For those who don’t speak golden retriever, it translates to: “I love how you alchemize investigation, mythology, spirituality, psychology, philosophy and humour in your videos, Tereza. Also, listening to your videos early in the morning is the right time to set you on the course for a good day. :)”
*woof woof* (My bestie has been recommending I read A Course in Miracles for like a decade and says I already practice what it teaches but, stupidly, as many books that pass through my fingers, I still haven’t picked that one up. Could your message finally nudge me to do it? I think so, I think so.”
Hahaha! What a delight to see you also saw Imagination Seeks Attention and adopted the language ;-) You're in good company with people who practice the Course without having read it. Charles E. is in that category although if I had people consistently telling me that a channeled voice for God agreed with everything I said, I'd certainly want to read it!
If I hadn't already come to many of the conclusions in it, I would likely have rejected it. It's a complete and total reversal of the world's thinking. I don't think it changed how I acted, since I've never been prone to act out of fear or anger. But it's definitely changed how I feel. My lesson today is maybe the most important one in the book: I place the future in the Hands of God. Similar to the Muslim insha'Allah, it's become a reflex to me as a way of letting go of worry over outcomes. There's a plan and I don't need to know it. I just need to do my part.
"My lesson today is maybe the most important one in the book: I place the future in the Hands of God. Similar to the Muslim insha'Allah, it's become a reflex to me as a way of letting go of worry over outcomes. There's a plan and I don't need to know it. I just need to do my part."
Same for me - though I tend to avoid 'God' as it carries so much misunderstanding. My preferred words are unattached to any particular religion, let alone personality. (Believe we agree on this.)
I like the more neutral "Source" or even "Pure Love".
Religions have largely hijacked 'God', and even with lots of truths layered within them, (like any good pysop) they steer their followers into a direction that hems them in and creates divisions. For the most part anyway.
Doing ones best and releasing any attachment to outcome shows up in pretty much all wisdom traditions. And, as far as I can tell, we can spend our entires lives learning that lesson. (Maybe I'm a slow learner.)
Thanks for this thoughtful comment, Kathleen. I definitely get why the term God has so much baggage to it but I'm rebelling against them hijacking the concept and leaving us to then decide yea or nay. As one theologian asks, "What is the character of your God?" This should be the most exciting conversation we're having. What's the personality of a God you'd be willing to entertain as a possibility? What are the Gods that you absolutely reject?
The Bible defines God and leaves us either accepting their authority on who God is and especially, who he likes and favors and who he smites and hates. Then it says, do you believe in our God or no God? I don't think there's been any more destructive act of psyops before or since. So I'm not letting them have it! (sorry for the rant)
Great rant! No apology needed, and I definitely appreciate that - reappropriating the word. Nice.
I agree when we reflect on it and answer those questions you pose, not only does it become a self-directed inquiry (which I assume is driven by that innate spark we were created by and so also contain) it matters in a deeper way. It inevitably surpasses the individual, but must also include the individual. Otherwise, we're doomed to a relationship with something external and authoritative. (I know that works for a lot of people, and that's okay, but doesn't for me.)
The thing I could never figure out was how Christianity replaced Olympia. Judea-Christianity based on guilt, shame, asceticism, repentance, and redemption. Yuk! Meanwhile, the gods cavort on Olympus in a kind of Bronze Age version of the 80s TV series, Dallas. I'll bet Sunday school was a LOT more fun in the Roman era than later Christian indoctrination :)
Why would the Mediterranean world go Christian? What's In It For Me - WIIFM, the station everyone listens to.
Wasn't it the LORD God Yahweh-Jehovah, God of Israel - the jealous God - who persuaded Abraham to convert from the polytheism of the Hebrews and their Elohim (and every other culture?) to worship no God but him? Weren't the pantheons of Sumer, Babylon, the Hebrews (Elohim), Olympians, etc, actually all the same beings presenting different personas at different times and places?
Didn't the Mediterranean world go Christian to suit the political exigencies of the Roman Empire, which chose to re-brand itself as a church/religion? Isn't the Vatican Curia a direct descendant of the Roman Senate?
"A Course in Miracles is the foundation of my spiritual thinking, but not the last word. " Well, I'm glad it's not the last word because ACIM is nearly indecipherable, IMHO. I, too , have been a student of The Course and it has entered my life (and left) several times over the last 30 years. ACIM is non-dualistic and, since we are hardwired for dualism, it is difficult to talk about anything that is of opposites in The Course.
ACIM is also fractal, i.e., like every paragraph contains the whole of the course. Have you noticed that you can drop into a new group, wherever it is in the Text, and participate from the get go? Fractal. I'm not sure how that informs the Male/Female thing.
BTW, I attended an in-person seminar by Ken Wapnick on a cold, foggy March day in Santa Fe in 2007 and I took detailed notes that I would be happy to share with you if you want because they are a fractal of the whole ACIM philosophy. Other than that, I am probably thru with the ACIM for this lifetime except I do miss the weekly fellowship of our group, several of whom have passed on since.
That's a great phrase, that any fragment is a fractal. I think that's absolutely true. There's nothing that can be taken out of context and lose its meaning. Really, it's a 1700 pp. repetition of the exact same idea repeated in different words, as summarized in the intro: "Nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists. Herein lies the peace of God." Yay, we can save everyone the trouble of buying it!
You've really had much more patience with it than other people I know, who were intrigued when I told them about it and then practically threw it across the room when they opened it.
I'm not much of a group joiner or listener to other people's interpretations of it. My feeling is that, if this is dictated directly from God, why listen to somebody else? If it isn't, why listen at all? But I have a long history as not-a-joiner, my ex used to call it "doesn't play well with others."
Your video today reminds me how my husband is the catalyst that makes my ideas happen. He is the force. At the same time I have to hold him in check because he wants to do without thinking things thru, at least as much as I would think them through. I think we make a good team.
I think, from your definition, you might have that reversed, Rob. The left side of the brain corresponds to the right hand dealing with symbols and structures like time. The right side is the amorphous sense of Oneness that, as Jill Bolte Taylor says in her TEDtalk, taps into what's true but doesn't induce action.
I think you're inadvertently correct, though. I think all organized religions are left-brained dealing with judgment and hierarchy. I think the mystics of each are right-brained and each coming to the same conclusion, that we're all One. There's no religion I've ever found that puts that recognition into practice.
I already did a whole episode responding to your suggestion of the alphabet vs. the goddess. It started my Tonic Masculinity series! Here's the description and link:
"On Rob Brezsny's Free Will Astrology, I was banned for posting for 100 years for saying that men shouldn't define feminine intelligence. The same day Robert Malone revoked my subscription under his three strikes 'asshole' rule. Another Rob (of universe c137) introduced me to a lecture by Leonard Shlain on The Alphabet vs. the Goddess. I connect these to how women think differently than men, and why we need masculinity rather than feminist men."
