PDF Ebook Gnostic Mysteries of Sex: Sophia the Wild One and Erotic Christianity, by Tobias Churton

PDF Ebook Gnostic Mysteries of Sex: Sophia the Wild One and Erotic Christianity, by Tobias Churton

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Gnostic Mysteries of Sex: Sophia the Wild One and Erotic Christianity, by Tobias Churton

PDF Ebook Gnostic Mysteries of Sex: Sophia the Wild One and Erotic Christianity, by Tobias Churton

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Review

“Gnostic Mysteries of Sex takes us on a wild ride through the secret, enigmatic and heretical world of Gnostics, medieval troubadours, the visions of Blake, and the counterculture of the 1960s--all united in their quest for union with God. The reader should not be fooled by Tobias Churton’s inimitable style of writing, because beneath his humor and provocative statements, there’s a profound understanding of one the greatest mysteries of all time--the power of sexual gnosis.” (Henrik Bogdan, associate professor in religious studies, University of Gothenburg)“In Gnostic Mysteries of Sex, Tobias Churton works to heal Western civilization’s deepest wound--the millennia-old divorce of sex and spirit. Revealed herein are the dangerous and radical sexual secrets that the Church could not eradicate, kept hidden by the occult underground through long centuries of persecution, torture, and crusade. And here is the radical message of the Gnostics, as shocking and critically important now as it was in the second century--that sex is the gateway of liberation, and the kingdom of heaven is within.” (Jason Louv, author of Generation Hex and coauthor of Thee Psychick Bible)“Churton brings to this frank and deeply insightful study a surprisingly personal and moving narrative. The late scholar of Gnosticism Ioan Couliano once said the Gnostics were the champions of free thought--asserting a freedom to explore every logical possibility of their complex demiurgic estrangement from God and nature. It’s not so surprising then that sexual metaphysics and practices in all of their permutations were explored, along with the big questions they pose, and the gnosis they transmit. As Churton observes, ‘The new heaven and new earth result from an improvement of sensual enjoyment. There was, and is, need of it.’” (Stephen J. King (Shiva X°), Grand Master, Ordo Templi Orientis)“Readable and hugely informative, Churton makes a solid case that explains the Christian teachings on sex as reactive to the non-canonical texts. As Churton writes, sex is the ‘essential battleground between heresy and orthodoxy.’ I suspect this may be a totally new branch of scholarship.” (Vanilla Beer, artist)“An erudite view of a fascinating subject. Highly recommended.” (Donald Traxler, translator of the works of Maria de Naglowska)"Churton (The Mysteries of John the Baptist) takes readers on a historical tour of available writings on sexual gnosis. ...Churton's scholarship seems to be both deep and broad..." (Publishers Weekly, October 2015)“If you think the last word has long since been said on the subject of sex, then you need to read this book. The question of how to reconcile sex with spirituality has long preoccupied the religious culture of both East and West. Churton explores how the Gnostics had their own approach to this issue, an approach that he traces down the centuries through the Rosicrucians and the work of poets such as Andrew Marvell and William Blake. Their message, Churton shows, points the way to a glorious synthesis of the sexual and the spiritual.” (Christopher McIntosh, Ph.D., Honorary University Fellow and Western Esotericism lecturer at the Univ)“One of the world’s greatest scholars of what Blake calls the ‘excluded’ tradition, Tobias Churton brings together a profound knowledge of Western esotericism with extensive new research to weave a rich and multifaceted tapestry detailing the long-hidden mysteries of sexual gnosis. Including in-depth analysis and detailed commentary on select sacred and heretical texts from Epiphanius, Hippolytus, Valentinus, Blake, Crowley, and more, Gnostic Mysteries of Sex is an illuminating volume filled with passion, truth, fascinating detail, and dynamic historical perspectives.” (John Zorn, musician)

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About the Author

Tobias Churton is Britain’s leading scholar of Western Esotericism, a world authority on Gnosticism, Hermeticism, and Rosicrucianism. An Honorary Fellow of Exeter University, where he is faculty lecturer in Rosicrucianism and Freemasonry, he holds a master’s degree in Theology from Brasenose College, Oxford, and is the author of many books, including Gnostic Philosophy, The Invisible History of the Rosicrucians, and Aleister Crowley: The Beast in Berlin. He lives in England.

