OCCULT VIEW

Recently I was discussing the topic of angels with someone.  The topic of angelology is large.  One question we pondered …why were all angels male?  All the Biblical angels had masculine names.  Where were the female angels?  Which lead me to expand that question to spirits in general.  Do spirits have a gender?  On the surface it would seem a spirit, being a non-physical entity would not have a gender.  Sex is a physical biological function for the reproduction of a species.  Why would a disembodied incorporeal spirit need a gender?

First let’s look at what religious traditions have to say about the possibility of spirit gender.  Traditional religions are clear that angels are sexless, neither man nor woman.  And humanity will become like the angels in the afterlife.  Here is a passage from the bible concerning this:

“‘In the resurrection, therefore, to which of the seven will she be wife? For they all had her.’ But Jesus answered them, “You are wrong, because you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.”" (Matthew 22:28-30)

This would seem to settle the topic from a religious viewpoint.  Yet, Jesus retained his male aspect after his resurrection.  Also intriguing are the Marian apparitions. When the Virgin Mary appeared to individuals (like at Fatima) she clearly retained her womanhood.  Does this mean what we were in life, we retain in the afterlife?  What about those who believe in reincarnation?  People who subscribe to reincarnation have reported that in past lives they often lived as different genders.  Different religious viewpoints come to different conclusions. 

Outside of religious thought, we can look at people’s first hand experiences with ghosts and out-of-body near-death experiences.  People who have encountered ghosts report that these spirits are clearly male or female.  Look at the story of the ghostly hitchhiker, Resurrection Mary, a famous Chicago area ghost.  Resurrection Mary was reported as a young woman seen walking alone down a street (Archer Avenue) near a local ballroom, and is offered a ride by a passerby.  When the car passes Resurrection Cemetery down the road, she asked the driver to stop and left the car only to vanish, or even vanished while in the car.  There were dozens of actual reports of Resurrection Mary over the decades; it was not just an urban legend.  Resurrection Mary and other ghosts clearly retain their sexuality identify after death. 

Looking at near-death experiences, those who go through this experience feel they still resemble their physical body.  Here is an example from a previous post of mine:    http://occultview.com/2009/01/14/near-death-out-of-body-experience/    Also interesting, when the tunnel of light is encountered (a typical part of this experience) there are reports of being greeted by their dead loved ones.  Their deceased greeters appear as they did in life, but appear young and vigorous, not old or decrepit as when they passed away.  And they still appear as men or women.

Spiritualist and occult philosophy has a viewpoint about this.  According to these ideas, we have a physical body and a spirit/soul.   We also have something that is in-between these two…an invisible, ethereal double.  The ancient Egyptians called this concept the ‘Ka”, or life force.   This life force was an invisible double of our body.  At death, the Ka leaves the body.  Then this Ka “dies” and the Ba (the Egyptian name for the soul) is released to travel outside the realm of time/space.  This Ka double could be called our ghost.  Our ghost-double closely mirrors our physical self, including our sexual identify.   Some suggest that sexuality is not only a physical phenomena but also a spiritual one.   It is said our body’s life force connects with another’s life-force during sex,  sharing this life energy as well.   And what about the Soul, the Ba?  Does the soul retain any aspect of sexuality identify?  I have no clue about that. 

A step further into the unknown: can non-human incorporeal entities have sex with humans?  There is a strange passage from Genesis that suggests this is so.  This passage below is often interpreted as angelic entitles actually copulating with mortal women and breeding children.  Hard to get my mind around that one.

” There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown. ” (Genesis 6:4)

In mythology non-human beings have a strong sexual identity, and often have intimate affairs with mortals.  Fauns, satyrs, nymphs, the fairy folk are all male or female. There are many stories in our folklore of non-human entities having something resembling sexual interaction with living people.  This was a common theme in faerie phenomena with many tales of the faerie being intensely interested in human sexuality.  Look at the stories of changelings, where the faerie steal away human children and replace them with something else, or faerie abduction of someone taken away into fairyland for sexual purposes.  Why would an immaterial being want such relationships with us? 

This still happens today, but it is called something else.  It is called the UFO alien abduction phenomena.  These reports very often include sexual experimentation on those abducted by these beings.  It seems like these entities’ primary purpose for contact with humans has something do to with reproduction.  These beings may not be flesh and blood alien from outer space, but the same entitles that were once called the faerie, and can appear in any form they wish.  They seem to steal away someone’s “Ka” for their own purposes and then return it.  Again, why?  We’d have to ask them!

A final thought.  The idea about a realm invisible to the physical world is not just speculation.  Science has already recognized something similar to this.  It is called dark matter.  We have no clue what this dark matter is, but it has a detectable gravitational influence on a cosmic scale.  The vast majority of the matter in the universe consists of this invisible dark matter; it holds our galaxies tighter preventing them from flying apart.  The idea of an invisible reality outside our perception may not just be a fantasy.