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It is a condition of intoxication and of oblivion or perishing. It is this side of the sexual procedure that the symbolism of the unio mystica particularly emphasizes. Sleep is the brother of death. Susupti is, furthermore, conceived only as a preliminary; a German mystic would call it a foretaste of the definitive ascent into Brahm.
If I now still abide by my original exposition, this happens because it appears to me that the symbolism emphasizes the going over of the one into the other more than the attainment of the sexual goal; and even in the cases where the unio mystica is described as a sexual union. We should not forget that the sexual gratification is to be regarded also as a kind of annihilation.
The relation of the glacial period to alluvial deposits, such as that of Gray's Thurrock, where the Cyrena fluminalis, Unio littoralis, and the hippopotamus seem rather to imply a warmer climate, has been a matter of long and animated discussion.
Independent of these laws there are certain articles of food which they reject in one portion of the continent and which are eaten in another; and that this rejection does not arise from the noxious qualities of the article is plain, for it is sometimes not only of an innocent nature but both palatable and nutritious: I may take for example the unio, which the natives of South-west Australia will not eat because, according to a tradition, a long time ago some natives ate them and died through the agency of certain sorcerers who looked upon that shellfish as their peculiar property.
When any one says that that is mysticism, he is not wrong. Being developed on the three successive ways of purgatio, illuminatio, and unio, this mysticism is no less logical than the religious mysticism that with its mortifications, if it were only rightly understood, would accomplish the same purpose. Mortification is, as the word itself says, the endeavor for a certain kind of death.
These beds, conjointly with the conglomerate of pumice, are interesting, as showing the nature of the volcanic action in the Cordillera during this old tertiary period. In a bed at the base of the southern cliffs, M. d'Orbigny found two extinct fresh-water shells, namely, a Unio and Chilina.
Among the shells which abound in this cliff are Paludina lenta and various species of Lymnea, Planorbis, Melania, Cyclas, Unio, Potamomya, Dreissena, etc. Wood have found the jaws, teeth, and hard shining scales of the genus Lepidosteus, or bony pike of the American rivers. This same genus of fresh-water ganoids has also been met with in the Hempstead beds in the Isle of Wight.
Along the shore were strewn shells thrown up by the surf; and on examining them, I found them all to belong to well-known old-world genera Unio, Planorbis, Ancylus, and Ampullari.
Orthodox Christology satisfies the requirements of the soul. Man's chief spiritual need is access to God through "a daysman that might lay his hand upon both." An exemplar, even though perfect, is not adequate to his need. The unio mystica can only be experienced by the leisured few.
A very curious fact noted during the expedition was the presence of a Unio living within the influence of salt water, in the River Brisbane. These belong to the Indo-Pacific province. Some are found on the mangroves themselves.
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