This
book comprises a fascinating study of points of connection between
the Cayce Readings emerging knowledge that addresses the feminine
"face" of God.
Edgar Cayce, America's "sleeping prophet," gave over 14,000
discourses while in an altered state of consciousness, on a variety
of subjects, from physical health through dreams, spiritual ideals,
past lives, twin souls and Atlantis, to name a few.
The author suggests that the contents of these "Readings"
were the result of various factors, including Universal forces as
well as religious, cultural and psychological spirit of the times
and the temporal mindsets of the petitioner, Edgar Cayce and other
associates and influences.
Thus, there stands a variety of unconscious influences between the
"sources" from which the Readings drew and the actual content
of the same.
Notwithstanding this acknowledgement, certain themes
recur on specific subjects. The Creative Forces are synonymous with
a Mother/Father God concept.
This expression, not easily found in traditional Judeo-Christian literature,
states that one of the two co-creative forces comprising the Oneness
is feminine, the Eternal Feminine, which manifests in the spiritual,
psychological and cultural domains.
The Eternal feminine is at once the Divine co-creator and the immanent
archetype. An archetype, according to Carl Jung, is an image that
has existed since the remotest times, which transcends cultural and
societal boundaries and is generally recognized as an eternal truth.
However, whether a society is matrifocal or patrifocal will influence
how certain archetypes are revealed.
The Eternal feminine, while not always acknowledged
or recognized for her Divine self, is more commonly revealed in her
immanent form, as the Universal Feminine.
The Cayce Readings state that male and female were at first one on
a spiritual plane, and then one on the physical plane before they
were divided into the two physical entities. Webster's dictionary
describes masculine and feminine in terms of characteristics, not
genders.
However, according to the author, characteristics are both defined
and honed by the dominant culture; thus, women and men have been assigned
their characteristics over many millenniums by the patrifocal society
in which we live.
An evocative woman in a patrifocal society may be seen as a temptress
or a whore, while in a matrifocal society that same woman may have
been a healing priestess.
It is important that one thoroughly grasps the
distinction and relationship between the Eternal Feminine and the
Goddess Tradition.
The Eternal Feminine concept goes well beyond the concept in the Cayce
material that male and female were once one spiritually, then physically,
prior to the separation of the androgynous Adam into Adam and Eve
of in the second creation story in the Judeo-Christian Bible.
The Eternal Feminine is the feminine face of god, as hinted
at in the first creation story, where the first human being is created
in the image and likeness of God, "male and female."
The Eternal Feminine can be found in ideal expression underlying both
matrifocal and patrifocal societies, although ours has so long been
a patrifocal society that it is more difficult to find evidence of
it Its attributes as similar to those attributed to the feminine across
time and culture spans.
These include attunement with a holistic perspective regarding the
life cycle; an appreciation of relatedness and connectivity (partnership
model instead of a hierarchical model) and the ability to reconcile
and unify seeming opposites or polarities.
The Goddess tradition is the story, "her-story,"
combined with the theology of worshipping the "supreme"
deity as Mother or the goddess.
Thus, the Goddess tradition is but the manner in which various societies
at various times have come to express their perception of the Eternal
Feminine, just as the more modern, patrifocal religious have various
ways of expressing the male deity, now commonly called by its masculine
attribute, God.
Let us now explore the Eternal Feminine and the Goddess tradition
in the Cayce Readings and other esoteric literature and traditions.
CREATION
The
Cayce Readings often refer to the Eternal Feminine as an equal focus
of the God force. "Peace that passeth understanding can only
come with the heart being (in) at-one-ment with the Father-Mother
God." (4087).
Early Christian Gnostics also held beliefs about a masculine-feminine
God, with some believing there to be a male-female power, while others
believed that the terms were to be understood metaphorically, for
God was neither male nor female; still others held that God could
be described as either, dependent on which aspects of the Divine one
wished to articulate.
