January 14, 2011

The Spiritual Life of a Transgender Person 2

The post of Anonymous 32 on the spiritual life of a crossdreamer has led to a very interesting debate.

Personally I find the discussion of the spirituality of crossdreaming interesting as it gives us another approach to a phenomenon that is predominantly discussed in the framework of modern science.

Crossdreaming and various transgender conditions are therefore reduced to biology or psychological trauma, and not seen as part of a personal journey towards personal growth, integration of the psyche and a greater understanding of what it means to be a human being.

In other words: If we make use of our own life experiences we may look at this as a meaningful -- although painful -- experience, and avoid reducing it to something pathological.

Throughout history men and women have made use of dreams, myths, fairy tales and symbols to explain and understand the interconnectedness of the male and the female.

Astrology and humorology

People in premodern Europe did uphold strict rules about gender differences, proper behavior and the division of power between men and women, but at the same time they also recognized that "masculine" and "feminine" traits and abilities were common to both sexes.

The reason for this was partly that their scientific paradigms were based on such a mix/remix model. Astrology told them that they were born at a specific time in a specific star sign and under the influence of particular planets that could be feminine or masculine. In other words: A man could be influenced by Venus, a woman by Mars.

According to humorology, the idea that they body consisted of four bodily fluids or temperaments based on blood, black bile, yellow bile and phlegm (parallells to the four elements of fire, air, earth and water). This made it possible to describe character types with different proportions of warm and dry elements (masculine) and cold and wet elements (feminine).


Both astrology and humorology influenced alchemy. Mircea Eliade has shown that alchemy was based on a very old tradition where minerals and metals were considered to be organic, growing in the earth like roots and plants do. This dynamic character of the elements made it possible ot use the mixing of metals, minerals and biological matter as a metaphor for psychological growth.

Carl Gustav Jung has made a very convincing argument for the alchemists projecting their own inner psyche out onto the materials they worked on. When they were looking for "the philosopher's stone" of Harry Potter, they were not predominantly looking for gold and earthly riches; they were trying to integrate the various parts of their unconscious psyche.

In many alchemical texts you will find that the marriage of the Moon and the Sun is an important part of the psychological individuation process. This part of the process is often symbolized by the hermaphrodite, a being that is half man and half woman.

I am not saying here that alchemy makes sense from a chemical and modern scientific point of view. What I am saying is that the alchemical texts shows us that man and woman have been struggling with "transgender" issues for a long time.

This does not mean that the alchemists were crossdreamers or transsexuals. It simply means that the need to integrate your inner man with your inner woman is something a lot of people have felt a need to work on. There is no absolute division between men and women. We are made from the same mold.

In the Judaic and Christian tradition this is reflected in the second creation myth of Genesis. Not in the one where Eve is taken from the side of Adam, but in the one where "God created man in his own image,..male and female he created them." (Genesis 1:27)

It seems to me that crossdreamers and other transgender people are struggling because our inner mix of "humors" are out of skew with the expectations of the society surrounding us, and in some cases also with our own bodies.

Anonymous 32 responds

I asked Anonymous 32 if he had ever you looked into the dynamics of the female and male in alchemy.

This is what he replied:

'Yes I have studied alchemy for years, not only internal but external for years. Even bought some beeker and condensers in hope of one day doing some work with dew (although the day job keeps one busy).

Internal alchemy is definitely all about transmutation of energies and refinement into gold. I always eventually took that as overcoming and transforming into that Union with the Absolute which is pure gold.

To be honest, being an autogynephiliac (especially having dressed up and slept with men) led me to extreme guilt about that and to find ways to fix myself. While the Christian path I originally went down basically exudes hell for most and anything about "dressing up" and "sleeping with men" is shunned .......I still came to deep mystical realizations after being baptized a second time and led me to becoming predominantly a mystic of Eastern influence.

Those experiences showed me that modern day "Westernized" Christianity lacks psychological knowledge. Whereas our "condition" is basically a psychological one, though also spiritual, mental, physical and so forth. Some think its so easy ....."oh just pray and you wont be bothered be it anymore". But I tried that for years, crying my guts out, begging to be left alone with this, wishing to be a normal guy with girlfriends. But here I am a decade later still in full battle mode.

I've also thought of the possibility of previous lives. Perhaps the last one we were in, it was life as women, and now here we are complete opposites. Other theories include that some people just get curious about transsexuals, see some porn, read abut how to become one, and then the excitement of sexual energy coupled with these new possibilities creates really powerful thought forms, since they are charged with sexually energy. These thought forms keep coming back to haunt the creator of them.

