THE LAW OF SEX
Synthetic Philosophy and Comparative Theology have sought wisely to
establish a common basis for human thought and aspiration. From the
complex of life and thought they have argued to fundamental unity. It
has been well said that the foolish and superficial look for differences
in things about them, but the wise seek for the underlying identity. In
the last analysis of things animate and inanimate, we are faced by the
insoluble fact of sex distinction.
When we speak of chemical affinity, of magnetism, of polarity, we are
really speaking in terms of sex. However far we push back our
investigations along the lines of evolution we come at length to the
distinction which separates one-half of nature from the other, and which
is seen to be at the root of all natural attractions and to be the
source of generation. Sex, as considered by itself and apart from
function and organism, may be the result of a mode of vibration. We
cannot say. We may go right back to the first principles of our
conception of Life and we find the active and passive principles of
Force and Matter, Heat and Moisture, Fire and Water, penetrating through
the various philosophies and schools of thought, but always a duality.
Even in the Theological conception we have the divine principles of
Wisdom and Love in apposition, but united for the purpose of Creation
and Preservation of the Universe. It is a mystery that cannot be solved.
We cannot in fact, determine whether sex distinction is temporary or
eternal. We have reason to regard it as radical and not accidental. For
whereas in the process of evolution it appears from time to time to
merge in various forms and to become hermaphroditic, we find it
continually emerging again, persistent and irrepressible.
From the occult point of view it appears to be impounded in the very
elements of our being. It has been shown in these pages that the
Microcosmic Man is an epitome of the universe, compounded of universal
elements, and responsive at all points to the laws controlling the
cosmos. It has also been shown that the Moon, so far as this earth is
concerned, is the cosmic factor which represents variability. It has
also been shown that it exercises first influence in the process of
generation, and, therefore we may expect to find it intimately connected
with the question of sex. It is, in fact, found to be the factor which
determines the astral forces towards the evolution of sex function and
organism.
By an empiricism based on an occult law and proved by the application of
this law to hundreds of cases of well-authenticated births, it has been
established that the determination of sex follows a definite course from
a certain point of time bearing a mathematical and astronomical
relationship to the moment of birth. Thus, given the moment at which a
birth took place in any locality, it is possible to at once indicate the
sex without the fact being communicated. By this I do not mean that sex
production is voluntary in human or animal generation. That is a problem
which the Eugenists should consider in the light of the law of sex I am
now concerned with.
The four cardinal points of the zodiac, Aries 0°, Libra 0, Capricorn 0
and Cancer 0, are the generating points of the circle or Wheel of Life.
These points are not artificial. They are natural. They mark the stages
at which the Sun in its apparent course about the earth cross the
equator, and attain the maximum and minimum degrees of elevation. By
analogy they are related to the Dawn, Noon, Sunset and Midnight of the
daily circle; to the Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter of the year; and
to the periods of Childhood, Manhood, Maturity and Senility in the life
of man. It is this consent of Nature to the universal paradigm that
enables us to trace the course of mundane events from astral conditions
in force at these several points of the year, as Kepler allowed from his
own experience, and as Astrologers find continually to be the case.
Taking these four points of the zodiac, then, as the starting-points for
the determination of cosmic forces ultimating as sex, we find that Aries
0 is female, Capricornus 0 male, Libra 0 male and Cancer 0 female. They
follow the lines of the segmentation of the cell in the animal organism.
Thus—
[Illustration: Figure 28.]
From each of these points there are six others generated, which are
alternately male and female in potentiality.
Here it is necessary to introduce the lunar factor, since it is the
means of the distribution of the “sex degrees” as we may call them,
which are generated from the four cardinal points. For this purpose we
have to regard the moon in relation to the number 7, which is the number
of days in which it forms its successive phases. From one phase to
another is a quadrant of 90° and this divided by seven will give the
mean acceleration of 12-6/7°. If we divide the circle into seven parts
we shall get 51-3/7° and further dividing this into four parts, in order
to get the twenty-eight days of the Moon’s passage, we shall have again
12-6/7°.
