Sex--The Unknown Quantity: The Spiritual Function of Sex. Alexander J. McIvor-Tyndall
all the religious observances of the Ancients, whether expressed in the legends of the sun-myths or of star and serpent worship, we find the universally recognized fact that only those qualities of mind and soul can be expected to endure, or reach immortal godhood, which are of an exalted character. Which is to say what the present day orthodox creed says, that immortality belongs only to those who are pure in heart.
From the Eleusirian festivals is derived our custom of taking holy communion, the symbol of the Lord's supper; albeit the substitution of the male principle in the Christian ceremony attests the fact that the phallic symbol ultimately supplanted the yoni, as a deific symbol. Phallic worship reached its height during Hebrew and Assyrian supremacy, and was perpetuated by Greek and Roman materialism. Superstition is nothing more than Truth degenerated by men from a spiritual to a material application. That which is held in awe and reverence by any race; that which is embodied in the traditions of every tribe on the globe; that which persists throughout all times will be found to have a fundamental basis of truth, no matter how obscured it may be by the ignorance with which it is so frequently associated.
The sacredness of Sex, as exemplifying the Supreme Creative Energy, underlies all the traditional ideals of man, from the fetishes of the Central African savage to the cathedral spires which rise above the din of our modern commercial civilization. The prejudiced and the superficial observer of so-called "heathen" rites and ceremonies records only the superstitions, and sees only the evidences of depravity and savagery. He overlooks the fact that the spirit of the idea conveyed may have been the highest ideal of an early race which has sunk, as have all races during certain periods of the world's evolution into the depths of a materialism, from which all races are today emerging.
All mystic truths are expressed in symbolism. It has been said that these truths are "veiled;" this is true only because the observer has not yet learned to speak the language. The universal language is symbolism. In the early Egyptian, the Indian, and the Hebrew religions, the fundamental idea was the two generating principles (or we might say the two aspects of the One principle) of generation. The two in spiritual union represented the Infinite—the Deity. The Hebrew word "Elohim" is plural, and means male and female united, forming the One Perfect and Complete Being. This union is the "Holy of Holies" of the ancient mystics and alchemists. We see its reflection and its persistence today in the Catholic service of the Mass, where the priest raises the Eucharist as the "Holy of Holies" in which is generated the Christ-man, and before whom all human devotees bow the head that they may not look upon the perfection and beauty of its pure radiance. Neither is the priest supposed to touch the chalice with uncovered hands. He prepares himself by fasting and prayer before he mounts the altar upon which this "Holy of Holies" is hidden from view.
The pattern of the Eucharist with its golden circle and radiations is easily recognizable by any one who is familiar with the symbols of yoni worship. Nor should this fact be distasteful to any one, although it is either concealed, or flatly denied by the Church, since it is only through the elevation of the sex-function that the Christ-man can be born into the physical realms. The reason that this truth is either concealed or denied by the Church is due to the influence of Greek and Roman civilization, which subjugated woman to the control of man. This debasement of woman reached its culmination under Roman rule and is unquestionably the psychic cause of the fall of the Greek and Roman empires.
If we will but take home to ourselves the important lesson that neither sex is fundamentally, or even relatively, superior, but only different; that no race is permanently in advance of another, but that each little group and class of humans has its particular contribution to the sum of knowledge, we will have done much toward freeing the mind from the shackles of ignorance—that darkness which obscures our inner vision. Let this truth penetrate the egotism of so-called civilized races. Let it sink into the minds of the men and women of this century: we are of service to the world in proportion as we are different and not identical. In the direct ratio of our individuality is our contribution to the work of the cosmic law, which is seeking to lift the planet earth out of its undeveloped state into celestial light.
The symbol of the Eucharist, occupying as it does an important place in a religious system which is otherwise essentially masculine, is one of the many evidences of the persistence of Truth. For approximately four thousand years, phallic worship has predominated over the earlier ideal, which was embodied in the "virgin of the spheres," the emblem of the Female Principle as eternal motherhood; and in the sacred character of androgynous plants and flowers, which were characterized as feminine, such, for example, as the lily, the lotus, and the fleur de lis. These flowers are still regarded as more or less sacred, and they are called feminine, although really androgynous.
The lotus, long held sacred because of its androgynous character, has been regarded as typical of the One Perfect One, because it is supposed that the lotus reproduces itself without the male pollen. But close examination of the flower will show that the little seed-vessel in the center of the flower is shaped like a pine cone, in which are tiny cells too small to let out the seeds as occurs in most plant and seed life; these tiny seeds having no outlet, shoot when ripe into new plants, the bulb of the plant being the matrix or womb of the new life. Thus it is evident, that although the two sexes are not as pronounced in the lotus as in the lily, yet the bulb and the cone are both present in the lotus, making the plant bi-sexual, and not feminine alone.
Our modern Easter festival, in which the lily is recognized as the representative par excellence of the renewal of abundant life and energy, the "sacred" flower, is a tribute to the Feminine Principle in the Deity, as the lily like the lotus is called feminine, although in reality bi-sexual.
The lily and the Eucharist have survived the centuries in which the male principle has dominated, as the one true and only God—the giver of life, the energizing power of Creation—and the lily and the Eucharist are both representative of the Female principle.
Historians mark the beginning of the worship of the One True God, defined philosophically as the "Monistic" God-idea, from the building of the tower of Babel, and we may here note in passing that in the earliest references to this tower, there is no allusion to anything suggestive of "confusion of tongues." The name unquestionably came from "babil" meaning "the gate of God." Thus only is its meaning obvious, and consistent with the worship of the lingam and phallus which obtained at that time. It is also evident that the phallic worshippers borrowed the simile of "the gate of God" from the worshippers of the yoni, who based their claim to truth upon the indisputable fact, that out of the womb comes the life of plant, and animal, and man.
The architecture of, and the inscriptions on, the tower of Babel show conclusively that it was a monument to the victory of the phallic worshippers over the yoni, proving that the "one true and only God" was male. From that time also God has been alluded to as "He," although in the Oriental countries, and particularly among the Hindus, we find repeated allusions to the Deity as "The Divine Mother," and all the higher qualities are spoken of as feminine. It is because of this fact also, that we note the spread of Oriental religions and philosophies in this day of Woman's uprising. The Orientals retained the divinity of the female principle in theory, but not in fact.
Sex-worship is contemptuously alluded to in modern literature as "strange and erotic ideas," or words equally condemnatory. But this is an absurd stand, since nothing could be more natural than that the mystery of Creative Life should arouse our interest and our wonder; and it certainly ought to enlist our highest reverence. It becomes erotic only when men fail to worship in "spirit and in truth," and when the letter of the ideal survives, and the spirit is ignored. It becomes not only erotic but destructive when it involves a fight for supremacy between the male and the female. When the spirit of union shall prevail, which it must in a perfected world, no higher form of religious aspiration can be imagined than that in which the miracle of birth is reverenced and idealized. Then, and not until then, will the family be what it should be, and Love, the one and only true God, be worshipped.
The trinity in unity has been a widespread and persistent part of all religions, from which fact we may logically infer that this ideal has a permanent place in the sum of human knowledge. Truth is often obscured, but it can never be hidden from the eyes that are seeking the light. The rightful interpretation of those ancient and obscured truths, erroneously classified as "myths" and