Immanence the journal of applied mythology, legend, and folktale
FALL/WINTER 2017 VOL. 2 NO. 1
immanencejournal.com
RULERS AND REBELS
I must create my own System. Or be enslav’d by another Man’s. I will not Reason & compare: my business is to Create.
William Blake, from Jerusalem
FALL/WINTER 2017
Cover image: The High Priestess by Howard David Johnson. Oil on panel and digital illustration. Left: Plate from The Song of Los, copy B, by William Blake. 1795. Blake poem excerpt suggested by Kevan Manwaring, writer, lecturer (Open University), and Creative Writing PhD candidate (University of Leicester). Blog: thebardicacademic.WordPress.com Twitter: @bardicacademic
Immanence The Journal of Applied Mythology, Legend, and Folktale 5400 Hollister Avenue Goleta, CA 93111 (805) 453-4744 Immanencejournal.com Mission: The primary mission of Immanence is to encourage a reenchantment of our relations with ourselves, each other, and the living world by publishing appreciative commentary and art on the contemporary relevance of folklore—including myth, legend, folktale, fairytale, and wondertale—as it illuminates the deep structures of personal and collective consciousness. Editorial Board: Craig Chalquist Kelly Lydick Melissa Nazario Lola McCrary Jacqui Dziak Mary Wood Zhiwa Woodbury Viola Chen Deborah Salomon Kerri Grant
Founding Editor & Editor-in-Chief Associate Editor Production Manager, Webmaster & Contributing Editor Assistant Editor Marketing Manager & Contributing Editor Visual Arts Editor & Contributing Editor Columnist & Contributing Editor Contributing Editor Contributing Editor Contributing Editor
Other contributors: Susanna Anderson Jesse Masterson Carole Standish Mora Rebecca Wyse Board of Mentors: Stephen Aizenstat Bonnie Bright Linda Buzzell Keiron Le Grice Stanley Krippner Elisa Markhoff Devdutt Pattanaik Safron Rossi Brian Swimme Richard Tarnas Bob Walters Copyright © 2017 by Worldrede Academy All rights reserved Fall 2017, Vol. 2, No. 1 For reprint permissions please email us at contact@immanencejournal.com. Because submissions are accepted from around the world, common spelling and grammar use from each culture (example: honor vs. honour) appears as written by the author. ISSN number 2473-3865
contents from the founding editor
2
feature articles
4
6 Arresting Freedom, Rewriting Myth Kerri Grant 16 Land Claims: America’s Mystery Stones Keith Allen Dennis 22 “The Fool of the World and. . .” Successful Leadership Steven Gregory 27 Captain America’s Influence in the Mythic World of Popular American Culture Leontine Jefferies 36 Donald Trump: A Modern Day Pied Piper Joel Sloane 50 Good Leadership is a Myth Robert Wright and Jacqui Dziak
from the academy
57
59 Rediscovering the Neglected Myth of the Hebrew Republic Michael Bogar 76 Affirmation and Repudiation: The Role of the Community in the King’s Psychic-Growth Cycle Lisa Sawyer 90 Hope: Pandora’s Greatest Gift Craig Chalquist
these mythic times
99
100 Post-Traumatic Strength Deborah Salomon
mythopoetics
119
120 Serpent Sets the Record Straight Kathie Collins 122 Joan Seanan McGuire 124 Rise Craig Chalquist
reviews
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128 Rulers and Rebels: Rachel Maddow, Applied Queer Mythology and the Power of Narrative in the Post-Fact Era CK Blackmore 136 A Hall of Mirrors: Kelcey Ervick writes The Bitter Life of Božena Němcová Kelly Lydick 140 Beatriz at Dinner: What Would Wonder Woman Do? Deborah Salomon
art and image
146
161 Sir Viss Michelle Tocher
readers respond
148
From the Founding Editor Craig Chalquist All over the world, folkloric themes burst from polarized politics like wild cats driven from a hurricane-flooded subway. This Fall 2017 edition of Immanence looks at some of these emerging themes through the archetypal lens of Rebels and Rulers. Our feature articles begin with “Arresting Freedom, Rewriting Myth” by Kerri Grant, for whom the Statue of Liberty is a mythic image whose message of welcome and hope for immigrants is now under attack by the administration in Washington. In “Land Claims: America’s Mystery Stones,” Keith Allen Dennis reflects on how legendary stone artifacts and inscriptions placed where they don’t belong offer metaphors and reflections for rebellion against colonization. For Steven Gregory, the Russian folktale “The Fool of the World and the Flying Ship” elegantly demonstrates principles of good leadership. Picking up from where her dissertation left off, Leontine Jefferies’ article “Captain America’s Influence in the Mythic World of American Popular Culture” finds mythic forces taking shape behind the comic book heroes now so present in film. Reexamining a popular folktale, Joel Sloane investigates “Donald Trump: A Modern Day Pied Piper.” In “Good Leadership is a Myth,” Robert Wright and Jacqueline Dziak demonstrate storytelling as an organic means of motivation in the world of business. On the academic side of the house, Michael Bogar provides a conservative perspective on leadership and governance with “Rediscovering the Neglected Myth of the Hebrew Republic,” giving a fresh view of Old Testament sources long banished by political academics. Lisa Sawyer’s “Affirmation and Repudiation” studies what folklore has to say about when the rebellious ruler fails to uphold the community’s standards. My article “Hope: Pandora’s Greatest Gift” contrasts theory-laden voices like James Hillman’s that disparage hope with what activists say about the value of hope in the face of adversity. For our column These Mythic Times, Deborah Salomon diagnoses the psychology and mythology of present political upheaval in the United States through the lenses of depth psychology, Family Constellations, rune readings, and other relevant perspectives. Poetry for this edition includes “Serpent Sets the Record Straight” by Kathie Collins, “Joan” by singer-songwriter Seanan McGuire, and “Rise” by yours truly.
We also have three reviews. “Rachel Maddow, Applied Queer Mythology and the Power of Narrative in the Post-Fact Era” assesses Maddow as a storyteller of fact and reason: a rarity in a cable news show! In “A Hall of Mirrors,” Kelly Lydick reviews Kelcey Parker Ervick’s biography The Bitter Life of Božena Němcová. Comparing the films Beatriz at Dinner with Wonder Woman, Deborah Salomon asks: what would Diana do at Beatriz’s dinner? For our Art and Image section, Immanence is happy to present “Sir Viss,” an animated storytelling presentation written and performed by Michelle Tocher. The story is rich with themes of power, oppression, loyalty, and compassion. The cover art for this edition of Immanence comes to us from artist Howard David Johnson. We extend to him our gratitude and thanks.