I've also considered that perhaps the souls of previously deceased trans or auto-whatevers are still here roaming earth completely attached to the whole feminine physique ...and the latch on to folks who are deemed most easily convinced to change gender or deal with trans stuff.

I mean the philosophical possibilities are endless and I've wrestled with them all including the archetype deal. My only solution is permanent ego-death and I've got about 3 dozen books and a bunch of glimpses of the possibility of such a state ..and it is really awesome and complete freedom ...all mental addictionas/habits eventually falling away.

Its a state where 'I' as in I am is seen as just a thought or illusion ...so One's own identity completely falls away leaving Union with Infinity/God/the Absolute .....and basically the mind and its tricks, habits, justifications, etc ....completely quiets down to silence ...while still available for use when need be, like calculations for math, or what needs to be down at work, or what needs to be said to others. Etc.

Right now however, that ego death permanence isn't my reality. Though I have been close and glimpsed it several dozens of times. So right now the battle still rages.

I also wonder if there is some way to starve this deal off completely to its own death. But then there is the question of, what if we're supposed to be this way, you know? The overall implications in all categorizations is just soooo vast we can literally spend months upon months of discussing the intricacies of it all.

Though I feel like I have spent the last 10-12 years studying everything that has to do with these categories and for me the only permanent solution is this complete spiritual ego death.'

(Published with permission)

Image: The Seal of Solomon combines two triangles, one male and one female. In the Jewish Kabbalah as well as in Freemasonry they are intertwined in order to show that the universe as well as man is created out of the combination of male and female forces.

Jack responds

This was my response:

'One immediate comment:

When writing this blog, my perspective has changed in one important respect: I no longer believe in the terms "masculine" and "feminine" as absolute concepts with a fixed meaning. In this respect I have penetrated "the veil of maya" and seen that it is the words that limits us, not reality. There is a complete overlap between male and female traits and behavior -- if the cultural context allows it.

This means that much of the psychological suffering we see is caused by men and women being forced to play roles and express traits that are not natural for them. They have to repress them. To regain health they have to get in touch with their repressed cross-sexual side and become a whole being.

In alchemy this is symbolized by the marriage between the king and the queen, in taoism in the yin and yang symbol, in Tibetan Buddhism in the mandalas, in the Jewish Kabbalah in the two sides of the Sephorit tree and the Seal of Solomon, and in many myths: the primordial divine hermaphrodite and so on. This is of course Carl Jung's point when he talks about the cross-sexual side of the collective conscious: the anima and the animus.

Christianity actually had this insight. In the apocryphal Gospel of Thomas Jesus says:


Image: Yin and Yang. In Chinese and Taoist thought the symbol presents the interconnectedness of male yang and female yin. Everything, including man and woman, has both yin and yang aspects. Moreover, the dots tells us that yin is included in yang and visa versa. Again we are facing a symbol that tells a completely different story than the modern Western obsession of keeping opposites apart.

This applies to all human beings. But we are different in one important aspect: Even if we do manage to integrate large parts of our feminine side, we still feel the longing to become women. There is a factor X that continue to haunt us, and it is this factor X we need to understand. Why is it that other men manage to integrate their feminine side and still identify as male, while we continue to struggle with gender dysphoria?

As you have seen, I am currently believing that this factor X is biological and instinctual and that it therefore cannot be overcome by purely psychological means, unless -- of course -- we are talking about complete spiritual transcendence, as you are. I am in no way close to such an enlightenment, and it could be that I am too analytical to be able to do so.

As for reincarnation, I have not considered this, as the concept is very alien to my basic Western frame of mind. The fact that more that between one and two billion people take reincarnation for granted, however, means that I must take the idea seriously.

There are two aspects with using reincarnation as an explanation that make me hesitate, however. One is that such a model is unfalsifiable. It cannot be proven, and it cannot be disproved. This means that unless a person personally experience this as true, there is no way you can convince him or her that it is true. The other is that given that all people must in one reincarnation or the other have been of the opposite sex, all of us should be gender dysphoric. We are not.

The possession theory is popular in Thailand, my friend in Thailand, Natalie, tells me. They believe that the katoeys -- the Thai M2F transsexuals -- are possessed by female spirits. This means that they are men trapped in a female spirit.

This is, of course, the exact opposite of how these transwomen experience themselves. Most of them feel like women trapped in a man's body. Personally I believe spirits are aspects of our own psyche projected onto the environment. Using spirits as a metaphor can be fruitful, but I doubt their existence as entities outside our own personal or collective psyches.'

