Religion and Lust, by James Weir Jr.

In Religion and Lust author, James Weir Jr. (1856–1906), investigates the origins of religious feeling, the once world wide spread fertility worship and the physical correlation of religious emotion and sexual desire. This publication is a revised edition of the 1905 version. It is unique because a major part of the work is filled with a colourful collection of religious or semi-religious, sexual rites, once practiced all over the globe, connecting the most “primitive” tribe to the most “civilized” nations. Some of them are really bizarre, like an extremely exhausting Pueblo masturbation-ritual, or the poring of wine over the phallus of a saint in France to make a medicine against barrenness.

The volume is a deep source of fertility gods and hence it provides valuable data for pagans, occultists and Wiccans. The final section of the study deals with early 20th century sexology, gender-issues and related pathology, as studied in those days, and often in correlation with religious dogmas or taboos.