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Ŧ͛ɾ̇ Lı̌ıııᵹ Goꝺꝺ̇ꞅꞅ̇ꭇ

Birth was sacred— in fact, it was probably one of the most sacrosanct events in Neolithic religion. In the early Neolithic, peoples constructed special rooms where birth took place. We may conceive of these rooms as birthing shrines. At Qatal Huyuk, in south central Turkey (ancient Ana tolia), excavations revealed a room where inhabitants apparently performed rituals connected with birthing.

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The connection between moisture, life, and the life-giving goddess con tained deep cosmological significance. Pg11

The fact that the goddess birthed new life into existence explains the water symbols, such as nets, streams, and parallel lines, on many of her images. New life springs from the mysterious watery realm, analogous to the womb’s amniotic fluid. Net symbolism, which continues from the Neolithic through the historic ages,3 seems to be specifically associated with this mystical life-bringing fluid. This net symbol occurs repeatedly through time in squares, ovals, circles, lozenges, bladder forms, triangles (pubic triangles), and bands on figurines and vases, often in association with snakes, bears, frogs, fish, bulls’ heads, and rams’ heads.

.... The mother and child have human bodies, but both may assume animal masks that show communication with, or embodiment of, the divine. Some of the most touching Old European figurines show a mother tenderly embracing or nursing her child. Sometimes both mother and child wear bear masks. In addition, several bear-headed figurines display pouches on their backs, perhaps for carrying a baby.

..... The Bear and Deer The bear and deer consistently appear with the birth-giving goddess. She often incarnated in these forms to assist with the birthing and nurs ing of the young. Ancient Greeks considered these two animals as incar nations of Artemis,5 and other European folktales with deep prehistoric roots also connect the bear, deer, and birth-giving goddess. The bear’s history as the cosmic nurturer extends back into the Upper Paleolithic, when people must have observed her annual pattern of hiber nation and reawakening.6 The bear was the perfect symbol of death and regeneration: when she hibernated she metaphorically entered the realm of death, and when she emerged from the cave, she was metaphorically reborn. Of course, other animals hibernate, but the bear evoked particu larly powerful symbolism. She not only emerged from the cave alive, she brought forth another new life: the cub bom and nursed during the win ter, when it was assumed that the bear was in a deathlike sleep. Conse quently, the bear, in thus representing the course of birth, death, and rebirth, would come to be connected with the goddess associated with childbirth. Pg12

in fact, developed Gorgon imagery well before the fifth millennium b.c. The Gorgon extends back to at least 6000 b.c., as a ceramic mask from the Sesklo culture illustrates (Fig. 15).13The Gorgon is a genuinely Euro pean symbol, and she makes her presence known throughout the south eastern European Neolithic and Bronze Ages pg25

depicting a face and a wart-covered body, is known from the Gumelnfia culture in Romania from around 4500-4300 b.c. (Fig. 23a); other hedge hog-shaped vases are known from related cultures. During the Aegean Bronze Age, the Minoan hedgehog goddess wore a skirt with spikes imi tative of the hedgehog (Fig. 23b). The hedgehog goddess’link with regen eration is clearly shown by the early Greeks’ use of hedgehog-shaped urns for infant burials. To this day in European folklore, the goddess disguised as a hedgehog appears in animal stalls. Until the start of the twentieth cen tury, women with uterine problems carried spiked balls painted red, called “hedgehogs,” to churches in Alpine villages. The Dog, Double of the Death and Regeneration Goddess In European mythologies, the dog has accompanies or may double for the goddess of death and regeneration (Greek Flekate, Germanic Holle or Hel, Baltic Giltinė, and others). The many dog images in Neolithic sculpture and painting may evidence an analogous role in prehistory. Dog sculp tures appear in clay, marble, alabaster, and rock crystal. Dog figures often decorated cult vases as protomes or handles. Vases themselves took on the dog’s shape, and dog sculptures often wore human masks (Fig. 24). Many cemeteries and megalithic tombs, enclosures, and roundels (see below) have revealed dog skeletons, which attest to their profound sacri ficial role. Whole dog skeletons were found within the altars of the Lep- enski Vir shrines. The dog’s role in regenerative symbolism can best be perceived from Cucuteni vase paintings, dating from 4000-3500 b.c . Here, dogs portrayed on large pear-shaped vases jump through the air and bark at the moon. In many compositions, they flank a tree of life, a caterpillar, or a crescent and full moon— all potent symbols of regeneration (Fig. 25). The howling, barking dog apparently played a symbolic role in stimulat ing regeneration and succoring the growth process. Pg 32

Indo-European mythologies specifically identify the bull as an animal of the thunder god.21 However, the key to understanding Neolithic rendi tions of the bull’s head and horns (bucranium in archaeological literature) comes through their resemblance to the female uterus and fallopian tubes. In the temples of Catal Huytik, on a series of female forms there are actu ally depicted bucrania where the uterus and fallopian tubes should be (Fig. 27). The analogy takes on more meaning when we consider that rosettes, often identified with bull’s horns, correspond to the flowerlike ends of the fallopian tubes. The artist Dorothy Cameron, who originally made this observation,22 speculates that people observed the corpse’s anatomy unfolding during excarnation, when birds of prey stripped away the flesh and exposed the internal organs. However peculiar this symbolism may seem, there is no denying its existence. Bucrania consistently appear asso ciated with tombs and the goddess’ womb. Pg35

Conclusions The symbolism of Old Europe was rich and varied.24 The divine— both goddesses and gods— was represented by many images: animal, human, and abstractions. From the time pottery was first fired in the seventh millennium b .c . in Italy, the Balkans, central Europe, Asia Minor, and the Near East, and to a lesser extent in other areas of Europe, ancient artisans began to craft fig urines of humans and animals. Most of these were small enough to fit into one’s hand. Many were marked with symbols that may have represented an ancient form of script.25 Thus far, more than one hundred thousand Neolithic figurines have been found. Symbolically, these figurines, often nude, represented much more than fertility and sexuality. They represented procreation, nurturing, death, and regeneration. The body of the figurine is usually abstracted or exagger ated in some manner. Schematic bodies often depicted the sacred force, emphasizing the divinity of the nurturing breast, the pregnant belly, or the life-giving vulva. Many of these figurines have masklike faces; the masks personify a supernatural force, many of them representing animals: snake, bird, pig, bear. Many figurines are in a birth-giving position; these figures date from the Upper Paleolithic through the Neolithic. Mother and child figurines are also numerous, often represented in connection with bear or deer. One of the most commonly depicted animals in Neolithic art was the bird: the waterbird, the spring bird, the bird of prey. Bird figures often have large eyes, beak-shaped noses, and no mouths; many have stumpy, wing-shaped arms and exaggerated buttocks. Snake figures, too, were fre quently represented in Old Europe. Because the snake sloughs its skin, it manifestly depicts renewal. The pregnant vegetation goddess, the earth mother, was frequently unearthed near bread ovens. She personified the analogy between human and animal pregnancy and the annual cycle of plant germination, growth, and harvest. In the classical era, this figure was represented in dual form, as daughter and mother, maiden and crone, spring-summer and fall-winter. The consort of the pregnant vegetation goddess was the vegetation year god. He too went through the life cycles of young virility, the maturity that betokens harvest, and old age. The union of the goddess and god was the hieros gamos, the sacred marriage. The goddess of birth and life was also a goddess of death and regen eration. She represented the full cycle of the life continuum. Representa tions of death goddesses imbued with the promise of new life remind us that the cycle was a totality. These are represented in both the prehistoric and the early historical eras. In the Greek Cycladic Islands were found pregnant, stiff, nude death figures (see the marble pregnant Cycladic fig ure, British Museum No. GR 1932-10.181; 2800-2300 b.c.), and in the Sumerian poem “Descent of Inanna,” the underworld goddess, Ereshki- gal, groans in childbirth as she brings forth life out of death. In Old Europe and Old Anatolia, the goddess of death and regenera tion is often depicted as a bird of prey, as a stiff, bone-colored nude, or as a poisonous snake. The bird and snake are complementary in death and regeneration as well as in life and nurturing. Many of the figures resem ble the Gorgon found in later classical Greece. Perhaps the greatest number of Old European symbols depicted regen eration: the frog and fish (historical representations of the frog goddess include the Greek Baubo or Iambe and the Irish Sheela na gig, both of whom, in frog posture, vividly display their vulvas); hedgehogs, which closely resemble the uterus; the dog (whose association with death con tinues into the classical era); the goat; and the bull. The phallus, too, is an important and frequently depicted regenerative symbol, as is the triangle, representing the female pubic triangle. These symbols, taken together, represent the eternal cycle of birth, life, death, and rebirth have large eyes, beak-shaped noses, and no mouths; many have stumpy, wing-shaped arms and exaggerated buttocks. Snake figures, too, were fre quently represented in Old Europe. Because the snake sloughs its skin, it manifestly depicts renewal. The pregnant vegetation goddess, the earth mother, was frequently unearthed near bread ovens. She personified the analogy between human and animal pregnancy and the annual cycle of plant germination, growth, and harvest. In the classical era, this figure was represented in dual form, as daughter and mother, maiden and crone, spring-summer and fall-winter. The consort of the pregnant vegetation goddess was the vegetation year god. He too went through the life cycles of young virility, the maturity that betokens harvest, and old age. The union of the goddess and god was the hieros gamos, the sacred marriage. The goddess of birth and life was also a goddess of death and regen eration. She represented the full cycle of the life continuum. Representa tions of death goddesses imbued with the promise of new life remind us that the cycle was a totality. These are represented in both the prehistoric and the early historical eras. In the Greek Cycladic Islands were found pregnant, stiff, nude death figures (see the marble pregnant Cycladic fig ure, British Museum No. GR 1932-10.181; 2800-2300 b.c.), and in the Sumerian poem “Descent of Inanna,” the underworld goddess, Ereshki- gal, groans in childbirth as she brings forth life out of death. In Old Europe and Old Anatolia, the goddess of death and regenera tion is often depicted as a bird of prey, as a stiff, bone-colored nude, or as a poisonous snake. The bird and snake are complementary in death and regeneration as well as in life and nurturing. Many of the figures resem ble the Gorgon found in later classical Greece. Perhaps the greatest number of Old European symbols depicted regen eration: the frog and fish (historical representations of the frog goddess include the Greek Baubo or Iambe and the Irish Sheela na gig, both of whom, in frog posture, vividly display their vulvas); hedgehogs, which closely resemble the uterus; the dog (whose association with death con tinues into the classical era); the goat; and the bull. The phallus, too, is an important and frequently depicted regenerative symbol, as is the triangle, representing the female pubic triangle. These symbols, taken together, represent the eternal cycle of birth, life, death, and rebirth. pg42

Whereas commerce and trade mainly inspired the Sumerian invention of cuneiform writing, the Old European script, developed two thousand years earlier, may have developed to communicate with the divine forces. The objects that bear inscriptions include seals, vases, loom weights, fig urines, spindle whorls, pendants or plaques, temple models, and minia ture ex voto pots or dishes. All these objects held religious significance and occurred in religious contexts. Pg50

The phenomenon of linear script among the Old Europeans confirms the very early roots of symbolic and abstract thinking. Most traditional scholars consider the classical Greeks to be the progenitors of Western logical and abstract thinking. Other researchers, however, cite the more remote Mesopotamian and Egyptian civilizations. Old European script sug gests that the intellectual heritage of Western Civilization goes much far ther back than we have previously acknowledged, to the ancient goddess worshipers who could think both symbolically and abstractly. Conclusions The prehistory of the written symbol is ancient: abstract signs date to the Lower Paleolithic, from circa 300,000 b.c. to circa 100,000 b.c. In the Upper Paleolithic, from circa 35,000 b.c. to circa 10,000 b.c., abstract signs accom pany cave paintings and carvings of animals on bone and stone tools.9 The making of these signs persists through the Neolithic. Some animals are associated with specific signs. For example, X and V signs, chevrons, meanders, and parallel lines accompany bird figures, and the M sign is found on representations of frogs. Further, symbols and groups of signs appear on Old European pottery and figurines and may comprise an Old European script. This script is not “prewriting”but a lin ear script composed of more than one hundred abstract, not pictorial, signs. Many of these symbols are found in a religious context, perhaps as inscriptions on temple models, figurines, and plaques. Thus, Old Euro pean script predated the earliest historical writings— those of Sumer and Egypt— by several thousand years. The continuity of the Old European writing was disrupted by the arrival of the Indo-Europeans; thereafter, writ ing disappeared along with the manufacture of finely wrought polychrome pottery and other attributes of Old European culture. Since there has not yet been a Rosetta stone discovered that can help linguists to decipher Old European script, it is as yet untranslatable. With time, we may dis cover a bilingual text that will enable us to translate this script and thereby reveal the intellectual heritage of the Old European peoples. Pg54

Excavators uncovered one of Malta’s most famous Neolithic sculptures, the “Sleeping Lady” of the Hypogeum, off the main hall. She reclines peace fully on her side, head in hand, in the distinctive Maltese obese-woman style.6 This sculpture and another one shown lying on her stomach on a couch remind us of initiation and healing rites known in later classical times. During these various classical ceremonies, the initiate spent a night in the temple (or cave or other remote place). The initiate experienced a night of visions and dreams, with spiritual or physical healing taking place. We know that such rites took place at the temple of the healing god Askle- pios at Epidauros, an ancient Greek city on the northeast coast of the Pelo ponnesus, where a healing practice consisted of preparatory washing and fasting, followed by a night in the temple. This rite probably derived from Neolithic practices that likened sleeping in a cave, temple, or underground chamber to slumbering within the goddess’ uterus before spiritual reawak ening. For the living, such a ritual brought physical healing and spiritual rebirth. For the dead, burial within underground chambers, shaped and colored like the uterus, represented the possibility of regeneration through the goddess’ symbolic womb. The Hal Saflieni Hypogeum shares several themes with other Old Euro pean underground tombs. First, excamation and communal burial stressed equality, and accompanying grave goods succored life regeneration. Sec ond, the community often aligned regenerative rites and seasonal rituals conducted at the tombs. Finally, the uterine and egg shapes of the tombs, with their symbolic embellishments and evidence of ritual, invoke the god dess’ presence to speed the regeneration of life. Pg62

In the architectural and astronomical alignment of Newgrange, we see the connection of the seasonal cycle to rituals of regeneration. In Northern countries, winter solstice marks the turning point between the death of the natural world and its return to life. When we liken the mound’s passageway and chamber to the goddess’ symbolic birth canal and womb, which sheltered the bones of the dead, we perceive the potency of that shaft of sunlight in the dead of winter. As it struck the chamber’s inner walls, this dynamic symbol of regeneration in the goddess’ womb estab lished her as the intermediary between death and life. Pg67

Conclusions The womb constitutes one of the most potent funerary themes of Old Europe.10 In the Old European cyclical view of the life continuum, new life arose from death in the spiraling pattern of birth, life, death, and rebirth. The Old European tomb is also a womb, from which new life emanates. Often, as in the Maltese megalithic complex at Mnajdra, the tomb-shrine took the shape of the goddess. The shrines of Lepenski Vir (which date from the Upper Paleolithic through the Neolithic) were triangular, evok ing the pubic triangle, an abstraction of the goddess. The floors were made of a red limestone and clay mixture, perhaps reflecting the blood of life. Many Old European tombs incorporate a long central passage that may evoke the birth canal. Many tombs took the shape of uteri or eggs, also symbols of regeneration. Caves, such as Scaloria cave in Manfredonia and Ghar Dalam cave on the island of Malta, probably housed rituals of regeneration. Pottery left in these caves incorporates regenerative designs, such as eggs, snakes, and plant shoots. The inhabitants of Malta, Sardinia, and parts of France carved tombs with egg- or kidney-shaped chambers. In these tombs, skeletons lay in a fetal position. Stiff nude stone figurines sometimes accompanied burials, which were communal. In the Maltese Hypogeum, excavators recov ered approximately seven thousand human bones, mostly found in egg- shaped niches on the lower levels. The bones of different individuals were mixed together. These tombs were not only resting places for the dead; they also housed rituals, some with seasonal significance, others perhaps for the purpose of healing and initiation. In Sardinia, the rock-cut tombs of the Ozieri people also bore clear marks of regeneration: the bucranium was carved in relief on many Sardinian hypogea walls, which were often also washed with blood-red ocher; eyes, breasts, owl heads, ram horns, and other symbols decorate the walls and ceilings of the hypogea as well. These tombs too housed communal burials and figurines of stiff nude god desses made of alabaster. Throughout western Europe one finds megalithic monuments: dolmens, passage graves, gallery graves, court tombs. Many of these were final rest ing places for bones, generally after excarnation. These burials were col lective, and the grave goods were symbolic and sacred rather than prestige items. The bird of prey is often associated with the megaliths. At Isbister in the Orkney Islands, thirty-five sea eagles were entombed with human skeletons. The owl is associated with many other megalithic sites. These are manifestations of the bird goddess of death and regeneration. Because many of the megalithic structures are oriented to the summer or winter solstice, it is likely that the megaliths were the sites of rituals honoring the cycles of the seasons. These rituals would have been closely associated with the concept of regeneration: passage tomb megaliths, used for burials, were constructed so that when the sun rose on the solstice, it shone through the long passageway and illuminated the farthest wall of the inner chamber. In nonburial monuments such as Stonehenge, the sun rises over a specific stone. At the time of the winter solstice, the longest night of the year, this shaft of light would have been a potent symbol of the renewal of light and, by extension, the renewal of life. Again, Old European tombs reveal the holistic spirituality of the cul ture. The tomb was a place of healing, both of the living and of the dead; a place where the goddess not only held the lifeless body but regenerated the dead into new life. 71 / The Tomb and the Womb

