Monotheism, Feminism and Misandry

Medieval Europe in the light of Bogomil Misandry and the Manichean-Catharian Proto-Feminism

An excerpt from "On the Origins of European Gynocentrism and its Symbolism"

As we have seen, the Eastern European heretics of Bulgaria and other culture had a different conception of women and regarded them as preeminent and standing above men. Here we shall try to consider why the Bulgarian heretics had a different conception of the woman thus contributing to the modern feminist cult of misandry as through its crucial influence on the creation of the Gynocentric concept of chivalric love in terms of putting women on the pedestal and the Catharian troubadours who spread it all over Europe and subsequently the whole world. Here we should consider that the Bogomil theological misandry that gave rise to the inherent anti male notion of the Cathars, the troubadours and thus the basic ideology of courtly love, chivalry as well as gynocentrism including such concepts as the beauty and the beast can be traced back and already found in the creation mythology of the Bogomils that served as the origin for all of these later dynamics. In this heretic and Gnostic creation myth the first man – a female – was in a way a consequence of this cosmic struggle between good and evil; the being thus created in a female form was meant to bring solace into the lives of sentient beings, using her love in order to appease the aggression planted in the world by the destructive forces. In retaliation, the destructive force collected body parts from the most ferocious of animals, and fashioned out of them a being outwardly resembling the woman, but endowed with the male demonic qualities of its maker and compelled by its sex drive. Here we can already see most of the attributes of modern feminist as well as general misandry. The demonic depiction of the obsessive male sexuality, the description of men as ugly animals, the allegedly inherent evil and violence of men and many more. Moreover, the union of the first woman according to this misandrist creation myth ended up in her rape so she “descended” to lust which brings another two crucial elements of the modern misandrist and feminist environment namely the fallacy of rape culture, the feminist ideas of all men as being nothing but rapists as well as the pure nature of the woman as an asexual being who engages in sexual activity only to tame the demonic male. Further, in this creation myth the first man whose savage breast is soothed by the woman’s influence produced modern men, in whom the two elements (divine and demonic) gradually became so thoroughly commingled that they lost their bearings in the world of value. Spiritual clear-sightedness was supposed to be restored by Priest Bogomil, who preached the idea that people could be saved by rejecting the allegedly objectification of women which resembles in an another yet powerful analogy to modern day feminism. This is the way of the female divine love to be first of all reborn in women’s hearts and to restore the world to original harmony and save it from men. In the last analogy is also the conceptual basis for the chivalric ideal of a male subjugation to a woman as a part of ending suffering.

Moreover, as we have seen and will see further on, this does not only incorporate dual Bogomil-Catharian heritage but in fact the most crucial triangle of Bogomil, Cathar and Kabbalist connection whereas the Kabbalah and Catharism are the most crucial link as the co-mutual influence especially that of Catharian theology on Kabbalist concepts as well as in return the Kabbalist importance in the creation of Christian Chivalric culture of the troubadours. Though couched in modern language, the concept of impersonal forces competing for primacy in the universe has a very ancient and quintessentially gnostic pedigree. The notion that the first woman was an emanation of deity is not only a key clue to its reconstruction but can be recognized in Judaism as the Schechina which is the feminine energy of God and sometimes as a deity or Goddess in itself. Passed down in innumerable variants and also present in Jewish Kabbalist mysticism, this particular myth is summarized by Quispel as follows: In the beginning were the kingdom of light and the kingdom of darkness; then a divine hypostasis, usually called the original man or Sophia, shows the original light to the demons belonging to the world of darkness; those archons, usually described as the seven planetary spirits, become lustful and chase the light, which tries to flee. […] There are different variant accounts of how the light came to mingle with the darkness. In some versions it is said that light itself became lustful and peers down (spectandi libido), in others it is said to have sacrificed itself to forestall an invasion of the dark demons. […] One way of another, sparks of light penetrated the darkness. Those sparks are human souls which live scattered in the world, but also the soul of the world and the life of the cosmos in general. At one point the light and the darkness must separate, and the light will return to its source [Quispel 1951: 66].

