Thursday, 10 January 2008

Chapter Fifteen - The Feminine Creatrix

From what you read in this book it suggests there has been a secret war between a matriarchal religion and a patriarchal religion going on for thousands of years, and you would also be forgiven for thinking that the problems of this world are not between good and evil but between patriarchy and matriarchy. Yet to condemn patriarchy as “bad” or “evil” is not the answer. Because all you are doing is de-humanising patriarchy, without trying to understand why we have patriarchy in the first place.
In the last four thousand years of recorded history it has been accepted world wide that our creator is a man, so much so, that many people today cannot imagine a Supreme Creator as anything but a male. In accepting the masculine nature of our Creator we have constructed a masculine, male dominated world. This world has reflected the masculine values of competition and aggression. The result is that we have been brainwashed for thousands of years to believe that we live in a world of conflict, hatred and suffering, to the extent that we now believe that this is the only world there is. So we are unable to believe that a world of love and harmony is possible and assume it is unrealistic because we don't know any different. We don't realise that the masculine world of conflict is created by our beliefs about ourselves. It only requires to change our beliefs and respect and accept the feminine to bring about a more loving and caring world.
The way it works is that if we accept that human nature is sinful or brutish then we become suspicious and fearful of other people. This fear blocks out any love, compassion or understanding we may have of other people. They in turn may have the same fears and so do not treat us with any love or understanding. So we get caught in a viscous cycle of fear and distrust, which can lead to in extreme case to violence and hatred. So the assumption that other people are not to be trusted creates on the collective level a society of fear and even hatred.
If on the other hand we assume all people are loving and caring then we will accept them with love as well. Most people will respond to our loving attitude and so creating a virtuous cycle of love and compassion. The paradox is that a belief in evil on the collective level creates evil, while a belief in love on the collective level creates a loving world. This has been recently proven scientifically.
In recent years some scientists have been studying the effects of people’s ability to trust others. A world Values Survey done by Ann Arbor of the University of Michigan has asked people all over the world, “Do you think strangers can generally be trusted?”. The highest is 65% in Norway and it is down to just 5% in Brazil.
What came out of the survey was that the ability of people to trust strongly affected the economics of countries they live in. People in countries with the highest positive response also enjoyed the highest standard of living. While in countries where the trust level was below 30%, were countries that have widespread poverty. To quote Steve Knack of the World Bank.-
“Trust is one of the most powerful factors affecting a country’s economic health. Where trust is low, individuals and organisations are more wary about engaging in financial transactions, which tends to depress the national economy.”
Another factor that came out of this scientific survey is that the less trust with a society the higher the religious faith. The scientists explain this by claiming that if people cannot trust others they are forced to rely on a higher power. I have to say I can’t agree with that explanation because if people are believing in a judgmental and punitive God then clearly they can’t rely on this higher power either. It is more likely that people that have a very negative belief in God, become very fearful of the world they live in. This “God fearing” attitude makes them fear others, so they feel they cannot trust either God or man.
They also discovered that Breast-feeding also increased the trust levels in children while bottle-feeding had a negative effect. Which is interesting because during most of the 20th century male doctors were actively encouraging women to bottle-feed. Even today when scientific research has proven the benefits of breast-feeding, mothers are still encouraged not to breast feed for too long.

If we accept that the masculine represents competition, conflict, aggression, war and hatred, all these forces come from one force, which is separation. On the other hand, feminine values are, Love, compassion and empathy, and all these forces come together to represent Oneness. So in other words the One is feminine. The One is all that there is, so we are all part of the One. Separation from the One is masculine which allows us all to become individuals. So the relationship between the feminine and the masculine, is the relationship between the One and the individuals that make up our world. This is why the concept of a male supreme Creator is separated from the world. He creates the world but doesn't live in it, while the concept of the feminine Creator is that the universe is the One, that is to say, the Great Mother. Which means collectively we are all the Great Mother.
