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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