21st Century Progressivism

Author: Sheila Marler

  • Justice of the Rupture

    Reading Time: 6 minutes

    Lately I’ve been thinking about the temptations of Jesus in the wilderness.  He fasted for 40 days and was hungry. During this time in the wilderness the devil tempted him three times.  The first temptation had to do with Jesus’s hunger. The second temptation, as I understand it, was connected with the human need for validation in the eyes of other people.  But the third temptation was something else altogether.  Matthew chapter 4, verses 8 and 9 imply that the ‘devil’ has the power to bestow ‘the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them,’ if we will only worship him.  Jesus’s resistance to these temptations represents the justice of the rupture.

    And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.

    But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.

    Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple,

    And saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.

    Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.

    Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them:

    And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.

    Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. (Matthew 4: 1-10) 

    The Cosmic Tyranny

    In recent years I’ve begun to think of the earth as surrounded by a closed system and ruled by a sort of cosmic tyranny. I imagine at the head of this cosmic order sits the ‘prince of this world.’  You can call him whatever you want–Matthew called him ‘the devil’.  So, when Jesus resisted the devil’s temptations, he was waging a cosmic resistance.  According to the article cited below, this cosmic resistance represents the justice of the rupture.  If I understand it correctly, this remains the central drama of mortal life.  It is the fundamental necessity of the entire human race–the only path to freedom.

    This Identifies the Christian God as the Same God Worshipped by the Jews

    I believe that this is what the Christians mean when they say their God is the same God worshipped by the Jews.  There is a cosmic order that wields power over the Earth and her inhabitants. But there is another power directly opposed to the cosmic order.  (Hopefully it is obvious that I am not talking about Jewish or Christian esotericism and the loosely related secret societies that capitulate to the cosmic order.)

    Unfortunately, the major religions of our day have taken on much of the lore of the cosmic order.  This happened quite early in Christianity’s journey through history.  Also unfortunate is the fact that the so-called Christian ‘reformers’ failed to recognize this problem.  This is doubly unfortunate because it is not only the central problem of religion.  Again, it is the central problem of mortal existence.  The failure to recognize this fact taints everything, including the current political environment.

    The Cosmic Resistance

    J. Leavitt Pearl sees this cosmic resistance in the scripture that tells of Jesus’s baptism.

    John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.  And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.  Now John was clothed with camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey.  He proclaimed, “The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals.  I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy spirit.”  In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan.  And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him.  And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” (Mark 1:4-11, as quoted by J. Leavitt Pearl)

    For Pearl the key phrase is, “He saw the heavens torn apart.”  It is too easy to pass over this phrase. This may be due to what followed it. It is followed by the dramatic description of the Spirit descending like a dove and a voice coming from heaven and saying to Jesus, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”  But according to Pearl, “The tearing open of the cosmic order is the descent of the True Justice of God, waged against the empires of this world who rule under the banner of ‘order and justice,’ but whose ‘justice’ is always only violence and oppression.”

    An Apocalyptic Text

    Pearl calls the gospel of Mark an apocalyptic text and describes John as an apocalyptic figure, but his focus is on what happened in the heavens.  “…the tearing apart of the heavens is a locus classicus of apocalyptic imagery, found in both…Isaiah 64:1, and…Revelation 6:14.”  (To risk belaboring the point, the heavens of the cosmic order are not exactly friendly to this tearing apart.)

    The heavens of the Biblical world were not only a spiritual domain and the home of God and other spiritual beings. “…they were equally the heavens above–the skies, the vault across which the stars moved in their predictable patterns.  Thus, the heavens were the domain of order and regularity. And despite their extreme complexity, their interpretation could be mastered by a skilled astrologist.” But apparently, cosmic order and regularity can be challenged.

    When this domain is torn open with Jesus’s baptism, it indicates a “rupture, a radical inbreaking of something genuinely new.  But, this arrival of the new necessarily takes the form of a disruption of the delicate harmony of the cosmos, epitomized by the heavens.”

    Pearl goes on to explain that these two opposing forces–the cosmic order and the order represented by Jesus–represent two kinds of justice: the Justice of the whole and the Justice of the rupture.  To further explain his argument, he cites Slavoj Zizek’s book, The Fragile Absolute, and Zizek’s description of the cosmic order represented by paganism:

    Against the ‘pagan notions of cosmic Justice and Balance,’ wherein ‘an individual is ‘good’ when he acts in accordance with his special place in the social edifice…and Evil occurs when some particular strata or individuals are no longer satisfied with this place, ‘Zizek contrasts Christianity, which ‘asserts as the highest act precisely what pagan wisdom condemns as the source of evil: the gesture of separation, of drawing the line, of clinging to an element that disturbs the balance of the All’ (118-121, as quoted by Pearl)

    Comparing the Capitol Insurrectionists

    Those who supported the recent insurrection at the Capitol, would like to tell us that theirs is a worthy cause. But what exactly were they fighting for? What were they fighting against? Wasn’t their leader supporting the status quo disguised as a rebel? They were fighting against the justice of the rupture.

    This may not be obvious on the surface, because their type of conservatism is not American. The American system doesn’t belong to European  conservatism. In contrast to Europe, it is the prototype of a rebel. The American system was enabled by a rebellion. So, the insurrectionists were fighting against a phenomenon that was perfectly legal under the American constitution. They were fighting against the results of a free election.

    Pearl tells us that the pagan as described by Zizek is no different from (conservative) Edmund Burke in his Reflection on the Revolution in France, or white moderates who condemned Martin Luther King Jr.’s tactics as ‘extremist’. This type of character is also no different from Fox News pundits who bemoaned the ‘disruption’ of Black Lives Matter protests.  They call these revolutionary tactics ‘evil’ because they disrupt a stable order.

    The Conservative Path of Supposed Safety

    Pearl admits that the rupture represents a risk but, alternatively, the path of supposed safety leads to the Justice of the whole, as exemplified by the philosopher Martin Heidegger who interprets ‘justice’ as ‘Compliance–that is harmonization.’  In fact, Heidegger elevates compliance and harmony to ontological principles.  The writings of Heidegger were influential in the rise of Nazism.

    Pearl contrasts Heidegger’s justice with an alternative account of justice, a justice of the rupture.  For this he cites Jacques Derrida, for whom justice is the domain of the future.

    Justice emerges as a call or a demand for responsibility to the Other.  It cannot be calculated or anticipated, because justice, if there is such a thing, is always a risk, as Derrida notes in, “The Force of Law.” (947)

    The prophet Isaiah, (64:1-2), and the Book of Revelation (6:12-15) each describe a similar view of justice as that of Derrida.  It is a justice that casts down the powerful, the oppressors.  It is a justice that destroys the class and caste boundaries that order our world, so that ‘everyone, slave and free’ find themselves on an equal footing.  For John, any social, political, or economic order that is built on oppression, built on the backs of ‘slaves–and human lives’ (Revelation 18:13) is an order that must be torn open.

    Conclusion and Caution

    (I don’t want to end this article without mentioning Pearl’s examples of the risks involved in the justice of the rupture.  These include the Terror of the French Revolution and the Stalinism that resulted from the October Revolution.  I don’t think any of us are willing to risk such things if we can avoid them, and there are things that must be understood if we want to make these kinds of failure less likely.  The challenge to the cosmic order represented by Jesus’s response to his temptations in the wilderness are central to this understanding.  We must know which order we serve and which order we fight.  Otherwise, failure is almost certain.  The cosmic order stands ever ready to creep in and take over from those who remain unaware.)

  • American Religion and the Iraq War

    Reading Time: 5 minutes

    Considering the un-peaceful tendencies in the Christian religion is it logical for a Christian to work for a peaceful future? The belief in the apocalyptic end of the world seems to work in the other direction. Many American Christians supported the Iraq War and justified their support by citing the Book of Revelation. Were they obeying the internal logic of the Christian religion, or were they mistaken? Considering the fact that Christians outside of the United States were not so supportive it’s likely they were mistaken. But we can’t say for sure until we study it further. The following Gallup survey might explain the relationship between American religion and the Iraq War.

    You might think this question has already been answered. After all, the Iraq War was a disaster, and therefore a mistake. But the morality of Christian support for the war should not hinge on whether the war was a success. It should hinge on whether Christian support for the war was consistent with Christian teachings. 

    In the process of writing this article I’ve learned that Christian teachings are not really central to the problem. If the problem were Christian error we might be able to blame it on believers’ mistaken interpretations of scripture. The Book of Revelation comes to mind. If scripture is the problem, it would make sense to study it and try to root out the error. But now I think the problem is worse than that. To illustrate, I’ll use surveys of Christian attitudes about the war.

    The first study is a combination of Gallup surveys conducted in 2005 and early 2006, written up by Frank Newport. It was published in March of 2006 on Gallup.com. The second study is written by Joseph L. Cumming. It was Based on a 2003 Survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life (This article is no longer available on the Internet).

    The Statistics

    There are four categories in the first analysis of American religion: Protestant, other Christian, Catholic, other religion, and no religion.  The initial results indicate a difference between denominations in support for the war. The least supportive was the category of other religion and no religion (42% and 38% respectively). At the top of the scale were Protestants and other Christian (55% and 53% respectively). Catholics were less likely than protestants and other Christians to support the war, but only slightly (48%). (Please see the results in graph-form on the Gallup website. Keep in mind that Gallup measured the ‘war is a mistake’ question, so higher numbers on the graphs indicate less support for the war and lower numbers indicate more support for the war.)

    What Do the Statistics Say About American Religion Versus Party Affiliation?

    At first glance this might seem to imply something negative about religion in general and about Protestantism in particular. But it’s more complicated than that. The results indicate that we’ve been giving religion far too much credit. This suspicion first arises with the significant relationship between religious identification and party identification. Protestants were most likely to be Republicans and Republicans were most likely to support the war. Likewise, we can explain the tendency for Catholics to be less supportive of the war by the fact that a higher percentage of Catholics are Democrats. And finally, those with no religion were significantly less likely to be Republican and more likely to be independents than the general American population. In short, Democrats in each group were highly likely to believe the war was a mistake, Republicans were the least likely, and independents were in the middle.

    Frequency of Attendance

    Frequency of church attendance was also a significant factor. Here, the biggest difference was between those who attend church seldom or never and those who attend monthly or more often (38% and 56% respectively). Other Christians who attend church more often were less supportive of the war however.

    Still, when you consider that those who attend church more often are more likely to be Republican, party affiliation remains the most influential factor. In a graph of the three major partisan groups: Republican, Independent and Democrat, according to church attendance and the belief that the war was a mistake, Democrats are highly likely to say the war was a mistake regardless of church attendance, Republicans are highly unlikely to say the war was a mistake, and independents are somewhere in the middle. A modest relationship remains within Republican and independent groups between church attendance and views on the war, but no strong pattern appears related to attendance among Democrats.

