CONTINENCE; CHASTITY AND ASCETICISM; THEIR SPIRITUAL SIGNIFICANCE
From the earliest forms of sex-worship, in which the creative function
was doubtless given its rightful place, down through successive stages
of sex-degeneracy, we come to the sex-perversions and the almost
general licentiousness of Ancient Greece and Rome, with whom the sex
function became nothing more exalted than a method of procreation, in
common with the animals; and a means of sense-gratification, on a par
with gluttony.
Even among the intellectual Greeks, the highest type of a civilization
that, although epicurean and esthetic, was yet essentially
materialistic, sexual intercourse had no more spiritual place than it
occupies today in fine stock-breeding.
Between ancient Roman licentiousness and our own modern attitude
toward the sex-relation, there intervenes that terrible time in the
history of Human Evolution, known as the Dark Ages, in which was
evolved the unnatural view of the function of sex, exemplified rather
erotically, in many instances, by asceticism and celibacy. Although it
sounds paradoxical, yet there is a celibacy that is distinctly erotic.
In reading of some of the experiences in the lives of the saints, the
normal, healthy person feels an aversion similar to that which he
experiences in viewing the effects of physical disease; and yet we
must note in this abnormal attitude of the Church toward the
sex-relation, the effect of nature's attempt at equilibrium; a
revulsion from the effect of the centuries preceding.
Some of the contributing causes of this revulsion were: celibacy,
except within the Church, forbidden by the Roman Senate; the fact that
women had no choice in marriage; the devastating wars which took the
best of physical manhood; and the cheapness of women, every man of
wealth having as many slave women as he could house and feed; the
orgies where women, both bound and free, were openly debauched; all
these evidences of the utter degradation to which the pure and
beautiful function of sex had sunk, called for a revulsion; and it
came in the idea of asceticism--an instance where the remedy was worse
than the disease. The mental attitude that resulted in asceticism was
not one in which the sex function was lifted from the mire of
licentiousness in which it lay; rather it was abandoned altogether as
something vile and unclean; and that too, unhappily, by those who
should have known better.
The Roman Church, in full accord with the type of Roman mind which
fostered it, still harbored the perverted idea that women were
inferior. And it is from the Roman Church of today rather more than
from any other of the phases of Christian Orthodoxy, that we note a
militant opposition to woman suffrage, and all the other avenues of
woman's claim to free expression.
While retaining all the old Roman's disrespect for woman, the Church
instituted and fostered celibacy, as a way out of the old profiligacy,
but as though by a sort of spiritual irony, the Church has retained,
from its "pagan" ancestors, the sex-worshippers, the idol of the Holy
Virgin. And despite the bombardments of criticism from without and the
inculcation of superstitious ignorance from within, the pure-hearted
children of the Church have always gone to the "Holy Mother" for their
comfort; and thus the eternal fires of Truth have smouldered beneath
the ashes of perverted mysticism throughout the Dark Ages that are
gone and the scarcely lighter Dawn that is here. Those who have eyes
to see, realize that the one worth-while thing which the old,
nearly-blind Church has been unwittingly doing all the time, has been
to hold to this central truth of all Life--religious, social,
national, and domestic--the truth that it is only by exalting the
maternal function of human life, that we can hope to reach the saviour
of mankind.
And, lest there be still some misconception of what we consider to be
the true "saviour" of mankind, we will again state, even as the Church
itself states it, "the babe of Bethlehem"--the pure Love between one
man and one woman; the "twain made one," which is the only saviour
that ever was or ever will be--the pure Christ-child that is born of
conterpartal union.
Let those who would cling to the idea of an individual man, born in a
city called "Bethlehem" as the saviour of the world, remember that
even so, the city derived its name from the word, "bethel," meaning a
pure white stone, rounded at the top, in exact imitation of the
omphalos of Apollo, in the temple of Delphi. And when the shock of his
discovery has somewhat subsided, and his prejudices have been
swallowed up in a desire for the whole Truth, let him remember also
that this central idea has been the foundation of all religious rites
since time began; and instead of feeling that the whole fabric of
Christianity has been rent by the light of scientific discovery, he
will see that it has merely been _revealed_, and the revelation will
prove to him that Truth is the most beautiful, the most spiritual and
the most satisfying thing in life, because the Truth is that Perfect
Love is the only passport to immortal bliss. No one can withhold
Heaven from us, if we have this perfect love.
Thus the essentials of Christianity are the essentials of every other
religious system; and the essentials are: Love is the One true and
only God; and Sex is the form in which this Bi-une God appears;
according to our individual and collective reverence for this bi-une
God, will be our spiritual development.
