Healing and understanding the ancient battle between men and women
by Gerrit Gielen
Creation: a co-operation of the male and the female energies
In the beginning there is Creation: time and space are created from what is One. Diversity is the consequence: life takes on endless forms; there are an infinite number of fields of experience, spheres, dimensions and worlds to explore. This raises the question: Why did Creation happen?
Unity includes everything, and in order for you to become aware of only part of that unity, Creation is necessary. To give an example: white light is the sum of all colors. To experience individual colors, we may break up the white light with the use of a prism. This diffusion of the white light into all the colors of the rainbow is what I call Creation: creating diversity from unity.
Only when we have experienced the beauty and qualities of all the individual colors do we understand truly what is white. Creation – creating diversity – stems from the desire for self awareness. We understand the whole only when we have really experienced all the individual parts. We can compare this with the journey we make during our lives. When I was a kid, I understood what it was like to be a child, but I did not yet know what it is like to be a teenager in love, what it is like to be a married man, or a father. I need to have all those experiences to really understand who I am as a human being and to truly find peace within myself.
In this great journey of discovery, which is the purpose of Creation, two forces play a central role: the male and the female. The male power is an outgoing, inquisitive energy that is adventurous and wants to experience and understand all things. It is this force that lies at the basis of the emergence of time and space. The female energy creates the consciousness of inner oneness. Through the female side, humankind is connected to that oneness (the One), and with the male side, it is connected to diversity (the Many.) The female side has to do with the inner world, the male side with the outward, manifest reality.
The male energy ensures that what is unique and individual can be experienced in everything, while the female energy ensures integration and union. Without the female energy that integrates the unique experiences of individuals into a larger picture, they would become lost in the night.
Duality arises when a living being begins to identify too much with one side or the other. In the present state of humanity, it is the male side that is the dominant object of identification. The result is a suppression of the female side which causes a loss of that sense of inner connectedness. The I-sense is too strong: the ego sees itself placed in front of a universe that is no longer experienced as a protective mother. It then feels small and threatened, and reacts by wanting to amass as much power as possible from that universe.
When the female is the dominant energy, too much attention is focused on the inner world, which creates a duality with the outside world. The inner world, the world of the spiritual, is then seen as higher and superior to the outer reality of diversity and plurality of forms.
Paradise: balance between the female and the male
We can see duality at work in the history of mankind. In a pre-historic past, there was a balance between the male and female energies. At that time, there were no countries, no borders. This was the time of an earthly paradise that was called Lemuria. In me, there live impressions of a time when I, along with other angelic beings, were busy preparing the Earth for the arrival of humans.
“It’s like a beautiful dream of a long, long time ago. We were radiant angelic beings. In collaboration with mother Earth, we were creating nature. Time for us had quite a different speed: the plants that we created, we saw emerge before our eyes. We were busy preparing the Earth for the arrival of humankind. It was a time of hope, a time of love. We thought that the Earth would become a beautiful playground in which beings with a simple childlike consciousness could discover what life is in a delicious way; a place where people could enjoy their love for one another and for nature. How mistaken we were. What went so terribly wrong? “
The people who populated the Earth at that time felt the inner connectedness of life and knew that mother Earth was there for everyone. People lived in harmony with nature. The Earth, like the air, was there for everyone, but she was not our possession. At the same time, life was a journey of discovery, a delightful adventure. On every mountain, a new vista; behind every horizon, a new country with new experiences to explore.
Humankind was created as a very curious, inquisitive race. In those days, people possessed an exuberant, somewhat childlike consciousness. They enjoyed life with a spontaneous happiness that we see only in children. Their consciousness was more extensive than ours: they could communicate with animals, plants, mountains, and rivers. It was natural for them to have contact with spiritual guides and with etheric creatures like elves and goblins. They had a very different sense of time and lived day to day.
In this developing humanity, there was a natural rhythm, with the female and the male energies more or less dominant at alternating times. After each phase of discovery and exploration, came a phase of internalization. Just as a human runs by alternating the left and the right leg. But then it went wrong.
The end of paradise: the snake and the emergence of duality
In the Bible, this phase is described as the symbolic story of Eve, who is tempted by the serpent to taste of the apple which gives humans knowledge of good and evil.