May 6, 2023·edited May 6, 2023Liked by Tereza Coraggio
From chapter 4 of The Matter with Things, beliefs driven by the left.
The left sees logic linearly and will self reinforce that it has it right. That's the problem with spirituality after the fall of the goddess religions.
They became very sure of what lies beyond, despite not actually having been there.
Goddess religions are more open to possibilities.
"One related difference between right and left prefrontal cortex activation is that the left dominates where belief bias points to the correct conclusion, and, by contrast, the right dominates where it does not.260 Belief bias is in fact generally associated with the left hemisphere, not with the right hemisphere.261 I"
Also chapter 4
"To put it crudely, the right hemisphere is our bullshit detector. It is better at avoiding nonsense when asked to believe it, but it is also better at avoiding falling prey to local prejudice and just dismissing rational argument because the argument does not happen to agree with that prejudice"
Ah, interesting. I think of religions as organized structures with written texts that are open to interpretation but not questioning their veracity. If we did subject them to logic, we'd find them contradictory, both internally and with other things we believe, like that slavery is wrong.
I think of spirituality as unwritten, intuitive and therefore not subject to logic.
The last quote is confusing to me. Does the right hemisphere dismiss rational argument that doesn't agree with local prejudice, or does it avoid falling prey to dismissing rational argument that doesn't agree with the prejudice? It seems like rational argument is a left brain function, but it probably doesn't matter ;-)
I did an early episode (pre-Substack) on Iain McGilchrist called What is the Matter? It has this description: Responding to Russell Brand's interview of Iain McGilchrist, I discuss time & space, brain hemispheres, love & hate, knowing & not knowing, New Age annoyance, and child prophets. I use a Crow Tarot deck to illustrate infinity and make my pitch for why the crow should represent the Wholly Spirit. Why should doves have all the fun? https://youtu.be/KFXxrARtIkc.
May 6, 2023·edited May 6, 2023Liked by Tereza Coraggio
The left hemisphere can follow logic. It seems rational, but very often takes leaps of faith in order to come up with a conclusion, even if it's very much incorrect. The left is incapable of questioning itself. Even with limited data, it can invent reasons why.
On the other hand, the right brain is very much like you mention, intuition, where things not considered get looked into in order to verify which idea is most likely correct. The right brain can also say "I don't know" and be ok with that.
The right brain ends up inhibiting what the left is incorrect about.
The right brain can also doubt it's own conclusions!
But sadly, Ian explains that this society rewards left brained tenacity. The left also tends to be optimistic, even if delusional, like we see with broken sciences today still pushing head strong into failures like mRNA 🤣
“Belief is the death of intelligence. As soon as one believes a doctrine of any sort, or assumes certitude, one stops thinking about that aspect of existence.” - Robert Anton Wilson
I'd like to add to your idea of spirituality, which I agree with as being able to sense/perceive reality as a whole, not just it's parts...
There's a book called Blink by Malcolm Gladwell.
In the book there's a story of an archeological find, a rare carved stone piece that was like finding a diamond in the rough.
The verification tests overwhelmingly said it was real. Most experts agreed with this finding as they couldn't detect anything wrong with it.
But one did. He felt something was off with the piece. He couldn't put his finger on what exactly was wrong.
Later on, the majority found it to be a fake because it was later discovered that the weathering pattern was much too even, too uniform.
So it seems the one that didn't believe was somehow sensing that something was artificial but couldn't explain it until it was later found. Did he notice the patterning was off on some level that wasn't fully conscious?
Gladwell went into how a lot of these intuitions are from experience on a lower level than conscious thinking. We see how in the above story, one can sense something is off and not have the logic to explain it, just like you said about spirituality!
Great post…. But, of course, just to cancel that two-word compliment by my feminine side, here’s two hundred words about two things that bother my masculine side:
One. I read Desmet, and I didn’t get the “I’m better than you” vibe at all. I read nothing especially new in his theory that hadn’t been said better by Merloo (and probably countless others who have studied brainwashing and propaganda and conditioning and public relations and advertising theory over the last 100 years), but I appreciated his effort to name it—“it” being a real phenomena that was playing out before our very eyes with a suddenness and intensity none of us had ever seen in our lifetimes or in history. His theory and the name he gave it, like any other name and theory, provided us all an opportunity to springboard off it and do our own analysis. I found CJ Hopkins diatribe against Desmet both wildly misinformed (in part because of his dismissal of the reality and power of hypnosis), and also mean-spirited, self-destructive, and, if you’re looking for an example of “I’m smarter/better than you”, that was it. I mean the pandemic taught us not to blindly trust experts (assuming any of us still needed that lesson), but wasn’t Desmet just doing what scientists are, in an ideal world, supposed to be doing? Wasn’t he just putting his hypothesis out there and letting us critique it. I mean Desmet had no power over to me. He didn’t force me to buy into his conclusions. And I didn’t buy into everything he said or wrote. (I still think Einstein was off base.) But, for myself, I thought Desmet’s ideas (and Einstein’s, too) were worth some honest consideration, and the big question he raised in my mind was: where the hell are all the other scientists with their theories? Why is no one else trying to explain this? In the end, I found mass formation theory incomplete (like every scientific theory I’ve ever come across), but I was grateful for his effort, and I found it valuable, and I guess I don’t understand why he had to be destroyed.
Two. I heard an interview with the author of some random new book about eight Graeco-Roman goddesses who deserve our special attention. And being someone who has often rather uncritically used the term “divine feminine” and who prefers goddesses as a general rule (especially over “just and malevolent and petty” male demiurges), I found one of her answers remarkably thought provoking. The interviewer asked her what the difference was between a god (male) and a goddess (female, is that a sexist term?), since male gods like Zeus gave birth, and since there were plenty of badass warrior goddesses. And she said the only distinction between gods and goddesses was their genitalia. I found that point profound, just as countless others have, duh, already applied the same obviousness to the gender dysphoria child mind-warp, which I like to call some kind of “mass formation”. More often now, like “race”, I find myself concluding that “gender” only really exists in grammar—where it is imperfectly and annoyingly used to decline nouns and adjectives and conjugate verbs—and is nowhere else applicable (that I can think of). I also find that the terms masculine and feminine get in the way of paying attention to that other more fundamental (albeit flawed) dichotomy of Good and Evil, which—maybe just my own preference—but which feels far more consequential.
Hmmm... it seems like your first point belies your concluding one, Jack. You start out by identifying your two words of praise as feminine--and I would agree. Then you identify your 200 words of critical thinking as masculine--and I would agree.
