Friday 11 January 2008

Capter Five - The Matriarchal Age

The story of the Bavarian Illuminati is very well known in conspiracy theory literature. Adam Weishaupt a young Freemason in the 18th century started a organisation called the Illuminati. The purpose of this organisation was to create a utopian society unshackled by authoritarian strictures. He was also interested in the occult and the Greek mystery religions, and he recruited the members of the Illuminati from the Freemasons. But in time his intentions were betrayed to the authorities and the Bavarian government suppressed his organisation. Adam Weishaupt then seem to have disappeared from history at this point, along with his organisation. Though conspiracy theories claim that the Illuminati survived and are now ruling the world. Though what is the foundation for this belief I don’t know.
Now this is another paradox about Freemasonry. Although it supposes to have originated as a workingman’s Mason guilds it is very much an organisation of the establishment. Most of its members are professional people like businessmen, civil servants, politicians, policemen and titled people like Dukes, Earls and even Kings. So what are people like this who are pillars of the establishment, doing getting involved in a organisation that promotes revolution? It is no wonder that such paradoxical behaviour worry the conspiracy theorists, whom believe Freemasons have a hidden agenda.
As pointed out Adam Weishaupt was interested the Greek mystery religions and also wanted to create a utopian society and overthrow the authoritarian governments of his time. So where did these ideas come from? Today we know very little about the Mysteries of the ancient Goddess religions. The reason for this was that the Christians and later the Moslems went out of there way to destroy ancient knowledge. It was for this reason that the famous library of Alexander was burnt down. Not only did this happen in Europe but in China as well, where Chinese Emperors also destroyed all Ancient knowledge at about the same time. It also happened later in South America where all the scrolls of the South American civilisations were destroyed by the invading conquistadors. Even in remote places like Easter Island the missionaries destroyed all its ancient writings.
So what is it about ancient knowledge that was so dangerous that patriarchal religions had to destroy it? A clue can be seen in the Tao-Te-Ching where it talks about an age in the past where life was far better for all people.
Hesiod a 8th century BC Greek poet also wrote about the Golden age, in which he says. -
“they lived like gods, free from worry and fatigue, old age did not afflict them, they rejoiced in continual festivity… All the blessing of the world were theirs.. The fruitful earth gave forth its treasures unbidden.”
The Golden age would probably be before humans began to use agriculture. Now there is some evidence that people then lived better lives. Modern nutritionists are coming to the conclusion that human beings are healthier on what is called, “the Stone-Age diet”. This is because this is what our bodies have been used to over millions of years of evolution. Then came agriculture, which gave us a far greater supply of food, but it also brought about a change in our diet that brought about diseases caused by dietary deficiencies. The same is true with the modern Western diet today; we are now eating foods like margarine, refined flour and sugar that are completely new to our bodies. Many dieticians now are blaming the increase of cancers and heart disease and strokes on our modern diet.
In Australia there is a real concern about the prevalence of heat disease, cancers and diabetes in the Aboriginal population and people were blaming our modern Western diet. To find out if this was true some scientists persuaded some older Aboriginal, with these diseases, who still remembered the old ways, to go back into the bush and live like their ancestors. Within just six months their health greatly improved and some were cured of heat disease, diabetes and even cancer.
Also it seems we didn’t really benefit from agriculture in the way we should. Also with the increasing food supply the human population also started to increase, which was all right while they had good harvests. Then suddenly when where there was famine, the population was too large to find food for everyone to eat and there was mass starvation.
Hesiod also writes about the following the Silver age.
After the Golden Age came the Silver Age, during which lived a race of feeble and inept men who obeyed their mothers all their lives.
Clearly he is talking about the Neolithic age when agriculture was first used and suggests that women ruled this age. Clearly Hesiod had contempt for these men who were dominated by women.
Then there was the Bronze age which he says.-
The men of the Bronze Age were robust as ash trees and delighted only in oaths and warlike exploits. ‘Their pitiless hearts were as hard as steel, their might was untameable, their arms invincible.
We now see the rise of the warrior who ruthlessly conquered other countries. After the Bronze Age Hesiod talks about a Heroic age, which declines to the Iron Age, which is the age, that Hesiod, lived which he says is a period of misery and crime. When men respect neither their vows, nor justice, nor virtue.
We even have a Golden Age Legend in the Bible in the story of the Garden of Eden that probably came from Mesopotamia. Though the story was rewritten to blame women for the fall from grace and claim it happened as a punishment from God for disobeying him. Hinduism also has a Golden Age myth similar to the Greeks where they write about an eternal cycle of Golden, Silver, Copper and Iron ages. They claim that when our present Iron Age finishes, then a new Golden Age will dawn.
Archaeologists have discovered the Ancient Greece was once a fertile country. Goddess religions of the past worshipped tree and held them in high regard. Then when it became patriarchal the trees were cut down and the soil quickly eroded, destroying much of its fertile ground. The same is true of North Africa and the Middle East. The trees that the ancient Goddess religions held to be sacred were cut down, quickly turning the area into desert.
