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The Secret History of Western Sexual Mysticism
Sacred Practices and Spiritual Marriage
Published by Destiny Books
Distributed by Simon & Schuster
Table of Contents
About The Book
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.
• 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.
Excerpt
Chapter 7
Temple of Death
Caligastia’s Diminishing Influence, Secrets of Göbekli Tepe, Enter the Four, Political Maneuvers, Natural Energy Grids
When I, the Watcher Georgia, encountered Prince Caligastia at Göbekli Tepe, I didn’t yet know he had recently relocated the center of his operations to Turkey.
Caligastia must have heard my last thought, because he was laughing and gesturing around at the splendid circular structures beneath us while he was greeting me. I was surprised to find him at his most charming and benevolent, and I recall thinking--also probably at his most devious. Yet, as our interchange developed, I wondered if I might have misjudged him. It seemed all he wanted to do was to impress me with this new third-density manifestation as an example of his growing power on Earth.
“Naturally, you will wish to know how I achieved this magnificence,” his voice in my mind rung with his renewed confidence.
He was right, of course. How had he pulled it off?
A moment later we were standing side by side in one of the circular, roofless chambers before one of the massive T-shaped limestone columns. A carved rock basin stood against the enclosing dry stone wall at one side of the court, gathering water leaking down from where a natural spring trickled out between two carefully shaped rocks.
Three massive, freestanding, T-shaped columns stood triangulated in the center of the enclosure. I saw the Prince was now peering at a group of carved, embossed pictograms that covered the flat side of one of the columns, and it came to me he wanted me to puzzle out his cleverness for myself.
Really! Sometimes the Prince could be very gauche! He was like a child proudly showing off an elaborate card trick and then urging me to tell him how he did it.
I am sure you can appreciate my predicament. The Prince would be sure to know immediately if I was humoring him, yet I needed to maintain my own integrity and detachment from the Prince’s authority that I had taken such care to establish.
I moved closer to the column to examine the pictograms.
“Mostly different animals,” I thought out loud, “look, there are insects and that’s a fox, isn’t it? And a lion . . . and I can see a snake over on that column over there. They must be the animals they hunt here. They’re . . .”
Caligastia cut me short, as I hoped he would. “No, no, look closer Watcher, not just animals. Yes, animals, but these,” he pointed to some more enigmatic pictograms in one of the top corners of the lintel. “What about these? These aren’t animals.”
I squinted my eyes and traced the raised sculpted forms with my astral fingers, and as I did that, another image floated in front of me and for a brief moment I was back in the Gorge of Samaria admiring those enormous glyphs that appeared carved into the canyon’s sheer walls. As the panoramic image of the Gorge’s massive petroglyphs flickered in my mind’s eye, I came to see they had a curiously similar quality. I recalled, then, how I’d felt I was being shown that those sculpted petroglyphs in Crete were, in fact, the work of the loyalist midwayers.
Then it dawned on me. It must be that the pictograms on the lintel were the sigils of the rebel midwayers. It followed that the various animal figures were more likely clan and tribe totems, with the positioning of the sigils and totems on the columns showing the nature of the relationship between the midwayers and the tribes they had adopted.
In those moments I had a wholly unexpected sensation--I caught a glimpse of Caligastia’s true brilliance. Yet, while I was admiring his achievement, I simultaneously felt a wave of terrible sadness and regret that this hadn’t always been so. It frightened me. The feeling was too honest. It revealed too much. I sincerely hoped the Prince hadn’t picked it up from me. The feeling was freighted with what might have been had the Prince maintained his integrity.
After all, he’d created this temple complex by getting his rebellious midwayers to stop their continual bickering and competing with one another, to collaborate on this project. This, in turn, evidently had the effect of uniting the various nomadic tribes to provide the enormous manpower needed to quarry, transport, and erect the limestone megaliths.
I’d become lost in the glyphs while I was admiring some of the enigmatic midwayer sigils before I became aware of Prince Caligastia growing increasingly impatient beside me.
I guessed I must have passed the test. I’d worked out the puzzle for myself, or at least enough of it to satisfy Caligastia’s vanity, because he clearly couldn’t wait to boast about how he had created this place and his plans for the future.
I’d given up, by this time, any attempt to mask off my thoughts from Prince Caligastia. It took too much energy. Besides, he well knew what I thought about him. In the light of that, I was amused to see my attitude was actually provoking him to further satisfy his vanity.
I knew then he wouldn’t be able to resist telling me his great secret. He was cunning, there was no denying that, but he was also compulsively boastful.
“And I have plenty to boast about! You have no idea, have you, Watcher? Well, let me astonish you. I’m about to override my world’s natural grid. I am going to reimprint the energy to serve my own divine purposes! Do you know what that means? Have you any idea of the power that will give me?”
It was always difficult to separate the bombast from the reality with Caligastia. Regardless, a shudder ran up my spine at his words, so perhaps I really did know what it meant. Once again I found myself fearing for the future of us all, mortal, midwayer, and watcher alike.
