The Reconciliation of Opposites, Gender Issues And The Marginalisation Of Minority Groups.[1]

by Melanie Purcell, Department of Philosophy. University of Newcastle. 2000

This paper is concerned with relationships between various marginalised groups and the persistence and centrality of Classical Western world views informed by mechanistic Newtonian scientific models and formalised religious dogma. Various perspectives of reality are involved with questions of marginalisation and through an exploration of the following questions, the paper attempts to address the global issues that are central to the continuous marginalisation of women, indigenous and other minority groups.

1.        How do contemporary issues concerning gender rely upon an extrapolation of Western supremacy and patriarchal religious dominance?

2.        What are the relationships between the study of gender issues and the study of issues concerning the marginalisation of indigenous, non-western and other minority groups?

3.    Can the problems perceived through the study of gender issues and those concerning the    

marginalisation of indigenous, and other minority groups be abstracted through a conceptual framework that is constructed around the issue of the reconciliation of opposites itself, and if so, how can this be used as an overarching model? [2]

Gender Issues, Western Supremacy and Patriarchal Religious Dominance.

To explore this question it is necessary to research early creation myths, and to pursue some of  the historical threads available to us that trace the  rise of Western patriarchal religious dominance, and the supremacy of Western perspectives of reality. As the Western culture has maintained its global authority in religious, social and political structures, as a dominant force in the contemporary world, which in turn has upheld a classical mechanistic view of reality, I will briefly draw upon material concerning the most provocative of contemporary insights, the post quantum sciences. Whilst many religious groups, particularly Catholic groups[3] have invested great hope in the new science as a vehicle for the restoration of their faith, the implications of this work is in reality quite devastating for religious views that maintain a dogmatic perspective which defines oppositional relationships as separate and discrete. It will be argued that it is the separation of oppositional extremes perceived as definitive and discrete that poses the crux of the problem explored and leads to a centrality of Western perceptions of reality and hence supremacy of ideologies.

Creation Myths: Contemporary Cosmological Mythologies

The explanation of origins is a need that is central to the human desire for knowledge. The knowledge of origins is something that is desired from an early age; where did I come from, how did I get here. All of these questions posit a central dilemma for the human species. The need to know the nature of the first cause has led to the most perplexing of philosophical and scientific dilemmas to this day. If we can conceive of such a thing as that which was the first, then what or who was the cause of such a thing existing. The problem of the first cause presents the most perplexing of paradoxical environments.

Contemporary science has provided a number of possible mythologies/ hypotheses to add to the vast collection of creation myths that have been generated throughout time. Today, there are many who advocate that there was a huge explosion, based upon Edwin Hubble’s observations of the expansion of the universe which has been called the Big Bang Theory. The universe is thought to have burst forth out of an “infinitesimally small and infinitely dense” [4] point that existed in a non spatial and non temporal void prior to its explosion and subsequent expansion. How can something that has no spatial or temporal extension exist? The limitations of our language and our inability to take an “eye of God” view of the universe makes us unable to deal with such problems easily. The first cause is an environment where orthodox religion presents the omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent, as the creator of all that is, as an external puppeteer, the overseer of the realms of good and evil, light and dark.

Some cosmologists argue about the need to invoke such an entity and prefer to rely upon the chance of matter simply exploding into existence, devoid of spirit or consciousness. John Gribbin calls for the death of metaphysics and with it the death of  the need for the first cause at all, preferring to see the universe as completely self contained with no beginning or end.[5]Others have modelled their perceptions into a reality that sees consciousness or thought being the generative function, and the manifestation of the material world as an entanglement of matter and energy where the notion of God is immanent.[6] Still others have  seen things as a miraculous self creation of reality, a perpetually self organising organism that has come into being through a unity and in turn complementarity of extremes, the evolution of which has caused sophisticated  structures that have supported the emergence of complex intelligence as we know it.[7]

There are many views, and many arguments. Materialists are pitched against Idealists and there are others who are postulating perspectives that draw from both through the reconciliation of idealism and realism.[8] It is a curious realm of thought where completely opposed views are drawing from the same  pool of knowledge built particularly over the past few decades. The formulations of these various theories are forged through mathematical constructs which can conceive of such things as the  cosmological constant, a measure of the curious repulsive force exerted by empty space, which has been  tweaked many times and is now 10 123 times smaller than that predicted by quantum theory[9]. In Peter Cushing’s book “Philosophical Concepts In Physics”[10]  he points out the many problems of perception and the way that it is cast, that face the philosopher  when comparing Realist and Anti Realist representations of physical theories and suggests that it is the dynamics of these differing perspectives that are the generative force behind the evolution of scientific ideas themselves.

The Destabilisation of Science as Repository of Truth.

