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From: aeq@pucc-h (Jeff Sargent)
Newsgroups: net.singles
Subject: "The Invisible Partners"
Message-ID: <2135@pucc-h>
Date: Fri, 19-Jul-85 20:13:12 EDT
Article-I.D.: pucc-h.2135
Posted: Fri Jul 19 20:13:12 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 22-Jul-85 05:04:49 EDT
Organization: Purdue University Computing Center
Lines: 53

I recently read a book entitled "The Invisible Partners", by (I think) John
Sanford.  (It may not be readily obtainable, having been published circa 1973
by Paulist Press.)  Squarely based on the psychological work of Carl Jung and
his followers, this explored how each person has within him or her an
"invisible partner", a feminine or masculine (respectively) side of the
personality.  He used the terms "anima" for the feminine side of a man, and
"animus" for the masculine side of a woman.  A couple of interesting points
from the book (not quotes, just digests from memory):

Many people have difficulty integrating this opposite-gender piece of
themselves into their total person, despite the fact that (though they don't
realize it) both the person and the anima/us want to come together.  What 
people do instead is project their "invisible partner" out onto a MOTOS and
"fall in love" with her/him -- only to be dreadfully let down when they
discover that the MOTOS is a) a human being, neither divine nor perfect,
b) not a match to their fantasies -- because not their anima/us.  In other
words, if you become terrifically infatuated with someone, it would pay to
look at yourself and/or at the image you have of the other person to see
what aspect of your "invisible partner" is actually trying to get out and
be accepted.

The book also discussed (in general) situations where the anima dominates the
man.  (The author did not have sufficient experience studying women to talk
much about the animus dominating the woman, but similar principles would
apply.)  The result is a sort of homogenized, feminized masculinity.  Two
manifestations of this dominance by the "invisible partner" are:

1) Homosexuality.  If the masculine side (which naturally desires union with
   the female) has been suppressed, the feminine (which wants the male) will
   come out.  Many of the favorable qualities of the feminine may also come
   out (e.g. I have done many theatrical productions with a man who is the
   sweetest-tempered person I know, and I'm pretty sure he's gay).
2) "Dr. Zhivago":  A man who is, more than most, attuned to the wants and the
   thinking of women; an "initiate of the Great Goddess"; a man who seems
   fated to an unusual degree of self-knowledge; the "Dr. Zhivago" type (I
   must read that book now, to find out exactly what this means!).  This type
   of man is likely to have difficulty integrating, not the feminine, but the
   masculine side of himself into his total personality, having learned early
   to prefer the feminine and reject the masculine.  Being myself a man of
   this type, integrating the masculine side of me into my total consciousness
   has been recently one of the priority items in my own growth.

A person who has succeeded in integrating the masculine and feminine sides
(perhaps without even being very aware of the issue) can be quite a beautiful
person, e.g. a man who is definitely masculine, yet has the gentleness and
considerateness which are archetypally feminine: a man like Dave Seifert.
Snoopy, take a bow....

-- 
-- Jeff Sargent
{decvax|harpo|ihnp4|inuxc|ucbvax}!pur-ee!pucc-h!aeq
If you don't bet your life on at least one wild-looking chance before you die,
then you won't have really lived....