If masculine/ feminine is seen through a feminine lens of traits we all have that need to work together, then they're both beneficial and not a dichotomy. If seen through an only-masculine lens of competition, then it's no longer useful but a symptom of imbalance.
When you believe in Good vs Evil, do you believe it was created by an evil God? Is that useful? That only seems useful to me for judgment of other people and superiority that, even if we're not all-Good, there are truly Evil people out there and it's all relative.
My theology, of course, is entertaining the possibility we're all One. Cluttering up 'heaven' by dividing the divine into multiple entities seems like the wrong direction--for me.
I've gone through some long comment threads showing specific examples using his words to demonstrate that his theory does blame the victims. In addition to the Breggins, I think that Jim Reagan (who reads 3P) has put out several excellent articles applying logic and ontology--his focus--to Desmet's work. Here's one of them: https://jimreagen.substack.com/p/on-the-psychology-of-totalitarianism.
Using logic, how could a theory showing people had deluded themselves NOT imply superiority for the people reading the theory--demonstrating they hadn't done that? Even if we acknowledge the psyops they fell for (which Desmet doesn't do, to my knowledge) and the economic/ social/ moral trauma that was inflicted on them, it still says there's something inherent in the person, and not just their circumstances, that enabled them to resist and see the truth. Like Good and Evil, it's superiority. Not like Male and Female sides of the brain. IMO.
Regarding gender, all I’m saying is that male does not equal masculine, and female does not equal feminine. I know this distinction gets dismissed as simplistic, but gender dysphoria, it seems to me, is completely based on this confusion between the physical and the semantic, which is often intentional. The map is not the territory.
Regarding Desmet, I only referred to CJ Hopkins’ post. I stand by my assessment of his post as a personal takedown intended to discredit both theorist and theory.
About Desmet’s theory, you write “how could a theory showing people had deluded themselves NOT imply superiority for the people reading the theory….” When I encountered mass formation theory I was sense-making, not judging. I was trying to figure out why a lot of people I know and love had suddenly decided to hate me. Desmet was the only serious academic I know of who was offering a theory of what was happening—a theory that addressed it as a mass phenomenon. That was valuable to me and partially informed my personal conclusion that we all experienced a well-designed, targeted, intentional psyop on an unprecedented scale, but that it was not completely successful (for a variety of reasons that are no doubt currently being analyzed). I don’t blame any “victims,” let alone jump to some kind of assertion of my own superiority, mainly because the next time it happens it will be even more effective and the rest of us will likely become pod people, too.
Lastly, regarding good and evil, you say “it’s superiority.” If so, which one is superior, good or evil?
Oh sorry, I forgot that you mentioned CJ. I agree completely, he was vicious in his attack on Desmet and on commenters who disagreed with him. I unsubscribed at the time although I resubbed laster. His writing and analysis is so good.
Excellent point on sense-making not judging. And perhaps Desmet's perspective on it as a mass phenomenon was necessary to precede seeing it as a psyops. It's a good question as to whether they'll learn from it how to make it universally successful or we'll learn from it (including those now fooled by it) how to make it unsuccessful. Diagnosing the cause correctly seems a big part of that.
Haha, I haven't seen people take pride in being 'more evil than thou' but if that's not a joke, please explain more.
It’s a serious question, because evil is winning. If I had to place a bet on who wins in the end, reason and the evidence of my own senses would force me to put my money on the dark horse. So, I’d seriously posit that evil is a superior power in this world. To come to that conclusion, I don’t even need to believe in a god, good or evil (or, as modern Jews and Christians seem to prefer, a blend). But that’s a philosophical perspective. How that figures into your psychological dogma of “I’m no better than anyone else”—which seems to be a response to, or a framing of, the “sin” of pride—I’m not sure. If it means you don’t like the obnoxiously self-righteous, I couldn’t agree more, though I think we all have a touch (or more) of self-righteousness in us—would we even be having this discussion if we didn’t? I tend to think pride balanced with humility is the ticket to good conversations, maybe even to a peaceful world.
If I am as God created me, as the Course says, or I am as nature created me because there is no God, either way pride and humility are equally deluded. The only way they're relevant is if my ego is God and I created myself, not nature, nurture or spirit.
Evil only manifests through people, yes? So to say it's winning is to say those evil people are more powerful and all we have to cling onto is our moral superiority. I think that view is at the heart of liberalism and even what fueled wokism. It presents an enemy so we're on the side of good, it's not a system that we're all caught in, rich or poor, powerful or powerless.
To see myself as no better than anyone else is the opposite of humility. If I'm a skin-encapsulated mind competing with other minds for superiority, that's pretty pathetic no matter who wins. If every-body, including my own, is a figure in a dream we're all having as One Mind, our One Identity is, at the very least, the creator of this dystopian nightmare. We have all the power over it. And maybe our Real Identity is the one I suspect as the womb of God and co-creator of Reality. That's not humility to think you might be God if you stopped trying to see yourself as better than others!
For me to really understand your dogma of not seeing yourself as better than others would require that I have a great deal of context from the Course in Miracles, which I don’t have. When presented outside that context, the meaning doesn’t come across—to me, anyway—the way I think you intend it to. Having grown up in the Midwest, I can’t tell you how often I heard the obverse of this concept used to disparage someone, as in “He thinks he’s so much better than everyone else,” which, in the religion of 1960’s Midwesternism, was one of the cardinal sins. So, when you state your dogma in a post, what springs automatically to mind is being a child and hearing my mom express her disgust with Uncle Roy (who was a jerk and really did act better than everyone else). Outside of ACIM, that dogma could, in the wrong hands, very easily become a mainstay of cancel culture or of the moral superiority you reject.
There are other statements in your reply I’d like to address—especially “Evil only manifests through people, yes?”—but again, I lack sufficient understanding of ACIM to get your meaning, so any effort I make will likely miss your point. Another day, perhaps.
@Tirion. Your guess is as good as any except Rome didn't encourage Christian religion until Constantine far as I know, 330AD.
Here is my own philosophical speculation and that's what it is, speculation. The classical world had this idea of Fate. Your life was going to happen the way it was fated to happen and there was no escaping it.
In contrast, Christianity offered an escape from Fate called Salvation. You are not just automatically tied to your fate but can choose to opt out of it through grace. Redemption cancels karma.
Whether that is true or not I can't say. I always wonder how much of my own life is of my own choice or is the making of a larger power. But it is one explanation for why Christianity was accepted in the ancient world.
Today's post and video inspire many thoughts in me. I will pick just one, to not bore you too much.
You comment that the trinity lacks a mother, the feminine aspect. That's because you live in a country with a majority protestant background. Here in Spain (you can't spell Spain without the pain, haha) the role of Virgin Mary is heavily emphasized, so there is a balance with the Trinity.
