Gleanings of a Mystic
by Max Heindel (Part 2)
(Online Edition)
IV. The Sacrament of
Communion — Part II
"In Remembrance of Me."
"The Lord Jesus, the same night in which he was betrayed took bread; and
when he had given thanks, he brake it and said, Take, eat; this is My body,
which is broken for you. This do in remembrance of me. After the same manner
also he took the cup, when he had supped, saying, This cup is the New
Testament in My blood. This do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of
me. For as often as ye eat This bread, and drink This cup, ye do shew the
Lord's death till he come. Wherefore, whosoever shall eat This bread, and
drink This cup of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of
the Lord . . . . For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and
drinketh damnation to himself . . . . For this cause many are weak and
sickly among you, and many sleep." — I Cor 11:23-30.
In the foregoing passages there is a deeply hidden esoteric meaning which is
particularly obscured in the English translation, but in the German, Latin
and Greek, the student still has a hint as to what was really intended by that
last parting injunction of the Savior to His disciples. Before examining This
phase of the subject, let us first consider the words, "in remembrance of
me." We shall then perhaps be in better condition to understand what is
meant by the "cup" and the "bread."
Suppose a man from a distant country comes into our midst and travels
about from place to place. Everywhere he will see small communities gathering
around the Table of the Lord to celebrate This most sacred of all Christian
rites, and should he ask why, he would be told that they do This in remembrance
of One who lived a life nobler than any other has lived upon This earth; One
who was kindness and love personified; One who was the servant of all,
regardless of gain or loss to self. Should This stranger then compare the
attitude of these religious communities on Sunday at the celebration of This
rite, with their civic lives during the remainder of the week, what would he
see?
Every one among us goes out into the world to fight the battle of
existence. Under the law of necessity we forget the love which should be
the ruling factor in Christian lives. Every man's hand is against his
brother. Every one strives for position, wealth, and power that goes with
these attributes. We forget on Monday what we reverently remembered on Sunday,
and all the world is poor in consequence. We also make a distinction
between the bread and wine which we drink at the so-called "Lord's Table," and
the food of which we partake during the intervals between attendance
at Communion. But there is no warrant in the Scriptures for any such
distinction, as anyone may see, even in the English version, by leaving out
the words printed in italics which have been inserted by the translators to
give what they thought was the sense of a passage. On the contrary, we are
told that whether we eat or drink, or whatever we do, all should be done to
the glory of God. Our every act should be a prayer. The perfunctory "grace"
at meals is in reality a blasphemy, and the silent thought of gratitude to the
Giver of daily bread is far to be preferred. When we remember at each meal
that it has been drawn from the substance of the earth, which is the body of
the indwelling Christ Spirit, we can properly understand how that body is
being broken for us daily, and we can appreciate the loving kindness which
prompted Him thus to give Himself for us; for let us also remember that
there is not a moment, day or night, that He is not suffering because bound to
earth. When we thus eat and thus realize the true situation, we are indeed
declaring to ourselves the death of the Lord, whose spirit is groaning and
travailing, waiting for the day of liberation when there shall be no need of
such a dense environment as we now require.
But there is another, a greater and more wonderful mystery hidden in
these words of the Christ. Richard Wagner, with the rare intuition of the
master musician, sensed This idea when he sat in meditation by the Zurich
Sea on a Good Friday, and there flashed into his mind the thought, "What
connection is there between the death of the Savior and the millions of
seeds sprouting forth from the earth at this time of the year?" If we
meditate upon that life which is annually poured out in the spring, we see it
as something gigantic and awe-inspiring; a flood of life which transforms the
globe from one of frozen death to rejuvenated life in a short space of time;
and the life which thus diffuses itself in the budding of millions and millions
of plants is the life of the Earth Spirit.
From that come both the wheat and the grape. They are the body and blood of
the imprisoned Earth Spirit, given to sustain mankind during the present phase
of its evolution. We repudiate the contention of people who claim that the
world owes them a living, regardless of their own efforts and without
material responsibility on their part, but we nevertheless insist
that there is a spiritual responsibility connected with the bread and
wine given at the Lord's Supper; It must be eaten worthily, otherwise,
under pain of ill health and even death. This from the ordinary manner
of reading would seem far-fetched, but when we bring the light of esotericism
to bear, examine other translations of the Bible, and look at conditions in
the world as we find them today, we shall see that it is not so far-fetched
after all.
