|
Daughters of the Inquisition By Christina Crawford
Have you read the new best-seller, The DaVinci Code? That fast-paced thriller is grounded in the history of goddess worship. That book’s plot revolves around the massive shift in western religion away from worship of the natural world and the feminine, toward the worship of the Big Guy in the Sky, the all-knowing patriarch who demands a male-centered church and society on earth. After I finished The DaVinci Code, I started searching for more books on the subject—just to see if that successful attack on goddess worship had actually occurred, and to learn more about the effect of that change.
The best book I found is a brand new one written, surprisingly enough, by an Idaho resident, Christina Crawford. She lives in Tensed (about 30 miles north of Moscow) and works as a publicist for the Coeur d’Alene tribal casino operation. She is also a fascinating woman, the author of Mommie Dearest, the book that documented the abuse she received from her mother, the actress Joan Crawford. Christina Crawford’s latest book is entitled Daughters of the Inquisition. It is a massive, 474-page, well-researched history of western religion. She divides the book into four sections. The first section (“The Goddess”) describes the stable nature-focused agrarian societies that covered central Europe before the Christian era. These societies were female-centered and worshipped female deities. The second section (“Transition Times”) documents the rise of the male-centered religions and the struggle for dominance between the two perspectives. The third (“The Inquisition”) is the largest section in the book and easily the most depressing—the new male-centered church consolidated its power by killing, torturing, and intimidating the goddess-worshippers and anyone else who questioned their version of truth. Finally, the fourth section (“Aftermath”) is a modestly hopeful look at the present times, recognizing that a feminine-focused religion and perspective is being rediscovered, but also noting that the patriarchal religions are on the offensive. Crawford has done a good job mixing scholarly information with an easily read prose style. Her work gives us a great perspective on the culture wars here now, and on what choices this culture has made. Daughters of the Inquisition is available at BookPeople and at the Moscow Public Library. |
