Erotic manuals. Amatory practices. Philtres. Other means of stimulation. Temple prostitution. Search for husband. VI VARIETIES AND OCCASIONS OF POTIONS 155 Examples from Greek and Roman antiquity. Asia. Love cult. VII POTENCY OF PHILTRES 167 Literary testimony. Woman in the ascendant. Water. Inducements. VIII INGREDIENTS OF POTIONS. RECIPES. ANECDOTES 174 Preparation of philtres. Illustrative legendary, historical, and literary anecdotes, allusions, and citations confirming potency of philtres. Divertive philtres. Medieval philtres. Macrobius. Herbs and plants. The Mill. Amatory procedures. French stimulant. Papyri. Lucian. River. Black Art potion. Inducements. Oriental. Flowers, etc. Variety of ingredients. IX MIDDLE AGES AND LATER 231 Philtres. Dispensers of preparations. Occultists and alchemists associated with preparations. Literary and historical references. Manuals and other erotic texts. Priapus as a saint. Phallic Society. Erotic mores in Europe. Clauder on philtres. Northern deities. Belts of chastity. The Congress: and other medieval practices. Divertive invocation. Privileges. Orgies. Boccaccio. Turkey. Loïstes. Shakespeare. Villon. Sects. Figurines. Demoniac unions. Astrological. X MODERN TIMES 316 Contemporary eroticism. Amatory customs. Potions. Publications. Experimentation in erotic stimuli. Literary mention. Popular press. Love spells and potions. Bayadère. Advertisements. Restaurants. Erotica. Books. Hippomanes. SELECTIVE BIBLIOGRAPHY 335 INTRODUCTION The amatory motif is pervasive, timeless, and universal. In some of its phases and manifestations it has presented age-old provocations and, not infrequently, problems that are still unresolved. Among such problems are involved the faculty of physiological potency, the urge to attract amorously, and, conversely, the problem of preventing such attraction in a designated instance, or of diverting it to another objective. That, in brief, is the essence of the material means of effecting such a realization. In its various mutations, its protean diversities, it is the love-potion, the philtre, the mystic concoction that, once quaffed, will instil love and passion and desire and lust, that will replenish erotic inadequacies, that will awaken the ancient _fons vitae_, the symbol of animate being, the source, as the antique Hellenes sensed and exemplified, of all cosmic creation, of the totality of living generation.