The Secret Doctrine on the Problem and Evolution of Sex
compiled by Basil Crump of the Middle Temple
Barrister-at-Law
The Blavatsky Pamphlets No 2
Published by The H.P.B. Library, Toronto,On. Canada
THE following are the principal points in the teaching of the Secret Doctrine (Vol. II Anthropogenesis, 1888 edition) on the origin and evolution of Sex, and the causes which led to the present evils and difficulties connected with the sex appetite in man. An enquirer, in view of the various perverted ideas and teachings now prevailing among Theosophists says: "I am in a fog as to why the division in the sex principle if the end is to he a unification, and creation by Kriyashakti. I should like to hear what the Secret Doctrine says on the matter of sex. Why the division? What of the future?"
There
must lie many students who, through lack of study
of the S. D. (thanks mainly to the deliberate policy
of discouraging it in favour of the Besant-Leadbeater
perversions) are in the same position. The following
is a very brief sketch of the teaching, with the
principal passages either quoted or referred to,
taken from the notebooks of a Secret Doctrine Study
Class conducted by Mrs. Cleather. It must be borne
in mind that, like all Occult works, the information
is purposely somewhat confused, scattered, and even
in places apparently contradictory, so that the student
has to use diligence and intuition in order to piece
it together and draw correct inferences. H.P.B once
said to her pupils, "The
S. D. contains all you want to know — but you won't
find it." Even
of Isis Unveiled she said that it concealed a hundred mysteries.
The
first point to bear in mind is that the human Egos
did not all start equal on this planet, but were
of various degrees in their last births in the previous
manvantara (cycle [Page
2] of evolution)
on another planet. (11. 229.) Thus, the Buddhas are those
who had renounced Nirvana in previous manvantaras, whereas
those Egos who, in an incredibly far past, selfishly entered
Nirvana, are now punished by returning as the Egos (Higher
Manas) of ordinary mortals, and have to fight their way up
again. For the Nirvanic state is not eternal, but lasts only
for the Manvantara.
A
Buddha of Compassion, or Nirmanakaya, on the other
hand, is free from Karmic action and can incarnate
when and where he chooses. To this class of Beings
belong the "Sons of Will and Yoga, Ancestors of the Arhats" or Masters
of Compassion, who were the teachers of early humanity.(II. 79) These
were the "Elect Race" who (II. 276) "happily for the human race, had
already become the vehicle of incarnation of the (intellectually and
spiritually) highest Dhyanis before Humanity had become quite material." When
the Third Race perished they had "already acquired the secret
of immortality on Earth, that gift which allows the same
great personality to step ad libitum from
one worn-out body into another." (See also extract from Commentary, p. 281) :
"The inner man of the first . . . only changes his body from time to time; he is ever
the same, knowing neither rest nor Nirvana, spurning Devachan and remaining
constantly on Earth for the salvation of mankind." See also "The
Elixir of Life"
(Five Years of Theosophy.) These great beings have never
shared with the rest of mankind the "Fall into Generation";
they have remained in the pure, sexless state of the early
Third Race, and in the Seventh Race will once again create
by Kriyashakti.
The
following summary of the incarnation of the principle
of Mind, (Manas) and the errors and sins which followed
man's abuse of the divine gift, should be carefully
studied and memorized, because they furnish the key
to our present condition, and a complete and logical
answer to the vital problem of sex. The history of
Mankind in its present form as separate sexes goes
back about eighteen million years to the middle of
the Third Race in Lemuria, when the Mind element
began to incarnate. Up till then man was "an empty, senseless Bhuta" (form
or shadow), the product of two streams of evolution,
the Monadic or Spiritual and the Material. [Page
3]
Reproduction
in the earlier Races was as follows: First Race — Self-Born.
Second Race — Sweat-Born. Third Race — Egg-Born;
at first Sexless, then Androgynous, and finally separate
sexes. All these processes are re-enacted in the stages of
the present human embryo. The early oviparous stage of the
Third Race is thus described in the Commentary (II. 166)
: "The
emanations that came out of their bodies during the seasons
of procreation were ovulary; the small spheroidal nuclei
developing into a large, soft, egg-like vehicle, gradually
hardened, when, after a period of gestation, it broke and
the young human animal issued from it unaided, as the fowls
do in our race.''
The process of separation began in this egg stage, one sex predominating more
and more over the other, until, in the course of ages, separate sexes were born.
The Commentary says that before the eggs hardened they were often tampered
with by huge animals of species now unknown, and monsters resulted which
were not allowed to live (II. 192.)
