Peace on Earth: Cosmic Balance and World Peace
By Frederic Lamond
Until 3,000 years ago, all religions were pantheistic and polytheistic as Hinduism, Taoism and Shinto still are. They tolerated the religions of other tribes and cultures, recognising in their worship the same divine energies as their own, albeit with different names.
Why then did patriarchal, monotheistic religions arise in the Middle East 3,000 years ago, and spread in their Christian forms throughout Europe and then on to the European colonised overseas territories during the last 1,500 years? Why did these monotheistic religions fight so fiercely to eradicate nature worship in the lands they controlled? Why did Christianity promote a dualistic antagonism between the spirit and the flesh, with only the former conceived as being in the "image of God"?
I was pondering these questions shortly after my initiation in February 1957 into what is now called Wicca: a pantheist mystery cult that revives the worship of the Neolithic earth mother goddess and her consort, the horned god of fertility. Shortly afterwards the answer came to me in a sudden flash of insight. The evolution of the universe and especially of life on earth has been the product of a dialectical antagonism between two forces of nature:
One is the highly conservative power of love, which seeks to maintain all living species and ecological equilibria just as they are at any given point in time, and is embedded in the genetically inherited instincts of all living species, including humanity. This power is generally represented by one or more goddesses and fertility gods in those religions that anthropomorphise cosmic and earthly energies.
The other, a force of destructive creation, which seeks forever to upset existing equilibria in order to create new and more highly evolved forms and species. In a universe in which the total amount of energy is constant and can neither be added to nor reduced - although it can be converted to matter and back again - neither God nor man can create anything without destroying something else. This is the power the Jews call Jehovah, the Christians - God the father, Muslims - Allah and Hindus - Shiva.
Power is neither evil nor undesirable. If only the force of love existed, the universe would never have moved from its original state of undifferentiated nothingness. But if only the force of destructive creation existed, the whole universe would be like the Sun: an endless series of thermonuclear explosions creating new elements, but which last only a few microseconds before dissolving again in the fiery furnace.
We owe the process of evolution on earth - in which continents, mountains, plants and animals have appeared and live actively long enough to experience their own life, but which can also slowly evolve in succeeding generations - to the ongoing delicate balance between these two antagonistic cosmic forces.
Most of the supporters of a return to ancestral traditions and religions do so in order to protect their cultural identity against the spread of globalisation and consumerist values, but I feel this is not enough to promote world peace and protect the planet'secology. There are many patriarchal aggressive gods and values in many traditional religions, and these should be curbed as much as those of patriarchal Christianity or Islam.
We should build instead on the worship of our earth and love goddesses, who will help develop our ecological intuition: not exclusively but in a balanced manner with our gods. As a Hindu proverb says: "The Gods treat as beasts of burden men who do not consider themselves their equals!"
(The writer lives in Austria)