    The Influence of Christianity on Moral Decision-Making

    This survey was conducted March 13-16, 2003, by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life: Joseph L. Cumming, The Iraq War and Christian Faith, April 20, 2004, Based on a 2003 Survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life

    The facts did not support the guiding premise of this study. The premise was that decisions about war are profoundly moral decisions. Given Christianity’s ‘just war’ theory which limits the circumstances under which a country is justified in going to war, Christian decision-making about war should be shaped by Christian faith. The results again indicate that secular influences predominate. Political convictions seem to be changing Christian beliefs rather than the other way around.

    Christianity Was Not Very Influential in Support for the Iraq War

    In the week before the U.S. commenced hostilities in Iraq, only 10% of Americans considered their religious beliefs to be the most important influence in shaping their attitudes about the war. Only one third reported that religious leaders had had at least some influence on their views, and only 11% considered religious leaders to have been highly influential. However 53% said friends and family influenced their views on the war and 43% said political commentators influenced them.  Just before the war Americans favored military action by a nearly 2:1 ratio, despite the fact that high-ranking Christian religious leaders had spoken out publicly about the moral implications of the proposed war. So what happened?

    The Responsibility of the Clergy Versus American Cultural Isolation

    One response might be to hold the local clergy responsible. Only 14% of them took an anti-war position, seven per cent were publicly in favor of the war, and 75% took no position or did not speak about the war at all. But appearances may be deceiving. Researcher Ralph Premdas attributes the problem to ‘inter-communal antipathies’ present in society at large and reflected in the attitudes of churches and their adherents. He argues that clergy and believers are trapped within the ‘claims of their own ethnic or cultural community’, and he draws the conclusion that American isolation has robbed Christian decision-makers of the full benefit of their faith in making important decisions.

    “…it is only through a multinational, multiethnic universal church that the many-colored wisdom of God can be adequately known, and it is only together with all the saints (from all nations and all ages) that we may fully grasp the multidimensional love of Christ. That is, if we wish to consider these questions in an authentically Christian way, then we must listen to the voices of believers in Christ from other nations—especially believers in the Middle East and in other Islamic nations.”

    Premdas provides a hopeful ending to a disturbing study. Unfortunately American Christianity has always been conjoined with American politics. However I have found an encouraging answer for my question about whether it makes sense for a Christian believer to promote peace. Christian support for the Iraq War had very little to do with the Christian religion.  The bad news would be that the United States is a ship without a rudder.

    See Also: Ecological Conversion: Think in a New Way

  • Agribusiness Meets Reality

    Reading Time: 6 minutesI recently said that the words of those who criticize Laudato Si’ have no substance. Now I’ll try to be more specific.  Laudato Si’ is a rebuke of current practices, including agribusiness, but it is not the only warning voice. In this post, agribusiness meets reality.

    The human population will reach 9 billion people by 2050, even if we manage to slow the birthrate. The world has never had this many people before. We have to plan according to the facts we have. I will argue that if our goal is to support the projected number of people, our first priority should be food and water.  But so far, agricultural policies are not moving in that direction.

    Arable land is decreasing

    Currently, we don’t have enough farm land to feed 9 billion people. It is estimated that we need to increase agricultural land by 65-85 million hectares over the next decade. At 160-210 million acres, this is equivalent to approximately 50% of all U.S. cropland. It may not seem like much compared to the total area being farmed globally, (1,410 million hectares) but arable land is decreasing. We are losing 10-12 million hectares each year to urbanization and desertification. Much of this loss is due to agricultural policies.

    Agribusiness as Economic Warfare

    The United States is operating on an agribusiness model for agriculture. How did this happen? After World War II, Secretary of Agriculture and Mormon apostle, Ezra Benson, wanted to drive young men off of farms and into low-paying industrial jobs in the North. His plan was for the business of agriculture to be carried out by a few big players. In other words, policy-makers used agribusiness as economic warfare. To accomplish these changes, Benson’s faction tore down FDR’s New Deal protections for farmers. One result of their efforts was the disappearance of parity, which assured farmers a living wage.

    What is Parity?

    Under the policy of parity, the U.S. government bought excess crops for a fair price and waited for a shortage, or higher prices. Then the government would sell the excess. This provided a living wage to farmers and also resulted in a profit for the taxpayer. Today, instead of parity we have subsidies, courtesy of the taxpayer. We also have shortages.[mfn]Hauter, Wenonah, Foodopoly: The Battle Over the Future of Food and Farming in America, The New Press, 2012.[/mfn]

    According to AEW Capital Management, from 1975 to 2005 major agricultural commodity prices were stable, based on the marginal cost of production. In the event of a poor crop in a particular commodity, buffer inventories could meet demand. In that event a year or two of average crops would replenish inventories. This changed in 2005.

    “In the face of rapid demand growth, global stocks of key crops have been depleted to the point where there is no longer any practical buffer. Globally, stocks of coarse grains and oilseeds have been at historically low levels for the past five to six years. After 2005, if there was a poor crop (or even just an average one), someone somewhere in the world simply did not obtain that commodity. In short, in order to balance supply and demand, demand has to be rationed, and the only way this occurs is through pricing.”

    Seeking Alpha

    The effects of harmful policies on U.S. farmers are now being felt by farmers around the world. This is a problem for many reasons. Small farms improve the land and protect the ecosystem. Agribusiness, on the other hand, depletes the land. And by establishing monocultures it invites new types of pests and diseases. It also destroys the jobs associated with small farms. Finally, agribusiness can be a violent business.

    IMF, World Bank, and Other Culprits in Ukraine

    The fight over agricultural land is acknowledged as a major motivation for the conflict in Ukraine. And the culprits aren’t limited to U.S. companies. Germany is in on it. So is Finland and China. And their questionable activities are promoted by the World Bank and the IMF. But there are those who argue that it’s the other way around; the conflict caused the dispute over farmland. A Reuter’s article implies that military turmoil dictates that governments open farmland to foreign investment:

    “Ukraine, known as Europe’s bread basket, has the eighth largest agricultural area in use globally and is the world’s third largest exporter of corn and sixth largest grain grower, potentially making it a prime target for foreign investment.

    “But the government has been wary of allowing foreign land sales, fearing rural unrest, and the value of its 32 million hectares (79 million acres) of farmland has been limited by its division into small plots with relatively low productivity.

    “However economic turmoil emanating from the conflict between pro-Russia rebels and government forces in the east has intensified the need for change, said Heinz Strubenhoff, agribusiness investment manager for the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation in Ukraine.

    “Opening the farm sector, a key driver of the economy, to outside investors has long been backed by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF), and Strubenhoff believes changes will now happen sooner rather than later.

    “’It’s time to think about privatization. They need to prepare everything to allow for farm land sales (to foreign and domestic investors) in three to four years,’ Strubenhoff told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

    “Currently, farm land cannot be bought or sold in Ukraine, but companies can sign onto long-term leases with small holders.”

    The Conflict in Ukraine is a smokescreen for the theft of farmland

    However, the corporate drive for foreign farmland is actually a motivation for conflict rather than an outcome of it. The Oakland Institute  recently reported that German lawmakers are calling the conflict in Ukraine a smokescreen for the seizure of high-quality cropland by foreign firms funded by the World Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. Birgit Bock-Luna, who heads the office of Niema Movassat, told RIA Novosti (Sputnik News) that “a group of representatives had officially inquired with the German government on the actions of Germany’s state-run banking group Bankengruppe KfW. [It is believed that] this banking group is behind the seizure of Ukraine’s arable lands, some of the best in Europe.”

    Ukraine has a temporary ban prohibiting the sale of farmlands to foreign entities until January 2016. But German agricultural concerns – AGRARIUS AG, germanagrar CEE GmbH, KTG Agrar SE, Agroton and Alfred C. Toepfer International (ADM) – seize land using leasing schemes and generous loans from German and global money lenders.

    And according to Bock-Luna, the Ukrainian government that came to power in Kiev after the coup has been actively giving away farmland in return for loans from international creditors.

    “The previous Ukrainian administration was opposed to further relaxation of agricultural laws, but this changed after the coup, with the help of the World Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development,” she added.

    Governments Buy or Lease Farmland in Other Countries

    There is growing interest in farmland in other parts of the world as well. A 2011 Al Jazeera article cites a 2008 report by Grain, an international non-governmental organization working on behalf of small rural food producers. According to Grain, China, Egypt, Japan, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, India, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates are all buying or leasing fertile land in other countries where food is not always abundant.

    “Cambodia, which receives aid from the World Food Program, has leased rice fields to Qatar and Kuwait, while Uganda has granted concessions on its wheat and maize fields to Egypt, and interested parties from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are making approaches to the Philippines.”

    In addition, some land purchases in Ukraine, Senegal, Nigeria, Russia, Brazil and Paraguay, by banks and financial institutions, are of a speculative nature.

    It is disturbing that instead of a discussion about the implications of these practices for the future, the critics of Laudato Si’ give us warmed-over economic theory. They would like us to believe they merely object to the degree of agricultural change that has been suggested. However, it’s obvious that their goal is to head off change completely.

    Agribusiness Meets Reality in the 2016 Election

    Animal husbandry is another part of the problem. Livestock competes with humans by consuming a large percentage of the crops humans produce. But the global consumption of meat is increasing due to higher standards of living in developing countries. This must be reversed. If everyone ate as much meat as Americans, we would need several earths to support everyone.

    President Obama was trying to decrease livestock farming recently when he suggested that Americans should eat less meat. This is the kind of change we need. However, the Republicans objected to Obama’s suggestion and the Democrats were not as supportive as they should have been. Hilary Clinton is considered the frontrunner in the upcoming presidential election. However, the Clintons have a poor record in the areas that will be the most sensitive in the future: Bill Clinton signed off on NAFTA and the WTO, and currently the relationship between Hilary Clinton and Monsanto is too close for comfort.

    The foreign agribusiness concerns that support the Clinton foundation are even more worrisome, largely because they are displacing African farmers.[mfn]Pearce, Fred, The Land Grabbers:The New Fight Over Who Owns the Earth, Beacon Press, Boston, 2012[/mfn] We can’t afford eight more years of these policies.

    Conclusion

    Agribusiness is so focused on profit it has created a self-serving loop of cheap commodities for processed food and animal feed. The result is that it produces crops overseas for its own use. The corporate model as we know it won’t solve these problems. It is inefficient, destructive, overindulged, irresponsible, disorganized and stupid. Corporate agriculture helps no one but itself.

    This farming model not only destroys jobs, communities and the land, it pollutes water. If the rivers and oceans are further degraded, we won’t be any better off regardless of the additional crops we are able to grow. Furthermore, putting increased acreage into crops will only increase the possibility of environment degradation. Finally, if the livelihood of millions of people disappears through agribusiness technology and automation, they will starve regardless of corporate schemes to increase yield.

