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Maleness

13:58 / 04.03.03

This may well have been covered before... but anyway. While there are plenty of men I really like, I find myself having a problem with the maleness of gods. Of course I could just deal with goddesses and those of other/indeterminate gender but it bothers me I am having this difficulty. I'm probably not putting this very well, and this might not even be one for the Magick forum. But does anyone have any idea how to get over issues with maleness in relation to deities?

14:24 / 04.03.03

Quite tricky to answer without more detail to go on about your specific situation, so this will probably be a bit superficial.

I think building relationships with entities can sometimes be difficult and occasionally fraught at the best of times. If you're doing it right, then it shouldn't neccesarily be a walk in the park. When you contact/work with a Goddess or God, you're moving into their turf and building a connection between what they are and what you are. Sometimes this can force you into areas which you find incredibly uncomfortable and difficult to handle, depending on the entity / personality in question and your sense of affinity with them. E

Examining your relationships with Goddesses/Gods can be an interesting method of learning a lot about the structure of your own personality, and thereby developing or introducing new or supressed traits. If, for example, you felt you had a problem with a particular area of human expression (love, aggression, confidence, fear, or whatever), then working with an entity associated with the traits you feel you lack, can be a good way of moving into their territory and expanding the boundaries of what you think you can be. Although there's probably safer and easier ways of doing this, as entity work can be incredibly intense. I'm not sure how much sense this is making.

14:29 / 04.03.03

I think I need to take a two-pronged attack on this - actual magical stuff and dealing with my issues in therapy or summat. I probably ought not to have posted this, but it is something that has caused me problems. I'm a beginner, so not planning anything too heavy, but I feel like I've already hit the wall over this knee-jerk reaction to male aspects...

14:29 / 04.03.03

I think they way in which I would handle this is to try and keep in mind that gender is not something that is especially relevant to Deity as such. It's relevant to society, and we who live in societies have to deal with whatever laws or cultural standards that particular society imposes upon us. Gender is used as a major means of differentiation between people in a given society. But when an individual feels a connection with a Deity or group of Deities, gender is only as relevant as the individual wants it to be.

Gods are not men. Men can interpret Gods in their image, and disseminate this interpretation; you can request contact for yourself, and choose your own interpretation.

I'll put some more thought into this and get back to you re: dealing with the fear and the misanthropy. It's very brave of you to get to the point where you want to get past that, and I don't want to give you a rushed answer.

14:32 / 04.03.03

On one level I'm aware that gods aren't men, and I should be able to get past this by rationalising it. But at the moment the area I'm exploring is witchcraft and I'm really, really uneasy with the Triple God thing, because several of the men who've had any real influence on my life have been overbearing and abusive.

Thanks, folks... I kind of just needed to get it out there so I could think about it better... and wondered what other people thought.

14:35 / 04.03.03

My above post seemed to tail off a little there, I feel like I'm half asleep at the moment, so apologies. What I was trying to get across was something like: working with male entities could conceivably be approached as a means of working through the various issues you have with maleness as a concept. A lot of Gods do represent an archetypal form of maleness, therefore you are exploring your emotional reactions to this concept at an archetypal level. It may be the case that very positive things could come out of this, but it also has the potential to be difficult and possibly dangerous - depending on who you're working with and how you manage to get along with them whilst you're working out any difficulties.

14:52 / 04.03.03

Thank you. I had sort of tentatively put feelers out in that direction - I think it is something that, done carefully, could help, as long as I'm dealing with my issues on an emotional level also. Balance is what I'm after, which is tricky because of my experiences and my mental make-up... but Babooshka and Gypsy Lantern, your input has really helped me think through this stuff more clearly.

16:02 / 04.03.03

Maybe try doing something "male" - like fishing, or martial arts, or really getting into sports or something. Just a thought.