Old European temples integrated women’s daily activities, particularly bread baking, cloth weaving, and pottery making, into sacred practice. Pg73

Figure 55. Two-story building with ovens, large basins, and immense amounts oj ritual pottery. The threefirst-floor rooms contained hundreds of vases. The two rooms at right included truncated pyramid shaped ovens, and the room at left contained a round basin. The upperfloor held two large basins and vases on the right, perhapsfor performing cleans ing rituals. Tisza culture; c. 4800-4700 b.c . (Herpaly, east ern Hungary). FUNCTIONS OF TEMPLES AND RITUAL EQUIPMENT Most Neolithic temples excavated so far exist in southeastern Europe. From the outset (the seventh millennium b .c .), temple symbols consistently denoted the goddess worshiped within. If she guided regeneration, then the temple walls, vases, furniture, and other cult objects displayed regen erative symbols: eggs, horns, phalli, snake coils, plant motifs, butterflies, trees of life, bucrania, triangles, double triangles, concentric circles, ris ing columns or snakes, and eyes: the eyes of the goddess. If she gave life and protection, symbolic decoration included Vs, chevrons, spirals, tri lines, meanders, snake spirals, parallel line bands, and other signs linked to the bird and snake. If she ensured fertility, the decor and equipment of the temples showed yet another set of symbols: plants, bi-lines, spirals, lozenges, and double images. Below, we shall explore several temples ded icated to these different aspects of the goddess: the regeneratrix, the bird or snake goddess, and the pregnant vegetation goddess. We shall also look at general temple functions and equipment. Pg75

General Temple Functions A temple from Vésztô-Mâgor, a Tisza site in eastern Hungary, excavated by K. Hegedüs from 1972 to 1976, provides a rare glimpse into Old Euro pean religious life (Fig. 58). The temple walls (13 meters long and 5.3 to 5.5 meters wide) revealed a framework of wooden posts interspersed with branch wattling daubed with clay, forming walls about twenty centime ters thick. Remarkably, in some places, walls up to seventy centimeters high survived. Wooden planks protected the exterior of the walls, while their inside surface was plastered and painted with red stripes. Plaster had been carefully applied to the dirt floor and had been renewed three or four times. The one-meter-wide doorway faced west. A wooden-post par tition divided the temple into two rooms. The larger eastern room con tained bone tools, polishing stones, loom weights, stone implements, and fired and unfired clay cones. These demonstrate that the temple served as a weaving and tool manufacturing locale. Both temple rooms contained a rimmed hearth, plastered onto the floor, perhaps used for fumigation or purification. The finds were concentrated in several groups in the main room. The largest group includes a shattered statue that originally stood about eighty centimeters tall. (The statue may have been destroyed intentionally, since its legs, face, and an arm were found widely scattered.) Attempted recon structions suggest either a sculpture seated on a throne or a hollow ves sel related to the Toptepe containers described above, as well as statues from another Tisza site in southeastern Hungary, Kokenydomb. A large, rimmed, four-legged table about ten to twelve centimeters high stood near the statue. On top of the table, a rectangular container held a charred deer antler. A decorated jug, with a lid that looked like an open-beaked bird, stood nearby. The jug was incised with several symbols: a net, lozenge, checkerboard, and V or triangular design. Crushed white chalk filled the incisions, along with traces of red paint. Two side knobs exhibited triple protrusions. Several large vases, a rectangular three-legged offering con tainer, and consecration horns on a flat base stood near the table. A reed mat rested on the ground near a kemos, a ring-shaped clay container with two small cups and two pairs of horns attached to the rim. In addition, excavators uncovered a cup, a clay disc, a flint blade, stone chisels, charred cattle bones, and a clay bird head similar to one found on the lid of the decorated jug mentioned above. Altogether, this room possessed about forty cult objects, not counting other ritual items such as charred animal bones, deer antlers, and fish scales. Although we cannot exactly recon struct the rituals performed here, the evidence points to various ceremo nial activities involving grain offerings, sacred garments, animal sacrifice, and libations, fumigations, or purifications. Pg 81

But the most exciting terra-cotta figurine shows a woman giving birth: from between her legs (broken off during eons under dirt) a child’s painted head and arms emerge. The birth-giving figurine sits on a chair, perhaps a birth stool (unfortunately badly damaged).7 She appears rather stiff and schematic, with arm stumps and a thick cylin drical neck topped by a round mask. The birth giver wears a red-painted neck pendant. Other schematic figurines in this tableau possess cylindri cal necks and outstretched or folded arms; some stand, while others sit. They may portray various attendants in the birth-giving ritual. The tools (pestles, pounders, polisher, loom weight, etc.) indicate that temple birthing ceremonies required intricate preparations, such as preparing grain, weaving cloth, and making pottery. Pg87

The miniatures may have created tableaux on the temple altar to fur ther supplicate the deities by providing them with domestic comforts. They also may have been used to reenact rituals. In Old European temples, adherents may have effected rituals in two stages: both personal drama tization and commemoration of the rite with miniatures. Pg88

religion. First, religion and daily life intimately merged. Many arti facts commonly found in temples—looms, bread ovens, and grinding stones— reflect mundane objects necessary to maintain life, but we can surmise that they manifested sacred meaning within the temple. Abstruse, arcane rituals did not take place here. The temple sanctified everyday activ ities. In fact, the location of the temple among dwellings further strength ens the connection between the temple and everyday life. In Old Europe, and throughout much of prehistory, people did not separate the sacred from the mundane. The sacred force imbued every activity. Second, women’s activities took on sacred meaning. In most societies, women grind grain, weave cloth, bake bread, and make pottery. This gen dered labor division occurs almost universally, since these functions can be carried out while raising children. We can assume that Old Europe also adhered to a gendered labor division; it survived classical times in the Mediterranean area and remains with many agricultural societies today. Drastic cultural transformation eventually caused the devaluation of “women’s work” and its removal from the spiritual sphere. In the Old Euro pean temple we see the original sacredness of women’s activities. The tem ple evidence confirms the strong position of these groups of Neolithic women. Perhaps we can even say that the temple belonged to the realm of women, who both supervised and participated in its rituals. In Neolithic Europe, we have no clear archaeological evidence that men took part in temple activities. But Minoan frescoes and other findings tell us that men actively participated in many rituals. Although we have not yet found direct confirmation of the presence of men in temples, no doubt theyjoined in ritual life, particularly in dancing. Animal-masked male fig urines appear in dancing posture and as musicians. Although it appears that women played a more dynamic part in temple activities, both men and women must have shared life’s everyday sacredness. Pg98

To summarize the British henge monuments, each consisted of one or two circular timber structures surrounded by ditches and palisades, dat ing from the British Late Neolithic (the late fourth to the mid-third mil lennia b .c .). The earliest pottery is Grooved ware, and Beaker ware denotes the end phases of the henges. Feasting and consumption on a large scale are suggested by finds from ditches and postholes: broken pots, cups, and bowls; flint artifacts (mostly scrapers); chalk balls; antler picks; and quantities of wild and domestic animal bones, particularly those of pigs and cattle. Joints of meat, especially the hind legs of young pigs, were scattered in deposits. Archaeologists have found middens, or garbage piles, as well as extensively burned areas, on platforms outside the entrances to the sanc tuaries (for instance, at Durrington Walls’ South Circle sanctuary); these suggest ritual feasts and offerings. Human burials, whether by cremation (as at Stonehenge), in ditches or postholes (as at Marden and Avebury), or in the center of a sanctuary (as at Woodhenge), may have assumed dedi catory or other ritual purposes. The British roundels appear related in func tion to each other and to those found in central Europe, as evidenced by their similar designs, their ceremonial artifacts, and the sacrificial or ritual nature of their human remains. It is very possible that roundels were sacred places, dedicated to the goddess. Aligned with the cosmos, the territory of the roundel may have replicated a symbolic universe. Thus, a cosmic ide ology may have motivated these Old European cultures to build such large- scale monuments. Through ritual in these monuments, they would have honored the Old European goddess of death and regeneration. Pg106

A detailed look at artifacts from the ditches of the irregularly shaped enclosures shows that these artifacts recur wherever enclosures are found, and that they are related to materials found in roundels. Irregularly shaped enclosures conceal votive offerings that include complete pots, and stone or bone tools, especially axes. Mysterious deposits of organic material now appear as dark humus-colored layers at the bottom of a ditch. Charcoal, cups and bowls, and masses of animal bones (cattle, pigs, and sheep) speak of large-scale feasting. Rituals might have included animal sacrifices. At the Bjergg&rd enclosure in Denmark, excavators unearthed four dog skulls that had been placed on a stone paving. Several human skeletons suggest ritual burial or sacrifice. Human skulls and isolated jawbones are common (as in Sarup, Denmark: Madsen 1988; Andersen 1988). The site of Champ-Durand revealed a number of unusual burials: in addition to children’s skulls, excavators came upon five com plete juvenile and adult skeletons. A niche dug into the wall of the ditch harbored the remains of a young man and a young woman. Other skele tons included a thirteen- to fifteen-year-old boy, an eighteen-year-old youth, and an adult woman found in the debris of a fallen wall with a mass of pottery. The cause of death of these individuals remains a mystery, so we do not know if these were human sacrifices or ceremonial burials of hon ored individuals who died natural deaths. Skulls, jaws, and skeletal parts found in enclosures may have been rem nants of excamation rites. As discussed earlier, certain Old European cul tures exposed their dead to nature and scavengers before actual burial in order to remove the flesh. Enclosures may have been the places where such excarnation rites took place. After the relatives and survivors feasted and performed rituals, they collected the skeletons and deposited them in the ossuaries in the megalithic tombs. Some disarticulated bones might have been left in the ditch. Some skeletons, particularly those of the young, might have been left behind for ritual purposes. If this scenario holds true, then the enclosures would be part of a complex funerary ritual. Several artifacts support linking the enclosures with death and regeneration: the pottery and its decoration, white chalk balls (probably replicas of eggs), and types of animals sacrificed. All these symbols belong to the goddess of death and regeneration. Some vases deposited in ditches or special votive pits portray symbols associated with the goddess of death and regenera tion, such as round owl eyes, triangles, or hourglass shapes. The same symbols appear on funerary monuments such as the passage graves. Exca vators discovered clay drums decorated with breasts and hourglass shapes (schematic contours impersonating the goddess) at the Dolauer Heide enclosure in central Germany (Fig. 78). In Denmark, research reveals that one enclosure occupied the center of a megalithic tomb cluster dating from 3500 to 3200 b.c., which sug gests the relation between enclosures and tombs. A similar situation has been reconstructed in the Orkney Islands. In Wessex, England, an enclo sure and long barrow group appear related. In Neolithic society, death rit uals were an enormous force that governed social interaction. Other artifacts and skeletons recovered from the enclosures confirm the ir religious nature, and particularly their connection with death and regeneration. One enclosure revealed anthropomorphic figurines and clay thrones for figurines. Sacrificed dogs confirm that rituals relating to death and regeneration took place, since the dog belongs to the goddess of death and regeneration. Many funerary monuments in widely separated loca tions across Europe, such as Lepenski Vir (circa 6500-5500 b.c.) and the Orkney Islands (third millennium b.c.), disclosed whole skeletons of sac rificed dogs. The motif of a dog or hound accompanying the goddess echoes throughout history. The dog accompanied Hekate in Greece, and through out Europe the hound serves the white lady— the goddess of death— still said to appear in some villages. Pg108

Towns Conceived as Replicating the Universe The concept of a “miniature universe,” first applied to ceremonial sites, seems to have been applied to some settled towns as well. In several set tlements of the Karanovo people of northeastern Bulgaria, for example Poljanica and Ovcarovo, town plans reflected squares with strict geometric regularity and gates in the four cardinal directions. Several palisade rows, like those found in roundels, surrounded Karanovo towns. Like the entrances to the roundels, the main streets aligned north-south and east- west, with houses grouped in four quadrangles. Such towns are, of course, labeled “fortified settlements.” It seems that here, however, as in roundels, the palisades served a symbolic purpose rather than a defen sive one. Conclusions The roundels and enclosures discussed here were strictly nonsettlement sites, void of habitation debris. They were therefore ceremonial in nature. Aligned to the cardinal directions, these structures may have represented the cosmos. This concept was first applied to sacred ceremonial places. Subsequently, the concept was transferred to towns, such as the Karanovo settlements described above. Much of the architecture of Old Europe was religious. The motivation behind these amazing structures appears to be the satisfaction of an obli gation to the ancestors, alignment with the cosmos, and honoring of the goddess of birth, death, and regeneration. Rather than being defensive, these structures were monuments reflecting the spiritual life of Old Europe.

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In the LBK culture, for instance, males were buried with stone celts (a woodworking tool), jewelry made from imported spondylus shells, and flint scrapers and arrowheads. These items seem to reflect the participation of these men in trades: they were woodworkers and house builders, hunters, and craftsmen fashioning jewelry from spondylus seashells... But the types of artifacts found in male graves versus female graves are not subject to a strict division of labor. In some cemeteries, the same types of artifacts— quern stones, axes, chisels, or copper and shell jewelry— appear in both male and female graves. Significantly, women’s graves demonstrate the important role of women in religion. After 5000 b.c., when cemeteries appeared, older women in cemeteries continued to be accorded high status. Their connection to home and temple life is attested by the high concentration of symbolic items in their graves. Among cemeteries of the LBK group, women’s graves often contained decorated pottery, ocher, and palettes, all notably religious arti facts. Pg 114

The phallus (not the semen) is an important symbol. The phallus as a spon taneous life energy is depicted alone or is shown to spring out of the female uterus or from between horns (a metaphor for the uterus). Pg117

