An Overheard Conversation Leads to a Fabulous Book Detailing Postpunk Music and Times

 

Rip It Up and Start Again: Postpunk 1978-1984 – Simon Reynolds (2005)

 

             Yes!  Once again, a recommendation from a Library patron turns out to be amazing.  Overhearing a discussion between our Librarian and the patron in question, the words “Rip It Up and Start Again” rang in my ears.  I interrupted them to ask if the book had any relation to the Orange Juice song, which, by fortuitous occurrence, I had just listened to on my daily post-lunch walk around campus.  The patron stated that, yes, the books title was taken from the Orange Juice track, and that the book was a history of postpunk music, well-worth reading.  After a quick request through the Inter-Library Loan program, the book was in my hands days later.

            As a devoted music fan, specifically of the more subversive and transgressive music from the 80’s and 90’s, I had read plenty on the Punk revolution of 1977, and of all the progenitors to that scene, artists such as the Velvet Underground, The Stooges, The Ramones, etc.  While people to this day play and perform “punk” rock music of all types, the initial incandescence of Punk was extremely short-lived.  Between 1976 and 1978, the Punk scene rose and died, mainly in the UK.  The ideals of a return to simplicity, to the feel and vibes of the initial rock legends everyone idolized, were a reaction to the inherently bloated and self-important nature of what was seen as rock music in the 70’s.  The rise of anemic, glossy, adult-oriented “rock” coincided with an explosion in the complex, obtuse, and difficult music or “progressive rock” and the inflation of the rock superstar mentality.  This led to the seemingly-regressive ideals of punk rock.  It was no longer important to be a trained, expert musician, or to pose as an “artist” creating important music. 

            The initial death of Punk coincided with its appropriation by the record companies seeking new money-making material.  Most of the early punk bands self-released their music, which sold well enough, but once the fad of “punk” hit the suburbs, the record companies sought to cash in.  In the aftermath of all this, a new crop of bands appeared, seeking to move forward, not backwards, and to seek new ways of making music more resonant with their modern world than the throwback Punk music of the previous few years.  To them, the retro-worshipping stance of the early punks was invalid, for in seeking to make the sounds of the future they simply reiterated the initial rock sounds of the past.

            The 7-year period covered in this book was one of infinite creativity, cynicism, and wild musical exploration.  The adoption of synthesizers, the refutation of the standard bass, drums, and guitar set-up, and the plunge into atonality all contributed to create wholly new music.  Although I was too young to experience most of it, many of my favorite acts were heavily influenced by the postpunk bands.  Groups such as Sonic Youth, The Butthole Surfers, and Big Black were my bread and butter.  Reading about the bands and times that influenced them helped me understand my faves more.

            Books such as this one provide first-hand context for the bands and music of this time.  They also help shine a light on bands that otherwise would stay vague memories in fans minds.  I learned a lot about bands such as The Fall, KLF, Scritti Politti, The Mekons, and others whose records I had seen, or whose music I had heard praised by the bands I like, but have never explored sonically.  I also learned many new things about bands I have loved for years, such as Public Image Limited, Suicide, and the aforementioned Orange Juice. 

Much like the experience of reading Thurston Moore’s “Sonic Life,” this book transported me to a world I have only seen referred to or mentioned tangentially.  The bands and music scenes detailed within ‘Rip It Up and Start Again” attempted something original, to try and create new music without the oversight and control offered by the record companies, music attempting something new and modern.  It was these bands, not the punk bands, that paved the way for the DIY and independent music scenes of the 1980’s in the USA and UK, allowing home-grown networks of promoters, clubs, record labels, and independent bands to travel the country and answer to no one but themselves.  Too often, artists who do not make it into the mainstream culture are forgotten, and their contributions are ignored, or bypassed in favor of the cleaner, generic acts that normally populate the charts.  Simon Reynolds has done all music fans a great service by writing this book.  Highly Recommended.

(This book can be purchased here: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/291130/rip-it-up-and-start-again-by-simon-reynolds/ )

Mircea Eliade Guides Us Through Humanity's Use of Initiations' Rites and Symbols

 

Rites and Symbols of Initiation: The Mysteries of Birth and Rebirth – Mircea Eliade (1958)

 

            Sometimes the smallest books can be the most gratifying and educational.  This slim, 136-page volume (not counting the large Notes and Index sections) is loaded with extra jelly. Translated from the original French by one Willard R. Trask, Mircea Eliade’s writing shines as it explores and compiles our knowledge of Initiations, and the various rites and symbols used by all of humanity for this purpose.  It is an amazing piece of writing by the man who was Chairman of the Department of the History of Religion at the University of Chicago.

