A man dies, and the moments of his death agony, the moments of his last thoughts and realisations, his last sensations and last regrets, are connected with the sensations of love which create new birth. Which precedes and which follows the other? All this must be simultaneous. Then the soul sinks into sleep, and then awakens in the same world as before, in the same house, with the same parents.
What happens at the moment when, according to the old allegory, the serpent bites its own tail and the death agony of one life comes into contact with the sensations of love which begin another life?
In the idea of the interrelation of love and death may lie the explanation of many of the incomprehensible phenomena of our life. Many allegories in ancient teachings, which are obscure to us, may refer to the same idea: such are the relation between death and resurrection in the Mysteries, the idea of mystical death and mystical birth, and so on. In ancient teachings and cults, the words "death" and "birth" contained some strange enigma. These words had not one but several meanings. Sometimes "birth" signified death, sometimes "death" signified birth.
The idea may have two meanings. The first is from the point of view of eternal recurrence: death, that is, the end of one life, is birth, the beginning of another life. The second meaning, which is more complex, is that death on our plane of being may be birth on some other, "superhuman", plane of being.
It is necessary to proceed very carefully here in order to avoid the "spiritualistic" understanding of death as birth and birth as death, when physical death is regarded as birth on the "astral" plane, in the world of spirits, and death in the world of spirits is regarded as birth on our plane; while at the same time a "spirit" differs very little from man, or even does not differ at all in his inner characteristics.
This was the secret which was revealed to the initiated. The idea was that having learned, that is, having fully understood and felt this secret, the man could no longer remain as he was before. The new understanding began to work within by itself, to give new meaning to the whole of life and to guide his own life and activities along a new path.
If we could accept the idea of man as a seed and if we could find confirmation of it as a theory, this would radically change all our conceptions of man and humanity and would at once explain many things at which we have hitherto only dimly guessed.
The life which we know contains no aim in itself. This is the reason why there is so much in life that is strange, incomprehensible, and inexplicable. Indeed, it cannot be explained by itself. Neither its sufferings nor its joys, neither its beginning nor its end nor its greatest achievements have any meaning. All these are either a preparation for some other, future, life, or merely nothing. By itself, life here on our plane has no value, no meaning, and no point. It is too short, too unreal, too ephemeral, too illusory, for anything to be demanded of it, to be built upon it, to be created out of it. Its whole meaning lies in another, a new, a future life which follows upon "birth".
Does this not appear as the inner meaning of religious teachings of esoteric origin, particularly of Christianity? Does it not explain all that especially strikes us in life as incongruous and incompatible?
If we, humanity, are only seeds, only germs, there cannot — and there could not possibly — be any meaning in our life on this plane. The whole meaning lies in birth and in another, a future, life.
But "birth" on that plane, i.e. on the plane of an unknown new level of being, is neither accidental nor mechanical. This new birth cannot be the result solely of external causes and conditions as birth on our plane of being seems to be. The new birth is a matter of will, a matter of the desire and efforts of the "grain" itself.
This was the basis of the idea of "initiation", which led to birth, and also of the idea of "salvation" and attainment to "eternal life".
"Eternal life" is a term which has several meanings, and it seems to contain a contradiction. On the one hand, "eternal life" belongs not only to all people but even to everything that exists, while on the other hand it is necessary to be born again in order to obtain it. This contradiction would be inexplicable if the difference between the fifth and the sixth dimensions had not been previously established. Both the one and the other are eternity. But one is unalterable repetition, always with the same end; and the other is escape from this repetition.
Thus we see two ideas of birth: birth on the same plane — continuation of life; and birth on another plane — regeneration, transformation, escape from the first plane. This escape may imply so many new facts which are quite unknown and inconceivable on our plane that we can have no clear idea about the consequences of escape.
As a rule, the stronger a man or woman, the greater the attraction that draws them to the opposite sex. The richer a man or woman is intellectually or emotionally, the greater is their understanding and appreciation of sex and all that is connected with sex. If there are exceptions, they are very rare — and therefore they only prove the rule.
But even the most general view of the rôle of sex in life reveals the fact that the original aim of sex — that is, the continuation of life, or birth — recedes and is lost amid the clamour, the flash and sparkle, of the emotions created by this eternal attraction and repulsion between the sexes.
From the ordinary point of view, in creating love — that is, in creating the division of the sexes and everything connected with it — Nature has only one aim: the continuation of life. But even from the ordinary point of view it is perfectly clear, and there can be no doubt about it, that Nature has created in man much more "love" than is actually necessary for the purpose of the continuation of life; and all this surplus of love must be used up somehow. Under ordinary conditions, it is used up by being transformed into other emotions and other kinds of energy which are often contradictory, harmful from the point of view of evolution, pathological, mutually incompatible, and destructive.
If it were possible to calculate how small a proportion of sex energy is actually used for the continuation of life, we should understand the basic principle of many of the actions of Nature. Nature creates an immense pressure, an immense tension, in order to attain a certain aim; but in actual fact uses for the attainment of this aim only an infinitesimal fraction of the energy created. Yet without this immense inflow of force the original aim probably would not be attained, and Nature would be unable to make people serve her and continue their species to serve her. People would begin to bargain with Nature, to put conditions to her, to demand concessions, to demand alleviations; and Nature would have to yield. The guarantee against this is the surplus of energy which binds a man, makes him a slave, forces him to serve the purposes of Nature in the belief that he is serving himself, his own passions, his own desires; or, on the contrary, it makes him believe that he is serving the purposes of Nature whilst in reality he serves his own passions and desires.
Apart from the first and obvious aim, the continuation of life and the securing of this continuation, sex serves two more aims of Nature, and the existence of these two aims explains why the energy of sex is created in much greater quantity than is necessary for the continuation of life.
One of these aims is the keeping up of the "breed", the preservation of the species at a definite level — that is, what is ordinarily called "evolution", though "evolution" is usually endowed with other properties which in reality it does not possess. But what is possible in the sense of "evolution" and what actually exists, exists at the expense of the energy of sex. If the energy of sex is lacking in the particular "breed", degeneration begins.
