The reason why patriarchy is so bad for all people is because it has separated love and power. Patriarchy likes to claim love is ‘weak’ or ‘unrealistic’, the result is that in a patriarchal society those who have power are unloving, and those who do love have no power.

Yet to say love is weak is a total lie. This is because we all need and want love. As a child we have little chance of survival, without the love of our mother. When we grow up we very much want to be loved by others. Love is universal, and it is what we all want and crave. So why would anyone think that love is ‘weak’?

In a patriarchal society everything is given a monetary value, except love. Everyone knows that if we were to buy love, it is meaningless. If a person loves us because we have money, it means they don’t love us, they only love the money we can give them. So love is outside of the commerce of patriarchal wheeling and dealing. It is also outside of patriarchal power games. A person doesn’t gain power in a patriarchal society through being more loving than other people. In fact, it is the exact opposite, as we are frequently told, love is a weakness, in patriarchal power-games.

This means that the lack of love in patriarchal societies becomes its main weakness. Patriarchy can only survive while there is no competition from Matriarchy. If patriarchy was to completely fairly with Matriarchy then patriarchy will lose. This is because Matriarchy can deliver love to the people and patriarchy can’t.

What the ordinary person wants more than anything else is to live in compassionate and caring societies. They want to be ruled by genuine loving people, who truly love the people they rule. Patriarchy says; this is impossible and a unrealistic Utopian dream. And yes, they are right in patriarchal societies; a caring and compassionate society is totally impossible while men rule our world. But is very possible, if Women ruled instead.

When Women have power and use this power to express their love for the people they rule, then you have a unbeatable combination, of love and power together. If you ever had a government of powerful and loving Women, who create a caring and compassionate society. Then no-one in their right minds would ever want a patriarchal society again.

This then is the power of love. Love becomes all powerful, when loving Women gain the power to rule our societies. This is why patriarchy cannot compete and why it needs to keep women powerless. Because once Women do gain true power and begin to rule communities and countries, then, all people all over the world will want the same and Matriarchy will quickly rule the world.

In eastern religions like Hinduism and Buddhism and the modern New-age movement, people are taught that they need to overcome their egos to become "enlightened". Even in religions like Christianity have a similar concept, where to "enter the kingdom of heaven" a person has to become humble and meek. In the new-age moment the ego is portrayed as the bad guy, and seems to play a similar role as the Devil does in Christianity. So instead of the Devil encouraging us all to commit sin, it is the ego that plays this role.

To be fair there is good reasons to believe that the ego is a Devil. Because it is easy to claim that all the suffering that we experience in our world is created by the ego. The ego is a sense of self, which in itself seems harmless enough, but a sense of self gives a feeling of separation from everyone else. Which in turn leads to selfishness because the individual person's needs and desires become more important to him than the needs of others. Then if others also have this sense of self, there becomes competition from others to have there individual desires completed. Which creates the situation of some people gaining more while others miss out. This can lead to violence and intimation as some will find this the easiest way to gain what they want. Creating within people hatred and fear of others where people have to fight others not only to gain what they want but to simply survive. From this can lead to a sense of hostility and conflict as the other is perceived as a threat to the self. This causes a clash of egos as the egos of different people compete with each other for wealth, power, love and status. The ego in effect creates a vicious circle of hate and fear as each ego fears other egos and attacks other egos as a way of defending the self.

The effect of the ego we can see in our history and in the world to-day. All wars are created by the ego, as war-leaders attack other countries to gain land, wealth and power or because they fear being attacked themselves. The ego also creates inequality in society as the rich and powerful want greater wealth and power at the expense of the poor who they exploit. So it means we can blame all the wars, poverty conflicts and suffering of the world on the ego.

Because of this many religion believe that as the ego is the cause of suffering and they assume that if we are able to destroy the ego then suffering will cease. Eastern religions have attempted this though meditation and other spiritual disciplines. Many people through these methods have claimed to have overcome the ego, which has resulted in these people being acclaimed as being enlightened. Unfortunately the concept of enlightenment is probably one of the most powerful ego-trips a person can have. Because many of these "Enlightened Ones" can have armies of followers who worship them as gods, hang on every word they say and obeying everything the "enlightened master" tells them.

Religions like Christianity and Mohammedanism and political systems like Communism and Fascism have attempted to overcome the ego though force and indoctrination. Where the individual person was encouraged to forget his personal needs in favour of that of the state. Unfortunately, although the common people were not allowed to have a ego this didn't apply to the leaders. Who took all the wealth and power they wanted and some like Stalin, Hitler and Mao Tse-Tung became ego-maniacs. So today we can see that the ego is still with us, and all attempts to overcome it have failed, but if all the ills and problems of people and society can be blamed on the ego then we should try to understand what it is and why we all have one.

All religions believe that the world was created by a creator. Even though they might disagree about the nature of that creator, we have to assume that an intelligence that is clever and powerful enough to create our universe has to know what it is doing. So in would seem crazy that such intelligent would create something like an ego that causes so much suffering unless it has purpose. We cannot assume that the ego is a mistake as some people seem to believe because the creator if it can create the universe then surely it can rectify such a mistake. So this means that the ego must have a very useful service.

The ego not only causes us all suffering it also shapes our lives, and none of us would be human without a ego. Because without a ego or sense of self we all would be at one with each other and all that there is. Which sounds wonderful, and is claimed that this is the state of enlightenment that we all should be searching for. Until we realize that in becoming one and there for no longer having a ego we would no longer exist. We would all simply be a small part of a greater intelligence, with no free-will of our own. So we would become like a colony of bees or ants, with no individual having a sense of self and everyone working for the good of the whole.

So it seems that we have a choice we can be an individual with free-will but have to put up with the suffering that the ego causes. Or become one with each other so there for living in harmony with everyone with no suffering but also with no sense of self or free- will.

If we accept that our creator is not stupid or uncaring, then we have to accept that there is a solution to this problem. If we look closely at suffering we find that even this has a purpose because as many spiritual people have realized it is though suffering that we learn. We have to accept that the ego is us, it is not separate from us as many religions claim. It is we who cause suffering to ourselves and to others, not because we are evil or sinful but because we truly do not know what we are doing.

Unfortunately our creator is limited in what it can do to help us to learn in overcoming suffering. This is not because She is not unlimited but because we are limited in our understanding. Our creator has the same problem as a parent of a child. If the parent looks after the child too well the child doesn't learn how to look after itself and is unable to become independent from the parent. If the parent gives the child too much freedom the child learns quicker to look after itself but is more likely to make mistakes and cause suffering to itself and to others. The creator cannot even give us the benefit of Her great wisdom, because that would discourage us from thinking and creating for ourselves.

When our Creator created us She not only gave us our ego, which is the gift of individuality, but the gift of being able to love. Surprisingly love is not something that comes naturally to us but something we all have to learn to do and it is because we havn't completed all our lesions in love that we are unable to control our egos.

There are very many lesions in love, but the most important ones are on how to love ourselves, to love others unconditionally. To both give and receive love, To love others as individuals, To love all people as a whole. To love others who hate us and do us harm and how to balance the love we have for ourselves and the love we have for others. In our relationships with others we live in a sea of love, but love is a very powerful force, too powerful for us to handle. Creating both suffering and joy for us all, but it is only by working with love that we learn to understand it and learn to use it without being harmed by it.

We are all learning about love in many very different ways, but the biggest different in the very different ways men and women are learning about love. If we look back in history then we see that, that in all societies of the world it always has been that men have dominated women. This domination has allowed men and women to learn two very different lesions in love. For the last five thousand years of recorded history men have been learning how to love himself. By learning to love himself he has learnt how to create a ego, or how to be a individual. Women at the same time have been learning how to love others unconditionally, in very adverse conditions. Women have learnt to love men and children who have given her very little love in return, and in many cases women have received only abuse from men in return for there love.

It might seem surprising that we have to learn to be able to love ourselves, but we can see the very great differences between people and the way they are learning about love. On one hand there are many people who live in poverty who believe they are unworthy to receive anything. On the other hand there are ego-maniacs like say Alexander the Great, Napoleon or Hitler who through conquest, have caused the deaths and maiming of millions of people and the destruction of whole communities. Who only do this so that they can say, "Wow, look how many countries I've conquered".

There is nothing wrong in loving oneself and we are on this Earth to learn this, but a person who love themselves without also learning to love others is out of balance. Likewise a person who is able to love everybody except themselves is also out of balance.

The whole of the patriarchal age has reflected the unbalanced state were men have only learnt to love themselves and women have only learnt to love others. Today in the twentieth century we are starting to see men learning how to love others and women starting to learn to love themselves. But this is only a beginning men still have a long way to go to reach the degree of unconditional love and self-sacrifice of a normal woman. While woman likewise still have a lot to learn to have the large ego the average man has.

This is why we are moving towards a new matriarchal age where the roles of the sexes will be reversed. Where men will learn to love others and women themselves. It will only be when both men and women have completely learnt the lesions of loving themselves and loving others will both sexes be able to come together in equality and complete love.

There is a fairly popular perception that feminism or Female Supremacy is all about "male bashing", and it has to be admitted that in many feminist books this comes across very strongly, which leads people to think that the women's movement is a male v female argument. The problem with this concept is that some of the most strident critics of feminism are other women. While there are many men who are quietly supporting the women's movement, the role of men in the women's movement is mostly unseen and forgotten. In much the same way as in a Patriarchal society, where the women's role in unseen and not appreciated.

At the beginnings of the women's movement during the 19th century and early 20th century, their is much written about women demonstrating on the streets to have the vote. Or women courageously taking on careers that used to be exclusively for men. What is forgotten is that it was men in completely male dominated legislative, who were willing to vote for women having the vote, and later on anti-sexist legislation. Likewise when women tried have careers in male dominated professions, much is made of the fact that many men opposed this, but for these women to be successful in their quest, means that there had to be a large number of other men who quietly supported these women.

In recent years the women's movement is changing from wanting only equality to some women demanding domination over men and society. In this new phase of the women's movement not only have men played a role in this but have led the way.

The concept of women ruling society comes from men. About the same time the women's movement was starting at the turn of the 20th century, scholars like Johann Bachofen, Robert Briffault and Edward Hartland, claimed that in pre-historic times Matriarchy existed in many societies and backed up these assertions with a great deal of evidence. They also claimed that these societies were a more "primitive" form of society and the later Patriarchal societies were more developed. Probably they said this to make the idea of Matriarchy acceptable to their colleagues. But despite this these claims were attacked by other scholars and even today are not accepted by the academic establishment. The important point is that it brought to people's notice the idea of women ruling and dominating society in much the same way as men had in historic times.

So in spite of academic disapproval the concept has refused to go away, and later on Robert Graves wrote about it in his now famous but confusing book "The White Goddess". This book make similar claims as other Matriarchal scholars but he also goes so far as to claim that people were far better off under the ancient Matriarchal rule. Graves spent his whole life campaigning for Matriarchy, but it was only towards the end of his life that women authors and scholars began to support his beliefs.

In the 1970s two books by women authors made much the same claims. The first one was called "The First Sex" by Elizabeth Gould Davis which was a more easy-to-read "popular" book, and the second and more scholarly book was called "When God was a Women" by Merlin Stone. After this other women began to write similar books and it is now becoming an acceptable part of feminism, though some feminist authors like to insist that in these ancient Matriarchal societies men and women lived in equality. Even though what little evidence we have of these very ancient societies point to the fact that women dominated men in those times. So even today in academic circles there is still the attitude that it is all right for men to have ruled and dominate society but the idea that women might of done the same is still unacceptable.

Another new concept in the matriarchal movement has been Goddess worship, which again was advocated by Robert Graves. But it was another man who put it forward in a practical form.

In 1954 the British Parliament in an effort to get rid of old out-dated laws repealed the Witchcraft Act, because as far as they were concerned there were no Witches left and they had doubts if they ever did exist. Then a man called Gerald Gardner claimed that there were still witches living in Britain and he should know because he was one. He said he had been initiated into a coven that dated back to the middle-ages and that he broke their code of silence to bring witchcraft to all who were interested in it. He started what was called Gardnerian Witchcraft and this form of witchcraft was quite sensational in nineteen fifties Britain. They worshipped in the nude, (which proved a bit impracticable in a cold climate like Britain). They scourged the new initiates, (though most covens were only willing to do this ritually and not for real). They practised the Great rite which was when the High Priestess and High Priest had ritualised sex together. (Again most covens were not willing to go all the way and only simulated the sex-act). And they also worshipped both a God and Goddess.

Today even among modern witches there is a lot of doubt if Gardner ever was initiated into a genuine witch's coven and what he claimed to be witchcraft was probably his own invention. Though people who have investigated his life, have claimed that they have discovered that the person who he claimed initiated him into witchcraft was a real person. So perhaps he might have been telling the truth after all. Or he might have found the remains of a genuine Witch-cult and then "modernised" it for people of the nineteen fifties. Whatever is the correct explanation, he started the modern pagan movement which then spread to the USA and Europe.

He created one problem with his form of witchcraft in that he made the High Priestess, the most important figure in the coven. Unfortunately very few women in nineteen fifties and sixties Britain were authoritative enough to take on this role. So either the High Priest had to take over as leader, or he had to look for and train a High Priestess to act authoritatively. The real achievement of Gardner is that he brought back Goddesses and Priestesses into modern western life as well as showing that sex could be a sacred act.

The only area in our modern society where Matriarchy has gone "all the way" is in the modern S/M Dominatrix scene. Even hundreds of years ago in the rigid Patriarchal society, some men have paid prostitutes to dominate them and to allow themselves to be worshipped by their clients. The word masochism come from a man called Von Sacher-Masoch who wrote books in the 19th century like the famous "Venus In Furs" about men being dominated and humiliated by women.

In recent years the S/M Dominatrix scene has been growing in leaps and bounds. In the nineteen fifties many prostitutes were surprised to find clients who were not demanding sex at all and were willing to pay for the privilege of doing their housework for them. Then other clients were asking to be whipped by prostitutes and to be allowed to worship them. At the same time many were encouraged to dress up in macho black leather, rubber and P.V.C and so the modern Dominatrix came into being. The interesting point about this is that it is men who demanded and paid for women to behave like this.

At first Dominatrices were only contented to simply fulfil the client's sexual fantasies but even this is changing. Many Dominatrices are finding they are enjoying dominating their clients and when the clients come to them it is they who set the agenda and not the client. So it is coming to a situation where the client is paying for the privilege of serving and giving the Dominatrix a good time. Some of these women do not like to be called Dominatrices and they point out that many Dominatrices only fulfil the client's sexual fantasies. So they like to call themselves Dominas or other names to show that they are the ones in charge and not the client. Other women are going further than this and call themselves lifestyle Dominatrices or Dominas. That is to say they have permanent male slave(s) who live with them to do their bidding.

In our present society a women can only dominate a man with the man's consent. Because a man is mostly bigger and stronger than a woman, this is also true in cases where a women uses physical violence on a man. Even if the women is into Body-building or karate, a man is still free to walk out of the relationship. So again it is men who are helping and encouraging women to dominate them. If a man refuses to hit back against a violent woman or stays in a violent relationship, he is in effect communicating to the woman he still loves her in spite of how she is treating him. Which is a great boost to the woman's ego and encourages her to continue to abuse him.

In pornography a sex-education film that only shows men and women having normal sex becomes quickly very boring. To make pornography interesting it requires either the man to dominate or degrade the women or the women to dominate or degrade the man. This is probably a clue why men find the feminist ideal of equality between the sexes boring and uninteresting, to the degree that many men treat feminists with contempt, probably because they fall between two stools. They are not passive enough for Patriarchal men to dominate them and so are not interested in them and are not assertive enough to dominate men and so fail to excite Matriarchal men.

There has never been a point in history where men and women have been equal. In recorded history men have dominated women and today where we are supposed to have equality, there seems to be a sex-war, with over half of all marriages now breaking down and the need to have marriage councillors to settle disputes in marriage. Many reasons are suggested for this breakdown in traditional marriage, but the main one given is that today women are demanding more from men. This has resulted in turning marriage into a battle ground where both partners are striving to gain power over the other.

In the past marriage was easy because society dictated that it was the man who wore the trousers and was the boss. Now it is politically correct that marriage should be equal, but somehow this is unacceptable to both men and women. The relationship between men and women will once again become harmonious when it becomes acceptable that women should be the boss in any relationship between men and women.

In the future if women are to take control of society they cannot do this without the active support of men. This is because men for thousands of years have been learning to love themselves which means they have larger egos than women. This makes men more confident, arrogant and assertive than women. Because women have far smaller egos than men, it becomes difficult for women to be assured and conceited enough to say that they should rule society. Men have far less problems with this and are more able to criticise the Patriarchal society and praise the behaviour of women.

Although it is not mentioned in the official Bible, there is a well known story that Mary Magdelene was a prostitute. Although there is no written proof of this in the Bible or in the Gnostic Gospels so it would be easy to dismiss this story. Yet it also has to be remembered that when Christianity became a State religion there was at the time a vast amount of Christian text that the State officials had access to. Most of which was destroyed and only the what we know today as the New Testament was saved. Though in more recent time parts of the Gnostic Gospels have also been found. So it could be possible that references of Mary Magdelene being a prostitute might be in these destroyed Christian writings.

If we take this story seriously what does this mean? We know that Jesus did mix with prostitutes, tax-collector and the general outcasts of society. So is this then just another example of his tolerance and compassion? This might be one explanation but prostitute had another meaning back in Biblical times.

It is clear in the Old Testament that the priests of the god Jehovah hated the Priestesses of Goddess temples. We know this from the story of Jezebel. She was Queen of Israel but she worshipped the Goddess Astarte. For this, she and her followers were murdered by the followers of Yahweh. Later on her daughter Athaliah also became Queen and she also worshipped Astarte and again she was murdered. In an attempt to slander Priestesses of Goddess the priests of Jehovah and Yahweh referred to them as Temple prostitutes because it was known that in many Temples of the day used sexual rituals. (It was only in Judaism and later Christianity that sexuality became a sin.) So in calling Mary Madgelene a prostitute it strongly suggests that she was in fact a priestess of a Goddess.

One of the Gnostic Gospels was called "The Gospel of Mary" and this gospel it seems was the teachings of Mary Magdelene. Though according to the authors Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy in their book "The Goddess Of Jesus" The State Church renamed the Gospel of Mary to the Gospel of John. So the exploits of John was in fact the exploits of Mary Magdelene. Another Gnostic Gospel called Pistis Sophia (Sophia was the Goddess of wisdom) is about a dialogue between Jesus and Mary Magdelene whom he calls, "dearly beloved. In one dialogue Peter complained to Jesus that Mary Magdelene dominated the conversation with Jesus but Jesus rebukes him. In another Gnostics text called "Dialogue of the Saviour" she is portrayed as a very wise Woman who understood Jesus completely unlike the rest of Jesus's disciples. So it seems that Mary Magdelene was a very important member of early Christianity. To the degree that some modern scholars have suggested that She and Jesus were married. It is assumed by most Christians that Jesus was a follower of the Jewish faith at the time. But if one of his closest and important followers was a priestess who were hated so much by the priests of Israel. To the degree she could of been murdered if she was discovered. We have to wonder if Jesus also belonged to another faith that was very much different from orthodox Judaism.

What is very clear in reading the Old and New Testament is that the religion Jesus taught is very different from the religion of the Old Testament. Judaism at the time was a very violent religion, they believed in "a eye for a eye a tooth for a tooth". Jehovah himself was portrayed as a jealous, judgmental and avenging god. Very unlike the loving father god promoted by Jesus. There are passages in the Bible that make many Christian even today find very uncomfortable:

Matthew chapter 5 verse 38

Ye have heard that it hath been said. And eye for a eye a tooth for a tooth:
But I say unto you. That ye resist not evil: but whosoever she smite thee on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.
And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also.
And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain.
Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee and not turn not thou away.
Ye have heard that it hath been said. Thou shalt love thy neighbor, and hate thine enemy.
But I say unto you. Love your enemies, bless them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you:
That ye many be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth the rain on the just and on the unjust.

In Luke chapter 6 verse 27

But I say unto you which hear, Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you.
Bless them that curse you and pray for them which despitefully use you.
And unto him that smiteth thee on the one cheek offer also the other; and him that taketh away thy cloak forbid not to take away thy coat also.
Give to every man that asketh of thee; and of him that taketh away thy goods ask them not again
And as ye would that man should do to you, do also to them likewise
For if ye love them which love you, what thanks have ye for sinners also, love those that love them.
And if ye do good to them which do good to you, what thank have ye? For sinners also do even the same.
And if ye lend to them of whom you hope to receive, what thank ye? For sinners also lend to sinners, to receive much gain.
But love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend hoping for nothing again; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the highest: For he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil.
Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father is merciful.
Judge not and ye shall not be judged: condemn not and ye shall not be condemned: forgive, and ye shall be forgiven.

The above goes totally against the teaching of Judaism of the time. It must be remembered that the Jews took the promise land by violence. They didn't see anything wrong in slaughtering the previous inhabitancies of Israel, and claim it was all right because it was promised to them by their god. So if the teachings of Jesus didn't come from Judaism where did it come from?

We know from the Bible that Jesus spent most of his childhood in Egypt. A very important Egyptian religion of the time was the religion Isis and Osiris. Like Jesus Osiris was a god who was murdered and then returned from the dead. Many scholars have commented on the similarities between Jesus and Osiris. In that both gods were known by there followers as the Good Shepherd.. One of the symbols of Osiris is the Shepherd's crook and it is also symbol of rank for Christian Bishops. The image of Jesus's mother Mary holding him as a baby is also the same image of Isis holding her baby Horus who was fathered by Osiris. After Isis returned him from the dead. Also in Christianity prayers are finished by the words Amen. What most Christians don't know is that Amen is in fact another Egyptian god. So was Jesus trying to introduce an Egyptian religion into Israel?

The teaching of the three gods of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, come from ancient goddess religions who have the triple Goddess of Maid, Mother and Crone or wise woman. The triple Goddess is represented at the Cross in the form of the three Marys. Even today Roman Catholics call the Virgin Mary as "Mary Mother of God" which really should be a blasphemy because it indicates that Mary is the creator of god. This is in fact comes from a very ancient saying that claims that, "The Mother Goddess is the creator of all the gods". The name Mary comes from the Egyptian Maat and the Mesopotamian Mami or Mammitu which did mean Mother and was also the name of the Great Mother or Mother Goddess. The ancient Great Mother was also referred to the Virgin Mother to show it was She who created everything. In other words She was the beginning and nothing existed before Her. This then is the original meaning of the Virgin Mother.

So it all does indicate that perhaps both Jesus and Mary Magdelene were trained priest and priestess in Egypt. Probably in the Goddess religion of Isis. Then they were sent as missionaries to convert the savage Israelites to a more compassionate Goddess religion. They knew that to preach a Goddess religion would mean that they would be quickly killed. So they converted there religious beliefs to fit in with the beliefs of the Jews. This meant that they turned the Compassionate Mother Goddess into a loving father god. Perhaps Jesus may of fooled the common people in doing this but he clearly didn't fool the priests. They were probably very aware he was preaching a Goddess religion and when they got the chance, had him crucified. From the way Jesus reacted to his betrayal and execution, he knew he was on borrowed time, and was clearly prepared to die for his beliefs.

What happened to Mary Magdelene afterwards we do not know. It seems she did survive so she probably continued what Jesus started and secretly continued the teachings that both of them created. It is of interest that Christianity came back to Egypt where it grew into a strong religion until Christianity became the Roman state religion. Then the Roman Christians had all the Egyptian Christians slaughtered who didn't follow the Roman version of Christianity. Destroying also all the Egyptian Christian text which only a small amount has survived until today. This result in the Roman version of Christianity becoming more like a Jewish religion. With more emphasis on the Old Testament than the teachings of Jesus. With the compassionate Goddess teachings of Jesus being largely ignored by most Christians.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DivineGoddess

Although it is not mentioned in the official Bible, there is a well known story that Mary Magdelene was a prostitute. Although there is no written proof of this in the Bible or in the Gnostic Gospels so it would be easy to dismiss this story. Yet it also has to be remembered that when Christianity became a State religion there was at the time a vast amount of Christian text that the State officials had access to. Most of which was destroyed and only the what we know today as the New Testament was saved. Though in more recent time parts of the Gnostic Gospels have also been found. So it could be possible that references of Mary Magdelene being a prostitute might be in these destroyed Christian writings.

If we take this story seriously what does this mean? We know that Jesus did mix with prostitutes, tax-collector and the general outcasts of society. So is this then just another example of his tolerance and compassion? This might be one explanation but prostitute had another meaning back in Biblical times.

It is clear in the Old Testament that the priests of the god Jehovah hated the Priestesses of Goddess temples. We know this from the story of Jezebel. She was Queen of Israel but she worshipped the Goddess Astarte. For this, she and her followers were murdered by the followers of Yahweh. Later on her daughter Athaliah also became Queen and she also worshipped Astarte and again she was murdered. In an attempt to slander Priestesses of Goddess the priests of Jehovah and Yahweh referred to them as Temple prostitutes because it was known that in many Temples of the day used sexual rituals. (It was only in Judaism and later Christianity that sexuality became a sin.) So in calling Mary Madgelene a prostitute it strongly suggests that she was in fact a priestess of a Goddess.

One of the Gnostic Gospels was called "The Gospel of Mary" and this gospel it seems was the teachings of Mary Magdelene. Though according to the authors Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy in their book "The Goddess Of Jesus" The State Church renamed the Gospel of Mary to the Gospel of John. So the exploits of John was in fact the exploits of Mary Magdelene. Another Gnostic Gospel called Pistis Sophia (Sophia was the Goddess of wisdom) is about a dialogue between Jesus and Mary Magdelene whom he calls, "dearly beloved. In one dialogue Peter complained to Jesus that Mary Magdelene dominated the conversation with Jesus but Jesus rebukes him. In another Gnostics text called "Dialogue of the Saviour" she is portrayed as a very wise Woman who understood Jesus completely unlike the rest of Jesus's disciples. So it seems that Mary Magdelene was a very important member of early Christianity. To the degree that some modern scholars have suggested that She and Jesus were married. It is assumed by most Christians that Jesus was a follower of the Jewish faith at the time. But if one of his closest and important followers was a priestess who were hated so much by the priests of Israel. To the degree she could of been murdered if she was discovered. We have to wonder if Jesus also belonged to another faith that was very much different from orthodox Judaism.

What is very clear in reading the Old and New Testament is that the religion Jesus taught is very different from the religion of the Old Testament. Judaism at the time was a very violent religion, they believed in "a eye for a eye a tooth for a tooth". Jehovah himself was portrayed as a jealous, judgmental and avenging god. Very unlike the loving father god promoted by Jesus. There are passages in the Bible that make many Christian even today find very uncomfortable:

Matthew chapter 5 verse 38

Ye have heard that it hath been said. And eye for a eye a tooth for a tooth:
But I say unto you. That ye resist not evil: but whosoever she smite thee on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.
And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also.
And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain.
Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee and not turn not thou away.
Ye have heard that it hath been said. Thou shalt love thy neighbor, and hate thine enemy.
But I say unto you. Love your enemies, bless them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you:
That ye many be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth the rain on the just and on the unjust.

In Luke chapter 6 verse 27

But I say unto you which hear, Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you.
Bless them that curse you and pray for them which despitefully use you.
And unto him that smiteth thee on the one cheek offer also the other; and him that taketh away thy cloak forbid not to take away thy coat also.
Give to every man that asketh of thee; and of him that taketh away thy goods ask them not again
And as ye would that man should do to you, do also to them likewise
For if ye love them which love you, what thanks have ye for sinners also, love those that love them.
And if ye do good to them which do good to you, what thank have ye? For sinners also do even the same.
And if ye lend to them of whom you hope to receive, what thank ye? For sinners also lend to sinners, to receive much gain.
But love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend hoping for nothing again; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the highest: For he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil.
Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father is merciful.
Judge not and ye shall not be judged: condemn not and ye shall not be condemned: forgive, and ye shall be forgiven.

The above goes totally against the teaching of Judaism of the time. It must be remembered that the Jews took the promise land by violence. They didn't see anything wrong in slaughtering the previous inhabitancies of Israel, and claim it was all right because it was promised to them by their god. So if the teachings of Jesus didn't come from Judaism where did it come from?

We know from the Bible that Jesus spent most of his childhood in Egypt. A very important Egyptian religion of the time was the religion Isis and Osiris. Like Jesus Osiris was a god who was murdered and then returned from the dead. Many scholars have commented on the similarities between Jesus and Osiris. In that both gods were known by there followers as the Good Shepherd.. One of the symbols of Osiris is the Shepherd's crook and it is also symbol of rank for Christian Bishops. The image of Jesus's mother Mary holding him as a baby is also the same image of Isis holding her baby Horus who was fathered by Osiris. After Isis returned him from the dead. Also in Christianity prayers are finished by the words Amen. What most Christians don't know is that Amen is in fact another Egyptian god. So was Jesus trying to introduce an Egyptian religion into Israel?

The teaching of the three gods of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, come from ancient goddess religions who have the triple Goddess of Maid, Mother and Crone or wise woman. The triple Goddess is represented at the Cross in the form of the three Marys. Even today Roman Catholics call the Virgin Mary as "Mary Mother of God" which really should be a blasphemy because it indicates that Mary is the creator of god. This is in fact comes from a very ancient saying that claims that, "The Mother Goddess is the creator of all the gods". The name Mary comes from the Egyptian Maat and the Mesopotamian Mami or Mammitu which did mean Mother and was also the name of the Great Mother or Mother Goddess. The ancient Great Mother was also referred to the Virgin Mother to show it was She who created everything. In other words She was the beginning and nothing existed before Her. This then is the original meaning of the Virgin Mother.

So it all does indicate that perhaps both Jesus and Mary Magdelene were trained priest and priestess in Egypt. Probably in the Goddess religion of Isis. Then they were sent as missionaries to convert the savage Israelites to a more compassionate Goddess religion. They knew that to preach a Goddess religion would mean that they would be quickly killed. So they converted there religious beliefs to fit in with the beliefs of the Jews. This meant that they turned the Compassionate Mother Goddess into a loving father god. Perhaps Jesus may of fooled the common people in doing this but he clearly didn't fool the priests. They were probably very aware he was preaching a Goddess religion and when they got the chance, had him crucified. From the way Jesus reacted to his betrayal and execution, he knew he was on borrowed time, and was clearly prepared to die for his beliefs.

What happened to Mary Magdelene afterwards we do not know. It seems she did survive so she probably continued what Jesus started and secretly continued the teachings that both of them created. It is of interest that Christianity came back to Egypt where it grew into a strong religion until Christianity became the Roman state religion. Then the Roman Christians had all the Egyptian Christians slaughtered who didn't follow the Roman version of Christianity. Destroying also all the Egyptian Christian text which only a small amount has survived until today. This result in the Roman version of Christianity becoming more like a Jewish religion. With more emphasis on the Old Testament than the teachings of Jesus. With the compassionate Goddess teachings of Jesus being largely ignored by most Christians.

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There is a fairly popular perception that feminism or Female Supremacy is all about "male bashing", and it has to be admitted that in many feminist books this comes across very strongly, which leads people to think that the women's movement is a male v female argument. The problem with this concept is that some of the most strident critics of feminism are other women. While there are many men who are quietly supporting the women's movement, the role of men in the women's movement is mostly unseen and forgotten. In much the same way as in a Patriarchal society, where the women's role in unseen and not appreciated.

At the beginnings of the women's movement during the 19th century and early 20th century, their is much written about women demonstrating on the streets to have the vote. Or women courageously taking on careers that used to be exclusively for men. What is forgotten is that it was men in completely male dominated legislative, who were willing to vote for women having the vote, and later on anti-sexist legislation. Likewise when women tried have careers in male dominated professions, much is made of the fact that many men opposed this, but for these women to be successful in their quest, means that there had to be a large number of other men who quietly supported these women.

In recent years the women's movement is changing from wanting only equality to some women demanding domination over men and society. In this new phase of the women's movement not only have men played a role in this but have led the way.

The concept of women ruling society comes from men. About the same time the women's movement was starting at the turn of the 20th century, scholars like Johann Bachofen, Robert Briffault and Edward Hartland, claimed that in pre-historic times Matriarchy existed in many societies and backed up these assertions with a great deal of evidence. They also claimed that these societies were a more "primitive" form of society and the later Patriarchal societies were more developed. Probably they said this to make the idea of Matriarchy acceptable to their colleagues. But despite this these claims were attacked by other scholars and even today are not accepted by the academic establishment. The important point is that it brought to people's notice the idea of women ruling and dominating society in much the same way as men had in historic times.

So in spite of academic disapproval the concept has refused to go away, and later on Robert Graves wrote about it in his now famous but confusing book "The White Goddess". This book make similar claims as other Matriarchal scholars but he also goes so far as to claim that people were far better off under the ancient Matriarchal rule. Graves spent his whole life campaigning for Matriarchy, but it was only towards the end of his life that women authors and scholars began to support his beliefs.

In the 1970s two books by women authors made much the same claims. The first one was called "The First Sex" by Elizabeth Gould Davis which was a more easy-to-read "popular" book, and the second and more scholarly book was called "When God was a Women" by Merlin Stone. After this other women began to write similar books and it is now becoming an acceptable part of feminism, though some feminist authors like to insist that in these ancient Matriarchal societies men and women lived in equality. Even though what little evidence we have of these very ancient societies point to the fact that women dominated men in those times. So even today in academic circles there is still the attitude that it is all right for men to have ruled and dominate society but the idea that women might of done the same is still unacceptable.

Another new concept in the matriarchal movement has been Goddess worship, which again was advocated by Robert Graves. But it was another man who put it forward in a practical form.

In 1954 the British Parliament in an effort to get rid of old out-dated laws repealed the Witchcraft Act, because as far as they were concerned there were no Witches left and they had doubts if they ever did exist. Then a man called Gerald Gardner claimed that there were still witches living in Britain and he should know because he was one. He said he had been initiated into a coven that dated back to the middle-ages and that he broke their code of silence to bring witchcraft to all who were interested in it. He started what was called Gardnerian Witchcraft and this form of witchcraft was quite sensational in nineteen fifties Britain. They worshipped in the nude, (which proved a bit impracticable in a cold climate like Britain). They scourged the new initiates, (though most covens were only willing to do this ritually and not for real). They practised the Great rite which was when the High Priestess and High Priest had ritualised sex together. (Again most covens were not willing to go all the way and only simulated the sex-act). And they also worshipped both a God and Goddess.

Today even among modern witches there is a lot of doubt if Gardner ever was initiated into a genuine witch's coven and what he claimed to be witchcraft was probably his own invention. Though people who have investigated his life, have claimed that they have discovered that the person who he claimed initiated him into witchcraft was a real person. So perhaps he might have been telling the truth after all. Or he might have found the remains of a genuine Witch-cult and then "modernised" it for people of the nineteen fifties. Whatever is the correct explanation, he started the modern pagan movement which then spread to the USA and Europe.

He created one problem with his form of witchcraft in that he made the High Priestess, the most important figure in the coven. Unfortunately very few women in nineteen fifties and sixties Britain were authoritative enough to take on this role. So either the High Priest had to take over as leader, or he had to look for and train a High Priestess to act authoritatively. The real achievement of Gardner is that he brought back Goddesses and Priestesses into modern western life as well as showing that sex could be a sacred act.

The only area in our modern society where Matriarchy has gone "all the way" is in the modern S/M Dominatrix scene. Even hundreds of years ago in the rigid Patriarchal society, some men have paid prostitutes to dominate them and to allow themselves to be worshipped by their clients. The word masochism come from a man called Von Sacher-Masoch who wrote books in the 19th century like the famous "Venus In Furs" about men being dominated and humiliated by women.

In recent years the S/M Dominatrix scene has been growing in leaps and bounds. In the nineteen fifties many prostitutes were surprised to find clients who were not demanding sex at all and were willing to pay for the privilege of doing their housework for them. Then other clients were asking to be whipped by prostitutes and to be allowed to worship them. At the same time many were encouraged to dress up in macho black leather, rubber and P.V.C and so the modern Dominatrix came into being. The interesting point about this is that it is men who demanded and paid for women to behave like this.

At first Dominatrices were only contented to simply fulfil the client's sexual fantasies but even this is changing. Many Dominatrices are finding they are enjoying dominating their clients and when the clients come to them it is they who set the agenda and not the client. So it is coming to a situation where the client is paying for the privilege of serving and giving the Dominatrix a good time. Some of these women do not like to be called Dominatrices and they point out that many Dominatrices only fulfil the client's sexual fantasies. So they like to call themselves Dominas or other names to show that they are the ones in charge and not the client. Other women are going further than this and call themselves lifestyle Dominatrices or Dominas. That is to say they have permanent male slave(s) who live with them to do their bidding.

In our present society a women can only dominate a man with the man's consent. Because a man is mostly bigger and stronger than a woman, this is also true in cases where a women uses physical violence on a man. Even if the women is into Body-building or karate, a man is still free to walk out of the relationship. So again it is men who are helping and encouraging women to dominate them. If a man refuses to hit back against a violent woman or stays in a violent relationship, he is in effect communicating to the woman he still loves her in spite of how she is treating him. Which is a great boost to the woman's ego and encourages her to continue to abuse him.

In pornography a sex-education film that only shows men and women having normal sex becomes quickly very boring. To make pornography interesting it requires either the man to dominate or degrade the women or the women to dominate or degrade the man. This is probably a clue why men find the feminist ideal of equality between the sexes boring and uninteresting, to the degree that many men treat feminists with contempt, probably because they fall between two stools. They are not passive enough for Patriarchal men to dominate them and so are not interested in them and are not assertive enough to dominate men and so fail to excite Matriarchal men.

There has never been a point in history where men and women have been equal. In recorded history men have dominated women and today where we are supposed to have equality, there seems to be a sex-war, with over half of all marriages now breaking down and the need to have marriage councillors to settle disputes in marriage. Many reasons are suggested for this breakdown in traditional marriage, but the main one given is that today women are demanding more from men. This has resulted in turning marriage into a battle ground where both partners are striving to gain power over the other.

In the past marriage was easy because society dictated that it was the man who wore the trousers and was the boss. Now it is politically correct that marriage should be equal, but somehow this is unacceptable to both men and women. The relationship between men and women will once again become harmonious when it becomes acceptable that women should be the boss in any relationship between men and women.

In the future if women are to take control of society they cannot do this without the active support of men. This is because men for thousands of years have been learning to love themselves which means they have larger egos than women. This makes men more confident, arrogant and assertive than women. Because women have far smaller egos than men, it becomes difficult for women to be assured and conceited enough to say that they should rule society. Men have far less problems with this and are more able to criticise the Patriarchal society and praise the behaviour of women.

In eastern religions like Hinduism and Buddhism and the modern New-age movement, people are taught that they need to overcome their egos to become "enlightened". Even in religions like Christianity have a similar concept, where to "enter the kingdom of heaven" a person has to become humble and meek. In the new-age moment the ego is portrayed as the bad guy, and seems to play a similar role as the Devil does in Christianity. So instead of the Devil encouraging us all to commit sin, it is the ego that plays this role.

To be fair there is good reasons to believe that the ego is a Devil. Because it is easy to claim that all the suffering that we experience in our world is created by the ego. The ego is a sense of self, which in itself seems harmless enough, but a sense of self gives a feeling of separation from everyone else. Which in turn leads to selfishness because the individual person's needs and desires become more important to him than the needs of others. Then if others also have this sense of self, there becomes competition from others to have there individual desires completed. Which creates the situation of some people gaining more while others miss out. This can lead to violence and intimation as some will find this the easiest way to gain what they want. Creating within people hatred and fear of others where people have to fight others not only to gain what they want but to simply survive. From this can lead to a sense of hostility and conflict as the other is perceived as a threat to the self. This causes a clash of egos as the egos of different people compete with each other for wealth, power, love and status. The ego in effect creates a vicious circle of hate and fear as each ego fears other egos and attacks other egos as a way of defending the self.

The effect of the ego we can see in our history and in the world to-day. All wars are created by the ego, as war-leaders attack other countries to gain land, wealth and power or because they fear being attacked themselves. The ego also creates inequality in society as the rich and powerful want greater wealth and power at the expense of the poor who they exploit. So it means we can blame all the wars, poverty conflicts and suffering of the world on the ego.

Because of this many religion believe that as the ego is the cause of suffering and they assume that if we are able to destroy the ego then suffering will cease. Eastern religions have attempted this though meditation and other spiritual disciplines. Many people through these methods have claimed to have overcome the ego, which has resulted in these people being acclaimed as being enlightened. Unfortunately the concept of enlightenment is probably one of the most powerful ego-trips a person can have. Because many of these "Enlightened Ones" can have armies of followers who worship them as gods, hang on every word they say and obeying everything the "enlightened master" tells them.

Religions like Christianity and Mohammedanism and political systems like Communism and Fascism have attempted to overcome the ego though force and indoctrination. Where the individual person was encouraged to forget his personal needs in favour of that of the state. Unfortunately, although the common people were not allowed to have a ego this didn't apply to the leaders. Who took all the wealth and power they wanted and some like Stalin, Hitler and Mao Tse-Tung became ego-maniacs. So today we can see that the ego is still with us, and all attempts to overcome it have failed, but if all the ills and problems of people and society can be blamed on the ego then we should try to understand what it is and why we all have one.

All religions believe that the world was created by a creator. Even though they might disagree about the nature of that creator, we have to assume that an intelligence that is clever and powerful enough to create our universe has to know what it is doing. So in would seem crazy that such intelligent would create something like an ego that causes so much suffering unless it has purpose. We cannot assume that the ego is a mistake as some people seem to believe because the creator if it can create the universe then surely it can rectify such a mistake. So this means that the ego must have a very useful service.

The ego not only causes us all suffering it also shapes our lives, and none of us would be human without a ego. Because without a ego or sense of self we all would be at one with each other and all that there is. Which sounds wonderful, and is claimed that this is the state of enlightenment that we all should be searching for. Until we realize that in becoming one and there for no longer having a ego we would no longer exist. We would all simply be a small part of a greater intelligence, with no free-will of our own. So we would become like a colony of bees or ants, with no individual having a sense of self and everyone working for the good of the whole.

So it seems that we have a choice we can be an individual with free-will but have to put up with the suffering that the ego causes. Or become one with each other so there for living in harmony with everyone with no suffering but also with no sense of self or free- will.

If we accept that our creator is not stupid or uncaring, then we have to accept that there is a solution to this problem. If we look closely at suffering we find that even this has a purpose because as many spiritual people have realized it is though suffering that we learn. We have to accept that the ego is us, it is not separate from us as many religions claim. It is we who cause suffering to ourselves and to others, not because we are evil or sinful but because we truly do not know what we are doing.

Unfortunately our creator is limited in what it can do to help us to learn in overcoming suffering. This is not because She is not unlimited but because we are limited in our understanding. Our creator has the same problem as a parent of a child. If the parent looks after the child too well the child doesn't learn how to look after itself and is unable to become independent from the parent. If the parent gives the child too much freedom the child learns quicker to look after itself but is more likely to make mistakes and cause suffering to itself and to others. The creator cannot even give us the benefit of Her great wisdom, because that would discourage us from thinking and creating for ourselves.

When our Creator created us She not only gave us our ego, which is the gift of individuality, but the gift of being able to love. Surprisingly love is not something that comes naturally to us but something we all have to learn to do and it is because we havn't completed all our lesions in love that we are unable to control our egos.

There are very many lesions in love, but the most important ones are on how to love ourselves, to love others unconditionally. To both give and receive love, To love others as individuals, To love all people as a whole. To love others who hate us and do us harm and how to balance the love we have for ourselves and the love we have for others. In our relationships with others we live in a sea of love, but love is a very powerful force, too powerful for us to handle. Creating both suffering and joy for us all, but it is only by working with love that we learn to understand it and learn to use it without being harmed by it.

We are all learning about love in many very different ways, but the biggest different in the very different ways men and women are learning about love. If we look back in history then we see that, that in all societies of the world it always has been that men have dominated women. This domination has allowed men and women to learn two very different lesions in love. For the last five thousand years of recorded history men have been learning how to love himself. By learning to love himself he has learnt how to create a ego, or how to be a individual. Women at the same time have been learning how to love others unconditionally, in very adverse conditions. Women have learnt to love men and children who have given her very little love in return, and in many cases women have received only abuse from men in return for there love.

It might seem surprising that we have to learn to be able to love ourselves, but we can see the very great differences between people and the way they are learning about love. On one hand there are many people who live in poverty who believe they are unworthy to receive anything. On the other hand there are ego-maniacs like say Alexander the Great, Napoleon or Hitler who through conquest, have caused the deaths and maiming of millions of people and the destruction of whole communities. Who only do this so that they can say, "Wow, look how many countries I've conquered".

There is nothing wrong in loving oneself and we are on this Earth to learn this, but a person who love themselves without also learning to love others is out of balance. Likewise a person who is able to love everybody except themselves is also out of balance.

The whole of the patriarchal age has reflected the unbalanced state were men have only learnt to love themselves and women have only learnt to love others. Today in the twentieth century we are starting to see men learning how to love others and women starting to learn to love themselves. But this is only a beginning men still have a long way to go to reach the degree of unconditional love and self-sacrifice of a normal woman. While woman likewise still have a lot to learn to have the large ego the average man has.

This is why we are moving towards a new matriarchal age where the roles of the sexes will be reversed. Where men will learn to love others and women themselves. It will only be when both men and women have completely learnt the lesions of loving themselves and loving others will both sexes be able to come together in equality and complete love.

The reason why patriarchy is so bad for all people is because it has separated love and power. Patriarchy likes to claim love is ‘weak’ or ‘unrealistic’, the result is that in a patriarchal society those who have power are unloving, and those who do love have no power.

Yet to say love is weak is a total lie. This is because we all need and want love. As a child we have little chance of survival, without the love of our mother. When we grow up we very much want to be loved by others. Love is universal, and it is what we all want and crave. So why would anyone think that love is ‘weak’?

In a patriarchal society everything is given a monetary value, except love. Everyone knows that if we were to buy love, it is meaningless. If a person loves us because we have money, it means they don’t love us, they only love the money we can give them. So love is outside of the commerce of patriarchal wheeling and dealing. It is also outside of patriarchal power games. A person doesn’t gain power in a patriarchal society through being more loving than other people. In fact, it is the exact opposite, as we are frequently told, love is a weakness, in patriarchal power-games.

This means that the lack of love in patriarchal societies becomes its main weakness. Patriarchy can only survive while there is no competition from Matriarchy. If patriarchy was to completely fairly with Matriarchy then patriarchy will lose. This is because Matriarchy can deliver love to the people and patriarchy can’t.

What the ordinary person wants more than anything else is to live in compassionate and caring societies. They want to be ruled by genuine loving people, who truly love the people they rule. Patriarchy says; this is impossible and a unrealistic Utopian dream. And yes, they are right in patriarchal societies; a caring and compassionate society is totally impossible while men rule our world. But is very possible, if Women ruled instead.

When Women have power and use this power to express their love for the people they rule, then you have a unbeatable combination, of love and power together. If you ever had a government of powerful and loving Women, who create a caring and compassionate society. Then no-one in their right minds would ever want a patriarchal society again.

This then is the power of love. Love becomes all powerful, when loving Women gain the power to rule our societies. This is why patriarchy cannot compete and why it needs to keep women powerless. Because once Women do gain true power and begin to rule communities and countries, then, all people all over the world will want the same and Matriarchy will quickly rule the world.

On a superficial level it would seem that Sadomasochism and Mysticism are as far apart as you can get. Mysticism is suppose to be about getting away from desires of the flesh and Sadomasochism is about expressing these desires in an extreme way.

Yet the heart of Mysticism is the concept of; "know thyself". In other words it is about people who learn to observe and understand themselves. This is also true of people into Sadomasochism, they also become aware of their deepest desires as they act them out and express them in real life.

Mysticism is associated with religion, yet religion and mysticism are in many ways, complete opposites. This is because many religions are about making up rules and laws and then threaten people with hell-fire if they don't follow these laws. A true mystic recognises no laws or doctrine because the mystic knows that these things get in the way of self-awareness. It is very difficult to search within yourself if you are censoring thoughts and feelings that you believe will condemn you to hell. Nor does true mystics judge themselves or others because they know that judgement is a final conclusion and that prevents further inner exploration and awareness.

Many people find comfort in the rules and laws lay down by religions. They are taught that the Bible or the Koran is the word of God, so all they have to do is follow the laws laid down in these books and everything in theory should be all right. Unfortunately Christian and Muslim societies are not peaceful loving societies, they are full of conflict, fear, intolerance and hatred. So there must be something wrong with the belief that either the Bible or the Koran is the word of god. What is clear from thousands of years of recorded history is that laying down laws and enforcing them, do not make for a harmonious world.

Mysticism takes a very different point of view. Mystics look for the root cause of conflict, hatred and suffering. Unlike religions they don't blame all the problems of the world onto a scapegoat like the Devil as they realise that suffering comes from within. It is obvious to most mystics and even some religious priests that the root cause of all suffering is fear and hatred. So that if all people were able to love each other and themselves then suffering would disappear. But unlike a priest a mystic knows that you cannot make people love each other by making it a law and then threatening people with hellfire if they don't obey it. This is as stupid as being threatened with violence and being told, "love other people or else". Off coarse in this situation people will pretend to love others but how they truly feel will be the same and they will secretly hate those who threaten them.

Love and hate are feelings and feelings are not so easily influenced by thoughts. So even if a person see the logical need to not to hate others and love all people, they will still find that the feelings of hatred will still exist within them. So religious people try to suppress their feelings of hatred for others and try to pretend that they love others. While mystics practice self-awareness and realise that hatred still exists within them and so they will bring up their feelings into the light of consciousness to understand why they fear and hate others.

One of the biggest obstacles for people to gain self-awareness is judgements about good and evil. All people like to believe that they are good. So when a person judges themselves to be good and then discovers that they have thought, feelings and behaviour that are not good. Then the person attempts to suppress these thoughts and feelings to change their behaviour. To do this the person goes into denial of any "bad thoughts" he or she may have and they are pushed into the unconscious mind. This means they are the unacceptable thoughts and desires and still in the unconscious mind but now are denied by the conscious mind. Unfortunately most people seem to do this even if they are not religious minded. So it means that many people are unconscious of many destructive thoughts and feelings within them. To the degree that it is possible for people to act in a hateful way towards others and be unaware of doing this. They mostly justify their hate by claiming that other people they are hurting are evil.

Any mystic who practices self-awareness soon begins to realise the whole of society is completely insane. We live in a world full of conflict, crime, wars and poverty. Politicians and priests put forward laws and beliefs about how to correct the ills of society yet all these solutions have been tried thousands of times before without changing society for the better.

It is impossible for anyone to love others and yet judge another as being evil. What is not understood that in the conflict between good and evil, everyone wants to think of themselves as being good. So even if you take a person like Hitler or a serial killer or a torturer, people might claim these people are evil but they themselves think they are good people. The paradox is that Hitler felt justified in murdering millions of Jews, turning eastern European people into slaves and declaring war on other countries because he believed that anyone who wasn't a Aryan were evil degenerates. Likewise a criminal justifies his actions by claiming that the whole of society is evil and unfair, so he feels he has to attack others to survive. Likewise a soldier who obeys orders to practice genocide and torture feels justified because to him the people he murders and tortures are also evil.

Once we judge another person as being bad, wrong or evil we have created division which can lead to fear, hatred and in extreme cases murder, genocide and torture. The root cause of this conflict is lack of self-awareness. As Jesus once said; "before you attempt to take out the splinter out of the eye of your brother take the beam out of your own eye first". Many of us can claim that we do not hate others to the degree we would murder them. Yet collectively our fears, intolerance and hatred of others does create unfair, uncaring and violent societies. The amount of conflict, violence and poverty in any society is a reflection of the lack of love all people have for each other.

This creates a problem; how do we love people who have committed crimes like rape and murder? It is natural to want to hate such people and have them punished in some way. But desires like this are very destructive and create a vicious cycle of fear and hatred. In the First world war, after Germany was defeated, the allies decided to punish German by making her pay for the cost of the war. This caused wide-spread poverty in Germany, which was made worse by a world depression. This built up a large reservoir of resentment and hatred in Germany resulting in the rise of the Nazi party and the second world war. After Germany was defeated a second time the Allies started to make the same mistake and again started to punish Germany. They then realised the threat from the USSR and realised that they needed the German people on their side against communism. So money was poured into Germany to help them to recover. This helped the German people to make friends with their former enemies and prevented more wars happening in Europe. It was the ending of the destructive power of hate that allowed the Allies break the cycle of hatred and fear between the countries of Europe.

We can break the cycle of hate and fear through self-awareness. This then means that the more we can all own up to our fears and hates the more able we are to give them up. A sadist in the BDSM scene is bringing out in the open his or her feeling of love for themselves and hatred for others. While the masochist is bringing out his or her feelings of hated for themselves and love for others. Many religious people attempt to suppress their sadistic and masochistic feelings because they judge that these feelings are "wrong". In so doing they keep them bottled up and they stay with them until they are expressed in violent situations like war, riots and witch-hunts.

For people in the Sadomasochism scene by acting out their S/M desires they are not only acting them out in a controlled fashion so they are less likely to do lasting damage to others. They are practising a form of self-awareness that allows them to deal with their feelings of fear and hate. They are also practising tolerance and non-judgement for themselves and others. In other words they are following the teachings of; "know thyself." So people into Sadomasochism are practising mysticism even if they are unaware of this.

The more we are able to express feelings of hatred for ourselves and others in conditions where they don't get out of control. The more we drain off the suppressed feelings we have dammed up within us and bring them into the light of consciousness. When we have done this over a period of time it allows us to look at these feelings without fear of being taken over and controlled by them. When this happens we find we then have a choice, we can either choose to love or hate ourselves and others. If we have enough awareness to know that hate brings about suffering and love brings about joy and happiness. We can choose love and joy without the fear of suppressed and unconscious hated and fear within us coming to the surface and taking us over. This then means we are able to choose to love both ourselves and others at the same time.

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In 1886 a book called the “Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” written by Robert Louis Stevenson, was published. It became a instant best-seller and is now a seen as a great book. For those who have not read it: It is a story of a Dr Jekyll, (a decent and kind man) who invents a mind-altering drug, and when he takes it, he is turned to the monster Mr Hyde. The story is then about the fight between the two personalities for dominance. The popularity of this story is probably because it reminds us of a deep truth. That all men have the potential to be a Dr Jekyll or Mr Hyde.

The Jesuit priests once boasted; “give us a child for the first seven years of their lives, and we have him for life”. In other words they were very successful in brainwashing children to believe in whatever they wanted them to believe. But this brainwashing of children doesn’t only effect Roman Catholics but every patriarchal religion and society in the world. And unfortunately the end result of this brainwashing has been to turn men into monsters.

Throughout recorded history men have constantly solved disputes between countries, religions and different political systems through warfare. As we can see in the cases of Crusader wars between Christians and Moslems, the many wars between Roman Catholics and Protestants, as well as the internal wars in Islam between Sunnis and Shiite Moslems that is fuelling the conflict in Iraq today. There has been also political wars, like that between communism and capitalism in the 20th century. War has also started for another reasons, like one ruler decided he wanted to loot and conquer other countries. As we can see in the case of Alexander the Great, Julius Cesar, Napoleon Bonaparte and Adolf Hitler.

So why are men behaving like this? Why do men want to conquer other countries and kill other people? The scientific explanation is that men are driven by an ancient animal instinct.

It is natural and normal for most male animals to compete against each other. Every spring, male goats, rams, bulls, stags will bang heads together to see who is the strongest, and it is the biggest and strongest who gets to mate with the females. So we can see a powerful desire within all males to be the biggest, strongest and most of all, to be the winner. What is more, male animals become the winners through violence. For instance male hippopotamuses have been known to inflict horrendous wounds on each other, while bull elephants and lions have been known to kill each other.

Likewise, men have been known to kill each other fighting over a woman. This means that in his masculine mind, fighting and using violence is the ‘normal’ way to settle disputes. So that rival countries ruled by men, will have a desire to test each other out, to see who is the strongest, and they will ‘naturally’ do this through violence and warfare.

