Chapters in this book

1. Frontmatter i
2. CONTENTS vii
3. Introduction: Things We Do Not Talk About ix
4. Sexuality and Sexual Symbolism in Hermetic and Gnostic Thought and Practice (Second–Fourth Centuries) 1
5. Conceiving Spirits: The Mystery of Valentinian Sex 23
6. Sexual Intercourse Between Humans and Demons in the Islamic Tradition 49
7. Murmuring Secrets: Eroticism and Esotericism in Medieval Kabbalah 65
8. Ta'anug: Erotic Delights from Kabbalah to Hasidism 111
9. Complications of Eros: The Song of Songs in John of Morigny’s Liber fl orum celestis Doctrine 153
10. Under the Mantle of Love: The Mystical Eroticisms of Marsilio Ficino and Giordano Bruno 175
11. Revealing Analogies: The Descriptive and Deceptive Roles of Sexuality and Gender in Latin Alchemy 209
12. Probing Women and Penetrating Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe 231
13. Sensuous Relation with Sophia in Christian Theosophy 281
14. Deadly Dates: Bodies and Sex in Spiritualist Heave 309
15. Sexual Mysticisms in Nineteenth Century America: John Humphrey Noyes, Thomas Lake Harris, and Alice Bunker Stockham 333
16. Paschal Beverly Randolph and Sexual Magic 355
17. The Knight of Spermatophagy: Penetrating the Mysteries of Georges Le Clément de Saint-Marcq 369
18. The Yoga of Sex: Tantra, Orientalism, and Sex Magic in the Ordo Templi Orientis 401
19. The Theory and Practice of Sexual Magic, Exemplified by Four Magical Groups in the Early Twentieth Century 445
20. The Roar of Awakening: The Eros of Esalen and the Western Transmission of Tantra 479
21. List of Contributors 521
22. Index of Persons 529
23. Index of Subjects 540