16:28 / 04.03.03

I don't consider fishing, sports, martial arts or in fact anything a male preserve at all, not even on an emotional/learned level. But thank you for the suggestion. I'd be better off reinforcing my positive experiences with men, I reckon - perhaps even talking to my male friends about it.

16:43 / 04.03.03

But taking up martial arts is a great idea in and of itself. I'll steer clear of fishing though, I think. Golf is more appealing as far as slow sports which often require an umbrella goes...

18:05 / 04.03.03

the men who've had any real influence on my life have been overbearing and abusive.

Whether via magick or therapy, it sounds like this is something you should analyse. Do you have a history of letting abusive men get close to you? Why have you been drawn to them? Are you, on some level, attracted to the power they wield over you? Perhaps working with male deities may allow you to take back some of that power and integrate it into yourself.

I'm not looking for any answers here or making any offhanded assertions, just posing some questions that may be relavent to your situation. I have known other excellent women who habitually draw assholes into their lives...

18:23 / 04.03.03

I don't know what you think about the theory that there are male and female halves within each person, and one assumes dominance (kind of a Freud/Jung "all people are innately bisexual" thing). Maybe finding a deity that is more in tune with your personal concept of masculinity (or, the way men would behave if you ran the world) would be helpful. A less traditionally masculine God, who you would feel safer approaching.

18:52 / 04.03.03

Ok. First: dress extremely femenine, with a pink dress, etc. Then without removing your femenine clothes dress like a man and Try acting like a man for a whole day, walk, talk, look at other girls. Put on a false beard. Become a man for a day. Finally when you have experienced what it feels to be a man tear down your male clothes in the middle of a crowd.

18:53 / 04.03.03

And dont mind them gods, they are highly overrated

Tryphena Absent

18:57 / 04.03.03

And remember that witchcraft doesn't necessitate contact with any male deity. I rarely invoke any form of masculine God at all, the majority of any magical work I perform uses my patron and the most I touch on the God side of things is during the big summer festival rituals. So that's around three times a year. Certain Gods, I would argue are very male, bring with them an air of asserted masculinity when invoked so actually I'd disagree with everyone when they say Gods aren't male because after all our perception dictates that they are.

19:23 / 04.03.03

Yup...I know, Anna. And yes, certain gods can present as very male. But I feel like the maleness is something I need to get past, deal with, instead of just running away from, you know? And somehow I feel like avoiding the issue would be doing just that. If I work more with goddesses, then I want that to be a choice, not a fear thing.

16:32 / 05.03.03

How about working with both? Picking a pair and studying the ways in which they are matched in power, equal, balanced out of necessity as Yin and Yang are?

It's something of a tall order, I know, and may involve some creative license, but it may help.

Tryphena Absent

17:16 / 05.03.03

07:51 / 06.03.03

Picking a pair and studying the ways in which they are matched in power, equal, balanced out of necessity as Yin and Yang are?

That's a good idea. There's plenty of Goddesses & Gods who are closely associated with one another and balance each other in this way. I'm shallowly reminded of the final series of Xena where she kills all the Greek deities but has to leave Ares and Aphrodite to balance eachother out, because you can't have one without the other.

You might want to look into working with one of the various sets of Divine Twins found within world mythology, which seem to operate as a living expression of the more abstract Taoist concept of Yin/Yang. Frey and Freya from the Northern trad might be worth getting to know, if that sort of thing vibes with you, or you could take a pair of balanced twins of opposite sex from popular culture (nowt springs to mind immediatly) or make up 2 entities who represent the Divine Twins to you personally, exemplifying the highest (and lowest) qualities of both sexes. This might even be a better way forward than involving yourself with existing entities who will generally have their own additional cultural baggage which you will need to assimilate in order to work with them succesfully.

Meditation on the concept of Yin/Yang might be something to consider if you want to work at a more abstract level, perhaps in addition to entity work. Maybe consult the I-Ching on your perceived blockage as part of this work, the I-Ching generally delivers fine advice on stuff.