Sacred Eroticism explicates and explores, in rigorous sociological terms, the culture, history, and practices of the Romanian-based new religion, the Movement for Spiritual Integration into the Absolute (MISA). Massimo Introvigne situates his study within the growing body of literature on sacred eroticism that exists at the intersection of the study of new religious movements and western esotericism, allowing MISA’s own self-understanding to complicate older terms like “sex magic.” He offers the category of “radical aesthetics” based on a mixture of “Eastern spiritualities (Tantrism), Western esotericism, and a certain tradition in modernist art” (10). Tantrism, he maintains, is “used as a tool for collapsing the boundaries between religion, art, and daily life” including eroticism and the human body (10). The tension with society that emerges from the integration of the erotic and the spiritual in MISA forms the backbone of Introvigne’s study.

The book begins with a brief overview of sacred...

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