Friday, May 23, 2014

"COMPLICATIONS AND CONFUSIONS IN DISCUSSIONS OF THE GODDESS"

"Although writing in patriarchal Greece from a patriarchal perspective, Hesiod said in hisTheogony or Birth of the Gods that Gaia or Earth alone was the mother of the Mountains, Sky, and Sea. With the male Sky she gave birth to the next generation of deities known as the “Titans,” who were overthrown by Zeus.

Hesiod’s was a “tale with a point of view” in which “it was necessary” for the “forces of civilization”–for him represented by warrior God and rapist Zeus–to violently overthrow and replace earlier conceptions of the origin life on earth and presumably also to overthrow and replace the people and societies that created them.

With the triumph of Christianity in the age of Constantine in the 4th century AD, Christus Victor replaced Zeus in the cities, while the religion of Mother Earth continued to be practiced in the countryside. Over time, many of the attributes of Mother Earth were assimilated into the image of Mary, and priests began to perform rituals earlier dedicated to Mother Earth, such as blessing the fields and the seeds before planting. In the Middle Ages “the Goddess” re-emerged within Western Christianity in devotion to the Virgin Mary, the female saints, and figures such as Lady Wisdom, at the same time that the history of the Goddess was being erased.
In the middle of the 19th century, in Das Mutterrecht (The Mother Right), J. J. Bachofen stunned the scholarly world with his theory that matrilineal kinship, matrilineal inheritance, and reverence for the Great Mother were to be found at the origins of civilization. Bachofen challenged the view that patriarchy and the worship of male Gods had existed “from the beginning .” 
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries a large number of scholars and writers agreed with Bachofen that Mother Earth was worshipped in early “matriarchal” socieities.

Almost all of these scholars also agreed with Bachofen that the religion of the Goddess in matriarchal societies represented a “primitive,“ “inferior,” and “lower” state of culture. Thus they also concurred that “it was necessary” for matriarchy to be overthrown by patriarchy in order for civilization to “advance.”
19th and 20th century theorists invoked Darwin’s evolutionary theory and spoke of an “evolution of cultures” in which the “stongest” and the “fittest” survived. For them, it was “obvious” that the triumph of patriarchy over matriarchy was a triumph of reason over unreason, the individual over the group, and civilization over its opposite.
The classicist Jane Harrison whose work uncovered a history of the Goddess underneath the art and literature of the Greek “classic age” can be read as having had a preference for the earlier religion of the Goddess and an antipathy for the Olympian religion of Zeus. However, she deemed the shift from “matriarchy to patriarchy” a “necessary stage in a real advance. Matriarchy gave to woman a false because magical prestige.” (Prolegomena, 285) On the same page she noted that (true) “understanding was not granted to the Greek.”

Presumably she looked forward to a time when the “mystical truth” that the “stronger had a need, real and imperative, of the weaker” would lead to a new cultural synthesis in which the stronger would no longer feel it necessary to “despise and enslave” the weaker. However, her language is so cryptic that it is easy to miss her point—whatever it is.
Carl Jung and his disciple Erich Neumann who wrote the widely read Jungian book, The Great Mother, accepted Bachofen’s theory that matriarchy preceded patriarchy and his conclusion that patriarchy marked an advance in culture. Neumann argued that patriarchy allowed the individual to emerge from the group and for rationality to emerge from the mists of magical and irrational thinking. For all his love for and interest in “the Great Mother,” Neumann concluded that it was necessary for her “reign” to end.
Jung and Neumann agreed that rationality and individualism which they viewed as “brought to us by patriarchy” were a “good thing.” However, in the face of modern technology, growing alienation of city dwellers from nature, and the destruction wrought by modern warfare, both Jung and Neumann concluded that it was time for patriarchy to reincorporate at least some of the values of matriarchy.

