Feminism, and Secret Societies

In Search of ... the Nondual
Perhaps nonduality is the answer; after all, teacher after teacher seems to have pointed in that same direction. But if so, then what precisely is the question? What is the problem that must be overcome? Wouldn’t it be duality — experiencing reality, life, and even oneself as dual, as divided, as two divided and alienated parts instead of one perfectly united and integrated whole?
Paradoxically, however, the very same Eastern philosophies that hold nonduality up as the ultimate goal tend to dismiss the entire right-brain unconscious human soul, with all of its subjective feelings, moral attitudes, and personal memories, as completely irrelevant. In fact, to attain the ultimate goal, many Eastern philosophies maintain that one’s subjective half needs to be entirely discarded, blaming it for preventing us from experiencing nonduality in the first place. Of course, many others take the exact opposite approach, insisting that we can simply say, "it is right because it FEELS right", and ignore, deny, and reject the intellectual half of one’s being, even when the objective self is saying "No, it is wrong. It doesn't make sense."

But if we can only honor our feelings by rejecting the voice of the intellect, or if we can only honor our objective intellectual self by rejecting our subjective feeling self, isn’t this, either way, still only honoring half of our Maker and half of ourselves? When we are not acting from our full selves, but only from selected bits and pieces of ourselves, then we are not being fully WHO WE ARE, and so will inevitably fail to reach our highest potential and greatest good.

Still, most people seem to assume that it's easier to reject one side in favor of the other. For example, men have historically favored allowing the objective conscious mind fuller expression, while relegating the expression of the subjective unconscious to a back burner, while women did the exact opposite. Isn't this the opposite of non-dualism? How can we hope to achieve nonduality if we are splitting ourselves apart to do it? How can we know ourselves if we are rejecting half of ourselves? Aren’t we acting rather like the split-brain patient who had one hand trying to button up his shirt while the other hand was trying to unbutton it? Division is the problem, not the solution.

To reject the soul, the Binary Soul Doctrine suggests, is the original problem. The unconscious soul is subjective, feminine, emotional, intuitive, artistic, caring, nurturing, loving. And these are precisely the qualities that humanity has repressed, to its own detriment, for thousands of years. To say that the rejection of the soul is necessary for salvation is to authorize and encourage the continued rejection and repression and denial of all the values the soul provides. To approve the rejection of the feminine soul is to give unwitting approval to the continued repression of women by men, to approve the domination of the strong over the weak in all avenues of society and civilization. It is to reject art in favor of science, to reject faith in favor of reason, to reject the East in favor of the West. The unconscious soul is where our feelings reside, where they come from. Our feelings are what make us human, what allow us to care and feel for each other. No salvation that leaves this out is worthy of the name.

In the final analysis, any approach to solving humanity’s problems, whether individual or collective, must come from and satisfy both the head and the heart, both our male and our female, both our right and left brains. Sooner or later, all attempted solutions that don’t satisfy both halves of the equation will be abandoned as ineffective and unworkable. This is a lesson that our religious leaders, as well as our politicians, should have figured out a long time ago. Humanity has tried for millennia to place male above female, science above faith, logic above feeling, Republicans over Democrats, law and order above right and wrong, justice over love (and vice versa), and it never works. Having tried this partisan, divisive, fractured approach for millennia, we as a species should be about ready by now to admit that it just doesn't work. Society as a whole, as well as its individuals, have all just been stunted and crippled by this naive approach.

The simple truth is, human beings are not more right-brain than left-brain, not more head than heart, not more intellect than emotion. Or vice versa. Whenever we find ourselves in a dilemma and willfully choose to honor one side by rejecting, denying, and ignoring the needs of the other side, we betray half of ourselves, dividing both our selves and our world in two. The only successful solution would seem to be to integrate them together, balancing them as Taoism teaches, ‘making the two one’ as early Christian doctrine taught, achieving true ‘nonduality’.

www.geocities.com...

Are you trying to turn this into an emotional debate now?

The entire above post DOES NOTHING for how or whether men should act like men, and women should act like women, and how this results in peaceful, co-dependent existence.

