Quest Magazine

Printed in the  Fall 2018  issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: LeFevour, James, "Devata, Devi, and Logos" Quest 106:4, pg 26-28

By James LeFevour

In Hinduism, there are many pairs of male and female gods, devatas and devis, which express unique attributes or energies that interplay throughout the universe. The best-known are those of the Trimurti, the holy trinity of Hinduism: Brahma and his consort Saraswati, Vishnu and Lakshmi, and Shiva and Parvati. These pairs of devatas and devis represent a dual energy, called purusha and prakriti.

The Sankhya (or Samkhya) school of Hindu philosophy considers this duality to be the source of all creation. Purusha is translated as consciousness or spirit, while prakriti is the manifested universe or matter, which is constantly receiving and filled with consciousness. Together they are constantly giving awareness and form to our experienced reality. H.P. Blavatsky writes in The Secret Doctrine:

In the Sankhya philosophy, Purusha (spirit) is spoken of as something impotent unless he mounts on the shoulders of Prakriti (matter), which, left alone, is—senseless. But in the secret philosophy they are viewed as graduated. Though one and the same thing in their origin, Spirit and Matter, when once they are on the plane of differentiation, begin each of them their evolutionary progress in contrary directions—Spirit falling gradually into matter, and the latter ascending to its original condition, that of a pure spiritual substance. Both are inseparable, yet ever separated. In polarity, on the physical plane, two like poles will always repel each other, while the negative and the positive are mutually attracted, so do Spirit and Matter stand to each other—the two poles of the same homogeneous substance, the root-principle of the universe. (Secret Doctrine, 1:247)

Purusha and prakriti thus are the unified duality. It is best exemplified in the Ardhanarishvara, or the image of Shiva and Parvati as two in one. Many Hindu works of art represent this in paintings and sculpture to symbolize the unity of male and female, or consciousness and matter.

One story tells of an ancient sage named Bhringi, a devotee of Shiva. All of the sages would go to Mount Kailash to worship both Shiva and Parvati, but Bhringi would not worship the feminine aspect, worshipping only Shiva himself.

One day Bhringi wished to circumambulate Shiva as usual, but as he began, Parvati said, “You cannot just go around him. You have to go around me too. We are two halves of the same truth.” Bhringi, ignoring this, continued to go around Shiva alone. In response, Parvati sat on Shiva’s lap. Ever determined, Bhringi took the form of a small black bee and tried to slip between the two gods.

Shiva was not disturbed but amused. He took the form of the Ardhanarishvara, revealing him and his female half, fused together, as one and the same. Literally the name means the god who is one-half goddess.

Bhringi, still adamant, turned himself into a rat and tried to chew the two apart. This annoyed Parvati so much that she said, “May Bhringi lose all parts of the body that come from the mother.” In Hinduism it is believed that all the tough parts of the body, such as nerves and bone, come from the father, and soft, fluid parts, such as blood and flesh, come from the mother. Instantly Bhringi lost all his blood and flesh and became a dried heap of bones.

Bhringi repented. He learned his lesson: the male and the female are one. One does not exist without the other, and they are two halves of a whole.

From this story we can learn a few things about purusha and prakriti. Many might assume that prakriti, being the female counterpart to consciousness, is the opposite of consciousness. But actually prakriti is the holder and receiver of consciousness. All things are a combination of the two, but it is from prakriti that all known qualities come.

Another aspect of this story, which appears in many other stories about devatas and devis, is the male god’s devotion to the female. Shiva was very patient, but he did not allow the mother aspect to be disregarded. It was he who chose to turn into the Ardhanarishvara. This is to show that the creation of the universe at its essence is an expression of love. Whether that love is anthropomorphized, as it is in bhakti yoga, or it is Theosophically interpreted as energy, love is the primal cause of everything.

For those who wonder whether it is matter or consciousness that is the basis of the universe, the answer can be found in this story, although the Sankhya interpretation differs slightly from the Theosophical one. In the Sankhya, although both purusha and prakriti make up our universe, at their foundation they are eternally separate principles. Theosophy says that the two originate from the same source and that there are steps even before the differentiation of purusha and prakriti. Indeed this differentiation between matter and consciousness forms only part of the process that creates the universe.

Durga, the Divine Feminine Warrior

Another story, which represents the all-encompassing power of the devi, has to do with Durga. The Markandeya Purana tells of an asura, or demon, named Mahishasura, who was made nearly unkillable. Mahishasura attacked the dwelling place of the gods, conquered their army, and set to rule in their stead. The gods took refuge under Lord Brahma, who took them to Lord Shiva and Lord Vishnu to ask for help. When Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva heard of the misdeeds of Mahishasura, pure energy blazed forth from them. The other gods witnessed a fiery crest blazing forth in all directions like a mountain peak aflame with the sun. The light illuminated the three worlds and concentrated into the form of the devi called Durga, which means “the invincible.”

Durga’s face was the light of Shiva, her ten arms were from Vishnu, and her feet were from Brahma. The Trimurti, along with the other gods, then gave her weapons and divine objects to help with her coming battle. The beautiful Durga, covered in jewels and golden armor and equipped with many divine weapons, set out against Mahishasura. She produced a tremendous sound, which filled all space. Oceans boiled and mountain chains rose, while older ranges crumbled in landslides.