Science is situated within the rigorous environment of formulating abstract notions about reality through a symbolic language and as such is fraught with many difficulties. Abstractions are useful but notorious for losing the complexity of  reality  as they can gloss over seemingly insignificant details that may ultimately have huge effects.[11] Chaos and complexity theory has explored this area revealing literally explosive new understandings concerning the complexity of systems. The information that was previously called “noise” in a system  which  previously was generally ignored, involved random and seemingly minor bifurcations of detail that whilst miniscule, develops  exponentially over time and as the systems process continues, which is one of the reasons why determining the nature of the weather has remained virtually impossible to predict.[12]

Observations that reveal nature as indeterminate, and the universe as an interconnected whole with the possibility of non-local phenomena,  have led to the questioning of the strength of truth-making potential that science has upheld. Many critics of science have questioned the nature of theoretical work as a means of acquiring the “truth” to the point of suggesting “The End Of Science”[13]itself. This perspective is not by any means suggesting that science does not provide us with factual information by any means, but that it is not the only environment where truth may be revealed, nor is it infallible. There have been many situations where theories have held as truth for years and been disproven over time. The multiplicity of perspectives of reality that have been generated since quantum mechanics, and the seemingly perpetual arguments that have been raised as a result, are testament to the problems of science, particularly where classical interpretations are held as a central repository of truth. We can no longer cite it as a formal environment that informs our vision of reality, and constructs our truth. The hold over this territory that Western classical physics has maintained is arguably dangerous as it has led to the false assumption that all science fuels and supports the powerful position that this dominant society has held over other cultural perspectives.

Holistic Perspectives

Without going into great detail, it is important to mention the number of scientists whose views have opened dialogues between the “New Physics” and Eastern metaphysics. Certainly the work of David Bohm has been enormously influential, as has the writing of authors such as Fritjov Capra, Gary Zukav, James Lovelock, and Lynn Margulis whose work explores the interconnectedness of all things. Often using the metaphor of a hologram to illustrate the universe, where matter is considered as frozen light [14]and the wave aspect of a particle extends to the outer reaches of the universe, reality is presented in the majesty that has been invoked through the sacred teachings of the East. The new Western science has found a bed fellow in the esoteric teachings of spirituality. Challenging the Baconian fundamentalism  of deterministic perspectives that have arguably led to the devastation of cultures and environments through the perpetuation of a supremacist and dogmatic tradition informed by the vested interests of a technologically driven and materialistic economy, the new physics may well ground a far more meaningful understanding of life which would seem to invoke a hidden tradition within the West’s own knowledge formulations. It should be pointed out here that the Classical perception of physics that is based on Newton's mechanical  paradigm is still and will always be a useful understanding of how things work from an abstracted perspective that functions well in ordinary life-scale observations. It was when scientists began to observe the quantum domain  and the realm of cosmology, that Newtonian physics was seen to be limited. As an abstraction of the real world, at the quantum level of particles and the building blocks of nature, everything appeared completely different and strange, as it did in the domain of cosmological observation. We could safely suggest that classical mechanics is useful but Einsteinan Relativism has extended our perception further into understandings that provide more accurate information concerning things like spacetime relationships, and the nature of light, and the with the various formulations that have been developed from the observations of the quantum domain, there has been a further extension to our understanding of things.

The choices made in our western history have been informed by a nexus of relationships that are not only about scientific observation, but are also about the arguments concerning religious turbulence and philosophical enquiry. This lineage of thought leads through people like Bacon, Descartes and Newton, and is a complex mesh of both scientific thought and religious or spiritual thought. The need to formulate a methodology that allowed them to try to understand our physical world as best as they could, meant that many of the more spiritual questions that vexed them then and still vex us now, were abandoned as impossible  environments to ponder. The domain of science grew through a formulation of methodologies that set out to prove phenomena beyond doubt.  This lineage has not so much overtly condemned the spiritual, as over time excluded a place for the spiritual to rest in the formulation of knowledge gathering that had developed. Now, with the strong relationships forged between science and technology, the various choices that have been driven previously by the pursuit of knowledge, are now driven by the vested interests of those upheld by our cultural dominance, which constitute many institutions that are still deeply entrenched and grasping onto the remaining possibilities of the classical paradigm. In some cases we find ourselves chasing the potentially infinite to see whether it is finite, while the potential for an extraordinary world that has a huge population struggling with concepts so foreign to us as love and compassion, is strangled that little bit further by the priorities that further the desperation of the third world.

The Feminist Revisions

With the rise of the feminist voice through the seventies particularly, revision was forged in most scientific areas questioning the way that men had constructed their perspective, our universe, our world and its histories. The work of Riane Eisler rewrites the  picture of our past and presents  a narrative of patriarchal control identified in her book “The Chalice and the Blade” as endorsing a dominator model. She locates environments that have not forsaken the feminine and have realised what she identifies as an egalitarian “partnership” model.  Through this revision of our past, the Goddess has been resurrected and the hierarchical patriarchal dominance of our world is revealed. Adding to this renegotiation of the ancient past, in the seminal works such as “The Death Of Nature” and “Pythagorus Trousers” both Caroline Merchant and more recently, Margaret Wertheim , have questioned the development and “rationalisation” of knowledge  formation and the position that science has in our society. Both show how certain choices have developed a masculinisation of perspectives of reality. These perspectives have evolved[15] and dominated the field of  world views available to the general public and both writers call for a partnership approach to the knowledge making of the sciences as being the only way to fully understand the dynamics of such a complex reality as ours. Sandra Harding, Evelyn Fox Keller and Donna Haraway have similarly forged a feminist perspective of science and the formulation of knowledge where the masculine academic genre of truth-making is associated with the objectification of reality, its separation into two worlds, “the knower (mind) and the knowable (nature).”

