When God Had Sex 1

When God Had Sex:

The practice of Spirit Marriage in ecstatic spirituality
Megan Woolever
California Institute of Integral Studies
Consciousness and Spiritual Growth: Ordinary and Non-Ordinary States
Final Paper
December 13, 2010

Revised: July 31, 2011

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The subject of spirit marriage is a topic both near and dear to my heart. Therefore, in

researching spirit marriage I have sought to find context for it within a tradition or traditions

that will both honor it as a unique and valid transpersonal experience, as well as help to

contextualize the subtle forces at play in these non-ordinary realms. To this end, I have sought

research material which would offer a perspective on spirit marriage that honors it as a sacred

and mystical experience, one that can be seen as a kind of hybrid between human marriage and

divine union.

Modern academic research on the subject of spirit marriage, and the topic of sexual

encounters with spirit entities, is regrettably slim. This is not necessarily surprising, as the

Western academic mind has traditionally sought to reduce mystical experience, and the esoteric

arts in general, to psychological process or folktale. What does surprise me is the disregard for

this phenomena as an integral spiritual practice that appears in many shamanic/indigenous

traditions. Also surprising is the apparent denial of its presence in Western Abrahamic religions.

The more I have researched this topic - a topic that has been of personal and scholarly

interest to me for eight years now - the more I am amazed at the widespread presence of this

phenomena across culture, creed and religious persuasion. What troubles me is how doggedly it

is dismissed as anecdotal, fantastical or worse, insane. This has complicated my research, as I

have been unable to find much scholarly discourse on the topic, positive or negative, with most

of the literature being written by practitioners of the tradition itself.

Spirit marriage is a phenomena not exclusively practiced by shamanic cultures. It has also

appeared in the Christian monastic tradition, in the folkloric Islamic tradition, as well as the
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apocryphal literature of the Jewish canon. As a result, my research has had to rely heavily on

first-hand accounts as well as primary source documents written by the church in its campaign

against such practices, which, of course, address the topic from a very skewed perspective. In

fact, the Christian church fathers spent quite a lot of time and energy to hide this very fact

(Collins, 1996).

What is also interesting is the unique hybrid of Christianity and Shamanism that has

come together in the African Syncretic Religions: Voodou, Makumba, Ifa, Santeria, Umbanda,

and the fact that these traditions are practiced by an estimated 60 million people worldwide -

thats twice the size of the Canadian population. (ReligiousTolerance.org) Spirit marriage is

essential to the health and vitality of these religions, and is the primary means through which

their spirituality is practiced. How, then, can Western scholars of Religion not be discussing this

phenomena? In most cases it is treated like a dirty subject that isnt brought up in nice, polite

conversation, something we choose to sweep under the rug rather than address its possible

implication - that God likes sex and he/she likes to have it with us!

As I write this I notice how frustrated and angry I feel, how marginalized and invisible.

As someone who has first-hand experience of this phenomena, I have learned to keep my mouth

shut about my practice to keep it precious and sacred. However, as a scholar and feminist, it is

this very silence that keeps it marginalized and allows ignorance to demonize it.

The path of ecstatic mysticism was not a path I consciously chose. It was thrust upon me

at an early age with little to no guidance. I have spent my life alternating between defense and

denial of this orientation, but in either posture feeling, until recently, very little support and quite

a bit of judgement. My Pentecostal Christian upbringing opened me to ecstatic spirituality, yet

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took no responsibility for the openings it created, other than to try to restrain it through dogma

and rules. The natural unfolding of the spirit gifts that were awakened within me chaffed at these

restraints, squelching the fine nectar of ecstasy that wanted to release in my body when filled

with the Spirit. Yet the traditions that did give room and license for embodied, ecstatic Spirit

communion have been demonized and vilified by our culture to the point of equating spirit

marriage with selling ones soul to the devil.

What is Spirit Marriage?

According to An Introductory Dictionary of Theology and Religious Studies (2007) the

spirit spouse is one of the most widespread elements of shamanism, distributed through all

continents and at all cultural levels. The spirit spouse typically visits in dreams or non-ordinary

states, and female shamans can give birth to spirit children. The person dreaming will habitually

dream of having, in the dream, a spouse who is otherworldly and who is able to assist in waking-

world activities. Although fairly straightforward a definition, it begs the question, Who or what

is being referred to when we use the term spirit?

