Download or read book The Secret History of Western Sexual Mysticism written by Arthur Versluis and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2008-03-25 with total page 151 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first book to reveal the history of Western sexual mysticism • Reveals the secret sexual practices that have been used since ancient Greece to achieve mystical union with God • Details the sects and individuals who transmitted the radical sexual practices that orthodox Christianity never completely silenced • Distinguishes between sexual magic and sexual mysticism Beginning with the ancient Greek Mystery traditions, Gnosticism, and the practices in early Christianity, Arthur Versluis uncovers the secret line of Western sexual mysticism that, like the Tantra of the East, seeks transcendence or union with God through sexual practices. Throughout antiquity, and right into the present day, sexuality has played an important, if largely hidden, role in religious traditions and practices. This includes not only Christian but also kabbalistic and hermetic alchemical currents of sexual mysticism, many discussed together here for the first time. In the Mystery tradition of hieros gamos (sacred marriage) and the Gnostic tradition of spiritual marriage, we see the possibility of divine union in which sexual union is the principal sign or symbol. Key to these practices is the inner or archetypal union of above and below, the intermingling of the revelatory divine world with the mundane earthly one. Versluis shows that these secret currents of sexual mysticism helped fuel the rise of the troubadours and their erotic doctrine, the esoteric teachings of Jacob Böhme in the late 16th century, the 19th-century utopian communities of John Humphrey Noyes and Thomas Lake Harris, the free love movement of the 20th century, and the modern writings of Denis de Rougemont and Alan Watts.
Download or read book Sacred Sexuality written by Georg Feuerstein and published by Tarcher. This book was released on 1992 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based on a vast diversity of religious and spiritual traditions, this comprehensive exploration of sexuality's spiritual dimensions uncovers deeply hidden messages about sexuality and shows how to incorporate the concepts of Hinduism, Christianity, Judasim, and other philosophies into our lives. Illustrated.
Download or read book Sensible Ecstasy written by Amy Hollywood and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2010-01-15 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sensible Ecstasy investigates the attraction to excessive forms of mysticism among twentieth-century French intellectuals and demonstrates the work that the figure of the mystic does for these thinkers. With special attention to Georges Bataille, Simone de Beauvoir, Jacques Lacan, and Luce Irigaray, Amy Hollywood asks why resolutely secular, even anti-Christian intellectuals are drawn to affective, bodily, and widely denigrated forms of mysticism. What is particular to these thinkers, Hollywood reveals, is their attention to forms of mysticism associated with women. They regard mystics such as Angela of Foligno, Hadewijch, and Teresa of Avila not as emotionally excessive or escapist, but as unique in their ability to think outside of the restrictive oppositions that continue to afflict our understanding of subjectivity, the body, and sexual difference. Mystics such as these, like their twentieth-century descendants, bridge the gaps between action and contemplation, emotion and reason, and body and soul, offering new ways of thinking about language and the limits of representation.
Download or read book Power Gender and Christian Mysticism written by Grace Jantzen and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1995-11-16 with total page 412 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the western Christian tradition, the mystic was seen as having direct access to God, and therefore great authority. In this study, Dr Jantzen discusses how men of power defined and controlled who should count as a mystic, and thus who would have power: women were pointedly excluded. This makes her book of special interest to those in gender studies and medieval history. Its main argument, however, is philosophical. Because the mystical has gone through many social constructions, the modern philosophical assumption that mysticism is essentially about intense subjective experiences is misguided. This view is historically inaccurate, and perpetuates the same gendered struggle for authority which characterises the history of western christendom. This book is the first on the subject to take issues of gender seriously, and to use these as a point of entry for a deconstructive approach to Christian mysticism.
