The Female Magician and the New Aeon
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Very nice work, Alrah; I likey!
I do have to wonder, though - the whole idea of the Solar Phallus... Does this have to exclusively be associated with male individuals? Obviously it's a "masculine" idea, but the whole dichotomy of masculine = force, feminine = form comes to mind.
I don't know a ton about this, but perhaps the actual ideas aren't quite so gender-polarized on the lower planes as they might seem based on the language used to describe their natures on the higher planes.
"But he is ever a sun, and she a moon; but to him is the secret winged flame, and to her the stooping starlight."
I still don't fully grasp this in any truly meaningful way aside from getting the Hadit vs Nuit, Solar Male vs Lunar Female concepts. -
@Ash said
"I do have to wonder, though - the whole idea of the Solar Phallus... Does this have to exclusively be associated with male individuals? Obviously it's a "masculine" idea, but the whole dichotomy of masculine = force, feminine = form comes to mind."
Yes, the solar phallus and solar yoni are independent of gender, and both can be found "within" an individual.
But, considering that Tiphareth is associated with the the marriage of opposites, I have to agree with Alrah that yoni or phallus is only a portion of the equation there...
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Great post Alrah; my only gripe is about gender differences on the physical plane.
@Alrah said
"The Sun and the Moon may be ever symbolised in their duality as masculine and feminine, and Beast and Scarlet Woman are symbolic of them in their respective external roles, but both forces are expressed through the Phallus and the Yoni and in the experience of the internal Sun."
How true is this?
Does this mean that physiological characteristics, mental patterns, style of living - everything that makes man and woman unique on the physical plane - becomes entirely irrelevant in the New Aeon?Does that fact that women cannot produce sperm and men cannot carry children count for nothing?
At some point, don't women reach a stumbling block with the Phallic Mysteries by, uh, not having a phallus? Don't men reach a stumbling block in the Yonic Mysteries by not having a physiology consistent with its symbolism?
I feel like some essential principles are being blurred and diluted.
After all, we have a Scarlet Woman - not some vague, androgynous Scarlet Person.
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thank you, Alrah, good post
the Truth spoke through you -
@Alrah said
"Patchwork Serpent - I think I may have answered most of your questions when it comes to the mysteries when I replied to Ash above?"
If what you say is accurate, then yes. This is the first time I've heard that the Yoni is solar - where do you get this from?
I've known the Lingam as the ultimate solar, active, generative force; and the Yoni as the ultimate lunar, passive, receptive force. Is not the Lingam the symbol of Chokmah, and the Yoni the symbol of Binah? The former the Sun, the latter the Moon?
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Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
Loved the post. Enjoyed the insight.
Brought this to mind. Thought I'd share:
THE OYSTER
The Brothers of A.'. A.'. are one with the Mother of the Child.
The Many is as adorable to the One as the One is to the Many.
This is the Love of These; creation‐parturition is the Bliss of the One; coition‐dissolution is the
Bliss of the Many.
The All, thus interwoven of These, is Bliss.
Naught is beyond Bliss.
The Man delights in uniting with the Woman; the Woman in parting from the Child.
The Brothers of A.'. A.'. are Women; the Aspirants to A.'. A.'. are Men.I like to think of the division only happening once. And the rest of the Path is reuniting.
"For I am divided for love's sake, for the chance of union."
Love is the law, love under will.
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@PatchworkSerpen said
"I've known the Lingam as the ultimate solar, active, generative force; and the Yoni as the ultimate lunar, passive, receptive force. Is not the Lingam the symbol of Chokmah, and the Yoni the symbol of Binah? The former the Sun, the latter the Moon?"
we could say that gender-neutral Libido (the Solar principle in us) *manifests itself *on the physical level as male or female. but it is both male-and-female in itself (the Child archetype).
...
we speak of Sol-male and Luna-female, but we only experience those two as separate polar entities in Assiah (..and partly Yetzirah!?). isn't the light from the Moon essentially solar? and isn't the Earth herself [or itself..] a 'part' of the Sun?
the bottom line here being that Sol has a 'dual nature', so to speak - it is in the center of the system (the Tree), it is receptive and active at the same time.we can look at it from the Earth (and from the Moon, or Mercury or Venus..) as male-phallic, while opening ourselves to it, to the understanding of Unity it implies... as part of the method to get there. but should not forget that it is only a partial and methodic 'definition'
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Not bad at all.
'Twould make a nice pamphlet, to be distributed on street corners to the idle citizen.
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Very insightful and thought provoking topic Alrah. Thank you.
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It seems to me that almost every time crowley makes a misogynistic remark it is very tongue in cheek, he is expressing an idea of what women are supposed to be in the polite society he hates, and it is meant to enrage women who hear it expressed plainly without euphemism, not veiled in virtuous words, to take offense and prove him wrong.
