The Coiled Serpent

Review and Summary of C.J. VanVliet's Philosophy of Conservation and Transmutation of Reproductive Energy

Below is a brief review, then a long summary, of an important book. It concerns one particular practice of SPIRITUAL SPECIATION: Retention and Transmutation of Generative Internal Energy.

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Encyclopedically sourced and cited, the author makes his case by appealing to philosophers, to scientists, and religious leaders. From traditions as wide-ranging as Hinduism, Christianity, Rosicrucianism, Freemasonry… to individuals as diverse as Nietzsche, Hermes, Blavatsky, Hegel, Kant, Spinoza, Socrates, Plato, Pythagoras… VanVliet synthesizes teachings and quotations on the topic of human spiritual evolution, and, in many cases, how it is closely tied to our sexuality.

Here are the main points, summarized in my own words:

• “Humanity is something that must be surpassed.” The ingredients for developing a Superman have been outlined by countless philosophers, and one of them is retention and transmutation.

• Modern man is over-sexed; he’s conditioned to treat sex as recreational, but this actually has extremely detrimental effects on our endocrinology and ultimately it retards our evolution as individuals and as a race.

• The author exhorts us: do not have sex unless it’s for procreation; by remaining chaste, your body will recondition itself back toward a natural internal economy of energy that is required for the continuation of evolution.

• Gradations from the animal to the god must be measured by the progressive deepening and expanding of consciousness. Countless personal accounts are provided of spiritual evolution which unlocks psychic powers of clairvoyance, dream travel, or advanced intuition. Communion with the innermost, and development of consciousness… these are advanced psychological functions which in theory and practice require advanced energy from the nervous system. From where might it come, but from the most powerful and sacred force in nature?

Below, I’ll provide an outline of the book, with the quotes I found pertinent. There’s a lot of text here, but I’ve done my best to only include the most important and necessary excerpts. The book is split into three parts, and the parts are split into chapters. I won’t cover every part or chapter — the excerpts here below are sufficient to get the author’s point across.

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PART 1 THE IDEAL

INTRODUCTION: Modernity encourages us to talk and think freely about sex, sanctioning and encouraging sexual expression for its own sake. But we should instead adopt a philosophy of drastic purification, which propounds that a permanently effective solution of the limitation of sex to reproductive activity. Although this ideal may seem extreme, and seemingly inaccessible to the general public, it is of vital importance. Adoption of this philosophy is required to change the current of human evolution, even if only at first in individual cases.

VITALITY: A lack of chastity in act and thought constitutes the underlying cause of nearly all misery, of discontent with life, of marital disharmony, of congenital low vitality, of sluggish intellects, of many avoidable ailments, of human wrecks in body and in mind, and of countless untimely deaths. In final synthesis the general misusage of the generative force revealed itself as the basic cause not only of humanity's woes, but also of its failure to advance in evolution.

THE SERPENT SYMBOL: “The serpent is the monster to be overcome.” If man but wills, he can reduce its power. He can in fact subdue the unwieldy and unruly reptile even yet by opposing its depraved desires. By will he can reduce it to servility again. And then its valuable hidden power will aid him in his ascent of evolution’s path. Indeed, “when conquered, the serpent becomes a means of life.” Instead of appropriating the life force of man, it will then supply him with the greatest factor that can lead to a higher human existence.” Records of a serpent symbolism in some form or another are found in all parts of the world, especially of heroes who conquer the evil serpent. There can be no doubt that these legends symbolize the necessity of man’s victory over the domineering influence of sex, for from the earliest times folk-lore seems to have connected the serpent with the sexual function. Erudite investigators have come to the conclusion that “the serpent always has a phallic signification.” When the serpent is uncoiled and upright, or standing on its tail, it is mastered, and represents goodness.

IGNORANCE: Humanity is like a child that is hiding away from its elders, who call to it because they know that it should make an effort to develop its abeyant faculties. It is like a child who wishes to continue to play with toys instead of becoming acquainted with everlasting realities. Such ignorance is unavoidable in the infancy and early youth of a race. But humanity should arrive at the advanced stage, overcome that ignorance, and know its own dormant spiritual powers, awaken them, and make them dominant. It should stop its wasteful playing with the life force, which is the most sacred force in nature.