In that video, at that time mark, 21:30 time mark, you can see the image of Virgin Mary in a procession of the Holy Week, the last day, Resurrection Sunday.
The theme of this street religious performance is the encounter of the resurrected Jesus and Mary.
There is no Christianity without the Resurrection.
I attended Catholic grade school, HS & college, entering as a religion major, so my views of Christianity as patriarchal aren't influenced by living in a Protestant country. Really, Roger? An image of an obedient virgin mother, whose son says barely a word to her other than, "Shut up, woman, my time's not yet come," that's a victory for feminine divinity?
I think you've seen my episodes on the OT (The Devil & Naomi Wolf) and the NT (Jesus is the OG Psyops). The premise of both is that the Bible is written by the empire to turn history inside-out and convince us to give up on sovereignty because God is on the side of empire. My theory is that no women exist, any more than slaves do, in the Bible. The ones called by name represent territories. The name Mary, obviously, comes from mar, the sea. Especially for a sea-faring people, who would call the sea obedient? It meant a troublemaker, just as Molly and gun-moll are forms of Mary, like Martha.
Have you wondered why every woman in the NT is named Mary? They were the territories revolting against Rome. Magdala had an insurrection that Rome lashed out so hard against that they ran out of trees to hang people on, with their children hung from their necks. Even sisters are Mary and Martha. Jesus' (Josephus') mother is from Judea but he needs to make the point that she was innocent of rebellion, virginal, obedient to Rome.
And on resurrection, I think that what the zealots knew is that resurrection is inclusive and immediate. That's why they didn't fear death or pain, it had no power over them and every coliseum witnessed to this, which is why revolt was spreading like wildfire. They had to counter it with a psyop, which is that resurrection was only one person who God loved more than all the rest of us chopped liver. That's not Good News.
I thought that Mary was from Miriam, the sister of Moses from way back. In Greek, sea is thalasa or pontos, and in Hebrew is "yam". Perhaps the final part of "miriam". In Latin sea is "mare". The "Stella Maris" is a title assigned to Virgin Mary.
Jesus (Iesu in Latin and in Greek, because the letter J was not invented until the 16th century) is a modern version (for the time of the NT) of Joshua, who is the guy who takes on the leadership after Moses, in the OT.
Also some of the apostles have names from the OT, Jacob (James), Simeon, Jude (sons of Jacob in the OT.) Also Greek names.
The story of the name of Moses is related to water. The sister leaves baby Moses in a river, to be later found by the daughter of the Pharaoh.
The only historical fact we know for certain about the Torah and the gospels is that they were assembled/ written down at the same time and place around 70 CE, just after Rome had reclaimed Judea as its colony. The rabbi who assembled the Torah had himself lowered in a coffin from the wall of Jerusalem and went to Vespasian, and begged him to let him and his scholars live so they could preserve the Hebrew scriptures. The first gospel, Mark, was also written in that timeframe when the rebellious Judeans had been slaughtered or tortured and enslaved, and was never in Aramaic even in spoken proto-Q form, according to Bible scholars.
So maybe those nice Roman emperors allowed the documentation of the religion that led to their defeat. I think that you have a LOT of company taking it as a literally true history. And I don't think everyone needs to consider the possibility that it's written by and for the empire. But someone should be doing the research on that, yes? If it's possibly a lie that's kept us from knowing how the puny Judeans beat the Roman Empire?
Just a suggestion. I read them back in 80s and they helped me understand the world better. I think everyone would benefit from his work. Not trying to change your mind, and good luck with that saving the world thing.
I didn't mean that to be snarky. I certainly read a lot about them back in the '80s although I don't think I read them directly. But I'm not sure the hero's journey, with the woman as temptress to deter him, speaks as much to women. I was hoping you had a shortcut for what I could learn from them that would save me the four volumes.
In one of the references I looked up (with sidebars on making money, getting ripped, and banging 10 new girls in 60 days) it wrote of the departure: "This is when modern man embarks from being a weak, effeminate man, who buys into the lies that our culture tells us, and starts to integrate manosphere wisdom into his life." I knew a dad of daughters would have a different perspective ;-)
And on saving the world, if not you, then who? This is a description of another post:
"Looks at undoing empire-thinking as a spiritual practice. ACIM says that God only ever asks one question, "Are you ready yet to help me save the world?" I look at why our answer is "not yet" because of our attachment to our own superiority. Our message to one another should be "You are magnificent" and "Here's why I think you're mistaken," using facts, logic and consistency. I connect the comments of three magnificent viewers and convey the views of four magnificent writers on Ukraine--Glenn Greenwald, Matt Taibbi, Caitlin Johnstone and Andrew Bacevich. I end with hearing from the horse's mouth." https://youtu.be/bN3DVJ8Uk04
Wow! Yes, I do have a different perspective. No man was good enough for my daughters. I had them so high on a pedestal. I was just reviewing an ancestor of mine. In 1732, he paid his father-in-law 1200 pounds of tobacco and 300 acres of land for his bride. Ah, yes, the good old days. My sons in law owe me! Just kidding of course.
There's a lot in that video. I don't even know where to start. You do that alot!
Christian dogma is basically a product of Rome, which was a patriarchal society; so the Holy Trinity was masculine, priests had to be celibate/unmarried and Mary Magdalene was a prostitute instead of who she really was, Yeshua's wife and the daughter of King Juba II of Numidia/Mauritania and Cleopadra, who was the daughter of Mark Antony and Queen Cleopadra VII of Egypt! The Gnostics claim that in fact Yeshua always referred to the divine in the feminine.
Don't several cultures, including the Zulus and the Dogon, have memories of early humans being androgynous? In the Bible, the Elohim were also androgynous and created man in their own image ("Male and female created he them"). Adam and the early generations of humans in the Bible are also androgynous:
*Woof*
For those who don’t speak golden retriever, it translates to: “I love how you alchemize investigation, mythology, spirituality, psychology, philosophy and humour in your videos, Tereza. Also, listening to your videos early in the morning is the right time to set you on the course for a good day. :)”
*woof woof* (My bestie has been recommending I read A Course in Miracles for like a decade and says I already practice what it teaches but, stupidly, as many books that pass through my fingers, I still haven’t picked that one up. Could your message finally nudge me to do it? I think so, I think so.”
Hahaha! What a delight to see you also saw Imagination Seeks Attention and adopted the language ;-) You're in good company with people who practice the Course without having read it. Charles E. is in that category although if I had people consistently telling me that a channeled voice for God agreed with everything I said, I'd certainly want to read it!
If I hadn't already come to many of the conclusions in it, I would likely have rejected it. It's a complete and total reversal of the world's thinking. I don't think it changed how I acted, since I've never been prone to act out of fear or anger. But it's definitely changed how I feel. My lesson today is maybe the most important one in the book: I place the future in the Hands of God. Similar to the Muslim insha'Allah, it's become a reflex to me as a way of letting go of worry over outcomes. There's a plan and I don't need to know it. I just need to do my part.
