CONTENTS

Beyond Patriarchy 2 Poems '2

Why on Earth Join a Matriarchy Group 3 Women's Sexuality 14

Matriarchy versus Patriarchy - as we see it 4 The New Testament: The Goddess and the Sacred King 15

Women's Spirituality 5 Why Matriarchy 19

Women in Ancient Egypt and Fertility Control 6 Stone Circles and Energy Lines 20

Old Testament: Covenant against the Goddess 8 Patriarchy, the Indo-Europeans and World Religions 22

Trees, Sacred Groves and the Goddess 10 Book List and Information 23

BEYOND PATRIARCHY
The history of existing society is the history of Because several of us already had observed
women's oppression. Whatever other forms of oppression evidence for a previous universal Goddess religion,
have been in existence - lord and serf, guildmaster and we called ourselves the Matriarchy Study Group. In
journeyman, capitalist and labourer, the most severely looking at various areas, we found the evidence so
exploited has been the woman. She has been the victim vast that it has been impossible to do more than
of more than double oppression: that of the class of point to it. It is the more difficult since a total
under-dog whichever that was; within that class, she annihilation of its existence was attempted throughout
has provided slave labour both for the benefit of the 2,000 years by proponents of patriarchy; although
principal exploiter - i.e. in order to keep the male almost successful," their efforts did not completely
worker at work - and in all classes for the personal blot out the evidence, which today is being assembled
benefit of the male himself. Where the woman personally on a wide scale but by disparate efforts.
contributes any kind of paid labour directly into the
system it has had to be in addition to the two other We are publishing this GODDESS SHREW now as
and major tasks. This is still the case. part of work in progress. These are our aims:
It must be repeated: this is still the case. 1. We want to share with other women our growing
It is the case under capitalism, in the Western confidence that women have not always been
industrial societies of the second half of the "inferior", subject and oppressed by men in their
twentieth century. It is the case under socialism, families and in society. There was a time,
in the countries which give themselves this description. universally, it seems, from the beginning of the
It is the case under the feudal and semi-feudal systems human race until from 5,000 - 2,000 B.C. where
still existing in many parts of the world. everyone took for granted matriarchy values and
society was organised on the basis of a woman-led
Why have women for so long accepted - and
culture. The Goddess was worshipped not only in
still, for the most part, accept - this unequal
terms of fertility and survival but as a way of
situation?
life in which the feminine, and female, were
It is obvious that a society which believes that it is considered pre-eminent. Great civilisations were
quite in order for more than half its members to built in these cultures.
suffer lifelong exploitation, not only of labour, but
of total personal being, must have immensely strong 2. However, we do not wish merely to contemplate
conditioning in that direction. It must believe, and the past. Our aim of understanding the past is to
the super-exploited themselves must believe, that influence the present. We see the part that male
there ia,good reason for it. based religion and philosophy has played in
The reasons, in fact, are made plain from demeaning and exploiting women. In exposing this,
the time of birth to the time of death. They are built we want to share our regained confidence in
into the structure of society based on the patriarchal ourselves with other women. We extend to them the
system of religion. A male-God based society existing thought that we all have the psychological power
for 5)000 years in some areas became dominant totally to change our lives.
in the rise of so-called civilisations of the last 3. Further, we see that such control of the spirit
2,000 years. Today, even where people are not church- as well as of our bodies will extend the
going or even "religious" they are conditioned through possibility of change in society. Male domination
life in every sector of society to accept its tenets - and the assumption of traditional male roles is
of a Father God, or even, (if very advanced) of the rampant, not only in rightwing reactionary circles.
brotherhood of man. We move from the importance of feminist social
Our roles today have been stereotyped by past demands to total re-appraisal of patriarchy in
religion and by the culture based on it. politics generally.

In 1976, a group of women in London, formed 4« Such advances as have been achieved in the near
a collective to examine the basis for the assumptions past can be withdrawn at any minute. What has not
resulting from this culture. In particular, we yet been achieved is the understanding that women
tried to look beyond patriarchy to find if human- (and men) are still constantly under the oppression
kind had always been organised on these lines. Were of male-based conditioning. Until this is removed,
there can be no real political advance.
such ideas inherent in "human nature"?
2
Why on earth join a matriarchy study
group?
How many terries have complete s t r a n g e r s , How could aduttervj be anything
on the other- end of the telephone, asked whether you othe^r -than a sir. when paternity is impossible to prove
a r e Mi99 or Mrs? If you refuse to t e l l there, do they and has been made 'into CXIA important issue?
decide which they think Moa might be? fvnd So on and so on. Of course the man from t h e
Do men from places like the Worth Thames Gas Board Worth Thames G-as fcoand talks down to me, he holds
Co-L I you c l o v e ; or ° d e a r ' ? If you cal ( them c sonny a l l ttve tramp cards.
i n re-turn, do they sound put o u t f

C
$fe°|
WOULDN'T I.
miNp 7
COMV'eRTIWcV I
rtfcR To
MORTHóE/^ 5
''•pí (-+D rît J

B a t t h e n i t i s a l l very w e l l , t a l k . n g t» women
If uoa have voiced any objection to t h i s s o r t a b o u t such t h i n g s . If is n o t <xt All t h r e a t e n i n g to
of treatment, hove Jou been to Ld that it [-:, a l l very Learn t h a t uwenstrual b l o o d w a s c o n s i d e r e d i m p o r t a n t
t r i v i a l , j u s t the s o r t of I r r e l e v a n t complaint to loe
o n c e , a n d t h a t us why i t i s c o n s i d e r e d uric Lean by t h e
expected from a half-baked '«omen's L¿bber?
p a t r i a r c h a l r e v o l u t i o n . Nor t h a t a l l m a n n e r of sumbols
Has anyone ever t o l d you. t h a t , without t h e which 'jjere S a c r e d tri m a t r i a r c h a l t i m e s become e v t t in
family, s o c i e t y w o u l d collapse 7 . Or ever* t h a t femmn.sfh the bible. Nbt a t a IL w o r r y i n g , guiti? logical, listen ft>
is OL mOa-Mst (Sic) plot to overthrow the s a r c U t y of i t f o r h o u r s w i t h o u t a qualívi. Bat J u s t t r y f a i t l y i a
family life? Have ^on ever hod the bible quoted at a b o u t I f t o wen, o r even a man.
yoa to prove t h a t a woman's place LA in the home /child
recurlng / s u p p o r t i n g men? Ha-S i t ever occurred to you I t 16 amazing how h o s t ' d « <nem c a n b e , j u s t to
t h e I d e a of woman t a l k i n g t o e a c h o t h e r a n d aettvrva a
t h a t i t IS odd t h a t women, even qa'i t e grown-up ones,
S o r b of p e a c e &f rr]ir,¿ ^ ^ ¡ £ . fj 0 m a t t e r bow offer)
should be ' g i v e n away' by t h e i r fathers in. church
t h e y m a y be i n t h e h a b i t of s p e n d i n g t h e vr t i m e with
Vveddmg ceremonies? And however remote jyowr
g r o u p s of o t h e r men, in pubs or- w h e r e v e r , ¿h«. L did o f
relbgLous beLLefs may be, a-re you plagued by a Larking
s u p e r s t i t i o n t h a t they might be rug h t a f t e r a i l , VuOhaen t a l k i n g t o g e t i o e r and ejnichuna t t s e e m s t c s e t
family Ufe might be .sacred and adultery Vvrong ? off a l l k i n d s of -fanta^-ifS. Wowen j u s t a r e not
T h a t tornen reaily rvught b-e inferior because ut e>a.us Supposed te g e t on well ttgeflner., not if the y h a v e
60 en the bible ? t h e a l t e r n a t w € of being With men.
Then t r y t h e c o n c e p t cf p a t n a r c h u . d i s a s t e r .
I c a n ' t remember u>ben I f i r s t s t a r t e d tfc T h a t means you must be q n t i - m a n , qettùra at them.
n o t i c e the put-downs, but i t Seems a. very bong t i m e I n s t a n t aggressLon,
»— — -.-- s—uHl k , s u s p i•c i-o n . 5<
ago. ALI tine while I \¿as asking myself question s Lite , you s a y .
Iwhy-is the family so Important, p a r t i c u l a r l y to is important to me to t^dersttvnd t h a t I am not chnoh-
p o l i t i c i a n s , why do people g e t married, why curt &tttrter, j u s t because I am a Woman, 'it helps rne t o
c h i l d r e n e i t h e r ignored or treated a s runners en a kinow dViat t h e r e \were matna^ohal societies exit.*, anc/
p a r e n t a l ego- race, why are old people treated as though they lasted for a w€ry U>ng tifW, Mes, i t i s veri)
they are useless arid put crto homes and trercted a s difficult to know exactly what they wer« t i k e ,
sab- human . . . . and votay do complete s t r a n gers cal1 me but nev'&r mi nd, they existed.
' d e a r ' and expect to knew rtiy marital " s t a t u s " ? VxJoume^ wjere important then, and not
j u e t because people were l y i j h ^ a. specaL effort to
Feelung very wary, | found myself ¡40 ov Concede Some s t a t u s becauet fhf^ t h o u g h t They should,
women's matriarchy study group. Ar\d What a t r e a t it b u t actually important because -ewerwene tloou^iAt so.
was- Here were people who knew exactly how I t f e e l s
to be put dowtA dozens of times a day, o f t e n in very Having got oi/er t h a t , t h e r e i s ç,tluL
t r i v i a l ways, but put down j u s t the same. Angry about p a t r i a r c h y to deal UJitt, and 'it 'isn't easy. There is
I t , bat n o t shouting, not t r y i n g to bulldoze anyone, no g e t t i n g away from t h e word:
l i s t e n i n g to what was s a i d , Without trying to g a i n If matn arohaL £octef,p5 were overthrown
S t a t u s with c l e v e r answers. No competitive mess. Ary) and piAt down by men who mere corxiertyed about ttve
What were they s a y i n g 9 p a t e r n i t y of theiyr cti.Ldr-en, who im vested a lot of
ru^fs axid r e l a y o n s a n d beu'efs to Ke-e-p women down^
They we-r€ saying t h a t a very Long time before. then VJ€ stvUl tlue im a. pflitrii^rc^al soa'ety. There
the bob Le, thenf were m a t r l a r d n a l s o c i e t i e s . Women is a lot of p a t r i a r c h y aloout— a lot of Bkzunwashing
W&re important f o r a very long time. 5u_t they were to (vinki women feet îvifen'or and c^uitty.
Overthrown by Men who Invented the p a t r i a r c h a l
r e l i g i o n s wivch are s t i l l with us- Qui-ltiy a b o u t not having children o r , hauing
There were p i c t u r e s of sculptures and pots and figures had chbldeen, g a l l t y about megleotirvg them in ajiy way!
-from very old rr0trL0.rc.hal Societees. Without knowing hot buying the n g h t baby food, not attending t o the t r
exactly how)) when or tvhere, we were a l l gtiite sure that every need, twenty ft>ar hours a. day. (kitltu aJoout
"it had happened. i^duitcLuiin« o,ri identity of ones oum-G-wlitu a b o a t
men ttro . Tiutbtu O-bpat not being supportive enough,
It all f i t s . It i s a g neat comfort to know not Looking) o r behau un« Uke t h e n g b t s o r t of
t h a t women have hot been con^Ldered inferior since -the packaged 'Lvifer-lor anlfnitL. faxLitu aboat damaging) the
beginning of t u n c - t u t t h a t they have been Important a l l - uviportant rnaJe ego.
much longer than not. I t is enlightening to know that
the hdbte is p a t r i a r c h a l propaganda, which set s o a t to •However^ p a t r i a r c h y is SO outworn thrxt i t
put women down- Of coarse the family must be d o e s n ' t even do imany hoen n»vuch gjood either. It h a s
Considered saored, w i t h o u t I t hem coald t h e r e he heirs, 3 0 t t c 0,0. Mot to be he placed by mat»-la/vchg, b u t
s o n s , pairLlán-eai societies ~> pertna^s a. b i t hnore t r u s t and ree>pe<t- would t e a start.
 Matriarchy f^atrîarchy

as we s
-n-tt; 8><*S-AE ^ e u E T
a,,«nîfi..>tft
THE notio n of a matriarchal stage in social history seems to be We believe that at some t i m e , approximately 5,000 years age,
dead and burled w i t h the 19th Century of Engels and Bachofen. simultaneously all over the planet, there was what has been called a
Modern anthropologists do not hesitate to tell us that men have Patriarchal Takeover. It lasted roughly 2000 years and was complete
always been d o m i n a n t , even in matrillneal systems of social by 500 A . D . We believe that the takeover happened by force, and
organisation, and say that the evidence of surviving matrilineal that the Amazon legends may describe the last groups of women who
societies as vestiges of earlier matriarchies does not hold up! But defended themselves against it.
is their evidence really conclusive?
In Europe and the Middle East, the takeover involved the
For instance, there seems to be some confusion over invasions of the Aryans or Indo-Europeans, hunter-fisher tribes from
terms of reference. We, along w i t h other feminists, do not envisage the Caucasus, w i t h a strongly patriarchal culture. Their volcanic sky
matriarchy as a mirror image of patriarchy, so that as patriarchy = gods replaced the earth goddesses of the earlier cultures and their
male dominance, so therefore matriarchy • female dominance. Dare own myths and values succeeded the earlier ones. These included:
we suggest that this could even be a 'Patriarchal' n o t i o n . We are
indeed investigating women-based culture as part of a search into
1. The appropriation and ownership of the sources of p r o d u c t i o n ,
our cultural past, but also, and equally i m p o r t a n t l y , as a kind of
including w o m e n .
vision of a society in which women w o u l d be t r u l y free. We are
exercising our Imagination, imagining ourselves w it h power, but w i t h
2. Opportunism - the m y t h of infinite development w i t h i n a finite
a very different sort of power. As Murray Bookchin has said:
world.