Mahishasura’s armies, awestruck, were effortlessly reduced. Mahishasura took the form of a lion, but Durga beheaded it. Then Mahishasura was killed as a man and as an elephant. Finally he took the form of a wild buffalo. Durga pushed Mahishasura to the ground with her left leg and pierced him with Shiva’s trident. Then, with another of her ten hands, she wielded her bright sword and beheaded him, so at last he fell dead. The devatas and devis all bowed to Durga and sang her praises. Then she disappeared, promising to come again when needed or when they prayed to her.

In his Introduction to Hindu Symbolism, I.K. Taimni explains that this final stage, where the devas now have the ability to call on Durga, is especially significant. He compares this story to the individual conquering the lower self. The ability to gain guidance from one’s higher self marks a definite stage in spiritual development, which he says is indispensable for treading the path. Though we are consciousness in matter, with all the qualities that arise in such a condition, the goal is to purify ourselves and realize our true identity.

In this purana, the writer, the sage Medha, reminds us that the feminine contains within her all the powers of the masculine. Durga is literally made of all the qualities of the devatas. As Taimni explains:

The Devatas and Devis are shown in male and female forms because the function and the corresponding power which enables that function to be exercised are related to each other as two poles, or positive and negative principles. In fact, the existence of the manifested Universe depends upon the primary differentiation of the one Reality into two polar aspects, one positive the other negative, the positive aspect being the source of all functions and the negative aspect the source of all powers.

In the case of Durga, she is the female power or counterpart of all the Devatas, so she does not just represent the nature of one function but rather the entire nature of Prakriti. One might say she holds within her the power of Saraswati, Lakshmi, and Parvati, and many other devis in this sense.

Taimni says that the male is positive and the female is negative. Another way of looking at this is to say from the male, or from purusha, comes all action. The female, being the receptive foundation, is the basis of all manifestation. This is why Durga is shown as so much more powerful than the male devatas. The male is the energy of consciousness, and she is the experience of all those qualities.

The Bhagavad Gita and the Logos

In Notes on the Bhagavad Gita, the nineteenth-century Theosophist T. Subba Row discusses the true nature of Krishna. His presentation helps us to comprehend not only the devata, represented in this case by Krishna, the avatar of Vishnu, but the source of the universe and our relation to it as human beings.

In the Bhagavad Gita, Arjuna says to Krishna: “Prakriti and Purusha, also the Field (kshetram or matter) and the Knower of the Field, and so also knowledge and what is to be known, these I wish to know, O Kesava.”

Krishna replies, “This body, O son of Kunti, is called ‘the field.’ He who knows it thus, the wise call him ‘the knower of the field.’ And know Me, O descendant of Bharata, as the Knower of the Field in all the fields. In my opinion, that is knowledge, which is the knowledge of the field and of the knower of the field” (Bhagavad Gita 13:1̶̶3).

The Bhagavad Gita sometimes refers to prakriti as “the field” or “the body,” which is an approximate translation of kshetram. From this we learn that purusha and prakriti are so interwoven in our physical reality that they can be described as the knower and the body. Everything, even the phenomena of our conscious being, is an experience of the varying degrees of purusha and prakriti.

Subba Row explains that even though purusha and prakriti make up the manifested universe, there is difficulty in saying that those two are the root of everything. Parabrahman is the absolute reality, and Parabrahman has no consciousness and no matter to it in the earliest stage of creation. These things manifest in the Logos and are perceived from the Logos. So it can be more accurately stated that consciousness and matter, purusha and prakriti, begin at the second stage of the outpouring of the Logos. Their intermingling can be understood as the building of our manifested universe.

In the Bhagavad Gita, Arjuna addresses Krishna: “You are the supreme Brahman, supreme Goal, the most sacred Being (Purusha), who is Eternal, Divine, the Primeval God, Unborn (and) the Mightiest” (Bhagavad Gita 10:12).

These titles can lead to confusion in the reader. How can Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita be Supreme Brahman, the absolute reality itself, as well as purusha, the half of a whole at the same time? Subba Row’s interpretation enables us to see the Bhagavad Gita from a new perspective. Instead of looking at purusha and prakriti as the building blocks of our experienced reality, let us see them as part of a bigger process, as one stage of the Logos.

Before the Logos began there was Parabrahman. Then with Force came the First Logos, which is the unconscious Universal Mind. The Second Logos was life in the form of duality—spirit and matter, purusha and prakriti, male and female. The Third Logos utilizes the previous stage to manifest the universe.

Subba Row explains this by relating it to a human being. The light from the Logos shines upon humankind, and goes from subtle body to subtle body as though it were reflected from mirror to mirror in the same way that light shines from the sun. First it falls upon the karana sharira, or causal body, and from there it goes to the sukshma sarira, or astral body, and finally upon the sthula sharira, or physical body. If the light from each higher body were not reflected, the lower body would wither and die. According to Subba Row, the Sankhya recognizes only these three bodies in the individual, and does not account for the light of the Logos itself, which Theosophists know as the atma or Self.

This same process can be understood to apply to the planes, which the Logos is actively creating. Beneath the light of the Logos comes the devachanic plane, then the astral plane, and then the physical plane. Each plane is vivified by the plane above it, and all goes back to the light proceeding from the Logos. As a note to Theosophists, these divisions could be made into seven planes, but Subba Row chooses to relate them only to the three bodies of Hinduism.

In short, the Sankhya teaches that all the manifested universe comes from the intermingling of male and female energy, as represented by the devata and the devi. Purusha is the male of pure consciousness, which combines with the female of prakriti, or matter, to create all known qualities of the universe and all sentient beings. Theosophists know that duality as a part of the process that is the Logos.