It merely suggested (AGAIN) that men are out of touch with their emotions. Gee, I haven't heard that before. It is as inaccurate statement as has ever been made. Men merely express their emotions in a much different (not wrong) form, from women! Again, trying to change this is what has led to the de-masculating of society.

Is society's message to women to commit, or to manipulate? Its all about service to self, using sex to show how 'free' you are. How you can control someone with sex, is really what women are doing. This is the power struggle I was talking about.

And now you will post an example from the 1500s how a man could have sex with his wife whenever he wanted, and if she didn't want to, he beat her until she did? No, thats NOT the point.

The point is society has convinced women that the stability they need in their life is money. Humans don't need humans any more, you just need whatever they can provide you with.

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"Are you trying to turn this into an emotional debate now? "
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nope, but I think what you are describing is just the physical reflection of a conflict that is taking place our own psychis...
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"The entire above post DOES NOTHING for how or whether men should act like men, and women should act like women, and how this results in peaceful, co-dependent existence."
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but, every man is has an equal measure of the feminine, and every women has an equal measure of the masculine, otherwise, well, when it comes to spiritual redemption, every women on the face of this earth is kind of stuck, waiting for her other half to make the decision to accept redemption, doesn't it....
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Is society's message to women to commit, or to manipulate? Its all about service to self, using sex to show how 'free' you are. How you can control someone with sex, is really what women are doing. This is the power struggle I was talking about.
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don't know......I'm a 45 year old women, who is commited to her marriage, have been for the past 25 yrs or more....
I don't control my husband period....all I ask is that he doesn't try to control me....he can ask of me whatever he likes, and most likely he will get it if it is in my power to give, and well, would be nice if he could do the same, but I guess it is something he is either unwilling or unable to do....
which, well, to love a person is to accept them as they are isn't it, ALL OF THEM, not just that portion that you find useful??
like I said, maybe what you are seeing in the world around you is just an image of what is going on in your own psychi?
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The point is society has convinced women that the stability they need in their life is money. Humans don't need humans any more, you just need whatever they can provide you with.
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The point is, is that it is the femine aspects of creation that gives you life, and nourishes it....
and since you chose to bring up the 1500's, may I suggest that it is evidence that man chose to disempower those feminine aspects not only by disempowering the women, but also taking control of those nourishments that the Earth provides for us all.......
thus the invention of money to begin with!!!

Simple fact of the matter is, the women needs the money, if she is to nourish the babes, so well, if the man desires to control it all and not share it with her, I am sure that God has enabled her to provide it for herself....GUILTFREE!!!

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"To reject the soul, the Binary Soul Doctrine suggests, is the original problem. The unconscious soul is subjective, feminine, emotional, intuitive, artistic, caring, nurturing, loving. And these are precisely the qualities that humanity has repressed, to its own detriment, for thousands of years. To say that the rejection of the soul is necessary for salvation is to authorize and encourage the continued rejection and repression and denial of all the values the soul provides. To approve the rejection of the feminine soul is to give unwitting approval to the continued repression of women by men, to approve the domination of the strong over the weak in all avenues of society and civilization. It is to reject art in favor of science, to reject faith in favor of reason, to reject the East in favor of the West. The unconscious soul is where our feelings reside, where they come from. Our feelings are what make us human, what allow us to care and feel for each other. No salvation that leaves this out is worthy of the name. "
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"To approve the rejection of the feminine soul is to give unwitting approval to the continued repression of women by men, to approve the domination of the strong over the weak in all avenues of society and civilization. It is to reject art in favor of science, to reject faith in favor of reason, to reject the East in favor of the West. "
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Isn't it the same people who are clamoring about the feminazis the one who are also attacking just about every other social advancement that has been made in the past two hundred years of so.
from the idea that the federal government's intervention into the slavery issue was unconstitutional to the idea that the unions were a creation from hell and that our society would have just functioned fine without their meddling.....
look back a few hundred years or so, slavery, child labor, no legal rights for women, no humane treatment when it came to proverty or those considered "weak"......
those who were judged by society to be strong and deserving ruled those judged to weak and underserving with what is close to absolute rule.....