This has been taken to the extreme in the 20th century, in the First World War, (1914-18) 10 million people died or went missing. In the Second World War with the aerial bombardment of towns and cities, the civilian casualties was enormous, and about 52 million people were killed. These figures don’t include the millions of people maimed, as well as physically and mentally disabled, because of their experience in the war. Not to mention those who lost sons, husbands and other relations. These figures were boosted by the destruction of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by nuclear bombs. Which in turn led to the cold-war between the USSR and NATO, where both sides produced and deployed enough nuclear weapons to destroy the whole of civilization many times over. This war became a real show of strength as both sides continued a arms and technology race to see who had the most deadly weapons. As the result the USSR was spending half of its gross domestic product on military spending while the USA has spent 19 Trillion dollars on the military since WW2. And for what? Why was it impossible for both sides to come together to see the stupidly of this war?

Simply because the male leaders from both sides were driven by their masculine instincts to compete and see who was the strongest. We are very fortunate that they managed to resist their instincts through the realization that if they had fought the war, they would of annihilated each other. The USA called there nuclear strategy M.A.D which stands for Mutual Assured Destruction, so they clearly realised the insanity of the situation. Yet in spite of this, the cold war continued for over 30 years with the whole world under threat of nuclear annihilation.

Both sides in all wars claim they have no choice but to go to war. Because if you are not prepared to arm yourself, then you are open to attack from countries who do have an army and military weapons. So even countries like Switzerland who managed to stay neutral during both the First and Second World War has a law, making it compulsory for young men do military training. And during the cold war, they built vast underground shelters for its population in case of nuclear attack.

This then means that if we cannot trust other countries not to build up military strength and use it to conquer other countries, then war is inevitable and will always be with us. Yet this is only true while men rule our world. While we have men in positions of power , they will want to compete with other countries using violence and warfare, because their competitive instincts push them in that direction.

Yet men’s competitive instincts are not the whole story. Yes, men like nothing more than compete with each other in a game, but it doesn’t have to end in violence.

After the Second World War the American military decided to interview all the returning troops to see if they could learn anything from their experiences. Most of these soldiers claimed; that in the war, they didn’t kill anyone and only fired over the heads of the enemy. It seems only a small minority admitted to killing anyone. Which is not exactly the sort of image we have of GI soldiers in Hollywood films.

The Japanese military had similar problems. Japan ranks with Southern Ireland and Switzerland as being one of the most non-violent and crime free countries in the world. Yet in the Second World War Japanese soldiers were even worse than German and Russian troops for brutality. So how did this happen?

It seems in the 1930s and 40s the Japanese military completely brutalised their troops. The new recruits were beaten up by older recruits at the beginning of their training. Then in the second year of training they were forced to do inflict violence the new intake. Later on many were made to kill prisoners of war, either as live dummies in bayonet practice or cutting off their heads. This total brutalisation made it possible for Japanese soldiers to kill without pity. Yet it is of interest that the Japanese military had to go this far into brutalisation to turn their troops into killers.

This is nothing new. In the First World War, when under attack, officers would walk in the trenches and threaten the men with a drawn sword, to make them shoot low. Because again, most of the men were firing above the heads of the enemy. In the American Civil War there was again the same problem, of trying to force the troops to shoot to kill.

In modern times this problem as been overcome by using behaviourist psychology, where soldiers are actually programmed to kill without thinking. The effect of this, is that soldiers today are more likely to kill, but it does them horrendous psychological damage. In the last fifty years, the suicide rate of soldier returning from wars in USA and Britain, who have fought the enemy, is greater than the men who died in action. This then begs the question; is war, violence and killing natural for men?

Not only are soldiers brutalised but this happens to whole societies. In Britain today there is the problem of ‘honour’ killings among the Asian community. It seems that if a Islamic girl was to disobey the wishes of her father or husband, then she is murdered by her own family. And to make it worse, in some cases the whole family like her mother and sisters are made to watch her being killed. So what is it; that allows a brother to murder his sister, a father to murder his daughter and a husband his wife? For daring to say, no. In our Western society this behaviour is seen as extremely barbaric, but in Islamic countries they are brought up to believe; ‘that a man must have honour’.

This behaviour is only possible because the whole of their society has been brutalised. In the West people in the past were brutalised in much the same way. This has been well documented in the books of Alice Miller in her books like; “For Your Own Good”, or “Thou Shalt Not Be Aware”. In these books she points out that up until the 20th century the beating and brutalising of children was ‘normal’.

Children up until the 20th century were basically brutalised in the Western world. It was normal for parents and school teachers to cane, birch and whip children. Favourite sayings then were, “spare the rod and spoil the child”, “children should be seen but not heard” and “if you see a child look guilty. Hit him. You may not know what it is for, but he does”. Children were brutalise even as babies. Male “experts” wrote; “that a crying baby was being wilful”, and mothers where encouraged not to pick up crying baby. They were also told that if a baby that cried too much, it was to be put in a room and the door locked, to let it cry itself to sleep. Then infants the moment they began to walk and talk they were subjected to physical punishment. (Boys in general were punished more severely than girls.) This was done not only to teach children discipline from a very early age. It was also done to make, “real men” out of boys. In other words by being brought up in a environment of violence, the boys naturally became violent themselves. They then make good soldiers and they are able to kill without pity and, “keep women in their place”. Which was also done through violence.

Then as the 20th century progressed, women became empowered and began to take control over the way their children were brought up. Female child experts and more moderate child male experts like Dr Spock began to write books on child care. These new child experts completely rejected the concept of beating children. The development continued to the point that today what was normal child-care in the 19th century, would be seen today as child abuse.

Children in the past were subjected to sexual abuse as well. That man who was the “whistle blower” was surprisingly a young Sigmund Freud. In the past men have got away with child sex abuse scot-free. Then in 1896 a young Sigmund Freud presented a paper entitled "The Aetiology of Hysteria". In this paper he said he had discovered that the neuroses suffered by his patients, stemmed from sexual assaults and violence they had suffered as young children. Most of these assaults coming from their own fathers, brothers or other male relations in "respectable middle class" homes. This paper went down like a lead balloon and his colleges put great pressure was put on him to suppress his paper. Which was singled out from all the other papers presented in Vienna in 1896 to not be published in psychoanalysis's Journal "Wiener Klinische Wochenschrift". Moreover no discussion of his work was allowed. In the end Freud caved in. To save his career Freud did suppress his paper and then came up later with other theories like "Penis envy" and the "Oedipus complex" to explain neuroses. Which hinted at child sex abuse, but never openly said it. These theories explained how the abused child felt and how it will effect them later. Unfortunately because these children were in reality were abused, but this fact was censored, this meant that the blame of the neuroses was put on the abused and not the abuser.

Now child sexual abuse is out in the open and not even Roman Catholic priests find they can get away with it. The result is that now children are being far less sexually and physically abused in the Western world. This lack of childhood abuse is causing men to be far less assertive. While women are becoming far more confident in themselves. So what is happening today was predicted back in the 19th century. When it was claimed that if you didn’t “harden” (brutalise) boys they will become wimps, and women will, “no longer know their place”.

This is why today Western soldiers need Behaviourist psychology to condition them to kill. But if brutality teaches men how to be violent, what effect does it have on women? Surprisingly except in a minority of cases, it doesn’t likewise teach women to be murders in the same way. This is because females are driven by their maternal instincts.

A powerful maternal instinct in mothers is needed for most animals to survive. All animals are at their most vulnerable when they are first born, so they need the presence of the mother to ensure they are protected, sheltered and fed. This is even more important in the case of the human being. A human baby is totally helpless when it is newly born, and can take up to 20 years before it is fully grown. So it means the maternal instinct in human mothers have to be very strong, to ensure human are protected, sheltered and fed as children. It is true also that men do have a maternal instinct in the same way women also have a competitive instinct. But the maternal instinct in women is far, far stronger. We can see this today when relationships break down, 99% of the time it is the woman who is left, “holding the baby”. As in most animals, the primary carer of children is the mother.

The maternal instinct makes women love their children unconditionally. This unconditional love in women is also extended to caring for old people, the sick and disabled, animals and husbands. In traditional patriarchal societies, husbands are encouraged to beat their wives and dominate them through violence. Yet in spite of the physical and verbal abuse women receive from men, women are still capable of loving them. Now, we should be congratulating women is being able to love others so deeply and unconditionally, that they are capable of loving an abuser. But patriarchy never gives women this credit. Women are condemned for being ‘weak’ or masochists. In fact up until the 1960s psychologists claimed that all women were masochists.

This powerful maternal instinct is the reason why women are far less likely to turn into monsters than men, when they are brutalised. If you brutalise a boy he quickly learns to hate, but if he is being abused by his father or school teacher he is too small to fight back. So patriarchy cleverly channels this hatred into other directions. Boys are taught how to hate the enemies of the government in power. So they are taught to hate the people of other races, countries and religions, which had fuelled violence conflicts all over the world.

Girls on he other hand are far less likely to learn to hate, if you brutalise them. They are still able to love their fathers and husbands even when abused by them. And they are far less likely to learn to hate the world they live in. Women like men, can be brainwashed by patriarchal propaganda, for instance, mother will teach daughters that they have to be submissive towards men. They will continue extremely barbaric practises like binding the feet of their daughters in China, (a practise now discontinued) or continue to practise genital mutilation on girls, which still happens in many Islamic countries today. Yet for most women, their ability to hate is limited. Unlikely men, few women get involved in violence, wars, murder, genocide and torture. There are always the exception to this, there has been female soldiers, murders and even pirates and torturers, but they are a very small minority.

The attitude of most women to the world of hatred and conflict created by patriarchy can be seen in the story of Edith Cavell. She was a English nurse working in Brussels, at the start of the First World War. When the Germans invaded Belgian she stayed on not wanting to leave her patients. She then got involved in smuggling, Allied prisoners of war out of Belgian and back to the Allied lines. But was finally betrayed by one of them, who told the Germans. She was then tried and executed by the Germans but her final farewell message became world famous. She was to write.-

Standing as I do in view of God and eternity I realize that patriotism is not enough. I must have no hatred or bitterness towards anyone.

This sums up the attitudes of women completely, of still being able to love those who hurt and betray them. The paradox of her last message is that it was used as a propaganda tool by the British to whip up even more hatred against the Germans, which is the opposite to the sentiment of the message.

So both brutalisation and patriarchal propaganda doesn’t change completely the basic nature of women. This is not true for men. Brutalisation and indoctrinations of hate, can change a man’s nature completely and turn him into a monster. This is why prison doesn’t work with men. Putting people into prison has been the way patriarchy has dealt with criminals. Yet, this method doesn’t work, because crime is still a problem in every country of the world. Punishing people for crimes is very much about revenge, as is the patriarchal solution to crime. As many sociologists have pointed out prison is the “university of crime” criminals mix with other criminals and learn from each other the best way to steal, rob and cheat. Then when they leave prison they have very little chance of getting a decent job because they have a ‘prison record’. So they have the choice of living of unemployment benefit or going back to crime. In counties where prisoners are brutally punished or executed, we don’t see any reduction in crime. Violence it seems, is not the best way to teach men to be non-violent.

There is a matriarchal method that is far better.

Elizabeth Fry (1780-1845) came from a wealthy Quaker family, and enjoyed the benefits of a very academic education which was unusual for women of those days. In 1812 she began to take a interest in the plight of prisoners and visited London's Newgate prison for women, and was appalled at what she saw there. Prisoners were crowded into a single cells where they had to eat, sleep, defecate. Typically a woman's children would accompany her to prison, where they lived in destitute poverty. Obtaining clothes, alcohol, even food by begging or stealing. To tolerate this hell many prisoners only begged for alcohol and sat around in a drunken stupor stark naked.

Other prisoners who were unable to beg or cared for by families or charities simply starved to death. Children often remained in the prison until their mothers died or were executed. They would also cling to their mothers and watched as they were led to the gallows and hung.

The attitude at the time that prisons were places of punishment and that the inmate were evil, so this perfectly justified this appalling treatment. Elizabeth Fry didn’t see it like this and set about using all the influence of her position of wealth and privilege gave her.

She started by providing basic food, clothing and medicine for the prisoners. She then turned to education, ministering to the prisoners and establishing a small school. Recognising that occupation was essential to self-esteem and dignity, she convinced the wardens that the school should be run by the prisoners themselves. She also provided materials allowing the women to sew, knit and make goods for sale, in order to buy food, clothing and fresh straw for bedding. In 1817 she enlisted the help of ten friends to form the Ladies' Association for the Reformation of the Female Prisoners in Newgate.

Somehow her work did prick the conscience of the nation. She soon found herself in the role of a prisoner adviser and was invited to other prisons to advice on measures for improvements. She was also asked to give evidence on prison reform before a Committee of the house of Commons, in which she advocated compassionate treatment of prisoners. It says something for her personality that in a age when women were suppose to keep quiet, her views and opinions were listened to and some of them, became in time, encoded in the laws of England.

She was even invited to Ireland, France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Prussia to give advice to prison officials and reformers in these countries. Her work planted the seeds that prisons are place for reforming and not punishment.

Her ideas were tried out by a prisoner governor called Alexander Maconochie on Norfolk island in 1840-44. Norfolk island which was half-way between Australia and New Zealand was in many ways the British version of the more infamous French, Devil’s island. Where the prisoners were kept in harsh and degrading conditions to punish them for their crimes. Maconochie instead bravely tried reforming prisoners instead of punishing them. He set out a regime of rewarding prisoners for good behaviour, rather than punishing them.

After receiving contradictory stories about his reforms the authorities sent out a commission. His report was very favourable but Maconochie was still dismissed by a new Colonial Secretary. Yet his success can be measured by the fact that of 920 prisoners he released only 20 were re-convicted.

Back in Britain he was to obtain support from many people including Charles Dickens and became a very controversial figure. Because then people believe in a evil criminal class, the idea that criminals can be reformed undermines the concept of evil and the justification of punishment. Also it makes people also ask questions like, “why are people criminals”. If we ask questions like this, then we have to look at the unfair hierarchical system that gives some people great wealth, power and privilege and others only poverty and brutality. Because the overwhelming numbers of criminals come for the poor and unprivileged sections of society. So it is not surprising that most, “good” people come from the upper and middle classes and most “bad” people come from the working classes. (The word villain come from the middle ages and originally meant villager. So this word gives a insight about what the upper classes then felt about the common people).

This then is adding insult to injury. Not only do he rich and powerful keep the vast majority of wealth and power in their own hands. On top of this, they condemn the poor as being bad and evil, while they of coarse are good people.

Punishment and vengeance are the masculine solutions to problems. That is to say you overcome violence with violence. In other words, “two wrongs make a right”. In this situation the person with the biggest stick wins. Yet violence has another side to it in that it ensures that men have dominance over women.

This then is the attraction of prison and punishment. Yes, it doesn’t solve the problems of crime but crime and criminals ensure that the macho culture survives in society. In many ways the violent criminal is the ultimate ‘macho man’. The majority of films, comics, books and, more recently video-games aimed at young men greatly glamorised men of violence. The films of John Wayne, Clint Eastward, Sean Connery, Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Show men who solve all problems by extreme violence. Which indoctrinates young men watching these films that violence is all right and encourages them to emulate the ‘hero’ they see on film. As most of these films are made in USA it is not surprising that USA is one of the most violent societies in the Western world.

So we can see clearly how you turn men into monsters. You brutalise them from a very early age and teach them to hate. The advantages of this they are able to dominate women through violence and fight in wars. Also every dictator know that the only way he can rule is to have a army of brutal young men who will kill and torture the population without mercy. This is how dictators keep in power, if their army was to refuse to fire on crowds that demonstrated against them, then their power would quickly disappear.

Consequently, if we know how to turn men into monsters, how do we ensure that this doesn’t happen? We can from this device a list of what not to do.-

1. Do not beat up boys and men and use violence against them.
2. Do not teach them to hate.
3. Do not put men into prison
4. Do not glamorous war and men of violence
5. Do not give boys and young men violence films or video games
6. Do not teach men how to kill using clever Behaviourist psychology
7. Do not teach boys and men to abuse and rape women

So if we were to stop doing all these things would men become caring and loving human beings. This will work for some men but perhaps not for all. Men do not have such a powerful maternal instinct as what women have. So it is not automatic for men to be loving and caring of others, this is something many men have to learn. So the lessons men have to learn are.

1. To learn to respect and obey women
2. To learn to understand and respect the Feminine.
3. To learn how to love others
4. To learn how to care for others and put their needs before your own
5. To learn empathy, to experience both the joy and pain of other people.

The next problem is that how do we make this happen? how can we prevent patriarchy turning men into monsters? For this to happen; women need more power in our society. It was through the rise of feminism that far fewer boys are being brutalised by their parents. As feminist mothers have had to confidence and power to bring up their children the way they want to do it. Yet we still live in societies full of violent men, who will still rape, assault and murder women. So the job has only been half done and for men to be fully tamed, requires women to have greater power and influence in our world.

Feminist minded women can today ensure that their children at home are not brutalised. But she cannot protect them at school or in the street being brutalised by bullies. She will find it hard to prevent them being brainwashed by what they see on TV, films, video games. As patriarchy still uses the media to push out it’s message. What most people do not realise is that these ‘tough guy’ films of macho heroes who solve all problems by violence is basically patriarchal propaganda. This also comes through magazines and newspapers. A journalist once remarked; “a good newspaper story, leaves the reader hating someone or something after they have read it”. In other words; patriarchy is still doing its best to teach our young men how to hate. This is why it is so important that women take over not only the government, but also all media outlets, if they want to prevent men being brainwashed into becoming monsters by patriarchy.

The reform of men is not only the responsibility of women but men have this desire as well. Many men do not want to become monsters and neither do they want their sons to become like this. Although men haven’t played a active part in the Suffragette and Feminist movements, it was totally male Legislative Chambers that passed laws to give women the vote at the beginning of the 20th century. It was also male dominated governments that also passed sexual anti-discrimination laws in the 1960s and 70s.

It was also men who resisted patriarchal brainwashing, As they stopped beating their wives and children giving women confidence in themselves, opened schools to allow women to be educated and even allowed women to take on ‘men’s’ jobs and earn their own money. It is true that the brave women who first became educated and started careers received great opposition from many other men, but these women could not of got started, if some unknown men in positions of authority, gave them support.

There is something curious about the psychology of men. Men have shown very little interest in Feminism, which is about sexual equality. But they show a lot of interest in Femdom and Matriarchy which is about Female Dominance.

Because men see life in terms of a game of winners and losers the idea of equality in totally alien to him. This is very true in his relationship to women. Women who are physically and verbally abused by men, try to appease their tormenters, but are instead treated with contempt. This is because in the eyes of men, submissive women are losers and the masculine instinct is to despise losers.

This is why feminism along with socialism and communism has never caught on with men. Men were completely unable to make communism work because it was about equality. Men might secretly admire feminist women who demand equal rights, because at least they are standing up for themselves, but he has no interest in the concept of sexual equality. Men are only able to respect women if they demonstrate they are winners. But there feelings about female winners, go to the extreme and they tend to want to worship such women.

There is a natural tendency for men to put women on a pedestals and worship them, but this behaviour wasn’t allowed in patriarchal societies. Men were encouraged to look down on women and see women as losers. Now in Western countries with these patriarchal customs being eroded and undermined, many men now no longer see women as losers, but to the masculine mind if they are not losers they have to be winners, and men worship and adore winners.

Women who are assertive and will speak up for themselves find that men will react to them in three different ways. Some men will play the masculine game of competing with them to; “put them in their place”. If that fails, then men will either keep well away from women like this, or they will begin to worship them.

We can see how powerful are the emotions when men worship other men as winners. We can see this in the adoration kings and emperors received, and even brutal dictators like Hitler and Stalin, have also been worshipped by the people. The same is true on the sporting world, where great champions are likewise worshipped as well. Yet this worship can be even stronger when men worship women as winners, because is it mixed with another powerful instinct; and that is sexual attraction.

This might explain the behaviour of men within the FemDom scene. This is where men will go to a dominatrix and pay her to whip, torture and humiliate him. Or he will encourage his wife or girlfriend to do the same thing. Even hundreds of years ago in the rigid patriarchal society, some men have paid prostitutes to dominate them and to allow themselves to be worshipped by their clients. The word masochism come from a man called Von Sacher-Masoch who wrote books in the 19th century like the famous "Venus In Furs" about men being dominated and humiliated by women.

In recent years the FemDom scene has been growing in leaps and bounds. In the nineteen fifties many prostitutes were surprised to find clients who were not demanding sex at all and were willing to pay for the privilege of doing their housework for them. Then other clients were asking to be whipped by prostitutes and to be allowed to worship them. At the same time many were encouraged to dress up in macho black leather, rubber and P.V.C and so the modern Dominatrix came into being. The interesting point about this is that it is men who demanded and paid for women to behave like this.

In our present society a women can only dominate a man with the man's consent. Because a man is mostly bigger and stronger than a woman, this is also true in cases where a women uses physical violence on a man, because even if the women is into body-building or karate, a man is still free to walk out of the relationship. So again it is men who are helping and encouraging women to dominate them. If a man refuses to hit back against a violent woman or stays in a violent relationship, he is in effect communicating to the woman he still loves her in spite of how she is treating him. Which is a great boost to the woman's ego and encourages her to continue to abuse him.

So what is going on? Why would men encourage women to be dominant or violent towards him? We have to look at the symbolism of FemDom. The archetypical Dominatrix is dressed up in black-leather or PVC, (though in reality this is not always the case). Now black leather is a very macho form of dress, the sort of things that Hell’s Angels also wear. The whip is also a powerful symbol of dominance, as it is the sort of thing slave-owners use on slaves. So again, it is masculine power where dominance is achieved through violence. Some men ask the dominatrix to wear a strap-on dildo and use it on them. Now in some species of monkeys when two males confront or fight each other for dominance, the loser will show his submission by turning his back on the winner and allow him to mount him. So it is again a very masculine symbol of submission. Some men will ask the Dominantrix to verbally abuse him or even go on sex-lines to be abused by a woman. Again this is a very masculine way of dominance and men have been using it on women, children and other men to undermine their confidence in themselves. Sportsmen do this to each other all the time for the same reason and even male ‘friends’ do it to each other. Although men can be friends with each other, the instinct to compete with each other is still strong, that derogatory remarks and put-downs have become part of masculine humour.

There are many other symbols of submission men use like being dressed up as a baby or feminine women, or kissing the feet or bottom of the dominatrix etc. All these types of kinks are all symbols of masculine submission. So it is not surprising to learn that the whole FemDom scene is mostly dominated by men. It is mostly men who set the agenda and tell the female Dominas what to do.

Many men in FemDom are living a lie, in 'topping from the bottom' they are dominating without realising it. The problem for them is that; how long can you keep on fooling yourself? Many can keep on fooling themselves if no-one is pointing this out. The saying "topping from the bottom" comes from the FemDom scene, and many Dominas in the scene, are very aware of this problem. To men it is very helpful, that he goes to a Domina, and she points out to him what he is doing.

There are a lot of men who do far prefer FemDom or Matriarchy as a fantasy. But if these Femdom fantasies have a grip on you, then there is a limited time you can resist them.

Some Dominas have complained that some of these so-called submissive men are worse than ordinary patriarchal men, in their demands on women. The reason for this is, because of the resistance they are putting up. They have a powerful desire to surrender to women, but do not want to give into it. So in their resistance then end up behaving worse than patriarchal men. But over time they will finally they have to give in, and except genuine Female Authority.

So, the unconscious message coming from these men is a powerful desire for women to dominate them. Unfortunately because of thousands of years of brutality and patriarchal propaganda, women no longer have the confidence or knowledge of how to dominate men. During the patriarchal age apart from a few women like Elizabeth 1 of England and Catherine The Great of Russia there has been so few dominant women in positions of power. So men are forced to take the lead in this, and they interpret their need to submit to women in masculine terms. This means as a general rule they at first get it wrong completely, as do many women. During the 1980s we had Margaret Thatcher as Prime Minster of Britain, but one of the criticism of her was that she didn’t behave like a woman. The way she used power was very masculine, and we never got from her, the nurturing and caring side of women.

Yet by following their desires men and women do learn how to the true meaning of female authority. They can get there in stages.-

Stage One

A very patriarchal minded man finds he has deviant and kinky desires for Dominant Women. So he either goes to a Dominatrix or persuades his girl friend or wife to act out this role. At this stage, he is firmly in charge he will tell his partner or Dominatrix what his kinks are and she will act them out for him. For him, he is only satisfying his selfish desires and the Women is accommodating him.

Stage Two

He will at first be able to separate his kinky desire from his ‘ordinary’ life. So he can go to a Dominatrix to worship or be humiliated by her and then go back to his submissive wife and treat her like a ordinary patriarchal wife. Or if it is his partner he plays these kinky games with, she is only playing a role, but it is he who is still in charge. While the rest of the time they are a ‘normal’ couple.

But, being whipped or caned by a women, being on the receiving end of a strap-on, being verbally abused, worshipping a woman by kissing her feet or bottom, is going to effect him on the unconscious level.

Some men after awhile will want to take it all to the extreme and want to be really tortured and hurt by the Domina, or even want to eat her shit. Yet no matter how far he goes down this route he finds he is still not satisfied, because extremes like this are a dead-end. So what he begins to find is that his desire begin to leak outside of the kinky sessions into his ‘normal’ life.

He may find going to a Dominatrix whom he tells what to do, no longer satisfying and wants one who tells him what to do. He may find he has a desire for his wife to be more dominant and may consciously or unconsciously encourage her to be more like this in her ‘normal’ life. So he will find, he want her to dominate him outside of their sessions.

Stage Three

By being worshipped by the man and told; “you are in charge”, effects the women on the unconscious level as well. The result is, she begin to take charge of the sessions and begins to tell the man what she prefers. For instance; the man might want to be whipped or caned but she may not get any enjoyment from this, and decide they will do something else instead. Like him practising cunnilingus on her but denying him orgasm. So she find she can start to change things for her benefit and he will comply.

Stage Four

Femdom from a masculine point of view, is just about dominance and submission or sadism and masochism but when the Women take control, she finds she wants to introduce love into this mix. Submission to her is about the desire to give love to another, while dominance is about receiving love. She will also be very interested in the psychologically of the submissive man, and want to know how he feels. So she will introduce him to the idea that he wants to worship and serve her, because he loves her more than himself.

So now, the balance of power is changing and the Women is now taking control, as the fantasy is now changing into a reality.

Stage Five

At stage one the Woman was learning from the man. Now it is the opposite, and the man is now learning from the Women. He begins to learn from her; the Feminine point of view, of the joy of caring and loving others, of devoting your life to make another happy, and empathizing with them. So that their happiness becomes his happiness. Though he may also learn the hard lessons of empathizing with those who are unhappy and learn how to do his best to bring happiness to them.

The Women is now becoming more confidence in her Feminine nature as she sees her man is now far more happier learning from her how to love. She is also now learning how to love herself through the worship and devotion of the man.

Through these stages both Women and men learn how much better life is, if Women are in charge and how much better our world would be if Women ruled the world.

Off coarse not all men follow these five stages. Some men learn love through their children. Many wife’s today make their husbands watch the birth of their children and take part in caring for the child from a very early age. This teaches men to bond with their own children and learn how to care for them. Also, now that women have more power, influence and confidence in themselves mother’s are bringing up children in the way they want to. So from a early age many boys are learning from their mothers to respect women and are taught how to love and care for others.

This then means that men do have a choice: They have learnt they can dominate women through violence, but they pay a high price for this. Because in a totally male dominated world, like you still find today in many Moslem countries, men are dominated in the same way, through violence by other men. In fact, the only people who seem to benefit from male dominated rule is a handful a alpha men.

We can learn a lot about the behaviour of men through the study of dogs. It is recognized that if you want have a happy relationship with a dog in your house it is important to train it. A untrained dog can wee and poo in your house, it can get very aggressive with you, or with visitors coming to the house. It might steal food from your table and can make itself a nuance with other people when you take it for a walk. But if you train it properly from a early age; it will become the most loyal, devoted and obedient animal you can possibly have. Or you can also train it to be a killer. By savagely beating dogs, you can teach it to be very vicious and even teach it to kill other dogs or people. So the behaviour of dogs can vary tremendously by the way you choose to treat it. The same is true for men.

This means that all men have the potential to be a Dr Jekyll or Mr Hyde. If you brutalise him teach him to hate others and despise women, then he becomes a monster like Mr Hyde. But if he is taught to respect women and learn how to love and care for others he can be turned into a Dr Jekyll.

In 1886 a book called the “Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” written by Robert Louis Stevenson, was published. It became a instant best-seller and is now a seen as a great book. For those who have not read it: It is a story of a Dr Jekyll, (a decent and kind man) who invents a mind-altering drug, and when he takes it, he is turned to the monster Mr Hyde. The story is then about the fight between the two personalities for dominance. The popularity of this story is probably because it reminds us of a deep truth. That all men have the potential to be a Dr Jekyll or Mr Hyde.

The Jesuit priests once boasted; “give us a child for the first seven years of their lives, and we have him for life”. In other words they were very successful in brainwashing children to believe in whatever they wanted them to believe. But this brainwashing of children doesn’t only effect Roman Catholics but every patriarchal religion and society in the world. And unfortunately the end result of this brainwashing has been to turn men into monsters.

Throughout recorded history men have constantly solved disputes between countries, religions and different political systems through warfare. As we can see in the cases of Crusader wars between Christians and Moslems, the many wars between Roman Catholics and Protestants, as well as the internal wars in Islam between Sunnis and Shiite Moslems that is fuelling the conflict in Iraq today. There has been also political wars, like that between communism and capitalism in the 20th century. War has also started for another reasons, like one ruler decided he wanted to loot and conquer other countries. As we can see in the case of Alexander the Great, Julius Cesar, Napoleon Bonaparte and Adolf Hitler.

So why are men behaving like this? Why do men want to conquer other countries and kill other people? The scientific explanation is that men are driven by an ancient animal instinct.

It is natural and normal for most male animals to compete against each other. Every spring, male goats, rams, bulls, stags will bang heads together to see who is the strongest, and it is the biggest and strongest who gets to mate with the females. So we can see a powerful desire within all males to be the biggest, strongest and most of all, to be the winner. What is more, male animals become the winners through violence. For instance male hippopotamuses have been known to inflict horrendous wounds on each other, while bull elephants and lions have been known to kill each other.

Likewise, men have been known to kill each other fighting over a woman. This means that in his masculine mind, fighting and using violence is the ‘normal’ way to settle disputes. So that rival countries ruled by men, will have a desire to test each other out, to see who is the strongest, and they will ‘naturally’ do this through violence and warfare.

This has been taken to the extreme in the 20th century, in the First World War, (1914-18) 10 million people died or went missing. In the Second World War with the aerial bombardment of towns and cities, the civilian casualties was enormous, and about 52 million people were killed. These figures don’t include the millions of people maimed, as well as physically and mentally disabled, because of their experience in the war. Not to mention those who lost sons, husbands and other relations. These figures were boosted by the destruction of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by nuclear bombs. Which in turn led to the cold-war between the USSR and NATO, where both sides produced and deployed enough nuclear weapons to destroy the whole of civilization many times over. This war became a real show of strength as both sides continued a arms and technology race to see who had the most deadly weapons. As the result the USSR was spending half of its gross domestic product on military spending while the USA has spent 19 Trillion dollars on the military since WW2. And for what? Why was it impossible for both sides to come together to see the stupidly of this war?

Simply because the male leaders from both sides were driven by their masculine instincts to compete and see who was the strongest. We are very fortunate that they managed to resist their instincts through the realization that if they had fought the war, they would of annihilated each other. The USA called there nuclear strategy M.A.D which stands for Mutual Assured Destruction, so they clearly realised the insanity of the situation. Yet in spite of this, the cold war continued for over 30 years with the whole world under threat of nuclear annihilation.

Both sides in all wars claim they have no choice but to go to war. Because if you are not prepared to arm yourself, then you are open to attack from countries who do have an army and military weapons. So even countries like Switzerland who managed to stay neutral during both the First and Second World War has a law, making it compulsory for young men do military training. And during the cold war, they built vast underground shelters for its population in case of nuclear attack.

This then means that if we cannot trust other countries not to build up military strength and use it to conquer other countries, then war is inevitable and will always be with us. Yet this is only true while men rule our world. While we have men in positions of power , they will want to compete with other countries using violence and warfare, because their competitive instincts push them in that direction.

Yet men’s competitive instincts are not the whole story. Yes, men like nothing more than compete with each other in a game, but it doesn’t have to end in violence.

After the Second World War the American military decided to interview all the returning troops to see if they could learn anything from their experiences. Most of these soldiers claimed; that in the war, they didn’t kill anyone and only fired over the heads of the enemy. It seems only a small minority admitted to killing anyone. Which is not exactly the sort of image we have of GI soldiers in Hollywood films.

The Japanese military had similar problems. Japan ranks with Southern Ireland and Switzerland as being one of the most non-violent and crime free countries in the world. Yet in the Second World War Japanese soldiers were even worse than German and Russian troops for brutality. So how did this happen?

It seems in the 1930s and 40s the Japanese military completely brutalised their troops. The new recruits were beaten up by older recruits at the beginning of their training. Then in the second year of training they were forced to do inflict violence the new intake. Later on many were made to kill prisoners of war, either as live dummies in bayonet practice or cutting off their heads. This total brutalisation made it possible for Japanese soldiers to kill without pity. Yet it is of interest that the Japanese military had to go this far into brutalisation to turn their troops into killers.

This is nothing new. In the First World War, when under attack, officers would walk in the trenches and threaten the men with a drawn sword, to make them shoot low. Because again, most of the men were firing above the heads of the enemy. In the American Civil War there was again the same problem, of trying to force the troops to shoot to kill.

In modern times this problem as been overcome by using behaviourist psychology, where soldiers are actually programmed to kill without thinking. The effect of this, is that soldiers today are more likely to kill, but it does them horrendous psychological damage. In the last fifty years, the suicide rate of soldier returning from wars in USA and Britain, who have fought the enemy, is greater than the men who died in action. This then begs the question; is war, violence and killing natural for men?

Not only are soldiers brutalised but this happens to whole societies. In Britain today there is the problem of ‘honour’ killings among the Asian community. It seems that if a Islamic girl was to disobey the wishes of her father or husband, then she is murdered by her own family. And to make it worse, in some cases the whole family like her mother and sisters are made to watch her being killed. So what is it; that allows a brother to murder his sister, a father to murder his daughter and a husband his wife? For daring to say, no. In our Western society this behaviour is seen as extremely barbaric, but in Islamic countries they are brought up to believe; ‘that a man must have honour’.

This behaviour is only possible because the whole of their society has been brutalised. In the West people in the past were brutalised in much the same way. This has been well documented in the books of Alice Miller in her books like; “For Your Own Good”, or “Thou Shalt Not Be Aware”. In these books she points out that up until the 20th century the beating and brutalising of children was ‘normal’.

Children up until the 20th century were basically brutalised in the Western world. It was normal for parents and school teachers to cane, birch and whip children. Favourite sayings then were, “spare the rod and spoil the child”, “children should be seen but not heard” and “if you see a child look guilty. Hit him. You may not know what it is for, but he does”. Children were brutalise even as babies. Male “experts” wrote; “that a crying baby was being wilful”, and mothers where encouraged not to pick up crying baby. They were also told that if a baby that cried too much, it was to be put in a room and the door locked, to let it cry itself to sleep. Then infants the moment they began to walk and talk they were subjected to physical punishment. (Boys in general were punished more severely than girls.) This was done not only to teach children discipline from a very early age. It was also done to make, “real men” out of boys. In other words by being brought up in a environment of violence, the boys naturally became violent themselves. They then make good soldiers and they are able to kill without pity and, “keep women in their place”. Which was also done through violence.

Then as the 20th century progressed, women became empowered and began to take control over the way their children were brought up. Female child experts and more moderate child male experts like Dr Spock began to write books on child care. These new child experts completely rejected the concept of beating children. The development continued to the point that today what was normal child-care in the 19th century, would be seen today as child abuse.

Children in the past were subjected to sexual abuse as well. That man who was the “whistle blower” was surprisingly a young Sigmund Freud. In the past men have got away with child sex abuse scot-free. Then in 1896 a young Sigmund Freud presented a paper entitled "The Aetiology of Hysteria". In this paper he said he had discovered that the neuroses suffered by his patients, stemmed from sexual assaults and violence they had suffered as young children. Most of these assaults coming from their own fathers, brothers or other male relations in "respectable middle class" homes. This paper went down like a lead balloon and his colleges put great pressure was put on him to suppress his paper. Which was singled out from all the other papers presented in Vienna in 1896 to not be published in psychoanalysis's Journal "Wiener Klinische Wochenschrift". Moreover no discussion of his work was allowed. In the end Freud caved in. To save his career Freud did suppress his paper and then came up later with other theories like "Penis envy" and the "Oedipus complex" to explain neuroses. Which hinted at child sex abuse, but never openly said it. These theories explained how the abused child felt and how it will effect them later. Unfortunately because these children were in reality were abused, but this fact was censored, this meant that the blame of the neuroses was put on the abused and not the abuser.

Now child sexual abuse is out in the open and not even Roman Catholic priests find they can get away with it. The result is that now children are being far less sexually and physically abused in the Western world. This lack of childhood abuse is causing men to be far less assertive. While women are becoming far more confident in themselves. So what is happening today was predicted back in the 19th century. When it was claimed that if you didn’t “harden” (brutalise) boys they will become wimps, and women will, “no longer know their place”.

This is why today Western soldiers need Behaviourist psychology to condition them to kill. But if brutality teaches men how to be violent, what effect does it have on women? Surprisingly except in a minority of cases, it doesn’t likewise teach women to be murders in the same way. This is because females are driven by their maternal instincts.

A powerful maternal instinct in mothers is needed for most animals to survive. All animals are at their most vulnerable when they are first born, so they need the presence of the mother to ensure they are protected, sheltered and fed. This is even more important in the case of the human being. A human baby is totally helpless when it is newly born, and can take up to 20 years before it is fully grown. So it means the maternal instinct in human mothers have to be very strong, to ensure human are protected, sheltered and fed as children. It is true also that men do have a maternal instinct in the same way women also have a competitive instinct. But the maternal instinct in women is far, far stronger. We can see this today when relationships break down, 99% of the time it is the woman who is left, “holding the baby”. As in most animals, the primary carer of children is the mother.

The maternal instinct makes women love their children unconditionally. This unconditional love in women is also extended to caring for old people, the sick and disabled, animals and husbands. In traditional patriarchal societies, husbands are encouraged to beat their wives and dominate them through violence. Yet in spite of the physical and verbal abuse women receive from men, women are still capable of loving them. Now, we should be congratulating women is being able to love others so deeply and unconditionally, that they are capable of loving an abuser. But patriarchy never gives women this credit. Women are condemned for being ‘weak’ or masochists. In fact up until the 1960s psychologists claimed that all women were masochists.

This powerful maternal instinct is the reason why women are far less likely to turn into monsters than men, when they are brutalised. If you brutalise a boy he quickly learns to hate, but if he is being abused by his father or school teacher he is too small to fight back. So patriarchy cleverly channels this hatred into other directions. Boys are taught how to hate the enemies of the government in power. So they are taught to hate the people of other races, countries and religions, which had fuelled violence conflicts all over the world.

Girls on he other hand are far less likely to learn to hate, if you brutalise them. They are still able to love their fathers and husbands even when abused by them. And they are far less likely to learn to hate the world they live in. Women like men, can be brainwashed by patriarchal propaganda, for instance, mother will teach daughters that they have to be submissive towards men. They will continue extremely barbaric practises like binding the feet of their daughters in China, (a practise now discontinued) or continue to practise genital mutilation on girls, which still happens in many Islamic countries today. Yet for most women, their ability to hate is limited. Unlikely men, few women get involved in violence, wars, murder, genocide and torture. There are always the exception to this, there has been female soldiers, murders and even pirates and torturers, but they are a very small minority.

The attitude of most women to the world of hatred and conflict created by patriarchy can be seen in the story of Edith Cavell. She was a English nurse working in Brussels, at the start of the First World War. When the Germans invaded Belgian she stayed on not wanting to leave her patients. She then got involved in smuggling, Allied prisoners of war out of Belgian and back to the Allied lines. But was finally betrayed by one of them, who told the Germans. She was then tried and executed by the Germans but her final farewell message became world famous. She was to write.-

Standing as I do in view of God and eternity I realize that patriotism is not enough. I must have no hatred or bitterness towards anyone.

This sums up the attitudes of women completely, of still being able to love those who hurt and betray them. The paradox of her last message is that it was used as a propaganda tool by the British to whip up even more hatred against the Germans, which is the opposite to the sentiment of the message.

So both brutalisation and patriarchal propaganda doesn’t change completely the basic nature of women. This is not true for men. Brutalisation and indoctrinations of hate, can change a man’s nature completely and turn him into a monster. This is why prison doesn’t work with men. Putting people into prison has been the way patriarchy has dealt with criminals. Yet, this method doesn’t work, because crime is still a problem in every country of the world. Punishing people for crimes is very much about revenge, as is the patriarchal solution to crime. As many sociologists have pointed out prison is the “university of crime” criminals mix with other criminals and learn from each other the best way to steal, rob and cheat. Then when they leave prison they have very little chance of getting a decent job because they have a ‘prison record’. So they have the choice of living of unemployment benefit or going back to crime. In counties where prisoners are brutally punished or executed, we don’t see any reduction in crime. Violence it seems, is not the best way to teach men to be non-violent.

There is a matriarchal method that is far better.

Elizabeth Fry (1780-1845) came from a wealthy Quaker family, and enjoyed the benefits of a very academic education which was unusual for women of those days. In 1812 she began to take a interest in the plight of prisoners and visited London's Newgate prison for women, and was appalled at what she saw there. Prisoners were crowded into a single cells where they had to eat, sleep, defecate. Typically a woman's children would accompany her to prison, where they lived in destitute poverty. Obtaining clothes, alcohol, even food by begging or stealing. To tolerate this hell many prisoners only begged for alcohol and sat around in a drunken stupor stark naked.

Other prisoners who were unable to beg or cared for by families or charities simply starved to death. Children often remained in the prison until their mothers died or were executed. They would also cling to their mothers and watched as they were led to the gallows and hung.

The attitude at the time that prisons were places of punishment and that the inmate were evil, so this perfectly justified this appalling treatment. Elizabeth Fry didn’t see it like this and set about using all the influence of her position of wealth and privilege gave her.

She started by providing basic food, clothing and medicine for the prisoners. She then turned to education, ministering to the prisoners and establishing a small school. Recognising that occupation was essential to self-esteem and dignity, she convinced the wardens that the school should be run by the prisoners themselves. She also provided materials allowing the women to sew, knit and make goods for sale, in order to buy food, clothing and fresh straw for bedding. In 1817 she enlisted the help of ten friends to form the Ladies' Association for the Reformation of the Female Prisoners in Newgate.

Somehow her work did prick the conscience of the nation. She soon found herself in the role of a prisoner adviser and was invited to other prisons to advice on measures for improvements. She was also asked to give evidence on prison reform before a Committee of the house of Commons, in which she advocated compassionate treatment of prisoners. It says something for her personality that in a age when women were suppose to keep quiet, her views and opinions were listened to and some of them, became in time, encoded in the laws of England.

She was even invited to Ireland, France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Prussia to give advice to prison officials and reformers in these countries. Her work planted the seeds that prisons are place for reforming and not punishment.

Her ideas were tried out by a prisoner governor called Alexander Maconochie on Norfolk island in 1840-44. Norfolk island which was half-way between Australia and New Zealand was in many ways the British version of the more infamous French, Devil’s island. Where the prisoners were kept in harsh and degrading conditions to punish them for their crimes. Maconochie instead bravely tried reforming prisoners instead of punishing them. He set out a regime of rewarding prisoners for good behaviour, rather than punishing them.

After receiving contradictory stories about his reforms the authorities sent out a commission. His report was very favourable but Maconochie was still dismissed by a new Colonial Secretary. Yet his success can be measured by the fact that of 920 prisoners he released only 20 were re-convicted.

Back in Britain he was to obtain support from many people including Charles Dickens and became a very controversial figure. Because then people believe in a evil criminal class, the idea that criminals can be reformed undermines the concept of evil and the justification of punishment. Also it makes people also ask questions like, “why are people criminals”. If we ask questions like this, then we have to look at the unfair hierarchical system that gives some people great wealth, power and privilege and others only poverty and brutality. Because the overwhelming numbers of criminals come for the poor and unprivileged sections of society. So it is not surprising that most, “good” people come from the upper and middle classes and most “bad” people come from the working classes. (The word villain come from the middle ages and originally meant villager. So this word gives a insight about what the upper classes then felt about the common people).

This then is adding insult to injury. Not only do he rich and powerful keep the vast majority of wealth and power in their own hands. On top of this, they condemn the poor as being bad and evil, while they of coarse are good people.

Punishment and vengeance are the masculine solutions to problems. That is to say you overcome violence with violence. In other words, “two wrongs make a right”. In this situation the person with the biggest stick wins. Yet violence has another side to it in that it ensures that men have dominance over women.

This then is the attraction of prison and punishment. Yes, it doesn’t solve the problems of crime but crime and criminals ensure that the macho culture survives in society. In many ways the violent criminal is the ultimate ‘macho man’. The majority of films, comics, books and, more recently video-games aimed at young men greatly glamorised men of violence. The films of John Wayne, Clint Eastward, Sean Connery, Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Show men who solve all problems by extreme violence. Which indoctrinates young men watching these films that violence is all right and encourages them to emulate the ‘hero’ they see on film. As most of these films are made in USA it is not surprising that USA is one of the most violent societies in the Western world.

So we can see clearly how you turn men into monsters. You brutalise them from a very early age and teach them to hate. The advantages of this they are able to dominate women through violence and fight in wars. Also every dictator know that the only way he can rule is to have a army of brutal young men who will kill and torture the population without mercy. This is how dictators keep in power, if their army was to refuse to fire on crowds that demonstrated against them, then their power would quickly disappear.

Consequently, if we know how to turn men into monsters, how do we ensure that this doesn’t happen? We can from this device a list of what not to do.-

1. Do not beat up boys and men and use violence against them.
2. Do not teach them to hate.
3. Do not put men into prison
4. Do not glamorous war and men of violence
5. Do not give boys and young men violence films or video games
6. Do not teach men how to kill using clever Behaviourist psychology
7. Do not teach boys and men to abuse and rape women

So if we were to stop doing all these things would men become caring and loving human beings. This will work for some men but perhaps not for all. Men do not have such a powerful maternal instinct as what women have. So it is not automatic for men to be loving and caring of others, this is something many men have to learn. So the lessons men have to learn are.

1. To learn to respect and obey women
2. To learn to understand and respect the Feminine.
3. To learn how to love others
4. To learn how to care for others and put their needs before your own
5. To learn empathy, to experience both the joy and pain of other people.

The next problem is that how do we make this happen? how can we prevent patriarchy turning men into monsters? For this to happen; women need more power in our society. It was through the rise of feminism that far fewer boys are being brutalised by their parents. As feminist mothers have had to confidence and power to bring up their children the way they want to do it. Yet we still live in societies full of violent men, who will still rape, assault and murder women. So the job has only been half done and for men to be fully tamed, requires women to have greater power and influence in our world.

Feminist minded women can today ensure that their children at home are not brutalised. But she cannot protect them at school or in the street being brutalised by bullies. She will find it hard to prevent them being brainwashed by what they see on TV, films, video games. As patriarchy still uses the media to push out it’s message. What most people do not realise is that these ‘tough guy’ films of macho heroes who solve all problems by violence is basically patriarchal propaganda. This also comes through magazines and newspapers. A journalist once remarked; “a good newspaper story, leaves the reader hating someone or something after they have read it”. In other words; patriarchy is still doing its best to teach our young men how to hate. This is why it is so important that women take over not only the government, but also all media outlets, if they want to prevent men being brainwashed into becoming monsters by patriarchy.

The reform of men is not only the responsibility of women but men have this desire as well. Many men do not want to become monsters and neither do they want their sons to become like this. Although men haven’t played a active part in the Suffragette and Feminist movements, it was totally male Legislative Chambers that passed laws to give women the vote at the beginning of the 20th century. It was also male dominated governments that also passed sexual anti-discrimination laws in the 1960s and 70s.

It was also men who resisted patriarchal brainwashing, As they stopped beating their wives and children giving women confidence in themselves, opened schools to allow women to be educated and even allowed women to take on ‘men’s’ jobs and earn their own money. It is true that the brave women who first became educated and started careers received great opposition from many other men, but these women could not of got started, if some unknown men in positions of authority, gave them support.

There is something curious about the psychology of men. Men have shown very little interest in Feminism, which is about sexual equality. But they show a lot of interest in Femdom and Matriarchy which is about Female Dominance.

Because men see life in terms of a game of winners and losers the idea of equality in totally alien to him. This is very true in his relationship to women. Women who are physically and verbally abused by men, try to appease their tormenters, but are instead treated with contempt. This is because in the eyes of men, submissive women are losers and the masculine instinct is to despise losers.

This is why feminism along with socialism and communism has never caught on with men. Men were completely unable to make communism work because it was about equality. Men might secretly admire feminist women who demand equal rights, because at least they are standing up for themselves, but he has no interest in the concept of sexual equality. Men are only able to respect women if they demonstrate they are winners. But there feelings about female winners, go to the extreme and they tend to want to worship such women.

There is a natural tendency for men to put women on a pedestals and worship them, but this behaviour wasn’t allowed in patriarchal societies. Men were encouraged to look down on women and see women as losers. Now in Western countries with these patriarchal customs being eroded and undermined, many men now no longer see women as losers, but to the masculine mind if they are not losers they have to be winners, and men worship and adore winners.

Women who are assertive and will speak up for themselves find that men will react to them in three different ways. Some men will play the masculine game of competing with them to; “put them in their place”. If that fails, then men will either keep well away from women like this, or they will begin to worship them.

We can see how powerful are the emotions when men worship other men as winners. We can see this in the adoration kings and emperors received, and even brutal dictators like Hitler and Stalin, have also been worshipped by the people. The same is true on the sporting world, where great champions are likewise worshipped as well. Yet this worship can be even stronger when men worship women as winners, because is it mixed with another powerful instinct; and that is sexual attraction.

This might explain the behaviour of men within the FemDom scene. This is where men will go to a dominatrix and pay her to whip, torture and humiliate him. Or he will encourage his wife or girlfriend to do the same thing. Even hundreds of years ago in the rigid patriarchal society, some men have paid prostitutes to dominate them and to allow themselves to be worshipped by their clients. The word masochism come from a man called Von Sacher-Masoch who wrote books in the 19th century like the famous "Venus In Furs" about men being dominated and humiliated by women.

In recent years the FemDom scene has been growing in leaps and bounds. In the nineteen fifties many prostitutes were surprised to find clients who were not demanding sex at all and were willing to pay for the privilege of doing their housework for them. Then other clients were asking to be whipped by prostitutes and to be allowed to worship them. At the same time many were encouraged to dress up in macho black leather, rubber and P.V.C and so the modern Dominatrix came into being. The interesting point about this is that it is men who demanded and paid for women to behave like this.

In our present society a women can only dominate a man with the man's consent. Because a man is mostly bigger and stronger than a woman, this is also true in cases where a women uses physical violence on a man, because even if the women is into body-building or karate, a man is still free to walk out of the relationship. So again it is men who are helping and encouraging women to dominate them. If a man refuses to hit back against a violent woman or stays in a violent relationship, he is in effect communicating to the woman he still loves her in spite of how she is treating him. Which is a great boost to the woman's ego and encourages her to continue to abuse him.

So what is going on? Why would men encourage women to be dominant or violent towards him? We have to look at the symbolism of FemDom. The archetypical Dominatrix is dressed up in black-leather or PVC, (though in reality this is not always the case). Now black leather is a very macho form of dress, the sort of things that Hell’s Angels also wear. The whip is also a powerful symbol of dominance, as it is the sort of thing slave-owners use on slaves. So again, it is masculine power where dominance is achieved through violence. Some men ask the dominatrix to wear a strap-on dildo and use it on them. Now in some species of monkeys when two males confront or fight each other for dominance, the loser will show his submission by turning his back on the winner and allow him to mount him. So it is again a very masculine symbol of submission. Some men will ask the Dominantrix to verbally abuse him or even go on sex-lines to be abused by a woman. Again this is a very masculine way of dominance and men have been using it on women, children and other men to undermine their confidence in themselves. Sportsmen do this to each other all the time for the same reason and even male ‘friends’ do it to each other. Although men can be friends with each other, the instinct to compete with each other is still strong, that derogatory remarks and put-downs have become part of masculine humour.

There are many other symbols of submission men use like being dressed up as a baby or feminine women, or kissing the feet or bottom of the dominatrix etc. All these types of kinks are all symbols of masculine submission. So it is not surprising to learn that the whole FemDom scene is mostly dominated by men. It is mostly men who set the agenda and tell the female Dominas what to do.

Many men in FemDom are living a lie, in 'topping from the bottom' they are dominating without realising it. The problem for them is that; how long can you keep on fooling yourself? Many can keep on fooling themselves if no-one is pointing this out. The saying "topping from the bottom" comes from the FemDom scene, and many Dominas in the scene, are very aware of this problem. To men it is very helpful, that he goes to a Domina, and she points out to him what he is doing.

There are a lot of men who do far prefer FemDom or Matriarchy as a fantasy. But if these Femdom fantasies have a grip on you, then there is a limited time you can resist them.

Some Dominas have complained that some of these so-called submissive men are worse than ordinary patriarchal men, in their demands on women. The reason for this is, because of the resistance they are putting up. They have a powerful desire to surrender to women, but do not want to give into it. So in their resistance then end up behaving worse than patriarchal men. But over time they will finally they have to give in, and except genuine Female Authority.

So, the unconscious message coming from these men is a powerful desire for women to dominate them. Unfortunately because of thousands of years of brutality and patriarchal propaganda, women no longer have the confidence or knowledge of how to dominate men. During the patriarchal age apart from a few women like Elizabeth 1 of England and Catherine The Great of Russia there has been so few dominant women in positions of power. So men are forced to take the lead in this, and they interpret their need to submit to women in masculine terms. This means as a general rule they at first get it wrong completely, as do many women. During the 1980s we had Margaret Thatcher as Prime Minster of Britain, but one of the criticism of her was that she didn’t behave like a woman. The way she used power was very masculine, and we never got from her, the nurturing and caring side of women.

Yet by following their desires men and women do learn how to the true meaning of female authority. They can get there in stages.-

Stage One

A very patriarchal minded man finds he has deviant and kinky desires for Dominant Women. So he either goes to a Dominatrix or persuades his girl friend or wife to act out this role. At this stage, he is firmly in charge he will tell his partner or Dominatrix what his kinks are and she will act them out for him. For him, he is only satisfying his selfish desires and the Women is accommodating him.

Stage Two

He will at first be able to separate his kinky desire from his ‘ordinary’ life. So he can go to a Dominatrix to worship or be humiliated by her and then go back to his submissive wife and treat her like a ordinary patriarchal wife. Or if it is his partner he plays these kinky games with, she is only playing a role, but it is he who is still in charge. While the rest of the time they are a ‘normal’ couple.

But, being whipped or caned by a women, being on the receiving end of a strap-on, being verbally abused, worshipping a woman by kissing her feet or bottom, is going to effect him on the unconscious level.

Some men after awhile will want to take it all to the extreme and want to be really tortured and hurt by the Domina, or even want to eat her shit. Yet no matter how far he goes down this route he finds he is still not satisfied, because extremes like this are a dead-end. So what he begins to find is that his desire begin to leak outside of the kinky sessions into his ‘normal’ life.

He may find going to a Dominatrix whom he tells what to do, no longer satisfying and wants one who tells him what to do. He may find he has a desire for his wife to be more dominant and may consciously or unconsciously encourage her to be more like this in her ‘normal’ life. So he will find, he want her to dominate him outside of their sessions.