The metaphor model is everywhere to be found in anthropology, but it is rarely found

in the real world where events of the psyche are regarded as common place, where
different cultures have for long been exploring the intangible in terms of their every day
experience...Thus it is becoming clear that what we are referring to are not unusual
experiences, because they occur to so many people...It is time that we recognize the
ability to experience different levels of reality as one of the normal human abilities and
place it where it belongs, central to the study of ritual. (Turner, 1994, p. 93 - 94)

According to my survey of the literature on spirit marriage, the range and breadth of

spirits that may be contacted and betrothed are numerous. Perhaps these are different terms for

the same energies. Perhaps there are a strata of non-ordinary entities we call spirits. According to
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Orion Foxwood (2010), Celtic shaman and spirit-spouse, there are a variety of classes, much

like ethnicities, of other-world beings typically distinguished according to their geographic and

cosmological origins. These include:

Deities: Gods, Goddesses

Angels, Fallen Angels, The Watchers (Grigori)
Faery, Sidhe (pronounced: Shee)
Djinn
Elementals: Gnomes, Undines, Salamanders, Sylphs
Ancestors, Ghosts
Demons: Incubus, Succubus, Vampires
Aliens

The literature on spirits dates back in many cases to origin myths of humankind, and is

prevalent across literary style from Plato to St. Augustine to the Brothers Grimm. Unfortunately,

literature on modern practices of spirit marriage is scant, due to the fact that most of these

practices are done in the context of oral tradition. Although, notedly, communication with spirits

under the study of the parapsychology is better documented and researched by both science and

scholars.

The Shamanic Traditions

African Shamanism: The Dagara people of Burkina Fasso. In Western Africa, not far

from the Ivory Coast, there lives a tribe of people called the Dagara. Popularized by their

Western-educated kinsman, Malidoma Som (1999), the Dagara practice a form of African

Shamanism that involves cultivation of relationships with the little people or kontombl that

dwell within the land. Som writes of these relationships and how the balance between the earth
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and humans is maintained through these otherworldly contacts. He reports seeing and speaking

with the kontombl in ordinary states of consciousness.

My experiential research with the Dagara tradition has consisted of working with a

Dagara diviner for the past two years. During this time I discovered that in addition to general

communication with the kontombl, diviners within the tradition also partake in a form of spirit

marriage with a specific kontombl being. According to Bockley (2008 - 2010), first contact with

a kontombl often happens via sexual encounters in the dreamtime, where the spirit is making its

presence and desires known. Over time a relationship develops, and eventually, if deemed

appropriate by the kontombl and the elders within the tradition, a marriage will take place

between the diviner and the spirit.

Human marriage does not preclude spirit marriage. In fact, usually in a human marriage

the husband and wife will each have a spirit partner and the spirit partners are married to each

other in the otherworld. The Dagara believe that an entire spirit family can be created with a

spirit spouse, and the union is often highly sexual. It is also important to give the spirit spouse

and family somewhere to live, and so the creation and upkeep of spirit houses are erected and

filled with clay figures that represent the spirit spouse and ancestors. This gives them a

physical body to be fed and attended, and are kept by the practitioner for life.

Celtic Shamanism: Faery seership and folkloric magic. In the Celtic Shamanic

tradition of Faery seership, the practice of spirit marriage is much more rare and complex. Lest

you read the word faery and think fairy or tinkerbell, the difference in spelling implies the

difference in understanding who and what otherworld energies are represented. In the Celtic

tradition the Fey, also known as the Sidhe, are a pre-human race of being that are more akin to
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Angelic beings than they are to sprites with wings. In more general use, the term Fey or Faery, is

more of an umbrella term used to connote all otherworld entities, angels, demons, ancestors,

elementals, etc, including what we more commonly think of as fairies, air spirits or Sylphs

(Foxwood, 2010).

In terms of human relationships with the Fey, the true Faery marriage requires immense

work and transformation of the self on every level and usually takes seven to nine years, at a

minimum, to achieve. Most seekers are not suited to the marriage level of relationship, and very

few ever make it to this stage (Foxwood, 2007).

According to Foxwood (2007) there are five stages of Faery contact. Stage one, the

Contact, is similar to the Dagara tradition. The Fey makes itself known to the human through

dreams, visions or magical ritual. This can often feel sexual in nature, but according to Foxwood

this is not the intended result, this is the effect their energy has on the human nervous system,

arousing our life force or vital center. Stage two, the Cousin, cultivates familiarity with the Fey.

