It is as though a dark thunder cloud were hanging over humanity. The atmosphere is sultry. Man’s intuitive faculty labours sluggishly under a heavy pressure. Only the nerves affecting the senses and animal instincts of the bodies are in a highly-strung condition. Artificially stimulated through the error of a wrong education, of a false attitude, and self-delusion.
In this respect the man of today is not normal, but is burdened with a morbid sexual instinct, aggravated tenfold, for which in a hundred forms and ways he seeks to establish a cult that is bound to become the ruin of all humanity.
Infectious and contagious as a plague, all this gradually influences also those who still seek desperately to cling to an ideal that floats half-hidden in their subconscious mind. They indeed stretch forth their arms longingly towards it, but ever again, after a glance at their surroundings, drop them with a sigh of hopelessness and despair.
Utterly helpless, they observe with horror how swiftly the clear vision regarding morality and bad habits is obscured, how the capacity to judge is lost, and how these concepts change to such an extent that so much which only a short time before would still have aroused disgust and contempt is very soon regarded as quite natural, not even causing surprise.
But the cup will soon be filled to the brim. A terrible awakening must come!
Already now these sensually overwrought masses will sometimes quite involuntarily and unconsciously recoil in sudden misgiving. A momentary feeling of uncertainty grips many a heart; but it brings no awakening, nor any clear perception of their unworthy conduct. They thereupon only redouble their efforts to shake off such weakness or last remnants of old-fashioned ideas, if not to suppress them altogether.
Progress at any price, that is what it must be. However, one can progress in two directions. Upwards or downwards. As one chooses. And as things now stand it is downwards, with horrifying speed. When the hour strikes for those hurtling downwards to encounter a strong resistance, the impact must shatter them.
In this sultry atmosphere the thunder-cloud grows ever more dense and ominous. At any moment now the first flash of lightning may be expected, rending and lighting up the darkness, and brilliantly illuminating the most obscure corner so relentlessly and sharply as to bring liberation to those striving for light and clarity, but destruction to those who have no longing for the Light.
The longer this cloud has time to grow in darkness and density, the more dazzling and terrifying will also be the lightning it generates. Gone will be the soft enervating atmosphere whose sluggish embrace hides a lurking sensuality; for the first flash of lightning will quite naturally also be followed by a current of fresh, bracing air, bringing new life. In the cold clarity of the light, all the products of morbid imagination will suddenly stand stripped of their dazzling falsehoods before the eyes of horrified humanity.
The awakening will strike the souls like the shock of a mighty thunderclap, so that the living spring water of undimmed Truth can pour forth and rush over the loosened soil. The day of freedom dawns. Deliverance from the spell of an immorality that has existed for thousands of years, and that is now reaching its climax.
Look around you! Observe what people read, how they dance, how they dress! By tearing down all barriers between the two sexes, the present time is more than ever anxious systematically to obscure the purity of the intuitive perception, thus to distort it and give it misleading masks, and ultimately, if at all possible, to smother it.
When misgivings arise they are quietened by high-sounding talk, which however proves on investigation to emanate only from the inwardly vibrating sexual instinct, in order to provide ever fresh nourishment for the carnal lusts in countless ways, skilful and clumsy, open and covert.
They speak of the emergence of a free independent humanity, of a development of inner stability, of physical culture, the beauty of the nude, ennobled sports, and of education to bring to life the saying: To the pure all things are pure! In short: Upliftment of the human race by laying aside all prudery, thus producing the noble and free human being who is to carry the future! Woe to him who dares to remonstrate! With a great outcry, accusations are immediately hurled at such an audacious person, similar to the assertions that only impure thoughts can make him find anything wrong in it!
It is a mad whirlpool of foul water, spreading a stupefying, poisoning atmosphere which, like the effect of morphine, induces mental delusions into which thousands upon thousands continually allow themselves to slide until they become so weakened that they go under.
A brother seeks to enlighten his sister, and children their parents. Like a storm-driven tide it sweeps over all mankind, and wild breakers surge round the few who, gripped with repugnance, have retained their balance and still stand like solitary rocks in the sea. To these cling many whose strength threatens to fail them in the violent storm. It is good to see these small groups standing like refreshing oases in the desert, inviting the traveller to find rest and recuperation after grimly battling his way through the sandstorm that threatened to overwhelm him.
What is being preached today under the fine guise of progress is nothing but a veiled encouragement of utter shamelessness, the poisoning of every higher intuitive perception in man. It is the greatest pestilence that ever befell humanity. And strange: it seems as if so many had only been waiting for a plausible excuse to debase themselves. To countless people it is very welcome!