Stage Three

By being worshipped by the man and told; “you are in charge”, effects the women on the unconscious level as well. The result is, she begin to take charge of the sessions and begins to tell the man what she prefers. For instance; the man might want to be whipped or caned but she may not get any enjoyment from this, and decide they will do something else instead. Like him practising cunnilingus on her but denying him orgasm. So she find she can start to change things for her benefit and he will comply.

Stage Four

Femdom from a masculine point of view, is just about dominance and submission or sadism and masochism but when the Women take control, she finds she wants to introduce love into this mix. Submission to her is about the desire to give love to another, while dominance is about receiving love. She will also be very interested in the psychologically of the submissive man, and want to know how he feels. So she will introduce him to the idea that he wants to worship and serve her, because he loves her more than himself.

So now, the balance of power is changing and the Women is now taking control, as the fantasy is now changing into a reality.

Stage Five

At stage one the Woman was learning from the man. Now it is the opposite, and the man is now learning from the Women. He begins to learn from her; the Feminine point of view, of the joy of caring and loving others, of devoting your life to make another happy, and empathizing with them. So that their happiness becomes his happiness. Though he may also learn the hard lessons of empathizing with those who are unhappy and learn how to do his best to bring happiness to them.

The Women is now becoming more confidence in her Feminine nature as she sees her man is now far more happier learning from her how to love. She is also now learning how to love herself through the worship and devotion of the man.

Through these stages both Women and men learn how much better life is, if Women are in charge and how much better our world would be if Women ruled the world.

Off coarse not all men follow these five stages. Some men learn love through their children. Many wife’s today make their husbands watch the birth of their children and take part in caring for the child from a very early age. This teaches men to bond with their own children and learn how to care for them. Also, now that women have more power, influence and confidence in themselves mother’s are bringing up children in the way they want to. So from a early age many boys are learning from their mothers to respect women and are taught how to love and care for others.

This then means that men do have a choice: They have learnt they can dominate women through violence, but they pay a high price for this. Because in a totally male dominated world, like you still find today in many Moslem countries, men are dominated in the same way, through violence by other men. In fact, the only people who seem to benefit from male dominated rule is a handful a alpha men.

We can learn a lot about the behaviour of men through the study of dogs. It is recognized that if you want have a happy relationship with a dog in your house it is important to train it. A untrained dog can wee and poo in your house, it can get very aggressive with you, or with visitors coming to the house. It might steal food from your table and can make itself a nuance with other people when you take it for a walk. But if you train it properly from a early age; it will become the most loyal, devoted and obedient animal you can possibly have. Or you can also train it to be a killer. By savagely beating dogs, you can teach it to be very vicious and even teach it to kill other dogs or people. So the behaviour of dogs can vary tremendously by the way you choose to treat it. The same is true for men.

This means that all men have the potential to be a Dr Jekyll or Mr Hyde. If you brutalise him teach him to hate others and despise women, then he becomes a monster like Mr Hyde. But if he is taught to respect women and learn how to love and care for others he can be turned into a Dr Jekyll.

Many people have attempted to interpret Revelation at the end of the Christian Bible. The problem with this vision is that it seems to show Jesus to be more like a avenging Jehovah God rather that the compassionate, tolerant and caring man that Jesus really was. So the key to understand Revelation is to understand the true nature of Jesus and then to compare it with the nature of Jesus as portrayed in Revelation.

This then shows Jesus to be very different from a Old Testament prophet as "God Fearing" or "Born Again" Christians like to portray him. In reading Revelations we come across this paradox from the very first. Revelations came to a person called John from a supernatural being that he described like this. - [His hair was white as wool, or as snow, and his eyes blazed like fire; his feet shone like brass that has been refined and polished, and his voice sounded like a roaring waterfall. He held seven stars in his right hand, and a sharp two-edged sword came out of his mouth. His face was as bright as the midday sun.]

This angel or messenger is supposed to come from Jesus though interestingly his name is only mentioned, at the beginning and end of Revelation. In most of the narrative he is called either the Son of God or the Lamb of God. The angel gives a message similar to what an Old Testament prophet would preach. As he will go on and on about how the wicked will suffer terribly, while the good will be "saved". Now if this angel did come from Jesus there is a problem. Jesus wasn't in any way like an Old Testament prophet, who condemned others and threatened "sinners" that they would burn in hell. He in fact preached forgiveness and even when he was nailed to the cross he was able to say of his persecutors.- "Forgive them for they no not what they do".

The messenger himself is a very frightening and aggressive person unlike the gentle and caring figure of Jesus. So we have a problem either that this message didn't come from Jesus, or within it is a hidden message. There is a good reason for believing the latter, because throughout "Revelation" there are some very strange descriptions, and contradictions, which suggests the author was trying to tells us something through its strange symbology.

The first strange description is that the messenger had "a sharp two-edge sword came out of his mouth". Now this is completely absurd. Unless he was a professional sword-swallower no person in their right mind would put a sharp two-edge sword in his mouth. What is more he uses this sword while still in his mouth to fights "sinners". This is even worse because the difficulty of trying to fight others with a sword in the mouth is to say the least very difficult. So ludicrous is this, that most commentators on Revelation tend to completely ignore it. But what if the original author of Revelation gave this preposterous description to draw attention to it. To make us wonder if there was a hidden message here. It would make more sense if the sword coming out of the angel's mouth was his tongue. Then he would have far more control over it and could use it in much the same way has certain reptiles use their tongue to catch insects.

Remarkably there is a similar description of another deity in Hinduism. The problem is that this deity is a Goddess called Kali, who would be seen in Christian terminology as a Devil. So is it any wonder the author had to keep her identity secret. Kali wasn't so foolish to have a sword in her mouth. But she is described as having a very long tongue, that always hanged out of her mouth as she fought and destroyed Demons or Anti-Gods. So the image of the long tongue of Kali and a sword coming out of the mouth of the messenger is very similar. Also like this angel she is described as having blazing eyes and a great roaring voice. The two stories have a similar plots. In "Revelations" the story is about the Lamb of God leading a force of Angels to destroy "sinners", and to create a New Jerusalem. In the Kali story she and a number of other Goddesses destroy the Demons or Anti-Gods. Who are apparently at that time more powerful than the Gods, and restore peace on Earth.

I'm sure to many people this would also be absurd as what would an early Christian have to do with Hinduism? Except there is another clue. In this angel's hand he held seven stars. Now the seven stars two thousand years ago would be the moving stars. These are the planets, moon and sun that were visible to the naked eye. The only people who had an interest in those days for planets where astrologers. Christianity for hundreds of years either opposed or barely tolerated astrology, as it was seen as an aspect of Paganism. Astrology was practised by most Pagan religions throughout the middle-east and India. This suggests that this secret message was not for Christians but for those who had a wide understanding of all religions.

The astrology connection continues with the next vision, which is the throne of God and to quote-. [Surrounding the throne on each of its sides, were four living creatures covered with eyes in front and behind. The first one looked like a lion; the second looked like a bull; the third had a face of like a man's face; and the fourth looked like an eagle in flight.] Again we have an absurd description of creatures covered with eyes front and back, which makes us look for a hidden meaning. In ancient Judaism there are the four principal banners of Judah. With Judah represented by a Lion or crown, Reuben by a Man, Ephraim by an ox and Dan by an eagle. Anyone interested in astrology would recognise the Lion as Leo, a fire sign and the bull as Taurus an Earth sign. The man and eagle wouldn't be recognised in modern astrology, but the eagle would in the early astrology coming from ancient Mesopotamia. Who like the Jews were Semites people, and the Mesopotamians had a constellation called Aquila symbolised by an eagle. The man symbol is a mystery although the Mesopotamians did have constellations named after Goddesses. In the very ancient past many Goddesses where changed into Gods. So a constellation named after a Goddess by the more matriarchal Mesopotamians would be changed into a God or man by the more patriarchal Jews. So the four banners of Judaism and the four living creatures in Revelation would probably represent the air, fire, water and Earth of astrology.

Then the Revelations goes on to say. ["I saw a scroll in the right hand of the one who sits on the throne; it was covered with writing on both sides and was sealed with seven seals. And I saw a mighty angel, who announced in a loud voice, "Who is worthy to break the seals and open the scroll?"] It seems there was no one until a lamb appeared who it seem had been sacrificed. It was this lamb that was worthy to open the scroll.

Now a lamb to symbolise Jesus is a strange symbol. Up to a point it makes sense in astrological terms as when Jesus was born it was the end of the age of Aries the Ram. Except why a Lamb and not a Ram? The lamb has the reputation as the most gentle and harmless of creatures who will follow his mother anywhere. The lamb then is a good symbol of the gentle and caring Jesus we read about in the Gospels. Who went to his death "like a lamb to the slaughter". But it is not really a good symbol for the way Revelation is written. As it is about "sinners" being punished in the most gory fashion and only the "good" being saved. So by calling Jesus the Lamb of God the author is emphasising this paradox. Jesus preach tolerance but the religion that was named after him has a reputation of intolerance, bigotry and violence. By symbolising that only the Lamb could open the seven seals. Suggests that only a person who can understand the true caring teachings of Jesus, can understand the hidden message within Revelation. Because a person who believes in the "fire and brimstone" form of Christianity, will only take Revelation at its face value and not see the contradictions within it.

The vision continues.- [Then I saw the Lamb break open the first of the seven seals, and I heard one of the four living creatures say in a voice that sounded like thunder, "Come!" I looked, and there was a white horse. Its rider held a bow, and he was given a crown. He rode out as a conqueror to conquer.

Then the Lamb broke open the second seal; and I heard the second living creature say, "Come!" Another horse came out, a red one, Its rider was given the power to bring war on the Earth, so that men should kill each other. He was given a large sword.

Then the Lamb broke open the third seal; and I heard the third living creature say, "Come!" I looked, and there was a black horse. Its rider held a pair of scales in his hand. I heard what sounded like a voice coming from among the four living creatures, which said, "A litre of wheat for a day's wages, and three litres of barley for a day's wages. But do not damage the olive-trees and the vineyards!"

Then the Lamb broke open the fourth seal; and I heard the fourth living creature say, "Come!" I looked, and there was a pale-coloured horse. Its rider was named Death, and Hades followed close behind. They were given authority over a quarter of the Earth, to kill by means of war, famine, disease and wild animals.]

The interpretation of the first four seals is very easy because it is a perfect description of the patriarchal society. Most of patriarchal history has been about warfare, conquest and genocide. It has also be about forced labour, slavery and the exploitation of the common people by the rich and powerful. Which is what the third seal is about. It is ironic that many commentators of Revelation have seen this as a prophecy of the future and had not seen the wars and chaos that existed in their own time.

[Then the Lamb broke open the fifth seal, I saw underneath the altar of the souls of those who had been killed because they had proclaimed God's word and had been faithful in their witnessing. They shouted in a loud voice, "Almighty Lord, holy and true! How long will it be until you judge the people on Earth and punish them for killing us?" Each of them was given a white robe, and they were told to rest a little while longer, until the complete number of their fellow-servants and brothers had been killed, as they had been.]

Again we see the incongruity, if Jesus's teachings were all about judgement then there is no problem in the martyrs demanding revenge. Yet it is this desire for revenge that keep wars going. We can see this clearly in a place like Northern Ireland where both the Catholics and the Protestants are unable to forgive each other for the wrongs they have done each other in the past. Or in the Balkans where again the Serbs, Croats and Moslems are also unable to forgive each other. This has kept conflicts going for hundreds of years. So this is a comment on the patriarchal society and the source of the chaos it creates. Which was clearly understood by Jesus who taught his disciples to "love your enemies".

The sixth seal describes an end of the world scenario, though again will have a contradiction as people hide in terror - ["Fall on us and hide us from the eyes of the one who sits on the throne and from the anger of the Lamb! The terrible day of their anger is here, and who can stand against it?"]

The terrible anger of the Lamb?! This is surely a very inappropriate symbol, lambs have never been noted for their anger. So again this is a sign that there is a hidden meaning here. Although Revelation is suppose to be about the end of the world, later on in the narrative it becomes clear that it is not. What is more likely is a description of the coming to the end of the patriarchal age.

Then we come to the famous bit where 144,000 were marked with the seal of God so as not to be harmed by [The four angels to whom God had given the power to damage the Earth and sea.] I personally never heard of angels damaging the Earth and sea, and I don't somehow expect it to happen in the future. But in our present age we do see with modern technology people who now have the power to do this. So the four angels who damage the Earth could be governments, industry, science and technology. As all four collude to pollute the environment with toxic chemicals and greenhouse gases. As well as over fish the oceans, cut-down rain-forests, and dump nuclear waste.

In the 21st century it can be confidently predicted there will be a number of man-made disasters. As we are starting to see with global warming and the 50% decrease in men's sperm count caused by toxins being dumped into our food chain. In has been predicted that by 2030 most men will be unable to father a child as their sperm count will be too low by then. There are other possible dangers like the irresponsible use of genetic engineering, and nuclear weapon getting in the hands of terrorist groups or despotic dictatorships. The 144,000 people being saved from these disasters, suggest that some people will some how survive these man-made catastrophes. Possibly "greens" who only eat organic foods, and use renewable form of energy, in self-sufficient communities.

Then in the vision John witnesses a large crowd who had received salvation. When he asked who they were he was told.- ["These are the people who have come safely through the terrible persecution. They have washed their robes and made them white with the blood of the Lamb"]. Christians of course assume these people are Christian martyrs, and to be fair this would be correct prophecy. Because persecution of Christians continued in Rome long after John's death. Even when Christianity became the state religion, persecution continued on those who were the "wrong" type of Christians. That is to say the Christians who were not willing to toe the party line as decreed by the state. So Revelation could be about The Rome Empire becoming Christianise and the "New Jerusalem" would then be the Holy Roman Empire. Yet not even Christians accept this explanation. Probably because Christianity as a state religion didn't have much to recommend it, as a New Jerusalem. Over the centuries the Christians have probably persecuted far more people than had been done to them. Persecution does seem to be fairly normal behaviour in patriarchal societies. The reason for this is that patriarchal societies seem to hate change. So any person that deviates from what seems to be "normal" is given a hard time and can be even tortured and murdered.

So if we are looking for martyrs they may not be Christian. As previously pointed out the lamb is a strange symbol for this narrative. As the lamb is the most gentle and innocuous creature one could wish for. The people that had been persecuted were "washed clean with the blood of the lamb". Suggesting that they to were lamb like in their behaviour and were persecuted because of it. So who would they be? It is true that a few Christian sects have adopted a non-violent way of life, but this is a small minority. The average Christian male has shown himself over the years to be a very aggressive and violent person.

In recent years there has become a whole army of very inoffensive and harmless men appearing in our society. These men are called hippies, homosexuals, toy-boys, transvestites and wimps. Even today to call a man a wimp is seen as an insult and "macho" men will give such men a hard time. Homosexual men have been sent to prison up until recently and even today are seen by many as "immoral". (Though it has to be admitted here that not all homosexual men are "fairies" as some are very "butch" and aggressive). Transvestites are also persecuted because they want to dress in feminine clothing and have to try to pass as women in public to escape harassment. Hippies and toy-boys are barely tolerated and seen also as being outside of normal society. So are these the lamb-like men who have suffered persecution? If so it is another pointer that Revelation is about live in the 20th and 21 centuries.

The Seventh Seal is broken and we have another string of disasters. Like volcanoes, meteors hitting the Earth, plagues of locusts and perhaps nuclear warfare. All this has happened in the past and may again happen in the future.

John is then given a secret but is warned not to write it down. Then he is given a little scroll and is told to eat it, which tasted sweet in his mouth but sour in his stomach. The secret that John cannot write down again suggests there is a hidden secret within Revelation. The little scroll is probably Revelation which was written by John. The fact that it turned sour in John's stomach suggests its hidden message is an "unpalatable truth" for patriarchal Christians.

The next part is about two witnesses who turn out to be prophets. That are able to destroy anyone who harms them with fire that come out of their mouths. This suggests they are charismatic orators who are able to turn a crowd against anyone who oppose them. It also seems that they had the power to create famine and plague. This is what has happened during the patriarchal age where farmers have cut down trees, causing great soil erosion and famine. In ancient Greece, throughout the middle east and north Africa and in more recent times in USA and Australia, soil erosion and man made famine have frequently happened. Plague is also the curse of civilisations in patriarchal times through overcrowding, poverty and lack of hygiene. The most well-known plague was the bubonic plague or black death that killed half of the population of Europe during the 14th century.

These two prophets were attacked and killed by a great beast that came out of the abyss. Their bodies are left in the street, and the vision continues to say.- [The people of the Earth will be happy because of the death of these two. They will celebrate and send presents to each other, because those two prophets brought much suffering upon mankind.] Probably the two prophets were Christianity and Mohammandism and the beast that attacked them would then be atheistic science. Newton in the 17th century showed that the planets moved through scientific laws and not by the hand of God, as believed at that time. Then in the 19th century Darwin wrote his theory of evolution, which undermined the belief that life was created by God. Since then the success of science has greatly decreased the power of all patriarchal religions. It is interesting that it is stated in Revelation that these two patriarchal religions have brought much suffering upon mankind and people celebrated when they died. If we look back to the last 150 years we can see that although atheism has it faults. It still has created a far more humane and tolerant society than patriarchal religions. So the people had good reason to celebrate. The beast also came out to the abyss which is a feminine symbol as in Ancient times is would be the symbol of the vagina of The Earth Mother. Both Christianity and Mohammandism greatly opposed science in the past and tried to destroy it because they rightly saw science as a threat to their authority. So it suggests that scientific thought came from the Goddess to destroy the power of patriarchal religions.

Then the two prophets came back to life and there was a violent Earthquake, and the people became terrified. In more recent times there has been a right-wing/fundamentalist backlash, affecting mostly Islam countries but also some Christian countries as well. As countries like Iran turned back to fundamental Mohammadism and have promoted terrorism against the atheistic western counties. To a lesser degree, countries like USA or Britain have attempted to "turn back the clock" and enforce "family values" on the people. In an attempt to stop the erosion of the patriarchal society and religion.

The next chapter is about the elders around the throne of God saying it is time for God to judge the dead. The last line of their proclamation they say.- ["The time has come to destroy those who destroy the Earth!"] Now any environmentalists would have no problems in understand who these people who were. They would be to them the scientists and the industrialists who are at present polluting the Earth, oceans and atmosphere.

Then a woman appeared.- [Whose dress was the sun and who had the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head.] Before Christianity and Mohammadism took control there was sun-Gods and moon-Goddesses, in pagan religions. The sun has a far more powerful light than the moon. So a sun-God was seen as being more powerful than a moon-Goddess. These deities were still around at the time Revelation was written, and John probably had seen their Temples. This suggests that the women those "dress was like the sun" might be a sun-Goddess. As they existed in very ancient times with moon Gods. This is confirmed by the fact she has the moon at her feet. So it means she is no longer "the lesser light" which is how the Moon Goddesses or moon Gods were seen. She is now the more powerful Sun which suggests the man has now become "the lesser light" of the moon under her feet.

The twelve stars on her head could also be a reference to astrology, as there is twelve astrological signs. Neither patriarchal religions or science liked astrology but it has been adopted by modern paganism, so it could be about the paganistic revival we see today in the west. The woman is about to give birth. Is this the birth of the new matriarchal or matriarchal age?

A Red dragon appears who dragged a third of the stars out of the sky and threw them down on the Earth. As the woman had twelve stars around her head, it suggests that this dragon tried to destroy astrology. Which would be a symbol of modern paganism, Witchcraft and the new-age movement who all use astrology. Both Christianity and atheistic science have attempted to destroy and discredit these movements. [He stood in front of the woman, in order to eat her child as soon as it was born. Then she gave birth to a son, who will rule over all nations with an iron rod. But the child was snatched away and taken to God and his throne.]

Now it has to be admitted that if this child was the birth of a new matriarchal age it should be a girl. But to state this in Revelation would be impossible as it would be censored. Though it is more than likely this child was the lamb which is the very passive or submissive man which is still a good symbol of the matriarchal age. This passage does also suggests that patriarchal religions and atheistic science attempted to destroy matriarchy before it even got started but it received divine protection. If this child is Jesus then there is a problem because the child will "rule over all nations with an iron rod". Which is not the behaviour you would expect from the gentle lamb-like Jesus. Though it could be the behaviour of Kali-like women.

Then a war broke out in heaven between the dragon and angels, which suggests this could be a religious war. In recent times with the decline of Christianity, other spiritual groups have appeared instead. Like Spiritualism, occult groups, the new-age movement, paganism and Witchcraft. Christianity has been unsuccessful in attempting to stamp out these groups and is now on the decline. [When the dragon realised that he had been thrown down to the Earth, he began to pursue the woman who had given birth to the boy.] Which is what has happened in recent times although the power of Christianity has been destroyed. More extremist Christians have greatly opposed feminism and liberal laws that had allowed abortion and homosexuality. Again in the story it is divine protection that saves the woman.

Then a great beast came out of the sea and [The dragon gave the beast his own power, his throne, and his vast authority.] This is what has recently happened, the authority of the Patriarchal Church has been past onto Science. Which now has the authority and power in society that the Church use to have. This beast had been wounded but recovered, which is what happened to science hundreds of years ago. Religions like Christianity and Mohammedanism had persecuted science for hundreds of years, and at times all but stamped it out. But it recovered to come back and overthrown the power of patriarchal religion.

[The beast was allowed to make proud claims which were insulting to God, and it was permitted to have authority for forty-two months. It began to curse God, his name, the place where he lives, and all those who live in heaven. It was allowed to fight against God's people and to defeat them, and it was given authority over every tribe, nation, language, and race. All people on the Earth worshipped it, except for those whose names were written before the creation of the world in the book of the living which belongs to the lamb that was killed.]

This confirms that the beast is atheism. It had many heads one of these heads could be atheistic science. While others could be communism, capitalism and materialism. Probably the other heads are a variation on these themes. It was Marx who denigrated religion as "the opium of the people", while atheistic science has treated the belief in a supreme God as a fairy story. So this would be the insults the beast gave to God. Communism where ever it took power banned and oppressed religions. While atheistic science has taken over the world. With the majority of people looking towards science rather than religion to solve their problems. Yet saying that the beast only had authority for forty-two months suggests its power is only temporary. As we see today were atheistic science is finding it is fighting a losing battle against the "unreason", of the paranormal, astrology, "alternative" medicine and the new-age movement.

The last sentence of the quotation poses a problem, most Christians would assume that the people who didn't worship the beast would be them. But as already pointed out the Dragon is patriarchal religion which handed its power over to atheism. As we can see all over the world, religions have compromised with atheistic science. And are now bowing down to it, as it has no answer to the power of science.

[Then I saw another beast, which came up out of the Earth. It had two horns like lambs horns, and it spoke like a Dragon. It used the vast authority of the first beast in its presence. It forced the Earth and all who live on it to worship the first beast, those wounds had healed. This second beast performed great miracles; it made fire come down out of heaven to Earth in the sight of everyone. And it deceived all the people living on Earth by means of the miracles which it was allowed to perform in the presents of the first beast.] The second beast sounds very much like technology. It is technology today that can perform "miracles", and the fire from heaven could be nuclear explosions which has been the most spectacular demonstration of the power of technology.

[The second Beast was allowed to breathe life into the image of the first beast, so that the image could talk and put to death all those who would not worship it.] Both atheistic science and technology work together, with technology coming from scientific ideas and giving them material expression and power. Technology also gives atheism authority and power, and weapon technology did allowed the atheistic communists to impose atheism onto millions of people. While western atheists have also imposed atheism onto the world, forcing people to worship it through becoming dependant on materialism.

[The beast forced all the people, small and great, rich and poor, slave and free, to have a mark placed on their right hands or on their foreheads. No one could buy or sell unless he had this mark, that is, the beast's name or the number that stands for the name.] Technology now has brought about the possibility of having a "cashless society" and instead of everyone having money or credit-cards that can be lost or stolen. There is talk about having a small electronic chip placed under the skin of people's hand or forehead. This does at first sight sounds like a good idea. But as "Conspiracy theorists" point out the electronic chip can be used also as an electronic tag. Which will allow the police or secret services to keep track off and monitor everyone in society. This could create an Orwenian nightmare, where it would be very easy for governments to impose totalitarian regimes onto the people.

It goes on to say,- [ This calls for wisdom. Whoever is intelligent can work out the meaning of the number of the beast, because the number stands for a man's name. Its number is 666.] This number has caused great speculation about who this man is, and people like Hitler and Aleister Crowley have been named as the beast 666. Though this is only wild speculation with little reason for this except these men are seen as being "evil". In Barbara G. Walker's book "The woman's Encyclopaedia of Myths and Secrets", she tells us that in ancient times the number 6 was the number of sexual intercourse, this was because it was the union between the Triple Goddesses and their consorts. The triple six then became the number of the Triple Aphrodite as she was the Goddess of love. So she claims that the beast 666 is the number of the Goddess Aphrodite.

This could be a hint as to when this will happen. Patriarchy suppressed all promiscuous sex because it was only through the rigid marriage institution that a man could know who his children were. Atheism never understood why marriage was so important to patriarchy and allowed it to deteriorate. If the beast 666 is the symbol of promiscuous sex then it would be when patriarchy is breaking down and people were free to have sex with whoever they pleased. The sexual revolution started in the west during the 1960s at the same time women's Liberation started, where people openly had sexual relations outside marriage and the oppressive laws again homosexuality were repealed. So freedom is the sign of the beast 666 this will mean the beginning of the end of patriarchy and the return of the Goddess.

Then Revelation goes on about the 144,000 that will be saved. As well as saying that they never tell lies and are faultless and they are all virgins. Now this in curious as apparently all these 144,000 are males. The word virgin is mostly used in connection with women, not men. In patriarchal marriages it is important that the bride is a virgin but not the bridegroom. As it is women who has children, she will always know who is her child. (Unless she gives birth in a modern hospital where name tags get mixed up). But for the man he can only know who are his children if he can be sure his wife is "faithful" to him. For this reason it used to be acceptable for men to have mistresses, or go to prostitutes. But for a woman to be unfaithful, was considered to be a "sin" and in the past it was punished by death. So in saying that these men are virgins could be a hint that these men are as passive as patriarchal women. Because the idea of a man who have. [Kept themselves pure by not having sexual relations with women.] Before they got married would be regarded as complete wimps in very macho patriarchal societies. As this is how macho men regard any man who admits to being a virgin.

Also an older meaning of virgin is of women who do not belong to any man and are therefore free. We have all been seduced by the materialistic society, to the degree we are dependant on it. But there have always been people who have attempted to break this dependence. Like many hippies who are into self-sufficiency or people who pay to go on courses to learn how to live off uncultivated land. So these people are attempting to be free of materialism.

Revelation goes on to say that Jesus the Lamb led all his followers to overthrow the power of the beasts. Although women today are getting more and more assertive, as pointed out in a earlier book I co-authored called "Gospel of the Goddess". Women will for a long time have smaller egos than men. So it is not easy for them to get up and say. "We can do a far better job at running the world then men". But it is a lot easier for passive men to say this. So we might have to look to these types of men to give women confidence in themselves to overthrow the patriarchal society.

Revelation then goes on to proclaim the good news that [Great Babylon has fallen.] I think it would be very easy to suggest that Babylon is the materialistic society we live in. This is made clear when it later goes on to say.- [The businessmen of the Earth also cry and mourn for her, because no one buys their goods any longer; no one buys their gold, silver, precious stones, and pearls; their goods of linen, purple cloth, silk, and scarlet cloth; all kinds of rare woods and all kinds of objects made of ivory] etc etc. [The businessmen say to her "All the good things you longed to own have disappeared, and all your wealth and glamour are gone and you will never find them again!"]

So what destroyed Babylon? It says that not only Babylon was destroyed, [and the cites in all countries were destroyed.] It seems Babylon was destroyed by an Earthquake but it doesn't say how the other cites were destroyed. Though it does discuss [The Bowls of God's Anger, these are seven bowls that angels pour on the Earth.] Bowls are another Goddess symbol like that of the Cauldron and The Holy Grail. Simply because these are all symbols of the vagina.

[The first angel went and poured out his bowl on the Earth. Terrible and painful sores appeared on those who had the mark of the beast and on those who had worshipped its image.] Doctors in recent years have had great success at combating disease through antibiotics. Unfortunately the bacteria has been able to become in time immune to these antibiotics. So scientists have to always to produce a new form to combat the new strains of bacteria. Now doctors are admitting that they are losing this war as new strains of dangerous diseases are appearing that no antibiotic can destroy. Bringing about the possibility of plagues like we experienced during the middle-ages. Another possibility is that there are food-manufactures who want to introduce new genetic engineered food. We can be sure that they will be totally irresponsible in doing this, because of the very large profits that can be made. Which will overwhelm any consideration of possible dangerous effects these foods might have. So this could result in mass food poisoning in the future.

[Then the second angel poured out his bowl on the sea. The water became like the blood of a dead person, and every living creature in the sea died.] All over the world industries are pouring millions of tons of toxic waste into the seas. As it is far cheaper to get rid off toxic waste by dumping it into the sea than to find a way to make it harmless. Scientists used to claim that the oceans where so vast that they would dilute the harmful effects of the toxins. This premise is now showing itself to be false, as there is becoming a limitation to what seas and oceans can tolerate. Already around industrial areas the water is becoming too polluted to safely swim or surf in.

[Then the third angel poured out his bowl on the rivers and the springs of water, and they turned into blood.] The pollution in many rivers and lakes have got so bad in recent years that all life in them has been destroyed.

[Then the fourth and angel poured out his bowl on the sun, and it was allowed to burn people with its fiery heat.] This is probably to do with ozone depletion. In countries like Australia people are now covering up in the sun where skin-cancer is on the increase. As the ozone-layer is becoming very thin over this continent. The same thing is now happening over Europe and Northern America where governments are advising people not to sunbathe for fear of skin-cancer.

[Then the fifth angel poured out his bowl on the throne of the beast. Darkness fell over the beast's kingdom, and people bit their tongues because of their pain.] The Beast's kingdom or throne would be the industrial factories in and around cities. Already these plants cause pollution to the degree it covers whole cities. As well as accidental releases of toxic gases that have maimed and killed many thousands of people. In places like Italy, Spain and India.

[Then the sixth angel poured out his bowl and on the great river Euphrates. The river dried up.] Recently it has been officially acknowledged that Global Warming is a fact, but how warm will the Earth become in the 21st century no one really knows. With a warmer climate and changing weather patterns caused by it, great rivers may well dry up.

The last angel destroyed Babylon with an Earthquake, it is well known that large cities like San-Francisco are built on fault-lines. This makes the possibility of a large city being destroyed by an Earthquake very likely in the near future.

The whole materialistic society can only keep going while the public has confidence in it. Experiencing the seven plagues like that mentioned in Revelation, is going to undermine people's confidence in science and technology. More so if science gets the blame for all of the plagues. This will result in large numbers of people looking for alternatives to materialism. This is what will destroy Babylon more than anything else. To quote- [The businessmen of the Earth also cry and mourn for her, because no one buys their goods any longer;] People might of stopped buying goods because they may not want to have anything to do with technology any longer. After seeing the harm it can do in the hands of irresponsible people.

Among all this carnage Revelation had one chapter on [The famous Prostitute], she is described like this,- [There I saw a woman sitting on a red beast that had names insulting to God written all over it; the beast had seven heads and ten horns. The woman was dressed in purple and scarlet, and covered with gold ornaments, precious stones, and pearls. In her hand she held a gold cup full of obscene and filthy things, the result of her immorality. On her forehead was written a name that has a secret meaning "Great Babylon, the mother of all the prostitutes and perverts in the world,"]

So what is the secret meaning about the name Great Babylon? And why is it a secret? Would it be because if the meaning became clear it would be censored? Now in reading Revelation there is a problem even though it is about Jesus, the whole tone of it is wrong. Jesus taught to "love your neighbours as yourself" and "Do not judge others" So to lead angels into destroying cities because he doesn't agree with how they behave, is not really his style. Not only that he mixed with prostitutes and spoke up for them. As with the prostitute who was about to be stoned where Jesus told the crowd, "Who is truly without sin may cast the first stone". Mary Magdalene is also supposed to be by tradition a prostitute.

The way that it is written it seems to mean that Jesus condemns prostitutes, but when we read of what he really taught in The New Testament, we find he doesn't. So the secret meaning is clearly not about this. What Revelation does seem to be saying is that Great Babylon (the materialistic society) was controlled by women before it fell. Because Great Babylon is called The Famous Prostitute also she is riding on [a red beast that had names insulting to God written all over it.] So she has taken over control of the materialistic and atheistic society, which attacks religion as a delusion. Also [she is covered with gold ornaments, precious stones, and pearls.] Which means she is a very rich and powerful woman. Now at the beginning of the 21st century we do find a few women who are very rich and powerful and some have been rulers of countries. Women are also gaining power in all other patriarchal institutions, and breaking down the "glass ceilings" that are holding them back. So in saying that Great Babylon will fall when women start to rule society is a confirmation when it will happen.

She is also called, [the mother of all the prostitutes and perverts in the world.] In recent years some prostitutes have became more dominant and call themselves Dominatrices. Although many Dominatrices deny that they are prostitutes, as they see prostitutes as being too passive. With many being dominated and abused by pimps, and doing whatever the client want them to do. While they are certainly not passive and dominate men instead. The perverts would of course be the Dominatrice's clients, who would be seen that way by most of society. As they pay these Dominatrices to bound, whip, humiliate and abuse them. Some will also pay to worship and kiss the feet and bottom of the Dominatrix or drink her urine. So it suggests that this trend will grow and sadistic women and masochistic men will grow in number, until it becomes "normal".

But calling her a prostitute can have another meaning. The saying "To prostitute yourself," means that a person does something he doesn't believe in, but does it for money and power. Now that women are beginning to learn how to love themselves. The only role model they have, is patriarchal men. Who are extremely selfish and aggressive and haven't learn as yet how to care for and love others. So many women today are trying to act, dress and behave like men. In the "dog eat dog" patriarchal society women only see two choices, either they love others and are taken advantaged of by patriarchal men. Or they suppress all what they have learnt about loving and caring for others and behave like patriarchal men. So many rich and powerful women today have to behave in a way they do not really agree with. But feel that they have no choice in doing this to gain power and status in the patriarchal society.

This is confirmed when it goes on to say,- [And I saw that the women was drunk with the blood of God's people and the blood of those who were killed because they had been loyal to Jesus.] So these powerful women have become patriarchs themselves. A good example of this would be Margaret Thatcher who held very strong patriarchal views. While in power she never acknowledged any debt or companionship with the women's movement. She never helped in anyway other women to gain power, by never allowing another woman in her cabinet. And even gave speeches and passed laws to encourage women to "go back to the home". So she was part of the "backlash" that the women's movement experienced during the nineteen eighties. She never showed any compassion for the poor or deprived, as you would expect from a woman. And she came across as a completely ruthless women, who saw any feelings of caring for others as a "weakness".

The chapter goes on to talk about a number of kings who rule for a while who then are defeated by the Lamb. This probably means their used to be many patriarchal ages in the past, which were replaced by matriarchal ages.

The chapter finishes by saying that,- [the beast, will hate the prostitute; they will take away everything she has and leave her naked; they will eat her flesh and destroy her with fire. For God purpose by acting together and giving the beast their power to rule until God's words come true.] This is exactly what happened to Margaret Thatcher when she was Prime Minister of Britain. She had been the most successful Prime Minister in Britain this century. She had won three elections, and had fought well for what her party believed in. By breaking the power of the unions and privatising most of the state's ownership of industry. Then, after all what she had achieved, her party turned against her, attacked and humiliated her and threw her out of office. The same thing happened also more recently to Benazir Bhutto, she was elected prime minster of Pakistan in 1988 and was deposed by a military coup in 1990. More recently she became prime minister again but again she was betrayed, slandered and deposed.

Though clearly this prophecy is not only about Margaret Thatcher or Benazir Bhutto, in the future many other women will become rulers of countries. The chapter finishes by saying,- ["The woman you saw is the great city that rules over the kings of the Earth."] There is not today one city that rules over the rest of the world. But the most powerful and materialistic society today is the USA, where women in comparison to most other countries have great power. So it could mean that Great Babylon is the USA, who has the military and economic power to tell all the other nations of the world what to do. We know today that women do not rule the USA, but they are getting there. So is it suggesting that one day there will be a women President of the USA? And when this happens, then there will be a patriarchal back-lash. Where a war between patriarchy and matriarchy will start and Kali will be let loose.

After the fall of Great Babylon, Revelation then goes on to a chapter on The Wedding-Feast of the Lamb, the bride is hardly mentioned at all except to say [She has been given clean shining linen to wear. (The linen is the good deeds of God's people).] Now this can be put down as a typical patriarchal oversight. Except that towards the end of Revelation it turns out that the Bride is The New Jerusalem. Which does suggest that The New Jerusalem like the Great Babylon will be ruled by women.

This would suggest that after the materialistic society collapses. Many people will then create an alternative and genuine matriarchal Society. The clean shining linen, the bride wears a symbol that she is now no long contaminated by patriarchal thinking. So is therefore able to be dominant and caring at the same time. While the Lamb is of course the passive man who is willing to accept her domination.

The next chapter reads very much like the Kali stories, where all the armies of the Beasts are defeated and slaughtered by.- [The Rider on the White Horse,] who,- [Out of his mouth came a sharp sword, with which he will defeat the nations.] As pointed out before this is a very strange place to hold and use a sword. Which suggests a link with Kali who is nearly always shown with her tongue sticking out. It goes on to say.- [He will rule over them with a rod of iron, and will trample out the wine in the winepress of the furious anger of the Almighty God.] As pointed out earlier according to Revelation it is Jesus who will rule the world. So this figure must be Jesus, except that to [rule over them with a rod of iron,] or to slaughter great armies. Is not really his style, and not the sort of behaviour you would expect from a Lamb. To [trample out the wine] is a Kali symbol as she tramples all over Siva, and in her stories she also has a [furious anger] as she slaughters demons.

So the chapter suggests a war between the patriarchal and matercentic societies. Whether it will be a physical war or more a war of words and ideas is hard to say. If it is a physical war it may not be only about Amazons fighting patriarchal soldiers on the battle-field. There will probably be many "lambs" who will also lay down there lives for their mistresses. Also there will be many patriarchal women fighting for patriarchy. Though how it reads in both Revelation and the Kali stories it sounds more like a slaughter of the patriarchal forces than a war. This has been true of many battles in the past. Where brilliant war leaders like Napoleon or Alexander the Great, when confronted with incompetently lead forces have turned battles into little more that slaughters. [The Beast was taken prisoner, together with the false prophet who had performed miracles in his presence.] Which suggests that science and technology. Who make predictions of the future and perform technological "miracles". Will now be in the hands of matriarchal women.

[Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding in his hand the key of the abyss an a heavy chain. He seized the dragon, that ancient serpent - that is, the Devil, or Satan and chained him up for a thousand years.] The ancient meaning of the abyss was the genital orifice of the Great Mother from which all creation came. So this could be a symbol of us all returning to the Great Mother. After a thousand years the dragon is let loose again. So it is again about the cycle of patriarchal and matriarchal societies.

Then comes The final Judgement, which finishes by saying [Whoever did not have his name written in the book of the living was thrown into the lake of fire.] Again it has to be said that judging and condemning others was not Jesus's style. What it probably means is that people who still are patriarchal in attitude, will soon die out. And only people who are matriarchal in character would be reincarnated on the Earth during the coming matriarchal age.

Then there is [The New Heaven and the New Earth,] This suggests that in a matriarchal society there will be a new reality. Which means in a matriarchal society everything on the Earth will become different. Because people will treat it in a different way. While in heaven there will be no longer an angry judgmental God or no God at all. So the New Heaven will be The Goddess who loves us all unconditionally.

The new Jerusalem appears and a loud voice says.- [It is done! I am the first and the last, the beginning and the end. To anyone who is thirsty I will give the right to drink from the spring of the water of life without paying for it. Whoever wins the victory will receive this from me: I will be his God, and he will be my son.] In saying that he is the first and last, it was Christianity that started the first truly patriarchal religion throughout Europe and later the world. That is to say a religion that worshipped a God without no Goddesses in it. Then when Matriarchy comes into being it will come about when men adopt the true teachings of Jesus and become like lambs. So in a sense it was Jesus who started the truly patriarchal age and it will be him who will end it. Or it could again be a reference to the matriarchal/patriarchal cycle.

He says that he "will give anyone the right to drink without paying for it". This is a hint that a matriarchal society will be completely different from a patriarchal society where probably ownership and trade will no longer exist. In saying that "we will all be sons of God", means that in matriarchal terms we will all be the children of the Goddess. The victory is the realisation that the Goddess loves us all unconditionally, because we are her children and will always be there for us if we allow her to.

The next chapter in on the new Jerusalem.- [One of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues came to me and said, "Come and I will show you the Bride, the wife of the Lamb." The spirit took control of me, and the angel carried me to the top of a very high mountain. He showed me Jerusalem the Holy City, coming down out of heaven from God.] It then goes on to describe Jerusalem but didn't mention the wife of the lamb of God again. This oversight can be explained by the wife of the Lamb being Jerusalem. Which confirms that the new Jerusalem is a matriarchal society.

The New Jerusalem is described as,- [The city has no need of the sun or the moon, because the glory of God shines on it.] In other words this society instead of relying on matter for life, relies only on the support of The Great Mother. Then it goes on to say,- [And the Lamb is its lamp.] Which suggests that the Lamb is the lesser light, that is to say, lesser to the glory of the Goddess and the women who represent her on the Earth. [The gates of the city will stand open all day; they will never be closed, because there will be no night there.] This reminds one of the ancient Goddess city of Catal Huyuk, which never had city-walls at all and stood undefended for thousands of years. So it is suggesting that their no longer be any need to defend the city as there will be no longer any warfare. In saying that there will never be any night there is restating that the light of the Goddess will always be there to look after the city.

Then Jesus appears, he prevents John bowing down to him by saying [Don't do it! I am a fellow-servant of your...] perhaps this means a fellow-servant of the women who now rule. It certainly means that this is the humble Jesus we read about in the Gospels. He goes on to say.- ["Whoever is evil must go on doing evil, and whoever is filthy must go on being filthy; whoever is good must go on doing good, and whoever is holy must go on being holy."] This sounds more like the true Jesus who does not judge others and allows them to be themselves. During the patriarchal age men had to learn how to love themselves, while women learnt to love others. No blame can be put on to anyone for learning these lessons. So it is pointless to condemn a patriarchal man for being selfish and sadistic, as it is to condemn a patriarchal woman for being "weak" and masochistic. So it does mean that the author of Revelation did understand the true nature of Jesus. So in portraying him like an Old Testament prophet was only a way to allow Revelation to survive the patriarchal age, uncensored.

Jesus finishes by referring himself as [the bright morning star], which is a slight surprise as this is the planet Venus, who was named after a Goddess. Though John probably wouldn't know the planet Venus by this name. The original Semites name of the planet Venus was originally named after the Goddess Attart. In historic times the planet's name was changed to Attar a Semites God. Though there was a problem with this as Attar did later become the Goddess Ishtar. If the author was aware of the changing sex of the planet Venus among Semites people. This could be a way of trying to tell us something. Like, what is known as a God in one age, becomes a Goddess in another.

Also the Morning Star was also the name of Lucifer the "light-bringer". Later on Lucifer became one of the names of the Christian Devil. So to have Jesus call himself the Devil creates a problem.

This ambiguity continues in the next line which goes.- [The Spirit and the Bride say, "Come!"] We would assume that the Spirit was Jesus, but up until then it wasn't mentioned that he had the Bride with him and why suddenly called Jesus "the spirit". This could be a patriarchal oversight or it could be allowing us to question the sex of Jesus, and therefor of God.

In Conclusion John shows that he fears the censors of the future by threatening with punishment and plagues, to anyone who censors or adds to the book. Whether this was ever done is hard to say, but it probably escaped censorship because what is says only starts to make sense towards the end of the twentieth century.

So in conclusion, the story of Kali seems to be about women taking control of the world. While Revelation is about the same thing but suggests it will bring about a new reality. Revelation has been seen by many people as a "Doom and Gloom" prophecy about the end of the world. Which is probably true, but only of the patriarchal world. The New Jerusalem gives the possibility of a far better world for as all when the patriarchal world we live in has been destroyed.

We have already witnessed in our history how one world-view can change from one reality to another. When the reality of patriarchal religions was replaced by the reality of physical science. This then could in turn be taken over by the reality of a loving and caring Mother Goddess. So the apocalypse may hopefully be in the end, a war of words and ideas. Resulting in a better reality for us all.

Quotes come from the Good News Edition of the New Testament.

Many people have attempted to interpret Revelation at the end of the Christian Bible. The problem with this vision is that it seems to show Jesus to be more like a avenging Jehovah God rather that the compassionate, tolerant and caring man that Jesus really was. So the key to understand Revelation is to understand the true nature of Jesus and then to compare it with the nature of Jesus as portrayed in Revelation.

This then shows Jesus to be very different from a Old Testament prophet as "God Fearing" or "Born Again" Christians like to portray him. In reading Revelations we come across this paradox from the very first. Revelations came to a person called John from a supernatural being that he described like this. - [His hair was white as wool, or as snow, and his eyes blazed like fire; his feet shone like brass that has been refined and polished, and his voice sounded like a roaring waterfall. He held seven stars in his right hand, and a sharp two-edged sword came out of his mouth. His face was as bright as the midday sun.]

This angel or messenger is supposed to come from Jesus though interestingly his name is only mentioned, at the beginning and end of Revelation. In most of the narrative he is called either the Son of God or the Lamb of God. The angel gives a message similar to what an Old Testament prophet would preach. As he will go on and on about how the wicked will suffer terribly, while the good will be "saved". Now if this angel did come from Jesus there is a problem. Jesus wasn't in any way like an Old Testament prophet, who condemned others and threatened "sinners" that they would burn in hell. He in fact preached forgiveness and even when he was nailed to the cross he was able to say of his persecutors.- "Forgive them for they no not what they do".

The messenger himself is a very frightening and aggressive person unlike the gentle and caring figure of Jesus. So we have a problem either that this message didn't come from Jesus, or within it is a hidden message. There is a good reason for believing the latter, because throughout "Revelation" there are some very strange descriptions, and contradictions, which suggests the author was trying to tells us something through its strange symbology.

The first strange description is that the messenger had "a sharp two-edge sword came out of his mouth". Now this is completely absurd. Unless he was a professional sword-swallower no person in their right mind would put a sharp two-edge sword in his mouth. What is more he uses this sword while still in his mouth to fights "sinners". This is even worse because the difficulty of trying to fight others with a sword in the mouth is to say the least very difficult. So ludicrous is this, that most commentators on Revelation tend to completely ignore it. But what if the original author of Revelation gave this preposterous description to draw attention to it. To make us wonder if there was a hidden message here. It would make more sense if the sword coming out of the angel's mouth was his tongue. Then he would have far more control over it and could use it in much the same way has certain reptiles use their tongue to catch insects.

Remarkably there is a similar description of another deity in Hinduism. The problem is that this deity is a Goddess called Kali, who would be seen in Christian terminology as a Devil. So is it any wonder the author had to keep her identity secret. Kali wasn't so foolish to have a sword in her mouth. But she is described as having a very long tongue, that always hanged out of her mouth as she fought and destroyed Demons or Anti-Gods. So the image of the long tongue of Kali and a sword coming out of the mouth of the messenger is very similar. Also like this angel she is described as having blazing eyes and a great roaring voice. The two stories have a similar plots. In "Revelations" the story is about the Lamb of God leading a force of Angels to destroy "sinners", and to create a New Jerusalem. In the Kali story she and a number of other Goddesses destroy the Demons or Anti-Gods. Who are apparently at that time more powerful than the Gods, and restore peace on Earth.

I'm sure to many people this would also be absurd as what would an early Christian have to do with Hinduism? Except there is another clue. In this angel's hand he held seven stars. Now the seven stars two thousand years ago would be the moving stars. These are the planets, moon and sun that were visible to the naked eye. The only people who had an interest in those days for planets where astrologers. Christianity for hundreds of years either opposed or barely tolerated astrology, as it was seen as an aspect of Paganism. Astrology was practised by most Pagan religions throughout the middle-east and India. This suggests that this secret message was not for Christians but for those who had a wide understanding of all religions.

The astrology connection continues with the next vision, which is the throne of God and to quote-. [Surrounding the throne on each of its sides, were four living creatures covered with eyes in front and behind. The first one looked like a lion; the second looked like a bull; the third had a face of like a man's face; and the fourth looked like an eagle in flight.] Again we have an absurd description of creatures covered with eyes front and back, which makes us look for a hidden meaning. In ancient Judaism there are the four principal banners of Judah. With Judah represented by a Lion or crown, Reuben by a Man, Ephraim by an ox and Dan by an eagle. Anyone interested in astrology would recognise the Lion as Leo, a fire sign and the bull as Taurus an Earth sign. The man and eagle wouldn't be recognised in modern astrology, but the eagle would in the early astrology coming from ancient Mesopotamia. Who like the Jews were Semites people, and the Mesopotamians had a constellation called Aquila symbolised by an eagle. The man symbol is a mystery although the Mesopotamians did have constellations named after Goddesses. In the very ancient past many Goddesses where changed into Gods. So a constellation named after a Goddess by the more matriarchal Mesopotamians would be changed into a God or man by the more patriarchal Jews. So the four banners of Judaism and the four living creatures in Revelation would probably represent the air, fire, water and Earth of astrology.

Then the Revelations goes on to say. ["I saw a scroll in the right hand of the one who sits on the throne; it was covered with writing on both sides and was sealed with seven seals. And I saw a mighty angel, who announced in a loud voice, "Who is worthy to break the seals and open the scroll?"] It seems there was no one until a lamb appeared who it seem had been sacrificed. It was this lamb that was worthy to open the scroll.

Now a lamb to symbolise Jesus is a strange symbol. Up to a point it makes sense in astrological terms as when Jesus was born it was the end of the age of Aries the Ram. Except why a Lamb and not a Ram? The lamb has the reputation as the most gentle and harmless of creatures who will follow his mother anywhere. The lamb then is a good symbol of the gentle and caring Jesus we read about in the Gospels. Who went to his death "like a lamb to the slaughter". But it is not really a good symbol for the way Revelation is written. As it is about "sinners" being punished in the most gory fashion and only the "good" being saved. So by calling Jesus the Lamb of God the author is emphasising this paradox. Jesus preach tolerance but the religion that was named after him has a reputation of intolerance, bigotry and violence. By symbolising that only the Lamb could open the seven seals. Suggests that only a person who can understand the true caring teachings of Jesus, can understand the hidden message within Revelation. Because a person who believes in the "fire and brimstone" form of Christianity, will only take Revelation at its face value and not see the contradictions within it.

The vision continues.- [Then I saw the Lamb break open the first of the seven seals, and I heard one of the four living creatures say in a voice that sounded like thunder, "Come!" I looked, and there was a white horse. Its rider held a bow, and he was given a crown. He rode out as a conqueror to conquer.

Then the Lamb broke open the second seal; and I heard the second living creature say, "Come!" Another horse came out, a red one, Its rider was given the power to bring war on the Earth, so that men should kill each other. He was given a large sword.

Then the Lamb broke open the third seal; and I heard the third living creature say, "Come!" I looked, and there was a black horse. Its rider held a pair of scales in his hand. I heard what sounded like a voice coming from among the four living creatures, which said, "A litre of wheat for a day's wages, and three litres of barley for a day's wages. But do not damage the olive-trees and the vineyards!"

Then the Lamb broke open the fourth seal; and I heard the fourth living creature say, "Come!" I looked, and there was a pale-coloured horse. Its rider was named Death, and Hades followed close behind. They were given authority over a quarter of the Earth, to kill by means of war, famine, disease and wild animals.]

The interpretation of the first four seals is very easy because it is a perfect description of the patriarchal society. Most of patriarchal history has been about warfare, conquest and genocide. It has also be about forced labour, slavery and the exploitation of the common people by the rich and powerful. Which is what the third seal is about. It is ironic that many commentators of Revelation have seen this as a prophecy of the future and had not seen the wars and chaos that existed in their own time.

[Then the Lamb broke open the fifth seal, I saw underneath the altar of the souls of those who had been killed because they had proclaimed God's word and had been faithful in their witnessing. They shouted in a loud voice, "Almighty Lord, holy and true! How long will it be until you judge the people on Earth and punish them for killing us?" Each of them was given a white robe, and they were told to rest a little while longer, until the complete number of their fellow-servants and brothers had been killed, as they had been.]

Again we see the incongruity, if Jesus's teachings were all about judgement then there is no problem in the martyrs demanding revenge. Yet it is this desire for revenge that keep wars going. We can see this clearly in a place like Northern Ireland where both the Catholics and the Protestants are unable to forgive each other for the wrongs they have done each other in the past. Or in the Balkans where again the Serbs, Croats and Moslems are also unable to forgive each other. This has kept conflicts going for hundreds of years. So this is a comment on the patriarchal society and the source of the chaos it creates. Which was clearly understood by Jesus who taught his disciples to "love your enemies".

The sixth seal describes an end of the world scenario, though again will have a contradiction as people hide in terror - ["Fall on us and hide us from the eyes of the one who sits on the throne and from the anger of the Lamb! The terrible day of their anger is here, and who can stand against it?"]

The terrible anger of the Lamb?! This is surely a very inappropriate symbol, lambs have never been noted for their anger. So again this is a sign that there is a hidden meaning here. Although Revelation is suppose to be about the end of the world, later on in the narrative it becomes clear that it is not. What is more likely is a description of the coming to the end of the patriarchal age.

Then we come to the famous bit where 144,000 were marked with the seal of God so as not to be harmed by [The four angels to whom God had given the power to damage the Earth and sea.] I personally never heard of angels damaging the Earth and sea, and I don't somehow expect it to happen in the future. But in our present age we do see with modern technology people who now have the power to do this. So the four angels who damage the Earth could be governments, industry, science and technology. As all four collude to pollute the environment with toxic chemicals and greenhouse gases. As well as over fish the oceans, cut-down rain-forests, and dump nuclear waste.

In the 21st century it can be confidently predicted there will be a number of man-made disasters. As we are starting to see with global warming and the 50% decrease in men's sperm count caused by toxins being dumped into our food chain. In has been predicted that by 2030 most men will be unable to father a child as their sperm count will be too low by then. There are other possible dangers like the irresponsible use of genetic engineering, and nuclear weapon getting in the hands of terrorist groups or despotic dictatorships. The 144,000 people being saved from these disasters, suggest that some people will some how survive these man-made catastrophes. Possibly "greens" who only eat organic foods, and use renewable form of energy, in self-sufficient communities.

Then in the vision John witnesses a large crowd who had received salvation. When he asked who they were he was told.- ["These are the people who have come safely through the terrible persecution. They have washed their robes and made them white with the blood of the Lamb"]. Christians of course assume these people are Christian martyrs, and to be fair this would be correct prophecy. Because persecution of Christians continued in Rome long after John's death. Even when Christianity became the state religion, persecution continued on those who were the "wrong" type of Christians. That is to say the Christians who were not willing to toe the party line as decreed by the state. So Revelation could be about The Rome Empire becoming Christianise and the "New Jerusalem" would then be the Holy Roman Empire. Yet not even Christians accept this explanation. Probably because Christianity as a state religion didn't have much to recommend it, as a New Jerusalem. Over the centuries the Christians have probably persecuted far more people than had been done to them. Persecution does seem to be fairly normal behaviour in patriarchal societies. The reason for this is that patriarchal societies seem to hate change. So any person that deviates from what seems to be "normal" is given a hard time and can be even tortured and murdered.

So if we are looking for martyrs they may not be Christian. As previously pointed out the lamb is a strange symbol for this narrative. As the lamb is the most gentle and innocuous creature one could wish for. The people that had been persecuted were "washed clean with the blood of the lamb". Suggesting that they to were lamb like in their behaviour and were persecuted because of it. So who would they be? It is true that a few Christian sects have adopted a non-violent way of life, but this is a small minority. The average Christian male has shown himself over the years to be a very aggressive and violent person.