Resonance and consistency is built between the human and the spirit at this stage. Stage three,

the Co-Walker, brings greater collaboration between the two beings, as the Fey becomes a

constant presence in the humans life, as if they are walking together through life. The fourth

stage, the Companion/Lover, begins to build a ring of light around the two beings, and a

deepening affinity results, where sharing of the upper and underworld cultures happen. Energetic

shifts take place in the human to readjust and imprint the two. Stage six, the Consort/Marriage, is

rarely achieved by a Faery Seership practitioner. This involves a folk-rite where the two are wed

in ceremony with an overshadowing by the Fey of another in-dwelled seer host. This leads to the

final stage, the Co-creation of Other, where the married couple now become a living bridge
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between the worlds, a hybrid being. Foxwood, an in-dwelled Faery Seer, describes this as when

I close my eyes, I see into her world, when I open them, she (my Faery Queen) sees into

mine (2007).

Siberian Shamanism: Ayami the "spirit-helper." In The Mystical Marriage of a

Siberian Shaman, Mircea Eliade (1967) reports of a Goldi shamans initiation by a spirit wife.

She is his Ayami, a teaching spirit, that chooses him as her husband. He is told that if he refuses

she will kill him, and subsequently he reports that their marriage is sexually consummated. I

sleep with her as with my own wife, but we have no children. She assists the shaman in

bringing health and good fortune to his family and gives him assisting spirits, as well as animal

assistants, that obey his commands.

The Pagan Tradition

Hellenic Myths: Eros and Psyche, Zeus and everybody. It feels necessary to include at

least a brief note on the Hellenic tradition of spirit marriage and why this is not a more prominent

piece within the scope of this work. Although Greek and Roman mythology is filled with

examples of divine-human couplings (Zeus in particular liked to couple with pretty much

anything worth coupling with) the distance between the Pagan Mystery cults that practiced spirit

marriage and our own modern understanding of Greek mythology feels too great a chasm to

bridge here. Although a literal interpretation of the myth of Eros, the god, and Psyche, the

woman, corroborates much of the Shamanic modeling of spirit marriage that we have just

explored, to attempt to reclaim such a story from years of mythologizing is beyond the scope of

this piece. Suffice it to say, I believe that the Hellenic narratives hold record of spirit marriage as

it was perhaps originally practiced within the mystery traditions of ancient Greece, and certainly
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Marguerite Rigogliosos work (2009) on divine birth is an example of fine scholarship in which

the potential for Hellenic spirit marriage is situated.

Sex Magick and Sexual Alchemy. In 1919 a scholar and founder of the Free Speech

League, Theodore Schroeder, edited and published in the psychological journal The Alienist and

Neurologist, an article entitled Heavenly Bridegrooms written in 1894 by a woman named Ida

Craddock. In Heavenly Bridegrooms Ida claims to be married to an angel named Soph. More

remarkably, she painstakingly traces the history and psychology of spirit marriage from the

pagan traditions through the advent of Christian civilization and into her experiences of Spiritist

and Mediumship practices within the Theosophical society.

We thus see that the heathen gods and heroes whose father was Jupiter, the Christian
Messiah whose father was the holy spirit and the traditional "giants" whose fathers were
angels were, in the eyes of at least one Church Father [Justin Martyr], but different
aspects of the same underlying principle: the possibility of marital union between
dwellers in the unseen world and dwellers upon the earth, for the purpose of begetting
children...to laugh to scorn the birth of Perseus from the occult union of God with one
virgin, and then to accept without question the birth of Jesus from the occult union of
God with another virgin, is somewhat inconsistent.

On strictly logical grounds, if one story be false, so may the other be false; if one be true,
so may the other be true. But Perseus is only one of many virgin-born heroes or gods. We
find these children of a visible earthly mother and an invisible, celestial mysterious father
the world over, in all ages. (Craddock, 1894, reprint 2010, pp. 62 - 63)

Although Schroeder critiques Craddocks experiences as hallucinogenic, he does cite her

work as an unintentional contribution to the erotogenic interpretation of religion. More

importantly, by publishing this piece, he brought it to the widespread attention of the Occult

community of the early 20th century, most notably renown Occultist Aleister Crowley. This

would, in fact, cement Craddocks influence on the Sex Magick practices of the later 20th

century developed by Crowley and his contemporaries.

