The Mechanics Of Magick: The Ecstatic Body Ep 1: Before the Brain Scan | How Human Beings Explained Orgasm Before Modern Neuroscience
The Occult RejectsShow Notes
Links For The Occult Rejects https://linktr.ee/theoccultrejects
Occult Research Institute https://www.occultresearchinstitute.org/
Substack https://substack.com/@theoccultrejects?r=7auau0&utm_campaign=profile&utm_medium=profile-page
Cash App https://cash.app/$theoccultrejects
Venmo @TheOccultRejects
Buy Me A Coffee buymeacoffee.com/TheOccultRejects
Patreon https://www.patreon.com/TheOccultRejects
BIBLIOGRAPHY Episode One: Before the Brain Scan Modern Sexual Response and Neuroscientific Framing Basson, Rosemary. “Human Sex-Response Cycles.” Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy 27, no. 1 (2001): 33–43. Georgiadis, Janniko R. “Doing It… Wild? On the Role of the Cerebral Cortex in Human Sexual Activity.” Socioaffective Neuroscience & Psychology 2 (2012): 17337. Georgiadis, Janniko R., and A. A. T. Simone Reinders. “Men versus Women on Sexual Brain Function: Prominent Differences during Tactile Genital Stimulation, but Not during Orgasm.” Human Brain Mapping 30, no. 10 (2009): 3089–3101. Kaplan, Helen Singer. The New Sex Therapy: Active Treatment of Sexual Dysfunctions. New York: Brunner/Mazel, 1974. Masters, William H., and Virginia E. Johnson. Human Sexual Response. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1966. Stoléru, Serge, Virginie Fonteille, Christelle Cornélis, Christian Joyal, and Virginie Moulier. “Functional Neuroimaging Studies of Sexual Arousal and Orgasm in Healthy Men and Women: A Review and Meta-Analysis.” Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews 36, no. 6 (2012): 1481–1509. Wise, Nan J., Eleni Frangos, and Barry R. Komisaruk. “Brain Activity Unique to Orgasm in Women: An fMRI Analysis.” Journal of Sexual Medicine 14, no. 11 (2017): 1380–1391. Ancient Egyptian Primary Sources and Textual Collections Allen, James P., trans. The Ancient Egyptian Pyramid Texts. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2005. Faulkner, Raymond O., trans. The Ancient Egyptian Coffin Texts. 3 vols. Warminster, UK: Aris & Phillips, 1973–1978. Lichtheim, Miriam. Ancient Egyptian Literature. Vol. 1, The Old and Middle Kingdoms. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973. Lichtheim, Miriam. Ancient Egyptian Literature. Vol. 2, The New Kingdom. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976. University College London. “Kahun Medical Papyrus.” Digital Egypt for Universities. Petrie Museum of Egyptian and Sudanese Archaeology. Accessed July 21, 2026. University College London. “Healing Papyri from Lahun.” Digital Egypt for Universities. Petrie Museum of Egyptian and Sudanese Archaeology. Accessed July 21, 2026. Ancient Egyptian Religion, Sexuality, and Medicine Allen, James P. Genesis in Egypt: The Philosophy of Ancient Egyptian Creation Accounts. Yale Egyptological Studies 2. New Haven, CT: Yale Egyptological Seminar, 1988. Assmann, Jan. The Search for God in Ancient Egypt. Translated by David Lorton. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2001. Graves-Brown, Carolyn. Dancing for Hathor: Women in Ancient Egypt. London: Continuum, 2010. Hornung, Erik. Conceptions of God in Ancient Egypt: The One and the Many. Translated by John Baines. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1982. Manniche, Lise. Sexual Life in Ancient Egypt. London: KPI, 1987. Matić, Uroš. “Sexuality in Ancient Egypt: Pleasures, Desires, Norms, and Representations.” In The Cambridge World History of Sexualities, vol. 2, edited by Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks and Mathew Kuefler, 22–42. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2024. Nunn, John F. Ancient Egyptian Medicine. London: British Museum Press, 1996. Pinch, Geraldine. Egyptian Mythology: A Guide to the Gods, Goddesses, and Traditions of Ancient Egypt. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. Ritner, Robert Kriech. The Mechanics of Ancient Egyptian Magical Practice. Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilization 54. Chicago: Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, 1993. Robins, Gay. Women in Ancient Egypt. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993. Smith, Mark. Following Osiris: Perspectives on the Osirian Afterlife from Four Mille
More from The Occult Rejects
Links For The Occult Rejects https://linktr.ee/theoccultrejects
