From the earliest human cultures, the mysterious magic of creation
was thought to reside in the blood women gave forth in apparent
harmony with the moon, and which was sometimes retained in the
womb to "coagulate" into a baby. Men regarded this blood with holy
dread, as the life-essence, inexplicably shed without pain, wholly
foreign to male experience.
Most words for menstruation also meant such things as incomprehensible,
supernatural, sacred, spirit, deity. Like the Latin sacer, old
Arabian words for "pure" and "impure" both applied to menstrual
blood and to that only. The Maoris stated explicitly that human souls
are made of menstrual blood, which when retained in the womb
"assumes human form and grows into a man." 1 Africans said
menstrual blood is "congealed to fashion a man." 2 Aristotle said the
same: human life is made of a "coagulum" of menstrual blood. Pliny
called menstrual blood "the material substance of generation," capable
of forming "a curd, which afterwards in process of time quickeneth
and groweth to the form of a body." This primitive notion of the
prenatal function of menstrual blood was still taught in European
medical schools up to the 18th century.3
Basic ideas about menstrual blood came from the Hindu theory
that as the Great Mother creates, her substance becomes thickened
and forms a curd or clot; solid matter is produced as a "crust." 4 This was
the way she gave birth to the cosmos, and women employ the same
method on a smaller scale. According to Daustenius, "The fruit in the
womb is nourished only by the mother's blood .... [T]he menstruum
does not fail the fruit for nourishment, till it at the proper time comes to
the light of day." 5
Indians of South America said all mankind was made of "moon
blood" in the beginning.6 The same idea prevailed in ancient
Mesopotamia, where the Great Goddess Ninhursag made mankind out
of clay and infused it with her "blood of life." Under her alternate
names ofMammetun or Aruru the Great, the Potter, she taught
women to form clay dolls and smear them with menstrual blood as a
conception-charm, a piece of magic that underlay the name of Adam,
from the feminine adamah, meaning "bloody clay," though scholars
more delicately translate it "red earth." 7
The Bible's story of Adam was lifted from an older female-oriented
creation myth recounting the creation of man from clay and moonblood.
So was the Koran's creation story, which said Allah "made man
out of flowing blood"; but in pre-Islamic Arabia, Allah was the
Goddess of creation, Al-Lat.8 The Romans also had traces of the
original creation myth. Plutarch said man was made of earth, but the
power that made a human body grow was the moon, source of
menstrual blood.9
The lives of the very gods were dependent on the miraculous
power of menstrual blood. In Greece it was euphemistically called
the "supernatural red wine" given to the gods by Mother Hera in her
virgin form, as Hebe.10 The root myths of Hinduism reveal the
nature of this "wine." At one time all gods recognized the supremacy of
the Great Mother, manifesting herself as the spirit of creation (KaliMaya).
She "invited them to bathe in the bloody flow of her womb and
to drink of it; and the gods, in holy communion, drank of the fountain
oflife-(hic est sanguis meus!)-and bathed in it, and rose blessed to
the heavens." 11 To this day, cloths allegedly stained with the Goddess's
menstrual blood are greatly prized as healing charms. 12
WR. Smith reported that the value of the gum acacia as an amulet "is
connected with the idea that it is a clot of menstrous blood, i.e., that
the tree is a woman." For religious ceremonies, Australian aborigines
painted their sacred stones, churingas, and themselves with red ochre,
declaring that it was really women's menstrual blood.B
The esoteric secret of the gods was that their mystical powers of
longevity, authority, and creativity came from the same female
essence. The Norse god Thor for example reached the magic land of
enlightenment and eternal life by bathing in a river filled with the
menstrual blood of "giantesses" -that is, of the Primal Matriarchs,
"Powerful Ones" who governed the elder gods before Odin brought
his "Asians" (Aesir) out of the east. 14 Odin acquired supremacy by
stealing and drinking the "wise blood" from the triple cauldron in the
womb of Mother-Earth, the same Triple Goddess known as Kali-Maya
in southeast Asia.
Odin's theft of menstrual magic paralleled that oflndra, who stole
the ambrosia of immortality in the same way. Indian myth called the
sacred fluid Soma-in Greek, "the body," because the word's eastern
root referred to a mystical substance of the body. Soma was the object
of so much holy dread that its interpretations were many.
Soma was produced by the churning of the primal sea (Kali' s
"ocean of blood" or sometimes "sea of milk"). Or Soma was secreted
by the Moon-Cow. Or Soma was carried in the "white pot" (belly) of
Mohini the Enchantress. Or the source of Soma was the moon. Or
from Soma all the gods were born. Or Soma was a secret name of the
Mother Goddess and the active part of the "soul of the world." 15
Soma was drunk by priests at sacrificial ceremonies and mixed with
milk as a healing charm; therefore it was not milk. Soma was
especially revered on somvara, Monday, the day of the moon. In an
ancient ceremony called Soma-vati, women of Maharashtra circumambulated
the sacred female-symbolic fig tree whenever the new moon
fell on a Monday.l6
power of menstrual blood. In Greece it was euphemistically called
the "supernatural red wine" given to the gods by Mother Hera in her
virgin form, as Hebe.10 The root myths of Hinduism reveal the
nature of this "wine." At one time all gods recognized the supremacy of
the Great Mother, manifesting herself as the spirit of creation (KaliMaya).
She "invited them to bathe in the bloody flow of her womb and
to drink of it; and the gods, in holy communion, drank of the fountain
oflife-(hic est sanguis meus!)-and bathed in it, and rose blessed to
the heavens." 11 To this day, cloths allegedly stained with the Goddess's
menstrual blood are greatly prized as healing charms. 12
WR. Smith reported that the value of the gum acacia as an amulet "is
connected with the idea that it is a clot of menstrous blood, i.e., that
the tree is a woman." For religious ceremonies, Australian aborigines
painted their sacred stones, churingas, and themselves with red ochre,
declaring that it was really women's menstrual blood.B
The esoteric secret of the gods was that their mystical powers of
longevity, authority, and creativity came from the same female
essence. The Norse god Thor for example reached the magic land of
enlightenment and eternal life by bathing in a river filled with the
menstrual blood of "giantesses" -that is, of the Primal Matriarchs,
"Powerful Ones" who governed the elder gods before Odin brought
his "Asians" (Aesir) out of the east. 14 Odin acquired supremacy by
stealing and drinking the "wise blood" from the triple cauldron in the
womb of Mother-Earth, the same Triple Goddess known as Kali-Maya
in southeast Asia.
Odin's theft of menstrual magic paralleled that oflndra, who stole
the ambrosia of immortality in the same way. Indian myth called the
sacred fluid Soma-in Greek, "the body," because the word's eastern
root referred to a mystical substance of the body. Soma was the object
of so much holy dread that its interpretations were many.
Soma was produced by the churning of the primal sea (Kali' s
"ocean of blood" or sometimes "sea of milk"). Or Soma was secreted
by the Moon-Cow. Or Soma was carried in the "white pot" (belly) of
Mohini the Enchantress. Or the source of Soma was the moon. Or
from Soma all the gods were born. Or Soma was a secret name of the
Mother Goddess and the active part of the "soul of the world." 15
Soma was drunk by priests at sacrificial ceremonies and mixed with
milk as a healing charm; therefore it was not milk. Soma was
especially revered on somvara, Monday, the day of the moon. In an
ancient ceremony called Soma-vati, women of Maharashtra circumambulated
the sacred female-symbolic fig tree whenever the new moon
fell on a Monday.l6
Some myths claimed the Goddess under her name of Lakshmi,
"Fortune" or "Sovereignty," gave Soma to lndra to make him king
of the gods. His wisdom, power, and curiously feminine capacity for
pregnancy, came from Lakshmi's mystic drink, "of which none tastes
who dwells on earth." 17 On drinking it straight from the Goddess, lndra
became like her, the Mount of Paradise with its four rivers, "manyhued"
like the Goddess's rainbow veils, rich in cattle and fruiting
vegetation.18 The Goddess's blood became his wisdom. Similarly,
Greeks believed the wisdom of man or god was centered in his blood,
the soul-stuff given by his mother. 19
Egyptian pharaohs became divine by ingesting "the blood of Isis,"
a soma-like ambrosia called sa.20 Its hieroglyphic sign was the same as
the sign of the vulva, a yonic loop like the one on the ankh or Cross of
Life.21 Painted red, this loop signified the female genital and the Gate
of Heaven. 22 Amulets buried with the dead specifically prayed Isis to
deify the deceased with her magic blood. 23 A special amulet called
the Tjet represented Isis's vulva and was formed of red substance -
jasper, carnelian, red porcelain, red glass, or red wood. This amulet
was said to carry the redeeming power of the blood of Isis. 24
The same elixir of immortality received the name of am rita in
Persia. Sometimes it was called the milk of a mother Goddess,
sometimes a fermented drink, sometimes sacred blood. Always it was
associated with the moon. "Dew and rain becoming vegetable sap,
sap becoming the milk of the cow, and the milk then becoming
converted into blood:-Amrita, water, sap, milk, and blood represent
but differing states of the one elixir. The vessel or cup of this immortal
fluid is the moon." 25
Celtic kings became gods by drinking the "red mead" dispensed by
the Fairy Queen, Mab, whose name was formerly Medhbh or
"mead." 26 Thus she gave a drink of herself, like Lakshmi. A Celtic
name of this fluid was dergflaith, meaning either "red ale" or "red
sovereignty." In Celtic Britain, to be stained with red meant to be
chosen by the Goddess as a king.27 Celtic ruadh meant both "red"
and "royal." 28
The same blood color implied apotheosis after death. The pagan
paradise or Fairyland was at the uterine center of the earth, site of the
magic Fountain of Life. An old manuscript in the British Museum said
the dying-and-resurrected Phoenix lives there forever. The central
Holy Mountain or mons veneris contains both male and female symbols:
the Tree of Life and the Fountain of Eternal Youth, the latter
obviously menstrual, as it was said to overflow once every lunar
month.29
Medieval churchmen insisted that the communion wine drunk by
witches was menstrual blood, and they may have been right. The
famous wizard Thomas Rhymer joined a witch cult under the tutelage
of the Fairy Queen, who told him she had "a bottle of claret wine ...
here in my lap," and invited him to lay his head in her lap.3° Claret
was the traditional drink of kings and also a synonym for blood; its name
meant literally "enlightenment." There was a saying, "The man in
the moon drinks claret," connected with the idea that the wine represented
lunar blood.3I
"Fortune" or "Sovereignty," gave Soma to lndra to make him king
of the gods. His wisdom, power, and curiously feminine capacity for
pregnancy, came from Lakshmi's mystic drink, "of which none tastes
who dwells on earth." 17 On drinking it straight from the Goddess, lndra
became like her, the Mount of Paradise with its four rivers, "manyhued"
like the Goddess's rainbow veils, rich in cattle and fruiting
vegetation.18 The Goddess's blood became his wisdom. Similarly,
Greeks believed the wisdom of man or god was centered in his blood,
the soul-stuff given by his mother. 19
Egyptian pharaohs became divine by ingesting "the blood of Isis,"
a soma-like ambrosia called sa.20 Its hieroglyphic sign was the same as
the sign of the vulva, a yonic loop like the one on the ankh or Cross of
Life.21 Painted red, this loop signified the female genital and the Gate
of Heaven. 22 Amulets buried with the dead specifically prayed Isis to
deify the deceased with her magic blood. 23 A special amulet called
the Tjet represented Isis's vulva and was formed of red substance -
jasper, carnelian, red porcelain, red glass, or red wood. This amulet
was said to carry the redeeming power of the blood of Isis. 24
The same elixir of immortality received the name of am rita in
Persia. Sometimes it was called the milk of a mother Goddess,
sometimes a fermented drink, sometimes sacred blood. Always it was
associated with the moon. "Dew and rain becoming vegetable sap,
sap becoming the milk of the cow, and the milk then becoming
converted into blood:-Amrita, water, sap, milk, and blood represent
but differing states of the one elixir. The vessel or cup of this immortal
fluid is the moon." 25
Celtic kings became gods by drinking the "red mead" dispensed by
the Fairy Queen, Mab, whose name was formerly Medhbh or
"mead." 26 Thus she gave a drink of herself, like Lakshmi. A Celtic
name of this fluid was dergflaith, meaning either "red ale" or "red
sovereignty." In Celtic Britain, to be stained with red meant to be
chosen by the Goddess as a king.27 Celtic ruadh meant both "red"
and "royal." 28
The same blood color implied apotheosis after death. The pagan
paradise or Fairyland was at the uterine center of the earth, site of the
magic Fountain of Life. An old manuscript in the British Museum said
the dying-and-resurrected Phoenix lives there forever. The central
Holy Mountain or mons veneris contains both male and female symbols:
the Tree of Life and the Fountain of Eternal Youth, the latter
obviously menstrual, as it was said to overflow once every lunar
month.29
Medieval churchmen insisted that the communion wine drunk by
witches was menstrual blood, and they may have been right. The
famous wizard Thomas Rhymer joined a witch cult under the tutelage
of the Fairy Queen, who told him she had "a bottle of claret wine ...
here in my lap," and invited him to lay his head in her lap.3° Claret
was the traditional drink of kings and also a synonym for blood; its name
meant literally "enlightenment." There was a saying, "The man in
the moon drinks claret," connected with the idea that the wine represented
lunar blood.3I
Medieval romance and the courtly-love movement, later related to
witch cults, were strongly influenced by the Tantric tradition, in
which menstrual blood was indeed the wine of poets and sages. It is still
specified in the Left Hand Rite ofTantra that the priestess impersonating
the Goddess must be menstruating, and after contact with her a
man may perform rites that will make him "a great poet, a Lord of
the World" who travels on elephant-back like a rajah. 32
In ancient societies both east and west, menstrual blood carried the
spirit of sovereign authority because it was the medium of transmission
of the life of clan or tribe. Among the Ashanti, girl children are still
more prized than boys because a girl is the carrier of "blood"
(mogya). 33 The concept is also clearly defined in India, where menstrual
blood is known as the Kula flower or Kula nectar, which has an
intimate connection with the life of the family. When a girl first
menstruates, she is said to have "borne the Flower." 34 The corresponding
English word flower has the significant literal meaning of
"that which flows."