For them “the masculine” had need of “the feminine” in order to reunite the masculine with the body, nature, and the unconscious. While they spoke of the reintegration of the masculine and the feminine, neither Jung nor Neumann mounted a full-on critique of patriarchy for the violence it brought with it, nor for despising and enslaving women in real life.
The view that a matriarchal age preceded patriarchy was challenged in the mid-twentieth century by mainstream scholars who argued that no matriarchal societies ever existed. These scholars called attention to the power of uncles, the brothers of the mothers through whom matrilineal kinship was traced, and concluded that societies with matrilineal kinship were patriarchal after all.
After the Second World War, interest in matriarchal societies and the Goddess waned in the face of a new view of “man” as the “naked ape.” The idea that mother-honoring societies of peace preceded patriarchy was deemed a romantic longing for a golden age and viewed as a fantasy belied by the inheritance of aggression from “the apes.” (The idea that dominance and aggression is the main human inheritance from apes has been challenged by studies of the bonobo apes.)
In early 1970s when second wave feminists began to critique “patriarchal” religions and to seek alternatives to them, they rediscovered the literature on matriarchy and the Goddess. This literature seemed to confirm feminist longings for an alternative to patriarchy and its Gods. While some feminists criticized earlier scholarship, others simply ignored its assumption that early civilizations were primitive and its conclusion that it was necessary for matriarchy and the era of the Goddess to be superseded by patriarchy and the era of the Gods—in order for civilization to advance.
In her great works The Language of the Goddess and The Civilization of the Goddess, Marija Gimbutas did not directly address the assumptions and conclusions of earlier scholarship on the Goddess. However, her conception of the “civilization of the Goddess” boldly challenged the assumption of earlier scholarship that Goddess cultures were “primitive” and “uncivilized”; it thus undermined the conclusions of earlier scholars that “it was necessary” for such cultures to be overthrown. Gimbutas argued that in many respects the civilization of the Goddess was “higher” than the patriarchal ones that replaced it. As she said, the civilization of Old Europe was peaceful, egalitarian, sedentary, and highly artistic—and survived for millennia without war.
Gimbutas did not use the term “matriarchy” in her works, because she rejected the popular and scholarly assumption that matriarchy is the opposite of patriarchy—a society where mothers rule and females dominate males. She spoke carefully of egalitarian cultures that were “matristic” or mother-honoring, and probably matrilineal and matrilocal. In recent years, a new group of scholars have redefined matriarchy to refer to mother-honoring egalitarian societies where grandmothers and great uncles share power in community. I suspect that Gimbutas would have adopted this new definition of matriarchy. However, the fact remains that she did not use the term.
Despite the attempts of new generations of scholars to redefine terms, and to challenge the assumptions and conclusions of earlier scholars, those who dismiss Goddess scholarship generally assume that new generations of scholars are saying “the same old thing.”  What is the cause of this failure of scholarly objectivity?  The whole discussion of the power of women and Goddesses in prehistory raises questions that cannot help but stir up emotion. Was patriarchy and advance in civilization? Was it necessary for men to dominate women in order for civilization to advance? Is war inevitable? Or was patriarchy a wrong turn in human history fraught with violence and injustice?
I suggest that the emotions involved in the above questions have made it difficult for sustained rational discussion to occur. It was one thing to discuss matriarchy and the Goddess as a sideline to the necessary triumph of patriarchy. It is quite another to suggest that patriarchy might not have been “necessary” at all. This thought threatens the foundations on which our entire understanding of civilization–and our educational system–is based.
Originally published on Feminism and Religion.
Carol P. Christ is looking forward to the spring Goddess Pilgrimage to Crete. Early bird special for fall tour until June 15Carol can be heard in a recent interview on Voices of Women.  Carol is a founding voice the Goddess movement and the study of women and religion. Her books include She Who Changes and Rebirth of the Goddess and the widely-used anthologies Womanspirit Rising and Weaving the Visions."

" A Message to Lightworkers – May 22, 2014"

"The latest update from our friends, the Collective, onboard the New Jerusalem, under Ashtar’s command.

Greetings, our friends and fellow shipmates! Namaste.

There is much happening now on your Earth plane. For one, your systems of governance are in a moment of great shift.

There is breaking through now, the first level of what you refer to as Disclosure—the admittance on the part of the US and other governments that they have been in discussion, in networked alliance, and engaged in work and scientific exploration, with what you term ETs—those of us living in higher dimensional levels and at a higher level of what you term “technology,” which to us is not at all a separate form of thought or mechanics, but simply a natural use of universal law of energy and light source.

Watch throughout the remaining months of this year, as your media begin to allow small shafts of light to be emitted from the previously closed up rooms of information and complicity.

Some of this information will be a surprise, some of it will not, particularly for those of you who cannot understand why the secrecy has taken place at such a serious level, and for so many decades, even centuries.

