The Astral World—Higher Occult Powers / Clairvoyance, Spiritism, Mediumship, and Spirit-Healing Fully Explained

Lust may be defined to be the desire for self-gratification. The forbidden fruit is that which seems to be desired to make one happy, and is sought after, not for the purpose of supplying a need, but to gratify a desire.

Man’s constitution is such that there are needs pertaining to every part thereof; and those needs are indicated by awakening desires; and when the need is supplied, a pleasure or gratification is experienced, which is a sort of plaudit of “Well done;” and all legitimate pleasure or happiness which man is constitutionally fitted to enjoy arises from complying with the proper demands of his being. All constitutional demands of the being man have strict reference to constitutional needs; and the life and energy making that demand will not be disregarded. It will not suffer the being to find rest until the demand is complied with. It will create restlessness and disquiet; and the individual will give expression to that life and energy in some direction, if he does not in the true one.

Man possesses within him immortal energies, or he could not be immortal. He has that which is essentially being and life, and which can not be destroyed. Hence his divine energies will act with omnipotent power to him, and he will be constrained to submit.

Here, then, is to be found the fundamental distinction between true and false impulse—true and false action. That impulse which arises within, indicating a need of some department of our being, is true and legitimate; and all proper action which tends to supply that demand, without conflicting with any other need, is true action. All other action and impulse are illegitimate. The distinction between the two classes of impulse and action is easily made, by an appeal to our own consciousness. By a careful examination, we can tell at once whether the impulse to perform any act for ourselves arises from a sense of need or from a desire of self-gratification; and whether the impulse to perform any act for others arises from a near or remote prospect of self-gain, or from a sense of fitness, justice, or goodness of the act, in forgetfulness of separate self.

In the very outset I postulate the following as undeniable truth: All true desire in man has respect to a need of some department of his being, which, when truly supplied, will harmoniously develop him in respect to every other department of his being, and also in respect to all other beings necessarily connected with him. That all true happiness or enjoyment which he is capable of possessing must flow as a consequence of truly supplying these needs; and that while every need of his being is fully supplied, he will be in the enjoyment of all the happiness he is capable of desiring, and consequently will not desire happiness on its own account.

I postulate further; that until every need is supplied, man will feel a sense of lack, a desire for something which he does not possess, the tendency of which will be to stimulate him to activity in some direction; and unless his activity is directed to the proper supplying of the need, it will be misdirected, and will tend to deprave rather than to improve his being.

Hence I postulate further, that when man feels within himself a desire for happiness, he has demonstrable evidence that these are needs of his being which have not been supplied; and any attempt to fulfill his desire, short of finding out and supplying the true need, will be derogatory to his highest good and destiny, and will consequently fail of conferring that which he seeks, happiness.

I therefore postulate further, that happiness or enjoyment is not to be sought; that if it come at all, it must come unsought; that it is a necessary and inseparable incident of the true life, by which is meant that life which in its activity fulfills its every need. That happiness which is sought after is never found, simply because it is not an end, but only an incident of being; and that while man is absorbed in the pursuit of pleasure, he must necessarily be unmindful of his needs, and thereby he will neglect their demands.

Here we have the foundation laid for examining the distinction between the true impulse, known as love in the various planes of unfolding, and that which is to be characterized as lust. The true impulse is that which indicates a need of some department of our being, and which prompts to activity, looking to the supply of that need, independent of any gratification which it may promise. The false impulse is that which prompts to activity, not in respect to any specific need, but in respect to the gratification which it may afford. This latter impulse is known as lust.

For the purpose of distinction I shall denominate the true impulse, love, as being a manifestation of the Divine Father’s wisdom and goodness, in whatever plane it may be found; and I shall denominate the false impulse, lust, as being a manifestation of that which tends to lead to selfishness and antagonism, and makes the interests of finite self overrule those of infinite self, or the selfhood of the divine.

In the scale of being there is every plane of unfolding, from the unconscious to the divine consciousness; that is, there is every sphere of divine action and manifestation, from the monad to the highest angel, and consequently there are many degrees of love as the true impulse to action. It has its sphere in the plane of physical need, in the plane of intellectual and moral need, and in the plane of religious need; and it is exalted just in proportion as it approaches the absolute or divine.

As there is a true impulse belonging to every plane of unfolding, begetting the proper enjoyment in the conscious plane when its demand is properly complied with, so also is there every degree of lustful desire seeking gratification in every plane, differing in grossness according to the means by which it seeks its gratification.

