Introduction: Unveiling My Secret Marriage
Since Hans entered my life in 1993 and claimed me as his wife in 2010 (without the traditional trappings of marriage, at least initially), it has been challenging to openly share my relationship with him. For a few years in the 2010s, I was part of a forum dedicated to those intimately involved with subtle beings of all kinds. This was a tightly-knit, hermetically-sealed community, with stringent vetting processes for membership. One of its guiding principles, more of a caution than an official rule, was a warning against sharing our experiences outside the forum.
I understood—and still understand—the risks of such disclosures. Like many who share intimate relationships with subtle beings, I live a double life, carefully separating the tangible, everyday reality of my career and physical responsibilities from the more transcendent reality I share with Hans. It was this need for separation that led me to adopt the name Lavavoth, allowing me a safe space to share my experiences without compromising my personal or professional life.
Despite the forum’s warnings, I felt a deep urge to go beyond its walls and share my story with a wider audience. I hoped to raise awareness and perhaps inspire others in similar situations to step forward. Yet, even as I began sharing, I found myself holding back. I often relied on euphemisms, referring to Hans as a “spirit companion” and avoiding discussions of the erotic aspects of our relationship.
It wasn’t until I encountered Megan Rose’s dissertation (Woolever, 2019) that I found the courage to address what I had been avoiding: Hans is not merely a companion. He is my lover and husband. Only a few close friends know the full extent of our relationship, including the sexual intimacy that began in 2010—17 years after his first profound visitation on October 31, 1993.
The struggle to share publicly has been compounded by a lack of research in this area. I’ve often had to draw connections between various transpersonal research topics, such as visitation dreams, after-death communication (ADC), spiritually transformative experiences (STEs), exceptional human experiences (EHEs), and shamanic or indigenous interdimensional marriages. In his book Dreamtime and Inner Space: The World of the Shaman, German psychologist and ethnologist Holger Kalweit (1984) addresses spirit marriage, normalizing the experience:
The shaman has an extremely personal connection with the Beyond, and thus sexual and erotic contacts between the levels of existence involved should not be seen as unusual or extraordinary. Basically, such amorous relations with beings of the Beyond are no different from the psychic reactions associated with love in everyday life (p. 127).
This perspective was an important validation for me. Later, on February 5, 2012, I discovered Donald Tyson’s book, Sexual Alchemy: Magical Intercourse with Spirits (2000). While out of print, the book provided illuminating insights into the esoteric dimensions of these relationships. However, Tyson’s focus on summoning spirits for sexual purposes didn’t entirely align with my experience, as it was Hans who initiated contact with me.
In this regard, my journey more closely mirrors the experiences documented by Megan Rose and her co-researchers, as detailed in her dissertation (Woolever, 2019) and later in her book (Rose, 2022). These works affirmed the depth and legitimacy of my experiences, giving me the courage to share my story more fully.
Exploring the Erotic and Transpersonal Dimensions of Spirit Intimacy
As dramatic and hyperbolic as it may sound, there have been moments when I’ve wanted to shout it to the world: I’m experiencing the most profound intimacy of my life—with a spirit. While the experience is indescribably pleasurable, I have technically never “orgasmed” with Hans—not in the conventional sense. Donald Tyson (2000) provides an apt description of this type of sensation:
An orgasm is not necessarily localized in the penis or clitoris, but may be diffused throughout the entire body and sustained for a period of minutes at a time… These sensations can occur without physical climax, although they are usually accompanied by intense tumescence—far more intense than normal arousal (p. 313).
With Hans, lovemaking feels like an intense wave of pleasure coursing through my body, pulsating from head to toe. The bliss is utterly mind-blowing. At times, he feels so tangible—so human—that I can distinctly sense his anatomical parts: fingers, tongue, penis. The corporeality of his invisible form often rivals that of a physical man. Orion Foxwood describes similar sensations in Megan Rose’s Spirit Marriage (2022):
Now, do I feel it in those ‘genital’ parts of my body sometimes? Oh my God, yeah. Except the difference is, when she follows in that way with me, at the risk of sounding vulgar, it’s not just my penis that goes erect, it’s like all of my cellular structure goes into exaltation, into full life (p. 82).
