OUTLINE ON MACCULINE AND FEMININE

In this essay I respond to a question from a friend about the nature of patriarchy and matriarchy. I do not know what the young lady means by patriarchy and matriarchy but I do have some thoughts on the nature of male and female paths of growth.

And I could only really comment on Patriarchy and Matriarchy after reviewing the different archetypal paths of growth for men versus women and then correlating these to ancient and modern societies. I have not done that in this brief essay.

The electric and magnetic fluids are technical terms relating to the hermetic magical tradition of Franz Bardon. Bardon makes a big deal about them in terms of mastering them in the body and in using them for practical magical purposes. That is, to be a magician, you have to master both fluids in order to create new things.

The Electric and Magnetic Fluids in Magic

From a magical point of view, two of the most dynamic energies of transformation in the universe are the electric and the magnetic fluids. These are not the same as the electricity and magnetism in nature but are roughly analogous to them.

These fluids arise out of the four elements, earth, water, air, and fire. These elements and fluids are equally active within the human body and particularly in sexuality and attraction between the genders. They can be pursued on physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual levels.

The Electric Fluid

In brief, the electric fluid is hot, burning, expansive, dynamic, intense, powerful, and explosive in sensation. It has the capacity to produce great light. In psychological terms, it is commanding, full of faith and conviction. It reaches for sovereign power seeking absolute control. It annihilates and destroys obstacles that stand in its way.

In more spiritual terms, it seeks to manifest its vision using all the previous qualities—with certainty, with dynamic will and expansive power, with implacable dedication and electrifying conviction. An example in the earthzone is the spirit referred to as Anamil in Aries or for that matter the archangel Michael. For both of these spirits, there are no problems that exist on earth that can not be solved. (See my story St. Columba for an example of Michael’s direct, masculine form of activity in history.)

You could say that independence, strength, courage, conviction, faith, will, determination, dedication, self-reliance, self-mastery, uprightness, clarity, order, adaptability, practicality, planning, productivity, excitement, exhilaration, creativity, and vision are qualities that are present when the electrical fluid is operating successfully.

In my other essay, Christianity and Judaism, I give the example of the “dark vision” that came to Abraham about his descendents suffering in Egypt. For that matter, the captain of the Titanic might have had a twinge of anxiety about running at full steam with icebergs in the vicinity and most definitely the engineers at the company that produced the “O” rings for the space shuttle had a few concerns as well.

Had these individuals possessed sufficient will and conviction they might very well have done whatever was necessary to avoid the destruction they intuited. But they did not. Their electric fluid, their faith and conviction, their will and decisiveness lacked both strength and quality necessary to prevent the disasters that followed their inaction.

Obviously, the electric fluid can be done in a positive or negative way. In the I-Ching, the great yang is describe as the most creative of all things. The prefect expression of its nature is the easy that it might overcome the difficult. In other words, you take a great task, project, or purpose and break it down into its steps and parts and master them one by one.

A great father systematically and persistently teaches his children in a simple but continuous manner so that when they are older they are fully equipped and prepared to face the challenges of life. He foresees the ends and objectives in advance, makes plans, and persists in carrying through with them so that the most difficult of problems can be solved. A father’s great accomplishment is in preparing his children to undergo the great transitions of life in a smooth and harmonious manner.

Once the decision is made to build a Golden Gate Bridge, an Empire State Building, or to invade Europe, you need an architect or a commander who will assume total and complete responsibility to follow the plan and to accomplish the mission. You definitely do not want a commander in chief (Hitler) who says, “Don’t wake me under any circumstances” or a general in charge of the defense of the French coast (Rommel) who says “The storm is too strong. I think I will go attend my wife’s birthday party” hours before the allies begin the invasion of Normandy.

What you do want is a commander in chief (Eisenhower) who knows that he is completely responsible for the outcome, who is willing to assume great risk, to act decisively, and yet who is willing to resign his commission should the invasion fail.

The electric fluid can be very destructive as well. As such, its burning and consuming power acts to dominate the wills of others. It tortures and torments, hazes and subjugates. It absorbs others’ wills into itself. It utilizes every means possible to corrupt, divide, undermine, and enslave others to its purposes.

An example of the electric fluid operating in a negative patriarchy is when the man in charge hazes those under him. One way he does this is to ask that they do something completely absurd that they know he knows is absurd. Doing this task degrades them but nonetheless doing it with full devotion is a test of their complete loyalty and obedience.

In North Korea, the leader is a great master of this form of hazing. Or, as is stated in the computer game Civilization, by definition there are no unhappy people in a totalitarian society. If you express your unhappiness you have a way of disappearing.

For the negative electrical fluid, the light is there but it lacks purity and clarity--the vision is distorted and twisted. The faith and conviction are there but are often expressed in a degraded form such as through arrogance and self-righteousness.

The positive electrical (or patriarchal for that matter) is seen in George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Gandhi—all acting to revolutionize society in a more just and inclusive manner. The negative is seen in Napoleon, Stalin, and bin Laden—all grasping after power in a regressive and exclusive manner. But in either the positive or negative forms, the electric fluid is willing to put itself at complete risk to accomplish its mission and manifest its vision.

The Magnetic Fluid

The magnetic fluid, by contrast, is cool, contracting, soothing, and attractive. It is nurturing, and supportive. It contains within itself so as to shelter and protect. Instead of intense and explosive, it is rhythmic, receptive, and gentle.

In psychological terms, it is empathic, sensitive and responsive. It draws together, bonds, joins, and unites. It accepts and affirms. In spiritual terms, it reaches towards an all-encompassing, all-embracing love.

