Last week’s issue of Massimo Introvigne’s Bitter Winter Magazine carried a review of ….’s review of Massimo’s new book, Sacred Eroticism: Tantra and Eros in the Movement for Spiritual Integration into the Absolute (MISA). An excerpt reads:
“Introvigne warns the reader since the introductory part of the volume: ‘Irrespectively of how you call it, sacred eroticism is rarely popular with the media.’ The immediate reaction to the inclusion of sexuality or eroticism in the theory and practice of a religious or esoteric group is hostility towards that movement, its leader, its members. We can easily expect to see the erotic components of the group associated with sexual abuses of which the leaders are accused, or with the notion of “deviance.”
“Introvigne, who does not use the derogatory word ‘cult’ and prefers to call groups such as MISA ‘new religious movements,’ as most scholars in his field do, ‘fully believe[s] that sexual abuse should not be condoned under any pretext. Religious liberty is not a valid defense for rapists, and perpetrators should be prosecuted and punished,’ he writes. On the other hand, he finds media reconstructions of religious movements engaged in sacred eroticism as ‘deviant cults’ quite simplistic. Media and the public opinion may tend to perceive erotic rituals as invariably abusive and criminal. Introvigne does not discard the possibility that, in some groups, abuse may occur. However, he challenges the discursive strategy of the media that label religious or esoteric movements that include in their doctrines teachings on eroticism as necessarily ‘deviant,’ ‘criminal,’ or ‘abusive’”
https://bitterwinter.org/misa-and-gregorian-bivolaru-by-massimo-introvigne/
