{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_29896/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_29896","id":"gutenberg_29896","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/29896","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Category: Sexuality & Erotica","Sex"],"text":"Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Ritu Aggarwal, and the\nOnline Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n                      SEX = The Unknown Quantity\n\n                    THE SPIRITUAL FUNCTION OF SEX\n\n     A New and Startling Interpretation of the Meaning, Scope and\n       Function of Sex as Seen and Interpreted From the Inner or\n          Cosmic Standpoint. A Work That Should Revolutionize\n           the Thought of Today in its Relation to the Vital\n                 Mystery of Sex in All its Aspects. It\n                  Presents a Practical Solution to the\n                     Sex Problems of Everyday Life.\n\n                                 _By_\n\n                              ALI NOMAD\n                  [DR. ALEXANDER J. McIVOR-TYNDALL]\n\n                           _Author of_\n\n  \"COSMIC CONSCIOUSNESS, OR THE MAN-GOD WHOM WE AWAIT\", \"THE DEAD SPEAK\"\n       \"REVELATIONS OF THE HAND\", \"GHOSTS\", \"HOW THOUGHT CAN KILL\"\n           \"PERSONAL MAGNETISM\", \"PROOFS OF IMMORTALITY\", ETC.\n\n\n                          CHICAGO, U. S. A.\n                     STERLING PUBLISHING COMPANY\n                                 1916\n\n\n                          Copyright, 1916, by\n                     STERLING PUBLISHING COMPANY.\n    Copyrighted and Registered in Stationers' Hall, London, England.\n                         (All Rights Reserved)\n\n\n    COPYRIGHT IN ALL COUNTRIES SIGNATORIES TO THE BERNE CONVENTION.\n\n\n                          THE STERLING PRESS.\n\n\n                               DEDICATED\n                        TO THE CHILD OF TOMORROW\n                       THE MAN-GOD WHOM WE AWAIT\n\n\n\n\n                         PUBLISHER'S FOREWORD\n\n\nTO OUR READERS:\n\nWe feel justified in claiming this work marks an epoch in the advanced\nthought of human evolution. Nothing has ever been written dealing with\nthe problem of Sex which is at once so illuminating, convincing and\nsatisfying. To our knowledge this particular view of the sex-subject\nhas never before been presented, and, perhaps it could not have been,\nowing to the fact that it is only _now_ in these days of higher\nthought, that such a view could be understood.\n\nThe author, Ali Nomad, is already well known to progressive readers as\nthe writer of \"Cosmic Consciousness,\" or, \"The Man-God Whom We Await;\"\na work that has made its author famous by the reprint of its many\neditions.\n\nThere are signs of a new order in the relation of the Sexes already\nindicated upon the horizon of the World's consciousness as the result\nof the present world-conflict. _Today people are as ignorant of the\nsubject of Sex as they are of God._ Both of these must be understood\nif the race is to progress beyond its present stage. Otherwise we\nshall pass into the long sleep of oblivion like all civilizations in\nthe past leaving future generations to grapple with the same world\nproblems.\n\nTrue or _perfect_ marriage is the most important attainment in the\nlife of the individual.\n\nThe author demonstrates that perfect marriage is a scientific\npossibility and that legal marriage and divorce simply conform to\ncivil laws. He very clearly outlines the reason why civilization makes\nlittle or no progress in dealing with the social evil and other sex\nproblems.\n\nThe publishers place this book before an intelligent public,\nbelieving, that more _real_ knowledge can be gained by its study, than\nby any other known method, because\n\n_First._ The reader is brought face to face with himself, and nature.\n\n_Second._ The reader can demonstrate the truth of the propositions set\n  forth.\n\n_Third._ The methods, rules, and laws have been verified by\n  intelligent men and women who have lived the life.\n\n_Fourth._ \"Sex,\" The Divine Principle which all human beings should\n  understand, has been presented in plain simple terms, and elucidated,\n  so that the reader _cannot_ fail to understand the true path of\n  moral progress.\n\nThis volume is not a romance, a fairy tale nor a dream intended to\nentertain or amuse, but a scientific instruction which will elevate\nthe individual and the race, develop self respect, self control,\nmorality and love. If the propositions presented by the author are\ncorrect--let the standards be changed; _if_ the propositions are\n_incorrect_, they will not disturb the standards of today.\n\n                                                       THE PUBLISHERS.\n\n\n\n\n                       SEX--THE UNKNOWN QUANTITY\n                     The Spiritual Function of Sex\n\n                                CONTENTS\n\n\n                              INTRODUCTION\n\n                                CHAPTER I\n\n  SEX UNIVERSAL AND ETERNAL                                         19\n\n    Sex the fundamental basis of the universe; sex in organic\n    life; the law of attraction and repulsion in animal and plant\n    life; sex attraction and repulsion in human life; how\n    differentiated and why; some secrets of modern chemistry; the\n    cosmic law of involution and evolution; the symbol of the\n    serpent in a new light; what is \"the power of the gods\"\n    referred to in ancient mythology; some erroneous ideas in\n    regard to the sex function; the philosophy of restraint; the\n    inner sex-function and its outward expression compared; the\n    senses as avenues of inspiration; the creation of form and\n    sense-objects; what constitutes a \"perfect and complete\n    being?\" the theory of \"counterparts\" and its spiritual\n    significance; is procreation the highest function of sex;\n    what constitutes the fundamental law of love? the various\n    expressions of the love-nature from inorganic to organic\n    life.\n\n                                CHAPTER II\n\n  FROM SEX WORSHIP TO SEX DEGRADATION                               29\n\n    Sex the origin of all religious ceremonies; from\n    nature-worship to sex-worship; the history of Ancient forms\n    and ceremonies of worship; how sex-worship has survived the\n    ages; how it thrives today in modern religion; early stages\n    of civilization in relation to Sex; the antiquity of the\n    symbol of the virgin and child; its occult significance in\n    symbolism; the reality of the \"bi-une God;\" some secrets of\n    the Ancient Egyptians in regard to the function of sex; the\n    esoteric cause of the Egyptian talismanic and symbolical\n    revival today; the secret or esoteric meaning of the\n    swastika-cross; why Aum is always typified by a circle;\n    ancient forms of oath-taking and why; the source of\n    sex-energy spiritual; how and where the idea of\n    \"blood-atonement\" and vicarious sacrifice originated; the\n    beginning of sex-degradation.\n\n                                CHAPTER III\n\n  PRESENT-DAY CONDITIONS: THE COSMIC CAUSE                          53\n\n    The consecutive order from ancient sex-worship to modern\n    civilization; the real causes of race-advancement in the\n    cosmic tidal-wave, and what it portends; why conditions are\n    as they are today in regard to sex-life; the psychic forces\n    in their relation to sex-life; some fallacies in regard to\n    Eugenics; why Greek and Roman civilization failed; why and\n    how modern civilization need not fail; why women seek to\n    avoid motherhood; women of two types; the awake and the\n    asleep; the cosmic office of the Female Principle; its\n    relation to Creation; how the superman and woman will differ\n    from the undeveloped type; what is meant by \"half-gods;\" are\n    women of today lacking in the love-nature; will the race die\n    out? If so, why, and if not why not? How did the \"Holy\n    Family\" differ from other families?\n\n                                CHAPTER IV\n\n  THE HISTORY OF MARRIAGE AND MATING                                75\n\n    The relation of ancient marriage customs to religion; why\n    human evolution must necessarily be slow; ancient marriage\n    customs and their spiritual interpretation; why marriage\n    ceremonies have always prevailed; customs of all races\n    compared; why the institution has a permanent place in Social\n    Evolution; the symbolism of the visible world; why Science\n    and Mysticism agree spiritually; the origin of \"variation\"\n    the fundamental cause of woman's subjugation; when men defend\n    \"outraged honor,\" is it a primitive or a primordial instinct?\n    the history of monogamy; the monogamic idea and the ideal\n    monogamy; the history and cause of polygamy; the evolution of\n    the \"old-maid\" idea and the psychic cause of this evolution;\n    the path of the virtuous woman in ancient days; the elevating\n    power in the dowry system; the two great purposes which this\n    custom has served.\n\n                                CHAPTER V\n\n  THE SYMBOLISM OF MARRIAGE AND OF SEX-UNION                        93\n\n    Why the monogamic ideal of marriage is right; how, when and\n    where, will marriage be lasting; the basic principle of\n    sex-union; when the bonds of matrimony are truly \"holy;\"\n    attraction and cohesion two distinct phases of chemical laws;\n    ideas of a modern writer; how all morality has come from the\n    ideal of marriage; some erroneous ideas of spirituality in\n    relation to the sex-function; when and why Man becomes\n    immortal; the custom and the hidden meaning in the wedding\n    ring; the symbolism of ancient marriage customs; the esoteric\n    meaning of \"orange-blossoms;\" the veil; the ring; the crown;\n    why these have endured throughout the ages; the interior and\n    hidden meaning of Rosicrusian symbols in respect to the\n    sex-function; women admitted to the Order and why; the\n    mystery and marvel of the symbolic \"dove;\" why it plays so\n    important a part in marriage customs and lover's phrases; the\n    symbolism of the ark; the egg; the drinking-cup and other\n    persisting accompaniments to marriage customs.\n\n                                CHAPTER VI\n\n  CONTINENCE; CHASTITY; ASCETICISM: THEIR SPIRITUAL SIGNIFICANCE   103\n\n    The Ancient Greek and Roman idea of the sex-relation; why the\n    asceticism of the Dark Ages arose; why the Church instituted\n    celibacy; why the Church retained the pagan idea of \"the\n    virgin;\" the effect this has had upon the growth and power of\n    Christianity; lives of celebrated saints in the light of\n    Occult wisdom; why and in what way the essentials of\n    Christianity are like other religious ideals; who is \"the One\n    True and Only God?\" the interior meaning of the word\n    \"chastity;\" the difference between chastity and asceticism;\n    the unbroken line connecting ancient ideas of sex, with\n    modern; the attitude of religious systems toward women; why\n    women are supporters of the churches in modern days; the\n    \"mystic bride\" and the mystical meaning; William James\n    comments on the spiritual ecstacy of St. Teresa; Swedenborg\n    on \"Conjugal love;\" trances; ecstacies; and visions of\n    saints; the term \"virgin,\" and its origin; the evolution of\n    sex-love to spiritual love.\n\n                                CHAPTER VII\n\n  SOUL-UNION: WHERE WILL IT LEAD?                                  119\n\n    Why we hear of \"affinities\" and \"soul-mates\" today more than\n    formerly; the great distinction between these two words; the\n    psychic forces behind woman's invasion of business fields;\n    the basis of \"the unwritten law;\" why affinity marriages\n    fail; the hidden reason girls look for a \"rich husband;\" the\n    final outcome; when and how women are \"ruined;\" the mystery\n    of the hermaphrodite; what is the true significance of the\n    term \"androgynous?\" mistaken ideas of morality in dress and\n    manners; what sort of beings constitute \"the kingdom of God?\"\n    the \"secret of secrets\" of the Hermetics; the wisdom of the\n    \"initiates;\" the spiritual quality in folk-lore; the time\n    when \"temptation\" will be no more; when \"naked and unashamed\"\n    the race will re-enter the lost Paradise.\n\n                                CHAPTER VIII\n\n  THE HIDDEN WISDOM REVEALED                                       137\n\n    Science and mysticism the same at root; Christian mysticism\n    versus scientific postulates; the interior meaning in fairy\n    stories; personalities and principles in mystic revelation;\n    the esoteric meaning in Mythology; are there gods and\n    mortals? the ark in religious symbology; its interior\n    meaning; what were the \"tablets of stone?\" the reality of the\n    \"cherubim\" and the \"seraphim;\" the inner meaning of the\n    symbolical \"ark of the Covenant;\" is spiritual love devoid of\n    sex?; what is the symbolical \"flaming sword?\"; why the Jews\n    claimed to be God's \"chosen people;\" what makes for \"immortal\n    godhood?\"; the symbolism of the \"life-token\" stories; the\n    symbolism of the sleeping princess; a theory that solves all\n    the problems of life; the symbolical rites and ceremonies of\n    secret orders; the secrets of the Ancient Alchemists; the\n    Rosicrucians; the Free Masons; the Hermetics; their\n    initiation rites and ceremonies explained; what is meant by\n    the \"Holy of Holies?\" by the \"secret chamber;\" and the degree\n    of \"mastership;\" the sexual significance of the symbolism of\n    the \"templars;\" the red rose on the cross; the star and the\n    crescent; what is the inner meaning of \"the radiant center;\"\n    why the Catholic Church opposed the order of Free-masons; did\n    the Alchemists discover the secret of metallic transmutation?\n    what is meant by \"the philosopher's stone;\" why it was of\n    such a rare purity; why the early Church opposed all\n    reference to sex; the distinction between \"discovering\" and\n    \"finding;\" their spiritual meaning; what was the stone that\n    was raised at Babylon: was it a phallic symbol? why the\n    average \"Knight Templar\" fails to attain the powers and\n    privileges of esoteric Free-masonry; what is the \"gate of\n    life?\" the Arcana of the Hermetics and its sexual\n    significance; the symbolism of the double-headed eagle; why\n    the eagle was an ancient religious symbol; the antithesis of\n    \"the eagle and the dove\" explained; the \"lamb and the goat\"\n    symbolism; the God-ideas of the Ancients and their effects on\n    modern life; why \"riding the goat\" is the usual initiatory\n    rite and ceremony in secret orders; some secret plates of\n    Hermetic orders explained; what is the \"magic solvent\" of the\n    alchemists? the relation of Christian symbolism to the\n    Alchemical secrets; the inner meaning of \"the sun and the\n    moon\" in ancient literature; transmutation: exterior or\n    interior? what constitutes \"the abiding glory.\"\n\n                                CHAPTER IX\n\n  WHAT CONSTITUTES SEXUAL IMMORALITY?                              159\n\n    Can there be standards of morality in the sex-relation; if so\n    what are they? is monogamy the ideal sex relationship? is\n    polygamy a future possibility? why matriarchal polygamy is\n    less degrading than patriarchal; why polygamy is not the\n    ideal sex relationship; the fallacy of legal marriage as a\n    test of sexual morality; why we \"cannot wrong the universe;\"\n    the one commandment of \"the Most High God;\" what is it? our\n    modern standards the result of phallic worship; why the Roman\n    Church has survived the centuries; the interior meaning in\n    the \"Holy Virgin\" idea of the Church; the vital point in the\n    Roman marriage restrictions; men inherently more faithful to\n    marriage vows than women, and why this is so; the bi-sexual\n    individual the most developed; the counterpartal union and\n    its relation to marriage customs; why \"affinities\" are so\n    numerous; sexual infidelity an impossible premise; what is to\n    become of present-day ethical standards of sexual morality?;\n    historic ideas of sexual immorality and their influence upon\n    modern civilization; modern effects of ancient Hebraic\n    customs; why suppression of prostitution must fail; why\n    prostitution is moral degeneracy; the Oriental versus the\n    Occidental view of prostitution; why modern ideas of sexual\n    morality are fallacious and untenable; can there be a\n    universal standard of sexual morality? why present-day ideas\n    of marriage are degrading; compulsion in marriage and\n    prostitution compared; how, why, and when, the sex-relation\n    may be exalted, reverenced and deified; mistakes of some\n    \"Civic Leaguers;\" why, when, and how, unfaithfulness in\n    marriage is wrong; the single versus the double standard in\n    sex.\n\n                                CHAPTER X\n\n  THE PATHWAY OF LOVE                                              189\n\n    Love the Great Reality; Love the Alpha and Omega of Life;\n    Sex-love the basis of all other loves; Sex-love the true\n    spiritual love; what is love of an abstract God? Love the\n    perfect mathematician; the moral code and Nature; why we\n    cannot break the laws of God; why Love is depicted with\n    bandaged eyes; Eros and Cupid explained; why the Egyptians\n    depicted Horus with finger on lips; some symbolic caricatures\n    in modern civilization; how it is true that \"love makes gods\n    of men;\" why Religion has remained materialistic; Love, the\n    only vitalizing power in the universe; the arch-enemy of\n    Love; why Love never leads to disaster; why Love is always\n    pure; erroneous ideas of success and failure; what is real\n    degradation? the pathway of love from chemical attraction to\n    spiritual union; why spiritual mates must be the answer to\n    Life's puzzle; what constitutes actual infidelity? what is to\n    be done with sex relations that are not spiritual unions? Are\n    they immoral? too much made of the marriage ceremony and too\n    little of fitness; is it better to be \"respectably bonded\" or\n    spiritually mated? what will happen when we rid Society of a\n    belief in \"impure\" love; why marriage vows are inadequate;\n    puerile; and futile; when we find the \"pearl of great price;\"\n    why spiritual mates cannot be parted; why bonds and vows must\n    give place to mutual agreement; does spiritual union come\n    with love of God? what is the \"bliss of Nirvana?\" why the\n    libertine is a pauper in the realm of love; when we imbibe\n    the \"nectar of gods;\" why the \"holy of Holies\" cannot be\n    defiled; when the divine office of sex is prostituted; why\n    all sex relations may not be eternal yet moral; the mistaken\n    teaching of the church regarding sex, and the result; inane\n    ideas of Paradise; an appalling prospect of heaven; perfect\n    sex-union the incentive to aspiration; Humanity progresses in\n    spite of fear; prophecy literally true; the true business of\n    business; the final test; the Love that is merging, melting;\n    satisfying and how to attain it.\n\n                                CHAPTER XI\n\n  THE LAW OF TRANSMUTATION                                         209\n\n    The spiritual cause of all physical activity; two words that\n    are of vital import today; did Jesus lie? is the kingdom\n    within an actual truth? the interior qualities and their\n    relationship to present day affairs; the fundamental\n    difference between mysticism and Christianity; the key to the\n    kingdom; the interior symbolism of \"wireless telegraphy;\" the\n    breeder of discord; the interior meaning of certain important\n    words; the survival of the fittest in its interior meaning;\n    the finer and ever finer forces at work; when the gods arrive\n    the half gods go; sex-force at the Center of Being; when\n    abnormalities and perversions of sex will be impossible; the\n    radiant center of the bi-une sex-life; the primary function\n    of sex-force vitalization, not procreation; the art of\n    transmutation and the key to the gate of life; the esoteric\n    meaning of our \"second childhood;\" the present necessity for\n    physical old-age; the spiritual message in the doctrine of\n    sacrifice; the mystical formula for transmutation; the\n    mystery of the \"Holy Grail\" elucidated; the only method of\n    attaining godhood.\n\n                                CHAPTER XII\n\n  \"SELLING THE THRONES OF ANGELS\"                                  231\n\n    The barriers between men and the \"bliss of Heaven;\" the\n    difference between mortals and gods; the character of a\n    bi-une Being; erroneous ideas of masculinity and femininity;\n    the change of the present day toward these ideas; God not a\n    hermaphroditic Personality, but a pair; some \"laws of God;\"\n    the ideal of union versus the idea of possession; the highest\n    manifestation of sex-love; the solar-man and the mental man\n    in sex; qualities of sex-force; is the divine man less sexual\n    than the physical? the divine fulcrum of Sex; how eternal\n    youth and life are possible; why you can not lose in the\n    \"game of Love;\" we cannot sin against the Eternal God; why\n    and when the \"eternal equasion\" is perfect; no mistakes or\n    flaws in the Cosmic scheme; how spiritual mates may find each\n    other; the true way of transmutation simple; why we have\n    \"painted dolls of women;\" the hearts of men; the highest\n    wisdom; some fallacies regarding the law of transmutation;\n    why the \"inner vision\" does not require a trip to the\n    Himalayas; why \"brotherhoods\" cannot insure you the way; all\n    beauty and joy the result of the divinity of Sex; life\n    mathematically just; when we shall \"enter the kingdom.\"\n\n\n\n\n                              INTRODUCTION\n\n\nNo phase of civilization can rise to the highest possibilities as long\nas the average mental attitude toward the most vital, the most\nimportant and the most sacred function of our being, is one of shame,\nsinfulness, lust and uncleanness.\n\nEven among those who are conscientiously trying to establish better\nsocial conditions, there is a deplorable lack of anything like the\nproper attitude toward the problems of Sex, albeit there are evidences\nthat our social consciousness is alive to the seriousness of the sex\nproblem.\n\nMany of our advanced thinkers and scientists are giving their\nattention to the subject, but it is a theme which has been so long\nneglected, so hedged about by false standards of morality; so fettered\nby the system of tabu, that a rational discussion of Sex apart from\nmateria medica, or religion, is difficult.\n\nMoreover, the physiological side of the sex question robs it of all\nthe delicacy, and the intimacy and the beauty and romance which should\nby right, surround the function of sex-mating and which does surround\na union that is pure and perfect. In this innate desire to share with\nthe one and only possible mate, the intimate secrets of love, there\nis nothing of shame or apology--sentiments which alas, actuate the\nso-called \"modest\" man or woman of today.\n\nSex matters should, indeed, be held too sacred, too intimate for\npublic discussion, whereas the present-day attitude holds that Sex is\ntoo indecent to be spoken of. When the subject is forced upon public\nattention as it so frequently is through tragic occurrences, the\nopinions expressed are both petty and puerile. They evade the truth\nand so avoid the issue. They deal with effects only, are satisfied\nwith offering suggestions as to ways and means of suppressing these\neffects, instead of going to the root of the matter and realizing that\nall the tragedies that spring out of Sex are due to wrong teaching and\nthinking in regard to the sex-function. That which we reverence, and\nhold sacred, we do not profane. Until Sex is established in its\nrightful place, as the holy and divine creative power of this\nuniverse, we will be shocked and horrified with sex-tragedies.\n\nIt is a pity that the physiological and hygienic aspect of Sex has to\nbe discussed at all, but it is necessary that all sides of the subject\nmust be presented to meet the great variety of minds, but it is our\ncontention that if the spiritual quality of Sex were recognized and\nunderstood, there would be no need for any other view, because if Sex\nwere recognized as the sacred, and holy and spiritual function _that\nit is_, disease and sinfulness would disappear as the mist before the\nsun.\n\nIn the meantime the subject must be discussed from all points of view.\n\nIt must be permitted to thrive in the light and thus it will flower\ninto the perfection of the spiritual seed that generated it.\n\nIn the meantime, the debasement of all things connected with sex must\nbe aired, discussed, and weeded out, until a sane and normal and\nreverential recognition of the universality and the eternality of Sex,\nis engendered in the minds of men and women and growing youths and\ntransmitted to the children yet unborn.\n\n\"Sex contains all,\" says Walt Whitman. \"Bodies, souls, meanings,\nproofs, purities, delicacies, results, promulgations, songs, commands,\nhealth, pride, the maternal mystery, the seminal milk; all hopes,\nbenefactions, bestowals; all the passions, loves, beauties, delights\nof earth; all the governments, judges, gods, followed persons of the\nearth; these are contained in sex as parts of itself and justification\nof itself.\n\n\"Without shame the man I like knows and avows the deliciousness of his\nsex; without shame the woman I like knows and avows hers.\"\n\nMany well-meaning persons see in the words of the \"good grey poet,\"\nonly an immodest and brazen shamelessness. But these are mental\nperverts and are to be pitied; they see \"through a glass darkly\" and\neverything looks black with decay; they are trying to build an eternal\nfuture upon a foundation of tissue paper; they are seeking to\nencompass immortal life by denying the very beginning and source of\nall life--Sex; they are attempting the impossible feat of foisting\nupon the world an ideal of Heaven from which they have extracted the\nvery essence of Heaven itself, although nothing on earth or from\ndivine sources justifies such an idea.\n\nPossibly our civilization has proceeded on the plan of leaving until\nthe last the most important thing in an ideal community and it may be\nthat we shall do the necessary reform work in this department all the\nmore thoroughly for having so long neglected it.\n\nIn the following chapters the physiological and hygienic side of the\nsubject has been avoided as there is much sound advice already issued\npertaining to this phase of the sex question, and it is our contention\nthat the world must be brought to recognize the spiritual, and sacred\nfunction of Sex, as the basis of reformation or regeneration, before\nthe Kingdom of Love shall be established upon the earth as it is in\ncelestial spaces.\n\n                                                           THE AUTHOR.\n\n\n\n\n                              CHAPTER I\n\n                      SEX UNIVERSAL AND ETERNAL\n\n\nThe fundamental basis of the universe is Sex.\n\nSex is the fulcrum upon which our life-activities turn. It is the life\nof Man and of planets, and ignorance of the laws of Sex is the cause\nof death of both. It is the conjunction of the forces of attraction\nand repulsion; the positive and negative; the centripetal and\ncentrifugal forces which hold stars and planets in their orbits--or\nrather, it is the two expressions of the one power, which is both male\nand female, the eternal bi-une sex principle which is _Life_.\n\nThe law of attraction everywhere, from that of the sun and the earth,\nto that of the iron and the magnet, the \"affinity\" of the various\ngases and liquids, is founded upon Sex. Cohesion is but another name\nfor copulation, and repulsion is absence of the power of contact. The\nlaw of attraction and cohesion everywhere is the law of sex-activity.\n\"The law of conjugality is the basis of every force in nature,\" says a\nscientist. Sex constitutes the eternal energy from which issue all the\nforms and differentiations which we see manifested in the visible\nuniverse, and it is equally the foundation of the realms invisible.\n\nSex is the algebracial X--the unknown quantity which defies analysis.\n\nPlato is said to have observed that \"the son of man is written all\nover the visible world in the form of an X;\" and also that \"the second\ncoming of Christ is rightly symbolized by a cross.\" The cross is but\nanother form of the X--the eternal bi-une sex-principle in action.\n\nThe Female Principle attracts to a central union; draws toward and\nwithin itself. The home is established and maintained by the female\nelement; the nest is the special property of the female bird. Thus the\nFemale Principle best expresses the highest love because the object of\nlove is _union_. Hate scatters, disintegrates, destroys. Wherever the\nstruggle between love and hate is seen, there we will find a lack of\nunion. There may be marriage, but there will not be mating. True union\nmust come from the Center of Life--from the spiritual Reality, which\nthe physical only imperfectly shadows forth.\n\nInvolution is best described as feminine, and wherever we note the\nupward trend of the feminine element in Society, we may know that the\nearth is on its involutionary path; the end of a cycle is at hand, and\nsocial unrest and marital upheaval are inevitable, because Love is in\nthe ascendant and love demands _union_--not merely matrimony.\n\nThe Ancients sought to express the never-beginning and never-ending\nlaw of Sex by the symbol of the serpent with its tail in its mouth,\nforming a circle. The resemblance of the male sperm to the spiral\nconvolutions of the serpent in motion, doubtless gave rise to the\nadoption of the serpent as a symbol of sex-worship. The retention and\ntransmutation of the sex-force is typified by the serpent forming a\ncircle. The circle represents the attainment of godhood--victory over\ndeath through _regeneration_.\n\nIt has been said that the most primal instinct is that of hunger, but\nwithout Sex there would not be even the urge toward physical\nsustenance. Sex is therefore both the urge and the answer to all\ninstincts.\n\nThere is a very general idea that Sex is a physical function only. It\nis almost universally taught that when the life of the body ceases,\nsex-life ceases with it. Even among metaphysicians, who believe in the\ncontinuity of life after death, the absurd doctrine is taught that Sex\nhas no place or part in spiritual life, that \"there is no marriage nor\ngiving in marriage\" after death.\n\nThis idea has been a powerful deterrent in keeping the race from\nseeking the higher areas of spiritual consciousness. Lack of mere\nphysical vitality has erroneously been estimated as evidence of\nspirituality. Chastity has unfortunately been counterfeited by mere\nphysical restraint, resulting in a type of human being whom the\nhealthy, normal person instinctively refuses to emulate, deferring as\nlong as possible the attainment of that which has been presented to\nthe mind as \"spirituality.\"\n\nLet it be understood at the outset of this presentation of the problem\nof Sex that we state emphatically, that Sex is an eternal verity. Its\nspiritual function is not _less_ but infinitely _more_ than that which\nwe glimpse on the physical plane of life-expression.\n\nFar from outgrowing what we know as human love, we add thereunto a\nmillion fold, refining, purifying and _intensifying_ the sex instinct\nuntil it bears a relationship to the average instance of\nsex-expression, analogous to that which the single-celled organism\nbears to intellectual man. If we will keep in mind the fact that Life\nin all its degrees of manifestation is like the ascending notes of the\nmusical scale, we will be able to get a more comprehensive idea of the\nspiritual function of the sex-urge. We will realize that we can not\nmark a too distinctive separation between the various phases of\nlife-manifestation.\n\nWe imagine that the physical life is widely at variance with the\nmental, the psychical, or the spiritual, when as a matter of fact each\nblends into the other, when we rightly understand their place and\npurpose, as harmoniously as the notes of the musical scale blend into\nthe grand compositions of the Masters.\n\n\"As above so below, and as below so above,\" is a truism which we may\nsafely take as our first maxim. Whatever we note as a fundamental\nprinciple of this external life which we cognize with our five senses\n(senses which merge so into the psychical that we know not always\nwhere the line demarks) has a permanent place in the Cosmos.\nTherefore we must conclude that a fact so universal as that of sex,\nand sex-attraction, must be grounded in something more stable, more\npermanent and enduring than the mere creation of physical forms.\n\nProtoplasm, the only living substance, is found everywhere in the\nvisible world and its universality is symbolical of the invisible\nworlds as well. Transparent, colorless, it contains within itself the\nmystery of reproduction. It forms the basis of the vegetable and the\nanimal kingdoms. It is seen in bone and muscle and fibrous tissue, and\nprotoplasm may be said to contain within its cells the principles of\nboth sexes. It is not sexless, but bi-sexual; not neuter but\nmasculine-feminine. Every form of life has sex, and in some rare\ninstances both sexes are present in one form. This does not mean that\nthere is another phase of sex unclassified, but rather it proves the\nunion in one _Whole Entity_ of the two distinct principles, and by\nthis fact of the \"twain made one\" we may know that Sex is the very\ncrux of the cosmic law; that not only does it survive the mere\nphysical expression of the law, but that the object of the\nsex-function is the spiritual union of the two principles, a male and\na female entity, forming one complete and perfect Being--the true\nrepresentative of the bi-une Being whom we know as God.\n\nAbsolute and perfect union is possible only at the center, the crux,\nof Being. This truth is represented by the algebraical X, the symbol\nof spiritual sex-union. Therefore sex relationships which do not have\nfor their crux spiritual as well as temperamental affinity, are not\nfinal, or eternal, however beautiful they may be; and there are many\nsex-relationships which are pure and sacred even though they do not\nfulfil this highest of all relationships, that of spiritual\ncounterparts.\n\nLet us consider for a moment the universality of Sex as we see it\nexpressed in all the variety of forms and throughout all the species,\nand in so doing we may trace the ever upward trend of the law of\nsex-attraction, and discover, if we have the eyes to see, the evident\nplan and purpose of the cosmic law as it tends toward completement and\nperfection in the type of the man-god whom the world has long looked\nfor and who we believe is here.\n\nIf we look at the expression of Sex from the viewpoint of the physical\nonly, instead of basing our observations from the interior, the\nspiritual, outward to the physical, we might conclude that the\nfunction of sex was designed for no other purpose than that of\nprocreation, since care of the young increases with the upward trend\nof life-manifestation.\n\nBeginning at the lower forms of life, such for example as the fish, we\nfind as a general thing an indifference to the fate of the eggs\ndeposited by the female, which is in keeping with the prolific and\nalmost unconscious generation of these tiny evidences of the law of\nSex. A fish laying more than a million eggs in a season is naturally\nrather careless about what becomes of them. Apparently no higher\nsentiment actuates this form of life than an unconscious and merely\ninstinctive urge to perpetuate the species--the lowest expression of\nLove--and yet the germ of Love, the Creator and Preserver is there,\nand a well-defined law of attraction and repulsion is evident from the\nfact that as an almost general thing the male will not fertilize eggs\nother than those of his own species. But even in these low forms, we\nsee the evidence of that higher expression of Love which presages the\ngod-like quality of self-sacrifice. Some species of fish, notably the\nstickle-back and the bass, make nests and mother their young.\n\nIn those forms of life which are supposed to be insensate, we find the\nuniversal law of sex-attraction and repulsion. The pollen from an oak\ntree, for example, may be blown about by the wind and may light upon a\nplant which is far removed in species from its own; but if such be the\ncase, no fertilization takes place. The fundamental law of Love is to\nattract to itself _its own_; that which belongs to it by right of\nCosmic law and order and justice.\n\nAll the inharmony of our social life comes from the attempt to\nappropriate and _possess_ that which, in the final analysis, in the\nAbsolute, is not ours. When the majority of Mankind shall have\nmastered this lesson, the human race will enter upon its true\nspiritual life. The psychic mind with which man alone of all earth's\ncreatures is supposed to be endowed will have conquered the\ninstinctive mind, and the higher expression of love which would\nprotect and preserve, and _leave free_, will have gained supremacy\nover selfishness and the desire for possession.\n\nIn bird-life we find this higher type of love almost universal.\nParental love, that exquisite and refined flower from the seed of\nsex-attraction, characterizes the bird and we may readily agree that\nParadise would be incomplete without birds and flowers as well as\nbabies.\n\nConsidering the birds as an infinitely finer type of sex-expression\nthan that offered by any other of the forms of life below man, we note\nwith satisfaction the all-important point, namely, that the sex-urge\nis more diffused and lasting, and of a finer quality than that of the\nmammals.\n\nThe bird woos its mate with the beauty of its plumage and the\nharmonious notes of its love-call. Its desire finds so many esthetic\nways of expressing itself; in tender pleadings; in cooing promises; in\ncontinuous evidences of care and protection. Nor does its intense\nlove, vital as it is, exhaust itself in concentrated expression, but\nit softens and ripens into something that so closely resembles our\nideals of spiritual love, that we are not surprised to find the emblem\nof the dove employed throughout the history of the world, as the\nspiritual symbol of pure and holy love. Well, indeed, may human beings\nlearn from the birds the lesson of the higher type of sex-mating,\nwhich finds fruition in their mutual love for and care of their\nprogeny. Nor does the love-life of birds cease with sex-expression.\nIt permeates all their intercourse.\n\nThe trait which distinguishes the spiritual man from the animal man is\nanalogous to that of the birds; namely, that of finding a deep and\nlasting joy in the presence of the loved one; in sympathizing with\neach other's ideals; listening with devoted attention to each other's\nwords; contacting, as it were, each other's _inner nature_, rather\nthan obeying the merely animal urge of procreation. And above all, in\nthe common aim of altruistic thoughtfulness for the little lives which\ntheir love has brought forth.\n\nThus nature serves the cosmic law, which aims to raise the\nsex-instinct from the incomplete and unsatisfying plane of physical\ncontact, to that of spiritual union--a wide gulf seemingly; but who\nwould not strive to bridge it, did he but realize what spiritual union\nwith the Beloved One means?\n\n\n\n\n                              CHAPTER II\n\n                    SEX WORSHIP AND SEX DEGRADATION\n\n\nEvery form of religious worship, from pre-historic time down to and\ninclusive of the present century, and among all races, savage and\ncivilized, has been founded upon Sex--the inevitable, the inviolable,\nthe unescapable, and the unfathomable mystery of Creation.\n\nNor should this fact be distasteful to the most refined. An\nintelligent review of the many evidences that prove this truth will\nnot shock the sensibilities of the most devout worshipper of an\nunknown and unseen God. What can be more beautiful and more holy, more\nworthy of our highest reverence and adoration, than the mystery of\nbirth, whether that birth be the growth of a flower from a tiny seed\nplanted in the womb of Mother Earth, or the birth of a tiny human life\nfrom the seed Love sows in the womb of the human mother? The only\nshocking thing about the matter is that there are persons who can be\n\"shocked\" at contemplation of this wonderful and beautiful mystery. It\nis shocking and deplorable that so many are still so far away from\nspiritual consciousness, that the beauty and the purity of the miracle\nof Sex is unrecognized by them.\n\nWith all due respect to the highest types of religious creeds which\nsurvive today, we are bound to concede that the very first form of\nworship which prevailed upon this earth was the purest as it was the\nsimplest. Truth is simple. Deception introduces us into a maze of\ncomplexities. Nature worship prevailed we know not how many centuries\nprevious to the dawn of historic records. All allegorical literature\nmakes constant allusion to \"The Golden Age,\" evidently referring to a\ntime before that which has come down to us in sacred literature, as\n\"The Fall of Man.\" The first conception of a supreme power, something\nhigher and more perfect than Man himself, originated in the mystery of\nSex; not only in the sex-function as exercised by Man, but also in the\nevidences of sex seen in plants and animals.\n\nIt became evident to the earliest races that the human being was after\nall only a progenitor. Somewhere there must be a First Cause. The\nvital spark which gave to the seed its power to bring forth was seen\nto be beyond and above the control of physical man, and the natural\nand inevitable inference was drawn that there was some power greater\nthan that of human beings--a power manifesting itself in the act of\nprocreation. At this early stage in Man's efforts to know God, the\nFemale Principle was deified, because out of the womb of the woman\nissued the little life. Thus the symbol of the \"virgin with the child\"\nbecame the symbol of worship; the word \"virgin\" then having a somewhat\ndifferent meaning from that which we give it today, although we may\ntrace the analogy in our use of the term \"virgin soil,\" signifying\nfecundity. The virgin and child then, popularly supposed by those\nwhose prejudices prevail over their desire for Truth, to have\noriginated with the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, antedates history, as\nan object of worship.\n\nLet us here again emphasize the fact that the very persistence of this\nsymbol as a pronounced part of our Twentieth Century traditions, and\nreverence, offers proof of the fact that whatever is true is also\nenduring. Truth is eternal and defies extinction. Love, although\ndefiled and scorned, will lift Mankind out of Hell.\n\nThe symbol of the mother with the child the very earliest of all\nsymbolic worship is also the truest and most consistent with the\nideals of spiritualized Man when we realize its higher significance.\nAt first, for the obvious reason that woman was the recipient and the\nnurse of the seed, woman was regarded as a higher type than man; she\nalone was supposed to possess the creative energy. This was ultimately\nreversed and Man was thought to be the sole custodian of the\nreproductive power.\n\nThus the age-long warfare between the sexes began--a warfare which, if\nit had any foundation in Reality, must have resulted long since in\nrace-extinction. But despite this degrading warfare men and women have\ncontinued to attract each other in varying degrees of love, until now\nthe future offers a golden promise of _union_. As long as primitive\nman kept to nature worship, deifying earth as the mother who brought\nforth the grains and fruits for her childrens' sustenance, religious\npractices were devoid of sacrifice and strife. The advent of\nspringtime when the earth awakened from her long sleep and the period\nof gestation began when the seeds were planted, or when from Nature's\nown laws they were reproduced without the aid of man, was the occasion\nof thanksgiving and rejoicing with general merry-making and general\ngood-will. Again, in harvest time there was feasting and rejoicing and\nmusic and dancing; and we have no reason to believe that this very\nnatural method of showing their gratitude and their happiness was\naccompanied by any suggestion of sacrifice or propitiation.