Hippolytus, the Greek philosopher, described the Creator as, at once,
the "Mind of the Universe, which manages all things, and is male,
and a Great Intelligence, which is female and produces all things."
Many creation myths talk about an androgynous being that becomes male
and female at some later point.
The Cayce Readings speak of an androgynous soul, Amelius, one of five
such beings, which split into male and female twin souls and were
born simultaneously in five locations in the earth with the express
purpose of leading fallen souls back to their original state of knowledge
of their purpose as co-creators with God.
Adam (and Eve) became the material manifestation of this androgynous
soul. Amelius continued its mission through many incarnations, with
or without his companion soul. The last and greatest of these was
as Jesus, son of his twin soul Mary.
The Cayce Readings state that the purpose of the
separation was to create one who "was to be the helpmeet, not
just the companion of the body" (364-7)… so that the soul may
"find self and its relationships with the Creative Forces."
(5356-1)
The traditional patrifocal account of Adam and Eve, using a, skews
that purpose by stating that Adam was created to have dominion over
the earth and Eve simply to be his helpmate.
This, coupled with the later story of Eve's rebellion has helped to
fuel male dominance and the suppression of Goddess theology.
Without the Cayce explanation of an androgynous Adam, it is difficult
to see the redeeming features of this creation myth for women.
Let's look at creation myths of peoples who descended
from the five root races of the Cayce Readings. Among the Red race
there are similar myths to the Judeo-Christian Great Flood, and to
the Cayce Readings account of the destruction of Atlantis and most
of the creation stories emphasize the importance of the Eternal Feminine
in both the creation and the on-going sustenance of the earth.
In some myths of the Black race, Elegba, the Chief Magician (the author
believes that the Chief Magician is the Nubian Hermes which the Cayce
sources said was one of Jesus' incarnations), is a self-impregnating
female who gave birth to twins, who later mated and birthed the rest
of humanity.
The yellow root race generally presents the Divine feminine as one
of a pair, recognizing the value of opposites and the need to work
these into balance, or wholeness. The yin/yang symbol is a visual
expression of complimentary masculine and feminine principles and
how one is always present, even if the other dominates.
In the White race, early Jewish culture believed that Adam was androgynous.
The Upanishads say that Brahm was a large being, encompassing man
and wife, who later separated into a husband and a wife.
In the Brown race the Eternal Feminine or an androgynous being is
often seen as the Creator. An ancient Mexican tablet discovered in
1584 states that the Creator created human beings with a dual masculine/feminine
principle, then caused a deep sleep to come over the entity and severed
it into man and woman by cosmic forces.
Before leaving the creation stories, let's peek
once more at the concept of twin souls. Taking Adam and Eve as the
pattern for twin souls, must twin souls should always position themselves
as romantic counterparts? That is not the case over many lifetimes.
Twin souls are eternal partners who come together to provide opportunities
for growth, for balance, for increased progress towards the ultimate
of the soul.
In any given lifetime they may be sister and brother, parent and child
or mere co-sojourners on mirrored paths, like St. Francis and St.
Clare, or Edgar Cayce and Gladys Davis.
Jessica Madigan, an early and crucial pioneer in the ARE, indicates
that twin souls may be recognized by some of the following traits:
• The physical attraction is overwhelming for
it is the same body;
• The two view life in much the same manner
• The spiritual work is the same;
• The two souls have the same soul purpose throughout
the earth;
• The feeling of oneness prevails throughout
the lifetime, even when one partner precedes the other in death by
many years.
• You click-this is the best friend, lover,
parent, child. You respond to each other-you are Answers, one to the
other. (Madigan, 1965, p. 42)
The Way of the Mother
Most
significant of all twin souls mentioned in the Readings were Jesus
and Mary. The Readings state that these two had many other incarnations,
including those as Adam and Eve.
Jessica Madigan, in Past Lives of Jesus and Mary (1970), reiterates
that the Nubian Hermes, whom Ra Ta met during his exile there, was
one of Jesus' previous incarnations.
