SHARING THE MICHAEL TEACHINGS SINCE 1983
MICHAEL EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATION
MONADS
Aside from your Essence Twin and Task Companion(s), you form many other one‑on‑one relationships that may or may not be karmic. Many of these one‑on‑one relationships, drawn together either by Karma or Agreements, are Monads, or relationships between two Essences which are experienced fully in both directions around a specific issue. A Monad is formed for a learning experience, but it is not necessarily a karmic one. There are an infinite variety of Monads, invented for very specific circumstances; however, the Monads which are usually experienced fall into one of the 30 classic patterns listed below.
The general pattern of a Monad is that after it has been experienced in one direction, the Essences switch positions and experience the other half of the Monad, either later in that life, or perhaps in another life. Then the Monad completes and the Essences can choose to work on another Monad or a different lesson. The only Monad that is usually repeated with the same essences many times is the Teacher-Student Monad. It is also possible, though less common, to have both halves of the Monad being worked on at the same time. For example, in a Leader‑Follower Monad, one person could be leading the other in a particular area and simultaneously following in another area. This can also be seen in Pivotal‑Facilitator Monads, in which both parties are facilitating each other in pivoting their lives around certain issues.
It is possible to have many Monads going at once with different people in any particular life. It is also possible to have more than one Monad going with the same person at the same time, and you can usually notice that by the complexity of the relationship. The Exalted Roles will generally work on the most Monads, particularly Sages and Priests. You will complete many Monads with the Essences you are most closely related to from life to life. The completion of many Monads with another Essence brings with it the feeling of intimacy of having shared many experiences together and knowing each other in all of your different facets and personalities.
Two Essences who have experienced all the basic Monads together in both directions have what is called a Love Monad. This is the feeling of complete trust and connectedness which comes with having known each other in every type of basic relationship that is possible on the Physical Plane. Considering that there are 30 basic types of Monads often requiring several lives to complete each one, you would need to have spent at least 50 or 60 fairly intimate lives with one another to achieve Love Monad status. Because of the amount of work and time necessary to experience every Monad together, the Love Monad is unusual and is found only between Old Souls.
Most other Monads are subcategories of the Monads listed below, but people can also invent Monads for specific circumstances, cultures or because of the desire to try an unusual relationship with another Essence. When two people are together, they often fall into one of the following monadic patterns, even though they are not "doing a Monad together" in a given lifetime. If they are truly working on a Monad, they will consistently operate out of the monadic pattern each time they meet until that pattern is fully experienced.
THE 30 MOST COMMON MONADS (from most to least)
TEACHER-STUDENT
One person teaches the other something which is life‑affecting and which helps the student to go down a more appropriate life path. The teacher is important in helping the student get her life clear, in general, or in some specific area. It is rare to find a school teacher with whom you have a Teacher‑Student Monad, although if you do find one, you will remember her for the rest of your life.
PARENT-CHILD
This is an intense parent/child relationship which is examined at length in all its aspects. Not every parent and child have this monad; in fact, it is possible to have many children and not have a Parent‑Child Monad with any of them. The subcategories of this Monad are Father‑Son, Father‑Daughter, Mother‑Son, and Mother-Daughter.
IMPRINTER-IMPRINTED
The imprinter is someone, other than a parent, who has the role of imprinting in any life. This can happen between relatives―for example, Uncle‑Niece or Grandmother-Grandchild―or the imprinter can be a family friend or employee (like a nanny) who is instrumental in the formative years of 0‑14.
SIBLING MONAD
The relationship between these siblings is usually very strong and they remain prominent in each others' lives throughout the lifetime.
BROTHER-SISTER
In one life both will be brothers and in another both will be sisters. The other option is when one is the brother and the other is the sister. These positions switch when they experience the other side of the Monad.
MARRIAGE OR HUSBAND-WIFE
A couple who has a life-long mating relationship.
