When the energies of the sacral center, focused hitherto on the work of physical creation and generation and therefore the source of physical sex life and interest, are sublimated, reoriented and carried up to the throat center, then the aspirant becomes a conscious creative force in the higher worlds; he enters within the veil, and begins to create the pattern of things which will bring about eventually the new heavens and the new earth.

Men and women become swayed by astralism and wander in the vale of illusion regarding themselves as different from other men, placing themselves upon a pedestal far above average humanity. They fall consciously into the sin of separateness. Add to the above category, the cases of sex perversion, brought about by over-stimulation of the sacral center, the cases of neuroticism and over-sensitivity and emotionalism, brought about by the premature vitalization of the solar plexus center, and lastly the cases of insanity, brought about by over-stimulation of the brain cells through unwise meditation work, and it will become increasingly clear why it is deemed necessary to proceed slowly and to develop the mental processes as well as the spiritual nature.

In the little evolved man, as in the case of the second aspect and its unfoldment, the energy simply passes through the throat center and goes directly to the sacral center, and thus brings into activity the generative processes and creative faculties, utilized in the reproductive work and sex life of the race.

The heart center is also beginning to vibrate, but is not yet awakened; the throat center is frequently prematurely awakened, through the transfer of energy from the sacral center. This is due to several causes - sometimes to spiritual purpose and intent, but more frequently to a negation of the normal sex life, owing to economic conditions, or to a lack of physical vitality, which predisposes to celibacy. This lack of vital force is in its turn due to many factors, but primarily to a long heredity, producing a degeneracy of the physical body, or to enforced celibacy in past lives; this enforced celibacy was very often the result of monasticism and the living of the mystical life. When this creative awakening finds expression through any of the arts - literature, painting, music, - or in group organization and executive work there is no harm wrought, for the energy finds a normal creative outlet. These points should be remembered by the aspirant. He is facing a most complex problem. He enters blindly into a situation which is the result of a long evolutionary process and to which he has not the key. Especially in the early stages and prior to the first initiation is this the case, for he has no knowledge of the history of the past, nor any prevision as to the future. He has simply to take his equipment and his opportunity and do the best he can, guided by the age-old rules of Raja Yoga, and the light of his own soul.

Thirdly, the force of sex attraction. This is a pull from the physical plane and the swinging back of a type of involutionary energy on to the path of return. Cosmically speaking, it manifests as the attractive force between spirit and matter; spiritually speaking, it is demonstrated as the activity of the soul, as it seeks to draw the lower self into full realization. Physically speaking, it is the urge which tends to unite male and female for the purpose of procreation. When man was purely animal, no sin was involved. When to this urge was added emotional desire, then sin crept in, and the purpose for which the urge manifested was perverted into the satisfaction of desire. Now that the race is more mental, and the force of mind is making itself felt in the human body, an even more serious situation is apparent, which can only be safely worked out when the soul assumes control of its triple instrument.

In the bulk of humanity the sacral center and the solar plexus govern the life, and that is why desire for material living and for the sex life are so closely blended. The solar plexus in the animal is the brain and governs all the instinctual reactions, but is not so closely allied with the purely sex expression as it is in the human being.

There are two of these astral forms in close proximity to our Earth, which are rapidly "decomposing", if I may so term it, and yet have a very potent influence. On account of this close relation, they produce two types of desire or of astral tendency among men. One produces much of that instinctual tendency to cruelty which one sees in children and in certain types of men, and the other has an effect upon the sex life and produces some of those tendencies to perversions which cause so much difficulty now. Sadistic tendencies and sex perversions find much strengthening influence from these dying astral emanations. In ancient days they were still more potent, being closer to our earth than now; hence the ritualistic cruelties and the horrors, for instance, of Sodom and Gomorrah. Their power is rapidly declining and it should be remembered that they would have no power at all were there not in humanity itself certain instincts upon which these energies can work. It should also be remembered that in Lemurian times their influence was constructive, for in those days, the lesson of sex and the intelligent registering of pain had a place in the schemes of those who were endeavoring to lead animal man into human consciousness - not into soul consciousness or even into self-consciousness in those very early times.

The quality of these energies is primarily astral-buddhic, and the bias of the life forces and the general trend of the impulses influencing humanity in this great cycle are the attractive energy of the intuitional nature of the planetary Logos, and the potent force of the astral (desire) body. In other words, the astral elemental, which embodies the desire nature of the planetary Logos is exceedingly potent, particularly in this present cycle, but the strength of the spiritual and intuitional nature of the One in Whom we live and move and have our being is steadily increasing. On the one hand, you have the devastating expression of the wild hunt for pleasure, of sex and of the crime incident to the satisfying of desire.

The instinct of sex has its main root in the fear of separateness and of isolation, and in a revolt against separative unity on the physical plane, against aloneness; and it has resulted in the carrying forward of the race and the persistence and propagation of the forms through which the race can come into manifestation.