In this fundamental idea of Regeneration, then, is to be
found the true explanation of the universal insistence upon
chastity, continence, and often upon celibacy, on the part of
the priests and great spiritual leaders, as well as on the part of
the great occultists and partakers of “the Mysteries.” This was
not, as generally supposed, because of any idea of the essential
impurity of Sex, but rather because of the belief that the higher
powers of man, physical, mental, psychical and spiritual, were
increased in power and efficiency by means of the practice of
Regeneration rather than that of Generation—the turning of
the Creative Energy inward, rather than outward. It was the
idea of Creation on the mental, psychical and spiritual planes,
rather than upon the plane of materiality and the physical, that
was back of this common custom and rule. But, as we have said,
the spirit of the idea was frequently lost in the passage of the
years, and only the ugly, lifeless, outer shell remained.
