Hermetic principles 8/8

« There is a gender in all things ; everything has its Masculine and Feminine principles ;
gender manifests itself on all planes. » [1]

 

Here we are, almost at the end of a jour­ney star­ted more than a year ago… I did not think I would cover so much infor­ma­tion when I star­ted fol­lo­wing in the foots­teps of the Hermetists ; to tell the truth, my first idea was to present the seven prin­ciples in one article… What a joke ! But I didn’t count on the rich­ness and depth of these tea­chings, which gave me an ulti­mate sur­prise with the prin­ciple of gender…

It all star­ted with a double ques­tio­ning. First, why does the gen­der prin­ciple occu­py the 7th and last place in the Hermes tea­chings ? And second, if the Feminine and Masculine can alrea­dy be expres­sed through the prin­ciple of pola­ri­ty, what is the pur­pose of the gen­der prin­ciple ? The only ans­wer I found is rela­ted to… guess what : geo­me­try ! So far, nothing very sur­pri­sing you might say !

Although geo­me­try was in fact my first rea­ding key, I will come back to it in the second part of this article. Because, unex­pec­ted­ly, a fur­ther explo­ra­tion of the prin­ciple of gen­der brought me back to the expe­rience I had a lit­tle more than 8 years ago, and whose sto­ry is at the ori­gin of this blog. Since eve­ry­thing starts from the expe­rience, it see­med obvious to me to relate it again and above all, car­ried this time by the tea­chings of the Feminine and the Masculine.

 

An experience of the gender principle

I will resume here the unfol­ding of the events by kee­ping only the most signi­fi­cant ones in rela­tion to the theme of this article. If you do not know my sto­ry, a first rea­ding could give you a pers­pec­tive alrea­dy rich in tea­chings. However, my ori­gi­nal sto­ry also contains a lot of didac­tic infor­ma­tion, which could lead you on a rather long alter­na­tive route… Moral : I let you choose which way you pre­fer to go !

In any case, and in order to make the most of this new sha­ring of expe­rience, I invite you to consi­der that the dyna­mics of the Feminine and Masculine prin­ciples are cur­rent­ly present and active in you on the men­tal level, whe­ther you are a man or a woman. If this seems a bit abs­tract to you, your pers­pec­tive should broa­den as I go along.

My pur­pose here is to high­light the men­tal genre dear to the Hermetists, by illus­tra­ting the bal­let of femi­nine and mas­cu­line ener­gies that played out for me that night.

 

The dynamics of the mental

Before my expe­rience, I was aware that the men­tal is a very effi­cient male ener­gy to per­ceive rea­li­ty in a spe­ci­fic way : sepa­ra­tion, time, space… For me, if it was theo­re­ti­cal­ly pos­sible to live ano­ther state of conscious­ness, a state of uni­ty, the simple fact of wan­ting it was not enough to live it. I then pla­ced per­cep­tion at the heart of the mys­te­ry, thought having usur­ped the place of true per­cep­tion, that of uni­ty. The ques­tion was to what extent brain acti­vi­ty could main­tain the illu­sion that it pro­du­ced conscious­ness when it sim­ply allo­wed access to and inter­pre­ta­tion of experience.

I was not aware, howe­ver, that the dyna­mics of the men­tal are both mas­cu­line and femi­nine. The Masculine has the abi­li­ty to give a direc­tion to the men­tal crea­tion. Like the woman who gives birth, the femi­nine then makes this seed ger­mi­nate with the help of the uncons­cious reac­tive pat­terns at the heart of its own dyna­mics. This is how the thought pro­cess is struc­tu­red, which always repeats the same pat­terns in simi­lar or ana­lo­gous circumstances.

Whatever the seed is, whe­ther it is a seed of control or a seed of libe­ra­tion, the Feminine will grow it. The Masculine and Feminine each have a res­pon­si­bi­li­ty in this pro­cess. To be aware of this is to pay atten­tion to the qua­li­ty of the seeds sown by the Masculine, and to use dis­cern­ment to choose the seeds that the Feminine will make flourish.

I’ll come back to that. But now let’s dive into my experience…

 

Looking for an explanation…

December 19, 2013 — 8pm

A rup­tu­red aneu­rysm has just cau­sed a bleed in the right hemis­phere of my head, in the meninges. I feel a sud­den and violent hea­dache that warns me that some­thing unu­sual is hap­pe­ning. The inten­si­ty of the pain com­ple­te­ly focuses my thoughts on this state of affairs.

