Merlin Stone Remembered
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We might also become more conscious of any and all self-righteous claims of a superior morality, or accusations of a basic immorality in others. The subtle propagation of such ideas has long heralded the beginnings of more overt and violent racist acts. Many of our anti-racist efforts of the past few decades have been aimed at showing the equality of mental abilities in all races. It is perhaps time to stress the truth about the moral qualities inherent in all peoples. For as the simultaneous growth of automated production and greater population lead to a need for less labor, we may want to be wary of a return to first stage racism as a control of the labor supply.
It is perhaps divine providence of a sort that leaves us in doubt about the racial or ethnic identity of the Sumerians, the people who, at least to date, appear to have played such a major and primal role in cultural and technological development. As long as the identity of the Sumerians remains unknown, no race can state a claim of superiority based upon an ultimate primacy of either mental ingenuity or moral ethics. But whatever evidence is found in the future, it is surely time that we understood the equal capacities of all races and ethnic groups. Or will it take an actual encounter with beings from outer space to force us to see each other and ourselves as no more and no less than the fascinating life form that we are—as Earthlings.
Annotations and Bibliogray
1. Keen, Maurice. The History of Medieval Europe London: Routledge & Kegal Paul, 1968, pg. 41.
2. Ibid. See Runciman, S. A History of the Crusades. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987, pgs. 117–133.
3. Magnusson, M. & Palsson, H. The Vinland Sagas. London: Penquin/U.K., 1965. See Kendrick, T.D. A History of the Vikings. London, 1930.
4. Farb, Peter. Man’s Rise to Civilization. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1968, pgs. 257–278. See Hanke, L. Aristotle and the American Indian. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1959. Morison, S.E. The European Discovery of America: The Northern Voyages. Oxford University Press, 1971. Morison, S.E. The European Discovery of America: The Southern Voyages,1974.
5. Diaz del Castillo, Bernal. The Conquest of New Spain. Trans., J. M. Cohen. London: Penquin/U.K., 1963.
6. Mannix, Daniel. Black Cargoes. New York: Viking Press, 1962. See Davidson, Basil. Black Mother. Boston: Atlantic-Little Brown, 1961. Murdock, George. Africa: Its Peoples and Their Cultures. New York: McGraw Hill, 1959. McEvedy, Colin. The Penquin Atlas of African History. New York: Penquin, 1980.
7. Goode, J. Paul, ed. Rand McNally Atlas. Chicago: Rand McNally, 1932.
8. McEvedy, Colin. The Penguin Atlas of Modern History. New York: Penquin, 1972, pg. 48.
9. Dawidowicz, L. The War Against the Jews. New York: Holt Rinehart & Winston, 1975, pg. 26. Shirer, Wm. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1959, pg. 143. See Fichte, J.G. Reden an die Deutsche Nation. Berlin: 1808. Mosse, G. L. The Crisis of German Ideology. New York, 1964.
10. Basham, A.L. The Wonder That Was India. New York: Grove, 1954, pgs. 4–7.
11. Lassen, Christian. Indische Altertumskunde. Koenig. 1847–62, 42 Vols.
12. Marshall, John. Mohenjo Daro and The Indus Civilization. Probsthain, 1931, 3 Vols.
13. Wheeler, Mortimer. Harappa Journal of Ancient India III. 1947. The Indus Civilization. Cambridge, 1953.
14. de Gobineau, Arthur. Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races. Paris, 1853–55. See Bidess, Michael D. The Father of Racist Ideology: The Social and Political Thought of Count Gobineau. New York, 1970.
15. Dawidowicz, L. op. cit. p. 38f. See Duhring, E.K. The Jewish Question. Berlin, 1881.
16. Shirer, Wm. Op. cit. p. 152ff. See Chamberlain, H. S. Foundations of the Nineteenth Century. New York, 1910, 4 Vols.
17. Hitler, Adolf. Mein Kampf. Houghton Mifflin, 1971, pg. 430.
18. Ibid., p. 290.
19. Childe, V. Gordon. New Light on the Most Ancient East. W.W. Norton, 1969, pgs. 189–206. Mellaart, James. Earliest Civilizations of the Near East. Thames and Hudson, 1965, pgs. 69–76.