CIVILIZATION: The energy of civilization-man is directed outwards; applied to materialistic and intellectual progress at the cost of the spiritual. Our knowledge has increased, but not our wisdom. Industrial mechanics have evolved, but not the modes of building character. Man has learned to control many of natures forces, but so long as he cannot control the forces within himself, there can be no real civilization. Control of appetites is the first step in human culture.

THE DEADLOCK IN HUMAN EVOLUTION: Human evolution has been at a standstill for many thousands of years. Our bodies have, if anything, deteriorated. Human qualities have not improved — character, emotions, and motives of action. Characteristically one finds in this age of boasted culture: society saturated with sexual abuses from the bottom to the top; prostitution flourishing; abduction and seduction as daily occurrences; criminal assaults upon children greatly increased; sex plays on stage and screen attracting largest audiences.

Many however mistake the growth of our civilization for evolutionary progress and think of these two processes as being synonymous. But they are neither equivalent nor always parallel. Civilization neglects and suppresses the inner development of man, antagonizes the higher expression of the life force which evolution seeks to bring about. Humanity has as indulged the almost negligible sexual impulse which he inherited from the animal kingdom, until it has become a desire so strong that he has difficulty to control it. Overstimulated by this unnaturally strong desire of his own making, man has looked for arbitrary ways in which to gratify it. Although reducing actual reproduction, he has discovered ways of unreproductive sexual action. But every such act, whatever form it takes, is a misuse of sex and uses up some of the life force that should be utilized for the support and the development of higher faculties. "The record of our race progress clearly shows how our upward movement has been checked ... by that misuse." At the time when mankind became accustomed and addicted to sexual acts without reproductive purpose, at that very time it put a deadlock into the course of its evolution. Not until this deadlock is removed can humanity, individually and jointly, stride on toward the attainment of the greater faculties and powers which evolution has in store for man."

In some of the higher animal species this had already been reduced to as little as a single act in the season of rut, which in many cases occurs only once a year. For human beings, then, a still further reduction — a limitation to the few occasions when propagation is consciously willed — is requisite if evolution is to proceed. In the human body nature continues to be lavish with the production of seed as a storage battery of life force. But more insistently than ever the evolutionary law demands that — except for limited generative use — the force be kept within the body for regenerative purposes.

Man must either climb toward the radiant, though seemingly lonesome summit, or slide into the tempting shadows of the crowded lower path. Man must either consciously help evolution and make every effort to ascend to the superhuman state; or he will stubbornly counteract and undo the work of evolution, and thereby descend below the grade of the sub-human state.

THE IDEAL: FOR ADVANCED EVOLUTIONARY GROWTH PASSION MUST BE CONQUERED AND THE GENERATIVE ORGANS BE USED FOR GENERATION ONLY. In other words: all the sex force not actually used for the perpetuation of the species must by transmutation be made available for higher evolutionary attainment.

PART 2 SUBSTANTIATING THE IDEAL

This ... is supported by testimony from so many independent sources that it can not be dismissed lightly.

SPIRIT VERSUS MATTER: In their final essence "spirit and matter are only opposite poles of the same universal substance." On this point the deepest philosophies, the highest occult teachings, the broadest religious viewpoints and the farthest reaching scientific searchings seem to lead to very similar conclusions. They have come to look upon spirit and matter as being basically one single element which from one form of expression can be transmuted into another by changing its rate of vibration. "In the victory of spirit over matter . . . matter is not destroyed but is made an instrument of the activity of spirit."

EMBODIED SPIRIT: "Man is a human being only if he conquers nature by spirit." The human spirit is the emanation from the divine, and the body with its various desires and passions, is of the nature of matter. "If we wish to become spiritually developed we must . . . become rid of our sensuality and passions. If the spirit is to increase in power, the flesh must be subdued.” However, to subdue the flesh does not mean that the body should be despised or stunted or neglected. We can help evolution, not by neglecting the body but by disciplining and purifying it, by bringing its vibrations up to a higher standard, "by refining and subliming it, and so heightening its powers as to make it sensitive and responsive to all the manifestations of the spirit." "The body is not to be put off; it is to be made spiritual." And "the living flesh itself becomes spiritualized in proportion to the inner growth of its bearer."

