| Patriarchy Defined The changeover and the shift away from entheogenic usage in society directly correlates with the rising of the patriarchy, so discussing the entheogenic change without showing the other aspects of what happened in history directly related to the change, would be a disservice to my readers and would not provide a complete education on the subject. History was not simply about one or two consistent subjects, but religion was the focus of the major changes which occurred over time. All of these elements concerning the goddess and patriarchy relate directly to religion. There are certain features which mark or define the patriarchy: 1.) Paternity based. A father can rarely prove his paternity and children are born from their mothers. This implies life comes from the female and not the male, which implies “God” must have a mother who gave birth to “God,” and “God” can never be the sole creator. This creates a dilemma for male-ruled tribes or countries who are religious subscribers of any type. Mary Condren relates this concept: “…The development of the idea of paternity represents a real “triumph over the ambiguities of nature.” Firmly establishing paternity is a concern of Irish legal, mythological, and ecclesiastical literature.” 2.) The idea that to the victor goes the spoils, or the idea that conquest is an acceptable way to achieve progress within a culture. War is justified because birth is now created through the action of death which is glorified instead. Death gives life which justifies the actions of “Man as God/Creator.” Mary Condren says it best: “The warrior has given birth through killing his opponent; bloody skulls rather than little infants, were the symbols of the new social life, where the warrior would be responsible for ensuring the ‘life’ of the tribe and would reign supreme. ‘Life’ now enters the world through death, a mentality that persists to this day and that is celebrated in military rituals throughout the world.” (114) Where the goddess worship celebrated life and the womb’s fertility, the church celebrated death and the tomb’s terminality. The saints are all celebrated not on the days in which they are born, but the days they each died or the date of their burial. (115) According to a recent Wiki search: “The system arose from the early Christian custom of commemorating each martyr annually on the date of his or her death, or birth into heaven, a date therefore referred to in Latin as the martyr's dies natalis – ‘day of birth’.” (116) The new Christian theology, termed “the cult of the dead” would replace all that was sacred of the living. (117) The “blood of the martyrs” would become the “seed of the church” and the idea of “rebirth” would replace the original idea of “birth.” (118) This is proof positive that the church celebrates death, where the goddess worship celebrated life. If there is any doubt that war is a patriarchal function of the church state then consider the words of Heroclitus: “Strife is the father and king of all,” (119) and Earnst Junger: “The war, father of all things, is also our father.” (120) |
3.) The Right-hand Path, which equates in politics to fascism. Hitler said, at a Nazi Christmas celebration in 1926: “Christ was the greatest early fighter in the battle against the world enemy, the Jews ... The work that Christ started but could not finish, I -- Adolf Hitler -- will conclude.” 4.) The acquisition of personal property and the emphasis of the survival of the “family.” In previous cultures which were matriarchal, the property was held communally for the good of everyone, and the “family” was the tribe itself, with women given primary consideration. Politically, this would be more akin to communism, however, no form of communism has been implemented which did not have capitalism at its basic foundation. 5.) The mechanistic manufacture of products, with an emphasis toward quantity rather than quality. The need to produce more and acquire more because now the male is separated from the clan and must produce means to support his own small clan, instead of working collectively within the larger clan. Hence competition among one’s own 3rd or 4th generation removed, clan, is an inevitability. (121) The transition to patriarchy needed the additional boost of the mythologies in order to promote their ideas to the common people so the Olympian God pantheon of Greece and later Rome, would set the stage for the needed changes in philosophy. Women previously fathered children at random from the community, with no paternity knowledge. This was likely done in celebrations and orgies through the fertility festivals, where women would sleep with multiple partners and no single man could lay claim to the child as “his property.” The new mythologies would allow men to be held as the head of the household and looked upon as gods in the home. As Robert Graves puts it, the son of God would find his role in the “Thunder Child,” “Axe-Child” and “Hammer-Child.” (122) (114) The Serpent and the Goddess, p. 36-37) (115) ibid, p. 48-9; Padraig O Riain, "St. Finbarr: A Study in a Cult," Journal of the Cork Archaeological and Celtic Society 82, no. 236 (1977):63-82, 69-70 (116) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calendar_of_saints (117) Bethada Naem nErenn:Lives of the Irish Saints, 2:257, 277; Vitae Sanctorum Hiberniae, ed. Charles Plummer, 2 vols. Oxford:Oxford Univ. Press, 1910), 1:cxxvii (118) The Serpent and the Goddess, p. 178 (119) ibid, p. 194; (Quoted in Girard, Violence and the Sacred, p. 88) (120) ibid, p. 196; (Cited in Leed, No Man's Land, p. 153) (121) The Great Cosmic Mother (122) The White Goddess, p. 388-89 |