We do not reverence sex when we cheapen it by dissipation; or when we
abandon it as unclean and unworthy and unholy; both attitudes are
abnormal, and unbalanced.
Spiritual consciousness aims at equilibrium. The perfectly balanced
person is equally developed on all planes; the perfectly balanced
individual, in sufficient numbers, will produce a balanced and
therefore a healthy social organization; and a balanced and
healthy-minded race of beings will result in a balanced sphere; this
fact is foreshadowed by the postulate which Science is now
considering, to wit: the earth's axis may be straightened, and, if so,
a uniform temperature will prevail on this globe.
Returning to a consideration of the subjects which head this chapter,
we find it necessary to clear the ground a little, in regard to a
definition of words.
The word continence should apply to the act of self-restraint in the
matter of the emotions, desires, and passions, whether of the
sex-passion or the passion of anger, avarice, or gluttony. The word
has come to mean, in many cases, the total abstinence from the
sex-relation, because of the general idea which has prevailed, that
any indulgence of sex-love was a confession of weakness. In fact, our
modern ideas regarding this subject are so chaotic and so manifestly
paradoxical that they are absurd.
On the one hand we have a tradition that motherhood is a beautiful and
holy thing; on the other, we regard the sex-relation, per se, as an
indecent thing, or at best as a weakness of the flesh.
We have the obvious demonstration that creation is possible only
because of the conjunction of the two sexes, and yet we are taught
that sex-love is something which is permitted to us in this lower
state of our being, and denied in heaven, and at the same time we are
told that God creates everything, and God dwells in Heaven, where
there is no such "polluting sin" as sex-love.
We certainly do need balance.
The word chastity conveys to the mind (and this is not confined to the
undeveloped person, but is general) the idea of a woman who is devoid
of the sex-impulse. Chastity, like the word virtue, suggests to our
minds no relationship to the character, or inner nature of a person;
it has come to be applied to the physical anatomy, and we are not
surprised when we realize that the word is seldom used in connection
with the male. It is strictly a female attribute--nay, we may almost
say, "organ."
If a woman, for any reason whatsoever, whether through lack of
opportunity; through hereditary causes; or through repression,
or--which occurs more frequently--as a commercial expediency,
believing that her person will thus bring more in the matrimonial
market--if, as we say, for any reason, however sordid, a woman escapes
bodily sex-contact, she is called "chaste" and her "virtue" is
extolled.
This is, of course, not a far cry from the ancient days when a
bridegroom had the right to turn the bride away from his door, should
the evidence of her virginity be lacking; whereupon the poor creature
was stoned to death, a sacrifice on the altar of Egoism, the
arch-enemy of both sexes.
And although it seems a long, long time from that day to this, we may
look back over the Ages, and see the thread unbroken, connecting the
Past with the Present; uniting the women of those days with their
sisters of today; and we find the answer to this far-off outrage upon
the spiritual function of sex, in the horrors of our white slavery,
among which horrors, the greatest is not alone the barter and sale of
that which should be recognized as sacred, but the perversions, the
deceptions and the subterfuges which it entails. One instance, related
by a trained nurse who had been in attendance upon a girl sixteen
years of age, will suffice to illustrate this. The girl, encouraged by
her mother, related with amusement and satisfaction, how the child had
"sold her virtue" on seven different occasions, procuring for the
same, proven by the requisite evidences, sums which were considered
quite exorbitant in view of the fact that the market was always
over-crowded with similar sales.
Thus, the law of supply and demand is ever preserved; and human beings
keep right on selling their royal birthright for a mess of pottage;
inviting disease, decay and death when they might have glorious,
blissful life.
Mankind has failed to look for virtue in the interior nature; failed
to look for beauty of soul, being ever ready to pay the highest price
for the counterfeit, and the result is that a practice of mutual
deception has been the rule.
Some years ago, Thomas Hardy wrote a story about a girl in the
wretched environment of middle-class England. He called it the story
of a "pure woman," and his appraisal of the heroine as a pure woman
brought out a storm of reproach and horrified criticism, particularly
from the clergy, because it chanced that this poor girl had given
birth to a child out of wedlock; and notwithstanding that the author
made it quite clear that she had been the victim of circumstances and
coercion, the act itself condemned her to unchastity in the eyes of
the clerical critics.
When we contemplate the attitude which religious systems have ever
held toward women, we are amazed that the Church has been upheld
almost wholly by the female sex. The fact is accountable on one
hypothesis only: that of the spiritual insight, which recognized in
the story of the Holy Mother and the Child the _One primordial, and
indestructible key to salvation_--the birth of the god-man through the
recognition of the purity and joy of the perfect sex-union.