Another area that preserved elements of the matrifocal system is Sparta. Although Sparta embodied many elements of Indo-European social structure, such as an emphasis on war, the isolated location of the city- state in the center of the Peloponnese Peninsula of Greece helped it to preserve Old European elements. The Etruscans of central Italy also preserved matrifocal customs; this culture flourished from the eighth century b.c. onward, but it fell into decline after the fifth century b .c ., when it began a gradual assimilation into the Roman Empire. The Greek historian Theopompus, who wrote during the fourth century b .c ., was shocked by the freedom and power of Etruscan women. Theopompus recorded that Etruscan women would often exercise unabashedly in the nude with men and with other women. They liked to drink, and they dressed in a manner similar to that of men. They even wore symbols of citizenship and rank: mantles and high shoes. The names of Etruscan women reflected their legal and social status, in sharp contrast to Roman customs, where a woman had no name of her own. In fact, before a Roman woman was married, she was known as her father’s daughter, and after marriage she was known as her husband’s wife. In contrast to Roman women, Etruscan women played important roles as priestesses and seers, and they were a force in politics. Many other aspects of Etruscan society reflect matrilineal succession and a matrifocal household. Theopompus recorded that Etruscan women raised their own children, whether they knew the father or not. This matri- focality was probably related to the woman’s right to own property and to matrilineal succession. Matrilineal succession was reflected in the nam ing of individuals: in Etruscan inscriptions, individuals are referred to by the mother’s name only. (For more on the role of Etruscan women, see chapter 9.) The survival of matrilineal practices is not simply a peculiarity of the ancient Greek, Aegean, and Mediterranean worlds but is also found in the peripheral areas of northern and western Europe, where the influence of the infiltrating Indo-European tribes was weaker. Among the ancient and modem cultures that preserve this aspect of Old European heritage are the Basque culture of Spain and France, the Iberians, and the Piets of Scot land. Other cultures that were predominantly Indo-European, but which also preserved matrilineal traits, were the Celts, the Teutons, and the Balts. One of the most remarkable cultures that preserves Old European roots is the Basque, which survives to the present day in northern Spain and southeastern France. The Basques have a completely non-Indo-European The Etruscans of central Italy also preserved matrifocal customs; this culture flourished from the eighth century b.c. onward, but it fell into decline after the fifth century b .c ., when it began a gradual assimilation into the Roman Empire. The Greek historian Theopompus, who wrote during the fourth century b .c ., was shocked by the freedom and power of Etruscan women. Theopompus recorded that Etruscan women would often exercise unabashedly in the nude with men and with other women. They liked to drink, and they dressed in a manner similar to that of men. They even wore symbols of citizenship and rank: mantles and high shoes. The names of Etruscan women reflected their legal and social status, in sharp contrast to Roman customs, where a woman had no name of her own. In fact, before a Roman woman was married, she was known as her father’s daughter, and after marriage she was known as her husband’s wife. In contrast to Roman women, Etruscan women played important roles as priestesses and seers, and they were a force in politics. Many other aspects of Etruscan society reflect matrilineal succession and a matrifocal household. Theopompus recorded that Etruscan women raised their own children, whether they knew the father or not. This matri- focality was probably related to the woman’s right to own property and to matrilineal succession. Matrilineal succession was reflected in the nam ing of individuals: in Etruscan inscriptions, individuals are referred to by the mother’s name only. (For more on the role of Etruscan women, see chapter 9.) The survival of matrilineal practices is not simply a peculiarity of the ancient Greek, Aegean, and Mediterranean worlds but is also found in the peripheral areas of northern and western Europe, where the influence of the infiltrating Indo-European tribes was weaker. Among the ancient and modem cultures that preserve this aspect of Old European heritage are the Basque culture of Spain and France, the Iberians, and the Piets of Scot land. Other cultures that were predominantly Indo-European, but which also preserved matrilineal traits, were the Celts, the Teutons, and the Balts. One of the most remarkable cultures that preserves Old European roots is the Basque, which survives to the present day in northern Spain and southeastern France. The Basques have a completely non-Indo-European culture, with its own non-Indo-European language, folklore, legal code, and matrilineal customs descended from Old European times. Basque law codes give the woman high status as inheritor, arbitrator, and judge, in both ancient and modem times. The laws governing succession in the French Basque region treat men and women entirely equally. Another Old European culture on the Iberian Peninsula was the Iberian, whose matri- focal practices were discussed by the Greek historian and geographer Strabo in the first century b .c .: “Among the Iberians, the men bring dowries to the women. With them the daughters alone inherit property. Brothers are given away in marriage by their sisters. In all their usages, their social con dition is one of gynaecocracy.”9 Farther north in Europe, ancient written records preserve memories of Old European cultures in the British Isles. The area of present-day Scot land was inhabited by a tribe known as the Piets, who spoke a non-Indo- European language and who escaped Indo-Europeanization until quite late because the Roman Empire never extended farther north than Hadrian’s Wall. The Piets also preserved matrilineal laws and the goddess religion and its symbols. In this culture, transmission of property was matri lineal. Another Pictish custom, one still practiced in parts of the Scottish Highlands into the early twentieth century, was that of the woman remain ing in her parents’ house, even after marriage. Much of Britain and Ireland was occupied in pre-Roman times by Celtic tribes who, although speaking Indo-European languages, still retained many Old European customs, such as goddess worship and matrilineal succession. Traditional Irish narratives describe marriage as being essen tially matrilocal. Early Irish and Welsh literature preserves legends of Celtic heroes who, like the Greek heroes, leave home to seek an heiress to marry and thus share rule over her lands. The laws of ancient Ireland and Wales reflect an important role for the maternal brother, who represented the maternal kin, as well as an important role for the sister’s son, who inher ited the estate. Most probably, matrilineal succession was the rule in ancient Celtic society.10 Generally speaking, ancient records and archaeology both reveal the important social role of Celtic women, who had personal prestige and could possess property, even though the Celtic legal system was founded in patri archal Indo-European custom. The region of Gaul (modem-day France) was inhabited in Roman times by Celtic tribes. In the first century b .c ., the Greek author Diodorus Siculus describes Gaulish women as being “not only equal to their husbands in stature, but they rival them in strength as well.”11 One of the best-known Celtic historical figures was Boudicca, a Celtic queen who lived on the island of Britain. She was actually the widow of a Celtic king, and she instigated a rebellion against the Romans in order culture, with its own non-Indo-European language, folklore, legal code, and matrilineal customs descended from Old European times. Basque law codes give the woman high status as inheritor, arbitrator, and judge, in both ancient and modem times. The laws governing succession in the French Basque region treat men and women entirely equally. Another Old European culture on the Iberian Peninsula was the Iberian, whose matri- focal practices were discussed by the Greek historian and geographer Strabo in the first century b .c .: “Among the Iberians, the men bring dowries to the women. With them the daughters alone inherit property. Brothers are given away in marriage by their sisters. In all their usages, their social con dition is one of gynaecocracy.”9 Farther north in Europe, ancient written records preserve memories of Old European cultures in the British Isles. The area of present-day Scot land was inhabited by a tribe known as the Piets, who spoke a non-Indo- European language and who escaped Indo-Europeanization until quite late because the Roman Empire never extended farther north than Hadrian’s Wall. The Piets also preserved matrilineal laws and the goddess religion and its symbols. In this culture, transmission of property was matri lineal. Another Pictish custom, one still practiced in parts of the Scottish Highlands into the early twentieth century, was that of the woman remain ing in her parents’ house, even after marriage. Much of Britain and Ireland was occupied in pre-Roman times by Celtic tribes who, although speaking Indo-European languages, still retained many Old European customs, such as goddess worship and matrilineal succession. Traditional Irish narratives describe marriage as being essen tially matrilocal. Early Irish and Welsh literature preserves legends of Celtic heroes who, like the Greek heroes, leave home to seek an heiress to marry and thus share rule over her lands. The laws of ancient Ireland and Wales reflect an important role for the maternal brother, who represented the maternal kin, as well as an important role for the sister’s son, who inher ited the estate. Most probably, matrilineal succession was the rule in ancient Celtic society.10 Generally speaking, ancient records and archaeology both reveal the important social role of Celtic women, who had personal prestige and could possess property, even though the Celtic legal system was founded in patri archal Indo-European custom. The region of Gaul (modem-day France) was inhabited in Roman times by Celtic tribes. In the first century b .c ., the Greek author Diodorus Siculus describes Gaulish women as being “not only equal to their husbands in stature, but they rival them in strength as well.”11 One of the best-known Celtic historical figures was Boudicca, a Celtic queen who lived on the island of Britain. She was actually the widow of a Celtic king, and she instigated a rebellion against the Romans in order to reclaim her inheritance. The Roman Dio Cassius describes her in awe: “She was huge of frame, terrifying of aspect. . . . A great mass of bright red hair fell to her knees: she wore a great twisted golden tore [around her neck], and a tunic of many colors, over which was a thick mantle, fas tened by a brooch.”12 Archaeological excavations in eastern France and the Rhineland have revealed remarkably rich graves of Iron Age Celtic women, dating from the seventh to the fourth centuries b.c.; these women belonged to the Celtic Hallstatt and La Tène cultures. In ancient times, matrifocal traits also persisted in the Scandinavian and the Germanic areas, where the maternal relationship was considered more important than the paternal. Among the Thuringians, a man’s prop erty passed to his sister or mother if he died without children. In Bur gundy, the estates and titles of royal houses passed through the women. Among the Saxons, a claim to the throne was not considered complete until the aspirant had married the queen.13 In various Germanic tribes, matrilineal succession was the norm, and the kingdom was inherited through marriage with the queen or princess. As late as the eighth cen tury a.d. in Scandinavia, a kingdom passed to the daughters and their hus bands. The earliest historical documents of the Nordic and Germanic tribes tell that men were often named according to their mother’s name, rather than their father’s: the same practice we saw among non-Indo-European cultures of the Aegean area. In the ancient cultures of the early historical period, many elements of Old European culture remained. One of the most visible is matriliny and the inheritance of property through the female line of the family; the suc cession to the throne or position of power also passed through the female line, from mother to daughter. We see the importance of the female lin eage in the naming of individuals, who are named after the mother rather than the father. Of particular importance was the sister-brother relation ship; even marriages between brother and sister are known, for example in ancient Egypt. The sister had a greater loyalty to her brother than to her husband. The brother was directly involved in the rearing and edu cation of the children. In many places, marriage was endogamous: that is, people married within their culture groups. In the Indo-European cultures we are most familiar with, the patriar chal society, with its emphasis on warfare and the value of weapons, is mirrored in religion by warrior-deities and in religious symbolism by the emphasis on weaponry. The hierarchical stratification of Indo-European societies is reflected in the hierarchy of Indo-European deities. In Old Europe, the social structure of society was different. This is one of the pri mary reasons that Old European religion had a nature fundamentally dif ferent from the more familiar Indo-European religions. Conclusions The reconstruction of the pre-Indo-European social structure of Old Europe is possible if various sources from different disciplines are used: linguis tic, historical, mythological, religious, archaeological (especially the evi dence from cemeteries and settlements). Evidence from these disciplines shows that the Old European social structure was matrilineal, with the succession to the throne and inheritance passing through the female line. The society was organized around a theacratic, democratic temple com munity guided by a highly respected priestess and her brother (or uncle); a council of women served as a governing body. In all of Old Europe, there is no evidence for the Indo-European type of patriarchal chieftainate. 125 / Matrilineal Social Structure to reclaim her inheritance. The Roman Dio Cassius describes her in awe: “She was huge of frame, terrifying of aspect. . . . A great mass of bright red hair fell to her knees: she wore a great twisted golden tore [around her neck], and a tunic of many colors, over which was a thick mantle, fas tened by a brooch.”12 Archaeological excavations in eastern France and the Rhineland have revealed remarkably rich graves of Iron Age Celtic women, dating from the seventh to the fourth centuries b.c.; these women belonged to the Celtic Hallstatt and La Tène cultures. In ancient times, matrifocal traits also persisted in the Scandinavian and the Germanic areas, where the maternal relationship was considered more important than the paternal. Among the Thuringians, a man’s prop erty passed to his sister or mother if he died without children. In Bur gundy, the estates and titles of royal houses passed through the women. Among the Saxons, a claim to the throne was not considered complete until the aspirant had married the queen.13 In various Germanic tribes, matrilineal succession was the norm, and the kingdom was inherited through marriage with the queen or princess. As late as the eighth cen tury a.d. in Scandinavia, a kingdom passed to the daughters and their hus bands. The earliest historical documents of the Nordic and Germanic tribes tell that men were often named according to their mother’s name, rather than their father’s: the same practice we saw among non-Indo-European cultures of the Aegean area. In the ancient cultures of the early historical period, many elements of Old European culture remained. One of the most visible is matriliny and the inheritance of property through the female line of the family; the suc cession to the throne or position of power also passed through the female line, from mother to daughter. We see the importance of the female lin eage in the naming of individuals, who are named after the mother rather than the father. Of particular importance was the sister-brother relation ship; even marriages between brother and sister are known, for example in ancient Egypt. The sister had a greater loyalty to her brother than to her husband. The brother was directly involved in the rearing and edu cation of the children. In many places, marriage was endogamous: that is, people married within their culture groups. In the Indo-European cultures we are most familiar with, the patriar chal society, with its emphasis on warfare and the value of weapons, is mirrored in religion by warrior-deities and in religious symbolism by the emphasis on weaponry. The hierarchical stratification of Indo-European societies is reflected in the hierarchy of Indo-European deities. In Old Europe, the social structure of society was different. This is one of the pri mary reasons that Old European religion had a nature fundamentally dif ferent from the more familiar Indo-European religions. Conclusions The reconstruction of the pre-Indo-European social structure of Old Europe is possible if various sources from different disciplines are used: linguis tic, historical, mythological, religious, archaeological (especially the evi dence from cemeteries and settlements). Evidence from these disciplines shows that the Old European social structure was matrilineal, with the succession to the throne and inheritance passing through the female line. The society was organized around a theacratic, democratic temple com munity guided by a highly respected priestess and her brother (or uncle); a council of women served as a governing body. In all of Old Europe, there is no evidence for the Indo-European type of patriarchal chieftainate.

Pg122

Bull-Leaping Preoccupation with bulls characterizes Minoan religion, as attested by the famous bull-leaping frescoes and depictions on sealstones dating from the fifteenth century b.c. Other bull-related artifacts, particularly the “horns of consecration,” occur in religious contexts at many sites on Crete. The bullfighting tradition of modem Spain, Portugal, Turkey, and elsewhere very likely derives from Minoan bull games. The modern bullfighting “sport,” however, is cruel. Minoan portrayals do not show infuriating injuries inflicted on the bulls; they depict only an elegant sport. The Bull Leaper fresco from the Knossos labyrinth shows three acrobats perform ing: a youth (shown in black), who leaps from the direction of the bull’s horns over its back with hands pressing down on the bull’s spine and body arched over the bull’s tail; and two girls (shown in white): one holds the bull’s horns, while the other waits with outstretched arms behind the bull to catch the youth.5Another exquisite representation shows the bull with its forelegs resting on a large rectangular block and a youth vaulting through the horns. Having the bull’s forelegs on a block certainly would have made it easier for the acrobat to make his or her jump through the horns. A large stone block was found in the central Phaistos court. J. W Graham (1987) assumes that the acrobats used it in the beginning of a bull game, and that bull games may have taken place in the central courts of temple complexes. The Minoan preoccupation with the bull and its horns reflects an Old European tradition. In Old Europe, the bull was sacred to the goddess of death and regeneration; the bucrania and bull’s horns were symbols of her regenerative powers, present in tombs and temples of regeneration. In Minoan Crete, the presence of the bull and its horns in so many aspects of Minoan life— frescoes, sealstones, and architecture— simply expresses their belief in regeneration. Pg141

Conclusions The Minoan culture flowered for several hundred years. The period of Minoan “civilization,” which meets the criteria of advanced artistic and architectural technologies, dates from circa 2000 b .c . Minoan culture had deep roots in Old Europe and Old Anatolia, evidenced by its artistic cre ativity, its theacentric social structure, and its symbolism of griffins, spi rals, palms, lilies, moons, snakes, birds, and the labrys, the double ax. Minoan art celebrated life and nature; we have evidence of the goddess of birth and life: standing on a mountain peak; on a tripartite platform flanked by lions; holding waterbirds. Thus the Minoan goddess or god desses continued Old European traditions. Although female figures greatly outnumber male figures in excavated Minoan artifacts, the Minoans also depicted, in their iconography, the young year god. The peoples of Crete also invented two writing systems, a hieroglyphic script and a linear script, Linear A; upon the latter, the Mycenaeans built their own script, Linear B. Many of the deities whom we know from archaic and classical Greece— Hera, Artemis, Athena, Poseidon, and others— are listed in the Linear B inscriptions, giving evidence of their long continuity. The centers of Minoan culture were originally thought to have been palaces, with the hierarchical and patriarchal connotations implied by that term. Now we know that those “palaces”were in reality temple complexes, and that the culture was goddess-centered. Whereas the temple complexes were administrative as well as religious centers, cave sanctuaries and mountain-peak sanctuaries probably focused upon ritual. In these sanc tuaries were found sacred horns, double axes, and seals engraved with a Tree of life: all themes of regeneration. The Minoans celebrated the pas sage from death to rebirth. Thus, the Minoans continued the Neolithic artistic and goddess- centered cultures. Further evidence of this continuation is to be found in the Minoan tradition of collective burials, distinct from the single burials of the Indo-European cultures.17 With the fall of the Minoan culture, the last of the Old European— Anatolian civilizations disappeared. But the Minoans and other Old Euro pean cultures would strongly influence the ancient world: an influence that has lingered through the modem era. Pg149

Their primary ruler was Zeus, a form of the Indo-European sky and thunder god. The formerly independent goddesses, while still fulfilling important roles, become wives and daughters to the gods. Legends narrate the rape of the goddesses by Zeus and other gods, which can be interpreted as an allegory for the subjugation of the local goddess religion by the invaders’ patriarchal pantheon. In fact, the Greek pantheon, with its many Indo- European gods, had now become decidedly belligerent; some of the god desses inherited from Old Europe were militarized. Pg154

Hekate Hekate in her multiple forms was descended from the Old European goddess of life, death, and regeneration. Through Mycenaean and Greek times she remained powerful and was worshiped with ecstatic dances. From written sources and from what manifested in vase painting and sculptures, she represented many phases of life: the birth giver and motherly pro tectress, the youthful and strong virgin, as well as the fearsome and dan gerous crone.4These aspects are analogous to the moon’s phases— crescent, waxing, and full— and to the cycle of life, death, and regeneration. The writer Porphyry, in the third century a .d ., tells us that the ancients called her the “moon.”5 Hekate mostly, however, personified death. She is a remorseless killer who travels above graveyards collecting poison. Her animal, the dog, some times appears with her: she is portrayed holding a torch, and she sweeps through the night followed by her dogs. Sometimes the goddess herself is a howling hound. In Caria, western Turkey, supplicants sacrificed dogs to her and performed orgiastic dances in her honor. Greek writers describe her as the mistress of night roads or crossroads who leads travelers astray. She sometimes wears a nest of writhing snakes in her hair. Hekate’s stat ues had enormous magic power, according to Pausanias (III: 16.7). The resplendence of her statue in the temple of Ephesus forced those who looked at it to cover their eyes (Ginzburg 1991, 131). Her favorite herbs were poppy, mandragora, smilax, and aconite. Pg155