In recent years there has become a whole army of very inoffensive and harmless men appearing in our society. These men are called hippies, homosexuals, toy-boys, transvestites and wimps. Even today to call a man a wimp is seen as an insult and "macho" men will give such men a hard time. Homosexual men have been sent to prison up until recently and even today are seen by many as "immoral". (Though it has to be admitted here that not all homosexual men are "fairies" as some are very "butch" and aggressive). Transvestites are also persecuted because they want to dress in feminine clothing and have to try to pass as women in public to escape harassment. Hippies and toy-boys are barely tolerated and seen also as being outside of normal society. So are these the lamb-like men who have suffered persecution? If so it is another pointer that Revelation is about live in the 20th and 21 centuries.

The Seventh Seal is broken and we have another string of disasters. Like volcanoes, meteors hitting the Earth, plagues of locusts and perhaps nuclear warfare. All this has happened in the past and may again happen in the future.

John is then given a secret but is warned not to write it down. Then he is given a little scroll and is told to eat it, which tasted sweet in his mouth but sour in his stomach. The secret that John cannot write down again suggests there is a hidden secret within Revelation. The little scroll is probably Revelation which was written by John. The fact that it turned sour in John's stomach suggests its hidden message is an "unpalatable truth" for patriarchal Christians.

The next part is about two witnesses who turn out to be prophets. That are able to destroy anyone who harms them with fire that come out of their mouths. This suggests they are charismatic orators who are able to turn a crowd against anyone who oppose them. It also seems that they had the power to create famine and plague. This is what has happened during the patriarchal age where farmers have cut down trees, causing great soil erosion and famine. In ancient Greece, throughout the middle east and north Africa and in more recent times in USA and Australia, soil erosion and man made famine have frequently happened. Plague is also the curse of civilisations in patriarchal times through overcrowding, poverty and lack of hygiene. The most well-known plague was the bubonic plague or black death that killed half of the population of Europe during the 14th century.

These two prophets were attacked and killed by a great beast that came out of the abyss. Their bodies are left in the street, and the vision continues to say.- [The people of the Earth will be happy because of the death of these two. They will celebrate and send presents to each other, because those two prophets brought much suffering upon mankind.] Probably the two prophets were Christianity and Mohammandism and the beast that attacked them would then be atheistic science. Newton in the 17th century showed that the planets moved through scientific laws and not by the hand of God, as believed at that time. Then in the 19th century Darwin wrote his theory of evolution, which undermined the belief that life was created by God. Since then the success of science has greatly decreased the power of all patriarchal religions. It is interesting that it is stated in Revelation that these two patriarchal religions have brought much suffering upon mankind and people celebrated when they died. If we look back to the last 150 years we can see that although atheism has it faults. It still has created a far more humane and tolerant society than patriarchal religions. So the people had good reason to celebrate. The beast also came out to the abyss which is a feminine symbol as in Ancient times is would be the symbol of the vagina of The Earth Mother. Both Christianity and Mohammandism greatly opposed science in the past and tried to destroy it because they rightly saw science as a threat to their authority. So it suggests that scientific thought came from the Goddess to destroy the power of patriarchal religions.

Then the two prophets came back to life and there was a violent Earthquake, and the people became terrified. In more recent times there has been a right-wing/fundamentalist backlash, affecting mostly Islam countries but also some Christian countries as well. As countries like Iran turned back to fundamental Mohammadism and have promoted terrorism against the atheistic western counties. To a lesser degree, countries like USA or Britain have attempted to "turn back the clock" and enforce "family values" on the people. In an attempt to stop the erosion of the patriarchal society and religion.

The next chapter is about the elders around the throne of God saying it is time for God to judge the dead. The last line of their proclamation they say.- ["The time has come to destroy those who destroy the Earth!"] Now any environmentalists would have no problems in understand who these people who were. They would be to them the scientists and the industrialists who are at present polluting the Earth, oceans and atmosphere.

Then a woman appeared.- [Whose dress was the sun and who had the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head.] Before Christianity and Mohammadism took control there was sun-Gods and moon-Goddesses, in pagan religions. The sun has a far more powerful light than the moon. So a sun-God was seen as being more powerful than a moon-Goddess. These deities were still around at the time Revelation was written, and John probably had seen their Temples. This suggests that the women those "dress was like the sun" might be a sun-Goddess. As they existed in very ancient times with moon Gods. This is confirmed by the fact she has the moon at her feet. So it means she is no longer "the lesser light" which is how the Moon Goddesses or moon Gods were seen. She is now the more powerful Sun which suggests the man has now become "the lesser light" of the moon under her feet.

The twelve stars on her head could also be a reference to astrology, as there is twelve astrological signs. Neither patriarchal religions or science liked astrology but it has been adopted by modern paganism, so it could be about the paganistic revival we see today in the west. The woman is about to give birth. Is this the birth of the new matriarchal or matriarchal age?

A Red dragon appears who dragged a third of the stars out of the sky and threw them down on the Earth. As the woman had twelve stars around her head, it suggests that this dragon tried to destroy astrology. Which would be a symbol of modern paganism, Witchcraft and the new-age movement who all use astrology. Both Christianity and atheistic science have attempted to destroy and discredit these movements. [He stood in front of the woman, in order to eat her child as soon as it was born. Then she gave birth to a son, who will rule over all nations with an iron rod. But the child was snatched away and taken to God and his throne.]

Now it has to be admitted that if this child was the birth of a new matriarchal age it should be a girl. But to state this in Revelation would be impossible as it would be censored. Though it is more than likely this child was the lamb which is the very passive or submissive man which is still a good symbol of the matriarchal age. This passage does also suggests that patriarchal religions and atheistic science attempted to destroy matriarchy before it even got started but it received divine protection. If this child is Jesus then there is a problem because the child will "rule over all nations with an iron rod". Which is not the behaviour you would expect from the gentle lamb-like Jesus. Though it could be the behaviour of Kali-like women.

Then a war broke out in heaven between the dragon and angels, which suggests this could be a religious war. In recent times with the decline of Christianity, other spiritual groups have appeared instead. Like Spiritualism, occult groups, the new-age movement, paganism and Witchcraft. Christianity has been unsuccessful in attempting to stamp out these groups and is now on the decline. [When the dragon realised that he had been thrown down to the Earth, he began to pursue the woman who had given birth to the boy.] Which is what has happened in recent times although the power of Christianity has been destroyed. More extremist Christians have greatly opposed feminism and liberal laws that had allowed abortion and homosexuality. Again in the story it is divine protection that saves the woman.

Then a great beast came out of the sea and [The dragon gave the beast his own power, his throne, and his vast authority.] This is what has recently happened, the authority of the Patriarchal Church has been past onto Science. Which now has the authority and power in society that the Church use to have. This beast had been wounded but recovered, which is what happened to science hundreds of years ago. Religions like Christianity and Mohammedanism had persecuted science for hundreds of years, and at times all but stamped it out. But it recovered to come back and overthrown the power of patriarchal religion.

[The beast was allowed to make proud claims which were insulting to God, and it was permitted to have authority for forty-two months. It began to curse God, his name, the place where he lives, and all those who live in heaven. It was allowed to fight against God's people and to defeat them, and it was given authority over every tribe, nation, language, and race. All people on the Earth worshipped it, except for those whose names were written before the creation of the world in the book of the living which belongs to the lamb that was killed.]

This confirms that the beast is atheism. It had many heads one of these heads could be atheistic science. While others could be communism, capitalism and materialism. Probably the other heads are a variation on these themes. It was Marx who denigrated religion as "the opium of the people", while atheistic science has treated the belief in a supreme God as a fairy story. So this would be the insults the beast gave to God. Communism where ever it took power banned and oppressed religions. While atheistic science has taken over the world. With the majority of people looking towards science rather than religion to solve their problems. Yet saying that the beast only had authority for forty-two months suggests its power is only temporary. As we see today were atheistic science is finding it is fighting a losing battle against the "unreason", of the paranormal, astrology, "alternative" medicine and the new-age movement.

The last sentence of the quotation poses a problem, most Christians would assume that the people who didn't worship the beast would be them. But as already pointed out the Dragon is patriarchal religion which handed its power over to atheism. As we can see all over the world, religions have compromised with atheistic science. And are now bowing down to it, as it has no answer to the power of science.

[Then I saw another beast, which came up out of the Earth. It had two horns like lambs horns, and it spoke like a Dragon. It used the vast authority of the first beast in its presence. It forced the Earth and all who live on it to worship the first beast, those wounds had healed. This second beast performed great miracles; it made fire come down out of heaven to Earth in the sight of everyone. And it deceived all the people living on Earth by means of the miracles which it was allowed to perform in the presents of the first beast.] The second beast sounds very much like technology. It is technology today that can perform "miracles", and the fire from heaven could be nuclear explosions which has been the most spectacular demonstration of the power of technology.

[The second Beast was allowed to breathe life into the image of the first beast, so that the image could talk and put to death all those who would not worship it.] Both atheistic science and technology work together, with technology coming from scientific ideas and giving them material expression and power. Technology also gives atheism authority and power, and weapon technology did allowed the atheistic communists to impose atheism onto millions of people. While western atheists have also imposed atheism onto the world, forcing people to worship it through becoming dependant on materialism.

[The beast forced all the people, small and great, rich and poor, slave and free, to have a mark placed on their right hands or on their foreheads. No one could buy or sell unless he had this mark, that is, the beast's name or the number that stands for the name.] Technology now has brought about the possibility of having a "cashless society" and instead of everyone having money or credit-cards that can be lost or stolen. There is talk about having a small electronic chip placed under the skin of people's hand or forehead. This does at first sight sounds like a good idea. But as "Conspiracy theorists" point out the electronic chip can be used also as an electronic tag. Which will allow the police or secret services to keep track off and monitor everyone in society. This could create an Orwenian nightmare, where it would be very easy for governments to impose totalitarian regimes onto the people.

It goes on to say,- [ This calls for wisdom. Whoever is intelligent can work out the meaning of the number of the beast, because the number stands for a man's name. Its number is 666.] This number has caused great speculation about who this man is, and people like Hitler and Aleister Crowley have been named as the beast 666. Though this is only wild speculation with little reason for this except these men are seen as being "evil". In Barbara G. Walker's book "The woman's Encyclopaedia of Myths and Secrets", she tells us that in ancient times the number 6 was the number of sexual intercourse, this was because it was the union between the Triple Goddesses and their consorts. The triple six then became the number of the Triple Aphrodite as she was the Goddess of love. So she claims that the beast 666 is the number of the Goddess Aphrodite.

This could be a hint as to when this will happen. Patriarchy suppressed all promiscuous sex because it was only through the rigid marriage institution that a man could know who his children were. Atheism never understood why marriage was so important to patriarchy and allowed it to deteriorate. If the beast 666 is the symbol of promiscuous sex then it would be when patriarchy is breaking down and people were free to have sex with whoever they pleased. The sexual revolution started in the west during the 1960s at the same time women's Liberation started, where people openly had sexual relations outside marriage and the oppressive laws again homosexuality were repealed. So freedom is the sign of the beast 666 this will mean the beginning of the end of patriarchy and the return of the Goddess.

Then Revelation goes on about the 144,000 that will be saved. As well as saying that they never tell lies and are faultless and they are all virgins. Now this in curious as apparently all these 144,000 are males. The word virgin is mostly used in connection with women, not men. In patriarchal marriages it is important that the bride is a virgin but not the bridegroom. As it is women who has children, she will always know who is her child. (Unless she gives birth in a modern hospital where name tags get mixed up). But for the man he can only know who are his children if he can be sure his wife is "faithful" to him. For this reason it used to be acceptable for men to have mistresses, or go to prostitutes. But for a woman to be unfaithful, was considered to be a "sin" and in the past it was punished by death. So in saying that these men are virgins could be a hint that these men are as passive as patriarchal women. Because the idea of a man who have. [Kept themselves pure by not having sexual relations with women.] Before they got married would be regarded as complete wimps in very macho patriarchal societies. As this is how macho men regard any man who admits to being a virgin.

Also an older meaning of virgin is of women who do not belong to any man and are therefore free. We have all been seduced by the materialistic society, to the degree we are dependant on it. But there have always been people who have attempted to break this dependence. Like many hippies who are into self-sufficiency or people who pay to go on courses to learn how to live off uncultivated land. So these people are attempting to be free of materialism.

Revelation goes on to say that Jesus the Lamb led all his followers to overthrow the power of the beasts. Although women today are getting more and more assertive, as pointed out in a earlier book I co-authored called "Gospel of the Goddess". Women will for a long time have smaller egos than men. So it is not easy for them to get up and say. "We can do a far better job at running the world then men". But it is a lot easier for passive men to say this. So we might have to look to these types of men to give women confidence in themselves to overthrow the patriarchal society.

Revelation then goes on to proclaim the good news that [Great Babylon has fallen.] I think it would be very easy to suggest that Babylon is the materialistic society we live in. This is made clear when it later goes on to say.- [The businessmen of the Earth also cry and mourn for her, because no one buys their goods any longer; no one buys their gold, silver, precious stones, and pearls; their goods of linen, purple cloth, silk, and scarlet cloth; all kinds of rare woods and all kinds of objects made of ivory] etc etc. [The businessmen say to her "All the good things you longed to own have disappeared, and all your wealth and glamour are gone and you will never find them again!"]

So what destroyed Babylon? It says that not only Babylon was destroyed, [and the cites in all countries were destroyed.] It seems Babylon was destroyed by an Earthquake but it doesn't say how the other cites were destroyed. Though it does discuss [The Bowls of God's Anger, these are seven bowls that angels pour on the Earth.] Bowls are another Goddess symbol like that of the Cauldron and The Holy Grail. Simply because these are all symbols of the vagina.

[The first angel went and poured out his bowl on the Earth. Terrible and painful sores appeared on those who had the mark of the beast and on those who had worshipped its image.] Doctors in recent years have had great success at combating disease through antibiotics. Unfortunately the bacteria has been able to become in time immune to these antibiotics. So scientists have to always to produce a new form to combat the new strains of bacteria. Now doctors are admitting that they are losing this war as new strains of dangerous diseases are appearing that no antibiotic can destroy. Bringing about the possibility of plagues like we experienced during the middle-ages. Another possibility is that there are food-manufactures who want to introduce new genetic engineered food. We can be sure that they will be totally irresponsible in doing this, because of the very large profits that can be made. Which will overwhelm any consideration of possible dangerous effects these foods might have. So this could result in mass food poisoning in the future.

[Then the second angel poured out his bowl on the sea. The water became like the blood of a dead person, and every living creature in the sea died.] All over the world industries are pouring millions of tons of toxic waste into the seas. As it is far cheaper to get rid off toxic waste by dumping it into the sea than to find a way to make it harmless. Scientists used to claim that the oceans where so vast that they would dilute the harmful effects of the toxins. This premise is now showing itself to be false, as there is becoming a limitation to what seas and oceans can tolerate. Already around industrial areas the water is becoming too polluted to safely swim or surf in.

[Then the third angel poured out his bowl on the rivers and the springs of water, and they turned into blood.] The pollution in many rivers and lakes have got so bad in recent years that all life in them has been destroyed.

[Then the fourth and angel poured out his bowl on the sun, and it was allowed to burn people with its fiery heat.] This is probably to do with ozone depletion. In countries like Australia people are now covering up in the sun where skin-cancer is on the increase. As the ozone-layer is becoming very thin over this continent. The same thing is now happening over Europe and Northern America where governments are advising people not to sunbathe for fear of skin-cancer.

[Then the fifth angel poured out his bowl on the throne of the beast. Darkness fell over the beast's kingdom, and people bit their tongues because of their pain.] The Beast's kingdom or throne would be the industrial factories in and around cities. Already these plants cause pollution to the degree it covers whole cities. As well as accidental releases of toxic gases that have maimed and killed many thousands of people. In places like Italy, Spain and India.

[Then the sixth angel poured out his bowl and on the great river Euphrates. The river dried up.] Recently it has been officially acknowledged that Global Warming is a fact, but how warm will the Earth become in the 21st century no one really knows. With a warmer climate and changing weather patterns caused by it, great rivers may well dry up.

The last angel destroyed Babylon with an Earthquake, it is well known that large cities like San-Francisco are built on fault-lines. This makes the possibility of a large city being destroyed by an Earthquake very likely in the near future.

The whole materialistic society can only keep going while the public has confidence in it. Experiencing the seven plagues like that mentioned in Revelation, is going to undermine people's confidence in science and technology. More so if science gets the blame for all of the plagues. This will result in large numbers of people looking for alternatives to materialism. This is what will destroy Babylon more than anything else. To quote- [The businessmen of the Earth also cry and mourn for her, because no one buys their goods any longer;] People might of stopped buying goods because they may not want to have anything to do with technology any longer. After seeing the harm it can do in the hands of irresponsible people.

Among all this carnage Revelation had one chapter on [The famous Prostitute], she is described like this,- [There I saw a woman sitting on a red beast that had names insulting to God written all over it; the beast had seven heads and ten horns. The woman was dressed in purple and scarlet, and covered with gold ornaments, precious stones, and pearls. In her hand she held a gold cup full of obscene and filthy things, the result of her immorality. On her forehead was written a name that has a secret meaning "Great Babylon, the mother of all the prostitutes and perverts in the world,"]

So what is the secret meaning about the name Great Babylon? And why is it a secret? Would it be because if the meaning became clear it would be censored? Now in reading Revelation there is a problem even though it is about Jesus, the whole tone of it is wrong. Jesus taught to "love your neighbours as yourself" and "Do not judge others" So to lead angels into destroying cities because he doesn't agree with how they behave, is not really his style. Not only that he mixed with prostitutes and spoke up for them. As with the prostitute who was about to be stoned where Jesus told the crowd, "Who is truly without sin may cast the first stone". Mary Magdalene is also supposed to be by tradition a prostitute.

The way that it is written it seems to mean that Jesus condemns prostitutes, but when we read of what he really taught in The New Testament, we find he doesn't. So the secret meaning is clearly not about this. What Revelation does seem to be saying is that Great Babylon (the materialistic society) was controlled by women before it fell. Because Great Babylon is called The Famous Prostitute also she is riding on [a red beast that had names insulting to God written all over it.] So she has taken over control of the materialistic and atheistic society, which attacks religion as a delusion. Also [she is covered with gold ornaments, precious stones, and pearls.] Which means she is a very rich and powerful woman. Now at the beginning of the 21st century we do find a few women who are very rich and powerful and some have been rulers of countries. Women are also gaining power in all other patriarchal institutions, and breaking down the "glass ceilings" that are holding them back. So in saying that Great Babylon will fall when women start to rule society is a confirmation when it will happen.

She is also called, [the mother of all the prostitutes and perverts in the world.] In recent years some prostitutes have became more dominant and call themselves Dominatrices. Although many Dominatrices deny that they are prostitutes, as they see prostitutes as being too passive. With many being dominated and abused by pimps, and doing whatever the client want them to do. While they are certainly not passive and dominate men instead. The perverts would of course be the Dominatrice's clients, who would be seen that way by most of society. As they pay these Dominatrices to bound, whip, humiliate and abuse them. Some will also pay to worship and kiss the feet and bottom of the Dominatrix or drink her urine. So it suggests that this trend will grow and sadistic women and masochistic men will grow in number, until it becomes "normal".

But calling her a prostitute can have another meaning. The saying "To prostitute yourself," means that a person does something he doesn't believe in, but does it for money and power. Now that women are beginning to learn how to love themselves. The only role model they have, is patriarchal men. Who are extremely selfish and aggressive and haven't learn as yet how to care for and love others. So many women today are trying to act, dress and behave like men. In the "dog eat dog" patriarchal society women only see two choices, either they love others and are taken advantaged of by patriarchal men. Or they suppress all what they have learnt about loving and caring for others and behave like patriarchal men. So many rich and powerful women today have to behave in a way they do not really agree with. But feel that they have no choice in doing this to gain power and status in the patriarchal society.

This is confirmed when it goes on to say,- [And I saw that the women was drunk with the blood of God's people and the blood of those who were killed because they had been loyal to Jesus.] So these powerful women have become patriarchs themselves. A good example of this would be Margaret Thatcher who held very strong patriarchal views. While in power she never acknowledged any debt or companionship with the women's movement. She never helped in anyway other women to gain power, by never allowing another woman in her cabinet. And even gave speeches and passed laws to encourage women to "go back to the home". So she was part of the "backlash" that the women's movement experienced during the nineteen eighties. She never showed any compassion for the poor or deprived, as you would expect from a woman. And she came across as a completely ruthless women, who saw any feelings of caring for others as a "weakness".

The chapter goes on to talk about a number of kings who rule for a while who then are defeated by the Lamb. This probably means their used to be many patriarchal ages in the past, which were replaced by matriarchal ages.

The chapter finishes by saying that,- [the beast, will hate the prostitute; they will take away everything she has and leave her naked; they will eat her flesh and destroy her with fire. For God purpose by acting together and giving the beast their power to rule until God's words come true.] This is exactly what happened to Margaret Thatcher when she was Prime Minister of Britain. She had been the most successful Prime Minister in Britain this century. She had won three elections, and had fought well for what her party believed in. By breaking the power of the unions and privatising most of the state's ownership of industry. Then, after all what she had achieved, her party turned against her, attacked and humiliated her and threw her out of office. The same thing happened also more recently to Benazir Bhutto, she was elected prime minster of Pakistan in 1988 and was deposed by a military coup in 1990. More recently she became prime minister again but again she was betrayed, slandered and deposed.

Though clearly this prophecy is not only about Margaret Thatcher or Benazir Bhutto, in the future many other women will become rulers of countries. The chapter finishes by saying,- ["The woman you saw is the great city that rules over the kings of the Earth."] There is not today one city that rules over the rest of the world. But the most powerful and materialistic society today is the USA, where women in comparison to most other countries have great power. So it could mean that Great Babylon is the USA, who has the military and economic power to tell all the other nations of the world what to do. We know today that women do not rule the USA, but they are getting there. So is it suggesting that one day there will be a women President of the USA? And when this happens, then there will be a patriarchal back-lash. Where a war between patriarchy and matriarchy will start and Kali will be let loose.

After the fall of Great Babylon, Revelation then goes on to a chapter on The Wedding-Feast of the Lamb, the bride is hardly mentioned at all except to say [She has been given clean shining linen to wear. (The linen is the good deeds of God's people).] Now this can be put down as a typical patriarchal oversight. Except that towards the end of Revelation it turns out that the Bride is The New Jerusalem. Which does suggest that The New Jerusalem like the Great Babylon will be ruled by women.

This would suggest that after the materialistic society collapses. Many people will then create an alternative and genuine matriarchal Society. The clean shining linen, the bride wears a symbol that she is now no long contaminated by patriarchal thinking. So is therefore able to be dominant and caring at the same time. While the Lamb is of course the passive man who is willing to accept her domination.

The next chapter reads very much like the Kali stories, where all the armies of the Beasts are defeated and slaughtered by.- [The Rider on the White Horse,] who,- [Out of his mouth came a sharp sword, with which he will defeat the nations.] As pointed out before this is a very strange place to hold and use a sword. Which suggests a link with Kali who is nearly always shown with her tongue sticking out. It goes on to say.- [He will rule over them with a rod of iron, and will trample out the wine in the winepress of the furious anger of the Almighty God.] As pointed out earlier according to Revelation it is Jesus who will rule the world. So this figure must be Jesus, except that to [rule over them with a rod of iron,] or to slaughter great armies. Is not really his style, and not the sort of behaviour you would expect from a Lamb. To [trample out the wine] is a Kali symbol as she tramples all over Siva, and in her stories she also has a [furious anger] as she slaughters demons.

So the chapter suggests a war between the patriarchal and matercentic societies. Whether it will be a physical war or more a war of words and ideas is hard to say. If it is a physical war it may not be only about Amazons fighting patriarchal soldiers on the battle-field. There will probably be many "lambs" who will also lay down there lives for their mistresses. Also there will be many patriarchal women fighting for patriarchy. Though how it reads in both Revelation and the Kali stories it sounds more like a slaughter of the patriarchal forces than a war. This has been true of many battles in the past. Where brilliant war leaders like Napoleon or Alexander the Great, when confronted with incompetently lead forces have turned battles into little more that slaughters. [The Beast was taken prisoner, together with the false prophet who had performed miracles in his presence.] Which suggests that science and technology. Who make predictions of the future and perform technological "miracles". Will now be in the hands of matriarchal women.

[Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding in his hand the key of the abyss an a heavy chain. He seized the dragon, that ancient serpent - that is, the Devil, or Satan and chained him up for a thousand years.] The ancient meaning of the abyss was the genital orifice of the Great Mother from which all creation came. So this could be a symbol of us all returning to the Great Mother. After a thousand years the dragon is let loose again. So it is again about the cycle of patriarchal and matriarchal societies.

Then comes The final Judgement, which finishes by saying [Whoever did not have his name written in the book of the living was thrown into the lake of fire.] Again it has to be said that judging and condemning others was not Jesus's style. What it probably means is that people who still are patriarchal in attitude, will soon die out. And only people who are matriarchal in character would be reincarnated on the Earth during the coming matriarchal age.

Then there is [The New Heaven and the New Earth,] This suggests that in a matriarchal society there will be a new reality. Which means in a matriarchal society everything on the Earth will become different. Because people will treat it in a different way. While in heaven there will be no longer an angry judgmental God or no God at all. So the New Heaven will be The Goddess who loves us all unconditionally.

The new Jerusalem appears and a loud voice says.- [It is done! I am the first and the last, the beginning and the end. To anyone who is thirsty I will give the right to drink from the spring of the water of life without paying for it. Whoever wins the victory will receive this from me: I will be his God, and he will be my son.] In saying that he is the first and last, it was Christianity that started the first truly patriarchal religion throughout Europe and later the world. That is to say a religion that worshipped a God without no Goddesses in it. Then when Matriarchy comes into being it will come about when men adopt the true teachings of Jesus and become like lambs. So in a sense it was Jesus who started the truly patriarchal age and it will be him who will end it. Or it could again be a reference to the matriarchal/patriarchal cycle.

He says that he "will give anyone the right to drink without paying for it". This is a hint that a matriarchal society will be completely different from a patriarchal society where probably ownership and trade will no longer exist. In saying that "we will all be sons of God", means that in matriarchal terms we will all be the children of the Goddess. The victory is the realisation that the Goddess loves us all unconditionally, because we are her children and will always be there for us if we allow her to.

The next chapter in on the new Jerusalem.- [One of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues came to me and said, "Come and I will show you the Bride, the wife of the Lamb." The spirit took control of me, and the angel carried me to the top of a very high mountain. He showed me Jerusalem the Holy City, coming down out of heaven from God.] It then goes on to describe Jerusalem but didn't mention the wife of the lamb of God again. This oversight can be explained by the wife of the Lamb being Jerusalem. Which confirms that the new Jerusalem is a matriarchal society.

The New Jerusalem is described as,- [The city has no need of the sun or the moon, because the glory of God shines on it.] In other words this society instead of relying on matter for life, relies only on the support of The Great Mother. Then it goes on to say,- [And the Lamb is its lamp.] Which suggests that the Lamb is the lesser light, that is to say, lesser to the glory of the Goddess and the women who represent her on the Earth. [The gates of the city will stand open all day; they will never be closed, because there will be no night there.] This reminds one of the ancient Goddess city of Catal Huyuk, which never had city-walls at all and stood undefended for thousands of years. So it is suggesting that their no longer be any need to defend the city as there will be no longer any warfare. In saying that there will never be any night there is restating that the light of the Goddess will always be there to look after the city.

Then Jesus appears, he prevents John bowing down to him by saying [Don't do it! I am a fellow-servant of your...] perhaps this means a fellow-servant of the women who now rule. It certainly means that this is the humble Jesus we read about in the Gospels. He goes on to say.- ["Whoever is evil must go on doing evil, and whoever is filthy must go on being filthy; whoever is good must go on doing good, and whoever is holy must go on being holy."] This sounds more like the true Jesus who does not judge others and allows them to be themselves. During the patriarchal age men had to learn how to love themselves, while women learnt to love others. No blame can be put on to anyone for learning these lessons. So it is pointless to condemn a patriarchal man for being selfish and sadistic, as it is to condemn a patriarchal woman for being "weak" and masochistic. So it does mean that the author of Revelation did understand the true nature of Jesus. So in portraying him like an Old Testament prophet was only a way to allow Revelation to survive the patriarchal age, uncensored.

Jesus finishes by referring himself as [the bright morning star], which is a slight surprise as this is the planet Venus, who was named after a Goddess. Though John probably wouldn't know the planet Venus by this name. The original Semites name of the planet Venus was originally named after the Goddess Attart. In historic times the planet's name was changed to Attar a Semites God. Though there was a problem with this as Attar did later become the Goddess Ishtar. If the author was aware of the changing sex of the planet Venus among Semites people. This could be a way of trying to tell us something. Like, what is known as a God in one age, becomes a Goddess in another.

Also the Morning Star was also the name of Lucifer the "light-bringer". Later on Lucifer became one of the names of the Christian Devil. So to have Jesus call himself the Devil creates a problem.

This ambiguity continues in the next line which goes.- [The Spirit and the Bride say, "Come!"] We would assume that the Spirit was Jesus, but up until then it wasn't mentioned that he had the Bride with him and why suddenly called Jesus "the spirit". This could be a patriarchal oversight or it could be allowing us to question the sex of Jesus, and therefor of God.

In Conclusion John shows that he fears the censors of the future by threatening with punishment and plagues, to anyone who censors or adds to the book. Whether this was ever done is hard to say, but it probably escaped censorship because what is says only starts to make sense towards the end of the twentieth century.

So in conclusion, the story of Kali seems to be about women taking control of the world. While Revelation is about the same thing but suggests it will bring about a new reality. Revelation has been seen by many people as a "Doom and Gloom" prophecy about the end of the world. Which is probably true, but only of the patriarchal world. The New Jerusalem gives the possibility of a far better world for as all when the patriarchal world we live in has been destroyed.

We have already witnessed in our history how one world-view can change from one reality to another. When the reality of patriarchal religions was replaced by the reality of physical science. This then could in turn be taken over by the reality of a loving and caring Mother Goddess. So the apocalypse may hopefully be in the end, a war of words and ideas. Resulting in a better reality for us all.

Quotes come from the Good News Edition of the New Testament.

In the present generation of young women there are many who wish to be "bad". In the past a "bad girl" was simply a girl who had sex outside marriage. Then a generation ago a "bad girl" was someone who wanted a career rather than children, or made her husband do the washing up, help with the housework and change the nappies. In this present generation this is no longer seen as "bad" by most people and it is becoming normal. So "bad girls" today are having to be worse than this to be bad.

Many educators have point out that school girl bullies today are far worse than school boy bullies. To the degree that there have been many girls driven to suicide because of these girl bullies. In the past we had in marriage, wife-beaters and feminists had to organize women's refuges for women regularly beaten up by their husbands. Today we now have men's refuges where men can go to get away from violent wives who beat them up.

Also in domestic violence there was, and still are, many cases where the husband would kill his wife. Now there are many well publicized cases where wives have started to kill their husbands. This is what is seen as being bad today though feminists have protested at the jailing of women who have killed their husbands saying they had a perfect right to do so. Which makes you wonder if in another generation this will also become "normal".

The trend today seems to be of women becoming more like men, they are not only becoming as assertive and aggressive as men but as violent as them as well. This is worrying because if this trend continues where will it end?

During the patriarchal age as men strived to gain larger egos. It was usual for them to be competitive with each other to the degree that they killed each other. This not only happened in warfare but in sporting games. Before the nineteenth century in England where rules on football were laid down, most European countries had games of football that had very few rules. In these games not only were people badly injured but many were killed playing the game. So this meant that many men in an effort to win a game were willing to go far as to murder men of the opposing side.

Even today this sort of behaviour goes on. Recently in the game of Rugby in Australia it became usual when a number of players tackled a member of the opposing side to give a "piledriver tackle". That is to say they would lift the person up off the ground, then throw him back down on his head. Which makes you wonder at the mentality of the people doing the tackling. Because not only it is possible to kill a person doing this, it is possible to damage his neck or spine so badly he could end up paralysed. It also didn't seem to occur to any of them, that the opposing side might do the same to them. And new Rugby laws had to be made to prevent this practice.

In warfare, men have shown complete disregard for the suffering created. Alexander the Great conquered countries for no other reason than to boost his ego, the very fact that in doing this he was causing great suffering and wrecking thousands of people's lives never occurred to him. The same can be said of other conquers like Julius Caesar, Attila the Hun, Napoleon and Hitler. In the twentieth century men have created and use weapons like machine-guns, napalm, land-mines and nuclear weapons. Again with very little thought of what effect it has on people when these weapons are used on them, resulting in millions of people in this century being killed by these weapons and even whole cities being destroyed by them.

For the sake of his ego man have been more than willing to inflict suffering onto others. To the degree where some men in medieval torture chambers in Nazi Germany and in the Cambodia when Po-pot ruled, have openly enjoyed deliberately inflicting great pain and suffering onto other people. Apparently they have enjoyed the power-trip and ego-boost experienced in doing this. So it became an extreme form of bullying.

In the past except for a few cases like Joan-Of-Arc or the Amazons all forms of violence have been perpetrated by men. Even today this is in most cases still true. In the recent civil-wars as in former Yugoslavia and Rwanda it was men who were doing all the shooting, torturing and "ethnic-cleansing" of their former neighbours. There were very few reports of women joining in this killing spree. Even so it is clear that women are capable of doing these sort of things. The Nazis unlike other very right-wing regimes weren't anti-feminists. Because of this a few women did get involved in the extermination of the Jews in concentration camps and the torturing of people by the Gestapo.

So as the matriarchal age dawns there will inevitably be far more violence inflicted onto men by women, who will claim this to be just paying men back for the ceaseless violence they have inflicted onto women in the patriarchal age. Already Dominatrices admit to greatly enjoying whipping and torturing their clients. While other women have admitted to having male castration sexual fantasies.

In resent years women have found themselves in situations where they have power over men, who are not masochist as in the case of a Dominatrix and her client. Margaret Thatcher as a minister and later prime minister had considerable power over civil servants and other ministers. There are many reports that she treated these men in an appalling manner, verbally abusing them and putting them down, which they had to put up with to keep their jobs and status. The fact that many of these men were not masochistic is shown when at the end of her reign when she showed weakness these men were quick to stab her in the back.

A similar situation is happening with many powerful businesswomen. Not all women in power will abuse their position and are able to show love and care for the people under them. But there are others who really enjoy the "power trip" of bossing other people about, to the degree that they behave far worse than what an extremely patriarchal man would behave. And in the conditions of today of high unemployment women are able to get away with this behaviour. As they verbally abuse and humiliate men who cannot afford to answer back, and may not be masochistic but who cannot afford to answer back for fear of losing their jobs.

At present violence against men by women is limited because men are still bigger and stronger. So a woman can only inflict violence onto men at present if the man is very masochistic. When women start to rule society this situation could quickly change and women could start to inflict violence and humilation onto men who are not masochistic. And laws could be passed where for crimes like rape and child-abuse men could be castrated. This is already happening in Norway where male sex-offenders are punished by castration.

So are we going to have a situation in the future where women will inflict the same amount violence onto men as men inflicted onto women in the patriarchal age? This is a possibility, but we have also to accept that men and women are different. On a scientific level it is the hormone testosterone that makes men more aggressive and violent than women. Women are capable of becoming aggressive and violent, but it is very doubtful if they will get anywhere near the casual violence and aggression of men. Sportswomen can get close to this by injecting themselves with testosterone, but as there are great health risks involved with this it is doubtful if women will continue to do this in the future.

In the patriarchal age women have learnt all there is to know about unconditional love. As the matriarchal age dawns she still retains all her knowledge and understanding of unconditional love. At present many women see unconditional love as a weakness as they attempt to compete with men for power and status. So they suppress it by wanting and learning to be "bad".

In the change over from patriarchy to matriarchy, many women will continue to be like this probably getting even "Badder" than they are now. But when the new matriarchal society comes into being women will no longer need to compete with men, so will have no reason to suppress their unconditional love.

Women will continue to compete with each other as many matriarchal women do today. Because their growing egos will demand that they try to prove themselves to be better than other women. In the patriarchal age men have inflicted great suffering onto others for the sake of their ego growth. Many women today are starting to do the same, as pointed out at the beginning of this article.

Men in recent years have began to learn how to compete with others without necessarily hating the person they compete against. We can see this very clearly in sports, where in, say, a boxing match where two boxers might insult each other before a fight. Then in the fight itself try to inflict maximum damage to each other with their fists but after the fight is over will embrace and praise each other for how well the other fought. Sportswomen also have learnt this same lesson and although they will compete with each other very strongly, they are capable of afterwards of kissing and congratulating each other.

This is a lesson all women need to learn as they become more matriarchal and egoistic. Matriarchal women need to realize that all matriarchal women are looking for ways to feed their egos. The school bully acts the way she does because her victim is generally either cleverer then she is, or comes from a more privileged background. The growing ego of the bully makes her jealous so she tries to make herself superior to her victim through verbal or physical abuse. To condemn the bully doesn't help her because to her it is another put-down and she then has to find other ways to boost her ego. It has to be recognised that the bully behaves the way she does because she needs her ego boosting. So matriarchal women will need to learn in the future how to cooperate with each other in ways that feed each other's egos.

Men were not able to cooperate with each other to any degree in the patriarchal age because they didn't learnt how to love others so the other was the enemy. While at the same time women learnt all about unconditional love, because she is now beginning to learn how to love herself, it doesn't mean she has to suppress all that she has learnt about unconditional love for others. Men made, and are continuing to make, mistakes in the patriarchal age, because to put it is the words of Jesus "they know not what they do". Women don't have this excuse, because they will have all the mistakes of the patriarchal age laid out before them, together with the ability to love others unconditionally which they have learnt during the patriarchal age. This will give them the chance to change the pattern of how society was controlled in the patriarchal era. Women will also make mistakes but unlike men will be able to learn from their mistakes and change their behaviour. Men in the patriarchal age had no alternative to the way they behaved but women do have this alterative, and have the understanding and means to develop their egos without inflicting great suffering onto other people.

In the present generation of young women there are many who wish to be "bad". In the past a "bad girl" was simply a girl who had sex outside marriage. Then a generation ago a "bad girl" was someone who wanted a career rather than children, or made her husband do the washing up, help with the housework and change the nappies. In this present generation this is no longer seen as "bad" by most people and it is becoming normal. So "bad girls" today are having to be worse than this to be bad.

Many educators have point out that school girl bullies today are far worse than school boy bullies. To the degree that there have been many girls driven to suicide because of these girl bullies. In the past we had in marriage, wife-beaters and feminists had to organize women's refuges for women regularly beaten up by their husbands. Today we now have men's refuges where men can go to get away from violent wives who beat them up.

Also in domestic violence there was, and still are, many cases where the husband would kill his wife. Now there are many well publicized cases where wives have started to kill their husbands. This is what is seen as being bad today though feminists have protested at the jailing of women who have killed their husbands saying they had a perfect right to do so. Which makes you wonder if in another generation this will also become "normal".

The trend today seems to be of women becoming more like men, they are not only becoming as assertive and aggressive as men but as violent as them as well. This is worrying because if this trend continues where will it end?

During the patriarchal age as men strived to gain larger egos. It was usual for them to be competitive with each other to the degree that they killed each other. This not only happened in warfare but in sporting games. Before the nineteenth century in England where rules on football were laid down, most European countries had games of football that had very few rules. In these games not only were people badly injured but many were killed playing the game. So this meant that many men in an effort to win a game were willing to go far as to murder men of the opposing side.

Even today this sort of behaviour goes on. Recently in the game of Rugby in Australia it became usual when a number of players tackled a member of the opposing side to give a "piledriver tackle". That is to say they would lift the person up off the ground, then throw him back down on his head. Which makes you wonder at the mentality of the people doing the tackling. Because not only it is possible to kill a person doing this, it is possible to damage his neck or spine so badly he could end up paralysed. It also didn't seem to occur to any of them, that the opposing side might do the same to them. And new Rugby laws had to be made to prevent this practice.

In warfare, men have shown complete disregard for the suffering created. Alexander the Great conquered countries for no other reason than to boost his ego, the very fact that in doing this he was causing great suffering and wrecking thousands of people's lives never occurred to him. The same can be said of other conquers like Julius Caesar, Attila the Hun, Napoleon and Hitler. In the twentieth century men have created and use weapons like machine-guns, napalm, land-mines and nuclear weapons. Again with very little thought of what effect it has on people when these weapons are used on them, resulting in millions of people in this century being killed by these weapons and even whole cities being destroyed by them.

For the sake of his ego man have been more than willing to inflict suffering onto others. To the degree where some men in medieval torture chambers in Nazi Germany and in the Cambodia when Po-pot ruled, have openly enjoyed deliberately inflicting great pain and suffering onto other people. Apparently they have enjoyed the power-trip and ego-boost experienced in doing this. So it became an extreme form of bullying.

In the past except for a few cases like Joan-Of-Arc or the Amazons all forms of violence have been perpetrated by men. Even today this is in most cases still true. In the recent civil-wars as in former Yugoslavia and Rwanda it was men who were doing all the shooting, torturing and "ethnic-cleansing" of their former neighbours. There were very few reports of women joining in this killing spree. Even so it is clear that women are capable of doing these sort of things. The Nazis unlike other very right-wing regimes weren't anti-feminists. Because of this a few women did get involved in the extermination of the Jews in concentration camps and the torturing of people by the Gestapo.

So as the matriarchal age dawns there will inevitably be far more violence inflicted onto men by women, who will claim this to be just paying men back for the ceaseless violence they have inflicted onto women in the patriarchal age. Already Dominatrices admit to greatly enjoying whipping and torturing their clients. While other women have admitted to having male castration sexual fantasies.

In resent years women have found themselves in situations where they have power over men, who are not masochist as in the case of a Dominatrix and her client. Margaret Thatcher as a minister and later prime minister had considerable power over civil servants and other ministers. There are many reports that she treated these men in an appalling manner, verbally abusing them and putting them down, which they had to put up with to keep their jobs and status. The fact that many of these men were not masochistic is shown when at the end of her reign when she showed weakness these men were quick to stab her in the back.

A similar situation is happening with many powerful businesswomen. Not all women in power will abuse their position and are able to show love and care for the people under them. But there are others who really enjoy the "power trip" of bossing other people about, to the degree that they behave far worse than what an extremely patriarchal man would behave. And in the conditions of today of high unemployment women are able to get away with this behaviour. As they verbally abuse and humiliate men who cannot afford to answer back, and may not be masochistic but who cannot afford to answer back for fear of losing their jobs.

At present violence against men by women is limited because men are still bigger and stronger. So a woman can only inflict violence onto men at present if the man is very masochistic. When women start to rule society this situation could quickly change and women could start to inflict violence and humilation onto men who are not masochistic. And laws could be passed where for crimes like rape and child-abuse men could be castrated. This is already happening in Norway where male sex-offenders are punished by castration.

So are we going to have a situation in the future where women will inflict the same amount violence onto men as men inflicted onto women in the patriarchal age? This is a possibility, but we have also to accept that men and women are different. On a scientific level it is the hormone testosterone that makes men more aggressive and violent than women. Women are capable of becoming aggressive and violent, but it is very doubtful if they will get anywhere near the casual violence and aggression of men. Sportswomen can get close to this by injecting themselves with testosterone, but as there are great health risks involved with this it is doubtful if women will continue to do this in the future.

In the patriarchal age women have learnt all there is to know about unconditional love. As the matriarchal age dawns she still retains all her knowledge and understanding of unconditional love. At present many women see unconditional love as a weakness as they attempt to compete with men for power and status. So they suppress it by wanting and learning to be "bad".

In the change over from patriarchy to matriarchy, many women will continue to be like this probably getting even "Badder" than they are now. But when the new matriarchal society comes into being women will no longer need to compete with men, so will have no reason to suppress their unconditional love.

Women will continue to compete with each other as many matriarchal women do today. Because their growing egos will demand that they try to prove themselves to be better than other women. In the patriarchal age men have inflicted great suffering onto others for the sake of their ego growth. Many women today are starting to do the same, as pointed out at the beginning of this article.

Men in recent years have began to learn how to compete with others without necessarily hating the person they compete against. We can see this very clearly in sports, where in, say, a boxing match where two boxers might insult each other before a fight. Then in the fight itself try to inflict maximum damage to each other with their fists but after the fight is over will embrace and praise each other for how well the other fought. Sportswomen also have learnt this same lesson and although they will compete with each other very strongly, they are capable of afterwards of kissing and congratulating each other.

This is a lesson all women need to learn as they become more matriarchal and egoistic. Matriarchal women need to realize that all matriarchal women are looking for ways to feed their egos. The school bully acts the way she does because her victim is generally either cleverer then she is, or comes from a more privileged background. The growing ego of the bully makes her jealous so she tries to make herself superior to her victim through verbal or physical abuse. To condemn the bully doesn't help her because to her it is another put-down and she then has to find other ways to boost her ego. It has to be recognised that the bully behaves the way she does because she needs her ego boosting. So matriarchal women will need to learn in the future how to cooperate with each other in ways that feed each other's egos.

Men were not able to cooperate with each other to any degree in the patriarchal age because they didn't learnt how to love others so the other was the enemy. While at the same time women learnt all about unconditional love, because she is now beginning to learn how to love herself, it doesn't mean she has to suppress all that she has learnt about unconditional love for others. Men made, and are continuing to make, mistakes in the patriarchal age, because to put it is the words of Jesus "they know not what they do". Women don't have this excuse, because they will have all the mistakes of the patriarchal age laid out before them, together with the ability to love others unconditionally which they have learnt during the patriarchal age. This will give them the chance to change the pattern of how society was controlled in the patriarchal era. Women will also make mistakes but unlike men will be able to learn from their mistakes and change their behaviour. Men in the patriarchal age had no alternative to the way they behaved but women do have this alterative, and have the understanding and means to develop their egos without inflicting great suffering onto other people.

There is a story that the great German philosopher, Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche became insane when he saw a donkey being beaten by a man. On a superficial level this story sounds silly and is used by Nietzsche's detractors to make him look foolish. Yet on a deeper level it shows a problem that all men have: Most normal men, if suddenly faced with feelings that give him real distress, like seeing a animal suffer, may start to worry that he is going "soft". But someone like Nietzsche being highly intelligent, self-aware and imaginative, clearly saw the implication of this. He understood that once a man begins to empathize with others, he is at the mercy of a bottomless pit of human suffering.

Another famous philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre had the same problem because he once commented that; "the other is hell", indicating that he also had difficulty with his feeling of empathy with others. The other is not hell for a man who cares only for himself, or for a woman who cares only for others and not herself. The other can only become hell, when people begin to feel love for both themselves and others at the same time. Because the needs what you want and desire and the needs of what others want of you can be very different. This then will create inner conflict.

A man who is totally selfish and cares nothing for others can be very strong and macho. This allows great conquerors like Alexander the Great, Napoleon Bonaparte and Hitler to start wars with other countries and be unconcerned and even unaware of the suffering they inflicting on thousands or even millions of other people. In the second world war the Germans had no problem in recruiting young men to be concentration camp guards, while the allies had no problems in recruiting airmen to bomb German cities day and night, killing millions of women and children. This behavior is only possible by men who are not in contact with the feelings and suffering of others. I remember once reading about a famous pilot in the Battle of Britain. He had shot down many German planes and had been excited whenever he had done this. Yet in one instance he had shot down a German fighter and had got close to it while it was going down in flames and he could see clearly the pilot struggling to get out of the burning plane. He was then shocked to realize there were real human beings like himself in the planes he had shot down. It may sound crazy that a man who is fighting a war didn't realize that in the process he was killing other people. Yet the reason for this would be that when men start to be aware of the feelings of others they have to go into denial to continue to enjoy macho pursuits like fighting wars. Any man who enjoys watching violent films is doing exactly the same thing. He is so caught up in the excitement of the film that he is unaware of the suffering involved in the film, if it was acted out in real life.

Yet, this is something that women have to face every day. The feminine is at one with everything. In other words she empathizes with others, because being at one with others, it becomes automatic that other people's feelings become her feelings. The masculine on the other hand is individual and in its purest form the man is only aware of his own feeling and totally unaware of the feelings of others. This is why it is possible for patriarchal leaders to declare war on other countries and be unaffected by the great suffering that a war will cause.

But in recent times men have changed. Many men today are no longer able to be unaware of the feelings of others and this is causing them real problems. For instance, a women I know had what was seen on the surface as the perfect husband. Her friends called her husband a saint because he seemed to devote his whole life to making her happy. He didn't even have problems about her having affairs with other men. If it made her happy then he was happy. Yet she knew there was a real problem with the relationship.

What she discovered was that he was completely devoted to her only while she was happy and optimistic. When problems came into her life and she wasn't happy and needed comfort, then he changed completely and wouldn't respond to her. So she was forced to go to friends for help and comfort if she got upset about anything. Then later when major disasters happened in her life over the death of her father and a miscarriage, he became completely cold and uncaring. He would leave the room if she was crying, and even became angry with her because she was unhappy. For obvious reasons the relationship broke up. But his uncaring nature continued in that he didn't seem to want to have anything to do with their daughter. He resisted paying anything for her in spite of the fact he had a well paying job, and later made his daughter unwelcome when she was old enough to visit him.

So what is the problem? Why would a very caring and loving man suddenly turn into a cold and uncaring monster? The man, in learning how to empathize with others, discovered that empathy was very joyful and easy when he was empathizing with someone who was very happy. Their happiness became his happiness. But when he found that the person he was in love with was also able to be very unhappy he then had a problem. Her unhappiness immediately became his unhappiness. So his solution to this problem was to run away from her until she got over it. But when major crises came into her life which didn't allow her to get over her unhappiness quickly, he found himself having to be very cold and uncaring towards his wife to protect himself from her unhappiness. Later he was to do the same thing to his own child. He didn't want to feel his love for his child, in case the child became unhappy which would strongly affect him.

This seems to be a problem for other men. I know personally of a young woman who became convinced that her father hated her as a child because whenever she cried he would immediately become very angry and sarcastic with her. Yet in many other ways he did show he was a caring man. Again it was clear to me the father couldn't cope with his daughter when she become distressed.

What many women are discovering today is that they find men who are a real "Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde". These men seem to be very caring and loving and then suddenly will turn on them and become uncaring monsters. Men who begin to learn how to empathize with others will naturally only want the joyful part of empathy. Where empathy becomes a nightmare is when the person he is empathizing with becomes unhappy and has no control over the situation because it is another person's unhappiness. While she is unhappy he is going to be unhappy and so he is at the mercy of another person's feelings. Some husbands in this situation then can become very angry with their wives and children. He is telling himself; "why should I have to be unhappy because they are unhappy". This can result in many men physically attacking wives and children simply because they express unhappiness. Certainly there have been many court cases where a man has killed his own baby because the baby was crying too much. While the wife or girlfriend protest that she cannot understand it because he is normally a very kind and caring man.

Women themselves have a similar problem. It was easy in the patriarchal age for a woman to empathize with everyone else while she didn't care for herself. Now in recent years women are beginning to find they have real problems in empathy with others, when they begin to be aware of their own feelings. As with men it can be wonderful when they become aware of their own happiness as well that of others. Before they were always happy when their husbands and children were happy. Now by being aware of their own happiness, they can become even more happy and joyful. Unfortunately when things go wrong they can also be aware of their own misery.

In the past if a woman had a husband who wanted to spend all his money on drink and gambling, she might fight him for enough money to feed and cloth their children. But if she ended up with nothing it wasn't a problem for her, because the needs of her husband and children came first. But women today find that if they end up with nothing it is a real problem for them, because they are aware of their own needs as well. Many women today find themselves in a "no-win" position if they live with a irresponsible man. They are able to be strong enough to say clearly to their husbands: "No, you cannot spend all our money on drink, gambling, cars and computer games". Yet she can be still be unhappy and feel guilty about denying her husband what he wants. However if she was to give in to these feeling and give him what he wants and deny herself, she would also feel unhappy. It is no wonder that heterosexual women complain today that with men; "you can't live with them and you can't live without them".

It can get even more difficult than this: What women find wonderful about having a caring husband is that she finds she can make him happy by being happy herself. So a virtuous cycle can be created; she can feed off his happiness and he can feed off her happiness. Unfortunately the opposite can be true. If a woman lives with a caring man she might find that if she is unhappy it makes him unhappy, so she can feel guilty about being unhappy. This can then create a vicious cycle where both partners feed off each other's unhappiness, making the situation worse and worse.

For this reason many women having had a relationship with a caring man, will leave him to go back to a more selfish man. She knows that with a "strong" macho and selfish man he will not be concerned about her unhappiness. So the relationship cannot go into a vicious cycle where the unhappiness of both partners will strongly affect the other. Unfortunately what she will find is that it is impossible to change a very selfish man. If he has a behavior pattern that makes her unhappy, like spending all the money they have on himself or treating the children badly. She is totally unable to influence him in any way, because he doesn't care if what he wants to do will make others unhappy. But a man who is able to empathize with her, knows full well that if his partner is unhappy he will be unhappy. He then has a powerful reason to do all he can to make his wife or girlfriend happy.

So heterosexual women have two choices: They can have a man who is able to love and empathize with them. But they find he has real problems if they becomes unhappy. Or women stick to very selfish men, who are able to cope with women becoming unhappy, and will probably be more helpful in this situation. The downside is that there is nothing a woman can do, if he wants to behave in a way that makes her unhappy. She cannot appeal to his better nature because it is unlikely that he has one.

It would be very easy if we could give a quick and easy solution, as you see with many of these "self help" books., but real life is not like this. Women have had many lifetimes of knowing how to care for others during the patriarchal age. Today if a woman gives birth to say a mentally retarded child, it is fairly normal for that woman to devote her whole life to caring for it, even into adulthood. On the other hand it would be very unusual for a man to do this. He might help his wife look after a mentally retarded child, but he would be very unlikely to take full responsibility and back off when the going gets too tough.

So we can see that compared with women men are just beginners at learning how to empathize and care for others. They haven't been exposed to thousands if not millions of years of a powerful maternal instinct that makes women want to care for children, animals and men. Many men today may have strong desires to love and care for others. But when they have to put these feelings into practice and face the misery, unhappiness and sacrifice these feelings cause, they often back off. It certainly helps a lot if the man can also experience the joy of empathy, to experience the joy in giving a Dominant Woman pleasure and to be able to worship her as if she was a Goddess. But he has to accept the whole package; learn how to experience both the joy and misery of empathy with others.

For this reason many men today have become very frightened of empathizing with others. They do not want to be at the mercy of other people's feelings, so they practice being very hard macho men. The same time women are finding it hard to learn to love themselves while loving others. A woman who is learning to love herself finds that she is always betraying herself by putting the needs of children and men before her own. She might then choose to learn to hate men and even learn to hate children, seeing it as a way to prevent her from sacrificing herself for others.

We as a human race are standing at a cross roads. We have before us two choices; one is of a far better future than we could dream is possible for the human race. The other is a far worse future, if that is possible. In the patriarchal age we only had one half of the human race behaving totally selfishly with no regard for the feelings of others. If in the future men continue to resist empathy because they do not wish to feel the suffering of others. While at the same time women continue to learn how to love themselves by hating other people. Then it means that all men and women will be fearing and hating each other. In the patriarchal age men mostly killed each other as well as women and children in wars because they feared and hated each other. But at least it was only 50% of the population doing this. It women were to join in and learn hate and violence from men then the whole of human kind would be behaving in this insane way. In such a situation the human race would quickly become extinct.

The alternative to this is that men stop resisting their desires to empathize with others, and women do not go down the path of learning to love themselves by hating others. That is to say they stick to learning how to love themselves and love others at the same time. The positive thing about this all is that it gives human kind a far better future. The suffering caused in the patriarchal age was caused by the dominant sex, (men) being unable to care and empathize with others. With men in the future learning how to empathize, and Women not suppressing their ability to do this. It means both sexes will be motivated to create a far more loving and caring world.

