Masculine and Feminine Archetypes

Symbols and allegories.
Angolmois

Masculine and Feminine Archetypes

Post by Angolmois »

After my daily prayer - and reading Nefastos' description of the change of polarities in esoteric and exoteric practice of RHP/LHP - I started wondering about masculine and Feminine archtypes in general.

For example, the Solar and Lunar archetypes in Norse/Germanic mythology are described as Feminine (Sol/Sunna) and masculine (Mani), respectively. It also brought to my mind the myth of Loki dressing up Thor as a woman in one of their quest, which can be seen describing some sort of an initiatic pattern. Some of Odin's deeds are also considered to be "ergi", that is, unmanly, when looked from the exoteric Perspective, and there are also shamanistic traditions in which the male shamans dress up in distinctively womanly manner for certain ritual practices. The More I do research considering (odinic) shamanism, the More profoundly tantric it appears to me in its esoteric side.

In traditional cosmology and metaphysics the Masculine is seen as spiritual and the Feminine as material, so I gathered that this is one way of interpreting the peculiar change of polarities in the Northern mythology.

What other possible interpretations do you see in this, and how do the Masculine and Feminine archetypes manifest themselves internally and / or externally and in different cosmological principles/patterns?
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Re: Masculine and Feminine Archetypes

Post by Nefastos »

Boreas wrote: Mon Apr 06, 2020 11:50 pmand how do the Masculine and Feminine archetypes manifest themselves internally and / or externally and in different cosmological principles/patterns?

In every possible way, in everything. My personal conviction is that the whole cosmos, on its all levels, is made of these basic poles of male & female magnetism, working together in complementary union. Ultimately, universe is one embracing of Shiva and Shakti, that is abstract point in the middle of everything and the circumference that is everywhere.

Right now I am wearing man's body because of dharmic reasons: it gives me a certain box of instrumental emphases, which I can use in different ways, bend a little, or try to remodel. Mostly I have to do with it in the best way I can. When the soul returns, it might do so in a body of a female. With its anima/animus inside, it always remains one whole. What I try to stress that even when I believe in gender essentialism, that essentialism itself is but a tool. The two complementary poles always, ceaselessly, meet in perfect union. One's black spot is the other's bright area, and vice versa. Together this Ouroboric yin-yang -dragon forms the Fohatic circles that make the world's immediate everpresence plus evolution. The ultimate paradox!

It is a great part of the White work to balance all kinds of extremes with each other, which also means searching for optimal and most absolute possible union for these poles. But this also means, in deeper levels, to counterbalance balance with the energy that seemingly creates chaos. This is a very Luciferian mystery, the eye of black in the face of white.
Faust: "Lo contempla. / Ei muove in tortuosa spire / e s'avvicina lento alla nostra volta. / Oh! se non erro, / orme di foco imprime al suol!"
Kavi
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Re: Masculine and Feminine Archetypes

Post by Kavi »

Nefastos wrote: Tue Apr 07, 2020 4:01 pmIn every possible way, in everything. My personal conviction is that the whole cosmos, on its all levels, is made of these basic poles of male & female magnetism, working together in complementary union. Ultimately, universe is one embracing of Shiva and Shakti, that is abstract point in the middle of everything and the circumference that is everywhere.
I thought about this topic yesterday and came to same conclusion. I even read Ibn Arabi but couldn't remember the exact quote but maybe it was about that everyone that works in one effect is father and the other is mother but I think if we look at closely sometimes it seems that this active or masculine part is more about matter and maybe even passive than feminine and vice versa et vice versa...
Father and mother get together and they wrap up together and give a birth to a child. And when I say this I don't mean in biological way.
I think only way to get to Kingdom of Heaven is to become a child like. This child is formed from holistic compound of both masculine and feminine.
Maybe idea of Father the God and Mary or Holy Spirit has something to do with this apparently taoistic idea but correct me if I am wrong.
Angolmois

Re: Masculine and Feminine Archetypes

Post by Angolmois »

Kavi wrote: Tue Apr 07, 2020 4:19 pm...if we look at closely sometimes it seems that this active or masculine part is more about matter and maybe even passive than feminine and vice versa et vice versa...
This brings to my mind that the way manhood is exoterically viewed mostly nowadays; all that macho active masculinity and titanic will to power - not forgetting violence - can actually be described as feminine and materialistic from the spiritual / metaphysical viewpoint. It is spiritual virility that best describes the "real man".

Now I have very hard time of comprehending what is a "masculine moon" and "feminine sun" in its practical manifestation. I might be too stuck in some narrow viewpoint intellectually.
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Re: Masculine and Feminine Archetypes

Post by Nefastos »

Boreas wrote: Tue Apr 07, 2020 5:59 pmNow I have very hard time of comprehending what is a "masculine moon" and "feminine sun" in its practical manifestation.

