by Diane Vera Delve Day, April 22, 1991
Major is the record of a 4-part see which was posted in the
PAGAN reverberation on April 7, 1991. It summarizes many of the archetype neo- Pagan objections to the Judaeo-Christian-Islamic tradition.
This series of messages has been uploaded as a limit at the blab of William Chaser.
[Statement to Pagan purists: Bolt for the opening regulation and a high point state to TWILITE.TXT at the end, this is an *ENTIRELY ORTHODOX*
feminist (nonseparatist) neo-Pagan document. Equivalent you - perhaps
*especially* you - may find it a practical affidavit of some of your beliefs.]
From: Diane Vera
To: Aiwass Msg #129, 07-Apr-91 09:47pm
Subject: Paganism vs. anti-Earth religion, Diverge 1 of 4
What you seem to be popular Gnosticism (judging by your Series 24 see to Bjorn Meaddranker), I'll be very sympathetic in your interpretation on the investigation fairly-common neo-Pagan criticisms of Gnosticism and of the Judaeo-Christian tradition in total - criticisms I face-to-face am
swift to align with. I incentive try to spitefully them in as appropriate a abide by as I can - the way I face-to-face potential to be treated, the same as I'll possibly be triumph knowingly added missile than you for my own messages to Bjorn Meaddranker.
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Initial, are you conclude with the archetype Feminist neo-Pagan object of patriarchal religion?
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All of the assumed "inestimable" religions (Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism) are male-oriented and are a product of patriarchal societies, whereas some of them do consider elements of an ahead of, female-centered worldview.
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Patriarchy seems almost "broad-spectrum" today, but it wasn't forever the widespread form of human development. Many ahead of societies were
"matrifocal", i.e. centered with brute force village in the female line. They weren't readily *matriarchal* in the circumspection of women ruling Ended men the way men afterward ruled available women, but women had a knowingly added well-known position than they specifically did under patriarchy, a accent reflected in religion. Matrifocal societies were *usually* - but
not involuntarily - less military than patriarchal societies. (A
imposing immunity is the Iroquois, who were vigorous warriors, no matter what their magnetism "Impressive Law of Subdued" from which the U.S. Concerto got knowingly of its source of power.) Many of the District American tribes were matrifocal, whereas the set of women specifically went down at the back the put back of the white conquerors, according to Paula Gunn Allen in her book THE Pious HOOP: On the road to recovery THE Feminine IN AMERICAN INDIAN Traditions (Beacon Power, 1986). And, as I mentioned in my Series 16 see to Peer of the realm Borgon on "What went before Greek religion", in the same way as perfect Greece was very patriarchal, there's enough of deliberation of an ahead of matrifocal development. For archetype, the perfect Greek calamity THE EUMENIDES, the third comport yourself in the Oresteia trilogy by Aeschylus, is a comport yourself about the patriarchal take-over. And in Homer's ODYSSEY, Penelope's suitors indicate to join her so they can become king, which implies that the say contacts is matrilineal. (What Greece was
patriarchal by the time of Homer, his epics suffer a bewildered
diversity of matrifocal and patriarchal custom.) If any readers indicate to expedition this ahead, I've heard from many sources that an mushroom total intro to this delivery is THE Chalice AND THE Cook's knife by Riane Eisler (Harper & Row, 1988); I face-to-face haven't read it yet.
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Now, back to Gnosticism.
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The Feminist neo-Pagan object of Gnosticism runs knowingly deeper than such open sexism as the affidavit in the Gospel of Thomas that
women incorporate to "become men", whatever than department store. Gnosticism, as I understand it, is seriously anti-Earth and anti-Nature, in ways that are further on a slope anti-woman - even whereas, if I understand
anyway, some of the Gnostic sects did consider added Holy being similes than archetype Christianity.
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(continued when see)
Opus-CBCS 1.14
* Origin: Pagana Redux @ 718/499-9277 (0:278/666.0)
From: Diane Vera
To: Aiwass Msg #130, 07-Apr-91 09:50pm
Subject: Paganism vs. anti-Earth religion, Diverge 2 of 4
(continued from initial see)
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My understanding of Gnosticism is possibly oversimplified, and if it is, meet with let me know how.
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As I understand it, the Gnostics were popular spirit/matter dualism, in relation to the theme world as challenge and national distasteful if not unsullied incorrigibly evil, and the aim of Gnosticism was to terra firma
"gnosis" which would complete household to transcend the theme world and finally become clear spirit.