Watch how the stories will increasingly appear, regarding the ISS [International Space Station], statements made by members of Congress and other governments’ officials outside the US, hints imparted by your president and other leaders, and increasing signs in the sky.


For we are ready to meet with you, once you have collectively admitted that we exist, and are psychologically prepared as a race, without fear, to increase and elevate your experience of us.
For another, your banking systems have recently undergone a great change, unheralded by your media, as it is presently being kept in secrecy by those who instituted the change and those who are immediately affected by it (banking officials).

Nor would we describe it in detail, though it is utterly clear to us and easily done, as worldwide recognition of these changes will occur in perfect timing, and not before.

But know that the previous systems of feudal servant and overlord are now ended in ways previously only thought of or argued for.

This is done—this part is finished. Your rights as individuals and as nations, to live under free systems of trade and currency, and not fraudulent and easily breakable systems, has come through at last.
This is one of the great underpinnings of your new world.

Rejoice with us, and expect to hear of these changes, for you shall, and sooner than you might believe.
Namaste."

Source
http://carolineoceanaryan.com/2014/05/22/a-message-to-lightworkers-may-22-2014/

Bringing Back Goddess Church
Pleiadian Priestess
Reverend Crystal Cox

Tuesday, May 20, 2014

"Top Thirteen Most Influential People in Goddess Spirituality" Feminist Spirituality: Bringing Back the Goddess; Raising the Consciousness of the Feminine Divine.

"Earlier this month I was very interested to see a series of posts on Raise the Horns about the top 25 most influential people in the birth of paganism.

When I read Mankey’s post, it reinforced my own conception of Goddess spirituality as having a distinctly different lineage and flavor than much of contemporary paganism.

His list, while extensive, useful, and accurate, involves a distinct lack of Goddess scholars, highlighting to me that Goddess spirituality IS a different movement and isn’t actually just a Goddess-oriented branch of contemporary paganism. Indeed, almost everyone on his list I’d either never heard of, not read, or don’t enjoy their writing. I immediately started to draft a list of my own and came up with 13 women, which seemed delightfully appropriate.

We in the Goddess feminist community have our own path, herstory, and lineage, one that really only began in the 1970′s in direct connection to the feminist movement, rather than the pagan movement.

Not necessarily in a particular order, here is my own list of the top thirteen most influential people in the development and articulation of Goddess Spirituality as its own distinct path. (I’ve been scrambling to finish collecting my thoughts in time to post this list while it is still Women’s History Month!) Only one of my own picks also appears on Mankey’s list.
  1. Carol Christ–this feminist scholar is the most skillful and intelligent thealogian of the present day. Christ’s influence on my own ideas and concepts has been profound. Her work is academic, focused, and deep, and she wrestles with heavy questions.

    I particularly enjoy her books Rebirth of the Goddess and She Who Changes. A brilliant, thoughtful, amazing writer, Christ’s essay Why Women Need the Goddessremains, in my opinion, one of the most important and influential articles of our time.
  2. Merlin Stone–author of the classic When God was a Woman, this professor of art history changed the landscape and understanding of ancient cultures and their relationship to the Goddess (and, yes she drew on the work of Murray and Graves, but moved into feminist thealogy rather than pagan practice).
  3. Riane Eisler—author of The Chalice and the Blade, she made a significant contribution to the understanding of the history and development of patriarchy as well as offering a solution in the form of a partnership model of society.
  4. Marija Gimbutas—scholar and archaeologist and author of several books chronicling Goddess figurines from around the world, including The Language of the Goddess, her work has come under scrutiny and criticism, but remains a potent contribution to the lineage of the Goddess movement.
  5. Starhawkthe first of two on my list who bridge the gap between more “classic” paganism and feminist spirituality, Starhawk had a huge impact on the development of a female-oriented spiritual tradition. Her book The Spiral Dance was the first introduction to the Goddess for many women. In keeping with what I find to be a personal lack of click with a lot of pagan authors, I did not particularly enjoy The Spiral Danceand actually read it much later than most of the other books about feminist spirituality that I reference in this post, but regardless of personal taste, her influence on the Goddess movement is profound.
  6. Z. Budapest—considered by many to be one of the first mothers of the feminist spirituality movement in the U.S., like Starhawk, Z’s writings are not my personal favorite resources because of their heavy Wiccan orientation, but they are undeniably classics in Goddess circles. Z has taken heat from many pagans for her position on transgender people.
  7. Patricia Mongahan–recently departed author of Goddess-specific resource books like The Goddess Path and Wild Girls, Patricia’s writing is more practical and less scholarly/thealogy-oriented than some of my other favorite authors.