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from the academy
Rediscovering the Neglected Myth of the Hebrew Republic Michael D. Bogar “...the Pentateuch’s stories place the entire nation [of Israel] at center stage—as opposed to some divinely elected monarch—in a way not evinced anywhere else in the ancient Near East...it essentially challenges each [Hebrew] member of the polity to strive for moral and spiritual excellence.” Joshua Berman (12) “The great task of a life-sustaining culture...is to keep the invisibles attached...” James Hillman (112) Brief History of Political Hebraism in Western Thought The common modern academic view argues that “Christian” biblical politics began to dominate Europe with emperor Constantine’s conversion in 312 CE, becoming more deeply ingrained with Theodosius the Great (379-395 CE), and rigidly solidified with emperor Justinian (527-565 CE). The argument continues that this Bible-based political system continued through the Middle Ages, relaxing only slightly during the Renaissance with the rediscovery of Plato and the Classics. Finally “the Great Separation” between revelation and rationalism was initiated in the 16th-18th centuries by philosophers and scientists like Descartes, Montaigne, Galileo, Bacon, Voltaire etc., loosening the theocratic Judeo-Christian stranglehold. Gradually the more secular Europeans ushered in a new era resulting in the so called 18th century Age of Reason, ending authoritarian religious politics in favor of individual rights, egalitarian justice and liberal democratic equality. But is this an accurate assessment? “No,” says Harvard Political Historian Eric Nelson, along with a growing number of contemporary revisionist scholars of Western political history. Nelson, in his book The Hebrew Republic: Jewish Sources and the Transformation of European Political Thought, writes: “This book begins from the conviction that the traditional Image on page 58: Rashi, on the Pentateuch. 13th century. This drawing of the Menorah is placed within the column of text as a sign that it is not meant to be decorative, but is a diagram to clarify the description in the biblical passage. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
story...puts things almost exactly backward” (2). Nelson goes on to present evidence that the alleged “biblical politics” from Constantine through the Renaissance were not “biblical” at all, but rather inherited mostly from Greco-Roman traditions and sources. Nelson argues that most of the renowned liberal political scholars of the 16th and 17th centuries—like John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, Carlo Sigonio, Hugo Grotius and Peter Cunnaeus, Baruch Spinoza, et al.—turned for the first time to the Hebrew Bible (Protestant Old Testament) for liberal political theory.1 Fania Oz-Salzberger, in the collection Political Hebraism, provides an excellent summary of the pioneering history of political Hebraism in Western thought and practice: Political Hebraism flourished in European thought for about a century and a half, roughly between Bodin and Locke (c.1600-1710), with Machiavelli as a significant predecessor. The great tide of political and legal-minded Hebraism emerged in mid-seventeenthcentury England, when jurist John Selden built his excellent scholarly reputation upon it, and republican theorists John Milton and James Harrington endowed it with hands-on political significance. (232) However, says Oz-Salzberger, within the ranks of modern scholarship these biblical sources are largely ignored or downplayed by most political historians. OzSalzberger argues that the neglect of these Hebrew sources “began in the early eighteenth-century, when the Enlightenment threw out the political baby along with the theological bathwater. By the nineteenth century no major political thinker read the Old Testament politically” (ibid.). She goes on to note that only recently have scholars begun to honor these neglected Hebrew sources. What was the appeal of the Hebrew biblical mythos to these 16th-17th century scholars? Joshua Berman answers that question: “The new order articulated in these [Hebrew] texts stands in contrast to [the] socioeconomic structure prevalent at many junctures throughout the history of the ancient Near East: the divide between the dominant tribute-imposing class and the dominated tribute-bearing class...” (4). In other words, the European scholars began to note that historically the ancient Near Eastern political systems were typically divided into two classes: the dominating 1 These scholars were also masters of the Classics, but for the first time studied the politics of the Hebrews alongside the Greeks and Romans.
ruling class over the dominated servant class. Berman continues: The dominant tribute-imposing class consists...of the political elite [native or foreign who]...all participated in the extraction of produce, or surplus, from the dominated tribute-bearing class: agrarian and pastoral producers, slaves, unskilled workers, all who do not draw surplus from other workers but whose station in the culture dictates that their own surplus is to be taken by members of the elite class and its subsections. (ibid.) However, the Hebrew Torah—beginning with the Genesis cosmology—repudiates the politics of class by declaring that all humans are created in God’s image and thus equal. As we shall see, this radical Hebraic mythos declares that the kings of Israel are subject to the same laws as the commoners (The Bible, New International Version, Deut. 17:14-20; cf. I Sam. 8:10-18). These Hebrew egalitarian patterns of governance were discovered, explored and eventually implemented by the precursors of Western democratic liberalism in the 16th-17th centuries. The Role of the Reformation on Political Hebraism in Western Thought The discovery of Hebrew politics, noted by Nelson and Oz-Salzberger, began in the 16th century largely as a result of the Protestant Reformation. Specifically, it was the Protestant doctrine of sola scriptura (scripture alone) that initiated the demotion of the earlier Romanish political authority employed in the Catholic Christianized West. These reformers questioned the Church Councils, the taken for granted Neoplatonic cosmologies, the accepted Aristotelian political theory and the Roman political sources. The Bible alone—comprised of the Hebrew Old Testament and the Greek New Testament—was for the first time in Christian history to be studied in its original languages and historical context for matters not only of theology, but of economics, politics, social mores, art, etc.2 Keep in mind that most Christian scholars prior to the Reformation held a fairly low view of the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament), seeing it as merely a primer for the vastly superior New Testament. Most moderns do not understand that early “Christianity”, from 30 to 312 CE,
2 The vast majority of these Protestant scholars—following in the spirit of Augustine, Aquinas, and Dante—did not replace the Greco-Roman sources, but merely added the Hebrew sources that would now be examined along side of them.
