In her final book, Divine Wisdom and the Holy Spirit: The Forgotten Feminine Face of God, historian and Jungian analyst Dr Anne Baring explains when, where and how Western civilisation lost the Feminine Face of God and the enduring effects of this catastrophic loss
My book begins with a description of the two great cataclysms that destroyed previous great civilisations, including that of Atlantis.
The earliest known cosmology was that of the Palaeolithic and Neolithic Era – the Lunar Era – where the image of deity was the Great Mother and the phases of the Moon were of primary importance. The most important idea about this time is that there was no Creator beyond creation: no separation between the Great Mother as cosmic Source and the myriad forms of her life.
As the millennia proceeded, the Great Mother was succeeded by the Great Goddesses of the Bronze Age: Inanna in Sumer; Isis, Hathor and Maat in Egypt; and Artemis of Ephesus in Greece and Anatolia, followed by the Greek and Roman gods and goddesses (Fig 1). Then, from around 2,000 BC, the image of deity begins to change from Great Mother to Great Father, as we enter the Solar or Patriarchal Era. With this change, Spirit became separated from Nature.
Four powerful myths behind Western civilisation
During this Solar Era, four powerful myths have directed Western civilisation over some 2,500 years. These four myths have formed – but also limited – our concept of reality, leading to the crisis we find ourselves in now:
1. The Genesis Myth of God the Father creating Heaven and Earth, man and woman in Genesis 1.
2. The Myth of the Fall of Man, Genesis 2 and 3.
In this myth the emphasis is on the transcendence of God or Spirit. Divine Immanence is lost. The Earth becomes a place of exile and punishment for primordial sin. Adam is given dominion over the animals but he is no longer part of the Divine Order. He is exiled to a world contaminated by the Fall and subject to sin, suffering and death, introduced into the world by Eve.
3. The Myth of Jesus as the Only Son of God, whose sacrificial death on the cross redeemed humanity from its sins. In 325 AD at the Council of Nicaea, a new Saviour Myth of Jesus as the only Son of God was created, against huge opposition from the Arian bishops (followers of a priest named Arius). This new myth was confirmed at the Council of Chalcedon in 451 BC. These two Councils created the foundational beliefs of Christianity, which millions adhered to through the centuries until relatively recently.
At Nicaea, the Christian Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit became wholly identified with the male gender and incorporated into the Creed. With the formulation of the male Trinity, the ancient connection between the Holy Spirit, Divine Wisdom and the Divine Mother was tragically lost. There would be no feminine element in the Godhead until 1950, when a Papal Bull declared the Virgin Mary to be ‘Assumed into Heaven, Body and Soul’. In 1954 a Papal Encyclical named her Queen of Heaven, bestowing on her the title held by the Goddesses in the great civilisations of the Bronze Age.
Read the complete article in issue 114.