Madigan speculates that Hermes' mother Mara, known by tradition as
the Black Madonna, was likely his twin soul.
She died when he was very young and he later married Seshat, a young
Egyptian who Madigan suggests may have been Mara, returned.
Why is this awareness of twin souls, especially
that of Jesus and Mary, so important to the study of the Goddess tradition
and the Eternal Feminine? Perhaps it is as Carl Jung states, archetypes
point to eternal truths.
Sacred literature and traditions of modern and ancient religions reveal
that there has been both a matrifocal and a patrifocal view to culture
and its pursuit of the Divine nature of things.
There is archeological, historical and mythological evidence that
early Greek, Sumerian, Chinese, Indian and Hebrew cultures openly
worshipped one or several goddesses, for more than 25,000 years.
The earliest of these traditions saw the Goddess
as androgynous, both in gender and in the traits often assigned to
each gender; thus, the Goddess created the world, nurtured the world
and brought death to all beings.
The Goddess could be both kind and cruel. The One might wonder why
these early concepts did not just speak of a male/female deity. Well,
according to mythologist Robert Graves, at the time of the development
of the Goddess tradition, the concept of fatherhood was not fully
understood.
"The human female was revered as the giver of life, (for) only
women could produce their own kind." (Stone, 1976, p.11) In ancient
Mediterranean societies, women knowledgeable about conception passed
these secrets down to women only under a binding oath.
Despite goddess worship, most of these societies stressed equality
of the sexes and cooperative and complimentary roles. There were some,
however, where female dominance was all too keenly felt, with matrilineal
inheritance and other excesses.
It is perhaps the excesses in either focal dominance that precipitates
a pendulum swing in the other direction in an effort to achieve greater
balance.
It is important to note that at any given time
both matrifocussed and patrifocussed traditions may have flourished
in different locations. Where they met, they often clashed, as demonstrated
in the Jeremiah, Chapter 44, of the Bible:
"But since we left off to burn incense to the queen of heaven,
and to pour out drink offerings unto her, we have wanted all things,
and have been consumed by the sword and by famine."
In many cases, the male-dominated, hierarchical cultures defeated
the Goddess worshipping cultures, either outright or by degrees. By
1500 B.C., these cultures were firmly established in the Mediterranean
and Near East areas.
As a result, Goddess worship either faced eradication or took a back
seat, camouflaged in myth and disguise. The Goddess culture survives
in the East through many of the Hindu gods/goddesses and many of the
teachings from those lands.
In the west, the Catholic tradition, though steeped in male hierarchy
and symbolism, brings us closest to our androgynous heritage by maintaining
the belief that Mary conceived her child without a human father and
that she was assumed into heaven without bodily corruption.
While the underlying intent was to lend greater credence to deifying
the man, Jesus, it is perhaps the spiritual intent that we are reminded
in this way of the uniquely great significance of the Mother, responding
to humanity's need for assurance that the Eternal Feminine continues.
Future
Horizons
The
Eternal Feminine is reemerging in both direct and indirect patterns.
Increased attention to and integration of spirit and nature, greater
appreciation for the cyclical patterns of life and increased personal
honor and respect for other beings are tangible symptoms associated
with the Goddess culture.
Additionally, mainstream religions are cracking at the seams, with
signs of the Mother bubbling through. In 1983, the conservative Catholic
Digest reprinted an article by Anne Bowne Follis entitled, "The
Mother Love of God," which stated that the Mother love of God
and the Father Love of God are really the same love.
In commenting on the cyclical patterns of male or female ascendancy
over time, Jessica Madigan stated "Whatever is repressed within
the consciousness-individual or collective, must one day rise up
again.
Mary has exceeded the boundaries of religious sectarianism,
becoming a world-wide symbol of peace and hope. Jungian analyst Marion
Woodman suggested that the Black Madonna is the new myth for the coming
age at a Common Boundaries seminar held in Washington, D.C. in the
fall of 1989.
