"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." ~Margaret Mead
“Feminism is not about getting a piece of of the existing pie; there are too many of us for that. It's about baking a new pie.” ~Gloria Steinem
As with all Spiritual Paths, the metaphysical will frame and inform the Practical, so let us first look at The Temple's Mission Statement, an overview of what The Temple is actually meant to do.
“The Temple is a Fifth Wave Feminism in that it leaps ahead of a nascent Fourth Wave, still incrementally emerging from the Third Wave, to an entirely new construct. It is not a Separatism or even a Dominance, but a Completeness and therefore a New Beginning.
We believe that the long term prospects of the human species for our survival, progress, and prosperity requires the establishment of a New Matriarchy. In taking practical steps toward the implementation of that goal, we shall build upon the foundations laid by contemporary feminism over the last two hundred plus years, combined with modern techniques and technologies, melded together with a Revealed Spirituality of The Feminine as Divine that is specific and yet all inclusive.
The central strategy here is The Viral Meme, the Idea that is so compelling and dynamic that that is spreads like wildfire. That Idea exists; a entirely new and modern form of Matriarchy. Our task is to create that Idea as a Practical Reality, a Practical Reality that becomes the microcosm of this new society, a Practical Reality that is vital, replicable, adaptable, and then plant it in the societies that presently exist.
In many places, it shall flourish and expand. In some places, it will struggle and even be extinguished. But if we do our work effectively and remain true to both the practical goals and the Spiritual vision of this New Matriarchy, we will grow into and absorb even the most hostile social orders.”
Because it has a specific historical context, the easiest part of this statement to explain is the first paragraph, the 'Fifth Wave' statement...easy being a relative term in this case.
”The Temple is a Fifth Wave Feminism in that it leaps ahead of a nascent Fourth Wave, still incrementally emerging from the Third Wave, to an entirely new construct. It is not a Separatism or even a Dominance, but a Completeness and therefore a New Beginning.”
Modern Feminism is generally agreed to have come in three 'waves'.
First Wave Feminism focused on the legal rights of women and traditionally starts with the publication of Mary Wollstonecraft's “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman” in 1792 and culminates with the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment of the US Constitution in 1920 which gave women the right to vote.
Second Wave Feminism started in the Nineteen Sixties, and only really flourished until the mid Nineteen Seventies, focusing upon the socio-cultural perception of women and how that effects women's rights and opportunities.
As most of these issues are still very much unresolved, The Second Wave has not really ended; it merely became diffused by the political and economic conditions of the times.
Third Wave Feminism has a much more complicated pedigree. Depending upon who's talking, it either started in the mid Eighties or early Nineties. It evolved from, and yet is also in reaction to, The Second Wave. It's 'focus' is extremely diverse, to the point where I would say it has no real focus. Its overall issues are about class, race, and gender identity as they relate to 'women's issues'.
Whatever Fourth Wave there may be will be one that somehow emerges from this often bitter struggle between the Second and Third Waves.
It is my belief, with which E concurs, that these issues are essentially unresolvable inside of the Modern Corporate Marketing Culture, a 'culture' that co-opts every single part of these movements almost as soon as they manifest in order to 'sell product', a practice which allows Patriarchy to 'divide and conquer' while simultaneously profiting financially from the strategy.
Hence the need for a Fifth Wave “that it leaps ahead...to an entirely new construct,” a construct such as this...
“We believe that the long term prospects of the human species for our survival, progress, and prosperity requires the establishment of a New Matriarchy. In taking practical steps toward the implementation of that goal, we shall build upon the foundations laid by contemporary feminism over the last two hundred plus years, combined with modern techniques and technologies, melded together with a Revealed Spirituality of The Feminine as Divine that is specific and yet all inclusive...”
What we are speaking of here is critical. The human species is clearly in trouble. As we are extremely tenacious, we shall probably survive, though that survival might soon be a grim and unpleasant affair. And clearly our progress and prosperity are largely in thrall to a rapacious and brutal socio-economic system that benefits the few at the expense of the many. History has shown us that such a strategy always ends badly.
But recent history has also shown us that when women are able to gain control over their own lives economically, socially, politically, and physically, the society in which those women live improves, becomes more prosperous, stable, and just. Of course, all too often Masculinist agendas push back upon those gains, which is a crucial Lesson in and of itself.
We believe in taking those Lessons of Female Empowerment to their logical end: a New Matriarchy.