Temple of Death
Caligastia’s Diminishing Influence, Secrets of Göbekli Tepe, Enter the Four, Political Maneuvers, Natural Energy Grids
When I, the Watcher Georgia, encountered Prince Caligastia at Göbekli Tepe, I didn’t yet know he had recently relocated the center of his operations to Turkey.
Caligastia must have heard my last thought, because he was laughing and gesturing around at the splendid circular structures beneath us while he was greeting me. I was surprised to find him at his most charming and benevolent, and I recall thinking--also probably at his most devious. Yet, as our interchange developed, I wondered if I might have misjudged him. It seemed all he wanted to do was to impress me with this new third-density manifestation as an example of his growing power on Earth.
“Naturally, you will wish to know how I achieved this magnificence,” his voice in my mind rung with his renewed confidence.
He was right, of course. How had he pulled it off?
A moment later we were standing side by side in one of the circular, roofless chambers before one of the massive T-shaped limestone columns. A carved rock basin stood against the enclosing dry stone wall at one side of the court, gathering water leaking down from where a natural spring trickled out between two carefully shaped rocks.
Three massive, freestanding, T-shaped columns stood triangulated in the center of the enclosure. I saw the Prince was now peering at a group of carved, embossed pictograms that covered the flat side of one of the columns, and it came to me he wanted me to puzzle out his cleverness for myself.
Really! Sometimes the Prince could be very gauche! He was like a child proudly showing off an elaborate card trick and then urging me to tell him how he did it.
I am sure you can appreciate my predicament. The Prince would be sure to know immediately if I was humoring him, yet I needed to maintain my own integrity and detachment from the Prince’s authority that I had taken such care to establish.
I moved closer to the column to examine the pictograms.
“Mostly different animals,” I thought out loud, “look, there are insects and that’s a fox, isn’t it? And a lion . . . and I can see a snake over on that column over there. They must be the animals they hunt here. They’re . . .”
Caligastia cut me short, as I hoped he would. “No, no, look closer Watcher, not just animals. Yes, animals, but these,” he pointed to some more enigmatic pictograms in one of the top corners of the lintel. “What about these? These aren’t animals.”
I squinted my eyes and traced the raised sculpted forms with my astral fingers, and as I did that, another image floated in front of me and for a brief moment I was back in the Gorge of Samaria admiring those enormous glyphs that appeared carved into the canyon’s sheer walls. As the panoramic image of the Gorge’s massive petroglyphs flickered in my mind’s eye, I came to see they had a curiously similar quality. I recalled, then, how I’d felt I was being shown that those sculpted petroglyphs in Crete were, in fact, the work of the loyalist midwayers.
Then it dawned on me. It must be that the pictograms on the lintel were the sigils of the rebel midwayers. It followed that the various animal figures were more likely clan and tribe totems, with the positioning of the sigils and totems on the columns showing the nature of the relationship between the midwayers and the tribes they had adopted.
In those moments I had a wholly unexpected sensation--I caught a glimpse of Caligastia’s true brilliance. Yet, while I was admiring his achievement, I simultaneously felt a wave of terrible sadness and regret that this hadn’t always been so. It frightened me. The feeling was too honest. It revealed too much. I sincerely hoped the Prince hadn’t picked it up from me. The feeling was freighted with what might have been had the Prince maintained his integrity.
After all, he’d created this temple complex by getting his rebellious midwayers to stop their continual bickering and competing with one another, to collaborate on this project. This, in turn, evidently had the effect of uniting the various nomadic tribes to provide the enormous manpower needed to quarry, transport, and erect the limestone megaliths.
I’d become lost in the glyphs while I was admiring some of the enigmatic midwayer sigils before I became aware of Prince Caligastia growing increasingly impatient beside me.
I guessed I must have passed the test. I’d worked out the puzzle for myself, or at least enough of it to satisfy Caligastia’s vanity, because he clearly couldn’t wait to boast about how he had created this place and his plans for the future.
I’d given up, by this time, any attempt to mask off my thoughts from Prince Caligastia. It took too much energy. Besides, he well knew what I thought about him. In the light of that, I was amused to see my attitude was actually provoking him to further satisfy his vanity.
I knew then he wouldn’t be able to resist telling me his great secret. He was cunning, there was no denying that, but he was also compulsively boastful.
“And I have plenty to boast about! You have no idea, have you, Watcher? Well, let me astonish you. I’m about to override my world’s natural grid. I am going to reimprint the energy to serve my own divine purposes! Do you know what that means? Have you any idea of the power that will give me?”
It was always difficult to separate the bombast from the reality with Caligastia. Regardless, a shudder ran up my spine at his words, so perhaps I really did know what it meant. Once again I found myself fearing for the future of us all, mortal, midwayer, and watcher alike.
Product Details
- Publisher: Destiny Books (March 25, 2008)
- Length: 176 pages
- ISBN13: 9781594779862
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Raves and Reviews
" . . . an insightful history of the role of human sexuality in the shaping of ideas and cultures."
