[Die Geheimnisse der Zeugung und die Bestimmung des Geschlects des Kindes vor der Geburt.]

Translation from the German by Robert Hütwohl.^[i]

Chapter I.

Much has been written at length about predetermining the sex of children before birth, and about the art of producing male or female offspring at will, but all the views which have been advanced have been based on entirely unfounded assumptions, and the ones that are given Rules have not worked; because even if e.g. in the family of the Emperor of Russia, after a long wait and strict adherence to the fasting theory of a German professor, a male heir to the throne came about, countless failures went hand in hand, and it would take a great deal of imagination to write the eventual birth of a boy on the credit account of this method. In Hufeland’s time, some physicians believed that the woman’s right-sided ovary contained male and left-sided female ova, and recently a German professor has brought up this figment of male and female ova. Such theories, which are unproven and contrary to common sense, usually only have the purpose of giving the inventor a certain fame, which usually only lasts a few months, that is, until everyone is convinced that the matter is nonsense.

          Yet there is a certain law of nature in the distribution of the sexes on this earth, and man has the power to predetermine the sex of the children he begets, provided he knows that law and knows how to apply it practically. This law was described three hundred years ago by the famous doctor Theophrastus Paracelsus in his work “De Virtute Imaginativa” and is used by many cattle breeders in England, Canada, America and Australia in the breeding of horses and cattle.

          The begetting of a human being is also an animal act, and the same law governs it. The nature of earthly man is not so different from that of the beast that an exception should be made in his case. But if we are to explain scientifically the operation of this law, it is necessary to penetrate a little deeper into the realm of psychology, or, let us put it bluntly, into the realm of “magic”; for the reproductive faculty in man and beast is indeed a magical power, instinctively exercised by beasts and beast-men, but capable of being mastered by the more highly evolved men. In fact, it is the only one of the original magical powers that man still has in his present condition of material degradation.

          European culture has scarcely survived a period of crass materialism, and various products of disease are still left behind, as a result of which there are still very many people, even in scholarly circles, who do not want to understand that the spirit, i.e., the unity of consciousness, will and imagination, which is the formative force in the universe, which works in matter. It is no longer a secret today that the Indian sages taught thousands of years ago that the whole world with all its manifestations is “Māyā,” and Schopenhauer in his work Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung [The World as Will and Representation] has held this view in many circles made so popular that it seems superfluous to discuss it further; but it is the same with this doctrine as with many other theories, it has become fashionable to take it to be true, but it is understood by very few and applied by very few.

          According to the Indian conception, all existence is based on “māyā” or “imagination,” i.e., the entire world of forms is formed into the world substance by the power of the world spirit, and this world of forms includes not only the world of appearances in the “material world” that is visible to us, but also the “astral” and thought world that is invisible to us. The images which the mind produces in our thought-sphere, and which come to our imagination through the cerebral apparatus, are as substantial as the material forms by which we are surrounded, only with the difference that they consist of finer vibrations of the same substance, and are more mobile and therefore are more changeable and, as it were, belong to a higher octave in the composition of the world harmony, in other words: to a higher level of existence than the gross material one. If we had the power, by our will, to tune down the vibrations of the substance that make up an image in our mind to a lower octave, we could also “materialize” these image images and make them appear externally, and we already are widely known that this is not an impossibility. This is proven by the well-known productions of Indian fakirs, as described, for example, by Jacolliot in his book “Dans le pays des Fakirs” and by many other scholars. This magical power of “imagination” and will exists within us, but we are not yet aware of possessing it and therefore cannot use it rationally. But what is not yet possible for our intellect, the spirit does without our knowledge during the act of procreation by means of the organizing power of nature with the help of the female organism and the hidden forces contained therein. Not only the rest of the world, but man before birth is a product of will and imagination, and his sex is no exception to this rule.

          Woman is generally more finely organized than man, but just as vital and perhaps even more enduring than he is, and it is ridiculous to think that a woman must have come down physically to bring girls into the world. There are also no ovaries that are half male, half female, and no one has yet found sex differences in the unfertilized “eggs”; but there are ideal conceptions, from which, according to their nature, spring feminine or masculine thought-images, which play a great part in the act of procreation, and the same is the case in art. A sculptor who wishes to make a statue of Venus must first of all have a love for this ideal, from which his conception of it springs; he forms the corresponding form in his thoughts; he becomes completely absorbed in the feminine ideal he has formed within himself, so that he forgets himself and the benefit that flows from his work; he himself is the realization of this ideal within himself and expresses it through the work of his hands in clay or marble. He is only a real artist when he is completely absorbed in his work and has the necessary training and the necessary means to perform it; or if the creative mind of the artist has a Hercules in mind, then under the same circumstances a male figure will come about.

          The very same law prevails in procreation. If the man is completely filled with love for the woman, then he is completely taken with this feminine ideal, his whole idea is filled with it and puts this stamp on the “materialization” to be created, i.e., he imparts to the child the feminine nature which he has instinctively formed within himself and her qualities, and the result will be the birth of a girl. On the other hand, if the woman’s love is stronger, her conception is also stronger, and from the masculine ideal which she has formed within herself and which she fulfills, arises the formation of the fetus and the birth of a boy. Consequently, in determining the sex before birth, the main question is whether love and the ideal conception arising from it was the greater and stronger one or the other. If the woman has a fiery temper and the man remains more or less indifferent to the act of procreation, when pregnancy occurs the birth of a male heir is to be expected. On the other hand, if the man is infatuated with love and the woman is indifferent or reluctant to give in, then a girl is in sight. Here we see what kernel of truth there may be in Schenk’s theory, namely, that the stronger element in the act of procreation overcomes the weaker; but the matter was misunderstood; for if one wants to ascribe a special influence on love to bodily nourishment, then, according to this law, it is not the woman but rather the man who should be subjected to a starvation diet. Such a premise, however, has little justification; for it is well known that consumptive persons are the most passionate in sexual relations.

          The instinct of the people often discerns a truth that remains hidden to the musing scholars. For some peoples it is regarded as proof of a woman’s very special love for her husband when she bears a boy for him, and she is then particularly honored and given presents. Basically, this does not happen because one wishes for a boy, because the woman would not have deserved any special thanks, but because one does not recognize a favor of fate, but the favor of the woman.