                “The relation specified between knower and known is one of distance and separation. It is that between a subject and an object radically divided, which is to say , no worldly relation…..modes of intercourse are defined so as to ensure emotional and physical inviolability for the subject. Concurrent with the division of the world into subject and object is, accordingly, a division of the forms of knowledge into “subjective” and “objective”. The Scientific mind is set apart from what is to be known, that is, from nature, and its autonomy- and hence the reciprocal autonomy of the object- is guaranteed …by setting apart its modes of knowing from those in which that dichotomy is threatened. In the process, the characterisation of both the scientific mind and its modes of access to knowledge as masculine is indeed significant. Masculine here connotes, as it so often does, autonomy, separation, and distance. It connotes, a radical rejection of any commingling of subject and object, which are, it now appears, quite consistently identified as male and female.”[16]

The Separation of the Sexes

This notion of separateness and autonomy is critical to the way in which the Western world view has developed. I would like to argue that this view has its roots in the myth making of origins, the development of writing and the consolidation of thought into such concrete  processes as the alphabetic transmission of information, and the canonisation of Christian theology. Dr. Leonard Shlain, a Neuroscientist and Chief of Lapraroscopic Surgery at California Medical Center in San Fransisco, has tracked the correlations between the rise and fall of literacy and the changing status of women in society, mythology, and religion throughout European history, and in other cultures as well. He contrasts the oral, right-brained teachings of Socrates, Christ and the Buddha with the hierarchical and sexist forms that evolved when their spoken words were committed to writing. He identifies the differences between the  masculine and feminine centres of the brain, left and right hemispheres respectively, and recasts our history as one where literacy has forged a predominance of left hemisphere  values that are rational, objective, deterministic, independent, and tunnel-visioned, incapable of  realising a holistic and open perspective of reality.

“Literacy is a salutary, exhilarating stimulant to human progress. Ingenious inventions, innovative new systems of thought, crisp literature, and sparkling new styles of art follow its introduction and sudden acquisition in any society. Newly literate people conceive new ways to interact with each other, formulate new forms of government, and initiate religious enlightenments. But like any strong stimulant, literacy has the potential to produce undesirable side effects.

“Due to its exceedingly short learning curve, every society that has acquired alphabetic literacy has become violently self-destructive a short time afterward. This madness has been associated with a virulent misogyny and spelled trouble for images, women’s rights, goddesses, and right-brain values. Nothing in history accelerated alphabet literacy as much as the invention of the printing press; the spread of both coincided with the one period when women and feminine values suffered most. As a tool for hacking away at the tangle of superstitions that impedes humankind, literacy is indispensable. But societies must recognise that the process of writing and reading initially reinforces left-brain values to the detriment of right brain values.”[17]

Such a study concerning the differences between masculine and feminine attributes perceived through the development of hierarchical and dominant models allows us to investigate the historical developments that have given rise to many problems that we face today. Of particular importance is the supreme position that the Western culture has over other cultures that can now be seriously viewed as a problem of gender dominance.

The  Dominance of the Masculine Gender in the Creation Myths of Christianity.

The separation of the gendered attributes is evident in the theology of the divine origin. As a political, social and cultural tool, religion has played a key role in the development of patriarchal dominance . Tracing the changing attitudes as the goddess and female aspect suffered the transformation from being the source of wisdom, Sophia and the Queen of Heaven, Inanna, the sacred archetypal mother of all things, the nurturer and healer, to the dominance of the male form has been an epic journey in itself. Anne Barring and Jules Cashford have written a definitive book on the subject of the Myth of the Goddess. It is a complex history that presents a synthesis of what we know about the goddess from Upper Palaeolithic to modern times. In a chapter concerning the hidden goddess of the old testament, they reveal the masculinastion of the creation itself as an act of repression.

“The source of Wisdom sometimes alternates between the image of Sophia and that of Yahwah. Engelsman, in her exploration of Sophia, believes that there was tension between the adherents of Yahweh and those of Sophia at the beginning of the Christian era: ‘This tension appears to have been resolved by repression… At least her power and prestige were radically curtailed at this time, and Sophia does not reappear as a major figure until the rise of Jewish mysticism in the Middle Ages.’ …. The image of the feminine Sophia, as the personification of Wisdom in both Judaism and Christianity, was replaced by the masculine Logos. The Word as Wisdom became the mediator between Godhead and humanity. In this way, the feminine image of the divine was again lost.”[18]

Removing any connotations of a female aspect or co-creator through sexual union and hence reconciliation of opposites has necessarily produced a virgin birth of sorts, one where the male aspect is realised in its outrageous and blinding force as the only necessary element that then becomes the multiplicity of all that is. He is not the god himself, God remains outside of the reality that God is creating. The Logos is the Word or the emanation that here is intended as being uttered out of the mouth of God, but is not actually the God. This externalisation of God as grand manipulator, sets us up for the political and social system that was developed through the laws of the biblical cannon.