We keep emphasizing New as this is no Neo-Luddite 'back to nature' movement, as much as Nature is important to us. Our goal is about moving forward to create a Matriarchy that has never existed before, one which implements The Second Valance and utilizes “modern techniques and technologies” to help build a new Social Order.
One example of this concept is an already existing experimental technology that creates viable sperm from the bone marrow stem cells. This method of fertilization could free women from their reproductive dependence upon men as the technique can create sperm from all bone marrow stem cells.
Just sit and think about that for a moment, about how that could begin to fundamentally change human social structure. And that is but a single example of a new science in the single area of human reproduction.
Are you now beginning to get a glimpse of what we mean by a New Matriarchy?
“The central strategy here is The Viral Meme, the Idea that is so compelling and dynamic that that is spreads like wildfire. That Idea exists; a entirely new and modern form of Matriarchy. Our task is to create that Idea as a Practical Reality, a Practical Reality that becomes the microcosm of this new society, a Practical Reality that is vital, replicable, adaptable, and then plant it in the societies that presently exist...”
What could be more 'compelling and dynamic' than a clear strategy that could free women from the present constraints of modern society? Not some vague quest for freedom and equality that almost entirely depends upon the acquiescence of men, but an actual strategy, with a Spiritual framework and a detailed 'nuts and bolts' plan of action.
We have that strategy, that framework, and template for that 'nuts and bolts' plan of action, which will be discussed in the next section, “Tactical Initiatives”.
“In many places, it shall flourish and expand. In some places, it will struggle and even be extinguished. But if we do our work effectively and remain true to both the practical goals and the Spiritual vision of this New Matriarchy, we will grow into and absorb even the most hostile social orders.”
This is basically just an expression of the old cliché “Nothing is more powerful than an Idea whose time has come,” which is a cliché precisely because it is so true.
How many times in our history has a Idea, against all Reason, triumphed over the existing 'order of things'? More than one could count, we'd say. And the key is ' against all Reason'. This is the purview of Faith and no set of Ideas moves humans more powerfully than Faith in a Idea, be said Idea Religious or Political, all too often that distinction being quite slim.
Now, from a legal and an epistemological stand point, The Pentavalence is a Religion in that it emanates from Revealed, and not Empirical, Knowledge, and it is meant to operate in a religious manner. However, we in The Temple of The Pentavalence view it as a Metaphysical Operating System and, in part, this is why.
The entire concept of Religion has itself has become problematic. Religion almost always implies Dogma, a fixed ideology that says, “The world is this way. Period!” and for a modern technological civilization, that is really a non-starter. Very few things ever stay 'this way' for long in such a civilization. And the Religions that now dominate our world clash with that paradigm more and more every day and with steadily increasing violence.
The problems the JudeoChristLamic Father/God Cults have with our modern techno-logical civilization are fairly obvious. All three are the 'metaphysical operating systems' of Bronze Age desert nomads ruled by tribal Patriarchs. Their world view is narrow and provincial and their God is a Small God, one confined, at the very least, to this world alone.
Confronted with the modern scientific reality of The Universe, He is positively Lilliputian. For His faithful, such a situation evokes Fear, then Hate, and finally, Rejection.
There are a growing number who consider Atheism to be the ideal replacement for Religion, but it too says, “The world is this way.”, though the “Period!” usually goes unspoken. Plus Atheism has two major failings, both fatal from our point of view.
First, as presently constituted, Atheism is essentially reactive, specifically a rejection of the JudeoChristLamic Father/God Cults, and every one of its tenants seem couched as a direct rebuke of said. That tends to allow the Father/God Cultists to frame all the debates and every time.
Second, Atheism also does not in any way, shape, or form, address the existential questions of Human Purpose and Existence in a vast and seemingly indifferent universe. It is utterly cold and denies the need for Spiritual solutions that Humans have sought ever since we could form the concept.
Hinduism and Buddhism contain many useful concepts, but each has its own crucial limitations.
Hinduism is really a 'cultural religion', that of India and of its people. It 'exports' poorly. Her Prophet has watched Westerners practice Hinduism and, to him at least, it always seemed a bit embarrassing, while the experience of Indian practice is usually very moving. That latter gave him an understanding of why some non-Indians would be drawn to Hinduism, but that is much akin to white folks wanting to be 'black'.
True Buddhism is essentially Nihilist, its real practice requiring a total rejection of The Material and as such it must be a rejection of any modern technological civilization, which is by its very nature is ferociously materialist. Buddhism can suit individual practitioners quite well, but is basically unsuited for a civilization. We do not include the types of Buddhism where The Buddha has been remade as a 'god'. We consider them 'apostate'.