Subba Row encourages Theosophists to go beyond the Sankhya and to recognize their own atma, which is the synthesis of both polarities. Mankind’s atma is the manifesting light of the Logos, and those who choose to follow it back to its source will know the Logos as their true identity.

Sources

Blavatsky, H.P. The Secret Doctrine. Two volumes. Wheaton: Quest Books, 1993.
Gopal, Madan. India through the Ages. New Delhi: Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, 1990.
Smoley, Richard. The Dice Game of Shiva: How Consciousness Creates the Universe. Novato, Calif.: New World Library, 2009.
Subba Row, T. Notes on the Bhagavad Gita. Pasadena, Calif.: Theosophical University Press, 1978.
Taimni, I.K. An Introduction to Hindu Symbolism. Adyar, India: Theosophical Publishing House, 1980.
V, Jayaram. The Bhagavadgita: Complete Translation. New Albany, Ohio: Pure Life Vision, 2011.

James LeFevour, M.S., is a former employee at the TS’s Olcott national headquarters . His lectures through the Theosophical Society can be found online at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Acjs23-d5f4 and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfxHkGQ0A9Q

Printed in the  Fall 2018  issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Gilchrist, Cherry, " Circle of Nine: A Women’s Way of Working" Quest 106:4, pg 18-22

By Cherry Gilchrist

On a cold spring day in March 1981, a small band of women gathered at the Nine Ladies stone circle in the Peak District of Derbyshire in the north of England. They had come seeking inspiration for a new vision of women’s spirituality and a common way to work together, and they had been drawn to this spot by the name of this circle.

It was a trek to get there. The site lay in wild countryside, high moorland and ancient woods, and at that time was not visited frequently. But to the women’s surprise, when they arrived, they found that the ancient circle was not empty: in the center a bunch of nine daffodils had been placed. The golden flowers blazed like a beacon—nine flowers for Nine Ladies. This seemed to be a confirmation, lighting the way forward. The daffodils set the seal on the work, which has persisted from that day to this. Out of this magical synchronicity, and this initial impulse, grew the Nine Ladies network, and the Circle of Nine.

Why a Women’s Line?

Why is a women’s line of work needed? Perhaps I can explain this best by following our own story further. Each women’s movement has its own narrative, but the way the process unfolded here is an illustration of how such a line could develop.

The women who went to the Nine Ladies stone circle were part of an existing British network known as Saros, which pursued esoteric and philosophical work in study groups combining men and women. We ran a residential center in Buxton, Derbyshire, along with local groups in different parts of the country. Saros had its roots in Tree of Life Kabbalah and the Western mystical tradition, with the aim of reformulating old practices in order to offer new pathways for the next generations to come. There were many strands within the overall teaching program, ranging from astrology to dance movements, but we did not have a separate strand of women’s work. It became evident that there was a need for one.

As women, our particular mode of thinking, feeling, and expressing knowledge didn’t have enough room to develop and be heard. Men’s arguments tended to run along lines of relentless theorizing; women wanted to bring intuition and emotion into play. Their insights were often dismissed or swept aside in the current of enthusiastic debate. We women knew that we could offer a different kind of knowledge and that we needed a special space in which to develop it. Rather than being divisive, the fruits of any such work could be brought back into the mixed arena to enrich the general field of spiritual knowledge. It therefore seemed essential that the women should have an approach of their own.

The initial expedition to the Nine Ladies circle thus gave a coherent symbol and schema to this new line of work. I wasn’t there myself on that initial occasion, but I was already working with these women and joined the new Nine Ladies group as soon as it was founded shortly afterwards.

Our particular circle began its dance when an unseen bell was sounded, perhaps. The bell connected our group to this ancient tradition, in which women entered the Nine Ladies stone circle, admired a bunch of golden daffodils, and left inspired to start new work to honor the feminine. Something that was frozen, or suspended in time, sprang forth into life again.

The daffodils became the first symbol used by the group, and in the coming months, the Nine were formulated as individual archetypes, just as we have them today—three Queens, three Mothers, and three Ladies (see sidebar). Saros was very much a hub, and semi-independent initiatives grew within it, so that Nine Ladies could be entirely self-regulating. This was a particularly helpful setup, because it gave women the freedom to work independently as well as within mixed groups. Confidence grew, and harmony improved in the male-female study sessions.

This gave us all cause to think about the different dynamics that men and women adopt within groups, and, broadly speaking, we reached the following conclusions: Women’s work tends to be more collective, and men’s more hierarchical. Women operate more from a basis of consensus, and less from the opposition and competition favored by men. Neither way is superior to the other, and both have their pitfalls. Women may find it hard to disagree openly with one another; men may find it difficult to stop jockeying for position. A group of either sex whose aim is greater awareness will need to face these challenges and find strategies for avoiding the potential traps that gender can set for us.

Overall, I’d sum up our aims of working in a female line as these: to assert feminine ways of thinking, working, and feeling; to develop special female qualities; to receive inspiration from the divine feminine; to empower the connection between the feminine and masculine. And perhaps we should add: to recognize the spirit that transcends gender and includes both.

	The Nine Maidens stone circle at Belstone, Dartmoor, England. Painting by Robert Lee-Wade.

How Does a Line Grow?

