When God Had Sex:

A discussion of spirit marriage in ecstatic spirituality

What is Spirit Marriage?

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, 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.

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. - A Marriage, When the Spirit Moves Them, NY Times, 2/19/2006
What do I mean by Spirit?

Deities: God, Goddesses

Angels, The Watchers (Grigori)

Faery/Sidhe

Djinn

Elementals: Gnomes, Undines, Salamanders, Sylphs

Ancestors, Ghosts

Demons (Congress cum daimones): Incubus, Succubus, Vampires, the Devil

Aliens

Plant spirits
How does it happen?

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

2. A relationship is built (Note: According to some traditions, many relationships never go beyond this point)

3. The Spirit proposes marriage and the human accepts

4. A ceremony/ritual is performed during which a stand-in takes the place of the Spirit to be married

5. Marriage vows are taken and rings are exchanged, this include a 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!

-From I Married a Lwa: The Sacred Nuptials of Haitian Voodou by Kevin Filan
African Shamanism:
Dagara Tribe of Burkina Fasso
First contact often happens via sexual encounters in the dreamtime
Spiritual polyamory: usually in a human marriage the husband and
wife will each have a spirit partner and the spirit partners are often
married to each other in the otherworld
Can create whole spirit families with a spirit spouse
Spirit houses are created to house their physical bodies
African Diaspora Traditions

Brazil: Macumbe, Umbanda,

Condomble

Carribean, Mexico: Santeria (Lukumi)

Haiti: Voodou

U.S.: Voodoo, Hoodoo, Conjure

Burkina Fasso
Celtic Shamanism:
Faery Seership
The true Faery marriage requires immense work and
transformation of the self on every level and usually takes
7 - 9 years at a minimum to achieve. Most seekers are
not suited to the marriage level of relationship.Very few
ever make it to this stage.

The 6 Stages of Faery Contact

1. The Contact

2. The Cousin

3. The Co-Walker

4. The Companion/Lover

5. The Consort/Marriage

6. The Co-creation of Other

Noteworthy encounters

Ida Craddock:
Heavenly Bridegrooms
...one of the most remarkable human
documents ever produced...The
authoress of the manuscript claims that
she was the wife of an angel. She
expounds at the greatest length the
philosophy connected with this thesis.
Her learning is enormous...This book
is of incalculable value to every
student of occult matters. No Magick
library is complete without it.

-Aleister Crowley
Noteworthy encounters

Ecstasy of St. Teresa

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.
-Autobiography of St. Teresa of Avila
Noteworthy encounters

Paganism: Eros & Psyche, Zeus &

everybody

Witchcraft: Witches Sabbath, Folkloric

magic

Abrahamic traditions: Genesis and

Enochian accounts

Theosophy/Spiritism: Mediumship,
Possession

Western Hermeticism: Sex Magick,

Sexual Alchemy
Techniques
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. - R.J. 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. - Stan
Grof, 1992
Techniques

Visitation dreams
Dreams have been associated with the spirit world...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.

- Extraordinary Dreams and How to Work with Them

Techniques
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.

- The Hunger for Ecstasy

Techniques

Sex Magick & Sexual Alchemy

The ultimate goal is to circulate sexual
energy up into spiritual energy and
then back down into the physical
realm, thereby re-vitalizing and
empowering the practitioner(s) and
his/her community. This is done
through visualizations and sacred sex
practices done solo, with a partner,
partners or with a spirit.
So what?
I do believe in fairies, I do, I do!
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.

- Donald Tyson, Sexual Alchemy

So what?
Evolutionary Consciousness

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.

- Meister Eckhart, Christian Mystic

We need each other. We do what they cannot, and they do what we cannot.

- Orion Foxwood, Faery Seer