Spirit Marriage: Intimate Relationships with Otherworldly Beings

474 Pages·2022·4.638 MB·English

by  Megan Rose

✶
This research is dedicated to Ida Craddock
and all who seek deeper contact with the
denizens of extraordinary reality.
SPIRIT MARRIAGE
“Megan Rose offers a well-researched path to meaningful, long-
term relationships in the unseen realm. This is the book to read if
you are interested in developing intimacy with spirits close to you
and being relationally well about it.”
PAVINI MORAY, PH.D., SEX AND RELATIONSHIP EDUCATOR,
FOUNDER OF WELLCELIUM, AND HOST OF THE BESPOKEN
BONES PODCAST
“Broadens our usual conceptions about romantic love to include the
dimension of the more-than-human. In tending and nourishing these
sacred connections we step into traditions long suppressed or
ignored but vital to our rounder sense of what it means to love and
be loved.”
CRAIG CHALQUIST, PH.D., AUTHOR OF
TERRAPSYCHOLOGICAL INQUIRY
“An inspired and inspiring exploration of the phenomenon of the
Hieros Gamos, and how it can contribute to the spiritual
regeneration of human life on Earth. Regardless of whether you
think you will ever enter into a spirit marriage—or are already in
one—you will find Rose’s book to be a heartfelt and deeply
engaging exploration of this widespread spiritual practice. Read it,
and prepare for new and compelling insights into the spiritual
destiny of humanity.”
BRUCE MACLENNAN, PH.D., AUTHOR OF THE WISDOM OF
HYPATIA
“Have you heard the call of the Beloved? You are not alone. Megan
Rose captures stories of people in loving relationships with spirits
and provides a road map to enter into a relationship for those who
have heard the call. She combines insights gained from these
interviews with her extensive academic and magical training to
arrive at a profound and nuanced understanding of the experience.
Spirit Marriage is that rare book that grants voice to what has been
hidden and encourages those who dare to follow the call to love.”
BRANDY WILLIAMS, AUTHOR OF PRACTICAL MAGIC FOR
BEGINNERS
“There is a certain amount of intimacy in all forms of spirit contact,
but for a small part of the community of practitioners the contact is
as deep as that of a beloved spouse. Spirit Marriage is the first book
to explore this phenomenon in depth. The book is particularly
valuable because it contains stories from the lives of beings engaged
in spirit marriages today.”
IVO DOMINGUEZ JR., AUTHOR OF THE FOUR ELEMENTS OF
THE WISE
“Megan Rose’s exploration of this widely practiced but little-known
phenomenon is illuminated with impeccable scholarship and a deep
intuition born of her own experiences in this area. I know of no finer
book on this important topic. It belongs in the library of anyone
seeking to understand the emerging possibilities of connection and
collaboration with allies in the realms of Spirit.”
DAVID SPANGLER, SPIRITUAL DIRECTOR OF THE LORIAN
ASSOCIATION AND AUTHOR OF APPRENTICED TO SPIRIT
“Spirit Marriage is not only a guidebook to forming bonded
relationships with Spirit, it is an invitation to awaken our own
spiritual potential.”
SALICROW, PSYCHIC MEDIUM AND AUTHOR OF THE PATH OF
ELEMENTAL WITCHCRAFT
“Megan Rose takes us on an engaging journey through the history
of spirit marriage, from its ancient roots to contemporary accounts
of its modern-day practitioners. An important and illuminating study
of a fascinating subject!”
VERE CHAPPELL, AUTHOR OF SEXUAL OUTLAW, EROTIC
MYSTIC
“It is through her embodiment of the three ‘keys’ of devotion,
discernment, and discipline that the book becomes a catalyst for the
reader’s own journey of divine or extraordinary embodiment. This
book will phenomenologically alter you.”
MONICA MODY, PH.D., POET, AUTHOR, AND ADJUNCT
PROFESSOR AT THE CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF INTEGRAL
STUDIES
“This is a book that deserves careful reading with an open mind, not
something to dismiss out of hand. It comes from the personal
experience of the author and is not a new viewpoint—relationships
between humans and other level beings have been recorded down
the ages. An interesting and thoughtprovoking book.”
DOLORES ASHCROFT-NOWICKI, AUTHOR OF THE RITUAL
MAGIC WORKBOOK AND THE SHINING PATHS
Acknowledgments
I am deeply grateful to the friends, colleagues, and family who have
supported the decades-long research that became this book. To Ryan
Indigo Warman and Jonathan Jay Levine, for your love, support, and
stalwart belief in me and my work. To Emily Shurr, for your friendship,
encouragement, and vision for this project as well as your keen editor’s eye.
To my coresearchers, for your openness and participation. To Orion
Foxwood, for your continued love, wisdom, and power. To my early
readers, Richard Power and Lillie Falco-Adkins, for your encouragement.
To Brandy Williams, for your insightful suggestions and practitioner’s eye.
To Rob Brezsny, for your belief in this work and timely connections. To
Richard Grossinger for championing this project. To the team at Inner
Traditions/Bear and Co. for your willingness to take on a first-time author
who was dead-set on writing a tome!
To the Albion 8 (Salicrow, Jewels Aradia, Pam Kimball, Henry Austin,
Dennis Loreman, JJ, and Indi), my compatriots in the wyrd, for holding the
container for me to go deep. To Lisa Christie, Craig Chalquist, David
Spangler, Marguerite Rigoglioso, and Randy Conner for your skillful
guidance and academic excellence which lay the foundation for this book.
To Monica Mody, S. K. Thoth, Lila Angelique, and the Entheosis Institute,
for your love and brilliance. To the House of Brigh, the Kali kula, Janice
Craig, Elizabeth Bast, Cynthia Morrow, Ro Loughran, Patti O’Luanaigh,
the Mystic Midway, the Reclaiming Community, the San Francisco
Theosophical Society, the Seven Sisters Mystery School, the Quimera
Tribe, the Temple of Awakening Divinity, the Temples of Ma’at and Thoth-
Hathor, the Santa Cruz Wisdom Intensive, the Boat of Soul, the Yoga Kula
Berkeley, the Damanhur Federation, and the Findhorn Foundation for
teaching, training, and community-building with me.
Contents
Acknowledgments
Foreword by Stephen Harrod Buhner
Preface
Introduction. Feminizing and Decolonizing Our Perceptions of
Reality
Part 1. The Past
Chapter 1. Hidden in Plain Sight
Chapter 2. History, Folklore, and Religion
Chapter 3. The Occult and Psycho-Spiritual Practice
Part 2. The Present
Chapter 4. Contemporary Stories of Spirit Marriage
Chapter 5. The Faery Seer
Chapter 6. The Shakta Tantric
Chapter 7. The West African Shrine Keeper
Chapter 8. The Washington, DC, Witchdoctor
Chapter 9. The New Orleans Voodoo Mambo
Chapter 10. The Haitian Vodou Practitioners
Chapter 11. The Ceremonial Magician
Chapter 12. The Erotic Mystic: Journey to My Divine Self
Chapter 13. The Erotic Mystic: Encounters with My Faery
Beloved