The British Goddess of flowers was Blodeuwedd, a form of the
Triple Goddess associated with sacrifices of ancient kings. Welsh
legend said her whole body was made of flowers-as any body was,
according to the ancient theory of body formation from the blood
"flower." Her name suggests the Blood Wedding, and myth made her
the spouse of several murdered heroes, recalling the old idea that the
Goddess's divine blood had to be periodically refreshed by human
sacrifice. 35
The Bible also calls menstrual blood the flower (Leviticus
15:24), precursor of the "fruit" of the womb (a child). As any flower
mysteriously contained its future fruit, so uterine blood was the
moon-flower supposed to contain the soul of future generations. This
was a central idea in the matrilineal concept of the clan. 36
The Chinese religion of Tao, "the Way," taught Tantric doctrines
later supplanted by patriarchal-ascetic Confucianism. Taoists said a
man could become immortal (or at least long-lived) by absorbing
menstrual blood, called red yin juice, from a woman's Mysterious
Gateway, otherwise known as the Grotto of the White Tiger, symbol of
life-giving female energy. Chinese sages called this red juice the
essence of Mother Earth, the yin principle that gives life to all things.
They claimed the Yellow Emperor became a god by absorbing the
yin juice of twelve hundred women.40
A Chinese myth said the Moon-goddess Chang-O, who controlled
menstruation, was offended by male jealousy of her powers. She left
her husband, who quarreled with her because she had all the elixir of
immortality, and he had none, and was resentful. She turned her back
on him and went to live in the moon forever, in much the same way
that Lilith left Adam to live by herself at the "Red Sea." Chang-O
forbade men to attend Chinese moon festivals, which were afterward
celebrated by women only, at the full moon of the autumnal
equinox.41
witch cults, were strongly influenced by the Tantric tradition, in
which menstrual blood was indeed the wine of poets and sages. It is still
specified in the Left Hand Rite ofTantra that the priestess impersonating
the Goddess must be menstruating, and after contact with her a
man may perform rites that will make him "a great poet, a Lord of
the World" who travels on elephant-back like a rajah. 32
In ancient societies both east and west, menstrual blood carried the
spirit of sovereign authority because it was the medium of transmission
of the life of clan or tribe. Among the Ashanti, girl children are still
more prized than boys because a girl is the carrier of "blood"
(mogya). 33 The concept is also clearly defined in India, where menstrual
blood is known as the Kula flower or Kula nectar, which has an
intimate connection with the life of the family. When a girl first
menstruates, she is said to have "borne the Flower." 34 The corresponding
English word flower has the significant literal meaning of
"that which flows."
The British Goddess of flowers was Blodeuwedd, a form of the
Triple Goddess associated with sacrifices of ancient kings. Welsh
legend said her whole body was made of flowers-as any body was,
according to the ancient theory of body formation from the blood
"flower." Her name suggests the Blood Wedding, and myth made her
the spouse of several murdered heroes, recalling the old idea that the
Goddess's divine blood had to be periodically refreshed by human
sacrifice. 35
The Bible also calls menstrual blood the flower (Leviticus
15:24), precursor of the "fruit" of the womb (a child). As any flower
mysteriously contained its future fruit, so uterine blood was the
moon-flower supposed to contain the soul of future generations. This
was a central idea in the matrilineal concept of the clan. 36
The Chinese religion of Tao, "the Way," taught Tantric doctrines
later supplanted by patriarchal-ascetic Confucianism. Taoists said a
man could become immortal (or at least long-lived) by absorbing
menstrual blood, called red yin juice, from a woman's Mysterious
Gateway, otherwise known as the Grotto of the White Tiger, symbol of
life-giving female energy. Chinese sages called this red juice the
essence of Mother Earth, the yin principle that gives life to all things.
They claimed the Yellow Emperor became a god by absorbing the
yin juice of twelve hundred women.40
A Chinese myth said the Moon-goddess Chang-O, who controlled
menstruation, was offended by male jealousy of her powers. She left
her husband, who quarreled with her because she had all the elixir of
immortality, and he had none, and was resentful. She turned her back
on him and went to live in the moon forever, in much the same way
that Lilith left Adam to live by herself at the "Red Sea." Chang-O
forbade men to attend Chinese moon festivals, which were afterward
celebrated by women only, at the full moon of the autumnal
equinox.41
Taoist China considered red a sacred color associated with women,
blood, sexual potency, and creative power. White was the color of
men, semen, negative influences, passivity, and death.42 This was the
basic Tantric idea of male and female essences: the male principle
was seen as "passive" and "quiescent"; the female principle as "active"
and "creative," the reverse oflater patriarchal views.43
Female blood color alone was often considered a potent magic
charm. The Maori rendered anything sacred by coloring it red,
and calling the red color menstrual blood. 44 Andaman Islanders thought
blood-red paint a powerful medicine, and painted sick people red all
over in an effort to cure them.45 Hottentots addressed their Mother
Goddess as one "who has painted thy body red"; she was divine
because she never dropped or wasted menstrual blood.46 Some African
tribes believed that menstrual blood alone, kept in a covered pot for
nine months, had the power to turn itself into a baby.47
Easter eggs, classic womb-symbols of the Goddess Eostre, were
traditionally colored red and laid on graves to strengthen the dead.
This habit, common in Greece and southern Russia, might be traced all
the way back to Paleolithic graves and funeral furnishings reddened
with ochre, for a closer resemblance to the Earth Mother's womb from
which the dead could be "born again." Ancient tombs everywhere
have shown the bones of the dead covered with red ochre. Sometimes
everything in the tomb, including the walls, had the red color.
J.D. Evans described a well tomb on Malta filled with reddened bones,
which struck fear into the workmen who insisted the bones were
covered with "fresh blood."48
A born-again ceremony from Australia showed that the Aborigines
linked rebirth with the blood of the womb. The chant performed at
Ankota, the "vulva of the earth," emphasized the redness surrounding
the worshipper: "A straight track is gaping open before me. An
underground hollow is gaping before me. A cavernous pathway is
gaping before me. An underground pathway is gaping before me.
Red I am like the heart of a flame of fire. Red, too, is the hollow in
which I am resting."49 Images like these help explain why some of
the oldest images of the Goddess, like Kurukulla in the east and her
counterpart Cybele in the west, were associated with both caverns
and redness. 5°
Greek mystics were "born again" out of the river Styx, otherwise
known as Alpha, "the Beginning." This river wound seven times
through the earth's interior and emerged at a yonic shrine near the city
of Clitor (Greek kleitoris) sacred to the Great Mother. 51 Styx was the
blood-stream from the earth's vagina; its waters were credited with the
same dread powers as menstrual blood. Olympian gods swore their
absolutely binding oaths by the waters of Styx, as men on earth swore by
the blood of their mothers. Symbolic death and rebirth were linked
with baptism in the waters of Styx, as in many other sacred rivers the
world over. Jesus himself was baptized in Palestine's version of the
Styx, the river Jordan. When a man bathed seven times in this river,
"his flesh came again like unto the flesh of a little child" (2 Kings
5: 14). In Greek tradition the journey to the land of death meant
crossing the Styx; in Judeo-Christian tradition it was crossing the
Jordan. This was the same "river of blood" crossed by Thomas Rhymer
on his way to Fairyland.
blood, sexual potency, and creative power. White was the color of
men, semen, negative influences, passivity, and death.42 This was the
basic Tantric idea of male and female essences: the male principle
was seen as "passive" and "quiescent"; the female principle as "active"
and "creative," the reverse oflater patriarchal views.43
Female blood color alone was often considered a potent magic
charm. The Maori rendered anything sacred by coloring it red,
and calling the red color menstrual blood. 44 Andaman Islanders thought
blood-red paint a powerful medicine, and painted sick people red all
over in an effort to cure them.45 Hottentots addressed their Mother
Goddess as one "who has painted thy body red"; she was divine
because she never dropped or wasted menstrual blood.46 Some African
tribes believed that menstrual blood alone, kept in a covered pot for
nine months, had the power to turn itself into a baby.47
Easter eggs, classic womb-symbols of the Goddess Eostre, were
traditionally colored red and laid on graves to strengthen the dead.
This habit, common in Greece and southern Russia, might be traced all
the way back to Paleolithic graves and funeral furnishings reddened
with ochre, for a closer resemblance to the Earth Mother's womb from
which the dead could be "born again." Ancient tombs everywhere
have shown the bones of the dead covered with red ochre. Sometimes
everything in the tomb, including the walls, had the red color.
J.D. Evans described a well tomb on Malta filled with reddened bones,
which struck fear into the workmen who insisted the bones were
covered with "fresh blood."48
A born-again ceremony from Australia showed that the Aborigines
linked rebirth with the blood of the womb. The chant performed at
Ankota, the "vulva of the earth," emphasized the redness surrounding
the worshipper: "A straight track is gaping open before me. An
underground hollow is gaping before me. A cavernous pathway is
gaping before me. An underground pathway is gaping before me.
Red I am like the heart of a flame of fire. Red, too, is the hollow in
which I am resting."49 Images like these help explain why some of
the oldest images of the Goddess, like Kurukulla in the east and her
counterpart Cybele in the west, were associated with both caverns
and redness. 5°
Greek mystics were "born again" out of the river Styx, otherwise
known as Alpha, "the Beginning." This river wound seven times
through the earth's interior and emerged at a yonic shrine near the city
of Clitor (Greek kleitoris) sacred to the Great Mother. 51 Styx was the
blood-stream from the earth's vagina; its waters were credited with the
same dread powers as menstrual blood. Olympian gods swore their
absolutely binding oaths by the waters of Styx, as men on earth swore by
the blood of their mothers. Symbolic death and rebirth were linked
with baptism in the waters of Styx, as in many other sacred rivers the
world over. Jesus himself was baptized in Palestine's version of the
Styx, the river Jordan. When a man bathed seven times in this river,
"his flesh came again like unto the flesh of a little child" (2 Kings
5: 14). In Greek tradition the journey to the land of death meant
crossing the Styx; in Judeo-Christian tradition it was crossing the
Jordan. This was the same "river of blood" crossed by Thomas Rhymer
on his way to Fairyland.
Tantric worship of menstrual blood penetrated the Greco-Roman
world before the Christian era and was well established in the Gnostic
period. This worship provided the agape-"love-feast" or "spiritual
marriage" -practiced by Gnostic Christians like the Ophites. Another
name for the agape was synesaktism, "the Way of Shaktism,"
meaning Tantric yoni-worship. 52 Synesaktism was declared a heresy
before the 7th century A.o. 53 Subsequently the "love-feast" disappeared,
and women were forbidden direct participation in Christian worship,
according to St Paul's rule (l Timothy 2:11-12).
