Sacred Sexuality: The Erotic Spirit in the World's Great Religions Book

Acknowledgments Preface

Part I. Contemporary Sexuality: Its Failures and Possibilities

1. Taking Stock: The Sexual Wasteland
The Age of Sexual Bewilderment The Sexual Stress Syndromes

2. Tracing the Roots of the Modern Sexual Dilemma
Guilt: The Feeling of Being Found Out Shame: The Feeling of Being Unworthy Our Heritage of Sexual Guilt and Shame The Denial of the Body Guilt, Shame, and Ecstasy Sexual Addiction as Avoidance of Bliss The Quest for Transcendence From Sexual Malaise to the Loss of the Sacred

3. The Hidden Window: Spiritual Breakthroughs in Sex
Sex, Love, and Transcendence The Power of Love: Erotic and Spiritual Breakthroughs Sex: The Hidden Window

Part II. Sacred Sex Through the Ages

4. Sacred Sex and the Goddess: Ancestral Wisdom
The Erotic Cult of the Great Mother An Erotic Flashback to 20,000 BC.
Sex, Magic, and the Life-Force The Sexual Tragedy of Agriculture The Goddess and Her Lover

5. Sacred Marriage and Sacred Prostitution
Hieros Gamos: The Sacred Marriage The Phallic Principle Phallic Worship The Rule of the Phallus in Greece Sacred Prostitution in Ancient Greece The Sexual Servants of Mesopotamia and Egypt The Temple Prostitutes of India The Story of Sunta The Contemporary Reappraisal of Sacred Prostitution

6. Erotic Spirituality in the Mystery Traditions
The Mystery Cults of the Ancient World The Corn Mother Demeter and Her Votaries Dionysos: God of Wine and Ecstasy The Phallic Orpheus Pan: The Lusty Goat-God Cybele and Attis The Mystery Cult of Isis and Osiris

7. Spiritual Eroticism in]udaism
Sex, Power, and the Goddess among the Ancient Hebrews The Hebrew Sexual Heritage

8. The Eclipse of Eros in the Christian Tradition
The Christian Sexual Heritage Mary: Virginal Mother and Bride of Christ Eve, the First Man, and Guilt

9. The Medieval Love Mystics, East and West
The Resurgence of Eros in the Middle Ages The Troubadours: Erotic Idolators The Lover Within: Bridal Mysticism The Mystical Eros in Islam and Judaism On the Nuptial Couch with Krishna: The Hindu Version of Bridal Mysticism

10. The Jewel in the Lotus: The Lessons of Tantrism
The Secret Circle: A Story Set in India Around 1200 A.D.
Tantrism: The Historical and Cultural Context Maithuna: The Love-Play of God and Goddess The Serpent Power and the Transmutation of Sexual Energy Tantric Eroticism and Freudian Sublimation

11. The Sexual Tao: The Chinese Way of Circulating Life-Energy
Tao: The Nameless Way beyond God and Goddess The Tao of Sex: White Tiger and Green Dragon

12. Sexual Magic and Neo-Paganism
Sex Magic and the Magic of Sex The Magical Power of Semen The Reawakening of the Goddess in Neo-Paganism

13. The New Erotic Christianity
Alan Watts and Incarnational Theology Toward a Nonpuritan Christianity Matthew Fox and the Erotic Christ

Part III. The Challenge of Sacred Sex Today

14. Sex as Energy and Communion
The Sexual Threshold between the Secular and the Sacred The Erotic Implications of Einstein's Theorem Psychiatric Interlude: From Freudian Libido to Reichian Orgone Sex and Evolutionary Energy Spiritual Work with the Psychocosmic Energy Sexual Communion

15. Toward an Erotic Spirituality for Today
Coming Down to Earth Finding the Sacred in the Ordinary God, Goddess, arid Intimacy Ritual Beyond Neurosis

Notes Recommended Reading Index