Quest Magazine

The Feminine Principle: An Evolving Idea

By Carol Winters

Originally printed in the NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 2006 issue of Quest magazine.
Citation: Winters, Carol. "The Feminine Principle: An Evolving Idea." Quest 94.5 (NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 2006):206-209, 215.

Theosophical Society - Carol Wolf Winters, Ph.D. is a cultural mythologist and theosophical lecturer in the Pacific Northwest. This article is excerpted from her book in progress, Who Said, "God Said"? The Truth behind the Myth of Female Inferiority.

Our culture has had a long heritage of associating the feminine principle with what it means to be female and the masculine principle with what it means to be male. As a result, both men and women have traditionally been locked into rigid culturally-defined gender roles that have not been helpful for anyone who wishes to live a more meaningful, creative, and soul-making life.

However, this situation is changing. Today, we are more aware of the physical and spiritual harm that this perspective has caused to both the individual and to society. Thanks to Carl Jung and H. P. Blavatsky, we are beginning to learn that a fully integrated individual is a unique and balanced expression of both masculine and feminine traits. A brief look at the ancient development of the feminine principle and its resultant interpretation by the dominant androcentric or male-centered culture will heighten our current collective understanding of this concept and deepen both our awareness and our effectiveness for creative personal and cultural growth.

It all started long ago, at the dawn of human consciousness, when some said, "In the beginning was Mother Earth, the primal vessel that contains all things." The Great Mother was inclusive. From her womb emanated all life, and from her body all of her family received the gifts of nourishment, shelter, and transformation. When her children died, she enfolded them back into herself to be reborn anew. This early concept of what was later to become the feminine principle was that of a nature-based, interconnected existence for all creation, both in life and in death. Eventually our ancient "foreparents" understood that the female body also embraced the creative life-giving patterns of Mother Earth: its womb generated and protected life, its breasts nurtured, its arms embraced and comforted. The feminine principle became associated with early female experience, and was conceived as the creative vessel of life that contains, nurtures, and protects.

Most anthropologists agree that women invented the earthenware and baskets that held the provisions for their clan's hunting and gathering activities. They prepared animal hides to make clothing and tents to protect against the cold. Eventually, vessel evolved as a ceremonial container used to offer gifts to goddess, in supplication or in thanksgiving for bodily needs, and later, as a ritual receptacle of offerings for spiritual transformation and renewal. Priestesses first offered these ceremonial sacrifices to Mother Earth and goddesses. Eventually, priestesses and priests presented their offerings to goddesses and gods. And finally, the offerings were made only by priests, and exclusively to one male god. Today, the feminine principle represented by the chalice remains a container for spiritual transformation.

Others have said, "In the beginning was blood and the moon." The natural and periodic red waters that flowed from women's vulvas were observed to do so with the rhythmic cycles of the moon. The same Mother Moon who caused the primal life force, the red waters to flow, also sent forth the white waters to Mother Earth to make all things grow and flourish. The amazement and wonder of these women's mysteries gave birth to human consciousness, of life reflecting back upon itself.

The female life cycle of maid, mother, and crone was modeled with the rhythm of the moon. The new or waxing moon was a metaphor for the childhood or maiden time of her life. The full moon symbolized her sexual fulfillment, her fruition as mother, and her economic role as contributor to the community. Later, as a crone or Wise Woman during her waxing moon stage, she matured both as a family and a spiritual leader in her community. During the time of her menses, when the moon died and the sky was dark, she withdrew from community life and sexual activity and retreated into her internal wisdom. Just as the moon died and was resurrected again in three days, so too could the woman be physically and spiritually renewed. The many stories that we know today regarding death, resurrection, and renewal have their beginnings in these ancient women's blood mysteries. Another early concept of the feminine principle, the cyclic union between self and others also began with these early rites.

Hera, goddess of women's mysteries, personified the feminine principle as understood during this ancient, preliterate time. She had many titles, including Seat of Wisdom and Queen of Heaven. Virgins annually bathed in a nearby river, in ritual spiritual purification and dedication to her principles. (Most scholars agree that the original meaning of virgin was woman, regardless of her sexual proclivities.) But as patriarchal society came to dominate, this yearly sacred bath developed into a woman's pledge of her physical virginity to her husband. The meaning of virginity, then, devolved from that of psychological and spiritual intactness in relation to wisdom into one of physical chastity under the dominion of a husband.

During the Neolithic period, many believed that blood contained the human spirit. Over time, sex became tabu—both sacred and dangerous. Sigmund Freud agreed with anthropologist Robert Briffault that the ritual enactments of menstrual tabus were the beginning of moral principles for all primitive societies. The Indo-European derivatives for menses include measure, meter, diameter, geometry, moon, month, menopause, and metis. R'tu in Sanskrit has roots that mean both ritual and menstrual (Grahn 5-6). Consequently, the development of the feminine principle in the ritualized women's blood mysteries was also a central organizing factor of human culture. The resultant birth of primitive astrology was conceived in a unity of what we now consider both science and religion.

In time, men's blood rituals, patterned after the women's mysteries, were enacted in thanksgiving, supplication for a successful hunt for food, or in ceremonial preparation for a neighborly foray. Historian Gerta Lerner theorizes that the social practice of capturing and enslaving the women of enemy tribes during those raids created the patriarchal family in which women became subordinated to men, their sexuality controlled by the men who owned them. This practice eventually became enforced and strengthened by law. Female subordination gradually led to the notion that women were inferior to men. The perceived truth of the human condition understood "man" to be the norm that defined what is human, and "woman" was defined in relation to "man."

Further, women's natural, life-giving blood mysteries were perceived as inferior, less sacred, more unclean. At the same time, men's violent blood letting in hunting and warring, the taking of life, emulated a cultural model for what it was to be male. Whereas heroism marked the violent force of men's blood activities, shame characterized women's natural bleeding and reproductive processes. As a result, the feminine principle associated with the cultural concept of female being was relegated to a secondary and relational role to the masculine principal, the model by which men were to live their lives.