was not an earthly “political movement.” Only when Constantine became the first “Christian” emperor in 312 CE did the Christians inherit the entire Greco-Roman worldview—politically, culturally, scientifically and economically.3 The Neoplatonic cosmology was adopted with few questions. The “Christian” empire inherited the laws, economics and politics of the Greeks—from founders like Lycurgus (900-800 BCE), Solon (640-558 BCE), Plato and Aristotle; and Roman notables like Cicero, Livy and Lucretius. The Catholic luminary Thomas Aquinas (1224-1275 CE) embraced many of Aristotle’s conclusions on issues ranging from science to ethics, working to square them with the revelations of Scripture. Dante’s Divine Comedy is rooted in Greek science and the Romanized political status quo. Hippocrates’ (460-c. 370 BCE) and Galen’s (130- 210 CE) medical discoveries were followed well into the Renaissance by “Christian” doctors. The point is that Christian theology may have been dominant from Constantine onward, but the general European socio-political worldview remained largely Greco-Roman. For that matter, even much of the theology was more influenced by Plato and the Neoplatonists than by the Hebrew tradition. It was not until the 16th century Reformation that the Bible, specifically the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament), was actually taken seriously for the very first time as a socio-political source by the Protestant historians, philosophers and jurists. This was the beginning of what is we now commonly call an historical-critical approach to the Bible. We are not saying that prior to the Reformation that Christians had not carefully read their Old Testaments (Hebrew Bibles). They had, but merely as prophetic sources foretelling the arrival of Christ’s New Covenant, or as allegorical symbolism for Christian living. Now, however, the Hebrew Bible was being studied as a paradigm for historically grounded governmental policies. The Protestants reasoned that not only should centuries of corrupt Romanized Catholic theology be reformed, but also the inherited oppressive non-biblical Roman politics, economics and socio-cultural issues. As a result of this new posture toward the Hebrew Bible, Hebraic Studies Departments sprang up in Protestant universities across Northern Europe (especially Germany and Holland) and in England. For the first time Christian scholars learned Hebrew along with Greek and Latin; publishers began printing Hebrew Bibles, 3 Christian scholars like Clement and Origen, prior to Constantine, were immersed in the largely Hellenistic cosmology, but they were not part of a larger Greek or Roman political culture. We see the early influence of Greek ideas in the Gospel of John, written about 100 CE, with Jesus being identified with the Greek Logos (John 1:1).
grammars, Talmudic translations and other significant Jewish literature like the historical works of Josephus. While most Catholics largely opposed this newfound love affair with Judaic sources, the Protestants fell hard, declaring that the Roman Ecclesial traditions were no longer the primary source of socio-political ideology and practice. The Greco-Roman Classics were still held in high regard and mastered by most of Protestant scholars, but the Bible—specifically the Hebrew canon—would become their central socio-political mythos.4 Reformed scholars and jurists began to scrutinize the complex covenantal system delivered to Israel by God at Mt. Sinai, as well as the later works of the Talmud and Maimonides. Perhaps somewhere in this Hebrew story, they reasoned, there might be fresh archetypal ideas with regard to politics and economics. As Eric Nelson writes regarding this 16th century shift: It became the central ambition of [post-Reformation] political science to approximate, as closely as possible, the paradigm of what European authors began to call the respublica Hebraeorum (republic of the Hebrews): to compare it both to ancient and modern constitutional designs and thereby to see where the latter were deficient. (16) These liberated Protestant scholars viewed Israel as a divinely constituted commonwealth that began at Mt. Sinai, evolving across the centuries. The Jews had been economically ravaged by Egypt, militarily assailed by Canaanite, conquered and dominated by the Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, Romans (both Pagan and Christian) and Islamists. These repressive experiences informed the politics of the Hebrews from Moses to Maimonides, creating an evolving culture of egalitarianism and a greater sense of justice for all classes. The Protestant theorists acknowledged that the Jews may have missed Jesus as the messiah, but that their socio-political paradigm was superior, or at least better than the ones developed by the Romanized Catholics beginning with the reign of Constantine (306-337 CE) and ending with the reign of Charles V (1520-1558). The Reformers began to research what they called the respublica Hebraeorum (Hebrew Republic). Their primary sources would include the canonical Hebrew
4 Many conservative and orthodox Jews and Christians may not accept this term mythos, but it is being used according to the standard dictionary definition: (in literature) a traditional or recurrent narrative theme or plot structure; or a set of beliefs or assumptions about something.
Bible, the works of the Jewish historian Josephus (37-100 CE), the multi-volume Babylonian and Palestinian Talmuds (200-500 CE) and the writings of the esteemed Rabbi Maimonides (1135-1204 CE). The appropriation of the political insights from these sources would fall on a continuum, ranging from a literal adoption of the theocratic Hebrew republic (John Calvin), to a more general and eclectic search for archetypal principles of “natural law” that might be adapted to the new European political circumstances. Some of the major Protestant political thinkers were the English jurist John Seldon (1584-1654), the Dutch jurist Hugo Grotius (1583-1645), mathematician and philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716), and the English philosopher John Locke (1632-1704) widely regarded as the “Father of Liberalism” and one of the most influential of the Enlightenment thinkers. Following is a very brief sampling of some of the major socio-political insights that were gleaned from the Hebrew sources. These radical egalitarian ideas would find their way into Western political liberalism, continuing into modern times in both conservative and progressive parties. Three Sample Liberal Ideas from the Hebraic Republic 1. The Universal Image of God and Egalitarian Humanism The first assertion in the Hebrew cosmology regarding humanity in general— observed these Protestant scholars—is the notion that “God created adam (humankind) in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them”5 (Gen. 1:27). In the ancient Near East, the phrase “image of God” was applied exclusively to royalty, so the fact that the Hebrew story applies it to all of humanity reveals a revolutionary departure from the hierarchical view of humanity found in that world. Judaic scholar Nahum Sarna explains: The words [image and likeness]...can be better understood in the light of a phenomenon registered in both Mesopotamia and Egypt, whereby the ruling monarch is described as “the image” or “the likeness” of a god. In Mesopotamia we find the following salutations: “The father of my lord the king is the very image of Bel (salam bel)
5 The term adam is androgynous as seen in the use of the reflexive plural pronoun, “them”, referring back to adam (cf. Gen. 5:1-2). Males and females are both made in the image of God.