    The next 30 years will demonstrate what the human race is made of. So far, the only course of action our business leaders can think of is to take us to war. Apparently their plan is to fight each other to the death for the last scrap of land. We need planning based on the facts and with the aim of finding a civilized way to cope with a serious problem.

    Gresham College: Food Oppression

  • Neocons Erased George Kennan

    Reading Time: 2 minutes

    George Kennan tried but never succeeded in living down his famous ‘X Article’ in which he said ominous things about the Soviet Union. When he talked about containment, he thought he was recommending the political containment of a political threat, not some ‘doctrine’ of perpetual military containment. More importantly, he thought containment should apply to the Americans as well. Sadly, the neocons were able to use the words of George Kennan to achieve their aims. The neocons erased George Kennan.

    If certain people have their way there will be war with Russia. Americans have no business contemplating such a thing. For that matter, there was no excuse for the Cold War. It was concocted from Kennan’s recommendations. This is disturbing, considering that is not what he said. This concoction was done by a hysterical press and the ‘thinkers’ of RAND Corporation. Of course, neocons at RAND and their purportedly enormous brains are not working for Americans. They work their magic at the behest of the Air Force.

    Neocons Erased George Kennan and Containment
    Neocon Pretensions

    The neocons’ idealistic and pretentious lack of genuine foreign policy

    Kennan expressed concern about the ascendance in the United States of an ‘idealistic and pretentious lack of genuine foreign policy’ that focused on the American Dream. He thought the U.S. must put its own house in order first.

    He argued that the Soviets were part of an historical tradition of the Third Rome, which although it is a rival religion, is still Byzantine. Strangely, he could already see similar totalitarian tendencies at work in the United States. The Americans had taken up a form of existence that does not recognize limits, a result of unconditional acceptance of the logic of the marketplace. This had led to the loss of a sense of what should not be done.

    America’s monster: the indestructible myth

    So instead of a political containment lasting for 10-15 years the doctrine was transformed into an ‘indestructible myth’:

    “There emerged one of those great forbidding apparitions to the credence in which mass opinion is so easily swayed: a monster devoid of all humanity and of all rational motive, at once the embodiment and the caricature of evil, devoid of internal conflicts and problems of its own, intent only on bringing senseless destruction to the lives and hopes of others.”

    The symptoms of our decay go beyond politics. They include ‘overpopulation, urbanization, hyper-intensity of communication, and destruction of the environment’. However, for Kennan the nuclear arms race was the clearest indication of spiritual decline. It was a ‘spiritual and philosophical derangement of the last order’, a madness, a death wish, a lack of faith, ‘wrong in the good old-fashioned meaning of the word’.1 

    1. ROSSBACH, Stefan, Gnostic wars : the cold war in the context of a history of Western spirituality, Florence : European University Institute, 1997, EUI, SPS, PhD Thesis – https://hdl.handle.net/1814/5371 ↩︎

  • A Challenge to Politics As Usual

    Reading Time: 4 minutesOur choices are limited if we can only talk about what we can realistically do. But if we’re talking theory, anything is possible. Since I’m in charge of my own theoretical world, I’ll offer some solutions. This is a challenge to politics as usual.

    Start With the Environment and its Social Effects

    I’ll start with solutions to environmental problems. The particular environmental goal will guide any changes in politics and economics. After the environment, social effects will be the next criterion in decision-making.

    We have 50 years to do something about the oceans. Every continent contributes to the problem of pollution, much of it from industrial farming, so ideally every country would have to participate. I propose dividing industrial farms, which also contribute to global warming, into smaller, sustainable operations. Start with the farms that drain into major river systems. This would decrease the amount of chemical fertilizers flowing into the ocean and begin to address the problem of dead zones.

    A Double Benefit: Improve the Environment and Strengthen Communities

    It would also create the potential for using these sustainable farms as the nucleus of a different kind of community. Such communities would have to develop over time as the underlying political theory is discovered. They should be conceived as centers of a vibrant life—not oppressive sloughs of despair that the youth can’t wait to escape. They would have to offer opportunity; they would have to inspire and challenge all members.

    Make the Government More Accessible

    In the United States, we could consider creating another governing center in the middle of the country, specifically to serve this new type of grassroots community organization. This is not as a replacement for Washington—it could interact with Washington D.C. For example, it could facilitate the development of candidates for national office, as well as local delegates.

    Competition: Art, Industry, the Birth Rate, Agriculture, Ect.

    The critics might say that if one country breaks up commercial farms it would cease to be competitive with other countries. Or if everyone does, we couldn’t feed the world. First, we don’t feed the world now. Second, this isn’t necessarily true. First, consider the subject of competition. Pre-war France experienced a time of political and military turmoil. In this period, the French suddenly discovered that their birth rate was much lower than Germany and Great Britain. Then a series of European furniture exhibitions made them realize they were falling behind their neighbors in the decorative arts by limiting themselves to traditional French designs and methods. The French government created policies were to remedy this situation.[mfn] [/mfn][mfn]David Cottington, Cubism in the Shadow of War: The Avant-Garde and Politics in Paris 1905-1914, Yale University Press, 1998.[/mfn] The goal was to make France more competitive. But was competition with Germany and Great Britain good for the French people?

    Healthy Versus Unhealthy Competition

    We have to develop criteria for healthy versus unhealthy competition. For example, maybe challenging French furniture makers was healthy, while French leaders could have decided against the manipulation of the birth rate for ideological, political, economic, or military reasons. Agricultural policy also affects family life. Is it a good idea to base agricultural policy on competition with other countries? If small family farms are inefficient, what should replace them? Should agricultural policy serve the national economy or should it help to foster healthy communities?

    Limit Unhealthy Competition

    What if we put limits on unhealthy competition? I’m not talking isolationism. I’m talking about the kind of limits that make it possible to solve domestic problems like dead zones in the ocean. Because of its social and environmental implications, we could start by eliminating the pro-natalist nonsense, followed by trade agreements—at least the worst aspects of them. The medieval guilds limited competition among their own members and it was effective until some hotshot broke the rules and ruined it for everyone else. This is the same idea only on a global scale.

    If you are screaming ‘Nooo!’ then maybe you don’t understand how serious the world’s problems are. Or maybe these ideas threaten your own privilege. On the contrary, what we’re doing now is stupid and it threatens all of us. We are on a precipice. But ideologues who tell other people what to do and who have no intention of doing it themselves look down their noses and ask where all these needy people came from. In this way they prove they are unfit to wield authority of any kind, and yet there they remain.

    Global Awareness

    Iran has drained its lakes through climate change, dams, drought, and inefficient irrigation. In parts of India, half the population is homeless. Half of India’s population defecates on the ground. Worse, even the feces that ends up in the sewage system is untreated. India is awash in antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Babies are born with these germs and they often can’t be cured. Further, the crowded conditions make it more likely they’ll pass on their infections. It should be no surprise that some of those germs are coming here. And of course, there is evidence of America’s contribution to the problem, both from oil spills and farming, in the Gulf of Mexico.

    Women should be able to control their own fertility. In fact, the relationship between mother and child should be understood as the essential human relationship, and therefore as the basis of all other relationships. This would guard against artificiality and indifference in a community’s social relations.

    I’m aware that my solutions are radical but in my opinion, they don’t have much competition at this time. First, we have the Democrats who can’t seem to come to terms with the demise of Marxism. It’s not clear what they’re doing in this election cycle—maybe pretending to be different from the Republicans for the sake of appearances. As for the Republicans, they are becoming famous for serving shady interest rather than the interests of their own people. Incredibly, they don’t even try to hide it any more. But it’s probably remarkable that either party can still come up with a coherent platform at all. Both are operating on old ideas that were never established on firm ground in the first place, so it shouldn’t be surprising that they function more like political religions than rational approaches to the world’s problems.

  • Nomads and City Dwellers: Institutions and Worldview

    Reading Time: 12 minutes

    Ancient Israel: Its Life and Institutions, Roland de Vaux

    Roland de Vaux observes that the Bible is limited as an exhaustive ethnographic record of ancient nomadic and urban institutions. While settled sheep-breeding groups do not offer a direct parallel, nomadic Arab societies share close ancestral and institutional ties with early Israelites, allowing pre-Islamic and traditional Arab life to clarify early Israelite organization. More information is available on the source material.

    Forms of Nomadism

    Nomads and City Dwellers
    Arab Bedouins

    The True Bedouin

    The true Bedouin (man of the desert) is a camel-breeder and can survive in regions where the annual rainfall is less than 4 inches. He has very little contact with settled people.

    Nomads who Breed Sheep and Goats

    Another type of nomad breeds only sheep and goats, which are not as hardy. The animals need to drink more often and can’t survive on the rough pasture suitable for the camels. They probably live in regions that get 4-10 inches of rainfall, traveling only on routes where they can manage the distance between watering holes. As a result, they have more contact with settled people.

    Tribes who Raise Cattle (The Semi-Settled Enclosure)

    Tribes who raise cattle represent the terminal stage of frontier erosion; they are no longer true nomads. Because cattle demand continuous water and cultivated grazing lands, these groups are forced to settle in fixed locations. In addition to herding, they till the soil and construct permanent houses.

    • The Hybrid Mutation: They often develop split-frequency, hybrid existences—living part of the year in fixed settlements and part of the year moving with the herds.
    • The Origin of the Cage: This fixed, high-resource lifestyle natively breeds the earliest forms of top-down exploitation. These hybrid tribes frequently accumulate exclusive property deeds at the extreme ends of their migration routes, utilizing serf labor to work the land. They cease to be a horizontal kinship clan and begin operating as localized feudal managers.

    The Israelite Paradox

    Forensically tracing this line of development unmasks a staggering truth regarding the people of Ancient Israel: they never possessed camels and held absolutely zero memory of life in the raw, deep open desert.

    Instead, Israel’s foundational memory was entirely that of a semi-nomadic, sheep-and-goat frontier population. Yet even after they crossed the threshold, settled down as a sedentary nation, and began building towns, they fiercely retained the cultural, legal, and spiritual characteristics of that original un-enclosed baseline. Consequently, the protective muscle memory of the horizontal nomadic life remained the dominant, revolutionary influence behind all authentic Old Testament institutions. This influence served as a permanent defense shield against the totalizing systems of imperial kings.

    [TRUE FRONTIER BASELINE (Camels)] ──> Total distance from state registries & city gates.
    │
    [THE ISRAELITE MARGIN (Sheep/Goats)] <────────────┴─> Vulnerable to watering hole routes; Retain horizontal vows.
    │
    [THE CATTLE FEUDAL ROT] ──> Settle fixed lands -> Accumulate property ledgers -> Deploy serf labor.