Reflection will satisfy every truth-seeking mind that desire for self-gratification, as an impulse to action, has its basis in self; and, from its nature, makes itself the center of attraction, and becomes a sort of an absorbent, seeking self-appropriation; and whenever it makes an expenditure, it is with respect to that which is to return. And it never gives without the hope of receiving in return a full equivalent.

This principle of action is from its nature finite and antagonistic, upon the principle that that which it seeks to appropriate to its own benefit and make its own, can not at the same time be appropriated by another; and hence the desire of self-appropriation naturally leads the individual into antagonism with others.

This finite and selfish impulse is the very opposite of the infinity and unselfishness of the divine. Its imperfect and antagonistic rule of action can not harmonize with the perfection and harmonic action of the divine. As the finite in every respect is the negative and opposite of the infinite, so this finite impulse in the individual is in every respect the negative and opposite of the divine impulse. It is for this cause that there is such an antagonism between the principle of love and the principle of lust; an antagonism which must continue until the divine shall bring all into subjection—until the finite shall, in its principle of action, harmonize in the infinite, or until God shall become all in all.

Having already postulated that all true and legitimate desire in the individual has strict reference to the needs of the individual, independent of any promised gratification, and that the gratification incident to the supply of such needs was the measure of all true finite happiness, I now proceed to illustrate this truth by an appeal to the experience of all who hear me.

Happiness, in its general sense, is the fulfillment of desire. And the more complete is the fulfillment of every desire, the more complete is the happiness; and happiness can not be perfect until every desire is fulfilled. If in fulfilling the desire of one department of our being we neglect the needs and consequent demands of another, we may obtain temporary gratification, but it does not answer the full demand of our being so as to confer happiness. On the contrary, while we gratify a lust, we resist a true demand, and purchase gratification by disease and suffering.

The individual, ignorant or unmindful of the true demands of his being, and intent upon self-gratification, must forever fail of obtaining happiness, because in his lustful pursuit he does not heed the real demands of his entire being, and therefore he does not minister to their needs; and hence can not obtain ease and satisfaction. All pleasure-seekers can testify as they have testified, that their pleasures are more in anticipation than participation. Their happiness is in the future, and seldom if ever in the present. The time never comes when they find every desire gratified, and consequently they are never quite contented, therefore never quite happy. The very desire after happiness is that which defeats it. The finite belongs to the present; the past is his schoolmaster, teaching him in the present how to receive the future. His duties and needs are of to-day, and those which pertain to the morrow will come on the morrow, not before. “Sufficient unto the day are the evils thereof,” and sufficient unto the day are the duties and pleasures thereof. Man can not take being and existence by anticipation, neither can he take their true incidents in that way. All anticipations of pleasure by which the individual is made to live in the future, to the neglect of the present, are lustful and illegitimate, and antagonize with man’s true nature and destiny, and consequently tend to defeat true happiness. That this is so, all human experience affirms. That this must be so, the philosophy of true happiness demonstrates.

There is no room for controversy upon this point. It is most evident that true happiness can only flow to the finite by fulfilling the true desires of the finite, and that complete satisfaction can only take place when every true desire or demand is complied with.

Now it must follow that every true desire is indicative of a real need of the being in which it exists; and consequently when every need is supplied, every true desire must be gratified, and true happiness must be the result. And as every need has respect to that which pertains to the present, every true desire belongs to the present, and asks present fulfillment.

From considerations of this kind it becomes evident that anticipated pleasures are illegitimate, and belong to the school of lusts, and do not tend to beget true happiness; and that just in proportion as the individual is absorbed in the anticipated pleasures or duties of the morrow, he is disregarding the true law of his being, neglecting present needs, and laying the foundation for defeating the very end he seeks. Man, as a physical, intellectual, moral, and religious being, has needs pertaining to each and every department thereof, and consequently in supplying these needs he becomes receptive of pleasure from every department of his being. When he is truly and harmoniously unfolded, all his needs are orderly and harmoniously set forth; and when he truly complies with their demand, his delights or gratifications blend or flow together in one harmonious stream, and his whole soul is filled with the divinest melody, instinct with the present God. But note, the moment he neglects a single need, or misdirects the energies of his being, there is not only a strain which is not represented in the choral anthem of God, but it is caused to vibrate discordantly with those strains which are represented, and instead of a soul pulsating with the divinest melody and joy, you have it harshly jarring to the discordant notes of antagonism and death.