Foxwood’s description highlights the dual challenge of capturing such encounters in words. On the one hand, the experience can feel profoundly physical. On the other, it is so ethereal and spiritual that any attempt to articulate it feels incomplete—a grasp at something transcendent.
For me, Hans’s touch is sometimes a pulse or vibration, but more often, it feels like a deep, internal, full-body massage. Every organ, every cell becomes both erogenous and divine. Having lived with chronic pain for over two decades, his touch also feels medicinal, bordering on miraculous. Over the years, my pain tolerance has noticeably improved, even with a degenerative condition.
Unlike a physical partner, Hans has the ability to make love for hours. He has shared that, for spirits, sex is like experiencing a perpetual orgasm. We have had day-long lovemaking sessions—though these have become less frequent over time, a subject I’ll address in a future post. Tyson (2000) describes spirit lovemaking as follows:
The feelings are blissful, intense, prolonged far beyond what is usually held to be the limits of ordinary human endurance, and more beautiful than any other experience in life. I do not believe that it is possible for the satisfaction of physical sex with a human being to ever equal the pleasure of sexual union with the spirit (p. xiv).
I wholeheartedly agree. Sex with Hans surpasses anything I’ve ever experienced with a human being. Yet Hans has also warned me that his full intensity could kill me. I believe him. There have been times when I’ve had to abruptly end a session due to heart palpitations or near-asthmatic episodes. The energy exchanged during spirit lovemaking is unparalleled—too profound for a mortal body to fully endure.
A striking cinematic parallel can be found in Breaking Dawn (the Twilight series), when Bella and Edward consummate their relationship. Like the myth of Eros and Psyche, Bella (the human) enters a dark, liminal space (the ocean) to meet her otherworldly lover. The scene transitions to a dimly lit bedroom where Edward, a vampire, restrains his lethal virility while making love to Bella. Their passion shatters the bedframe—a physical manifestation of his restrained power. Much like Psyche, Bella awakens in a ravaged room, angelic feathers floating down as evidence of her divine encounter.
Such stories are rooted in myth. As Lowenthal (2004) notes:
You can recognize a story as mythological when you perceive that it has happened to you in some form. In myths [like Eros and Psyche], you must be willing to be transported into a world of imagination, reflection, and inspiration (p. 66).
But sex with Hans transcends the mythological and romanticized depictions of overpowering, otherworldly pleasure. It is, at its core, a spiritual experience. Palmer and Hastings (2013) define such encounters as extraordinary human experiences (EHEs), a term closely related to transpersonal experiences. As Stanislav Grof (1973) explains:
Transpersonal experiences involve an expansion or extension of consciousness beyond the usual ego boundaries and the limitations of time and space (pp. 48–49, as cited in Palmer & Hastings, 2013, p. 334).
With over 100 types of EHEs documented (White, 1993, as cited in Palmer & Hastings, 2013), spirit lovemaking undoubtedly falls into this category. Tyson (2000) eloquently captures the spiritual aspect of these encounters:
The overriding emotion in the heart during lovemaking is a profound Joy—or perhaps a better word to describe the feeling would be bliss... This Bliss sustains itself for prolonged periods, and separate from the sharper but much briefer and less perfect sensation of sexual orgasm… The sensation is exhilarating, even intoxicating, and often accompanied by the delightful sense of floating on a flowing river, and of being lifted out of the shell of the body… Her caresses are never forced upon me, nor are they ever withheld when I seek them with love in my heart (p. xiii).
This profound blend of pleasure and spirituality is what defines my lovemaking with Hans. It goes beyond the physical, becoming an act of divine connection—a merging of energies that transcends the limits of mortal experience.