\n\nThere is the best of evidence to support the claim that all the early\nDeities were female and in all Mythology the earth is adored as the\n\"Divine Mother.\" The earliest Venus, worshipped as the goddess of\nUniversal Womanhood, was represented with a beard signifying her\nandrogynous character.\n\nVenus worshipped as \"the soul of the world\" was said to be the \"parent\nof all things, the primary progeny of Time, the most exalted of all\nthe Deities.\" Neith, Minerva, Athena, Ceres, Cybele, all worshipped as\nthe first of all the Deities, were represented as female, and to this\nday we refer to the qualities of wisdom, light, truth, and virtue as\nfeminine.\n\nEven the sun is said to have been at one time worshipped as feminine,\nas were all deities; but later, when it was shown that the sun\napparently fertilized the fecund earth, the gender was changed, and in\nsucceeding ages, when the male principle had become dominant as a\ndeific symbol, the earth was said to be but the nurse which cradled\nand cared for the generic power resident in the male. Thus woman from\nher lofty height of the one and only deity gradually sank to the level\nof the nurse maid, permitted to care for man's offspring.\n\nWhile the Female Principle of Sex was worshipped as the \"giver of\nlife,\" the heads of families were female and descent was traced from\nthe mother only. The male parent was scarcely more than an intruder\nand the necessity to please the entire family and, above all, the\nmother-in-law, the generic head of the family has left its mark upon\nthe masculine mind, even unto this far-off day, when by virtue of this\nordeal of primitive man, an idea seems to exist, that a mother-in-law\nis to be both feared and dreaded, if not propitiated. When we\ncontemplate the persistence of those traits of human nature that have\nprevailed among all races and throughout all ages, we are easily\npersuaded that time is a delusion, and that Eternity is Now. As it was\nyesterday it is today and will be tomorrow in all that is really\nfundamental.\n\nFrom the refined simplicity of nature worship there gradually evolved\na phase of worship, which in the beginning had for its basic principle\nan exalted ideal of the purpose and the powers of the female\nsex-function; but this ideal sunk to the level of debauchery and\nsex-degradation, in which the symbol of the female sex-organ of\ngeneration was worshipped, literally, although not reverently; and yet\nfrom the fact that it is only upon the temples and in the groves\ndedicated to worship that are found the carvings of the generative\norgans of either and sometimes of both sexes, it is evident that the\nmost exalted motives first actuated the worshippers.\n\nThe sex organs, representing the mystery of creative life, or the\nDeity, would naturally be held in reverence by nature-children, and it\nmust be conceded that this attitude of mind toward the wonderful\nmiracle of creative energy is worthy of our emulation. As we look back\nover the pages of history, we note the tendency of human nature to\nfall far short of ideals; we mistake the letter for the spirit; we get\nlost in the trap of the senses, and we miss the higher and more\nexalted planes of our ideals.\n\nFrom yoni worship (worship of the female organ of generation), with\nall the privileges and perquisites which such honor bestowed upon\nwoman, there came the inevitable revolt, which comes in course of\ntime, from all tyranny and special privilege, whether it be\nindividual, national, racial, sexual, or supernatural. Thus there was\nestablished a \"new religion,\" and this time it was the male organ\nwhich was deified as the symbol of eternal life, of creative energy.\nIn many instances both symbols were represented, but for the most part\nthe same subtle struggle for supremacy, the remnants of which we note\ntoday among the different religious creeds and sects, waged, and waxed\nstronger, with time and opposition. Which was the more worthy of\ndeification--the yoni, or the phallus? Woman, or man?\n\nThe Ionians, seeking religious freedom from the persecutions of the\nphallic worshippers in India persisted in their adherence to yoni\nworship, and from them dates the Eleusirian mysteries, which were\ncelebrated in Athens down to a comparatively late date. The Eleusirian\nfestivals represented the survival of the purest ideals of nature\nworship, before the warfare between the yoni and the phallic\nworshippers had brought both ideals into degradation.\n\nThere is a point in this festival, which the Greeks called\nThesmophoria and which is derived from the more ancient festival of\nCeres (the goddess of Life and Law), which we are anxious to have\nnoted here, because it marks a golden thread which runs throughout the\nentire fabric of the sex-problem. This point is the fact, that the\nrites and ceremonies of this festival were performed by \"virgins\ndistinguished for their purity of life.\" Very rarely were men admitted\nto the inner secrets of the Eleusirians.\n\nAnother important point is that this ceremony was performed in honor\nof the androgynous character of the goddess, as it was declared that\nthe power to bring forth a child without the co-operation of the male\nbelonged exclusively to the exalted or perfected woman, which is to\nsay the goddess. Another translation and interpretation of this\nceremony claims that it was prophecied in these festivals, that a time\nwould come in the history of the world when a woman would so conceive\nand bring forth a child and that when that time should come the\nquestion as to which sex was supreme would be forever settled and that\npurity and peace would reign upon earth.\n\nThis part of the record may easily have been either an interpolation\nto sustain the claim of the miraculous birth of Jesus, or it may have\nbeen simply the defiant fling of the vanquished to the victor, because\nphallic worship was in the ascendant. It is, however, recorded, that\nnot an instance can be cited in which the honor of initiation into the\nEleusirian mysteries was conferred upon a bad man; nor of any man\nviolating the secrets of the inner temples of the Eleusirians. This\ngives rise to the hope that the ideal of this spiritually exalted\nsect, in the midst of almost universal degeneracy, was not so much\nthat of female supremacy, as of purity; that their ideal included the\npure and perfect union of male and female--the only ideal that will,\nor can, redeem the world to a life of peace and love.\n\nThe festivals of Carthage were said to be similar to those of Eleusis.\nFor a period of several days during the time set apart for the\nfestivities, public feasts were prepared in honor of the deific nature\nof Man, which, it was pointed out, was his prerogative only by virtue\nof inward purity and strict adherence to high ideals of truth and\nhonor.\n\nCrowning all the religious observances of the Ancients, whether\nexpressed in the legends of the sun-myths or of star and serpent\nworship, we find the universally recognized fact that only those\nqualities of mind and soul can be expected to endure, or reach\nimmortal godhood, which are of an exalted character. Which is to say\nwhat the present day orthodox creed says, that immortality belongs\nonly to those who are pure in heart.\n\nFrom the Eleusirian festivals is derived our custom of taking holy\ncommunion, the symbol of the Lord's supper; albeit the substitution of\nthe male principle in the Christian ceremony attests the fact that the\nphallic symbol ultimately supplanted the yoni, as a deific symbol.\nPhallic worship reached its height during Hebrew and Assyrian\nsupremacy, and was perpetuated by Greek and Roman materialism.\nSuperstition is nothing more than Truth degenerated by men from a\nspiritual to a material application. That which is held in awe and\nreverence by any race; that which is embodied in the traditions of\nevery tribe on the globe; that which persists throughout all times\nwill be found to have a fundamental basis of truth, no matter how\nobscured it may be by the ignorance with which it is so frequently\nassociated.\n\nThe sacredness of Sex, as exemplifying the Supreme Creative Energy,\nunderlies all the traditional ideals of man, from the fetishes of the\nCentral African savage to the cathedral spires which rise above the\ndin of our modern commercial civilization. The prejudiced and the\nsuperficial observer of so-called \"heathen\" rites and ceremonies\nrecords only the superstitions, and sees only the evidences of\ndepravity and savagery. He overlooks the fact that the spirit of the\nidea conveyed may have been the highest ideal of an early race which\nhas sunk, as have all races during certain periods of the world's\nevolution into the depths of a materialism, from which all races are\ntoday emerging.\n\nAll mystic truths are expressed in symbolism. It has been said that\nthese truths are \"veiled;\" this is true only because the observer has\nnot yet learned to speak the language. The universal language is\nsymbolism. In the early Egyptian, the Indian, and the Hebrew\nreligions, the fundamental idea was the two generating principles (or\nwe might say the two aspects of the One principle) of generation. The\ntwo in spiritual _union_ represented the Infinite--the Deity. The\nHebrew word \"Elohim\" is plural, and means male and female united,\nforming the One Perfect and Complete Being. This union is the \"Holy of\nHolies\" of the ancient mystics and alchemists. We see its reflection\nand its persistence today in the Catholic service of the Mass, where\nthe priest raises the Eucharist as the \"Holy of Holies\" in which is\ngenerated the Christ-man, and before whom all human devotees bow the\nhead that they may not look upon the perfection and beauty of its pure\nradiance. Neither is the priest supposed to touch the chalice with\nuncovered hands. He prepares himself by fasting and prayer before he\nmounts the altar upon which this \"Holy of Holies\" is hidden from view.\n\nThe pattern of the Eucharist with its golden circle and radiations is\neasily recognizable by any one who is familiar with the symbols of\nyoni worship. Nor should this fact be distasteful to any one, although\nit is either concealed, or flatly denied by the Church, since it is\nonly through the elevation of the sex-function that the Christ-man can\nbe born into the physical realms. The reason that this truth is either\nconcealed or denied by the Church is due to the influence of Greek and\nRoman civilization, which subjugated woman to the control of man. This\ndebasement of woman reached its culmination under Roman rule and is\nunquestionably the psychic cause of the fall of the Greek and Roman\nempires.\n\nIf we will but take home to ourselves the important lesson that\nneither sex is fundamentally, or even relatively, superior, but only\ndifferent; that no race is permanently in advance of another, but that\neach little group and class of humans has its particular contribution\nto the sum of knowledge, we will have done much toward freeing the\nmind from the shackles of ignorance--that darkness which obscures our\ninner vision. Let this truth penetrate the egotism of so-called\ncivilized races. Let it sink into the minds of the men and women of\nthis century: we are of service to the world in proportion as we are\ndifferent and not identical. In the direct ratio of our individuality\nis our contribution to the work of the cosmic law, which is seeking\nto lift the planet earth out of its undeveloped state into celestial\nlight.\n\nThe symbol of the Eucharist, occupying as it does an important place\nin a religious system which is otherwise essentially masculine, is one\nof the many evidences of the persistence of Truth. For approximately\nfour thousand years, phallic worship has predominated over the earlier\nideal, which was embodied in the \"virgin of the spheres,\" the emblem\nof the Female Principle as eternal motherhood; and in the sacred\ncharacter of androgynous plants and flowers, which were characterized\nas feminine, such, for example, as the lily, the lotus, and the fleur\nde lis. These flowers are still regarded as more or less sacred, and\nthey are called feminine, although really androgynous.\n\nThe lotus, long held sacred because of its androgynous character, has\nbeen regarded as typical of the One Perfect One, because it is\nsupposed that the lotus reproduces itself without the male pollen. But\nclose examination of the flower will show that the little seed-vessel\nin the center of the flower is shaped like a pine cone, in which are\ntiny cells too small to let out the seeds as occurs in most plant and\nseed life; these tiny seeds having no outlet, shoot when ripe into new\nplants, the bulb of the plant being the matrix or womb of the new\nlife. Thus it is evident, that although the two sexes are not as\npronounced in the lotus as in the lily, yet the bulb and the cone are\nboth present in the lotus, making the plant bi-sexual, and not\nfeminine alone.\n\nOur modern Easter festival, in which the lily is recognized as the\nrepresentative par excellence of the renewal of abundant life and\nenergy, the \"sacred\" flower, is a tribute to the Feminine Principle in\nthe Deity, as the lily like the lotus is called feminine, although in\nreality bi-sexual.\n\nThe lily and the Eucharist have survived the centuries in which the\nmale principle has dominated, as the one true and only God--the giver\nof life, the energizing power of Creation--and the lily and the\nEucharist are both representative of the Female principle.\n\nHistorians mark the beginning of the worship of the _One True God_,\ndefined philosophically as the \"Monistic\" God-idea, from the building\nof the tower of Babel, and we may here note in passing that in the\nearliest references to this tower, there is no allusion to anything\nsuggestive of \"confusion of tongues.\" The name unquestionably came\nfrom \"babil\" meaning \"the gate of God.\" Thus only is its meaning\nobvious, and consistent with the worship of the lingam and phallus\nwhich obtained at that time. It is also evident that the phallic\nworshippers borrowed the simile of \"the gate of God\" from the\nworshippers of the yoni, who based their claim to truth upon the\nindisputable fact, that out of the womb comes the life of plant, and\nanimal, and man.\n\nThe architecture of, and the inscriptions on, the tower of Babel show\nconclusively that it was a monument to the victory of the phallic\nworshippers over the yoni, proving that the \"one true and only God\"\nwas male. From that time also God has been alluded to as \"He,\"\nalthough in the Oriental countries, and particularly among the Hindus,\nwe find repeated allusions to the Deity as \"The Divine Mother,\" and\nall the higher qualities are spoken of as feminine. It is because of\nthis fact also, that we note the spread of Oriental religions and\nphilosophies in this day of Woman's uprising. The Orientals retained\nthe divinity of the female principle in theory, but not in fact.\n\nSex-worship is contemptuously alluded to in modern literature as\n\"strange and erotic ideas,\" or words equally condemnatory. But this is\nan absurd stand, since nothing could be more natural than that the\nmystery of Creative Life should arouse our interest and our wonder;\nand it certainly ought to enlist our highest reverence. It becomes\nerotic only when men fail to worship in \"spirit and in truth,\" and\nwhen the letter of the ideal survives, and the spirit is ignored. It\nbecomes not only erotic but destructive when it involves a fight for\nsupremacy between the male and the female. When the spirit of union\nshall prevail, which it must in a perfected world, no higher form of\nreligious aspiration can be imagined than that in which the miracle of\nbirth is reverenced and idealized. Then, and not until then, will the\nfamily be what it should be, and Love, the one and only true God, be\nworshipped.\n\nThe trinity in unity has been a widespread and persistent part of all\nreligions, from which fact we may logically infer that this ideal has\na permanent place in the sum of human knowledge. Truth is often\nobscured, but it can never be hidden from the eyes that are seeking\nthe light. The rightful interpretation of those ancient and obscured\ntruths, erroneously classified as \"myths\" and \"superstitions,\" will\nreveal a universal truth, and will also show their relation to modern\nconcepts.\n\nBut while we note a vague recognition of the female element in all our\nmodern religious systems, the general acceptance of the God-idea as\nmonistic and the gender of this monistic God as masculine betrays the\ndomination of phallicism over yoni worship and also over that of the\ntwo principles in conjunction--the bi-une Deity. The tree is\nuniversally accepted as an emblem of life-energy. The upright shape of\nthe tree; the sap which rises at certain periods from invisible\nsources; and the fact that the germinal power of the seeds of the\nfruits and trees is not destroyed by eating; all combined to make the\ntree symbolical of eternal life. The tree is either male or female,\nexcept in certain instances where it is, like the lotus, androgynous,\nsuch for example as the ash, which is the \"sacred\" tree of\nScandinavia. Wherever a plant or a tree is found to be bi-sexual, it\nhas been regarded as \"sacred.\" The same idea is found throughout all\nmyths, and all religious symbolism, namely: _the attainment of\ngod-hood is reached when both sexes are united in one Being._\n\nThe fuller meaning of this symbolical idea will be considered in a\nsubsequent chapter; but for the present we are concerned with the\nhistory of sex-degradation from the pure ideal of nature worship to\nthat of a monistic God whose gender is masculine. The pine tree, held\nsacred in many countries as a symbol of generation, and from which our\nown Christmas-tree is descended, is distinctively a male emblem, and\nits perennial green typifies the hope of Man that he too may manifest,\nin some form of life, the never-failing virility of the pine. The\nLatin name for the pine is pinus.\n\nThus from nature worship to phallic worship was but a step, but that\nstep led to others. The pine, from the fact of its erect form; its\nspiral convolutions; its sap; its fruit; its renewal of activity; its\nroot and veins; became a universally accepted emblem of the\nlife-energy in man and in animals, and the gradual substitution of the\nmale principle alone, for the androgynous idea as a symbol of Deity\ncontributed to the idea of the inferiority of woman, until she finally\nbecame the slave and the plaything of man. The \"virgin of the\nspheres,\" from her exalted mission as the Eternal Mother of the race,\nbecame at best but a secondary personality, and finally was refused\nany part in the symbol of the Holy Trinity.\n\nInstead of father, mother and child, the Holy Trinity became \"Father,\nSon and--Holy Ghost.\"\n\nThe early Romans must have been devoid of a sense of humor. But what\nof our modern Christian creeds, and their idea of the Holy Trinity\ncomposed of three male beings?\n\nIt is in Christian Science alone of all the modern creeds that the\nfemale principle is given a place co-equal with the male. Christian\nScience addresses the Deity as \"Father-Mother-God,\" and their\nreverence for the woman who established the creed, as well as the\nIonian type of architecture employed in their church edifices, are\nevidences of the re-establishment of the female principle in the\nGod-idea. Christian Science is one of the most important instruments\nof the cosmic law in the present-day dethronement of the male\nprinciple as the only true God.\n\nSo permeated with this male God-idea is every branch of our modern\nthought; so enwrapped with the glamour of worship, that we hardly\nnotice the one-sidedness of the ideal. Tradition is a powerful\nhypnotist.\n\nMany members of the Masonic fraternity fail utterly to understand the\nsymbolical language of their mosques and the phallic and yoni emblems\nwhich constitute their decorations. Notable among these emblems are\nthe pomegranate; the lotus; the circle; the crescent; the swastika.\nThe cone-shaped towers, that rise above the mosques, with their\nprotruding heads, vein-tipped; the central symbol identical with the\nmound of Venus; denote the preservation of the Egyptian ideal, which\nvenerated both sexes as co-equal. It is easy to realize why the Jews\nwere driven out of Egypt when we remember that they refused to worship\nthe Egyptian ideal of God as bi-sexual, but persisted in rearing the\nphallic symbol alone, denying the female principle a place in the\nGod-head.\n\nIt is also significant that side by side with the present-day Feminist\nMovement we find the revival of Egyptian fashions; Egyptian\narchitecture; Egyptian philosophies and religions. Even Cubist art,\nwhich in itself could make no possible appeal to recognition on its\nartistic merits, has been received with much publicity, if not with\nacclaim. Cubist art is a lineal descendant of Egyptian art, and so\nclosely resembles its far-off ancestry as to seem to have bridged the\ncenturies and connected us as if by telephone with the days of ancient\ncivilization. Our drama and our popular songs have responded to the\nEgyptian thought-wave. Talismanic jewelry, so essentially Egyptian, is\nin vogue, and on every sign board advertising breakfast foods, tobacco\nand what not (so essentially an American custom) we find the\nmodernized use of Egyptian symbols, notably the swastika.\n\nThe swastika, the earliest form of the cross, found in every country\nand in every out-of-the-way corner of the globe, is fundamentally,\noriginally and pre-eminently a bi-une sex symbol, and although volumes\nhave in recent years been written on its history and meaning, the\nwhole story may be summed up by examining its form and by realizing\nits antiquity and its universality.\n\nThe two sex principles, joined in the center of the four arms or legs,\nof the cross, accomplish that which is said (and truthfully if taken\non the physical plane only) to be impossible of accomplishment--they\nsquare the circle. A circle is emblematical of completeness. Aum, the\nAbsolute, the Omniscient, is always typified by a circle. To \"square\nthe circle\" means esoterically to have reached godhood, and this can\nbe accomplished only by the male and female _united_ in spirit. The\nswastika is essentially a bi-une sex symbol although it has been\nsometimes called male and sometimes female, according to its shape,\nwhich varies with the various meanings ascribed to it. Primitive man\nwas not prolific in language, and one symbol expressed many ideas\naccording to its varied form and position.\n\nThe original form of oath was to swear by the sacred power of the\ngenerative organs, and we may readily conclude that this power was\nconceded to be vested in the male only, from the fact that we still\n\"testify\" when under oath and although the Bible has been substituted\nfor the generative organs, as an outward expression of our recognition\nof the Creative Principle, we note that the Bible is made up of\n\"testaments,\" which stand for its \"sacredness.\"\n\nEvidently it was only after the advent of the male God that oaths and\nvows and pledges were necessary. Previous to that time, a man's word\nwas reliable. It was inevitable that an ideal of the Supreme Creative\npower of the universe so one-sided, and so lacking in the essential of\nunion, must degenerate into mere licentiousness and animalism; and it\nis estimated that about six hundred years B.C. the level of debauchery\nand vileness reigned. So-called religious rites and ceremonies were\nnothing more than orgies of sex-degradation.\n\nThe ideal of godhood as nothing higher than masculine virility and\npower evidenced by the number of his progeny, naturally reduced woman\nto the lowest depths of slavery, since she was nothing more than a\nreceptacle for man's seed. Of course one wife was insufficient and a\nman's claim to divinity was best expressed by profligacy--an ideal\nwhich is rife even today among those, whose consciousness is bounded\nby nothing higher than the conception of the animal nature of man.\n\nWhence came this wonderful thing manifested as generative power? What\ndid it feed upon? These were natural queries. In seeking the answer\nthe idea originated that in the blood was to be found the secret of\nthe generative fluid. This idea arose from the evidence that as old\nage conquered man's physical strength, his blood became weakened and\nthe supply insufficient.\n\nThis was accompanied by a loss of generative activity, and thus, they\nargued, the power that made man god-like (the creative energy) left\nhim. This was indeed a calamity greater than we in this generation\nrealize, although we know that old age with consequent cessation of\nphysical vigor is the dread enemy of the undeveloped man. Even our\nsupposedly advanced thinkers have the absurd idea that sexual-energy\ndies with the physical body. The few who have risen to the place where\nthey realize the truths made plain by soul-consciousness, know that\nold age is but physical; that it is the vacation time between the\nfunctions of physical activity and that of the soul-life. Old age is\nthe wise provision of the Cosmic Law which compels those who will not\ndo so of their own volition and wisdom, to transmute the life-energy\ninto higher channels. If the race knew enough to consciously transmute\nthe creative sex-energy into an interior function, there would come to\npass the time prophecied by St. Paul when Man shall consciously \"lay\ndown his body and take it up again.\"\n\nThere are spiritually advanced men and women today who can consciously\nleave the physical body as they do the house in which they live, while\nthey visit distant places, annihilating space. To these the body is no\nmore than a garment. Thus death is overcome and the knowledge attained\nthat we are souls using a physical body; that death does not in itself\nconfer upon any one either immortality or youth or love, but that\nthese may be acquired by acts of virtue and unselfish service--not as\npayment or reward for unwilling work, but as the result of unfailing\nlaw, which gives what we demand.\n\nWhat we demand we naturally work for. If we serve Love, we get the\ncoin in which Love pays as naturally as we get the checks signed by\nJones when we work for Jones, and by Smith when we work for Smith.\n\nDeath merely discloses our interior nature. If we have failed to\ntransmute the life-energy into a love that is deeper than mere animal\ninstinct; if we have missed the beautiful and the pure and the lofty\nidealism of Love, we will find ourselves as age-worn after death as\nbefore the change. But again we may note a wise provision of the\nCosmic Law, for it is almost impossible for a human being to live\nthrough many years of life without having loved some person or some\nthing with at least a spark of unselfish love. Fortunately almost\nevery one is better interiorly than he appears to our limited vision.\nThe most depraved of mortals has his moments of the higher vision.\n\nFrom this deduction of inquiring primitive man, namely that the blood\nwas the source of procreative virility, it is easy to trace the\nlogical result in the terrible practise of blood-sacrifice which\nreigned so long and which, carried from one nation to another, and\nengrafted into the God-idea, has come down to us in the story of the\n\"sacrificial lamb,\" at length personified in Jesus, the Son of God, as\na final act of propitiation.\n\nThe blood-atonement idea is naturally repulsive to civilized beings,\nand were it not that nearly every one who adheres to the old form of\northodox Christianity swallows theologic interpretation of the Bible\nas he would swallow a dose of castor-oil, by closing his eyes and\nholding his nose, the teaching as thus interpreted would be stopped by\npolice authority. And yet we may readily trace the gradual descent of\nthe God-idea of the ancients until it reached the culmination in the\nidea of sacrifice of a son of God Himself.\n\nIn their blind but eager groping for some means of escape from death,\neven as we of this day and generation are groping, the early races\nobserved that birth was accompanied by blood; that as age came on and\nthe blood became thin, and in the case of the female ceased to flow at\ncertain reproductive periods, the power of generation ceased. What\nmore natural to primitive man than that he should conceive the idea of\nsending back to this unknown and invisible power behind the veil of\nthe sky the blood, which he must need to supply his creative energies?\nAnd when the sacrifice of animals was not sufficient for this God,\nthey concluded that it must be because he required the blood of man.\n\nAnd so at first the old and the sick and the deformed were sacrificed;\nbut as it was seen that this did not answer the need, they began to\nsacrifice the young, and naturally the slaves were substituted for the\naged, as affording more blood; and when this failed the idea came,\nthat the sacrifice must be that of one who was innocent of the world,\nand so they selected a girl or a young man, who had been secluded and\ntrained to the thought of sacrifice, and in whom the sex-function had\nbeen rigorously suppressed.\n\nAnd still the old grew bloodless and death claimed his toll, and so\nthey conceived the idea of voluntary blood-sacrifice, and we read of\nrepeated occasions in which fanatical ones offered themselves freely\non the sacrificial altars as atonement for the sins of their people.\nAt length this contagion of sacrifice consummated in the idea that the\nonly Son of God Himself became a voluntary offering to pay the final\ndebt of transgression and set men free from death, that they might\nhave eternal life, which to them meant life in the physical body.\n\nIt is not at all possible that Jesus had any such idea of his mission.\nHe was far too illumined for that, even judging from the meager\naccounts which we have of his life and message. But when the story of\nhis mission on earth came to be told and retold the idea of\nblood-sacrifice as _payment_ for the privilege of physical virility,\nso implanted in the race-thought from centuries of such belief, could\nnot die immediately, and thus it reaches us today adown the centuries\nand is re-told (though we trust not believed) in most of the Christian\nchurches in this civilized century.\n\nAnd yet there is an esoteric truth underlying this universal idea of\nsacrifice, and when we come to this in a subsequent chapter, we will\nbetter understand how and why it has persisted throughout the\ncenturies.\n\n\n\n\n                              CHAPTER III\n\n               PRESENT-DAY CONDITIONS: THE COSMIC CAUSE\n\n\nFrom the study of ancient sex-worship to our twentieth century systems\nof religion; our scientific discoveries; our intellectual standards of\nphilosophy and social ethics; and above all, perhaps, our marvelous\ncommercial order, connecting, as it does, the entire globe, seems a\nfar cry; but it is only another link in a chain and fits into the past\nas accurately and as inevitably as the morning follows the night.\n\nThere is an erroneous idea current that public institutions, such as\nlaw-courts, religious creeds, educational systems, reform movements,\net cetera, are causes of race-advancement. As a matter of fact they\nare not causes but results. They do not determine progress; they\nreflect it.\n\nCauses start from the Center and radiate outward. We may realize this\nmore readily if we will remember that if we throw a pebble into a pool\nof water, it starts innumerable little waves which traveling outward,\nreach a point some distance from the central source, and if we were to\nsee the outermost wavelet only, we might imagine that the disturbance\nbegins and ends far from the place where the pebble was thrown.\n\nThis illustration explains the difference between the materialistic\nand the metaphysical points of view. The former notes the result, and\nthe latter the cause of existing conditions. The mystical viewpoint\ntakes into account the fact that there is a cosmic law which acts like\na tidal-wave. Materialists call the action of this law \"Evolution,\"\nassuming that its impetus comes from our physical activities. It is,\nin fact, from the Center or spiritual source of life that all power,\nall evolution, emanates. The spiritual is the intensity of power; the\nphysical is the attenuated.\n\nThe term, \"spiritual realms\" suggests to the average mind a vaporous\nspace where nothing happens; yet it requires only a little intelligent\nreflection to establish the fact that, as Paracelsus said long ago,\n\"The mind is the workshop in which all visible life is formed.\" Our\nmental operations are silently, invisibly, carried on, and yet we see\nthe effect of these silent plans and ideas in our noisy methods of\nlocomotion; our architecture; our commerce--in all the avenues of our\nactive civilization.\n\nWe wish to emphasize the point that every so-called advancement; every\ndiscovery; every improvement in moral ideals as well as in mechanics,\nand in those things that add to our physical comfort, comes from the\ncenter of Life.\n\nThe external but _reflects_ the action of the Cosmic Law which\nuncovers the vast areas of consciousness and frees the human soul from\nthe hypnotisms, and the limitations of the animal-mind.\n\nAnimal force is still strong in the world to-day, but it is not as\nstrong as it appears to be, because much of the seeming indifference\nand cold-heartedness of the people, taken en masse, is due to the\nhurried, feverish and insistent demands of our external life.\n\nUnderneath the surface, in the realm of the sub-conscious activities,\nthere is developing the spirit of unity; of sympathy; and a\nconsciousness of our innate relationship. This realization comes to\nthe surface in times of great stress and peril.\n\nThe whole trend of modern life symbolizes or reflects the _ideal_ of\nunity, albeit the tooth and claw and growl of the animal in Man may be\nseen and felt and heard in the vain effort to postpone the inevitable\ndethronement of the animal force, which would dominate the weaker and\nappropriate for the personal self, the creation of brain and hand,\nmuch as the house-dog, satiated with over-feeding, buries the bone he\ncannot eat lest some hungry brother-dog shall get it. Nevertheless,\ndespite the animal greed that still shows in our modern life, there is\nplenty of evidence that we are on the upward spiral that leads to\nunity--the effect of love.\n\nThe superficial observer, dominated by that instinct of fear which\nseems to be so ingrained in our animal nature that we are all slaves\nto it in some form or degree, sees in the present-day conditions a\nmenace to what he believes to be the moral life of the race, and\nparticularly as these conditions apply to the modern woman.\n\nHe sees women coming out of the seclusion of their \"rightful sphere\"\nand meeting men on terms of equality. He sees what he terms \"immodest\ndress;\" defiance of traditional ideas of etiquette and conduct; he\nnotes what appears to be a disregard for the faith of our fathers;\nand, above all, a distaste for that special function of\nwoman--child-bearing. The superficial observer, both male and female,\nfeels great alarm.\n\nBut let us not be dismayed. Present day conditions, particularly as\nthey relate to the female principle of Creation, but reflect the\ninevitable reaction from a one-sided course. The pendulum swings back\nagain and ultimately we will strike a balance; from domination to\nunity; from struggle to harmony. Even American commercial life admits\nthe value of a vacation time.\n\nPresent day conditions, then, are not chaotic or lacking in a\nwell-defined purpose, even though they are unsettled. Anything that\ndisturbs the seeming placidity of the surface always strikes alarm to\nthe undeveloped mind. Particularly in those phases of our modern life\nwhich directly affect women, or in which we may say, the Female\nPrinciple is especially concerned, we note a determined and united\ndemand for freedom.\n\nWoman's demand for political equality is but a shadowgraph as it were\nof the real demand which is the demand of the Divine Feminine\nthroughout all manifested life, for recognition of equality, in the\nplan of creation. It is a symbol of the ideal of unity which finds\nexpression in the commercial world in trusts and labor unions; in the\n\"let us get together\" plea of the various advocates of reform; of all\nthose enterprises which are seen to most directly affect the entire\nhuman family.\n\nThat there are women who are blind to this fundamental idea of their\ndemand for political equality is true; and it is also true that there\nare perhaps as many men as there are women who recognize the need of\nwoman's political and social equality, but this only proves the fact\nwhich we have already emphasized, namely that it is not women as\npersonalities, but the Female Principle throughout the universe that\nis at the root of the modern Feminist Movement. The male principle is\nnot confined to the form of man, neither is the female principle\nalways expressed in the form of woman. Many men exemplify more of the\nmaternal instinct than do certain women; neither must it be assumed\nthat this type of man is effeminate; or that the woman of Amazonian\nphysique is more masculine in thought and habit than is the little\nfrou-frou specimen of womankind who looks appealingly into the eyes of\nher male escort, beseeching protection from the rude stares which she\nhas premeditatedly invited. Qualities are sexless and universal. It is\nonly in their specific combinations that they adequately represent the\nmasculine or the feminine gender.\n\nBlessed are they who have learned the art of discrimination.\n\nBroadly speaking, women are behaving in a manner which upsets all\nprecedent and promises ultimate emancipation from restraint.\n\nBut is it not possible that women no longer need restraint if they\never needed it? Is it not possible that the world has grown up, and\nthat both men and women may safely be allowed the freedom of\nself-government, with all possible mutual aid in the work of\nestablishing an upright, free, and trustworthy science of right\nliving?\n\nThat which is always in the future is never ours and if we are ever\ngoing to be free and happy and well-conditioned there is no reason why\nwe should not make it soon.\n\nWoman's demand for political equality is sometimes used as an excuse\nto lessen her dignity and her place in society. People who do this are\nof the same type as those before whom Sex cannot be discussed\nintelligently because they do not realize the sacredness of Sex. They\nare a remnant of the ages which have passed and which have left their\nmark, in the idea of a half-sexed God, the \"He,\" the spouseless Father\nwho brought forth the visible universe apparently without co-operation\nwith the Female Principle. This type of person prates much about the\ndangers of race-suicide, meaning thereby the increasing tendency to\nchildlessness and not as should be taken into account the death rate\namong children who are born of diseased and unfit parents and brought\ninto existence without the necessary conditions of sanitation, food\nand care.\n\nOur national Eugenic societies are hampered by false ideas of what\nconstitutes morality, being bound to uphold the tradition that the\nchild that is born of married parents, no matter how diseased in body\nand deficient in mind, is better-born than is the offspring of\nunmarried parents, even though the latter may be a model of physical\nhealth and mental efficiency. Eugenics will remain limited in scope\nuntil such time as the entire world adopts \"in spirit and in truth\"\nthe recent action of the European governments, and recognizes the\nlegitimacy of all children however born.\n\nAnd although the action of the European governments was born of\nnothing more humane than a war expediency in order that more soldiers\nmight be bred, yet the effect of such a course will benefit the human\nrace. It has at least set a precedent, and will in time be extended to\nall children born out of wedlock and will wipe out forever the cruel\nand unjust stigma that has attached to the child of unmarried parents.\nThus it will be seen that even war has its good results, and although\nit seems a terrible price to pay for even so badly a needed reform as\nthis, Humanity has always paid dearly for its willful blindness. It\ncertainly should be evident to any sane mind that every child that is\nborn into this world has a moral and a legal right to be here.\nWhatever may be said for or against parents, it is wicked stupidity to\nbrand an innocent child with the epithet \"illegitimate.\" The lowest\nanimal has a right to be born. Many a beautiful and innocent child is\ndenied that right.\n\nIf it has taken one of the most bloody wars in history to establish\nthe right of birth, even so the struggle will not have been in vain,\nbecause this right, once established in the hearts of all Humanity,\nwill forever do away with warfare. No doubt this assertion will sound\nfar-fetched to many, but the future will see the vindication of this\nbelief.\n\nBirth is actually the most important function in life. If it is\nimmoral to be born, no matter what the conditions of such birth, what\npossible chance have we to live morally? We cannot discriminate in\ndealing with the great fundamentals of life.\n\nThis truism, applies to all cosmic action. Nature's laws are\ninviolable. Nature says that the child of the king and the child of\nthe beggar shall be born in the self-same way. The child of the\nunmarried mother and the child of the married mother come into the\nworld in accordance with the self-same law of reproduction. Nature may\nnot be always polite, but she is always truthful.\n\nAs long as there is any question of the \"legitimacy\" of any birth,\nHumanity as a whole cannot be otherwise than inferior, because\nHumanity cannot rise higher than the ideal of the average. Moreover we\nare so interdependent that the whole must be affected by the\nconditions of a part.\n\nBirth is right, or it is wrong. It cannot be right under some\ncircumstances and wrong under others. The primal laws do not take into\naccount our ideas of respectability.\n\nThe question then arises: \"Are we to consider it moral and legitimate\nfor women to have children before they have been married?\"\n\nThe obvious answer to this question is, that the mother must be\npermitted to decide this for herself, since no one has a right to do\nit for her. Our right of interference in so intimate a matter must\nbegin only at the point where her conduct injures us. If an unmarried\nwoman chooses to give birth to a child, neither you nor I, nor Society\nis injured, not even if the child becomes a charge of the state,\nbecause the cost of maintaining a child is far less than that of\nmaintaining insane asylums and penitentiaries--both of which result\nfrom our mistaken attitude toward the sex-relation.\n\nIf we are permitted to answer the question of morality and legitimacy\nby generalities, we will say that any child that comes into the world\n_desired by the mother_ is born in accordance with the highest\npossible concept of the moral law. Whenever Society, Church and\nGovernments shall unite to wipe out the stain upon mother and child\nbecause of failure to comply with our marriage laws, a better race of\nmen and women will people the earth, because the race-thought will be\none of welcome with all that word implies; whereas at the present\ntime, under our undeveloped ideas of morality, doubt, suspicion, and\ncondemnation prevail, with all that these words imply.\n\nWhen all mothers are honored all women will be willing to be mothers.\n\nAs long as dishonor attaches to any instance of motherhood, it is\ninevitable that motherhood will be avoided, even to the point of\nchild-murder. Not that this practice is confined to the women who\nwould be dishonored by becoming mothers. It obtains rather more\nperhaps among those women whose wealth and ease would seem to make\nmotherhood desirable. Judging from surface conditions only, one might\nnot see the connection. But that is the trouble with our modern life.