PRESENT-DAY CONDITIONS: THE COSMIC CAUSE
From the study of ancient sex-worship to our twentieth century systems
of religion; our scientific discoveries; our intellectual standards of
philosophy and social ethics; and above all, perhaps, our marvelous
commercial order, connecting, as it does, the entire globe, seems a
far cry; but it is only another link in a chain and fits into the past
as accurately and as inevitably as the morning follows the night.
There is an erroneous idea current that public institutions, such as
law-courts, religious creeds, educational systems, reform movements,
et cetera, are causes of race-advancement. As a matter of fact they
are not causes but results. They do not determine progress; they
reflect it.
Causes start from the Center and radiate outward. We may realize this
more readily if we will remember that if we throw a pebble into a pool
of water, it starts innumerable little waves which traveling outward,
reach a point some distance from the central source, and if we were to
see the outermost wavelet only, we might imagine that the disturbance
begins and ends far from the place where the pebble was thrown.
This illustration explains the difference between the materialistic
and the metaphysical points of view. The former notes the result, and
the latter the cause of existing conditions. The mystical viewpoint
takes into account the fact that there is a cosmic law which acts like
a tidal-wave. Materialists call the action of this law "Evolution,"
assuming that its impetus comes from our physical activities. It is,
in fact, from the Center or spiritual source of life that all power,
all evolution, emanates. The spiritual is the intensity of power; the
physical is the attenuated.
The term, "spiritual realms" suggests to the average mind a vaporous
space where nothing happens; yet it requires only a little intelligent
reflection to establish the fact that, as Paracelsus said long ago,
"The mind is the workshop in which all visible life is formed." Our
mental operations are silently, invisibly, carried on, and yet we see
the effect of these silent plans and ideas in our noisy methods of
locomotion; our architecture; our commerce--in all the avenues of our
active civilization.
We wish to emphasize the point that every so-called advancement; every
discovery; every improvement in moral ideals as well as in mechanics,
and in those things that add to our physical comfort, comes from the
center of Life.
The external but _reflects_ the action of the Cosmic Law which
uncovers the vast areas of consciousness and frees the human soul from
the hypnotisms, and the limitations of the animal-mind.
Animal force is still strong in the world to-day, but it is not as
strong as it appears to be, because much of the seeming indifference
and cold-heartedness of the people, taken en masse, is due to the
hurried, feverish and insistent demands of our external life.
Underneath the surface, in the realm of the sub-conscious activities,
there is developing the spirit of unity; of sympathy; and a
consciousness of our innate relationship. This realization comes to
the surface in times of great stress and peril.
The whole trend of modern life symbolizes or reflects the _ideal_ of
unity, albeit the tooth and claw and growl of the animal in Man may be
seen and felt and heard in the vain effort to postpone the inevitable
dethronement of the animal force, which would dominate the weaker and
appropriate for the personal self, the creation of brain and hand,
much as the house-dog, satiated with over-feeding, buries the bone he
cannot eat lest some hungry brother-dog shall get it. Nevertheless,
despite the animal greed that still shows in our modern life, there is
plenty of evidence that we are on the upward spiral that leads to
unity--the effect of love.
The superficial observer, dominated by that instinct of fear which
seems to be so ingrained in our animal nature that we are all slaves
to it in some form or degree, sees in the present-day conditions a
menace to what he believes to be the moral life of the race, and
particularly as these conditions apply to the modern woman.
He sees women coming out of the seclusion of their "rightful sphere"
and meeting men on terms of equality. He sees what he terms "immodest
dress;" defiance of traditional ideas of etiquette and conduct; he
notes what appears to be a disregard for the faith of our fathers;
and, above all, a distaste for that special function of
woman--child-bearing. The superficial observer, both male and female,
feels great alarm.
But let us not be dismayed. Present day conditions, particularly as
they relate to the female principle of Creation, but reflect the
inevitable reaction from a one-sided course. The pendulum swings back
again and ultimately we will strike a balance; from domination to
unity; from struggle to harmony. Even American commercial life admits
the value of a vacation time.
