CHAPTERXXVIITHE LAW OF SEX
Synthetic Philosophy and Comparative Theology have sought wisely to establish a common basis for human thought and aspiration. From the complex of life and thought they have argued to fundamental unity. It has been well said that the foolish and superficial look for differences in things about them, but the wise seek for the underlying identity. In the last analysis of things animate and inanimate, we are faced by the insoluble fact of sex distinction.
When we speak of chemical affinity, of magnetism, of polarity, we are really speaking in terms of sex. However far we push back our investigations along the lines of evolution we come at length to the distinction which separates one-half of nature from the other, and which is seen to be at the root of all natural attractions and to be the source of generation. Sex, as considered by itself and apart from function and organism, may be the result of a mode of vibration. We cannot say. We may go right back to the first principles of our conception of Life and we find the active and passive principles of Force and Matter, Heat and Moisture, Fire and Water, penetrating through the various philosophiesand schools of thought, but always a duality. Even in the Theological conception we have the divine principles of Wisdom and Love in apposition, but united for the purpose of Creation and Preservation of the Universe. It is a mystery that cannot be solved. We cannot in fact, determine whether sex distinction is temporary or eternal. We have reason to regard it as radical and not accidental. For whereas in the process of evolution it appears from time to time to merge in various forms and to become hermaphroditic, we find it continually emerging again, persistent and irrepressible.
From the occult point of view it appears to be impounded in the very elements of our being. It has been shown in these pages that the Microcosmic Man is an epitome of the universe, compounded of universal elements, and responsive at all points to the laws controlling the cosmos. It has also been shown that the Moon, so far as this earth is concerned, is the cosmic factor which represents variability. It has also been shown that it exercises first influence in the process of generation, and, therefore we may expect to find it intimately connected with the question of sex. It is, in fact, found to be the factor which determines the astral forces towards the evolution of sex function and organism.
By an empiricism based on an occult law and proved by the application of this law to hundreds of cases of well-authenticated births, it has been established that the determination of sex follows a definite course from a certain point of time bearinga mathematical and astronomical relationship to the moment of birth. Thus, given the moment at which a birth took place in any locality, it is possible to at once indicate the sex without the fact being communicated. By this I do not mean that sex production is voluntary in human or animal generation. That is a problem which the Eugenists should consider in the light of the law of sex I am now concerned with.
The four cardinal points of the zodiac, Aries 0°, Libra 0, Capricorn 0 and Cancer 0, are the generating points of the circle or Wheel of Life. These points are not artificial. They are natural. They mark the stages at which the Sun in its apparent course about the earth cross the equator, and attain the maximum and minimum degrees of elevation. By analogy they are related to the Dawn, Noon, Sunset and Midnight of the daily circle; to the Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter of the year; and to the periods of Childhood, Manhood, Maturity and Senility in the life of man. It is this consent of Nature to the universal paradigm that enables us to trace the course of mundane events from astral conditions in force at these several points of the year, as Kepler allowed from his own experience, and as Astrologers find continually to be the case.
Taking these four points of the zodiac, then, as the starting-points for the determination of cosmic forces ultimating as sex, we find that Aries 0 is female, Capricornus 0 male, Libra 0 male and Cancer 0 female. They follow the lines of thesegmentation of the cell in the animal organism. Thus—
Figure 28.Figure 28.
Figure 28.
Figure 28.
From each of these points there are six others generated, which are alternately male and female in potentiality.
Here it is necessary to introduce the lunar factor, since it is the means of the distribution of the “sex degrees” as we may call them, which are generated from the four cardinal points. For this purpose we have to regard the moon in relation to the number 7, which is the number of days in which it forms its successive phases. From one phase to another is a quadrant of 90° and this divided by seven will give the mean acceleration of 12-6/7°. If we divide the circle into seven parts we shall get 51-3/7° and further dividing this into four parts, in order to get the twenty-eight days of the Moon’s passage, we shall have again 12-6/7°.