            As Eliade differentiates at the start of this book, there are essentially two types of initiations.  Both seek to “kill” the previous version of the initiate, in order to rebuild, teach, and create a new human being. The most primordial type is the “puberty” initiation.  In this type of initiation, whether for a male or a female child, the purpose is to end the period of childhood, with its lack of responsibility and participation in adult society, and to “create” a full adult, capable of participating and perpetuating the sociocultural knowledge of the tribe.

            Male and female children are removed from their families for an extended period of time, ranging from several days to over a year in some tribes.  The earliest, simplest initiation rituals for boys consist of the separation from the mothers, whose children are then led away from the tribe by the shaman and elders.  The children are symbolically “buried” under branches and blankets, where they must sit and wait.  This is the time of symbolic death.  All around them, their male elders dance, ritualistically, and through the songs and dances teach the children what is happening.  They are experiencing a death, the death of their carefree childhoods.  They learn that in this death they are taken up to the abode of the gods, and private, secret knowledge is given to them.  This knowledge is what makes them new men in the eyes of their tribe, giving them a cosmology and reason for existence.  After a period of time, they are released from their “grave” and return to the world of their people, assuming the full role of an adult male in the tribe. Their mothers mourn them as if they truly died, for they no longer reside with their moms and aunts and cousins and sisters.  Instead, they now belong to the men of the tribe, until such a time as they themselves marry.  Most simple initiations function in this manner, with the exact details of the instruction and lessons given changing depending on the tribe.

            The more complex puberty initiations of men take on far more danger and pain.  There is the addition of deprivation, such as long days spent in the wild without clothing, or without fire or food.  There is the use of pain, or ritualistic surgeries, such as circumcision and scarification, or even the risk of death against animals or the elements themselves.  Whereas the simpler initiations explain the cosmology of the respective tribe involved, the more complex ones seek to recreate the cosmology, with the initiates taking the place of the initial hero who, through either the will of the gods or his own human intelligence, attains wisdom and knowledge equal to the gods and shares it with his fellow men.  These initiations help the men inculcate the new generation with the history and ancient truths of their tribe.  The young men who return from initiation are reborn as full humans, ready to participate in the world around them.

            The initiations of females differ from the initiations of males, both in method and purpose.  Females have a special clock which dictates their maturity, unlike men.  This clock being the initial start of menstruation.  Female initiations are even more secretive and esoteric than the male ones, for it was the ability of the females of any species to perpetuate life that provided humanity with its first taste of the infinite.  Women and their bodies were the initial symbols used to explain the world around us.  The world of women required a separate initiation. 

            The initiations of young women do not revolve around death and rebirth, but instead focus on attainment.  The onset of maturity is a time for celebration, and the young women are gathered together within a space reserved solely for females.  One of the greatest taboos in the world of tribal humans is that of a man entering the sacred spaces of a woman.  The punishments are severe and swift.  In many tribes, if a man interferes with the initiations of the women, the women have the right to kill that man in order to protect their secrets. 

            The young women are taught about their cosmology and how the universe/earth is a womb, producing the life seen all around.  They are taught to understand that the process of life is universal, which is evident after studying the animals and plants around them.  The initiates learn of their cosmic role in the process of life, and how to care for each other.  These initiations also helped bond all of the tribe’s women together, helping foster mutual altruism.  Women likely held the secret of biological procreation for centuries before males found out.

            One of the critical ideas that Eliade brings is that the rituals and symbols used during these initiations were not just mimics of the initial creation process, but were intended to manifest the sacred and allow the initiate to recreate the very events that created the world around them.  Each initiation is a recreation, literally, of the initial birth of our universe.

            The other type of initiation is that of the shaman.  There are three ways to become a shaman.  The first is when the elders or elder shamans choose an individual child (usually male, and the offspring of a shaman) to be taught and trained.  Another is when a child actively seeks to learn the ways and wisdom of the shamans, as if born to do so.  The third method is when the child’s mental state, attitude, and behavior is so erratic and bizarre that they are then pushed to shamanism so that they may learn to control their minds.  This last method is tribal human’s way of dealing with the mentally ill or unstable among them, allowing that person to have a place in their society, even if it is one removed from the day-to-day world of the tribe, such as the shaman’s.