    Northern Sinai, Egypt

    The Structural Anatomy of the Tribe

    Because of the fierce, unyielding realities of physical survival out on the frontier, the foundational unit of civilization is the tribe. A tribe is not a geographic boundary or a state legal contract; it is a horizontal group of families bound together by a fierce, collective conviction that they are descended from a common ancestor.

    The Execution of Tribal Law

    Out on the un-enclosed frontier where the administrative matrix cannot reach, the parameters of law shift entirely away from written state registries and top-down judicial custom houses.

    • The Compact Perimeter and the Code of Hospitality

    To survive the harsh physical environment, the size of a tribal unit must remain tightly optimized. It must be compact enough to maintain rapid mobility, yet strong enough to guarantee its own localized safety.

    Because survival is a shared human struggle, a wandering individual must be able to count on an absolute, uncompromised welcome from neighboring groups if they are separated from their own clan line. In this un-enclosed landscape, anyone may need this survival insurance, and therefore everyone is bound by a sacred covenant to give it. This raw, face-to-face necessity is the direct historical origin of the ancient laws of hospitality and asylum.

    • Collective Responsibility vs. The Law of Blood Vengeance:

    The desert frontier possesses absolutely zero state police forces, bureaucratic monitoring networks, or centralized courts of justice. Consequently, justice is fundamentally decentralized.

    • The Collective Burden:

    An individual’s responsibility for an offense or a crime does not sit on a lone paper ledger; it belongs to their tribal group as a whole.

    • The Collective Shield:

    Likewise, any retributive punishment naturally encompasses all members of that group. This raw, absolute protocol of mutual defense and collective liability was the original, uncompromised form of the law of blood vengeance. If you strike one member of the line, you strike the entire house

    • The Refusal of the Ledger: The Soil vs. Blood Money

    Because unchecked blood vengeance natively triggered endless family feuds and generational assassinations, the frontier law was gradually amended as populations settled. Yet, even with the introduction of fixed judiciaries, the practice of blood vengeance persisted. While many regional tribes eventually accepted monetary compensation to settle a death, the ancient Hebrews fiercely rejected blood money. To their prophetic mindset, human life could never be digitized or settled through a financial ledger; to put a price tag on cold-iron.

    [THE IMPERIAL POLICE CAGE] ──> Centralized Courts ──> Written Registries ──> Individual Extraction Cops
    │
    [THE FRONTIER BASELINE] <── Compact Micro-Cells ──> Universal Asylum ◄─────────────┘
    (Collective Vows flat on the ground)
    │
    [THE JETHRO COUNTER-STRIKE] ──> Re-establishing the Base Ten to shield the clan from state mischief.

    The Power of the Tribal Surname

    The name or surname of that founding ancestor becomes the permanent, unassailable banner of the entire group.

    • The Sons of Code:

    • This surname is frequently, though not exclusively, preceded by the marker “sons of” (Bnei). The ancient scriptural baseline reflects this exact structural frequency, referring to the Hebrew collective interchangeably as “Israel” or the “sons of Israel.” 

    • The House of Code:

    • Alternatively, a tribe’s identity may be anchored by the phrase “the house of” (Bet), as seen when the prophets address the “house of Israel” or the “house of Joseph.” This is not unique religious isolationism; contemporary Assyrian state cuneiform texts follow the exact same structural usage when cataloging the independent Aramaic groups who lived in identical, un-enclosed conditions on the frontier. The name was their shield.

    [THE STATE APPARATUS CAGE] ──> Individual Data Units ──> Numeric Registries ──> Corporate Tracking Loops
    │
    [THE HORIZONTAL BASELINE] <── Families Bound to a Common Ancestor, a Shared Name, and the Soil ◄─┘
    │
    [THE COVENANTED SHIELD] ──> “Sons of Israel” / “House of Joseph” / The Clan Line holds the Wall.

    The Metaphysical Framework of Kinship

    For the nomad of the un-enclosed frontier, a genealogy is not a sterile family tree—it describes the entire social, economic, and defensive organization of the desert. Two allied tribes do not view themselves as corporate business partners; they view themselves as descendants of two ancestors who were brothers in the strict sense.

    1. Eponymous Ancestors and the Code of the Separated

    As these kinship charts expand across centuries, they naturally utilize eponymous ancestors—where a tribe is named after a defining historical action or landmark, which is later personified as a literal founding patriarch.

    • The Khoza’a (The Separated): When this group fractured from the Azd tribe during the great Yemenite dispersion, they were named for their act of defiance. Yet, the tribal genealogists later assigned them a personal ancestor named Khoza’a to cement their horizontal unity [1.1].
    • The Kholoj (The Transport): Transferred structurally from the ‘Adwan to the Al-Harith by the decree of Omar I, the genealogists cemented this political relocation by recording Kholoj as a literal surname within the Al-Harith bloodline [1.1].

    2. The Alliance Architecture: The Agedat (The Confederates)

    The ultimate proof of this fluid tribal architecture is found in the Mid-Euphrates region with the Agedat. Their very name explicitly confesses that they were formed as a confederation of separate, independent elements. Yet, to protect their collective autonomy, their political, economic, and defensive union is written and structured entirely as a single genealogical table.

    They proved that a tribe is not a biological cage, but a conscious covenant. Families regularly joined together simply because they shared the same territory, or because smaller, vulnerable groups needed to merge their hardware in order to resist stronger neighbors and maintain their absolute independence.

    The blood relationship that unites a people may be real or supposed. Every tribe has traditions about the ancestor from whom it claims descent. Kinship also explains the relationship between separate tribes. For a nomad, a genealogy describes the whole social organization of the desert. Each tribe descends from a single ancestor; two allied tribes descend from two ancestors who were brothers in the strict sense. 

    [THE IMPERIAL STATE REGISTRY] ──> Rigid Contracts / Tax Data Ledgers / Financializes Life & Death │ [THE HORIZONTAL CLAN CODE] <──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Fluid Genealogies / Rewriting the Line to Protect Independence │ [THE REMNANT BASKET] ──> The Agedat Alliance model: Uniting by tens to defy the modern cage.

    The Law of Adoption: The Code of the ‘Genealogized’

    The absolute flexibility of the un-enclosed baseline is executed through the sovereign authority of the Sheikh or tribal elders to legally adopt entirely new individuals, families, or full clans into the corporate body of the tribe. 

    • The Total Integration:

    • The moment a newcomer crosses this threshold, they become completely attached to the tribe both in name and in blood. This is not a superficial legal fiction; the newcomers formally acknowledge the tribe’s founding ancestors as their own true lineage, integrate into the social defense loop, and intermarry within the collective. The Arabs define this total cultural and spiritual conversion as being ‘genealogized.’

    • A classical text of the geographer Al-Bakri maps the exact operational frequency of this frontier protocol:

      “And the Nahd ben Zaid joined the Benu al-Harith, became confederate with them and completely united with them; and the Jarin ben Rabban joined the Benu Zubaid, attached themselves to them and lived together, and the whole tribe with its confederates was attached to the same ancestor.” 

    Other factors can lead to the formation of a tribe. Sometimes families join together simply because they live in the same region. Or when stronger neighbors absorb weak elements. Alternatively, several smaller groups might combine in order to remain independent.

    The Federation Architecture: The Israelite Confederation

    Far from operating as a rigid, monolithic nation-state, the early layout of Israel was fundamentally a dynamic, horizontal Federation of independent tribes. The lines of kinship were constantly extended to absorb raw material from the outside to strengthen the defensive baseline.

    The Case of Caleb:

    • The tribe of Judah systematically absorbed the remnants of Simeon and seamlessly incorporated entirely foreign elements like the Calebites and Yerahmeelites. According to the foundational records in Numbers and Joshua, Caleb was originally a Qenizite—completely alien to the Israelite confederation. Yet, following centuries of shared frontier endurance, Caleb’s genealogy was formally attached straight to Judah. The son of Yephunneh was written directly into the lineage of Peres in I Chronicles 2, transforming an outsider into a frontline representative of the house.

    The Flexible Fission:

    • When a tribal unit grows too massive for its local resources, it executes a tactical split to preserve its mobility [1.1]. Yet, even when separated in space, the groups fiercely retain a core family solidarity, uniting instantly for common defensive operations. This mirrors the great ‘Anezeh and Shammar federations of the Syrian desert, as well as the ancient paradigm of Abram launching a military rescue the moment his separated kinsman Lot was taken prisoner by imperial kings.

    The Logistics of Territory: The Battle for the Wells:

    • Out on the un-enclosed frontier, a tribe’s relationship to the land is defined entirely by physical resources, not paper state boundaries, while cultivated fields might be held privately by individual families, the vital pasture lands are owned by the tribe in common.

    Because territorial lines are fluid, the ultimate friction points down on the soil always center on food and water security—specifically the control of wells and cisterns. Every clan was intensely aware of the location of these watering places, leading to constant, systemic clashes between rival shepherds:

    • Abram and Lot: Internal re source strains trigger immediate, amicable separation to prevent structural fratricide.
    • The Abimelek Intrusion: Centralized local gatekeepers and foreign servants aggressively attempt to seize wells dug independently by Abraham.
    • The Isaac Endurance: Isaac must wage a campaign to physically defend his rights over the vital wells he dug between Gerar and Beersheba.
    • On the un-enclosed frontier, if localized negotiation failed to protect the water baseline, the dispute was settled by direct, horizontal warfare. You protect your well, or your family dies.

    [THE IMPERIAL WATER CADASTRE] ──> State Claims the Water / Taxes the Well / Restricts the Radius │ [THE FRONTIER LOGISTICS (The Well)] <─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Common Pasture / Private Wells / Defending the Water by Force │ [THE MODERN MITIGATION] ──> Organizing the street by tens to protect the local water baseline.

    The Law of Hospitality and Asylum: The Covenant of the Salt

    Out on the un-enclosed frontier, hospitality is not a polite social choice; it is an absolute survival necessity that mutated over time into a sacred virtue. The guest is strictly protected. Caring for him is an honor. 

    The Buffer and the Radius:

    A stranger enjoys absolute hospitality for three days, but even after crossing the perimeter, their right to protection remains active. Certain tribes define this boundary with raw, organic precision: “until the salt he has eaten has left his stomach.” In larger tribal networks, this defensive shield holds an absolute radius of 100 miles for three additional days.

    The Gēr Protocol:

    • A man who leaves or is violently expelled from his home is recognized among the Arabs as a dahil or jār, and among the Hebrews as a gēr—meaning “he who has come in.” Under the uncompromised law of asylum, the horizontal clan will protect him and even avenge him against foreign extraction forces. This ancestral custom is the direct genetic origin of the scriptural Cities of Refuge, mirrored when Abraham spares no expense to show hospitality to the three travelers at Mamre, and when Laban welcomes Abraham’s servant. 

