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Title: The Chalice and the Blade: Our History, Our Future by Riane Eisler ISBN: 0-06-250289-1 Publisher: Harper SanFrancisco Pub. Date: 01 September, 1988 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $18.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.13 (46 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: A book for exploring ideas
Comment: Before I read this book, I knew very little about Goddess worship. So for me this book was informative. What I liked about this book is it opened my eyes to see the world from a different perspective. I'm sure that this book was written with her own bias. Every book, whether fiction or non-fiction, has this element. It did get me to ask questions about where we are headed as a society where dominating people (considered a male trait) is rewarded. I've noticed since I was a young woman in the seventies and eighties that women are becoming more masculine in their behavior and viewpoint of life. You see this exemplified in popular culture. I would like to see a partnership society where we work together instead of a 'survival of the fittest' mentality. Maybe Ms. Eisler doesn't have the all the facts. I don't know. I would have to read other books on pre-history and Goddess worship to make that decision. Still, if you want to explore the ideas of what it might have been like during pre-history and of what a society based on humanist ideas could be like instead of a world of materialism, this book is for you.
Rating: 3
Summary: History or Myth? Does it Matter?
Comment: The Chalice and the Blade describes idyllic, Goddess-worshipping societies that Eisler believes existed several thousand years ago in eastern Europe and the eastern Mediterranean. She presents images of agrarian villages that had no defensive fortifications because there was no war. The communities were non-violent and egalitarian. There was no hierarchy and no sexism. There was no class system or great disparities of wealth. The people were deeply spiritual and practiced free love. They were profoundly connected to the natural world. Eventually, however, aggressive warrior nomads from the east (patriarchal peoples who worshipped male sky gods) destroyed these peaceful, Goddess-worshipping communities. The warrior nomads killed the men, raped the women, and took the children as slaves. The Goddess was suppressed and the patriarchy has ruled ever since.
I read the book as a refreshing, life-affirming counter-myth that challenges the abusive aspects of our patriarchal traditions. The Chalice and the Blade celebrates the value of partnership, equality, collaboration, non-violence, and connectedness to nature. Eisler gives us some sense of the enormous power to heal that resides in the repressed feminine and lunar realms. However, I would offer the following cautions:
1. It is possible that Eisler has extrapolated a few scraps of evidence into a highly idealized society that didn't really exist.
2 . It is possible that Eisler's vision is pyschologically naive in the sense that everything has a shadow or dark side. If the Goddess societies existed, they would, by necessity, have a dark side.
3. It is possible that the problem with western society is not that it has a male image of divinity but that it has a one-sided, gender-specific image of divinity. Substituting a Goddess-based image might not lead to Utopia, but might bring its own set of problems. Perhaps we need images of the divine that honor both genders.
4. Eisler is a nationally known advocate of partnership models as superior forms of human interaction in contrast to "dominator" approaches. Faced with the choice of partnership or domination, the former is clearly preferable. A more neutral way of distinguishing between these two approaches would be to subsitute consensus for partnership and hierarchy for domination. It is possible that each approach - consensus and hierarchy - has its own merits and drawbacks. The negative shadow of consensus systems might be passive aggression, confusion, paralysis. It is possible that when grounded with love and respect, hierarchical systems can be generative and empowering.
I suspect that the humanity would best be served by a society that reveres both male and female, earth and sky, soul and spirit, hierarchy and collaboration, passion and gentleness - a social order with a pluralistic approach that reflects mythopoetic diversity and celebrates consciousness. Yet, whatever the book's shortcomings I must confess that my heart is with Eisler.
Rating: 5
Summary: Excellent scholarly comprensive work....
Comment: Riane Eisler's CHALICE AND THE BLADE is one of those books that had to be written. In it, she asks "Did humans at some point in history create a culture that was far more civilized than the so-called civilizations moderns have been and are experiencing?" And, more importantly, can we do it again? Her answer is a resounding YES and YES and YES. To illuminate and support her thesis Eisler presents the reader with a comprehensive and thoroughly researched synopsis of some of the most salient and scholarly material on this subject published in the late 20th Century when Joseph Campbell was completing an academic career researching and writing about myths, James Mellaart had been excavating and writing about Catel Huyuk, and Elaine Pagels was beginning to rock the theological world with her research on the Gnostic gospels and the Nag Hammadi scrolls.
Eisler's work was first published in 1987, when the right-wing lock on US society was only beginning to choke the great social movements that had been ignited in the preceding decades. These movements were initially viewed as somewhat antithetical to the 'Archie Bunker' school of thought and the mainstream academic views promulgated by conservative Western scholars (Jewish, Christian, and Islamic). Main steam scholars had long ago settled on an androcentric canon of beliefs and world view that saw males as superior to females, and promoted the manly enterprises of war and destruction of the natural environment. The scholars Eisler cites expressed different and non-canonical points of view. Eisler explores their works and the works of others as she examines the art, social mores, beliefs, and technology of the Neolithic Age.
According to Eisler, the extant information supports the notion that humans once worshipped a Mother Goddess who was viewed as the source of life unlike the later Gods who were War Gods and all about death and dying.The followers of the Mother Goddess were probably centered in Eastern Europe and Western Asia, particularly Crete. Their cultures were destroyed by blade-wielding fiendish tribesmen whom Eisler names 'Kurgans'. These Kurgans, were herders who entered the agrarian areas from the periphery and destroyed what they found. Eisler suggests the Kurgans and their militaristic namesakes have controlled the area as well as the rest of the world ever since, although brief periods of gylanic (female, Humanistic) resurgance occurred in periods demarcated by Christian love (agape), Renaissance Humanism and the 20th Century "New Age" movement.
I found this book illuminating and provocative. It seems "He who lives by the sword (blade) dies by the sword" and the sooner we change that the better. Eisler seems to think we should spend more time looking for the grail (chalice of love) and I agree.
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Title: When God Was a Woman (Harvest/Hbj Book) by Merlin Stone ISBN: 015696158X Publisher: Harcourt Pub. Date: May, 1978 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Sacred Pleasure: Sex, Myth, and the Politics of the Body--New Paths to Power and Love by Riane Eisler ISBN: 0062502832 Publisher: Harper SanFrancisco Pub. Date: 14 June, 1996 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
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Title: The Power of Partnership: Seven Relationships That Will Change Your Life by Riane Eisler ISBN: 1577314085 Publisher: New World Library Pub. Date: March, 2003 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
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Title: The Language of the Goddess by Marija Gimbutas, Joseph Campbell ISBN: 0500282498 Publisher: Thames & Hudson Pub. Date: February, 2001 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: The Great Cosmic Mother : Rediscovering the Religion of the Earth by Monica Sjoo ISBN: 0062507915 Publisher: Harper SanFrancisco Pub. Date: 01 May, 1987 List Price(USD): $24.00 |
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