Present day conditions, then, are not chaotic or lacking in a
well-defined purpose, even though they are unsettled. Anything that
disturbs the seeming placidity of the surface always strikes alarm to
the undeveloped mind. Particularly in those phases of our modern life
which directly affect women, or in which we may say, the Female
Principle is especially concerned, we note a determined and united
demand for freedom.
Woman's demand for political equality is but a shadowgraph as it were
of the real demand which is the demand of the Divine Feminine
throughout all manifested life, for recognition of equality, in the
plan of creation. It is a symbol of the ideal of unity which finds
expression in the commercial world in trusts and labor unions; in the
"let us get together" plea of the various advocates of reform; of all
those enterprises which are seen to most directly affect the entire
human family.
That there are women who are blind to this fundamental idea of their
demand for political equality is true; and it is also true that there
are perhaps as many men as there are women who recognize the need of
woman's political and social equality, but this only proves the fact
which we have already emphasized, namely that it is not women as
personalities, but the Female Principle throughout the universe that
is at the root of the modern Feminist Movement. The male principle is
not confined to the form of man, neither is the female principle
always expressed in the form of woman. Many men exemplify more of the
maternal instinct than do certain women; neither must it be assumed
that this type of man is effeminate; or that the woman of Amazonian
physique is more masculine in thought and habit than is the little
frou-frou specimen of womankind who looks appealingly into the eyes of
her male escort, beseeching protection from the rude stares which she
has premeditatedly invited. Qualities are sexless and universal. It is
only in their specific combinations that they adequately represent the
masculine or the feminine gender.
Blessed are they who have learned the art of discrimination.
Broadly speaking, women are behaving in a manner which upsets all
precedent and promises ultimate emancipation from restraint.
But is it not possible that women no longer need restraint if they
ever needed it? Is it not possible that the world has grown up, and
that both men and women may safely be allowed the freedom of
self-government, with all possible mutual aid in the work of
establishing an upright, free, and trustworthy science of right
living?
That which is always in the future is never ours and if we are ever
going to be free and happy and well-conditioned there is no reason why
we should not make it soon.
Woman's demand for political equality is sometimes used as an excuse
to lessen her dignity and her place in society. People who do this are
of the same type as those before whom Sex cannot be discussed
intelligently because they do not realize the sacredness of Sex. They
are a remnant of the ages which have passed and which have left their
mark, in the idea of a half-sexed God, the "He," the spouseless Father
who brought forth the visible universe apparently without co-operation
with the Female Principle. This type of person prates much about the
dangers of race-suicide, meaning thereby the increasing tendency to
childlessness and not as should be taken into account the death rate
among children who are born of diseased and unfit parents and brought
into existence without the necessary conditions of sanitation, food
and care.
Our national Eugenic societies are hampered by false ideas of what
constitutes morality, being bound to uphold the tradition that the
child that is born of married parents, no matter how diseased in body
and deficient in mind, is better-born than is the offspring of
unmarried parents, even though the latter may be a model of physical
health and mental efficiency. Eugenics will remain limited in scope
until such time as the entire world adopts "in spirit and in truth"
the recent action of the European governments, and recognizes the
legitimacy of all children however born.
And although the action of the European governments was born of
nothing more humane than a war expediency in order that more soldiers
might be bred, yet the effect of such a course will benefit the human
race. It has at least set a precedent, and will in time be extended to
all children born out of wedlock and will wipe out forever the cruel
and unjust stigma that has attached to the child of unmarried parents.
Thus it will be seen that even war has its good results, and although
it seems a terrible price to pay for even so badly a needed reform as
this, Humanity has always paid dearly for its willful blindness. It
certainly should be evident to any sane mind that every child that is
born into this world has a moral and a legal right to be here.
Whatever may be said for or against parents, it is wicked stupidity to
brand an innocent child with the epithet "illegitimate." The lowest
animal has a right to be born. Many a beautiful and innocent child is
denied that right.
If it has taken one of the most bloody wars in history to establish
the right of birth, even so the struggle will not have been in vain,
because this right, once established in the hearts of all Humanity,
will forever do away with warfare. No doubt this assertion will sound
far-fetched to many, but the future will see the vindication of this
belief.