The other, far more deeply hidden, aim of Nature is evolution in the true meaning of the word, that is, the development of man in the direction of the acquisition by him of higher consciousness and the opening up of his latent forces and faculties. The explanation of this latter possibility in connection with using sex energy for this purpose forms the content and meaning of all esoteric teachings. Thus sex contains not only two but three aims, three possibilities.
If we take man and try to determine, on the basis of all our biological knowledge, what in man is the indication of the "breed", that is, the indication of the preservation of species, we shall obtain an exact and very significant answer.
In a human being, both in man and in woman, there are definite anatomical and physiological traits of the "breed", and a high development of these traits points to a sound type, whereas a weak expression or a wrong expression of them definitely points to a degenerating type.
These traits are the so-called secondary sexual characters.
Secondary sexual characters is the name applied to features and qualities which, though not indispensable for the normal existence of the sex functions, are nevertheless closely connected with the primary characters. This is shown by the fact that secondary characters depend upon the primary, that is, they are immediately modified, become weaker or even disappear, in the case of the weakening of direct functions or injury to the sex organs, that is, in case of change of the primary characters.
Secondary characters are all those features, apart from the sex organs themselves, which make man and woman different from and unlike one another. These features are differences in the lines of the body (independently of the anatomical structure of the skeleton), a different distribution of muscles and fat on the body, difference in movements, different distribution of hair on the body, a different voice, difference in instincts, sensations, tastes, temperament, emotions, reaction to external stimuli, etc.; and, further, a different mentality — all that makes up feminine psychology and masculine psychology.
Academic biology does not attach sufficient importance to the study of secondary characters, and there is a tendency to limit the application of this term only to those characters which are very closely connected with the sex functions. But, in medicine, the study of secondary characters and of their alterations often serves as a basis for the right distinguishing of various pathological states and for right diagnosis. It has been established beyond doubt for both man and woman that a weakening or an anatomical change of the essential parts of the sex organs, or their injury, leads to a complete alteration of the external type and to a change in the secondary character, different for men and women, but in both cases following a certain definite system. That is to say, in a man, an injury to his sex organs and the derangement of their functions cause him to resemble either a child or an old woman; and in a woman, the same thing causes her to resemble a man.
This gives the possibility of the converse conclusion, namely, that a type differing from the normal type, that is, a man with the features, properties, and characters of a woman, or a woman with the features, properties, and characters of a man, indicates firstly degeneration and secondly, wrong development (usually under-development) of the primary characters.
Thus normal development of sex is a necessary condition of a rightly developing type, and abundance and richness of secondary characters points to an improving, an ascending, type.
The decline of the type, the decline of the "breed", always means the weakening and alteration of secondary characters, that is, the appearance of masculine characters in a woman and feminine characters in a man. "Intermediate sex" is the most characteristic phenomenon of degeneration.
Normal development of sex is necessary for the preservation and improvement of the "breed".
The second aim of Nature which is attained in this case is perfectly clear. It is that the surplus of sex energy is used precisely for the improvement of the breed.
Almost all the occult teachings which recognise the possibility of the "evolution" or transformation of man see the basis of this possible transformation in the transmutation, that is, in the transfiguration, of certain matters or energies into quite different matters or energies, in this case in the transformation of sex energy into energy of a higher order.
This is the inner meaning, sometimes deeply hidden, sometimes almost obvious, of many occult teachings, of theories of alchemy, of various forms of mysticism, of Yoga systems, and the like.
In all teachings that admit the possibility of the change and inner growth of an individual man, that is, evolution not in a biological or anthropological sense, but as applying to the individual, this evolution is always based on the transmutation of sex energy. The utilisation of this energy, which is wasted unproductively in ordinary life, creates in a man's soul the force which leads him to the superhuman. There is no other force in man which could replace sex energy. All other energies — intellect, will, feeling — feed on the surplus of sex energy, grow out of it, and live by it. The mystical birth of man, of which many systems speak, is based on transmutation of sex energy.
There are many occult and religious systems which not only recognise this but attempt to give practical directions as to how to curb the energy of sex and how to submit it to the interests of inner evolution. These directions are usually utterly fantastic and cannot give any results because they omit something which is most vital and most necessary. Nevertheless, the study of such theories and methods presents a certain interest from the psychological and historical point of view.
If evolution of sex exists, there should be forms lower than the form we consider normal, and there should be forms higher than the form we consider normal. What, then, is the lower form and what is the higher form?
The moment we ask ourselves this question we are confused and perplexed by the ordinary conceptions of naïve Darwinism and of the usual "evolutionary" theories which tell us of the "lower" forms of sex in the "lower" organisms, in plants, etc., of the propagation of fungi, and the like. But all this is quite outside the scope of the question we have set ourselves. We are dealing only with man and we must think only of man.
In examining the question, we must try to establish what constitutes normal sex in man; then determine the lower forms of sex in the life of man, that is, the forms which correspond to a degenerating type or to a type arrested in its development; and then determine the higher, that is, evolving, forms — if such forms exist.
The difficulty of defining normal sex is created first of all by the indeterminateness of the characteristics and properties of "lower sex", by the complete absence of any understanding of what "higher sex" may be, and at times even by the confusing of the lower with the higher, of the degenerating with the evolving.
It is comparatively easy to establish infra-sex if we takes as its chief characteristic arrested development or a degeneration which has begun or is beginning.
But the detection of infra-sex is impeded by the variety and contradictory character of the forms in which infra-sex is manifested, and especially by the fact that some of these forms, from the ordinary point of view, appear to be a strengthening and an exaggerated development of sex energy, sex desires, and sex sensations.
Therefore from the very beginning, infra-sex must be divided into two categories: obvious degeneration and hidden degeneration.
To the first category of infra-sex belong most declining forms of manifestation of sex such as all obvious sex abnormalities: that is, underdeveloped sex; all perversions in the sense of either abnormal sex desires or abnormal sex abstinence; disgust of sex; fear of sex; indifference to sex; interest in one's own sex, though the latter has quite a different meaning in men from what it has in women, and in women is not necessarily a sign of infra-sex.
