Home › Forum Online Discussion › General › Non-binary Gender in Binary Philosophies and Practices: HT only recognizes M/F?
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December 17, 2014 at 5:06 pm #43406StevenModerator
You raise a lot of different issues in this one post, but I’ll try to respond. 🙂
>>>Cale: An example of what I’m trying to avoid and therefore am flirting with.
>>>
>>>Please consider.
>>>So, if I were
>>>Words.I saw that, but I was addressing your logical puzzles.
In particular, at the end of the post, I addressed the issue of getting mired into hypothetical questions.>>>but their application to the waking world and
>>>affairs of the heart alike are often deeply
>>>complicated, because an experience should be safe
>>>and valuable if it is to be sold, however cheaply.
>>>How can I be of use as a feng shui consultant,
>>>say, if I can’t determine even whether a house
>>>faces SE or S because a few degrees even is a
>>>level of precision difficult to obtain with
>>>compass and eye. And that’s just one of many
>>>questions that all rely upon what, I hope,
>>>is simply ignorance of the theoretical model
>>>underpinning the Dao Arts. Basically, all
>>>of my questions have to do with making the
>>>mysterious pull some weight, instead of me pulling it.
>>>Björk: “It’s not supposed to be a struggle. You’re trying too hard.”I agree with your Björk quote, things need not be complicated.
If things seems complicated, it is usually because the mind is getting in the way.In the Feng Shui case, if a reasonable guess makes one feel uncomfortable, then one can always do two readings for each case, and see which one fits better. Same as the Chinese Astrology story I said earlier. Let direct experience fill in the gap rather than trying to split hairs with the mind.
>>>If,
>>>spoken by anyone, “I sometimes lie or sometimes
>>>tell the truth” is 100% true..
>>>Then,
>>>how can someone, as you put it, be 100% honest
>>>in order to honestly say, “I never lie and
>>>always tell the truth.”These were two completely different scenarios.
That’s why I separated them with a dashed line.I was NOT looking at the COMPOUND PROPOSITION:
“I sometimes lie or sometimes tell the truth -AND- I never lie and always tell the truth.”,
nor was I looking at the CONDITIONAL:
IF “I sometimes lie and sometimes tell the truth”
THEN “I never lie and always tell the truth”.Each of these are completely different logical propositions (more complex) with their own analysis. This may appear to be splitting hairs, but when you get into the deep of mathematical logic, you see that these are all completely different situations.
>>>Can every person be assigned a M/F value?
>>>See, what I’m saying is, how would you do it?Yes, I explained this before, but I’ll try again.
Whichever % is higher in spirit.
If 70% female, 30% male, then assign “female”.
If 50.1% male, 49.9% female, then assign “male”.
In the latter case (or even former case), there’s no need to reject or ignore the other gendered aspect just simply due to a label, that is chosen merely for convenience. A label does not define a person. The person does.The only situation where you would have trouble “in labeling” would be the absolute rarity of exactly 50%/50%, which I find highly unlikely that anybody would be exactly 50-50. Someone claiming such a thing is likely doing so out of some inner need to declare a uniqueness and separation from humanity (in my opinion, of course).
But let’s say that this were true, or at the very least, a person couldn’t determine. I would say: simply pick one arbitrarily preferably one that matches biology (to make things like bathroom visits easier) . . . I fail to see the harm in a “label”. (As I said before, if someone called me a different label than “Steven”, I would not be offended.) OR do a Chinese astrology reading, one for males and one for females with the same birth data, and see which ten-year luck cycle fits better.
>>>”This person is a bisexual woman in an effeminate man’s body.”
Is this meant to be an “arbitrary” example, or are you trying to indirectly reveal how you describe yourself? 😉
Feel free to ignore this last comment if it makes you uncomfortable. 🙂
For starters, let’s leave out the word “bisexual”.
As I said before, sexual attraction doesn’t have anything to do with gender or polarity. It is a different issue entirely. Many try to make it a gender issue, but in my study of sexual orientation, it has become clear to me that it is a completely separate issue from gender identity. I think an individual can be gay and not have a high percent of spiritual “opposite gender” at all. Similarly a person can have a high percent of spiritual “opposite gender” within, yet be perfectly “straight” in a sexual orientation sense. These issues are disconnected actually.So let’s look a simpler example . . . if you say “woman in an effeminate man’s body”, you are already implying the spirit percentage is higher on the woman’s side, despite the biology, because you are saying “woman” (regardless of where that woman resides). Was this your intention? Then the answer would be to label the person “female”, despite society’s label of a specific biological presentation of genitalia being “male”.
BTW, as a sidebar, this also gets into interesting hot-button topics in the transgendered community. Many in such a position would feel a compulsion to begin a transition process culminating in a surgery. Although I’m sure many would get quite passionate and defensive against my opinion, to me such a process smells a bit like a lack of self-acceptance. I fail to see how the appearance of a person’s body defines anything; these are the labels we give them. In my opinion, it really has more to do with whether someone feels that others will accept them. For some, that might be very important, so I’m not disparaging those that feel they need to make such choices. If it is what is necessary to come more into alignment with self-acceptance, then good for them. But there is a subtle undercurrent of implied lack of self-acceptance in any kind of “reparation” process or treatment. Nevertheless, this is sort of my general opinion when there aren’t specific person-centered emotional responsibilities involved. If I had a specific interaction with a transgendered individual, and they felt strongly about a certain idea, and they wished to be supported, then they would have my unconditional support for whatever they wished for, in their specific situation. I try to treat people as individuals, rather than demanding they fit some absolute criteria. For me, it is more important the person I’m engaging with be happy and supported. This takes precedence over every other consideration (in my view).
>>>Lets say that woman born a man wants to
>>>store energy in the belly ocean and
>>>asks an HT instructor which direction/count
>>>sequence whether for M or Fthat she should use.
>>>She may or may not be offended if you explain
>>>to her that she was born male, and therefore
>>>should use that gender-specific practice.
>>>I know that it has happened with other traditions.
