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A Return to Eros: The Radical Experience of Being Fully Alive
Discover the hidden relationship between Erotic, the Sexual and the Sacred.
None of the four old philosophies about sex are sufficient to inspire us or even hold us in our sexuality. Sex is not merely negative or positive. Sex is not just neutral, nor is it merely sacred because it creates babies.
Erotic Mystics from the hidden tradition of Solomon's temple taught a secret doctrine. Sex is the source of all wisdom. Sex is an expression of the erotic impulse of existence itself alive in us-the yearning for contact, pleasure, and aliveness. The Sexual however is not the sum total of the erotic. Rather, the sexual models the Erotic. The sexual teaches us how to live an Erotic life in all dimension of our existence.
It is these secret doctrines that were later taught by Mary Magdalene and that sparked excitement around bestselling novels such as The Da Vinci Code .
Deep understanding of the sexual becomes the portal to accessing aliveness in every dimension of our reality. This realization demands that you live sexually without shame and shows you how to re-eroticize all areas of your life.
A Return to On Sex, Love, and Eroticism in Every Dimension of Life , from Drs. Marc Gafni and Kristina Kincaid, reveals the radical secret tenets of relationship between the sexual, the erotic, and the holy. They reveal what Eros actually means and share the ten core qualities of the Erotic, which are modeled by the sexual. These include being on the inside, fullness of presence, yearning, allurement, fantasy, surrender, creativity, pleasure, and more.
A Return to Eros shows why these qualities of the erotic modeled by the sexual are actually the same core qualities of the sacred. The relationship between the sexual and the erotic becomes clear, teaching you how to live an erotically suffused existence charged with purpose, potency and power.
To be an Outrageous Lover--not just in sex but also in all facets of your life--you must listen deeply to the simple yet elegant whisperings of the sexual. This book will forever transform your understanding and experience of love, sex, and Eros.
None of the four old philosophies about sex are sufficient to inspire us or even hold us in our sexuality. Sex is not merely negative or positive. Sex is not just neutral, nor is it merely sacred because it creates babies.
Erotic Mystics from the hidden tradition of Solomon's temple taught a secret doctrine. Sex is the source of all wisdom. Sex is an expression of the erotic impulse of existence itself alive in us-the yearning for contact, pleasure, and aliveness. The Sexual however is not the sum total of the erotic. Rather, the sexual models the Erotic. The sexual teaches us how to live an Erotic life in all dimension of our existence.
It is these secret doctrines that were later taught by Mary Magdalene and that sparked excitement around bestselling novels such as The Da Vinci Code .
Deep understanding of the sexual becomes the portal to accessing aliveness in every dimension of our reality. This realization demands that you live sexually without shame and shows you how to re-eroticize all areas of your life.
A Return to On Sex, Love, and Eroticism in Every Dimension of Life , from Drs. Marc Gafni and Kristina Kincaid, reveals the radical secret tenets of relationship between the sexual, the erotic, and the holy. They reveal what Eros actually means and share the ten core qualities of the Erotic, which are modeled by the sexual. These include being on the inside, fullness of presence, yearning, allurement, fantasy, surrender, creativity, pleasure, and more.
A Return to Eros shows why these qualities of the erotic modeled by the sexual are actually the same core qualities of the sacred. The relationship between the sexual and the erotic becomes clear, teaching you how to live an erotically suffused existence charged with purpose, potency and power.
To be an Outrageous Lover--not just in sex but also in all facets of your life--you must listen deeply to the simple yet elegant whisperings of the sexual. This book will forever transform your understanding and experience of love, sex, and Eros.
433 pages, Paperback
Published August 29, 2017
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
November 22, 2017
A Very Important Book for Our Times
Dr. Marc Gafni and Dr. Kristina Kincaid have written a very important book for our times. The way they talk about Eros, it takes it out of the bedroom and the context of our most intimate relationships into the largest context there is. Eros, as they understand it, is the interior of all the forces of attraction in our universe, the very forces that drive evolution to more and more complexity, more and more consciousness, and the potential for more and more and deeper and deeper love. In human beings, that same Eros manifests as a sense of radical aliveness, creativity, and wonder.
What becomes crystal clear upon reading: It is a failure of Eros that lies at the core of so many of our contemporary collective crises that threaten our very survival as a species. When we repress our sexuality, Eros breaks down, which is followed by a breakdown of ethics. When, on the other hand, we expect the sexual to fulfill all of our erotic needs, sexuality breaks down under the burden it cannot bear.