Birth is actually the most important function in life. If it is
immoral to be born, no matter what the conditions of such birth, what
possible chance have we to live morally? We cannot discriminate in
dealing with the great fundamentals of life.
This truism, applies to all cosmic action. Nature's laws are
inviolable. Nature says that the child of the king and the child of
the beggar shall be born in the self-same way. The child of the
unmarried mother and the child of the married mother come into the
world in accordance with the self-same law of reproduction. Nature may
not be always polite, but she is always truthful.
As long as there is any question of the "legitimacy" of any birth,
Humanity as a whole cannot be otherwise than inferior, because
Humanity cannot rise higher than the ideal of the average. Moreover we
are so interdependent that the whole must be affected by the
conditions of a part.
Birth is right, or it is wrong. It cannot be right under some
circumstances and wrong under others. The primal laws do not take into
account our ideas of respectability.
The question then arises: "Are we to consider it moral and legitimate
for women to have children before they have been married?"
The obvious answer to this question is, that the mother must be
permitted to decide this for herself, since no one has a right to do
it for her. Our right of interference in so intimate a matter must
begin only at the point where her conduct injures us. If an unmarried
woman chooses to give birth to a child, neither you nor I, nor Society
is injured, not even if the child becomes a charge of the state,
because the cost of maintaining a child is far less than that of
maintaining insane asylums and penitentiaries--both of which result
from our mistaken attitude toward the sex-relation.
If we are permitted to answer the question of morality and legitimacy
by generalities, we will say that any child that comes into the world
_desired by the mother_ is born in accordance with the highest
possible concept of the moral law. Whenever Society, Church and
Governments shall unite to wipe out the stain upon mother and child
because of failure to comply with our marriage laws, a better race of
men and women will people the earth, because the race-thought will be
one of welcome with all that word implies; whereas at the present
time, under our undeveloped ideas of morality, doubt, suspicion, and
condemnation prevail, with all that these words imply.
When all mothers are honored all women will be willing to be mothers.
As long as dishonor attaches to any instance of motherhood, it is
inevitable that motherhood will be avoided, even to the point of
child-murder. Not that this practice is confined to the women who
would be dishonored by becoming mothers. It obtains rather more
perhaps among those women whose wealth and ease would seem to make
motherhood desirable. Judging from surface conditions only, one might
not see the connection. But that is the trouble with our modern life.
We do not look deeply enough to deal intelligently with causes. We are
always seeking to check effects.
The average human being is little more than a phonographic record of
the dominant race-thought, and race-thought ideas are contagious.
Let us honor and provide for all mothers and all children and we will
find that the birthrate will increase among the "rich and
respectable," where now we note a determined desire to shirk the
responsibilities of parenthood.
We need not fear that the number of unmarried mothers will be
alarming. The first aid to true morality is honesty. Monogamy is the
ideal relationship between men and women. But enforced relationships
are neither ideal nor true. Ideal conditions can be established only
between free human beings. Compulsion is death. Selection and choice
mean life and health.
The man or the woman who is free, and particularly free from
self-condemnation, is instinctively monogamous. Life in all its phases
tends upward toward conscious and specific selection. Conscious
selection must include love, and we may safely trust love. Love is
inseparable from truth and fidelity. Without love, all the efforts of
all the Eugenic Societies on earth will accomplish little, however
well-meant their efforts. Eugenists confine their work to the physical
aspect of the subject and as a matter of expediency deal with the
effects of marriage and race-propagation in their relation to disease
and degeneracy, ignoring the esoteric phase of the subject. Thus no
real good can come of the Eugenic movement per se. Its contribution to
Progress consists in its value as an "announcer" of a higher _ideal_,
rather than a higher _order_. The higher order can come only by
getting back to primal laws.
The fact should not be overlooked that the ancient Greeks were
competent Eugenists. They effected wonderful results, too, in two
important points of the well-balanced individual. They worked for
beauty and intellect, both desirable adjuncts to a perfect race, but
both also as cold as the marble statues which Greece gave to the
world. Greek and Roman civilization toppled and fell because it was a
civilization without foundation; it was built from the outside; it was
like an old ruined house encased in a thin wall of beautiful marble,
and set upon a high hill. It deceives the eye from a distance, but
freezes the blood and congeals the soul when intimately known.