THE SEX PRINCIPLE: “Sex is a thing of bodies, not of souls” — Hermes … Far from enhancing higher faculties of the soul, each physical sexual act which lacks propagative consecration is a deterrent to those faculties. It cannot possibly promote love, but only lust, which sooner leads to separation than to unification. Instead of aiding, it frustrates spiritual evolution; for every such act draws one down into the world of sense-bound matter from which one should be freed. Therefore a limiting of sexual action to "the normal object of the sexual appetite, reproduction" will most effectually advance evolution.

INSTINCT: Looking back over the path of evolution we see the mineral kingdom still asleep in nature's womb, the earth; the vegetable kingdom still connected with its mother, directly fed through roots; then the helpless animal kingdom as nature's toddling little child over which she closely watches, holding it tightly by the hand. Instinct unfailingly directs and restricts their sexuality which it allows to come into expression only in the season of rut, purely for the perpetuation of the species. From her most mature child, from humanity, nature has withdrawn her guiding hand. Rising over instinct she has elevated in man The Mind, which is an individualized part of her own Intelligence. Surely then, man's overstrong sexual urge cannot be excused by ascribing it to instinct — to an influence from which he has been cut off. No: instinct is either urging or restraining him. The cause lies entirely in himself, in his abuse of mind. Instead of using his reasoning power for this purpose man —becoming conscious of self-seeking, sense-serving, sex-stirring possibilities — applied his mentality to the distortion of the sexual life.

DESIRE: The satisfied passion leads oftener to unhappiness than to happiness. Therefore, to do what the ultra-modernists seem to pro pound, namely "to make desire a final authority ... is to invite chaos in the inner life" ; whereas "to diminish our desires is the same as to augment our powers." "So long as our desires are in conflict with the universal law we suffer pain." It is but a repetition of the conviction of the greatest thinkers and of the mystics and the spiritual leaders of all ages that for every person who wishes to advance in evolution and to attain real happiness there comes a time when "desires must starve... the animal passions must die."

THE PLEASURE PRINCIPLE: "The spiritual man feels spiritual joy which is superior to material pleasure, exceeding it a thousand times'; he looks upon the lower satisfactions of life as stranglers of the real joys." When the elating joy from the inner source has been once tasted, mere pleasure "will become not only uncraved for but simply and literally repulsive." Then all the childish pleasures of the world will fade away in the joy of spiritual life ; and "they who have cast away passion . . . will reach the highest joy."

THE SENSES: In most people the senses are not controlled by the mind but on the contrary are allowed to dominate it. Yet it is known that observation through physical senses are limited. The senses make possible an awareness of various wide fields of the external world — fields differing from each other in their ranges of vibrations. It is scientifically acknowledged that between and beyond the ranges of vibrations accessible to the senses, there are wider ranges of energy and vibration. There is no logical reason to reject the idea that man, without leaving his physical body, can develop other powers than those of the physical senses for the perception of what these senses cannot perceive. Only a few have been able to affirm from experience that there is “a spiritual power of seeing, hearing, feeling, smelling, and tasting — a power of direct perception of which the vulgar have no perception and of which even the learned usually do not intimately know the existence. To be immune to the attractions of the senses is to invite into expression spiritual powers; the more the spirit increases in power, the more it is detached from sensible objects. Then, it finds that beyond all physical sensations is a bliss compared to which the pleasures of the senses are like those of childrens’ playthings.”

INSPIRATION, INTELLECT, AND INTUITION: Inspiration is not under the positive control of the will. It comes in flashes, be it through the mind or through one of the senses. It can only find its way where mind or sense is hypersensitive. That at least "a measure of sexual continence is the pre-condition ... of mental energy" is beyond a doubt. For "all who have to do intense mental work feel . . . how continence increases their alertness and efficiency."" Especially if their continence is self-willed and freely chosen.