            Most cultures keep their shaman separate.  They live in privation, do not take part in hunts, and rarely interact with the rest of the tribe.  The shaman’s life is spent fine-tuning their connection to the divine, whether through prayer, fasting, drug use, chanting, or any other such method.  It is this rigor which allows them to commune with the spirit world, detect malicious entities causing harm or illness among the tribe, see the far past and the far future, and travel out of their bodies to what mystics refer to as the Astral Plane.  The shaman is feared as much as he is needed.  Their respective initiation ceremonies shed light on this.

            Whereas in puberty initiations the initiate spiritually “dies” and is “reborn,” the shamanistic initiate is instead fully recreated.  The shamans speak of how, during their initiation, their skin, muscle, and sinew are stripped away, leaving just a skeleton, which their god then re-creates, adding new material until the shaman is reconstituted as a new type of being, one capable of existing in the profane, material world (symbolized by his keeping his initial skeleton), and in the supernatural divine world (symbolized by the new organs, muscle, and skin grafted onto him by the gods).  Once recast as a shaman, they climb the World Tree, the Axis Mundi, and have access to the upper worlds of the gods and the lower worlds of demons and spirits.  Shamanistic initiation is mentally traumatic, and some initiates do not make it back from their foray into the divine.  Recreating the mythical death and rebirth of their god’s/universe’s creation has that effect on some people.

            I found this book fascinating, and resonant to my previous readings on the topic.  By focusing solely on initiations, Mircea Eliade avoids discussions of theology, allowing the reader to think about initiations as a continuing human endeavor.  Eliade describes how, even after the advent of revelatory religion, and monotheism, initiations for other organizations/groups continued to use the framework described above, that of a symbolic death, and a rebirth into a new state of being, a more truly “human” state.  Anyone with knowledge of the Masonic initiations into their 3^rd degree will see the correlations.  Books such as this provide us with knowledge that expands our minds, and helps us understand that human consciousness is an ongoing process, constantly drawing from the deep wells of our past shared humanity, and providing deeper and richer meaning for our lives.

(This book can be downloaded and read here: https://archive.org/details/dli.ernet.6032/page/n9/mode/2up )

Major Arthur de Bles Explains How to Tell Who is Who in Classic christian Art

 

How to Distinguish Saints in Art by Their Costumes, Symbols, and Attributes – Major Arthur de Bles (1925)

 

            Our modernity prevents us from understanding the meanings and messages behind most of the christian artwork used as the foundation for western fine art. A visit to any large museum will expose one to dozens, if not hundreds, of exquisitely painted images, each one portraying moments in the lives of christian deities, saints, and martyrs.  From a time when reading itself was kept from many of the common people, these images helped to foster religious beliefs and feelings in those who viewed them.  Despite widespread illiteracy, the people who viewed these artworks understood them based on their communal knowledge of the life stories of Jesus, his family and friends, his followers, and the many saints and martyrs upon which the stories and legends of the christian church rest.  This great book helps explain and instruct on how to look at these artworks to better understand them and the times in which they were created.

            This is a reference work, and because of that, it is not something that most people would read straight through.  I am not most people.  I adore reference books.  The more data the better!  Arthur de Bles worked on this material for a long time.  This is evident in the exhaustive and engrossing information contained within.  Not only does the author explain in detail the specific visual cues and symbols utilized in religious paintings, but he immerses the reader in the times these paintings were created.

            The first distinction that Arthur de Bles shares is between the two main types of christian religious art.  The first kind is “narrative.”  These images describe specific moments from the Bible, including the many apocrypha books, as well as historic events relating the lives of the people from the Bible and the many saints and martyrs that followed.  For example, a painting which shows Joseph and Mary being turned away from shelter, and having to rest and birth Jesus in a manger, is a narrative painting.  The details included would correlate, at least in the artist’s or patron’s mind, with the actual events described.  The Bible tells of how a group of shepherds saw the bright star signaling Jesus’ birth, and went to pay homage.  There are many paintings showing this “adoration of the shepherds,” and they include sheep, the shepherds, a manger/stable, and the holy family. 

