Primordial duality of religion
Extracts from Chapter Eleven of "Primitive Materialism".
In Mycenaean religion we do not see the Olympian pantheon. The Goddess is dominant: the expression Potnia, meaning “Mistress” or “Lady”, appears either on its own as the name of a deity, or as an epithet – Artemis Potnia, Athena Potnia. The goddess Pe-re-swa, probably an early form of Persephone, also called Desponia, “the mistress,” is attested at Pylos. In later Greek myth she is the daughter of Demeter, the corn goddess, whose early cult title was Sito, and St-to-potnia is also known. During the Mycenaean period the cult of Demeter at Eleusis was established, based on a pre-Greek vegetation cult of Minoan provenance. The consort of Demeter is Poseidon, not at that time the god of the seas, but a chthonic god of the underworld, who couples as a stallion with Demeter as a mare. According to Pausanias in his travel guide to Greece, written in the C2 CE, there were animal-headed statues of Demeter in Arcadia, and at Lycosura a relief showed women wearing animal heads in a ritual dance. Artemis at this time was a daughter of Demeter, the “mistress of the animals”; she was related to the Minoan tree cult, an ecstatic and orgiastic cult, which is attested by images on Minoan seals and Mycenaean gold rings. Dionysus is also found; his name possibly means “son of Zeus.” In Homeric poems he is paired with the Minoan vegetation goddess Ariadne. The principal cult places are Delphi, Dodona, Delos, Eleusis, Lerna, and Abae. The religion of the Mycenaeans was the product of a fusion of patriarchal Aryan elements and matriarchal Minoan elements in which the matriarchal element predominated. Helen was a goddess, whatever else she may have been.
Questions
1. Is it true that the Minoan/Mycenean religion attests none of the Olympian gods in their later (departmental) functions?
2. Is it true that Minoan/Mycenean religion is a fusion of patriarchal and matriarchal elements in which the matriarchal element predominated?
3. If both be so, then how did the Olympian religion come about?
2. Is it true that Minoan/Mycenean religion is a fusion of patriarchal and matriarchal elements in which the matriarchal element predominated?
3. If both be so, then how did the Olympian religion come about?
Extract Two
In the anima figure we see a differentiated conception of woman, but one strongly conditioned by male perception. The son has differentiated himself from the mother, and has become the Father and Patriarch, and in so doing rejects the horror of the consequences of the religion of fertility – as king, he rejects his death in ritual sacrifice, so that his blood may replenish the earth. In the Olympian pantheon, each of the female goddesses represents an idealised conception of a faculty of the human mind that the male psyche highly regards (Athena), or an aspect of life that the patriarch esteems (Hestia, Artemis, Aphrodite), or marriage as an institution (Hera), or nature as a principle (Demeter). To man at the primitive stage of consciousness represented by matriarchy, woman’s power resides primarily in her reproductive potentiality, but in the Olympian religion this power is either disguised or elevated. Jung proposes concepts of the positive and negative Mother archetype. Regarding the positive mother archetype, which he also calls the “loving mother”, he writes: “The qualities associated with it are maternal solicitude and sympathy; the magic authority of the female; the wisdom and spiritual exaltation that transcend reason; any helpful instinct or impulse; all that is benign, all that cherishes and sustains, that fosters growth and fertility. The place of magic transformation and rebirth, together with the underworld and its inhabitants, are presided over by the mother.” Regarding the negative mother archetype, which he also calls “the terrible mother”: “On the negative side the mother archetype may connote anything secret, hidden, dark; the abyss, the world of the dead, anything that devours, seduces, and poisons, that is terrifying and inescapable like fate.”
Questions
1. What is the (Jungian) archetype of anima? Is a permanent construct of the human psyche; does it have a history?
2. Is it true that there is both a positive and a negative mother? What is the psychological relevance of the negative, or terrible mother? Is it possible for a mother to destroy her child?
3. How do the concepts of anima, positive mother and negative mother relate to religion?
2. Is it true that there is both a positive and a negative mother? What is the psychological relevance of the negative, or terrible mother? Is it possible for a mother to destroy her child?
3. How do the concepts of anima, positive mother and negative mother relate to religion?
Extract Three
The Proto-Indo-Europeans migrated in all directions, and their language, culture and religion is the foundation of the Celtic, Germanic, Slavic, Baltic, Italic, Greek, Scythian, Iranic, Medean, Persian, Parthian, Vedic and Indo-Aryan civilisations of historic times. This gives the fundamental pattern of ancient history to be the conflict between the steppe and mountain peoples of the north with their patriarchal religion, and the indigenous populations of India, the Middle and Near East and the Mediterranean Sea, with their matriarchal religion – that is, patriarchy versus matriarchy. This division of the peoples of Eurasia into two fundamental types, one patriarchal, the other matriarchal, is one of the great mysteries of human existence, and lies at the foundation of Western consciousness.
Questions
1. Are the proto-Indo-Europeans vectors of patriarchy?
2. Did the Indo-Europeans assimilate to the matriarchal religion of the Mediterranean peoples?
3. Was there a primordial duality of religion?
2. Did the Indo-Europeans assimilate to the matriarchal religion of the Mediterranean peoples?
3. Was there a primordial duality of religion?