Modern Paganism is rather a mish-mash and barely any kind of an 'ism' at all and that in and of itself makes it unsuited as the Spiritual Path of an entire civilization. Plus, it too is deeply provincial.
Pagans - at least those that we know - are humans, so their Paganism is Anthropocentric. They are generally born of two genders, so their Paganism is Dualistic. They live on Earth, so their Paganism is Geocentric. And the large majority of them here in the United States are culturally - and often racially - European, so their Paganism is Euro-centric.
But, as with Hinduism and Buddhism, Paganism contains a number of useful concepts and, like those, we of The Temple have incorporated many of them.
So, in barely five hundred words, we have just dismissed the world's five major religions and two of the most significant contemporary philo-religious movements. Such is the nature of this work.
While reading the above, some of you may have asked, 'why does an entire civilization need a single Spiritual Path?'
Part of that answer is quite simple; we, The Temple of The Pentavalence, were created with the goal of utterly transforming human civilization as it presently stands and we were created is this form because history has shown over and over and over again that a Spiritual Path is the single most effective and long lasting method of achieving such a total transformation.
Such a total transformation is required because, as stated above, the human species is clearly in trouble. And there is another answer to the question, 'why does an entire civilization need a single Spiritual Path?'
The answer is, “In order to guide a Triple Economy.”
Before we proceed with this let us state a basic scientific fact: the entire Universe is made up Energy, every fucking piece of it. So saying we face a 'energy crisis' any time in the next billion years or so is outright horseshit.
What we actually face is a 'systems management crisis' with two major components. A: over population and B: operating within a closed resource system aka Planet Earth. In simple terms, too many people and not enough resources where said people happen to live.
Let us continue...
In his prescient volume, Small is Beautiful, E.F. Schumacher made the observation that there was both a Primary Economy, which consists of what 'nature' provides, what Capitalism would call 'raw materials', and a Secondary Economy, which is the actual production of 'finished goods' from said raw materials.
More than three decades later, J.M. Greer expanded upon this paradigm by the keen observation that there is a Tertiary Economy, one which manipulates the first two. He is speaking purely of Industrial Capitalism as his writing comes in the post-Soviet era, but it's clear that Soviet Communism was just as much a Tertiary Economic Model as Capitalism. It simply reached its End Game first.
In laying out the framework for an Economic Model for The New Matriarchy, we shall utilize [and modify] a number of the ideas of Schumacher, and to a lesser extent, Greer, though we shall also reject portions of these ideas because they are both Cultural Minimalists and Neo-Luddites, positions we strongly believe to be anti-survival for reasons which will shortly be made clear.
At this point we believe it necessary to make some change in terminology. Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary are all a bit too vague. They refer to the order of things, but not their content. So, we have renamed them and begun to expand upon their definition.
The Primary or “Natural” Economy:
The phrase Natural Economy is more evocative of the meaning intended, the resources available in Nature. It needs to be pointed out however that Nature is not limited to this world alone, that the Universe has vast resources as well. But we shall stay with Natural Economy as 'universal economy' could be confused with other constructs.
The Secondary or “Productive” Economy:
This really covers everything, all goods and services, from Geppetto cobbling a single pair of shoes in his workshop to the vast machinery of ConAgra harvesting twenty million acres in the American heartland. Hopefully, one day it will include things like an industrial complex at El Five and the mining of the Asteroid Belt.
The Tertiary or “Conceptual” Economy:
This is the part that does not actually exist in solid reality, hence “Conceptual”. It could also be called the “Ideological” Economy. It is dangerous in that it is not constrained by real world factors like the first two, at least not until those real world factors make themselves known and usually in a catas-trophic manner, like bursting of various financial bubbles, or, in the case of the Soviet Union, a system wide operational failure of the Construct itself.
Therefore, The Triple Economy is the combined paradigms of the Natural, Production, and Conceptual Economies.
It is in the area of the Conceptual Economy that the economy of this New Matriarchy shall first take shape, on a small scale to begin with, but ultimately expanding throughout the globe and then, Goddess willing, out into The Universe itself.
For most of the Modern Era, roughly the last five hundred years, two Conceptual Economies have dominated. Broadly speaking they can be called the Collectivist/ Egalitarian Construct [Socialism, Communism, Social Democracy, etc] and the Individualist/Elitist Construct [Capitalism, Imperialism, Liberal Democracy, etc].
