@jjones Okay, phew! I finally read the chapter and am ready to respond!
I actually really enjoyed the fairy tale for this chapter, and felt it was ripe with lots of symbolism beyond my comprehension. But it was intriguing and had exciting rhythm. I'd like to expand on quote 2, because I am just on the female kick.
While reading, I could see how male-centered these stories are and started to wonder about what shadow vs. holy figures could be depicted from a female gaze on masculinity. Von Franz easily talks about the different forms of Venus, the "heavenly Venus" who is virginal, pure, and innocent and the "profane Venus" who is sexual, unclean, and a temptress. This is a very common image depicted in all kinds of stories today, movies, books, and so on. To be sexual as a woman is seen as profanity against the feminine spirit and a deviant temptation to male attraction.
I can't speak for all women, but I think there is a kind of masculine shadow from the female gaze on violence and aggression. It is at once magnetizing and repulsive. Like the female shadow, it speaks to the power of reproduction and survival to human desire. Aggression is dominating and protecting, it is power and oppression. Perhaps the "heavenly Mars" would be an image of a strong and courageous warrior, I am picturing Odysseus for some reason. While the "profane Mars" might be a cruel despot who enjoys owning and breaking women, men, and children alike.
To be fair, the profane Mars is far more "profane" in my eyes. I would say a "profane Venus" might be even more extreme. Women have survived in the past hundreds of years by their sexual, aesthetic, and homemaking appeal. Thelema is working to change this, but we can't escape the history involved which influences modern culture and behavior. There are some women, as there are men, who use their power solely to hurt other's wills, in varying degrees of violence. Though, I think women do this less by their sexuality as by their learned ability to control others to do their violence for them, being that women are often taught to pay close attention to the needs of others. I would say this is more emotional violence rather than the physical and oftentimes sexual violence by men.
So I would say a profane Venus would involve violent manipulation, using whatever means necessary, emotional, sexual, and so on to inflict pain upon others. It would perhaps more be an image of Venus as narcissus, which I think paints a deeper picture than just equating prostitutes as profane... which.. um.. prostitutes actually served in temples during ancient and maybe modern times? I don't know much about that history. But obviously we all know sex workers can as easily access the divine as our virginal Beatrice.
Working with gender is complicated, it involves careful distinction between the planes and ability to hold a mutable boundary which exists between culture, biology, and environment. But as a woman, or someone who was raised and identifies as a woman, I am attuned to the differences in which women experience life... at least my small circle of perspectives of women in my life. And I think as a part of the natural dominance of men within occultism, most of the perspective encoded within texts are male-centered, both in texts written by males and females hoping to gain an audience within male-centered spaces.
So, I think an exciting part of doing this work right now is opening up more dialogue about what a female perspective is on occultism, alchemy, and so on. The fundamental forces at play remain the same, but the symbols and words we use to describe them are mutable to a certain degree. It is the difficult work to attempt to preserve the consistency of meaning with revised symbols incorporating more female-centered narratives.