Presents the Goddess Sekhmet as an archetypal force, guiding the reader into a positive direct experience of the living goddess, her teachings and life-transforming exercises and rituals.
A biography from a 1962 copy of Forbidden Sexual Behavior and Morality: "R. E. L. Masters, former director of the Library of Sex Research, is a world-famous sexologist and experimental psychologist who, in the course of his work, has also pioneered in the investigation of psychedelic drugs. He is the author or co-author of fourteen books on various areas of sexology. His earlier work on sexual behavior includes THE CRADLE OF EROTICA, EROS AND EVIL, PROSTITUTION AND MORALITY, and SEX CRIMES IN HISTORY. He is co-author of THE VARIETIES OF PSYCHEDELIC EXPERIENCE, the first comprehensive study of the effects of LSD upon human personality, and PSYCHEDELIC ART."
Deep work here, from Robert Master's particular mind and consistent with this body of work in "other consciousness." I was too scattered to persist with this work, but if you are sincere and unafraid (and that last should be underlined) pick this up and get to work. As another reviewer has said, if you do the work, be prepared for anything--and you'd better be darn well-grounded and psychically healthy. Contact this Power with caution and great respect, or take the consequences.
So, if you're into spiritual and meditative exercises (which is the purpose of this book) then you'll may well enjoy this. But I know there are many who read it because they want to know more about Sekhmet specifically. I'm of the latter, and so I skipped over much of the section part.
I can comment on the Sekhmet portion of the book though (the first chunk). This book is referenced *repeatedly* in contemporary Pagan and Goddess books about Sekhmet, and even by those who don't even know that the information they're repeating comes from here. This book is the source for the widely used 'Sa Sekhem Sahu' chant, for example (which fyi, is not ancient and Masters doesn't claim that it is - but it is still effective!). I noticed a number of things in here that are referenced by other authors writing about Sekhmet in a modern spiritual context, from calling her the 'Great Mother', to claiming that her blood-beer concoction contained 'mind-altering substances'. I'm struggling to find any ancient source that supports the idea that her son, Nefertem was the god of physicians, though Masters claims he was and many other people have repeated this (if anyone does have a legit source, let me know?).
I did enjoy reading this section of the book, because it has become a historic text in itself; it is the source for where a lot of modern ideas about Sekhmet come from. That said, there's a lot of inaccurate historical information in here. Masters' himself seems to have relied on dodgy - or should I say, non-reliable - sources to get some of his Sekhmet information from. So I'd say read this (at least the first section) if you are interested in the *history of the contemporary Sekhmet revival* (as I am), and how modern people think of her. But I would not suggest that you rely on it for any information on Sekhmet's ancient worship or character. In fact, please don't!
This book was very informative and enlightening for me as the reader because it gives invaluable insight into Mother Goddess Sekmet and how to connect with her if you're into the Egyptian Pantheon and totem spirits. I enjoyed the entire book and still use it as a reference.
I enjoyed the first 1/3 of this book, but I was hoping for more information about Sekhmet herself. It is good to learn about the five bodies, as that concept is pretty universal in occult philosophy. Masters interpretation of the five bodies is very understandable and helpful. I guess I just wanted more over all.