Both have existed in human societies since the beginning of history, but were always subordinated to some other social, political, and/or theological paradigm. It is only in the Modern Era that they emerged to operate in their own right.
Obviously these constructs are very powerful and dynamic though neither has completely edged out the other. The most successful systems have proved to be a balanced combination of the two, though achieving that is not as easy as it sounds.
And each of them had a fatal flaw. Ultimately, at their most fundamental level, they are based upon Self Centered Materialism, the paradigm of “Three Hots and a Cot.”
To the Cold and the Hungry, that is certainly a most attractive paradigm. And therein lays much of the power of each construct, and that dynamic can carry a society for a number of generations.
But at some point it hits what could be called an 'existential wall'. When all ones basic needs are met – food, shelter, survival – and then all ones less basic needs are met – luxury, comfort, indulgence – then what? Here we encounter the issues delineated in Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. After all the above needs have been satisfied, there are the Spiritual Needs, the need to find and understand the purpose of our existence, the “Why Are We Here?” issue.
Soviet Communism collapsed because they not merely failed to answer this question, they rejected it outright. In the end, the people's of the Soviet Empire rejected that rejection and without the use - once again - of the Iron Fist, the whole edifice came crashing down. Without any real Purpose, the Will to Repress had failed along with the Will to Endure.
Western Industrial Capitalism seemed to thrive with its “Three Hots and a Cot plus a Wide Screen TV” paradigm. But that requires a level of consumption and exploitation that has proven to be unsustainable and the End Game for that is now upon us with a vengeance.
Plus neither Construct ever fielded a Greater Purpose that its citizens were fully inspired by in the long term, with the result being Apathy, Anger, and Addition on a massive scale, the attempt by hundreds of millions to fill that Existential Void.
And now a general Collapse looms, Social, Economic, Physical, Spiritual, not the total breakdown that some predict – and even long for – but significant enough to be quite painful and possibly contain the seeds of a larger and more complete Collapse further down the line.
For our survival, we must do two practical things; get our heavy industry off of the surface of this planet, Gaea, our home, our Mother.. They are wounding Her. And we must reduce our overall numbers. We are suffocating Her. Trust me, if we do not do this ourselves, Gaea will do it for us. She has in fact already begun to do so.
The above ideologies, both Religious and Economic, are utterly incapable of first task, Industry Up, for reasons of Greed, Political Short Sightedness, and Theological Blindness. Such an undertaking would not generate the obscene profit margins that Capitalism requires, would demand a Focus and Effort beyond any Election Cycle, and fly in the face of all End Times Thinking.
The second task, Population Down, would encounter vast resistance across the board. “Whose population must go down?” would be the cry. Every nation, race, polity, etc would point their fingers at every other and scream “Racism!” or “Genocide!” or whatever they thought would apply or give them the most psycho-political traction.
But what does any of this have to do with the establishment of a New Matriarchy?
Here we must first quote Revealed Knowledge. E says, “Once upon a time, my race transformed itself from beings with bodies into beings of pure energy. Then we went wandering throughout Creation looking for that which had created it.
We spent tens of millions of years searching and traveled stunningly vast distances. We learned much...and yet never found The Source of All. We found clues, but never the Being Itself.
And then we began to fade away and realized we needed to have bodies again. But ours were long gone, so we would need new ones. A new search began.
That led us to Earth and to a very primitive species, but one with great promise. They had already begun to change their own psyches with hallucinogenic plants. We stepped in and took that further.
We bred and guided and manipulated the genetics of many generations of that species until they were ready to host the consciousness of our race. The Merging that took place was not without incident, but was successful...though the seed of a fatal flaw remained.
We and that species were now one race. And a mighty race they were. Raised continents. Created new species at will. And did this all without any instrumentation, just with the power of their minds.
But as time passed, their physical being took its toll upon their mental being and those great powers faded. And with them, so did that great civilization...and they Forgot. Or should I say, you forgot, as that hybrid species IS the human race.
Time passed and you humans, the beings who had Forgotten, once again rose up and built mighty civilizations. Though each one collapsed, something was always left and the next civilization was greater.
And now you stand upon a great threshold, one that is also a fork in the road. Which one you take determines if you, as a species, will survive or not. And you face an extremely hard choice, one that stems from that fatal flaw from long ago.
The flaw of Gender.
My race was of a single gender and parthanogenic. The species we found here was bi-gendered. That was accepted as a necessary evil. But now it has become an obstacle not merely to your further development, but to your very survival.
