Riane Eisler describes how humankind once lived in a caring, sharing
environment. That period, which lasted for tens of thousands of
years, survived, though barely, just into historical times. It was
characterized by a worship of the divine feminine as represented
by the chalice in the title of Eisler's book.
In a blink of the eye, historically speaking, that environment
was brutally overthrown and replaced with the beginnings of the
patriarchy in which we live today. Those who overthrew this golden
age worshipped not life and creativity, but death and destruction;
in short, the blade. Those in power today continue to worship that
blade, which has been changed by the rapid rise of technology into
the lethal systems that could end all life on the planet in a matter
of days or hours.
The premise of
The Chalice and the Blade is that the rapid
transition from a partnership society to a male dominator society
was the result of the sociological equivalent of a "critical bifurcation
point" in Chaos theory. Eisler explains in some detail how the currently
popular scientific theory applies to that sudden shift into darkness
that occurred approximately six or seven thousand years ago. However,
she also goes on to propose that we once again face a critical bifurcation
point; that we live in an exciting, dangerous time in which we can
just as rapidly overthrow our hierarchically controlled patriarchal
system and replace it with a technologically advanced model of the
partnership system in which both genders work together to emphasize
the nurturing side of life.
Download link:
http://www.4shared.com/office/yaBF5Iaf/Chalice_And_The_Blade_Review.html