It occurs to me that I may have the first migraine of my life, but how can I know since I have never had one ? My men­tal, not being satis­fied with the approxi­ma­tion of this pos­si­bi­li­ty, looks for ano­ther hypo­the­sis. I qui­ck­ly assess my other symp­toms : at this stage, none.

• The Masculine direc­ted the Feminine in a first direc­tion of research. The Feminine did not have the pos­si­bi­li­ty to make this seed flou­rish, so the Masculine direc­ted it in ano­ther direc­tion. Together they tried to unders­tand the events.

 

… desperately

However, the pos­si­bi­li­ty of having a stroke does not cross my mind at all. My men­tal is pro­ba­bly sim­ply inca­pable of sus­pec­ting this diag­no­sis because in its data­base at the moment, my symp­toms do not cor­res­pond at all to those that define this pathology.

I don’t know yet that the main cha­rac­te­ris­tic of a menin­geal hemor­rhage is a sud­den, extre­me­ly intense and long-lasting hea­dache, which is pre­ci­se­ly the symp­tom that mani­fests itself at that moment.

The truth is that it can­not relate this strange sen­sa­tion to any other. No mat­ter how much it searches in its data­base, nothing cor­res­ponds, no known state that comes close to this one, no equi­va­lent expe­rience to weigh up in order to know what to do… In the end, des­pite itself, all it manages to find are its limits.

• Les recherches du Féminin n’aboutissant à rien de concluant, sa dyna­mique a fini par s’essouffler et par perdre l’énergie qu’elle génère habi­tuel­le­ment par son propre mou­ve­ment [2]. Mais cette perte de vitesse a contri­bué à révé­ler une autre dyna­mique du Masculin…

 

From detachment to presence

Fear then begins to over­come me. Strangely, I also feel a cer­tain detach­ment from this fear. I have an unu­sual awa­re­ness of it, so to speak. It is as if I can observe my fear, as if I reco­gnize that the fear is there, but that it might as well not be.

It is then that my awa­re­ness of myself will some­how expand. The state of emer­gen­cy in which I find myself is about to push me into a « time » that is unfa­mi­liar to me : the here and now, the pre­sence.

• When the Masculine sent ano­ther impulse to the Feminine, in this case fear, my conscious­ness rea­li­zed that the Masculine was also capable of « stan­ding out­side of the men­tal crea­tion and beha­ving towards it as a spec­ta­tor, » as the Hermeticists teach.
  
  
• The detach­ment of the Masculine had as a conse­quence to stop the impulse of the Feminine, ren­de­red thus inca­pable to make this fear grow.
  
  
• It has also led my conscious­ness to per­ceive events direct­ly, beyond the tem­po­ral dimen­sion, which belongs to the per­cep­tion of the men­tal.

 

Open hearted

Precisely, my conscious­ness shifts from my head to my heart. I still feel my pain, but it is as if in the back­ground, almost secondary.

Then some­thing that is not of the order of thought, some­thing grea­ter takes place in me, like a power of an abso­lute sere­ni­ty that ema­nates from my heart and which, if trans­la­ted into words, would tell me : « Whatever hap­pens, it’s going to be okay. » It imposes itself without impo­sing itself.

It’s a very dif­ferent ener­gy from what I’m used to, it doesn’t try to be right, it’s there in all sim­pli­ci­ty.

• At that moment, the Masculine was no lon­ger obser­ving the men­tal dyna­mics of the Feminine. Thus, my conscious­ness became dis­so­cia­ted from any men­tal pro­cess, whe­ther it was mas­cu­line or femi­nine. My Being became conscious of itself.

 

A new perception

In the moment the pre­sence mani­fests, it simul­ta­neous­ly coun­te­racts my sense of fear and freezes my men­tal. At that moment, I am my conscious­ness out of sync with my emo­tions and thoughts. As if my conscious­ness is no lon­ger focu­sed on my men­tal. 

 So I am here, more than ever, conscious, present, but I am not my men­tal, I exist out­side of it, in uni­ty with All. I live myself as a lar­ger ver­sion of myself. This state of grace lasts for an ins­tant, an eternity.

