This is Spiritual Studies session 69.

This session follows the interplay of religion and sexuality from our ancient past to the present. In following this history, we see how we arrived to our current cultural attitudes toward the subject of sexuality and what arguments lie at the center of such historical attitudes.

On a personal note, when researching for this subject, I thought I'd end up purely in the ritualistic acts of sexuality, such as in the mystery traditions or in the more modern sex magic of early 20th century occultists. However, as I dove in, I kept wondering where this all was coming from, especially within the study of sex magic, I kept thinking that this all really seems like a polemic resurgence of sorts and a big middle finger to the Christian status quo. But then of course, I wondered, why did Christians ever become so prudish in the first place? And then I wondered about the big story and accordingly, this session became about this instead of the former. It's very feasible that I will return to the specific sex magic literature, the Sanskrit literature, and the mystery traditions for it's own future session.

Sources:
https://exemplore.com/legends/Goddess...
https://symbolsage.com/fertility-gods...
https://www.ancient-origins.net/myths...
https://www.worldhistory.org/article/...
https://hinduperspective.com/2013/02/...
https://www.scientificmystery.com/lie...
https://sacred-texts.com/sex/ar/index...
https://esoteric.msu.edu/VolumeV/Unle...

https://www.encyclopedia.com/science/...
https://www.blackpast.org/african-ame...
https://archive.org/details/aleister-...

https://www.idacraddock.com/psychic.html
https://www.idacraddock.com/intro.html




Pictures:
https://images.metmuseum.org/CRDImage...
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/0c/c1/...