            Other examples of narrative religious painting may show the martyrdoms of early christians.  For example, many paintings show the crucifixion of St. Peter, who, as the legend says, was crucified upside down in deference to Jesus, who was crucified the “normal,” way.  Paintings such as these helped to share the stories from christianity with the general population, many of whom could not read, not to mention the many who were not ALLOWED to read the Bible because the Roman Catholic church loved to keep regular people ignorant and subservient to their sacerdotal lackeys.  In fact, in many of the poorer nations, Roman Catholics today continue to provide church services in Latin, in order to keep the parishioners from actually understanding what is happening, thereby remaining in awe of the priest and his fancy mumbo-jumbo.  Pathetic.

            The other type of christian religious painting is the “devotional” one.  In these artworks, the purpose is not to tell a historical tale, or to describe events.  Devotional artworks are meant to be understood internally, as visual representations of the goodness of the saints, martyrs, religious figures, etc.  Paintings of Mary, holding the infant Jesus, surrounded by angels, saints, and other representations of the divinity, are innumerable.  In these artworks, the intent is to strengthen the religious ardor of the viewer, by symbolically portraying the goodness of someone such as Mary or John the Baptist, or by symbolically rendering the strength of will and faith needed to endure the horrible tortures and deaths of the christian martyrs.  Devotional images are meant to inspire religious fervor, as opposed to the narrative religious paintings which seek to instruct on facts and details.

            Once de Bles describes these types, he divides the rest of the book into sections detailing specifically the visual clues and symbols used in art for the holy family, and the prophets and saints in the Bible.  Other sections explore the symbols and imagery used to depict the many saints and martyrs of the early christian church.  Each topic is heavily illustrated and annotated, allowing the reader to seek these artworks out in person, or to look for further resources with which to study these pieces of art history.

            One thing that Arthur de Bles makes perfectly clear, is how few of these artworks were created because the artist themselves was a deeply religious and devotional person whose personal faith insisted that they paint religious pictures.  Most of the tens of thousands of paintings and images included in this book were commissioned by either churches, religious orders, wealthy bishops, or rich and powerful men seeking to curry favor with the “Lort,” or to at least look like devout, faithful christians.  It is an old trick, covering and surrounding oneself in the symbols and images of faith, all the while ignoring the actual commandments of that faith and behaving like a fucking waste of humanity.

            In a very real sense, every religious image is propaganda, selling the idea that the faith depicted is the one that is true and real, to the exclusion of the others.  Images of martyrs cannot help but inculcate an ignorant, illiterate population into admiring the martyr’s devotion and faith, and, in return, to consider themselves as beneath these saints, as someone nearly irredeemable whose soul can only be saved by the intercession of some priest or church.  It is the oldest scam in the word, and differs not at all from a tribal shaman covering themselves in dung, ingesting psychoactive substances, and scaring the general crap out of their tribe, all to make sure they behave and fall in line with whatever the shaman/priest wants the people to believe.   The idea that a “picture is worth a thousand words” is very true, and it is used to this very day by despots, tyrants, and wastes of humanity in order to control the people with fear.

            Books such as these, crammed full of information, are invaluable.  They provide us with a means to understand the past, while allowing us to learn the details which those in power seek to keep from us.  Information is freedom.  Knowledge is freedom.  Ignorance is the easiest way to keep someone enslaved.  Always look to see who is out there seeking to educate and inform, and who is out there trying to indoctrinate and control.  This is the easiest way to differentiate good from evil in this world.

(This book can be downloaded and read here: https://archive.org/details/howtodistinguish00debl_0 )

Hermann Kern Takes us Into, and Brings us Back Out of, the Labyrinth

 

Through the Labyrinth: Designs and Meanings Over 5,000 Years – Hermann Kern (1982)

A fascination with the story of Daedalus and his ill-fated son Icarus began early after reading a book on the Greek myths, likely found at the local library (Alief Public Libraries for the WIN!). The idea of a genius engineer forced to create a labyrinth in which to imprison King Minos’ step-son, and the story of what befell him and his son as they tried to escape, struck a nerve. As a youth, the simple lesson that a child must pay heed to his elders, especially his parents, when it comes to dangerous matters of life and death, was what drew attention. This was Icarus’ folly, that of a young man too carefree when he should be careful. It resulted in Daedalus’ tragic loss of his son, all because Icarus did not pay attention.