Again, in the I-Ching the great Yin is the most receptive of all things. The perfect expression of its nature is the simple that it might overcome what obstructs. The yin in this case is known for its devotion. It is the mother whose love is always there, whose support is always felt and present. There is no end to its nurturing capacity physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually.

The Great Yin conveys an inner feeling of affirmation, of support and love. This devotion or conveyance of love serves to unite the individual from within no matter how dissecting and dividing, conflicting and stressful the circumstances of the individual’s path in life. This is a feminine, a mother’s set of qualities and powers describe by King Wu in ancient times in China when he wrote the I-Ching. Whether individual women have any interest in being so devote or “feminine” in this sense in a modern society, these qualities and powers are a significant part of the magnetic fluid’s capacities.

An example in the realm of hermetic magic and Quabbalah is the archangel Gabriel presiding over the lunar sphere for whom there is no dream that can not be made real, no vision that will not manifest in the fullness of time in accordance with the strength and purity of the desire within your heart.

Gabriel can embrace any true desire because his vision encompasses all of history. He exists in a state of timelessness, outside of time. Or, as the poet puts it, “What the heart sees never die;” there are “worlds enough” for all dreams to be fulfilled. Gabriel affirms dreams and visions. He finds a time and place and a way and means (a means for sheltering, nurturing, and protecting) for the seed of light to manifest in history in spite of all opposing forces that seek to twist its message and destroy its vision.

Let me depart for a brief moment into the world of imagination, pure fantasy, or for those who are psychic and not dependent solely on words and imagery—the astral plane of the undines. In this realm of nature, an undine/mermaid such as Isaphil is “receptive, receiving, open, perfectly reflecting the sources of life that sustain your being and flow through your dreams. Amplifying them, weaving them together, she draws upon them, calls them down so they become more real. Through her caress, her touch, her words, her light--cool, soft, shining light--she revives and renews you. Peaceful, shimmering happiness, total contentment, she is a well overflowing with life.”

“These ecstatic delights exist within the sensation of touch--the magnetic embrace water reveals. It is all around you in every moment in the air you breathe. It is in your blood, your body's cells. It is in the rain, the rivers, and the sea. In every moment it is there singing to all of us.”

Or consider another undine, Istiphul, who one day asked me, “Where can an undine go to share with a human soul these things?

The dark depths of the ocean trench,

The slippery touch of the jellyfish and the nautilus,

The caress of arctic cold,

Or the warmth of curling up on a tropical beach

Of a woman walking out of the sea naked and free

Drops of water anointing her skin.

Let me review briefly one time when I called to Istiphul: “She appears at first dimly. But as I focus my mind, she takes on a clear form. She walks through the water and comes right to my side.

“With Istiphul near, I become acutely aware of tiny currents crisscrossing at the edges of the mirror like surface just where water begins to fold around a rock. As the water dips and turns around my ankle, I sense how the stream's bubbling ripples are like the hands of a dancer telling a story as they turn in countless swirls and curves. I hear too many streams across these islands as if they are suddenly near. Their sounds breathe and sigh, caressed by air, hiding in sand, seeping beneath rocks, falling in space, and circling in mountain pools. Drifting downstream to the sea, these waters laugh like young girls carrying baskets of fresh fruit to a celebration. Istiphul sits beside me on the same rock, her bare feet dangling in the stream.

“I say to her, ‘Tell me of the mysteries of love and your own secret desires. Show me too the mysteries of myself.’

“Istiphul touches my left forearm with her right hand and I feel as if she touches every nerve in my body. Every aspect of my self is drawn together by her touch. The sensation in her fingers pulses through me with an invitation to let go as strong as the brash, swift grasp of a riptide or an undertow.

“With Istiphul, I feel something I have never felt with any woman. Istiphul is here next to me with a hundred per cent of herself. She is joined with me--she feels everything I feel. Every thought and perception she feels as well.

“She knows where my eyes fall as I gaze into the distance--she is pure sensual, spiritual being. There is no intrusion of thoughts, words, or ideas to confuse our connection. Everything I am is within her heart.

“I reflect again on her touch. Her hand on my arm--what can it be to feel another is completely one with me, sharing all I feel and perceive? Her touch annihilates loneliness. Like Caesar, she commands an empire, but hers is of the heart.”

Well enough. Undines—the nature spirits who dwell within the water element—are the most enchanting of beings. And these two in particular are masters of the magnetic fluid.

We could say that peace, repose, calmness, happiness, contentment, serenity, tranquility, well-being, delight, kindness, gentleness, affection, empathy, tenderness, sensuality, pleasure, bliss, ecstasy, compassion, and love are qualities that are present when the magnetic fluid is operating successfully.

The electrical fluid is fairly pronounced in our society through the vast complex industrial, scientific, and technological and research establishments. These are not in any way matched by a magnetic fluid which has yet to convey to us an inner peace with the universe, a “peace that passes all understanding,” or a level of empathy and feeling that are able to communicate heart to heart between anyone on the planet.

We have been able to produce hydrogen fusion with temperatures hotter than the sun. But we are not yet able to contain this fusion with a magnetic “jar” which would then replace eighty per cent of the needs for fossil fuel on earth. In technology, psychology, and in spirituality, the magnetic fluid is far less understood than the electric fluid.

We have seen the negative masculine (or electric fluid) in Hitler, in Stalin, in Julius Caesar, in Alexander the Great, in the great burning of the Counter Reformation, the excesses and exploitation of capitalism, the exploitation of nature, the possibility of nuclear annihilation as well as in the subjugation of women in so many ways. The abuses of the masculine or the electrical fluid are obvious. The electric fluid and its activities, for better or worse, are usually out in the open for all to see. They usually involve some form of action, preparation for, or plan of action.

