Illustration front cover: William Blake, The Pity (1795)

Tate Gallery, London

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2
 Gwenaël VEREZ

THE SEARCH FOR

THE DIVINE MOTHER

3
4
“Most religions speak of God in the masculine.
For me, God is as much Mother as Father.
To reach the Motherly God,
One must proceed with the Heart, with Love ...”
Khalil Gibran

5
6
 “Whatever exists,
Wherever it is,
Whether it be Being or Non-Being,
All is in You!
You, Energy of the Universe
How could I sing Your praise?”

Devi Mahatmyam

7
 This book is respectfully dedicated to
Her Holiness Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi.

9
10
 Contents

Introduction 13

PART 1: THE MOTHER WITHIN 17

1. Creation and the Great Goddess 21

2. Union 24

3. The Self 27

4. Kundalini and Self-Realisation 30

PART 2: THE MOTHER GODDESS IN THE WEST 47

1. The Great Goddess, Supreme Deity of the West 54

The Great Goddess in Early Times 55
Aryans and Semites: Infiltration of the Male Principle 69
The Assyro-Babylonian Rupture 81
The God of the Prophets: Abraham, Moses, Zoroaster 91
The Search for Balance: The Great Goddess of Antiquity 97

2. The Church’s Opposition to the Mother Goddess 128

The Mother and the First Christians 131
The Gnostics and the Mother Goddess 137
Peter and Paul: Two Deformers of Sprituality 147
Augustine and Original Sin 167
The Church’s Fight against the Worship of the Goddess 173

3. Mary and the Resurgence of the Eternal Feminine 181

Mary, Mother of God 183
Saint Bernard and Our Lady 186
The Templars and the Kundalini 190
The Great Women Mystics of the Middle Ages 192
The Lady of the Troubadours 194
Dante and Beatrice 196

11
4. Freud 200
Freudian Theory: Religion in the Twentieth Century 202
Childhood Sexuality and the Oedipus Complex 208
Freud: Hero or Demon? 211
If it is all False, how was Freud a Success? 217

PART 3: THE ADVENT OF THE MOTHER 221

1. She Who is to Come 225

2. The Breath of God 232

The Three Channels 238
The Chakras 247

3. The Sahasrara 255

Vibratory Awareness 256
Compassion and Joy 260

Appendix:

Appendix 1: Science and Religion 266

Appendix 2: The Great Goddess and the Liberation of the Seekers 268
Appendix 3: The Church down the Centuries (Part I) 272
Appendix 4: The Church down the Centuries (Part II) 274
Sources: The Catholic Church 276
Appendix 5: Critical works on Freud and his doctrine 277
Acknowledgements 280

12
Introduction
The search for the Divine is an eternal quest. Man is constantly
seeking. Today, perhaps more than ever before, millions search
tirelessly in bookshops and libraries, and travel the pilgrim routes
hoping to find the “Way”.
This growth in the number of seekers of Truth coincides with a
growing doubt about the fate of humankind.
At the dawn of the third millennium, this planet of ours is at its
lowest ebb. Economies are in irreversible decline, leaving
millions of people, both in the developed countries and in those
described as “developing”, without work or means of subsistence.
The ecosystem is out of kilter, with global warming and pollution
increasing at an incredible rate. Most countries have reached a
political stalemate. The ageing and corrupt democracies are no
longer viewed as models, their citizens being no happier than
people elsewhere. The use of illicit substances, anti-anxiety
drugs, antidepressants and hypnotics bear witness to a deep and
widespread distress in the “advanced” societies. The general
disintegration of moral values is such that younger generations
have little awareness of any such thing as morality. New diseases
have appeared.
The West is mainly responsible for these evils, since it is the
unbridled desires of the West that have led to the unrestrained
plundering of the planet's resources, resulting in terrible

13
imbalances. Materialism, and a rationalism based entirely on
money, have justified world-wide disasters of every ilk.
Throughout history there have been, of course, high points and
low points. Civilisations have declined into decadence, others
have risen. But today the situation has changed, for now problems
are suffered on a planetary scale: cultures have become world-
wide. The chances of escape are slender, for there is no strong
international authority. Selfishness and pressure groups of every
complexion prevent collective solutions to problems. No
worthwhile ideology has emerged to transform society.
Democracies are incapable of producing men with the moral
status of a Lincoln, a Martin Luther King or a Gandhi, men who
could become models. The ideological and social changes taking
place whenever elected political parties replace one another
compound difficulties rather than solve them.
We are caught up in a maelstrom of events which is carrying us
out of our depth.
But seekers of Truth see a different future. They mirror the
heavenly light which restores balance, and establishes, at last, a
Golden Age. Would the Divine allow Creation to founder?
The only thing that matters is to change mankind, to bring about
our inner transformation, so that we no longer fall back into our
habitual failings. Everything suggests that we are on the threshold
of a profound upheaval. The Age of Aquarius is at hand. It has
been said that the 21st century will be spiritual or will not be, at
all. It is obvious that only a spiritual power can bring about the
transformation of those who seek progress.
This spiritual power is not as it is generally imagined to be. It
comes from no pope, or mullah, or rabbi, or brahmin. For
centuries such figures have failed to improve human nature.

14
If this power does exist, it must be available to everyone equally.
It must be universal.
Spiritual traditions, particularly those of the East, seek to
demonstrate that this spiritual power is motherly by nature, and
that it exists as an energy, present within each of us. In India it is
known as the “Inner Goddess”.
The word “Goddess” tends to take us back to the schoolroom, to
evoke the ancient Graeco-Roman Goddesses: Venus, Minerva,
Athena - those Divine figures who seem all too human. God is
transcendent, the prophets tell us; He has no human form. And
yet we are also told that God created man in His own image!
The manifold representations of the Virgin Mary in churches
around the world reflect a longing for the eternal feminine. The
Mother of Jesus, on whom the devotion of millions is focused,
was never, of course, officially considered to be a Goddess. The
canons of the faith are categorical about this. And yet, She
ascended into heaven, like Her Son, who was Divine. Where then
was the distinction between them? Especially since the praises
addressed to Her were to the Queen of Salvation, Regina Salutis,
She who sets free.
This idea of redemption, of spiritual liberation, is shared with the
most ancient traditions of the East. In India, it is She, the
Goddess, who grants this liberation. She is known as Moksha
Dayini; “moksha” meaning liberation. The Guru, or spiritual
master, is only the intermediary, the person who passes on this
spiritual experience. In China, it is the Goddess of compassion,
Kuan Yin, who grants salvation.
Why, then, have people in our part of the planet attributed
exclusively patriarchal characteristics to the Divine for the past
three thousand years? Ten thousand years ago the sole form of

15
Divinity, the sole object of veneration, here as elsewhere, was
feminine and maternal.
What has caused us to forget? Why was the original message of
Christianity distorted, leaving us ignorant of the Divine Mother?
Can we not detect in the Judaeo-Christian sacred texts - and in
the countless works of art they inspire - the veiled and covert
presence of the Universal Mother, hidden in symbols, but readily
decoded? Did not the Gnostics and the early Christians, about
whom so much has come to light through the recent discovery of
the “apocryphal” texts, venerate the Goddess, and did they not
also identify Her with an inner power able to grant liberation?
Those who seek the Truth are rediscovering this hidden reality.
Through it the West is once more “returning” to the way of the
Goddess and, through Her, gaining access to the wonders of the
New Age. Could this age of ours, following the Age of the Father
(Yahweh) and the Age of the Son (Christ), be the Age of the
Mother?

16
 Part 1:
The Mother Within

17
18
 “He who possesses the Mother of the world,
Has gained Eternal Life.”
1
Lao Tze

“To the Goddess who abides in all beings as Mother,

Salutations to You again and again!”
2
Devi Mahatmayam

“Yes, We have made a Koran in Arabic!

Perhaps you will understand!
It exists with Us, sublime and wise,
The Mother of the Book”
The Holy Koran3

“The Mother is Eternal Truth

and Knowledge is Union.”
Gospel according to Philip 4

19
20
1. Creation and the Great
Goddess
“At the very beginning of the universe,
The Goddess was alone.
From Her was born all that is desirable
And all that has energy.
From Her also come all beings,
Whether born from the egg, the seed, or the womb.,
From Her the plants,
The animals, and humankind,
She is the Supreme Energy.”
5
Bahvricha Upanishad
The sages6 of India, who for thousands of years have been
amongst the heralds of spiritual progress7, perceived in their
meditation that, in the beginning, God was ONE, supreme,
beyond all attributes, beyond all description, neither male nor
female. He was Parabrahman, the undifferentiated Brahman, the
Original Unity. In Japan, the Shinto tradition also assigned Him a
name: Ame-no-minaka-nushi, the Primordial God, both immanent
and transcendent.
The universe did not exist, it was nothing, a cosmic void. This
state of potentiality was known as the Sleep of Brahma, the Sleep

21
of God, and corresponds to the state which preceded the Big
Bang described by modern astrophysicists.8
Then, the Indian scriptures9 tell us, God differentiated Himself
into two, one female, Adi Shakti, the other male, Sadashiva. In
Sanskrit, Adi Shakti means Primordial Energy, the Power of God.
Adi Shakti is the Great Goddess, the Universal Mother. She is the
Desire of God. Sadashiva is the Primordial Being, the Eternal
Spirit, God the Father, the Supreme End of existence. They are
symbolized in sculpture by the Lingam and Yoni, symbol of the
Primordial Unity. More abstractly, the Hindu philosophical
system refers to these two aspects of the Godhead as Prakriti and
Purusha. They have their counterparts in all cosmogonies: Isis
and Osiris in Egypt, Enlil and Ishtar in the Sumerian tradition,
Dagda and Danu for the Celts, Pangu and Nuwa in China,
Izanagi and Izanami in Japan, Ometecuhtli and Omecihualt in
Aztec Mexico.
After this differentiation of God, the next step was the separation
of Adi Shakti from Sadashiva. This separation, born of God's
desire to see His reflection in the universe, launched the process
of Creation, the cosmologists’ Big Bang. The “primordial sound”
which sprang from this separation was the OM of Hindu tradition,
which became the AMEN of the Judaeo-Christian tradition. “In
the beginning was the Word.”10

“Homage to You, O Great Goddess!

You are the Eternal Energy
Through which the entire universe
11
Arises, exists and disappears.”

From Adi Shakti, this female aspect of God, emanates the entire
world, from the galaxies to the elementary particles. Lao Tze

22
wrote: “the world has a beginning, which is the Mother of the
world”.12 Current scientific theories identify energy as the source
and power of all that exists, whether static or dynamic, an idea
summarised in Einstein’s universal equation E = mc² and echoed
in modern astrophysicists’ notion that at the start of the Big Bang
only Energy existed. The most ancient concepts of Creation,
found in works by the great seers of the East, have many points in
common with the most up-to-date ideas of western science.
When Adi Shakti became the creative force, Sadashiva, the male
aspect of God, became the silent witness of the eternal game of
Creation. We may understand their relation with a metaphor: if
the sun is the Spirit, then the light emitted by the sun, the energy,
is the Adi Shakti. The sun itself does not act. It is the light, the
energy, which creates and sustains life on the planet.
Spirit and Energy are the twin components which sustain all life,
and they cannot be dissociated from life itself. The Primordial
Energy is the source of life. It causes the seed to germinate, turns
the blossom into fruit, and causes the embryo to develop into a
coherent and harmonious being. It is the sole law of nature, for it
gives rise to those most intimate processes which constitute the
basis of life. Modern science has only limited knowledge of these
processes, which are part of the Divine dimension of life. For,
until Man discovers his true identity, which is of the Divine
essence, these processes will elude him. Spirit and Energy are
present in all forms and all beings, from the smallest subatomic
particle to the highest accomplishment of the Creation: human
beings.

23
2. Union

“Through Her we know the Consciousness,

Of Brahman without duality,
Like a wave of Existence and of Joy.
She has entered all beings,
Within and without
Of each of them, and on all
She shines Her light!”
13
Bahvricha Upanishad
Mystics throughout the world have spoken of the inner
experience of unity with the Self, a reality defined in our
language by the Sanskrit term yoga, meaning union, and the word
“religion”, which comes from the Latin religare, meaning to bind
or link.
The union of the individual with the All, with the cosmos, results
from an inner process which allows human awareness to focus on
the supreme and ultimate reality, the Self, God in us14 as Jung
wrote. This process makes it possible for our attention to go
beyond the Ego, the I, and beyond the conditionings nourished by
our society, by our education, and by our past in general. It is an
inner movement which, like every living thing in the universe,
needs energy. This energy puts us in touch with the absolute of
our being, our Spirit, hence we can properly call it a Spiritual

24
Energy. Indian tradition, stretching back over thousands of years,
has given it a name: Kundalini.
This tradition teaches us that the awakening of Kundalini is what
ultimately confers on the purified ascetic, as it did on the Buddha,
the total realisation of God, Nirvana.
And yet, Kundalini does not always wait until the seeker is
entirely purified before stirring. Responding to the desire for
inner growth and spiritual evolution, the Kundalini awakens to
bestow Self-Realisation, which opens the way to awareness of the
infinite. This experience has been described by many saints from
all religious traditions, such as Meister Eckhart and Dante in the
Christian tradition, Rumi and Attar for Islam, the early Zen
patriarchs, Namdev and Tukaram from India, to name only a few.
This experience of Self-Realisation has also been described by
outstanding scientists such as Pascal, Einstein and Jung.
In this experience the Kundalini spontaneously awakens, giving a
spark of absolute reality to the seeker and initiating him into inner
knowledge of his own Divine nature. It is then up to him to
protect and nurture this light through introspection and
meditation.
The awakening of Kundalini is not the end, but the beginning. It
is the gate which opens onto the way towards spiritual awareness,
union, that is, yoga.
Many masters - and, alas, many false teachers - have taught about
Yoga without explaining that it involves the awakening of this
spiritual Energy. This has led to confusion, particularly in the
West, as mystical union, the ultimate aim of seeking, lost any
connection with a living and tangible experience. The prophets of
the past, who gave rise to the great religious movements, spoke in
allegorical terms of the eternal feminine power which leads to the
revelation of our Divine identity. In India it is the Kundalini,

25
described in remarkable terms by Shankaracharya and
Jnaneshwar. For Lao Tze it is the Tao, in Jewish mysticism it is
the Shekinah, and in the New Testament we find it in the image
of the Holy Spirit.
The link between these allegories and the Mother Goddess is
sometimes clearly stated, as in the Tao Te Ching, and sometimes
obscure, as in the New Testament. In the Devi Bhagavata Purana,
the Great Goddess proclaims: “There is no distinction between
Me and the Kundalini”.15 The Kundalini is the Inner Mother,
reflection of the Great Goddess within each being. In the Shri
Lalita Sahasranama, a Sanskrit text which lists a thousand names
or attributes of the Goddess, one of these is “Kundalini”.16And
when the seeker aspires to attain the supreme reality, the spiritual
union, it is only the Divine Mother, in Her guise of the supreme
energy, the Kundalini, who can lead him.
Indian tradition warns us it is difficult to awaken Kundalini, and
that only the most dedicated seekers have succeeded, and then
only after long years, perhaps lifetimes, of withdrawal from
society, penance, and meditation. But, as we shall see, times have
changed...

26
3. The Self

The Spirit, the Self or the Atman, resides in the heart of Man. It is
the source of joy, fulfilment, and universal love. If the Kundalini
represents the Inner Mother, the Atman is the reflection, within,
of the universal Spirit, God the Father. Shankaracharya, the great
8th century A.D. Indian philosopher, was most deeply aware of
the state of union with the Divine. His descriptions of the Atman
are famous:
“That which suffers no change,
That which by its nature never ceases to be,
That which has the serenity of the ocean
Which is unruffled by any ripple,
That which is ever free,
That which in essence is the perfect uniformity,
This is Shiva, and you are Shiva.
Meditate therefore on Him in the Lotus of your heart!
That beside which nothing else exists,
That which is greater than the universe itself, itself creating the
illusion,
The Self which is hidden in the depths of each creature,
The true Self: existence, intelligence, absolute bliss,
The Self which is infinite and immutable,
This is Shiva, and you are Shiva.
17
Meditate therefore on Him in the Lotus of your heart!”

27
Until a man reaches the state of enlightenment - the Moksha - the
Self remains inaccessible to him, for, as Shankaracharya adds, “it
is the supreme Self which language cannot reach, but which the
inner eye contemplates in a state of illumination.”18 For most of
us, the Self - the Spirit - remains unknown and does not reach
into our consciousness. The Gospel says: “He is the Spirit of
Truth, whom the world cannot receive because it neither sees him
nor knows him.”19 In order for the Spirit to enter into our
consciousness, it is necessary to undergo the experience of Self-
Realisation. Only for those who have experienced the Self-
Realisation does the Gospel proclaim, “You know him, for he
dwells with you, and will be in you”.20
Sufis, the mystics of Islam, sang the praises of the Eternal which
they discovered within themselves:
“With the eye of my heart, I saw my Lord,
And I asked him: who are you? You, he replied!”
Hallaj21
“You dwell within my heart and
It holds Your mysteries.”
Hallaj22
The words “gnothi seauton”, “know thyself”, inscribed on the
temple at Delphi and taken up by Socrates, in fact mean “know
thy Self”.
In all traditions, Spirit means breath or wind. Our word “Spirit” is
derived from the Latin Spiritus, which means breath. For the
Greeks, the Spirit is known as Pneuma, a term which also means
breath. The Hebrew word Ruah is synonymous with wind.
Yahweh is derived from the root HWY, which also means wind.
The consistency in these different terms is not fortuitous. It
results from the intuition of the Unconscious, which makes clear
that to know the Spirit is to know the breath of God. This reminds

28
one of the passage in the New Testament which describes the
descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost:
“Suddenly a sound came from heaven
Like the rush of a mighty wind,
And it filled the house where we were sitting.”23
In India, this breath is known as Brahmachaitanya, the Breath of
God. In the tradition of the Vedanta, the Prashna Upanishad
declares: “in the heart resides the Atman, the Self. It is the centre
of a hundred and one little channels... In these moves... the
breath.”24
Still in India, the Spirit is also associated with prana, a term
which, in Sanskrit, means breath. The Mundaka Upanishad
explains that this breath has its source in the Atman.25 The
Kausitaki Upanishad tells us several times that the Atman
(Brahman) is breath.26 The Taittiriya Upanishad adds that he
who adores Brahman as breath, achieves eternal life.27 And one
of the oldest sanskrit scriptures, the Atharva Veda, states that
“whosoever be driven by the breath of life, he will be reborn”.28

29
4. Kundalini and Self-
Realisation

The Sanskrit word “Kundalini” means “coiled around itself”. She

resides within the sacrum bone in three and a half coils. The
Greeks were aware that the bone they called hieron osteon
(sacred bone or sacrum) carried within it a sacred dimension
which led to the Pneuma or Spirit. Jnaneshwar, the great Indian
saint of the twelfth century, described this sacred power as
follows:
“So lies the Kundalini,
Very small and coiled three and a half times,
Like a female serpent
With her head turned downwards.
She is like a ring of lightning. ”29

Figure 1:
Representation of Kundalini coiled in the sacrum bone.

30
Self-realisation is a subtle inner experience which manifests
when the Kundalini rises from the sacrum along the spinal
column to emerge from the crown of the head at the place known
as the fontanelle. This term was not chosen by chance; fontanelle
signifies “little fountain”, which, like the Kundalini, springs at
this precise location on the head.
“She arises from the base centre
to ascend straight
to the opening of Brahman
In Her is Energy,
like a serpent coiled around itself,
flamboyant like a thousand lightning flashes,
delicate like a lotus petal.”
30
Advaya-Taraka Upanishad
Once awakened, the Kundalini bathes the attention of the seeker
in a state of serenity characterised by the slowing, and the gradual
cessation, of thoughts (Nirvichara Samadhi). The Kundalini goes
on to confer a state of contemplation and bliss (Ananda).
As she ascends, the Kundalini lifts the yogi's attention to the Self.
When his consciousness is immersed in the Self, the one seeking
truth knows that he is the Spirit, for the Spirit enters into his
consciousness. There is no longer any dualism between knowing
and being. These two states are merged in a single absolute, the
sole reality of the Self. Ramana Maharshi said: “To know the Self
is to be the Self, for there are not two Selves. To know is to be.
Awareness is Being.”31
With a tranquil mind, like the ripple-free water of a lake, the
seeker's attention is immersed in the silence of the present.
Through his being flow the silent grace and joy of the Spirit. The
sages of India call this state Sat Chit Ananda - Truth,
Consciousness and Joy.

31
The Kundalini is the vehicle which makes it possible to attain the
Self. She is symbolised in the Islamic tradition by the mare with a
woman's face, Al Buraq, which carried the Prophet to the throne
of Allah (illustration 4). The Archangel Gabriel, who
accompanied the Prophet, says of Al Buraq:
“I have no way other than Her to go to Him.
32
I have no sign of Him other than Her.”
Jnaneshwar used a similar image, calling the power which reveals
the Spirit Shiva's vessel:
“She is the Mother of the worlds,
The glory of the empire of the soul,
Who gives shelter to the tender sprouts
Of the seed of the universal.
She is the linguam of the formless Absolute,
The vessel of Shiva, the supreme Self”33
When the Kundalini (the Mother Goddess) awakens, she lifts the
Spirit (Shiva, the reflection of God the Father in the heart) until
they are united in the limbic region of the brain (called in the
Indian spiritual tradition Sahasrara). This is just above the region
known to physicians as the thalamus, a Greek word meaning
Bridal Chamber. Thus, yoga is the point of union between the
human Spirit and the Divine. But it is also the primordial Divine
Union, which existed before the separation of the male principle
(God the Father, the Spirit) and the female (Adi Shakti,
Kundalini). It is the union between the Bridegroom and the Bride
described in the Song of Songs, the hieros gamos of the neo-
Platonists. The cup of Hygeia and the Serpent of Asclepios,
Epidaura, which represent the Pharmacist's art, symbolise the
ascent of the Kundalini, and her union with the Spirit.
“In the Sahasrara, the Divine Power is united with Lord Shiva:
This is the true liberation. By this we know the bliss.”
Yoga Kundalini Upanishad34

32
 Figure 2:
Before and After Self-Realisation

33
Self-Realisation is the most important step a seeker can take
because it opens up a new dimension - the Divine nature of man.
For the Christian, this corresponds to the “Second Birth” which
Christ spoke of when he said: “Truly, truly I say unto you: unless
one is born anew, one cannot see the Kingdom of God.”35 Lao
Tze uses the same image: “He who grasps Life in its entirety is
like a new-born infant”36 The image is also found in India where
a fully aware being is known, in Sanskrit, as a Dvijaha, that is
one who is twice-born. And if there is a birth, the maternal
principle must be involved, and this principle is none other than
the sacred Mother Kundalini.
When the Kundalini surges forth from the Fontanelle, she brings
the seeker into contact with Adi Shakti, the cosmic energy. This
energy then flows through the seeker's whole being, like a stream
of living water, filling him with peace and joy. This is the
Nirvana of the Buddha, the Satori of Zen, the Fana of the Sufis. It
is spiritual baptism, as described by the apostle John in his
Apocalypse: “Then he showed me the river of the water of life,
bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God.”37 The same
comparison was used by Christ when he said to the Samaritan
woman: “Whoever drinks of the water that I shall give, shall
never thirst; the water I shall give will become a spring of water
within, welling up to eternal life.”38
The Kundalini is absolute purity, a Divine expression of virginity.
She is Gauri, a name which in India means “the Virgin”. She
brings forth the spiritual birth without any intervention of the
Father, recalling the immaculate birth of Christ. The Kundalini is
therefore a Virgin Mother, like Mary, whom throughout history
so many people in the West have adored.
The Kundalini is also a purifying fire. Being absolute purity, she
does not absorb impurities, but destroys them. She is represented
in the form of a flame emerging from the top of the head in
Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity and Islam. (Illustrations
1,2,3,4)

34
 Illustration 2: Illustration 1:
El Greco, the Pentecost (17th Century), Buddha (copy), Sukhothai,
Prado Museum, Madrid (XIV th century), Thailand

Illustration 3:
Illustration 4:
Shiva, (XXth century), The Prophet Mohammed
India riding Al Buraq, persian
miniature (XV th century),
Bibliothèque National, Paris.
35
It is said in the New Testament, that on the day of Pentecost,
“there appeared to them tongues of fire distributed and resting
on each of the apostles.”39 Countless Church mosaics and
paintings represent columns of light springing from the fontanelle
of the apostles and linking them to the Divinity, which is depicted
as either Mary or Christ. One is in the famous basilica of St Mark
in Venice. Another is in Istanbul, in the Basilica of the Savior
(also called as Kariye Church). (Illustration 5)

Illustration 5:
Kariye Church, Genealogy of
Christ (13th century), Istanbul

Once awakened, the Kundalini purifies, washes and cleanses the

human body as a mother bathes her infant child. She illuminates
the chakras, the centres of energy described in Indian spirituality,
in some branches of Taoism, in Jewish mysticism (the Sephirots)
and by native American tribes such as the Hopi40. At the physical

36
level each chakra corresponds to a nerve plexus. A chakra is
described as being a lotus, with a given number of petals. The
number of petals corresponds exactly to the number of sub-plexi
which modern medicine has discovered each plexus to have.
The chakras are closely linked to the elements. Mooladhara
controls the earth element, Swadisthan the fire element, Nabhi
water, Anahata the air, and Vishuddhi the ether. Agnya is above
the five elements - it is the door which leads into the Kingdom of
God. This Kingdom, the seventh chakra, or Sahasrara, is the
lotus with the thousand petals; in the popular phrase, “seventh
heaven”. Here the union of the Kundalini with the Spirit takes
place.41
Shankaracharya has described these various elements in his
Saundarya Lahari, his praises of the Kundalini:
“In the thousand petalled lotus, Sahasrara,
You sport with your Lord in secret,
Having traversed the entire path of Kundalini,
The element earth at Mooladhara, water at Nabhi,
Fire at Swadisthan, air at Anahata,
Ether above it at Vishuddhi, and the mind at Agnya.”42

37
 Figure 3: The Chakras

38
 Figure 4:
The three subtle channels according to Indian tradition, and how
they correspond to Yin and Yang.

39
The Kundalini also establishes harmony between the two rhythms
of life, or aspects, which are most familiar to us in the West under
the names given them by the Chinese: Yin and Yang. In India, the
ancient scriptures describe them as twin energy channels (nadi)
each with its quality (guna): Ida and Pingala Nadis, with
respectively Tamo and Rajo Gunas. Rajo Guna, or Yang,
represents the solar, male, futuristic aspect, which triggers action.
Tamo Guna, or Yin, represents the lunar, female, subconscious
side, which controls memories and emotions. Tamo Guna
terminates in the right hemisphere of the brain, and Rajo Guna in
the left. The neurologist Robert Ornstein has demonstrated the
analogy between Yin and Yang and these same hemispheres.43
When the Kundalini rises up the central channel, known as the
Sushumna Nadi, she brings about the synthesis, the harmony and
equilibrium of these two aspects of life.

Although the Kundalini is virtually unknown in the West, she has

been represented by many symbols, such as the sacred spiral
(illustration 6), the sceptre of Mary, or the caduceus. Mercury's
wand, another name for this caduceus, represents the two
channels (the serpents) and the central channel (the wand) up
which the Kundalini is ascending. Great visionary artists have
depicted it in their works, such as the English painter and poet
William Blake in his Judgment of Adam (illustration 7) and the
Romanian sculptor Brancusi in his Endless Column (illustration
8). The Kundalini and the two channels, Tamo and Rajo gunas,
can also be found in France in the Church of Saint-Lazare at
Avallon (illustration 9).

40
 Illustration 6:
Mary holding the Sacred Spiral
(14th century), Orvieto
Cathedral, Italy

Illustration 7:
William Blake:
The Judgement
of Adam (1795),
Tate Gallery,
London

41
 Illustration 8:
Brancusi : The Endless
Column (20th century),
Tirgu Jiu, Romania

Illustration 9:
Columns of the
doorway of Saint-
Lazare Church (12th
century), Avallon,
France

42
With their knowledge of the Kundalini, the sages of India were
able, in their meditation, to focus attention on the Inner Goddess,
desiring her to awaken so that they might attain yoga. They
guided their meditative asceticism through devotional hymns
dedicated to the Great Goddess Adi Shakti - who alone awakens
the spiritual principle which She has placed in each human being,
and which is nothing less than a part of Herself.
“I will remove the duality and garland the Goddess,
I will hold the flag of understanding,
I will give up all my desires,
I will also give up all the limitations of my mind,
I will fill my container up with Ambrosia.
O rise, Mother Kundalini!”
“I have asked Mother for Yoga,
Now I have become one with God,
And I have risen above the cycle of birth and death.”
Eknath
“Pierce through the six chakras
And ascend upwards,
Listen to the melody Divine arising there.
Through the melody
The turbulent mind is quelled
Realise that only thus is Thy practice made fruitful.”
Namdev44
This devotion and this knowledge were not limited to India. In
most parts of the world men venerated the Mother Goddess,
invoking Her for spiritual awakening. In China, the Goddess
Quan Yin is shown pouring a stream of ambrosia over a dragon,
another representation of the Kundalini. In the temple of the
Goddess Matsu in Taiwan, the dragon holds the sacred spiral
(illustration 10).

43
 Illustration 10:
The Sacred Spiral, temple of
the Goddess Matsu, Taiwan

In the West, however, attention became focused exclusively on a

patriarchal God, with no female counterpart. The consequences to
spirituality in our part of the world have been devastating. Even
the cult of Mary failed to fill the gap, since, for reasons of
theology and dogma, Mary was denied the status of a Goddess.
The denial of the feminine Divine Energy amounts to an
amputation of the means, a dismissal of the vehicle which, like
the mare Al Buraq, can carry the seeker to the heavenly
Kingdom. Nor should we forget the deep psychological and
social impact of such a rejection or devaluation of the Yin aspect
of God, of the world, and of mankind, in favour of the masculine
aspect alone, giving rise to misogyny, both blatant and veiled.
Yet veneration of the Mother Goddess did once predominate in
Europe and the Mediterranean civilisations. The Kundalini was
known and worshipped. Let us, then, go back to the sources of

44
Western civilisation, to rediscover this universal treasure which
alone can lead Man to his spiritual salvation.

1
Lao Tze, Tao Te Ching, 59.
2
Devi Mahatmyam, op. cit., p. 45.
3
The Holy Koran, Surah 43.
4
J. Ménard, Evangile selon Philippe (Paris 1988) p. 99.
5
Sept Upanishads (Paris 1985) p.131.
6
Those who composed the sacred scriptures (the Puranas and Upanishads) in
some cases thousands of years ago. Their names, like those of the Cathedral
builders of the West, are unknown.
7
The Vedas, which were written more than four thousand years ago, are
humanity's earliest spiritual writings.
8
cp. Hari Shankar Sharma, “The Big Bang”, in The Illustrated Weekly of India
vol CXII, August 1 1992.
9
This differentiation is described by numerous scriptures, notably:
- the Shakta Upanishads, quoted in L. Renou, Manual des études indiennes
(Paris 1953) p. 1277-1280.
- the Srimad Devi Bhagavatam, translated by Swami Vijnanananda (Delhi
1992).
10
John I, i.
11
Devi Mahatmyam, op. cit., p. 84.
12
Lao Tze, Tao Te Ching, op. cit., p. 52.
13
Sept Upanishads, op. cit., p. 132-133.
14
C.G. Jung, Dialectic of the Self and the Unconscious.
15
Srimad Devi Bhagavatam, Kalyan Editions (India 1960) p.412.
16
Shri Lalita Sahasranama Stotram, ed. C. Suryanarayanamurthy, Bharatiya
Vidaya Bhavan (Bombay 1998).
17
Shankaracharya, Viveka Chudamani (The Crest Jewel of Discrimination)
(Paris 1981) vv. 259, 263 p.75.
18
Ibid, p. 73.
19
John 14, 17.
20
Ibid

45
21
Hussain Mansoor Hallaj, Poèmes Mystiques 9 (Paris 1985) p. 33
22
Ibid., p. 49
23
Acts 2: 2
24
Prashna Upanishad commented by Shankaracharya (Paris 1985) p. 33
25
P. Deussen, Sixty Upanishads of the Veda (Delhi 1990) vol. II, p. 577
26
Ibid., p. 30-32
27
Ibid.
28
Ibid.
29
Jnaneshwara’s Gita (New York 1989) p. 75
30
Sept Upanishads, ibid. p. 111
31
Ramana Maharshi, cited in L. Heart, L’Avènement (Paris 1985) p. 35
32
Ibn Arabi, l’Arbre du Monde (Paris 1982) p. 95
33
Jnaneshwara’s Gita, op. cit., p. 77
34
Upanishads du Yoga (Paris 1971) p. 104
35
John 3: 3.
36
Lao Tsu, Tao Te Ching 55
37
Revelation 22: 1
38
John 4: 14
39
Acts 2: 3
40
see Frank Waters, The Book of the Hopi (New York 1963).
41
For more information on the chakras according to Indian tradition, see P. T.
Rajasekharan and R. Venkatesan, Divine Knowledge through Vibrations,
(Singapore 1992).
42
Shankaracharya, Saundarya Lahari, v. 9 (New Delhi 1977) p. 5.
43
R. Ornstein, The Psychology of Consciousness (New York 1977) p. 37.
44
Namdev, His Life and Teachings (New Delhi 1978) p. 34.

46
 Part 2:
The Mother Goddess in
the West

47
48
“This “inside” which modern rationalism is so eager to derive
from “outside”, has an a priori structure of its own that
antedates all conscious experience. The psyche is part of the
inmost mystery of life, and it has its own peculiar structure and
form like every other organism. The structure is something given,
the precondition that is found to be present in every case. And
this is the mother, the matrix - the form into which all experience
is poured.”
C.G. Jung1

49
50
Our Western civilisation, and in particular its intellectual elite,
has for several centuries been lost in a limbo of rationalism and
materialism, and has totally neglected the spiritual and sacred
dimension of life, of nature, and of Man. And yet it is the spiritual
quest which has carried Man to the pinnacle of dignity and
creativity, and which is the driving force behind the development
and progress of societies. What would the Arab world be without
the potent catalyst of Islam? What would China and the Far East
be without the precepts of Confucius and the mysticism of Lao
Tze? Would our own society have emerged from the Middle
Ages without the great movement dedicated to Mary, the Mother
of Christ, which drew together the skills and manpower of the
craft guilds to build the gothic cathedrals, such gigantic projects
for their time? What would remain of the Italian Renaissance
without the works of Michelangelo, Raphael and Botticelli,
which are so imbued with religious fervour? It is the upward call
of the soul towards the Almighty which results in great works of
art capable of touching the heart of Man.
Our own twentieth century has built the skyscrapers of
Manhattan, Hong Kong and Frankfurt, the Grand Arch in Paris,
and many other structures which soar proudly towards the
heavens. These architectural works are not always ugly - indeed
some of them are most impressive in terms of the challenge they
present - but they will never be able to move the human heart, or
lead it to the grace of the Eternal. And many contemporary
painters and musicians touch only a tiny intellectual elite, people
who find in today's art the mirror and justification of their own
lack of inner balance.
The same is true of contemporary philosophy, which only seems
able to construct complex cerebral scaffoldings, of little interest
to anyone except as glorification of their creators. Is there any
place for the hearts of the simple in the tottering pyramid of the

51
ego? How has this come to pass? It is because our society no
longer recognises that it is spirituality which keeps all values in
equilibrium. Without spirituality, without the quest for higher,
greater, and more noble realities, Man is no longer interested in
anything other than himself, and loses the humility necessary to
maintain an harmonious equilibrium between society and the
natural environment. If there is no equilibrium, nature teaches us
that development and progress are impossible.
There are several reasons for this disenchantment with spirituality
and this failure even to recognise it. The first and main cause is
clearly that the Church has fallen away from its original message.
As we shall see further on in this book, the Church was rapidly
compromised by battles for power, petrified by dogmatism,
sapped to its foundations by a distorted vision of women and
sexuality, and, over the centuries, emptied of its original spiritual
substance. As a result, the religious scene has been darkened by a
fog of hypocrisy and fear. The second reason is that our
civilisation has been permeated by the ideas of Freud, which have
subverted the highest human values by reducing the mind, or
psyche, to a series of sexual responses. In addition to their
destructive work, the Church and Freud, as a result of their
common misogyny, have gone a long way towards expunging
from human consciousness the image of the universal heavenly
Mother, the basis of all spirituality. In some respects they took
over the task from the Semitic and Aryan nomadic peoples who,
from 4000 B.C., began to oppose the worship of the Mother
Goddess. In particular, the Babylonians and the Assyrians caused
enormous damage to the collective Unconscious by creating a
myth in which the Goddess was “assassinated”.
In spite of all the attempts to drive the Mother Goddess
underground, or to eliminate her altogether, she still occupies an
essential place in the collective mind. We should remember that
our civilisation has arisen from the Neolithic culture, in which the

52
Mother Goddess was the only deity. In this respect, our culture
was not different from that which gave rise to the great
civilisations of India, China and pre-Columbian America. We
should not forget that, except for our own modern society, the
Mother Goddess has been revered everywhere, and at all times.
This is what led C.G. Jung to recognise in the Mother the
primordial archetype of the collective mind. His disciple, Erich
Neumann, in his study of the archetype of the Mother Goddess2
recognised that the West neglected the matriarchal aspect of the
collective consciousness and developed only the patriarchal
aspect.
However, none of the attempts to banish the religion of the
Mother from the human soul has ever been completely
successful. The Eternal Feminine has always resurfaced in one
form or another. For the Greeks she took the form of Sophia, for
the Jews that of Shekinah, and for the Christians that of Mary.

