This theory was created in a discussion on the Message Board some months ago, a discussion about circles (that's why this theory ends with ideas about circles: the initial idea of this theory). I have to thank to everybody, who participated in that discussion, and especially to SDog, to whom I owe the initial interest to the topic, the first variant of the metaphor for how channelers link to the Source (My metaphor is different and serves to a opposite theory, but it is derived from his one) and his valuable and powerful criticism against me forced me to develop all the details, I'm exposing here now.

Part I:

The Cosmic Stream of One Power

Both male and female channelers link to the same Power. Yes, I said "the same Power", despite of the fundamental difference between Saidin and Saidar. Because the One Power is called "One" for some purpose, and it drives the Wheel of Time as One Power. Saidin and Saidar are the two halves of it. Halves. So, men and women, sense and control the both halves of the same Power. They are very different in the quality of them, but later about that.

Power comes into them and goes out (it is called "channeling" after all). Many times in the books is described the experience of female and male channellers, how the Power flows through them. It flows into a channeler from the Source and out of them into the weaves that cause the channelling effects.

One Power flows through the active channelers, passive channelers, angreals etc, through everything. It flows also without any channelers. In AoL "static flows" existed that could be used without channelers. Now the static flow don't exist more, but the ter'angreals that work with non-channelers do work yet, and all ter'angreals are OP-utilizing devices, so some flow of OP without any channelers yet exists. OP is the force that drives the Wheel, and it is a constant stream. Channeling in that case would be rather only partial modulation of this stream.

And it flows in a direction. It is called "One" Power after all, so it is only one stream. Saidar and Saidin are only the "halves" of OP, and they are many times described as opposite poles. Flow of ONE thing between poles: that is the Power, and everything happens between the poles. The Power at all is a huge circuit, and channelers, circles etc., are connected to it in the middle of the flow.

The two halves of the Power are described as working together against each other. It is exactly the closest way to describe opposite poles, to describe something that works because of the relation between opposite poles. For example electricity flows from the one pole to the other, so the both opposite poles struggle against each other and work together.

I think, that the direction is, more exactly, from Saidin to Saidar. One of the reasons it that if the Great Stream is like a river with beginning and and, so it's to be expected that in the beginning the river would be swift-flowing, impetuous and turbulent (like Saidin) and at the and it will flow slow (like Saidar). Btw so one and the same thing (a river) can have two entirely different appearances... But the main reason for me to suggest that direction I would set out later.

Part II:

Touching the Source: the Pumping metaphor

If the OP is a constant stream, channeling would be plugging in the stream and modulating it a little. Moiraine, explaining the reason for OP to not being possible to exhaust by channeling, used the metaphor of OP being a river, and the channeler an watermill wheel in it. But channeling is not only transforming energy - it forms the Power into weaves, i.e. it redirects, changes, manipulates the flow of the Power. But the windmill metaphor means that the Power is feeled by AS (Moiraine apparently bases on the whole traditional knowledge of the Tower about that topic) to not go to nowhere after channeling, but return to the general stream. So if the Power was a bundle of strings, a channeler pulls one string, bends it into a knot, but all the time the both ends of the string remain in the bundle, and only some part of it in the middle of the string is what the channeler has. For the Power is not a static wire, but a flow, the channeler takes a part of the flow aside, deflect it into a complicite path with many curves, but the OP wants to flow in it's direction, so after all the curves it will inevitably return into the main stream.

For to deflect a part of a stream one must drain it out. One can for example use a straw to drain water from a river. As the fluid has to flow further into the weave and after that into the main stream again, a better metaphor would be not drinking through a straw, but using a pump to deflect part of the strem in a sidebranch pipework.

So a channeling ability is like a pumping ability. What makes a channeler for to touch the Source? She (or he) clears her/his mind from anything, causing the state of "oneness", called sometimes also "the Void". How works a pump? It drives away what is in it, causing vacuum, and that vacuum causes pressure, that makes the liquid to flow in the required direction. A channeler is getting tired when holding the Power, even if she/he doesn't channel. And the more amount of Power she/he is channeling, the more she/he is getting tired. I.e. maintaining the touch with the Power is a constant work. But what makes the channeler to maintain channeling? Only maintaining the serenity state by keeping all the emotions aside. I.e. holding the Power is maintained by keeping pumping it.