During the Homeric and classic Greek periods, Athena personified the prevailing cultural ideal of the feminine principle. During this evolutionary period in human consciousness, Father Zeus swallowed and assimilated his pregnant wife, Metis. From his head, he then rationally gave birth to their daughter, Athena, fully armored and ready for war to defend the polis. This unnatural act signaled the end of the female as creatrix of life and of a nature-based consciousness. Athena, the creation of her father, also replaced her mother, Metis (meaning practical wisdom) as a new paradigm of wisdom--that of law, order and justice. Her father's daughter, Athena was demoted in status from one of equality and independence on Mt. Olympus to that of his fully capable administrative assistant. She became the mediatrix between him and humanity, "And I alone of all pinities know of the keys which guard the treasury of heaven's thunder" (Aeschylus 366)! At the same time, unmarried Athena modeled physical chastity, her only acceptable alternative to the confines of a patriarchal marriage.

Athena's physical virginity also marked the change in human thought regarding the split between spirit and matter. In a world increasingly perceived in rigid dualities by the dominant culture, the writings of Plato and Aristotle reflected the phallocentric gender norms of the time. Their words set a crucial and authoritative precedent that continues, even today, to perpetuate the notion of the inferiority of the feminine principle in a circular movement of social convention within philosophical, scientific, and theological parlance.

Plato's dualistic view asserted that materiality or nature is associated with femaleness, and spirituality or higher reasoning with maleness. He believed that men could perform all tasks better than women, and that the highest form of love was between men. The essential functions of women were to run the households and to produce heirs. Aristotle's understanding of reality linked dualities such as spirit-matter, mind-body, reason-nature, light-dark, active-passive, hard-soft, good-bad, and ultimately male-female. The first concept in each of these dualities is superior, relates to males, and is considered a masculine quality, while the latter word is inferior, relates to females, and is referred to as a feminine attribute.

Aristotle's notion of female inferiority was twofold: scientific and social. Aristotle reversed the ancient pre-literate understanding that conception and life-giving is singularly a female phenomena by theorizing that the active male gives form and spirit, or movement, to the passive, shapeless matter of the female: "For the female, as it were, is a mutilated male, and the catamenia [menses] are semen, only not pure; for there is only one thing they have not in them, the principle of soul" (Clack 36). Aristotle thought that the duty of a woman was to submit to a man, for just as the soul or mind rules the body, so masculinity, understood at that time as being male, must dominate femininity, understood as being female. The wisdom of the feminine principle—natural, vibrant, creative and life giving—was gradually banished to the underground, hidden, but nevertheless still active (a masculine quality!) and flourishing.

For example, during this period in classical Greece, Hestia was the most venerated and revered of all the Olympian deities. Hestia Sophia—voiceless, imageless, and "storyless"—became the center of the human heart and the social hearth, as well as the implicit central flame of the Greek pantheon. Hestia's carefully and lovingly tended fire burned steadily in every home and temple, attesting to her abiding, but silent presence. Hestia's light represented the unspoken feminine principle that radiated at the center of the male-dominated life. Later, in Christian churches, the vigil lamp signifying Jesus' presence in the tabernacle replaced the sacred fire once tended by Hestia's vestal virgins. Certainly, Jesus did teach and ensoul many feminine principles; however, this truth was lost in the dominant culture's literal interpretation of his male embodiment.

We also find Wisdom hidden in the Hebrew Testament: "Though but one she can do everything, and abiding in herself she renews all things ..." (Wisdom 7:27). Here, Sophia/Wisdom assumes the tradition of all the autonomous, virginal and self-powering Great Mothers, including her Hellenic contemporary, Isis, who declared, "Nothing happens without me." Several of the words used to describe Wisdom in this biblical passage include holy, intelligent, humane, all-powerful, radiant, and penetrating. It is a mix of both masculine and feminine traits. However, most of us who are familiar with the Hebrew-Christian tradition are more acquainted with the oft-quoted passage in which Wisdom is personified as the first created and playful companion of the Creator:

The Lord created me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of long ago. Ages ago I was set up, at the first, before the beginning of the earth, [. . .] then I was beside him, like a master worker, and I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always, rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the human race. (Proverbs 8:11-31)

This passage drops Wisdom from creatrix to created. Nevertheless, as a master worker, she still creates. In a world dominated by dualities, Wisdom continues to view the world as holistic and transpersonal, rejoicing in nature and humanity. Foreshadowing Jesus, she is inclusive of all human beings, calling upon them to "Come eat at my table and drink of the wine I have mixed" (Proverbs 9:5)

The images of the great goddesses all reflect various aspects of the feminine principle which are ever-changing and ever-the-same. They remain ever the same because they are archetypical and relate to basic human creative and organizing impulses. However, they are also ever changing, because they reflect the evolving consciousness, authority, and mores of the perceiver or culture. The image may be archetypal, or it may be a stereotype, a prototype, or a combination thereof, depending upon the perceiver. Such is the extreme case of the Christian Virgin Mary. For several centuries, politically dominant Christians destroyed the temples and shrines of the pagan goddesses in the name of their male divinity. Christian churches and cathedrals were developed at these holy sites and named for Mary, who had been previously designated Mother of God by the early church fathers. As such, she absorbed most of the attributes of the great goddesses, including the titles, Seat of Wisdom and Queen of Heaven. As Athena before her, she was and is still the powerful and comforting mediatrix between her devotees and a male godhead. Nonetheless, for two thousand years, by the god-given authority of the Church, she could not be called "goddess" and still remains officially subordinate to her son, Jesus.

Continuing still further, the androcentric church fathers also molded the image of the very human Mary into their own prototype of the feminine principle: completely submissive, passive, and subservient. Mary's human voice was silenced, but only after she promised obedience: "Be it done unto me according to thy word." Rational theologians split the archetypal images of Maid, Mother and Crone into the irrational trio of Virgin, Mother, and Whore. Mary Magdalene, who was unmarried and had sex, but no children, labored under the designation of (redeemed) whore; conversely, Mary, the mother of Jesus, took on the impossible aspects of physical virginity and motherhood, even though she was married and was perpetually sexually inactive. Through special prerogatives granted by God, they stripped Mary of all her female blood mysteries. They purified her unclean woman's body to accommodate her title, Womb of God. Mary did not menstruate, nor did she experience labor during the birth of Jesus. Most significantly, infallible dogma has declared for over 1500 years that her hymen remained intact before, during, and after the birth of Jesus. The church fathers aggressively packaged and marketed Mary as the epitome of "feminine" virtues—voiceless, sexless, and submissive.

