Translucency

“ By saying “every” he excepts nought of womanhood, just as he excepts nought of manhood either from not being covered; for just so he says, “Every man.” [11] As, then, in the masculine sex, under the name of “man” even the “youth” is forbidden to be veiled; so, too, in the feminine, under the name of “woman,” even the “virgin” is bidden to be veiled. Equally in each sex let the younger age follow the discipline of the elder; or else let the male “virgins,” [12] too, be veiled, if the female virgins withal are not veiled, because they are not mentioned by name. ”

“ What, we may well ask, was the original cause and motive of the doctrine of transmigration? Something may be said in answer, though not at all enough for full explanation. The theory that ancestral souls return, thus imparting their own likeness of mind and body to their descendants and kindred, has been already mentioned and commended as in itself a very reasonable and philosophical hypothesis, accounting for the phenomenon of family likeness going on from generation to generation. But why should it have been imagined that men’s souls could inhabit the bodies of beasts and birds? ”

“ Further problems are connected with the possibility of repeated conversions of the same man, the necessity of a single strongly marked conversion completed in a single process, the significance of sudden conversion of persons in a highly emotional state, such as has been common in revivalist meetings, especially in Wales and the United States of America. Conversions of the last kind have followed frequently on striking physical phenomena, perceived in many cases only by the convert himself, such as a sudden bright light or a noise like a clap of thunder. ”

“ But—and here is the great difficulty—how can the changed male have given his lost organs to his sex, and the female have transmitted her original but now modified peculiarities to the workers; especially as neuters do not propagate, and hence can not transmit their characters to progeny? Another law solves a portion of the difficulty: peculiarities acquired at any period of life are apt to appear in the same sex at the same time of life. ”

“ Psychiatrists during recent years have come to believe that in certain mental states we see a reversion to a more primitive type of reaction,—a tendency to utilize earlier adaptations, the reactions of infancy and childhood in meeting situations which arise in adult life. If this assumption is correct it is seen that a reversion to something more primitive is an undesirable reaction in the individual as well as in the race. Here too we find that the emotions and feelings associated with the reproductive instinct may be inadequately developed. ”

“ Transvestism.—The psycho-sexual anomaly of transvestism consists in the desire for cross-dressing. The male patient has the abnormal desire to dress like a woman, and the female patient longs to dress like a man. It is in this respect akin to the anomaly of homosexuality. In the degrees of effemination and viraginity, cross-dressing is a prominent symptom. The homosexual pathicus has naturally the impulsive desire to dress like a woman, and vice versa, the Lesbian woman longs to dress like a man. ”

“ In a crisis, when the life of one of the two seeds is trembling in the balance, one of them—through the exertion of its "Latent Reserve Energy," dominates, and engenders a child of the opposite sex. This reversal of the sex is in conformity with the Law of the Cross-Transmission of Sex; that is, the mother is represented in the male offspring and the father in the female,—this being the normal expression of the Law of Cross-Transmission of Characteristics. ”

“ But as Mind is being evolved more and more as we proceed in our course along the line of the race development, there can be perceived underneath in all countries the beginning of the transition from the animal possessed of the germ of real mind to the man of mind complete. This day is therefore known to the Masters, who have given out some of the old truths, as the “transition period”. Proud science and prouder religion do not admit this, but think we are as we always will be. ”

“ The soul, being sown in the womb at the same time as the body, receives likewise along with it its sex; and this indeed so simultaneously, that neither of the two substances can be alone regarded as the cause of the sex. ”

“ Traducianism undoubtedly comes nearer the scientific teachings as to the development of the mind than does either of the other doctrines named, but it is based upon the prevalent but erroneous belief that the bodies of the parents generate the body of the child, and that correspondingly the souls of the parents generate the soul of the child. Now we know that the child comes from germ cells which are not made by the bodies of the parents, but which have arisen by the division of antecedent germ cells. ”

“ But the transformation of an old man, or an old animal, into new youthful and vigorous forms might be regarded as a kind of transmigration—an extension of the transformation idea, but involving no metempsychosis, no passing of the soul into another body by rebirth. Actual transmigration or rebirth occurs only at the end of the series, and, as in the case of Etain, Lug, etc., the pre-existent person is born of a woman after being swallowed by her. ”

“ Yet, surely, if we are to talk about the soul at all, we dare not altogether decline to search for some conceivable hypothesis of its origination. Is traducianism conceivable? Can we give any meaning to the notion of direct psychical progeniture from father to son? Are we not driven back on some form of transmigrationism? some notion at least so far parallel with evolutionary theory as to allow us to think of the soul as in some way pre-existent — as having in some way undergone a progressive development analogous to the hereditary development which has made our bodies what they are? ”

“ These are the earlier tablets of natural espousals and nuptials. Impose a veil externally upon her who has (already) a covering internally. Let her whose lower parts are not bare have her upper likewise covered. Would you know what is the authority which age carries? Set before yourself each (of these two) ; one prematurely [41] compressed in woman’s garb, and one who, though advanced in maturity, persists in virginity with its appropriate garb: the former will more easily be denied to be a woman than the latter believed a virgin. ”

“ The Translator, however, should be himself an historian or antiquary, and should confine himself—as, indeed, if left to himself he will do—to the nation in whose fate he happens to have had awakened in him—by influences hard to tell, and perhaps to himself unknown—the perpetual interest of a sympathy that endears to him, above all others, that especial region, and the ages that like shadows have passed over it. ”