• It would be more accu­rate to say that I expe­rien­ced my own uni­que­ness, in the sense that I no lon­ger had the per­cep­tion of being connec­ted to any­thing or anyone else. I sim­ply was.
  
  
• This is beyond men­tal awa­re­ness. Indeed, this one implies an obser­ver, it pro­gresses from the uncons­cious to the conscious, by return of expe­rience. It is based on a double move­ment : out­ward (obser­va­tion) and inward (feed­back). It involves the mas­cu­line and femi­nine dyna­mics res­pec­ti­ve­ly, thus offe­ring the human being the incre­dible pos­si­bi­li­ty of expe­rien­cing him­self from both the out­side and the inside.
  
  
• What I had pre­vious­ly per­cei­ved as exter­nal, as an obser­ver, was no lon­ger. Then the authen­tic per­cep­tion mani­fes­ted itself : no more obser­ver, no more iden­ti­ty, the obser­ver and the obser­ved were one [3]. It was a per­cep­tion that I can com­pare to that expe­rien­ced during a syn­chro­ni­ci­ty.

 

Another expression of the masculine

Then, against all odds, convin­ced of being right and unable to let any­thing but itself exist, my men­tal qui­ck­ly takes over. It imme­dia­te­ly iden­ti­fies with the « wha­te­ver hap­pens, it’s going to be okay » emit­ted by the conscious­ness ema­na­ting from my heart and I tell myself that it can’t be too bad, that this hea­dache will pass. At that moment, eve­ry­thing goes very fast, the urgen­cy of my body pushes me to act, while grace is alrea­dy car­rying me.

I’m wai­ting for my part­ner, James. He’s run­ning late. I would like him to know as soon as pos­sible what is going on because it is urgent. I call him and to my insis­tence on coming to me, he leaves the pur­chase of his sand­wich on hold.

One ques­tion came to me after that eve­ning : who knows if I would have lived that moment of « pre­sence to me » if this expe­rience had hap­pe­ned to me in his own presence ?

• An expres­sion of the Masculine, embo­died by James, did not mani­fest itself exter­nal­ly, due to its delay. A « non-event » that reso­na­ted with the col­lapse of a boun­da­ry — the rup­ture of an aneu­rysm — within.

 

Taking back control, but in a different way

 

Given my condi­tion and obvious lack of confi­dence in moving, he consi­ders two options : take a taxi, go home and moni­tor the situa­tion, or call the fire depart­ment directly.

My men­tal won’t give in, it has alrea­dy deci­ded to give up on the eve­ning, it doesn’t want to consi­der moreo­ver that some­thing serious might hap­pen to me and that I might be in dan­ger. It doesn’t want to consi­der it, this is its way of regai­ning control. In fact, it’s loo­king for an expla­na­tion and a solu­tion again, and to do that, it needs to have a clear head. This is why it files the expe­rience of being present under the hea­ding « I didn’t unders­tand any­thing, but I’ll look into it later », while belie­ving, without real­ly kno­wing why, that « it’s going to be okay ».

• The Masculine did not unders­tand what had just hap­pe­ned, it sought to regain control by reco­ve­ring what it could, sen­ding this new impulse to the Feminine.

 

An achievement to be embodied

Through the desire of my conscious­ness to get out of the men­tal and thanks to the com­bi­ned inter­ven­tion of Madeleine and the neu­ro­sur­geon who per­for­med the embo­li­za­tion of the aneu­rysm [4], I came as close as I could to the limit beyond which I could not have brought the deep rea­li­za­tion of this expe­rience into my incar­na­tion. Finally, this expe­rience led me to esta­blish a new rela­tion­ship with myself. Otherwise, conti­nuing on this Earth would have been too dif­fi­cult for me.