[Boeotian Artemis vase] The goddess manifests some characteristics of an insect, perhaps a bee: serrated lines around the lower part of her body, and zigzagging lines on each side of her head, resemble insect antennae more than human hair. Her outstretched arms without hands suggest insect legs. The panel on the other side of the amphora includes a large bird, clearly mythical: it has the body of a net-patterned fish. (See Gimbutas 1989, Fig. 405.) A hare and net-pattemed triangles appear below the bird. Snakes, spirals, swastikas, and more birds add energy to the dynamism of this regenerative scene. The two panels on the Boeotian vase, dating from just before the dawn of classical Greece, offer almost a full catalog of regenerative symbols familiar to us from the Neolithic era. In a fragment of a Greek tragedy by Aeschylus, the priestesses of Artemis appear as bees (in Greek, melissai); the bee is another important regener ative symbol inherited from Neolithic and then Minoan times. In the third century a.d., Porphyry relates that souls are bees,10and that Melissa draws down souls to be bom. He also equates the moon with the bull (another symbol of regeneration) and makes the fascinating assertion that cows beget bees.11 The goddess as a bee appears in Greek jewelry of the seventh to fifth centuries b.c. from the islands of Rhodes and Thera. Gold plaques portray her with human head and arms, but she has wings and the body of a bee, as well as a ridged abdomen. At Ephesus, Artemis was associ ated with the bee as her cult animal, and the organization of the sanctu ary in classical times may have rested on the symbolic analogy of a beehive, with swarms of bee-priestesses, melissai, and essenes, “drones,” who were eunuch priests.12 The bee, much as the Egyptian beetle or scarab, sym bolizes eternal renewal. Artemis had many insect epiphanies: the bee, the moth, the butterfly. Her butterfly epiphany is an image descended from the Neolithic era and then the Minoan period in Crete. It is very similar to the image of the Cre tan labrys, the double ax. When anthropomorphic features are added to the double ax— a circular or crowned head on a stick, a plant or a human body in the middle, and triangles as wings— then the image is transformed into the goddess in the aspect of a butterfly or moth. In Mycenaean times this image was still popular, although in a more rigid form than in Minoan art. In the Protogeometric, Geometric, and Archaic periods of Greece, the motif became progressively more abstracted. It was integrated into orna mental design as rows of double axes (two triangles joined at their tips) or as X’s separated by a group of vertical lines. Pg157

[Etruscan] Extensive texts are rare. The longest inscription is a liturgical calendar of sacrifices and prayers from a sacred book written on linen, parts of which were preserved because they were recycled as wrappings for Egyptian mummies. pg 166

Winged Vanths—young, fair women wearing short skirts, crossed baldrics, and hunter’s boots—assist Charun in his shepherding of the dead. Like the Germanic Valkyries, the Vanths linger at battles and accompany the dead to the underworld. Some mingling with Indo-European elements occurs on Etruscan tombs later, in the fourth and third centuries b.c., when Rome ruled the Etruscan cities. But early tumuli clearly reflect Old European concepts. pg169 / The Etruscan Religion [Angels!! = VULTURES]

Conclusions The Etruscans were an ancient Italic people who were surrounded by Indo- European speakers and yet spoke a non-Indo-European language and preserved a non-Indo-European culture.14 Etruscan women, unlike most classical Greek and Roman women, participated in public life, were literate, and were often buried in elaborate tombs, which may reflect high status. Etruscan deities were an amalgam of Indo-European and non-Indo- European; many deities, such as Uni (RomanJuno), Menerva (Roman Minerva), Tinia (Roman Jupiter), and Aritimi (Greek Artemis; Roman Diana) have much in common with their classical counterparts. But the continuity with Old European-Anatolian culture is evidenced by Etruscan altars, sculptures, and temples built with triple alcoves similar to those in temples in Malta and Crete. Etruscan tombs seem to reflect the Old European concept of regeneration, depicting joyful scenes taken from nature; scenes of music, dancing, and lovemaking; and trees of life. The Etruscans produced art evocative of Old Europe. Menerva was portrayed with wings, while Uni was flanked by winged sphinxes: both continued the iconography of the Neolithic bird goddess. Thus, the Etruscans preserved an island of Old Europe within an Indo-European sphere. pg171

Andre Mari continues many characteristic features of the prehistoric magician goddess of death and regeneration. She is the vulture goddess, tomb goddess, and regenerator who appears in a multitude of zoomor- phic shapes, similar to those she manifested during the Neolithic. Basque folklore recalls that she was also a prophetess who ruled over natural phenomena and guarded moral conduct. Although the Inquisition ruthlessly persecuted devotees of the goddess as “witches,” the goddess somehow escaped destruction here, as well as in northern Europe, where the Basque Mari closely parallels the Germanic Holla and Baltic Ragana. Basque mythology recognized the underworld as the realm of the goddess. Rivers of milk and honey flow in this delightful region, where everything is abundant. The underworld communicates with the upper world by means of apertures: wells, caves, and abysses. Souls of the dead emerge occasionally through winding cave galleries and abysses. Devotees also leave offerings to the dead and to the goddess at caves. Mari generally takes on bird form in her subterranean abodes: she flies out of caves as a crow or a vulture. In the great cave of Supelegor in the mountain of Itzine (Orozco), she appears as a vulture with her companions. Legends revere Mari as a prophetess and oracle. Devotees sought her advice at cave entrances, where she would appear if called three times. Her caves shelter a fire and bread oven, since she bakes bread on Friday. She appears at the entrance to the cave spinning thread with a bobbin of gold, or combing her hair with a golden comb. In her cave at Anboto, she makes skeins of golden thread using the horns of a ram as bobbins, and elsewhere she combs her hair while mounted on a ram. Mari’s habitations are richly adorned with gold and precious stones, but when robbers take this wealth outside, it turns to coal or rotten wood. These legends bequeath the goddess with the power to control human greediness and to magically transform substances, a power also possessed by the goblins, her avatars, who can increase or decrease wealth. Mari also upholds law codes. She is herself the lawgiver, ruling over communal life and watching jealously to see that her commandments are kept. She condemns lying, robbery, pride and bragging, the breaking of a promise, and lack of respect for people, houses, and property. In this capacity, she ensures a high standard of moral conduct. Mari rules natural phenomena: hail, winds, drought, lightning, and rainstorms. She creates storms or droughts to chastise disobedient or evil people. She appears crossing the sky with a cart, as a woman who emits flames, or as a woman enveloped in fire. She sometimes even drags a broom or rides mounted on a ram. As an incarnation of lightning, she is frequently seen as a sphere (or bundle) of fire, or as a sickle or stick of fire. Folklore recounts that she throws storms down from the caves. Conjurations and offerings can placate the goddess, and the Basques have even celebrated Catholic masses and performed exorcisms near the mouths of certain caves. If pleased, she protects her flock by keeping winds and storms locked up in the underworld. Mari is associated with the moon. To this day, people of Azcoitia province view her as a great woman whose head is encircled by the full moon. This belief provides a link between Mari and the Greek Artemis-Hekate, who is also an incarnation of the moon. Basque folklore that elucidates Mari’s power over celestial phenomena gives us information regarding this important Old European goddess that archaeological sources could not provide. MARI’S OFFSPRING Basque mythology has preserved mythological figures that have names related to Mari and are associated with stones, tombs, and ancestors. These are Mairi, Maide, and Maindi. The Main are builders of the dolmens, mega- lithic structures that consist of two upright stones and a capstone. The male Maide are mountain spirits and builders of the cromlechs, the ancient structures consisting of single stones encircling a mound. The Maindi are souls of ancestors who visit their old hearths at night. Still other relatives include the Laminak, which appear in human form but with chicken, duck, goose, or goat feet (just as the goddess herself appears with bird or goat legs). The elflike Laminak correlate with the Baltic Laumas; both are extensions of the powers of the goddess. Laminak are female counterparts of the cromlech-building Maide. They increase and decrease wealth, assist industrious women, and control moral behavior and male sexuality. Their tomb-building activities in the area more than anything else speak for deep antiquity and link these creatures with the West European Neolithic. Conclusions Like the Etruscans, the Basques were surrounded by Indo-European speakers, but they too retained their non-Indo-European language, culture, and religion.2 Remarkably, the Basques have maintained their uniqueness into the modem era. Similarly to the Etruscans, the Basque women held important positions in society, inheriting equally with Basque males. The major Basque deity was Mari, a goddess who appeared in the form of a vulture or crow: a goddess of death and regeneration, a prophetess, a lawgiver, and mistress of natural phenomena. Her realm was the underworld, a region of abundance rather than terror. Mari liked to spin and bake. She thus incorporated many of the attributes of the Old European goddess. Her offspring, the builders of megaliths and cromlechs, also connect her to Old Europe. pg173