Epiphanius described the agape practiced by Ophite Christians,
while making it clear that these heretical sexual activities filled him
with horror:
Their women they share in common; and when anyone arrives who
might be alien to their doctrine, the men and women have a sign by
which they make themselves known to each other. When they extend
their hands, apparently in greeting, they tickle the other's palm in a
certain way and so discover whether the new arrival belongs to their cult .
. . . Husbands separate from their wives, and a man will say to his own
spouse, "Arise and celebrate the love feast (agape) with thy brother."
And the wretches mingle with each other . .. after they have consorted
together in a passionate debauch. ... The woman and the man take
the man's ejaculation into their hands, stand up . .. offering to the Father,
the Primal Being of All Nature, what is on their hands, with the words,
"We bring to Thee this oblation, which is the very Body of Christ."
... They consume it, take house] of their shame and say: ''This is the
Body of Christ, the Paschal Sacrifice through which our bodies suffer
and are forced to confess to the sufferings of Christ." And when the
woman is in her period, they do likewise with her menstruation. The
unclean flow of blood, which they gamer, they take up in the same way
and eat together. And that, they say, is Christ's Blood. For when they
read in Revelation, "/saw the tree oflife with its twelve kinds of fruit,
yielding its fruit each month" (Rev. 22:2), they interpret this as an
allusion to the monthly incidence of the female period. 54
The meaning of this Ophite sacrament to its practitioners is
easily recovered from Tantric parallels. Eating the living substances of
reproduction was considered more "spiritual" than eating the dead
body of the god, even in the transmuted form of bread and wine,
though the color symbolism was the same:
When the semen, made molten by the fire of great passion, falls into the
lotus of the "mother" and mixes with her red element, he achieves
"the conventional mandala of the thought of enlightenment." The
resultant mixture is tasted by the united "father-mother" [Yab- Yum},
and when it reaches the throat they can generate concretely a special bliss
. .. the bodhicitta-the drop resulting from union of semen and
menstrual blood-is transferred to the yogi . . .. This empowers his
corresponding mystic veins and centers to accomplish the Buddha's
function of speech. The term "secret initiation" comes from the tasting of
the secret substance. 55
world before the Christian era and was well established in the Gnostic
period. This worship provided the agape-"love-feast" or "spiritual
marriage" -practiced by Gnostic Christians like the Ophites. Another
name for the agape was synesaktism, "the Way of Shaktism,"
meaning Tantric yoni-worship. 52 Synesaktism was declared a heresy
before the 7th century A.o. 53 Subsequently the "love-feast" disappeared,
and women were forbidden direct participation in Christian worship,
according to St Paul's rule (l Timothy 2:11-12).
Epiphanius described the agape practiced by Ophite Christians,
while making it clear that these heretical sexual activities filled him
with horror:
Their women they share in common; and when anyone arrives who
might be alien to their doctrine, the men and women have a sign by
which they make themselves known to each other. When they extend
their hands, apparently in greeting, they tickle the other's palm in a
certain way and so discover whether the new arrival belongs to their cult .
. . . Husbands separate from their wives, and a man will say to his own
spouse, "Arise and celebrate the love feast (agape) with thy brother."
And the wretches mingle with each other . .. after they have consorted
together in a passionate debauch. ... The woman and the man take
the man's ejaculation into their hands, stand up . .. offering to the Father,
the Primal Being of All Nature, what is on their hands, with the words,
"We bring to Thee this oblation, which is the very Body of Christ."
... They consume it, take house] of their shame and say: ''This is the
Body of Christ, the Paschal Sacrifice through which our bodies suffer
and are forced to confess to the sufferings of Christ." And when the
woman is in her period, they do likewise with her menstruation. The
unclean flow of blood, which they gamer, they take up in the same way
and eat together. And that, they say, is Christ's Blood. For when they
read in Revelation, "/saw the tree oflife with its twelve kinds of fruit,
yielding its fruit each month" (Rev. 22:2), they interpret this as an
allusion to the monthly incidence of the female period. 54
The meaning of this Ophite sacrament to its practitioners is
easily recovered from Tantric parallels. Eating the living substances of
reproduction was considered more "spiritual" than eating the dead
body of the god, even in the transmuted form of bread and wine,
though the color symbolism was the same:
When the semen, made molten by the fire of great passion, falls into the
lotus of the "mother" and mixes with her red element, he achieves
"the conventional mandala of the thought of enlightenment." The
resultant mixture is tasted by the united "father-mother" [Yab- Yum},
and when it reaches the throat they can generate concretely a special bliss
. .. the bodhicitta-the drop resulting from union of semen and
menstrual blood-is transferred to the yogi . . .. This empowers his
corresponding mystic veins and centers to accomplish the Buddha's
function of speech. The term "secret initiation" comes from the tasting of
the secret substance. 55
In the occult language of the Tantras, two ingredients of the
Great Rite were sukra, semen, and rakta, menstrual blood. The officiating
priestess had to be menstruous so her lunar energies were at flood
tide. 56 She embodied the power of rakta, sometimes rendered rukh or
ruq, cognate with the Hebrew ruach, "spirit," anJ the Arabic ruh,
which meant both "spirit" and "red color." Throughout all Tantric and
related faiths, the merging of female red and male white was "a
profoundly important symbolic conjunction."57
The Sufis, who practiced their own brand ofTantrism, said ruh
was female and red. Its male counterpart sirr, "consciousness," was
white. Red and white colors alternated in the Sufi halka or magic circle,
corresponding to the Tantric chakra and called "the basic unit and
very heart of active Sufism." The Arab rosary of alternating red and
white beads had the same meaning: men and women coupled around
the circle, as in most European folk dances. 58
Red and white were the colors worn by alternating female-andmale
dancers in the witches' "fairy ring" of pagan Ireland, where the
Goddess was worshipped under the same name as the Tantric earth
mother, Tara. 59 With men and women alternating as in a Tantric
chakra, the dance moved counterclockwise or moonwise, as nearly all
circle dances still do. Red and white colors "represented the fairy
world." 60
The rites were often governed by old women, due to the ancient
belief that post-menopausal women were the wisest of mortals because
they permanently retained their "wise blood." In the 17th century
A.D., Christian writers still insisted that old women were filled with
magic power because their menstrual blood remained in their veins.61
This was the real reason why old women were constantly persecuted
for witchcraft. The same "magic blood" that made them leaders in the
ancient clan system made them objects of fear under the new
patriarchal faith.
Because menstrual blood occupied a central position in matriarchal
theologies, and was already sacer--holy-dreadfulpatriarchal-
ascetic thinkers showed almost hysterical fear of it. The
Laws of Manu said if a man even approached a menstruating woman he
would lose his wisdom, energy, sight, strength, and vitality. The
Talmud said if a menstruating woman walked between two men, one of
the men would surely die. 62 Brahmans ruled that a man who lay with
a menstruating woman must suffer a punishment one-quarter as severe
as the punishment for Brahmanicide, which was the worst crime a
Brahman could imagine. Vedic myths were designed to support the law,
such as the myth that Vishnu dared copulate with the Goddess Earth
while she was menstruating, which caused her to give birth to monsters
who nearly destroyed the world.6
Great Rite were sukra, semen, and rakta, menstrual blood. The officiating
priestess had to be menstruous so her lunar energies were at flood
tide. 56 She embodied the power of rakta, sometimes rendered rukh or
ruq, cognate with the Hebrew ruach, "spirit," anJ the Arabic ruh,
which meant both "spirit" and "red color." Throughout all Tantric and
related faiths, the merging of female red and male white was "a
profoundly important symbolic conjunction."57
The Sufis, who practiced their own brand ofTantrism, said ruh
was female and red. Its male counterpart sirr, "consciousness," was
white. Red and white colors alternated in the Sufi halka or magic circle,
corresponding to the Tantric chakra and called "the basic unit and
very heart of active Sufism." The Arab rosary of alternating red and
white beads had the same meaning: men and women coupled around
the circle, as in most European folk dances. 58
Red and white were the colors worn by alternating female-andmale
dancers in the witches' "fairy ring" of pagan Ireland, where the
Goddess was worshipped under the same name as the Tantric earth
mother, Tara. 59 With men and women alternating as in a Tantric
chakra, the dance moved counterclockwise or moonwise, as nearly all
circle dances still do. Red and white colors "represented the fairy
world." 60
The rites were often governed by old women, due to the ancient
belief that post-menopausal women were the wisest of mortals because
they permanently retained their "wise blood." In the 17th century
A.D., Christian writers still insisted that old women were filled with
magic power because their menstrual blood remained in their veins.61
This was the real reason why old women were constantly persecuted
for witchcraft. The same "magic blood" that made them leaders in the
ancient clan system made them objects of fear under the new
patriarchal faith.
Because menstrual blood occupied a central position in matriarchal
theologies, and was already sacer--holy-dreadfulpatriarchal-
ascetic thinkers showed almost hysterical fear of it. The
Laws of Manu said if a man even approached a menstruating woman he
would lose his wisdom, energy, sight, strength, and vitality. The
Talmud said if a menstruating woman walked between two men, one of
the men would surely die. 62 Brahmans ruled that a man who lay with
a menstruating woman must suffer a punishment one-quarter as severe
as the punishment for Brahmanicide, which was the worst crime a
Brahman could imagine. Vedic myths were designed to support the law,
such as the myth that Vishnu dared copulate with the Goddess Earth
while she was menstruating, which caused her to give birth to monsters
who nearly destroyed the world.6
This was patriarchal propaganda against the Tantric Maharutti
("Great Rite"), in which menstrual blood was the essential ingredient.
In Kali' s cave-temple, her image spouted the blood of sacrifices
from its vaginal orifice to bathe Shiva' s holy phallus while the two
deities formed the lingam-yoni, and worshippers followed suit, in an
orgy designed to support the cosmic life-force generated by union of
male and female, white and red.64 In this Great Rite, Shiva became the
Anointed One, as were his many Middle-Eastern counterparts. The
Greek translation of Anointed One was Christos.
Persian patriarchs followed the Brahman lead in maintaining that
menstruous women must be avoided like poison. They belonged to
the devil; they were forbidden to look at the sun, to sit in water, to speak
to a man, or to behold an altar fire.65 The glance of a menstruous
woman was feared like the glance of the Gorgon. Zoroastrians held that
any man who lay with a menstruating woman would beget a demon,
and would be punished in hell by having filth poured into his mouth.66
Persian religion incorporated the common primitive belief that the
first onset of menses must be caused by copulation with a supernatural
snake. People not yet aware of fatherhood have supposed the same
snake renders each woman fertile and helps her conceive children.67
Some such belief prevailed in Minoan Crete, where women and snakes
were sacred, but men were not. Tube-shaped Cretan vessels for
pouring oblations represented a vagina, with a serpent crawling inside.68
Ancient languages gave the serpent the same name as Eve, a name
meaning "Life"; and the most ancient myths made the primal couple
not a Goddess and a God, but a Goddess and a Serpent.69 The
Goddess's womb was a garden of paradise in which the serpent lived.
Phrygian Ophiogeneis, "Snake-born People," said their first male
ancestor was the Great Serpent who dwelt in the garden of paradise.
70 Paradise was a name of the Goddess-as-Virgin, identified with
Mother Hera (Earth), whose virgin form was Hebe, a Greek spelling
of Eve. Virgin Hera parthenogenetically conceived the oracular serpent
Python, of the "Womb-temple," Delphi. 71 Snakes living in the
womb of Mother Earth were supposed to possess all wisdom, being in
contact with the "wise blood" of the world.
One of the secrets shared by the primordial woman and her
serpent was the secret of menstruation. Persians claimed menstruation
was brought into the world by the first mother, whom they called
Jahi the Whore, a Lilith-like defier of the Heavenly Father. She
began to menstruate for the first time after coupling with Ahriman, the
Great Serpent. Afterward she seduced "the first righteous man," who
had previously lived alone in the garden of paradise with only the divine
sacrificial bull for company. He knew nothing of sex until Jahi taught
him_?Z
("Great Rite"), in which menstrual blood was the essential ingredient.
In Kali' s cave-temple, her image spouted the blood of sacrifices
from its vaginal orifice to bathe Shiva' s holy phallus while the two
deities formed the lingam-yoni, and worshippers followed suit, in an
orgy designed to support the cosmic life-force generated by union of
male and female, white and red.64 In this Great Rite, Shiva became the
Anointed One, as were his many Middle-Eastern counterparts. The
Greek translation of Anointed One was Christos.
