The Sensual-Erotic Massage as an Artwork
Tantra is perceived as harmonization of the body and is used to align energy channels and to balance yin and yang. Meditative passages alternate with dynamic sequences. The foundation and orientation of the ritual is the worship of humans as holistic beings.
Tantra massage is a form of the ritual art of touching. It evolved out of various tantric traditions as Hindu and Buddhist tantra in various forms. However, the goal was always the same across all forms: Obtaining special pleasure, bliss or ecstasy in a tuned state of consciousness. The orgasm is to expand the contracted self-consciousness to a God-consciousness, so that the entire universe can be experienced as a self.
After the European scholar’s community more and more was introduced to Indian culture at the beginning of the 18th century, tantric practices became known in the Western world. After initial characterizations as "black magic" practices and increasing confusions with the Kama Sutra, the British orientalist Sir John Woodroffe presented a purified, venerable form of tantra in the 20th century. This corresponded with the taught, symbolized interpretation of the Indian tantra and thus was pretty much appreciated in the waistcoats as an output of high culture.
Nowadays western tantra was given the name neotantra in the 70s, and - among others - was developed by the Indian philosopher Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, called Osho. Osho advocated a link between spirituality and sexuality as a contemporary form of tantra, which is a body affirming and faced to the world. This was the opposite of the sexual perception of Christianity, which was considered as somatophobic and propagated that lust and eroticism could only be practiced under the perception of guilt. Tantra has become a synonym for ritual eroticism, spiritually oriented sexual practices and sacred sexuality. Through the spread of humanistic psychology theoretical concepts and respective interpretations were then taken over by sexual fixations and blockades among others for Sigmund Freud's psychoanalysis. The ideal of sexual liberation rang in the sexual value change of the west - not least due to the diverse experiences of people with the teachings of tantra.
The intercorrelations of ritual body worship practices with massage techniques for influencing body energy processes merge into a ritual art of touch. In the tantric massage, dedication and enjoyment are created that often linger on as enchantment and deep tangency.