"the very essence of the matricentric world is that it vitiates rule as such." 3. The worship of power and domination leading to armed and
military violence.
He maintains that polarities cannot be found between patriarchy
and matriarchy as t w o differing forms of rule: the comparison must 4. The monopoly of force.
be between rule and anarchy, between the presence and the absence
of d o m i n a t i o n . A w o r l d w i t h less of the hierarchy that seems inherent We believe that as men discovered the concept of paternity,
to male society w o u l d be a tat cry from the very structured one we they began the appropriation of agriculture. The Neolithic culture
now inhabit! based on cultivation of the soil by hoe, was replaced by an agri-
culture based on fire and irrigation, which began the devastation
Our starting point has been the Neolithic period of prehistory. of the planet and depletion of resources, by destroying vast areas
In this pre-dominantly agricultural society, many functions belonging of land which had been the granaries of the ancient w o r l d . Together
to women were given structural expression; securit,. receptivity, w i t h this, there was the beginnings of the population explosion caused
enclosure and nurture. The rounded w o m b l i k e house and temple forms by the over-fertility of women and men's appropriation of the means
and the early importance of containers for storing f o o d , keeping out of contraception. This is w h y we have included an article on
insects and storing surplus in good harvests are a c o n t r i b u t i o n to culture contraception in ancient Egypt which shows its ready availability to
often overlooked in favour of the machine. w o m e n compared to all the centuries f o l l o w i n g , up to our o w n .

There was also an intimate biotechnic relationship w i t h the soil We believe that capitalism is only the last stage of the much
and the seasons w h i c h we are only beginning to rediscover. Knowledge wider problem of patriarchy. The technological society and all
of the calendar was vital in this cycle and was recorded in stone in that follows come from the premises of patriarchy. Our work is
megalithic cultures all over the w o r l d (see article on Stones). The set in a historical c o n t e x t , and the images of our o w n , pre-patriarchal
material and spiritual worlds were united long before the m i n d , body culture that have emerged, have inspired us as painters, architects,
split of Platonic t h o u g h t , and later of Christianity. We have been inspired poets and writers, as well as in our everyday lives. A reply to those
by the seeingly guilt-free and j o y f u l religion of the Goddess, illustrated modern anthropologists is, in Mumford's words:
in Crete, w i t h its concept of life in life, as opposed to life after death.
"No reference to village life among surviving tribes, supposedly primitive,
We are searching to find w h y this rich cultural heritage has been can hope to give a true account of that early inchoate culture, still in
lost to us for so long. Our evidence for the once widespread w o m e n - the making. For what we call primitive today, even when it shows few
based culture has been emphasised more by the force of its suppression traces of recent contact with more developed cultures, has behind it con-
and annihilation than anything else. Aspects of our studies have involved tinuous linkages and changes over as great a span of history as any more
complex national group or urban unit. Perhaps the best sources of early
I, The evidence o f . t h e world-wide worship of the Goddess religion, village culture remain in the surviving customs and superstitions, still kept
through the Palaeolithic and Neolithic eras, f r o m 25,000 to alive in rural areas until our own day. This archaic culture ... seems to be
5,000 B.C. (Compare the relatively short timespan of the unweathered stratum beneath all the Old World cultures, however
Patriarchy!) civilised and urbanised."

2 The importance of the women's role in societies where they So we look to poetry and m y t h , to trees and stones, to
served as priestesses and priest-queens. the form of the landscape ... and dedicate our inspiration to the Muse.

3. Our analysis of world-wide takeover myths, and the changing

mythologies synonymous w i t h religious or political takeovers.
Specific refs:
4. The suppression of the knowledge of earlier cultures, changing
of religious imagery, mistranslation of myths for patriarchal Matriarchy: as women see it. Esther Newton & Paula Webster (Aphra-Mag.
ends, burning of libraries. (See articles on Old and New Testa- Vol.4 No.3 USA)
ments). Feminism & Ecology. Article by Françoise D'Eaubonne. Peace News 19.11.76.
The City in History. L. Mumford. (Seeker & Warburg)
5. The survival of the memory of the earlier culture in customs, Women and Ecology. Article by Nancy Jack Todd in Journal of the New
f o l k l o r e and legends. . Alchemists No. 3 Spring 1976.
 WOMEN'S S P I R I T U A L I T Y
I would like to try and make clear why Most of the violence in "our" society originate
understanding the ancient Womenoultures is so very from "the Man" (obviously NOT underpriviledged men)
important to me..Also would like to say that I've having taken and institutionalised "Fatherhood" -
not been trying to understand and communicate (through through church, law, government, medicine, industry etc.
painting and writing) the ancient religion of the over women, children and the Earth.
Cosmic Mother of All as some form of escape from having
to face up to the very real and acute economic and Property in men's hands and "Fatherhood"
sexual oppression of women in present capitalist can be established and perpetuated only through
societies. On the contrary it was precisely the violence and warfare as it is in itself anti-natural
knowledge of the existence, in the ancient past, of and was established at a certain time in history for
cultures initiated and shaped by collectives of the sake of centralising power with a priviledged upper-
strong and creative women - who were the mothers as class of men.
well as THE producers and also the seers, shamans and In fact implied already in the idea of "God-
communicators with the living spirit and energies of the Father" is alienation and a sense of no longer
Cosmos and Earth - that gave me strength and hope belonging and partaking in the ONE - a separateness
to struggle the long years before the rebirth of from Cosmos and Nature (She). This then leads to the
the Women's movement. This knowledge made it clear possibility to think in terms of mind/body and spirit/
to me that the oppression of women during the past matter as opposites and antagonistic and then
thousands of years has nothing to do with our biology identifying body-matter with the Mother (lower) and
as women but has all to do with patriarchal culture spirit-mind with the Father (higher).
and economic structures..and as I was feeling very
isolated then, as self-taught artist and mother living
in poverty, this made all the difference to me at the In the ancient religion of the Cosmic Goddess
time. there was no need for such divisions and opposites as
Cosmos, Earth, humans, plants, animals were seen to
all partake in Her vastness that waxes and wanes like
Women were beginning to develop a Lunar the Moon, the tides, our menstrual periods and the
calendar (Menstrual count) around 30,000 B.C. which magnetic currents of the Earth.."The subtle form of
laid the foundation for notation and early mathematics, the human body may be seen as a subtle form of Cosmos,
women were the ancient potters and it is quite likely no less vast but totally alive"... The Earth was seen
that they first developed also written language as a "living, breathing organ which by its expanding
through the development of the religious symbols used and reverting breath brings everything into being" and
on the pots as a form of communication of myth and the Spiral and the Serpent (Dragon) symbolized this
ideas..They were the early farmers (so still in energy of the Living Earth.
Africa), they were the leather-workers, the basket-
makers, the weavers and textile artists, builders and
engineers..women developed ancient medicine, drugs The ancient women appear to have developed
and magic powers and skills through the knowledge of psychic techniques (Shamans still, today among the
plants and herbs. Eskimos, North-American Indians etc. keep this
"Technique of Ecstacy" alive) perhaps based in tbe
In the ancient culture productive work/art/ taking of mind-expanding drugs like peyote, sexual
craft/magic/religious rite were closely integrated rites and connecting with the spirits and the Dead
and the sexual sphere was part of the sacred..after in a "different reality" and Astral or psy.inic
all had not the Goddess given birth to the entire journeys were undertaken to the Other world to
Universe out of Her womb. Her shaman/priestesses gain knowledge of healing and of the future from the
were also midwives and healers and the women's birth- Dead who were seen to be directly of Her essence
precincts were the first temples or sacred places., ("Tell them as I dying live so they will dying live
where no man could come. again").

With the male takeover and beginning

patriarchy divisions and splits were created and
now"women's work" became the inferior and non-
sacred while the "men's work" was seen to be sacred 6
and superior and classes of professional and
priviledged men arose on the backs of women. Women's
work in early patriarchy created the "Man's" leisure
and so he could become specialist artist, warrior,
priest, poet, lawyer, doctor, etc.. (of course the
majority of men are also workers in present capitalist
society) and this is still very much so to this day.

The concept of "power over nature", and

private ownership of land and property, was alien to
the Womencultures as the Earth and its riches was
seen as being of the body of the Great Mother and
their society was structured around communal living
within clans/tribes of mothers and their children of.
many generations (Matrilinear family). Societies
centred around Motherhood have NO need to force
aggression and competitiveness on their men, also
the beloved sons of the Mother, and women had no
need to prove their natural Motherhood at the cost
of imprisoning and sexually mutilating the men (as î>ax\CerS. The religious scttina -5 shown b^ tu? horns
of cOmecroJtLOr, JCoco-iUari -tomb nttxc PViajstoi. c 1 5 0 0 &C.
men have done to women in all patriarchal societies).
 There are some extremely mysterious THAT is how important I think it is to understan
connections between the Shaman's rebirth in the cave what ancient Womencultures were about. I also think
(the womb of the Mother), the Dead, the Earth's that the ancient women might now be trying to reach
serpentine magnetic force ruled over by the phases out to us and communicate to us some of their ancient
of the Moon, the ancient Stone circles and knowledge as perhaps after all past, present and future
underground chambers, divination, prophecy and may all co-exist in another dimension. IT MUST NOT
oracular sleep. BE TOO LATE!
We know that vast areas of our minds now
I have tried to make clearer what I mean by
stay almost permanently shut and if they occasionally
the ancient Womencultures and the religion of the
open more than likely we are put in the "looney-bin" Cosmic Mother in a pamphlet costing 50p. + postage
for treatment! Psychiatrists talk of the "subconscious from Monica Sjoo, 18 Beaufort Road, Bristol 8. OR
which in fact is the "Superconscious" and is the real Compendium books in London Camden High street.
wisdom of our Being directly in tune with the Mother.
The "subconscious" will remain fearful as Books: Michael Dames: "The Silbury Treasure" -
long as the Cosmic Mother remains submerged and so Mircea Eliade: "Shamanism" - Merlin Stone "Paradise
it is only in cultures that are directly in tune with papers" - John Michell: "The Earth Spirit" -
Her that we can develop the powers of our naturally Guy Underwood: "Patterns of the Past" -
bisexual (rigid heterosexuality is an invention of Sibylle vom Cíes - Reden: "In the Realm of the Great
patriarchy?), productive and psychic beings - flowing Goddess" - E. Neumann: "The Great Mother" etc.
and unhindered.
In patriarchal cultures we have all (also men)
been cut in half in our very beings and as a result
this Earth is being fast reduced to dead matter and its Monica Sjoo
plants, insects, animals and we, ourselves, are dying
with it.

WOMEN I N ANCIENT EGYPT

and f e r t i l i t y control

^V\\\\x

^lrZr>ù*-*ts

\rVC*-lfl SU fc'VentUr-j P..C

I am often criticised by other feminists Matrilineal line of descent encouraged incest.

for my interest in studying women in ancient cultures. A brother would marry his sister in order to gain the
Those who criticise regard this as largely irrelevant family estate and property. Although women only
to our present struggle, yet many of them may be hard assumed power over their estates when their husbands
pressed to present a coherent picture of where the were at war or after their death, a husband could not
struggle is going and the kind of society which they dispose of property without his wife's consent.
want to create. It is for this reason that some of Marriage was free from the restrictive notion of
us are examining ancient forms of society where 'guardianship' of women which fettered Greek and
women had roles which were vastly different from those Roman women. Women led an active life, carrying on
assigned to women in the Hebrew-Christian tradition. the business of the market place, had social and
Many of these ancient societies were matriarchal or economic influence and were often depicted socialising
matrilineal, which meant that women had much more power and drinking beer together. Although the Pharoah was
over their own lives than in our own patriarchal/ the supreme ruler, he only assumed that power through
patrilineal society. The study of ancient societies marriage to an heiress, who then became the Great Wife
offers women other models from which to examine their or Queen. In practice this gave the heiress a lot
own lives, based on thousands of years of history which of power in affairs of state.
is usually ignored by conventional educational channels.
Egyptian women had achieved a degree of
There is ample evidence to show that in the control over their sexuality which was to be completely
pre-dynastic period Ancient Egypt was a matriarchal lost and suppressed in the dark ages of Christian
society and that subsequent to the founding of the history and which we are only just recovering today.
dynasties 3200 - 2780 B.C. the line of descent Women controlled obstetrics and gynaecology. Women
continued to be matrilineal. This gave Egyptian trained in medicine at the House of Life at
women power, though not absolute power, in affairs of Heliopolis; they are often shown in illustrations
state and a degree of control over their sexuality conducting surgical operations. All midwives shown
which was foreign to later Christian forms of social are female. Egyptian interest in contraception was
organisation. Matrilineal descent also had important motivated by the quality of small family life rather
implications for the legal position of children in than the conservation of resources which were plentiful
society, none of who, were regarded as illegitimate. in the Nile valley. Many of the papyri also suggest
 that the practice of contraception was related to the Egyptian womens» knowledge of efficient
Egyptian concern with health and beauty. There also contraception was suprisingly .modern in its effect.,..
seems to be an historical continuity of Lactic acid is used as a modern spermicide, and
control of female fertility through the when combined with a 'plug', such as the cap, or
dominance of the goddesses right from early the crocodile duntr, has a high efficiency rate.
matriarchal time s.
There were of course contradictions in
Contraception was preferred to abortion Egyptian society. Egyptian female slaves would
for religious reasons as the Egyptians believed that not have been accorded the privileges of citizens
the soul entered the foetus when the movements started and their life would have been one of constant
in the uterus. But the papyri suggest that medicines servitude and childbearing. Women sometimes had
were sometimes given to procure abortion and to induce their ovaries removed as part of the Egyptian
or ease labour. Prolonged lactation was also used as fanatical search for youth and beauty, rather than as
a contraceptive measure. Women nursed their infants a contraceptive measure. There is also some evidence
as long as three years. If all else failed, the that female excision or clitoridectomy was practised
Egyptians practiced infant exposure for unwanted in the later dynasties, from examination of the
children. mummies, e.g. Cleopatra. In spite of these
contradictions, Egyptian women still held on to a
The contraceptive practices which the Egyptians fantastic degree on control of their fertility
developed had varying degrees of success and some were which was denied to women in contemporary societies
extremely effective. A number of papyri deal specificallj and was completely abolished under the Christian
with contraception. Some methods are crude or relied patriarchs who punished women who dared to seek such
on myth and magic or amulets. Fumigation of the vagina control (i.e. the witches) with persecution and
before and after intercourse with the smoke of burning death. Some attribute this Egyptian control factor
drugs is mentioned along with potions of grease, to female participation in medicine, but there
herbs and ale. Although some of these methods have were relatively few women doctors. I feel that
the main factor which allowed this control was the
survived until quite recent times, by 1850 B.C. more
Egyptian respect of the female goddesses which
modern methods were mentioned which would have been
consequently elevated the position which women
much more effective.
held in the whole society.

