Heaven's Bride The Unprintable Life of Ida C. Craddock, American Mystic, Scholar, Sexologist, Martyr, and Madwoman

by Schmidt, Leigh Eric

• ISBN13: 9780465002986
• ISBN10: 0465002986
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2010-12-07
• Publisher: Basic Books

Summary

The nineteenth-century eccentric Ida C. Craddock was by turns a secular freethinker, a religious visionary, a civil-liberties advocate, and a resolute defender of belly-dancing. Arrested and tried repeatedly on obscenity charges, she was deemed a danger to public morality for her candor about sexuality. By the end of her life Craddock, the nemesis of the notorious vice crusader Anthony Comstock, had become a favorite of free-speech defenders and women's rights activists. She soon became as well the case-history darling of one of America's earliest and most determined Freudians.InHeaven's Bride, prize-winning historian Leigh Eric Schmidt offers a rich biography of this forgotten mystic, who occupied the seemingly incongruous roles of yoga priestess, suppressed sexologist, and suspected madwoman. In Schmidt's evocative telling, Craddock's story reveals the beginning of the end of Christian America, a harbinger of spiritual variety and sexual revolution.

Author Biography

Leigh Eric Schmidt is Charles Warren Professor of American Religious History at Harvard University, and the author of numerous books, including Restless Souls and Consumer Rites. He lives in Belmont, Massachusetts.

Table of Contents

Preface	p. ix
Belly-Dancing's Defender	p. 1
Not an Infidel, But a Freethinker and a Scholar	p. 33
Pastor of the Church of Yoga	p. 89
An Expert in Sexology	p. 137
Every Inch a Martyr	p. 179
One Religio-Sexual Maniac	p. 225
Epilogue	p. 269
List of Abbreviations	p. 275
Notes	p. 277
Acknowledgments	p. 317
Index	p. 321
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