The Celtic Religion Religious Continuity in Central and Northern Europe From about 3000 b.c. until the end of the first millennium b.c., much of central Europe was a hybrid of Indo-European and Old European culture. The Indo-European influence can be seen in the importance placed on combat and the production of weapons. In many regions, burial rites carried on the Indo-European tradition, which featured a single male warrior interred with his weapons. The horse played an important role in society, being a sign of wealth and mobility. Indo-Europeanized society was stratified, with the king and warrior-nobility at the top and farmers and other nurturers forming the lowest stratum. The Indo-Europeans depended heavily on metals for trade and for their own weapons and tools. Throughout their history, the smiths were renowned for their metallurgy, and the craft of shaping metal would take on mystical proportions. Yet the art of later Bronze Age cultures and the early Iron Age Hallstatt culture in central Europe (sixth century b.c.) revealed an imagery that could only have been inherited from Old Europe. The degree of Indo-Europeanization varied markedly in different geographical regions. Although the Kurgan element is widespread in central Europe, the Old Europeans also left their mark on the central European funerary monuments. Figurines incised with symbols of regeneration appear in graves down to the middle of the second millennium b.c. Urns and accompanying vases are also richly decorated with Old European symbols. There is a strong presence of owl and duck imagery. Bird-shaped vases and bird figurines continued to be produced with exceptional skill. Images with other divine animals, especially pigs, boars, deer, and snakes, comprise the rest of the funerary repertoire. There still existed a farming culture along the Danube Valley west and east of present-day Belgrade throughout the first half of the second millennium b.c., an “island” of Old European culture almost devoid of Indo- European elements. This remarkable repository of Old European traditions extended from the Tisza and Mure§ (Maros) basin in the west, along the Danubian valley, and across the provinces of Banat and Oltenia. (The names of the culture groups used in archaeological literature are Periam, Pecica, Verbicioara, Vattina/Gîrla-Mare, Qma.) Their permanent agricultural settlements formed tells as in the Neolithic, and there are no Kurgan (round barrow) graves in this area. The burial cemeteries of the early second millennium b.c. and cremation cemeteries of the mid-second millennium b.c. yielded elegant and delicate vases, thin-walled, well-baked and burnished, incised and white-encrusted with Old European symbols: snake coils, spirals, hooks, horns, Ys, M’s, X’s, zigzags, bi-lines, tri-lines, snake spirals, combs, and others. In about thirty cemeteries that harbored cremation urns, excavators found terra-cotta statuettes placed inside the urn or on its shoulder. The figurines continue the Old European tradition, representing the goddess of death and regeneration. They have small abstracted heads, but some are clearly bird-beaked and have round owl eyes. The statuettes are portrayed in a standing position with arms folded above the waistline. The upper body is flat, and the lower part is bell-shaped, suggesting a flounced skirt. Incised designs suggest diadems and strings of necklaces, many with attached semicircular pendants (replicas of gold pendants were widespread during the mid-second millennium b.c. in east- central Europe). Other symbols dominant on grave goods include concentric circles, alternating spirals, and snake coils, as well as double and triple snake coils, rows of hatched triangles or triple triangles, vertically flowing zigzag bands, and combs. Some of these symbols recall those from western European funerary monuments such as Newgrange (particularly the triple-snake- coil motif). They also are similar to symbols incised on schist figurines from Portuguese megalithic passage graves, which included rows of hatched triangles. Snake coils forming the limbs of the goddess frequently decorate sarcophagi of postpalatial Crete. From Dupljaja, northeast of Belgrade, which belongs to and dates from the same culture that created the cremation urn cemeteries, come terracotta wheeled carts drawn by ducks, with a goddess standing on the platform. She has a beaked head, a flounced skirt (as on other figurines), and double-spiral ornaments. Concentric circles and rows of hatched triangles decorate her skirt. Another cart holds a standing deity with incised circles and concentric circles flanked with swastikas. The cart carrying the deity, drawn by waterbirds, reflects a belief in a goddess who accompanied the dead to the afterworld beyond the waters. Many graves contained duck-shaped vases standing near the urns, together with the figurines. In a Korbovo cremation cemetery (comprising the eastern group of this culture), one grave held five vessels filled with bones of a fowl. The important role of the waterbird and the regenerating functions of the deity cannot be doubted. Model carts carrying female deities brought their significance into the succeeding centuries of the central European Hallstatt. That the Dupljaja deity represents the sun god Apollo, as Belgrade archaeologists assume, is doubtful. An outstanding four-wheeled bronze funerary cart, thirty-five centimeters long, was discovered in 1851 at Strettweg in eastern Austria, in a Hallstatt mound cremation grave with stone construction. It dates from the seventh century b.c. This impressive bronze work portrays the goddess standing in the center, twice the size of the other figures around her. She holds a gigantic dish in her upraised arms, perhaps a container of regenerating life-water, or water in which the goddess herself was cleansed in order to be reborn. Stags with huge antlers stand at the front and back of the cart, surrounded by naked men and women. There are two pairs of shielded horsemen and an ithyphallic man holding an upraised ax. The front and rear of the wagon platform displayed pairs of horse heads. The Strettweg cart reflects a spring regenerative ritual akin to that of the Germanic goddess Nerthus, described by Tacitus, in which the goddess was carried in a cart through her land.1 These few examples show that the goddess, in the aspects of death and regeneration, continued to be worshiped throughout the two millennia before the Christian era. Her owl, duck, and snake guises were popular. The cart-riding motif is an innovation, but the association of the goddess with basins, cleansing, and renewal originated with the life-bringing Neolithic goddess. Another aspect of the goddess, extremely popular in early Iron Age iconography, and descended from the Neolithic, is the “mistress of animals”: the winged queen holding rabbits or geese, flanked by lions, and associated with snakes and birds of prey. Around 600 b.c., this image was widespread throughout the Mediterranean regions of Greece, Etruria, France, and even north of the Alps. The Celts The Celts constitute one of the interesting Indo-European-speaking cultures that formed from the meeting of Indo-European and Old European cultures during the Bronze Age. According to archaeological evidence, the Celtic tribes migrated south and west from their central European homeland in the eleventh to tenth centuries b.c., settling across modern-day France and the Iberian Peninsula. In the ninth and eighth centuries, they moved throughout Europe, mostly westward. They came to prominence during the eighth and seventh centuries b.c., and by the fourth to third centuries b.c., the Celts had covered much of Europe. Consequently, they significantly influenced the development of subsequent European culture, contributing an advanced knowledge of metalworking and a significant body of ancient oral literature. Records of Celtic presence in the British islands and in Ireland date from the sixth to fifth centuries b.c. Ample archaeological evidence in burials and metalwork confirms that by the fourth to third centuries b.c., the Celtic confederation had extended from the British Isles to the Alps. In the early fourth century b.c., several Celtic tribes from central Europe overran the Italic peninsula, contributing to the weakening of the Etruscan city-states. A Celtic group sacked Rome in 387 b.c. By 225 b.c., the Roman military machine had finally defeated the Celts and had driven them out of the Italic peninsula. The Celts also expanded into southern Europe, impinging on the Greeks and pillaging the holy Greek sanctuary of Delphi in 279 b.c. Several tribes migrated into the Balkan Peninsula, eventually crossing to Asia Minor, where they settled and became known to later history as the Galatians. During the first century b.c., the fortune of the Celts changed. Julius Caesar conquered the Celtic tribes in Gaul (modern-day France), and Germanic tribes invaded much of the remaining Celtic territory in central and eastern Europe. In the early stages of Celtic culture formation, Old European influence can be seen in the relatively high status of Celtic women.2 Rich burials of women mark the Hallstatt period, particularly the burial of a Celtic woman near Vix in east-central France, dated to around 525 b.c. Like Celtic noblemen, the woman—perhaps a princess—was buried with a funerary wagon, surrounded by jewelry, Greek and Etruscan pottery, silver bowls, and bronze basins. One of the most spectacular items found in a Hallstatt grave was a giant krater, or mixing bowl, used for funereal feasting. The huge vessel is more than 1.5 meters high and almost 4 meters in circumference, with a capacity of about 1,250 liters. Later, in the historical era, Irish women upheld their prominent positions. When an Irish woman married, she retained ownership of her own property, which she took with her if the bond dissolved. Ancient writers noted the willingness and zeal with which Celtic women fought alone or alongside their husbands in battle. OLD EUROPEAN DEITIES DURING THE PERIOD OF CELTIC DOMINANCE IN CENTRAL EUROPE AND ROMAN TIMES Some remarkable pieces of art, undoubtedly related to Celtic religion, date from when the Celts pressed into eastern Europe. One celebrated find is the silver Gundestrup cauldron, dated to somewhat before 100 b.c. Accidentally discovered in 1891 in a peat bog near Gundestrup, northern Jutland (Denmark), it encompasses motifs influenced by art from many different regions: Celtic, Thracian, and Hellenistic. Consequently, it was probably produced in an area central to all these regions, most probably northwestern Bulgaria and adjoining southern Romania, the homeland of the Thracian tribe, the Triballoi. This tribe was influenced by the Celtic Scordisci tribe, which settled along the banks of the Danube. In this region, a mixed Celtic-Thracian society thrived. The Gundestrup cauldron reflects both Celtic and Thracian artistic styles and mythological figures. Art historians have documented the technique and the material—fine hammered silver work with human and animal figures beaten into high repousse— from the Thracian and Dacian area, but not from Celtic western Europe. Even the details of dress on the Gundestrup cauldron have exact parallels on an important silver artifact from southeast Europe: a gilded phalera (a metal disk worn as a sign of military rank), found in a grave at Stara Zagora in central Bulgaria, also dating from the first century b.c. On this phalera, the costume of Hercules corresponds exactly with that of a male figure, claimed to be Cemunnos, on the cauldron: tight-fitting trousers, linearly striped, which stop just above the knee. (To learn more about the origin and interpretation of mythological elements, see Kaul et al. 1991.) Several other stylistic features of the Gundestrup cauldron confirm its place of origin on the border between the Celtic Scordisci and the Thracian Trib- allians. The Germanic Cimbri raided this territory in 118 b.c. and sent the cauldron to Denmark, probably as war booty, and then their counterparts set it into a peat bog, possibly as a religious offering. Iron Age tribes commonly offered valuable weapons and art works to deities by throwing them into rivers or placing them in peat bogs.3 Several plates, ornamented in relief, comprise the cauldron itself. Each of the seven outer plates portrays an anthropomorphic figure in half-length portrait, without doubt representing a deity. Four depict bearded men who have upraised arms and clenched fists. Three illustrate women. One outer plate is missing, and it too probably depicted a woman. The female figures have long hair, which falls down against the shoulders to both sides. Two of the female figures hold their hands on their chests, below their breasts; the third raises her right arm, upon which sits a small bird. Two servants or priestesses, depicted in a smaller size, attend this latter figure: one sits on her right shoulder, while the other arranges her hair. Eagles (or other birds of prey) fly near each side of her head. A pair of anthropomorphic male figures flanks one of the females. All of the females and two of the males wear torques (neck rings), a typical Celtic ornament regarded by the Celts as having magical properties in warding off evil. Two of the five inner plates portray similar males and females surrounded by wild beasts. The female is flanked by jumping griffins, rosette-shaped wheels, and elephants (Indian elephants were used in the armies of the Hellenistic rulers). The third inner plate portrays the stag god Cemunnos with large antlers. He sits on the ground, legs drawn up, clothed in a tight- fitting pant costume, wearing a torque around his neck, holding a torque in his right hand and a large ram-headed snake in his left. A stag stands to his left and a wolf to his right. The fourth inner plate depicts three bulls, each with a man in front holding a sword (the three bulls are to be sacrificed). The fifth inner plate, the richest in figures, shows a troop of horsemen and a row of marching warriors holding a long tree with the tips of their swords, and a scene of human sacrifice.4 The base plate from the interior of the cauldron discloses a large prostrate bull and a jumping priestess with spurs on her feet above it, about to plunge a slashing sword (machaira) into the neck of the beast; this scene thus depicts a bull sacrifice. The portrayals of female and male figures—again, perhaps deities— on this cauldron reveal a syncretistic religion with elements inherited from both Old European and Indo-European religions. Except for the stag god Cemunnos (portrayed on the inner plate and also in one of the portraits holding stags aloft), the male deities are Indo-European, probably Celtic Taranis (or Thracian Perkunas), the thunder god; and Ares or Esus, god of war and fertility. The female portraits are in no way Indo-European. They represent the familiar Old European goddess in several of her aspects. On one panel, she is the life bringer in spring, surrounded by wild beasts; on another, she is the goddess of death and regeneration, associated with birds of prey. Nanny de Vries (in Kaul et al. 1991) identifies one Gundestmp goddess with the Phrygian goddess Kybele, who was also very popular in Thrace. There Kybele fused with the local goddess Rhea-Bendis. In Greek literary sources, Kybele is referred to as “great-goddess,” “mother of the gods,” “mountain mother,” and “queen of the wild beasts.” The taurobolium, or bull sacrifice, represents the most important ritual honoring this goddess. The day of the sacrifice was considered to be the day of rebirth. The bull’s male organs were offered as a dedication to her. In Thracian art from the fourth to the first centuries b.c., Kybele appears as a winged figure holding lions or riding a lion. On a silver jug from the treasure of Rogozen, Bulgaria, she sits enthroned, flanked by two lions or centaurs. On the Rogozen jug, she is “queen of the wild beasts,” holding dogs (like the Greek Artemis); on the Gundestmp cauldron, she is surrounded by a number of wild animals and flanked by elephants. Both portrayals are associated with the bull sacrifice. The antlered god Cemunnos also embodies regenerative symbolism. The figure sitting on the ground in cross-legged position with closed eyes and open mouth appears to be singing. The antlers and serpent he holds in one hand symbolize rebirth. The torque around his neck characterizes him as divine. This iconography is Celtic, but the tale itself, as Best argues (Kaul et al. 1991), may be that of the divine Thracian singer Orpheus, whose voice enchants animals of prey as well as other beings animate and inanimate. The stag god depicts the Thracian version of the Old European master of animals or “lord of wild things.” He is also carved in rock at Val Camonica, in the Alps of northern Italy. Scholars have dated the engraving to the fourth century b.c., the era when the Celts occupied this area. A number of stelae reliefs of the homed god associated with a stag and bull or with a ram-headed serpent are known from Roman Gaul. The name “Cemunnos” appears in a relief carving from Paris, above a representation of an antlered god (although the god could have had other names elsewhere). Some of the Gaulish portrayals associate the homed god with material prosperity. A stela relief found at Reims portrays the god seated Buddha-like near a stag and a bull. He holds a sack from which cascades a stream of coins. The Celts in Britain and Ireland preserved this god as keeper of the forest and the animals. The medieval Welsh “Four Branches” (Tales) of the Mabinogi contains the tale of Owain, which includes a vignette of a huge dark man sitting on a mound; as keeper of the forest, he can summon all animals through the bellowing of a stag. The tale narrates that they do obeisance to him “as humble subjects would do to their lord.” After the Romans conquered Gaul, they wrote descriptions of the Celts and their religion. These Roman writers (including Caesar himself), however, describe them from a Roman perspective using Roman appellations. In Gallic Wars, Caesar lists the principal deities of the Gauls.5 Mercury, who possesses the most images, invented all the arts, guided travelers, and encouraged commerce. After Mercury, Caesar continues, the Celts honored Apollo, Mars, Jupiter, and Minerva. Apollo drives away diseases, Mars controls the issues of war, and Jupiter rules the heavens. Mars and Jupiter are Indo-European gods, but Apollo may have been fused with a local youthful healing god. In Caesar’s description, Minerva teaches the first principles of the arts and crafts; dedications to Minerva are found in Gaul and in Britain. The Romans mention many sanctuaries at the sources of Gallic rivers: for instance, a sanctuary dedicated to Dea Sequana at the Seine’s source, and a sanctuary honoring Matrona near the source of the Marne. At the source of the Seine were found many ex votos, including 190 wooden objects. Some represent complete human figures while others represent diseased parts of the body, reflecting the worshipers’ great expectations that the goddess would heal them. The goddess herself was portrayed in bronze standing on a duck-shaped boat. She wears a loose, folded garment and a crown, her hands stretched before her in blessing. (The statue is 61.5 centimeters high and is housed in the Musée Archéologique de Dijon, Cote-d’Or, France.) The Celts called the great-goddess Matrona. Some inscriptions bear the name matronae, “the mothers,” and they frequently portray the goddess as a triad, a group of three. They carry baskets of fruit, cornucopias, and babies. On a recently discovered Gaulish inscription the goddess is called Rigantona, “the great queen”; this name appears in the Welsh Mabinogi as Rhiannon. In the Mabinogi there is the character Mabon ap Modron: that is, Maponos son of Matrona. Maponos, “the youthful one” or “divine youth,” is a Gaulish and British god. That he derives his name from his mother emphasizes the importance of the female line. Related to Matrona and the Greek Artemis was the bear goddess Artio (“the bear” in Gaulish was probably *artos, in Irish, art).6 In the second or third century a.d., a woman named Licinia Sabinilla dedicated a bronze sculpture group to the goddess Artio (it was rediscovered in fragments at Muri near Berne, Switzerland, in 1832). In its present form at the Historical Museum in Berne it shows a seated female divinity with her lap full of fruit, holding a bowl in her right hand; a female bear (measuring 12 centimeters high), its back to a tree, faces her. The pedestal bears the inscription DEAE ARTIONI LICINIA SABINILLA, “For the goddess Artio, Licinia Sabinilla [dedicates this offering].” A more thorough examination of the sculpture reveals that instead of a group, originally there was only the bear, Artio, crouched in front of the tree. Epigraphs dedicated to the goddess Artio have also been found in the Rhinish Palatinate (near Bitburg), in northern Germany (Stockstadt, Heddemheim), and in Spain (Sigüenza or Huerta). Another form of the Gaulish-Celtic goddess who gained great popularity in the Romano-Celtic world was Epona, protectress of horses. She was most often represented riding sidesaddle on a horse, sometimes accompanied by a dog, a bird, or a foal. She is an Indo-European creation, since the Indo-Europeans considered the horse to be sacred. One of her Gaulish centers of worship was Alesia in Burgundy, east-central France. Epona was imported into Britain and Ireland during the period of Roman dominance. Here, her equivalents are the British Rhiannon and Irish Macha, both of whom show marked equine associations. For instance, an Irish Macha, the wife of the peasant Crunnchu, races against the fastest horses in the land—and wins—while on the verge of giving birth to twins. THE SURVIVAL OF OLD EUROPEAN DEITIES IN IRELAND AND BRITAIN With the decline of the Celts on the European mainland, the British Isles became the last stronghold of Celtic culture. Much of our evidence for Celtic art, religion, and social structure comes from these islands. Britain and Ireland lend us particularly significant information because, as islands, they remained insular and less influenced by changes on the continent. Although the Romans conquered Britain as far as southern Scotland, disrupting those Celtic cultures in the defeated areas, the Romans left Ireland untouched. Here, the Celtic heritage and oral tradition continued uninterrupted. The Irish oral tradition became a written one because Ireland and Britain converted to Christianity in the fifth century a.d. With the building of the monasteries, Ireland became a center of European learning, and the Christian monks introduced writing to the Celtic peoples. Although mainly concerned with copying Christian beliefs, the scribes, many of whom were Irish, also wrote down pre-Christian pagan legends in the scriptoria of the monasteries. The transcription of Irish oral tradition had begun by the end of the sixth century a.d., but only a few manuscript fragments survive from before a.d. 1100. Like Ireland, the Celtic country of Wales maintained great manuscript compilations, the earliest from around the end of the twelfth century a.d. The Welsh compilation, the Mabinogi, constitutes one of the most important sources for British mythology. It is remarkable that, in spite of both Indo-European and Christian influence, the Irish and Welsh oral tradition and historic records preserved the primary Old European goddesses—especially the life giver and death wielder—with little change since Neolithic times. Some of their ancient features survived up to the eighteenth century. Some are remembered to this day in folk beliefs and rites. These goddesses, whose attributes sometimes overlap, are known as Brigid, Ana (or Anu or Danu), the Morrigan, Macha, and Badb. In folk beliefs, Brigid (Brighid; Scottish, Bride) still walks and visits houses in Irish villages. Her presence is felt in sacred wells, streams, trees, and stones. Brigid is an Old European goddess consigned to the guise of a Christian saint. Remove the guise and you will see the mistress of nature, an incarnation of cosmic life-giving energy, the owner of life water in wells and springs, the bestower of human, animal, and plant life. Her myths reveal that she assists at birth, as does the Cretan Eileithyia. She spins and weaves human life. Today people still leave woven offerings to her, such as rags, towels, and ribbons, on trees, or on bushes at her wells or streams. Her wells are sacred, and they contain the great miraculous healing power of the goddess. Ring dances around wells and menhirs are performed to evoke her powers. Her very ancient features are especially visible when nature awakens, around February first. Then she, the queen, appears as a snake from the mound (“This is the day of Bride, the Queen will come from the mound” are words that come from a song still heard around 1900). Her feast on February first, Imbolc, celebrated the first signs of spring and the lactation of the ewes, symbolizing new life. It was the day of purification and homage to the goddess. People poured milk on the ground as an offering and baked special cakes. Girls carried dolls in her image in procession through the town, and each house welcomed the goddess. These celebrations endured well through the Christian era, when Imbolc became St. Bridget’s Day. The death goddess, the Neolithic vulture goddess and tomb goddess, became known in Old Irish tradition as Ana (or Anna, Anu, or Danu). She gave her name to the legendary Tuatha De Danann (or Anann) tribe, the “People of the goddess Danu (or Anu)” (genitive case: Anann).7 As Anu, she was “mother of gods.” This ancient name for the goddess is well attested in the Mediterranean and Near Eastern world as meaning “mother” or “foster mother.” Ana and Annia appear as names for caves and tombs. She was the mother of the dead and the regenerator of nature as well. Her life-giving, nourishing breasts are identified with a pair of hills in County Kerry, “Da Chich Anann,” the Paps of Ana.8 This appellation recalls the megalithic tomb era five thousand or more years earlier, when people sculptured breasts on tomb walls and menhirs. The legend of the Caillech Bherri, “The Old Woman of Berre,” documented Ana in a character well known in modern Irish folklore. Her name connects her with a peninsula in southwestern Ireland, but her folkloric presence is much deeper, extending throughout Ireland and Gaelic Scotland. Legends tell that she created cairns in County Meath by dropping stones from her apron, that she moved islands in west Kerry, and that she carried rocks in her creel to build mountains in Scotland. Additionally, she was “queen of Limerick fairies.” She is closely connected with the great megalithic monuments of Knowth in County Meath. In other traditions, Caillech Bherri becomes a divine ancestress with numerous offspring, an embodiment of longevity who repeatedly experienced the cycle of youth and old age. This goddess was not only intimately related to the land and its prosperity; she also symbolized spiritual and legal dominion over the land and the king. She was the goddess of sovereignty, known in myth as Flaith and in saga as Queen Medb, “the intoxicating one.”9 This goddess symbolized the land to whom the king is wedded. As Medb of Leinster, she cohabited with nine kings of Ireland, and of her it was written: “Great indeed was the power and influence of Medb over the men of Ireland, for she it was who would not permit a king in Tara unless he had her for his wife” (Book ofLeinster, 380a). The same goddess appears in tales as the Morrigan or Macha or Badb, a crow goddess, a death messenger perched on pillars or trees. She can be one or three, either all named Macha or each with a separate name: Neman, Macha, and the Morrigan. The Morrigan possesses many faces. At one time she is a most beautiful queen; at another time, she is a beaked, gray badb, a “crow.” As a shape changer, she can become a greyhound, an eel, a red hornless heifer, a red-haired woman driving a cow, and an old woman milking a three-teated cow. Like the Greek Athena, the Morrigan was militarized: in Gaul she already appeared as a war goddess, and the process of her militarization could have begun earlier, perhaps as early as the Bronze Age. Literary records describe the Morrigan or the triple goddess (Macha, Neman, and the Morrigan) as terrible Furies, able to confound whole armies. In battle, they appear as crows, shrieking and fluttering furiously over the heads of warriors. During the battle of Magh Tuiredh (described in the Book of Leinster, 93: 2), Badb, Macha, and the Morrigan manifested fog-sustaining shower- clouds and poured down enormous masses of fire and streams of red blood from the air. Described at the battle of Almu near Kildare,10 they appeared as red-mouthed, sharp-beaked, croaking badbs over the warriors’ heads, creating panic and lunacy. In Irish folk tradition of the last centuries, the death messenger appears as a little woman dressed in white, or sometimes as a tall, slim, and ugly woman. She is heard as a bird’s cry, lonesome and mournful, frequently repeated three times. As a harbinger of death she takes the shape of a bird that sits on the windowsill where an ill person sleeps. As a death messenger she also manifests as a washerwoman, and in the eighteenth century, she merged with the image of a banshee,11 an anthropomorphic fairy. Conclusions Both Old European and Indo-European deities comprise the Celtic pantheon.12 The Gundestrup cauldron portrays female figures associated with birds, and male and female figures surrounded by animals. The former represent the Old European goddess of death and regeneration, and the latter represent the Old European mistress and master of animals. After the Romans conquered Gaul, they wrote descriptions of the Celtic pantheon, using Roman names to describe Celtic deities: Mercury, Apollo, Mars, Jupiter, and Minerva. Statues inscribed to Matrona or the triple matronae, the Celtic “mothers,” have also been discovered. Matrona was most likely the great-goddess in both her singular and multiple forms. The Celts also worshiped Dea Artio, “bear goddess,” a descendant of Old Europe, and the horse goddess Epona, probably an Indo-European creation. Historic deities among the Irish Celts include descendants of the Old European bird goddess: the Morrigan, Macha, and Badb. The multifunctional goddess Brigid was descended from the Old European great- goddess and assimilated into Irish Christianity as Saint Brigid. Other Celtic forms of the Old European great-goddess of birth, death, and rebirth include Queen Medb, an epicized goddess who represented the sovereignty of the land, and the triple Macha. The goddess of death survived into later Irish folklore, where she was known as the Caillech Bherri, the “Old Woman of Berre,” and the banshee, the woman of the fairy mound. pg176

[Celtic excerpt] After the Romans conquered Gaul, they wrote descriptions of the Celts and their religion. These Roman writers (including Caesar himself), however, describe them from a Roman perspective using Roman appellations. In Gallic Wars, Caesar lists the principal deities of the Gauls.5 Mercury, who possesses the most images, invented all the arts, guided travelers, and encouraged commerce. After Mercury, Caesar continues, the Celts honored Apollo, Mars, Jupiter, and Minerva. Apollo drives away diseases, Mars controls the issues of war, and Jupiter rules the heavens. Mars and Jupiter are Indo-European gods, but Apollo may have been fused with a local youthful healing god. In Caesar’s description, Minerva teaches the first principles of the arts and crafts; dedications to Minerva are found in Gaul and in Britain. pg182

[Celtic excerpt] Celts called the great-goddess Matrona. Some inscriptions bear the name matronae, “the mothers,” and they frequently portray the goddess as a triad, a group of three. They carry baskets of fruit, cornucopias, and babies. On a recently discovered Gaulish inscription the goddess is called Rigantona, “the great queen”; this name appears in the Welsh Mabinogi as Rhiannon. In the Mabinogi there is the character Mabon ap Modron: that is, Maponos son of Matrona. Maponos, “the youthful one” or “divine youth,” is a Gaulish and British god. That he derives his name from his mother emphasizes the importance of the female line. pg 183</p>

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peraliavia · 4 years ago

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Ꞅ·ıꝺ͛ċo-Ꞅŧıɩ̣̀ıɾ̈ıc͛!