II. 170. The newly-born babe lost the faculty of walking at the end of the fifth
sub-race of the Third Race.
The animals, which are all the product of man's vital energy in the early stages of
this Round, were the first to separate and breed, their example being followed
later by the separate human beings. (See Stanzas 31-2, p. 184.)
It
was then, as Stanza 32 relates, that the "Sin of the Mindless" took place. The
early sub-races of the Third (II. 275) evolved by sexless creative instinct an
"intermediate race" in which the higher Dhyan Chohans incarnated at the time
the separation of the sexes occurred. These were the Sons of Will and Yoga,
already referred to. They represent the full incarnation of the Mind principle,
which is something much higher than our mentality, for these beings had (II. 167)
"already reached, during previous cycles of incarnation,
that degree of intellect which enabled them to become independent
and self-conscious entities on this plane of matter."
A
second class of Egos did not incarnate fully at once,
but chose to wait, projecting only "a spark," and
it is these [Page
4] who "constitute
the average humanity which has to acquire its intellectuality
during the present Manvantaric evolution" (II. 167).
It is important to bear in mind that we belong
in various
degrees to this class and can only win to
the state of the fully incarnated Ego (i.e., union with
the Higher Self, or true Manas), and "immortality on
Earth" by following the stern and unbending laws
laid down by Those who have won that state. The first and
most important of these laws is the absolute conquest
of sex and of the personality,
which “is the drag and poison on the inner man in his
up-ward progress. Mankind was never more selfish and vicious
than it is now” (II. 110). The "Sin of the Mindless" consisted
in this, that those males of the separated human beings that "had
no spark took huge she-animals unto them" and begat a race
of "crooked, red-hair-covered
monsters, going on all-fours. A dumb race to
keep the shame untold." (Stanza
32.) Thus, unconsciously
and irresponsibly the first misuse of the sex took place
(II. 185). "Thus the sin of the brainless or 'mindless'
Races, who had no 'spark' and were irresponsible, fell upon
those who failed to do by them their Karmic duty." Thereupon,
seeing this Karmic result, the 'Sons of Wisdom' endowed
all men with Manas 'lest worse should happen.' "
Vol.
I. 181.— With the entry of Manas a Third Stream of
Evolution was added to the Spiritual and Material,
thus raising Man far above all the rest of "Creation." This
stream was, as already stated, the result of the
development of intellect or mind in previous cycles
of evolution, and conferred self-consciousness
on the hither-to mindless.
A Third Class of
Egos deferred incarnating until the Fourth or Atlantean
Root Race, the progenitors of which were those of
the later Third "who had failed to
master their lower natures." It was in this Race that the
worst sexual karma was incurred, for the Atlanteans renewed
the sin of the Mindless, this time with full
knowledge and responsibility because they possessed Manas. Some of the still
semi-divine beings took entirely human wives in whom lower, more material
beings had incarnated. They had no mind, only animal instinct, and were
descendants of the half-animal monsters bred by the sin of the Mindless in the
Third Race (II. 284). The anthropoid apes are the degenerate [Page 5]
descendants of
this renewed and conscious sin; and further it is stated
(II. 303) that in this case it was "the Spiritual being
who sinned, the Spirit element being still the 'Master' principle
in man, in those days," and that (II. 303) "many of us
are now working off the effects of the evil Karmic causes
produced by us in Atlantean bodies."
The
most significant statement of all in this connection
occurs on p. 228, Vol. II.: "As to those 'Sons of
Wisdom' who had 'deferred' their incarnation till
the Fourth Race, which was already stained (physiologically)
with sin and impurity, they produced a terrible cause, the Karmic result of which weighs on them to this day.
It was produced in themselves, and they became the carriers of that seed of
iniquity for aeons to come, because the bodies they
had to inform had become defiled through their own procrastination." (See
verses 32, 36.)
"This was the "Fall of the Angels" because
of their rebellion against Karmic Law. The 'fall
of man' was no fall for he was irresponsible."
It
is clear, then that we are the "carriers of that seed of iniquity for aeons to come,
and this explains why we have such an awful struggle with the sex impulse in our
bodies and lower minds, which take a thousand forms, many more subtle than
the mere physical impulse. It is these latter which have given rise to so many
perversions of practice and doctrine in regard to sex and its functions in the
various branches of the T. S. since H.P.B. was withdrawn and the brain-minds of
those who tried to carry on her teaching followed their natural lower trend and
departed more and more from the pure doctrine of the "Sons of Wisdom" as
taught through H.P.B. in "The Voice of the Silence," "Practical Occultism," etc.
