Tuesday, October 18, 2011

soul

In German, the word for 'soul' is 'Seele'. Like in French, Spanish, Italian, other romance languages, and most ancient languages, "soul" was a feminine word and idea: psyche, pneuma, anima, alma. God-souls were Goddesses: Kore, Sophia, Metis, Sapientia, Juno. What's up with that? Fathers of the Christian church took the earth Goddess, in their mythology embodied as Eve (post coming later), and schlopped "original sin" (and the damnation of the entire human race) on her shoulders. She conspired with the snake (who, by the way, is the ancient ancient symbol par excellence of the goddess, twisted and vilified by Catholicism) and "corrupted" Adam by, what, giving him knowledge? We don't damn Prometheus for giving us fire. So basically, 'the knowledge of good and evil' is something that is bad? Better to keep creation sheltered. Don't give them the choice. Prodigal son, much?


In greek, Psyche, the spirit, was married to Eros, the body, until they were separated by death: this was the philosophical meaning of the romantic myth of Psyche and Eros:
 http://library.thinkquest.org/J002356F/erospsyche.htm


Get this: St. Thomas Aquinas, 13th century Catholic Church poster-boy, insisted that "every woman is birth-defective, an imperfect male begotten because her father happened to be ill, weakened, or in a state of sin at the time of her conception." Riiiight......


-entry from Barbara Walker, with personal comments

3 comments:

  1. ... yet we are all asexual in the womb at first
    ... and then we are all just bones
    ... and then we are all just dirt.

    We are all the same. We're dirt.

    ReplyDelete