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Product details

Paperback: 320 pages

Publisher: Inner Traditions; 1St Edition edition (August 23, 2015)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 9781620554210

ISBN-13: 978-1620554210

ASIN: 1620554216

Product Dimensions:

6 x 0.8 x 9 inches

Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)

Average Customer Review:

5.0 out of 5 stars

4 customer reviews

Amazon Best Sellers Rank:

#700,558 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

I just finished reading this book.First I would like to thank Tobias Churton for writing Gnostic Mysteries of Sex. It is the most recent and important piece to fit into the puzzle of my life. This book is, and of necessity must be, a scholarly work. However the depth with which the subject is explored suggests the author has an intense personal motivation. Sometimes the search for the meanings and sources of words seems a bit tedious but it all appears justified and important. I think this book, better than any other, discriminates between the many variations of Gnostic sects and places them in an historical framework. Having personally experienced the Gnostic call to freedom I find it informative to see how various groups dealt with that freedom in the past.Second I would like to explain that I grew up in a typical fundamentalist Christian environment, but at a Bible school I experienced an unexpected spiritual orgasm, sexual gnosis, mystical union with God. My Gnostic experience was very real with external effects beyond my internal psychology; but, I found it impossible to integrate it into the religion of my youth. It was disruptive of the plans I had made for my life. For years I have just attributed my experiences to an acute psychosis or some type of mental breakdown. In the last few years I have prayed for and decided to seek more understanding of what I experienced. For me this book and its description of Valentinain Gnosticism hits closer to the mark than any other thing I have read. That is likely due to my early religious training.It is not in the scope or intention of this book but based on personal experience I am becoming convinced that gnosis is sometimes an organic, endogenous, effect of intense pair bonding in humans. ( I recently learned a word for this, limerence.) I am convinced more than ever that most religions have arisen to explain this type of paradigm shifting experience. There is a surprising gulf between those who see the spiritual realities in a darkened distorted mirror and those who think they see them a bit more clearly.Even though I have taken this review a bit beyond the scope of this book and applied it personally I highly recommend it to anyone with interest in the subject implied by the title and subtitle.