What went wrong? Humanity as a whole is a male race, a race that focuses on discovery and adventure. For this reason, there existed in humanity itself the desire to become more free from the spirit world. The human race wanted to go on an adventure and discover. Humanity gradually incarnated deeper into the Earth and into matter. The connection with their guides – the angels who accompany humanity on its way – and the observance of the spiritual world became less important. Women, who by their nature are more focused on the inner world, were more skilled in creating this connection than men, and some women were better at doing this than were other women.
The latter group was very important to the community and thus there arose a class of priestesses. When the gap between these priestesses and the spiritual realm of angels accompanying humankind became greater, an opening emerged for contact with other sources that had less commendable intentions. Reptilian energies (the Snake from the Bible) wanted to weaken humanity through divisions.
Priestesses were tempted with the following ideas: the inner world is more important than the outer; women who are more attuned to the inner world, are better than men and are entitled to lead men. Such thoughts stroked their ego, and they began gradually to embrace this dualistic worldview. Women, and the inner world, were considered superior, representing the “higher”. Men, and the outer world, were considered inferior, representing the “lower”. This was the bite of the Apple: duality, the so-called knowledge of good and evil, got solidly grounded into the thoughts of humankind.
The priestesses began to consider themselves more and more important and wanted beautiful temples and homes for themselves. There emerged communities that remained in one locality. Humanity stopped wandering and discovering new things, and the women remained dominant for a long time. Men were increasingly regarded as inferior beings, and even treated as slaves.
Female domination and the wounds in the male energy
The time of Queen-priestesses began. They proclaimed a dualistic worldview that justified their power and authority and the essential superiority of women over men. They claimed that truth resides only in the inner world, and that only women had access to that truth. The outer world was portrayed as bad, dangerous, and tempting, and people had to be protected against this bad world for their own good.
This concept had four far-reaching consequences which would cause deep wounds in the male energy.
The first wound: the loss of beauty
To be living in one place requires intensive agriculture and heavy work: men’s work. The natural urge of men toward adventure, which was already seen as suspicious, was thereby even further suppressed. That urge does not go with heavy and boring work such as plowing and threshing.
The image of what it was to be a good man changed: he was to be a reliable hard worker who had no time for much thought. Adventurous men were regarded as tramps and hobos, a danger to the community. All kinds of expressions in our time still refer to this: “No one dies of hard work.” “Man must earn his living by the sweat of his brow.” “The devil finds work for idle hands.”
However, the desire for adventure in men is ultimately the desire to experience the beauty and the wonders of the universe. By suppressing this desire, the first wound in the male energy emerged: the loss of the ability to appreciate beauty. Men learned that to enjoy the beauty of life, to go on an adventure and explore new ways of life, the urge to create, to discover, were all “bad” qualities that should be suppressed. A “good” man is a very hard worker who asks no questions.
We still see the consequences of this way of thinking. Look at the modern cities that are designed and built almost exclusively by hard working men and notice their lack of color and beauty. We still see all around us only a runaway male energy that cannot come to rest and does not seem to know what it wants.
Through this development, men became almost entirely responsible for the food supply, making them more important within the community.
The second wound: the loss of love
Because of the dualistic worldview of the Priestess caste, the outer world became increasingly seen as dangerous. The communities remained established in one place and needed protectors. This was also the task of men: the hunters became warriors. A warrior, however, unlike a good hunter, can have no feelings. A soldier who kills another human being should not have feelings about his victim. He cannot let it enter his mind that the one whom he has killed was once a baby who had a mother who might have loved him very much and wanted the best for him. The warrior cannot think: “Now I have killed her baby. How will that affect her? What will she feel when she hears that he is dead? How many tears will she shed?” A warrior who has empathy, cannot be a warrior.
A good warrior suppresses the energy of the heart and acts from a very dualistic worldview: that the other, the enemy, is bad. The opponent is not actually a human being and therefore I may kill him. This attitude, of course, resulted in an increase of duality in the world. There was more and more fighting, more wars, and more borders in the world. And so warriors – men – were becoming increasingly important; men who had lost connection with their heart.
This is the second wound in the male energy, the wound in the heart: the loss of love. A man who turns off his powers of empathy feels lonely and lost in a large, empty, and hostile universe.
