Bending the Binary: Polarity Magic in a Nonbinary World by Deborah Lipp

Author:Deborah Lipp
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: bending the binary;bending binary;polarity magic;polarity magick;deborah lipp;polarity magic for nonbinary;polarity magick for nonbinary;polarity correspondences;magic;magick;occult;ritual;nonbinary magic;non-binary magic;non-binary polarity magic;nonbinary polarity magic
Publisher: Llewellyn Worldwide, LTD.
Published: 2022-12-15T18:17:27+00:00

Other Polarities That Are Self/Other

We’ve already touched upon one of the core polarities experienced as self/other: humanity/divinity. This is the polar tension that leads us to religious experience, to seeking the third of transcendence. Similarly, the polarity of lover/beloved leads us to seek sexual or romantic transcendence. Religious or mystical experience is the seeking of a third between self/other as divine/human, and romantic love is the seeking of a third between self/other as lover/beloved.

Returning to the experience of the divine, we find the polarity of transcendence and immanence. This is a different meaning entirely of the word transcendence. It often isn’t seen as a polarity at all, but as a theology or point of view. In this sense, transcendent deity is deity outside oneself; a unique and separate being. Jesus Christ is a transcendent deity in traditional Christianity. You are not Christ; Christ might be within you, but he is not you. By contrast, immanent deity is deity that is within; you may understand that deity as having a distinct identity but also as being entirely within the self (hence a self/other connection).

I see transcendent/immanent deity as a polarity, because the truth is we don’t really know whether the gods are within us, apart from us, or both. The nature of deity may be a philosophical system or an opinion, but it’s not objectively knowable. Therefore, in our spiritual and mystical lives, we are experiencing an energetic interplay of deity is me/deity is other. We are flowing back and forth along a polarity of where I experience spiritual connection.

Expansion/contraction is perhaps not obvious at first. Hippies introduced the term consciousness expansion, but remember that in polarities, we understand terms to be relative. If something is expanded, it is relative to something more contracted. Consciousness expansion assumes the mind is in a contracted state, limited, cut off, not touching that which is beyond its contracted reach. Through drugs, meditation, or other experiences, you expand your mind beyond its boundaries. In an expanded state, we find oneness with other beings because as we break down walls (which are contracted), we find the truth of our overlapping and mutually connected selves. The Lazy Man’s Guide to Enlightenment tells us:

The basic function of each being is expanding and contracting. Expanded beings are permeative; contracted beings are dense and impermeative. …

A completely expanded being is space. Since expansion is permeative, we can be in the “same space” with one or more other expanded beings. …

[…]

… To the degree that he is contracted, a being is unable to be in the same space with others, so contraction is felt as fear, pain, unconsciousness, ignorance, hatred, evil.125

Notice the slip into dualism: contraction is equated with evil and is the thing to be avoided. The consciousness expansion movement definitely didn’t want us to be contracted. But now let’s look at it in a more polar way: to be contracted is to be entirely self, to be expanded is to be entirely other, and as the energy moves, breathing

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