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Vere Chappell in Sexual Outlaw, Erotic Mystic: The Essential Ida Craddock (2010)

astutely remarks that it is easy to dismiss Ms. Craddocks claims to a spirit spouse as delusional

or perhaps a coverup for her detailed knowledge of sex, given that she was a single woman living

during the Victorian era. However, Chappell reports that a review of her personal journals offer

an account of her psychological profile as clearly detailed, logically consistent, and evenly

matter-of-fact in tone...She is able to distinguish clearly between the real world and spirit

world occurrences. Chappell concludes that even if she had extraordinary experiences, perhaps

deemed delusional in the conventional sense, she was neither a liar nor clinically insane.

Another more contemporary work by Ceremonial Magician and Occultist, Donald Tyson,

entitled Sexual Alchemy: Magical Intercourse with Spirits (2000), covers much of what Ida

researched in Heavenly Bridegrooms and updates both the language and the understanding of

Sex Magick for a modern audience. In a section entitled, Why Bother with Spirit Sex?, Tyson

argues that a loving relationship with spiritual beings can be one of the most rewarding

relationships in life.

There is nothing inherently dangerous, or perverse, or evil, about sex with a spirit. Just
the opposite. A study of historical accounts and ancients legends...have led me to
conclude that loving and erotic unions with angels...are a precious gift that should be
cherished...the crucial feature of these relationships is love...love invokes the Goddess
herself and allows union with the spirit to be simultaneously union with Shakti. (Tyson,
2000, p. xxxv)

In both works, Craddock and Tyson clearly state that the ultimate goal of Sex Magick is

to transmute sexual energy into spiritual energy, via the use of meditations and practices done

first with oneself, then with a physical partner, and ultimately with a Spirit. Tyson goes on to

argue that denial or demonization of this type of spiritual practice is akin to sticking ones head
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in the sand. Just because we may find the idea of sex with spirits unpalatable, doesnt mean that

it isnt happening.

Spirits in all their forms are a natural, and indeed an inescapable, part of life. Despite all
the efforts of scientific materialism to deny them existence they continue to be seen,
heard, smelled, touched, and from time to time loved...Sexual intercourse with angels and
other spiritual beings continues to occur because it is real. To rigorously deny and ridicule
the existence of an entire class of beings whose existence has been acknowledged in all
cultures from the dawn of recorded history is a form of intellectual gangsterism that is
inevitably doomed to fail. (Tyson, 2000, p. 25)

Admittedly, both Craddock and Tyson use arguments that are meant to justify and

validate their personal practices, and although academically minded, leave much room for

phenomenological research and validation. However, if we approach their narratives in light of

the reports of spirit marriages that occur cross-culturally, we see that many of the same themes

and patterns, that appear in both the shamanic and syncretic traditions, are also present in their

accounts.

The Abrahamic Traditions

Judaism and Christianity.

The Sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives
of all that they chose. (Genesis 6:2)

These earthy forces dont conform to the mainstream of mystical spiritual conventions.
They may even seem obscene, especially to those who believe the sacred is only about
subtle cerebral events and altruism. Sex, the life force and one of the first attributes of
deities, has so long been relegated to the recesses of civilized life that only its ghostly
imprint remains in what we now call the major religions and perennial philosophies.
Yet even in these, sex once was a holy quality of the Absolute (including the God of the
Old Testament). (Wade, 2004, p. 108)
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It was perhaps this scripture verse in Genesis that initiated my research, many years ago

now, into the subject of spirit marriage. In seminary, at the Graduate Theological Union, I recall

my classmates puerile goading of a beloved professor of Christian canonical literature to tell us

about sex with angels, a topic that he apparently had been researching. Although the concept

seemed strange to me at the time, there was some element of recognition, some resonance, that

stuck with me, so that over the years my interest has remained piqued on the topic.

Hadjewich, the 13th century Beguine mystic, wrote ecstatic, erotic mystical works on

union with Jesus as beloved that approach those of St. Theresas ecstatic experiences with the

angel (Woolever, 1996). What I have found interesting is not that the church suppressed or

obfuscated this phenomena, but how prevalent these experiences actually are in church history.