The electrical fluid empowering the human race with the active powers of and over nature have developed in history leading as I have mentioned to achievements in science, industry, and technology. The history of warfare is in part a history of mastering the electric fluid (will, order, power) in a destructive manner.

So what is the negative side of the magnetic fluid? The electrical fluid—hot, burning, intense, penetrating, and exploding--will attack you from without. The magnetic fluid—cool, soothing, releasing, receiving, and imploding--will attack you from within.

A positive magnetic field can get inside you and draw you together with its attracting force of love and affection. The negative magnetic field can also get inside you but it pulls you apart reversing itself into a repelling force of hate and hostility. In some relationships, the partners are so involved that they can not break the connection when they split up. But they can reverse the polarity from love to hate in order to complete the separation.

In brief, the negative aspect of the magnetic fluid is that it absorbs and contains without releasing or giving birth. It shelters without enabling growth. Instead of healing, it poisons. Instead of nurturing, it denies.

“Beware of sweetness” said the poet, for you know not whether it will refresh and make you more alive or whether, like cocaine and heroin, its “high” is subtly designed to drag you down into the depths.

The negative paralyzes, seduces, wastes, and numbs consciousness. It induces insanity—that is, it destroys consciousness with guilt, shame, fear, terror, illusions, delusions, obsessions, fascinations, depressions, nightmares, and false visions.

The electrical fluid will draft you to fight for a war machine. The magnetic fluid will get you hooked on drugs or overcome with emotional defects so that you are equally without will, drawn away from life and creativity.

In the I-Ching, the Great Yin, mother, or magnetic fluid offers an individual continuous support that nurtures and serves to integrate the inner self of the individual though his or her entire course in life. The negative magnetic fluid, by contrast, acts to undermine, dissolve, and reabsorb into itself the inner life of the individual throughout his or her entire life.

It is like an undertow, a whirlpool, or a riptide subjecting the individual’s conscious identity to a force that acts to dissolve its integrity. It sucks consciousness out and down into a sea of the unconscious in which the individual experience no longer has meaning. It destroys the individual vitality and poisoning his or her motivation.

But whether positive or negative, whether life giving or life destroying, the magnetic fluid is the guardian that reveals the deepest feelings and the mysteries at the core of the self.

Among the Archetypes

According to one perspective, Western civilization has pursued the electrical/masculine side of culture and consciousness. In doing so, it has actively sought to suppress or destroy the feminine side. The electrical fluid has ascended at the cost of the magnetic.

About thirty years ago, I did some research on this topic which I will review briefly here since it relates to a discussion of the magnetic fluid. A magician has to develop and balance equally both masculine and feminine fluids in his body and in his consciousness in order to work creatively. In a sense, then, this discussion is also about magical equilibrium, about the nature of spiritual growth, and the dynamics of a spiritual quest especially from the feminine side in relation to an archetypal point of view.

In a nutshell, as I understand Carl Jung (see Symbols of Transformation) and Eric Neumann (see The Great Mother and Amour and Psyche) on archetypes, and Joseph Campbell (for example, Myths to Live By) on the hero’s quest, for a male or a female to come into full spiritual maturity and psychological self-understanding, the individual must have a full fledged encounter with the good and bad as well as the very good—the inspiring/ecstatic—and the very bad—the malicious/evil aspects of both the masculine and the feminine archetypes.

Obviously, in each age and in each society, different archetypes will be in prominence, that is, active in the society and under conscious review and discussion. Equally, various archetypes will be latent or hidden and out of consciousness or passed over and mostly forgotten by the society and the individual.

But the full power of the archetypes, the various range and powers of transformation for the positive and destruction for the negative are always there regardless of whether individuals or societies recognize them. In other words, as the actor John Travolta said in one movie, “Assumptions are the mother of fuckups.” Never underestimate the power in the full positive and the full negative of the masculine and feminine mysteries. They will fall on you when you least expect it and devour you.

Four Archetypes of the Feminine

In a nutshell, there are four main feminine archetypes. (This perspective comes in part from a seminar by the American poet, Robert Bly, who lectured at the University of Michigan around 1971. (Bly did me an astonishingly bad service in the advice he gave me, but then again looking back I have to ask myself, who is so foolish as to take the advice of a poet?)

Like a mandala, two positive and the two negative poles sit opposite each other representing four different aspects of life. Each embodies a different quality and vibration of the magnetic fluid. These four archetypes embody great magnetic fields of force. By moving among them and through dramatic encounters with them, an individual generates great light and attains the very heights to which consciousness is capable.

First is the good mother. She is the mother Mary or the woman who loves you throughout your entire life. She is receptive, nurturing, tender, kind, and generous. If you want to participate in society and accomplish your work in life, you need to make peace with her. Without her you simply do not have the energy to follow through in accomplishing something that is of enduring value to yourself or to others. She is happy to see you succeed in life following the path you find within your heart.

A spirit in the lunar sphere said to me one day that “the greatest wealth on earth is a woman who loves a man with all of her heart.” Do not ever underestimate the good mother’s power and influence. She is the womb from which we are born and the peace we hope to have in the moment we die. She is the one who comes to greet us when we have passed beyond and she was there all along when we take our first step, when we graduate from school, and when we wed.

Have you ever felt really happy? I mean as if happiness is woven into your every breath and heartbeat making you feel fully alive? Have you ever felt a well-being in which you can sense that every thing good in life will come to you naturally? These are qualities and powers of this positive magnetic fluid operating within your soul. This is light from the archetype of the good mother shining upon your life.