Much woof woof back atcha!
Yes, dear, feeling comfortable in uncertainty is where I'm at too. And CE has been a giant key in waking up to that. I will read the book. Thank you!
"My lesson today is maybe the most important one in the book: I place the future in the Hands of God. Similar to the Muslim insha'Allah, it's become a reflex to me as a way of letting go of worry over outcomes. There's a plan and I don't need to know it. I just need to do my part."
Same for me - though I tend to avoid 'God' as it carries so much misunderstanding. My preferred words are unattached to any particular religion, let alone personality. (Believe we agree on this.)
I like the more neutral "Source" or even "Pure Love".
Religions have largely hijacked 'God', and even with lots of truths layered within them, (like any good pysop) they steer their followers into a direction that hems them in and creates divisions. For the most part anyway.
Doing ones best and releasing any attachment to outcome shows up in pretty much all wisdom traditions. And, as far as I can tell, we can spend our entires lives learning that lesson. (Maybe I'm a slow learner.)
Thanks Tereza.
Thanks for this thoughtful comment, Kathleen. I definitely get why the term God has so much baggage to it but I'm rebelling against them hijacking the concept and leaving us to then decide yea or nay. As one theologian asks, "What is the character of your God?" This should be the most exciting conversation we're having. What's the personality of a God you'd be willing to entertain as a possibility? What are the Gods that you absolutely reject?
The Bible defines God and leaves us either accepting their authority on who God is and especially, who he likes and favors and who he smites and hates. Then it says, do you believe in our God or no God? I don't think there's been any more destructive act of psyops before or since. So I'm not letting them have it! (sorry for the rant)
Great rant! No apology needed, and I definitely appreciate that - reappropriating the word. Nice.
I agree when we reflect on it and answer those questions you pose, not only does it become a self-directed inquiry (which I assume is driven by that innate spark we were created by and so also contain) it matters in a deeper way. It inevitably surpasses the individual, but must also include the individual. Otherwise, we're doomed to a relationship with something external and authoritative. (I know that works for a lot of people, and that's okay, but doesn't for me.)
Thanks, Tereza.
Live in the present moment?
The thing I could never figure out was how Christianity replaced Olympia. Judea-Christianity based on guilt, shame, asceticism, repentance, and redemption. Yuk! Meanwhile, the gods cavort on Olympus in a kind of Bronze Age version of the 80s TV series, Dallas. I'll bet Sunday school was a LOT more fun in the Roman era than later Christian indoctrination :)
Why would the Mediterranean world go Christian? What's In It For Me - WIIFM, the station everyone listens to.
Wasn't it the LORD God Yahweh-Jehovah, God of Israel - the jealous God - who persuaded Abraham to convert from the polytheism of the Hebrews and their Elohim (and every other culture?) to worship no God but him? Weren't the pantheons of Sumer, Babylon, the Hebrews (Elohim), Olympians, etc, actually all the same beings presenting different personas at different times and places?
Didn't the Mediterranean world go Christian to suit the political exigencies of the Roman Empire, which chose to re-brand itself as a church/religion? Isn't the Vatican Curia a direct descendant of the Roman Senate?
"A Course in Miracles is the foundation of my spiritual thinking, but not the last word. " Well, I'm glad it's not the last word because ACIM is nearly indecipherable, IMHO. I, too , have been a student of The Course and it has entered my life (and left) several times over the last 30 years. ACIM is non-dualistic and, since we are hardwired for dualism, it is difficult to talk about anything that is of opposites in The Course.
ACIM is also fractal, i.e., like every paragraph contains the whole of the course. Have you noticed that you can drop into a new group, wherever it is in the Text, and participate from the get go? Fractal. I'm not sure how that informs the Male/Female thing.
BTW, I attended an in-person seminar by Ken Wapnick on a cold, foggy March day in Santa Fe in 2007 and I took detailed notes that I would be happy to share with you if you want because they are a fractal of the whole ACIM philosophy. Other than that, I am probably thru with the ACIM for this lifetime except I do miss the weekly fellowship of our group, several of whom have passed on since.
That's a great phrase, that any fragment is a fractal. I think that's absolutely true. There's nothing that can be taken out of context and lose its meaning. Really, it's a 1700 pp. repetition of the exact same idea repeated in different words, as summarized in the intro: "Nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists. Herein lies the peace of God." Yay, we can save everyone the trouble of buying it!
You've really had much more patience with it than other people I know, who were intrigued when I told them about it and then practically threw it across the room when they opened it.
I'm not much of a group joiner or listener to other people's interpretations of it. My feeling is that, if this is dictated directly from God, why listen to somebody else? If it isn't, why listen at all? But I have a long history as not-a-joiner, my ex used to call it "doesn't play well with others."
Your video today reminds me how my husband is the catalyst that makes my ideas happen. He is the force. At the same time I have to hold him in check because he wants to do without thinking things thru, at least as much as I would think them through. I think we make a good team.
Ian McGilchrist wrote that many religions are left brained.
They self reinforce because everything serves the belief... Everything is god, which technically is true, but offers nothing useful.
The right brain is more global and more skeptical. It doesn't assume that it is right, like the left does.
Some Suspect that written language is what started humanity in left brained spirituality.
https://robc137.substack.com/p/alphabet-vs-the-goddess
I think, from your definition, you might have that reversed, Rob. The left side of the brain corresponds to the right hand dealing with symbols and structures like time. The right side is the amorphous sense of Oneness that, as Jill Bolte Taylor says in her TEDtalk, taps into what's true but doesn't induce action.
I think you're inadvertently correct, though. I think all organized religions are left-brained dealing with judgment and hierarchy. I think the mystics of each are right-brained and each coming to the same conclusion, that we're all One. There's no religion I've ever found that puts that recognition into practice.
I already did a whole episode responding to your suggestion of the alphabet vs. the goddess. It started my Tonic Masculinity series! Here's the description and link:
"On Rob Brezsny's Free Will Astrology, I was banned for posting for 100 years for saying that men shouldn't define feminine intelligence. The same day Robert Malone revoked my subscription under his three strikes 'asshole' rule. Another Rob (of universe c137) introduced me to a lecture by Leonard Shlain on The Alphabet vs. the Goddess. I connect these to how women think differently than men, and why we need masculinity rather than feminist men."
https://thirdparadigm.substack.com/p/tonic-masculinity-and-feminine-wiles
From chapter 4 of The Matter with Things, beliefs driven by the left.
The left sees logic linearly and will self reinforce that it has it right. That's the problem with spirituality after the fall of the goddess religions.