As is often the way, the evolution was more organic than linear. Over the years, the Nine Ladies groups have moved on from the nine archetypes, and now work more with geometry and philosophy (see www.nineladies.org). I have always felt, however, that the rich and ancient symbolism of the nine is a line in its own right, able to provide a source of inspiration for women of all types and backgrounds, whether or not they are already involved in esoteric work. The nine can feed a hunger for a feminine spirituality, give a sense of meaning to everyday life, and adapt to changing needs in women’s lives. My own line of work here has therefore been to continue to develop the nine archetypes, revealing them as the spectrum of the feminine soul and as the life experience of everywoman. I use the Circle of Nine as the name for this line, although I have remained a member of Nine Ladies, and on many occasions our work has overlapped. Working with the Circle of Nine is a creative process: many different types of exercises can be devised, from dance to storytelling, from silent visualization to producing artwork, and particularly through ways of observing and evoking the archetypes in our everyday, individual lives.

So the Nine Ladies and the Circle of Nine have both emerged from that initial inspiration in the stone circle, but have developed in different ways. This, I suggest, emphasizes the energy of that first impulse, which could support more than one life form—produce more than one child, as it were. Towards the end of the article I’ll say more about the very ancient tradition from which it has sprung.

But before that, just to stress the nonlinear development of such lines of work, another element of the story deserves to be told. When we try to trace the origins of a new initiative for what we could loosely call esoteric work—that is, of a spiritual nature, but not belonging to conventional religion— it is often difficult to tell its story chronologically and to fix times and dates in a literal, logical order. Sometimes even our own memories play us false; in this case, I had to go back to my own notebooks to verify the sequence. But perhaps it’s not surprising, as the quality of time itself is different when we touch on the level of existence from whence such impulses arise.

Not long after the first Nine Ladies group took shape, I experienced a powerful vision of White Ladies—figures of women clothed in white who came to me like emissaries from a world beyond. It was perhaps no coincidence that they came while I was taking part in a Saros study session about angelic hierarchies. These White Ladies certainly seemed to be of another order altogether, beyond our normal comprehension. And they came, I felt, to announce something of importance. Their presence moved me to tears, and I sensed that they arrived because of our need, and maybe the need of women in general, to find a new way forward. I’ve since learned that White Ladies appear as bringers of news in British myth and folklore. Here they are considered to be spirits, something between fairies and ghosts, who arrive at times of great need. (See K.M. Briggs, The Fairies in Tradition and Literature, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1967.)

It would be logical to assume that the White Ladies preceded the daffodils in the circle, so that the story moved on from the experience of the divine feminine to a more particular manifestation. But this was not the case, as my records prove. Here is the possible reason: A new line of work first requires effort and input from us before it can be enlivened or fertilized. Maybe a more exalted energy will enter if we set up the framework in a suitable way, in accordance with higher principles. Once this schema is in place, a blessing, visitation, epiphany, or inspiration may descend into our work if there is a true need. Need is related to necessity, which in itself is beyond emotion and often has a quiet voice—for example, when you see clearly, all of a sudden, what you have to do to resolve a situation—but I think that if it is voiced with a genuine cry from the heart, it is more likely to resonate with unseen forces, and there will be a response. It requires not sentiment, but true emotion, to activate a response.

Fluidity and Adaptability

I’ve mentioned some of the key differences between women’s and men’s approaches to group work. These are not blanket divisions but tendencies. Often the differences come down to practicalities. Women’s spiritual work has to be fluid and adaptable to changing conditions. On a much earlier course, the first residential one that was run by Saros, we brought along our children. They ranged from babies through wayward toddlers to independent-minded seven-year-olds. Although child care was provided during the work sessions, we took back parental responsibility in the breaks and from teatime onwards; we also had to be ready to intervene in any crisis. It was a disciplined course, and we were expected to switch between roles, bringing our full attention to the periods of study and discussion, plus fitting in private meditation at least once a day. At one point, as the pressure mounted, our mentor said thoughtfully, “The women are working much harder than the men.” Heads were cocked, eyebrows raised. He explained: “They’re the ones dealing with the children as well as their work on the course. They have to span both worlds, and so they’re getting further.” Yes, fathers were there too, but the reality was that babies had to be nursed, and younger children usually ran to their mothers for comfort. The fathers were able to turn their attention away from child care much more freely and focus almost exclusively on the work we were doing.

However much coparenting takes place, women are still more likely to be the ones who experience the most acute emotional tugs from their children and who will be giving the most in terms of time and attention. At other stages of life, too, women tend to be the carers, keeping an eye on the well-being of others in whatever context, and the ones who keep the home running. As women, we cannot totally separate ourselves from our human responsibilities. This can mean that women who wish to work in a spiritual line will have to make some decisions about when and how they can set aside “sacred time” and make responsible choices about offloading their usual duties for a while. Women working in this way, as our mentor pointed out, may thus have a harder time of it, but it can also be an opportunity to go further.

By the same token, it’s appropriate for women to work in spiritual contexts in a way that combines the everyday with the mythic. We have to span the whole range from sitting in silent communion with the archetypes to wiping kids’ snotty noses. And this brings unique opportunities to cover a wide spectrum of meaning, which includes emotional, physical and spiritual realities.

Why Archetypes?

The Circle of Nine is an assembly of archetypes, not of goddesses. Each archetype may be illustrated by goddesses, but because it is nondenominational and does not adhere to any one specific culture, the Circle needs to be broadly based and understood in a wide context. Archetypes can be perceived as particular forces, or aspects of the universal feminine soul, who can also manifest in our own lives, sometimes in very humdrum ways. They do not dominate or command, or need placating or elevating. We may feel reverence, even awe, in their presence, but they are not for worshipping, because they are a part of each woman’s soul, and worship is usually for something distinctly “other.” It is a liberating approach. The concept of archetypes, to be sure, is popular at present, but it stretches back to the philosophy of Plato and serves us very well as a way of defining and personifying presences and energies.