The terrible and conscious abuse of sex by the Atlanteans led on to the worship
of the human body and finally of the sex principle in itself, which survives to-day
in all the degraded forms of religion in the shape of the most revolting and
obscene symbols and practices in the Tantrika of the Hindus, the Red Cap or
Dugpa Lamaism of Asia, etc.
The early races of the Third possessed spiritual vision, the organ of which was
the Third Eye, functioning at the back [Page 6] of
the head, and now represented exoterically by an eye or spot
in the forehead on the statues of Buddha and other high deities.
With the fall into generation and the abuses that followed,
the Eye gradually atrophied and receded into the centre of
the head, where it now exists as the Pineal Gland. By the
end of the Fourth Race it had ceased to function both physically
and spiritually. This is why absolute sexual purity on all
planes, not only physical, is insisted on in Occult training,
because the Pineal Gland has to be redeveloped to perform
its original function, and this can only be done by completely
mastering that which overcame us in Atlantean bodies ,and
regaining the purity of the early Third, of which the Masters
of Compassion are the only representatives surviving from
that period. It is the loss of the Third Eye, says H.P.B.,
which "prevents the remembrance of previous lives," and no sexually
impure person can, therefore, "read the Akashic records," as
some claim to do.
As
to the enquirer's question: "Why the division?" the
S. D. makes it quite clear that it was part of the
Evolutionary scheme and was not a "Fall" in
itself. The karmic evils arose entirely from abuse of
the divine creative fire for sensual gratification. Originally
the sexes were neutralized except at certain seasons, as
in most animals, even today, when not too much domesticated
(i.e., defiled) by man. It was the conscious abuse of the
function, together with sex-worship and Black Magic (in
which sex is the basic force misused)
by the Fourth Race, which developed the originally pure instinct
into an ever-present "gnawing vulture of
Desire," which we carry to-day as our heaviest Karmic burden.
This is made very clear in the splendid chapter "The 'Curse,'
from a Philosophical Point of View" (II.
409), in which the "Prometheus Bound" of Aeschylusis
shown to be the "drama
enacted daily within our actual mankind: the lower passions
chain the higher aspirations to the rock of matter, to generate
in many a case the vulture of sorrow, pain and repentance" — that
vulture that gnaws at the vitals of the divine Titan. At
p. 410, vol. II., we read that the curse of Karma was called
down "for
abusing the creative power, for desecrating the divine gift,
and wasting the life-essence for no purpose except bestial
personal gratification." The
whole [Page
7] nature
of the Fourth Race was gradually changed, physiologically,
morally, mentally and physically, “until, from the
healthy King of animal creation of the Third Race, man became
in the Fifth, our race, a helpless, scrofulous being, and
has now become the wealthiest heir on the globe to constitutional
and hereditary diseases, the most consciously and intelligently
bestial of all animals!” Dr.
Abrams inventor of the new Electronic method of diagnosis
and treatment declares that “Syphilis is the basic
soil of all diseases,” especially
cancer and tuberculosis. Syphilis is the direct result of
the Karmic causes set up by the abuse of the creative force
in the Fourth Race.
The problem we are now faced with, therefore, is: How to subdue and master this
terrible monster which we have created by our own folly and sensuality in the far
past? No compromise involving any form of indulgence whatsoever is admissible
if we are to work off the evil Karma and regain the lost purity of the early Third
Race. Any use of the sex function on any plane of our being, other than its
legitimate one of physical reproduction of the species, inevitably leads to fresh
bad Karma, and, therefore, increases instead of lessening the load we have to
bear. Hence only the sternest self-control, as taught by H.P.B. is of any avail.
The present; sexual condition of mankind is wholly abnormal from
the Occult standpoint, but modern Materialism, ignorant of
the ancient cause, regards it as normal and hence unalterable,
So: methods, such as Birth-control, which are sheer Black
Magic, are now being widely advocated, even by Theosophical
leaders, to their eternal shame, and are retarding the salvation
of the race from the Karmic results of this awful "Curse."