To the second category of infra-sex belong cases which are often connected with heightened intensity of sex life which, while externally appearing to be normal, though exaggerated, in reality also point to inner degeneration. This category of infra-sex will be dealt with later.
For all categories of infra-sex, the fundamental characteristic is the absence of co-ordination between the idea of sex and the ideas of other normal functions of man. Sex always leads people of infra-sex either into "temptation", or "sin", or insanity, or debauchery.
For normal man or woman, sex contains no danger. In a normal human being, sex harmonises with all other functions, including the emotional and intellectual, and even with the desire for the miraculous, if such exists in the soul of a man. A man's thoughts, emotions, aspirations: none of them contradicts sex, nor does sex contradict them. Sex inwardly is completely justified in normal man, and this justification is based solely on the full co-ordination of sex with the intellectual and emotional functions.
But if a man is born abnormal or becomes abnormal, a negative attitude towards sex and condemnation of sex almost always grow within him.
Abnormalities may be very different. There may be total impotence: incapacity both for external function and for sensation. There may be capacity for sensation connected with incapacity for external function, that is, the presence of desires but the impossibility of satisfying them. There may be capacity for external function connected with complete absence of sensation. There may be capacity for sensation only on the condition of abnormal external functions. In all these cases sex sensations are accompanied by a feeling of disharmony between sex and other sides of inner life, particularly with the higher, or those which are taken to be higher; and as a result there arises a non-understanding of sex, terror of sex, and disgust of sex.
Infra-sex which condemns sex and repels it as "offence" represents a very curious phenomenon in the life and in the history of humanity.
In this case, sex and all that refers to sex is declared to be sin. Woman is the instrument of the devil; man is the devil, the tempter. The ideal of "purity" is sexual impotence — infantile, senile, or pathological — which in this case is manifested either in "abstinence", taken for an act of will, or in "absence of interest" towards sex, which is explained by the prevalence of other, "spiritual", interests.
In people of infra-sex, sex is sometimes more easily subordinated to intellectual and emotional tendencies (usually of a negative character) than in a normal man or woman. Sex has no independent existence in a being of infra-sex, or in any case it differs greatly from sex in a normal man or woman.
To a man of infra-sex, therefore, a normal man appears as a man possessed by some incomprehensible and hostile force, and such a man considers it his duty to struggle with this force in other people because he believes that he has conquered it in himself. This really explains the whole mechanism of the influence that infra-sex has on life.
Among other people, the people of infra-sex appear the most moral, and in religion the most saintly. It is easy for them to be moral and easy to be saintly. Of course it is pseudo-morality and pseudo-saintliness, but people generally live with pseudo-values, and only extremely few wish to find real values.
It is necessary to understand that almost all morality which has been imposed upon the human race, almost all the laws controlling sex life, almost all the restrictions guiding people's choice and decision in these cases, all taboos, all fears, have come from infra-sex. Infra-sex, precisely in virtue of its difference from normal sex, in virtue of its inability to become normal, and in virtue of its non-understanding of normal sex, began to regard itself as superior, began to dictate laws, to normal sex.
This does not mean that all morals, all laws, and all restrictions relating to sex were wrong. But, as always occurs in life when right ideas come from the wrong source, together with what is right they bear within them a great deal that is wrong, that contradicts their fundamental essence, that brings about new confusions and new complications.
In the history of mankind it is impossible to find a more striking example of pathological forms making laws for normal forms — unless we take a broader view and realise that in fact the whole history of mankind is nothing but the rule of pathological forms over normal. Moreover, it is very interesting that while infra-sex continually holds in suspicion and mercilessly condemns normal sex and its manifestations, it shows much more tolerance towards pathological perverted forms.
Thus infra-sex always finds an excuse and a justification for people of "intermediate sex" and for their tendencies, as well as for various abnormal means of sexual satisfaction. Of course people of abnormal inclinations are by this very fact people of infra-sex. But they are not aware of this and often are definitely proud of their difference from people of normal sex, which they regard as "coarse" and "animal", lacking the refinement which they ascribe to themselves. There are even theories which regard "intermediate sex" as the result of evolution.
All that has been said until now refers only to one category of infra-sex, although in this category there can clearly be seen several forms, from impotence to homosexuality.
The other category of infra-sex does not include either impotence or unnatural inclinations. As was pointed out earlier, with the exception of extremes bordering on insanity, manifestations of this category are not usually taken as abnormal.
Phenomena of this category can be divided into two groups.
To the first group belong those manifestations of sex which are coloured with what may be called the psychology of the lupanar. To the second group belong those manifestations of sex which are characterised by their close relation to oppressive and morbid emotions of a violent or despondent character.
Both groups can be explained by the fact that sex and all that relates to sex possesses the capacity to connect itself with the most contradictory sides of a human being.
In the first group, sex is connected with what is lowest in man. For such a man, sex is surrounded with an atmosphere of uncleanness. A man speaks and thinks of sex with unclean words and unclean thoughts. At the same time he is a slave to sex and is aware of his slavery, and it appears to him that all other people are slaves, just as he is. He mentally throws dirt on sex and on everything connected with sex, invents indecent anecdotes or likes to listen to them. His whole life is full of obscene language; everything is as unclean to him as he is himself. If he does not degrade sex he derides it, takes it as a joke, tries to find something comic in sex.
This looking for the comic in sex, the introduction of laughter into sex, gives rise to a special kind of pseudo-art — pornography, which is characterised precisely by derision of sex.
Without this derision, erotic art, even in its extreme forms, may be quite normal and legitimate — as it was, for instance, in the Greek and Roman worlds, in ancient India, in Persia at the period of the flourishing of Sufism, etc. The absence of erotic art, or wrong forms of it, points on the contrary to the very low moral level of the particular culture and to the preponderance of infra-sex.
Infra-sex in all its manifestations of course tries to confuse erotic art with pornography. For infra-sex there is no difference between these two phenomena.
With regard to normal sex, it is necessary to point out that there is no laughter in it. The function of sex cannot be comic, it cannot be an object of joke. This is one of the characteristics of normal sex.
