Western Tantra or Messalian heresy?

I bought this book mostly by mistake. Arthur Versluis is an American scholar specializing in esotericism. He probably believes in the stuff himself.

"The Secret History of Western Sexual Mysticism" is a general introduction to various esoteric groups in Europe and the United States which used sex to induce spiritual experiences (sex magic isn't included).

The author makes a broad sweep, from the Dionysiac orgies of ancient Greece to the writings of Alan Watts during the U.S. hippie era. Many of the sexually oriented mystics turn out to be "Christian" heretics, including the Messalians, the Carpocratians and the Cathars.

The author has a somewhat annoying tendency to depict the heresies as the real thing, yet he is forced to concede that Paul wasn't a sexual mystic... One chapter deals with 19th century American cults, including the Oneida community. Somewhat surprisingly, Versluis says nothing about the pseudo-sexual mysticism within "official" Christianity such as Bernhard of Clairvaux. Why not, I wonder?

The book ends with what amounts to a programmatic declaration from the author. He interprets sexual mysticism as a way of connecting with Nature, believes that men and women were equal in the sex-mystical groups, and that their goal was a special kind of gnosis and transcendence. In effect, the traditions described by Versluis are a kind of Western Tantrism. There, the book ends and the readers are left wondering what will come next...