Opposite the good mother is the stone mother. Her essence is that she makes you numb. She slows you down and gets you into ruts. She gets you to conform. This is because the only way she can feel close to you is if you think, do, and feel as she does. She is the superego, the accepted values and mores of a society. She is very traditional and hates anything new.

All individuals who seek to be accepted by and validated in other peoples’ eyes are the children of the stone mother. They are unable to grow because they are bound to conformity. When they attain success, wealth, and fame, they are slaves to what they have gained.

Most spiritual quests begin by leaving behind the stone mother. To quest for self-knowledge, you have to cross over the boundary separating the known from the unknown. The stone mother already knows who you are. She knows where your nitch in life is and where you belong.

Leaving her behind is a shocking experience because to do so you awaken to new perceptions and feelings that she does not understand (and no one around you understands). But the stone mother is willing to accept you, support you, and sacrifice for you. Who are you to cast such aspersion on all that she has given you, all she has done to make you who you are?

The minister, the priest, and the rabbi are her servants. They guard the boundaries leading into the unknown. The stone mother is the guardian and custodian of life’s limitations. She knows that if you leave her behind you will face naked and alone the full onslaught of the mysteries that society has not prepared you for. You had better find a new cloak and spiritual identity for your soul if you wish to venture beyond her protection.

In summary, her numbness, her safe harbors, reassurances, and her insane complacency protect against all the fears and terrors that society does not yet understand. Her warning? Don’t venture beyond my sphere of influence or you will be destroyed.

Well, for that matter, you can remain under her protection and you are just as easily destroyed. In homage to the stone mother from my poem, Women and the Sea,

One night, alone in a small craft,

The sky was overcast

I could hear the waves breaking not far off

Against a rocky shore hidden in darkness

But I could not turn out to sea

The waves were too great

When the wave’s crest broke

Over the stern I took on water

And so sailing only by sound

I listened to the waves

Bearing off when the breaking crest

Was too near

Until two hours later

I sailed past the tip of the island.

I know women like that:

Shoals hidden in darkness

Uncharted, unmapped,

Places where dreams are shattered

And lives are shipwrecked

And to survive them

You must make darkness your friend.

And even when you are ashore,

When you think you are safe and sound

When your feet are really on solid ground

It is still like visiting Sacred Falls on Oahu,

I have floated naked in that mountain pool

At dawn as the sun’s golden, molten breath

Caressed the rocky heights

The water so cold yet inviting

So exciting, yielding all of its being to my touch

Like lips which finally surrender a kiss

But then later on when I had left

Falling rocks kill others right where I stood

That place, though sacred, is also a trap

I know women like that—

They can be incredibly sweet and kind

And then turn and stone you to death

Like their worst enemy from another lifetime.

On another axis are the ecstatic mother and the teeth mother. The ecstatic mother gives ecstasies, dreams, visions, and hope. It is not her nature to offer affection and support. Do not ever ask that of her.

You most likely will not find her each night in your bedroom or cooking breakfast in your kitchen. She will be out sailing around the world, living up in a tree, or dancing up a storm as the sun dawns. One ecstatic mother told me she can have an orgasm just watching the wind drip down and caress fields of golden wheat. But do not think she follows any form or tradition. She can appear anywhere and at any time in any women.

Perhaps in a taste of her lips you may be offered the choice to return to the man you once were or to leave behind all that you are to become the man you were meant to be.

And the beauty of her naked form? Some middle aged men possess a power and an authority greater than any pope or any rock star. This is because they are able to ask like no one else, What is missing from life?

The ecstatic mother’s beauty, if they ever see it, reveals a new and greater harmony that resolves all conflict, for beauty is harmony that speaks to the depth of every passion and desire and offers them satisfaction and completion. Dante met her one day and in one glance as a Beatrice she granted him a new vision of the union of heaven and earth.

Recall that the good mother revives and animates you. She heals and nurtures you. She satisfies and gives you that taste of life so that from the very beginning you know instinctively the difference between the good and the bad. And, as I mentioned, good mother supports you when you seek to fulfill what you find in your heart. But she does not know what is there.

By contrast, the ecstatic mother goes right down into the very depths of your self, into the core of your heart. And then she asks you that one question that must be answered before you discover who you are. Or, she finds a seed of light in the dark depths of your soul and says, “Look what I have found within you. You must nourish and bring this seed to life if you wish to attain to your destiny.”

The woman I am writing this essay for said to me, “I say what I mean.” But there is more to her than what she knows. The ecstatic mother often operates unconsciously in women. They don’t know she is there but some men will see or feel her presence instantly.

I have met a number of these women and for the most part our society gives them no rank or recognition. At the mere touch, one woman evokes the presence of my guardian angel. Another takes me immediately into the radiant sphere of the sun where I stand next to a being who is united with God from within. And a third woman somehow embodies the letter “J” in the JHWH that yields the vision of all beings becoming joined as one.

Like I say, never ask the ecstatic mother to nurture you or help you understand what she reveals in you. She probably does not have the faintest idea of what you are talking about. But inspire she can do. She is the taste of bliss in Joseph Campbell’s “follow your bliss” if you want to find something worth living for.

But you can not possess her any more than you can possess or own an archetype. The individual girl or woman reflects what is within your depths. It is your job to bring it to life.

The actress, Jane Fonda, married the business tycoon Ted Turner. When asked about her career, she replied, “With a man like Ted Turner, you don’t have any time for your self.” Ah, but deep down the modern woman expects the man to manage her career, to enable her to succeed. After all, women have sacrificed for eight thousand years for the masculine to come into its own. Now it is pay back time.