53
1. The Great Goddess,
Supreme Deity of the West

“All transient things are but a parable;

the inaccessible here becomes reality.
Here the ineffable is achieved,
the Eternal Feminine draws us onwards.”
Goethe3

54
The Great Goddess in Early Times

The Palaeolithic Period

The earliest representation of the deity took the form of the

universal Mother. From their excavations and studies, this has
been the conclusion of most, if not all, archaeologists and
historians. E. O. James expresses this clearly in his book, The
Cult of the Mother Goddess: “In the first place, she seems to
have become the dominant influence from India to the
Mediterranean as the unmarried Goddess.”4 Thousands of
figurines representing the Mother Goddess and dating back to at
least 20,000 B.C. have been found in a vast area stretching from
Western Europe to Siberia. These figurines display common
features which indicate that they are not simply representations of
women or girls, but true symbols of the Mother Goddess giving
life and sustaining the universe.
In 50,000 B.C., when the glaciers covering most of Asia and
Europe began to thaw, Homo sapiens appeared. Grasslands
emerged, and animals, such as bison and domestic cattle, made
their appearance, while the mammoths and reindeer moved
northward. Then the forests pushed their frontier northwards, and
the herds of bison moved eastwards to the steppes, which
provided them with abundant pasture. Men who were hunters
followed them, adopting a nomadic life and wandering over the
entire Eurasian continent. Others settled in Western Europe.
These sedentary groups included the inhabitants of the valleys of
the Dordogne, the Vézère, and the Ariège in southern France and

55
the valleys of northern Spain. The people in these areas have left
vibrant traces of their artistic abilities. With a remarkable sense of
colour and an innate gasp of the balance between shape and
perspective they decorated the great monuments of Prehistory,
including the caves of Lascaux, Les Trois Frères, Niaux, and
Vallon-Pont d'Arc recently discovered in France, and of Altamira
and La Piasega in Spain, to mention only the best known.
These wall paintings, artistic representations of the natural
environment which was the setting for the lives of our ancestors,
were to remain amongst the most amazing treasures of our
heritage.
But these caves do not seem to have been used simply to provide
the people of those times with shelter and protection, as was long
supposed. In 1994, at the time of the extraordinary discovery of
Vallon-Pont d'Arc, H. de Lumley, of the Paris Natural History
Museum, pointed out that the way the animals were depicted
showed evidence of sacred art. These caves were primarily places
of worship, religious centres, where people gathered to celebrate
the greatness of life, and to praise the various aspects of nature
which the Mother Goddess had chosen to place in Man's
environment. Unconsciously, the cave itself symbolised the
hidden place, the place of peace and safety, where the desire for
the numinous, the first stirrings of the sacred, could express
themselves. J. Cashford and A. Barring summarise it as follows
in the Myth of the Goddess:
“The story of the Great Primeval Goddess is told in the caves of south-
western France through the art and rituals that took place inside them.
For at least 20,000 years (from 30,000 to 10,000 B.C.) the Palaeolithic
cave seems to be the most sacred place, the sanctuary of the Goddess
and the source of her regenerative power.”5
A. Lerhoi-Gourhan, Director of the Sorbonne Centre of Studies in
Prehistory and Protohistory, pointed out that female figurines

56
representing the Goddess occupy a central place in the hundreds
of caves which he studied. Carvings of the Goddess were often
placed on the outer walls of caves. Many statuettes of the
Goddess have been found amongst the bones and tools of
Paleolithic man. In contrast, no male statue has ever been
discovered: the male concept of the deity simply had not emerged
at this time.
The Goddess was venerated throughout a vast area, probably all
the dry lands of the planet which had been colonised by
humankind. Figurines of the Goddess have been found from the
Pyrenees to Lake Baïkal in Siberia. This is clear evidence that
men and women of the period shared a very uniform culture. In
Malta, near Lake Baïkal, large numbers of such statuettes have
been discovered, which suggests that they were produced on a
huge scale. In these figurines, the Goddess has wide hips and
heavy limbs, and the corpulence, occurring in all her
representations, symbolises the role of the Mother as the source
of nourishment.

Illustration 11:
Goddess from Malta,
Siberia (3,000 B.C.)
British Museum,
London.

57
 Illustration 12:
Goddess from Çatal Hüyük (6,000 B.C.) Museum of Anatolian
Civilisation, Ankara.
The Goddess of Brassempouy, found in the Atlantic coastal area
of the Landes in France, is the oldest known (estimated 22,000
B.C.). And yet she seems very close to us, almost our
contemporary, with her finely drawn features.

Illustration 13:
Goddess from
Brassempouy
(22,000 B.C.), France

58
The Moon, the Dove, and the Serpent
“Be ye wise like serpents, and innocent like doves.”
Jesus Christ, in the Gospel of Thomas
Specific symbols representing the Mother Goddess were
developed during the Paleolithic period. These included the
moon, the dove and the serpent, which were to remain adjuncts to
the worship of the Mother throughout the ages.
In all mythologies, until the Iron Age, the moon was considered
to be the supreme image of the Goddess, the unifying symbol of
the Mother.6 The moon obviously represents emotion, fertility,
fullness, and all the various aspects of the feminine, the highest
image of which is the Goddess. The moon is also the source of
light during the night, and illuminating the “lunar” channel of the
mind, the Yin of Chinese tradition. At a more subtle level, the
moon symbolises the Spirit, for it is the mirror which reflects the
light of the sun in the same way that the Spirit is the reflection of
the Light of God within Man. It is the Goddess who leads Man to
his own divinity, and to the contemplation of his Spirit.
As an unconscious representation of the Kundalini, the serpent is
the image of the Goddess power. All Goddesses were associated
with the serpent. Athena is usually represented holding a serpent
in her left hand. Isis in Egypt, and Inanna in Sumer, were
sometimes depicted in serpent form. The serpent Goddess is also
found in Asia (the Chinese Goddess Nuwa, creator of the human
race) and in America (Cihuatcoatl, the pre-Columbian Mexican
Goddess). The Gnostic Ophites also identified the Mother with
the original serpent.

59
 Illustration 14:
Neolithic Snake Goddess,
4,500 B.C., Crete

Illustration 15:
Isis Thermoutis
(Cairo Museum)

The Bible was to reverse the symbolism of the serpent. Those

opposing the veneration of the Goddess transformed this image
into the principal of evil, thus denigrating the worship of the
Goddess, and hence, unconsciously, the Kundalini.
The dove represents the power of the Mother's grace. The dove's
ability to fly allows it to escape the earthly world, and soar into
the eternal sphere. The dove, one of the most commonly recurring
symbols associated with the Goddess, continued to be used even

60
after the Goddess Herself had disappeared from religious life. It
became the symbol used to represent the Holy Spirit when he -
or, as we shall see below, more accurately “she” - had become a
mere abstract concept. During the 20th century, it is the dove
which has once more been chosen as the symbol of peace. A.
Baring and J. Cashford give some particularly striking examples
of the dove's symbolism in their study of the myth of the
Goddess.7

Illustration 16:
Symbolism of the Dove since Paleolithic times

The dove symbolises two dimensions of the spiritual life. First, it

is a bird, the Sanskrit word for which is dvija, meaning “twice
born” (from dwi, two and ja, born): born the first time in the egg,
and the second time when the egg hatches, beginning the bird's
true life. The same is true of Man. Before Self Realisation, he is
like a bird in its egg, deprived of contact with its spiritual
environment. Self Realisation is the second birth, in which Man
becomes aware of his higher being, and is able to take flight,
uniting himself with the infinite and the eternal, like Jonathan
Livingstone Seagull soaring in the ethereal skies. The dove,
therefore, symbolises second birth.

61
In addition, the dove is the only perfectly white bird, and it takes
off vertically, qualities which symbolize virginity and ascent. The
dove, then, is yet another symbolic representation of the
Kundalini.

Illustration 17:
Mercury's wand and the
Dove.

The moon, the serpent and the dove are symbols which recur
repeatedly, tracing the continuity of the cult of the Goddess. They
are potent archetypes within the universal collective
consciousness, and are found throughout the world (see the table
opposite). They demonstrate the constant presence of the
Primordial Mother in the religious quest, from the Mother
Goddess of Paleolithic times 30,000 years ago, down to the
Virgin Mary in our own age.

62
Goddesses portrayed with the Dove:
ANAHITA (Persia)
APHRODITE (Greece)
ASTARTE (Mesopotamia, Phoenician empire)
TANNIT (Carthage, Tunisia)
TURAN (Etruscan empire)

Goddesses portrayed with the Moon:

ARTEMIS (Greece)
CHIA (Colombia, Muisca Indians)
DIANA (Greece, Rome)
HENGO (China)
HINA (Polynesia)
ILAZKI (Basque country)
IXCHEL (Peru, Maya Indians)
JUNO CAELESTIS (Phoenicia, also known as: Astroarche)
LUNA
MARAMA (New Zealand, Maoris)
MAWU (Togo, Fongs)
NIKKAL (Syria)
PASIPHAE (Greece)
PERSIA (Greece, also known as: Neaira, the new moon)
QUILLA (Mexico, Incas)
SELENE (Greece)
TANNIT (Carthage, Tunisia)
XOCIUQUETZAL (Mexico)

Goddesses portrayed with the Serpent

APARAJITA (India, Buddhist tradition)
ATHENA (Greece)
BULAING (Australia, Karadjeri Aboriginal people)
DEMETER (Greece)
DJATA (Borneo)
HATUIBWARI (Melanesia)
HYGIA (Greece)
KADESCH (Mesopotamia, Canaan)
KALI (India)
NEPIT (Egypt)
NUE-KUA (China)
RENENUTET (Egypt)
SALUS (Rome)
UTO (Egypt)
ROSMERTA (Gaul)

63
 Illustration 18:
Indian Snake Goddess (12th
century), British Museum,
London

The Sacred Spiral

The spiral is one of the most common symbols in sacred art. We
find it on all the continents, in America (the great monument of
Peebles, Ohio), in Taoist art in Asia, and in prehistoric and
Roman art in Europe, to mention just a few examples.
The great megalith of New Grange in Ireland (Illustration 19)
stands at the entrance to a temple. Did its sculptors want to show
that the way to the sacred dimension was through the knowledge
of the spiral? Numerous authors have noticed that for many
ancient peoples the spiral was the expression of absolute
knowledge. This knowledge being the knowledge of the Self, it is
not surprising that these artists intuitively reproduced the form of
the Kundalini in the sacrum.
Just like the serpent, often represented in its spiral form, the
sacred spiral is largely associated with the worship of the Mother

64
Goddess. In Taiwan, the goddess Matsu holds a spiral in her
hand, as does the Virgin in the cathedral of Orvieto in Italy.

Illustration 19:
The Great Stone of New Grange (3,200 B.C.) Ireland.

The Universal Goddess of the Neolithic Period

The Neolithic era began about 10,000 B.C. With the emergence
of agricultural skills, it differed greatly from the preceding
period. For two million years, human beings had been hunter-
gatherers, feeding on wild animals and plants. Now they began to
cultivate the land and domesticate livestock. This allowed
mankind to take a giant step forward. For the first time people
achieved independence from Nature. The tribes were no longer
forced to follow herds of wild animals for their food. The
weaving of cloth made it easier to cope with climates, and the
discovery of pottery made it possible to store food.
The Neolithic was the era of matriarchy. Women played a major
role in its development, being responsible for agriculture,
weaving, and pottery.

65
Little was known of this period until recent discoveries by
archeologists revealed great similarities between the various
centres where Neolithic societies developed. Isolated Neolithic
societies emerged from 7,000 B.C. in Western Europe, Southern
Turkey, Egypt, Palestine, Mesopotamia, and the Indus Valley.
Despite the great distances separating them, virtually identical
figurines and sculptures of the Goddess have been discovered
from Europe to the Indus Valley. At this stage of consciousness,
there were no tribal gods. The Great Goddess alone was
universally venerated.
The Goddess was evoked in fertility rites to ensure the success of
crops. These rituals were to be perpetuated until the beginning of
the Christian era.
At Jericho, excavations have uncovered the first town, dating
from 8,000 to 7,000 B.C. It was built in the shape of the moon,
and images of the Goddess were found in all the houses.
The town of Çatal Hüyük in Anatolia, discovered in 1960, was an
important centre of Neolithic culture between 6,000 and 5,000
B.C. The town was consecrated to the Goddess. Forty temples
were dedicated to her.
The Vinca culture, which flourished between 5,000 and 4,000
B.C. in the Balkans, has yielded more than two thousand
figurines of the Goddess in the form of a serpent or a bird.
It was during this epoch that the first male images of the deity
began to appear. These depicted the son of the Goddess,
personified as Isis and Horus.
Neolithic cultures were also present in Africa. In 7,000 B.C.,
much of the Sahara was a vast fertile region where a major
civilisation developed. Images of the Goddess have been found in
the caves of the high, inaccessible plateaux of the present Sahara

66
Desert. In Dahomey, the creator of the gods, Mawu-Lisa, who
was both male and female, is portrayed as a serpent.
Neolithic civilisation was in no way primitive. The discovery, in
excavations, of decorated vases and precious ritual objects
(fashioned in marble, copper and gold) are evidence of
considerable sophistication. In her studies of numerous sites in
the Balkans, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Poland and the
Ukraine, M. Gimbutas notes the remarkable consistency of this
civilisation, which she calls “Ancient Europe”. It would seem
there were no conflicts or wars for a period of over 2,000 years.
For mankind it was an era of peace and prosperity.
No signs of fortifications or weapons are to be found prior to
4,500 B.C. Hills were generally used for temples, and not as sites
for citadels or other strongholds. There are no representations
depicting or celebrating war. On the contrary, the myriad images
drawn from nature show that peoples of that time were interested
in the beauty and sacredness of life.8 There does not seem to have
been any particular hierarchy within the communities.
Relationships between men and women also seem to have been
on an equal footing. No archaeological evidence has been found
to suggest social domination of women by men. Women also
appear to have played an important part in sacred rituals. The
men and women of the period no doubt lived in a harmony
similar to that enjoyed by some Indian tribes in North America
before European invasion. The sole religious image was that of
the Mother Goddess. This harmony of life and this universal
veneration of the Goddess were not shaken until the early Indo-
European invasions (Kurgan) which, about 4,500 B.C.,
introduced the Bronze Age.
We should probably challenge the picture of idealised harmony
that many feminists have tried to portray in the Neolithic
matriarchy. It is most likely that a life governed by matriarchal

67
rules left little space for men. During the Palaeolithic era, tribal
survival depended entirely on the success of the hunt, but during
the Neolithic the agricultural pursuits of the women perhaps left
the menfolk with insufficient scope for their energy and activity.
Worse still, they probably experienced a progressive dwindling of
their social status. Paintings in Catal Hüyük portray hunting
scenes with men wearing leopard skins. These are clearly not
contemporary scenes, but nostalgic commemorations of the past,
when men were glorified as hunters. With progress in agriculture
and the domestication of animals, hunting became of secondary
importance. To make up for their lack of activities, men began to
assist the womenfolk in the preparation of the ground for crops,
clearing the scrub as men of the African and South American
tribes do today. Only later did men take on the tasks of building
dwellings, and animal husbandry.
With the advent of the Iron Age, men were to find a physical
activity more to their taste: warfare.

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Aryans and Semites:
Infiltration of the Male Principle
After the Neolithic age, certain regions developed more
sophisticated technologies and cultures. These were the regions
of Sumer in Mesopotamia, Hittite Anatolia, and Egypt. Worship
of the Goddess still constituted the centre of religious life. Inanna
in Sumer, Cybele in Anatolia, and Isis in Egypt are all
representations of the great and unique Mother Goddess, whose
myths and descriptions were to give rise to Sophia in the Old
Testament, to the Great Goddess of the Gnostics, and to the more
recent cult of the Virgin Mary.

Inanna, the Glory of Sumer

The main centre was undoubtedly Sumer, which was to have a
profound influence on Egypt and Anatolia. In attempting to
understand the fate of the cult of the Goddess, Sumer is of
outstanding interest, for here the first traces have been found of
the influences which were to diminish the importance of the
Goddess in religious consciousness. Sumer represents the first
link in the chain of transition from the harmonious veneration of
the Mother Goddess to the Iron Age, when the Patriarchal aspect
of the deity emerged and become dominant.
We do not know where the people of Sumer came from, but the
Sumerians, who referred to themselves as the “black-headed
people”, became established in southern Mesopotamia towards
the second half of the fourth millennium B.C.. They adopted

69
aspects of the culture of the local population, the Al Ubaid,
whose pottery and craft work were already highly developed. The
Al Ubaid civilisation flourished between the fourth and third
millennium B.C., and was apparently outstanding. Excavations
carried out during the last century revealed an extensive
literature, including more than 30,000 verses of epic poetry, and
hymns praising the deity. This certainly represents only a tiny
portion of that which existed at the time, some of which probably
remains buried in the desert of Iraq.
The territory located around Bassora, between Iraq and Iran, was
the centre of the prodigious civilisation of Sumer, whose
influence extended to Anatolia, Egypt and the Indus Valley. Each
city formed an autonomous unit, governed as an independent
trading state. The Sumerians invented a system of writing which
enabled them to develop literature and law. They compiled the
first legal code, on which the celebrated Code of Hammurabi was
based. With the emergence of astronomy, mathematics, pharmacy
and the compilation of the earliest pharmacopoeias, the sciences
gained a new impetus. Power resided in the king, who consulted
an assembly of elders. Sumer played a very significant role in
initiating and catalysing the transition from Neolithic culture to
classical civilisation. For most of the period known as classical
Antiquity, Sumerian was the universal language, as Greek and
Latin were to be later.
The influence of Sumer is seen in the development of Judaism
and Christianity. Many myths, such as those of the Flood and
Adam and Eve, have their origin in Sumer. A seal dating from
2,500 B.C., depicts two figures sitting at the foot of the Tree of
Life, with a serpent rising just behind the woman. This image
represents the sacred union. It anticipates the biblical scene of the
Garden of Eden in Genesis, where, however, its significance is
totally reversed. In biblical symbolism, the scene depicts the fall
of Man, whereas, for the Sumerians, according to Joseph

70
Campbell9, it expressed the sacred, evoking the fruit of
immortality.

Illustration 20:
God and Goddess with the Tree of Life and the Serpent
(2,500 B.C.) British Museum, London.
The Sumerian civilisation gave a predominant place to the
Mother Goddess under the names of Inanna and Ishtar. Inanna
was the name given to the Goddess in southern Sumer, in the
cities of Ur, Uruk and Lagash, Ishtar was the Goddess of the
north, honoured in Babylon, Kish, Nippur and Akkad. “She
assumed the form of a many sided Goddess, both mother and
bride, destined to be known by many names and epithets such as
Ninhursaga, the Mother of the land, Ninsikil-la, the pure lady,
Nintuama Kalamma, the lady who gives birth.”10 She was also
Nammu, the Goddess of the primordial ocean, who was to be
worshipped for more than a thousand years. One of the last kings
of Sumer, one who was renowned for his great wisdom, took the
name of Ur Nammu, which means “Servant of the Goddess”. A
representation of Nammu was discovered in the city of Ur, which
shows her as a Goddess with a serpent's head, holding a child in
her arms. This sculpture depicts the Mother Goddess in the form
of the Kundalini.

71
 Illustration 21:
Snake Goddess (4,000 B.C.) Baghdad Museum.
Inanna was perceived as the one from whom the universe
emanated, and she was venerated as:

72
 “The Builder of that which has Breath,
The Carpenter of Mankind,
The Carpenter of the Heart.”11
Inanna was worshipped as both Virgin and Mother, the one who
gave birth to all the gods. She was both Queen of the Earth and
Queen of Heaven. In one poem, the Goddess descends into the
underworld in order to save her son, Tammuz, and bring him
back into a new life cycle. This journey by Inanna (so often
identified with the serpent) symbolises the purifying work of the
Kundalini, restoring Man to his own divinity. Considerable use
was made of this myth in Jewish mysticism, which applied it to
the Shekinah.
Women occupied an important place in Sumerian society,
carrying out sacred rituals on an equal footing with men.
However, no civilisation lasts forever, and Sumer was gradually
invaded by the Semitic people who settled in the north, in what
was to become Babylon. The Semites were semi-nomadic tribes.
With their herds of sheep and goats, they roamed throughout the
“Fertile Crescent”. Their relationship with the sedentary
populations they encountered alternated between compromise and
war.
Sumer was not the only civilisation to be infiltrated and
overwhelmed by “patriarchal” peoples. All the sedentary
societies of the Neolithic period were subject to upheavals caused
by such movements of peoples. The Semitic migrations were
restricted to Mesopotamia, but the Aryan invasions were on a
much larger scale and extended throughout Europe, Iran and
northern India. Both Aryans and Semites had a profound impact
on the Neolithic societies they penetrated, changing both secular
customs and religious life.

73
The Bronze Age

Illustration 22: Semite and Aryan Invasions.

74
While the Neolithic communities were organised around the
cultivation of their land, the Semitic and Aryan nomadic people,
who displaced them, organised their societies around their herds.
The Neolithic communities, tranquil and protective, offered the
best conditions for the development of female qualities, the Yin.
Life was dependent on the harvest, so fertility rites dedicated to
the Earth Mother and the Great Goddess were regularly
celebrated. In nomadic societies, however, it was the man, not the
woman, who had the major economic and social role, since he
was in charge of the livestock. Further, the unpredictable physical
and moral challenges inherent in nomadic life called on
individuals to mobilise their male attributes, i.e. the active,
aggressive, solar side of their nature, the Yang. Nomads no longer
prayed to Mother Earth, as the sedentary peoples of the fertile
plains had, but turned to the skies begging favourable weather for
their migrations. With the focus on the heavens, spirituality
became patriarchal, leading to the veneration of powerful male
deities, the sky gods, who appear in Mesopotamia from 4,000
B.C..
Had the two groups found a meeting place and developed
together, civilisation could have prospered in great harmony,
preserving the equilibrium between “Yin” and “Yang”. This
happened in India, where the Aryans and the Dravidians of the
Deccan successfully integrated their contrasting cultures.
Unfortunately for the West, the nomadic peoples, when they
encountered the sedentary civilisations, exploited their technical
advantage (notably the wheel) to dominate.
The universal cult of the Mother Goddess was confronted by the
worship of a host of male deities, who had lost any sense of
universality and degenerated into local tribal gods. These tribal
gods were often used to justify the domination of the societies
their adherents had conquered. Later Abraham, Moses, Zoroaster
and Mohammed were to denounce them as “idols”. But there was

75
a more subtle ramification to these changes in worship. In the
Bible, Yahweh lost his universality when he became the God of
the Jews, no longer the eternal and omnipresent Formless One of
the Patriarchs.
The nomadic peoples known as “Aryans” were warlike. They
galloped across the steppes in armed groups, terrifying the
populations they encountered. Their extraordinary migratory
journeys led them, with their herds and flocks, from the steppes
of Asia to the West, the South, and the East from 3,000 B.C..
These peoples, including the Celts (Gauls) and the Germanic
tribes, made their way to the lands of the setting sun, which
would later bear the name of the Greek Goddess “Europa”. To the
east they spread into India, and to the south they settled in the
regions adjacent to Mesopotamia and Persia. With their
sophisticated weapons and their horse-drawn chariots they
devastated all societies in their way. Their conquering progress
did not stop at Sumer, but extended into all the regions of
“Ancient Europe”, particularly Anatolia and Greece.
The invaders introduced mythologies in which nature and human
life ceased to be linked to the Divine, in contrast with the
Neolithic world-view which was based on a non-dualist vision of
the Divine and Nature. The harsh climate of the desert, home of
the Semites, and the steppes of Central Asia, cradle of the
Aryans, influenced the vision these peoples had of the world.
They found themselves condemned to a perpetual struggle against
a hostile environment.
The Aryan and Semitic vision of life was based on conquest.
They blotted out all memories of harmony between Man and
Nature, all spiritual beliefs which had succoured the lives of the
sedentary Neolithic societies, lives governed by the omniscience
and omnipresence of the Mother Goddess. This meant that people
lost any awareness of being part of the whole. Birth and death

76
were no longer governed by the normal cycles of life, as violent
death became a daily occurrence. Insecurity took hold.
All the invading tribes brought with them their patriarchal and
tribal gods, whose worship competed directly with the traditional
worship of the Mother Goddess, handed down from the
Palaeolithic Age. The gods were superimposed over the earlier
traditions, and new civilisations appeared in Mesopotamia,
Greece, Anatolia, Canaan and throughout Europe, in which the
male aspect of the deity was supreme.

The Infiltration of the Male Principle

Let us return to Sumer to see an example of how the male tribal
gods gradually replaced the Mother Goddess. The north of Sumer
was inhabited by the Akkadians, one of the Semitic populations
who were progressively leaving the desert to migrate into
Mesopotamia with their flocks of sheep and goats, a people
sharply distinct from the Sumerians. The Akkadians began by
accepting the superiority of their neighbours, but after a struggle
lasting several centuries they succeeded around 1,750 B.C. in
wresting power from the Neolithic societies of southern Sumer.
The Sumerian tongue was gradually replaced by Akkadian,
although scribes continued to use Sumerian as the language of
sacred ritual. Sumer was also increasingly infiltrated by other
Semitic tribes coming from the west and the south, from the
deserts of Arabia and Syria.
The Akkadians kept some elements of Sumerian mythology and
literature, and these they carried with them throughout the Near
East - Anatolia, Canaan, Assyria - during the next two thousand
years. But they introduced many new concepts, including a chief
male god whose cult dominated and superseded the worship of
the Mother Goddess.

77
During this time the Sumerian civilisation was also subject to the
influence of other Semitic groups which did not acknowledge the
Mother Goddess as a sole, universal deity. Ishtar, the universal
Goddess who had given birth to the gods, lost her supremacy and
was demoted, becoming first the bride, then the sister, and finally
the daughter of the god of heaven, Enlil, who now dominated the
Sumerian pantheon. Enlil therefore rose from the position of the
son of the Goddess to that of God the Father, dominating the
entire mythology. The respect that countless generations had paid
to the Goddess began to fade. Finally reference was made even to
her rape. The poem below clearly describes this loss of status of
the Mother Goddess in favour of the male God:
“My father (Enlil) gave me earth,
I, the Queen of Heaven am I,
He has given me Lordship,
He has given me Queenship,
He has given me battle, he has given me combat,
He has given me the Flood, he has given me the Tempest,
He has placed heaven as a crown on my head,
He has placed the holy sceptre on my head ...”12
The Mother Goddess, who had been the sole power from whom
all energy emanated, became the one who received her powers
from the paternal god, Enlil. Sumerian mythological poetry
clearly describes the struggles between the partisans of the tribal
gods and those of the Goddess, who resented seeing the universal
Mother lose her status:
“The Goddess cried:
My father has changed his word to me!
He has violated his pledge, broken his promise!”13
And again:
“I, the holy Inanna - where are all my prerogatives?”14

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With the fall of Sumer, Mesopotamia entered a period which
alternated between terrible confusion, conquest and defeat. As we
have seen, the Akkadians were the first to occupy Sumer. They
were followed, around 1,800 B.C., by Babylon as the leading
power in the ancient world. It was at this time that the King
Hammurabi had his famous legal code, which gave an important
place to the Mother Goddess, drawn up. His writings appear to be
the last texts expressing peace and harmony before the advent of
the Iron Age:
“I have destroyed the enemies from the North and the South,
I have extinguished the battles,
I have bestowed happiness on the country,
I have led the settlers to their rest
In pastures green,
I will allow no one to distress them.
I am their saving shepherd, whose sceptre is undeviating,
The blessing of my shadow lies over the town,
I have taken the people of Sumer and Akkad to my bosom,
Thanks to my protectress (Ishtar) they have prospered.
I have not ceased from governing in peace.
Thanks to my wisdom, I will shelter them.”
Hammurabi states clearly that he respects the rights of the
sedentary peoples and that he forbids their conquest. He was an
exception.
Warfare continued in Sumer and throughout Europe. Battles,
fought between the devotees of the Goddess and those who
adored the male deities, resulted in the balance tipping in favour
of the supporters of the tribal gods, although the Goddess was not
completely banished from the various religious pantheons. She
usually occupied a secondary place to God the Father. This order
was maintained amongst most of the peoples of Antiquity, and
even tended, as the Mother Goddess gradually regained some of
her status, to bring about a sort of equilibrium.

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Things were different among the Assyrians and the Babylonians.
They eliminated the Goddess entirely. In their mythology, they
assassinated her. This was fatal for the West, for the Judeo-
Christian world was to base its vision of the world on this culture,
a culture which, in religious life and symbolism, had forgotten the
power of the Goddess.

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The Assyro-Babylonian Rupture

The Iron Age

With the Iron Age, which began around 1,250 B.C., Babylon
became a great capital, and Marduk, “Babylon's God”, rose to
become chief of the deities. The Mother Goddess was supplanted
by Marduk, who stripped her of every attribute she had been
given by the sages of the Ancient World. The Babylonian epic,
Enuma Elish, recounts how Marduk, originally the grandson of
Tiamat, the Great Goddess, waged a merciless battle against her,
finally slaying her. During this struggle, the great Goddess
assumed the form of a terrifying dragon who spawned a multitude
of serpents with sharpened teeth, protruding jaws, and venom-
filled bodies.
In this myth the serpent, which had always been used to represent
the Goddess's nurturing power, became an agent of terror,
destruction and death. This new vision, totally divorced from the
symbolism of the Paleolithic and Neolithic periods, contributed to
the transformation of the serpent into the demoniac principle of
Genesis, the tempter responsible for the fall of Adam and Eve.
Marduk, the Father-God, occupied a position of total supremacy
over the Goddess, and became a male god with no female
counterpart. He was to become the inspiration of the three great
monotheistic and patriarchal religions: Judaism, Christianity and
Islam. The female aspect of the deity disappeared, to be replaced
by a unique Creator-Father. God became defined as the “creator”

81
of the heavens and the earth, while the Goddess “was” the
heavens and the earth.
The concept of “creating” is radically different from that of
“being”. It divorces the Creator from the created. It ruptures the
unity between Man and the Deity. This concept, pushed to the
extreme, led all three monotheistic religions to forget the bond
between human beings and the Divine. The catholic is still kept
from any direct communication with God. He must confess his
sins and be instructed through the intermediary of a priest. The
intimacy of the direct link with God was lost. This link is the
Goddess herself in the form of Kundalini, so often represented
symbolically by the serpent.
In Babylon, Enuma Elish was recounted every year to celebrate
the victory of Marduk over Tiamat. The epic tells how, after
slaughtering Tiamat, Marduk used her lifeless body to
manufacture the earth. The brutal images of Babylonian
mythology nourished the cultural life of many generations, and
greatly influenced the Assyrians after their defeat of Babylon.
The Assyrians quickly integrated Marduk's victory over Tiamat
into their own mythology, since it corresponded perfectly with
their own religious and spiritual attitudes, based, as they were, on
contempt of the feminine. The Babylonian myth has come down
to us by way of the Assyrians, the Enuma Elish epic being
reconstituted from tablets found in the library of Assurbanipal,
the last king of Assyria. The seal shown below, dating from 800
B.C., shows the destruction of the Goddess - portrayed as a
dragon - by the tribal god of the Assyrians, Assur.

82
 Illustration 23:
Tiamat slain by Marduk. British Museum (900 B.C.)

The new order, governed by the male god, was one of conquest
and war. Mesopotamia and the Near East were to enter into
implacable wars and massacres culminating in the horror of the
Assyrian Empire.
In Assyria, the patriarchal picture of God assumed its definitive
form with the god Assur, whose cult was modelled on that of
Marduk.
Mesopotamia had lived under the influence of two great imperial
powers: the Egyptians to the south, and the Hittites and the
Hurrites to the north. In the middle of the fourteenth century
B.C., the Assyrians shook off the Hurrite domination and raised
their kingdom to the rank of a great power. Their aggression was
unlimited. To the east they invaded Persia, and waged a war of

83
extreme ferocity against the Medes, defeating them after a
struggle lasting several decades, and extending their empire to the
Caspian Sea. The Assyrians believed that war proceeded from the
will of the God Assur, and that peace was little more than a brief
respite. To the west and the south, the Assyrians mounted
campaigns against the Arab tribes and against Egypt. Thebes was
destroyed, and was never to rise from its ruins. In the vanguard of
military technology, the Assyrian armies were constantly
mounting lightning strikes. People trembled, blood flowed, cities
burned.
The Assyrians imposed their rule, but did not build. Not only did
they destroy the most flourishing urban societies, but they
devastated the earth: wells were filled in, irrigation channels
blocked, running water transformed into stagnant marshes. The
few societies that were not massacred or enslaved were reduced
to famine. Assyrians made unprecedented use of massive
deportations of entire populations to avoid uprisings when their
armies moved on to fresh conquests. The Assyrians left behind
them a sinister catalogue of cities razed to the ground, peoples
deported, the vanquished burned alive or punished with extreme
cruelty. Each Assyrian conquest was the assassination of a
civilisation.
The cruelty of the Assyrian kings’ imperial rule knew no bounds,
and the prophets of Israel were to perpetuate its memory in the
Old Testament. An Assyrian king's hymn to war bears witness to
his barbarism:
“Joyously, I sat astride my formidable chariot,
I, the destroyer of foes,
With my heart on fire with the desire for revenge.
I took the powerful bow that Assur had given me
And the destroying bow to life was within my grasp.”15

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The Assyrian empire reached its greatest territorial expansion
during the reign of Assurbanipal in 630 B.C. It extended from
Egypt to the Caspian Sea. But its power was overstretched. The
Medes and Babylonians, in coalition, were able to mount
mutinies which the Assyrians found difficult - and eventually
impossible - to put down. In 614, the empire of Assur was
defeated, and all the cities of Assyria destroyed, their inhabitants
massacred. Throughout history, no other people has ever been so
completely annihilated and obliterated from the map as the
Assyrians.
This merciless retribution, however, did not act as a lesson to the
Babylonian conquerors. They continued the Assyrian cruelty.
Their king Nebuchadnezzar, adopting Assyrian policy, waged
wars of conquest. He defeated the kingdoms of Judah and Israel,
which were then vassals of Egypt, perpetuating the miseries of
the Jewish people. He laid siege to Jerusalem and captured it in
557 B.C. The city was laid waste and put to flames. The Temple
of Solomon was destroyed. The entire population was deported to
Babylon. It was here that the Hebrews immersed themselves in
aspects of local mythology which were to have considerable
impact on the Bible, and Genesis in particular.

The Assyrians and Asuras

The Assyrians and their god Assur have been compared to the
Asuras, the demons who, in Indian mythology, personified the
forces of evil. In the historical reality of Babylon and Assyria,
one people dominate and massacre their neighbours, while in
Indian mythology, the Asuras attack and defeat the heavenly
beings, the Devas. Helpless, the Devas implore the Great
Goddess to come and save them. In response, the Great Goddess
engages in a cosmic struggle from which she emerges victorious.
The scenario is an exact reversal of the Assyrian myth, in which

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the Goddess is slain by Assur. The Devi Mahatmyam forcefully
describes the details of this titanic combat, which resulted in the
destruction of the Asuras. Here are a few extracts.
“Whereupon, mightily enraged,
Chandika, the Mother of the Worlds,
Quaffed a Divine drink again and again.
And the Asura also roared,
Intoxicated with his strength and valour,
And hurled mountains against Chandika with his horns.”16
“Enraged on seeing his great ally slaughtered,
Nishumba17 then rushed forward to the Goddess
With the chief forces of the Asuras.
Shumba also, mighty in valour, went forward,
Surrounded with his own troops, to slay Chandika in his rage.”18
“Yes, you protect the Universe,
And reign over the world.
Soul of all things,
On you, indeed, all things rest!
O Goddess, have pity!
Keep us from fear of the enemy
As you have done now
In slaughtering the Asuras.”19

The similarities between these myths may arise from the contacts
which existed during this period between the Indian subcontinent
and Mesopotamia. They could also have arisen from the
Collective Unconscious, events taking place in Mesopotamia
during the Assyrian reign finding an unconscious echo in India.

