CHAPTER VIII.

Sexuality {Continued).
The Bridegroom is "the Father," so frequently spoken of by Jesus. He is the highest spirit that can manifest to man, or that can consciously enter into humanity. The Universal Spirit pervading all, which is all — the source alike of hght and darkness, of good and evil, of pain and pleasure, of ignorance and intelligence, of virtue and vice — is not meant by this term, Father. The Father to v/hom Jesus constantly appealed is the Father only of the Christ. He is the Creator in human- ity as differentiated from the Universal Creator. From him flows the seed of Regeneration and im- mortality, begetting the Christ in human nature — that "Word that was with God" and that "was God," declared by John. In the evolution of spir- itual consciousness, he is the moving spirit appro- priately styled the Bridegroom, whose Bride is the Divine Sophia of the Mystics ; the Virgin mother- love of humanity.
Christ is a spirit, substantial, immortal, generated in every soul that desires him with the desire of Love; and tJie growtJi of Christ in tJic huvian nature
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is Regeneration. No instantaneous transformation is possible ; it is the slow growth, the serious cul- ture of a lifetime. It is a process, — conception, gestation, and birth, infilling and transmuting every atom of flesh into immortal substance. If "Christ within you the hope of glory " means anything it means immortality for tJie entire man. He who aspires ** to knoiu of the truth of this doctrine " must have the loftiest ideal conceivable of the latent powers and possibilities of humanity.
Man's highest ideal of love is that which the mother of his children manifests for him. Mother- love is universal ; there is no conscious life void of it. There is no weakness, defect, depravity, or monstrosity to which she has given birth that is outside of the mother's love and self-sacrifice. He who can inspire this love in the breast of a woman need ask for nothing more. If his nature is fine enough to understand it and large enough to ap- propriate it, he has found Paradise.
The measure of a man is his ideal of woman. It determines the loftiness of his flight or the depth of his debasement. The mind of the true bridegroom is ideal, filled with ardent devotion, faith, trust, hope, confidence and anticipation. His beloved is all the world to him ; without her life itself would be a worthless show. The uni- verse is full of her ; her breath is like the aroma of flowers ; the touch of her hand transports him
g6 Regeiieratio7i.
to the verge of ecstasy. The glance of her eye kmdles a fire in him that burns away all selfish- ness ; for the time his feminine nature is supreme and he loses himself in love. Benevolence asserts itself, and he invites all the world to the marriage- feast, if it be only a crust. His pride of self is quenched and he becomes one with the universal. A taste of heaven is in this spiritual exaltation, and he might rise to still greater heights of ecstasy if his ideal were not ruthlessly torn from him by the contact of coarse, irresponsive matter with which ideals are clothed. This friction of matter is electrical in character; it has other objects to serve than merely procreation of the race. This is a Mystery and the key to it is held by woman. Instructed in this Mystery, she unlocks the door an(;l brings man into wisdom and knowledge and power; ignorant, she drifts with him into disunion, disgust and despair. Byj)ossession of the being loved, without wisdom from her, he is cast out of heaven like Lucifer, Son of the Morning, the glo- rious being who had all things save love. So the bridegroom falls away from his loftier self; his idol is clay, something separate, apart from him- self which he ozvns, not the beautiful spirit into which he fondly dreamed of losing himself in per- fect love and rest.* He has fallen back into himself, the material male spirit, which does not expand like the feminine to enclose all helpless things.
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Love manifesting through sex acts on three planes : the Electrical, which has just been de- fined; the Magnetic, and the Ethereal. Of the last named we who are yet on the earth plane can know only from report — a glimpse caught by the clear eyes of some sensitive soul, or the vision of the seer, in deep sleep when the angels sometimes talk with men. Of the magnetic union it may be said that, like the birth of the Christ, it is poten- tially/^i-i-/^/^ to all, but really known to only the few. The electrical union when complete and per- fect gestates the spiritual body, atom by atom ; the magnetic union regenerates it. It is attained through all-pervading Love ; a mighty sea in which the Will rouses rhythmical, profound, searching vi- brations. It is soul answering soul in the great deeps of Love, and the friction of matter plays no