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My exploration of the science of cybernetics convinced me that the so-called "subconscious mind" is not a mind ~t all, but a goal-striv- ing servo-mechanism consisting of the brain and nervous system, which is used and directed by the mind. The most usable concept is that man does not have two minds, but rather a mind (or consciousness), which operates an automatic, goal-striving machine. This automatic, goal- striving machine functions in much the same way as electronic servo- mechanisms function, but it is much more marvelous, much more complex, than any electronic brain, computer, or guided missile ever conceived by man. Pg15

PRESCRIPTION Begin collecting scrapbooks on persons, past or present, who exhibit both the qualities of character and personality and the life achievements to which you aspire. Select a different representative for each characteristic, each aspiration. Become the reigning expert in these peoples' lives by collecting and reading their biographies, autobiographies, articles about them, speeches made by them, others' analyses of them that can be found in books like Dr. Lundrum's, Napoleon Hill's, and others. Discover the almost uni- versal absence of predisposition (from genetics and often from their early environment and upbringing) for the personality they developed and the accomplishments of their lives. Ferret out the forces, thoughts, and influ- ences that actually shaped them. By making this your hobby, you will feed your imagination with valuable raw material that it can utilize to build the stronger, more goal-oriented self-image you require to achieve your life aspirations. Pg23 [Э·̈ꞇ͛· Жıꞇꞇ⸷ Ꞇılꝺ· Ꞅƿıııꞇoıı⸷ Ɑ̤ɒ̇̈ Ж͛ɑn⸷ Ᵹɹ̈·ċ Ꝿoṅꭇ⸷ Ꝿɩ̇·ıı Cocꞇ̣̇·

MENTAL TRAINING EXERCISE Pick someone to thoroughly study for a month, to get so intimately famil- . iar with the way he or she thinks that you can sit down and have a conver- sation with the person and solicit advice and coaching in your imagination. Pg24

You, As Creator of Your Own life Experiences (1) Consciqus Mind Decision + (2) Imagination Communicates Goal/Target to (3) Self-Image = (4) "Work Order"lnstructions to Servo-Mechanism pg27

Of course, many people waste much of their imagination power, frittering it away on aimless daydreaming and fantasy, with no real appreciation for what it might do if applied purposefully. The sun's light, diffused, is gentle warmth; directed ' through a magnifying glass in a certain way, it is incendiary. pg28

Many writers and speakers, for example, tell me of giving their subconscious instructions about their need for a good anecdote, story, joke, or forgotten details of a story for a writing task or speech, then taking a nap, to awake with exactly the material they wanted "on their minds." pg33

You can give problem-solving or idea-getting tasks to your servo-mechanism, send it off on a search while you do other things, even while you sleep, and have it return with useful material you didn't know you knew and might never have obtained through conscious thought or worry. This becomes a common experience and great benefit for those of us who regularly rely on Psycho-Cybernetics. It occurs because the servo-mechanism has access to a much more expansive storehouse of information than the conscious mind. The famous composer Schubert is 'said to have told a friend that his own creative process consisted in "remembering a melody" that neither he nor anyone else had ever thought of before. Many creative artists, as well as psychologists who have made a study of the creative process, have been impressed by the similarity between creative inspi ration, sudden revelation, or intuition, and ordinary human memory. pg36

My own analysis of everything I've read about Albert Einstein is that he was a great practitioner of Psycho-Cybernetics. He acted as if a theoretical idea was a factual conclusion, then turned the "figuring out" over to his own servo-mechanism as well as to other "worker bees." I am convinced he connected with intelligence outside the realm of his own . stored data through his imagination. He was a brilliant target setter. His accomplishments stand as testament to an individual's opportunity to rise above and beyond his or her stored knowledge, education, experience or skill through the power of imagination. You can too. pg37

So What Exactly Is Psycho-Cybernetics? You might think of Psycho-Cybernetics as a collection of insights, principles, and practical methods that enable you to do all of the following: 1. Conduct an accurate inventory and analysis of the contents of your self-image. 2. Identify erroneous and restrictive programming imbedded in your self-image and systematically alter it to better suit your purposes. 3. Use your imagination to reprogram and manage your self-image. 4. Use your imagination in concert with your self-image to effectively communicate with your servo-mechanism, so that it acts as an Automatic Success Mechanism, moving you steadily toward your goals, including getting back on course when confronted with obstacles. 5. Effectively use your servo-mechanism as something like a giant search engine, to provide precisely the idea, information, or solution you need for any particular purpose-even reaching beyond your own stored data to obtain it. In a way, Psycho-Cybernetics is a communication system, for effectively communicating with yourself. pg39

PRESCRIPTION Read this chapter through at least three times per week for the first 21 days. Study it and digest it. Look for examples, in your experiences and in the experiences of your friends, that illustrate the creative mechanism in action. Think about limiting ideas about yourself that may be held firmly in the self-image, that may be the "cause" of "effects" you no longer desire. pg40

MENTAL·TRAINING EXERCISE Memorize the following basic principles by which your Success Mechanism operates. You do not need to be a computer genius or a neurophysicist to operate your own servo-mechanism, anymore than you 'have to be able to engineer an automobile in order to drive one or become an electrical engineer in order to turn on the light in your room. You do need to be familiar with the following, however, because, having memorized them, they will throw "new light" on what is to follow: 1. = AIM Your built-in success mechanism must have a goal or "target." This goal, or target, must be conceived of as "already in existence now," either in actual or pote!ltial form. It operates either (1) by steering you to a goal already in existence or (2) by "discovering" something already in existence. 2. = TRUST The automatic mechanism is tele-Iogical; that is, it operates on, or must be oriented to, "end results," goals. Do not be discouraged because the means may not be apparent. It is the function of the automatic mechanism to supply the means when you supply the goal. Think in terms of the end result, and the means will often take care of themselves. 3. = RELAX Do not be afraid of making mistakes or of temporary failures. Ail servo-mechanisms achieve a goal by negative feedback, or by going forward, making mistakes, and immediately correcting course. Automatic course correction is one of the many benefits of PsychoCybernetics. 4. = LEARN Skill learning of any kind is accomplished by trial and error, mentally correcting your aim after an error, until you achieve a "successful" motion, movement, or performance. After that, further learning and continued success are -accomplished by forgetting the past errors, and remembering the successful response, so that it can be "imitated." 5. = DO You must learn to trust your creative mechanism to do its work and not "jam it" by becoming too concerned or too anxious as to whether it will work or not, or by attempting to force it by too much conscious effort. You must let it work, rather than make it work. This trust is necessary because your creative mechanism operates below the level of consciousness, and you cannot "know" what is going on beneath the surface. Moreover, its nature is to operate spontaneously according to th,e present need. Therefore, you have no guarantees in 42 Chapter Twa advance. It comes into operation as you act and as you place a demand on it by your actions. You must not wait to act until you have proof. You must act as if it is there, and it will come through. "Do the thing and you will have the power," said Emerson. With all this in mind, select a "target"-whether that is a thinner, healthier you; a more confident, persuasive you; a you free of constant worry; a sales professional free of procrastination who begins each day with an organized to-do list and ends each day with it completed; or a golfer who hits perfectly . straight drives. Devote just ten or fifteen minutes every day to taking that mental picture from a vague idea to a good sketch to a finely detailed, fully fleshed out and colored vision that occurs to you exactly the same way whenever called upon. If it helps to write out descriptions, or to draw illus- . trations on paper, or to collect relevant pictures from magazines, do so. Just stick to ten- or fifteen-minute sessions, when you close your eyes to the outer world and open them only to this picture's continuing development. Try this little experiment for 21 days, and see what happens. pg41

Your nervous system cannot tell the difference between an imagined experience and a "real" one. Your nervous system reacts appropriately to what you think or imagine to be true. This phenomenon that can be produced as a practical joke or by a hypnotist on stage for entertainment is actually identical to, or illustrative of, the basic process that governs much of our behavior, and that can be taken ahold of and deliberately used to advantage. pg46

Dear Dr. Maltz, ... since I had the luxury of several weeks to prepare for our first meet ing that would take place behind closed doors, I immersed myself in prepara tion by studying everything I could obtain about this man. I read a book he had written, books and articles about him, watched video tapes of interviews with him from TV networks and programs, analyzed his biography, and ultimately produced a walking, talking replica of him in my imagination, so that I could carry on conversations with him. I did not have means to have someone else ably act as this person in actual role-play, as politicians do when preparing for debates, so instead I created an imaginary clone. Frankly I chose not to let any of my associates know exactly what I was doing, for fear of having the men in white coats called! My client might have had second thoughts about entrusting this high-wire negotiation to a someone who had an "imaginary man" he was talking with for hours each day. instru~tions Anyway, I followed the I found in your book, Psycho Cybernetics, as inspiration for my approach. After constructing this imaginary person, I then spent hours in what you call "The Theater of the Mind" actually playing out the meeting and dialogue we would have, myself the scriptwriter, director, lead actor and observer, which I found difficult at first, but less diffi cult as I stayed with it. Soon I found my imagined clone actively raising issues, questions and arguments on his own. Once I recall sitting in my easy chair, eyes closed, immersed in this imaginary meeting, catching myself losing my temper and pounding my fist on the arm of the chair! As this evolved into a 'mental movie' with a successful outcome, I transi tioned into re-playing that identical movie repeatedly. I even went so far, after many viewings, to write it out word for word, as if a courtroom transcriptionist was there to accurately record our conversation word for word. Here is what is remarkable: when the actual meeting took place, not only did it follow my script in order and flow, and not only did I voice things exactly as I had many times in the mental movie as you might expect, but he also per formed as if working from the very same script! pg56

Use Mental Pictures to Get a Better Job The late William Moulton Marston, well-known psychologist, recommended what he called "rehearsal practice" to men and women . who came to him for help in job advancement. If you have an important interview coming up, such as making an application for a job, his advice was: plan for the interview in advance. Go over in your mind all the various questions that are likely to be asked. Think about the answers you are going to give. Then rehearse the interview in your mind. Even if none of the questions you have rehearsed come up, the rehearsal practice will still work wonders. It gives you confidence. And even though real life has no set lines to be recited like a stage play, rehearsal practice will help you to ad lib and react spontaneously to whatever situation you find yourself in, because you have practiced reacting spontaneously. Pg57

The Final Word on Imagination Practice It doesn't matter what religious, spiritual, or philosophical background or viewpoint you come from. It doesn't matter how you describe it: imagination practice, visualization, mental picturing, or using my ter minology, Theater of your Mind. "What's important is that you do it! If you will choose a target to apply this to, and give it a solid, honest 21-day trial, you will be so gratified with the results that you will cer tainly choose to continue using this tool for the rest of your life, and benefit enormously by doing so, just as countless athletes, entertain ers, doctors, lawyers, business leaders, and· others have before you. Here are a few exercises to get you started: MENTAL TRAINING EXERCISE Your present self-image was built on your own imagination pictures of yourself in the past, which grew out of interpretations and evaluations you placed on experience. Now you are to use the same method to build an adequate self-image that you previously used build an inadequate one. Set aside a period of 30 minutes each day where you can be alone and undisturbed. Relax and make yourself as comfortable as possible. Now close your eyes and exercise your imagination. Many people find they get better results if they imagine themselves sitting before a large motion picture screen and imagine that they are seeing a motion picture of themselves. The important thing is to make these pictures as vivid and as detailed as possible. You want your mental pictures to approximate actual experience as much as possible. The way to do this is to pay attention to small details, sights, sounds, objects, in your imagined environment. Details of the imagined environment are all-important in this exercise because, for all practical purposes, you are creating a practice experience. And if the imagination is vivid enough and detailed enough, your imagination practice is equivalent to an actual experience, insofar as your nervous system is concerned. The next important thing to remember is that during these 30 minutes you see yourself acting and reacting appropriately, successfully, ideally. It doesn't matter how you acted yesterday. You do not need to try to have faith you will act in the ideal way tomorrow. Your nervous system will take care of that in time-if you continue to practice. See yourself acting, feeling, being as you want to be. Do not say to yourself, "I am going to act this way tomorrow." Just say to yourself, "I am going to imagine myself acting this way now-for 30 minutes today." Imagine how you would feel if you were already the sort of personality you want to be. If you have been shy and timid, see yourself moving among people with ease and poise and feeling good because of it. If you have been fearful and anxious in certain situations, see yourself acting calmly and deliberately, acting with confidence and courage', and feeling expansive and confident because you are. This exercise builds new "memories" or stored data into your midbrain and central nervous system. It builds a new image of self. After practicing it for a time, you will be surprised to find yourself "acting differently," more or less automatically and spontaneously, without trying. This is as it should be. You do not need to take thought, or try, or make an effort now in order to feel ineffective and act inadequately. Your present inadequate feeling and doing are automatic and spontaneous, because of the memories, real and imagined you have built into your automatic mechanism. You will find it will work just as automatically upon positive thoughts and experiences as upon negative ones. Step One: Take pad and pen and write out a outline or description of the mental movie you intend to construct, experiement with, develop, and view in the Theater in the Mind. Step Two: Set aside 30 minutes a day, preferably at the same time each day, to find a quiet, private place, relax, close your eyes, enter your Theater, and begin playing, editing, replaying your movie. Step Three: Gradually "massage" your movie so that its ''star'' (you) performs exactly as you desire, and achieves the experience and results you desire. Strive to arrive at this point within the first 10 days. Step Four: For the remaining 11 days, play and enjoy that movie repeatedly without change. Pg66

MENTAL TRAINING EXERCISE (To be practiced for at least 30 minutes daily) Seat yourself comfortably in an easy chair or lie down on your back. Consciously "let go" the various muscle groups as much as possible without making too much of an effort of it. Just consciously pay attention to the various parts of your body and let go a little. You will find that you can always voluntarily relax to a certain degree. You can stop frowning and let your forehead relax. You can ease up a little on the tension in your jaws. You can let your hands, your arms, your shoulders, your legs become a little more relaxed than they are, Spend about five minutes on this and then stop paying any attention to your muscles. This is as far as you are going to try to go by conscious control. From here on you will relax more and more by using your creative mechanism to automatically bring about a relaxed condition. In short, you are going to use "goal pictures," held in your imagination and let your automatic mechanism realize those goals for you. Mental Picture 1 In your mind's eye see yourself lying stretched out upon the bed. Form a picture of your legs as they would look if made of concrete. See yourself lying there with two very heavy concrete legs. See these very heavy concrete legs sinking far down into the mattress from their sheer weight. Now picture your arms and hands as made of concrete. They alsp are very heavy and are sinking down into the bed and exerting tremendous pressure against the bed. In your mind's eye see a friend come into the room and attempt to lift your heavy concrete legs. He takes hold of your feet and attempts to lift them. But they are too heavy for him. He cannot do it. Repeat this process with your arms, neck, etc. How to Dehypnotize Yourself from False Beliefs 81 Mental Picture 2 Your body is a big marionette doll. Your hands are tied loosely to your wrists by strings. Your forearm is connected loosely by a string to your upper arm. Your upper arm is connected very loosely by a string to your shoulder. Your feet, calves, thighs are also connected together with a single string. Your neck consists of one very limp string. The strings that control your jaw and hold your lips together have slackened and stretched to such an extent that your chin has dropped down loosely against your chest. All the various strings connecting the various parts of your body are loose and limp, and your body is just sprawled loosely across the bed. Mental Picture 3 Many people will find this the most relaxing of all. Just go back in memory to some relaxing and pleasant scene from your past. There is always some time in every one's life when he felt relaxed, at ease, and at peace with the world. Pick out your own relaxing picture from your past and call up detailed memory images. Yours may be a peaceful scene at a mountain lake where you went fishing. If so, pay particular attention to the little incidental things in the environment. Remember the quiet ripples on the water. What sounds were present? Did you hear the quiet rustling of the leaves? Maybe you remember sitting perfectly relaxed and somewhat drowsy before an open fireplace long ago. Did the logs crackle and spark? What other sights and sounds were present? Maybe you choose to remember relaxing in the sun on a beach. How did the sand feel against your body? Could you feel the warm relaxing sun, touching your body, almost as a physical thing? Was there a breeze blowing? Were there gulls on the beach? The more of these incidental details you can remember and picture to yourself, the more successful you will be. Daily practice will bring these mental pictures or memories clearer and clearer. The effect of learning will also be cumulative. Practice will strengthen the tie-in between mental image and physical sensation. You will become more and more proficient in relaxation, and this in itself will be "remembered" in future practice sessions. pg81