Detail of The Creation of Adam. by Michelangelo. c. 1508-1512. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
and the king, my lord, is the very image of Bel”; “The king, lord of the lands, is the image of Shamash”; “O king of the inhabited world, you are the image of Marduk.” In Egypt the same concept is expressed through the name Tutankamen (Tut-ankh-amun), which means “the living image of (the god) Amun,” and in the designation of Thutmose IV as “the likeness of Re”. Without doubt, the terminology employed in Genesis 1:26 is derived from regal vocabulary, which serves to elevate the king above the ordinary run of men. In the Bible this idea has become democratized. All human beings are “created in the image of God”; each person bears the stamp of royalty. (12) This move to ontological human egalitarianism was new and radical in the ancient world. Every human life matters equally—not just the rich, powerful and well born. In order to demonstrate this point the Hebrew Bible is filled with a wide range of protagonists: shepherds, children, the elderly, slaves, barren women, abused siblings, jealous wives, prodigal sons and a whole host of ordinary folks who bear the same image of the divine creator. In the words of Fania Oz-Salzberger:
Another theme....of Jewish history is the sheer multitude of strong personalities...To be sure, the Greeks had more gods, but the Hebrew Bible registered more humans. There are far more active protagonists in the Old Testament than in....all recorded Greek and Roman thinkers put together...note how many people, real and historical people, are crowding the ancient Hebrew pages...many of whom are named without having any significant role in the plot. (Oz and Oz 51) This “image of God” ideal moved the Hebrew prophets to continually proclaim equal justice for all citizens—widows and orphans as well as kings and priests. It was central to the Protestant notion of a republic, first emphasized by the English Puritans in what came to be called the Leveller Movement that fought for human rights and for the separation of church and state. In the Confession of Faith (1612) drafted by the Puritans living in Protestant Amsterdam we read: “That as God created all men according to his image...the magistrate is not to force or compel men to this or that form of religion, or doctrine but to leave Christian religion free, to every man’s conscience...” (Lumpkin and Leonard 118, 128). This ideal would be planted on American soil when the Mayflower landed at Plymouth in 1620. A half century later John Locke would make this biblical phrase foundational to his liberal political theory that the “state must guarantee its citizens’ rights to life, liberty and property” (OzSalzberger 234). It then became the basis of the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal...” Of course this ideal has not always been lived up to, yet it has driven the body politic in the modern West toward ever greater realizations of equality and justice for every human being.6 2. The Hebrew Ruler is Under the Same Law as the People After Israel escapes Egyptian despotism, they receive a revelation from God at Mt. Sinai explicating how their monarchy will differ from the tyrant kings of the ancient world. We read in the biblical Book of Deuteronomy, the Jewish equivalent of a modern political constitution, these words from Moses to Israel:
6 The Thomas Cahill in his bestselling book The Gifts of the Jews writes: “Democracy...grows directly out of the Israelite vision of individuals, subjects of value because they are images of God, each with a unique and personal destiny” (249).
When you enter the land the LORD your God is giving you and have taken possession of it and settled in it, and you say, “Let us set a king over us like all the nations around us...he must be from among your fellow Israelites. Do not place a foreigner over you, one who is not an Israelite...When he takes the throne of his kingdom, he is to ask the Levitical priests to write a copy of God’s Covenant...he is to read it all the days of his life so that he may learn to revere the LORD his God and follow carefully all the words of this law and these decrees and not consider himself better than his fellow Israelites and turn from the law to the right or to the left. (Deut. 17:14-15, 18-20) The Protestant reformers noted that the Hebrew Covenant derives from God, not human rulers, making every bureaucrat subject to the same laws as the common citizens. To further substantiate this unique notion of classless justice in Hebrew culture, middle eastern archaeologists point to the many uncovered ancient clay covenants made by the Hittite and Mesopotamian sovereigns. They resemble the Hebrew covenant found in the Book of Deuteronomy with one glaring difference: the standard Ancient Near Eastern contract is made between the dominant human king and the enslaved human subjects, whereas the Hebrew covenant is made between God as king, and all of Israel “as a kingdom of priests” (Ex. 19:6).7 Berman writes: Social and political hierarchy in the ancient Near East received metaphysical [archetypal] legitimation, as the heavenly order was construed as paralleling the terrestrial one. In this scheme, the common person emerges as a servant...as is evidenced in Mesopotamian creation epics...The theology of covenant in the [Hebrew] Pentateuch [first five books of Moses] rejects this. In light of the parallels with Late Bronze Age (fifteenth to thirteenth centuries BCE.) suzerainty treaties, the [Hebrew] covenant narratives implicitly suggest that the whole of Israel—not its king, not his retinue, not the priests—bears the status of a subordinate king entered into treaty with a sovereign king, God. (9) 7 The best presentation of this is found in Meredith Kline’s Treaty of the Great King: The Covenant Structure of Deuteronomy: Studies and Commentary.
Thus in the Hebrew covenant, even the human kings are subject to “King God” who tells the monarch that “he shall not multiply horses (armies) for himself...and not to multiply wives for himself...nor shall he greatly increase silver and gold” (Deut. 17:1617). Modern archaeology seems to have substantiated these egalitarian Hebrew values. In the 2013 July/August issue of Biblical Archaeology Review, Avraham Faust, in an article titled, “Early Israel: An Egalitarian Society,” begins with a framed blank
Clay tablet of treaty for fugitive slaves. Treaty between Idrimi of Alakakh (now Tell Atchana) and Pillia of Kizzuwatna (now Cilicia); sealed with a stamp seal in the Hittite manner on a raised central area; seal was probably Pillia’s but is too faint to be identified; complete, rejoined at center. c.1480 BC f. Clay cuneiform tablet located in the British Museum. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
white box instead of the usual picture. In addition to capturing the reader’s attention, it emphasizes what was not found in this Iron Age dig site dating between 1200-750 BCE, namely, no ornate temples and no ornate palaces; only simple pottery in all of the dwellings. There is also an absence of royal inscriptions, and “no burials with large assemblages of artifacts, nor burials of aristocracy” (13). Faust writes: “I believe the answer lies in an ideology of egalitarianism and simplicity. The simplest type of burial is simply a reflection of the ideology or ethos [of the Hebrews]” (14). It is this very ethos that attracted those 16th-17th century scholars to the Hebrew scriptural mythos in order to mine the political insights that might correct the corruption and political tyranny found in and founded upon the ideals of the Holy Roman Empire— and virtually every other empire in recorded human political history. 3. Separation Between Church and State John Locke in his booklet titled A Letter Concerning Toleration argues that Jesus and Moses represent two radically different agendas. Under Moses Israel is “initiated in the Mosaical rites and made citizens of that commonwealth...in which God himself was the legislator” (20). Israel was a true theocracy. However, Locke then speaks of Jesus and the Church as something quite different: But there is absolutely no such thing under the Gospel as a Christian commonwealth. There are, indeed, many cities and kingdoms that have embraced the faith of Christ, but they have retained their ancient form of government, with which the law of Christ hath not meddled. He [Christ], indeed taught men how, by faith and good works, they may obtain eternal life; but He instituted no commonwealth. He prescribed unto His followers no new and peculiar form of government,8 nor put He the sword into any magistrate’s hand, with commission to make use of it in forcing men to forsake their former religion and receive His. (20) According to Locke, and many of the more radical Protestants, there is no such thing as a “Christian political structure.” Christians will of course participate in the 8 When Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity in 312 CE, he never sought to replace Roman government with “Christian” or “biblical” government. He replaced the former Pagan urban judges and benefactors with Christian bishops to carry out those tasks, but there was no “Christian state.”