They became very sure of what lies beyond, despite not actually having been there.
Goddess religions are more open to possibilities.
"One related difference between right and left prefrontal cortex activation is that the left dominates where belief bias points to the correct conclusion, and, by contrast, the right dominates where it does not.260 Belief bias is in fact generally associated with the left hemisphere, not with the right hemisphere.261 I"
Also chapter 4
"To put it crudely, the right hemisphere is our bullshit detector. It is better at avoiding nonsense when asked to believe it, but it is also better at avoiding falling prey to local prejudice and just dismissing rational argument because the argument does not happen to agree with that prejudice"
Ah, interesting. I think of religions as organized structures with written texts that are open to interpretation but not questioning their veracity. If we did subject them to logic, we'd find them contradictory, both internally and with other things we believe, like that slavery is wrong.
I think of spirituality as unwritten, intuitive and therefore not subject to logic.
The last quote is confusing to me. Does the right hemisphere dismiss rational argument that doesn't agree with local prejudice, or does it avoid falling prey to dismissing rational argument that doesn't agree with the prejudice? It seems like rational argument is a left brain function, but it probably doesn't matter ;-)
I did an early episode (pre-Substack) on Iain McGilchrist called What is the Matter? It has this description: Responding to Russell Brand's interview of Iain McGilchrist, I discuss time & space, brain hemispheres, love & hate, knowing & not knowing, New Age annoyance, and child prophets. I use a Crow Tarot deck to illustrate infinity and make my pitch for why the crow should represent the Wholly Spirit. Why should doves have all the fun? https://youtu.be/KFXxrARtIkc.
The left hemisphere can follow logic. It seems rational, but very often takes leaps of faith in order to come up with a conclusion, even if it's very much incorrect. The left is incapable of questioning itself. Even with limited data, it can invent reasons why.
On the other hand, the right brain is very much like you mention, intuition, where things not considered get looked into in order to verify which idea is most likely correct. The right brain can also say "I don't know" and be ok with that.
The right brain ends up inhibiting what the left is incorrect about.
The right brain can also doubt it's own conclusions!
But sadly, Ian explains that this society rewards left brained tenacity. The left also tends to be optimistic, even if delusional, like we see with broken sciences today still pushing head strong into failures like mRNA 🤣
“Belief is the death of intelligence. As soon as one believes a doctrine of any sort, or assumes certitude, one stops thinking about that aspect of existence.” - Robert Anton Wilson
I'd like to add to your idea of spirituality, which I agree with as being able to sense/perceive reality as a whole, not just it's parts...
There's a book called Blink by Malcolm Gladwell.
In the book there's a story of an archeological find, a rare carved stone piece that was like finding a diamond in the rough.
The verification tests overwhelmingly said it was real. Most experts agreed with this finding as they couldn't detect anything wrong with it.
But one did. He felt something was off with the piece. He couldn't put his finger on what exactly was wrong.
Later on, the majority found it to be a fake because it was later discovered that the weathering pattern was much too even, too uniform.
So it seems the one that didn't believe was somehow sensing that something was artificial but couldn't explain it until it was later found. Did he notice the patterning was off on some level that wasn't fully conscious?
Gladwell went into how a lot of these intuitions are from experience on a lower level than conscious thinking. We see how in the above story, one can sense something is off and not have the logic to explain it, just like you said about spirituality!
Yin yang working in an impermanent dance towards a never quite reached 'perfect' balance. Lovely dance, though! Thank you.
Dancing towards 'perfect' balance or perhaps the opposite, having been originally androgynous beings but afterwards separating?
Great post…. But, of course, just to cancel that two-word compliment by my feminine side, here’s two hundred words about two things that bother my masculine side:
One. I read Desmet, and I didn’t get the “I’m better than you” vibe at all. I read nothing especially new in his theory that hadn’t been said better by Merloo (and probably countless others who have studied brainwashing and propaganda and conditioning and public relations and advertising theory over the last 100 years), but I appreciated his effort to name it—“it” being a real phenomena that was playing out before our very eyes with a suddenness and intensity none of us had ever seen in our lifetimes or in history. His theory and the name he gave it, like any other name and theory, provided us all an opportunity to springboard off it and do our own analysis. I found CJ Hopkins diatribe against Desmet both wildly misinformed (in part because of his dismissal of the reality and power of hypnosis), and also mean-spirited, self-destructive, and, if you’re looking for an example of “I’m smarter/better than you”, that was it. I mean the pandemic taught us not to blindly trust experts (assuming any of us still needed that lesson), but wasn’t Desmet just doing what scientists are, in an ideal world, supposed to be doing? Wasn’t he just putting his hypothesis out there and letting us critique it. I mean Desmet had no power over to me. He didn’t force me to buy into his conclusions. And I didn’t buy into everything he said or wrote. (I still think Einstein was off base.) But, for myself, I thought Desmet’s ideas (and Einstein’s, too) were worth some honest consideration, and the big question he raised in my mind was: where the hell are all the other scientists with their theories? Why is no one else trying to explain this? In the end, I found mass formation theory incomplete (like every scientific theory I’ve ever come across), but I was grateful for his effort, and I found it valuable, and I guess I don’t understand why he had to be destroyed.
Two. I heard an interview with the author of some random new book about eight Graeco-Roman goddesses who deserve our special attention. And being someone who has often rather uncritically used the term “divine feminine” and who prefers goddesses as a general rule (especially over “just and malevolent and petty” male demiurges), I found one of her answers remarkably thought provoking. The interviewer asked her what the difference was between a god (male) and a goddess (female, is that a sexist term?), since male gods like Zeus gave birth, and since there were plenty of badass warrior goddesses. And she said the only distinction between gods and goddesses was their genitalia. I found that point profound, just as countless others have, duh, already applied the same obviousness to the gender dysphoria child mind-warp, which I like to call some kind of “mass formation”. More often now, like “race”, I find myself concluding that “gender” only really exists in grammar—where it is imperfectly and annoyingly used to decline nouns and adjectives and conjugate verbs—and is nowhere else applicable (that I can think of). I also find that the terms masculine and feminine get in the way of paying attention to that other more fundamental (albeit flawed) dichotomy of Good and Evil, which—maybe just my own preference—but which feels far more consequential.
Hmmm... it seems like your first point belies your concluding one, Jack. You start out by identifying your two words of praise as feminine--and I would agree. Then you identify your 200 words of critical thinking as masculine--and I would agree.
If masculine/ feminine is seen through a feminine lens of traits we all have that need to work together, then they're both beneficial and not a dichotomy. If seen through an only-masculine lens of competition, then it's no longer useful but a symptom of imbalance.