Image from alchemical text: The man (the sun) and the moon (woman) united gives birth to the four elements. The mirror presents the prima materia, the starting point of the process. The egg represents the four elements (shell, white, membrane, yolk) united in the fifth element: the young chick. The chick represents the philosopher's stone, the union of all opposites. This image can also be intepreted psychologically, as the quest for the development of a whole and integrated soul.


  1. I have recently thought that there is really no such thing as two sexs because it is proven quite often that man can experience feeling like women for instance being soft,delicate closer with girl when young and there are some that feel it greater perople such as(transgenders,crossdressers, cross dreamers).

    And the same for women and there are some women who act like guys their tough ready to fight and those who also feel it to an extreme(FTM and women crossdresser). So the very idea that we are confined to two sexs is a really out dated though.

    As for reincarnation I have believed in it for as long as I can remember it from my dad, (a person who has had a few supernatural events). The reason i believe in it is because there are many cases where people like young children have known things they couldn't possibly have known.

    And I have considered I was a women and that my soul as yet fully integrated to being a man yet.And it seems that for some that comes naturally and other struggle to adapt.

    In the case of MTF their souls are female in nature so they are truly women. Women in a mans body and they must become that because there destany for that soul is to be a women.

    As for it unprovable have they discovered as conusness yet, if the brain is simply a bunch of chemical why aren't animals like us are to have complex science.

  2. Sean,
    There indeed are two SEXES- male and female. What we don't have are two GENDERS.
    A person born as male sex is not necessarily a MAN, ie., a masculine male.
    A person born as female is not necessarily a WOMAN,ie., a feminine female.

  3. The concept of existence of third and fourth genders hence arises as a clear possiblity.

  4. Sultana,
    I did mean genders your right there are two sexs with a few exceptions (intersex). And the possibility is that there are as many genders as there are people it depends on how one looks at the term gender.

  5. Anonymous 32 has sent me the following update:

    "I just wanted to give you a quick update on something very huge in my life that just happened in the last 2-3 weeks. The Enlightenment and Oneness and freedom from myself I was looking for has happened, or at least the beginning stages of it have started.

    Basically ...the real me is Awareness ....aware of the body (but not the body), aware of thoughts (but not the thoughts), aware of emotions (but not emotions) ....it is like a Detached Observer state.

    I've been devouring nonduality and Advaita Vedanta books like there's no tomorrow for the last 2 years and just alone from these books ....these glimpses started happening. I can't really explain them but I know a handful of others who have them or have had them. Its like a state of no 'I'...

    Well this state or the glimpse of it at 1st seemed like it was something other than who and what I am ....and that has switched over whereas now it seems the real I am is that glimpse ...and everything else is other.

    I've been hanging around a few people who have this state permanently .....and this one guy who has it (John) ...he just said it so plainly, and it resonated, and it was like intuitively (from the autogynephilia like sensitivities) ...picked up empathically the state he was in and it made complete sense.....

    So for the last 3 weeks there has just been the utmost contentment, Freedom from myself, freedom from the battle between the 2 I's (male I and autgynephiliac I) ....both are seen as mind/body/emotion constructs but not seen as I....

    This state is everything that I was looking for ...except that there is No 'I' here ...its paradoxically amazing. So free, so crystal clear ...and in this free clarity ...everything else seems to be melting away. Its just Being .....all on its own ..prior to, during, and after thought. Also what happened for a few nights was that I was asleep, the body was asleep ...but the Awareness (the Real I) was aware the whole night even during the other aspects being in complete sleep....

    It is extremely fascinating!!! This state is soooo Awesome!!!!. And what I was looking for for almost 2 decades is something that was right under my nose.....

    ...This is something truly amazing. For the very 1st time in my life, I feel free from the self that I never really liked and free from the 2 I's that battled. The observer of all this, the seer (awareness itself devoid of thought and devoid of a body) is the real I!!!"

    Jack's comment:

    I have never experienced this kind of peace, but I know it exists. Within religious mysticism, Eastern and Western, people report such feelings of oneness. It seems it is closely connected with the realization that what seemed to be absolute opposites (good and evil, male and female...) is transcended and understood to be facets of the same underlying reality.

  6. This comment has been removed by the author.

  7. Beautiful that anonymous was able to find his way back to truth because everything conspires to prevent it. The universe is a living entity that is often called God and we are part of the flesh and consciousness of this God.Many religions are dualistic and place God outside of us instead of seeing the truth and that we are part of God, reality is non-dualistic but appears dualistic because we our on the inside looking out and from our perspective are not able to stand outside of reality and see it in its completion. J Krishnamurti understood this as many others have and who try to bring this peace (sanity) to others to escape the insanity that dualism has caused.


Click here for this blog's Code of Conduct!

Discuss crossdreamer and transgender issues!