    The Language of the Tent: The Linguistic Subversion of the Cage

    The absolute proof that the un-enclosed baseline dominated the Israelite consciousness is in the Hebrew language itself. Long after the conquest—after the population had settled down and constructed stone walls—their everyday language still didn’t use the verbal architecture of the city.

    • The Home:

    • In both prophetic poetry and ordinary everyday speech, a fixed stone house was a tent (ohel).

    • The Morning:

    • The act of leaving early in the morning, was expressed as, “to load the beasts of burden.”

    • Life and Death:

    • The vocabulary of existence remained anchored to the frontier. The cut tent-rope, the pulled-out peg, or the tent itself carried off, represented death. Broken ropes and a tent collapsed in the wind represented societal desolation. Conversely, structural security was a tent with tight ropes and firm pegs, while an extended tent symbolized an expanding tribe. 

    [THE IMPERIAL URBAN GRID] ──> Fixed Brick Walls / Written Titles / Static Enclosures of the Cage │ [THE LINGUISTIC RESISTANCE] <──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Calling a Stone House a “Tent” / Keeping the Software Mobile │ [THE TIGHT-PEG PERIMETER] ──> Driving your stakes deep into the dirt; keeping your baseline un-enclosed.

    • A Tent with Tight Ropes and Firm Pegs

    The Federation of Israel

    Israel absorbed other tribes too. The twelve tribes were a federation. The tribe of Judah absorbed the remnants of the tribe of Simeon. Judah also incorporated foreign groups like the Calebites and Yerahmeclites. The Calebites were originally outside of the Israelite confederation, according to the Books of Numbers and Joshua. Caleb was the son of Yephunneh the Qenizite, (Numbers 32:12; Joshua 14:6,14). The Calebites had contact with Israel from the time of the sojourn at Qadesh. Caleb’s genealogy was eventually attached to Judah. He was named at Qadesh as Judah’s representative for the exploration of Canaan (Numbers 13:6).

    The son of Yephunnch becomes the son of Hesron, son of Peres, son of Judah and brother of Yerahmeel, (I Chronicles 2:9, 18, 24) or another foreign group (I Samuel 27:10) attached to the line of Judah (I Chronicles 2:9). These fusions probably took place frequently.

    If a tribe becomes too large, it may have to split up. But the groups retain a feeling of family solidarity and unite for common enterprises. This is the case with two federations of the Syrian desert, the ‘Anezeh and the Shammar. Abram and Lot separated, but when Lot was the prisoner of the four victorious kings, Abram went to his rescue. (Genesis 14: 12-16)

    Territory

    Tribal members owned the cultivated land in their territory privately. But the tribe owned pastureland in common. However, it was not possible to define the territorial boundaries. This could lead to disputes, especially over the use of wells or cisterns.

    Everyone was aware of the location of watering places and knew who their owners were. However, sometimes quarrels would break out between shepherds. Abram’s herdsmen quarreled with Lot’s. (Genesis 13:7) Abimelek’s servants seize a well dug by Abraham. (Genesis 21:25). And Isaac struggled to maintain his rights over the wells he had dug between Gerar and Beersheba (Genesis 26: 19-22). If the tribes could not settle these disputes peacefully, they settled them by war.

    An Ancient Well

    About The Author

    Roland de Vaux

    Roland de Vaux (1903-1971) entered the Catholic priesthood in 1929, and became a Dominican the same year. Jerusalem became his residence in 1934 and he spent the rest of his life there. He was there first as a student, then as a teacher at the Ecole Biblique, a French Catholic theological school in East Jerusalem. He developed an interest in archaeology while in Israel under the influence of William F. Albright, Kathleen Kenyon and Benjamin Mazar. His team took part in the excavations of Khirbet Qumran and several caves near Qumran. The excavations were led led by El-Assouli, caretaker of the Palestine Archaeological Museum. This is now the Rockefeller Museum in East Jerusalem. De Vaux’s sources, include texts about pre-Islamic Arabs, ethnographic studies about the Arabs of today, and his own archaeological work.((Roland de Vaux Biography, historical archive collection.))

    Sources and Recommended Reading:

    For further study on this topic, I highly recommend reading Ancient Israel: Its Life and Institutions by Roland De Vaux. It provides invaluable depth to the historical and structural concepts discussed in this piece.

    You can find a copy of the text directly through my booklist here: [Ancient Israel a book by Roland De Vaux – Bookshop.org US]

    Note: By purchasing books through this link, you directly support local, independent bookstores. This publication also receives a small commission at no additional cost to you, helping to fund the upkeep and research of this ad-free blog.

  • Adam, Noah and the Snake-king

    Reading Time: 8 minutesIn a previous article we learned that the words ‘Man’ and ‘Woman’ in the second chapter of Genesis have been translated from īš and ‘iššă. It seems possible that, in addition to Adam, Noah and the Snake-king have something to do with the Christian story of Adam and Eve. This article will explore three possible conclusions:

    The first man and woman of Genesis 2 were deities.
    These deities were Siva and Parvati, who is also Osiris and Isis.
    Humans had no part in a catastrophe called the Fall of Man. (This statement is probably too simplistic.)

    What Exactly were the First Man and Woman?

    There is evidence that īš and ‘iššă have the general meaning of ‘Lord’. Following are two examples provided by Edward Moor:

    “When they consider the divine power exerted in creating, they call the deity Brahma, in the masculine gender also; and when they view him in the light of destroyer or rather changer of forms, they give him a thousand names: of which, Siva, Isa, or Iswara, Rudra, Hara, Sambhu, Mahadeva, or Mahesa, are the most common…

    “Mahesa is maha, great, and Isa, Lord; the epithet is prefixed to many names of gods…”

    The Hindu Adam, Swayambhuva, is called ‘the first of men’, but he is clearly something more than human.

    “Swayambhuva, or the son of the self-existing, was the first Manu, and the father of mankind: his consort’s name was Satarupa. In the second Veda the Supreme Being (Brahm) is introduced in this way: ‘From me Brahma was born: he is above all; he is pitama, or the father of all men: he is Aja and Swayambhu, or self-existing.’ From him proceeded Swayambhuva, who is the first menu: they call him Adima (or the first, or Protogonus): he is the first of men; and Parama-Parusha, or the first male. His help-mate, Pracriti, is called also Satarupa: she is Adima, (the feminine gender) or the first: she is Visva-Jenni, or the mother of the world: she is Iva, or like I, the female energy of nature; or she is a form of, or descended from, I: she is Para, or the greatest: both are like Mahadeva, and his Sacti (the female energy of nature), whose names are also Isa and Isi. [mfn]Moor, Edward, F.R.S. “The Hindu Pantheon”. T. Bensley, London. 1810[/mfn]

    Siva and Parvati

    In “The Hindu Pantheon” īš and ‘iššă are more strongly associated with Siva and Parvati. And Moor associates Siva/Parvati with the Egyptian goddess Isis. Because Hinduism is fundamentally monotheistic, many deities who have their own attributes melt into each other and become one. It is also true that each of the deities has a consort, but the consorts can be reduced to one as well. The goddesses, in turn, are merely the female energy or ‘sacti’ of their lord. For this reason, the Supreme Being of any particular sect, whether it is Vishnu, Siva or Brahma, is said to be a hermaphrodite, with male and female attributes combined.   So it is not really clear in what way the mythology should be applied to human men and women.

    Original Sin

    For Christians, the doctrine of original sin is at least partly responsible for policies concerning women, but that doctrine is not a universal belief. Judaism and Islam have no such doctrine, but they have all proscribed the rights and equality of women to some degree.  This is particularly true of Islam. So there seems to be a common tendency that aligns with the conception of woman as portrayed in the story of the Fall of Man, and which is independent of the doctrine of Original Sin. It could be argued that a rationale for subjection is the main function of the story of the Fall of Man.  But on the other hand, maybe it is the attempt to say in mythological language what really happened.  We just don’t happen to understand the language.

    Creation Stories in Other Cultures

    There are similarities in the creation stories of many cultures between Noah and Adam. For example, Noah and Adam both had control over animals, as did the Chinese Shang-te, the Hindu Siva, and the Greek Hermes. Additional shared elements include the ark and the dove.

    In Chinese mythology, the Yin, or darkness, or the female principle is the ovum mundi and becomes the Earth, the ark or the Great Mother. Heaven, or Shang-te is the son of Earth, (or the ark), as he is ‘born’ from her womb. But he is also the builder of the ark, and the creator of Mother Earth. So she is his daughter. And since they are both born from the same circle, they are brother and sister. Heaven or Shang-te marries his mother or daughter or sister. In other words, their union is incestuous.

    Since Eve was created from Adam’s rib they are brother and sister, or father and daughter. This is true of the Greek Jupiter and Juno and of the Hindu gods, as well. “Brahma, the Supreme Being of Hinduism, is an androgynous conjunction of Adam and Eve, the universal parents of the human race.” [mfn]The Chinese Recorder and Missionary Journal”. Vol. 4, Rozario, Marçal & Co. Foochow, 1872. p. 217[/mfn]

    Similarities Between Adam and Noah

    It is interesting that Chinese, Hindu and Greek myths also identify the snake with both Adam and Noah. The woman seems to be connected indirectly.  Ancient legends say that in the golden age there was no distinction of sex.  According to Plato, “in the first arrangement ordained by Jupiter there were neither human politics, nor the appropriation of wives and children, but all lived in common upon the exuberant productions of the earth.” It was the hero-god, also called the snake-king, who instituted marriage.

    In Greek mythology marriage was instituted by Cecrops. Cecrops was a native of Egypt, who led a colony to Athens about 1556 B.C. He was a culture hero who introduced the worship of Zeus Hypatos, and forbade the sacrifice of living things. His marriage decree came about in this way:

    “He was arbitrator at the ‘strife’ of Athena and Poseidon. The women, who exceeded the men by one, voted for Athena, and to appease the wrath of Poseidon they were henceforth disenfranchised and their children were no longer to be called by their mother’s name. The women’s decision came as a shock to old Cecrops and he forthwith instituted patriarchal marriage.”

    All of the hero-gods of Greece were serpents.

    “Cecrops is a snake, Erichthonios (Cecrops’ son) is a snake, the old snake-king is succeeded by a new snake-king…What the myths of Cecrops and Erichthonios tell us is that, for some reason or another, each and every traditional Athenian king was regarded as being also in some sense a snake.”

    Adam, Noah and the Snake King
    Cecrops, Epilegomena & Themis, Fig. 63

    Jane Ellen Harrison thinks this came about because of the ceremonial carrying of snakes or figures of snakes. This was like the carrying of phalloi, a fertility charm. A Hermes of wood was the votive-offering of Cecrops, and it was possibly snake-shaped. [mfn]Harrison, Jane Ellen. Epilegomena & Themis. University Books, New York. 1927[/mfn]

    Shang-te

    In Chinese mythology, the dragon is the symbol of Shang-te. In this way, the Chinese gods resemble the fish-gods Vishnu and Dagon. The serpent was the symbol of the transmigrating diluvian god, who was reborn.  It was also the token of regeneration for those initiated into the mysteries.