It is the septenate division of the circle which enables us to get the
sex degrees that are generated from the four cardinal points. Thus, from
Aries 0 we arrive at Taurus 21-3/7, Cancer 12-6/7, Virgo 4-2/7, Libra
25-5/7, Sagittarius 17-1/7, and Aquarius 8-4/7. These are found to be
male and female in alternation. From Libra 0 we derive the same degrees
of the opposite signs, but the sex is reversed in each case. From
Capricornus we derive Leo 21, Libra 13, Sagittarius 4, Capricorn 26,
Pisces 17, and Taurus 8, the sex of each being the same as the
corresponding degrees of the zodiac generated from Libra. From Cancer we
derive the same degrees of the opposite signs to those derived from
Capricornus, but the sex is reversed in each case.
There are thus four sets of degrees alternately male and female in
tendency which are generated from the four cardinal points, and these
may be set out in order as derived, thus—
[Illustration: Figure 29.]
It will be observed that the fractions are omitted and the nearest
complete degree inserted. Then if we arrange these four sets of degrees
into their groups under the radical generator, we shall have a central
generating point with a six-pointed star or interlaced triangle around
it, the upright triangle being male and the reversed triangle female at
the radials. Each of these stars will occupy one of the four cardinal
points of the Cosmic Cross.
[Illustration: Figure 30. Diagram of the Cosmic Star. Showing the
generation of the Sex Degrees of the Zodiac from the Four Cardinal
Points.]
The application of the Law of Sex requires some little astronomical
practice. It is first of all necessary to find the place of the Moon at
the time of birth. If the moon is found in a sex degree or within three
degrees of one, it will retain the sex of that degree. Otherwise, it is
necessary to observe whether the Moon is increasing or decreasing at the
time, and if increasing, the Moon’s place must be put on the East
horizon, but if decreasing, it will be on the West horizon. This
position is found to answer to the Moon’s place at the Prenatal Epoch,
concerning which some explanation is necessary.
The normal period of human gestation is nine solar or ten lunar months.
It will be found that the moon makes ten revolutions while the Sun
passes through nine signs of the zodiac. But this normal period may be
increased or decreased, and that quite normally, by the relative
positions of the luminaries at the time of inception. I use this word to
distinguish it from conception, which term connotes certain
physiological processes and facts. The astral factor should not be
identified in point of time with the physiological processes of coitus
and impregnation.
Now it is found that when at birth the Moon is increasing in light, that
is, going towards the full, and above the horizon, or conversely,
decreasing in light and below the horizon, the period from birth to
inception is _less_ than ten lunar months by a quantity determined by
the Moon’s distance from the horizon. But when the Moon at birth is
found to be decreasing and above the horizon, or increasing and below
the horizon, the period of time from birth to inception is found to be
_more_ than ten lunar months by a quantity determined by the Moon’s
distance from the horizon.
The measure of this plus or minus quantity is thus computed. The Moon’s
distance is taken from the horizon East or West, according as it is
increasing or decreasing in light. If increasing, it is taken from the
East, and if decreasing from the West. The number of zodiacal degrees
between the Moon and the horizon thus indicated has then to be divided
by the Moon’s mean diurnal motion, which is 13° 11´ roughly, and this
will be the number of days more or less than ten lunar revolutions by
which the birth is separated from the inception.
This calculation from the Moon’s position in the zodiac and prime
vertical enables us certainly to fix the day of the inception. The next
step is to find the time of day at which the Moon is in exact
horoscopical relations with the moment of birth.
This is done by a single observation. In all normal cases it is found
that if the Moon is increasing in light at the time of birth, that is to
say, going from the new to the full, its longitude at the moment of
birth will be the ascendant at the inception, and if decreasing at birth
its longitude will be the descendant at the moment of the inception.