>>>If the direction/count is meaningless,
>>>then why have it? If it’s meaningful,
>>>then why do it “wrong” when you could
>>>meaningfully benefit from correct instruction.
>>>If correct instruction is not available,
>>>how do you find an answer? If you have
>>>no answer, then why not teach that?Similar to the Feng Shui and the Chinese Astrology example, I would say “try both, and see which feels better to you”. In my view, it goes back to the respect for the person involved, rather than try to force-feed some mental ideology. When such a choice is given, and the person has the option to pick which feels better for them, the decided choice is always the correct one regardless of any kind of textbook criteria.
Generally speaking, whenever there are practices in the Healing Tao that say “men should do it *this way* and women should do it *that way*”, I usually ignore such things. Usually I just have everybody do it both ways. And if it is a situation where it is important to go in one direction only, I still usually have everyone try it both ways . . . then ask everybody to pick the one that feels better to them.
By the way, the issue of “counting” is really unimportant when dealing with numbers greater than 10. It is a more a mechanism to determine a length of time for doing the practice than any importance due to numerology.
>>>”If the Healing Tao can save my immortal souls
>>>then how much are they worth? Is it worth stealing for?
>>>Surely Robin Hood would approve. I know Ikkyu stole money
>>>from a rich man’s funeral to feed the poor with…
>>>Is this basically the same thing? Is a cosmology
>>>that approves of the use of hope and fear better,
>>>worse, or not worth comparing to a cosmology
>>>that embraces losing either hope, fear, or hope
>>>and fear both? Is there really something to the
>>>classic human preoccupation with afterlife prep? On and on.”Without getting into a long discussion, I would say that for me, I tend to be an optimist. If you have passion and the Tao senses that, it will help you to find a way to make it possible. I already personally have had many direct experiences of this since investing energy in this path, so I’m even more solid in this opinion now.
>>>Yes, the question is about how much I need
>>>to study “knowledge” in order to live simply,
>>>but with entertainment and a commitment to a few relationshipsOnly you can answer that question.
For me, I feel I have more than enough . . . anything else is more for amusement.
The Healing Tao provides enough enriching tools, that I feel I can actually DO many different practices and focus more on self-exploration and growth, rather than seeking more “book knowledge” to feed the mind. The actual soul-evolution I get as a consequence from physically doing practices makes additional “book facts” pale as near-worthless by comparison.This is why–with the exception of responding to forum posts out of either amusement or desire to help support others–I don’t read into other things or spiritual texts or look up new things, etc. For me, these things just burn up my time on the planet, and I’d rather get the direct experience; it has shown itself to be far more valuable. Physically doing the practices provide far more nourishment to me than mental junk food.
Smiles to you,
StevenDecember 17, 2014 at 7:59 pm #43408Fool TurtleParticipantI really am delightedwe have some common ground, here, and I feel good about your response. Thanks to your ability to decipher my muddy language, I think that I can tie together a few pieces that may make sense of my original question (more of an exploration than knowing where I was going, although much of the landscape was familiar).
“The Way has its reality and its signs
but is without action or form.
You can hand it down but you cannot receive it,
you can ignore it but you cannot see it.
It is its own source, its own root.
Before heaven and earth existed it was there,
from the ancient times.
It gave spirituality to the spirits and to God,
it gave birth to heaven and to earth.
It exists beyond the highest point,
and yet you cannot call it lofty;
it exists beneath the limit of the six directions,
and yet you cannot call it deep.
It was born before heaven and earth,
and yet you cannot say it has been there for long,
it is earlier than the earliest time,
and yet you cannot call it old.”– The Crookbacked Woman and the Sage
Chuang Tzu, Translated by Burton Watson, 1964
Crone Taoism“Daoism is fundamentally a religion that has to do with the whole of one’s body. To be sure beliefs and attitudes are important, but they are only one aspect of our embodied being. The operations of the mind and the spirit are understood in Daoism as organic functions of the energy systems of our bodies. Daoists are thus concerned with what they do with their bodies just as much as what they believe in minds for feel in their hearts.
Daoism is unusual in that it makes our entire human physiology from brains to livers, a central theme of its spirituality. The body in fact is the pre-eminent space in which Daoism operates. The body is the object of many Daoist practices and also the means by which Daoists engage in spiritual life and cultivate their nature.
The Daoists took the view that human nature is to be understood as the vitality that flows throughout the body and that could be cultivated in a variety of ways from simple physical exercise, to subtle forms of meditation, to elaborate communal rituals. Thus it is not surprising that Daoism developed in close concert with Chinese medicine: both are based on similar understandings of the body.
In order to understand Daoist practices it is essential, therefore, to have good understanding of the way in which Daoists understand the functioning of the human body.”– James Miller, Daoism: A Short Introduction, pp. 53-54
Mysterious Pearly Mirror of the Mind
Xuanshu Xinjing Zhu
By Jiao Shaoxuan, 817 CEAttainment of the Prime of the One
Is not a gift from Heaven.
Realization of the Great Nonbeing
Is the state of highest immortality.Light restrained, a hidden brilliance,
The body one with nature:
There is true peace, won but not pursued.
Spirit kept forever at rest.In serenity and beauty: this is perfection!
Body and inner nature, hard and soft,
All is but cinnabar vapor, azure barrens.
One of the highest sagesOnly after a hundred years
The tomb is discovered empty.– The Daoist Experience: An Anthology. Edited by Livia Kohn. New York, State
Univesity of New York (SUNY), SUNY Series in Chinese Philosophy
and Culture, 1993, p. 215.December 17, 2014 at 8:41 pm #43410Fool TurtleParticipantIsn’t philosophy terrible? Damnit, trinkets and toys that run on blood.
This post is false
1.1 Simple-falsity Liar
Consider a sentence named FLiar, which says of itself (i.e., says of FLiar) that it is false.FLiar:
FLiar is false.
