DARK GODDESS

"The essential qualities of the dark moon are change and transformation. Today
we are afraid of many of the dark moon [and Dark Goddess] teachings, such as
alchemy, astrology, and other spiritual or psychological disciplines, which
reveal information about the unconscious or subtle dimensions of being. The
Bible has told us that they are evil and contrary to the will of God. Educators
tell us they cannot be validated by scientific inquiry and its practitioners are
labeled quacks. Yet it is these teachings, based on the timing of cyclical
patterns that give us the guidance that enables us to pass thru the dark
nonphysical dimensions of being - of death and rebirth, endings and new
beginnings, or spontaneous healings - with clarity and confidence instead of
panic and terror. Philosophical traditions have repeatedly told us that the
answers tot he ultimate questions of life and death are found, not in the
external world, but deep within the dark recesses of our own minds." (Demetra
George, "Mysteries of the Dark Moon," page 51-52.)

In the psychology of humanity there occurred a polarization between the male
gods who came from above, bearers of the light, [the lightning and solar Gods of
the nomadic invader- Aryans, Kurgans, Semites and Dorians, who came from the
steppes of northern Europe, where "big sky" rules over the cold, forbidding
earth] and the female divinities, who dwelt in the [fertile] darkness of Earth
and caves. Light was equated with good and dark with evil....

As the Goddess became distorted from an image of the compassionate mother, the
source and sustainer of all life, into a symbol associated with the forces of
darkness and evil, women, her earthly manifestations, were likewise considered
impure, evil, and guilty of original sin - people who must be punished. Women
who had sexual relations outside of the patriarchal monogamous marriage contract
threatened the certainty of patriarchal bloodline transmission, and were
ostracized and killed; their illegitimate children deprived of all legal rights
and social acceptance." (George, 38)

The demise of the goddess and the rise of the gods can also be understood in
terms of the changes that were occurring in the human brain during the period of
transition. Princeton University professor Julian Jaynes, in his controversial
study of human consciousness, suggests that ancient people did not "think" as we
do today.

People were 'bicameral,' directed by voices emanating from the right side of the
brain and apprehended by the left side - voices that they treated as divine and
obeyed unquestioningly until a series of natural disasters and the growing
complexity of their society forced them to become [what we might call] conscious
(around 1500 BCE).

The cosmology that developed during the reign of the Goddess arose from the
kinds of thought processes that originate primarily out of the right brain. The
right brain is feminine in polarity, circular in motion, intuitive in nature,
and audial in emphasis. The right brain is relational and unifying; it focuses
on a holistic view of how things are similar and interconnected....It sees time
as cyclical. Humanity then worshipped a feminine lunar deity who circled and
ever-renewed Herself. She illumined the mystery where the end and beginning are
the same point, touching back-to-back. Peoples thus understood death and sex as
precursors to rebirth. And they did not fear the darkness of death, the ecstasy
of sexuality, or the Goddesses and Her priestesses, who facilitated their
transition between lifetimes.

While Jaynes does not discuss the changeover from the Goddesses to the Gods, he
does document the catastrophes and cataclysms that started to occur in the
middle of the second millennium BCE. In Addition to the volcanic eruptions,
tidal waves, and massive flooding, he sees widespread warfare and dislocation
that [has been previously identified as] the patriarchal invasions. Jaynes
suggests that the rational, logical, analytical mind, all functions of the left
brain, was developed in order to assist humanity thru the increasing complexity
of their changing world. He presents evidence that the left-brain functions
became more active at this time and grew to influence the ways in which
individuals perceived reality.

The left brain is masculine in polarity, linear in movement, logical in nature,
and visual in perception. It has been most prevalent in the analytical,
technological and scientific intellectualism of modern times. While the right
brain focuses on how things are alike, THE LEFT BRAIN EMPHASIZES HOW THEY ARE
DIFFERENT[!]. It develops our capacity for analysis and discrimination, and in
the process it perceives a distinction between subject and object. This kind of
dualistic view sees a separation between self and others, between us and them,
and this perception inevitably leads to a war of opposites that yields an
oppressor and victim...After 1500 BCE, when human beings began to operate
primarily from the left brain, associated with the masculine principle, they
began to see a distinction between themselves and the rest of creation. Because
they now feared the threat of being overwhelmed by external forces as something
separate from themselves, there arose a desire to conquer the feminine
principle, embodied in the Goddess, women, and nature, rather than to live in
harmony with it. (George, pp 40-44)