Having considered the term, let’s look at the realities of the situation. As explained, a new form of spiritual work for women needs to be grounded in everyday life, but also open to the realms of archetype and myth. The groups and individuals that have worked with the Nine have been intent on bridging this spectrum. Taking the original template of nine—a very ancient one, as I am about to relate—means that each archetype can be differentiated, evoked as a spiritual presence, and found in the tasks and roles that women take on in their lives. The Weaving Mother, for instance, can relate to all the threads that a woman weaves in the complexity of her life—multitasking to keep the family going, plying her skills at work, or even scheming cleverly to overcome obstacles (women tend to win by their adeptness rather than by outright strength). The Queen of the Night, on the other hand, in one of her guises represents the wilder, freer female self, which may only be able to flourish when the restraints of the day are lifted. Once the archetypes are known intellectually, emotionally, and practically, examples of their presence multiply. Every new woman arriving in the Circle of Nine can add to that cornucopia from her own experiences and explorations.

The Ancient Tradition

It is very rare to begin any kind of esoteric work that doesn’t connect to a preexisting form of a spiritual tradition. So it has proved with the Circle of Nine. At the beginning, although we knew of the Nine Ladies stone circle, and a few instances of the Nine in historical accounts, it was later that I learned how widespread and ancient this tradition of nine women is. With the benefit of infinitely better Internet research facilities, I’ve discovered that our Circle of Nine, this company of nine archetypes, is a particular flowering of a strong tradition of nine magical women, of women’s votive groups, which goes back to prehistory. It is found over a wide geographical area, covering Europe from Greece to Scandinavia and stretching as far afield as Siberia. Possibly it extends worldwide, as there are scattered examples from Africa and South America.

The women are called variously the Nine Maidens, Nine Sisters, Nine Ladies, Nine Daughters, or Nine Mothers. The tradition is mysterious in that we don’t know for sure how it arose or what underlying mythology it was based on. Sometimes the nine are seen as having a historical existence, sometimes a purely mythic one. Nine was not always their literal number. Stone circles named for them, for instance, usually have more than nine stones, but this in itself emphasizes the importance of the nine as a sacred and magical number for the feminine. It is often seen as an expression of three times three, in relation to old concepts of the Triple Goddess, who may often be associated with the changing phases of the moon. This may have descended directly into folk magic, where nine is frequently invoked to bind a spell. As William Bottrell, the nineteenth-century Cornish folklorist, said: “You know everybody hereabouts uses nine in all their charms and many other matters.”

Legend and history thus suggest that this is an ancient, widespread template for a company of nine women engaged in (or representing) sacred work. Each company has its own identity, and groups range from those with a historical presence to those who exist in myth or folklore or are commemorated in the symbolic contours of the landscape. There are stone circles and rows, plus wells, hills, chapels, and lakes associated with the nine. Groups usually seem to have a specific task or function, which range widely, from channeling the inspired wisdom of a god or goddess, through healing and serving others, to simply dancing for joy. Overall the job of the nine is to help others, work magic, or see into the realms of the future. One such company, who lived on an island off the coast of Brittany in ancient times, is described by the Roman geographer Pomponius Mela. He tells us that they tended an oracle of a Gallic god, living “holy in perpetual virginity” and “endowed with singular powers.” When navigators came seeking counsel, the priestesses would—if so minded—predict the future, charm the winds and seas, and heal the most serious wounds and diseases.

Folklore has shaped many of the stories about circles of nine women over the years; some are remembered as giddy maidens or malevolent witches, but even here there is the sense of nine women partaking of energy from a sacred source. Dancers in a stone circle, for instance, petrified for their impertinence, may come to life again in a magical way. Near where I live, in Devon, there is a stone circle on Dartmoor known as the Nine Maidens; they are said to be dancers frozen in time who come to life at noon and dance in their ancient circle again every day.

One of the joys of this kind of work is that it continues to produce surprises. It is not bound by the linear time that rules most aspects of our lives. So in taking the work of the Circle of Nine further, I have discovered more marvels. Whatever special impulse was transmitted to us that day at the stone circle, it is still unfolding and opening up new dimensions. “A woman’s work is never done” may be a doleful saying in a domestic context. Apply it to women’s spiritual work, however, and it has a shining truth which inspires us to go further along the path.

Cherry Gilchrist is the author of a number of books on spiritual and cultural traditions, including Tarot Triumphs, Russian Magic, and (with Gila Zur) The Tree of Life Oracle. Her article “Meeting the Shaman in Siberia” appeared in Quest, winter 2017. A new and revised edition of her book The Circle of Nine: An Archetypal Journey to Awaken the Divine Feminine Within will be published by Red Wheel Weiser in September 2018.