This seems to lead to contradiction as follows. If the sentence FLiar is false is true, then FLiar is false. But if FLiar is false, then the sentence FLiar is false is true. Since FLiar just is the sentence FLiar is false, we have it that FLiar is false if and only if FLiar is true. But, now, if every sentence is true or false, FLiar itself is either true or false, in which casegiven our reasoning aboveit is both true and false. This is a contradiction. Contradictions, according to many logical theories (e.g., classical logic, intuitionistic logic, and much more) imply absurditytriviality, that is, that every sentence is true.An obvious response is to deny that every sentence is true or false, i.e. to deny the principle of bivalence. As we will discuss in §4, some descendants of this idea remain important in current work on the Liar. Even so, a simple variant Liar sentence shows that this immediate answer is not all there is to the story.
1.2 Simple-untruth Liar
Rather than work with falsehood, we can construct a Liar sentence with the complex predicate not true.[2] Consider a sentence named ULiar (for un-true), which says of itself that it is not true.ULiar:
ULiar is not true.…
A recent, major step towards supplementing Kripke’s framework with a suitable conditional is that of Field (2008). Field’s theory is a major advance, but complex enough to be beyond the scope of this (very basic) introduction. Readers should consult Field’s own discussion for a taste of how such a modification might proceed. See Field (2008), and further discussion in Beall (2009).
4.1.2 Paraconsistent
Here, the basic idea is to allow the contradiction (e.g., up to and including step 4 of the derivation in §2.3.3), but alter the logic by rejecting EFQand, hence, avoid the absurdity involved in step 5.
Like the paracomplete approach we just surveyed, paraconsistent approaches to the Liar find easy, natural motivation in transparency or otherwise suitably minimalist views of truth that require full intersubstitutability of A and Tr(⌜A⌝), and thus cannot restrict capture and release. But paraconsistent approaches have also found motivation in a Dummett-inspired anti-deflationist view, which takes the role of truth as the aim of assertion seriously (cf. Dummett (1959)). Indeed, Priest (2006) argues that this (non-transparency) view of truth motivates both the T-schema and LEM, and that this implies that the Liar sentence L is both true and not true. Hence, according to any such dialetheic line (according to which at least one sentence is both true and not true), the only option is to reject EFQ.
Dialetheism
Priest (1984, 2006) has been one of the leading voices in advocating a paraconsistent approach to solving the Liar paradox. He has proposed a paraconsistent (and non-paracomplete) logic now known as LP (for Logic of Paradox), which retains LEM, but not EFQ.[10] It has the distinctive feature of allowing true contradictions. This is what Priest calls the dialetheic approach to truth. (See the entry on dialetheism for a more extensive discussion.)
…
4.3.1 Instability and revenge
One way of thinking about why the truth predicate is not well-behaved on the Liar sentence is that there is not really a well-defined truth bearer provided by the Liar sentence. To make this vivid (as discussed by C. Parsons (1974) and subsequently Glanzberg (2001)), suppose that truth bearers are propositions expressed by sentences in contexts, and that the Liar sentence fails to express a proposition. This is the beginnings of an account of how the Liar winds up ungrounded or in some sense indeterminate. At least, we should not expect Tr to be well-behaved where sentences fail to express propositions.
But, it is an unstable proposal. We can reason that if the Liar sentence fails to express a proposition, it fails to express a true proposition. In the manner of a revenge paradox, if our Liar sentence had originally said this sentence does not express a true proposition, then we would have our Liar sentence back. And, we have shown that this sentence says something true, and so expresses a true proposition. Thus, from the assumption that the Liar sentence is indeterminate or lacks semantic status, we reason that it must have proper semantic status, and indeed say something true. We are hence back in paradox.
Contextualists do not see this as a new revenge paradox, but the basic problem posed by the Liar. First of all, in a setting where sentences are context dependent, the natural formulation of a truth claim is always in terms of expressing a true proposition, or some related semantically careful application of the truth predicate. But more importantly, to the contextualist, the main issue behind the Liar is embodied in the reasoning on display here. It involves two key steps. First, assigning the Liar semantically defective statusfailing to express a proposition or being somehow indeterminate. Second, concluding from the first step that the Liar must be trueand so not indeterminate or failing to express a propositionafter all. Both steps appear to be the result of sound reasoning, and so both must be true. The main problem of the Liar, according to a contextualist, is to explain how this can be, and how the second step can be non-paradoxical. (Such reasoning is explored by Glanzberg (2001, 2004c) and C. Parsons (1974). For a critical discussion, see Gauker (2006).)
Beall, Jc and Glanzberg, Michael, “Liar Paradox”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2014 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = .
December 17, 2014 at 9:30 pm #43412StevenModeratorWell, thank you too.
I hope these discussions have been helpful to you in some way.I also recognize that many of these topics that you have raised can be “hot-button topics” in the sense that they can be very difficult to discuss in a public setting. I honor and respect that as well. There can be a real palpable fear of perceived possible judgment that can inhibit a healthy discussion of these issues, especially if one is trying to do so publicly in front of others. So in that sense, I appreciate your courage in dipping your toes into these waters.
That said, if you wish to discuss any of these things further and you feel uncomfortable doing so in a public format, you are always welcome to contact me privately. My email is: steven@spiritualtao.com
Warm wishes to your continued unfolding . . .
Qi,
StevenDecember 17, 2014 at 10:01 pm #43414StevenModeratorTo simplify what this is all about:
As I said before, not every sequence of words that are strung together can be assigned a T/F value. The sentence I gave before: “This sentence is false.” is a perfect example of this.
Some people in philosophy and some in mathematical logic, like to devote energy toward such sentence constructions that have no determinate answer. What they are really doing is they are adding extra assumptions to “how they treat logic” to give the indeterminate sentence, a determined value . . . or create some way to assign T/F values to it. This is what these references re: LP, LEM, etc. are all about. But this is really nothing more than adding a conditional in front.
Adding a conditional adds onto the core essence of what you have to begin with, so to me, this is in some sense changing the base into something else, and I’ve always found this to be a bit questionable. A good mathematician knows that by adding extra assumptions, you can change the context to whatever you like.
In any case, after they do this, much of the philosophical arguments that then ensue revolve around “which” of these possible conditionals are better than others. And while they often use sophisticated arguments, it is like listening to two people arguing in court . . . it ends up being left up to the opinion of the listener as to which argument you “like” best.