LEADER-FOLLOWER
This Monad can be done in a few different ways. The leader can be someone the follower feels compelled to follow―like General Patton, or Hitler. The leader can also lead the follower on a more intimate basis, e.g., as a business mentor. Or the leader can be someone whose every major lifetime move anticipates the follower's actions: The leader marries a butcher; the follower marries a butcher two years later. The leader goes to law school; the follower goes to the same law school four years later. The leader has one son (eight years old) and two daughters (ages five and four); the follower one son (five years old) and two daughters (ages two and one). This Monad need not be in constant contact for these similarities to occur, but the participants usually check into each others' lives periodically to note the parallels. This Monad can last a lifetime or for only a few months.
ATTACKER-VICTIM
This can range in intensity from verbal attack all the way to rape, murder, or mutilation but is profoundly affecting.
HEALER-HEALED
The Healer can psychologically heal, but usually the Monad involves physical healing that is in some way life-affecting, like a doctor who heals cancer, or a friend or relative who nurses the healed from the edge of death to total health.
RESCUER-RESCUED
The rescuer saves the rescued from either a life‑threatening situation (like drowning) or one that affects the way she lives her life (like a stifling marriage).
INTEGRATOR-ESSENTRIC
One person (the eccentric) comes up with the original creative ideas and the Integrator gives these ideas practical application. If this Monad falls into a quadrant with two other people, the eccentric personality will take the love position and the integrator personality will be knowledge. Added onto a quadrant, these two fall to their natural positions (eccentric and integrator) to make a very effective sextant. (See "Other Groups")
HOPELESSLY LOVING-HOPELESSLY LOVED
One person is head-over‑heels in love and the other remains neutral, but has to learn to deal with the situation. The hopeless loved often feels blocked from loving the hopelessly loving even if she would want to respond.
PASSIONATE-REPRESSIVE
A garrulous, charismatic, outgoing, impulsive person teams up with a calm, stable, refined, structured person
INDEPENDENT-DEPENDENT
This often takes the form of one person who is literally dependent on the other for survival. Often the dependent will be physically handicapped or mentally retarded and need a caretaker, less often the dependence is psychological.
PIVOTAL-FACILITATOR
The facilitator is someone whose appearance causes a pivotal shift in the other person's way of being. Sometimes the facilitator takes an action or says something that changes the other person's life. Sometimes she is someone whose appearance, unrelated to what she does or says, energetically foments great change. People will often bring in a facilitator to pivot their lives (literally turn it in a different direction) if they want to break up a sexual relationship. The facilitator can check into the pivoter's life once or periodically over years. If a facilitator is constantly in the pivoter's life, that life could become a whirlwind of change. This Monad always shifts, so that the facilitator becomes the pivoted party and vice versa, in each lifetime...often many times per life. Because the relationship foments such change, these friends will often spend only limited amounts of time with each other followed by regular "rest breaks." Only people who trust each other implicitly from past lifetime experience are chosen to participate in such a Monad.
SLOVENLY-METICULOUS
This Monad was perfectly portrayed in Neal Simon's “The Odd Couple” by the characters Oscar Madison and Felix Unger: one person is overwhelmingly sloppy and the other obsessively tidy. This Monad can be surprisingly intense―and it can be specific. Many times the partners in this monad are only concerned with the neatness or sloppiness of each other, rather than being generally concerned with this issue.
PASSIVE-AGRESSIVE
One person is hot‑tempered, the other quiet, calm, and enduring. The passive can be either oblivious to or not bothered by the other person's aggressions, or she can be terrified and martyred. This Monad is often seen in the workplace or in marriages. One example: Bob Crachitt and Scrooge in Charles Dickens' “A Christmas Carol.”
ADEPT-APPRENTICE
The adept has mastered a skill that the apprentice needs to learn this lifetime in order to feel happy and balanced. The adept teaches this skill to the apprentice. This Monad is different from the Teacher‑Student Monad because it involves a skill instead of life‑affecting truths.