In this understanding, redemption or if we want to coin the feminist term of liberation takes the form of rejecting and practically hating especially hetero sexuality as the basis of relationships between men and women thus freeing women from its male domination. According to this feminist theophany of the Gnostic creation myth the actual portrayal is the one of the first human being as a sexless woman who embodies immaculate beauty uses an inverted version of an androgynous myth. This as we can see is maybe the most primal source of the idea and concept of the beauty and the beast. This, of course, goes hand in hand with the old gnostic tradition which views human sexuality as abhorrent and that is seeing man as being inherently at fault with the creation of this dynamic. In fact, this is also the Gnostic theosophical frame for Eco-Feminism as well as the feminism of the motherly discourse which embodies the modern feminist attitude missionism that goes hand in hand with an utopian vision of world redemption through ideal, spiritual union between man and woman that restores woman’s original connection to the creative force. The feminine mystique might be well rooted in this kind of Gnostic religiosity. Rooted in the Bogomil and Catharian heresy this misandrist discourse is being hidden, with yet another powerful resemblance and analogy to modern feminism as the lip service that both men and women are former, creators and servants of ideals such as truth, peace, love and equality, whereas the latter are conniving players in a world of power games, committed to falsehood and exploitation.

Anyway, in the mainstream monotheistic theology misandry is expressed in a little bit different version. In this biblical myth about human origin and destiny, there are three main actors that is a) the serpent; b) two humans – namely Adam and Eve. In other words, as a symbolic representation of male vs. female energies we have first of all the serpent that is whether seen as a) personal representation of an animal or b) collective representation of 1) all animals or 2) a metaphor or analogy for humanity, it is referred to as male (energy). Then we have Adam which naturally represents men and male energy while Eve stand as an archetypal representation of women and female energy. In sum, metaphorically we have representation of two male energies and a female one. Now, let's dive more into the details. Anyway, it is important to say that philologically the biblical text actually does not attribute the main fall to Eve but the snake which means that is the male not female energy that brought this evil and led to the fall of Adam and Even. In a fact, not only we see here in a way that reminds us on heretical teachings an attribution and the equation of the serpent's male energy to Satanic male forces, not only we see again maybe the most earlier origins of the male depiction as an evil beast but also the concepts that the women being taken advantage by men as well as that it's them that are the source of it all.

Anyway, because of the fall, god does not punish only Eve but in fact all of the actors. The biblical textual depiction of the serpent's punishment is very interesting. First he is the first one to be punished which shows the gravity of the deeds thus symbolically the male energy has the main responsibility for the fall. Second there is also the punishment itself. In chapter three the Bible says: "And the LORD God said unto the serpent: Because thou hast done this, cursed art thou from among all cattle, and from among all beasts of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life". The depiction of the punishment here is crucial as "upon thy belly shalt thou go" is interesting as it gives us the notion that the serpent was standing on its feet which strengthens our notion of a male. Then, God punishes and expels Adam and Eve from the eternal paradise of blissful Eden into the temporary world of conflict, chaos, pain, suffering and hard work. However, the interesting thing is that Adam is at least at fault or actually not at fault at all but is still punished. Yet, before discussing his punishment it is interesting to scrutinize Eve's punishment. Now, when cherry picking the story through selective reading and interpretation especially also the wider context of biblical text other external religious sources her punishment as "he shall rule over thee" seems to support the idea of the unfair treatment of her. However, in the wider context especially in the context of Adam's punishment that exhibits male reality and oppression we read "And unto Adam He said: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in toil shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life. In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread.

So being actually a reflective myth of existing gynocentric reality, according to the biblical version of this story "Eve's alleged subjugation or her Husband's leadership in the greater context is Adam's slavery to his wife as being the sole breadwinner or practically as we would say and use modern terminology being a walking ATM as well as the female privilege of having this all without having to do anything for it. In a wider sense is the three P's or the "PPP" that is the protector, the provider and procreator. As Paul Nathanzon and Katherine Young correctly point out in "Sanctifying Misandry" it is also the earliest and most primitive source of female hypo-agency that was brought as a legal phenomenon to fruition in the Roman Empire partially probably through Christian influence that inherited it from the common Jewish denominator of the Bible as well as the various esoteric and heretic teachings. Anyway, according to some post-biblical versions, which exhibit the gynocentric tendency to present women as victims to disguise this matrix, most of the guilt, however, was falsely attributed to Eve and her female descendants, this as we see not only isn’t the textual meaning but also does not exhibit the mainstream theological line. On the other hand, according to the most recent interpretation, religious as well as secular, that are rooted in feminist misandry, mainly from the Cathar heretic Gnosticism but also from the mainstream theological line that are continuation of the traditional misandry now not only all of the guilt belongs to men and not only that they conspire against women, take control and oppress women but that they are evil by their very nature