Not to disparage those that make a living making research papers in these topics, but I can say it is not an area I feel much passion about. 🙂
Qi,
StevenDecember 18, 2014 at 3:21 am #43416Fool TurtleParticipantIt’s really nice, conversing. It’s rare to meet a genuine person, except in the comment sections of youtube videos (smilingyou’ll understand if you’ve watched Ultra Spiritual – After the Fame…). More to say, but, for now, I just want to say thanks and give you a poem, just inviting you to enjoy the fragrance of these words, without worrying about comprehension; just breathing it in, a gnarled old tree by the roadside on a long journey you may never make again (i say that you may not … I say that with the ambiguity allowed by language and philosophy alikein reality, well…
From the Large Jug, Drink
From the large jug, drink the wine of Unity,
So that from your heart you can wash away the futility of life’s grief.But like this large jug, still keep the heart expansive.
Why would you want to keep the heart captive, like an unopened bottle of wine?With your mouth full of wine, you are selfless
And will never boast of your own abilities again.Be like the humble stone at your feet rather than striving to be like a
Sublime cloud: the more you mix colors of deceit, the more colorless
your ragged wet coat will get.Connect the heart to the wine, so that it has body,
Then cut off the neck of hypocrisy and piety of this new man.Be like Hafiz: Get up and make an effort. Don’t lie around like a bum.
He who throws himself at the Beloved’s feet is like a *workhorse
and will be rewarded with boundless pastures and eternal rest.From: Drunk on the Wine of the Beloved
Translated by Thomas Rain Crowe*ox
Smiles
December 18, 2014 at 8:17 am #43418frechtlingParticipantYou guys are funny…
“Funny how? Like I’m some sort of clown?”
December 18, 2014 at 6:22 pm #43420StevenModeratorI never saw that movie; I had to look up that reference. 😉 S
December 18, 2014 at 7:31 pm #43422StevenModeratorNo problem; I was happy to. 🙂
Feel free to share more when you wish to.
Actually, send me an email if you could, FT, now there’s something I wish to talk with you about but I don’t yet have your contact info.Thanks,
StevenDecember 18, 2014 at 10:29 pm #43424Fool TurtleParticipantI didn’t catch the reference; however, I assumed that it was… I was most amusedand you, sir, are a wise man, indeed. Something to smile with…
Even a fool recognizes that there is great sadness in a bucket of tears. But only a wise man thinks to conserve water and use that bucket to wash his car.
Jarod Kintz, Great Listener Series Mute WomenTags: fool, humor, sadness, tear, wisdom, wise-man
likeDecember 18, 2014 at 10:38 pm #43426Fool TurtleParticipantI had the vague notion of emailing you. Perhaps I’m more spiritual than I thought! Yes, I’d be happy to hear what you’d like to discuss.
Just for fun, how about two poems?
This is me:
a rogue and a drunkard,
easy to spot
in the tavern of Lovers.
I am the one shouting hey ha.
They ask me why I dont
behave myself.
I say, when you
reveal your true nature,
then I will act my age.Last night, I saw Goodness getting drunk.
He growled and said,
I am a nuisance, a nuisance.
A hundred souls cried out, but
we are yours, we are yours, we are yours.
You are the light
that spoke to Moses and said
I am God, I am God, I am God.
I said Love, who are you?
He said, I am you, I am you, I am you.from RUMI
Shahram ShivaI KNOW THE WAY YOU CAN GET
I know the way you can get
When you have not had a drink of Love:Your face hardens,
Your sweet muscles cramp.
Children become concerned
About a strange look that appears in your eyes
Which even begins to worry your own mirror
And nose.Squirrels and birds sense your sadness
And call an important conference in a tall tree.
They decide which secret code to chant
To help your mind and soul.Even angels fear that brand of madness
That arrays itself against the world
And throws sharp stones and spears into
The innocent
And into one’s self.O I know the way you can get
If you have not been drinking Love:You might rip apart
Every sentence your friends and teachers say,
Looking for hidden clauses.You might weigh every word on a scale
Like a dead fish.You might pull out a ruler to measure
From every angle in your darkness
The beautiful dimensions of a heart you once
Trusted.I know the way you can get
If you have not had a drink from Love’s
Hands.That is why all the Great Ones speak of
The vital need
To keep remembering God,
So you will come to know and see Him
As being so Playful
And Wanting,
Just Wanting to help.That is why Hafiz says:
Bring your cup near me.
For all I care about
Is quenching your thirst for freedom!All a Sane man can ever care about
Is giving Love! Hafiz
December 20, 2014 at 1:04 am #43428Fool TurtleParticipantI do not believe, basically, that one can separate philosophy from practice when it comes to sex. Although there is so much that is of interest, here, in this following article, that it may warrant a separate thread, it very much applies to threads made lately.
YOU ARE HERE: EROS & GNOSIS: A GNOSTIC STUDY OF HUMAN SEXUALITY
Eros & Gnosis: A Gnostic Study of Human Sexuality
July 8, 2010 By davidjones
By Dr. STEPHAN A. HOELLER*************************************One or both of these links should take you to a little music to get you in the mood, if need be; namely, MindSex (uncensored) by Dead Prez
MindSex (uncensored) by Dead Prez
*************************************
Human beings are not only the funniest monkeys: they are the sexiest ones as well. In many ways we are a species singularly devoted to sex. We talk, write, read, joke and argue about it; we dress and undress for it, and, given favourable circumstances, we perform it regularly. More importantly, and sometimes lamentably, we have innumerable laws and commandments to organise, punish, curb, repress and otherwise influence sexual actions and feelings and have devised psychological penances of guilt and shame which we come to attach to our sexuality.