The Edwin Smith Papyrus, thought to date

back to the First Dynasty, about 3200B.C. devotes The goddesses controlled the birth house at
space to gynaecology and pregnancy tests, together the temple - one was a general obstetrician, one had
with descriptions of seemingly modern surgery. Later special charge of the birth house, another aided a
papyri are devoted to contraception alone. One, about woman in labour and a fourth took charge of infant
1850 B.C. mentions three different methods of birth feeding and sterile women. Early on women were
control. The first is to sprinkle a gummy substance aided in delivery by squatting over hot bricks with
on the female genitals, allowing the gum to cover and a crossbar to support them. Later dynasties developed
block the cervix. The second is to put honey and the delivery chair still used by tte Egyptian
sodium carbonate into the vagina, in much the same way fellaheen.
as jellies and pastes are used today. Honey and gummy
substances generally would have some sort of contra- The cow-goddess Hathor was concerned with
ceptive action, by lessening the mobility of sperms. love and joy as well as pregnancy and childbirth.
The modern suppositories, promoted by Margaret Sanger, She was the main descendant of the Mother Goddess
(pastes, jellies and suppositories) have basically the of the prehistoric cultivators and in later Egyptian
same double action as the ancient recipes - a base such society she merged with Isis, who had a special
as starch or glycerine, combined with an acid such as relationship with the throne through Osiris. Ta-urt
lactic acid or sodium bicarbonate which foams in the the hippopotamus goddess was used for women in
vagina. These methods are known to have a 42% failure childbirth. Sekhmet, the lion-headed goddess was
rate and are being replaced by the latest more patron divinity of medicine. The Pharoahs were
efficient type of aerosol foam spermicide. linked to the sun god Re through Isis and therebv
to the ancient fertility cult. Ma'at was the
goddess who embodied the ideals of Egyptian
The third type of contraception mentioned in civilisation - best translated as 'truth, justice
the 1850 Papyrus was that of crocodile dung pessaries. and perfect order.'
The document recommends that the dung be pulverized with
a paste-like vehicle and the resulting mass be used as It is this degree of dominance of the
a pessary and placed in the vagina. Other sources claim female principle in Egyptian daily life and mythology
that the priestesses in charge of contraception which I feel allowed women the relative freedom and
baked the dung pessaries in the temple ovens. This kind degree of control over their fertility which was lost
of pessary would have had a dual contraceptive effect, under patriarchal law and patriarchal, male-
that of blocking the cervix and also a spermicidal dominated mythologies.
effect as the warmth of the body released acid from the
pessary. The crocodile pessary is not only one of the Pat Whiting
most ancient methods of birth control, but also one
of the most effective. There are records of its use
dating back 3000 years in Egypt and in other parts
of the world women substituted crocodile dung with
elephant dung.

By 1550 B.C. the idea of blocking the

vagina with some sperm-killing substance had developed
into a more sophisticated procedure. The Ebers
V4
Papyrys contains the first reference to a pessary
used with a sperm-killing chemical, lactic acid. Queen Hatshepsut,
The spermicidal properties of lactic acid were not Pharaoh of Egypt
"rediscovered" until the end of the nineteenth from 1511-1480 BC
century. The Egyptians had discovered by that date
that if acacia leaves were fermented, they would
produce lactic acid. Another papyrus describes
how to prevent conception for periods of up to three Prehistory - A Unesco Study, 1963, ed. J. Hawkes
years - a lint tampon should be left blocking the The Fight for Acceptance, Birth Control in the Modern World,
vagina soaked in a mixture of honey and fermented Clive Wood and Beryl Sutters.
acacia shrub. The First Great Civilisations, 1973. J. Hawkes.
 Basic to the whole is the story of the Fall of Man, and in its
Christian form, his subsequent redemption. The Fall is occasioned

OLD TESTAMENT by Eve w h o listens to the advice of the serpent to disobey God's
injunction not to eat of the f r u i t of the tree of knowledge; she tempts
Adam to eatjthey b o t h do,so God punishes t h e m , and humankind
for ever. Eve, in one version has been created by God out of Adam's
rib, to be a "helpmeet to h i m " : in another the record merely says
" male and female created he t h e m " . Extra Biblical material suggests
that Lilith was the female. However, Eve's appearance f r o m the rib
and her tempting of Adam are intrinsic to the Judaeo-Christian religion
v
She was at fault, was evil, she did the bad t h i n g , and look what
happened.
1j
V

\ r,
» The events of the Old Testament are fairly w e l l - k n o w n , and
it w o u l d be tedious to re-document t h e m . This survey w i l l attempt
y

^
ë to deal w i t h only a few and to show how history was re-written w i t h
the purpose of subjugating the female religion.
•*,

w
This was the worship of the Great Goddess which existed
from earliest time until the period of the Old Testament - which
deals w i t h events from about 5000 B.C. to just before the birth of
Christ. During those years the Goddess religion which had flourished
in the Middle East where the chronicled events took place, was
9 <f i overthrown . It appears that the purpose of the Old Testament
was to make sure that It disappeared from human history. Descript-
ions of the evidence for the Goddess religions w i l l be found in the
book list. There is no d o u b t that despite extreme prejudice and
: sabotage by male anthropologists and historians, this evidence is
now generally accepted. But the work which was done to destroy
itjhas stood for 2000 years as the cornerstone of religion, ethics and

m \
m o r a l i t y . This survey can only deal w i t h some of theelues ; w.pr.k js
3°Á n j6.pn.t.o.rppt.put.more.
7.
••< K
••
i
//
/
í
u
^'iiu '
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I
0 Mu/d u& chairo Tfcuvmf oujocû the bfejj. Hadrian cyunotey acaL.
In ancient Babylon, the Mother Goddess was called Tiamat,
who was the sea, and also a sea-creature, a dragon, or sea-serpent.
She was represented as chaos, encompassing a total world of sea and
sky together. The Babylonian Creation Epic tells how she is cut in
two by her son Marduk, the sea going below, the sky above.
Fish o r Egg ( î o d d e s s , Danube B a s i n , c 6 , 0 0 0 BC.
In the Old Testament Genesis the word ' T e h o m ' to describe
chaos in the beginning has the same linguistic root as Tiamat.
" T h e earth was w i t h o u t form and void ( T e h o m ) " then god divided
Covenant against the Goddess the "waters which were under the f i r m a m e n t f r o m the waters which
were above the firmament ... he called the firmament heaven, the
THE BIBLE, Old Testament and New, was created as propaganda to dry land earth, and the gathering together of the waters, the seas".
enslave » m e n . It also recorded the annihilation in the Middle East Obviously Tiamat's being cut in t w o by Marduk, and God cutting
of the previous universal Goddess worship. It provided an alter- chaos in t w o have similar roots.
native religious philosophy whose aim was to underpin concepts of
male superiority. Joseph Goebbels, during the rise of the Nazis to Tiamat's form as a sea serpent or dragon (remembering that
power in Germany in the 1930s, said : " H i s t o r i c a l t r u t h can be studied she is the most ancient Mother Goddess) leads to more about her
by professors of history. The purpose of propaganda is success". being put d o w n by the God of the Old Testament. Rahab and
Leviathan, b o t h names for the sea dragon, are referred to in the •
The success of the Bible's message about the i n f e r i o r i ty of Psalms and in Isaiah: Is. 27.1 says: " Y a h w e h w i t h his sore and great
w o m e n and its attempted destruction of almost all evidence about and strong sword shall punish Leviathan the swift serpent and
their previous leading and honoured place in the world's c o m m u n i t y Leviathan the crooked or winding serpent and he shall slay the dragor
is the basis of Western civilisation. that is in the sea". In Is. 51.9-10 " A r t thou O Lord though that cut
Rahab in pieces, that pierced the d r a g o n . " There aremany other
Women have been conditioned to believe that they are the such references. Students of the Goddess religions w i l l also know
'weaker sex', that power must be left to men, that they must feel that the serpent (which, of course, tempted Eve) was the symbol
guilty most of the t i m e . This guilt, in connection w i t h child care, of the Mother Goddess and can be seen today in statues of the
man service, w o r k , one's own appearance, and any specific personal Goddess in Crete while St. George is seen slaying the dragon in
need is c o m m o n to all Western w o m e n , at least, and has its roots in Christian mythology, in the so-called service of a holy helpless virgin,
the Biblical description of women and their role. who stands there ready to serve her hero.

Even women awakening to liberation still have unexplained Of Eve, who was created from Adam's rib to be a helpmeet
guilt and inferiority feelings, all nurtured by society and blessed to him : the Babylonian earlier version tells another story. Professor
by every article of its Establishment. Hooke in Middle East Mytholog y recounts: The Goddess Ninhursag
caused eight plants to grow in the garden of the gods: the god Enki
The Old Testament is a collection of writings by men first ate them and as a result, eight of his bodily organs were attacked by
published as a whole in 100 A . D . in Hebrew, and about one hundred disease; Ninhursag created eight goddesses of healing to heal each of
years later in Greek, the latter version containing added material • the diseased part of Enki's body. The goddess who cured the rib
A great deal of so-called scholarly interpretation and higher criticism was named N i n t i , which means lady of the rib. But the same w o r d
exists, and deals w i t h methods of analysing who wrote w h a t and when also means l i f e ; The Hebrew name for Eve was Havvah, or life.
The Old Testament' s subject matter deals w i t h the creation of the Obviously N i n t i and Eve were the same person, and healed the rib
universe and the animal k i n g d o m , by a patriarchal god, who enters rather than were created by it.
into a compact w i t h a pastoral tribe. They, the Hebrews, (otherwise
Israelites), w i l l worship him monotheistically, and he w i l l look
after t h e m . The adventures of this people, their heroes and prophets
Noah w a s a Woman
A similar trick w i t h names was played in the story of Noah
artvdealt w i t h , and eventually provide the basis of the later patriarchal and the F l o o d . Babylonian literature is rich w i t h stories of great
stage of the same religion, Christianity, documented in the New floods and prayers to avert them - Babylon itself being built on the
Testament. t w o great rivers, Tigris and Euphrates. The prayers were addressed
 to the Goddess of Floods , by name, Nuah: her symbols were an green trees were symbols of life, fertility and survival.
olive branch and a dove. It w i l l be recalled that in the Bible story Jeremiah addresses his erring nation again (2.20): " U p o n
both these symbols are used by God's righteous man, Noah. Through every high hill, and under every green tree, thou wanderest playing
out the early part of the Old Testament, there is constant source the h a r l o t " . But Ezekiel (6.13) has the answer: " T h e n shall you know
material from the earlier mother religion. Moses placed in the that I am the Lord. When the slain shall be among the idols around
bulrushes in a casket by his mother and found by the Egyptian about their altars, upon every high hill and under every green tree,
princess, in the waters of the N ¡le, recalls according to Freud's and under every thick oak, the place where they did offer sweet
'Moses and Monotheism' as well as Esther Harding's 'Women's savour unto all their idols, so will I stretch out my hand and make the
Mysteries', the Moon Boa b u i l t by Isis in which to carry and then land desolate, and they shall know I am the L o r d " .
search for her child. The flood goddess Nuah also built a crescent
boat to carry her children, the seed of all living things. Moses's sister
Miriam was Queen of Heaven.
Tabu
There are many more references, but one more area is important

Moses & t h e Serpent to mention:

Later in his life, there is a curious The laws given to the Israelite peopl e in the first five books of
incident involving Moses and a 'brazen serpent'. Numbers 21.6-9 the Old Testament include a whole range of those establishing paternity,
tells how serpents bit the Israelites in the desert; Moses made a punishing by death female adultery, emphasising the uncleanness and
serpent out of brass which allowed anyone who had been bitten the male abhorrence of menstrual b l o o d , and all matters connected
with parturition and childbirth (basis of the uncleanness and the later
to look on it and live. Later kings and prophets denounced this
Churching o f W o m e n before they could join a congregation, basis, too,
episode: II Kings 17 says: "Hezekiah brake in pieces the brazen
of the ban on women handling any kind of " h o l y " sacrament or be-
serpent that Moses had made for in those days the children of
coming priests.) In addition, the well-known Jewish dietary laws are
Israel did burn incense to it and he called it Nebushtan." This
set out w i t h stress on utter avoidance of eating pig meat. Freud in
last name appears to mean serpent and comes through in a
'Totem and T a b o o ' , Briffault in 'The Mothers', Evelyn Reed in
number of biblical references. There is no doubt that the
'Women's E v o l u t i o n ' all make the point that what becomes tabu was
Israelites were worshipping the great Goddess through her major originally sacred. Marija Gimbutas:'The Gods and Goddesses of Old
symbol. Europe'jSpeaks of " t h e curious connection between the Vegetation
Sarah i n E g y p t Goddess and pigs. Sculptures of pigs are known from all parts of Old
Europe and date from every period ... the Fast growing body of a pig
Earlier, Abraham, father of the Hebrew people, came must have impressed early agriculturalists. Its fattening compared to
from Ur of the Chaldees, itself documented as a Moon City wor- corn growing and ripening, so that its soft fats came to symbolise
shipping the Goddess. His father Terah appears to have been the earth itself, causing the pig to become a sacred animal no
a moon priest. The story of Abraham's wife Sarah, w h o m he later than 6000 B.C." Later the many-breasted Diana, Demeter
pretends is his sister when he goes into Egypt, shows that when the bare-breasted Queen of Corn and Queen of the Dead, and her
the Pharoah there treated her w i t h f u ll honours, and when the daughter Persephone, herself called killer of suckling pigs, are all
deception was found out, Sarah left w i t h gifts and procured connected w i t h mysteries involving identification of the pig w i t h
by her status her husband's safety. There are two very similar the Goddess. Kerneyi and Jung ('Introduction to Science of
episodes telling this story. Later it w i l l be recalled that Mythology') write of a " M o o n maiden who is linked w i t h a pig,
Abraham was about to sacrifice his son Isaac, and God told him becomes a pig, her child is a pig and her second form is a p i g " .
to put a ram in his place: this was the start of the original
covenant w i t h the Hebrew people, and has been used countless
times, to show that their God was of a higher form than those In bringing anything to do w i t h the i g into outstanding
who required human sacrifice. However, Isaac was, of course, abhorrence, the writers of the Old Testament were certainly trying
male; an equivalent story w i t h a different ending is seen in to banish links w i t h the Goddess /
Judges 11.30.40.

