The Religion of "Old Europe" THE EUROPEAN GODDESS, english Contents list of english sites, Various views of the Goddess from different ages, "Pohjan Akka", Jumalattaren varjo? finnish Mitä "Sammon ryöstö" tarkoittaa? finnish Jumalattaren yhdeksät kasvot, finnish Jumalattaren Kaupunki, finnish Catal Hüyük, finnish Links to the subject of Goddess etc.

Who understands history also understands the present. This common adage is especially valid for the clash of the ancient agricultural civilizations of Europe and the Indo-European nomads 4000 through 2500 B. C. The contradiction which revolutionized the world back then is still active in the consciousness of every Western person. This is not for the faint of the heart.

All around Europe, in Spain, France, Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, Russia, and Ukraine, and as far as in Anatolia in the Middle East, research has continued on habitations as old as 25000 years; and the likenesses of humans or gods that have been discovered have almost invariably been female.The first signs of androcentrism in the area of the Goddess civilization of untold antiquity date from the time after 4000 B. C. According to the archaeologist, Marija Gimbutas, the development leading to androcentrism first began in Anatolia or in Southern Russia.

This change coincides with the phase when the use of metals was introduced, the horse and the camel were tamed for domestic animals, and what may have been a decisive impulse, humanity had to deal with overpopulation for the first time. Obviously all these facts contributed to the downfall of gynocentric societies at that area which had already adopted agriculture and achieved a relatively high cultural level. It seems as if the Goddess civilization collapsed first in Mesopotamia although there priestesses were left with quite an amount of influence in conditions now turned patriarchal.

Marija Gimbutas relates about this in her book, "The Civilization of the Goddess" (p. 396) approximately thus, "The Indo-European society was warlike, exogamous, patriarchal, patrilinear, and patrilocal with strong clan organizations and strict social hierarchy, which gave the leading role of society to the warrior class. Their major gods were male, and the gods' activities were connected with war. In no way is it possible that such a social order could have developed within the matrilinear, matricentric, and endogamously balanced society of 'Old Europe.' Therefore we must regard the appearance of the Indo-Europeans in Europe as a clash between two ideologies, not as evolution."

The Crisis of Religion and Civilization in Europe in 4000 - 2500 B. C.:
Old Europe:	The Indo-Europeans, the Semitics in the Near East:
Female deities reign	Male deities reign
"Ashera"= oversees things	YHWH (Jehovah etc.)= fear-inspiring
The Goddess is part of the Whole.	The Whole was created by God.
The Goddess is manifested in every person.	God is conceptual and distant. Likenesses are prohibited.
Both priests and priestesses.	Only priests.
The priests wore white.	The priests wore black.
Communal thinking: we, our, the society or tribe.	Egocentric thinking: I, mine, my son.
Individual responsibility, aiming at consensus.	A leader gives the commandments.
The rights of the society.	The rights of the individual.
Land is owned by the community.	Land is always the property of a private person.
Man was born of woman.	Woman was created from man's rib etc.
Individuality was encouraged within the family.	Deference was favored, independence was punished.
Woman was idealized and highly esteemed.	Every woman must always be subservient to a man.
No slaves, all people were free, women were persons.	Slaves, only men were free, women were non-persons.
Basically, equality.	A patriarchal, many-layered society.
Martyrdom was unthinkable.	Martyrdom was encouraged.
No writing, traditional memory was esteemed.	Memory was discouraged, writing was esteemed.
Every child was wanted.	Only such children were wanted whose father was known.
All aliens were welcomed without discrimination.	All others were enemies.
All life was revered.	All that lives was reserved for man's private use [see Numbers 31:18 etc.]
Large common projects.	The ruling class amassed personal wealth.
A universal language.	Several separate languages.
Free mobility, no barriers.	Several borderlines, strict control.
Prophesying was part of religion.	Prophesying was punished.
Dogmata approached truth. Knowledge was an approximation of truth.	Dogmata were the truth.
Cult objects were flowers and receptacles (e. g. pottery)	Weapons were worshiped.
Sexuality was beautiful, without inhibitions.	Sex was filthy, degrading, despised.
Direct contact with the spiritual world through prayer.	Only ecclesiastical hierarchy had contact with the spiritual world.
No mutilation of the genitals.	Circumcision of males and mutilation of women.
Drums / percussion instruments	Trumpets / brass instruments
Tattooing was encouraged.	Tattooing was used only as punishment, otherwise it was condemned.
Individual names had to be deserved.	Names were given.
Death was part of life.	Death was the end of life.
Incarnation.	Doomsday.
Civilization was based on caring and respect.	Civilization was based on greed and shortsightedness.

The above table is not a political manifest in any manner, but a description of the difference between the views of two different eras. The attentive reader probably will notice that both patterns of thinking exist in real life as intertwined and overlapped, which is indeed a correct assessment of today's world. The mental illness seen in the right column of the table must have begun at some point of time, and this is a very practicable view, but an aspiration towards the "old" still remains, and the social need which produced the Goddess religion is still effective. So in this hypothesis, we wish to describe -- with slight simplification and generalization -- which patterns of consciousness have dominated in certain types of societies. Likewise, the transition from "matriarchate" to patriarchate has taken place in more phases than a careless reading of e. g. works by Marija Gimbutas might imply. The communities of "Old Europe" seem to have partially changed to adapt to new conditions and experienced a process of "patriarchalization" even without an alien conquest.