So, read this book and be amazed of the depth of insight and realization that awaits you by truly engaging its content.
If you feel numbed out and not able to access your full aliveness, read this book.
If you feel shamed about your sexuality and haven’t found a way out of it yet, read this book.
If you are an activist feeling more and more hopeless in your desire to make a real difference in the world, read this book.
If you are a spiritual seeker wondering about the relationship between sexuality and spirituality, this book is for you.
Dr. Marc Gafni and Dr. Kristina Kincaid have written a very important book for our times. The way they talk about Eros, it takes it out of the bedroom and the context of our most intimate relationships into the largest context there is. Eros, as they understand it, is the interior of all the forces of attraction in our universe, the very forces that drive evolution to more and more complexity, more and more consciousness, and the potential for more and more and deeper and deeper love. In human beings, that same Eros manifests as a sense of radical aliveness, creativity, and wonder.
What becomes crystal clear upon reading: It is a failure of Eros that lies at the core of so many of our contemporary collective crises that threaten our very survival as a species. When we repress our sexuality, Eros breaks down, which is followed by a breakdown of ethics. When, on the other hand, we expect the sexual to fulfill all of our erotic needs, sexuality breaks down under the burden it cannot bear.
So, read this book and be amazed of the depth of insight and realization that awaits you by truly engaging its content.
If you feel numbed out and not able to access your full aliveness, read this book.
If you feel shamed about your sexuality and haven’t found a way out of it yet, read this book.
If you are an activist feeling more and more hopeless in your desire to make a real difference in the world, read this book.
If you are a spiritual seeker wondering about the relationship between sexuality and spirituality, this book is for you.
February 5, 2024
I enjoyed the topic but the book was very repetitive which made it feel a little like a word salad at certain parts. It could have been edited down. A podcast of his I listened to was more pointed and presented the information better.
March 17, 2026
2.5*
The positive: A vibrant, compelling vision of a life well- and vibrantly-lived including a decent exploration of the role of sex and romance in finding and living that life (see exercises on pp 177, 245-6 & 333).
Also, the following pages have insights/inspiration worth quoting and pondering:
life goal: 17, 154, 225, 253, 258, 260, 289
ethical/emotive vision: 8, 13, 140, 181, 238, 257, 334, 437-8
role of desire: 194, 197, 198, 228, 255
The troubling: 1) a bizarre and repeated claim that identifies dishonest accusations of sexual assault as equally harmful as actual experiences of sexual assault as well as a general diminishing of the seriousness of sexual assault (p361: "Stealing is a form of rape." Murder is similarly diminished by analogy in Appendix A); 2) a bunch of sloppy thinking that might be consciously dishonest (unclear); 3) Appendix C: cringe; 4) nods to social justice while multiple references to living as a settler in Israel-Palestine with absolutely no mention of Palestinians (note: 126, 139 w/ kibbutz as utopian project w/ no critique) except to identify a terrorist while narrative of Temple life cuts against decades old archaeological evidence* (see pp 94-5, 282, 295, 345, 442 vs Undoing Conquest; also, 99-100/109 narrative of Temple worship contradicts narratives built on archaeological evidence as opposed to this author's poetic claims of Talmudic sources without any citations (disrespectful of tradition he seems to be mis-using)). Also, Muslim organization or ind identified is the Taliban (p145) as the prototype adversary of an erotic life (as if no organization from other religious or secular traditions could be equally identified). His treatment of Buddhism/the Buddha while not as demeaning is equally sloppy and would be better left out; readers could be pointed to root texts or, for example, Mark Epstein's "Open to Desire: The Truth About What the Buddha Taught." I'd be more likely to point friend or students to Epstein's book and maybe share a typed out series of quotes and exercises on the pages cited above than to ask anyone to read this entire book.
One example of the intellectual sloppiness that made me distrust other claims (especially but not only etymological): On page 171-2 the author makes the claim that lev (heart in Hebrew) and ahava (love in Hebrew) are the etymological root of "lava" in English showing the fiery nature of hearts and love in the Hebrew Tantric (sic) tradition. A search for lava's etymology tells a different story: ", from Italian (Neapolitan or Calabrian dialect) lava "torrent, stream," traditionally said to be from Latin lavare "to wash" (from PIE root *leue- "to wash"). Originally applied in Italian to flash flood rivulets after downpours, then to streams of molten rock from Vesuvius. "
disrespect for sex work(ers): 260 v 261-2
gets Hebrew prophets wrong: 263-4
129: critiques without enough specificity to judge Marcuse's deficiencies which seem to stand in for the author as an erotic commitment to specificity in dismantling oppressive power.