\nWe do not look deeply enough to deal intelligently with causes. We are\nalways seeking to check effects.\n\nThe average human being is little more than a phonographic record of\nthe dominant race-thought, and race-thought ideas are contagious.\n\nLet us honor and provide for all mothers and all children and we will\nfind that the birthrate will increase among the \"rich and\nrespectable,\" where now we note a determined desire to shirk the\nresponsibilities of parenthood.\n\nWe need not fear that the number of unmarried mothers will be\nalarming. The first aid to true morality is honesty. Monogamy is the\nideal relationship between men and women. But enforced relationships\nare neither ideal nor true. Ideal conditions can be established only\nbetween free human beings. Compulsion is death. Selection and choice\nmean life and health.\n\nThe man or the woman who is free, and particularly free from\nself-condemnation, is instinctively monogamous. Life in all its phases\ntends upward toward conscious and specific selection. Conscious\nselection must include love, and we may safely trust love. Love is\ninseparable from truth and fidelity. Without love, all the efforts of\nall the Eugenic Societies on earth will accomplish little, however\nwell-meant their efforts. Eugenists confine their work to the physical\naspect of the subject and as a matter of expediency deal with the\neffects of marriage and race-propagation in their relation to disease\nand degeneracy, ignoring the esoteric phase of the subject. Thus no\nreal good can come of the Eugenic movement per se. Its contribution to\nProgress consists in its value as an \"announcer\" of a higher _ideal_,\nrather than a higher _order_. The higher order can come only by\ngetting back to primal laws.\n\nThe fact should not be overlooked that the ancient Greeks were\ncompetent Eugenists. They effected wonderful results, too, in two\nimportant points of the well-balanced individual. They worked for\nbeauty and intellect, both desirable adjuncts to a perfect race, but\nboth also as cold as the marble statues which Greece gave to the\nworld. Greek and Roman civilization toppled and fell because it was a\ncivilization without foundation; it was built from the outside; it was\nlike an old ruined house encased in a thin wall of beautiful marble,\nand set upon a high hill. It deceives the eye from a distance, but\nfreezes the blood and congeals the soul when intimately known.\n\nGreek and Roman civilization, based upon physical Eugenics, was\nunbalanced and could not endure, because it was a civilization of\nforce; of dominance rather than of unity. There was no ideal of\nsex-equality, and therefore Love was regarded as the least important\nrequisite in Eugenic marriage. It should be obvious that without the\nelement of love, as the basis of selection, human reproduction must\ntake on the same status as stock-breeding, which may for a time give\nthe finest physical specimens of animal life, but which, if persisted\nin, finally results in decadence.\n\nWe have an example of the tendency to decadence from in-breeding of\nthose types of humans which have the best advantages at least of\neducation and refinement, whether or not those advantages are\nembraced. We refer to Royalty. We need only mention the illustrious\nexample of Cleopatra to prove this. Cleopatra was the offspring of a\nmarriage between a brother and sister--a custom which prevailed among\nancient rulers to insure none but royal blood. Cleopatra we may well\nbelieve was both beautiful and intellectual, but it is also certain\nthat she was abnormally lacking in conscience, in tenderness, in love.\nHer passions were those of the animal, and not of the soul.\n\nIn modern life, Spain and Austria both furnish discouraging data to\nexponents of \"select\" breeding. In fact it is thoroughly established\nthat degeneracy is not the result of imperfect physical conditions\nonly. The greatest villians are not infrequently both handsome and\nintellectual.\n\nBulwer Lytton well illustrates this fact in his character of\n\"Margrave\" in \"A Strange Story.\" Margrave was a perfect and beautiful\nphysical specimen. He possessed rare intelligence, but he had no soul\nand was utterly incapable of the finer sensibilities, which we\ninstinctively classify as spiritual attributes.\n\nReturning to a consideration of what has been termed the \"unusual\nbehavior\" of the feminine half of mankind, we find that the chief end\nand aim of many women centers upon the problem of how to avoid\nmaternity, quite upsetting traditional ideas regarding woman's\nrightful sphere, which began and ended in rearing a large family.\n\nWomen in all walks of life, rich and poor, wise and frivolous, selfish\nand unselfish--are refusing to bear children. The superficial observer\nrails against this, because he sees only the effect. He sees women\nliving in fashionable hotels, if they are rich enough to afford it; if\nthey are poor they establish a cheap imitation of this phase of\nsemi-communal life in what is paradoxically known as \"light\"\nhousekeeping, usually represented by one small dark room where the\nnearest delicatessen serves as a convenience, the public laundry\nminimizes domestic labor, and the department store supplies ready\nmade, the family clothing, from undergarments to top coats. Under\nthese conditions, whether of fashionable hotel suites or dark \"light\nhousekeeping,\" it is plain that children are not welcome.\n\nEven those of the class found between these extremes are discouraged\nfrom rearing children, since city life tends more and more to\napartments as a substitute for the home; and no well regulated\napartment house is open to children. The average observer, as we say,\nnotes these conditions, but fails to realize that there must be a\ncosmic cause for a condition so wide-spread. There must be \"something\nback of it,\" as we say of many things which we note in our every day\nlife. Looked at from the surface only, these conditions seem\ndeplorable and ultimately race-suicidal. But the cosmic law is always\nupward in tendency. We may safely trust it, if we will.\n\nThis does not mean that the conscious motive which actuates the\naverage woman, who is able physically and financially to bear children\nand yet will not, is a high and noble one. The law deals with the\nplanet, not directly with the individual; it acts upon the developed\nand the undeveloped with equal impartiality, even as the rain falls\nupon the just and the unjust alike.\n\nSpiritually conscious persons realize the necessity for a change in\nhuman ethics. The world is in need of a more exalted ideal; an ideal\nin which equality shall be more nearly represented and they give\nthemselves consciously to the task of assisting in this regenerating\nwork.\n\nThe difference is not in the law itself, but in our comprehension of\nit. The curriculum of the school of life is unchanged. We graduate\nfrom it or we return for another term, according as we have mastered\nthe studies. Applying this truth to the conditions just stated, and we\nsee that this rebellion on the part of woman against child birth has\ntwo aspects. One is from apparent selfishness and lack of the\ntemperamental quality, which has erroneously been attributed to women\nas an exclusive possession, namely, the maternal instinct.\n\nThe other aspect of woman's disinclination to maternity is due to a\nrestless, vague but nevertheless determined desire on the part of the\nFeminine Principle, to wait until conditions are more equal. Sometimes\nwe find women, who are perfectly awake and consciously aware of the\ncause of their \"brazen sterility,\" as a virile writer has caustically\ntermed it; but more often the conscious mental attitude is lacking and\nthey merely obey blindly the dominant race-mind.\n\nWomen know much more in the depths of their souls than they can put\ninto words. A part of this knowledge is the fact that child-bearing is\nnot a function limited to the physical, the mortal plane of life.\nEvery woman who is anywhere near balanced in the struggle for\ncompleteness knows intuitively, that even though she may never beget\nmortal children, there are innumerable opportunities for the exercise\nof her maternal functions, awaiting her just behind the veil, which\nseemingly separates us from invisible areas. Moreover motherhood is\nqualitative. It is not synonymous with maternity. It is not made nor\nunmade by the birthrate.\n\nTwo important considerations present themselves to the world today: One\nis that woman--considered as the fecund receptive sex-principle--is\nrefusing the sex relationship on the old basis, however \"respectable\"\nand well-intentioned that basis was. Generally speaking, it is evident\nthat the old basis of intercourse between the sexes has been, is\nbeing, and will continue to be, disrupted, denied, refused, as the\napproved and fixed plan and purpose of Destiny. The other important\nobservation is this: there is a cosmic cause for this.\n\nIt is only those who are blinded by prejudice or by sense-conscious\nlimitations who refuse to look below the surface for the cause of a\ncondition so general as that of unhappy marriages; of innumerable\ndivorces; of the refusal to bear children. What is the cause? Why are\nwomen refusing to marry, or when they do marry refusing to live with\ntheir husbands? Why do they shrink from child-birth? Are they less\ncourageous than their progenitors? Or are women less capable of\nlove--either love of children or love of the father who begets the\nchildren?\n\nIt will be agreed that we are establishing a higher standard of love\nthan ever before in history. We are beginning to realize for the first\ntime in the history of many generations, what we owe to the future.\nFormerly men built entirely for self, and for the immediate present.\nWe can look back and trace the development of a race consciousness\nfrom the clan to the nation. In this century we see the barriers\nbetween races and nations and sects and societies, as also between the\nsexes, slowly dissolving.\n\nOnly a few years ago we could not imagine an Oriental, occupying a\npolitical, or educational or religions platform with an Occidental.\nNow it is a common thing. We know the hostility which has existed\nbetween the Jew and the Gentile--now they exchange pulpits, and all\nsects and all nations unite in matters of world interest. Women are\nelected to political and educational offices. No matter that these\nevidences of unity are as yet incomplete. They are _promises_ of the\nbirth of a larger concept of love than that which prevailed when a\nman's highest idea of honor and of love was to protect his immediate\nfamily only; to care for his own legal wife and children even at the\nexpense of and certainly with heartless indifference to the fate of\nany other women and children.\n\nTo be sure, this protection has often been vouchsafed because of the\nself interest which is inseparable from the idea of possession and is\nnot, per se, a grander or nobler impulse than that which actuated our\nhair-clothed antecedents, who found that their own lives were best\nconserved by respecting those nearest to them. But thus it is that\nLove has been implanted in human hearts through no higher or more\naltruistic method than that of self-interest; but the nature of love\nis to expand; to grow; to _give_ of itself until unselfishness must\ncome with the final aim of love, which is _unity_ and not possession.\n\nWe of this era are unquestionably manifesting a larger and more\ninclusive ideal of love, and since the Female Principle conserves the\nhigher aspects of love, we are bound to concede that a higher ideal of\nlove is possible to the woman of today than ever before. We must take\ninto consideration the average of the sex, at the same time not\nforgetting that in the highest type of individual, the qualities of\nboth sexes are balanced, uniting the spiritual, self-sacrificing and\nunselfish love-element of the female principle, with the wider scope,\nthe inclusive element of the male. Let us remember that we are dealing\nwith principles and not merely with individuals.\n\nAdmitting that it is not because of lack of love, either maternal or\nconjugal, that women are shirking marriage and maternity, we may then\nask: \"What is the cause?\" The answer may be found in the conclusion\nthat women are done with mere instinctive procreation. They demand\nconditions consistent with the birth of a higher type of human-kind.\nThey desire to \"make right the way\" for the coming of the perfect\nrace--a race that will not snarl and bite and growl and tear and claw\nand choke and starve and freeze and otherwise kill each other over the\npossession of bones.\n\nEver and ever we have been promised the coming of the perfect man--the\n\"man-god,\" as Emerson said. This means the God in Man consciously\nactive, and awake. This God-nature of Man's has been asleep, submerged\nunder the domination of the animal nature which subdues and\nappropriates.\n\nA race of supermen can be born only of full and complete union.\nAnimals reproduce their kind, but man's perogative is to invite the\ngods to come to earth. We may consciously beget souls, not merely\nreproduce bodies. Women are demanding a union in which there shall be\nsomething more than mere physical contact resulting in reproduction.\nThis demand is working itself out more or less blindly according to\nthe development of individual women, but the ideal of soul union is\ncoming to be more and more recognized not only as a desirable type of\nunion, but also as the initiative of the promised time when the\nkingdom of God should come on earth as it is in the heavens.\n\nAll races have uttered this prayer, apparently with a firm belief in\nits efficacy. If they have not faith in its appeal, it were surely\nvain and foolish to voice it But we are assured that \"God always keeps\nhis promises,\" which is simply one way of saying that the law of the\ncosmos is reliable.\n\n\"One calls it Evolution and another calls it God,\" but both must agree\nthat whether God or Evolution be the name, Love is the result. There\ncan be no higher or more spiritual phase of life than that in which\nLove is an ever-present reality. Neither can we with any degree of\nlogic assume that a function so universal, so all-pervading, and also\nso inspiring, as that of Sex, has its beginning and its termination on\nthe physical plane--a manifestation of life which even physicists are\nbound to concede is an infinitesimal part of cosmic activities.\n\nWe need not worry therefore lest the race shall die, because of a\ndecreasing birthrate as we see it on the physical plane. There are\nmany other places and planes of consciousness. The stars and the\nplanets are peopled. The cosmos is very much alive, because Sex is the\naxis (X-is) upon which it rotates in perfect harmony.\n\nThe fact which we here wish to emphasize is that the Female Principle\nis refusing maternity, and above all the _bondage_ of matrimony for\nthe important reason that the time has come for the rearing of the\nMan-god; for the establishment of the spiritual function of sex,\nsuperceding the mere instinctive animal urge of procreation and sense\ngratification.\n\nEvolution is apparent in all other phases of our life-activities. Why\nshould it not manifest in this most important of all our systems of\nintercourse?\n\nThe mere act of bringing forth children is not in itself either sacred\nor holy. Far more often it has been a perfunctory duty or a punishment\nfor indulgence in an act of which men and women have been more than\nhalf ashamed, even while seeking it with the instinctive urge of a\ncosmic law which cannot be escaped, although it may be co-operated\nwith to advantage.\n\nNor does the act of giving birth to children confer true motherhood.\nMaternity is not necessarily motherhood any more than matrimony is\nalways marriage. There are many mothers who have never borne children.\nAnd there are many women with children who know not the first faint\ndawn of that wonderful, beautiful and intense (because spiritual) love\nwhich comes most often in the guise of motherhood, but which is\nalways present when two souls who are truly mated contact each other's\ninner nature.\n\nIf the women of today will insist upon the sacredness and the\nrightfulness of birth the women of tomorrow will not seek to evade\nmotherhood. If the women of today will establish the sacredness of all\nlife; if they will not rest until every child that is born into this\nworld is recognized as legitimate and more, is welcomed; is given\nevery advantage of education, of healthful body, of right moral\ntraining, rest assured that the women of the future will seek only to\nrival each other in the quality and the perfection of their\nmotherhood.\n\nThe efforts of many radicals to enact legislation regulating the\nbirthrate, the struggle to disseminate knowledge of how to prevent\nconception, may be well meant as these things are consistent with\nprevailing conditions. But they are not the final answer to the\nproblem. Love is the only answer. Where love is permitted to rule,\nchildren are not only welcome but ecstatically desired and provided\nfor.\n\nMotherhood is a hope and a joy to the normal woman. Comparatively\nevery woman would be normal under proper social and economic\nconditions. When women seek to evade maternity it is either because of\nlack of sufficient means to care for children, or it is because of\nlack of sufficient love. Or it is because of fear of that modern\nmo-loch, Public Opinion.\n\nWhen a woman truly loves a man, she longs to be the mother of his\nchildren. A balanced world will make it possible for every woman to be\nfree from the bondage of fear and poverty, and ill-health, leaving her\nfree to be guided in the most vital and important function of her\nlife, by the call of the highest love of which she is capable. Love\nwill establish motherhood as a divine privilege. Certainly no other\npower on earth or in the realms above can do so. Neither preachments\nnor platitudes, nor punishments, nor legislative blunderings. Love is\nthe only saviour of mankind. There is no other true God.\n\nSome day the symbol of Deity which now depicts Man crucified will be\nsuperseded upon all altars by the image of a winged babe, and when\nthis comes to pass, Humanity will rise to that ideal.\n\n\n\n\n                              CHAPTER IV\n\n                  THE HISTORY OF MARRIAGE AND MATING\n\n\nAny attempt to discuss subjects pertaining to the sex-relation with\nintelligence and an optimistic outlook is handicapped by the fact that\nsex-problems are so intimately associated with religious prejudices,\nreasons for which we have already mentioned in the chapter devoted to\nsex-worship and sex-degradation.\n\nIt is possible, therefore, that in seeking to define freedom and to\nmake a plea for the freeing of women and men from the \"bonds\" of\nmatrimony, we may be accused of seeking to demolish with one blow, so\nto speak, the social institution of marriage.\n\nSuch is not the intention of the present writer, for reasons which are\nbased upon something far more noteworthy than a concession to the\nprejudices and \"beliefs\" of the average.\n\nLuther Burbank has said: \"In pursuing any of the everlasting and\nfundamental laws of nature, all previous bias and inherited prejudices\nmust be laid aside, if the student hopes to be taken into Nature's\nconfidence and be the sharer of her secrets.\"\n\nThe average person, entrenched behind the bulwark of theological\nbias, saturated with a belief in the finality of all previous\ndiscovery and knowledge, teems with a fanatical desire to \"defend his\nGod\"--as if the Supreme Power, whatever name we give it--were not\ncapable of self-defense.\n\nIt is due to this mistaken zeal on the part of the short-sighted ones,\nthat human evolution is slow, albeit it is likewise inevitable.\n\nThey are like those who, viewing the wrecking of a ruined habitation,\ncondemned by the Board of Public Safety, try to stop the process of\nthe workers; they do not know that when the ground shall have been\ncleared, a finer, more sightly, and above all, more habitable building\nwill be put up on the same ground; and anything from the old\narchitecture that was worthy of preservation will be used in the new\nbuilding.\n\nThe dug-outs of our antedeluvian ancestors were designed to protect\nthem from the destructive forces of storm and wave and also from their\nbrothers, the enemy; and although our ideas of what constitutes a\ndesirable dwelling-place have evolved to our modern ideal of a home,\nrather than a shelter, yet the fundamental concept remains. A study of\nhistory should be encouraging if only to prove that no radical changes\nin human ethics have ever been forced upon us. Verily, the \"gods wait\nupon men\" and until there is something like a concerted demand for\nimproved conditions, they stand just outside the door waiting to be\nbidden, \"Enter, Friend.\"\n\nAs with mental ideas, so it is with ethical ideals. Until there is a\nmore general demand for a higher concept of marriage, it is quite\ncertain that the world will worry along with the one which now does\nduty for the majority, although it must be admitted that the poor\nthing gives evidence of much decrepitude and suffers from as many\ncomplaints as a hypochondriac.\n\nBut, the fact that marriage in some form has prevailed as one of the\nfundamental necessities of human ethics, ever since the beginning of\nrecorded history, and doubtless before that, is, we believe, very\nsatisfactory evidence that marriage has a permanent place in social\nand individual evolution. What that place is, can be deduced from a\nstudy of the history of marriage.\n\nThere are two different viewpoints from which we may discuss all\nphases of Life, namely, the mystical and the ethical. The mystic sees\nall life from the inside, as it were; and the physicist studies the\nexterior, the appearance. To the mystic, the visible, or external,\nworld is a succession of symbols, which he must interpret. To him, the\neverlasting and fundamental truths of the Cosmos are told in a\nsuccession of moving pictures. In fact, the mystic has long\nanticipated the art which we now see manifested in our film-theatres\nand has realized that the scenes, which appear to the eye as actual\nevents, are but the reflection of scenes enacted in a place far\ndistant and long before the moment of projection upon the screen which\nmeets his eye.\n\nScience examines, dissects, and classifies these symbols according to\ntheir relation to other symbols which the mind has previously noted\nand classified. The same conclusion awaits both Science and Mysticism.\n\nHumanity is ever seeking the Reality--the Noumenon, which we\nintuitively postulate as behind the phenomena of Nature.\n\nThe institution of marriage, coming down to us through all the ages,\nside by side with the mystery of sex, and incorporated with the\nsex-mystery into every form and system of religious rites and\nceremonials among all peoples, would seem to have a place in human\nethics, as substantial and as permanent as the germ of life itself.\n\nIndeed, the institution of marriage, in its first stages of evolution,\nobtains in the animal kingdom, where selection in a great variety of\nforms is common.\n\nAnd it must be confessed that here we find the same tendency to change\nand variation, both in regard to the individual and the family\nspecies, as we have in the human family.\n\nPolyandry, polygamy, and monogamy, have been general among some\nanimals while among others only one form of mating has been the rule.\n\nStrange to say, sex promiscuity is not at all general among the\nanimals, though polygamy is common. The adoption of polygamy is\nobviously due to one of two things, or possibly, to be more specific,\nto both. First, because the percentage of deaths among the males is\ngreater than among the females; this applies to animal life, both wild\nand domestic. In wild life, because of frequent combats; in domestic\nlife, because the females are kept for breeding while the males are\nslaughtered for food.\n\nThe second reason is because the female is seldom as virile as the\nmale, and to this is also added the debilitating effect of bearing and\nrearing the young, the necessity for which must have manifested itself\nvery early among the various families, from motives of self-protection,\nif from nothing higher, since victory evidently favored the numerically\nstrong.\n\nIn bird-life, especially, where love is so vital a part of their life,\nand so beautifully expressed, monogamy is the rule, and in some\nspecies, like that of the robin, a certain aristocracy seems to exist,\npreventing intercourse with any other family. The robin will mate only\nwith a robin, and not infrequently mates for life; which is to say\nthat should one die, the other refuses to mate again.\n\nIt is claimed that the bald-headed eagle never varies from monogamy. A\nmate once chosen, the union lasts until the death of either partner.\nIt does not follow from this, however, that the bald-headed eagle is a\ncreature of a superior moral conscience. It may be that he is guided\nin his selection of a conjugal mate by an intuitional power\nundeveloped by other types of life, or, which is far more probable, it\nmay be that his sexual nature is easily satisfied and that he has no\ntemperamental affinities or repulsions, in which event force of habit\nwould be the strongest actuating power. This explanation is in keeping\nwith the eagle character.\n\nThe point is that marriage, or what constitutes marriage, exists among\nbirds and animals, and that it antedates history as a social\ninstitution among men. Another fact which we must concede, if we are\njust, is that marriage apparently knows no systematic and upward\ntrend. There is, in fact, no determined evolution toward a definite\nand conclusive practice of monogamy, although the monogamic custom is\nrecognized as the evolutionary type among the civilized races of\ntoday. Nevertheless, it would be folly to imply that a strict monogamy\nobtains in the letter of the word, or that social exigencies might not\nreinstate polygamy as a legalized custom.\n\nPassing over those forms of mating, which may be classed as\nsex-promiscuity, such, for example, as exist among the Esquimaux, and\nalso among the Dyaks, of Borneo, where a \"contract\" is made for a\nnight by the simple expediency of the man and the woman exchanging\nhead-gear, we come to one of the earliest and most general forms of\nmarriage among primitive peoples, where the parents arranged a\nmarriage between their children for reasons of personal profit. In\nthese instances, neither the youth nor the girl was consulted and\ngenerally did not meet until they met to consummate the marriage. In\nfact, they seemed not to have any preferences. These marriages were\neasily broken, unless children resulted therefrom, when there seems\nto have developed a sense of obligation to the offspring to continue\nthe family.\n\nMarriage by capture grew out of the matriarchal system and came as the\nvery natural revolt of the male from the female rule, in which he had\nno rights and no home with his spouse. Since the gens of the family\nwas the first consideration and this was maintained by the female\nheads of a clan, there was nothing left for the male to do, if he\nwould be a factor in the community, but to steal his wife from her\nfamily, and establish a family life of his own. Thus the female became\nthe possession of the male, by his right of capture and defense.\n\nInspired by the thirst for further invasions, the male gradually\nacquired not only one, but many wives, which constituted his\n\"possessions,\" from the fact that he had earned them by right of\nconquest, conquest being not only the savage but also the civilized\nidea of \"earning.\"\n\nIndeed, our modern marriages reveal a degree of savagery in this\nrespect, which is not suspected by the casual observer. The almost\ngeneral observance of what has come to be known in legal jurisprudence\nas \"the unwritten law,\" which permits a man to go unpunished when he\nkills another man whom he believes to have been on terms of intimacy\nwith his wife, is a tacit admission of a man's vested rights in his\nwife's person.\n\nIn innumerable instances, which have been given world-wide publicity\nwithin very recent times, the man who has been guilty of homicide\nunder these circumstances has been exalted to the plane of a\nmartyr-hero, and one woman writer, whose hysterical effusions are\ngiven considerable space in the public print, defended a man who had\ntaken advantage of this \"unwritten law\" to shoot his rival, in the\nfollowing words: \"You, Mister, would shoot a man whom you found\nprowling through your house with the intention of stealing your\nsilver; your jewelry; your property of whatever kind or value. How\nmuch more, then, should you guard the honor of your wife, from these\npestilential marauders?\"\n\nOf course we question the right of human beings to kill each other in\ndefense of mere property; but that is not the point here. The\ninference here is obvious that this woman, who represents at least the\naverage degree of intelligence, placed her sex in the category of\nman's possessions, utterly ignoring the woman's right, or power of\nfree-will.\n\nMention is here made of this incident to show how deeply rooted is the\npossessive idea of marriage, which had its origin in nothing more\nideal than the animal instinct of the dog with the bone.\n\nNor would we give the impression that this one-sided idea of what\nconstitutes a monogamous marriage is confined to the male. The same\nidea of possession as of a piece of property, representing so much\ninvestment of time and money, and service of one kind or another,\nactuates the female also although the rights of the woman in the male\nare not so generally defended and she seldom resorts to such violent\nmethods of defense or of revenge for loss of her property. Perhaps she\nhas a keener sense of values. Necessity has substituted \"support\" for\n\"outraged honor,\" and modern woman avenges the loss of her possessions\nthrough the safer channels of the law-courts.\n\nThe feeling of possession, so ingrained in human nature, and so much a\npart of our modern marriage relation, is not grounded upon a moral\ncode, which has for its basic principle fidelity to one's partner.\nThis is proven by the fact that men have for some time abrogated to\nthemselves the right of promiscuity, the main clause of their defense\nbeing that their conduct does not deprive their wife and family of\nsatisfactory maintenance. Many a woman today, irreproachably\nrespectable and church-going, will admit to herself if not to her\nneighbors, that she closes her eyes to her husband's laxity in sexual\nmatters, \"as long as he provides well for me.\"\n\nWhen we come, as we will later, to a consideration of what constitutes\nmorality, we will see that, like all our evolving ideals, it is\ngoverned by immediate conditions, both individual and social.\n\nIt is easy to see why polygamy has been practiced, as a necessary\nexpedient, and why women have been held so cheaply, when we realize\nthe centuries of devastating wars, both of conquest and of defense,\nwhich besmirch the path of Evolution.\n\nThus the tendency to aesthetic selection, always more pronounced in\nthe female than in the male, has been swallowed up in the false\nvaluation put upon the male, because of his relative scarcity.\n\nIn America, in the early sixties, fear of the epithet \"old maid\" drove\nmany a woman to marriage with a man whom, personally, she did not\nlike, but as he represented a more or less \"rara avis\" and as her\nclaim to attractiveness rested upon her success in trapping this rare\nbird, she permitted herself to become a victim of conditions; and we\nmay safely conclude that no higher motive actuated the average woman\nof the last century than that of submission to conditions, for the\n\"virtues of fidelity and devotion to the home and fireside\" which\ncritics of present-day morals are fond of reminding us characterized\nour grandmothers.\n\nBriefly, then, we may review the history of marriage and of mating,\neverywhere, and at all times, as variable, controlled by expediency;\nand always based on the egoistic idea of possession, expressed by the\nright of the parents to dispose of their children; the right by\ncapture; the right by purchase; and the right by consent.\n\nOne or all of these customs have been tried in various parts of the\nworld and at various times, and seldom has the condition of woman\napproached even so enviable a place as that of the female animal,\nexcept in the comparatively short periods when women have been the\ngens of the family.\n\nThese periods have become more and more infrequent, until the legal\nstatus of women has been, as it is now, no more than what the\nevolving consciousness of the male permitted to her.\n\nIt is a question whether, under our pretended monogamy, which is, per\nse, a more ideal condition than polygamy, all women have been either\nbetter conditioned or more moral. The answer depends largely upon our\nidea of what constitutes morality. Certainly, the condition of women\nin Christian countries has been, and is now, far from ideal; which\nwould, judging from surface appearances, indicate that monogamy, as it\nhas been practiced in the past, served only as an ideal, and at best\nhas been of first aid to the male, primarily because of a question of\npersonal health and cleanliness; secondly, as a means of developing in\nhim the latent qualities of altruism, manifested selfishly enough at\nfirst in protecting his possessions; among which he egotistically\nconceded _his children at least_ first place; although the wife was\nhardly more than a convenience and an incubator.\n\nOf the conditions that have prevailed under the monogamous custom and\namong the so-called superior races, Letourneau, in his _Evolution of\nthe Family_, says: \"The Hebrews seem to have been alone, among the\nSemites, in adopting monogamy, at least in general practice. Doubtless\nthe subjection of the Jewish woman was not extreme as it is in Kabyle;\nit was, however, very great. Her consent to marriage, it is true, was\nnecessary when she had reached majority, but she was all the same sold\nto her husband. We find hardly more than the portrait of a laborious\nservant, busy and grasping. We shall see that the wife, though she\nmight gain much money, which seems to have been the ideal of the\nHebrew, according to the Proverbs, was repudiable at will, with no\nother reason than the caprice of the master who had bought her.\nFinally, and this is much more severe, she was always obliged to be\nable to prove, _cloths in hand_, that she was a virgin at the moment\nof her marriage, and this under pain of being stoned.\"\n\nThe same state of affairs or worse existed in India and in Persia,\nalthough in Persia there seems to have been an attempt to enjoin the\nsame fidelity upon the husband as upon the wife, according to the\nZend-Avesta; the only severe restriction to marriage being that\nneither should marry an infidel. In India, where there has been for\ncenturies an alleged monogamy (except among the privileged classes,\nwhere concubinage held sway), the ethical condition of the women has\nbeen, and still is, deplorable.\n\nIn ancient Greece and Rome the position of the woman was most\ninferior. She was generally purchased, or given for service. Her\nhusband's word was law, and mothers were compelled to obey their male\nchildren as uncomplainingly as though they were slaves. The wife and\nmother was not permitted to attend festivities and neither was she\nallowed the selection of her friends, her husband deciding this choice\nfor her.\n\nThis, of course, applied to the respectable, or so-called virtuous\nwoman, which constituted the average. Then, as now, two classes of\nwomen were to some extent exempt from this rigid custom. One class\nwas formed by those women whose wealth conferred upon them a degree of\npower, because the possessors of great wealth have always been a law\nunto themselves. The other class was formed by the women who practiced\nprostitution, and who, by reason of their mode of life, met men on\nterms of at least temporary social equality.\n\nThus it is evident that the path of the virtuous woman without the\nindependence that accompanies the possession of her own money, was in\nancient days much more thorny than that of the concubine or the\nprostitute; and it is because of this fact that parental love, the\nmost powerful of all levers employed by the Cosmic Law to lift love\nout of degradation, instituted the custom of the \"dowry,\" and although\nthis, too, has at various times become a source of degradation,\ninspiring impoverished aristocrats to loveless marriages with\nso-called inferiors, yet it has after all been a factor in the\nevolution of women and the preservation of the races. It has served\ntwo purposes. It has made women, in theory at least, more independent;\nand it has resulted in an admixture of blood which has saved the\naristocratic class from extinction through decadence.\n\nAs might well be expected in those instances where women did enjoy a\ndegree of liberty that was due to financial and social advantages,\nthey took a mean delight in ruling it over their male relatives, and,\nas we may note in our own time, men who yielded to the seduction of\nwealth, and married women to whom they were forced to accord the\nfreedom and the deference which wealth confers, complained bitterly of\ntheir lot; as witness the following complaint of a Roman husband: \"I\nhave married a witch with a dowry; I took her to have her fields and\nhouses, and that, O Apollo, is the worst of evils.\"\n\nOne dominant idea controlled the status of marriage in early Greece\nand Rome--an idea in full accord with the materialistic phase of their\ncivilization; this was the idea of procreation; an idea that logically\nwas inevitable, since continuous warfare resulted in a population in\nwhich women predominated, and we are told that in the interest of\nprocreation both childlessness and celibacy were severely punished.\nThus the situation of women was that best described by the phrase\n\"between the devil and the deep sea.\"\n\nRegarding the \"ideal of marital fidelity,\" Plutarch is authority for\nthe story that Cato loaned his wife to his friend Hortensius and took\nher back on the death of the latter, plus a rich inheritance from the\ntransaction. However, should Martha have yielded herself voluntarily\nto Hortensius, from motives of affection, the chances are that she\nwould have met death at the hands of her \"justly outraged\" spouse.\n\nIn Europe, similar conditions prevailed, and although monogamy was the\nrule, concubinage and prostitution in all its forms existed. The wife\nwas subject to the husband in every wish and whim, and after him to\nthe eldest son. This is true today in Germany and among the Saxons in\na degree whose modifications do not accord with other advances in our\nsocial ethics.\n\nIt is a mistake to claim that religious systems have had any direct\ninfluence in the emancipation of women during the nineteen hundred\nyears of Christian civilization among the white races.\n\nReligious systems have only reflected the race-thought; they have not\nmolded it. This is true, despite the fact that true religion, when\nesoterically understood, has always aimed at union, and union means\nequality along all lines, sex-equality; social equality; race\nequality.\n\nWe must here digress from the main point of this chapter long enough\nto explain that equality is not synonymous with identity, as seems to\nbe the impression among the many; a misconception which we regret to\nsay is shared by the judge on the bench with the workingman on the\nconstruction gang, and the idiotic observation that \"if women expect\nto vote they must expect to stand up in the street-car,\" is not, alas!\nconfined to the lout, but is quite often voiced by the professional\nman.\n\nThe same silly idea prevails with regard to race-equality. It is\njudged by a similarity to our own in matters of dress; or choice of\nfoods; by inconsequential differences, rather than by an estimate of\nwhat a given race may contribute to the variety of human knowledge;\nand yet it is evident that nature aims at variety; at a multiplicity\nof ideas and customs and creations.\n\nDifferentiation is the primal attempt.\n\nWoman's claim to equality should be based upon the fact that first of\nall she is different from, rather than identical with, men.\n\nThe woman who dons male attire and eschews all so-called \"feminine\nfrivolity\" in her efforts to prove herself man's equal, is confessing\nthat in her natural environment she does not consider herself his\nequal, and is masquerading as man, in the vain hope that she may\ndeceive herself and others into thinking she is.\n\nAn individual is important to Society in proportion to his\noriginality; in proportion as he contributes some new idea; some\nhitherto unfamiliar view.\n\nReturning to the point of what constitutes true religion, namely, a\nconsciousness of our unity with all life, we find that although\nreligious ethics have included this ideal, it has not been emphasized\nin the ratio of its importance. The result is that where unity should\nhave been established, segregation has been the rule, and it is\nwithout any desire to reflect discredit upon the ideal of the Church\nthat we point to the fact that woman's emancipation, and her\nco-operation in all departments of life, as a hope, if not a\nconsummated reality, has but now made its initial bow to the world.\n\nThat this initial bow comes side by side with, if not actually in the\nwake of, disruption of the old theologic dogmas; dissatisfaction with\nreligious systems; and a determined disregard for what has been\npresented as religion; cannot be denied. The fact is that religious\ncreeds never save anyone; never really elevate nations. At best they\nhave been but a \"consolation prize\" or a narcotic. Love of freedom is\nthe great liberator.\n\nThe influence of Rationalism, as inaugurated by Ingersoll in America\nand Bradlaugh in England, was the opening wedge. Christian Science,\nmothered by a woman, incorporated the phrase \"Father-Mother-God\" into\nits literature, and unity has been the avowed ideal of all the variety\nof new cults and philosophies presented under so great a variety of\nnames that we cannot here enumerate them.\n\nNevertheless, we are still many leagues short of realizing this ideal,\ndespite the preachments in its favor. Politically, the ideal of unity\nis presented, more or less imperfectly, of course, as Socialism, and\nSuffrage. Commercially, still more imperfectly in the merchants' \"let\nus get together on this,\" and in efforts at legislation that shall\ncontrol corporation dividends and labor schedules, and regulate hours\nof work. In fact, all along the line we see the shadow cast by the\nrising sun of unity.\n\nWe have thus briefly traced the history of marriage and of mating, in\norder that we may discuss with sane impartiality the questions: What\ndoes marriage symbolize? What is its function in the life of the\nsocial body; in the existence of the sphere itself; of the entire\nCosmos?\n\nHas it any real place and purpose beyond that of procreation, or any\nmore spiritual function than the perpetuation of the human species?\n\n\n\n\n                              CHAPTER V\n\n              THE SYMBOLISM OF MARRIAGE AND OF SEX-UNION\n\n\nNotwithstanding the patent fact that the institution of monogamous\nmarriage has not resulted in an ideal condition, it is also plain that\nany other ideal of sex-union is impossible to a highly developed race.\n\nMonogamy, despite its present unsatisfactory condition, is a promise\nof the highest ideal to which mortals can aspire; it is the imperfect\nimage of that ideal state which human nature has always striven for.\nThat we have striven for the most part blindly; that we have fallen\nfar short of the ideal aimed at, should not deter us from realizing\nthat the ideal is right.\n\nMonogamy, as a type of the perfect marriage, symbolizes the meeting\nand the consequent union of a man and a woman who are perfect\ncomplementaries.