various political systems because, in the words of Martin Luther, they are citizens of two kingdoms: an earthly kingdom ruled by humans, and the invisible kingdom ruled by God. Locke points out that both Jesus9 and the Apostle Paul tell Christians to live peaceably under their respective political systems, unless those systems compel them to act unjustly. Paul writes to the Christian community in Rome: Let every person be subject to the governing authorities; for there is no authority except from God, and those authorities that exist have been instituted by God...Then do what is good, and you will receive its approval; for it is God’s servant for your good...Pay to all what is due them—taxes to whom taxes are due, revenue to whom revenue is due, respect to whom respect is due, honor to whom honor is due. (Rom. 13:1-7) One glaring example of this distinction between Moses and Jesus is found in the Gospel of Matthew: Now when Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, and he began to teach them... “You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘You shall not murder... But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment...Again, you have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘Do not break your oath, but fulfill to the Lord the vows you have made.’ But I tell you, do not swear an oath at all...You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ But I tell you, do not resist an evil person... (Mt. 5 italics mine) “You have heard it said, But I tell you...”. This revolutionary refrain encourages the individual to question all authoritarian religio-political assumptions. This “free speech” in matters of religion and politics astonished the people who replied: “When Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed at his teaching,
9 When asked whether good Jews ought to pay taxes (tithes) to Caesar or God, Jesus famously replied: “Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” (Mt. 22:21)
Render unto Caesar by Jacek Malczewski. Oil painting. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
because he taught as one who had authority, and not as their teachers of the law” (Mt. 5:28-29). Is it any wonder that Jesus was executed by the Jewish and Roman rulers? The good news (gospel) of Jesus did not offer an earthly political system or “new code of ethics” as many suppose, but rather a new way of doing ethics, politics and religion. The Hebrew old covenant offers a plethora of external political and economic legislation for a successful state as found in Exodus, Leviticus and Deuteronomy. The Christian new covenant, in contrast, provides ideas focusing primarily on internal psycho-spiritual transformation for the individual. This is the spirit in which these Protestant reformers approached the Hebrew Bible. This attitude allowed Locke and other Hebraist scholars to develop two biblical hermeneutics: one theological and the other socio-political. Christian scholars had always emphasized, nearly exclusively, the theological hermeneutic that interpreted the Hebrew Bible as a text prefiguring the work of Jesus Christ for human psycho-spiritual transformation. The new 17th century scholars, however, added a radical socio-political hermeneutic that began to read the Hebrew Bible as a text to be taken seriously with regard to legislative and administrative policies for the state. This dual hermeneutic is evident in the renegade Jewish philosopher Spinoza (1632-1677) as noted by Menachem Lorberbaum in “Spinoza’s Theological-Political Problem,” writing that Spinoza: ...develops two readings of the Bible. One legitimates an interpretation of the Bible in the Spirit of Spinoza’s preferred political theology while criticizing the traditional medieval version [of politics]. The other [method of interpretation] utilizes the hermeneutical principles...to religiously sanction an interpretation of the Bible as a work of political history. The former views Moses primarily as a theologian; the latter primarily as a statesman and founder of a polity. (Lorberbaum 180) This new attitude allows the Hebrew mythos to be seriously explored by political historians, philosophers and jusrists as well as by theologians and clergy. Their aim was not to live “biblically” or “theologically,” but to research the biblical mythos for socio-political insights as they had been doing with Greek and Roman sources. This is the beginning of the radical idea of the separation of personal religious beliefs from statist religious and political systems. These Protestant scholars literally wrote volumes exploring countless other
insights regarding the ideal republic found in the Hebrew Bible. A few other biblical examples of such a republic are: • Specific legislation that allows for the acquisition of private property while also caring for the poor through what were called gleaning laws (Lev. 23:22) and Jubilee years legislating that land be returned to the original owners every fiftieth year (Lev. 25:8-55). • The provision of laws for inclusive religious tolerance and freedom of conscience while also maintaining a set of religio-cultural humanitarian values and ideals for the good of the republic (see Berman, chapter 3, “Hebrew Theocracy and the Rise of Toleration”). • The Hebrew practice of representative government and the separation of powers. Several 16th-17th century scholars point to Israel’s “political system” as being comprised of individual tribal representatives as well as a ruling monarch who is under the jurisdiction of the people, a separate religio-cultural class of Levitical priests who enacted rituals benefitting the republic, and a host of judges who were chosen by the people in order to arbitrate legal and civil matters. Lastly there were the independent prophets from all classes who spoke truth to power (especially to corrupt kings, priests, and judges). The Decline of Hebraic Politics in Western Thought Searching the Hebrew sources and/or acknowledging them for political insights began to decline at the beginning of the 18th century. Writers like Montesquieu (1689-1755), Voltaire (1694-1778), Hume (1711-1776), Kant (17241804) and some of the American founders gradually distanced themselves from the Bible and the alleged republic of the Hebrews. Religion in general, specifically the Judeo-Christian mythos, was increasingly viewed as a problem to be avoided at all costs. The notions of a revealed Scripture, religious laws and the incessant squabbles between clergy and theologians were set aside for what was called rational philosophy. Over time, the archetypal was gradually swallowed by the anthropotypal. As Oz-Salzberger writes:
Enlightenment philosophes...[and their version of] European liberalism regarded the Jews as objects of distaste, curiosity, or charity, but not as partners in conversation, certainly not within the realm of political thought...And it was precisely this attitude that the thinkers of the Enlightenment passed on to later European liberalism. The Jew was no longer a political mentor, but an object of tolerance...a beneficiary of kindness, at times an erotic creature, an attractive and esoteric bearer of ancient wisdom but his book of books had been removed from the desk of the political philosopher. It is back in its late-Renaissance place, on the preachers pulpit or under the philologists lamp. (Oz and Oz 15-16) Conclusion The name “Israel” means “to wrestle with God”. In the Bible, Moses argues with the LORD, causing God to change His mind! (Ex. 32:9-14). It has been said that when two rabbis are disputing Talmud, you will get at least three opinions. This struggle for truth and justice typifies the Hebrew mythos—a mythos that was rediscovered in 16th century Reformation Europe. These Protestant scholars emphasized the Hebrew aim of maximal egalitarianism through struggling perpetually with big archetypal sociopolitical ideas. The biblical myth is saturated with an evolvement toward freedom and justice. This myth has spawned archetypal ideas for both conservative liberals and progressive liberals. According to Dr. Joseph Kobylka, in his Teaching Company Course titled “Cycles of American Political Thought,” conservative liberals are more fully liberated where government is minimized. Progressive liberals are more free when government acts in behalf of the oppressed. Both forms of liberty are found in the Hebrew republic, revealing the backdrop to our current muddled and sometimes acrimonious Western liberal politics. The wide-ranging socio-political ideas found in the Hebrew myth, propagated by the 16th-17th century reformers, provide one reason Americans have always struggled toward greater justice and freedom, fluctuating between the light and shadows of big government and minimal government. This notion of honoring the old and the new was Jesus’ approach as well as seen in this saying: “Therefore every teacher of the law who has become a disciple in the kingdom of heaven is like the owner of a house who brings out of his storeroom new treasures as well as old” (Mt. 13:52). The Hebrew myth reminds us that there is value in both the old (conservative ideals) and the new (progressive ideals).