20. Gurney, O. R. The Hittites. New York: Penquin, 1952. Garstang, J. The Land of the Hittites Constable, 1910. Mellaart, J. Anatolian Chronology in the Bronze Age. Anatolian Studies, Oxford: VII, 1957.
21. Basham, A. L. op. cit. pg. 42.
22. Ibid., p. 318, pg. 475. O’Flaherty, W. Hindu Myths. New York: Penguin, 1975, pgs. 198–204.
23. Basham, A. L. op. cit. p. 137ff. Clayton, A. C. The Rg Veda and Vedic Religion. Madras, 1913.
24. Buhler, G. “The Laws of Manu.” Sacred Books of the East. Oxford: VII, 1880.
25. Speiser, F. Living Religions of the World. Thames and Hudson, 1957, pg. 85ff. O’Flaherty, W. op. cit., pg. 251ff .
26. Zaehner, R. C. The Teachings of the Magi. George Allen & Unwin, 1956. Ibid. The Dawn and Twilight of Zoroastrianism. London, 1961. See Mills, L. H. “The Zend Avesta.” Sacred Books of the East, XXXI. Oxford, 1887. Dhalla, M. N. Zoroastrian Theology, New York, 1914. Moulton, J. M. Early Zoroastrianism. Williams and Norgate, 1913.
27. Zaehner, R. C. op. cit. Brandon, S. G. F. Creation Legends of the Near East. Hodder & Stoughton, 1963. Dresden, M. J. in Mythologies of the Ancient World. ed. Kramer, S. N. Doubleday, 1961, pgs. 333–364.
28. Dresden, M. J. op. cit. pg. 344f.
29. Zaehner, R. C. The Teachings of the Magi. op. cit. pgs. 42–46. Dresden, M.J. op. cit. pg. 343f.
30. Zaehner, R. C. op. cit. pg. 75. Dresden, M.J. op. cit. pg. 342f.
31. Speiser, F. op. cit. pgs. 451–467. Dresden, M. J. op. cit. pg. 341f. Burkitt, F. C. The Religion of the Manichees. Cambridge University Press, 1925.
32. Warner, Rex. ed. Encyclopedia of World Anthology. Phoebus, 1971, pg. 183.
33. Kramer, S. N. The Sumerians, Their History, Culture and Character. University of Chicago Press, 1963.
34. Tacitus, P. Cornelius. The Agricola and the Germania. Trans. by Mattingly, H., revised, Handford, S. A. Penguin, 1970, pg. 114. See Suetonius. The Twelve Caesars. Trans. by Graves, R. Penguin, 1957. Caesar the Conquest of Gaul. Trans. by Handford, S. A. Penguin, 1951. Tacitus, P. C. The Annals of Imperial Rome. Trans. by Grant, M. Penguin, 1956.
35. Keen, M. op. cit. p. 19.
[contents]
the importance
of merlin stone
Merlin, New York City, 1988.
The Importance of Merlin Stone
by Lenny Schneir, with David B. Axelrod
It is very spiritually strengthening to feel that women
have been made in the image of Goddess.
—merlin stone, san francisco chronicle (april 7, 1978)
It was Merlin Stone’s work in sculpting and contact with Goddess imagery that fostered her first interest in archaeological studies that would rediscover and reclaim the thousands of years of lost matriarchal/Goddess history. She spent two years off and on in the Near and Middle East and the Mediterranean, returning to London as required to confirm the data for her groundbreaking books at the Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archeology in Oxford and at the British Library’s Special Collections. Her research, however, began a decade prior. Her quest was not just thorough but quite remarkable.
She visited such countries as Greece, Crete, Turkey, Lebanon, and Cyprus. She was a single woman who did not speak any of the languages. She had limited financial resources and used not just public transportation but even hitchhiked, camped out, and relied (before computers and other technology) on taking hundreds of pages of hand-written notes. Yet she was able to amass all that she would need to return to London to write what would become two seminal, ground-breaking books.
