Religious beliefs and sacramental practices of the original natives of North and South America are a link to the human preliterate past. Until the 1950s it was commonly assumed by the dominant European-derived culture that the religious worlds of the surviving indigenous peoples of the Americas were little more than curious anachronisms. Today the situation has changed dramatically. Scholars of religion, students of the ecological sciences, and individuals committed to expanding and deepening their own religious lives have turned to these traditions

However, five hundred years of political, economic, and religious domination have taken their toll. Scholars take notice when complex ceremonies become extinct, but often community members mourn even more the disappearance of small daily rituals and of religious vocabularies and grammars embedded in traditional languages, the erosion of sacred memories that include formal sacred narratives and the myriad informal strands that once composed these tightly woven ways of life. Nevertheless, there are instances of remarkable continuity with the past, as well as remarkably creative adaptation to the present and anticipation of the future.

Religion is a term that untrained natives find difficult, often impossible, to translate into their own traditional languages. This apparent incongruity arises from differences in cosmology and epistemology. Western tradition distinguishes religious thought and action as that whose ultimate authority is supernatural, which is to say, beyond, above, or outside both phenomenal nature and human reason. In most indigenous worldviews there is no such antithesis. Plants and animals, clouds and mountains, carry and embody revelation. Even where native tradition conceives of a realm, or world, apart from the terrestrial one; such as the ethereal Underworlds of Pueblo cosmologies, the boundaries between these worlds are permeable. The ontological distance between land and sky, or between land and underworld, is short and is traversed in both directions.

Instead of a duality of sacred and profane, indigenous religious traditions seem to conceive only of sacred and more sacred. Mere inert, profane matter is not defined; spirit, power, or something akin, moves in all, though not equally.

For native communities, religion in its radical sense of that which binds you "natural world" of flora and fauna; other visible entities that are not animate by Western standards, such as mountains, springs, lakes, and clouds; and entities that are not normally visible, but are understood to inhabit and affect either this world or some other world contiguous to it-what scholars of religion might denote as "mythic beings."

Diversity and Common Themes

Because religions of this kind are so highly localized, it is impossible to determine exactly how many exist in Native North America,, now, or may have existed at any given time in the past. Distinct languages in North America at the time of the first European contact are often estimated in the vicinity of 300. Linguists have variously grouped them into some 30 to 50 families. There is, consequently, great diversity among these traditions. For instance, Iroquois Longhouse elders speak frequently about the Creator's "Original Instructions" to human beings, using male gender references and attributing to this divinity not only the planning and organizing of creation but qualities of goodness, wisdom, and perfection that are reminiscent of the Christian deity. By contrast, the Koyukon universe is notably decentralized. Raven, whom Koyukon narratives credit with the creation of human beings, is only one among many powerful entities in the Koyukon world. He exhibits such human weaknesses as lust and pride, is neither all-knowing nor all-good, and teaches more often by counterexample than by his wisdom (see Trickster).

A similarly sharp contrast is seen in Navajo and Pueblo ritual. Most traditional Navajo ceremonies are enacted on behalf of individuals in response to specific needs. Most Pueblo ceremonial work is communal, both in participation and in perceived benefit, and is scheduled according to natural cycles. Still, the healing benefits of a Navajo-sing naturally spread through the families of all those participating, while the communal benefits of Pueblo ceremonial work naturally redound to individuals.

Thus, there is no such thing as a generic "Native American religion." Attempts to understand these religious traditions en masse are bound to produce oversimplification and distortion. Instead, it maybe useful to consider a list of broad characteristics that seem to pertain to the religious lives of many indigenous North American communities.

Religious practices are localized. Place is important. Traditional knowledge includes detailed knowledge, built and maintained through generations of oral communication and memory, about visible and invisible other-than-human inhabitants of a place. Access to some kinds of knowledge is restricted. In many traditions, not only actions but words and thoughts are understood to have power in the world. Some knowledge may be considered so powerful and dangerous that a process of instruction and initiation is required for those who will use it.

Participation is more important than belief. Arguments about doctrinal truth are largely absent from most Native North American religious traditions. Good-hearted participation in the ceremonial and everyday work of the community is the main requirement, though knowledgeable people with considerable life experience may discuss such matters informally.

Kinship obligations are central. Cooperation with and devotion to one's kin is a central part of small-scale societies. Teaching proper behavior toward others, which is defined by one's relationship to them, is an essential part of child-rearing. These cultural practices are religious as well, because one will be expected to treat the entire world, one's other-than-human relatives, one's very life, in the same way one has learned to treat one's human relatives.

Generosity is a religious act as well as a social one. The value of generosity is perhaps most dramatically figured in the northern practice known in English as Giveaway, or in the Potlatch ceremony of the Northwest Coast peoples. Human beings are taught to give eagerly because in so doing they imitate the generosity of the many other-than-human entities who provide for human sustenance.

A community's oral narratives constitute a record of human interaction with other-than-human beings, powers, and entities in a place. In addition to the more solemn genres, such as creation stories and migration narratives, these may include moralistic stories, family histories, instruction meant to teach traditional skills, and many kinds of jokes.

Death is a transition. Attitudes and beliefs about death, and ritual responses to it, are among the more heterogeneous aspects of Native American religious life. Many Native American traditions appear to conceive of human beings as complex entities that bind together different kinds of essences, breaths, or spirits. These may undergo divergent outcomes after death. After death some of these essences may be harmful for living people to encounter without ceremonial protection.

Joking, clowning, and other forms of entertainment are integral parts of many ceremonial events and settings, either formally or informally. Sometimes such performances are a means of shaming individuals into correcting troublesome behavior, but they may also be employed simply to spread happiness and lighten moods.

Significant achievements and life-passages are meant to be shared by relatives and community. Various forms of coming-of-age and initiation ceremonies make up a large portion of the ritual repertoire of many American Indian traditions. These ceremonies provide structures for instruction in traditional knowledge, but more importantly they reintegrate an individual into kin, community, and cosmos when new status is attained.

NORTH AMERICA

Historical Change

A serious misconception about Native North American religions is that they once existed in a changeless "Golden Age," before the European invasion, and that what happened later can only be described as degeneration. This view probably owes much to the misgivings of many 19th-century Europeans over the deep changes wrought on their own societies by the Industrial Age. Change, borrowing, and innovation are characteristic of any living religion, but indigenous communities relied on strands of oral communication to maintain both continuity and the memory of change, and Euro-American observers were ill-equipped to notice and record these sources.

At the same time, the changes that visited Native America in the wake of the European invasion were massive, unprecedented, and mostly destructive. Whole languages, and with them ceremonies, narratives, and oral libraries of accumulated knowledge about human and natural history and humor were lost. Even the most earnest and energetic efforts of younger women and men today to rejuvenate traditional ways can seem pale and pathetic to those who remember earlier days.

Fortunately, some elders reject this pessimism, citing this story There was a community where a Snake Dance was once performed, but the ceremony became extinct. Anthropologists expressed alarm, but an elder insisted that people should not be disturbed. "If it was lost it was because we didn't need it any more," he said. "If we really need it back again, the snakes will teach it to us again. It was they who taught it to us in the first place."

Sometimes, however, disruption is so catastrophic that individuals and communities must respond with fresh, powerful visions that transplant the germ of past wisdom into entirely new seedbeds. When it succeeds, such inspiration can meld tradition and innovation in surprisingly effective ways. Two such examples are the Native American Church, sometimes known as the Peyote Church, and the Ghost Dance movement. The Native American Church, based on an ancient ritual of central Mexico has been blended with Christian influences and spread in part through the medium of government-run Indian schools, is the only native religious tradition that has become truly portable, spreading from coast to coast. Although the Ghost Dance tradition ended in tragedy in 1890, it was for a time a powerful expression of both hope and despair as the Euro-American conquest of the continent neared completion. It has been revived in recent times.

A third type of response to religious disintegration can be seen in American Indian Christian congregations. In some instances conversion to Christianity was enforced, with dire penalties for refusal. In other cases it appears to have been accepted voluntarily, out of sincere devotion to the missionaries and their message. In yet other cases, it was probably accepted for a more practical mix of reasons. Often conversion meant an increased chance for physical survival, regardless of how sincere it was. Once physical survival and a degree of stability were established, many congregations of Native Christians began to recast their faith and practice to include aspects of traditional views and values. Kinship obligations, sharing of resources, and a general emphasis on community in preference to individualistic approaches to salvation, have been some of these Native Christian adaptations. In some cases traditional language and symbolism have been incorporated into Christian worship as well.

Issues and Concerns

Today American Indian traditionalists still believe that the values, knowledge, narrative traditions, and the ritual worlds they were taught, however compromised by historical loss and the demands of modern life, are vital to the inner survival of their communities-their human relatives and their other-than-human relatives as well. While it is undeniable that much has already been irrevocably lost, all but the most pessimistic find much to work toward and fight for in the present. Key issues include the following:

Access to, and Control of, Sacred Sites. Many locations used for ceremonial purposes, or considered to be the home of powerful entities, have been disrupted and contaminated by recreational activities and economic exploitation. This has been especially problematic when it occurs on public lands, as in the cases of Devil's Tower in Wyoming, Mt. Shasta in California, and Mt. Graham in Arizona. In the case of Lyng v. Northwest Indian Cemetery Protective Association (1988), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the disturbance of religion need not be weighed against economic benefit in determining how public lands are to be used.

The Survival of Traditional Native American Languages.

Apart from the Native American Church and Native Christian congregations, most American Indian traditionalists believe that ceremonial work and traditional knowledge are authentic and potent only when conducted in traditional languages. Yet most of these languages are eroding rapidly and among persons under 40 are nearly extinct. In oral tradition societies, it is vital that each generation identify and train individuals to memorize this knowledge and so carry it forward. Wide swaths of this knowledge can disappear with startling speed when there are no young people fluent enough to accomplish this. Some communities are trying urgently to arrest this trend; for others it is already too late.

The Return of Sacred Beings Taken Illegally and Held as "Objects" in Museums.

In some cases great harm is thought to have resulted from these ignorant holdings and displays, to the museums and their visitors, as well as to the native people who are the proper caretakers of these beings. It is important to understand that for indigenous traditionalists there are items, such as certain masks, that are alive, extremely powerful, and dangerous when not treated with proper ceremonial care. They are certainly not, as observers of the culture might assume, merely inanimate objects imbued with symbolic significance. The physical remains of deceased Indian persons fall into a different but related category of powerful "objects" not to be removed from their proper places and studied or displayed.

The Irresponsible Use of Traditional Religious Knowledge.

There are two issues here distorted or inaccurate representation of traditional knowledge, and the unsanctioned use of that knowledge, even when it is accurately represented. Scholars and New Age enthusiasts alike are accused of both these kinds of abuse. In native communities the exchange of knowledge, like any other exchange, is meant to be reciprocated. A growing number of anthropologists know this and do their best to honor it, but many still do not. The record is far worse for promoters of New Age imitations of indigenous practice, regardless of whether they have American Indian blood.

The Corrosive Effects of Modern Economic Life Upon Traditional Values and Practices.

At the close of the 20th century, most citizens of Western nations such as Canada and the United States find that spare time, even time for weekly religious observance, has become scarce. Indigenous traditional knowledge, however, is best learned slowly. There are many young adults in First Nations communities who strongly wish to participate in traditional religious life, but the pressures of job and school make it impossible to devote enough time to learning and practicing the requisite language, natural history, traditional narratives, and ceremonial procedures. These needs are best being met in communities with strong resolve, where internal divisions have been softened, and where elders and young people are working together. Today many American Indian youth show strong interest in traditional knowledge. Some are learning to use new technology and other skills to develop innovative means for learning and maintaining that knowledge. The results will differ from the traditions known and loved by today's elders when they were young, but Native North American religious life continues as a viable and ongoing tradition of religious thought and practice.

South America

The religious life of indigenous South American peoples is vibrant and varied. Linguists have described as many as 1,500 distinct languages and native cultures in South America. Many peoples have suffered physical and cultural extinction since the first contact with Europeans. Very few surviving communities have not been influenced by Christian missionaries. For centuries Roman Catholicism was the dominant Christian influence on Native American peoples. In the 20th century, various forms of Protestant Christianity have taken hold, especially evangelical and Pentecostal. Nevertheless, indigenous religious ideas and practices have endured, even in communities that have long had involvement with Christian beliefs.

In many of these cases Christian views have been creatively absorbed and reframed within native world-views. In some instances, native myths have borrowed Christian features in order to offer a criticism of Christianity, putting forward Christ-like supernatural heroes who led rebellions against colonial rule and missionary zeal.

A sense of the nature and variety of religious life in South America can be conveyed by examining beliefs about creation, practices associated with the calendar and with the initiation of new adults, forms of special religious authority, and prophetic movements responding to the end of the world.

Creation Myths

Creation mythologies play a singularly important role in the religious life of many South American tribes. These myths describe the origin of the first world and its fate and sometimes include narratives of the creation and destruction of subsequent worlds.

These narratives differ in their details Some creations are the work of a supreme being, and some involve creation from nothing while others involve creation from a pre-existing substance. It is important to note that many of these creation myths describe in dramatic ways the exit of the creative beings. They may be driven off, or sent into the sky in the form of stars, or move off into the forest, or take refuge in other levels of the universe, and the manner of their disappearance figures in the ritual celebrations that commemorate it.

The myths of multiple world-destruction place a great question mark at the beginning of existence. Why should powerful worlds fall prey to disaster? Why should beings so perfect and powerful suffer destruction? The religious life of many South American peoples places this kind of question at the foundation of religious experience. Rather than providing resolving answers to such questions, the mythsof multiple destruction install the questions themselves as fundamental.

Calendrical Practices

Scenarios of universal catastrophe and destruction mark the passage of time and can thereby lead to the institution of the calendar. The most obvious calendrical marker of time that arises from universal catastrophe and disaster is the procession of stars. South American mythologies consistently join the death of primordial beings (often later known in the form of animals) with cataclysmic destructions of the first worlds and the ascent of the stars into the heavens. For example, the Makiritare of the Orinoco River region in Venezuela tell how the stars, led by Wlaha, were forced to ascend on high when Kuamachi, the evening star, sought to avenge the death of his mother. Kuamachi and his grandfather induced Wlaha and the other stars to climb into Dewaka trees to gather the ripe fruit. When Kuamachi picked the fruit, it fell and broke open. Water spilled out and flooded the forest. With his powerful thought Kuamachi created a canoe in which he and his grandfather escaped. Along the way they created deadly water animals such as the anaconda, the piranha, and the caiman. One by one Kuamachi shot down the stars of heaven from the trees on which they were lodged. They fell into the water and were devoured by the animals. After they were gnawed and gored into different ragged shapes, the survivors ascended into the sky on a ladder of arrows. There the stars took their proper places and began shining.

Initiation

Ceremonial initiation into adulthood is widely practiced among South American peoples, both for males and females. Many of the religious themes mentioned earlier are present in the initiation rites, for initiation is seen as a kind of new creation, the dawn of a new epoch. Initiation itself is often timed to occur in special moments of powerful change in the calendar. In this way the change in the human individual is aligned with fundamental changes in the cosmos and in society. In order for this change in the human being to be effective, it must align with the powerful and momentous changes that are occurring in the primordial world.

