Those who die in love are directly seeking complete
unity with each other, and only indirectly, through this unity, the
divined annihilation in metaphysical being. The love-death is the
erotic, bi-human form of mystic ecstasy, and could not be evolved until
the highest form of love had been developed.
Metaphysical eroticism is a product of the spirit of Europe, for it is
linked to personality whose will is the immortalisation of love.
Orientalism neither comprehends nor appreciates this emotion, for it
lacks the foundation of the culture of personality. The Semite, the
Indian and the Japanese experience only the rapture of the senses; and
gratification, restlessly revolving round itself between enjoyment and
exhaustion, is condemned to eternal sterility. All religio-sexual orgies
of which history tells us are so many attempts of sensuality to possess
itself of a higher intuition--vain attempts, because casual intercourse
and the annihilation of the individual can never produce new values.
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