To begin with, we must go back to the time when man lived under the
guardianship of the angels, unconsciously building the body which he now
uses. That was in ancient Lemuria. A brain was needed for the evolution of
thought, and a larynx for verbal expression of the same. Therefore, half of
the creative force was turned upwards and used by man to form these organs.
Thus mankind became single-sexed and was forced to seek a complement when it
was necessary to create a new body to serve as an instrument in a higher
phase of evolution.
While the act of love was consummated under the wise guardianship of the
angels, man's existence was free from sorrow, pain and death. But when, under
the tutelage of the Lucifer Spirits, he ate of the Tree of Knowledge and
perpetuated the race without regard for interplanetary lines of force, he
transgressed the law, and the bodies thus formed crystallized unduly, and
became subject to death in a much more perceptible manner than had hitherto
been the case. Thus he was forced to create new bodies more frequently as
the span of life in them shortened. Celestial warders of the creative force
drove him from the garden of love into the wilderness of the world,
and he was made responsible for his actions under the cosmic law
which governs the universe. Thus for ages he struggled on, seeking to work out
his own salvation, and the earth in consequence crystallized more and more.
Divine hierarchies, the Christ Spirit included, worked upon the earth
from without as the group spirit guides the animals under its protectorate;
but as Paul truly says, none could be justified under the law, for under the
law all sinned, and all must die. There is in the old covenant no hope beyond
the present, save a foreshadowing of one who is to come and restore
righteousness. Thus John tells us that the law was given by Moses, and
grace came by the Lord Jesus Christ. But what is grace?
Can grace work contrary to the law and abrogate it entirely? Certainly not.
The laws of God are steadfast and sure, or the universe would become chaos.
The law of gravity keeps our houses in position relative to other houses, so
that when we leave them we may know of a surety that we shall find them in the
same place upon returning. Likewise all other departments in the universe are
subject to immutable laws.
As law, apart from love, gave birth to sin, so the child of law,
tempered with love, is grace. Take an example from our concrete social
conditions: We have laws which decree a certain penalty for a specified
offense, and when the law is carried out, we call it justice. But
long experience is beginning to teach us that justice, pure and simple, is
like the Colchian dragon's teeth, and breeds strife and struggle in
increasing measure. The criminal, so-called, remains criminal and becomes
more and more hardened under the ministrations of law; but when the milder
regime of the present day allows one who has transgressed to go under
suspended sentence, then he is under grace and not under law. Thus,
also the Christian, who aims to follow in the Master's steps, is emancipated
from the law of sin by grace, provided he forsake the path of sin.
It was the sin of our progenitors in ancient Lemuria that they scattered
their seed regardless of law and without love. But it is the privilege
of the Christian to redeem himself by purity of life in remembrance of the
Lord. John says, "His seed remaineth in him," and This is the hidden meaning
of the bread and wine. In the English version we read simply: "This is the
cup of the New Testament," but in the German the word for cup
is "Kelch," and in the Latin, "Calix," both meaning the outer
covering of the seed pod of the flower. In the Greek we have a still more
subtle meaning, not conveyed in other languages, in the word
"poterion," a meaning which will be evident when we consider the
etymology of the word "pot." This at once gives us the same idea as the
chalice or calix — a receptacle; and the Latin "potare" (to drink)
also shows that the "cup" is a receptacle capable of holding a fluid. Our
English words "potent" and "impotent" meaning to possess or to lack virile
strength, further show the meaning of this Greek word, which foreshadows the
evolution from man to superman.
We have already lived through a mineral, plant and an animal-like existence
before becoming human as we are today, and beyond us lie still further
evolutions where we shall approach the Divine more and more. It will be
readily conceded that it is our animal passions which restrain us upon the
path of attainment; the lower nature is constantly warring against the
higher self. At least in those who have experienced a spiritual awakening, a
war is being fought silently within, and is all the more bitter for being
suppressed. Goethe with masterly art voiced that sentiment in the words of
Faust, the aspiring soul, speaking to his more materialistic friend, Wagner:
"Thou by one sole impulse art possessed,
Unconscious of the other still remain.
Two souls, alas, are housed within my breast,
And struggle there for undivided reign.
One, to the earth with passionate desire,
And closely clinging organs still adheres;
Above the mists the other doth aspire
With sacred ardor unto purer spheres."