The Baniwa of the Northwest Amazon region of Brazil seclude girls during their initiation. The girls' bodies are covered with heron down and red paint, and each girl is hidden inside two baskets. The elders deliver dramatic speeches and whip the initiate in order to open her skin. Pepper is touched to her lips, a small hole is made in the dirt floor, and she spits into it. She is introduced to various kinds of food, over which chants are sung. The baskets are opened, the girl steps forth, and she is decorated and paraded around to the accompaniment of musical instruments and chants.

All of these actions commemorate events that occurred in the mythic first world. At that time a formless water serpent named Amaru was the first female being. A band of her female followers stole ritual flutes called Kuai from the males of that age and initiated Amaru by placing her in a basket while they blessed food for her. Insects and worms tried to penetrate the basket, and eventually a small armadillo succeeded in tunneling through the earth into the center of the women's house. The creator, Yaperikuli, led the men through this tunnel, and the resulting union of males and females marked the beginning of fertile life and the origin of species of all kinds. Thus an individual girl's initiation is brought into alignment with this cosmic fertility.

Male initiations often borrow or allude to a symbolism of female reproduction, by reference to menstruation in the symbolism or procedure of the rite or by representing the initiation as a new conception and gestation of the initiate. As the generation of new life is at the heart of initiation, the biological and the ritual here intersect in deeply meaningful ways.

Forms of Religious Authority

Initiations are also used to mark the ascent of individuals into positions of religious authority. Priests, diviners, and spirit mediums play special roles in religious life. The precise kinds of authority exercised by them in the community, however, varies greatly across South America.

The Shaman.

Prominent in many parts of South America is the religious specialist in states of ecstasy, commonly referred to by the term shaman. The shaman is one who learns to control the passage of the soul out of and back into the body. As a general practitioner of the arts of the soul, however, the shaman in South America not only controls the ecstasy of his or her own soul but is devoted also to the knowledge and care of the souls of others. The length of shamanic training varies widely from one South American culture to another. Among the Arecuna and Taulipang, Cariban groups of Venezuela and Brazil, the shamanic novitiate was reported to last from ten to twenty years. In other traditions, by contrast, knowledge might be transmitted to the novice in relatively brief but intense periods of ecstasy. The types of knowledge imparted may include the use of different forms of fire (such as ritual fires, or sparks struck from special elements, or the light contained in bright crystals); the use of musical instruments; the mastery of primordial sounds (which have the power to recreate the bodies of suffering patients, or to reorder the seasons in order to overcome drought or famine); esoteric languages, and sacred songs.

Shamanic education usually takes place under the direction of a master. That master may be a human shaman who is accomplished and practiced, or the master may be a supernatural being. Among the Makiritare of Venezuela, the sacred songs (Ademi) were taught to shamans at the beginning of time by sadashe (masters of animals and prototypes of the contemporary animal species), who cut down the tree of life; survived the subsequent flood; cleared the first garden; and celebrated the first new harvest festival.

In order to preserve their power, the Ademi must be repeated in the exact phonetic pattern in which the sadashe first revealed them.

The Shaman's Rattle is a Most Sacred Instrument in South America.

Through its sounds, its structural features, its contents, and its connection to shamanic ecstasy, the rattle embodies the sum total of the sacred forces of the cosmos. The rattle's various parts may symbolize the structures of the world. The original of the shaman's rattle of the Warao (of the Orinoco Delta in Venezuela) was brought back to earth after the primordial mythic shaman ascended to the heavenly realm to visit the spirit of the south, from whom the rattle is a gift. The handle is the vertical path that rises into the heavenly vault. The heavenly realm is represented by the great head-gourd of the rattle that contains spirits. Joining the handle to the head represents the joining of male and female elements in the universe, an act of fertilization that gives the sounds of the instrument creative power. Safeguarding the rattle and playing it properly during ritual fulfils the destiny of the human spirit to sustain the order of existence.

Shamanic performances are generally theatrical. The shaman's cure is miraculous, something to see. It is a deliberate exhibition of normally invisible powers and it aims to astonish spectators and compel them to admire what is real and, therefore, life-giving.

VOODOO/HOODOO AFRO-CARRIBIBEAN SHAMANIC RELIGION

We do not suggest that Voodoo or Hoodoo are in any way related to Wicca or its European predecessors. Voodoo is also spelled Voudou, French Vaudou, it is the national religious folk cult of Haiti. It is found throughout the Carribean and some southern states of the USA. It is also somewhat common to northern South America.

Voodoo is a mixture of Roman Catholic ritual elements, which date from the period of French colonization, and African theological and magical elements, which were brought to Haiti by slaves formerly belonging to the Yoruba, Fon, Kongo, and other peoples of Africa. The term voodoo is derived from the word vodun, which denotes a god, or spirit, in the language of the Fon people of Benin (formerly Dahomey).

Beliefs

Although voodooists profess belief in a rather distant supreme God, the effective divinities are a large number of spirits called the loa, which can be variously identified as local or African gods, deified ancestors, or Catholic saints. The loa are believed to demand ritual service, which thereby attaches them to individuals or families. The loa are thought by voodoo devotees to act as helpers, protectors, and guides to people.

Rituals

In voodoo ritual services, a number of devotees congregate at a temple, usually a humble meeting place, where a priest or priestess leads them in ceremonies involving song, drumming, dance, prayer, food preparation, and the ritual sacrifice of animals. The voodoo priest, or houngan, and the priestess, or mambo, also act as counselors, healers, and expert protectors against sorcery or witchcraft.

The loa communicate with an individual during the cult services by possessing him during a trance state in which the devotee may eat and drink, perform stylized dances, give supernaturally inspired advice to people, perform medical cures, or display special physical feats like limbo. These acts exhibit the incarnate presence of the loa within the entranced devotee. Many urban Haitians believe in two sharply contrasting sets of loas, a set of wise and benevolent ones called Rada loas; and a harsher, more malevolent group of spirits called Petro loas. Petro spirits are called up by more agitated or violent rituals than those evoked by the Rada spirits.

A peculiar, and much sensationalized, aspect of voodoo is the zombi. A zombi is regarded by voodooists as being either a dead person's disembodied soul that is used for magical purposes, or an actual corpse that has been raised from the grave by magical means and is then used to perform agricultural labor in the fields as a sort of will-less automaton. In actual practice, certain voodoo priests do appear to create "zombis" by administering a particular poison to the skin of a victim, who then enters a state of profound physical paralysis for a number of hours.

For decades the Roman Catholic church in Haiti denounced voodoo and even advocated the persecution of its devotees, but because voodoo has remained the chief religion of at least 80 percent of the people in Haiti, the Catholic church by the late 20th century seemed resigned to coexisting with the cult.

White magic is good magic; it helps people for whom it is performed. The contrast is with black magic which is intended to harm the person against whom it is practiced. The range of rituals in Vodoo is enormous. All this ritual is directed through priests or preistesses. The lead prayers, and trance dancing by the younger. Modern science would say that their power comes from belief turned into what is called a form of hysteria. Nevertheless, to the "believer" its power may be a form of reality.

Prophetic Movements and Eschatology

Religious ideas and practices associated with the end of the world abound in South America (compare millennialism). Eschatological movements have swept across South America since the time of European contact and, most probably, long before. Many of the movements of resistance to colonialism have taken the form of messianic revolts led by millennial prophets and saviors.

For example, among various Guarani groups in Paraguay, shamans led groups on messianic pilgrimages, seeking to find the Land Without Evil. The very existence of the Land Without Evil offered the Guaran� hope, security, and courage in the face of the hunger, sickness, and death that followed the Conquest.

As these eschatological groups succumbed to failure,they concluded that, on their paths to paradise, they had been overtaken by Peqo-Achy, the weight of accumulating imperfections that blot out the light of the sun and weigh humans down so that they are incapable of ecstatic flight into the Land With out Evil.

The South Americans' propensities for eschatological thinking and behavior have found some common ground in some of the eschatological thinking of Christianity, especially of fundamentalists Christian sects that emphasize this aspect of their tradition. There is no doubt that the religious life of South American Indians continues creatively to absorb and reinterpret elements in the world of contemporary experience.

AFRICAN MEDITATIVE TRADITIONS

Duchan Gersi, the explorer/author who lived with remote tribes in Africa, Java, and South America, cautions us that it is a mistake to see tribesmen as primitive, backward, ignorant, naive, acting from instinct, lacking intelligence, and believing in false realities.

Gersi prefers to call them "peoples of tradition." By peoples of tradition, he means all the remaining societies and tribal grouping who live "following age-old traditions instead of moving with the flow of the twentieth century, and which remain outside the modern world.

Although every tribe could be said to have its own meditation traditions and religious beliefs, Gersi and others have identified certain com�mon, core beliefs.

KONGO - SHANGO MEDITATION

1 Select an outdoors location where you won't be disturbed.

Kongo altar meditations are best performed in nature, where the spirits and gods are at play.

2 Lay the cloth over a table or a special piece of furniture or even a large rock.

3. Sit, stand, or kneel as you feel most comfortable, relax with a few breaths.

4.Ask forgiveness and grace from your ancestral spirits.

5.Visualize a male figure dressed in fiery red robes, on his head, crowns of beads. He holds a double-headed ax in one hand, rattles in the others, gourds hang from thongs around his neck. (This is Shango, the thunder god, one of the orisha. The double�headed ax he holds is called the ashe shanga and represents both judgment and balance. This symbolizes Shango's position as messenger of moral judgment.)

6.Meditate on Shango's significance as representing balance, fairness, and the thunder stroke of judgment when Shango finds we have perpetrated imbalance or unfairness.

7.Let any thoughts, feelings, and images this meditation stirs surface in your mind.

8.When they have subsided and your mind is empty of all but the image of Shango, silently thank the thunder god and your ancestral sprits for any insights this has brought. End your meditation.

THE PRIMITIVE VARIETIES OF MEDITATIVE EXPERIENCE

The famous cave paintings of Cro Magnon man suggest a desire on the part of the hunter to understand and to identify with the hunted animal. Native American tradition suggests a similar union of pursuer and pursued. Anyone who has read Eugene Herrigal's Zen in the Art of Archery will see the similarity between contemporary Zen practice and these ancient and traditional modes of thought and feeling.

Dismissed by industrialized nations as primitive tribal superstitions, the manifold religious and meditative traditions of Africa, Australia, the Americas and elsewhere are only just being discovered in the West. Recently a few American and European writers have begun to base their own spiritual research on the teachings of tribal peoples. Carlos Castaneda's many books on the spirit world are based on conversations with a Mexican Native American brujo (male witch), Don Juan.

Still, and all, compared with the thousands of books available in English about Christian or Muslim or Buddhist meditation, only a handful have as yet been devoted to traditional beliefs and practices.

Here we will look, very briefly, at traditional practice in Africa and the Americas.

NATIVE AMERICANS - EVERYTHING HAS A SPIRIT

The native peoples of North and South America have a diverse range of spiritual and meditation traditions. The traditions have existed for centuries, and are beginning to get the attention of spiritual seekers of all backgrounds. It's not possible to explore any of them in detail, so what follows must be an all-too-brief summary of some elements common to most Native American meditation practices.

Living in close contact with nature, many Native Americans felt that everything that could be seen or touched,l iving or inanimate, has a spirit. The cornstalk, the tortoise-shell rattle, boulders and the mighty moun�tains are significant and alive. They symbolize the spirits that give them form and life. There is no separation between the sacred and secular aspects of life.

WICCA A MODERN PAGAN RELIGION - BASED ON ANCIENT TRADITIONS

Based on pre-Christian (Pagan) traditions of northern and western Europe, Wicca is a predominantly Western movement whose followers practice witchcraft and nature worship. Males and females, they see it as a religion. It spread through England in the 1950s and subsequently attracted followers in Europe and the United States.

Origins and Beliefs

Although there were precursors to the movement, the origins of modern Wicca can be traced to a retired British civil servant, Gerald Brousseau Gardner (1884-1964). Gardner spent most of his career in Asia, where he became familiar with a variety of occult beliefs and magical practices. He also read widely in Western esoteric literature, including the writings of the British occultist Aleister Crowley. Returning to England shortly before the outbreak of World War II, Gardner became involved in the British occult community and founded a new movement based on a reverence of nature, the practice of magic, and the worship of a female deity (the Goddess) and numerous associated deities (such as the Horned God). He also borrowed liberally from Western witchcraft traditions.

Following the 1951 repeal of England's archaic Witchcraft Laws, Gardner published Witchcraft Today (1954), founded his first coven of followers, and, with input from its members, especially author Doreen Valiente, developed modern witchcraft into what today is known as Wicca. It spread quickly to the United States in the late 1960s, when an emphasis on nature, unconventional lifestyles, and a search for spirituality divorced from traditional religions was especially in vogue.

Covens, which ideally number 10 to 15 members and are entered through an initiation ritual. They sometime align with one of many coven associations. As coven members master the practice of magic and become familiar with the rituals, they pass through two degrees of initiation. There is a third degree for those who wish to enter the priesthood. In Gardner's system priority is given to the priestess. Leaders in the Gardnerian community trace their authority through a lineage of priestesses back to Gardner's coven.

Despite variation within the Wiccan community, most believers share a general set of beliefs and practices. They believe in the Goddess, respect nature, and hold both polytheistic and pantheistic views. Most Wiccans accept the so-called Wiccan Rede, an ethical code that states "If it harm none, do what you will." Wiccans believe in meditation and participate in rituals throughout the year, celebrating the new and full moon, as well as the vernal equinox, summer solstice, and Halloween, which they call Samhain. Wiccan rites include invoking the aid of the deities, practicing ceremonial magic, and sharing a ritual meal.

Most controversial to outsiders is that Wiccans call themselves witches. Though inaccurate or wrong, this term to most Westerners identifies with Satanism. As a result, Wiccans are continually forced by the ignorance of others to be denying any connection with Satan or devil worship. Wiccans have also attempted to establish ties with other polytheistic (Hindu) and nature-oriented (Native American) religious communities.

Later Developments

By the 1980s there were an estimated 50,000 Wiccans in western Europe and North America. Although the growth rate slowed by the end of the decade, Wicca gained increasing social acceptance and diversified to include numerous variations on Gardner's original teachings and rituals. Moreover, new Wiccan groups emerged independent of the Gardnerians, including one led by Alexander Sanders (1926-1988), the Dianic Wiccans who saw Wicca as a woman's religion, and a parallel Neo-Pagan movement, which also worshipped the Goddess and practiced witchcraft but eschewed the designation witch.

A major controversy developed in the United States in the 1960s and 1970s, when a faction of Wiccans broke with Gardner's notion that clothes inhibited magical workings and chose not to follow his practice of worshiping in the nude. Instead they donned ritual robes, claiming pre-Gardnerian sources for their beliefs, and called themselves Traditionalists.