Then ask yourself these four questions: 1. Is there any rational reason for such a belief? 2. Could it be that I am mistaken in this belief? 3. Would I come to the same conclusion about some other person in a similar situation? 4. Why should I continue to act and feel as if this were true if there is no good reason to believe it? Don't just pass these questions by casually. Wrestle with them. Think on them. Get emotional about them. Can you see that you hard have cheated yourself and sold yourself short, not because of a "fact," but only because of an irrational and erroneous belief? If so, to try arouse some indignation or even anger. Indignation and anger can sometimes act as liberators from false ideas. Alfred Adler "got mad" at himself and at his teacher, and was enabled to throw off a negative definition of himself. This experience is not uncommon. Pg92

MENTAL TRAINING EXERCISES: 1. Have a heart-to-heart talk with yourself and honestly assess whether you have any problems you're no longer attempting to resolve only because you have accepted as "fact" that they cannot be solved, whether you are living out circumstances in your life that are unfulfilling or even demeaning to you because you have accepted as fact that you cannot alter them. Reconsider! Apply current rational thought to challenge these beliefs and then use your imagination to "shop around" and try out new and different possibilities. Consider the questions I suggested in this chapter about each of these "facts" you uncover in your heart-to-heart: "Why do I believe that I can't?" Then ask yourself, "Is this belief based on an actual fact or on an assump tion or false conclusion?"· "Is there any rational reason for such a belief?" "Could it be that I am mistaken in this belief?" "Would I come to the same conclusion about some other person in a simi lar situation?" "Why should I continue to act and feel as if this were true if there is no good reason to believe it?" 2. Out of all this rational thought, you may identify a new target (goal) to assign to your Automatic Success Mechanism. If so, review the exercises provided at the end of each of the prior chapters as means of getting started. Chapter Five Summary Checklist of The Uses of Rational Thought 1. It is the job of rational, conscious thought to examine and analyze incoming messages, to accept those that are true and reject those that are untrue. 2. It is the job of the conscious rational mind to form logical and correct conclusions. 3. It is the job of conscious rational thought to decide what you want, select the goals you wish to achieve, and concentrate on these rather than on what you do not want. 4. It is the job of your conscious mind to pay strict attention to the task at hand, to what you are doing and what is going on around you, so that these incoming sensory mes sages can keep your automatic mechanism currently advised of the environment and allow it to respond spontaneously pg99

He has made a point of mastering the application of Psycho-Cybernetics for this purpose, so that he can go to sleep at night, then awake and instantly sit at his computer keyboard and "pour out" the writing work that has been done "for him" as he slept. While others tell of writing being enormously stressful and difficult, for him is virtually free of stress. ~t Dan Kennedy says he was first inspired to attempt this by my writing about Bertrand Russell's experience in the original edition of this book. Bertrand Russell said: I have found, for example, that, if I have to write upon some rather diffi cult topic, the best plan is to think about it with very great intensity-the greatest intensity of which I am capable---':for a few hours or days, and at the end of that time give orders, so to speak, that the work is proceed to underground. After some months I return consciously the topic and to find that the work has been done. Before I had discovered this technique, I used to spend the intervening months worrying because I was making no progress; I arrived at the solution none the sooner for this worry, and the 'intervening months were wasted, whereas now I can devote them to other pursuits." (Bertrand Russell, The Conquest of Happiness) pg104

Five Prescriptions for Freeing Your Creative Machinery 1. Once a decision is made, focus on supporting it, not second guessing it. In the original book, I told of the business executive with a pen chant for gambling on roulette, who gave me the idea: "Do your wor rying before you place your bet, not after the wheel starts turning. " I happened to quote to him the advice of William James, men tioned earlier, to the effect that emotions of anxiety have their place in planning and deciding on a course of action, but that, "When once a decision is reached and execution is the order of the day, dismiss absolutely all responsibility and care about the outcome. Unclamp, in a word, your intellectual and practical machinery, and let it run free." Several weeks later he burst into my office to report, "It hit me all of a sudden," he said, "during a visit to Las Vegas. I've been trying it and it works." "What hit you and what works?" I asked. That advice of William James. It didn't make too much of an impression when you told me, but while I was playing roulette it came back to me. I noticed any number of people who appeared not worry at all before to placing their bets. Apparently odds meant nothing to them. But once the wheel started turning, they froze up, and began to worry whether their number would come up or not. How silly, I thought. If they want to worry or be concerned or figure odds, the time to do that is before the decision is made to place a bet. There is something you can do about it then, by thinking about it. You can figure out the best odds possible, or decide not to take the risk at all. But after the bets are placed and the wheel starts turning, you might as well relax and enjoy it. Thinking about it is not going to do one bit of good, andis wasted energy. Then I got to thinking that I myself had been doing exactly the same thing in my business and in my personal life. I Qften made decisions or embarked on courses of action, without adequate preparation, without considering all the risks involved and the best possible alternative. But after I had set the wheels in motion, so to speak, I continually worried over how it would come out, whether I had done the right thing. I made a decision right then that in the future I would do all my worrying, all my conscious thinking, before a decision was made, and that after making a decision, and setting the wheels in motion, I would "dismiss absolutely all care or responsibility about the outcome." Believe it or not, it works. I not only feel better, sleep better, and work better, but my business is run ning much smoother. I also discovered that the same principle works in a hundred different lit tle personal ways. For example, I used to worry and fume about having to go to the dentist and other unpleasant tasks. Then I said to myself, "This is silly. You know the unpleasantness involved before you make the deci sion go. If the unpleasantness is all that important to cause so much to concern, and not worth the worry involved, you can simply decide not to go. But, if the decision is that the trip is worth a little unpleasantness, and a definite decision is made to go-then forget about it. Consider the risk before the wheel starts turning." I used to worry the night before I had to make a speech at a board meeting. Then I said to myself, "I'm either going to make the speech or I'm not. If the decision is to make it, then there's no need in considering not making it-or trying to mentally run away from it." I have discovered that much nervousness and anxiety is caused by mentally trying to escape or run away from something that you have decided to go through with physically. If the decision is made to go through with it-not to run away physically-why mentally keep consid ering or hoping for escape. I used to detest social gatherings and go along only to please my wife, or for business reasons. I went, but mentally I resisted it, and was usually pretty grumpy and uncommunicative. Then I decided that if the decision was to go along physically, I might as well go along mentally-and dismiss all thoughts of resistance. Last night I not ' only went to what I would formerly have called a stupid social gathering, but I was surprised to find myself thoroughly enjoying it. One of the many conversations I had with business leaders after the publication of Psycho-Cybernetics focused on this story. I was con ducting a seminar for the giant insurance corporation, Metropolitan How to Relax and Let Your Automatic Success Mechanism Work for You Life, and on a break, one of the top executives mentioned the story of the man who worried too much after his decisions to me, and he said something I believe to be profoundly liberating: "Dr. Maltz, the truth is that there are few inherently right deci sions or wrong decisions. Inst6ad, we make decisions, then make them right. That's what leadership is all about." The chairman of the world's largest ad agency, McCann Erickson, Nina DiSesa, was named by Fortune Magazine (in 2000) as one of the 50 most powerful women in American business. "You can always correct a poor decision, but if you do nothing, you can never get the time back," she says. PRESCRIPTION Strive for greater decisiveness and finality in small matters, to build the evi dence shown to your self-image that you are the kind of person who makes If a firm decision, then ceases to worry over it. in a restaurant with friends, do not be the person who agonizes over choices, even changes his mind after If ordering. Pick something and close the menu. shopping, pick and buy. MENTAL TRAINING EXERCISE Consider creating a useful little mental picture or mental movie to use, immediately after reaching a decision, whether an important business or personal decision, choosing the golf club to use, or picking a tie to wear with your tan sports jacket. In the 2000 Presidential elections, in a differ ent context, Vice-President AI Gore became so famous for overusing the word "lock box" that television comedy programs and imitators had weeks of fun with it. "Lock box" is a good visualization for this: As soon as you make a decision, see yourself taking all the information, concerns, and pros and cons you sifted through to make it in a big pile into a storage room, putting it alUnto a large box or container of some kind and locking it shut. Then see yourself taking a sheet of paper on which the decision is written, sealing it in an envelope, marking "Done" with today's date and time, then putting the envelope in the "Done" file cabinet drawer and locking it away as well. Finally, see yourself brushing your hands off like a man does after doing some kind of satisfying manual labor, turning out the light in the storage room, and walking out of the dark room into sunlight, like the ship sailing from dark into light in the painting given to me by Salvador Dali. After viewing this movie a few times, for the sake of speed, you can cut it up into stills or slides and view them quickly-click, click, click, click. 2. The secret of focusing only on the here and now. There is a need to consciously consider goals, evaluate progress; and construct plans, but such thinking needs to occur at appropriate times and places, set just for such purposes, The rest of the time, con sciously practice the habit of "taking no anxious thought for tomor row" by giving all your attention to the present moment. Your creative mechanism cannot function or work tomorrow-or even a minute from now. Only right now. It can only function in the present-today, the present moment. Make plans for tomorrow. But don't try to live in tomorrow or in the past. Creative living means responding and reacting to environment spontaneously. Your creative mechanism can respond appropriately and successfully to present environment only if you have your full attention upon present environment and give it information concerning what is happening now. Plan all you want to for the future. Prepare for it. But don't worry about how you will react tomorrow or even five minutes from now. Your creative mechanism will react appropriately in the now if you pay attention to what is happening now. It will do the same tomorrow. It cannot react successfully to what may happen, only to what is happening. 1 once dined with a president of a large corporation in a very pricey gourmet restaurant, He wolfed his dinner down quickly and still had a plate full of food. When 1 asked him about it he said, "I never taste food. I'm too busy thinking about other, more important things." Well, he might as well get his nutrients from a pill. Someday 1 imagine it may come to that. But there are two troubling things about Mr. Dynamo's approach: First, he is denying himself the great pleasure of a fine dining experience, of sipping the wine, tasting each morsel, relishing how perfectly prepared is the cut of meat, how crisp and fresh the tomato. One can assume he misses out on many other sensual enjoyments of life as well. Second, his preoccupation is a con ceit, not a" genuine display of superior commitment, executive discipline, entrepreneurial zeal, or time efficiency. People cannot function at their best if moving at the fastest possible speed aU the time, with out relief or recovery. It is a safe wager that he rarely is in the moment, fully focused and involved with only one thing or one person, and while that may impress others with his busy-ness, it will not lead to maximum utilization of his wisdom and capability. The following morning, based on my diagnosis, I called my broker and sold the shares of stock I held in the company captained by this fellow. You will have a far more enjoyable life and be a far more effective individual if you learn to mentally s-l-o-w yourself down enough to savor your expenences. MENTAL TRAINING EXERCISE After you have left a place, such as a restaurant or shop, stop and see how much of it you can recall and describe in copious, exacting detail. In order to sharpen your powers of observation for this challenge, you will auto matically slow yourself down and be more "there" (wherever you are). If you have read the accounts of the fictional (yet fact-based) detective Sherlock Holmes, you know that he demonstrated remarkable observatory powers, recalling and analyzing the minutest details. In one of these stories, the author, Arthur Conan Doyle, has the Dr. Watson character say to Holmes: "It seems obvious your faculty of observation and your peculiar facility for deduction are due to your own systematic training." Doyle knew that the ' person he modeled Holmes after, his pathology professor at Edinburgh University, was well-known for his extraordinary powers of observation and had taken great pains to train his mind to capture all the minute detail of a scene, an experience, or a person. 3. Try to do only one thing at a time. Another cause of confusion, as well as the resulting feelings of nervousness, hurry, and anxiety, is the absurd habit of trying to do many things at one time. The student studies and watches TV simul taneously. The businessperson, instead of concentrating on and only trying to "do" the one letter that he is presently dictating, is thinking in the back of his mind of all the things he should accomplish today, or perhaps this week, and unconsciously trying mentally to accomplish them all at once. The habit is particularly insidious because it is seldom recog nized for what it is. When we feel jittery, worried, or anxious in think ing of the great amount of work that lies before us, the jittery feelings are not caused by the work, but by our mental attitude, which is, "I ought to be able to do this all at once." We become nervous because we are trying to do the impossible, and thereby making futility and frustration inevitable. The truth is that we can only do one thing at a time. Realizing this, fully convincing ourselves of this simple and obvious truth, enables us to mentally stop trying to do the things that lie next and to concentrate all our awareness, all our responsiveness, on this one thing we are doing now. When we work with this attitude, we are relaxed, we are free from the feelings of hurry and anxiety, and we are able to concentrate and think at our best . . If you watch much football on television, you have seen receivers drop balls that pass right through their hands, and hear the commen tators explain that "he was running before he caught the ball" or "he must have heard footsteps." In other words, instead of being totally focused on catching and securing the ball, he was worrying about other players converging on him, where he would go once he had the ball, even prematurely moving his body away from the ball. There's a relatively new word for this in the occupational world-"multitasking" -and for most people, most of the time, it is an empty conceit. Be careful whom you emulate, the herd or the leader. Top performers stick with focus rather than multitasking. While many run-of-the-mill sales professionals talk with their clients on their cell . phones while driving through traffic or even walking down a busy, noisy street, you will not catch the top sales pro doing that; you will find that when she has to make such a call, she does so in a place and at a time where she can give it 1 00% of her attention. While many run-of-the-mill executives permit continuous interruptions by phone, intercom, or walk-ins while they are meeting with someone or review ing important information, the most successful executives I know tol erate no such chaos. The Lesson of the Hourglass Dr. James Gordon 9ilkey preached a sermon in 1944 called "Gaining Emotional Poise," which was reprinted in Reader's Digest and became a classic almost overnight. He had found, through many years of counseling, that one of the main causes of breakdown, worry, and all sorts of other personal problems was the bad mental habit of feeling that you should be doing many things now. Looking at the hourglass on his desk, he had an inspiration. Just as only one grain of sand could pass through the hourglass at a time, so could we only do one thing at a time. It is not the job, but the way we insist on thinking of the job that causes the · trouble. Most of us feel hurried and harried, said Dr. Gilkey, because we form a false mental picture of our duties, obligations, and responsibilities. There seem to be a dozen different things pressing in on us at any given moment; a dozen different things to do; a dozen different problems to solve; a dozen different strains to endure. No matter how hurried or harried our . existence may be, said Dr. Gilkey, this mental picture is entirely false. Even on the busiest day the crowded hours come to us one moment at a time; no matter how many problems, tasks, or strains we face, they always come to us in single file, which is . the only way they can come. To get a true mental picture, he suggested visualizing an hourglass, with the many grains of sand dropping one by one. This mental picture will bring emotional poise, just as the false mental picture will bring emotional unrest. Another similar mental device that I have found very helpful to my patients is telling them: Your success mechanism can heIp you do any jo.b, perform any task, solve any problem. Think of yourself as "feeding" jobs and problems to your success mechanism as a scientist "feeds" a prob.lem to an electronic brain. The "hopper" to your success mechanism can handle only one job at a time. Just as an electronic brain cannot give the right answer if three different problems are mixed up and fed in at the same time, neither can your own success mechanism. Ease off on the pressure. Stop trying to cram into the machinery more than one job at a time. PRESCRIPTION Purchase an hourglass and place it where you work most of the time, where it will catch your . eye often. Place a small placard on it or next to it, on which you have written "One Grain at a Time." 4. Sleep on it. If you have been wrestling with a problem all day without making any apparent progress, try dismissing it from your mind and putting off making a decision until you've had a chance to "sleep on it." Remember that your creative mechanism works best when there is not too much interference from your conscious "I." In sleep, the creative mechanism has an ideal opportunity to work independently of conscious interference, if you have previously started the wheels turning. Remember the fairy story about the Shoemaker and the Elves? The shoemaker found that if he cut out the leather, and laid out the patterns before retiring, little elves came and actually put the shoes together for him while he was sleeping. Many creative workers have used a very similar technique. Mrs. Thomas A. Edison has said that each evening her husband would go over in his mind those things which he hoped to accomplish the next day. Sometimes, he would make a list of the jobs he wanted to do and problems he hoped to solve. Edison's well-known "cat-naps" were far more than mere respites . from fatigue. Joseph Rossman, in the Psychology of Invention, says, "\Vhen stumped by something, he would stretch out in his Menlo workshop and, half-dozing, get an idea from his dream mind to help him around the difficulty." Henry Ward Beecher once preached every day for 18 months. His method? He kept a number of ideas "hatching" and each night before retiring would select an "incubating idea" and "stir it up" by thinking intensely about it. The next morning it would have fitted itself together for a sermon. . 5. Relax while you work. MENTAL 'TRAINING EXERCISE In Chapter Four you learned how to induce physical and mental relaxation while resting. Continue with the daily practice in relaxation, and you will become more and-more proficient. In the meantime, you can induce something of that relaxed feeling and the relaxed attitude, while going about your daily activities, if you will form the habit of mentally remembering the nice relaxed feeling that you induced. Stop occasionally during the day-it need only take a moment-and remember in detail the sensations of relax ation. Remember how your arms felt, your legs, back, neck, face. Sometimes forming a mental picture of yourself lying in bed or sitting relaxed and limp in an easy chair helps to recall the relaxed sensations. Mentally repeating to yourself several times, "I feel more and more relaxed" also helps. Practice this remembering faithfully several times each day. You will be surprised at how much it reduces fatigue and how much bettet you are able to handle situations. By relaxing and maintaining a relaxed attitude, you remove those excessive states of concern, tension, and anxiety, which interfere with the efficient operation of your creative mech anism. In time, your relaxed attitude will become a habit, and you will no longer need to consciously practice it. pg109