Download or read book Christian Mysticism s Queer Flame written by Michael Bernard Kelly and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-09-03 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Is the Christian mystical tradition a relic of another time, shaped by celibates for celibates, unable to engage meaningfully with people of our time who embrace their corporeality and sexuality as crucial aspects of their journey towards union with God? This book reflects in serious theological depth and detail on the spiritual and sexual journeys of gay men of mature and committed Christian faith, employing the Christian mystical tradition as the lens and the interlocutor in this process. This study examines the major themes and stages of the mystical tradition as outlined by Evelyn Underhill, but also including more recent work by Ruth Burrows, Thomas Merton and Constance Fitzgerald. Using methods of qualitative research, it then considers the texts of in-depth interviews conducted with men, most of whom are theologians or spiritual leaders with a deep Catholic faith, and all of whom are openly, self-affirmingly gay. Finally, it employs Ricoeur’s hermeneutical theory to engage in a creative theological conversation between the traditional mystical stages and themes and these men’s lives, as described in their interviews. This is a unique study that brings together ancient spirituality with contemporary lived religion. As such, it will be of interest to scholars of religious studies, theology, Christian mysticism and spirituality, and queer studies. It will be of particular interest to those teach spiritual direction and to all who seek new ways to engage with the spiritual lives of LGBTIQ+ people.
Download or read book Exploring Sexuality and Spirituality written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2020-10-20 with total page 425 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Exploring Spirituality and Sexuality: An Introduction to an Interdisciplinary Field is a collection of scholarly essays which focuses on the multiple interrelations of spirituality and sexuality, including such facets as intimate relationships, inner cultivation, gender empowerment, gender empowerment, sex education, eroticism, and ecstasy embodiments.
Download or read book Mysticism and sexuality written by Bernard McGinn and published by . This book was released on 1993 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Introduction to the Book of Zohar Volume 1 written by Yehudah Ashlag and published by Laitman Kabbalah Publishers. This book was released on 2005-01-01 with total page 612 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Science of Kabbalah (Pticha) is the first in a series of texts that Rav Michael Laitman, Kabbalist and scientist, designed to introduce readers to the special language and terminology of the Kabbalah. Here, Rav Laitman reveals authentic Kabbalah in a manner that is both rational and mature. Readers are gradually led to an understanding of the logical design of the Universe and the life whose home it is. The Science of Kabbalah, a revolutionary work that is unmatched in its clarity, depth, and appeal to the intellect, will enable readers to approach the more technical works of Baal HaSulam (Rabbi Yehuda Ashlag), such as 'Talmud Eser Sefirot' and Zohar. Although scientists and philosophers will delight in its illumination, laymen will also enjoy the satisfying answers to the riddles of life that only authentic Kabbalah provides. Now, travel through the pages and prepare for an astonishing journey into the 'Upper Worlds'.
Download or read book Sexual Outlaw Erotic Mystic written by Vere Chappell and published by Weiser Books. This book was released on 2010-12-01 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sex, Magick, Aleister Crowley, Orgasms, Erotic Dances, Angelic Beings, Revolutionary Activism, Liberation, Persecution, Defiance, and Suicide. Persecuted by Anthony Comstock and his Society for the Suppression of Vice, this turn-of-the-century heroine was also a spiritualist who learned many secrets of high magick through her claimed wedlock to an angelic being. Born in Philadelphia in 1857, Ida Craddock became involved in occultism around the age of thirty. She attended classes at the Theosophical Society and began studying a tremendous amount of materials on various occult subjects. She taught correspondence courses to women and newly married couples to educate them on the sacred nature of sex, maintaining that her explicit knowledge came from her nightly experiences with an angel named Soph. In 1902, she was arrested under New York’s anti-obscenity laws and committed suicide to avoid life in an asylum. Now for the first time, scholar Vere Chappell has compiled the most extensive collection of Craddock’s work including original essays, diary excerpts, and suicide letters--one to her mother and one to the public.