As Wicca and Neo-Paganism moved into their a second generation, there was diminution of the belief that Gardner had inherited a set of witchcraft rituals and practices that had been passed on through a tradition with unbroken ties to pre-Christian paganism. Although many Wiccans once cited the work of Margaret Murray, including The Witch-Cult in Western Europe (1921) and her article "Witchcraft" published in the 14th edition of Encyclop�dia Britannica (1929), in support of their belief in the ancient origins of their religion, they now generally recognize that modern Wicca began with Gardner and his associates.

As the 21st century began, Wiccans and Neo-Pagans were found throughout the English-speaking world and across northern and western Europe. Two international fellowships, the Pagan Federation and the Universal Federation of Pagans, now serve the larger Wiccan/Neo-Pagan community.

Neo Pagan Traditions

Neo-Paganism is a generic term for many different traditions. Neo-Paganism is Druidism; Norse Paganism; Asatru, and others. All are revivals of ancient traditions of polytheism or duo-theism. They seek not to dominate the world but to honor it and to celebrate the seasons as one celebrates other holidays. They open the doors to multiple deities, multiple spiritual powers and multiple ways to worship. They share the common understanding that love and compassion are God's way.

Because much disinformation has been purveyed by the hucksters of male-dominated institutional religions as a way to attack the devote believers in God who did not believe in the same way. The MeetingHouse finds it necessary to add as "another" voice by way of some historical commentary about the travesties of truth and justice done by men of God as a way to prevent women and others from exalting their love of God in their own way.

MALE DOMINANCE OF RELIGION MUST END TO SAVE THE PLANET EARTH FROM THE WRONGFUL ACTS OF MEN; RELIGION MUST REQUIRE NEW VOICES TO GUIDE RELIGION.

In the Beginning Yahweh, A Male God, Created Man Who Owned Woman.

Worse, According to Tertullian, a Leading Early Christian - Woman is the Gateway to Hell. The Genesis detailed in Western Religion's Great work - that man owned woman. The Bible - May be a fraud. In it requires Adam to list woman as among his property, along with his ass and house. The biblical Hebrew word for wife, Beulah, meant "owned." Man Owned Woman. Yahweh sentenced Adam and all his descendants to labor to return to Eden. The message is clear. Because of Eve's transgression, humans would know pain, hardship, suffering, and death.

This Yahewist edict was a momentous turnabout with far� reaching consequences for Western womanhood. In prehistory, before the writing of the Word woman had been pri�marily associated with life and the nurturing of it in previous prehistoric cultures. Now Man - The Males - blamed Woman for -immortality - the inevitable death of every human. Eve's punishment was most severe. She alone, among the planet's myriad creatures, would bear children with great difficulty and high mortality. Worse, she lost her freedom permanently. Was this slavery? No, slavery was a higher status station in life.

The Old Testament dictates that masters must emancipate their slaves after seven years of servi�tude (Deut. 1512) but women are to serve a lifetime of subjugation.

In this sen�tence Yahweh appears excessively mean-spirited. In light of the circumstances under which Adam and Eve disobeyed God. Eve's decision to transgress was made before she had eaten the magic fruit. Obviously, she could not even have known the difference between good and evil when she acted.

A few passages later, Cain kills Abel. Cain knew well that murder was evil (due to his mother's actions), yet Yahweh treats him with unmistakable compassion like a parent disciplining a wayward but beloved child. Yahweh banishes Cain, but when the youth protests, Yahweh reconsiders and marks Cain's forehead to protect him from harm. In these two morality tales less than one page apart, Yahweh judges murder by a man a less egregious crime than disobedience by a woman.

Yahweh knew that Adam and Eve were childlike in their innocence. Confronted by a minor, a compassionate judge will take into consideration the offender's inexperience. Why didn't Yahweh temper his punishment for Adam and Eve to more appropriately fit their crimes?

If Eve had let a fear of retribution overcome her desire to know, then the travail and triumph called the human experiment would have never begun. Curiosity is indispensable for the acquisition of wisdom, the search for which is at the heart of the Jewish culture that arose from the Old Testament. Yet in the very first interaction between mortals and their deity, Yahweh branded female curiosity the greatest sin. Much later, in the New Testament, there would be a listing of the seven deadly sins - Curiosity is NOT among them. Leonard Shlain, author of the great work - The Alphabet versus the Goddess, the Conflicts between Word and Image, pointed out that one of the turning points in pre-historic human development was the limitation on intelligence imposed by the size constraints of the bipedal hominid's female pelvis. The increasing need for bigger-brained babies resulted in many mothers dying during childbirth; it also produced the most intelligent ani�mals. Higher consciousness was traded for high death rates among birthing mothers. Men wanted heirs so they used their superior muscle strength to beat and abuse women into subjugation. It was, and is, common for men to rape women to spread their seed to desirable women. Some men have the temerity to call it ethnic cleansing. May God forbid Someday Soon !

In the Beginning - Hunters versus Gathers. Over one hundred thousand years ago Homo sapiens, the wise human, appeared. Despite our present civilization's far remove from the caves of Lascaux, we remain strongly influenced by the original neuro-design that bred eminently successful nomadic gatherer-hunters. The dichotomy between the left and right hemispheres mirrors the differences between hunter/killer and gatherer/nurturer strategies. Metaphorically, time is the masculine coordinate, and space is the feminine one. The poet William Blake wrote, "Time & Space are Real Beings, a Male & a Female. Time is a Man and Space is a Woman

The new human dual brain conferred upon early Homo sapiens an enormous evolutionary advantage. The right and left hemispheres can, on occasion, behave nearly independently, each one able to solve problems differently, each capable of its own decisions, memories, judgments, and actions. Intelligence is defined as a flexible response to varying stimuli. Splitting the brain into two separate functional units did not simply double the potential number of responses a human might have to a situation. Because of the constant feedback between the two lobes, hemispheric lateralization led to an almost infinite variety of responses, making our forebears supremely intelligent among animals. To many thoughtful people, it also seems to have created two subspecies of Homo sapiens-Woman and Man. One might speculate that the superior genetic pool of Homo (sapiens means Wise) was better equipped for war when they encountered the Neanderthal Man in Europe. Certainly, a genocide occurred.

Humans belong to that class of animals called "social predators.' Their hunting strategy resembles that used by wolf packs and lion prides. All members of the social unit hunt in concert to kill prey. The protracted childhoods of human young made female participation on these forays unfeasible. The all-male hunting party came into existence in our species only and with it the ethos of the left brain dominance.

The template for all male projects remains the hunting party, the ultimate purpose of which was to kill. Therein lay a very large problem. When the hunting party became an "army' the prey became other humans. War is such an exciting hunt! The hunting parties can be very large. The result has been a historical record pungent with the acrid smell of fear, havoc, and death.

The Logic of War May Be The Logic of Business

But No Longer Can That Be the Thinking that will

Preserve and Nurture our Planet -Earth.

Men and Women Think Differently About the Meaning of Life and Religion

Men and women often arrive at conclusions and plans of action differ�ently. Couples benefit from having access to each other's major hemispheric processes, which over time also strengthens their own personal minor mode. The blending of feminine knowing and masculine reason in each individual and each couple generates good sense. The leadership of politics and religion is not blessed by such conjoint knowledge. History shows that the way of Man alone is wanting. What humans need is the presence of women leaders at the council tables.

Common Sense Could Be Improved

In history, once the males took over, the template for all subsequent male projects remained the original hunting the greatest counterbalance to men's death-dealing impulse is to engage them in the lives of women and entangle them with their children. The most dangerous result of these all-male cultures bereft of the input from women is the loss of "common sense." The phrase "common sense" has several meanings. In one, it is the wisdom of all the senses, a holistic and simultaneous grasp of multiple converging determinants. In this meaning common sense is intuitive and is often the opposite of logic. In another meaning, it is the wis�dom of more than one person. It is the result of the give-and-take of face - to - �face conversation with another, which allows one to "hear oneself think' In this second meaning, common sense is wisdom generated "in common." We have arrived at the chaos emerging in the 21st century with the absence of common sense. Half the population is excluded from the governing of our churches and our secular governments.

Physical Anthropologists have discovered that women have between 10 percent and 33 percent more neuronal fibers in the forward part of their corpus callosum than do men. This part is considered the brain's highway of communication. The higher the number of connecting neurons, the greater must be the integration between the two sides. Women and most men freely concede that women are more aware of and can better express their feelings than men. The extra connecting neurons seem to enhance the communication of emotions and increase global awareness, field perception, and under�standing of the moods of offspring. Generally, women multi-task simultaneously better than men.

The male had the job of bringing home the protein that would produce more healthy growth among the offspring. The male has to pay a price for his relative isolation from his right-�brain emotions to gain the ability to shut out feelings that might otherwise have distracted him while he was engaged in the dangerous activity of hunting. The ability to focus on a single task and remain emotionless is a more desirable attribute for a hunter than are gestalt awareness and emotional depth. A detached subject/object split also allows a hunter to separate himself from the hunted. Although some tutorial training was necessary to stop his compassion for the beautiful buck that was being killed. The dispassion inherent in dualism, a viewpoint indispens�able for killing, is the opposite of a mother's binding love for her child.

Like the male and female members of a gatherer/nurturer-hunter/killer society, each hemisphere of the brain executes the tasks for which it is best suited. To ensure versatility in case of injury, each hemisphere has some capacity to perform the other side's functions. So, too, each sex of the human species can assume the other's main functions. Women not burdened with small children could and did hunt they, too, could kill quarry dispassionately. Some men were resourceful gatherers; they, too, could love. Nevertheless, in general, the majority of men excelled at hunting and killing, and the majority of women excelled at gathering and nurturing.

Though humans - male and female - are much alike; their genetic differences are a focus that we should consider when seeking out why males so feared the power of women and used their male-killing skills to kill the truth and plant the fraud that God is in the male image only.

Archaeology has until very recently been dominated by Caucasian Christian males so this clever censorship continues With a patronizing arrogance characteristic of Victorian times, these early pioneers easily dismissed the plentiful female statues as relics of a minor "fertility cult." They dismissed praying to a Goddess as minor and trivial. Still, major scholars did conclude that women had created Neolithic religion.

Cro-Magnon culture devel�oped agriculture, and controlled its products. Male scholars believed these factors explained the absence of military castes, central authority, and a science of warfare in Neolithic times. Archaeologists have not unearthed positive proof that Neolithic people ever fought organized wars. Except for the disappearance of Neanderthals probably by human hunters' genocide of the competing hunter- the Neanderthal.

But, the glaring truth is that the fertile female statues were much more than a part of a "cult"-They were icons of the Neolithic culture's major religion extant between 10,000 and 5,000 years ago. Tragically, over the course of the next 2,000 years, the Goddess's power and status rapidly disappeared. It was the power-seeking work of testosterone driven Male Warriors and their toadies the priests who derived meat from the hunt for their praise of male work. Warrior sky gods such as Yahweh were everywhere on the rise. The reign of patriarchy had begun. There was, and is, a relentless desire among many men to crush the female essence, both human and divine.

Leaders such as the warrior-class have always found that folkways are not easily censored. Female deities persisted in the West until the Roman Catholic Church attempted to merge them all into one - The Virgin Mary after they trashed the reputation of a good woman Mary Magdalene. As an example, of the power of the feminine well known to the Greco-Roman world we give you Demeter, a female deity, who had a number of counter parts in other world cultures.

The Goddess Demeter and Her Symbol of Fertility - The Pig

The soil of planet Earth has been associated with the Earth Mother." From time immemorial, the animals that enjoy immersing themselves in dirt have traditionally been under the aegis of the Goddess. The pig is a prime symbol of fertility in many cultures, it was Demeter's favorite animal; a sow often appeared at her side. Demeter was also the Goddess of health, birth and marriage. Isis, the Egyptian goddess of fertility, gave birth on the back of a pig. In the Wild, packs of roaming pigs are led by the oldest sow, making pigs one of the few animal societies that are organized as a matri�archy. We may be going through an epochal change where the influence of women is now in the ascendancy. Clearly the warriors work -Wars - has not been working well of late. Proscribing the pig for food was yet another way the males used to diminish female power. Today, pork, the other white meat, is no more unclean than any other slaughtered meat. It is a prejudice to think otherwise. Males in Israel fostered that prejudice. God as a female to worship was driven underground in the West. The burning of female witches was an example of how powerful this prejudice is.

The question of why is among the most puzzling of our time, except for envy of the more muscular male warriors. Around 5000 BC a semi-pastoral people called the Kurgan culture domesticated the horse in southern Russia. The Kurgan horsemen rode to war against peaceful agricultural settlements to the South killing the men, enslaving the women, and appropriating wealth and land. The Kurgan people then repressed Earth Goddess worship. These warriors supplanted Her with their sky gods. Even subjugated peoples such as the Hebrews tossed out the veneration of a female deity in order to foster war as highest status activity. Much of this action was probably career-building for men who saw a way to power by creating a vacuum where the power of womanhood had once been very important. It is to the credit of Asian men that they made some effort to retain female goddesses. But, the Asian religion also relegated women to a subjugated, servile, male dominated society. Some of the worst offenses against women continue to take place in modern Asian societies.

Wherever a more primitive people have come in contact with a more sophis�ticated culture, the change in values has inevitably flowed from the advanced to the primitive. In the case of the invading horsemen, the Goddess people were more advanced than the pastoral Kurgan people. The Kurgan herdsmen astutely appreciated the advantages of agricultural life and relinquished their nomadic ways. They settled down to lord over the conquered farm folk. But, why did not the Kurgan people pay homage to the Goddess? There is a subsequent example. When Rome conquered Greece, it co-opted the Greeks' sophisticated ways. Though Hellenized the Romans retained blood sacrifices and warrior-dominated religious rites. A few centuries later, after Visigoth and Ostrogoth warriors stormed the gates of Rome, they abandoned their polytheistic beliefs to embrace the new Christian religion of their enemies. Mongol hordes thoroughly destroyed Baghdad, a great center of Islamic culture and learning in the sack of 1348. Yet, Baghdad remained Muslim after the conquest, and Islam has become the majority religion in Outer Mongolia. The idea that Kurgan horsemen dethroned the Goddess does not adequately explain the pervasive onset of the subsequent five-thousand-year reign of patriarchy that has dominated religions and politics. Perhaps, child abuse and wife beating within - at hearth and home - was the stealth weapon used for dominance.

Anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss believed the decline of feminine values began as a result of the much earlier practice of bride barter which continues in some cultures. The tribal elders more often exchanged their very young girls than their older boys. It is proposed that once men began to think of women as commodities, men also began to appropriate their symbols - feminine deities. �The leading warriors promoted this male dominated worldview because war always needs its fresh recruits. We must be fair in this short review of the past. The Males did some good work in God's name. Yahweh the G-d without a name became a reality for the people of Israel. A misogynist named Moses brought the Mosaic Code to an unruly people. God's Law took humans another step toward being civilized. It is a valued curiosity that modern scholars appear to agree that the unknown writer of much of the early books of the Bible was a woman. This genius-author is known as the Yahewist. Some have even speculated that it may have been Bathsheba of King David's court. On the other hand, King David's tomb has never been found. Out of such stuff legends are made, perhaps obscurantists have distorted the truth.

