That schools existed I did not doubt. But at the same time I became convinced that the schools I heard about and with which I could have come into contact were not for me. They were schools of either a frankly religious nature or of a half-religious character, but definitely devotional in tone. These schools did not attract me, chiefly because if I had been seeking a religious way I could have found it in Russia. Other schools were of a slightly sentimental moral-philosophical type with a shade of ASCETICISM, like the schools of the disciples or followers of Ramakrishna; there were nice people connected with these schools, but I did not feel theyhad real knowledge. Others which are usually described as “yogi schools” and which are based on the creation of trance states had, in my eyes, something of the nature of “spiritualism.” I could not trust them; all their achievements were either self-deception or what the Orthodox mystics (I mean in Russian monastic literature) called “beauty,” or allure­ment. Fragments: One

“This is the ‘abuse of sex.’ It is necessary, further, to remember that the sex center works with ‘hydrogen’ 12. This means that it is stronger and quicker than all other centers. Sex, in fact, governs all other centers. The only thing in ordinary circumstances, that is, when man has neither consciousness nor will, that holds the sex center in submission is ‘buffers.’ ‘Buffers’ can entirely bring it to nought, that is, they can stop its normal manifestation. But they cannot destroy its energy. The energy remains and passes over to other centers, finding expression for itself through them; in other words, the other centers rob the sex center of the energy which it does not use itself. The energy of the sex center in the work of the thinking, emotional, and moving centers can be recognized by a particular ‘taste,’ by a particular fervor, by a vehemence which the nature of the affair concerned does not call for. The thinking center writes books, but in making use of the energy of the sex center it does not simply occupy itself with philosophy, science, or politics — it is always fighting something, disputing, criticizing, creating new subjective theories. The emotional center preaches Christianity, abstinence, ASCETICISM, or the fear and horror of sin, hell, the torment of sinners, eternal fire, all this with the energy of the sex center. … Or on the other hand it works up revolutions, robs, bums, kills, again with the same energy. The moving center occupies itself with sport, creates various records, climbs moun­tains, jumps, fences, wrestles, fights, and so on. In all these instances, that is, in the work of the thinking center as well as in the work of the emotional and the moving centers, when they work with the energy of the sex center, there is always one general characteristic and this is a certain particular vehemence and, together with it, the uselessness of the work in question. Neither the thinking nor the emotional nor the moving centers can ever create anything useful with the energy of the sex center. This is an example of the ‘abuse of sex.’ Fragments: Twelve