A HALLOWED SAMHUINN TO You ALL

My dears,

Here's wishing you a smashingly sensational Samhuinn this year.

Hoping it will snap, crackle and pop for you, with all kinds of magical meaningfulness.

Love,
xxx ooo,
Athana

Back TO GODDESS BY 2035: CAN WE Really DO IT?

Can we really, by the year 2035, replace god the father with God the Mother?

Yikes, people! That's a scant 27 years from now!

On the other hand, 27 years ago, America saw one of its last lynchings.* And now, exactly 27 years later, we're on the verge of [KNOCK ON WOOD!] landing an African-American in our Oval Office.

The push for Obama is being driven by the young. Even Evangelicals under 30 are backing Obama. And the young comedian Sarah Silverman has snapped out a metacool video called "The Great Schlep":

"Shake your behinds on over to Florida," she tells young Jewish Americans, "and order you grandparents to vote for Obama!" (Florida is a "swing" state full of retirees).

Many older whites are still prejudiced against black Americans. Nonetheless, many have sweat bullets to teach their kids not to be.

Also, whether they know it or not, many older Americans are bloodied up inside from hatching in, and years of incubating in, a Christian culture.

But we can teach our kids how to avoid being so bloodied, and how to love Goddess.

Seems to be a law in this land that every new generation has ta pitch their parents' world, and create their own. Every generation, from way back before the American Revolution, has felt the need to dump their parents' world for a shiny new one.

So one humongous key in getting back to Goddess: preach Goddess to your kids. (And to the Jones' kids next door too, if you can get away with it -- let's share the love!).

Teach Her through Her magic. Half our kiddy lit is based on the Goddess's magic. Harry Potter's a primo example (it's why the Christians hate poor Harry so).

Finally, a few sweet thoughts:

Chaos theory teaches that social change can happen in the flicker of an eyelash. Even though switching from endless warfare, deep-rooted cruelty and violence, snooty snobbism and bully-boy rule may seem like a six-century housecleaning job, chaos theory clues us in on how fast such change can actually happen: “An idea can become contagious and spread like a virus, through geometric progression, by doubling and doubling again, and again and again, until it reaches a critical mass, which is the tipping point. If we are talking about viruses, the result is an epidemic.” But with social systems we’re talking about social transformation. “When a critical number of people accept a principle, it becomes the new standard, an ‘as if it always was so.’ Like voting rights for American women, for instance, which we now take for granted” (Bolen 2005: 135).

"Although as I’ve pointed out throughout this book, cultures don’t change easily, the Goddess is already a deeply buried part of many if not most world cultures. In the West She hangs out as Mother Earth, Mary “Mother” of God, CinderElla, Maid Marian, Mother Holle, mistletoe and holly, the Goddess Oestra and Her sacred hare, and in myths, legends and holiday traditions too many to mention. We need to slide Her out of hiding, ditch the disguises She’s cloaked Herself in, and restore the brilliant old magic that made us the peace-loving, non-violent, earth-revering, sensual adventurers we all long to be again."

~ From Switching to Goddess: Humankind's Ticket to the Future. Nov. 2008. Hampshire, UK: O Books

Chapter 8 in Switching to Goddess is devoted to how we can make the switch from daddy gods to mother goddesses by 2035. This chapter is called "The Fix." Some sections in "The Fix":

With a Little Magic, The Fix Would Be Simple
Around the World, Nations Switching
Switching at Home
Switching Hearts and Minds
Switching for Men
Switching to What?
“When God Wants War”
But We Haven’t All Gotten It Yet
Beating the Talking Drums, Getting the Word Out Weblogistan
Whadda We Say? How Do We Say It?
Congregation Revolution
Calling All Manly Mother-Men
We Can’t Lose
We Can Do It By 2035
Money Can Be Part of the Mix in the Fix
Get Ready for the Big Daddy of All Backlashes

So if you want to learn more about how we can return to Goddess by 2035, make sure to get your hands on a copy of Switching to Goddess. It includes 35 pages devoted to just this topic.

Switching to Goddess will hit the bookstores on November 28. But lucky you -- you can pre-order a copy now at Amazon.com, at a price that's been savagely reduced by 34% -- from $24.95 to $16.47 -- that's a savings of $8.48.