The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1946 brought into the public eye the book of Enoch, a

key piece of Apocryphal literature on Angelology, showing us just how much early Abrahamic

literature has been missing.

and they said to him, ...We [Fallen Angels] will [not] turn away, any of us, from this
plan...They and their lieutenants they took women of all that they chose and [...] to teach
them sorcery [...] and the women became pregnant by them and bore [...] and giants were
being born on the earth. (1 Enoch 1 -2, 13 - 17, Dead Sea Scrolls)

According to Andrew Collins (1996), the early church fathers cultivated a climate of fear

and warning around the dangers of seducing angels, using it as a basis for keeping women veiled

and silent. Many of the Early Church leaders, from the first to the third centuries AD, used and

openly quoted from the Enoch text and generally accepted that the fallen angels possessed

corporeal bodies. It wasnt until the fourth century that these assumptions were even questioned,

and subsequently the book of Enoch and many teachings on Angelology were suppressed and

condemned as heretical.
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It pleased our Lord that I would sometimes see this vision: very close to me, on my left,
an angel appeared in human form... In his hands I saw a golden spear and at the end of
the iron tip I seemed to see a point of fire. With this he seemed to pierce my heart several
times so that it penetrated to my entrails. When he drew it out, I thought he was drawing
them out with it, and he left me utterly consumed by the great love of God. The pain was
so sharp that it made me utter several moans; and so excessive was the sweetness caused
me by this intense pain that one can never wish it to cease, nor will one's soul be content
with anything less than God. (St. Teresa of Avila, reprint 1985)

The continued accounts of Christian mystics and monastics, most notably St. Theresa of

Avilas account above, report highly erotic experiences with spirit beings, including St. Theresas

case with an angel. When taken in the context of monastic vows, where a nun espouses herself as

the Bride of Christ, this seems to be a logical outcome. However, the church has traditionally

classified such activity as congressus cum daemone (union with demons). Yet in the case of St.

Theresa, instead of being chastised, her integrity was so highly regarded that instead of congress

with a demon it was deemed she was communing with God himself and thus was sainted

(Craddock, 1894).

The Jewish faith, other than including the Genesis account in its canonical literature, has

little to say on the subject of spirit marriage. One must delve into the realm of Kabbalah to begin

to find the practice of communication with Angels. However, more esoteric practices like spirit

marriage are not overtly addressed. It should be noted, however, that most Kabbalistic teaching is

hidden knowledge, handed down selectively and in some cases only to men, so much of my

study of Kabbalah has been through the Magical Kabbalah of the Hermeticists.

A brief note on Islam. In Islamic folklore it is commonly believed that Bilquis, the

Queen of Sheba, whom King Solomon marries, is the daughter of a djinn mother and a human

father (Capp, 2002). What is noteworthy about this account is that in all three Abrahamic
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traditions, Solomon is reported to be a great magician who engages legions of djinn in his

service. This is, actually, the basis for much of the modern occult magical practices, practices

which claim to take a majority of their workings from Solomonic and Kabbalistic magic.

Practices that during the purging of the Enoch texts in the 4th century, went underground into the

mystery schools and esoteric cults of the time (Collins, 1996).

The Syncretic Traditions

Joining hearts with a...Spirit is like signing a contract with an invisible protector to bring
good luck, dispel loneliness and ease financial woes... A spiritual marriage offers
something for everyone. The Spirit gains entry to the human world, where in dreams or
visions it makes its proposal of marriage to the person. If the proposal is accepted, the
Spirit is honored and celebrated, in exchange for which its earthly spouse is promised
divine protection from life's misfortunes. (Koleva, 2006)

Finally, it is in the African Syncretic traditions of Umbanda, Voodou, Makumbe, Santeria

and the like, that we find some of the most current and vital practices of spirit marriage. Born out

of the Middle Passage, these traditions hold vestiges of African shamanism, indigenous folkloric

magic and Christianity (Dow, 1997). It is often said that the African Gods and Goddesses were

brought here by the slaves. I think it might be just as accurate to say that the enslaved Africans

brought with them their spirit spouses and found for them new homes and new cultures. To

survive, African tribespeople of disparate spiritual practices blended together, learned from their

surroundings, and were whitewashed with the icons and trappings of Christianity. Although they

may carry the names and behaviors of mainstream religion, they are distinct spiritual traditions

unto themselves, seen clearly in the well-preserved syncretic centers of New Orleans, Brazil,