Links For The Occult Rejects https://linktr.ee/theoccultrejects
Links For The Occult Rejects https://linktr.ee/theoccultrejects
Links For The Occult Rejects https://linktr.ee/theoccultrejects Occult Research Institute https://www.occultresearchinstitute.org/ Substack https://substack.com/@theoccultrejects?r=7auau0&utm_campaign=profile&utm_medium=profile-page Cash App https://cash.app/$theoccultrejects Venmo @TheOccultRejects Patreon https://www.patreon.com/TheOccultRejects PART TWO BIBLIOGRAPHY Christianity Created the Western Occult Primary Sources Paracelsus. Paracelsus: Essential Theoretical Writings. Edited and translated by Andrew Weeks. Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2008. This is the edition I’d use for Paracelsus rather than modern occult compilations; it gives the German and English texts with extensive scholarly commentary. Wellcome Collection Dee, John. John Dee’s Five Books of Mystery: Original Sourcebook of Enochian Magic. Edited and translated by Joseph H. Peterson. Weiser Books, 2003. A modern edition of Dee’s Mysteriorum Libri Quinque and one of the most useful primary-source collections for the early angelic sessions. Red Wheel/Weiser Böhme, Jakob. Aurora: The Day-Spring, or Dawning of the Day in the Orient. Originally written 1612. Any scholarly or reliable critical edition can be used for the primary material concerning Böhme’s early cosmology. Böhme, Jakob. The Way to Christ. Useful for the explicitly Christian and regenerative side of Böhme rather than treating him merely as an abstract occult cosmologist. Swedenborg, Emanuel. Heaven and Hell. Originally published in Latin in 1758. I’d use the New Century Edition, translated by George F. Dole, because it includes scholarly historical material and annotations. Swedenborg Foundation Saint-Martin, Louis-Claude de. Theosophic Correspondence between Louis Claude de Saint-Martin and Kirchberger, Baron de Liebistorf. Translated by Edward Burton Penny. Especially useful for documenting Saint-Martin’s engagement with Böhme and his increasingly interior understanding of Christian theosophy. Theosophy Society Eckartshausen, Karl von. The Cloud Upon the Sanctuary. The A. E. Waite translation is historically useful because Waite’s transmission of the text is itself part of its later occult reception. Lévi, Éliphas. Transcendental Magic: Its Doctrine and Ritual. Translated by A. E. Waite. Important as a primary document for Lévi’s synthesis of Kabbalah, ceremonial magic, Christian symbolism, priesthood, polarity, and magical theory. Lévi, Éliphas. The History of Magic. Again, use this as a primary source for what Lévi believed, not as reliable modern historiography. Waite, Arthur Edward. The Hidden Church of the Holy Graal. Essential for understanding the specifically Christian-mystical dimension of Waite’s esotericism. Waite, Arthur Edward. The Secret Tradition in Freemasonry. Useful for Waite’s conception of mystical initiation and the “secret tradition.” Fortune, Dion. The Mystical Qabalah. First published 1935. Essential primary material for Fortune’s attempt to interpret Qabalah through the twentieth-century Western Mystery Tradition. Medieval Grimoires, Ritual Magic & Angelic Practice This is the group I would rely upon heavily for the material we added concerning Christian prayer, exorcism, angels, grimoires, consecration, and the unstable boundary between religion and magic. Kieckhefer, Richard. Forbidden Rites: A Necromancer’s Manual of the Fifteenth Century. Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997/1998. Absolutely essential. Kieckhefer edits and analyzes a real medieval magical manuscript containing prayers, conjurations, astral operations, spirit catalogues, and ceremonies for consecrating magical books. PSU Press Fanger, Claire, ed. Invoking Angels: Theurgic Ideas and Practices, Thirteenth to Sixteenth Centuries. Pennsylvania State University Press, 2012. One of the strongest sources for our thesis because it specifically examines medieval and Renaissance attempts to obtain knowledge or supernatural assistance through angels. PSU Press Fanger, Claire. Rewriting Magic: An Exegesis of the Vis
Links For The Occult Rejects https://linktr.ee/theoccultrejects Occult Research Institute https://www.occultresearchinstitute.org/ Substack https://substack.com/@theoccultrejects?r=7auau0&utm_campaign=profile&utm_medium=profile-page Cash App https://cash.app/$theoccultrejects Venmo @TheOccultRejects Patreon https://www.patreon.com/TheOccultRejects