Then what happened when the patriarchs took full control is well documented with continuous wars and conquest and the oppression of the people by armed warriors and solders. There is Archaeological proof that the Golden, silver, and iron ages did in fact exist. It is just that the academic world doesn’t want to acknowledge it.
On Thursday 31 January 2002 at 9.00pm in Britain, BBC Two broadcasted the scientific TV program Horizon. Called, “The Lost Pyramids of Caral”, the subject matter was archaeology http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/2001/caral.shtml
Now to anyone who didn’t have an interest in science this program passed by unnoticed. Yet what this program was about is a very big shift in the understanding of our past and the true nature of human beings. To the degree that historians in the future will have to re-write history and sociologists will have to rethink all their theories about human nature. In fact what was discovered could bring about a colossal social, religious and political change in our future. Once the information about what was discovered fillers down to ordinary people.
In most books about our ancestors in the Stone, Bronze and Iron ages, they portray them as very brutal and violence people. It also seems that the further you go back in time the more violence and savage people seem to be. For this reason it was assumed that people who lived in prehistoric times were even more barbaric than the people in historic times. This has been the prevailing view by most archaeologists, anthropologist and palaeontologists up until very recently.
Now to most people assume academic theories are irrelevant to their normal daily lives, but the belief that we descended from savage barbarians effects us all. Because it assumes we are all deep down just violent brutes in modern clothing, and have to be kept in line through strict laws, moral codes and brutal punishment. This belief influences the nature of our religions, political systems and laws. It also has an unconscious effect on the way we treat others, because if we are to believe that the true nature of humans is barbaric. Then we learn to fear other people and assume the worst in them. Creating a vicious cycle of fear and hatred for other people.
This belief is not much different from the Christian belief that all people are born into sin. The implication of this belief that people can only be saved by obeying the very strict rules and moral code of the Christian religion. When scientists replaced priests as the “wise men” of our society all they done was to continue this belief in another form. In that we are no longer born into sin but we are given instead the equal negative belief that deep down we are all savage brutes.
This belief was spelt out on this Horizon program by Prof. C.C. Lamberg-Karlovsky of Harvard University, who said-
I frankly find it difficult to conceive of the emergence of urbanisation complexity civilisation in the absence of degrees of conflict, or the presence of, warfare.
In other words he was saying it is natural for human beings to live in conflict, and he couldn’t imagine any civilisation that didn’t generate violence and war.
Dr Tom Pozorski of the University of Texas-Pan American and his wife Sheila who had previously discovered what was then thought to be the oldest city in South America found proof of this belief. In the Casma Valley they had discovered one of the largest pyramids in the world, in fact it was so large that previous explorers had assumed it was just a hill. Wood on the site was carbon dated to 1500 BC and this at the time it made it the oldest city in the America. In the excavation they discovered carvings of warriors who were killing and mutilating their victims. To quote, Jonathan Haas of Field Museum, Chicago-
Heads have blood flowing from their eyes and blood flowing from their mouths and then you have body parts so you'll have just the leg and you'll have a torso or you'll have feet and you'll have crossed hands”.
So this find seems to confirm everything archaeologists believed about the early civilisations. That warlords who ruled by fear, created the first cities as fortresses against conquest by other warlords. This theory seemed to be validated until Dr Ruth Shady of the University of San Marcos, Lima, was to make a discovery that was to turn everything archaeologists believed about early civilisations, on its head.
Like Tom Pozorski she began to dig around what was thought to be hills in a place called Caral in Peru only to discover they were pyramids. As she and her team began to excavate the site she was puzzled the fact that there was no pottery on the site, (pottery is nearly always found in ancient civilisations) and finding only stone tools. That suggested this site was so ancient that it existed before the invention of pottery and metal. This was confirmed when some bags made of reeds found on the site were carbon dated. They were dated to 2600 BC so Caral was nearly five thousand years old making it as nearly as old as the first civilisation in Egypt, and was a thousand years older than any other civilisation in South America. This was to cause a sensation in the archaeological world and archaeologists from North America came to visit the site.
Jonathan Haas, “the world's leading expert on the warfare theory” began to search around for evidence of warfare. To his surprise he couldn’t find any fortifications or any means the city could have defended itself. He began to look further afield to look for battlements in the hills around Caral and then in mountain passes where invading armies would have to travel though, but came up with nothing. Meanwhile Ruth Shady couldn’t find any weapons of war or any carvings of violence in her excavations; so all this lack of evidence was undermining the warfare theory. To the degree Jonathan Haas had to admit-
“You seemed to really have the beginnings of that complex society and I'm able to look at it right at the start and I look for the conflict and I look for the warfare, I look for the armies and the fortifications and they're not there. They should be here and they're not and you have to change your whole mind-set about the role of warfare in these societies and so it's demolishing our warfare hypothesis. The warfare hypothesis just doesn't work."