The trials and tribulations of the progenitor family of Adam and Eve, through to the story of Noah are mythological. There are elements in the stories of the Garden of Eden, the Flood, and the Tower of Babel. Yet, it is known that these fables were probably appropriated from Mesopotamian culture by sycophants who though sincere in their beliefs were self-aggrandizing for their careers, as well.

The Book of Judges through the Book of Samuel provides compelling sto�ries about the reigns of, among others, Saul, David, and Solomon. There are valuable moral lessons. Still the similarity of these lessons to Zoroastrian theology about ethics from Persia suggests they are derivative. However, there is little question that these narratives are based on real, not fictional characters

The Abrahamic Origins of the Jews

The Jewish people originated as an identifiable group in approximately 1800 B.C. in "Ur of the Chaldea." It was a period of prosperity and advances in all the arts and sciences. Through conquest and military alliances, Hammurabi was piecing together a flourishing empire of which Ur was a major part. Hammurabi honored learning and used the written word to declaim his famous legal code he and those who followed were significantly affected by their Zoroastrian (Mazda and Amon) antecedents.

In the Bible, The patriarch, Abraham was disdainful of the stacked idols in his father's shop, and looked down on those who believed that something man�made could emanate the spirit of the divine. Witnessing daily the trans�formation of mute timber into gods and goddesses, Abram (Ibrahim?) might have experienced a growing aversion for idolatry in contrast to Yahweh.

Judaism A Male Dominated Religion, Today, and at Its Dawn.

Yahweh knew when transgressions against his law occurred and became wrathful. Each ancient Israelite estab�lished a personal relationship with Yahweh. All of His laws were written down and everyone knew them, since it was an absolute Judaic condition that every male be literate. Ignorance of the Law was no defense.

In the Fertile Crescent thirty-eight hundred years ago, worship was a critical human activity there was no word for religion in the Mesopotamian, Egyptian, or Hebrew languages because religion was not a separate category of daily living. After thousands of years breakthroughs began to occur. In 1888, Friedrich Nietzsche proclaimed "God is dead" because he observed that God had become only marginally relevant to the intellectual class. . Science, philosophy, psychology, and constitutional laws had dimin�ished God's role in the daily lives of most people. The re-awakening began to pick up pace. However, as far back as we know people have created sacred sanctuaries. But the Hebrews did not have this attachment to or reverence for sacred places. Considering the miraculous nature of what occurred at the foot of Mount Sinai, one might expect that the Hebrews would have marked the place with a shrine or temple. Yet to this day, scholars have not been able to determine the location of this legendary site.

It is likely that for Israelites the lack of such a place was practical. The nomadic Israelites considered no place holy because they had no homeland and were constantly on the move. The God they worshiped could not be tied to a single locale. Part of what made Yahweh a new idea for the western cultures was that unlike previous deities, He was everywhere. (The Chinese Taoist - Tao (God) does have obvious similarities.)

The Israelites believed that the Ten Commandments Yahweh gave them at Mount Sinai were their tribe's most precious possession. To honor this divine gift they constructed a wooden box in which to carry Yahweh's writ�ten words during their years of wandering. They called this box the Ark of the Covenant and considered it to be their Holy of Holies. The fact that the ark was portable may have been essential for the Hebrews due to the dangerous prejudice against them by other people. Before, we continue with this review of Western civilizations development of the male-prejudice, we should make a bow to a very important Aryan development in India.

THE WARRIOR-DOMINATED WORLD VIEW WAS PREVALENT

The Hindus

In the sub-continent of India, circa 1500 B.C., earlier cultures waned because warriors of Aryan stock, greatly influenced by the civilizations of the Fertile Crescent, made a long-term massive migration, over time over the Himalayas and descended upon the Indus plains. Over the next two hundred years the Aryans Warriors conquered most of the subcontinent of India and subjugated those who survived.

The Aryans who conquered India may have been unlettered; The Aryan invaders subsequently adapted the Semitic alphabet to the Sanskrit though older writings might have existed. The Vedas had passed from the lips of one generation to the next. Memorization and the oral traditions are very important to the Hindus even today. The Aryans grafted onto the ancient poems their own version of cosmic events superimposing their values on the locals. Still, a reading of the Vedas suggests the takeover of a barely literate, agricultural, but highly sophisticated, egalitar�ian society by a militaristic, patriarchal one. Stories within the Vedas that stress militaristic and heroic themes, such as the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, are likely Aryan additions. The Rig-Veda is India's oldest epic poem and contains glimpses of the culture as it existed before the arrival of the Aryan warriors It is important to our story to note that prior to the warrior incursion, women held considerable power and possessed the all-important right to own property. They participated freely at feasts and rituals. Widows could remarry. Polyandry was not uncommon. Drapad, a heroine in the Mahabharata was married to five brothers simultaneously. Women had prerogatives. The lingam and yoni, sculptural forms of human genitalia represent, respectively, the equal�ity of the male and the female generative forces. Despite the Aryans', Greeks', and Muslims' attempts to impose masculine left-brain dominated values on Indian cul�ture, they were only partially successful.

For hundreds of years, Western civilization was in the callused hands of Roman warrior-farmers. Virtually invincible in combat, the Romans ultimately conquered every people around the Mediterranean who had contributed to Western traditions. Though it was a slave supported society, for their citizens there was the adoption of Hellenistic traditions - for men only. They expanded the Greek notion of freedom to encompass what they called the Republic. The Romans, however, had a very restricted definition of what constituted a "public thing"

Only adult male landowners could participate in it. The Republic was such a boon to the males that this privileged group recip�rocated with intense loyalty. Paul of Pauline-Christianity was a Roman citizen who benefited in real ways during his sojourns. The social contract with men propelled the warriors of Rome to the far reaches of Europe, Asia Minor, and Africa. If only the vanquished could have contributed to the official but biased accounts of Roman historians, they would have characterized the early Romans as merciless, brutal thugs. The famous mode of execution - the crucifixion, was used many thousands of time to put great fear in the hearts of all who were subjugated. Crucifixion was among the preferred methods. This public, painful, and humiliating torture�-to-death served as an effective deterrent to anyone contemplating sedition. In the year Jesus Christ was killed by the Romans it is said there were between 2000 and 3000 crucifixions. Crucifixion was a common ritual show of Roman power. If the rulers in Rome perceived a threat to their hegemony, they vigorously crushed the source. Pontius Pilate was a loyal Roman who terrorized much of Asia Minor before his days of rule over Jerusalem. What he did to Jesus was done at the same time to many other revolutionary leaders. It was not common but it was not unusual. The warrior-centurions who were small in number kept the spirit of freedom and liberty under their thumbs by way of these terrorizing tactics.

The Romans were a pragmatic people, but to sustain a concept as abstract as democracy, a nation needs inventive citizen thinkers. Lacking the critical mass necessary to keep the idea alive, the Roman republican experi�ment collapsed after four hundred years. The Romans nearly achieved the dubious goal .of being corrupted absolutely through the abuse of power. Very little can be found that is about the power women in their culture. Unfortunately, the Roman Catholic Church was the legatee of the power of Rome. The bishops and priests were happy to seize the reins of male power and continue the subjugation of women. Cheap slave labor that became the economy's economic foundation, a substrate.

Pax Romano lasted much longer than had the Greek experiment. The Romans possessed a skill that the Greeks sorely lacked-they were supremely efficient administrators and civil engineers road builders . They can almost be said to have invented bureaucracy inn the West. They imposed and skillfully administering government over a huge region for six hundred years. At its height, the Roman Empire encompassed more than 1,250,000 square miles with a population of over 60,000,000 people. To say that it was male-dominated is an understatement. Roman women were treated as the equivalent of brood mares. Well cared for but without a voice, although some of them had control over estates of real property as widows with children.

The Axial Age (800 -200BCE)

is a term used by his�torians to describe a phenomenal period of change in how humans perceived their existence. Most influential religious leaders in human history were nearly contemporaries.

Isaiah, Socrates, and Zoroaster" all gave a distinctive shape to peculiarly Western ideas. In the same brief period, Buddha, Lao-tzu, and Confucius emerged in the East. The legacies of these six men were philosophies or schools of religious thought that still claim vast numbers of adherents today. All six share certain striking similarities each developed or refined an abstract system of thought that challenged the brains of all who attempted to understand them. All of them were literate. We are forced by the facts to observe that none of these men had a relationship with a woman that was valued above solitude, or, he preferred the company of men.

The appropriate question troubling feminist historians is Why did misogyny so often accompany their message? The vast majority of men who love women and have families are not the ones who withdraw from conventional life to preach doctrines that others, similarly disposed, commit to writing. Only something as powerful as the diffusion of literacy could have stirred up the morass of the human condition to bring to the surface six such unique personalities. It is critical to observe that this was the same age when the Goddess began to lose her hold on the people's imagination. .These men muddied the waters, as far as women were concerned. It would take twenty-five hundred years before some women, and a few men, would begin to see through the muddle again. We are living that change.

Early Christian Gnosticism - Women Were Equal Followers - What Happened?

The discovery of the Nag Hammadi Jar in Egypt that contained written evidence of early gospels - Mary, Thomas, Philip, and others. These gospels were about Jesus and the early ideas of the Christian religion. Those found at Nag Hammadi had been suppressed by the Roman Catholic Church and may be the evidence that re-writes the history of the early Christians. Mary Magdalene was apparently the source of the Gospel of Mary. Gnostics view her as the source of revelations made by Jesus to her alone. It is said that she communicated these secrets to the disciples but that Peter, later, suppressed them because of their esoteric nature. Gnosticism was a vital religion based on the idea that every individual could find their Way to the Knowledge (Gnosis) that would enable them to communicate with God. They could experience the light within.

The earliest prominent Gnostic to appear in the historical record was the char�ismatic Marcion. His ministry reached its zenith between 120 and 140. He condemned the rapidly multiplying written Gospels, attributing most of them to fools and frauds. He proposed paring the Gospels down to their bare bones, and he discarded the Old Testament. Marcion intensely disliked a wrathful Yahweh. He accepted only seven Pauline Epistles as authentic, dismissed Mark, Matthew, and John, and accepted only limited portions of Luke and Acts. Clearly he was a man who would be opposed. The great Libel-monger of the early Church, Irenaeus, who libeled anyone who disagreed with himself, felt he had to destroy Marcion and Valentinius.

Although an ascetic himself, Marcion did not insist on celibacy, nor did he ban images. Marcionites brand of Christianity was equalitarian, and Marcion had many women followers. No document written in his hand remains because of suppression by the Roman Catholic Church. We know of him primarily because the orthodox denounced him.

Marcion's attack on the proliferation of the written word galvanized the Orthodox. They, too, saw a need to censor the proliferating Gospels. The Orthodox, Roman Catholics, not to be confused with the Christians of the Orthodox rites, moved very aggressively to canonize only those texts of which they approved. Since the Gnostics preferred oral traditions as did Christ, they failed to appreciate this war-like attack that was a crucial turning point for the Gnostics.

For the next 1700 years all Christians would be taught the Orthodox version of the New Testament It was edited another time by mostly unknown scholars in A.D. 367 under the, orders of Emperor Constantine who had been "borne again". The revised gospels were for the most part by unknown authors in the Greek language that Jesus never spoke, yet, it is held up as the only true record of the Christ story. This is strange because as historians have discovered using exhaustive searches of ancient sources n many areas of art and science; truth is elusive in history because as we know today people do re-write history even as it occurs. Some of these re-writes are so dramatically that even though proven false people believe the myths to this day.

A classic example is the Big Lie by Pope Gregory the Great. He gave a sermon about 450 CE settling for the Roman Catholic the dogma that Mary Magdalene, whom Jesus named as the Apostle to the Apostles, was a whore. This defamation of Mary's character lived on for centuries. In 1969 the Roman Catholic Church actually apologized for the errors of Pope Gregory in an effort to correct this egregious defamation. Still, the myth lives on. The truth is elusive but it appears that Mary Magdalene was a woman who preached Jesus Gnostic teachings. It is no wonder that "believers say they have faith' in the inspired word of the Gospels. Their blind faith is a launching pad for their soaring love of Jesus which has been given wings by Paul, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Revelations is strange bedfellow although Paul was a promoter for an apocalypse. He told one and all it was coming very soon. Time proved him wrong.

The first significant Orthodox theoretician to oppose the Gnostic sects. was Origen (185?-254?). Beginning He argued against the Gnostics premises concerning the value of studying the spiritual mysteries such as Mary Magdalene's Gospel. He was convinced that the Church must be simple and accessible to all which was a most commendable principle for him to foster. Origen believed that the renunciation of all sexual urges promoted salvation. We do not know whether or not he secretly masturbated in private before he castrated himself. Tragically, Origen was the first Christian theoretician to firmly link piety and celibacy. This unnatural position, clearly against God's intelligent design, continues to cause serious trouble for believers. Christians were devote prayers to transcend bestial lusts to achieve the exalted state of androgyny. This "third race;' as Origen called it, was the state of souls in the coming Kingdom of Heaven. He had no authority for these conclusions except for his own fertile mind.

Martyrdom - Praise for Origen Followed by Anathema.

Origen taught that celibacy was the ultimate act of Free Will. He taught that denying sex and embracing death would greatly enhance a Christian's chance of redemption.

Origen's personal life suggests he was a social misfit. As a young man, he became obsessed with a line from Matthew praising "those who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven" (1912). He castrated himself in the belief that by joining his "third race" he could better serve the Orthodox cause. It is likely that was his way to end his sinful masturbations. He pro�moted the "J" version that subordinated Eve to her husband. His writings influenced Christian scholars for many centuries.

Once the churched recognized that his passionate advocacy of Free Will was antithetical to its intention of overseeing the thoughts and actions of the laity, clerical authorities attacked his works. In an effort to eradicate his memory, Origen's opinions were declared blasphemous by the Council of Constantinople in 554 AD. The bulk of his teachings were declared "anathema."

Notwithstanding his rejection, Ori�gen's teachings set the tone for the virulent misogyny that was to follow. To this day many Christian churches begrudge the equality of their devout women. Dr. Cooper has said in view of the woman-hating records of many Christian churches it is too obvious the Roman Catholic Church should seek forgiveness by formally apologizing to women. At the same time they should follow through by setting forth an agenda of positive actions that will be taken to demonstrate a sincere change in attitude. The Roman Catholic Church's record is so bad that to be credible, the College of Cardinals should take the affirmative action of electing a holy, devote, superb woman as the Pope - by this fresh start perhaps they will amend their ways.

Righteousness is a very left-brained trait. The philosophy of "live and let live" better suits the right brain. It is, after all, Mother Mary and not Father God who inspired Paul McCartney to write "Let It Be." The Gnostics women's' most strident opponent was the vitriolic writer Tertullian. (160-220CE) A Carthaginian lawyer who converted to Christianity in midlife, he spewed his hatred for women in many of his sermons.

These heretical women - how audacious they are! They have no modesty; they are bold enough to teach, to engage in argument, to enact exorcisms, to undertake cures, and, it may be, even to baptize! Do you not know that everyone of you is an Eve? The sentence of God on your sex lives on in this age. . . . Women are the gate by which the demon enters. . . . Weak women. . . it is on your account that Jesus died!