\n\nIn order to be a perfect and lasting union, they must be spiritual\ncounterparts. Without this counterpartal affinity as the base of\nunion, no power on earth can force them to unite, although all the\nlaws of men be employed to keep them tied to each other in the body.\nIf two persons belong to each other by the inviolable law of spiritual\ncounterpart, no multitudinous set of man-made laws can keep their\nsouls apart, although these codes may temporarily separate them in the\nflesh. The bonds of true matrimony are \"holy\"--the word meaning whole;\nentire; complete; but these bonds are of an interior nature; they may\nbe judged only from the interior nature of two persons; and any\nattempt to decide this all-important question from the standpoint of\nexterior judgment must fail.\n\nThe perfect union of the one man and the one woman is the highest\nideal of marriage of which we can conceive; but shall we for that\nreason insist that marriage as a social institution is always complete\nand holy? When two immature persons come together under the stimulus\nof no more complementary impulse than the blind force of chemical\nattraction and cohesion--an instinct, which we share in common with\nevery form of life, from the lowest insect to man--shall they be\ncompelled to abide by that act \"as long as they both shall live\" in\nthe physical body?\n\nWe would say, \"Heaven forbid!\" only that the appeal is unnecessary.\nHeaven does forbid, and that is why we see so many attempts to disrupt\nthese immature relationships.\n\n\"The striving of sexual elements through affinities, or passional\nattractions, after congenial marriage unions, is the cause of all the\nmotions, growths, and activities in the physical and moral world,\"\nsays a writer, and he adds: \"The failure to attain the desired end,\nand the warfare between uncongenial and repulsive elements is the\ncause of all the broken equilibriums, discords, and collisions in both\nspheres. If the atomic marriage in nature were perfect, there would be\nno storms or droughts, or poisons or monstrosities, or disease. If the\nmarriage between the individual will and understanding, between the\ninterior and exterior life, were perfect, we should have regenerated\nmen upon earth, worthy to be called sons of God. If the marriage\nbetween the sexes were perfect, we should have a Social Paradise.\"\n\nMarriage, then, in the sense of the conjugal union of two persons of\nopposite sex, is the most important function of our lives; every other\nactivity is subsidiary to it. Commerce is carried on, only because of\nthis union; all the laws of man are the outgrowth of marriage; all\nmorality comes from the ideal marriage--the union of Wisdom and Love.\nTo imagine that a function, so vitally important to our exterior life,\nshould have no place in the phases of life which we know as \"higher,\"\nis a manifest absurdity, and comes from those attenuated concepts of\nwhat constitutes spirituality, which Theology has postulated; concepts\nwhich, entrenched behind the walls of \"thus saith the Lord,\" have\ntemporarily defied modern progress.\n\nThere is no wide gulf between the spiritual and the material worlds,\nalthough the material is but an imperfect reflection of the basic\nprinciple of life.\n\nMarriage, then, is eternally going on, \"Nature is a system of\nnuptials,\" says a writer, and nature is only the language of spirit or\nDivine Life.\n\nHow it came about that Theology made the mistake of degrading\nsex-union and of limiting it to the ephemeral life of the body only,\nwe shall come to later. For the present, a brief resume of the types\nof marriage ceremony, which have been universal, will convince us that\nNature has always sought to convey to the human mind this great secret\nof eternal and never-ceasing union of complementaries.\n\nTake, for example, the symbol of the wedding-ring. This custom,\nvarying only in unimportant details, consistent with the prevailing\nsocial custom of the times, has come down to us from prehistoric days.\nThe golden circle, sometimes worn only by the bride, but frequently by\nboth bride and groom, is emblematical of the completion of the circle\nof wisdom and the final attainment, in \"the twain made one,\" of the\nfinding by each of \"the other half.\" The circle is always used to\nexpress the Absolute; Aum; the Supreme Power that is \"without\nbeginning and without end.\"\n\nAccording to the old Jewish law, the wedding ring must be made of pure\ngold and must be earned and paid for by the bridegroom; he might not\nacquire it by credit or gift. There is in this custom something more\nthan mere thrift; or the assurance of the bridegroom's ability to\nsustain the needs and comforts of his wife and prospective family. It\nsymbolizes the truth that no one may hope to acquire this priceless\nblessing of perfect conjugal union, other than by his own efforts.\nImmortality must be earned, and perfect union, counterpartal\nunion--which means actually \"twain made one,\" comes only by dint of\nstrife and demand and proof of our fitness for the Perfect Life.\n\nAnother custom, which has been in almost universal vogue, is that of\ndrinking wine, emblematical of the \"wine of life,\" at the completion\nof a marriage ceremony. Sometimes this has been the prerogative of the\nbride and groom only; and sometimes of the officiating priest; but\nmore generally the entire company has shared in this custom. Wine\ndrinking thus symbolizes eternal youth and virility, which can be\nenjoyed only by those who have attained to the complete life--the\ndivine or spiritual sex-union.\n\nThis symbolism is obvious when we take into our consciousness the\ntruth that only complementaries have the power to act and react,\nwithout change, or loss. Equilibrium is maintained by a perfect\nbalance of two forces; if one force be ever so small a fraction less\nthan the other, perfect balance is lacking.\n\nAnother marriage custom in general use among the ancients was the\ndonning of a crown on the wedding day. This custom formerly included\nthe bridegroom as well as the bride, but later was confined to the\nbride alone, as was also the custom of wearing a veil. At early Greek\nmarriages crowns made of gold or silver were placed upon the heads of\nboth bride and groom; tapers were lighted; and rings exchanged.\n\nWe have a similar custom today in all fashionable church weddings. We\nhave the lighted tapers, signifying the quenchless fires of love; and\nthe circlet which symbolizes eternity.\n\nThe crown symbolizes the truth that a truly spiritual union bestows\nthe crown of immortality; the power of Godhood in the Kingdom of Love;\nwhich supersedes all earthly kingdoms in splendor. This is a literal\ntruth, although it cannot be understood in its full significance until\nwe are _fit for the kingdom_.\n\nThe veil which the bride lifts at the completion of the ceremony\nsymbolizes the truth that when we shall have attained to the spiritual\nmarriage, the veil that separates the interior from the exterior life,\nshall be lifted; it is so thin that the illusion, of which the wedding\nveil is made, rightly symbolizes this apparent separation of the\nphysical life from the spiritual. When the veil is lifted, we shall\nknow our completement in the bliss of perfect union; and when we have\nfound that other half of our being, which is the underlying urge of\nour every thought and act, we shall find the veil lifted. The entire\npanorama of the universe becomes an open book. There is no \"visible\"\nand \"invisible;\" it is all One, with our own bi-une sex nature for the\npivotal center.\n\nSo simple and so obvious are all these symbols of the natural man that\nwe are astounded, when we have found the key, that we did not sooner\npenetrate their meaning. \"She will have a crown in Heaven,\" we say of\nsome self-sacrificing and loving soul, and the phrase suggests to\nmost of us the power of earthly kings and queens with all their\nsplendor of jewels and retainers; but there is an inner meaning which\nthe splendor and the crowns of earth's kings and queens symbolizes.\n\nSpiritual union with the perfect complement of our interior nature is\nin itself the crown of regal power, of which earthly rulers are\nsymbolical. The spiritual body through this union becomes radiant;\nluminous; and shines with such splendor that it dazzles the eyes of\nthe beholder. What constitutes the beauty and the value of\ngems--diamonds; rubies; sapphires; emeralds; topaz; pearls?\n\nIt is the radiations of light which they throw off; it is their\nluminosity--their transparency. It is, indeed, true, that the power\nwhich we see exemplified in the rulers of the earth has a\ncorresponding meaning in a spiritual sense; as, in fact, have all\nthings which we cognize with our physical eyes. The Hindus tell us\nthat all things are either the \"nita\" or the \"ita\" message. Either\nthey tell us \"this is the way to the heights;\" or \"this is not the\nway.\"\n\nThe crown of orange blossoms which has supplanted the ancient crown of\ngold and silver and tinsel, worn with such unconsciousness of its\nesoteric message, symbolizes one of the most beautiful truths relating\nto the spiritual marriage--counterpartal union.\n\nEven as this union confers a beautiful radiance upon the spiritual\nbody, the body also becomes sweet-scented like a flower. Weeds, we\nremember, have no scent or they may be obnoxious in their odor. Weeds\nare unregenerate flowers.\n\nCertain chemical combinations produce nauseous gases. The human body\nis a laboratory in which chemical changes are constantly going on. The\nchanges produced by sex-functioning are greater than anything which\nthe experimental chemist has ever discovered in nature.\n\nIt is a fact well known to the pathologist that an unwilling wife,\nhowever faithful she may be, if forced into the sexual act, may\npresent her husband with a well-defined case of genital disease; nor\nis this at all strange when we consider the now well-recognized fact\nthat anger, fear, revenge, avarice, and all the destructive\nthought-forces produce poisons in the secretions of the body.\n\nIn Rosicrucian literature, we have the story of \"the Chymical Marriage\nof Christian Rosy Cross,\" which is, when read with the key to its\nesoteric meaning, a story of the chemistry of marriage between the\nsexes. Indeed, the whole story of the secret doctrines of the\nRosicrucians, is the story of the sexes, and the \"secret of secrets,\"\nwhich was so zealously guarded by the Hermetics and the Rosicrucians\nand other secret societies, is the secret of the spiritual union of\nthe male and the female principles throughout nature and culminating\nin man and woman, conferring upon them immortal life through the\nperfect balance of sex.\n\nIt has been said that women were not admitted to the Brotherhood of\nthe Rosicrucians, but this is not true, as there is plenty of evidence\nto prove.\n\nOwing to the enmity of the established Church toward any exaltation of\nthe sex-relation, and particularly toward the veneration of woman, it\nbecame necessary for those who sought to keep alive the fires of\nEsoteric Wisdom to surround themselves with the most rigid secrecy; in\nconsequence of this, the story of the sexes, constituting the very\nheart and center of Hermetic philosophy, has been told in allegory,\nunintelligible unless one has the inner sight or has been initiated\ninto the secret code.\n\nIn the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the Church had so far\nsucceeded in undermining the work of the Hermetics, that women were\nexcluded from the Brotherhood, and the apparent sole purpose of the\nsecret order was the search for metallic transmutation. Side by side\nwith this convincing evidence that the esoteric meaning of the symbols\nhas been perverted, we find their allegorical phraseology intermixed\nwith frequent allusions to passages from the Scripture and to the\nVirgin Mary, proving conclusively that the Church, then in the zenith\nof its power, had confiscated the archives of the secret order, and,\neither through fear of the influence of their work, or possibly\nthrough lack of any adequate comprehension of their wisdom, had\nemployed their symbolism to the further glory of the temporal power of\nthe Church.\n\nThis subject will again be dealt with in a chapter devoted to \"The\nHidden Wisdom,\" and so we will leave it for the present.\n\nOne other great spiritual truth relating to marriage is found in the\nintimate and constantly recurring association of the turtle-dove with\nthe ceremony of marriage.\n\nThe dove is, par excellence, an example of conjugal love. The\nturtle-dove, more than any other of the dove family, is noted for the\nfervor of its sexual desires; fidelity to its mate; and for the\ndevotion and diffusion of its love nature. It is well known that if\neither of a pair of turtle-doves dies, the mate will grieve itself to\ndeath. \"Like a pair of turtle-doves\" is said of a couple who are\nhappily married, and the domestic life of the dove has made the dove a\nsymbol of peace.\n\nDoves have been held sacred in many parts of the world, and figure\nprominently in religious symbolic architecture and utensils, from\nancient times down to the present day. The symbol of the doves flying\nover the ark of the covenant typifies the spiritual origin of birth,\nthe ark being the primordial egg, from which issued all the forms of\nlife. Let us also remember that they issued _in pairs_.\n\n\n\n\n                              CHAPTER VI\n\n  CONTINENCE; CHASTITY AND ASCETICISM; THEIR SPIRITUAL SIGNIFICANCE\n\n\nFrom the earliest forms of sex-worship, in which the creative function\nwas doubtless given its rightful place, down through successive stages\nof sex-degeneracy, we come to the sex-perversions and the almost\ngeneral licentiousness of Ancient Greece and Rome, with whom the sex\nfunction became nothing more exalted than a method of procreation, in\ncommon with the animals; and a means of sense-gratification, on a par\nwith gluttony.\n\nEven among the intellectual Greeks, the highest type of a civilization\nthat, although epicurean and esthetic, was yet essentially\nmaterialistic, sexual intercourse had no more spiritual place than it\noccupies today in fine stock-breeding.\n\nBetween ancient Roman licentiousness and our own modern attitude\ntoward the sex-relation, there intervenes that terrible time in the\nhistory of Human Evolution, known as the Dark Ages, in which was\nevolved the unnatural view of the function of sex, exemplified rather\nerotically, in many instances, by asceticism and celibacy. Although it\nsounds paradoxical, yet there is a celibacy that is distinctly erotic.\n\nIn reading of some of the experiences in the lives of the saints, the\nnormal, healthy person feels an aversion similar to that which he\nexperiences in viewing the effects of physical disease; and yet we\nmust note in this abnormal attitude of the Church toward the\nsex-relation, the effect of nature's attempt at equilibrium; a\nrevulsion from the effect of the centuries preceding.\n\nSome of the contributing causes of this revulsion were: celibacy,\nexcept within the Church, forbidden by the Roman Senate; the fact that\nwomen had no choice in marriage; the devastating wars which took the\nbest of physical manhood; and the cheapness of women, every man of\nwealth having as many slave women as he could house and feed; the\norgies where women, both bound and free, were openly debauched; all\nthese evidences of the utter degradation to which the pure and\nbeautiful function of sex had sunk, called for a revulsion; and it\ncame in the idea of asceticism--an instance where the remedy was worse\nthan the disease. The mental attitude that resulted in asceticism was\nnot one in which the sex function was lifted from the mire of\nlicentiousness in which it lay; rather it was abandoned altogether as\nsomething vile and unclean; and that too, unhappily, by those who\nshould have known better.\n\nThe Roman Church, in full accord with the type of Roman mind which\nfostered it, still harbored the perverted idea that women were\ninferior. And it is from the Roman Church of today rather more than\nfrom any other of the phases of Christian Orthodoxy, that we note a\nmilitant opposition to woman suffrage, and all the other avenues of\nwoman's claim to free expression.\n\nWhile retaining all the old Roman's disrespect for woman, the Church\ninstituted and fostered celibacy, as a way out of the old profiligacy,\nbut as though by a sort of spiritual irony, the Church has retained,\nfrom its \"pagan\" ancestors, the sex-worshippers, the idol of the Holy\nVirgin. And despite the bombardments of criticism from without and the\ninculcation of superstitious ignorance from within, the pure-hearted\nchildren of the Church have always gone to the \"Holy Mother\" for their\ncomfort; and thus the eternal fires of Truth have smouldered beneath\nthe ashes of perverted mysticism throughout the Dark Ages that are\ngone and the scarcely lighter Dawn that is here. Those who have eyes\nto see, realize that the one worth-while thing which the old,\nnearly-blind Church has been unwittingly doing all the time, has been\nto hold to this central truth of all Life--religious, social,\nnational, and domestic--the truth that it is only by exalting the\nmaternal function of human life, that we can hope to reach the saviour\nof mankind.\n\nAnd, lest there be still some misconception of what we consider to be\nthe true \"saviour\" of mankind, we will again state, even as the Church\nitself states it, \"the babe of Bethlehem\"--the pure Love between one\nman and one woman; the \"twain made one,\" which is the only saviour\nthat ever was or ever will be--the pure Christ-child that is born of\nconterpartal union.\n\nLet those who would cling to the idea of an individual man, born in a\ncity called \"Bethlehem\" as the saviour of the world, remember that\neven so, the city derived its name from the word, \"bethel,\" meaning a\npure white stone, rounded at the top, in exact imitation of the\nomphalos of Apollo, in the temple of Delphi. And when the shock of his\ndiscovery has somewhat subsided, and his prejudices have been\nswallowed up in a desire for the whole Truth, let him remember also\nthat this central idea has been the foundation of all religious rites\nsince time began; and instead of feeling that the whole fabric of\nChristianity has been rent by the light of scientific discovery, he\nwill see that it has merely been _revealed_, and the revelation will\nprove to him that Truth is the most beautiful, the most spiritual and\nthe most satisfying thing in life, because the Truth is that Perfect\nLove is the only passport to immortal bliss. No one can withhold\nHeaven from us, if we have this perfect love.\n\nThus the essentials of Christianity are the essentials of every other\nreligious system; and the essentials are: Love is the One true and\nonly God; and Sex is the form in which this Bi-une God appears;\naccording to our individual and collective reverence for this bi-une\nGod, will be our spiritual development.\n\nWe do not reverence sex when we cheapen it by dissipation; or when we\nabandon it as unclean and unworthy and unholy; both attitudes are\nabnormal, and unbalanced.\n\nSpiritual consciousness aims at equilibrium. The perfectly balanced\nperson is equally developed on all planes; the perfectly balanced\nindividual, in sufficient numbers, will produce a balanced and\ntherefore a healthy social organization; and a balanced and\nhealthy-minded race of beings will result in a balanced sphere; this\nfact is foreshadowed by the postulate which Science is now\nconsidering, to wit: the earth's axis may be straightened, and, if so,\na uniform temperature will prevail on this globe.\n\nReturning to a consideration of the subjects which head this chapter,\nwe find it necessary to clear the ground a little, in regard to a\ndefinition of words.\n\nThe word continence should apply to the act of self-restraint in the\nmatter of the emotions, desires, and passions, whether of the\nsex-passion or the passion of anger, avarice, or gluttony. The word\nhas come to mean, in many cases, the total abstinence from the\nsex-relation, because of the general idea which has prevailed, that\nany indulgence of sex-love was a confession of weakness. In fact, our\nmodern ideas regarding this subject are so chaotic and so manifestly\nparadoxical that they are absurd.\n\nOn the one hand we have a tradition that motherhood is a beautiful and\nholy thing; on the other, we regard the sex-relation, per se, as an\nindecent thing, or at best as a weakness of the flesh.\n\nWe have the obvious demonstration that creation is possible only\nbecause of the conjunction of the two sexes, and yet we are taught\nthat sex-love is something which is permitted to us in this lower\nstate of our being, and denied in heaven, and at the same time we are\ntold that God creates everything, and God dwells in Heaven, where\nthere is no such \"polluting sin\" as sex-love.\n\nWe certainly do need balance.\n\nThe word chastity conveys to the mind (and this is not confined to the\nundeveloped person, but is general) the idea of a woman who is devoid\nof the sex-impulse. Chastity, like the word virtue, suggests to our\nminds no relationship to the character, or inner nature of a person;\nit has come to be applied to the physical anatomy, and we are not\nsurprised when we realize that the word is seldom used in connection\nwith the male. It is strictly a female attribute--nay, we may almost\nsay, \"organ.\"\n\nIf a woman, for any reason whatsoever, whether through lack of\nopportunity; through hereditary causes; or through repression,\nor--which occurs more frequently--as a commercial expediency,\nbelieving that her person will thus bring more in the matrimonial\nmarket--if, as we say, for any reason, however sordid, a woman escapes\nbodily sex-contact, she is called \"chaste\" and her \"virtue\" is\nextolled.\n\nThis is, of course, not a far cry from the ancient days when a\nbridegroom had the right to turn the bride away from his door, should\nthe evidence of her virginity be lacking; whereupon the poor creature\nwas stoned to death, a sacrifice on the altar of Egoism, the\narch-enemy of both sexes.\n\nAnd although it seems a long, long time from that day to this, we may\nlook back over the Ages, and see the thread unbroken, connecting the\nPast with the Present; uniting the women of those days with their\nsisters of today; and we find the answer to this far-off outrage upon\nthe spiritual function of sex, in the horrors of our white slavery,\namong which horrors, the greatest is not alone the barter and sale of\nthat which should be recognized as sacred, but the perversions, the\ndeceptions and the subterfuges which it entails. One instance, related\nby a trained nurse who had been in attendance upon a girl sixteen\nyears of age, will suffice to illustrate this. The girl, encouraged by\nher mother, related with amusement and satisfaction, how the child had\n\"sold her virtue\" on seven different occasions, procuring for the\nsame, proven by the requisite evidences, sums which were considered\nquite exorbitant in view of the fact that the market was always\nover-crowded with similar sales.\n\nThus, the law of supply and demand is ever preserved; and human beings\nkeep right on selling their royal birthright for a mess of pottage;\ninviting disease, decay and death when they might have glorious,\nblissful life.\n\nMankind has failed to look for virtue in the interior nature; failed\nto look for beauty of soul, being ever ready to pay the highest price\nfor the counterfeit, and the result is that a practice of mutual\ndeception has been the rule.\n\nSome years ago, Thomas Hardy wrote a story about a girl in the\nwretched environment of middle-class England. He called it the story\nof a \"pure woman,\" and his appraisal of the heroine as a pure woman\nbrought out a storm of reproach and horrified criticism, particularly\nfrom the clergy, because it chanced that this poor girl had given\nbirth to a child out of wedlock; and notwithstanding that the author\nmade it quite clear that she had been the victim of circumstances and\ncoercion, the act itself condemned her to unchastity in the eyes of\nthe clerical critics.\n\nWhen we contemplate the attitude which religious systems have ever\nheld toward women, we are amazed that the Church has been upheld\nalmost wholly by the female sex. The fact is accountable on one\nhypothesis only: that of the spiritual insight, which recognized in\nthe story of the Holy Mother and the Child the _One primordial, and\nindestructible key to salvation_--the birth of the god-man through the\nrecognition of the purity and joy of the perfect sex-union.\n\nBut, notwithstanding the medieval trend of religious mysticism (there\nis a religious mysticism and a scientific mysticism) which seemed to\nregard all human love as a weakness, when not actually sinful as in\nsex-love, it is evident that sexual love, in its emotional, or psychic\naspect, was at the root of the \"ecstacies\" which are so ardently\ndescribed in ecclesiastical history as \"evidences of saintliness.\"\n\nIf, instead of indignantly denying this fact, as though it were\nprofane criticism of the saints, defenders of the Theological view of\nmysticism would calmly consider and accept the evidence, they would be\nable to infuse into the creeds, the vitality which they so lack.\n\nThe lives of the saints, in so far as they relate to trance and\necstatic visions, must, sooner or later meet one of two fates. Either\nthey will be analyzed and presented, with the reverence that is due\nthe subject, as proofs of the spiritual function of sex-love; or they\nmust be relegated to the position to which the Church assigns all\nsexual desire--that of eroticism and innate and ineradicable\ndepravity.\n\nViewed in the light in which Theology has held the sex relation, the\nparoxysms which are ascribed to St. Catherine of Sienna, and to the\nHoly Mechthild and other saints, have in them something decidedly\nobnoxious; while, if we take the premise that these saints, by virtue\nof prayer, aspiration, and intended sacrifice of the mortal self to an\nideal, transmuted their sex-nature from the physical to the spiritual,\nthen indeed, we have an approach to a mighty truth, which is at once\nboth explanatory and satisfying. St. Catherine is referred to as \"the\nmystic bride;\" and Jesus Christ, to whom she was \"espoused\" (using the\nterminology which the Church prefers, as suggesting a less physical\nunion than the word \"married\") was the \"bride-groom;\" more than that;\nshe declared that she was married with a ring, set with precious\nstones; just like any other betrothal or wedding ring.\n\nAlways in these recitals we find the phraseology which lovers employ\nwhen exalting the loved one above the world. The term \"My Beloved\" is\nsingularly universal, and seems to spring involuntarily to the lips of\nthe lover when his love is of the quality that reverences; adores; and\nexalts its object. And it is equally foreign to the lips of the\ndilettante lover.\n\nTo their credit be it said, the love which the saints developed within\nthemselves, by dint of their attempts to exalt celibacy in an age of\nsexual profligacy, is none the less human love; it is human love\nspiritualized, exalted, and transmuted from the plane of the animal to\nthat of the soul. This transmutation is in fact responsible for the\nintensity, the absorbing power of the love which thrilled them into\nsuch an ecstacy that in most instances they became lost in the bliss\nof the emotions excited by the inward flow of their sex nature, and\nwere totally unfitted to take part in the outer, or so-called\npractical life.\n\nSuch, for example, was Saint Teresa, of whom William James, in his\n\"Varieties of Religious Experience,\" says: \"Her idea of religion seems\nto have been that of an endless amatory flirtation--if one may say so\nwithout irreverence--between the devotee and the Deity.\" Although this\nestimate of St. Theresa's saintliness will doubtless be shocking to\nthe people who think they are pious, we take an optimistic view of it,\nand suggest that the saint's idea of religion is far more satisfying\nthan that usually presented as saintliness. St. Theresa, like most of\nthe female saints, became \"the bride of Christ\"--the _man_ Jesus, the\nChrist, let it be remembered.\n\nSt. Gertrude, a Benedictine nun of the Thirteenth Century, gave\nherself up so wholly to this inward contemplation; to fasting, prayer,\nand withdrawal from the outer to the inner life, that she lived as the\n\"bride of God,\" in such daily contact with Him as would fitly describe\nany love-mated honeymoon of today. According to her testimony \"God\"\nindulged in such language and caresses, and intimacies, kisses and\ncompliments as would satisfy any woman married to her ideal lover.\n\nIn the case of St. Louis of Gonzaga, it is significant that he\nselected the Virgin Mary as the object of his adoration and\n\"consecrated to her, his own virginity;\" and we read how \"burning with\nlove, he made his vow of perpetual chastity.\" In consequence of this\nvow, he was never tempted as was St. Anthony, by visions of beautiful\nwomen.\n\nHere again we have the love of the male for the female. If it were not\nso, St. Louis may well have chosen Jesus, or Joseph, or John, as the\nobject of his devotional contemplation; and St. Catherine, and\nTheresa, and Mechthild might have paid their homage to the Virgin\nMary.\n\n\"Jeanne of the Cross\" held constant converse with her guardian angel,\nwho by the way was a beautiful youth, \"more brilliant than the sun and\nwith a crown of glory on his head.\"\n\nSt. Frances was inseparable from her angel, whom she loved with\nextravagant and blissful devotion, and whom she also described as \"a\nyoung man of such radiant beauty and purity that he melted her soul.\"\n\nThe truth is that, in seeking to escape from the \"sin\" of human love,\nas seen in the world, in the union of the sexes, they touched the very\nmain-spring of their sex-nature, intensifying to a degree unknown to\nthe merely sense-conscious person, the ecstatic bliss of spiritual\nsex-union.\n\nNaturally the question will arise as to whether these saints really\ncame into contact with their spiritual mates in these paroxysms of\nholy fervor, and if so, why did the vision of the Christ so frequently\nappear to them and not alone the vision of some other being?\n\nThe answer is found in the fact that spiritual experiences must be\ninterpreted through the channel of the outer mind, which in these\ninstances was obsessed by the thought implanted by Medieval Theology,\nthat human love is sinful. It may be questioned whether, even though\nthe visions did relate to some person other than the members of the\nHoly Family, the fact would have been admitted since it would have\nbeen attributed to unworthiness on the part of the saint.\n\nThey were practically compelled to include God and Christ in their\necstacies to prove their respectability.\n\nOne phrase, commonly employed to describe the kind of love which\n\"flooded the soul\" in these saintly ecstacies, is particularly\napplicable to the effects of spiritual sex-union, as described by\nthose who have experienced counterpartal union, and which Swedenborg\nso constantly emphasizes in his recital of \"conjugal delights.\" This\nphrase is \"melting love.\" It is a feeling of melting or merging into\nthe other's being, until there seems to be but one person, formed by\nthe two souls. In fact, it is _union_; whereas the lesser, or we may\nsay the lower, phase, of the sex-relation is at best but _contact_.\n\nIf this view of the trances and ecstacies described in the lives of\nthe saints, be repulsive to our readers, we can only say that we are\nsorry for our readers. They have imbibed the spirit of the Dark Ages,\nwhich regarded human love as sinful, overlooking the fact that all we\nmay know of the \"love of God,\" is by analogous comparison to what we\nknow of human love.\n\nIf human love be sinful, by logical deduction we would inevitably\narrive at the conclusion that the universe is all sinful. In which\nevent, the very word itself would have lost its significance.\n\nThe objectionable part of the orthodox view of the effects of\nsaintliness lies in the realization that neither the saints\nthemselves, nor the Church which perpetuates their recitals, had any\nconception of the real situation, so evident to the enlightened and\nunprejudiced reader. And if this view of saintly ecstacies,\npostulating the transmutation of sex-force into spiritual channels, be\nobjectionable, what can be said of the only other view which is\npossible in the light of the evidence submitted?\n\nOur ideas of what constitutes chastity need revising, else we must\nneeds decide that chastity is more a vice than a virtue.\n\nFor example, consider the character of a mother of the\nself-sacrificing, noble type, devoting her life to the welfare of the\nhuman family; interesting herself in all the problems that affect the\ngenerations to come; patient; sweet and wise. Compare her with an\nunmarried girl whose body is immune from contact with one of the\nopposite sex, but whose mind is bent upon self, and self-adornment;\nupon the necessity of capturing a wealthy husband, as a means of this\nself-gratification, without regard to any sentiment or even common\naffection. Who is the more chaste?\n\nCoventry Patmore says:\n\n  \"Virgins are they before the Lord,\n    Whose souls are pure. The vestal fire\n  Is not, as some mis-read the Word,\n    By Marriage quenched, but burns the higher.\"\n\nIf purity of soul were synonymous with celibacy, the entire\nconstantly-copulating cosmos would have long since been demolished;\nbut despite the mistaken attitude of religious systems toward the\ndivine function of sex, Humanity is reaching a higher and purer\nconception of love. As we approach a higher type of civilization, the\nbroader, deeper, and more intense becomes our capacity to love. The\nmore spiritual we become, the more vital is our love-nature, and our\nlove-nature is grounded in sex. Let us not imagine that spiritual love\nis less sexual than is physical love. Spiritual love is physical love,\n_plus_ all the other phases of love.\n\nThe real objection to sex love on the physical plane is not based upon\nits strength, but upon its weakness. If it be nothing deeper than an\nattraction of chemical affinities generated by physical activities, it\nhas no reservoir from which to draw its supply. It is like the\nelectrical wire that is \"short circuited,\" it expends itself in one\nspasmodic combustion.\n\nTrue spirituality is attained by a process of addition. The common and\nerroneous idea of spiritual attainment involves a process of\nsubtraction.\n\nWe need go no further than to review the processes in the external\nworld of today to understand this fact of the inclusiveness of the\nspiritual life, in contradistinction to the generally accepted idea of\nexclusiveness which is attached to a contemplation of the so-called\n\"spiritual.\"\n\nAll our activities are now carried on upon a gigantic scale. Where\nformerly a little stream supplied the water to the mill, we now\nharness the invisible and apparently inexhaustible forces of\nelectricity; where formerly commerce was a system of bartering between\ntwo single individuals, it is now a huge network involving millions of\npersons. Everything teaches us the lesson of inclusiveness, as we\napproach a more spiritualized ideal of life. We are uniting; merging;\ndrawing within.\n\nThe Centripetal force of the planet itself, corresponding to the\nfemale pole of the magnet, is today the active principle in external\nlife. The machinist knows this when he is compelled to avoid the\nsuction currents of electrical power. Cosmic reaction has set in, and\nunion between complementaries is the result. Applying this truth to\nindividual human life, and we have what?\n\n_Counterpartal Sex-union._\n\n\n\n\n                              CHAPTER VII\n\n                    SOUL-UNION: WHERE WILL IT LEAD?\n\n\nWe have heard much in recent years of \"affinities,\" and \"soul-mates,\"\nand we are likely to hear much more in the future. So much that is\nunsavory and sensational is associated with these two words, that we\nalmost hesitate to employ them; but that is always the way with Fear.\nIt builds a high wall between us and Truth, and dares us to scale it.\n\nWe accept the challenge.\n\nTo begin with, the words are not synonymous, although frequently used\nas such. Affinities are based upon mutual interests; mutual tastes and\nappetites; mutual stages of development; but these stages of\ndevelopment may be sense-conscious only; or they may be of a highly\nintellectual order. Whatever their basis of mutuality, they tend to\nattract upon that plane. Whenever this affinity, established by virtue\nof mutual tastes, is on the sense-plane only--that is, when it is\nbecause two persons both like their roast-beef rare; or their whiskey\ndiluted; or their wine iced--we are apt to find the result in a\nmistaken idea of sexual affinity, which wears itself out for the\nreasons already stated, because there is no reservoir from which to\ndraw. The chemistry of the body changes with time and emotional\nexperiences. Affinity of bodily contact only, resulting from a\ncongeniality of sense-appetites, is therefore necessarily short lived.\n\nAffinity of intellect is much more lasting, because it approaches a\nstate higher in the ascent to the spiritual center of the cosmos.\n\nThought is the parent of speech, or of any external appeal to the\nsenses. Back of all objectivity is the thought that molded it; but\nback of thought is desire; and back of desire is design--cosmic design\nwe may say--expressing itself discretively; in individuals.\n\nAffinities that are based upon intellectual similarities are of a\nfiner nature and generally more lasting than those of sense-conscious\nattraction only; and it is no uncommon thing to find two persons of\nthe opposite sex enjoying a protracted friendship or preference for\neach others' society which deceives the average on-looker into\nthinking that there is also sexual affinity, when as a matter of fact\nthere may never have been any thought of such relationship.\n\nA few brilliant women in former times, notably Madame de Stael, or\nMargaret Fuller, have enjoyed the attentions and apparent devotion of\nmen for many years without having entered into any more intimate\nrelationship with them. But these examples have been few in the past,\nand have been much commented upon. In the present, such desirable\ncompanionship is becoming much more common and a woman may now be seen\ntwice with the same man without having the neighbors speculating as\nto a suitable name for the baby.\n\nMore and more, as women become freed from the necessity to \"settle\nthemselves\" in marriage, we find evidences of this intellectual\naffinity between the sexes; and more and more, as we get away from the\nold thought that a man has but one desire, that of sexual intercourse,\nand a woman but one motive, that of enslaving man through his sexual\nappetite, we will find that men and women will meet on the plane of\nintellectual affinity and not be driven by gossip of outsiders, or by\nthe force of the race-thought in their own minds, into seeking to\nspoil such companionship by a matrimonial alliance, when nature did\nnot intend it to be so.\n\nA number of years ago, when even the little freedom which human beings\nnow accord each other in this matter was denied the struggling sexes,\na certain man and woman, who were intellectual companions, married. He\nwas a writer; she was a physician; which is evidence in itself of a\ndegree of intellectual power not so common at that time as now; she\nwas moreover an unusual woman in many ways. They parted after a month\nof married life and to the horror and scandal of the entire community,\nremained friends. The scandal reached the climax of disapproval and\nshocked morality when the man, married again, continued his friendship\nwith his former wife and later, when a baby came to the couple, the\nex-wife and mutual friend was the attending physician.\n\nThe old idea of matrimony held that the husband and wife must be\n\"yoked\" together, so that neither one could exercise any individual\npredilection or choice of friends, or recreation, or taste or desire.\nAnd this is still the average idea of a successful marriage. It is an\nidea that is not confined to the ignorant, and the narrow-minded. It\nis the attitude of society at large, though upon what argument such an\nidea is based, must be left to the perverted imagination.\n\nPresumably it is because of that colossal egotism which insists upon\npersonal ownership. One would expect this tendency to own each other\nto have died with the death of the institution of slavery, but it\nstill exists, and as we have already observed, among those who sit in\nthe seats of the mighty as well as among the ignorant.\n\nA couple who had married on the ground of intellectual affinity lived\ntogether most congenially for a period of twelve years, although they\nagreed that sexual affinity was lacking in their relationship. They\nagreed that there was another phase of mating, and that should either\ncome to the point where freedom was desirable, it would be given\nwithout resentment or anger. They both decided, that perfect candor\nand honesty with each other on this score was a higher type of\ncivilization than that which prevails where mutual deceit is the rule.\n\nTrue to their compact, when the wife met the one whom she believed to\nbe the one man who answered the call of her soul, the husband gave her\nup, retaining her friendship, and the memory of an intellectual\ncompanionship unmarred by the horrors of dispute and deceit and\ndisruption. But he incurred the severest criticism from Society, which\nis as yet composed of the animal-man, rather than the man-god, and the\nanimal-man (meaning woman as well) knows no higher code of morality\nthan that which he vaingloriously terms \"defense of his honor.\" By\nexactly what process of reasoning a man can imagine his honor defended\nor appeased by shooting his rival, is, we admit, beyond our power to\nfathom. But such is the basis of the unwritten law, in which civilized\nman vents his remaining savagery.\n\nAffinity-marriages, then, are not synonymous with soul-mating. And\nwhile we contend that affinity marriages, based upon at least some\ndegree of mutuality, are a step higher in social development than were\nthe alliances of the old regime, where a man's social or domestic\nexigencies required a wife or a housekeeper, or both-in-one; where\nwoman must marry whomsoever asked her, or be pitied and scorned as an\n\"old maid,\" still affinity-marriages are not the final union, and must\ngo through an evolutionary phase.\n\nAffinity-marriages are eligible to disruption. Happily, we trust,\nthese disruptions will in the course of time be devoid of hatred and\nmutual recriminations and abuse. Certainly they will be, as they\nevolve from the plane of sense-consciousness to that of intellectual\naffinities. Moreover, they stand a much better chance of permanency\nthan has maintained during the past, before the word affinity was\nheard so frequently as it is now.\n\nThe general impression is abroad in the land, that it is only since\nwomen became economically independent that disruption of the marriage\nbonds has become so general. It is true that divorces are much more\nfrequent since women have become, to a great extent, economically\nindependent; but that only means that the parties to the marriage have\nbeen set free. The disruptions are not more, it is only the evidences.\nAnd it is at the _evidence_ of marital unhappiness that all the\ncriticism is directed.\n\nIf the criticism were directed against the condition that divorce\ntells us of, instead of against the divorce itself, the first aid to\nthe injured would be to establish a social order wherein an equal\nmoral standard for both sexes should be the rule, and where a mother\nis recognized, and respected and honored in the name of motherhood,\nwhether she is a wife or not.\n\nThis suggestion will of course be met with a shocked gasp from many.\nThe cry that \"Society will be disorganized\" and our \"moral code become\nchaotic\" will go up from the self-constituted keepers of public\nmorality. But is our morality so tender that it needs protection? Are\nour social conditions so ideal that they cannot be improved? If they\nare, then nothing can besmirch them. If they are not, they must first\nbe demolished, before they are rebuilt.