Because of these and related circumstances, most people are confused and bewildered about sex much of the time, and those who profess not to be thus flummoxed tend to take umbrage under clichés and half truths which they have consciously accepted, but which are not in harmony with either their instinctual or their spiritual natures.It goes without saying that if the Gnostic [or, Daoist/Taoist] worldview is any kind of a worldview at all, it must be able to address itself meaningfully to this predicament and thus to suggest spiritually sound ways in which men and women might successfully extricate themselves from the same. The present essay is an attempt to suggest some Gnostic ways of viewing and dealing with sexuality, and in offering it to the reader, the author is not unmindful of certain hazards.
Psychoanalyst Edward Glover once suggested that writing on psychologically charged subjects should be classified as a dangerous occupation. When in the course of such writing one happens to expose the unconscious motives of some persons, pandemonium is certain to follow. The psychologically exposed individuals frequently relieve their anxiety by attacking the writer who has presumed to disturb their precarious and cherished peace of mind. Martyrdom is surely not an uncommon experience to the Gnostic, and if some form of it befall the author, the risk will hopefully have been worth taking!The ancient term Gnosis has two very useful modern analogues; they are the words consciousness and meaning. Both of these are vitally important to any useful consideration of sexuality. Without consciousness, in the psychological sense, sexuality is a mere expression of instinct: Useful in its domain, but unrelated to the enhancement of life, to the experience of the fullness of being. With the coming of consciousness, all experiences, including the sexual ones, acquire meaning. As consciousness adds a greatly needed component to experience, so meaning brings us the experience of totality, of the fullness (Pleroma) extolled by the Gnostics.
Between the reality of our lives lived in time and the quality of lifes timelessness, between our personal and mundane experiences and the realm which transcends the tangible world, there exists a creative tensional relationship of opposites. The Apostle Thomas, reporting the words of Jesus, reminds us that the saving, or Christ principle, always comes to us to make the two into one, to unite the above and the below, the left and the right, the inner and the outer, and the male and the female into a single one.
The reconciling agent of all such opposites is meaning. When, on the other hand, the tension between the poles of existence is lacking, then, as C.G. Jung has expressed it, human beings have the feeling that they are haphazard creatures without meaning, and it is this feeling that prevents them from living their lives with the intensity it demands if it is to be enjoyed to the full. Life becomes stale and is no longer the exponent of the complete human being. (Analytical Psychology and Weltanschauung).
Sexuality is one of the most important tensional relationships of the opposites in life. It is therefore evident that it must have, it does have, great meaning. To leave such a rich mine of meaning, of Gnosis, unexplored would be a grave omission indeed. Let us then proceed with our exploration. As it is useful in such cases, we shall proceed from the ground upwards, as it were, and begin with the evidence of the physical aspect of humankind by reviewing the evidence of biology.
At this point, if you are sufficiently interested, here is the full article. Below, I’ll trim the fat a bit to reveal what I find most striking and therefore worth considering.
The Gnosis of Biology
The human is the sexiest animal on earth. No other sexually reproducing species makes love with such frequency, and consequently, sexually toned behaviour saturates a large portion of the individual and social life of every man and woman. There is a biological reason for this.
…Dr. Fisher writes: With the stimulus of constantly available sex, protohominids had begun the most fundamental exchange the human race would ever make. The fundamental exchange consisted in bringing males and females more closely together than hitherto would have been possible. The bond of constant sexual interest kept them together in each others company; it made them divide their labours, to exchange food, to share the daily work and joys of living. Men and women became aware of each other emotionally, and eventually mentally and intuitively as the result of the sexual force which tied them together, creating a never abating forcefield of dynamic tension between them. Sex has become the progenitor of affection, love, relatedness, and above all, consciousness. From purely biological data we may thus infer with some justification that the coming of unlimited sexual expression became the fountain and origin of vast achievements of human consciousness which otherwise could and would not have come to pass. The implications of this insight for past, present and future are large indeed, and should be apparent to all.
…
The Gnosis of Psychohistory
Human biology has its history, and so does the human mind, or psyche. As one might expect, the importance of sexuality and of its influence on various aspects of human life are very much part of this history of the mind.
Psychohistorians, whose theories contain elements relevant to the concerns of sexuality, are numerous…
The protopsychology of the ancient Gnostics (as well as of others in the Hellenistic culture) perceived three main divisions of the human person. The first of these is matter, or body (hyle, soma); the second mind, or soul (psyche); and the third spirit (pneuma). The existential point of gravity of a persons life moves according to certain patterns from one of these three to the others, and an individuals type (today called psychological type) would be determined by which one of these three principles acts as the primary focus of his or her consciousness…
The presence of any individual within one or the other of these three categories is not a matter of accident, but rather of a transformational growth and development or consciousness, which begins with the material plane and rises eventually to the spiritual.
When we apply this Gnostic idea to the matter of human sexuality we may find some useful insights. There is, first of all, what we might call a hyletic (matter oriented) type of sexuality. To persons of this type sexuality is primarily a bodily urge, largely unrelated to any feeling or regard for the partner in sex, and originally even quite unaware of the possible results of copulation in reproduction. In a sense, we might say that persons in this stage of development are not participating in a sexual act, but they are identified with it. An interesting phenomenon connected with this is the identification of persons with their sexual organs, as evidenced by works of much primitive art, where men and women are represented with disproportionately large sexual organs. Similarly one may note the use of words denoting sexual organs when describing an individual in the idiom of obscene slang. All of these are evidences of the identification of the entire person with sex. Men are merely phallus bearers and women vagina-carriers; they are not persons, but embodiments of their sexuality. Hyletic sexuality in its later stages also becomes involved in the idea of offspring. Men thus come to look upon their mates not as persons but as the potential or actual mothers of their children, and women look upon men as beings capable of giving them children. In each case we are dealing with a primitive phenomenon, a manifestation of hyletic or biological urges. (It needs to be recognised that the urge to have offspring is just as primitive and unconscious an urge as the one moving to sexual intercourse. The notion that the desire for children is somehow more moral and refined than the desire for sex is nonsense!) Freudian psychohistorians tend to call the hyletic phase of sexuality matrist, by identifying it with the archaic domination of children by the Mother. Matrist sexuality is quite permissive, even promiscuous and polymorphous, and leads to the formation of shame cultures and the development of the incest taboo. The term oral is applied to its quality by Freudian writers.