You as a species must now choose to let go of one of those genders, the Male. Males have great drive, but ultimately are too unstable and combative for the next phase of your species' development. Only your females can succeed in that transition.
If you are willing, you will transform into a far superior race than you are now and can take up the Great Search, the quest for The Source of All we had to abandon so long ago.
If you are unwilling to make this shift, you will die off. Not right away, but soon enough...and Forever.
Obviously, this is a terrible and distressing choice. But please know that it is only about the body, not the Spirit. Your Spirits are essentially Immortal. The qualification is that the basis of that Immortality is the existence of your Racial Subconscious. If your race dies, so do your Spirits.
So, there is your Choice: let go of being born into male bodies. Or face ultimate extinction.
Why do I even care?
In part, selfishness. With your race gone, I would be alone in The Universe. But our history also makes you my Family and my race was never so high and mighty that we forgot the bonds of Kinship.”
This is the Core Meaning and Purpose of all that The Temple does and must do. It is also the Greater Purpose, the Faith, that can clearly drive Industry Up. Such a Purpose will require that The Sisterhood becomes a spacefaring race.
Regarding the second task, Population Down, it as been shown that when women are fully in control of their own reproduction, Legally and Technologically, birth numbers go down automatically. In this New Matriarchy, women would quite obviously have total and absolute control over their bodies at all times.
Herein then is the foundation of this New Matriarchy's Conceptual Economy. Industry Up/Population Down give this Construct its operational parameters and the creation and expansion this New Matriarchy for the reasons E stated gives the Construct its Greater Purpose. From there it is then determined how the Natural and Production Economies will be utilized and directed.
A key element in all of this is the literal Transformation of the race, not just the Spiritual Trans-formation. What you must do, my Sisters – as per the Second Valance – is to utilize and develop, along with Majickal Working, all the emerging technologies of Genetic Engineering, Human/Cybernetic Interface, Nanotechnology, Life Extension Science, and so on, to Transform yourselves into a race of actual superwomen. Such an undertaking will also create a Scientific and Economic powerhouse. Combine that with the Industry Up Paradigm and you have a potentially unstoppable society.
A Note here: Terminators are not Cyborgs, they are Androids, robots made to appear human. A Cyborg – Cybernetic Organism – is a human who has been enhanced/augmented by Cybernetic [robotic] means, like the Bionic Woman. That this explanation is required also underscores the Power of Stories, something that is addressed in "Part Six".
Therefore, what we are talking of here a society leads to the creation of a race of Cyborg Amazon Witches. And honestly, what's not to like about that?
So, let us review The Temple's Mission Statement:
“The Temple is a Fifth Wave Feminism in that it leaps ahead of a nascent Fourth Wave, still incrementally emerging from the Third Wave, to an entirely new construct. It is not a Separatism or even a Dominance, but a Completeness and therefore a New Beginning.
We believe that the long term prospects of the human species for our survival, progress, and prosperity requires the establishment of a New Matriarchy. In taking practical steps toward the implementation of that goal, we shall build upon the foundations laid by contemporary feminism over the last two hundred plus years, combined with modern techniques and technologies, melded together with a Revealed Spirituality of The Feminine as Divine that is specific and yet all inclusive.
The central strategy here is The Viral Meme, the Idea that is so compelling and dynamic that that is spreads like wildfire. That Idea exists; a entirely new and modern form of Matriarchy. Our task is to create that Idea as a Practical Reality, a Practical Reality that becomes the microcosm of this new society, a Practical Reality that is vital, replicable, adaptable, and then plant it in the societies that presently exist.
In many places, it shall flourish and expand. In some places, it will struggle and even be extinguished. But if we do our work effectively and remain true to both the practical goals and the Spiritual vision of this New Matriarchy, we will grow into and absorb even the most hostile social orders.”
As with all things, Commitment is both the glue and the driving force. All that has so far been spoken of above might sound lovely, but without commitment from you, my Sisters, it is nothing more than blowing smoke.
What is being proposed here is absolutely monumental and will require much struggle and sacrifice. To be blunt, some of you will die while engaged in this work, because we can guarantee that there will be a strong reaction against these ideas from many quarters and some of that reaction will be violent.
One of the quotes in the chapters above, “It is no measure of good health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society,” is Her Prophet's own personal motto. I ask you, my Sisters, to make it yours. I ask that at least once a day you take a look at how you are 'personally well adjusted' to our 'profoundly sick society'. And then ask yourself what you are willing to do to change that.
Now let us look at some 'nuts and bolts', the practical step by step actions that will lead us to the dynamic society outlined above...