It was the knowledge of this absolute necessity of chastity (save when
procreation is the object) upon the part of those who have had a spiritual
awakening which dictated the words of Christ, and the Apostle Paul stated an
esoteric truth when he said that those who partook of the Communion without
living the life were in danger of sickness and death. For just as under a
spiritual tutelage, purity of life may elevate the disciple wonderfully, so
also unchastity has a much stronger effect upon his more sensitized bodies
than upon those who are yet under the law, and have not become partakers of
grace by the cup of the New Covenant.
V. The Sacrament
of Baptism
Having studied the esoteric significance of our Christian festivals, such as
Christmas and Easter, and having also studied the doctrine of the Immaculate
Conception, it may be well now to devote attention to the inner meaning of
the sacraments of the church which are administered to the individual in all
Christian lands from the cradle to the grave, and are with him at all important
points in his life journey.
As soon as he has entered upon the journey of life, the church admits him
into its fold by the rite of Baptism which is conferred upon him at a
time when he himself is irresponsible; later, when his mentality has been
somewhat developed, he ratifies that contract and is admitted to
Communion, where bread is broken and wine is sipped
in memory of the Founder of our faith. Still further upon life's journey
comes the sacrament of Marriage; and at last when the race has been
run and the spirit again withdraws to God who gave it, the earth body is
consigned to the dust, whence it was derived, accompanied by the blessings of
the church.
In our Protestant times the spirit of protest is rampant in the extreme,
and dissenters everywhere raise their voices in rebellion against the fancied
arrogance of the priesthood and deprecate the sacraments as mere mummery. On
account of that attitude of mind these functions have become of little or no
effect in the life of the community; dissensions have arisen even among
churchmen themselves, and sect after sect has divorced itself from the
original apostolic congregation.
Despite all protests the various doctrines and sacraments of the church
are, nevertheless, the very keystones in the arch of evolution, for they
inculcate morals of the loftiest nature; and even materialistic scientists,
such as Huxley, have admitted that while self-protection brings about "the
survival of the fittest" in the animal kingdom and is therefore the basis of
animal evolution, self-sacrifice is the fostering principle of human
advancement. When that is the case among mere mortals, we may well believe
that it must be so to a still greater extent in the Divine Author of our being.
Among animals might is right, but we recognize that the weak have a claim to
the protection of the strong. The butterfly lays its eggs on the underside of
a green leaf and goes off without another care for their well-being. In
mammals the mother instinct is strongly developed, and we see
the lioness caring for her cubs and ready to defend them with her life; but
not until the human kingdom is reached does the father commence to
share fully in the responsibility as a parent. Among savages the care of the
young practically ends with attainment of physical ability to care for
themselves, but the higher we ascend in civilization the longer the young
receive care from their parents, and the more stress is laid upon mental
education so that when maturity has been reached the battle of life may be
fought from the mental rather than from the physical point of vantage; for the
further we proceed along the path of development the more we shall experience
the power of mind over matter. By the more and more prolonged self-sacrifice
of parents, the race is becoming more delicate, but what we lose in material
ruggedness we gain in spiritual perceptibility.
As this faculty grows stronger and more developed, the craving of the
spirit immured in This earthly body voices itself more loudly in a demand
for understanding of the spiritual side of development. Wallace and Darwin,
Haxley and Spencer, pointed out how evolution of form is accomplished
in nature; Earnest Haeckel attempted to solve the riddle of the universe, but
no one of them could satisfactorily explain away the Divine Author of
what we see. The great goddess, Natural Selection, is being
forsaken by one after another of her devotees as the years go by. Even
Haeckel, the arch materialist, in his last years showed an almost hysterical
anxiety to make a place for God in his system, and the day will come in a not
far distant future when science will have become as thoroughly religious as
religion itself. The church, on the other hand, though still extremely
conservative is nevertheless slowly abandoning its autocratic dogmatism and
becoming more scientific in its explanations. Thus in time we shall see the
union of science and religion as it existed in the ancient mystery temples,
and when that point has been reached, the doctrines and sacraments
of the church will be found to rest upon immutable cosmic laws of no less
importance than the law of gravity which maintains the marching orbs in
their paths around the sun. As the points of the equinoxes and solstices are
turning points in the cyclic path of a planet, marked by festivals such as
Christmas and Easter, so birth into the physical world, admission to the
church, to the state of matrimony, and finally the exit from physical life,
are points in the cyclic path of the human spirit around its central
source — God, which are marked by the sacraments of baptism, communion,
marriage, and the last blessing.