In
reply to the enquirer's second question, "What of the Future?" The S. D. says
that we are now past the lowest point of the evolutionary spiral and in this Fifth
Root Race we are on the ascending curve leading away from the gross
materiality and Black Magic of the Fourth Race towards the pure state of the
Early Third Race, but with the addition of all the experience gained by our failures
and mistakes. As the "Voice of the Silence" says: "Each failure is success and
each sincere attempt wins its reward in time." On p. 300,
Vol. II, we find the following diagram :—
In the Sixth Root Race immaculate reproduction will again take place as in the early Third; and in the Seventh (II 275), “the great Adepts and Initiated ascetics will ‘multiply,’ i.e. once more produce Mind-born immaculate Sons.” All evolution has progress for its object, hence the Eastern saying that “the Universe exists for the benefit of the Soul alone.” As H.P.B points out, Prometheus steals the creative fire from the “gods” so as to allow men to proceed consciously on the path of spiritual evolution, thus transforming the most perfect of animals on earth into a potential god, and making him free to “take the kingdom of heaven by violence” (II 244). And again (II 103), speaking of these “Divine Rebels” of which Prometheus is the type: “It is owing to this rebellion of intellectual life against the morbid inactivity of pure spirit, that we are what we are — self-conscious, thinking men with the capabilities and attributes of gods in us, for good as much as for evil. Hence the Rebels are our Saviours. . . It is only by the attractive force of the contrasts that the two opposites — Spirit and Matter — can be cemented on Earth, and smelted in the fire of self-conscious experience and suffering, find themselves wedded in Eternity . . .It explains the ‘rebellion’ of the oldest and highest Angels and the meaning of their being cast down from Heaven into the depths of Hell, i.e. Matter . . .(II 513) Satan — Lucifer, [Page 9 ] or 'Light-Bearer’ is in us: It is our Mind — our tempter and Redeemer, our intelligent liberator and Saviour from pure animalism. Without this principle — the emanation of the very essence of the pure divine principle Mahat (Intelligence), which radiates direct from the Divine Mind — we would surely be no better than animals."
In
several places H.P.B. shows how religious doctrines
changed with men's degradation (II. 54) : "With the
Aryans and the earliest Akkadians all things are
emanations through not by, a creator or logos. With the Semites everything is
begotten (II. 40). Jehovah is but a lunar and 'generation' god (II. 41). Christian
theology having rejected the doctrine of emanations and replaced them with
direct, conscious creations of angels and the rest out of nothing,
now finds itself hopelessly stranded between Supernaturalism,
or miracle and materialism." But it
is promised that all these errors will pass with the conquering of the lower nature.
The gift of the "creative fire" turned into a curse, because (II. 412) "the
animal element, and consciousness of its possession,
has changed periodical instinct into chronic animalism and
sensuality. It is this which hangs over humanity like a heavy
funeral pall. Thus arises the responsibility of free-will;
the Titanic passions which represents humanity in its darkest
aspect; 'the restless insatiability of the lower passions
and desires, when, with self-asserting insolence, they bid
defiance to the restraints of law.' " (See Introd. "Prometheus Bound." (II. 415.)
"The Promethean myth is a prophecy indeed. . . . It points
to the last of the mysteries of cyclic transformations, in
the series of which mankind, having passed from the ethereal
to the solid physical state, from spiritual to physiological
procreation, is now carried onward on the opposite arc of
the cycle, toward that second phase of its primitive state,
when woman knew no man, and human
progeny was created, not begotten.
"That
state will return to it and to the world at large,
when the latter shall discover and really appreciate
the truths which underlie this vast problem of sex.
It will be like 'the light that never shone on sea
or land,' and has come to men through the Theosophical
Society. That light will lead on and up to the true spiritual intuition.
Then (as expressed once in a letter to a theosophist) the world will have a race
[Page 10] of Buddhas and Christs, for the world will have discovered that
individuals have it in their own powers to procreate Buddha-like children — or
demons' 'When that knowledge comes, all dogmatic religions,
and with these the demons, will die out.' "
The
statement that this light has "come to men through the Theosophical
Society" is of course a reference to what H. P. B. hoped
to do through the T. S., as framed by her (vide the
Constitution of the T. S. or U. B. given in Mrs. Cleather's
hook on her "Life and Work for Humanity"). Since her death the lethal
influence of the Kali Yuga has caused the subsequent leaders of the T. S. to
promulgate doctrines which are the direct antithesis of hers, as above set out
(See Mrs. Cleather's "A Great Betrayal") so that the T. S. has become the vehicle
of exactly the opposite of what the "Sons of Wisdom" wished
to teach humanity through it, and has become a menace instead
of a help to Humanity at large; just as the divine gift was
turned into a curse by man's own lower nature.
The
quotation from "a letter to a theosophist" is taken
from a letter of the Master K. H.
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