To continue the enumeration of the features of that form of infra-sex which is characterised by the psychology of the lupanar, it may be said that this form is determined by the separation of sex from other functions, and by the antagonism of sex to all other functions. For the intellectual and for the emotional life, even merely for physical activity (in the case of the people of this form of infra-sex), sex is only an impediment, an obstacle, a waste of force, a waste of energy. This waste of energy in sex functions, and the realisation of this waste, is one of the distinctive traits of the form of infra-sex in question.
In normal sex this waste does not exist, since energy is immediately renewed because of the richness and positive character of the sensations, thoughts, and emotions connected with sex.
The form of infra-sex in question is often very active in its manifestations in life, and is widespread. Owing to many peculiarities in our life, especially owing to the power of the abnormal over the normal and of the "lower" over the "higher", many people who do not in fact belong to infra-sex learn about sex only from people of this form of infra-sex, and they at once receive a shock from sex as from something unclean. They are repelled by the psychology of the lupanar, but they cannot throw off the impression that they have received; they begin to believe that there is nothing else, and the whole of their own mentality in relation to sex becomes coloured and impregnated with distrust, suspicion, fear, and repugnance.
Their fears and their repugnance in relation to this form of the manifestations of sex would be very well grounded if only they knew that the abnormal cannot be taken as the law for the normal, and that in avoiding the abnormal it is important not to sacrifice the normal.
Sex in this form is very closely related to crime: and actually in life, a criminal character, criminal tendencies, are scarcely ever met with apart from this form of infra-sex. Even in ordinary scientific psychology this form of sex manifestation, which is devoid of any connection with moral feeling, is defined as the lower or the animal. It is the predominance of this form of infra-sex in life which above all shows the level on which humanity stands.
In the second group of manifestations of this category of infra-sex, that is, the group in which sex functions are not decreased but on the contrary are even increased in comparison with the normal, sex is connected with all that is violent and cruel in a man.
A man of this form of infra-sex seems continually to be walking on the edge of a precipice. Sex and all emotions belonging to sex inevitably become in him connected with irritation, suspicion, and jealousy; at any moment he may find himself completely in the power of a sense of injury, insulted self-pride, a frightened sense of ownership; and there are no forms of cruelty and violence of which he is not capable in order to avenge his "outraged honour" or "injured feelings".
All kinds of crimes of passion without exception belong to this form of infra-sex.
In Chapter X were quoted the words of Prof. Chwolson, who wrote that "many efforts and prolonged work on oneself are necessary" in order to become accustomed to the teaching of relativity. A much greater mental effort is needed in order to see "infra-sex" and nothing else in all the crimes and murders that are committed from jealousy, suspicion, desire for revenge, etc.; but if we make this effort, and understand that in the figure of Othello there is nothing but pathology — that is, abnormal and perverted emotions — the lies by which humanity has lived and lives become clear to us.
The difficulty of understanding the Nature of this particular category of infra-sex is created by the continual establishment of, and the desire to ennoble and justify, all manifestations of violence and degenerate emotions connected with sex and with crimes of passion. All the power of the hypnosis of art and literature is directed towards the glorification of these emotions and these crimes. It is this hypnosis which above all stands in the way of the right understanding of things and makes people who do not belong to infra-sex at all consider themselves obliged to think, feel, and act like people of infra-sex.
All that has been said about infra-sex can be summarised in the following propositions:
Normal sex, being the complete opposite of infra-sex, is first of all entirely co-ordinated with other sides of man's life and with his highest manifestations. It does not stand in their way and does not take energy from them; the energy used in the functioning of normal sex is immediately replaced owing to the richness of the sensations and impressions which are received by the intellect, the consciousness, and the feeling. Further, in normal sex there is nothing that can be the subject of laughter, or that can be connected with anything that is negative in man. On the contrary, it repels, as it were, everything that is negative, and this in spite of the very great intensity of sensations and feelings connected with it.
It does not follow that a man of normal sex is free from sufferings or disappointments connected with sex life. So far from that, these sufferings may be very intense and acute, but they are never caused by the inner discord between sex and other functions, especially intellectual or higher emotional functions, as in the case of infra-sex. Normal sex is co-ordinated and harmonious, but life is not co-ordinated and is not harmonious; therefore normal sex may often bring much suffering.
But a man of normal sex does not blame other people for his sufferings and does not try to make others suffer. In his feeling there is a great understanding of the inevitability and fatality of everything connected with sex, and it is this understanding of inevitability that helps him to find a way through the maze of contradictory emotions.
The contradictory and uncoordinated Nature of many emotions connected with sex in people of normal sex, apart from the influence of life in general and of various kinds of infra-sex, is often due to a different cause. This cause, though perfectly clear to ordinary observation, has hardly been touched upon by Western psychology. It is the difference between types. Science has approached and is approaching from different sides the idea of the difference of types, but the fundamental principles of this difference are as yet unknown.
Until quite recently the old divisions into "four temperaments" was admitted with certain modifications. Some time ago there were established different "types of memory" — such as "auditory", "visual", "narrative", and so on. At present there are established four types of blood. In endocrinology there are attempts to divide men into types according to their "formulae" or according to their "constellations", that is, according to the combination of inner secretions working in them. But all this is as yet very far from recognition of the radical and essential differences between various types of people, and from the actual confirmation of these types.
Exact and complete knowledge exists only in esoteric doctrines and therefore does not enter into the scope of the present subject. All that can be established by means of ordinary observation is confined to the fact that in relation to the life of sex, both men and women are divided into a certain number, and not a very large number, of fundamental types. For every type of one sex there is one or several types of the opposite sex which arouse desire; then several indifferent; and several definitely negative, that is, repellent, types. In connection with this, complicated combinations are possible as when, for instance, a certain type of woman is positive for a certain type of man but that type of man is negative or indifferent for the woman, and vice versa. In this case a union between two wrongly assorted types produces both external and internal manifestations of infra-sex of one of the categories enumerated above. This means that for the normal manifestation of sex there is necessary not only a normal state in both man and woman, but also the union of two corresponding types.
For a right understanding of esoteric theories concerning sex, it is necessary to have at least a general conception of the rôle and significance of "types" in the life of sex.