Persian patriarchs followed the Brahman lead in maintaining that
menstruous women must be avoided like poison. They belonged to
the devil; they were forbidden to look at the sun, to sit in water, to speak
to a man, or to behold an altar fire.65 The glance of a menstruous
woman was feared like the glance of the Gorgon. Zoroastrians held that
any man who lay with a menstruating woman would beget a demon,
and would be punished in hell by having filth poured into his mouth.66
Persian religion incorporated the common primitive belief that the
first onset of menses must be caused by copulation with a supernatural
snake. People not yet aware of fatherhood have supposed the same
snake renders each woman fertile and helps her conceive children.67
Some such belief prevailed in Minoan Crete, where women and snakes
were sacred, but men were not. Tube-shaped Cretan vessels for
pouring oblations represented a vagina, with a serpent crawling inside.68
Ancient languages gave the serpent the same name as Eve, a name
meaning "Life"; and the most ancient myths made the primal couple
not a Goddess and a God, but a Goddess and a Serpent.69 The
Goddess's womb was a garden of paradise in which the serpent lived.
Phrygian Ophiogeneis, "Snake-born People," said their first male
ancestor was the Great Serpent who dwelt in the garden of paradise.
70 Paradise was a name of the Goddess-as-Virgin, identified with
Mother Hera (Earth), whose virgin form was Hebe, a Greek spelling
of Eve. Virgin Hera parthenogenetically conceived the oracular serpent
Python, of the "Womb-temple," Delphi. 71 Snakes living in the
womb of Mother Earth were supposed to possess all wisdom, being in
contact with the "wise blood" of the world.
One of the secrets shared by the primordial woman and her
serpent was the secret of menstruation. Persians claimed menstruation
was brought into the world by the first mother, whom they called
Jahi the Whore, a Lilith-like defier of the Heavenly Father. She
began to menstruate for the first time after coupling with Ahriman, the
Great Serpent. Afterward she seduced "the first righteous man," who
had previously lived alone in the garden of paradise with only the divine
sacrificial bull for company. He knew nothing of sex until Jahi taught
him_?Z
The Jews borrowed many details from these Persian myths.
Rabbinical tradition said Eve began to menstruate only after she had
copulated with the serpent in Eden, and Adam was ignorant of sex until
Eve taught him.73 It was widely believed that Eve's firstborn son Cain
was not begotten by Adam but by the serpent.74 Beliefs connecting
serpents with pregnancy and menstruation appeared throughout
Europe for many centuries. Up to modern times, German peasants still
held that women could be impregnated by snakes.75
Whether initiated by a serpent or not, menstrual bleeding inspired
deadly fear among both Persian and Jewish patriarchs (Leviticus 15).
Rachel successfully stole her father's teraphim (household gods) by
hiding them under a camel saddle and sitting on it, telling her father
she was menstruating so he dared not approach her (Genesis 31). To
this day, orthodox Jews refuse to shake hands with a woman because
she might be menstruating. Jews also adopted a rule apparently laid
down by Hesiod, that a man must never wash in the same water
previously used by a woman, lest it might contain a trace of menstrual
blood.76 '
There were many similar taboos. The ancient world's most dreaded
poison was the "moon-dew" collected by Thessalian witches, said
to be a girl's first menstrual blood shed during an eclipse of the moon.77
Pliny said a menstruous woman's touch could blast the fruits of the
field, sour wine, cloud mirrors, rust iron, and blunt the edges ofknives.78
If a menstruous woman so much as laid a finger on a beehive, the
bees would fly away and never return.79 If a man lay with a menstruous
woman during an eclipse, he would soon fall sick and die.80
Christians inherited all the ancient patriarchs' superstitious horrors.
St. Jerome wrote: "Nothing is so unclean as a woman in her periods;
what she touches she causes to become unclean." Penitential regulations
laid down in the 7th century by Theodore, Bishop of
Canterbury, forbade menstruating women to take communion or even
enter a church. At the French Synod of Meaux, menstruous women
were specifically forbidden to come to church. From the 8th to the ll th
centuries, many church laws denied menstruating women any access
to church buildings. As late as 1684 it was still ordered that women in
their "fluxes" must remain outside the church door.81 In 1298 the
Synod of Wiirzburg commanded men not to approach a menstruating
woman.82 The superstition came down to the 20th century, when a
Scottish medical text quoted an old rhyme to the effect that menstrual
blood could destroy the entire world:
Oh! Menstruating woman, thou'rt a fiend
From which all nature should be closely screened. 83
Christian women were commanded to despise the "uncleanness"
of their own bodies, as in the Rule for Anchoresses: "Art thou not
formed of foul slime? Art thou not always full of uncleanness?" 84
Rabbinical tradition said Eve began to menstruate only after she had
copulated with the serpent in Eden, and Adam was ignorant of sex until
Eve taught him.73 It was widely believed that Eve's firstborn son Cain
was not begotten by Adam but by the serpent.74 Beliefs connecting
serpents with pregnancy and menstruation appeared throughout
Europe for many centuries. Up to modern times, German peasants still
held that women could be impregnated by snakes.75
Whether initiated by a serpent or not, menstrual bleeding inspired
deadly fear among both Persian and Jewish patriarchs (Leviticus 15).
Rachel successfully stole her father's teraphim (household gods) by
hiding them under a camel saddle and sitting on it, telling her father
she was menstruating so he dared not approach her (Genesis 31). To
this day, orthodox Jews refuse to shake hands with a woman because
she might be menstruating. Jews also adopted a rule apparently laid
down by Hesiod, that a man must never wash in the same water
previously used by a woman, lest it might contain a trace of menstrual
blood.76 '
There were many similar taboos. The ancient world's most dreaded
poison was the "moon-dew" collected by Thessalian witches, said
to be a girl's first menstrual blood shed during an eclipse of the moon.77
Pliny said a menstruous woman's touch could blast the fruits of the
field, sour wine, cloud mirrors, rust iron, and blunt the edges ofknives.78
If a menstruous woman so much as laid a finger on a beehive, the
bees would fly away and never return.79 If a man lay with a menstruous
woman during an eclipse, he would soon fall sick and die.80
Christians inherited all the ancient patriarchs' superstitious horrors.
St. Jerome wrote: "Nothing is so unclean as a woman in her periods;
what she touches she causes to become unclean." Penitential regulations
laid down in the 7th century by Theodore, Bishop of
Canterbury, forbade menstruating women to take communion or even
enter a church. At the French Synod of Meaux, menstruous women
were specifically forbidden to come to church. From the 8th to the ll th
centuries, many church laws denied menstruating women any access
to church buildings. As late as 1684 it was still ordered that women in
their "fluxes" must remain outside the church door.81 In 1298 the
Synod of Wiirzburg commanded men not to approach a menstruating
woman.82 The superstition came down to the 20th century, when a
Scottish medical text quoted an old rhyme to the effect that menstrual
blood could destroy the entire world:
Oh! Menstruating woman, thou'rt a fiend
From which all nature should be closely screened. 83
Christian women were commanded to despise the "uncleanness"
of their own bodies, as in the Rule for Anchoresses: "Art thou not
formed of foul slime? Art thou not always full of uncleanness?" 84
Medical authorities of the 16th century were still repeating the old belief
that "demons were produced from menstrual flux." 85 One of the
"demons" born of menstrual blood was the legendary basilisk with its
poisonous glance.86 The legend evidently arose from the classic myth
of the Gorgon with her serpent-hair and wise blood, petrifying men
with her glance. The Gorgon and the red cross of menstrual blood
once marked the most potent taboos.87 The very word taboo, from
Polynesian tupua, "sacred, magical," applied specifically to menstrual
blood.88
Just as primitives attributed beneficial powers to menstrual blood
along with its fearfulness, so medieval peasants thought it could heal,
nourish, and fertilize.89 Some believed a menstruating woman could
protect a crop by walking around the field, or exposing her genitals in
it.90 Peasant women carried seed to the fields in rags stained with their
menstrual blood: a continuation of the custom of Eleusinian fertilitypriestesses.
91 Even doctors thought menstrual blood could cure leprosy,
or act as a powerful aphrodisiac. Madame de Montespan used it to encourage
the ardor of her royal lover, Louis XIV92 Gypsies said a woman
could win any man's love with a potion of her own menstrual blood.93
As the former medium of reincarnation, menstrual blood was
sometimes called a remedy for death itself. In the tale of Childe Roland,
the elven-king roused men from the magic sleep of,.death with a "bright
red liquor." 94 Early romances associated this universal heal-all with "the
blood of a noble virgin," as a wise-woman revealed to Galahad.95 The
same belief impelled Louis XI to try to stave off death by drinking
young girls' blood.
Victorian superstition taught that a child conceived during a
menstrual period would be born with a caul, and would have occult
powers.96 Nineteenth-century doctors inherited their predecessors' notions
of witchcraft and evil, and so maintained that menstruating
women are not healthy; copulation with them could infect a man with
urethritis or gonorrhea. Dr. Augustus Gardner said venereal diseases
were usually communicated from women to men, not vice versa.97
Speaking of savages' menstrual taboos, anthropologists described the
women as "out of order," "suffering from monthly illness," or "stricken
with the malady common to their sex." 98 A doctor wrote even in the
present century: "We cannot too emphatically urge the importance of
regarding these monthly returns as periods of ill health, as days when
the ordinary occupations are to be suspended or modified." 99
At the present time just as in the Middle Ages, the Catholic church
still considers itself on firm theological ground by advancing, as an
argument against ordination of women, the notion that a menstruating
priestess would "pollute" the altar. This would not preclude ordination
of post-menopausal women, but different excuses are found for those.
The holy "blood of life" used to be feminine and real; now it is
masculine and symbolic.
that "demons were produced from menstrual flux." 85 One of the
"demons" born of menstrual blood was the legendary basilisk with its
poisonous glance.86 The legend evidently arose from the classic myth
of the Gorgon with her serpent-hair and wise blood, petrifying men
with her glance. The Gorgon and the red cross of menstrual blood
once marked the most potent taboos.87 The very word taboo, from
Polynesian tupua, "sacred, magical," applied specifically to menstrual
blood.88
Just as primitives attributed beneficial powers to menstrual blood
along with its fearfulness, so medieval peasants thought it could heal,
nourish, and fertilize.89 Some believed a menstruating woman could
protect a crop by walking around the field, or exposing her genitals in
it.90 Peasant women carried seed to the fields in rags stained with their
menstrual blood: a continuation of the custom of Eleusinian fertilitypriestesses.
91 Even doctors thought menstrual blood could cure leprosy,
or act as a powerful aphrodisiac. Madame de Montespan used it to encourage
the ardor of her royal lover, Louis XIV92 Gypsies said a woman
could win any man's love with a potion of her own menstrual blood.93
As the former medium of reincarnation, menstrual blood was
sometimes called a remedy for death itself. In the tale of Childe Roland,
the elven-king roused men from the magic sleep of,.death with a "bright
red liquor." 94 Early romances associated this universal heal-all with "the
blood of a noble virgin," as a wise-woman revealed to Galahad.95 The
same belief impelled Louis XI to try to stave off death by drinking
young girls' blood.
Victorian superstition taught that a child conceived during a
menstrual period would be born with a caul, and would have occult
powers.96 Nineteenth-century doctors inherited their predecessors' notions
of witchcraft and evil, and so maintained that menstruating
women are not healthy; copulation with them could infect a man with
urethritis or gonorrhea. Dr. Augustus Gardner said venereal diseases
were usually communicated from women to men, not vice versa.97
Speaking of savages' menstrual taboos, anthropologists described the
women as "out of order," "suffering from monthly illness," or "stricken
with the malady common to their sex." 98 A doctor wrote even in the
present century: "We cannot too emphatically urge the importance of
regarding these monthly returns as periods of ill health, as days when
the ordinary occupations are to be suspended or modified." 99
At the present time just as in the Middle Ages, the Catholic church
still considers itself on firm theological ground by advancing, as an
argument against ordination of women, the notion that a menstruating
priestess would "pollute" the altar. This would not preclude ordination
of post-menopausal women, but different excuses are found for those.
The holy "blood of life" used to be feminine and real; now it is
masculine and symbolic.
Sidenote:
The Hebrew word
for blood, dam, means
"mother" or
"woman" in other
Indo-European
languages (e.g. dam,
damsel, madam, fa
dama, dame) and also
"the curse" (damn).