          Laws of nature are general and limit their sphere of operation to no particular class. Therefore such a law also applies to animals and, as noted above, has long been applied by horse breeders; for if they want female foals the time is chosen when the stallion is in full heat, and another time is chosen for male offspring. It is strange that it has not yet occurred to the scholars that this law should not be applied to human beings, or, as is often the case, should they be unaware of a fact which every farmer knows?

          It goes without saying that a person’s condition or level of passion is not always the same; for otherwise only male children could come into the world in one family and only female children in another, whereas in most families there are children of both sexes. However, everyone can explain this fact to themselves if they consider that feelings, inclinations and desires are subject to change and are dependent on different circumstances. What you love today can be disgusting tomorrow; what is indifferent to a man today may delight him tomorrow. If a yardstick for infatuation could be invented, things might be better regulated, and if accurate statistics could be made of such things, precise scientific evidence could be produced to satisfy the doubters; but in the absence of “exact science” we only have common sense and our own observation to judge. I have made the observation during twenty-five years of practice in very many families that very passionate men have mostly female offspring and vice versa, passionate women married to indifferent men, boys. I remember the family of a nobleman who always came home drunk in the evenings and disgusted his wife. He had six drunk children, all of whom were girls and some idiots, some half-wits. Perhaps in the future some statistician will find out that in most reluctant marriages among women, as well as among genocide and prostitutes, the majority of the children are girls.

          We are all “materialized spirits” or ethereal beings, underlying a thought-form that has constructed a material body through the forces of nature. The Bible also teaches that everything came from the “Word”; but the “Word” is the expression of the thought through the will, in other words, the deed.^[ii] The whole world is, as the poet says, “a divine thought,” or rather the expression of the thought (idea) of God drawn from itself and projected into objective existence by its will. What the will of God accomplishes in the universe as a whole, the divine will accomplishes in man through the human spirit. But the will of God is love, and through its magical power it expresses the ideal whose image it finds in the spirit. This is not to be understood as if, in creating a world, God had to study what he was about to create and then carry out his resolve; in him thought, will and love are one, and so they should only be one in man. It is not a question of having an idea of ​​a masculine or feminine ideal in the act of procreation; rather, the idea in question arises from love for the masculine or feminine ideal. In other words, it is not a question of the creation of a fantastic idea or of a figment of the imagination, but of the mental belief in the ideal in question, which springs from the love of that ideal and which may perhaps be described by the name “suggestion” popular today, if the soul (the subconscious) is permeated by this belief, then that idea forms automatically, which Paracelsus calls the spiritual “seed,” and he distinguishes a male and a female “seed,” i.e., a female and a male procreative force. He says:^[3]

“For the protection of the sexes, God gave man free will and planted the seed in their imagination, thoroughly, materially (substantially) with all his being. The imagination creates the craving and the craving creates the seed. Thus is the birth of the seed which no man sees or can see, and it is in the will of man to produce it by his imagination.

“In the man’s imagination the object of contemplation is the woman, and in the woman’s imagination the man is the object of contemplation. Thus the Liquor Vitae (the life spirit) is ignited by the contemplation and becomes a seed of another human being, in which then all the nature, properties, type and nature of the organs are contained invisibly; for the Liquor Vitae lies in all parts of the father and mother and is born from all parts, from the whole human being. But that the visible semen, the sperm which comes out of the vasis spermaticis (semen vessels), can produce a human being without this spiritual semen is one of the biggest lies that doctors have ever invented. The spiritual seed from which man grows remains in the liquor vitae and does not go into the sperm; from the latter only the material body of man is formed in the matrix (womb), while the spiritual (etheric) man is already completely contained in the (spiritual) seed. This spiritual seed comes from all parts of the father and mother, and yet is only one seed when these two come together. But the matrix of the mother attracts this seed, and through it the material form of the future man develops. Then everything which belongs to a person is there, and only life and soul are missing.

“If the whole seed were contained in one man, the character of the child would be like that seed in everything, such as, for instance, the seed of a nut-tree gives nothing but a nut-tree; but the mingling of the two seeds gives rise to innumerable differences, so that no man is quite alike; and that seed which is the stronger of the two gives its image to the other, i.e., nature forms the body after him.

“Now as to the birth of a boy or girl, the case is this: the two seeds attract each other, and the one tinges and overcomes the other. This overcoming does not come from the power of the seed itself, but from the power of the nature of the two parents. That seed which the matrix brings to itself first gives the child its sex. If her seed comes before his, it will be a girl; if his comes before it will be a boy. But if the matrix does not attract this (spiritual) seed, pregnancy does not take place.”^[4]

          There is no doubt that there are still mentally handicapped people today who have heard somewhere that Theophrastus Paracelsus was some charlatan and who have formed their opinion accordingly. Also, there may still be some physicians unfamiliar with the history of medicine, who look down upon this great reformer of pharmacology with contempt, and fancy that they know much more than he does; but modern medical science, even if it has made progress in individual things, will in general still be a long way from reaching the much higher point of view of Paracelsus, and we can only advise its representatives to read his writings carefully, to become mature, to understand them and to convince oneself of their credibility through the practical application of them. It is generally advisable that one understands a thing before judging it or envying it.

          Official medicine has recently made progress in the direction of Paracelsus. One has adorned oneself with foreign feathers and baptized well-known things with funny new names. What Paracelsus called “imaginatio” is called “suggestion” today; its “magic” begins to find its way in as “hypnotism,” and even the “Liquor Vitae” claims an academically authorized existence under the designation “Nervenfluidum.” [nerve fluid] But our views, still deep in materialism, suffer from godlessness, i.e., in the knowledge of the reality underlying all external appearances; our medical science still sees only the material house in which man dwells, but not man himself; it only sees matter which can be moved and not the spirit which moves it; she eagerly plays with the shadows of things and takes them for the [real] thing. In order to get to know the laws of the spirit, this requires knowledge of the spirit, and in order to grasp this, human nature must possess spirit and itself be spiritualized in order to be able to rise to the realm of spirit. Paracelsus took this point of view, and to this point the science of the future is slowly climbing.