Jepthah's Piet y Whilst this survey has dealt only w i t h the Old Testament,
During the war between the Israelites and it should not be thought that matters Improved w i t h the New
the A m m o n i t e s , Jepthah of Israel vowed that i.f he could succeed Testament. In fact, women's position became even worse: the
in battle he would then sacrifice as a burnt offering the first Church identified women and sexuality w i t h sin,' and all women's
living things he met coming from the doors of his house: after matters were cast aside as being at best of no importance, and
"a very great slaughter" when the children of A m m o n were sub- usually evil and of fearful temptation to men. This is a matter
dued, Jepthat returns. The first person to come from his house for another survey.
is his daughter meeting him w i t h "timbrels and dances". Her
father " d i d w i t h her according to his v o w " . The daughters Also, the reasons why patriarchy took over from Goddess
of Israel " w e n t yearly to lament the daughter of Jepthah four worship, how women were so enslaved (Engels termed it " t h e
days in a year". There is more information in this story, apart first world defeat of w o m e n " in 'Origin of the Family, Private
from her sacrifice: that appears to indicate she was part of a Property and the State'), the different areas of the.world where
group of women worshipping on the mountains. Possibly this there is overt evidence of Goddess worship (Crete, Catal H u y u k ,
was the reason that the male God saw no reason to save her as Etruscan remains, Carthage, Malta, and many others) are being
researched and written about by women authors today. In
he hadsaved Isaac.
particular Monica Sjoo, Merlin Stone and Elizabeth Gould Davies

Lot's Daughter s have produced comprehensive authentic research material on

these matters. There is much more to do and to come. Let
everyone who can, join in.
Other things that happen to women in the Old Testament:
Lot (Gen.19.4-8) is beseiged by men of the City of Sodom who want
t w o angels w h o have gone into Lot's house. He says: " I pray y o u , Lastly, the Magnificat in Luke runs: "he hath put d o w n
brethren do not so w i c k e d l y. I have t w o daughters who have not the mighty from their seat; he exalteth the humble and meek;
yet k n o wn man. Let me I pray y o u , bring them out to you and do he feedeth the hungry w i t h good things, the rich he hath sent
ye to them what is good in your eyes: only unto these men do empty away" . Now here is a prayer, recorded and translated
n o t h i n g " . One can imagine what a mob w o u l d do to these young by Professor S.H. Hooke ('Babiyonian and Assyrian Religion')
girls. from the ritual texts of the Babylonian religion of about
2000 B.C. addressed to the Goddess Beltia:
Queen Vashti, in the Book of Esther, refused to obey her
husband in shewing the people and princes her beauty when they "She is mighty, she is divine, she is exalted among the gods.
were " m e r r y w i t h w i n e " . She was banished and her " r o y a l estate Zarpanit, brightest of the stars, dwelling in E-ud-ul.
given to another" (Esther), in order that "wives shall give to Shining Beltia, exalted and most high.
their husbands honour, both great and small". In fact, many Among the goddesses, there is none like her.
scholars suggest that Esther herself is derived from Ishtar the She accuses and intercedes.
Babylonian Mother and Love Goddess, and Mordecai is Marduk, She abases the rich and vindicates the cause of the lowly;
.son of the ancient Mother Goddess Tiamat. She overthrows the enemy, he who does not revere her godhead ;
She delivers the captive, she takes the hand of the fallen;
Israelite Goddess ... Let them tell of thy glory, let them exalt thy kingdom;
Let them speak of the prowess, let them glorify thy name;
There is direct evidence of the worship of the Goddess, Have mercy on thy servant who blesses thee.
which the Israelite prophets and heroes are continually fighting. Take his hand in need and suffering
There are numerous references to Asherim, wooden posts that In disease and distress give him life.
"served as symbols of the Goddess" (Ringgren, Israelite Religion). May he go forever in joy and delight.
II Kings 9.16,17 says: " T h e y bu-nt incense in high places; they set May he tell thy prowess to the people of the whole world."
up ¡mages in groves on every high hill and under every green t r e e " .
Many writers make the point that in the arid land of Palestine
 Different types of trees had their own particular significance.

TREES and their One of the most commonly referred to is the apple tree. It could
be interpreted as being the moon tree, the sacred tree, or the tree
of knowledge. It is used as a symbol of immortality, fertility and
if consummation. It is sacred to Aphrodite/Venus, the goddess

significance in • f love.

The Goddess Hera was given an apple tree by Mother Earth,

which she kept in her garden at Mount Atlas. The Serpent Ladon
fr the Goddess was coiled round the trunk to protect the fruits from thieves. The
tenth labour of Hercules was to steal three fruits from the tree,
which he did by shooting Ladon and getting the three daughters of
Atlas (the triple Goddess?) to pick the fruits for him. This gave
religion him immortality.

Adam, by eating of the fruit of the apple tree offered him

by its guardian, Eve, again with reference to the serpent, learns of
the knowledge which God has kept secret from him; the knowledge
TREES were sacred to the Goddess and the sacred groves of his sexuality. God then denies him his own personal immortality,
were one of the main places of Her worship. The following but the human race becomes immortal by reproduction.
shows how the traditions surrounding species of trees have
undergone the same changes (iconotropy) as those myths Nemesis, the Goddess of Jurisdiction, carries an apple
and religions with the takeover by patriarchy. bough.

The winner of the first Olympic games was given a prize of

an apple bough, which promised him immortality when he had been
duly killed by his successor.
THE a she rah. or moon tree, appears in many of the Goddess
cultures and their descendants, indicating its symbolic If an apple is halved horizontally, each half shows a five
importance. In Crete and Greece the moon goddess (Ashtarte) pointed star, the symbol of immortality - and perhaps representing
was often shown in the form of a tree trunk with branches, the five fingers of the Goddess.
a pillar or a cross. In Babylon also she was symbolised as
a tree with branches. Many Egyptian murals show the Goddess
in a tree. k
Another commonly referred to tree is the iig. RcieieùCH
to the maple and plane, mulberry and sycamore are probably to the
same tree - the ficus sicamorus is commonly known as the sycamore
fig, or black mulberry. This tree seems to have been a symbol of
knowledge and wisdom, fertility and sexual consciousness. Again we
have the five-pointed star of immortality in the five points of the leal

In Greece the domestic fig was infertile and had to be

fertilised by wild figs hung in its branches • women were always
assigned the task of hanging these figs.

In Egypt, many murals show the Goddess in a tig tree,

and the fig is symbolised as the fruit of the dead. These is a mural
at Knossos (Crete) with a fig tree near the altar. Gold fig leaves
have been found in Mycenaean tombs.

Osiris was buried in a mulberry coffin in a sycamore tree.

Culpepper claims that the juice of the leaves of the mulberry

are a remedy against serpen*'

The black poplar has five-pointed leaves again, and is

sacred to the Goddess in her dark aspect, or as death. The white
poplar, with leaves like the vine, is sacred to the White Goddess,
or Persephone, Goddess of Regeneration.

The Pool of Memory, in Hades, was shaded by a white

poplar, which was the nymph Leuce metamorphised after she had
been raped by Hades.

The Elder has white flowers in spring, symbolising the

MOON TREES FTÍOM Bfl8>i-ON RND RSSYR1R White Goddess, and black berries in the Autumn, symbolising the
Black Goddess. It is constantly associated with death, ill luck and
witches. It is the tree of the thirteenth month, the one done away
with by Julius Caesar. Judas is said to have hanged himself from an
elder tree, and the cross of Jesus to have been of elder.
Trees are often shown in pictures of the moon. In

ik V "^ Jk
Western Europe the man in the moon is said to carry a bundle
of faggots - and in Greece is depicted cutting down a tree
which grows up again every month.

Soma, the drink of the Gods, was the juice of the The ivy has a five-pointed leaf. It was sacred to Osiris and
fruits of the sacred moon tree, and those who drank of it Dionysius. It was used as an intoxicant by the Bassarids and Maeniads
were believed to acquire both knowledge and immortality. In ivy ale was a medieval drink. It grows spirally like the vine.
Egypt to eat of the fruit of the moon tree was to eat of the flesh
of the Goddess.
@ © @ © ©
10
 The hawthorn, also kndwn as whitethorn or may, is again The Asherim were the Groves of the Goddess Ashtarte.
a tree with five-pointed leaves. It is the tree of the Goddess Maia, In the Bible the Lord is constantly being made angry by, and
whose month is May. She uses a hawthorn branch with which to destroying these Asherim, as they were temples of the Goddess
cast spells. Olwen, the Celtic May Queen, was a daughter of the and not the God.
hawthorn.

The hawthorne is a symbol of cleanliness and chastity. It

was traditional in the month of May to clean out temples and
images, wear old clothes and abstain from sex. It was, and in places o SHRINE OF THE SfKRED MOON
still is considered an unlucky month for marriage, the Goddess hating S^cT l TREE.
marriage.

T(f ° FROM THE B f t R B E R l N l

PRLRCE, ROME.

In II Kings 23.4-7: "The king commanded the priests

The willow is associated with water and the moon. Culpepper to bring forth out of the temple all the vessels that were made for
says that it is owned by the moon. Baal and for the Grove, ... and he burned them ... and he brake
down the houses of the Sodomites, that were by the house of the
It is the tree of the death goddesses: H.ecate, Circe, Hera and Lord, where the women wore hangings for the grove."
Persephone. The River Helicon, sacred to the three muses, was named
after the willow. The words 'witch' and 'wicked' derive from the word
'willow'. Orpheus received the gift of mystic eloquence after touching
willow trees in the grove of Persephone.

mm PRIESTESS WITH
SfiCRED TREE.
FROM THE Hflir/H
The laurel, also the bay and the daphne, is evergreen and a
symbol of immortality. TRIRDR SftRCOPH-
RÇ-US, CRETE.
The Maeniads, the priestesses of Daphne at Tempe, chewed 1/fOOßC
laurel to bring them into a frenzy - the chewing of laurel was taboo
in Greece for all but priestesses. Daphne was turned into a laurel
tree after Apollo had captured her shrine.

It has constantly been associated with poetry and the muses - In II Kings 17.10: "And the children of Israel did secretly
because of its power as an intoxicant and its relationship to the those things that were not right against the Lord their God ...
Goddess. and they set them up images and groves in every high hill, and
under every green tree".
Culpepper claims that laurel resists witchcraft.

PRIESTESS WITH SHELL, HORNS,

flLTRR FIND SACRED TREES
The oak became sacred to Zeus, Jupiter and Hercules. It
was originally sacred to Diana and Hera, and associated with killing of FROM ft SEfiL FOUND IN
the divine king. By marrying the Oak Goddess, Zeus took over the THE IDftEftN CAVE, CRETE
symbol.

Diana's woods of Nemi were oak groves. Julius Caesar cut

down the oak groves at Marseilles, but had to cut down the first tree In Deuteronomy 16.21, the Lord says: "Thou shalt not
himself. In the sanctuary of Dodona^Zeus was revered in an oracular oak. plant thee a grove of any trees near unto the altar of the I ord
thy God."
It is the tree of endurance, of each and heaven. The roots go
as far into the earth as the branches go into the sky.

References to holly are very likely to be evergreen oaks. The

scarlet oak, the keim oak, and the holly oak. The royal scarlet dye
was obtained from the keim oak. Red is also relevant to the sacred king.
QODDESS ftMD P/-ANT
Mistletoe traditionally grows on the oak, and was said to keep WITH SERPENTS A N D
the spirit of the tree alive during the winter. It was also sacred to the MOONS, F R O M BN
Druids as it came neither from heaven nor earth, but was suspended
between them. They cut it with a golden sickle (moon-shaped) . The Ef r YpTIRN BRACELETS
mistletoe was used in Nordic cultures as a stake to kill the sacred king
(see New Testament article) and is still a symbol of fertility at Christmas.
And in I Kings 14.23: "For they also built them high
places, and images on every high hill, and under every green tree"

SftCRED TREES OM RLTRR

RND WILD GORT, F R O M ft
MVCENflERN COLD RINQ.
The Celts developed a poetic language based on an
alphabet of letters which also correspondended with different
These recurring references certainly indicate a significant
species of trees sacred to the Goddess. This was the Tree
Alphabet, of which Runic language (of the witches) and Oghum reluctance to give up the worship of the Goddess.
are a part. Each letter or tree coincided with an important
festival in the year and these were at points where the lunar and By destroying both the concept of the Goddess and her
solar calendars coincided, making up the fourfire festivals, places of worship, these sacred groves, patriarchy was able to
solstices and equinoxes. So naming a tree tn their rituals and devastate and literally to rape Mother Earth, devour her offerings
poetry had a really profound significance - both astronomical, and to see nature as something outside human life. The urban and
religious and truly poetic. technological society followed naturally <....
Ri\(|el^
11
 ¡3*05: IT HAS BEEN SUGGESTED...