Greek and Roman civilization, based upon physical Eugenics, was
unbalanced and could not endure, because it was a civilization of
force; of dominance rather than of unity. There was no ideal of
sex-equality, and therefore Love was regarded as the least important
requisite in Eugenic marriage. It should be obvious that without the
element of love, as the basis of selection, human reproduction must
take on the same status as stock-breeding, which may for a time give
the finest physical specimens of animal life, but which, if persisted
in, finally results in decadence.
We have an example of the tendency to decadence from in-breeding of
those types of humans which have the best advantages at least of
education and refinement, whether or not those advantages are
embraced. We refer to Royalty. We need only mention the illustrious
example of Cleopatra to prove this. Cleopatra was the offspring of a
marriage between a brother and sister--a custom which prevailed among
ancient rulers to insure none but royal blood. Cleopatra we may well
believe was both beautiful and intellectual, but it is also certain
that she was abnormally lacking in conscience, in tenderness, in love.
Her passions were those of the animal, and not of the soul.
In modern life, Spain and Austria both furnish discouraging data to
exponents of "select" breeding. In fact it is thoroughly established
that degeneracy is not the result of imperfect physical conditions
only. The greatest villians are not infrequently both handsome and
intellectual.
Bulwer Lytton well illustrates this fact in his character of
"Margrave" in "A Strange Story." Margrave was a perfect and beautiful
physical specimen. He possessed rare intelligence, but he had no soul
and was utterly incapable of the finer sensibilities, which we
instinctively classify as spiritual attributes.
Returning to a consideration of what has been termed the "unusual
behavior" of the feminine half of mankind, we find that the chief end
and aim of many women centers upon the problem of how to avoid
maternity, quite upsetting traditional ideas regarding woman's
rightful sphere, which began and ended in rearing a large family.
Women in all walks of life, rich and poor, wise and frivolous, selfish
and unselfish--are refusing to bear children. The superficial observer
rails against this, because he sees only the effect. He sees women
living in fashionable hotels, if they are rich enough to afford it; if
they are poor they establish a cheap imitation of this phase of
semi-communal life in what is paradoxically known as "light"
housekeeping, usually represented by one small dark room where the
nearest delicatessen serves as a convenience, the public laundry
minimizes domestic labor, and the department store supplies ready
made, the family clothing, from undergarments to top coats. Under
these conditions, whether of fashionable hotel suites or dark "light
housekeeping," it is plain that children are not welcome.
Even those of the class found between these extremes are discouraged
from rearing children, since city life tends more and more to
apartments as a substitute for the home; and no well regulated
apartment house is open to children. The average observer, as we say,
notes these conditions, but fails to realize that there must be a
cosmic cause for a condition so wide-spread. There must be "something
back of it," as we say of many things which we note in our every day
life. Looked at from the surface only, these conditions seem
deplorable and ultimately race-suicidal. But the cosmic law is always
upward in tendency. We may safely trust it, if we will.
This does not mean that the conscious motive which actuates the
average woman, who is able physically and financially to bear children
and yet will not, is a high and noble one. The law deals with the
planet, not directly with the individual; it acts upon the developed
and the undeveloped with equal impartiality, even as the rain falls
upon the just and the unjust alike.
Spiritually conscious persons realize the necessity for a change in
human ethics. The world is in need of a more exalted ideal; an ideal
in which equality shall be more nearly represented and they give
themselves consciously to the task of assisting in this regenerating
work.
The difference is not in the law itself, but in our comprehension of
it. The curriculum of the school of life is unchanged. We graduate
from it or we return for another term, according as we have mastered
the studies. Applying this truth to the conditions just stated, and we
see that this rebellion on the part of woman against child birth has
two aspects. One is from apparent selfishness and lack of the
temperamental quality, which has erroneously been attributed to women
as an exclusive possession, namely, the maternal instinct.
The other aspect of woman's disinclination to maternity is due to a
restless, vague but nevertheless determined desire on the part of the
Feminine Principle, to wait until conditions are more equal. Sometimes
we find women, who are perfectly awake and consciously aware of the
cause of their "brazen sterility," as a virile writer has caustically
termed it; but more often the conscious mental attitude is lacking and
they merely obey blindly the dominant race-mind.