When expressed in virtuous words, women raised in that way of thinking actually measure their virtue against that stereotype, and snub other women who do not live up to it. Thus we see women who are successful sexually are torn down by their sisters called skanks and whores.
Thus there is an unconscious identification with herself as being a nasty evil creature who must hide herself behind social ritual and pretty dresses, and submit to male control, least she is revealed as all the mean things crowley says about women.
He says them as a goad to say, if you are not as men say you are, come out and show yourself as you are without shame, or if you are such an ugly creature stay hidden.
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Well crowley also would have it if women are creatures of deception who only want to ensnare men with lies and tricks, whose only interest is pregnancy, then she should be that fully and without shame.
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@Froclown said
"It seems to me that almost every time crowley makes a misogynistic remark it is very tongue in cheek, he is expressing an idea of what women are supposed to be in the polite society he hates, and it is meant to enrage women who hear it expressed plainly without euphemism, not veiled in virtuous words, to take offense and prove him wrong."
If anything, Crowley above all understood the primal joke: it is the purpose of man and woman to screw and be screwed, respectively. And, furthermore, 99% of mankind's internal problems are caused by malfunctions in what is hardly a complex relationship.
It is this pitiful and amusing circumstance he set out to rectify by upturning every vestige of morality and decency in a society that didn't like him either.
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I think the best expression of the view of women in thelema as magicians is in the butterfly net. Cyril represents the traditional view of women, he sees things are they always were to him, where as Simon Iff has a more progressive or forward looking view of what women can potentially be.
Which is why Simon Iff is willing to initiate women and Cyril believes it a waste of time.
Both of these represent crowley's views. He expects the worst but hopes for the best.
Either way he gives women every opportunity to express herself without shame or repression, for better or for worse.
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Well moon child is a specific manifestation of in this case Ishtar, but for a really good treatment on the subject I recommend the film Devi in which a young Indian girl is made into the priestess of Kali. The pharaoh of egypt would be considered a sun child as an embodiment of Ra.
Of course there are jewish versions such as the golem and hummonculous, some rather unsavory versions aimed at purposely producing a still born child which would serve as the vessel of clay into which a spiritual being would be evoked, this undead child being the vessel of an angel or elemental, and raised as such, treated not as human but as that spirit which it supposedly contained, of worse as an merely empty clay pot, beaten and taught to see itself as merely a gargoyle to do it's fathers will.
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Depends on culture and what scars and branding the person who created this so called moon child wanted to pass off as proof of success.
Since spirits don't really exist, moon children are just superstitious nonsense that are hoaxes to the benefit of the hoaxer.
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I find it comforting that people do not know about and those who do do not believe in the moon child principle.
Other wise we would have rosemary's baby cults all over, forcing pregnant women to drink alchemical potions full of things like wolfesbane and arsenic so they can kill her child, or nearly kill it just so they can perform sexual and physically abusive rituals on it, in hopes that the child will grow up to embody their idea of a god.
Actually come to think of it we do this anyway with classical music in the womb, test tube embryos, baby Einstein, etc.
But these methods are scientific and are not particularly tormenting to the child. Though some children raised to be athletes or ivy league, may fall onto that category.
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@Alrah said
"May I borrow your dildo tonight dear? You know... the one with the twirling and throbbing actions combined with arse attachment and the neat rainbow coloured voice activated sparkels? I suppose I could adapt the ring thingy..."
A prime example of humor taken seriously. (And likewise, perhaps.
)It is, primarily, the task of the adept to dissolve the boundary between sacred and profane. (Or, to use your terminology, unite the "Pyramid with the Circle,") or whatever. This sacred dissolution for the sake of union is embodied the ultimate sacrament, sex, the Hieros Gamos. And as thus is it of utmost importance to treat the subject with flippance and vain airs.
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@Froclown said
"I find it comforting that people do not know about and those who do do not believe in the moon child principle.
Other wise we would have rosemary's baby cults all over, forcing pregnant women to drink alchemical potions full of things like wolfesbane and arsenic so they can kill her child, or nearly kill it just so they can perform sexual and physically abusive rituals on it, in hopes that the child will grow up to embody their idea of a god.
Actually come to think of it we do this anyway with classical music in the womb, test tube embryos, baby Einstein, etc.
But these methods are scientific and are not particularly tormenting to the child. Though some children raised to be athletes or ivy league, may fall onto that category."
Rather I would say that most don't know how to identify the "Moon child," or what have you.
Not all of us have such a keen sensitivity, Froclown.
Any cosmic manifestation of pure principle can be identified, primarily, by those attributes which exist unadulturated in the subject's makeup. These attributes are primarily discovered through, of all things, a horoscope.
Take a peek at the role of Astrology in the (former) lives of Tibetans. Indeed, high ranking monks would be chosen at birth due to salient aspects in their horoscope.
In fact, the science of Astrology is the best possible tool for the successful upkeep of a caste society.
