Almost reaching the two months mark. Today, Sunday, seemed like a good day to write the second post of this series that I promised almost a month ago. What a trip. I don’t know where to start. I would love to be able to write in a clear and coherent way absolutely everything I have been learning from this practice (which I have been doing for five years, on and off, being my longest streak half a year), but I am so eager to bring some of the clarity and help that this forum has given me, and for which I am truly grateful, and I have so many things to say that I run over in the speech. But anyway, here we go.

As I said in the first post of the series, the benefits that follow as you advance in your streak are different and progressively more spiritual in nature, to understand each other. As I also said, I have never been into this new-age spiritualist movement; rather than rejecting it outright on the one hand, and believing it at face value and in a naive and literalist way on the other, these concepts of “vibration”, “energy”, etc., which are odiously abstract and vague because they pretend to say everything and at the same time fall into saying nothing or whatever each one sees, I have always seen them as “a way of speaking” and referring to a mysterious reality and difficult to express in “scientific terms”, let’s say. In other words: they are not true, but they point to a path that directs us to it, progressively more defined and clearer as we get started on it. Regardless of whether this may turn out to make sense or not, what I mean is that when I refer to a “spiritual question” I mean it from naturalistic sources. And I know I am discussing issues of a philosophical nature, and they are not proper to this forum, but I wanted to make that very thing clear to begin with. To the point:

In my personal case, the first week is usually the hardest to break through. Especially from day five onwards; by day seven the documented increase in testosterone is noticeable in increased aggression and energy. What helps the most in this first week is to exhaust that energy with intense exercise, also cold showers for those who like them.

From this point on, from day ten, at least for me it is easier, and the first physical benefits begin to show: more prominent and shiny nails and hair. Also the skin, although in my experience it depends mainly on food and fasting. As I have a brutal excess of energy, I prefer not to apply too many stressors, and I tend to eat a lot the first few days to gratify the initial effort and relieve tension. Think that if you have been masturbating frequently for a long time, the “rush” of pure energy is greater and you may even view it with some trepidation, even if the most dangerous thing you do is not withstand the strain and end up relapsing in fear. That’s a good reason to get angry if you relapse. When you relapse, you should analyze why you think you have done so, and usually this is the reason: you are simply “afraid to get over yourself”. It’s not stupid: it’s an energy that mismanaged can do harm. As you know, with great power comes great responsibility. Anyway.

After two weeks, generally the voice becomes more manly and compact and you start to clearly see a glow in your awake eyes. In some cases it has happened to me that the dark circles under the eyes reduce and the skin of the face “colors up”. The change is noticed by others: they look at you differently, they respect you and show you more affection. There is something new in you, which they do not know what it is, but which they admire. This is certainly strange: I come to the conclusion that people do not do this consciously, i.e. with intention. They simply “perceive” that your vibratory field is higher, your energy more masculine and stronger, and without intending it, so to speak, they begin to hold you in higher esteem. This happens to me especially with women, who seem to be much more sensitive to this more imperceptible and subtle non-verbal communication. It is difficult to explain, you get to have “magic contacts”, difficult to believe, and it bothers that the simple not jerking off is worth more than thousands and thousands of hours of effort searching for information to find validation from others. For me at least, it bothers me that a habit is more interesting to others than to myself, I don’t know if I can explain myself. And I would like to know if this has happened to any other person as well: if realizing this has made you disillusioned with certain relationships. Because I really imagine it’s different in each case, as I said in the previous post I’m a tall and strong and moderately attractive guy, but I’ve never drawn so much attention as in spurts, that the number of looks I attract sometimes becomes even overwhelming and overwhelming. And I won’t be so hypocritical as to not acknowledge that I love to elicit this level of attention and recognition from others. It’s one of the reasons you start this at first. But then, hopefully, you transcend that childish narcissism as well, and that feeling doesn’t override the satisfaction of feeling like you’re on the right path. In this sense I also think that one of the questions we have to ask ourselves during the process is to what extent we are willing to give our seed to a woman, a love affair, a flower, a moment. If, for example, a woman of ten came into the room ready to make wild love to you all night long and not to see her again, to what extent could we control ourselves if what we want is to continue with celibacy.