• Fundamentally, the Feminine and the Masculine wish to work in good unders­tan­ding for the advan­ce­ment of conscious­ness. As embo­died prin­ciples, howe­ver, they have to deal with higher or lower vibra­tions. They can then get lost in gro­wing « bad » seeds, or let’s say, in expe­rien­cing suf­fe­ring and .. which never­the­less advance consciousness…
  
  
• My expe­rience has shown me that by choo­sing divine seeds, miracles are obtai­ned. In its dee­pest inter­ior, my Feminine recei­ved the full sup­port of the Masculine. In other words, the deep desire of the Feminine (to expe­rience self-love and share it with the Masculine) reso­na­ted with the deep desire of the Masculine (to serve the Feminine in order to open to self-love). It’s as if the Masculine said to the Feminine, « Okay, I’m going to set eve­ry­thing up « out there » for you to have the expe­rience you want to have more than any­thing. And I’m going to do eve­ry­thing so that the spi­rit we inha­bit can conti­nue its incar­na­tion with that realization. »
  
  
• This total and sel­fless com­mit­ment of the Masculine remains to this day an immense source of ins­pi­ra­tion for my Feminine.

Having dis­cus­sed the men­tal genre through my expe­rience, let us now return to the Hermetic teachings.

 

The mental genre

Women and men are res­pec­ti­ve­ly the repre­sen­ta­tives of the Feminine and Masculine prin­ciples. However, the Masculine prin­ciple is also present in women, just as the Feminine prin­ciple is present in men [5]. The Hermeticists also remind us that « the men­tal gen­der has no rela­tion to the phy­si­cal gen­der of someone, nor does it imply that someone of a cer­tain sexual gen­der is neces­sa­ri­ly of the same men­tal gen­der.

 

The « I » and the « Me »

« No phy­si­cal, men­tal or spi­ri­tual crea­tion is pos­sible without [the gen­der principle]. »

The pur­pose of the gen­der prin­ciple is to give birth on any plane of phe­no­me­nal life. On the men­tal plane, the Hermetists speak of a double aspect of the spi­rit that is found in eve­ry indi­vi­dual : the « I », which cor­res­ponds to the Masculine prin­ciple, and the « Me » to the Feminine principle.

As we have seen, the « I » has the abi­li­ty to pro­ject a vibra­to­ry ener­gy cur­rent towards the « Me » in order to ini­tiate a par­ti­cu­lar men­tal crea­tion. Thus the Feminine prin­ciple constant­ly tends to receive the impres­sions that the Masculine prin­ciple constant­ly tends to send to it. The « I » is also capable of remai­ning a spec­ta­tor of the crea­tions and men­tal gene­ra­tions of the « I, » which pos­sesses an enor­mous power of crea­tive ener­gy. The Hermeticists tell us that « the « I » appears to the conscious­ness as endo­wed with the latent power to create and gene­rate men­tal off­spring of any nature ».

It is thanks to the ener­gy it receives from the « I » that the « I » is able to mate­rial­ly rea­lize its men­tal crea­tions. But if the « I » receives ener­gy from the « I » that shares the same mind as it, it also receives ener­gy from other « I » out­side of itself. This is where it is sur­ely use­ful that conscious­ness and dis­cern­ment enter into play…!

 

On the proper use of the mental genre

To take a salient example, living in a patriar­chal socie­ty does not imply that we use the Masculine prin­ciple exces­si­ve­ly, nor for good pur­poses. In fact, para­doxi­cal­ly, most of us use our Feminine prin­ciple more, and most of the time to uncons­cious­ly main­tain a patriar­chal socie­ty. Simply because we have inte­gra­ted the idea and we make it flou­rish by accep­ting other seeds rela­ted to patriar­chy (which can the­re­fore be pro or anti patriar­chy seeds…).

Indeed, if we do not know the exis­tence of the gen­der prin­ciple and make good use of it, we will tend, without even rea­li­zing it, to make our own the thoughts and ideas sent to our « I » by the « I » of the mind of other indi­vi­duals… These ideas thus lod­ged in our men­tal will deve­lop and end up being consi­de­red as our real men­tal thread.

To use the two men­tal prin­ciples cor­rect­ly is to be able to choose the idea we want to focus on, and then give it sus­tai­ned atten­tion. The Masculine prin­ciple will then sti­mu­late the Feminine prin­ciple on that sub­ject, and the Feminine prin­ciple will work to gene­rate consistent men­tal activity.

 

The qualities of the Feminine and Masculine

The « I » acts in the conscious, the visible, and the « Me » in the uncons­cious, the invisible.

