Sexual Magic

by Paschal Beverly Randolph, Robert North (Translator), Edward James (Preface)

This is the long awaited classic by the mysterious 19th century Adept, Pascal Beverly Randolph, credited with being the first overt spokesman in the west for the ancient sexual gnosis, hidden for centuries in many layers of symbolism. He lifted the veil from this knowledge and taught it to the members of his Brotherhood of Eulis, by means of this book and personal instruction. His teachings were powerful influences on the founders of both the Golden Dawn and the O.T.O., as well as a host of other occultists throughout Europe and America.

Randolph's life is shrouded in mist and shadow, as he moved wraithlike through the courts, capitals and lodges of the western world. Friend and confidant of Kings, Presidents and Magi, his life and legend are reminiscent of the Count de St Germaine.

His published writings include many volumes. Yet there is a sense of disguise in all that he wrote, as if he were concealing a secret. That secret is finally available in English. Previously limited to sixty copies, privately passed to members of his Order, Sexual Magic is his greatest and most revealing work.

Sensitively translated, with an excellent biographical sketch by Robert North, this is one of the most important publishing events in the magical literature of this decade.

Genres: Occult, Magick, Sexuality, Spirituality, Nonfiction, Witchcraft, Magic

142 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1988

About the author

Paschal Beverly Randolph was a medical doctor and occultist, notable as perhaps the first person to introduce the principles of sex magic to North America, and, according to A.E. Waite, establishing the earliest known Rosicrucian order in the United States.

Randolph died at the age of 49, under disputed circumstances. According to Professor Carl Edwin Lindgren, D.Ed., many questioned the coroner's finding that Randolph died in Toledo from a self-inflicted wound to the head, for many of his writings express his aversion to suicide. The evidence was conflicting. R. Swinburne Clymer, a later Supreme Master of the Fraternitas, stressed that years later in a death-bed confession, a former friend of Randolph conceded that in a state of jealousy and temporary insanity, he had killed Randolph. Randolph was succeeded as Supreme Grand Master of the Fraternitas, and in other titles, by his chosen successor Freeman B. Dowd.

In 1996, the biography Paschal Beverly Randolph: A Nineteenth-Century Black American Spiritualist, Rosicrucian, and Sex Magician by John Patrick Deveney and Franklin Rosemont was published.

(source: wikipedia)

Reviews

[Obi Lourdes]

I mean...wow.

I chose to read this book because of my interest in cultivating and using sexual energy. It touches lightly on that subject before devoting most of its length to straight-up magic: spells, mirrors, perfumes––the whole shebang. I'm not interested in that stuff. So I would give it 2 stars for my purposes, but if you are looking for spells then I guess it would serve you.

[Walter Five]

Readers of this book will in the 21st century largely fall into three categories-- Rosicrucians seeking further works of Dr. Paschal B. Randolph, Thelemic Sex Magicians who purchased the Magickal Childe's "Sexual Magic" 30 years ago, and modern-day readers already familiar with Maria de Naglowska's "The Sacred Rite of Magical Love: A Ceremony of Word and Flesh," "The Light of Sex: Initiation, Magic, and Sacrament," and "Advanced Sex Magic: The Hanging Mystery Initiation."

All will be well served by this recent new translation. The translator and editor is quite familiar with Dr. Randolph's works, and is often able to cite page and paragraph of works such as "The New Mola" and "The Ansieratic Mysteries" to firmly ascertain what are Randolph's teachings, and what portions are certainly Ms. de Naglowska's own additions. Even so, there are parts and portions unattributed in the published writings of either.

A close comparison with the Magickal Childe edition shows some changes in translation; there are times the translator suggests that Ms. Naglowska may have been working from a hand-written manuscript, and offers what seem to be logical suggestions. I suspect that the wealth of material available through the Internet, 1st edition reproduction PDFs of all of Dr. Randolph's works, as cited in the present edition, greatly assisted the present translator to identify when the material steers sharply away from Dr. Randolph and towards Ms. de Naglowska's. I mention this because there is some speculation that Mr. Swineburn-Clymer edited and watered-down some of Dr. Randolph's more revealing passages in the later editions he published throughout the 20th century after buying the publishing rights to Dr. Randolph's works from his widow in 1905.

[Richard]

A sex magic text from the last 1800's - obviously a must read.This text seems to make more sense than the 1988 Magickal Childe edition. But after reading that one twice and now reading this, the repetition itself may have led to clarity. Roughly 50 pages on Magic Mirrors which is good historically but after understanding the idea of traveling in the spirit vision (Astral travel) and basic evocation with the triangle of art the idea of magic mirrors gets me about as excited as using the pendulum.
His chapter on the Living Tableaux is very interesting and I have had some independent success with similar techniques.

[Baroness]

This read is not the sexual connection I’m seeking.

[Serenity L]

Ok. This is not what you expect from a book on sex magic. Kinda slow getting started. Takes weird tangents. But by mid book it becomes very interesting. There are very detailed instructions regarding mirror scrying and portraits. That was very useful. I would have given it 5 stars had not I had preconceived ideas of what I thought this book was supposed to be

[Shad Aijalon]

Even with immense editing by Maria de Naglowska, the prose is terrible. This is an entire magical system with a methodology based on an ontological idea that the brain emits occult rays or something like that. However it's interesting, and you may want to try it out. I can't say it's bad because it is very interesting

[Pin]

I only read this to rebel against the inanity of the sexual revolution every child is now the victim of, everyone is desperately waiting for spring while I'm practiving the winter skills

[Komani]

Magia sexualist

[Nico]

You can find my review published in Spiral Nature Magazine here:
http://www.spiralnature.com/reviews/m...