Sexuality and New Religious Movements

Issues relating to sexuality, eroticism and gender are often connected to religious beliefs and practices, but also to prejudices against and fear of religious groups that adopt alternative approaches to sexuality. This is especially apparent in connection with new religious movements, which many times find themselves accused by the media and anti-cultists of promoting illicit and controversial views on sexuality. This anthology aims to critically investigate the role of sexuality in a number of new religious movements, including Mormon fundamentalist communities, the Branch Davidians, the Osho movement, the Raël movement, contemporary Wicca and Satanism, in addition to the teachings of Adidam and Gurdjieff on sexuality.

"Sex is not just sex. As anyone who has deeply engaged the history of religions knows, human sexuality runs the gamut from the most mundane fetish or fantasy to the profundities of charismatic authority, mystical experience, discarnate erotic encounter, alien abduction, even human deification. The essayists in this new volume demonstrate this still ill-understood truth in abundance and with astonishing historical and psychological detail. They thus take us further down the road toward a genuine understanding of our real situation in this weird, weird world." - Jeffrey J. Kripal, author of Roads of Excess, Palaces of Wisdom: Reflexivity and Eroticism in the Study of Mysticism

Auteur
Henrik Bogdan, University of Gothenburg, Sweden Martha Sonntag Bradley, Cornell University, USA Chas S. Clifton, Colorado State University-Pueblo, USA Anthony Costabile, Adidam Midwest Center, USA Jennifer Lara Fagen, Lamar University, USA Per Faxneld, Stockholm University, Sweden James R. Lewis, University of Tromsø, Norway Susan Palmer, Concordia University, Canada Jesper Aagaard Petersen, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway Johanna J. M. Petsche, University of Sydney , Australia Roshani Cari Shay, Western Oregon University, USA Stuart A. Wright, Lamar University, USA

Contenu
Table of Contents Chapter 1: Introduction Henrik Bogdan and James R. Lewis Chapter 2: Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Empowerment in Mormon Fundamentalist Communities Jennifer Lara Fagen and Stuart A. Wright Chapter 3: Gender Among the Branch Davidians Martha Sonntag Bradley Chapter 4: Sex and Gender in the Words and Communes of Osho (nee Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh) Roshani Cari Shay and Henrik Bogdan Chapter 5: Sexual Practice, Spiritual Awakening, and Divine Self-Realization in the Reality-Way of Adidam Michael (Anthony) Costabile Chapter 6: Gurdjieff on Sex: Subtle Bodies, Si 12, and the Sex Life of a Sage Johanna J. M. Petsche Chapter 7: Sex Magic or Sacred Marriage? Sexuality in Contemporary Wicca Chas S. Clifton Chapter 8: Cult of Carnality: Sexuality, eroticism and gender in contemporary Satanism Per Faxneld and Jesper Aa. Petersen Chapter 9: Rael's Angels: The First Five Years of a Secret Order Susan J. Palmer Contributors Index