When you believe in Good vs Evil, do you believe it was created by an evil God? Is that useful? That only seems useful to me for judgment of other people and superiority that, even if we're not all-Good, there are truly Evil people out there and it's all relative.
My theology, of course, is entertaining the possibility we're all One. Cluttering up 'heaven' by dividing the divine into multiple entities seems like the wrong direction--for me.
Who had to destroy Desmet? Here's my episode on the Breggins:https://thirdparadigm.substack.com/p/in-defense-of-the-breggins-part-one. I asked Tessa Lena to go through their articles in response to his theory and show me where they made any personal attack on him, rather than his idea.
I've gone through some long comment threads showing specific examples using his words to demonstrate that his theory does blame the victims. In addition to the Breggins, I think that Jim Reagan (who reads 3P) has put out several excellent articles applying logic and ontology--his focus--to Desmet's work. Here's one of them: https://jimreagen.substack.com/p/on-the-psychology-of-totalitarianism.
Using logic, how could a theory showing people had deluded themselves NOT imply superiority for the people reading the theory--demonstrating they hadn't done that? Even if we acknowledge the psyops they fell for (which Desmet doesn't do, to my knowledge) and the economic/ social/ moral trauma that was inflicted on them, it still says there's something inherent in the person, and not just their circumstances, that enabled them to resist and see the truth. Like Good and Evil, it's superiority. Not like Male and Female sides of the brain. IMO.
Regarding gender, all I’m saying is that male does not equal masculine, and female does not equal feminine. I know this distinction gets dismissed as simplistic, but gender dysphoria, it seems to me, is completely based on this confusion between the physical and the semantic, which is often intentional. The map is not the territory.
Regarding Desmet, I only referred to CJ Hopkins’ post. I stand by my assessment of his post as a personal takedown intended to discredit both theorist and theory.
About Desmet’s theory, you write “how could a theory showing people had deluded themselves NOT imply superiority for the people reading the theory….” When I encountered mass formation theory I was sense-making, not judging. I was trying to figure out why a lot of people I know and love had suddenly decided to hate me. Desmet was the only serious academic I know of who was offering a theory of what was happening—a theory that addressed it as a mass phenomenon. That was valuable to me and partially informed my personal conclusion that we all experienced a well-designed, targeted, intentional psyop on an unprecedented scale, but that it was not completely successful (for a variety of reasons that are no doubt currently being analyzed). I don’t blame any “victims,” let alone jump to some kind of assertion of my own superiority, mainly because the next time it happens it will be even more effective and the rest of us will likely become pod people, too.
Lastly, regarding good and evil, you say “it’s superiority.” If so, which one is superior, good or evil?
Oh sorry, I forgot that you mentioned CJ. I agree completely, he was vicious in his attack on Desmet and on commenters who disagreed with him. I unsubscribed at the time although I resubbed laster. His writing and analysis is so good.
Excellent point on sense-making not judging. And perhaps Desmet's perspective on it as a mass phenomenon was necessary to precede seeing it as a psyops. It's a good question as to whether they'll learn from it how to make it universally successful or we'll learn from it (including those now fooled by it) how to make it unsuccessful. Diagnosing the cause correctly seems a big part of that.
Haha, I haven't seen people take pride in being 'more evil than thou' but if that's not a joke, please explain more.
It’s a serious question, because evil is winning. If I had to place a bet on who wins in the end, reason and the evidence of my own senses would force me to put my money on the dark horse. So, I’d seriously posit that evil is a superior power in this world. To come to that conclusion, I don’t even need to believe in a god, good or evil (or, as modern Jews and Christians seem to prefer, a blend). But that’s a philosophical perspective. How that figures into your psychological dogma of “I’m no better than anyone else”—which seems to be a response to, or a framing of, the “sin” of pride—I’m not sure. If it means you don’t like the obnoxiously self-righteous, I couldn’t agree more, though I think we all have a touch (or more) of self-righteousness in us—would we even be having this discussion if we didn’t? I tend to think pride balanced with humility is the ticket to good conversations, maybe even to a peaceful world.
If I am as God created me, as the Course says, or I am as nature created me because there is no God, either way pride and humility are equally deluded. The only way they're relevant is if my ego is God and I created myself, not nature, nurture or spirit.
Evil only manifests through people, yes? So to say it's winning is to say those evil people are more powerful and all we have to cling onto is our moral superiority. I think that view is at the heart of liberalism and even what fueled wokism. It presents an enemy so we're on the side of good, it's not a system that we're all caught in, rich or poor, powerful or powerless.
To see myself as no better than anyone else is the opposite of humility. If I'm a skin-encapsulated mind competing with other minds for superiority, that's pretty pathetic no matter who wins. If every-body, including my own, is a figure in a dream we're all having as One Mind, our One Identity is, at the very least, the creator of this dystopian nightmare. We have all the power over it. And maybe our Real Identity is the one I suspect as the womb of God and co-creator of Reality. That's not humility to think you might be God if you stopped trying to see yourself as better than others!
For me to really understand your dogma of not seeing yourself as better than others would require that I have a great deal of context from the Course in Miracles, which I don’t have. When presented outside that context, the meaning doesn’t come across—to me, anyway—the way I think you intend it to. Having grown up in the Midwest, I can’t tell you how often I heard the obverse of this concept used to disparage someone, as in “He thinks he’s so much better than everyone else,” which, in the religion of 1960’s Midwesternism, was one of the cardinal sins. So, when you state your dogma in a post, what springs automatically to mind is being a child and hearing my mom express her disgust with Uncle Roy (who was a jerk and really did act better than everyone else). Outside of ACIM, that dogma could, in the wrong hands, very easily become a mainstay of cancel culture or of the moral superiority you reject.
There are other statements in your reply I’d like to address—especially “Evil only manifests through people, yes?”—but again, I lack sufficient understanding of ACIM to get your meaning, so any effort I make will likely miss your point. Another day, perhaps.
https://vimeo.com/244405542
check it out, This goes with your book.
Oh that's wonderful, Helene, so well done!
@Tirion. Your guess is as good as any except Rome didn't encourage Christian religion until Constantine far as I know, 330AD.
Here is my own philosophical speculation and that's what it is, speculation. The classical world had this idea of Fate. Your life was going to happen the way it was fated to happen and there was no escaping it.
In contrast, Christianity offered an escape from Fate called Salvation. You are not just automatically tied to your fate but can choose to opt out of it through grace. Redemption cancels karma.
Whether that is true or not I can't say. I always wonder how much of my own life is of my own choice or is the making of a larger power. But it is one explanation for why Christianity was accepted in the ancient world.
Hello again, Tereza.
Thank you for this video.
I bought your book, by the way.
Today's post and video inspire many thoughts in me. I will pick just one, to not bore you too much.