If you can't buy a copy, sweet-talk your local librarian into springing for one you can borrow.
_____________
*At least according to Wikipedia, who says that in Alabama in 1981, one Michael Donald was lynched by the KKK.
__________
Picture: ancient Goddess figurine from Neolithic (Jomon) Japan

SARAH PALIN: Sassiness SHOULD BE Stoned TO DEATH

Even Cable news is aghast these days about the ghoulishness of American Christian extremists -- most specifically about their recent "2012 letter." You know, the one that says if Barack Obama gets elected the world is going to end?

My opinion? Far, far scarier than Osama bin Laden, the Taliban, or any other radical Muslim group are our sweet lil' ol' American Christian extremists.

This home-grown daddy-god group is

a) Bulging large (7%-12% of our population),
b) Enormously well organized (the fear of Hell is used shamelessly to scare believers into doing anything needed),
c) Blisteringly powerful (they have entree to the White House, have run their own candidate for the Presidency, and are now running Sarah Palin),
d) Slimy-sneaky (they work hard to hide themselves and what they're doing),
e) and Ruthlessly radical (they literally want to replace democracy in this country with "theocracy" -- rule by the Bible).

Unlike Muslim extremists, American Christian extremists are world-class sneaks. They slither around underground, hiding what they're doing and concealing their aims (literal takeover of the U.S. government*). Also unlike Muslims, they all live legally inside our boundaries. There's no pitching them out on their ear to get rid of them. We're stuck with these icky, vile vermin.

So kiddies, if you want to ditch democracy and start living in a country where sassy kids, gays, blasphemers and "heretics" are, by law, stoned to death (I'm not being funny here; this is REALLY what they want to do)* -- just go ahead and vote for Sarah Boogey-Person Palin. 'Cause Sarah's church'd sooner stone ya to death as look atcha.
_________
*Under Christian extremists, "Those who would face execution include not only gays but a very long list of others: blasphemers, heretics, apostate Christians, people who cursed or struck their parents, females guilty of "unchastity before marriage," "incorrigible" juvenile delinquents, adulterers, and (probably) telephone psychics. And that's to say nothing of murderers and those guilty of raping married women or "betrothed virgins." Adulterers, among others, might meet their doom by being publicly stoned...." (from "Invitation to a Stoning" Walter Olson, Reason, Nov. 1998, Vol. 30, Issue 6).
________________________________
Bib.
Moser, Bob. The Crusaders. Rolling Stone, 4/21/2005, Issue 972.
Olson, Walter. Invitation to a Stoning. Reason, Nov. 1998, Vol. 30, Issue 6.
Sharlet, Jeff. Through a Glass, Darkly. Harper's, Dec., 2006, Vol. 313, Issue 1879.
Sugg, John. Christian Rconstructionists Believe Democracy Is Heresy, Public Schools are Satanic, and Stoning Isn't Just for the Taliban Anymore -- And They've Got More Influence Than You Think. Church and State 59 (2006)
_____________

GOOD Point, RICHARD

"It is evil to describe a child as a Muslim child or a Christian child. I think labelling children is child abuse and I think there is a very heavy issue, for example, about teaching about hell and torturing their minds with hell."

~Prof. Richard Dawkins, whose next book will focus on children and religion.

MORE>>>>

GODDESS ERA: Time Before WAR

"Of all the praises that can be sung about our Great-Goddess ancestors, probably the most stunning of all is their ability to live for hundreds — and in some cases thousands — of years without plunging into the hell that is human warfare. ...

"Otherwise well-educated people will tell you we’re born biologically primed to wage war. That it’s in our genes. Frankly my dears, these people don’t have a clue. Before about 4000 BC, give or take a few years in either direction, and depending on where you are on the globe, there was no war. At least not what’s called “institutionalized” war, where war is built into our social systems, so it’s almost impossible to dig it out and pitch it on its ear, and where wars happen every few decades or so, regular as the beat of your heart.

"I’m sure you’ve heard the fantasy tale — doubtless more than once as a matter of fact — that humans are biologically built to war, and that war’s been with us from the beginning of time. For whatever reason, during the twentieth-century big batches of academics convinced themselves humans are born violent. Although some today still believe this hogwash, others are pointing to the obvious: given what we know now about our peaceful first cousins the bonobos and the numbers of nonwarring societies in the world, there’s just no way human beings can be born violent. Pure and simple: if you’re not taught war, you’re not going to do it."

From: Switching to Goddess: Humanity's Ticket to the Future, Chapter 5, "Before War," 2008, Hampshire, UK: O Books

Go HERE to buy a copy of Switching to Goddess.  

