I don't mean to hijack the thread but on a related note, in shamanism, the practice I am most immediately coming from, there is an overwhelming female presence. It was also always apparent to me the women I encountered had a much easier time with the practices of shamanic journeying and trance work, which requires stilling the mind to even be possible. The more I think about it the more I realize in most of my communal spiritual experiences I have been surrounded by women; oftentimes at gatherings (of different sorts: shamanic, some meditation groups, etc) the men there would usually be bewildered and uncomfortable boyfriends/husbands/partners of whatever kind. I have only made a small circuit of these types of communities, but that has been my limited, anecdotal experience.
I do not see your discussion here as hijacking the main discussion of gender in contemplative movements, but our communal discussion on this topic does hijack the Gurdjieff topic, so I am not sure if we should split these 2 topics or not. I suppose it would be Alexander's decision to split it or not.
Anyway, my experience following various religious movements over more than 40 years, is devotional, fundamentalist, shamanic, goddess, witch, and Pagan religious movements tend to be dominated by woman; whereas, intellectual, occult, metaphysical religious movements tend to be dominated by men. Thus, the Gurdjieff work tends to favor men, and thus appeal to men.
In Buddhism this translates into Tibetan and Pure Land Buddhism tend to attract women, because these movements tend to emphasize devotion and ritual; whereas, Zen, Insight, and Theravadan religious movements appeal more to men, because they tend to be more contemplative.
There's also the phenomenon of gender transformation in shamanism, with male-bodied initiates in many tribal cultures needing to transition to female or uni-sex expressions before practicing. A very interesting book that touches on this is Dreamtime and Inner Space: The World of the Shaman by Holger Kalweit. A relevant podcast is here, which I haven't listened to in a long time so I can't say exactly what's discussed: http://whyshamanismnow.com/2009/09/gender-transformation-in-shamanism. Given that shamanism has been around for many thousands of years and is largely unrecorded and lost to the passage of time, I'd wager there have been many true female mystics that didn't need male guidance.
It is my hypothesis that religion is at the root of what it is to be human, so we will find evidence of religious behavior in the earliest human archaeology, and I believe we do. Therefore, before organized religion all cultures had religious ideas, and they were expressed by individuals, who we would call 'shaman.' And, the founders of the major religions of the world were all shaman who were at the nexus between the tribal social system and the emergence of civilization. Thus, if we examine tribal religious movements, then we find roughly equal gender representation among its "priesthood."
Your comment about gender identity shifting I do not at all agree is a core aspect of shamanism; however, I will agree that it is a minor aspect.
The problem I see with shamanism today is that it is grossly misunderstood by both professional anthropologists, and its followers and its "priests." An example of how screwed up the understanding of shamanism by its followers today, is most people who pursue a study of shamanism believe Castaneda was writing authoritatively, instead of writing fiction, as he was.
So, anyone who rejects Castaneda's work, and identifies themselves as a shaman is more likely to be a genuine shaman than otherwise; however, another observation that I have made in my more than 40 year study of shamanism, is most shaman are no different than most priests of most religions, which means they are just bilking the naive for a few bucks.
Because at a more fundamental level I come from an astrological and Taoist mindset it does seem useful, in my own particular subjective point of view, to think in terms of the active and passive, masculine and feminine, solar and lunar, yin and yang polarities, but I think our bodies are vehicles for unique expressions of that. It seems to me, if 'you' are the accumulation of many lifetimes of human (and maybe other animal! I certainly can't speak with any authority whatsoever on that possibility) experience, which could come in many forms, then each individual is presented with quite a unique well of being. Is every consequent lifetime housed in a similarly sexed body, with a similar gender expression? Maybe it's not what we contain but what we identify with that gets displayed to the world or felt as true.
My own recollection of previous lifetimes is that I was a mystic or shaman in most of them, and my gender shifted back and forth between man and woman; so I do not see that men have any greater capacity for the religious experience than women; however, in most cultures women have to do most of the work, especially related to food preparation, and child-care. Whereas, in most cultures men have more leisure time, which allows them to pursue a contemplative life; nonetheless, in most cases men are just debauching themselves, and getting into fights.
I'm not trying to melt everything into a homogenous stew. But it does seem like maybe this piling-up of experience is part of what enables the ability to truly feel compassion for absolutely any other being standing in front of you. You have been this, that, you remember something like what that person over there is mirroring for you. It's like walking a hall of mirrors. Ultimately the necessity becomes relinquishing the idea of being a man, a woman, or even a human being at all. None of this is directed at you Alexander, of course, it's just that as a man with certain physical conditions that has made me question and contemplate these things for years now, I found this thread a place to explore that. My physical condition for me has meant a forced dismantling of the already shaky structures within myself about who I am and my function as a man, but in its place that has left a fluidity that is increasingly indestructible. I am who I am, whatever that is, and luckily I am also more than that. For the time being, until the current body dies, we will be expressed through a particular bodily representation with its corresponding biological urges and instinctual operating assumptions, but unconscious societal prescriptions and deeply entrenched patriarchal roles layered on top of that are just more obfuscation to our true nature. I know the wounded wild-animal-with-a-broken-leg that I often feel like will rage at the bars of its cage for a long while still to come, but my spirit is learning to move through these bars with ease.
I do not happen to believe that becoming a mystic is at all just a piling-up of experience. When I started the study of Anthropology and Archaeology more than 40 years ago it was believed and taught that humans had only been around for 50,000 years. By the time I graduated Archaeological evidence had shown human had been on this planet for 150,000 years; and recent finds have now pushed the date back another 100,000 years. So, humans have been here 250,000 years; and proto-human species have been on the planet for about 4.2 million years. This means we have all been reincarnating many, many times; which means if enlightenment were simply the piling-up of experience, then we all would be enlightened by now; however, the contrary seems to be the case.
I don't know if any of this is "right," or close; I'm still working over and digesting these things myself, and that is the work of a lifetime. And I still wish I had a woman beside me to show me all the ways I am messing this life shit up. Not being able to let go of that is probably my deepest, my truest, my only obstacle to heaven.
Well, I care for a rescued rabbit that I freed. It now runs around the neighborhood as it wishes, but it chooses to spend sunrises and sunsets with me. I like its company so I appreciate it. However, I recognize that the rabbit wants a mate, and I plan to get it one, but I understand that once the rabbit gets her mate, then she will likely lose interest in spending time with me.
What I am getting at, is all organisms seek mating opportunities. It is one of the deepest levels of programming that all organisms have. Therefore, your desire to have a mate is normal biological behavior.
Nonetheless, as we develop into mystics we tend to over come some of our biological programming, and this is why monasticism is common among mystics. I do not mean that you should take up the monastic life; however, you may in the future, but it is not necessary to become a mystic. After all Mohammed, Rumi and Kabir, just to mention 3 major mystics, were not monks.