Misogyny and Terror in the Bible

Out of the Assyrian and Babylonian myths a new order emerged,
one no longer based on a universal Goddess, which they had
destroyed, or a harmonious inter-relationship between all the

86
elements of creation. Man divorced himself from nature, his
purpose on earth now being to dominate the elements. The Old
Testament was written late in the development of this new order,
parts being composed during the deportation of the Hebrews to
Babylon. It is not surprising, then, that the Hebrew myths are
largely inspired by Assyrian and Babylonian myths. The
antagonistic relationship between Man and Nature is clearly
expressed in Genesis:
“God blessed them (male and female) and God said to them:
Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it;
and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of
the air
and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.”20
Yet the earth, which, according to Assyro-Babylonian myth, was
created out of the carcass of the Goddess Tiamat, and according
to Genesis must be dominated by Man, was, in fact, the Mother
Earth of the old order. Respect for Mother Earth had been lost.
The Serpent, which had been the power of the Mother, became a
force of evil, which God drove out of Paradise where the Tree of
Life had been placed. This myth is yet another expression of the
repression of Kundalini from the conscious mind.
Knowing something of the Babylonian myth, which so influenced
the Old Testament, helps us to understand the harmful effect it
has had on our Western consciousness, which was, in turn,
directly shaped by the Judeo-Christian tradition. The myth of the
fall of Adam, central to Genesis, and basic to Augustine’s
doctrine of original sin, has had enormous influence on Western
philosophy, religion and even day-to-day living. It is represented
in thousands of images in western art. Vasari's painting, The
Immaculate Conception, which hangs in the Villa Giugini at
Lucca in Tuscany, shows a serpent with a woman's face, curling
round the Tree of Life to corrupt humanity. The symbolism of the

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Goddess and of the liberating power of the Kundalini has been
fundamentally reversed.
The brazen serpent held aloft by Moses was a symbol of
Kundalini and the protective power of the Goddess. Later, King
Hezekiah of Judea (727-698 B.C.) realising its association with
the Goddess, smashed the brazen serpent Moses had made, and
destroyed the sacred images of the Goddess Asherah
(Asherove).21
We can see in the Old Testament, and particularly in the Book of
Genesis, that two different versions have been overlaid.
In the first version, God is portrayed as a partisan God siding
with one clan, one tribe, thus losing His transcendence. The Jews,
a Semitic people with a strong patriarchal tradition, were to see in
Yahweh their male, tribal God, although this time no idol was to
be made in his name. The world of the Jews was troubled, torn
asunder by the chaos of the Assyrian and the Babylonian
conquests. Men no longer focused their piety on nature, or on the
quest for the gentle compassion and peace of the Goddess. The
fields and orchards, so dependent on the nourishing, regenerative
power of the earth, became battlegrounds. The quest for the
absolute and the eternal, was now forgotten by all but a few
outstanding individuals, such as David and Solomon.
Yahweh became a tribal god who was used to legitimise
conquests and wars. “Say to the people of Israel, when you pass
over the Jordan into the land of Canaan, then you shall drive out
all the inhabitants of the land from before you, and destroy all
their figured stones, and destroy all their molten images, and
demolish all their high places. You shall take possession of the
land and settle in it, for I have given the land to you to possess
it.”22 One may wonder how the Hebrews could achieve this
conquest of the land of Canaan without transgressing the Ten
Commandments, the basis of the Law:

88
 “You shall not kill.”23
“You shall not covet your neighbour's house...
nor any thing that is your neighbour's.”24
This contradiction within the “word of God” comes from the
scribes of the Bible, attempting to justify acts of conquest and
destruction. Yahweh is the representation of brutal force, devoid
of all moral and spiritual value, that led Jung to say: “the
absence of human morality in Yahweh is a stumbling block which
cannot be overlooked. It is the image of a personified brutal force
of an unethical and non-spiritual mind. It is the picture of a sort
of nature demon and at the same time of a primitive chieftain
aggrandized to colossal size, just the sort of conception one could
expect of a more or less barbarous society.”25
Beyond this barbarous aspect, the Old Testament bears the
imprint of a patriarchal society’s misogyny, with its neglect of the
Eternal Feminine, and the degrading of women’s position in
society. God no longer creates man and woman in His own
image. He first creates Adam, then the animals, and, only then,
Eve, from one of Adam's ribs: “and the rib which the Lord God
had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her
to the man. Then the man said: this at last is bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she
was taken out of Man.”26 When Eve allowed herself to be
tempted by the serpent, God said: “I will greatly multiply your
pain in child bearing; in pain you shall bring forth citizen, yet
your desire shall be for your husband and he shall rule over
you.”27 Apart from the aberration which legitimises the
domination of man over woman, God is shown ordering the
suffering of His child, a very strange attitude for a father!
Woman has lost all status, all dignity. Her wishes are entirely
subordinated to the authority of man. Any vows or promises a
married woman may make are subject to the tacit approval of her

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husband: “if her husband makes them null and void on the day
that he hears them, then whatever proceeds out of her lips
concerning her vows or concerning her pledge of herself shall
not stand: her husband has made them void and the Lord will
forgive her.”28
The Pentateuch mentions the reputation of woman several times,
but never the reputation of man! Christ eventually put an end to
this misogyny when the apostle asked him if a man could
repudiate his wife. His answer was, “Husband and wife are one
flesh. What God has united, man cannot separate.”29
In the Old Testament we are confronted by a highly misogynist
religion which demeans the position of women, and consequently
denies and rejects the Mother Goddess. In spite of the teaching of
Moses, expressing the transcendence of God, the Semitic priests
and scribes were to masculinise Yahweh, and this had important
consequences for the collective consciousness of our Judeo-
Christian civilisation. The Mother Goddess was forgotten, while
misogyny, loss of natural harmony, and Man's domination of his
environment took over.
In a second, or alternative version - a version inspired by the
prophets - Yahweh is portrayed as eternal, omniscient and
omnipresent. God is pure spirit and transcends all attributes of a
physical order, such as the feminine and the masculine. God is
good, he is compassion. God created Adam and Eve in his own
image, which suggests that God is both male and female. This is
the God of the Ten Commandments, who lays down laws to
enable mankind to live in harmony and peace.

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The God of the Prophets: Abraham,
Moses, Zoroaster
Amidst the chaos of the Iron Age, outstanding individuals -
divinely inspired - attempted to raise the consciousness of the
Semitic and Aryan people. Abraham and Moses for the Semites,
and Zoroaster for the Aryans, battled against the tribal gods who
were venerated in idolatrous forms, and offered a vision of the
Eternal Formless One under the names of Yahweh and Ahura
Mazda. God, for these great prophets, was the supreme and
perfect Being, the sole cause of all that is. There was one God -
not a multiplicity of patriarchal gods, each sending forth devotees
to fight neighbouring peoples. God is One, He is the God of all.

Abraham and Moses

Abraham, around the twentieth century B.C., and Moses in the
twelfth century B.C., both spoke of God in total, absolute terms.
Etymologically, the name Yahweh is derived from the verb “to
be”. During the Exodus, God said to Moses, “You will speak thus
to the sons of Israel: I AM has sent Me to you.”30 The verb “to
be” can also mean “breathe, blow”. Yahweh is derived from the
Semitic root “Hwy”, which means “wind”.
God is transcendent: “From everlasting to everlasting, thou art
God.”31 “I AM the first and I AM the last.”32
God is universal, He does not restrict himself to any country or
race. He is “the judge of all the earth.”33 At the Time of

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Salvation, God will gather into his eternal Kingdom, “all
peoples, all nations and all languages”34 This universalist vision
of God was to inspire a human search for holiness, a quest clearly
defined: “You must be holy for I am holy”35.
In the Old Testament, God remains a cosmic concept. The
possibility of the internal presence of God is rarely mentioned.
Human development at that time, particularly in the Middle East,
was insufficient to allow the prophets to open the way of the
“inner quest”, calling men to search for their own Divinity. In
many parts of the “East”, however, humanity, through the
teachings of the Upanishads, the illumination of the Buddha, and
the mysticism of Lao Tze's Tao, had reached a higher level of
awareness, a more subtle state of consciousness, making it
possible to gain experience of the spirit within. The “Western”
world only achieved this understanding later, in the light of the
teachings of Jesus Christ.
Before calling men to an inner life, the prophets had to struggle
against religious distortions. Abraham, and above all Moses, had
to fight all forms of idolatry. Religious rites celebrated before
idols, in particular with the cult of Baal, involved human
sacrifice, especially newborn infants. Veneration of the Goddess,
losing its purity during the invasions of the patriarchal armies,
turned into collective hysteria. In her name, women were
subjected to sacred prostitution, and men to castration - actions
the prophets denounced. These perversions, so destructive to
spiritual progress, had to be stopped at all costs. As part of his
campaign of purification, Moses forbade the veneration of idols,
and raised human minds to the Almighty, the Eternal, the
Supreme God, Yahweh, who is neither male nor female.
Yet the scribes and translators of the Old Testament masculinised
the name of God and phoneticised it as “Yahweh”. The Hebrew
name for God is unpronounceable, for it consists of four

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consonants YHVH, the Sacred Tetragrammaton. This form
indicates that God is beyond all names, all description, all
classification. Victor Hugo described God as: “He to whom no
name has yet been given”.
The tradition of the Kabbala was later to give the three Hebrew
letters YVH their full significance, embracing the female and
male dimensions of the Deity.
YOD (I or Y) a male letter, is the primordial Hebrew
letter, the simplest letter in the alphabet, the one from
which all the others can be formed. YOD is like the figure
1, the original number, the symbolic unity of the absolute,
the primordial Lingam of Shiva. It means the Atman, the
Self, the Universal Father, the Eternal Witness.
HE (H) a female letter, corresponds to the eternal
feminine, the heavenly Mother, she who created the
Primordial Power. In Hebrew it signifies “breath”. It is
also the first letter in the Hebrew word “Hokmah”
meaning Wisdom, which has the attributes of the Mother
in the Old Testament.
VAH (V or W) a male letter, represents the son, the
eternal Word, the basis and starting point of Creation.
YHVH, then, represents the full manifestation of God, the
Trinity, of which God the Father is only one constituent. The
sacred Tetragrammaton in Hebrew offers an interesting analogy
with OM in the sacred tradition in India. In both, the Father
occupies the summit, as witness of the creation of the Goddess.

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 God the Father,
Witness of the Creation

God the Mother,

the Creation

Illustration 24: OM and Yahweh.

There is no trace of a diatribe against the Great Goddess in the

words of Moses or Abraham. What was denounced were the
rituals and the deviant worship surrounding Her. However, after
the earthly sojourn of these two Patriarchs, many leaders of the
Jewish community were to become fanatical opponents of the
Goddess and persecutors of Her devotees.
How could Moses - who chose the brazen serpent, the age-old
traditional symbol of the power of the Eternal Feminine, as the
tool of his miraculous powers - have been against the Goddess?
We should also note that God revealed Himself to Moses in the
burning bush, yet another manifestation of the Mother Goddess.
Even in the Bible itself, burning groves are associated with
Asherah, the Queen of Heaven.36 The symbolism is obvious. Who
but the Inner Mother, Kundalini, can reveal the Father?
Illumination (the Burning Bush) is given by Kundalini, making it
possible to become aware of the Spirit, i.e. the Eternal Father.
In spite of the zeal of those who promoted the concept of an
exclusive, abstract patriarchal God - sometimes known as
“Yahwists” - the Hebrews did not readily abandon the cult of
Astarte. Unlike the cult of Baal, Astarte was to continue to be
venerated in Judea and in Israel. King Solomon put an end to the
“Yahwists” and introduced tolerance and respect into religious
practice. Solomon himself achieved illumination, and in his heart

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felt the stirrings of devotion to the Eternal Feminine. He
introduced the Goddess Asherah - another name for Astarte - into
the Temple in Jerusalem.
The concept of a single abstract God had difficulty in establishing
itself, and had to co-exist for many centuries with worship of the
Mother Goddess. Eventually, however, this duality was
condemned by biblical writings as idolatry. The people, however,
continued to attribute their defeats and various trials to their
falling away from the worship of the Goddess.
The cult of Astarte disappeared with the return to power of
fanaticism and intolerance. In 621 B.C., King Joshua forbade the
worship of Astarte, and his reign was sufficiently long to ensure
that his demands had a durable impact. However the cult of the
Mother Goddess under the name of the Queen of Heaven
reappeared locally in the Jewish colonies of Egypt during the
fifth century B.C.. A Jewish temple dedicated to Anat has been
found on Elephantine Island outside of Aswan. Anat was
considered to be Yahweh's consort.
Once the worship of Yahweh had been firmly implanted,
orthodox Judaism was never again to stray from the idea of a
single abstract, patriarchal God who judges and punishes those
who fail to obey His Law. Only much later was Jewish mysticism
to develop the idea of the “Divine Presence”, the Shekinah, to
offset this narrow outlook.

Zoroaster
During the sixth century B.C. Zoroaster traveled throughout the
Aryan territory of the high plateau of northern Iran, preaching
justice and human liberation. He fulminated against war, and
attacked demoniacal men who held human and animal life in
contempt. Ahura Mazda is the Lord God, the God of Wisdom, the

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only and Almighty God, who calls men to good actions and good
words. Ahura Mazda is the eternally good Father God, who
provides laws so that Man can live in peace, and respect the
natural environment.
“You are the first and the last,
You are the Father of Good Thought,
You are the true teacher of Order and Uprightness.”37
Zoroaster brought ideas of balance, justice and Divine supremacy
to the undisciplined Aryans of Persia. He channeled their
excessive solar activity (Yang, Rajo Guna) into the worship of a
Supreme Authority which tolerated no deviation, and rendered
justice for justice.

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The Search for Balance:
The Great Goddess of Antiquity

Illustration 25: Spread of the cults of Astarte, Isis and Cybele.

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In spite of Aryan and Semitic invasions, a balance was to be
reached between the worship of the Goddess and that of the
Father. The Goddess retained her devotees throughout Antiquity,
being recognised and accepted by the vast majority of people.
The Greeks, the Romans, the Egyptians and the Celts all
honoured the Goddess. Her cult was to dominate all other forms
of worship, even though God the Father henceforth occupied the
pinnacle of the religious pantheon.
Traces of this search for balance are found in the Bible. Sophia is
given considerable importance, and in Jewish history, the
devotion of King Solomon towards Asherah, the Great Goddess,
has an important place.
This search for balance was made possible by enlightened rulers,
such as Cyrus, Alexander and Solomon, who rejected intolerance
because they understood that the Goddess dwelt in the higher
regions of the human heart, at the highest point of Divine
devotion.
In spite of the diversity of their representations, and the different
names by which they were known, the Goddesses of Antiquity
shared many common characteristics. Throughout Antiquity, the
Goddess was Virgin and Mother, the one who brought the soul to
rebirth. These three attributes were later all conferred on the
Virgin Mary. The Goddesses of Antiquity, like Athena, were also
warriors - destroyers like the Indian Goddesses Durga and Kali.
Their strength, however, was not linked to wars and conquests, as
is often assumed. It represented the power of the Goddess to
defend her devotees from the forces of evil.
The syllable which occurs most often in the names of the
Goddess is “an”, a root which in Indo-European languages
means “breath”. Anemos, the wind, animus the Spirit, and anima
the soul, are derived from this root. Anahita in Persian, Anu for
the Celts, Anat in Syria, Inanna in Sumer, all reflect how these

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peoples perceived the Goddess as the one conferring spiritual
birth and sacred breath - a concept which resurfaced in the
Christian era, applied to the Holy Spirit.
The Goddesses of Antiquity - Ishtar, Cybele and the Celtic
Goddess Cerridwen, for instance - were often shown holding a
vessel in their hands. In our days, Quan Yin, in China, is depicted
holding the sacred vase. This vase has important symbolic
connotations, since it contains eternal waters, the Water of
Eternal Youth. This image suggests that at the level of the
Unconscious, the Goddess is able to bestow eternity and grace
when she pours the contents of her vase upon her devotees. In
India, the kumbha (a small water container used in religious
ceremonies) symbolises the Kundalini, which suggests that this
sacred vessel is, in fact, the sacrum bone in the human body.

Illustration 26:
Ishtar holding the Holy Vase
(1.200 B.C.), Baghdad.

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The Goddess in Persia
Babylon was to be wiped out by the Persian Cyrus, who, like
Alexander the Great, was one of the most notable sovereigns of
Antiquity. Cyrus was an enlightened and tolerant ruler who
sought to impose peace through policies inspired by the concept
of Justice as taught by Zoroaster. In Persia, the Great Goddess
was honoured under the name of Anahita. A chapter of the
Avestas, the Mazdean scriptures inspired by Zoroaster, was
entirely dedicated to her. Her place in the Mazdean pantheon is
between the Father, Ahura Mazda and the Son, Mithras. In the
Azerbaijan district of Shiz, traditionally the birthplace of
Zoroaster, the main temple was dedicated to Anahita, the
Goddess venerated by the very ancient community of the Magi.
In the Yashts, which are also sacred scriptures, Anahita
personifies the mystical lifegiving river.38 She was adored as The
Lady, and considered to be the Supreme Power, the Immaculate.
Anahita was worshipped throughout a vast region which included
Persia and Armenia, and she has been identified with the Syrian
Goddess, Anat. On the boundaries of Caucasia, her name was
Indola.

The Mother Goddess in the Old Testament

The Old Testament did not entirely forget the Goddess. Under the
name of Hokhmah, or Sophia in Greek, i.e. Wisdom, the Eternal
Feminine occupies an important place in the Book of Wisdom
and the Proverbs. She is the origin of Creation:
“The Lord created me at the beginning of his work,
The first of his acts of old
Ages ago I was set up,
At the first, before the beginning of the earth.
When there were no depths, I was brought forth,
When there were no springs abounding with water.

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 Before the mountains had been shaped,
Before the hills, I was brought forth;
Before he had made the earth with its fields,
Or the first of the dust of the world.
When he established the heavens I was there,
When he drew a circle on the face of the deep,
When he made firm the skies above,
When he established the Mountains of the deep,
When he assigned to the sea its limit,
So that the waters might not transgress his command,
When he marked out the foundations of the earth,
Then I was beside him like a master workman;
And I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always,
Rejoicing in his inhabited world
And delighting in the sons of man.”39
She is the Great Goddess, who defeats the demoniac powers in
order to protect the Good:
“For while gentle silence enveloped all things,
And night in its swift course was half gone,
Thy all-powerful word leaped down from heaven,
From the royal throne, into the midst of a land that was doomed;
A stern warrior carrying the sharp sword of thy authentic command,
Stood and filled all things with death,
And touched heaven while standing on earth.”40
Wisdom is eternal, omnipresent and the ultimate object of
adoration:
“For in her there is a spirit that is intelligent, holy,
Unique, manifold, subtle, mobile, clear, unpolluted,
Distinct, invulnerable, loving the good, keen,
Irresistible, beneficent, humane,
Steadfast, sure, free from anxiety,
All-powerful, overseeing all,
and penetrating through all spirits
That are intelligent and pure and most subtle.
For wisdom is more mobile than any motion;

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 Because of her pureness she pervades and penetrates all things.
For she is a breath of the power of God,
And a pure emanation of the glory of the Almighty;
Therefore nothing defiled gains entrance into her.
For she is a reflection of eternal light,
A spotless mirror of the working of God,
And an image of his goodness.
Though she is but one, she can do all things,
And while remaining in herself, she renews all things;
In every generation she passes into holy souls
And makes them friends of God, and prophets;
For God loves nothing so much as the man
Who lives with wisdom.
For she is more beautiful than the sun,
And excels every constellation of the stars.
Compared with the light she is found to be superior,
For it is succeeded by the night,
But against wisdom evil does not prevail.
She reaches mightily from one end of the earth to the other,
And she orders all things well.
I loved her and sought her from my youth,
And I desired to take her for my bride,
And I became enamoured of her beauty.
She glorifies her noble birth by living with God,
And the Lord of all loves her.
For she is an initiate in the knowledge of God,
And an associate in his works.
If riches are a desirable possession in life,
What is richer than wisdom who effects all things?
And if understanding is effective,
Who more than she is the fashioner of what exists?....
Therefore I determined to take her to live with me
Knowing that she would give me good council.” 41

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Sophia gives eternal deliverance to the just man by freeing him
from sin and making spirituality known to him.
“When a righteous man was sold,
Wisdom did not desert him
But delivered him from sin.
She descended with him into the dungeon,
And when he was in prison she did not leave him,
Until she brought him to the sceptre of a kingdom...
And she gave him everlasting honour.”42
“Wisdom rescued from troubles those who served her.
When a righteous man fled from his brother's wrath,
She guided him on the straight paths;
She showed him the kingdom of God,
And gave him knowledge of the angels.”43
This is the Wisdom which inspired Moses and performed his
miracles:
“A holy people and blameless race
Wisdom delivered from a nation of oppressors.
She entered the soul of a servant of the Lord
And withstood fearsome kings with wonders and signs.
She gave to holy men the reward of their labours,
She guided them along a marvelous way,
And became a shelter to them by day,
And a starry flame through the night.
She brought them over the Red Sea,
And led them through deep waters;
But she drowned their enemies.”44
Philo of Alexandria, the great first century A.D. Hellenic Jewish
mystic, was one of the first to identify Sophia with the female and
maternal archetype of the deity: “We will therefore justly call the
master who created our universe the father of creation, whilst the
mother is knowledge...”45

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In spite of this very clear description of the Eternal Mother in the
allegory of Wisdom, neither Judaism nor Christianity were to pay
any particular attention or veneration to her. Michelangelo is
almost alone, in showing Wisdom, in one of his Sixtine Chapel
frescos, at the side of God the Father during the act of Creation.

Illustration 27:
Michelangelo: God the Father and the Sophia, Sixtine Chapel.

Orthodox Judaism in biblical or talmudic times was to develop an

entirely patriarchal image of God. This exclusive concept of a
universal male and abstract Deity was gradually to take root in
the popular consciousness, and it led to the construction of a
society on a patriarchal model, in which religion stressed the
moral and intellectual aspects, neglecting the active and
emotional aspects. This explains why Judaism gave pride of place
to study and observance of the Law (Torah) rather than to
devotion.46

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The Mother in Jewish Mysticism
In response to this redefining of the Divine, Jewish mystics
developed a feminine counterpart to Yahweh, the Shekinah,
which occupies a notable place in Jewish mysticism. This first
emerged in an Aramean paraphrase of the Bible, the Targum
Omkelos, which dates from the early years of the Christian era,
but which draws on sources which are certainly much older.
The Targum Omkelos extends the biblical text by using the word
Shekinah to denote any manifestation of the presence of God.
Yahweh is no longer present, but the Father-God who sends His
Presence, the Shekinah. For example: “I will dwell amongst the
children of Israel” becomes “I will send my Presence to dwell
amongst the children of Israel”. This interpretation is thought to
derive from the oral tradition handed down from Moses.
Jewish mysticism continued to develop this concept of the
Shekinah until the sixteenth century A.D. (notably in the
Kabbala) giving many descriptions which closely resemble the
Eternal Feminine. The Shekinah was the authentic, eternally
virgin, female deity. She was beyond all attributes such as
goodness or wisdom. Judaism speaks of the wings of Shekinah,
the protective shelter for devotees; the face of Shekinah, the
object of adoration, and the feet of Shekinah, which trample evil
and negative forces. The Shekinah has a specific personality, and
a will which can influence the will of God the Father, even
oppose it. Like Sophia, she is the primordial power at the
beginning of creation:
“When the thought of creating the world emerged in God,
He first created the Holy Spirit,
Which is known as the glory of our God.
It is a bright flash and a great light
Which extends to all creatures...
And the wise call this great light the Shekina.”47

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The most important aspect of the Shekinah is its redemptive and
liberating power. “It is the occult Shekinah which appears to the
initiated in the supreme vision. The world of the merkaba (i.e. the
heavenly world, paradise) is the place of the Shekinah, hidden
from men in the supreme heights.”48 Like the Holy Spirit in the
gnostic scheme (which we shall look at below) Shekinah is the
essential feminine element of the hieros gamos. In the Zohar,
when the Shekinah is enthroned in the state of union, she is called
the Mother, and when she is placed in the state of separation, she
is the Bride: “while she dwelt in the house of the King (the
Father) she was called Mother, since she fed her children from
on high by means of the free flow of the emanation; now she is in
exile and is known only as the wife of the Father.”49

The third century Rabbi, Shemuel bar Nahman, wrote that the
characteristic of the father towards his children is that of
compassion, and that of the mother is support, encouragement
and consolation. And he added, “God has said: I will make like a
father and like a mother.” The Shekinah represents the maternal
aspect of the Divine. Like Sophia in the Bible, or the Great
Goddess in the Indian scriptures, she also represents the punitive
power of God. This aspect took an increasing importance during
the Middle Ages, when, with the emergence of the Kabbala, the
Shekinah developed a central position in Jewish religious
consciousness. In fact, Shekinah simply “recovered” the
attributes of Astarte, the Mother Goddess of biblical times.

Astarte
In the Classical World, the Goddess was the object of intense
devotion. Representations of Astarte are found throughout the
Mediterranean Basin, for the Phoenicians carried her cult to all
the countries where they set up trading colonies. Her worship was
present in Tyre, Carthage, Malta, Sicily, Sardinia, and Spain. An

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inscription in Sardinia gives Astarte the title of “Mother”. In
Carthage she is shown with a drum, and a dove, her favourite
bird. In North Africa, from the dawn of Phoenician colonising
until the Arab-Islamic conquest, she seems to have been the
object of fervent devotion from all levels of society. Indeed,
during the Arab conquest, Berber resistance crystallised around a
Queen of Eurasian origin, the priestess of a female deity, who
seems to have been an avatar of the Goddess Astarte.50
The spread of her cult does not seem to have encountered any
ethnic or cultural barriers. Astarte is to be found in Greece and
Egypt. At Delos, a Greek inscription is dedicated to Zeus and to
Astarte. At Memphis, she had a temple, and occupied a
prominent place in popular stories and legends. In North Africa,
and particularly in the region corresponding to present-day
Tunisia, she was given the name Tanit, the Great Lady of
Carthage, who was succeeded by Cybele. In some places, Astarte
is identified with Athena, Juno, and also Isis.

Illustration 28:
Tanit (300 A.D.) Bardo
Museum, Carthage, Tunis.

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Isis
In Egypt, the Goddess was honoured under the name of Isis for a
period extending from the third millennium B.C. to the second
century A.D., when her cult was replaced by that of the Virgin
Mary. Isis is probably derived from the African Neolithic
Goddess. Her worship had considerable influence, since it
extended to Greece in the third century B.C., and later to the
Roman Empire, where, as we shall see, it enjoyed unparalleled
splendour. She is found on the banks of the Danube and the
Rhine, and even as far as Gaul. Soissons, Metz, and, it is often
forgotten, Paris, were among the many places where the Goddess
Isis was worshipped. She was the origin of the black virgins
found throughout Europe.
Isis went by a variety of titles, being known, just like the Great
Goddess of the Indian subcontinent, as the Goddess of a
Thousand Names. She is the Goddess of the Serpents, the Cow
with a mother's milk, the Goddess of the Tree of Life, the One
who sustains and the Deity who gives the water of immortality.
She was the Lady of Joy and Abundance, the Queen of Heaven
and Earth, the Lady of Life and Love. Her son Horus is seated on
her knees in a royal posture, an image later used to depict Mary
and Jesus.
Isis was the Protectress of the Universe, sheltering her children
beneath her great wings. She was also the source of the spirit, and
all spiritual values:
“I am the plant of life
which comes forth from Osiris,
which allows the people to live
and makes the Gods Divine
which spiritualizes the spirits.”51
Isis transcends death and restores life. From her emanates the
breath which restores life to Osiris. As with other representations

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of the Goddess, Isis is shown in the form of the cosmic serpent.
Isis is identified with Maat, another Egyptian goddess of laws and
universal order. She is the throne of the Pharaohs and thus directs
the course of history. As Maat, she is present from the Beginning,
and in all respects recalls Sophia from the Old Testament, who is
also the throne of God. Maat appears to be a universal principle,
present in each deity, rather than a distinct deity. In his
incantations to Osiris, the Pharaoh Seth the First describes the
unbreakable bond between God the Father (Osiris) and the
Goddess Maat:
“You rise with Maat
You live with Maat
You make Maat rest on your head52
In order that she may take her seat on your forehead.
You become young again in the sight of your daughter Maat.
You live from the perfume of her dew (...).
The Divine entities reward you with Maat,
For they know her wisdom (...)
You exist because Maat exists
And she exists because you exist.”53
She is Nut, the eternal heavenly Cow who feeds man and raises
him to eternity:
“O, my Mother Nut, stretch your wings over me,
Let me become like the imperishable stars.
O Great Being, who is in the world of the Dead,
At whose feet is Eternity,
In whose hand is the Always.
O Great Divine beloved Soul
Who is the mysterious abyss,
Come to me!”54
With the conquest of Egypt by Alexander the Great, the cult of
Isis was to become hellenised. She was identified with Demeter
and a temple was built in her honour on the slopes of the

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Acropolis. She also had a temple at Delos. Hymns in praise of her
are found in the literature of Ancient Greece:
“I gave and ordained laws for men
Which no one is able to change,
I divided the earth from the heaven,
I showed the paths of the stars,
I ordered the course of the sun and the moon,
I brought together woman and man,
I devised marriage contracts,
I ordained that the true should be thought good,
I broke down the governments of tyrants,
I made an end to murders,
I made the right tobe stronger than gold and silver.
I am the Queen of rivers and winds and sea.”55
Isis was of Egyptian origin, but her many attributes derived from
the religious syncretism of the Mediterranean basin made her a
universal Goddess. Her cult made its way north through Italy via
Sicily and initially encountered hostility from the Roman
authorities. The opposition eventually proved ineffective, and her
cult was accepted in the third century B.C.. Isis combined the
attributes of Cybele, Demeter and Athena, and her cult was
purified of the orgiastic elements which threatened it. «Like the
sublime Virgin Mother who eventually was to dethrone her, she
was the “Goddess of many names”, the Queen of Heaven, Mother
of the Stars, First Born of all Ages, Parent of nature, Patroness of
sailors, Star of the sea and Mater Dolorosa (giving comfort and
consolation to mourners and those in distress), and finally in the
metamorphoses, “the Saviour of the human race”, the
Redemptrix.”56
Her cult spread far and wide. In all the major centres of the
Roman Empire, her faithful thronged to her temples. Having
taken on the characteristics and functions of all the other
Goddesses, she enjoyed great stability throughout the Empire.

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“She gained dominion not only over nature, but also over the
hearts and lives of those who sacrificed her service. In these ways
and capacities, she fulfilled the role of the Great Mother.”57
This devotion to the Mother Goddess reached the lower strata of
society as well as the intellectual elite of the day, the
Neoplatonist philosophers. The celebrated invocation of Apuleus,
second century platonist of Madaure in his autobiographical
novel Metamorphoses, is an eloquent example:
“Oh you who, by your feminine light illuminates all walls, by your
damp rays nourishes all seeds, and who, replacing the sun, sheds an
equal light, in whatever form, with whatever ritual that may be allowed
to invoke You, help me in my extreme misfortune.”
The Goddess responds to this invocation by appearing adorned
with the attributes of the various divinities under whose name she
had been invoked:
“I come to you, Lucius, moved by your prayers. I am Nature, Mother of
all things..., and Mistress of all elements, origin and principle of ages,
supreme Divinity, Queen of the spirits, First of the inhabitants of
Heaven, unchanging model of gods and goddesses. It is I whose will
governs the sky's luminous vaults, the salutary breaths of the Ocean,
the dismal silence of the underworld. Unique Power, I am adored by
the entire Universe in several forms, with diverse ceremonies, with a
thousand different names.”
After receiving her blessings, the worshipper replies:
“ Holy Goddess, perpetually active in the preservation of mankind,
always lavish in your generosity and your care of mortals, You have the
gentle affection of a mother for the unfortunate and the afflicted . There
is not one day, nor night, nor moment quick enough to escape without
being pointed out by one of your blessings, without you protecting man
on land and on the ocean, without you brushing the storms of life aside
from them, offering them a helping hand. By this hand, you further
separate the threads that fate had made inextricable, you calm
Fortune's storms, you neutralize the fatal influence of the

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constellations. Worshipped by the Divinities of Olympus, you are also
revered by those of Tartarus. It is you who gives the Universe its
rotational motion, the sun its light, the world its laws. The celestial
bodies' harmony, the changing of the seasons, the gods' rejoicing, the
elements' docility, it is all your work. One sign of your bidding gives
life to the wind, fills the clouds, makes the seeds sprout and the buds
burst. Your majesty makes a saint shudder and the birds that cross the
sky, and the wild animals that roam the mountains, and the snakes that
hide under the ground, and the monsters that swim in the water. But
alas, my genius is too slight to recount your praises.”58
This lovely invocation clearly demonstrates the important place
occupied by the Mother Goddess in contemporary consciousness.
She is the First and Universal Power, the final recourse and sole
salvation, similar in all respects to the descriptions in Sanskrit
literature:
“You are the Giver of all blessings.
Auspicious One! Protectress!
Everything comes about through You.
Praise to You, O Great Goddess!
You who devote Yourself to protecting
The afflicted and those in distress,
Who have sought refuge in You;
You who takes away pain
From the face of the earth:
Praise to You, O Great Goddess!59

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Athena

Illustration 29:
Athena (500 B.C.) Louvre Museum - Paris.
The history of Greece and its mythology demonstrate clearly the
extent to which the original cult of the Goddess had been overlaid

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by that of the patriarchal god who occupied the pinnacle of the
pyramid: Zeus. Robert Graves gave the explanation of this in The
White Goddess:
“The first Greeks to invade Greece were the Achaeans who broke
into Thessaly about 1900 B.C.. They were Patriarchal herdsmen
and worshipped an Indo-European male trinity of gods,
originally perhaps Mithra, Varuna and Indra.... Little by little,
they conquered the whole of Greece and tried to destroy the
matriarchal Bronze Age civilisation they found there, but later
compromised with it, accepted matrilinear succession and
enrolled themselves as sons of the variously named Great
Goddesses.... About the year 1250 B.C. ... the Achaeans from
north-western Greece invaded the Peloponnese, founded a new
patriarchal dynasty, and repudiated the sovereignty of the Great
Goddess.”60
Hera, the Mother Goddess, whose name is derived from the
Sanskrit svar, which means heaven, was the heavenly virgin,
originally totally independent of Zeus. The myths recount their
marriage - a marriage which was “arranged” - to account for the
fusion of two previously distinct cults. Hera resisted Zeus in a
way that recalled Inanna's resistance of Enlil, reflecting the
resistance of the Goddess's devotees to the introduction of the
cult of the alien, patriarchal god. It was doubtless as a result of
her marriage to Zeus that Hera lost her cosmic dimension,
retaining only her moral attributes.
Athena is the female deity who replaced Hera in the cosmic
dimension, assuming considerable importance in the religion of
Ancient Greece. In Sanskrit her name means Primordial Mother.
Having assumed the cosmic attributes of Hera, she became the
Great Goddess of Ancient Greece, sharing the pinnacle of the
Divine pantheon with Zeus.

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Athena was the daughter of Zeus, conceived solely by him. Her
conception, which was as singular as it was extraordinary, shows
that at one point in time, the Aryan people wanted to impose the
total superiority of their male god over the Mother Goddess of the
original inhabitants of the Hellenic peninsula. At the same time,
from a spiritual point of view, the birth of Athena provided a
unique and remarkably representative image of the Kundalini
rising from the fontanelle: Athena was born from the head of
Zeus.

Illustration 30:
The birth of Athena (600 B.C.) British Museum.
Athena is distinguished from the other divinities in the Greek
pantheon by her virginity. In this quality she once again
resembles the absolute purity of the Kundalini. She defends her
virtue with implacable ferocity, for she is also the Goddess of
war. In her rites, the Greeks washed the feet of the Goddess
Athena, recalling the Indian tradition of puja. The Goddess
Athena has always been described as a beautiful and imposing
virgin.61

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Athena is also a mother. It is as a mother she supervises wedding
ceremonies. In addition to the sacred bond between the couple,
marriage, as directed by Athena, is also in its subtle form
spiritual, uniting the soul to God.
Athena confers protection, justice and food. She is the protectress
who preserves all from danger, maintaining life and health. Her
grace takes care of all the children of men. She is the one who
sustains harmony in nature, protecting crops and orchards. She is
the dispenser of Justice, presiding over all decisions. She is given
the name of the Most High Wisdom. As the provider of food, she
guides men towards agricultural development, teaching them how
to plough the land in order to cultivate the soil - thus
demonstrating her relationship with the Neolithic Great Goddess.
She teaches them to make ploughs, and gives them bridles so they
can harness horses. Athena is also the Goddess of peace and the
arts. She liberates all mankind. She is the Universal Mother of
compassion, generosity and infinite benevolence.

“Pallas Athena,
I shall sing the glorious Goddess
whose eyes gleam,
brilliantly inventive,
her heart restless,
formidable maiden,
guardian of cities,
the courageous Tritogenia.
Wise Zeus gave birth to her himself
out of his majestic head.
Golden armour clothed her,
warlike, glistening.
All the gods who saw her
were overcome with awe.”62

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In Rome, Athena was known as Minerva, a name which remained
engraved in memories until the twelfth century, when many
castles were named in her honour.
Greek mythology includes many other Goddesses who were
probably regional, derived from the ancient cult of Mother Earth.
They include Gaia, Rhea, Hecate, Aphrodite, Artemis, Demeter,
her daughter Kore, and many others, each of whom expresses one
or more aspects of the Mother Goddess.
Kore disappeared into the underworld, where she took the name
of Persephone. This myth is often found in cults of the Goddess.
It occurs in Sumer, with Inanna, in Jewish mysticism with the
Shekinah, and amongst the Gnostics with Sophia. At the level of
the Collective Unconscious, this reflects the presence of
Kundalini, remaining enclosed in the world of humankind -
coiled in the sacrum bone - until the day of Resurrection. A bas-
relief from the fifth century B.C. represents Demeter and
Persephone with Triptoleme. Persephone has her hand on the
fontanelle of Triptoleme in order to awaken the Kundalini, and
Demeter is holding out to her a sceptre, which also symbolises
Kundalini.

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 Illustration 31:
Eleusinian Divinities (440 B.C.) Athens Museum.

118
In Ancient Greece, the myth of the Great Goddess, in her
multiple aspects, was to have a considerable influence on
Mediterranean civilisation. Rome adopted the Goddesses:
Artemis became Diana, Athena became Minerva, and Aphrodite
became Venus. The Phoceans, who came from Greece and settled
in the French region of Marseille during the sixth century B.C.,
spread the cult of the Goddess Artemis all along the
Mediterranean coast from Barcelona to Antibes, and into the
country of the Gauls as far as Auvergne.