The Sumerian Great
Mother represented
maternal blood and
bore names like
Dam-kina,
Damgalnunna.
From her belly flowed
the Four Rivers of
Paradise, sometimes
called rivers of blood
which is the "life" of all
flesh. Her firstborn
child, the Savior, was
Damu, a "child of
the blood."37 Damas or
"mother-blood" was
the word for "the
people" in
matriarchal Mycenae.lB
Another common
ancient symbol of the
blood-river oflife was
the red carpet,
traditionally trod by
sacred kings, heroes,
and brides.l9
for blood, dam, means
"mother" or
"woman" in other
Indo-European
languages (e.g. dam,
damsel, madam, fa
dama, dame) and also
"the curse" (damn).
The Sumerian Great
Mother represented
maternal blood and
bore names like
Dam-kina,
Damgalnunna.
From her belly flowed
the Four Rivers of
Paradise, sometimes
called rivers of blood
which is the "life" of all
flesh. Her firstborn
child, the Savior, was
Damu, a "child of
the blood."37 Damas or
"mother-blood" was
the word for "the
people" in
matriarchal Mycenae.lB
Another common
ancient symbol of the
blood-river oflife was
the red carpet,
traditionally trod by
sacred kings, heroes,
and brides.l9
From Barbara Walker's Women's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets
-
Healing stemcells
Gnostic Christians used to call their
religion Synesaktism – another word for Agape – which means ‘The Way of
Shaktism’, referring to Tantric Yoni-Worship.
One of the most important rituals was
preparing a ‘drink of immortality’ made from menstrual blood, which is
full of healing stem cells, which can actually activate our cellular
capacity to regenerate and transport us to endocrine states of rapture.
Or in a spiritual sense open us to the Frequency of Love and Eternal
Life, transporting us to another Dimension – called Heaven, Paradise,
Nirvana etc.
This ‘Love Feast’ or ‘Sacred Marriage’ – a
core part of the Menstrual Mysteries – was eventually declared a heresy
and women were barred from participating in Christian rites.
However the ‘Power of Renewal, Rebirth,
and Resurrection’ previously associated with the Holy Womb and Menstrual
Blood of the Divine Mother was transferred to the story of Jesus and
his ritual of Eucharist – ‘hic est sanguis meus – this is the Chalice of
my Blood’ – where worshippers ‘drank his blood’ to gain the power of
Rebirth through him.
In most ancient myths and religions,
throughout the world dating back hundreds of thousands of years, the
power of rebirth had always been a blessing of the Feminine Womb –
embodied and gifted by Sacred Womb Priestesses across many cultures. It
had never been held by a man. Although there are many legends about the
‘menstrual powers of female shamans’ being stolen by male gods.
The Holy Grail, in its true original essence, is the Womb.
Women born many, many thousands of years
ago in what we might called ‘Original Innocence’ – before many of our
genetic capabilities went offline, held this power naturally, as a
birthright, shared with their tribes in renewal rituals.
Since those times, once the birthright
was lost, women across many lineages and cultures – Womb Priestesses –
have practiced many varied ways to heal, clear and open the Womb, so it
can once again embody the frequency of Love, of Original Innocence, so
that the energetic and physical stem cell capacity can activate purer
states of consciousness and activate incredible regenerative healing.
This knowledge has been almost lost over the last thousand years, as it
has been fragmented, scattered and deliberately destroyed.
Now it is desiring to return, to ‘renew our lands’ as the myths go.
Earlier this year Fountain of Life
met with a top international research scientist working with menstrual
blood stem cells. His research indicated they had the capacity to work
‘miracles’. He described how the first time he used Menstrual Blood Stem
Cells he felt like he had been ‘reborn’ – an unfit man in his late
fifties, he’d had to run around the block because he had so much energy.
Another research scientist in his sixties
working with stem cells had experienced his hair change from grey to
the black of his youth in a matter of months. Throughout the world, in
secret, these experiments are happening – in China, Russia, India, and
more.
Whilst women are giving their power away
to patriarchal ideologies, taking drugs to stop their menstrual cycle,
using cancer-causing chemical bleached tampons to stem the flow, seeing
their Menses as an inconvenient ‘curse’ they are ashamed of, male
scientists around the world are using the power to experience states of
physical and spiritual high.
Isn’t it time we reclaimed our Feminine power? Honoring the sacred regenerative properties of the ‘Flowering’ of our Wombs.
Evidence of the Sacredness of
Menstruation throughout all cultures before the rise of the
male-dominated patriarchy is well documented….
Grail, Holy
Christian myth said the Holy Grail was the chalice used by Christ at
the Last Supper when he poured wine for the disciples to drink, saying,
"this is my blood" (Matthew 26:28). After the crucifixion, Joseph of
Arimathea took the chalice to England and established it in a shrine at
Glastonbury. Later, it disappeared.
This myth wasn't heard in Europe until the 12th century. The real
origins of the HoIy Grail were not Christian but pagan. The Grail
was first Christianized in Spain from a sacred tradition of the Moors. 1
Like the Celts' holy Cauldron of Regeneration, which it resembled,
the blood-filled vessel was a· womb symbol meaning rebirth in the
Oriental or Gnostic sense of reincarnation. Its connotation was
feminine, not masculine.
The Grail was kept in a magnificent temple governed by a queen
named Repanse de Joie (Dispenser of Joy), an ancient title of a holy
harlot. Bards said her husband was a Moor, and her son John founded
the eastern order of the Knights Templar, a group of warriors
dedicated to the Grail temple and the defense of women. When a lady
needed help, Grail knights like Galahad, Parsifal, or Lohengrin
would receive orders in fiery letters on the rim of the Grail and ride to
the rescue.
Hispano-Moorish tradition located the Grail temple on Montsalvatch,
the "Mount of Salvation" in the Spanish Pyrenees.2 The
temple was a model of the universe, topped by a gigantic ruby
representing the maternal heart of the world, the Holy Rose. The
pseudo-universe even included a miniature of itself enclosing the sacred
vessel:
The temple itself was one hundred fathoms in diameter. Around it were
seventy-two chapels of an octagonal shape. To every pair of chapels
there was a tower six stories high, approachable by a winding stair on the
outside . . . . The vaulting was of blue sapphire, and in the center was a
plate of emerald . . .. All the altar stones were of sapphire . . .. Upon the
inside of the cupola surmounting the temple, the sun and moon were
represented in diamonds and topazes, and shed a light as of day even in
the darkness of the night. The windows were of crystal, beryl, and other
transparent stones. The floor was of translucent crystal, under which all
the fishes of the sea were carved out of onyx, just like life. The towers
were of precious stones inlaid with gold; their roofs of gold and blue
enamel. Upon every tower there was a crystal cross, and upon it a
golden eagle with expanded wings, which, at a distance, appeared to be
flying. At the summit of the main tower was an immense carbuncle,
which served, like a star, to guide the Templars thither at night. In the
center of the building, under the dome, was a miniature representation
of the whole, and in this the holy vessel was kept. 3 ·
Like the Ar'lbian brotherhood of hashishim (see Aladdin), the
legendary Knights Templar waited for the Desired Knight, or Mahdi, to
rescue the world from tyranny and establish the benevolent rule of
the Grail. The alternative was a dire prediction of the Waste Land,
modeled on the arid wilderness of Arabia Deserta, which some
eastern sages attributed to the departure of the Goddess.
The Grail temple was sometimes called Montjoie, "Mount of
Joy," like the castle Joyous Card to which Queen Guinevere retired
with her lover. It was the same as the Mons Veneris, or Venusberg. Its
sexual symbolism served to rally heretical uprisings against the antisexual
church. A 14th-century peasant leader calling himself William
Karle, or Cale, adopted "Montjoie" as a battle cry, and banners
showing the Goddess's traditional triple lily.4 The same battle cry was
used by the legendary soldiers of Roland, supposed .to have died in
the vicinity of the Grail castle. 5 Even older myths said the battle cry of
the Grail king was Amor (Love).6
The Grail was first converted into the chalice of Christ's last
supper in the Joseph d'Arimathie of the Burgundian poet Robert de
Borron, between 1180 and 1199. The origins of the mystic vessel were
yet suspect. It was formerly a jewel in the devil's crown. Sixty
thousand angels gave it to Satan when he still lived in heaven. During
his descent to hell, the jewel fell from his crown to earth, where it was
found and fashioned into a cup.7 Joseph of Arimathea acquired the cup
and gave it to Jesus to use at his last meal with his disciples. It was the
cup of doom, of which Jesus pr,ayed to God in a weak moment,
"Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me" (Matthew
26:39).
The poet said Joseph was imprisoned by the Jews and left in a
dungeon for a year and a day without food or drink; but he remained
alive and well because he had the Grail with him. He was set free by the
emperor Vespasian, who was converted to Christianity after being
cured of leprosy by the veil with which St. Veronica wiped Jesus's face.
Joseph then traveled to England with a group of pilgrims, built the
temple of the Grail at Glastonbury, and installed the Round Table for
the rite of the holy supper. Among his followers was Bron, the Rich
Fisher, directly stolen from pagan myths of Bran the Blessed, Welsh
god of the sacred cauldron. For a touch of anti-Semitic propaganda in
this chowder of fantasy, de Borron claimed the vacant Seat Perilous at
the Round Table was the seat of Judas. Another Jew, Moyses
(Moses) once dared to sit in it, but for his hubris he was swallowed up by
the earth.8
About 1230 appeared the even more chaotic Vulgate Cycle,
L 'Estoire del Saint Graal, a quintet of prose romances in Old French.
The author pretended his book was given by the ghost of Christ himself
to a Cistercian monk on Good Friday, 717 A.D. This work frankly
called the Grail by its old title, an escuele or "cauldron." The company
of the Grail colonized the holy city of Sarras, ruled by Mordrain and
Nascien (Death and Birth). Moys (Moses) was snatched away from the
Seat Perilous by fiery hands. Solomon's ship, which moved by itself
on the sea, carried Christianity to all lands. Members of the Grail
company had various adventures: Bron went to Scotland and sustained
a poisoned wound, like Tristan. He was cured by the local
princess, then he killed her father and married her. Alain the
"Hunting Dog" went to a foreign land and built a new castle for the
Grail, Castle Corbenic (cors-benoiz, meaning either Horn of Plenty
or Sacred Heart). The seventh Rich Fisher, Lambor, was slain by a
Saracen with the magic sword from Solomon's ship, and the land of
the lost Grail became la terre gaste-the Waste Land.9
A final step in the kansformation of the Grail from a pagan symbol
to a Christian one was taken in La Queste del Saint Graal, written by
a Cistercian monk. Now Galahad was said to be the perfect Desired
Knight, of the lineage of Joseph of Arimathea. Gala had occupied the
Seat Perilous safely, because he was virginally pure. He drew the magic
sword from a stone that floated on the river, for the same reason . .
Through him the Grail vision was bestowed on all the Round Table
knights, who promptly left their games, feasts, and tourneys (i.e., their
paganism) to follow the vision to the ends of the earth in search of the
real thing.
The Queste showed obvious hostility to the contemporary cult of
courtly love; but when the Grail's aura of feminine mystery was
removed, its romantic appeal declined. If the Grail was nothing more
than the cup of Christ's blood, then there was no reason for the great
Quest at all. The cup of Christ's blood was readily available to all, in
every chapel; and even though it was called a holy sacrament, its
discovery somehow lacked thrills. 10 As matters turned out, to Christianize
the Grail was to neutralize the magnetism of its secret nature.
The monkish author's real purpose was to tout the virtues of
virginity. All but one of the Round Table knights failed the Grail
quest because they were guilty of sexual sins. Perceval was abandoned
because of his past links with the cult of courtly love. Gawain, who
played the part of Desired Knight in other romances, failed utterly.
Lancelot, having committed adultery with Guinevere, could never
see the Grail except in a dream. The only chaste knight was Galahad,
the new, purified Lancelot. Galahad's virginity led him to every
Christian treasure, including the shield of Joseph of Arimathea, laid up
in a Cistercian abbey. It was white with a red cross- the same "hues
of innocence and blood" on the red-and-white emblem of the Assassins'
brotherhood, borrowed by the crusaders, and later by mystics calling
themselves Knights of the Rosy Cross, or Rosicrucians. 11
The Grail remained secretly pagan for many centuries in isolated
areas. English Grail stories were modeled on the Irish Horn of
Plenty, containing blood/wine for drinking and named the Vessel of the
Spirit. A festival called a Grail was celebrated every seventh year in
Brunswick, until it was outlawed in 1481. 12
the Last Supper when he poured wine for the disciples to drink, saying,
"this is my blood" (Matthew 26:28). After the crucifixion, Joseph of
Arimathea took the chalice to England and established it in a shrine at
Glastonbury. Later, it disappeared.