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  8. Monica Sjoo—radical artist, ecofeminist, and Goddess scholar, Sjoo wrote The Great Cosmic Mother and one of my other favorites, a critique of New Age spiritual paths called New Age Armageddon. Her classic and awesome painting God Giving Birthnarrowly avoided ended up in Court on the charge of “obscenity and blasphemy.”
  9. Hallie Iglehart—while less well-known and influential than some of the other women on my list, Hallie was personally very impactful to my own Goddess path, since her books were some of the first, personal and experientially-oriented Goddess-specific books that I read. She is the author of Womanspirit, a synthesis of feminism and religion, and of The Heart of the Goddess, a visually stunning collection of Goddess images and meditations/reflections.

  10. Cynthia Eller—while Eller’s book focused on debunking the “myth of matriarchal prehistory” made her lose popularity among many in the Goddess community (see her clarifying comments here), her scholarly engagement with the complexities of articulating the concepts of feminist spirituality and of thealogy is challenging, illuminating, and offers the opportunity to dig deeply into one’s own perspectives. Her book Living in the Lap of the Goddess is a thorough exploration of women’s spirituality and the Goddess movement.
  11. Charlene Spretnak–another rocking writer with a thorough grasp of the sociopolitical and cultural context, value, and purpose of Goddess spirituality, her classic anthology The Politics of Women’s Spirituality is one of the best and deepest explorations of the concepts, personal experiences, philosophies, and thealogies of why Goddess.
  12. Karen Tatethrough her weekly radio show, Voices of the Sacred Feminine, I would venture to say that Tate is one of the most influential and dedicated “Goddess advocates” of the present day.
  13. Elizabeth Fisher and Shirley Ranck—authors of germinal religious education curriculums focused on feminist spirituality and woman-honoring traditions, originally published by the UU Women and Religionprogram, their work with Rise Up and Call Her Name and Cakes for the Queen of Heaven continues to change the lives of women around the country by introducing them to a vision of what the world could be like if the divine was imaged as female.
Also deserving of mention are:
  • SageWoman Magazine (and her editors)—this specifically Goddess-women oriented publication is a treasure and a delight.
  • Feminism and Religion blog–daring to explore the intersection of religion, scholarship, activism, and community, FAR is not specifically Goddess-oriented, but includes Goddess scholars amongst their contributors and weaves a beautiful, living, organic tapestry of the multifaceted web of feminist spirituality in the present day.
I find that feminist spirituality can be distinguished from paganism because of the inclusion of a coresociopolitical orientation and distinct sociocultural critique. 
Feminist spirituality to me is the intersection of religion and politics. It is religious feminism. 
It may or may not include literal experience of or perception of the Goddess, but it names the female and the female body as sacred, worthy, and in need of defense and uses Goddess symbols, metaphors, stories, and experiences as primary expressions of divinity and the sacred."
Source

Sunday, May 18, 2014

Women Speaking in the Church, Proclaiming The Good News by Pastor Melissa Scott.

Women Speaking in the Church: Anna the Prophetess by Pastor Melissa Scott

Click Below to Watch Video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55342Ce8qPE

Reverend Crystal Cox on the WORD "Church" "Religion" "Priest" and Healing.

One Creator Many Paths. YOU have a PURPOSE. Awaken Folks.

the Time is here. The Grandmother's of the World are coming to together. the Feminine Divine is rising. a Voice for the VOICELESS. Animals, Air, Water, and Victims. 

Time to Bring Back Goddess, the Spirit of the Feminine.

Awaken the Feminine Divine. 


Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers: Walking the Talk from Omega Institute on Vimeo.

"By Changing Energy, Miracles Occur"

"- in recognition that matter is energy and that
many higher levels of energy exist in reality.
By changing energy, miracles occur.

Tour of Your Energy Bodies As Seen with Higher-Vision (The Human Constitution In Its Healthy & Awakened State)

You are more than the physical body that you sense. Your mind, emotions, and soul have their own bodies. These bodies are distinct from yet connected to your physical body. You have many bodies. Highly sensitive people have always been able to perceive one or more of these nonphysical bodies. Recent advances in science and technology are verifying their existence. Our day to day experience confirms their reality.