          Every educated person today knows that the development of the human fetus begins with an egg cell; but the egg only provides the base for the construction of the material body, which is based on an idea, a thought, and this thought is not an empty nothing. As is well known, there is no matter without power and no power without matter. Force and matter spring from the same source and are essentially one. When there is mental power, it is also substantial, and if thought is a power, which no one will doubt, it must also be “material,” i.e., be substantial. It is this spiritual substance which Paracelsus calls the “seed” and in which a corresponding idea is formed through the kindled desire.

          That the mother’s imagination can influence the formation of the fetus is now only doubted by ignorant people. If a woman, in the act of procreation with a man, thinks of another man whom she loves, or whose ideal fills her soul, it is likely that the new-born child will bear the features of her lover. For a similar reason also those monstrosities are born through masturbation, pederasty and other perversities, which Paracelsus describes, and which are indeed invisible to our material eyes and unknown to science, if it only sees through paper glasses, but which nevertheless exist in the sphere to which they belong, just as really exist as we do in ours.

          The “liquor vitae,” [the liquid of life] the life essence or “nerve force” (Prāna), or whatever we choose to call this substance, for which official science has not yet found a mouthful name, is what the mind needs to build up the thought-image and to materialize. It is found everywhere in the blood and especially in the semen and “aura seminalis.” For this reason blood sacrifices were brought to the gods in ancient times, in order to furnish these beings with the material for making themselves visible, and for the same reason sexual orgies are found at the night assemblies of certain sects of negroes and savages for the purposes of witchcraft and black magic held to enable the infernal demons to take physical form, i.e., to condense their invisible ethereal forms so that they become visible and tangible. There are also individual depraved subjects among the spiritualists who use such means to achieve so-called “spirit materializations.” Thought comes from desire, form from thought, and form needs matter to condense. In such cases, this substance is supplied by the “liquor vitae” [the liquid of life] or the life force of the human being, which is why the forces are exhausted even with such continued experiments. The creation of a child is also such a magical act, even if it happens without the knowledge of the natural laws which govern it. The creation of a child is, in a manner of speaking, a “ghost materialization”; because the actual human being is spirit and builds up the body in this way, which then achieves growth and birth in a material way.

          The body is the expression of the soul, and is agitated by its moods insofar as its clumsiness will permit it. When we walk or reach for something, it is the invisible will that moves our legs and arms. Facial expression, gait, posture, etc. depend on our state of mind. A good actor doesn’t need to study how to contort the muscles of his face; when he feels his way into his role, his face automatically takes on the appropriate expression. The influence of the mind on the body is too well known to require further proof, and the influence of sense impressions on the mind is also well known. During pregnancy the impressions which the mother receives are easily transmitted to the child’s body, since she is intimately connected with it. The origin of “birthmarks,” “harelips,” and the like is known to every educated person; one can breed animals of a particular coloring by arranging the mother’s environment appropriately. Scholars hold that the stripes of the tiger and the spots of the leopard have their origin in the impressions made by the sunlit grass of the jungles and the foliage of the trees; the chameleon and other animals change their color to avoid danger. You don’t need a coat of paint, the will does everything, and it is therefore reasonable to claim that at the moment of impregnation the will determines the sex of the child according to the ideas prevailing at the time.

          For this it is not necessary that the woman regards her husband or he his lawful wife as the only ideal. Another ideal, even a painted one, will do the trick. For example, if a woman gives birth to a boy, it may suffice if she has some other male ideal in mind during the act of procreation, e.g., a handsome cavalry officer whose picture hangs on the wall and whom she may never have seen in the flesh. Her husband then takes the place of cavalry officer, and the night comes to the deception’s aid. Likewise, the man who wishes to have a girl can imagine any other female creature or painting with which he is in love, it is only a question of the desire being strong enough to produce the desired impression; nature then does the rest of its own accord. But things are more effective when one has the desired embodied ideal alive in one’s arms.

Chapter II.

          The facts discussed in the preceding chapter will appear somewhat puzzling to some who have not yet engaged in the study of the constitution of man, and for such a further explanation is in need of explanation. I must therefore beg the gentle reader to follow me a little into the field of metaphysics, promising to present the matter as simply as possible and to leave aside all more profound side considerations. Those who are already familiar with it need no further enlightenment at all.

          According to the usual view, a distinction is made in the human body, soul and spirit. Here the spirit is regarded as a general principle, the soul as individual, and the body as its habitation; but these three substances are too different from each other to act upon each other directly. However, between the visible body and the soul, as well as between the soul and the spirit, there are still intermediate links through which this influence is made possible. From the observation of this circumstance arises the sevenfold division of the constitution of man, of the correctness of which everyone can convince himself by examining himself, but which we do not want to go into further, since it has already become generally known. We therefore confine ourselves here to speaking only of the so-called lower principles of man, i.e., to speak of those who belong to his earthly, material nature; the consideration of its higher principles belongs on another page.

          According to the teachings of the Indian sage Saṅkarācārya, in the constitution of man, as in all of nature, one distinguishes between reality and appearance, i.e., between truth and its revelation or between “spirit” and matter (form). The Mind (Atmā) is that which is in itself, uncreated, imperishable, exalted above all form, time, space, and what for the sake of the Christian reader we shall call “God” or the “Holy Spirit of God.” Everything impermanent, all forms visible and invisible, everything that is called “matter,” is nothing but “māyā,” appearance. Anything which, as the Christian mystics say, “is not God (entity)” is in itself nothing. In our physical appearance we ourselves are nothing but appearance, the only essential thing in us and on us is God.

          “Māyā” is like the mirror of God in the universe, the soul of the world. A reflection is nothing in itself; for when the object it reflects moves away, the reflected image disappears and only the empty glass remains. Māyā is this “jar” with its images, the only difference being that it is imbued with the force of life and is therefore alive and filled with bodily reflections capable of manifestation of consciousness, sensation, will, intelligence, etc. All these Forces are fundamentally motion and represent different kinds of motion, hence “vibrations.” All these phenomena consist, then, of vibrations of the world substance of various kinds, from spiritual vibrations and mental images down to the apparently dead matter of which a mountain range is made. All of this is explained at length and at length in Schopenhauer’s works; but it is such a simple truth that it does not require lengthy treatises and arguments in order to easily grasp it even without the “principle of insufficient reason.”