First published at. -

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DivineGoddess

There is a story that the great German philosopher, Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche became insane when he saw a donkey being beaten by a man. On a superficial level this story sounds silly and is used by Nietzsche's detractors to make him look foolish. Yet on a deeper level it shows a problem that all men have: Most normal men, if suddenly faced with feelings that give him real distress, like seeing a animal suffer, may start to worry that he is going "soft". But someone like Nietzsche being highly intelligent, self-aware and imaginative, clearly saw the implication of this. He understood that once a man begins to empathize with others, he is at the mercy of a bottomless pit of human suffering.

Another famous philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre had the same problem because he once commented that; "the other is hell", indicating that he also had difficulty with his feeling of empathy with others. The other is not hell for a man who cares only for himself, or for a woman who cares only for others and not herself. The other can only become hell, when people begin to feel love for both themselves and others at the same time. Because the needs what you want and desire and the needs of what others want of you can be very different. This then will create inner conflict.

A man who is totally selfish and cares nothing for others can be very strong and macho. This allows great conquerors like Alexander the Great, Napoleon Bonaparte and Hitler to start wars with other countries and be unconcerned and even unaware of the suffering they inflicting on thousands or even millions of other people. In the second world war the Germans had no problem in recruiting young men to be concentration camp guards, while the allies had no problems in recruiting airmen to bomb German cities day and night, killing millions of women and children. This behavior is only possible by men who are not in contact with the feelings and suffering of others. I remember once reading about a famous pilot in the Battle of Britain. He had shot down many German planes and had been excited whenever he had done this. Yet in one instance he had shot down a German fighter and had got close to it while it was going down in flames and he could see clearly the pilot struggling to get out of the burning plane. He was then shocked to realize there were real human beings like himself in the planes he had shot down. It may sound crazy that a man who is fighting a war didn't realize that in the process he was killing other people. Yet the reason for this would be that when men start to be aware of the feelings of others they have to go into denial to continue to enjoy macho pursuits like fighting wars. Any man who enjoys watching violent films is doing exactly the same thing. He is so caught up in the excitement of the film that he is unaware of the suffering involved in the film, if it was acted out in real life.

Yet, this is something that women have to face every day. The feminine is at one with everything. In other words she empathizes with others, because being at one with others, it becomes automatic that other people's feelings become her feelings. The masculine on the other hand is individual and in its purest form the man is only aware of his own feeling and totally unaware of the feelings of others. This is why it is possible for patriarchal leaders to declare war on other countries and be unaffected by the great suffering that a war will cause.

But in recent times men have changed. Many men today are no longer able to be unaware of the feelings of others and this is causing them real problems. For instance, a women I know had what was seen on the surface as the perfect husband. Her friends called her husband a saint because he seemed to devote his whole life to making her happy. He didn't even have problems about her having affairs with other men. If it made her happy then he was happy. Yet she knew there was a real problem with the relationship.

What she discovered was that he was completely devoted to her only while she was happy and optimistic. When problems came into her life and she wasn't happy and needed comfort, then he changed completely and wouldn't respond to her. So she was forced to go to friends for help and comfort if she got upset about anything. Then later when major disasters happened in her life over the death of her father and a miscarriage, he became completely cold and uncaring. He would leave the room if she was crying, and even became angry with her because she was unhappy. For obvious reasons the relationship broke up. But his uncaring nature continued in that he didn't seem to want to have anything to do with their daughter. He resisted paying anything for her in spite of the fact he had a well paying job, and later made his daughter unwelcome when she was old enough to visit him.

So what is the problem? Why would a very caring and loving man suddenly turn into a cold and uncaring monster? The man, in learning how to empathize with others, discovered that empathy was very joyful and easy when he was empathizing with someone who was very happy. Their happiness became his happiness. But when he found that the person he was in love with was also able to be very unhappy he then had a problem. Her unhappiness immediately became his unhappiness. So his solution to this problem was to run away from her until she got over it. But when major crises came into her life which didn't allow her to get over her unhappiness quickly, he found himself having to be very cold and uncaring towards his wife to protect himself from her unhappiness. Later he was to do the same thing to his own child. He didn't want to feel his love for his child, in case the child became unhappy which would strongly affect him.

This seems to be a problem for other men. I know personally of a young woman who became convinced that her father hated her as a child because whenever she cried he would immediately become very angry and sarcastic with her. Yet in many other ways he did show he was a caring man. Again it was clear to me the father couldn't cope with his daughter when she become distressed.

What many women are discovering today is that they find men who are a real "Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde". These men seem to be very caring and loving and then suddenly will turn on them and become uncaring monsters. Men who begin to learn how to empathize with others will naturally only want the joyful part of empathy. Where empathy becomes a nightmare is when the person he is empathizing with becomes unhappy and has no control over the situation because it is another person's unhappiness. While she is unhappy he is going to be unhappy and so he is at the mercy of another person's feelings. Some husbands in this situation then can become very angry with their wives and children. He is telling himself; "why should I have to be unhappy because they are unhappy". This can result in many men physically attacking wives and children simply because they express unhappiness. Certainly there have been many court cases where a man has killed his own baby because the baby was crying too much. While the wife or girlfriend protest that she cannot understand it because he is normally a very kind and caring man.

Women themselves have a similar problem. It was easy in the patriarchal age for a woman to empathize with everyone else while she didn't care for herself. Now in recent years women are beginning to find they have real problems in empathy with others, when they begin to be aware of their own feelings. As with men it can be wonderful when they become aware of their own happiness as well that of others. Before they were always happy when their husbands and children were happy. Now by being aware of their own happiness, they can become even more happy and joyful. Unfortunately when things go wrong they can also be aware of their own misery.

In the past if a woman had a husband who wanted to spend all his money on drink and gambling, she might fight him for enough money to feed and cloth their children. But if she ended up with nothing it wasn't a problem for her, because the needs of her husband and children came first. But women today find that if they end up with nothing it is a real problem for them, because they are aware of their own needs as well. Many women today find themselves in a "no-win" position if they live with a irresponsible man. They are able to be strong enough to say clearly to their husbands: "No, you cannot spend all our money on drink, gambling, cars and computer games". Yet she can be still be unhappy and feel guilty about denying her husband what he wants. However if she was to give in to these feeling and give him what he wants and deny herself, she would also feel unhappy. It is no wonder that heterosexual women complain today that with men; "you can't live with them and you can't live without them".

It can get even more difficult than this: What women find wonderful about having a caring husband is that she finds she can make him happy by being happy herself. So a virtuous cycle can be created; she can feed off his happiness and he can feed off her happiness. Unfortunately the opposite can be true. If a woman lives with a caring man she might find that if she is unhappy it makes him unhappy, so she can feel guilty about being unhappy. This can then create a vicious cycle where both partners feed off each other's unhappiness, making the situation worse and worse.

For this reason many women having had a relationship with a caring man, will leave him to go back to a more selfish man. She knows that with a "strong" macho and selfish man he will not be concerned about her unhappiness. So the relationship cannot go into a vicious cycle where the unhappiness of both partners will strongly affect the other. Unfortunately what she will find is that it is impossible to change a very selfish man. If he has a behavior pattern that makes her unhappy, like spending all the money they have on himself or treating the children badly. She is totally unable to influence him in any way, because he doesn't care if what he wants to do will make others unhappy. But a man who is able to empathize with her, knows full well that if his partner is unhappy he will be unhappy. He then has a powerful reason to do all he can to make his wife or girlfriend happy.

So heterosexual women have two choices: They can have a man who is able to love and empathize with them. But they find he has real problems if they becomes unhappy. Or women stick to very selfish men, who are able to cope with women becoming unhappy, and will probably be more helpful in this situation. The downside is that there is nothing a woman can do, if he wants to behave in a way that makes her unhappy. She cannot appeal to his better nature because it is unlikely that he has one.

It would be very easy if we could give a quick and easy solution, as you see with many of these "self help" books., but real life is not like this. Women have had many lifetimes of knowing how to care for others during the patriarchal age. Today if a woman gives birth to say a mentally retarded child, it is fairly normal for that woman to devote her whole life to caring for it, even into adulthood. On the other hand it would be very unusual for a man to do this. He might help his wife look after a mentally retarded child, but he would be very unlikely to take full responsibility and back off when the going gets too tough.

So we can see that compared with women men are just beginners at learning how to empathize and care for others. They haven't been exposed to thousands if not millions of years of a powerful maternal instinct that makes women want to care for children, animals and men. Many men today may have strong desires to love and care for others. But when they have to put these feelings into practice and face the misery, unhappiness and sacrifice these feelings cause, they often back off. It certainly helps a lot if the man can also experience the joy of empathy, to experience the joy in giving a Dominant Woman pleasure and to be able to worship her as if she was a Goddess. But he has to accept the whole package; learn how to experience both the joy and misery of empathy with others.

For this reason many men today have become very frightened of empathizing with others. They do not want to be at the mercy of other people's feelings, so they practice being very hard macho men. The same time women are finding it hard to learn to love themselves while loving others. A woman who is learning to love herself finds that she is always betraying herself by putting the needs of children and men before her own. She might then choose to learn to hate men and even learn to hate children, seeing it as a way to prevent her from sacrificing herself for others.

We as a human race are standing at a cross roads. We have before us two choices; one is of a far better future than we could dream is possible for the human race. The other is a far worse future, if that is possible. In the patriarchal age we only had one half of the human race behaving totally selfishly with no regard for the feelings of others. If in the future men continue to resist empathy because they do not wish to feel the suffering of others. While at the same time women continue to learn how to love themselves by hating other people. Then it means that all men and women will be fearing and hating each other. In the patriarchal age men mostly killed each other as well as women and children in wars because they feared and hated each other. But at least it was only 50% of the population doing this. It women were to join in and learn hate and violence from men then the whole of human kind would be behaving in this insane way. In such a situation the human race would quickly become extinct.

The alternative to this is that men stop resisting their desires to empathize with others, and women do not go down the path of learning to love themselves by hating others. That is to say they stick to learning how to love themselves and love others at the same time. The positive thing about this all is that it gives human kind a far better future. The suffering caused in the patriarchal age was caused by the dominant sex, (men) being unable to care and empathize with others. With men in the future learning how to empathize, and Women not suppressing their ability to do this. It means both sexes will be motivated to create a far more loving and caring world.

First published at. -

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DivineGoddess

Once upon a time there was in pre-historic times a golden age as written about by the Ancient Greeks, the Chinese Taoists and other Ancient cultures. Where people not only live in harmony with nature but also lived in harmony with each other. These ancient people worshipped the Great Mother but not only did they worship a Feminine Deity they lived in a Matriarchal society where men served and worshipped Women as Goddesses.

Because these Ancient societies of the Golden Age were ruled by Women they had no interest in fighting and warfare or even competing with each other. So it was possible for Women to create a world on harmony and love. In these Ancient societies men were treated like slaves, with no rights or freedom. They were trained from a very early age to devote their lives to obeying, serving and worshipping Women, and some Women began to feel that this was very unfair. It was true that there was many stories handed down to them from even more Ancient times that there was a time men ruled and this had become a age of bloodshed and violence where women were brutally subdued by men. But these stories had began to be regards as myths by many Women and seen as just a unwarranted justification by Women to turn men into slaves. Many Women couldn't believe that the submissive men who served and worshipped them could be the savage brutes portrayed by these Ancient myths.

Some Women began to give men more freedom and there was a movement to give men equal rights with Women. So men were encouraged to no longer worship Women as Goddesses and where allowed to treat Women as equals. At first men showed they could if given the chance behave like responsible people and Women were encouraged to give all men freedom and equality. It was also pointed out that it was unfair they only had a Female deity so the Great Mother was allowed to have a son and in time this son ruled alongside his Mother. Reflecting his growing status of men in society. Then in time the son became a brother or is some societies the lover of the Great Mother and both sexes ruled equality.

This at first seemed to be ideal and confirmed the beliefs of the reformers that Women and men could live together in equality. But as time went on men began to push for more power. They began to demand more power beyond the equality given to them by Women. Some Women thought this was unfair and resisted these demands but to their surprise this resistance was met by violence. Women didn't know how to react to violence as violence had been unknown in their world for thousands of years. Men soon found it easy to get their way over Women by using violence this only encouraged them to continue to use violence not only to get their way over Women but also over other men.

Quickly this brought about a world of bloodshed and wars that the very ancient myths predicted. Women set about trying to reverse this trend. Many moved away to mountains or islands and started again to train their sons to worship Women as Goddess. Other Women decided that they only way was to fight fire with fire. They became Amazons and learnt how to use arms and defended themselves and their way of life with violence.

For hundreds of years many Women successfully fought againest the growing world of patriarchy. In many cases they even reversed this trend and again established Matriarchal societies. But in the end patriarchy won. Not only because of the efforts of brutal and violent men but also through the efforts of women who learnt to love these men. Many women had learnt the masochistic pleasure of worshipping and serving selfish, brutal and violent men and gave them unconditional love and support. These Women slowly began to become the majority and it was this more than anything else that allowed men to rule society throughout the whole world.

The worship of the Great Mother who ruled the universe alongside her Son/Brother/Lover god was changed so he became the dominant partner. In fact many religions adopted a whole host of different gods and goddesses. Then one religion Judaism adopted the idea of a single male God and this was later taken up by Christianity and Mohammadism and these religions have become to most powerful religions in more modern times.

The religion of the Great Mother states clearly that She loves us all unconditionally, and will give us all everything we desire. In this religion there was no concept of right and wrong or good and evil. So therefor there was no concept of blame, guilt or punishment. All the Great Mother required of us is that we live in joy, happiness and love.

When men took control of society and its religion they were presented with a problem. The world of love and harmony was no longer the case as they had used violence and force to get their own way. So they ignored the Great Mother and declared that She was weak in not using force and violence to get her own way. They declared that the Male Gods were more powerful because they were ruthless and violent. So this became the new religion. A God who behaves like a despotic dictator, who is only interested in power and will punish those who will defy his will. In other words like the new male rulers he ruled by fear.

What was not realized by the new male rulers that fear created hate and hate creates misery and suffering. This was the reason why that even though men had the advantage of violence and force of arms it took them thousands of years to finally subdued the last remains of the religions of the Great Mother. The Great Mother could offer Her people a world of love and harmony. While the religion of the new gods could only offer to the people a religion of fear, hatred and suffering. For this reason all knowledge of the religion of the Ancient Great Mother had to be completely destroyed before the patriarchy could ruled uncontested. Because while people had a alternative to the god of fear in the Goddess of love, they naturally preferred the Goddess of love. So all knowledge of the Great Mother had to be destroyed so people would not know that there was a better way of living. Even as late as the middle-ages in Europe the religion of the Great Mother continued in the form of Witchcraft. It took one last brutal Crusade by the Patriarchal Church to eliminate them.

Yet even as the last of the Witches were being slaughtered a trend was beginning that would take as back to the Great Mother. In the time of the English Civil War in the 17th century when Charles 1 was beheaded, many men in Britain were demanding equality and some Women voiced there demands that men and Women should also be equal. This was soon crushed in the brutal dictatorship of Oliver Cromwell, but over the next few centuries more and more Women began to demand equality. In the 20th century this movement really took off and the idea of equality between Women and men has now become a accepted world-wide.

Patriarchal religions have also suffered. Back in the 17th century Issac Newton showed that the movement of the planets obeyed scientific laws and were not moved as previously thought by the hand of god. Then in the 19th century Darwin showed that life could come about through evolution and didn't have to be created by a god. This undermined patriarchal religion to a degree that in a few generations its power has been broken. It is now scientist who people now look for answers to life's problem and who have the ear of the rich and powerful instead of priests. The Old Testament god that ruled by fear was so unpopular, that most people quickly changed allegiances when presented with a alternative belief. It seem that most people prefer to believe in no god at all than a angry god of fear.

With the collapse of Patriarchal Christianity in West in this vacuum have come other spiritual ideas. Like the return of Witchcraft and the return of Goddess worship. At present this is very much still in its infancy and most people still do not understand the difference between the worship of a God and the worship of the Great Mother. For instance in Witchcraft today most covens worship both a god and Goddess not realizing that the world view of a masculine god is very different from a Feminine Goddess.

A masculine male is aggressive, competitive and ruthless. So likewise a masculine God behaves in exactly the same way. It is not for nothing that Christians once called themselves "godfearing people". It is true there as feminine gods like Jesus, Buddha and in the past gods like Pan and Osris. These are more gentle gods who teach love and sacrifice. Unfortunately although such gods were popular with the common people they didn't suit power hungry priests who preferred the more macho gods who ruled by fear. So although Christianity is suppose to be about the teachings of Jesus, they are mostly ignored and the teachings of the Old Testament have been given more prominence.

The Great Mother is not interested in power over us Her children. She is the Mother of everything and loves her children unconditionally. She has also given us freewill, she does not interfere with our live if we wish to go our own way.

For the last few thousand years we have been taught to respect and honor the masculine and despise the feminine. Even today we are still fed with a propaganda that masculine power is powerful and "might is right" in our films and TV shows. John Wayne, Clint Eastward films and TV shows like Power Rangers teach our children and teenagers that violence and force are the solutions to all problems. Women are also taught that if they want equality they have to fight for it and behave like macho men.

Yet is this true? We today assume that it would be impossible for Women to be feminine, loving and caring and yet still be powerful enough to rule society. We have accepted the status quo of a masculine world ruled by a masculine god because the vast majority of people were ignorant that there was a alternative to this. The belief we live in a masculine world has forced Feminist Women to learn to behave and think like men to gain power for themselves.

Yet given the alternative of a world of fear, hatred, war and suffering as we have today and the last few thousand years. Against a world of harmony, Love and compassion. Most people would prefer the latter. Unless people might think that living in a world of harmony would be very boring. But that is a personal choice. At present it seems we don't have that choice. We are taught, (off coarse) that such a world would be impossible as it is human nature to hate and to compete with others. Yet this is not true, this is the masculine behavior of macho men. Most mothers who love their children unconditionally do not behave like this. Nor do a increasingly large number of men today who want to learn how to care for others.

The choice is simple. We have can choose to love others or we can choose to fear and hate others. The more people are free to love other the more the fear in our society is reduced and the less people will hate each other. It is true that this is what Jesus taught but as a role model of this he was unsuitable because he was a man. It is accepted that Women have a maternal instinct. Because of this instinct they mostly love their children (as well as other children) unconditionally. From this Women have learnt to also love men and animals also unconditionally. Men do not have a maternal instinct so men have to learn how to love others.

If we were once again to return to a society where Women ruled. The then Women's maternal instinct would shape the decisions made by Women to create a more caring and loving society. But to do this men have to accept the authority and power of Women and be willing for them to learn how to love others.

I believe that if a large number of Women and men came together in a community where men accepted the rule of Women, and Women ruled using there maternal instinct. Women will naturally create a community of love and harmony as they will actively teach men how to care for and love others. This would greatly encourage others to join this community or start similar communities of their own. For the first time for thousands of years there will be an alternative to patriarchal rule. In a choice of a society of love and harmony to a society of hatred and fear. There will be no contest. (Though it has to be admitted that some people will still want the drama of conflict that patriarchy creates).

In such a situation a truly Matriarchal community biased on the feminine qualities of love and compassion, will act like a Black hole on the surrounding patriarchal community and suck the patriarchal community into it.

First published at.-

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DivineGoddess

Once upon a time there was in pre-historic times a golden age as written about by the Ancient Greeks, the Chinese Taoists and other Ancient cultures. Where people not only live in harmony with nature but also lived in harmony with each other. These ancient people worshipped the Great Mother but not only did they worship a Feminine Deity they lived in a Matriarchal society where men served and worshipped Women as Goddesses.

Because these Ancient societies of the Golden Age were ruled by Women they had no interest in fighting and warfare or even competing with each other. So it was possible for Women to create a world on harmony and love. In these Ancient societies men were treated like slaves, with no rights or freedom. They were trained from a very early age to devote their lives to obeying, serving and worshipping Women, and some Women began to feel that this was very unfair. It was true that there was many stories handed down to them from even more Ancient times that there was a time men ruled and this had become a age of bloodshed and violence where women were brutally subdued by men. But these stories had began to be regards as myths by many Women and seen as just a unwarranted justification by Women to turn men into slaves. Many Women couldn't believe that the submissive men who served and worshipped them could be the savage brutes portrayed by these Ancient myths.

Some Women began to give men more freedom and there was a movement to give men equal rights with Women. So men were encouraged to no longer worship Women as Goddesses and where allowed to treat Women as equals. At first men showed they could if given the chance behave like responsible people and Women were encouraged to give all men freedom and equality. It was also pointed out that it was unfair they only had a Female deity so the Great Mother was allowed to have a son and in time this son ruled alongside his Mother. Reflecting his growing status of men in society. Then in time the son became a brother or is some societies the lover of the Great Mother and both sexes ruled equality.

This at first seemed to be ideal and confirmed the beliefs of the reformers that Women and men could live together in equality. But as time went on men began to push for more power. They began to demand more power beyond the equality given to them by Women. Some Women thought this was unfair and resisted these demands but to their surprise this resistance was met by violence. Women didn't know how to react to violence as violence had been unknown in their world for thousands of years. Men soon found it easy to get their way over Women by using violence this only encouraged them to continue to use violence not only to get their way over Women but also over other men.

Quickly this brought about a world of bloodshed and wars that the very ancient myths predicted. Women set about trying to reverse this trend. Many moved away to mountains or islands and started again to train their sons to worship Women as Goddess. Other Women decided that they only way was to fight fire with fire. They became Amazons and learnt how to use arms and defended themselves and their way of life with violence.

For hundreds of years many Women successfully fought againest the growing world of patriarchy. In many cases they even reversed this trend and again established Matriarchal societies. But in the end patriarchy won. Not only because of the efforts of brutal and violent men but also through the efforts of women who learnt to love these men. Many women had learnt the masochistic pleasure of worshipping and serving selfish, brutal and violent men and gave them unconditional love and support. These Women slowly began to become the majority and it was this more than anything else that allowed men to rule society throughout the whole world.

The worship of the Great Mother who ruled the universe alongside her Son/Brother/Lover god was changed so he became the dominant partner. In fact many religions adopted a whole host of different gods and goddesses. Then one religion Judaism adopted the idea of a single male God and this was later taken up by Christianity and Mohammadism and these religions have become to most powerful religions in more modern times.

The religion of the Great Mother states clearly that She loves us all unconditionally, and will give us all everything we desire. In this religion there was no concept of right and wrong or good and evil. So therefor there was no concept of blame, guilt or punishment. All the Great Mother required of us is that we live in joy, happiness and love.

When men took control of society and its religion they were presented with a problem. The world of love and harmony was no longer the case as they had used violence and force to get their own way. So they ignored the Great Mother and declared that She was weak in not using force and violence to get her own way. They declared that the Male Gods were more powerful because they were ruthless and violent. So this became the new religion. A God who behaves like a despotic dictator, who is only interested in power and will punish those who will defy his will. In other words like the new male rulers he ruled by fear.

What was not realized by the new male rulers that fear created hate and hate creates misery and suffering. This was the reason why that even though men had the advantage of violence and force of arms it took them thousands of years to finally subdued the last remains of the religions of the Great Mother. The Great Mother could offer Her people a world of love and harmony. While the religion of the new gods could only offer to the people a religion of fear, hatred and suffering. For this reason all knowledge of the religion of the Ancient Great Mother had to be completely destroyed before the patriarchy could ruled uncontested. Because while people had a alternative to the god of fear in the Goddess of love, they naturally preferred the Goddess of love. So all knowledge of the Great Mother had to be destroyed so people would not know that there was a better way of living. Even as late as the middle-ages in Europe the religion of the Great Mother continued in the form of Witchcraft. It took one last brutal Crusade by the Patriarchal Church to eliminate them.

Yet even as the last of the Witches were being slaughtered a trend was beginning that would take as back to the Great Mother. In the time of the English Civil War in the 17th century when Charles 1 was beheaded, many men in Britain were demanding equality and some Women voiced there demands that men and Women should also be equal. This was soon crushed in the brutal dictatorship of Oliver Cromwell, but over the next few centuries more and more Women began to demand equality. In the 20th century this movement really took off and the idea of equality between Women and men has now become a accepted world-wide.

Patriarchal religions have also suffered. Back in the 17th century Issac Newton showed that the movement of the planets obeyed scientific laws and were not moved as previously thought by the hand of god. Then in the 19th century Darwin showed that life could come about through evolution and didn't have to be created by a god. This undermined patriarchal religion to a degree that in a few generations its power has been broken. It is now scientist who people now look for answers to life's problem and who have the ear of the rich and powerful instead of priests. The Old Testament god that ruled by fear was so unpopular, that most people quickly changed allegiances when presented with a alternative belief. It seem that most people prefer to believe in no god at all than a angry god of fear.

With the collapse of Patriarchal Christianity in West in this vacuum have come other spiritual ideas. Like the return of Witchcraft and the return of Goddess worship. At present this is very much still in its infancy and most people still do not understand the difference between the worship of a God and the worship of the Great Mother. For instance in Witchcraft today most covens worship both a god and Goddess not realizing that the world view of a masculine god is very different from a Feminine Goddess.

A masculine male is aggressive, competitive and ruthless. So likewise a masculine God behaves in exactly the same way. It is not for nothing that Christians once called themselves "godfearing people". It is true there as feminine gods like Jesus, Buddha and in the past gods like Pan and Osris. These are more gentle gods who teach love and sacrifice. Unfortunately although such gods were popular with the common people they didn't suit power hungry priests who preferred the more macho gods who ruled by fear. So although Christianity is suppose to be about the teachings of Jesus, they are mostly ignored and the teachings of the Old Testament have been given more prominence.

The Great Mother is not interested in power over us Her children. She is the Mother of everything and loves her children unconditionally. She has also given us freewill, she does not interfere with our live if we wish to go our own way.

For the last few thousand years we have been taught to respect and honor the masculine and despise the feminine. Even today we are still fed with a propaganda that masculine power is powerful and "might is right" in our films and TV shows. John Wayne, Clint Eastward films and TV shows like Power Rangers teach our children and teenagers that violence and force are the solutions to all problems. Women are also taught that if they want equality they have to fight for it and behave like macho men.

Yet is this true? We today assume that it would be impossible for Women to be feminine, loving and caring and yet still be powerful enough to rule society. We have accepted the status quo of a masculine world ruled by a masculine god because the vast majority of people were ignorant that there was a alternative to this. The belief we live in a masculine world has forced Feminist Women to learn to behave and think like men to gain power for themselves.

Yet given the alternative of a world of fear, hatred, war and suffering as we have today and the last few thousand years. Against a world of harmony, Love and compassion. Most people would prefer the latter. Unless people might think that living in a world of harmony would be very boring. But that is a personal choice. At present it seems we don't have that choice. We are taught, (off coarse) that such a world would be impossible as it is human nature to hate and to compete with others. Yet this is not true, this is the masculine behavior of macho men. Most mothers who love their children unconditionally do not behave like this. Nor do a increasingly large number of men today who want to learn how to care for others.

The choice is simple. We have can choose to love others or we can choose to fear and hate others. The more people are free to love other the more the fear in our society is reduced and the less people will hate each other. It is true that this is what Jesus taught but as a role model of this he was unsuitable because he was a man. It is accepted that Women have a maternal instinct. Because of this instinct they mostly love their children (as well as other children) unconditionally. From this Women have learnt to also love men and animals also unconditionally. Men do not have a maternal instinct so men have to learn how to love others.

If we were once again to return to a society where Women ruled. The then Women's maternal instinct would shape the decisions made by Women to create a more caring and loving society. But to do this men have to accept the authority and power of Women and be willing for them to learn how to love others.

I believe that if a large number of Women and men came together in a community where men accepted the rule of Women, and Women ruled using there maternal instinct. Women will naturally create a community of love and harmony as they will actively teach men how to care for and love others. This would greatly encourage others to join this community or start similar communities of their own. For the first time for thousands of years there will be an alternative to patriarchal rule. In a choice of a society of love and harmony to a society of hatred and fear. There will be no contest. (Though it has to be admitted that some people will still want the drama of conflict that patriarchy creates).

In such a situation a truly Matriarchal community biased on the feminine qualities of love and compassion, will act like a Black hole on the surrounding patriarchal community and suck the patriarchal community into it.

First published at.-

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DivineGoddess

In the last four thousand years of recorded history it has been accepted world wide that our creator is a man, so much so, that many people today cannot imagine a Supreme Creator as anything but a male. In accepting the masculine nature of our Creator we have constructed a masculine, male dominated world. This world has reflected the masculine values of competition and aggression. The result is that we have been brainwashed for thousands of years to believe that we live in a world of conflict, hatred and suffering, to the extent that we now believe that this is the only world there is. So we are unable to believe that a world of love and harmony is possible and assume it is unrealistic because we don't know any different. We don't realize that the masculine world of conflict is created by our beliefs about ourselves. It only requires to change our beliefs and respect and accept the feminine will bring about a more loving and caring world to the degree we want it to be.

In recent years Atheists have rejected the concept of God altogether because as they rightly point out: "If there was a intelligent God who created us all, why is there so much suffering in the world?" A question that male dominated religions like Christianity and Mohamadism have no answer for, except to blame the suffering on another God called the Devil. Yet if God created everything then he must have created the Devil as well. So it means we are created by a very imperfect God whom it seems makes many mistakes. According to patriarchal priests, not only did God make the mistake of creating a powerful Devil, he also created us so imperfect that we live in sin and do many things that are against the will of God. Yet it seems, this God then has the audacity to blame us all for his mistakes and threaten us with hell-fire because he failed to make us all perfect.

So it seems we are left with believing in an insane and imperfect Creator God or a belief in atheism that says that life and the universe was created by accident and not by an intelligence. This means we have the choice of either living in an insane universe created by an insane God or live in a pointless and meaningless universe created by accident. Yet there is an alternative to these two beliefs. At the beginning of recorded history societies believed we were created by a Mother Goddess or The Great Mother. At first glance this doesn't seem to be much of an alternative, because how can the sex of our creator make any difference?

If we accept that the masculine represents competition, conflict, aggression, war and hatred, all these forces come from one force which is separation. On the other hand, feminine values are: Love, compassion and empathy. All these forces come together to represent Oneness. So in other words the One is feminine. The One is all that there is, so we are all part of the One. Separation from the One is masculine which allows us all to become individuals. So the relationship between the feminine and the masculine, is the relationship between the One and the individuals that make up our world. This is why the concept of a male supreme Creator is separated from the world. He creates the world but doesn't live in it, while the concept of the feminine Creator is that the universe is the One, that is to say, the Great Mother.

Some mystic traditions attempt to claim that the One is masculine but this becomes a contradiction in terms. For how can the competitive masculine become One? So this belief makes life very difficult for mystics who attempt to tune into a masculine One. Some religions like Taoism and Buddhism have the concept of a genderless One, though it has to be admitted that in the Tao-Te-Ching it does suggest that the One is feminine. Although a strong argument can be made that the One is beyond concepts like male and female, it is no help to us, for how can we relate to something that is not in any way human and therefore beyond human experience and understanding? We are forced to put human characteristic onto the One to make it understandable to us.

So it means for us that the Mother Goddess is the One. She is all that there is, unlike the Creator God who is separate from the world and then is separated from himself in being two Gods the father God and the Devil. We are given the illusion that we are born from the Great Mother so we imagine we are separated from her. This gives us the opportunity to experience individuality. So we become the children of the Great Mother to whom she has given the gifts of individuality and independence through the illusion of separation.

The Ancients knew this and showed it in a very ancient symbol of a snake swallowing its tail. The snake's body forms a complete circle. The attribute of the circle is not only the feminine symbol of the vagina but it represents the whole or the One. The snake represents the penis so is a masculine symbol. With the snake's body forming the circle it shows the masculine on the boundaries of the One. It means that the masculine is connected with the One but also can be seen in this symbol as outside of the One. It therefore becomes the perfect symbol showing the relationship between the One and the individual.

Another ancient symbol saying the same thing is represented in Roman Catholic Churches all over the world in the image of the Virgin Mary holding a male baby. The Virgin Mary represents the feminine One and the male baby represents the masculine individual. Roman Catholics priests will tell you that this image only represents the mother of Jesus Christ holding him as a child. Yet this image is far older than Christianity and to some Roman Catholics is far more important to them than the image of Christ on the Cross. Strangely many followers of the Virgin Mary call her, "The Mother of God" which should be in Christian terms blasphemy as it suggests an ancient pagan idea that The Great Mother created God. Roman Catholic priests will point out that this saying only means that the Virgin Mary is the mortal mother of Jesus Christ. Yet if that is true then surely what the followers of the Virgin Mary should be calling her is, "The mortal Mother of Jesus." Long before Christianity, the ancients called the Great Goddess, "The Mother of all the Gods," which is very similar to what the followers of the Virgin Mary call her today. This suggests that it is a traditional saying older than the Christian Church.

In the ancient Egyptian religion there is a similar image and that is of the Goddess Isis holding her baby Horus. Some scholars have suggested that the image of the Virgin Mary holding her child comes directly from the Image of the Goddess Isis doing the same thing. In the legend of Isis, she was married to Osiris who is in conflict with his brother Seth. In this conflict Seth murders Osiris and cuts him up into many pieces and scatters them all over Egypt. Isis then goes out in search of these pieces. Putting them back together she brings Osiris back to life to have a child from him. From this union the child Horus is born and when he grows up he continues the conflict with Seth.

In this legend Isis takes no part in the conflict; her role is that of a healer. The conflict between Osiris and Seth that brings about Osiris being scattered into many pieces gives a clear symbol that competition and conflict causes separation. Isis brings the pieces back together again making the separated One again. Yet in healing the masculine as represented by Osiris all she does is allow the competition and conflict to continue in the war between Horus and Seth. So this legend tells about the dance between the feminine as Isis and masculine as Osiris, Horus and Seth . The masculine continually creates separation and the feminine continually heals and restrains the separation. The role of the feminine Isis is to prevent the separation going to the extreme and destroying itself.

Some scholars have recently made the controversial point that Christianity came from the Ancient Isisian Egyptian religion as well and Judaism. One of the points they make is the way Osiris died and was brought back to life again is similar to the way Jesus in the New Testament was also executed and resurrected. This makes sense as the gentleness and caring of Isis and Jesus are in stark contrast to the judgmental and revengeful God of the ancient Jewish religion. This suggests that the forgiving and caring side of the teachings of Jesus may of came from the teachings of the Goddess Isis.

Another ancient legend is that of the Hindu Goddess Kali. In this legend the Gods were exhausted by wars with demons whom it seems were winning the war. This is of course typical masculine behavior calling enemies demons or devils which justifies attacking and fighting them. So the Gods call for help from Kali or Devi the Great Mother Goddess, depending which version of this story is read. Kali/Devi goes into battle with the demons and kills them all until she is left with the Demon King. The Demon King appeals to her sense of justice, claiming she has many fierce Goddesses to help her such as, Durga, Chamunda, Ambika. But she replies, "I am all alone in the world, who else is there besides me". This tells us clearly that she is the One. Kali/Devi then joins in battle with the Demon King but finds no matter how many pieces she cuts off him these pieces then create other demons that in turn attack her. This symbolizes clearly that war is not the way to overcome the masculine and separation in fact it is war and conflict that makes the masculine stronger as it creates more and more separation. So in the end Kali solves this problem by swallowing the Demon King whole, bringing the masculine back into the One.

The legend goes on to say that having defeated the demons, Kali becomes intoxicated by blood and goes on to destroy the rest of mankind. The Gods are powerless to stop her. In a desperate attempt to prevent the destruction of the whole of mankind, the God Siva comes down from heaven and lays lifeless at her feet. Kali walks all over him. Seeing him lifeless at her feet her blood lust evaporates and the world is saved. This part of the legend shows us that once wars are started then there is no end to them. All over the world we see wars between traditional enemies who are unable to forgive each other and wars continue generation after generation. In other words conflict creates hatred and hatred creates more conflict. This cycle can only be broken when the masculine represented by the God Siva surrenders to the feminine represented by Kali.

The ancient Greeks and Romans represented love, through the Goddesses Aphrodite and Venus. Somehow it makes sense to have a Goddess representing love. Jesus in the New Testament attempted to promote the idea of a loving Father God, yet this never caught on even among Christians who mostly preferred the angry and judgmental Jehovah of the Old Testament. Many Christians also have problems with the image of Jesus himself who comes across as a very meek and mild man and therefore is seen as a bit of a wimp. This is why many Christians prefer the more warlike and macho prophets of the Old Testament and are more likely to quote them than Jesus.

So it means if we choose to worship a male God and claim he is our creator, then we are in effect worshipping the male principles of competition, conflict, aggression and separation, which in turn creates the great suffering we see in our world. History has proven this to be true with Christianity which hasn't been a history of forgiveness, tolerance and "loving thy neighbor" as preached by Jesus. Christianity has a history of intolerance, war, genocide and hatred. The massacres of the Cathars, and Witches and the wars of the Crusaders and later on the countless wars between the Roman Catholics and Protestants, the genocide of the native American and Australian peoples shows clearly how intolerant and warlike Christian societies have been. The same is true of the Moslems who also worship a male God. They have just as bad a record of intolerance, wars and genocide as the Christians have.

If on the other hand we worship a Goddess as our Creator we are then allowing ourselves to also worship the ideals of love, harmony and Oneness. Unfortunately in all of recorded history we have no clear record of what a society would be like that worships a Creator Goddess. We know of societies that have worshipped both Goddesses and Gods, like the Ancient Greeks, Romans or Egyptian but they made a male the Creator God. These societies had far more religious tolerance than the later Christian and Moslem civilizations. The same is true of the Hindus in India who worship both Gods and Goddesses. They also have more religious tolerance than the Moslems in Northern India and Pakistan. Yet we cannot say a society worshipping deities of both sexes is very much less warlike than societies who only worship Gods This is because the priests of male Gods are competitive and will compete with the followers of Goddesses. This forces priests or the priestesses of Goddess Temples to be as competitive in return to survive. So the love, peace and harmony of Goddess worship becomes impossible while other people worship Gods and separation and interfere with those who worship Oneness.

So it seems that Oneness and separation are in conflict with each other but it is not the nature of Oneness to compete with separation. Yet separation sees this non-competitive nature as a threat to its existence. This is because the foundation of separation is an illusion. If we no longer believed in separation then we all would become One and lose our individuality. Feminists have pointed out in many books how men have dominated women over many centuries through violence and intimidation. So even though it is more natural for women to love, care and empathize with others, men are able to brutalize women to the degree they are forced to accept masculine values of competition, aggression, intolerance and hatred.

Yet although separation is in conflict with Oneness there also seem to be an attraction to one another. Traditionally men have dismissed women as being weak and illogical. Yet most men are very attracted to women. Likewise even though men have traditionally abused women, it still doesn't stop women being very attracted to men. So does this suggest that the One as the Great Mother and separation as masculinity need each other?

If we are all One, we would live in a world of peace and harmony, simply because if we are all of one mind then conflict of any kind becomes impossible. Yet in this Oneness relationships become impossible, because if we are all one, whom can we relate to? If there is nothing outside of the One then a world of Oneness becomes static. It just Is. It becomes perfection and once something becomes perfect there is no reason to move on from that perfection. This is why the feminine One needs the masculine separation to create relationships and movement. Unfortunately if the masculine is not controlled or restrained by the feminine it will quickly move into a vicious cycle of fear, hatred and destruction.

Many of us might claim we would like to live in a world of love and harmony. Yet we betray ourselves every time we read a fictional book or watch TV or a film. It seems what we find entertaining is conflict and suffering. Men enjoy action stories and films involving extreme violence. Women prefer soap operas or romances but even in these stories there is still great conflict. No romantic story would be interesting if there wasn't a breakdown in the relationship before the happy ending. So we have to admit to ourselves that we are fascinated by conflict and suffering. If we admit to this then we also have to admit that we have conflict and suffering in our lives because we want them. The truth is that most people would fear a world that was in complete harmony because it would be very boring.

Yet living in a world of separation then makes peace and harmony become totally impossible. Separation creates fear, hatred and destruction. So a masculine society becomes self-destructive and without the influence of the feminine it will destroy itself. For the last few thousand years we have seen the conflict caused by men becoming the dominant sex. Countless wars and genocide. Yet in that time even though women have been the submissive sex they have still worked very hard on men to civilize them. Men complain frequently that all women want to manipulate and change them. Traditionally in their own quiet way women do change men and greatly modify the excess of conflict and hatred that men indulge in. This is why in very male dominated countries like Islam men traditionally avoid the company of women as much as possible because they fear that to be with women will make men "soft".

Without the subtle influence of women, men would have destroyed themselves long ago. During the cold war between the West and the USSR both sides made and deployed enough nuclear weapons to destroy the world four times over. During this war both sides became very close to using these weapons. There was one incident where the USSR very nearly launched all her nuclear weapons because of a computer error. So we can see that had men became even slightly more aggressive in their nature we as a species would have become extinct.

We have a choice. We are able to be One and therefore live in a world of static harmony. Or we continue to live in a world of separation where we can have relationships with others. This then becomes a more dynamic world but such a world leads of fear, hatred suffering and finally to destruction.

So it means the feminine One, needs the masculine separation to give it dynamism and relationships. While the masculine separation needs the feminine One to give it love harmony and peace to prevent it from destroying itself. So how is it possible for these very two very different forces to work together? This seems to be impossible because the One and separated are totally different. The masculine mode of separation greatly fears the feminine One. This is because under the influence of the One he might lose his individuality. The feminine for obvious reasons also fears the masculine separation, because for thousands of years her love for the masculine has always been returned with hatred and abuse.

Are the fears of the masculine justified? In accepting the feminine Oneness will he lose all individuality? As the feminine One needs the masculine separation to have a relationship with it, then we can say that the masculine fears are justified. The feminine One is only able to love, as fear and hatred within the One is impossible. So when a women returns love from a man who shows he hates her, she is threatening him with her love as he fears he will lose his individuality if he returns her love with love. Yet women themselves are individuals as well. Women are able to love, empathize and cooperate with others and yet do not lose their individuality.

Imagine a world where there are no males. A world where women were able to reproduce without men. Without the divisions created in society by men perhaps women will empathize with each other to such a degree that they would lose all individuality. This might have happened to matriarchal societies of the past where women dominated societies became so peaceful that they began to stagnate. So the masculine had to be encouraged to bring new dynamism into society. Yet because of the competitive nature of the masculine, it competed with the feminine and in the end took control and dominated the feminine, claiming that it was a masculine God that created the world and created a masculine society with all the conflict, fear, hatred and suffering we see in our recorded history. So because the masculine moved out of the control of the feminine, it means we have moved from one extreme to the other.

So is this the only choice we have? Of a dynamic masculine world that is basically self-destructive, or a loving and peaceful feminine world where nothing much happens. Can't we have both? Can we not have a loving world that is also dynamic. In other words a world that is both individual and at One at the same time.

In the past men have greatly feared and hated very feminine women who have given them love in return for hatred and abuse. This suggests that the conflict between the One and separation only comes about when the One is too feminine and the individual is too masculine. So this means that there might be a middle way between these two extremes. It is possible for women to learn from the masculine and men to learn from the feminine?

This in theory should be the feminist relationship where both men and women are equals. Yet as we have seen such relationships are not very peaceful. In recent years marriage councilors have become a boom industry to try and fix up the conflict between couples, as more and more relationship break down and end in divorce. In fact the traditional patriarchal marriage where the man is the dominant partner was more stable than the feminist's equal relationships of today.

This is because of the way men think and feel. As man is very competitive equality doesn't come naturally for him because in his mind he is always thinking in terms of winners and losers. He is happy to be the dominant partner or the submissive partner. But to be the equal partner is something that is totally alien to his nature. Men are by nature game players and to them life is a game of winners and losers. We can see this clearly when men had ideals of creating a equal society. The result was the French revolution and later communism. Both attempts only made society only slightly more equal than other male dominated societies. In the end this experiment was seen as a failure because not only did men totally fail to create a equal society, communist societies began to stagnate when equality was forced on men.

This is because men and women are motivated by very different things. The feminine is motivated by love for others. Most women are more than happy to spend their whole lives caring and looking after other people, like children, husbands, old people and animals. The masculine on the other hand is motivated by competition and without competition men lose their strongest motivation.

Men are able to some degree to live in harmony with women when they are the dominant partner. Or as it seems in recent times if she is the dominant partner. In these relationships women play the dominant and masculine role, while men play the submissive and feminine role. Yet this doesn't mean that the sexes completely swap roles. Just because a woman is playing a masculine role it doesn't mean she has to lose her contact with the One and lose her ability to love and care for others. Likewise because a man is playing a feminine role it doesn't mean he has to lose his individuality.

When the masculine separation stops competing with the feminine One as it does in a Fem-Dom relationship when the man surrenders to the woman, then harmony between the sexes becomes possible. When the masculine continues to compete as in a traditional patriarchal relationship or a feminist political correct relationship then harmony between the sexes becomes impossible. Women representing femininity and Oneness might be able to live in relationships of equality and cooperation. But men representing masculinity and separation find equality and cooperation very difficult. To him the only type of relationship that makes sense is a relationship where either he is in charge or this partner is in charge. If that is not clearly defined then he will continue to compete with his partner until it is mutually agreed that he dominates her or she dominates him. In other words the masculine mind needs a clearly defined "pecking order" for him to have relationships with others.

To create a caring society of peace, harmony and love which is dynamic where all people do not lose their individuality, requires us to accept that the One is feminine so we need to worship a Mother Goddess as our creator. We don't have make the feminine the total ideal and reject individuality. Women have to take the lead and play the assertive masculine role, yet not lose their contact with the one, while men have to learn how to play the feminine role of caring for others and yet not lose their individuality.

The Great Mother has the same problem as a mortal mother. If a mother looks after her children too much she can ensure their safety, but in the process she doesn't allow them to grow. On the other hand if she gives them far too much freedom they will grow and learn how to look after themselves yet are more likely to be hurt. As children of the Great Mother we have demanded from her more freedom to look after ourselves. In doing so we have created the world we now live in. Unfortunately in not knowing what we are doing we have created a world of fear and suffering. It is now time to return to the Great Mother and to Oneness. To accept the guidance and wisdom of women who are her representatives on this Earth.

For so long we have accepted a male God and masculine values in our world that we no longer believe in or even know that there is an alternative to this. Yet there is an alternative and that is the Oneness of the Mother Goddess. It is not a matter of choosing between these alternatives because we can choose both if we wish to. We can live in a masculine world of separation, conflict and suffering. Yet when this becomes too difficult we have the choice to return to Oneness and harmony again. But we need the awareness of the feminine One to have this choice.

This article was first published at. - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DivineGoddess

In the last four thousand years of recorded history it has been accepted world wide that our creator is a man, so much so, that many people today cannot imagine a Supreme Creator as anything but a male. In accepting the masculine nature of our Creator we have constructed a masculine, male dominated world. This world has reflected the masculine values of competition and aggression. The result is that we have been brainwashed for thousands of years to believe that we live in a world of conflict, hatred and suffering, to the extent that we now believe that this is the only world there is. So we are unable to believe that a world of love and harmony is possible and assume it is unrealistic because we don't know any different. We don't realize that the masculine world of conflict is created by our beliefs about ourselves. It only requires to change our beliefs and respect and accept the feminine will bring about a more loving and caring world to the degree we want it to be.

In recent years Atheists have rejected the concept of God altogether because as they rightly point out: "If there was a intelligent God who created us all, why is there so much suffering in the world?" A question that male dominated religions like Christianity and Mohamadism have no answer for, except to blame the suffering on another God called the Devil. Yet if God created everything then he must have created the Devil as well. So it means we are created by a very imperfect God whom it seems makes many mistakes. According to patriarchal priests, not only did God make the mistake of creating a powerful Devil, he also created us so imperfect that we live in sin and do many things that are against the will of God. Yet it seems, this God then has the audacity to blame us all for his mistakes and threaten us with hell-fire because he failed to make us all perfect.

So it seems we are left with believing in an insane and imperfect Creator God or a belief in atheism that says that life and the universe was created by accident and not by an intelligence. This means we have the choice of either living in an insane universe created by an insane God or live in a pointless and meaningless universe created by accident. Yet there is an alternative to these two beliefs. At the beginning of recorded history societies believed we were created by a Mother Goddess or The Great Mother. At first glance this doesn't seem to be much of an alternative, because how can the sex of our creator make any difference?

If we accept that the masculine represents competition, conflict, aggression, war and hatred, all these forces come from one force which is separation. On the other hand, feminine values are: Love, compassion and empathy. All these forces come together to represent Oneness. So in other words the One is feminine. The One is all that there is, so we are all part of the One. Separation from the One is masculine which allows us all to become individuals. So the relationship between the feminine and the masculine, is the relationship between the One and the individuals that make up our world. This is why the concept of a male supreme Creator is separated from the world. He creates the world but doesn't live in it, while the concept of the feminine Creator is that the universe is the One, that is to say, the Great Mother.

Some mystic traditions attempt to claim that the One is masculine but this becomes a contradiction in terms. For how can the competitive masculine become One? So this belief makes life very difficult for mystics who attempt to tune into a masculine One. Some religions like Taoism and Buddhism have the concept of a genderless One, though it has to be admitted that in the Tao-Te-Ching it does suggest that the One is feminine. Although a strong argument can be made that the One is beyond concepts like male and female, it is no help to us, for how can we relate to something that is not in any way human and therefore beyond human experience and understanding? We are forced to put human characteristic onto the One to make it understandable to us.

So it means for us that the Mother Goddess is the One. She is all that there is, unlike the Creator God who is separate from the world and then is separated from himself in being two Gods the father God and the Devil. We are given the illusion that we are born from the Great Mother so we imagine we are separated from her. This gives us the opportunity to experience individuality. So we become the children of the Great Mother to whom she has given the gifts of individuality and independence through the illusion of separation.

The Ancients knew this and showed it in a very ancient symbol of a snake swallowing its tail. The snake's body forms a complete circle. The attribute of the circle is not only the feminine symbol of the vagina but it represents the whole or the One. The snake represents the penis so is a masculine symbol. With the snake's body forming the circle it shows the masculine on the boundaries of the One. It means that the masculine is connected with the One but also can be seen in this symbol as outside of the One. It therefore becomes the perfect symbol showing the relationship between the One and the individual.

Another ancient symbol saying the same thing is represented in Roman Catholic Churches all over the world in the image of the Virgin Mary holding a male baby. The Virgin Mary represents the feminine One and the male baby represents the masculine individual. Roman Catholics priests will tell you that this image only represents the mother of Jesus Christ holding him as a child. Yet this image is far older than Christianity and to some Roman Catholics is far more important to them than the image of Christ on the Cross. Strangely many followers of the Virgin Mary call her, "The Mother of God" which should be in Christian terms blasphemy as it suggests an ancient pagan idea that The Great Mother created God. Roman Catholic priests will point out that this saying only means that the Virgin Mary is the mortal mother of Jesus Christ. Yet if that is true then surely what the followers of the Virgin Mary should be calling her is, "The mortal Mother of Jesus." Long before Christianity, the ancients called the Great Goddess, "The Mother of all the Gods," which is very similar to what the followers of the Virgin Mary call her today. This suggests that it is a traditional saying older than the Christian Church.

In the ancient Egyptian religion there is a similar image and that is of the Goddess Isis holding her baby Horus. Some scholars have suggested that the image of the Virgin Mary holding her child comes directly from the Image of the Goddess Isis doing the same thing. In the legend of Isis, she was married to Osiris who is in conflict with his brother Seth. In this conflict Seth murders Osiris and cuts him up into many pieces and scatters them all over Egypt. Isis then goes out in search of these pieces. Putting them back together she brings Osiris back to life to have a child from him. From this union the child Horus is born and when he grows up he continues the conflict with Seth.

In this legend Isis takes no part in the conflict; her role is that of a healer. The conflict between Osiris and Seth that brings about Osiris being scattered into many pieces gives a clear symbol that competition and conflict causes separation. Isis brings the pieces back together again making the separated One again. Yet in healing the masculine as represented by Osiris all she does is allow the competition and conflict to continue in the war between Horus and Seth. So this legend tells about the dance between the feminine as Isis and masculine as Osiris, Horus and Seth . The masculine continually creates separation and the feminine continually heals and restrains the separation. The role of the feminine Isis is to prevent the separation going to the extreme and destroying itself.

Some scholars have recently made the controversial point that Christianity came from the Ancient Isisian Egyptian religion as well and Judaism. One of the points they make is the way Osiris died and was brought back to life again is similar to the way Jesus in the New Testament was also executed and resurrected. This makes sense as the gentleness and caring of Isis and Jesus are in stark contrast to the judgmental and revengeful God of the ancient Jewish religion. This suggests that the forgiving and caring side of the teachings of Jesus may of came from the teachings of the Goddess Isis.

Another ancient legend is that of the Hindu Goddess Kali. In this legend the Gods were exhausted by wars with demons whom it seems were winning the war. This is of course typical masculine behavior calling enemies demons or devils which justifies attacking and fighting them. So the Gods call for help from Kali or Devi the Great Mother Goddess, depending which version of this story is read. Kali/Devi goes into battle with the demons and kills them all until she is left with the Demon King. The Demon King appeals to her sense of justice, claiming she has many fierce Goddesses to help her such as, Durga, Chamunda, Ambika. But she replies, "I am all alone in the world, who else is there besides me". This tells us clearly that she is the One. Kali/Devi then joins in battle with the Demon King but finds no matter how many pieces she cuts off him these pieces then create other demons that in turn attack her. This symbolizes clearly that war is not the way to overcome the masculine and separation in fact it is war and conflict that makes the masculine stronger as it creates more and more separation. So in the end Kali solves this problem by swallowing the Demon King whole, bringing the masculine back into the One.

The legend goes on to say that having defeated the demons, Kali becomes intoxicated by blood and goes on to destroy the rest of mankind. The Gods are powerless to stop her. In a desperate attempt to prevent the destruction of the whole of mankind, the God Siva comes down from heaven and lays lifeless at her feet. Kali walks all over him. Seeing him lifeless at her feet her blood lust evaporates and the world is saved. This part of the legend shows us that once wars are started then there is no end to them. All over the world we see wars between traditional enemies who are unable to forgive each other and wars continue generation after generation. In other words conflict creates hatred and hatred creates more conflict. This cycle can only be broken when the masculine represented by the God Siva surrenders to the feminine represented by Kali.

The ancient Greeks and Romans represented love, through the Goddesses Aphrodite and Venus. Somehow it makes sense to have a Goddess representing love. Jesus in the New Testament attempted to promote the idea of a loving Father God, yet this never caught on even among Christians who mostly preferred the angry and judgmental Jehovah of the Old Testament. Many Christians also have problems with the image of Jesus himself who comes across as a very meek and mild man and therefore is seen as a bit of a wimp. This is why many Christians prefer the more warlike and macho prophets of the Old Testament and are more likely to quote them than Jesus.

So it means if we choose to worship a male God and claim he is our creator, then we are in effect worshipping the male principles of competition, conflict, aggression and separation, which in turn creates the great suffering we see in our world. History has proven this to be true with Christianity which hasn't been a history of forgiveness, tolerance and "loving thy neighbor" as preached by Jesus. Christianity has a history of intolerance, war, genocide and hatred. The massacres of the Cathars, and Witches and the wars of the Crusaders and later on the countless wars between the Roman Catholics and Protestants, the genocide of the native American and Australian peoples shows clearly how intolerant and warlike Christian societies have been. The same is true of the Moslems who also worship a male God. They have just as bad a record of intolerance, wars and genocide as the Christians have.

If on the other hand we worship a Goddess as our Creator we are then allowing ourselves to also worship the ideals of love, harmony and Oneness. Unfortunately in all of recorded history we have no clear record of what a society would be like that worships a Creator Goddess. We know of societies that have worshipped both Goddesses and Gods, like the Ancient Greeks, Romans or Egyptian but they made a male the Creator God. These societies had far more religious tolerance than the later Christian and Moslem civilizations. The same is true of the Hindus in India who worship both Gods and Goddesses. They also have more religious tolerance than the Moslems in Northern India and Pakistan. Yet we cannot say a society worshipping deities of both sexes is very much less warlike than societies who only worship Gods This is because the priests of male Gods are competitive and will compete with the followers of Goddesses. This forces priests or the priestesses of Goddess Temples to be as competitive in return to survive. So the love, peace and harmony of Goddess worship becomes impossible while other people worship Gods and separation and interfere with those who worship Oneness.