"While the religion of the Goddess always included a concept of the Underworld,
it was not a place of punishment. It was simply the gap between lifetimes, the
dark womb of the Goddess, where one went to be purified, healed, and prepared
for rebirth. It is the patriarchal monotheistic religions, operating out of
left-brain mentality, that conceived of a heaven and hell, with the he
corresponding associations of good and evil, reward and punishment. And the
hell of this wrathful Father God was filled with unending sadistic torture and
pervasive suffering. Humanity then began to fear the darkness of death. Those
who, during their lives, were not saved by a religious conversion to the Father
faced a death of eternal torture and absolute finality. Their terror extended
to the Dark Goddess of the Dark Moon, who was now only the death-bringer and no
longer the renewer. When the Goddess became separated from her role in cyclical
renewal, her third dark aspect became the horrifying image of feminine evil who
seduced, devoured, and brought finality to the lives of human beings. The dark
aspect of the goddess was then hated, persecuted, suppressed, and cast out into
the predawn of history and into the depths of the unconscious....

Today the Dark Goddess, as the third aspect of the ancient Triple Goddess,
represents many of the rejected aspects of the trinity of feminine wholeness.
the teachings of the Dark Goddess of the Dark Moon are concerned with
divination, magic, healing, sacred sexuality, the nonphysical dimensions of
being, and the mysteries of birth, death, and regeneration. These dark moon
teachings, now called pseudo-sciences, have been rejected as legitimate areas of
inquiry by modern religious and educational institutions....

The shadow, according to Junian psychology, is the dark, rejected part of the
psyche. It consists of all those qualities that we, as influenced by the values
of our culture, do not feel are desirable or acceptable to express as part of
our personalities. The shadow contains what we do not like about ourselves,
what we find threatening, shameful, and inadequate, as well as certain valued
and positive qualities that we are pressured to repress and disown...

The inherent nature of the original Dark Goddess, who brought both death and
rebirth, has been repressed and denied for thousands of years. Her toxic
releases, festering in exile, have distorted and poisoned our perceptions of an
intrinsic aspect of the feminine nature. the Dark Goddess was then
conceptualized as malefic, and her teachings concerning the dark, sex, and death
were distorted. Our mythical literature abounds with images of the Dark Goddess
as feminine evil. She was feared as the Fates who, at the moment of our birth,
determine the time of our death...as Nemesis, the Goddess of Judgment and swift
retribution; as the Furies, who will hound a man to madness and death..medea,
who killed her children; Circe, who transformed men into pigs; Medusa, who
turned them to stone; the Lamia, who sucked their blood; Lilith, who seduced
them in order to breed demons; and Hekate, Queen of the Witches, who snatched
them into the Underworld." (Ibid, 43-44). In popular culture, there is no
better representation of the Dark Goddess than the Alien mother who fought
Sigourney Weaver. Our fear, rage and disgust over the Dark Goddess can be seen
in our severe reactions to women who do NOT behave as the loving, nurturing
mothers we expect/ want them to be.

Ask someone to give a description of the personality type s/he finds most
offensive, irritating, and impossible to get along with, and s/he will produce a
description of his/her own repressed shadow!

"Jungian psychology tells us that in order to heal the wounds and suffering
caused by denying and rejecting specs of our wholeness, we must first enter into
our unconscious and develop a relationship with our shadow. It is necessary to
recognize that all of these hated and ostracized parts of ourselves have a
legitimate need to exist and be expressed. If we can affirm the full range of
our essential human nature, acknowledging both the desirable and undesirable
qualities, then we have the option to transform the more problematical energies
that cause our pain and suffering into constructive activity that will benefit
our lives and relationships....

We need to go into our darkness and make our peace with all the lost parts of
ourselves in order to redeem the healing and renewal that reside in the dark...

The hero or heroine's journey into the underworld to reclaim the stolen treasure
from the monster is not an easy quest, and is fraught with many dangers....As we
move toward accepting the wholeness of our beings, we will inevitably have to
revise our fears of the dark....

And so we must invoke and praise the Dark Goddess, who has been banished to the
neglected corners of our psyches. Her ultimate function is to facilitate the
transformation that occurs in t he dark. She provokes the death of our ego
selves, of our old forms, and of our false assumptions, so that we can give
birth to the new....Our personal healing experiences then become the training
ground for the compassion that permeates our potentialities as a wounded healer.
The mystery of the Dark Moon Goddess is that death and birth are the twin faces
of her cosmic orgasm with the Sun God each month at the new moon conjunction.
Fulfilled in love, she then circles, ever turning around the earth, and sends
forth a shower of blessings with the knowledge that there is no annihilation."
(Ibid 55-58)