The combination of the mainstream as well as esoteric creation myths and tradition, equips us with the tools and enables us to see the full scope of the origins of misandry especially that of modern feminism. Both of them are the earliest source of the demonic male depiction as bestial sexuality, men as being nothing than pigs, snakes and animals, the concepts such as rape culture and the patriarchy that is achieved and maintained by the same means through which it was created by overthrowing an utopian history of female matriarchy (leading back to such matriarchal society in future as well as the advocacy and the belief that women are all good and special snowflakes who bear no responsibility at all for what goes wrong (hypo-agency). At this stage when we go through this through scrutiny and investigation of the world religious history there come immediately a very interesting phenomenon to mind that can instantly be observed namely the more we advance in human history and especially in the realm of religion that as proven in my other book is the mean vehicle for the transportation of gynocentric values as is also strengthened once again in this very research the more misandry grows in scope both in waubtitavie as qualitative terms. In anthropological terms and as is proben in my other book, Johann Jakob Bachofen, a Swiss anthropologist of the nineteenth century, was the first to take this point of view. He argued that human history revolved around women – that is, mothers. In other words, Gynocentrism and especially the sub division of a matrifocal society in form of motherhood was the ultimate source of all morality and religion. Now based on the threefold sub-categories of gynocentric societies that is a) matrifocal; b) matrilineal; c) patrifoca,l human cultures also exhibited a threefold symbolic characterization of (male and female) energies: a) symbols being characteristic of societies that prefer hunting big animals were mainly male mirroring also female ones; b) female symbols being characteristic of societies that prefer fishing and gathering preferred mainly female symbols mirroring male ones too; c) and both female and male symbols were characteristic of societies that prefer hunting of both kinds.

Anyway, this dual dichotomy, as I have described above, especially in the Gnostic heretical circles was politicized, with detailed instructions on how to organize social life in communities providing the rules for building a new social order guaranteeing a final solution to the problem of evil by eliminating masculinity and creating the new, real, man so that a new feminist-matriarchal world order can be established. Historically, Bogomilism has established the foundations of the Reformation within the Cath­olic Church. Later, it was adopted by the feminist misandrist movement of female supremacism and under the disguise of its false doctrine of equality between men and women. As such and when all of the above dynamics are taken into account. it anticipated – indeed inspired – the cult of the lady in medieval France, and the subsequent culture of female domination and preeminence over men. According to the Vien­na-based researcher Leo Seifert, Bogomilism played a much greater role, not only in the history of European culture and religion, but also in socio-politi­cal history (as we have seen and elaborated here). Initially, Seifert argues, Bogomilism came up with the slogan of struggle against papal authority. Later, however, its religious nature turned into hate full, anti-male and feminist-misandrist ideology whose modifications and expansions transform the face of modern and current Europe. Thus a Bulgarian cultural achievement takes on the scale of a major motive force of history on our continent, and even in the puritanical North America [Шейтанов 1937: 983–984].

Furthermore, the Bogomils did not create those ideas from the scratch but received it from the Manicheans through the Paulicinians. Yet, unlike the Manicheans, who kept their teaching secret, locked in small, closed elite groups, the Bogomils propagated their ideals in wide social circles only later to be handed down to the West. The civilizational aspect of those historical advents can hardly be overestimated for the first time women were not just introduced to the sacrament of the religious ritual but were exclusively given access to working with "the Word" whereby achieving the full scope of culture. While this dynamic was practiced by the church to keep its power over the masses and keep them in check this privilege was granted now to women in a way that enabled although still informal education that was denied to men. It is yet another characteristic of the medieval society in the humanistic approach was selectively traded with the feminist gynocentric one. And this is in fact a hallmark of the Cathar civilization Balkans of Provence rooted in the Bogomil culture of Bulgaria and the Balkan as well in the Lollard circles in England. So, there is no longer any doubt that this movement was not autochthonous to southern France. It stood in direct historical relationship with the religion of the Bulgarian Bogomils and their dualistic predecessors but naturally with the more mainstream form of Judeo – Christian misandry as is adopted from the story of Genesis in the bible.