Kabbalah and Sex Magic: A Mythical-Ritual Genealogy (Magic in History Series) by Marla Segol (The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2021) Paperback Edition

Marla Segol. Kabbalah and Sex Magic: A Mythical-Ritual Genealogy, Magic in History. University Park, PA: The Pennsylania State University Press, 2021. Paperback edition. 210 pages.  Condition: New Description from the publisher:  In this provocative book, Marla Segol explores the development of the kabbalistic cosmology underlying Western sex magic. Drawing extensively on Jewish myth and ritual, Segol tells the powerful story of the relationship between the divine and the human body in late antique Jewish esotericism, in medieval kabbalah, and in New Age ritual practice. Kabbalah and Sex Magic traces the evolution of a Hebrew microcosm that models the powerful interaction of human and divine bodies at the heart of both kabbalah and some forms of Western sex magic. Focusing on Jewish esoteric and medical sources from the fifth to the twelfth century from Byzantium, Persia, Iberia, and southern France, Segol argues that in its fully developed medieval form, kabbalah operated by ritualizi