When Jane Fonda left Ted Turner—it was after all just a fling, something that never could have worked given its limitations--Ted thought of committing suicide. Here is a guy without contact with his feminine side—he is so masterful of the outer world that he has forgotten that there is a world within, a world of feeling and beauty. This is a world a man can neither enter nor possess by controlling a woman any more than a woman can come into her full maturity by devotedly supporting her dynamic and powerful man. At least that is the lesson in the story of Ted and Jane.

In any genuine and true initiation, the attainment of realization, the transformation of consciousness, or the movement from darkness into light requires discipline and preparation on your part. And then she (the ecstatic mother) comes and takes your hand and leads you across the threshold into the circle of the mysteries joining you to a community that is eternal and unending in its love, light, and life.

This is not always a smooth ride as Ted found out. Her love may tear your heart to pieces. She may ask you to die to all that you are or to give up all that you have for just the chance to taste her bliss, to unite with her essence. It will always be up to you to determine if what she asks of you is worth the price.

Like I say, the ecstatic mother is not so hot at nurturing. But she will show you things about your self that you have never imagined.

“Except a seed fall to the earth and die it can not bring forth new life.” This could be the motto of the teeth mother except she does not know about the new life, only about the death and the destruction of consciousness. Now we come to a great mystery, an aspect of the feminine celebrated equally in the heart of Buddhism and Christianity but which is almost unknown in our society.

To put it simply, the teeth mother is the guardian of enlightenment. She is right there guarding the threshold. If you want to become enlightened, you have to look into her eyes and pass before the light of her face.

She is seen in the sphere of Saturn: a realm of nightmare, horror, and domination. Her essence is in her power of concentration. Her stare is so intense she paralyzes and then destroys consciousness. She is every fear and terror you have never met.

To escape from the stone mother is shocking because of the new perceptions and feelings that break into your awareness. Leaving the stone mother is like being born into a new world that no one else seems to even be remotely aware of.

To survive or escape from the teeth mother you have to do more. It is like dying right here amid life while you are still alive. You to have to let go of everything—for to be enlightened is to be free of all attachment. It is to see the world as it is beyond all assumptions, beyond the need to even think or to have control.

“When I attained to perfect enlightenment, I attained to nothing at all,” said the Buddha. To be enlightened is to be nothing, empty, more clear than a mirror that perfectly reflects without disturbing what appears within it.

The teeth mother is like Kalachakra, the wrathful side of compassion who annihilates any form of attachment. The teeth mother will only be satisfied with the full death and destruction of your consciousness. And so her power of concentration—she gazes into the depths of your self searching for anything that you use to define who you are.

If you are Abraham, she requires the life of your son. If you are Jesus, she will only be satisfied with your death in order to put an end to your teaching on earth. If you are Orpheus, she requires not one glance on your part to see if your beloved remains with you as you cross over the threshold between the living and the dead. You can not turn from you path until your beloved speaks and says, “I am here.” (The Greeks were very clear on this point: to find love, you have to endure an indeterminate time of complete uncertainty and unknowing. If you grasp for love or flee from it, it will not appear to you.)

In the movie, Jacob’s Ladder, a dying man on an operating table dreams he has returned from Viet Nam and is now living in New York working as a postman. But he is terrorized by dreams of people without faces trying to kill him. During the movie, his one friend says to him, “Our demons are but angels in disguise trying to free us from our attachments.” In the end, he takes the hand of his child who had died, lets go of his life, and walks into the light. The terror turned to peace once he accepted he was dying.

Before Buddha was enlightened, Kama, the Lord of the demons, came to tempt him. In Hinduism, the demons arose from the tears of Shiva when his beloved, the Queen of the universe, Maya, abandoned him. To love Maya for Shiva was to be united with the universe. And then that connectedness, the inner unity, is gone.

The teeth mother is the dark night of the soul. I explored this somewhat in my story about St. Columba. She is absolute despair. The mystery the Christians may never comprehend is the “why hast thou forsaken me?” of Christ on the cross. What is required from Christ are absolute faith and trust even in the moment of abandonment and at the point of death. You have to let go of everything, even you knowledge of who God is or how He is supposed to act, if you wish to get by the teeth mother.

For me, the great feminine is the empty void that embraces all the stars and galaxies. It embraces the universe. It is that open, empty, void, and receptive. It is through its support that life appears on every world.

Similarly, Prajnaparamita is the mother of the Buddhas. Her name means emptiness. Hers is the Heart Sutra: “….form does not differ from emptiness and emptiness does not differ from form….” Tibetan Buddhists at least in their iconography like to put the teeth and the ecstatic mothers together. Parjnaparamita as well as Vishvamati are the consorts of Kalachakra. To gaze upon Vishvamati “is to experience bliss.” Amid the mandala of Kakachakra that uses time to annihilate all form is the presence of a transcendent bliss that is the light of pure consciousness.

In my story, Balaam, the Gentile Prophet, Balaam masters the masculine mysteries. And this mastery gives him power over the nations. But God requires something more of him. God asks Balaam to unite with the great feminine. But Balaam says,

If this love touched me for even an instant

There would be nothing left

Neither dust nor breath

If I tasted this bliss

I would cease to exist

No man on earth can endure or offer the love you seek.