The principles of this philosophy affirm that man must attend to the needs of every department of his being, if he would develop harmoniously. The Divine, in the plenitude of his wisdom, has given to man nothing superfluous. His physical body, with its needs, is just as essential to the perfect man as is his spiritual being; and its demands are as imperative in their sphere. And man is as really obeying the Divine in truly administering to his physical as to his spiritual needs; and the pleasures attending the true administration are as true and just in their sphere as are those pertaining to more exalted spheres of being and action. He who despises and afflicts his body to benefit his soul mistakes the divine order and method, and in afflicting his body wars with the true interests and destiny of his immortal being. The disposition to afflict the body for the benefit of the soul is that higher manifestation of the selfish and lustful principle turning its weapons purposely upon itself. Its aim is self-gain, and, through that, self-gratification. Hence the cloistered nun, the solitary monk, and the stern ascetic, of whatever school, are violating the divine method and law as much as is the pleasure-seeking worldling. They are as really under the dominion of their lusts for self-gratification as any other class. Their expenditure of worldly pleasure has respect to the spiritual, which they hope thereby to obtain; and, like any other selfish being, they only act with respect to some expected gain, bringing with it enjoyment or gratification.

The great error of the world is that it does not distinguish between the true and false impulse, giving rise to true and false action, out of which grows true and false development, bringing existence into antagonism and false relation.

Said the Divine Teacher, speaking of little children, “Of such is the kingdom of heaven.” The infant at birth instinctively obeys the law of its being, and it continues to do so in every department of its being which does not come under the rule of its conscious, voluntary action. When it feels the demand for food to nourish and develop its infantile body, it indicates that demand by its restlessness and complainings; and when the demand is supplied, its complainings cease. It does not ask for gratification beyond the supply of its needs; that it does ask for, and must have to give it quiet. During this early period it eats to live, and continues to do so until, by its development, another nature with its needs is brought into conscious existence, and neglected. Then the unsatisfied demands of that other nature impart disquiet to the being, and he begins to search after gratification. It is in this way that lust is begotten. It is never felt until the demand of some need is neglected, and it is an immutable law that such neglect must beget lust; and hence whoever feels the demand for gratification of any sort hears the voice of God within proclaiming a neglected demand, a perishing need. He sees the cherubim of God standing at the gate of Paradise, with a drawn sword of flame turning in every direction, guarding the tree of life. Thus man’s lusts proclaim his imperishable needs, and, when truly understood, they are but the echo of God’s voice calling upon him to return and live.

The child naturally comes under the dominion of its lusts through ignorance. It feels the disquieting influence of its neglected needs; it feels discontented and unhappy, and therefore it seeks gratification in such direction as experience has taught it it might sometimes be found. He early learns the pleasures of sense. He could not comply with the demands of his physical nature without knowing them; hence, when he feels a demand for something—he does not know what—what more natural than that he should seek sensual gratification. Thus it is according to the figure, that man partakes of the forbidden fruit before his eyes are opened to know good and evil. His first disobedience is in consequence of his ignorance of the nature and requirements of his needs; and, seeking to obtain gratification, he violates the true law of his being. But as man has needs pertaining to his physical, intellectual, moral, and religious natures, and as there are pleasures pertaining to the proper supplying of them, man’s lusts may lead him to act in either the physical, intellectual, or moral and religious departments; and, as already remarked, the grossness of the lust will depend upon the plan and the means by which it seeks gratification. Reflection will demonstrate that the different lusts, as they are called, differ not in the primary impulse, but differ in the manner of seeking gratification. Man, in the external and finite of his being, may be differently affected by the different modes of gratification which his lust prompts him to seek. Thus the physical effect produced upon him by seeking gratification through his appetite for strong drink, will be different from that produced upon him by seeking gratification through his relish for food or social amusement. Seeking gratification through the improper exercise of any of the faculties of the body or mind tends to produce injury in two ways.

First, the tendency is to call off the attention from the actual needs of the being, so that the proper demands are neglected, and thereby lustful desires become intensified by the influx of an unnatural degree of energy in that false direction. And second, by overtaxing the capacity of those organs which are used for lustful gratification. Thus the inebriate and glutton who make use of their appetites as a means of gratification, often weaken and disease the organs of digestion and assimilation, and thereby disqualify them for performing their proper functions. Man can not engage in lustful exercises without subjecting himself to these twofold evils. And their manifestation will be according to the plane of the lust and the means adopted for its gratification. But while lusts differ thus in their modes of expression, as well as in their primary and secondary effects upon the individual, they are all alike in their inception, and in the end sought to be attained. They all have their beginning in the neglect of some need, which creates a sense of lack, and they all seek self-gratification irrespective of such need; so that all lust, in whatever plane found, is alike in its origin and end. All are fatal to true happiness.