This and the implication of the logos or male deity not coupling with its female counterpart presents what I consider to be the most profound of problems concerning the intellectualisation of our origins, a problem that is a foundation for the fear of the wrath of god as an external causal agent, the sexual repression of the Western culture and the misogyny that is so well epitomised by the  masculinised creation stories that developed in alphabetic literate cultures such as the creation myth of Marduk. This myth described on “the Seven Tablets Of Creation” replaces previous Sumerian creation myths in about 1700 B.C. and characterises a gross act of creation through the violent murder and dismembering Tiamat, the Great Mother who, being challenged by Marduk, attempts to devour him, but is overwhelmed by his elemental forces which he unleashes upon her filling her with the rage of gales and storms. In a final victorious act he ruptures her stomach and splits her heart. In this act of  “creation”, he dismembers her body which becomes the landforms and pierces her eyes with his sword, the tears of which form the two great rivers, the Tigris and Euphrates. Her  torture continued and is echoed in the much later atrocity committed against Hypatia in the fifth century[19].  Hypatia was a scientist and scholar, and teacher of wisdom in the Library of Alexandria. She was abducted by catholic priests and while still alive, had all of skin scraped from her bones by oyster shells prior to being dismembered.[20] The burning of the Library of Alexandria, the subsequent destruction of most of the temples and sculptures devoted to the various images of the Goddess and the torture and murder of Hypatia are a significant nexus of events heralding the rise of patriarchal Christian dominance in the 5^th Century. The reasoning behind these acts of violence were to once and for all destroy the pagan hereticism that was flourishing in the various academies devoted to Neo Platonism and Hermetic texts. The influence of the “Unholy” realm of ancient Egypt threatened the patriarchy that implemented much of its control through such demands as the alphabetisation of language structures, a force behind the development of the simplified Demotic and Coptic scripts of the Egyptians. This transformed their entire system of communication as their sacred writing, the Hieroglyphs were considered to be Sculptures of thought meant for contemplation and not simple reading and translation.[21]The history and writings of the “Corpus Hermeticum” are extremely important as it has been found to have influenced most esoteric practices, Magic, Alchemy and Hermeticism, Sufism, Taoism, and Hinduism. Its history coincides with all major flourishing of Humanism in the Western world, and with many subsequent massacres of heretics led by the Church, including the burning at the stake of  Giordano Bruno, who innocently saw  the Hermetic Texts as have the potential to unify all of the worlds major religions.[22]

The Logos, originally seen as being God, (the word was god), has now become the mediator. It is a blasting light, a vibration of sound and the initial expansion into the world of grace. By this action of changing the Logos into the mediator however, the creation remains interrupted and held by the externalised creator as an extension that is thought to be sufficient in itself, that has no need for a feminine aspect. At once the Logos, the word, the primal emanation which was the material potential of God, becomes the extension of God when once it was the actual God incarnate. Here, the prior state which is external to the manifest reality, which is other than something, remains as the causal agent. With earlier and non-literate  mythologies, God is immanent. God is transformed from that which was the singular entity prior to spacetime, into all that is in existence. In the masculinised versions, the state prior to becoming, the state of nonbeing is now granted Godhead and the state of becoming is the creation of that Godhead. The Logos is the means through which creation takes place. Without a transformative  movement, where the potential is realised as an archetypal sacrifice to become, the unification of the oppositional attributes is held in a singular stasis, impotent of a sexual procreative multiplication, and devoid of conjiunction.

The splendour of that infinite ejaculation blasts fourth upon an eternity devoid of nourishment and fecundity. The expression of creation has exploded from the egoistic masculinisation of the logos and its unconsummated celibacy. Through this patriarchal perception, where the image of the unnecessary female remains in the chaotic waters of that which was before, this big bang, the blasting out of the logos, is graphically an intellectualised masturbation of God’s seed, infertile in its solitude and yet considered potent, blasting out of its often grossly destructive battle with its other, the dark mysterious and dangerous female which is left lurking as the sinister entity ready to be invoked as the object of evil influence. This is a logic of control and hierarchy. The primal material, the matter, matrix, mother of reality is subverted by a masculinised and external creator  that manipulates the matrix and is the causal agent of the actions and reactions that come into the realm of manifestation without the “messiness” of the sexual  copulatory act.

In “The Tripartite Tractate” one of the books included in the Nag Hammadi Library of Coptic, Gnostic, Christian Texts, the formulation of these masculine notions of creation and with it the identification of the Church as only authority are well illustrated:

                “Just as the Father exists in the fullest sense, the one before whom [there was no one] else and [the one] after [whom] there is no other unbegotten one, so too the [Son] exists in the fullest sense, the one before whom there is no other and after whom no other son exists. Therefore he is a first-born and an only Son, the first-born because no one exists before him and the only Son because no one is after him. Furthermore, he has his own fruit, that which is unknown because of its surpassing greatness. Yet he wanted it to be known, because of the riches of his sweetness. And he revealed the unsurpassable power and he combined with it the great abundance of his generosity.