It is the septenate division of the circle whichenables us to get the sex degrees that are generated from the four cardinal points. Thus, from Aries 0 we arrive at Taurus 21-3/7, Cancer 12-6/7, Virgo 4-2/7, Libra 25-5/7, Sagittarius 17-1/7, and Aquarius 8-4/7. These are found to be male and female in alternation. From Libra 0 we derive the same degrees of the opposite signs, but the sex is reversed in each case. From Capricornus we derive Leo 21, Libra 13, Sagittarius 4, Capricorn 26, Pisces 17, and Taurus 8, the sex of each being the same as the corresponding degrees of the zodiac generated from Libra. From Cancer we derive the same degrees of the opposite signs to those derived from Capricornus, but the sex is reversed in each case.
There are thus four sets of degrees alternately male and female in tendency which are generated from the four cardinal points, and these may be set out in order as derived, thus—
Figure 29.Figure 29.
Figure 29.
Figure 29.
It will be observed that the fractions are omitted and the nearest complete degree inserted. Then if we arrange these four sets of degrees into their groups under the radical generator, we shall have a central generating point with a six-pointed star or interlaced triangle around it, the upright triangle being male and the reversed triangle female at theradials. Each of these stars will occupy one of the four cardinal points of the Cosmic Cross.
Figure 30. Diagram of the Cosmic Star. Showing the generation of the Sex Degrees of the Zodiac from the Four Cardinal Points.Figure 30. Diagram of the Cosmic Star. Showing the generation of the Sex Degrees of the Zodiac from the Four Cardinal Points.
Figure 30. Diagram of the Cosmic Star. Showing the generation of the Sex Degrees of the Zodiac from the Four Cardinal Points.
Figure 30. Diagram of the Cosmic Star. Showing the generation of the Sex Degrees of the Zodiac from the Four Cardinal Points.
The application of the Law of Sex requires some little astronomical practice. It is first of all necessary to find the place of the Moon at the time of birth. If the moon is found in a sex degree or within three degrees of one, it will retain the sex of that degree. Otherwise, it is necessary to observe whether the Moon is increasing or decreasing at thetime, and if increasing, the Moon’s place must be put on the East horizon, but if decreasing, it will be on the West horizon. This position is found to answer to the Moon’s place at the Prenatal Epoch, concerning which some explanation is necessary.
The normal period of human gestation is nine solar or ten lunar months. It will be found that the moon makes ten revolutions while the Sun passes through nine signs of the zodiac. But this normal period may be increased or decreased, and that quite normally, by the relative positions of the luminaries at the time of inception. I use this word to distinguish it from conception, which term connotes certain physiological processes and facts. The astral factor should not be identified in point of time with the physiological processes of coitus and impregnation.
Now it is found that when at birth the Moon is increasing in light, that is, going towards the full, and above the horizon, or conversely, decreasing in light and below the horizon, the period from birth to inception islessthan ten lunar months by a quantity determined by the Moon’s distance from the horizon. But when the Moon at birth is found to be decreasing and above the horizon, or increasing and below the horizon, the period of time from birth to inception is found to bemorethan ten lunar months by a quantity determined by the Moon’s distance from the horizon.
The measure of this plus or minus quantity is thus computed. The Moon’s distance is taken from the horizon East or West, according as it is increasingor decreasing in light. If increasing, it is taken from the East, and if decreasing from the West. The number of zodiacal degrees between the Moon and the horizon thus indicated has then to be divided by the Moon’s mean diurnal motion, which is 13° 11´ roughly, and this will be the number of days more or less than ten lunar revolutions by which the birth is separated from the inception.
This calculation from the Moon’s position in the zodiac and prime vertical enables us certainly to fix the day of the inception. The next step is to find the time of day at which the Moon is in exact horoscopical relations with the moment of birth.
