A treatise on sexual magic first published in French in 1931 under the name of Paschal Beverly Randolph, assembled and edited by the Russian-French occultist Maria de Naglowska more than half a century after Randolph's death. It presents a systematic account of magical operations that work with sexual energy, breath, and the will. Its standing as an authentic work of Randolph is disputed: while it draws on genuine Randolphian ideas transmitted through his European followers, scholars regard much of the text as the product of Naglowska's own editing and elaboration rather than a faithful record of Randolph's writing.
Facts
Origins
Era of Composition Era of CompositionIssued under Randolph's name. The French text is Maria de Naglowska's 1931 compilation, assembled from Randolph's material and from sources of her own; no English original by Randolph is known, and the book is hers as much as his. 1Tradition: Modern Western esotericism Attributed Author / CompilerAttributed to Paschal Beverly Randolph; compiled by Maria de Naglowska 1 Text
Literary Form Learn More
A Randolph Book That Randolph Did Not Write
Magia Sexualis is a systematic treatise on sexual magic first published in French in 1931 under the name of Paschal Beverly Randolph, but Randolph had been dead since 1875, and the book was in fact assembled, edited and substantially composed by the Russian-French occultist Maria de Naglowska, who translated and freely expanded fragments attributed to Randolph more than half a century after his death. The result presents a full account of magical practice centred on sexual energy, and it became influential in French and later international occult circles, but its relationship to Randolph's own teaching is loose: how much genuinely derives from him and how much is Naglowska's own doctrine (she led her own "Brotherhood of the Golden Arrow" and had distinctive ideas) is impossible to disentangle cleanly. It is therefore a doubly mediated text, a French book of 1931, shaped by its editor's own system, circulating under the name of a dead American whose actual writings, such as Eulis!, are quite differently phrased. Hugh Urban treats it as a case study in how the Randolph legacy was transmitted and transformed.
A Compilation Presented as a Translation
Magia Sexualis appeared in French in 1931 under Randolph's name, more than fifty years after his death, edited by Maria de Naglowska. It is presented as a translation of a Randolph manuscript, and no such manuscript has been produced.
What the book actually contains is a compilation. Parts of it correspond to Randolph's known positions and are plausibly derived from his writing; other parts introduce material he is not known to have taught, including practices and framings that belong to Naglowska's own system, and the whole is arranged in a way that reads as a single coherent treatise in a manner Randolph never achieved.
Naglowska was a substantial figure in her own right, running a Paris circle with a doctrine of her own centred on a third term reconciling the masculine and feminine principles, and the honest description of this book is that it is a work of hers built on his.
That matters because the French text is how Randolph reached twentieth century European occultism. A great deal of what is attributed to him in that lineage comes from here rather than from anything he wrote, and the atlas records the authorship problem on this page rather than repeating the attribution.
Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
1931, Years Magia Sexualis was first published in French in 1931, under the name of Paschal Beverly Randolph, assembled and edited by Maria de Naglowska more than half a century after his death.
Attributed To
Why this is disputed. Magia Sexualis was published in French in 1931 by Maria de Naglowska, who presented the text as a translation and compilation of the teachings of Paschal Beverly Randolph, the American occultist who died in 1875. Scholars of Randolph's work, including John Patrick Deveney's biographical study, find the text mixes genuine Randolph material with substantial additions and editorial shaping from de Naglowska's own hand, and how much of the finished book represents his teaching against her own contribution has never been settled with confidence.
Originates in Language
Sources
1. Paschal Beverly Randolph: A Nineteenth-Century Black American Spiritualist, Rosicrucian, and Sex Magician
John Patrick Deveney, State University of New York Press, 1997On the disputed attribution and the Naglowska redaction
2. Magia Sexualis: Sex, Magic, and Liberation in Modern Western Esotericism
Hugh B. Urban, University of California Press, 2006On Naglowska and the modern image of Randolph
Esotericism and the Academy: Rejected Knowledge in Western Culture
Wouter J. Hanegraaff, Cambridge University Press, 2012on the transmission of sexual magic
Encyclopaedia Britannica (online academic reference)
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