First published in London by Virago in March 1976 as The Paradise Papers: The Suppression of Women’s Rites, a book elaborating on the stories, rites, and rituals of the Goddess, Merlin’s book was instantly recognized as an important work. Scholars responded with reviews praising the book as revelatory, even as oth
ers questioned and resisted the notion that thousands of years of Goddess tradition and worship preceded our present patriarchal societies and religions. An associate of Robert Graves wrote to Merlin from Mallorca soon after the publication of the book to praise her work, saying that Graves himself “might have nodded ‘suitable grave assent’ to The Paradise Papers.”
In 1976, Dial Press recognized the importance of her work and purchased the rights to publish the book in the United States, under its final, celebrated title, When God Was a Woman. In 1978, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich published the soft-cover version, which remains in print. Best estimates are that at least one million copies of the book have now been sold in its various versions in English as well as translations into French, German, Dutch, and Italian.
Following the success of When God Was a Woman, Merlin wrote a sister volume entitled Ancient Mirrors of Womanhood: Our Goddess and Heroine Heritage (New Sibylline Books, 1979; Beacon Press, 1984).
Merlin Stone’s books became widely used texts in women’s studies programs throughout the world, and the referenced resource of hundreds of other authors’ articles, monographs, and books. Scholar upon scholar wrote to her to thank her for her original, classic work of Goddess reclamation and to acknowledge the place of her work in their lives and studies. The actual number of links back to Merlin are innumerable—so much so that a simple Google search of her name with her book titles will produce millions of links on any given day.
Among those acknowledging her in their works are Margot Adler, Barbara Walker, Erica Jong, Charlene Spretnak, Miriam Simos (Starhawk), Shere Hite, Lucy Lippard, Mary Daly, Luisah Teish, Riane Eisler, Carol P. Christ, Buffie Johnson, Marija Gimbutas, Elizabeth Davis, and Gloria Orenstein. The list is extensive. At the Clearwater, Florida, ceremony commemorating Merlin’s life, held on September 24, 2011, such notables as Olympia Dukakis and Gloria Steinem testified to the impact of her work.
Throughout her life, Merlin published articles, organized and moderated significant radio and other educational series and presentations, and appeared at hundreds of seminars and festivals. Most notable among her series was the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s four-part presentation “Return of the Goddess” (1986), which was conceived, organized, and moderated by Merlin Stone.
She also wrote the chapter on Goddess worship in the Near East for Macmillan Publishing Company’s Encyclopedia of Religion. She authored forewords for other books and met privately and appeared publicly as a scholar and advocate for women.
A documentary film and book, both entitled In Search of Merlin Stone, have been made but have not been produced or published. Merlin’s work is now being collected and digitized to be preserved for the ages.
Millions of men and women in the United States have been touched by Merlin Stone’s research, books, and spirituality. Because they no longer have to view the creator as exclusively male, people have a new perspective that collectively changed forever how women and men feel about themselves, their religion, and their roles upon the earth.
Merlin’s efforts, in many ways, were heroic attempts to overcome the ill treatment of women in America who suffered from gender discrimination, patriarchal domination, and inequality in the workplace. In Merlin’s early years of research, many scholars and religious leaders scoffed at the notion that there was an age when the deity was a woman. Such a view was, at best, vague mythology. With her travels and research, Merlin added extensively to the scholarly evidence of women’s importance in history and society.
Prior to the publication of Merlin Stone’s books in the United States, there were very few university women’s studies programs. Those that did exist concentrated primarily on the early feminist movements of the nineteenth century and women’s right to vote. Merlin’s books have been cited as required reading in hundreds of curricula over the years. The publication of her books and her subsequent research unleashed a hidden force. In universities, in popular culture, and in women’s studies programs, an unstoppable energy was set free. There is hardly an informed student of her field who doesn’t know Merlin’s work. Merlin’s impact on present and future religious viewpoints of women and men in the United States is immeasurable.
The noted author Erica Jong said, on the back cover of Ancient Mirrors of Womanhood (Beacon Press, 1984):
[This book is] an essential book for anyone interested in the female aspect of deity, the history of religion, and attitudes toward women—ancient and modern. I applaud Merlin Stone’s research, her passion, her commitment.