                “Not only does the Son exist from the beginning, but the Church, too, exists from the beginning. Now he who thinks that the discovery that the Son is an only son opposes the word (about the church)- as the Father is a unity and has revealed himself as a father for him (the Son) alone, so too the Son was found to be a brother to him (the Father) alone, in virtue of the fact that he is unbegotten and without beginning. He wonders at himself [along with the] Father, and he gives [him(self)] glory and honour and [love]. Furthermore, he too is the one who conceives of himself as Son, in accordance with the conditions: “without beginning” and “without end”. The matter (of the Son) exists just as something which is fixed. His offspring, the things which exist, being innumerable, illimitable, and inseparable, have like kisses, come forth from the Son and the father, (like kisses) because of the multitude of those who kiss one another with a good, insatiable thought, the kiss being a unity, although it involves many. Such is the Church consisting of many men, which exists before the aeons, and which is called, in the proper sense, “the aeons of the aeons.” Such is the nature of the holy imperishable spirits, upon which the Son rests, since his essence is like that of the Father who rests upon the Son..”[23]

The Gnostic Gospels further identify the masculinisation of creation with the quality of the feminine figure of Wisdom, Sophia- Achamoth. In this way, the masculine element escapes the dangers of being swallowed by the dark powers of chaos and remained safe in the Pneumatic realm of light, while Sophia is driven into relation with the outer darkness that surrounds the realm of creation. Jung suggests this

                “describes in the form of cosmic projection, the separation of the feminine anima from a masculine and spiritually orientated consciousness that strives for the final and absolute victory of the spirit over the world of the senses.”[24]

Creation Myths That Find the Union Of Opposites to be Central To Manifestation.

With many of the creation myths that precede these formulations, there are several features that seem to be consistent across cultural boundaries and for the purposes and of this essay, a very general perspective of this field will be explored.[25] These features are:

A. The confusing description of a Nothingness which is the object of origins and realises the initial complexity of paradox that plagues the description of something that is nothing. So initially we have this void or plenum, being nothing but the potential of everything, the spaceless timeless eternity prior to thought or movement, a primordial begetter in a state of sleep, a primeval sea, or formless and undivided  waters.

Generally, this nothingness is anthropomorphised into the God and Creator of all that is.  The state of this creator is initially described variously as one who is in a deep sleep, an inert inactive, unaware nonbeing.[26]From alchemical readings, this prior nonbeing or state of potential is self sacrificed in order to become. The prior state is recognised as being of dual sexual potential, and the personal sacrifice of this singular state is enacted to relieve the loneliness and isolation of the divine state of pre creational existence in the eternity of a spaceless and timeless plenum.[27]

B. The desire to come into existence is expressed as an initial expansion, a movement, an awakening that begins the primeval generation of temporal and spatial displacement or growth. Often it is at this point that many of the myths invoke the power of thought or the desire to become. Generally this initial motion is personified as a desire to experience otherness or that which is opposite to the self. This is the dynamic transformation of 0 into the infinite. We have in this moment the first idea of conscious awareness of the self and simultaneously with the complementary opposite which is the not-self. As the initial state of this first entity is the state of nonbeing, its opposite is the state of manifestation or actualisation which is the complementary opposite state.

                “And in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through Him all things were made, without Him nothing was made that has been made. In Him was light and that light was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness but the darkness has not understood it.”[28]

With this description of the first motion, God is expressed as a vibration of sound and as such the spatial and temporal expansion is realised. With this initial expansion, nothing has become two opposite things. Nothing and something. There is a transformation of one nonexistent potential becoming its completely antithetical complement. With this transformation into a spatial and temporal reality, dimension has occurred and initially the self and the not self is identified. In this case it is lightness and darkness, which very quickly manifests into a multiplicity as the initial extension is seen to have two opposed ends, as well as above, below, in front and behind. Interestingly, a point, as defined through Egyptian mathematics is considered to be of three spatial dimensions,[29] just as an extension has three dimensions in space and one in time. The generation of these complements is definitively expressed in the cosmology of the ancient Chinese where the initial dyads are depicted as the archetypal male and female aspects which were originally conceived of as a rod. Hence the original inception of the yin-yang symbol as the complements of two triplicites that forged the hexagonal dynamics of the complementary trigrams with three yang or masculine and three yin or feminine attributes.[30]

The word or Logos is identified as light and as such it is an infinite expansion, an ejaculation of life force, a brilliant and huge presence, dynamic and forthright, potent and formidable. It is the masculine principle and has been identified as such through many mythologies. Out of the darkness comes light at once the first principle and yet spawned and separated from the mysterious and elusive feminine aspect of itself, which is in effect and ironically, its point of origin. The paradoxical situation revealed here shows that from nothing or the state of non-being, both the masculine infinite and the feminine singularity from which that emanation exploded, is created simultaneously. That which is the first radiant expanse is both the father of the female point (as without its motion of becoming the point of origin would not have occurred) and the son as it was born out of this same point of its own origin. The father  unites with its shadow. Similarly, the point of origin is the mother and daughter of this primordial event. In many mythologies the serpent is identified as the symbol of the primal extension, the origin or tail being the feminine principle and the head often crowned, being the masculine, usually illustrated with a radiant halo expanding from its crown.[31]