So it seems that Oneness and separation are in conflict with each other but it is not the nature of Oneness to compete with separation. Yet separation sees this non-competitive nature as a threat to its existence. This is because the foundation of separation is an illusion. If we no longer believed in separation then we all would become One and lose our individuality. Feminists have pointed out in many books how men have dominated women over many centuries through violence and intimidation. So even though it is more natural for women to love, care and empathize with others, men are able to brutalize women to the degree they are forced to accept masculine values of competition, aggression, intolerance and hatred.

Yet although separation is in conflict with Oneness there also seem to be an attraction to one another. Traditionally men have dismissed women as being weak and illogical. Yet most men are very attracted to women. Likewise even though men have traditionally abused women, it still doesn't stop women being very attracted to men. So does this suggest that the One as the Great Mother and separation as masculinity need each other?

If we are all One, we would live in a world of peace and harmony, simply because if we are all of one mind then conflict of any kind becomes impossible. Yet in this Oneness relationships become impossible, because if we are all one, whom can we relate to? If there is nothing outside of the One then a world of Oneness becomes static. It just Is. It becomes perfection and once something becomes perfect there is no reason to move on from that perfection. This is why the feminine One needs the masculine separation to create relationships and movement. Unfortunately if the masculine is not controlled or restrained by the feminine it will quickly move into a vicious cycle of fear, hatred and destruction.

Many of us might claim we would like to live in a world of love and harmony. Yet we betray ourselves every time we read a fictional book or watch TV or a film. It seems what we find entertaining is conflict and suffering. Men enjoy action stories and films involving extreme violence. Women prefer soap operas or romances but even in these stories there is still great conflict. No romantic story would be interesting if there wasn't a breakdown in the relationship before the happy ending. So we have to admit to ourselves that we are fascinated by conflict and suffering. If we admit to this then we also have to admit that we have conflict and suffering in our lives because we want them. The truth is that most people would fear a world that was in complete harmony because it would be very boring.

Yet living in a world of separation then makes peace and harmony become totally impossible. Separation creates fear, hatred and destruction. So a masculine society becomes self-destructive and without the influence of the feminine it will destroy itself. For the last few thousand years we have seen the conflict caused by men becoming the dominant sex. Countless wars and genocide. Yet in that time even though women have been the submissive sex they have still worked very hard on men to civilize them. Men complain frequently that all women want to manipulate and change them. Traditionally in their own quiet way women do change men and greatly modify the excess of conflict and hatred that men indulge in. This is why in very male dominated countries like Islam men traditionally avoid the company of women as much as possible because they fear that to be with women will make men "soft".

Without the subtle influence of women, men would have destroyed themselves long ago. During the cold war between the West and the USSR both sides made and deployed enough nuclear weapons to destroy the world four times over. During this war both sides became very close to using these weapons. There was one incident where the USSR very nearly launched all her nuclear weapons because of a computer error. So we can see that had men became even slightly more aggressive in their nature we as a species would have become extinct.

We have a choice. We are able to be One and therefore live in a world of static harmony. Or we continue to live in a world of separation where we can have relationships with others. This then becomes a more dynamic world but such a world leads of fear, hatred suffering and finally to destruction.

So it means the feminine One, needs the masculine separation to give it dynamism and relationships. While the masculine separation needs the feminine One to give it love harmony and peace to prevent it from destroying itself. So how is it possible for these very two very different forces to work together? This seems to be impossible because the One and separated are totally different. The masculine mode of separation greatly fears the feminine One. This is because under the influence of the One he might lose his individuality. The feminine for obvious reasons also fears the masculine separation, because for thousands of years her love for the masculine has always been returned with hatred and abuse.

Are the fears of the masculine justified? In accepting the feminine Oneness will he lose all individuality? As the feminine One needs the masculine separation to have a relationship with it, then we can say that the masculine fears are justified. The feminine One is only able to love, as fear and hatred within the One is impossible. So when a women returns love from a man who shows he hates her, she is threatening him with her love as he fears he will lose his individuality if he returns her love with love. Yet women themselves are individuals as well. Women are able to love, empathize and cooperate with others and yet do not lose their individuality.

Imagine a world where there are no males. A world where women were able to reproduce without men. Without the divisions created in society by men perhaps women will empathize with each other to such a degree that they would lose all individuality. This might have happened to matriarchal societies of the past where women dominated societies became so peaceful that they began to stagnate. So the masculine had to be encouraged to bring new dynamism into society. Yet because of the competitive nature of the masculine, it competed with the feminine and in the end took control and dominated the feminine, claiming that it was a masculine God that created the world and created a masculine society with all the conflict, fear, hatred and suffering we see in our recorded history. So because the masculine moved out of the control of the feminine, it means we have moved from one extreme to the other.

So is this the only choice we have? Of a dynamic masculine world that is basically self-destructive, or a loving and peaceful feminine world where nothing much happens. Can't we have both? Can we not have a loving world that is also dynamic. In other words a world that is both individual and at One at the same time.

In the past men have greatly feared and hated very feminine women who have given them love in return for hatred and abuse. This suggests that the conflict between the One and separation only comes about when the One is too feminine and the individual is too masculine. So this means that there might be a middle way between these two extremes. It is possible for women to learn from the masculine and men to learn from the feminine?

This in theory should be the feminist relationship where both men and women are equals. Yet as we have seen such relationships are not very peaceful. In recent years marriage councilors have become a boom industry to try and fix up the conflict between couples, as more and more relationship break down and end in divorce. In fact the traditional patriarchal marriage where the man is the dominant partner was more stable than the feminist's equal relationships of today.

This is because of the way men think and feel. As man is very competitive equality doesn't come naturally for him because in his mind he is always thinking in terms of winners and losers. He is happy to be the dominant partner or the submissive partner. But to be the equal partner is something that is totally alien to his nature. Men are by nature game players and to them life is a game of winners and losers. We can see this clearly when men had ideals of creating a equal society. The result was the French revolution and later communism. Both attempts only made society only slightly more equal than other male dominated societies. In the end this experiment was seen as a failure because not only did men totally fail to create a equal society, communist societies began to stagnate when equality was forced on men.

This is because men and women are motivated by very different things. The feminine is motivated by love for others. Most women are more than happy to spend their whole lives caring and looking after other people, like children, husbands, old people and animals. The masculine on the other hand is motivated by competition and without competition men lose their strongest motivation.

Men are able to some degree to live in harmony with women when they are the dominant partner. Or as it seems in recent times if she is the dominant partner. In these relationships women play the dominant and masculine role, while men play the submissive and feminine role. Yet this doesn't mean that the sexes completely swap roles. Just because a woman is playing a masculine role it doesn't mean she has to lose her contact with the One and lose her ability to love and care for others. Likewise because a man is playing a feminine role it doesn't mean he has to lose his individuality.

When the masculine separation stops competing with the feminine One as it does in a Fem-Dom relationship when the man surrenders to the woman, then harmony between the sexes becomes possible. When the masculine continues to compete as in a traditional patriarchal relationship or a feminist political correct relationship then harmony between the sexes becomes impossible. Women representing femininity and Oneness might be able to live in relationships of equality and cooperation. But men representing masculinity and separation find equality and cooperation very difficult. To him the only type of relationship that makes sense is a relationship where either he is in charge or this partner is in charge. If that is not clearly defined then he will continue to compete with his partner until it is mutually agreed that he dominates her or she dominates him. In other words the masculine mind needs a clearly defined "pecking order" for him to have relationships with others.

To create a caring society of peace, harmony and love which is dynamic where all people do not lose their individuality, requires us to accept that the One is feminine so we need to worship a Mother Goddess as our creator. We don't have make the feminine the total ideal and reject individuality. Women have to take the lead and play the assertive masculine role, yet not lose their contact with the one, while men have to learn how to play the feminine role of caring for others and yet not lose their individuality.

The Great Mother has the same problem as a mortal mother. If a mother looks after her children too much she can ensure their safety, but in the process she doesn't allow them to grow. On the other hand if she gives them far too much freedom they will grow and learn how to look after themselves yet are more likely to be hurt. As children of the Great Mother we have demanded from her more freedom to look after ourselves. In doing so we have created the world we now live in. Unfortunately in not knowing what we are doing we have created a world of fear and suffering. It is now time to return to the Great Mother and to Oneness. To accept the guidance and wisdom of women who are her representatives on this Earth.

For so long we have accepted a male God and masculine values in our world that we no longer believe in or even know that there is an alternative to this. Yet there is an alternative and that is the Oneness of the Mother Goddess. It is not a matter of choosing between these alternatives because we can choose both if we wish to. We can live in a masculine world of separation, conflict and suffering. Yet when this becomes too difficult we have the choice to return to Oneness and harmony again. But we need the awareness of the feminine One to have this choice.

This article was first published at. - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DivineGoddess

FEMINISM'S HIDDEN AGENDA

By Pamela Suffield

On the surface, Feminism seems a simple enough movement. What does it want? Equality of opportunity for both women and men. A chance to choose, instead of being forced into the straitjacket of conventional roles. Fairness. Reasonableness. A sharing of power, money and status between the sexes, instead of everything being hogged by men. Who can argue with that, especially since it is "politically correct" to espouse such goals? We may find Feminism something of a bore these days, but at least we are clear about its objectives - empowerment of women so that they become equal with men.

Underneath this perfectly reasonable and ideologically sound credo is a completely different desire, as yet almost entirely unvoiced, except by a brave few. Many women (and men) want to live in a world led by females. The reasons are as many and varied as the people wishing such a world. "Women's turn now," is one reason given by people sick of the world as it is. Men have had their chance. They cocked it up, so give a women a go! After all they can't do a worse job. Maybe there'll be less war, if women get to make the decisions, since the rampant aggressiveness of males will be held in check. The conflict and hierarchical structures patriarchy has invented will disappear, because women know how to cooperate. They know how to live happily without destroying the environment to make a quick buck.

Oh yes, oh yes!" many men say, even if it's deep in their hearts, because the thought of being dominated by a "strong" woman thrills them beyond measure. This is seen as a sexual perversion by "macho" men, but it exists. Look also at the anger voiced by many women about the oppression of the last few thousand years. There is a well of deep hatred there, a need to destroy all that men have achieved, all that men are! Such a need can't be met by gender equality, but within a society that gives power to women and in which they can expect revenge.

Sound sick? There are also powerful desires for a world led by women which are sane, sound and rational. It's a necessity, for example, for us to learn to cooperate with each other globally, to nurture both ourselves and the planet, to learn to live harmoniously. Our emphasis upon competition, struggle and speed not to mention our blind acceptance of science as the way forward in all situations, has brought us to our knees. Women, when they don't attempt to become aggressive, patriarchal "men in frocks," are perhaps more capable of producing a happy world than men. Their unsung potential for wisdom and leadership by example remains untapped and undeveloped, and many people, secretly for the most part, would like to see them replacing the largely corrupt and self-serving males who rule our lives. I could go on, but hopefully you get the picture. Underneath the apparently "fair" demand for equality between men and women is a hidden agenda - sometimes hidden to the people who want it to happen - which clamors for a female-led society. Please.

So why don't we hear more about this desire? An obvious reason could be that it doesn't exist, and women really do want only half the cake. Somehow they will find a way to balance the structures and goals of society to meet the needs of both men and women, without disadvantaging either. We will then live in harmonious, equal bliss forever.

It's impossible. Equality is a rational, logical ideal, a typical invention of patriarchy; a product of left-brain thinking. It can't exist, because human beings don't operate solely from a basis of logic, but via a whole parcel of emotional and spiritual needs, which can't be met by dividing an imaginary cake, however fairly. Women may want to share in the profits of patriarchy at the moment, but they will soon see that all of its structures, its goals, its ways of operating, are completely at odds with their nature, whatever that turns out to be. They may buy into it for awhile, become judges and managing directors, but soon come to see that the cost is too high, for them as well as for others. The whole system has to be dismantled, because it was erected in the first place to fulfill the goals of patriarchal males; their need for power over others, money, status and control. You can only produce equality in this system with more control, so that you can nit-pickingly parcel out rights, opportunities and the fruits of exploitation in an even-handed way.

Equality takes no account of personal evolution or the multifarious emotional needs of individuals. Before we begin, it defines what is valuable, and then insists on building structures to ensure we get our "share" - whether we want it or not. Maybe I don't want an equal right to be a boss and stamp on the faces of my employees. Maybe I don't want the freedom to work twelve hours a day in a munitions factory along with the boys. Maybe I don't want to be coerced into yet another set of "shoulds" and "oughts," so that society can pat itself on the back that I now have equal access to the roles of murderer, criminal, soldier as well as politician, doctor and artist.

I want more than this. I want the whole of society to change, and for women to be in on the ground floor, shaping the world in a different way, producing a more loving and less destructive environment. I also believe women can do it, though not yet; it's too soon. We have only just begun to cotton on to the fact that everything we think we want, everything we believe in, everything we aspire to, has been defined by a small number of dominant males. They wrote the books, passed the laws, disseminated the propaganda and spouted the bullshit. It will take us a long time to see through it all. As the light dawns, we'll see what fools we were, and begin to live our lives according to the needs of all of us, not just a select few. In such a world, women will be at the center, not because they force others into submission, but because the human race has a deep psychological and spiritual need to reverse the patriarchy and explore its opposite. No amount of proselytizing about equality can counter that need, especially after millennia of male domination. Hopefully, we will give a massive shrug, shake off the beliefs and patterns of the past, and explore what it's like to listen to women. Really listen. Having tried both ways, maybe then we can find some way to apply all we've learned in a world where men and women have their natures and experiences equally valued.

Very few people are willing to contemplate a female-centered society, let alone speak about it. It's an idea whose time has not yet come, and one would risk abuse suggesting it. So it's not surprising what we find it difficult to see that it's the next step after throwing off the shackles of male domination and will lead to greater happiness for both sexes.

Most women have very little confidence as yet. They've been belittled and told they're barely human for thousands of years. They're judged by values which are defined by men, so it's difficult to see themselves without that filter of prejudice. Most men don't yet know how to support and encourage women; they themselves are confused about what their new role is in the changing panorama of sexual stereotyping. It's all a bit of a muddle, and so women feel that being given or achieving "equality" within a completely male run world is as much as they can dare hope for. At the moment, they still listen to men, defer to them, and define themselves according to male criteria of "success. So we see the rise of the powerful, aggressive woman, who is usually a substitute patriarchal man, and just as likely to shit on you from a great height as he is. Who would want a world run by people like that? Not me. They're like the "nouveau riche," power and money is so new to them, and their models are so unappealing - successful men- that to contemplate handing the reins of power over to them sends a shudder down the spine of anyone who feels we need something different, not more of the same. So we reject the idea, which might be surfacing into our conscious minds, that a society guided by women could be a good idea.

Not only do women lack confidence in themselves, they still have too much fear of patriarchal men to voice any kind of desire for a female-led world. It's been difficult enough accumulating the few rights they have against the resistance of society. They wait fearfully for the backlash from men, who are still massively powerful, and might push them back under if they get too "uppity." They are still beaten in their houses, raped in the streets and excluded from those positions of authority which men want to keep for themselves. What would happen if they said that the world needs to look to women for the way forward? At the least they'd be laughed at. "Women! They can't even program the video recorder, let alone run the planet!" At the worst there might be wholesale violence against women who made such suggestions. Faced with their fears of what men might still do to them, many women conclude that equality if fine! Patriarchal men move from having the whole of the cake to having half of it. That's fair, isn't it? Faced with the suggestion that women could move from having none of the cake to cooking it by a completely different recipe, many people recoil in horror. No way! Women might abuse men in the same way men hurt and humiliated women. It seems safer by far, to both sexes, to go for equality, which at least leaves you with a 50% chance of getting your way if you're a man, and a 50% chance of opting out of growth if you're a woman.

It can't work. Men and women need to learn completely different lessons now, and taboos about fairness have to go. It may relieve some of our anxieties to feel that we can, if we try hard enough, parcel out money, power and opportunity even-handedly. However, it may not be the right thing to do to ensure that humanity learns from its mistakes. Women have often been referred to as the "fairer" sex - fairer in terms of "niceness," unselfishness and nurturing. They may find it difficult to relinquish the pay-off from feeling themselves morally superior to men. They at least don't behave aggressively and tyrannically, don't put their needs before those of others, and are much more capable of empathy. We know from many studies that women find ways of avoiding success, and where promotion is available, shrink from accepting. It is not just lack of confidence, or fear of becoming unattractive to men, but a real terror that if they do join in the patriarchy at the "boss" level they might become tyrants, just like men. It's a strong taboo, and one that i feel many women have. Even acknowledging competitiveness, aggression and selfishness in themselves is problematical for many women, so the idea of leading or shaping society is hardly likely to occur to them.

What about men? Are there any men other than the ones who want a dominatrix who long for a new way? I think there are, though they are hardly likely to broadcast their opinion that it's time women took over. The "macho" image they are supposed to present to the world is still very strong, and they are often surrounded by men who express hostility to women in many ways. Caring and cooperation is still seen as "wimpish" behavior, likely to interfere with the ruthless pursuit of personal ambition. Men are as heavily conditioned as women into socially acceptable behavior, and find that even the notion of "equality" is quite frightening because it's new. How are they supposed to behave towards women now, without risking ridicule and criticism? It's not easy. So why should they go beyond what's currently asked of them, and consider women as leaders? Well for one thing, they live in a world where other men with more power than they have, push them around, attack them in the streets just as much, if not more than they do women, and use them as disposable pawns. Very few get to be the ones giving the orders, and with so much "accountability" around, even fewer have power without massive responsibility. A world without violent and competitive males calling the shots might be quite appealing emotionally, especially if rigidly structured hierarchies of power and status disappear as well. We underestimate just how many men are sick of the patriarchy, and once it occurs to them, might welcome a woman-centered world.

I haven't said much about how a matricentric society could function, largely because I don't know. If we go back a few thousand years, we can find matrilinear societies, goddesses, and an absence of war, well-documented by present day scholars. However, we have no way of going back to the patterns of those times and must find a new way. And a female led society may produce its own problems, in the way patriarchy has. It can't be a simple flipping of the coin, with the only change being that women oppress men, who are the subservient slaves of females. Women are intrinsically different from men; how different we won't know until women shake off their patriarchal conditioning. Feminism may seem to try to persuade us that equality should be our goal, but many of its followers really would like women to have their turn. Worth a try?

FEMINISM'S HIDDEN AGENDA

By Pamela Suffield

On the surface, Feminism seems a simple enough movement. What does it want? Equality of opportunity for both women and men. A chance to choose, instead of being forced into the straitjacket of conventional roles. Fairness. Reasonableness. A sharing of power, money and status between the sexes, instead of everything being hogged by men. Who can argue with that, especially since it is "politically correct" to espouse such goals? We may find Feminism something of a bore these days, but at least we are clear about its objectives - empowerment of women so that they become equal with men.

Underneath this perfectly reasonable and ideologically sound credo is a completely different desire, as yet almost entirely unvoiced, except by a brave few. Many women (and men) want to live in a world led by females. The reasons are as many and varied as the people wishing such a world. "Women's turn now," is one reason given by people sick of the world as it is. Men have had their chance. They cocked it up, so give a women a go! After all they can't do a worse job. Maybe there'll be less war, if women get to make the decisions, since the rampant aggressiveness of males will be held in check. The conflict and hierarchical structures patriarchy has invented will disappear, because women know how to cooperate. They know how to live happily without destroying the environment to make a quick buck.

Oh yes, oh yes!" many men say, even if it's deep in their hearts, because the thought of being dominated by a "strong" woman thrills them beyond measure. This is seen as a sexual perversion by "macho" men, but it exists. Look also at the anger voiced by many women about the oppression of the last few thousand years. There is a well of deep hatred there, a need to destroy all that men have achieved, all that men are! Such a need can't be met by gender equality, but within a society that gives power to women and in which they can expect revenge.

Sound sick? There are also powerful desires for a world led by women which are sane, sound and rational. It's a necessity, for example, for us to learn to cooperate with each other globally, to nurture both ourselves and the planet, to learn to live harmoniously. Our emphasis upon competition, struggle and speed not to mention our blind acceptance of science as the way forward in all situations, has brought us to our knees. Women, when they don't attempt to become aggressive, patriarchal "men in frocks," are perhaps more capable of producing a happy world than men. Their unsung potential for wisdom and leadership by example remains untapped and undeveloped, and many people, secretly for the most part, would like to see them replacing the largely corrupt and self-serving males who rule our lives. I could go on, but hopefully you get the picture. Underneath the apparently "fair" demand for equality between men and women is a hidden agenda - sometimes hidden to the people who want it to happen - which clamors for a female-led society. Please.

So why don't we hear more about this desire? An obvious reason could be that it doesn't exist, and women really do want only half the cake. Somehow they will find a way to balance the structures and goals of society to meet the needs of both men and women, without disadvantaging either. We will then live in harmonious, equal bliss forever.

It's impossible. Equality is a rational, logical ideal, a typical invention of patriarchy; a product of left-brain thinking. It can't exist, because human beings don't operate solely from a basis of logic, but via a whole parcel of emotional and spiritual needs, which can't be met by dividing an imaginary cake, however fairly. Women may want to share in the profits of patriarchy at the moment, but they will soon see that all of its structures, its goals, its ways of operating, are completely at odds with their nature, whatever that turns out to be. They may buy into it for awhile, become judges and managing directors, but soon come to see that the cost is too high, for them as well as for others. The whole system has to be dismantled, because it was erected in the first place to fulfill the goals of patriarchal males; their need for power over others, money, status and control. You can only produce equality in this system with more control, so that you can nit-pickingly parcel out rights, opportunities and the fruits of exploitation in an even-handed way.

Equality takes no account of personal evolution or the multifarious emotional needs of individuals. Before we begin, it defines what is valuable, and then insists on building structures to ensure we get our "share" - whether we want it or not. Maybe I don't want an equal right to be a boss and stamp on the faces of my employees. Maybe I don't want the freedom to work twelve hours a day in a munitions factory along with the boys. Maybe I don't want to be coerced into yet another set of "shoulds" and "oughts," so that society can pat itself on the back that I now have equal access to the roles of murderer, criminal, soldier as well as politician, doctor and artist.

I want more than this. I want the whole of society to change, and for women to be in on the ground floor, shaping the world in a different way, producing a more loving and less destructive environment. I also believe women can do it, though not yet; it's too soon. We have only just begun to cotton on to the fact that everything we think we want, everything we believe in, everything we aspire to, has been defined by a small number of dominant males. They wrote the books, passed the laws, disseminated the propaganda and spouted the bullshit. It will take us a long time to see through it all. As the light dawns, we'll see what fools we were, and begin to live our lives according to the needs of all of us, not just a select few. In such a world, women will be at the center, not because they force others into submission, but because the human race has a deep psychological and spiritual need to reverse the patriarchy and explore its opposite. No amount of proselytizing about equality can counter that need, especially after millennia of male domination. Hopefully, we will give a massive shrug, shake off the beliefs and patterns of the past, and explore what it's like to listen to women. Really listen. Having tried both ways, maybe then we can find some way to apply all we've learned in a world where men and women have their natures and experiences equally valued.

Very few people are willing to contemplate a female-centered society, let alone speak about it. It's an idea whose time has not yet come, and one would risk abuse suggesting it. So it's not surprising what we find it difficult to see that it's the next step after throwing off the shackles of male domination and will lead to greater happiness for both sexes.

Most women have very little confidence as yet. They've been belittled and told they're barely human for thousands of years. They're judged by values which are defined by men, so it's difficult to see themselves without that filter of prejudice. Most men don't yet know how to support and encourage women; they themselves are confused about what their new role is in the changing panorama of sexual stereotyping. It's all a bit of a muddle, and so women feel that being given or achieving "equality" within a completely male run world is as much as they can dare hope for. At the moment, they still listen to men, defer to them, and define themselves according to male criteria of "success. So we see the rise of the powerful, aggressive woman, who is usually a substitute patriarchal man, and just as likely to shit on you from a great height as he is. Who would want a world run by people like that? Not me. They're like the "nouveau riche," power and money is so new to them, and their models are so unappealing - successful men- that to contemplate handing the reins of power over to them sends a shudder down the spine of anyone who feels we need something different, not more of the same. So we reject the idea, which might be surfacing into our conscious minds, that a society guided by women could be a good idea.

Not only do women lack confidence in themselves, they still have too much fear of patriarchal men to voice any kind of desire for a female-led world. It's been difficult enough accumulating the few rights they have against the resistance of society. They wait fearfully for the backlash from men, who are still massively powerful, and might push them back under if they get too "uppity." They are still beaten in their houses, raped in the streets and excluded from those positions of authority which men want to keep for themselves. What would happen if they said that the world needs to look to women for the way forward? At the least they'd be laughed at. "Women! They can't even program the video recorder, let alone run the planet!" At the worst there might be wholesale violence against women who made such suggestions. Faced with their fears of what men might still do to them, many women conclude that equality if fine! Patriarchal men move from having the whole of the cake to having half of it. That's fair, isn't it? Faced with the suggestion that women could move from having none of the cake to cooking it by a completely different recipe, many people recoil in horror. No way! Women might abuse men in the same way men hurt and humiliated women. It seems safer by far, to both sexes, to go for equality, which at least leaves you with a 50% chance of getting your way if you're a man, and a 50% chance of opting out of growth if you're a woman.

It can't work. Men and women need to learn completely different lessons now, and taboos about fairness have to go. It may relieve some of our anxieties to feel that we can, if we try hard enough, parcel out money, power and opportunity even-handedly. However, it may not be the right thing to do to ensure that humanity learns from its mistakes. Women have often been referred to as the "fairer" sex - fairer in terms of "niceness," unselfishness and nurturing. They may find it difficult to relinquish the pay-off from feeling themselves morally superior to men. They at least don't behave aggressively and tyrannically, don't put their needs before those of others, and are much more capable of empathy. We know from many studies that women find ways of avoiding success, and where promotion is available, shrink from accepting. It is not just lack of confidence, or fear of becoming unattractive to men, but a real terror that if they do join in the patriarchy at the "boss" level they might become tyrants, just like men. It's a strong taboo, and one that i feel many women have. Even acknowledging competitiveness, aggression and selfishness in themselves is problematical for many women, so the idea of leading or shaping society is hardly likely to occur to them.

What about men? Are there any men other than the ones who want a dominatrix who long for a new way? I think there are, though they are hardly likely to broadcast their opinion that it's time women took over. The "macho" image they are supposed to present to the world is still very strong, and they are often surrounded by men who express hostility to women in many ways. Caring and cooperation is still seen as "wimpish" behavior, likely to interfere with the ruthless pursuit of personal ambition. Men are as heavily conditioned as women into socially acceptable behavior, and find that even the notion of "equality" is quite frightening because it's new. How are they supposed to behave towards women now, without risking ridicule and criticism? It's not easy. So why should they go beyond what's currently asked of them, and consider women as leaders? Well for one thing, they live in a world where other men with more power than they have, push them around, attack them in the streets just as much, if not more than they do women, and use them as disposable pawns. Very few get to be the ones giving the orders, and with so much "accountability" around, even fewer have power without massive responsibility. A world without violent and competitive males calling the shots might be quite appealing emotionally, especially if rigidly structured hierarchies of power and status disappear as well. We underestimate just how many men are sick of the patriarchy, and once it occurs to them, might welcome a woman-centered world.

I haven't said much about how a matricentric society could function, largely because I don't know. If we go back a few thousand years, we can find matrilinear societies, goddesses, and an absence of war, well-documented by present day scholars. However, we have no way of going back to the patterns of those times and must find a new way. And a female led society may produce its own problems, in the way patriarchy has. It can't be a simple flipping of the coin, with the only change being that women oppress men, who are the subservient slaves of females. Women are intrinsically different from men; how different we won't know until women shake off their patriarchal conditioning. Feminism may seem to try to persuade us that equality should be our goal, but many of its followers really would like women to have their turn. Worth a try?

FEELINGS

by Pamela Suffield


Truly patriarchal males see themselves as God. Strange but true. In a patriarchal system, the male god is merely a projection of society's ideas about ideal masculinity, without any balance from what has been designated as 'feminine' and therefore inferior. God is therefore Man writ large, living in the sky, and is naturally interested in much the same things as man below. This god gave man dominion over the birds and the beasts (how convenient) and he has used this to kill, enslave and exterminate those species he wished to, as well as despoiling the Earth they inhabit.

Man could only do this by feeling himself separate from the animal kingdom, so separate in fact, that he can no longer feel the pain of what he hurts. He can no longer, then, feel his own pain, since everything is really connected to him, whether he accepts this or not. His approaching re-connection with animals, the Earth, women, children and other men will involve massive changes in his feelings. Once he allows himself to feel the pain of others, he will inevitably have to feel his own - which is the pain of separation from the Great Mother while he is on the path of his god. This he may resist for a long time, since it will seem to interfere with his god-given right to be totally independent, selfish and self-creating.

In a rampantly patriarchal man, most feelings are totally disdained. He is virtually an automaton. Only those emotions concerned with conquest and subjugation are important, because they can help him achieve his goals. Triumph at the defeat of an enemy, for example, is retained. It is safe, because it reinforces separation. Anger is also acceptable, because it fuels his determination to revenge himself on those he feels have wronged him, and reinforces his view of the world as composed entirely of winners and losers. The truly patriarchal man feels hurt pride when anything happens which he sees as defeat. The blow to his ego is devastating, He will bide his time, and make another attempt to triumph when he feels strong enough to attack. This is vital to his ego, but naturally leads to an escalating spiral destruction, with neither side within a conflict ever giving up the fight while there is a chance of winning some sort of victory. It is nothing to him if lives are lost, cities are destroyed and the environment blasted. His feelings are only concerned with retaliation, winning and restoring his sense of himself as an individual who is important.

So a military leader can order thousands of men to die for their country - without feeling. He can order the slaughter of women and children - without feeling. He will allow himself no empathy with those who are killed as a result of his actions, because at the level of his feelings, they simply do not exist. They are therefore dispensable.

There are many more examples of this lack of feeling at a more mundane level. Let's take a stereotype to illustrate the phenomenon clearly. A Victorian paterfamilias never questioned his divinely ordained right to arrange his family life to suit himself. His wife existed to create domestic harmony and supply his needs without question. Her feelings were irrelevant. Any complaints, god forbid, could be dealt with easily, by invoking the Bible, social rules, economic power, derision, or as a last resort, violence. If he used her sexually just to produce children, he had no qualms about taking his other sexual pleasures with prostitutes, who formed a substantial part of the female population in Victorian times. Children came even lower down the pecking order. Their feelings were of no consequence, and their only task was to quietly obey the dictates of their Father, the state and the god. Ditto the servants, since we are talking about a middle-class family here.

The only way the Victorian father could cope with all this controlling of others in his own interest was by a developed capacity to ignore the feelings of others - their pain, their unfulfilled needs, their very self-hood. He felt satisfaction at their obedience, anger if they were not tractable, and very little else. The list is endless. A slave owner can only enslave if he has no feelings for the suffering of those he chains. A terrorist can only plant bombs if he has no compassion for the victims of the explosion. A rapist can only rape if he allows no identification with the humiliation he causes. Indeed, a man may go further and find that hurting other people gives him tremendous satisfaction, and is some sort of 'repayment' for pain he sees himself as having suffered at the hands of others more powerful.

Grubbing around in the feelings of the average patriarchal man is not a pleasant experience, but it is quite instructive. We know that we all have a capacity to kill others, to be completely selfish and aggressive, as well as being nurturing, self-sacrificial and supportive etc. As human beings we contain all possibilities within us, but we choose to acknowledge and act out only some of these. The patriarchal man excludes empathy, because it might lead you to becoming 'soft' or 'womanish.' You are likely to be exploited because you can be deviated from your actions by the needs and suffering of others. The answer to any stirring feelings of identification with the 'other' is to stiffen up, eliminate or control the feelings and become ruthless. The roots of this last word lie in the Old English word 'routh', which meant pity, so you are, in effect, instructing yourself to act without pity for others. If the patriarchal man began to acknowledge that other people are connected to him, and that his desires are not the only ones which have a right to be fulfilled, he would immediately collide with the demands of his ego, which is now not only supremely uninterested in the needs of others, but stronger than the promptings of unconditional love. So he suppresses all knowledge of his oneness with everything, at the level of his emotions, and concentrates on himself. After sufficient practice, this becomes second nature, and he loses touch at a conscious level with pity, compassion and love. He may retain all sorts of intellectual ideas about the Brotherhood of man, and pay lip-service to notions of Justice, Equality etc., but when push comes to shove, he always puts himself first.

Patriarchal man simply does not know how stunted he is. He can't see the use for most feelings. He has employed such a narrow range of emotions for so long, and for his own egocentric purposes, that he is at a loss to know what a matercentric person is talking about in the area of compassion and love. Give him a goals and he'll strive for it, give him a wrong and he'll fight someone to death to right it, but give him a crying child who needs comfort and he's lost.

Anyone who furthers the ends of patriarchal man is smiled on and approved of. Anyone who does not is disapproved of, or hated. It's that simple. He has no tolerance for different philosophies and ways of being, but he will act affably towards you if you stroke his ego, help him to achieve his goals or supply him with what he wants. Don't make the mistake of thinking that this means he cares about you. As soon as you stop giving him what he wants he will stop being nice to you. He can co-operate perfectly well with others when it suits him, particularly if there's a reward involved, like promotion or the conquest of a collective enemy (another business, another country, another football team). It's always a temporary phenomenon. Once the war's over, the drug dealer's been caught, the other team's relegated to the second division, he falls back into competition, which was what it was all about in the first place. The co-operation was very handy in giving him an edge in a conflict situation; safety net in numbers, but it was a means to an end - his winning.

As a teenager, I enjoyed Science Fiction a great deal. I read masses of 'pulp' novels, often with a scantily clad female on the cover, or a man with a ray-gun shooting an alien. A common theme was the invasion of Earth by aliens. They might do this secretly, by planting their people in disguise, or they might land in a flotilla of spaceships and order us to obey them. I loved these stories, I have to confess, but even I became bored with the inevitable storylines about the banding together of all the warring nations so that the aliens could be defeated. Global co-operation is achieved for the first time, hooray, and the nasty invaders are repelled. What we are not shown in the quarreling which resumes as soon as the last alien is blasted to pieces by the United Terran forces. But it would be inevitable, since the need to identify and conquer an enemy is still there.

That's the truly patriarchal man, then; severely truncated feeling nature because he's developing his ego and satisfying his own desires. If you don't really care about other people, life becomes so much simpler, doesn't it? You only have to consider yourself. Everyone else is a pawn in your game. What, meanwhile, is happening to the patriarchal woman? She is of course still connected to the Great Mother, but she's been fed a lot of patriarchal ideas, and gradually accepted them. She has no confidence in herself, and believes that she exists to serve others by caring for them physically and emotionally. She has been told that 'love' consists of placing a man's needs before her own, and looking after children, the sick and the elderly. Whatever else she might do in addition to this, she must remember that it is with the permission of a man and his male deity.

She goes along with this, as far as she can. She has been told that her very nature is bound up with caring for others, not herself, so she tries very hard not to have needs. She probably has very few, and truthfully rejoices in the well-being of her husband and children. However, she's also been told that her feelings of love for everyone are highly dangerous, particularly if they are in any way sexual, and that she is only allowed to love certain people. It is made clear to her that stepping outside these boundaries will lead to punishment, and a close watch is kept on her to ensure that she doesn't step out of line. She is meant to hate all the people her husband and her god tell her are bad. It's fairly difficult to keep alive her sense of emotional connection to other human beings, yet restrict it to people designated as acceptable by men, but she has a go.

If she feels any need for love and emotional support herself, she will not receive it from her husband, who is busy getting things, not giving them, but from other women and the Great Mother. She doesn't know the Goddess exists, of course, so it may come through an attunement to images of the Virgin Mary etc. Her husband insists that he comes first in her mind and emotions as well as her actions. What is left over after he has taken what he wants can be given to 'her' children, and perhaps her family. Certainly not to another man, since the fact that she belongs to him sexually is of crucial importance, both for the inheritance of any property and his pride. He has to know that her children are also his, since they are an extension of him into the future, particularly if they are male. If another man has possessed her sexually, she is of no value, because she is clearly out of control for one thing, and can't be seen as exclusively his property. So the patriarchal woman trains herself out t of sexual feelings totally, because the whole area is so fraught with difficulty, and leaves them to men, or women who are not so patriarchally oriented, like whores.

Sometimes the woman is required to go even further. She is told to feel nothing for anyone other than her husband, not even her children. She is to see no-one else at all, and becomes a prisoner in her own home. At the same time, her husband, who is controlling her so closely out of his own insecurity, hates his dependence on her. So he punishes her, verbally and physically. She has to forgive him for this, and remain with him despite the mistreatment, because, as he will often explain, he needs her. This is an amazing demand, yet many women do remain with possessive and violent men for many years, perhaps a lifetime. They may still love him, feel sorry for him, attempt to help him, be afraid of leaving him all alone, with no thought for their own needs and welfare. The invisible woman again.

We can see many men today who require savage limitations on a woman's feeling nature. They do not feel secure enough in the development of their ego to allow the woman to care for others. Love appears to be like a bag of toffees. If a woman gives any to other people, then there will be less for them. So they ask her to be a mini version of the Great Mother-all-loving, all-caring, but a personal deity, owned and controlled by one man. They resent children, and see the birth of a baby as a threat to their ownership of a woman. The child might take away attention which is rightly 'theirs', so they go off and have an affair to make up for the supposed loss. Or they sulk because the woman spends time with the baby, and compete with it for her attention. If there are no children, they may behave the same way towards the woman's family or friends, in an attempt to isolate her and thus own her more completely. When a woman is moving back to the Great Mother, a man's attempts to get her undivided attention by childish behavior can be quite amusing. But it's no joke to a woman who feels she should only love her husband, yet finds that whatever she does he is never satisfied and never feels truly safe.

So far, so good, but now let's look at why patriarchal man orders up this dog's breakfast of conflicting feelings as patriarchal woman's only foodstuff. Why doesn't he just tell her to be like him? After all, now he's defined her as a feeling oriented creature, he is afraid of her, afraid he might become like her - emotional, sentimental, soft and caring - or afraid he might not be able to control the expression of those feelings and keep them for himself alone. Though he might lose out on having his needs met, he would be far safer if women weren't decidedly different from him and 'more like a man'. Many men of course do approve of women who 'think like a man', feel like a man - i.e. they conform to male stereotypes. They can be 'one of the boys', and are in many ways not as threatening as so-called normal women. True, they might compete with you for a job, but the dice is loaded against them, so that's not too much of a problem. Sex can be 'just fun' with such a woman, since she plays by the same rules as you do. No emotional attachments, no responsibility. You don't have to provide her with a house and come home to her on a regular basis between stints on the corporate or actual battlefield. Although she doesn't really come into the category of 'whore', there would be the same lack of demands for sustained relationship, if all women were like patriarchal men.

The trouble is, she's free, and because she is no-one's possession, can't be counted on to provide all the other things a man feels he needs - guaranteed sex, home comforts, emotional support, and above all, loyalty. In a world where competition rules ok., someone who is always on your side is vital. The 'woman who's like a man' is on her own side. She's not demanding commitment, but she also doesn't want to bear your children, constantly prop up your ego and take your side.

So in return for complete possession of a woman's 'love', and the resultant emotional security, a patriarchal man 'sacrifices' his freedom to roam where he likes, plant his seed where he likes. He also sacrifices the need to prove himself all over again every time he meets a woman, and fight other men to get a good one. Though there might be a lot of grumbling about the sacrifice of his precious freedom, really he's spared all sorts of activities which are quite stressful. It's quite a relief, really, since you get women to stick to the faithful, loyal and nurturing bit, upon pain of being stoned to death etc., while you go off and visit a prostitute or look for a nice flat to install your mistress in. There's also the delicious pleasure of tempting another man's wife into sex and getting one over on him, which wouldn't be half so sweet if women were communal property. You try not to let that happen to you, of course, and tell your wife how lucky she is. After all, men are naturally polygamous, you say, and it's only because they are noble and self-sacrificing that they restrict themselves to one woman, for the good of the human race. There's certainly nothing in it for them, so it must be that women have arranged all this marriage stuff to entrap men into a lifetime of servitude. It's a terribly convenient explanation, designed to keep men in ignorance of their dependence on women, and allow them to feel good about themselves. If I had a pound for every time I've read or heard this reason given by men for marriage I'd be a very rich woman!

So far, we're still in the realms of the solidly patriarchal system, where women take care of emotional nurturing for the whole of the human race, and men take care of themselves. Here we meeting the woman who has taken on board all of the instructions given to her by men. She 'loves' her husband totally, i.e. she is completely self-sacrificial. She endures his violence, his coldness, his irresponsibility and his unfaithfulness, hoping that one day he will change. This is not for her benefit, of course, but because he is clearly unhappy. All of her energy goes into helping him, but she feels powerless to do anything other than wait, hope and support. She loves her husband far more than she loves herself, but is incapable of seeing that her masochism has no chance of changing him. He will continue to use her until one of two things happens. Either she refuses to be trodden on any more, or he himself decides to change because he can see her as a real person who is suffering from his behavior. Until then he will ignore her needs and expect her to put him first, however patient and understanding she is.

Like many people in a seemingly harmful situation, the woman is not acknowledging some of her feelings. We all do it. Maybe she feels that she only deserves a bastard for a husband; maybe it gives her a kick to be pitied by others; maybe she's avoiding writing a wonderful novel which she can't be bothered to start on, and the husband gives her a good excuse because he requires so much attention. The roots of her feelings go back a long way, and are not easily seen, let alone understood. It took us a long time to arrive at a situation where men feel that building nuclear bombs is a sensible idea, and women feel that men are constitutionally incapable of cleaning the toilet. Along the way, we hid most of our feelings in the shed at the bottom of the garden, and proceeded to lose the key. True, we can work out what some of them are. WE can note our reactions to what other people do, and recognize that we are reacting to a highly charged aspect of ourselves if we find a lot of emotion. If I react strongly to the thought of incest, though, is it because I want to commit incest, I've been a victim of it, or because I'm a highly judgmental person, and almost anything that anyone does other than breathe lightly through the nose is offensive tome? I can't tell you. However, I can say that these feelings are part of you, and need to be honored, even if they appall you. A matercentric person accepts and includes everything, and that means his or her emotions too. A patriarchal person (and we are all partly or wholly that) condemns other people, condemns particular feelings or refuses to acknowledge them, and lives in a world of black and white, right and wrong, safe and unsafe emotions. The words 'should' and 'ought' spring to such a person's lips with inevitable regularity. You 'should' love your parents, you 'should' work hard for a living, you 'should' hate child molesters and want to string 'em up, you 'ought' to like cooking if you're biologically female and playing football if you're male. Because as many people don't feel what they 'ought' to feel, then there's a great deal of guilt and denial flying around as result. The matercentric person, however, has taken off the corset of rigid rules on feelings, with a mixture of relief and apprehension, and is setting out to find exactly what his or her true feelings are, as honestly as possible. Maybe there will be some unacknowledged pain released, but there will also be joy in celebrating, at last, what is true, and does not any longer need to be concealed. I tell you, it can be a blissful experience to do this, like a good shit after weeks and weeks of constipation. I'm sure you can find a more decorous analogy for yourself.

Let me tell you something about my own life in relation to this. About 10 years ago, I had the usual rag-bag of judgments about other people that most of us have, usually concerning folks I knew nothing about, but criticized anyway. Because I was heavily involved in the 'New Age' movement, and therefore a 'spiritual' person, I tried to see the good in everyone, but not very successfully. I judged smokers, criminals, drug addicts and violent people, to name but a few categories, while priding myself on what a tolerant, unpossessive and honest person I was.

Within a few months, I was living with a violent, dishonest heroin addict, who had a long criminal record, a propensity for very young girls and a habit of dressing up in women's clothing. His idea of restrained and moral behavior was not to steal from my daughter's piggy bank, although everything else was fair game. And I loved him, or to put it more truthfully, was obsessed by him. I had to revise everything I believed about myself, and experience emotions I had not realized I was capable of: jealousy and possessiveness, the desire to murder someone, intense grief. I became a smoker, which gave me the opportunity to experience addiction. It was made clear to me, by the small voice inside me, that I would not be released from my obsession until I had acknowledged and accepted more of who I really was, and begun to learn real tolerance. My partner was held in the same bondage, and as appalled by the situation as I was. We came from totally different worlds, but we had to learn to accept and understand the other. It took over three years, and was a very hard time for me. I couldn't run away, because I was aware that the lesson would present itself through another person anyway. It was a baptism of fire in relation to the contents of my own feeling nature, but I hope it has left me as a more compassionate person as a result.

I'm not suggesting you have to marry a junkie to evolve your emotions - everyone has their own path - but I am saying that the habit of repressing and denying parts of ourselves, and particularly our feelings, will begin to crumble as we turn on to the path of the Goddess. I have no idea what it will mean for you, any more than I knew what it would involve for me, but it's a necessary step.

All of our denied feelings, from the desire to kill others through to our wish for a more loving and peaceful world, have reached boiling point. They are a bomb waiting to go off, a river ready to flood. Firstly, women's emotional, sexual and creative needs, so long ignored by both men and women, are clamoring for attention. Since most women still have small egos, and have almost lost contact with their goddess nature, they make only feeble attempts initially to change their situation. Guilt will intervene, or internal confusion. It's still very easy for men to squash them, and convince them that if they express feelings of need, they are overdemanding and voracious. Because women are still very patriarchal, they will see the situation as an either/or. If I get more, he will get less, - poor thing. And he does work hard at the office after all; maybe it is too much to expect him to iron his own shirts. They don't want a fight, so they retreat into denial again.

Other women, still afraid of the power of men, and feeling that they are weak, will go for subtle tactics, undermining a man's ego as a form of punishment, without acknowledging any hostility. It won't have any effect on a confident man with a strong sense of his own specialness. He knows he's wonderful. Those who are less sure that men are a special form of superior life, maybe even contemplating concessions to women, could find the old fears of women rising up again, and retaliate, becoming colder, less responsive, more aggressive. But no-one is being honest, no-one is saying openly, "I want to hurt you because.....' Both are in an unacknowledged war, and the fighting can get very dirty before it becomes conscious. It saves both time and pain to freely admit that you hate a man and wish to watch him writhe in agony, or that you would die rather than see a woman President of the United States.

Nagging, scolding, bitching and whining, all forms of coercion, are fairly useless ways for women to get what they want. Indulging in them shows you don't have much confidence, and after a while, no-one listens. I haven't given them up myself yet, any more than I've given up eating the occasional chocolate bar for comfort. I too have a long way to go. But I try to be more direct, and explore my feelings of powerlessness internally before my unsuccessful attempts to get the kids to turn the stereo down drive us all mad.

If a woman looks around the world, she sees political and economic power largely being wielded by middle-aged men in grey suits. She can fight them, beat them at their own game, and become a patriarchal male in a dress as a result. Strange that she asks for validation from men hat she has 'balls'. Even while she's beating them, she lets them 'win', because she still sees the situation as a contest, and continues the patriarchal system of competition, hierarchy and winners and losers, only this time from the other side. She may hate patriarchal women, or see other women as competition in the same way men are. This path may in the long run lead to disenchantment, and can be an alternative route to the Goddess for many women, but there are other ways.

Once a woman begins to make a connection to the Great Mother, and contacts her Goddess nature, external reality will change of its own accord. It has to, because she is no longer responsive to the old way of being, and her will pulls in different people different events. The whole world does not change, of course; there are billions of people in it, but the change in her ripples out to touch the lives of those she may never meet. Instead of deciding to fight men, to destroy them for their insensitivity and debasement of women, to exact revenge for millennia of pain and subjugation, she can draw on the unconditional love of the Great Mother - for herself. If every woman were to do this, changes would happen rapidly and painlessly within society.

It's no good demanding love, consideration and responsiveness from a man who is not willing to give it freely. But you can ask for love from the Great Mother and receive it instantly, if there's no hidden fear. If there are blockages, they must be made conscious, and felt, so they can be removed. Some women, for example might block change because they feel it's selfish to receive anything. Their duty lies in giving to others, and only when others are fully satisfied can they think of themselves. Of course, the world is a bottomless pit of needy people, so they never get around to satisfying their own needs.

Once women have begun the process of reconnecting to the Great Mother, they will begin to feel more powerful. This has nothing to do with external markers like wealth, status or physical beauty. It's self-love, and gives you a warm glow of safety and confidence. It comes and goes, of course, and there are days when you feel fear, hopelessness and confusion, but you learn to go back to the Great Mother when that happens, because you trust Her. Men who want to serve you begin to come along. Sometimes they are aware of this, sometimes not. They may have their own blockages, and are terrified of what a woman will do. They set limits on their submission, or put their passivity in a little compartment marked 'Friday night only'. They may only be interested in sexual gratification. However, the fact that they've homed in on you says clearly that they are thinking of changing paths, and it becomes possible to assist each other.

I want now to move on to a slightly different subject. How can you recognize that the Great Mother is operating at the feeling level within a person? The main criterion is unconditional love, which accepts, includes and connects. Anger, judgment, intolerance and fear, particularly fear, mean that the person is either still wholly on the path of the god, moving away from the Great Mother, or is partly patriarchal. For example, a man who demands that a woman limit her love to him alone is clearly on the path of the god. He will want to punish her if she does not concentrate all her attention on him, and fear losing her. The woman might also be very fearful, and with some justification. If she doesn't conform to his wishes, then violence follows.

Nurturing is also a quality found in those connected to the Great Mother. It can take many forms, but the overwhelming feeling you get when around such a person is warmth, and encouragement to grow, be creative. You do not threaten them, or make them feel insecure, because they are tapped into their own source of nourishment, the Great Mother, and are able to pass it on to anyone. We would have al liked a mother like this, and maybe you had one, but it's rare in women, and even rarer in men. Women mix self-sacrifice with nurturing, generally don't have much confidence in their skills, and moreover, spend a lot of time being afraid, of getting it wrong, their children dying, or offending the neighbors. They hide their negative feelings about those they are obligated to nurture, and then feel overwhelmingly guilty. It's 'bad' to resent your children, or your aged parent, although you can never relax, never have time to yourself.

Those in contact with the Goddess are also powerful. They may have no political or social power; theirs is the power of love, which includes themselves of course. Such people have the capacity to change others, not by force, intimidation, or argument, but by simply being themselves. It's really quite difficult to define this power, since language is a limiting tool, especially when using such resonant words as 'love' and 'power'. Such people do not set out to coerce others, but are calm and unafraid because of a deep sense of trust. We have all had experience of this feeling of being held safely by the Goddess at times, but it doesn't seem to last. Imagine what it must be like to be in a permanent state of conscious contact with the Great Mother!

Which brings me on to the last characteristic of those who are strongly connected to the Goddess lack of fear, which I've touched on before. The Great Mother, whose nature is a mystery to us, loves without fear. She has therefore no need to judge, punish or defend against anyone, and the more we attune with her, the more we resemble her. I know I'm talking about a deity which is personalized for convenience, but it allows us to grasp the ideas if we think in terms of a human being, as we've done for millennia. The Great Mother can remove our fear, given a chance, so we are not hampered by nameless anxieties, memories of past events, and fears for the future. When we turn to Her on the path of the Goddess, we may be scared of men's anger, so defend against it, scared others will suffer if we effect change in our lives, scared we will become tyrannical egotists like men, scared still of new responsibilities and challenges. And so on. In some ways it was comfortable the way it was, for both men and women, because it was the known. Change is scary. We try to avoid it, instead of facing our fears, and asking for help. Maybe we think sacrifice is involved, because we've prejudged what the future involves in doing.

I'll give you an example. A few years ago I found myself in a dilemma. I wanted to end my marriage but I couldn't seem to do it. After asking for help from the Goddess, I looked for the emotional blocks preventing me, felt them fully, and let them go. Fear of poverty, tick, fear of my family's disapproval, tick, fear of consigning children to a 'broken home', tick, fear of being unreasonable, in looking for a better relationship considering it's an imperfect world, tick, fear of the struggle of being a lone mother, tick. I allowed myself, or so I though, to feel all the blocks, accept them, and still feel my best course was to leave. Still I didn't go. There was yet more muck to shovel out of the way. At this point, my inner necessity to leave a deeply unfulfilled marriage yanked me out by threatening me with madness, my greatest fear, and I was forced to go. Then I found out some of the hidden agenda. I had no problems with the feelings I'd already faced, poverty, etc. What I did find was that I felt terribly guilty about the practical effects on my husband. I had to make sure that he was o.k. I left him the house and its contents, accepted only a tiny amount of maintenance for my child, and returned daily to our home to iron his shirts and clean. It was three months before I came to my senses and began to ask myself what on earth I thought I was doing. I hadn't left him for another man, so it wasn't that kind of guilt, I was homeless, poor and with a child, yet I was still looking after him! My mother had taught me this was the function of women, and it was unconsciously ingrained in me to a ridiculous extent. Under pressure, I did things that I had never done during my marriage, which of course gave me new knowledge about myself. I stopped looking after my husband, found a home and a job, and got on with the next upheaval.

I'm now willing to acknowledge that many of my actions are driven by obscure fears, and ask for help with them. Some of them seem downright silly to my conscious, rational mind, but they can still strike terror into me, and impede me a great deal. Being deeply ashamed of some of them doesn't help either, because then you suppress them, which compounds the problem. Think of how difficult it is for a matercentric man in our society to admit that he wants to serve women. There is no validation for this desire, and so he'll probably submerge it under a facade of macho behavior.

Whatever is seen as correct feelings by society will be included in our self-image, and we can persuade ourselves that we feel them if we try hard enough. Best not to bother. I don't like babies, so there! But I like the company of adolescents quite a lot, despite their intermittent immaturity and selfishness. I don't like my brother, who is a male chauvinist and a selfish boor. Bollocks to what I ought to feel! Isn't it a relief to admit it? I'm scared of a whole raft of things, from spiders to insanity. So is every one I know, and I could feel superior because I'm not afraid of snakes, inferior because I am afraid of speaking in public. Waste of energy. Face your own fears, feel your own feelings and evolve from a position of honesty. As Fritz Perls once said, we're not in the world to live up to other people's expectations, and though that's a hard row to hoe for women, we can start by admitting to how we really feel about our lives. After that, we can feel freer to decide what we want to discard and what to keep.

As I've said, a woman who is strengthening her links to the Great Mother can be transformative. In pre-patriarchal times, this characteristic was often linked to the Great Mother's 'destructive' or death aspect, and she was revered as both the creator and destroyer of life. Patriarchal society edited out the connection between the feminine and death, leaving us with a sanitized version of the female, who brings forth life, nourishes and supports it, but nothing else. Naturally death becomes part of the hidden and feared aspect of the Great Mother, and despite endless poems celebrating the great round of nature etc., something to avoid at all costs. But as we all know, the old has to die to make way for the new, whether it's a leaf dying or a way of looking at the world that has to be discarded. Patriarchal society goes in for death in a big way; in wars, famine as a man-made catastrophe and pollution, but the killing is in pursuit of ego goals like territory and profit. The Great Mother kills that which needs to die, to give us a fuller, richer life, and no coercion is involved, though our conscious self might be in violent disagreement with this.