In the twentieth century one could say that Pope Benedict has started out as the Sheppard of the secret priestly flock of pedophiles harbored by the Roman Catholic Church. We do not suggest he personally knows of any of these secret monsters. But, it is true that he would prefer that their evil acts not be debated in public. Righting the wrong is not part of his agenda.

Woman Hating Became Fashionable Among the Christian Priests - St. Jerome A Paragon of False Virtue

The terrible beat-beat-beat of women-hating has for too long been not only condoned but praised by the Church. St. Jerome opposed images of any kind and condemned any Christian who was an artist. He demanded that all images of women be removed from public display and counseled Christian parents to veil their daughters

Jerome (340-401 CE) championed his orthodox position. Jerome found sex an enormous difficulty. To escape the temptations of the flesh, he joined an ascetic order in a desert hermitage. Below is Jerome's lament

Day after day I cried and sighed, and when, against my will, I fell asleep, my bare bones clashed against the ground. I say nothing about my eating and drinking. . . . And yet he who, in fear of hell, had banished himself to this prison, found himself again and again surrounded by the vision of dancing girls! My face grew pale with hunger, yet in my cold body the passions of my inner being (libido) continued to glow. This human being was more dead than alive; only his burning lust continued to boil, said Jerome who was made a Saint.

Valentines & Gnostics (ca. A.D. 140) Another Prominent Gnostics.

The Orthodox such as Irenaeus feared him because he conducted his life with integrity and had many followers. Valentinus did not believe that sexual abstinence played any role in Christianity. It is tragic that the church did not listen but instead male priests used sex as a way to control their parishioners with the powerful wrong-headed sin, guilt and confession. Valentinus married, raised children, and worked to support his ministerial activities. He was a gifted speaker, able to move large crowds with his eloquence.

Valentinus's central message was that all Christians are equals and that they should love and help one another regardless of sex, sect, or social strata. Valentinus taught that the deity was a dyad consisting of God the Father and God the Mother. He based his teachings on God's Genesis "E" pronouncement, "Let us make humanity' which Valentinus interpreted to mean dual parentage. All humankind, according to Valentinus, was the conjugal offspring of the masculine mind (nous) and feminine wisdom (epinoia). He called this couple the "Primal Father" and the "Mother of All." Women were drawn to his sermons. The Valentinians believed that the fall from the Garden of Eden described humanity's "fall" into consciousness, a sudden acquisition of worldly knowl�edge that caused humankind to lose touch with the divine. The role of Gnostic teachers was to help their congregations regain this sacred connection through disciplined study for better knowledge.

Valentinus incurred the ire of the Orthodox for not asking their permission to conduct Christian sacraments. As related above, Irenaeus,the Orthodox bishop of

Lyon (ca. A.D. 180), an outspoken foe of the Gnostics attacked the Valentinians. Valentinius argued that the New Testament selected Gospels' authenticity rested on the fact that they had been written by Jesus' own disciples-a statement we now know is untrue. Irenaeus suffered acute embarrassment when the wife of one of his own deacons crossed over to join the Valentinians. Unable to explain why the "heretical" sects attracted women in such disproportionate numbers; Irenaeus accused the male Valentinians leaders of resorting to aphrodisiacs and seduction as recruitment methods. None of this was true. Irenaeus waxed particularly indig�nant over the Valentinians practice of allowing women priests to baptize. In the 21st century it appears that Christian churches should consider following the Valentian model as the Way originally promoted by Jesus teachings.

Augustine - The Saint Who Made Original Sin the Source of Christian Guilt

Augustine's piety, intelligence, and writing skills led to his departure from his chosen austere life to become the Bishop of Hippo. From this rustic fulcrum, Augustine changed the world of Christianity. He was the architect for Christendom's expan�sion for centuries to come. His most brilliant work was a tragic misunderstanding of God's intelligent design of humans. He introduced several controversial extra-scriptural doctrines based on no more than his own fertile and distorted interpretation of Christianity's canonized texts.

In his De libero arbitrio (On Free Will), Augustine sought to reconcile the existence of evil (which included sexual practices) with the benevolence of God. Augustine misread one of God s greatest gifts to humans - curiosity and an inquiring mind about all things. He concluded that Free Will was the demon. Mortals were so corrupt that when they exer�cised their ability to choose they more often than not chose evil. Augustine held that Eve's treachery and Adam's disobedience had crippled every mor�tal's judgment, rendering humankind incapable of self-government. All mortals were morally incompetent. "Humanity is sick, suffering, and help�less, irreparably damaged by the fall." In this way Augustine stigmatized humans with Original Sin and the Guilt that oozed from it. His great invention was without support in the teachings of Jesus Christ. However, it gave even greater power to the priests over their flocks. The power to be an intercessor between God and those who believe in Him gave the bishops and priests the power to give forgiveness and to receive the collection and pledges of the followers.

The Augustinian doctrine destined to influence Christianity far into the future was Original Sin. According to Augustine, as punishment for Adam's act of disobedience, God had contaminated Adam's seed. During sexual union, Adam passed the infection to his partner. Eve, in turn, polluted her fetus. Cain and Abel repeated the cycle in the next generation with their wives. Down through all the ages of humankind, Original Sin hid in men's semen and incubated in the Parts of Shame. Each newborn babe emerging into the world was inescapably contaminated and therefore born a sinner. Jesus Christ was the only exception to this plague, because he was conceived immaculately. Augustine intoned, "Semen . . . itself, shackled by the bond of death, transmits the damage incurred by sin."

Since humans can not know the inner workings of the secret recesses of another human's mind; we will never know if Augustine believed this powerful concept. We do know that he urged the church to use it so priests would have a cudgel to beat the sinners into line for a confession to assuage their burden of guilt. Certainly, he must have known that if the followers of Christ could be persuaded that this peculiar self-driven idea of Universal Guilt for the Original Sin was God's word then truth would not set one free but instead shackle a believer as �evil' humans to the church's chain-gang of piety and shame.

Augustine held that through an act of grace, God permitted a means of salvation baptism at birth by a duly ordained priest of the Roman Catholic Church who could remit all Original Sin. Should the baptized baby grow into an adult who backslid and committed another sin, only the sacrament of confession, again administered by a Roman Catholic priest, could prevent a relapse to the state of sin. Thus, Augustine secured the Church's place as the indispensable agent in charge of Christian souls. The reward for par�ticipation in this system was that Christians gained exclusive admittance to the City of God. Can you imagine!

Original Sin was a thoroughly original idea One might say a hallucination or delusion. Buddha's formulation of karma was similar. But the difficult path to Enlightenment that Buddha illuminated presumed that individuals had the power to choose a righteously lived life without any outside help In the New Testament, Jesus never mentioned Original Sin. Not until the Enlightenment many centuries later did we begin the road back to God's love and a personal spiritual life. William James' famous speech about The Religious Experience did not occur until the end of the nineteenth century.

Jesus did not equate sexuality with sinfulness. He specifically dismissed the idea that a man's blindness was a punishment for the sins of his parents (John 91-7).

It was Paul who had said Adam's disobedience indicated that the flesh was weak, but Paul did not conceive of that frailty as one that would injure all future gen�erations. Augustine built on this theme and imputed to the Creator a brooding capac�ity for punishment. Though never acknowledged by church fathers, Augustine had essentially created a new mythology that subverted the entire feminine bent of Jesus' message of love thy neighbor. To many reasonable people Augustine's doctrine of Original Sin had loosed a dangerous, fanatical heresy into the Christian creed. But he was the most influential churchman of the Western Christian world. The meek and timid did not come forward against him. It was not only Augustine's withering logic, but worse. The bishop of Hippo con�sidered theological debate a no-holds-barred contest; losers often suffered more than mere bruising of their pride. Character assassination embittered his oratory. Original Sin became a linchpin of Augustinian formulation of church doctrine. It required everyone to seek a priest to ask God's grace to remit their sins. This self promoting style of forgiveness caused several prominent Chris�tians to take the real risk and challenged Augustine on this issue.

Pelagius, a leader in Celtic Christianity Challenged Augustine's Bitter Denunciation of Humans Along with his Promotion of a Wrathful God.

Pelagius began with the premise that God was good He preached that God had given mortals the Law, the Ten Commandments, and His only Son. Thus, bestowing on them the cleansing waters of the baptism. Pelagius protested that God would not undo His perfect creation by making humans the only animals that were inherently evil. Pelagius directly confronted Augustine's unfounded dogmatic opinions arguing that there was no such thing as Original Sin. The shame filled conscience was visited on only those who had committed wrongs that all acknowledged were of a kind that should be punished. Through direct prayer to God along with good deeds to rectify the wrong the sinner could atone and redeem him or herself.

The brave Pelagius went to Rome to lobby prelates and aristocrats. He sought to convince the papal hierarchy that repudiation of Augustine's extremist dogmas was essential if Christians were to adhere to Jesus teachings.

Augustine sent his sycophants and toadies to Rome to spread unsa�vory stories about Pelagius to undermine the Celtic Christian's reputation.

This confrontation of ideologies caused debate in the streets over whether or not Free Will had been taken hostage by Original Sin. Both sides were filled with such fervor that, in 417, there were riots in the streets. As the vote on the issue loomed, Augustine surreptitiously shipped eighty expensive Arabian horses to Rome and had them distributed among the heads of key families and sycophantic clerics who could see the great power that would continue to accrue to the church if Augustine's view prevailed. Augustine prevailed as the self seekers voted for Original Sin - God's disgraceful appetite for wielding punishment had been purchased from the fawning puppets. Pela�gius was drummed out of the corridors of the Vatican, exiled, and excommunicated in 419. The modern analogy is the way the neo-conservatives of the Roman Catholic church are restoring traditions that will effectively destroy the liberating ecumenical themes of Vatican II under Pope John (Roncalli)

In 431CE, the Council of Ephesus condemned as heresy Pelages' teaching that humankind could be good without the saving grace of baptism and confession. In the words of Augustine, "Rome has spoken; the debate is over."

Augustine used his dark side genius fabricate a church-state alliance and an atmosphere of suspicion and persecution that raised punishing guilt for a laundry list of sins to the level of duty-ridden penance. Seeking the Church's dispensations became a way of life for the paranoid. Following Paul. not Jesus ,Augustine shaped a new theology that shaped Christianity more than the teaching of Jesus the Christ. Today many millions who love the sublime philosophy of the loving Jesus are estranged from the dogmatic religious institutions. They are spiritual but not religious. There are many good devote Catholics who are good enough Catholics that they are defending the Vatican II changes against the neo-conservative Pope Benedict.

It has been St. Augustine's saving grace that he was a towering genius. But like the obstreperous and obnoxious Paul he was often wrong. When it came to sex and women one might say he was a bit off in his head. Augustine wrote to a friend, "What is the difference - whether it is in a wife or a mother, it is still Eve, the temptress that we must beware of in any woman."

In fact, Augustine is clearly puzzled about why God made the female sex

"After all, he said, "If it was good company and conversation that Adam needed, it would have been much better arranged to have two men together as friends, not a man and a woman."

Sounds like a sophomore in college who would have been elected president of his fraternity.

ISLAM - A PARDOXICAL CONTRAST TO CHRISTIANITY

Islam because its Koranic tenets are tolerant, egalitarian, and remarkably easy to follow. It was a religion of the people. In an outstanding contrast, its clergy or imams were married, had families, and engaged in secular occupations. Their neighbors the various Orthodox Christians of Eastern Europe and the Middle East also permit marriage and encourage gainful occupations. But they have such elaborate doctrines and rituals one might infer the sects are ornate as compared to Islam.

As the more or less nomadic people came into the fold the importance of literacy and a religion of the Word seemed more fulfilling to Arabians who became Muslims. Reading increased exponentially. Like a Godsend in 712, savage Arab armies captured the city of Samarkand they came across the most valuable of spoils-paper - a Koran written on paper. This combination of growing literacy rate with the Word printed on paper was a pivotal change. . Camel scapulas were no longer necessary to supply white, flat writing surfaces. To this day though memorization of the Koran is still a virtue, having a handy copy is preferred.

Harun ar- Rashid (766-809) was a judicious ruler committed to learning. He inaugurated a Golden Age. For the next five hundred years, poetry, science, medicine, mathematics, architecture, and philosophy began a ride levitated by a tolerant religion that held the acquisition of knowledge to be one of the highest ideals. Every aspect and group within Islamic society benefited from this Golden Age, with two notable excep�tions representative art and women's rights. Today there is much neglect of the poor by the power elite and much hypocrisy among the mullahs that is tolerated by the sincerely holy.

The Arabs created a second, later, sacred book to clarify the Quran. In the manner of the Jewish invention of the Talmud it served to answer new questions that could not be readily resolved by reference to the Quran,

In the earliest days, a rich oral tradition arose concerning the life of Mohammed. It evolved to become stories, called Hadith. Although the Quran contained many sections concerning civil justice, Islamic society had a need for a code of imperative law. The Hadith in writing was a need to minimize controversy over what were to acceptable as devout practices

HADITH EXPANSION

Humans are what they are. History is not always the true picture. Sayings attributed to Mohammed were slipped into the hadith later by lawyers-writers-theologians such as Bukhari. The 592 -725CE oral traditions al Bukhari dis�carded may have contained many that honored women much more than the stories that al Bukhari retained.

Over a period of many years, al Bukhara's hadith grew in stature. For most in the Sunni Muslim sect, the authenticity of al Bukhara's hadith is beyond dispute.

MUSLIM VEILS/MUSLIM WORDS

The Islam Shiite/Sunni split remains very serious. Still, the regions of Persia, India, and Mongol at one time or another extended rights to all of their citizens, and produced beautiful exam�ples of representative art. Here, women were more educated, made contributions to society, and their faces were not veiled. Fatima, the daughter of Mohammed, became a much-loved divine presence.

Islam was one religion of the Koran and Mohammad until after about two hundred years. The evolving friction split Islam into two dominant sects Sunnis and Shiites. The issues separating them were similar to those that divided the Gnostics from the Orthodox Christians among the early Christian churches. The Sunnis are strict literalists who hold that the Quran and hadith are the ultimate arbiters of truth. The Shiites believe that there are people in each generation that can interpret the Quran. In effect God's wisdom may be passed along as oral wisdom not necessarily confined to the pages of the book. The Shiites trace their lineage through descendants of Fatima. The Sunnis restrict women's rights far more than the Shiites. It is the Shiites who have erected impressive architectural monuments to honor women.

The ritual birth and sex practices are a serious difference from other cultures. Islam must be examined more closely for the use of sex rituals to maintain control of the populace. For a time, a growing segment of Islamic society began to inflict genital mutilation on their girls. This desire to change the appearance of the sexual display organs was not new. Primitive tribes had decorated their women's' genitalia with many things from copper rings and ivory bones to elaborate scars and tattoos. The bedizened women were persuaded by the male religious leaders that the changes served to lure the opposite sex. Today, in the USA the pornographic film queens use such ornamentation.