The third wound: the loss of wisdom
Within the established communities, change and renewal were regarded with suspicion. Power became conservative; power goes hand in hand with fear of change and a lack of flexibility. The natural, love-based spirituality changed more and more into a fear- based dualistic faith with all kinds of rules about good and evil. When spirituality is an established religion, officers are necessary who can enforce the rules, by force if necessary, and this suppresses innovation; this also became the task of men. The truth was no longer considered to be a living and loving energy, which dynamically unfolds and shows ever new facets. The truth was laid down in a set of rules which men imposed. At that time, we see the emergence of authoritarian religions in which the truth is established once and for all, and if you disagreed, you were bad or sinful.
Because maintaining the rules of a religion often coincides with the promotion of that religion, the latter was also increasingly a task of men. Men were now the authorities on spirituality. This strengthened the tendency that men were more important and more powerful. However, authoritarian religions have little in common with wisdom and truth. Thus was born the third wound in the male energy: the loss of wisdom. Humanity still suffers greatly from the idea that change is bad and that the truth has been set down in a book of rules once and for all.
The fourth wound: the loss of a tender sexuality
Because of the rising tension between the sexes, the experience of sexuality also came to be under pressure; there was less and less place for love and tenderness. When men under the dominating priestesses had been regarded as inferior, having sex with a man was seen as a necessary evil. And so women started to suppress their sexual energy. For men, sex became more and more associated with the expression of suppressed anger. Where it first was an expression of love for the woman, it now became the expression of violence. Lust and pent up anger began to coincide: the sexual fantasies of men were often violent.
Thus was born a fourth wound: a wound in the area of sexuality. From that time on, sexuality has often more to do with repressed emotions than with the love between men and women.
The emergence of male dominance
Because the priestesses no longer proclaimed a living spirituality, they ultimately made themselves redundant. The rigid rules of an authoritarian dualistic religion can function without female love and intuition.
Because men gradually were responsible for the food supply, the protection of the community, and the strict enforcement of a “dead” spirituality, they got the upper hand. The male energy became dominant and would continue so for a long time.
This dominant male energy, however, was a wounded male energy: a man emerged who had lost his sense of beauty, his heart and its wisdom. Women were seen as an inferior sex object and were often the victim of twisted sexual feelings arising from violence. Women reminded men of their feelings and feelings were dangerous and bad, so women were bad. Because the truth was secured in rules and commandments, the natural intuitive and spiritual abilities of women were seen as bad and dangerous. The terrible witch burnings, which in some places of the world still take place, started in those days. Women were getting fewer and fewer rights and became increasingly oppressed. Eventually, they were only considered suitable for childbearing and raising children. In the Middle Ages, women were even regarded by many theologians as beings without a soul.
Paradise had been abandoned: there ensued a time of wars, cruelty, division, and falsehood, a time that would strike deep wounds in the female energy. An inwardly divided humanity was no longer able to protect itself. The snake had achieved its goal: human beings were no longer connected to the living truth and were prone to false ideas. Someone who embraces a dualistic worldview is afraid, and someone who is afraid is easy to manipulate: you impress on him that if he does not listen to you, he will be the victim of what he is afraid of.
Extraterrestrial influences and the emergence of Atlantis
People who despise the feminine are vulnerable. They long for what is higher and for guidance, but at the same time they reject the natural solution that the female energy offers: to rely on your intuition and inner knowing. They then find a false solution: powers in the outside world who claim to be “higher”. But they then become completely open to manipulation.
In the past, the consequence of this vulnerability was that humanity became a plaything for all kinds of Galactic forces. Humans who have lost connection with the inner female allow themselves to be captivated easily by what appear to be miracles and the power of technically advanced civilizations. Soon, representatives of these civilizations were seen by humanity as gods. Humans were manipulated in every possible way, and also in genetic ways. A lot of stories about old gods, such as the famous Greek world of gods, with all their human errors and their cruelties date from this time. The answer to the question: “Were the gods cosmonauts?” (title of a book by Erich von Däniken), is in my opinion, “Yes.”.
This time of oppression ended when a group of advanced extraterrestrial souls decided to live on Earth to help mankind develop. They created a kind of breed of supermen; also known as Atlanteans or stellar people. They were physically taller than the Earth’s people and had great intellectual capabilities; their third eye was also highly developed. Their goal was twofold: to liberate humanity and the Earth from unwanted alien influences and to bring humanity into contact again with its natural spirituality. The latter was to be achieved by restoring the balance between the male and female energies.