Today, Mary's story is evolving. Many are reinterpreting her image of the feminine principle from an irrational and unnatural literal and physical explanation to that of symbolic and spiritual realization. Self-directed, she creatively and reflectively "ponders in her heart" and then agrees to the message from God. Subsequently, she consummates her spiritual union with the Holy Spirit/Wisdom, then conceives and gives birth to her Divine Child. A most transforming experience! However, taking back the control of her body and renewing her blood mysteries from ancient prejudices still remains an arduous task.

We need to rethink the whole notion of the feminine and masculine principles. Today, we acknowledge that the substance of a new life is not uniquely a female attribute as the primitives thought, nor is it a predominately a male characteristic as the early Greeks surmised. It is, indeed, the result of a co-equal union between a man and a woman. We are beginning to become aware that what it means to live as a woman does not mean to be lock-stepped into a culturally-defined gender role that embodies and ensouls feminine attributes, and that to live meaningfully as a man does not mean that he must submit to a stereotyped ideal of masculine qualities. The emerging level of our current collective consciousness, regarding this issue, recognizes that each individual's creative and unique soul-making process is an ever-evolving dance of change and renewal between yin and yang, masculine and feminine, male and female. Secondly, we need to become more aware of language usage. It is not uncommon for writers and speakers to interchange the words feminine and female. As we have seen, these words are not interchangeable. "Female" refers to a person's sex, "feminine" is an attribute that either gender may integrate.

Perhaps we need to push the point further (another masculine principle!) by challenging the traditionally rigid definitions of masculine and feminine. For instance, what could be more masculine than the powerful, forceful, and scientific Big Bang of energy as the universe gave birth to herself? What could be more masculine than the active, hard, and powerful thrusts and pushes of energy as a mother labors her child to birth? Conversely, what could be more feminine than the soft, warm, passive scrotum that shelters, nurtures, and gestates semen to fruition?

In fact, let's do away with the idea of masculine and feminine principles altogether. By evolving our consciousness to a higher plane, each of us, according to our divine calling, could combine the best of each, and rename them life principles. Societies could do the same. By doing this, we could then engage substance and energy more harmoniously to contemplate our sacred union with the principle of Presence.

Carol Wolf Winters, Ph.D. is a cultural mythologist and theosophical lecturer in the Pacific Northwest. This article is excerpted from her book in progress, Who Said, "God Said"? The Truth behind the Myth of Female Inferiority.

References

Aeschylus. The Oresteia. Translated by Phillip Vellacott. London: Penguin, 1959.

Clack, Beverley, ed. Misogyny in the Western Philosophical Tradition: A Reader. NY: Routledge, 1999.

Grahn, Judy. Blood, Bread, and Roses: How Menstruation Created the World. Boston, MA: Beacon, 1993.

The Power of the Water Bearer

By Betty Bland

Originally printed in the NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 2007 issue of Quest magazine.
Citation: Bland, Betty."The Power of the Water Bearer." Quest 95.6 (NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 2007): 204-205.

Theosophical Society - Betty Bland served as President of the Theosophical Society in America and made many important and lasting contributions to the growth and legacy of the TSA.

We hear so much about the dawning of the Age of Aquarius, but many of us do not have a clue as to what that means. Aquarius is represented by the water bearer pouring forth the waters of wisdom, and marks a time in which energy is defined by the term, "I know." According to astrologers (among whose numbers I cannot count myself), as we follow the sidereal progression of the equinoxes, we are moving from the Piscean age, expressed as a focus on faith and orthodoxy, to the Aquarian expression of a more open-minded attitude based on experiential knowledge combined with the energy of group work. In other words, whereas we have been oriented to individual belief, we will now be moving toward cooperative group work within the context of individual understandings.

In the midst of all the turmoil our world is currently experiencing related to rigid beliefs and orthodoxy, or fundamentalist thinking, the hope of an influx of cooperative and open-minded energy is definitely encouraging. When the founders began the Theosophical Society, they introduced an early impetus for change to a world caught in the throes of a mechanical materialistic view on the one hand and an imperialistic, belief-structured orthodoxy on the other. The founders wrought the great experiment, called the Theosophical Society, in order to popularize the wisdom traditions and to stimulate humanity's awareness of its universal kinship'to move thinking from the narrow to a broader perspective.

The Aquarian idea of life-giving wisdom and compassion is an age-old concept and has been symbolized in traditions other than astrology. Kwan Yin is represented as a deity, who tips a vial of the precious elixir of life so that the droplets are available to nourish all. In this form she is also considered to be the oriental feminine version of Avalokiteshvara, or the Buddha of compassion. Pouring out pitchers of water, the kneeling figure in the Star card of the Major Arcana Tarot represents seeking and sharing wisdom in the depths of the psyche. Although free flowing water tends to represent our emotional natures, water contained or controlled by a vial or pitcher seems to represent those emotions contained and controlled by a higher faculty in order to provide wisdom. Notice that the wisdom is not static but is shared with humanity.

The challenge of the water bearer is to be able to contain the emotional nature in a healthy way. One has to find wholeness within oneself in order to function most effectively and freely in cooperation, without being swallowed up or losing one's independence and individuality in the group. Being able to achieve this balance is a major task set before us.

I have always loved science fiction as a vehicle for divulging some of the otherwise barely communicable mysteries of life. One such story is told in Stardance by Spider Robinson. I read it a long time ago, but it transmitted to me a powerful image. As I remember, the story begins with a rather gray, mundane life on planet Earth, where the various characters' lives are separate, colorless, and barely manageable. Yet the threads of events bring them all to be inhabitants of a space station on the outer edges of our planetary system.

As these characters weather various difficulties, they learn to cooperate and synchronize with each other in a freeform, non-gravitational field. Developing their individual talents and contributing to the whole, enables them to gradually unfold empathetic psychic connections with one another. When they have reached a culmination in their harmonious interactions, a rapidly approaching frightful menace appears in the far distant space. The out-posted characters realize that they must figure out how to stop this threat in order to save themselves and their civilization still on Earth.