As an adult, reading more and more on the Greek myths, and about the idea of the labyrinth, the focus turned to the labyrinth itself. An understanding of it as allegory grew. My employment now affords the great pleasure of wandering through labyrinthine shelves (see what I did there?), each stocked with all manner of art books. Upon one of these meanderings this large book called out to me. It may be an innate skill, or perhaps the oft-rumored Library Angels really do exist, but sometimes an amazing tome will just fall in my lap. Such was the case with this book, Hermann Kern’s exhaustive, immersive, and deeply informational masterwork on labyrinths worldwide. It is packed with thousands of illustrations and photographs, and translated into English from the original German. Exceedingly awesome.

 As Hermann Kern carefully explains, over thousands of years the ancient symbol/idea of a labyrinth morphed and degraded into our currently accepted meaning, that of an intricate maze, with endless dead-ends, false passageways, and walls meant to disorient anyone inside. This idea is a disservice to the labyrinth, making it seem more of a trap, or a tool for torture and subjugation, which is evident by the time Plutarch wrote of his story of King Minos and the Minotaur. The original idea of a labyrinth was not a maze of dead ends, but a long, winding, singular path to a center. To exit a labyrinth, one must retrace their steps back through the entire thing. There are no shortcuts, and the journey in and out is where meaning is found. Labyrinths may be one of the oldest meditative tools created by humans.

Mr. Kern starts with, and reiterates throughout, the essential feature of a Labyrinth as opposed to a maze or spiral. As stated above, a labyrinth is a single path, convoluted and winding, leading to a central area within it. This is the center of the labyrinth. Once at the center, there is nothing to do but turn around and retrace your steps back through until you reach the initial entrance. This differs greatly from mazes, which may or may not have centers, and which feature countless wrong turns, dead-ends, and misleading paths. One can get lost in a maze. One cannot get lost in a labyrinth. It is this specific trait that makes the labyrinth so useful as a tool of introspection, initiation, and ritual.

The origins of the labyrinth are lost to time. What is known, and what Mr. Kern describes so well, is that the initial labyrinth was of a very specific form, what is now referred to as a Cretan Labyrinth. This very specific shape, carved in stone, has been found in many places, but is associated with Crete due to the Greek Myth discussed above. A critical aspect of the labyrinth, and its use, is called the “Thread of Ariadne.”  The Greek myth tells of how the hero Theseus entered the labyrinth, faced and killed the dreaded Minotaur, and escaped with his life. He did so by using a fine thread given to him by the Cretan princess Ariadne, which he unspooled as he entered the labyrinth and which he spooled back up as he found his way out of the labyrinth. The Greek myth tells of how Theseus then rescued Ariadne and took her away from Crete. This is a retcon of a sort, as the initial “thread” of Ariadne was simply the path taken by the labyrinth itself. Many of the oldest labyrinth images show a red line, the symbolic thread, coursing its way through the bends and twists until it arrives at the center. As a true labyrinth has no dead-ends, or meanders, there is no need for a literal thread, as told in the story of Theseus.

In the shamanic/mystical sense, the thread of Ariadne is the same thread woven by the fates when a human is born. This thread tells the story of one’s life, which lasts just as long as the Fates allow, one of them tasked with cutting off the thread marking our point of death in this world. In a labyrinth, this thread of life symbolizes the return to the womb, to the primordial beginnings, and then the return trip back to our experiential world. To walk into a labyrinth is to retrace your steps back to your creation, and to leave the labyrinth is to be re-born. The human exiting the labyrinth is not the same human that entered it. This is a deep philosophical point made visible and interactive by means of the labyrinth, which is why many of the old sanctuaries and cathedrals of Europe contain labyrinths inside. They wanted the parishioners to reflect on the journey to Christ and the rebirth afterwards, as they walked the path of the labyrinth to the center (Jesus) and back.

Apart from their mystery, meaning, and use, labyrinths themselves are just beautiful. Many of the great cathedrals contain exquisite labyrinths, tiled as perfectly as any Roman mosaic. Hermann Kern’s exhaustive search also includes many proto-labyrinth carvings whose creators are lost to us. It also includes images related to labyrinths, such as the cup and ring marks, or the many spirals, found throughout paleolithic locations. Kern differentiates between these seemingly related symbols and those of a true labyrinth, providing details and historical context for everything. Because of his rigor in collecting the data, this book has become the seminal resource for those seeking to study the history and purpose of these designs. I am very thankful that it was translated into English, and would love to find a copy of this magnificent reference work for my own personal library. Thank Mario that my workplace affords me access to such wonderful books. I have been fortunate to visit a couple of labyrinths located in my home of Houston, Texas, USA.  More will be sought and I will walk the Thread of Ariadne again.