The effects are settling in during the third and fourth weeks, in which the hard part is to “overcome two or three moments” known as urges and some flatline moments that extend for days if you do not have the right knowledge: for me, just remembering that I was depressed for the chemical reason of lack of pornographic dopamine and that I was doing what I should and petting a dog that I found in the street made me forget about the bad moment. Sometimes we get caught up in day-to-day “mental scratches” without knowing very well the biological state we are going through and that conditions everything to a great extent. Nature becomes mistress and mistress, and we feel more and more rooted in it and enjoy the “sober beauty” of its landscapes. Staying away from the computer if you are new to the practice, taking frequent walks and breathing deeply and calmly is the key in the downtime. The music is appreciated differently, freer, and it will envelop you in moments of true ecstasy, but the journey will call you above all to a greater presence with yourself, also with emotions that you have long been avoiding and repressing through stupid sexual pleasure. This journey is above all a healing process as you let go of your mediocre self-centered interests and narcissistic fantasies. That is slowly happening after the fourth and fifth weeks. The practice so far has brought you a mental discipline that you have achieved not without effort (effort that I believe on the other hand is becoming less and less as conviction and experience increase). Here it is in the end, more or less at about forty days, just after having two or three very vivid dreams (or nightmares, failing that) where “a spiritual call” begins to take effect, so to speak. In my case, I am now reading “Letters to Lucilius” by the stoic philosopher from my homeland Spain, Seneca. Totally recommended. Let’s say that the body and “its immediacy”, the “impulsivity”, are reduced, transcended in higher energy points. I could dwell longer on this very important point, but I suppose there are things that are better not to talk about. If the discipline to which the practice invites us is followed and the energy is transmuted, the “courage” leaves aside that animality, so to speak. He who remains determined will understand perfectly well what I am referring to. At this milestone of the journey, that “excessive energy” frequently exhausted through exercise will be transformed into absolute calm: anxiety is reduced as never before, even with other people (especially if they are trustworthy, of course). For me who has been a person of anxious and restless temperament, and in fact during the first month I run the risk of “running myself over” with so much energy and my neuroses and obsessions become very intense at certain times, this often immense sensation of tranquility and presence, of masculinity and manhood well carried, with calm and elegance, is experienced almost like a spiritual rebirth that leads to gratitude and confidence. From now on sex ceases to be so important, it is transcended by a divine eros, Venus pandemos by Venus uranus, worldly eroticism by a divine one, in the words of Plato, the philosopher from whom the term “platonic love” comes from; and for example in this phase you stop seeing women as mere pieces of meat, which is simply to be welcomed! And in general everything becomes more and more refined, and you begin to put things in their proper place, you see them with more serenity, confidence, love. I have no doubt that the practice invites you progressively to adopt a greater responsibility, and those who at certain moments decide not to assume it mainly for fear or other reasons, it is likely that in reality they will decide to relapse. It is okay, we are under no obligation and we will be excused and we can start again if we want to. This is a non-transferable, personal and unique process in each case, and it invites us with knowledge of cause, responsibility and elegance to face our inner fears, our complex emotions repressed for a long time and, in short, to become more masters of ourselves. But one will suffer more for caressing greatness with one’s fingers than when we choose to desensitize ourselves through empty pleasure. This is the spiritual war of which some speak. The sublime is frightening, “and beauty is nothing if not the beginning of the terrible”.

Another thing I forgot about is the ability to concentrate. In this last streak I quit smoking tobacco and weed at the same time, and I have been very distracted, with continuous loss of attention, as if my mind was not really in my head but somewhere else. I did not give it more importance because I know that it has been proved that nicotine is a substance that provides enormous capacity of attention and I, who read and write frequently, recognize that I miss it. But I have to suffer for something that I value more, and more and more, from the third and fourth week I see a noticeable improvement in concentration, which in other previous bouts that I did not quit smoking appeared before. It has not happened to me yet with the articulation of sentences and thoughts that others have reported, although writing and reading of course help in this sense, which is gradually regaining its lucidity.

Finally, and in line with what I wrote earlier about immediacy, it seems to me that the key to this practice is that it is a “process of confrontation and healing”, “a widening of the battlefield between life and death” and, fortunately, “a confirmation of victory” of the former over the latter. In other words, this practice requires a different vision of life, one in which the value of pleasure does not prevail, but the maturity and beauty of a higher stage: the religious; that which keeps us united with transcendental values and the immediacy of the present moment. What happens when we manage to move our spirit away from the urgency of this immediacy, and from pleasure as a mere distraction, is that the pain hidden by it emerges. Our life is no longer governed by the sensations of immediacy, be they pleasurable or painful, because the project that the discipline builds has helped us to transcend this complex amalgam of sensations. Herein lies the key to the matter, and I would dare to say, to a large extent, to the whole practice of seminal retention. Only through this process of emergence of an old and familiar pain, of emotions that we have feared for years and years, and its due confrontation, which in the end is only understanding and acceptance, we manage to heal that which in principle we denied and subdued us. The definition of the power we achieve is “the growing tendency to expand our degrees of freedom and joy”.

And excuse the mystique to the more pragmatic, but as the days go by, one knows that it becomes necessary to keep quiet about certain things, that whatever is going to be said about them does not do them true justice, and counting the days is absurd, and enumerating the benefits one by one more of the same. So much for the bookkeeping and the pragmatic view of this practice. For the first few weeks it helps, sure; however, as you gain experience, you realize that the practice is such a spiritual transformation that the numbers remain on the surface when it comes to actually describing what happens.

By the ninety day mark, I will obviously continue to delve into the arcane mystical depths of this practice. However, I do not promise to continue the series of posts. As I say, whatever is said about certain aspects of seminal retention is best said by silence and one’s own experience. Words do not do justice to that ineffable and mystical remainder. I hope I have dwarfed a little the debt owed to many of the users of this forum, who have created a very positive and friendly atmosphere and I hope they all do magnificently well and the practice helps them to become a better version of themselves. Bon voyage, brothers! See you on the other side!