Originally posted by akilles
Its all about service to self, using sex to show how 'free' you are. How you can control someone with sex, is really what women are doing. This is the power struggle I was talking about.

*SNIP*The point is society has convinced women that the stability they need in their life is money. Humans don't need humans any more, you just need whatever they can provide you with.

You know, you could replace the word "woman" with the word "people". Now you've got one example with what is wrong with society.

You seem to have issues with women. Would it have been better if we all stayed home and raised 2.5 kids? Made dinner, wore dresses with aprons and went to PTA meetings? Maybe you should move to Stepford...the Stepford from the original movie.

Originally posted by DontTreadOnMe
You seem to have issues with women. Would it have been better if we all stayed home and raised 2.5 kids? Made dinner, wore dresses with aprons and went to PTA meetings? Maybe you should move to Stepford...the Stepford from the original movie.

HAH!!!! Yeah... Akilles would fit in REAL WELL there!!!!

Originally posted by DontTreadOnMe
You seem to have issues with women. Would it have been better if we all stayed home and raised 2.5 kids? Made dinner, wore dresses with aprons and went to PTA meetings?

Don't know about anybody else but that scenario won't pay for our mortgage.

Jesus says that those that follow his teachings would be persecuted, and even he was judged to be fit to be crucified as a heretic by the world!
So, who is it that has been persecuted up to the present time? and who has it been mostly doing the persecuting.
The persecuted:
first and foremost it....WOMEN!!!
then let's see, the early christians, until they made the marriage with the Roman Empire....and then commenced to be the persecutors...
then it was those following the gnostic teachings......the ones who believed the philosophy that I am doing such a terrible job trying to relate here.......
the knights templers of the inquisition, and well, probably a few thousand others who were caught up in that frenzy......it's believed that the knights templers followed more of a gnostic line of thinking that the christian churches proclaimed....

there are different lines of belief here, each seems as old as the other.
and well, I tend to believe one, you the other......so, have fun with yours....leave me to explore mine please.

Originally posted by intrepid
Don't know about anybody else but that scenario won't pay for our mortgage.

Amen to that. Most middle class families I know need both parents working.

My husband and I talk about this now and then. Our parents could get by with just one income in the fifties and sixties. Then, prices on everything went up, esp. houses, college tuition and cars. Incomes did not rise at the same rate as these big ticket items. The only way folks could keep their heads above water is to have two incomes.
Sad. *shakes head*

I don't even know where to begin with you people.

So men weren't being controlled in this Patriarchal society? Please!

The few have controlled the many by telling Men they have the right to Rule!
I am not disputing this, and I am definitely not asking for a change back to this!

Society was instable then, and its instable now. How can we compare which is better?

DTOM, you might have a point, but men have their entire lives to realize there is more to life than money, they are born knowing they will be worked to death. Of course they will look for something else along the way . Its called family...

While women think working makes them free, they will only be thinking of how they can get ahead of the Men at work, so when the men go home early and enjoy what is important in life, why should a woman stay overtime and try to earn a raise? I am only attacking the mindset! Not hard work, or motivation to succeed.

Great work saying that my entire argument is a reflection of my psyche. Wow, I was born yesterday, and that isn't a patented technique for TRYING to discredit someone.

The scary part, DontTreadOnMe, is when girls starting blaming guys for failed relationships, and start saying guys are hypocrites for wanting sex but not wanting a relationship.

Is this why I should move to Stepford, for not wanting to start a relationship based on my (and her) intentions THAT evening (and ending that evening)?

Originally posted by akilles
I don't even know where to begin with you people.

"you" people

DTOM, you might have a point, but men have their entire lives to realize there is more to life than money, they are born knowing they will be worked to death. Of course they will look for something else along the way

. Its called family...

duh, you think men have the market cornered on this....I don't even begin to understand how you think only men need to work, or that their reasons are special to their sex

While women think working makes them free, they will only be thinking of how they can get ahead of the Men at work, so when the men go home early and enjoy what is important in life, why should a woman stay overtime and try to earn a raise?

I NEVER, EVER thought work was gonna make me free. Week in and week out, I had to go to work to pay for my car and the roof over my head. Oh, yeah, and food and clothing. And, I don't even have kids to be concerned with.
Free, how?

