Nevertheless, as I have said, the initiates in the third degree have guarded this secret most jealously, and apparently for the reasons I have assigned.
The first and second degree, however, seem to have been taught publicity in symbolic rites such as for instance in that much misunderstood dance at the Columbian Exposition the Danse du Ventre. It was noticeable that the Oriental men, one and all, viewed that dance with serious and at times reverant gaze. This fact was brought to my notice by two ladies (school teachers) who knew absolutely nothing of the Sex Worship symbolism of the dance, but who had concluded, simply from thoughtful observation, that there must be some religious and pure-minded motif back of it all. Nevertheless, most Americans and Europeans, whether men or women, failed to penetrate beneath the surface of this markedly symbolic dance, owing to the occidental habit of thought which sees naught but impurity in the most important and sacred function of our nature. In Oriental countries, however, despite their being "heathen" sex is looked on as holy; in this connection, our phrase, "Give God the glory," takes on itself a vaster significance than is ever taught from our pulpits.
It is no wonder, then, the Oriental occultists should have penetrated at an early date to the underlying principles of marital relations on the Borderland. From their lifelong habits of thought, they viewed sex as simply and naturally as we should view the circulation of our own blood as a curious phenomenon of absorbing personal interest. With no false shame to overcome, they were fitted to receive the higher truths concerning this subject, whereas our Occidental mediums, for the most part, receive words of impurity or are misled into a loose life. The difference is due to the exact antipodal standpoints of Occidental and Oriental psychics on the subject of the holiness of sex.
I have said that the initiates of the third degree seem to have made this the inner secret of their mysteries, the world over and, that they have always jealously guarded this secret from the masses I am inclined to think that in the beginning it may not have been so, but that