Mexico and the Caribbean. Front and center in these traditions stands the practice of spirit

marriage.
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According to practitioners of Voodou, there is a protocol for spirit marriage, which

appears to be fairly similar to the protocol for Faery Seership marriage:

1. Contact is initiated by a Spirit in a dream or visionary state

2. A relationship is built
3. The Spirit proposes marriage and the human accepts
4. A ceremony/ritual is performed during which a human stand-in is possessed by the Spirit
to be married
5. Marriage vows are taken and rings are exchanged, this include a substantial dowry/
offering to the Spirit
6. The human spouse is then expected to set aside a night, anywhere from one night a month
to three nights a week, where he/she will commune with his/her Spirit spouse. On that
evening they are frequently visited by the Spirit husband/wife in dreams that may have
sexual content or which may involve more platonic counsel and advice.
7. Violation of the wedding vows is seen as dangerous, and Spirit partners often show their
displeasure if you ignore them, just like a real spouse would. This is a life-long
commitment. (Filan, 2004)

In 1972 the Anthropologist Serge Bramly spent time in a Brazilian terreiro studying the

practices and teachings of Macumba Mother of the Gods, Maria-Jos. There he witnessed and

participated in the initiation practices of Macumba, learning how priests and priestesses are

called, purified and ordained. The six month initiation of a priest(ess) culminates in the marriage

ceremony of the initiate to his/her master of the head, the God or Goddess whom the medium

will not only marry but channel in ritual. Bramlys work (1975) is a unique and insightful

account of conversations with Maria-Jos over the span of a year and the attempt to understand

and honor this tradition through his Western lens.

Asian Traditions

The Minghun Ghost marriage of China. The Minghun, or Ghost marriage, in the

Chinese tradition, is also a form of spirit marriage. It is a marriage in which one or both parties
 When God Had Sex 16

are deceased. Because in traditional Asian culture an elder sibling must be married before

younger ones are allowed to marry, this practice on the surface seems to serve a practical means

through which younger siblings can marry first - just marry the elder sibling off to a ghost!

However, on closer inspection, it becomes clear that deeper relationships can be cultivated and

formed with a spirit partner.

Anthropologist Marjorie Topley (1956) reports that often the spirit of a deceased son or

daughter will contact their family members and request a marriage. In the case of one family, the

deceased 14 year old son found a suitable deceased girl in a neighboring village and in a dream

came to his mother to request that a marriage be performed for them. Rather than dismissing

these practices as superstition or convenience, I believe they allude to a Chinese form of spirit

marriage understood within the context of ancestor worship.

A South Indian God. Finally, a South Indian God, Paandi Muneeswarar, has enjoyed

quite a following of female devotees, all who fall into ecstatic convulsions when in proximity to

his sacred mountain, and many whom seek Paandis assistance in fertility. For her Ph.D.

dissertation UCSC graduate, Gillian Goslinga (2006), did an ethnographic study of these

devotees and the reports of virgin birth and spirit possession that tend to accompany Paandis

presence. After living in South India for a number of years, she cautions against the Western

tendency to take reports of extraordinary experience and classify them through anthropological

or psychological agendas. The implication is that to do so we are stripping the text from its true

and deeper meaning within that culture and projecting our own bias onto experiences that are

understood within their cultural context as sacred and devotional practices.

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Transpersonal Interpretations

As I was researching this paper I realized that I was less interested in exploring the

negative psychological interpretations of spirit marriage (e.g. madness, psychosis, schizophrenia,

delusion, etc) as these are perhaps the most common Western psychological understanding of

this phenomena. That is not to say that all spirit marriage phenomena should be viewed as

outside the possibility of DSM classification, but rather that I am very conscious of the use of

clinical diagnosis as way to explain away that which we do not understand. So in service to this

topic as spiritual and mystical practice, as well as to narrow the scope of my research, I primarily

sought psychological sources that would offer a non-pathological or transpersonal perspective of

spirit marriage.