MMt #> ( or Vive la difference!)

Sitting on the roof of the Heraklion Youth Hostel Two Cretan men,
I spoke to a self-confessed expert on classics: Polite and gentle Cretan men -
"It has been suggested that Minoan Crete may But:
Possibly have been "It has been suggested that Minoan Crete might
a matriarchy!' at some stage
"A What!" he said aghast, quite possibly
"There is absolutely no evidence anywhere » have been a "
or at any time Matriarchy is not an English word
to support matriarchy". With which Greeks are familiar.
Self-assuredly and finally he folded his arms in satisfaction. It doesn't come into a tourist vocabulary
Which does manage to encompass Loch Ness plus inhabitant.
"Most experts agree it was matrilineal
And an omnipotent Goddess was worshipped," No, it was not possible for women to rule.
I tried to re-open the question. The Goddess was one of fertility only,
Important in those days,
"Oh, there have been so many far fetched religious theories And weren't my boobs large like the figurines' -
postulated on those three Goddess figurines in the Museum." I must be very fertile, nudge, nudge;
Full stop. And, dogmatically,
Retsina is not made from grapes marinated in pine resin -
" o u t if a patrilineal, omnipotent God worshipping society is They grew like that in Attica!
patriarchal . . ." Amazing.
"No evidence for matriarchy -
Men have always been in charge - * * * * *
always will be
No evidence. No evidence." Sitting on the boat to Rhodes
He rushed to buy another bottle of Retsina. Comparing ideas on the symbols - bull's horns, double axe -
I suggested to the English teacher that
"It is possible that Minoan Crete was a matriarchy."
Silence.
"What do you think?"
Silence.
Then, thoughtfully : "Hm."
Gazing out to sea, she said:
"We spent a day at Phaistos,
Comparing the old and new palaces.
It was tremendous ...
And the feeling very different from
Anything I had seen on the mainland."
Thoughtful pause.
"Yes, yes. Perhaps it could have been,
Couldn't it!
Why not."
The conversation exploded and continued for hours.
J
On the plane back from Athens with a history student:
"After seeing the Minoan s t u f f
I said casually,
"Most of the Greek seems very dead and lifeless."

"But it's the Zenith,

the zenith
of European Civilisation"
G-odde.5S fitju-r^nes f i r m Amemos he screamed hysterically,
NoxotOJry) Crete 6,000 - M 0 0 B C
"How can you write it off like that."
"It doesn't say much for European Civilisation
If the zenith is reached by the exclusion
of the majority of the population.
In Crete, on the other hand, . . ."

"But it's marvellous, so beautiful, so enlightened,

An Old Age Pensioner approached me to ask how I had found Knossos: Democracy, philosophy, logic, brotherhood" . . .
Wasn't it very peaceful and calm, He agitatedly altered the airblower to blow into his face.
Yet alive and happy? "There's no evidence for matriarchy!
"It has been suggested that Crete may have been a matriarchy," No evidence at all.
I proffered, agreeing. None.
" O h " , she said, slowly and thoughtfully, Nothing to indicate it!"
"Yes".
The beautiful rounded eggshell pots, The plane descended rapidly and jolted to a halt.
So different from the later mainland influence. "So you think Crete's worth visiting, then"
"Yes". he said, seriously.

* * * * * *

This poem is directly related to real incidents & people.

Doubt it at your peril!
12
Cx^i
 Ohio earthwork of Serpent ajw) £ag
buUt by PifíutM Ftoiercndia-ns
»

if/

fi//' '//. VU* A r^ ,„, . / / /

:ä*V $
Half Over Heard
What happened: nothing
As the hills Who did you meet on the spiral stair: nothing
I shall be What have you to day in summing.up: nothing
vast
my bones are miles Nice nothing:
long the trees step off over water
under hills the reeds lean into silence
under fields hidden in wood
deeper than fields a candle burns for my daughter
I should away
silence for my daughter, in darkness

As the sea Nice fire:

I shall be at the end of the journey
dark the road falls away
and darker in darkness, softness,
I shall have crumbled earth
sand veins Listen and look
stone nodes
and my breathing there is a net of stars
will follow in the night,
the tide leaning on the trees
in the night
swimming naked the house is clattering with streamers
in fresh dark water: the windows are full of electricity
a snake the door is open: enter:
I shall be supported a nice end ...
by my element
water: They said to me
an eye
I shall be guided on the shore
by my element air: in the cave
a spiral at the entrance to the labyrinth ..
on the shore I shall see
celebrants with torches What happened: nothing
Who did you meet: nothing
and they all danced round her in a ring What have you to say : nothing
Nice nothing: a nice fire: a nice end

This poem is an invocation, evidently;

it is also a spell for getting in touch with
your own historical memory of when
you ... etc, and is intended for reading
aloud. It works best spoken on hilly
sea coasts, where all the things mentioned
can be seen at once. You just try it and
see where you find yourself. (The nature
was observed at and around Laurieston
Hall in Scotland). I was moved to choreo-
graph a dance to this poem, with a
professional dancer, something I would
not have expected to be able to do before,
which went on with the Prodigal Daughters
show at Lancaster University. Blessed be.

Miriam Scott
13
 WOMEN'S SEXUALITY
THIS is the time to speak about sexuality.
Stone looers ÇQà
The worship of the Goddess showed understanding of the whole y triple a t
of life, ¡n which ordinary tasks were considered important and
sacred. The totality of birth, living and death were expressed
through magical rituals restating the cycles of fertility and sur- RP IOOO
vival, and bringing a sense of the immanence of the sacred to
everyday events. These were expressed sexually in women-led
cultures.

Far from Hollywood style "orgies" this sexual activity \

was a demonstration of the unity of the whole person with nature;
of body and spirit with mind and intellect. To find out how to
make fire, with which to bake pots, in which to cook and preserve
food; to make tools for digging the earth to grow food; to take
precious goods from nature: wood, stones, earth, and build them
into dwelling places to protect oneself and one's children; to take ^
animal fleece and hair, and vegetable matter to spin, knit and
weave into clothing; to discover colourings in the earth and in •\
vegetables, observe their properties, deduce how best to work
them, and then use them for decoration; by trial and error and
close attention, to choose those herbs which assist in ¡Illness,
childbirth and wound healing: all these scientific activities, ,
carried out by women, were part of the religious observances of
the Moon Goddess, whose priestesses expressed her worship
i
through sacred marriage.

Esther Harding, in 'Women's Mysteries', describes the

heiros gamos - sacred marriage - which came down into
patriarchy as 'temple prostitution'. The ritual of the Goddess
required dedication of woman's sexual and love life; her
priestesses expressed this through acts of'prostitution'performed ~-
in the temple. : -
This last thought provokes its own answer: many members
These so-called 'sacred harlots' were held in highest of all parts of the Women's Movement today suggest that we should
honour; and every woman, at least once in her life, was required do without men. They say: that women's loving and sharing
to go through the heiros gamos in the temple. "In that holy can be done together; that lesbianism is the emotional as well as
matrimony" says Esther Harding, "it did not matter who the the political answer; that there should be no dependence, financial,
man might be, as long as he was not the chosen man. He must be social or sexual on men; that women will build their own world,
a stranger the ancients felt it to be essential that every woman as sisters together, sexuality can blossom without the torture of men's
should once in her life give herself, not to one particular man, participation; women relating to women could make a better society.
for love of him (that is, for personal reasons) but to her own
instinct ...the significance of the experience must have lain Other women declare for celibacy; not wishing to enter
in her submission to instinct, no matter in what form the lesbianism, they will not co-operate with the oppressors. Sexually,
experience came to her". there is help from masturbation or vibrators.
Woman's instinct, or the feminine principle, is here Ideology about orgasm, clitoral v. vaginal, is used also in
explained: it is communion with the instinctual life, with the argument. What need is there for men in women's sexual
nature, with the cosmic forces of life, and it also recognition intercourse?
that these are a starting place and a support for intellectual
and scientific activities. The sexual life is a part t and support J. Markdale,in 'Women of the Celts', discusses this in
for the whole. relation to the Celtic goddesses and their heritage. Remaining outside
patriarchy until a late stage, the Celts followed a woman-led culture,
It was the patriarchal input to the world that, with Marduk, with women entirely free in matters of sexual choice. When Christ-
cut the totality of the Mother and tore her apart; with Yahweh, put endom enveloped the Celtic countries, and imposed the subjection
the sky above, the earth beneath and the waters below the earth; and of women in every sector of life, the legends remained and sometimes
then abstracted the godhead into the sky, invented the dichotomy of were converted to carry messages of the past within the orthodox
culture.
the human person, with instincts wicked, dogmatic assertions good;
and,with the Christians, make all sexual matters evil. Women, Celtic myths show that women must in matters of love •
incarnations of evil and temptations to men's higher thoughts, had and sexuality, assert their personality. "Woman is an initiator,
to be put aside, put down, and kept from the holy things of life. or rather she should be one, if it were not for the fact that her
In 1977 the Pope again has pronounced that women may not be deepest instincts and and natural dispositions have been stifled.
priests. He follows Tertullian, c.220 A.D.: "Women: the judgment While at present it is usually the man who initiates, and then in
of God upon your sex endures even today: and with it inevitably a brutal, traumatic and violent fashion for both partners,
endures your position of criminal at the bar of justice. You are it would be more normal if the woman did so because she holds
the gateway to the Devil." the secret of life within herself. The Celtic example teaches us
that woman, the mistress of feeling and impulse, is the centre
What has this to do with sexuality today? on which the rays of world activity converge." Further:
"Women must achieve sexual equilibrium. It does not matter
I believe that the Judaeo-Christian patriarchal attitude to whether it is found alone or in homo- or heterosexual practices;
women has degraded them, and degraded men, too; women as whether it is found in vaginal or clitoral orgasm, or any other
sex objects, sex itself as a matter of violence, negligence, male sensations; a woman's body must belong to her alone, ... She
benefit, cut off point for more than superficial pleasure, are as must have the opportunity of choosing between a sensuality
much part of today's society as that of 2,000 years ago. History directed towards conception ... with all the troubles and joys
has conned women into becoming guilt-ridden, if they do not that entails, and one directed towards pure eroticism, in which
'satisfy' their male partner, or he them ; guilt-ridden, if they case she will be a lover, a virgin lover, a priestess of love, the
become tired of eternal womanly virtues of patience, submission, hierophant of a goddess, as in ancient religions".
maternal solicitude. Even current progress towards female as
well as male orgasm places the 'thing' as the ultimate object of Markdale is a man, and he has gone a long way. As
sexual activity. Women's instincts for totality are the subject women we can go further in the knowledge of totality, of
of men's bored indifference, indulgent scepticism or outright the Goddess: why choose? We can and should have both:
opposition. motherhood and eroticism, vaginal and clitoral orgasm. Some
of us, indeed many of us, in perception of wholeness, would
Return to knowledge of the Goddess has meant for wish to share with men. But I come back to my question, asked
women, confidence in their own sexuality as part of the world earlier: Where are the men?
of nature, of intellectual endeavour, of progress to better forms
of society. Where are the men?Oh, where are the men?
u
 The Divine King of mythe ¡.es like the
Canaanite Epic of Karit is presented typically in
the annual life story of the fertility god - his

T H E NEW nuptials, wedding procession, marriage to the

Goddess, and the birth of his son, who guarantees
the renewal of life and the triumph of the powers