We have always suspected that the real Christianity contained practices using sex to raise Kundalini energy, but that the Church hid the knowledge of those teachings to exert firm control over its constituents in order to maintain the authority of the priesthood as the intermediary between its followers and Deity. If, indeed, there was a Jesus Christ, and if, as many believe, he traveled to the East as a young man, he would have been exposed to Tantric teachings. The problem in proving such a theory has been the dearth of information available to Biblical scholars. With the burning of the library at Alexandria and later the Papal Inquisition, very little documentation from early Christianity survived.British scholar Tobias Churton has done us a very great favor in pursuing the truth of the matter. He has diligently and very thoroughly investigated the writings of the Church’s Apologists of the 2nd to 4th Centuries C.E.--- those who accused the early Gnostic Christians of heresy and blasphemy against Church orthodoxy. Called the Patristic Heresiologists, these notably include Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Hippolytus, Eusebius, and Epiphanius. Most of their writings have survived the centuries, but those writings are extremely critical of the Gnostics, accusing them of engaging in atrocious, scandalous, lustful, licentious, and unclean behavior, typically using both derisive as well as sarcastic remarks as means of ridicule. However, it soon becomes evident that the early Apologists were ignorant of the sex practices hidden right under their noses in the very descriptions they convey of the ones they called “heretics”.It was not until the disclosure of the Bruce Codex and the Askew Codex containing the Pistis Sophia in the late 18th Century that scholars were able to decipher the first actual Gnostic literature itself. Discovery in Egypt of the Nag Hammadi Gospels in 1945 that were translated into English and published in 1977 gave a wider public a look at books that must have been purposely excluded from the New Testament when it was formed in the time of Emperor Constantine. Churton quotes from these and other Gnostic texts, and proceeds to give us a much more balanced look at what the practices were of the early Christians.It seems reasonable to assume that much was inherited from the ancient Egyptians, and from the later Greeks and Romans. Egyptian Coptic writings and even Kabbalistic teachings are not ignored, and our author brings us right up to the modern era with quotes from prominent 20th Century popular personalities in music and the arts that echo the knowledge of sexual secrets. They point to the existence of an erotic side of belief and practice that has come down to us from pagan times and been assimilated, though often disguised, into all religions and sacred traditions.Now we can read both the Old and New Testaments with a new and expanded meaning. That is not to say that there aren’t other levels of meaning in sacred scriptures, but it does give us pause to consider the distinct possibility that the erotic side of religious teaching was, indeed, a vital part of worship and practice.Our author gives us a taste of such interpretation beginning with the Adam and Eve story of Genesis. If, for instance, we look at the serpent not as an evil doer but as the means of conveyance of real and useful knowledge given to the first humans, we receive a whole new angle of understanding for what is written. We know that Kundalini or Shakti is also called “serpent energy”, and we know that metaphor comes from a very ancient appreciation of the enlightening results of moving “la force vitale” up the spinal column through the various chakra points. Combine that concept with the symbol of the apple, and we obtain an “aha” moment of realization for what the Adam and Eve story is really about. This is just a small sample of what our author exposes to us, and I predict you will sit back and nod your head in agreement after you read his interpretation of that and many other symbols and metaphors in Judeo-Christian teaching.Churton’s exposé includes a greatly enhanced definition of the name Sophia, also called at other times by other names such as Barbelo, Prunicus, Prouneikos, Helena, Wisdom, Mary Magdalene, and Holy Spirit. We are given tasty morsels of insight into the esoteric and alternative significance of terms such as evil angels, watchers, wood, tree, cross, olive, archons, baptism, seed, saving and transmission of seed, logos, androgyny, Grail stone, virgin and holy whore, Eucharist, New Jerusalem, fruit, coy mistress, and many others. And, we receive insight from such luminaries as William Blake, Carl Jung, John Lennon, Aleister Crowley, Isaac Newton, Paracelsus, St. Paul, Nietzsche, and Swedenborg.Perhaps most interesting are the valuable perceptions of lesser known, but not less important, scholars of Gnosticism such as Hans Jonas, Joséphin Péladan, Denis de Rougemont, the late Gilles Quispel, and especially 17th Century poets like Andrew Marvell, Samuel Butler, John Hall. We see also the Rosicrucian/Hermetic connection through its proponents such as Johann Valentin Andreae. And I found Churton’s attempt to directly tie the medieval troubadours to the Cathars via their subtle eroticism most interesting. Attention is given early in the text to the apocryphal Book of Enoch, and a great deal is said about Simon Magus and Valentinus, as it should be.Above all, Tobias Churton has given us comfort in realizing the stigma the Church has so long endeavored to put on the sex act beyond procreation is a disservice to our intelligence and to our liberation. Eroticism, itself, could be and should be a vital part of individual sacrament. It must be brought back into the lives of all those who seek to find a gateway to the Divine, without guilt and without remorse. Above all, the message of this book makes it imperative that we recognize and reinstate the sexual component of personal worship, whether it be within Christianity or any other of the great religions of our time.This review first appeared in New Dawn magazine, Issue 154

Tobias Churton pulls back the curtain covering up the sexual dimension of Gnosticism and shows how Christianity declared it heresy. He describes a wide range of Gnostics and their metaphysics. Despite their often divergent but overlapping perspectives on Jesus and the creation of humanity, the Gnostics were united in their view that sexuality or Eros was central to recovery of the original nature of Adam, Eve and Eden. The early Church fathers roundly condemned Gnostic sex and any effort to produce what Churton calls an erotic Christianity. The Church fathers were victorious in this battle of ideas. Consequently, Christianity developed a sex-negative attitude toward the human body and erotic sexuality. This is better known today as “the madonna and the whore,” where the division of feminine sexuality into those two categories has led, both within the Church and outside it in society, to oppression of women and subjugation of wives to husbands. Churton calls for a Gnostic perspective to help undo the oppression and to develop an understanding of sexuality which, as in Tantra, can be employed ritually, as it were, to raise awareness of the divine and to invite the erotic sexuality as a pathway to spiritual unity.

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