The Buddhic/Christic Body

This body was not named after the individuals, The Buddha and The Christ, but rather they were named after this level of consciousness that they embodied. Many world teachers and founders of major religions embodied in the world this state of consciousness.

Function:

The Buddhic Body facilitates the expansion of consciousness beyond separative individuality. This allows identity to break free of individuality so that identity can include others; such as family, friends, social group, soul group, and eventually humanity as a whole.

The Buddhic Body facilitates intuitive understanding through union with others, knowing by being that which is to be known.


The Buddhic level is THE source of happiness and bliss for the Manasic/Higher Mind, Causal/Soul, Mental/Intellectual, Astral/Emotional, and Physical levels. (See Mechanism of Pleasure) It is the plane of bliss.

This body eventually transmutes, heals, and resolves all human problems with the power of love, unity, and wisdom.

The Buddhic/Christic body contains the archetype of perfection for the human being. The embodiment of this archetype, the fusion of the personality and the Buddhic/Christic body is the goal of human evolution.

Range of Consciousness:

Buddhic consciousness does not begin until very significant progress on the spiritual path is made. This starts as intuition (an ability to know wisdom through love, without thought or psychic abilities) and as compassion for others.

Pure Buddhic consciousness is characterized by an expansion of identity beyond individuality so that you are big enough to identify with a group of individuals or souls. World teachers embody this state in the way that they totally dedicate their individualities to the good of the group of humanity.

Unity is so real and intense on this level that you are in a state continual ecstatic union with others. It is a state of intense love and continual total-being orgasmic ecstasy.

If what is thought to be Buddhic or Christ consciousness does not include this experience of intense orgasmic bliss then it is not actual pure Buddhic/Christ consciousness but rather its reflection in the Mental or Astral levels, or a mixture of Buddhic with Mental or Astral levels. Buddhic/Christ consciousness is a state of ecstatic individual self transcendence.

The mark of someone who has truly attained this state of consciousness on a continual basis is that they are never oriented towards their individuality. They will never or rarely speak about their individuality.

They are totally selfless in their actions and desire nothing of a personal nature because they reside in the source of fulfillment, in continual intense bliss. Also, their expression is utterly harmless and overflowing with compassion.

The Buddhic vehicle has its own level of five senses. These are: Comprehension (Buddhic hearing of 4 sounds: personal, that of others, that of one's soul group, that of the planetary entity that is one's origin), Healing (Buddhic feeling that facilitates realization of the manner in which to heal and cause wholeness), Divine Vision (Buddhic sight that allows one to see the divine in all), Intuition (Buddhic taste, whereby one's essence is recognized in and under all forms), and Idealism (Buddhic smell, the ability to sense the ideal).

Buddhic consciousness is also characterized by omniscience, all-knowingness. Realization of identification with the Divine begins on this level. Buddhic consciousness incarnates the love aspect of Deity.

It resides in the Buddhic Universe which is filled with golden and white light, profound wisdom, swirling mandalas of groups within groups within groups of light-beings. (For information about the Buddhic Universe go to The 7 Universes.)

Form/Structure:

When awakened, the Buddhic/Christic body can be perceived as a large conglomerate of spinning vortices pointed outward.

The cone shaped structures, in the image above, are vortices of energy. This body is extremely elastic, and when its attention is directed to an object (on its own level or mental, astral, or physical levels), it expands and elongates and travels to the object faster than the speed of light or the speed of thought, then the vortices tunnel into the object facilitating an immediate unification and merging with the object of attention. A central column of light-energy signifies its current range of consciousness.

Rarely are Buddhic bodies seen alone, as depicted above. They are normally dynamically interacting with groups within groups of other Buddhic beings.

It has a total of 6 spatial dimensions. (For more information about this go to Understanding Spatial Dimensions.)

How Awakened:

Pain and suffering awaken the beginnings of compassion for others, the first glimmer of Buddhic/Christic consciousness. When a person takes their evolution in their own hands by the disciplined spiritual practice of meditation then pain and suffering become unnecessary and are replaced by bliss. Buddhic consciousness is awakened primarily through certain types of meditation. Loving service to one's family, friends, humanity, and the world, also helps to awaken this consciousness."

Source and More
http://www.energyreality.com/pgs/budd.htm