Sexuality and the Religious Imagination

Surveying the history of Western conflicts between religious creed and the numinosity of body and sex, TePaske charts an course through Biblical Christianity, Catholic doctrine, medieval sexual heresies and Gnosticism. Myth and ritual practices of the Graeco-Roman and Tantric traditions are explored, as are Paul, Augustine, Magdalen, and the Hindu saint, Ramakrishna. The text brings clinical and archetypal perspective to a broad range of sexual phenomena, including sadomasochism, bisexuality, incest, and androgyny. Richly illustrated with sexual imagery from dreams, fantasies, and sacred traditions, the text draws on the work of Freud, Jung, Reich, Hillman, Eliade, Stanislav Grof, and others.