The Nine Ladies

The Circle of Nine refers specifically to the nine archetypes that were formulated following the encounter in the Nine Ladies stone circle. It arose from the inspiration of the nine daffodils placed there, and the concept of nine female figures standing in the circle. The nine archetypes are named

The Lady of Light
The Great Mother
The Queen of Beauty
The Lady of the Hearth
The Just Mother
The Queen of the Night
The Lady of the Dance
The Weaving Mother
The Queen of the Earth

These are formed from the triple root of Queens, Mothers, and Ladies, a specific definition of the ancient notion of the triple feminine. This is found across time and place as a triple goddess, often associated with the phases of the moon, and is often too a way of looking at the three main stages of women’s lives, as maiden, mother and crone. Perhaps more appropriate terms for our age are girl, mother or mature woman, and grandmother or elder. In this schema, though, the trio of Queen, Mother, and Lady denotes different aspects of womanhood, rather than different ages. These are largely self-explanatory, but in brief, the Queens are poised, regal, and in rightful possession of their power; the Mothers are nurturing, encompassing, and have endurance; and the Ladies are gracious, fluid and captivating.

The specific nine archetypes in the Circle of Nine are a unique formulation which grew out of this triplicity. Their relevance to women’s lives today is emphasized, as well as their resonance in a spiritual and mythic dimension. You can find full studies of them in my book The Circle of Nine, along with advice on how to work with them either as an individual or in a group. 

—Cherry Gilchrist

Printed in the  Fall 2018  issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Kinney, Jay, "Gender Fender Bender: If Men Are from Mars and Women Are from Venus, Then Where Is Everyone Else From?" Quest 106:4, pg 14-17

By Jay Kinney

The last several years have seen an upsurge of attention to gender issues. Whether it has been the controversies over transgender bathroom policy, the heavily publicized transitioning of Bruce Jenner into Caitlyn Jenner, or Facebook continually upping the number of gender identities that its members can choose from—they stood at seventy-one at last count—gender has commanded our attention at every turn.

Exactly how this came to be seems mysterious, especially for those of us who do our best to ignore celebrity news, social media, pop culture, most television, and the distant roar of the protests du jour. If one takes a sufficiently long perspective, “this too shall pass” becomes an abiding motto, although it is not exactly certain in the case of the current gender shakeup that any of it is going to be passing any time soon. Indeed, there are days when it seems like a more apt slogan would be “this too shall mutate.”

Once upon a time, things were simpler. They were so simple, in fact, that gender wasn’t even a word in most people’s vocabularies. Males and females were referred to as sexes, as in the male sex, the female sex, the fairer sex, the battle of the sexes, and so on. The default assumption was that one was born either male or female, and except for a tiny number of exceptions, such as hermaphrodites (now called intersex people), that was that.

Of course what that meant exactly was different from culture to culture and from era to era. A homesteading couple raising a family on the American frontier divvied up their respective roles differently than did their counterparts in, say, Samoa or the Hindu Kush. Yet overall there seemed to be a certain pattern of sex roles, shaped in part by the demands of propagating the human race.

Women had “motherly instincts” and “ticking biological clocks.” They gave birth to children and were inclined to nurture them and guide their development. Men were driven to venture out and bring back food or protect their mates and children from outside threats. Tradition and social pressure maintained these roles, and the human race survived.

Nature seemed to mirror this notion. For many birds, their mating rituals had clearly delineated male-female interactions. Anyone who lives in an urban area is likely familiar with puffed-up male pigeons strutting around trying to impress potential female mates. In earlier eras, when humans lived much closer to nature and observed how other species behaved, common sense suggested that humans and the animal kingdom shared certain patterns. The question of how those patterns arose was most often answered through scriptural examples, such as Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden or the pairs of animals on Noah’s Ark, or through biology, as rudimentary as that may have been at the time. The logical conclusion, given such assumptions, was that the male-female binary was both natural and normative.

The natural realm, at least as far as humans, other mammals, and most two-sex species were concerned, propagated itself through the mating of males and females and their inevitably resulting offspring. Whether this was due to inborn instincts, hormonal influences, chromosomes, or the divine rules of God’s Creation, it was a given that few were inclined to challenge.

Not So, Now

Recent decades—since the ’60s, really— have seen a sea change regarding sexual and gender differences. For starters, some psychologists began to differentiate between what had been called sex—the sexual apparatus and characteristics with which one is born—and gender, the interplay of how one regards oneself sexually versus the roles and norms enforced by society.

This began to open up some space between the traditional biological categories of males and females (or men and women) and what it meant in a given culture to take on those identities. Animals and other fauna were assumed to be at the mercy of instincts, while humans, with the capacity for self-consciousness, were granted the agency to rise above the instinctual level and set their own path, individually or socially.

But this raised the question of how much one’s inclinations were a result of nature or nurture. In stark terms, was a baby born into this world already shaped by a genetic inheritance from its parents and ancestors, or was it a relatively blank slate subsequently influenced by its parents, environment, and society? The common sense answer was usually “some of both,” though some theories tilted strongly in one direction or the other.

For instance, after the Bolsheviks won the Russian Revolution, there was a conscious effort to create a new Soviet man and woman through the imposition of new socialist norms and an egalitarian infrastructure and society. I think it is safe to say at this late date that things did not pan out as planned.

Conversely, the theory behind educational experiments such as A.S. Neill’s Summerhill school had it that children’s innate curiosity and capacity for learning were crushed under conventional schooling and discipline. Remove such coercive structures, and over time children, with some benign guidance, would in effect school themselves. Here too success was elusive.

Indeed, if we look back to the mid-nineteenth century, which saw the first wave of American movements of utopianism and reform, the dream of human perfectibility was already a staple of progressive thought. The romantic conception of America itself, projected as a New Jerusalem or as some other idealistic vision, proved fertile ground for reformers who believed that society could be successfully remade along one model or another.