248, 250, 252: gender
340, 343: Idolizes Mother Theresa in this 2017 book after Hitchen's 1995 book calling MT "a friend of poverty and not a friend of the poor"
The positive: A vibrant, compelling vision of a life well- and vibrantly-lived including a decent exploration of the role of sex and romance in finding and living that life (see exercises on pp 177, 245-6 & 333).
Also, the following pages have insights/inspiration worth quoting and pondering:
life goal: 17, 154, 225, 253, 258, 260, 289
ethical/emotive vision: 8, 13, 140, 181, 238, 257, 334, 437-8
role of desire: 194, 197, 198, 228, 255
The troubling: 1) a bizarre and repeated claim that identifies dishonest accusations of sexual assault as equally harmful as actual experiences of sexual assault as well as a general diminishing of the seriousness of sexual assault (p361: "Stealing is a form of rape." Murder is similarly diminished by analogy in Appendix A); 2) a bunch of sloppy thinking that might be consciously dishonest (unclear); 3) Appendix C: cringe; 4) nods to social justice while multiple references to living as a settler in Israel-Palestine with absolutely no mention of Palestinians (note: 126, 139 w/ kibbutz as utopian project w/ no critique) except to identify a terrorist while narrative of Temple life cuts against decades old archaeological evidence* (see pp 94-5, 282, 295, 345, 442 vs Undoing Conquest; also, 99-100/109 narrative of Temple worship contradicts narratives built on archaeological evidence as opposed to this author's poetic claims of Talmudic sources without any citations (disrespectful of tradition he seems to be mis-using)). Also, Muslim organization or ind identified is the Taliban (p145) as the prototype adversary of an erotic life (as if no organization from other religious or secular traditions could be equally identified). His treatment of Buddhism/the Buddha while not as demeaning is equally sloppy and would be better left out; readers could be pointed to root texts or, for example, Mark Epstein's "Open to Desire: The Truth About What the Buddha Taught." I'd be more likely to point friend or students to Epstein's book and maybe share a typed out series of quotes and exercises on the pages cited above than to ask anyone to read this entire book.
One example of the intellectual sloppiness that made me distrust other claims (especially but not only etymological): On page 171-2 the author makes the claim that lev (heart in Hebrew) and ahava (love in Hebrew) are the etymological root of "lava" in English showing the fiery nature of hearts and love in the Hebrew Tantric (sic) tradition. A search for lava's etymology tells a different story: ", from Italian (Neapolitan or Calabrian dialect) lava "torrent, stream," traditionally said to be from Latin lavare "to wash" (from PIE root *leue- "to wash"). Originally applied in Italian to flash flood rivulets after downpours, then to streams of molten rock from Vesuvius. "
disrespect for sex work(ers): 260 v 261-2
gets Hebrew prophets wrong: 263-4
129: critiques without enough specificity to judge Marcuse's deficiencies which seem to stand in for the author as an erotic commitment to specificity in dismantling oppressive power.
248, 250, 252: gender
340, 343: Idolizes Mother Theresa in this 2017 book after Hitchen's 1995 book calling MT "a friend of poverty and not a friend of the poor"
December 19, 2024
Oh man... I really tried. I was so allured by this engaging and captivating title, and I do enjoy listening to Mark Gafni talking, but this book is so... Boring and repetitive.
I could only reach halfway through as I couldn't muster the patience to continue reading the incessant repetition of the definition of Eros. Constantly repeating the same concepts. And not developing much... Felt like a big bag full of air.
I could only reach halfway through as I couldn't muster the patience to continue reading the incessant repetition of the definition of Eros. Constantly repeating the same concepts. And not developing much... Felt like a big bag full of air.
March 10, 2025
Sex is one of two fundamental human pleasures, the other being eating. This book explores the rapture and ecstasy that sexuality has allowed us to experience, and how we can transfer these lessons into every dimension of life. Life is erotic all the way up and all the way down, not just in the bed room. Some key themes: surrender, imagination, yearning, expansion, creativity. LETS LIVE AN EROTIC LIFE
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews