Hidden Intercourse: Eros and Sexuality in the History of Western Esotericism

Not unlike The Dictionary of Gnosis and Western Esotericism, this book contains among the best writing currently available in English on a number of lesser known currents of sexual magick in the West: such as the Fraternitas Saturni. Academics are starting to 'get it,' at least on an intellectual level and what they related are typically well sourced and authoritative insights into relatively arcane matters, which have here to fore suffered under a cloud of obscurantist and obfuscating occultnik sensationalist blather. This quote from the Introduction indicates the approach taken to this subject:... what is so striking about so many of the figures treated in these essays is their conviction that in the depths of human sexuality lies hidden _the_ secret of religion, occultism, magical power; spirituality, transcendence, life, God, Being itself. This astonishing connection, such figures would insist, is not metaphorical, or rhetorical, or symbolic, as some would prefer to have it. It is fundamental, cosmic, ontological, religious. We are dealing here, then, with a metaphysics of sex, itself intimately entwined with the destiny of the soul."P. xiv, Introduction to the book, Hidden Intercourse: Eros and Sexuality in the History of Western Esotericism, Edited by Wouter J. Hanegraaff and Jeffrey J. Kripal.

cool

Loved the cover art but the book was entirely too tedious to get beyond the initial chapter..... I wanted to love it or even like it (and I am a full time graduate student reading dense material all of the time). Couldn't get any pleasure from it. Very disappointed

An important text on a difficult subject. Sexual mysticism seems more dream and theory than practice; some excellent scholars get to grips sorting out fact from friction. [sic]