Blavatsky presents some notions about JHVH as a Lunar god in The Secret Doctrine, and in the Revelation there is the mysterious woman clothed in Sun. Such quiant aspects may open the thoughts when they strike to the process at the right time. For me, however, Solar feminine exploded at the same time when I found Kashmir Shaiva tantra, and with it a new way of understanding the absolute nature of the Goddess. It was after I had, so to say, exhausted my experience of archetype duality in writing it to its death in Magna Mater & The Gospel of Saturn.
Faust: "Lo contempla. / Ei muove in tortuosa spire / e s'avvicina lento alla nostra volta. / Oh! se non erro, / orme di foco imprime al suol!"
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Re: Masculine and Feminine Archetypes

Post by obnoxion »

Nefastos wrote: Tue Apr 07, 2020 7:38 pm Now I have very hard time of comprehending what is a "masculine moon" and "feminine sun" in its practical manifestation.

Blavatsky presents some notions about JHVH as a Lunar god in The Secret Doctrine, and in the Revelation there is the mysterious woman clothed in Sun
In Semitic mythologies, moon was mostly associated with male deities. I am thinking firstly the Mesopotamian Sin or Nanna (familiar, I'm sure, to many from the Beherit song) who had a ziggurat temple in Ur. Then there are Thoth and Khonsu in Egypt, both clearly lunar deities. Australian Aborginales and Native Americans have many moon gods.

Perhaps not a moon god as such, (my favourite American divinity, actually) Tetzcatlipoca had definite moon associations: It was the fickle nature of lunar month (tricster nature of the divinity); ominous nature of the thirteen month lunar years; moon's backward movement from east to west; and especially the new moon, during which the solar eclipses dreaded by Aztecs occur, would be naturally associated with Tetzcatlipoca, whose name means "Smoking Mirror" from the black obsidian divinatory mirrors (I think John Dee had one, didn't he...).

And last, but not least, the crescent in Hindu symbolism tends to mark the presence of Shiva. It is, with the Trident and the Linga, among the most pertaining Shaiva symbols.
One day of Brahma has 14 Indras; his life has 54 000 Indras. One day of Vishnu is the lifetime of Brahma. The lifetime of Vishnu is one day of Shiva.
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Re: Masculine and Feminine Archetypes

Post by Nefastos »

Yes; the paradigms shift noticeably the more psychological or geographical distance we take. Even the Jewish model, which we might think to be extremely similar to the later Judeo-Christian model (which in turn was the most important root of European grimoire magic occultism, &c.), is actually quite different to it in many aspects.

What we take to be immovable archetypes are actually just our approaches to the actual archetypes, which reside on a level that surpasses the way how our brain functions. By this I do not mean that we should refrain from making archetype patterns, but to understand that all that we are able to see are just practical concepts on the powers which have no such absolute nature themselves, each of them being in every other. If we want to think about solid archetypes, for some reason, we must think about numbers, their relation to each other; and even this has its problems.

This brings to mind another thing, not often mentioned, about two kinds of syncretistic thinking. Theosophy, as a universalist esoteric system – I include to this name here all the other similar attemps to syncretism, like Golden Dawn &c. – is of two kinds: First, the comparing of different forms of symbolism in order to understand the thing itself behind these forms. In this kind of work, every different archetype and aspect gives us more information about the spiritual subjects themselves, precisely because the "archetypes" differ. Thus, what seems to be an immovable archetype to us, is actually a printed image, a reflection, a sub-archetype; one aspectual truth, connected to the truth (primary archetype) itself. Secondly, there is the lazy man's theosophy of correspondences, which goes like this: x = y = z. Similar archetypes are thought to be or represent exactly the same thing, and that they are interchangable with no difference altogether. This is New Age, but this particular form of New Age blossoms fully also in the LHP & magic circles. It makes things nice and easy and practical, but not true. All kinds of correspondence tabulations are always just partial glimpses to a much deeper clockwork of nearly endless subtle permutations.