This concept of Oneness is put forward by John Donne (1571-1631) in his famous poem, “No Man Is An Island”. Which has the well known lines.-

All mankind is of one author, and is one volume;
every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;
if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less,
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
Some mystic traditions attempt to claim that the One is masculine but this becomes a contradiction in terms. For how can the competitive masculine become One? So this belief makes life very difficult for mystics who attempt to tune into a masculine One. Some religions like Taoism and Buddhism have the concept of a genderless One, though it has to be admitted that in the Tao-Te-Ching it does also call the Tao, “The Mother” or “The Mysterious Female”. A strong argument can be made that the One is beyond concepts like male and female. Now there is merit is this, but there is a case for saying that the collective whole is Feminine, while we who live in the illusion of separation are masculine.
So it means for us that the Mother Goddess is the One. She is all that there is, unlike the Creator God who is separate from the world and then is separated from himself in being two Gods the father God and the Devil. We are given the illusion that we are born from the Great Mother so we imagine we are separated from her. This gives us the opportunity to experience individuality. So we become the children of the Great Mother to whom she has given the gifts of individuality and independence through the illusion of separation.
The Ancients knew this and showed it in a very ancient symbol of a snake swallowing its tail. The snake's body forms a complete circle. The attribute of the circle is not only the feminine symbol of the vagina but it represents the whole or the One. The snake represents the penis so is a masculine symbol. With the snake's body forming the circle it shows the masculine is on the boundaries of the One. It means that the masculine is connected with the One but also can be seen in this symbol as outside of the One. It therefore becomes the perfect symbol showing the relationship between the One and the individual.
Another ancient symbol saying the same thing is represented in Roman Catholic Churches all over the world in the image of the Virgin Mary holding a male baby. The Virgin Mary represents the feminine One and the male baby represents the masculine individual. Roman Catholics priests will tell you that this image only represents the mother of Jesus Christ holding him as a child. Yet this image is far older than Christianity and to some Roman Catholics is far more important to them than the image of Christ on the Cross. As mentioned before many followers of the Virgin Mary call her, "The Mother of God" which should be in Christian terms blasphemy as it suggests an ancient pagan idea that The Great Mother created God. Roman Catholic priests will point out that this saying only means that the Virgin Mary is the mortal mother of Jesus Christ. Yet if that is true then surely what the followers of the Virgin Mary should be calling her is, "The mortal Mother of Jesus." Long before Christianity, the ancients called the Great Goddess, "The Mother of all the Gods," which is very similar to what the followers of the Virgin Mary call her today. This suggests that it is a traditional older than the Christian Church.
In the ancient Egyptian religion there is a similar image and that is of the Goddess Isis holding her baby Horus. Some scholars have suggested that the image of the Virgin Mary holding her child comes directly from the Image of the Goddess Isis doing the same thing. In the legend of Isis, she was married to Osiris who is in conflict with his brother Seth. In this conflict Seth murders Osiris and cuts him up into many pieces and scatters them all over Egypt. Isis then goes out in search of these pieces. Putting them back together she brings Osiris back to life to have a child from him. From this union the child Horus is born and when he grows up he continues the conflict with Seth.
In this legend Isis takes no part in the conflict; her role is that of a healer. The conflict between Osiris and Seth that brings about Osiris being scattered into many pieces gives a clear symbol that competition and conflict causes separation. Isis brings the pieces back together again making the separated masculine whole again. Yet in healing the masculine as represented by Osiris all she does is allow the competition and conflict to continue in the war between Horus and Seth. So this legend tells about the dance between the feminine as Isis and masculine as Osiris, Horus and Seth. The masculine continually creates separation and the feminine continually heals and restrains the separation. The role of the feminine Isis is to prevent the separation going to the extreme and destroying itself, and if it does, it is her role to bring the masculine back together again.
Another ancient legend is that of the Hindu Goddess Kali. (Which I have already discussed). In this legend the Gods were exhausted by wars with demons whom it seems were winning the war. This is of course typical masculine behaviour calling your enemies demons or devils which justifies attacking and fighting them. So the Gods call for help from Kali or Devi the Great Mother Goddess, depending which version of this story you read. Kali/Devi goes into battle with the demons and kills them all until she is left with the Demon King. The Demon King appeals to her sense of justice, claiming she has many fierce Goddesses to help her such as, Durga, Chamunda, Ambika. But she replies, "I am all alone in the world, who else is there besides me". This tells us clearly that she is the One. Kali/Devi then joins in battle with the Demon King but finds no matter how many pieces she cuts off him, these pieces then create other demons that in turn attack her. This symbolises clearly that war is not the way to overcome the masculine and separation. In fact it is war and conflict that makes the masculine stronger, as it creates more and more separation. So in the end Kali solves this problem by swallowing the Demon King whole, bringing the masculine back into the One. Which is also what Isis does to Osiris in the earlier versions of the Isis/Osiris stories.
