The First Veil and the Age of the Crowned and Conquering Child

Tom Robbins, describing the dropping of the first veil in the Dance of the Seven Veils, (see my posting for 7/1/12) writes “despite an often ostentatious masculine display that would indicate otherwise, the sexual drama… was largely, historically, directed by the female. That was particularly true among human beings, in which species the male has gone to ludicrous and often violent lengths to compensate for what struck the more insecure of men as an inferior sexual role.”

That makes it sound like a matter of gender. I prefer to see it as a matter of sexual energy, rather than role. Daoism refers to this energy as yin and  yang.

The Britannica Encyclopedia of World Religions notes that Yin-yang refers to two complementary forces that make up all aspects and phenomena of life.

“Yin is conceived of as earth, female, dark, passive and absorbing… Yang is conceived of as heaven, male, light, active and penetrating… They both proceed from the Supreme Ultimate (T’ai-Chi).”

In his translation of the Tao Te Ching, Arthur Waley writes: “Yin and yang are categories, corresponding to male and female, weak and strong, dark and light… At the same time they are… quite definitely forces; for yin is the vital-energy (ch’i, the life-breath of Earth, just as yang is the life-breath of Heaven)… They are two independent and complementary facets of existence, and the aim of yin-yang philosophers [is] the attainment in human life of perfect balance between the two principles.”

Aleister Crowley was known as the most evil man in the world, and has few admirers among feminists. However he did have at least one interesting idea about relationships between the sexes. Crowley believed that there have been two ages in human progress, and that we are now entering a third. Here’s an oversimplification of his belief:

The first was the Age of the Great Goddess, when humans were ignorant of sex and birth, and life seemed to come from the woman alone. This was an age of worship of the feminine.

The second was the Age of Osiris, in which we realized that the man had a hand in creating life – women brought forth life, but life came from the man. Men became the ruling force. That’s where we are now, and it’s time to move on.

In the third age, the Age of the Crowned and Conquering Child, the ideas of the first two ages will be reconciled and transcended. Just as the child is the product of both parents, and leaves home to start a new life, so humans can move on to a life in which the masculine and feminine can work together in a mutually respectful way.

I like that idea. I choose to believe that we can achieve balance between the two principles, and this is the aim of Sh’am Buddhism.

The illusion cast aside by the dropping of the first veil is that life is about any sort of struggle between yin and yang. Or that yin is female and yang is male.

Of course, as Robbins concludes, we spend a lot of time and money suppressing the sensuality of the Great Mother, “who smiled upon all manner of sexual expression, including that which moderns were to label ‘promiscuous’ and ‘pornographic’… however… eventually every manner of carnal play [will] go back into full production, for like it or not… that was the way of her world”.