Then universally it is found that the Moon is, at that moment, in the
exact longitude which was rising or setting at the birth. Now having the
moon’s acceleration as a variable factor, ranging from 11° 50´ to 15°
17´ per day, the chances are millions to one against the Moon being in
the exact degree and minute that was on the horizon at birth at the same
time that the Moon’s place at birth was rising or setting on a local
horizon. Yet this is found to be the fact! What other conclusion can we
come to, having regard to all the factors employed, and the wonderful
harmony that is observed to result, than that “God geometrizes,” as
Plato wisely said. Things do not happen by chance, but by law. Law is
the expression of intelligence inhering in action. The universe is
rendered intelligible by its laws. Whatever is intelligible expresses
Intelligence.
But we have yet to consider the variation of the law that is conformable
to the Law of Sex. This Law of Lunar Appulsion in the matter of human
generation would work out exactly as stated above in every case were it
not for the fact that Sex is the dominant and controlling factor, and
that by reason of it a birth may be delayed or advanced by a period
ranging from a fortnight to as much as two months. For, whatever may be
the other factors involved in the horoscopical conditions of a birth,
sex must be satisfied first and foremost. It is the controlling factor.
Observe, then, that if the birth is male and the Moon occupies a female
degree, as indicated above, should the Moon be increasing in light, the
Law of Lunar Appulsion already detailed will require that the Moon’s
place should rise at the Epoch of inception or, as it is called, the
“Prenatal Epoch,” and consequently a female degree would be rising at
such Epoch. This would be contrary to the sex, and consequently we know
that the Moon’s place at birth must be setting at the Epoch, so that a
male degree may be rising. This is the case, _mutatus mutandis_, when
the Moon is in a male degree and the sex is female. Then, this
adjustment being duly made, it is found that the horoscope resulting
will find the Moon in the exact degree that was rising at birth. Exactly
similar considerations hold in the case of a Moon that is decreasing at
birth. This is the first establishment of the Law of Sex as controlling
the time of birth.
The next is when the Moon does not occupy a sex degree but is more than
three degrees removed from either male or female degrees. In such case
we have to consider whether the degree on the horizon at the moment of
birth pertains to either sex. For if it be so, and the degree is of the
sex of the child born, then we know that the Moon was in that degree at
the Epoch, whether it was increasing or decreasing in light at the
birth. This will control the day of birth in the same way that the first
rule controlled the moment of it. Only when neither the Moon nor the
horizon are occupied by sex degrees the Law of Lunar Appulsion operates
without restriction. This clearly shows that the Law of Sex is
paramount, and that it can and does control the Law of Lunar Appulsion.
By appulsion we mean that outbreathing from the moon-sphere towards the
earth which corresponds to the diastole of respiration, by which the
vital forces of the cosmos focussed by the Moon are carried towards the
earth for the production and sustentation of the species.
If this Law were a matter of chance it will be seen by any one
acquainted with the astronomical facts, that the chances are dead
against it working out in practice. Yet the facts are in daily test by
astrologers the world over, and we may hence conclude that the Law of
Sex has absolutely been discovered, or at all events the rules by which
we may recognize its cosmic relations.
With a closer knowledge of the initial stages of generation, it will be
possible, by a reversal of the factors here employed, to argue from the
inception to the birth, instead of as now from the birth backwards to
the Epoch of inception. In such case we shall have obtained the secret
of how to determine the sex of offspring at will. That the Prenatal
Epoch here established answers to some incipient stage of the process of
generation there can be no reasonable doubt whatever, for wherever the
time of birth is accurately taken by a medical man it answers exactly to
the astronomical considerations required by the Law as formulated.
Elsewhere I have delivered a diagram showing the Moon’s position for
each month from the inception to the birth, from which we see that there
is a definite law of pulsation marking a spiral descent of the Monad
along the line of energy instituted between the Moon’s place at the
Epoch and the point of the zodiac on the horizon at the moment of birth.
This I have called the Descent of the Monad, and it affords a study of
the greatest psychological value. Very many attempts have been made on
the part of gynecologists to ascertain the law controlling Sex, and I
have introduced this section in the hope that such as may have a
practical interest in this question will avail themselves of the facts
so far derived from the study of occultism.