          When a person has grasped this deep truth that the divine spirit creates these form images in the mirror of Māyā and recognizes that this spirit is alive within him, even his own immortal “I,” as the apostle Paul also testifies, thus he will also understand that this spirit can produce an image of a person through him, and that it is up to himself to fashion this image according to his love; for the divine will is love, and the will guided by intelligence can do everything. The more man has thus become aware that this divine will belongs to himself, i.e., belongs to his higher nature, the more he will understand the process of procreation, which takes place instinctively in animals, and know how to apply the relevant laws. Considered in this sense, the act of procreation is even to be regarded as a sacred act and marriage, if it is what it ought to be, as a sacrament; for what could man create in the outside higher than a human form in which the Spirit of God can fashion itself and attain to revelation? Just as the whole world is a revelation of the forces contained in the deity in the mirror of the Māyā, so is man in his perfection a revelation of the same and, when he has become conscious of it, he can control it and use it for his purposes. But it would be a great error to think that the spirit of the child which man begets was begotten by man. This has an entirely different origin, which we shall speak of in the next chapter when considering reincarnation; man produces nothing other than his own kind, namely a Māyā-image, a living form as a dwelling place and workshop for the spirit.

          This spirit is of two kinds according to its origin; the Spirit of God in man comes from God, lives in God and returns to God. The earthly spirit of man has its direct origin in nature and returns to nature again. One strives towards the highest, the other gravitates towards the earth. The home of one is that world which is called “heaven”; the abode of the other is our material world, which man all too often turns into hell. The Spirit of God at work in man is everywhere; he is not bound to any form and is not enclosed in the body of man, but can produce in him and through his powers a heavenly manifestation, a reflection of his divine qualities, by way of “spiritual rebirth.” It can be compared to the light of the sun, which is also general, but produces plants and trees by means of the forces belonging to the earth. The Spirit of God is eternal, unchangeable and needs no development, but is itself the root cause of all existence and all development. The spirit of man needs a corresponding form for its development, and since it cannot act directly on the outer, visible, gross material body, it needs a finer material organism for this purpose, which connects it with the visible body. The gross material body is not of a plastic nature enough to be changed by the influence of thought; but the finer, etheric body accepts the impressions of the thoughts and is not only changed by them, but also communicates these changes to the physical organism; for the physical organism is formed and formed by the metaphysical organism, and the former is in fact the expression and a more or less faithful image of the latter, more ethereal original.

          This theory, the correctness of which has been confirmed by thousands of experiences and of the truth of which everyone can be convinced by studying his own inner life, makes it clear that not only the thought-life of the woman during pregnancy has the greatest influence on the nature of the child, but also that the sex of the child can be predetermined at conception; for thought forms the basis for the formation of the metaphysical organism, and from this arises physical form.

          So we have to distinguish the following:

1. 1. 1. God, the eternal source of all things, who is the essence of itself and outside of whom there is no independent existence, but only appearances which are in themselves insubstantial.

1. 1. 2. Spirit, the consciousness, intelligence or power of God, which is the organizing, form-producing force in the universe.

1. 1. 3. The realm of “the material,” “material” (Māyā) or “nature,” in which all appearances as manifestations of God are generated and born by His power.^[5]

          Here, then, is the ancient doctrine of the Trinity, found in the most ancient philosophies and systems of religion, and which is, of course, indivisible. “God” (the Father) is the meaning which underlies all things and without which nothing can come into being; for a thing may well be meaningless as a whole in its composition, but there is no simple thing which has no meaning. Even the most meaningless stuff a philosopher can talk is made up of individual letters, each with its specific meaning. The Intelligence or “Spirit” is Thought (the Son), and the phenomena in nature are the expression of the Thought contained in the “Father” uttered through its “Son” (power), hence its “Word.”

          Sense, thought and word are inseparably contained in every thing, even when the sense has not yet produced a thought or the thought has not yet been expressed, i.e., has become apparent or has appeared. Man, too, is nothing but an appearance, and viewed in himself (without God or meaning) he is insubstantial. It is, like everything else, a thought expressed (acted) and there is a certain meaning to all human existence, although not everyone understands this meaning of his existence and therefore many are not aware of what the purpose of their lives is, and why they exist at all. They only see the thought expressed outwardly when they look at themselves, but do not understand its meaning.

          God, Spirit and Nature (Revelation) are one and inseparable; but in the realm of appearances or “revelations” there are different states or gradations of what is called “substance” or “matter.” They differ from one another according to the degree of their condensation or refinement and belong to different stages of existence. Each note of a piano, when struck in a higher octave, sounds different from the same note in the lower octave.

          In order to present the matter as clearly and simply as possible and to spare the reader metaphysical subtleties, I will refrain from discussing the doctrine of the tattwas, tanmātras, etc., and imagine the classification as follows:

1. 1. 1. The realm of love and intelligence, or the world of abstract ideas, in which no particular conception yet reigns.

1. 1. 2. The intellectual thought world or the realm of objective thought forms.

1. 1. 3. The astral world or the emotional world, i.e., the realm of instincts and passions, with the forms therein produced by thought.

1. 1. 4. The ether, which as the fifth element, connects the astral world with gross matter.

1. 1. 5. The Elemental, or visible, material world, made up of the essences of the four elements: “earth” (matter), water, air, and “fire” (energy).

          All these kingdoms are both within and without man; for in it are to be found all the forces contained in the great nature as a whole. Love, for example, is general, and although it expresses itself differently in its manifestations according to the degree of its strength and in its mode of action, it is nevertheless essentially the same in all things. It connects both planetary systems and the atoms with each other. It is of a material nature, for otherwise one could not feel it and it could not have an effect. Intelligence is universal and the power of knowledge essentially the same in every human being. Thought images are as numerous in the thought world as the stars in the firmament. Man has never created a new idea of ​​himself; Only if he has the necessary ability can he grasp an already existing idea, which is then something new for him, and through his thinking he brings it into a form that suits him.