Women know much more in the depths of their souls than they can put
into words. A part of this knowledge is the fact that child-bearing is
not a function limited to the physical, the mortal plane of life.
Every woman who is anywhere near balanced in the struggle for
completeness knows intuitively, that even though she may never beget
mortal children, there are innumerable opportunities for the exercise
of her maternal functions, awaiting her just behind the veil, which
seemingly separates us from invisible areas. Moreover motherhood is
qualitative. It is not synonymous with maternity. It is not made nor
unmade by the birthrate.
Two important considerations present themselves to the world today: One
is that woman--considered as the fecund receptive sex-principle--is
refusing the sex relationship on the old basis, however "respectable"
and well-intentioned that basis was. Generally speaking, it is evident
that the old basis of intercourse between the sexes has been, is
being, and will continue to be, disrupted, denied, refused, as the
approved and fixed plan and purpose of Destiny. The other important
observation is this: there is a cosmic cause for this.
It is only those who are blinded by prejudice or by sense-conscious
limitations who refuse to look below the surface for the cause of a
condition so general as that of unhappy marriages; of innumerable
divorces; of the refusal to bear children. What is the cause? Why are
women refusing to marry, or when they do marry refusing to live with
their husbands? Why do they shrink from child-birth? Are they less
courageous than their progenitors? Or are women less capable of
love--either love of children or love of the father who begets the
children?
It will be agreed that we are establishing a higher standard of love
than ever before in history. We are beginning to realize for the first
time in the history of many generations, what we owe to the future.
Formerly men built entirely for self, and for the immediate present.
We can look back and trace the development of a race consciousness
from the clan to the nation. In this century we see the barriers
between races and nations and sects and societies, as also between the
sexes, slowly dissolving.
Only a few years ago we could not imagine an Oriental, occupying a
political, or educational or religions platform with an Occidental.
Now it is a common thing. We know the hostility which has existed
between the Jew and the Gentile--now they exchange pulpits, and all
sects and all nations unite in matters of world interest. Women are
elected to political and educational offices. No matter that these
evidences of unity are as yet incomplete. They are _promises_ of the
birth of a larger concept of love than that which prevailed when a
man's highest idea of honor and of love was to protect his immediate
family only; to care for his own legal wife and children even at the
expense of and certainly with heartless indifference to the fate of
any other women and children.
To be sure, this protection has often been vouchsafed because of the
self interest which is inseparable from the idea of possession and is
not, per se, a grander or nobler impulse than that which actuated our
hair-clothed antecedents, who found that their own lives were best
conserved by respecting those nearest to them. But thus it is that
Love has been implanted in human hearts through no higher or more
altruistic method than that of self-interest; but the nature of love
is to expand; to grow; to _give_ of itself until unselfishness must
come with the final aim of love, which is _unity_ and not possession.
We of this era are unquestionably manifesting a larger and more
inclusive ideal of love, and since the Female Principle conserves the
higher aspects of love, we are bound to concede that a higher ideal of
love is possible to the woman of today than ever before. We must take
into consideration the average of the sex, at the same time not
forgetting that in the highest type of individual, the qualities of
both sexes are balanced, uniting the spiritual, self-sacrificing and
unselfish love-element of the female principle, with the wider scope,
the inclusive element of the male. Let us remember that we are dealing
with principles and not merely with individuals.
Admitting that it is not because of lack of love, either maternal or
conjugal, that women are shirking marriage and maternity, we may then
ask: "What is the cause?" The answer may be found in the conclusion
that women are done with mere instinctive procreation. They demand
conditions consistent with the birth of a higher type of human-kind.
They desire to "make right the way" for the coming of the perfect
race--a race that will not snarl and bite and growl and tear and claw
and choke and starve and freeze and otherwise kill each other over the
possession of bones.
Ever and ever we have been promised the coming of the perfect man--the
"man-god," as Emerson said. This means the God in Man consciously
active, and awake. This God-nature of Man's has been asleep, submerged
under the domination of the animal nature which subdues and
appropriates.