ARTIST-PATRON
The artist is a creative person who the patron markets or publicizes. The patron can also set the artist up so she can create for a living, e.g., by giving her a stipend, scholarship, or grant or by giving her a show in the patron's gallery.
DESERTER-ABANDONED
A person on whom the abandoned one's survival or stability depends runs out on or abandons her with no warning, leaving an immediate vacuum. This could be by divorce, abandonment as child, or abandonment in a life‑threatening situation.
PROFLIGERATE-TEMPARATE
This Monad usually centers around money. One person is wildly extravagant and the other is moderate, restrained, or even austere. The temperate controls the profligate and teaches her how to restrain herself. The profligate can also be a person who has self‑destructive habits―drinking, drugs, gambling―and the temperate is the person who cures her of that habit. The profligate is always in the position of giving away what she needs to survive.
INNOCENT-SOPHISTICATE
A perfect example of this Monad would be a person with a Goal of Re‑evaluation (innocent) and a person who has a Goal of Discrimination (sophisticate). One person sees life very simply and the other sees life as very complex. The sophisticate teaches the innocent the complexities she needs to survive, while the innocent brings the sophisticate back to the truth and simplicity of life. The fictional characters Don Quixote and Sancho Panza were doing this Monad in tandem.
PROMISCUOUS-IMPOTENT
In this Monad, the participants are usually drawn into a marital or sexual relationship. The promiscuous needs a lot of sex to be balanced; the impotent person's response to that person―perhaps to that person uniquely―is lack of sexual desire, frigidity, an inability to respond. The more violently the promiscuous desires, either badgering the impotent or going out and having other affairs, the more the impotent withdraws. Nevertheless, the two are drawn to be around one another.
MASTER-SLAVE
Some people make this very enjoyable, for others it is the worst of Monads. One person is literally enslaved to the other―legally, monetarily, or emotionally. This can happen in marriages, where one person controls the money or has the emotional upper hand. This Monad is not very prevalent in Western society anymore because it has been rejected on a cultural level. In other societies and in other times, this Monad was done between literal masters and their slaves. Pimp‑Prostitute is one modern day version of the Master‑Slave Monad.
PLAYER-PAWN
One person manipulates the other. Without the pawn being aware, she is being used in a larger game. The player can be a leader in a large company or a national leader, the pawn, for example, a go between factions who can be sacrificed if circumstances so dictate. This Monad can also be played out in personal relationships.
DEFENDER-DEFENDED
This Monad is between someone who cannot defend herself because she is too weak, too young, or lacking in appropriate skills and a person who defends her. In the United States legal system, this relationship often arises between lawyers and their clients. Accountants can also take this position when they defend their clients against the IRS. The defender can also be a bodyguard. A knight and his fair lady are another example of this Monad.
HIDDEN-DISCLOSED
One person has a secret and the other uncovers it. The Watergate scandal of the 1970s was an example of this Monad, the major players being President Richard Nixon (hidden) and "Deep Throat," the major source of information about the scandal (disclosed).
SLANDERER-SLANDED
One person, the slandered, does something innocent that could be interpreted critically. The other person, the slanderer, disseminates her colored, negative, and inaccurate interpretation of what the slandered did.
JAILER-PRISONER
One person literally jails the other. In this society, prison guards are the best examples of jailers, although occasionally a person who illegally imprisons another for a period of time will come to public attention.
LOVE MONAD
The two Essences have experienced every major Monad together in both directions over a series of lifetimes and are, therefore, able to achieve agape towards each other at last.
TANDEM MONAD
This is similar to a Leader‑Follower Monad in that one person's life parallels the other's. With the Tandem Monad, however, there is no time lag. People in a Tandem Monad find that they have been doing similar things in their lives at the same time: One moved to Colorado in 1983 and so did the other. One got a job as a nurse in 1984 and so did the other. Both got divorces in 1981 and read Gone with the Wind when they were 12.