Significantly, Merlin stated in an interview in Aquarian Voices magazine (November/December, 1989), “Mine was the first book to be written that gathered the material together and presented it from a feminist point of view.” When God Was a Woman and Ancient Mirrors of Womanhood became touchstone books about the Goddess from a feminist viewpoint. They proved conclusively that the Goddess existed with many names, in almost all cultures, for at least eight thousand years, and more likely as many as twenty-five thousand years.
Because of Merlin’s research and books, a very old religion began anew. Merlin was famous for saying that modern calendars were, in fact, eight thousand years behind. Perhaps Merlin said it best, starting in 1976: “The Goddess is back.” Thereafter, she often dated documents by adding eight thousand years. Thus, according to Merlin, the year of composition for this article is not 2013, but 10,013.
Yet Merlin herself did not quest after fame. To promote the good work of Goddess and women’s studies programs, she traveled internationally, lecturing and encouraging further research and translation of her work and the work of others, but video productions on the Goddess show her as glad to allow others present to be featured. In an article on racism in a Bay Area newspaper, she also said feminists should not develop an elitist cult that promotes themselves instead of the cause. Women throughout the world have engaged in further research.
Wherever women’s rights and women’s spirituality are championed, Merlin is there—and often in name, not just spirit. Yet, in keeping with her desire to see the truth triumph and not simply to promote herself, she did not espouse or encourage any single movement, let alone worship of the Goddess. Rather, she made the world-encompassing comment that “now is the time to think of the supreme being as both mother and father. It is kind of like having a broken home to think of God exclusively as male or female” (Cleveland Plain Dealer, 1977).
There are no borders that define female identity. Clearly, work of the kind that Merlin Stone accomplished has a vast, global outreach. The translation of her work continues. Most recently, an Italian edition has been released. Parts of her book and citations of it occur in dozens of languages.
To further demonstrate her global intentions, Merlin wrote and published Three Thousand Years of Racism (New Sibylline Books, 1981), which discussed “recurring patterns in racism” in conjunction with the movement “Women Against Racism.” The monograph included “accounts of racism from ancient history; a myth-shattering analysis of racism, and vital information in the struggle against racism.”
Merlin said, “We need to understand the history and concepts of the Goddess in order to understand the politics of today, specifically concerning women” (April 1979 Conference at California State University, Chico). By her own account, women throughout the world were to be the beneficiaries of her studies. She fought for all women; she fought for what she knew was right, and her weapon of choice was her typewriter.
It can be argued that, since the publication of Merlin Stone’s books, there are now millions of men and women around the globe whose daily lives have improved greatly. As surely as Susan B. Anthony changed the face of democracy, Merlin Stone enfranchised women’s spirituality. As surely as Margaret Mead provided the perspective that helped foster a sexual revolution, Merlin Stone empowered women as females, not just as the helpmates of men. As surely as Maya Angelou’s gift with language has elevated all our language, Merlin Sto
ne is the author of powerful perceptions—often voiced in poetry she composed and included in her books. Her technique was to first thoroughly research the facts and attributes of each goddess, and then write poems that convey the place the goddess held in the lives of her followers. Each poem reads like a prayer or sacred text—so much so that the reader may even forget that, using all her research and extensive knowledge, Merlin herself composed the verses.
Merlin Stone, increasingly, chose to let her writing speak for itself. For that modesty, she should be all the more recognized for her efforts. Unlike the enforced, diminutive position required of women even in the recent past, Merlin’s willingness and ability to place herself in critical, useful, but background status in the movements she helped start bespeaks tremendous strength and self-confidence.
Merlin Stone found and documented, popularized and helped proliferate, a life-changing body of information. Her work is of national and global significance. No better words describe the importance of Merlin than the summation published and read at the presentation of her honorary doctorate by the California Institute of Integral Studies on September 26, 1993:
A historian, feminist scholar, researcher, and artist, Merlin Stone is a pioneer of the women’s movement and the reclaiming of the Great Goddess tradition for the Western world. Inherent in her work is an ecological vision for the future, based on an understanding of the Goddess as the flow of life energy that nurtures and sustains the planet.