The legend goes on to say that having defeated the demons; Kali becomes intoxicated by blood and goes on to destroy the rest of mankind. The Gods are powerless to stop her. In a desperate attempt to prevent the destruction of the whole of mankind, the God Siva comes down from heaven and lays lifeless at her feet and Kali walks all over him. Seeing him lifeless at her feet her blood lust evaporates and the world is saved. This part of the legend shows us that once wars are started then there is no end to them. All over the world we see wars between traditional enemies who are unable to forgive each other and wars continue generation after generation. In other words conflict creates hatred and hatred creates more conflict. This cycle can only be broken when the masculine represented by the God Siva surrenders to the feminine represented by Kali.
The ancient Greeks and Romans represented love, through the Goddesses Aphrodite and Venus. Somehow it makes sense to have a Goddess representing love. Jesus in the New Testament attempted to promote the idea of a loving Father God, yet this never caught on even among Christians who mostly preferred the angry and judgmental Jehovah of the Old Testament. Many Christians also have problems with the image of Jesus himself who comes across as a very meek and mild man and therefore is seen as a bit of a wimp. This is why many Christians prefer the more warlike and macho prophets of the Old Testament and are more likely to quote them than Jesus.
So it means if we choose to worship a male God and claim he is our creator, then we are in effect worshipping the male principles of competition, conflict, aggression and separation, which in turn creates the great suffering we see in our world. History has proven this to be true with Christianity, which hasn't been a world of forgiveness, tolerance and "loving thy neighbour" as preached by Jesus. Christianity instead has a history of intolerance, war, genocide and hatred. The massacres of the Cathars, and Witches and the wars of the Crusaders and later on the countless wars between the Roman Catholics and Protestants, the genocide of the native American and Australian peoples shows clearly how intolerant and warlike Christian societies have been. The same is true of the Moslems who also worship a male God. They have just as bad a record of intolerance, wars and genocide as the Christians have.
If on the other hand we worship a Goddess as our Creatrix we are then allowing ourselves to also worship the ideals of love, harmony and Oneness. Unfortunately in all of recorded history we have no clear record of what a society would be like that worships a Creator Goddess. We know of societies that have worshipped both Goddesses and Gods, like the Ancient Greeks, Romans or Egyptian but they made a male the Creator God. These societies had far more religious tolerance than the later Christian and Moslem civilisations. The same is true of the Hindus in India who worship both Gods and Goddesses. They again have more religious tolerance than the Moslems in Northern India and Pakistan. Yet we cannot say a society worshipping deities of both sexes is very much less warlike than societies who only worship Gods. This is because the priests of male Gods are competitive with the followers of Goddesses. This forces priests or the priestesses of Goddess Temples to be as competitive in return to survive. So the love, peace and harmony of Goddess worship becomes impossible while other people worship Gods and separation and interfere with those who worship Oneness.
So it seems that Oneness and separation are in conflict with each other but it is not the nature of Oneness to compete with separation. Yet separation sees this non-competitive nature as a threat to its existence. This is because the foundation of separation is an illusion. If we no longer believed in separation then we all would become One and we fear we would lose our individuality. Feminists have pointed out in many books how men have dominated women over many centuries through violence and intimidation. So even though it is more natural for women to love, care and empathise with others, men are able to brutalise women to the degree they are forced to accept masculine values of competition, aggression, intolerance and hatred.
Yet although separation is in conflict with Oneness there also seem to be an attraction to one another. Traditionally men have dismissed women as being weak and illogical. Yet most men are very attracted to women. Likewise even though men have traditionally abused women, it still doesn't stop women being very attracted to men. So does this suggest that the One as the feminine and separation as masculinity need each other?
If we are all One, we would live in a world of peace and harmony, simply because if we are all of one mind then conflict of any kind becomes impossible. Yet in this Oneness relationships become impossible, because if we are all one, whom can we relate to? If there is nothing outside of the One then a world of Oneness becomes static. It just Is. It becomes perfection and once something becomes perfect there is no reason to move on from that perfection. This is why the feminine One needs the masculine separation to create relationships and movement. Unfortunately if the masculine is not controlled or restrained by the feminine it will quickly move into a vicious cycle of fear, hatred and destruction.