TESTAMENT of good over death. Moreover, Karit is a royal

king, like Gilgamesh, who founded a dynasty and has
now been Heroised. As the God becomes a royal
Eero, the event is set in history.
The Jewish Priest Messiah of Aaron and King
THE GODDESS A N D THE Messiah seem to be an ambiguous evolution of this
idea. At first influenced by the local kingship
SACRED KING ideologies, it gradually changed in importance from
the renewal of the cyclical king to the strengthening
of the Jewish religion in time of stress, the renewal
of the Davidic dynasty and the ideals attached to
this specific King.
Mary Daly has suggested that for women to ask for
Christianity is a fusion of the Jewish idea of
equality within the Church is like a black person asking
a coming Messiah and pagan ideas of a redeemer who
for equality within the Klu Klux Klan. Those feminists
has already been on earth, and had suffered and died
who want to stay in or around Christianity and fight there.
for the "true" Judaeo-Christian tradition, to be true
to the living God, who is both male and female and Jesus, as Rabbi, fulfilled his role as Messiah
beyond Personality, will have to argue that the ancient and as Sacred King, with the necessity for self-
Klu KLux Klan society originally meant 'Society for sacrifice and crucifixion. In John vi 22-68 he
Black-White Equality', as Keith Paton has expressed it. claims to be sent down from Heaven by God to perform
for all men who accept his claim, a service that is
In this article, I shall take another rather analagous to, though infinitely more valuable and
extreme and now old-fashioned viewpoint, that of wonderful tharí, the service .that is performed for
mythülogist, and try to analyse Christianity as a Mankind by the Spirit of Vegetation. The Vegetation
feminist in this sphere. I have to assume therefore, Spirit provides material bread for a single year;
that all supposedly real events are reported Jesus is spiritual bread that confers eternal life.
incidentally to serve mythological ends. These
myths, naturally go back into the realms of the Great
Goddess, and I hope to show that the dialectic between
God and Goddess, male and female, seems to reach its
ironic climax in the Christian religion.
The S u n God, Son of God
The Bible, as it stands today, was not compiled The changeover from lunar to solar time paved
together until about the beginning of the 5th Century. the way for Sun gods to appear. Originally the
The selection of books, to be included, was made by king died at the seventh full moon after the shortest
Councils of the Early Church Fathers. Many books, day, with the year divided up into lunations or
often heretical and unacceptable to them, were moon cycles. There were thirteen lunar months in the
omitted and make up the Apocrypha, the Gnostic Gospels year. When the shortness of the kings reign became
Pseudepigrapha and other fragments. I shall include inconvenient, the thirteen month year was extended to
information from all these sources, in my analysis. a Great Year of a hundred lunations, in the last of
which occurs a near coincidence of lunar and solar
time. The king agreed however to suffer an annual
The M e s s i a h a s Sacred K i n g mock death and to yield his sovereignty for one day
to a surrogate or scapegoat who was killed in hi s
The concept of the Hero, in relation to the place. (The sacred king became a permanent secular
Goddess is, in fact, comparatively late. In ancient king).
lore, the Mother Goddess arose from Chaos, and gave The rites of incarnation of Jesus are governed
birth to herself before anything else had been b o m . by the Solar calendar. The birth of the Sun God,
She was known as the Great Creatrix, as Queen of
the Son of God, is at the winter solstice, as were
Heaven, and "She Who Created Without Spouse". Later,
other Sun gods, Dionysus, Apollo, Mithras and Zeus.
in late Neolithic times as an understanding of mans
role in conception emerged, and as secular kingships In the Roman calendar, December 25th was called
developed, She was given a Consort, The Divine King, Natalis Solis Invicti, the Birthday of the
Her lover. Their offspring was the Divine Child - Unconquered Sun, as the sun started to rise again in
Isis and the Horus child in Egypt, and Dionysus or the sky after reaching its lowest point. It was the
Zeus in Crete. first indication that winter would come to an end,
and spring would follow. The Venerable Bede still
Her daughter, the Moon, appeared in Babylon as calls Christmas Eve, 'The Night of the Mothers'.
the Triple Goddess. She was, as the New or Waxing
Moon, the White Goddess of birth and growth. As In this way, many of the symbolisms and feast •
the Full Moon, she was the Red Goddess of love and days of the Old Religion were taken over by the
battle, and as the Old or Waning Moon, she was the Christian Church. St. Chrysostom said that the
Black Goddess of death and divination. intention was that 'while the heathen were busied
with their profane rites, the Christians might
The Mother, as Earth, needed strengthening, perform their holy ones without disturbance'. He
and a renewal through blood sacrifice, and what was justified the date as being suitable for the 'Sun
taken from her in the form of Harvest, had to be of Righteousness'.
returned as human, or later as animal sacrifice.
The corn dolly was her sacrificed daughter and the (The ministry of Jesus lasted only a year
green man, Her sacrificed son. according to tradition. Was this according to
'the acceptable year of the Lord' or based on the
When the Goddess bears a son, he is, at first, myth of the Sun God and his annual cycle?)
the Moon Hero. He is Taamruz, the God of the Barley
Sheaf, who dies by sacrifice. His blood is used The birth of Jesus took place by tradition in
for spriakling on the fields, 'to make the crops to the Grotto of Tanrmuz. He was born in a manger or
grow'. The Goddess goes to the underworld to restore crib, as were Moses, Horus in Egypt, and the Divine
him to life. The Madonna and Child and the Pieta Child in the Delphic and Eleusinian mysteries.
are both, therefore, pre-Christian concepts. He was visited by shepherds as was Zeus and Mithra.
 V±n xne later Uieusinian mysteries, the child is
carried in by shepherds, ousting the mother's role).
He was visited by 3 wise men or kings reconciling
the Divine and Royal Kingships. Gold represents
the Secular kingship, Frankincence the Sacred,
worship, and the sacrificial victim, and Myrrh
symbolises death and resurrection and the embalming
opposite: from a 15th Century manuscript. of the body. The bull and ass nearby are sacred
Personification of the Church (on the to the prophesies for the Messiah, son of Joseph,
right, identified with Mary) and of the and son of David respectively (isaiah 32). Jesus
Synagogue (here identified with the was born of a worldly father Joseph, in the House
Sinful Eve). of David, his royal line, (through his mother).

below: The Mother and her dead Son in bronze,

a primitive pieta from Sardinia, about
7OOBC National Museum, Cagliari. There is also an astonomical explanation for
the Nativity. The constellation of Virgo appears
above the horizon at the moment of birth. Three
bright stars in Orions belt were known as the
Three Kings. Sirius, the brightest star, rises in
the east with them, and was known as the Herald
of the Sun. Other important births were also
heralded by unusual stars including Buddha, Krishna
and Moses. Capricorn, The Stable of Augeas, is
directly under the Earth. The stable in the
constellation of Auriga is surrounded on one side
by Taurus the Bull, and on the other by Ursa Major
known in Egypt as the Ass of Typhon, the animals
of the Nativity.
The title of 'Christ''may have its origin in
the Chaldean 'Chris' a name of the Sun. In the
New Testament, it is said to mean 'annointed'. An
annointed person becomes shiny like the Sun, and
olive oil, generally used, was mystically related
to the Sun.
Ès
S&£
•
The Virgin B i r t h
Races as far apart as the Mexicans, the
Chinese, the Indians, the Etruscans, the Teutons,
l and the Scandinavians all knew the Virgin-Mother
Goddess.
The translation of passages referring to the
1
Christian Virgin Birth however have gone from the
Hebrew word 'almah' meaning 'young woman', via the
"0.1 Septuagint, to the Greek 'parthenos' meaning 'virgin',
1
•f and stayed there. According to Mowinckel:
"The young woman (galmatu - Hebrew almah) is the
stock expression for the goddess who gives birth to
«i> the child. The word also occurs in Ugaritic as the
; name of a goddess, who is a variant of the typical
i! Canaanite mother-goddess and goddess of fertility,
who also bears the name of 'the virgin Anath'. She
is called 'the virgin', although in the myth she is
the beloved of the god and bears his son: indeed, she
I
/
even appears as the goddess of love. The reason is,
of course, that in the myth, and in the cult which the
1 > myth reflects, all these things take place anew each
I '^n"
'~*= year. "...Thus there is something in the old
translation of 'the woman' as 'the virgin': Greek
speaking Jews must have known that behind the
expression lay the idea of a woman who was a mother
and yet ever became virgin again".
A
1
Later Rabbinical Orthodoxy must have pushed
these ideas into the background. The mythographer
* •« can often therefore accidentally or deliberately
misinterpret a sacred picture or dramatic rite.
Graves calls this process 'iconotropy' and it must
{ coincide with political and or religious takeovers.
Thus later Greek heroes/gods after the Mycenaean
invasion (such as Dionysus or Cretan Zeus), are born
either from nymphs, or parthenogenioally, as Athena,
from Zeus' head, denying totally the role of the
^ •>. mother, and natural birth.
~\£
In Christianity, 'She Who Created without
Spouse' becomes 'the Virgin who conceived without
sin' representing in time, the complete reversal of
the ancient myth.
 Death and Crucifixion,
he life of Christ The reign of the Mock K i n g
The life of Jesus represents The Perso-Babylonian festival of Sacaea and
the coming of the Second the Roman Saturnalia saw the old year out and the
Adam, who is not tempted new year in. A mock king was enthroned and slave
and seduced by Eve (and Evil) and master changed roles for a day. The 'king'
The Ave-Maria expresses more was decided by lot, and "they stripped him and
than the cçunter-point bet- scourged him and crucified him".
ween them. Mary is the
(Dio Chrysostom account of Sacaea in Oratio
Wé^^^WMMÑ^ £ S ™ Christian solution to the
\^ ^Wii-tfèmiWr^^l Jewish problem of Eve. IV 67).
The early massacre of the innocents is a Frazer suggests that 'Carabas' a name, according
variation on 'the myth of the dangerous child' which to Philo, used for a gentle madman who paraded
included Zeus, Krishna and Moses. The dangerous child as a Mock King in the Alexandrian charade of AD 38
is of course the infant Sun, who is destined to is a corruption of Barrabas, and Barrabas is not a
destroy the evil tyrant, Winter. name but a title meaning 'son of the father' in
Hebrew. In some translations his name is Jesus
Jesus must fulfil the prophesies of the Messiah. Barrabas. Frazer suggests that Barrabas was the
He is tempted like Theseus and Psyche. In one of the Mock King, derived from the time when the first born
apocryphal gospels he is lamed like a sacred king son of the authentic king was sacrificed to the gods.
He is also married to Lilith, the goddess. Origen says that Jesus Barrabas was the accepted
reading of Matt. XXVTI 16,17- in the early Church.
The parable of the loaves and the fishes has been
interpreted as a Caballistic discourse on the change- As in the Sacaea, Jesus has to bear the insignia
over from the lunar to the solar calendar, and the of royalty at his crucifixion. The crown of thorns
importance of the role of Jesus (Joshua - the fish) used in this ritual, later passed into a May Day game
to this change. for king and courtiers.
The Palm Sunday rite is similar to a Persian The ominous cock crowing at dawn is sacred to
rite, 'The Ride of the Beardless One', in which a Hermes, conductor of souls. Socrates last words were
rider, mounted on a horse, ass or mule, rides through a vow to the cock for hope and resurrection.
the city at the head of a cortege, for the apparently
magical purposes of bringing warmth back to the Earth Jesus was then crucified like a harvest Tammuz
in spring. Compare also, other Heroic rides, Lao Tzu on a truncated moon tree or tav cross, and his blood
on a water buffalo, Buddha on an elephant and Krishna like the soma moon nectar poured into the Holy Grail.
as charioteer. The same sign of the tav cross was used as a tattoo
among the Kenite clansmen among whom the sacred king
was chosen (c.f. the mark of Cain). The tree was
The Moon Hero traditionally the terebinth, reserved for sacred
kings and the tree of Adam. The place was Golgotha,
The rites of atonement, death and resurrection the place of Adams skull.
in the life of Jesus are governed by the lunar calendar.
They coincide with Eostre, the Anglo-Saxon goddess of The mistletoe was used as a stake to kill the
dawn, at the vernal equinox. sacred king, and is still used as a symbol of
fertility, at Christmas. It is of course, the Golden
The Passover Supper and th^ alaying of the Paschal Bough.
Lamb are also part of th spring festival. The ram
was the yearly surrogate for the earlier human Jesus' cry to Mary Magdalene of 'touch me not'
sacrifice. The slaying of the Paschal L -iib in Judaism signifies his uncleanness. Jehovah put a curse on
coincided on Good Friday with the traditional time of the crucified man, and he was barred from the
Jesus' death. In John, Jesus is clearly seen as the Hebrew afterworld.
final and universal Paschal sacrifice. All hanged men in ancient Jewry were sacrificed
The Christian eucharist is the bridge between to the Sun God or Rain God.
Judaism and the Graeco-Syrian mystery cults. The He was crucified with common criminals, often
sacred body of Tammuz, God of the Barley Sheaf, was used as surrogate victims. The offering of a drink
sacramentally eaten as barley cakes, the unleavened follows the custom, used by the Khonds from Orissa
bread of passover and Holy Communion. The blood of as late as the nineteenth century, of drugging the
Dionysus as wine was sacramentally drunk. victims before execution.

The Moon Goddess The moment of Jesus' death is similar to

Hercules, another Sun God. Both say 'it is
finished', and commend their spirits to their
The role of women in the New Testament is most heavenly father. Hercules prays to the sun to
important when a death and mourning occurs. The cease to shine, Jupiter to rend the earth from
profusion of Marys, at least eight seem to appear, pole to pole. He prophecies that buried giants
suggests something beneath the surface. The will break out from the mountains that cover them and
Resurrection of Lazarus earlier on, is witnessed by that Pluto will throw open the gates of Hades,
Mary (and Martha). The four gospels all agree that c f . Matt XXVII 51,52.
the burial of Jesus' corpse and the subsequent
emptiness of the tomb are witnessed by women. Mary
Magdalene, out of whom J P S U S cast seven devils, Resurrection,
features in all lists renting to Jesus' resurrection.
These many Marys may represent the varied facets
The rebirth of the S u n
of the Moon Goddess. Mary as the Virgin and Mother, On December 25th, three days after reaching
the waxing moon, Mary (and Martha) the Lover, and the lowest point of its annual course through the
Mary Magdalene as the Black Goddess of the waning heavens, the Sun begins to rise once more into the
moon. The sepulchre cave is the womb of a second sky. This idea is prevalent in pagan mythologies.
rebirth like that of Mithra. It is inevitable that In the cult of Cybele and Attis from Anatolia, the
Christ must appear first to Mary Magdalene at his son as an effigy was tied to a tree and then buried.
resurrection. The rituals of the vernal equinox Three days later, a light was said to appear in the
involve the symbolical death, search for the body burial tomb whereupon Attis arose from the dead,
and finding of it. bringing salvation with him in his rebirth.
17
 He denies the role of the Mother Goddess at his
birth, as his lover, and in his death and resurrection.
He descended to Hades alone and ascended into Heaven
to sit at the right hand of the Father. His words
ary a s Mother 'I come to destroy the works of the female' have
moulded history. The eternal cycle of the dying and
Goddess rising god is ended for all time, and the cyclical
timescale is replaced by a linear history based on
just one moment in the cycle. By his own self -
sacrifice, he abolishes 'Sin' for all time,when
'Sin' is understood in"its original form, the old
Mary as the Mother Goddess for the first time in Moon God of the Babylonians, worshipped at Mount
history, bows down and worships her own son. Her role Sinai, Mountain of the Moon, when the Goddess was
in the New Testament is certainly ambiguous. As Ashe still powerful.
has shown, there is really not sufficient evidence in
the Bible to justify the importance of the Mary cult.
He sees the basic human need for a goddess as so
powerful however, that Mary, from her modest role,
grows out of all proportion to become the Mother of
God and the Queen of Heaven with her own Immaculate
Conception and Assumption becoming Catholic dogmas.
The expediency of using the Goddess imagery must
certainly have been used by the early Christians and
Church Fathers to influence the conversion of Gentiles
+o Christianity.
It seems from this analysis, however, that the
Goddess imagery was really there from the beginning,
misinterpreted and misused by the Christians to
destroy the power of the Old Religions for all time
(The mediaeval witch hunters cleared the way once and
for all). In the New Testament, the Goddess is S p e c i f i c Ref:
restricted to virginity for life, and the sexual love Mary D a l y - Beyond God t h e Father, Beacon Press,
and sensual relationship of the Goddess and her 1974.
Son/Lover are frozen forever. Mowinchel- He That Cometh, t r a n s , .by G.W.
Anderson, Blackwell, 1Q5Q.
R.Graves- Greek M y t h s , P e n g u i n , 1955
J e s u s a s Saviour God K i n g J e s u s , London, 1946«
Edmund L e a c h - J e s u s , John and Mary Magdalene , a r t .
i n New S o c i e t y , 2 5 t h D e c . 1 9 7 5 .
The historical existence of Jesus is still G.Ashe- The V i r g i n , Rout ledge*. Kegan P a u l , 1 9 7 6 .
accepted today as he was assigned by the Gospels M.Condren- F o r t h e Banished C h i l d r e n of Eve,
to a definite historical situation, whereas this is a r t . i n Movement, SCM Magazine No 24*76
not true of the pagan saviour gods. If a god is J.M.Robertson-Pagan C h r i s t s , Universit y Books,1967.
worshipped by a primitive society before it acquires G.A.Wells- The O r i g i n s of C h r i s t i a n i t y from the
written historical records, there is no historical Pagan and J e w i s h B a c k g r o u n d s , South
framework into which to fit him. The worship of P l a c e E t h i c a l Soc.Conway P a p e r s No2.
Jesus is not documented until the end of 1st century R . J . C o n d r e n - Our Pagan C h r i s t m a s , N a t i o n a l S e c u l a r
AD however, and appears as the cult of a new divinity. S o c i e t y , London, 1974»