This myth wasn't heard in Europe until the 12th century. The real
origins of the HoIy Grail were not Christian but pagan. The Grail
was first Christianized in Spain from a sacred tradition of the Moors. 1
Like the Celts' holy Cauldron of Regeneration, which it resembled,
the blood-filled vessel was a· womb symbol meaning rebirth in the
Oriental or Gnostic sense of reincarnation. Its connotation was
feminine, not masculine.
The Grail was kept in a magnificent temple governed by a queen
named Repanse de Joie (Dispenser of Joy), an ancient title of a holy
harlot. Bards said her husband was a Moor, and her son John founded
the eastern order of the Knights Templar, a group of warriors
dedicated to the Grail temple and the defense of women. When a lady
needed help, Grail knights like Galahad, Parsifal, or Lohengrin
would receive orders in fiery letters on the rim of the Grail and ride to
the rescue.
Hispano-Moorish tradition located the Grail temple on Montsalvatch,
the "Mount of Salvation" in the Spanish Pyrenees.2 The
temple was a model of the universe, topped by a gigantic ruby
representing the maternal heart of the world, the Holy Rose. The
pseudo-universe even included a miniature of itself enclosing the sacred
vessel:
The temple itself was one hundred fathoms in diameter. Around it were
seventy-two chapels of an octagonal shape. To every pair of chapels
there was a tower six stories high, approachable by a winding stair on the
outside . . . . The vaulting was of blue sapphire, and in the center was a
plate of emerald . . .. All the altar stones were of sapphire . . .. Upon the
inside of the cupola surmounting the temple, the sun and moon were
represented in diamonds and topazes, and shed a light as of day even in
the darkness of the night. The windows were of crystal, beryl, and other
transparent stones. The floor was of translucent crystal, under which all
the fishes of the sea were carved out of onyx, just like life. The towers
were of precious stones inlaid with gold; their roofs of gold and blue
enamel. Upon every tower there was a crystal cross, and upon it a
golden eagle with expanded wings, which, at a distance, appeared to be
flying. At the summit of the main tower was an immense carbuncle,
which served, like a star, to guide the Templars thither at night. In the
center of the building, under the dome, was a miniature representation
of the whole, and in this the holy vessel was kept. 3 ·
Like the Ar'lbian brotherhood of hashishim (see Aladdin), the
legendary Knights Templar waited for the Desired Knight, or Mahdi, to
rescue the world from tyranny and establish the benevolent rule of
the Grail. The alternative was a dire prediction of the Waste Land,
modeled on the arid wilderness of Arabia Deserta, which some
eastern sages attributed to the departure of the Goddess.
The Grail temple was sometimes called Montjoie, "Mount of
Joy," like the castle Joyous Card to which Queen Guinevere retired
with her lover. It was the same as the Mons Veneris, or Venusberg. Its
sexual symbolism served to rally heretical uprisings against the antisexual
church. A 14th-century peasant leader calling himself William
Karle, or Cale, adopted "Montjoie" as a battle cry, and banners
showing the Goddess's traditional triple lily.4 The same battle cry was
used by the legendary soldiers of Roland, supposed .to have died in
the vicinity of the Grail castle. 5 Even older myths said the battle cry of
the Grail king was Amor (Love).6
The Grail was first converted into the chalice of Christ's last
supper in the Joseph d'Arimathie of the Burgundian poet Robert de
Borron, between 1180 and 1199. The origins of the mystic vessel were
yet suspect. It was formerly a jewel in the devil's crown. Sixty
thousand angels gave it to Satan when he still lived in heaven. During
his descent to hell, the jewel fell from his crown to earth, where it was
found and fashioned into a cup.7 Joseph of Arimathea acquired the cup
and gave it to Jesus to use at his last meal with his disciples. It was the
cup of doom, of which Jesus pr,ayed to God in a weak moment,
"Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me" (Matthew
26:39).
The poet said Joseph was imprisoned by the Jews and left in a
dungeon for a year and a day without food or drink; but he remained
alive and well because he had the Grail with him. He was set free by the
emperor Vespasian, who was converted to Christianity after being
cured of leprosy by the veil with which St. Veronica wiped Jesus's face.
Joseph then traveled to England with a group of pilgrims, built the
temple of the Grail at Glastonbury, and installed the Round Table for
the rite of the holy supper. Among his followers was Bron, the Rich
Fisher, directly stolen from pagan myths of Bran the Blessed, Welsh
god of the sacred cauldron. For a touch of anti-Semitic propaganda in
this chowder of fantasy, de Borron claimed the vacant Seat Perilous at
the Round Table was the seat of Judas. Another Jew, Moyses
(Moses) once dared to sit in it, but for his hubris he was swallowed up by
the earth.8
About 1230 appeared the even more chaotic Vulgate Cycle,
L 'Estoire del Saint Graal, a quintet of prose romances in Old French.
The author pretended his book was given by the ghost of Christ himself
to a Cistercian monk on Good Friday, 717 A.D. This work frankly
called the Grail by its old title, an escuele or "cauldron." The company
of the Grail colonized the holy city of Sarras, ruled by Mordrain and
Nascien (Death and Birth). Moys (Moses) was snatched away from the
Seat Perilous by fiery hands. Solomon's ship, which moved by itself
on the sea, carried Christianity to all lands. Members of the Grail
company had various adventures: Bron went to Scotland and sustained
a poisoned wound, like Tristan. He was cured by the local
princess, then he killed her father and married her. Alain the
"Hunting Dog" went to a foreign land and built a new castle for the
Grail, Castle Corbenic (cors-benoiz, meaning either Horn of Plenty
or Sacred Heart). The seventh Rich Fisher, Lambor, was slain by a
Saracen with the magic sword from Solomon's ship, and the land of
the lost Grail became la terre gaste-the Waste Land.9
A final step in the kansformation of the Grail from a pagan symbol
to a Christian one was taken in La Queste del Saint Graal, written by
a Cistercian monk. Now Galahad was said to be the perfect Desired
Knight, of the lineage of Joseph of Arimathea. Gala had occupied the
Seat Perilous safely, because he was virginally pure. He drew the magic
sword from a stone that floated on the river, for the same reason . .
Through him the Grail vision was bestowed on all the Round Table
knights, who promptly left their games, feasts, and tourneys (i.e., their
paganism) to follow the vision to the ends of the earth in search of the
real thing.
The Queste showed obvious hostility to the contemporary cult of
courtly love; but when the Grail's aura of feminine mystery was
removed, its romantic appeal declined. If the Grail was nothing more
than the cup of Christ's blood, then there was no reason for the great
Quest at all. The cup of Christ's blood was readily available to all, in
every chapel; and even though it was called a holy sacrament, its
discovery somehow lacked thrills. 10 As matters turned out, to Christianize
the Grail was to neutralize the magnetism of its secret nature.
The monkish author's real purpose was to tout the virtues of
virginity. All but one of the Round Table knights failed the Grail
quest because they were guilty of sexual sins. Perceval was abandoned
because of his past links with the cult of courtly love. Gawain, who
played the part of Desired Knight in other romances, failed utterly.
Lancelot, having committed adultery with Guinevere, could never
see the Grail except in a dream. The only chaste knight was Galahad,
the new, purified Lancelot. Galahad's virginity led him to every
Christian treasure, including the shield of Joseph of Arimathea, laid up
in a Cistercian abbey. It was white with a red cross- the same "hues
of innocence and blood" on the red-and-white emblem of the Assassins'
brotherhood, borrowed by the crusaders, and later by mystics calling
themselves Knights of the Rosy Cross, or Rosicrucians. 11
The Grail remained secretly pagan for many centuries in isolated
areas. English Grail stories were modeled on the Irish Horn of
Plenty, containing blood/wine for drinking and named the Vessel of the
Spirit. A festival called a Grail was celebrated every seventh year in
Brunswick, until it was outlawed in 1481. 12
From Barbara Walker's Women's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets
Cauldron
The symbol commonly opposed to the cross, as the witches' object
of worship; in pagan tradition, the Great Mother's cosmic womb. As the
"pot of blood in the hand of Kali," the cauldron signified cyclic
recurrence, as opposed to the patriarchal view of linear time.
Shakespeare followed the traditional pattern in associating the
cauldron with three witches, since, from its earliest appearances in
Bronze Age and Iron Age cultures, the cauldron stood for the Triple
Goddess of fate, or wyrd in Old English: the three Weird Sisters.1
The Egyptian hieroglyphic sign of the threefold Creatress, mother
of the sun, the universe, and all the gods, was a design of three
cauldrons.2 The Norse god Odin stole his divine power from three
cauldrons of Wise Blood in the cave-womb of the earth, where he
entered in the shape of a phallic serpent and beguiled the earth-giantess
by making love to her. 3 Then he drank the magic blood from the
cauldrons and became a shape-shifter, turning himself into a bird to
carry the precious blood back to other gods. This myth was based on
that of the Aryan sky-god Indra, who also drank the Goddess's ambrosia
from three cauldrons, the three wombs of Kali's trinity.4 Indra stole
the elixir by allowing himself to be swallowed by a vast serpent
representing female sexuality (Kundalini). He too turned into a bird
to carry the elixir to other gods.
In nearly all mythologies there is a miraculous vessel. Sometimes it
dispenses youth and life, at other times it possesses the power of
healing, and occasionally, as with the mead cauldron of the Nordic Ymir,
inspiring strength and wisdom are to be found in it. Often ... it effects
transformations. s
The cauldron that effected transformations was the same as the
womb that churned out rebirths, changing shapes each time. In Babylon
it was under the control of the Fate-goddess Siris, mother of stars. Her
cauldron was the blue heaven, where she stirred the mead of
regeneration. "Siris, the wise woman, the mother, who had done what
was necessary. Her cauldron is of shining lapis lazuli. Her tub is of
pure silver and gold. In mead stands jubilation, in mead sits rejoicing." 6
Lapis lazuli was the blue heaven stone prized for its power to cause
rebirth. The Papyrus ofNekhtu-Amen said an amulet of lapis lazuli
stood for the heart (ab), source of mother-blood; therefore the amulet
was inserted into a mummy to generate a new heart for the
deceased.7
Chaldean cosmology saw the sky as a nesting of seven vessels, the
planetary spheres, like inverted bowls or cauldrons. Beneath the earth
lay the mirror image of this celestial realm, seven more spheres sometimes
described as cauldrons. A Hittite myth called them the vessels
of Mother Death, dark twin sister of the heavenly M.other Siris: "The
doorkeeper has opened the seven doors, has unlocked the seven bolts.
Down in the dark earth there stand seven cauldrons, their lids of abaru
metal, their handles of iron. Whatever goes in there comes not out
again." 9
Egyptians sometimes saw the seven-circled nether womb as a
regenerative cauldron called the Lake of Fire. 10 The corresponding
celestial vessels were "above heaven." 11 But the divine cauldron also
appeared right on earth, within the sacred precincts of the temple.
King Aeson was resurrected after being boiled in the cauldron of
Medea, "Mead of Wisdom," eponymous mother goddess of the
Medes. King Minos too was boiled in the Goddess's cauldron and
deified in Tartarus, where he became a judge and a Lord of Death.
Under the name of Demeter, the Goddess restored Pelops to life in her
cauldron. 15 According to his inscription at Mount Hermon, the
Roman emperor Elagabalus was likewise "deified in the cauldron." 16
St. John the Evangelist was oddly assimilated to the pagan myth of
the regenerative cauldron. He was boiled in it and came forth livelier
than before. His symbols were a bleeding heart and a boiling cauldronP
The syncretism of the "Feast of St. John at the Latin Gate"
eventually became too embarrassing, and the festival was expunged
from the Christian calendar in 1960.18 The apocryphal St. George,
however, continued to enter the cauldron as one of his alleged tortures.
By making the sign of the cross, he rendered it lukewarm and
harmless, an example of a matriarchal symbol made subordinate to a
patriarchal one. 19
Among the Celts of Gaul and Britain, the Cauldron of Regeneration
was the central religious mystery: reincarnation within the womb
of the Goddess. The Irish who worshipped the threefold Morrigan
called the second person of her trinity Badb, "Boiling," the producer of
life, wisdom, inspiration, and enlightenment. 20
of worship; in pagan tradition, the Great Mother's cosmic womb. As the
"pot of blood in the hand of Kali," the cauldron signified cyclic
recurrence, as opposed to the patriarchal view of linear time.