As the fiery globe, swirling with vibrant energy, approaches, the characters' heightened sensitivity allows them to intuit that this terrible consciousness may be subject to some sort of reason or appeasement. In the end, the characters discover that they are like this amazing space entity'which, though one entity, is yet a composite of many beings who buzz and vibrate together like a huge beehive. This composite being is drawn to the presence of this little pod of humanity which has begun to function as a unit, sensing each others' needs and actions, and caring enough about each other to sacrifice self for the whole. In so doing, they have reached the next developmental stage and are ready to move on as nurslings of a new order.

Although the weavings of the story are fascinating in themselves, the value of the story is in the message. Teilhard de Chardin tried to express the same idea in his description of the noosphere, that field of unified planetary consciousness in which we can all participate by lifting our hearts and minds to the Highest.

Although today's tragedies of terrorism and the uncertainties of global financial institutions are causes for deep concern, they can be viewed as the growing pains of an emerging larger community. Blurred political and economic boundaries challenge our many cultures to find new ways of honoring their individual identities, while at the same time developing peaceful ways to overlap with each other. Whether national groups or individuals, their collective attitudes color the psychic atmosphere and determine the potential welfare and level of peace for the whole planet.

For our part as individuals, we can recognize our responsibility for our own attitudes and spirit of cooperation. We can work to grow in personal strength in order to be fit vessels for the flow of compassion and wisdom. As we do so, the opportunities to join in creative cooperation with others will abound. Certainly the Theosophical Society is particularly suited to channeling group efforts toward supportive community, interfaith understanding, and intercultural cooperation. However we direct our efforts, together we are to be the water bearers, containing our experience with wisdom, and radiating our compassion with effectiveness. What greater human power can there be?

For those who win onwards there is reward past all telling—the power to bless and save humanity. . .

(Collected Writings of Madame Blavatsky XIII, 219)

Clairvoyant Observation of Minerals

By Tony Bondar

Originally printed in the NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 2007 issue of Quest magazine.
Citation: Bondar,Tony. "Clairvoyant Observation of Minerals." Quest 95.6 (NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 2007): 219-221.

Nataliya Bondar, my wife, was born in Ukraine, not far from the birthplace of H. P. Blavatsky. Her childhood was overshadowed by the Chernobyl accident that caused Ukraine and its neighbors to be subjected to radioactive contamination. At the age of nine, Nataliya, affectionately called Nat, developed clairvoyant vision. Fortunately, her mother encouraged this psychic ability and it served them well throughout Nat's adolescence. For instance, she was able to look at fruit and vegetables to see whether they were safe to eat or had a black "cloud" of radioactivity, chemical herbicides, or pesticides surrounding them.

When she was twenty, Nat moved to the UK, where we met and were married. We moved to Ireland in 2002 to set up a small business retailing crystals. It was shortly after opening this shop that Nat began a research project on the therapeutic and spiritual qualities of crystals and minerals, based upon her clairvoyant findings regarding their subtle energies. Both of us are familiar with Theosophical concepts and the literature, and much of what we have discerned about the mineral kingdom echoes the earlier research by the great pioneers. However, some of our conclusions have shown that many people have misunderstood certain concepts.

The art of using crystals for healing is an ancient practice, dating back many thousands of years, and today there are at least fifty books available on the subject. However, we noticed that none of them could answer two basic questions to our satisfaction:

If a crystal or mineral possesses healing qualities, why does it do so and exactly how do crystal or mineral energies interact with the health of the body and mind?

There were further confusing issues too, such as why some minerals have subtle energy channels extending in one direction only, when others operate in several different directions. Why are some minerals surrounded with a single cloud of colored energies, while others have several different geometrical energy patterns surrounding them? The more Nat investigated the normally invisible realm of subtle mineral realities, the more questions were posed. She decided to explore the subject as thoroughly as she could to answer these queries.

Her overall conclusion was that everything in life evolves inside a forward moving mechanism and that this includes the mineral kingdom. Life exists throughout the mineral world as a constant, evolving progression, although invisible to most people. The rocks and stones that we physically see as inert solid masses do indeed possess a form of life—though it is extremely primitive. It is easy to look at an animal and see an expression of life, but when we observe a plant, while acknowledging that it is alive, we feel that it is not as much alive as the animal. And when you look at a stone, you generally are unable to perceive it as a living being at all.

However, when viewed with inner vision; that is, with inner dimensions of reality (we prefer not to use terms such as etheric because people have their own ideas of what this means) a completely new world presents itself. Nat reached several basic conclusions. She realized that all minerals, large or small, possess several different energetic structures on different, if corresponding, levels of reality. The first one she has named the Monadic Sphere. Life in the mineral kingdom, she hypothesized, functions in seven stages of evolution. At the very beginning, a tiny monad begins its life in a certain mineral, spending a long time here, very slowly evolving by reacting to differing, subtle, environmental energies surrounding it. With every reaction, it slowly increases the size of its spherical structure, until a given moment when it leaves that mineral and enters a new one to begin the cycle all over again.

The monad has to pass through seven different evolutionary groups of minerals in its ascent before it can leave the mineral kingdom and enter the plant kingdom. Within each group of minerals it must actually pass through seven mineral types—some forty-nine mineral varieties in all. Each of the seven groups of minerals has fixed subtle, evolutionary functions. Nat named these groups the Attractors, the Reflectors, the Breakers, the Balancers, the Transformers, the Capacitors, and the Energisers, each one being relative to the evolutionary function that the mineral members of that group perform. When a mineral monad is present in one particular group, its primary evolutionary function is to react to different types of subtle energies relative to that group's overall quality. For example, amethyst is a mineral that belongs to the Transformer group and its major function is to convert certain types of subtle energies from one condition to another by the action of its mineral monad. In this case it reacts to zones of strong subtle energies or operates where those energies are incompatible to one another in the same location. A simple example of such action takes place in a modern home computer monitor, which, to anyone with finely tuned clairvoyance, is seen surrounded by a dark cloud of subtle energies. This cloud can be the cause of tension, headaches, and stress in the computer user, but by placing an amethyst crystal cluster alongside the active monitor, the cloud begins to react to the new energy zone. After some twenty minutes, the mineral monad absorbs the chaotic, subtle energies inside its various structures, forcing them through a unique energetic management system. The result of this process changes the energies into a higher level of reality, discharging them some distance away as a white, neutral stream of particles. Other minerals of the Transformers group will perform the same action but amethyst is especially proficient in this process.

