The Book of Ecstasy

In 2012 I wrote a book called Ecstasy is Necessary. The title was a phrase I took from my previous book, Urban Tantra: Sacred Sex for the Twenty-First Century. My intention with Ecstasy is Necessary was to expand upon the emotional possibilities of the peak experiences I wrote about in Urban Tantra and give erotic/ecstatic explorers some road maps to follow. It was a good book—I was able to deconstruct many paths to ecstasy that my friends and colleagues and I had experienced and turn them into an encouraging how-to manual. I think I pretty much nailed the how-to part. In retrospect though, I think I fell short on why-to part.

So I dove back into the book with new insights, new awarenesses, a new publisher and—most significantly— in a new social era. If you spend any time engaging with the news today, it may feel like the world as we know is collapsing around us. It can be suffocating. I hope that this book creates a bit more space for people—in their hearts, bodies, relationships, and creative expressions—for expansive, ecstatic possibilities.

The Book of Ecstasy is my contribution to the ecstatic, enlivened, liberated future that so many of us yearn for. I hope in its pages you find validation, curiosity, and inspiration. I hope that it cracks open your assumptions about sex, desire, and orgasm. I hope it offers some creative solutions to what weighs down your heart. I hope that it aligns you more strongly with your values and authenticity. I hope that you take it into your life-building, community-building, and intimacy-building and create ecstatic outcomes.

Yes, The Book of Ecstasy is still a book about sex, but it’s now about much more than sex. This book is about hope.

It’s about the infinite possibilities of ecstatic expression. It’s about how we can create ecstatic experiences in a myriad of ways, even if sex is not possible, available, or appropriate.

The Book of Ecstasy gives you a roadmap to live an ecstatic life with radical love and radical acceptance—in each moment and in a multitude of circumstances.

I hope you find it useful, humorous, and inspiring.

It’s available in the U.S. now; in the UK. on 28 September, and as an audiobook on 29 September. You can get it anywhere you buy books.

With love,
Barbara