We will now consider the rite of baptism. Much has been said by dissenters,
against the practice of taking an infant into church and promising for it a
religious life. Heated arguments concerning sprinkling versus
plunging have resulted in division of churches. If we wish to obtain the
true idea of baptism, we must revert to the early history of the human race
as recorded in the Memory of Nature. All that has ever happened is
indelibly pictured in the ether as a moving picture is imprinted upon a
sensitized film, which picture can be reproduced upon a screen at any moment.
The pictures in the Memory of Nature may be viewed by the trained seer, even
though millions of years have elapsed since the scenes there portrayed were
enacted in life.
When we consult that unimpeachable record it appears that there was a
time when that which is now our earth came out of chaos, dark and unformed, as
the Bible states. The currents developed in this misty mass by spiritual
agencies, generated heat, and the mass ignited at the time when we
are told that God said, "Let there be light." The heat of the fiery mass
and the cold space surrounding it generated moisture; the fire
mist became surrounded by water which boiled, and steam was projected into
the atmosphere; thus "God divided the waters . . . . from the waters . . . .
" — the dense water which was nearest the fire mist from the steam (which is
water in suspension), as stated in the Bible.
When water containing sediment is boiled over and over it deposits scale,
and similarly the water surrounding our planet finally formed a crust around
the fiery core. The Bible further informs us that a mist went up
from the ground, and we may well conceive how the moisture was
gradually evaporated from our planet in those early days.
Ancient myths are usually regarded as superstitions nowadays, but in
reality each of them contains a great spiritual truth in pictorial symbols.
These fantastic stories were given to infant humanity to teach them moral
lessons which their newborn intellects were not yet fitted to receive.
They were taught by myths — much as we teach our children by picture books
and fables — lessons beyond their intellectual comprehension.
One of the greatest of these folk stories is "The Ring of the
Niebelung", which tells of a wonderful treasure hidden under the waters
of the Rhine. It was a lump of gold in its natural state. Placed upon a high
rock, it illuminated the entire submarine scenery where water nymphs sported
about innocently in gladsome frolic. But one of the Neibelungs, imbued with
greed, stole the treasure, carried it out of the water, and fled. It was
impossible for him, however, to shape it until he had forsworn love. Then
he fashioned it into a ring which gave him power over all the treasures of
earth, but at the same time it inaugurated dissension and strife. For its
sake, friend betrayed friend, brother slew brother, and everywhere it caused
oppression, sorrow, sin and death, until it was at last restored to the watery
element and the earth was consumed in flames. But later there arose, like
the new phoenix from the ashes of the old bird, a new heaven and a new earth
where righteousness were re-established.
That old folk story gives a wonderful picture of human evolution. The
name Niebelungen is derived from the German words, niebel
(which means mist), and ungen (which means children). Thus the word
Niebelungen means children of the mist, and it refers back to
the time when humanity lived in the foggy atmosphere surrounding our earth at
the stage in its development previously mentioned. There infant humanity
lived in one vast brotherhood, innocent of all evil as the babe of today, and
illuminated by the Universal Spirit symbolized as the Rhinegold which shed
its light upon the water nymphs of our story. But in time the earth cooled
more and more; the fog condensed and flooded depressions upon the surface of
the earth with water; the atmosphere cleared; the eyes of man were opened and
he perceived himself as a separate ego. Then the Universal Spirit of
love and solidarity was superseded by egotism and
self-seeking.
That was the rape of the Rhinegold, and sorrow, sin, strife, treachery,
and murder have taken the place of the childlike love which existed among
humanity in that primal state when they dwelt in the watery atmosphere of
long ago. Gradually This tendency is becoming more and more marked, and the
curse of selfishness grows more and more apparent. "Man's inhumanity to
man" hangs like a funeral pall over the earth, and must inevitably bring
about destruction of existing conditions. The whole creation is groaning
and travailing, waiting for the day of redemption, and the Western Religion
strikes the keynote of the way to attainment when it exhorts us to love our
neighbor as we love ourselves; for then egotism will be abrogated for
universal brotherhood and love.
Therefore, when a person is admitted to the church, which is a
spiritual institution where love and brotherhood are the mainsprings
of action, it is appropriate to carry him under the waters of baptism
in symbol of the beautiful condition of childlike innocence and love which
prevailed when mankind dwelt under the mist in that bygone period. At
that time the eyes of infant man had not yet been opened to the
material advantages of This world. The little child which is brought
into the church has not yet become aware of the allurements of life either,
and others obligate themselves to guide it to lead a holy life according to
the best of their ability, because experience gained since the Flood has
taught us that the broad way of the world is strewn with pain, sorrow, and
disappointment; that only by following the straight and narrow way can we
escape death and enter into life everlasting.