C. The unification of opposites, or as Jung called it, the Mysterium Coniunctionis, the divine marriage and sexual procreation gives birth to the multiplicity and sees the generative forces of manifestation come into full completion. The divine expanse of light seeks out its partner and couples with its opposite, the point of nothing or the singularity from which it originated, and in doing so, unifies the primordial pair in an act of sexual procreation. This closing of the circle so to speak, is identified in esoteric literature as the consolidation of manifestation. Whilst the initial union  to create the rising logos or spirit of light has taken place, it is not considered as an act that is within the realm of manifestation, until union occurs. It is therefore a repeated or externalised act of copulation that begets all things, and consolidates the materialisation through a cyclic process of continuous creation. [32]The nothing becomes the one  that existed before, which is now two extremes of the initial extension. The third , that which is between the infinite and the singularity, due to dimensionality, holds within itself the fourth, fifth and sixth aspect. That is, above, below, in front and behind. This double triad is forged simultaneously of masculine and feminine attributes, which upon seeking each other out, unify in the act of coupling which then presents the fourth phase that leads into the realm of continuous manifestation and the completion of the first primal cycle from 1 to ten. The magical premise of the pyramid of numbers is therefore more realisable as the four phases of creation completes the whole:  1+2+3+4=10 [33]

The Mother begets a Son whom she marries, and who is her father as she is his daughter! Here we have before us the archetypal Bride and Groom of the Hermetic tradition, an esoteric cosmology that is traceable to the ancient Egyptian Pyramid texts and the Corpus Hermeticum, a cosmological system that saw the primal origin as an hermaphrodite and the nonbeing of God as having to sacrifice its state of nonbeing, and literally turning itself inside out and upside down, transforming to become its complete antithesis, a being of multiplicity or manifold unity. With this we can easily find, as did the cosmologists of the ancient Chinese,  the two trigrams, one masculine and one feminine, the double trinity, the father /mother daughter/ son and the bride and groom. The seal of Solomon is testament to this. Two triangles one of masculine orientation and one of feminine orientation, unified as one.[34]

It is with the divine marriage, the consummation of the initial desire to become made manifest, that we find the rendering of the scriptures departing from  this procreative and unitary trend of the mythological constructs, yet the notion of sacred marriage has been with us always. The Christian cannon prefers to take the sex out of creation, leaving the infinite expansion of light, the first blinding powerful ejaculation of thought, the primal vibration or  sound of the logos, the word that was God Himself, the primal explosion of life force as the creator of heaven and earth, night and day, both man and woman. He leaves the feminine principal as the dark mysterious energy that lurks beneath the waters of creation. He identifies her as the very presence of evil, left as sinister, left as the matrix that was there before the light blasted out of its grasp.[35] This problem of casting that identity of god as a self empowered infinite blast of light, self created but not consuming the creator, finds no place for the feminine except the dark and formless waters, the turgid chaos that was the unfathomable depths of uncertainty and confusion, the irrational landscape of nonlife, of evil.

“The Monotheistic editor of the cosmogony in Genesis I and II could assign no part in Creation to anyone but god, and therefore omitted all pre-existing elements or beings which might be held divine. Such abstractions as Chaos (tohu wa-bohu), Darkness (hosekh), and the Deep (tehom) would, however tempt no worshippers: so these took the place of the ancient matriarchal deities.”[36]

The Sacred Marriage provides the image of wholeness and balance between the masculine and feminine archetypes and in doing so unifies the inner and outer realms that remain separated throughout the Christianised cannons. The separation is one where good and evil are pitched against each other, as is the realm of light and that of dark, the realm of light is all that is God-given and the realm of darkness is where evil lurks in the chaos of feminine irrationality and emotionality. The traces that we find of this holy union are perpetuated through the holy union of the man and wife as is shown in this excerpt from Baring and Cashford’s “The Myth of the Goddess”,

“From Sumeria and Egypt to the beginning of the Christian ear, the ritual of the sacred marriage, gave the psyche an image of wholeness and relationship, unifying the two dimensions of heaven and earth, spirit and nature, which language separates. The temple ritual was reflected in the secular marriage ceremony that was, and still is for some, one of the most treasured experiences of human life. The image of human union was anchored in the symbolic union of heaven and earth, celebrated annually in the temple precinct between the king and the high priestess, who personified the goddess. Even now, the resonance of this ceremony is apparent in the intense excitement generated by a royal marriage. The psyche appears to need a “sacred” image of wholeness to preserve its relationship between the feminine and masculine archetypes.”[37]

The Geommetries of These Fundamentally Opposed Creation Stories.

With the masculinised Christian creation story  there is a geometry that describes an inner and outer realm, identified as a realm of light and that which surrounds it, the realm of darkness. In the Nag Hammadi Library, this distinction is explained in “On The Origin Of The World”

                “Now the aeon of truth has no shadow within it because the immeasurable light is everywhere within it. Its outside, however, is a shadow. It was called “darkness”. From within it (darkness) a power appeared (as ruler) over darkness. And (as for) the shadow, the powers which came into being after them called <it> “the limitless Chaos.” And  out of it [every] race of gods was brought forth, both [one and ] the other and the whole place. Consequently, [the shadow] too is posterior to the first work [which] appeared. The abyss is derived from the aforementioned Pistis.”[38]

This is a geometry that defines an exclusive domain identified by the separation of opposites. Like a sphere, the inner realm and the outer realm are separate and discrete. As there is no passage through the boundary that unifies the opposites, the perpetuation of separateness from that which is included as the universe and that which is cast out from that realm creates the universe of determinism. Through the powers of judgement delineated by the laws of a superior cannon and moral code that is prescribed to all who wish to be included in the light and righteous domain, good and evil are determined realities. There are no grey fuzzy inbetween environments and no exceptions to the rules.