Both male and female participants in that seminar acknowledged that
the Black Madonna has been appearing with greater frequency in their
dreams.
The American Shakers, who believe that God is androgynous, postulate
that Jesus as Redeemer is incomplete; the female side of the "redemptive"
God has not yet disclosed itself.
That female "redeemer" is yet to appear, or has appeared
already in the body of Mary, Jesus' twin soul. And Mary, although
absent from the body, is today more alive than ever.
Mary has appeared in Lourdes, in Fatima, in Medjugorge. There have
been several Mary sightings and weeping Mary statues in the United
States. Invariably the message is a plea for peace, for the coming
together of mankind as one. In August of 1984, Mary is said to have
stated:
"In God there are no divisions and there are no religions. You
in the world have made the divisions. The one mediator is Christ."
Was Mary speaking only of Jesus, who the Cayce Readings stated became
the Christ? Did she mean instead the androgynous being of which she
was the twin soul and mother to the Jesus?
The Cayce Readings predicted that, in our time Christ's light would
again be seen in the heavens, in the periods from'58 to '98.
Mary has been witnessed in globes of brilliant white and colored lights;
as twin souls on the selfsame mission is not their "light"
one and the same?
In August of 1987, the author, walking with her
E.S.P. students, passed the historic statue of Mary in Silicon Valley.
Five of the group experienced similar visions of an androgynous Mary,
as though both Mary and Jesus shared the body of the statue.
The author suggests that, just as Jesus embodied "feminine"
characteristics of gentleness, compassion and nurturing, so the emerging
Mary will embody qualities of empowerment, vitality and creativity,
traits that are now considered in the province of masculinity but
once considered the hallmark of the Goddess culture.
It is the author's personal, psychic experience that Mary is manifesting
both in her more traditional nurturing, motherly role as well as her
Sophia-like wisdom, spurring in women self-sufficiency and fulfillment,
and spawning a new age of reconciliation and integration among both
genders.
Our old myths and traditions are exploding as people
reckon with the shortcomings of doctrines they once venerated. In
the times of our greatest divisions and darkest hours, many are reaching
back to the ancient Goddess archetype.
Do we know what we need to survive into the future? Rollo May suggests
three new myths, the green myth (a more balanced relationship with
nature), women's liberation (representative of assuring the rights
and drawing upon the talents of all people) and planetism (which circumscribes
one world, one people and transcends political boundaries).
As early as 1970, one member of a dream group sponsored by Dr Henry
Reed reported a dream in which a woman who appeared to be the Virgin
Mary was holding a plant while piloting a UFO.
This brief description has all the elements of Mays new myth, respect
for the earth, woman's liberation and planetism. The author states
that Mary's presence is unmistakably the reemergence of the Eternal
Feminine.
Critical to awareness of the reemergence of the
Eternal Feminine, is our greater understanding and integration of
what is means to be masculine or feminine.
The demoralization that results from usurping the better perceived
qualities to the dominant group is often what has helped doomed prior
cultures.
Prior gender stereotypes should be examined in light of new information.
Edward Whitmont, a Jungian analyst states:
'We are discovering that many gender patterns, which even thirty years
ago were considered a priori genetically or archetypally prefigured,
have been the result of cultural repressive limitations."
Madigan reinforces this perception:"The twin soul is not a half-soul…The
blending of the heart, mind and spirit is shared by each…as if each
drinks from the same cup of life… each chooses that portion which
it wants as its own…"
Thus, the attributes which man has called masculine and feminine attributes,
a priori, are not carved in stone.
The author suggests that we study the healthier
Goddess tradition for vibrant, healthy characteristics that honor
women of all ages to ensure that women are not dominated, abused or
thrown away when they can no longer tout their sexual natures, or
are ignored as the weaker, less useful gender.
In the ancient cultures of Atlantis, Egypt and other Goddess-centered
cultures, the feminine manifests in three ways, as Maiden, as Mother
and as Crone.