THEMMSEL RAPING FROM ST.GEO^.WHO HAS EALLFN VICTIM TO A F R « DRAGON.

18
 WHY
MATRIARCHY c
It is interesting to examine a certain strand of irrationality
which oftens appears when male archeologists talk about matriarchy.
In response to Michael Dames' discovery that Silbury Hill is an
earthwork of the Great Goddess, Glyn Daniel expostulates "Absolute
nonsense. It's th« wilder shores of archeology, and very sad . It's
the biggest round barrow in existence, no more than t h a t ; "
R.J.C.Atkinson is very categorical: " I t ' s a waste of time taking
about the religion of pre-history, because there's no w r i t t e n evidence
of it ... We can know nothing about prehistoric religion except that
they believed in an after-life - but only because of objects found
buried w i t h their dead ... The mystery of Silbury Hill is unanswerable
and always w i l l b e . " I There seems to be an injunction here that
one must only use one's eyes for reading; Dames' visual evidence
happens to be particularly clear. And the shrines of pre-history w i t h
their contents and imagery contain a great deal of information about
early religions.
Goddess in Temple at Ayia Irin i on KeoE
Cyclades, 2nd Millenium BC.
Nicholas Platon, the director of the Archeological Museum in
Heraklion, Crete, and excavator of the palace of Zakro, in his intro-
duction to the museum guide, says: " I t is fairly certain that there was
MATRIARCHY: G overnment by a mother or by mothers.
no polygamy in Crete." He goes on to say: " T h e women took a
An order of society where the descent is notable part in religious life. They also participated in dangerous and
reckoned in the female line. active sports, and hunted wild animals w i t h spears and bows, and w i t h
hounds." But ... "This freedom of women does not seem to be based
MATRILINEAL: Property and name reckoned through the on any kind of matriarchy."
mother or through females alone.
I agree that there was no polygamy; I think polyandry (marriage
MATRILOCAL: A form of marriage where the husband of the woman to more than one husband at a time) is more likely in
goes to live with the wife's community. that context. The organically developing cellular architectural structures
were ¡deal for accomodating large extended family and clan groupings.
MATRIARCHATE: A matriarchal condition or community. Women may have customarily chosen new mates at cult festivals.
MATRIX: T he womb.
Sinclair H o o d , in 'The M moans', diso does an about t u r n ;
The cavity in which anything is formed. " T h e dominance of goddesses in religion meant that women took an
That in which anything is embedded.
important part in religious rites and ceremonies, ás well as in the bull-
leaping games. The queens as high priestesses clearly had important ritual
functions, if not themselves divine.
G OD HAS BEEN WORSHIPPED AS A WOMAN FOR AT LEAST 25,000 YEARS:
as a man only during the last 5,000. The earliest creation myths
"Matriarchy or mother rule seems to have been l i k e l y " :
feature a goddess, w i t h occasionally a hermaphroditic deity.
Goddess figures made from stone and bone have been found all "Matrilineal traditions persisted on the nearby Anatolian coast
over the w o r l d , out of all proportion to figures of gods, over a until 400 B.C."
period of many thousands of years.
"Paintings repeatedly show women in the place of honour.''
The importance of the observation of lunar phases in order to
predict seasonal changes, and later to regulate the agricultural
calendar, was paramount in human settlements. A connection was
seen between the women's m o n t h l y cycle of bleeding and the monthly
lunar cycle; this was a basis for women's position as moon-shamaness,
the oracle and prophetess for the c o m m u n i t y . Women were also
skilled house-builders, fire-makers, farmers, potters, stock-breeders,
weavers, calendar-makers, as well as being mothers, fertile like the
earth. They were i m m o r t a l souls, perhaps continually reborn, like
the m o o n ; they were astronomers, mathematicians, and creative
artists, singing and dancing and painting and making pots and sculpt-
ing. From 9,000 B C onwards, they began to organise themselves
and their children and men into urban communities, w i t h female
control of religious practice, and matrilineal inheritance of name and
property. Their reproductive ability was honoured and revered;
their prolific and varied productivity constituted the root from which
Fresco of Queen a t t e n d a n t s , Kiossos, Crete,
the urban settlements grew.
c. 1,600 BC.
In Crete, c.2,000 B.C., as these towns grew into cities and Then ... " T r a d i t i o n and analogy suggest that Crete was ruled
society grew more complex, an upper class and a monarchy developed. by kings, w i t h succession to the throne by marriage to the
The sacred queen represented the Goddess for the people, perhaps royal daughter ... It does not necessarily follow from the
as an incarnation, and she was part of a far older tradition of female undeniable importance of women in ritual and cult, that they
monarchy, w h i c h was eventually overturned by the growing power enjoyed more respect and freedom than they did in later Greece."
and status of the male in general and the kings in particular. Robert
Graves talks about an interim period where kings wore the robes of Tradition and analogy ... THe Cretan women were heiresses
the queen and performed some of her ritual functions, as her substitute to an ancient neolithic matriarchal tradition . One can make
analogies w i t h the people of Western Anatolia, Libya, Greece,
However, Crete, being protected by the sea and her strong Thrace, the Cycladic islands, Malta, as well as northern Europe,
navy from invasion, did not develop a military or warrior tendency; all of w h o m grew up w i t h i n this t r a d i t i o n.
and it is quite probably that dynasties of women continued to rule
at the palaces of Crete until 1450 B.C., when the island, having been I suggest that if women controlled the organisation of
;ted by volcanic eruption and earthquake, was invaded by religious practice, and if property remained in female hands,
Vvcenaeans from the Greek mainland. and if women were active in organic and manufacturing production
as well as in reproducing the species, then they probably enjoyed a
There was no matter/spirit split in the culture ; the earth great deal of respect and freedom, not to say power, quite unlike
e-ibodied the d e i t y , flesh was spirit; sexuality and f e r t i l i t y were the women of classical Greece, who had been deprived of all
. - t a i n t e d by the concept of sin. political voice.
19
 Keith Branigan says that traditional female activities Crete, Nicolas Platon.
such as pottery making and agriculture moved into the hands of The Minoans, Sinclair Hood.
male specialists in Crete between 3 and 2,000 B.C. I d o n ' t know Foundations of Palatial Crete, Keith Brannigan.
on what he bases this statement; the Kamares ware of 2,000 B.C.
Greek Myths, R. Graves.
to take one example, doesn't look as though it were made by a
m a n ; the smallness and delicacy of much of the art is remarkably
feminine in style. Platon says: "Traces of a woman's hand can be Elizabeth Moore
f e l t in many masterpieces (sic) of d e c o r a t i o n . " The magnificent
and minute seal-stones could wel l have been cut by w o m e n , as
could the exquisite stone necklaces. Possibly metallurgy was
originally the women's province, as keepers of the fire and kilns.
There is nothing t o say whether the directions for running the
farm issued from the women's quarters or the men's, except that
the land and the house belonged to the w o m e n , not the men.

It seems that the status of men in the society steadily im-

proved, once they were initiated into female trade secrets, and
once their role in conception became k n o w n . They could
probably own p r o p e r t y , and participate in city and district politics,
in trading missions, in naval organisation, and in the creation of
w o r k s of art. They were u n d o u b t e d l y builders and masons, hunters
and fishers. There is no trace detectable of repressive attitudes
toward either sex; much evidence of co-operation and c o m m u n i c a t i o n .
These city-states did not waste time battling each other for
supremacy; on the c o n t r a r y, they were closely linked by a unit y of
Gold ring from Vaphio, Crete, c 1600 BC.
economic organisation and religious theory .
Spring Dance in honour of the Sacred Tree.

STONE CIRCLES A N D ENERGY LINES

^gm^x$*^m^^^^m
Any culture radically different from left, the sinister and the dark feared power of women.
our own must have other customs, other religions and We know 3,ittle about the Goddess worshippers life
a different built environment, in which another life styles but there are clues. These clues lie amongst
style can exist. The rhythm of life could have the pursuits that conventional patriarchal thought
been expressed in the landscape rather than in has labelled either frivolous or dangerous. Ley
buildings. We are conditioned to think of the country lines, megalithic tombs, stone circles, ancient
as the space between towns, other cultures lived in calenders and folk lore all help us to understand how
and used the landscape as a life force. They knew the landscape might have looked in ancient times
the changing seasons, the waxing and waning moon, and how people might have used it.
death and rebirth. As a celebration of their lives In a world devoid of cities and the internal
they changed the landscape around them and expressed combustion engine, the yearly cycles are of paramount
its force in their monuments. importance. Life follows death as summer follows
Before god the father there was the Mother.. winter. The spirits of the dead do not cease to
The Babylonian Goddess Tiamat originally reigned supreme. exist or live isolated in a heavenly paradise. They
Later her son Marduk rebelled and divided her into the are on earth with the living. In Gozo, an island
earth below and the sky above. Tiamat was. Marduk near Malta where there was a flourishing neolithic
tore her apart. culture, the priestess of the Goddess slept in a
cave and the ancestral spirits communicated with
Since the patriarchal revolution worship of her through dreams. In later times the Sybil at
the Goddess has been associated in men's minds with Delphi foretold the future and spoke with the voices
witches, evil, the dark side of the moon, sin, the of spirits who entered her when she was in a trance.

Sleeping Goddess, Malta, 3rd Millenium BC.

20
The living dead are with us. When they are ready may have lead us to belittle the achievements of previous
the spirits enter the womb and are born again. Such is civilisations. It is only now that we are starting to
the importance attached to the dead and to spirits, unravel the mysteries of the stone circles. The work
that tombs and houses for the dead are amongst the done by Professors Thorn and Hawkins has shown us how
earliest known remains of primitive people and advanced mathematical and astronomical knowledge
survive when all else has vanished. The cult of was in ancient times. Civilisation spread from the
the dead stretched from the Near East to the Orkneys Middle East to Scandinavia. The megalithic yard was
in late neolithic times and was a world religion. standardised as a precise unit of measurement from
Death is the Triple Goddess in her waning aspect. Brittany to the Orkneys. Our foremothers knew the
The Goddess as hag. In Malta and Gozo many figures triangles of Pythagoras and thus irrational numbers
of the Mother have been found in association with and could predict the eclipse of the moon by the earth.
tombs and places of waship. The stone circles acted as calenders and by
The sites for tombs were carefully chosen. observation of the heavens day to day life could be
Guy Underwood in 'Patterns of the Past' argues that ordered and festivals pinpointed. Astronomical
tombs and other neolithic monuments were sited on knowledge was set in stone for all time.
aquastats or track lines. A positive dowser can The efforts of moving the stones into place
detect aquastats and other geodetic lines in a must have occupied the energies of generations in
similar way to that in which a negative dowser or much the same way as the cathedrals of the Middle
water diviner detects the currents that run in the Ages. The Department of the Environment's booklet
earth above underground streams. The more 'Stonehenge and Avebury' shows artists' impressions
important the geodetic pattern the more important the of skin-clad savages (men) precariously hauling rocks
tomb. The earth force communicated with the dead along on wooden rollers. Elizabeth Gould Davis
through graves as it does in Chinese geomancy. In suggests that women moved the stones in a more
Imperial China geomancers sited buildings in the dignified way. Could lévitation have been used?
landscape so that any proposed building would If the trumpets of Joshua caused the walls of Jericho '
harmonise with its environment and with the earth to fall down, were they originally raised by a note
forces. of music, as the Inca cities of legend were?
Megalithic tombs were built of stones and
generally followed a clover leaf pattern as did the
temples of the Goddess at Gozo and Malta. These
temples were experienced as an internal womb-like
space and painted red. There were altars and"statues
of the Goddess, one as large as eight feet high. The
stone was the image of the Goddess and an expression
of her power. Stone expressed the life force and the
polarisation of geodetic energy. In Corsica and
Sardinia the stones themselves took on anthropomorphic
characteristics, so that some stones can be identified
as male and some are female with breasts.
There are references to stones in the Old
Testament and to their power. The Canaanite god El-hin SHontHtnge
or Bethel was worshipped in the form of a menhir or
standing stone. In Leviticus XXVI Moses received the At Stonehenge and at Carnac many of the
order from God to destroy the stone idols of Canaan stones are reputed by folk legend to have special
'Ye shall make you no idols nor graven images, healing or fertility powers. At Carnac these stoi.es
neither rear you up a standing image of stone (maskit) are known as 'hot' stones and women or childless
in your land, to bow down to it.' The fear of the couples would slide naked down the stones on certain
image of the Mother lead to a prohibition against nights to obtain lovers or children, through the
representational art forms in the Jewish and Moslem power residing in the stones. Until recently the
faiths. Yahweh and Allah are abstract gods and are Catholic clergy followed by the local women would
never depicted in human form. In Islamic art the go in procession to certain 'hot' stones so that
human form itself is seldom shown. The Judaeo- the clergy could neutralise their power by Christian
Christian religion broke with the nature force, incantations. Many ancient menhirs had Christian
wholeness and integrity of earlier cultures and crosses stuck on them by the Church in an attempt
introduced blind obedience to an abstract concept. to negate their power through the symbol of Christ
Crucified.

