Bookshelf
| can't find it |

| browse books |
books
 

| book details |

Kabbalah and Sex Magic: A Mythical-Ritual Genealogy

By (author) Marla Segol

| on special |

normal price: R 1 317.95

Price: R 1 251.95


| book description |

In this provocative book, Marla Segol explores the development of the kabbalistic cosmology underlying Western sex magic. Drawing extensively on Jewish myth and ritual, Segol tells the powerful story of the relationship between the divine and the human body in late antique Jewish esotericism, in medieval kabbalah, and in New Age ritual practice. Kabbalah and Sex Magic traces the evolution of a Hebrew microcosm that models the powerful interaction of human and divine bodies at the heart of both kabbalah and some forms of Western sex magic. Focusing on Jewish esoteric and medical sources from the fifth to the twelfth century from Byzantium, Persia, Iberia, and southern France, Segol argues that in its fully developed medieval form, kabbalah operated by ritualizing a mythos of divine creation by means of sexual reproduction. She situates in cultural and historical context the emergence of Jewish cosmological models for conceptualizing both human and divine bodies and the interactions between them, arguing that all these sources position the body and its senses as the locus of culture and the means of reproducing it. Segol explores the rituals acting on these models, attending especially to their inherent erotic power, and ties these to contemporary Western sex magic, showing that such rituals have a continuing life. Asking questions about its cosmology, myths, and rituals, Segol poses even larger questions about the history of kabbalah, the changing conceptions of the human relation to the divine, and even the nature of religious innovation itself. This groundbreaking book will appeal to students and scholars of Jewish studies, religion, sexuality, and magic.

| product details |



Normally shipped | Usually dispatched in 3 to 6 weeks as supplier is out of stock
Publisher | Pennsylvania State University Press
Published date | 1 Nov 2022
Language |
Format | Paperback / softback
Pages | 220
Dimensions | 235 x 156 x 15mm (L x W x H)
Weight | 295g
ISBN | 978-0-2710-8961-4
Readership Age |
BISAC | religion / judaism / kabbalah & mysticism


| other options |



Normally shipped | Usually dispatched in 3 to 4 weeks as supplier is out of stock
Readership Age |
Normal Price | R 1 610.95
Price | R 1 529.95 | on special |



| your trolley |

To view the items in your trolley please sign in.

| sign in |

| specials |

Survive the AI Apocalypse: A guide for solutionists

Bronwyn Williams
Paperback / softback
232 pages
was: R 340.95
now: R 306.95
Stock is usually dispatched in 6-12 days from date of order

Look around you is anything real or normal any more? News, images and videos created by AI are everywhere.

The Coming Wave: AI, Power and Our Future

Mustafa Suleyman
Paperback / softback
352 pages
was: R 295.95
now: R 265.95
Stock is usually dispatched in 6-12 days from date of order


The Memory Collectors: A Novel

Dete Meserve
Paperback / softback
320 pages


Enquiries only


The Colonialist: The Vision of Cecil Rhodes

William Kelleher Storey
Paperback / softback
528 pages
was: R 425.95
now: R 382.95
Usually dispatched in 6-12 days

This first comprehensive biography of Cecil Rhodes in a generation illuminates Rhodes’s vision for the expansion of imperialism in southern Africa, connecting politics and industry to internal development, and examines how this fueled a lasting, white-dominated colonial society.