The Atlantic era had begun: a period in the history of mankind that lasted about a hundred thousand years. During this period, there was a sharp distinction between these incarnate extra-terrestrials, who regarded themselves as the enlightened leaders of humanity – the so-called spiritual hierarchy – and the more or less unconscious members of humankind. The stellar people, the Atlanteans, were coming face to face with the Earth’s people.
However, the birth of Atlantis carried within itself the seeds of its downfall. In order to liberate mankind from alien influences, the stellar people on Earth built up a huge dominance: they were the ruling class and regarded the Earth’s people as their subordinates. This was at odds with their spiritual intentions. Having power over the Earth’s people did not go together with their purpose of freeing those same people inwardly. The spirituality of the stellar people was not yet really a heart-borne one. It carried power motives with it.
The Atlanteans saw the Earth people increasingly as dumb creatures only suitable for slave labor. They started to see themselves increasingly as superior and abused the power of their third eye more frequently. In addition, where the Atlanteans considered men and women equals, that was not the case with their subordinates, the Earth’s people. With them, it was the men who dominated. This suited the Atlanteans because men were better suited to follow their orders and to build their magnificent cities. The Atlanteans understood very well that as long as women were suppressed, they could stay in control of humankind and they could do what they wanted.
Power corrupts, and this was also the case with the Atlanteans. Increasingly, they began to enjoy their power, their apparent success and invincibility. Increasingly, they abused the powers of their third eye. This third eye is often called the agni, the fire chakra, and water was needed to erase this power. Much has been written about the sinking of Atlantis. Still, the deepest reason for it was an act of self-sacrifice. The more highly-developed Atlanteans understood that they could only help humanity by joining it, and this could only be accomplished by the destruction of Atlantis. Only in this way could the duality between the stellar people and the Earth people be erased.
I remember this episode from a previous life: “I am standing in a beautiful building, a wonderful white tower. I look out over a city. I have just had a fight with a woman. She has been with me for a long time, but she is leaving me now for good. I’m sad about her departure. She wants to live among the Earth people to help them as a kind of aid worker. The gap between us, the almighty Atlanteans, and the Earth people is huge. We see them as a lower life form. When I tune into this woman, I feel that she is essentially an Earth soul who has been born among the Atlanteans; that is why her desire to help the Earth is so great. She is also somewhat small and her hair is red, which is unusual among Atlanteans. I walk into a room, and in the middle of the room is a powerful symbol drawn on the floor. If you are in the middle of that symbol you can leave your body very easily and permanently.
I realize what the woman wants to do is the right thing but it will not work, she is an exception. As long as Atlantis exists, Earth people will be subordinates. It has been this way for thousands of years. The gap is too big, power too addictive, too prevalent.
Deep below me I feel how the forces turn themselves against Atlantis. I connect with those forces and say: “Yes, go ahead. I feel that I am not the only one; many others feel that it has been enough, things cannot continue this way, the pain among the Earth’s people, and in the Earth itself, is too much. There exists in us a desire for change, a longing for a new adventure. A deepening of life.”
I then go and stand in the symbol and I let go of my body. I know when I will be born again Atlantis will no longer be there; I will no longer be one of them.”
So it was that the Atlantic rulers became what we now call Lightworkers. For centuries, they would be persecuted and oppressed by humanity while they were trying to bring humanity back in touch with the inner truth that comes to us through the female energy.
After the Fall: the Atlantic curse
The era of Atlantis left a definite imprint on humankind in relation to how a society is supposed to be: the idea that there is some sort of upper class of people who are privileged and a class of serving people. For many centuries, humankind was to be governed by the so-called nobility, people who believed that on the basis of their birth they stood above others and had the right to dominate them. The nobility arose from the memory in the Earth’s people of how the Atlanteans behaved toward them. As soon as a nation was created somewhere, a privileged aristocratic class immediately arose; the unconscious memory of Atlantis was responsible for that.
As was the case with the Atlanteans, that women were equal to men, women were allowed to be leaders of the lower class of Earth people. Many millennia later, at a time when women were considered inferior, this Atlantean reminder, as a result, allowed that women could give leadership in countries provided they were of the nobility. For example, in a country like The Netherlands, it was accepted as normal to have a Queen in a time when women still had no right to vote. Leading women were accepted, as long as they were of “blue blood ” – a reference to the celestial origin of the Atlanteans – who, on the basis of their origin, stood above ordinary people.