Cybele
Cybele originated in Anatolia, and her cult spread under a variety
of names throughout the Roman Empire and the Near East. Lyon,
the capital of the Gauls, was dedicated to her, the name of the city
being derived from the lions which surrounded representations of
the Goddess. Statues of Cybele have been found in regions as
distant from each other as the Crimea, Romania and the Ukraine.
Her original name was Kumbaba. In Sanskrit, the word Kumbha
is another name for Kundalini, meaning the sacred vessel which
contains the primordial water. In addition, in the Hittite alphabet,
the five ideograms of Kumbaba include a vessel. The dove can
also be recognised, and is often shown beside the Mother
Goddess.

Illustration 32: Hittite Ideograms of Kumbaba.

When Alexander invaded the Persian Empire, Anatolia became

part of the Hellenic Empire. The great temple of Artemis at
Ephesus was probably initially dedicated to Cybele, who was
incorporated, later, into Greek mythology, arousing fervent
devotion in both Greece and Rome. During the Trojan wars,

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Aeneas asked Cybele to help him in his battle to gain possession
of Italy.
In 363 A.D., during a campaign in Persia, the Emperor Julian
wrote of Cybele:
“She is both the mother and the spouse of mighty Zeus.
She is in control of every form of life, and the cause of all generation.
She easily brings to perfection all things that are made.” 63
As the Roman Empire advanced into Western Europe, the cult of
Cybele merged with that of the Celtic Goddesses.

The Celtic Goddess

In Western Europe, the Goddess had been venerated since
Neolithic times as the sole deity. Although the Celts and
Allemani (nomads of Aryan origin) added male gods to their
Divine pantheon, throughout antiquity the Goddess continued to
maintain a prominent position in the religious devotion of these
peoples.
The Celts occupied a vast region extending from Austria to the
Atlantic coast. In the regions conquered by Rome (except along
the western seaboard - Brittany, Wales, Scotland and Ireland)
they were closely integrated with the Roman occupiers, being
known as Gallo-Romans.
The first of the many names of the Celtic Goddess was Danu.
Daughter of Dagda, the universal Father, Danu can be compared
to Athena. Robert Graves identifies Danu, the Goddess of the
people of Danaan, with the pre-Achaean Goddess, Danae of
Argos. In the middle of the second millenium, the Danaans
appear to have fled to western Europe. They were escaping the
Dorians who invaded Greece, killing, pillaging, burning and
driving out the fugitives, who scattered in all directions.64 The
Danaans seem to have landed in Ireland around the fifteenth

120
century B.C. They appear to have mingled with the local people
who had come from Spain and Great Britain some centuries
earlier.
Danu's name was one of those most frequently used for the
Goddess. It is found from Central Europe to Russia. Rivers,
including the Danube and the Don, were named after her. Her
name is also found in the Dravidian traditions of Southern India.
Danu, transformed during the christianisation of Europe, is the
source of the amazing Breton devotion to Saint Anne.
In addition to Danu, the Celts venerated Brigid (Brighde). Her
name means Power. She survived the attempts of the Aryans to
replace her with the (male) god Ogma, and was incorporated into
Christianity, becoming “Saint Brigid”. The feast of fire,
regularly celebrated by bishops, was dedicated to her each 2nd of
February. With the emergence of Christianity, she who had been
the “Mother of Dagda” became “Mother of Jesus” and “Mother
of the Gaels”. Saint Brigid was the guardian of knowledge, of
culture and of the arts.
“Matres” was the Latin version of the Triple Goddess. This
Goddess of three aspects was to be unconsciously depicted much
later, during the Renaissance, in the numerous paintings and
sculptures of the “Three Graces”. The cult of Matres was known
throughout Gaul, Britanny, and most of Germany. She gave her
name, Matronae, to the river Marne. The Goddess Sequanae, who
was closely associated with her, gave her name to the Seine.
After the Roman conquest of the Gauls, the Celtic gods were still
venerated locally, and some were integrated into the Roman
pantheon. This happened with the Goddess Epona, who became
the Divine patroness of the Roman cavalry. She was the only
Celtic Goddess to have an official Roman festival dedicated to
her. For the Celts, the horse was a sacred animal, and the
Goddess Epona was always shown on horseback. Her cult was

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widespread throughout northern Gaul, Burgundy and Germany.
Fifty kilometres south west of Paris, the town of Epone recalls the
importance of the worship of the Goddess. A white horse, about
one hundred meters high, cut into the chalk of Uffington Down,
Berkshire, England, also testifies to the importance of the
veneration of Epona.

Illustration 33:
Epona, Celtic Goddess,
Saint Germain en Laye,
Museum of Antiquity,
France.

Belisama, meaning the “Most Brilliant”, was another of the Celtic

Goddess's names. She presided over craft activity and weaving,
and was associated with Minerva (Athena) by the Romans. She
occupied an important place in popular worship: many places
were dedicated to her. Traces of her name can still be recognised
in such French place names as Belleme in the Orne region,
Balesmes in Indre-et-Loire, Beleymas in the Dordogne, and so
on.

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Cerridwen, the White Goddess, was highly venerated in England.
Robert Graves echoed this in the title of his famous work.
Cerridwen was distinguished by her cauldron, the vessel of
knowledge, grace and regeneration. The Celtic Quest for the
Cauldron of the Goddess aimed at achieving liberation. It
corresponds to the sacred vessel always associated with the cult
of the Goddess, symbolising the sacrum and the Kundalini. After
the arrival of Christianity, the Quest for the Cauldron became the
Quest for the Holy Graal. A statue of the church of the “Grande
Madre” in Turin represents the Graal in the form of the Goddess
holding the holy vessel.

Illustration 34:
The Sacred Graal,
Church of the
Great Mother (17th
century), Turin.

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The Goddess in Northern Europe
In Northern Europe, as elsewhere, the cult of the Goddess
predates the worship of a patriarchal god. The Mother Goddess is
found throughout a vast region extending from Scandinavia
(where she was known as Frigg) to much of Germany (where her
name was Freya) and even to Italy, where the Lombards
worshipped Frea. She was the consort of Odin, or Woden, and
had to suffer the same trials from her Divine husband as Hera in
Greece, Ishtar in Mesopotamia, and Brigid in the Celtic lands.
Freya has given her name to “Friday” in English and “Freitag” in
German, showing how widely she was recognised and venerated.
The name Freya means “the Beloved”. Like Athena in Greece,
she was invoked at weddings. She held the destiny of men in her
hands. Her multiple aspects gave rise to a multiplicity of names:
“Volla or Fulla, Goddess of abundance,
Eir, the Healer,
Sjofn is she who turns the thoughts of men and women to love,
Vor, Goddess of wisdom,
Syn, Goddess of justice,
Hlyn, the protectress,
Gna, Goddess of messages and knowledge,
and many others, such as Lofn, Var, Rind, Idunn, Gefjun...”65

The Goddess of the East

The peoples of Eastern Europe also had their Goddesses. For the
Hungarians she was Boldogasszony, Zemes Mate. The
importance of the cult of the Virgin in the Russian Orthodox
Church recalls an earlier culture in which the Goddess (under the
names of Mokosh, Morena, Lada and Zarya) was highly
venerated. Mokosh was associated with feminine skills, such as
weaving and sewing. Lada, meaning harmony, was the Goddess
of love, beauty and fertility. Like Athena, Zarya was armed, and

124
gave her devotees courage and protection in battle. In the
Ukraine, some representations show the Goddess with the sacred
spiral. After the adoption of Orthodox Christianity by the
Russians, the cults of the Ancient Mother Goddess were
transposed, as they were everywhere else, into cults of saints.
Thus Mokosh was replaced by Saint Paraskeva as the patron saint
of weaving. Pyanitsa (who is also associated with Friday) took
the archetypal principles of the Mother in the collective psyche,
to become the protectress, the one who grants success to the
harvest and fertility to the livestock. In popular speech, Pyanitsa
is often called Matushka, the little mother. As the protectress of
women, Saint Pyanitsa forbade weaving on Fridays to assure a
weekly rest.

1
C.G. Jung, L’Ame et la Vie (Paris 1963) p. 17.
2
Erich Neumann, The Great Mother, an Analyis of the Archetype (Princeton
1991).
3
Goethe, Selected Verses (London 1987) p. 355.
4
E. O. James, The Cult of the Mother Goddess (1989) p. 51.
5
A. Baring and J. Cashford, The Myth of the Goddess (London 1993) p. 16.
6
Ibid p. 21.
7
Ibid.
8
J. Campbell, Occidental Mythology (London 1991) p. 14.
9
Baring & Cashford, op. cit., p. 55.
10
E. O. James, op. cit., p. 52.
11
Baring & Cashford, op. cit., p. 189.
12
S. N. Kramer, From the Poetry of Sumer (Los Angeles 1979) p. 96.
13
D. Wolkstein & S. N. Kramer, Inanna, Queen of Heaven and Earth (London
1983) p. 21.
14
S. N. Kramer, The Sumerians (Chicago 1963) p. 174-83.
15
G. Israël, Cyrus (Paris 1987) p. 27.
16
Devi Mahatmyam (Paris 1975) p. 28.

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17
Names of the Asura leaders.
18
Ibid, p. 71-72.
19
Ibid p. 88.
20
Genesis 2:28.
21
II Kings 18: 4.
22
Numbers 33: 51-53.
23
Exodus 20:13.
24
Exodus 20:15.
25
C. G. Jung, Letters (London 1973) vol. 2, p. 434.
26
Genesis 2:22-23.
27
Genesis 3:16.
28
Numbers 30:13.
29
Matthew 19:6.
30
Exodus 3:14.
31
Psalms 90:2.
32
Isaiah 48:12.
33
Genesis 18:25.
34
Daniel 7:14.
35
Leviticus 11:45.
36
see R. Eisler, le Calice et l’Epée (Paris 1989) p. 30.
37
P. Dubreuil, le Zoroastrisme (Paris 1982) p. 35.
38
E. O. James, op. cit., p. 104.
39
Proverbs 8: 22-31.
40
Wisdom of Solomon 18:14.
41
Wisdom 7:22 - 8:6.
42
Wisdom 10:13.
43
Wisdom 10:9.
44
Wisdom 10:15-21.
45
Gerschom Scholem, La Mystique Juive (Paris 1985) p. 154.
46
R. Patai, The Hebrew Goddess (USA 1967) p. 23.

126
47
Scholem, op. cit., p. 164.
48
Ibid, p. 162.
49
Ibid, p. 192.
50
M. H. Fantar, Carthage approche d’une civilisation, vol. 2 (Tunis) p.245.
51
R. T. Rundle Clark, Myth and Symbol in Ancient Egypt (London 1978) p.
18.
52
Like the Kundalini.
53
Baring & Cashford, op. cit., p. 262.
54
Ibid, p. 260.
55
J. C. Engelsmann, The Feminine Dimension of the Divine (Philadelphia
1979) p. 64-6.
56
E. O. James, op. cit., p. 196.
57
Ibid, p. 197-8.
58
Ibid, p. 72.
59
Devi Mahatmyam, op. cit., p. 84.
60
Robert Graves, Celtic Myths, The White Goddess (Monaco 1979) p. 68-70.
61
E. O. James, op. cit., p. 161.
62
W. Burkert, Greek Religion (Oxford 1979) p. 142.
63
M. J. Vermaseren, Cybele and Attis (London 1977) p. 86-7.
64
Robert Graves, op. cit., p. 70.
65
J. A. McCulloch, The Celtic and Scandinavian Religions (London 1993).

127
2. The Church’s Opposition
to the Mother Goddess

“Christianity... is a complex of juridical decisions made under political

pressure in an ancient law-suit about religious rights between
adherents of the Mother Goddess who was once supreme in the West,
and those of the usurping Father God”
Robert Graves, the White Goddess1

128
The place of the Mother Goddess within Christianity has been
generally obscured, and no trace of her can now be found in any
of the canonical scriptures, with the possible exception of the
Revelation of Saint John. And yet, references to the Mother as the
Holy Spirit are frequent in the apocryphal writings of the early
Christian era. The Mother, as Goddess, occupied a prominent
place amongst the early Christians.
During the first and second centuries, the Christian faith was not
monolithic. There were four main centres of Christianity:
Alexandria and Syria (where Christianity resembled, and
coexisted with, Gnosis), and Greece and Rome (which were
closer to the teachings of Paul since he had evangelised them).
Rome gained ascendancy over the other schools, and unified the
church’s doctrine. Centralisation, which had existed in the
Roman Empire, was now imposed on the Church. The canonical
scriptures became an obligatory point of reference, something
they had not been during earlier centuries.
In addition to the four canonical Gospels, there were many others
which were shared among the various Christian communities. It
should be added that the gospels which have come down to us in
the New Testament were not written during the lifetimes of the
apostles, and are simply recordings of oral traditions which had
been handed on, with varying degrees of distortion. None of the
three so-called synoptic gospels was written before the year 70
A.D.. The earliest Church documents come to us from Paul, his
letters or epistles being written some time between the death of
Christ and the writing of the gospels. These letters, which make
no reference to the life of Jesus, to his miracles, parables, trial or
execution, seem to have been widely circulated. Many early
Christian writers were familiar with them. Furthermore, Paul had
asked for his letters to be read in public, and shared with
neighbouring Churches.2 We know that parts of the Gospels were

129
inspired by Paul, or by his followers, since a number of his
expressions and his dialect can be identified in them.
From 70 A.D., when the Temple of Jerusalem was destroyed, the
local Christian community was no longer tolerated in Palestine.
This community, which derived its strength directly from the
teachings of Christ, and which used the language of the Master -
Aramaic - disappeared. The authentic religion was supplanted by
Hellenic Christianity, the product of Paul's evangelisation in
areas of Greek culture. In fact, what is now known as
“Christianity” is an artificial doctrine created by Paul. It should
really be called “Paulinism”. The Christian historian, W. Nestle
summarised it in these terms: “Christianity is a religion founded
by Paul, which has replaced the Gospel of Christ with a gospel
about Christ.”3 It was Paul who was responsible for banishing
the Mother Goddess from spirituality. In contrast, the Christian
Churches of Syria and Alexandria were to leave writings, some of
which have been discovered recently, which give an important -
and even dominant - place to the Heavenly Queen. These were
the branches of Christianity which were to nourish the Gnostic
movement.

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The Mother and the First Christians
“The Spirit and the Bride say: COME!”
Revelation 22:17
With the advent of Christ, devotion to the Goddess, or the Eternal
Feminine, became more subtle and more mystical. What was
adored was a spiritual principle which was internal, and whose
awakening was awaited. The Goddess was associated with the
concept of inner grace and spiritual joy. The early Christians
identified the Holy Spirit with the Mother Goddess.

The Acts of Thomas and other Apocryphal Writings

The Acts of Thomas retrace the life of the apostle Thomas,
particularly his departure for India. Thomas is described in it as
administering baptism and invoking the Holy Spirit, which he
calls the “Mother of the seven houses” - an allegory for the seven
chakras. After annointing his disciple, Thomas says:
“Come, holy name of the Messiah,
Come power of grace,
Come perfect mercy,
Come exalted gift,
Come revealer of hidden mysteries,
Come Mother of the seven houses
Whose rest is in the eighth house,
Come Messenger of reconciliation....
Come Spirit of holiness
And purify their reins and hearts.”4

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This prayer invokes an essentially maternal power, with terms
like “Mother”, “mercy” and “power of grace”. It is a purifying
power, which confers reconciliation, reminding us of John's
Gospel, where Christ tells his apostles: “I shall send you the
Comforter.”5 The translation of the corresponding passage in the
Acts of Thomas into Greek, is even more enlightening. Here the
Mother is invoked in her cosmic and universal dimension through
the use of the expression “Power of the Most High”, which
corresponds exactly to the description of Adi Shakti, the
primordial, cosmic power of the Indian tradition:
“Come thou Power of the Most High
And the compassion that is perfect,
Come gift of the Most High,
Come compassionate Mother,
Come, you who revealeth the hidden mysteries,
Come, Mother of the seven houses.”6
At another point in the text, the Holy Spirit is clearly identified as
the hidden power of the Father, which is the Mother:
“Come Holy Spirit,
Come thou that giveth joy.
Power of the Father,
Come hidden Mother.”7
For Aphrahat,8 the Persian sage of the fourth century A.D., these
two aspects of God, the Father and the Holy Spirit as Mother, are
venerated on equal terms: “Before a man takes a woman for his
wife, he loves his Father and the Holy Spirit his Mother, and has
no other love.”9 Baptism is described as the Mother opening the
heavens and pouring water over the chosen. It is added that: “She
(the Mother) places herself above those who are baptised,”10 an
image which perfectly expresses the experience which is called
the “awakening of Kundalini” when she settles above the head,
i.e. above the last chakra known as the Sahasrara.

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In his homilies, Macarius the Egyptian also recognises the
maternal aspect of the Divine: “After the Fall, men will not turn
any more towards the truth, the heavenly Father and the Mother
of goodness, the grace of the Spirit...” He calls the Christians,
“those who are children of the Holy Spirit” and adds that for
them, “the Grace of the Spirit, the Mother of the saints,
rejoices.”11
In the Odes of Solomon - writings discovered at the beginning of
the century which, like the Acts of Thomas, are written in Syriac
- the Holy Spirit is also identified with the Mother. She reigns
over the Pantheon, since it is she who gives the divine nourishing
milk to the Father and to all generations. The milk symbolises the
purifying energy, for it is said: “Those who have received it are in
the perfection of the right hand.”12 Another Ode in the collection
also refers to the feminine power of God, the Holy Spirit, who
raises the soul to the Most High, God the Father:
“I rested in the Spirit of the Lord
And She lifted me up to heaven
And caused me to stand on my feet
In the Lord's high place
Before His perfection and His Glory.”13
The dove of baptism, symbolising the Holy Spirit, is a
metaphorical image for the Mother, and, as we have seen, it goes
back to the earliest symbols used in the worship of the Goddess,
thirty thousand years ago. The following passage from the Odes
shows the unity between Christ and the Holy Spirit:
“The dove fluttered over the head
Of the Lord Messiah,
Because he was her head -
And she sang over Him
And her voice was heard.”14

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The dove is the Kundalini raised to the pinnacle of the last
chakra, the Sahasrara. This ode depicts Christ as the instrument
through which the Mother makes her voice heard.

The Gospel of the Hebrews

The Gospel of the Hebrews has now been lost, except for
fragments transcribed by Origen and St. Jerome. St. Jerome
discovered this Aramaic manuscript at Antioch and he considered
it to be the primitive version of Matthew's Gospel. The fragments
of this earlier gospel are very interesting since they identify the
Holy Spirit with the Mother of Christ:
“It came to pass, when the Lord arose from the water,
That the entire source of the Holy Spirit descended and, resting herself
on him,
She said to him: “My son after all the prophets,
I have waited for your coming, you are my son,
My first-born, who reigns for eternity.”15
“My Mother, who is the Holy Spirit,
Lifted me by one of my hairs
And she carried me onto the high mountain of Thabor.”16
The second passage is quoted twice by Origen and three times by
St. Jerome, which eliminates any possibility of an erroneous
interpretation of the text, or a transcription error.
These apocryphal manuscripts, which experts do not consider to
be of Gnostic inspiration, reveal that early Christians recognised
the maternal power of God the Mother, alongside the Father, and
that they associated this power with the Holy Spirit.

The Gospel of the Essenes

This Aramaic manuscript was discovered by Edward Bordeaux-
Szekely in the Vatican archives at the beginning of the century.

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The preface to the French edition tells us that another version,
written in Slavonic, is held in the Royal library of the Habsburgs.
There is no proof of the authenticity of this document. But then
there is no proof for any documents contemporary with Christ,
including the canonical writings (which, as we shall see, are most
inauthentic, having been reshaped according to the Pauline
doctrine). Only the Vatican can either confirm or disprove
authenticity by allowing specialists access to its archives.
Continual refusal to do so merely confirms the suspicions of
many that the Church has a lot to hide.
The Mother is present in the Essene Gospel under the mysterious
name “Earthly Mother”, which could suggest that this writing is
dedicated to Mother Earth. The truth, however, is quite different,
for Mother Earth is mentioned elsewhere in the text17 in another
context. A more careful interpretation of the gospel shows that
the “Earthly Mother” is within, having an “earthly” dwelling on
an inner earth.
“I will place you in the Kingdom of Angels of your Earthly Mother,
Where the power of Satan cannot penetrate.”
Very surprised, they asked,
“Where is our Mother and where are her angels?
Where can we find her Kingdom?”
“Your Mother is within you, and you are within her.
It is She who has given you birth and given you life.”18
What then is this Mother and this earth which dwell within us?
The spiritual traditions of India reveal that the chakra of
mooladhara, (literally support, dhara, of the root, moola) is the
base on which the sacrum rests, and is the guardian of the sacrum.
It corresponds to the earth element. The Earthly Mother in the
gospel, therefore, corresponds to the Kundalini of the Indian
scriptures. This becomes clearer when the gospel goes on to
specify the purifying power of the Earthly Mother, describing her

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as the sole way to the Father (that is the Spirit) and the sole way
to achieving Union, Yoga:
“I tell you this in truth
That he who lives in harmony with Her
Will never know sickness,
For the power of your Mother is infinite,
It reigns over your body
Like that of all living beings,
And by it Satan and his kingdom are laid waste.”19
“Nobody can reach the Heavenly Father
If he has not crossed by the Earthly Mother.” 20
The gospel reveals other aspects of the Mother, notably her
creative powers, which are similar to those of Adi Shakti in India:
“Mother Earth, your love has filled us,
Your beauty delighted us,
We cannot live far from you
Nor search the endlessly renewed mysteries
Of your creation.”21
And Christ places the Mother at the summit of veneration.
“Observe also Her laws,
For nobody can live long
Or happily without honouring Her.”22

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The Gnostics and the Mother Goddess

“You have been clothed in a Great Power

By the Father of All... so that you may
Rise up to Him who is yours.”
Gnostic Gospel23

“At the summit there is a male element

The Father, and a female element, Truth.”
Valentinius24

Gnosis
Gnosis comes from the indo-european root gna, which means
“knowledge”, and the “Gnostic” (gnostikos in Greek) is “one who
knows”. In the early centuries of the Christian era, the term
“knowledge” had a wider meaning. Now it has been reduced to
essentially intellectual or academic information, but then it meant
the understanding of the supreme reality, that is, knowledge of
the Self.
Gnosis was a religious movement which experienced
considerable growth during the first four centuries of the
Christian era. The Gnostics believed themselves to possess
knowledge which Christ had given only to a few chosen
disciples. This knowledge, which they believed to be a gift of
God, could be transmitted only from one believer to another, and

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was described as an illumination, an awakening, a marriage, a
union; all terms familiar to the world's mystics who use them to
describe Self-Realisation.
The Gnostic knowledge of spiritual awakening closely parallels
the mystical tradition of India. Rejecting all cerebral spirituality
and all blind faith as the lot of lesser mortals, the Gnostics
believed that knowledge was the privilege of higher beings. The
Gnostics considered Christ to be the incarnation of God on earth,
and denied that He could have suffered on the cross. Such beliefs
attracted the ire of the early Church fathers, especially since
gnostic masters tended to be gifted orators with large followings.
Gnosticism spread throughout the Roman Empire, from
Alexandria to Rome, and as far north as the Rhone Valley. The
fathers of the Church, imbued with the same misogyny as their
master Paul, concentrated their attack on the position of women
amongst the Gnostics, assailing them with violent polemics and
all types of slander. This is how Ireneus, Bishop of Lyon, in his
most celebrated writing, Denunciation and Refutation of the
Gnosis with the Deceitful Name, described a woman attracted by
the Gnosticism of a Master from the Rhone Valley, Magus:
“Stupidly made proud by his words, she felt her heart soaring
and set about hurling forth all the stupidities which came to her
head. From this moment, this woman took herself to be a
Prophetess and she gave thanks to Mark, and applied herself to
rewarding him.”25
And, Ireneus adds, she would have given him her body.
Tertullian, another father of the Church, made his disrespect
clear:
“What of their women, what prostitution they are doing ! For
they are so audacious as to teach, to participate in discussions, to
exercise, to think themselves capable of healing, perhaps also
performing baptism!”26

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The fathers of the Church waged a ferocious war against the
Gnostic schools, and enlisted the Roman Empire, by then
converted to Christianity, to persecute all their communities and
destroy all their writings. Fortunately, some documents remained
hidden. In 1945 many were discovered in Lower Egypt, at Nag
Hammadi near Alexandria. They reflect the spiritual depth of the
authors, and are of inestimable value to scholars today. They call
dogmas into question, and recall many things which the Church
would have us forget.
The most important document amongst these discoveries is
probably the Gospel according to Thomas, which, unlike the
canonical gospels, concentrates on the message of Christ rather
than on his life:
“Let him who seeks continue seeking until he finds.
When he finds he will become troubled,
He will be astonished,
And he will rule over the All.”27
Other less well-known writings give an equally clear
understanding of Self Realisation and the state of “thoughtless
awareness” which results:
“Jesus Christ enlightened those who were in darkness through
oblivion.
He enlightened them and showed them the way,
And the way is truth -
Through Him they discovered the Father in themselves.”28
Basilideus, the Gnostic Master of Alexandria, stated that:
“He who can be named only in Silence,
Is adored only in silence.”
“For the place where there is envy and strife is deficient,
But the place where there is Unity is perfection.
When the Father is known, from that moment on,
The deficiency will vanish in the fusion of Unity.”29

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The Gnostics had a highly dualistic outlook, based on the
opposing forces of good and evil. They taught that only those in
whom the “pneuma”, the divine breath, had been revealed could
free themselves from evil. Their cosmogony was totally different
from that of the Church. They acknowledged seven creating
angels (the archontes) evoking the seven immortal saints of the
cosmogony taught by Zoroaster and the seven chakras of the
Indian traditions. Some Gnostics, particularly the Ophites and the
Perates, considered the Serpent to have been the world's first
gnostic. According to them, this Serpent possessed the primordial
knowledge, recalling the Neolithic symbol associated with the
Mother Goddess. Unlike the canons of the Church, the Gnostics
recognised the presence of the Mother, as well as the Father,
during the act of creation. They gave various names to the
Mother, including Sophia (Wisdom, Pronoia), Protennoia (the
first Being who confers the Holy Spirit), Epinoia (light), Sygee
(Silence) and above all the Holy Spirit (which, in the Gospel
according to Philip, is in feminine gender).

The Goddess
The Father is defined as the first principle, while the Mother
engenders creation in the image of the Father. “The light revealed
in the psychic and material realm is due to the power of the
Mother. The masculine aspect of the Divine remains within the
realm of the pleroma or heavenly world, thus remaining within
the realm of perfection, escaping any defect or corruption.”30
This definition is very similar to that given in the Vedanta, where
the Atma, the Principle of the Father who dwells in the heart, is
the silent witness.
The Gnostic version of the central prayer of Christianity, the
Lord's Prayer, was very different from the one we know today. In
the Gospel of the Perfect Life, an apocryphal document, Jesus

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Christ says to the apostles: “This is why it is necessary that you
pray: our Father Mother who are above us and within us, holy be
your name...”31 This version could be the original one.
A form of Sophia, not the Mother Goddess herself, is held
responsible for the differing interpretations of creation. This
form, which could be called the “lower form”, differs greatly
from the primordial Epinoia of Light, who comes to help restore
balance and order. The lower form of Sophia is no doubt based
on the interpretation of the Genesis story in which the eternal
feminine is discountenanced along with Eve.
Epinoia is the form of the Mother who permits emancipation and
grants salvation. Every man and woman possesses the power of
the Mother, which is also called the maternal spiritual principle:
“The Epinoia of Light is sent to awaken the Spiritual
Principle”.32
Other descriptions present Epinoia as the pure form of Sophia
sent by the Father to reveal knowledge and correct the faults and
imperfections of the lower beings.
The Apocrypha of John explains that he who knows the Father
and the Mother will be called, and he describes the Pronoia as the
one who confers baptism and revelation.33 “She is the power
which is the image of the invisible virginal Spirit, and is perfect.
She became the womb of everything, for it is she who is prior to
them all, the Mother-Father.”34
The Father-Mother is the gnostic equivalent of Parabrahma, the
undifferentiated God, as we saw in Part One.
Trimorphic Protennoia, the Goddess in three forms (recalling the
Triple Goddess of the Celts, Trigunatmika in Sanskrit and Athena
Tritogenoia of the Greeks) is one of the many names of the
Gnostic Goddess. She is described in one of the most important

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documents discovered at Nag Hammadi. This is a true hymn to
the Great Goddess, in many ways reminiscent of the Upanishads.
“I am the Voice that appeared through my Thought
For I am the Spouse.35
I am called the Thought of the Invisible One;
I am called the unchanged Speech,
I am unique and undefiled,.
I am the Mother and the Voice.36
Speaking in many ways,
Completing the All,
It is in me that knowledge dwells,
The knowledge of things everlasting.
It is I who speak in everything
and I was known by the All.”37
“0 Sons of the Thought, listen to me,
To the speech of the Mother of your mercy
For you have become worthy of the Mystery38
Hidden from the beginning, so that you become perfect.39”
“I am the image of the Invisible Spirit,
And it is through me that the All took shape.
I am the Mother as well as the Light
Which she appointed as Virgin40
She who is called Meirothea,
The unrestrainable and immeasurable Voice.”41
“I alone am the Word, ineffable, unpolluted,
Immeasurable, inconceivable,
Hidden Light, bearing a fruit of life,
Pouring forth a living water from
The invisible, immeasurable Spring42
That is the unreproducible Voice of the Glory of the Mother,
The Glory of the offspring of God,
The source of the All,
The Root of the entire Aeon,43
The Foundation that supports every movement of the Aeons,

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 The breath of the Powers,
The Eye of the three dwellings.” 44
And the word of the Goddess ends with an almost prophetic
message:
“And those who watch over their dwelling places45
Did not recognise me,
For I am unrestrainable
Together with my Seed,
And my Seed which is mine
I shall place into the Holy Light
Within an incomprehensible Silence.”46
The Church fathers, Hippolytus and Ireneus, who were the main
opponents of Gnosis, were particularly energetic in combating the
veneration with which the Gnostics held the eternal Mother. In
refuting these “heresies” they quoted from the prayers dedicated
by the Gnostics to the Goddess, thus enabling us to know of
writings that would otherwise have been lost:
“From Thee, Father,
And through Thee, Mother,
The two immortal names,
Parents of the divine being,
And Thou dweller in heaven,
Humanity of the mighty name.”47
The Gnostic Marcus the Magician wrote:
“May She who is before all things,
The incomprehensible Grace,
Fill you within,
And increase in you her own knowledge.”48
“From the power of Silence appeared a great power,
the Mind of the Universe,
who manages all things and is a male
The other a great Intelligence is a female
Who produces all things.”49

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The Bridal Chamber and the Holy Spirit
The gnostic writings, notably the apocryphal Gospels of Philip
and Thomas, grant a major place to the conjoining of two
principles, male and female, to explain the state of union with the
Divine. This union takes place in what the Gnostics often refer to
as the bridal chamber, an allegory depicting the final spiritual
centre, the Sahasrara. It is a union which opens up the awareness
of the Kingdom of God, the Pleroma.
“When you make the two one,
And when you make the inside like the outside
And the above like the below,
And when you make the male and the female one and the same
Then you will enter the Kingdom.”50
“When you make the two one,
You will become the sons of man,
And when you say: “Mountain move away”,
It will move away.”51
The most important part of the Gospel according to Philip
concerns the unifying of the female and male aspects, recreating
the Primordial Being. The bridal chamber is the place of spiritual
birth. Original nature is restored, and immortality ensured.
“The Father of All united with the Virgin who came down,
and a fire shone for him on that day.
He appeared in the great bridal chamber.”52
This reflects the union in the Sahasrara between Atma (Shiva, the
Father) and the immaculate energy, the Kundalini.
The Gospel according to Philip also makes a very clear
distinction between the Universal Spirit and the Holy Spirit, who
is always given the feminine gender. The Holy Spirit is the
governing power behind the cosmos.

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 “She, the Holy Spirit, shepherds everyone
And rules all the powers, both tame and wild.”53
“She, the Holy Spirit, blinded the evil powers
Which are disconcerting the saints.”54
In his analysis of the Gospel according to Philip, K. Rodolph
holds that the Holy Spirit is the Mother of the saints.
“The Holy Spirit is delivered through baptism
In order to give rebirth.”55
This proclamation that the Holy Spirit is the primordial Mother is
also found in other apocryphal writings which escaped the
censure of Paul and the early Church fathers.
The Gnostics had a highly developed system of knowledge,
similar, in many respects, to the Indian spiritual tradition. The
Mother Goddess was joyously celebrated and deeply venerated
by these early Christians, whose only fault was to possess
knowledge of truth which directly contradicted the doctrine of the
Church. For the Gnostics, the Mother was the one who gives
awakening, and this awakening results from the union of two
forms; one of them male, the Atma, and the other female, the
Kundalini. It is a union taking place in the bridal chamber, the
chakra of Sahasrara.
To conclude, here is another passage from the Trimorphic
Protennoia. Once again the Goddess is portrayed in multiple
aspects as the one who reveals the eternal secret, awakening the
sacred energy hidden within each of us. It is the Mother who
gives the Holy Spirit:
“I am the perfection of All,
That is to say Meirothea, the Glory of the Mother,
And I call you into the supreme and perfect light.
If you enter inside her
You shall be glorified by those who glorify,
And they shall give you the throne, those that give the throne,

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 You shall receive the Robe,
And they will baptise you, those who baptise,
And you will become the glory of the glories.”56
The basic nature of the eternal feminine element who gives the
Holy Spirit, the breath, has been effaced from the official version
of Christianity.

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Peter and Paul:
Two Deformers of Sprituality
The Problem of the Succession in the History of
Religion
Throughout history, no message has been so grossly distorted as
that of Christ. The practice and spirit of the Church, based on the
doctrine of Paul, shares little or nothing with what Jesus
expressed during his life on earth. Paul was not the only culprit in
this felony; there was also Peter, an ambiguous character,
designated, in certain biblical writings, as the successor to Christ.
At their deaths, great prophets and spiritual masters have all had
disciples who were ready to distort, or give only partial
interpretation of, their master's teachings. One of the most
celebrated of these figures is Abu Bakr, who succeeded the
Prophet Mohammed in spite of the fact that the Prophet himself
had expressly designated Hazrat Ali as his successor.
Hazrat Ali was the son-in-law of the Prophet and the husband of
his daughter, Fatima. At a very early stage, Mohammed
appointed him as his successor: “Ali is my brother, my
respresentative, my successor amongst you. Listen to him and
obey him.”57 Hazrat Ali was not a simple disciple like the others.
Islam calls him the Prophet's right hand. Mohammed revealed
that Hazrat Ali was of the divine essence, like the Prophet
himself: “Ali comes from me, and I come from him, that is to say
that each of us is a part of the same unique Heavenly Light.”58

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The aim of the Buddha was simply to show that every man can
achieve awakening, enlightenment. Mahakasyapa, however, one
of the first and closest disciples of the Buddha, took over the
direction of the Sangha when his Master died, and changed the
simple message of the Enlightened One into a most complicated
metaphysical system. The same can be said of Plato who
followed, and misreported the teachings of Socrates. In India,
Guru Nanak attempted to unite Muslims and Hindus in order to
abolish sectarianism and found a single, universal religion. His
successors, instead of following his road to unification and
simplification, created yet another religion, that of the Sikhs,
complicating the religious problems of the subcontinent still
further. Kabir fought against the caste system. Yet after his death,
his disciples created the caste of the successors of Kabir, the
Kabir panthi.
It should be noted that, with the exception of Hazrat Ali in Islam
and the first six patriarchs of Tchan (Zen), few authentic spiritual
masters have ever named their successors. Almost inevitably, at
the death of the master some ambitious individual nominates
himself, overcomes his fellow disciples (sometimes without being
aware of it) and sets himself up as leader.
The first six Patriarchs of Tchan succeeded each other in China
during the sixth century A.D.. Because of the limited number of
Tchan's disciples in the early days, no one undermined the
authority of the Patriarch. To be Patriarch was never a
comfortable position: Houei-Ko, who succeeded the founder
Bodhidharma, was condemned and executed for having
compromised one of the tenets of Buddhist orthodoxy. Others
were forced into hiding in order to escape persecution. It was
only from the time of Houei-Neng, when Tchan began to gain
importance, that the succession ceased to be designated. Hong-
Jen explained the reasons for the succession when he designated
Houei-Neng as the sixth Patriarch:

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“You are the sixth Patriarch. Take care of yourself and liberate as
many seekers as possible. Preserve and propagate the teaching. In the
beginning, when Boddhidharma came to China, most Chinese had no
confidence in him. And for this reason, and as a mark of witness, this
robe was passed down from one Patriarch to the next. But since the
robe may give rise to disputes, you will be the last to wear it.”