“ For that custom which belies virgins while it exhibits them, would never have been approved by any except by some men who must have been similar in character to the virgins themselves. Such eyes will wish that a virgin be seen as has the virgin who shall wish to be seen. The same kinds of eyes reciprocally crave after each other. Seeing and being seen belong to the self-same lust. To blush if he see a virgin is as much a mark of a chaste [11] man, as of a chaste [12] virgin if seen by a man.
Chapter 3 Gradual Development of Custom, and Its Results. Passionate Appeal to Truth. ”

“ I refer to the renouncing of the distribution of its nouns into masculine, feminine, and neuter, as in German, or even into masculine and feminine, as in French; and with this, and as a necessary consequence of this, the dropping of any flexional modification in the adjectives connected with them. Natural sex of course remains, being inherent in all language; but grammatical gender, with the exception of ‘he’, ‘she’, and ‘it’, and perhaps one or two other fragmentary instances, the language has altogether forgone. ”

“ This was at a religious festival.1992 Here then we find reversion to more primitive sex mores, and dramatic representation of a myth, conjoined in religion, on the very threshold of the higher civilization. The reversion to primitive sex mores to satisfy notions of duty to religion and ancestors comes to us as an incomprehensible violation of "primary instincts," which we have inferred from ideas that we can trace back beyond any known origin, which we suppose to be universally accepted, and which seem to us axiomatic as to social welfare. ”

“ If transmutation, when thus tested, has decidedly the advantage over progression and yet is comparatively in disfavour, we may reasonably suspect that its reception is retarded, not so much by its own inherent demerits, as by some apprehended consequences which it is supposed to involve and which run counter to our preconceived opinions. ”

“ The Puddlesby Psychical Society believes in the Transmigration of Souls. As I am not a member myself I'm afraid that that is all I can tell you about it. It is a little difficult at first sight, perhaps, to see the connection between Transmigration and rubber tyres, but if you will have patience I think I can promise to show you that at least.
One night our Mr. Bowles came home late from a meeting of the P.P.S., fell asleep at once and had what he regarded as a "transmigratory experience in a retrogressive sense." The world was not the world he knew. ”

“ So again, if the chief service rendered to the male by his prehensile organs is to prevent the escape of the female before the arrival of other males, or when assaulted by them, these organs will have been perfected through sexual selection, that is by the advantage acquired by certain individuals over their rivals. ”

“ It must needs undergo modifications as life goes on; the various kinds and types little by little dissolve into each other, becoming mutually complicated one with the other, acquire new, fresh shades of colouring and form, according to the composite forms of genesic aberration, which will be described as a separate group. ”

“ Consequently, to the average mind of the modern Western world, the doctrine of transmigration remains a mere fancy, although, as we shall immediately see, it has a strange poetic charm, a deep metaphysical basis, and a high ethical and religious quality.
The first ground on which the belief rests is the various strong resemblances, both physical and psychical, connecting human beings with the whole family of lower creatures. They have all the senses in common with us, together with the rudiments of intelligence and will. ”

“ It is by adding to the observed phenomena an indefensible hypothesis that the error of traduction is obtained. We observe that human beings are begotten by a deposit of germs through the generative process. To affirm that these germs are transmitted down the generations from the original progenitor of each race, in whom they all existed at first, is an unwarranted assertion and involves absurdities. ”

“ Amidst materialists, zealots, and sceptics, the Transcendentalist believed in perpetual inspiration, the miraculous power of will, and a birthright to universal good. He sought to hold communion face to face with the unnameable Spirit of his spirit, and gave himself up to the embrace of nature's beautiful joy, as a babe seeks the breast of a mother. ”

“ On the Relation between the Period of Development of a Character and its Transmission to one Sex or to both Sexes.—Why certain characters should be inherited by both sexes, and other characters by one sex alone, namely by that sex in which the character first appeared, is in most cases quite unknown. We cannot even conjecture why with certain sub-breeds of the pigeon, black striæ, though transmitted through the female, should be developed in the male alone, whilst every other character is equally transferred to both sexes. ”

“ Such persons are, as a rule, disgusted at the sight of the organs of the sex to which the individual by anatomical configuration belongs, while such sights offer to the homosexual individual additional charm and piquancy.
Transvestism tends to accent the esthetic sensibility. The patient’s experience of an increased comfort and well-being by the gratification of the pronounced impulse of cross-dressing, is more akin to the satisfaction of the artist, experienced by the successful expression of a certain symbolism. Transvestism is more in harmony with the basal esthetic demands. ”

“ This is evident even in the clinical practice where family members in an urban metropolis who might support a change of their child’s gender might still come up with questions related to whether the medical practitioners have any knowledge of transgendered individuals from the ancient Indian Epics. ”

“ Although it would be a difficult, perhaps an impossible process, as shewn in the last chapter, to convert one form of transmission into another through selection, there would not be the least difficulty in adapting the colours of the female, independently of those of the male, to surrounding objects, through the accumulation of variations which were from the first limited in their transmission to the female sex. ”

“ Our translators having been accustomed to exercise lordship over their wives, and seeing only through the medium of a perverted judgment, very naturally, though I think not very learnedly or very kindly, translated it shall instead of will, and thus converted a prediction to Eve into a command to Adam; for observe, it is addressed to the woman and not to the man. ”

“ If an uncovered head is a recognised mark of virginity, (then) if any virgin falls from the grace of virginity, she remains permanently with head uncovered for fear of discovery, and walks about in a garb which then indeed is another’s. Conscious of a now undoubted womanhood, they have the audacity to draw near to God with head bare. ”