Feminism, socialism, abolitionism, spiritualism, diet reform, clothing reform, water cures, mesmerism, magnetic healing, temperance, and free love were espoused, practiced, and more often than not abandoned. Slavery was abolished at the cost of a civil war, but most of the other reforms failed to achieve liftoff and languished as niche beliefs or crank theories.

The grand dames of first-wave feminism, such as Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, rallied their supporters with the tacit assumption of women’s moral superiority. Women’s innate nature, they asserted, was to defend the innocent, to care after the sick, to be the embodiment of Christian charity. Such empathy, so valued in the home, was dearly needed in politics and society at large. By setting women on equal footing with men, the social order would be inevitably improved.

This assumption of an essential feminine virtue was counterposed to an assumed masculine brutishness, insensitivity, and dominance. This binary split of gender roles and behavior was carried over into the early theorizing of second-wave feminism in its radical break with the New Left at the end of the 1960s. But this break was more rhetorical than substantial. The male left was denounced, but the pattern of left analysis was maintained.

Utopia in Theory and Practice

The legacy of the departing left of the ’60s was the spread of its template of oppressor versus oppressed. Originally modeled on the Marxist theory of a working class oppressed by a capitalist ruling class, this Hegelian idea of dialectical conflict leading to eventual resolution and advance was applied to nearly every perceived social injustice and inequality. Women were oppressed by men; gays and lesbians were oppressed by heterosexuals; the disabled were oppressed by the able; and so on.

During the final decades of the twentieth century, these neatly binary oppositions subsided as a theoretical framework for reform. With the arrival of third-wave feminism in the early 1990s, a theory of intersectionality arose. It attempted to conceptualize the interaction between different “systems of power” and “the multiple layers of oppression” affecting the numerous victims of capitalism, imperialism, the patriarchy, white supremacy, heteronormativity, and other rather abstract bogeymen. This resulted in an intricate dance of legal and social pressure seeking to end all oppressions within society through a push for equity, diversity, and inclusion.

Ironically, in the last two decades, corporate human-resource departments, governmental agencies, international NGOs, the military, and the mainstream media have all joined in this push. Perhaps they conclude that taking the path of least resistance is simply bowing to the inevitable and needn’t harm profits, power, or funding.

Nevertheless, the increasing speed of these changes has meant that no sooner has a victory over oppression in one quarter been celebrated than the philosophical and ideological framework behind it is shifted and new problems are discovered, requiring new adjustments.

The progression in the academic field of what is now called gender studies is a case in point. Originally an offshoot of women’s-studies departments, which were increasingly under pressure to ditch binary gender concepts, gender studies employed both feminist and postmodernist critical theory and phenomenology as its framework. Rejecting the essentialist philosophy of second-wave feminism, exponents such as Judith Butler questioned the common differentiation between an individual’s sex and their gender.

If I read Butler correctly (no easy matter, I have to say), the broad categories upon which early feminism was constructed, such as those of “men” and “women” or an assumed femaleness that all women share, are illusions that upon closer examination are revealed as “a sedimentation that over time has produced a set of corporeal styles which, in reified form, appear as the natural configuration of bodies into sexes which exist in a binary relation to one another.” If one decouples gender from “sexual reproduction within the confines of a heterosexually-based system of marriage which requires the reproduction of human beings in certain gendered modes,” it becomes possible to free up gender into a multiplicity of styles and performances.

According to Butler, one’s default sense of self is a subjective fluctuating illusion caught up in a feedback loop with external, socially imposed roles and taboos, and not some unique essence such as a soul or, in Jungian terms, a Self. Therefore this fluctuating self exists as a blank slate of possibilities to be explored through performative acts. With enough repetition, you can become a new you—or at least free yourself from imposed concepts of gender. So the theory goes. Where this leads, nobody knows.

Gender theory assumes, or at least hopes, that it will lead to a greater freedom for all, to a throwing off of the oppressive shackles of binary conformity, to a world in which everyone can define themselves as they wish and can expect—or, if it comes down to it, demand—the respect of everyone else in doing so. But, like all utopian visions, the path to fulfillment is difficult, some would say impossible.

First, there’s the question of gender dysphoria, a psychiatric diagnosis that characterizes a subject’s alienation from his or her (or its or their) “sex” as a psychological disorder. Is someone who insists that they are “a woman born in a man’s body,” or vice versa, suffering from a mental illness, or is this person a pioneer of gender freedom? Do they need therapy or celebration?

Then again, consider the challenge of raising gender-free children, which until recently was not even a thing. If gender, as heretofore conceived, has been the result of the rather straightforward task of giving the newborn baby a cursory glance and shouting out joyously, “It’s a girl!” or “It’s a boy!” well-meaning progressive parents are beginning to balk at such presumptions. Let’s not get too hasty here. Let’s hang loose until the little squirt makes its own determination.

And what determinations might those be? Some states’ vital statistics and birth certificates have bravely begun to offer a third option to the usual gender choice of an M box or F box: an X box. As reported in Newsweek, Washington state in 2018 provided this third option as “a gender that is not exclusively male or female, including, but not limited to, intersex, agender, amalgagender, androgynous, bigender, demigender, female-to-male, genderfluid, genderqueer, male-to-female, neutros, nonbinary, pangender, third sex, transgender, transsexual, Two Spirit, and unspecified.”

Mercifully, this is not a choice that the babe in arms (or its parents) has to make on the day of birth. Rather it is a catchall option that can be used to revise the birth certificate at some later date, perhaps years or decades in the future.