          Everyone forms his own imagination from what he sees or mentally perceives, and if it exists as an image in his imagination he can express it externally if he has the means to do so. In the same way, everyone can create a male or female image in their imagination through the power of their love, and this is expressed through the magical power of nature and the material provided by the mother. The predominant idea at conception gives the astral image in the spiritual aura its form (gender); this forms the etheric body, and from this the physical body of the child develops through magnetic attraction. The seed (sperm) plays no other role than that it is the carrier for the life force which fertilizes the egg. If it is not impregnated with the “spiritual seed,” then no child will come about, but at most a mole.

          But as regards the birth of twins, triplets, etc., Theophrastus Paracelsus explains this by saying that at copulation the mother’s organism draws the spiritual seed to itself in two or more pulls; but if there is no such attraction, no pregnancy ensues, even if the other necessary conditions are present.

          But it also often happens that in apparently healthy and strong married couples, although both desperately want a child, no pregnancy occurs, or that if one does occur, one abortion follows the other. Then the woman is usually blamed; she is examined by one “professor” after another, sent from one seaside resort to another and subjected to all sorts of treatments, and no one thinks to ask whether the man in his earlier years, for example, as a student, had gonorrhea. The man himself wisely keeps it secret; because he’s seething to admit it, and thinks his gonorrhea from back then has long since healed and the matter is of no importance. But the experienced occultist knows that even the best healed gonorrhea or a syphilitic infection can have lasting disadvantages as a result, because the “liquor vitae” is spoiled and the child can no longer communicate the vitality necessary for procreation and development through the sperm. In such cases, your own imagination is just as useless as the professor who immediately cures without knowing the disease.

          Under these circumstances, isn’t it highly desirable, especially for women, that young people should be informed about such things? What should one think of the narrow-mindedness of our future pillars of society when one hears them singing in the pub:

          “Anyone who has never had gonorrhea is not a real man,” etc.

          To say that such things are “immoral” is of little value. Most thinking people want to know, when morality is being preached to them, how and why this or that should be immoral. A commandment which is seen without good reason only arouses the greater desire to break it. If everyone were to foresee the consequences of his actions, he would think twice before committing a foolish thing. It should therefore be the supreme purpose of academic science, to learn and teach the constitution of man and its relation to the laws of nature in every direction, which would in any case be more useful than the discovery of a new locust in the interior of Africa.

          We live in a time of eclectic knowledge and shallow superficiality; you can’t see the forest from the trees. In medicine in particular, it is all about appearances; one thinks to cure an evil by covering it up. Psychologists go around psychology or psychiatry like a cat around the bush, and each fears being laughed at by their peers should it become known that they really believe in the existence of a “psyche.” Philosophy abounds in scholarly verbiage of little meaning; it seeks, by long detours, to reach what is very close at hand, and to prove, with phrases that are difficult to understand, what does not need to be proved because it goes without saying. Nor is there a lack of “truth seekers,” but they seek truth where it is not. They seek truth in external things, but not in themselves, and do not understand that no one can obtain a standard by which to measure the truth of a thing unless he has come to a knowledge of the truth within himself.

          A man who does not come to the realization of the truth within himself, or in other words, a man who does not come to the consciousness of his true Self, is not on his own two feet. If he doesn’t really know himself, how should anyone else know him? He doesn’t know who and what he basically is and why he came into the world. He only lives a dream life, no matter how receptive he is to external sensory impressions, and he is not driven and moved by his own divine will indwelling him, but by outside influences. He thinks he knows everything possible, but does not know the ONE from which everything springs, which lives in himself and is the origin of his existence, basically himself. But when a person really finds himself and his inner life awakens, a new realm of his science opens up for him too; and having found the truth in its own source within himself, he has no more need of the “evidence,” of authorities and books, to find it; then the great mystery opens and reveals itself to him, that man is of heavenly origin, and that only his mortal personality belongs to earth.

          When he awakens to the consciousness of his higher nature, he also knows from his own inner experience and conviction that that part of his soul which encompasses his true self was not created by his earthly parents, but is a ray of divine light, which is formed and inhabited many other personal formations before his present existence on earth, and will probably inhabit many other bodies in future times. From this knowledge springs the doctrine of reincarnation, which is inseparable from the doctrine of “karma” or “destiny,” and how this can affect a child’s sex we will discuss in the next chapter, but we won’t hear from anyone require a blind adherence to any theory, but leave each to believe as much as he will or can understand.

Chapter III.

          Millions of people believe in reincarnation or re-embodiment of the soul, others deny its possibility; but in these two categories, and among all the scholars who dispute them, one finds comparatively few who know what is meant by them, and it cannot be otherwise; for as long as a man does not know his own real Self, his immortal soul, that is. As long as he has not come to the consciousness which he himself is this immortal soul, he can only have a dubious theory of everything that concerns the innermost soul life and of the states of his soul before and after the death of the body or one of them make a vague idea. Both the defenders of this theory and those who oppose it are right, each from his point of view; for when a man has not yet attained true individual spiritual self-awareness, by his “I” he imagines his imaginary selfhood, and for this there is no reincarnation as a whole; their reincarnation, if you will call it that, consists only in that the elements of which personality was composed dissolve after death and pass into other forms. But if one imagines that the true ego of man is the essence underlying his existence and consequently identical with the deity, then the reincarnation of this divine spirit is a matter of course; because we know from everyday experience that the creative force in the universe always produces new forms in nature. Men are constantly dying and being born, and the essence underlying their existence, humanity, is always the same.

          A similar process takes place in other kingdoms of nature. The light of the sun always remains the same and always brings forth new plants from the soil, which live and die; it itself is unconcerned with their life and unaffected by their death, although it appears embodied in them and gives color, beauty, and flavor to the flowers and fruits. But now we also know that the sun does not produce new plants in the earth unless there is a seed in it, and as the same law prevails in all nature, there also needs to be a spiritual seed if man is an individual spirit and not to reappear on earth as a mere representative of his class. This spiritual seed is his immortal part, his soul, his ego, and the belief in an individual reincarnation only has any justification or meaning if such a spiritual seed is present, that is, when the consciousness of his spiritual individuality has awakened in man, and this does not propagate in the case with ordinary herd people, only the class to which they belong.

