Sacred Relationships and the Third Party (by Franco Santoro)

Trinity by Jeff Neugebauer

The theme of sacred relationships is an inevitable source of interest, especially in these times of transition, when many human beings on the path are awakening their multidimensional nature and moving beyond the confinement of close relationships.

The notion that the original human being had a multidimensional nature, incorporating male, female and a mysterious third polarity (Third Party) is found in most ancient traditions and mythologies. This is described by terms such as androgynous (from the Greek andros, "man", and gynos "woman") and hermaphrodite (from the Greek god Hermaphroditus, embodying the sexual features of both his-her parents, Aphrodite and Hermes, together with the capacity of keeping them together, i.e. the Third Party).

The original human being was generally depicted has having most powerful qualities. For example, in the Symposium, a controversial dialogue by Plato upon the nature of love, the author narrates an ancient myth about the first human beings through the speech of a character (Aristophanes).

The original human nature was not like the present, but different. The sexes were not two as they are now, but originally three in number; there was man, woman, and the union of the two, of which the name survives but nothing else. Once it was a distinct kind, with a bodily shape and a name of its own, constituted by the union of the male and the female: but now only the word 'androgynous' is preserved, and that as a term of reproach.

In the second place, the primeval man was round, his back and sides forming a circle; and he had four hands and the same number of feet, one head with two faces, looking opposite ways, set on a round neck and precisely alike; also four ears, two privy members, and the remainder to correspond. He could walk upright as men now do, backwards or forwards as he pleased, and he could also roll over and over at a great pace, turning on his four hands and four feet, eight in all, like tumblers going over and over with their legs in the air; this was when he wanted to run fast.

Now the sexes were three, and such as I have described them; because the sun, moon, and earth are three; and the man was originally the child of the sun, the woman of the earth, and the man-woman of the moon, which is made up of sun and earth, and they were all round and moved round and round because they resembled their parents.

These humans had such extraordinary qualities and intelligence that the gods became envious and fearful. Hence they decided to cut the human spherical body in two halves and get rid of the Third Party ("the union of the two" or "man-woman"bit). Since then, the two separated parts have been trying to join up. "And the reason is that human nature was originally one and we were a whole, and the desire and pursuit of the whole is called love."

The song "The Origin of Love" from the stage show Hedwig and the Angry Inch is based on the above story. See video below:

With the term sacred relationship I identify the integration of the three original sexes, the male and female polarities through the Third Party (man-woman sex, "the union of the two", or Void) in alignment with the Web of Life and with the complete experiential recognition of another as a part of who I am, whom I incorporate in the wholeness of what and who we all are.

Sacred relationships entail a radical transmutation and expansion of our limited self, a drastic release of our separated personality, an initiatory death and rebirth into a novel collective identity. They require dismembering the layers we have erected around our heart and consciousness to preserve the forlorn setting of a provisional separated reality, becoming the womb through which true perception of the wholeness of reality can be reborn in this world.

Sacred relationships are not based on the amount of time spent with a partner or on the level of physical or emotional intimacy. They are founded on a deep commitment and willingness to perceive the invisible healing link of love (Third Party) with another, the determination to sustain it beyond the illusive limitations of time and space, out of the enduring experiential recognition that the other is a part of one's multidimensional self.

Sacred relationships orchestrate the unfolding of the deepest mysteries in life. Every relationship, no matter how trivial, possessive, ordinary, destructive or addictive appears to be, contains the bud of a sacred relationship. 

Lovers Key of the Sacred Alchemy

Whenever any relationship is created, an astounding process develops, which entails the potential emergence and manifestation of a new universe. 

Initially the rapport involves the outer layers, then, as the partners come closer, more inner layers start to be engaged, until both may become consciously aware of the Third Party ("the union between the two") and begin to actively engage with it, paving the way for the male, female and third polarity to finally merge.

When the three polarities merge, it is called a sacred relationship. This generates a quantum shift, a radical opening through which the mystery is unveiled and the original nature of existence discloses its authentic essence, which is unconditional love, the "Holy Trinity", the creative exemplification of oneness with the Web of Life.

All other types of relationship merely involve the external layers and disregard or fear the core. They are rapports based on the perception and preservation of separation and duality, which are the essential paradigm of our ordinary reality. They involve the unconscious perception of others as irreconcilable missing pieces of our fragmented soul and split projections of our multidimensional nature. They are scared relationships, as opposed to sacred relationships. Yet scared relationships are what we have inherited and any step into a sacred relationship starts from them.


The work entails converting scared relationships into sacred relationships. This is not an intellectual exercise. It is a most pragmatic process, which entails acknowleding and releasing deep grievances. It is also the result of direct and ecstatic experiences of the Third Party. Once, through release and ecstasy, a significant shift of perception is achieved, sacred relationships will be fully restored.


"What seemed once to be a special problem, a mistake without a remedy, or an affliction without a cure, has been transformed into a universal blessing. Sacrifice is gone. And in its place the Love of God can be remembered, and will shine away all memory of sacrifice and loss." (A Course in Miracles, Chapter 18.VII.4)


TO BE CONTINUED... see: http://astroshamanic.blogspot.com/2011/02/sacred-relationships-and-scared.html

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Recommended books and music on the topic of this article:

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