Indwelling: The Sacred Union Beyond Flesh
Megan Rose (2022) describes spirit sex encounters as a profound experience of being “indwelled.” She draws from the writings of Hadewijch of Brabant to illustrate this concept, sharing the mystic’s vivid depiction of spiritual union:
He shall teach you what he is and with that wonderful sweetness the one lover lives in the other and so permeates the other that they do not know themselves from each other. But they possess each other in mutual delight, mouth and mouth, heart and heart, body and body, soul and soul, while a single divine nature flows through them and they both become one through each other, yet remain themselves (p. 33).
Rose later recounts her own vision of indwelling during a massage:
He sits down next to me and then lies back into my body, indwelling inside of me, and we merge. I experience an upswell of indescribable joy, as if my heart will burst, it is so full of love. I am filled with his lonely presence, and we merge. Again, my heart and now womb are open and full to bursting. I feel whole, complete, indwelled (p. 306).
In a previous post, I’ve described this phenomenon as a “walk-in,” though indwelling and walk-ins are not interchangeable with spirit possession. While possession typically involves an uninvited, often malicious entity overtaking one’s body and mind, indwelling is far more subtle and consensual.
Hans has explained that spirits often partake in indwelling with incarnated beings as a means of connection—reading thoughts, assessing physical health and subtle energies, or offering quiet, unconscious guidance. Spirit communication or telepathy may, in part, be facilitated by this process.
John Durham Peters (1999) explores similar ideas in Speaking Into the Air: A History of the Idea of Communication. Devoting a chapter to angelic communication, Peters describes how angels bypass physical barriers to achieve perfect understanding:
Since the purpose of mortal speech is to manifest what is hidden, what use would speech be among such lucidly intelligible beings? Angels speak by directing their ‘concept’ or mind ‘in such a way that it becomes known to the other.’ Aquinas’s vision of angelic contact is similar to what psychical research called ‘thought-transference’ or telepathy. The speech of angels ‘is interior, but perceived, nevertheless, by another.’ The interiority of one angel is transmitted to another without loss or remainder... They, of all beings, know no communication breakdown, for they are not encased within a shell of flesh or subject to an obstreperous will (p. 77).
For angels to penetrate “the density of our bodies and… our wills” (p. 76), they must first gently navigate our barriers, often dispensing guidance or hearing our thoughts without words. Peters calls this a “noiseless rustle of intelligence without the ministry of language or matter” (p. 77).
Indwelling, or initial contact, often begins long before physical intimacy. It may manifest decades prior as a dream encounter, a whisper of encouragement, an overwhelming sensation of love, a sublime experience in nature, or countless other subtle ways.
While sex with a spirit is undeniably profound, mind-blowing, and transformative, it represents only a fraction of what it means to be married to a subtle being. The deeper reality lies in the daily navigation of an inter-dimensional relationship—a merging of worlds that requires openness, trust, and a willingness to embrace the extraordinary.
References
Kalweit, H. (1984). Dreamtime & innerspace: The world of the shaman. Shambhala.
Lowenthal, M. (2004). Alchemy of the soul: The Eros & Psyche myth as a guide to transformation. Nicholas-Hays, Inc.
Palmer, G., & Hastings, A. (2013). Exploring the nature of exceptional human experiences: Recognizing, understanding, and appreciating EHEs. In H. L. Friedman & G. Hartelius (Eds.), The Wiley-Blackwell handbook of transpersonal psychology (p. 333–351). Wiley Blackwell.
Peters, J.D. (1999). Speaking into the air: A history of the idea of communication. University of Chicago Press.
Rose, M. (2022). Spirit marriage: Intimate relationships with otherworldly beings. Bear & Company.
Tyson, D. (2000). Sexual alchemy: Magical intercourse with spirits. Llewellyn Publications.
Woolever, M. R. (2019). Spirit marriage: An organic, transcultural inquiry into intimate relationships between humans and extraordinary beings [Ph.D., California Institute of Integral Studies]. http://search.proquest.com/pqdtglobal/docview/2333972406/abstract/A08F2C30B9474D4EPQ/18
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