Carlo Rovelli Shares the Wonder and Beauty of Quantum Theory

 Helgoland: Making Sense of the Quantum Revolution – Carlo Rovelli (2021)

            One of the greatest compliments I can give the eminent physicist and author Carlo Rovelli is that his informative and entertaining science books rival Richard Feynman’s for the sheer joy they give me upon reading.  I have reviewed three of Mr. Rovelli’s amazing books on RXTT’s Book Journey, White Holes, Reality Is Not What It Seems, and The First Scientist: Anaximander and His Legacy.  Each one is incredibly eye-opening, and written in a manner so casual as to seem like personal conversations between Mr. Rovelli and I.  This latest work, an exploration into the ideas of quantum mechanics and their repercussions and implications, is critical reading for me, and has given me much to think about.

            Rovelli understands that us lay readers, people with an interest in physics but not professional scientists, can experience the same awe, the same thrill of understanding, that the researchers and theoreticians feel when they gain new knowledge.  The difference lies in the presentation of the material.  Since quantum mechanics is an intensely odd, yet deeply relevant field of modern science, it takes a special storyteller to relate the discovery, formulation, and utilization of this particularly intriguing area of current scientific thought.

            The author never loses sight of the humanity involved in science, and of the amazing achievements and knowledge that mere humans can bring to the world at large.  The recounting of the early 1900’s, a time when the formal, mechanistic, classical physics of Newton were upended by Einstein’s relativity, Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, and Planck’s exploration into the world of quanta.  These world-shaking ideas took hold in the minds of young physicists, producing one of the most successful, and rigorous understandings of the natural world that humanity has ever encountered, quantum theory.  Nearly every new development in our world over the past 100 years owes everything to our knowledge of the quantum nature of reality and the ability of our fellow humans to create technology dependent on the quantum world.  Sadly, most of us benefit from these ideas without understanding even the smallest part.

            Besides sharing the story of quantum theory’s discovery, the author explores how the theory refutes many of the long-standing assumptions held by the great thinkers of humanity.  It is this aspect of quantum theory that has yet to see its full flowering.  Most of us walk around with our grammar school science knowledge informing our view of the world, when, in fact, that model of the universe is flawed and incomplete.  Quantum theory instead describes a universe where the divisions between objects disappear, where the observer cannot be removed from what is observed, where absolute certainty about anything is a mirage.  It will take centuries for humanity to fully grasp these ideas and drop the old prejudices.

            Rovelli also makes it abundantly clear that, for even the most highly trained minds, the ability to use quantum theory is not the same as the ability to fully comprehend quantum theory.  He is honestly forthright when describing his own attempts, mostly unsuccessful, to cognitively grasp the deep truths that quantum theory seems to tell us about the reality we live in.  Thank Mario that humanity has minds such as Mr. Rovelli’s whose curiosity leads them to seek and grapple with the most obtuse and rarefied ideas, in order to help the rest of us understand what makes up the world we all share.  As with all of Carlo Rovelli’s books, it is highly recommended.

           

(Helgoland can be purchased here - https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/653621/helgoland-by-carlo-rovelli-translated-by-erica-segre-and-simon-carnell/ )

May the Mother Goddess Forgive Us All, For We Know Not What We Do

 

The Once and Future Goddess: A Symbol for Our Time – Elinor W. Gadon (1989)

            I love deep reading.  If interested in a topic, I seek to understand it, and to explore the books written on that subject.  Invariably, the books will mention a previous work, whether for inspiration or for reference’s sake.  Once I run into several of these, I must go find the book in question.  Sometimes that is a difficult proposition.  The Once and Future Goddess was one of those sought-after tomes.  Thank Mario for my library employment, and the discovery that we have a copy of it in our collections. INSTANT CHECK-OUT!

            This book is an exploration of our shared human history, especially the early spiritual life of prehistoric humans.  Homo Sapiens have been around for over one million years, per the latest scientific estimations.  Our specific human species, Homo sapiens sapiens, the only branch of Homo sapiens still existing, has been around for over one hundred thousand years.  For most of our existence on this beautiful planet, we humans understood the interconnectedness of the vital forces we refer to as “life.”  The entirety of the Earth was known and respected as life-giving, much in the way that women carry life within them, and there was no division between the fecundity of the soil, the seasonal rutting and birthing of the animals around them, and the cycles of the flora they witnessed yearly.  It was self-evident that “life” was a universal feature of our world, and our ancestors behaved accordingly.  It was also self-evident that the creative, primal, life-giving force resided in the females.  By extension, our Earth was seen as female, and worshipped accordingly, for it is the cradle of all life, plant and animal.  This power is what the author refers to as the Mother Goddess.