In the next stage of development, sexuality becomes linked with emotion and thinking. Ego-development having taken place, consciousness now wishes to subdue the unconscious and thus develops numerous devices for the control of impulse. This is the greatest period of sexual repression and the phase when issues of law and commandment take on a great importance. The Gnostic terminology calls this phase the psychic, for it is here that the mind-emotion complex called psyche (soul, or mind) becomes dominant. Mythologically and symbolically this ego or mind is frequently connected with the masculine principle, and thus we find that psychic humanity tends to be patriarchal and masculine in its orientation and consequently a negative view of femininity and of female sexuality predominates. Men in their desire for impulse control begin to view women as temptresses, as instinctual creatures who have to be subdued and controlled. Jungian psychology calls this the patriarchal phase while Freudian writers refer to it as patrist or father-identifying, and its predominant tendency is said to be anal. It is obvious that the dominant cultural influences of Western society are predominantly of this variety, and that most of these influences stem from religious roots within the semitic religiosity of Judaism, Islam and non-Gnostic Christianity. This phase of the development of consciousness is greatly attached to the institution of marriage, and its chief taboos are against adultery and homosexuality. Its result is the so-called guilt culture.The third, or pneumatic, phase is the most difficult to discuss, because it denotes a form or state of consciousness that is as rare today as it was in the second and third centuries A.D. There is little doubt, however, that several ancient Gnostic teachers, most notably Valentinus, envisioned this spiritual condition as a union of the masculine and feminine aspects of the human being with a consequent androgynation, which undoubtedly would have its reflection in the sexual sphere also. While the anti-Gnostic church fathers with fierce inconsistency accused the Gnostics of excessive asceticism and licentiousness in the same breath, the more recent discoveries of Gnostic writings indicate that the Gnostics were intent upon a mysterious pneumaticisation of sexuality, which process was embodied in the Valentinian sacrament of the bridal chamber. One of the chief results of the pneumatic state of Gnosis is the ability of the Gnostic to rise above the law (antinomianism) and to be motivated no longer by the external commandment of so-called revelation, but rather by the internal command of the indwelling divine spirit.This might be envisioned as the highest form of situation ethics, inspired by intuition, rather than by any rational considerations. The principle is compatible both with the ethics of existential philosophy and with Jungian psychology. The pneumatic Gnostic can no longer rely on any external commandment but must live by the existential courage of daily moral decisions. In Sartre swords, he is doomed to freedom. C.G. Jung also envisioned a condition within the individuation process where in the moral laws of society and church are relativated and indeed rendered meaningless by the spiritual growth of the individual. Right and wrong become a matter of personal choice based on spiritual insight, rather than standards derived from a code delivered by god or by society.
The sexual implications of the pneumatic phase of the growth of consciousness are considerable. With the fusion of the masculine and feminine attitudes in the psyche, a fully mature sexuality may be expected to arise. Love becomes the fulfilling of the law, and it goes without saying that this love will have sexual expressions as well. Neither will the expressions of this love be in any way limited by human institutions and prejudices whether they concern marital status, the gender of the beloved or the permanence or impermanence of the love relationship. The spirit bloweth where it listeth; human institutions and earthly considerations must pale before the pneumatic love.
The accusation of libertinism hurled against the Gnostics by Irenaeus, Hypolitus and others is thus revealed as the sort of misunderstanding the contemporary Gnostic might face also. The intuitive morality of the pneumatic can be readily confused by the uncomprehending with hyletic, immorality and amorality, while it is nothing of the sort. The pneumatic phase bears, incidentally, all the hallmarks of what Erich Neumann called the integrative phase, and its characteristics are to some extent identical with what Freudian psychologists envision as genital sexuality.
Different Strokes for Different Gnostic Folks
The above noted psychohistorical considerations raise important issues which might be of concern to contemporary Gnostics. Are all Gnostics obliged to follow the pneumatic ethic at all times? Is psychic morality, especially in the sexual area, still relevant to the Gnostic? Have we all successfully outgrown hyletic modes of behaviour? And how are the answers to these questions likely to affect the sexual behaviour of the contemporary Gnostic?
Our situation might be summed up as follows: We live in a culture which ostensibly follows a psychic system of morality in sexual matters, but which is in practice more often than not composed of persons whose character is hyletic. Pneumatics are far and in between, and usually hidden away in the secret corners of contemporary life. Moreover, all persons possess hyletic, psychic, and pneumatic components in their character, with one or the other predominating. It is thus evident that most persons, including Gnostics, will express their sexuality sometimes in ways that are hyletic, at other times they may be attached to attitudes that are predominantly psychic and in some instances they may be capable of behaviour that may be properly recognised as pneumatic. Most people may also go through these phases in their own lifetimes. It is by no means unusual for early youth to be sexually quite hyletic (a sort of adolescent sexuality, as it were), for young adulthood to be involved in the marital and societal ambiance of a psychic sexual morality, and for the middle-aged person to achieve a matter-of-fact and liberated attitude toward sexuality, without serious inhibitions and guilts; in short, an attitude that approximates that of the pneumatic.
Since it would be reasonable to say that modern Gnostics may thus find persons of all three orientations in their midst, it might be helpful to present here a few brief guidelines for all three types regarding sexuality.