Shakespeare followed the traditional pattern in associating the
cauldron with three witches, since, from its earliest appearances in
Bronze Age and Iron Age cultures, the cauldron stood for the Triple
Goddess of fate, or wyrd in Old English: the three Weird Sisters.1
The Egyptian hieroglyphic sign of the threefold Creatress, mother
of the sun, the universe, and all the gods, was a design of three
cauldrons.2 The Norse god Odin stole his divine power from three
cauldrons of Wise Blood in the cave-womb of the earth, where he
entered in the shape of a phallic serpent and beguiled the earth-giantess
by making love to her. 3 Then he drank the magic blood from the
cauldrons and became a shape-shifter, turning himself into a bird to
carry the precious blood back to other gods. This myth was based on
that of the Aryan sky-god Indra, who also drank the Goddess's ambrosia
from three cauldrons, the three wombs of Kali's trinity.4 Indra stole
the elixir by allowing himself to be swallowed by a vast serpent
representing female sexuality (Kundalini). He too turned into a bird
to carry the elixir to other gods.
In nearly all mythologies there is a miraculous vessel. Sometimes it
dispenses youth and life, at other times it possesses the power of
healing, and occasionally, as with the mead cauldron of the Nordic Ymir,
inspiring strength and wisdom are to be found in it. Often ... it effects
transformations. s
The cauldron that effected transformations was the same as the
womb that churned out rebirths, changing shapes each time. In Babylon
it was under the control of the Fate-goddess Siris, mother of stars. Her
cauldron was the blue heaven, where she stirred the mead of
regeneration. "Siris, the wise woman, the mother, who had done what
was necessary. Her cauldron is of shining lapis lazuli. Her tub is of
pure silver and gold. In mead stands jubilation, in mead sits rejoicing." 6
Lapis lazuli was the blue heaven stone prized for its power to cause
rebirth. The Papyrus ofNekhtu-Amen said an amulet of lapis lazuli
stood for the heart (ab), source of mother-blood; therefore the amulet
was inserted into a mummy to generate a new heart for the
deceased.7
Chaldean cosmology saw the sky as a nesting of seven vessels, the
planetary spheres, like inverted bowls or cauldrons. Beneath the earth
lay the mirror image of this celestial realm, seven more spheres sometimes
described as cauldrons. A Hittite myth called them the vessels
of Mother Death, dark twin sister of the heavenly M.other Siris: "The
doorkeeper has opened the seven doors, has unlocked the seven bolts.
Down in the dark earth there stand seven cauldrons, their lids of abaru
metal, their handles of iron. Whatever goes in there comes not out
again." 9
Egyptians sometimes saw the seven-circled nether womb as a
regenerative cauldron called the Lake of Fire. 10 The corresponding
celestial vessels were "above heaven." 11 But the divine cauldron also
appeared right on earth, within the sacred precincts of the temple.
King Aeson was resurrected after being boiled in the cauldron of
Medea, "Mead of Wisdom," eponymous mother goddess of the
Medes. King Minos too was boiled in the Goddess's cauldron and
deified in Tartarus, where he became a judge and a Lord of Death.
Under the name of Demeter, the Goddess restored Pelops to life in her
cauldron. 15 According to his inscription at Mount Hermon, the
Roman emperor Elagabalus was likewise "deified in the cauldron." 16
St. John the Evangelist was oddly assimilated to the pagan myth of
the regenerative cauldron. He was boiled in it and came forth livelier
than before. His symbols were a bleeding heart and a boiling cauldronP
The syncretism of the "Feast of St. John at the Latin Gate"
eventually became too embarrassing, and the festival was expunged
from the Christian calendar in 1960.18 The apocryphal St. George,
however, continued to enter the cauldron as one of his alleged tortures.
By making the sign of the cross, he rendered it lukewarm and
harmless, an example of a matriarchal symbol made subordinate to a
patriarchal one. 19
Among the Celts of Gaul and Britain, the Cauldron of Regeneration
was the central religious mystery: reincarnation within the womb
of the Goddess. The Irish who worshipped the threefold Morrigan
called the second person of her trinity Badb, "Boiling," the producer of
life, wisdom, inspiration, and enlightenment. 20
To Welsh bards she was the Goddess Branwen, "one of the three
Matriarchs of the Island," owner of the Cauldron of Regeneration in
which dead men could be resuscitated overnight.21 As "a powerful fairy
queen," the Lady of the Lake of the Basin, she dwelt in a sacred lake
from which her brother Bran the Blessed raised the cauldron later
known as the Holy Grail. 22 This pagan god was Christianized as
Bron, alleged brother-in-law of Joseph of Arimathea who was supposed
to have brought the Grail to Britain. Actually, the Grail was well
established in British paganism long before its legend was assimilated to
that of Christ.23 Branwen, Goddess of the Cauldron, had yet another
incarnation in medieval romance as Brangwain, the wise-woman who
gave Tristan and Iseult their fatal love potion.24
The Goddess had earthly incarnations too. Childeric, son of
Merovech or Merovig, founder of the first dynasty of French kings,
married a druidess named Basina (Cauldron), who foretold the future of
his dynasty.25 •
Like the "seas" in ancient temples, the Cauldron of Regeneration
also had its counterparts on earth. Each Celtic temple had its sacred
cauldron. Aubrey's A Natural History of Surrey mentioned a pagan
cauldron still preserved in Frensham Church, "an extraordinary great
kettle or cauldron" brought by the fairies, according to locallegend.26
An 8th-century Salic Law against priestesses-or, as the church
called them, witches-prohibited the pagan practice of "bearing the
cauldron" in procession to "the places where they cook." 27
The Welsh bard Taliesin claimed to have received the mead of
wisdom from his mother, the Goddess Cerridwen, "the Celtic Great
Mother, the Demeter." 28
She resolved, according to the arts of the books of Fferyllt (Fairy-wisdom),
to boil a Cauldron oflnspiration and Science for her son ... which
from the beginning ofits boiling might not cease to boil for a year and a
day, until three blessed drops were obtained of the Grace of
Inspiration. 29
Taliesin's poetry contained oblique allusions to the magic cauldron,
couched in the semi-opaque terms that concealed mystical secrets
from the uninitiated. His "year and a day" was a reference to the
lunar calender of the pagans, a year of thirteen 28-day lunar months,
364 days, with one more day to make 365. The same "year and a
day" occurred in many fairy tales. (See Menstrual Calendar.) Taliesin'
s Preiddeu Annwn (Harrowings of Hell) spoke of the Nine
Maidens, priestesses of the perpetual fire that boiled the symbolic worldcauldron;
and of the yonic shrine, He!' s gate, to which the king' s
sword (or phallus) was lifted:
In Caer Pedryvan (four times revolving)
The Word from the cauldron it would be spoken
By the breath of nine maidens it would be kindled,
The head of Hades's cauldron-what is it like?
A rim it has, with pearls round its border;
It boils not a coward's food: it would not be perjured.
The sword of Llwch Lleawc would be lifted to it.
And in the hand of Lleminawc was it left.
And before the door of Hell's gate lamps were burning,
And when we accompanied Arthur, a bn1liant effort,
Seven alone did we return from Caer Veddwit. 30
Nine sisters were the same as the nine Goddesses of the
Fortunate Isles ruled by Morgan le Fay, and the nine Muses of Greek
myth, and the pre-Hellenic ninefold Goddess Nonacris, queen of the
Stygian birth-gate.31 She, or they, came from Oriental traditions almost
as old as civilization. During their Bronze Age Shang period, the
Chinese represented the Great Goddess of birth by nine tripod cauldrons
like the mixing-vessels of the Muses.32
The primitive cult of the cauldron obviously discouraged "cowards"
because it was cult of martyrdom. Like Christian martyrs, the
cauldron's victims were promised immediate resurrection into a life of
glory. Strabo spoke of Cimbrian priestesses who sacrificed men,
making them divine heroes, and caught their blood in magic cauldrons
and read omens in their entrails. 33
Some myths hint at cannibal cauldrons large enough to boil a
human body, and beliefs that death in the cauldron was not really
death. A gypsy legend spoke of a hero forced by a mystic Lady to milk
dangerous mares, then bathe in a boiling cauldron of their milk. A
god in the form of a royal horse promised to breathe frost on the
cauldron and render it comfortably lukewarm.34 The story recalls the
Corinthians' "man-eating mares," or horse-masked priestesses, who
caused Bellerophon to mount to heaven on the royal horse Pegasus,
symbol of apotheosis after death
Matriarchs of the Island," owner of the Cauldron of Regeneration in
which dead men could be resuscitated overnight.21 As "a powerful fairy
queen," the Lady of the Lake of the Basin, she dwelt in a sacred lake
from which her brother Bran the Blessed raised the cauldron later
known as the Holy Grail. 22 This pagan god was Christianized as
Bron, alleged brother-in-law of Joseph of Arimathea who was supposed
to have brought the Grail to Britain. Actually, the Grail was well
established in British paganism long before its legend was assimilated to
that of Christ.23 Branwen, Goddess of the Cauldron, had yet another
incarnation in medieval romance as Brangwain, the wise-woman who
gave Tristan and Iseult their fatal love potion.24
The Goddess had earthly incarnations too. Childeric, son of
Merovech or Merovig, founder of the first dynasty of French kings,
married a druidess named Basina (Cauldron), who foretold the future of
his dynasty.25 •
Like the "seas" in ancient temples, the Cauldron of Regeneration
also had its counterparts on earth. Each Celtic temple had its sacred
cauldron. Aubrey's A Natural History of Surrey mentioned a pagan
cauldron still preserved in Frensham Church, "an extraordinary great
kettle or cauldron" brought by the fairies, according to locallegend.26
An 8th-century Salic Law against priestesses-or, as the church
called them, witches-prohibited the pagan practice of "bearing the
cauldron" in procession to "the places where they cook." 27
The Welsh bard Taliesin claimed to have received the mead of
wisdom from his mother, the Goddess Cerridwen, "the Celtic Great
Mother, the Demeter." 28
She resolved, according to the arts of the books of Fferyllt (Fairy-wisdom),
to boil a Cauldron oflnspiration and Science for her son ... which
from the beginning ofits boiling might not cease to boil for a year and a
day, until three blessed drops were obtained of the Grace of
Inspiration. 29
Taliesin's poetry contained oblique allusions to the magic cauldron,
couched in the semi-opaque terms that concealed mystical secrets
from the uninitiated. His "year and a day" was a reference to the
lunar calender of the pagans, a year of thirteen 28-day lunar months,
364 days, with one more day to make 365. The same "year and a
day" occurred in many fairy tales. (See Menstrual Calendar.) Taliesin'
s Preiddeu Annwn (Harrowings of Hell) spoke of the Nine
Maidens, priestesses of the perpetual fire that boiled the symbolic worldcauldron;
and of the yonic shrine, He!' s gate, to which the king' s
sword (or phallus) was lifted:
In Caer Pedryvan (four times revolving)
The Word from the cauldron it would be spoken
By the breath of nine maidens it would be kindled,
The head of Hades's cauldron-what is it like?
A rim it has, with pearls round its border;
It boils not a coward's food: it would not be perjured.
The sword of Llwch Lleawc would be lifted to it.
And in the hand of Lleminawc was it left.
