What do you see the role of these practices in that framing?
Yanshuf Kadesh:
So, um, some of your listeners are probably familiar with Terence McKenna, the great prophet of this psilocybin mushrooms. His very fascinating writings. His uses the term archaic revival that we, you know, human beings, we evolved from these primates, lived in small groups and, um, we’ve got this thinking thing going on and we got sort of became our main mode of relating. And, um, a lot of us, the mainstream Western civilization has largely lost touch with our, our indigenous mind, I would call it. Um, indigenous peoples have suffered immensely as a result of that, a result of this sort of looking at nature as if were something outside of nature and um, this tremendous trail of destruction. But there’s also been a tremendous, unbelievable, um, expansion of human wealth and yeah. It’s kind of a long thing, but to sort of, I would say that, uh, we do need an archaic revival. We need to, we need to restore our prehistoric mode of being and we can integrate that with all of our advanced science and technology.
Thal:
Modernity.
Yanshuf Kadesh:
Modernity. We can integrate them. It means just like I was saying about myself earlier, the need to sort of back off from this over investment with the, with the, with the wakeful problem solving mind. Um, which seems to be like the only really valued mode with some of these people’s, the remnants at least of these peoples of the earth who have retained their primal, indigenous consciousness. We need to learn from these people. And I …you know, we need to raise up these people and uh, and give them, and learned from them and very careful not to do any further harm. Because we will never be whole if we don’t restore our basic connection with our nature even the nature within ourselves, you know, our sexual forces. Very much in our nature, the strong edge of nature within our own bodies within own being. And connecting also, uh, you know, with others in different ways with that. Um, otherwise what’s happened is we’ve externalized our intelligence and we’ve created machines that are able to exponentially amplify the sort of intelligence functions of the human being and they’re quickly becoming our masters. Algorithms are increasingly, you know, we need to negotiate with them. And they’r presuming to anticipate our needs and we’re being surveilled constantly by machine intelligence. And, uh, I think that there’s, a potential dystopian outcomes from this, I think that we’re seeing in China right now, we’re seeing the dawn of a technological dystopian society, right? These very days. And, we’re on a cusp, it feels. The way things have been will not continue like one way or the other way. And most of us are cyborgs now with the phones. We are cyborgs. We’re not whole without the phone. We don’t feel like we’re truncated, we’re cut off if we’re.. So I think this is the moment, you know, to really, and it does seem to be in the air to reground into, into again or just sort of searching for words, but it’s the earth, you know, it’s the planet earth. The planet earth is a very sexual planet, pulsating with life. And this magnetic, you know, the Schumann resonance and it was a certain frequency is 7.83 resonance, which of course bonds and some way to being in the being an orgasmic state. Uh, it makes a lot of sense. You know, the life energies are life energies and you know, I don’t know that much about the science. I just know through the practice what can be felt and what can be experienced. Uh, so it feels like a time of, um, I feel like there’s a, you know, a lot of people are going to just really kind of get sucked up into this sort of Borg type of, existence. The more everything that the machine is doing for you, you sort of lose the, you lose your sense of direction, you know, you lose your, you’re losing your social. Uh, we’re losing our social ability to read social cues, um, to even gaze into each other’s eyes. Very difficult for many people now, particularly younger generation now to even look at another human being in the face and understand what’s happening with the little cues that go on. And um, you know, uh, autistic disorders are off the charts now. So, um, so it’s really much more to be said I’m quite passionate on some of these topics. It’s a whole, maybe it’s a whole other interview at some point in the future, but I think it’s, I think it’s time to, if we, if we can reground and tap into these energies, which are, it’s not just your particular sexual energy, you’re tapping into something which is much broader as certainly as far, at least as far as the sun, the planet, and also maybe in terms of the cosmos and uh, that if we can do that. I think it gives us a chance to somehow navigate through this unbelievable shift that we’re, we’re, we’re going through. And you know, when people think about terms of the singularity and maybe what’s coming or listen to Yuval Noah Harari, different futurists, what Elon Musk is describing, cautionary, uh, you know, people are in sounding warnings, um, you know, about AI and so on. I feel that to me it feels like these practices are evolutionary practices in essence that the human being bringing consciousness to sexuality and, and sort of taking… I don’t like the word control, but it’s the ability to flow with and to work with these energies. Uh, it feels like at one in the same moment, a restoration of this sort of primal indigenous mind as well as a step forwards in our ability to, the way that we engage with it is, is also qualitatively different now as humans with these modern egos and all that we have, he goes, or it’s a tool of the ego. The modern ego we have is, it could be, it could be, uh, something really alienating and disconnecting. And, but it can also be powerful tools, you know, together with the science and all of the rationality and all the rest of it. So it’s bringing it all together. Now it feels like it’s an evolutionary shift that we need to access all we need full spectrum human beingness so that we can move into this in a grounded way. And we’re going to be fusing with the machines. It seems very clear. We already are actually. And, uh, but we need to have our side of it are embodied human sexual being, pole of this, uh, Cyborg fusion. Uh, we need to hold it up. We need to restore it. We need to, we need to bring that, bring that, bring that all back into the forest so that we don’t become truncated. Um, yeah. And then, uh, that makes me hopeful. And to me in, in terms of my psychological background it feels like psychology has to go through a major reformation, a major reformation. Uh, we have to stop being just too narrow minded and we need to open up to these other forms of knowledge and practice and, and, um, and energy the chi energy, the eastern knowledge. It’s time to open it up. And so that when we’re flying off to the stars, or, you know, our grandchildren maybe, are going to other galaxies, they’ll be whole, you know, they won’t, they won’t just be, um, sort of algorithms or something like that. Anyway.
Adrian:
Yaacov, to be continued.
Yanshuf Kadesh:
Okay.
Thal:
Thank you so much.
Yanshuf Kadesh
Pleasure, honor, Pleasure to be here.
Thal:
Thank you so much.