Certainly long barrows such as West Kennet-""

1 ; 25OO B.C. are a part of the religion of the Goddess.
" •"-' -T" •".'r-T-r The techniques for building the stone circles' ha-»
The builders of the old temples, burial much in common with that of long barrows and É W I c .
chambers and stone circles understood much that is The burial chambers are essentially underground
lost to twentieth century people. Some of this but stone circles (cromlechs) are open to the skies
esoteric knowledge was still known to the medieval and are dated by Thorn at a few hundred years later.
freemasons who were responsible for the cathedrals. If we accept Robert Graves thesis of the importance
The pattern of the geodetic lines in the ground of the calender in a Goddess worshipping agricultural
governed location and spatial organisation. Altars community, then the knowledge given by the stone
were sited on the spiral patterns of 'blind springs', circles is essentially matriarchal in character.
which are a specially strong geodetic formation. Certainly the people who expressed the natural forces
In the temple at Hal Tarxien the spiral eyes of the of the landscape by realigning the Kennet so that
Goddess are engraved on the altar stone. Spirals and it runs between parallel geodetic lines and by
mazes have their own significance as the ritual dance building Silbury Hill as a person-made mound knew
between life and death. The labyrinth at Knossos something about the earth forces that we have
is one of the most famous and though it has never forgotten and can no longer express. We must look
been found, symbolic mazes figure on Cretan seals. to the Goddess for our past and then for our future.
Many cathedrals such -as Chartres and Salisbury have
mazes marked out in the floor tiling, but the present Janet Payne Eurynome lives.
day authorities obscure them with chairs. In medieval
times esoteric knowledge and its expression in built Specific ref:
form was a secret known only to the initiated, but we A.Watkins The Old S t r a i g h t T r a c k .
do not know how far this was the case in ancient times. Thorn Megalithic S i t e s in B r i t a i n .
G.Underwood P a t t e r n s of t h e P a s t .
Our committment to our own civilisation S.von C l e s Reden I n t h e Realm of t h e G r e a t Goddess.
21
 Patriarchy, Indo Europeans
and major world r e l i g i o n s
I feel the religious writings of the conquerors rather
give themselves away with such statements as

"Woman is an all-devouring curse",

and the idea that : "noble man is unfortunately born out of lust
engendered by blood and semen" and so "emerges mixed with
excrement and water, fouled with the impurities of woman,"
therefore "A wise man will avoid the contaminating society of
women as he would the touch of bodies infested with vermin."

personal Would there be a need of such polemic against a section of

society which had no power at all and was not a threat?

Both Tantra and Yoga have their roots in the pre-Aryan

period. Indeed, Tantra has been posited as a remnant of the
original religion of the area. The counter-argument is that only
view a small part of it originated in folk-lore (!) whilst the rest suggests
a sophisticated civilisation. Presumably such a society was
inconceivable before the Aryans arrived! Unlike in orthodox
Hinduism, women play an important role in Tantra. Followers have
been described as "admirers to the point of frenzy, of Woman in
K - ^ t v M¿tvA£*W¿H ¿»V\ ^ I A ' V * - . all her aspects." The caste system is largely relaxed too.

In our times, one of the most important deities is Kali,

Indian religions often represented as dancing on the prostrate body of Shiva,
her consort, to symbolise her supremacy. She is the Mother
Goddess and still receives blood sacrifice. Often portrayed as
Disciple: "How are we to conduct ourselves, Lord, with regard terrifying (particularly to men? ) to her worshippers she is the
to women?" great and kindly Mother.
Buddha: "Do not see them, Ananda!"
Disciple: "But if we should see them, what are we to do? "
Buddha: "Abstain from speech."
Disciple: "But if they speak to us, Lord, what are we to do? "
Buddha: "Keep wide awake, Ananda!"
Semitic religions
Although'enlightened' (some might say because he was ...) In 'The Paradise Papers' Merlin Stone postulates a link between
Buddha was extremely reluctant to admit women to his Order. the Indo-Europeans and the early Hebrews, particularly through
We could be lay followers only : the life of the Order would the priestly caste system ; the Lévites as the Judaic Brahmins.
apparently be shortened if we were admitted! We prevailed only This would mean that these patriarchal tribes have also influenced
so far - the female counterpart of the Order was subject to three further religions.
strict and humiliating rules, and whilst undertaking the same work
as the men in the communities, women were always subservient. Women are excluded from worship in Judaism, sitting
separately in a gallery in the synagogue, whilst the men regularly
The female aspect was, however, retained in many of (i.e. daily) thank God they have not been born women. Strangely,
the Bodhi-Sattvas. Indeed, the most popular is "Regarder of the although circumcision is indispensable for a non-Jew to be
Cries of the World", who appears in China as a woman who gives admitted to the faith, a man with a Jewish mother is a full Jew
children, and is often referred to as the Goddess of Mercy. The regardl ess of whether or not he has submitted to that rite, (see
Lotus speaks of her thus: "If any, carried away by a flood, call articles on Old Testament & Why Matriarchy).
upon this name, they will immediately reach the shallows." They
have only to call on her name to be saved. Christianity, as heir to Judaism, would have got
patriarchy (sounds like a disease!) from this source as well
When Mahayana Buddhism in Bengal became over-compli- as originating and developing in the Graeco-Roman world. The
cared and philosophical in the middle ages, ordinary folk turned to Church Fathers were much influenced by Greek philosophy as
cults of female deities for self-fulfilment (introduced first as they built up the patriarchal structure of the (Catholic) Church,
Bodhi-Sattvas). There was a link here with Tantra, particularly whilst easing out (to put it politely) the more spontaneous,
in the mystical exaltation of the female principle in the universe. charismatic element of early Christianity in which women were
The female deities were eventually absorbed into other religions more involved.
of the area where mass singing and dancing induced states of
mystical ecstasy and trance.
Jesus himself was, after all, a Jew. but one with an
Buddhism came into being around 600 B.C. when the Indus undoubtedly revolutionary attitude to women both then and
Valley civilisation was undergoing a population explosion and the now. There is no justification in any of his accepted teachings
role of towns was becoming increasingly important, together with or ideas that we are either inferior or that we should be excluded
an emphasis on individualism. It arose in a background of a Hinduism in any way from worship. (I withhold judgment on odd frag-
with a rigid caste system instigated by the invading Aryan tribes ments , the only information we have of which are late 2nd
around 1500 B.C. Power was concentrated in the hands of the century writings that they were being misused.I Like Buddha
Brahmins (the Aryan priestly caste) in what seems to be pretty much he seemingly chose his 'inner sanctum' from men (though this is
a blueprint for modern totalitarianism. Certainly the Aryans were now disputed), but as a precedent this should carry as little
patriarchal, as were other branches of the Indo-European tribes, weight as limiting Christian priesthood to Jews' In fact, all
who became the Greeks and Romans. Effectively even high caste the synoptic gospels specifically distinguish the multitudes of
women were excluded, along with men from the servile caste and women from Galilee who had followed him to Jerusalem, from
outcastes, from reading the Vedas and worship, and this lowly lot others present at the crucifixion (Mt. 27.55 ;Mk.l5.40;Lk: 23.27/49).
was emphasised as in the cycle of rebirth,at this time, to be born Incidentally the majority of non-conformist Churches
a woman meant you had behaved very badly in a previous existence. have never barred women from the priesthood.
In addition the Laws of Manu pointed to women as the root of all
evil.
St. Paul's Hellenistic Jewish background is evident in many
places where he appears to be criticising the role women were
Evidence from pre-Aryan India reveals a totally different already playing in the Church around 50-60 A.D. (e.g. 1 Cor. 11.5
picture. Archeological finds show worship of the M other Goddess and 14.34ff). Elsewhere, however, he emphasises the equality of
was prevalent here too. all (Gal. 3.28).
22
 The youngest of the world religions really makes SHREW is a magazine published irregularly by various
Chnstianity look like a breakthrough in the patriarchal stronghold. groups of women on different topics.
The position of womin of Islam is only too painfully evident
these days in London when we see them veiled and walking humbly
several paces behind their men.
The First Sex. E. Gould Davis (Penguin)
Women are excluded from the holy parts of the mosque Women's Mysteries. Esther Harding (Hutchinson)
and altogether at prayer time. The Koran decrees: " Women are Women's Evolution. Evelyn Reed.
your tillage.", and the word for marriage is that of sexual Descent of Woman. Elaine Morgan (Corgi)
intercourse. The object of marriage is stated to be the propagation The Mothers. R. Briffault (Allen & Unwin)
of children and to that end the man may have four wives and un- The White Goddess. Robert Graves (Faber & Faber)
limited concubines at any one time, though they should be treated (also Greek Myths and Hebrew Myths)
with kindness and impartiality. A woman may not sue for divorce Origin of the Family, Private Property & the State. F. Engels
on any grounds and her husband may beat her. Mothers and Amazons. Helen Diner
Beyond God the Father. Mary Daly
The only hint of mutuality seems to be in the architecture In the Realm of the Great Goddess. Sibylle van Cles RedenfThames & Hudson)
of the mosque, with the rounded dome and minarets, though Sultan The Silbury'Treasure. Michael Dames (Thames & Hudson)
Ahmet Mosque in Istanbul has six of the latter! Religion and Sexism. Rosemary Reuther (Ed).(Simon & Schuster)
Middle Eastern Mythology. S.H. Hooke (Penguin)
Paradise Papers. Merlin Stone. (Virago)
Myth Religion and Mother Right. J J. Bachofen. (Princeton Univ. Press)
Speaking from within Christianity Golden Bough. J,G. Frazer
(Though somewhat unorthodox), I Orpheus: A history of Religions. S. Reinach (Routledge & Kegan Paul)
am perhaps at variance with the The Prehistoric Aegean. George Thomson. (Estabel Press N.Y. 1961)
rest of the group who clearly would The Great Mother. Erich Neumann (Princeton/Bollinger 1973)
Images of Women in the Jewish & Christian Traditions. Rosemary Reuther
demur from my Christian apologetic.
(N.Y. 1973)
I have nevertheless found the experience The Gates of Horn. Rachel Levy
of working with the Shrew rather The Cult of the Mother Goddess. E. 0. James (1959)
stimulating than shattering, as might be The Mass Psychology of Fascism. Wilhelm Reich
supposed. I do feel, however, that The Great Cosmic Mother. Monica Sjoo. >
the virtual predominance (numerically) The First Great Civilisations. Jacquetta Hawkes (1973)
of women in Christianity is not due Prehistory - UNESCO Study 1963. Ed: J. Hawkes
to mere perversity! Catal Huyuk. James Mellaart
Neolithic of the Near East. James Mellaart
The Gods and Goddesses of Old Europe. Marija Gimbutas (Thames & Hudsonf

:'i C^si. For further information or m ore detailed booklist

write (enclosing stamped addressed envelope) to:
Matriarchy Study Group,
Flat 6,
15 Guildford Street,
London W.C.I.
S pecific refs.
The Buddha . T. Ling (Temple Smith 1973)
Buddhism. C. Humphreys (Pelican)
Hinduism. K.M. Sen (Pelican)
The New Mystics. A. Menan.
Judaism. I. Epstein (Pelican)
Islam. A. Guillaume (Pelican)
What World Religions Teach. E.G. Parrinder (Harrap)

^ "Blessed ¡>
THE SONG OF THE FEMINIST MATERIALIST
Angela Janet
Carol Liz
Matriarchies d o n ' t exist Charlotte
So anthropologists say
Monica
Denise Pat
Women were never equal
N o t in Canaan, not today Pauline
Thanks to
Images of Goddesses
And f e r t i l i t y rites Beverley, Cynthia, Doris, Irene, Maggie, Mandy, Martin,
Sacred kings and crocodiles Miriam, Toni
And dancing moonlit nights
and to
A lot of pretty pictures Robert Graves
Nothing can be proved
Unacademic nonsense
We w i l l not be moved.
Cover designed by Elizabeth Moore.
Fraser is discredited Front : Goddess from the temple of Ishtar,
Engels got it all quite wrong City of Mari, Sumeria, 3rd Millenium BC.
V i c t o r i a i imagining
We knew that all along Back: Marble Goddess from Sparta,
6th Millenium BC.
We d o n ' t need a herstory
We d o n ' t need a past published by: Matriarchy Study Group,
Discard all the evidence 15 Guildford Street,
Marx w i l l save women at last; London WC1.
Oorv«*" Printed by Women in Print, 16a Iliffe Yard, SE 17.