Nevertheless, as New York magazine noted in a recent report on gender-free children, we are increasingly witnessing the raising of “theybies”: babies whose gender designation is kicked on down the road until someone—the child itself, a proactive teacher, or perhaps a social worker—decides that things are settled enough that gender identity can be established.

Which is all very well, except for the growing number of transsexuals who decide, years later, that electing for surgery to transition to another sex (or is it gender?) was a big mistake that is not easily reversed.

Even among those who choose to shift their identification from one gender to another without surgical intervention, the question remains whether someone born “male” who chooses to identify as a woman, but who retains their penis, is truly a woman. Some old-fashioned radical feminists insist that simply declaring oneself a woman does not make it so. Rather, the sum total of one’s life experiences living in a female body and navigating the culture as a woman makes one a woman. Such naysayers have earned the epithet of TERF—trans-exclusionary radical feminist.

Unsurprisingly, some conservative thinkers have been reluctant to applaud these advances in gender freedom. Rod Dreher, a convert to Orthodox Christianity who blogs for The American Conservative, has gone so far as to describe them as “diabolical.” He exclaims, “It’s all unraveling. All that was solid and coherent is shattering into fragments. Wake up!”

That is perhaps returning tit for tat when gender theory would seem to dismiss the traditional perpetuation of the human race, sustained over millennia, as oppressive and coercive. Not everyone agrees that heterosexuality is a plague or that following the patterns of nature is retrograde.

Kåre Fog, a Danish Ph.D. in biology, recently criticized the broadly accepted theory within gender studies and other soft social sciences that gender is socially constructed. Analyzing citations and cited sources in multiple papers, books, and studies arguing for the social construction of gender, he found that evidence was repeatedly misconstrued or mistaken, and that in hard-science terms, the social construction of gender was unsupported. In other words, gender theory was just that: theory, and not an especially persuasive theory at that.

So Where Does That Leave Us?

I will readily confess that I lay no claim to a better understanding of the present muddle than anyone else. By dint of living in San Francisco over the last forty-five years, I have arguably “seen it all,” or at least witnessed the eclipse of the counterculture, second-wave feminism, “divine decadence,” the peak of the AIDS crisis, and Marxist-Leninist optimism. If I live long enough, I may see the eclipse of gender theory.

It is a cliché—or perhaps a bit of hard-won wisdom—that the older one gets, the more one appreciates traditions and folkways that have withstood the test of time. The youthful impulse to tear it all down and start afresh begins to lose its allure, as the tally of radical, revolutionary, and utopian failures continues to mount. The passion for battle begins to appear more a product of youthful hormones and less a response to imminent disaster.

For all the flak they catch these days, the world’s religions and spiritual traditions have played a vital role in preserving those shards of ancient wisdom that might have otherwise faded into the mists of time. They are, no doubt, not to be followed blindly or literally, but sheer age commands its own respect.

H.P. Blavatsky was no stranger to the call of the past or to the tug of the future. By all reports, she pushed the gender boundaries of the late nineteenth century about as far as they could be pushed. Smoking hand-rolled cigarettes in her New York parlor and abjuring most markers of femininity, she nevertheless upheld the importance of ancient wisdom and the past. Confronted with a world rapidly embracing materialism and dismissing the spiritual, she threw her weight behind the spiritual, encouraging those who listened to resist purely materialistic explanations for evolution, and to consider other occluded factors and causes.

One wonders what HPB would have made of our present juncture, where gender has become a zone of contestation, where unproven theories derived from French phenomenology and critical postmodernism have filtered down into shaping states’ vital statistics and birth certificates. In her day she spoke up strongly for the freedom and equality of women, but gender theory was not yet on the horizon.

If there is one motto that sums up the present age, I suspect it may be “if it can happen, it will happen.” Which is to say, if something can be conceived of, someone will do it.

Before modern surgical advances made male-to-female (or female-to-male) transitions possible, these remained fantasies that some entertained but none could realize. An extensive apparatus of transvestite and transsexual playacting fulfilled the performative impulse in traditional venues such as the gay tavern tradition of “Emperor and Empress” elections for most popular drag portrayals. Farther afield, two-spirit otherkin in more primitive cultures found socially sanctioned roles as shamans or other hypnagogic guides to liminal regions of consciousness.

Once surgical transitions from one sex to another became feasible, they became inevitable. As the motto of ACT UP, the gay anti-AIDS activist group, declared, “We’re here, we’re queer, deal with it.” To which most open-minded folks might respond, “OK, we’re dealing with it. What’s next?”

We can only hope that what’s next is a sincere effort all around to rebalance our present gender battles toward common sense rather than ultrautopian goals.

Jay Kinney was the founder and publisher of Gnosis: A Journal of the Western Inner Traditions. His book The Masonic Myth has been translated into five languages. He is a frequent contributor to Quest.

VOLUME 106, NUMBER 4

CONTENTS

Implementing the Ageless Wisdom
Tim Boyd

Gender Fender Bender:
If Men are From Mars and Women are From Venus, Then Where is Everyone Else From?
Jay Kinney

Circle of Nine: A Women's Way of Working 
Cherry Gilchrist

A Stranger No More:
A Journey through Mormonism
Clare Goldsberry

Devata, Devi, and Logos
James LeFevour

Buddhism beyond Gender
Rita M. Gross

From the Editor's Desk
Richard Smoley

Viewpoint: Getting off Autopilot
Barbara Hebert

Members' Forum: Alchemy of Gender
Gwynne Mayer