“Women go through the process of individuation primarily through suffering, when it happens in the right way; it seems that in such cases there is a surge of libido in the unconscious. If a person can adapt to the devil without being eaten by him, this leads to awareness.”
Marie-Louise von Franz,
“Animus and Anima in Fairy Tales,” pp. 49–50
I do not know whether this is specifically the feminine way, or simply one of the ways through which we move toward inner wholeness, but it is certainly worth knowing. Because sometimes it is necessary to threaten Baba Yaga that something truly bad will happen to her if she does not keep quiet. This is how we express the masculine part within us—the part that helps us set boundaries decisively. It is the part through which we protect ourselves from abuse and stand up against what violates our values and inner dignity.
At other times, however, the opposite is needed—to avoid direct confrontation and, by stepping aside, not to enter unnecessary battles. This is what it means “to adapt to the devil without being eaten by him.” It is probably the same thing Osho describes as “the path of the clever one”: you bring the two opposing forces within yourself to equal strength, then let them fight while you slip out of the conflict in your slippers.
I believe that there are both gender-specific differences in the processes of individuation and none at all. When it comes to psychic wholeness, women need their masculine part just as much as men do. And when it comes to the battles we fight in this world of duality—where light struggles against darkness—the danger is that one begins to resemble the other. That is why the true victor is the one who manages to step out of the swinging of the pendulum and find the “third solution” that transcends the conflict.
“In a conflict, both sides become similar by using the same weapons. The process of individuation is advanced precisely by not participating in the battle, but by avoiding it.”
Marie-Louise von Franz,
“Animus and Anima in Fairy Tales,” p. 24
Von Franz explains these gender-conditioned differences: men fight because it suits them to stand up to the enemy and demonstrate their strength. Women, however, use a different power—to remain in dangerous proximity to the devil without allowing him to influence them. In the Old German fairy tale “Old Rinkrank,” the heroine saves herself by trapping the beard of her captor, Rinkrank, in a window and escaping. Only afterward does her father, the king, arrive and kill him.
“Women cannot fight the animus by killing it—they can only catch it by trapping its beard in order to escape. In myths, the male figure fights, overcomes, and defeats the monster. The feminine principle moves toward individuation through suffering and flight. It is enough if a woman can enter a human situation and restore human connection and relationship.
The king kills old Rinkrank—just as opposites kill each other. The unconscious creates the conflict, making two into one. If a person manages not to take sides, the conflict can be avoided. The princess suffers and then is freed. The only effort she makes is to jam the old man’s beard. In this way she turns him into a useful servant who gives her the ladder to escape.”
Marie-Louise von Franz,
“Animus and Anima in Fairy Tales,” p. 21
This is the message: if one manages not to take sides, one can deal with the conflict. I mean the inner conflict, because the ultimate goal of individuation is the unification of opposites within us. But where do these gender-conditioned differences come from, if the goal is the same for both men and women? Why is suffering the feminine path to uniting opposites? And what does “suffering in the right way” actually mean?
Obviously, the feminine is associated with passivity—the capacity to endure suffering. Yet there is something I do not fully understand, which is why I reflect on this topic by recalling what I have read in Osho about the human bodies. According to him, the first four of the seven bodies belong to duality and are therefore gendered. For women, the first (physical) body is feminine, the second (etheric) masculine, the third (astral) feminine, and the fourth (mental) masculine.
For men, the order is reversed. This is why women more easily receive shaktipat (the awakening of kundalini through a mediator) and have greater difficulty receiving grace (the spontaneous awakening of kundalini without a mediator). Because their first body is feminine, they are more open to receiving, unlike men.
Later, the pattern reverses. From the integration of the first two bodies, a woman develops a feminine body and a man a masculine one. When a woman integrates all four bodies, she acquires a masculine body; a man acquires a feminine one. This is Osho’s explanation for why men who have integrated their four bodies can more easily open to a direct experience of God, while for women this becomes more difficult.
It seems there truly are gender-specific differences in the ways men and women achieve inner wholeness and open to the Whole. Masculinity expresses itself through yang qualities—action, activity, doing, but also knowledge, logos, and clarity of consciousness. Men want to know and act in accordance with that knowledge. Femininity, by contrast, is a yin quality—passivity, receptivity, ambiguity, duality. This is why women can more easily tolerate the frustration of not knowing what exactly is happening or what needs to be done. They can endure ambiguity and impossible situations until the solution is born from within—conceived in the womb of the unconscious.