In addition, the Egyptians had practiced male circumcision as long ago as 2200 B.C. The Hebrews and the Muslims made mutilation of the foreskin a central condition of their Covenant with Yahweh and Allah, respectively. Pauline Christians were persuaded by Paul to also adopt this painful violent custom. It has been proven that this savage practice has no basis in public health hygiene. There is no evidence that Jesus Christ had promoted this as a crucially important birthing ritual.

There is male chauvinist-bias in the kind of genital scarring chosen. Sacrificing the prepuce of the penis does not interfere with the pleasure of the sexual act. In contrast, female genital tailoring cuts away the tissue containing the nerve endings that contribute to women's pleasure. Some call it a clitorectomy. Thus the dominant male exerts even greater control over the women. In some cases, Often, only the labia minora are removed; in others, the labia majora as well as the clitoris are amputated. In extreme cases, all external tissue that is rich in sexual arousal nerve endings is excised and the vagina sutured closed to be opened forcefully on the hapless girl's wedding night. For females so afflicted, sexual advances are unwanted and the act itself becomes a kind of submission to rape. Since urination is intimately associated with the genital system in both sexes, these culturally-imposed desecrations of women often lead to severe urinary tract infections The lassitude experienced by uremic women further ensures their compliance. Some Somalia female refugees have tried to import the custom to the USA over strong opposition.

Female genital mutilation does not allay the brain's fantasies. There is frustrated desire and need for sexual pleasures that can not be physically. Fulfilled. The result is far crueler than castration. Islamic leaders continue to condone the practice of mutilating female genitals in the predominantly Islam countries of Pakistan, the Middle East, Somalia, and sub-Saharan African tribes. This practice is virtually non-existent in countries where the adherents of other major religions have a major voice in secular governance along with the Muslims. The women of the world should unite in opposing theocracy's that would institute or condone such godless practices. The God that inspired the Koran did not condone such scarifying practices; in fact, the Koran wants women to be shown respect, compassion and a spirit of partnership in love and marriage.

"Most western scholars, and some modern Muslims, would be more skeptical than Bukhari . . . and regard many of the Hadith which they took to be authentic as being products of polemics about authority and doctrine."

As increasing numbers of Arabs became surrounded by the constructs of a theocratic controlled literacy, they could not see its pernicious side effects. Coincident with the period when the written versions of the hadith began to supersede Islam's oral tradition circa the late ninth century, the prestige of women and the importance of images rapidly eroded.

The Custom of Veiling Women

After 750CE soon after the introduction into Islam of paper, a code of Law, and the Correct Book, the literate men made it a custom to veil their women. This idiosyncratic practice, unknown to non-literate cultures, spread in conjunction with the spread of literacy in the Arabic alphabet. It became so ingrained in the Arabic female psyche that a Muslim woman who practiced this custom would, if surprised at her bath, instinctively cover her face first. The human face is perceived by the right brain. Obscuring the faces of women so that even they could not see each other's visages diminished their collective power because their collective right hemispheres were, in effect, also veiled. Spouses ceased to be com-pan-ions, as husbands stopped dining with their wives. The practice of sequestering women in the harem-a word that means "forbidden" -gradually spread among the upper and middle classes after 750. Despite the open generosity of Islamic society in general, women alone would have to contend with a whole new list of "forbidden."

In the Prophet's time, women and men had prayed together in a mosque. It was later that the women were segregated from their men by a screen and relegated to the back of the mosque. Still later, they were removed altogether, and allowed to pray only when the men were not present. Finally, some sects prevented women from ever entering mosques.

Women, whose spirituality had been beyond dispute for untold millennia, were deprived of the basic right to conduct, participate in, or even to attend services.

In the early years of Arab literacy, both men and women learned to read and write. By 750, with a few exceptions, women were denied this education in a society where knowledge of written Arabic was fast becoming an indispensable skill. But womanhood reached a nadir when literate Arab males prevented their women from shopping without being accompanied by a male. The appalling inequality of the sexes may be a driving force behind the Muslim males who fear the potential dominance of females if they were given more freedom.

The Mystics & the Scholastic Philosophers, 1000-1300 CE

Christianity's Scholasticism was led by Dr. Thomas Aquinas, many church intellectuals believed that the rational mind could prove the existence of God.

On the other hand, Scholasticism's opposite - Mysticism, Abbess Hildegard Von Bingen was a leading exponent of it, asserted that knowledge of the divine could be attained only through spiritual union with the Supreme Being Meditative exercises such as poverty, asceticism, silence, and prayer were the channels to this experiential mystical epiphany.

Today the split -off of those who are spiritual but not religious from traditional church members is focusing on this difference.

The Two great Christian humans Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179) and Thomas Aquinas (1224-1274) epitomized these two opposing philosophies. Hildegard was born into a noble family in northern Germany. This great woman was frequently ill as a child known to experience the seeing of apparitions and shimmering lights. At age 7 years, this tendency caused her family to pledge her to a convent which was not uncommon in those days. In that day those women who could not readily submit to alpha males often took refuge with other female intellectuals in Nunneries. Hildegard became proficient in Latin, a rare skill usually denied of women. Latin gave her access to the best contemporary and ancient minds. She read vora�ciously. When her Abbess died, the other nuns and the male authorities prevailed on reluctant Hildegard to take her mentor's position. Soon after taking office, she began to write vividly about the visions that were to visit her for the rest of her life.

Hildegard was obviously an adept, one of those humans who walked with God. She described one mystical episode "A great flash of light from heaven pierced my brain, and made my heart and my whole breast glow without burning them inn the way that the sun warms the object that it envelops with its rays. In that instant my mind was imbued with the meaning of the sacred books, the Psalter, the Gospel, and the other books of the Old and New Testament."

In Know the Ways of the Lord

Hildegard wove strands of sci�ence, theology, and philosophy into a synthesis of the individual human, the cos�mos, soul and nature. Her interests were eclectic and her worldview holistic. For example, she envisioned the earth as spherical. She recognized that the human sexes were equal and argued that both genders contributed to the wholeness of God's divine creation. As she gained an ever-widening audience she also acquired a reputa�tion as a sage and prophetess. From Germany her fame spread to Flanders, France, Italy, England, and as far away as Greece. In Rome, Pope Eugenius III warmly applauded her. With hindsight we can see that it would have been better for mankind if Hildegard had been made a leader of the Roman Catholic Church. If a leading woman had been so empowered early on there would have been a burst of productivity that would have benefited everyone. Instead, the church leaders were alarmed by her gathering following. The woman-hating warrior-praising church leader's caste about for an eloquent voice that would lead them away from this self-threatening mysticism.

Decades later a rational voice arose. St Thomas Aquinas while still young joined the Dominican Order where he studied under great minds of the period. Early on, Aquinas's keen intellect was noted by Church authorities.

To better understand Aquinas's role in shaping the mind-set of his age, during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the European students and faculty were engaged in rational skepticism and games of logic. Church elders had grown increasingly alarmed because stu�dents were openly questioning Church authority. Popular ideas being debated were anathema to the leaders of the Church.

Many of the students disavowed the misogynist views.�The nature of women and men as being of one kind was being debated They argued that the sexes differed only in degree, and it was being argued that though women were physically weaker than men, and that it disadvantaged them in some activities, the new voices claimed that women were supe�rior to men in other ways. It appeared that the sprit of Humanism was arising.

Thomas Aquinas was beloved by the Roman Catholic Church because he saved it from such apostasy. The mark Thomas Aquinas made on Catholicism was the most indelible since Augus�tine. Ignatius Loyola required the Jesuit Order to teach Thomism. Dante envisioned Thomas Aquinas as his guide to the highest stairway to Heaven. In 1545, the Council of Trent placed Summa Theological on the altar alongside the Bible. Authorities, recognizing the value of Aquinas's work, elevated the philosopher to sainthood in 1323.

Aquinas was a most prolific writer. His major work, Summa Theologica, is twenty-one volumes long. Though reclusive, he was viewed studious, contemplative, and thoughtful, a man of immense good will.

Aquinas lived a humble, virtuous life. He treated his adversaries with courtesy and his friends with loyalty. He preached tolerance of Jews, since they bore witness to the Faith. He freely acknowledged his intellectual debt to Islam and treated such people with grace. In every respect, Aquinas was a model for his age. An inquisitive seeker of truth, he was focused on his life's goal, which was to understand God's revealed creation Like many other human's he had a major flaw. Aquinas, the so-called model of virtue vilified women. Disregarding the evidence of the senses, Aquinas repeated many negative opinions and misogynist polemics.

Unlike his other applications of rational thinking,, Acquinas,�did not subject to close scrutiny any of the inflammatory assertions that he readily found in the church literature concerning women. Aquinas argued that woman was infe�rior to man. He swallowed the pseudo-scientific misogyny of Aristotle and elaborated it without a single caveat.� "Women were merely passive vessels in the procreative process, while men contributed the entire active principle. He asserted that nature always tries to produce a male child; a female is evidence that something has gone awry. the birth of a woman was proof that "Woman is defective and misbegotten" Faint-hearted, treacherous, weak, and vacuous, a woman requires every�thing from a man, but is needed by man only for procreation. Aquinas asserted that men can do everything better than women, including taking care of the home. "

Further burdening his depressing view of womanhood, Aquinas piled on Augustine's accusation that Eve had infected the entire human race with the Original Sin. (Editor's Note Could it be that Thomas Aquinas was a fawning toady to the woman-hating church leaders? He may have simply wanted their personal approval. He had such a brilliant mind that his conduct appears insincere and was inexcusable)

The churches political leaders made frequent use of Aquinas writings. But, there egotistical arrogance caused them to be blind to the reality that that Scholasticism would undermine the pillars of rational Faith because reason and logic would eat away at the foundations.

As for Aquinas, though only age forty-seven, a depressing self-realization that his writings failed to do justice to the Creator's inscrutable design caused him to choose to never write again. The church preserved and cherished his work. In fact, they required their nuns to teach scholasticism to the students in the parochial schools for many centuries into the future.

Protestant Beginnings - One Had A Right to Relate Directly�to God

Up to late in the medieval period, the Church closely guarded the New Testament. It was not circulated among the faithful. The limited number of copies were controlled some were chained to monastery desks or kept behind locked cabinet doors. This control over the Scriptures reinforced the Church's unfounded claim that only an ordained priest could assist one to gain entrance to the Kingdom of Heaven. As Augustine had declared, "there was no salvation outside the Church"

The Protestants broke away arguing that no one had the right to come between an individual and God. (We fondly remember Pelagius thee Celtic Christian) This stunning world view held that all Chris�tians should study the Good Book in solitude an act that would, in itself, bring about direct communion with God. Martin Luther refuted Augustine by declaring "Every man is his own priest" -with the ability and right to interpret the Bible. In addition, Luther repudiated the colorful ritual of mass, rich with icons. Average Christians had been repulsed by the moral decay in the Catholic Church, All were agreed that the one institution they believed ought to provide the model for virtue was and is the Church. Instead as explained by a respected Catholic historian Ludwig Pastor the truth was otherwise. A deep-rooted corruption had taken possession of nearly all the officials Of the Curia

The inordinate number of gratuities and exactions, passed all bounds. Moreover, on all sides deeds were dishonestly manipu�lated, and even falsified, by the officials. It is no wonder that there arose from all parts of Christendom the loudest complaints about the corruption and financial extortions of the papal officials.

Prior to the Reformation, numerous reformers had proposed an identical solution a return to the principles of Christianity's founder. Jan Huss was hanged in Prague in 1415 for publicly demanding it. Erasmus in 1528 said, "He commanded us nothing save love for one another, and there is nothing so bitter that affection does not soften and sweeten it."

The Jesuits made an aggressive response to the protestant Reformation and the idea of Pre-Destination. They rapidly founded and staffed first-rate universi�ties in all of Europe's intellectual centers. Along with the standard fare taught in most secular universities, the Jesuits included in their curriculum readings that Loyola and his successors believed essential to combating Protestant preachers Paul's Epistle to the Romans, Augustine's doctrines, and the works of Thomas Aquinas. They ignored Catholicism's strong tradition of mysticism, and sought to win souls instead through logic and the written word. Like Luther and Calvin, Loyola believed in the infallibility of the Bible. So, in the end, the Catholics came around to the Protestant position that studying Scripture would reform the religion. Calvin, likewise, endorsed the Catholic views concerning the Bible. There were so many doctri�nal similarities in the Protestant Reformation and the Catholic Counter�-Reformation that it was difficult for an unbiased observer to understand why the two groups despised each other. Though its leaders proclaimed the primacy of the Scriptures, the Reforma�tion in practice contradicted the spirit of the Scriptures. It is not mere coincidence that Luther and Calvin were both prolific writers. The idea of Predestination has not been a belief of any illiterate society. The archaic Greeks' notion of fate depended on the capricious whims of the gods. Yah�weh expected each individual to choose correctly between right and wrong. A Hindu or a Buddhist's karma can be influenced in future reincarnations by personal decisions made in this one. Lao-tzu's concept of the Tao is the antithesis of predestination.

The left brain is the seat of logical thought processes. That one thing fol�lows another forms the basis of linear cause-and-effect thinking. Both Luther and Calvin relied on their syllogism to logically drive the faithful to understanding. The values that typify the right-bran include empathy with one's companions, tolerance of dissent, love of nature, nurturance of children. These aspects present in both men and women express the feminine/gathers nurturing legacy. Neither Luther nor Calvin was in the line of heirs to such thinking. Alone in his cell, Luther flagellated himself. Luther was an abused child. He was a defiant personality. What were sorely lacking in the Protestant Reformation were joy, love, mercy, laughter and beauty. To Luther and Calvin the vast majority of God-Fearing people was damned in advance and that nothing they could do would change their fateful sentence. The printing press had made the literacy and reading universal while it chained the mind of men to a rigid repressive discipline.

SORCERY AND SCIENCE

Why did the Witch trials occur when and where they did? Nothing in the recent literature fully explains the strange and tragic events that historians call the "witchcraft persecutions" Why did European society turn against certain groups of its own women? Attempts to discern the supernatural and experience it have been a part of virtually every culture. Such insight engenders in the soul of the one so graced both wisdom and compassion, two attributes that characterize every prominent ancient male religious leader.

What, then, are we to make of those male religious "leaders" who claimed that they alone had access to the "truth' and then proceeded to sanction the murder of those who dis�agree with them? How could men incite such hatred? Proceed to practice torture, and foul the air with their invective, and still be considered spiritual pillars? What level of demonic violence and mayhem must be attained before the judg�ment of history steps in and strips such zealots of their hypocritical clerical posture. Surely God does not encourage them.

Church, Inquisition of Witches and Burning in 1484

It was a Pope who declared that witchcraft posed a genuine threat to Christendom. His grand illusion encouraged fear, paranoia, superstition and suspicious to dominate the conscience of the faithful. He deputized Inquisition agents to scatter through the land and pursue those whose alleged evil machinations suppos�edly blighted the fruit of both wombs and fields. The self-righteous agents lost little time. In 1485, forty-one accused women were burned alive in the northern Italian lake town of Como. The witch craze spread rapidly through Europe.

