| Male �leadership� in America has been a succession of Toxic King sell-outs, weak mama�s boys who bluster and rut and fail at male maturity, taking on the role of Stooge. Richard Nixon, thief and liar, began the rot, and we haven�t had a real man -- or woman -- in the White House since. Ronald Reagan, not even a decent actor, was perhaps the nadir of unconscious, servile American corporate shill-dom. Jimmy Carter was ineffectual, and King George the First merely another robber baron, this one with fancies of global domination, abetted by his fellow boneheadmen Yalies. He has the heart of a trained mouse. Bill Clinton, handed the most potent political position on the planet, showed clearly who wears the pants in America � his wife -- as his own trousers were always around his knees. King George the Second merely furthers his daddy�s New World Order, necromantic fantasies. A pitiful, matriarchal lot. "Patriarchy dissociated from its maternal ground reconstructed that ground in the guise of a phallic mother that appears, for example, as Mother Church, Motherland, Alma Mater. Ironically, the very fear that led patriarchy to repress matriarchy has kept patriarchy neurotically bound in a struggle for power to what it did and does repress. What is repressed out of fear reemerges in the form of its repression. It is not therefore the absence of the feminine that should be lamented (both feminine and masculine are always present in some form); it is the distorted forms of their presence that exaggerate the tragic imbalance between them. That imbalance undermines an entire civilization, contributing to its collapse." (Dancing in the Flames, The Dark Goddess in the Transformation of Consciousness, Marion Woodman, p. 22) Certainly, I'm not suggesting here that authentic, benificent aspects of the feminine and masculine are non-existent in the West, the East, or in the middle-East under Islam. In the West, for example, I have had experience of a superb, elevated aspect of the feminine very much extant -- call her Shekinah, Madonna, Queen of Heaven, what have you. Likewise, authentic, positive male Kingship exists -- unacknowledged and underground. I'm merely pointing out that -- particularly in the recent past of the West -- it is the most malevolent, foul aspects of both "royalties" which have seized power, and which must be displaced if the Wasteland is to heal. Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche, discussing the ancient Bon tradition of shamanism in Tibet, relates: �There is an ancient Tibetan myth on the origin of negativity that recounts the causes of illnesses � male darkness, Munpa Zerden (Rays of Darkness) lay with female darkness, Munji Gyatso (Ocean of Darkness) and by their union she gave birth to a poisonous egg.� (�Shamanism in the Native Bon Tradition of Tibet,� first appearing in Tantra Magazine, Issue 8, from www.sacredhoop.demon.co.uk) Poison and eggs, note, are the province of the Empowered Witch. The Empowered Witch and Toxic King control the Waking (conscious) and the Dreaming (unconscious) Minds of America. And until we awaken from their clutches, and dispatch them for good, the foulness that we have become will continue to rot and fester, and the children of our renewal and our redemption � the rightful King and Queen -- must remain hidden in the woods, awaiting our return to courage, justice and sanity. Like those children, the men�s movement must resist the urge to retrace its steps, to go back. Regression is our strongest urge, and it is a deadly urge. I was a child of the Fifties, living in the warm glow of post-war promise and economic largesse. Would I like to return to those times, when positivism abounded, the culture shared a collective vision, leaders actually sacrificed themselves (instead of the defenseless), and children played safely in the fields and the streets? Would I go back if I could? Yer damn right I would. Like a shot. It was a different world then, truly, and we have fallen mightily since. Problem is, I�m not a child anymore. I�m a bigboy now, and backward leads ever and always right to Mama�s sure, comforting, (s)mothering arms. That�s no help, because as Hurricane Camille Paglia correctly points out, in modern America, �maternal consciousness has become a psychotic system.� So many in the men�s movement long to Go Back, to leave it all up to Joe Friday and his Dragnet, to Homeland Security, but that longing leads only �round and �round the Candy House � more for-our-own-good laws, more mancages, more materialism, more homeless brothers, more privileges and entitlements for females. More MommyState. The ideo-political Right dominates the men�s movement, under the illusion that there is a Good Father to whom the nation can return. And indeed he exists, but he is in exile. He is our Hidden Father, currently unrealized -- a black hole, dark matter unpotentiated. Meanwhile, the Toxic King rules. He does not represent any authentic masculine characteristic. He is a stooge of the Empowered Witch, catatonically circling her omphalos. No ideo-political collectivity currently represents the Father, and to fall back on ideo-political partisanship is to fall back into Mammy�s Maw. The Democrat betrays his crown for blowjobs, graft, celebrity, and the trappings of power. The Republican betrays his crown for graft, celebrity and the trappings of power (he doesn�t even get the blowjobs). The only cultural setting where a shred of masculinity survives in America is athletics. Here, merit still counts, masculinity endures and achieves without dilution by �diversity,� and WomanChurch does not rule totally. Therefore it�s no wonder that American men fixate upon sports obsessively. Still, the corporate matriarchy worms its way onto the gridiron, with commercials assuring us that �Drive Equals Love� (Subtext: �Stabbed in the back by the Missus? Steal the kids, empty the bank account, and brand you a Molester? No problem. Buy a new thirty-thousand-dollar car. Let�s Play Pretend: Drive equals Love.�) And while our prisons cage a quarter of the incarcerated on the planet, we are spoonfed promos for yet more of the police state: �Watch the new �Dragnet� � by the makers of �Law and Order� -- a SERIAL KILLER stalks innocent young women! BUT HE�S GONNA GO DOWN!!� Yah, sure. We need more cops, more cages, more Total Information Awareness, more Wars on Evildoers, because the country is just TEEMING with Male Serial Killers, eager to prey on wholesome, kind-hearted girls, who would karate-kick them into oblivion, if only they really could. Right-o. Let�s all make-believe it�s 1960-in-America-Again, and trusty ole Joe Friday will whup the bad-uns and return everybody to blessed innocence. Dee-ny-all. |
| Part eight of nine |
| The Witch-King and the American Dreaming Mind |