According to von Franz, when the main character in a fairy tale faints (usually a woman), this means she temporarily loses conscious control over the situation. The solution moves into the unconscious, and when she awakens, the problem has already been resolved. The proverb “Morning is wiser than evening” carries the same meaning. Even if we do not remember our dreams, the inner work that occurred overnight without our conscious participation may have been profoundly beneficial, bringing solutions, calm, and wisdom—despite the fact that we ourselves did nothing special.
In the Turkestan fairy tale “The Magic Horse,” the heroine’s helper—the horse—tells her she will not witness the battle. But she will know the demon has killed him if black foam appears; if the foam is white, the horse has killed the demon. The girl imagines the foam is black and faints, but when she awakens, she discovers it is white and the demon has been definitively defeated.
“We see that she is not involved in the battle. The real fight takes place between two transpersonal forces. This is a common motif in fairy tales…
Every serious animus conflict seems to touch the deepest archetypal layers of the psyche, where an ongoing struggle between the light and dark gods takes place. That is why one must stand aside from the conflict while observing and understanding it objectively. If a woman tries to intervene between good and evil, she can only be caught in the animus. Her responsibility is simply to participate in life itself, to ensure the continuation of life outwardly.
In Persia, only men are permitted to fight the dark god. Women must sustain life and human relatedness. It seems that the proper behavior for a woman is to suffer her fate rather than actively intervene. And here, in our fairy tale, at the decisive moment, the girl faints and does not even see the battle.”
Marie-Louise von Franz,
“Animus and Anima in Fairy Tales,” p. 48
I am reminded of other fairy tales where salvation follows the same pattern—the heroines do nothing to save themselves. Such are Sleeping Beauty and Snow White, who lie neither alive nor dead on a bed or in a glass coffin (psychologically symbolizing a depressive position and the withdrawal of vital energy from the external world). Eventually, the solution finds them—the prince arrives and saves them, but only when the right moment has matured.
In Sleeping Beauty, this moment comes after one hundred years. When the hundred years have passed, the thorny hedge around the castle withdraws on its own, allowing the prince to enter and awaken the princess. The prince himself makes no heroic effort to find or rescue her—he simply finds her, kisses her, and marries her.
The symbolic interpretation of the “prince” becomes clear when linked to the theory of the four bodies and the understanding that spiritual awakening is an inner, introverted process. Many women wait for this prince to appear in the outer world, but in fairy tales the prince is an animus figure. He is the inner, not the outer bridegroom. He is the woman’s soul—and therefore of royal lineage.
But what does suffering the conflict in the right way look like in practice? Suffering can occur wrongly as well. In my experience, the distinction lies between neurotic and existential suffering. The former is fueled by thoughts that argue with reality; the latter attempts to accept the painful aspect of reality simply because it, too, is part of the truth of the Whole. Right suffering is the acceptance of the pain that arises when two opposing forces or desires exist within you and cannot be reconciled through intellectual insight or rational decision. The only thing one can do in such a situation is to hold both conflicting parts in awareness and patiently wait for a solution to emerge from the unconscious—one that transcends the conflict.
The danger for women here is possession by the “negative animus”—the devil. Then the masculine within manifests in the wrong way. Concretely, this appears as compulsive action and the search for solutions when the only appropriate response is to wait—to endure the irresolvable conflict. Another way to say this is that the “baby of the new Self” must be carried in the womb of the unconscious. The only thing that accelerates this birth process is awareness of the conflicting parts within us and trust in the outcome of the struggle between these two transpersonal forces.
This is likely what the East calls the art of wu wei—“doing by not doing.” There is still action here, but of a specific kind: the effort to remain present, aware, and awake without becoming agitated by the lack of clarity or quick solutions. To suffer and endure the pain of conflict. From this effort to remain present without taking sides, something third is born—something that transcends the conflict. Wisdom is born. In analytical psychology, this is Sophia—the fourth and most developed form of the anima, following Eve, Helen of Troy, and Mary Magdalene.
Sophia is the mediator between consciousness and the unconscious; she is the guide in inner life.
As always, words are the finger pointing to the Moon, not the Moon itself. Wisdom—the right suffering of life’s unavoidable limitations and the discovery of a solution beyond the familiar—cannot be learned from books. It is a particular kind of knowledge born of personal experience and suffering. But if this text has reached you through synchronicity, one thing is certain—you have a ticket to the Moon.
Enjoy the journey.
Kameliya Hadzhiyska
