John Giannini has written two more books, following his Compass of the Soul, and can be considered two parts of a Sacred Feminine series. The first is entitled 'The Patriarchal Nightmare' and the second, 'Intuition'.
I wish to start sharing his work virtually in order to spark conversation about the material and win some interest among the public for John's thoughts, his words, that I think deserve public hearing and that I think should be shared freely. - Martin Giannini, John's son
Here begins the introduction to The Patriarchal Nightmare:
“There is no creation that does not have a radiance.” - Hildegard of Bingen
I have been moved to write on this subject of patriarchy and its nightmare, the maternal principle, because of the enormous outrage I have long felt about male dominance and attitudes. My outrage has not diminished; it has only increased exponentially as I have met men who are equally concerned. I have encountered the pathology of this five thousand year masculine culture in my personal life, my work, my readings and in the lives of everyone I have met and studied. I do not condemn paternal men as such since they have given us intelligent systems, structures and laws. “Paternity” is a positive archetype. I condemn only what Webster’s describes implicitly as its pathology,“patriarchy,” with an overt “dominance by males.” Its general characteristics are its misogyny as a hatred and fear of women and the maternal principle in all of us, a rigid exclusion of other types of people and ideas that do not agree with their ideology, and their resultant violence in every aspect of life from rape to war. Over all, I condemn its pathological one-sidedness, which Carl Jung writes is always “barbaric,” So this pathology is the standard bearer of all such barbarisms.
Simultaneously I learned that the antithesis to this male dominance had once been the goddess-based cultures in the Neolithic period of history that preceded the written word and male control. I began to see the larger meaning of the goddess as the unitary earth and holistic psychic forces, which I call the maternal principle.
This book is the story of a five-thousand year old titanic battle between a patriarchal pathology and its exclusivity and the mother principle’s inclusiveness. Because I write as a Jungian depth psychologist and as a theologian, we will also explore the spiritual aspects of this cosmic narrative. The main-line churches, influenced by the paleontologist Teilhard de Chardin, now accept the facts of evolution, with the added proviso of a divine causality. Such a sacred energy assumes that intelligence and purpose are crucial factors in evolution. Then, the great quantum physicists of the last century, having discovered the mathematics of matter, called this intelligence “mind.” Since they acknowledged that their discoveries do not explain the essence of matter, most of them have written metaphysically about the miraculous fact of existence itself. (Wilbur, l984)
I am also privileged to be an old man, still working, writing and loving. I am increasingly aware of the mighty flow of history in which we as a human species share in the second mystery of existence, the first being life itself. The second is that we know that we know. We have reflective awareness. Daily, I see hundreds of people from the youngest to the oldest on the streets, at public events and on television. I realize that each of us has an inner life and history so individual that its patterns are as unique as one’s finger prints. Whoever we are, we all participate in the cultural drama of patriarchy and the maternal principle in public as well as in our deepest reflections.
I wish to start sharing his work virtually in order to spark conversation about the material and win some interest among the public for John's thoughts, his words, that I think deserve public hearing and that I think should be shared freely. - Martin Giannini, John's son
Here begins the introduction to The Patriarchal Nightmare:
I have been moved to write on this subject of patriarchy and its nightmare, the maternal principle, because of the enormous outrage I have long felt about male dominance and attitudes. My outrage has not diminished; it has only increased exponentially as I have met men who are equally concerned. I have encountered the pathology of this five thousand year masculine culture in my personal life, my work, my readings and in the lives of everyone I have met and studied. I do not condemn paternal men as such since they have given us intelligent systems, structures and laws. “Paternity” is a positive archetype. I condemn only what Webster’s describes implicitly as its pathology,“patriarchy,” with an overt “dominance by males.” Its general characteristics are its misogyny as a hatred and fear of women and the maternal principle in all of us, a rigid exclusion of other types of people and ideas that do not agree with their ideology, and their resultant violence in every aspect of life from rape to war. Over all, I condemn its pathological one-sidedness, which Carl Jung writes is always “barbaric,” So this pathology is the standard bearer of all such barbarisms.
Simultaneously I learned that the antithesis to this male dominance had once been the goddess-based cultures in the Neolithic period of history that preceded the written word and male control. I began to see the larger meaning of the goddess as the unitary earth and holistic psychic forces, which I call the maternal principle.
This book is the story of a five-thousand year old titanic battle between a patriarchal pathology and its exclusivity and the mother principle’s inclusiveness. Because I write as a Jungian depth psychologist and as a theologian, we will also explore the spiritual aspects of this cosmic narrative. The main-line churches, influenced by the paleontologist Teilhard de Chardin, now accept the facts of evolution, with the added proviso of a divine causality. Such a sacred energy assumes that intelligence and purpose are crucial factors in evolution. Then, the great quantum physicists of the last century, having discovered the mathematics of matter, called this intelligence “mind.” Since they acknowledged that their discoveries do not explain the essence of matter, most of them have written metaphysically about the miraculous fact of existence itself. (Wilbur, l984)
I am also privileged to be an old man, still working, writing and loving. I am increasingly aware of the mighty flow of history in which we as a human species share in the second mystery of existence, the first being life itself. The second is that we know that we know. We have reflective awareness. Daily, I see hundreds of people from the youngest to the oldest on the streets, at public events and on television. I realize that each of us has an inner life and history so individual that its patterns are as unique as one’s finger prints. Whoever we are, we all participate in the cultural drama of patriarchy and the maternal principle in public as well as in our deepest reflections.
No comments:
Post a Comment