          It would be difficult for a man who loves existence but does not know God to find comfort in being told that after his death some other man will be born who will receive his soul from God. Even if one were to prove to him by all means of logic and rhetoric that his own divine ego and the deity, the ego and the soul of the world, are not different from each other, this theory would still be of little use to him, because his divine ego does not know and consequently it is something alien to him; he would be unable to imagine any immortality other than that of his imagined selfhood, and would care little for the immortality of something he did not know; in other words, he would resist the theory that the Spirit of God is always creating new forms , be of little use as long as he himself is not this spirit and has no part in it.

          But once a man feels the presence of this divine spirit within and is eventually penetrated by it and awakens to the awakening of his own true self as essentially one with Deity, then the matter is quite different; then immortality and the law of reincarnation are no longer mysteries for him. This is why the Indian sage practices his “Tat tvam asi” (“That is You”), and this is why Christianity, when properly understood, teaches union with Christ (the God-man), a union which is within us and does not externally take place. He then realizes that neither God nor man’s illusory selfhood reincarnates, but that the divinity which he is essentially himself emits a spiritual ray of light which in turn overshadows and within the human forms produced by earthly parents resides. He himself is in his innermost being the spiritual sun, which emits this ray of light, and he is also this ray of light itself and connected through the incarnation with the material body and its personal qualities.

          This material body, with all the instincts, tendencies, and intellectual faculties which it receives from its parents, constitutes man’s “personality”; it is the living, self-conscious, thinking, feeling, and willing mask or shell in which resides the celestial ray of light residing in it, whose purpose is to develop and establish man’s spiritual individuality. It forms man’s immortal Ego, his heavenly Soul, of which the earthly, animal man, despite all his scientific achievements and intellectual abilities, despite all fanaticism or bigotry, despite all learned morality and all imagined virtues, knows nothing and can know nothing as long as this has not formed his heavenly soul or individuality and come to his consciousness.

          All existence is relative. A possession of which I am unaware is not there for me, even if I believe the theory that I possess the thing to be true. I can imagine that I am a god, and in the deepest part of my being I am, but as long as I do not know this reason and am not aware of my divinity, I have nothing of all this but the empty theory. Likewise, every normal human being has within himself a gleam of divine light and the reason for the formation of a heaven; but as long as he does not become aware of it, it does not exist for him either. It is therefore a great mistake if someone thinks that it doesn’t matter how he lives, since his soul is immortal anyway. What use is the immortality of his soul if he is not aware that he has a soul? It could then just as well be the soul of another human being. Certainly, after the death of that man, the divine ray of light will again create a new dwelling place for himself at the birth of another man, but the former benefits not from this, because the remnant of man, separated from his soul, after death enters his body elements decayed. It is also somewhat wrong to say that a man must strive to save his soul; Rather, the soul saves the human being by attracting from his heart and being what is suitable for its own growth, and this includes all the heavenly thoughts and feelings which the existence and activity of the heavenly soul produces in man. Not the illusory self-consciousness of earthly man, but the heaven-born soul returns to divinity at the end of its earthly career, after the death of personality, either naked and poor or laden with treasure, according to the experiences it has had .

          The spirit is the trunk of the tree of life or the spiritual sun; its rays are the branches of the tree, i.e., the individual human souls in their transfigured form; the personalities are the leaves. Trunk, branches, and leaves are one, but the branches may wither, and the leaves fall off in autumn and are scattered by the wind; their decomposition yields soil from which a tree can grow again, but the leaves themselves do not come back; however, no one will call this a “reincarnation.” The situation is similar with those people who, to the end of their existence, have no sense of a higher life, no sense of immortality, and are only absorbed in material, sensual life or in intellectual research into matter. However, there may be something immortal in them too; but they do not recognize it, they are not themselves, because they are not conscious of it, and when this immortal separates from them after death, they have no part in it, but are on the way to decay.

          This immortal in man, which is perhaps an unknown thing to the great majority of men, is the spiritual seed for reincarnation. A reincarnation of the personality can only take place if the personality has already found itself in truth during its life on earth and has become conscious of its immortal part. The earthly parents have nothing to do with the creation of this spiritual seed; their task is to create a healthy, viable body for the new incarnation for the newly entering heavenly ray of light or the soul coming from the over-world, and to protect and raise it rationally, and since the parents have no disposal over the souls striving for reincarnation, so that the pregnancy does not entirely depend on them. For this reason it is conceivable that the parents remain childless even under the otherwise most favorable circumstances, because no soul suitable for such an incarnation can be found.

          Religion teaches that God created man from “earth” (matter) and breathed into him a living soul. This is still happening today. God brings about the conception through his spirit (love); in this the ideal to be formed arises, which takes shape in the womb through the power of nature, and like a breath the soul draws into life at birth.

          This new soul, however, is not necessarily perfectly holy and endowed with all divine attributes; because if she were perfect, the earthly world would no longer have any attraction for her and she would not have to appear in this world; on the contrary, those properties still cling to it. which it has assumed during its previous forms of existence, and its reincarnations have the purpose of having experiences of eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, in order to learn to distinguish good from evil and to progress on the path to perfection. Children are therefore often born whose talents, inclinations, moral and intellectual qualities are very different from those of their parents, while in other cases where the qualities of children and parents are alike, there is as well an elective intellectual affinity between the two as one mental influence of the parents on the children can be attributed; for kindred souls are attracted to one another, and it is not unlikely that the soul of a loved member of a family will reincarnate after death in the same family required, so that, for example, the soul of a man who has developed female traits is reincarnated in the next existence as a woman, and the soul of a woman who appropriates the male character is reincarnated as a man.