The scary part, DontTreadOnMe, is when girls starting blaming guys for failed relationships, and start saying guys are hypocrites for wanting sex but not wanting a relationship.

Is it okay for guys to blame girls? Or is it just that girls have started to do what guys have done all along?

"Great work saying that my entire argument is a reflection of my psyche. Wow, I was born yesterday, and that isn't a patented technique for TRYING to discredit someone.

The scary part, DontTreadOnMe, is when girls starting blaming guys for failed relationships, and start saying guys are hypocrites for wanting sex but not wanting a relationship.

Is this why I should move to Stepford, for not wanting to start a relationship based on my (and her) intentions THAT evening (and ending that evening)? "
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may I suggest that those who do not wish to commit to 20 or so years of cooperating with the other parent of any possible child that might be produced just avoid having the sexual relations that might produce the child???

as far as discrediting you, well, then it must also discredit just about every other human that has lived on this planet also, then.....
why are we looking to other people, to fill the gaps that we've created in our own being.....which, by the way, we were taught to reject and suppress...
maybe people might do better if they spend more time coming to terms with who they are, and more confident of their own abilities before they start trying to find fullfillment outside of themselves?


[edit on 12-3-2005 by dawnstar]

Well as a woman I'm strongly for women's rights although I'm starting to get really suspicious of government intentions due to stuff I've been reading on the comming NWO (check out www.infowars.com and www.soldierofthelord.4t.com) So I'm not really sure what to think at the moment

Originally posted by ufo_believer
Well as a woman I'm strongly for women's rights although I'm starting to get really suspicious of government intentions due to stuff I've been reading on the comming NWO (check out www.infowars.com and www.soldierofthelord.4t.com) So I'm not really sure what to think at the moment

Don't let the other women know that, though. I'd hate to see a bunch of feminists and feminazis burn you at the wooden stake for becoming a heretic.

[edit on 19-3-2005 by intrepid]

Originally posted by intrepid

Originally posted by DontTreadOnMe
You seem to have issues with women. Would it have been better if we all stayed home and raised 2.5 kids? Made dinner, wore dresses with aprons and went to PTA meetings?

Don't know about anybody else but that scenario won't pay for our mortgage.

LOL! I'm with you on that one Intrepid!

Now, in a sense, hasn't radical feminism just justified exactly what you guys are talking about?

It REQUIRES two incomes to pay a mortgage, so how can the Family Unit function? Shouldn't a family invest its energy, not just its money?

And so, haven't banks effectively undermined society as well?

So the Radicals come in, and say, EVERY woman wants to work! We want to work, and we don't want positions that are going to allow us to continue with home duties, because that isn't fair!

Well, ummm, maybe women could have negotiated EQUAL Pay but fewer hours, but did they? No, their radical leaders (that were paid off, subverted, whatever you want to say, they made a living as the original self-interest group) said they want OUT of the Home.

Where was the sense? The economic and social sense?

And now, let me ask you, how much does land cost that is un-inhabited? Shouldn't the Government have a DUTY to sell land to private owners for LARGE amounts (millions), yet keep land available for FAMILIES, to move on to the land, without having to pay millions?

I am not asking for free rides, just sound thinking in the past.

Now, all the rage is "Sex in the City", which is about NOT having a family, NOT owning a home, and being a middle-aged woman.

Yeah, they are not pushing ideals there...

Originally posted by akilles
The squeaky wheel gets the grease, and this is the case with feminism vs radical feminism.

The real agenda again, is to keep women from getting married. Why?
"In many parts of the world, stressing marriage and long-term monogamous relationships doesn't protect women from AIDS because they are unable to control whether they have sex. The approach — favored by the American anti-AIDS package — also could backfire in areas where being married actually increases the risk of contracting HIV, research has found."

Wow... That is backwards logic, all so that they don't have to embrace the fact that a man and a woman can have a stable, balanced relationship, even in the 3rd world?

The most extreme views on Feminism are unfortunately the voices that get heard. Why don't women become involved in 'HUMAN ISSUES' instead of just women's issues, if they are interested in equality?

