Date: Wed, 3 Sep 1997 19:49:38 -0500 From: BARBARA HARRIS Subject: TECH: EXER: Symbols-5: Androgyne -- [ From: Barbara Harris * EMC.Ver #2.5.3 ] -- Hi All, This week's symbol is the ANDROGYNE, which has showed up in filler posts lately. **WARNING: SEXUAL CONTENT!** Well, this list has been accused of being sexually obsessed, so read this... then write about it! !! From: _An Illustrated Encyclopaedia of Traditional Symbols_ by J.C. Cooper: (There is a fascinating illustration of an androgyne from Mylius' 17th century alchemical treatise, _Philosophia Reformata_. They considered the androgyne illustrated the united male and female principle, and was the purpose and end of alchemy and, indeed of human endeavour. The drawing is of a human figure with two heads, one male, the other female, both wearing crowns. S/he stands on a crescent moon which seems to be on the edge of land and water, with a goblet holding three serpents in one hand, a bird, maybe a raven, in the other. Beside the figure is an evergreen tree with a face (possibly full moon, possibly human) at the end of each branch and a sun face at the top.) ANDROGYNE: Primordial perfection; wholeness; the "coincidentia oppositorum"; the unconditional state; autonomy; paradise regained; the reunion of the primordial male-female forces; the union of heaven and earth, king and queen, the two becoming the One, the all-father, all- mother. In Alchemy the Great Work is the producing of the perfect androgyne, mankind restored to wholeness. It is symbolized by the male- female figure or the two-faced head of king and queen, or the red man and his white wife. Symbols of this state of unity among the gods are: the androgynous Zervain, Persian god of Limitless Time; in Greek mythology Chaos and Erebus are neuter. Zeus and Heracles are often dressed as women; in Cyprus there is the bearded Aphrodite; Dionysius has feminine features; the Chinese God of Night and Day is androgynous and the perfection of the androgyne is also represented by the yin-yang symbol and by the yin-yang "Spiritually Endowed Creatures", the Dragon, Phoenix and Ky-lin which can all be the yin or yang or both. In Hinduism there is the shakta-shakti and certain divinities, notably Siva , are depicted as physically half-male, half-female. Shamanism and initiation ceremonies use transvestitism; Baal and Astarte are androgynes; early "Midrashim" show Adam as androgynous, and in Plato's _Symposium_ man was originally bisexual. Other androgynous symbols are: the lotus, palm tree, arrow, anchor, dot-in-circle, transvestism, serpent, scarabaeus, bearded women. Before the Great Mother, the Primordial Mother, the "Tellus Mater" was a-sexual or androgynous. TRANSVESTISM: Symbolizes identity with the qualities of the original wearer; the return to primordial chaos. Orgies, the Saturnalia, the Twelve Days of Christmas, carnivals, "fancy dress", all use transvestism as a symbol of the undifferentiated, primeval unity; it is also employed in the worshop of androgynous deities such as Baal and Ashtoreth and Venus Mylitta. "Hear us Baal! whether thou be a god or a goddess!" (Arnobius) Transvestism is also found in Shamanism and in many initiation cermonies where it can also imply loss of identity, i.e. death before rebirth. Wearing a woman's clothing, or the mother's clothing, in initiation rites symbolizes the return to the womb. _______________________________________________ From: _The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets_ by Barbara G. Walker: ANDROGYNE: Many Indo-European religions tried to combine male and female in the Primal Androgyne, both sexes in one body, often with two heads and four arms. The Brhadaranyaka Upanishad said the Primal Androgyne was "of the same size and kind as man and woman closely embracing." Some said the male and female elements lived together in one skin, experiencing constant sexual bliss and spiritual completeness. Shiva and Shakti-Kali appeared as the androgyne Ardhanarisvara, the right side male, the left side female. Rudra, the older form of Shiva, was known as "the Lord Who is Half Woman." Brahma and Vishnu also appeared as bisexual beings united with their Shaktis. Chinese Taoists held the mandala of Yang and Yin to represent the androgyne. Western myths also assigned androgyny to the elder gods or the first human beings. The Orphic creation myth said the firstborn deity was a double-sexed Phanes or Eros, "Carnal Love," whose female half was Psyche , the soul, Greek equivalent of Shakti. Hermes owed his phenomenal wisdom to his former androgynous existence with Mother Aphrodite, as double-sexed Hermaphroditus. Often, the androgyne appeared in myth as male-female twins born simultaneously, e.g. Isis-Osiris, Jana-Janus, Diana-Dianus, Fauna-Faunus , Helen-Helenus, or Artemis-Apollo, the "moon and sun" united in their Mother's womb. Probably an androgynous image on Apollo's altar at Delos