What Charles Fillmore Said About Creative Mind as Masculine and Feminine
§16 We believe that creative Mind, God, is masculine and feminine, and that these attributes of Being are fundamental in both natural and spiritual man. “And God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.”
Meditation in the Silence
1. Choose a time and a place where you will be alone and undisturbed for at least 20 minutes.
2. Assume a comfortable position so that there is no feeling of tension or strain in your body.
3. If sitting, place both feet flat upon the floor. Put your hands comfortably in your lap with either both palms up to receive blessings, or with the left palm up and the right down to receive and give a blessing.
4. Close your eyes, be still, and relax.
5. Focus your attention upon your head and begin to relax the muscles in your scalp, face, and neck. Say softly or silently:
In the name of Jesus Christ relax, relax, relax. Peace, be still; wait upon the Lord only.
6. When you are ready, move your attention to trunk, arms and legs and repeat:
In the name of Jesus Christ relax, relax, relax. Peace, be still; wait upon the Lord only.
7. Now bring your attention to the throat and the power center where the creative Word is forming to give life, substance, and intelligence to your declared word of faith. Affirm sofdy and then several times silently:
As God is both Father and Mother, I, too, am male and female; I embrace the masculine or intellectual nature and also the feminine or feeling nature within me.
8. Rest in the silence letting the affirmation reveal its Truth to you.
9. When you are ready, return your awareness first to your physical body, and then to your surroundings as you re-enter your world.
It wasn’t until the 1970’s that a female Bible scholar presented a different view of the creation of man as the image-likeness of God. After much study into the practice of parallelism in the Hebrew scripture, she concluded that this passage presented a view of God as a multi-gendered Being. If mankind was created in the image of God and created both male and female, then God is also male and female. It is not difficult to read “male and female created he them” as stating that each individual is both masculine and feminine. This idea is consistent with the spiritual principle contained in the Adam and Eve stories. Adam and Eve represent the masculine and feminine within every soul-the thinking and feeling natures.
When men accepted the creation story as literal, they understood man as a divinely created being and woman as derivative-she came into being out of man. This led to the belief that women were second-class citizens, subject to men. Even now this belief persists within certain religious groups. However, those who hold this concept have missed the real meaning entirely. Thinking gives rise to feelings; they come as a result of the thoughts we hold in mind.
The mind is a trinity of the conscious, subconscious and superconscious phases. The conscious phase is the intcllect-our Adam-and through this phase of mind we think, reason, examine, accept, reject, deduct and conclude. The subconscious phase—Eve-is the basic feeling nature within us. It feels and is the storehouse of memory as well as the seat of our habits, but it does no onginal thinking. The intellect provides the model and the subconscious is the “doer” or reproducer which turns out the real thing based on the model. These two phases form the soul or consciousness. The superconscious phase is the I AM, spiritual being, our link to all that Divine Mind is. While the soul contains the “thinker” and the “doer,” the superconscious is the “knower” through which all divine ideas come.
When we are functioning through human awareness, we take into the conscious mind impressions from the outside world through the senses.
When we have examined the information, we pass along our conclusions to the subconscious which then reproduces the model it was given and also stores the information in memory.
Charles Fillmore said that we have the process backwards. Instead of working from outside to the inside, we should function from the within outward. In other words, we are to stop taking in sense impressions by turning within in prayer. Then we may open ourselves to the inspiration of Spirit or God-mind through the superconscious. The divine ideas which come to us are dropped into the subconscious first and then percolate up to the conscious mind where we experience the “Aha!” or revelation and then project the divine ideas into the outer world.
Concerning gender, Charles Fillmore also stated:
Wisdom is the “male” or expressive side of Being, while love is the “female” or receptive side of Being. Wisdom is the father quality of God and love is the mother quality. In every idea there exist these two qualities of mind, which unite in order to increase and bring forth under divine law.
—Charles Fillmore, Mysteries of Genesis, page 27.
Jehovah (I AM) in the Hebrew is written Yahweh. Yah is the masculine and weh the feminine. The word is made up of masculine and feminine elements and represents the joining together of wisdom and love as a procreating nucleus.
—Charles Fillmore, Mysteries of Genesis, page 32.
The soul of man on its feminine side is intuitional and often perceives or senses things that, while they are not perceived by the outer or more active and positive part of the individual consciousness, should be heeded by it.
—Charles Fillmore, Mysteries of Genesis, page 185.
That the masculine “son” is intended to include both masculine and feminine is borne out by the context, and, in fact, the whole history of the race. Being itself must be masculine and feminine, in order to make man in its image and likeness, “Male and female.”
—Charles Fillmore, Twelve Powers of Man, page 52.
Jesus paid the supreme tribute to women when on the cross He recognised her and designated her as the mother and preserver of love, to abide in the home of His beloved disciple John.
—Charles Fillmore, Mysteries of John, page 162.