          The existence of virile women and effeminate men can also be explained in a similar way, but we are not in a position to explain all the laws governing reincarnation, much less to prove them; it suffices for us to give the researchers some hints for reflection and to point out that blind chance does not play a role here, but that everything that happens in nature takes place according to law. Such things cannot be worked out with certainty by intellectual speculation, but we do have our minds to check what we perceive spiritually for its authenticity or to judge whether it seems reasonable. It is not difficult to understand that in reincarnation there is no free choice of parents, at least as long as the soul has not acquired the necessary abilities, but only follows the law of sympathy; for since it has discarded its thinking apparatus with its last shell, it no longer thinks either; then nothing remains for it but love and bliss (Satcitānanda).^[6]

          But this consideration also gives us a hint, pointing out that it is very possible to determine not only the sex of the child, but even its character traits and spiritual content before birth; for like attracts like, and when the union between parents be harmonious, and their thoughts pure and noble, it is foreseeable that the soul attracted to such a family would also be advanced and noble. It seems, therefore, that there is some justification in judging a man according to the family into which he was born. There are children who are actually “very good” and are born “noble” and come from “good families,” but this does not prevent them from being corrupted again by a wrong upbringing and a harmful environment. The circumstances which determine the parents’ choice in reincarnation are so many and varied that it is impossible to trace them exactly; however, there is no doubt that every soul will incarnate where it has the opportunity to have those experiences which it needs to progress.

          There is, then, no blind fate and no groundless chance as to a man’s place in life. Whatever is “sent” to a person, he himself has already deposited beforehand, and nothing happens to him without a reason. The soul of a domineering tyrant may in the next life inhabit the body of a slave to learn to serve, and a rushed slave who learns self-control may in the next life be a king. The soul of a thief of millions may only be served by the body of a gypsy next time, and the spirit of a craftsman who secretly does good deeds may later animate the body of a millionaire. Man is what he has become and what he has made himself into. He needs the opportunity to gain experience, develop his talents, overcome obstacles, etc. A single existence on earth is too short for this, and the soul needs reincarnations under different circumstances in order to learn wisdom in the school of life. Everyone is attuned to a certain note in the harmony of the universe, and this mood gives him his “destiny,” be it high or low. The newborn personality is stamped with the character of that personality which the same soul or individuality acquired in the previous existence.

          What constantly distinguishes a person from other people is the individuality of his character. The outward form of the body changes rapidly, and the spirit of God in the universe is one; in God there is no distinction or separation. The character is the core around which the outer shell, the personality, forms, and such as, for example, if a cherry stone picks up what it needs from the ground in order to become a cherry tree like its father, the basic character peculiar to the incarnated soul also attracts those spiritual elements which it needs for its new revelation. One can therefore also assert that children are born from heaven and others from hell; for the “hereditary strain” often stems from a previous incarnation, and congenital “difficulties” are not necessarily inherited from the parents. It may seem ridiculous to some, but it is not inconceivable that in a case of “atavism” the child may be a reincarnation of his own grandfather’s spirit.

          But such a “spirit” is not to be regarded as a ghost; for otherwise it would be a case of possession; nor is it the “grandfather” himself; for he died long ago, but it is a reflection of the character that this grandfather had, like a photograph of it, which now reappears in physical form in the grandson. The more this character was individually developed in the grandfather, the more his peculiarities will make themselves felt in the grandson, and one can therefore say: The soul of the grandfather has reincarnated in him or has risen again.

          Such resurrection or reincarnation is constantly taking place throughout nature. Forms pass away, but the same types reappear. Every class of minerals, plants, animals and men, nations and peoples, has a definite character peculiar to it, an individuality peculiar to it, and each reappearing form bears the marks of the character belonging to its class. Herd people who have not yet come to think for themselves and have not yet developed a personal, individual character only have the character of their class, which is repeated over and over again. They differ from each other chiefly only in external form and in the composition of peculiarities peculiar to their class. You have a common class spirit, but not yet an independent character, no permanent formation of the soul, your class is, so to speak, “immortal,” but not your person. Their soul belongs to their class, but not to each one in particular, although the soul belonging to the class reveals its peculiarities in each and every individual.

          The soul of a class, as well as of the individual, is not an unorganized thing, comparable to the breath of a wind, but represents an organic whole. Of course, we cannot form a physical idea of ​​the organization of the soul, but that it is such has no doubt; for the spirit dwells in it, and from it spring the powers of the body. She is the seat of will and knowledge; mind and soul dwell in her. It gives life to the senses and gives them the power to hear, see, feel, taste and smell. The body needs organs to move and to grasp physical objects. If the soul had no organs of its kind, the spirit could not grasp and collect ideas and assemble them into new thought-forms. Without the soul there would be no consciousness, imagination, sensation, memory, etc.

          In essence, the soul is light, love and life. The light is her life, her life is love, her love is her light. In her state of perfection her light is intelligence, her love the will of wisdom, her life the light of knowledge. She is immortal and eternal and does not suffer; but as it descends into material existence, it assumes ever denser forms and clothes itself, as it were, in material garments. These shells which surround the soul suffer, and the soul connected to them suffers with them inasmuch as it identifies with them. Each of these coverings has the organization appropriate to its state of existence; the “mental body” and the “astral body” each have as real an existence at their level of existence as the elemental body has in the visible world.

          In the philosophical writings of the Indians this gradual descent of the soul into matter is described in the form of a parable. They compare the deity, the “Logos,” to a (spiritual) sun. The sun’s light, when falling on a clear mirror, creates a brightly shining surface. If this light is reflected from the mirror onto a metal plate, a less luminous image will appear on it, and if this is reflected back onto a wall, there will also be a little illumination there. Each of these reflections is a fainter reflection of the previous one. The sun represents the God-man (Christ), the first image the celestial soul, the second the personality, and the third the material, visible man. In each of these stages or planes of existence the soul can form itself; but that does not mean that it is already formed in everyone. It would be a great mistake that the astral body, the mental body or even Christ is already fully formed in every human being. Just as a child can perish before his material body has become viable or fully developed, and as a man can die before his intellect has reached maturity, so it is with the other forms which are visible to our bodily eyes are invisible. If the astral body of every human being were fully developed and self-conscious, its inner senses would also be opened up and everyone would be able to exercise clairvoyance, clairaudience, clairfeeling, etc.; Indeed, he would then no longer need the material body for his existence. It is similar with the mental body, which is strongly developed in a thinker and only slightly noticeable in an idiot. But as far as the transfigured body of the resurrection is concerned, it is born of the spirit and belongs only to those who have attained this inner resurrection by way of spiritual rebirth.^[7]