    Shang-te also gave the first couple coats of skins and instituted marriage.  In Hinduism, Siva is depicted with a coat of skins.

    Adam, Noah and the Snake-King
    Siva and His Coat of Skins, The Hindu Pantheon

    Christian Missionaries thought these were non-Christian myths

    Demon-god, Hero-god, and snake-king are the terms used by Christian missionaries in the Chinese Recorder. In that publication, these names referred to non-Christian myths. But according to the same publication, Shang-te’s dragon is identical with the serpent in the Garden of Eden.  However, in the biblical story, it was God Yahweh who provided coats of skin and instituted patriarchal marriage.

    Patriarchal marriage is clearly implied in the following verse:

    “I will make intense your pangs in childbearing.
    In pain shall you bear children;
    Yet your urge shall be for your husband,
    And he shall be your master.” (Genesis 3:16)

    In the Anchor Bible notes on verse 16 concerning ‘pangs in childbearing’, we are told that this is a parade example of hendiadys in Hebrew. The literal rendering would read “your pangs and your childbearing,” but the idiomatic significance is “your pangs that result from your pregnancy.” [mfn]Speiser, E.A. “Genesis: The Anchor Bible”. Doubleday & Co. Inc. New York, 1986[/mfn]

    And the sentence Yahweh pronounced on the serpent becomes more interesting as well.

    God said to the serpent:

    I will plant enmity between you and the woman,
    And between your offspring and hers;
    They shall strike at your head,
    And you shall strike at their heel. (Genesis 3:15)

    It seems the serpent who became the mortal enemy of the woman and her offspring (perhaps in their human character) was the serpent-king.  Both male and female are affected.  The verse says “the woman and her offspring”.  

    In a strict comparison with the Chinese myth, the serpent-king would be God Yahweh and also his son, Adam/Noah.  (According to the Anchor Bible, the deity in the Garden of Eden was “God Yahweh” rather than “Yahweh”.  This may be the personal name of another deity.)

    Possibly, these myths refer to a political development that has adverse consequences for the woman and her offspring.

    Jesus

    In the following verses from the New Testament, Jesus seems to have claimed membership in the ranks of the demon-gods.

    “For as the lightning, that lighteneth out of the one part under heaven, shineth unto the other part under heaven; so shall also the Son of man be in his day.

    But first must he suffer many things, and be rejected of this generation.

    And as it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man.

    They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and the flood came, an destroyed them all.

    Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded;

    But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all.

    Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed.” (Luke 17:24-30)

    Lot’s connection with Noah in this passage is explained by the fact that Lot was saved from the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, which he believed had destroyed the whole world. He also had incestuous relations with his daughters. Something similar may have happened between Noah and his son Ham. This is the pattern of a snake king.

    In the Chinese Recorder,

    “This Demon-god or First Man or Noah is a reappearance of Adam in his deified character…or ‘Imperial Heaven’, and also the Son of Noah as being the eldest of the triplication Fuh-he, Shin-nang, Hwang-te; or Shem, Ham, and Japhet…. ‘Noah, in every mythological system of the pagans was confounded, or rather identified with one of his three sons. Fab. Vol. I. p. 343. Vishnu (one of the triplication of Bram or Monad) appears distinct from Menu (First Man) and personates the Supreme Being: yet, single, he is certainly Noah or Menu himself: as one of a triad of gods springing from a fourth still older deity (the Monad, or elder Noah) he is a son of Noah. Ibid. vol. II. 117. Considered then as Noah, we find Jupiter (the elder Monad or Chaos) both esteemed the father of the three most ancient Cabiri (Cælus, Terra, and First Man), and himself also reckoned the first of the two primitive Cabiri (Cælus and Terra); Bacchus being associated with him as the younger. This however is a mere reduplication, for Jupiter and Bacchus are the same person. &c., i. e. the First Man.”

    This, in turn, agrees with the following etymology of īš and ‘iššă.

    “Linguistically, the name Issa (‘Isa) is the Aramaic form of the Arabic Al-‘Ays, meaning ‘the water of the male’, in reference to the masculine semen, the suffixed ‘a’ in ‘Isa being the Aramaic definite article. Related to this term is the Arabic ‘Aysh, meaning ‘life’ (as in Al ‘Ayyash). The Jesus of the ‘I am’ statements was none other than the God Jesus who was Al ‘Isa or Al ‘Ays–the ultimate source of the fertilizing ‘power’ of the male.” Al ‘Ays is ‘the God of Semen’, and Al ‘Ayyash is the ‘Life-Giving God’. [mfn]Salibi, Kamal, S. “Who was Jesus?: Conspiracy in Jerusalem. Tauris Parke Paperbacks, 2007[/mfn]

  • The Genealogy of Adam and Eve

    Reading Time: 2 minutesThe central tendency and probably the major cause of error in modern religion is the determination to separate male and female and define them as superior or inferior in relation to each other. Even today the Catholic Encyclopedia states that women are inferior to men. “The female sex is in some respects inferior to the male sex, both as regards body and soul.”

    Today, writers don’t use those terms. They might use the word ‘difference’, for example. However, the general sentiment remains the same. Christian fathers, such as Tertullian, who was born 160 AD, remain influential. Tertulian condemned all women for the part Eve played in the Garden of Eden.

    The Garden of Eden is first mentioned in the second chapter of Genesis. However, some have argued that this chapter is actually an independent creation story. In the first chapter, ‘P’ or the priestly source does not mention the Garden of Eden. He only tells us that the Elohim created the earth. The Elohim also created humans, male and female.

    The Genealogy of Adam and Eve
    Genesis 1, credit: RapidEye

    The second chapter of Genesis was written by the J source. J stands for Jehovah. This source tends to be more politically minded. He writes of the birth of gods, or of the man-god. In this version, Yahweh creates man; then he creates the woman from the man.

    This is the version that dictates the world’s social relations and organization.

    In verse 23,

    “Said the man, This one at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called Woman for she was taken from Man.”

    Genesis 2
    Yahweh Creates Adam and Eve, Credit: gldburger

    The Anchor Bible notes that Woman and Man are translated from ‘īš and ‘iššā. E. A. Speiser says this assonance has no etymological basis in Hebrew. [mfn]Speiser, E.A. “The Anchor Bible: Genesis”. Doubleday & Company, Inc. 1986[/mfn]

  • The Warrior and His Gods

    Reading Time: 12 minutesIn “The Stakes of the Warrior” Georges Dumézil uses his theory of the tri-functional structure of Indo-European society as a framework for the analyses of stories belonging to three different areas of the world; India, Scandinavia, and Greece. His comparative study includes the Scandinavian saga of Starkaor, the Indian tale of Sisupala (or Shishupala), and the Greek story of Herakles.[mfn]Dumézil, Georges. The Stakes of the Warrior. Translated by David Weeks. Ed. With introduction by Jaan Puhvel, University of CA Press, Berkeley, LA, London. 1983[/mfn]  In each story, the warrior commits sins and his gods demand sacrifice.

    In each story the hero sins against each of the three Indo-European functions–the functions of the sovereign, the warrior, and fertility or sexuality. In the process he fails in the very duties and responsibilities that give his life meaning. An important element in each story is the rivalry of two deities who take an interest in the life of the hero, and are directly or indirectly responsible for his crimes.

    Starkaor/Starcatherus and Odin

    For the Scandinavian tale of Starkaor there are two sources. One is the Gesta Danorum of Saxo Grammaticus (1150–after 1216). The other is the Gautrekssage, which is a redaction of the poem, the Vikarsbálkr, from the 13th or 14th century. The saga also adds additional material from ancient sources. Saxo calls the hero Starcatherus; the saga calls him Starkaor.

    Starkaor

    Starkaor/Starcatherus is either a giant, or he has giant ancestry. In the saga, his grandfather was a giant but he has a human form. In Saxo he is born with extra arms and Thor prunes them off, giving him a human appearance. The child begins life under the patronage of Othinus or Odin, but also under the hostile and watchful eye of Thor, who hates giants in general, and according to the saga, Starkaor in particular.

    Odin’ Has Designs on Starkaor

    The people of Herthjófr take little Starkaor and Vikar in after their fathers are killed in battle. Hrosshársgrani, one of Herthjófr’s men, raises Starkaor. However, Hrosshársgrani is really Odin in disguise, and he has dark designs on Starkaor. When they are still boys, Odin decides that Starkaor will bring him Vikar as a sacrifice.

    After living for nine years with Hrosshársgrani, Starkaor helps Vikar reconquer his realm, and accompanies him on many victorious expeditions. Vikar’s fleet is “becalmed” during a Viking expedition. King Vikar and his crew have a “magical consultation” and determine that Odin wants a man of the army to be sacrificed by hanging. They draw lots and the king is chosen. After this shocking development they postpone deliberations until the next day.

    The Forest Assembly

    Hrosshársgrani acts during the night. He wakes Starkaor, and takes him to forest on a nearby Island. They come upon a strange assembly in a clearing.

    “A crowd of beings of human appearance are gathered around twelve high seats, eleven of which are already occupied by the chief gods. Revealing himself for who he is, Odin ascends the twelfth seat and announces that the order of business is the determination of the fate of Starkaor…The event comes down to a magical-oratorical duel between Odin and Thor.”

    Thor’s Curses and Odin’s Blessings

    Thor hates Starkaor because his grandfather was a giant. He hates him even more because long ago his grandfather abducted a young girl. This was Starkaor’s grandmother. When Thor rescued her, he found that she actually preferred the giant over the “Thor of the Æsir”! In consequence of a lasting grudge, Thor imposes Starkaor’s first curse before the council of the gods, “Starkaor will have no children.”

    Odin compensates for this curse. “Starkaor will have three human life spans.”

    It continues in this way, the gods taking turns.

    Thor says “He will commit a villainy in each.”

    Odin answers, “He will always have the best arms and the best raiments.”

    Thor: “He will have neither land nor real property.”

    Odin: “He will have fine furnishings.”

    Thor: “He will never feel he has enough.”

    Odin: “He will have success and victory in every combat.”

    Thor: “He will receive a grave wound in every combat.”

    Odin: “He will have the gift of poetry and improvisation.”

    Thor: “He will forget all he has composed.”

    Odin: “He will appeal to the well-born and the great.”

    Thor: “He will be despised by the common folk.”

    Odin’s Price: The Sacrifice of King Vikar and Starkaor’s Exile

    As they return to the ship, Odin informs Starkaor that he must pay for the assistance he has just received. Starkaor must put Vikar in a position to be sacrificed. Then Odin will take care of the rest. Starkaor agrees to help Odin.