This would be implied among others by female war goddesses, Pallas Athene, and a very interesting Celtic deity of rivers and the sea, Epona-Rhiannon, who must be extremely archaic because of her connection with water. Thus, Rhiannon must originate from the matriarchal era, but she is notably a goddess of horses and war. The victorious Indo-European conqueror would not have allowed the conquered Europeans to promote a character of their indigenous mythology into a spirit of the most vital activity of the new Europe, now torn by wars. So some part of the original population assimilated the new situation and modified their religion to fit the problems of the age.

The reinstatement of the "matriarchate" for a while seems to have happened at least in Denmark during the megalithic age, and even during the Bronze Age we find some reinforcement of the Goddess' position. And what else might the Catholic cult of Virgin Mary be except an answer to the Europeans' resolution to continue their age-old religious rites even during the Christian era? Thus, this struggle has introduced to our culture a kind of an endless flux between two opposing forces.

When the table mentions how difficult the Europeans found to regard an intruder as an enemy, it may not be exaggeration at all. Archaeologists have found in large areas in Southeastern Europe a general downfall of the cultural level after the influx of the Indo-European nomads. For example, painted ceramics were no longer manufactured, and utensils were increasingly crude. This is proof of a fall in living standards and the disappearing of cultural heritage. Some researches of the habitations of the age have produced a very significant discovery: the majority of the women in those populations have been of a different nationality than the males. This cannot mean anything else than the aftermath of a situation comparable to the wars in Bosnia and Kosovo today. This may have been the result of communities, unprepared for new warlike conditions, succumbing without resistance to the rule of nomads brutalized by dry deserts. Suspicious immigrants may have, for security's sake, killed everybody -- save the booty.

In various picture books about history, which often are in Finland translations of Bonniers products, a preferred claim is that the Indo-Europeans conquered the primitive Europe thanks to their better skill of organization. Today there are no realistic grounds to deny the pre-Indo-European civilization being more developed than that of the nomads, but this information hardly finds its way to picture books for a long time to come. A military advantage to the "conqueror" may have been the fact that in the steppes behind the "Caspian Gate," years of famine have always occurred regularly. If a tribe seeking additional nourishment from the territories of wealthier agricultural peoples was stricken back 1000 times, that did not change history. History changed that one time when they were able to penetrate, and one single time was sufficient. The immigrant tribes had still one advantage over the European and Near Eastern agricultural civilizations: they had a serious mental disease. They had contracted YHWH.

A comparison of the world view prevalent in "Old Europe" and later hierarchical societies reveals many interesting things about our Western culture; so if the reader wishes to take a socio-critical position, the road is free. Thought is free, and the liberation of thought is one purpose of these pages. However, we admonish against thinking that any social goal can be reached linearly, as from point A to point B. An action causes such consequences which it produces in reality, and the same is true of attitudes. A prerequisite for influence is the knowledge of reality, which the above comparison of world views can hopefully increase.

The structures of our civilization and the consciousness of each of us are ingrained by a mental disease, originated thousands of years ago which is like a virus that never leaves the organism. This syndrome is essentially connected with the effect of the various urban versions of the cults of the Killer Demons of the Dry Desert and their presence in our culture. According to the way of calculating, the human species is 3 million or 200 000 years old, and for the majority of this period, we have functioned well without "yhwh's" or other mullahs. The imprint left by these happy millennia in our collective human (sub)consciousness, and the aspiration, encoded in our very biological substance, for lifestyles suitable for ourselves, have acted as a counterpoise to the above mentioned mental disease, and they still do. That is why the history of our culture has been a tug-of-war between two opposing tendencies: the cult of life and the cult of death.

For the same reason, in each of us certain reflexes of consciousness are still effective although they do not fit the rules of the present society, which do not advance our success as individuals; but nevertheless we occasionally act according to them or at least would like to do so. We help somebody without desiring fame or gratitude, or find that our "normative" actions, advantageous to ourselves, leave us with an empty, desolate feeling which we cannot explain. Amidst all outward tokens of success and consumer goods we are unhappy, and we are bothered by an obscure feeling of having done something wrong. This is indeed a message from the spinal cord behind the kidneys where it settled down thousands of years ago, before the great upheaval and the falling ill of our culture. Our nausea can be traced back to the fact that we are leading a restricted life in which a human being can be Human as little as can a mutilated and infibulated woman be a Woman. Now that we know this, we can get rid of our spiritual shackles and lead a real life. Choose.

KIRJOITA VIERASKIRJAAN!

VOIT LUKEA VIERASKIRJAN.

Various views of the Goddess from different ages:

A winged Goddess with bird's feet from Mesopotamia. The Goddess in the lower picture was found in Catal Hüyük, and it has been proposed that she was called "Potnia." The topmost cliff-painting figure holding a bow is the famous "Diana of Astuvansalmi." Lowest down, a more modern view of the phenomenon.

Links to the subject of Goddess etc.

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