The Position of Peter

“Get thee behind me, Satan,
thou art an offence unto me.”
Jesus to Peter59
Jesus Christ did not explicitly designate his successor. The only
reference we have occurs in the Gospel of Thomas, where the
apostles asked Jesus who was to be their leader, when he was no
longer with them. He answered: “Wherever you are, you are to
go to James the righteous, because anything that concerns earth
and heaven concerns him.”60 Jesus did not appoint Peter as the
missionary leader who was to build the Church. Jesus did not say
that his disciples were to follow James, but rather that they were
to go to him, thus giving him the role of advisor rather than
leader. James was a measured and humble man, who posed no
risk of becoming authoritarian or dominating.
Because of the nature of the situation and the personalities
involved, Paul was given a unique opportunity to seize leadership
of the fledgling movement, whose future importance he foresaw.
It is obvious that there were disagreements between James, the
leader of the Christian community in Jerusalem, and Paul, the
leader of Hellenic Christianity.
The work of the Ecole Biblique of Jerusalem has made it possible
to trace the origins of the four Gospels. It has also demonstrated
how one of the chief concerns of the authors of much of the New
Testament, was to justify and give importance to the place

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occupied by Peter.61 This is why experts believe that the famous
phrase in the Gospel according to Matthew: “Thou art Peter, and
upon this rock, I will build my church.”62 is not authentic, and
was deliberately added to the original text. In fact, the statement
stands in contradiction to the Gospel according to Thomas as we
have seen, and to the attitude of Jesus towards this disciple.
Throughout the four Gospels, Peter is always the one who is sent
packing, sometimes in very harsh terms: “Get thee behind me,
Satan: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but the
things that be of men”.63 Matthew's version is scarcely more
flattering: “Get thee behind me, Satan, thou art an offence unto
me.”64 “Are ye also yet without understanding?”65 When Peter
asked him how often he should forgive, Christ answered him: “I
say not unto thee, until seven times: but, until seventy times
seven”.66 Christ is clearly trying to convey to Peter, with a certain
irony, that what counts is how sincerely one forgives, not the
number of times.
Peter always tended to give the wrong answers to Christ's
questions, revealing an crass lack of depth: “What thinkest thou,
Simon? of whom do the kings of the earth take custom or tribute?
of their own children, or of strangers?” Peter said unto him, “Of
strangers.”67
Peter again showed his weak faith in Christ when he attempted to
follow his Master over the water. Jesus admonished him severely:
“0 thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?”68 Peter’s
weakness and lack of dedication showed again in his denial of his
master. Less than twenty-four hours before the event, Christ had
warned him: “Verily I say unto thee, that this night, before the
cock crows, thou shalt deny me thrice.”69 John's account is even
harsher. When Peter insisted that he would lay down his life for
Christ's sake, Jesus answered him: “Wilt thou lay down thy life
for my sake? Verily, I say unto thee, the cock shall not crow, till
thou hast denied me thrice.”70 Later in St. John’s Gospel, Christ

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asks Peter three times whether he loves him, and predicts that at
the end of his life Peter will be led where he does not wish to go,
thus prophesying his terrible death. Far from trying to comfort
Peter, Christ speaks curtly: “Feed my sheep.... Follow me”,71 and
when Peter asks what will become of John “the disciple whom
Jesus loved”72 - and of whom he is obviously jealous - “What is
that to thee? Follow thou me!”73
The apocryphal gospels, discovered in Egypt, reveal other aspects
of Peter's misogynist and domineering personality. As the Gospel
according to Mary74 narrates, the disciples gathered together,
lamenting the crucifixion. They turned to Mary Magdalen for
consolation. She told them of her last sight of Christ when he
came to speak to her. At the end of her account, Peter and
Andrew were furious and rejected Mary Magdalen's story as pure
invention. Andrew said: “I at least do not believe that the
Saviour said this. For certainly these teachings are strange
ideas.” And Peter said: “Did he really speak with a woman
without our knowledge and not openly? Are we to turn about and
all listen to her? Did he prefer her to us?” Grieved by their
behaviour, Mary Magdalen answered them: “My brother Peter,
what do you think? Do you think that I thought this up myself in
my heart, or that I am lying about the Saviour?” Levi stepped in
to put Peter in his place: “Peter, you have always been hot-
tempered. Now I see you contending against the woman like the
adversaries. But if the Saviour made her worthy, who are you
indeed to reject her? Surely the Saviour knows her very well.
That is why he loved her more than us.” And Levi concluded that
one should be more humble and acquire the qualities of Christ in
order to preach the gospels.
In the Pistis Sophia, Peter once again stood up against Mary
Magdalen and complained that she was monopolising the
conversation with Jesus, having no regard for the supposed
“legitimate precedence” of Peter and the apostles. He warned

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Jesus to silence her: “Lord, we cannot support what this lady tells
us, and we wish to discuss what she is saying.”75 But Christ put
him in his place, expressing surprise at this outburst. Later Mary
Magdalen confided in Jesus that she hardly dared to speak to him
because, she said: “Peter stops me, makes me afraid, because he
detests all women.”76
At the end of the Gospel of Thomas, Peter asks Christ: “Let Mary
(Magdalen) leave us, for women are not worthy of life.”77 And
Jesus replied that he would lead her into the Kingdom of Heaven
himself by making her male (a metaphor, or parable, which
means he would give her Self-Realisation, that is the Spirit, the
Eternal Father).
Peter's thirst for power, and his authoritarian attitude towards the
other apostles, emerge again in the tone of his Epistle to Philip:
“Peter, the apostle of Jesus Christ, to Philip our beloved brother
and our fellow apostle and to the brethren who are with you:
greetings! Now I want you to know, our brother, that we received
orders from our Lord and the Saviour of the whole world that we
should come together to give instruction and preach in the
salvation which was promised us by our Lord Jesus Christ. But
as for you, you were separate from us, and you did not desire us
to come together and to know how we should organise ourselves
in order that we might tell the good news. Therefore would it be
agreeable to you, our brother, to come according to the orders of
our God Jesus?”78
We can sense here already inklings of the Inquisition, and the
fanaticism of discipline and dogma that, throughout its history,
the Church has constantly sought to impose in the name of Christ
and of God.
Peter's misogyny, his authoritarianism, and his cowardice show
him in a light very different to that of the saint which the Church
aims at presenting. In fact, Peter seems to have been one of

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Christ's most shallow disciples. And even had he been a good
disciple, it is most improbable that Jesus would have placed the
fate of spirituality into his hands, or indeed the hands of any
single, vulnerable man. But somehow Peter did take over the
leadership, and this allowed Paul to assume the role of defining
Christianity.
Peter was the first apostle Paul met when he reached Jerusalem.
In the Acts of the Apostles, Paul says that he remained with Peter
for fourteen days and saw no one else other than James. This
meeting was certainly decisive in drawing Christianity into
Pauline deviations. What did they do for two weeks? It is not
hard to imagine Paul, the Roman bureaucrat, manipulating Peter,
the fisherman. It was through Peter, who gave him entrance into
the close-knit world of Christ's early disciples, that Paul was able
to influence the entire New Testament, including the Gospels and
the Acts of the Apostles.
The Catholic Church and its doctrines have led a hundred
generations to believe that Peter holds the keys to Paradise, and
that he welcomes into Heaven those who pass from life to death.
But perhaps the keys he holds are those to hell, for Jesus
identified Peter with Satan?

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Paul
“This Paul is indeed a strange man. His soul is not the soul of a free
man. At times he seems like an animal in the forest, hunted and
wounded, seeking a cave wherein he can hide his pain from the world.
He speaks not of Jesus, nor does he repeat His words. He preaches the
Messiah whom the prophets of old had foretold.
And though he himself is a learned Jew, he addresses his fellow Jews in
Greek and his Greek is halting and he ill chooses his words.
But he is a man of hidden powers and his presence is affirmed by those
who gather around him. And at times he assures them of what he
himself is not assured.
We who knew Jesus and heard His discourses say that He taught man
how to break the chains of his bondage that he might be free from his
yesterdays.
But Paul is forging chains for the man of tomorrow. He would strike
with his own hammer upon the anvil in the name of one whom he does
not know.”
Khalil Gibran79
“And I noticed that there was a man standing near, and looking with
pleasure upon the stoning of Stephen. His name was Saul of Tarsus and
it was he who had yielded Stephen to the priests and the Romans and
the crowd, for stoning. Saul was bald of head and short of stature. His
shoulders were crooked, his features ill-assorted, and I liked him not. I
have been told that he is now preaching Jesus from the house-tops. It is
hard to believe. Still I do not like that man of Tarsus, though I have
been told that after Stephen's death he was tamed and conquered on the
road to Damascus. But his head is too large for his heart to be that of a
true disciple.”
Khalil Gibran80

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Paul is thought to have been of Jewish origin, and a member of an
upper-class family, since he wrote of being related to Herod. His
Roman citizenship, probably bought at a great price, allowed him
to change his original forename “Saul” to “Paul”. He was
probably brought up in the strict traditions of the Pharisees. He
was obviously well educated, which means that he must have
mastered Greek, the intellectual and international language of the
time. He claimed to have received the most advanced theological
training of the period from his teacher Gamaliel. Unfortunately,
Paul did not follow the tolerance of his Jewish master, but
became a fanatical opponent of the early Christian communities.
The Conversion on the Road to Damascus
In the early days of Christianity, Paul soon occupied an important
place. His epistles were written even before the Gospels were
compiled. And we know that even if Paul did not actually write
the synoptic gospels, the canonical writings nonetheless all bear
his mark.
The Ecole Biblique de Jérusalem has shown that the Gospels
were constructed from several sources, which they have named
Q, A, B, C, D. (see Illustration 35). “Pauline phrases” have been
identified in several places, notably in a document (Document B)
which was used in the writing of the Gospel according to Marc.
The final author of this document is also thought to be the person
who wrote the final version of Matthew and Luke. The Gospel
according to John was also constructed from these later versions,
demonstrating distortions of the text which supported the
doctrines of Paul.81 Even leaving aside the fact that half the New
Testament was written by Paul, his impact on Christianity has
been overwhelming. He was the first to define the doctrine of the
Christian Church - a doctrine which has little or nothing in
common, either in spirit or form, with the teachings of Christ.

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 Illustration 35:
The Influence of Paul on the Gospels
The conversion of Paul on the road to Damascus is one of the
greatest impostures of history. While Christ was alive, Paul was
nowhere to be seen. Later he busied himself having Christ's
disciples put to death. His zeal in persecuting the new faith knew
no bounds: “But Saul laid waste the Church, and entering house
after house, he dragged off men and women and committed them
to prison.”82
After Christ's ascension, Paul was supposedly called and chosen
to perpetuate a teaching he had not even followed. And,
conveniently for him, there were to be no witnesses to confirm or
dispute his account of his conversion. The crime was nearly
perfect. However a series of inconsistencies surrounding the
event, and the personality of Saul himself, contradict his claims
to be a witness and an apostle of Christ.

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Paul describes the event on four occasions, in four different ways.
In the Acts of the Apostles83, he says that “they that were with me
saw indeed the light, and were afraid but they heard not the voice
of him that spoke to me.” He states the great light fell on him
alone.
In another place84, the light is again said to have shone around
Paul, but this time it also fell upon those who journeyed with him.
Jesus said to him: “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?... Arise,
and go into Damascus; and there it shall be told thee of all things
which are appointed for thee to do.”85
Elsewhere the Acts state that Jesus started by asking the same
question, but went on to give a different and much longer speech:
“Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? It is hard for thee to kick
against the pricks. I am Jesus whom thou persecutest. But rise,
and stand upon thy feet: for I have appeared unto thee for this
purpose, to make thee a minister and a witness both of these
things which thou hast seen, and of those things in which I will
appear unto thee. Delivering thee from the people, and from the
Gentiles, unto whom now I send thee. To open their eyes, and to
turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan
unto God, and that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and
inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in
me.”86
As we can see in this second speech, Jesus no longer told Paul to
go to Damascus, although this had been the main point of the first
speech, as Damascus was where he was to be told everything. But
in the ultimate inconsistency, Paul states in his second Epistle to
the Corinthians87 that he heard words that cannot be told, and
which man may not utter. The words quoted in the Acts therefore,
are, presumably, pure invention.
It would be absurd to accept the conversion of Paul at face value.
Why would Jesus Christ ask a man who is persecuting his

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disciples to propagate a message which he quite obviously does
not know, having never met Christ? And why would Jesus ask
him to do so in total secrecy, with no witnesses? Furthermore,
Paul was an unbalanced individual, and this imbalance did not
improve after Damascus. Could not Jesus Christ have found
someone more suitable than a very disturbed Paul to spread His
great message?
Saul, a disturbed man
Epilepsy:
Paul was an epileptic. His fall from the horse on the road to
Damascus and the three days of blindness which followed88 are
typical of grand mal epilepsy - the “thorn in the flesh” he himself
describes: “And lest I should be exalted above measure through
the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn
in the flesh, the messenger of Satan, to buffet me, lest I should be
exalted above measure.”89 Furthermore, Paul's own description
earlier in the text: “whether in the body, or out of the body, I
cannot tell”90 clearly reflects the psychological nature of his
affliction.
In addition to his epilepsy, Paul was disturbed in other ways. He
himself admits to finding great satisfaction in the torture inflicted
on Stephen, and we are told in the Acts that Paul consented to his
death91. We are also told that he ravaged the community92. This
obstinate persecution of Jesus’ disciples indicates a profound
psychological imbalance.
The theologians of the Church tell us that the conversion of Saul
is an example par excellence of the redemptive power of God.
The conversions of Francis of Assisi and Bernard of Clairvaux
clearly demonstrate this humbling and joyous redemptive power,
but Paul's conversion only gave him a greater thirst for

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domination over his fellow beings, and transformed him from a
sadist into a sadomasochist.
Sado-masochism:
Paul's obsession with the flesh, as the seat of passion and sin,
reflects the inner distress of the man. As Gillabert points out in
his psychological study of Paul93, his sadomasochism is obvious:
“Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake and I complete
what is lacking in Christ's afflictions.”94 and: “Therefore I take
pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in
persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake: for when I am weak,
then am I strong.”95 and further:“We are made as the filth of the
world, and are the offscouring of all things.”96 His rhetoric
borders on blasphemy: “We are fools for Christ's sake!”97 The
only thing that interests him about Christ is the crucifixion. He
never mentions Rebirth, the fundamental message of Christ.
This sadomasochism had a terrible impact on the beginnings of
Christianity in its orthodox form. In their fanaticism, the early
Christians, persecuted as they were by the Romans, rushed to
become martyrs, hoping to share the suffering of Christ and attain
eternal life. The beliefs of the second century Church fathers,
notably Hippolytus, Ignatius, Irenaeus, Justin, Polycarp and
Tertullian, were unanimous:
“Let there come upon the fire, and the cross, and struggle with wild
beasts, cutting and tearing apart, racking of bones, mangling of limbs,
crushing of my whole body... may I but attain to Jesus Christ.”98
“You must take up your cross and bear it after your Master... The sole
key to unlock Paradise is your own life’s blood.”99
“Through suffering of one hour, they purchase for themselves eternal
life.”100
The Gnostics considered that this attitude was pointless, so they
suffered less persecution at the hands of the Romans. In contrast

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to the synoptic gospels, the gnostic writings place very little
importance on the sufferings of Christ on the cross. The Gnostics
believed the Messiah was pure spirit, his physical body being of
secondary importance. In the Second Treaty of Great Seth, part of
the Nag Hammadi writings, Christ talks of his cosmic dimension
and denies that he suffered on the cross.101
The Gnostics believed Christ died that humanity might be spared.
They thought it nonsense to believe that confessing one's faith
and being martyred could confer salvation102. “They fall into
their clutches because of the ignorance that is in them. For, if
only words which bear testimony were affecting salvation, the
whole world would endure this thing and would be saved. It is in
this way that they drew error to themselves.”103
The fathers of the Church did not forgive the Gnostics for having
escaped martyrdom. In his second Apology, Justin declared: “We
ignore whether they abandon themselves to licence and
cannibalism, but we do not ignore one of their sins: unlike the
orthodox, they are neither persecuted nor put to death as
martyrs.”104
When the Emperor Constantine chose the Catholic Church as
state religion, his early acts included two edicts, published in 326
and 333 A.D., prohibiting gatherings of gnostics and ordering
their gospels to be burned. The orthodox branch of Christianity
gained ascendancy over the Gnostic branch by seeking - and
gaining - the support of the Roman Empire’s political structure,
which took over the work of eliminating the subversive heretics.
Constantine’s own conversion was hardly an example of spiritual
discernment on the part of the Church. He had several members
of his family assassinated, including his own son. He had his wife
boiled alive, although she had previously saved his life during a
conspiracy. He further sullied his reign by extortion, and by the
weakness of his government. Having promised to spare the life of

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his comrade Licinius, whom he had defeated in battle, he had
him, and his son, put to death. He had prisoners of war thrown to
the circus beasts. Naturally the Church has preferred to forget
these facts, altough they are well known to secular historians.
After gaining the Emperor's acceptance, the Catholic Church took
over the centralised military power structures of the Roman
Empire, then in the throes of disintegration, to extend its
authority into distant lands. It was thus thanks to the Romans, the
assassins of Christ, that the Church established its supremacy
over the spirituality of the West. The history of Christianity could
have been very different if the well-known Gnostic master,
Valentinius, had been elected Bishop of Rome, instead of Pope
Pius I. (After his defeat in the election, Valentinius was
excommunicated.)
Paul’s sadomasochism, which permeated the Catholic Church and
distorted the basis of Christian mysticism, is equalled only by his
misogyny. He despised women and neglected the Eternal
Feminine.
Contempt for Women:
Luke gives considerable importance to the women in Christ's
entourage. Successively he describes Elizabeth, the mother of
John the Baptist, overjoyed to be expecting a child, the widow of
Naim whose tears moved Christ, Mary Magdalen who wiped the
feet of Jesus with her hair before anointing them with oil, Joanna,
Susannah, and the “daughters of Jerusalem”, who followed the
Master to Calvary.
Paul's relationships with women clearly reflect an inner
disturbance: “As in all the churches of the saints, let the women
keep silence in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak,
but should be subordinate as the Law says.”105 Thus Paul, who
had repudiated the Law, reintroduced it whenever it suited him.
“Let a woman learn in all submissiveness. I permit no woman to

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teach or to have any authority over men; she is to keep silent.”106
In his megalomania, Paul held himself up as an ideal, and as the
absolute authority. He laid down rules which Christ had never
established: “I wish that all were as I myself am.... To the
unmarried and the widows I say that it is well for them to remain
single as I do.”107 He reinterpreted Genesis: “Adam was not
deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a
transgressor.”108 His disdain for women knew no limits:
“...women should adorn themselves modestly and sensibly in
seemly apparel, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or costly
attire but by good deeds.”109 “For if a woman will not veil
herself, then she should cut off her hair; but if it is disgraceful for
a woman to be shorn or shaven, let her wear a veil! For a man
ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of
God, but woman is the glory of man.”110 Women interested him
only when they were not really women. He also made women
headless: “the head of a woman is her husband.”111 and he
usurped the role of the Creator to reveal that: “Neither was man
created for woman, but woman for man.”112
On the subjects of marriage and sexuality, Paul tells us that those
who marry will suffer the torments of the flesh and he
recommends his readers not to marry: “Are you bound to a wife?
Do not seek to be free. Are you free of a wife? Do not seek
marriage. But if you marry, you do not sin, and if a girl marries
she does not. Yet those who marry will have worldly troubles and
I would spare you that”113. Luckily very few people followed his
advice, otherwise we might not be here to read his epistles!
On marriage: “If the husband dies, she is free to be married to
whom she wishes, only in the Lord. But in my judgment, she is
happier if she remains as she is.”114 With what incredible
arrogance does Paul interfere in other's lives! His megalomania
knows no limit. In his Epistles, he writes: “He who loves his wife
loves himself.”115 He considers widows who think only of

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pleasure as dead.116 Women are of interest to him only if they
become nuns. His female recruits are therefore mainly widows
over sixty years old. “Let a widow be enrolled if she is not less
than sixty years of age, having been the wife of one husband.”117
Women interest Paul only when they have reached “canonical
age”, i.e. once they can no longer become wives or mothers. At
first he also accepted young widows, but he later abandoned this
practice as the new members proved too much of a distraction
from the celibate ideal118 and decided “I would have the younger
widows remarry.”119 To unmarried or widowed women who
could not control themselves, he grudgingly conceded marriage
with the infamous remark: “For it is better to marry than to be
aflame.”120 Apparently the lesser of two evils!
As good disciples of Paul, the fathers of the Church were to
display similar fury towards women, particularly in their assaults
on the gnostics: “The audacity of these heretic women knows no
limits! They have no reserve. They have no fear of teaching, of
taking part in discussions, of practicing exorcisms, of healing or
even of baptising!”121
In the same vein, Tertullian laid down, in his Precepts of
Ecclesiastical Discipline with Regard to Women:“Women are
strictly forbidden from speaking in the Church, and even more so
from teaching, baptising, making offrands...”122
It is impossible to find any trace of this misogynous ranting in the
words of Jesus. Many of his disciples were women, and some of
them, including Mary Magdalen, Martha, Joanna and Susannah,
occupied leading positions. He defended Mary Magdalen, saying:
“He that is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone at
her.”123 After the ascension of Jesus, women fulfilled key
leadership roles within the Christian groups, teaching,
prophesying and evangelising.

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Marriage, from which Paul tried to turn his disciples, is neither
condemned or discouraged anywhere in the words of Christ.
When Jesus himself attended the wedding at Cana, he expressed
no judgement. On the contrary, he said that in marriage man and
woman are united in God124. The Prophet Mohammed, wanting to
restore the balance after the distortion of Christianity, was to say
in the Koran: “Marry, those among you who are single.”125 What
a contrast between Paul's words about marriage and those of
Khalil Gibran, a great mystic poet of our own time:
“Marriage is the union of two divinities, that a third might be born on
earth. It is a union of two souls in a strong love for the ending of
separation. It is that higher unity which fuses the separate unities
within the two spirits. It is the golden ring in a chain whose beginning
is a glance and whose ending is Eternity.”126
These sublime words of Khalil Gibran elevate the soul towards
the inner Divinity, whereas those of Paul drag the mind down into
evil and sin.
The Absence of the Mother:
Paul's emotions are always near the surface, but he never
mentions his mother. Worse still, he never speaks of Mary, the
Mother of Jesus. And yet during his missionary journeys in the
company of Luke, he must have learned about the childhood of
Christ. Luke devotes a considerable part of his gospel to Mary
and the young Jesus: “Blessed are you among women.”127
For Paul, Christ is simply “born of a woman”128 and not the
result of immaculate conception as in Matthew. His omission of
the virginity of Mary must have been deliberate. It demonstrates
that, unlike the apostles, he did not accept the virgin birth, and
showed no respect for Mary, dismissing her almost vulgarly as
“woman”. The gospels, under the influence of Paul, show Jesus
as a disrespectful son: “Woman, here is your son.”129 Did Jesus

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Christ, who was the very principle of virtue, address his mother
in such a manner? One doubts it.
The only aspect of Christ's life which seems to concern Paul is
the crucifixion. From his analysis, Gillabert notes the gaping hole
in Paul's writing, the absence of the mother of Christ, the Virgin
Mary.130 He also notes that Paul never refers to nature, an
expression of the Mother in the collective unconscious. The sea
and the night are of similar significance in the collective psyche,
but Paul evokes only their hostile aspects, night being identified
with shadows, while the sea is considered only in the context of
disasters. There is a striking contrast between Jesus, whom we
see walking on the water, and Paul, who speaks of the sea as
someone shipwrecked131.
There is total opposition between the Gnostics, who venerated the
Mother, and the Pauline Christians, who never refer to her. Paul's
lack of success in Ephesus is revealing. There, in his evangelising
sermons, he challenged the worship of the Mother Goddess. From
ancient times Ephesus had been one of the main cult centres of
the Mother Goddess, under the name of Artemis. When Paul
attacked her cult, a riot broke out and he had to flee from a crowd
chanting: “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!”132 In fact Paul
was an ardent detractor of the old religion in general, and the
Great Goddess in particular. Paul continually attacked belief in
and worship of the Goddess: “Not only in Ephesus, but almost
throughout all Asia, this Paul persuaded and turned away a
considerable company of people, saying that gods made with
hands are not gods. And there is danger not only that this trade
of ours may come into disrepute, but also that the temple of the
Great Goddess Artemis may count for nothing, and that she may
even be deposed from her magnificence, she whom all Asia and
the world worship.”133

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Paul deliberately set aside anything remotely related to the
Mother - whether in her pagan or Christian form - and thus cut
himself off from any awareness of the intimate relationship that
men and women had enjoyed with the Eternal Mother from the
earliest times.
With the exception of Clement of Alexandria, the fathers of the
Church who succeeded him continued this misogyny, right down
to Paul VI who declared in 1977 that no woman could be a priest
“because our Lord was a man”134 and John Paul II who has
maintained that policy.
The Church which claims in its creed to be holy and Catholic
(meaning universal) has put on a pedestal two men, Peter and
Paul, who lack both sanctity and universality. Their hatred of
women and their attacks on the divine feminine aspect, the
Mother Goddess, make them largely responsible for
Christianity’s drift towards male chauvinism and dogmatism.

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Augustine and Original Sin
“Today the Church continues to revere
Augustine as a light,
whereas he was merely a firebrand
lighting the pyres.”
R. Girard135
Augustine and Paul are the main theological pillars of
Christianity. Augustine’s doctrine of original sin lies at the base
of Catholicism. His writings also had great influence on Calvin,
and through him a profound impact on Protestantism. Augustine
was particularly zealous in denigrating and condemning the
worship of the Mother Goddess in the pagan world.
Augustine had two things in common with Paul. At first, as a
fervent devotee of Manicheism, he attacked Christianity, which
he held in contempt. His position within Manicheism was similar
to that which Paul had held with regard to the Hebrew Law three
centuries earlier. And then, like Paul, his life was changed by a
religious crisis.
Augustine was a teacher of rhetoric in Rome and Milan. Later,
following his meeting with Saint Ambrose, he was converted, and
started writing and preaching about original sin - a spiritually
empty doctrine - which had a devastating effect on the
consciousness of the West. A highly emotional eccentric,
Augustine launched violent polemics against the pagans in
innumerable treatises, letters and sermons which recall Paul’s
prolixity and sectarian energy. His City of God is an apologia for

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Christianity, and a model of dogmatism, fanaticism and
intolerance. In it Augustine attacked the worship of the Goddess:
“The Mother Goddess has surpassed all her sons, not in
grandeur, but in crime. Even the monstrosity of Janus cannot be
compared to this monster. This abomination is not surpassed
even by the numerous and extremely grave licentious acts of
Jupiter. She has soiled the earth and appalled the heavens.”136
Let there be no mistake. Augustine does not limit himself to
attacking the worship itself of the Goddess, he launches a direct
assault on the Mother Goddess herself. The virulence of his
words reflects his contempt and intolerance of the simple and
pure devotion of millions of men and women for the Eternal
Mother. If, today, we were to criticise the repeated extortion
practised by the Church (see Appendix 3) or were to use the same
words as Augustine to attack Jesus Christ, Mary, or God the
Father, we would be accused of blasphemy. Augustine was a true
blasphemer, and not by chance has he become one of the main
foundations of the Church. He belongs to a tradition of
obscurantism, intolerance, and total disdain for the message of
Christ.
Christ spoke out against fanaticism and intolerance. He spoke of
the Father and the Mother. He said nothing about the worship of
the Goddess, but to say nothing does not imply disagreement. The
Son of Man was so vast, his stature so great, that had he thought
it important to denounce this cult, of which he certainly knew, he
would have done so. As he did not chose to do so, why do his so-
called followers?
The doctrine of original sin, which has become central to
Christianity, was invented by Augustine and developed from
Pauline writings. And of course women were to carry the burden,
since Eve was supposed to be the source of the sin which then
condemned the whole of humanity since its creation.

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The theory of original sin was derived from the central story of
Genesis, the temptation of Adam. Yet it was to develop largely
outside Judaism, which does not recognise any comparable
collective sin. On the contrary, within the Jewish religion, Israel
is the chosen people, raised to the dignity of royal rank. This
concept was shared by many Christians in the early centuries. For
instance, Gregory of Nyssa believed mankind was the living
image of the universal Sovereign137.
Augustine, through his early years, led a dissolute life. As he
recounted without shame in his Confessions, he was never able to
control his libido. In later life, his attempts to find equilibrium
were made all the more difficult by his determination to follow
Paul in his condemnation of marriage.
Like many people, when faced with major personal problems,
Augustine made no attempt to overcome his own difficulties,
preferring to transform them into the unavoidable forces of
destiny. The myth of the fall of Adam was distorted by a purely
sexual interpretation. Adam was tempted by Eve, and mankind is
born of the misbegotten union. Their children, living in sin, are
the fruit of this transgression, from which they cannot escape.
Each individual is subject, from a certain age, to sexual
temptation which he or she cannot control. Man is condemned by
an “original” sin which goes back to the first parent, Adam and
Eve. In his megalomania, Augustine attempted to reinvent what
procreation might have been if Adam and Eve had not sinned. He
calls his invention, “Procreation without passion, and controlled
by the will.” He admits that “the hypothesis of passionless
procreation controlled by the will has never been verified by
experience,” but adds that the hypothesis failed to be verified by
the only ones who could prove its validity, i.e. Adam and Eve. He
concluded that they sinned too soon, and were, therefore,
expelled from the Garden of Eden138.

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According to Augustine, only Christ escaped original sin since he
was born of a virgin. He said, “the children who die without
being baptised will be eternally punished after their death by the
torture of fire, torture earned not by the sin which they
themselves are guilty of, but by the original sin which they
acquired at their birth.”139
In this original sin, it is naturally the woman who is to blame. She
is the temptress, the one who lured Adam, and all humanity, to
disaster. For this reason, Augustine declares that “the wife is the
weaker part of the human couple,”140 and concludes, “a husband
is meant to rule over his wife as the spirit rules over the flesh.”141
One can only assume that the Spirit was not very strong in him,
for he constantly repeats, in his writings, that sexual passion
cannot be defeated.
The consequences of this doctrine, which has become a central
plank of the Catholic Church, have been very serious. The
transformation of sex, from a natural and normal part of life into
something soiled and a curse, made it impossible for society to
integrate sexual life into morality. Rather than being that part of
spiritual progress where sexuality finds its fulfilment, marriage
was simply seen as the lesser evil. The only recognised road to
sanctity was celibacy and the exclusion of family life. Sexuality
was morally discredited, buried in the shadowy realms of the
subconscious, until that day when a new dogma dawned, the
doctrine of Freud, which pushed society to another extreme, that
of unbridled sexuality, and so-called “sexual liberation”.
In addition, Augustine's negative assessment of man's ability to
control himself extended the hold of the Church over the masses,
and prepared the way for totalitarian distortion. Augustine was
the first to approve the use of force in order to impose the
doctrines of the Church.

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The Donatists, who clashed with Augustine, were attacked with
an intolerance prefiguring the Inquisition. Augustine, who was
Bishop of Carthage, plotted with the Roman authorities to pass
laws restricting civil rights. The Donatists were tried and
deprived of their administrative positions. Their bishops were
driven into exile; Augustine justifying the use of force as the only
way to overcome heretics142.
Bishop Pelagius, who hailed from Ireland, was a defender of
justice and truth. He taught the concepts of free will and the
dignity of Man as they had been defined by Origen a hundred
years earlier. In so doing, he opposed the Augustinian doctrine,
and called the concept of original sin an absurdity. For Pelagius,
Man was the masterpiece of creation. This attitude was anathema
to Augustine. First he attacked Calestius, a disciple of Pelagius,
as a heretic. When that succeeded, he obtained, in 417 A.D.,
Rome's condemnation of Pelagius himself.
Augustine's theory was even more misogynous than Paul's. It was
Augustine who claimed that woman was not made in the image of
God143 and had no soul144. In the Judaeo-Christian tradition, Eve
was represented as the Original Mother, but Augustine's radical
reinterpretation of the Old Testament reduced Eve to the level of
a stain on the whole of humanity.
In his defence, one might argue that misogyny was a widely held
attitude, and that Augustine was simply reflecting the spirit of his
times, but this is far from the truth. His narrow view of women
was not shared. Among the gnostics, women had social roles
equivalent to that of men. Furthermore, the gnostics interpreted
the myth of Adam and Eve in a way that was in total conflict with
the Catholic Church. In the gnostic text The Hypostasis of the
Archons, Adam recognised the spiritual power of the Universal
Mother. “It is you who has given me life, it is you who is my
mother.”145 This text recounts that the Goddess entered the

171
serpent in order to teach Eve that mankind was to seek the Tree
of Knowledge in order to be able to tell truth from falsehood, and
become like gods. “The female spiritual principle came in the
snake, the instructor, and said, ‘with death you shall not die;
rather your eyes shall open and you shall come to be like gods,
recognising evil and good’.”146 This interpretation of the myth of
creation reveals the image of Kundalini (the Serpent, the eternal
and spiritual Feminine Power) giving Self-Realisation, and
therefore Divinity, and bringing the enlightened discernment of
spiritual union.
This gnostic version can be compared with the Gospel of
Thomas, in which Jesus Christ perceives the serpent to be the
principle of wisdom, and not the agent of the fall of humanity147.

Illustration 36:
Michelangelo: Eve and the Serpent, Sixtine Chapel.

172
The Church’s Fight against the Worship
of the Goddess
Irenaeus of Lyon and Hippolytus of Rome attacked the gnostics
for their veneration of the Mother, as we have seen. And
Augustine, carried away by fanatical zeal, dragged Christianity
further towards intolerance, and justified the use of Roman force
to evangelise the masses. Throughout the first eight centuries of
its existence, the Church continued to battle, with devilish
determination, against all forms of worship of the Goddess. All
portrayals of the Goddess were to be destroyed. The writings of
many Christians, notably those of Gregory, Bishop of Tours
(538-594), describe the destruction of sacred images. He tells of a
procession148, common in the pagan rural world, in which the
Earth Mother was asked to bless the soil with fertility. The
origins of this sacred ceremony, in which her statue was carried
through the fields on a cart, dated back to Neolithic times.
Gregory of Tours recounts how Bishop Simplicius opposed the
procession and had the statue destroyed.
Most of the statues of the Goddess found in Gaul and Germany
were in a dismembered, decapitated, or disfigured state. Many
were found shattered at the bottom of Roman wells. Others were
used as stone for building. Medieval texts from the Carolingian
period vividly describe the ferocity of the battles against the
ancient Deity149. One of the main objectives of the early
missionaries, such as Saint Martin, was the destruction of the
sacred images. In the ninth century, the fathers of the Church

173
mounted massive attacks on the veneration of the Mother
Goddess, describing it as demonic ritual practice.
Consequently, it became more and more dangerous, even
suicidal, to venerate God in the feminine form. During the
periods of conversion between the fourth and eighth centuries,
the peasantry had to hide their statues, frequently burying them.
The only way to escape this inquisition was to transform the
Goddess into a Christian saint, and link her with Christ. This led
to widespread veneration, by entire populations, of Mary, as a
replacement for Cybele, Isis, Minerva and Astarte. The Goddess
Brigid became Saint Bridget, while Danu became Saint Anne.
Saint Geneviève, the patron saint of Paris, and Saint Odile of
Alsace, both of whose stories consist largely of legends, are
transformations of the Goddess. When major calamities befell
Paris - such as the Great Plague of 1129 - a statue of Saint
Geneviève was taken on a cart throughout the streets. The ending
of the plague was then attributed to her. The parallel with pagan
processions in honour of the Goddess is perfectly clear.
It is therefore thanks to the Church that our Western world has
forgotten the Divine Goddess as an integral part - with the Father
and the Son - of the Holy Trinity. The Church was built by men,
such as Peter, Paul, the Emperor Constantine, Augustine and
other “Fathers” who had no true spiritual dimension, and who
commandeered the message of Christ to gain power and
domination over the masses. Since the Church was the only
spiritual authority for over nineteen centuries, the psycho-
pathological imbalance of the man from Tarsus, and the
intolerance of his successors, greatly affected the spiritual
development of the West.
Happily, popular fervour, and the love of simple hearts for the
Eternal Mother, were able to find an outlet in the veneration of
Christ's Mother. The feminine archetype was preserved in

174
religious and spiritual consciousness through the cult of Mary. Of
course, Mary was never acknowledged to be divine. (Mechthild
of Magdeburg, a 12th century German mystic, is almost alone in
referring to Mary as “Goddess”.) The Mother Goddess-Holy
Spirit relationship was totally ignored, until Jung rediscovered it
in the twentieth century.
Although Christian theology forbids the recognition of Mary as
the Goddess, popular piety grants her all the attributes of the
ancient Goddess. Mary holds the ranks of Sovereign, Empress of
the Universe, and Queen of Heaven. As the redeemer of mankind,
she occupies a unique position. She recovers her highest function
which is to confer mystical grace, religious union or “yoga” on
her devotees. In this, Mary resembles the Great Goddess as she is
venerated in Asia: the Adi Shakti in India, and Quan Yin in
China.

1
Robert Graves, Celtic Myths, The White Goddess, op. cit., p. 559.
2
I Thessalonians 5:27 and Colossians 4:16.
3
W. Nestle: Krise des Christentums (Stuttgart 1947) p. 89.
4
A. F. J. Klijn, Acts of Thomas (Leiden 1968) p. 77.
5
John 18:26.
6
A. F. J. Klijn, op. cit., p. 211.
7
Ibid, p. 91-245.
8
Aphraats Sapientis Persae Demonstrationes, J. PS. I. II, I’ 489. (Paris 1894-
1907).
9
R. Murray, Symbols of Church and Kingdom, A Study in Early Syriac
Tradition (Cambridge 1975) p. 143.
10
Ibid, Note 3 Page 43.
11
Ibid, Note 3 Page 318.
12
Ibid, p. 315.
13
Ibid, p. 315.
14
Ibid, p. 314.