The hyletic needs to be reminded that, while hyletic sexuality is no more sinful or less virtuous than any other kind, it is still limiting and limited. Indiscriminate sexual behaviour is characterised by unconsciousness and this is a condition one ought to outgrow. Still, no one can be equally conscious of all aspects of life at all times, and a relatively high level of consciousness in one area may be accompanied by a relatively low level in another. The key concept must always be authenticity. If our behaviour has adduced to it as much consciousness as we could muster under the circumstances, this should be enough. There should be no judging of anyone for his or her sexual mores. Authenticity by nature is a highly personal issue. One person may be far more authentic and conscious while associating with multiple sexual partners than another locked into a rigid psychic cage of so-called monogamy. Striving for consciousness will inevitably bring its own reward and is far more useful than blind obedience to external rules.The psychic person may prove more troublesome within a Gnostic context than either the hyletic or the pneumatic. Unlike the happy-go-lucky hyletics, psychics tend to be rigid personalities with a strong proclivity for projecting their own shadows, especially their sexual shadows on others. They tend to be judgmental, intolerant and self-righteous. In short, they are a mess, or at least they appear as such. Psychics ought to remember that goodness, by anyones standards, including their own, is never enough. Wholeness, not goodness, is the objective of the Gnostic life. Jung was fond of saying in truly Gnostic fashion: It is only the fullness of being that counts. Rules exist in order to be outgrown. We may not always be ready to outgrow them yet, but the desirability of the prospect must always be kept in mind. When following rules after the fashion of the psychic we but see through a glass darkly, and we should aspire to the clear vision face to face with authentic reality. While we must be careful not to judge the hyletic, we must often dissuade the psychic from judging everyone. Psychics may also be reminded that it is the psychic law alone that creates sin. I had not known sin but by the law said a Hebrew prophet. The harsher our own standards of judgement the greater will be our own guilt and spiritual impotence and the more our potential for liberation will diminish. Sexual guilt has been the greatest single curse the demiurge and his minions have hurled against humanity; it has been the blight of our culture, the stifler of creativity and the enemy of Gnosis. It must be recognised and its suggestion rejected at all times.
That rare bird known as the pneumatic, must above all, be discreet. Pneumatics have a divine right to their freedom, including their sexual freedom, but they have no right to bad manners. The spiritual nobility of the world must maintain decorum and discretion while exercising its prerogatives. The humourous adage often attributed to the British aristocracy of some time ago may be remembered here: Do what you wish, but dont do it in the road and frighten the horses. Politicised sexuality, such as we have experienced in the era of the various liberation movements often comes under the heading of bad manners. Rigid psychics will not be converted to a pneumatic point of view by being confronted with sexual behaviour inappropriate to their level of consciousness. Ill advised action inevitably creates reaction. Pneumatics need not be apologetic about their liberated state, and they need not dissimulate or be guilty of hypocrisy. At the same time they must extend to the unliberated the same freedoms they demand for themselves. Persons who flaunt their sexual unconventionality and wish to force everyone to bear their sexual foibles without complaint are usually hyletics putting on the mask of pneumatics. By their manners and their discretion ye shall know them could be said of the true pneumatics.
Conclusions for Daily and Nightly Life
It is a cliché that we live in an era of great sexual confusion. Clichés, however, are not usually untrue, they have merely become clichés by excessive repetition… some kinds of sex, such as those among loving, concerned, compatible partners are no doubt better than others.
Sex and the Sacred.
In many religions, both pre-Christian and contemporary, sexual practices play some part. While there is nothing inherently wrong with the notion that sexual acts and religious acts can converge, one must exercise considerable care when trying to apply such principles within a contemporary context…
The Gnostic tradition indicates that the early communities… practiced a supreme rite of pneumatic union, sometimes called the mystery of the bridal chamber which may have served as the prototype of many later rites of love-magic, symbolising the union of the lower personality with the heavenly pneuma, which may be envisioned as being of a contrasexual nature (female for men and male for women). The development of a conscious personality is one of the great achievements of Western spirituality. Persons love, unconscious beings merely copulate. Both actions are magical, but the former is preferable to the latter. There is no doubt that the magic of the sexes needs to be re-incorporated into religion, but we must take care that in attempting to do this we will not resort to archaic practices which were useful in periods of history when consciousness and personality were minimal compared to contemporary conditions.
Marriage.
..the early Church, along with the Valentinians, knew only one true marriage: the heavenly marriage of the personality to the spirit. .
Homosexuality, bisexuality, and androgyny.
It is generally understood that at the non-physical level, people are not limited to their bodily gender. Jesus declared in the Gnostic scriptures that he came to make the male and the female into a single one, so that the male will not be male and the female not be female. We may take this to mean that in order to attain to the Wholeness of the Pleroma, all persons are striving toward a spiritual androgyny. In the hyletic phase of development this often manifests as polymorphous bisexuality, in the psychic phase as homosexuality, and in the pneumatic phase it moves increasingly into the area of a spiritually based androgyny. None of these are sinful or should be condemned in Gnostic thinking. The idea of a crime against nature is meaningless to the Gnostic, for our nature is not merely physical nature, such as our gender, but our total nature within which all dualities exist. When asked about homosexuality, the great modern Gnostic C.G. Jung merely said: Well, they are the only people who are trying doing something against over-population. The attraction of persons of the same gender toward each other meets with the most powerful taboos of the patriarchal-psychic phases of cultural development and is therefore encumbered by many unnecessary ideas and apprehensions.
…A family ought to act as a springboard to life and to people and not as a fortress wherein a small nucleus of persons shuts itself in, while shutting the greater world out.
Sex and the procreation of offspring. As one may deduce from various foregoing statements, the Gnostic cannot endorse the teaching that sex exists purely for the purpose of procreation. Such a view, even though held by theologians, is utterly un-spiritual and smacks of the worst kind of materialistic myopia. By this we mean that parenthood is but one of lifes functions, and it ought not to obtain ascendancy over all others. Children require parenting for only a certain period of their lives, and when parents fail to recognise this, untold unhappiness may result. Women, particularly, have been shunted by culture and religion into the over sentimentalised and inflated role of motherhood, and while starring in this role, have often forgotten how to be women. Monkish prudery being unable to accept the feminine in any other aspect but the maternal, the feminine ideal in Christendom became the mother, which condition in turn limited and constricted the psychic and physical lives of women.
