Sex & the Paranormal

by Paul Chambers

Book Overview

You thought sex was a 'had to be there', physical experience? And that it takes, well, living beings to make the walls shake? Think again! This book peers for the first time into the dark corners of... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0713727632
• ISBN13: 9780713727630
• Release Date: January 1999
• Publisher: Blandford
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.1" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

deviant and fun!

Unlike the previous reviewer, I am a skeptical pagan, so found this book to be well written, well researched, and facinating. If you enjoy a well written, though academicaly minded view of the intersection of sexuality and the occult, you will love this book!

Organized skeptical point of view

I'm a total believer and I have have lived with paranormal events for years, In my case, they are wonderful and very much wanted. So this book was not exactly what I expected.The book, although written by a paranormal researcher , is written from the skeptical point of view.He puts forth logical and natural explanations for the topics covered in this book such as alien abduction and ghost rape.I think most people tend to take a skeptical view of the paranormal, so they would probably like that approach.Even if you are a true believer like me, you might find the accounts illustrated in the book interesting.

Tounge in cheek analysis of some bizarre experiences

In Dr. Paul Chambers' introduction to _Sex and the Paranormal_ he mentions that the results of the combination of sexuality and the paranormal are sure to be truly bizarre. Chambers' does not disappoint the reader when he makes this claim. _Sex and the Paranormal_ tries, almost with a straight face, to examine some of the most uncanny phenomena imaginable. Reports of ghost rape or Old Hag attacks are common throughout the world and can be explained as a form of sleep paralysis. A good deal of attention is paid to the notorious and eccentric witch-hunter's manual, _Malleus Malefecarum_, a book which in fact was in accordance with the worldview of the day and not completely the misogynist rantings of two zealous Dominican priests. The history of the demons known as Incubi and Succubi, which would sexually molest either men or women, is traced. The Lilith is another sexually ravenous demon who originated in Cabalistic myths centered on Adam's rebellious hypothetical wife before God created Eve. In the ancient world at temples and sacred spots, different cultures worshipped the creative powers of nature, in particular the image of the phallus, which is alluded to in the Bible. Temples, including Solomon's own (according to the Bible after the king's apostasy) frequently employed prostitutes who the ancients believed could help men be in touch with the gods. During the Middle Ages, the Christian Church conducted witch-hunts in fear of the lewd sexual practices of witches and sorcerors, which included nocturnal orgies, the Black Mass and copulation with the Devil. Chambers posists the popular theory that the witch scare was the result of subconscious fears of female sexuality, exacerbated by the ultra-conservative Christian views of morality and religion at the time. Poltergeists, the proverbial "things that go bump in the night," are possibly the result of sexual anxiety or tension. The second half of the book takes an even more distrubing turn when it discusses Satanic ritual abuse. There is little or no physical evidence for this phenomena, or that of penis-snatching by mysterious beings in Asia and Africa, multiple personality disorder or alien abductions in which people either have love affairs with extraterrestrials or are medically examined and sexually abused by them. These are found to be interrelated as these happenings are connected by similar geographic area, culture and the people that experience them already have a predisposition toward the paranormal. Testimonies of Satanic ritual abuse and alien abduction could be the products of religious culture, and suggestability of patients under hypnosis and mass hysteria (similar to the girls who would scream and cheer when they saw the Beatles, as the author notes). Even Shunamitism (derived from a Biblical story about King David in his old age) is mentioned--the notion that an elderly man sleeping next to a virgin but without intercourse would be healthful--is in here. However,

Provocative insight into an ancient problem.

Dr. Paul Chambers in his "Sex and the Paranormal" gives us a thorough histoical walk-through of about every abberant sexual paranormal manifestation from "Popbawa", an African/Idonesian demon who assults men in their sleep, to the current trend of having extraterrestial sex. All the reportage is done with the eye more on the scholarly than the tabloid. Dr. Chambers answers the question, why, through all the millennium, is sex regarded so evil? Why does each indigenous culture seem to create their own sexual monster? What's going on here? What happened to just good, clean sex? The answer, Dr. Chambers points out in this very readable book, deals with our very human shame and guilt about sexual matters which has its roots in the very earliest Biblical expression. After all it was Eve who tempted Adam and got the two of them thrown the hell out of Eden. We learn that mythology has given us much to ponder about our own sexuality and none of it very good.