After the Goddess Era, of course, came the War God Era, which we still bask in today. Pure and simple, Jehovah, Allah and Yahweh are war gods. If you doubt it, go read the New York Times article "Wayward Christian Soldiers" by Charles Marsh, professor of religion at the U. of Virginia:

"... Jerry Falwell boasted that "God is pro-war" in the title of an essay he wrote in 2004."
SNIP

"Many of the most respected voices in American evangelical circles blessed the president's war plans [in Iraq], even when doing so required them to recast Christian doctrine."
SNIP

" Charles Stanley, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Atlanta...: 'We should offer to serve the war effort in any way possible,' said Mr. Stanley, a former president of the Southern Baptist Convention. 'God battles with people who oppose him, who fight against him and his followers.'"

Go HERE to buy a copy of Switching to Goddess.  
__________________
foto above: Ancient Minoan Goddess

THE HOLY HOLIDAY OF Halloween

Anne Johnson over at The Gods Are Bored has pronounced Halloween a Holy Holiday:

Every year around this time, the Christian Wrong starts moaning and groaning about the fact that public schools celebrate Halloween, but they do not celebrate Christmas or Easter or St. Patrick's Day ......... ooops!


... I'll concede to the Christian Wrong that public schools devote an afternoon every year to a Pagan holiday.


My solution to this terrible, monstrous, obscene, unacceptable practice? Simple.


Make October 31 a religious holiday, like December 25.


Wouldn't you love that, Pagans?


Not only would you not have to work on the most holy day of the calendar, you could also expect many, many questions from kids as to why Halloween has suddenly become a day off school! A win-win situation! Think of the parties! The family togetherness! The establishment of traditions, like Halloween brunch!

Bop on over to Anne's place to get the whole wicked cool story.

PRESIDENT of THE UNITED STATES OF Goddess?

Yesterday, brian charles and I chewed the fat about psychopimp leaders like Jim Jones, Charles Manson, Hitler and Stalin (see yesterday's post). You know -- silver-tongued dudes who get people to drink poison Koolaid, and then lie down quietly to die?

Since we've all been hatched in desert-god cultures teaching us to crave one Big, YAJ*-like, Daddy-human to follow, brian thinks none of us is immune to these psychopimps.

So, lovely kiddies: today's questions:

1. Even though leading us is supposedly "like herding cats," are we Pagans as immune to the Jim Joneses of the world as we think we are?

2. Do even we Goddess people harbor secret desires to toss our free will to some strong, striking leader who'll relieve us of the back-breaking burden of making 1,001 decisions every day?

A shockeroo: Jim Jones' Christian followers were not dodos -- they were doctors, lawyers, college profs and such (See THIS ARTICLE).

3. Is one-person leadership a smart habit to harbor? Should we teach our children instead to lead themselves by groups? Many cultures have lead themselves not by kings, presidents or chiefs, but by councils. Why do we insist that top-dog daddy-dudes run all our shows?

History's final two Goddess civilizations danced along swimmingly, thank you very much, without one-dude rulers. If Minoans or Harappans (Indus Valley Civilization) followed single leaders, there's very little evidence of it.

At the same time, their god-centered neighbors -- Egyptians, Hittites, Mesopotamians, and such -- were slobbering all over themselves to churn out tons of art celebrating their blood-soaked, war-wonky, one-man dictators.

All archaeologists agree: this is one of the most striking features of Minoans and Harappans. Although both cranked out tons of art, very little of it shows anything that could be construed as larger-than-life rulers.**
___________
YAJ is the "god" YahwehAllahJehovah -- not really a god at all, actually, but a political-control mechanism. Although many think he's three different gods, YAJ is just one god with three schizoid personalities -- all of whom despise each another.
**Although Minoans and Harappans had written languages, they've yet to be translated. This is because their languages are like nothing the world knows today, much of the world having been conquered long ago by Daddy-god-worshipping Indo-Europeans, whose languages most of us in the West still
speak today.
______________
thnx to jwbrewster for the foto; go

HERE

to see more of his/her work

SHEEP, CATS, CHRISTIANS & Pagans

Feeling good today, are we? Well here's something to fix that. New article about the right Reverend Jim Jones and his be-jungled Jonestown.

Read it, and I promise: in no time flat you'll fall into a pink-pickled funk.

Turns out the author moved into the house of the parents of the woman who, in 1978, deep in the jungle in Jonestown, Guyana, helped pass out the poison punch that killed the entirety of Mr. Jones' 1000+ Christian congregation.