From the ordinary point of view people, both men and women, are considered to be much more alike than they really are. They are also much freer in their decisions and in their choice, which seems to be unrestricted except by general conditions of life, division of classes, and so on. In reality, even with the help of generally known psychological material, it is possible to understand how the division of types is manifested in life and how people depend on this division.
The "strangeness of love" has always occupied men's imagination. Why does this man love this woman, and not that one? Why does the woman love another man and not him, and so on?
Where is the end and where the beginning in this strange game of attractions, feelings, moods, sensations, vanities, and disappointments? The answer is: only in the division of types.
In order to understand the principle of this division, it is necessary to realise that for every man all the women in the world are divided into several categories according to the degree of their potential physical and emotional influence upon him and quite independently of his or their expressed tastes, sympathies, and inclinations.
Women of the first category, of whom there are very few for each man, arouse in him the maximum of feeling, desire, imagination, and dreaming. They attract him irresistibly, regardless of any barriers and obstacles, often to his great astonishment and, in the case of mutual love, arouse in him the maximum of sensation. Such women remain ever new and ever unknown. A man's curiosity about them never weakens, and their love never becomes for him ordinary, possible, or explicable. There always remains in it an element of the miraculous and the impossible, and there is no fading of his own feeling.
Women of the second category, of whom there are are many more for a man, also attract him, but in these cases his feelings are more easily controlled by reason or by external conditions. It is a calmer love which is more easily fitted into conventional forms, both inner and outer; may pass more easily into a feeling of friendship or sympathy; and can fade and disappear, but always leaving a warm memory behind it.
Women of the third category leave a man indifferent. If they are young and attractive they can affect his imagination — not directly, however, but through some other life interest such as self-pride, vanity, material considerations, community of interests, sympathy, friendship. But this feeling, having come from without, does not endure long and fades. The sensations are weak and colourless. The first satisfactions usually exhaust all interest. Sometimes, if the first sensations were sufficiently vivid, they can change into their opposites — antipathy, hostility, and the like.
Women of the fourth category interest a man still less. They also can attract him in certain cases, or he may deceive himself and think that they attract him. But physical relations with them contain a tragic element. A man does not feel them at all. The continuation of intimacy with them is a mechanical violation of self and may bear heavily upon the nerves, produce impotence and various other phenomena of infra-sex.
It must of course be understood that a woman belonging to one category for a man may belong to quite a different category for another man, and that the number of categories may be larger or smaller for different people.
Women are in exactly the same position. For them also, there are different categories of men; and just as little depends on their own intellectual or emotional decision or choice. Both the choice and the decision are made for them. No moral principles, no feeling of duty, affection, gratitude, friendship, sympathy, pity, community of ideas or interests, can create a sensation when it is not there, or stand in its way when it is there; that is, nothing can change anything in this truly iron law of types.
In ordinary life, owing to the many external influences which control people's lives, the law of the attraction and repulsion of types becomes partly modified, but in one direction only. This means that even the right and corresponding types may be repelled by one another and not feel one another under the influence of emotional conflicts and difference in tastes and understanding. But wrong and non-corresponding types cannot ever or in any circumstances feel one another. Moreover, even the slightest element of infra-sex either in the man or in the woman brings their relations, feelings, and sensation of one another down to a lower category, or even completely destroys all that was positive in them.
If any escape from the law of the action of types is at all possible, it is only through following the principles of Karma-Yoga and with the condition of a full understanding of the Nature of the difference between types; but this relates only to the life of those who see or are beginning to see.
In ordinary life in general, the leading principle is blindness, and this blindness is particularly striking in relation to questions of sex. Thus in ordinary understanding the idea is not admitted, and is even entirely unknown, that in the case of wrong combination of types one or both of them will not feel the other at all. Further, it is not taken into consideration that there is nothing more painful and more immoral than sex relations without sensations; also that the degree and the quality of the sensations can be very different. The fact of the possible absence of sex sensations in sex relations is of course known, but it is not regarded as dependent upon types. This is not taken into consideration at all, undoubtedly owing to the influence of infra-sex upon life.
The true rôle of the "initiate" certainly did not consist in performing a mechanical ceremony which allowed the people to have sex relations. People came to the initiate not for this ceremony but for advice, for the final decision. The initiate determined their types, determined whether or not they were suited to one another, gave advice, and decided whether or not the particular marriage could take place. Such was, or may have been, the "marriage sacrament". But of course all this was forgotten long ago, together with the teaching on types and the idea of esoteric knowledge.
Poets have always been aware of the other side of the idea and have sung the irresistible force which attracts inwardly related types to one another — types whom nothing can part and nothing can prevent from striving towards each other. When such types meet, the result is a case of ideal and eternal love which gives material to poets for thousands of years.
This idea of the mutual gravitation of inwardly related types constitutes the inner meaning of the allegory in Plato's Symposium about people's severed halves seeking one another.
In actual life, the dreams of poets and philosophers are very seldom realised. In the conditions of our discordant existence, the meeting of the most suitable types is, on the contrary, the most dangerous case, chiefly owing to the accumulation of stormy emotions; it almost invariably ends in tragedy, and in Plato's halves again losing one another.
The teaching on types is of the highest importance because normal sex can manifest itself rightly and, in a certain sense, "evolve", only with a successful combination of types. It is also necessary to understand that the division of types, in itself, is the result of "evolution": because, among more primitive people, the types are divided less markedly and completely, so that strongly expressed type is a kind of secondary character.
It is not easy to define supra-sex. To be more precise, the scientific material at our disposal contains no data for such a definition. For material bearing on this question it is necessary to turn to esoteric doctrines. All that it is possible to do, using the ordinary and generally accessible material, is to determine what is not supra-sex because, though ordinary thought does not contain the notions of infra-sex and supra-sex, the idea of them is very near to it and, as it were, continually rises up behind ordinary conceptions. In thinking of sex functions, people very often divide them, for instance into purely "animal" or "physical" manifestations, which they look upon as infra-sex, and "spiritualised" manifestations, which for them take the place of supra-sex; or they introduce the idea of "love" as opposed to "sex-feeling" or "sex instinct".