175
15
F. Queré, Evangiles Apocryphes (Paris 1983) p. 57.
16
Ibid, p. 55.
17
Edward Bordeaux-Szekely, L’Evangile Essenien (Geneva) p. 257.
18
Ibid, p. 22.
19
Ibid, p. 20-21.
20
Ibid, p. 35.
21
Ibid, p. 194-195.
22
Ibid, p. 22.
23
M. Scopello, Les Gnostiques (Paris 1991) p. 10.
24
Ibid, p. 46.
25
Ibid, p. 113.
26
Ibid, p. 110.
27
James M. Robinson, The Nag Hammadi Library (hereafter NHL) (Leiden
1988) Thomas 2, p. 126.
28
The Gospel of Truth 18:15-21, NHL p. 43.
29
The Gospel of Truth 24:25, 6, NHL p. 40-41.
30
NHL XI 3, p. 491.
31
Rev. G. Ouseley and R. Müller, Das Evangelium des vollkommenen Lebens
(Bern 1974) 19, 2-3.
32
K. L. King, Images of the Feminine in Gnosticism (Philadelphia 1988) p.
174.
33
Apocryphon of John 6:29-31, NHL p. 108.
34
Ibid 4:34-37, NHL p. 107-108.
35
The Spouse of the Father, i.e. Adi Shakti.
36
The adjectives most commonly used in Sanskrit literature to describe the
Goddess are “unique” (Ekakini) and “pure” (Nirmala).
37
The Trimorphic Protennoia 42:3-14, NHL p. 517.
38
It is the Mother who reveals the mystery, that is Self Realisation.
39
Ibid 44:30-34, NHL p. 518. The awakening of the Kundalini, who gives
inner purification, is the only way of reaching perfection.

176
40
The Kundalini before she has been awakened and united to the Spirit is the
Virgin (Gauri in Sanskrit). The Kundalini is the inner Virgin, and it is she who
gives light to illuminate the subtle being.
41
Ibid 38:11-16, NHL p. 515.
42
Various allegories of the Kundalini.
43
The primordial Kundalini, that is Adi Shakti.
44
Ibid 46:11-29, NHL p. 520.
45
Those who have not sought spiritual awakening.
46
Ibid 50:15-20, NHL p. 521. The silence is thoughtless awareness, called in
Sanskrit Nirvichara.
47
Elaine Pagels, The Secret Gospels (Paris 1982) p. 93.
48
Ibid, p. 93.
49
Ibid, p. 95.
50
Thomas 22, NHL p. 129 This refers to the union of the Spirit and the
Kundalini within the Sahasrara.
51
Thomas 106, NHL p. 137. The two becoming one is an allusion to the Spirit
and the Kundalini.
52
Philip 71:3-15, NHL p. 152.
53
Philip 60:15-33, NHL p. 146.
54
K. Rudolph, in Images of the Feminine in Gnosticism, op. cit., p. 234.
55
Ibid.
56
Ibid.
57
M. Lings, Le Prophète Mohammed (Paris 1987) p. 67.
58
S. S. Husayn, Histoire des Premiers Temps de l’Islam (Paris 1991) p. 125.
59
Matthew 17:23.
60
Thomas 12, NHL.
61
P. Benoit, M. E. Boismard, Synopses des quatre Evangiles (Paris 1972).
62
Matthew 16:17-19.
63
Marc 8:27-33.
64
Matthew 16:23.
65
Matthew 15:16.

177
66
Matthew 18:21-22.
67
Matthew 17:25-27.
68
Matthew 14:30-31.
69
Matthew 26:34.
70
John 13:38.
71
John 21:17-19.
72
John 21:20.
73
John 21:22.
74
Berlin Codex: Gospel of Mary, NHL p. 254.
75
Pistis Sophia 36.
76
Pistis Sophia 71.
77
Thomas 114, NHL p. 138.
78
Epistle of Peter to Philip, NHL p. 431.
79
Kahlil Gibran, Jesus, The Son of Man (London 1976) p. 64.
80
Ibid, p. 74.
81
Gillabert, Le Colosse aux pieds d’argile (Metanoia 1974) p. 197.
82
Acts 18:5.
83
Acts 22:9.
84
Acts 26:13.
85
Acts 22:7-10.
86
Acts 26:14-18.
87
II Corinthians 12:4.
88
Acts 9:3-9.
89
II Corinthians 12:2-9.
90
Acts 8:1.
91
Acts 8:3.
92
I Colossians 4:13.
93
Gillabert, op. cit., p. 100.
94
Colossians 1:24.
95
II Corinthians 12:10.

178
96
I Corinthians 4:13.
97
I Corinthians 4:10.
98
Ignatius: Romans 6:3.
99
Tertullian, De Anima 55.
100
Elaine Pagels, The Gnostic Gospels, op. cit., p. 139.
101
The Second Treatise of the Great Seth 56:6-19, NHL p. 365.
102
The Witness of Truth 31:22 - 32:8, NHL p. 450.
103
Ibid, 32:22 - 34:26, NHL p. 450.
104
Justin, Apol. I, 26.
105
I Corinthians 2:6-10.
106
I Timothy 2:11,12.
107
I Corinthians 7:7-8.
108
I Timothy 2:14.
109
I Timothy 2:9.
110
I Corinthians 6:7.
111
I Corinthians 11:3.
112
I Corinthians 11:9.
113
I Corinthians 7:27-28.
114
I Corinthians 7:38.
115
Ephesians 5:25-28.
116
I Timothy 5:5.
117
I Timothy 5:9.
118
Gillabert, op. cit., p. 153.
119
I Timothy 5:14.
120
I Corinthians 7:9.
121
Pagels, op. cit., p. 104.
122
Ibid, p. 104.
123
John 8:7.
124
Matthew 19:6.
125
The Koran, Surah 24, 32.

179
126
Kahlil Gibran, La Voix du Maître (Québec 1988) p. 56.
127
Luke 1:42.
128
Galatians 4:5.
129
John 19:26.
130
Gillabert, op. cit., p. 47.
131
Ibid, p. 46.
132
Acts 19:28.
133
Acts 19:27.
134
Cited in Pagels, The Gnostic Gospels, op. cit., p. 115.
135
Rene Girard, Les trahisons de l’Eglise contre les peuples (1989) p. 49.
136
Augustine, The City of God, 7, 26.
137
Gregory of Nyssa, De Hominis Opificio, 2, 1.
138
Augustine, op. cit., 14, 26.
139
Augustine, quoted in Girard, op. cit., p. 143.
140
Elaine Pagels, Adam, Eve, and the Serpent (London 1990) p. 114.
141
Ibid.
142
Ibid, p. 124.
143
E. & G. Strachan, Freeing the Feminine (Dunbar 1985) p. 122.
144
E. C. Whitmont, The Return of the Goddess (London 1987) p. 124.
145
The Hypostasis of the Archons 89:13-17, NHL p. 164.
146
Ibid 31-90, 12, NHL p. 165.
147
Thomas 39, NHL p. 131.
148
P. Berger, The Goddess Obscured (Boston 1985) p. 34.
149
Ibid, p.31.

180
3. Mary and the Resurgence
of the Eternal Feminine
“Our Savior is indeed our Mother.”
Julian of Norwich1

181
 Illustration 37:
Velasquez: the Coronation of Mary, Prado, Madrid

182
Mary, Mother of God
In spite of all the efforts of Paul, Augustine and the Fathers of the
Church to eradicate the cult of the Goddess, the faith of the
people in the Eternal Feminine survived, finding an outlet in the
worship of the person of Mary. The cult of the Virgin became
established in the fifth century, to develop with full splendour in
the Middle Ages. This ground swell of Marial worship was not
based on scripture. The gospels make little reference to Mary,
and she is never spoken of in Paul's writings. The only texts in
which the Virgin is mentioned are the early chapters of the
gospels of Matthew and Luke, and even then their purpose is
primarily to announce the miraculous birth, rather than glorify
Mary.
The cult of Mary was to develop mainly from two great cities,
both of which had been major worshippers of the Mother
Goddess - Alexandria and Ephesus. Alexandria was a particularly
important gnostic centre. Here, Philo developed the mystical link
between Wisdom in the Old Testament and the Eternal Mother.
Great teachers, such as Clement and his disciple Origen, who
were pioneers in the devotion to Mary, also flourished in
Alexandria. Ephesus had been the home of Diana’s veneration
throughout the classical period. Tradition has it that the Virgin's
death occurred at Ephesus, and that her tomb is located near that
of Saint John. The Ephesians showed an enthusiastic devotion for
Mary, replacing their previous fervour for Artemis which had
nearly cost Paul his life.

183
A Council of the Church met in Ephesus in 431 A.D. to define
the place of Mary in the fledgling religion. Cyril of Alexandria
delivered a sermon in which he described Mary as “the Mother
and Virgin through whom the Trinity is glorified and venerated,
the heavens triumph, the angels rejoice, temptations are
overcome, and fallen creatures raised to the heavens.” At this
Council Mary was established in the eminent position of
Theotokos, “Mother of God”. (This title goes back to Origen, but
until the fifth century it does not seem to have been used outside
Egypt.)
In view of the distinctive environment of the city - the Bishop of
Ephesus himself shared the devotion of his fellow citizens - any
attempt to contest Mary's title as “Mother of God” would have
been considered blasphemous. Bishops who disagreed with the
conferring of this leading role on Mary found it difficult to
express their point of view.
Gradually, Mary was to assume all the attributes of the pagan
goddesses. She replaced Athena as Protectress of cities, Isis as
Queen of Heaven and Star of the Sea, and Cybele as Guardian of
Rome. This assimilation made a remarkable impact on Christian
art. The Byzantine image of the “Madonna and Child” is a replica
of one showing Isis with her son Horus on her lap. The crown of
Mary bears turrets like those of the goddess Cybele. Some
representations are similar to those of Athena carrying the
Gorgon on her breast. Churches dedicated to the Virgin Mary
were built on, or near, the sites of pagan temples in Rome, in
Greece and in Gaul. Santa Maria Antiqua, for example, stands in
an area consecrated to Athena, while Santa Maria Sopra Minerva,
near the Pantheon was, as its name suggests, a reconsecrated
pagan sanctuary. In Athens, on the hill of Athena, the
Erechtheion was rededicated to the Virgin Mary, and the
Parthenon, according to an ancient epigraph which has since been
lost, was dedicated to Sophia, Holy Wisdom. In the fifth century

184
Soisson, the temple of Isis, was dedicated to the Mother of Jesus.
In Autun, processions in honour of Cybele (the last of which took
place in 410) were revived in honour of Mary. The newly
converted masses spontaneously substituted the Virgin Mary for
the pagan deities they had hitherto worshipped. The many black
Virgins of the Merovingian period (500-750) reflect the link with
the great African Goddess Isis, imported into Europe by the
Romans.
Similarly, the cults of the female saints, Saint Anne in Britanny,
Saint Odile in Alsace, Saint Geneviève in Paris, and Saint Bridget
in Ireland, were all directly linked to the earlier cults of the
Goddess.
For several centuries the worship of Mary caused major
controversies among those in charge of the Church. These
disputes animated several councils, all of which attempted to
solve what appeared to be the prime problem - the Immaculate
Conception. But the controversies were just intellectual games,
irrelevant to popular devotion. Church dignitaries were unable,
through their intellect, to penetrate the subtle reality of Mary, and
the mystery of her presence in the hearts of the simple faithful.
Saint Bernard (1090-1153) was among the first to join in debates
concerning the Virginity of the Mother of Christ. The arguments,
as to whether Mary was or was not subject to original sin, he
denounced as sterile. What mattered to Saint Bernard was that the
Eternal Feminine in Mary be glorified.

185
Saint Bernard and Our Lady
Saint Bernard was an extraordinary character, the most important
spiritual authority of his time, perhaps of the entire Middle Ages.
He was the son of a noble Burgundian family. He had a happy
childhood, and went on to gain a comprehensive classical
education. His mother, reputedly a very virtuous woman, died
during his adolescence. For some years he led the worldly life of
a rich young aristocrat, but then, at the age of thirty, seeing the
limitations of the life he was leading, and with a number of
companions who were fired by the same ideals, he gained
admission to the Abbey of Citeaux. A short time later, he founded
the abbey of Clairvaux, and gained a reputation that spread
throughout Europe. Although he was only a humble monk,
vowed to a life of asceticism and poverty, he did not hesitate to
admonish the powerful, including popes. He attacked abuses and
stood up against bishops and abbeys - including the great abbey
of Cluny whose attachment to wealth and power he denounced.
For Bernard, the first step along the spiritual way to the inner
essence was self knowledge, which he contrasted with what he
called secondary and artificial knowledge. His teaching included
interpretations of sections of the Old Testament and the writings
of the Apostle John. In the Song of Songs he found a mystical
allegory expressing the union of the soul with God, and he spoke
at length of the Bride and Bridegroom.
For Bernard, as for all mystics, the purpose of life and of spiritual
growth was the union between the soul and God. He was torn
between his contemplative vocation and the duties which fell to

186
him. His contemplation of God was coloured by his intense
devotion to Mary. He was the first to give her the title, “Our
Lady”. Through his faith and his inner strength, Bernard was able
to bring the West out of the shadows that had been since the fall
of the Roman Empire. He travelled throughout Europe, undertook
a lively correspondence with the rulers of the time, and nurtured
his love for Mary. He revitalised the Cistercian order, turning it
from a handful of ageing monks into a powerful religious
congregation, with abbeys, all dedicated to the Virgin, from
Spain to the frontiers of Russia. Throughout Europe, cathedrals
rose to the glory of Our Lady, the Mother of God. Christ himself
took second place to his Mother! The soaring vaults and gothic
spires stretching up to the heavens, reached new heights,
expressing a dizzy fervour of faith and love.
For Bernard, Mary was the sole way to Salvation: She alone led
humankind to grace and union with the Father. As with the
gnostic spiritual tradition, Saint Bernard recognised in the
Universal Mother the key to redemption and knowledge. His
homilies reveal his boundless admiration for the Mother of
Christ:
“The angel awaits the reply:
It is time to return to Him who sent him.
Poor miserable ones,
Who writhe under a sentence of condemnation,
We also wait from you, O Great Lady,
The word of pity!
Behold! Into your hands we place the ransom of our Salvation.
If you accept, we shall be freed immediately!
We were all created in the eternal word,
Yet here we are present, perishing.
A single word from you and we shall be cured, brought back to life.
Virgin and tender heart, poor Adam and his pitiful posterity
Beg you to say yes.

187
 Abraham, David and all the patriarchs,
Your ancestors who live in the shadows of darkness
Beg you to say yes.
The whole world, bowing at your feet,
Begs you to say yes.
Ah! How right they are,
When one thinks that suspended from your lips by a single word
Is the consolation of the miserable,
The Redemption of the prisoners,
The freedom of the condemned:
Indeed the salvation of all the sons of Adam,
Of all those of your race.
Quickly, Oh Virgin, give the awaited reply!
Oh Great Lady, say the word which
The Earth, Hell, and those in the Heavens await.
The King of the Universe, the Lord himself,
He, Who was in such admiration of your Beauty,
Now also awaits eagerly for your favorable reply:
He has made it the requisite condition
For the Salvation of the World.”2
Mary is invoked as the one who intercedes between God and
humankind. She alone confers grace and freedom not only to
Bernard's disciples, but to all humanity. Like the Gnostics, Saint
Bernard based his spirituality on experience rather than on
analysis and reflection. His contemplation allowed him to
perceive the inner reality of Mary. The metaphors in one of his
homilies, in which he speaks of the Tree of Jesse, are couched in
terms which are strangely reminiscent of the Kundalini.
“Oh Virgin, slender stem,
To what heights do you raise your head?
To “Him who is seated on a Throne”,
To the Lord of Majesty?

188
 In this, there is no surprise,
For you push deep into the Earth
The roots of humility.
Oh truly heavenly plant,
More precious and more holy than all others,
Oh true Tree of life,
Who alone was worthy of bearing the Fruit of Salvation!”3
It is no coincidence that Bernard of Clairvaux was also the
founder of the Knights Templar. Established in Troyes in 1128,
this order appears to have been the only western spiritual
movement to have been aware of the presence of a holy entity
within the sacrum.

189
The Templars and the Kundalini
The Order of the Temple was founded, under the inspiration of
Bernard of Clairvaux, by nine knights returning from Palestine.
These knights had just spent ten years in Jerusalem, at the palace
of Baldwin II, which stood on the site of Solomon’s Temple,
hence the name, “Knights of the Temple”. Their mission in
Palestine remains one of history's mysteries. Why did these
important and responsible men suddenly become monk-soldiers,
vowed to chastity and obedience? Hugh of Payns, a leading
officer of the House of Champagne, was one of the Order's
founders, and its first Grand Master. Hugh of Champagne, one of
France's senior lords, was Great Suzerain. Another Knight of the
Temple was Montbard, Saint Bernard’s uncle. Their Rule,
composed by Bernard, was entirely dedicated to Our Lady.
The initiation ceremony of the Templars included a novel ritual.
The Master kissed the base of the spine of the future knight. This
ritual gesture demonstrated that the Order was aware of the
sacred energy located at this spot, an energy they aimed to
awaken.
The names of the places where the Templars established
themselves share a common feature: many of them contain the
French word “épine” or spine, referring to the dorsal spine along
which the Holy Spirit rises. In France Lepinay (the fief of Hugh
of Payns, which means “the place of the Spine”) Epinay, Epinac,
L’Epinay, Bois l'Epine, Epinay sur Orge, Courbepine, Belle
Epine are all examples. The area to the south of Paris contains
particularly many place-names stemming from this root.

190
For the Templars the most important Christian feast was not
Christmas or Easter, but Pentecost, or Whitsunday, since it
celebrated the day the apostles of Christ received the Holy Spirit
with the awakening of the Kundalini.
How did these first knights acquire such knowledge? This
remains a mystery. But most likely they had contacts with holy
men of other religions, notably the Sufis. The Middle East was at
the time a cross-roads of communication between Europe and
Asia, and it is known that the Naths, Indian mystics who knew
about Kundalini, travelled abroad to further and share their
knowledge. A temple has been discovered in Persia which was
founded by one of the Naths. Or Sufis, realised souls having
attained the knowledge, could well have handed it on to the first
Templars. And possibly, during the decade the nine original
Knights of the Temple spent in Jerusalem, they may have had
access to ancient manuscripts containing knowledge lost since the
early days of Christianity (Gnostic, Essene, or other texts). It was
the faith of these men, and the financial might of the Temple,
which brought about the budding, thoughout Europe, of the
Gothic Cathedrals dedicated to Our Lady.
Later the Church and the King of France, wishing to confiscate
the Templars’ wealth, banned the order. The Inquisition
construed the kiss of initiation, originally a simple act of devotion
to awaken the Kundalini, as an obscene practice, and a
convenient pretext to imprison and torture the knights. Before
their death, the dignitaries of the Temple, imprisoned in Chinon,
composed their last prayers, all dedicated to Mary.

191
The Great Women Mystics of the
Middle Ages
In addition to the Templars and the enlightenment of a saint such
as Bernard of Clairvaux, the Middle Ages saw the blossoming of
mysticism amongst woman saints. Although their spiritual
greatness was marginalized in western culture, this movement
grew to an extent unprecedented in western history. These saints,
who came from monasteries and convents from all over Europe
reawakened the flame of Eternal Love and abandoned the
fruitless intellect of the church theologians. Amongst them were
Clara of Assisi, Catherine of Siena, Mechthild of Magdeburg,
Hildegard of Bingen, Hadewijch of Antwerp, Marguerite Porette,
Julian of Norwich and many others. Through their piety and their
contemplative meditations, some of them rediscovered the
maternal aspect of the Divine.
Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179) had an unsettling vision of the
Universal Mother, a cosmic energy of which the description
recalls that of the Great Goddess Isis and triple potential of the
Goddesses of Antiquity. It is She who gives spiritual
enlightenment. The figure speaks to Hildegard in these terms:
“I am the Supreme Energy, the igneous Energy.
It is I who breathed fire into each spark of life.
All which comes from me is immortal. I decide all realities.
My upper wings encircle the Earth;
In wisdom, I am the giver of universal order.

192
 Indeed it is through me that all life awakens.
Without origin, without end,
I am this life which persists unchanging, eternal.
This life is God.
It is perpetual movement, perpetual operation
And its unity manifests itself in a triple energy.”4
Julian of Norwich (1342-1416) made numerous mentions of the
maternal aspects of God in her Revelations. The following words
clearly show the redeeming power of the Mother and the inner
union of the Mother and the Father, in other words of the
Kundalini and the Spirit:
“So in our Father, God almighty, we have our being; in our merciful
Mother in whom our two natures are united to make one perfect man,
we have our healing and restoration.”5

193
The Lady of the Troubadours
With the growing devotion to Mary, the position of women in
society was changing. Women were no longer considered to be
inferior creatures, devoid of soul, as defined by Augustinian
Catholic doctrine. Poets began to sing their praises. Troubadours
in southern France created lyric poetry with an accent on
chivalry. It was one of the West's earliest literary forms, which
reached its full flowering in the poetry of Dante. The
Troubadours, capitalising on this new awareness in western
civilisation, focused the early longings for a new world. This
naturally challenged the decadent religious structure of the
Church. The Troubadours were among the first to use the art of
satire, defying the existing religious order. Here is one example:
“The clerics call themselves shepherds and seem to be holy, but they
are killers! Clerics have gained power by stealing and deceiving,
through hypocrisy, preaching, or force. I am speaking of the false
priests, who have always been the greatest enemies of God. The greater
they are, the less they are worth and the more foolish they are!”6
The Troubadours had an idealised vision of the beloved woman.
The Lady who inspired such love had to have most precious
qualities. She had to be a marvel of wisdom and virtue - Lady
Perfection. In fact it was a search for the Eternal Feminine rather
than a search for the beloved:
“My Lady is sought after in the highest of heavens. Now, I wish to
share with you some of her qualities: when she meets someone worthy
of beholding her, that person feels the full power of her virtues. And if
she happens to honour him with her greeting, she transforms him into

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one so modest, so honest and so good that he even loses memory of all
trespasses committed against him.”7
The poetry of chivalry was transformed into religious poetry,
with Mary occupying the pinnacle of adoration. In most cases,
the language of the poets was already so pure and noble that there
was little need to change it:
“Oh Virgin, in whom I have placed my love,
If it pleases you to hear my fervent prayer,
Never need I fear lacking in perfect joy.
In praising you, no-one can deform the truth
For you are the flower of true Knowledge,
Flower of beauty, flower of true pity.”8
Devotion to the Eternal Feminine was to be the inspiration of
great poets such as Dante and later, during the Renaissance, of
great painters whose works remain loved and respected world-
wide.

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Dante and Beatrice
Dante, hesitating at first between Italian and Provençal, wrote in
the language of the Troubadours, and took poetry to new mystical
heights. In his Divine Comedy, it is Beatrice who shows the Way
to spiritual elevation. She crosses the heavens revealing such
great merits that the Eternal Master himself is dazzled. Beatrice
rises to the highest heaven, where souls enjoy peace. This
elevation of Beatrice can be read as the unconscious symbolising,
by Dante, of the ascension of the Kundalini through the various
chakras. When Dante enters Paradise - Sahasrara - his ecstasy
reaches its climax. Here he sees the greatness of the Cosmic
Mother in the features of Mary, who reigns as Queen of Heaven,
and who grants Grace, the Ambrosia of mystical experience:
“O Virgin Mother, daughter of thy Son,
Created beings all in lowliness
Surpassing, as in height above them all.
Term by the eternal counsel preordained,
Ennobler of thy nature, so advanced in thee,
That its great Maker did not scorn
To make Himself his own creation.
For in thy womb rekindling shone the love reveal'd
Whose genial influence makes now
This flower to germinate in eternal peace:
Here thou to us, in charity and love,
Art, as the noon-day torch; and art, beneath,
To mortal men, of hope a living spring
So mighty thou art, Lady, and so great,
That he, who grace desireth,
And comes not to thee for aidance,

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 Fain would have desire
Fly without wings. Not only him who asks,
Thy bounty succours; but doth freely oft
Forerun the asking. Whatsoe’er may be
Of excellence in creature, pity, mild,
Relenting mercy, large munificence
Are all combined in thee. Here kneeleth one
Who of all spirits hath review’d the state,
From the world's lowest gap unto this height.
Suppliant to thee he kneels, imploring grace
For virtue yet more high, to lift his ken
Towards the bliss supreme.”9
“O eternal beam!
Yield me again some little particle
Of what Thou then appeared'st;
Give my tongue Power, but to leave one sparkle of Thy glory,
Unto the race to come, that shall not lose
Thy triumph wholly, if Thou waken aught
Of memory in me, and endure to hear
The record sound in this unequal strain.
Such keenness from the living ray I met,
That, if mine eyes had turn’d away, me thinks
I had been lost; but so embolden’d on
I pass’d, as I remember, till my view
Hover'd the brink of dread infinitude.”10
This is one of the most lofty mystical texts of western
civilisation, and in it, Beatrice and Mary combine the attributes of
the Inner Mother (Kundalini) with those of the Cosmic Mother
(Adi Shakti).
The cult of Mary has developed from the Middle Ages to our own
times. Often her veneration has eclipsed God the Father and
Christ, the Son of God. The number of churches, cathedrals and
pilgrimages dedicated to Mary is obvious evidence of this. Mary
is the central figure in most of the great paintings of the
Renaissance. The Assumption, the last dogma defined by the

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Church in 1950, was concerned with the Ascension of the Virgin,
although it, like so much that surrounds the Marial cult, has no
historical basis. This dogma does, however, reflect the change of
the archetype in the Collective Unconscious. It is preparation, in
the collective psyche, for the ascension of the inner Virgin - the
Kundalini.
The cult of Mary, basic to western culture, is a consequence of
the need of the collective psyche for a representation of the
Eternal Feminine, which allows each individual to pursue
spiritual progress in equilibrium between yin and yang, devotion
and reason. As Jung explained in his Reply to Job, Mary fully
satisfies the need for an archetype of the Mother Goddess, even
though she does not have this title. Mary is the one who makes it
possible to attain eternal grace. One of her Latin titles is Regina
Salutis. Mary is the Redeemer of humanity and, in virtue of this
supreme function, is similar to the Great Goddess of India. The
cult of Mary was born of popular and mystical piety, as was the
Shekinah in Judaism, and Quan Yin in Buddhism.
Inevitably, the cult of Mary was attacked by Protestantism on the
grounds that it had no basis in history. Luther, however, had great
respect for the Virgin, and kept her at a distance from his violent
polemics against the papacy. His disciples however, who
included Calvin, did not follow their Master in this respect, and
discontinued the worship of Mary. Jung was to say:
“Protestantism is reduced in a rather odious fashion to be only a
religion of men who do not recognise the mystical representation
of Woman.... We can only account for this incomprehension by
observing that the dogmatic symbols and the hermeneutic
allegories have lost their meaning for protestant rationalism”11.
Even the rationalism of the Century of Enlightenment was unable
to free itself entirely from the grip of the feminine archetype. In
France after the Revolution, representations of the republican

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ideal, such as liberty, democracy, and the Republic itself were all
representations of the Goddess which had welled up from the
Collective Unconscious. The statue of the Republic in Paris (at
the centre of the Place de la Republique) is surrounded by lions
as was the Goddess Cybele before her. The Statue of Liberty
carries a torch to illuminate mankind spiritually.

1
J. of Norwich, The book of Revelations (Paris 1992) p. 197.
2
Ibid, p. 27.
3
Ibid, p. 30.
4
R. Pernoud, Hildegarde de Bingen, Paris, 1994, p. 99-100.
5
J. of Norwich, Id. p.198
6
J. Véran, De Dante à Mistral (Paris 192) p. 19.
7
Ibid, p. 21.
8
Ibid, p. 51.
9
Dante, Paradise 33, 1-27.
10
Ibid, 33, 67-88.
11
C. G. Jung, Answer to Job (Paris 1964) p. 231.

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4. Freud

“The first precept was never to accept anything for true which I did not
clearly know to be such; that is to say, carefully to avoid precipitancy
and prejudice, and to comprise nothing more in my judgment than what
was presented to my mind so clearly and distinctly as to exclude all
ground of doubt.”
Descartes1

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“It is said of psychoanalysis that in 1909, Freud confided in
Jung, as he disembarked in the United States to give a series of
lectures: “They don't realise that we are bringing them the
plague”. The epidemic spread rapidly across the Atlantic.
America became the adopted homeland of psychoanalysis, at
least until the 1960s.”2 From America, the plague raged back into
Europe, local practitioners spreading the message of the Viennese
“Master”. The Freudian vision of life rapidly infected all levels of
society, except, perhaps, some conservative and catholic circles,
opposed on grounds more of dogma than of reason.
Freudian theory arrived precisely at a time when western society
was being plunged into confusion, as the moral doctrine the
Church had preached, if not practised, for two thousand years was
being called into question. A new sexual liberation had just
begun, and contraception was now readily available. The spread
of free education was encouraging new generations to question
everything: morality, history, tradition, social ideas, and above all
religion. Why should the evil that had led Adam and all mankind
to the Fall, and its consequent suffering, cause so much guilt and
fear of sin?
Freud, in his “all sexual” theory, swung western society from one
extreme to the other. His theory denied that life had any spiritual
or sacred dimension, and, with his notion of the Oedipus
complex, he shattered the purest of all relationships, that of
mother and child.
At the subtle level, the relationship between mother and child is
the same as that which exists between the Kundalini and the
seeker of truth. By denigrating the maternal principle and the
sacred principle, Freud, who was vainly attempting to resolve his
own neuroses, confused the way to psychological liberation -
something, which, by nature, can only be spiritual.

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Freudian Theory:
Religion in the Twentieth Century
“The idea gains ground that the doctrine and theory of psychoanalysis
has been the greatest intellectual confidence trick of the twentieth
century.”
P.B. Medawar, Nobel Prize in medicine3
“I believe that in future, man, in looking back on the past, will see in
our time an era of superstition associated with the names of Karl Marx
and Sigmund Freud.”
F.A. Hayek, Nobel Prize in economics.4

A century after its invention, psychoanalysis is being challenged

on scientific grounds, and criticised with regard to its clinical
efficacy. All scientific research conducted with any degree of
rigour has shown Freudian theory to be fraudulent. The value of
Freud's theory, which has never been possible to confirm
scientifically, stands only on the faith of his disciples.
Fundamental to this fraud is the attitude of Freud himself. His
approach to the problems he studied was totally void of
intellectual discipline. He described himself as a visionary, not a
scientist. “I am not really a man of science, not an observer, not
an experimenter, and not a thinker. I am, by temperament,
nothing but a conquistador - an adventurer, if you want to use the
word - with the curiosity, the boldness, and the tenacity that
belong to that type of being.”5 Freud even mocked scientific

202
discipline: “those critics who limit their studies to methodological
investigations remind me of people who are always cleaning their
glasses instead of putting them on and seeing with them.”6 Fuller
Torrey relates how one psychologist wrote to Freud to tell him
that he had found a scientific basis for his theory. Freud wrote
back saying that his theory had no need of validation.
Freud was opposed to the statistical comparison of groups of
patients which is basic to credibility in modern medicine. He held
that each patient was unique, and consequently that statistical
studies would be misleading. For this reason he preferred to deal
with his data case by case, the success of his treatment being, in
his eyes, sufficient to demonstrate the validity of his theory. This
fails for at least two reasons:
• The “placebo effect”. A patient treated with a placebo
(something the patient believes to be a medicament, but
which in fact contains no medicinal component) usually
shows some improvement, even in terms of purely physical
parameters such as blood pressure in hypertensive subjects, or
blood sugar levels in diabetics. This improvement is then
attributed to the therapy received by the patient, who feels
cared for and comforted. Clearly, if a placebo can improve
physical problems, it can have an even greater effect on
psychiatric disorders. In some cases an active drug may show
no more effect in tests than a placebo, indicating that the drug
is ineffective in treating the disorder it is intended to cure.
• The second reason is that psychiatric disorders are often
cyclical, and therefore subject to constant attacks,
improvements, and relapses. The analyst usually analyses
patients when they are at their worst. So in the natural course
of the disorder, the patient will tend to improve, and the
analyst will tend to attribute this to his analysis.

203
Why were people taken in by the case histories Freud advanced
to demonstrate his theory? They contained many elements of
deceit, the author doing everything he could to hide the failures
of his psychoanalytical treatments. We will describe two of these,
and then go on to a more detailed study of the case of “Little
Hans” in the section about the Oedipus complex, and finally the
case of “Dora”.
According to Freud, one of his most outstanding cures was the
one he claimed to have obtained in the case of the “Wolf man”,
so-called because the neurosis had been triggered by a dream in
which white wolves appeared. Freud jumped to the conclusion
that these white wolves symbolised the under-garments of the
Wolf man's father and mother. The patient was interviewed much
later by a psychologist and an Austrian journalist, and was found
still to be suffering recurrences of the dream sixty years after
Freud had declared him “cured”.
Another celebrated case was that of “Anna O”. This girl suffered
neurological disorders after she stood at the bedside of her
tubercular father, prior to his death. Freud diagnosed neurosis and
claimed that he had cured her. Jung, who was familiar with the
facts, was the first to denounce Freud's misunderstanding and
deception. H. F. Ellenberger in The Discovery of the Unconscious
and Thornton in his book Freud and Cocaine demonstrate how
Freud deliberately gave a false and misleading account of the
events. Far from being neurotic, the girl had simply caught her
father's tuberculosis.
H. J. Eysenck summarises the Freudian theory as follows: “case
histories, though insufficient to prove a theory, can illustrate the
application of a method of treatment. But when the author quite
consciously deceives the reader about vital facts of the case, such
as the outcome, how can one take these case histories seriously,
and above all, how can we ever believe him again?”7 In any case

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Freud’s writings refer to only eight cases, of which only six were
analysed by Freud in person. That really is a poor foundation for
a complex theory.
Freud's approach was dogmatic. He refused to apply any sort of
validation process to his studies and speculations. In his memoirs,
Jung recalls a discussion he had with Freud: “My dear Jung,
promise me never to abandon the sexual theory. That is the most
essential thing of all. You see, we must make a dogma out of it,
an unshakeable bulwark.”8
Freud's disciples had the same attitude. Few studies were
published purporting to validate Freudian theory. Kline declared
that: “Freudian theory rests on totally inadequate data according
to the criteria of scientific procedure.”9 Eysenck and Wilson add
that their research uncovered “not one study which one could
point to with confidence and say here is definitive support for this
or that Freudian notion; a support which is not susceptible to
alternative interpretation, which has been replicated, which is
based on a proper experimental design, which has been
submitted to proper statistical treatment, and which can be
confidently generalised, being based on an appropriate sample of
the population.” 10
Concluding comments on the ineffectiveness of psychoanalytical
treatment, the Clinton administration’s projected major reform of
the healthcare system did not intend to pay for psychoanalysis
because, to quote Dr. F. Goodwin, President of the National
Mental Health Institute of America: “it will not be reimbursed, as
nothing proves that it works”11.
The American Association for the Advancement of Sciences
asked the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to carry out a
study of Freudian psychoanalysis, which was performed by F.J.
Sulloway and his team. Their conclusions, summarised by P.
Debray Ritzen are instructive:

205
“Psychoanalysis was born of erroneous and time-worn biological
hypotheses, which led Freud to build his edifice upon quicksand.
Which, from the start, condemned it. On the clinical level, the
methodological flaws are flagrant.
“The cultural and social influence of psychoanalysis attempted to
hide these problems thanks to a near-religious fervour and
discipline on the part of its followers.
“The cases upon which Freud developed his system are based on
observations for the most part fallacious, and in any case
distorted to fit the theory. In particular, the alleged cures turn out
not to have been cures at all.”12
Freud's doctrine rests not on scientific bases but, according to
Freud himself, on “the unshakeable bulwark, the unshakeable
dogma” which he considered his sexual theory to be. Freudian
theory was like religious belief, and anyone who dared contest
the validity of the dogma was scorned, accused of repression,
rejected, and excommunicated in the name of the holy truth. As
Arthur Koestler describes it:
“If you object that, for one reason or another, you doubt the
existence of the castration complex, the Freudian will tell you this
betrays an unconscious resistance, indicating that you yourself
have a castration complex. And if a lunatic tells you that the
earth is a hollow sphere which martians have filed with
aphrodisiac vapours to send humanity to sleep, and you object
that this interesting theory is perhaps short of evidence, he will
immediately denounce you as a member of the global conspiracy
for the suppression of this grave truth.”13
The dogma not only masks a doubt, it also expresses a desire for
power. Religion was always just below the surface of Freud's
thought. He identified himself with Moses, and went as far as to
create his own myth in Totem and Taboos. Jung confirms this:

206
“Although I did not properly understand it then, I had observed
in Freud the irruption of an unconscious religious factor.”14
Freud's disciples saw themselves as apostles of a new religion:
“There was an atmosphere of the foundation of a religion in that
room. Freud himself was its new prophet. Freud's pupils - all
inspired and convinced - were his apostles. Freud - as head of the
church - banished Adler; he ejected him from the official church.
Within the space of a few years, I lived through the whole
development of a church history.”15 “Some of us believed that the
Victorian age, in which we then lived, would by way of a
psychoanalytic revolution be followed by a golden age in which
there would be no room for neurosis anymore. We felt like great
men...”16
Freudian ideology has had a disastrous impact on western
consciousness, causing a metaphysical, moral and social
regression whose bitter harvest is still being reaped. The subtle
and essential cause of this regression lies in the negation of the
sacred principle of which the Mother is both the origin and the
culmination.

