On Men and Women (Swedenborg, Steiner, and Jung)

At present we will concern ourselves with the physical and etheric bodies. For herein lies the solution to the riddle of the sexes. The etheric body is only to a certain extent a picture of the physical body. In regard to the sexes things are different. In the man the etheric body is female and in the woman it is male. However strange it may seem, a deeper observation will disclose the following: Something of the opposite sex lies hidden in each person. It is no good however to look for all kinds of abnormal phenomena, rather one needs to pay attention to normal experiences. By confronting this fact, it is no longer possible in the strict sense to speak of man and woman, but rather of masculine and feminine qualities. Certain qualities in the woman work more outwardly while others are more inward. The woman has masculine qualities within herself and the man feminine qualities. For example a man becomes a warrior through the outer courage of his bodily nature, a woman possesses an inner courage, the courage of sacrifice and devotion. The man brings his creative activity to bear on external life. The woman works with devoted receptivity into the world. Countless phenomena of life will become clear to us if we think of human nature as the working together of two polar opposites. In the man the masculine pole works outwards and the feminine lives more inwardly, while in the woman the opposite holds true.Spiritual science however also shows us a deeper reason why a masculine quality is to be found in the woman and a feminine in the man. Spiritual science speaks of how human beings strive after ever greater perfection, through many lives. Our present life is always the result of a previous one. Thus as we proceed through many lives, we experience both male and female incarnations. What arises in this way may be expressed as the effect of those experiences gathered on both sides in earthly life.Whoever is able in this way to look more deeply into the male and female natures knows that the more intimate experiences of the two sexes are very different, and must be very different. Our entire earth existence is a collection of the most varied experiences. However, these experiences can only become comprehensive through their being acquired from the viewpoint of both sexes. Hence we can see that even if we only consider the human being with regard to the two lower members, we see in reality a being with two sides. So long as one merely looks at the physical body little can be understood. The spiritual lying behind must also be recognised. Through his masculine nature the inner femininity of the man appears, and through the woman's feminine nature her inner masculinity appears. Now one can grasp why it is that so many misjudgments have been made about this question; it depends on whether one looks at the inner, or the outer aspects. In considering only one side of the human being, one is subjected entirely to chance. If, for example, one researcher finds that the main quality of the woman is humility and another that it is an angry disposition, it simply means that both have observed only one side of the same being. Error must occur with this kind of approach. In order to recognise the full truth we must look at the whole human being. - Rudolf Steiner, Man and Woman in the Light of Spiritual Science

Because it is not known in what the masculine essentially consists, and in what the feminine, it shall here be told in a few words. The distinction essentially consists in the fact that in the male, the inmost is love and its clothing wisdom, or, what is the same thing, he is love veiled over with wisdom; and that in the female, the inmost is that wisdom of the male, and its clothing, the love therefrom. - Emanuel Swedenborg, Conjugial Love, 32

Woman is compensated by a masculine element and therefore her unconscious has, so to speak, a masculine imprint. This results in a considerable psychological difference between men and women, and accordingly I have called the projection-making factor in women the animus, which means mind or spirit. - Carl Jung, The Syzygy: Anima and Animus 

The conscious side of woman corresponds to the emotional side of man, not to his "mind." Mind makes up the soul, or better, the "animus" of woman, and just as the anima of a man consists of inferior relatedness, full of affect, so the animus of woman consists of inferior judgments, or better, opinions. - Carl Jung, Alchemical Studies

At dinner, I begin to see everyone at the table has an auric double of the opposite sex appearing in a diaphanous energy field behind them. These presences smile amusedly among themselves as the conversation heats up. - Sandra Lee Dennis, Embrace of the Daimon