Thus we see that there is a wonderfully deep, mystic significance behind
the sacrament of baptism; that it is to remind us of the blessings attendant
upon those who are members of a brotherhood where self-seeking is put
into the background and where service to others is the keynote and
mainspring of action. While we are in the world, he is the greatest who can
most successfully dominate others. In the church we have Christ's definition,
"He who would be the greatest among you, let him be the servant of
all."
VI. The Sacrament
of Marriage
When stripped of nonessentials the argument of the orthodox Christian
religion may be said to be as follows:
First, that tempted by the devil, our first parents sinned and were exiled
from their previous state of celestial bliss, placed under the law, made
subject to death, and became incapable of escaping by their own efforts.
Second, that God so loved the world that He gave Christ, His only begotten
Son, for its redemption and to establish the kingdom of heaven. Thus death
will finally be swallowed up in immortality.
This simple creed has provoked the smiles of atheists, and of the purely
intellectual who have studied transcendental philosophies with their niceties
of logic and argument; and even of some among those who study the Western
Mystery Teaching.
Such an attitude of mind is entirely gratuitous. We might know that the
divine leaders of mankind would not allow millions to continue in error for
millennia. When the Western Mystery Teaching is stripped of its exceedingly
illuminating explanations and detailed descriptions, when its basic teachings
are stated, they are found to be in exact agreement with the orthodox
Christian teachings.
There was a time when mankind lived in a sinless state; when sorrow,
pain, and death were unknown. Neither is the personal tempter of
Christianity a myth, for the Lucifer Spirits may very well be said to be
fallen angels, and their temptation of man resulted in focusing his
consciousness upon the material phase of existence where he is under the
law of decrepitude and death. Also it is truly the mission of Christ to aid
mankind by elevating them to a more ethereal state where dissolution will no
longer be necessary to free them from vehicles that have grown too hard and set
for further use. For This is indeed a "body of death," where only the
smallest quantity of material is really alive, as part of its bulk is nutrient
matter that has not yet been assimilated, another large part is already on its
way to elimination, and only between these two poles may be found the
material which is thoroughly quickened by the spirit.
We have in other sections considered the sacraments of baptism and
communion, sacraments that have to do particularly with the spirit. We will
now seek to understand the deeper side of the sacrament of marriage, which
has to do particularly with the body. Like the other sacraments the
institution of marriage had its beginning and will also have its end. The
commencement was described by the Christ when He said, "Have ye not read that
He which made them at the beginning made them male and female, and said:
For This cause shall a man leave his father and mother and cleave to his
wife; and they twain shall be one flesh? Wherefore they are no more twain,
but one flesh." — Matt. 19:4-6. He also indicated the end of marriage when he
said: "In the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but
are as the angels of God in heaven." — Matt. 22:30
In This light the logic of the teaching is apparent, for marriage
became necessary in order that birth might provide new instruments
to take the place of those which had been ruptured by death; and
when death has once been swallowed up in immortality and there is no need of
providing new instruments, marriage also will be unnecessary.
Science with admirable audacity has sought to solve the mystery of
fecundation, and has told us how invagination takes place in the walls of
the ovary; how the little ovum is formed in the seclusion of its dark
cavity; how it emerges therefrom and enters the Fallopian tube; is pierced by
the spermatozoon of the male, and the nucleus of a human body is complete.
We are thus supposed to be "at the fount and origin of life!" But life has
neither beginning nor end, and what science mistakenly considers the fountain
of life is really the source of death, as all that comes from the womb is
destined sooner or later to reach the tomb. The marriage feast
which prepares for birth, at the same time provides food for the
insatiable jaws of death, and so long as marriage is necessary to
generation and birth, disintegration and death must inevitably result.
Therefore, it is of prime importance to know the history of marriage, the
laws and agencies involved, the duration of This institution, and how it may be
transcended.
When we obtained our vital bodies in Hyperborea, the sun, moon and earth
were still united, and the solar-lunar forces permeated each being in even
measure so that all were able to perpetuate their kind by buds and spores as do
certain plants of today. The efforts of the vital body to soften the dense
vehicle and keep it alive were not then interfered with, and these primal,
plantlike bodies lived for ages. But man was then unconscious and stationary
like a plant; he made no effort or exertion. The addition of a desire body
furnished incentive and desire, and consciousness resulted from the war
between the vital body, which builds, and the desire body, which destroys the
dense body.