Felt Sense

Who and what they are, and how they seem to appear, are not always the same. When
you work with any spiritual contact, it is the sense of what they feel like that is of more
significance to us as humans than the visual appearance. (Stewart, 2006)

People report that the experience is unusually vivid and authentic, and there is no
confusion about the [spirit] having an identity that is quite independent of the person who
envisions itThe person who has a truly transpersonal experience with a [spirit]
presence usually resists any efforts to assign symbolic meanings to the experience; it is
what it is...They have extraordinary characteristics... They radiate unusual energy...and
may even manifest by alternating between taking animal and human form. (Grof, 1992)

So how can one tell if they are having an encounter with a spirit or if they are just

hallucinating a good time? The answer to that is not an easy one. Generally speaking, and

according to Grofs research (1992), a transpersonal experience with a spirit contact feels unique,

extraordinary, and distinct. In the shamanic tradition it often takes place in the dream time or in

ritual, and for practitioners of these traditions it is interpreted as such. For non-practitioners, it
 When God Had Sex 18

might at first be dismissed as fantasy. However, in the case of being wooed by a potential spirit

spouse that same being will repeatedly show up again and again, eventually causing the

individual to begin to question exactly where these fantasies are coming from and why. It is the

on-going cultivation of contact with the spirit lover that a felt sense knowing of when he or she is

making contact arises. As Stewart (2006) reports, the costume of the Spirit may change, but what

they feel like to their partner never alters. This is how contact is recognized.

Visitation dreams

Dreams have been associated with the spirit world...Visitation dreams seem to represent a
transpersonal reality only dimly perceived by humans...In visitation dreams, a deceased
person or an entity from a spiritual realm reportedly provides counsel or direction that the
dreamer finds of comfort or value...[they are] dreams in which the dreamer was greeted
by ancestors, spirits, or deities, and given messages or counsel by them. It is through
relationships that our spiritual path has its greatest opportunity to express itself...This
internal dream journey can actually serve as a sacred venture toward a communion with
God. (Krippner, Bogzaran, & Percia de Carvalho, 2002, pp. 147-155)

Contact within the dream state manifests similarly across all instances of spirit marriage.

Visitation dreams are a key element of knowing when you are being contacted, and similar to

Grofs felt sense, it is the knowing or feeling of a visitation dream that deems it as such.

Therefore, for people whose primary means for understanding and working with dreams is

through a psychological or archetypal lens, the presence of a Spirit contact in a dream can easily

be dismissed. Not surprisingly, it is the cultures that work with dreams as vehicles for contact

with the Spirit world that tend to acknowledge and cultivate spirit marriage.

Parapsychology. If we have learned one thing from science, it is that the atypical case,

the unusual incident, is the one that - if looked at seriously - teaches us about all the
 When God Had Sex 19

others (Leshan, 1966, p. 5). One of the most notable indications of being Spirit touched is the

awakening of what is commonly referred to as Extra-Sensory Perception (ESP). A loving

relationship with a Spirit, be it a Faery, an Ancestor or a God, is accompanied by extraordinary

experiences from telepathy to precognitive dreams to clairvoyance. Parapsychologists have been

examining and validating this phenomena for over a century, but what perhaps remains to be

explored is the connection between spirit marriages and parapsychological talent. Foxwood

(2007) details the primary gifts given to humans who walk with a Spirit. They include psychic

abilities, prophetic abilities, the ability to bless or curse, mediation of healing, shape shifting and

enchantment, all are reported shamanic activities, and many fall within the study of ESP. I

suggest that the practitioners of spirit marriage are a ripe audience for parapsychological study,

and similarly, those experiencing ESP might benefit from learning more about shamanic ways of

working with non-ordinary entities.

Divine Union

The image of God as lover is ancient, and it permeates all religious traditions. Ecstatics
revel in the imagery of sexual love because no other human experience reflects so
accurately the nature of what transpires between the soul and God in the secret chambers
of the heart. Since the dawn of history, mystics have celebrated this love affair between
the transcendent Spirit and the incarnate human soul. (Bonheim, 2001, p. 16)

In her essay, The Sexual Mystic: Embodied Spirituality, Dorothy Donnelly (1982)

makes the argument that making love with God is a Feminist statement. Patriarchal religion has

taken God out of the bedroom and pathologized our longing for ecstatic sexual union. For the

feminist mystic...whose experiences were so often denigrated or ridiculed by male directors or

theologians...she discovered in Gods lovemaking that the embrace of Gods unifying love was
 When God Had Sex 20

not better expressed in the act of human love. Human love turned out to be the copy! Mystic,

unitive love, the original! And that love was eminently cognitive as well as emotional. (1982)

To make love to Spirit is to reconnect to our bodies in a way that vitalizes them, making

them temples of divine awakening. The love we experience for God...must happen in a sexual

way by dint of the fact that we love embodied. The love of God manifest in our spirituality is

influenced and shaped by our sexuality in turn. (1982) If we are open to working with traditions

that embrace the divine union of humanity with God, then sexual union between the two realms

is an inevitable and necessary part of the alchemy of embodied spirituality.