Many of us might claim we would like to live in a world of love and harmony. Yet we betray ourselves every time we read a fictional book or watch TV or a film. It seems what we find entertaining is conflict and suffering. Men enjoy action stories and films involving extreme violence. Women prefer soap operas or romances but even in these stories there is still great conflict. No romantic story would be interesting if there wasn't a breakdown in the relationship before the happy ending. So we have to admit to ourselves that we are fascinated by conflict and suffering. If we admit to this then we also have to admit that we have conflict and suffering in our lives because we want them. The truth is that most people would fear a world that was in complete harmony because it would be very boring.
Yet living in a world of separation then makes peace and harmony become totally impossible. Separation creates fear, hatred and destruction. So a masculine society becomes self-destructive and without the influence of the feminine it will destroy itself. For the last few thousand years we have seen the conflict caused by men becoming the dominant sex. Yet in that time even though women have been the submissive sex they have still worked very hard on men to civilise them. Men complain frequently that all women want to manipulate and change them. Traditionally in their own quiet way women do change men and greatly modify the excess of conflict and hatred that men indulge in. This is why in very male dominated countries like Islam countries, men traditionally avoid the company of women as much as possible, because they fear that to be with women will make them "soft".
Without the subtle influence of women, men would have destroyed themselves long ago. During the cold war between the West and the USSR both sides made and deployed enough nuclear weapons to destroy the world many times over. During this war both sides became very close to using these weapons. There was one incident where the USSR very nearly launched all her nuclear weapons because of a computer error. So we can see that had men became even slightly more aggressive in their nature, we as a species would have become extinct.
We have a choice. We are able to be One and therefore live in a world of static harmony. Or we continue to live in a world of separation where we can have relationships with others. This then becomes a more dynamic world but such a world leads of fear, hatred suffering and finally to destruction.
So it means the feminine One, needs the masculine separation to give it dynamism and relationships. While the masculine separation needs the feminine One to give it love harmony and peace to prevent it from destroying itself. So how is it possible for these very two very different forces to work together? This seems to be impossible because the One and separated are totally different. The masculine mode of separation greatly fears the feminine One. This is because under the influence of the One he might lose his individuality. The feminine for obvious reasons also fears the masculine separation, because for thousands of years her love for the masculine has always been returned with hatred and abuse.
Are the fears of the masculine justified? In accepting the feminine Oneness will he lose all individuality? The feminine One is only able to love, as fear and hatred within the One is impossible. So when a women returns love from a man who shows he hates her, she is threatening him with her love as he fears he will lose his individuality if he returns her love with love. Yet women themselves are individuals as well. Women are able to love, empathise and co-operate with others and yet do not lose their individuality. Though it is admitted that the individualism of most women is far less than most men.
Imagine a world where there are no males, a world where women were able to reproduce without men. Without the divisions created in society by men perhaps women will empathise with each other to such a degree that they would lose all individuality. This might have happened to matriarchal societies of the past where women dominated societies became so peaceful that they began to stagnate. So the masculine had to be encouraged to bring new dynamism into society. Yet because of the competitive nature of the masculine, it competed with the feminine and in the end took control and dominated the feminine. Men then claimed that it was a masculine God that created the world and created a masculine society with all the conflict, fear, hatred and suffering we see in our recorded history. So because the masculine moved out of the control of the feminine, it means we have moved from one extreme to the other.
So is this the only choice we have? Of a dynamic masculine world that is basically self-destructive, or a loving and peaceful feminine world where nothing much happens. Can't we have both? Can we not have a loving world that is also dynamic, in other words a world that is both individual and at One at the same time.
In the past men have greatly feared and hated very feminine women who have given them love in return for hatred and abuse. This suggests that the conflict between the One and separation only comes about when the One is too feminine and the individual is too masculine. So this means that there might be a middle way between these two extremes. It is possible for women to learn from the masculine and men to learn from the feminine?