In other words, the ideas of infra-sex and supra-sex are not so far from our thought as they might at first appear. In fact people always use these ideas in thinking about sex, but very often associate them with totally wrong images and conceptions.
Moreover, and this is particularly important, certain forms of infra-sex are often taken for supra-sex. This happens because people, dimly realising the difference in manifestations of sex but actually encountering besides normal sex only infra-sex, have taken the degeneration of sex for the evolution of sex.
In this case they have taken the line of least resistance, submitting to the influence of infra-sex. Having taken infra-sex for supra-sex, they have begun to regard normal sex from the standpoint of infra-sex as something anomalous, unclean, hindering the salvation or the liberation of man.
It is only in those esoteric doctrines which have not passed through ecclesiastical and scholastic forms, or have been preserved beneath the layers of ecclesiastical and scholastic forms, that traces of teaching on sex can be found that are worth attention. In order to discover these traces it is necessary to re-examine what is to be found on this subject in the doctrines of esoteric origin that are known to us.
From the standpoint of esoteric doctrines, the outward aim of sex, that is, the continuation of life and also the perfecting of breed by the development of secondary characters, is regarded as mechanically assured, and the whole attention of these doctrines is turned towards the hidden aim, that is, the possibility of a new birth, which on the contrary is not assured at all.
To return to the idea of transmutation or the intentional using of sex energy for the purposes of inner evolution, it must be noted that all the systems that recognise transmutation and the rôle of sex in transmutation may be divided into two categories.
To the first belong those systems which admit the possibility of transmutation of sex energy in conditions of normal sex life and normal expenditure of sex energy.
To the second belong those systems which admit the possibility of transmutation only on the condition of complete sex abstinence and asceticism.
Whether or not we agree with the fundamental propositions of the theory of transmutation itself, the systems of the second category are historically more familiar to us and more comprehensible.
The reason for this lies in the fact that the principal religions of cultured humanity of the more recent epoch, Buddhism and Christianity, held and still hold this point of view, that is, that sex life is a hindrance to the salvation of man, or in any case something that can be admitted only as a sad necessity, as a concession to the weakness of man. Judaism also is nearer this point of view than the opposite one, and so is Mohammedanism, which after all is nothing but reformed Judaism liberated only from the spirit of depression and despondency, but preserving almost the whole ethics of Judaism and a rather scornful attitude towards sex.
Buddhism in its essence was a monastic order, and the teachings of Gautama the Buddha were always addressed to monks and contained the exposition of the principles and rules of the shortest way to Nirvana as he understood it. Laymen were admitted to Buddhism only later, and only as disciples preparing to become monks. Special rules, which represented a mitigated monastic discipline, were made for them. These are the so-called "five precepts", the acceptance of which signifies the embracing of Buddhism. Sex is still admitted here. The third of these precepts is: "I observe the precept to abstain from unlawful sexual intercourse". This implies that there are still certain forms which are considered lawful.
But the next grade of Buddhism — eight precepts — includes a complete renunciation of sex life. The precept concerning sex is: "I observe the precept to abstain from sexual intercourse". The word "unlawful" is omitted, i.e. every form of sex life is regarded as unlawful. Those who have accepted the eight precepts do not necessarily live in monasteries, but they live like monks.
Thus Buddha and his nearest disciples considered the first condition of the transmutation of sex energy — the idea of which must have been clear to them — to be complete abstinence.
Christianity stands very near to Buddhism in this respect, and it is quite possible that this side of Christian teaching developed under the influence of Buddhist preachers. The rôle of the Apostle Paul and the influence of Judaism in creating the Christian view of sex have been pointed out earlier.
Great significance for establishing the Christian view of sex was contained in Christ's enigmatic words:
For there are some eunuchs, which were so born from their mother's womb; and there are some eunuchs which were made eunuchs of men; and there be eunuchs which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it. (Matt. 19:12).
With this passage are generally connected the following passages:
And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.
And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell. (Matt. 3:29,30).
These passages together have given material for many fantastic interpretations, beginning with a condemnation of sex life in general as something unclean by Nature and ending with the teaching of the castrates and fanatical voluntary castration for the salvation of the soul.
These Gospel passages gave an enormous impulse to infra-sex in the idea of struggle against sex.
The true meaning of the above words of Christ cannot be understood without understanding the idea of supra-sex, since Christ spoke of supra-sex. But before passing to the examination of what we can know of supra-sex, it is necessary to establish a right view of other teachings on sex besides Buddhism and Christianity which are or were in existence, that is, it is necessary to understand that the Buddhist-Christian view on love and sex is by no means the only possible view.
There are other forms of religious understanding on sex in which sex, far from being condemned, is on the contrary regarded as the expression of the Deity in man and is an object of worship.
This is apparent even in modern Indian religions with their rows of lingams and erotic images in the temples, and with ceremonial dances of an erotic character. I say even in modern Indian religions because they are undoubtedly degenerating in this respect and are more and more losing ground as regards their deification of sex. But there is no doubt that till quite recently several cults consisted entirely of the worship of sex and its manifestations.
This view is for us utterly foreign, incomprehensible, and strange. For us it is "paganism". We are too much accustomed to the Judaic-Christian or Buddhist view of sex.
But the religions of Greece and Rome, and the still more ancient cults of Crete, Asia, and Egypt, also deified sex, and their esoteric doctrines and Mysteries saw the way to transmutation not in opposition to sex, but through sex. Which is the more correct it is impossible to say. We know too little of transmutation, of its possible results. If there are people who attain it, by that very fact they almost immediately leave our field of vision and disappear for us. But one thing can be said without any hesitation: if transmutation is possible, it is possible only for normal sex. None of the forms of infra-sex can evolve. Only a grain that is sound can put forth a green shoot. A grain that is rotten within dies but is not born.
However strange it may appear at first sight, the esoteric idea of the dual rôle of sex, and also the idea of transmutation, is much nearer to scientific thought than might be supposed — that is, nearer to modern scientific thought than to the scientific thought of, let us say, the 19th century.