The world is in the process of a fundamental change which will restore the feminine principle. Women will be its agents, though men will of course participate. Women will create new life, as they have always done, and the transformative power which they have forgotten about will re-emerge. For one thing, they are going to re-connect to the power of their sexuality, which will be a forceful agent of change. It's really not going to be done in a patriarchal way, by law, force and bullying, the tools which men use. It will be effected by an inner transformation of men and women, brought about by contact with the Great Mother and trust in Her. Patriarchal men and women may well be very frightened by this transformative power. A man who sees that a woman is potently sexual, in charge of her own life, and at ease with herself, could wish to destroy her as a threat to his established view of women. Or he might run away, be mesmerized by her, want to grovel at her feet, and be punished by her for having been a naughty boy. It depends on where he's at. Women could be equally ambivalent, feeling threatened by the necessity to change their idea of what 'female' means, not knowing what that might lead to, and fearing it involves being someone who isn't very 'nice'. It's the unknown again, and unfortunately we can't look back into history and say, "Well it will mean an agricultural lifestyle, worshipping the moon and ecstatic dancing from now on.' We are not those people any more. We will have a new way of expressing our attunement to the Great Mother, which we will find for ourselves. Meanwhile the old has to go, and really the best way is to offer no resistance, once we know that it has to die.

You won't have to look very far for people who don't see it that way. If someone told me that the era of women being allowed some freedoms had gone too far, and that the future lay in chaining them to the bed again, I would beg to differ. So it's pointless to argue with people.. You can offer your ideas on the joys of a female-led society to what you consider is a fertile audience, and see whether anything roots and grows, but only if you want to. Your job is your own change, and if your evolution involves proselytizing, do it. Go by your feelings, be aware of your fears, ask f or help from the Goddess. Action will then be freer from conflict, because inner and outer will agree far more than if you rushed ahead, ignoring your uncertainties or suppressing them.

More on the transformative aspect of the woman in touch with the Great Mother. Her anger. We can be pretty scared of anger. We look at what men do with theirs and shudder - all that murdering and raping, punishing of both men and women for crimes against the man's ego, and sheer downright misuse of personal power. My father spent most of his life being angry, and dumping it on his family because he was, like most men, unable to give it to his boss or the Government. We women, as powerless mothers and children, can cop the lot! Boys often grow up looking for someone to vent their anger on, because their father (and sometimes mother) used them in this way. They don't have far to look. Anyone weaker will do.

Then we get the 'New Age' movement, the rise of Feminism, and the proliferation of psychotherapies aimed at 'self-realization'. Total confusion. At one extreme, anger is seen as nasty and unpleasant, and we should love everyone, forgive them for what they've done, and never shout at them. (sound familiar, it's been patriarchal woman's role for quite a while). At the other, the message that it's now o.k. for women to be as thoroughly bad-tempered as men, and an encouragement to spray venom in all directions.

Deep and passionate anger against patriarchal men, and possibly patriarchal women, is all very natural once a woman begins to realize what's been done to her in the name of the god. It can be devastating to realize just how badly society has been treating her for thousands of years. She may wish to ax-murder all men as the full horror dawns. Certainly I agree that anger should not be suppressed, or rationalized in any way. I'm also not in the business of criticizing women who are very angry with men and wish to hurt or humiliate them. That's up to them. However, I would like to offer a suggestion. Anger is energy. All energy can be transformed or used for transformation. Felt, honored and honed, it can be used by a woman to effect internal change on herself.

A man taught me how to do this when I was very angry about what my second husband had done to me. I did not want to see any part I played in my own suffering, I did not want to use the energy for change, I just wanted my revenge, right now, and to see him suffer. I was taught by my friend how to hold the anger, see it as a malleable force, and direct it towards the internal blockages and delusions which had put me in my position in the first place. In the end it became imaged as a blue laser-like beam, which I could use in a disciplined way to see where I needed to change. It worked best just after sex, when I was relaxed and felt safe. I am not now a perfect person, who has cracked all her problems, believe me. I still feel anger, and quite often it leaks out onto those I see as having wronged me. But I have learned a lot about how to hold my feelings safely, while not censoring them, and to use the energy to change some of my stupidities. That doesn't preclude action, but it generally comes much later, when I am, however minimally, changed from what I was. I try not to dissipate the energy of anger on other people, and keep it for myself.

Let's move back to the man who is considering changing to the path of the Goddess, and see some of his feelings and problems. He is likely to be at the height of his ego power. Extremely sure of himself, he knows that is right and wrong, good and bad. He feels in control of himself and his immediate environment, and has achieved his goals, whatever they might be. It seems to him that he's climbed the mountain, by his own efforts, and has reached the peak. He surveys the universe around him, and glows with self-satisfaction. He appears to have no ego problems, since criticism neither upsets him nor causes him to reflect that he might ever be wrong. He can afford to look down on lesser mortals struggling, with no conscious fear that he can be toppled, so confident is he. Like Jehovah, he looks on his creations and sees that they are good.

He is oblivious to other people as parts of him, though this would not be apparent to an observer. If he helps others, it is to further increase his ego, and he can do this without any feeling that their success detracts from his own, because of his arrogance. He relates to others entirely on the basis of his own needs, but is so cocksure (lovely word) that he feels he can afford to be magnanimous. Should his wife wake up to her own need for self-expression, he might well 'allow' her to 'get a little part-time job.' He is so absolutely and comprehensively sure that he's innately superior to her, that he won't stop her.. On the outside, he can look quite sympathetic to women's needs, but he can't envisage it leading to any kind of problem for him; that's why he doesn't resist.

That's it though- he will never again feel this way and he may well choose to stay at this point for a very long time, until his need to evolve gives him a shove. He's got a long way to go, from feeling himself a god to humbly serving others for the greater good of all. He starts with small feelings and actions, generally, as women do on the path of the Goddess. The 'overnight transformation' phenomenon is quite rare, and anyway, often happens to people who have been unconsciously resisting change for a long time. There will probably be some sort of catalyst though, which brings his inner change to his attention. A book, a woman, a new interest in something, a small failure, a loss of desire in an area once reliable. Could be anything. He's unlikely to know about the Great Mother, let alone be willing to listen to Her, but he may begin to listen to a woman or m an who is in contact with Her. A little. As yet, he doesn't feel threatened, and of course it's possible that he may never do so, but may make the transition without any fuss or conflict. Very rare indeed.

A few concessions to women and his other inferiors won't harm a god like himself, and so he might encourage one of his female employees, make her an executive. He can now see himself as an equal opportunities employer, and feel quite noble. Or he goes home and changes nappies. Isn't he a good boy! Naturally he's better at it than his wife. He's done all this quite freely, not because society angers him to, which is a whole different ball game. Patriarchal men can be shamed or coerced into similar behavior, but they exact a penalty somewhere else for this unwanted encroachment on their freedom. They will punish a woman somehow, because they don't want to change. This is another reminder that behavior is generally not a reliable guide to tell us who is on what path. I used to be irritated beyond measure by the husband of a friend of mine who had 'discovered' Feminism. Every time I opened my mouth he would criticize what I said as 'sexist'. I wasn't allowed to change gradually. I had to eliminate words like 'Chairman' instantly, or be subjected to constant ratbagging by him. I much preferred him when he was unreconstructed and spent all his time in bars chatting up secretaries. Then, his hostility to women was less disguised.

Some men carry on, gradually beginning to accept that women have had a raw deal, seeking to help them, and losing interest in their own success, until the point at which they feel ready to surrender to the Goddess. Most become very confused, and, like women, have internal conflict. Bits of them are still highly patriarchal, bits are becoming matercentric. There's no guide book for them, any more than there is for women. They may suppress their desires to surrender, on the grounds that other men will denigrate them, or because that fear of criticism is a reflection of internal conflict. What might a woman do, should they give her free rein? What if she takes revenge? Who am I if I'm not really the lord of the universe? The old certainties dissolve, leaving a clear space for new ways of being, but it all looks very scary. If I start to look at other people as connected to me, I might have to do something, like help them, free them, love them even. I will no longer be able to look at a situation, say, 'what's best for me here', and decide on that basis. I will no longer be able to define relationships in terms of personal priorities. Oh god, come back, all is forgiven. It was just and idea and I've changed my mind I want to go back, now!

Fortunately, for both men and women changing paths, we have a limited mind, which is a handicap, but saves us from realizing the full implications of change. We agree to listen to the Goddess, which is why we've begun to change paths, but we can't see very far at all. Somehow the way is eased if we listen to Her, even if we don't know She exists, and our trust grows a little. Intuition becomes a little stronger, though we might not call it that, and we follow it. The path clears a little, allowing us to see a bit more in the way of possibilities. But if we could see exactly where we were going, we might refuse to begin. We have to be like a donkey following a carrot dangled in front of it, focused generally on the short-term. As our contact with the Goddess grows, we see more, trust more and fear less, but initially, the movement is often very small.

It's a big step for a man changing paths to see women as real people, let alone envisage them as the future leaders of society. He has to do it in bite-size pieces, and in a way which fits him. This might involve being punished for his sins, first, to sort of cleanse him. Or he might skip that bit and support women in a highly practical way, cleaning the house, digging the garden, taking part in child care. There are no set ways, and he should go by his feelings, as women can too. What he is likely to find difficult is emotional support. He would rather buy you a Porsche than comfort you when you're upset. He is still likely to use his intellect to console you rather than give you a sympathetic cuddle. It has always been your job, and he has no idea how to care for others. His feeling of connection has grown, so he can no longer hurt them without feeling pain himself, but it is still unknown territory for him. He can't be instructed in how to feel, but he can be trained in what would help you. Tell him. He really doesn't know, he's not being willfully stupid.

By now, he's lost his competitive edge, and has little if any ambition. He's not drifting, like the Hanged man in the Tarot, because he does feel drawn to help or serve women, but he's still confused. It's most helpful for both men and women at this stage to be with someone who's also changing paths. You can feel your way forward without constant battles, and with some acceptance of the changes you're going through. No one, hopefully, is yelling at you because you don't conform to patriarchal stereotypes. Both of you, whether you accept this or not, have parts of you still on the path of the god. The man might wish for a harmonious planet, free from pollution and exploitation, yet he still feels that the best way to get it is to use the old tools; new laws, fighting greedy businesses, and using his energy to force change. The woman may want a man to respect her desires and fulfill them, but only if she fits the stereotype of an attractive woman. If she's fat, plain, middle-aged etc. then she's had it. Old habits die hard, oh yes they do, and I find my patriarchal ones popping into view on a regular basis, just as I think I'm getting somewhere. There are people who are undoubtedly streets ahead of me in some areas, and they can help me a lot if they want to. But it's not a competition. A good rule is: move away from what you don't want, move towards what you do want. That's not so easy if you can't see a way out, but if you really desire change, it will happen eventually. Meanwhile, feel it all; the frustration, the anger, the impatience, the fear, and clear it all out to leave room for joy to come in. The Goddess is with you all the way. She loves you.

FEELINGS

by Pamela Suffield


Truly patriarchal males see themselves as God. Strange but true. In a patriarchal system, the male god is merely a projection of society's ideas about ideal masculinity, without any balance from what has been designated as 'feminine' and therefore inferior. God is therefore Man writ large, living in the sky, and is naturally interested in much the same things as man below. This god gave man dominion over the birds and the beasts (how convenient) and he has used this to kill, enslave and exterminate those species he wished to, as well as despoiling the Earth they inhabit.

Man could only do this by feeling himself separate from the animal kingdom, so separate in fact, that he can no longer feel the pain of what he hurts. He can no longer, then, feel his own pain, since everything is really connected to him, whether he accepts this or not. His approaching re-connection with animals, the Earth, women, children and other men will involve massive changes in his feelings. Once he allows himself to feel the pain of others, he will inevitably have to feel his own - which is the pain of separation from the Great Mother while he is on the path of his god. This he may resist for a long time, since it will seem to interfere with his god-given right to be totally independent, selfish and self-creating.

In a rampantly patriarchal man, most feelings are totally disdained. He is virtually an automaton. Only those emotions concerned with conquest and subjugation are important, because they can help him achieve his goals. Triumph at the defeat of an enemy, for example, is retained. It is safe, because it reinforces separation. Anger is also acceptable, because it fuels his determination to revenge himself on those he feels have wronged him, and reinforces his view of the world as composed entirely of winners and losers. The truly patriarchal man feels hurt pride when anything happens which he sees as defeat. The blow to his ego is devastating, He will bide his time, and make another attempt to triumph when he feels strong enough to attack. This is vital to his ego, but naturally leads to an escalating spiral destruction, with neither side within a conflict ever giving up the fight while there is a chance of winning some sort of victory. It is nothing to him if lives are lost, cities are destroyed and the environment blasted. His feelings are only concerned with retaliation, winning and restoring his sense of himself as an individual who is important.

So a military leader can order thousands of men to die for their country - without feeling. He can order the slaughter of women and children - without feeling. He will allow himself no empathy with those who are killed as a result of his actions, because at the level of his feelings, they simply do not exist. They are therefore dispensable.

There are many more examples of this lack of feeling at a more mundane level. Let's take a stereotype to illustrate the phenomenon clearly. A Victorian paterfamilias never questioned his divinely ordained right to arrange his family life to suit himself. His wife existed to create domestic harmony and supply his needs without question. Her feelings were irrelevant. Any complaints, god forbid, could be dealt with easily, by invoking the Bible, social rules, economic power, derision, or as a last resort, violence. If he used her sexually just to produce children, he had no qualms about taking his other sexual pleasures with prostitutes, who formed a substantial part of the female population in Victorian times. Children came even lower down the pecking order. Their feelings were of no consequence, and their only task was to quietly obey the dictates of their Father, the state and the god. Ditto the servants, since we are talking about a middle-class family here.

The only way the Victorian father could cope with all this controlling of others in his own interest was by a developed capacity to ignore the feelings of others - their pain, their unfulfilled needs, their very self-hood. He felt satisfaction at their obedience, anger if they were not tractable, and very little else. The list is endless. A slave owner can only enslave if he has no feelings for the suffering of those he chains. A terrorist can only plant bombs if he has no compassion for the victims of the explosion. A rapist can only rape if he allows no identification with the humiliation he causes. Indeed, a man may go further and find that hurting other people gives him tremendous satisfaction, and is some sort of 'repayment' for pain he sees himself as having suffered at the hands of others more powerful.

Grubbing around in the feelings of the average patriarchal man is not a pleasant experience, but it is quite instructive. We know that we all have a capacity to kill others, to be completely selfish and aggressive, as well as being nurturing, self-sacrificial and supportive etc. As human beings we contain all possibilities within us, but we choose to acknowledge and act out only some of these. The patriarchal man excludes empathy, because it might lead you to becoming 'soft' or 'womanish.' You are likely to be exploited because you can be deviated from your actions by the needs and suffering of others. The answer to any stirring feelings of identification with the 'other' is to stiffen up, eliminate or control the feelings and become ruthless. The roots of this last word lie in the Old English word 'routh', which meant pity, so you are, in effect, instructing yourself to act without pity for others. If the patriarchal man began to acknowledge that other people are connected to him, and that his desires are not the only ones which have a right to be fulfilled, he would immediately collide with the demands of his ego, which is now not only supremely uninterested in the needs of others, but stronger than the promptings of unconditional love. So he suppresses all knowledge of his oneness with everything, at the level of his emotions, and concentrates on himself. After sufficient practice, this becomes second nature, and he loses touch at a conscious level with pity, compassion and love. He may retain all sorts of intellectual ideas about the Brotherhood of man, and pay lip-service to notions of Justice, Equality etc., but when push comes to shove, he always puts himself first.

Patriarchal man simply does not know how stunted he is. He can't see the use for most feelings. He has employed such a narrow range of emotions for so long, and for his own egocentric purposes, that he is at a loss to know what a matercentric person is talking about in the area of compassion and love. Give him a goals and he'll strive for it, give him a wrong and he'll fight someone to death to right it, but give him a crying child who needs comfort and he's lost.

Anyone who furthers the ends of patriarchal man is smiled on and approved of. Anyone who does not is disapproved of, or hated. It's that simple. He has no tolerance for different philosophies and ways of being, but he will act affably towards you if you stroke his ego, help him to achieve his goals or supply him with what he wants. Don't make the mistake of thinking that this means he cares about you. As soon as you stop giving him what he wants he will stop being nice to you. He can co-operate perfectly well with others when it suits him, particularly if there's a reward involved, like promotion or the conquest of a collective enemy (another business, another country, another football team). It's always a temporary phenomenon. Once the war's over, the drug dealer's been caught, the other team's relegated to the second division, he falls back into competition, which was what it was all about in the first place. The co-operation was very handy in giving him an edge in a conflict situation; safety net in numbers, but it was a means to an end - his winning.

As a teenager, I enjoyed Science Fiction a great deal. I read masses of 'pulp' novels, often with a scantily clad female on the cover, or a man with a ray-gun shooting an alien. A common theme was the invasion of Earth by aliens. They might do this secretly, by planting their people in disguise, or they might land in a flotilla of spaceships and order us to obey them. I loved these stories, I have to confess, but even I became bored with the inevitable storylines about the banding together of all the warring nations so that the aliens could be defeated. Global co-operation is achieved for the first time, hooray, and the nasty invaders are repelled. What we are not shown in the quarreling which resumes as soon as the last alien is blasted to pieces by the United Terran forces. But it would be inevitable, since the need to identify and conquer an enemy is still there.

That's the truly patriarchal man, then; severely truncated feeling nature because he's developing his ego and satisfying his own desires. If you don't really care about other people, life becomes so much simpler, doesn't it? You only have to consider yourself. Everyone else is a pawn in your game. What, meanwhile, is happening to the patriarchal woman? She is of course still connected to the Great Mother, but she's been fed a lot of patriarchal ideas, and gradually accepted them. She has no confidence in herself, and believes that she exists to serve others by caring for them physically and emotionally. She has been told that 'love' consists of placing a man's needs before her own, and looking after children, the sick and the elderly. Whatever else she might do in addition to this, she must remember that it is with the permission of a man and his male deity.

She goes along with this, as far as she can. She has been told that her very nature is bound up with caring for others, not herself, so she tries very hard not to have needs. She probably has very few, and truthfully rejoices in the well-being of her husband and children. However, she's also been told that her feelings of love for everyone are highly dangerous, particularly if they are in any way sexual, and that she is only allowed to love certain people. It is made clear to her that stepping outside these boundaries will lead to punishment, and a close watch is kept on her to ensure that she doesn't step out of line. She is meant to hate all the people her husband and her god tell her are bad. It's fairly difficult to keep alive her sense of emotional connection to other human beings, yet restrict it to people designated as acceptable by men, but she has a go.

If she feels any need for love and emotional support herself, she will not receive it from her husband, who is busy getting things, not giving them, but from other women and the Great Mother. She doesn't know the Goddess exists, of course, so it may come through an attunement to images of the Virgin Mary etc. Her husband insists that he comes first in her mind and emotions as well as her actions. What is left over after he has taken what he wants can be given to 'her' children, and perhaps her family. Certainly not to another man, since the fact that she belongs to him sexually is of crucial importance, both for the inheritance of any property and his pride. He has to know that her children are also his, since they are an extension of him into the future, particularly if they are male. If another man has possessed her sexually, she is of no value, because she is clearly out of control for one thing, and can't be seen as exclusively his property. So the patriarchal woman trains herself out t of sexual feelings totally, because the whole area is so fraught with difficulty, and leaves them to men, or women who are not so patriarchally oriented, like whores.

Sometimes the woman is required to go even further. She is told to feel nothing for anyone other than her husband, not even her children. She is to see no-one else at all, and becomes a prisoner in her own home. At the same time, her husband, who is controlling her so closely out of his own insecurity, hates his dependence on her. So he punishes her, verbally and physically. She has to forgive him for this, and remain with him despite the mistreatment, because, as he will often explain, he needs her. This is an amazing demand, yet many women do remain with possessive and violent men for many years, perhaps a lifetime. They may still love him, feel sorry for him, attempt to help him, be afraid of leaving him all alone, with no thought for their own needs and welfare. The invisible woman again.

We can see many men today who require savage limitations on a woman's feeling nature. They do not feel secure enough in the development of their ego to allow the woman to care for others. Love appears to be like a bag of toffees. If a woman gives any to other people, then there will be less for them. So they ask her to be a mini version of the Great Mother-all-loving, all-caring, but a personal deity, owned and controlled by one man. They resent children, and see the birth of a baby as a threat to their ownership of a woman. The child might take away attention which is rightly 'theirs', so they go off and have an affair to make up for the supposed loss. Or they sulk because the woman spends time with the baby, and compete with it for her attention. If there are no children, they may behave the same way towards the woman's family or friends, in an attempt to isolate her and thus own her more completely. When a woman is moving back to the Great Mother, a man's attempts to get her undivided attention by childish behavior can be quite amusing. But it's no joke to a woman who feels she should only love her husband, yet finds that whatever she does he is never satisfied and never feels truly safe.

So far, so good, but now let's look at why patriarchal man orders up this dog's breakfast of conflicting feelings as patriarchal woman's only foodstuff. Why doesn't he just tell her to be like him? After all, now he's defined her as a feeling oriented creature, he is afraid of her, afraid he might become like her - emotional, sentimental, soft and caring - or afraid he might not be able to control the expression of those feelings and keep them for himself alone. Though he might lose out on having his needs met, he would be far safer if women weren't decidedly different from him and 'more like a man'. Many men of course do approve of women who 'think like a man', feel like a man - i.e. they conform to male stereotypes. They can be 'one of the boys', and are in many ways not as threatening as so-called normal women. True, they might compete with you for a job, but the dice is loaded against them, so that's not too much of a problem. Sex can be 'just fun' with such a woman, since she plays by the same rules as you do. No emotional attachments, no responsibility. You don't have to provide her with a house and come home to her on a regular basis between stints on the corporate or actual battlefield. Although she doesn't really come into the category of 'whore', there would be the same lack of demands for sustained relationship, if all women were like patriarchal men.

The trouble is, she's free, and because she is no-one's possession, can't be counted on to provide all the other things a man feels he needs - guaranteed sex, home comforts, emotional support, and above all, loyalty. In a world where competition rules ok., someone who is always on your side is vital. The 'woman who's like a man' is on her own side. She's not demanding commitment, but she also doesn't want to bear your children, constantly prop up your ego and take your side.

So in return for complete possession of a woman's 'love', and the resultant emotional security, a patriarchal man 'sacrifices' his freedom to roam where he likes, plant his seed where he likes. He also sacrifices the need to prove himself all over again every time he meets a woman, and fight other men to get a good one. Though there might be a lot of grumbling about the sacrifice of his precious freedom, really he's spared all sorts of activities which are quite stressful. It's quite a relief, really, since you get women to stick to the faithful, loyal and nurturing bit, upon pain of being stoned to death etc., while you go off and visit a prostitute or look for a nice flat to install your mistress in. There's also the delicious pleasure of tempting another man's wife into sex and getting one over on him, which wouldn't be half so sweet if women were communal property. You try not to let that happen to you, of course, and tell your wife how lucky she is. After all, men are naturally polygamous, you say, and it's only because they are noble and self-sacrificing that they restrict themselves to one woman, for the good of the human race. There's certainly nothing in it for them, so it must be that women have arranged all this marriage stuff to entrap men into a lifetime of servitude. It's a terribly convenient explanation, designed to keep men in ignorance of their dependence on women, and allow them to feel good about themselves. If I had a pound for every time I've read or heard this reason given by men for marriage I'd be a very rich woman!

So far, we're still in the realms of the solidly patriarchal system, where women take care of emotional nurturing for the whole of the human race, and men take care of themselves. Here we meeting the woman who has taken on board all of the instructions given to her by men. She 'loves' her husband totally, i.e. she is completely self-sacrificial. She endures his violence, his coldness, his irresponsibility and his unfaithfulness, hoping that one day he will change. This is not for her benefit, of course, but because he is clearly unhappy. All of her energy goes into helping him, but she feels powerless to do anything other than wait, hope and support. She loves her husband far more than she loves herself, but is incapable of seeing that her masochism has no chance of changing him. He will continue to use her until one of two things happens. Either she refuses to be trodden on any more, or he himself decides to change because he can see her as a real person who is suffering from his behavior. Until then he will ignore her needs and expect her to put him first, however patient and understanding she is.

Like many people in a seemingly harmful situation, the woman is not acknowledging some of her feelings. We all do it. Maybe she feels that she only deserves a bastard for a husband; maybe it gives her a kick to be pitied by others; maybe she's avoiding writing a wonderful novel which she can't be bothered to start on, and the husband gives her a good excuse because he requires so much attention. The roots of her feelings go back a long way, and are not easily seen, let alone understood. It took us a long time to arrive at a situation where men feel that building nuclear bombs is a sensible idea, and women feel that men are constitutionally incapable of cleaning the toilet. Along the way, we hid most of our feelings in the shed at the bottom of the garden, and proceeded to lose the key. True, we can work out what some of them are. WE can note our reactions to what other people do, and recognize that we are reacting to a highly charged aspect of ourselves if we find a lot of emotion. If I react strongly to the thought of incest, though, is it because I want to commit incest, I've been a victim of it, or because I'm a highly judgmental person, and almost anything that anyone does other than breathe lightly through the nose is offensive tome? I can't tell you. However, I can say that these feelings are part of you, and need to be honored, even if they appall you. A matercentric person accepts and includes everything, and that means his or her emotions too. A patriarchal person (and we are all partly or wholly that) condemns other people, condemns particular feelings or refuses to acknowledge them, and lives in a world of black and white, right and wrong, safe and unsafe emotions. The words 'should' and 'ought' spring to such a person's lips with inevitable regularity. You 'should' love your parents, you 'should' work hard for a living, you 'should' hate child molesters and want to string 'em up, you 'ought' to like cooking if you're biologically female and playing football if you're male. Because as many people don't feel what they 'ought' to feel, then there's a great deal of guilt and denial flying around as result. The matercentric person, however, has taken off the corset of rigid rules on feelings, with a mixture of relief and apprehension, and is setting out to find exactly what his or her true feelings are, as honestly as possible. Maybe there will be some unacknowledged pain released, but there will also be joy in celebrating, at last, what is true, and does not any longer need to be concealed. I tell you, it can be a blissful experience to do this, like a good shit after weeks and weeks of constipation. I'm sure you can find a more decorous analogy for yourself.

Let me tell you something about my own life in relation to this. About 10 years ago, I had the usual rag-bag of judgments about other people that most of us have, usually concerning folks I knew nothing about, but criticized anyway. Because I was heavily involved in the 'New Age' movement, and therefore a 'spiritual' person, I tried to see the good in everyone, but not very successfully. I judged smokers, criminals, drug addicts and violent people, to name but a few categories, while priding myself on what a tolerant, unpossessive and honest person I was.

Within a few months, I was living with a violent, dishonest heroin addict, who had a long criminal record, a propensity for very young girls and a habit of dressing up in women's clothing. His idea of restrained and moral behavior was not to steal from my daughter's piggy bank, although everything else was fair game. And I loved him, or to put it more truthfully, was obsessed by him. I had to revise everything I believed about myself, and experience emotions I had not realized I was capable of: jealousy and possessiveness, the desire to murder someone, intense grief. I became a smoker, which gave me the opportunity to experience addiction. It was made clear to me, by the small voice inside me, that I would not be released from my obsession until I had acknowledged and accepted more of who I really was, and begun to learn real tolerance. My partner was held in the same bondage, and as appalled by the situation as I was. We came from totally different worlds, but we had to learn to accept and understand the other. It took over three years, and was a very hard time for me. I couldn't run away, because I was aware that the lesson would present itself through another person anyway. It was a baptism of fire in relation to the contents of my own feeling nature, but I hope it has left me as a more compassionate person as a result.

I'm not suggesting you have to marry a junkie to evolve your emotions - everyone has their own path - but I am saying that the habit of repressing and denying parts of ourselves, and particularly our feelings, will begin to crumble as we turn on to the path of the Goddess. I have no idea what it will mean for you, any more than I knew what it would involve for me, but it's a necessary step.

All of our denied feelings, from the desire to kill others through to our wish for a more loving and peaceful world, have reached boiling point. They are a bomb waiting to go off, a river ready to flood. Firstly, women's emotional, sexual and creative needs, so long ignored by both men and women, are clamoring for attention. Since most women still have small egos, and have almost lost contact with their goddess nature, they make only feeble attempts initially to change their situation. Guilt will intervene, or internal confusion. It's still very easy for men to squash them, and convince them that if they express feelings of need, they are overdemanding and voracious. Because women are still very patriarchal, they will see the situation as an either/or. If I get more, he will get less, - poor thing. And he does work hard at the office after all; maybe it is too much to expect him to iron his own shirts. They don't want a fight, so they retreat into denial again.

Other women, still afraid of the power of men, and feeling that they are weak, will go for subtle tactics, undermining a man's ego as a form of punishment, without acknowledging any hostility. It won't have any effect on a confident man with a strong sense of his own specialness. He knows he's wonderful. Those who are less sure that men are a special form of superior life, maybe even contemplating concessions to women, could find the old fears of women rising up again, and retaliate, becoming colder, less responsive, more aggressive. But no-one is being honest, no-one is saying openly, "I want to hurt you because.....' Both are in an unacknowledged war, and the fighting can get very dirty before it becomes conscious. It saves both time and pain to freely admit that you hate a man and wish to watch him writhe in agony, or that you would die rather than see a woman President of the United States.

Nagging, scolding, bitching and whining, all forms of coercion, are fairly useless ways for women to get what they want. Indulging in them shows you don't have much confidence, and after a while, no-one listens. I haven't given them up myself yet, any more than I've given up eating the occasional chocolate bar for comfort. I too have a long way to go. But I try to be more direct, and explore my feelings of powerlessness internally before my unsuccessful attempts to get the kids to turn the stereo down drive us all mad.

If a woman looks around the world, she sees political and economic power largely being wielded by middle-aged men in grey suits. She can fight them, beat them at their own game, and become a patriarchal male in a dress as a result. Strange that she asks for validation from men hat she has 'balls'. Even while she's beating them, she lets them 'win', because she still sees the situation as a contest, and continues the patriarchal system of competition, hierarchy and winners and losers, only this time from the other side. She may hate patriarchal women, or see other women as competition in the same way men are. This path may in the long run lead to disenchantment, and can be an alternative route to the Goddess for many women, but there are other ways.

Once a woman begins to make a connection to the Great Mother, and contacts her Goddess nature, external reality will change of its own accord. It has to, because she is no longer responsive to the old way of being, and her will pulls in different people different events. The whole world does not change, of course; there are billions of people in it, but the change in her ripples out to touch the lives of those she may never meet. Instead of deciding to fight men, to destroy them for their insensitivity and debasement of women, to exact revenge for millennia of pain and subjugation, she can draw on the unconditional love of the Great Mother - for herself. If every woman were to do this, changes would happen rapidly and painlessly within society.

It's no good demanding love, consideration and responsiveness from a man who is not willing to give it freely. But you can ask for love from the Great Mother and receive it instantly, if there's no hidden fear. If there are blockages, they must be made conscious, and felt, so they can be removed. Some women, for example might block change because they feel it's selfish to receive anything. Their duty lies in giving to others, and only when others are fully satisfied can they think of themselves. Of course, the world is a bottomless pit of needy people, so they never get around to satisfying their own needs.

Once women have begun the process of reconnecting to the Great Mother, they will begin to feel more powerful. This has nothing to do with external markers like wealth, status or physical beauty. It's self-love, and gives you a warm glow of safety and confidence. It comes and goes, of course, and there are days when you feel fear, hopelessness and confusion, but you learn to go back to the Great Mother when that happens, because you trust Her. Men who want to serve you begin to come along. Sometimes they are aware of this, sometimes not. They may have their own blockages, and are terrified of what a woman will do. They set limits on their submission, or put their passivity in a little compartment marked 'Friday night only'. They may only be interested in sexual gratification. However, the fact that they've homed in on you says clearly that they are thinking of changing paths, and it becomes possible to assist each other.

I want now to move on to a slightly different subject. How can you recognize that the Great Mother is operating at the feeling level within a person? The main criterion is unconditional love, which accepts, includes and connects. Anger, judgment, intolerance and fear, particularly fear, mean that the person is either still wholly on the path of the god, moving away from the Great Mother, or is partly patriarchal. For example, a man who demands that a woman limit her love to him alone is clearly on the path of the god. He will want to punish her if she does not concentrate all her attention on him, and fear losing her. The woman might also be very fearful, and with some justification. If she doesn't conform to his wishes, then violence follows.

Nurturing is also a quality found in those connected to the Great Mother. It can take many forms, but the overwhelming feeling you get when around such a person is warmth, and encouragement to grow, be creative. You do not threaten them, or make them feel insecure, because they are tapped into their own source of nourishment, the Great Mother, and are able to pass it on to anyone. We would have al liked a mother like this, and maybe you had one, but it's rare in women, and even rarer in men. Women mix self-sacrifice with nurturing, generally don't have much confidence in their skills, and moreover, spend a lot of time being afraid, of getting it wrong, their children dying, or offending the neighbors. They hide their negative feelings about those they are obligated to nurture, and then feel overwhelmingly guilty. It's 'bad' to resent your children, or your aged parent, although you can never relax, never have time to yourself.

Those in contact with the Goddess are also powerful. They may have no political or social power; theirs is the power of love, which includes themselves of course. Such people have the capacity to change others, not by force, intimidation, or argument, but by simply being themselves. It's really quite difficult to define this power, since language is a limiting tool, especially when using such resonant words as 'love' and 'power'. Such people do not set out to coerce others, but are calm and unafraid because of a deep sense of trust. We have all had experience of this feeling of being held safely by the Goddess at times, but it doesn't seem to last. Imagine what it must be like to be in a permanent state of conscious contact with the Great Mother!

Which brings me on to the last characteristic of those who are strongly connected to the Goddess lack of fear, which I've touched on before. The Great Mother, whose nature is a mystery to us, loves without fear. She has therefore no need to judge, punish or defend against anyone, and the more we attune with her, the more we resemble her. I know I'm talking about a deity which is personalized for convenience, but it allows us to grasp the ideas if we think in terms of a human being, as we've done for millennia. The Great Mother can remove our fear, given a chance, so we are not hampered by nameless anxieties, memories of past events, and fears for the future. When we turn to Her on the path of the Goddess, we may be scared of men's anger, so defend against it, scared others will suffer if we effect change in our lives, scared we will become tyrannical egotists like men, scared still of new responsibilities and challenges. And so on. In some ways it was comfortable the way it was, for both men and women, because it was the known. Change is scary. We try to avoid it, instead of facing our fears, and asking for help. Maybe we think sacrifice is involved, because we've prejudged what the future involves in doing.

I'll give you an example. A few years ago I found myself in a dilemma. I wanted to end my marriage but I couldn't seem to do it. After asking for help from the Goddess, I looked for the emotional blocks preventing me, felt them fully, and let them go. Fear of poverty, tick, fear of my family's disapproval, tick, fear of consigning children to a 'broken home', tick, fear of being unreasonable, in looking for a better relationship considering it's an imperfect world, tick, fear of the struggle of being a lone mother, tick. I allowed myself, or so I though, to feel all the blocks, accept them, and still feel my best course was to leave. Still I didn't go. There was yet more muck to shovel out of the way. At this point, my inner necessity to leave a deeply unfulfilled marriage yanked me out by threatening me with madness, my greatest fear, and I was forced to go. Then I found out some of the hidden agenda. I had no problems with the feelings I'd already faced, poverty, etc. What I did find was that I felt terribly guilty about the practical effects on my husband. I had to make sure that he was o.k. I left him the house and its contents, accepted only a tiny amount of maintenance for my child, and returned daily to our home to iron his shirts and clean. It was three months before I came to my senses and began to ask myself what on earth I thought I was doing. I hadn't left him for another man, so it wasn't that kind of guilt, I was homeless, poor and with a child, yet I was still looking after him! My mother had taught me this was the function of women, and it was unconsciously ingrained in me to a ridiculous extent. Under pressure, I did things that I had never done during my marriage, which of course gave me new knowledge about myself. I stopped looking after my husband, found a home and a job, and got on with the next upheaval.

I'm now willing to acknowledge that many of my actions are driven by obscure fears, and ask for help with them. Some of them seem downright silly to my conscious, rational mind, but they can still strike terror into me, and impede me a great deal. Being deeply ashamed of some of them doesn't help either, because then you suppress them, which compounds the problem. Think of how difficult it is for a matercentric man in our society to admit that he wants to serve women. There is no validation for this desire, and so he'll probably submerge it under a facade of macho behavior.

Whatever is seen as correct feelings by society will be included in our self-image, and we can persuade ourselves that we feel them if we try hard enough. Best not to bother. I don't like babies, so there! But I like the company of adolescents quite a lot, despite their intermittent immaturity and selfishness. I don't like my brother, who is a male chauvinist and a selfish boor. Bollocks to what I ought to feel! Isn't it a relief to admit it? I'm scared of a whole raft of things, from spiders to insanity. So is every one I know, and I could feel superior because I'm not afraid of snakes, inferior because I am afraid of speaking in public. Waste of energy. Face your own fears, feel your own feelings and evolve from a position of honesty. As Fritz Perls once said, we're not in the world to live up to other people's expectations, and though that's a hard row to hoe for women, we can start by admitting to how we really feel about our lives. After that, we can feel freer to decide what we want to discard and what to keep.

As I've said, a woman who is strengthening her links to the Great Mother can be transformative. In pre-patriarchal times, this characteristic was often linked to the Great Mother's 'destructive' or death aspect, and she was revered as both the creator and destroyer of life. Patriarchal society edited out the connection between the feminine and death, leaving us with a sanitized version of the female, who brings forth life, nourishes and supports it, but nothing else. Naturally death becomes part of the hidden and feared aspect of the Great Mother, and despite endless poems celebrating the great round of nature etc., something to avoid at all costs. But as we all know, the old has to die to make way for the new, whether it's a leaf dying or a way of looking at the world that has to be discarded. Patriarchal society goes in for death in a big way; in wars, famine as a man-made catastrophe and pollution, but the killing is in pursuit of ego goals like territory and profit. The Great Mother kills that which needs to die, to give us a fuller, richer life, and no coercion is involved, though our conscious self might be in violent disagreement with this.

The world is in the process of a fundamental change which will restore the feminine principle. Women will be its agents, though men will of course participate. Women will create new life, as they have always done, and the transformative power which they have forgotten about will re-emerge. For one thing, they are going to re-connect to the power of their sexuality, which will be a forceful agent of change. It's really not going to be done in a patriarchal way, by law, force and bullying, the tools which men use. It will be effected by an inner transformation of men and women, brought about by contact with the Great Mother and trust in Her. Patriarchal men and women may well be very frightened by this transformative power. A man who sees that a woman is potently sexual, in charge of her own life, and at ease with herself, could wish to destroy her as a threat to his established view of women. Or he might run away, be mesmerized by her, want to grovel at her feet, and be punished by her for having been a naughty boy. It depends on where he's at. Women could be equally ambivalent, feeling threatened by the necessity to change their idea of what 'female' means, not knowing what that might lead to, and fearing it involves being someone who isn't very 'nice'. It's the unknown again, and unfortunately we can't look back into history and say, "Well it will mean an agricultural lifestyle, worshipping the moon and ecstatic dancing from now on.' We are not those people any more. We will have a new way of expressing our attunement to the Great Mother, which we will find for ourselves. Meanwhile the old has to go, and really the best way is to offer no resistance, once we know that it has to die.

You won't have to look very far for people who don't see it that way. If someone told me that the era of women being allowed some freedoms had gone too far, and that the future lay in chaining them to the bed again, I would beg to differ. So it's pointless to argue with people.. You can offer your ideas on the joys of a female-led society to what you consider is a fertile audience, and see whether anything roots and grows, but only if you want to. Your job is your own change, and if your evolution involves proselytizing, do it. Go by your feelings, be aware of your fears, ask f or help from the Goddess. Action will then be freer from conflict, because inner and outer will agree far more than if you rushed ahead, ignoring your uncertainties or suppressing them.

More on the transformative aspect of the woman in touch with the Great Mother. Her anger. We can be pretty scared of anger. We look at what men do with theirs and shudder - all that murdering and raping, punishing of both men and women for crimes against the man's ego, and sheer downright misuse of personal power. My father spent most of his life being angry, and dumping it on his family because he was, like most men, unable to give it to his boss or the Government. We women, as powerless mothers and children, can cop the lot! Boys often grow up looking for someone to vent their anger on, because their father (and sometimes mother) used them in this way. They don't have far to look. Anyone weaker will do.

Then we get the 'New Age' movement, the rise of Feminism, and the proliferation of psychotherapies aimed at 'self-realization'. Total confusion. At one extreme, anger is seen as nasty and unpleasant, and we should love everyone, forgive them for what they've done, and never shout at them. (sound familiar, it's been patriarchal woman's role for quite a while). At the other, the message that it's now o.k. for women to be as thoroughly bad-tempered as men, and an encouragement to spray venom in all directions.

Deep and passionate anger against patriarchal men, and possibly patriarchal women, is all very natural once a woman begins to realize what's been done to her in the name of the god. It can be devastating to realize just how badly society has been treating her for thousands of years. She may wish to ax-murder all men as the full horror dawns. Certainly I agree that anger should not be suppressed, or rationalized in any way. I'm also not in the business of criticizing women who are very angry with men and wish to hurt or humiliate them. That's up to them. However, I would like to offer a suggestion. Anger is energy. All energy can be transformed or used for transformation. Felt, honored and honed, it can be used by a woman to effect internal change on herself.

A man taught me how to do this when I was very angry about what my second husband had done to me. I did not want to see any part I played in my own suffering, I did not want to use the energy for change, I just wanted my revenge, right now, and to see him suffer. I was taught by my friend how to hold the anger, see it as a malleable force, and direct it towards the internal blockages and delusions which had put me in my position in the first place. In the end it became imaged as a blue laser-like beam, which I could use in a disciplined way to see where I needed to change. It worked best just after sex, when I was relaxed and felt safe. I am not now a perfect person, who has cracked all her problems, believe me. I still feel anger, and quite often it leaks out onto those I see as having wronged me. But I have learned a lot about how to hold my feelings safely, while not censoring them, and to use the energy to change some of my stupidities. That doesn't preclude action, but it generally comes much later, when I am, however minimally, changed from what I was. I try not to dissipate the energy of anger on other people, and keep it for myself.

Let's move back to the man who is considering changing to the path of the Goddess, and see some of his feelings and problems. He is likely to be at the height of his ego power. Extremely sure of himself, he knows that is right and wrong, good and bad. He feels in control of himself and his immediate environment, and has achieved his goals, whatever they might be. It seems to him that he's climbed the mountain, by his own efforts, and has reached the peak. He surveys the universe around him, and glows with self-satisfaction. He appears to have no ego problems, since criticism neither upsets him nor causes him to reflect that he might ever be wrong. He can afford to look down on lesser mortals struggling, with no conscious fear that he can be toppled, so confident is he. Like Jehovah, he looks on his creations and sees that they are good.

He is oblivious to other people as parts of him, though this would not be apparent to an observer. If he helps others, it is to further increase his ego, and he can do this without any feeling that their success detracts from his own, because of his arrogance. He relates to others entirely on the basis of his own needs, but is so cocksure (lovely word) that he feels he can afford to be magnanimous. Should his wife wake up to her own need for self-expression, he might well 'allow' her to 'get a little part-time job.' He is so absolutely and comprehensively sure that he's innately superior to her, that he won't stop her.. On the outside, he can look quite sympathetic to women's needs, but he can't envisage it leading to any kind of problem for him; that's why he doesn't resist.

That's it though- he will never again feel this way and he may well choose to stay at this point for a very long time, until his need to evolve gives him a shove. He's got a long way to go, from feeling himself a god to humbly serving others for the greater good of all. He starts with small feelings and actions, generally, as women do on the path of the Goddess. The 'overnight transformation' phenomenon is quite rare, and anyway, often happens to people who have been unconsciously resisting change for a long time. There will probably be some sort of catalyst though, which brings his inner change to his attention. A book, a woman, a new interest in something, a small failure, a loss of desire in an area once reliable. Could be anything. He's unlikely to know about the Great Mother, let alone be willing to listen to Her, but he may begin to listen to a woman or m an who is in contact with Her. A little. As yet, he doesn't feel threatened, and of course it's possible that he may never do so, but may make the transition without any fuss or conflict. Very rare indeed.

A few concessions to women and his other inferiors won't harm a god like himself, and so he might encourage one of his female employees, make her an executive. He can now see himself as an equal opportunities employer, and feel quite noble. Or he goes home and changes nappies. Isn't he a good boy! Naturally he's better at it than his wife. He's done all this quite freely, not because society angers him to, which is a whole different ball game. Patriarchal men can be shamed or coerced into similar behavior, but they exact a penalty somewhere else for this unwanted encroachment on their freedom. They will punish a woman somehow, because they don't want to change. This is another reminder that behavior is generally not a reliable guide to tell us who is on what path. I used to be irritated beyond measure by the husband of a friend of mine who had 'discovered' Feminism. Every time I opened my mouth he would criticize what I said as 'sexist'. I wasn't allowed to change gradually. I had to eliminate words like 'Chairman' instantly, or be subjected to constant ratbagging by him. I much preferred him when he was unreconstructed and spent all his time in bars chatting up secretaries. Then, his hostility to women was less disguised.

Some men carry on, gradually beginning to accept that women have had a raw deal, seeking to help them, and losing interest in their own success, until the point at which they feel ready to surrender to the Goddess. Most become very confused, and, like women, have internal conflict. Bits of them are still highly patriarchal, bits are becoming matercentric. There's no guide book for them, any more than there is for women. They may suppress their desires to surrender, on the grounds that other men will denigrate them, or because that fear of criticism is a reflection of internal conflict. What might a woman do, should they give her free rein? What if she takes revenge? Who am I if I'm not really the lord of the universe? The old certainties dissolve, leaving a clear space for new ways of being, but it all looks very scary. If I start to look at other people as connected to me, I might have to do something, like help them, free them, love them even. I will no longer be able to look at a situation, say, 'what's best for me here', and decide on that basis. I will no longer be able to define relationships in terms of personal priorities. Oh god, come back, all is forgiven. It was just and idea and I've changed my mind I want to go back, now!

Fortunately, for both men and women changing paths, we have a limited mind, which is a handicap, but saves us from realizing the full implications of change. We agree to listen to the Goddess, which is why we've begun to change paths, but we can't see very far at all. Somehow the way is eased if we listen to Her, even if we don't know She exists, and our trust grows a little. Intuition becomes a little stronger, though we might not call it that, and we follow it. The path clears a little, allowing us to see a bit more in the way of possibilities. But if we could see exactly where we were going, we might refuse to begin. We have to be like a donkey following a carrot dangled in front of it, focused generally on the short-term. As our contact with the Goddess grows, we see more, trust more and fear less, but initially, the movement is often very small.

It's a big step for a man changing paths to see women as real people, let alone envisage them as the future leaders of society. He has to do it in bite-size pieces, and in a way which fits him. This might involve being punished for his sins, first, to sort of cleanse him. Or he might skip that bit and support women in a highly practical way, cleaning the house, digging the garden, taking part in child care. There are no set ways, and he should go by his feelings, as women can too. What he is likely to find difficult is emotional support. He would rather buy you a Porsche than comfort you when you're upset. He is still likely to use his intellect to console you rather than give you a sympathetic cuddle. It has always been your job, and he has no idea how to care for others. His feeling of connection has grown, so he can no longer hurt them without feeling pain himself, but it is still unknown territory for him. He can't be instructed in how to feel, but he can be trained in what would help you. Tell him. He really doesn't know, he's not being willfully stupid.

By now, he's lost his competitive edge, and has little if any ambition. He's not drifting, like the Hanged man in the Tarot, because he does feel drawn to help or serve women, but he's still confused. It's most helpful for both men and women at this stage to be with someone who's also changing paths. You can feel your way forward without constant battles, and with some acceptance of the changes you're going through. No one, hopefully, is yelling at you because you don't conform to patriarchal stereotypes. Both of you, whether you accept this or not, have parts of you still on the path of the god. The man might wish for a harmonious planet, free from pollution and exploitation, yet he still feels that the best way to get it is to use the old tools; new laws, fighting greedy businesses, and using his energy to force change. The woman may want a man to respect her desires and fulfill them, but only if she fits the stereotype of an attractive woman. If she's fat, plain, middle-aged etc. then she's had it. Old habits die hard, oh yes they do, and I find my patriarchal ones popping into view on a regular basis, just as I think I'm getting somewhere. There are people who are undoubtedly streets ahead of me in some areas, and they can help me a lot if they want to. But it's not a competition. A good rule is: move away from what you don't want, move towards what you do want. That's not so easy if you can't see a way out, but if you really desire change, it will happen eventually. Meanwhile, feel it all; the frustration, the anger, the impatience, the fear, and clear it all out to leave room for joy to come in. The Goddess is with you all the way. She loves you.

Many people see Femdom as some form of perversion; even people who practice Femdom see it this way. This is because Femdom is associated with kinky sex, and sadomasochism. Yet if we are to look at Femdom in a different way and bring love into this mix we can see it as a way people can learn how to love fully and completely. More than this, if everyone on this planet was to have these Femdom desires it would make our world a far better place to live in.

Men and women have two different instincts that come from our animal past. Men have a very powerful competitive instinct, so like rams, bulls, stags and lions they like fight and compete with other males for dominance. Female animals have on the other hand a powerful nurturing and maternal instinct and this drives females to want to have young and care and look after them.

The competitive instinct drive men towards loving themselves, you have to be very selfish to be very competitive, because you are only interested in what you want, to the degree of taking it away from others. The opposite is true for women, as the maternal instinct drives women into loving everyone but herself. So mothers tend to put the welfare of her children before themselves. This instinct then drives many women to put the welfare of their husbands, and other relations before themselves. This is why the caring professions are dominated by women who devote their whole lives caring for others with little thought for their own welfare.

The patriarchal society greatly encourages these two instincts. Men are encouraged to be even more competitive and aggressive through the macho culture and this drives men into hating others and using violence. While at the same time it condemns women’s maternal instincts as a ‘weakness’. To the degree that many women are taught to despise their caring and nurturing instincts and try to learn to be competitive, aggressive and even violent.

Love is only a weakness when people do not love fully. Many women through their maternal and nurturing instincts learn to love others unconditionally but do not learn to love themselves. Patriarchal propaganda in the past discourages is women learning to love themselves. Yes, it is all right for women to love their husbands and children unconditionally but it is not all right for women to love themselves with the same intensity. So women were made to feel guilty for daring to put her own needs before those of her children or husband.

Men likewise because they are so competitive learn to love themselves but don’t learn to love others. Patriarchy very much encourages this, by teaching men to be very macho. A very competitive person has to be very selfish and ruthless to enable him to be like this. As they say in sports; “nice guys come last”. While in criminal gangs or on the battlefield it is an advantage to be so uncaring of others they you are willing to kill others. Soldiers are trained killers and are not any use to the their generals unless they are capable of killing the enemy without question. For this reason patriarchy encourages the macho culture, that claims that violence is justified and war is glorious. This is why in books, films and video games the ‘hero’ is always a violent man who solves problems through extreme violence.

Many people find it difficult to both love themselves and others at the same time, and believe they have to choose between themselves and others. Although it is difficult for people to do this, we all need to learn to love fully if we want to live in a better world for ourselves.

The way our patriarchal society is set up it is not easy for Women to learn how to love themselves and it is not easy for men to learn how to love others. So out of this need in both men and women to learn to love fully, the powerful Femdom desires were born.

When a man finds himself with a powerful desire to want to worship and serve a woman as a goddess, he is not only learning how to deeply love another person, he is greatly helping the women whom he worships and serves, to learn to love herself.

This is why Femdom would greatly benefit any society that was obsessed by this desire. A society where men are learning how to love others would be a far better society than a macho society where men are encouraged to be competitive, selfish and ruthless. Also a society where women have learnt to love themselves will mean women will have the confidence to want to rule society. This will then allow these women to rule using their maternal instincts to nurture the whole society.

A society where people are able to learn how to both love themselves and love others would be a far more stable society than a patriarchal society where men are encouraged only to love themselves and women only to love others. Patriarchy likes to claim that a utopian society where people love each other is impossible. Whereas the truth is that a utopian society is only impossible while macho men continue to rule our world.

Many people see Femdom as some form of perversion; even people who practice Femdom see it this way. This is because Femdom is associated with kinky sex, and sadomasochism. Yet if we are to look at Femdom in a different way and bring love into this mix we can see it as a way people can learn how to love fully and completely. More than this, if everyone on this planet was to have these Femdom desires it would make our world a far better place to live in.

Men and women have two different instincts that come from our animal past. Men have a very powerful competitive instinct, so like rams, bulls, stags and lions they like fight and compete with other males for dominance. Female animals have on the other hand a powerful nurturing and maternal instinct and this drives females to want to have young and care and look after them.

The competitive instinct drive men towards loving themselves, you have to be very selfish to be very competitive, because you are only interested in what you want, to the degree of taking it away from others. The opposite is true for women, as the maternal instinct drives women into loving everyone but herself. So mothers tend to put the welfare of her children before themselves. This instinct then drives many women to put the welfare of their husbands, and other relations before themselves. This is why the caring professions are dominated by women who devote their whole lives caring for others with little thought for their own welfare.

The patriarchal society greatly encourages these two instincts. Men are encouraged to be even more competitive and aggressive through the macho culture and this drives men into hating others and using violence. While at the same time it condemns women’s maternal instincts as a ‘weakness’. To the degree that many women are taught to despise their caring and nurturing instincts and try to learn to be competitive, aggressive and even violent.

Love is only a weakness when people do not love fully. Many women through their maternal and nurturing instincts learn to love others unconditionally but do not learn to love themselves. Patriarchal propaganda in the past discourages is women learning to love themselves. Yes, it is all right for women to love their husbands and children unconditionally but it is not all right for women to love themselves with the same intensity. So women were made to feel guilty for daring to put her own needs before those of her children or husband.

Men likewise because they are so competitive learn to love themselves but don’t learn to love others. Patriarchy very much encourages this, by teaching men to be very macho. A very competitive person has to be very selfish and ruthless to enable him to be like this. As they say in sports; “nice guys come last”. While in criminal gangs or on the battlefield it is an advantage to be so uncaring of others they you are willing to kill others. Soldiers are trained killers and are not any use to the their generals unless they are capable of killing the enemy without question. For this reason patriarchy encourages the macho culture, that claims that violence is justified and war is glorious. This is why in books, films and video games the ‘hero’ is always a violent man who solves problems through extreme violence.

Many people find it difficult to both love themselves and others at the same time, and believe they have to choose between themselves and others. Although it is difficult for people to do this, we all need to learn to love fully if we want to live in a better world for ourselves.

The way our patriarchal society is set up it is not easy for Women to learn how to love themselves and it is not easy for men to learn how to love others. So out of this need in both men and women to learn to love fully, the powerful Femdom desires were born.

When a man finds himself with a powerful desire to want to worship and serve a woman as a goddess, he is not only learning how to deeply love another person, he is greatly helping the women whom he worships and serves, to learn to love herself.

This is why Femdom would greatly benefit any society that was obsessed by this desire. A society where men are learning how to love others would be a far better society than a macho society where men are encouraged to be competitive, selfish and ruthless. Also a society where women have learnt to love themselves will mean women will have the confidence to want to rule society. This will then allow these women to rule using their maternal instincts to nurture the whole society.

A society where people are able to learn how to both love themselves and love others would be a far more stable society than a patriarchal society where men are encouraged only to love themselves and women only to love others. Patriarchy likes to claim that a utopian society where people love each other is impossible. Whereas the truth is that a utopian society is only impossible while macho men continue to rule our world.

Margaret Thatcher was probably the most controversial Prime Ministers Britain ever had, not only because she was the first British Female leader, but because she was a paradox. Although she was a Women she certainly wasn’t a sister, she spoke up against the Women’s Liberation Movement in the 1970s and referred to them as hysterical women, and seem to take an anti-Feminist line. She became the Queen Bee of her Cabinet and only appointed one other Woman as minister and that was Edwina Curry, whom was quickly dismissed when she spoke out against government policy. Margaret Thatcher was the archetypical, “dick in a frock” and commentators claimed, “she was the only real man in her cabinet”. She was also called, “The Iron Lady” and “Attila the Hen”. She also became known for her ability to get things done through Machiavellian means, as she ruthlessly overcome all opposition.

Another paradox was that she was a Conservative politician, and the Conservatives are a party that give little support female candidates. It was expected that the first Female Prime Minister would come from the Labour party, who were more female friendly, yet even today it still looks unlikely that the Labour party will ever appoint a female leader. (Margaret Beckett was temporary the leader of the Labour party after the death of partly leader John Smith, but she lost out to Tony Blair in the leadership election.)