In the Secret Doctrine reading group here in the forum it has often been pointed out that the readers feel like actual pressure in their brain when it tries to make sense of the immense matrix of analogies and intertwining systems. This exactly is good, to a certain point, for it tells that the mind is de facto moving somewhere, instead of walking in circles. It reaches new heights (to be put into words later) when it finds itself in loss of words, but still feels like flying through a metaphysical chasm of space.
Faust: "Lo contempla. / Ei muove in tortuosa spire / e s'avvicina lento alla nostra volta. / Oh! se non erro, / orme di foco imprime al suol!"
Angolmois

Re: Masculine and Feminine Archetypes

Post by Angolmois »

Nefastos wrote: Wed Apr 08, 2020 12:50 pm Secondly, there is the lazy man's theosophy of correspondences, which goes like this: x = y = z. Similar archetypes are thought to be or represent exactly the same thing, and that they are interchangable with no difference altogether. This is New Age, but this particular form of New Age blossoms fully also in the LHP & magic circles. It makes things nice and easy and practical, but not true. All kinds of correspondence tabulations are always just partial glimpses to a much deeper clockwork of nearly endless subtle permutations.
This is a good reminder. It is very easy to come to the conclusion "they're all the same, lets just lump them together and call it a day!".
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Re: Masculine and Feminine Archetypes

Post by obnoxion »

Nefastos wrote: Wed Apr 08, 2020 12:50 pm In the Secret Doctrine reading group here in the forum it has often been pointed out that the readers feel like actual pressure in their brain when it tries to make sense of the immense matrix of analogies and intertwining systems. This exactly is good, to a certain point, for it tells that the mind is de facto moving somewhere, instead of walking in circles. It reaches new heights (to be put into words later) when it finds itself in loss of words, but still feels like flying through a metaphysical chasm of space.
I love your analogy of "flying through a metaphysical chasm of space"! It brings to mind the highest achievement of the yoginikaula-cult, the mahasiddhi of flying freely in the expanse of the consciousness. It is for me most sacred idea, and now in Easter time when there are a lot of images of flying witches (that much annoy the Orthodox Christians, I hear...), my mind is transported to thoughts of the flying yoginis. It is actually this saturday, called lankalauantai, when witches in Finland fly to Kyöpelinvuori. And in Sweden they fly to Blåkulla. But in my eyes, they all fly into the expanse of pure consciousnes.

I remember, in my radio interview, I recommended, when asked about how to begin to pursue one's kindling interest in satanism, to start to research how Satan is expressed in comparative mythology. It was exactly this kind of research that I meant - the kind that makes you fly.
One day of Brahma has 14 Indras; his life has 54 000 Indras. One day of Vishnu is the lifetime of Brahma. The lifetime of Vishnu is one day of Shiva.
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Re: Masculine and Feminine Archetypes

Post by Kavi »

obnoxion wrote: Wed Apr 08, 2020 10:43 am
Nefastos wrote: Tue Apr 07, 2020 7:38 pm Now I have very hard time of comprehending what is a "masculine moon" and "feminine sun" in its practical manifestation.

Blavatsky presents some notions about JHVH as a Lunar god in The Secret Doctrine, and in the Revelation there is the mysterious woman clothed in Sun
In Semitic mythologies, moon was mostly associated with male deities. I am thinking firstly the Mesopotamian Sin or Nanna (familiar, I'm sure, to many from the Beherit song) who had a ziggurat temple in Ur. Then there are Thoth and Khonsu in Egypt, both clearly lunar deities. Australian Aborginales and Native Americans have many moon gods.

Perhaps not a moon god as such, (my favourite American divinity, actually) Tetzcatlipoca had definite moon associations: It was the fickle nature of lunar month (tricster nature of the divinity); ominous nature of the thirteen month lunar years; moon's backward movement from east to west; and especially the new moon, during which the solar eclipses dreaded by Aztecs occur, would be naturally associated with Tetzcatlipoca, whose name means "Smoking Mirror" from the black obsidian divinatory mirrors (I think John Dee had one, didn't he...).

And last, but not least, the crescent in Hindu symbolism tends to mark the presence of Shiva. It is, with the Trident and the Linga, among the most pertaining Shaiva symbols.
I wandered in internet and read from Wikipedia about Zoroastrian lunar deity Mah and it's links with Sin and Greek moon God Men and I found interesting piece discussiing of Roman's and it seems again tables turn:
http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/R ... alla*.html
Now since we have made mention of the god Lunus, it should be known that all the most learned men have handed down the tradition, and it is at this day p21 so held, particularly by the people of Carrhae, that whoever believes that this deity should be called Luna, with the name and sex of a woman, is subject to women and always their slave; 4 whereas he who believes that the god is a male dominates his wife and is not caught by any woman's wiles. 5 Hence the Greeks and, for that matter, the Egyptians, though they speak of Luna as a "god" in the same way as they include woman in "Man," nevertheless in their mystic rites use the masculine "Lunus."
E: it's about Antonius Caracalla and just views one possible opinion and for some reasons I am not very fond of but to add up thoughts I ended up bringing it here.
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