UNFOLDING OF SPIRIT: "The nature of all reality is spiritual." Everywhere "the ultimate reality in things is spiritual." Thus also "man as he really is ... is a spiritual being'" Widespread lack of happiness lies mainly in the neglect of the spiritual principle. Before Spirit can sublimate, the personality must change into willing, longing aspiration.

SOUL-MATES: ‘Mystical Marriage’ does not refer to personal unions, soul to soul. Rather it is the immaculate union of Soul with Spirit.

BIRTH CONTROL: Repulsive to all of us is the custom of those ancient Pompeiians who used emetics at their dinner parties. After eating all that the stomach would hold they promptly emptied it in their 'vomitorium' in order to be able to eat again. They did not eat for the natural purpose of preserving the body, but for the satisfaction of their unnatural appetite. They ate exclusively for the pleasurable sensation of tasting and swallowing food, for sense-gratification. And they must have judged themselves extremely clever for having discovered how to circumvent the purpose for which nature has designed the digestive system. But today everybody look back in disgust at that unwholesome and vulgar practice of the past. Yet, far more loathsome is the now widespread practice of contraception. So cunning and specious are the modern arguments which are advanced in support of contraception, and so strongly do they appeal to an already over-sensualized generation, that birth control has become a readily accepted custom of the day. NATURE CANNOT BE ABUSED WITH IMPUNITY.

EUGENICS: The welfare of unborn populations of the earth is continually being sacrificed to the sensualism of their progenitors. In order to remove the greatest obstacle to the improvement of the race "man must assume a more complete restraint over his reproductive functions and subordinate his inclinations to the future interests of his descendants." Any tampering with the sexual function before it is being used for the conception of a child endangers the purity of the seed and of the soil.

ADOLESENCE: The indisputable fact that strict continence is at no time more important than during adolescence has been recognized and stressed by every student of the subject. "The brain and the sexual organs are . . . great rivals in using up bodily energy." "When the reproductive organs make demands . . . they can be satisfied only at the expense of the brain."

GLANDS AND SECRETIONS: Left to themselves the glands perform their tasks instinctively according to nature's needs "in a manner which the most learned can neither understand nor explain" ; their activity is backed by an intelligence that is not equaled by the greatest intellect of man. As long as not interfered with, the glands produce and contribute to the processes of life and evolution. Man has interfered with nature's normal stimulations and with the normal functioning of glands. With artificial excitations he has forced some glands to serve his pleasure, to work overtime, to overproduce secretions. Especially has he overstimulated the glands that are connected with nutrition and with sex — particularly with sex. Apart from "giving rise to the development of the secondary sexual characters'" they "are essential for physical and mental manhood and womanhood." "The testes secrete substances which pass into the circulation and are of immense importance in the development of the organism." These substances are the internal secretions which also "add enormously to a man's magnetic and spiritual force. The tragedy is that by every act which disposes of some external secretion "the formation of the internal ... is undoubtedly interfered with." The prominent part played by the internal secretions of the sex glands of both men and women in every phase of individual development has been discovered only in modern times. This new knowledge confirms the idea that in order to make possible an advancement in evolution, more and more of the life force must be taken away from generative activity and turned into regenerative channels" Undoubtedly "the more the fluids are retained in the body . . . the greater fulness of life, health and power are experienced."

EROTIC DREAMS: Psychoanalysts describe a ‘censor’, an internal function that suppresses things of our lower nature, a tool of our evolutionary longing for higher life. The judge within. Its nature is Spirit. Censorship often removed during sleep. But thoughts of the day shape the dreams of the night. It is a mistake to believe that emissions during the dream state cannot be controlled. The last thought as one sinks into slumber has an influence out of all proportion of the time it occupies the mind.

SEXUAL NORMALCY: As a race we are oversexed. By habitual indulgence, by cumulative heredity, by influence of surroundings, and by seeking or submitting to stimulation, the human sexual impulse has long since been developed to a state far beyond its natural normalcy. "The excessive sex urge in man bears the stamp of ... a compulsion which is unnatural." Once accustomed to alcohol or drugs or to sexual excitement a body manifests discomfort when its craving for gratification is not satisfied. This has led to the fallacy that it is necessary and even healthy to supply the gratification in order to remove the discomfort.