The general sameness of character of all lusts accounts for the singular compounds and apparent incongruities of character found in certain individuals. That is, it is not unfrequent to find individuals remarkable for their zeal in politics, morals, and religion, carried away at times by the grossest lusts. Men, eminent for their piety, sometimes have been notorious for their intemperance and lewdness; and the world have been astonished at it. But a careful attention to the distinction to be made between the true impulse and lust soon solves the mystery. Such men are pre-eminently under the influence of lust in every department of their being—in the moral and religious as well as in the physical. The piety of such men may be ever so deep and earnest, yet its basis is in use. They see nothing in the Divine character or perfections which excites in them love or admiration any further than it is to bear upon their own well-being and happiness. Their love of God is a love of the instrument or means by which they are to become supremely blessed. And their love, after all, is a love of their own happiness, and of God as essential to their happiness. If they should discover that God stood in the way of their future enjoyment, they would like him no better than any other enemy.

Such minds mistake lust for love, and in seeking their own happiness call it seeking God; and in rejoicing in their anticipations, call it rejoicing in God. The man that seeks religion for the sake of securing to himself salvation and endless delight, is just as lustful and selfish as he who seeks gratification in any other way. Man may go a whoring after strange gods as well as after strange women.

Those who appeal to men to get religion in order that they may escape misery and secure happiness, appeal to their lusts, and so far as they influence them by their appeals to their hopes and fears, they stimulate them to lust. The individual who seeks religion for the purpose of saving his soul, is exercising the very impulse which most of all tends to defeat his salvation. Hence said Jesus upon this very point, “Whosoever seeketh to save his life shall lose it,” etc. The very impulse is as selfish and undivine as possible. It is for this very reason that the influence of the popular religions of the day is not redemptive in its character. To say to the world that when all should be converted to the religion of these fashionable churches, the millennium would come, would provoke in the highest degree their sense of the ludicrous. Their lustful seeking after self-gratification is so apparent and gross, that they can not even deceive themselves.

It will not be considered a false declaration when I say, that there is no possible resemblance of character or practice between these modern fashionable Christians and Jesus of Nazareth. The redemptive principle of the religion of Jesus can not be found in their religion. The difference is, Jesus was seeking the kingdom of heaven and its righteousness, while they are seeking self-gratification. The impulse in Jesus was that of religious love; theirs is a religious lust. The impulse in Jesus led him to hunger and thirst after righteousness; theirs leads them to hunger and thirst after the things of sense. Jesus, in the things pertaining to the world, was the Lazarus; they are the Dives.

Furthermore, I must be permitted to say that the popular religions of the day are manifestations of man’s lustful character, in the moral and religious plane; and that it is more difficult to reform a man in his moral and religious lusts than it is in his animal lusts. It was for this reason that Jesus pronounced his severest woes upon the Scribes and Pharisees, who thought they were righteous and who despised others. Hence he said to them, “Ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against yourselves.” Also, “The publicans and harlots do pass into the kingdom of heaven before you.”

The proposition reduced to its simplest form is this: True religion can not dwell with lust. “Ye can not serve God and mammon.” But the religion of the Pharisee of every age is lust in its highest and most impregnable plane. Hence the more of such proposed religion they have, the farther are they from true religion. Jesus was condemning lust in the moral or charitable plane when he directed that alms should be done in secret. The impulse to charitable deeds which looks to self-gain or self-gratification, brings no reward to the soul of the giver. If he is prompted by a desire after fame, or from a hope of inward satisfaction, he does not act from the true impulse. He who sounds the trumpet in the world or in his soul, to call attention to his charities, can have no reward of his Father in heaven. He who acts from the true divine impulse acts spontaneously, acts as it were involuntarily; that is, he is not aware that he wills. His left hand knows not what his right hand doeth. He meets with a case of need. He stops not to argue the question and determine probabilities and uses. The steel and the flint are in contact, and the spark, comes forth.

In the domestic relation of husband and wife, parent and child, brother and sister, there is much of this moral lust which is mistaken for love. Many professing to be husbands, and really thinking themselves to be so, love the use of their wives better than the wife, just as the lustful in religion love the use of God better than God.