Margaret Thatcher claimed she had no ambitions to be leader as she was famously to say in a TV interview in 1974; “ It will be years - and not in my time - before a woman will lead the party or become Prime Minister.” Yet she herself became Prime Minister before the decade was finished, how this happened was a very fortunate chance.

In the first half of the 1970s she was the token Woman in Ted Heath’s government, and she became the Education Minister and achieved notoriety as; “Thatcher, the milk snatcher”. Up until then, schoolchildren were provided with free milk every day. So in an effort the cut public spending the Heath government decided to stop this, and Margaret Thatcher being the Education Minster had to carry this policy out. This caused uproar through out the country, and demonstrators took to the street making personal attacks on Margaret Thatcher. The irony was that Margaret Thatcher opposed this policy in cabinet but was voted down, and had to carry it out. As the result she became known as a ruthless and uncaring Woman, and this reputation was to stay with her, throughout her political life.

In the winter of 1973-74 there was a national coal strike, and the government was forced to back down as the vast majority of the country’s power stations were then burning coal, and as the coal stocks began to run out, power stations were force to close down. Ted Heath then made the mistake of calling for a general election, on the platform of, “who runs the country, militant trade unions or the elected government”. His strategy completely failed as the Labour government won by a narrow margin. This was a ‘hung parliament’ with the Liberal Party holding the balance of power so another election was called in the same year. This time the Labour party won with a comfortable margin.

Having lost two elections in the same year Ted Heath found himself very unpopular within the Conservative party, but he was determined to hand on to power. He bullied his minister not to stand against him, and only one dared to this, Sir Keith Joseph. He put himself up as a candidate against the leader, but his resolution didn’t hold and he quickly buckled under pressure and withdrew. So it looked like Ted Heath had successfully faced down his whole cabinet until a supporter of Sir Keith Joseph, Margaret Thatcher, put herself forward, as a candidate. Being a Woman, Margaret Thatcher wasn’t considered a credible candidate by the media or many people within the Conservative Party, and Ted Heath was expected to win. Unexpectedly, she did so well on the first ballot, that Ted Heath was forced to resign, seeing the strength of opposition against him.

In the second ballot other members of Ted Heath’s cabinet stood up as candidates but they all had the problem, that they had allowed themselves to be bullied by Ted Heath, and this made them look weak. The Conservative party wanted a strong leader, and Margaret Thatcher was still able to do well in the second ballot, and only the two best candidates went through to the final ballot, William Whitelaw and Margaret Thatcher. William Whitelaw was seen as the natural successor to Ted Heath and he was still expected to win. So it was a surprise that in the third ballot when Margaret Thatcher won by 146 votes to 79, and became Conservative Party leader on 11 February 1975. She appointed Whitelaw as her deputy, and to his credit he was to serve her loyalty. Ted Heath never forgave Margaret Thatcher for standing against him and was bitter towards her for the rest of her life.

Meanwhile the labour party was having troubles of their own, most governments throughout the Western world they were under strong pressure by the World Bank and IMF to change their economic policies. This was at time when governments throughout the Western world were ditching Keynesian economics in favour of Monetarism. Up until then Keynesian economics was seen as by far the best way to run a country’s economy because this was how the Western world got out of the economic Depression of the 1930s and was also the reason for the post war economic boom. So it was a surprise that the World Bank and IMF suddenly turned against it.

The Keynesian economic theory was the theory of full employment and good wages for all people. The Depression of the 1930s was a time of very high unemployment, and economic stagnation. Governments got out of he Depression by simply inventing jobs like building roads and other public works, to give the unemployed a good wage. The result was that everyone now had money to spare to pay for goods. This in turn would increase demand, allowing factories to go into full production. The increase in production means the factories could employ more workers and make bigger profits. Which gives a big boost to the economy. So in theory everyone would benefit, the workers, retailers and industry. It seems to good to be true, it was a win-win situation for everyone.

The problem with having full employment was that it gave greater power to the workers and the trade unions. This was because if any worker didn’t like the wages or conditions of his job, he was free to go and get a job elsewhere. This meant that the bosses had to give into worker demands or he could quickly lose his workforce. The result was that worker wages kept on steadily rising from the end of the Second World War to the end of the 1970s, though increasing wage demands from the workers also fuelled inflation. The result was that during this period the gap between rich and poor was slowly decreasing. Which wasn’t good news for the rich.

The problem also for the rich was that the two largest countries in the world, namely the USSR and China had become Communist states. So the West was in competition with the Communist countries for the hearts and minds of the people. Keynesian economics then suited Western ruling elite very well because they could rightly say to their workers; that they were far better of living in a Western democracy than in a Communist country. As the British Prime Minster Harold Macmillan was to famously say in one elections speech, to the workers; “you never had it so good”.

Then in the 1970s things began to change for the Communist. The Soviet Union was finding it very hard to keep up with the arms race with the USA. They were by then spending half of their wealth on the military. They had all ready had to drop out of the space race as they no longer could afford the expensive rockets needed to put a man on the Moon. While in China the Chinese leader Mao-Tse-Tung had died in 1976 and the leaders who took over no longer wanted to continue with the Communist system.

This was a clear sign to Western leaders that they were winning the Cold war against Communism. So at the end of the 1970s some Western countries began to adopt Monetarism. It was sold to the public as a new form of economics, but in fact it wasn’t new at all. It was the old style of economics that caused the Wall St crash and Depression throughout the West during the 1930s.

At the end of the 1970s and beginning of the 1980s, all Western countries adopted Monetarism and it didn’t matter if the government at the time was socialist or conservative. The politicians claimed at the time, they needed to squeeze inflation out of the economy. What they didn’t tell the people, was they way you done this was to have high unemployment, which undermined the power of the workers and Trade Unions. This was because the workers had to accept the wages and conditions that the employers gave them or they would be sacked, and out of work. And because of high unemployment finding work now became a real problem, as it now wasn’t easy to get a new job. The result was that worker’s wages demands become less and less and this stopped inflation in its tracks.

Not only did unemployment dramatically rose throughout the West but the West went into a “Recession”, (Just another name for a Depression like we had in the 1930s). The only people who benefited from this were the rich. Since the early 1980s the gap between rich and poor has dramatically increased. In the 1970s it was claimed that with computers and robotics the workers would be even better off, but with the introduction of Monetarism the increasing wealth created by modern technology, went to the rich.

Off course the so-called “free press” of the Western countries made no mention of this in their newspapers. Neither did the so-called left wing socialist parties. Simply because all newspapers and TV channels are owned by very rich men, who had a vested interest in Monetarism economics. Likewise the leaders of left wing parties are not exactly poor either and also personally benefited from the increasing gap between rich and poor. So it means that Keynesian economics is about giving more power and wealth to the people, while Monetarism is about keeping power and wealth exclusively in the hands of the ruling elite. .

At the end of the 1970s the Labour party ran into financial problems and went to the World Bank for a loan. The World Bank agreed to the loan providing that the British Government adopted Monetarist economics. The result was that unemployment increased sharply, the unions become angry with this and strikes became commonplace. The winter of 1978-9 was dubbed by the press the 'Winter of Discontent', (A Shakespearian quotation), after a long series of strikes against government policy.

The increasingly unpopularity of the government forced them to call a general election in 1979 and the Conservatives won easy. Margaret Thatcher then found herself the first female Prime Minister of Great Britain. Unfortunately with the economy now in the hands of the IMF and World Bank she was forced to carry on the same policies of the previous discredited Labour government. In the election campaign the Conservatives attacked Labour for the high levels of unemployment, but under the new Conservative government unemployment increased to 3 million people. Margaret Thatcher also had to follow Conservative policies of cutting taxes, and the biggest tax cuts were for the rich. She was fortunate that now Britain was receiving revenues from North Sea Oil, but this money was used on tax cuts and give benefits to the increasing army of the unemployed, and not on hospitals and schools. The result was that the new Conservative government became just as unpopular with the British public, as the previous Labour government.

The media done its best to support the government, by attacking the unemployed, and suggesting they were ‘scroungers’ and ‘workshy’. So they put the blame for high unemployment on the unemployed themselves, which is kicking people when they are down. But this campaign successfully diverted the public attention away from the fact that high unemployment was deliberate government policy.

High unemployment undermined the power of trade unions, as workers now feared losing their jobs and being unemployed. Margaret Thatcher strongly attacked the unions and used people’s fears of unions after to the coal strikes and ‘winter of discontent’ to pass laws to limit union power.

With the economy being controlled by the IMF and World Bank, the only way Margaret Thatcher could make a difference was in foreign policy. In Rhodesia a rebel white government held on to power, but because of a long civil war this government now wanted to sue for peace. The British government had talks with both the white rebel government and guerrillas and sorted out a peace deal and Margaret Thatcher flew to African to in the final signing over power. An election was called in Rhodesia of all the people black and white and Robert Mugabe became Prime Minister. He has since become a despotic dictator, terrorising his country with violence, to keep in power.

Margaret Thatcher’s resolution was tested in Northern Ireland. At one time the IRA prisoners were classed as political prisoners and given special privileges in jail. But in the 1970s the Labour government took away this special status and classed IRA prisoners as common criminals. In 1981 a number of Republican prisoners went on hunger strike in an effort to restore their political status. But Margaret Thatcher refused to bow to this pressure and nine Republicans starved themselves to death before the IRA was forced called the hunger strike off. This was to strengthen Margaret Thatcher’s reputation of being ruthlessness and heartlessness.

Then an even a stronger test of her resolution came in 1982, the military junta of Argentina invade the British Falklands islands. At the time Margaret Thatcher was in the process of cutting back on military spending and cut military forces guarding the Falklands. So this may of given the military junta in Argentina, a belief that Britain would not defend these island. It could also be, that having a female leader the Argentina didn’t think she would want a fight. This was a big mistake, as she showed herself to be a very decisive war-leader.

Britain still had powerful navy, but she now only had small aircraft carriers that used Harrier jump jets. Only two carriers were available to sail to the Falklands and these were so small they could only carry 10 jets each. Opposed to this the Argentina’s had a large ex-USA carrier that carried far more jets than both the British carriers, as well as a air-force of modern supersonic French jets. When the British task force sailed in the Southern Atlantic it found itself in a very vulnerable position. It was now completely on it’s own with little chance of reinforcements. The Royal Navy had to guard two large ocean liners that carried all the troops need to retake the Falklands islands as well as number of supply ships and the aircraft carriers. If the Argentina navy or air force could sink one of the ocean liners or aircraft carriers, then the invasion would have to be called off.

The Royal Navy had one trump card and that was nuclear powered submarines. Four of them reached the Falkland Islands first and set up a blockade zone around the islands with the British government warning that any Argentina ships approaching the island would be sunk. Then the one of the submarines, HMS Conqueror spotted the Argentina Cruiser General Belgrano. The captain radioed this information back to London and Margaret Thatcher took the very controversial decision to order the captain to sink the General Belgrano. For this, she received worldwide condemnation, because the USA at the time still trying to negotiate a peace deal between the two countries. Also, the General Belgrano at the time was not a direct threat to the British forces and was steaming back to base. So diplomatically this was a very bad decision and people were condemning her for the sinking, long after the Falklands war had finished. But military, it was the right thing to do.

The result was, that this sinking frightened the Argentina navy so much that they returned to port, and took no further part in the conflict. Most important of all, their aircraft carrier also stayed in port and although its aircraft were still used, flying from airports in Argentina, the long range from Argentina to the Falklands reduced their effectiveness.

Margaret Thatcher then allowed the military to get on with their job without further interference, and they successfully re-took the Falklands. The whole campaign was greeted with patriotic furore and Margaret Thatcher suddenly found herself very popular. A slight economic recovery was engineered and an election was called in 1983 that resulted Margaret Thatcher winning another election. After this win the trade unions realised they were now in deep trouble. The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) had defeated the Heath government in the 1970s and it was hoped that they could do the same again. Unfortunately for them Margaret Thatcher knew what was coming and was preparing herself to take them on. This is where the Machiavellian side of her come out, as she ruthlessly out smarted the NUM. She made sure all the coal powered, power stations in the country were well stocked with coal, she then went out of her way to provoke the NUM in the spring where there is a less demand for coal in the coming months, right through the spring, summer and autumn. Surprising this tactic worked, and NUM in the spring of 1984 called a coal strike at the worst possible time of the year, for them to do this. Had they called the strike just before winter started, when the demand for power would be at its peak, and they might of stood a better chance.

Unfortunately not all the coal miners agreed with the strike, and some pits remained open. The NUM tried to close these pits through picketing, which led to extremely violent clashes with the police. The strike lasted a full year with many miners’ families falling into destitution, and the mineworkers were forced to go back to work having achieved nothing. Margaret Thatcher had won again, but the bitterness felt against her by those of the left wing, was now very strong.

Then in 1984 she was nearly assassinated by the IRA. At the Conservative conference in Brighton the IRA managed to plant a bomb in the hotel where she and her cabinet was staying. Although the suite in which she was staying was damaged she and her husband suffered no injury, but five other people in the hotel died and many others were injured. In spite of the bombing Margaret Thatcher insisted that the conference open on time next morning and she make her speech at the conference as planned. To demonstrate she wasn’t intimidated by the violence of the IRA.

When she first became Prime Minister she followed the usual British Government policy in Northern Ireland of supporting the Unionist, but over time she became increasingly frustrated by the inaction in solving the Northern Ireland problem. The majority Unionist parties held the power in Northern Ireland and weren’t interested in any form of power sharing with the minority Roman Catholics. So Margaret Thatcher decided to shake them out of their complacency. In 1985 she had talks with the Irish Prime Minister and signed the Anglo-Irish agreement, which gave the Irish Government a say in the governance of Northern Ireland. The Unionists reacted with fury at this agreement and done all they could to destroy it, but Margaret Thatcher stood firm and didn’t give way to their pressure. This made the Unionists realise that that they couldn’t depend on the British Government always supporting them and it gave hope to the Roman Catholics. After that, both sides did begin to make concessions, which resulted in making a peace deal, possible in the 1990s.

Up until the 1970s large parts of the British industry was in public ownership and Margaret Thatcher set about privatising most of it, claiming that private ownership would be more efficient. To be fair, in some cases this was true, but in other cases it was a complete disaster. She also got on very well with the then USA President Ronald Reagan, and strongly supported his foreign policy decisions. Like the US bombing raid on Libya from bases in the UK in 1986, in defiance of other European Countries, who all were against this action. And to allow the US to deploy cruse missile bases in Britain, which caused widespread protest and started the Women’s Greenham Common Peace Camp. Where Women at Greenham Common airbase were daily protesting and fighting US personal and British policemen.

Back in the 19th century it was proposed that a Channel tunnel be constructed between England and France. Many attempts were made to do this throughout both the 19th and 20th century, but opposition mainly from England ended all these projects. Margaret Thatcher decided to back another attempt to do this. She was strong enough to stand up against all opposition to the project and bulldozed her way forward. The Tunnel was started in 1987 and finished in 1990.

Before 1987 another economic ‘recovery’ was engineered which allowed Margaret Thatcher to win a third Election. But after the election, Monetarist economic policy dictated that unemployment needed to rise again. So the economy slumped again, making her very unpopular again. In 1988, she made a major speech accepting the problems of global warming, ozone depletion and acid rain. In 1990, she opened the Hadley Centre for climate prediction and research. She was one of the first world leaders to take global warming seriously, and in comparison with the rest of the world at the time; her government did have a very good environmental record.

In 1989-90 Margaret Thatcher introduced for local government the Community Charge or as it became widely known, the poll tax, his was a fatal mistake. The poll tax, was the same for all house owners and this was so unfair, it caused widespread protest and street riots with 18 million people refusing to pay. Resulting in ordinary people being put into jail for refusing to pay. Unfortunately Margaret Thatcher stubbornly refused to back down, she had a reputation of facing down opposition and was not going to do so, this time.

With the economic slump and the unpopularity of the Poll tax, Margaret Thatcher became extremely unpopular and the Conservative party, realised she would now be an electoral liability in the next election. On 1 November 1990, Sir Geoffrey Howe, one of Thatcher's oldest and staunchest supporters, resigned from his position as Deputy Prime Minister in protest at Thatcher's European policy. Margaret Thatcher was clearly pro-USA and anti-European in her policies and this upset people like Sir Geoffrey Howe, who in his resignation speech in the House of Commons made a scathing attack her. The Michael Heselitine another pro-European who had also resigned from her cabinet over her European policies, challenged her for leadership of the party. Like when Margaret Thatcher had challenged Ted Health for the leadership Michael Heselitine done so well in the first round of voting, that she was forced to resign. This decision was greeted with jubilation throughout the country, so unpopular had she become in her last days in power.

From the viewpoint of encouraging Female power Margaret Thatcher was a failure. On the positive side she did show that a Female could be a strong and decisive leader. On the negative side, she showed very little of the feminine nature of caring and nurturing in her leadership. In fact, she was so macho in her behaviour, that people didn’t see her leadership as being any different from that of a male politician. And many people see her as being even more ruthless and uncaring than most male politicians today. Because of this, after she left, the British people are not enthusiastic about having another Female Prime Minister. As they imagine another Female leader will be as ruthless and uncaring as her.

She was to continue this ruthless image after she left power. Angusto Pinochet the former Chilean President visited Britain in 1998, and the Spanish government asked the British government to arrest him for crimes against Spanish people living in Chile. They then wanted Britain to send him to Spain to stand trial. Pinochet’s lawyers managed to delay this and in the legal and political debate over his extradition, Margaret Thatcher made is very clear she was supporting Pinochet.

Now, Pinochet overthrew a democratic elected government through a military takeover and then started a reign of terror where he murdered and tortured his political opponents. And this was the sort of despotic dictator that Margaret Thatcher was publicly praising and supporting.

She also wasn’t a ‘sister’ she criticised feminism while in power and promoted, “family values”. Which in practise meant undermining the gains feminism made in the 1960-70s. She only allowed one other female in her government and that was Edwina Curry. In 1986, she became a Junior Health Minister, but in 1988 she was forced to resign over salmonella in British eggs. Because of British factory farming practices; hygiene was compromised and salmonella was allowed to get into eggs. The government’s response, helped by the media, was to cover-up this fact. But Edwina Curry took her job seriously and was worried over the increase in deaths and illness because of salmonella poisoning. Because the general public were unaware that dangers of eating British eggs not properly cooked. (British eggs before this had a very good reputation of being salmonella free, so people assumed they were safe). So she defied government policy and made this fact public. She wasn’t supported by Margaret Thatcher or the media and was forced to resign.

Margaret Thatcher did nothing to encourage more Conservative Women to become MPs or the become part of the government. So when John Major replaced Margaret Thatcher as Prime Minster he was shocked when in one of his first press conferences a newspaper reporter pointed out he had no Women in his government. Apparently it never entered his mind to have female Ministers, so he had to quickly find two token Women as Junior Ministers. Yet in spite of her not wanting to be of any help to other Women she did famously say:

“In politics if you want anything said, ask a man. If you want anything done, ask a woman.”

“Any woman who understands the problems of running a home will be nearer to understanding the problems of running a country.”

“I've got a woman's ability to stick to a job and get on with it when everyone else walks off and leaves it.”

“It may be the cock that crows, but it is the hen that lays the eggs.”

“The woman's mission is not to enhance the masculine spirit, but to express the feminine; hers is not to preserve a man-made world, but to create a human world by the infusion of the feminine element into all of its activities.”

To be fair to Margaret Thatcher there was no way that she could have become leader of the Conservative Party unless she acted and behaved like a macho male. A caring and nurturing Woman would never of become a Minister or Leader of a male dominated political party. This then shows the weakness of Feminism, yes Feminism has made big advances in the 20th century to bring about sexual equality. But what Feminism has gained for Women is not sexual equality but equal sexual opportunities. The problem is that we still live in a patriarchal society created by men, for men. So although Margaret Thatcher has shown clearly that a Woman can inspire to the highest office in the land, but to do this, she still had to act like a ruthless male.

What Margaret Thatcher shows clearly that a lone Woman, even if she becomes the leader, is limited to what she can change. The only way true change can come about is for the whole government to be dominated by Women. This can only be done if Women take over existing political parties, or start their own Matriarchal political party, with Women taking control of every aspect of government. Only then are they are in a strong position to instigate genuine change for a truly caring society, based on the feminine principles of nurturing and caring.

Margaret Thatcher was probably the most controversial Prime Ministers Britain ever had, not only because she was the first British Female leader, but because she was a paradox. Although she was a Women she certainly wasn’t a sister, she spoke up against the Women’s Liberation Movement in the 1970s and referred to them as hysterical women, and seem to take an anti-Feminist line. She became the Queen Bee of her Cabinet and only appointed one other Woman as minister and that was Edwina Curry, whom was quickly dismissed when she spoke out against government policy. Margaret Thatcher was the archetypical, “dick in a frock” and commentators claimed, “she was the only real man in her cabinet”. She was also called, “The Iron Lady” and “Attila the Hen”. She also became known for her ability to get things done through Machiavellian means, as she ruthlessly overcome all opposition.

Another paradox was that she was a Conservative politician, and the Conservatives are a party that give little support female candidates. It was expected that the first Female Prime Minister would come from the Labour party, who were more female friendly, yet even today it still looks unlikely that the Labour party will ever appoint a female leader. (Margaret Beckett was temporary the leader of the Labour party after the death of partly leader John Smith, but she lost out to Tony Blair in the leadership election.)

Margaret Thatcher claimed she had no ambitions to be leader as she was famously to say in a TV interview in 1974; “ It will be years - and not in my time - before a woman will lead the party or become Prime Minister.” Yet she herself became Prime Minister before the decade was finished, how this happened was a very fortunate chance.

In the first half of the 1970s she was the token Woman in Ted Heath’s government, and she became the Education Minister and achieved notoriety as; “Thatcher, the milk snatcher”. Up until then, schoolchildren were provided with free milk every day. So in an effort the cut public spending the Heath government decided to stop this, and Margaret Thatcher being the Education Minster had to carry this policy out. This caused uproar through out the country, and demonstrators took to the street making personal attacks on Margaret Thatcher. The irony was that Margaret Thatcher opposed this policy in cabinet but was voted down, and had to carry it out. As the result she became known as a ruthless and uncaring Woman, and this reputation was to stay with her, throughout her political life.

In the winter of 1973-74 there was a national coal strike, and the government was forced to back down as the vast majority of the country’s power stations were then burning coal, and as the coal stocks began to run out, power stations were force to close down. Ted Heath then made the mistake of calling for a general election, on the platform of, “who runs the country, militant trade unions or the elected government”. His strategy completely failed as the Labour government won by a narrow margin. This was a ‘hung parliament’ with the Liberal Party holding the balance of power so another election was called in the same year. This time the Labour party won with a comfortable margin.

Having lost two elections in the same year Ted Heath found himself very unpopular within the Conservative party, but he was determined to hand on to power. He bullied his minister not to stand against him, and only one dared to this, Sir Keith Joseph. He put himself up as a candidate against the leader, but his resolution didn’t hold and he quickly buckled under pressure and withdrew. So it looked like Ted Heath had successfully faced down his whole cabinet until a supporter of Sir Keith Joseph, Margaret Thatcher, put herself forward, as a candidate. Being a Woman, Margaret Thatcher wasn’t considered a credible candidate by the media or many people within the Conservative Party, and Ted Heath was expected to win. Unexpectedly, she did so well on the first ballot, that Ted Heath was forced to resign, seeing the strength of opposition against him.

In the second ballot other members of Ted Heath’s cabinet stood up as candidates but they all had the problem, that they had allowed themselves to be bullied by Ted Heath, and this made them look weak. The Conservative party wanted a strong leader, and Margaret Thatcher was still able to do well in the second ballot, and only the two best candidates went through to the final ballot, William Whitelaw and Margaret Thatcher. William Whitelaw was seen as the natural successor to Ted Heath and he was still expected to win. So it was a surprise that in the third ballot when Margaret Thatcher won by 146 votes to 79, and became Conservative Party leader on 11 February 1975. She appointed Whitelaw as her deputy, and to his credit he was to serve her loyalty. Ted Heath never forgave Margaret Thatcher for standing against him and was bitter towards her for the rest of her life.

Meanwhile the labour party was having troubles of their own, most governments throughout the Western world they were under strong pressure by the World Bank and IMF to change their economic policies. This was at time when governments throughout the Western world were ditching Keynesian economics in favour of Monetarism. Up until then Keynesian economics was seen as by far the best way to run a country’s economy because this was how the Western world got out of the economic Depression of the 1930s and was also the reason for the post war economic boom. So it was a surprise that the World Bank and IMF suddenly turned against it.

The Keynesian economic theory was the theory of full employment and good wages for all people. The Depression of the 1930s was a time of very high unemployment, and economic stagnation. Governments got out of he Depression by simply inventing jobs like building roads and other public works, to give the unemployed a good wage. The result was that everyone now had money to spare to pay for goods. This in turn would increase demand, allowing factories to go into full production. The increase in production means the factories could employ more workers and make bigger profits. Which gives a big boost to the economy. So in theory everyone would benefit, the workers, retailers and industry. It seems to good to be true, it was a win-win situation for everyone.

The problem with having full employment was that it gave greater power to the workers and the trade unions. This was because if any worker didn’t like the wages or conditions of his job, he was free to go and get a job elsewhere. This meant that the bosses had to give into worker demands or he could quickly lose his workforce. The result was that worker wages kept on steadily rising from the end of the Second World War to the end of the 1970s, though increasing wage demands from the workers also fuelled inflation. The result was that during this period the gap between rich and poor was slowly decreasing. Which wasn’t good news for the rich.

The problem also for the rich was that the two largest countries in the world, namely the USSR and China had become Communist states. So the West was in competition with the Communist countries for the hearts and minds of the people. Keynesian economics then suited Western ruling elite very well because they could rightly say to their workers; that they were far better of living in a Western democracy than in a Communist country. As the British Prime Minster Harold Macmillan was to famously say in one elections speech, to the workers; “you never had it so good”.

Then in the 1970s things began to change for the Communist. The Soviet Union was finding it very hard to keep up with the arms race with the USA. They were by then spending half of their wealth on the military. They had all ready had to drop out of the space race as they no longer could afford the expensive rockets needed to put a man on the Moon. While in China the Chinese leader Mao-Tse-Tung had died in 1976 and the leaders who took over no longer wanted to continue with the Communist system.

This was a clear sign to Western leaders that they were winning the Cold war against Communism. So at the end of the 1970s some Western countries began to adopt Monetarism. It was sold to the public as a new form of economics, but in fact it wasn’t new at all. It was the old style of economics that caused the Wall St crash and Depression throughout the West during the 1930s.

At the end of the 1970s and beginning of the 1980s, all Western countries adopted Monetarism and it didn’t matter if the government at the time was socialist or conservative. The politicians claimed at the time, they needed to squeeze inflation out of the economy. What they didn’t tell the people, was they way you done this was to have high unemployment, which undermined the power of the workers and Trade Unions. This was because the workers had to accept the wages and conditions that the employers gave them or they would be sacked, and out of work. And because of high unemployment finding work now became a real problem, as it now wasn’t easy to get a new job. The result was that worker’s wages demands become less and less and this stopped inflation in its tracks.

Not only did unemployment dramatically rose throughout the West but the West went into a “Recession”, (Just another name for a Depression like we had in the 1930s). The only people who benefited from this were the rich. Since the early 1980s the gap between rich and poor has dramatically increased. In the 1970s it was claimed that with computers and robotics the workers would be even better off, but with the introduction of Monetarism the increasing wealth created by modern technology, went to the rich.

Off course the so-called “free press” of the Western countries made no mention of this in their newspapers. Neither did the so-called left wing socialist parties. Simply because all newspapers and TV channels are owned by very rich men, who had a vested interest in Monetarism economics. Likewise the leaders of left wing parties are not exactly poor either and also personally benefited from the increasing gap between rich and poor. So it means that Keynesian economics is about giving more power and wealth to the people, while Monetarism is about keeping power and wealth exclusively in the hands of the ruling elite. .

At the end of the 1970s the Labour party ran into financial problems and went to the World Bank for a loan. The World Bank agreed to the loan providing that the British Government adopted Monetarist economics. The result was that unemployment increased sharply, the unions become angry with this and strikes became commonplace. The winter of 1978-9 was dubbed by the press the 'Winter of Discontent', (A Shakespearian quotation), after a long series of strikes against government policy.

The increasingly unpopularity of the government forced them to call a general election in 1979 and the Conservatives won easy. Margaret Thatcher then found herself the first female Prime Minister of Great Britain. Unfortunately with the economy now in the hands of the IMF and World Bank she was forced to carry on the same policies of the previous discredited Labour government. In the election campaign the Conservatives attacked Labour for the high levels of unemployment, but under the new Conservative government unemployment increased to 3 million people. Margaret Thatcher also had to follow Conservative policies of cutting taxes, and the biggest tax cuts were for the rich. She was fortunate that now Britain was receiving revenues from North Sea Oil, but this money was used on tax cuts and give benefits to the increasing army of the unemployed, and not on hospitals and schools. The result was that the new Conservative government became just as unpopular with the British public, as the previous Labour government.

The media done its best to support the government, by attacking the unemployed, and suggesting they were ‘scroungers’ and ‘workshy’. So they put the blame for high unemployment on the unemployed themselves, which is kicking people when they are down. But this campaign successfully diverted the public attention away from the fact that high unemployment was deliberate government policy.

High unemployment undermined the power of trade unions, as workers now feared losing their jobs and being unemployed. Margaret Thatcher strongly attacked the unions and used people’s fears of unions after to the coal strikes and ‘winter of discontent’ to pass laws to limit union power.

With the economy being controlled by the IMF and World Bank, the only way Margaret Thatcher could make a difference was in foreign policy. In Rhodesia a rebel white government held on to power, but because of a long civil war this government now wanted to sue for peace. The British government had talks with both the white rebel government and guerrillas and sorted out a peace deal and Margaret Thatcher flew to African to in the final signing over power. An election was called in Rhodesia of all the people black and white and Robert Mugabe became Prime Minister. He has since become a despotic dictator, terrorising his country with violence, to keep in power.

Margaret Thatcher’s resolution was tested in Northern Ireland. At one time the IRA prisoners were classed as political prisoners and given special privileges in jail. But in the 1970s the Labour government took away this special status and classed IRA prisoners as common criminals. In 1981 a number of Republican prisoners went on hunger strike in an effort to restore their political status. But Margaret Thatcher refused to bow to this pressure and nine Republicans starved themselves to death before the IRA was forced called the hunger strike off. This was to strengthen Margaret Thatcher’s reputation of being ruthlessness and heartlessness.

Then an even a stronger test of her resolution came in 1982, the military junta of Argentina invade the British Falklands islands. At the time Margaret Thatcher was in the process of cutting back on military spending and cut military forces guarding the Falklands. So this may of given the military junta in Argentina, a belief that Britain would not defend these island. It could also be, that having a female leader the Argentina didn’t think she would want a fight. This was a big mistake, as she showed herself to be a very decisive war-leader.

Britain still had powerful navy, but she now only had small aircraft carriers that used Harrier jump jets. Only two carriers were available to sail to the Falklands and these were so small they could only carry 10 jets each. Opposed to this the Argentina’s had a large ex-USA carrier that carried far more jets than both the British carriers, as well as a air-force of modern supersonic French jets. When the British task force sailed in the Southern Atlantic it found itself in a very vulnerable position. It was now completely on it’s own with little chance of reinforcements. The Royal Navy had to guard two large ocean liners that carried all the troops need to retake the Falklands islands as well as number of supply ships and the aircraft carriers. If the Argentina navy or air force could sink one of the ocean liners or aircraft carriers, then the invasion would have to be called off.

The Royal Navy had one trump card and that was nuclear powered submarines. Four of them reached the Falkland Islands first and set up a blockade zone around the islands with the British government warning that any Argentina ships approaching the island would be sunk. Then the one of the submarines, HMS Conqueror spotted the Argentina Cruiser General Belgrano. The captain radioed this information back to London and Margaret Thatcher took the very controversial decision to order the captain to sink the General Belgrano. For this, she received worldwide condemnation, because the USA at the time still trying to negotiate a peace deal between the two countries. Also, the General Belgrano at the time was not a direct threat to the British forces and was steaming back to base. So diplomatically this was a very bad decision and people were condemning her for the sinking, long after the Falklands war had finished. But military, it was the right thing to do.

The result was, that this sinking frightened the Argentina navy so much that they returned to port, and took no further part in the conflict. Most important of all, their aircraft carrier also stayed in port and although its aircraft were still used, flying from airports in Argentina, the long range from Argentina to the Falklands reduced their effectiveness.

Margaret Thatcher then allowed the military to get on with their job without further interference, and they successfully re-took the Falklands. The whole campaign was greeted with patriotic furore and Margaret Thatcher suddenly found herself very popular. A slight economic recovery was engineered and an election was called in 1983 that resulted Margaret Thatcher winning another election. After this win the trade unions realised they were now in deep trouble. The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) had defeated the Heath government in the 1970s and it was hoped that they could do the same again. Unfortunately for them Margaret Thatcher knew what was coming and was preparing herself to take them on. This is where the Machiavellian side of her come out, as she ruthlessly out smarted the NUM. She made sure all the coal powered, power stations in the country were well stocked with coal, she then went out of her way to provoke the NUM in the spring where there is a less demand for coal in the coming months, right through the spring, summer and autumn. Surprising this tactic worked, and NUM in the spring of 1984 called a coal strike at the worst possible time of the year, for them to do this. Had they called the strike just before winter started, when the demand for power would be at its peak, and they might of stood a better chance.

Unfortunately not all the coal miners agreed with the strike, and some pits remained open. The NUM tried to close these pits through picketing, which led to extremely violent clashes with the police. The strike lasted a full year with many miners’ families falling into destitution, and the mineworkers were forced to go back to work having achieved nothing. Margaret Thatcher had won again, but the bitterness felt against her by those of the left wing, was now very strong.

Then in 1984 she was nearly assassinated by the IRA. At the Conservative conference in Brighton the IRA managed to plant a bomb in the hotel where she and her cabinet was staying. Although the suite in which she was staying was damaged she and her husband suffered no injury, but five other people in the hotel died and many others were injured. In spite of the bombing Margaret Thatcher insisted that the conference open on time next morning and she make her speech at the conference as planned. To demonstrate she wasn’t intimidated by the violence of the IRA.

When she first became Prime Minister she followed the usual British Government policy in Northern Ireland of supporting the Unionist, but over time she became increasingly frustrated by the inaction in solving the Northern Ireland problem. The majority Unionist parties held the power in Northern Ireland and weren’t interested in any form of power sharing with the minority Roman Catholics. So Margaret Thatcher decided to shake them out of their complacency. In 1985 she had talks with the Irish Prime Minister and signed the Anglo-Irish agreement, which gave the Irish Government a say in the governance of Northern Ireland. The Unionists reacted with fury at this agreement and done all they could to destroy it, but Margaret Thatcher stood firm and didn’t give way to their pressure. This made the Unionists realise that that they couldn’t depend on the British Government always supporting them and it gave hope to the Roman Catholics. After that, both sides did begin to make concessions, which resulted in making a peace deal, possible in the 1990s.

Up until the 1970s large parts of the British industry was in public ownership and Margaret Thatcher set about privatising most of it, claiming that private ownership would be more efficient. To be fair, in some cases this was true, but in other cases it was a complete disaster. She also got on very well with the then USA President Ronald Reagan, and strongly supported his foreign policy decisions. Like the US bombing raid on Libya from bases in the UK in 1986, in defiance of other European Countries, who all were against this action. And to allow the US to deploy cruse missile bases in Britain, which caused widespread protest and started the Women’s Greenham Common Peace Camp. Where Women at Greenham Common airbase were daily protesting and fighting US personal and British policemen.

Back in the 19th century it was proposed that a Channel tunnel be constructed between England and France. Many attempts were made to do this throughout both the 19th and 20th century, but opposition mainly from England ended all these projects. Margaret Thatcher decided to back another attempt to do this. She was strong enough to stand up against all opposition to the project and bulldozed her way forward. The Tunnel was started in 1987 and finished in 1990.

Before 1987 another economic ‘recovery’ was engineered which allowed Margaret Thatcher to win a third Election. But after the election, Monetarist economic policy dictated that unemployment needed to rise again. So the economy slumped again, making her very unpopular again. In 1988, she made a major speech accepting the problems of global warming, ozone depletion and acid rain. In 1990, she opened the Hadley Centre for climate prediction and research. She was one of the first world leaders to take global warming seriously, and in comparison with the rest of the world at the time; her government did have a very good environmental record.

In 1989-90 Margaret Thatcher introduced for local government the Community Charge or as it became widely known, the poll tax, his was a fatal mistake. The poll tax, was the same for all house owners and this was so unfair, it caused widespread protest and street riots with 18 million people refusing to pay. Resulting in ordinary people being put into jail for refusing to pay. Unfortunately Margaret Thatcher stubbornly refused to back down, she had a reputation of facing down opposition and was not going to do so, this time.

With the economic slump and the unpopularity of the Poll tax, Margaret Thatcher became extremely unpopular and the Conservative party, realised she would now be an electoral liability in the next election. On 1 November 1990, Sir Geoffrey Howe, one of Thatcher's oldest and staunchest supporters, resigned from his position as Deputy Prime Minister in protest at Thatcher's European policy. Margaret Thatcher was clearly pro-USA and anti-European in her policies and this upset people like Sir Geoffrey Howe, who in his resignation speech in the House of Commons made a scathing attack her. The Michael Heselitine another pro-European who had also resigned from her cabinet over her European policies, challenged her for leadership of the party. Like when Margaret Thatcher had challenged Ted Health for the leadership Michael Heselitine done so well in the first round of voting, that she was forced to resign. This decision was greeted with jubilation throughout the country, so unpopular had she become in her last days in power.

From the viewpoint of encouraging Female power Margaret Thatcher was a failure. On the positive side she did show that a Female could be a strong and decisive leader. On the negative side, she showed very little of the feminine nature of caring and nurturing in her leadership. In fact, she was so macho in her behaviour, that people didn’t see her leadership as being any different from that of a male politician. And many people see her as being even more ruthless and uncaring than most male politicians today. Because of this, after she left, the British people are not enthusiastic about having another Female Prime Minister. As they imagine another Female leader will be as ruthless and uncaring as her.

She was to continue this ruthless image after she left power. Angusto Pinochet the former Chilean President visited Britain in 1998, and the Spanish government asked the British government to arrest him for crimes against Spanish people living in Chile. They then wanted Britain to send him to Spain to stand trial. Pinochet’s lawyers managed to delay this and in the legal and political debate over his extradition, Margaret Thatcher made is very clear she was supporting Pinochet.

Now, Pinochet overthrew a democratic elected government through a military takeover and then started a reign of terror where he murdered and tortured his political opponents. And this was the sort of despotic dictator that Margaret Thatcher was publicly praising and supporting.

She also wasn’t a ‘sister’ she criticised feminism while in power and promoted, “family values”. Which in practise meant undermining the gains feminism made in the 1960-70s. She only allowed one other female in her government and that was Edwina Curry. In 1986, she became a Junior Health Minister, but in 1988 she was forced to resign over salmonella in British eggs. Because of British factory farming practices; hygiene was compromised and salmonella was allowed to get into eggs. The government’s response, helped by the media, was to cover-up this fact. But Edwina Curry took her job seriously and was worried over the increase in deaths and illness because of salmonella poisoning. Because the general public were unaware that dangers of eating British eggs not properly cooked. (British eggs before this had a very good reputation of being salmonella free, so people assumed they were safe). So she defied government policy and made this fact public. She wasn’t supported by Margaret Thatcher or the media and was forced to resign.

Margaret Thatcher did nothing to encourage more Conservative Women to become MPs or the become part of the government. So when John Major replaced Margaret Thatcher as Prime Minster he was shocked when in one of his first press conferences a newspaper reporter pointed out he had no Women in his government. Apparently it never entered his mind to have female Ministers, so he had to quickly find two token Women as Junior Ministers. Yet in spite of her not wanting to be of any help to other Women she did famously say:

“In politics if you want anything said, ask a man. If you want anything done, ask a woman.”

“Any woman who understands the problems of running a home will be nearer to understanding the problems of running a country.”

“I've got a woman's ability to stick to a job and get on with it when everyone else walks off and leaves it.”

“It may be the cock that crows, but it is the hen that lays the eggs.”

“The woman's mission is not to enhance the masculine spirit, but to express the feminine; hers is not to preserve a man-made world, but to create a human world by the infusion of the feminine element into all of its activities.”

To be fair to Margaret Thatcher there was no way that she could have become leader of the Conservative Party unless she acted and behaved like a macho male. A caring and nurturing Woman would never of become a Minister or Leader of a male dominated political party. This then shows the weakness of Feminism, yes Feminism has made big advances in the 20th century to bring about sexual equality. But what Feminism has gained for Women is not sexual equality but equal sexual opportunities. The problem is that we still live in a patriarchal society created by men, for men. So although Margaret Thatcher has shown clearly that a Woman can inspire to the highest office in the land, but to do this, she still had to act like a ruthless male.

What Margaret Thatcher shows clearly that a lone Woman, even if she becomes the leader, is limited to what she can change. The only way true change can come about is for the whole government to be dominated by Women. This can only be done if Women take over existing political parties, or start their own Matriarchal political party, with Women taking control of every aspect of government. Only then are they are in a strong position to instigate genuine change for a truly caring society, based on the feminine principles of nurturing and caring.

Women have moved from a state of virtual slavery in the 19th century, to near equality in the 21st century through the efforts of many heroic Women who were willing to challenge patriarchy. One such Woman was Mary Baker Eddy, who not only single-handed started her own Christian Sect; she made a powerful demonstration of the power of the mind.

She was born Mary Baker, in New England on July 16 1821, in a strict Calvinist family. Her Puritan background was to stay with her for the rest of her life, and strongly influenced her beliefs, even though she was also to become a radical spiritual innovator.

At the age of 22 she married George Washington Glover and sailed with him to live a new life in South Carolina, yet seven months later she was a widow. George Glover had died of yellow fever and she had to return home, pregnant. She then had a son also called George, but her health began to deteriorate, to the degree her son was taken from her and cared for by a local nurse.

She then married Daniel Patterson, and hoped to have her son back, but her new husband didn’t agree to this, and then the family looking after her son moved to Minnesota. This so upset her that Mary Baker’s health completely broke down and she became completely bed-ridden for months at a time. She found relief in homeopathic medicine, which she studied herself and even prescribe homeopathic remedies for other people, but the effects of this medicine, on her, were never permanent.

She was also trying to cure herself with prayer. She had tried to use prayer to help her first husband George Glover when he became ill with yellow fever, but her prayers then were completely ineffective.

When she had reached the age of 40, the American Civil War started, and both her son and husband fought in it. Her son was wounded but survived and her husband became a prisoner of war. Before he went to war, her husband heard about a Dr Phineas Quimby who help his patients through a mind cure, and wrote to him. This was to be the turning point of her life and changed her completely. When she felt strong enough to travel, Mary Baker journeyed to Dr Quimby and he was able to bring an instantly cure her. His treatment was explaining to her the psychological origins of her illness and then dipping his hands in water and rubbing her head. His cure was so miraculous that she at first felt he must come from God.

She wanted to understand how he was able to accomplish such cures. He explained to her, that it was the mind that cured, but because of her strict Christian upbringing she couldn’t accept this, and believed healing could only come from God. She was then disappointed to find that Dr Quimby wasn’t interested in religion and that he was a mesmerist. It seems, he was willing to accommodate any beliefs the patient might have, if it helped to heal them.

Mesmerism started with the scientific investigations of Franz Anton Mesmer in the mid 18th century that showed that healing like that of Jesus in the Bible was possible, by ordinary people. He was a respectable doctor and was a contemporary and friend of Wolfgang Mozart and his father Leopold. Mesmer started to experiment with magnets on his patients, which a number of doctors at the time were doing, (even today magnetic healing still exists among alternate therapists). He was successful using magnets, which he would hold in his hand and move them over the effected part of the patient. Then he made an astonishing discovery, he could heal patients just as effectively if he passed his hands over the patient without the magnets in his hands.

To explain this, he formed a theory of animal magnetism but his fellow doctors quickly rejected this theory. Yet in spite of this, he was successful in his treatment and large numbers of people came to him to be cured. As his fame spread he visited Hungary, Switzerland and Bavaria to treat aristocratic people. Yet his treatment remained very controversial among doctors who were unable to reproduce the type of healing he performed. In the end he moved to Paris where again he became a great success in healing very many people. Then a panel of doctors investigated him and demolished his animal magnetism theory and dismissed him as a fraud. Yet in doing this; they threw the baby out with the bath water. Because even though his theories didn’t stand up to scientific investigation, the fact was, even his critics had to admit he was getting amazing results. So how was Mesmer able to heal so many people?

The shooting down of Mesmer’s Animal Magnetism theory wasn’t the end of the story because no one could come up with a sensible explanation for the reason for Mesmer’s ability to cure his patients. Other people leant from Mesmer and from this came the practice of Mesmerism. Later on Mesmerism was to be called the more respectable name of hypnotism.

Mesmerist in the 19th century used their powers in very much the same was as hypnotist do today. With many using it as a form of entertainment by hypnotising people, but others tried to continue Mesmer’s work and use it for healing. One of these stage mesmerists was Phineas Parkhurst Quimby (1802-66) who practised in USA. In his act he had another young man called Lucius Burkmar whom he would mesmerise. Then as a side line, Burkmar would also diagnose illness while a trance, and then he would give to patients methods they could cure themselves. Many of these cures outraged Quimby, because to him, they seemed to be nonsensical. Yet he was to find they worked, when the patients tried them out. Burkmar even cured the sceptical Quimby of back trouble using another cranky cure. Quimby then came to the conclusion that it must be the mind that was affecting these cures. He reasoned that if Burkmar could give patients methods of treatment that seem to appeal to their deepest beliefs, then it would heal them. (A better explanation would be that Burkmar was giving treatments that appealed to the patient’s unconscious mind. But this was before Freud made his groundbreaking discoveries.) He put forward the idea that it was the mind that healed patients, and not animal magnetism.

Then he cured Mary Baker Eddy and it was through her efforts, the ideas of mind cure were brought to a wider public, in spite of the derision, ridicule and criticism of her beliefs. When she left Quimby she lapsed back into her old pattern of illness, which disappointed her. Then one winter as she was going to a Temperance meeting she slipped on the ice, and fell heavily. suffering from concussion and internal injuries. She then decided that she would heal herself with the power of her mind, so after reading the healing passages of Jesus in the Bible she got up and dressed. She then walked into the next room where those, with whom she was staying, were shocked by her immediate recovery. A doctor was called, but he couldn’t explain how she seemed to be suddenly healed but his disbelief in her recovery undermined her confidence and she collapsed and had to be taken back to bed. The next day she determinedly done the same thing, she again read of Jesus’ healing in the Bible and dressed and got out of bed. This time she refused to be swayed by others who tried to persuade her to go back to bed and her healing was complete.

She also became a successful healer and she set about with great determination to teach others how to heal also. For years she lived in poverty, as she also divorced her husband who had been continually cheating on her, she had to support herself. Divorced women in the 19th century were considered outcasts of ‘respectable’ society, so she had little support from her friends and family. She was at first unsuccessful in promoting her ideas and beliefs, as people were incapable of comprehending what she was saying to them. She once hired a hall and gave a talk about her ideas on mind cure, then seeing the blank faces of her audience, she stopped her talk and told them to; raise their hand if they understood what she was saying. No one put up their hands. In spite of setbacks like this, she had single-minded personality and kept on persisting.

Slowly she gathers a number of students around her, and made a living teaching others how to heal. She also married a Gilbert Eddy, but unfortunately he was to die a few years later in spite of the healing powers of his wife. Yet nothing was allowed to stand in her way and she created her own Christian sect called Christian Science, which she ruled with a rod of iron. She then claimed that her form of healing was very different from Quimby and this created a controversy that is still being disputed today.

The biggest difference between them both is that Quimby stated that it is the mind that makes a person ill and it is the mind that heals them. So it doesn’t matter what from of healing that is used on the patient, as long as the patient has faith in the healing procedure, they will be healed. Mary Baker Eddy on the other hand claims it is God that heals. She states that God is omnipotent, omnipresent, and infinite and loves us all. So God will always heal us if we allow him or her, to do so. (She also brought forward the concept of a Mother and Father God). It is only our lack of faith and wrong thinking, that blocks this healing power from God.

Her authoritarian nature forced many people to leave her organization and these people created their own healing organizations. One of these people was Emma Curtis Hopkins. When she became a Christian Scientist she quickly moved into the inner circle around Mary Baker Eddy and was made the editor of the Christian Science Journal, where she done a very good job in increasing its circulation. As editor she strongly attacked anyone who violated and appropriated Mary Baker Eddy’s teachings and showed herself to be staunch supporter of her leader.

Then in 1883, Julius Dresser who worked with Quimby, wrote an article in the Boston Post claiming that Mary Baker Eddy had pirated Quimby’s work. Hopkins in attempting to defend Mary Baker Eddy of this charge, decided to investigate Quimby’s writings to see if they had any substance to Dresser’s claims. By reading the written works of both Quimby and Dresser she came to the conclusion that both systems of healing were very different. Yet because of this, Mary Baker Eddy dismissed her as editor. Why this happened is in dispute. Some claim that even taking Dresser’s charges seriously, Hopkins was seen as disloyal to Mary Baker Eddy by other Christian Scientists, who felt she should accept what their leader said, without question. Others claim that Hopkins was also showing to be such a very intelligent and capable woman, and being a generation younger that Mary Baker Eddy, was seen as a possible successor to her. So she had to go, because she was a potential rival leader who could take Christian Science in a new direction. Hopkins also became friends with Mary Plunkett an outspoken and strong minded individual who was also causing dissent in ranks of Christian Science.

Emma Curtis Hopkins then moved to Chicago with Mary Punkett and for a while wrote to Mary Baker Eddy to try and overcome their differences, but this didn’t work out. So both women set up her own Christian Science organization, with Punkett being the organizer and Hopkins the teacher. She later became know within the New Thought movement as; “the teacher of teachers”. Her teachings were similar to Mary Baker Eddy’s but she was far more flexible and was able to appeal to a larger number of people. She taught Malinda Chramer and the three Brook sister who later created the organization; Divine Science. Then she taught the married couple Charles and Myrtle Fillmore who created the organization; the Unity School of Christianity. Then she taught Ernest Holmes who later created the organization Science of Mind. These three originations were to become the backbone of the New-Thought movement, but Emma Curtis Hopkins has since become forgotten. Although she may have been a great teacher, she had little interest in forming a organization around herself. Also her writings were far too heavy for the average reader. Her main work, “High Mysticism” was never a popular book and quickly dropped out of print. This was also the problem of Mary Baker Eddy’s original writings but her book, “Science and Health”, the main textbook of Christian Science, was revised many times in her lifetime to make it more assessable to the average reader.

In some of her writing Hopkins also wrote about the future role of Women. She encourage Women to take on leadership roles and her theology was based on the medieval work, of Joachim of Fiore who claimed there were three eras in history. The first was the patriarchal idea of "God the Father", the second was a time of freedom for the general population which was signified by the birth of Jesus, and the third, "the Spirit, the Truth-Principle, or the Mother-Principle," that focused on the power of women.

The main difference between Mary Baker Eddy and Emma Curtis Hopkins is that the former claims that; “matter has no reality, all is infinite mind” while Hopkins rejected this as being too extreme. She pointed out that there was also life in matter as well. So although patients may of created their own illnesses through their own thoughts, the illness was still real to the patient. Both women agreed that, “God was good”, and loved us all. Therefore they reasoned that if God loves us all, then he or she wouldn’t inflict illness or suffering onto us. Now this was a revolutionary concept in Christianity, because many Christians believed that God, as a form of punishment, created illness and suffering. While some other Christians claimed this was done by the Devil, but if God is omnipotent, omnipresent, and infinite then there cannot be any other power outside of God. This then means that creator of illness and suffering must be ourselves, as we inflict illness onto ourselves through ‘error’. Because we have lost faith in God and his or her Goodness, then we allow negative thoughts to take over our minds and these lead to illness and suffering. Which only can be relieved by the reaffirmation of our faith in God and his or her love and goodness.

While both women were active, both the New Thought movement and Christian Science continued to grow but when both Women died the power of healing began to die with them. In the 20th century the healing aspect of New Thought movement has petered out. Even the Christian Scientists no longer do the same amount of healing as before. It seems that after Mary Baker Eddy died Christian Science Practitioners, (Healers) continued to be very effective, and the movement continued to grow. Then about the 1930s and 40s all the practitioners that Mary Baker Eddy personally taught began to die or retire. The next generation didn’t have the same confidence in their ability to heal and the healing power of Christian Science declined. The same thing seem to have happened with New Thought, which turned more into just positive thinking. Early on in her teachings, Hopkins also taught that not only could we heal ourselves of illness but heal ourselves of poverty. This concept was passed on to her students who also taught this. Some of these students found that although people were not that interested in healing they were very interested in making money. And New Thought books began to be written that only discussed this aspect of Hopkins’s teachings. Ernest Holmes taught Norman Vincent Peale, and he wrote many popular books on Mind Science, like “How to Win Friends and Influence people” and popularised it, but in the process watered-down the teachings in the form of “positive thinking”. Which is New Thought without the healing aspect within it.

Today the most popular books on positive thinking are the ones about making lots of money. Which although there is nothing wrong with this, I feel it is a shame the Healing aspect of New Thought was allowed to die out.

Many people today see Christian Science as a cranky Christian Sect who will not allow their children to be treated by doctors. This is very unfortunate, but the whole concept of mind cure is still very difficult for people to understand. We are all taught from a very early age that we live in a material world, and our bodies are seen as just a complex piece of machinery. So if we become ill, it is because our bodies either has a design fault or has broken down, in much the same way a car breaks down. Therefore a doctor is seen as a sophisticated mechanic who repairs broken down bodies.

Christian Scientist claim that the problem is within the mind, our thoughts are so powerful that negative thoughts about ourselves can make us ill and even kill us. Though he good news is that, our thoughts can also heal us as well.

Quimby and some New Though healers had no problems with people being treated by doctors. Quimby had the attitude that provided the patient believes in the treatment, he or she will be healed no matter what the treatment is. Mary Baker Eddy had a different attitude to this; claiming that only God can heal, and it is error that makes us ill. So to her, if we use another method of healing, then she would say; it was error that made a person ill and it is error that healed them. So the healing can never be permanent, because the person’s mind will be open to other errors later on, that could make them ill again. This is what happened to her; Quimby healed her but when she returned back home, she fell back into her old thinking patterns, and her illness returned. So she finally had to heal herself through the Bible and her faith in God, to achieve a permanent cure.

Even people with Christian Scientist parents who had a Christian Science upbringing have had problems grappling with these concepts. Simply because in their family environment they are taught one form of reality, that we live in a world of mind, but in the outside world, they are taught a different reality, that we live in a material world. So they find themselves living in a world of conflicting realities. This is also true of people who are converted to Christian Science. Although Mary Baker Eddy’s teachings might make sense to them, they still have to live in a society that rejects the concept, we live in a world of mind.

Mary Baker Eddy practised what she preached throughout her lifetime and demonstrated the power of mind. As a middle-aged woman she had endured years of illness with a husband who was continually having affairs with other women. Yet once she learnt the principles of mind power from Quimby, she made good use of it. She not only healed herself, she had the strength of mind to divorce her philandering husband, at a time when divorce was seen as a shameful act and had to find ways to support herself, in a time when women were actively discouraged to be independent from men. She then tried to teach the principles of healing and mind power to a disbelieving world, in an age when women’s voices were not heard. And yet in spite of the all the insurmountable odds against her, she persisted until she gathered enough followers around her, to start a new Christian sect.

So she showed what a woman could do, even in the 19th century patriarchal world when women had as few legal rights as black slaves, and as such she was an inspiration for other women of the period.