Works Cited Berman, Joshua A. Created Equal: How the Bible Broke with Ancient Political Thought. Oxford UP, 2008. The Bible, New International Version, Zondervan House, 1984. Faust, Avraham. “Early Israel: An Egalitarian Society.” Biblical Archaeology Review, vol. 39, no. 4, 2013, pp. 12-18. Hillman, James. Revisioning Psychology. 1975. Harper, 1992. Kobylka, Joseph K. “Theoretical Baggage.” In the course, Cycles of American Political Thought, The Teaching Company. 2006. CD Locke, John. A Letter Concerning Toleration. 1689. Maestro, n.d. Lorberbaum, Menachem. “Spinoza’s Theological-Political Problem.” Political Hebraism: Judaic Sources in Early Modern Political Thought, edited by Gorden Schochet, et al., Shalem, 2008, pp. 167-90. Lumpkin, William L., and Bill J. Leonard, editors. Baptist Confession of Faith, 2nd ed., Judson Press, 2011. Nelson, Eric. The Hebrew Republic: Jewish Sources and the Transformation of European Political Thought. Harvard UP, 2010. Oz, Amos, and Fania Oz-Salzberger. Jews and Words. Yale UP, 2012. Oz-Salzberger, Fania. “The Political Thought of John Locke and the Significance of Political Hebraism: Then and Now.” Political Hebraism: Judaic Sources in Early Modern Political Thought, edited by Gorden Schochet, et al., Shalem, 2008, pp. 231-56. Sarna, Nahum. The JPS Torah Commentary: Genesis. JPS, 1989.
Michael Bogar has earned two master’s degrees in biblical studies and theology. He is currently completing his doctoral dissertation at Pacifica Graduate Institute where he has studied mythologies and depth psychology. The title of his dissertation is: Watching God Grow Up: Reading the Bible as Stages and Modes of Consciousness. He works with the Spiritual Enrichment Center on Bainbridge Island, WA, has taught at the graduate and undergraduate levels, and works with groups ranging from local churches to the Rotary Club of Seattle. He has a proven ability to inform and inspire students ranging from the informal beginner to the serious scholar. Students and audience members frequently comment on his depth of scholarship, personal approach and sense of humor. For more information about Michael’s work, go to his web site at MichaelBogar.com.
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mythopoetics
Joan Seanan McGuire (they called her Joan, you know... once upon a time, they called her Joan...) Joan of Arc sang absinthe-songs In smoky backroom bars, They cloaked the lights in green glass shades So you couldn’t see her scars, And her voice was mad with prophecy, And her eyes were full of flames, And they say that once you heard her sing, You’d never be the same, oh Joan of Arc sang phoenix songs And prayed to be released, They paid her wage in copper coins Once owned by the deceased, And her lips were bright as burgundy, And her fingers danced like flames, And they say that once you heard her sing, You’d never be the same, oh In smoky bars with sawdust floors And out of tune pianos, She waged a thousand inner wars, The first Saint of Sopranos, The voices in her head were loud; She couldn’t hear her own. They say she broke but never bowed, And once, they called her ‘Joan’. (build your nest of cinnamon; the Phoenix claims her own...) Joan of Arc sang mourning songs And prayers for the dead, And all of Bedlam’s threnodies Went ringing through her head, And her hands were filled with destiny, And her hair with shadow-flames, And her fingers danced like flames, And they say that once you heard her sing, You’d never be the same, oh
Joan of Arc sang sinner’s songs For all she couldn’t save, The barmaids brought her whiskey sours, Like they’d spare her from the grave, And her heart was cold with yet-to-be, And her breath was hot with flames, And they say that once you heard her sing, You’d never be the same, oh In smoky bars with sawdust floors And out of tune pianos, She waged a thousand inner wars, The first Saint of Sopranos, The voices in her head were loud; She couldn’t hear her own. They say she broke but never bowed, And once, they called her ‘Joan’. I hear they called her Joan... Seanan McGuire (www.seananmcguire.com) frequently incorporates myth and folklore in her writing and music. She is a Hugo and Campbell Award-winning writer of science fiction and fantasy, including the October Daye and InCrypid urban fantasies, Indexing (which follows a squad of fairy-tale tenders), and many other works both stand-alone and in trilogies or duologies. In addition, she is an artist and singer/songwriter. Search for her on YouTube and be prepared to be blown away by her music.
