ABSTRACT
IT MIGHT SEEM AT FIRST somewhat surprising and not a little ironic that the period of the late nineteenth century-the Victorian era, with its rather restrictive attitudes toward the human body and sexuality-gave birth to a large body of literature on the subject of magia sexualis.1 The same period that saw the proliferation of medical manuals on deviant sexuality, such as Richard von Krafft-Ebing's Psychopathia Sexualis (1886), also saw the proliferation of a growing body of occult works on "affectional alchemy" and the mysteries of love as a profound source of spiritual power. However, as Michel Foucault and others have argued, the Victorian era was by no means simply an era of prudish repression and denial of sexuality; on the contrary, the late nineteenth century witnessed an unprecedented explosion of discourse about sex, which was now categorized, classified, and discussed in endless titillating detail (Anderson; Foucault 1978; Mason). A key part ofthis discourse on sexuality, I would suggest, was the new literature on sexual magic, which spread throughout America, England, and Europe from the mid-nineteenth century onward.