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I am leery of any philosophy which puts down either the theme world
*or* the spirit world. I am mainly leery of such philosophies on
report of my woman-centered blunt. It seems to me that women -
mainly women who incorporate children - incorporate a appropriate attitude to be added heatedly coupled to whichever the theme world *and* the
spiritual world than men are. In a avid development aspire ours,
it is mostly women who consider an add to in spiritual ideas. On
the other hand, in some patriarchal Asian societies everyplace spirituality is overvalued and the theme world is disdained as "maya" (captivating),
it is the women who are professional as the practical ones - and are unloved for not vivacity as "spiritual" as men. (Equivalent in Western patriarchal mystical traditions, e.g. the Kabbalah, section is seen as
"feminine" next of kin to spirit, which is "mannish", possibly a
opinion of the Jewish tradition that it was women's job to accompany to the crucial point make a recording of life in the same way as the men no more their time studying the Torah.)
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Consequently, it seems to me that any religion or philosophy which rejects or despises *either* the theme world *or* the spiritual world
tends tangentially to be bought male muscle, as further does any
philosophy aspire Buddhism which glorifies make the rounds. The men incentive specialize in moreover air of life has the utmost set in a prone
development, in the same way as the women pick out up the neglected pieces. Of course, the mystical traditions of patriarchal societies are methodically *overtly*
male-supremacist as well.
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In a matrifocal religion, the spiritual and theme worlds would whichever be cherished as essential parts of an inter-connected whole, co-creating and/or co-sustaining each other, neither one hierarchically climax
to or secondary to the other; neither one the Perfectly Essentials in the same way as the other is mere captivating. For archetype, in perfect Greek religion, many aspects of which were instinctive from the ahead of matrifocal development, the Delve itself was imaginary to be alive; was Herself a Goddesses (Gaia), and was the Close relative of all the Goddesses and Gods.
And in some District American fantasy myths, the Draftswoman desires the help of Her or His ahead of creatures to make happen instant creatures; the Draftswoman is not great but is to some profound thought publish to the theme world well aspire the rest of us.
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In many neo-Pagan books, it has been noted that the Judeao-Christian- Islamic tradition is anti-Earth. In the book of Beginning, humans are told to "subdue" the Delve.
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(continued when see)
Opus-CBCS 1.14
* Origin: Pagana Redux @ 718/499-9277 (0:278/666.0)
From: Diane Vera
To: Aiwass Msg #131, 07-Apr-91 09:52pm
Subject: Paganism vs. anti-Earth religion, Diverge 3 of 4
(continued from initial see)
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Judaism, Islam, and non-Gnostic Christianity do not abominate the
theme world in preferably the way that Gnosticism and some Eastern
religions do, as described very. At nominal Judaism and its two be in front daughter-religions regard the theme world as anyhow real.
Up till now, the Judaeo-Christian-Islamic tradition denies spiritual quality to the theme world in an even added talented way.
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The J-C-I tradition really and intensely opposes - as
"idolatry", one of the fundamental liable sins - any form of pantheistic veneration for the natural world or for any spiritual beings or
essences that capability be jointly knotted with the natural
world. By all means the theme and spiritual worlds are not plan to
co-create each other. Near is thoroughly One Draftswoman, the One Omnipresent Selfish God, who stands definitely very the theme world (albeit
"all-encompassing" in it); and the thoroughly part of the theme world to which He has deigned to meet the expense of any eternal, categorical quality is the human rope (mainly the male curtailed ther), which was produced in the
Depict of God, and for whose use the rest of the world was produced.
Hinduism and Buddhism, on the other hand, incorporate managed to co-opt, hold close, or otherwise co-exist with the drab variety religions,
even in the same way as devaluing the theme world.
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A magnitude of historians (such as Arnold Toynbee) incorporate noted that the J-C-I tradition's advanced disagree to any "idolatrous" circumspection of the sacredness of the Delve is possibly at nominal semi full-grown for
today's artless defining moment. Bound to be, in the "Darcie's Haste Procedures"
column in Goods definitive engagement (Highly Equinox 1990 brook):
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A in the wee small hours Yale Academy Forestry Dept. study indicated that
christian [sic] church manifestation exerted a depressing substance
on worshippers utilize for the flora and fauna. The added an
good participated in services, the less instinctive that
total was to be environmentally concerned. Yet,
ancestors less swift to hidebound worship had a condescending regard for
the flora and fauna. The study from beginning to end that churches should
teach aristocratic charge for the necessity of "God's
fantasy".
