Gender Equations: Experiences of the Syzygy on the Archetypal Spectrum

Dedicated to Donald F. Sandner, MD

Framed by the biblical tale of Moses and the golden calf and an archetypal spectrum of solar spirit and its earthly and bodily aspects described by Mircea Eliade, this exploration of the syzygy considers Jung's original symmetry of man with his anima and woman with her animus before viewing anima and animus as yoked together in tandem in the psyche of either biological sex. This exploration remains mindful of the varied experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) individuals. Just as the feminine presides over gender and polytheism in general, the insights of archetypal psychology affirm that the masculine phallus knows no concrete gender but works creatively in the sexual initiation and individuation of us all.

?Jung's observation that the hermaphrodite plays a numinous, progressive, and potentially healing role in the psyche is amplified here by myth and imitative rites of antiquity where human beings seek return to an earlier state of things for ecstatic experience and renewal. As the initially startling image of the transgender other can prompt re-experience of all we carry within us (trauma included) from perinatal, object-relational, and familial levels of development, these are considered in reference to the eight fundamental relational dyads in the family archetype, with special focus on the brother–sister dyad as paradigmatic of the syzygy. Both the pre-sexual eros of the child and a reciprocal mystical implosion of gender opposites are highlighted with literary Gnostic and hermetic references and extended into the dark body, the subtle body, and all nature.