“Gender is in everything; everything has its Masculine
and Feminine Principles; Gender manifests on all
planes.”–The Kybalion.
This Principle embodies the truth that there is GENDER manifested in
everything–the Masculine and Feminine Principles ever at work. This is
true not only of the Physical Plane, but of the Mental and even the
Spiritual Planes. On the Physical Plane, the Principle manifests as SEX,
on the higher planes it takes higher forms, but the Principle is ever
the same. No creation, physical, mental or spiritual, is possible
without this Principle. An understanding of its laws will throw light on
many a subject that has perplexed the minds of men.
Setting aside the physical body, when you look inside, what gender is your spirit? We are so trained to think of ourselves in one particular gender or another, we often fail to look at our spirit and see if there is anything which can be used to identify it as one or the other.
The Principle of
Gender works ever in the direction of generation, regeneration, and
creation. Everything, and every person, contains the two Elements or
Principles, or this great Principle, within it, him or her. Every Male
thing has the Female Element also; every Female contains also the Male
Principle. If you would understand the philosophy of Mental and
Spiritual Creation, Generation, and Re-generation, you must understand
and study this Hermetic Principle. It contains the solution of many
mysteries of Life. We caution you that this Principle has no reference
to the many base, pernicious and degrading lustful theories, teachings
and practices, which are taught under fanciful titles, and which are a
prostitution of the great natural principle of Gender. Such base
revivals of the ancient infamous forms of Phallicism tend to ruin mind,
body and soul, and the Hermetic Philosophy has ever sounded the warning
note against these degraded teachings which tend toward lust,
licentiousness, and perversion of Nature’s principles. If you seek such
teachings, you must go elsewhere for them–Hermeticism contains nothing
for you along these lines. To the pure, all things are pure; to the
base, all things are base.
Although this reference to Phallicism seems to be focused entirely upon some moral standard which was probably rampant in 1912 when the book was published, the use of the term is very striking to me. Isn’t Phallicism which is described in the dictionary as “worship of the phallus, especially as symbolic of power or of the generative principle of nature” a perfect description of one of the premises of Christianity?
In classic Christian texts, God is rendered male. He is the giver of life. He is creator of all. He is the one and only power. He is the one true God and there can be no other.