\n\nThe limited mortal mind is always terribly afraid of a change. Not one\nsingle improvement has ever been suggested, from mechanics to morals,\nthat has not been met with that ever-ready fear-thought, that the\nwhole universe is going to the eternal bow-wows, if the slightest\nchange in established institutions is made. And despite it all, we go\non year after year, improving. \"Self-improvement\" is the watch-word of\nthe Century. If \"self-improvement,\" then social improvement. Mankind\nis still in the making, as far as external conditions are concerned.\n\nThe complaint goes up from every side, that women refuse motherhood.\nGirls who have been carefully reared, brought up in the most orthodox\nmovement, are heard to openly, unashamed, announce their intention of\nfinding a rich husband and not, emphatically, _not_ having any\nchildren.\n\nMay this not be Nature's revenge upon our inhuman treatment of girls\nwho become mothers without first becoming wives?\n\nWe are wont to refer to unmarried mothers as \"unfortunates\" and\n\"ruined.\" But in what does the misfortune consist, and wherein are\nthey ruined?\n\nIs a woman ever unfortunate if she gives birth to a child because she\nhas loved, and because she loves the child? Is she ruined in any way\nexcept that she becomes the target for our inhumanity; our well-nigh\nunforgivable stupidity?\n\nThe world, and especially women, owe a debt of gratitude to a certain\nfamous woman who, by her force of character; her defiant self-respect\nin the face of social criticism, because she had a child and no\nhusband, has wrung from the unwilling public the highest place\naccorded any actress in this or any previous age. This artist's\nwell-known reply to an openly expressed criticism of her is worthy of\nperpetuation. \"Ah, so!\" she said, \"true I have a son and no husband,\nbut you women have husbands and lovers, and no children!\"\n\nWe would not have it understood that we commend this woman's example,\nand criticise that of the woman to whom she referred. We do not regard\nchild-bearing as the end and aim of woman's mission. It has been said\nthat the first duty of Man is to perpetuate the species, but\nobservation should convince us that in all too many instances the\nfirst duty of the individual would be to refrain from such a crime\nagainst posterity.\n\nWe neither criticise nor advise the adoption of the position of a\nhusbandless mother; nor that of the women who are childless wives. We\nendorse any woman's insistence upon her right to self-respect; and we\ninsist that a better civilization cannot come without permitting the\ngreatest degree of personal liberty in matters pertaining to the\nsex-relation, and, above and beyond all, without conceding to the\nunmarried mother the same respect that we accord to the married one,\nwhen she is otherwise worthy of our respect. It certainly takes\ncourage for a defenseless woman to bear a fatherless child, in a\nhypocritical world.\n\nThe normal woman does not live who would not rather be safely and\nhappily married to the man whom her soul tells her exists somewhere in\nthe universe, than to be battling with the problem of existence,\nalone. When she is so married, we need not fear that the marriage will\nbe disrupted. Until she is so married, no power on earth can, and no\npower in Heaven will, prevent the disruptions, although man's laws may\ntemporarily obstruct the evidence of such disruption.\n\nWhat we have already said will make it clear, that our contention is\nthat affinities are not necessarily soul-mates; that, in fact, we may\nhave many and various kinds of affinities, but no one can possibly\nhave more than one soul-mate.\n\nMates are two entities composing a pair. They are the two halves that\nmake a whole. Unlike what we know of affinities, they are not merely\nsimilar; nor yet opposite, so that they attract each other because of\ncuriosity or dissimiliarity.\n\nThey belong to each other because together they complete a perfect\nbalance. Each supplies in the exact proportion required for balance\nthe qualities lacking in the other.\n\nIn the event of such union, instinctive procreation will cease, and\nre-generation will begin. They will consciously beget souls, instead\nof merely providing bodies for souls to manifest upon this external\nplane of consciousness.\n\nBodily contact is not essential to this phase of sex-union, because\nthe real conjunction is between the interior natures; and the interior\nnature exists independently of the physical organism.\n\nAlready the race-thought is beginning to realize interiorly. This is\nmanifest in the daily press; in music and drama; and in all the\navenues of the senses. That intangible, elusive but potential thing\ncalled \"character\" forms the gist of editorial advice. Everywhere we\nnote a tendency to look below the appearance of things, and to fathom\nthe depths of psychological analysis. For the first time in centuries\nthe race-thought seeks the underlying cause for specific effects,\ninstead of, as heretofore, being satisfied to deal with effects only,\nsuppressing those that are unpleasant and extolling those that seem\nagreeable.\n\nThe scientist expresses it thus: \"Nature is giving up her secrets to\nman.\" The metaphysician puts it this way: \"The soul of man is\nunveiling, and soon we shall know each other in Truth.\" The\nreligionist has long looked for a time when, as prophesied by St.\nPaul, who was above all things a spiritually-conscious person, \"we\nshall see each other face to face; not as now through a glass,\ndarkly.\"\n\nThis tendency to \"get behind the scenes\" as it were, to penetrate the\ncrust of mere outward semblance, and to reveal the interior nature,\nmay be seen even in the fashions of our clothes. Despite thunders of\ndenunciation from the self-constituted keepers of our morals, who are\nnot yet free from the bondage of traditional ideas of virtue and\n\"respectability,\" women have insisted upon freedom of the body in\ndress until at last the uncorseted, short-skirted, thinly-clad woman\nexcites little adverse comment. The fact has at last established\nitself that the female form has legs.\n\nThis fact was only half suspected before; men have always wanted to\nsee exactly what was beneath those long flowing skirts; and woman has\nalways known that she possessed at least one trump card, in the game\nof enslaving man to become what modern slang has so aptly labeled her\n\"meal-ticket.\" She could always keep him guessing as to whether or not\nshe had legs; and the average man, be it known, possesses a fund of\ncuriosity far in excess of that which is proverbially ascribed to\nwoman. Men have been known to pay the highest price, even to donning\nthe matrimonial yoke, to satisfy their curiosity. Women have always\nknown this, and the worldly wise mother has besought her marriageable\ndaughter to \"keep her skirts well over her ankles\" if she hoped to\nsecure a man as a permanent banker! It does sound crude expressed\nthus, but this is the basis upon which at least nine-tenths of the\nrespectable marriages of society are consummated. And this is the\nstandard which the short-sighted keepers of public morals would have\nus retain. They would force women to act as though their bodies are\nvile. They would keep the mind encumbered with the corpse of an idea\nof modesty, from which the spirit has long since fled. The spirit has\nfled from it because it was a false idea of modesty; because it was\nfounded upon the idea that woman was an instrument of the devil\nhimself, and that to look upon her naked form was in itself wicked,\nand only permitted to poor man as a concession to his own innate\ndefilement.\n\nThe good Church at one time, not so far distant, refused to admit\nwomen to the communion table in the \"holy sacrament.\" A fine chance\nhas any sacrament of being holy, with one half of it missing!\n\nThe old idea of womanly modesty consisted of blushing with shame and\nembarrassment if by chance her ankles became exposed to the interested\nand curious gaze of a male. Notwithstanding this ideal of modesty, the\ndesigning and beguiling female managed to arrange just such a\ncontretemps every time there was an eligible male within sight; if\ndiscovered, she either assumed a look of infantile innocence, or she\ntook the opportunity to coax a becoming blush.\n\nTo be sure, this does not accurately describe all women of \"the good\nold days.\" There was the other type.\n\nNature manifests in extremes. There was the type, fitting ancestors to\nthose women of to-day who are outraged and shocked at the present-day\nfashions, which actually disclose the fact that women are\nanatomatically endowed with legs and hips, quite in defiance of man's\ninherited predilection for making this discovery under conditions that\nwould pamper to his satiating sex-appetite. They, poor creatures, were\ndreadfully ashamed of being women, and they did all that was possible\nto conceal the fact. They, doubtless, would gladly have amputated\ntheir legs, if the ministers had so decreed, and they apologized to\nthe world every time an unforseen circumstance uncovered a portion of\nthese offensive legs. In fact, they denied the existence of \"said\nmembers,\" and alluded to them tentatively and with modest hesitation,\nas \"limbs.\"\n\n\"But,\" some will exclaim, \"we cannot see any possible connection\nbetween a regenerated race, and a fashion which permits the display of\nthe female figure upon the public streets, where men who are as yet\nun-regenerated, and licentious, may leer and pass vile remarks, and\nsuggest lustful thoughts.\"\n\nFew can see any connection between our so-called practical, everyday\nlife, and the spiritual life. They look upon the spiritual life as\nsomething remote; something in the dim and ever and ever distant\nfuture. The spiritual life is supposed to be so negative that we\npostpone living it, as long as we possibly can; and whereas the human\nfamily has prayed and prayed, for Lo! these many ages: \"Thy kingdom\ncome upon earth,\" they apparently have not had the slightest idea that\nGod would take them at their word.\n\nThey are like the old darky who called upon \"de Lawd to strike him\ndead if he was not telling the truth,\" when as a matter of fact he was\nlying roundly. At that moment a bricklayer on the building above where\nRastus was standing, dropped a brick, which struck the old darkey on\nthe head, and he exclaimed \"What's de matter, good Lawd, caint\nyou'all take a joke?\"\n\nThe Kingdom of God, from all records, whether orthodox or heterodox,\nhas been described as the abode of angels; and angels have been\npictured as nearly nude as our silly \"morality\" would permit. No one\nhas as yet suggested that we compel the angels to wear hoopskirts,\nalthough \"September Morn\" has been compelled, by police regulation, to\ndon a sweater.\n\nThe spiritual life awaits our cognizance, just behind the transparent\nveil of our limited mortal consciousness. This is the message of the\n\"unveiling\" of the female form. This is the time of woman's revealment\nof true modesty; true ideals. The Female Principle, representing the\nspiritual element in nature, hitherto shut in; covered up; hidden--is\ncoming out.\n\nMen must learn to be able to look upon the female form without spasms\nof either lustful desires; or contemptuous indifference.\n\nThere was a time when the presence of a female office-force in the\nbusiness section of a city was the signal for unwarranted familiarity\non the part of some of the male members of a corporation. There was a\ntime, when women first invaded the ranks of the \"down-town\" business\ncenters, that a woman's appointment to a responsible position rested\nupon her claims to feminine attractiveness. Now, the only question\nasked is, \"Is she efficient?\"\n\n_That which she is, in her interior nature, is the final test of her\npower._ When men have become inured to the knowledge, so long\nconcealed, that women have legs and that there is no more\nseductiveness in them than in their faces, the love of man for woman\nwill undergo the same evolution that his estimate of her business\nefficiency has undergone. He will judge her by what she is in her\ninterior nature; and his sexual desires, now manifested distractedly\nin mere love of the female, will become concentrated in love of the\none woman to whom his soul turns in irresistible sex-attraction, as\nunerringly as the needle turns to the pole to which it is magnetized.\n\nIs this fact so unmanifest? Does not everything point to it?\n\nA few years ago, a man and a woman could not pass a day together in\nmutual conversation, and interest, without encroachment upon the one\nemotion which they were supposed to hold in common--sexual attraction.\n\nThat was indeed the whole sum and substance of communication between\nthe two sexes, if we may except the rare instances which history has\nmade much of, because of their rarity--women of the French salons, who\nhave become famous for their wit and beauty, in neither of which\nattributes did they outstrip the average self-supporting woman of\ntoday.\n\nBut custom has slowly, but perceptibly, established the possibility of\na frank and non-sentimental companionship between the male and the\nfemale, and the result is that both are much more clear as to the true\ncharacter of their sentiments toward each other. Neither is blinded\nby the force of undifferentiated sex-attraction.\n\nThere must be some specific basis of mutual love; hence we have the\nvogue of the \"affinity,\" and by the term is instantly recognized a\nspecial force of attraction, independent of undifferentiated sex\nalone. It is known that there is at least an assumption of an interior\nattraction, and we insist that affinity marriages, however incomplete\nas yet, are still superior in motive to that of mere marriage, where\nit is a case of _a_ male and _a_ female, united by propinquity; family\nconsiderations; commercial interests; class association; or what not.\n\nAffinities at least have the grace to presuppose a special\nsex-attraction. They argue for the ultimate goal of special and\npermanent selection, even if they fail to reach it.\n\nThat there will be many failures during the journey from the\nsense-conscious life, to the soul-conscious life, is a foregone\nconclusion. The pathway of Love has always been a thorny one, but\nthose who are on the high ground may look across into the rose-strewn\ngarden, and know that the little god is aiming his arrows at the\ninterior nature of those whom he would unite. He is not blind. His\nsight is illumined and he sees that the soul can unite only with its\nmate. True it is that \"the course of true love never did run smooth,\"\nbut let us hope that the time is coming when it will be less thorny.\n\n_There are no mismates in soul-union._\n\nThis truth is the \"secret of secrets\" of the Hermetics. It is the\nhidden wisdom of the initiates; the alchemical mysteries of the\nAncients. It is told to us in the fairy story of the Sleeping\nPrincess--a story which is found in the folk-lore of every country of\nthe globe. It is the philosopher's stone, which when found, opens the\ndoor to all wisdoms.\n\n_There can be no mismates in soul-union._\n\nNeither can there be any sexual \"temptation,\" or desire outside of\nthis union, when once found.\n\n  \"But never shall he faint or fall\n  Who lists to hear, o'er every fate,\n  The sweeter and the higher call\n            Of his true mate.\n\n  I hear it wheresoe'er I rove;\n  She holds me safe from shame or sin;\n  The holy temple of her love\n            I worship in.\"\n\nA time when \"the twain shall be\" virtually, \"one flesh\" and the\n\"outside as the inside\" is not a chimerical dream.\n\nWhen the physical body is as much reverenced as is the spiritual; when\nin fact, the soul is revealed (unveiled) to our mortal consciousness;\nwhen the mind has been freed from its load of prejudices and fears and\ndoubts and belief in sin; then we shall, indeed, truly see each other.\n\nWe do not see each other now, unless perhaps we have developed that\nspiritual insight which is not blinded by appearances, but which\ncontacts the interior nature. But the revealing, the uncovering\nprocess has begun. We have come to the time so long anticipated; so\nearnestly promised, when \"naked and unashamed\" we should \"re-enter the\nlost Paradise.\"\n\nWell, the women, God bless them, are as naked as the tender morality\nof our police officials will permit and as unashamed as it is possible\nto be with the handicap of a puritanical ancestry, which was so\nevil-minded as to suspect God himself of sin when He formed the\n\"wicked\" body.\n\nPrudists may howl; and legislators may legislate; but the course of\nthe Cosmic Law which would free us and bestow upon us Peace and Love\nand Happiness without stint, has never been stopped, although it has\nbeen obstructed.\n\nLet us examine some points of the Hidden Wisdom, in the light of this\npostulate, and see if the conclusion is not warranted.\n\n\n\n\n                              CHAPTER VIII\n\n                      THE HIDDEN WISDOM REVEALED\n\n\nAs we have previously observed, there is what may be termed a\nreligious mysticism and a scientific mysticism. When viewed from the\nstandpoint of the unprejudiced seeker, who finds the truth that is in\neverything, these two phases of mysticism are but photographs of the\nsame subject taken from different points of view. So, too, mysticism\nitself is, in the final analysis, nothing more than a long-distance\nview of science.\n\nLike the proverbial pot and kettle, which we are told made much noise\nover calling each other black, we find the scientist frequently\ndisdains the mystic, and the mystic may retaliate with equal\ndisapproval of the scientist's position. Both are right, each from his\npoint of view. Each is looking at life from an opposite end of the\nsame pole. The scientist looks at the effect and the mystic at the\ncause. In their final calculations they arrive at the same conclusion,\nalthough they call it by different names.\n\nThe scientist says that everything proceeds from the one eternal\nenergy. The mystic perceives the spiritual co-existent with the\nexternal. Religious mysticism calls it \"God's word made manifest.\" In\nreference to this definition of religious mysticism, perhaps the\nphraseology used by William Ralph Inge, in his \"Christian Mysticism,\"\nis the best possible exposition of the position of the religious\nmystic, if we may separate the two phases. Inge says: \"Religious\nmysticism may be defined as the attempt to realize the presence of the\nliving God in the soul and in nature, or more generally as the attempt\nto realize in thought and in feeling the imminence of the temporal in\nthe eternal, and the eternal in the temporal.\"\n\nWhich is to say exactly what the scientific mystic says, using other\nterminology; and likewise what the physicist says or will ultimately\nsay, as his researches lead him into the finer and finer realms of\ndiscovery.\n\nThe scientific mystic, like Archimedes, believes that in order to\nmeasure the purpose of external creation, he must \"base his fulcrum\nsomewhere beyond.\"\n\nThe scientific mystic, therefore, starts from the center of the\nCircle; from the crux of creation; and he finds the X, which is the\nhypothetical base of algebraical science--the unknown quantity of\nwhich sex is the symbol. Reasoning from effect back to cause and from\ncause forward to effect the mystic finds the equation complete,\nperfect, and likewise simple; but it is simple only after we have\ndeciphered it. Like the prize puzzles which are designed to exercise\nthe inductive faculties, mysticism, when we have not the key, is a\nmost tantalizing enigma. Most \"practical\" persons dismiss it with the\nsame superficial idea that they entertain in regard to puzzles, saying\n\"it is only a puzzle\"--utterly ignoring the value of exercising the\ninductive reasoning faculties.\n\nFairy stories are popularly supposed to be for the entertainment and\namusement of children. In reality they are the universal language of\nsymbolism. There is not a single fairy story which has not been handed\ndown from generation to generation, and, what is more suggestive, each\nstory is told with astonishing lack of variation, in every tongue and\nthroughout every nation on this earth.\n\nThe stories involving the turning of men into animals and their final\nrestoration to human form, as a reward for some service, some\nsacrifice, typifies the two-fold nature of Man. He may live in his\nanimal, or exterior nature; or he may develop his spiritual, or\ninterior nature; through service; through unselfish love. Our limited\nmortal consciousness is responsible for the tendency to personify\neverything, instead of to realize the principles underlying all\nexpression. God and the Devil have been the personification of the two\nphases of the principles of Evolution, from animal man to spiritual\nman.\n\nRomulus and Remus have been presented as an actual and specific\ninstance of twins; likewise Castor and Pollux. Almost every child\ninstinctively alludes to himself or herself, as either \"the good\nlittle me\" or the \"bad little me.\" \"O, I didn't do that; it was the\nbad little Dorothy,\" or \"Harold,\" as the case may be, is the\nchild-like way of expressing the innate consciousness that there is\nan interior and an exterior nature to all of us.\n\nThe union of gods with mortals, which forms the gist of Mythological\ntales, symbolizes the god-like and the mortal qualities inherent in\nhuman nature. Mortals raised to the abode of the gods; and the gods\ndescended into mortal life; symbolize the interchangeability of what\nwe term matter and spirit--the power of transmutation of the lower\ninto the higher life.\n\nVolumes could be written upon the subject, and we will therefore try\nto confine our reviews to the symbolical traditions which deal most\ndirectly with the relations of the sexes.\n\nIn religious symbology, the story of the ark stands as the supreme\ntype of creation, through the conjunction of the sexes.\n\nThe cherubim are, when all is said and done, nothing more, nor yet\nless, than spiritual children--the result of spiritual sex-union.\n\nAnd in this later synoptic mysticism of the ark of the Covenant, we\nare informed that \"every gift within the tabernacle is willingly\noffered.\" If we will but contemplate the volumes of wisdom contained\nwithin that sentence, we cannot fail to conclude that every\ninfinitesimal particle of coercion in whatsoever shape and form,\nindividual, economic, ethical, or religious, must be excluded from the\nregenerated, perfect, ideal sex-relation; otherwise we do not attain\nit.\n\nIf the Ancients seemed to take some of these folk-lore stories too\nliterally, we of this \"practical\" age, do not take them literally\nenough.\n\nWe have imagined that sex, and the sex function, began and ended in\nthe physical. This view is excusable in the case of the materialist,\nif there really be such a person but it is obviously a stupid view for\nthe theologian, who regards this life as the door to spiritual life.\nSince sex is the cause and the result of what we know of creation;\nsince it is the foundation of all the qualities that we know as\nspiritual laws; friendship; unselfishness; fidelity; paternal\nsolicitude--it is absolutely certain that the most beautiful things we\nknow here must have a correspondence in the life hereafter. Of these\nbeautiful things in life, babies come first; with birds and flowers\nand music as fitting accessories.\n\nBut to return to the ark of the covenant. The perpetual flame on the\naltar (the center) is the undying Flame of spiritual love--and by that\nwe mean sex-love, let it be understood. If we seem to repeat this too\nfrequently it is because of the almost general habit of the race to\napologize for sex-love. The erroneous idea obtains, that spiritual\nlove is sexless. All too frequently we come across the phrase, \"with a\nlove that has in it nothing of human love,\" the writer evidently\nanxious to convey the impression of tremendous spirituality and the\nconsequent elimination of the sex function.\n\nAnd so we emphasize once more, and we may do so again, the assurance\nthat the symbol of the never-dying flame upon the altar is typical of\nthe never-dying spirit of sex-love. Spirit is ever symbolized by\nflame, as in the \"flaming sword\" of the archangel.\n\nThe Deity upon the seat of the altar symbolizes the bi-une\nSex-principle of creation.\n\nThe reason that the Jewish people have claimed that they were \"God's\nchosen people\" is because, in their symbolism of the ark of the\nCovenant, all Israel was grouped under the tabernacle. The formation\nof the tabernacle proves that it typifies the mother's womb. The\ntabernacle was guarded by the priests who _were sworn to purity_; thus\nthey symbolized the esoteric truth that the pure spiritual sex-union\nbestows immortal god-hood.\n\nLet us take another story, that of the life-token. This is best told\nin the story of the Holy Grail, although it is found in all the\nfairy-books of all nations, in the language and form befitting the\nrace to which it belongs.\n\nIn the original, that is in the earliest recitals of this life-token\nstory, we find that the thing left behind, as a _center_ (which is\nalways guarded and protected in various ways), was a tree. Here, we\nhave the phallic symbol as the life-token. But in the story of the\nHoly Grail, the cup is the life token to be guarded; it is the sacred\nsymbol of the quest and it is of a design resembling the red rose of\nthe Templars. This time it is the yoni--literally the _chalice_ of the\n_holy communion_; the centre of the radiant circle, which is the\nanswer to all the problems within the radius. It is the search for,\nand the finding of, the balance in counterpartal union. It is the X of\nBeing, and only the purest and the noblest of the Knights of the\n\"Round Table\" essay the difficult quest. The \"mound of Venus\" is\nanother name for the \"Round Table.\"\n\nAgain is emphasized the necessity for purity, and this purity,\nalthough including all the spiritual qualities: fidelity; bravery;\nself-sacrifice; humanity; love of truth; culminates in sexual purity.\n\n\"Blessed are the pure in heart (the pulse of the soul) for they shall\nsee God.\" We revise this latter part, and we say \"for they shall be\n_gods_.\"\n\nLet us consider the story of the \"sleeping Princess.\" She is depicted\nas a princess, first of all, because she is the daughter of a king; a\nking is an earthly ruler, or exalted person. Esoterically, she is the\ndaughter of the exalted God, and she is the soul. Sometimes this story\nis told in the male gender, but everywhere the essential points are\nthe same.\n\nWagner, who is known as a Mystic, has illustrated the story in\nBrunhilde and Siegfried. Brunhilde is an immortal--a goddess, who\nrenounces her immortality to become a woman.\n\nShe sleeps on the top of a high mountain and she is surrounded by a\ncircle of flame; and here she sleeps, despite all efforts to arouse\nher, until awakened by the touch of Siegfried--the one human being in\nall the universe who could awaken the sleeping princess.\n\nThe high mountain symbolizes the highest love of which we are capable.\nTo reach the soul of the exalted woman, typified in the fairy-story by\nthe word princess, and later, by Wagner, as the goddess, man must be\nher mate. _No other can enter the womb of her soul_, though many may\neffect an entrance to the outer court.\n\nThis truth, as absolute as life itself, solves all the problems of the\nmystery of love and its joys and sorrows. No soul can wholly,\nunreservedly love the \"wrong\" one. Though we may love and die of the\npain of unrequited loving, yet love is its own self-justification, and\nits own reward. The pathway of love leads up the mountain top, but no\none who reaches the summit shall fail to find that for which he seeks.\n\nThe soul of man, and of woman, has been playing a game of blind-man's\nbluff--a fitting name for the game it is, too. Unable to see anything\nbut the exterior nature, and longing for success in the search, we\nhave frantically grabbed here and there, and appropriated that which\nwe grabbed, with a self-complacency and an egotism of which little\nJack Horner would be ashamed.\n\nIn the symbolical rites and ceremonies of secret orders, such as the\nAncient Alchemists; the Hermetics; the Rosicrusians; and in modern\ntimes, the Free Masons, we have this story of the search for the\nultimate balance of soul union, told in language veiled unless we are\nfit to know; but openly enough if we are fit. And in all these orders\n(alleged guardians of the hidden wisdom) we have varying degrees of\ninitiation; and in each degree the initiate must undergo certain\ntrials to prove his fearlessness; his fidelity; his fitness, in other\nwords, for the final revealment of all, which is the initiation into\nthe \"holy of holies;\" the \"secret chamber\" and the degree of\n\"mastership.\"\n\nIn the order of Masonry, the highest degree is that of the Templar.\nThe symbol of the Templars is the red rose on the cross, together with\nthe star and the crescent. The star preserves the esotericism of its\nnomenclature, in whatever sphere it is used, namely, the power of\nradiating light. It stands for the radiant center. The Knights Templar\nsought the radiant center to complete their half circle, and when they\nshould have found, they were to become radiant with the light of\nspiritual power. That they originally at least, understood the way of\nthis initiation, is evident by the symbol of the rose and the\ncross--the combined phallus and yoni.\n\nThis fact is the underlying cause of the open and hereditary enmity of\nthe Church of Rome for the modern order of Freemasons. The Church\nsought to specialize in the persons of the Virgin Mary and her Son the\neternal principles of the \"way of the cross.\" The temporal power of\nthe Church could be built up only by offering a complete system of\nsalvation within the church itself. At the same time, the utter\ndegradation of Sex, which had reached its depths under Roman\ncivilization, called for as complete a reversion of the ideas of the\nAncient sex-worshippers, as was consistent with the truth.\n\nHence we find the extreme attitude of the Church opposing all\nreference to sex as other than a part of the temptations of the Evil\nOne, although they did retain the central truth typified by the Holy\nVirgin Mother, and the pure and perfect child.\n\nThe Alchemists are supposed to have been imbued with the desire and,\nto some extent, at least, were regarded as having the knowledge of how\nto make gold. This gold-making was always accomplished by\ntransmutation of the baser (lower) metals; also, the knowledge of how\nto accomplish this transmutation was possible only to one possessing\n\"the philosopher's stone.\"\n\nIf we will but remember that this \"philosopher's stone\" was of such a\npurity that it was almost impossible to find it; that, although\nseveral initiates claimed to possess the stone, yet no visible proof\nof its existence, or of gold resulting from lead or copper, was ever\noffered; and again if we will realize the fine distinction between the\nwords \"found\" and \"discovered,\" and take note that the word \"found\" is\nused almost invariably in connection with those who claimed to possess\nthe stone, we will arrive at the obvious conclusion that the secret of\nthe Alchemists was of an interior nature. We \"discover\" outside of\nourselves; we \"find\" within. Above all, the \"stone of great purity\" is\nthe same that was raised at Babylon, supplanting the yoni, which is\nto say, the phallic symbol.\n\nA philosopher is one who is wise in his interior nature; his wisdom is\nof the esoteric quality; we do not apply the term \"philosopher\" to\neither great educators, or great financiers; but to those whose\nactivities are turned within.\n\nThe force which is manifested in the lower desires and passions, when\ntransmuted into spiritual channels, opens the door to the golden light\nof illumination.\n\nTo become in reality a Prince of the Rosy Cross bestows the exaltation\nand the power, typified by that of an earthly prince--one who is\nexalted above the common man.\n\nIt is doubtful, indeed, if many of the ancient alchemists attained to\nthis exalted degree in its true significance; and we may readily\nbelieve that in an age in which wealth was so eagerly sought; temporal\npower so much desired; where deception was almost general; that few\nlived the requisite purity of life to have accomplished the\ntransmutation; so today there is not one in a thousand of the many who\nhave taken the degree of \"Knight Templar,\" who recognizes its esoteric\nmeaning.\n\nBut words have a trick of trapping us, and we note that the word\n\"taken\" is invariably used in referring to modern Masonic initiation.\nVerily they have \"taken\" the degree in its outward semblance. They\nhave not attained to its powers and privileges.\n\nNor can they do so, when they exclude the very \"gate of life\" from the\norder. They may become masons (builders of the temple), but how can\nthey become Architects, when they have not entered the tabernacle?\n\nIn a search for hidden meanings, and for a secret tradition which is\nbelieved to be discoverable in Kabalistic and Hermetic literature, we\nfind, if we possess true insight, the one indubitable truth,\nsubordinating all the other symbols, namely that of the supremacy, the\nfinality, of the sublimated sex-union, resulting in immortal\nmastership.\n\nMost modern interpreters of the archives of these ancient philosophers\nignore the sexual significance of the arcana, but a glimpse at the\nsymbols will readily convince the initiated of their identity with\nsexual symbology.\n\nFor example in \"The History of Transcendental Magic,\" by Eliphas Levi\n(Abbe Constant), translated by Arthur Edward Waite, there is a plate\nused to illustrate the author's theory of Alchemy, which he concludes\n\"had two aspects, one a physical and the other a moral one.\" The\nsexual, as well as the spiritual, significance is ignored, but this\nmay be due to a disinclination to reveal the secret meaning of the\nalchemical symbols, or it may be due to a materialistic tendency on\nthe part of the compiler.\n\nThe plates, however, speak for themselves, and in one, ascribed to\nBasil-Valentine, an alchemist of the Fifteenth century, called \"The\nGreat Hermetic Arcanum,\" the supreme and significant point of the\nillustration, shows, within the circle of Experience, through which\nthe initiate travels in his search for the supreme god-head, two\ndoves, holding in their beaks a crown. The doves are perfectly\nmatched. The crown is balanced between them, and the figure tops the\ncircle, under the heading \"regeneration.\"\n\nIn another plate, which the author presents as \"the Philosophic Cross,\nor Plan of the Third Temple as prophesied by Ezekiel,\" we note again,\nthat the crown of the symbolical temple represents the red rose upon a\ncross, within a radiant circle; beneath this is a mother-eagle with\noutstretched wings, shielding her little brood, and on either side a\ntree and a flowering rosebush.\n\nHere is the symbol par excellence of generation. The creative function\nof the male and the female in procreative conjunctivity.\n\nThe employment of the eagle as a religious symbol may be traced back\nto the civilization of the Hittites.\n\nOnly a few years ago, two English archaeologists discovered a\ndouble-headed eagle in Asia. This was identical with those seen\nperpetuating religious rites and ceremonies of the sex-worshipers. An\neagle holding in its talons a serpent is an emblem well known today.\nThe origin of the adoption of the eagle as a religious, though not\nnecessarily a \"sacred,\" symbol by prehistoric races, may easily be\nimagined, if we consider that the eagle is a bird of tremendous power;\nand that it soars to unreachable heights; and that it unquestionably\nwas at some time seen to swoop down and carry off the serpent,\npossibly even during their ceremonies of serpent-worship.\n\nThis idea becomes quite convincing when we also remember that the\nceremonies of the serpent worshipers were carried on, as far as\nfeasible, upon the mountain. We allude to this stage of religious\nhistory as \"serpent worship,\" but when we realize the points of\nanalogy between the serpent and the phallus it is apparent that the\nserpent was only the nature-emblem of generation, as manifested by the\nmale principle.\n\n\"The eagle and the dove\" is a phrase employed today to illustrate the\nlaw of antithesis, and it is more than probable that the eagle\nrepresented the lower nature of the sex-relation, in juxtaposition to\nthe higher, as the dove is emblematical of the spiritualized aspect of\nsex-love. We have an analogy to that of the eagle and the dove in the\nBiblical allusion to \"the last day; when God will separate the 'sheep\nfrom the goats,'\" Here again is a pertinent reference to the sex\nnature. The goat is a symbol of sensuality and lust, principally\nbecause he has perverted sexual proclivities, notably that of\ncoercion. For this reason, Classical Mythology employs the satyr, a\ncreature half man and half goat, to typify the lowest form of the sex\ncall in man.\n\nOn the other hand, the lamb is the type of gentleness and affection,\nand although in outward appearance the lamb and the goat are not\ndissimilar, their natures are antithetical.\n\nIn estimating the God-idea of the Ancients, many mistakes have arisen\nby confounding religious symbols with the \"sacred\" symbols. The\nrace-mind was in its kindergarten stage, and all ideals were instilled\nby means of pictures--a method which even the present hour finds most\neffective.\n\nIn modern theological symbolism we have God and the Devil; Heaven and\nHell; angels and demons, to illustrate by antithesis.\n\nThey all belong to religious symbology, but only those which teach\nspiritual ideals are denominated \"sacred.\"\n\n\"Riding the goat,\" alleged to be the almost invariable initiatory\nprelude to fitness for membership in all secret orders, means, first\nof all, that the would-be initiate must have control over his lower\nsexual desires. If he cannot control the goat instincts within his\nnature, he stands small chance of taking the higher degrees of\nspiritual regeneration, through transmutation.\n\nIn another symbolic chart presenting the secrets of alchemical\ntransmutation, we find depicted \"The Gate of Eternal Wisdom,\" and we\nare further informed that this \"gate\" also brings \"knowledge of God.\"\nThe design of this cave-like aperture should betray its esoteric\nmeaning. It is situated under a mound, upon which trees are planted.\nThe inscriptions on the corrugated walls of the cave, are evidently\ndesigned to resemble seven lotus petals, and are set forth as the\nseven mysteries. Inscriptions warning against profanation of this\nsacred gate, and also promising eternal life and glory to the true\ninitiate, inspire the intrepid and deter the doubtful. Of these\nlatter, several are outside the entrance. Two are on the steps leading\nto the mouth of the cave but their attitude bespeaks doubt of their\nworthiness. Only one has penetrated to the radiant center of the\naperture, and there is room for but the one to enter the radiance of\nthe solar gate, which truly bestows a knowledge that is \"of God.\"\n\nSex Symbology is a subject that calls for a large volume devoted to\nthis special side of it, and we cannot hope to do more here than to\ntouch a few of the almost universal proofs of the contention which is\nthe purpose of this book, namely, that the supreme goal of life,\ntypified in every religion, every philosophy, and in the intuitional\nknowledge of the human mind, is spiritual sex-union; and that this can\nbe accomplished only by counterparts; the two halves of the bi-une god\nseed uniting in one immortal and complete pair--a man and a woman.\nNot, we must again emphasize, not in a hermaphroditic personality, but\nin two perfect complementaries--mates; not _one_ but _a pair_.\n\nIn another exposition of Hermetic secrets we discover the amazing\nstatement that \"the alchemist is found working throughout, in\nconjunction with a woman of the art; _they begin and they attain\ntogether_.\"\n\nThis should be plain enough. Small chance, indeed, either would have\nof attaining alone. But if this suggestion is not sufficient (and\neither from design or from failure to comprehend the significance of\nit, the translator seems to have missed the point), we are introduced\nto a symbolical figure-study, which shows a Chalice in which the sun\nand the moon are personified (the solar-man and the solar-woman), with\nthe god Vulcan (fire) seated between them. Underneath this \"twain-one\"\nsymbol a mortal man and a mortal woman are kneeling on either side of\na cone-shaped and dome-tipped furnace, which is lighted by a feeble\ncandle. But their attitude of prayer bespeaks the hope that this\nearthly flame will be transmuted by their prayers and aspirations; by\ntheir reverential attitude toward the divine character of the function\nof mating, into the immortal and unquenchable flame typified by the\ngod of fire himself.\n\nIn another series of symbolical plates, purporting to be the story of\nMetallic transmutation, but representing, above all, the story of\nmanifestation from the Divine to the human and again to the\nspiritualized and perfected Adam and Eve--(the solar man and the solar\nwoman), we again see that from generation to regeneration the work is\naccomplished by man and woman in conjunction.\n\nThese plates bear the hall-marks of Christian appropriation of\nHermetic symbolism, as peculiarly applicable to the Church, but the\ncentral doctrine of salvation through sex-regeneration, is retained.\nWhether consciously or not, is a question.\n\nModern commentators and translators of alchemical literature insist\nthat such documents are palpably related to the secret, or secrets, of\nmetallic transmutation. That they prove the search for, if not the\nexistence of, a \"magic solvent\" that resolves the baser metals into\ngold; but, as far as known, such a compound has not yet been\ndiscovered or, if it ever was, it has since been lost and evades all\nattempts at rediscovery. But if we read these alchemical treatises as\nthey relate to transmutation of sex-love from the pro-creative\nfunction to regeneration through spiritual or counterpartal union\n(solar mates), we have the key to every statement.\n\nA writer tells of an instance which is recorded among alchemical\narchives, where \"an unknown master testified to his possession of the\nmystery\" (supposedly of metallic transmutation), but it is added that\n\"he had not proceeded to the work because he had failed to meet an\n_elect woman_, who was necessary thereto.\" In other words, applying\nthis statement in its obviously logical sense, the unknown master knew\nthe esoteric meaning of the alchemical postulate, but not having met\nhis female complement, he could not testify to the results of this\ntransmutation. An \"elect woman\" would hardly be necessary in the work\nof metallic transmutation.\n\nSmall wonder that the \"alchemist\" abandoned the work of turning lead\nand copper into gold. If he had found the key of keys, he cared little\nwhether lead were lead, or whether gold remained gold, or melted into\nthin air. The golden light of illumination showed him all things in\ntheir purpose, and gold as a metal meant no more to him than did the\nso-called \"baser\" metals.\n\nCommenting upon this statement, the translator observes: \"Those\nHermetic texts which bear a spiritual interpretation and are as if a\nrecord of spiritual experience, present, like the literature of\nphysical alchemy, the following aspects of symbolism: the marriage of\nsun and moon; of a mystical king and queen; a union between natures\nwhich are _one_ at the _root_, but diverse in manifestation; a\ntransmutation which follows this union and an abiding glory therein.\"\n\nIf we will remember that the solar-man was personified by the Ancients\nas the sun; and the solar-woman by the moon, we have the first and\nsalient points of the original Hermetic secrets, however much they may\nhave degenerated from their spiritual to their physical application.