An exploration of the sexual practices and doctrinal secrets of Gnosticism • Reconstructs the lost world of Gnostic spiritual-erotic experience through examination of every surviving text written by heresiologists • Investigates the sexual gnosis practices of the Barbelo Gnostics of the 2nd century and their connections to the Gnostic Aeon Sophia, the Wild Lady of Wisdom • Explains the vital significance of “the seed” as a sacrament in Gnostic practice Examining every surviving text written by heresiologists, accounts often ignored in favor of the famous Nag Hammadi Library, Tobias Churton reveals the most secret inner teaching passed down by initiated societies: the tradition of sexual gnosis--higher union with God through the sacrament of sex. Discovering actual sex practices hidden within the writings of the Church’s authorities, he reconstructs the lost world of Gnostic spiritual-erotic experience as taught by initiated masters and mistresses and practiced by Christian couples seeking spiritual freedom from the world. Churton explores the practices of the “first Gnostic,” the historical Simon Magus, and explains the vital significance of “the seed” in Gnostic practice, showing it to be the sacramental substance par excellence. He illuminates the suppressed truth of why the name “Valentine” came to be associated with ennobling erotic love and reveals profound parallels between sexual gnosis and Tantra, suggesting that gnosis lies at the root of the tantric path. Solving a millennia-old riddle regarding the identity and secret symbol of Sophia, the mysterious Gnostic “Aeon,” Churton investigates Sophia’s connections to Barbelo, also known as Pruneikos, the Wild Lady of Wisdom, and the central focus of the Barbelo Gnostics of the 2nd century, whose religious sex practices so shocked orthodox Christian contemporaries that they were condemned, their cults of spiritual gnosis and “redemption by sin” driven underground. Churton exposes the mystery of Sophia in the philosophy of the medieval Troubadours and explores William Blake’s inheritance of secret Renaissance sexual mysticism through the revolutionary English poet Andrew Marvell. Showing how Blake’s sexual and spiritual revolution connects to modern sexual magic, Churton also examines the esoteric meaning of the free-love explosion of the 1960s, revealing how sex can be raised from the realm of guilt into the highest magical sacrament of spiritual transformation.

The Greek word 'gnosis' means knowledge; the Gnostics themselves used it to refer to the spiritual knowledge they believed would redeem them from what they regarded as the inherent evil of the material universe. As a mystical alternative tradition within Christianity, Gnosticism suffered the hostility of the official church and, as a result, remains largely unknown or misunderstood to this day.

“It came to pass, when Jesus had risen from the dead, that he passed eleven years discoursing with his disciples, and instructing them.” The Apostles wrote down what Jesus taught them during those eleven years, resulting in The Pistis Sophia, the most important Gnostic scripture. Includes an extensive commentary by Samael Aun Weor.

Despite the surge of interest in Gnostic texts following the discovery of the Nag Hammadi library, the Coptic Books of Jeu and Pistis Sophia remain understudied. Often dismissed as convoluted, confused, and repetitious, Erin Evans convincingly shows that these texts represent the writings of a distinct religious group with a consistent system of theology, cosmology, and ritual practice. This book offers an in-depth examination of these texts, their relationship to other contemporary Gnostic ideas, and their use in the context of a practicing religious group. Three thematic sections demonstrate how the collection of texts functions as a whole, covering baptisms and mystical ascent procedures, guides to moral living, and introductory texts and myths.

The first book to reveal the history of Western sexual mysticism • Reveals the secret sexual practices that have been used since ancient Greece to achieve mystical union with God • Details the sects and individuals who transmitted the radical sexual practices that orthodox Christianity never completely silenced • Distinguishes between sexual magic and sexual mysticism Beginning with the ancient Greek Mystery traditions, Gnosticism, and the practices in early Christianity, Arthur Versluis uncovers the secret line of Western sexual mysticism that, like the Tantra of the East, seeks transcendence or union with God through sexual practices. Throughout antiquity, and right into the present day, sexuality has played an important, if largely hidden, role in religious traditions and practices. This includes not only Christian but also kabbalistic and hermetic alchemical currents of sexual mysticism, many discussed together here for the first time. In the Mystery tradition of hieros gamos (sacred marriage) and the Gnostic tradition of spiritual marriage, we see the possibility of divine union in which sexual union is the principal sign or symbol. Key to these practices is the inner or archetypal union of above and below, the intermingling of the revelatory divine world with the mundane earthly one. Versluis shows that these secret currents of sexual mysticism helped fuel the rise of the troubadours and their erotic doctrine, the esoteric teachings of Jacob Böhme in the late 16th century, the 19th-century utopian communities of John Humphrey Noyes and Thomas Lake Harris, the free love movement of the 20th century, and the modern writings of Denis de Rougemont and Alan Watts.

Samael Aun Weor explains in practical terms how to return to Eden: through the same door we used to leave it so long ago. Includes a detailed revelation of the initatic life of Jesus of Nazareth, descriptions of the Gnostic Movement he founded, prophecies for the coming days, and many practical tools anyone can use to relieve their suffering and the suffering of others. "If the Lord had not been crucified, the destiny of the Western world would have been another. We would now have sublime enlightened rabbis everywhere, preaching Christic esotericism. The union of Christic esotericism, secret Jewish Kabbalah, and holy alchemy would have completely illuminated and transformed the entire world. Yes, the mysteries of Levi would have shone with the light of Christ. Gnosis (Da'ath) would have magnificently shone everywhere." - Samael Aun Weor

"All of us possess some electrical and magnetic forces within, and, just like a magnet, we exert a force of attraction and repulsion... Between lovers that magnetic force is particularly powerful and its action has a far-reaching effect." A broad and tantilizing journey through the mystical traditions of Alchemy, Taoism, Tantrism, Buddhism and many others as the author relates his personal experiences on the Path to the realization of the inner Being. Filled with stories and powerful insights into esoteric psychology, this book explains in an intimate fashion many fundamental details needed by every spiritual aspirant, including examinations of the variety of psychological formations or obstacles to true Liberation.