The femi­nine ener­gy is that of crea­ti­vi­ty, artis­tic expres­sion, flui­di­ty and gene­ro­si­ty. It is the ener­gy that gives life. It is repre­sen­ted in the form of spirals, which start from the cen­ter towards all direc­tions. It is an ener­gy that swirls and flows.

The mas­cu­line ener­gy is that of strength, balance, orga­ni­za­tion and sta­bi­li­ty. It is the abi­li­ty to do things, to pro­tect. It is also a men­tal ener­gy. The Masculine radiates its ener­gies from the cen­ter, in straight and struc­tu­red lines.

However, to say that the Masculine prin­ciple brings balance is as true as to say that it gene­rates imba­lance [6]. Like the Feminine, it alter­nates bet­ween the two posi­tions, without which no pro­gres­sion would be pos­sible. A thing can be both one and its oppo­site, depen­ding on when and where it is observed.

 

Straight lines for the Masculine, curves for the Feminine : both prin­ciples express the same geo­me­try but dif­fe­rent­ly.

 

 

The female curves represent 12 Fibonacci spi­rals. They all start from the same cen­tral point — there is no rota­tion without a refe­rence point — and meet at the 12 nodal points of the star. The first 6 points deli­mit a cen­tral hexa­gon (or cuboc­ta­he­dron in 3D), the next 6 a 6‑pointed star (or tetra­he­dral star in 3D).

Let us now observe the dyna­mics under­lying this geometry.

 

Geometric dynamics of the gender principle

There is no polarity without geometry

In the intro­duc­tion, I ques­tio­ned the neces­si­ty of the gen­der prin­ciple, given that the prin­ciple of pola­ri­ty alrea­dy allows the expres­sion of femi­nine and mas­cu­line ener­gies. It turns out that the gen­der prin­ciple responds to a very spe­ci­fic geo­me­try.

 

 

 

Based on Nassim Haramein’s uni­fied field theo­ry, we can equate the cuboc­ta­he­dron (left) with the Feminine ; it is the ener­gy that goes inwards, towards the infi­nite. The tetra­he­dral star (on the right) repre­sents the Masculine, the ener­gy that goes out­wards, towards the limits [7].

These two geo­me­tries are the basis of the geo­me­try of the vacuum and explain how the struc­tures that make up the uni­verse can keep their cohe­rence (Feminine prin­ciple) while evol­ving (Masculine prin­ciple) [8]. They are nes­ted in each other at all scales, evol­ving in a frac­tal pro­cess. Thus, the cuboc­ta­he­dron is both the content and the contai­ner of the tetra­he­dral star, itself being both the content and the contai­ner of the cuboctahedron.

 

     

 

The gender principle, an energetic outcome

As repre­sen­ta­tives of the seventh and final prin­ciple, the geo­me­tries for­ming the gen­der prin­ciple contain :

• The prin­ciple of men­ta­lism, repre­sen­ted by a dot
• The prin­ciple of cor­res­pon­dence, due to the per­fect sym­me­try of these geometries
• The prin­ciple of vibra­tion, which allows to link vacuum and mat­ter via sca­ling waves
• The prin­ciple of pola­ri­ty, with two dis­tinct and at the same time inse­pa­rable geometries
• The prin­ciple of rhythm, via the frac­tal pro­gres­sion that unites them
• The prin­ciple of cause and effect, as the upper frac­tal can only exist because of the lower fractal

The prin­ciple of gen­der is like the culmi­na­tion of the pre­vious prin­ciples, the mani­fes­ted form that encom­passes the first six prin­ciples. The dua­li­ty final­ly resul­ted in the geo­me­tri­cal mani­fes­ta­tion of the Feminine and Masculine principles.

An ener­ge­tic dyna­mic was then set up : that of the double torus. The infor­ma­tion cir­cu­lates there by win­ding in oppo­site direc­tions from the poles and towards the cen­ter. It is a double rota­tion in which the two toruses turn in oppo­site direc­tions. From this double move­ment are born the gra­vi­ta­tio­nal and elec­tro­ma­gne­tic forces present in the uni­verse, which cor­res­pond res­pec­ti­ve­ly to the femi­nine and mas­cu­line energies.

 

        

 

The Yin / Yang representation of the gender principle

The Chinese represent this dyna­mic with the Yin and Yang sym­bol, which cor­res­ponds to the double torus seen from above.

