used as a form of libation to the Mother Goddess, with sexual union with females described in terms of ‘sexual alchemy’.
At this point John expressed a preference for sexual
submissiveness. This became central to his homosexual practices. He called
it ‘taking the female role’ and observed that he often felt possessed by
“divine female energies” when engaged in coition with (usually younger)
men. He discussed the way that for the last twenty years his sexual activity
had alternated between men and women as a deliberate spiritual strategy:
Sex with men energised me as a ‘woman’. My anima went supernova (laughs) ... The only way of grounding this ... of bringing it down to earth, was sex with women. I alternate as far as I can between men and a woman. I’ve been single for almost thirty years now, but I’ve had a female tantric partner for the last twelve. She’s married, which is rather complicated ... but cuts out, erm, other complications. The men in my life are much more ... erm ... casual than that (laughs). So sex with men charges me up and this is then discharged, so to speak ... Like a lightning bolt (laughs) ... as an offering to Her [The Goddess] through my female partner ... Like Ying and Yang the male and the, erm ... the feminine balance each other and reveal the divine order. I’ve always felt this since childhood. Male and Female. Male and Female in balance, and me balanced. The sex is ... erm ... therapeutic. It is ritualistic and insightful.
I want to return to the notion of ritual later in this article, but what is clear here is that John was creating an elaborate and idiosyncratic form of spiritual practice based upon the veneration of a goddess which had transformative effects upon his identity. In order to understand the significance of these practices one needs an appreciation of the dynamics of Contemporary Paganism. Let us begin with what we might loosely term Contemporary Pagan Goddess Spirituality.
Goddess Spirituality
Although precise definition is difficult, one might consider Contemporary Paganisms to be a loose constellation of spiritual paths which are embedded in the ritualistic veneration of nature through which Pagan practitioners access divinity. Definition is bedevilled by the fact that the nature of these relationships to the divine varies both between various Contemporary Pagan traditions and individual practitioners themselves. Indeed, there exists a continuum of belief in the divine which ranges from the polytheism of the reconstructionist Pagan paths such as Heathenism, through the duotheism of Wicca, to an almost monotheistic veneration of a
Goddess (or at least a singular female deity representing many Pagan
