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Issue Seven of At The Crossroads
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Sara Rajan explores the roots of western science in Christianity and the magical traditions of the Italian Renaissance. She discusses the legacy of the European witch burnings in female compliance and silence and in the loss of spirit from consciousness:
“The witch-craze also left a legacy that is even less accessible, and therefore more insidious, than the causes of female silence – a war against spirit. For in the accusations of sorcery and witchcraft the spiritual realms recognized in the old traditions were demonized, and therefore effectively expunged from official, and eventually popular, consciousness.” (Continued below.)
New Paradigm Science
Every issue of At The Crossroads includes a section on New Paradigm Science News and usually related articles, such as the critique of western science in this issue by Sara Rajan. You may or may not be interested in western science – many women are not – but new paradigm science is interesting! New paradigm scientists are like femninists – they are challenging the assumptions of western science and of western patriarchal society. Actually many new paradigm scientists are feminists and the assumptions they confront are sexism, racism, heterosexism… But other new paradigm scientists are struggling against the assumption that material reality is the only reality and developing theories that offer insights into spiritual realities and heretofore inexplicable phenomena like psychic healing, clairvoyance, UFOs and spontaneous remissions of diseases like cancer.(New paradigm science continued below.)
Feature Articles
The Goddess Ix-Chel and the Curandera Tradition by Dianalee Goldman
No Road Maps by Bonita Rinehart
Ecology is a Sistah’s Issue Too: The Politics of Emergent Afrocentric Ecowomanism by Shamara Shantu Riley
From God to God-Complex: The Religious and Magical Background of Western Science by Sara Rajan
Forum
How can feminists dismantle the “star”/”expert” systems and create a truly grassroots movement that encourages all women to speak and be heard?
Book Reviews
Julie Guthrie reviews Serpents in the Manger: Overcoming Abusive Christianity/em> by Jerry L. Harris and Melody J. Milam
Shelley Anderson reviews Malefice a novel of the witch burnings by Leslie Wilson
Shelley Anderson reviews four books on women and Buddhism
New Paradigm Science News
The Mind of God? A critique of male dominated physics
No Insurance! Insurance companies and climate change
Harvard UFO Researcher Not Fires
Red Earth, White Lies
Sara Rajan on The Religious and Magical Roots of Western science continued
“The import of the voidance of spirit from functional consciousness can hardly be recognized now, since we have been so long without it. But the ramifications are staggering. The ancience Europeans, like all primal cultures, saw all life as in-dwelt by animate, intelligent spirit. As the under-lying principle of life, spirit was the very essence of each created thing, and served as the interface between humans and the world of nature. By means of spirit humans and non-human beings maintained communication in a variety of non-verbal ways. And, the spirits that indwelt the realm of nature conveyed many forms of practical knowledge to humans. In return, humans provided for the animals and plants whose spirits had enriched them, by honoring the territory iw which they lived; by making songs, stories, artifacts and celebrations, as well as by numerous other ingenious means…”
New Paradigm Science continued
This issue includes a discussion of Margaret Wertheim’s book, Pythaoras’ Trousers: God, Physics and the Gender Wars. According to Wertheim, women have been poorly represented in physics throughout history because of the religious nature of physics. Even nuclear physics’ attempt to come up with a Theory of Everything is actually an attempt to uncover “the mind of God”, a project unlikely to have much applicability to daily life despite the billions of dollars invested in it.
We also cover Vine Deloria’s rebuttal of the ways in which western science negatively portrays Native Americans, such as the view that Native Americans slaughtered off the western hemisphere’s megafauna of the Pleistocene. Deloria’s book, Red Earth, White Lies debunks many highly questionable scientific theories and uses indigenous knowledge to suggest very different versions of the past:
* Why Native Americans did not immigrate to North America via the Bering Straits
*How Native Americans lived on this continent for much longer than the 12,000 years scientists endorse
* The existence of unusually large people living at the time of the megafauna
Ancient indigenous knowledge passed down through oral tellings has great potential to inform a new paradigm science.