gave rise to the story that he copulated with his sister Artemis on that altar. Several forms of the sun god were represented as requiring close physical union with the moon goddess, as even Brahma was useless without his female counterpart Bhavani, "Being." Egypt's "supreme" sun god was often and androgyne; the sun was his right eye, the moon his left. The same adrogynous being is still worshipped in Dahomey as Nana-Buluku, Moon-Sun, who created the world and gave birth to the first pair of human beings. Many myths model the first human beings on the androgyne. Persians said the first pair in the garden of Heden (Eden) lived together in one body, until Ahura Mazda separated them. Jewish imitators of the Persians also said Adam and Eve were united in a bisexual body. Some rabbinical sources said Eve was not "taken out of" Adam; they wree parted from one another by a jealous God who resented their sexual bliss , which was too Godlike for human beings, and should be reserved for deities. Casting man out of the "garden" meant detaching him from the female body, often symbolized by the Hebrew pardes, "garden." This was another way of saying the original sin that angered God was not disobedience but sex. Greek myths of the Golden Age told the same tale of a jealous God: Zeus , who punished humanity's friend Prometheus with eternal toruture because he tricked the Heavenly Father for humanity's advantage. The people of the Golden Age had been created androgynous by Prometheus, who made their bodies of clay, and Athene, who gave them life. Father Zeus took out his anger on them by tearing them apart. A piece of clay was torn out of the female part and stuck to the male part. That is why women have an orifice that bleeds, and men have a loose dangling appendage that seems not to belong to them but always craves to return to the female body it came from. Cruel Zeus permitted human beings to return the male appendage to its female home sometimes, to sense for a brief moment the bliss of their former bisexual existence. Some Gnostic mystery cults of the first centuries A.D. taught Tantric techniques to prolong the moment of bliss, which angered most forms of the Heavenly Father including the Christian one, whose bishops denounced this training as schooling in wickedness. Church fathers especially deplored making - or remaking - the Beast with Two Backs, another term for the Primal Androgyne. Though orthodox Christianity renounced both sexuality and androgyny in religious images, Gnostic Christians used them. As Kali was the female half of Shiva, so the Gnostic Great Mother Sophia was the female half of Christ. This was revealed "in a great light": the Savior was shown as an androgyne coupled with Sophia, Mother of All. Gnostic Christians said those who received the true revelation of the Father-Mother spirit were the only ones prepared for the secret sacrament called apolytrosis, "release", a concept identical with Tantric "moksha" or "liberation." Obviously influenced by Tantrism or its prototype, western Gnostics had made a direct translation of the Hindu Yab-Yum, "Father-Mother", the sexual union of a sage and his Shakit at the crucial moment of death. Sexual sacraments were in effect practicing for that mometn, when the enlightened one would be restored to the condition of primordial bliss as an androgynous creature. The Naasenes said no enlightenment was possible without the Father- Mother spirit, an androgyne sometimes called Heavenly Horn of the Moon. In the 5th century A.D., Orphic initiations sought to awaken a female spirit within man, to render him sensitive to the message of the Mysteries. After meeting the deities in a death-and-rebirth experience, he carried a bowl, emblem of the womb, and touched his belly like a gravid woman, signifying "a spiritual experience uniting the opposed ways of knowledge of the male and female, and fused with this idea is that of a new life conceived within. Such Gnostic subtleties were disliked by the orthodox, who viewed all mergings of the sexes as unequivocally sinful. After Gnostic sects were crushed, the androgyne was consigned to hell and gave birth to many curious devils with both male and female attributes. A 16th century book showed Satan himself seated on a throne, wearing a papal tiara, with bird feet, a female face in his genital area, and pendulous female breasts. The Devil of the Tarot pack was usually androgynous, as were many of the devils represented in cathedral carvings. ____________________________________________ That's all for this one! Love & Light, Barbara -- &*&*&*&*&*&*&*&*&*&*&*&*&*&*&*&*&*& "Much Madness is divinest Sense- To a discerning Eye- Much Sense-the starkest Madness- 'Tis the Majority In this, as All, prevail- Assent-and you are sane- Demur-you're straightway dangerous- And handled with a Chain-" -Emily Dickinson &*&*&*&*&*&*&*&*&*&*&*&*&*&*&*&*&*& TCZJ32B@Prodigy.com