The Power of Sex?

Did the US military's top secret 'Sex Ops' programme - which aimed to create an elite cadre of 'Sex Assassins', trained to kill enemies by projecting their tantric sex energies - really draw its inspiration from a sect of Buddhist priests? This was just one of the investigative avenues explored by film maker Ronnie Johnson during the making of his documentary about the programme: The Men Who Stare at Porn. Working on the basis that, in peace time, the average GI spent approximately 70% of his time either masturbating, looking at pornography or simply thinking about sex, Johnson had already established that the programme had aimed to utilise this idle erotic energy as a weapon system. The only question was – how? "While I was in 'Nam, I kept hearing stories about a sect of Buddhist priests, sworn to celibacy, who nevertheless were able to take themselves to the highest levels of sexual ecstasy by just thinking about sex,” says retired Colonel Randy Spankler, a founder of the 'Sex Ops' programme, interviewed by Johnson in the film. “According to some of the Vietnamese I spoke to, these guys were rumoured to be able to use their sexual energies to boost their prowess at martial arts – using the power of the orgasm to kick down trees and leap over houses, they were said to be invincible killing machines, rendered impervious to pain by the power of the orgasm.” However, As the film makes clear, Johnson still wasn’t entirely convinced by Spankler’s claims. “Could tantric sex really be used to turn men into killing machines?” he muses, as he sets out to consult a leading ‘sex guru’. “It just seemed so far-fetched!”

Nevertheless, top sexologist Willie Wallace, whose Cracking the Nut instructional film was a bestseller on DVD, advises the journalist that Spankler’s claims might have some basis in fact. "It's true that by suppressing the act of ejaculation, non-penetrative tantric sex forces the energies released by orgasm to circulate around the body, helping to create a higher level of consciousness," he explains. "It is not inconceivable that a highly trained mind might be able to focus this energy and project it externally. Anyone hit by it would experience an orgasm so powerful, it would tear their internal organs apart." Indeed, Wallace reveals that the US 'Sex Ops' programme wasn't the first attempt to harness and channel sexual energies as a weapon using tantric techniques. "The whole thing grew out of the Nazis obsession with occultism and their belief in the existence of the psycho-kinetic energy known as ‘vril’,” he explains. "During a Nazi expedition to Tibet in 1939, the German explorer Ernst Schafer had apparently spent time with the Sex Cult, learning some of their techniques for remotely projecting sexual energies. Upon returning to Germany, he was able to convince high ranking Nazis, including Hitler and Himmler that these sexual energies and ‘vril’ were one and the same thing.” Whilst conceding that tantric techniques could be used to project sexual energy externally, Wallace believes that using them in this way could have serious consequences. "Trying to channel such enormous energies through the human body always results in severe injury,” he opines. "I wouldn't be at all surprised if these so-called 'Sex Assassins' suffered burst testicles and burned out penises. Indeed, it is rumoured that it was his own attempts to destroy the advancing Red Army through masturbation which finally drove Hitler over the edge in the bunker in 1945."