But, notwithstanding the medieval trend of religious mysticism (there
is a religious mysticism and a scientific mysticism) which seemed to
regard all human love as a weakness, when not actually sinful as in
sex-love, it is evident that sexual love, in its emotional, or psychic
aspect, was at the root of the "ecstacies" which are so ardently
described in ecclesiastical history as "evidences of saintliness."
If, instead of indignantly denying this fact, as though it were
profane criticism of the saints, defenders of the Theological view of
mysticism would calmly consider and accept the evidence, they would be
able to infuse into the creeds, the vitality which they so lack.
The lives of the saints, in so far as they relate to trance and
ecstatic visions, must, sooner or later meet one of two fates. Either
they will be analyzed and presented, with the reverence that is due
the subject, as proofs of the spiritual function of sex-love; or they
must be relegated to the position to which the Church assigns all
sexual desire--that of eroticism and innate and ineradicable
depravity.
Viewed in the light in which Theology has held the sex relation, the
paroxysms which are ascribed to St. Catherine of Sienna, and to the
Holy Mechthild and other saints, have in them something decidedly
obnoxious; while, if we take the premise that these saints, by virtue
of prayer, aspiration, and intended sacrifice of the mortal self to an
ideal, transmuted their sex-nature from the physical to the spiritual,
then indeed, we have an approach to a mighty truth, which is at once
both explanatory and satisfying. St. Catherine is referred to as "the
mystic bride;" and Jesus Christ, to whom she was "espoused" (using the
terminology which the Church prefers, as suggesting a less physical
union than the word "married") was the "bride-groom;" more than that;
she declared that she was married with a ring, set with precious
stones; just like any other betrothal or wedding ring.
Always in these recitals we find the phraseology which lovers employ
when exalting the loved one above the world. The term "My Beloved" is
singularly universal, and seems to spring involuntarily to the lips of
the lover when his love is of the quality that reverences; adores; and
exalts its object. And it is equally foreign to the lips of the
dilettante lover.
To their credit be it said, the love which the saints developed within
themselves, by dint of their attempts to exalt celibacy in an age of
sexual profligacy, is none the less human love; it is human love
spiritualized, exalted, and transmuted from the plane of the animal to
that of the soul. This transmutation is in fact responsible for the
intensity, the absorbing power of the love which thrilled them into
such an ecstacy that in most instances they became lost in the bliss
of the emotions excited by the inward flow of their sex nature, and
were totally unfitted to take part in the outer, or so-called
practical life.
Such, for example, was Saint Teresa, of whom William James, in his
"Varieties of Religious Experience," says: "Her idea of religion seems
to have been that of an endless amatory flirtation--if one may say so
without irreverence--between the devotee and the Deity." Although this
estimate of St. Theresa's saintliness will doubtless be shocking to
the people who think they are pious, we take an optimistic view of it,
and suggest that the saint's idea of religion is far more satisfying
than that usually presented as saintliness. St. Theresa, like most of
the female saints, became "the bride of Christ"--the _man_ Jesus, the
Christ, let it be remembered.
St. Gertrude, a Benedictine nun of the Thirteenth Century, gave
herself up so wholly to this inward contemplation; to fasting, prayer,
and withdrawal from the outer to the inner life, that she lived as the
"bride of God," in such daily contact with Him as would fitly describe
any love-mated honeymoon of today. According to her testimony "God"
indulged in such language and caresses, and intimacies, kisses and
compliments as would satisfy any woman married to her ideal lover.
In the case of St. Louis of Gonzaga, it is significant that he
selected the Virgin Mary as the object of his adoration and
"consecrated to her, his own virginity;" and we read how "burning with
love, he made his vow of perpetual chastity." In consequence of this
vow, he was never tempted as was St. Anthony, by visions of beautiful
women.
Here again we have the love of the male for the female. If it were not
so, St. Louis may well have chosen Jesus, or Joseph, or John, as the
object of his devotional contemplation; and St. Catherine, and
Theresa, and Mechthild might have paid their homage to the Virgin
Mary.
"Jeanne of the Cross" held constant converse with her guardian angel,
who by the way was a beautiful youth, "more brilliant than the sun and
with a crown of glory on his head."
St. Frances was inseparable from her angel, whom she loved with
extravagant and blissful devotion, and whom she also described as "a
young man of such radiant beauty and purity that he melted her soul."
The truth is that, in seeking to escape from the "sin" of human love,
as seen in the world, in the union of the sexes, they touched the very
main-spring of their sex-nature, intensifying to a degree unknown to
the merely sense-conscious person, the ecstatic bliss of spiritual
sex-union.
