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 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 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 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 The Book of Margery Kempe written by Margery Kempe and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 1985 with total page 449 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The story of the eventful and controversial life of Margery Kempe - wife, mother, businesswoman, pilgrim and visionary - is the earliest surviving autobiography in English. Here Kempe (c.1373-c.1440) recounts in vivid, unembarrassed detail the madness that followed the birth of the first of her fourteen children, the failure of her brewery business, her dramatic call to the spiritual life, her visions and uncontrollable tears, the struggle to convert her husband to a vow of chastity and her pilgrimages to Europe and the Holy Land. Margery Kempe could not read or write, and dictated her remarkable story late in life. It remains an extraordinary record of human faith and a portrait of a medieval woman of unforgettable character and courage.
Download or read book God Sexuality and the Self written by Sarah Coakley and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2013-08-29 with total page 389 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: God, Sexuality and the Self is a new venture in systematic theology. Sarah Coakley invites the reader to re-conceive the relation of sexual desire and the desire for God and - through the lens of prayer practice - to chart the intrinsic connection of this relation to a theology of the Trinity. The goal is to integrate the demanding ascetical undertaking of prayer with the recovery of lost and neglected materials from the tradition and thus to reanimate doctrinal reflection both imaginatively and spiritually. What emerges is a vision of human longing for the triune God which is both edgy and compelling: Coakley's théologie totale questions standard shibboleths on 'sexuality' and 'gender' and thereby suggests a way beyond current destructive impasses in the churches. The book is clearly and accessibly written and will be of great interest to all scholars and students of theology.
Download or read book Tantric Jesus written by James Hughes Reho and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2017-01-13 with total page 488 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A guide to the history and modern practice of transformative Christianity • Reveals the original tantric wisdom of Jesus and the early Church and its resonance with the tantric yogas of India and Tibet • Explains how tantric Christianity views the human body as the primary “temple” of the Holy and erotic energy as the signature of indwelling Divine Presence • Provides step-by-step instructions for a series of Christian tantric practices, including a partnered sexual practice, mantra and energy work, eye gazing, and work with icons Unbeknownst to many, the original Christian spirituality as practiced in the early church and by Jesus himself was a tantric spirituality. In the West, Tantra often evokes images of arcane rituals or acrobatic sexual positions, while in reality Tantra is a holistic transformative path of life, love, and being--grounded in practice. Offering a new understanding of Jesus as guru and master of left-handed Tantra, James Reho, an Episcopal priest and tantric initiate, reframes the Christian story and restores to modern Christianity the tantric wisdom practices that were edited out of church tradition and forgotten over the centuries. He explains how tantric Christianity views the human body as the primary “temple” of the Holy, with erotic energy as the signature of Divine Presence within. Rev. Reho reveals the similarities of the earliest Christian practices to the tantric yogas of India and Tibet and explores the role of Kundalini and the chakras. He details how to work with mantras, icons, and pranayama breathing exercises, as well as with gazing as a spiritual practice. Informed by the insights of ancient texts and early masters of Christian spirituality, the author provides step-by-step instructions on how to practice Christian tantric sex with a life-partner of the opposite or same sex. Rev. Reho reveals how these heart-opening practices are rooted in eros, the life of deep desire, expressive of God’s grace within us, and are still alive in monastic practices in the Christian East. Integrating his personal spiritual experiences, years of study of ancient Christian mysticism, and an expertise in yoga and tantra, the author shows how we can re-engage the original truths of the early church to affirm the body as a holy vehicle and to utilize the energy of the erotic to achieve ecstatic union with the Divine.
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: From rumours about gnostic orgies in antiquity to the explicit erotic symbolism of alchemical texts, from the subtly coded eroticism of medieval kabbalah to the sexual magic practiced by contemporary occultists and countercultural translations of Asian Tantra, the history of Western esotericism is rich in references to the domains of eros and sexuality. This volume, which brings together an impressive array of top-level specialists, is the first to analyze the eroticism of the esoteric without sensationalism or cheap generalizations, but on the basis of expert scholarship and attention to textual and historical detail. While there are few other domains where the imagination may so easily run wild, the various contributions seek to distinguish fact from fiction--only to find that historical realities are sometimes even stranger than the fantasies. In doing so, they reveal the outlines of a largely unknown history spanning more than twenty centuries.
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.
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 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 Mysticism and Language written by Steven T. Katz and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 1992 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Taken collectively, the original essays in this new collection make up the most important exploration of mysticism and language to appear in many years. Written from diverse perspectives on a wide variety of religious and mystical traditions, ranging from Judaism and Christianity to Zen Buddhism and Hinduism, all the essays exhibit great erudition, a mastery of the original mystical sources, and philosophical and hermeneutical sophistication. Further, all recognize the inadequacy of treating the questions surrounding this subject a-contextually - outside of their historic, intellectual, and sociological circumstances. As such, these studies deepen the on-going revisionist, contextualist study of mysticism so powerfully and influentially inaugurated by two previous collections also edited by Steven Katz, Mysticism and Philosophical Analysis and Mysticism and Religious Traditions. Like its predecessors, the present collection includes work by some of the world's leading authorities on mysticism, including Moshe Idel, William Alston, Bernard McGinn, Ewert Cousins, Bimal Matilal, Carl Ernst, and Steven Katz. It is sure to become essential reading for everyone interested in mysticism, as well as those who study religion, comparative religion, philosophy, and history.
Download or read book A Time of Sifting written by Paul Peucker and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2015-06-19 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At the end of the 1740s, the Moravians, a young and rapidly expanding radical-Pietist movement, experienced a crisis soon labeled the Sifting Time. As Moravian leaders attempted to lead the church away from the abuses of the crisis, they also tried to erase the memory of this controversial and embarrassing period. Archival records were systematically destroyed, and official histories of the church only dealt with this period in general terms. It is not surprising that the Sifting Time became both a taboo and an enigma in Moravian historiography. In A Time of Sifting, Paul Peucker provides the first book-length, in-depth look at the Sifting Time and argues that it did not consist of an extreme form of blood-and-wounds devotion, as is often assumed. Rather, the Sifting Time occurred when Moravians began to believe that the union with Christ could be experienced not only during marital intercourse but during extramarital sex as well. Peucker shows how these events were the logical consequence of Moravian teachings from previous years. As the nature of the crisis became evident, church leaders urged the members to revert to their earlier devotion of the blood and wounds of Christ. By returning to this earlier phase, the Moravians lost their dynamic character and became more conservative. It was at this moment that the radical-Pietist Moravians of the first half of the eighteenth century reinvented themselves as a noncontroversial evangelical denomination.
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 Eros and the Mysteries of Love written by Julius Evola and published by Inner Traditions / Bear & Co. This book was released on 1991-04 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A controversial philosopher and critic of modern Western civilization, Julius Evola (1898-1974) writes about the mystical and spiritual expression of sexual love. This in-depth study explores the sexual rites of sacred traditions, and shows how religion, mysticism, folklore, and mythology all contain erotic forms in which the deep potentialities of human beings are recognized.
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.