Thus dissolution became only a question of time, particularly as the
constructive energy of the vital body was also necessarily divided, one part or
pole being used in the vital functions of the body, the other to replace a
vehicle lost by death. But as the two poles of a magnet or dynamo are
requisite to manifestation, so also two single-sexed beings became necessary
for generation; thus marriage and birth were necessarily inaugurated to offset
the effect of death. Death, then, is the price we pay for consciousness in
the present world; marriage and repeated births are our weapons against
the king of terrors until our constitution shall change and we become as
angels.
Please mark that it is not stated that we are to become angels, but that we
are to become as angels. For the angels are the humanity of the Moon
Period; they belong to an entirely different stream of evolution, as different
as are human spirits from those of our present animals. Paul states in his
letter to the Hebrews that man was made for a little while inferior to
the angels; he descended lower into the scale of materiality during the Earth
Period, while the angels have never inhabited a globe denser than ether.
This substance is the direct avenue of all life forces, and when man has
once become as the angels and has learned to build his body of ether,
naturally there will be no death and no need of marriage to bring about
birth.
But looking at marriage from another point of view, looking upon it as a
union of souls rather than as a union of the sexes, we contact the wonderful
mystery of Love. Union of the sexes might serve to perpetuate the race, of
course, but the true marriage is a companionship of souls also, which
altogether transcends sex. Yet those really able to meet upon that lofty
plane of spiritual intimacy gladly offer their bodies as living sacrifices
upon the altar of Love of the Unborn, to woo a waiting spirit into
an immaculately conceived body. Thus humanity may be saved from the reign
of death.
This is readily apparent as soon as we consider the gentle action of the
vital body and contrast it with that of the desire body in a fit of temper,
where it is said that a man has "lost control" of himself. Under such
conditions the muscles become tense, and nervous energy is expended at a
suicidal rate, so that after such an outbreak the body may sometimes be
prostrated for weeks. The hardest labor brings no such fatigue as a fit
of temper; likewise a child conceived in passion under the crystallizing
tendencies of the desire nature is naturally short-lived, and it is a
regrettable fact that length of life is nowadays almost a misnomer; in
view of the appalling infant mortality it ought to be called brevity of
existence.
The building tendencies of the vital body, which is the vehicle of love,
are not so easily watched, but observation proves that contentment lengthens
life of any one who cultivates this quality, and we may safely reason that a
child conceived under conditions of harmony and love stands a better chance of
life than one conceived under conditions of anger, inebriety, and passion.
According to Genesis it was said to the woman, "In sorrow shalt thou bear
children," and it has always been a sore puzzle to Bible commentators what
logical connection there may be between eating of fruit and the pains of
parturition. But when we understand the chaste references of the Bible to
the act of generation, the connection is readily perceived. While the
insensitive Negro or Indian mother may bear her child and shortly afterward
resume her labors in the field, the western woman, more acutely sensitive
and of high-strung nervous temperament, is year by year finding it more
difficult to go through the ordeal of motherhood, though aided by the best and
most skilled scientific help.
The contributory reasons are various: In the first place, while we are
exceedingly careful in selecting our horses and cattle for breeding, while we
insist upon pedigree for the animals in order that we may bring out the very
best strain of stock upon our farms, we exercise no such care with respect to
the selection of a father and mother for our children. We mate upon impulse
and regret it at our leisure, aided by laws which make it all too easy to
enter or leave the sacred bonds of matrimony. The words pronounced by
minister or judge are taken to be a license for unlimited indulgence, as if
any man-made law could license the contravention of the law of God. While
animals mate only at a certain time of the year and the mother is undisturbed
during the period of pregnancy, this is not true of the human race.
In view of these facts is it to be wondered at that we find such a dread of
maternity, and is it not time that we seek to remedy the matter by a more sane
relation between marriage partners? Astrology will reveal the temper and
tendencies of each human being; it will enable two people to blend their
characters in such a manner that a love live may be lived, and it will indicate
the periods when interplanetary lines of force are most nearly conducive to
painless parturition. Thus it will enable us to draw from the bosom of nature,
children of love, capable of living long lives in good health. Finally the
day will come when these bodies will have been made so perfect in their
ethereal purity that they may last throughout the coming Age, and thus make
marriage superfluous.
But if we can love now when we see one another "through a glass darkly,"
through the mask of personality and the veil of misunderstanding , we may be
sure that the love of soul for soul, purged of passion in the furnace of
sorrow, will be our brightest gem in heaven as its shadow is on earth.
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