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CHAPTER I

THE MODERN CONDITIONS OF MARRIAGE

A Statistician affirmed some time ago that in England 25 percent. of married couples were permanently separated; 50 percent. lived together without love, and 25 percent. were happy. Thus only one-quarter of the marriages taking place in England fulfil the purposes for which they are entered upon, and a person marrying has but one chance in four of happiness. No one who observes the home conditions among his friends and neighbours will regard these figures as unduly pessimistic. It may, indeed, be questioned if the amount of enduring love to be found in married life should be estimated as high as 25 percent.

In the United States, the country of easy divorce, it was stated chat the percentage of happy marriages is as high as 50 percent. Therefore it appears that a condition of misery or boredom is not implicit in the married state, but is due mainly to the selection of unsuitable mates; two people who made each ocher miserable may yet succeed (instructed by experience) in mating happily with ocher companions if their unfortunate union can be dissolved.

There are several admirable books now available which explain the physiology of sex-life to the non-scientific reader, and these have been of great value in lessening the mass of human misery that arises from ignorance; but they do not solve the whole problem, they do not cell us why two well-informed, healthy, human beings may yet feel chat they have failed to realise the higher aspects of love, and so missed the best that life has to give; nor why two people, each highly esteemed in the circle in which they move, may have a devastating effect on each other without a single unkind word or selfish action, so that companionship means misery.

The intuitions of all humanity declare chat marriage can hold the greatest good in life, but it is very rare to see that intuition justified; yet, when this occurs, so great is the happiness achieved, and so uplifting an influence does it exert in its immediate environment, that all the married misery seems outweighed by the completeness of this one attainment.

What line shall we take, then, with regard to the institution of marriage in civilised society? Shall we imitate the Greeks, who required of their wives nothing but the bearing of heirs, while they sought the companions of their heart and mind among free, unmated women, whom we should regard as courtesans. Shall we weaken the marriage-bond by greatly facilitating divorce in conformity with the American practice? Or shall we continue with our present scheme of things, and stake all on a single irrevocable choice? Each of these plans has its disadvantages. By the Greek system women of the highest evolution seldom gave children to the race, for the women of promiscuous habits are usually sterile. Moreover, the mothers of the nation, prized only for fecundity, were given little culture of either character or intellect, and were, therefore, unfitted for the training of their children, being themselves untrained. It is generally agreed nowadays that the influences of early childhood are extremely important in character building, and that ignorant and inexperienced women cannot transcend their own natures and give to their children what they do not themselves possess. It is said that the failure of the Turkish nation to evolve a high standard of national character among its ruling classes is due to the backwardness of its harem-dwelling mothers, whereas the peasantry, who cannot afford to seclude their women, are of a much better type of character.

The American method of easy divorce seems at first sight to solve the problem, but until it has been tested for a century nothing but a provisional opinion can be expressed. It should be remembered that the great majority of middle-class citizens of Anglo-Saxon blood do not avail themselves of it very freely, is the wealthy and the negro who supply the highest percentage of divorces.

The consequence of easy divorce among the wealthy seems twofold; firstly, the character of those indulging in it seems to be undermined, and there is a tendency to shirk responsibilities and take nothing seriously; the depths of life and love are not found in easily-broken unions, and sensuality is fostered. Secondly, the children of divorced couples have no home-life of systematic training and discipline; a step-parent, however conscientious, cannot replace one to whom the child is flesh of his flesh; and all who have worked out the problem of bringing up an orphaned family know that nothing can replace the influence of a mother during childhood, or of a father during adolescence, and that the child deprived of either parent enters life under a heavy handicap. In estimating the best conditions of marriage we must not forget the rights of those for whose well-being marriage was primarily instituted the children.

Finally, as to the modern English system, statistics condemn it - it is not working well. The Anglo-Saxon standard of marriage is the highest in the world, also the most difficult to achieve. What shall we do then? Shall we lower our standards, or shall we try to discover the laws which govern married happiness, and so regulate its conditions? The American branch of the race has followed the former course, but the older branch clings desperately to its ideals.

It is in the hope that knowledge may help to alleviate conditions before desperate misery gives rise to desperate remedies that the following pages are offered to the reader. They are based upon the teaching given in one of the Western esoteric schools.

The reader is asked to endure patiently, unprejudiced by his ignorance, the technicalities of a strange philosophy, and to accept whatever light it throws upon his own life-problems.

CHAPTER X

THE ESOTERIC CONCEPT OF MALE AND FEMALE

It was said by One who knew that in the Kingdom of Heaven there is neither marrying nor giving in marriage; this is erroneously supposed to mean that the spiritual man is sexless. Esoteric science, however, conceives him not to be sexless, but on the contrary, bi-sexual, and therefore complete in himself. The individuality is two-sided, positive and negative, has a kinetic aspect and a static aspect, and is therefore male-female or female-male, according to the relation of “force” to “form” in its make-up. The personality, however, is one-sided, and therefore has a defined sex. The individuality may be thought of as a magnet, having a positive and a negative pole, one of which at a time is inserted in dense matter, and the nature of the pole inserted determines the sex of the body that is built up around it.