How many people here have seen a teenage mother? From a small town of about 3000 people, I have seen more than a dozen. Who here would claim these women to be worse off in life now, without knowing anything about their life before getting pregnant.

Who can say that some women don't WANT to become a mother before age 20? Are we really so arrogant to claim these women want to be doing something different?

The girls mentioned above were partying their life away before getting pregnant, and unfortunately it doesn't 'fix' all of their ways, but I recommend talking to a teenage mother before advocating what extreme feminism has suggested repeatedly.

If you understood the culture of much of the third world, then you would understand why many womens rights advocates are trying to discourage marrigae there.

The third world culture of male female relationships are a far cry from what they are in the west. In many third world countries, women are still regarded as property, a marriage is regarded as the closing of a business deal between families, and the only place of a wife in these societies is that of a broodmare, a piece of property of the husbands total wealth who exists only to pop out his kids.

In these societies, male sexual behavior is horrid. Men not only have the right to have sex with many different women, in many cultures, they are expected to to prove their masculinity. This promescuity is the main reason behind the rise in VD epidemics in third world countries, where men refuse to curb their excessive sexual activities. Wives cannot refuse sex with their husbands, and are often beaten if they do not give him what he wants. This problem is most pronounced in Africa, where married men frequently have sex with prostitutes, then come home, infected with with HIV, and have sex with their wives. Wives who refuse, or who try to make their husbands use condoms, are publicly shamed and beaten, or accused of infidelity themselves. In many of these cultures, women who are discovered to be unfaithful to their husbands are usually murdered with impunity. This is why womens rights are a dire issue in the third world. If women had more power, where they were not forced into unwanted marriages, and also had the right to refuse sex or divorce and unfaithful husband, we would actually see the rates of AIDS and other diseases decline. It is this single issue which makes up the bulk of the problem in Africa combating AIDS. Women on that continent truly are better off not getting married. And because of limited opportunities for women to find work, widows, who recieve very little help, are often forced into prostitution to feed their families, thus increasing their exploitation and risks for catching diseases.

The culture of many third world countries must change, period. Marriages, as I said before, more often than not do not involve to people in love, but a business contract between families. If such arranged marriage, plus a mentality of male promiscuity= masculinity mentalities were slowly eroded, disease could be successfuly combated, and relationships and marriage and family could finally be an act of choice and of love, but not until then.

So, yes, in many parts of the world, outside our privilaged egaltarian western civilization, marriage is not only very unhappy for women, it is also very life threatening.

Women in the west, despite the "war of the sexes" should be very thankful for our culture and society as it is. It is here where I find the femminist attacks on the institution of marriage to be the most ill thought of. I agree that there is an unfortunate majority of femminists who quite frankly, are doing more to hurt womens rights than help. They tend to be dogmatic, pushing for "career" women and degrading the family and marriage as somehow "oppresive".

You are also right that there are indeed young women in their teens and 20's who are very happy to have children, that is their desire. Femminists shoot themselves in the foot in this area. They often portray such women as being too you, or ignorant to know whats best for them. They cannot accept the fact that each woman is different, and yes, teenage girls who want to marry and have children young can also be mature enough to make such a descision. Much to extreme femminists' dismay, not every woman wants an extended education, a career, to make it to "the top". My mother was a teenage mom, and not only did she not regret having me, her only regrett was that she did not have more kids. Education and material success in this "mans" world is not the goal of every woman. Some women want to be mothers and career housewives. Instead of applauding these women for their FREE CHOICE, the extreme femminists instead portray them as oppressed, ignorant souls who "don't know any better". Isn't that the Holy Grail of womens rights: the right for each and every woman to choose her life's path for herself, without others pushing or pressuring them to do something they don't want to? Womens choice applies to EVERY choice, not just the ones that fulfill radical femminism's narrow vision.

I feel that if femminists spent less time here in the west, where women have legal, social, and religous freedom, attacking marriage as an oppresive institution that "liberated" women should reject, and spent more time in the third world, where women truly are legally, socialy, and religously oppressed and abused, they might actually gain alot of the respect they have lost.