This is done by a single observation. In all normal cases it is found that if the Moon is increasing in light at the time of birth, that is to say, going from the new to the full, its longitude at the moment of birth will be the ascendant at the inception, and if decreasing at birth its longitude will be the descendant at the moment of the inception. Then universally it is found that the Moon is, at that moment, in the exact longitude which was rising or setting at the birth. Now having the moon’s acceleration as a variable factor, ranging from 11° 50´ to 15° 17´ per day, the chances are millions to one against the Moon being in the exact degree and minute that was on the horizon at birth at the same time that the Moon’s place at birth was rising or setting on a local horizon. Yet this is found to be the fact! What other conclusion can we come to, having regard to all the factors employed, and the wonderful harmony that is observed to result, than that “God geometrizes,”as Plato wisely said. Things do not happen by chance, but by law. Law is the expression of intelligence inhering in action. The universe is rendered intelligible by its laws. Whatever is intelligible expresses Intelligence.
But we have yet to consider the variation of the law that is conformable to the Law of Sex. This Law of Lunar Appulsion in the matter of human generation would work out exactly as stated above in every case were it not for the fact that Sex is the dominant and controlling factor, and that by reason of it a birth may be delayed or advanced by a period ranging from a fortnight to as much as two months. For, whatever may be the other factors involved in the horoscopical conditions of a birth, sex must be satisfied first and foremost. It is the controlling factor. Observe, then, that if the birth is male and the Moon occupies a female degree, as indicated above, should the Moon be increasing in light, the Law of Lunar Appulsion already detailed will require that the Moon’s place should rise at the Epoch of inception or, as it is called, the “Prenatal Epoch,” and consequently a female degree would be rising at such Epoch. This would be contrary to the sex, and consequently we know that the Moon’s place at birth must be setting at the Epoch, so that a male degree may be rising. This is the case,mutatus mutandis, when the Moon is in a male degree and the sex is female. Then, this adjustment being duly made, it is found that the horoscope resulting will find the Moon in the exact degree that was rising at birth. Exactly similar considerationshold in the case of a Moon that is decreasing at birth. This is the first establishment of the Law of Sex as controlling the time of birth.
The next is when the Moon does not occupy a sex degree but is more than three degrees removed from either male or female degrees. In such case we have to consider whether the degree on the horizon at the moment of birth pertains to either sex. For if it be so, and the degree is of the sex of the child born, then we know that the Moon was in that degree at the Epoch, whether it was increasing or decreasing in light at the birth. This will control the day of birth in the same way that the first rule controlled the moment of it. Only when neither the Moon nor the horizon are occupied by sex degrees the Law of Lunar Appulsion operates without restriction. This clearly shows that the Law of Sex is paramount, and that it can and does control the Law of Lunar Appulsion. By appulsion we mean that outbreathing from the moon-sphere towards the earth which corresponds to the diastole of respiration, by which the vital forces of the cosmos focussed by the Moon are carried towards the earth for the production and sustentation of the species.
If this Law were a matter of chance it will be seen by any one acquainted with the astronomical facts, that the chances are dead against it working out in practice. Yet the facts are in daily test by astrologers the world over, and we may hence conclude that the Law of Sex has absolutely been discovered, or at all events the rules by which we may recognize its cosmic relations.
With a closer knowledge of the initial stages of generation, it will be possible, by a reversal of the factors here employed, to argue from the inception to the birth, instead of as now from the birth backwards to the Epoch of inception. In such case we shall have obtained the secret of how to determine the sex of offspring at will. That the Prenatal Epoch here established answers to some incipient stage of the process of generation there can be no reasonable doubt whatever, for wherever the time of birth is accurately taken by a medical man it answers exactly to the astronomical considerations required by the Law as formulated. Elsewhere I have delivered a diagram showing the Moon’s position for each month from the inception to the birth, from which we see that there is a definite law of pulsation marking a spiral descent of the Monad along the line of energy instituted between the Moon’s place at the Epoch and the point of the zodiac on the horizon at the moment of birth. This I have called the Descent of the Monad, and it affords a study of the greatest psychological value. Very many attempts have been made on the part of gynecologists to ascertain the law controlling Sex, and I have introduced this section in the hope that such as may have a practical interest in this question will avail themselves of the facts so far derived from the study of occultism.