And in my poem, Moses and Aaron, Moses makes a similar complaint to God. God asks Moses to reveal to mankind a temple not made of hands but rather one in which He is free to appear within Moses’ own body. And this temple was to have four gates being the four elements, one of which is water:

God said next:

Build the third gate to the West

This gate shall open to the Mystery of Water

Let those who Dare enter here

This is where empathy equally

Sees the world as it is

And as it can be in a dream

Those willing to risk all to find what they seek

As the Lover seeks his Beloved

They shall be as fountains

Overflowing with streams of living water

Their hearts shall contain Eternity

That sea which has no shores

Whose winds are bliss

Whose waves are ecstasy

And in whose depths are Divine dreams and visions

And Moses said:

Across the reaches of the desert

Across the waves of rolling sand

Is found an occasional oasis

The waters that flow through the soul

Often turn bitter or dry up

Love is so rare and precious men die for its touch

How can you ask for so much?

Is there no end to Your Divine Yearning?

Would You make the entire planet

Into a school for prophets and seers?

And God replied:

Every breath is a path of Love

Every tear, drop of blood, every raindrop

Proclaims this secret: the path leading between opposites

In each moment My Love is everywhere

Sustaining the universe

And everything within it

Dare to enter here!

After being prodded by Aaron, Moses goes on to ask God to reveal HHis feminine side. And after God does Moses says, “Oh God, let me now die. For who can endure such Joy?” And God replies, “Only those who Love.”

And while I am tooting my own horn, also in my book Mystical Fables, a mythical king named Sustarna says,

“The path to self-knowledge is full of obstacles and barriers. There are places within the soul where men may not go. The waters are too deep. The flow is too pure. If a man dares enter the feminine mysteries he will drown.

“And there are places within the spirit where women may not enter: beyond the worlds of form opposites are overcome and the Bliss that exists there is infinite. If a woman dares to enter these masculine mysteries she will be burnt to a crisp. The light is that bright.

“But if a man could so enter and survive the Earth's womb, to dissolve within that dark place and not lose his masculinity; if a woman could journey into the heart of the sun and survive its fires and its light without loss of her femininity, then the their spirits would no longer be subject to gender limitations--

“They would have cast off their mortality and put on immortality. Such individuals are then appointed as the guides and Guardians of the Earth and of evolution. They become the creators of new worlds.”

In other words, these four archetypes are not separate. You want the perfection of the ecstatic mother, be prepared to endure the nothingness and annihilation of the teeth mother. You want the ability of the good mother to really heal, to find and reunite what is lost as Isis did in the Egyptian myth in searching for Osiris? Then be prepared to deal with the guardians of the status quo and the full weight and inertia of the stone mother. These four archetypes flow in and through each other. Each exists to balance the other. In the end, you discover who you are through your encounters with them.

The Myth of Eros and Psyche

The following mythical story originally appears in The Golden Ass written by Apuleius around 170 AD. (There are all sorts of versions that can be found if you search using Google under “eros” “psyche” and so forth. In this work, Apuleius is turned into an ass until finally he is forgiven for his transgressions by Isis. The emperor of Rome, however, was not so forgiving, as I recall, and exiled Apuleius to a miserable little city on the fringe of the empire.

Even in those days, there were censorship and dangers that went with offending the status quo when delving into descriptions of love and eroticism. And in our age, most screenwriters try to shape their material to avoid an “R” rating that interferes with the distribution of their show.

Now the nature of mythology, like a good symbol, is that its meaning is constantly subject to new interpretation. A good symbol must contain imagery sufficiently primal that it can speak to the deepest part of our selves. And at the same time it must be sufficiently vague or open-ended that each person and age can use it to see themselves in a new way.

In this essay, I am, as do all writers, taking liberties with the story. I am bringing my own background as a spiritual anthropologist and magician to it. The story speaks to me and at this point I am still only at the beginning of my understanding of it just as I am only at the beginning of my understanding of women.

Psyche (the word means “soul) is an extremely beautiful woman in ancient Greece. She is so beautiful that men stop visiting Aphrodite’s/Venus temple preferring instead to catch a glimpse of Psyche. This is not so good for Psyche either because men only wish to praise her or see her and not to love her. This is dangerous situation for both the human and celestial state of affairs. You neither want to anger a goddesses in ancient Greece nor have a very popular but unwed princess.

Psyche’s father visits Apollo’s Oracle in Delphi. The Oracle says that she must be sacrificed to a monster at the top of a cliff—to “the terrible tyrant whose jurisdiction extends from heaven to hell.”

This is Eros, the son of Aphrodite, but no one seems to know that yet. Eros a tyrant? You bet. Like Kama, the god of love in Hindu mythology, Eros has power over all the gods and goddesses to cause them to fall in love. Even Apollo, the god of wisdom, is subject to Eros.

In the Jewish tradition, Solomon was given such wisdom that God proclaimed him the wisest in the history of world—no one past, present, or future would be wiser than him. But in the end, Solomon lost favor with God by becoming “enamored” with women who lead him to worship in their pagan temples. Wisdom is no match for Eros.

But abandon Psyche on a cliff for a monster? Not a very nice way to treat a beautiful women. But in that age of the world it was understood that beauty is dangerous.

(Well, think about Helen, the most beautiful women in her time and the Trojan War. Maybe the Oracle was trying to avoid another war.) But there is another side as well. Beauty can speak of a new harmony, one so great even the order of the gods may be forced to change to comply with its vision.

After a funeral and funeral procession to the top of the hill, Psyche is abandoned. Her family considers her now dead.

End of story? No. Eros, the son of Aphrodite/Venus, notices this young woman abandoned and alone. After all, he has had to put up with the constant ranting and complaining of his mother about her competition with a mortal woman. And now Aphrodite assigns Eros the task of humiliating Psyche by causing her to fall in love with someone utterly ugly.

On the other hand, maybe Eros had twisted the arm of the Oracle to slant the response to his advantage. Maybe the Oracle only meant to say, “She shall not wed a mortal” and Eros threw in the bit about abandoning her on a cliff so he could take her without anyone noticing. There is a Zephyr, a spirit of the wind, who has a brief cameo part here by carrying Psyche down from the cliff into a valley.