reviews
Rulers and Rebels: Rachel Maddow, Applied Queer Mythology and the Power of Narrative in the Post-Fact Era CK Blackmore “I think a lot of people of my generation are discomfited by the assertion of neutrality in the mainstream media, this idea that they’re the voice of God. I think it’s just honest to say, yes, you know where I’m coming from but you can fact-check anything I say.” Rachel Maddow, from “Rachel Maddow: I’m definitely not an autocutie” Narrative. It has become a social science buzzword in recent years. Through narrative-based research methods, narrative based therapies, or simply via hipster jargon, the concept of “the story” is having a modern day renaissance. Existing simultaneously as literal, metaphorical, deep and allegorical, the story being told and who’s telling it matters. As our rulers declare objective facts “fake news” and the very real threat of election interference holds the the global community hostage, journalistic transparency and the rebels who foster it take on an increasingly important role. Questionable news sources, which flourished during the 2016 presidential election cycle, have nourished a micro attention span propped up through algorithmic segregation and groupthink social media commentary. As a result, the American populace has been left with a collective crisis fatigue and an inability to discern news from propaganda. If ever “We the People” needed a rebel, a hero to help us make sense of it all, it’s now. Enter Rachel Maddow. Transparency for all As a San Francisco based psychotherapist, depth psychologist and queer
Photo taken at Los Angeles International Airport, Los Angeles, United States, during protests against Trump’s immigration ban. Photo by Kayla Velasquez. Courtesy of Unsplash.
identified woman in one of the nation’s most progressive locales, I have been on the front lines of the post-election liberal psychic collapse. I lived deeply in the trenches with the left-leaning coastal progressives as we bore witness to the unfathomable, counseled through the incomprehensible and re-emerged at the dawn of what is now widely referred to as the “post-fact era.” I have had a front row seat to the psychological meltdown of entire communities whose narratives are being rewritten. As the tellers-of-tales reconstruct populism, feminism, patriotism, republicanism, conservatism, liberalism and progressivism to serve their own agenda, over half the population attempts to comprehend the dystopian reality. Every night, like clockwork, the mainstream media outlets report on “unprecedented” events, conflicts of interest, tweets, court rulings and handshake speculations. Every night there is something outrageous, devoid of fact, peddled as truth, and repeated ad nauseum until normalized. In the midst of this media hurricane, Rachel Maddow is thriving in the eye of the storm. Somewhere in the chaos of the Republican primaries Maddow emerged at the front of the journalistic pack; a savvy, witty, voice of reason. Though successful by conventional journalistic and television standards for over a decade, the 2016 presidential election provided her the opportunity for a greatly deserved breakaway
moment (“Rachel Maddow Biography”). She stopped giving “alternate facts” airtime, curbing the presumption of validity by repetition. She deemed the daily sound bites a “The Silent Movie,” reporting heavily on actionable events. Maddow emerged from the insanity of the election cycle as a beacon of light, simultaneously embodying both free speech and critical thought. Rachel Maddow told us, the American public, a story. She placed events in context, hooking us with killer historical monologues that were devoid of condescension and ravaged by facts. She told it to us with humor and creativity, packaging complex current events into digestible portions. Her methods created a political breadcrumb trail leading viewers to ask questions and use their own deductive reasoning. She helped the average American news consumer to critically read news articles, evaluate their sourcing and “follow the money.” She stopped parroting news and started reporting what the news means. While shifting the narrative, Maddow remained true to her queer self. Relatable and warm, this androgynous queer woman in a trendy black blazer chuckled her way to the number one cable news slot. Referring to her viewers as “friends,” she rebelliously challenged the formality of the news while delivering the astonishing information with precision and grace. By doing so, she began to change the form, format, structure and face of the news itself. What’s in a story? Myths are defined as tales believed as true, usually sacred, set in the distant past or other worlds or parts of the world, and with extrahuman, inhuman, or heroic characters.... Cosmology’s concern with the order of the universe finds narrative, symbolic expression in myths, which thus often help establish important values or aspects of a culture’s worldview. For many people, myths remain valueladen discourse that explain much about human nature. (Magoulic) Rachel Maddow is representative of the iconic protagonist of Joseph Campbell’s monomythic hero’s journey in the archetypal battle between good and evil. An Oxford educated Rhodes scholar with a “wicked” sense of humor, she is the personification of the mythic badass who unabashedly speaks truth to power. Forging a coalition of engaged citizens, she empowers her viewers to be critical observers of the powers
that be. She also represents more modern American values than her predecessors. Managing to tear at the seams of the patriarchy five nights a week in Manhattan, she spends her weekends relaxing in western Massachusetts with her partner Susan and dog Poppy (“Rachel Maddow Biography”). She is a real-life representation of a woman prioritizing work/life balance and the importance of family. What’s in a name? Her personal mythology is as fascinating as she is freakishly smart. Rachel Anne Maddow (whose initials spell “RAM”) was born April 1, 1973 (“Rachel Maddow Biography”). Her astrological sun sign, Aries, is pictorially represented by a hugely horned ram, or male sheep. In addition, the word “ewe,” the female equivalent of a ram, is the literal Hebrew translation of the name “Rachel” (M. Campbell, “Behind the Name”). She is the perfect ram trifecta: A physical and energetic embodiment of masculine and feminine energy represented simultaneously as neither, yet both. Featured prominently in many ancient societies, Aries the ram is the first sign of the Zodiac. Celebrated for its prominent and continuously growing horns, it is a symbol of ever increasing mental activity, curiosity, and investigation (Venefica). Rachel Maddow has done this spirit animal justice. Just as the horns of the ram grow larger with the passage of time, so have Maddow’s ratings, viewership and “street cred.” The jaw-dropping synchronicities don’t stop there. The name “Maddow” can be derived from the root words Mat, Ma’at or Mad (M. Campbell, www.behindthename. com). Interestingly, “Maat” is the name of the ancient Egyptian goddess of truthtelling, the deity responsible for traveling the underworld in order to keep society balanced (“Maat”). Symbolized by an ostrich feather in place of her head, Maat is fabled to have delivered the Egyptians from the chaos of the universe by weighing the hearts of the deceased against her feather of truth. If the heart weighed in lighter or equal to the feather, the deceased person was deemed as having lead a truthful earthly existence, thus to crossing over into the afterlife and keeping the universe in balance (Hill). In everyday understanding, sheep energy represents the tendency to follow the mainstream (hence term “sheeple”) as well as the fundamental opposite of independent thought (Venefica). If we put Maddow’s surname first, like a variety of cultures do, the name literally becomes “truth teller to the sheep.” Rachel Maddow’s name by definition is the speaker of truth to the masses.