Download or read book The Eastern Way of Love written by Kamala Devi and published by Touchstone. This book was released on 1985-01-01 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explains the secrets of the ancient Indian philosophy of Tantra, that teaches, through rituals and exercises, methods of reaching the heights of sexual ecstasy
Download or read book Mysticism and Sexuality E T A Hoffmann Interpretations of the tales written by James M. McGlathery and published by Peter Lang Group Ag, International Academic Publishers. This book was released on 1985 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study aims to show that Hoffmann drew on his own psychic experiences relevant to sexuality, and that he also was writing in a broad literary tradition of roguish sexual humor and ironic portrayal of the psychology of desire that had survived to his time in opera buffa and comic theater generally, as well as in certain vestiges of the eighteenth-century conte licencieux. In this second volume the perspectives developed in Part One: Hoffmann and His Sources are used to provide new readings of each of Hoffmann's four-dozen tales and of his two novels.
Download or read book Mysticism and Sexuality written by James M. McGlathery and published by . This book was released on 1985 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Creativity and Sexuality written by Mordechai Rotenberg and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-02-06 with total page 287 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Judaism openly recognizes, as an integral part of human nature, the enigmatic relationship between yetzer, or physical desire, and yetzirah, or spiritual creativity. Creativity and Sexuality, written as a fictional dialogue, clearly delineates the psychic interdependence of these two drives, as well as the integration of the concepts as they are defined by both Jewish mysticism and modern psychology.Mordechai Rotenberg is interested in the impact of religion on the psychology of everyday life. He was prompted to write Creativity and Sexuality by the popularity of writings that explore Jewish texts on the subject of sexuality from a historical or literary point of view, but that do not hesitate to include psychological evaluations based on popular secondary psychological concepts. This work seeks to provide an accurate psychological analysis of sexuality and spirituality from a Jewish mystical perspective. As such, it both reconstructs the interdisciplinary bridge between Judaism and psychology and deconstructs some exegetical traditions. The goal is to present new paradigmatic options, which may help modern society struggle more efficiently with its sexuality. Ultimately, the author sees physical desire and spiritual creativity as a regulative continuum. People learn how to spend the tremendous power of energy that the sexual yetzer produces not only on physical sex, but on the spiritual yetzirah.In an introduction written especially for this new edition, the author explains the continuing relevance of Creativity and Sexuality, and the ongoing relationship between sexual desire and a healthy spiritual self-fulfillment. This volume will be of interest to students of Judaism, psychology, mysticism, and sexuality.
Download or read book Hidden Intercourse written by Wouter J. Hanegraaff and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2008-12-31 with total page 566 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The history of Western esotericism is rich in references to the domains of eros and sexuality, but this connection has never been explored in detail from a critical scholarly perspective. Bringing together an impressive array of top-level specialists, this volume reveals the outlines of a largely unknown history spanning more than twenty centuries.
Download or read book Mysticism and Sexuality E T A Hoffmann written by James M. McGlathery and published by . This book was released on 1981 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Constructing Medieval Sexuality written by and published by U of Minnesota Press. This book was released on 1997 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Transcendent Sex written by Jenny Wade and published by Gallery Books. This book was released on 2004-04-06 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: IT'S NOT JUST SEX. IT'S NOT JUST LOVE. IT'S SOMETHING MORE.... But what could be better than sex? How about lovemaking that sweeps people into new realities, producing altered states of consciousness a thousand times more powerful than the most earth-shattering orgasm? Lovemaking so spectacular that it truly is a religious experience? Transcendent Sex is not about the "Tantric method." It is about the best-kept secret in human history: that ordinary people, with no special training, can find themselves in different spiritual realms when making love -- an experience so profound that nothing will ever be the same. It is about sex that triggers episodes identical to the highest spiritual states -- as described in the annals of shamanism, yoga, Buddhism, Christianity, Judaism, and Islam -- including visions, channeling, reliving past lives, transcending the laws of physics, and seeing the face of God. This revealing book tells of lovers who engaged in sex as usual and suddenly found the veil between the worlds torn open. Transcendent Sex, like any other spiritual awakening, changes lives. Atheists have become believers; long-standing psychological wounds have been healed; and the sexually abused have become whole. These are the inspiring, incredible true stories of people who experienced an ecstasy and fulfillment beyond the borders of this world.