Naturally the question will arise as to whether these saints really
came into contact with their spiritual mates in these paroxysms of
holy fervor, and if so, why did the vision of the Christ so frequently
appear to them and not alone the vision of some other being?
The answer is found in the fact that spiritual experiences must be
interpreted through the channel of the outer mind, which in these
instances was obsessed by the thought implanted by Medieval Theology,
that human love is sinful. It may be questioned whether, even though
the visions did relate to some person other than the members of the
Holy Family, the fact would have been admitted since it would have
been attributed to unworthiness on the part of the saint.
They were practically compelled to include God and Christ in their
ecstacies to prove their respectability.
One phrase, commonly employed to describe the kind of love which
"flooded the soul" in these saintly ecstacies, is particularly
applicable to the effects of spiritual sex-union, as described by
those who have experienced counterpartal union, and which Swedenborg
so constantly emphasizes in his recital of "conjugal delights." This
phrase is "melting love." It is a feeling of melting or merging into
the other's being, until there seems to be but one person, formed by
the two souls. In fact, it is _union_; whereas the lesser, or we may
say the lower, phase, of the sex-relation is at best but _contact_.
If this view of the trances and ecstacies described in the lives of
the saints, be repulsive to our readers, we can only say that we are
sorry for our readers. They have imbibed the spirit of the Dark Ages,
which regarded human love as sinful, overlooking the fact that all we
may know of the "love of God," is by analogous comparison to what we
know of human love.
If human love be sinful, by logical deduction we would inevitably
arrive at the conclusion that the universe is all sinful. In which
event, the very word itself would have lost its significance.
The objectionable part of the orthodox view of the effects of
saintliness lies in the realization that neither the saints
themselves, nor the Church which perpetuates their recitals, had any
conception of the real situation, so evident to the enlightened and
unprejudiced reader. And if this view of saintly ecstacies,
postulating the transmutation of sex-force into spiritual channels, be
objectionable, what can be said of the only other view which is
possible in the light of the evidence submitted?
Our ideas of what constitutes chastity need revising, else we must
needs decide that chastity is more a vice than a virtue.
For example, consider the character of a mother of the
self-sacrificing, noble type, devoting her life to the welfare of the
human family; interesting herself in all the problems that affect the
generations to come; patient; sweet and wise. Compare her with an
unmarried girl whose body is immune from contact with one of the
opposite sex, but whose mind is bent upon self, and self-adornment;
upon the necessity of capturing a wealthy husband, as a means of this
self-gratification, without regard to any sentiment or even common
affection. Who is the more chaste?
Coventry Patmore says:
"Virgins are they before the Lord,
Whose souls are pure. The vestal fire
Is not, as some mis-read the Word,
By Marriage quenched, but burns the higher."
If purity of soul were synonymous with celibacy, the entire
constantly-copulating cosmos would have long since been demolished;
but despite the mistaken attitude of religious systems toward the
divine function of sex, Humanity is reaching a higher and purer
conception of love. As we approach a higher type of civilization, the
broader, deeper, and more intense becomes our capacity to love. The
more spiritual we become, the more vital is our love-nature, and our
love-nature is grounded in sex. Let us not imagine that spiritual love
is less sexual than is physical love. Spiritual love is physical love,
_plus_ all the other phases of love.
The real objection to sex love on the physical plane is not based upon
its strength, but upon its weakness. If it be nothing deeper than an
attraction of chemical affinities generated by physical activities, it
has no reservoir from which to draw its supply. It is like the
electrical wire that is "short circuited," it expends itself in one
spasmodic combustion.
True spirituality is attained by a process of addition. The common and
erroneous idea of spiritual attainment involves a process of
subtraction.
We need go no further than to review the processes in the external
world of today to understand this fact of the inclusiveness of the
spiritual life, in contradistinction to the generally accepted idea of
exclusiveness which is attached to a contemplation of the so-called
"spiritual."
All our activities are now carried on upon a gigantic scale. Where
formerly a little stream supplied the water to the mill, we now
harness the invisible and apparently inexhaustible forces of
electricity; where formerly commerce was a system of bartering between
two single individuals, it is now a huge network involving millions of
persons. Everything teaches us the lesson of inclusiveness, as we
approach a more spiritualized ideal of life. We are uniting; merging;
drawing within.
The Centripetal force of the planet itself, corresponding to the
female pole of the magnet, is today the active principle in external
life. The machinist knows this when he is compelled to avoid the
suction currents of electrical power. Cosmic reaction has set in, and
union between complementaries is the result. Applying this truth to
individual human life, and we have what?
_Counterpartal Sex-union._