According to Nassim Haramein, there is a direct ana­lo­gy bet­ween this sym­bol and the dyna­mics of the uni­verse. There are indeed 64 pos­sible com­bi­na­tions of Yin and Yang which, accor­ding to him, cor­res­pond to the 64 tetra­he­drons for­ming the vacuum struc­ture, from which eve­ry­thing emerges and to which eve­ry­thing returns. Note that Yin and Yang can each divide into Yin and Yang sub-elements, ad infi­ni­tum, thus illus­tra­ting a frac­tal pro­cess.

Yin and Yang are basi­cal­ly com­mon names for concrete things. Yin means « ubac », the north- facing side of a moun­tain, and Yang « adret », the south-facing side. Like the two sides of a moun­tain or the two sides of a coin, one does not exist without the other, as the prin­ciple of pola­ri­ty remen­tals us. Thus, the two aspects of the same situa­tion are constant­ly oscil­la­ting, in a conti­nuous beat.

Yin and Yang evolve in a move­ment that, dri­ven by the advan­ce­ment of conscious­ness, inva­ria­bly pro­duces a pas­sage from one to the other. The Yin / Yang dyna­mic thus conti­nuous­ly offers an ever more accom­pli­shed expe­rience of each prin­ciple [9].

The « thin­king in twos » indu­ced by Yin and Yang can be com­pa­red to the double aspect of the spi­rit of the Hermetists.

 

Being and Becoming

From an ener­ge­tic point of view, the gen­der prin­ciple is balan­ced in each of us, because it is lin­ked to the geo­me­try of the vacuum struc­ture, which is unal­te­rable. However, our conscious­ness and our per­cep­tion can lead us to favour one gen­der over ano­ther, depen­ding on our sex or our unders­tan­ding of one or the other for example.

Energetically, the mas­cu­line « I » is the aspect of Being, and the femi­nine « I » is the aspect of Becoming. The two are constant­ly com­mu­ni­ca­ting, swaying the uni­verse and its struc­tures bet­ween order and chaos in order to move them for­ward. It could also be said that the « I » stands in conscious­ness, and that the « Me » has not yet been brought to conscious­ness but has the poten­tial to do so. Awareness is the engine of Becoming and of the various mani­fes­ta­tions of energy.

We do not return to the ori­gi­nal conscious­ness, we are sove­rei­gn beings who make conscious­ness evolve in mat­ter.

 

I hope to have given back their let­ters of nobi­li­ty to the Feminine and Masculine prin­ciples. And I hope to have illu­mi­na­ted the Hermetic prin­ciples in a dif­ferent light.

 

 

 

 

Key points   The dyna­mics of the gen­der prin­ciple are present and active in each of us, on the phy­si­cal, men­tal and spi­ri­tual levels. All the ideas lod­ged in our men­tal by the Masculine deve­lop thanks to the Feminine, and end up being consi­de­red as our true men­tal Be care­ful what we accept… From the point of view of geo­me­try, the Masculine and Feminine prin­ciples express the same geo­me­try but dif­fe­rent­ly, in straight lines for the Masculine, in curves for the The ener­ge­tic dyna­mics rela­ted to the dyna­mics of the gen­der prin­ciple is that of the double torus. The mas­cu­line and femi­nine dyna­mics res­pec­ti­ve­ly offer the human being the incre­dible pos­si­bi­li­ty of expe­rien­cing him­self from both the out­side and the inside.

 

 

 

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Notes and references

 

[1] Unless other­wise sta­ted, all quotes are from the Kybalion.
[2] See the article Thought + emo­tion = men­tal on this sub­ject.
[3] See also the article Conscious Experience on this sub­ject.
[4] For a more detai­led account, read Part 3 of My Story.
[5] Biologically spea­king, men and women have the same hor­mones but in dif­ferent pro­por­tions. They are simi­lar and dis­si­mi­lar, to use the terms of the prin­ciple of pola­ri­ty.
[6] Extremes mean the same thing, as the prin­ciple of pola­ri­ty teaches us.
[7] See also the article Sacred Connection on the sub­ject.
[8] See the article on dis­si­pa­tive struc­tures for a more phy­si­cal des­crip­tion of the phe­no­me­non.
[9] See also the 5th part of the article The Butterfly Effect about Yin / Yang dyna­mics.

 

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