The mineral monad acts upon surrounding environmental, subtle energies of different types in various ways and effectively absorbs them. But, it also treats them in disparate ways relative to the evolutionary group with which it is currently engaged. If we consider a single crystal, we find it is surrounded by innumerable, diverse types of environmental, subtle energies. The monad admits some varieties of these into the crystal's energetic structure, where they will undergo changes before being released to the outside world as mineral energy. Therefore, every mineral can be understood to express a specific type of subtle energy.

Many people have assumed that a crystal has a healing quality because of its chemical element foundation, its color, or even its name. Thus, some people have assumed moonstone has qualities similar to and associated esoterically with our moon, while calcite crystals must be "good for the bones." Nat perceived that the therapeutic qualities of minerals and crystals act on our subtle vehicles, which in turn bring changes to the physical body and the consciousness. She defined the actual cause of the qualities involved, but such realization necessitates deep examination of the subtle structures of both man and minerals.

All energies have a twofold nature; they can be perceived as having strong vibrations, also a frequency of vibrations, and the subtle energies adhere to this ruling. If 5,500 different minerals exist, then equally 5,500 different kinds of mineral energies also exist. Each mineral creates a specific energy and all these energies differ in strength and vibrational frequency. Encoded within them is a special agent called the Element of Harmony which acts to ensure that balance and equilibrium are maintained throughout all the processes encountered by the energy.

Now we should look at the physical body. We normally see it as a complex system of bones, muscles, tissues, organs, sensory systems, and subsystems. However, it can also be seen as an incredible mass of cells, quite wondrous in its organization. Yet, behind this physical vehicle is an equally complex energetic system with various channels, sub-channels, threads, and micro-threads within a vast variety of subtle energies. Every organ receives a major energy channel through the appropriate chakra, and inside this energy channel are the sub-channels, each carrying specific subtle energies to vitalize different areas of the organ. The energies also carry an information command, or program for the organ to act in a certain manner, and this ensures that the organ functions correctly. However, these information commands can become distorted or miscoded and this results in the organ (still doing what it is told to do) becoming dysfunctional. This results in a deterioration of our health and the manifestation of disease or illness.

The human energies that have become miscoded have a specific strength of vibration and it is this that actually defines which mineral is suitable for the situation. Where the human energy and the mineral energy have similar strengths, they can interact. Then, when the correct mineral is introduced, its subtle energy immediately begins to interact with those of the organ, but it is the action of the Element of Harmony, encoded in the mineral energy, that makes a difference. The Element of Harmony then begins to reprogram the distorted information command of the human energy and that is where change begins.

However, generally speaking, the effects are relatively insignificant until the power of a thought form becomes involved through any energetic exercise that the healer uses with the mineral. This is why most people using crystals to heal are actually achieving results only through the action of their thought forms and not the crystals themselves—because more often than not the crystal's actual vibrations are not compatible with the situation.

With emotional and spiritual issues the situation becomes even more interesting. Here the mineral energies have an effect because of the frequency of their vibrations. All emotional and spiritual conditions in people are a result of the changes of frequency in human subtle energies. Here we discover a seemingly unknown or little publicized energetic structure: the Psychic Energy Structure. Just as we possess a chakra system, with seven main chakras, so too do we possess a system of seven energetic centers, precisely in the same location as the chakras but at a different level. It is surrounded by a constant stream of psychic energy (some prefer to use the term Kundalini) which travels in between or around the centers, proceeding upwards, then returning downwards, making the appearance of a seven times helix system. As the psychic energy rises, it charges (increases the frequencies of) those energies within the centers. This process provides human beings with the power behind emotions and thoughts. Mineral energies have qualities which affect our emotional and spiritual conditions precisely because of their association with these psychic energy centers and their specific similarities to the frequencies of energies within them.

Nat and I carried out many experiments with the application of mineral energies under the control of thought form exercises. Perhaps this was the most memorable one: while out walking in August 2003, Nat sprained her ankle. It swelled up like a balloon and was extremely painful. However, since she did not want to take orthodox painkillers, I placed a large amethyst crystal cluster near her foot. Despite the pain, Nat focused on the subtle reality of the situation. A black cloud of chaotic subtle energies the size of a football surrounded her foot. She then looked at me and observed a yellow channel coming from my forehead to the amethyst. She then saw other channels forming between the cloud and the amethyst. I concentrated on the specific thought form exercise suitable for this case, to command the amethyst to absorb the pain. After ten minutes or so, her foot was still swollen but the black cloud had become the size of a tennis ball and the pain was at least 75% less.

Finally, it is interesting to note that some crystals and stones that have been polished by industrial processes (to make them more aesthetically pleasing and thus more commercially saleable) seem to become energetically damaged or restricted. When minerals and gemstones are treated with chemicals or heat, it frequently affects their ability to express their natural energies. Such processes definitely restrict either entrance or exit channels of the mineral's subtle structures.

Tony Bondar became interested in minerals while living in Brazil during the 1970s. He has held a lifelong interest in them ever since. He studied Aromatherapy, Yoga, and Eastern Exoteric Philosophy for many years. His primary interest is the inner reality of humanity.

Nataliya Bondar, a clairvoyant, was born in Ukraine. She speaks four languages. All the research work was written in Russian and then translated into English. Nat and Tony run a retail crystal shop in Cork, Ireland, and have been conducting research into crystal healing for many years. The Element of Harmony, a book documenting their research on minerals is now available. This article is reprinted forn the Spring 2006 issue of Circles, the publication of the Theosophical Society in Scotland.

Dreaming by the Numbers

Charles de Beer

Originally printed in the NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 2007 issue of Quest magazine.
Citation: de Beer, Charles. "Dreaming by the Numbers." Quest 95.6 (NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 2007): 228-230.

In January 2002, I received an email from a woman named Robyn, which read as follows:

I believe Ronel has been in touch with you regarding dreams. Ronel is a close friend of mine and we work together. Ronel and I have discussed various topics, different religions, life after death, etc., and she suggested I contact you with regards to a dream I had last week.