The individuality, whose life is an evolution, has both aspects to its nature; but the personality, whose life is an incarnation has but one aspect in function, the other being latent or undeveloped. This is well illustrated in the bee, wherein the manner of feeding determines whether sex shall be developed or not, and also in the human form wherein the characteristic organs of the other sex are always present in rudimentary form, and may even, in certain types of abnormality, attain considerable development if not actual function.

While sex is strictly determined on the physical plane by structural form, on the subtler planes it depends upon relative force, which is constantly varying, so that two people who are male and female on the physical plane may be constantly shifting their polarity in their relations on the inner planes. Thus, should they be dealing with a matter in which the man is pre-eminent, he will lead and she will follow, but should conditions change and the pair be working in a sphere in which she is pre-eminent, then the polarity will shift and the woman will assume the mastery: witness the exceeding meekness of a man when a baby is thrust into his arms. The one who feels the deepest will be male on the plane of the emotions, and the one who knows the most will be male on the plane of the mind, regardless of the body in which each happens to be incarnated. As, however, the male body is better fitted for the expression of a positive type of force, the man will generally be male on the subtler planes as well as the denser; but if there is any considerable inequality of force, then the woman may be relatively male to her mate upon the inner planes. It must never be forgotten that maleness and femaleness are always relative upon the inner planes, and as the physical vigour of the individuals of a pair shifts about, so will the relative sexuality shift with it, and a man may be pure male in his relations with one woman, and pure female, or negative, in his relations with another. Form determines the sex of the individual on the physical plane, but relative force determines it on the inner planes; and this fact is the clue to much.

CHAPTER XI

THE INTERACTION BETWEEN POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE UPON THE NON-PHYSICAL PLANES

(a) The Spiritual Planes

Upon the seventh plane “All are One and One is All.” This is an oft-repeated axiom of esoteric philosophy. Upon this plane exist entities of two types: those that have as yet progressed but little beyond their origin, and are upon the downward or outgoing curve of evolution; and those who, having completed their evolution, have risen up to the level of their source. This plane, we are told, is entirely formless; entities of the former type have not yet achieved form; while those of the second, having learnt all that form can teach them, have cast it aside, together with its limitations, and attained to perfect freedom within the limits of the universe to which they belong.

All are one upon this plane, we are told; the relationship existing between each unit and the rest of the plane far exceeds in intimacy and completeness - the highest that is ever attained by earthly lovers in their most ecstatic moments of union; this state is the permanent, normal condition of the seventh plane, which may well be called the kingdom of heaven, for it is a state of perfect love and perfect harmony. Human lovers fear that they may lose each other in what they conceive to be a vacant formless Nirvana; on the contrary, the perfection of union, which has hitherto only been possible at rare moments between rare persons, there becomes the normal state of the whole creation.

Upon the seventh plane, and upon the seventh plane only, there is no differentiation into positive and negative force. This plane has sometimes been called the plane of pure pressure.

Upon the Sixth Plane occurs the first differentiation, or beginning of separateness. The universal pressure of the seventh plane causes force to flow forth in all directions, and the streams diverge as they proceed. These streams are called, in esoteric terminology, the Rays, and each ray is conceived to be a special aspect of the Divine Nature. Each monad, as it comes into being upon the sixth plane, is found to have “issued into manifestation” through one ray or another, and this primal environment determines the type of the monad for ever after; it will work with the forces of other rays, but the colour-tone of its own ray will form the keynote of its nature, and by the gate through which it issued forth must it return when its cycle of evolution is completed.

It is well known that for electricity to become active it must flow in a circuit; the man who is completely insulated from all earth-contacts can touch a live wire with impunity, because he offers no channel for its force. So it is with the life-force. It flows into each monad from the Divine source, and, having passed through that monad and energised it, flows forth into circumambient space; then, having made a circuit which is only bounded by the limits of the manifested universe, and in the course of this circuit been reduced to its lowest form of manifestation, it is finally reabsorbed by the Divine as unorganised cosmic force. If, however, it is desired to perform any work with this force, it must not be allowed to radiate into space and so become unavailable; it must be concentrated into a definite channel, and, by being limited and defined, be converted into pressure and thus made a source of energy. This is achieved by causing it to flow and return in the channel of individualised form. In the path of outgoing it makes its own channel through each and all of the individualised monads then in existence, but a path of return for it has to be made if its wasteful diffusion is to be prevented. The knowledge of the methods of making this path of returning is one of the secrets of practical occultism.

The methods of achieving this flow and return are, in principle, the same upon all the planes, but the exact device employed differs according to the matter in which it is being carried out. In essence it is this: a monad of a type inclined to press forward into manifestation or individualisation cooperates with a monad of a type inclined to press forward towards union with the Divine, towards a universalisation. If these two can meet together and form a continuity of substance, the life-force that is flowing out from the Divine through the positive or male individual, instead of radiating into free space after its work in the machine of his organism has been accomplished, will flow back to the Divine through the negative or female individual. At the point of junction between the two units the force can be tapped and rendered available for creation in the matter of the plane upon which the union is being effected. This is the essence of the esoteric teaching concerning the sex function.