207
Childhood Sexuality and the Oedipus
Complex
According to Freud, children begin to enjoy sexual pleasures in
early infancy. The first stage of childhood sexuality is oral,
during which pleasures come from the mouth. Nursing at the
mother's breast is said to induce sexual pleasure. The fatuity of
such statements is breathtaking.
After the oral stage, the child is described as passing through the
anal stage and, at the age of 4 years, reaching the Oedipal phase.
The young boy allegedly “falls in love” with his mother, and
wants to sleep with her. He therefore views his father as a rival
and an enemy who would like to castrate him. Let us go over the
case of “little Hans” which provided the basis of this theory.
When “little Hans” was four years old, he witnessed a serious
road accident during which horses collapsed to the ground. Later
the child developed a phobia. Whenever he found himself in the
presence of horses, fear made him run to his mother, which one
would think a normal reaction for a frightened child. Initially he
was diagnosed as an insecure child. Hans's father, a firm believer
in Freudian theory, knew nothing about the accident when he
asked Freud to consider the child’s rather commonplace phobia.
It is important to note that Freud never analysed the child
himself. He based his analysis on information provided by the
father, a very strange way of caring for a patient, and an even
odder way of constructing the basics of a new theory, intended to

208
revolutionise the way future generations would interpret child
psychology!
Freud said that Hans was “a paragon of all the vices”. The limbs
of the horses the child described in his phobia were the
unconscious symbols of his father's penis. Freud added that the
child hated his father's penis, and saw it as a rival in his affection
for his mother! This is how Freud, who knew nothing of the facts
- a serious accident which had traumatised the child - constructed
his Oedipus theory. In fact, incestuous emotions, such as these,
exist only in the mentally ill, people like Freud himself. We know
that he experienced incestuous desires for his step-mother. When
she died, he failed to attend her funeral, even though he was on
holiday at the time and only two hours away from the place
where she was buried.
Freud constantly denigrated the role of the mother. As the height
of absurdity, he believed that a woman's desire to have a child
was a way of compensating for her lack of a penis! For him, all
the problems of childhood stemmed from the mother, and the
mothers’ methods of bringing up children. This claim was
developed and amplified by many adherents of Freud's theory.
Watson in the USA, went so far as to write, in 1928, that maternal
love was most dangerous, and could have irreversible
consequences on children. His book Psychological Care of Infant
and Child enjoyed great success, with sales of over 100,000, and
greatly influenced generations of American mothers.17
An analysis of 125 papers published in psychiatric journals
between 1970 and 1982, reported that mothers were held
responsible for 72 types of psychological disorders in their
children. Unlike the father, the mother was not considered to be
emotionally healthy, and no mother/child relationship was
considered normal.18

209
The first consequence of this denigrating attitude towards
motherhood was to make mothers feel guilty, leaving them with
little confidence in themselves, or in the natural and traditional
ways of educating their children. The resulting undisciplined
youngsters, on reaching puberty, had, therefore, ample
opportunity to make their parents feel even more guilty by
blaming them for all their problems, The appalling state of family
life and education today is doubtless Freud's greatest “gift” to our
society.

210
Freud: Hero or Demon?
“After all, much of his theory is derived from his attempts to
psychoanalyse himself and cure his own neurosis. Freud himself, so it
has been said, is the only man who has been able to impress his own
neurosis on the world and remould humanity in his own image.”
H. J. Eysenck, Decline and Fall of the Freudian Empire

Freud was far from an integrated person, and he was never the
apostle of the scientific ideal which his biographers (with Ernest
Jones in the forefront) have tried to depict. He was an unbalanced
neurotic, who took cocaine for much of his life. He falsified facts
in order to have his theory accepted. He was dictatorial. He
lacked humanity. He was profoundly misogynous.
All too often Freud is described as the originator of concepts such
as free association and interpretation of dreams which are basic to
psychotherapy. More significantly, it is claimed that he was the
originator of the concept of the Unconscious. This is far from the
truth. In spite of what he wanted people to believe, Freud was not
responsible for these discoveries. Free association was used by
Galton long before Freud. As Ellenberger pointed out19, Freud
made ample use of articles published by the French psychiatrist,
Pierre Janet, without ever acknowledging him. The
psychoanalytic interpretation of dreams began long before Freud.
As early as 1861, the German psychiatrist W. Griesinger
described dreams as imaginary responses to desires20. In his work
The Unconscious before Freud, White listed more than one

211
hundred predecessors who postulated its existence. In fact,
according to Sulloway: “Freud was continually preoccupied with
the hope of making an important scientific discovery - one that
could bring him early fame, and the promise of a large private
practice.”21 Regularly he appropriated the discoveries of others
for himself and he had a particular energy and personality that
made it all too easy for him to propagate and - a significant term -
“vulgarise” these stolen ideas.
His repeated and continual use of cocaine is an important aspect
of Sigmund Freud's life over which his biographers have tended
to suffer amnesia. Freud was taking cocaine while he was
spelling out the basics of the theory. The deliberate attempts of
Ernest Jones, Freud's official biographer, to hide the facts, has
been unmasked by the information coming to light in some of his
unpublished letters. These are eloquent about Jones’ intellectual
dishonesty: “I am afraid Freud took more than he should -
though I am not mentioning that”, and he added: “before he knew
about its (cocaine's) dangers he must have been a public menace,
the way he thrust it on every one he met!”22 Although it is true
that the dangers of dependence on this drug were not fully
understood when Freud began to use it, his imprudent abuse
aroused severe criticism amongst the medical profession. He
actually turned many of his patients into addicts.
Freud believed that cocaine offered him the help he needed in his
struggle against attacks of depression and nervousness. In 1886,
he claimed that he braced himself with a dose of cocaine before
going to dine with Charcot. Another important advantage of
cocaine, in the eyes of Freud, was the fact that he believed it to
have aphrodisiac “virtues”.
Still more serious, Freud continued to use the drug after 1886, the
year in which cocaine was publicly denounced as one of the three
plagues of mankind, along with opium and alcohol. His letters to

212
W. Fliess prove that he continued to take the drug regularly until
1895, and even after that, to judge from his health problems.
Freud suffered heart problems, headaches and nosebleeds, three
symptoms common in cocaine addicts. These symptoms
disappeared when he stopped taking the drug, probably after
1900, when he was 44 years of age. In 1899 he published The
Interpretation of Dreams. One can imagine the validity of these
interpretations from a man subjected, even intermittently, to the
hold of an addictive drug.
Another little-known aspect of Freud's personality was his
extreme contempt for women. He admitted that he never
managed to understand the female mind, which he referred to as a
“dark continent”. Freud claims that women were more
narcissistic than men, and that they had limited ideas of justice.
He referred to girls as “little creatures with no penis”23 and
considered women to be defective men, of lower status, because
of this shortcoming. He added that women were incapable of
fighting against their chronic feelings of inferiority. For him this
inferiority was not limited to the anatomical sphere, but extended
to the intellect: “I think that the intellectual inferiority of so many
women, which is beyond question, must be attributed to the
inhibition of thought, inhibition required for sexual
repression.”24 He added: “Women have come into the world for
something other than to become wise”25, and, according to Jones,
“he said of women that their main function is to be ministering
angels to the needs and comforts of men.”26 According to Freud,
“Women have made but a tiny contribution to the discoveries and
the inventions of the History of Civilisation.” With just one
concession: “Nevertheless they have perhaps discovered one
technique; that of weaving and braiding.”27 This misogynist
attitude led him to denigrate motherhood, a point to which we
will return at the end of this section.

213
The case of Dora, one of the few cases Freud handled himself,
clearly demonstrated his misogyny, and even his sadism. Dora,
whose real name was Ida Brauer, was an intelligent girl of 18
who suffered losses of consciousness, convulsions, and
occasional loss of voice. Her father had contracted syphilis before
her conception, and they both suffered from the same asthmatic
disorders. The family background was totally chaotic. Her father
had a mistress, and he encouraged his mistress's husband to make
advances to his daughter.
The girl begged Freud to consider the possibility of syphilis, but
he told her that all neurosis had a somatic component, and a
syphilitic father was a common feature in the etiology of
neuropathy. Freud was determined to demonstrate that the poor
girl's problems were purely psychiatric. For three months he wore
her out with questions, harassing her to the point of mental
torture. When Dora explained that she had recently had an attack
of appendicitis, Freud decided that this was in fact a nervous
“pregnancy”, reflecting unconscious sexual fantasies. Accepting
that her asthmatic symptoms were the same as those of her father,
he deduced that she must have heard his wheezing while he was
engaged in sexual intercourse! Oedipus again! The poor girl's
coughing was therefore nothing but a timid love song. When
Dora told him that she felt disgusted when she had been sexually
attacked a few years earlier by the husband of her father's
mistress, Freud concluded: “In this scene.... the behaviour of this
child of fourteen was already entirely and completely hysterical, I
should without question consider a person hysterical in whom an
occasion for sexual excitement elicited feelings that were
preponderantly or exclusively unpleasurable; and I should do so
whether or not the person were capable of producing somatic
symptoms.” Freud went even further in his delusions, but we will
stop there, for his interpretations are as disgusting as they are
unedifying. Eysenck concludes: “He clearly forces on Dora

214
interpretations that lead back to his own complexes, rather than
to hers. The reader can imagine how such behaviour on the part
of the analyst would affect an enormously unstable girl of
eighteen, growing up in a bizarre family circle, without
assistance from her father, and lusted after by a lecherous and
aggressive man who was her father's friend. Instead of finding
the promised help and sympathy, she encountered a hostile,
determined adversary whose only aim seemed to be to humiliate
her, and attribute to her motives and behaviours which were
quite alien to her. If that indeed is a prototype of Freudian
therapy, then no wonder if it often makes a patient worse, rather
than better!”28
Like Augustine fifteen centuries earlier, Freud is characterised by
his obsession with sex. He admitted that his incestuous desires for
his mother, from his earliest years, had led him to imagine the
Oedipus complex. He had a long-term relationship with Minna,
his wife's sister. We know that his marriage was dominated by
prolonged sexual frustration which he was never able to
overcome. During the first nine years of their marriage, Martha
Freud was usually either pregnant or unwell. Subsequently, after
her sixth pregnancy, the couple decided that abstinence was the
only way of avoiding more children. This has led to the
suggestion that Freud's growing interest in sexual sublimation,
Oedipus, and so-called “female penis envy”, was to a large extent
stimulated by his own frustrations, which he was unable to
overcome. To cope with this problem, he had to construct a
theory which would justify his own unease, a clever - and
doubtless unconscious - way of avoiding having to face himself.
Jung has summarised this attitude well: “Freud never asked
himself why he was compelled to talk continually of sex, why this
idea had taken such a possession of him. He remained unaware
that his “monotony of interpretation” expressed a flight from
himself or from that other side of him which might perhaps be

215
called mystical. So long as he refused to acknowledge that side,
he could never be reconciled with himself.”29
There was obviously a fully conscious aspect to the “flight” Jung
speaks of. Freud had failed to validate his theory by rigorous
scientific research - and must have been well aware of this
because he had received a scientific education to an advanced
university level. He had to banish his own inner doubts by
dogmatic and fanatical attitudes, even excommunicating from his
circle anyone who expressed reservations about his theory. The
splits with Adler and Jung were famous examples of Freud's
dictatorial attitude. Jung tells us that during their visit to the
United States in 1909, he started to interpret one of Freud's
dreams: “I interpreted it as best I could, but added that a great
deal more could be said about it if he would supply me with some
additional details from his private life. Freud’s response to these
words was a curious look - a look of utmost suspicion. Then he
said, “But I cannot risk my authority!” At that moment, he lost it
altogether. That sentence burned itself into my memory; and in it
the end of our relationship was already foreshadowed. Freud was
placing personal authority above truth.”30
Freud's dictatorial attitude, which his “disciples” have never
shaken off, made Freudian theory a sect with its dogmas and
precepts, its clergy of psychologists and psychoanalysts, and its
“pseudo-therapist’s”couch replacing the confessional. More than
a sect, Freudian theory became the religion of the twentieth
century, filling the void left by the fall of Christianity.

216
If it is all False, how was Freud a
Success?
In order to combat the numerous publications which provide
serious and rigorous arguments against Freud's doctrine (see
Appendix 5) the latest defence of the Freudians is to ask, how
was Freudian doctrine so readily accepted if it was not true?
There are many facts which account for this:
• Firstly, the historical context. The twentieth century is
characterised by sexual liberation following two millennia of
religious taboos, and half a century of extreme puritanism.
• The works of Freud were publicly burned in Berlin by the
Nazis. And since “my enemy's enemy is my friend”, Freud
appears as a victim of oppression who should be defended by
anyone who considers himself a democrat. Anyone opposing
Freud is written off as a dreadful conservative, out of date,
even a Nazi.
• Propaganda was well orchestrated by Freud himself, and his
disciples. It took years to show that what had never been
proved was, in fact, false.
• Freud's theory was a new ideology which attracted thousands
of people who, not realising it was false, threw themselves
into it heart and soul. Generations of psychoanalysts have
been trained. It is a profitable trade. If a therapist gives it up,
how will he/she earn a living?

217
• Freudian dogma is easy to master because it reduces every
explanation to sex. It is therefore accessible to almost anyone,
unlike Jungian analysis, which is complex and all-embracing,
and, consequently, less popular.
• In addition, adhesion to an ideology does not depend on
objective criteria. It involves a process of identification with a
master or a movement. The more innovative the ideology, and
the more it contrasts with the existing order, the more the
individual will stand out as different, and feel enhanced by his
new identity.
• Freud appeals to the basest instincts and the shadowy regions
of the mind. He draws downwards. And it is so much easier to
descend than ascend.
• Freud is perverse. Any desire that is not fulfilled leads to
repression and neurosis. This negates the principle of self
control, for what is implied is “control yourself and you will
be repressed”. The opposite is actually true.
• The Church, the only institution in the West representing the
Sacred, had degenerated so far, and had found itself so often
compromised in the shadowy zones of history (see
Appendices 3 and 4) that it no longer had the spiritual
authority to contest the new doctrine.
Finally the work of the papal clique, and the forces of
Protestantism, in denigrating women and obscuring the Eternal
Mother - as well as the general lack of respect for the maternal
principle - left the field clear for unrestricted misinterpretations of
the role of the Mother. In this regard, it should be noted that
Freudian theory has been unable to establish itself in countries
where the maternal principle is recognised and respected by
society, such as India and China. In Europe, countries with strong
attachments to Mary, the Mother of Christ, such as Italy and

218
Spain, have resisted Freudianism more than the Anglo-Saxon and
Scandinavian countries. The latter, with their Protestant cultures,
and little maternal symbolism, wholeheartedly embraced
Freudian dogma.
Freud's theory was the final act of the vast drama of misogyny
which, over the past few thousand years, has tarnished the image
of motherhood, and of women, in human awareness. However,
this patriarchal phase of human history is today ending with the
dawn of a new era, that of the Mother.

1
Descartes, Discourse on Method.
2
J. V. Rillaer, Les Illusions de la Psychanalyse (Brussels 1980) p. 17.
3
Cited in P. Debray-Ritzen, Le Psychanalyse, cette Imposture (Paris 1991) p.
241.
4
Ibid, p. 19.
5
Cited in E. Fuller Torrey, Freudian Fraud (New York 1992) p. 216.
6
Cited in R. Jacoby, The Repression of Psychoanalysis (New York 1983) p.
238.
7
H. J. Eysenck, Decline and Fall of the Freudian Empire (London 1991) p.
57.
8
C. G. Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections (London 1967) p. 177.
9
P. Kline, Fact and Fantasy in Freudian Theory (London 1972) p. 93.
10
H. J. Eysenck and G. Wilson, The Experimental Study of Freudian Theories,
p. 392.
11
Cited in Time magazine, no. 48 of November 1993, Is Freud Dead?
12
P. Debray-Ritzen, op. cit., p. 298.
13
Cited in Debray-Ritzen, op. cit., p. 162.
14
C. G. Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, op. cit., p. 178.
15
Cited in Fuller Torrey, op. cit., p. 254.
16
Ibid, p. 255.
17
J. B. Watson, Psychological Care of Mother and Child (New York 1928) p.
87.

219
18
Fuller Torrey, op. cit., p. 250.
19
H. F. Ellenberger, The Discovery of the Unconscious. The History and
Evolution of Dynamic Psychiatry, 1970.
20
cited in Fuller Torrey, op. cit., p. 6.
21
F. J. Sulloway, Freud, Biologist of the Mind. Beyond the Psychoanalytic
Legend (London 1979) p. 25.
22
Fuller Torrey, op. cit., p. 12.
23
Ibid, p. 250.
24
Freud, La Vie Sexuelle (Paris) p. 42.
25
cited in Fuller Torrey, op. cit., p. 250.
26
Ibid, p. 250.
27
cited in P. Raikovic, Le Sommeil Dogmatique de Freud (Paris 1994) p. 204.
28
Eysenck, op. cit., p. 65.
29
Jung, op. cit., p. 179.
30
Ibid, p. 85.

220
 Part 3:
The Advent of the Mother

221
222
 “Beholding your passions, your fury, your loves,
I told God: “Lord, consider the state we are in.
See the earth and behold human beings.
They break all the bonds which were destined to unite them.
And God replied: “Indeed, I shall come!”
Victor Hugo1
“In Her they became themselves.
And now, the abundance of life
She has in Christ, from the Father,
Flows over them all.
Yes, it is like when you throw a stone into a pool
And the concentric waves
Spread out further and further.
Who knows where it will end.
Redeemed humanity is still young,
It has hardly come to its full strength.
But already there is joy enough
In the little finger of a great saint
Such as yonder Lady
To waken all the dead thing of the universe into life.”
C.S. Lewis2

223
224
1. She Who is to Come3
Once more I say, you are but roots
Betwixt the dark sod and the moving heavens.
And oftentimes have I seen you rising to dance with the light,
But I have also seen you shy.
All roots are shy.
They have hidden their hearts so long
That they know not what to do with their hearts.
But May shall come and May is a restless virgin
And she shall mother the hills and plains.
Khalil Gibran4

All religions are based on a promise: the Coming of the Golden

Age. In various scriptures this Golden Age, which always follows
a period of darkness, is marked by the advent of a Divine Being,
a prophet, who will restore lost values, and grant to all the
spiritual dimension of life that is Self-Realisation.
In this New Age, spiritual life will cease to be the privilege of a
few exceptional ascetic recluses on Himalayan peaks or in
isolated monasteries, but will be available as part of a collective
process of emancipation. The state of awakening, illumination, or
union, will be within reach of all seekers of truth.
Traditional texts (Buddhist scriptures, Hindu Puranas, the Koran,
the Bible) all proclaim that, at a time when the morality of
humankind has sunk to unsuspected depths, a Divine incarnation

225
will come to restore the laws of God on earth. They describe how,
during this dark period, religious doctrines become progressively
distorted until they are unrecognisable. Not only do individuals
turn away from dharma (virtue) but even the memory of
righteousness is lost. The worst vices spread across the earth.
Authority is corrupt, laws are flouted, justice is unable to uphold
right. Lies and violence dictate the actions of those who govern.
Material riches are considered the only value. The earth, full of
the impurities described in the Kalki Purana and the Book of
Revelation, becomes devastated by war. We need look no further;
we have already entered this period of decadence! But, hence, the
promised Golden Age, the Advent of Paradise on Earth, the Satya
Yuga or Age of Truth of Indian tradition, the Aquarian Age is
imminent.
It is written that the Golden Age will be inaugurated by a prophet
who is able to transform people from within, and lead them into
the holiness of Paradise. This prophet has been announced by all
the great religions.
This is the Maitreya5 whose coming was predicted by Lord
Buddha, 2500 years ago. Maitreya will restore dharma and give
illumination to mankind collectively. It is said that Maitreya's
pacifying smile will awaken in Man the consciousness of Nirvana
which is hidden in the depths of his being.
In Hindu spirituality, the prophet is known as Kalki6. As the last
incarnation of the god Vishnu, one of the great Hindu trinity, he
will bring about the culmination of humankind's evolutionary
process. He will fight against disorder, destroy all demonic
beings and restore justice. But, above all, he will confer Second
Birth, the spiritual baptism which opens the Satya Yuga, the era
of Truth.
This incarnation is also the Mahdi7 who, the Prophet Mohammed
said, would banish all religions from the earth, leaving only the

226
Pure Religion. The Mahdi will come at the time of the Last
Judgement, an event foretold in the Koran as in the Bible.
This is also the Holy Spirit announced by Christ: “But the
Counsellor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my
name, will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance
all that I have said to you”8. “It is to your advantage that I go
away, for if I do not go away, the Counsellor will not come to
you, but if I go, I will send him to you. And when he comes he will
convince the world of sin and of righteousness and judgement.”9
In the apocryphal Gospel of the Perfect Life, Christ identifies the
Counsellor with the Universal Mother: “The Counsellor, who is
my Mother, the Holy Sophia, whom the Father will send in my
name, will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance
all that I have said to you.”10
In the XIIth century, the Cistercian monk Joachim of Flora
predicted the coming of the Age of the Holy Spirit after that of
the Father (Yahweh) and that of the Son (Christ).
These are very similar visions of Redemption. “Maitreya” and the
“Mahdi” begin with the syllable Ma, which means Mother.
“Treya” in Sanskrit means triple. Maitreya therefore corresponds
to the Triple Goddess of the Celts, the Trimorphic Protennoia of
the Gnostics, and Athena Tritogenoia. In Pahlavi, the ancient
language of Iran, “Mahdi” means the primordial Mother. It has
exactly the same meaning in Sanskrit: Ma-Adi is, again, the
Primordial Mother, Adi Ma, or Adi Shakti. The name Kalki is the
diminutive of Nishkalanka, the 153rd name of the Mother
Goddess, according to the Shri Lalita Sahasranama, the
traditional Indian list of the thousand names of the Goddess.
Early Christian sources, both gnostic and orthodox, refer to the
Holy Spirit as the Eternal Mother. Jung rediscovered this
knowledge in the twentieth century, and wrote that «the Mother

227
is simply veiled by the Holy Spirit (Sophia) who is the bond
between the Father and the Son.”11
Evidence also suggests that only the Eternal Mother can confer
Second Birth, since the father does not play any part in the birth
process itself. In addition, the cosmic Mother alone has the ability
to awaken “Her” own power hidden in each of us, the Kundalini,
the Mother within.
The patriarchal religious tradition, of course, saw the promised
messianic figure as a male. The same was true in Asia, where
spiritual authority is held by men (the Brahmins, guardians of
Hindu orthodoxy, for instance, and the Buddhist monks).
Zoroaster and the tradition of Mazda in ancient Iran announced
the coming of Saoshyant, the holy warrior who is the Divine
Redeemer sent to restore the Golden Age. The Old Testament
also refers to the Resurrection of the dead and that Salvation in
which God will gather into the eternal Kingdom “people of every
race and every nation”12. Nordic and Germanic mythology show
the same picture with the return of Balder, the sun god of the
ancient Scandinavian religion. This figure of the hero is also
portrayed in the Revelation of John. Yet in his vision, John also
sees a woman of cosmic dimensions who gives birth. Like all the
images of the Book of Revelation, John's vision of Spiritual
Rebirth is highly symbolic:
“And a great portent appeared in heaven,
A woman clothed with the sun,
With the moon under her feet
And on her head a crown of twelve stars;
She was with child and she cried out in her pangs of birth
In anguish for delivery.”13
The Russian philosopher Nicolas Roerich predicted the coming
on earth of the one he calls the Mother of the World, whose
mission was to transform men from within. In his Foundation in

228
Moscow there is a painting (illustration 38) of the veiled face of
the Mother of the World. Speaking of her he said: “the Mother of
the World has not yet unveiled herself.”14

Illustration 38: Roerich, The Mother of the World, Moscow.

His wife, who was also a writer, composed many poems on the
theme of the Mother:
“O Mistress, I proclaim that you are
the great collaborator of the Cosmic Reason.
You, who draw from the cosmic powers of the Beyond,
Carry within yourself the sacred seed, generator of all luminous
lives.”15

229
A Russian proverb prophesies: “At the dawn of the Son, comes
the Age of the Mother”.
In the Cathedral of Orvieto in Italy, a fresco shows Christ as the
Savior killing the demon. Above him, stands the Mother with the
seven candlesticks of the Revelation.
Kahlil Gibran, a great seer of our time, concludes his book The
Forerunner with a picture of the Heavenly Mother, as though he
was the forerunner of the New Age where the Mother will play a
major role.
After Jung's discovery of the psychological and spiritual role of
the archetype of the Mother Goddess, many researchers of the
Jungian School have reached the conclusion that humanity must
rediscover the Mother Goddess. Many works devoted to this
topic have been published in English recently. E. Begg thinks that
the feminine principle is not a theory but a reality, with a will of
its own, and which we ignore at our peril16. He adds that: “the
Goddess now requires to be worshipped in spirit and in truth
through the law written in our hearts, rather than in temples built
with hands.” E. Whitmont, who was the President of the C. G.
Jung Training Centre of New York, believes that: “the Goddess
is now returning. Denied and suppressed for thousands of years
of masculine domination, she comes out at a time of dire need.
For we walk the valley of the shadow of nuclear annihilation, and
we do fear evil. We long for love, security and protection, but
there is little to comfort us. Violence within our own society
threatens to overwhelm us. Mother Earth herself has been
pressed to the limits of her endurance. How much longer can she
withstand the assaults of our rapacious industrial and economic
policies? The patriarchy's time is running out. What new cultural
pattern will secure for humanity a new lease of life on earth? In
the depths of the unconscious psyche, the ancient Goddess is
arising. She demands recognition and homage. If we refine to

230
acknowledge her, she may unleash forces of destruction. If we
grant the Goddess her due, she may compassionately guide us
toward transformation.”17
Finally, is the Aquarian Age not the time when the Goddess will
pour the waters of eternal youth over mankind - the waters which,
according to mythology, are kept in her sacred vessel, the Holy
Vase?

231
2. The Breath of God
“And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them,
‘Receive the Holy Spirit’.”
John 20:22

In the early 1970s, a man considered in India to be one of the

greatest holy men, Shri Jagannath Baba, emerged from his
solitary retreat in the Himalayas to attend a yoga programme. A
guru far advanced in his perception of the Self and the quest for
the absolute, he had lived as a recluse for about ten years, having
transcended earthly desires, and no longer seeking master or
disciple. Shri Jagannath had an important reason for leaving the
isolated slopes at the roof of the world. His disciple, who had
followed him for several years, had heard that Self-Realisation
was now within the reach of any seeker meeting an outstanding
person - Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi. Shri Jagannath, who was
sceptical about this, decided he would investigate by attending a
Self-Realisation programme in a Delhi suburb. He was waiting
with several thousand people when suddenly a breeze blew
through the hall, refreshing the humid heat of the summer
evening. At the same instant he saw the Kundalinis of the seekers
rise through their fontanelles. Shri Mataji had just entered the hall
and was preparing to give her lecture. Shri Jagannath prostrated
himself at her feet, calling her “Adi Maya! Adi Maya!”18 Never,

232
to his knowledge, had such an event occurred before. The
awakening of Kundalini was limited to exceptional people, and
raising the Kundalini was a difficult task, requiring years of
asceticism and purification. With Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi, this
exceptional process had become almost commonplace. Self-
Realisation was now a spontaneous and collective event. A new
age was dawning for humanity.
Shri Mataji was born on March 21, 1923, exactly at midday, at
Chindwara, a town in central India, on the Tropic of Cancer. She
belonged to a Christian family, and was the daughter of an
eminent member of the Indian Congress Party, Shri Prasad Rao
Salve. While she was still a child, she visited Gandhi's ashram
several times. Like the Mahatma, her father was very active in the
independence movement, often being on the run from the British
authorities. Gandhi used to call her Nepali, and would ask her to
compose prayers for recital during morning meditation. After
India’s independence, Shri Mataji studied medicine, and married
a brilliant senior civil servant in the Indian administration. They
had two daughters. Her husband became Secretary General of the
International Maritime Organisation of the United Nations in the
1970s. By then, with her daughters grown up and married, she
decided to devote herself to propagating a simple technique by
which Kundalini could be awakened collectively.
From that time, Shri Mataji has constantly travelled throughout
the world, awakening the Kundalini and inaugurating the age of
spirituality. During 1994 alone, when she was already over 70
years of age, Shri Mataji gave public lectures in several major
cities in India, the Far East, Australia and New Zealand, Europe,
North and South America. On each occasion, hundreds and
thousands of seekers attained their Self-Realisation. Such a
punishing schedule bears simple witness to her extraordinary
vitality and strength.

233
Her public lectures, often continuing after midnight, end always
with the awakening of the Kundalini. But along with the spiritual
awakening conferred by Self-Realisation, Shri Mataji frequently
offers fascinating information which allows seekers to progress in
Self Knowledge. This teaching is of great importance, since it
opens the door to spiritual growth at both the individual and the
collective levels. The teaching is summarised by the Sanskrit
term “Sahaja Yoga”. Sahaja means “born within” and Yoga
means “union”.
When the Kundalini rises beyond the fontanelle, the first
experience is usually of a cool breeze arising from the top of the
head and flowing over the hands. For some it flows over the face
as well, or even the entire body. This process is a sign that the
Kundalini has been awakened, that genuine realisation has been
attained. This experience was known in the early days of
Christianity and Islam. Mohammed instructed his disciples to
pray facing the Kaaba (which of its nature emits the Divine
breath) with their palms turned towards the heavens, so they
could receive the breath and attain spiritual awakening. Orthodox
Christians pray in a similar manner, as can be seen in frescos and
icons found over a large area extending from Turkey to Russia.
The icons of Theophanos the Greek, and Rublev, are significant
in this regard (illustration 40). The Gospel of the Egyptians, part
of the gnostic writings discovered at Nag Hammadi, relates the
experience of spiritual awakening, and suggests the importance of
the position of the hands:
“The Mother was at that place because of the splendid beauty of grace,
therefore, I have stretched out my hands which were folded.”19

234
 Illustration 39:
Theophanus the Greek, Mary in prayer, Cathedral of the
Annunciation, Moscow
This breath felt on the hands is that promised by Jesus Christ
under the name of the Holy Spirit or Spiritus sanctus, which
Chouraki translated as “Holy Breath”.
“When the Holy Breath comes he will guide you into all the truth.”20

235
In Moscow's Cathedral of the Annunciation, the Holy Spirit is
shown as a breath emanating from the mouth of God the Father to
illuminate Mary. The same breath was perceived by the old
prophets of Israel; its description can be found in several places
in the Old Testament:
There was a strong and powerful wind before the Lord,
which wore down the mountains and split the rocks asunder;
but the Lord was not in the wind.
After the wind, the earth trembled,
A fire raged; but the Lord was not in the fire.
And after the fire, the rustling of a gentle breeze...
And when Elias heard it, he covered his face with his cloak.21
It is the breath, promised in the Old Testament, for Spiritual
Rebirth on the Day of Resurrection:
“I will cause breath to enter you and you shall live.”22
“I will put breath in you and you shall live;
and you will know that I am the Lord.”23
It is the Holy Breath of the Aquarian Gospel which is associated,
and even identified with the Mother Goddess:
“God the Mother is the Holy Breath.”24
The Gospel according to Philip is similarly inspired:
“When the Holy Spirit breathes, summer comes.
The Mother is eternal truth.”25
In the Prashna Upanishad, we are told that the breath is the power
of the universe which protects as a Mother protects her children26.
The Chandogya Upanishad adds that the breath is higher than
hope. One of the names given to the Great Goddess in Sanskrit
writings is Prana rupini, which means, she who manifests as the
Breath. In the Saundarya Lahari, Shankaracharya mentions the
cool breath which emanates from the Goddess.

236
In the presence of Shri Mataji, the cool breath can be clearly felt
coming from her. During her public lectures, when she awakens
the Kundalini, Shri Mataji sometimes breathes over the audience
as Christ did when he breathed life into the spirit of each apostle.
Once one has been awakened, focusing one’s attention on Christ,
Buddha, Mohammed or Moses, produces a breath similar to that
which emanates from Shri Mataji.
As well as feeling the Divine breath, Self-Realisation is
characterised by thoughtless awareness and a state of calm inner
well-being. This state results from the purifying work of the
Kundalini on a subtle system which consists of chakras and
channels of energy. In this respect Shri Mataji has brought
knowledge of the human subtle system (which is the heritage of
the Indian spiritual tradition) to its completion. She has defined
both the physiological and spiritual role of each chakra and each
energy channel.

237
The Three Channels
We have already referred to the two main rhythms governing all
life - the solar rhythm (the basis of activity and growth) and the
lunar rhythm (the basis of fertility and germination). These two
vital rhythms were defined over four thousand years ago in China
as Yin and Yang, and in India as Tamas and Rajas.
Human beings cannot avoid these two influences. Indeed, they
constantly alternate between them. Each person carries two
channels of energy, which reproduce the two great biological
rhythms on the individual level. These are the Rajo guna or Yang,
and the Tamo guna or Yin, which, together, correspond, in
medical terms, to the sympathetic nervous system.

Figure 5: The Three Channels

238
Yin and Yang
Tamo guna, which is also known as the Ida nadi, or simply the
“left channel”, begins below the sacrum bone and ends in the
right hemisphere of the brain. This corresponds to the left
sympathetic nervous system, which Shri Mataji calls the
“superego”. It constitutes the feminine, lunar side of the
personality. The Anima, as defined by Jung, is its reflection at the
psychological level. This left channel controls our desire and
emotions, and integrates all our previous experiences. It is
responsible for remembering all the information acquired by
education, information which is stored in the various strata of
consciousness. This channel ensures, for instance, that a child
who has suffered burning will not go too close to the flame of a
candle again. It acts as a sort of “brake” on the personality. It is
this channel which prevents action which does not comply with
the canons of morality, or with the conditioning acquired during
life, particularly childhood.
When an individual bends too much towards this side of the
personality, inhibitions to action will outweigh the capacity to
act. He or she will become lethargic, introverted, listless and even
fearful. The main effect of alcohol and narcotic drugs is to swing
the psyche towards this side of our nature. If a correction is not
applied, the imbalance intensifies and can culminate in
psychiatric disorders such as depression or schizophrenia. Self-
destructive tendencies can increase and somatic diseases such as
angina pectoris or cancer develop. On the other hand, if this
channel functions in a normal and balanced way, the individual
avoids depressive states and is joyful in all circumstances. This is
usually true of children, who have not had time for the normal
functions of the left side to be disturbed.
In an attempt to free people from their inhibitions, Freud put a
great deal of attention to this side of the personality. He

239
condemned conditioning, home life and moral codes as barriers to
the psychological liberation of the individual. His reasoning was
incomplete, because while some moral codes are indeed artificial
and create harmful conditioning, others are innate and necessary
for the equilibrium of the personality, particularly at the
emotional level.
Rajo guna or Pingala nadi controls the masculine side of the
personality. It begins at the level of the Swadisthan chakra,
situated in the region of the right kidney, and ends in the left
cerebral hemisphere, which Shri Mataji calls the “ego”. It
corresponds to the right-side sympathetic nervous system, and,
for simplicity, we will refer to it as the “right channel”. This is
the channel of action and creativity on both the actual and the
intellectual levels. This is Jung's Animus. The right channel made
it possible for humankind to free itself from the constraints of
nature and climate. It allowed mankind to organise societies, and,
by developing technical abilities, to found the first civilisations. It
is this channel that allows Man to project himself into the future,
and to invent. Where the left channel is the brake on human
nature, the right channel is its accelerator. The right channel is
essential because it allows humankind to take individual
responsibility. In a way it is the “steering wheel” of the
personality which makes it possible to undertake a course
towards a destination. However we can only use this steering
wheel if the learning and experience acquired through the left
channel continue to give the information we need, to avoid
dangers, and about the changes of direction the weather
conditions demand.
An overactive right channel leads to excessive development of
the ego, causing domination and the misuse of power.
Aggression, destruction, wars and conquests all stem directly
from the right channel activity. An unbalanced left side leads to
self-destruction, while imbalances on the right, with their ego

240
consequences, lead to the destruction of others. Adler based his
psychology on this aspect of mankind's nature. The contemporary
caricature of the right-sided personality is the company director
who has reached the top of the ladder by crushing others and
working like a maniac, having neglected his family and emotional
life for the sake of social advancement. Because the relationships
of the heart are completely ignored, the logical outcome of right-
sided over-activity is a heart attack.
The right and left channels are the dual poles of the personality
which, when in balance, allow the individual to lead a life of
harmony.
On the collective level, the East has tended to develop the left
side while the West has “specialised” in the right. The great
countries of Asia, such as India and China, have never been
aggressors, even though their wealth, and their early
development, would have allowed them to embark on paths of
conquest. In contrast, the West has constantly invaded and
dominated through colonial rule. Today the domination is
through their liberal market economy.
The drift of the West towards the right channel began very early.
It goes back to those times when the Semitic and Aryan tribes
invaded those sedentary societies who worshipped the Mother
Goddess. Being on the “right”, they venerated the male principle
of the Divine. With the development of the ego, this male
principle lost its universality and became the idol of a group, or
clan; a deity used to justify the destruction of others. In opposing
the Mother Goddess of the sedentary societies, they rejected the
feminine principle of life, the left channel, the Yin. Women,
feelings and respect for nature were down-graded in favour of the
desire for power and domination. Rationality overcame intuition.
The Church joined this swing towards the right side. From its
earliest days it proclaimed that God's creation must concur with

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reason. The domination of nature became the modus vivendi of
this patriarchal era. The outer nature was brought under control
by the unbridled exploitation of natural resources, while the inner
nature was controlled by repressing emotions, passion and
sexuality. Spirituality became synonymous with asceticism,
gradually turning away from joy. With the exception of Saint
Francis of Assisi, Fra Angelico and a few others, monks seem to
have no sense of joy or fulfilment. In fact we find quite the
opposite. For the Church, the spiritual quest became austere, dry
and repelling. Spontaneity was forcefully rejected. Beauty
became frivolity. In his poem The Voice of Evil, William Blake
comments on this suppression of the spontaneous by the
patriarchal religious powers:
“All bibles or sacred codes have been the causes of the following
errors:
1 - That man has two real existing principles: a Body and a Soul,
2 - That Energy, call'd Evil is alone from the Body;
And that Reason, call'd Good, is alone from the soul.
3 - That God will torment Man in Eternity for following his Energies.
But the following contraries to these are true:
1 - Man has no Body distinct from his Soul,.
for that call'd Body is a portion of Soul discerned by the five senses,
the chief inlets of Soul in this age.
2 - Energy is the only life, and is from the Body;
And Reason is the bound or outward circumference of Energy.
3 - Energy is Eternal Delight.”27
After the long phase of domination by the Church, a stage of
mental consciousness began. Man forgot the myths and the
questions touching the soul, and projected himself into the future
and the material. The world lost its essence, its substance. It
became a “thing”, a three-dimensional space, perceived only
through the senses. Anything immaterial, anything which could
not be apprehended by the senses, became non-existent, unreal.
The general attitude became, “I believe the evidence of my eyes”.

