John Maxwell Taylor - Eros Ascending: The Life-Transforming Power of Sacred Sexuality

ALSO BY JOHN MAXWELL TAYLOR

The Power of I Am: Creating a New World of
Enlightened Personal Interaction

Copyright 2009 by John Maxwell Taylor. All rights reserved. No portion of this book, except for brief review, may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwisewithout the written permission of the publisher. For information contact North Atlantic Books.

Published by John Maxwell Taylor and Frog Books
Frog Books publications are distributed by
North Atlantic Books
P.O. Box 12327
Berkeley, California 94712

Cover photography by Randy Platt
Cover design by Suzanne Albertson

Eros Ascending: The Life-Transforming Power of Sacred Sexuality is sponsored by the Society for the Study of Native Arts and Sciences, a nonprofit educational corporation whose goals are to develop an educational and cross-cultural perspective linking various scientific, social, and artistic fields; to nurture a holistic view of arts, sciences, humanities, and healing; and to publish and distribute literature on the relationship of mind, body, and nature.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Taylor, John Maxwell, 1942
Eros ascending: the life-transforming power of sacred sexuality / John Maxwell Taylor.
p. cm.
Summary: Drawing on Eastern philosophies, Tantric and Taoist sexual practices, and modern psychology, author John Maxwell Taylor explains how healthy sexuality can help lead to more meaningful and spiritual love.Provided by publisher.
eISBN: 978-1-58394-426-4
1. SexReligious aspects. I. Title.
BL65.S4T39 2008
306.7dc22

2008036849

v3.1

For Emily
Thank you for growing so beautifully with me.

Special thanks to:

My son Jason and daughter Michelle, Betse Bernstein, Ginny Nadler, Morgana Taylor, Mare Simone, Lisa Joy Riordan, Linda Garrett, Eric Anderson, Jessica Sevey, and the staff at North Atlantic Books, and Emilys bridesmaidsthe wonderful women who have revealed to me the meaning of love.

Gordon Thomas, for the diagrams

Kristen Boyesen, for the workshop photo montage

I n my twenty-five years as a therapist I have consistently observed that much personal unhappiness is caused by a failure to integrate the sexual, spiritual, and emotional aspects of human nature. But in the last fifty years ancient esoteric ways of spiritualizing our erotic impulses have migrated from the East to the West. The Vedas state that when darkness increases, when human confusion is great and righteousness declines, the truth incarnates to bring light to the world. Golden lotuses of information about sacred sexuality are now blossoming on the surface of the Western hemisphere of the collective unconscious. By embracing time-tested Eastern sexual practices and adapting them to the evolutionary needs of the twenty-first century, men and women all over the world are directly experiencing sexual and spiritual ecstasy as aspects of one and the same thing.

On the cover of this book we see Eros cradling Psyche in his arms as they fly upward into the golden light of truth. Traditionally we think of Psyche (the Soul) as being somehow up line from our mortal selves, a divine force with which we need to connect for the salvation of the human self. But in this illustration we see the position reversed. Eros, the sexual archetype, is in the upper position, and is carrying the soul up into the heavenly dimensions. This image is important because it frees us from the demonization of erotic selves by the Western Church and the terrible sense of guilt that has played such a large part in creating the psychotic sexuality that plagues so much of the world.

John Maxwell Taylor has been practicing Taoist and Tantric sexual methods for the transformation of consciousness for more than twenty-five years. In the laboratory of his own personal experience he has been able to create a marriage between Psyche and Eros that Carl Jung would recognize as a result of an alchemical inner process. When I first met John he was touring internationally with his award-winning twenty-character, one-man play