The starting-point of the doctrine of internal secretions was the work of Claude Bernard on the glycogenic function (1848-57) and Addison's account, in 1849, of the suprarenal capsules. This led to experiments by Brown-Séquard who, in 1891, introduced the notion of "specific substances" secreted into the blood by the various organs, and also the concept of functional humoral correlation. Two theories were advanced to explain the mechanism of correlation. The first was the theory of hormones, the presence of which was established experimentally in 1902. The second was the theory connecting the endocrine secretions with the autonomic nervous system. Experiments, both surgical and by injection of gland extracts, were carried out on the adrenals, thyroid, parathyroid, and other glands. In the last thirty years, attention has been centred more on the pituitary body, which was visualised as leader of the endocrine system.
That the internal secretions control the configuration of the body and are the activators of emotion is emphasised by many writers. The psychological aspect of endocrinology from the point of view of the psychological make-up of the individual appeared later. It should be noted that, at present, opinion is divided as to whether endocrinology should include all parts of the body, on the ground that all organs give off chemical substances to the blood and lymph, or whether it should include only the ductless glands together with certain other glands of internal as well external secretion.
In what follows, endocrinology is taken as the study of the glands of internal secretion (and also of the glands of internal and external secretion), that is, as a part of a wider science, hormonology, which studies the internal secretions of all organs.
According to the data of endocrinology, all the physical properties and functions of man: growth, nourishment, structure of the body, functioning of different organs, intellectual and emotional psychic life, the whole psychic make-up of a man, his activity, his energy, his strength — all these depend on the properties and the character of the activity of the glands of internal secretion which produce motive-power for the working of the organs, the nervous system, the brain, and so on.
All the external characteristics, everything we can see in a man, his height, the structure of the skeleton, the quality of the skin, eyes, ears, hair, voice, respiration, way of thinking, quickness of perception, character, emotionality, will-power, energy, activity, initiative — all these depend on the action of the glands of internal secretion and, so to speak, reflect their state. Endocrinology made all at once an enormous stride in the study of man, a stride the true significance of which is as yet far from being appreciated and understood.
Scientific psychology, the development of which came to a complete stop about the end of the 19th century and which in the first decades of the 20th century did not produce a single work worthy of attention, is beginning to acquire new force and to revise all its theories from the standpoint of the ideas of endocrinology.
In the works on endocrinology which have already appeared, there are some interesting attempts at the interpretation of the fate of historical personages from the point of view of the study of their endocrinological type, that is, of the combination of their internal secretions at different periods of their life.
As an example of such attempts I will refer to two books by Dr Berman of New York.
In the first of these books, The Glands Regulating Personality, Dr Berman, having indicated the principles of the endocrinological study of man which he follows, takes several historical personages with regard to whom there exist more or less definite data. The first of these is Napoleon, as known by his portraits, by the memoirs of his physicians, and by the data of autopsy on his body in the island of St Helena. On the basis of these data Dr Berman gives, so to speak, an endocrinological history of Napoleon, that is to say, he explains, from his point of view, under the influence of which glands of internal secretion the different periods of Napoleon's life passed. Thus Dr Berman explains all the failures of Napoleon's last campaigns, ending in the catastrophe of Waterloo, by the weakening of the secretions of the pituitary gland, which became even more accentuated on the island of St Helena and completely changed his personality.
Later, Dr Berman takes Nietzsche, Charles Darwin, Oscar Wilde, Florence Nightingale, and others.
In his second book, The Personal Equation, he examines types which result from a predominance of one or another gland, and considers man as a marionette controlled by glandular secretions.
Dr Berman's books cannot be called scientific. They are rather fantasies on endocrinological themes. But his fantasies come very near to the real facts, which are not yet dreamt of in philosophy. From a strictly scientific point of view, almost every separate conclusion of Dr Berman can be refuted or regarded as unproved. It is quite possible that each separate conclusion of Dr Berman will be refuted sooner or later. What will not be refuted but will, on the contrary, be established and proved, are the principles upon which he bases his reasonings. These principles will remain and will form the foundation for a new understanding of man — that is, new for modern thought, but in reality approaching the esoteric more and more nearly.
In connection with the problem of infra-sex and supra-sex, what is of particular interest is the meaning and rôle of the internal secretions of the sex glands, and the effect of this secretion upon all the functions of man and also upon other secretions.
As was established by physiology before the appearance of endocrinology as a separate science, the sex glands are at the same time glands of external and of internal secretion, and the internal secretion of the sex glands is the chief factor in creating and regulating the development of secondary sexual characters. To such an extent is this so that in the case of injured sex glands or in the case of castration, when internal secretion ceases or is impaired, secondary characters disappear or become modified, and a man becomes a degenerate type of infra-sex.
Thus modern science not only admits the dual rôle of sex, but bases a great deal on it, recognising in the internal secretion of the sex glands the necessary factor for the right functioning of the whole organism, and in the change or weakening of the secretion the cause of the weakening and deterioration of all other functions.
The internal secretion of the sex glands is the transmutation already recognised by science. The normal life of the organism and the conservation of the secondary characters depend on this transmutation. Every weakening of the secondary characters points to the weakening of the transmutation; a considerable weakening or a cessation of transmutation produces infra-sex. The esoteric idea differs from the modern scientific view only in the admission of the possibility of the transmutation being increased and brought to a degree of totally incomprehensible and unknown intensity, which creates a new type of man.
If this new type of man belongs to supra-sex, what then does supra-sex mean?
Attempts at the endocrinological study of historical personages and clinical investigations establish quite clearly the facts of infra-sex, their origin, causes, and effects. But they say nothing about supra-sex.
Where then can the material for judging supra-sex be looked for?
On the horizon of our history we see two superhuman figures — Gautama the Buddha and Christ. Whether we take them as real men who actually existed or as myths, as creations of popular fancy or of esoteric thought, we find in them common features.
The story of the life of Gautama the Buddha tells us that in his youth Prince Gautama was surrounded by a brilliant court, full of beautiful young women, that he was married, and had a son. He abandoned all this when he retired into the desert, and sex had no part in his later life. Except for several apocryphal legends, history has not preserved for us any description of temptation or struggle connected with sex.
