Another intriguing theory of religion—or, more specifically, religious or mystical experiences—has been proposed by the radiologist Andrew Newberg. Using single-photon emission computed tomography, a variant of the better-known positron emission tomography, or PET, Newberg has scanned the brains of praying Catholic nuns and meditating Buddhist monks, and he has found some overlap between their neural activity and that of sexually aroused subjects (scanned by other researchers).

The correlation makes sense, according to Newberg. Just as sex involves a rhythmic activity, so do religious practices such as chanting, dancing and repetition of a mantra. Like orgasms, religious experiences produce sensations of bliss, self-transcendence and unity; that may be why some mystics describe their raptures with romantic or even sexual language. www.scientificamerican.com

The Kama Sutra, is the earliest surviving example of a written Hindu love-manual. It was compiled by the Indian sage Vatsyayana sometime between the second and fourth centuries A.C.E. His work was based on earlier Kama Shastras or "Rules of Love" going back to at least the seventh century B.C.E., and is a compendium of the social norms and love-customs of patriarchal Northern India around the time he lived.
Vatsyayana's Kama Sutra is valuable today for his psychological insights into the interactions and scenarios of love, and for his structured approach to the many diverse situations he describes. He defines different types of men and women, matching what he terms "equal" unions, and gives detailed descriptions of many love-postures.
The Kama Sutra was written for the wealthy male city-dweller. It is not, and was never intended to be, a lover's guide for the masses, nor is it a "Tantric love-manual." About three hundred years after the Kama Sutra became popular, some of the love-making positions described in it were reinterpreted in a Tantric way. Since Tantra is an all-encompassing sensual science, love-making positions are relevant to spiritual practice.

A colleague at a internet discussion group brought up the following description of the devotees of the Syrian goddess:

These priests, like the Galli before them, became complete eunuchs. They grew their hair long, dressed in women’s clothing and perfumed themselves with fragrant oils, in a manner that was quite similar to Dionysus, who had been raised as a girl rather then as a boy. Becoming total, or complete eunuchs, required the initiates to go through more then just a simple castration. They actually had to take their transformation into women one step further, by having their entire penis removed. The amputation of their penis left an opening, where the root of that organ had once been, and they used that opening during sex, in the same manner as they would a woman's vagina. That particular metamorphosis, which changed men into women, actually required more then just the removal of their total genitalia. In order for a priest to truly seem like a woman, who had actually been born a woman, then he also had to cause his body to periodically bleed, as a way of imitating menstruation. The priests achieved this periodic bleeding by committing acts of self-mutilation.



He went on to ask if Christian eunuch's might also have appeared in public similarly attired - i.e. cross-dressing as women. I think there is already something anticipated in the Letter to the Corinthians. But I chose to answer him in another - wholly unexpected - manner. But before I tell you what I said, let's get a little background on these effeminate devotees of the Syrian goddess.