Just to give you a bit of background, in case it means anything to you: My parents passed away quite a few years ago, at different times, and for about two years after their deaths, I constantly dreamt about them. Unfortunately, the dreams were nightmares. My mother-in-law is a spiritualist and took me off to a medium, and somehow after that, I didn't have any further dreams or nightmares about my parents. (This is the one and only time I have been to a medium.) Now, approximately eleven years later, I had such a vivid dream that I actually woke up and wrote the details down.

My parents and I were at a holiday home at the sea; there seemed to be other people in the house, but I cannot recall who they were. It was a very happy atmosphere, (as though they were on holiday). If I remember correctly, we were sitting chatting in the lounge of this house and my mom told me to phone this number: 668 1058, extension 20. Two names were very distinct in this dream, Penny and Michelle.

I woke up with such a start and immediately wrote the details on a piece of paper. The dream seemed to be so real. Of course, the next morning I phoned that telephone number—[using both the] Johannesburg and Durban code—and it does not exist. I do not know any persons by the name of Penny or Michelle, (family or friends).

Have you any ideas?

Quite often, someone comes to know that there is a Charles de Beer who interprets dreams, and then this someone has a dream he or she feels compelled to submit to me for interpretation. In this instance, Robyn, the dreamer, knew that her friend and colleague, Ronel, was in correspondence with me about her dreams. When Robyn had her "telephone number" dream, it followed naturally that, not knowing what to make of this dream, she sent it on to me.

The extraordinary fact about this sequence of events is that the essence of my reading, as hereunder detailed, could hardly have been imparted by to Robyn by anyone else in this manner. This implies that the "powers-that-be" who imprinted the dream on the dreamer's mind (and "we are such stuff as dreams are made on" as Shakespeare reminds us in The Tempest, Act 4, Scene 1) knew that the dream had to be sent to me, and would be sent to me, for interpretation.

I always stress in my dream readings that they are merely my interpretation; that there may be other explanations, and that the dreamer is always in the best position to analyze his or her dream. Unfortunately, few people have much knowledge of myths, parables, archetypes, general symbology, and so often are at a disadvantage to try and explain their dreams. But in this instance, I am quite sure that there was no other way to go in helping the dreamer to an insight into the message of her dream. Even so, whatever lesson she has to draw from this message remains totally up to her discretion, and is not for me to interpret or preempt.

The dreamer dreams that she is with her parents (both deceased) in a holiday home, happy atmosphere, (as if on holiday) near the sea. I would interpret this as meaning that the dreamer is in the spiritual realm ("holy day" home), and in touch with her Higher Self (the mother-father-God-within) that binds her to the Universal Totality (the sea). She is then given that number "668 1058 ext.20" to phone and, upon waking, also remembers two names, Michelle and Penny, as being very significant in the dream.

I had this dream on my desk for a few days without making any progress, although I tried to connect the numbers using what I know of numerology. Then, one morning I woke, wondering whether those numbers might have anything to do with page numbers in one of the books on the shelves in my study (all, in one form or another, related to philosophic scriptures).

I looked at various books, the Bible, the Qur'an, among others, but struck gold when I took out my copy of H. P. Blavatsky's The Secret Doctrine. This is the fourth edition, published in 1947 by the Theosophical University Press, Covina, California, which combines both, Volume 1, Cosmogenesis, and Volume 2, Anthropogenesis.

Volume 1, 676 pages, covers HPB's views of the history and evolution of the universe, while Volume 2, containing 798 pages, addresses the history and evolution of humankind. Now, it so happens that the author starts her resume of the first book on page 668, in which she refers to the conflict between intellectual, scientific investigation, and philosophic faith.

In both volumes, produced late in the nineteenth century, she quotes from many sources, and each such quote has a reference number. On page 670 (that is, two pages beyond 668, or extension 02), there is a long quotation from a French preacher and scientist, Du Bois-Raymond. This quotation is numbered 1058 and in it he, too, holds forth that: "Science, in despair, has to admit: 'We do not know.'"

It seemed, therefore, absolutely clear to me that the "number" the dreamer was counseled to telephone, or to contact, was hidden in the pages of The Secret Doctrine; a book that forms the basis for the creation of the Theosophical Society.

Rather stunned by this wonderful synchronicity between the dreamer's dream and this volume on the shelves of my study, I turned my attention to the two names the dreamer had so clearly in mind on waking: Michelle and Penny. I found one on the last page of Volume 1, page 676, when the author quotes a French historian, Michelet, who, according to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, was one of France's first and greatest nationalist and romantic historians of the nineteenth century, writing the massive History of France.

The connection with the name Penny was more elusive; however, I found it in Volume 2 of The Secret Doctrine, where Blavatsky quotes the name Panini several times. According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, Panini, during the fifth century BC, was the author of the oldest known grammar of Sanskrit, probably the oldest extant grammar in the world.

Both these names, therefore, referred to authors mentioned by HPB in her book, and may have been intentionally impressed on the dreamer's mind solely as further landmarks to confirm that The Secret Doctrine was the book containing the message the dreamer had to get and ponder: the possibility that an intellectual approach to life's mysteries has to be replaced by surrendering as an act of faith to whatever guides our destiny.

There is also the fact that annotation 1058 quotes from a French historian Du Bois-Reymond. As she subsequently revealed, the dreamer, in her youth, knew and was friendly with a young man called Raymond du Bois. Is this another amazing coincidence? My answer is no. I believe, rather, it is synchronicity at work in its wondrous ways. The lesson Robyn seems to have to draw from this dream is that scientific investigation, or a scientific approach to the mystery of life cannot alone yield satisfactory results, and that a life based on faith, love, and compassion is the main way to achieve inner at-one-ment. I emailed Robyn with this reading in March 2002, wondering what her reaction would be.

Her reply was as follows:

I am quite astounded at your reading. Firstly, I have never heard of the book, or the author you mention. We were brought up in a very Catholic family; obviously the subject of evolution/science was not a factor even to be considered. God was the creator—no question about it.

When I was a young teenager, the subject of evolution and the like was brought up at school, and I queried various subjects with both my parents. Well, as mentioned above, I was basically told people/scientists believe this theory, but it's not the case, and when we pass over to the other side, it would all be quite apparent that God was certainly the creator.

During this same period in my life, I had an acquaintance/friend by the name of Raymond du Bois (as mentioned above, a name very similar to the one of the French scientist Madame Blavatsky quotes in her book). He was Jewish, and this concerned my parents as he was a non-Catholic, and they did not want me getting romantically involved with him. (No romance between us ever took place.)