But until then, I shall continue to regard femminists with suspicion and distrust, for in my opinion, they are doing more to hurt womens rights and our social respectability here than they are actually helping.

Now this was my take all along. They are doing MORE harm than good. The proportion matters not (because it is debatable, and nothing more/less)

The radicals, I mean.

But Skadi, I HAVE to say, you are being radical with your wives' tales, as they were. When were you last in Africa? Don't forget this is a very international forum.

I think there is something to be said about the hyper-villainized Tribal Black man, who refuses to cope with the times. I mean, how looming is this stereotype?

Over-sexed, out of control, diseased, these are ideas of the NEGRO from VICTORIAN times.

Need I say more? And yeah, I was born in Africa.

Originally posted by akilles
Now this was my take all along. They are doing MORE harm than good. The proportion matters not (because it is debatable, and nothing more/less)

The radicals, I mean.

But Skadi, I HAVE to say, you are being radical with your wives' tales, as they were. When were you last in Africa? Don't forget this is a very international forum.

I think there is something to be said about the hyper-villainized Tribal Black man, who refuses to cope with the times. I mean, how looming is this stereotype?

Over-sexed, out of control, diseased, these are ideas of the NEGRO from VICTORIAN times.

Need I say more? And yeah, I was born in Africa.

Wives tales? I think not.

And I'll ignore your sarcasm about oversexed Victorian Negroes.

We are dealing with a crisis in Africa that is killing its population in large numbers. Were not talking about silly old stereotypes of paranoid white people way down south 100 years ago. We are talking about behavior that is not even unique to Africa. But since Africa has the highest AIDS rate in the world, and its destroying an entire generation of people and is leaving millions of children orphaned, it was a good start.

We have very sizable African communities here in Seattle of people mainly from Ethiopia, Somalia, and West Africa. I used to work with a woman from Ghana at the apartment complex I used to work at. She told me that most men in Africa refuse to wear condoms, some believing that the condoms are automatically rigged to fail to make AIDS spread more. She told me of many false ideas people had about how AIDS was spread. And yes, she told me that many African men, when they are away from their families working, usually driving long haul trucks or in mining camps, will engage with prostitutes, since there are no women around. She herself left her husband because he was very controlling, something not unique to women in Ghana, of course. She is here with her two children now, studying to be a nurse. She does not wish to return to her husband, as she fears for her life.

But you have totally missed the point. Whether you want to realize it or not, theres a huge problem in Africa, where some countries, the AIDS infection rate in some countries is as high as 60% of the adult population. And the reason for this is not that Big Scary Oversexed Negroes are running amok. It is the fact that the role of women is very poor over there, and thus, the men are allowed to get away with it. The same would be happening here in the "white west" if women's rights did not exist. In fact, 300 years ago in Europe, when women were still second class citizens, and it was considered perfectly acceptable for men to run amok, have as many mistresses as they wanted, clear into Victorian times, syphilus was running as rampant in Europe and America as AIDS is now running in Africa. The only thing that stopped this behavior was the gradual improvement of womens standing in society. Once women began to haave more social and political power, men were no longer allowed to engage in such behavior completely unchecked. As women began to take more important roles and have their voices heard, men suddenly found it was no longer socially acceptable to have as many sex partners as they wished, and they could no longer cheat with impunity.

This applies for all men of all races. When women are reduced to second class citizens or Chattel, and all social norms, laws, and customs are based on only mens desires, men will run around and do as they please, for there is nothing women can do. They cannot leave cheating husbands, have no property rights of their own, ect, thus, men have no fear of sanction or reprisal from angry women, when the position of women in society is beneath men.

In todays world, of course, Africa isn't the only continent where women still live in substandard positions. AIDS is on the rise in southeast Asia, where in many countries, women are still exploited and looked upon as sex objects. We see the trafficking of human flesh an epidemic there, even young children are sold into sexual slavery. Although in Asia, womens roles and rights are slowly beginning to catch up to men, and in some places, like China and Japan, they have basically gained the same privilages and rights as men, there is still a culture of male dominance, where sexual exploitation, infidelity, ect, run rampant, because there is little fear on the part of the man of any sort of consequence to his actions. There is little fear of divorce, as there arent many options for women fleeing their abusive husbands.

