Magica Sexualis

This is a new release of the original 1934 edition.

"This book offers a fascinating account of the development of Western sexual magic through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Urban focuses on an extraordinary set of historical figures, and his rich analysis illuminates the sexual—and supernatural—undercurrents that have shaped modernity."—Randall Styers, author of Making Magic: Religion, Magic, and Science in the Modern World

A step-by-step guide to the occult science of sex magic • Based on the practices of P. B. Randolph, occult rival of H. P. Blavatsky • Reveals how to perform sex magic rituals for specific real-world results, such as greater strength or enhancement of the senses • Explains how to create magical talismans, such as rings with specific planetary forces, how to enliven a painting, and how to charge an effigy Conceived by Paschal Beverly Randolph, Magia Sexualis has been heralded as the most influential book about sex magic ever written, surviving to the present day solely through Maria de Naglowska’s French translation. Published more than 50 years after Randolph’s death, the authorship of this “translation” has been repeatedly called into question: While the greater part of the content can be traced to Randolph’s known works, a very significant portion cannot--leading to the conclusion that this work was supplemented by Naglowska’s own sex magic work and extensive occult teachings. Magia Sexualis explains Randolph’s meticulous science of sex magic, practiced by the Brotherhood of Eulis and the Hermetic Brotherhood of Light. Beginning with exercises to develop essential skills, the book explains in step-by-step detail how to perform sex magic rituals for specific results, such as greater strength or enhancement of the senses, how to charge and use a “volt”--an effigy of a specific person you want to influence or protect, how to enliven a painting in order to influence those around it, and how to create magical talismans with specific planetary forces, using what Randolph calls “fluid condensers.” This work from two great occult minds shows that true power of the spirit is acquired in conjunction with the power of sex--affirming that “sex is the fundamental force in every being, the most powerful force in Nature, and the most characteristic evidence of God.”

It is now generally accepted that the structure and function of the human body deeply influence the nature of human thought. As a consequence, our religious experiences are at least partially determined by our sensory organs, emotional programs, sexual sensibilities, and the neural framework of our brains. In Spirituality in the Flesh, Robert C. Fuller investigates how studying the body can help us to answer the profoundest spiritual questions. Why is it that some religious traditions assign spiritual currency to pain? How do neurochemically driven emotions, such as fear, shape our religious actions? What is the relationship between chemically altered states of consciousness and religious innovation? Using recent biological research to illuminate religious beliefs and practices, Fuller delves into topics as diverse as apocalypticism, nature religion, Native American peyotism, and the sexual experimentalism of nineteenth-century communal societies, in every case seeking middle ground between the arguments currently emanating from scientists and humanists. He takes most scientific interpreters to task for failing to understand the inherently cultural aspects of embodied experience even as he chides most religion scholars for ignoring new knowledge about the biological substrates of human thought and behavior. Comfortable with the language of scientific analysis and sympathetic to the inherently subjective aspects of religious events, Fuller introduces the biological study of religion by joining together this era's unprecedented understanding of bodily states with an expert's knowledge of religious phenomena. Culling together insights from scientific observations, historical allusions, and literary references, Spirituality in the Flesh offers a bold look at the biological underpinnings of religion and opens up new and exciting agendas for understanding the nature and value of human religiosity.

First Published in 1994. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

The first English translation of Maria de Naglowska’s treatise on advanced sexual magic practices, Le mystère de la pendaison • Details Naglowska’s advanced occult teachings on the Third Term of the Trinity and the spiritually transformative power of sex • Explains the mystical erotic hanging rituals of La confrérie de la Flèche d’Or [The Brotherhood of the Golden Arrow], the notorious occult order of 1930s Paris • Continues the sexual initiatory teachings first expounded in Naglowska’s The Light of Sex Available for the first time in English, Advanced Sex Magic illuminates the revolutionary occult teachings of Maria de Naglowska--Russian mystic, esoteric high priestess, and self-styled “Satanic Woman” of 1930s Paris. Her religious system, called the Third Term of the Trinity, considered the Holy Spirit (or Wholesome Spirit) to be feminine and taught the importance of sex for the regeneration of the world and the uplifting of humanity. A complement to her The Light of Sex, this book on the hanging mystery initiation details her advanced teachings on the Third Term of the Trinity and the spiritually transformative power of sex and reveals the erotic ritual hanging and other sensory deprivation practices of her magical group, La confrérie de la Flèche d’Or [The Brotherhood of the Golden Arrow]. These advanced mystical sexual practices were required for initiation into the brotherhood, and, as Naglowska shows, only through the union of the masculine and the feminine can we bring about a reconciliation of the light and dark forces in nature.