Eros flies down to Psyche and steals her away to a magical castle where she has servants and attendants and wealth beyond imagining. There is one condition. She must not look upon his face. Eros intends to remain invisible. Word might get out and then his very jealous and very powerful mother would be very upset. Maybe she would do a little investigating into how the Oracle, well, you get the idea.

Eros sleeps with Psyche and the love is fabulous and all would be content. (see my poem, The Song of Psyche at the end of this essay). And what the world does not know won’t hurt them.

But Psyche makes her first choice in this dazzling story line. Out of loneliness, she persuades Eros to allow her sisters a visit. To them she can reveal that she is not only still alive. In fact, it is not a monster who met her but a fabulously skilled and wealthy lover.

Well, it does not take any imagination to figure the outcome. Some sisters are very jealous and with a sister as beautiful as Psyche, well, the jealousy gets carried away. In other words, if you are woman in love, deep, passionate love, watch out. If you have something others do not have, it creates a great dissatisfaction in their lives.

The sisters tell psyche, “No, it is a monster with whom you are sleeping. That is why he will not permit you to gaze upon him. This is what you must do. Light a lamp in the middle of the night and stab him while he is fast asleep.”

Psyche falls prey to this wicked advice. Sisterhood is not always in the best interest of every sister. She lights the lamp but swoons out of passion and delight when she sees that it is the god Eros with whom she has been sleeping.

The lamp slips from her hand the hot oil spills out upon the naked form of Eros. Ouch. Wounded he takes flight and the magical castle disappears.

You want to wound a man? Take a really good look at him. You will see how fragile, vulnerable, incomplete, and unfinished is his soul. A woman’s gaze can reveal how he is only a shadow of what he is meant to be.

After all, in this case, Eros has been running this little affair with a mortal in secrecy in order to avoid his mother’s wrath. He is still under his mother’s domination. The keys to his soul are hidden under his mother’s pillow and he lacks the will to take them.

Well, here we have it: a mortal women with unusual psychic power causes disturbance not only in her society but she attracts the attention of a great feminine archetype. Aphrodite is after all the goddess of love. You would think this is all positive. But it is not so. These goddesses are often mixtures of positive and negative as are human women.

Aphrodite back in Greek time believes in and inspires love. But she does not believe in personal love. The gender roles are fixed. Men only fall in love with women out of lust. Men are not capable of rising to a higher level than that. Men are the patriarch and when does the patriarch ever really love a woman?

Eros proclaims to his mother his love of Psyche. But hey kid, your name means lust. Get over it. You don’t love her. You lust after her. End of discussion and anyway she is a mortal and you are a god. The two are not meant to consort with each other.

Psyche is really down in the dumps now. Not only is she abandoned out in the wilderness but, according to one version, she finds she is also pregnant. Woe and despair. Aphrodite is not about to have a grand child from a mortal women. That’s too much to ask. Surely Aphrodite will now seek to kill Psyche.

But Psyche encounters the god Pan out in the grasslands. Pan, the goat footed god, with his pan flute, knows much about natural desire and lust. (When it comes to this goat footed god, think Hugh Heffner—Playboy founder--as a reflection of Pan in our time). Pan in effect says to Psyche, Don’t be afraid. Everything in the universe and in nature has its place. Pray to Eros.

And a little later, Psyche chances upon an abandoned temple which she cleans up and makes beautiful. This is the temple of Demeter/Ceres, a goddess of the earth. The goddess responds very favorably and tells Psyche about one of the best methods for resolving conflict—go to your enemy and ask for her help.

In this case, throw your self on Aphrodite’s mercy. If nothing else, she will feel she has to offer you something in order for her to save face—I mean, she is the goddess of love and you are in love with her son and her son got it on with you. Isn’t that how things are supposed to work in the house of love?

Psyche does this. She goes to the temple of Aphrodite and throws herself on the goddess’s mercy. Aphrodite relents and says Psyche may marry her son if Psyche can pass four tests.

And so now we have what is perhaps the one genuine myth of feminine growth that has survived Christianity’s attempts to destroy all knowledge of the feminine mysteries and paths of transformation.

Let me say at the outset that Psyche’s task is indeed daunting. She has not only to gain the support of the power invested matriarch. She has also an equally daunting task of freeing her lover from his narcissistic and impulsive nature as well as from his subjugation to his mother. Her lover is a slave as well to the matriarchy—to the way the world is, to what is expected--to everything has its role and its proper place.

Are psyche’s sisters going to help her? No. Psyche’s sisters were glad when they thought she was dead. The sisterhood, the sweet “accepting” sisters are now completely out of the picture.

In a nutshell, the first test involves the sphere of the instincts. Different seeds are scattered on the ground and Psyche must separate them into their different groups. The clock is running. She despairs. The task is impossible.

But the ants come to her rescue. The ants appreciate past deeds are now return the favor. The ants are the instinctual sphere. They like order and they are ruled by a queen. The queen has absolute control over her realm.

And so the first task for a woman to attain maturity is to put her world together in a way that feels right. It is something she feels with her body and through her instinctual desire drawing upon her connection to nature.

This is not a masculine action. This is not a rational or intellectual action. But it does involve a great deal of will arising from within her. And so she passes the first test.

A few possible anecdotes. A woman psychologist gets pregnant and has children. She says, Nothing prepares you for this. Your day is constant chaos. You are pulled in every which way and never seem to have time for yourself.

This woman’s descent into the realm of the instincts was in conflict with the entire basis of her rational identity.