            Elinor W. Gadon does a masterful job of gathering observations and data from our collective pre-history.  The bibliography at the back of the book is extensive.  As our earliest ancestors left no written record that we know of, we must recreate their world from what remains.  Frankly, it is amazing what has lasted until our modern times.  Burial sites, art pieces, religious centers, and entire communities have been excavated in the last century, and the collective knowledge gathered from these artifacts is what points to a complex belief system, seemingly shared by all humans throughout our planet.  The aspect that ties all of these disparate sites together is that they were all created at a time when human and world spirituality was immanent, meaning the divine creative spark of life was to be found in anything and in all things. 

            The very earliest examples of art we have are the small figures dubbed “Venuses” by archeologists.  These are symbolic, carved images of exaggerated female forms, with the emphasis placed on the outward signs of a pregnant woman, the large abdomen, full breasts and thighs, and prominent vulva.  Many of these figures lack the unnecessary features, such as feet, hands, or facial features.  Our ancestors knew the power inherent in women’s bodies and celebrated it openly.  The germ of life existed in the soil, in the water, and in women’s bodies.  Before the advent of agricultural society, our ancestors existed in balance with the changing seasons, animal migrations, and flow of nature. 

            This state of communal coexistence lasted for millennia, until the advent of agriculture and animal husbandry.  The Mother Goddess morphed into the Grain Goddess, responsible for the yearly harvests.  Humans experience with their domesticated animals showed them the importance of the male of the species, for new life, while immanent in females, could not grow without the initial impetus from the male.  These humans were unaware of the cellular nature of spermatozoa and ovum, but they understood innately that life arises from this special combination.  The Goddess was given a consort, a “king” fit for a goddess.  This “king” was initially a yearly choice, and would be either ritually or symbolically “sacrificed” after fulfilling their duty.  Our ancestors saw life and death as two sides of the same coin.  For life to flourish it must also die.  For death to exist, life must first exist. The death of crops and plants and the barrenness of wintertime was always followed by the warmth of Spring and the flowering of the earth.  Humans understood the menstrual cycles as tying women into the greater life force of the universe, the Mother Goddess. 

            The menstrual blood itself was seen as a life force, and women’s lives were shaped by their temporal state.  It was observed that the life of a woman flows in three stages.  Youth, followed by sexual maturity, was then followed by old age. These ages of woman were codified into the idea of the Maiden, the Mother, and the Crone, all different aspects of the same fertile spirit alive in women.  The Maiden was the promise of life, the bounty of possibility.  The Mother was the eternal mother, evident in all life around us, and responsible for each and every living thing us humans understood at the time.  Once a woman reached what is now called menopause (the pause of menses), it was believed she became even more powerful, for instead of losing the holy menstrual blood monthly, it was assumed she kept it inside, absorbed as part of herself.  This placed a great responsibility on the older women, who were responsible for the communal knowledge, whether of food gathering, care of children, manufacture of household goods, and whose wisdom helped protect the entire tribe or village.

            Society in our early days was communal, and female-centric, in terms of spirituality and divinity.  It was NOT a “matriarchy,” a society ruled by women, where men were seen as secondary. That misconception arises from seeing the past as a mirror of our present.  Humans have lived under strict patriarchy, where men rule and decide, and women are nothing more than property for breeding, for thousands of years, so we assume that before, it was the opposite.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  Gadon masterfully details how the cyclical Goddess cultures were overrun by invaders from lands whose people worshipped sky gods, gods detached from the everyday existence of life on earth.  Invariably, their gods were male-focused, and everywhere they went they helped to erase or alter the native goddess worship.