– Chard Currie, New Dawn, Sep/Oct 2008
"In this scholarly paperback, [Versluis] traces the twisting and turning path of Western sexual mysticism."
– Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat, Spirituality and Practice, Oct 2008
"This book addresses a topic that is often overlooked (or else looked at as an embarrassing part of the mystical tradition) here in the Western world. This book looks at both the Pagan and Christian mystic traditions in many of their manifestations, with an emphasis of the Christian side. . . . There is no titillation in this book, merely accurate historical reporting."
– Michael Gleason, Witchgrove.com, Apr 2008
"Secret History of Western Sexual Mysticsim offers up a unique set of cross-connections essential to connecting spirituality with religious history. New Age collections, in particular, will find it an exciting survey packed with history and religious examination."
– Midwest Book Review, July 2008
"Like his other works, this book is essential reading for those who desire to understand some of the more hidden and truly esoteric streams of thought and practice that have been instrumental in the various traditions of Western esotericism."
– Institute of Hermetic Studies, Aug 2008
"At rare occasions sober and traditional presentations of commercialized magical activity appears as a counterweight to the occult sentimentalism that often finds its way to publication. Vesluis's masterful presentation of sexual mysticism is one of those rare books that cannot be recommended enough. . . . the landscape he opens is going straight to the nerve of this rich field of enlightenment. Highly recommended."
– O Caldeirao, Issue 16, May 2008
“Timothy Wyllie was one of our most gifted and grounded explorers of the subjective and subtle realms. Those fortunate enough to travel with him to each of his destinations will receive a balanced education of mind, soul, psyche, and spirit and a gentle initiation into a more expansive and loving cosmos.”
– BYRON BELITSOS, coeditor of The Center Within
“Confessions of a Rebel Angel is Timothy Wyllie’s magnum opus. This saga is brilliant, arresting, and fulfilling; a true story of the esoteric secrets that fester in the human heart that are now awakening the human spirit. Georgia, a juicy and witty rebel angel, comes to us through Wyllie’s engrossing and engaging prose--a totally balanced story of humankind’s evolution and struggles with the forces of the dark and the light. If you want the real truth about the fallen angels, read this book!”
“Read The Return of the Rebel Angels! Timothy Wyllie’s mammoth reconfiguration of humankind’s imprinted perceptions rips apart concepts and questions, dissolving the mysterious shadow worlds and interlaced realms of science to brilliantly expose its reluctant but imminent surrender to strings of holographic universes he calls the Multiverse. Once reason is defeated, the fun really starts as Wyllie’s writing explodes joyously, using The Urantia Book as a cornerstone for comprehension of the past and all futures. Suddenly his proposition seems eminently plausible. Quite a mindblower . . . it’s a delicious meal of mind and vision.”
– Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, author of Thee Psychick Bible
“In The Return of the Rebel Angels, Timothy Wyllie does an extraordinary thing. By guiding us through intimate and telling details of his own life, he reveals the motivations and meanings of the epic we are all now experiencing.”
– Adam Parfrey, the late Feral House publisher and author of Apocalypse Culture
“If you have ever wanted a clear understanding of how the world of angels is structured, The Return of the Rebel Angels will give you a concise picture to use as a foundation to build upon. . . . By harnessing the wisdom of these other-beings, learning their truths and failings and by reconnecting with these entities, we are in a position to take full advantage of the possibilities to come through the coming global transformation.”
– Awareness Magazine
“As humans, our ‘ascension’ potential is our birthright, and in The Return of the Rebel Angels Wyllie proclaims that we’re all ‘doomed to become perfect.’ Way to go!”
– Nexus Magazine
“Timothy Wyllie’s multivolume narrative, of which Rebel Angels in Exile is part, is a masterpiece of writing. It is essential reading for any who would explore the cosmic dimension of mercy suggested in the parable of the prodigal son and the role of those often known as Starseeds in its manifestation upon this and many other worlds.”
– Robert Davis, director of the Daynal Institute
“Revolt of the Rebel Angels and its series is recommended to everyone who is interested in where we have been and where we are going as a planet and as individuals. It will explain a little of what is out there. Once again I can hardly wait for the next volume.”
– Jennifer Hoskins, New Dawn Magazine
“In Wisdom of the Watchers Timothy Wyllie and his guide, Georgia, continue the deep revelations of the hidden histories and lost legacy originally detailed in The Urantia Book. Wisdom of the Watchers is the nexus of a history and destiny that is both personal and universal.”
– Randy Maugans, OffPlanet Radio host
“Awakening of the Watchers is the latest masterpiece by the always inspiring Timothy Wyllie. This book expands you and compels the reader to go deeper into the mystery that is all around and within us. A captivating read that is hard to put down.”
– Paul Samuel Dolman, author of Hitchhiking with Larry David
“Timothy Wyllie’s Awakening of the Watchers is a memoir of the dimensional ecology of the Lucifer Rebellion and the Process Church that creates a living dialogue between the New Earth density and we the reader--the individual soul--a bottom line in any Universe.”
– Alfred Lambremont Webre, author of The Omniverse and The Secret Colony on Mars
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