In his basement, this dude found a suitcase of letters this poison-punch jungle lady periodically sent back to her parents.

Unfortunately, like everything else I've read about Jonestown, this article too goes belly-up in explaining the big buster question in everyone's mind: how could one dude get 1000+ people to drink cyanide-stamped Koolaid, and then lie down quietly and die?

In your wildest dreams could you imagine even one Pagan committing such tomfoolery?
_________________
thnx to hagit for the foto; go HERE to see more.

PLEASE Accept HUMBLE APOLOGY

Sorry, babies, I've been so busy bothering myself about the recent Giant Financial Hiccup of Western (and Eastern) Civilization that I've been badly neglecting you and this Very Important Blog.

Not to mention worrying about our World Savior, Barack Obama (no, no, I do believe he was born in a manger), and trying to market my book, Switching to Goddess, which is due to hit the shelves next month (gasp! Next month?!?).

Anyway, I thought I could let you in on a few things I've been blasting around the internet lately to encourage people to buy/order/review Switching to Goddess.

Here's the latest (going out to selected magazine editors):

Dear __________

I have a strong feeling that many subscribers to ____________ will want to read my new book, Switching to Goddess: Humanity's Ticket to the Future, to be released in November by O Books in the UK.

Why? Because this isn't your ordinary spirituality book.

Switching to Goddess says something that, to my knowledge, has never been said before: in order to save the planet, we need to abandon the major world gods -- Jehovah, Allah, Yahweh and Vishnu for starters -- and replace them with the kinds of goddesses the world revered 6000 years ago, in the peace-loving, egalitarian and close-to-idyllic Neolithic and early Bronze Ages.

Even if your readers think my book wildly off target, they'll still want to read it. It's a book almost certain to stir up controversy. Should the world abandon its gods for goddesses -- or not? Naysayers will want to hear yeasayers' opinions on the topic, and vice versa. Those on both sides will want a copy of the book in order to join the debate that is bound to ensue once this book hits the shelves.

Two additional attributes make this book a natural winner: first, I've packed it with footnoted information from hundreds of up-to-date, highly reputable scientific and historical sources. I have advanced degrees in anthropology and archaeology, so I know how to do this. Second, the book is not stuffy. As a matter of fact, if I do say so myself, it's downright fun to read. Take this passage for example:

To make a long story short, while the Great Guiding Goddess steered the ship in the Neolithic Near East, war didn’t happen there. But how about the Indus Valley? Indus Valley people had moved out of the Neolithic and into the early Bronze Age. Did the Great Guiding Goddess keep them free from war too?

The answer here also is – Tah Dah! Drum roll please: “Yes indeed She did.” In total and mind-blowing contradiction to “what we would expect from experience elsewhere,” says [archaeologist] Jane McIntosh, “the clues from the Indus Civilization seem to be showing us a state without violence or conflict.” Jane is dumbfounded: “Can this really be so, in defiance of all our experience of the world elsewhere? Who were these peace-loving people? Where did they come from? How did they come together to create a state?” (McIntosh 2002: 12).

Societies doing war leave behind a trail of telltale clues that give away their dirty little secret. They can’t stand it for example until they paint and etch scenes of their battles, hand-to-hand combat, and armies facing each other with weapons bristling, and war flags flying. In their cemeteries they leave men buried with shields, helmets, swords and battle axes....

Thing is, we don’t find any of these dirty little clues in the humongous ancient Indus Valley (McIntosh 2002; Kenoyer 1998). No war art, no war weapons, no parry fractures, no siege engines....

Or this one:

Never let it be said that Guiding-Goddess people were wet-noodle wimps. In the courage department my guess is they outshone us two to one. Like the people in Willow, Guiding-Goddess men and women were gutsy risk-takers and valiant adventurers. For example Indus Valley mariners “roamed the known world” (McIntosh 2002: 7) and the ancient Minoans traveled and traded “to every port of the archaic world and even – boldly – to regions far beyond” (Campbell 1964: 62).

Archaeologists have dug up scores of images of Minoans somersaulting – from front to rear – over the backs of bulls (figures 4.6, 4.11-4.13). Although modern matadors say this can’t be done, I don’t believe it for a second. Just because we can’t do something, what makes us think our ancestors couldn’t? I suspect our Goddess-centered ancestors packed a lot more pluck than we do. Mother Goddess societies would drape people with a kind of self-sense we god peoples can’t even imagine. We’re birthed and ‘loved’ by deities who’d just as soon see us stoned to death as look at us. How could we ever have healthy senses of self?