After the fall of Atlantis, the artificially maintained unity achieved by Atlantis also disappeared: there emerged borders and nations. Again and again, humanity tried to recreate Atlantis from its male energy. The great empires of antiquity: Babylon, Assyria, Persia, the Roman Empire, all were attempts to recreate Atlantis. And because each one of those countries tried again to be the New Atlantis, there was almost continuous war.
However, all attempts to unify humanity through battle are doomed to failure. Unity can only arise when it comes from within, not by having it imposed from above. This is what the Atlanteans eventually understood and therefore why they transformed themselves into Lightworkers. The Atlantic curse is that humankind tries to recreate Atlantis, again and again. The desire to create an empire that imposes its will, a desire to live in the magnificent cities of antiquity, the disrespect for nature, the rule by the upper classes of people with “blue blood”, all are consequences of the memory of Atlantis.
Now, it is precisely the Atlanteans who themselves want things to be different: they are the Lightworkers of today. These souls remember exactly how, through the abuse of power, things went wrong in the past and they will do their best to protect humanity against disasters. Fortunately, more and more people are starting to listen.
The return of the lightworkers
When the old Atlanteans incarnated as humans among humanity, they really learned first hand what it meant to be human and only then did they become Lightworkers: carriers of love and inspiration. They were often violently persecuted for their role, but, in the meantime, they planted seeds of light and hope. Men who had a strong connection with their intuition gave humanity beautiful art and scientific and social progress. And everywhere in the world lived brave women, witches often, who remained faithful to themselves and courageously stood up for their original spirituality. They have helped an incredible number of people and planted innumerable seeds of light in the hearts of people. But all too often they ended up burned at the stake.
A man who appreciates what is original in himself, begins to embrace the feminine again. A woman who appreciates the masculine in herself, connects the men around her with the source of love and truth in her. Gradually the Light increased.
“Love your enemies”, said Jeshua. It is not so that love transcends duality. No, love brings to light that duality is an illusion. It is as if you go with a lamp in your hand to search for the darkness, but wherever you arrive there appears to be no darkness, because after all, the light of your lamp shines there. Darkness does not really exist; it is simply the absence of light. Duality does not really exist; duality is the lack of love. Every time we really open up to another, we discover that that person is just as we are. The duality that we first thought to be real appears not to exist at all, it is an illusion.
Despite all the wars, humankind developed further and found both technical and social progress. Important social developments include the abolition of slavery, the emancipation of women, and the elimination of child labor. In the field of technology, humanity advanced so far that it built a rocket that went to the moon. And once humans landed on the Moon, they looked at the Earth and found their home more stunningly beautiful than ever. They saw a striking blue world – without limits – and realized deep in their hearts that this world is a beautiful living being that we so abuse. They brought back gorgeous pictures and stories. They shared their spiritual experiences.
The trip to the Moon, an ancient symbol of the female, was in a sense the culmination of the male energy. It is like the seeds that erupt from the male. After this happens, there are feelings of gentleness and tenderness and peace; the female is given back its space.
Humanity becoming whole
During the sixties, a great healing process began to take place. Men started to wear their hair long, a sign of recovering a connection with the inner female. From all sides, humanity was helped to overcome duality and become conscious of the interconnectedness of life. Science developed the Gaia hypothesis by James Lovelock: the idea that the Earth is one living organism. This was a radical break with the “masculine” evolution theory which states that the Earth consists of a multitude of organisms that fight one another: the fight of all against all. The Gaia theory is part of a much larger theory; namely, that the entire infinite universe is a single living whole: we are one.
Becoming whole also means unification. And indeed humanity is busy discovering its inner unity and connectedness. People travel more and more, and friendlier meetings are taking place between people of different cultures. Thanks to the rise of English as a unifying language and the Internet, I can now, for the first time in human history, communicate with almost everyone. We are also increasingly beginning to embrace the same values on Earth: the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Integration also means that we realize that we are one. We are not a man or a woman; we are human beings. Both the masculine and feminine are inside us. To feel that and to embrace it makes us complete, makes us stand on Earth as a shining light. Then there will be peace; an inner peace that is reflected in harmony with our fellow human beings, with the Earth and the universe itself.
© Gerrit Gielen
Translation by Maria Baes, Frank Tehan and Pamela Kribbe