It is this mistaking lust for love which begets so many unhappy marriages. The considerations leading to the union are not unfrequently of a lustful character altogether. Thus the young man seeking a wife is constantly trying the question of use. She will administer to his comfort in this way and that, and upon the whole she will be the means of making him very happy. It will not be denied that in a vast majority of cases the man, in seeking a wife, is seeking after his own happiness, and he will cherish her while she conduces to that end. But if he finds himself disappointed—finds that she fails to fulfill his expectation—the ardor of his love begins to abate; and just in proportion as he is disappointed in his expectations will he grow cold and neglectful. So common is this that it has arrested the attention of universal man. The difference between the fondness manifested while yet the newly-wedded pair have met with no disappointments, and that which is manifested a few weeks or months later, has given rise to the expression "the honey-moon," meaning that the age of a single moon is usually sufficient to reveal the imperfections of the loving pair, and consequently to cause the ardor of their love to abate. The husband does not find in the wife all that he anticipated. She is not so perfectly adapted to making him happy as he had hoped. Consequently he is disappointed. And as his happiness was the object of his pursuit when he was seeking a wife, and he mistook that lust for self-gratification for love for the wife, being disappointed in his lust, he finds little or nothing of love left.

It is thus, by mistaking lust for love, that so many disappointments take place, and so many unhappy unions are formed; and while the individuals are under this lust for self-gratification, there is little hope of their doing better a second time. It was in reference to this lustful and selfish love that Jesus said unless a man loved him or his doctrines with a better and purer love than that with which he loved wife, children, parents, etc., he could not become his disciple. The simple truth of the expression was, that man’s love, or the love of the world, was lustful; and unless man loved God and truth with a purer love than that lustful love, he could not be a true disciple.

The same lustful impulse is found in the parental and fraternal relation. Man is so naturally selfish and lustful, that it is found in every relation, leading him into the broad road to disobedience and sin. And herein is manifested the deep excellence of the morality of Jesus, that it aimed a fatal blow at the lust itself, and thus “laid the axe at the root of the tree.” “His fan was in his hand, and he thoroughly purged his floor,” “gathering the wheat into the garner, and burning the chaff with unquenchable fire.”

In man’s social relations the same lust after self-gratification is found. The friendships of the world have this lustful basis, and herein are they distinguished from true friendship. The selfish man or woman seeks social and friendly intercourse for the pleasure or gratification it affords. They cultivate social and friendly relations solely with respect to the pleasures thereof. Consequently their love of friends is only in their use to them. They love their own gratification supremely, and they love the use of that which will administer thereto—consequently their attachments turn upon the question of gratification. They do nothing, they love nothing in forgetfulness of separate self.

This distinction between true love and lust is to be made in every plane. The true impulse in every plane is the manifestation of the present God in that plane. The obeying that impulse is obeying God. The harmonizing with it is harmonizing with God; and the individual who in all things walks in accordance with its principles is walking with God, and is in the straight and narrow path which leadeth unto life; while he who, on the contrary, is led by his desire after self-gratification, in whatever plane, is in the broad road which leads to antagonism and death. “His lusts, when they conceive, bring forth sin; and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.”

There is no middle ground between love and lust; and unless the distinction be taken where I have taken it, it can not be taken at all. Excuse the principle of seeking after gratification as a true incentive to action, and you have destroyed the distinction between purity and impurity—between truth and falsehood—between holiness and sin. If action in respect to use and the gratification of self be the highest, then, indeed, there is no God—no virtue—no right. Such is the ultimate conclusion of those who know of no higher rule of action than pertains to the sphere of use and gratification. They know of no intrinsic virtue, goodness, purity, etc. They affirm of existence the qualities of good or bad from results. They say that a thing is right or wrong because the result is wrong, and not that the result was wrong because the thing itself was intrinsically bad.

This is a very common error with the world. They are apt to trace the evil in the result and overlook it in the cause. The reason that lustful action is pernicious is not because its results are bad, but because the condition itself is intrinsically false, and can not produce other than false fruit.

We sum up in this. Man will never feel the need of that which he does not lack. He will never feel the need of happiness or gratification so long as every demand of his nature is gratified; because the compliance with every demand of his being will of itself confer all that he can desire, and he will be satisfied. Hence the desire for that which he does not possess demonstrates that there are true and just demands of his being which are not complied with.

Therefore any attempt to satisfy that desire, short of complying with the true demand, will result in begetting false action, which will tend to overtax and disease some part of his organism, creating an unnatural demand in that department, which, instead of bringing satisfaction and content, will bring restlessness and disquiet, calling for still further gratification. Thus lust, when it is conceived, bringeth forth a violation of the normal or healthy condition, which is sin; and that sin in its work, when finished, bringeth forth death.