One of the great tasks of modern Gnosticism is to restore the dignity and importance of the feminine within a spiritual context and this task includes liberating the feminine from such confining expressions as mother and virgin (not to speak of the biological absurdity of virgin mother.) As motherhood and fatherhood are but one of the possible by-products of human sexuality, so it is obvious that sexuality has far more and vaster functions in life than merely serving as a vehicle for procreation. Love, affection, relatedness, spiritual bonding; all of these are facilitated and enhanced by sex. Sex, we need to state again, is beneficial to humanity physically, psychologically, and spiritually. Procreation, on the other hand, is assuredly not always beneficial to the human race.Sexual Libertarianism
Gnostic teachers and leaders would have no difficulty in agreeing with the following example of libertarian reasoning: You as a person are better able to control your life than I am. Your life is your personal affair, for· better or for worse, except as in the living of your life you may impair or endanger the life and livelihood of others. No person nor set of persons on this earth has any logical right to interfere with you except as you may do injury to them. (A Libertarians Platform by James C. Ingebretsen). Even as the political, economic, and religious lives of people are their personal affair, so are their sexual lives…
It must be kept in mind that Gnostic libertarianism is not a mere matter of political or economic expediency. In reality this libertarianism is rooted in the most fundamental features of the Gnostic mythos, which has as its central theme the liberation of the incarcerated divine spirit from all bonds imposed upon it by the false cosmos of the demiurge. Early Christian leaders, even when not manifestly of the Gnostic fold, have often echoed the libertarian expressions of the Gnostic attitude. St. Paul the Apostles bold statement: All things are permissible unto me, as well as St. Augustines adage: Love God and then do as you please indicate that the Christian message was intended to replace the law of Jehovah, with the sovereignty of the individual soul restored by the new covenant of love. The relationship between freedom and love has been noted by many wise souls in many traditions, including in that of India, where we find a formulation of the five degrees of love through which the worshipper receives increase in what in our own tradition we might call Gnosis. The first degree of love, we are told, is the love of servant for the master, the second of comrade for comrade, the third that of parent for child, the fourth that of spouses for each other, and the fifth, or highest degree, is defined as passionate and illicit, that is, not sanctioned by any rule of society or of reason; a love totally unrestrained by any limitation whatsoever.
This fivefold system of varieties of love shows not only an increase of intensity from stage to stage, but also, and most importantly, an increase of freedom. What began as servitude ends in total freedom. As restraint gives way to freedom, the force of love increases, until it becomes the supreme liberating influence of being. Now this concept, or rather reality, is not unknown in Western mysticism. Even as we may rightfully assume that the Gnostic mystery of the bridal chamber was a spiritual rite, which yet was not without the physically sexual concomitant, so we know that from a certain time onward the alternative mystical tradition of the West came to abrogate the dualism of orthodox Christianity regarding love, and came to replace it with a unitary experience which was at once spiritual and physical. Medieval Christian orthodoxy insisted on the duality of eros (fleshly, or sexual love) and agape (spiritual love, or charity). The Gnostic tradition, whether expressed by Valentinus in Alexandria, or by the troubadours in medieval France has as its objective to make the two into one by uniting eros with agape and replacing both with the higher synthesis, called by troubadours amor. Amor is neither fleshly nor ghostly, neither sensual nor spiritual, but partaking of both qualities represents a totally new quality. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. This whole, or rather wholeness, is none other than the terrestrial epiphany of the Pleroma. Sexual and non-sexual love combine to bring forth the ineffable greatness in human life.
Here then is to be found the royal secret of sexuality. As consciousness frees itself of the thralldom of the unconscious, and with it from the taboos, fears, and guilts inculcated by society and exoteric religion, the liberating force of eros joins the inspiring energy of agape. This mystic union then produces an explosion of freedom, a leap of liberty of unbelievable power. The sexual libertarianism of the Gnostic has now born its aeonial fruit, the great dénouement of the age long process has come. Sex is important because it liberates, and in order to liberate sexuality itself must possess an optimum degree of freedom.Humans are sexual and spiritual beings at once. When one or the other of these dualities is repressed or neglected, disunity and torment prevail. When both are united in freedom, true liberation and joy manifest. Therefore we must be free: Free to live intellectually, emotionally, and indeed sexually. We must be free to experiment, to fail and to succeed, to be perplexed and to be enlightened. The day of the old law of restriction must be declared defunct and the dawn of the new law of freedom must be ushered in. In stating this we are not proclaiming a novelty. We have the words of St. Paul to the Romans saying: God has consigned all men to disobedience, that he may show his mercy to all. Jesus said: Judge not that you may not be judged. And Heraclitus the Greek sage wrote: To God all things are fair and good and right, but men hold some things wrong and some right. Good and evil are one. The great and terrible truth is: That we must be free, lest we perish; that we are condemned to freedom, that the undying obligation of self-liberation has been imposed upon us before the world began, yea, even before the creator of this world came to be. We were not born to abide by the dark laws, and to wear the blackened chains of the rulers of this world, but to be free, liberated consciously divine children of the light. As a Gnostic hymn put it: Ours is the voice of awakening in the eternal night. Due to the design of heaven this voice is uttered not by one, but by two; not by man alone or by woman by herself but by both in unison. The voice of awakening is at least in part a sexual voice; the hymn is not merely one of praise but of passion. Today as ever the words of Goethe remind us of the Gnostic truth:
Mann und Weib, Weib und Mann,
Reichenandie Gottheit an.
(Man and Woman, Woman and Man,
Together they reach Divinity.)*************************************
What I’ve Become by Lamb of God
What I’ve Become by Lamb of God
*************************************
The above essay first appeared in Abraxas 84, published by Ecclesia Gnostica, 1984, and is reprinted here by permission of the author.
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STEPHAN A. HOELLER, Ph.D., is an author and lecturer on Gnosticism, Jungian psychology, Theosophy, and other esoteric subjects. He is also presiding bishop of Ecclesia Gnostica (www.gnosis.org) and director of studies of the Gnostic Society in Hollywood, California. His works include Gnosticism: New Light on the Ancient Tradition of Inner Knowing and Freedom: Alchemy for a Voluntary Society (both published by Quest Books). Dr. Hoellers lectures are also available for download from http://www.bcrecordings.com.
The above article appeared in New Dawn No. 121 (July-August 2010).
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December 28, 2015 at 12:14 pm #43430rideforeverParticipantWhen we use the words man and woman we are talking about the design of our bodies created by Nature.
What is Natural and simple then is to simply follow it.
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