A woman I know has a mother who is schizophrenic. The mother has five separate personalities. This daughter has met only two of these five personalities. Schizophrenics are usually devoid of empathy. They have no feelings to share.

Yet the daughter is perhaps the nicest, most natural person I have ever met. With a mother like that and no father present, the daughter ended up raising her younger siblings. To do this she had to draw upon her natural, instinctive abilities. She became the mother and so developed nurturing and protective abilities far in excess of her peers.

This young woman’s confrontation with the stone mother, the mother who is numb and devoid of feeling, produced in herself the opposite—the good mother—her body emits love and affection without need of conscious commitment.

The second test is gather some golden fleece. These rams with the golden fleece as a matter of fact are quite hostile. They will kill you if they see you.

Psyche again despairs. The task is impossible. One interpretation is that Psyche is asked to go bring back some of that bright shiny stuff that men have, that radiant charisma and confidence they possess when they are at the height of their powers.

We are still dealing with animal nature here, but a very powerful and enchanted animal—the power of masculinity in its natural glory and strength.

Psyche gets a tip from the water nymphs. The power of masculine consciousness vanishes when it slips into the waters of sleep. Wait until the sun is high and the rams are drawn to the shade and fall asleep. They you can sneak into their domain and gather the fleece from the thorny brush that has caught some of the wool.

There you have it. For a woman to grow, she has to find a way to enter the realm and acquire the skills of men without being attacked by their hostility. My niece went to New York with Dean Witter, now Morgan Stanley, training as a stock broker. She was warned by her grandmother that she would be attacked by men in New York.

And she was. One of the other male trainees tried to rape her. She stopped the guy by pointing out that she knew how to gut him with a small blade. He did not take her up on her bluff. Her employer failed to even record her complaint. A few years later, Dean Witter lost in a class action suit over the firm’s discrimination against women.

Another niece was making more money than her boss because she was being paid on commission for her sales. The vice president of her company used to have dinner with her twice a year to get her ideas.

One day he called her and asked to take her out to dinner again. She answered that she no longer worked for the company. Her boss put her on a salary knowing she would quit. The boss preferred she quit rather than make so much money for the corporation if it meant she would outshine him.

My mother raced sailboats and she was better than all the other skippers who were men. The consequence was that the men sold their sailboats and bought boats in other classes in order to avoid being beat by a woman.

My one cousin, by the way, was Miss Michigan. My other cousin married Miss America who was also runner up to Miss Universe. I sat next to Miss America for five hours one day as we drove up to Mackinaw Island.

I was so young and innocent back then that the drama of the situation escaped me. I was trying to answer a question from her young son who was in the back seat, “If we are dead after we die, what are we before we are bone?” Technically speaking, that is a Zen question. Both of these women, I would mention in passing, have tried hard to form alliances with the masculine in a world that looks with both favor and hostility upon their beauty.

These days in the U.S. more women are going to medical school than men. It may be that women are gaining access to every field in society to which they aspire. Nonetheless, in this myth and around the world the hostility to women remains massive.

But in this story at this point the application is more encompassing. The question is how do you deal with powerful and instinctual hostility to your attempting to accomplish a task, a task that involves learning the skills or acquiring the abilities of those who are hostile to you.

And answer is that you wait until that moment when they become passive and calm. You find a time when the hostility is diminished, the guard is down, and the watch is asleep. And then in safety you quietly go in and learn what you need to know or take what you need to succeed.

Colleges are often like this. They can be cold and incredibly hostile. But there are genuine teachers if you can find them and learn from them under the right conditions.

As I mentioned elsewhere, I used to sneak into the French philosopher’s class at the University of Chicago divinity school. He flew in once a year from France to teach. But he did not mind I was there. He was far too relaxed and knew that education was a matter of spirit and not of requirement.

The third test is more mystical and involves the patriarchy yet also an animal. Psyche must take a flask and fill it with water from the river Styx—the great river separating the living from the dead. Again, the task is beyond her ability and she despairs.

The river flows from a great tower down into the depths and it is completely inaccessible, beyond the reach of the living.

Psyche gains the help of a father figure, patriarch of patriachs—Zeus himself. Well, the word has gotten out. What else do they have to do on Mt. Olympus than to spread gossip around? Aphrodite’s son did what? And now she is making this mortal do what?

I mean they assassinated Julius Caesar because of his affair with Cleopatra. Rome could not afford to have an heir to the throne who was half Egyptian. Olympus too has concerns about a mortal getting involved with the affairs of the gods. But in this case, Zeus takes favor on Psyche. He sends her an eagle who carries the jar to the river and gets her the water she seeks. The eagle with its clarity of perception and freedom of movement belongs to the masculine symbols. And Zeus had a personal interest because his wife Hera was always getting pissed at him for having affairs with mortal women.

How could Zeus not take sides when Eros had sought out such a beautiful woman? It might have been Zeus in fact who eloped with Psyche if Hera was not still on his back over an affair that produced Hercules.

What is this test and how does Psyche manage to play a part in it? The river Styx marks the boundary between not just the living and the dead but between the kingdom of Zeus and of his brother Pluto who rules the underworld. Of course Zeus is mindful of this river. Anything involving it involves Zeus’ turf. If Aphrodite is going to ask Psyche to get water from it then this involves Zeus as well.

Lust ends when you come to death and perhaps for Aphrodite so does love. Aphrodite is asking Psyche if she can freely go right up to the boundary where lust and love come to an end and bring back something that shows she was there.

Aphrodite is saying, “This is my boundary. I know my place. Do you have my range?” Water is a symbol of life but this water is different.