Queering the narrative The “new” myth—a new paradigm in which place, space, psyche, and Spirit are entwined with the evolution of ecological consciousness, sexual fluidity, and non-binary genderdness in a way that provides queer-identified individuals a means to understand themselves and the world in which they live in. This ‘new’ myth calls for a revisioned ‘Hero’- a revised narrative with a new set of normative experiences and developmental milestones that exist outside of traditional reproductive life markers. I am calling the ‘Hero’ of this new narrative the Queer Archetype. (Blackmore 6) I tend to see Rachel Maddow, the first openly gay news anchor to host a prime time show, as the physical embodiment of the Queer Archetype, a spiritually androgynous mythic figure which transcends the duality of the binary gendered experience (Blackmore 2). In essence, they are man, woman, neither, and both. Able to transcend the experience of binary sex and gender, they encompass any and all traits necessary to thrive. I originally wrote about the queer archetype in a theory I published regarding queer lifespan development in 2015. The article, published in the Journal of the International Association of Transdisciplinary Psychology, argues that through the lens of Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey, a spiritually androgynous, sexless, genderless archetypal construct emerges which displays the ability to transcend duality by embracing their polarities (1). The fabled hero of the tale, representative of the queer archetype, queers the hero well through the journey’s phases. In addition, by applying this concept to the basic pattern of narrative in world mythologies, we queer the narrative itself (3). Enter Rachel Maddow once again. By queering the narrative, she has set journalism up as the clean-energy alternative to “fake news.” She has diversified the construct to include systemic structures, attitudes, values and ideas that are not associated with hetero-normativity. Simply put “to queer” the narrative is to make it inclusive of the vantage of the “other.” Shifting the narrative to the more historically feminine meaning-making construct and blending it with the classically masculine notions of truth and justice, a non-binary tale emerges. Setting up meaning-making as the electric car of informed
“Aries and Musca Borealis�, plate 16 in Urania’s Mirror, a set of celestial cards accompanied by A familiar treatise on astronomy ... by Jehoshaphat Aspin. Astronomical chart, 1 print on layered paper board: etching, hand-colored. 1825. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
viewership, Rachel Maddow has moved toward leveling the proverbial playing field, thus adding an additional layer of depth and sustainability. Post-objectivity for a post-fact reality In studying qualitative research methods, I have developed an intense appreciation for the role of the researcher in the research. Instead of denying its existence in the first place, a variety of academic disciplines have embraced the subjectivity of the researcher as a strength, utilizing it to increase validity and provide additional measures of triangulation. In psychotherapy, we have a long history embracing the therapist as crucial to the therapeutic process. Perhaps as a society we are ready to embrace the power of the transparent narrator as essential in generating a more holistically accurate story. In this sense, Rachel Maddow has utilized her role as the narrator to highlight the effectiveness of subjective transparency, as well as the faux objectivity of the entire journalistic profession. She delineates what is opinion, states what is known fact, clearly indicates what elements are speculation and invites the viewer to draw
their own conclusions. She does not even bother to feign objectivity, but rather accounts for the inevitability of subjectivity. Perhaps Maddow’s journalistic paradigm, which antiquates the very idea of objectivity itself, is the next evolution in our collective narration. Fox News, which purports objectivity despite its bold and blatant bend to the right, is a prime example of the power of the faux objective narrative. Furthermore, the recent demise of Bill O’Reilly and the once beloved O’Reilly Factor highlights the collective shift toward transparency with subjectivity. However, it should be noted that despite the impact of this shift, Bill O’Reilly remains an iconic journalistic figurehead for Republican politics. Summations To create space for the new journalistic paradigm and an energetically balanced society, the “objective” narrative and the patriarchal institutions that support it must allow for the mythic death/re-birth process to take its natural course. Our current leadership, one that is waging war on the very concept of truth, has inadvertently created a rebel with a cause. Through the queering of Joseph Campbell’s hero’s journey, we make room for the Hero construct and the fusion of masculine and feminine elements, thus creating space for voices that are either, neither and both. By metaphorically trimming down our societal ram horns, we transcend all things binary, making way for our collective story of truth, transparency and rebellion to be told. Cheers to you, Rachel Maddow!
Works Cited Blackmore, CK. “Queer Archetypal Lifespan Development Theory & The “New” Myth: ReVisioning the Hero’s Journey through the Practice of Terrapsychological Inquiry.” Journal of The International Association of Transdisciplinary Psychology, vol. 4, no. 1, Dec. 2015, pp. 1–11. www.transdisciplinarypsych.org/volume-4-issue-1-2015. Campbell, Joseph. The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Princeton UP, 1949. Campbell, Mike. “Meaning, Origin and History of the Name Rachel.” Behind the Name, www. behindthename.com/name/rachel. ---“Behind the Name - The Etymology and History of first Names.” Behind The Name, www.behindthename.com/names/search.php?terms=maddow&x=0&y=0&type= Freeman, Hadley. “Rachel Maddow: ‘I’m definitely not an autocutie.’” The Guardian. https://www. theguardian.com/media/2011/apr/25/rachel-maddow-us-news-anchor
Hill, Bryan. “Maat: The Ancient Egyptian Goddess of Truth, Justice and Morality.” Ancient Origins, 6 June 2017, www.ancient-origins.net/history-ancient-traditions/maat-ancient-egyptiangoddess-truth-justice-and-morality. Magoulick, Mary. “What is Myth?” Georgia College State University, www.faculty.gcsu.edu/customwebsite/mary-magoulick/defmyth.htm. “Maat.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 16 Mar. 2017, www.britannica. com/topic/Maat-Egyptian-goddess. “Rachel Maddow Biography.” A & E Biography, A&E Television Networks, 2 Apr. 2014, www. biography.com/people/rachel-maddow.20906341. Venefica, Avia. “Animal Symbolism: Meaning of the Ram. “What’s Your Sign, Dare to Dream, 6 June 2017. www.whats-your-sign.com/animal-symbolism-ram.html.
CK Olivieri Blackmore, MFT, PhD is a licensed psychotherapist and depth p sychologist in private practice. She earned a Doctoral degree in East-West Psychology, a Masters degree in Mental Health Counseling and post-graduate certificates in Expressive Art Therapy and Spiritual Counseling. At present, she is an adjunct faculty member at The California Institute of Integral Studies and author of Queer Archetypal Lifespan Development Theory & The New Myth. CK specializes in issues pertaining to the queer community and their loved ones, couples therapy and trauma in first responders. She lives in San Francisco with her wife Amaris Blackmore, editor and co-founder of The Blackmore Group. CK’s website is www.drcksf.com
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