You comment that the trinity lacks a mother, the feminine aspect. That's because you live in a country with a majority protestant background. Here in Spain (you can't spell Spain without the pain, haha) the role of Virgin Mary is heavily emphasized, so there is a balance with the Trinity.
For example: https://youtu.be/3aQpnAytBFw?t=1293
In that video, at that time mark, 21:30 time mark, you can see the image of Virgin Mary in a procession of the Holy Week, the last day, Resurrection Sunday.
The theme of this street religious performance is the encounter of the resurrected Jesus and Mary.
There is no Christianity without the Resurrection.
Yay! Thank you for buying my book!
I attended Catholic grade school, HS & college, entering as a religion major, so my views of Christianity as patriarchal aren't influenced by living in a Protestant country. Really, Roger? An image of an obedient virgin mother, whose son says barely a word to her other than, "Shut up, woman, my time's not yet come," that's a victory for feminine divinity?
I think you've seen my episodes on the OT (The Devil & Naomi Wolf) and the NT (Jesus is the OG Psyops). The premise of both is that the Bible is written by the empire to turn history inside-out and convince us to give up on sovereignty because God is on the side of empire. My theory is that no women exist, any more than slaves do, in the Bible. The ones called by name represent territories. The name Mary, obviously, comes from mar, the sea. Especially for a sea-faring people, who would call the sea obedient? It meant a troublemaker, just as Molly and gun-moll are forms of Mary, like Martha.
Have you wondered why every woman in the NT is named Mary? They were the territories revolting against Rome. Magdala had an insurrection that Rome lashed out so hard against that they ran out of trees to hang people on, with their children hung from their necks. Even sisters are Mary and Martha. Jesus' (Josephus') mother is from Judea but he needs to make the point that she was innocent of rebellion, virginal, obedient to Rome.
And on resurrection, I think that what the zealots knew is that resurrection is inclusive and immediate. That's why they didn't fear death or pain, it had no power over them and every coliseum witnessed to this, which is why revolt was spreading like wildfire. They had to counter it with a psyop, which is that resurrection was only one person who God loved more than all the rest of us chopped liver. That's not Good News.
I thought that Mary was from Miriam, the sister of Moses from way back. In Greek, sea is thalasa or pontos, and in Hebrew is "yam". Perhaps the final part of "miriam". In Latin sea is "mare". The "Stella Maris" is a title assigned to Virgin Mary.
Jesus (Iesu in Latin and in Greek, because the letter J was not invented until the 16th century) is a modern version (for the time of the NT) of Joshua, who is the guy who takes on the leadership after Moses, in the OT.
Also some of the apostles have names from the OT, Jacob (James), Simeon, Jude (sons of Jacob in the OT.) Also Greek names.
The story of the name of Moses is related to water. The sister leaves baby Moses in a river, to be later found by the daughter of the Pharaoh.
The only historical fact we know for certain about the Torah and the gospels is that they were assembled/ written down at the same time and place around 70 CE, just after Rome had reclaimed Judea as its colony. The rabbi who assembled the Torah had himself lowered in a coffin from the wall of Jerusalem and went to Vespasian, and begged him to let him and his scholars live so they could preserve the Hebrew scriptures. The first gospel, Mark, was also written in that timeframe when the rebellious Judeans had been slaughtered or tortured and enslaved, and was never in Aramaic even in spoken proto-Q form, according to Bible scholars.
So maybe those nice Roman emperors allowed the documentation of the religion that led to their defeat. I think that you have a LOT of company taking it as a literally true history. And I don't think everyone needs to consider the possibility that it's written by and for the empire. But someone should be doing the research on that, yes? If it's possibly a lie that's kept us from knowing how the puny Judeans beat the Roman Empire?
Yes, it's very important to understand that the Bible is a wartime text. What's the first casualty of war? Truth :(
Have you read the book of Esther?
No I haven't.
It's about how to dismantle an empire.
LOL
IIRC, "Mary" is actually a title rather than a name. Yeshua's mother's name was Miriam.
Have you read Joseph Campbell? If not, I recommend his 4 volume set The Masks of God.
https://jcf.org/
That's a big homework assignment, Turtledad. Tell me why it would change my mind about something I need to know in order to save the world.
Just a suggestion. I read them back in 80s and they helped me understand the world better. I think everyone would benefit from his work. Not trying to change your mind, and good luck with that saving the world thing.
I didn't mean that to be snarky. I certainly read a lot about them back in the '80s although I don't think I read them directly. But I'm not sure the hero's journey, with the woman as temptress to deter him, speaks as much to women. I was hoping you had a shortcut for what I could learn from them that would save me the four volumes.
In one of the references I looked up (with sidebars on making money, getting ripped, and banging 10 new girls in 60 days) it wrote of the departure: "This is when modern man embarks from being a weak, effeminate man, who buys into the lies that our culture tells us, and starts to integrate manosphere wisdom into his life." I knew a dad of daughters would have a different perspective ;-)
And on saving the world, if not you, then who? This is a description of another post:
"Looks at undoing empire-thinking as a spiritual practice. ACIM says that God only ever asks one question, "Are you ready yet to help me save the world?" I look at why our answer is "not yet" because of our attachment to our own superiority. Our message to one another should be "You are magnificent" and "Here's why I think you're mistaken," using facts, logic and consistency. I connect the comments of three magnificent viewers and convey the views of four magnificent writers on Ukraine--Glenn Greenwald, Matt Taibbi, Caitlin Johnstone and Andrew Bacevich. I end with hearing from the horse's mouth." https://youtu.be/bN3DVJ8Uk04
Wow! Yes, I do have a different perspective. No man was good enough for my daughters. I had them so high on a pedestal. I was just reviewing an ancestor of mine. In 1732, he paid his father-in-law 1200 pounds of tobacco and 300 acres of land for his bride. Ah, yes, the good old days. My sons in law owe me! Just kidding of course.
There's a lot in that video. I don't even know where to start. You do that alot!
There is no death. There is only transition.
Christian dogma is basically a product of Rome, which was a patriarchal society; so the Holy Trinity was masculine, priests had to be celibate/unmarried and Mary Magdalene was a prostitute instead of who she really was, Yeshua's wife and the daughter of King Juba II of Numidia/Mauritania and Cleopadra, who was the daughter of Mark Antony and Queen Cleopadra VII of Egypt! The Gnostics claim that in fact Yeshua always referred to the divine in the feminine.
Don't several cultures, including the Zulus and the Dogon, have memories of early humans being androgynous? In the Bible, the Elohim were also androgynous and created man in their own image ("Male and female created he them"). Adam and the early generations of humans in the Bible are also androgynous:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_HVHDRrgZ0&list=PLp2t5UaSr3P_oSOoM8aNWhVx7yOWYYHPo&index=2&t=26s