But he who knows the spiritual laws operating in the Universe will turn away in disgust from today’s pursuits. Let us take just one of the most harmless pleasures: Mixed bathing.
To the pure all things are pure! These words have such a pleasant sound that many things are permissible under their protection. But just let us consider the most simple ethereal happenings in such a bathing-place. Let us assume that of thirty persons of both sexes, twenty-nine are really pure in every respect. This is an assumption which is completely impossible from the very start; for the opposite would be more correct, and even then still rare. But let us assume it.
Stimulated by what he sees, impure thoughts arise in the mind of the one, the thirtieth bather, although his outward behaviour may be absolutely irreproachable. These thoughts are immediately embodied ethereally in living thought-forms, which move towards and attach themselves to the object of his glances. This is a defilement, whether or not it leads to any remarks or improprieties!
The person thus contaminated will carry about this dirt, which is capable of attracting similar straying thought-forms. Thereby they become denser, ever denser around this person, and may finally confuse and poison the victim, as a parasitic creeper often destroys the healthiest tree.
Such are the ethereal happenings in so-called harmless mixed bathing, at party games, dances or the like.
It should be borne in mind, however, that in any case it is just all those particularly desirous of having their thoughts and senses excited by such exhibitions who will visit these bathing-places and pleasure haunts! It is not difficult to explain what filth is thus generated, without anyone being outwardly aware of it in the gross material sense.
It is also obvious that this steadily increasing and condensing mass of sensual thought-forms must gradually influence countless people who of themselves do not seek such things. At first vague thoughts of a similar nature arise in them; in time these grow stronger and more alive, being ceaselessly nourished by the various expressions of so-called progress around them. And so one after another they glide along into the viscous dark stream, in which the power to apprehend true purity and morality is ever more obscured, until finally everything is dragged into the depth of uttermost darkness.
First of all, these opportunities and incitements for such rapidly growing abnormalities must be done away with! They are nothing but breeding centres into which the pestilential vermin of immoral human beings can cast their thoughts, which then spring up luxuriantly and spread destruction over all humanity; creating ever new breeding grounds which finally form only one huge field of noxious growths, exuding a poisonous stench that also suffocates the good.
Wrench yourselves out of this delirium, which like a narcotic only appears to invigorate, but in reality has a weakening and destroying effect!
It is natural, though sad, that it is just the female sex which is again the first to exceed all bounds, and which has sunk without any scruple to utter shamelessness in their attire.
However, this only proves that the explanation about ethereal happenings is correct. It is just woman, gifted by nature with a stronger intuitive ability, who first and more deeply absorbs this poison of the tainted ethereal world of thought-forms, albeit quite unconsciously. She is more at the mercy of these dangers, for which reason she is also the first to be carried away, and oversteps every limit incredibly quickly and conspicuously.
Not for nothing is it said: When a woman becomes bad she is worse than a man! This holds good in everything, be it in cruelty, in hatred or in love! The behaviour of woman will always be a product of the Ethereal World around her! There are exceptions, of course. Nor is woman on this account free from responsibility; for she is able to observe the influences assailing her, and can guide her own volition and actions according to her will if … she so desires! That the majority of women unfortunately fail to do this is a fault of the female sex, which is entirely due to the absolute ignorance in these matters.
It is a great misfortune for the present time, however, that the future of the people actually lies in the hands of woman. She carries it because her psychic condition influences her descendants more incisively than that of the man. What a decline, then, must the future bring! Inevitably! It cannot be halted by arms, money, nor discoveries. Nor by kindness or diplomacy either. More incisive means are required here.
Yet this enormous guilt does not fall upon woman alone. She will always be only the true reflection of that world of thought-forms which hovers over her people. This must not be forgotten. Respect and honour woman as such, and she will form herself accordingly; she will become what you see in her, and in this way you uplift your whole people!
However, before this can happen, a great process of transformation must take place among women. As they are now a cure can only be effected through a radical operation, by a forceful and relentless intervention, removing any growth with sharp knives and casting it into the fire! Otherwise it would also destroy all the healthy parts.
Towards this essential operation on all mankind the present time is irresistibly rushing, faster, ever faster, and will finally bring it about of itself! This will be painful and terrible, but the end will be restoration to health. Not until then will it be the time to speak of morality. Today it would die away like the word spoken in the wind.
But when the hour is past, in which corrupt Babylon had to perish, because it collapsed from inner decay, then observe the female sex! What they do and what they leave undone will always show you how you stand, because through their finer intuitive ability they live what the thought-forms desire.
This fact also gives us the assurance that when the thinking and intuitive perceiving are pure, womanhood will be the first to soar upwards to that ideal which we regard as a truly noble human being. Then morality, in the full glory of its purity, will have entered!