Jesus is even more definite from this point of view. We know nothing of his sex life. So far as we know there was no woman in his life. Even in the temptation in the wilderness the devil does not try to seduce him with a woman; the devil shows him the kingdoms of the world in all their glory, promises a miracle, but does not offer love. Evidently by the design, by the idea, of the author who created the drama of Christ, Christ was already beyond these temptations and possibilities.
We may now ask ourselves whether Christ and the Buddha were not men of supra-sex. There are no grounds which would permit us to recognise them as belonging to infra-sex. At the same time, both undoubtedly differed from ordinary men.
Unfortunately we have no information concerning the structure of the body of Jesus and his external characters. All the representations of him of the first centuries are quite arbitrary. But the position is different with regard to the Buddha because there exists a very exact and detailed description of the structure of his body and of all his external features and characters.
I mean by this the so-called "thirty-two signs of Buddhahood" and the "eighty minor marks".
Concerning these signs there exists a legend which was in part adopted by writers of the Gospels in relation to Christ. When the Buddha was born, Asita, the old hermit, came down from the Himalayas to Kapilavastu. When he entered the palace, he offered the Argha sacrifice at the feet of the babe. Then Asita walked three times round the child, took him in his arms, and "read" on his body the thirty-two signs of Buddhahood and the eighty minor marks that were visible to his inner sight.
On the basis of philological and historical researches, modern Buddhologists consider the "thirty-two signs" to be a later invention. Certainly, there can be no doubt that the "thirty-two signs" contain much that is conventional, much mythology, much naïve allegory, and much that has been corrupted in oral transmission, in transcription, and in translation.
But in spite of all this, endocrinological study of the thirty-two signs of Buddha would be of enormous interest, and it is not impossible that it would lift for us the veil covering the enigma of supra-sex.
There are several variants of the list of the "thirty-two signs of Buddhahood" or the "thirty-two signs of perfection", as also of the "eighty minor marks". In all cases the translation is very doubtful and there are many different interpretations of different signs.
I will give here only the variant which is accepted in modern popular Buddhist literature. In transcriptions, translations, and interpretations, many "signs" have completely lost their meaning and significance. But I think that, first, a philological and, second, a psychological, analysis of the more reliable variants may furnish texts, the endocrinological study of which may reveal much that is new and unexpected.
Whether or not any deductions can be made from a study of the thirty-two signs of Buddhahood is a matter for specialists, but if we take the thrity-two signs as a real description of a living man, we shall be compelled to say that such men do not exist.
Buddha combines in himself contradictory features. He has features which seem to point to "femininity", others to "infantilism", and there are other features which point to an exceptionally strong development of the masculine type. Speaking generally, Buddha's secondary characters are intermixed, and in such combinations they are not met with in life. Buddha is a strange and a new type of man. As it can already be regarded as established that all external features and characters depend upon one or another form of the development of the glands of internal secretion, the picture of the development of Buddha's internal secretions must be utterly improbable and new. Moreover, the internal secretion of the sex glands in his case appears not to be weakened (as it should have been, judging by several characters), but on the contrary intensified to an extreme degree.
If this is transmutation, if this is supra-sex, does it not indicate the course our thought must take in endeavouring to understand the enigma of the evolution of man? And does it not mean that in the process of evolution, sex energy as it were turns inwards within the organism and creates in it a new life, capable of ever new, of eternal, regeneration?
But the psychological picture of man's approach to supra-sex is a little clearer for us. There are in life strange emotions and strange sensations, inexplicable from an ordinary point of view, and in love and all sex sensations there is a strange melancholy and a strange sadness. The more a man feels, the stronger in him is this sensation of farewell, of parting.
This sensation of parting arises from the fact that in a man (or woman) of strong feeling, sex sensations awaken certain new states of consciousness, new emotions. These new emotions change emotions of sex, cause them to fade and disappear.
In this lies the secret of the deep melancholy of the most vivid sex sensation; there is a certain autumnal taste in them, the taste of something that must pass, must die, must cede its place to something else.
This "something else" is the new consciousness, for the definition and description of which there are no words, but which, of all we know, only sex sensations approach.
Mystical states possible to men show a very strange relationship between mystical experiences and experiences of sex.
Mystical sensations undoubtedly and incontestably have a taste of sex. To put it more correctly, of all ordinary experiences, only sex sensations approach those which we may call "mystical".
Of all we know in life, only in love is there a taste of the mystical, a taste of ecstasy. Nothing else in our life brings us so near to the limit of human possibilities, beyond which begins the unknown. In this lies without doubt the chief cause of the terrible power of sex over human souls.
But at the same time sex sensations disappear in the light of mystical experiences.
The first sensations of mystical experiences intensify sex sensations, but the further waves of the light that a man begins to see completely absorb and cause to disappear those small sparks of sensations which before seemed to him a blaze of love and passion.
Consequently, in true mysticism there is no sacrifice of feeling. Mystical sensations are sensations of the same category as the sensations of love, only infinitely higher and more complex. Love, "sex", these are but a foretaste of mystical sensations. It is clear that the foretaste must disappear when there comes that which has been anticipated. But it is equally clear that the struggle with the foretaste, the giving up of the foretaste, cannot bring nearer or hasten anything.
Whether the struggle with normal sex is necessary for the attainment of supra-sex or whether, on the contrary, supra-sex can be attained in the conditions of a normal functioning of sex, is a point on which the ideas of esoteric systems, as indicated before, differ very strongly. As any contradiction between systems of esoteric origin is essentially impossible, this difference can have only one meaning. This meaning is that there are types of people for whom the attainment of supra-sex is possible only through a struggle against sex, for their sex is not sufficiently co-ordinated with the other functions and does not evolve by itself; and there are other types of people for whom the attainment of supra-sex is possible without the struggle against sex, because their sex is transformed gradually in accordance with the transformation of the other functions.
Ordinary knowledge has not sufficient material for determining the course of this transformation, nor for determining the essential Nature of supra-sex. Only an entirely new study of man, started and conducted on the condition of the abandonment of all petrified theories and principles, can discover the ways to the understanding of true evolution.
1912-1929.