\nThe probabilities are that owing to the disapproval of the Christian\nHierarchy, only the most veiled terminology was permissible. This view\nis more logical than is the one that the esoteric meaning was lost\nsight of.\n\nThe marriage of an hypothetical or \"mystical king and queen\" bespeaks\nexaltation of the two conjoining persons, male and female, but this\nexaltation is in consciousness, and not in mere personality. The\nterms \"king\" and \"queen\" are nothing more or less than symbols of an\nexalted (spiritualized) state.\n\nAnd, in passing, we may here mention the fact that the language of\nlovers testifies to this intuitional realization. \"My queen!\" exclaims\nthe enraptured lover, although in social station his beloved one may\nbe only a scullery maid; and certainly, neither the beauty nor the\ngoodness nor the wisdom of earthly kings and queens would be\nsufficient to inspire the comparison.\n\nIt is ever the soul calling for the mate who, when found, will exalt\nthe \"twain-one\" into the immortal powers and immortal wealth\nimperfectly symbolized by earthly rulers, making \"right royal queens\nand kings of common clay.\"\n\nThe third aspect of the symbolism tells of \"an union between two\nnatures which are one at the root, but diverse in manifestation.\" And\nthe alchemist who sought the physical interpretation of this, promised\nthat, as earth, air, and fire and water were the elements \"out of\nwhich all manifestation is composed,\" it only remained for someone to\ndiscover the exact proportion of each of these elementary substances\nin a specific compound; this accomplished, copper for example, could\nbe dissolved into its constituent parts and re-solved again in the\nproportions which formed gold, a thing which we are not prepared to\nsay could not be accomplished, but a thing which we do say, would not\neven be attempted by one who had found the secret of the interior\ntransmutation, because having attained to the radiant center, he\nwould realize the \"glory of the worlds,\" and gold, as metal, would be\nto him of far less value than the emerald of the grass; the pearls of\ndew upon the rose; the scent of the lotus; the song of birds; the\nlaughter of children.\n\nHow vain and foolish to imagine that a philosopher would think it\nworth while to search for gold, as a metal. He would not even consider\nthe ambition worthy the parchment used to preserve the record of his\nlabors.\n\nBut to find the golden light from the radiant center of pure and\nunquenchable love--that were indeed worthy of ages of research. For\nare we not promised, the \"glory of the world\" if we will seek and\nfind? And he who truly seeks will absolutely find. What is the glory\nof the world? Is it fame, or wealth, or lands, or gems or kingdoms?\n\nLove is the only glory worthy of the name.\n\n  \"For Life with all its yield of joy and woe\n  And hope and fear--believe the aged friend--\n  Is just our chance at the prize o' learning love.\"\n\nWhen we realize the esoteric meaning of this aspect of the ancient\nalchemical symbol, namely, that the two halves of the one whole,\nmanifesting diversely as male and female, are reunited, we come to the\nfourth aspect of the symbol mentioned, and the \"transmutation which\nfollows this union and the abiding glory therein,\" is the inevitable\nand logical sequential answer.\n\nAn _abiding_ glory must be founded upon spiritual substantiability.\nTransmutation is not synonymous with, extinction, or elimination, or\nabandonment. We _transmute_ the lower into the higher, the exterior\ninto the interior, the physical into the spiritual. This is the sum\nand substance of the \"Ancient Wisdom.\"\n\nThere is no eccentric change or transition from one phase or plane of\nlife, into another. It is neither logical nor justifiable to assume\nthat Sex is limited to the physical, or the astral or the psychic, or\nany other specific planes of consciousness. These planes are not\ndistinctively separable anyway. They are merely _names_ which we use\nto distinguish degrees, or limitations of consciousness.\n\nThe statement that the \"two halves are reunited\" is almost invariably\nmisinterpreted to imply an annihilation, or absorption of\nindividuality, into some sort of vaporous, formless, sexless Thing;\nbut why this should be so misconstrued is a puzzle, any more than that\nbringing together the two halves of an orange which had been divided,\nwould result in the destruction of that edible; or any more than\nbringing together a glove fitting the right hand and its mate fitting\nthe left hand, would destroy the shape and usefulness of this article.\nThe comparison may be a homely one, but it is understandable.\n\nIt takes two to make a pair. Mistake it not, and further, there is no\n_abiding glory_ in this world or in the next or in any other sphere,\nthat is not founded upon the deep, intense and eternal love of man and\nwoman.\n\n\n\n\n                              CHAPTER IX\n\n                    WHAT CONSTITUTES SEX IMMORALITY?\n\n\nThe average mind, nurtured in apprehensive awe of that race fetish\ncalled Public Opinion, is inordinately afraid of words.\n\n\"Atheist,\" \"infidel,\" \"ungodly\" are epithets which have been used as\nmental clubs, with temporary effect, to beat back the wave of\nreligious and scientific Rationalism, which punctuated the last\ncentury.\n\nThese words have now lost much of their terror, even to the\nundeveloped consciousness of the average, because it has been shown\nthat the God-idea which rational thought fain would substitute for the\nold revengeful Deity, has not annihilated the world, but quite to the\ncontrary has resulted in a happier and higher ideal of godhood than\nthat which the early Church postulated.\n\nEpithets are the mental bulwarks of the powers of resistance against\nEvolution.\n\nIgnorance is fearful of the unknown, and the knights of Enlightenment\nhave ever had to fight their way through the ranks of abuse and\ncriticism and misrepresentation.\n\nFree-love is a phrase with which even the most intrepid advocate of\nrational thought hesitates to claim affiliation; and yet the goal of\nour highest endeavors must be a state of Society where Love, the god,\nis free from the mire of corruption, and the bonds of slavery.\n\nLet us not be afraid of so harmless a thing as a word, remembering the\ncase of the little girl who ran to her mother crying with indignation\nbecause someone had alluded to her as an \"aristocrat.\" She did not\nknow what the word meant, and so resented it as something undeserved.\n\nWhen we examine into what the phrase free-love really means, we will\nnot be so fearful of its sound.\n\nTo whom is this epithet most frequently applied?\n\nIs it to the average man who is known to be a Lothario in matters of\nsex? Not at all. He is referred to as a \"gay bachelor\" or as one who\nis \"sowing his wild oats\" or some other phrase, which in no way\naffects his social standing.\n\nIs it applied to women of the half-world, to recognized, and legalized\nprostitution? Never! It is significant of the real meaning of\nfree-love that the term is never used in connection with what modern\nreform has aptly designated the \"white slave\" traffic, for the obvious\nreason that nowhere is Love so un-free; so enslaved and bound and\nmurdered as in this phase of woman's degradation.\n\nNor is the term applied to unfaithful wives, because in this type of\ndefiance of traditional sex-ethics there is always the spirit of\nself-accusation; a tacit, if not open, admission of wrong-doing.\n\nWe never hear the awful accusation of \"free-lover\" hurled at the young\nwoman who has, what the world calls, \"sinned,\" because, forsooth, she\npays the price of her deviation from social standards (when\ndiscovered) by ostracism, and not infrequently by a broken heart, or\nby sinking further into the depths of bondage; and so here again it is\nevident that there is no freedom for whatever spirit of love actuates\nher conduct.\n\nIt must be admitted that the term \"free-love\" is applied only to those\nwho openly claim the right to bestow their affections and indulge in\nthe sex-relationship, independent of the marriage ceremony. It matters\nnot whether this claim includes but one mate, or several. It is the\ndemand that they shall not forfeit their right to respect and\nmorality, which is resented by the many who still conform to\ntraditional customs, and which general conformity results in investing\nthe term \"free-love\" with an unpleasant odor.\n\nPublic opinion puts a premium upon deceit.\n\nSuch intimate matters as marriage and divorce are really no concern of\nany person other than the contracting or the \"distracted\" parties.\n\nThe public is too concerned with trivialities and too little with\nTruth. Nothing short of national insanity permits the existence of\ndivorce-courts, and the necessity for married persons desiring to\nlive apart, to slander and abuse each other like pickpockets before\nthey may act upon such a decision.\n\nSome time ago the public press was filled with the minutest details of\nthe love story of a woman, who had lived for fifteen years hidden from\nthe world because she loved a man well enough to pay that price.\n\nShe might have insisted that the man obtain a divorce from his wife,\nto whom he had been married seventeen or more years, and thus win the\napproval of society. But this woman placed love above all material\nthings, and she preferred to take nothing from the wife. The love of\nher husband the wife did not possess and, it would seem, did not care\nfor particularly. When through the accident of the man's death the\nstory came to light, the press was flooded with letters from prominent\nclub-women and from clergymen and others, stating upon what terms, if\nany, this love-recluse should be forgiven.\n\nMost of them decided that she should not be forgiven; a few seemed to\nthink that if she \"repented\" and lived thereafter a \"pure\" life, she\nmight in time be worthy of their forgiveness.\n\nSuch a spectacle! America will yet share the reputation with England\nof being a nation without a sense of humor.\n\nEagerly the representative members of society \"rush in where angels\nfear to tread\" upon any and all occasions to air their opinions upon\nother people's conduct and thus prove their own virtue.\n\nThe fact that this woman was not in any position to be forgiven or\nunforgiven; that she was sublimely unconscious of and wholly\nindifferent to their opinions; that she was unaware of any necessity\nfor either shame or repentance; seems not to have entered the silly\nbrains of these keepers of the public morals. She had loved one man\nwith a fidelity, a whole-heartedness, and a loftiness of\nself-sacrifice which are as rare as they are great in these days of\npretense and hypocritical virtue, and she had paid the full price for\nher idealism. She did not repine or regret. She only suffered, not\nalone because of her unenviable notoriety, but because Death had taken\nher loved one from her. Surely this was indeed an evidence of real\nlove in an unreal civilization, which should have brought out the\nfearless sympathy and approval of every good woman in the land. It\nshould have been food for sermons in every pulpit in Christendom, that\na modern woman preferred solitary confinement with the man she loved\nto the usual method of procedure, which insists upon the respectable\nposition of wife, no matter at what cost to another.\n\nBut this is Society's estimate of Love and Truth and Virtue, and it is\nsmall wonder if real people become indifferent to Society's feelings.\n\nIf the term free-love were really synonymous with sex-promiscuity, we\nwould hear it used in connection with those whose frequent divorces\nare the subject of press comment, but we do not, because by their\noutward concession to established ethics they subscribe to the demands\nof Convention.\n\nThe term, in its opprobrious sense, is almost always applied to women,\nbecause for many centuries the men have claimed their right to\npersonal liberty in matters connected with the sex-relation, and until\nwomen of the self-respecting and educated class began to openly\nemulate the example of the male, there was no occasion to use the\nphrase. Men come under its lash only when they, too, concede to women\nthe right to respectability notwithstanding defiance of tradition.\n\nAll of which goes to prove that the public mind is in reality\nsufficiently clear on the matter of distinction between sex\npromiscuity and free-love. It is likewise obvious that the opprobrium\nthat attaches to the phrase is not aimed at promiscuity but at the\nclaim to personal liberty in matters of the sex-relation and defiance\nof Public Opinion which demands either ostensible concurrence in its\nstandards, or punishment for openly transgressing them.\n\nThe result of this unjust (and unfit, in the light of our other\nadvanced ideas) attitude toward the most important function of life,\nhas resulted in one of two lines of conduct as woman's only free\nchoice.\n\nEither she must resort to deception, hypocrisy and pretense, shielding\nher secret excursions into forbidden paths, by feigning a scorn and\nabhorrence for the doctrine of free-love, the while she secretly\nindulges her sex-nature, more or less promiscuously, or else she is\nforced to repress all her natural instincts, and not infrequently\nthese instincts are abnormally strong because of pre-natal and\ninherited influences.\n\nBoth of these courses, the only two which are open to the average\nwoman, are disastrous to the sex, and through them to the race,\nbecause women are the mothers of men, and any course which binds and\nfetters the free spirit of woman hampers race-improvement.\n\nRepression of the natural functions of her being results in physical\ndisease, and ultimately in mental weakness. Unnatural expression of\nthe sex-function, under the ban of compulsion, whether through the\ncompulsion of marriage or through the more flagrant type of commercial\nprostitution, is death to the best development of the race.\n\nWomen, through the urge of economic necessity, or through the\nreligious ideal of wifely submission and fidelity to their \"Lord and\nMaster\" have been compelled to develop a craftiness and an artificial\n\"modesty\" which, in most cases, passes for femininity, and deceives,\nas it is intended to do, the average man.\n\nFor centuries, a woman's only profession was matrimony. Her education\nfor this profession consisted first of all of complete ignorance of\nall that relates to the most intimate and most vital part of her\nnature--the function of sex. In the occasional instances where she had\ninherited a degree of mentality which could not be dwarfed, she must\nat least feign ignorance; and so, while secretly aware of every\nemotion of the male, and covertly playing upon his sex-nature in her\ntask of \"catching a husband,\" it is small wonder that women have\ndeveloped the traits of the cat animal, and are frequently both\ntreacherous and cruel.\n\nIndeed, it is only because the Female Principle is the attracting and\nconserving power of the bi-une sex-love, that she has broken through\nthese mental fetters, and in a few rare instances has hurled defiance\nat the devils of convention and tradition and claims justification of\nher own sex-nature, and her right to her own person, despite the\nepithet of \"free-love.\"\n\nWoman's partial emancipation in some instances has, no doubt, \"gone to\nher head,\" as it were, and we see many women confounding license with\nliberty; mistaking passion for Love; and exchanging restraint for\ndebauchery.\n\nThe average woman is either almost entirely lacking in sex desire or\nshe is abnormally active in that function. In truth, the same state of\naffairs prevails here, as in so many other phases of our modern life,\nnamely, there is no balance. We are a civilization of extremes; we are\none-sided, abnormal; distorted. We are seeking the pivotal point of\nour destiny, which is the soul, but few have reached that point. Those\nwho have not, are groping through the jungles of the mental plane of\nconsciousness, upheld on the one hand by the upward trend of their\nbeing, which seeks the level of the soul-conscious state; and held\nback on the other hand by the trammels of the sense-conscious type\nfrom which the race has developed to its present condition.\n\nThose instances where women indulge in excesses are comparatively rare\nin proportion to numbers, and they loom large in perspective because\nof their very incongruity with our ideals of womanly conduct. The vast\nmajority of women may be safely trusted to use their sex-freedom, when\nit shall have truly arrived, for the purpose of finding that one and\nonly mate which their souls instinctively know to be our rightful\nheritage--the proverbial \"pearl of great price\" which insures\nimmortality in the bliss of union with our Beloved.\n\nLove, when freed from the illusions of sense; from the shackles of\ncommercialism; from the bonds of error regarding the meaning and\npurpose of marriage; freed from selfishness and licentiousness; will\nsolve the question of sex-promiscuity. This for the obvious reason\nthat Love seeks its own. If left free to seek, it will find.\n\nBut, if sex promiscuity is far from being free-love, if the doctrine\nof sex freedom is fraught with many dangers under our present social\nsystem, it must be conceded that no one method of social evolution,\nthus far devised, can be recommended as ideally perfect. The best that\nwe can hope to do is to emphasize the importance and the sacredness\nand the innate purity of the sex-relation, while conceding to both\nsexes all the personal liberty possible.\n\nAnd above all, we should avoid condemnation of those who claim the\nright to freedom, lest we cover up a condition which can but be the\nbetter for being open to the light. Particularly should we shield\nwomen from the charge of immorality, and licentiousness, when we see\nthem straying down the by-paths of the senses, in their quest for\nfreedom, remembering that the centuries of repression and submission\nand consequent deception have left their mark upon woman's\ntemperament.\n\nMan has for ages boasted of his sex virility; of his conquests in what\nhe has termed \"love.\" Not infrequently a man's choice of a wife is the\nresult of much seeking in the garden of Life; and much sipping of the\nhoney from the various flowers that grow therein. Often, indeed, a man\nfrankly tells the woman he would marry that he knows he loves her\nabove all other women for the convincing reason that he has tried so\nmany and none have held him. Should a woman make the same confession\nand draw the same conclusion, he would be horrified.\n\nIt must be admitted, then, that the term \"free-lovers\" is applied only\nto those who defy Public Opinion and claim their right to respect and\nmorality despite their defiance of Society's false standards of\nmorality. These standards are false because they are based upon\ncriticism and censure of results instead of upon motives.\n\nSociety ignores, if it does not actually encourage, frivolous\nflirtations, and frowns most harshly upon instances of real love. It\nsets the seal of disapproval and ostracism upon those who, because of\ncircumstances or possibly because of indifference to man-made laws,\ntake their affairs into their own hands and refuse to exhibit either\npenitence or shame when the world discovers that they neglected the\nmarriage ceremony. If two persons truly love each other and there is\nnothing to interfere with their undergoing the publicity of a marriage\nceremony, well and good, unless, indeed, it is a matter of principle\nwith them that our social customs are a fetich. But there are\ninnumerable instances where there are obstacles to unions which to\novercome would involve hardships and suffering to others, or where\nabsurd laws prevent marriage, and where two persons loving each other,\nprefer to pay the price of social ostracism to separation. Such as\nthese lose nothing by Society's disapproval, but Society does lose\nsomething by persecuting those who are independent enough and honest\nenough to act from motive, rather than from custom, and who insist\nupon maintaining their self-respect, in the face of criticism.\nSelf-respect is not related to braggadocio.\n\nIt must be admitted that as yet there are few persons who have the\ncourage to endure martyrdom for their convictions, which is, perhaps,\njust as well, because the majority are unable to distinguish between\nbrazen shamelessness and unashamedness. The average woman will stick\nto the safe habit of dissembling.\n\nWomen have learned the lesson of the cat too thoroughly to jump\nimmediately from the back-yard of Deception to the front porch of\nTruth.\n\nIn this one respect at least, however much she may indulge her desire\nfor frankness in other directions, a woman will lie valiantly,\nself-protectingly, and continually, even though she follow in secret\nthe example of the cat, which (seeing its master come home from the\nhunt with a string of birds, and displaying, with much pride and\nsatisfaction, the results of his prowess), conceived the idea that it\nwould also be a fine thing for her to go forth and kill the canary.\nBut to tabby's surprise, her ability was rewarded with chastisement;\nwhereupon she pondered the question over and over: \"How can it be,\nthat what is virtue in man is vice in a cat?\"\n\nWe are not told in the story what conclusion she arrived at, but we\ncan imagine that her conclusion was that which women have arrived at,\nin a similar situation, to wit: man is unjust and unreasonable, but he\nis also stronger than I am, and therefore, while I shall follow his\nexample, I shall take good care to hide the feathers.\n\nIn the meantime, we are crossing the bridge that leads from the\njungles of our animal nature, where prowl the beasts of deceit; greed;\nselfishness; sensuality; vanity; avarice; and domination; to the\nHeights, illumined by Love set free.\n\nLet us not jostle and crowd each other too harshly, while we are en\nroute.\n\nBut, of course, we are confronted with the pertinent query as to what,\nif any, absolute standard of morality there can be in matters of the\nsex relation. Freedom is so easily misconstrued into implying\nsex-promiscuity; and monogamy, the final survival of the various\nsystems of marriage, has in its modern as well as in its ancient\naspect so much of coercion; and coercion is cited as the insuperable\nobstacle to attainment of the supreme state of spiritual sex-union,\nthat the would-be initiate becomes confused, and is lost in a maze of\nparadoxes.\n\nMoral distinctions are too fine for the undeveloped man-animal, and\nthat is the reason why man-made laws have been necessary. The\nobjection to them is not in their original intention, but in their\nfailure to die after they have become senile.\n\nMoral standards are as unstable as the shifting sands of the sea.\n\n\"Our moral sentiments,\" say Letourneau, \"are simply habits incarnate\nin our brain, or instincts artificially created; and thus an act\nreputed culpable at Paris, or at London, may be, and frequently is,\nheld innocent at Calcutta or at Pekin.\"\n\nAnd Emerson, the intellectual Seer, says: \"There is a soul at the\ncentre of nature and over the will of every man, so that none of us\ncan wrong the universe.\"\n\nIt is a colossal piece of impudent presumption, when we come to think\nabout it, for Man to ask the Supreme, Absolute, Infinite Power to\nforgive him. But, if we cannot wrong the universe, we can and we do\nwrong ourselves and each other as mortals.\n\nThat is the whole gist of the story. We are constantly wronging\nourselves and each other and calling upon God to support us in our\nstrife when God cannot know aught save the call of Love.\n\nThe growing, evolving race, has found it necessary to establish\ncertain loosely defined codes of morals and of social ethics, in the\nsame way that man has bridled the horse that he may control him;\nincidentally, we may observe that where this bridle formerly included\n\"blinders,\" it now permits the horse to see whither he is going.\n\nPerhaps a brief survey of the standards of sexual morality which have\nupheld (or down-held, just as we look at it) the human race until now,\nmay be illuminating.\n\nIt has been disputed, if, under the matriarchal system of polygamy,\nthe moral condition of the people was higher than under the\npatriarchal system, and probably no satisfactory conclusion can be\nreached upon this point, save and except that any condition, however\nprimitive, which permitted to the female freedom of choice, must be\nbetter than that in which she is the object of coercion. This is\nevident, because the degree of coercion can never, under any\ncircumstances, be as great with the male as with the female.\n\nTherefore, matriarchal polygamy is comparatively more nearly moral\nthan is patriarchal polygamy, and when all is said and done, historic\nmorality is comparative.\n\nBut from the standpoint of modern idealism matriarchal polygamy seems\nto be a very low estimate of moral conduct; and from the standpoint of\nsexual idealism it is a low standard; a standard only a degree higher\nthan that of patriarchal polygamy--a standard which is the lineal\ndescendant of the ethics of the marriage-by-capture period of human\nevolution, and from which we are today by no means free, owing to\neconomic, religious, and ethical conditions.\n\nThere is a tacit acknowledgement on the part of the unorganized\nbrotherhood of the Enlightened, that laws are made for the guidance of\nthe masses. Unbridled ignorance is a dangerous force; as dangerous as\nan unbridled horse, unless it be that the horse exhibits intelligence\nenough to know where it is headed for and how to avoid obstacles en\nroute.\n\nAnd even as the laws of a community are made for the intellectually\nundeveloped, so the commandments were compiled for the spiritual\nguidance of the uninitiated.\n\nWe trust that it will not shock the sensibilities of the \"pious\" when\nwe affirm and maintain and insist that the ten commandments are not\n\"from God\" in the letter of the statements, as postulated by Theology.\nThey bear all the earmarks of the ancient Hebrew race-mind, which\nplaced a man's \"neighbor's wife\" in the same category with \"his ox and\nhis ass and his house\" and his other property and possessions.\n\nThere is but one commandment of the Most High God, alias Eros, and\nthat is so interwoven into the fabric of creation that we cannot break\nit if we would, although we may and do break ourselves in trying to\nlive in defiance of its immutability.\n\n\"We cannot wrong the universe!\"\n\nOur moral standards, in so far as they relate to the sexes, are at\npresent the logical descent of Hebrew adherence to phallic worship,\nengrafted into the Roman outgrowth of the God-idea. Both the Hebrew\nand the Roman customs maintained the inferiority and the consequent\nsubjugation of woman, despite the fact that the Roman Church exalted\nthe Virgin as a personality; but the postulate of the Church that Mary\nwas so exalted by a miracle, which never could be repeated, killed any\nforlorn hope which might have lurked within the female breast\nregarding a possible emulation of her example. No other woman might do\nmore than cringe and crawl and beg and whine; or cajole and wheedle\nand buy the Holy Mother's intercession, which intercession, even if\nsuccessful, could at best but secure her an eternal job in the\nHeavenly hierarchy, where, sexless, companionless, mateless, anaemic,\nshe could look all day at a male God whom she could never presume to\nreach.\n\nRather a lonesome outlook for eternity, and it is small wonder that\nwoman got discouraged at the prospect. The miracle is rather that she\nendured it so long.\n\nBut the Roman system had at least one virtue. It instilled into the\nmortal mind of its people a sub-conscious realization of the ideal of\nmonogamy; not an ideal monogamy by a long way, but a monogamic ideal.\nThey are quite different; but inasmuch as it is an outward semblance\nof a more spiritual conception of marriage than that of polygamy, it\nis the highest ideal yet realized for the many, and does duty in our\npresent day and age, as consistent with our superior civilization.\n\nMonogamy at least pretends to be a marriage by mutual consent; and\neven in the pretense there is the germ of a hope; but it would be\nfolly to deny that underneath this appearance of marriage by mutual\nconsent we see the remnants of the traditional idea of the right by\npurchase, and therefore we have the jealousy that arises by virtue of\nour property rights.\n\nThe right by purchase assuredly underlies our present-day marriage\nsystem, although it is disguised as economic necessity; as a religious\nsacrament; and as a suitable or a brilliant \"catch\"--a type of\nmarriage by capture which forms the ideal of our own upper-class women\nand which the housemaid copies in her limited way.\n\nViewed from the surface evidence, the average woman of today is, as\nKipling says, far \"more deadly than the male.\" She is more\nunscrupulous in her methods; more unreasonable in her demands; more\ndevoid of sentiment or sympathy; more fickle in her desires and more\nnagging in her complaints. But, when all is said and done, we must\nadmit that woman is only expressing her inheritance. When she becomes\nbalanced, the sexes will meet on common ground.\n\nWoman's demand for better physical environment; for more comfort, and\nmore justice; presages, after all, a higher and a more satisfactory\nidea of the marriage relationship. Underneath this materialistic\ndemand, there is the silent voice of the soul calling for a more\nideal marriage relation. It is the materialistic expression of a\nspiritual urge and will in time rise to higher ground. It is a demand\nfor a better state than that which our grandmothers enjoyed, or\nendured.\n\nWe have seen in the history of marriage, that the estimate of sexual\nimmorality has been based, all too frequently, upon woman's disregard\nfor the rights of her husband in her person.\n\nFor centuries the burden of sustaining a sexual moral standard has\nrested almost wholly upon the shoulders of the women; and it is\ntherefore natural that the present-day defiant attitude of many women\ntoward the traditional standard should be viewed with alarm; and there\nis more in this thought of alarm than the mere anxiety on the part of\nman to hold woman to her appointed task of guardian of marital\nmorality.\n\nAlthough men may wander from the home and fireside, it is a peculiar\nfact that they generally hold to a mental string by which they may\nfind their way back again, very frequently the more contented to be\nthere for their wanderings. But with a woman it is different. Once a\nwoman has broken loose from the ties that have bound her to her\ninherited post of morality-preserver, she seldom goes back again, but\nkeeps on her way until she finds that for which she seeks, or gives up\nthe search of her own volition.\n\nIs this, then, evidence that it is a woman's first duty to \"stay put\"\nwhen matrimonial exigencies have placed her in a specific \"pocket\" of\nthe matrimonial billiard-table?\n\nWe believe not; and this belief is founded upon the fact that the\nfemale principle, which is, we admit, the centralizing, centripetal\nforce in the cosmos, is not always manifested in the form of woman.\nThe balanced individual is bi-sexual, even as the balanced \"twain-one\"\nis bi-sexual. If man was all male principle, and woman all female\nprinciple they would not be complementary, but antithetical. Each must\nbe balanced within himself and herself before they can merge into each\nother.\n\nAffinities are numerous, but mates are found but once; otherwise, the\nproblems that are being discussed here would never have arisen.\n\nIf, then, as has been shown in the fact that only counterpartal unions\nare real, eternal and spiritually indissoluble; and that only true\nmates can thus unite, and when thus united have no desire to wander,\nwhat becomes of our ideas of sexual infidelity?\n\nSince the very law of the Cosmos has seen to it that we cannot be\nuntrue to the only one who seemingly has a right to our fidelity in\nthe sex relation and since this union can become general only by\nfreeing love from bondage, what becomes of the laboriously built up\nethics of our social intercourse?\n\nAre they to be abandoned as of no value?\n\nWe can almost hear the storm of protest which the righteous reader may\nfeel in duty bound to let loose at such a suggestion, if for no other\nreason than that protest is the accepted way of proving one's own\nvirtuous tendencies.\n\nIn the early seventies, a woman named Virginia Woodhull brought down\nupon her defenseless head the un-Christian-like abuse of the Christian\npublic by announcing a doctrine which seems to have been nothing more\ndreadful than that of an equal standard of morality for men and women.\nThe poor woman died broken-hearted, it is said; and yet nothing that\nwe can unearth regarding her personal life and habits would seem to\nhave warranted the cruel gibes that were hurled at her. The dear old\nlady lived a most continent, even ascetic life.\n\nBut the world has made rapid strides since that time, and we trust\nthat the urgent need of something reasonable and feasible upon the sex\nquestion will inspire the reader to an unprejudiced review of this\nchapter. We would that it were possible to supply a modicum of\nunderstanding with each copy of this volume; but since it is not, we\nmust take our chance with the average. Let us reason together:\n\nExpediency is the mother of morality in social organizations, which\nhave, of necessity, unstable, ever-changing standards. These standards\nrepresent, for some, ideals yet to be attained; while for others they\nbecome mere mileposts on the path of Evolution. The individual\nreaches, and then passes, an accepted ideal; gradually when a\nsufficient number, constituting a majority, have reached this ideal,\nit ceases to be a standard for the social organization, and another\nideal is substituted.\n\nThe laws of the cave-man called for self-restraint exercised toward\nhis own immediate clan, and this necessity for self-restraint was\nbased upon nothing higher than the law of self-preservation; but\ngradually the sphere widened; from clan to nation. So do our ethical\nand moral standards enlarge. Traditional concepts are not necessarily\nwrong, but they are almost sure to be inadequate to evolving Mankind.\n\nFormerly, sexual morality consisted of the reservation of the person\nof a sister to the use of her brothers. Any infringement upon this\nmoral code was punished by death to the woman and to her out-clannish\nlover.\n\nAnd we have today an analogous example, although we are glad to say,\nit is not the highest standard; still, if one's husband or wife\nviolates the marriage vows, it is more condonable, if the\nco-respondent be of the wealthy class; and in monarchies it is\naccounted an honor to have been selected as the king's favorite.\n\nThe institution of prostitution which exists everywhere today has its\nstandards in the different countries; and the white races seem to\nthink that their morality is superior to that of the Orientals because\nthe social standing of prostitutes in the Orient is not irretrievably\nlost; they are permitted, in the event of marriage, to resume social\nequality with other women. Among white people, prostitutes have no\nother recourse than to sink lower and lower, until utter degradation\nis reached.\n\nWe believe that the Oriental view of the situation is a far higher\nstandard of morality than is our Occidental attitude.\n\nIf there can lawfully be such an organization as is now being proposed\nas desirable in large cities, namely, a \"morals police,\" it certainly\nshould be instigated by a more sane purpose than that which is at the\nroot of our present police guardianship.\n\nAttempts at suppression of prostitution have hitherto been conducted\non the principle that the women of that class are objectionable to the\nsight of our mothers and sisters and wives, and the sinfulness of the\nhopelessly \"fallen\" ones has been the theme of press and pulpit. And\nall the time the women of the half-world have resented this attitude\nas being unjust, and unfair, and hypocritical, and untenable. They\nhave known that if the act of selling their bodies to men is a crime\nagainst the community, then more than half the feminine world is\ncriminal. And they have contended that since the \"respectable\" women\nwere neither contacted nor exploited by them, they cannot see wherein\nthey offend society, provided the laws of sanitation and segregation\nare complied with.\n\nIn other words, they have said that it is none of Society's business\nwhether they sell themselves to one man or to a number, since they\nmust pay the penalty. And their attitude is relatively right. It is\nnone of Society's business whether a woman is a prostitute or not,\nconsidered as an offense against Society. That is the wrong attitude\ntoward this condition of our social disorder.\n\nNo prostitute offends you or me. She, poor creature, offends herself,\nand we offend her and ourselves by permitting social conditions that\nmake for such degradation. We are conniving with her to barter her\nbirthright of freedom and real love for food and shelter, and taint\nand tinsel, whenever we encourage marriage on any other ground than\nthat of true love, and when we regard virtue as a matter of physical\ncontact.\n\nIf we judge from the many plays which we see on the boards; if we are\ninfluenced by the press and the pulpit; we must acknowledge that the\ngeneral idea of sexual morality is an absurd one. The inference is\nthat one special organ of a woman's physical body is the sole\ncustodian of all virtue and all morality. The accepted idea seems to\nbe that if a woman is married her body is then the property of her\nhusband. Her emotions, her mind, her heart, her happiness, her\npreferences do not count for anything. The one act is made\nall-important. On the husband's side, if he provides for his wife and\nfamily, he is justified in exacting the sole right to the wife's body,\nand although his own heart and caresses may be given to another, he\njustifies himself, and the wife not infrequently feels satisfied, as\nlong as he provides well for her. What is this but prostitution? The\nprinciple is the same as in the case of the recognized prostitute,\nalthough the conditions are easier for the woman, and less cheapening\nof her womanhood, but the difference is only in degree.\n\nNow, a singular idea of fidelity, a direct antithesis to the one just\nmentioned, prevails among prostitutes, when married either by law or\nby selection.\n\nThey may surrender their physical body to another, for money, and\naccording to their idea they may yet remain true to the husband or\nlover, because the matter is a business transaction. The other man has\nonly what he has purchased, namely, the physical body. But should the\nwoman permit another man to arouse in her a sexual response; should\nanother invade her mind, absorb her thoughts, or engage her heart, the\nhusband is outraged and the woman realizes her unfaithfulness.\n\nAll of which goes to show that up to the present time sexual morality\nhas in itself no absolute uniform standard by which it can be measured\nand satisfactorily and convincingly presented to all persons, as have\nother phases of morality, such as honesty, justice, mercy, generosity,\nfriendship, fidelity to country, and self-sacrifice to the good of\nhumanity.\n\nAnd although all these moral qualities have their bearing upon sexual\nmorality, they do not establish a uniform ideal of sexual morality.\nHonesty is honesty whether in Paris, London, Calcutta, or Pekin, but\nas has been previously observed, sexual morality is determined by\nlocal conditions.\n\nCan there, then, be established a universal standard of sexual\nmorality? There can, but its universal acceptance is a remote\nprobability, albeit it will arrive some day.\n\nFirst of all, the sex relation must be absolutely free from sale;\ncoercion; or barter; whether within the respectable \"sale\" of\nmatrimony or of recognized prostitution. It must be free from any\nerroneous idea of marital duty; it must be exalted, reverenced,\ndeified, in all its aspects, from the impregnation of a plant, to the\nsexual embrace of human lovers.\n\nAn Utopian dream it appears, if we note but one side of the picture.\nIf we consider the lightness with which so many men look upon the\nphysical form of women; and if we realize the attitude of so many\nwomen toward men, in their conflict with life, using the age-old dowry\nfrom mother Eve, of sex, as a weapon of defense and of offense; if we\nlisten to the ribald songs that offend our ears and nauseate our\nsouls, not only in music-halls and on the streets, but in supposedly\ncultured homes; and above all if we contemplate the uncleanness of\nmind displayed by those who are really in earnest in their endeavor to\nuplift the moral tone of the world.\n\nThese latter are, by far, the worst enemies to the Regeneration of\nSex. A wise man once said, \"Save me from my friends; I can protect\nmyself against my enemies\"--and so it is in this instance.\n\nMost \"Civic-Leaguers\" and members of \"Vice-Commissions\" (why that\nname, anyway?) are infected with the bacteria of sex-degradation.\nThey really require a lengthy process of mental disinfection, before\nattempting to handle so delicate a problem as this one of sexual\nuplift.\n\nA woman member of a Young People's Civic League of the second largest\ncity in the United States recently declared in public print, of the\nbeautiful and chaste painting \"September Morn,\" that it was \"lewd,\nfilthy, and suggestive of unclean things.\" This type of woman is\nintrusted with the task of teaching youthful minds; polluting them\nwith the blasphemous affirmation that the Creation of the\nFather-Mother God of the universe is \"lewd and filthy!\"\n\nLet us get this truth implanted in our mentality, as it is inrooted in\nour souls, namely:\n\nSex is always the purest, the holiest, and the most sacred thing in\nthe universe--because God is Him-Her-Self, bi-sexual. The\nrighteousness of it cannot be determined by so fickle a thing as man's\ncustoms; cannot be dependent upon mortal laws. This statement,\nindisputable as it is, will nevertheless start a chain of thought\nwhich may lead to confusion; and it is because of this tendency to\nconfusion that the real issue is so frequently avoided. But let us see\nif we may not dispel the confusion by a system of logical deduction.\n\nOne thing is certain. The present condition of the Sex-problem is\nsadly chaotic. If we cannot hope to clarify it to the comprehension of\nthe average, we may at least do so for some.\n\nOne of the first objections to the acceptance of the statement that\nthe sex relation is, per se, always right, will be found in the\nconclusion to which the average mind immediately jumps: \"Ah, then it\nis right for men and women who are depraved and licentious to live as\nthey do; it is right for husbands and wives to deceive each other, and\nwhile pretending to be faithful to their marriage vows, to secretly\ncarry on flirtations and intrigues with other men and other women!\"\n\nAsk one hundred men or one hundred women this question: \"Is the\nsex-relation right or wrong?\"\n\nThe men will declare that it is \"right sometimes and wrong sometimes.\"\nThe women, almost as a unit, will do the same. Occasionally a woman\nwill be found sufficiently illumined to give a sane answer.\n\nFollowing up the thoughtless answer with the request to illustrate,\nand the reply will be something like this: \"Well, if people are\nmarried it is right, but if they are not married it is wrong;\" and\neven as this silly answer is given, the person answering knows that it\nis puerile; but since the Public Mind prefers hypocrisy to Truth, few\nhave the temerity, and fewer yet have the capability, to utter Truth.\n\nIt would be as sensible to say that it is right for the sun to shine\nsometimes and wrong for it to shine some other times. It is right for\nthe sun to shine. This is all the answer that there is, and all that\nis needed.\n\nWhether the sunshine bestows life and health, or decay and death, is\nentirely \"up to us.\" The sun does its part. It is fulfilling the\ninexorable law of Nature, and is therefore right.