Or this:

... backlashers say just because a figurine is breast-bedecked doesn’t mean it’s female. For gosh sake, men have breasts too! (Lesure 2002: 602). Tatsuo Kobayashi, a leading archaeologist of the Japanese Jomon period, whines as follows: Golly gee! Men have breasts! Who cares if all the Jomon clay figurines have breasts – that doesn’t make them women! Kobie goes on to say that if the figurines can’t be his sex, they can’t be any sex at all: “it is considered here that these clay figurines are neither male nor female … but rather they are images that surpass the realms of gender…” (Kobayashi 2004: 155).

Still others say: “Gee if that clay statuette over there doesn’t have breasts of a certain heft don’t try to sell me on its being a woman -- could be a man, darling” (See Meskell 1998) (never mind the poor statuette is also minus a penis). Well I say if breast-bedecked figurines sans penises are men, our ancestors were trying to tell us something. My bet is it’s this: Whether you’re man or woman, the important thing is feeding and nurturing others. Breasts are a jim-dandy symbol of feeding and nurturing, and maybe Neolithic men who had them were put up on pedestals....

To make a long story short, ____________, I was wondering: if I send you a copy of Switching to Goddess when it comes out in November, would you print a review of it in __________? That way your readers can judge for themselves if they should buy this important new book.

Thank you for your time, and have a wonderful day.

Sincerely,
Athana
Raymond, Maine, USA

P.S. For more info on Switching, go to www.jeristudebaker.com, www.o-books.com, or Amazon.com.

MORMONS MUNCHED -- AND Munching

Two new books on the frauds and follies of YAJ* the Great -- this time among the Mormons:

The first, DEVIL'S GATE: Brigham Young and the Great Mormon Handcart Tragedy, by David Roberts, tells about how in the mid 1800s, Mormon leader Brigham Young murdered many of his own followers, by talking them in to traveling West not in covered wagons, but by dragging everything they owned behind them -- in hand-pulled carts.

As a result of Daddy Briggy's desire to save a buck or two, hundreds died needlessly.

The second, MASSACRE AT MOUNTAIN MEADOWS: An American Tragedy, by Ronald W. Walker, Richard E. Turley Jr. and Glen M. Leonard, tells about how in 1857 a party of Mormons tricked a wagon train into thinking they (the Mormons) would save them from Paiute Indians.

Instead -- surprise, surprise -- the Mormons murdered all 120 pioneer adults, and then scampered off with the train's kiddies.

Why? No one knows. (To me, a perfectly plausible reason springs to mind: In the land of YAJ*, nutty-dom is pretty much par for the course.)

Go HERE for reviews of both books.
__________________
YAJ is YahwehAllahJehovah, who most think of as three separate gods. Nothing could be further from the truth. YAJ is merely one, albeit schizophrenic, deity-dude. Fifty percent of his time YAJ spends fighting amongst his three selves. The other 50% of his time he spends trying every ugly, underhanded and unctuous trick in the book to drag the world into his sticky spider-web nest.
__________
thnk to jorem for the foto; go HERE to see more.

The GODDESS & HEAVEN'S GLASS Ceiling

Finally a few begin to see the light:

"Personally, I wonder if women, generally, can have gender equality on earth without having it in heaven....

SNIP

"When I was a kid I used to wonder what happened to our Mother in Heaven; and if we have an only begotten son, why not an only begotten daughter? To bring this up now is not simply a matter of trying to improve the relative status of women on earth. I think that the world in general would be better off if we stopped thinking that there is only a Father in Heaven to please.

"Pleasing mother and pleasing father are two very different earthly tasks. Why wouldn't humankind be set off on a different course if we in the Abrahamic tradition stopped trying to please only this implacable, vindictive, angry, warlike father figure?...

SNIP

"[A]ren't there some advantages to our praying: "Our Mother in heaven, hallowed be Your name, Your kingdom come, Your will be done . . ." We can all imagine how different the world would be if most of us prayed that way half the time."

George Davis
"Heaven's Glass Ceiling"
Washington Post
October 4, 2008
George Davis is professor emeritus at the Newark Campus of Rutgers University. His new novel, The Melting Points, will be published in 2009.

Go HERE for more.
______________
thnx to simmbarb for the foto; go HERE for more.