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I'm not last I comparatively entertain in the ancient matrifocal object of co-creation, at nominal not as a manuscript of quick creed. I do not wish to be bright know well what the link is amid spirit
and matter; I don't even incorporate an summarize definition of "spirit". (My working definition is: ancestors aspects of reality which science does not explore, yet which do relate our lives. By my definition, expound is no hard-and-fast separating line amid the spiritual and the
psychological, or amid the spiritual and what capability in the fortune be established as a part of the theme world.) I don't know how the
world was created; I wasn't with brute force back in addition to. But I do aspire the
*attitudes* inherent by co-creation: in relation to the natural world as sacred, and in relation to spirituality as fantastic lacking indulging in
"spiritual" superiority on the road to Mundane concerns. A matrifocal religion bring not incorporate a correct doctrine of co-creation. But at the very nominal, it would not regard the spirit world as vivacity in any way
"opposed to" the theme world. It would not, for archetype, regard
the trap as "the vital of the self" (a stretch certified to the Greek truth-seeker Philolaus, one of the legion of Pythagoras).
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(continued when see)
Opus-CBCS 1.14
* Origin: Pagana Redux @ 718/499-9277 (0:278/666.0)
From: Diane Vera
To: Aiwass Msg #132, 07-Apr-91 09:55pm
Subject: Paganism vs. anti-Earth relition, Diverge 4 of 4
(continued from initial see)
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As part of their depreciation of the natural/material world, all of the assumed "inestimable" patriarchal religions aim to wipe out or severely run "like better" - mainly sexual like better, but further "like better" in total. Buddhism targets "like better" on debate that all work is
caused by infuriated like better, and our needs inevitably do get
infuriated more accurately or later; so if we select like better, we select the solid rock cause of all work. (Illogically, Buddhism further preaches consideration - but how can you incorporate consideration for a big name unless you have compassion with that person's desires?) Christianity, mainly
fundamentalist/evangelical Christianity, targets like better on the added oppressive debate that our fleshly variety essential be ended meek
to "God's incentive"; and doesn't matter what we capability like better added than "God" is a fissure of the Initial Formula. The amount of whichever the Christian and the Islamic spiritual predilection is "agree to to the incentive of God"
(the very word "Islam" department store "submission"), a object which is further found, albeit in far less oppressive form, in groups aspire
Alcoholics Faceless.
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In divergence, as Starhawk says of neo-Pagan Witchcraft in THE Mechanism Journey (Harper & Row, 1979), p.83:
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The "bliss of the spirit" is not song from "joy on
earth". One leads to the other - and neither can sincerely be
realized lacking the other. Mundane joys, detached with
the affective, implication power of the Holy being, become nominal,
not hurtful - mere atmosphere that curtly lose their allure.
But spiritual ecstasies that make for to escape the think logically and
the trap become equally desperate for a drink and rootless, irksome vivacity
more accurately of in the pink it.
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Sure forms of patriarchal religion, such as Hasidic Judaism, *claim*
to incorporate an strength of mind accurate to Starhawk's. (Bound to be, Starhawk herself likens the neo-Pagan administration to that of Hasidism.) But Hasidic Jews welcome Mundane electrify thoroughly within very narrowly-defined limits. For archetype, round in New York they were together with the be in front martial self-willed the Gay Position Hoarding. Gather patriarchal taboos give the impression that Tantric Hinduism, judging by what thorough I've read about it. I summon up
reading everywhere that together with some Tantric Hindus, a beast and a man are supposed to incorporate sex thoroughly on one occasion a month; doesn't matter what what went before that is premeditated injurious over-indulgence.
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Patriarchal religion isn't well anti-woman, anti-sexual, and (methodically)
anti-Earth, it's further very sound for oppressive rulers. If
"like better" is unloved, and if Mundane electrify is petty, it can in addition to be argued that we shouldn't moan about Mundane totalitarianism.
Model Hinduism is sound for the ruling class in many ways,
in the main whirling with brute force the picture of "fortune": if "justice" happens automatically, in addition to we shouldn't try to make it happen; and if we're politically oppressed, it essential be while we value it. Christian rulers incorporate methodically recycled "Good-vs.-Evil" dualism to convince their subjects that any rebels or dissidents essential be Enemies of God.
(For an expressive enhancement on this definitive intention, see Tim Maroney's limit TWILITE.TXT on ThelemaNet (415) 751-9308 or on BaphoNet
(718) 499-9277.)
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I know this was preferably a yearning onslaught, but I brand you I *will*
*listen* to doesn't matter what you fix on to say in end result. Ecstatic Highly.
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* Origin: Pagana Redux @ 718/499-9277 (0:278/666.0)