And before the door of Hell's gate lamps were burning,
And when we accompanied Arthur, a bn1liant effort,
Seven alone did we return from Caer Veddwit. 30
Nine sisters were the same as the nine Goddesses of the
Fortunate Isles ruled by Morgan le Fay, and the nine Muses of Greek
myth, and the pre-Hellenic ninefold Goddess Nonacris, queen of the
Stygian birth-gate.31 She, or they, came from Oriental traditions almost
as old as civilization. During their Bronze Age Shang period, the
Chinese represented the Great Goddess of birth by nine tripod cauldrons
like the mixing-vessels of the Muses.32
The primitive cult of the cauldron obviously discouraged "cowards"
because it was cult of martyrdom. Like Christian martyrs, the
cauldron's victims were promised immediate resurrection into a life of
glory. Strabo spoke of Cimbrian priestesses who sacrificed men,
making them divine heroes, and caught their blood in magic cauldrons
and read omens in their entrails. 33
Some myths hint at cannibal cauldrons large enough to boil a
human body, and beliefs that death in the cauldron was not really
death. A gypsy legend spoke of a hero forced by a mystic Lady to milk
dangerous mares, then bathe in a boiling cauldron of their milk. A
god in the form of a royal horse promised to breathe frost on the
cauldron and render it comfortably lukewarm.34 The story recalls the
Corinthians' "man-eating mares," or horse-masked priestesses, who
caused Bellerophon to mount to heaven on the royal horse Pegasus,
symbol of apotheosis after death
Horseback riding is a sign of deification on the famous silver
sacrificial cauldron recovered from a Gundestrup peat bog. Manufactured
about 100 B.c., the vessel showed a ceremony of sacrifice. Victims
appear to be identified with the Horned God, Cernunnos, seated in a
yogi's lotus position holding male and female symbols, the serpent and
torc.36 On foot, a row of victims approach the sacred cauldron which
is shield-shaped and double-lobed, resembling a yoni. A priest or
priestess is shown plunging one victim headfirst into the vessel. 37
Above, the heroes depart glorified, on horseback, riding literally into the
sunset, which represented heaven. Cernunnos himself was dismembered
and cooked in a cauldron to rise again, which made him the
obvious god for such rites.
sacrificial cauldron recovered from a Gundestrup peat bog. Manufactured
about 100 B.c., the vessel showed a ceremony of sacrifice. Victims
appear to be identified with the Horned God, Cernunnos, seated in a
yogi's lotus position holding male and female symbols, the serpent and
torc.36 On foot, a row of victims approach the sacred cauldron which
is shield-shaped and double-lobed, resembling a yoni. A priest or
priestess is shown plunging one victim headfirst into the vessel. 37
Above, the heroes depart glorified, on horseback, riding literally into the
sunset, which represented heaven. Cernunnos himself was dismembered
and cooked in a cauldron to rise again, which made him the
obvious god for such rites.
A scene similar to that of the Gundestrup Cauldron occurs on a
sacred cista from Palestrina-Praeneste. Rome's Mother of Time,
Anna Perenna, appears to the dying god Mars in the guise of his virgin
bride, Minerva. She stands over her naked lover and pushes his head
down into a boiling cauldron, while the dog of the underworld gate
looks on, as also on the Gundestrup example.39
Some pagan Mysteries employed visions of the Cauldron as
symbolic death and rebirth. Before a Siberian shaman could practice,
he was required to undergo hallucinatory experiences of being chopped
to pieces and boiled in a cauldron, sometimes for a period as long as
three years. Yakut, Buryat, and other tribes say the shaman must be
killed by the spirits of ancestors, cooked in their magic cauldron, then
given new flesh. "Shaman" comes from Tungusic saman, "one who
died," a man assimilated to the Lord of Death called Samana in
Sanskrit. Tibetan shamans made the soul-journey to the "Great Hell"
pictured as an iron cauldron, called House of Iron or Iron Mountain.
There the aspirant was dismembered by rakshasas-obsolete ancestral
deities-and boiled, not in punishment for sin but as an initiatory
procedure.40
Skald-shamans of Scandinavia made the same soul-journey to
Hvergelmir, the Mighty Roaring Cauldron, source oflife-giving
waters at the foundations of the earth. This was another version of the
triple cauldron in the earth-.womb, from which Odin received inspiration
and power. Hvergelmir was triple too, accompanied by the fount of
wisdom and memory called Mimir (an archaic "mother"), and the
fount of ongoing life called Urdarbrunner, the stream of Mother Earth.
Founts and cauldrons in the earth were tended by the three Fates
(Noms), of whom the first was Mother Earth hersel£.41
Even when the Cauldron of Regeneration entered Christian
tradition as the Holy Grail, supposedly the chalice of Christ's last
supper, it was referred to as an escuele or "cauldron." 42 Arthur's knights
originally sought the Grail in the underworld of Annwn, receiving
their divine vision of it in the castle of Elaine, or Elen, the virgin aspect
of the triple Moon-goddess. It appeared in her hands, heralded by her
yonic dove. It meant death for her chosen one, Galahad, who reigned as
a sacred king, then died at the altar as he saw his vision of the Grail.43
The Cistercian Estoire del Saint Graal said "two heathen rulers,"
Mordrain and Nascien (Death and Rebirth) were blinded by the
vision of the Grail, but healed by the touch of the lance that pierced
Christ, both of these objects being kept in the same sanctuary.44 The
motive seems to have been to belittle the female symbol (grail) in favor
of the male symbol (lance).
sacred cista from Palestrina-Praeneste. Rome's Mother of Time,
Anna Perenna, appears to the dying god Mars in the guise of his virgin
bride, Minerva. She stands over her naked lover and pushes his head
down into a boiling cauldron, while the dog of the underworld gate
looks on, as also on the Gundestrup example.39
Some pagan Mysteries employed visions of the Cauldron as
symbolic death and rebirth. Before a Siberian shaman could practice,
he was required to undergo hallucinatory experiences of being chopped
to pieces and boiled in a cauldron, sometimes for a period as long as
three years. Yakut, Buryat, and other tribes say the shaman must be
killed by the spirits of ancestors, cooked in their magic cauldron, then
given new flesh. "Shaman" comes from Tungusic saman, "one who
died," a man assimilated to the Lord of Death called Samana in
Sanskrit. Tibetan shamans made the soul-journey to the "Great Hell"
pictured as an iron cauldron, called House of Iron or Iron Mountain.
There the aspirant was dismembered by rakshasas-obsolete ancestral
deities-and boiled, not in punishment for sin but as an initiatory
procedure.40
Skald-shamans of Scandinavia made the same soul-journey to
Hvergelmir, the Mighty Roaring Cauldron, source oflife-giving
waters at the foundations of the earth. This was another version of the
triple cauldron in the earth-.womb, from which Odin received inspiration
and power. Hvergelmir was triple too, accompanied by the fount of
wisdom and memory called Mimir (an archaic "mother"), and the
fount of ongoing life called Urdarbrunner, the stream of Mother Earth.
Founts and cauldrons in the earth were tended by the three Fates
(Noms), of whom the first was Mother Earth hersel£.41
Even when the Cauldron of Regeneration entered Christian
tradition as the Holy Grail, supposedly the chalice of Christ's last
supper, it was referred to as an escuele or "cauldron." 42 Arthur's knights
originally sought the Grail in the underworld of Annwn, receiving
their divine vision of it in the castle of Elaine, or Elen, the virgin aspect
of the triple Moon-goddess. It appeared in her hands, heralded by her
yonic dove. It meant death for her chosen one, Galahad, who reigned as
a sacred king, then died at the altar as he saw his vision of the Grail.43
The Cistercian Estoire del Saint Graal said "two heathen rulers,"
Mordrain and Nascien (Death and Rebirth) were blinded by the
vision of the Grail, but healed by the touch of the lance that pierced
Christ, both of these objects being kept in the same sanctuary.44 The
motive seems to have been to belittle the female symbol (grail) in favor
of the male symbol (lance).
Sidenote:
Large cauldrons in
Egyptian temples were
called shi, the
prototype of the brass
"sea" in Solomon's
temple, which was
certainly a Cauldron
of Regeneration. 12
Babylonian temples
had the same vessel,
called apsu or
"abyss," for baptism,
ceremonial lavage,
and r .obirth rituals.Il
Such a "sea" was
also called "the Deep,"
tehom in Hebrew. 14
Like the Christian
baptismal font
descended from these
forerunners, the
cauldron or "sea" was a
womb symbol.
Solomon's "sea"
represented his
Goddess, Ashtoreth
(Astarte). It was
decorated with her
yonic lilies: "The
brim thereof was
wrought like the
brim of a cup, with
flowers oflilies"
(l Kings 7:26).
Egyptian temples were
called shi, the
prototype of the brass
"sea" in Solomon's
temple, which was
certainly a Cauldron
of Regeneration. 12
Babylonian temples
had the same vessel,
called apsu or
"abyss," for baptism,
ceremonial lavage,
and r .obirth rituals.Il
Such a "sea" was
also called "the Deep,"
tehom in Hebrew. 14
Like the Christian
baptismal font
descended from these
forerunners, the
cauldron or "sea" was a
womb symbol.
Solomon's "sea"
represented his
Goddess, Ashtoreth
(Astarte). It was
decorated with her
yonic lilies: "The
brim thereof was
wrought like the
brim of a cup, with
flowers oflilies"
(l Kings 7:26).
From Barbara Walker's Women's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets
womb
womb
- The Sanskrit word for any temple or sanctuary was garbha-grha,"womb." I
The great annual festival of Aphrodite in Argos was called Hysteria,
"Womb." The oldest oracle in Greece, sacred to the Great Mother of earth,
sea, and sky, was named Delphi, from delphos, "womb."
Megalithic tombs and barrow-mounds were designed as "wombs"
to give rebirth to the dead. Their vaginal entrance passages show that
Neolithic folk went to considerable trouble to devise imitations of
female anatomy in earth and stone. Tomb and womb were even
related linguistically. Greek tumbos, Latin tumulus were cognates of
tumere, to swell, to be pregnant. The word "tummy" is thought to
have come from the same root. 3
Womb-temples and womb-tombs point backward to the matriarchal
age, when only feminine life-magic was thought efficacious.
Rebirth from the womb-tomb was the meaning of the domed funerary
stupa of the Far East, where the remains of the sainted dead lay
within a structure called garbha, the "womb." 4 The parallel with barrow
graves, Mycenaean tholos tombs, cave temples, and other such
structures is now well known. Even a Christian cathedral centered on
the space called nave, originally meaning "belly." Caves and burial
chambers were said to be sunk in the "bowels" of the earth-that is, of
Mother Earth. The biblical term for "birth" is "separation from the
bowels."
Archetypal womb-symbolism is as common today as it ever was,
though not always recognized as such. Paul Klee said, "Which artist
would not wish to dwell at the central-organ of all motion ... from
which all functions derive their life? In the womb of nature, in the
primal ground of creation, where the secret key to all things lies
hidden?" 5From Barbara Walker's Women's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets
Moon Blood Magick: Sacred Ritual History of Menstruation and the Pineal Gland
Often times, before her cycle, a woman becomes more attuned to her psychic and metaphysical abilities. Her senses become heightened...a keener sense of smell and taste. She may see colors or other optical vibrations vividly. More women and people in general are opening up to higher vibrations. We are paying closer attention to the mystical things our minds and bodies are naturally capable of experiencing.
A few days ago, a friend of mine in South Africa enlightened me with a very interesting article titled "Why I love ovulating and why you should too!". The article pieces together many puzzles regarding the female "moon cycle" and how it connects to relationships with partners, the self, and everything that is. After reading, I was inspired to do a bit more research on the subject of menstruation as a holy sacrament, it's power to stimulate the third eye and the high levels of Dimethyltryptamine (DMT) released in the female body during this cycle.
It's interesting to note that the Egyptian Eye of Horus, a symbol of protection and good health, is nearly identical to the human pineal gland. Ancient Egyptians mixed menstrual blood with red wine to increase their spiritual power. In Greece, it was mixed with corn and used to fertilize crops and ensure bountiful harvests. Some Native American tribes saw menstruation as a time for relaxation, inspiration, oneness, solitude and creativity. During this time, women were taken to special tents where they would be cared for by other women of the tribe. In some cultures, women would be approached with prayer requests or people seeking spiritual guidance during their moon cycle.
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Pretty neat stuff.
The following is from a book called, 2012 and the Galactic Center: The Return of the Great Mother By Christine R. Page
"Now this will sound very strange due to the moral stigmatisms that have been attached over the last few centuries...but here we go, and i'll keep it short.
It's also fascinating to appreciate that prior to approximately 1960BC,
kings and other leaders ingested menstrual "moon" blood in the belief
that it was infused with the moon's power of creativity, and hence, the
elixir of life (the power to stimulate the third eye). We now know that
during menses or the moon time, a woman's body produces hormones such as
DMT (dimethyltryptamine), which are found in abundance in the menstrual
blood.
Thus, every month, due to the release of these hormones, a woman is
capable of traveling along the path of the priest-kings of old and
entering the heart of the Great Mother (ocean of
possibilities/void/'God'/black hole/wormhole). There she receives
messages and insights that will benefit not only her spiritual
evolution, but also that of her family and tribe. On her return from
this altered state, she shares her visions with the tribe...
I hope this has inspired you, male or female, to connect with your higher divine self and the oneness that is our beautiful and mysterious Universe.
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