The strenght of the channeling ability is in that case the maximal pumping capacity. A channeler can drain less or more Power. If she is channeling less, she's tired less, if she channels more, she's tired more. When a channeler is learning to channel, she begins with a low maximum of strenght, and in the process of training she gets stronger. Especially significant it's with the male training, where the strenght is gained suddenly in great portions and is dependent on occasions where the channelers had to channel by extreme conditions (that IMO made them to channel more). So the inner pump is developing. But everyone has limits of this development, above that more power would burn the motor of the pump. The danger of channeling when one is very tired (it's danger to be burned out) also makes me to think with analogy with motors: the channeler's motor can, so to say, be overheated by work, that would reduce it's capacity, and make it easier to burn out.



When two women make a circle, only one can control the flow, the strenght is more then that of one woman, but less then the sum of the strength of the both women. That makes me to think about two locomotives pulling one train: only one of them controls the direction of the movement, the power is greater then that of one locomotiv, but less that the sum of the powers of the both. The same is true for almost all chains of motors, including chains of pumps.

Part III:

Male and Female OP-Pumping

The polar origin of the flow can explain also the difference between saidin and saidar. Poles are what makes the whole stream to flow, poles drive it, so exactly poles would be used for to make the modulations of OP known as "channeling". Men use to drain Power from the one pole, women - from the other.

That can be related with different techniques of pumping OP, that have connection to the different manner of working of the both poles. The different manner of work of the both poles is seen in the appearances of Saidin and Saidar. Saidin is like an upper course river, where the water is swift and turbulent, and where OP is rushing into the world (imagine the OP moving the Wheel of time like a water stream moving a watermill: for to move the wheel the water must be swift and to rush into the wheel). Saidar is like a river in the lower course, where it is close to the outflow, and where it already passed the Wheel and lost it's impetus.

A pump can draw in a liquid, or a pump can push it forward. Women embrace the Source and men seize it. It looks like the difference between drawing in and pushing. Men seize OP and so rush into the Power stream. That is like what the Saidin pole makes to the stream. Women embrace OP like the Saidar Pole embraces the stream after passing the Wheel.

Female channeler connection is structured so:

(not sensed) -> woman -> Saidar

Male channeler connection so:

Saidin -> man -> (not sensed)

'Not sensed' means here 'not to be manipulated', so I don't contradict here to the principle that men and women cannot touch the same halves of the OP. Men and women just use different directions of the current, so they are as foreign to each other as possible.

Part IV:

Female and Mixed Circles

In a trivial female-only circle, only the leader has direct connection to the source. The others pump the power after the leader as if the leader pulls a rope and the others pull the leader:

(not sensed) -> other women -> leader -> Saidar

In a mixed circle the situation is like this:

Saidin -> man -> (-> other women) woman -> Saidar

So a trivial circle has only one direct Source-connection, and a mixed circle has only two direct connections, not more then halves of the OP exist.

Women are channeling as if dragging something while going backward, men channel as if pushing something (also going backward, so that it's easier to push). Between the part of the OP mainstream that men use to touch the Source and the part, women use, there is the Wheel. Men use the OP before it passed the Wheel, women use it after it passed the Wheel. So Women have the information, that, so to say, is "floating" downstream from the Wheel, while men haven't. So the women can "see" the other channelers (they are faced to them), while men cannot. So women can build circles, while men cannot.

If an woman and a man link into a circle, they use both the halves of the OP and so are more similar to the way the main stream of OP works on the Wheel. That is to be the reason for to can be done by mixed circle, then by channelers of only one sex.

The taint on Saidin is said to be on the "surface" of the pool of Saidin, and it is only between the Source and the channelers, but under the film of Taint the Saidin is clear. So the Taint doesn't spoil the mainstream and don't affect it, it is only clad of the stream making it impossibe for the Saidin stream to be accessed from outside without sucking the Taint too.