Each of those aspects is mutually respected and is reflected in the
various phases of the moon, as new, as full or as dark.
With each comes an aspect of growth or creativity, or of development
and nurturing or of wisdom. The emphasis in the reemerging Goddess
culture is respect, both personal and of others.
There is no concept of sin where honor and respect are so highly held.
The possibility for evil is not ignored, but must be addressed from
within the deepest self, not just as a matter of breaking man-made
laws.
From the time of Atlantis through the Goddess-worshipping times it
was associated with "life-giving powers, renewal, rebirth, transformation
and the mystery of death."
The submergence of honor for the Goddess over the last 3,500 years
has contributed to a worldview of human dominance over nature, of
hierarchical structure and control and of pollution and war.
A Cayce Reading that would sum up why we need the Eternal Feminine
to reemerge states: "Spirit that uses matter, that uses every
influence in the earths environ for the glory of the Creative Forces,
partakes of and is a part of universal consciousness. (3508-1 or page
12)"
The Eternal Feminine calls upon all humanity to live a higher standard
that promotes a mature and interdependent way of life infused with
love and unbiased justice.
The
Circle of Light/Moon Cycle Process
New
religious forms are developing to reflect and highlight this reemerging
Goddess culture, in order that those excluded from the present patrifocal
culture fully recognize and are recognized as an intricate part of
a new and integrated partnership.
In the mid 1980's the author determined that she would use her transpersonal
background, well grounded in over twenty years of working with the
Cayce material and other transpersonal traditions to develop an experiential
form to train the intuition in a gender-balanced way.
After extensive research and many trials, working with both men and
women three times a month for two years, a new religious form emerged
from the process.
The form draws on ideas from previous Goddess tradition sources as
well as newer psychological concepts such as scrying, concepts from
the Cayce Readings on training the intuition, and other esoteric sources
to include the Medicine Wheel, the Kabala and other mystical forms
from Eastern and Western traditions. The center fold of the process
involves honoring nature, especially the cycles of the moon, the inner
self, and one another in the circle as intuitive seeds are planted,
developed, and transmuted during corresponding cycles of the waxing,
full and waning moon. Two primary results of the two-year study are:
increased awareness of and connection with the Eternal Feminine energy,
and a substantial sense of oneness.
Women
in the Work
The
author believed that a study of the Eternal Feminine in the Cayce
Readings would be incomplete without elucidating the lives and thoughts
of individual women who took part in the Work surrounding the Edgar
Cayce material from the beginning and as it continues today.
She included 25 women, representative of each generation since the
Work began, and of various educational and socio-economic backgrounds.
She asked four questions: about the Work, its challenges, their own
contribution and the role of tomorrow's women in the Work.
Findings as well as some verbatim transcripts of the interviews are
included in the book. Positive themes that abound in the response
to the last question include those of co-partnering, healing and developing
confidence in inner guidance.
Themes of disconnect were the masculine language in the Readings,
feelings that women in the Work were underutilized and underpaid and
that non-conforming women were ostracized.
Generational comparisons indicated that older generations were more
focused on the uniqueness and challenges of helping the man, Cayce,
to disseminate this awesome body of material itself, while later generations
saw the larger implications of the Work and developed more unique
ways of incorporating it into their own lives.
The youngest of the generations had the strongest sense of individuality.
Sensing that many in the older generations see Edgar Cayce as a "guru,"
they are skeptical of any emphasis on the man, as opposed to the Work
itself.
Some of these prefer not to be joiners but prefer to mainstream the
material and make it available to everyone.
This latter focus takes us back to the author's
intent in heightening our awareness of the Eternal Feminine. It is
not to glorify the female instead of the male, for previous excesses
in both cultures show that this is not the answer.
It rather shows that greater understanding of the existence of Eternal
Feminine will promote greater balance, mutual respect and wholeness
as both men and women recognize who we really are. The final Cayce
Reading expresses this well:
