Are we simply projecting our inner male/female onto another and falling madly in love with an illusion?
Yes, there is a projection of your inner male or female side onto the twin flame. But it is not the same thing as “falling in love” with an “illusion.” The spiritual awakening of the twin flames is essentially a profound manifestation of psychic energy from the soul, or Self, mediated by the activation of your divine energies. The twin flames simply could not occur without the mind and soul, being charged and transforming as these unconscious archetypal energies come into relation with consciousness and encounter the Other.
The sacred marriage of masculine and feminine, which is a crucial element of the individuation process, happens internally. It is mirrored or embodied externally in the twin flame. We have to realize that autonomous psychic processes like this happen within the individual psyche and in the inter-psychic realm—that is, the creative space between two souls. There is a correspondence between the inner world and our external “reality.” Souls engage each other at the right time when the individuation process is beginning. It is a spiritual awakening, since the center of the personality is shifting from the ego to the Self. It is like a “transcendent function,” which invokes the realm of the numinous and divine. But it isn’t symmetrical; each person undergoes a specific process of transformation. As layer by layer, egos shed their skin, moving closer toward selflessness and the experience of unconditional love as the living essence of one’s being. the union becomes, at least symbolically, possible. Everything that rises must converge.
At the same time, the process involves continually confronting and overcoming illusion, or delusion, because the activation of the mind and soul is autonomous and unconscious. We are swept away, over and again. Somehow, it is only by cutting through those illusionary scrims and cultivating a sense of detachment to ground ourselves amid the rush of emotions, we can refine the energy needed to assimilate the whole thing. So that we are fully complete and whole in ourselves, as we face the other, who meets us as such.