          After the death of the body, the soul sheds the shells which it has assumed; but if she has not attained a soul organization which enables her to a self-conscious existence on a higher level, and the lower coverings fall off her, then she has nothing left to enter this higher existence, and she could at most lead a dream life there. But as long as a person has no real self-consciousness, he is also not master of himself, be it on earth, in heaven or in hell, and will only be the plaything of other forces acting on him. In the outer sensory world, too, most people lead a dream life. The less reason they have, the more they are led by their senses, by ideas, and the desires and passions arising from them; a fool lives entirely in this state, and whoever lacks ever-changing sensory impressions, that is, a prisoner in the dungeon, who feels the more unhappy, the less inner workings he knows. In the dream world man is all the more exposed to all sorts of attractions and repulsions the less he has gained mastery over himself through reason, and in the mental world he lives in the products of his fantasies, pleasant or unpleasant, according to what he likes created a heaven or hell for himself within himself. She is surrounded by the images her imagination created and her will animated.

          But it would take us too far to consider here the various states after death, and it should only be noted that all the shells or bodies which the soul has built up are the result of a cooperation of material, astral, intellectual and spiritual forces. All these forces exhaust themselves in the course of time, and the bodies formed by them dissolve into their elements, and the now disembodied soul, in which the love of existence is still at work, instinctively longs for a new embodiment. It will then, according to the law of nature, be drawn to where it belongs according to its character. She cannot choose her parents arbitrarily; only those who have attained true spiritual self-awareness can do this. From the above consideration it follows that the time from death to reincarnation can be short or long, depending on the circumstances. If the soul separates from the material body before a higher organism has formed in it that it can use for its dwelling, it can be foreseen that it will try to build up a new material body in the shortest possible time and will therefore soon incarnate again. This is likely to be the case with small children, and it is therefore quite conceivable that a child will be born repeatedly in one and the same family or, to put it more precisely, that the same soul incarnates repeatedly in one and the same family.

          Another, whose desire body has been nourished and strengthened by his passions, may be bound for centuries to the vehicle of his own making, and his soul reincarnates when his desire life is exhausted, having nothing to raise itself higher. The same may be the case with the soul of a scientific researcher who has exhausted his whole life in intellectual speculation but has neglected his psychic life. In such people the intellect is overfed, the brain crammed with scholarly stuff, the heart unloving, and the soul starving. None of these souls are free; they all follow the law of necessity, which leads them again to birth and death and re-embodiment, chained to the ever-turning wheel of samsāra. From that wheel there is no other path to salvation than the path of true self-knowledge through experience, the way of spiritual rebirth, through which man comes to the knowledge of his God, that is, to the consciousness of his own divine existence.

          Every man, unless he is actually “godless,” i.e., deserted by the heavenly part of his soul has in it the germ of “spiritual rebirth” and immortality. The higher existence in the spirit reveals itself to us through an innate longing for it in our soul. We suspect that there is something immortal in us which can unfold and give us certainty. The study of religious books can only be a guide for us in investigating the truth; we do not really know it until the truth itself is revealed within us.

          In order for the germ of immortality to grow in us, for this spiritual rebirth to take place in us and for the truth to reach our self-awareness, the soul needs suitable material, psychological and intellectual elements for this. A contaminated body, moral perversities, intellectual prejudices, bigotry, materialism, perverted world-views, etc., are things which are unfit for this, but hinder the soul and make it impossible for it to fulfill the purpose for which it came into the world.

          From these considerations it appears that procreation is something much more important than creating animal-human forms, which can be male or female as desired. It is much more important to provide the reincarnating soul with a pure and healthy place to live, in which it can find the elements necessary for its ennoblement and development, to keep away harmful immaterial, psychological and intellectual influences and to provide it with useful ones. Every thing grows by the sustenance appropriate to its nature: the immaterial body by absorbing material elements, the desire body by absorbing desires; the intellect expands through the grasping of ideas, the spirit through the influence of spirit. In man all these elements are connected, and the soul absorbs the noblest parts of all for its development. By attracting the celestial, she herself becomes celestial in form. In this way, the immortal ideal is embodied in man, which without this embodiment remains just an ideal, an idea, a perception or a dream image.

          Such considerations must convince every thinking person that a knowledge of these higher laws of nature, still little known to academic science, is far more important than all other endeavors in the field of life in matter, more important than the demands of fashion, of politics, the sciences, church gymnastics, social life, humanity, etc., but of course we do not deny their justification. We should always keep the highest in mind in our striving for the higher. Once we truly realize that spirit has the power to rule matter, and the realm of the higher life opens up to us, then we will also know how to appreciate the phenomena of this earthly world according to their true value and understand the meaning of the words of the Master, who says: “It is all vain and transitory; there is only one thing which lasts, the love of the highest.” All other good things come from it.

Notes:

^[1] The Mysteries of Procreation and the Determination of the Child’s Gender Prior to Birth. [Die Geheimnisse der Zeugung und die Bestimmung des Geschlects des Kindes vor der Geburt. Franz Hartmann, M.D. Leipzig, Theosophisches Verlagshaus, 1906-1907] Variant reading: “Der Ursprung und die Bestimmung des Geschlechts des Kindes vor der Geburt.” {{This article was reformatted from the original, but with the content unchanged other than fixing minor typos. Translation from the German by Robert Hutwohl, ©2025}}

^[2] Goethe’s “Faust,” Part 1.

^3] “De Generatione Hominis,” p. 344.

^[4] Compare F. Hartmann, “The Medicine of Theophrastus Paracelsus,” page 175 and following.

^[5] “Nature” from “natus” (born).

^[6] Compare “Lotusblüthen,” Volume III. Śaṅkarācārya, “Tattwa Bodha”.

^[7] Colossus. 1, 27 Job XIX, 25 1 Corinth. XV, 53.