    The next day Starkaor suggests to the king that they carry out a mock sacrifice and Vikar agrees. Starkaor bends down the limb of a tree and fastens a noose to it and also around Vikar’s neck. Then Starkaor takes a magic reed-stick given him by Odin and thrusts it at the king saying, “Now I give thee to Odin.” Then he releases the branch. The reed-stick becomes a spear and pierces the king. The branch springs up and drags the king into the leaves, where he dies.

    “From this deed Starkaor became much despised by the people and was exiled from Hördaland.”

    The Warrior and His Gods
    The Sacrifice of King Vikar. Credit: hayatikayhan

    The Exploits and Sins of Starcatherus

    Now we depend on Saxo’s version. Starcatherus accomplishes many admirable exploits in his long career.  But after the death in battle of another master, a Swedish king, he shamefully flees from the battlefield. Next, he joins an army of Danish vikings. Starcatherus eventually serves the Danish king, Frotho, where he is a “model of martial virtue”.

    For his third sin he allows conspirators to bribe him and he kills another master, the Danish king Olo. He has already sinned against his duty to kings and his duty as a warrior. In taking a bribe for the murder of Olo he sins against the morality of the third function–not through sexuality but through greed.

    The hero has been aging during his three life spans but he keeps all of his strength until after the third crime. Finally old age, his many wounds, and his crimes burden him to the point where he wishes for his own death. He doesn’t want to die shamefully of old age so he looks for a warrior who will give him an honorable death. Providentially he meets Hatherus, the son of one of the conspirators in the murder of Olo. He confesses that he is the one who killed Hatherus’ father, (Starcatherus killed all of the conspirators).  Hatherus agrees to behead him in exchange for the money that Starcatherus received for killing Olo. Starcatherus also wishes to give Hatherus his invulnerability and tells him to stand between his head and his body after his death. In a moment of suspicion, however, Hatherus stands back and does not accept this gift.

    Sisupala and Kṛṣṇa

    Dumézil says the character of Kṛṣṇa in the Mahabharata poses problems. His story is probably a transposition of the myth of an ancient Viṣṇu. But the relationship of Kṛṣṇa/Viṣṇu provides structure comparable to the tale of Starkaor/Starcatherus.

    The story of Sisupala is not central to the cosmic conflict in the Mahabharata. Aside from his three crimes, Starcatherus was a perfect example of a defender of kingship, a warrior and a teacher. However, the Indian hero is the reincarnation of a demon that Viṣṇu has already killed twice in past lives. We learn of his previous lives after he challenges the proceedings of Yudhisthira’s sacrificial ceremony. This information, and the story of the hero’s birth, provide the justification for his hostility to Kṛṣṇa.

    A Dark Prophecy at Sisupala’s Birth

    Sisupala was born into the royal family of the Cedis. He had three eyes and four arms and he uttered inarticulate cries like an animal. His parents had decided to expose him, but they heard a disembodied voice saying that this was not the “Time” for the child’s death. He was to be slain ‘by the sword, and his slayer would be the lord of men.

    His mother demands to know “who shall be the death of this son!”

    The voice answers,

    “He upon whose lap his two extra arms will both fall on the ground like five-headed snakes and that third eye in the middle of the child’s forehead will sink away as he looks at him–he shall be his death.”

    Kṛṣṇa

    As soon as the child is placed in Kṛṣṇa’s lap, these predictions come true. Sisupala’s mother witnesses the fulfillment of the prophecy and she is fearful for her son. She asks Kṛṣṇa to forgive the “dereliction of Sisupala”.

    (Because of Sisupala’s physical similarities to Rudra/Śiva, and also because of his name, which is said to be a transposition of paśupati or lord of animals, this story is similar to the story of Starkaor/Starcatherus in its conflict between two divinities, in this case Rudra/Śiva and Kṛṣṇa/Viṣṇu.)

    Sisupala’s Offenses

    Kṛṣṇa promises that he will forgive one hundred offenses, even though they may be capital offenses. But by the time Sisupala challenges the proceedings of Yudhisthira’s sacrificial ceremony he has exhausted his one hundred offenses. His tirade against Krṣṇa is the one hundred and first offense. However, only five offenses are listed. The five sins, which Kṛṣṇa recited to the kings assembled at Yudhisthira’s ceremony are:

    1.  “Knowing that we had gone to the city of Prāgjyotiṣa, this fiend, who is our cousin, burned down Dvārakā, kings.”
    2.  “While the barons of the Bhojas were at play on Mount Raivataka, he slew and captured them, then returned to his city.”
    3.  “Malevolently, he stole the horse that was set free at the Horse Sacrifice and surrounded by guards to disrupt my father’s sacrifice.”
    4.  “When she was journeying to the country of the Sauvīras to be given in marriage, the misguided fool abducted the unwilling wife-to-be of the glorious Babhru.”
    5.  “Hiding beneath his wizardry, the fiendish offender of his uncle abducted Bhadrā of Viśāla, the intended bride of the Karūṣa!’

    Sisupala’s Offenses Against the Three Functions

    The sins are assigned to different functions. The first and second offenses have to do with the warrior function. The third offense has to do with sovereignty. And the forth and fifth offenses have to do with sexuality. However, they were all offenses against the king.

    Sisupals’a Execution

    Kṛṣṇa continues,

    “For the sake of my father’s sister I have endured very great suffering; but fortunately now this is taking place in the presence of all the kings. For you are now witnesses of the all-surpassing offense against me; learn also now the offenses he has perpetrated against me in concealment.”

    Sisupala does not relent. He continues to scold those who honor Kṛṣṇa, who is “no king”. Finally Kṛṣṇa throws his discus, cutting off Sisupala’s head. A sublime radiance rises from the “body of the king of the Cedis, which, great king, was like the sun rising up from the sky; and that radiance greeted lotus-eyed Kṛṣṇa, honored by the world, and entered him, O king…”

    The Warrior and His Gods
    Lord Kṛṣṇa and His Discus

    There is no mention of corresponding consequences after each of Sisupala’s sins and he does not offer himself for death as Starcatherus did. Also another king, Jarāsandha, is mentioned, although he has no part in the story itself. Sisupala, although a king in his own right, is said to be Jarāsandha’s general, giving him the same position as Starcatherus, who served kings but was not himself a king. Jarāsandha is accused of holding Kṛṣṇa’s clan in jail, with plans to sacrifice them. In other words, he was under contract to Rudra/Śiva, just as Starkaor/Starcatherus was under contract to Odin. This provides another correspondence between the Scandinavian and Indian stories. However, in the Indian version human sacrifice is not as believable as it is in the Scandinavian tales. Also Śiva has no particular interest in kings, as Odin does. This only makes the Indo-European framework of both stories more apparent.

    Herakles and his gods, Hera, and Athena

    In the Greek story of Herakles, genders are reversed–the rival deities, Hera and Athena, are female. Dumézil makes an interesting observation–the rival deities in the first two stories answer to no superior judge or authority. But in the tale of Herakles, the patriarchal Zeus is given the final word.

    Herakles’s Birth and Abandonment

    Herakles’ birth is told by Diodorus Siculus (iv, 9, 2-3). When Herakles was born he was not monstrous or demonic but he had a certain excess. He was the son of Zeus and Alkmene. Zeus had taken the appearance of Alkmene’s husband, Amphitryon, in order to beget an exceptional king who would rule over the descendants of Perseus. But when Hera learned of his plans she was jealous. She caused the labor pains of Alkmene to slow down and the result was that another heir, Eurystheus, was born first. Zeus then decreed that Herakles would serve Eurystheus and perform twelve labors. In this way he would earn immortality.

    Alkmene abandoned her baby out of fear of Hera. Athena and Hera found him, and Athena gave him to Hera who began to nurse him. This saved his life. However he bit her and she pushed him away. Dumézil suggests that this is like the story of Sisupala, whose deformities disappeared at the touch of the very god who was destined to kill him. Hera is the sovereign whose first concern is to exclude Alkmene’s son from royalty and demote him to a champion. Athena is the warrior and becomes Herakles’ most trusted friend. The patronage of Athena and the enmity of Hera are a constant theme in Herakles’ life. As for his attitude to the two higher functions, the kingship and the labors, (or fights) he does not attempt to replace the king. He serves him and is sometimes rewarded, but his first sin actually involves his hesitation over entering the king’s service. Starkaor/Staratherus serves kings ostentatiously. Sisupala is a king who voluntarily serves as a general of another king.

    The Sins and Penalties of Herekles

    For his hesitation in obeying Zeus and entering the service of Eurystheus Hera strikes him with madness, causing him to kill his own children. He is consigned by Eurystheus to perform twelve labors as well as additional sub-labors.

    His next sin is the killing of an enemy by a shameful trick, rather than in fair combat. For this sin he contracts a physical disease. At this point he has no choice but to become a slave of Omphale, Queen of Lydia.

    The penalties are not cumulative with Herakles and he is cured of them each time, until the last one. After a new series of “free” deeds he forgets that he has just married Deianeira, and he takes another lover. Deianeira sends him a cloak that she thinks contains a love potion. However, it contains the poisoned blood of Nessos and it gives Herakles an incurable burn. Two of his companions consult the oracle at Delphi in his behalf and Apollo tells them,

    “Let Herakles be taken up to Mount Oeta in all his warrior gear, and let a pyre be erected next to him; for the rest, Zeus will provide.”

    The Death of Herakles

    When all is made ready, Herakles voluntarily climbs onto the pyre and asks each one who comes up to him to light it. No one but Philoktetes has the courage to light the pyre, and Herakles gives him his bow and arrows. Immediately after Philoktetes lights the pyre “lightening also fell from the heavens and it was wholly consumed.”

    But later the arrows caused the death of Philoktetes.

    Herakles's Pyre
    The Pyre. Credit: Ian

    Summary: Three Myths Compared

    The strongest similarities are between Greece and Scandinavia.

    1.  The divinities who oppose each other over Herakles and Starkaor are those of the 1st and 2nd functions. The ones in India (Krṣṇa/Viṣṇu and Rudra/Śiva) don’t fit in the tri-functional structure but they compare to Odin and Thor in other aspects.

    2.  Herakles is reconciled after his death with the sovereign Hera, wife of Zeus. The one who benefits from the death of Starkaor is Höṑr, (Hatherus) who is close to Odin, (the sovereign, and dark god comparable to Śiva). Sisupala is reconciled with Krṩṇa/Viṣṇu.

    3.  Herakles and Starkaor are similar in their basic nature. Herakles has no demonic component and Starkaor is made human. But Sisupala remains demonic and Sivaistic.  Neither Herakles nor Starkaor provoke the deity who persecutes them. Sisupala does however, although Krṣṇa does not persecute him.