\n\nBut of even greater importance in the universe is this law of sex. The\nlaw is forever and always right. Our concept of it may be right or it\nmay be diseased. As a matter of fact it is, in all too many cases,\ndiseased. If it were not, there would be no disease in the world.\n\nHow is it possible to have a perfect flower--a healthy, normal and\nwholesome sprout from a diseased root?\n\nThe root of all life is sex. We have thought disease into it, and the\nonly remedy is to change our thought toward the function. This may be\ndone by realizing that the sex-relation is always pure, holy,\nsacred--the bi-une God of the universe. This statement is quite\ndifferent from saying that people are always right or sacred in their\nsex-relations.\n\nTo say that the sex-relation is always right under the institution of\nmarriage and always wrong outside of it, is a lie. A lie cannot bring\nback health to either a person or a principle. Truth is the only thing\nthat can make us whole--and the first office of Truth, as everyone\nknows, is to make us free. We cannot be whole until we are free, and\nthe essential thought to be free from, is an attempt to keep alive the\nlie that the righteousness of Sex, per se, depends upon marriage.\n\nDoes the libertine believe in the sacredness of sex? Never. Does the\nprostitute claim for herself spotless purity? If she did, she would\nnot sell herself for money.\n\nDo men and women who are living in secret unfaithfulness hold exalted\nideals of sex?\n\nIf they did, they would not maintain a life of deceit.\n\nThese people live as they do, because they have divorced sex from\nlove. They agree absolutely with the blind \"moralists\" who regard Sex\nas a human plaything--something which may be called bad one day and\ngood the next, according to whether it is viewed from afar or near.\n\nDoes anyone imagine that when Society shall have established the \"one\nstandard of morality\" replacing the double standard which now\npersecutes the woman only, for infringement upon Society's one demand,\nthat of concealment, that the answer to sex-degradation will have been\nfound?\n\nA single standard is an improvement upon the old habit of stoning the\nwoman only and letting the man go free. But why stone anybody?\n\nHistory fails to record a single instance where Society has succeeded\nin improving either itself or its victims by the procedure. The best\nthat can be said of the stoning habit is that it distracts attention\nfrom ourselves.\n\nPersons who hold exalted ideas of the function of sex, realizing that\na force so eternal and universal must be disassociated from man-made\nregulations, are not in danger.\n\nSuch as these will not foster deceit nor profligacy, any more than\nthey will cringe and crawl under the lash of Society's disapproval,\nshould they encounter it. They know that if they would find the\nhighest good, they must serve Truth first of all, no matter how high\nthe price of such devotion.\n\n\n\n\n                              CHAPTER X\n\n                         THE PATHWAY OF LOVE\n\n\nLove is the Great Reality.\n\nEverything else in this world of Experience is either tributary to\nlove or it is an unsatisfying substitute for love; or a counterfeit of\nlove. Love is the one cohesive, unifying, constructive force, and it\nis at the same time the only liberating force.\n\nHatred, as exemplified in warfare, may sometimes appear to free a\npeople from the rule of a tyrant, but unless love be at the root of\nthe \"casus belli,\" other and more direful disasters will follow in the\nwake of seeming victory.\n\nThere is an erroneous idea, quite general among Christian people, that\nDeath frees the spirit from the bonds that hold it to the mortal and\nthe incomplete. Death only drops off the garment of the flesh; there\nare innumeral sheathings yet to be shed, before the soul grows the\nwings with which to soar to the celestial realms, where Love reigns\nsupreme.\n\nLove is the only power on earth or in the spheres, that can liberate\nus either from our own prejudices and hatreds and fears; or from the\nlimitations and attractions of the animal-man.\n\nLove is, indeed, the Alpha and Omega of Life. \"There is no other God\nbut Thee,\" has been the cry of every race on this globe,\napostrophizing the unrecognized little baby-God, personified and\npresented to the race-mind as Horus; or as Krishna, or as Christ; but\nalways it is Love, the Invisible, the Beautiful One, who is adored.\n\nIngersoll with his wonderful gift of word-painting, and inspired by\nthat great love of humanity which characterized him, has said:\n\n\"Love is the only bow on life's dark cloud. It is the morning and\nevening star. It shines on the babe and sheds its radiance on the\ntomb. It is the mother of art; inspirer of poet, patriot and\nphilosopher. It is the air and light of every heart; builder of every\nhome; kindler of every fire on the hearth; it was the first dress of\nimmortality. It fills the world with melody, for music is the voice of\nlove. Love is the magician, the enchanter that changes worthless\nthings to joy and makes right royal queens and kings of common clay.\nIt is the perfume of that wonderful flower, the heart, and without\nthat sacred passion that divine swoon, we are less than beasts, but\nwith it--earth is Heaven and we are gods.\"\n\nIt would be superfluous to state here, that Love has ever been\nrecognized as the supreme prize, lacking which all other gifts of life\nare worthless.\n\nIt is admitted that Love is almost the only thing in this age of\ncommercial supremacy which can not be bought. Though it may be\nbartered for.\n\nAlthough it be unreservedly admitted that Love is the all-powerful and\nmagic solvent which transmutes all baser emotions into the higher,\nthe general inference will be drawn that this type of love is not\nsexual. It will be termed parental; humanitarian, self-sacrificing, or\naltruistic love, and the point may be taken that if humanity had\ndeveloped nothing higher than the love which is manifested in the sex\ninstinct, the world would be a sorry one indeed, since sexual love, as\nwe have witnessed its ascent from protoplasm to man, has been, in most\ninstances, a blind urge toward personal gratification, not more lofty\nthan the need of supplying the craving for food. This is quite true of\nanimals, and of the lower types of animal-man; not necessarily the\nearliest types of men, but the lowest types, which we still have with\nus but happily in decreasing numbers.\n\nBut even among animals we find evidences of something vague,\nindefinite, but insistent which leads the animal to exhibit what we\nterm a tendency toward _selection_; and in the animal also, through\nthe exigencies of sexual love, we find parental love, and here again\nwe note a peculiarity which ascends also into the family life of\nhumans, namely, that in some instances what we have called the\nmaternal love, the gentle, care-taking, guarding and protecting love,\nis demonstrated by the male. This is less common with the animals than\nwith Man, but it is sometimes found and proves the existence of the\nevolutionary trend toward balance in the individual, as well as in the\nfamily.\n\nIf maternal love were confined strictly to the female parent, and the\nprocreative instinct were the legitimate inheritance of the male only,\nwe could never hope for a perfect sexual union, for the very cogent\nreason that the love of the male would never equal that of the female,\nsince our capacity grows by becoming diffused.\n\nAs the world stands today, parental love takes a higher place in the\nlife of the family, and of the nation and of the race (the family on a\nlarger scale), than does love of husband or wife; and over and above\neven parental love we have been accustomed to place the love of God.\n\nNow we know that there are many who claim that their love of this\nabstract God supercedes that of love for their family, but we may\ntacitly agree to take this statement as either an admission of fear of\nthe Unknown or the realization that there are heights and depths of\nthe love-principle which they have not yet penetrated, something to\nwhich the spirit soars. They intuitively recognize that there is some\nperfected state to which we aspire, else human love would never flower\ninto its full possibilities.\n\nAnd so when we declare that we love God above all other loves; more\nthan wife or husband; children or parents; we are but admitting that\nwe realize in our interior nature that we have not yet loved any\n_human being_ with as great a love as we are capable of.\n\nIf any one holds the mistaken idea--and it is one that is very\ngenerally held--that the perfect sex union can be attained by no finer\nphase of emotion than that expressed in procreation; and that in\norder to develop the highest quality of sex-love, he must eschew all\nother phases of manifestation, and concentrate the forces of his being\nin the direction of sexual expression, he will meet with dire defeat.\nThe laws of the cosmos cannot be broken. We are constantly confronted\nwith the admonition, the child of Fear, to \"be careful not to break\nthe laws of God.\" We need not worry at all about the laws of God,\nwhether we call these Cosmic Law, or Nature, or Divine Providence or\nsomething else. Our concern is with ourselves. Neither need we worry\nwhether our neighbor obeys the moral code as we see it. So long as he\ndoes not refuse to us our right to follow our own ideals, we may\npermit him the same liberty.\n\nGod, as manifested in the cosmic law of transmutation, will take care\nof Him-Her-Self. Morality can not be extinguished. Love cannot be\nkilled by men. We can only hurt ourselves in trying.\n\nLove is neither fickle, capricious nor sly, notwithstanding tomes of\nseeming evidence to the contrary. Love is the most perfect\nmathematician in the universe. With whatsoever measure a man or a\nwoman metes out love, with that same measure it is returned. Neither\nis Love blind. Love is depicted thus, because he is not concerned with\nappearances, but with realities. He is not gazing without, but within.\nHe is doing his best, the poor little neglected Love-god, with the\nmaterial at hand since he must fulfill the law of his being. He seeks\nto unite lovers in their interior nature, but as each of the would-be\nhappy pair is bent on gazing without, instead of within, he is\nhandicapped. And when unhappiness follows, they blame the blindness of\nLove, instead of realizing that He is depicted with a bandage over His\neyes, to indicate that Love is an interior quality. So too, the\nEgyptian God Horus, the God of Love, was depicted with his finger on\nhis lips, to typify the truth that true love is not noisy, blustering,\njealous, burning, ranting, protesting. He is silent; soft; melting;\nblissful; magnetic; _uniting_.\n\nOur noisy civilization, seeking happiness in Things, mistakes\nprotestations and appearances for realities, and so modern marriages\nare consummated on this basis, and the caricaturists have depicted\nCupid as having exchanged his love-darts for dollars, but this is a\nslander on the little god who wouldn't know a dollar if he could see\none. \"It is not true that one knows what one sees; one sees what one\nknows,\" declared a clever Frenchman, and as the average modern bride\nand bridegroom are forced, or think they are, by modern standards of\nliving, to know dollars better than they know Love, their perverted\nvision sees Cupid's arrows tipped with the dollar mark. But even the\ndollar mark spells US, united, and if they are indeed truly united in\nlove, wealth untold is theirs, and if they are not thus united then\nindeed are they poor in happiness, which is the only real poverty.\n\nBut even in the very failure to attain happiness in things, married\ncouples have learned or they are learning, that there is an interior\nnature which must be considered if marital happiness is expected.\n\nIn all too many instances it may take many experiences and the road to\nthe heights may for a time be lost but let us remember that \"Love\nnever faileth.\"\n\nIt has been said that \"love makes gods of men,\" and we have taken this\nphrase as a charming bit of hyperbole, whereas it is a literal truth,\nbecause when two individual souls have rounded and balanced their\nnatures by means of love, they come together in an eternal union, and\nare immortal; \"in their flesh they have seen God,\" and the pilgrimage\nis ended.\n\nThere is a phrase current at the present day, belonging to slang, that\nuniversal language of the masses, \"the Volapuk of the melting-pot.\" It\ncomes to us simultaneously with the affinity-wave and the soul-mate\nquest; and it is both pertinent and timely, although by no means\nalways wisely applied. It is the expression \"I have found my\nseek-no-farther; he (or she) is the Real Thing.\"\n\nLife is a succession of experiences in the quest of immortality.\nImmortality would be a curse instead of a blessing if attained alone.\n\nEven the attainment of so unworthy an ambition as riches is a mockery\nif unshared by others. Fame is like a ruined and deserted castle to\nthe one who has achieved it, unless there be the one other to share\nit. Even the philosopher, the philanthropist, the humanitarian, he\nwhose love nature is supposed to find satisfaction in making others\nhappy--can not realize the completeness and fullness of joy, unless\nthere is the one mate with whom he may share his altruistic work; or\nlacking this, he looks to the Life Beyond for the completeness which\nhe does not find here.\n\nRenan says: \"One reason why religion remains on such a material plane\nfor many is because they have never known a great and vitalizing love;\na love where intellect, spirit and sex finds its perfect mate.\"\n\nVerily, love is the only vitalizing power in the universe; and when\ndenied the interior union which should exist between a conjoining\npair, Love does the best He can, and infuses into the relationship as\nmuch of the divine nectar as they will accept.\n\n_There is no impure love._ I repeat: There is no impure love. The\nimpurity is in the mortal mind of man, obstructing his vision until he\nfails to see the purity of that which fain would lift him from the\nSlough of Despond to the Heights of Bliss.\n\nIf love be always pure, if it be always the uplifting, unifying,\nconstructive power of the universe, what becomes of the apparent fact\nthat men have sinned for love of woman; that for love of man, women\nhave lost their self-respect, their hope of Heaven; and have sunk to\ndepths below that of the brute creation?\n\nWhat becomes of the all too many instances where human nature appears\nto love vice; to be under the spell, as it were of a passionate love\nfor all that is ignoble and defiling? How, then, can we say that love\nis always pure when it leads to such disaster?\n\nLove never leads to disaster, though love may follow wheresoever the\nerring mind of man leads, and thus Love is all too frequently dragged\nfrom his true place of exaltation, and brought into the arena of human\nconflict. Love is no fighter; He never opposes; He only concurs; He\nunites if there is anything with which he can establish an affinity of\nunion.\n\nEgoism is the arch-enemy of love, selfishness is the manifestation of\negoism. Selfishness seeks to possess; it is selfishness that causes a\nman to commit crime, in order that he may bedeck the woman he loves\nwith jewels and fine raiment. He is buying her bodily presence with\nthe baubles which he vainly believes will bind her to him; and he must\nbe taught the lesson of the Yoga sutras \"not this way; not this way;\"\nand the more worthy he is of redemption, the more certainly will he be\ncaught in the trap of his own making, lest he really perish; whereas\nby seeming defeat, outward defeat, he may learn the true path of\ninwardness. Certainly Love is the only guide to whom he may safely\ntrust his redemption.\n\nIf a woman really sinks into the depths of degradation through what\nappears to be love, it is because selfishness and vanity have\ntemporarily supplanted Love. But there is another side to the\nquestion. Society has very erroneous ideas of success and failure; and\nin looking at these opposite ends of the same pole, Society may be\nstanding on it's head.\n\nA story illustrative of this inverted view of success is worth\nrepeating.\n\nA young Englishman of aristocratic family, tired of the inanities of\nsocial life, and denied the privilege of entering the commercial\nworld, emigrated to the South Seas. It was reported at home that he\nhad married a native Samoan woman and was living the simple life of\nthe Islanders. English society, when his name was mentioned at all,\nspoke of him with hushed voices and with a \"what a pity y' know\"\nmanner as of one who had sunk below the depths of ordinary failure.\nSubsequently a friend visited Samoa and found the young man enjoying\nlife and evidently supremely content. In the course of conversation\nthe visitor chanced to speak of a mutual friend who had been rather\nwild in the days when they both knew him, and thinking to impart\nagreeable news to the exile, the visitor eagerly assured him that \"Sir\nArthur is respectably married and settled down now\" whereupon the\nself-constituted exile commiseratingly responded with: \"what a pity;\nand he was such a decent sort, too.\" So we may see that there is much\nin the point of view.\n\nHappiness is the final test of success or failure; and we may trust\nthis test, because no one can be happy in any other than the\nprogressive, upward-trending life. Dissipation has never been a\nsatisfactory substitute for happiness. Wealth is valueless to the\npossessor if it shuts out love; and if love be present, wealth holds\nbut an inconsequential place.\n\nHowever it be, the pathway of Love is long; and between the force of\nattraction which unites two atoms in chemical affinity, and the union\nof two perfected human beings, in whom Love and Wisdom are balanced,\nthere are many degrees of the manifestation of Love, and the question\ninevitably arises \"what shall we do with those marriages that are not\nyet perfect?\"\n\nIf, as here premised, there is in the entire universe but one mate for\neach man and each woman; and if the union of perfect mates is the only\ntruly spiritual union; if this union precludes the possibility of\n\"temptation\" in any other direction, what is to be done with all the\nmarriages which we know to be imperfect; wherein it is evident that\nsoul-union is not present? Are they immoral, and are they to be\nabandoned? And is marital infidelity in such instances immoral?\n\nIt is. Infidelity is always immoral, because all deceit and deception\nand dishonesty are immoral.\n\nLet us see what constitutes infidelity, irrespective of marriage.\nInfidelity is to be unfaithful to a trust imposed; to betray a\nconfidence; to break a promise. This is the abstract definition and it\nis the only definition that will withstand analysis, whether applied\nto the marriage vows or to other promises and pledges.\n\nObviously the answer to this question, then, is to either not impose\nupon oneself or upon another \"vows\"; or, if we do so impose, not to\nbreak them; but if vows are not to be broken, they may, thank Heaven,\nbe dissolved.\n\nAnd surely the marriage ceremony of the future will not impose vows or\npromises, because intelligent men and women must rise superior to the\nnecessity for bonds and promises. A marriage ceremony is, even at its\nvery highest, when the contracting persons are spiritually mated,\nnothing more than announcement to the society of which they are\nmembers, of the fact of their mutual agreement to live outwardly, as\nwell as inwardly, in sexual union.\n\nWe make too much of the marriage ceremony and too little of the\nfitness for marriage. The business of the clergyman is altogether too\nmuch confined to seeing whether a couple is \"respectably\" bonded, and\naltogether too little as to whether they are spiritually united.\n\nPossession! that is the word that spells unhappiness, in married life;\neach wants to possess the other; neither one tries for the spirit of\nunion. Possession cannot be divorced from deceit.\n\nVows and promises challenge us to keep them, and because our pathway\nleads upward to freedom, we constantly find these vows and promises\nstaring us in the face and daring us to advance. We must substitute\nmutual confidence for vows. Vows are childish and puerile. If we\ncannot keep faith without vows then are we sadly lacking in faith and\nshould cultivate it by offering to others the freedom of action we\nwould have ourselves. When the time comes, as it will, that a husband\nand wife can \"talk it over\" in a friendly, mutually helpful frame of\nmind, when either one is attracted by another, there will be no\nfurther opportunity for infidelity; and the sooner we rid the world of\na belief in sin and immorality, the sooner will Love reign.\n\nIt is said of the sages of India that they can live in the jungles and\nthe ferocious tigers will not harm them; how do they accomplish this?\n\nThey have disassociated themselves from ferocity. They do not desire\nto crush or kill the tiger. Their minds are so filled with love and\ncompassion that there is no point of connection between them and the\ndestructive instinct in the beast.\n\nWhen we get away from the fear of \"impure\" love; when we get away from\nthe tremendous load of belief in evil which keeps the back bent and\nthe eyes lowered to the dust, we will be ready to meet the pure and\nperfect love when it comes; and when we are fit for it we will meet it\nand when we have found this pearl of great price, all doubt and fear,\nall jealousy; all dissatisfaction will vanish. There will be no fear\nof \"losing\" each other. The union is an interior one, and even though\n\"seas divide and mountains vast, rear their proud crests 'tween thee\nand me,\" the call of soul to soul will be felt and answered. Byron says:\n\n  \"There are two souls of equal flow,\n  Whose gentle streams so calmly run,\n  That when they part--they part? Oh no,\n  They cannot part, those souls are one.\"\n\nWith a sentiment such as this between two beings, what need for vows\nand promises, and bonds?\n\nIt is customary for writers on the sex question to emphatically, even\nfeverishly, emphasize the fact that they have no intention of implying\nthat they would do away with the bonds of matrimony; and although this\nconclusion is inevitable where one's intellect is active and the\nfaculty of deduction brought into play, yet the false modesty that\nprevails and the prejudices that blind the eyes of the multitude, and\nabove all, the tendency of the undeveloped race-mind to impute\npersonal motives to such as would, if permitted, lead them to a freer,\nand consequently a purer life, impel the writer to deny that which is,\nfinally, the very point at issue.\n\nIn the interest of Truth, we are compelled to state that we would do\naway with \"bonds.\" We would substitute therefor mutual agreements,\nsubject to renewal or repudiation within certain defined and mutually\nhelpful conditions. Vows and bonds and oaths are the crutches of the\ncrippled human race. We need not always walk lame.\n\nIt may be argued that man is still largely animal; yes, but the surest\nway to keep him so is to treat him like an animal. If we remind him\nthat he is also a man and that he may be a god; and if we point out to\nhim the way in which he may accomplish this transmutation, no man has\nso little intelligence that he will not attempt to follow, when\nassured that God-hood means a bliss so great that he can hardly\nimagine it; that it means cessation of the \"endless round of births\nand deaths\" from which Gautama, the Buddha, sought to free himself.\nMankind has always been promised immortality through spiritual\nunion--with what? An abstract principle called God, or Aum or any\nother impersonal formless all-inclusive Being?\n\nNo, but with his mate.\n\nOn this point we trust that there will not remain any obscurity. There\nis no higher God than Love. There is no higher love than sexual-love\nin its highest manifestation. The more we truly love, the more love\nflows into and through our consciousness, until from a tiny little\npearly drop of the \"wine of life\" we ascend to the Olympian Heights\nand imbibe floods of the \"nectar of the Gods.\"\n\nEven the libertine, that pauper in the realm of Love, wants the\nperfect life. His soul is forever hungry for that which he gropingly\ntries to catch and chain and possess; and which by virtue of these\nsame desires will evade him until he ceases thus to seek, and instead\nof demanding possession of the object of his desires, he asks for\nunion. Union is interior; possession is always and ever limited to\nexterior contact. They who would enter the sanctuary and defile the\n\"Holy of Holies\" are saved from such a load of self-inflicted sin;\nthey cannot if they would. There is but one key which will open the\ngolden gate to heaven. The way chosen by the libertine is in exactly\nthe opposite direction.\n\nAre all marriages that are not soul-mate unions immoral? Most\ncertainly not. Are all unions that are not married immoral. Most\ncertainly not.\n\nWe have made an attempt to define sexual immorality and we have\nconcluded that as yet there is no absolute standard in civilized or\nuncivilized ethics, since, as Letourneau points out, what is immoral\nin Pekin or Calcutta may be moral in Paris or London. Truth is\nadherence to facts in whatever section of the world. Tolerance;\nsympathy; charity; may be clearly defined wherever we roam. Sexual\nimmorality has no stable standards. We here suggest one and submit\nthat it is the only one possible of universal concurrence. It is based\nupon personal freedom. Wherever the sexual relation is made a\nconvenience; or where either one marries in the face of his or her own\nrealization that there is no love bestowed, that relationship is\nimmoral. Thus, it will be seen that sexual immorality is independent\nof marriage, and cannot be estimated by law. Marriage for money; for\nposition; for convenience; for anything other than a desire for mutual\nhelpfulness, is immoral. Indulgence in the sexual act for selfish\ngratification without regard to the welfare of each other; for money;\nor pastime; or for any motive other than a reverential expression of\nan unselfish love, is immoral and is a prostitution of the divine\noffice of sex.\n\nBut, though not all sex relationships can be perfect and eternal, yet\nall may, if we desire, be moral. And all moral and sexual\nrelationships must, and will, lead to perfect sex-union, whenever the\ntime comes that either one is ready for the completement. This truth\nneed not, and will not, disrupt any happy marriages.\n\nIf the Church had not made the mistake of teaching the fallacy that\nsex-love is a strictly earthly or mortal function, divorcing Sex from\npure love; and if the Theology had not tried to substitute the love\nof, and union with, an abstract Creator for love of mates in\nsoul-union, perhaps there would be exhibited less impatience of the\nrestraints of marriage.\n\nBut with a cat-and-dog married life on the one hand and the prospect\nof an inane, blank, and sexless union with an abstract God-idea on the\nother, it is small wonder that mortal consciousness has rebelled, and\nhas decided to take its chances with Hell, rather than to forego the\nhappiness which is intuitively sensed as being the direct prerogative\nof perfect mating.\n\nIf this God-idea had not been presented as an eternal, unescapable\nfinality, there might have been hope; but to fly about a throne\nendlessly, night and day, singing, \"I want to be nothing; nothing;\nonly to lie at His feet\"--the prospect appalls!\n\nSmall wonder that the conclusion has been deduced that \"life is too\nshort\" for anything like domestic misery, when domestic happiness is\nthe only happiness we know, and that is to cease at death!\n\nBut, if we take the truthful view of marriage and of heaven; if we\nrealize that mortal life is Experience; that as we learn by\nexperience, we acquire knowledge; as we accumulate knowledge, we begin\nto glimpse wisdom; and that when we have sufficient Wisdom and\nsufficient Love, we graduate into the classification of God-hood,\nimmortality; and that immortality means union with our mate;\nsex-union, in all that constitutes its highest and most satisfying\naspect as we know it, with infinitely more of beauty and love and\nbliss, there is an incentive to aspire.\n\nLove is the only way that immortality can be attained. It cannot be\n\"taken,\" like degrees of secret societies. It cannot be purloined, or\nfeigned. Fear has never made people good. The doctrine of punishment\nhas never deterred the sinner. Even in his apparent acceptance of the\ndoctrine of sin and of consequent punishment, the poor sinner has\nknown better. Humanity has progressed in spite of the fear that has\ndwarfed our stature.\n\nIn the new day, with hope ahead and fear transmuted into a wise\npatience, this earth may yet be a \"fit dwelling-place for the gods.\"\n\nLeigh Hunt says: \"Love is a personal proof that something good and\nearnest and eternal is meant us; such a bribe and foretaste of bliss\nbeing given us to keep us in the lists of time and progression; and\nwhen the world has realized what love urges it to obtain, perhaps\ndeath will cease and all the souls which love has created crowd back\nat its summons to inhabit their perfected world.\"\n\nWe are prone to consider such statements as only so many beautiful\nwords--elusive, ethereal, and descriptive of something that is always\nin the future; but if it be always in the future it will never be\nours; we cannot catch up with it; and thus it becomes a mockery. These\nprophetic utterances are literal truths.\n\nLet us confide to you a little secret: We are as much spirit now as we\nwill be when death has unloosed the bindings of our disguise--the\nbody. The real of each of us is what we are now, in our interior\nnature.\n\nWhile we are building the business which sustains our physical body;\nwhile we are studying law or medicine or philosophy or religion or\nwhatsoever, we are at the same time developing the interior nature\nwhich we are now, and which we will be when the life of the body\nceases. Not all business men are alike, and yet, if business were\ntheir only reality, they must needs be all the same for employing the\nsame methods. Not all doctors are alike although they graduate from\nthe same school of medicine. The inner entity that we are, stands or\nfalls in the final test, by the motives; the desires; the sentiments;\nthe sympathies; the generosities; the forgiveness; the kind impulses;\nthe pities; the charities; the tolerances; we feel while we are\napparently engrossed in the outer life. Together, these little\nimpulses, perhaps forgotten in the rush of the day's seemingly\nimportant business affairs, come finally to be the ladder by which we\nclimb to the spiritual heights where the bliss of true and perfect,\nmelting, merging, liquid-love, of the one and only mate awaits us.\n\nOne thing more. This also is a secret. Perhaps you will not even\nbelieve it, but it is true: Poets are the practical members of our\ncrazy civilization. Business men are practical only when they are\nalso, and above all, idealists.\n\n\n\n\n                              CHAPTER XI\n\n                       THE LAW OF TRANSMUTATION\n\n\nExternal life is a succession of picture blocks with which we have\nbuilded our thoughts into shapes and forms manifest to the mortal\nsenses. But back of every act there is the invisible ideal which\nprompted it, so that to the one who has the interior vision; one who\nlooks at life from the citadel of his own interior nature instead of\nmerely sensing it by external contact, every material thing tells its\ninterior story; everything has an esoteric or occult meaning. It is\nsaid that mystic truths have been veiled in symbolical language; but\nto those who know the language of symbolism, there is no veil; what\nseems so is due to the refractory character of the mind which is\nlimited to sense consciousness.\n\nThere are two words much used in this day of the Dawn which give the\nkey to the trend of the cosmic cycle upon which the earth has entered.\nThe word \"union,\" or its equivalent, enters into almost every phase of\nour busy life as well as into ethical and philosophical thought. This\nword, with much that it stands for, has superseded the word\n\"agreement,\" or \"combination\" or \"partnership,\" formerly used. Union\nmeans something more interior, than do these other words, even when\napplied to commercial issues.\n\nThe business man says to his partners \"let us unite on this question.\"\nThey are already partners, but unless there is a unity of thought and\nideals, their partnership is an unsatisfactory and unfruitful one. We\nhave labor unions which are intended to suggest a solidarity of\neffort; a merging of interests; a welding together into one\nthought-force, of those who enter the organization. The fullness of\nmeaning of this word \"union\" is not adequately expressed in the words\nlodge, or club, or any of the terms used to designate an organization\nof men in social or commercial combination.\n\nIn union there is strength; but in partnership, or in clubs, there may\nbe no quality of union, although there is the outward bond of\nfellowship. \"I shall look into this\" we say when we want to know more\nof a subject than appears on the surface. We want to know the within.\nWe want to fathom the interior meaning; to get below the surface, or\nthe appearance of it. This is the other word of vital import--the word\n_within_. We see it everywhere like a signpost directing our footsteps\ntoward home.\n\nThe Master Jesus said that the immortal kingdom was within, but the\nChristian world evidently has not believed Him. He also told those who\nwould listen to Him, that there was but one commandment that was truly\nspiritual, but as he did not come to destroy anything that existed,\nbut only to transmute it, He paid no attention to the commandments\nalready in vogue, but contented Himself with a repetition of the one\nand only commandment of the Father-Mother God Principle which begat\nhim: \"That ye love one another.\"\n\nNow we are being told from the housetops and from the streets and\nthrough all the channels of the physical senses to look within. That\nwhich you are--not what you appear to be to the eyes of the\nsense-conscious--but that which you are in your interior nature, is\nwhat counts to you. The writer who writes because he is paid to write\nsalable stuff, harps upon the necessity for \"efficiency\" in the\ncommercial game; but when the word is impartially considered\nefficiency consists in the long run in reliability, and reliability is\nmeasured by one's honesty; integrity; square-dealing; wise\njudgment--interior qualities all. It matters not whether the skin be\nwhite or black or brown or yellow or green; whether you are of\nimposing stature or but four feet tall; it is what you are within that\nconstitutes true efficiency.\n\nSo the kingdom whatever it may be whether of heaven or hell; of love;\nor of power; or of ambition; the kingdom is within. The source of your\npower is in the interior of your nature.\n\nIf we go to slang, which offers the line of least resistance to the\nCosmic Law, we find that the cue has been given over and over again to\nthose who are interiorly awake to receive it. \"You are not in on\nthis,\" has been said to one who was left out of some supposedly\ndesirable thing; or \"you are not _in_ it,\" meaning that you are not up\nto the required standard. Even as the walls of a building only\nimperfectly indicate the nature of that which is within, that which\nthe building stands for; that which it symbolizes, so physical\nappearances are symbolical hieroglyphs of the inner nature.\n\n\"Learn to look into the hearts of men\" admonishes the spiritual\nteacher. \"As a man thinketh in his heart so is he.\" The character of\nthe heart is the test, and though a man's lips utter words that are at\nvariance with his inner nature, yet if we have learned to look within,\nwe are not deceived. This then is the key to the kingdom--interior\nvision.\n\nWords are like buildings; like personalities; they have their exterior\nand their interior message. Knowledge may be accumulated; piled up\nlike a mountain of possessions. But knowledge may not bestow one grain\nof true wisdom. It is only as we extract the interior message from\nknowledge that we attain wisdom. We possess knowledge and we _find_\nwisdom, when we have transmuted that knowledge into its interior\nmeaning.\n\nThe fundamental difference between mysticism and theology is a\ndifference founded upon this axiom. The true mystic penetrates to the\ninterior nature of manifestation and gets the message of Experience.\nMysticism excludes nothing. It includes the manifest with the\ninterior; it penetrates the outer and seeks the interior; but never\ndoes the true mystic confound the spirit with the letter; never does\nhe mistake the external for the Reality; the symbol for the message.\n\nSuppose that what is generally called the practical side of life were\nthe only reality. What would be the inevitable conclusion of the\nthinker if he were to consider only the outer, the manifest, the\nvisible results of a given achievement? He would conclude that\ncivilization is insane.\n\nIf we did not know with an intuitional grasp of truth that all this\nwhich we call \"marvels of achievement\" is symbolical of what Man is in\nhis interior nature, it would be the veriest folly. What, for example,\nis there in a modern sky-scraper indicative of man's advanced\ncivilization?\n\nWith millions of acres of unused land, it would be inconceivable folly\nto project into the inoffensive atmosphere twenty-eight stories of\nwood and iron merely to buy and sell the products of man's brain and\nhands. But while our Twentieth Century feverish activities are\nostensibly engaged in the external world, they are symbolizing,\nembodying, teaching if we will but learn, the fact of the evolution of\nman's interior nature. Sky-scrapers are indicative of the heights to\nwhich we are aspiring; to which we are climbing; air-ships only tell\nus that man in his interior nature--in his reality--is not a creeping,\ncrawling Thing, chained to the earth. He may, if he will, soar into\nethereal realms. He has wings, and if he so desires, he may use them.\n\nWireless telegraphy would be a much less consequential discovery, did\nit not foreshadow the coming time when mind will speak to mind\nregardless of desert wastes and imponderable mountains that seemingly\nintervene. Wireless messages are the result of vibrations set in\nmotion by means of a dynamo and received by an instrument attuned to a\ncorresponding rate of motion. But no dynamo ever invented has the\npower that is centered in the dynamic will of a human being. Brute\nstrength is paralyzed into inactivity by the comparatively puny\nstrength of a man. The fierceness of the lion, the tremendous force of\nthe elephant, give way before the potent power of Man's desire--an\ninterior quality.\n\nDo skyscrapers, or air ships, or wireless telegraph systems make us\nhappier? If they do, is it not because of their ethical rather than\ntheir so-called practical value? Is it not because they prove to man\nhis power to use the plastic material of the planet and control it to\ndo his bidding? Rapid transit adds to convenience; but above and\nbeyond all the so-called practical valuation which can be put upon\nmodern inventions and accomplishment is the message which these\nmechanical marvels present to the mind. The message that man is not a\nmachine; that he is not a creature but a creator; that he is not a\nmiserable worm of the dust, but a winged god.\n\nGreater than all the other benefits bestowed by modern mechanical\nmarvels is the knowledge of each other which has resulted from\nintercommunication between nation and nation. The great breeder of\ndiscord and the waste of hatred is the idea of segregation. The man of\nthe cave and the club feared his next door neighbor, because he did\nnot know him, and the animal-man fears that which he does not know;\nhis imagination pictures the unknown one as something monstrous and\ndangerous. Intimacy will teach us that people of a distant country are\nlike ourselves, even though they may dress differently; even though\nthey may wear their hair an inch longer or shorter; may eat a diet of\nnuts instead of meat; may pray standing up rather than kneeling down.\nUpon such trifling and absurd differences as these are based our ideas\nof \"alien\" races and \"foreign\" nations.\n\nAnnihilation of space and time accomplished by modern mechanical\ninventions has made us familiar with the interior life of other human\nbeings and has compelled us to the knowledge that they have feelings,\nemotions, desires, hopes, aspirations, and faults, exactly like our\nown, and thus will be established a bond of unity, which will reach\nthe heart of our neighbor. If this bond of unity has not as yet been\nestablished, it is because the majority of Mankind are still only\nsense-conscious. They have not yet assimilated the knowledge which the\npast few years has precipitated in such an avalanche that the\nslow-moving mind cannot keep pace with it. But out of all this\nknowledge must come in due time the quality of wisdom. Wisdom seeks\nlove as the only eternal reality. Not because God has commanded that\nwe shall do so; not because of a sentimental ideal, but because any\nother course is futile, foolish, silly and does not \"get us anywhere\"\nas the slangologists rightly express it.\n\nThus everything in the busy commercial world, seemingly bent upon\nperpetuating external forms and systems, is in reality a symbolic\nlanguage of which \"unity\" and \"within\" are the pivotal centers. These\ntwo words are really complementary, because it is only with the\ninterior nature that unity can be established.\n\nWe may conjoin; combine; contact; cohere. We may form partnerships,\ncorporations, combinations from the outside. These are external\nexpressions of the interior desire for unity, but union is of the\ninterior nature only.\n\nWith the more intimate knowledge of each other which\nintercommunication between nations makes general, each little\nsegregated mass of human beings must sooner or later arrive at the\nconclusion that we are very much alike and that to \"get together\" on\nany proposition involving the welfare of all humanity is a much less\ncostly and a far more satisfactory way of settling matters than by\ngoing to war over it. Not that this idea is yet fixed in the brains of\nthe majority, but there is creeping into man's cranium a faint thought\nthat perhaps the survival of the fittest will be best maintained by\npeaceful methods; an idea that honor can neither be maintained nor\nappeased by shedding blood. This knowledge will bring us to the wise\nobservation that fundamentally, cosmically there is no place for\nenmity between nations and races and classes and the sexes; that the\nwhole conglomerated mass of hatreds and inherited enmities and\nsegregated interests; the absurd idea that one part of the world can\npermanently prosper by the enslavement of any part; the undeveloped\nand savage ideas that underlie our civilization; all these\nthought-concepts have no more reality in the cosmic scheme of things,\nthan have the picture-blocks of the child in the adult life.\n\nThe world has been living through a nightmare. The warfare which\nbelongs to the animal plane of Man's evolving consciousness has been\ncarried into the mental world as well. Not only do men fight like\ntigers in the jungles, but they fight with tongue and pen as well,\nusing food products, textile fabrics, inventions, mechanical devices\nand the creations of brains of men, for their weapons. But this type\nof warfare will not much longer survive. Mankind must choose between\ntransmutation or annihilation. Hatred is self-destructive. Blind\nindeed must be those who can expect to escape this law. \"They who use\nthe sword shall perish by the sword.\" How else can it be? There is but\none force. If we use it to construct, we are constructed. If we use it\nto destroy we are destroyed, since it is by the very nature of law\nthat we become involved in that which we employ. It is a simple sum in\narithmetic. We may either add or subtract. If we add, there is no\nlimit. If we subtract we ultimately wipe off the slate.