Collected Articles: Forbidden Eroticism, Sacred Union, and the Hidden Gospel of Sexual Mysticism
Ida Craddock’s Collected Articles (1894–1902) stand as one of the most radical, persecuted, and visionary declarations of sacred sexuality ever committed to the printed word. In an age that silenced women, censored erotica, and criminalized sex education, Craddock boldly preached that sexual union was a divine sacrament, a mystical path to enlightenment, and a portal to spiritual power.These writings—which led to her arrest, surveillance, and eventual suicide—reveal a theology of eroticism so dangerous to Victorian sensibilities that she was deemed insane by the courts and targeted by postal censors like Anthony Comstock. Yet her work has survived, cherished in occult and feminist circles as a gospel of sacred union and spiritual reclamation.Core essays include:"The Wedding Night" – a revolutionary guide to conscious, respectful, and spiritually attuned sexual initiation"Right Marital Living" – a treatise on sexual self-control, the withholding of seminal emission, and the practice of divine coition rooted in yogic and occult principles"Heavenly Bridegrooms" – Craddock’s intimate revelations of sexual encounters with angelic beings, framed not as madness, but as mystical marriageLetters to Her Mother and the Public on the Day of Her Suicide – haunting, lucid, and unapologetically defiant, revealing the spiritual war she fought against ignorance and repressionCraddock viewed sex not as sin, but as a mystical technology—a path to divine union, transformation, and transcendence. Drawing on Eastern Tantra, Christian mysticism, and occult sciences, she taught that each sexual act was a sacred ritual, and that God must be consciously included in the marital embrace as the third partner.Key concepts covered in her writings:The suppression and transmutation of sexual energy for spiritual powerThe danger of lust divorced from love, and the importance of mutual reverenceA defense of women’s sexual autonomy, consent, and spiritual agencyThe psychology and ethics of erotic relationships, including guidance for lovers, married couples, and mystics alikeA vision of sex as prayer, orgasm as enlightenment, and marriage as initiationFar from obscenity, Craddock’s teachings are a mystical reclamation of the body, the senses, and divine eros. Her persecution by moral crusaders only proves how potent and transformative her work truly was—and still is. These writings serve as forbidden scripture for those seeking union not just with a lover, but with the Divine itself.For readers of occult literature, feminist theology, Tantra, Theosophy, and sacred sexuality, Ida Craddock is a martyred prophet whose writings offer a radical, healing vision of intimacy as a doorway to the divine.