It seems that archaeologists are now accepting that it was irrigation and not warfare is what started the first civilisations.
Another realisation about Caral is that what was true of this civilisation was also true for nearly the whole of South America at the time. Trading goods were found from the Amazon jungle at the other side of the Andes Mountains as well as from the coast. The picture that emerged was that Caral was the centre of a vast trading network. So if the people of Caral felt so safe that they didn’t bother to look for ways to defend themselves, the same must of been true for most of South America at that time. Because in no way was Caral just an isolated city cut off from the rest of the world. It suggests that Caral lived in an age where warfare was completely unknown. The evidence is that the first civilisations in South America lived in peace for about a thousand years before we had warfare, violence, torture and human sacrifice.
The cosy picture painted by the Horizon program of unbiased scientists looking for the truth and finally finding it in the excavation of Caral is basically false. The archaeologists who strongly believed in the warfare theory and then were willing to admit they where wrong in the face of the evidence, or lack of evidence, in Caral, need to be congratulated. Yet this has not been the case for most archaeologists in the past. The truth is that the whole archaeological world for a period of 50 years has had to be dragged kicking and screaming into accepting the evidence, that the first civilisations live in a world where warfare was unknown. It was not just the evidence from Caral that made them ditch the warfare theory but evidence coming from Neolithic, Copper and Bronze age sites in Europe, the Middle East and China.
What happened in Caral at the beginning of the 21st century also happen 40 years previously in the 1950s and 60s in a place called Catal Höyük in Turkey. Unfortunately the way archaeologists reacted to this excavation was very different. An archaeologist called James Mellaart found in this location, the oldest city ever discovered, going back 9,000 years. Making it far older than the ancient Egyptian and Sumerian civilisations. Again the archaeologists couldn’t find any evidence of fortifications or weapons of war. Nor any paintings or carvings showing images of violence, or for that matter any form of centralised government. What was found instead were feminine images of childbirth, Goddesses and animal life.
This city was unlike anything discovered since. In that it had few streets, and most houses were built so close together that the only access was through the roof. This then means that people who lived in the city could only gain access to their homes by walking over the roofs of other people’s houses. This was to greatly puzzle archaeologists. Because they began to wonder way such a system didn’t cause conflict between neighbours. It suggested their was a very high degree of tolerance and good will between people to allow this form of housing to exist for thousands of years.
It is impossible to understand Catal Höyük while we think in terms of a civilisation that had masculine values. Unfortunately what is not being considered is the possibility of civilisations those values were feminine. In later civilisations we see the masculine values of war, power and status glorified in images and writings. In Catal Höyük we see images of the feminine values of childbirth, fertility being represented. So it suggests that women were the dominant sex in this community as it is their values that are represented and strongly influence the nature of the civilisation. As it is women’s superior social skills of co-operation and communication that allows the city to function.
So disturbing was these findings that the whole site was closed down for thirty years by the Turkish Government. James Mellaart was criticised by many archaeologists for claiming that the people of Catal Höyük worshipped Goddesses. One of the most vocal critics was another archaeologist Ian Hodder. So it wasn’t a surprise to find that when the excavations were reopened in the 1990s, it was the sceptic Ian Hodder who was put in charge. In the thirty years the excavation was closed down, the academic world kept quiet about the discoveries made at Catal Höyük. Though there was one archaeologist Marija Gimbutas who broke ranks and began to tell the world about implication of the findings. Not only of Catal Höyük but other Neolithic sites in Southern and Eastern Europe. She wrote about a peaceful world in ancient Europe that worshipped the Great Mother that was ended by violent Indo-European tribes that came from the North and invaded these peaceful civilisations.
Marija Gimbutas wrote books about the Neolithic excavations in Malta, Crete, Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, Moldavia and Ukraine, all these finds showed a world without war and violence and where the people worshipped the ancient Great Mother. It seems that when a society worship feminine deities, war and violence were unknown. But when societies worship male gods or both male and female deities then violence becomes commonplace. She was criticised and condemned by her colleges and it was claimed her work unscientific because it went against the fashionable warfare theories of the time. No other archaeologists at the time would support what she claimed, and she was dismissed as just a strident Feminist maverick of no importance.
Then similar finds began to be written about in the in Indus Valley Civilisation in Pakistan. (Although it was first discovered in the 1920s) Recently archaeologist have found its beginning goes back as 7,000 years making it again one of the oldest civilisations discovered. And again archaeologists couldn’t find evidence of fortifications, violence and warfare, and it was a civilisation that worshipped horned Mother Goddesses. It was also claimed this civilisation was ended by a violence invasion from Aryan people from the North. Though Indian scholars are now disputing his.


[From the book Freemasonry by W. Kirk MacNulty]



Why We Need Women To Rule Our World