So, if you had read into what I posted earlier, you could see clearly my statement about AIDS in Africa had nothing to do with race, but everything to do with how much a womans social, legal, and economic standing strongly effects things like fidelity and sexual behavior of men.

Men, no matter what their race, when they have most or absolute power, will create social and legal systems to sanction and allow their lusts to run as they please, as we see throughout history, where in male dominated soceities, infidelity and polygamy are encouraged, but any female infidelity is punished often by death.

However, when men are faced with a society where women have the power to leave them, or choose whoever they wish as a mate, and have more control over their bodies as well as their futures, men will tend to be alot more careful about their behavior, lest they find themselves abandoned, legally responsible, and dateless.

Guys, you forgot the CONTEXT.

This isn't modern America. It's Europe. It's the 1700's.

Originally posted by akilles
"There is no way of influencing men so powerfully as by means of the women.

Here's a clue: he's talking about sex and society. Many mistresses of wealthy and powerful men did, indeed, give these men advice although these women themselves were allowed no power.

These should therefore be our chief study; we should insinuate ourselves into their good opinion, give them hints of emancipation from the tyranny of public opinion, and of standing up for themselves;

In the context of that time, women were essentially bondservants who could not emancipate themselves. Husbands were chosen for them and they could not own property, control what their children did, could not vote, had no say in where they lived, could not speak their mind on politics or business or investing. It was common for men to have mistresses and most women hoped to marry an older man who would die and very conveniently leave them with some small measure of freedom that we have today.

Weisshaupt's talking about giving married women the same kind of freedom that the prostitutes/mistresses had. These women could run salons where intellectuals gathered and could participate in society to some degree.

The irony was that a respectable woman couldn't do what the prostitutes could.

it will be an immense relief to their enslaved minds to be freed from any one bond of restraint, and it will fire them the more, and cause them to work for us with zeal, without knowing that they do so, for they will only be indulging their own desire of personal admiration."

He's talking about giving women support and some measure of freedom that the prostitutes had so that these women will then in turn praise the Illuminati to their spouses and will use their social power to help the Illuminati.

The one power these women had was in the upper levels of society -- they were the ones who determined who was "in" and who was "out" by who they invited to their grand balls and dinner parties. So if the men of the Illuminati gave the women support for some of the things they wanted (the right to own property and the right to speak up about politics) then these same women's help would enable the members of the Illuminati to have access to the very wealthiest and most powerful men through the wives of these men.

You're thinking with 21st century minds, guys. Ya gotta put it in historical context. It's all about manipulating the women to have access to the powerful and rich men.


[edit on 29-4-2005 by Byrd]

Skadi, go to Africa. Do us all a favor.

And have sex while you are over there. I guarantee it will be no different than sex in North America!

I mean, you have AGAIN treated that African people as superstitious, ignorant, and REASON to continue to behave how YOU have described them.

Well, did you ever think what you would think if over a period of 15 years, someone told you your entire country of healthy young women and men were actually DISEASED although showing no sign of disease?

"Weishaupt's talking about giving married women the same kind of freedom that the prostitutes/mistresses had"
Ah, you mean women should also start to have multiple partners... Well, this is very clear in modern society.

And by doing the Illuminati's bidding, in terms of social structure, you DO mean the destruction of the family unit, do you not? For it is one unit in society that should be secure, and yet in modern society, no bond is less secure...

Mission accomplished. Women have been made to believe that if you make yourself faithful to a man, and he knows it, he will take advantage of you.

Excuse me, but how does this do anything but instill distrust in the opposite sex? We are to consider the Sexes either the same (both sexes desire infidelity), or that there is something unnatural about exclusive MUTUAL (nothing forced falls into the category) relationships,

that women must use the threat of being unfaithful to keep their man faithful, in effect.

The possibility MUST exist (to attract other men, or she will have lost 'power), or the woman is just subjugating herself... Right... Nothing to do with men also wanting stability, or wanting to be Fathers, no, women don't chose a husband based on those things...