MYSTICISM: The business of the mystic . . . is to remake his entire personality in the interest of his spiritual self. "The mystical manuals show that for spiritual education . . . the sexual libido must be withdrawn from its original use." "Chastity is the power which . . . opens the soul to the things of heaven" , whereas "fleshly likings take a man . . . far from the clear sight of spiritual things." "People think that we are in pain and great penance, but we have more true delight in a day than others have in the world all their lives." "Spiritual comforts exceed all the delights of the world and all pleasures of the flesh." "All who follow the lust of the flesh are dead in soul."

ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY: "The Book of Thoth . . . contained the secret processes by which the regeneration of humanity was to be accomplished." It taught that "no man can be saved without regeneration", and that this regeneration or "spiritual rebirth is an escape from the delusions of the body", which "has with mass of matter blocked the senses and crammed them full of loath some lust." It is possible to free oneself from these ills — namely by “continence . . . the power against desire."' Just "throw out of work the body's senses, and thy divinity shall come to birth." Then "passion and desire withdraw . . . and thus it is that man does speed thereafter upwards to the harmony." Book of the Dead: "The Apophis is overthrown!"" Now, “Apophis is the serpent . . . the symbol of human passions." Also "Apophis is the enemy of Ra (who is Light)."

"The whole school of Pythagoras made chastity one of its leading virtues." "The main end and design of his philosophy was to disengage the mind from the bonds of the body", and "to free the soul from the fetters of sense.'" This is evident from his exhortation : "Fight and overcome thy foolish passions, be sober and chaste. “And once when Pythagoras was asked when one might indulge in sex he replied, 'whenever you want to be weaker than yourself'." "Of sensual passion Socrates would say: 'avoid it resolutely; it is not easy to control yourself once you meddle with that sort of thing'." And "his own self-control was shown by his deeds yet more clearly than by his words." All told, "the Socratic philosophy . . . bids the heart turn from the temporal to the eternal ; and it does so . . . by sublimating erotic passion."

MYTHOLOGY: Mythologically expressed, inner development proceeds well if the hero defeats the dragon." the dragon is equivalent to the serpent." For instance "in the Chaldean account of creation it is a dragon that leads man to sin", just as the serpent does in the biblical presentation. In many myths and legends "the dragon is merely the idealized serpent." Generally "the serpent ... is the treasure-guarding dragon of the myth." Countless examples given throughout the world.

MYSTERY RELIGIONS: "In the mystic rites initiated, life's best delight I place in chastity alone." — Euripides … The mystery of the mastery of man over himself, "of suppressing the 'old man' and of vitalizing the spiritual principle", has been the central idea around which have been built most of the religious, metaphysical and ritualistic systems. "The ultimate design of the Mysteries, according to Plato, was to lead ... to a perfect enjoyment of spiritual good." "The neophyte was taught that a conservation of the life energy and a refusal to expend it in generation . . . would vitalize and vivify body and mind and give spiritual powers.'" "The true object of the Masonic fraternity ... is an attempt to achieve the moral regeneration of the human race." It recognizes that "in every man there is a ray . . . which ever struggles upward amid the obstructions of the passions"4; it teaches that "one law of our own nature . . . speaking through every nerve and fiber, every force and element of the moral constitution is. . . that we must govern our sensual appetites", and also that this is "not the mere enactment of arbitrary will . . .but the dictate of Infinite Wisdom.'"

ROSICRUCIANS: Towering above any organization or occupation of ordinary humans there seems to have existed, and still may exist, "a secret society of men possessing superhuman powers", a brotherhood consisting of some of the highest evolved individuals of the race. Although very few authentic records about them can be found, there is evidence that they used a super-masonic symbolism, carefully kept from crystallizing into a mere ceremony; a super-alchemic hermetic system, not requiring laboratory experiments; a super-occultism, enabling them to be consciously active on other planes of existence than the physical; and a super-science, giving them an understanding of the workings of nature's finest forces back of all natural phenomena." According to this viewpoint the true Rosicrucian Brotherhood consisted of a limited number of “highly developed adepts . . . who taught the mystery of human regeneration through the transmutation of the base elements of man's lower nature into the gold of spiritual realization." That their philosophy substantiates the purificatory ideal presented in this volume can also be seen from a few lines taken from a tract which is considered to be genuinely Rosicrucian : "Instead of governing the sensuous, man became involved in sensuosity ... He fell from spirit into matter, and it is now the object of his efforts to regain his former position ... He is still engaged in the battle of the sensuous against the spiritual. He wants to become spiritualized but his body attracts him to the sensuous by a thousand charms . . . His power of returning depends entirely on his power to subdue everything that renders obscure his true inner nature."