This in theory should be the feminist relationship where both men and women are equals. Yet as we have seen such relationships are not very peaceful. In recent years marriage councillors have become a boom industry to try and fix up the conflict between couples, as more and more relationship break down and end in divorce. In fact the traditional patriarchal marriage where the man is the dominant partner was more stable than the feminist's equal relationships of today.
This is because of the way men think and feel. As men are very competitive equality doesn't come naturally for him because in his mind he is always thinking in terms of winners and losers. He is happy to be the dominant partner or the submissive partner. But to be the equal partner is something that is totally alien to his nature. Men are by nature game players and to them life is a game of winners and losers. We can see this clearly when men had ideals of creating a equal society. The result was the French revolution and later Communism. Both attempts only made society only slightly more equal than other male dominated societies. In the end this experiment was seen as a failure because not only did men totally fail to create a equal society, Communist societies began to stagnate when equality was forced on men.
This is because very different things motivate men and women. The feminine is motivated by their maternal instinct and learn to love others. Most women are more than happy to spend their whole lives caring and looking after other people, like children, husbands, old people and animals. The masculine on the other hand is motivated by competition and without competition; men lose their strongest motivation.
Men are able to some degree to live in harmony with women when they are the dominant partner, or as it seems in recent times if she is the dominant partner. In these relationships women play the dominant and masculine role, while men play the submissive and feminine role. Yet this doesn't mean that the sexes completely swap roles. Just because a woman is playing the dominant role it doesn't mean she has to lose her contact with the One and lose her ability to love and care for others. Likewise because a man is playing a feminine role it doesn't mean he has to lose his individuality.
Men representing masculinity and separation find equality and co-operation very difficult. To him the only type of relationship that makes sense is a relationship where either he is in charge or this partner is in charge. If that is not clearly defined then he will continue to compete with his partner until it is mutually agreed that he dominates her or she dominates him. In other words the masculine mind needs a clearly defined "pecking order" for him to have relationships with others.
To create a caring society of peace, harmony and love which is dynamic where all people do not lose their individuality, requires us to accept that the One is feminine. We don't have to make the feminine the total ideal and reject individuality. Women have to take the lead and play the assertive masculine role, yet not lose their contact with the One, while men have to learn how to play the feminine role of caring for others and yet not lose their individuality.
The Great Mother has the same problem as a mortal mother. If a mother looks after her children too much she can ensure their safety, but in the process she doesn't allow them to grow. On the other hand if she gives them far too much freedom they will grow and learn how to look after themselves yet are more likely to be hurt. As children of the Great Mother we have demanded from her more freedom to look after ourselves. In doing so we have created the world we now live in. Unfortunately in not knowing what we are doing we have created a world of fear and suffering. It is now time to return to the Great Mother and to Oneness. To accept the guidance and wisdom of women who are her representatives on this Earth.
For so long we have accepted a male God and masculine values in our world that we no longer believe in or even know that there is an alternative to this. Yet there is an alternative and that is the Feminine. It is not a matter of choosing between these alternatives because we can choose both if we wish to. We have experienced both, we have experienced Oneness and the pain and suffering of separation, and through this experience we can then learn to live lives of being an individual in a world of Oneness.
Patriarchal priests have done their best over the last few thousand years to destroy any knowledge of the Ancient Great Mother because they knew that if she were to return to consciousness their power would be destroyed. Fortunately this knowledge has been retained in the teachings of Jesus, the Tao-Te-Ching and Secret Societies like the Freemasons who have given out this knowledge bit by bit to the people. The knowledge that The Great Mother loves us all unconditionally is all the knowledge we need to start us on our return journey to our Comic Mother.
Men have led the way, away from the Great Mother and Oneness into individuality. Now it is women’s turn to lead us back to Oneness as individuals.

[A Freemason symbolic drawing showing the return of female power. As usual the sex of the main figure is made ambiguous, to overcome censorship but the fact that she has breasts and no external genitals means she must be female. She has a chain around her arm suggesting she is not the Great Mother but is represents the female race and is being guided by the Mother Goddess. Likewise in turn she holds a chain, which is attached to a monkey. This could be the Monkey God that is featured within Hinduism and Buddhism, but this is a European picture. The monkey is probably, man, because it is men’s stupidity that has created a world of warfare, injustice and poverty. So this picture show women taking control of men and preventing him from doing any more harm to the world.]