\n\nThe fact is dawning upon an increasing number of thinkers, that even\nas brain is superseding brawn in the marts of the world, so there is\nstill a finer and higher and better force, so potential in its power\nthat nothing can withstand its melting, merging, unifying motive. That\npower is love, without which though we have all else we are but as\n\"sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal.\"\n\nEven as the ferocious man-eating animals have disappeared from the\nearth; even as the giant gladiators, the mailed knights, the erotic\npomp and regalia of Imperialism, with their captives chained to their\nchariot-wheels; the cruel despots, the tyrannical masters and scourged\nslaves; the bloody sacrifices, the horrible games of the\namphitheatres, even as these one-time evidences of alleged\n\"civilization\" have passed away, so too will time see the dissolution\nof our own \"false gods.\" Transmuted into pure and perfect love and\npeace and equality, the power now misapplied in the work of hate and\ndestruction, will increase a thousand fold and be directed toward the\nmaintenance of a balanced world--a world in which Love and Wisdom are\nunited.\n\nWe are always fearful of changes. The bat-like eyes of the multitude\nare blinded by the light of the sun. Why cannot we trust the Cosmic\nLaw which has always given us a better ideal in the place of the\ndecadent one? If we prefer to use the word God, then let us say why\ncannot we trust God?\n\nIn the external world, then, the idea that a part of this sphere is\ninherently antagonistic to another; that men are born enemies; that\nthe female and the male must forever struggle for supremacy--all these\nideas are disappearing. \"Unity\" is the password to the coming\ncivilization. If then we will accept this conclusion and apply it to\nour individual selves, we will conclude that no function of the human\norganism should merit disapproval; or be regarded as an enemy. Before\nwe can arrive at a balanced and sane world without, we must come to a\nbalanced and sane state within our own organism.\n\nWe must know that the sex function, the most vital of all the various\nexpressions of life in the individual body as well as in the social\nbody and the racial body, is not an enemy with whom we must maintain\nunceasing warfare, but a wise and trustworthy friend with whom we may\nsafely co-operate, neither repressing this vital force until we have\nconquered it and dragged it like a bleeding captive behind our\nchariot-wheels, nor should we like the drug-slave become lost in the\nclutches of an abnormal appetite.\n\nIndeed, as the forces of life become transmuted from the physical\nappetites to the finer, and interior desires of the soul,\nabnormalities and perversions of sex-force will be impossible.\n\nSex-force is, at the Center of Being, unpolluted. It is pure, perfect\nand harmonious. It is divine. Why? Because it is bi-une; it is\nbalanced.\n\nIn our present-day lopsided civilization, we find that nearly every\none is lop-sided, and unbalanced. Alienists declare that almost every\nman and woman has some hobby or mania. Doubtless this is true. An age\nof specialization would incline the race toward \"lopsidedness.\" But\nthe source of Life is balanced; if we come to the place where we\nconsciously unite with that interior source we will no longer be\nunbalanced, because the central source of life is Sex, and Sex is, at\nthe center of the radius, bi-une, which is to say balanced. There is\nno chance for sex supremacy, for domination, or dispute, or jealousy.\nThere is equilibrium.\n\nIt is probable that to those who cannot compass the consciousness that\nequality does not mean identicalness this sort of balanced life will\nappear tame and tasteless. Few women perhaps and certainly fewer men\ncan imagine a sex-union in which love is so great, so over-powering\nand at the same time so perfect, that there is no room for jealousy.\nThe average person believes that jealousy is inseparable from\nsex-love. But even as our antediluvian ancestors could not imagine the\nmechanical miracles of the telephone and the telegraph, so we fail to\ncomprehend the infinite depth and intensity of our interior being\nuntil we come to the place where we awake from the sleep of the mortal\nand glimpse the heights of the immortal life.\n\nNo one can give to another this interior wisdom--this philosopher's\nstone, by means of which all baser instincts are transmuted into the\npure golden-tinted light of illumination. He can but point the way and\npromise that the results are mathematically proportionate to effort,\nand effort will be backed by individual desire.\n\nWe do not hold, as do many writers dealing with the physiological side\nof the subject of Sex, that the sex function is primarily designed for\npurposes of procreation and that any other expression of sex is\ncontrary to nature. The essential function of sex is to vitalize.\nProcreation is one of the uses of sex-love, but it is not its primary\nfunction.\n\nUntil men and women have absolute control over their sex impulses they\nare still on the plane of sense-consciousness; and as long as they\nremain only sense-conscious they miss the very thing that they seek.\nAll that is pleasureable in sex-contact that reaches any man or woman\nwho is only sense-conscious is no more than a faint echo of the\necstacy of divine and perfect love which is known to the spiritual\nalchemist, who has discovered the art of transmutation and thus found\nthe key to the gate of eternal life.\n\nAs long as we remain limited to the plane of sense-consciousness, old\nage is a blessing. It compels transmutation of the love-nature into\ninterior channels. By the failure of the physical organism to express\nthe sex-desires, this force is given an opportunity to become\ntransmuted into higher, finer and more intense and beautiful thoughts.\nIt takes on whatever quality of soul we have acquired and it fosters\nthat quality--be it much or little--so that we may not go into the\ninterior realms a spiritual pauper.\n\nEven as our physical childhood is a prelude to mental adultship, so\nold age, our \"second childhood,\" is a prelude to our soul adultship,\nand the character of our old age period is prophetic of our state in\nthe soul life.\n\nThere are some extremely aged persons whom we cannot, if we have any\ndegree of interior vision, classify as old; the youth and beauty and\nlove-radiance of their interior nature is so potent that it shines\nthrough the worn and wrinkled garment that covers it; and we know that\nwhen that garment shall have been removed by the hands of Death, that\nthe soul will be clothed in radiant youth and beauty, and light.\n\nThis is indeed the esoteric cause of the widespread repudiation of a\nmental recognition of age.\n\n\"I am seventy years young\" says the man who hopes for eternal youth\nand life; and if he says it from the standpoint of wisdom--the wisdom\nthat knows himself an immortal soul fired by pure and holy spiritual\nlove, then indeed his words are truly symbolical.\n\nBut if he utters them merely in desperate defiance of organic decay,\nthey are empty and he will enter the after-life, even as he leaves\nthis one, without having attained that which he craves.\n\nThis truth is an integral part of the cosmos, from which there is no\nappeal; no reprieve; no immunity, no \"respecter of persons.\" The law\nis absolute and it is also just. Pure and perfect love is the price of\nimmortal life. There is no other \"coin of the realm.\"\n\n\"But,\" questions the initiate, \"why cannot those who know, if there be\nsuch in the world today, give us this mystical formula? Why do they\nnot tell us how we may reach this desirable state of spiritual\nsex-love, which affords such divine happiness to those who find it?\"\nThe query is pertinent and the desire is natural; the doubt of its\nreality is consistent, yet we are constrained to say that in the very\nnature of such inquiry the disciple of the Hidden Wisdom voices his\nunreadiness for _Illumination_. The desire for self-gratification,\nthough right and natural to the sense-conscious plane, is yet inimical\nto attainment of spiritual consciousness.\n\nThere is a spiritual message in the persistently inculcated doctrine\nof sacrifice. It is not that a Supreme Being desires sacrifice, or\ngifts, or adulation, or homage, or worship, or that any power glories\nin our unhappiness. It is not that we may purchase any spiritual thing\nby giving up something which we prize, but it is because our spirit\nbecomes attuned to the central source of Life by means of our\nwillingness to perform what to the sense-conscious plane of existence\nseems a sacrifice.\n\n\"He sought for others the good he desired for himself; let him pass\non\" is the Egyptian phrasing of the Golden Rule, and this states it as\nclearly as it can be stated.\n\nYet should any one take this truism as an unfailing formula and expect\nto enter the golden gate of eternal life because of obedience to the\nletter of the pass-word, he would fail. Altruism _is_; it is not mere\nrecognition of a word.\n\nWe may presuppose another natural and instinctive query: \"If then only\nby union with one's true mate one can enter the bliss of eternal life\nand love, should not we drop every other responsibility, sever all\nties of relationship, give up wife or husband or family or work, and\nsearch for the one perfect complementary, finding which, is found the\nanswer to all life's problems?\"\n\nAgain we can only say that the seeker would be disappointed. We should\nremember the story of Sir Launfall. Returning from the unfruitful\nquest of long years for the Holy Grail (the golden chalice), he\nlearned the lesson of Truth from the beggar at his own door to whom he\ngave the cup of cold water _without any consciousness of doing a good\ndeed_; without hope of thereby finding the grail.\n\nHe who seeks with the selfish thought of securing for self any good\nwill not find it though he should give away every farthing to the\npoor; though he should never permit one unkind word to pass his lips;\nthough he should fast and scourge and deny the flesh; kneel all day\nand all night in prayer. As long as he holds to the thought of self\nand of _obtaining_ something so long will he miss the _attainment_.\n\nSpiritual insight establishes two facts beyond cavil or dispute or\nreversion. One is that God's laws cannot be broken. We are not trying\nto say that they should not be broken; or that they cannot be broken\nwith impunity; or that if broken we shall be punished. They simply\ncannot be broken--they are unbreakable.\n\nWe cannot buy or sell or beg or steal or borrow or take as a gift, or\nin any wise acquire immortal godhood, except by attaining it any more\nthan we can come to physical manhood or womanhood except by growing to\nit; and by the same law no one can keep it from us; neither priest nor\nscribe; neither prophet nor inventor. We are a law unto ourselves. No\none can break the law of your being any more than you can break that\nof another. No power on earth or in the celestial spheres or in the\nintervening spaces can keep that which is our own from us. Wherefore\nthen, should we tear ourselves and each other with strife and jealousy\nand wounded honor and outraged marriage vows, when either partner to a\nmarriage contract sees fit to sever that relationship?\n\nIf you lose out in what you believed to be love, be sure that the\nobject of your desires was not yours to lose; in all the spheres there\nis only one who is yours by divine right and no one can by any\npossibility usurp your place in the final issue; and that place once\nfound no one can oust you from it. But remember what we have said in\nprevious chapters of the word \"found;\" it is from within.\n\nHow vain and how foolish it is to think that a power so stupendous, so\nmagnificent and so beneficent as to project this immense panorama of\nlife; to establish such marvelous diversity within such simple unity;\nto bestow the bliss of love, could make a mistake. How puerile has\nbeen the teaching that we can sin against the Eternal God. We need not\nworry about the Supreme and Eternal Power. \"The dice of God are\nloaded.\" Our concern is with ourselves, lest we imagine that we may\ncheat in the game of life.\n\nWe are self-centered, free-willed; immune from any possibility of\noffending the universe. The whole problem of life and death, in so far\nas it relates to our individual selves, is \"up to us.\" We can delay\narrival at the goal of our desires; we can dally by the wayside if we\nwill. Only our own loss, our own suffering, our own unsatisfied\nlonging shall punish us. But who is so stupid that he would remain\nwandering in the bleak and barren desert, when he might by a turn of\nhis hand enter fields Elysian and merge his soul into the boundless\nareas of infinite bliss and wisdom?\n\nWe should not imagine that death will do this for us. Death is nothing\nmore phenomenal than withdrawing from one room to another. The soul\nmay strive on for ages through many incarnations. Only one thing can\nfree it; and that is love; love for others than the personal self. The\nbroader and deeper the love nature, the wider it reaches out to enfold\nin its tender protection all living things, the more nearly divine we\nbecome, and the sooner will we touch the area of the spiritual and\nattract our own.\n\nIt is evident that self-seeking even for so worthy a possession as\none's own counterpart defeats the very effort. We are not to seek; we\nare only to prepare ourselves to be ready and worthy; when we shall\nhave done this, nothing can withhold our own from us; not though the\ntwo halves of the One Being are separated by all the barriers which\nthe sense-conscious race of men have erected between themselves and\nthe bliss of Heaven. Says Emerson: \"What is thine, will gravitate to\nthee.\" We need not therefore go about apprehensively fearful lest we\nlose that which belongs to us; in so doing we are apt to keep our eyes\nglued to the earth, thus forgetting that it is from the higher realms\nof vibration \"whence cometh our light.\"\n\nSays Emerson: \"O, believe as thou livest, that every sound that is\nspoken over the round world which thou oughtest to hear will vibrate\non thine ear. Every proverb, every book, every by-word that belongs to\nthee for aid or comfort, shall surely come home through open or\nwinding passages. Every friend whom not thy fantastic will, but the\ngreat and tender heart in thee craveth, shall lock thee in his\nembrace. And this because the great and tender heart in thee is the\nheart of all; not a valve, not a wall, not an intersection is there\nanywhere in nature, but one blood rolls uninterruptedly, an endless\ncirculation through all men as the water of the globe is all one sea,\nand truly seen its tide is one.\"\n\nHere then are specific and trustworthy statements for the further\nenlightenment of the student of the problems of Sex. Like algebraical\npropositions they prove themselves when correctly solved. Immortal\ngodhood is attained by counterpartal union, because the Central Source\nof Life is bi-une. Immortality is our spiritual birthright, but we\nmust claim it if we would consciously realize this truth.\n\nGod is the bi-une creative principle, and we are literally and in\ntruth the \"image and likeness\" of this bi-une Being. Not one\nhermaphroditic personality but a pair. A pair is one whole, even\nthough each of the pair is distinct in form and diverse in temperament\nand qualities. We are especially emphatic upon this point because\nthere has been so much vague and speculative theorizing upon this\ndefinition of a bi-une Being. Your perfect mate is distinctively\nmasculine or distinctively feminine in sex as the case may be; and he\nor she is your mate because of this perfection of distinctiveness.\n\nOur former ideas of femininity and of masculinity were faulty. Woman\nis not less but much more womanly, if she has exchanged fear for\ncourage; deceit for truthfulness; ill-health for vitality;\nhelplessness for helpfulness. Even as a man is more manly when he\nspares the nesting birds where formerly he ruthlessly destroyed; when\nhe unites protection with bravery; when he knows sympathy from\nweakness; when he combines sentiment with principle; and gentleness\nwith vigor.\n\nNo mortal can by any possibility break the laws of God. Therefore you\nare not to try to enforce your ideas of morality upon others. Who has\nconstituted you book-keeper for the universe? You are to concern\nyourself with establishing happiness upon this earth.\n\nYou are to see to it that your love is big and broad enough;\nall-inclusive enough to wish to see every one happy from your\nimmediate family to your far-off neighbor in Central Africa. You need\nnot worry about whether they break the moral code as you see it. You\nare to render love and service to this world with all your heart and\nall your power; if you do this, you will reach the goal of your\ndesires.\n\nNo mortal can by any other method than love and the service that is\nrendered through love seek and find the \"Holy Grail,\" which is to say\nthe bliss of spiritual union with his Beloved. Therefore to fly from\nthe responsibilities and the environment in which you are, without\nregard to the welfare of others, is to defeat your own quest; neither\ndo we claim that you should under all circumstances remain chained to\na post like an unwilling captive, poisoning your mind with resentment\nand hatred.\n\nThere is no one formula which fits all cases--other than that given in\nlove and service. The Golden Rule which tells us to do unto others as\nwe would have them do unto us, has another side to its shield, and it\nmay read \"Do not permit others to do unto you what you would not do to\nthem.\" If you seek freedom from a specific environment from no other\nmotive than personal selfishness, you may be doing yourself an\ninjury; but if you are also doing an injury to others by remaining,\nthen you are doubly mistaken in your course.\n\nThe way of attainment is not easy, although the formula is simple; it\nmay be briefly but concisely summed up in the vital and important word\n\"unselfishness.\" \"Not mine but thine also,\" is the watchword of the\nwise in love. Not possession of the Beloved One, but union with him or\nher. There is just one big world of difference between these two\npoints of view. More than that, there is the difference of Heaven and\nHell.\n\n\n\n\n                              CHAPTER XII\n\n                    \"SELLING THE THRONES OF ANGELS\"\n\n\nGreat as may seem to the sense-conscious person the pleasure and\nsatisfaction of owning some one, or some thing; of possessing and\nfeeling a proprietorship in the one desired; greater by a million-fold\nis the pleasure of union which is possible only to those who are\nthemselves free, and who in consequence desire freedom for all others.\nThis is a truth which the unwise cannot comprehend or concur in, and\nwhich they will not believe or trust.\n\nEmerson says: \"Every personal consideration that we allow costs us\nheavenly state. We sell the thrones of angels for a short and\nturbulent pleasure.\"\n\nAnd finally, as regards the sex-function, we would like to impress\nupon every one, though only those who are fit for the kingdom will\nunderstand the truth, namely that the highest manifestation of\nsex-love is not localized in the organs of procreation. The love that\nis of the soul fills the breast first of all, and is only felt in the\nregion popularly, but erroneously, supposed to circumscribe the\nsex-function, as a secondary and by no means compulsory consideration.\n\nWhen the sex force has become diffused throughout the entire being,\nradiating from the solar man, and permeating the mind and thus\nentering into the mortal body which is only a covering of the mind\nphysical copulation becomes a well-trained servant of the will, and is\nfound to be a natural, but yet secondary complement. Sex is not\nconfined to the specialized sex-organs. It permeates the entire being.\nThe person who has no conception of his reality other than as a\nphysical entity has not so much as touched the area of spiritual\necstacy which has been alluded to as \"the nectar of the gods;\" and so\ninfinitely fine and perfect is the plan of Creation that he can not do\nso until he is fit; and never can he be fit as long as he remains upon\nthe sense-conscious plane and seeks by sexual perversity and\ndebauchery and sexual insanities to touch that exquisite perfection of\njoy which he intuitively knows evades him.\n\nThus the sensual man is caught is a beneficent trap; a wise and just\nand merciful Power has so placed the \"Holy of Holies,\" that it cannot\nbe defiled; it cannot be reached; it cannot be desecrated. It is\nforever removed from the touch of the unworthy. No man can hope to\nexpress the creative power, the sexual realization of a god, through\nthe functions which are not higher in consciousness than those of the\nanimal.\n\nWould you attain to the status of the divine man? If so, do not\nimagine for a moment that the divine man is less vital than your puny\nphysical powers would suggest. Neither should you imagine that the\nsex-function, even in its lowest state (lowest because most lacking in\nlove-consciousness), is anything but pure and clean and right and\nnormal in itself; the attitude of the average man and woman invests it\nwith all its uncleanness.\n\nBut with all the vile thought which the undeveloped mind has indulged\nin respecting the sex-relation; with all the man-made laws arrayed\nagainst it as though it were criminal, and the teachings of the Church\ndenying its spiritual origin and perpetuation; with women selling it\nin the public markets for their physical maintenance, nothing less\nthan the fact of the eternality and universality of Sex, as the divine\nfulcrum of manifestation, can account for the fact that the poor\nlittle bi-une Love-god is after all coming to be recognized as the\nhope and savior of Mankind.\n\nIf you would have eternal youth and eternal life and love and wisdom,\naccept this truth, because nothing else can, or will, save you from\nthe \"slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.\"\n\nAnother vague query presents itself to the would-be initiate, and we\nwould like to leave this chapter with no misunderstandings; no\nmisconceptions; no misleading statements, because that which we are\nhere stating is not theory. It is the one eternal, undying, simple and\nunescapable truth which has withstood the onslaughts of time and\nignorance.\n\nThe query comes and although it has been answered in previous chapters\nwe will again state it, so that there may be no mistake: If the\nbalance is found in counterpartal sex-union--the one man and the one\nwoman uniting on the solar plane--would not this balance be maintained\nif only one of the two reached the higher planes of consciousness; in\nother words, would not the balance be struck by extreme purity on the\none hand and extreme impurity on the other?\n\nAgain we are reminded that the law of the cosmos is wise; that there\nare no mistakes nor flaws in the cosmic scheme. The answer is that the\nunion is one of complementaries, and not of antitheses. Each one must\nbe balanced, the nature rounded, the soul awake before union is\npossible. Thus we are saved from ourselves. We cannot, if we would,\nreally gain at the expense of another, although in temporary things we\nmay appear to do so, because the rich grow richer at the expense of\nthe poor; the tyrant ruler maintains his power at the expense of\nserfs; but doubt not that _eternal equation_ is perfect.\n\nThere is still another query: If true sex-union is of the soul, what\nis to prevent soul-mates from finding each other at the moment of\ndeath, regardless of their fitness for godhood, and thus\ncircumventing, as it were, the plan of Creation, which would compel\neach one to earn the prize of eternal life?\n\nThe same law governs the interior planes as the exterior. The\nrealization of consciousness is not a capricious matter any more than\nis the law of physical growth. A man might be in the presence of\nuntold wealth, but if he had not the consciousness to know and realize\nvalues, he would remain poor, even though by a wave of his hand he\nmight command millions. One might give a blind man a check for a\nmillion dollars, and if he had no others means of knowing what it was,\nhe might easily imagine it to be worthless. Death does not bestow\nwisdom. Wisdom is acquired. Love is a self-generator.\n\nIf you would follow the law of transmutation and acquire the throne of\nangelhood, get busy within the laboratory of your own mind. Take the\ncrucible of Thought and begin to work interiorly upon the common,\neveryday things that present themselves in your environment. This is\nthe only way of transmutation. Love grows by feeding upon itself, and\nthe sacrifices and the kindnesses that are bestowed in love without\nthought of personal benefit grow into the flood of golden light and\nlove of the spiritual realms.\n\nThe chief virtue in any one's pursuit of philosophy, or of esoteric\nwisdom, and in methods of attainment, is found in the fact that such\neffort is proof of earnest desire to attain. Emerson says that the\nprincipal benefit of a college education is to teach the student that\nhe does not need a college education. This estimate of the value of\nyears of study seems at first glance a sarcastic one, but it is not.\nIf this wisdom can be acquired in no other way, then even so it were\nwell worth the price. If the student can learn that much love is the\nprice of transmutation only after exhausting every other method, what\ndoes it matter, so that he finally learns it?\n\n_Learn to look into the hearts of men._\n\nAt first sight, everything on the busy city street is a part of a\nmoving panorama; but an intimate view, when you get in touch with\nsegregated parts of the panorama, discloses the interior nature; the\nhopes and the fears; the aspirations and the longings and the\nheartaches and the joys of the entities composing the whole moving\npicture.\n\nYou notice a little female figure; her cheeks are pinked to a hue\nrivalling the American beauty rose; her lips are carmined like a\nclowns and her eyebrows penciled too obviously. Her cheap little dress\nis amateurishly cut in imitation of \"the latest.\" Your first impulse,\nperhaps, is to scorn her as a \"brazen\" creature of the streets; but if\nyou will suspend judgment and look a little closer, you may see that\nher eyes are, in their depths, those of a child, for all her seeming\nexperience. Her brazenness is perhaps only the armor which she has\ndonned to hide a turbulent heart--the dowry of centuries of\ngrandmothers who longed for one glimpse of freedom; of the right to\ncomb their hair as they liked; to powder their faces if they wanted\nto; to run and jump and laugh and dance and be innocently free and\nhappy without the fear of shocking that bugbear Respectability, and\nthe tyrant Decorum, which insisted that a woman's legs must be\ncarefully concealed on penalty of being adjudged \"immodest.\"\n\nThose poor reviled, execrated and vigilantly-concealed legs of our\nfore-mothers! They are crying aloud for vindication, and they will be\nheard wherever the line of least resistance affords a channel for\ntheir freedom. And so, instead of blaming the poor little painted doll\nof a woman, look into her heart. You will discover that she is bent on\nhaving two things long denied womankind--freedom and happiness. If she\nis foredoomed to failure on the route she has chosen, that is all the\nmore reason why you should withhold censure and give freely of your\nhelp and sympathy.\n\n\"_Learn to look into the hearts of men._\"\n\nLearn to see beneath the appearance. The old Italian organ-grinder\ndoing his best to please you with his wheezy hurdy-gurdy is not just\nan old organ-grinder. He is also a man with emotions and feelings and\nlongings and hopes identical in substance with your own; no matter if\nthe organ is out of tune. Learn to hear the _spirit_ of the aria or\nthe intermezzo.\n\nAnd behold! There is a bunch of noisy, dirty, slangy and bold\nstreet-arabs--at least that is what they look like from the outside.\nBut learn to look within. There you will find the cause of their\nappearance, and when you have found the cause you will sympathize with\nthem. If you can get back to the underlying cause of the\nmanifestations of life, you will never fail to sympathize with the\ncondition you may find, even though you find the cause rooted in\ncrime.\n\nYou do not have to agree with the criminal in order to sympathize with\nhis misery. If you have the inner vision, which you must have if you\nwould transmute the baser metals into pure gold and find the key to\nimmortal life and love, you will never fail to understand and to\nsympathize with every point of view. \"Whoever walks a furlong without\nsympathy walks to his own funeral.\"\n\nDon't imagine for one moment that you have to go to the Himalayas to\nfind the inner vision; or that you will obtain the key to the Hidden\nMysteries by shutting yourself in a monastery. Wherever you are, you\nmust lose sight of yourself. Not the higher Self of Reality, but the\nlesser self of the carnal, or sense-conscious plane--the personality\nthat conceals _you_. And above all, you are not to regard this\npersonality as an enemy to be scourged and beaten and reviled. It is,\nor it should be, a willing, and helpful servant of your soul even as\nwe say \"the hand is the servant of the brain.\" If your hand becomes\nunruly and does not obey your brain, train it to do so, don't cut it\noff, even though the Bible does appear to tell you to--why should the\nmen who wrote in that far-off time know more of Truth than we of a\nlater century?\n\nYou may imagine that you need to belong to some \"Brotherhood,\" in\norder to learn the secrets of alchemical transmutation. There is\nnothing of the Great Wisdom which can be taught you, which you cannot\nlearn of yourself if you will look within and unite with the heart of\nthe world.\n\nThere is no wisdom higher than love; and there is no power greater\nthan love; and there is no heaven happier than love and there is no\nGod holier than love. If you will take this for your creed you will\nreadily see that it is for you to think love into those things that\nappear to lack it; think purity into those things that appear impure;\nthink unity into those things that appear separated; and taking the\nlesson home to your own intimate conduct of life, invest the\nexpression of your sex with the pure and lofty and holy power God gave\nto it, or refrain from the thought of sex until you can learn to do\nso.\n\nSays a modern writer: \"If you are still so out of tune with the\nInfinite as to harbor any thought of evil or shame in connection with\nthe specialized organs and functions of sex, let this illumination\nfrom on high cast that devil out of your cosmos forever. And if you\nturn away with soul offended from even 'the slimy gendering of the\ntoad,' you dishonor God who once knew no higher creative formula and\nstill blesses it with His fruitful presence.\"\n\nAnd finally do not make the too common mistake of confounding\nbrazenness with freedom from shame and self-condemnation.\n\nWhatever of beauty and purity and joy has come to you in this life has\ncome because of the divinity of Sex. If you have been wise enough to\nknow this, and have reverenced it and purified your mind in respect to\nthat function of your being, you will not cheapen it by parading the\nsubject before those who have no idealism, any more than you would\n\"cast pearls before swine;\" you will not countenance jokes and ribald\nsongs; you will not indulge in promiscuousness; but instead you will\nfold it within the sacred intimacy of your heart's divine altar, as\nsomething too beautiful, too holy for the garish light of the\nun-tender day.\n\nIf you have taken into your consciousness the divinity of Sex, you\nwill desire unity and disdain possession, knowing that whatever of\nHeaven is vouchsafed Mankind here is but a shadow of the reality of\nspiritual realization of the function of Sex. You will respect the\nphysical body as the handiwork of the Creative Principle of the\nuniverse, respecting the sacredness of human life and liberty. You\nwill teach the truth that the law of Life is mathematically just; that\nnothing will unlock the gates of Eternal Life and Love, except inward\nhonesty; fidelity; unselfishness; spiritual desire.\n\nIf we possess these qualities, we are fit for the kingdom of Love and\nwe shall surely enter therein.\n\nVerily Love transforms mere men into immortal gods.\n\n\n                                 FINIS\n\n\n\n\n                         THE SWASTIKA SERIES\n\n                            HAVE YOU READ\n\n                        _HOW THOUGHT CAN KILL_\n\n               The Scientific Use of Mental Electricity.\n\n                                  By\n                  Dr. Alexander J. McIvor-Tyndall\n\n  The Enlargement of Consciousness.\n  The Doctrine of Free-Will.\n  Thought Is the Building Material.\n  The Creative Power of Conscious Thought.\n  Experiments Proving That Thought Can Kill.\n  Confessions of a Trained Nurse.\n  People Who Think God Hangs Out the Sun.\n  Action Essential to Creative Principle.\n  The \"Science of God's Anger.\"\n  Thought Is of the Universal Supply.\n  Why the Number Thirteen Is Unlucky.\n  How Poison May Be Generated in the System.\n  Thought and the Cell-Structure of the Brain.\n  Why We Fail in Our Efforts.\n  The Spectrums of Love and Hate.\n  The Power of Imagination.\n  Fear Is the King of Thoughts That Kill.\n  Parents Make Cringing Weaklings of Children.\n  How Whole Cities May Be Poisoned by Thought.\n  Case of a Well-Known Man Killed by Thought.\n  There Is Neither Reward nor Punishment.\n  The Survival of That Which Is Creative.\n\n                       Price 25 Cents\n                    Send Your Order Today\n\n                      CHICAGO, U. S. A.\n                     STERLING PUBLISHING\n                           COMPANY\n\n\n\n\n                         THE SWASTIKA SERIES\n\n                            HAVE YOU READ\n\n                        _PERSONAL MAGNETISM_\n\n                        The Power of Persuasion\n\n                                  By\n                  Dr. Alexander J. McIvor-Tyndall\n\n                               CONTENTS\n\n  The Philosophy of \"The Survival of the Fittest.\"\n  The Power of Persuasion.\n  Effects of Force Law.\n  Magnetism in Professional Life.\n  Opinion of a Noted Actor.\n  What Is Personal Magnetism?\n  Different Kinds of Magnetism.\n  The Human Body an Electrical Machine.\n  Will Power the Dynamo.\n  Magnetism Not Necessarily Good.\n  The Law Governing Invisible Force.\n  Love the Generator of Soul Magnetism.\n  Necessity for Understanding Use of Powers.\n  The Body the Medium of the Soul's Expression.\n  What Constitutes Success?\n  Rules for Acquiring Personal Magnetism.\n  Spirit Manifests Only Through Matter.\n  Fasting Not Wise.\n  Psychic Science Teaches the Study of ALL THINGS.\n  The Yogi of India.\n  Individuality the One Essential.\n  Character Indestructible.\n\n                       Price 25 Cents\n                    Send Your Order Today\n\n                      CHICAGO, U. S. A.\n                     STERLING PUBLISHING\n                           COMPANY\n\n\n\n\n               IF YOU CANNOT READ CHARACTER THEN--READ\n\n                      REVELATIONS OF THE HAND\n\n                     How to Know Human Nature\n\n     A Scientific Study of the Shape and Markings of the Hand, as\n            an Index to Character, Disease and Tendencies\n                    With Explanatory Illustrations.\n\n                                  By\n                  Dr. Alexander J. McIvor-Tyndall\n\n        The Most Practical SCIENCE OF PALMISTRY Ever Published!\n\n                         PARTIAL CONTENTS\n\n  PART I--CHEIROGNOMY.\n\n  Chapter.\n  1--The Seven Types of Hands\n  2--The Primitive or Elementary Hand.\n  3--The Square Type of Hand.\n  4--The Spatulate Type of Hand.\n  5--The Conic Type of Hand.\n  6--The Philosophic Type of Hand.\n  7--The Psychic Type of Hand.\n  8--The Mixed Type of Hand.\n  9--The Fingers.\n  10--The Thumb.\n  11--The Nails.\n  12--Large and Small, Hard and Soft Hands.\n  13--The Colour of the Palms.\n  14--The Mounts.\n  15--Right and Left Hands.\n  16--Resume of Cheirognomy.\n\n\n  PART 2--CHEIROMANCY.\n\n  Chapter.\n  1--The Lines of the Hand.\n  2--The Line of Life.\n  3--The Line of Mentality or Head.\n  4--The Line of Heart.\n  5--The Line of Fate.\n  6--The Line of Apollo, or Sun.\n  7--The Line of Health or Liver.\n  8--The Girdle of Venus.\n  9--The Via Lascivia, The Line of Mars and the Line of Intuition.\n  10--The Line of Marriage; Children.\n  11--The Rascette and Minor Lines.\n  12--Lines of Influence and Travel Lines.\n  13--Character of the Lines.\n  14--Signs Found on the Palm.\n  15--The Great Triangle and the Quadrangle.\n  16--How to Reckon Time. Systems of Seven and Ten.\n  17--Abnormal Tendencies.\n\n\n                     SEND YOUR ORDER TODAY\n\n                         SECOND EDITION\n\n  _Crown 8vo, 215 pages, profusely illustrated with full-page plates\n        and numerous engravings, silk cloth bound, gold stamped,\n                          $2.00 postpaid._\n\n                         CHICAGO, U. S. A.\n                    STERLING PUBLISHING COMPANY\n\n\n\n\n                       \"THE DEAD SPEAK!\"\n\n           LITTLE JOURNEYS TO THE LAND OF THE LIVING DEAD\n\n                                  By\n                  Dr. Alexander J. McIvor-Tyndall\n\n                               Author of\n\n     \"Sex--The Unknown Quantity,\" \"The Dead Speak!\" \"The Swastika\n                              Series,\" Etc.\n\n  We are living in an age of earnest inquiry and enhanced knowledge in\n  respect to ourselves as spiritual beings, and that great and wonderful\n  Universe of Spirit to which we are inseparably allied. The author is\n  devoting his life to establishing better conditions on earth, by\n  bringing the two worlds into closer association. No one can read this\n  book with an unprejudiced mind, without absorbing some of its grand\n  and inspiring truth and be uplifted and made better by it.\n\n  Chapter 1.\n  The Advent of Psychic Research.\n\n  Chapter 2.\n  The Dangers in Psychic Research and How to Avoid Them.\n\n  Chapter 3.\n  Physical Manifestations: Table-Rapping, Levitation, Etc.\n\n  Chapter 4.\n  Automatism.\n\n  Chapter 5.\n  Haunted Houses.\n\n  Chapter 6.\n  Spirit Interlopers.\n\n  Chapter 7.\n  Vampirism and Astral Hypnosis.\n\n  Chapter 8.\n  Prevision.\n\n  Chapter 9.\n  The Mystery of Trance.\n\n  Chapter 10.\n  The Mystery of Dreams.\n\n  Chapter 11.\n  Phantasms of the Living.\n\n  Chapter 12.\n  The Last Enemy--Death Overcome!\n\n  If you desire to acquire a knowledge of the GREAT SPIRITUAL AWAKENING\n  that has dawned upon mankind with the birth of the twentieth\n  century--with a mind and heart open to those scientific and spiritual\n  truths that are daily being proven by scientists and thinkers of\n  world-repute--we take the liberty of reminding you there is no book\n  more enlightening, no work more appreciated, no effort more powerful,\n  than this book.\n\n  There is a difference between this book and others upon the\n  subject--it is not an ordinary chronicle of unconnected notations but\n  a romantic story of extraordinary interest and value for the spiritual\n  and scientific truths which set forth the most advanced knowledge of\n  the deeper things of the Soul so simply that any reader of ordinary\n  intelligence can grasp, comprehend and apply those laws whose values\n  extend the usefulness of every Truth seeker who is seeking light upon\n  the MYSTERIES OF LIFE, both Here and Here-after.\n\n\n                     Send Your Order Today\n\n  _12mo., 200 pages, silk cloth-bound, gold stamped, with Frontispiece,\n                       $1.50 (net) postpaid._\n\n                         CHICAGO, U. S. A.\n                    STERLING PUBLISHING COMPANY\n\n\n\n\n                         _Just Published_\n\n                       COSMIC CONSCIOUSNESS\n                                  or\n                    THE MAN-GOD WHOM WE AWAIT!\n\n                                  By\n                             Ali Nomad\n                    [Alexander J. McIvor-Tyndall]\n\n                               Author of\n     \"Sex--The Unknown Quantity,\" \"The Dead Speak,\" \"The Swastika\n                             Series,\" Etc.\n\n                                _READ_\n\n  An Exposition of the Peculiar Phenomenon Which Is Puzzling Science:\n  Its Analogy to the Mystical Phenomena of the Brahm, Zen and Other\n  Oriental Sects; Its Meaning and Its Future.\n\n  With Simple, Concise and Thoroughly Practical Methods of Inducing the\n  Phenomenon.\n\n  Presenting a new and startling theory of the meaning and scope of the\n  prophecy current among the ancients and revived at the present time,\n  of the coming of a new Christ; the prophecy elucidated and explained\n  in the light of To-day; what it means and what it will lead to.\n\n                          SECOND EDITION\n\n     _12mo., 371 pages, cloth, gold stamped, $1.12 postpaid_\n\n                         SEND YOUR ORDER TODAY\n\n                         CHICAGO, U. S. A.\n                     STERLING PUBLISHING COMPANY\n\n\n\n\n                         THE SWASTIKA SERIES\n\n                            HAVE YOU READ\n\n                        _PROOFS OF IMMORTALITY_\n\n  The Scientific Revelation of Natural Laws Prove the Continuity of Life\n\n                                  By\n                  Dr. Alexander J. McIvor-Tyndall\n\n                               CONTENTS\n\n                         PROOFS OF IMMORTALITY\n\n  If Man Die Shall He Live Again?\n  The Invisible Something That Survives Death.\n  A Case That Will Bear Quoting.\n  Seeing Through Opaque Substances.\n  Faith Is Not Fact--Evidence Not Proof.\n  Proof Must Rest Upon Individual Experience.\n  The Psychic Body Basis of Organism.\n  All Life Is Manifested in Form.\n  Science Stands for Axioms That May Be Proved.\n\n                       Price 25 Cents\n                    Send Your Order Today\n\n                      CHICAGO, U. S. A.\n                     STERLING PUBLISHING\n                           COMPANY\n\n\n\n\n                         THE SWASTIKA SERIES\n\n                            HAVE YOU READ\n\n                               _GHOSTS_\n\n                    The Message of the Illuminati.\n\n                                  By\n                  Dr. Alexander J. McIvor-Tyndall\n\n\n          Founded Upon Henrik Ibsen's Psychological Masterpiece\n\n                    \"THE GHOSTS WE MEET EVERY DAY\"\n\n  The ghosts we meet on the street; in commercial and social life.\n\n  Ghosts of dead ideas; Ghosts of fear; Ghosts of false standards of\n  morality; false ideals of living.\n\n                       Price 25 Cents\n                    Send Your Order Today\n\n                      CHICAGO, U. S. A.\n                     STERLING PUBLISHING\n                           COMPANY\n\n\n\n\nTRANSCRIBER'S NOTES\n\n1. Passages in italics are indicated by _underscore_.\n\n2. The following misprints have been corrected:\n    \"attaing\" corrected to \"attaining\" (page 12)\n    \"Morever\" corrected to \"Moreover\" (page 67)\n    \"Doubless\" corrected to \"Doubtless\" (page 85)\n    \"esctacies\" corrected to \"ecstacies\" (page 116)\n    \"aproach\" corrected to \"approach\" (page 116)\n    \"mutality\" corrected to \"mutuality\" (page 123)\n    Incomplete sentence \"We have already\" removed on page 140.\n    \"iadequate\" corrected to \"inadequate\" (page 179)\n    \"magnectic\" corrected to \"magnetic\" (page 194)\n    \"instintctive\" corrected to \"instinctive\" (page 224)\n    \"phenonenal\" corrected to \"phenomenal\" (page 226)\n    \"anoher\" corrected to \"another\" (page 234)\n    \"estoeric\" corrected to \"esoteric\" (page 235)\n    \"and and\" corrected to \"and\" (page 240)\n    \"advaced\" corrected to \"advanced\" (in ad for the \"The Dead Speak!\")\n\n3. Other than the corrections listed above, printer's inconsistencies in\nspelling, punctuation, hyphenation, and ligature usage have been retained.","title":"Sex--The Unknown Quantity: The Spiritual Function of Sex","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":58797}