Acknowledgments |
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ix | |
Preface |
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xi | |
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Part I. Contemporary Sexuality: Its Failures and Possibilities |
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1 | (42) |
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Taking Stock: The Sexual Wasteland |
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3 | (8) |
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The Age of Sexual Bewilderment |
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3 | (2) |
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The Sexual Stress Syndrome |
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5 | (6) |
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Tracing the Roots of the Modern Sexual Dilemma |
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11 | (16) |
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Guilt: The Feeling of Being Found Out |
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11 | (1) |
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Shame: The Feeling of Being Unworhy |
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12 | (1) |
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Our Heritage of Sexual Guilt and Shame |
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13 | (2) |
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15 | (2) |
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Guilt, Shame, and Ecstasy |
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17 | (4) |
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Sexual Addiction as Avoidance of Bliss |
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21 | (1) |
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The Quest for Transcendence |
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22 | (3) |
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From Sexual Malaise to the Loss of the Sacred |
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25 | (2) |
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The Hidden Window: Spiritual Breakthroughs in Sex |
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27 | (16) |
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Sex, Love, and Transcendence |
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27 | (3) |
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The Power of Love: Erotic and Spritual Breakthroughs |
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30 | (9) |
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39 | (4) |
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Part II. Sacred Sex Through the Ages |
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43 | (144) |
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Sacred Sex and the Goddess: Ancestral Wisdom |
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45 | (12) |
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The Erotic Cult of the Great Mother |
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45 | (4) |
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An Erotic Flashback to 20,000 B.C. |
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49 | (2) |
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Sex, Magic, and the Life-Force |
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51 | (1) |
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The Sexual Tragedy of Agriculture |
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52 | (1) |
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The Goddess and Her Lover |
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53 | (4) |
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Sacred Marriage and Sacred Prostitution |
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57 | (20) |
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Hieros Gamos: The Sacred Marriage |
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57 | (4) |
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61 | (1) |
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62 | (2) |
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The Rule of the Phallus in Greece |
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64 | (2) |
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Sacred Prostitution in Ancient Greece |
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66 | (3) |
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The Sexual Servants of Mesopotamia and Egypt |
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69 | (2) |
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The Temple Prostitutes of India |
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71 | (1) |
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72 | (3) |
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The Contemporary Reappraisal of Sacred Prostitution |
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75 | (2) |
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Erotic Spirituality in the Mystery Traditions |
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77 | (16) |
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The Mystery Cults of the Ancient World |
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77 | (2) |
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The Corn Mother Demeter and Her Votaries |
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79 | (3) |
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Dionysos: God of Wine and Ecstasy |
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82 | (4) |
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86 | (1) |
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87 | (1) |
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88 | (2) |
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The Mystery Cult of Isis and Osiris |
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90 | (3) |
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Spiritual Eroticism in Judaism |
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93 | (8) |
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Sex, Power, and the Goddess Among the Ancient Hebrews |
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93 | (3) |
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The Hebrew Sexual Heritage |
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96 | (5) |
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The Eclipse of Eros in the Christian Tradition |
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101 | (12) |
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The Christian Sexual Heritage |
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101 | (4) |
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Mary: Virginal Mother and Bride of Christ |
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105 | (3) |
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Eve, the First Man, and Guilt |
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108 | (5) |
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The Medieval Love Mystics, East and West |
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113 | (18) |
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The Resurgence of Eros in the Middle Ages |
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113 | (2) |
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The Troubadours: Erotic Idolators |
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115 | (1) |
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The Lover Within: Bridal Mysticism |
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116 | (6) |
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The Mystical Eros in Islam and Judaism |
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122 | (2) |
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On the Nuptial Couch with Krishna: The Hindu Version of Bridal Mysticism |
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124 | (7) |
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The Jewel in the Lotus: The Lessons of Tantrism |
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131 | (24) |
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The Secret Circle: A Story Set in India Around 1200 A.D. |
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131 | (3) |
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Tantrism: The Historical and Cultural Context |
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134 | (6) |
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Maithuna: The Love-Play of God and Goddess |
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140 | (6) |
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The Serpent Power and the Transmutation of Sexual Energy |
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146 | (4) |
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Tantric Eroticism and Freudian Sublimation |
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150 | (5) |
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The Sexual Tao: The Chinese Way of Circulating Life-Energy |
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155 | (14) |
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Tao: The Nameless Way Beyond God and Goddess |
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155 | (3) |
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The Tao of Sex: White Tiger and Green Dragon |
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158 | (11) |
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Sexual Magic and Neo-Paganism |
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169 | (10) |
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Sex Magic and the Magic of Sex |
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169 | (3) |
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The Magical Power of Semen |
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172 | (3) |
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The Reawakening of the Goddess in Neo-Paganism |
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175 | (4) |
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The New Erotic Christianity |
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179 | (8) |
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Alan Watts and Incarnational Theology |
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179 | (1) |
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Toward a Nonpuritan Christianity |
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180 | (5) |
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Matthew Fox and the Erotic Christ |
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185 | (2) |
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Part III. The Challenge of Sacred Sex Today |
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187 | (28) |
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Sex As Energy and Communion |
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189 | (12) |
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The Sexual Threshold Between the Secular and the Sacred |
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189 | (1) |
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The Erotic Implications of Einstein's Theorem |
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190 | (2) |
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Psychiatric Interlude: From Fredian Libido to Reichian Orgone |
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192 | (3) |
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Sex and Evolutionary Energy |
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195 | (1) |
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Spiritual Work with the Psychocosmic Energy |
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196 | (2) |
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198 | (3) |
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Toward an Erotic Spirituality for Today |
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201 | (14) |
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201 | (4) |
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Finding the Sacred in the Ordinary |
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205 | (2) |
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God, Goddess, and Intimacy |
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207 | (5) |
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212 | (3) |
Notes |
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215 | (14) |
Recommended Reading |
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229 | (4) |
Index |
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233 | |