My mom passed away from cancer. The time from the onset of the cancer to her passing on was just under a year. We all knew it was terminal and the end would come. We had a very open relationship and often joked about what she would find at the other side. I mentioned that if it is not what we all expect/believe, we are all in for a big shock. My mom, in reply, said that if there was anyway to get a message down to me, she'd certainly try. Well, a good eleven years later, it seems I have got my answer.

So this dream that Robyn was "given" to dream by her Higher Self, was meant to be sent to me, as evidently Robyn's Higher Self knew that I had this particular copy of The Secret Doctrine on my shelves, and that I would be able—and inspired—to find that the "telephone number" was in fact a reference to this book.

This whole episode shows again that each individual's Higher Self is a part of the Universal Deity that rules and guides mankind on its way back to at-one-ment with the source from whence it emanates. Indeed, as Shakespeare wrote in Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 5: "There are more things in Heaven and Earth. . . than are dreamt of in your philosophy!"

Charles De Beer, now in his nineties, was elected president of the Johannesburg lodge of the Theosophical Society in South Africa in 1980. His passionate research in the spiritual symbolism to be found in dreams spans a period of well over sixty years and he has published two books containing dreams and their interpretations. He can be contacted at dreams1@telkomsa.net.

Is This The End of the World of The Beginning of the New Age

By Alice O. Howell

Originally printed in the NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 2007 issue of Quest magazine.
Citation: Howell, Alice O."Is This The End of the World of The Beginning of the New Age." Quest 95.6 (NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 2007): 207-209.

Theosophical Society - Alice O. Howell is an author and astrologer based in western Massachusetts. Her works include The Web in the Sea; The Dove in the Stone; and The Heavens Declare: Astrological Ages and the Evolution of Consciousness, all published by Quest Books.

There is a gathering anxiety concerning the "End Times" as predicted by many Christian fundamentalists and recent events certainly reinforce this anxiety. However, much of this worry results from confusing the end of the world with the end of the Age of Pisces.

When I was ten years old and attending a boarding school in Switzerland, I overheard one teacher ask another if she had heard that the world was coming to an end on June 10, 1933. This was already June 10 and my roommate Vera's birthday! Before bedtime, I had shared the news with all the other girls on our floor. We agreed to meet in our dorm after lights out to face the end together. I noticed a gathering tension and excitement, mixed with disbelief, and sympathy for Vera. At about 9:30, one by one, we assembled silently and sat somberly in our pajamas on the four narrow cast-iron beds in our room. We whispered our fears, apologized for our meanness, and hugged little Vera.

As luck would have it, an absolutely terrible thunderstorm broke out, causing us truly to panic. We clung together crying and began to pray incoherently in various languages as the lightning lit up the terror on our faces. Then, as is the way with storms, the noise receded, the rain stopped, and the moon shone brightly through the departing clouds. You can imagine the uniform reaction I was to suffer at the hands of my classmates. Needless to say, this is a lesson I have never forgotten!

Today, throughout the world, a collective fear is rising again. This fear arises from concern over various prophecies of the End. For some, it is called the End Times, and involves The Rapture of all good evangelical Christians, along with the appearance of Jesus in the sky, the Battle of Armageddon and the horrible end of everyone else. This collective myth is somehow reminiscent of another powerful myth, which held sway over the collective unconscious of Hitler's Germany in the 1930s. At that time, innumerable rational and decent Germans were brainwashed by Hitler without knowing what was happening. Are thousands of rational, decent Americans being overcome by the unconscious collective power of another myth, today?

This time around, however, there is some truth in it that has not been clarified or explained. There are various other prophecies all pointing one way or another to an "End" which could possibly come in 2012. The Mayan calendar, according to scholars, suggests that we are in the last katun (cycle) ending in the equivalent of that year, at which time we can wake up to a new way of living in concert with one another. Carlos Barrios, an historian and anthropologist, writes:

Mayan Daykeepers view the Dec. 21, 2012 date as a rebirth, the start of the World of the Fifth Sun. It will be the start of a new era signified by the solar meridian crossing the galactic equator and the earth aligning itself with the center of the galaxy. At sunrise on December 21, 2012 for the first time in 26,000 years the Sun rises to conjunct the intersection of the Milky Way and the plane of the ecliptic. This cosmic cross is considered to be an embodiment of the Sacred Tree, The Tree of Life, a tree remembered in all the world's spiritual traditions. Some observers say this alignment with the heart of the galaxy in 2012 will open a channel for cosmic energy to flow through the earth, cleansing it and all that dwells upon it, raising all to a higher level of vibration.

(From https://trans4mind.com/counterpoint/index-esoteric/barrios.html )

Meanwhile, Barrios says, a perilous struggle between positive and negative factors will arise; and it behooves humanity to choose wisely with respect to the environment, the impact of greed, hatred, and intolerance or else many lives will be lost. In Vedic (Hindu) astrology, which uses the sidereal zodiac of constellations, rahu, the Vedic point of destiny, will be reactivated during the last months of 2012, and help in changing consciousness for the better.

Is it simply a strange coincidence that these two prophecies came from cultures separated by almost half the globe? Whether it is a coincidence or not, the greater significance is that both are optimistic. Both are telling us one way or another that it is not the end of the world but the end of the Age that we call Pisces and the beginning of the Age of Aquarius. Those of you out there thoroughly sick of hearing about anything "New Age," cheer up, we have at least 2000 years of the Aquarian Age to come. It will not be "New" for too much longer in the greater scheme of things.

The basis for these prophecies is not religious but astronomical. However, there seems to be little agreement among astronomers about the position of the Point of the Vernal Equinox, perhaps because the phenomenon of the Precession of the Ages was discovered by the Greek astronomer Hipparchus in the second century BCE, and it seems unclear where he assigned zero degrees of Aries to start the new Platonic Year. So there is a wide choice ranging from 2012 to 2150! On the other hand, 2012 seems to be an important year in those other prophecies, which all point to an end and a beginning of something highly significant.