A race of supermen can be born only of full and complete union.
Animals reproduce their kind, but man's perogative is to invite the
gods to come to earth. We may consciously beget souls, not merely
reproduce bodies. Women are demanding a union in which there shall be
something more than mere physical contact resulting in reproduction.
This demand is working itself out more or less blindly according to
the development of individual women, but the ideal of soul union is
coming to be more and more recognized not only as a desirable type of
union, but also as the initiative of the promised time when the
kingdom of God should come on earth as it is in the heavens.
All races have uttered this prayer, apparently with a firm belief in
its efficacy. If they have not faith in its appeal, it were surely
vain and foolish to voice it But we are assured that "God always keeps
his promises," which is simply one way of saying that the law of the
cosmos is reliable.
"One calls it Evolution and another calls it God," but both must agree
that whether God or Evolution be the name, Love is the result. There
can be no higher or more spiritual phase of life than that in which
Love is an ever-present reality. Neither can we with any degree of
logic assume that a function so universal, so all-pervading, and also
so inspiring, as that of Sex, has its beginning and its termination on
the physical plane--a manifestation of life which even physicists are
bound to concede is an infinitesimal part of cosmic activities.
We need not worry therefore lest the race shall die, because of a
decreasing birthrate as we see it on the physical plane. There are
many other places and planes of consciousness. The stars and the
planets are peopled. The cosmos is very much alive, because Sex is the
axis (X-is) upon which it rotates in perfect harmony.
The fact which we here wish to emphasize is that the Female Principle
is refusing maternity, and above all the _bondage_ of matrimony for
the important reason that the time has come for the rearing of the
Man-god; for the establishment of the spiritual function of sex,
superceding the mere instinctive animal urge of procreation and sense
gratification.
Evolution is apparent in all other phases of our life-activities. Why
should it not manifest in this most important of all our systems of
intercourse?
The mere act of bringing forth children is not in itself either sacred
or holy. Far more often it has been a perfunctory duty or a punishment
for indulgence in an act of which men and women have been more than
half ashamed, even while seeking it with the instinctive urge of a
cosmic law which cannot be escaped, although it may be co-operated
with to advantage.
Nor does the act of giving birth to children confer true motherhood.
Maternity is not necessarily motherhood any more than matrimony is
always marriage. There are many mothers who have never borne children.
And there are many women with children who know not the first faint
dawn of that wonderful, beautiful and intense (because spiritual) love
which comes most often in the guise of motherhood, but which is
always present when two souls who are truly mated contact each other's
inner nature.
If the women of today will insist upon the sacredness and the
rightfulness of birth the women of tomorrow will not seek to evade
motherhood. If the women of today will establish the sacredness of all
life; if they will not rest until every child that is born into this
world is recognized as legitimate and more, is welcomed; is given
every advantage of education, of healthful body, of right moral
training, rest assured that the women of the future will seek only to
rival each other in the quality and the perfection of their
motherhood.
The efforts of many radicals to enact legislation regulating the
birthrate, the struggle to disseminate knowledge of how to prevent
conception, may be well meant as these things are consistent with
prevailing conditions. But they are not the final answer to the
problem. Love is the only answer. Where love is permitted to rule,
children are not only welcome but ecstatically desired and provided
for.
Motherhood is a hope and a joy to the normal woman. Comparatively
every woman would be normal under proper social and economic
conditions. When women seek to evade maternity it is either because of
lack of sufficient means to care for children, or it is because of
lack of sufficient love. Or it is because of fear of that modern
mo-loch, Public Opinion.
When a woman truly loves a man, she longs to be the mother of his
children. A balanced world will make it possible for every woman to be
free from the bondage of fear and poverty, and ill-health, leaving her
free to be guided in the most vital and important function of her
life, by the call of the highest love of which she is capable. Love
will establish motherhood as a divine privilege. Certainly no other
power on earth or in the realms above can do so. Neither preachments
nor platitudes, nor punishments, nor legislative blunderings. Love is
the only saviour of mankind. There is no other true God.
Some day the symbol of Deity which now depicts Man crucified will be
superseded upon all altars by the image of a winged babe, and when
this comes to pass, Humanity will rise to that ideal.