The witch craze got a major boost from the widespread cir�culation of a book Mallets Malefic arum (The Hammer of Witches) This Church-commissioned guide for eradicating witches became popular beyond expectation. The secular Holy Roman Emperor, Amoxicillin, endorsed the work; The Pope Innocent VIII ordered mass printings of it. The printing press made pos�sible wide circulation of a most scurrilous attack on womanhood. A newly literate generation used this scurrilous book to scapegoat the persecution of mystics and herbalists, many of whom were devoutly religious. Erica Jung, a novelist who studied this phenomena said that roving inquisition agents and local church leaders used the book to stoke the witch fires to a white-�hot intensity of fear and hate among the devote masses. .

The Hammers authors, Springer, had asserted that women were more susceptible to the devil's advances than men because women as a gender were frivolous and gullible. These self-aggrandizing careerists declared as fact that a witch's look alone could cause sickness and death, shrivel crops, and induce abortions. Witches, they asserted, kidnapped Christian children and tore out their hearts, which they then roasted and ate as part of their satanic rituals. Witches were associated with dance, night, nature, the moon, sexuality, and pro�creation.

In a naked grab for more power, the Church said that witches possessed all the attributes previously accorded to the good God�dess of ancient pagan rites. In the joyous ancient fertility rites of field and forest women had found that they could worship one of their own. The male sycophants of the Church made the rituals of spring seem to be sin�ister cabals. Such ancient rites were labeled a worship of the anti-Christ. These toadies of the powerful male church leaders had no evidence that could withstand rational deductive reasoning. None has ever been produced from the archives of the Vatican library. But many newly literate men snapped up copies of The Hammer, and its authors became celebrities. European bishops were suddenly alert to a hitherto unrecognized threat within their communities. Witch hunting became a way for a man to build a career.

The Male Sport of Hunting Witches and Their Trials.

It was before the onset of the Reformation that hunting witches had superseded hounding heretics. Now it became the Inquisition's principal preoccupation for nearly half a century. A witch was qualitatively different from a heretic. The heretics had deviated from Church dogma. Witches, however, possessed supernatural powers and carried out the devil's bidding. The Prince of Darkness had captured their souls.

Christian church authorities became obsessed with rooting them out. Upon arriving in a village, witch hunters hired informers to report mysterious illnesses, deaths, misfortunes (hail storms, crop failures, death of livestock), or the sudden onset of impotence (a favorite). Widows, spinsters, sexually attractive women (the ones who could really cast a spell over men), healers, and magicians, as well as "scolds' "crones," and "hags' were then arrested as prime suspects.

The "trials" that followed were very different from legal proceedings. The principal damning evidence was not testimony but instead the presence of a witch's teat, called the "devil's mark." The terrified accused, often restrained, was stripped of her clothes and roughly fondled by a male exam�iner, called a "pricker" in the presence of other strange men. The pricker painstakingly inspected the woman's genitalia and breasts for any mole, wart, skin tag, hemorrhoid, or slight vaginal deformity (such as might be caused by a difficult childbirth). If the pricker found a suspicious excrescence, he then jabbed a small needle he had hidden in his hand into it. If the woman did not cry out in pain, this was proof that she was a witch. Many were no doubt numbed by examination and failed to react to the little prick of the pricker's stabbing nee�dle. Usually the predictable physiological response, under the cir�cumstances, sealed her fate. Many accused women did not feel the pricker's jab because the needle never pierced their skin. To onlookers, however, her failure to cry out was credible enough evidence of guilt to fuel gossip in the market for days.

All female mammals have two mammary ridges that begin at each shoulder, and run down across the chest and abdomen to end in the groin. Nipples are aligned along these two ridges. Generally, Humans only need two nipples because of small litters. But many women have vestigial aureoles resembling moles. The witch hunters were experts at finding them. To them this normal vestigial nipple was the "devil's mark."

Witch hunting was woman hunting. The weird idea was that demons took no account of males. It was said that among a hundred so called witches there's scarcely a man to be seen. Over 80 percent of accused "witches" were female.

The myths and customs of most societies provide ample evidence that men have feared the innate power of women. Until this European witch hunting craze the scapegoating witch hunting practice was unknown in history. The Greeks feared the power of Cassandra, Hecuba, and Circe, but they never lit fires under women to burn them at the stake. No other culture recommended exterminating their wise women. Muslims, Hindus, Chinese mistreated women but they did not persecute, torture, and burn them alive in large numbers. Why did this European Christian dominated culture that at the same time was producing Galileo, Leonardo, Shakespeare, Newton and Bach suddenly start acting like rabid dogs in a male hunt for the kill. It was in 1484 that Pope Innocent VIII declared that witchcraft posed a threat. This grotesque gender-specific pogrom gathered support from every stratum of the European intelligentsia. Public expressions of doubt were rare. Perhaps, to speak out was dangerous.

In earlier times, men and women alike acknowledged the skills of female shamans. Some witches may have been followers of Wicca. It is an ancient form of goddess worship that emphasizes the beauty and bounty of the earthly world rather than the hell-fire and damnation of a next one. The profound repression of women and their right s during the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation was no doubt the work of leading male church leaders later followed by the male of monarchy. The church was at the time offering little that was life-affirming and nature-loving

Modern psychiatry labels "hysteria" as an unmanageable fear expressed by emotional excesses. Though men often associate such behavior with women, no superstition of any group of women has ever come close to the incredible psychotic behavior of even the most educated males during the witch craze. The witch craze was a tragic example of masculine hysteria and gullibility without parallel in any other culture. The plight of a woman ensnared in the witch craze was hopeless. As the protestant Luther said, "I would have no compassion for these witches. I would burn them all." Anne Llewellyn Barstow in her book Witch-craze estimated from court records she examined that over 100,000 people were exterminated. Others have put the number in the millions. The truth can never be ascertained in part because the shame of Europeans hinders cooperation. The last officially described witch was exterminated in Poland in 1782.

In large part due to Descartes and his promotion of the scientific method witch hunts slowly abated Science provided people with an alternative explanation of existence to the one proclaimed by religion. The world is governed by natural laws, scientists proclaimed. Each new mathematically proven revelation proclaimed the power of science as it chipped away the power of the ecclesiastics. Science was a significant improvement over the superstitious even paranoid though systems that had generated the witch craze atrocities.

Newtonian Science Became the New Patriarchy

The new version of patriarchy was to become Science founded on "natural laws" discovered by male scientists. Each successive scientific discovery persuaded more and more people that science was a credible belief system. Unfortunately, the faithful arrived at the joyless conclusion that the world was devoid of spontaneity. The Age of Miracles was officially over. Instead, there was to be a new metaphor that of the Majestic Clockwork. A dispassionate Cre�ator had made it, wound it, set it ticking and then withdrew from both the daily affairs of humans and the operation of the clockwork of the universe. This spiritual black hole, deductive reasoning and cause-and-effect analysis was dubbed "scientific determinism."

Newton himself remained a religious man to his death. But other humans seemed to decide that Newton's mechanics had imprisoned Free Will by proving that planets and billiard balls must follow the laws of mass and motion. If they seemed to deviate, it was only because the scientist did not yet know all the variables. There was no such thing as luck, chance, or the unexpected. Later, in 1859, the left brain received what too many was its ultimate scientific validation. Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species. Darwin's view reduced the vaunted Homo sapiens from the pinnacle of creation to just one species among many. This revolutionary displacement of Man challenged the Bible's claim that God had given Adam dominion over the animal kingdom.

Though they should have, Women did not, benefit from this obvious demotion of Adam. The testosterone-driven males promptly worked hard to restore the males to primacy. Spencer postulated that the havoc and mayhem of war were necessary forces that periodically pruned the human species of deadwood. Darwin explained that natural selection required strife in order for the alpha male (not uncommonly the strongest and most aggressive) to rise above the pack? The social philosophers of the day pounced on the phrase "survival of the fittest;' coined by Herbert Spencer for a dog-eat-dog world. Love, nurturance, and cooperation were perceived as signs of weakness by these left-brain dominated males. In the USA the Robber Baron turned to natural law to justify their crass grasp for monopoly power against the welfare of the people.

Earlier, there was another major social change that affected the relationship between the sexes in all the more industrialized nations. It was the Industrial Revolution. This event had a profound effect on human relationships. It was an epochal change comparable to the impact on human culture that had been previously wrought by the development of agriculture and writ�ing. Two key factors precipitated the Machine Age the depletion of Europe's forests and human technological inventions. By the mid-1700s, Firewood became increasingly expensive. Coal was found to be a low-cost alternative as an energy source. Unbridled capitalism ignored the polluting throughput to the atmosphere. As the aristocrats continued to enclose their land they drove the farmers into the coal mines and the women and children into the sweat shops. Ordinary men became wage slaves while their women had to take up the tasks of being both a worker and a housewife.

Industrial progress was real for the upper classes, the merchant class, supervisors and highly skilled artisans. But, education of the masses was neglected. It was the better-off who were becoming more highly educated. Higher mathematics and business competition were virtuous pursuits without any reason for concern about the effects on family life or community.

The sycophantic male religious leaders did little to identify the moral issues arising out of this looting and polluting behavior. The toady preachers preferred sherry in the afternoon to serving God by helping the victims of this destruction of the human environment. There were men like Wilberforce, Salisbury, and the Wesleys, Fox, and others who castigated their peers for the woeful neglect of common humans.

Promoting the Woman's Cause

Inspired by a small number of women authors, nineteenth-century women began to pull together and promote women's causes. Literacy rates for women had risen steeply. The brilliance of accom�plished literate women began to erode the subjugating notion that women were intellectually inferior. Women increasingly contributed to the culture's liter�ature and, in a few cases, to its science. There was a blossoming of literary luminaries, including Jane Austen, Louisa May Alcott, Elizabeth Barrett, and George Sand, the Bronte sisters, Germaine de Stael, and Mary Shelley. Lon�don was a literary Mecca. A third of its published writers were women. The literary scene in Paris was supported by many women both as writers and readers. This rise of women leaders caused the sycophants of the men in power to foster the growth of anti-intellectualism as a backfire to this new source of energy.

It was men fearing women and their growing power who made riding to the foxes and naval battles even more noble pursuit. Male chauvinism was encouraged. It became more arrogant and worsened. Repulsed by the Industrial Revolution's heavy-handed abuse of the earth's resources, the Romantic intellectuals both male and female, extolled love, nature, and beauty. Enlightenment enthusiasts claimed reason was superior to emotions The Romantics; felt that emotions were the surer guide to truth.

Left Brain linear thinkers segued effortlessly into the Enlightenment. Their views on matters of importance generated a strong reaction from those representing the right brain. To the Enlightenment crowd, the Romantics seemed to be tilting at windmills. The ear-splitting, smoke-spewing Industrial Revolution and the left-brained values it represented appeared as unstoppable as a roaring locomotive. But two innovations provided a major assist to the values of the right brain the invention of photography and the discovery of the electromagnetic field.

Photogra�phy And Electromagnetism Elevated The Importance Of Images At The Expense Of Written Words.

In so doing humans began to leverage balance back away from the left- brain domination of European cultures. As the nineteenth century progressed, people increasingly obtained information about the world through images. The camera and the newly refined art of lithography tilted culture away from the printed word and toward the visual gestalt. Political cartoons began to appear regularly in the newspapers of the day and were often more to the point than the wordy edi�torials that accompanied them.

Daguerre was Responsible for One Half of the Iconic Revolution.

Michael Faraday (1791-1867) initiated the other In the 1820s, building on the work of an international group of scien�tists-Ampere in France, Volta and Galvani in Italy, Ohm in Germany, and Oersted in Denmark-Faraday intuited the existence of a force field that humans could neither see, hear, smell, touch, nor taste. A few years earlier, the poet, Samuel Coleridge, had written,

"The universe is a cosmic web woven by God and held together by the crossed strands of attractive and repulsive forces"

Faraday invited people to imagine the spectral lines of force that make up an electromagnetic field. After discovering features and principles of this "cosmic web" through�out the 1820s, Faraday invented the electric dynamo in 1831. Humankind could now generate this crackling power. Just as the Mechanical Age of gears and pistons was gathering its full head of steam, Faraday and the other pio�neers in electromagnetic research logarithmically increased human potential to expand his world of experience.

Faraday's electric dynamo would transform culture even more than the initial stages of the Industrial Revolution. It would also cause the emergence of a subconscious adjustment of the existing female/male equation.�� The great principle at the heart of electromagnetism is that tension exists between polar opposites positive and negative. An electromagnetic state only exists when both are present. The two poles, positive and negative, always strive to unite and it is only when they do that energy is generated.

Prior to the discovery of electromagnetism, poets and lovers usually compared their burning erotic love and desires to sparks and flames. The spark of love an electrifying kiss, a compulsive attraction, a magnetic personality, an aura of sensuality, a repulsive person, and the pull of polar opposites entered the lexi�con of love to the delight of anyone who ever needed a fresh way to express an archaic feeling. Electromagnetism was mysterious and wave-like. Immaterial and insensate, electromagnetism resembles a spirit. Everything about it reaf�firmed the validity of right-hemispheric faculties; in Faraday's time it subtly increased both men's and women's appreciation of the feminine.

As Leonard Shlain said in his brilliant book, The Alphabet vs. the Goddess (p. 386)

"Gender relations have been affected by changing communication technologies. The return of the image, and the way electromagnetism reshaped reality from angular masculine to curvaceous feminine, are important factors contribut�ing both to the rise of women's rights in the late nineteenth century and to the increased respect for nature in the second half of the twentieth century. These changes in perception came about, in part, because of these two technolo�gies that affirmed gatherer/nurturer values. Numerous factors contributed to the rise of women's assertiveness and independence and the resurgence of feminine values and holistic thinking. All photographs increase the status of the image-recognition skills of the right brains of both sexes. This factor in turn reinforces a cultural interest in art, myth, nature, nurture, and poetry."

In the early days of the USA, the articulate voices of Sojourner Truth, Eliza�beth Cady Stanton, Harriet Taylor, and Susan B. Anthony joined the chorus for advancing woman's' rights.. In 1848, at Seneca Falls, New York, women from all walks of life attended the first convention dedicated (albeit implicitly) to overthrowing patriarchy. After days of rousing speeches decrying centuries-old abuses, the attendees ratified a Declaration of Sentiments (drafted primarily by E.C. Stanton) repeat�ing almost verbatim some of the wording of the American Declaration of Indepen�dence, it called for a fundamental restructuring of society

"We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men and women are cre�ated equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights governments are instituted, deriving their powers from the consent of the governed."