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The inner identity of each thing, perceived so clearly by the
ancients, was denied. The ego dominated, divided, ruled. The
great empires of the Assyrians, Egyptians, Romans, and the
Christians, succeeded each other in endless clashes of aggression.
The rational mind was elevated; intuition was diminished.
Strength became measured by the ability to impose one's will on
others, and on nature. Life became a limited span, ending in
death. Man lost his awareness of the inner space, of reincarnation
and resurrection (concepts common to all ancient societies, and
still universally understood in the East). Awareness of the soul,
the eternal Spirit, which quite obviously transcends temporal and
spatial limits, was lost. Inner knowledge, or “gnosis”, was
neglected in favour of information about the artificial and
external. As E. Whitmont says: “we no longer see with the inner
eye but entertain abstract ideas about things, which replace the
living Spirit behind or within things. Animals, trees and flowers
speak only to poets and children. For the rest of the world, they
are dumb and soulless, mere objects conceived of as the work of
an anthropomorphic god.”28 By perpetuating this imbalance
towards the right side, man develops abstract concepts which
replace the objects they are supposed to represent. Creativity
becomes a purely mental exercise. Things are identified on the
basis of thought rather than feelings: “Cogito ergo sum”.
Whitmont adds that the “myths, poetical aspirations, fable or
fantasy become rationalised into today's space-visible historical
fact.”(28) The virginal birth of Christ, and his Resurrection, are
believed, or more often denied, as simple historical facts and not
the expression of a spiritual reality.
The French, who were the leading proponents of rationalism and
intellectualism, are now suffering from this swing to the right
channel, making it impossible for them to recognise the Mother.
Let us consider a few examples:

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• The Tao, which Lao Tze identifies with the Mother, takes the
masculine gender in French!
• When Goethe refers to the Goddess in his poetry, the French
translation replaces Goddess with God.29
• Jung's article The Archetype of the Mother, which was a
seminal work of the celebrated Zurich psychoanalyst, has still
to be translated into French.
• The Aquarian Gospel, which speaks forcefully of the Eternal
Mother, refers to the Holy Spirit in the feminine. The French
translation “corrects” this, using the masculine gender30.
• The same is true of the Odes of Solomon which are quoted in
this book.
But it would be wrong to single out one country. The West as a
whole must be made aware of this imbalance, this tilt to the right
channel which blinds, and leads to decadence and self-
destruction.
But today, how can we solve this imbalance on both individual
and collective levels? More than thirty years ago, C.G. Jung
imagined the solution:
“There exists one way, one possibility to reach above the
psychological level, the mental and human levels.... it is the way
of Individuation. The way of Individuation means: to strive to
become truly individual, and if we consider individuality as the
form of our most intimate unicity, our last and irrevocable
oneness, i. e. the realisation of one's self, we could thus translate
Individuation as Self-Realisation.”31

244
 Figure 6:
The three channels before and after Self-realisation

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Sushumna, the Middle Way
Through Self-Realisation, the balance between the right and the
left channels is restored and inner harmony re-established. This is
the first purifying work of the Kundalini. The Kundalini rises
along the central channel, known in Sanskrit as the Sushumna
Nadi. “In Sushumna, the breath leads the pure man into a pure
world,” says the Prashna Upanishad32. The Yogatattwa
Upanishad confirms that: “The Breath rises in the Sushumna up
to the crown of the head.”33
Sushumna is the Middle Way the Buddha spoke of. It is the way
of balance between the right and the left channels, the way of
evolution.
Human beings are normally slaves to their mental activity.
Thoughts arise from two sources: the right hemisphere of the
brain, the superego (an extension of the left channel) which
recalls past events, or the left hemisphere of the brain, the ego
(the prolongation of the right channel) which projects into the
future.
During realisation, the Kundalini absorbs the ego and the
superego. Thoughts fade away. There is no past, no future. All
that remains is reality, that is, the present. And in the present the
Spirit, shining in the heart, penetrates into the consciousness of
the individual. The Spirit alone IS. Kundalini and the Self are
One.
The left and the right channels are the two uprights of the ladder
which have permitted mankind to progress - so long as extremes
were avoided. The steps of this ladder are the chakras.

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The Chakras
Throughout the world one of the most common symbols is the
Tree of Life. It corresponds symbolically to the subtle system of
the human being, consisting of the three energy channels and the
seven chakras. For example, the Tree of Jesse, one of the most
popular subjects in mediaeval art, is an artistic vision of this Tree
of Life. One of the finest examples is the 12th century west
window in Chartres Cathedral.
At the level of the Unconscious, there is a close correlation
between the tree and the human body. This is obvious in many
languages. Arm and branch are inter-related. Our body is said to
have a trunk. In anatomical terminology, the veins and arteries
have branches. Jung noticed that his patients, when asked to
express theselves in a drawing, often portrayed themselves as
trees.

Figure 7: The seven chakras in the subtle body

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Jung believed the Tree of Life to be the symbol of the Self,
depicted in a perspective of growth. According to Indian
tradition, the chakras have developed successively in the rhythm
of the evolutionary process, each of them marking a major step in
human development. This evolution is said to be controlled by
Vishnu, the Divine principle who incarnates to advance human
progress. In the Book of Genesis, the chakras correspond of
course to the seven days of Creation, which symbolically track
the stages of our evolution.
The distribution and development of the chakras within the
evolutionary process correspond precisely to the steps of human
evolution. The Nabhi chakra (number 3 on the diagram) governs
the home, family life, and creates material well-being, the feeling
of contentment. This chakra developed when human society
emerged from the primitive stage of the struggle against the
elements, and gained talents to control these elements.
The Vishuddhi chakra (number 5) governs communication. It
developed as mankind gained an ability to communicate verbally.
This process began when man lifted up his head so that his gaze
rose from the ground to straight ahead.
The Agnya chakra (number 6) evolved when mankind began to
use its intellectual faculties, and to elaborate abstract concepts.
The development of science and philosophy resulted from this
process.
Shri Mataji explains that certain prophets, or avatars, “divine
incarnations” in the Indian tradition, came to earth to open each
chakra on the collective level, so that humanity could progress
and evolve.
Medical science has been able to determine the physiological role
governed by each plexus. But what medicine has not been able to
detect is the spiritual role the chakras play within the individual.

248
The chakras are like prisms, each reflecting one aspect of the
celestial light which illuminates the individual's personality.
The first chakra, Mooladhara chakra, which lies beneath the
sacrum, confers the quality of innocence, innate in children. From
this quality flows humility and wisdom. A Mooladhara chakra
which is working properly gives a sense of direction. This chakra,
for instance, allows migratory animals to plot their course
accurately, and reach their destinations. In mankind, this sense of
direction corresponds to common sense, discernment. On the
physical level, the Mooladhara chakra governs sexual activity.
Some people confused the Mooladhara chakra with the sacrum
and attempted to awaken the Kundalini through sex. A whole
misguided school of so-called tantric yoga was based on this
premise. But this failed, since the Mooladhara chakra has, in fact,
no contact with the Kundalini. Because the Mooladhara chakra
lies below the Kundalini, it is the only chakra which is not
pierced by the Kundalini during her ascent. Sexual tantrism is not
only ineffective but actually harmful. It insults the immaculate
purity of the Kundalini, thus weakening the underlying principle
of the Mooladhara chakra, which is innocence34.
The Mooladhara chakra, lying at the base of the left channel, has
an effect on our entire emotional life. It can be damaged both by
unbridled sexual activity and by sexual repression. However, a
balanced sex life, particularly within the bonds of marriage, does
not disturb its equilibrium. Physiologically the Mooladhara
chakra also governs the excretory functions. It is responsible for
the earth elements of the body, particularly minerals.
The second chakra, the Swadisthan, lies at the base of the right
channel. It corresponds to creativity, dynamism, and to the
senses. Great creators such as Leonardo da Vinci, Mozart, and
Shakespeare had a highly developed Swadisthan. At the
physiological level, it controls the kidneys, the liver and the

249
intestines. The Swadisthan is the fire element of the body. It is
this “fire” in the liver which burns our food to supply energy to
the rest of the body.
The third chakra, the Nabhi, corresponds to the solar plexus. It is
the centre which seeks well-being and contentment. At its highest
level, this search for happiness leads to the spiritual quest, the
search for the Self. The primary qualities of this centre are
harmony, tranquillity, satisfaction and inner peace. Asceticism,
austerity pushed to the extreme, can damage the Nabhi centre,
impairing the individual's feeling of well-being. Stress also
damages the Nabhi, as it creates inner tension. At the
physiological level, the Nabhi controls the stomach, the pancreas,
the spleen and part of the liver. Its element is water, like the
gastric and pancreatic secretions which dissolve the food before it
is absorbed by the intestine. It is not surprising that stress, which
contributes to an inner imbalance, arises in the Nabhi, and can
develop into somatic disorders, such as stomach ulcers. The
Nabhi chakra flourishes when a feeling of contentment leads to
detachment from material goods, and to generosity.
The Nabhi is surrounded by a zone known as the Void, which
governs the principle of mastery and just behaviour with respect
to oneself and to others.
The chakra of the heart, known as the Anahata in Sanskrit,
governs emotional relationships. The gentleness and safety a
mother gives her child stem from the heart. It is also the source of
a father's authority, which allows a man to assume his
responsibilities. At the physical level it corresponds to the cardiac
plexus, which controls the cardiac muscles and the lungs. The
element of the Anahata is air.
This chakra is very important because it is controlled by the
principle of the Eternal Mother. Shri Mataji explains that the
Goddess incarnated in ancient times, probably in the Neolithic

250
era, to establish in humankind the feeling of security, and to open
the heart chakra on the collective level. The fact that at the time
people venerated a single, universal Divine principle, the Mother
Goddess, must have contributed to this development. When
universal worship of the Mother Goddess was rejected, at the end
of the Neolithic period, the Anahatha was damaged, leading,
inevitably, to insecurity and conflict.
The Vishuddhi chakra is located within the cervical plexus at the
base of the neck. As we have seen, it controls communication. Its
qualities are sweetness, respect for others, diplomacy and
collectivity. It deals with fraternal relationships, and makes a
person capable of becoming a witness to the game of life. It
permits the harmonious integration of the individual into society.
This chakra is damaged by behaviour which interferes with good
communications between people - abuse, irony, sarcasm, verbal
aggression. It is also affected by feelings of guilt, by which
people debase themselves, and which interfere with their
integration into society.
The Vishuddhi was opened on the collective level by Krishna, the
eighth incarnation of Vishnu, around six thousand years ago.
Krishna was the first prophet, or Divine incarnation, to turn
mankind's attention towards the Spirit. He was the expression on
earth of the qualities of God the Father, the Eternal Spirit. In the
celebrated Bhagavad Gita35 Krishna proclaims to his disciple
Arjuna: “Know that with one small fraction of my Being I
pervade and support the Universe, and know that I AM.”36 This
message echoes the old Testament, where YHVH says to Moses,
“Say this to the people of Israel, I AM has sent me to you.”37
Krishna opened the era of the Father to humankind. He added to
the collective veneration of the Mother Goddess the worship of
the Eternal Spirit, God the Father. However, as we have seen,
with the over-development of the right channel, nomadic

251
societies were to focus on the patriarchal aspects of the Divine,
attempting to eradicate the maternal aspects of God.
The Agnya chakra, located at the crossing of the optic chiasma,
controls the activity of the brain in its functions of memory and
projection. It controls the ego and superego. Its primary qualities
are forgiveness and non-violence. Buddha and Mahavira played a
very important role in opening this chakra on the collective level,
showing by their lives that mankind can attain the Divine, that the
Son can reach the Father. They showed that mankind is not flesh,
but spirit, and must be born again of the Spirit. And then Jesus
Christ taught men to forgive. Before his coming, forgiveness was
a virtually unknown concept, human consciousness being aware
only of the laws of retribution and revenge. Through forgiveness,
which relaxes the mind, the Agnya chakra opens. Christ also
enjoined the avoiding of adulterous eyes in order to maintain
purity, even to the point of tearing out the eyes that offend38.
Strong words, but such behaviour is inimical to the well-being of
the Agnya chakra. Christ spoke of the Father, but also of the Holy
Spirit (whom he referred to as the Mother39). As we have seen,
the patriarchal and misogynous Church has done everything in its
power to hide this from us.
The seventh chakra is known as the Sahasrara (from saha,
meaning “thousand” in Sanskrit, since it has one thousand petals).
It is the chakra of resurrection and liberation. The thousand petals
symbolise the thousands of nervous connections which it calls
into play. This ultimate chakra opens up the field of pure
spirituality, situated, as it is, above the mind, intellect and
emotions. It is the point of direct connection with the Divine. If
the qualities of this seventh chakra, joy, integration, vibratory
awareness and compassion, have not yet penetrated the collective
consciousness, this is because the opening of this Sahasrara
chakra is actually happening now. It involves the collective

252
awakening of the Kundalini, which is nothing else but the Mother
Goddess.
As we have seen in this brief overview, each chakra has its own
specific qualities. The working of a chakra is adversely affected
by any behaviour which conflicts with those qualities. For
example, someone who fails to assume his or her family
responsibilities will damage his or her heart chakra. One who
refuses to respect his neighbours will impair the Vishuddhi. The
chakras can also be harmed by toxic agents: alcohol damages the
Nabhi, smoking harms the Vishuddhi. A chakra may also be
disturbed at the collective level. For example, the inhabitants of
large cities are subjected to permanent stress. People who move
from the country to the town, and start modelling their conduct on
that of the new collective, will suffer stress. This is because the
individual Nabhi is vulnerable to a collective blockage of the
chakra. There are many similar examples.40
Awakening the Kundalini will gradually dissolve any blockage of
the chakras and restore its virtues, bringing about balance, peace
and inner joy. This is the primary role of the Kundalini who, as
the Mother within, cleanses and purifies her child with pure love.
It is the real meaning of baptism: “Be baptised and wash away
your sins.”41
This understanding of the subtle system within human beings has
been revealed by Shri Mataji. It is not an abstract knowledge
which one must believe blindly. On the contrary, it is knowledge
which is confirmed daily by the experiences of those who practise
Sahaja Yoga, experiences resulting from the opening, on a
collective level, of the seventh chakra, the Sahasrara.

253
 Table 1: The Chakras and the Advance of Mankind

254
3. The Sahasrara
“Listen to the Speech of the Mother
For you have become worthy of the mystery
Hidden from the beginning
So that you become perfect.”42

The opening of the Sahasrara, which is initiated by the awakening

of the Kundalini, activates a new - and large - area of
consciousness. Human beings are receiving a new understanding
never previously described; messages which can be decoded in
the light of the teachings of Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi.

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Vibratory Awareness
The Kundalini performs a real action of purification on the subtle
system – composed of the seven chakras and three energy
channels. This purifying is felt clearly on the body, at the exact
position of the chakra itself or on the hands. Each chakra has a
corresponding point on a finger or an area of the hand. The Nabhi
corresponds to the middle finger, the Swadisthan to the thumb,
the Anahata to the little finger, the Vishuddhi to the forefinger,
and the Agnya to the ring finger. The Mooladhara is situated at
the base of the wrist and the Void around the palm, as shown
below:

Figure 8: The corresponding chakras on the hands

256
When the Kundalini is awakened, not only the cool breath, but
also a tingling, warmth or inner vibration may be experienced on
some of the fingers or certain areas of the hand. This indicates
that the Kundalini is purifying the corresponding chakra. It also
indicates where attitudes should be changed, or particular
qualities acquired. This new perception recalls the prophecy in
the Koran: “On the Day of Resurrection, your hands will
speak.”43 For example, someone who prefers solitude, who tends
to turn inward, avoiding the company of others, may feel a
tingling on the left index finger, corresponding to Vishuddhi
chakra, the chakra of our communication. In this way the
Kundalini makes the seeker aware of the need to open up to
others. Similarly, anyone who is lacking inner peace, who is
incapable of staying put for two minutes at a time, may feel a
heated Nabhi chakra on the middle finger. This process is
repeated as often as there are qualities needed by a person to
become an all-round, integrated and virtuous personality.
Generally the Kundalini is at work on several chakras at once.
When these have been cleansed, after a few weeks or months, the
Kundalini moves on to other problems, which she sets about
correcting with patience and compassion. In the same way the
Kundalini balances the energy channels, a process that can also
be felt on the hands. For a “right-sided” temperament, one which
tends to overwork, the sensation will be heaviness or heat on the
right hand. In contrast, a lethargic temperament will create a
similar sensation, but on the left hand. The Kundalini teaches the
realised seeker self knowledge so that progress can be made in
spiritual ascent.
This is a new form of awareness. Awareness of inner
“cleanliness” is vibratory in nature. A person who has moved into
this new state of consciousness can no longer allow himself to
have chakras in poor condition. He will face himself so that he
can grow spiritually.

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This awareness is not limited to the individual sphere. It is also a
collective awareness. By putting his attention on another person,
a place, or a work of art, he can discern its vibratory nature. If a
cool breeze flows over the hands, it is because the person is
realised, the place is holy, or the work of art was created by an
enlightened artist. For example the music of Mozart, the works of
Michelangelo, the plays of Molière and the poetry of Goethe emit
this Divine breath. Some types of art, in contrast, emit negative
vibrations, which can be identified by heat and tingling
sensations in the hands. This consciousness, which is the
consciousness of Sahasrara, is a remarkable means of evaluating
ourselves and the world around us. Is this a good choice? Will
this master’s teachings be good for my progress? Does a
particular politician have the right vibrations to control the
destiny of the country? Or is he ineffective or corrupt?
It should be understood that this is not, even subtly, a phenomena
involving psychological or mental activity. As for the theory of
auto suggestion, it is proven by experience to be baseless. This
new awareness is nothing more than the recording, by our subtle
“antennae” of the vibratory reality of someone, a work, a place,
or an event. These observations, or recordings, are identical for
all those whose vibratory awareness is awakened. We are here
within the region of absolute objectivity, which transcends the
mental categories of ego and superego. It is this vibratory
awareness from the Most High - not from human concepts - that
is the prelude to the New Age.
Shri Mataji often explains that nowadays people must not blindly
follow religion, but must attain faith through the awareness and
certainty one experiences as Truth. Shri Mataji does not attempt
to persuade people. She leaves the seekers to discover for
themselves the inner dimension and the new consciousness which
they are offered.

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The results have not been slow in coming. Thousands of men and
women from all continents have experienced Self-Realisation,
and have been able to discover for themselves the hidden treasure
of their own Selves. And they have also been able to transmit this
experience to other seekers who desire it. Anyone in whom the
Kundalini has been awakened, can awaken the Kundalini of
another, if the other so desires. Shri Mataji uses the image of a
candle which, once lit, can also enlighten another candle.

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Compassion and Joy
During her public lectures, Shri Mataji often does not leave the
hall until late into the night in order to meet each seeker who has
just attained Self-Realisation. She takes the opportunity to correct
one or another chakra, and to give greater meaning to the
experience of realisation. Devoted to the emancipation of as
many people as possible, Shri Mataji expresses a universal
motherly love which makes her much more than just a «Spiritual
Master”. She often says that the “blossom time” has come, and
that many seekers have taken birth at this time just to get their
Self-Realisation.
The compassion that emanates from Shri Mataji is the power of
the Sahasrara chakra itself. It is love which has become active,
taking full possession of its transforming power. The Kundalini is
this power. She takes care of us and brings about our evolution.
Shri Mataji tells us that the Kundalini knows us better than we
know ourselves, because she has been within us since the
beginning of our creation. The Kundalini cures, improves, and
pours on each of us her blessings. As we discover how the
Kundalini operates, independently of our own will, a feeling of
surrender to the Mother develops. We become aware that it is
she, and she alone, who allows us to progress. It is therefore
necessary to surrender entirely to her in order to grow in the way
that leads to absolute liberation, the Realisation of God.
This surrender does not involve any loss of freedom or free will.
These remain intact throughout spiritual ascent. This surrender,
which is what the word Islam means, grows as one witnesses

260
one's own progress through many inner changes, eventually
realising the infinite material power of the Kundalini. The only
desire that remains is that of being linked to her at all times.
Individual desires melt into the desire of God, whose name is
Kundalini, or Adi Shakti. This communion between our desire
and the Kundalini gives birth to a great love between the
children, which we are, and the Mother. Recognition, a mixture
of knowledge and gratitude, wells up from the heart as a spring of
joy, of fullness and of devotion. This beatitude is the joy of
Sahasrara, the joy of God, the absolute and unconditional joy.

1
Victor Hugo, Les Contemplations. Au bord de l’Infini IV (Paris 1990) p. 304.
2
C. S. Lewis, The Great Divorce (New York) p. 108-9.
3
The Koran, Surah 69.
4
Kahlil Gibran, Le Jardin du Prophète (Casterman 1979) p. 50.
5
S. Lévi, Études d’Orientalisme à la mémoire de R. Linossier (Paris 1931) p.
355-402. See also P. Harvey, Introduction to Buddhism (Cambridge 1990) p.
15.
6
Louis Renou, Manuel des Etudes Indiennes (Paris 1953) p. 1052.
7
C. Glassé, Dictionnaire encyclopédique de l’Islam (Paris 1991) p. 238.
8
John 14:26.
9
John 16:7-8. Although the reference to the Counsellor as “him” and “he”
appears in almost all translations, this is not justified by the original Aramaic.
10
Ouseley & Muller, op. cit., 72:10.
11
C. G. Jung, Selected Letters (Princeton 1984) p. 15.
12
Deuteronomy 7:14.
13
Revelation 12:1-2.
14
J. Saint Hilaire (Helen Roerich), Enseignment de l’Agni Yoga (Paris 1970).
15
E. Begg, The Cult of the Black Virgin (London 1985) p.134.
16
Ibid, p. 134.
17
E. C. Whitmont, The Return of the Goddess (London 1987) p. viii.
18
i.e. the Primordial Illusion.

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19
Gospel of the Egyptians 67:4-8, NHL p. 218.
20
John 16:13. Again the pronoun “he”, from the Gr
original Aramaic.
21
II Kings 19:11-13.
22
Ezekiel 37:5.
23
Ezekiel 37:6.
24
The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ by Levi
p. 230.
25
Evangile selon Philippe (Paris 1988) p. 99.
26
P. Deussen, Sixty Upanishads vol, II, op. cit., p. 5
27
i.e. the primordial energy, the Kundalini, who gr
William Blake, Complete Writings (Oxford 1985) p
28
Whitmont, op. cit., p. 72.
29
Goethe, Poésies (Aubier Montaigne 1982) p. 368
French version: “... attendre les regards du Roi du f
Correct version: “... attendre les regards de la Rein
(Himmelfürstin)
French version: “Mais voici que Dieu reparaît!”
Correct version: “Mais voici que la Déesse (Göttin
30
The English original states that God the Mother i
Holy Breath is always referred to deliberately as “s
pronoun in English would be “it”). The French tran
feminine for the masculine without comment, and m
Breath” by “Saint-Esprit”, meaning “Holy Spirit” w
thing. Sources: Levi H. Dowling, The Aquarian Go
cit., and its translation l’Evangile du Verseau (Pari
31
C. G. Jung, Dialectic of the Self and the Unconsc
32
Prashna Upanishad et son commentaire par Sha
33
Upanishads du Yoga (Paris 1971) p. 67.
34
For more information on tantrism, see Lotus Hea
35
See Yogi Mahajan, Geeta Enlightened (Delhi 19
36
The Bhagavad Gita translated by Juan Mascaro (

262
37
Exodus 3:14.
38
Matthew 5:29.
39
For instance in the Gospel of Thomas.
40
See L. Heart, op. cit., p. 165-169.
41
Acts 22:16.
42
The Trimorphous Protenoia 44:30-34, NHL p. 5
43
The Holy Koran, Sura 36:65.
264
 “To the One who is both
The Difficult River and the Far Shore,
The Unchanging Essence
And the Creator,
Salutations to Her again and again.”
Devi Mahatmyam

265
Appendix 1:
Science and Religion
“Saha” means “with”, “Ja” means “born”, “Yoga” means union with
the all pervading power of Divine Love. This is a very subtle subject,
absolutely valid and can be proved, of our ascent into higher
awareness. At the very outset, one has to be a seeker of truth and with
scientific attitude one should approach the subject. It should be treated
respectfully like a hypothesis, and if found by experiments as truth
should be accepted by sincere people in the spirit of honesty.
Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi

The aim of Sahaja Yoga is to give Self-Realisation to those who

desire it by the awakening of the Kundalini.
Sahaja Yoga is free. Shri Mataji often says that one cannot pay
for something which is within everyone and which is waiting to
be awakened. In every country Sahaja Yoga exists as an
association whose only resources are the voluntary contributions
of enthusiasts. These resources are destined to finance public
conferences. No one in the world receives the slightest
remuneration for their activity concerning Sahaja Yoga. In France
Sahaja Yoga officially exists as a religious association, just as the
established religions. In the USA, Brazil, Colombia, and other
countries Sahaja Yoga is officially recognised as a religion.

266
In 2004, Sahaja Yoga is flourishing in more than 108 countries
and on every continent. For more information, see the Sahaja
Yoga web pages on the Internet:
http://www.sahajayoga.org

Some books on Sahaja Yoga include:

I. Publications by H.H. Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi
Sahaja Yoga, Vishwa Nirmala Dharma, New Delhi, 1995
Metamodern Era, Vishwa Nirmala Dharma, New Delhi,
1998
II. Publications by Sahaja Yogis (non exhaustive)
D. Costian, Bible enlightened, Vishwa Nirmala Dharma,
New Delhi, 1995
F. Descieux, The Light of the Koran, Ritana Books, New
Delhi, 1998
G. de Kalbermatten, The Advent, The Life Eternal Trust,
New Delhi, 1983
G. de Kalbermatten, The Third Advent, daisyamerica, New
York, 2003
Prof. U. Rai, Medical Science Enlightened, The Life
Eternal Trust, New Delhi, 1993

For more details please consult website.

267
Appendix 2:
The Great Goddess and the Liberation
of the Seekers of Truth
I. 21 sanskrit names taken from the “Shri Lalita Sahasranama”:
Dipta
She enlightens the obscure paths taken by the seekers.
Vijaya
She sets the triumph over the forces of evil.
Tara
The Redemptrix.
Bhayapaha
She releases the seekers from doubts and fears.
Sadhaka-dhivinashini
The Love Incarnate to destroy the sufferings of the seekers.
Sadhaka-rivinadhini
She grants Eternal Joy to the Seekers.
Sumukti-da
She grants Spiritual Emancipation.
Papahantri
She destroys sins.
Rakshasagni
She destroys forces of evil.

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 Sharma-dayini
She gives Divine Bliss.
Sukhaprada
She gives Joy and Bliss of Liberation.
Rakshakari
She grants Salvation.
Yogada
She grants Yoga, Union.
Sat-Chit-Ananda-rupini
She is Truth, Consciousness and Bliss.
Prana-rupini
She is the Divine Breath.
Vishva-garbha
Mother of the Universe.
Sahaja-yoga-dayini
She grants spontaneous Self-Realisation.
Kundalini
She is the Mother Within.
Naga-Kanya
The Virgin Serpent (i.e. the Kundalini).
Bhakta-nandamayi
Source of Eternal Joy for Her disciples.
Bhakta-vatsala
She cherishes Her disciples.

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II. 21 Latin names of the Virgin Mary:
Mater Divinae Gratiae
Mother of DivineGrace.
Speculum Divinae Contemplationis
Mirror of Divine Contemplation.
Porta Paradisi
Gate of Paradise.
Regina Salutis
Queen of Salvation.
Nostra Spes Vera
Our true Hope.
Omnium Exultatio
Exultation of all beings.
Per Quam Venitur
Through Her, Joy is given.
Nostra Lux Vera
Our true Light.
Regina Sanctorum Omnium
Queen of all the saints.
Mater Veri Gaudi
Mother of true Joy.
Coelorum Regina
Queen of Heaven.
Generans Acternum Lumen
She produces the Eternal Light.
Mater Intemerata
Immaculate Mother.

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Iter Nostrum Ad Dominum
Our Way to the Lord.
Resurrectio Nostra
Our Resurrection.
Templum Spiritus Sanctus
Temple of the Holy Breath.
Foederis Arca
Arch of the Union.
Virgo Potens
All powerful Virgin.
Mater Gratia Plena
Mother full of Grace.
Causa Nostra Laetitia
She brings Joy.
Regina Beatitudinis
Queen of Bliss.

271
Appendix 3:
The Church down the Centuries (part I)

1st Century:
Paul declares:
“those who marry will have torments of the flesh.”
“Are not you tied to a wife? Do not look for a wife.”
4th Century:
The Council of Nicaea (325) decrees that man must not marry
after his ordination as a priest.
Pope Syrius (385) adds that after ordination, no man is permitted
to sleep with his wife.
5th Century:
Augustine declares
“Frigidity is spirituality.”
“Sex during marriage is only for those who cannot control
themselves.”
“The ideal would be no sex, at any moment and for eternity.”
6th Century:
Pope Gregory the Great decrees that sexual desire is a sin.

272
9th Century:
Marozia, the mistress of Pope Sergius III, gives birth to the child
that will become Pope John XI. John XI also had a son who
succeeded him at the head of Papacy (John XII).
10th Century:
Pope Sixtus IV is infamous for his mistresses.
16th Century:
Saint Peter’s Cathedral of Rome can be rebuilt thanks to the papal
trade in “indulgences”. Likewise Roman brothels are to finance
the reconstruction of the dome.
The Council of Trent declares celibacy superior to marriage.
20th Century:
In the 70’s Archbishop Daniélou from France dies in the arms of
a prostitute.
John Paul II freezes the dispensation from celibacy introduced by
his predecessor Paul VI.
In Europe and America, thousands of catholic priests are
suspected of child sexual abuse.
In 1990, in the United States, 600 priests are charged with child
sexual abuse. The pope is compelled to give his apologies. The

273
Appendix 4:
The Church down the Centuries (part II)

1st century:
Paul devastated Christ's community of disciples and was
delighted at Stephen's martyrdom.
4th and 5th centuries:
The Church bans the gnostic movements, which are wiped out by
Roman legions.
Augustine resorts to bloodshed to destroy the Donatist
movement.
He condemns the bishop Pelagius, who does not share his views
on original sin.
6th century:
The first anti-semitic documents are published by the Church.
13th century:
The Cathars are wiped out during the Albigensian crusade.
« Saint » Dominic declares : "Kill them all, God will sort out his
own!"
14th century:
Eckhart is condemned for heresy. Without his prestige and his
responsibilities, he would have suffered the same fate as the

274
mystic lay sister Marguerite Potier, who was burnt at the stake on
1st June 1310.
15th century:
The Church gives its blessing for the Templars to be sent to the
stake.
Joan of Arc is burnt alive in Rouen.
16th century:
Huguenots were massacred on St. Bartholomew's day in Paris.
Paul IV 's papal bull against the Jews: they must be treated as
slaves, their possessions are confiscated, and they are confined to
ghettos.
17th century:
The Inquisition burns hundreds of thousands of alleged witches
throughout Europe.
The bishop of Geneva sends 500 women to the stake in less than
three months. Amongst them were found young girls of less than
six years old.
Galileo is convicted for having said that the earth was round.
The American Indians do not have a soul : they can be wiped out.
19th century:
The popes declare themselves to be infallible.
Torture chambers are discovered by Napoleon's troops in
Madrid's Dominican monastery.
20th century:
The Church disregards the gas chambers. Hitler and Mussolini
reward the Vatican by giving it a percentage of taxes levied.

275
The Opus Dei, the strong striking elite the Church, is founded in
1928. Its founder will be honoured by the dictator Franco and ...
beatified by John-Paul II.
The Vatican banks are involved in laundering money from the
Mafia and drug dealing.
The Vatican supports the Latin American dictatorships.
John-Paul Ist, who wants to reform the Church, dies in a most
mysterious way...

AND IN 2004 THE POPE IS STILL CALLED HIS

HOLINESS!...

Sources on the Catholic Church:

Peter de Rosa : Vicars of Christ. The Dark Side of the Papacy.
(Bantam Press, 1988)
David Yallop : In God's Name. An Investigation into the Murder
of John Paul I. (Corgi Books, 1992)
E. Burkett & F. Bruni : A Gospel of Shame. Children sexual
abuse and the Catholic Church. (New York, 1993)

276
Appendix 5:
Critical works on Freud and his doctrine

C. W. Valentine : The Psychology of Early Childhood. (London,

Methuen 1942)
C. S. Hall : The Meaning of Dreams. (New York, Harper 1953)
R. La Piere : The Freudian Ethic. (New York, Duell, Sloan and
Perce 1961)
L. L. Whyte : The Unconscious before Freud. (London,
Tavistock Publications 1962)
E. R. Pinckney and C. Pinckney : The Fallacy of Freud and
Psychoanalysis. (Englewood Cliffs, Prentice-Hall 1965)
C. York : If Hopes Were Dupes. (London, Hutchinson 1966)
H. F. Ellenberger : The discovery of the Unconscious: The
History and Evolution of Dynamic Psychiatry. (London, Burnett
1970)
R. M. Jones : The New Psychology of Dreaming. (London,
Penguin Books 1970)
P. Kline : Fact and Fantasy in Freudian Theory. (London,
Methuen 1972)
H. J. Eysenck, G. D. Wilson : The Experimental Study of
Freudian Theories. (London, Methuen 1973)

277
M. Kaplan, R. Kloss : The Unspoken Motive: A Guide to
Psychoanalytic Literary Criticism. (New York, The Free Press
1973)
N. N. Morris : A Man Possessed: The Case History of Sigmund
Freud. (Los Angeles, Regent House 1974)
F. Crews : Out of My System: Psychoanalysis, Ideology and
Critical Method. (New York, Oxford University Press 1975)
P. Roazen : Freud and his followers. (London, Allen Lane 1976)
S. Timpanaro : The Freudian Slip: Psychoanalysis and Textual
Criticism. (London, New Left Books 1976)
S. Sutherland : Breakdown: A Personal Crisis and a Medical
Dilemna. (London, Weidenfeld & Nicholson 1976)
H. H. Strupp, S. W. Hadley, B. Gomes-Schwartz : Psychotherapy
for Better or Worse: The Problem of Negative Effects. (New
York, Aronson 1977)
F. J. Sulloway : Freud: Biologist of the Mind. (London, Burnett
1979)
S. Rachman, G. T. Wilson : The Effects of Psychological
Therapy. (London, Pergamon 1980)
V. A. Fromkin : Errors in Linguistic Performance: Slips of the
Tongue, Ear, Pen and Hand. (London, Academic Press 1980)
D. E. Stannard : Shrinking History. (Oxford, Oxford University
Press 1980)
R. S. Steel : Freud and Jung: Conflicts of Interpretations.
(London, Routledge & Kegan Paul 1982)
K. Obholzer : The Wolf-man: Sixty Years later. (London,
Routledge & Kegan Paul 1982)

278
D. Foulkes : Children's Dreams: Longitudinal Studies. (New
York, John Wiley 1982)
E. R. Wallace : Freud and Anthropology: A History and
Reappraisal. (New York, International Universities Press 1983)
B. Zilbergeld : The Shrinking of America: Myths of Psychological
Change. (Boston, Little, Brown & Co 1983)
E. N. Thornton : Freud and Cocaine: The Freudian Fallacy.
(London, Blond & Briggs 1983.)
A. Gruenbaum : The foundations of Psychoanalysis. (Berkeley,
University of California Press 1984)
M. Jurjevich : The Hoax of Freudism. (Philadelphia, Dorance
1984)
M. Edelson : Psychoanalysis, a Theory in Crisis. (Chicago,
University of Chicago Press 1988)
H. J. Eysenck : Decline and Fall of the Freudian Empire.
(London, Penguin Books 1991)
E. Fuller Torrey : Freudian Fraud. (New York, Harper Collins
1992)
J. Masson : The Assault on Truth. (London, Fontana 1992)

279
 Acknowledgements
to Doris,
to Beatrice and Rebecca,

To my friends Phil Ward and Brian Bell who have been so

devoted to the English translation.

All my gratitude to Adi Lorenz, Hubert Neuwirth

and Gojčo Stevkovski

280