    4.  Herakles and Starkaor are more interesting than the deities, but Sisupala is just an incorrigible Indian Loki in the career of Krṣṇa.  The reader is on the side of Starkaor and Herakles, and also on the side of Athena, but only as Herakles’s helper. The Indian story is more complementary to Krṣṇa/Viṣṇu, and against Sisupala.

    5.  The deaths of Herakles and Starkaor are good and serene. That of Sisupala is the result of a “frenzied delirium”.

    6.  A young man is asked to kill the hero in the stories of Herakles and Starkaor–but not in the story of Śiśupāla.

    7.  In the stories of Herakles and Starkaor the gift or payment is ambiguous. The arrows kill Philoktetes and Hatherus chooses not to receive the essence of Starkaor.

    8.  The types of Herakles and Starkaor are the same, a wandering hero, redresser of wrongs, given to toil

    9.  Both are educators.

    10.  Both are poets.

    Other similarities tie India and Scandinavia together, in contrast to Greece

    1.  Śiśupāla and Starkaor are born with deformities. Heracles is not.

    2.  The Indian and Scandinavian legends make much of a royal ideology. The Greek legend outlines the opposition of Erystheus and Herakles but does not dwell on it.

    3.  The faults of Sisupala and Starkaor are foreordained. Sisupala’s fate is decided by his demonic ancestry. Starkaor’s is decided by lots.

    4.  Given that Jarāsandha completes the legend of Sisupala, India and Scandinavia both charge the heroes with the human sacrifice of kings. The Greek legend does not.

    5.  Starkaor and Sisupala are both beheaded. Herakles is burned.

    6.  The deities in the stories of Starkaor and Sisupala have no higher judge. Krṣṇa/Viṣṇu and Rudra/Śiva don’t answer to Brahma, for example. The divinities in the Greek story are supervised by Zeus.

    There aren’t as many similarities between Greece and India, but the failings of Sisupala and Herakles are similar.

    1.  The first sin offended a god in the case of Herakles who resisted the command of Zeus; and a sacrificer in the case of Sisupala who stole the king’s sacrificial horse. In Starkaor’s case his failing resulted from an excess of submissiveness towards a god.

    2.  The second sin in the case of Sisupala and Herakles involves the unworthy betrayal of a warrior. For Starkaor it was a shameful flight on the battlefield.

    3.  Sisupala and Herakles have no particular prejudice against the sensuous aspect of the third function, but Starkaor, who is ruled by Odin and Thor, condemns this kind of weakness.

    See Also: The Occult Foundations of American Healthcare

  • The Occult Foundations of American Healthcare

    Reading Time: 6 minutes

    Clues from India and Scandinavia

    The Caduceus and American Healthcare
    The caduceus of Hermes, Credit: Laleth_Herath

    The subject of Dr. Walter Friedlander’s book “The Golden Wand of Medicine” was the caduceus of Hermes as the a symbol of the American medical profession. Today, runaway healthcare costs and inaccessibility of medical care have revived interest in Hermes, the liar, thief and trickster god, and his association with medicine. Who is Hermes, and why is his caduceus chosen as the symbol of American healthcare? This article explores the occult foundations of American Healthcare.

    Friedlander focused mainly on Hermes in Greek mythology, but there are echoes of the same deity in other parts of the world. Edward Moor’s “The Hindu Pantheon” provides additional clues about the nature of Hermes.  These clues give strength to Dr. Friedlander’s identification of the caduceus of Hermes as a malevolent influence.  We begin by identifying deities similar to Hermes in The Hindu Pantheon.

    Hermes, Nareda and Thoth

    Hermes, Nareda, and Thoth
    Narada with the Vina, Credit: reddees

    Friedlander stated that it is not known why the Greeks chose to associate Hermes with the Egyptian Thoth, who has a very different personality.  Edward Moor’s description of the Hindu deity Nareda provides a possible answer.

    Nareda or Narada is a key figure connecting the Hindu scriptures to Hermes, and he has many of the characteristics of Thoth. Nareda is “a wise legislator; great in arms, arts, and eloquence.” He was also an astronomer, a messenger of the gods, and a musician. Also, Nareda invented the Vina, a sort of lute. In these and other points he resembles Hermes, or Mercury.

    Moor tells us that Krishna himself claims to be Nareda. Crishna (in the Gita, p. 82) speaks of his ‘holy servants, the Brahmans and the Rajarshis;’ and says, ‘I am Brigu among the Maharshis…and of all the Devarshis I am Narad.’ (P. 80)

    The Sivpuran contains the doctrines of the worshipers of Siva. It states that Nareda was born from Brahma’s thigh. But Nareda is also said to be the offspring of both Brahma and Saraswati. In the Hindu Pantheon, Nareda is one of the ten lords of living beings. He was also one of the seven Rishis. The seven Rishis are important characters in the Hindu story of Noah.

    Noah

    The Occult Foundations of American Healthcare
    Noah and his Ark full of animals during the flood, Credit: Pink_frog

    In American Cosmology and Arlington National Cemetery we saw that many of America’s founders were believers in the doctrines of Hermes Trismegistus. However, Hermes was discredited as an historical figure. He was then replaced by Noah.

    In the Hindu pantheon, the seventh Menu was Vaivaswata, or child of the sun. Vaivaswata was saved on the ark. Therefore he is the father of the whole human race.

    The seven Rishis were said to be with Vaivaswata on the ark. The Rishis are not mentioned as fathers of human families, but Vaivaswata’s “daughter Ila was married…to the first Buddha, or Mercury. He was the son of Chandra, or the Moon. Chandra was a male deity, whose father was Atri, son of Brahma.” Consequently, Vaivaswata’s posterity are divided into two branches. These are the Children of the Sun and the Children of the Moon. The Children of the Sun are from (Vivaswat, the Sun) Vaivaswata’s own father. The Children of the Moon are from the parent of his daughter’s husband.

    Buddha and Woden

    According to Friedlander, there are five main historical accounts of Hermes. In the classical period, the Homeric version of Hermes changed to become associated with inventing, buying and selling.  This was probably due to the influence of Rome and it resulted in the Greek Hermes becoming associated with Mercury.

    Moor tells us that Buddha shares the same character with Mercury.  So does the Gothic Woden.  Each gives his name to the same planet, and to the same day of the week: Budhvar, in India, is the same with Dies Mercurii, or Woden’s day, which is our Wednesday. Buddha, Booda, Butta, and others are varieties of his name in different parts of India. The Bud, or Wud, of the ancient pagan Arabs has the same characteristics. In China his names include Pout in Siam, and Pott, or Poti, in Tibet.

    Esculapius, Hermes and Parvati

    The Occult Foundations of American Healthcare
    Mahadeva and Parvati, The Hindu Patheon

    Parvati is the sacti or energy of Siva. She has many additional names. The most common aside from Parvati, are Bhavani, Durga, Kali, and Devi, or the Goddess. Ma is a name of Bhavani in her personification of nature. Under this name, she represents the “general power of fecundity,” and has connections both to Esculapius (Edward Moor’s spelling will be used in this article) and Hermes.

    Bhavani is also known as Mahacali, Isani, or Isi. The river Kali, which is the Nile in Egypt, got its name from her, according to Wilford. In the Puranas, she made her first appearance on its banks in the character of Rajarajeswari.

    Another name for the Nile is Nahushi, from the warrior and conqueror Deva Nahusha, or Deonaush. Wilford thought Deva Nahusha or Deonaush was probably the Dionysius of the ancient Europeans. Dionysius is often portrayed with similar characteristics to Nareda and Krishna.

    Half Woman

    Ardha-nari
    Mahadeva as Ardha Nari or Half-Woman, The Hindu Pantheon

    In her character of Bhavani, Parvati was “Venus presiding over generation. This is according to Sir William Jones. In this character, she is sometimes portrayed as having both sexes. She is portrayed this way by her bearded statue at Rome, in the images called Herma-thena, and in her figures which had a conical shape.”  (Hermes is also said to be an hermaphrodite)

    Time

    Time
    Bhadra-Kali as Ashta Buja, The Hindu Pantheon

    But she has a different character under another name. According to Moor, the word Cala, or Kala, signifies black. Its root, Kal, also means devouring. In this context, Kal is applied to Time, and the feminine is specified in both senses. This is the goddess in her destructive capacity. As Mahacali, she has many other epithets, all implying different shades of black or dark azure, including Cali, or Cala, Nila, Asista, Shyama, or Shyamala, Mekara, Anjanabha, and Krishna.”

    As Bhadra-Kali, Maha-Kali, and by other names, she is eight-handed, ashta-buja. In one image of her, one of her right hands holds something like the caduceus of Hermes, without snakes. The caduceus of Hermes was originally topped by a figure-eight with the top open, according to Friedlander.

    Bhavani’s Association with Esculapius

    Bhavani is also known as Amba, or Uma, and Aranyadevi, or goddess of the forest. She is Prabha, meaning light; and Aswini, a mare, the first of the lunar mansions. “In this shape, the Sun approached her in the form of a horse, and, on their nostrils touching, she instantly conceived the twins; who are called Aswini-Kumari, the two sons of Aswini.” These are beings of importance in the identity of Esculapius.

    Sons of Surya

    “Surya, (the Sun) “is believed to have descended frequently from his car in a human shape, and to have left a race on earth who are equally renowned in the Indian stories with the Heliades of Greece. His two sons, called Aswina, or Aswini-Cumara together, are considered twin brothers, and painted like Castor and Pollux. They each have the character of Esculapius among the gods, and are believed to have been born of a nymph, who, in the form of a mare, was impregnated with sunbeams.” (Jones. Asiatic researches, Vol. I. p. 263.)

    Fourteen Gems and the Beverage of Immortality

    Edward Moor calls Dhanwantara the Esculapius of the Hindus. He has an attendant serpent like his brother of Greece. He is a physician and is generally represented as a venerable man, with a book in his hand. Dhanwantara arose from the sea when it was churned for the beverage of immortality.

    The Caduceus of Hermes Gets Wings

    The Occult Foundations of American Healthcare
    Rādhā, Krishna, and attendant Gopia, The Hindu Pantheon

    Friedlander says the staff of Esculapius had snakes by the 5th century BC, wings by the 1st century AD, and snakes and wings together by the 15th or 16th century. So, it is interesting that in Moor’s plates, there is an illustration of Krishna with a winged figure. Moor thought this was Krishna’s divine spouse Rukmeny, and he calls this picture ‘singular’. He seems to be saying that the caduceus of Hermes may have developed from the staff of Esculapius.

    Esculapius carries a rod with a single snake. Many consider this a more appropriate symbol for a healer.

    Pictures from Moor’s “Hindu Pantheon”:

    Mahadeva and Parvati: Plate 17

    Mahadeva as Ardha Nari: Plate 24, figure 1

    Bhadra Kālī and Caduceus: Plate 28

    Rādhā, Krishna, and attendant Gopia: Plate 67