I then suggested that he memorize a saying of Epictetus, which has always been a favorite of mine: "Men are disturbed," said the sage, "not by the things that happen, but by their opinion of the things that happen." Happiness versus Unhappiness = Facts versus Opinions pg122

The essence of Psycho-Cybernetics is the accurate, calm, and ultimately automatic separation of fact from fiction, fact from opinion, actual circumstance from magnified obstacle, so that our actions and reactions are solidly based on truth, not our own or others' opinions. pg123

PRESCRIPTION Form the habit of reacting aggressively and positively toward threats and problems. Form the habit of keeping goal-oriented all the time, regardless of what happens. Do this by practicing a positive aggressive attitude, both in actual everyday situations and in your imagination. See yourself in your imagination taking positive, intelligent action toward solving a problem or reaching a goal. See yourself reacting to threats not by running away or evading them, but by meeting them, dealing with them, grappling with them in an aggressive and intelligent manner. "Most people are brave only in the dangers to which they accustom themselves, either in imagination or practice," said Bulwer-Lytton, the English novelist. Pg124

The word "habit" originally meant a garment or clothing. We still speak of riding habitS and habil iments. This gives us an insight into the true nature of habit. Our habits are literally garments worn by our perso.italities. They are not accidental or happenstance. We have them because they fit us. They are consistent with our self-image and our entire personality pattern. When we consciously and deliberately develop new and better habits, our self-image tends to outgrow the old habits and grow into the new pattern. pg131

MENTAL TRAINING EXERCISE Habitually, you put on either your right shoe first or your left shoe. Habitually, you tie your shoes by either passing the right-hand lace around the left-hand lace, or vice versa. Tomorrow morning determine which shoe you put on first and how you tie your shoes. Now, consciously decide that for the next thirty days you are going to form a new habit by putting on the other shoe first and tying your laces in a different way. Now, each morning as you decide to put on your shoes in a certain manner, let this simple act serve as a reminder to change other habitual ways of thinking, acting, and feeling throughout that one day. Say; to yourself as you tie your shoes, "I am beginning the day in a new and better way." Then consciously decide that throughout the day: 1. I will be as cheerful as possible. 2. I will act .a little more friendly toward other people. You Can Acquire the Habit of Happiness 133 3. I am going to be a little less critical and a little more tolerant of other people, their faults, failings, and mistakes. I will place the best possible interpretation on their actions. 4. Insofar as possible, I am going to act as if success were inevitable, and I already am the sort of personality I want to be. I will practice acting like and feeling like this new personality. . 5. I will not let my own opinion color facts in a pessimistic or negative way. 6. I will practice smiling at least three times during the day. 7. Regardless of what happens, I will react as calmly and as intelligently as possible. 8. I will ignore completely and close my mind to all those pessimistic and negative "facts" that I can do nothing to change. Simple? Yes. But each of these habitual ways of acting, feeling, and thinking has beneficial and constructive influence on your self-image. Act them out for thirty days. Experience them, and see if worry, guilt, hostility have . not been diminished and if confidence has not been increased. p133

Sense of direction Understanding Courage Charity (compassion) Esteem Self-confidence Self-acceptance pg136

PRESCRIPTION Earlier in this book we covered a number of ways to put your imagination to work, to come up with a new or more clearly defined target or targets for you focus on, and assign your Automatic Success Mechanism. This is a to good time to do so. Get yourself a goal worth working for. Better still, get yourself a Decide what you want out of a situation. Always have project~ something ahead of you t~ look forward to-.:.-to · work for and hope for. Look forward, not backward. Develop a "nostalgia for the future" instead of for the past. The nostalgia for the future can keep you youthful. Even your body doesn't function well when you stop being a goal striver and have nothing to look forward to. This is the reason that very often a person dies shortly after retirement. When you're not goal-striving, not looking for ward, you're not really living. In addition to your purely personal goals, have at least one impersonal goal or cause, which you can identify yourself with. Get interested in some project to help your fellow man, not out of a sense of duty, but because you want to. Pg137

PRESCRIPTION Look for and seek out true information concerning yourself, your problems, other people, or the situation, whether it is good news or bad news. Adopt the motto, "It doesn't matter who's right, but what's right." An automatic guidance system corrects its course from negative feedback data. It acknowledges errors in order to correct them and stay on course. So must you. Admit your mistakes and errors but don't cry over them. Correct them and go forward. In dealing with other people, try to see the situation from their point of view as well as your own. Pg139

PRESCRIPTION Be willing to make a few mistakes, to suffer a little pain to get what you want. Don't sell yourself short. "Most people," said General R. E. Chambers, once Chief of the Army's Psychiatry and Neurology Consultant Division, "don't know how brave they really are. In fact, many potential heroes, both men and women, live out their lives in self-doubt. If they only knew they had these deep resources, it would help give them the self reliance to meet most problems, even a big crisis." You've got the resources. But you never know you've got them until you act-and give them a chance to work for you. Pg141

PRESCRIPTION The prescription for charity is three-fold: (1) Try to develop a genuine appreciation for people by realizing the truth about them; they are children of God, unique personalities, creative beings. (2) Take the trouble to stop ~f and think the other person's feelings, viewpoints, desires, and needs. Think more of what the other fellow wants, and how he m~st feel. A friend of mine kids his wife by telling her, whenever she asks him, "Do you love me?" "Yes, whenever I stop and think about it;" There is a lot of truth in this. We cannot feel anything about other people unless we "stop and think" about them. (3) Act as if other pepple are important and treat them accordingly. Pg143

PREsCRIPTION Stop carrying around a mental picture of yourself as a person less capable than others, by making unfair apples-to-oranges comparisons. Celebrate your victories small or large, recognize and build on your strengths, and continually remind yourself that you are not your mistakes. The word "esteem" literally means to appreciate the worth of. Why do men stand in awe of the stars, the moon, the immensity of the sea, the beauty of a flower or a sunset, and at the same time downgrade themselves? Did not the same Creator make us? Is not the human being the most marvelous cre ation of all? This appreciation of your own worth is not egotism unless you assume that you made yourself and should take some of the credit. Do not downgrade the product merely because you haven't used it correctly. Don't blame the product for your own errors like the schoolboy who childis~ly said, "This typewriter can't spell." But the biggest secret of self-esteem is this: Begin to appreciate other peo ple more; show respect for human being merely because he or she is a any child of God and therefore a thing of value. Stop and think when you're dealing with people. You're dealing with unique, individual creations of the Creator of all. Practice treating other, people as if they had value, and, sur prisingly, your own self-esteem will go up. For real self-esteem is not derived from the great things you've done, the things you own, the mark you've made, but from an appreciation of yourself for what you are-a child of God. When you Come to this realization, however, you must necessarily conclude that all other people are to be appreciated for the same reason. Pg145

PRESCRIPTION Use errors and mistakes as a way to learning; then dismiss them from your mind. Deliberately remember and picture to yourself past successes. Everyone has succeeded sometime at something. Especially when begin ning a new task, call up the feelings you experienced in some past success, however small it might have been. Pg147

PRESCRIPTION Accept yourself as you are and start from there. Learn to emotionally tolerate imperfection yourself. It is necessary to intellectually recognize our shortcomings, but disastrous to hate ourselves because of them. Differentiate between your self and your behavior. You are not ruined or worthless because you made a mistake or got off course, anymore than a computer is worthless because it makes an error, or a violin because it sounds a sour note. Don't hate yourself because you're not perfect. You have lots of company in imperfection: No one else is perfect and those who try to pretend they are become imprisoned in misery. Pg150

MENTAL TRAINING EXERCISES Awareness, acknowledgment, and prompt reaction to a slumbering Automatic Failure Mechanism awakening and attempting to distract you with F·,A·I-L-U-R-E is important. Glance at Negatives, But Focus on Positives Automobiles come equipped with "negative indicators" placed directly in front of the driver, to tell you when the battery is not charging, when the engine is becoming too hot, when the oil pressure is becoming too low, etc. To ignore these negatives might ruin your car. However, there is no need to become unduly upset if a negative signal flashes. You merely stop at a service station or a garage, and take positive action to correct the problem. A negative signal does not mean the car is no good. All cars overheat at times. However, the driver of the automobile does not look at the control panel exclusively and continuously. To do so might be disastrous. She must focus her gaze through the windshield, look where she is going, and keep her pri mary attention on hergoal-where she wants to go. She merely glances at the negative indicators from time to time. When she does, she does not fix on them or dwell on them. She quickly focuses her sight ahead again and con centrates on the positive goal of where she wants to go. How to Use Negative Thinking We should adopt a similar attitude about our own negative symptoms. I am a firm believer in "negative thinking" when used correctly. We need to be aware of negatives so that we can steer clear of them. A golfer needs to know where the bunkers and sand traps are, but he doesn't think continu ously about the he doesn't want to go. His mind glances at bunker~where the bunker, but dwells on the green. Used correctly, this type of negative thinking can work for us to lead us to success, if: 1. We are sensitive to the negative to the extent that it can alert us to danger. 2. We recognize the negative for what it undesirable, some is~something thing we don't want, something that does not bring genuine happiness. 3. We take immediate corrective action and substitute an opposite positive factor from the Success Mechanism. Such practice will in time create a sort of automatic reflex that becomes a part of our inner guidance sys tem. Negative feedback will act as a sort of automatic control, to help us steer clear of failure and guide us to success. Take , a few.minutes toward the conclusion of each day, or midday and at day's end if you can. Find a quiet place, close your eyes, enter your imagi nation so as to revisit the day's events and your behavior. Congratulate yourself on all your Automatic Success Mechanism reflective actions but take note of Automatic Failure Mechanism warning lights quietly flashing on the dashboard! Tell yourself that Automatic Failure Mechanism behav ior is "not you" and is not to be tolerated. If corrections can be made for any that occurred, by all means make them. Be the bigger person by calling or going to see anyone who may deserve your apology, your gratitude, or your congratulations. Analyze your thoughts and actions of the day in terms of contributing toward achieving your goals, even measure your ratio of Automatic Success Mechanism-versus Automatic Failure Mechanism-driven activity; then resolve to improve that ratio. Do not fear self-analysis. Stick with self-coaching, avoid self-loathing. Conclude your private critique of the day by identifying positives you can build on and the recommitment to your goals and ideals. Pg177

MENTAL TRAINING EXERCISES By far, the most challenging and rewarding exercises of all suggested in this book are these involving forgiveness. Choose one or two persons for whom you've long carried resentment over past slights and find a way in your heart to truly, completely forgive them, no strings attached, and ultimately do so via your actions toward them. Also, identify some past error or situation you have been carrying a grudge against yourself for, and forgive yourself, and finally, once and for all, banish this from your thoughts. This may very well require considerable work in your imagination factory. Invest 30 minutes a day for 21 consecutive days on quiet reflection, working on this with yourself, in solitude. Pg201

MENTAL TRAINING EXERCISES 1. Don't wonder in advance what you are going to say. Just open your mouth and say it. Improvise as you go along. Gesus advises us to give no thought as to what we would say if delivered up to councils, but that the spirit would advise us what to say at the time.) 2. Don't plan (take no thought for tomorrow). Don't think before you act. Act and correct your actions as you go along. This advice may seem radical, yet it is actually the way all servo-mechanisms must work A torpedo does not "think out" all its errors in advance, and attempt to correct them in advance. It must act first-start moving toward the goal-then correct any errors that may occur. 3. Stop criticizing yourself. The inhibited person indulges in self-critical analysis continually. After each action, however simple, she says to herself, "I wonder if 1 should have done that." After she has gotten up courage enough to say something, she immediately says to herself, "Maybe I shouldn't have said that. Maybe the other person will take it the wrong way." Stop tearing yourself apart. Useful and beneficial feedback works subconsciously, spontaneously, and automatically. Conscious self-criticism, self-analysis, and introspection is good and useful if undert~ken perhaps once a year. But the continual, moment-bymoment, day-by-day, sort of second-guessing yourself-or playing Monday-morning quarterback to your past actions,-is defeating. Watch for this self-criticism; pull yourself up short and stop it. 4. Make a habit of speaking louder than usual. Inhibited people are notoriously soft-spoken. Raise the volume of your voice .. You don't have to shout at people and use an angry tone; just consciously practice speaking louder than usual. Loud talk in itself is a powerful disinhibitor. Experiments have shown that you can exert up to 15% more strength and lift more weight, if you shout, grunt, or gr~an loudly as you make the lift. The explanation of this is that loud shouting disinhibits and allows you to exert all your strength, including what has been blocked off and tied up by inhibition. 5. Let people know when you like them. The inhibited personality is as afraid of expressing "good" feelings as "bad" ones. If he expresses love, he is afraid it will be judged sentimentality; if he expresses friendship, he is afraid it will be considered fawning or apple polishing. If he I:;ompliments someone, he is afraid the other will think him superficial or suspect an ulterior motive. Totally ignore all these negative feedback signals. Compliment at least three people every day. If you like what people are. doing, or wearing, or saying, let them know it. Be direct. "I like that, Joe." "Mary, that is 'a very pretty hat." "Jim, that proves to me you are a smart person." And jf you're married, just say to your spouse, "I love you" at least twice a day. Pg122

PRESCRIPTION Stop thinking in terms of fear, anxiety or nervousness, and think only in terms of excitement. It is fine to be a bit excited before you step into the spotlight in whatever you do. Pg254

MENTAL ThAINING EXERCISE Creating 20/20 hindsight as foresight is yet another immensely valuable and creative use of your imagination. Stop and recall a few situations from your past that seemed of dire, earth-shaking consequence at the time but have proven inconsequential over time. Then project yourself three, four, or five years into the future, looking back on today's event, and consider how you ' will feel about it and how much impact it will have had on your life. Pg260

MENTAL TRAl:NING EXERCISE Change negative self-talk, the voice of the Automatic Failure Mechanism to a positive affirmation: "I am the kind of person who ... " Repeat the affirmation as a personal mantra until it becomes an automatic response to any sliver of self-doubt that slips through the door! Here are a few examples: I am the kind of person who ... effectively pJans the day ahead, sets goals, and accomplishes them. Listens carefully, then communicates confidently and persuasively. Takes the initiative in solving problems and suggesting ideas. Stays calm under pressure. Prefers fresh 'fruit and other healthy foods to "junk food." Pg279

(ɔꞅ̟c͛o c̟ɒ̇̈ıı̇ꞇıcꭇ)

: Psyċo-Cybeꞅneꞇıcs :: Sɑıꝺ̇ceo-Sꞇıùıꞅıċ :: ɔꞅᴉͼo-cᴉσeꞃνeꞇıcς :: ꞅ·ıꝺ͛ċo-ꞅꞇıɩ̣̀ıɹ̈ıc͛ :: I'm ſuckınᵹ ıncꞅeꝺıble::

Nothing splendid has ever been achieved except by those who dared believe that something inside them was superior to circumstance. -Bruce Barton

"Once ꝺıſſıculꞇ, now eɑsy::"

Wıllpoweꞅ ıs noꞇ ꞇ̇e ɑnsweꞅ:: Selſ-ımɑʞe mɑnɑʞmenꞇ ıs::

Ꝺeep ꝺown I wɑnꞇ *moꞅe* lıſe:: We ɑll ꝺo:: Ꝺeeɔ ꝺoшν ı шɑνꞇ *moꞃe* lıƭe:: We ɑll ꝺo:: Ꝺ̇̇ɔ ꝺoƿıı ı ƿ·ııꞇ *ɩ̤ö̇* lı̷̇ɾ:: Ƿ̇ ·ll ꝺo::

book; Pꞅescoꞇ Leckey, Selſ Consısꞇency, A Ꞇ̇eoꞅy oſ Peꞅsonɑlıꞇy::

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