            When Goddess worship was an integral part of daily life, everyone understood that the spark or life, of divinity, was found in us and the world around us.  This meant we lived in admiration and respect for the world, and there was no division between “natural” and “supernatural.”  Once the invaders brought their male sky gods, all of this began to shift.  If the gods lived above, separate from us and from the nature around us, then it was surmised that divinity and holiness existed apart from the natural world we inhabit.  This schism is what we are all currently living with, the idea that the natural world is soiled, unholy, and base, and that goodness and divinity only exist in an “afterlife”, where we go to join the male gods in their sky domains.  To make this shift happen, everything feminine was debased, deemed unimportant, and unnecessary.  Once agriculture brought certain stabilities and built up more permanent communities, the male humans began to conceive of private ownership.  Whereas, for tens of thousands of years, humanity considered everything to belong to everybody, much like Native American tribes describe, the idea of personal ownership, and the power and influence assigned to those who happen to “own” more than others grew and grew, until they believed this was the way to be.  They altered and created religion to suit their greed and power-hungry ways.  The divine was purely a means by which to enforce their male domination.

            The symbols of the Great Goddess, symbols of regeneration and plenitude, such as the snake who sheds its skin and is “reborn,” the tree or carved pillars representing the cycle of life itself, and the wildness of nature, were all subverted and perverted. Gadon describes this process, and explains it well.  Consider the story of Genesis, altered countless times by males seeking to denigrate the female and to assign divine importance to being male.  The symbols of the Goddess, the Tree of Life and the snake, become the Tree of knowledge of life and death, which, after the snake seduces the woman, she eats the fruit thereof, and “convinces” the man to do the same, causing all humanity to suffer forever more because woman misled man. Instead of the menstrual cycle, conception, and birth being seen as divine, they were now to be seen as punishments from a male god for disobeying him.  These few passages are to blame for the myriad of horrors suffered by women in the past 3-4 thousand years.  Death is woman’s fault.  Pain is woman’s fault. Shame and degradation are woman’s fault.  It is the single greatest program of propaganda ever foisted on the human race, all to benefit a few powerful males wishing to control the entire population.

It makes me sick, and goddamn it I was raging while reading this book.   Countless examples of the pure misogyny brought forth by the stupids seeking to invalidate the power of women infuriated me.  Instead of a Maiden, Mother, and Crone, we are now expected to believe life stems from a Father, a Son, and some sort of Holy Spirit, who is probably also male, although how deities and spirits can have genitalia and sexual reproductive organs I will never understand.  Even the one named Emmanuel, Jesus the Christ, could not be tainted by a female.  The idiot church “leaders” decided that Mary was a virgin (based on a very stupid mistranslation), and because of that, they reasoned that Jesus was born without the “sinful” method of carnal copulation.  To further their stupid reasoning, they then decided, centuries later, that Mary was also born from a virgin, which rationalized their view of her as a non-erotic, non-sensual, container for Jesus.  Never mind that after Jesus was born the Bible talks of his brothers, children of Joseph and Mary. (The church is always GREAT at telling you what the Bible says and means, without actually letting you read it yourself.  Bunch of assholes.  What a blight on humanity. They claim we are all too stupid to understand without their interpretations, and we believe it because they have “authority.”)

Gadon details the vast disintegration of Goddess worship at the hands of those pushing their self-created sky gods.  The Goddess was reduced from the center of divinity to an afterthought by those who wished to maintain their hold on humanity.  The Christian church either destroyed the ancient places of worship, or, more frequently, just built their own churches atop the old sacred sites.  A cheap ploy which works every time.  This helped fan the lie that there are no holy places on Earth except those built by man and dedicated to their male god.  I could write ten books about how fucked this shit is and has been, and how much I HATE IT ALL.

The author spends the last section of this book detailing the work of contemporary female artists whose work tries to reclaim and renew the idea of female divinity, and of the goddess herself.  In doing so she presents a hope that we may all soon return to an understanding of the universality of divinity in our world, and of the critical role that women have in restoring a sense of equality and fairness to humanity’s religious beliefs.  Should that day ever come, I will be first in line to celebrate it, but my cynicism and world-weariness tells me there is very little that can be done to combat the current state of things, without scrapping the whole thing and starting fresh.  We are all fooled by the endless conditioning we experience, where young girls are taught repeatedly that their role is to be subservient to a man, whether it is their father or husband, and that they are merely baby making machines, male babies preferable.  Us males are conditioned to believe in our inherent superiority, and of the woman’s inherent subservience.  It is the single greatest stupidity ever foisted on us by our so-called spiritual leaders.  May their end be swift and thorough, and may we eventually return to a state where life itself is seen as divine and worthy of respect, whether male, female, animal, or plant.  There is no way to return to the past, but we may yet build an equitable future, worthy of our promise as sentient beings and our duty as caretakers of our world.