Opposite to this system, is one that is born out of the union of opposites. Black and white, male and female, creation and destruction, chaos and harmony are all considered to be extreme aspect of a single whole. The inner and outer realms, whilst existing as opposites are complementary and in being complementary  find no definitive ground of distinction, as the black becomes white through degrees of colour, just as night becomes day. There is no external realm and no external God that sits outside of reality. This union of opposites invokes the metaphysics of  Eastern philosophies and esoteric Western metaphysics such as Alchemy. The geometry is a curious one and was recognised by both Eastern philosophies and Western Alchemical texts. It has already been noted that there is a recorded history concerning the Corpus Hermeticum and its recognised influence in Eastern philosophical traditions.

The essence of this shape is assumed by the Chinese Yin Yang symbol, which is a two-dimensional rendering of the Klein Bottle.[39] This shape was recognised by the Alchemists as symbolic of their Universe and was replicated as a glass vessel that they used to process their material work in, as they assumed the spiritual reflection of the same work upon themselves as an act of purification and transformation from an ordinary to a transcendent state.

The most elegant attributes of such a geometry are that there is no  exclusive domain that is separate from an external reality. The Klein bottle or “Pelican” as the alchemists called it, is a single surfaced structure whose inside is the same side as the outside as the shape twists and penetrates itself through a singular point of no dimension.

Figure 1, the Klein bottle. Figure 2, Pelican opening its breast to feed its young., and Figure 3, The Pelican, Glass Alembic Vessel of the Alchemists used to sublimate or distill  their various chemical processes. Note the base of the flask is stoppered and the internal passage of the klein bottle form is not illustrated.

As the Chinese have recognised that yin is always in a state of becoming yang as yang in always in a state of becoming yin, [40]opposites are seen to be integral aspects of a whole. This resonates well with the psychology of Jung that is informed by the Alchemical works of Hermeticists, where the identity of both genders are present in both sexes and the individuation of self is realised through the reconciliation of opposites.

In the new physics as well, one of the tenants of the quantum mechanics is the understanding of wave particle duality which has led to the Principle of Complementarity and the Indeterminacy theory. What these theoretical observations have led to is an understanding of holism and unity. Difference is seen as the dynamics of the multiplicity that leads to a manifold unity. Opposite attributes are the product of opposite perspectives.

For the West to hold a supreme and exclusive position in the role of knowledge-making exposes its resistance to such ideas as epitomised by the new sciences. This reveals the problems presented when new paradigms of thought challenge long held beliefs. As I have previously mentioned, the nineteen seventies saw many scientists and critics of the Western Classical Science  looking toward Eastern Philosophy as a system of thought aligned with the findings of the new sciences[41].

More recently however, there has been an interest in locating similar metaphysics within the esoteric metaphysics of the Western traditions. In the work of  Basarab Nicolescu , a physicist who has examined the cosmology of Jacob Boehme, being aware that the Renaissance was influenced directly by the ancient hermetic texts, he calls for a “New Renaissance” marked by a dialogue between science, art, and tradition, and the rediscovery of a reality of several levels, “opening a dimension which is at once ontological, vertical, multiple and polyphonic,” a dialogue “between the knowledge of science and a deeper older way of understanding, so that a real evolution of the human spirit can take place”. His book, “Science, Meaning and Evolution, The Cosmology of Jacob Boehme,[42]” explores the relationships of the hermetic alchemists through the work of Boehme, a German philosopher and alchemist writing at the beginning of the seventeenth century. Aware of the extraordinary perceptions of the alchemists, the new science finds within the Western esoteric traditions a lineage that coincides with the persecution of the heretics by the Christian Patriarch, a lineage that has crushed all major flourishings of enlightened perceptions.

Similarly, with a return to ancient mythologies, Paul Laviolette suggests,

“Big Bang Theorists have no explanation for the source of energy needed to power the Big Bang. They cannot appeal to a preceding causal event, since they maintain that existence itself came into being simultaneously with the appearance of this primordial energy impulse. In effect, they claim that the cosmic “egg” came into being without any chicken to lay it.”[43]

Laviolette’s concerns are pertinent. Laviolette is  the president of the Starburst Foundation, an institute that conducts interdisciplinary research in physics, astronomy, geology, climatology, and systems theory. His hypothesis is one of continuous creation  and whilst describing his theory through recent astronomical data, he explores the astonishing parallels between the cutting edge of scientific thought and creation myths from the dawn of civilisation. In doing so he reconstructs the forgotten cosmology of ancient esoteric lore.

                “the matter composing the Milky Way and the other galaxies around us arose through a process of continuous creation, each galaxy’s family tree stemming from a single self-created subatomic particle lying within its matter-expelling core.  It is impressive that creation myths and secret lore of ancient times describe a cosmology that finds validation in sophisticated astronomical observations secured only in the past few decades. Armed with a vast array of modern technology, ranging from space-borne gamma-ray telescopes to supercomputers and laser interferometers, our civilisation is just now arriving at a level of understanding about the physical world comparable to that of the early mythmakers.

