Gender-bending the Archangels

[Cybernetic_Jazz]

A month or two ago I was looking for some good pathworking cds or mp3's that I could DIY with, not much out there but I did find Tabitha Cicero's workings of everything up through Netzach and 27th path.

It brought up a question; I notice that GD decided to make Sandalphon and Uriel women, also made Gabriel Gabrielle.

I understand well enough that archangels are nonphysical intelligences, exist in a much more abstract sense and only take human form as an interface for our minds - I suppose that excuse could cover Gabrielle and Urielle. As far as I understand however Sandalphon is another rendition of the Enoch/Metatron story. Enoch was 365 when he 'walked with God' and became Metatron. Prior to Sandalphon being an archangel there was a scruffy John the Baptist-like guy (or at least as one would imagine him) running around northern Israel annoying Ahab and Jezebel and bringing down fire from the sky at the expense of the priests of Baal and who also hitched a ride out the same way Enoch did while a teary-eyed Elisha looked on in admiration.

I could probably make jokes all day on this like did Yahweh tell Elijah he was about to have an operation before or after he got on the chariot? If the answer is neither did he know that the Golden Dawn booked him an appointment? I get that there's a lot of suggestion that a great deal of the old testament is likely allegorical or mystery in nature, that Elijah may very well be just as much a legend or symbol as Enoch (particularly those who'd state that so much of what he did were the classical stages of initiation - like being fed by a raven, meeting the son of a widow, etc.) but I'm wondering what the occult rules of engagement are on personified symbols such as gods, goddesses, and archangels to this end. Is it wise to make such drastic overhauls to figures as swapping their traditional gender or is that a bit like needing to reinvent the wheel and create a new astral form? I remember reading that Netzach has its archangels the Elohim - ie. all the gods and goddesses of antiquity camped out and having coffee at the astral Denny's in that sephira, they seem a bit more concreted in identity if that's not an oxymoron with Netzach.

What exactly do we do with archangels vs. the Elohim? Is it just archangels who's genders can be assigned at will of the one speaking/praying/invocating without alienating the original form? Can both be changed at will and Zeus be made a beautiful maiden or Hecate into a dashing Ben Hur type character? Was the Golden Dawn just trying to set the logical impress of malkuth as the inferior queen or princess in Briatic terms? 'Making' a particular archangel a woman doesn't seem to be that strange a concept apparently - I remember Poke Runyon mentioning something briefly and saying there was no reason not to if one preferred it that way.

Just curious on what the broader attitude is on this, the concept of editing divine superintelligences at will is a bit new and confusing to me.

[Zenick]

I can see where your confusion comes from. After you leave the material world you start to lose duality female/male so technical all gods, angels,etc are genderless Imo.
In the gd method you build up a astral image of the archangel that is sympathetic to the archangel then invoke the angel into the image. This of course comes from are perspective. We build it in a way we as humans can relate to so in the end the angel will probable seem more male or female humanoid, etc. You can see how this may differ from person to person group to group. It's not actual changing the angel itself just the filter we are looking at it.

Hope this is clear enough to give you a better idea of what is going on it's not just going oh i hate males or females so i will just change all my spirits to the opposite sex. Its more along the lines of well I see this angels attributes being more female then male so i build the image as more female.This is of course is a very simplified version of it.

[Cybernetic_Jazz]

That makes a lot of sense. I know by Kether duality is utterly synthesized. Being the early an patriarchal version I'm sure the all-male attributions might have been more than a little deliberately skewed already (exoteric reading of the story of the garden of evil tends to debate that human gender is a worldly creation of god rather than attribute of heaven which confuses the issue more). At worst pedestrian glance one might be tempted to think that GD just saw a polarity imbalance and decided to rectify things arbitrarily. Then again in thinking more directly about their attributing Raphael and Michael as male, Gabriel and Uriel as female, I also see rather quickly that both male attributes are related to the obverse triangle elements - air and fire, where the inverted triangle elements - water and earth - are made female. I suppose that tells me they held the kinship of air and fire or water and earth or possibly the complimentary aspects of fire to water or air to earth as being of heightened salience.

[Zenick]

You got the right idea. Thought in the original GD the angels didn't have any attributes associated with them the were visualised as pure white angels all four. The elements attributes came later don't know who when, makes sense though it probable would have been added after entering the inner order anyway.
I believe most groups still use all male angels some orders have changed this mostly as a balancing aspect pretty much along the lines you brought up.
The GD calls them Telesmatic Images and they came up with a way to create them for Briatic(archangels) and Yetziratic(angels) images based on the Hebrew letters in there name to create the image.Look for the GD flying roll on Telesmatic Images.This wasn't used for the lrp though probable due to that it was the only ritual given in the outer order before learning about it and or it hadn't been made yet.

[Asurendra]

I think the OTA represents Gabriel and Uriel as female. These are beings of light so their appearance will be influenced by our own conceptions of them.