ALCHEMY: "By the transmutation of metals the alchemists meant the conversion of man from a lower to a higher order of existence, from a natural to a spiritual life. "be ye transmuted from dead stones into living philosophical stones."

THEOSOPHY: “The sexual relation is a thing to be put aside the moment a person becomes wise.” — Blavatsky … She taught that "the practice of moral and physical purity . . . develops self -illumination.” She taught that “wisdom cannot possibly be obtained unless one first kills the passions of the physical, to call to life the perceptions of the spiritual man." She called sexual action "the greatest impediment in the way of spiritual development." And she made it very clear that "sensual self-gratification involves the immediate loss of the powers of spiritual discernment." Blavatsky was well known to be involved in dream travel, astral projection, and clairvoyance — supraconscious tools of superhuman adepts.

PSYCHISM: i.e. psychic powers… "With our physical senses alone at our command none of us can hope to reach beyond gross matter", "which veils our internal vision and . . . muffles our internal hearing.'" But "there are certain faculties latent within the constitution of man which if they become developed, call a higher scale of internal senses into activity, and these may enable him ... to hear, see, taste and smell things which far surpass the powers of perception of the external senses." "In every human being there are such latent faculties by means of which he may acquire for himself knowledge of the higher worlds", and by which he may prove to his own satisfaction that "the supernatural is only the natural in an extraordinary grade." The capacity to respond to spiritual vibrations has almost entirely been lost as a result of the sexual perversions of the race. "For the beholding of the hidden things shalt thou forsake . . . the things of the flesh." — Dionysus, Epistle to Timothy

OCCULTISM: “Hidden Science” … “All sexual intercourse is forbidden in practical occultism” — Blavatsky … The occultist exemplifies a progressive stage of balanced evolutionary growth toward superhumanity. Abundant physical vigor, scientific understanding, artistic inspiration, philosophic speculation, religious adoration, intuitive receptivity, mystic contemplation, yogic concentration, magic will-power, plus other still more wonderful abilities are all acquired by the successful occultist — each to an extent beyond the comprehension of those who seek to specialize in any single faculty. "The sooner the animal sexual affinities are given up . . . the sooner will come the manifestation of the higher occult powers." — Blavatsky

UNCOILING THE SERPENT: [In the Orient], one can learn about the working of nature's finer forces within the human frame; about the real purpose of some generally little understood organs in the head; about a series of chakras or psychic nerve centers, of which "the glands are only the outer symbols"; about force channels and force currents along the spinal column; and about the Kundalini, the mysterious serpent fire at the lower end of the spine. Briefly stated, it is taught in the far East that in woman and man alike "there is a power, called the Kundalini. "It is at the base of the spinal column . . . that this mighty occult power lies coiled like a serpent asleep." "A wise man should take it up from its place to the middle of the eyebrows" Having worked its way up to that point, the serpent power opens the highest spiritual center of man the thinker, man the knower, man the creator, man at last in the image of God. With the raising of Kundalini, with the uncoiling of the serpent fire, comes the advancement of the race to superhuman glory.

SUPERMEN: The future belongs not to man but to superman. Humanity is something that must be surpassed. Gradations from the animal to the god must be measured by the progressive deepening and expanding of consciousness. To each kingdom the expanded consciousness of the next higher must necessarily remain incomprehensible for lack of a faculty by which to comprehend it. To the animal consciousness a human creature can be no more than just another animal; and to the purely intellectual human being a superman will seem to be no more than human. It requires spiritual faculties to even vaguely sense the transcendent superiority of the superman. "Men dwelling on the earth and yet not of it,” they were called by Apollonius of Tyana at the beginning of our era.