Co-Creative Consciousness

As the medieval German mystic Meister Eckhart pointed out...All who make love with
Spirit will conceive and become pregnant with an otherworldly joy. They will nurture a
pure, innocent, and unsullied spirit that radiates divine love into the world, and they will
give birth to acts of compassion and beauty. (Bonheim, 2001, p. 23)

From divine union, then, we move into the state of co-creative consciousness. We need

each other. We do what they cannot, and they do what we cannot. (Stewart, 2009) Together we

can achieve so much more than our separate selves. Combined, whether in collaboration or

conjugal bliss, when humans reach beyond their finite sense of self and expand to embrace the

realms of consciousness out beyond the reaches of matter and time, an awakening of mystical

forces happen, forces that are inter-dependent and inter-penetrating. No longer are we limited by

our five senses, by facts, figures, or rational knowing. We are quickened by the presence of the

divine other which hastens us to let go of our mind nature and open to receive the influx of

ecstatic anointing, the energy of evolutionary change.

 When God Had Sex 21

Reaching out, or perhaps reaching in, to the in-dwelling of the Spirit, empowers us to

move beyond our previously held beliefs about reality, and encourages us to look with new eyes

at the horizon of possibility. The world around us becomes animate with a myriad of mysteries

just waiting to be touched. By taking a literal approach to the existence of Spirit beings, we

empower the world around us to embody its own mystery, to live beyond us, out beyond the field

of our bounded knowing. We sacralize all of existence, from the tiniest atom to the largest tree.

We are no longer the center, or master, of creation but its beloved, waiting to be wooed by its

ardent desire for our embrace.

Delimitations of the work

I realize that I have primarily focused on the generative aspects of Spirit contact, as it

relates to the health and wellbeing of human - divine relations. It should be noted that there are

other perhaps more questionable kinds of Spirits, the kind that have recently been reported in

studies on sleep paralysis and the visitation of less-kind Spirits, the night hag being a common

motif (Solomonova, Frantova, Nielsen, 2010). Although these experiences are worth

investigating, I feel that they primarily relate to the subject of Spirit Marriage in that they caution

us to learn how to discern the Spirits we are working with before we enter into any kind of

marriage contract.

A note on Polyamory. In Haitian Voodou, polyamory is the rule among the loa (Gods

and Goddesses): Erzulie Freda is wife to Damballah, Ogou and the sea king Met Agwe, while the

God Ogou wears the rings of both Erzulie Freda and Erzulie Danto (Koleva, 2006). I believe that

to fully explore the topic of spirit marriage, one must also explore the practice and literature of

polyamory. Because this topic is also a hotly debated and often vilified practice, I believe that
 When God Had Sex 22

from a theoretical research perspective, using a post-Feminist/Queer methodology to question the

practice of traditional marriage, as well as an Indigenous methodology to critique the projection

of Western culture and religious values on the practice of polyamorous cultures is a very useful

lens through which to further discuss the topic of spirit marriage, sex with Spirits, and as a result,

polyamory, but is beyond the scope of this piece.

Final Thoughts

In the process of writing this paper I found myself at times stimulated to the point of

frantically trying to get down everything my mind has been weaving together over the past eight

years of experiential research, and at other times lost in a morass of longings and stirrings that I

could not quite articulate. This is a deeply personal topic. Something that at times has been

accompanied with ecstatic bliss and other times conscious shame. To claim this material as my

own has forced me to investigate my assumptions around normal, sane and real, and ultimately

to release myself to the flow of my daimon, that guide who tapped me on the shoulder so many

years ago and said, You. Here. Now.

It is then with great humility and reverence that I offer this as a work in progress, the

beginning of a larger conversation meant to stimulate, illuminate and, yes, perhaps irritate to the

point of passionate discussion. This is my attempt to write down what, up until now, I have had

great difficulty in admitting to in black and white. And so it is to all who long for grounded,

thoughtful and practical application of this oftentimes taboo material, that I dedicate my

research. May it bring greater harmony and conscious collaboration to all our relations.
 When God Had Sex 23

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