Reprinted from the article in the July 1934 issue under the title of “SEX” by request.

BECAUSE of the tendency of the times and the much subtle influence being brought to bear upon men’s minds and passions these days, evidently seeking to drive them down to the lowest moral levels; and because of teachings being given out from occult sources and, we are sorry to state, by certain “Truth” teachers who are being misled into believing that spirituality can be gained by controlled sex practices, the time has come when definite truths must be stated for the clarification of the subject and the guidance of those who are sincerely seeking the real meaning and purpose of sex.

All those familiar with the Impersonal teachings know that the subject of sex has never been mentioned therein, for the simple reason that those who respond to their truths are supposed to have risen above the influence of self and sex. But we now feel it necessary that all know just what is the only attitude of a follower of Christ to take on this most important subject.

In our desire to give adequate and convincing information to our readers, we were led to the following article in “Teachings of the Temple*, which so fully expresses what we intended to say, and perhaps better than we could say it, that we are glad to quote it herein in full.—THE EDITOR.

VOLUMES have been written on the subject of Sex. The light of the highest intellects of all ages has been turned on the subject. The mind of every normal human being still wrestles with it, and yet it remains a mystery to the uninitiated, and must remain so until passion has been divorced from Compassion—Love.

Passion is but the shadow of Compassion, and when the shadow flies away the pure white Light of Compassion shines forth as the Sun. As all shadows are deceptive this great shade of passion is no exception. It has veiled the eyes of angels and men and will continue to do so until its nature is recognized and the veil is withdrawn.

Man’s ignorance of the seven-fold division of Matter, Force and Consciousness and of the nature of those divisions constitutes

*At present out of print, but is hoped to republish soon. the veil. What are commonly termed the physical senses do not function primarily on the plane of gross matter, although their organs of excitation are clearly physical. The five or seven senses of man are but one sense on a more interior division or plane.

Just as the senses of taste and smell are intimately related, the sense of touch—feeling—and the sexual sense are similarly related. The stimulation of one sense arouses activity in all, and consequently if the psychic senses in an individual have been awakened, the consciousness is very apt to turn inward to that plane of the one sense, and psychic sight and hearing may then respond to the sense of touch or feeling functioning on the physical plane.

Herein lies the great danger to the spiritually unenlightened man, for unless he is aware of the deceptive sensuousness of the sights and sounds of that interior plane as they are thrown into form and sound by the energy set free by excitation on the physical plane, the beauty and delight of these sights and sounds would deceive him into believing he was contacting still higher planes of being where life is real, and which are only open to man when the senses are all under control and the now atrophied organ through which the one sense may act is again developed; or the horrible, licentious and vicious images and gross sounds he may vision or hear would deceive him into believing he had entered a veritable Hades. For when undirected physical or mental energy is set free by man, it may throw the substance of that first interior plane into either class of images.

The last mentioned phenomenon occurs when the mental balance has been disturbed by disease, or when over-indulgence in sense gratification has led to satiety.

The great aim and ambition of enlightened man is Mastery, and the word itself should indicate the process and the result. An enlightened man does not aim at mere mastery over worldly physical conditions. Such mastery is far more easily gained than is the mastery over the finer forces of nature and the absolute control of his lower self. So long as man can be controlled by his senses, it is utterly impossible for him to arouse into new activity that now atrophied center of the brain which is essential to the control of the higher creative forces.

If a unit of the human race is content to take his evolution with the other units of the race, so far as the functions of sex are concerned, he will be subject only to the sex karma of the race. If he perverts those functions in some abnormal manner, he adds immeasurably to his share of that karma.

If man deliberately and wilfully, in full consciousness of the difficulties in the way sets out to gain liberation and then falls back into sensuality, he must necessarily block his way for ages; for by so doing he has veiled his intuition anew and will no longer be able to distinguish the false from the true. He has paved the way for the deceptive elementals of the Eighth Sphere who will bind him to the character of the experiences he passes through until such time as satiety has partially opened his eyes, when he then realizes the bondage in which he has placed himself.

Satiety always follows upon the heels of over-indulgence, and this alone should teach man the materiality of all sense indulgence; for true spiritual experience never satiates. Ecstasy of sense and ecstasy of soul are possible realizations of the two poles of the great Mystery—Love. The ecstasy of sense is the fulfillment of passion; the ecstasy of soul is the fruit of Compassion. One must disappear in the face of the other, for the two can never meet. The one is separation from Spirit, the other is completeness of Spirit.

Those who dare to degrade the ideal of Divine Love by prostituting it to low sense gratification come close to committing the unforgivable sin, and those who teach the ignorant that true enlightenment may come by such methods are creating a heavy karma.

It is passing strange that any student of life who has had the advantages that study of the Secret Doctrine and other like philosophies may give, those teachings that contain all available data concerning the primal causes for the failure and destruction of other civilizations, can fail to perceive that it is only by a return to a state of purity that man can regain his lost estate.

Such a student must know that sex-abuse, or some aspect of licentiousness, built the bridge whereby the angels of light entered the abode of demons—the gross physical plane, and that they must recross that bridge by turning the creative forces in an opposite direction, if they would further the development of the human race and thus regain their spiritual supremacy; and the humanity of the present age and that host of angels are one and the same.

When man reaches the point of development where the functions of sex will be employed for procreation alone for mere sensual enjoyment, and the waiting souls long seeking incarnation can be given bodies without endangering the lives of the women who bear those bodies, and who therefore can banish the fear and anxiety which now mark countless bodies with the sign of degeneration and decay, the human race will have made a great stride upward.

THERE is a story told In Eastern tents, when autumn nights grow cold, And round the fire the Mongol shepherds sit With grave responses listening unto it: Once, on the errands of his mercy bent, Buddha, the holy and benevolent, Met a fell monster, huge and fierce of look, Whose awful voice the hills and forests shook. “O son of peace!” the giant cried, “thy fate Is sealed at last, and love shall yield to hate.” The unarmed Buddha looking with no trace Of fear or anger, in the monster’s face In pity said, “Poor fiend, even thee I love.” Lo! as he spake the sky-tall terror sank To hand-breadth size; the huge abhorrence shrank Into the form and fashion of a dove; And where the thunder of its rage was heard, Circling above him sweetly sang the bird, “Hate hath no harm for love,” so rang the song; “And peace unweaponed conquers every wrong!” —John Greenleaf Whittier —American Quaker Poet (1807-1892)

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