Using the phraseology of the Founding Fathers was ironic because women, not having the vote, had been disenfranchised by those Founders from having a say in their own governance." In his 1869 book, The Subjection of Women, their prestigious and unex�pected ally, philosopher John Stuart Mill, provided welcome support. He called upon men voluntarily to end patriarchal practices "the legal subordi�nation of one sex by the other. . . is wrong in itself,' he wrote; "it is now one of the chief hindrances to human improvement." Using his now-familiar argument of the "greatest good for the greatest number," he wrote

"But it is not only through the sentiment of personal dignity that the free direction and disposal of their own faculties is a source of unhappiness to human beings, and not least to women. There is nothing, after disease, indigence, and guilt, as fatal to the pleasurable enjoyment of life as the want of a worthy outlet for the active faculties. Large numbers of women suddenly refused to tolerate the injustices long perpetuated against their sex. They lent their money, courage, and intellect to the cause, and growing numbers of men endorsed their aspira�tions. Still, most nineteenth-century men, their egos being threatened disapproved some quite aggressively. As an act of civil dis�obedience in 1872, Susan B. Anthony slipped into a voting booth and pulled the lever. Her arrest forced the issue of woman's suffrage into the courts."

Ms Anthony was confident that any judge would be compelled to interpret the recently enacted 14th amendment in her favor. All Anthony had to do was convince the court that a breathing human born in the USA met the qualifications of a "person." (Shortly, the Supreme did decide that corporations were "persons" under the Fourteenth Amendment) But, the judge rejected her argument without even reading her lawyer's brief.

WOMEN THE SECOND CLASS

The male animals' view of scripture had evolved through "perverted interpretations of the Holy Writ." This stunted world view was promoted primarily by celibate church leaders and powerful secular males who used them to enlarge their power over their subjects. But, those spiritual women who had not been subjugated by religion were undaunted. Large numbers of women suddenly refused to tolerate the injustices long perpetuated against their sex. They lent their money, courage, and intellect to the cause, and growing numbers of men endorsed their aspira�tions. Still, most nineteenth-century men (and the women they controlled) disapproved.

Germany - The West's Leading Male Culture Led Us to WW I and WWII - and Worse The Holocaust and Jewish Genocide. Why?

In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Germany boasted one of best educational systems in the world, for males. Its scrub-faced stu�dents, sitting alert in neat rows, were a teacher's dream. American doctors, English scientists, and French industrialists, mostly male, made regular pilgrimages to Germany to learn about the latest developments in their respective fields. The Germans took immense pride in their poets, composers, industry, and technology. Efficient, polite, and law-abiding to a fault, they constructed a model of what a literate society could achieve so long as males governed and controlled women. How did Germany, arguably the most cultured nation in the world, transmogrify into the most bloodthirsty ogre ever to stalk the halls of his�tory? Where were the spirits of Schiller, Leibniz, and Goethe at Babi- Yar, Auschwitz, and Buchenwald? The perpetrators of atrocities took pleasure in reciting Heine's poetry, Mann's prose, and Mozart's music. Most had viewed literacy as the key to civilizing the uncivilized, but, then, how to explain the hyperinflation of 1923 and the monstrosity called Nazi Germany? How could the cultured Germans have so thoroughly lost their collective moral compass? Why did not their refined educations pro�tect them? After fifty years, these dark unanswered questions continue to cast a pall over all of the twentieth century's accomplishments.

The twenty-first century has not rooted out the answers. It was, after all, the God-fearing, church-going Germans who gave the world the Reformation. They were the Teutonic warriors who successfully resisted Roman rule and who were so fractious that for thousands of years they would not follow any one as a leader. The bristling forest of straight-armed Sieg Heils! was evidence that they had forsaken God and transferred that faith to der Furher. Why were the cultured, twentieth century Germans so suscepti�ble to this ranting rabble-rouser?

The Nazi response�was to skillfully use the German sense of being victims of the Versailles Treaty and their tribal Teutonic view of themselves as the great children of Siegfried. Germany's religious rectitude, moral education, and the Germans' identification with the best of ancient classical cultural traditions were crucial factors used in Hitler's act of mass-hypnosis.Most effective was his brilliant use of the new electronic medium radio. It was a relatively new technology; he manipulated it with sinister effect. Radio is a medium of speech. It is sensuous, immediate, and very personal, like someone whis�pering into your ear in the dark. It can communicate nuance and intona�tion. Because the radio listener cannot see the speaker, radio is oral-to-aural raised to the highest pitch of intensity? Because the Germans were extremely liter�ate, they were particularly vulnerable to a demagogue with a microphone. Prior to microphones and radio, a single speaker could only address a few hundred people. With radio, one speaker could address an entire nation at once. Thereby Hitler caste a wide, seductive net; invoking in listeners a sense of tribal unity and singleness of vision. Period photographs of mesmerized Germans gathered on street corners staring intently at outdoor radio speakers blaring Hitler's voice tell the story. McLuhan observed.

That Hitler came into political existence at all is directly owing to radio and public address systems. . . . Radio provided the first massive experi�ence of electronic implosion, that reversal of the entire direction and meaning of literate Western civilization.

In Germany in the 1930s, Hitler used the radio to weld the German people into a fanatic Teutonic tribe entranced by his messianic Aryan message that they were his "chosen people." If Germans had only read Hitler's speeches, they would not have fallen under his spell. In a radio speech, Hitler once said, "I go my way with the assurance of a somnambulist." He perverted the new medium and turned a whole nation into sleepwalkers. At the time, few grasped why Hitler, a modern day Pied Piper, had such appeal. The content of Hitler's message was and is repugnant to virtually everyone, including modern Germans. They cannot fathom how their grand�parents were taken in by such a wild ranting. The irony is that Germany was so highly literate using the print medium that it had few defenses against a new medium that blasted it with booming spoken words. Certainly the evil that was Nazi Germany can�not be explained away simply as the result of a new technology of commu�nication, but as Shlain points out the use of radio has been minimized by the print dominated writers as a key factor that propelled the Austrian paperhanger to the pinnacle of German political power. (Note Mein Kampf, his personal addition to fanatical leaders' books, was not as widely known as his radio speeches and image.) This is peculiar because great credit is given to Franklin Delano Roosevelt's "fireside chats" over radio, and, to Winston Churchill's stirring defense of Britain which were radio broadcasts, too.

. Few people real�ized that the advent of the Atomic Age was also the beginning of the end of patriarchy, the evolving return of the Goddess, and the triumph of the image over written words. A new era was dawning.

TELEVISION THE KING KONG OF COMMUNICATION?

DOES THE INTERNET BOOST THE ART OF HUMAN PLAY TO A HIGHER LEVEL?

The Earth's human inhabitants are living with an anachronism that may be its eco-spasmic downfall. On the one hand, it could be the greatest moment of liberation of our human potential. The problem is that Left-Brain dominated businessmen with warrior-dominated competitive thinking control the incredible power of the powerful mass medium - Television.

Television is more mesmerizing than radio. Great power over humans is in the hands of the male-dominated cultural artifact - business corporations.

The Internet is another almost incredibly very different medium. It is more right-brained than controlled television because it expands humans' minds into cyberspace. At the time of this writing, the power elite (males) have not, yet, found a way to take control of this extremely powerful tool of communication. It could be we are dependent on women to prevent the testosterone-dominated men from seizing control of the internet.

Consider The Power Of Television And The Internet Through Personal Computers, Black Berries, Cell Phones And The Like.

The Brain uses different pattern �recognition skills to decipher the TV screen's low-definition flickering mosaic mesh than it does for print matter. The retina's cones need bright light to scan a static page of print, which is why computer monitors have more pixels to aid the medium to receive/send more detailed signals. Both mediums - Computer screens and television bring the eye's rods into a more playful form of contact.

Human eyes see best in dim surroundings and can detect the slightest movements. As people watch more and more television and make use of computer graphics, the supremacy of the left hemisphere dims as the right's use increases. For 750,000 years, families had gathered around lit hearths whose flames supplied warmth, illuminated darkness, encouraged camaraderie, and encouraged storytelling. Campfires had been an essential ingredient for the evolution of oral epics. In 1950, a new kind of fire replaced the hearth; and it encouraged a different set of social qualities.

(Many television researchers have found that the generations who have grown up with television in the living room keep it "on" all the time as their modern form of the hearth.)

The electroencephalogram (EEG) brain-wave patterns of someone reading a book are very different from those of the same person watching television. So fundamentally different, in fact, that there is little deviation in the sets of those patterns even when the content of the book or television program is varied. A network program about adorable koala bears elicits essentially the same brain wave pattern as a program containing violence or sexuality. Watching television and meditating generate the identical slow alpha and theta waves. These EEG patterns denote a passive, receptive, and contempla�tive state of mind.

Reading a book, in contrast, generates beta waves; the kind that appears whenever a person is concentrating on a task. The computer user on the internet is involved in an activity more like reading a book than watching television in many aspects. Corroborating evidence concerning the perceptual differences between using these multi-modes comes from sophisticated brain PET (position emission tomography) scanners that demonstrate the circuits in the left hemisphere lighting up when the subject is reading (while the right hemisphere remains relatively dark). When the subject looks up from his or her book and begins to watch television, the right hemisphere switches on and the left begins to idle. Task-oriented beta waves activate the hunter/killer side of the brain as alpha and theta waves emanate more from the gatherer/nurturer side. The active computer user at his or her mouse or keyboard is using both sides of the brain at a higher level of activity. It would seem that Western civilization has for far too long been stuck in a beta mode due to literacy's limiting effects on the use of the brain. We seem to be moving toward striking a balance with a little more alpha and theta, regard�less of the source that will serve to soothe humankind's savage beast.

MEN SURF ON TV WHILE WOMEN CONNECT WITH FAMILY AND FRIENDS.

Think about males and television/monitor imagery. Ordinarily, men, traditionally favor logic over intuition. Yet, they often engage in "surfing" when they watch television-. In effect, they watch many programs simultaneously. They would never try to read chap�ters of various books simultaneously. Similarly, a hunter trying to stalk multiple ani�mals simultaneously would go hungry. A man is much more susceptible to this adult "attention deficit disorder" behavior than a woman. This is because tele�vision, being a flickering image-based medium, derails the masculine-left� linear strategy. This is in contrast with an earlier time when the written word disoriented the gestalt-feminine-right brain thinking. While it is true that women also engage in "surfing' the practice is far more prevalent among men and, in general, they do it more mindlessly.

The printing press continues to disseminate written words. Television projects images. As television sets and computer monitors and cell phones continue to proliferate around the world, they are redirecting the course of human evolution.

It seems that the fusing of the use of inventions of photography and electromagnetism are proving to be of the same magnitude as the discovery of agriculture, writing, and print.

While most social commentators wring their hands over the dismal nature of much of television programming's content, they fail to accord television it primacy in thought-processing. The process of perceiving television's audio/visual multi-dimensional information is over due. It is a factor reconfiguring society in a positive way. Similarly, when the printing press appeared, commentators were caught up in debating the content of the books being printed. No one then appreciated the effects brought about by the process of the society becoming literate. The more important story is how the medium itself affects people's per�ception of reality.

Television's popularity greatly increased the power of images. Iconic infor�mation has superseded alphabetic information as the single most significant cultural influence. The first modern image to achieve universal recognition was the atomic bomb's mushroom explosion. The phallic and billowing cloud of doom rising over Hiroshima symbolized the unrestrained even antic masculine right brain at its worst/best. It was the climacteric end result of thousands of years of left-brain dominance. Hunter/killer val�ues had been carried to their farthest extreme. For all their virtues, abstract science, linear words, and sequential equations had led the world to the brink of extinction. The outcome is still uncertain while male dominated industries still continue to pollute the atmosphere excessively.

Left Brain Analytical Skills vs. Right Brain Imaging -

Why do we have this competition? Before, we knew much about the brain we were aware that our brain is a holistic instrument, or, maybe our body is the tool of the whole brain, Whatever. The failure of leadership by men is too obvious. The Earth needs a positive change of attitude by men. They should invite the best of the women to leadership in politics and religion. Men will still have their areas of dominance in the areas of business and mathematical sciences. We should have the best in all fields of endeavor. Shutting out women as we have done for centuries has prevented human potential from being realized.

In Pre-History, Before, The World Religions Were Shaped By The Males We Had A World-Wide Religion. It Was A Pagan� Matriarchy is based on a Woman-God.

She is still God. God the Goddess, She, the cradle in which we come into being. She is mother, a maiden, a crone. She is a warrior(ess), a protectress, a peacemaker, a spirit of GAIA, mother Earth. Her many forms are evident and once again evident. Ancient rituals acknowledged the power of touch. Today she touches the hearts of millions of believers.

Still, all know that power does not come in cans. Women know that men must invite them to the bargaining table where the future of the Earth is at stake. Women can provide leadership and be good followers on a team to save this Earth from Eco-Spasm. If Plan B is to be invoked we need both sexes working toward a sustainable Earth where re-cycling Earth's resources is a precious highly-valued norm. More and more human society is working away from majoritarian decision making toward the prevalence of consensus building toward team objectives.

Surely, we know that women are better at finding consensus. The cultures of planet Earth are so diverse that consensus building will be the best way to work out agreements on control of pollution; the requirements of re-cycling; water management; air management; soil erosion management. Because disease control will need a thousand and one agreements on early warning systems universal education will an essential. Men have become aware that they are testosterone-driven to try to dominate and win; they need the leadership of women in religion and politics to quell the warrior-spirit and develop the skills of diplomacy and peacemaking.� The Planet Earth, Moth4er Earth, noees the change.��

THE END

Web Sites for Pagan References:

www.religioustolerance.org/neo_paga.htm (General Information about Wicca

www.witchesweb.com (Networking, education, news, - go to site map)

www.witchvox.com (Witch's Voice)

www.asatru.knotwork.com/troth/ (The Ring of Troth - Norse Paganism

http//www.adf.org.org/homepage.shmtl (Celtic Druidism)

www.uogoelph.ca/-bmyers/druid.html (The practice of Celtic Druidism

References

Voodoo/Houdoo Reference:

Merriam-Webster's Encyclopedia of World Religions, Springfield, Mass., Merriam-Webster, 1999,

Websites:

www.geocities.com/Athens/Aegean/7510/

www.voodoomuseum.com

www.neosoft.com/nodust/ml/ml.html (Marie Laveau)

www.ifafoundation.org (Santerian world view)

www.seanet.com/-efunmoyiwa/ochanet.html (Orisha Net Yoruba)

Wicca/Witchcraft References

Gordon Melton and Isotta Poggi, Magic, Witchcraft, and Paganism in America, 2nd ed. (1992), provides an overview of Wiccan literature.

The best survey of the movement is Margot Adler, Drawing Down the Moon, rev. and expanded ed. (1986, reissued 1997). You will find there, entries on the major Wiccan groups in North America that also appear in J. Gordon Melton, Encyclopedia of American Religions (1999).

On the British phase of the movement, see J.L. Bracelin, Gerald Gardner (1960); and Doreen Valiente, The Rebirth of Witchcraft (1989).

Helpful volumes on North American Wicca include Aidan A. Kelly, Crafting the Art of Magic (1991- ); and the several volumes published in the series Witchcraft Today and see the list from Llewellyn Publications, the major publisher of Wiccan literature in America.

Wilson, Colin, The Occult, Vintage Books (Random House), New York, 1973

A special acknowledgment should be made for the insights taken from the brilliant and recommended treatise Shlain, Leonard, The Alphabet versus The Goddess, Conflict between word and image, Viking, Penguin Group, New York, 1998.