Occultess wrote:Thanks, all those who responded!
I'm going to try to answer a bunch of stuff in this post, so bare with.
No, I haven't asked the female aspect what the deal is, but that does sound like a good idea.
I'm not sure I should say which deity/deities are in question here. Maybe it's not a big deal. It just seems like so much in the occult/spirituality/magick is just...really personal and it has a negative effect on things if you go running your mouth off about it... but maybe this isn't one of those things. I'm not sure.
Are deities usually/always really cool about you talking about them or telling others about them, telling people who your patrons are, etc.? I don't know how they take that sort of thing.
My thinking on the gender specific thing was in the way that....some people think that males learn better with other males and females learn better with other females. I believe Druids have this practice (or atleast used to in ancient times). It's something about the energy flowing more easily between people of the same gender than when there is a mix of genders in the room.
I didn't really do a ritual per se. I lit a candle (for the female aspect) one day (+ a small offering) and asked loads of questions because I was confused. The male aspect came a day or two later and spoke with me. I wasn't really asking her for anything specific really,....it's just that....well, have you ever heard people talk about how some deity or another was trying to say, "Hey, I'm your patron!" somehow or another? I think that was happening with me and this deity, but I was starting to warm up to that it was probably true, so I figured I should initiate contact. That was mainly it, I think,...initiating contact.
Deities generally don't mind you speaking about them. If there is a point that is some kind of hidden mystery, it's usually pretty clear. Remember, you're not practicing religion. You're practicing magic. There is a huge, huge, huge difference, the primary being that you are in control, not some god. The only thing you're the property of is yourself. If your deity exhibits controlling behavior, you don't have a god, you have an incorporeal asshole boyfriend whom you need to ditch. Many spirits (gods certainly fall into this category) gain power through repetition of their seal or name. This is why as payment in thanks for what a spirit has done, you may make a nicer version of its seal, or take an ad out in the paper thanking them publicly - Catholics love thanking St. Jude in the classifieds. If a spirit were to show up and say, "Hey, I'm a god, I have chosen you, I am your patron deity, but you must worship and tell no other" I'd take one look at it and say, "Yeah, you keep thinking that, jackass," and banish it into next week.
To play Devil's Advocate, you lit a candle for the female spirit, the male showed up a few day's later and said something about how you're supposed to follow the female, you're chosen, etc. Well, you called on the female -- what business does the male have showing up at all? That doesn't really make any sense, if you think about it. If you're so chosen, and the chosen called, why didn't she show up? Having that detail, it sounds like you called the attention of some astral trash.
Bruce explains it in Astral Dynamics better than I do, but the idea goes a little like this. Humans exist at a certain vibrational energy state. As you increase in vibrational frequency, you go up higher through levels of consciousness and the spirit world. Really nifty spirits like embodied concepts of love and art exist at an extremely high level, and thus have a correspondingly high vibrational frequency. Crappy spirits have lower frequencies and exist at lower vibrational energies. Humans have the curious ability to change their vibrational frequency and thus visit different levels of the astral where the different spirits hang out. At a vibrational state near humans exist a sort of astral cockroach that feeds off of potential human psychic energy. They're not really intelligent but they are evocative - if they evoke fear, elation, misery or whatever else, then they eat. Sometimes you hear about people who talk about an ambiguous dark shape in a corner that scares the dog but doesn't do anything. "Oh, it's been there for years," they say. Yes, it has been - growing fat and stupid like a slug on your residual psychic energy sludge. People who are learning astral projection rapidly encounter this psychic trash when they are trying to go through to higher and more interesting places in the astral, and if they're not prepared for it, their first impression of the astral is a dark, scary hungry place. Some of the roaches get smarter and decide to toy with you, not really so much out of actual malicious intent, but they've learned that if they mimic what you want and string you along, you'll feed them lots. I suppose the take-home point here is don't believe a damned thing a spirit says, especially if its arrival is suspicious.
The personal bit about magic has to do with in order for magic to work the magician has to change. It's easy to get hubris involved, and rapidly one can alternate between humility and megalomania - plus, you never know how someone's gonna react when you tell them you practice magic, much less if you practice a non-mainstream version of magic.
Regarding druids, no one has the foggiest idea what the druids did since they didn't leave a written record (Murray lied, among others.) Gender-divided studies are usually designed to cultivate traits associated with each. That which springs up around (men's mysteries, women's mysteries) evolves out of this. That energy flows differently between genders is nothing new. Men doing man-things like farting, calling each other rude names and punching each other (while farting) suddenly ceases when a female enters the room. My husband complains that all women seem to share an estrogen-fueled Borg collective because women understand a type of emotional logic that men just can't (he thinks I'm full of it, but everyone women I mention it to instantly understands.) Men and women are simply different. Of course their energies flow differently when they're together.