Two Greek words, aeion and kosmos, which may have been interchanged, conflated, and mistranslated, are the most likely source of the confusion. Aeion refers to an eon, age or era of time. Kosmos refers to the universe or world, a place. It also is the root for beauty, as in cosmetics, which is nice. Words can be used for different purposes. It is possible that people in high places are using the end of the world concept to excuse global warming and the destruction of the environment in order to hasten the Second Coming (which allegedly is happening at the present).

I, for one, am confident that cats will go on having kittens, and that we will survive somehow. Hopefully, we will restore the health of Mother Nature, and finally learn that the light that shines in you and me is the same light! We need to remember that the flame on every candle is the same fire.

As for the Second Coming, there is truth in it, as well; surely it really means the coming of the consciousness of Christ (Atman, purusha, Divine Guest) within each one of us. This is the spiritual task of the coming Age—to recognize the unity underlying the diversity of manifestation. Perhaps a new commandment will emerge: "Love thy neighbors, they are thyself!" At the 1981 International Analytical Psychology Conference in Bombay (now Mumbai), I heard Mother Teresa put it in a nutshell: "I believe in person to person and that God is in everyone." The trap for the coming Age is that we may ignore the person-to-person part. This involves transpersonal love and not reducing individuals to numbers. "Don't take this personally, bang! You're dead!"

In terms of the science of astrology, the phenomenon of Ages is known as the Precession of the Equinoxes, which you can look up in any encyclopedia. It is the slow unfolding of the Platonic Year, measured by the twelve constellations, and is called a precession because the Point of the Vernal Equinox travels in a reverse direction through the sidereal zodiac of the visible stars of the constellations, e.g., Aries, Pisces, Aquarius, etc.; whereas the tropical zodiac goes in a forward direction, e.g., Aries, Taurus, Gemini, etc.. The latter is a theoretical circle based on the apparent motion of the sun around the earth in a year, divided neatly into twelve months or signs. The constellations vary in width and as do the interfaces between them. Astronomy measures the heliocentric positions of the planets transiting against the constellations, and astrology uses the geocentric tropical zodiac. (Skeptical scientists use this ignorantly to debunk astrology, not realizing that this is the way it is supposed to be!) We live, after all, not on the sun, but on the earth. Remarkably, this precession was discovered around 200 BCE by Hipparchus, a Greek living in Alexandria. This staggering discovery was made at the end of the Age of Aries; and we have now lived through the whole Age of Pisces and are entering the Age of Aquarius. If the dichotomy of Pisces is faith versus reason, the coming one is that of the individual and the collective; global/cosmic.

So keep in mind that there are two zodiacs: the sidereal and the tropical—a wheel within a wheel—as Ezekiel noted. Both zodiacs bear the same twelve names, and if the twelve tribes of Israel and the twelve disciples come to mind, you are right. In the Holy Land, there is a mosaic that shows a sign for each son of Jacob. In Cairo, at the Church of the Dormition of Mary, there is another mosaic that depicts both the twelve sons of Jacob and the twelve disciples under their zodiacal signs. The number twelve is a clue to the solar myths: i.e., the gods on Olympus, the Labors of Hercules, and on and on. All of this goes back to the Sumerians, who gave us twelve months in a year, twenty-four hours in a day, sixty minutes in an hour, and sixty seconds in a minute. (They used the digital decimal system for business because they could count on their fingers and toes.)

So, what is the Point of the Vernal Equinox? In layman's terms, it marks the moment in March that the sun appears to cross the earth's equator. It is zero degrees of Aries and we call it spring. Stop the clock! Now imagine taking a celestial ruler, and using the two points of the sun and the earth, draw a line out into space like a clock hand. Where it lands with respect to a constellation determines the name of the Age. The tip of the clock hand is called the Point of the Vernal Equinox. This travels one degree every seventy-two years! It takes approximately 26,000 years to make a full cycle of one Platonic Year.

For biblical students, it is interesting that St. Paul infers a new dispensation, so it is conceivable that he knew of Hipparchus' theory. We do know that Christianity actually coincided fairly closely with the beginning of the Age of Pisces, carrying with it not only ubiquitous fish symbolism, but naming Jesus the slain lamb (Aries means ram).

Judaism falls in the Age of Aries (Isaac was saved from sacrifice by a ram), and the shofar, a ram's horn, is still blown ritually today. Moses was angry at the backsliding of some of his people because they were worshiping the Golden Calf. (The old Age of Taurus involved bull worship. Now bulls were out and rams were in!) If you are familiar with ancient history, mythology, or archaeology, there can be no disputing this sequence.

In conclusion, there is so much I can only hint at—the incredible synchronicity involved in the symbolism of the astrological meanings for the signs connected to the constellations, and the coincidence of these symbolisms with the symbolisms of the major religions, as well as the prevailing myths in an Age, and the steady evolution of human consciousness itself—and all of it inherent in the sequence of history.

This can be verified objectively in archeological evidence going all the way back to the Age of Cancer, the age of Mother Goddess worship. There have been many Platonic years going back into prehistoric times. Written history begins at the end of the Age of Gemini, (the sign that rules communication). It makes sense to me to start arbitrarily with the Age of Cancer, because the archaeological evidence provides tangible proof. We desperately need to learn more about this area of lore and knowledge and to communicate it to others, because it can be a source of comfort, faith, and hope. Here lies a potential reconciliation between science and religion; these insights can give spirituality its proof and science its lost sense of the sacred.

It has given me and others, the temerity to suggest that there is a divine plan in the unfolding of human consciousness, and a sacred implication that seems to be concealed in these awesome eons. This divine plan and its sacred implications reveal themselves in the immense mystery of the cosmos of Creation. Indeed, "The Heavens declare the Glory of God."

Alice O. Howell has taught at several C. G. Jung Institutes and has lectured worldwide. Widowed, she lives now in a quiet village in New England; however she has lived quite an extraordinary life. She grew up in hotels and boarding schools, visiting over thirty-five countries by the age of fifteen but she is also a late bloomer, coming to Theosophy and writing eight books after the age of sixty. Her book, The Heavens Declare: The Astrological Ages and the Evolution of Consciousness, is newly published by Quest Books. Howell is also the author of Jungian Symbolism in Astrology, The Dove in the Stone: Finding the Sacred in the Commonplace, The Web in the Sea: Jung, Sophia, and the Geometry of Soul, and The Beejum Book.

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