“As we review the concepts presented in these ancient metaphorical “texts”, we are confronted with advanced ideas at every step, indicating that the originators of these works had an intimate understanding of how open reaction systems are able to produce ordered patterns. This Ancient science portrays modern scientific concepts such as entropy, order through fluctuation, circular causality, positive feedback, critical mass, spontaneous symmetry breaking, birfication, matter/antimatter creation asymmetry, wave pattern self-stabalisation, stable periodic states, and sequential quantum jumps to successive steady states. In the creation myth of Atlantis, these ancient theoreticians even present a two-dimensional diagram of a wavelike dissipative structure, something that modern scientists have discovered only with the help of sophisticated computers.”[44]

The Relationships Between Gender And Other Marginalised Groups.

There have  been numerous studies that have explored the similarities between indigenous world views and the new science. Foremost is the work of  David Peat with his journey into the Native American Universe called “Blackfoot Physics[45]”  and the work of George Johnson,  who explores the beliefs of the Tewa Indians and the Catholic Penitentes of New Mexico with his book “Fire in the Mind, Science, Faith and the Search for Order”[46].

Both of these books have compared the new science with the cosmological stories that are held within the myths of the indigenous American Indians. Both have found that there are significant similarities that expose a deeply sophisticated understanding of the forces of nature and the universe. For the West to assume superiority of knowledge reveals the ignorance of the mind that is dependent upon the written  word with no comprehension of the ability for contemplative traditions to source an understanding of truth. Mythologies are seen by many Western specialists to be stories that hold little if any bearing upon the truth of nature. This supposition has led to an extraordinary separation  between cultures as it has done between genders.

The marginalisation of Indigenous cultures that have in many cases been almost destroyed by the enforced attitudes of the Western classical mindset, is being challenged and aligned with the historical revisions that the feminists have engaged with. Not only has there been a marginalisation of the female and exclusion of her perspectives in the formulation of knowledge and perception of reality, but the effect of the Patriarchal control is one of supremacy, separation, and the forging of exclusive domains that uphold specific laws and moral codes epitomising a perpetuated global supremacy. Indigenous nonliterate  cultural groups have suffered under the same rigorously applied masculine ideals, and hence are marginalised in the same way as women have been. As Leonard Shlain has suggested, the rise of Patriarchal control is synonymous with the rise of alphabetic languages and the death of the goddess. Most if not all indigenous nonliterate cultures identify with the primal mother and see creation as being an effect of the unification of opposites.

The Klein Bottle: An Overarching Model

The Klein bottle is a structure that allows us to realise the unification of opposites. In the studies[47] that I have done on the symbolic formation of this structure, it is one that is seen throughout the Western mythological and alchemical traditions. It is the Horn of Cornucopia, Cap and Purse of Fortunatus, The Queen of Heaven, Inanna is depicted holding a symbol of fecundity that is a horn, it corresponds with the  Ankh,- a knotted loop, the tenth Astrological Sign- Capricorn, and the tenth Tarot Card- the Wheel of Fortune. As a numerological symbol, it represents the consolidation of the whole cycle which is one made up of two opposed circuits enabling the system to negotiate the diametrically opposed territories of inside and out as one fluid circuit which is symbolic of the manifestation of reality. As a symbol of unity, oppositional relationships are locally seen to be discrete yet globally united through the continuum of its twisted surface.  As a geometry that penetrates itself through a singularity, it realises the potential for the transformation of opposites and the unity of extremes where infinity and zero are placed together in a complete and creative conjunction. It is I believe, a most useful illustration for the realisation of unity and diversity, of individuation of the whole as being a transcendence of separation and opposition.

Conclusion

I have tried in this paper to outline the extremely complex environments of gender issues, marginalisation of indigenous cultures and any groups that have been cast outside the conceptual model of exclusivity that the Western Classical mindset has developed over its long and tortuous history. I have tried also to illustrate the problems perceived through a nexus of transdisciplinary environments. The negotiation of such territories are fraught with many difficulties that are inherent in the problems presented by the various languages that each of these disciplines has developed and the separateness that is maintained between them.

I have attempted to locate a foundation from which the supremacy of patriarchal control has affected all that is not a part its conceptual plan. I have painted a picture of potential hope in terms of the new science and its allegiance to Indigenous world views, Eastern metaphysics, and Western esoteric thought where the mythology of the goddess and the reign of a dynamic marriage of opposites engenders the world of manifestation that we are currently a part of . I have also suggested a model based on an ancient symbol that defines the essence of complementarity and reconciliation and through this model I have identified the structural differences that can be realised through a study of the conceptual relationships between the dominator model and the partnership model. Opposites are to be seen as the two sides of the same coin, the dynamic relationships of difference and holism. However, what is also apparent through this study is the gross problems caused by an inability of  the old paradigm to relinquish its control at a time in our history where ecologies are so fragile and the future of the planet itself is completely compromised. These are interesting times in which we live.

For the perpetuators of a supremacist Western culture to maintain the central position of a knowledge system defined as the only repository of truth, as it does, yet founded upon ground that has been literally shattered by its own enquiries, is to perpetuate a dark and sinister coup, where domination is held over all who do not have their vision. Like a bullying leader of a naive boys club, the gate keepers of this society are perpetuating a dire and sinister darkness that masquerades as an enlightened jewel in the crown of a spiritually starved humanity.

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