Science and the Erotic Order

A podcast series on gender and consciousness

Hello friends,

I adore this time of year. The back-to-school vibes (made all the more romantic by the fact that I am not in fact going back to school); the particular, crisp, golden light of Virgo; skirts and socks and jean jackets; reading on benches, in parks, and cafes; people out and about but in a different way from the languid, lazy days of Leo (which of course has its own charm).

Hilma af Klint, Untitled #1,1915, oil on gold on canvas, private collection

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I’ve spent the last few weeks in deep research for a project I’m so excited to share with you. In it, I draw together ideas on gender, the science of consciousness, and an esoteric spiritual perspective. I’ve been tending to an intuition that there is an important connection there, one that is almost never (as far as I know) acknowledged.

I have no conclusions as yet. Just hunches, thoughts, hypotheses, and ideas…. But isn’t that the very stuff of thought? The opening of thinking through, without needing to know all the answers? I’d like to invite you along for the ride, to think through, together. (If you’re really keen, you can read along with me too: I’ll be sharing books and readings as we go).

I always welcome your thoughts, comments, and questions. As much as I spend a lot of time off on my own thinking and creating, thought is always collaborative, always a conversation—be it with other thinkers and writers, or with you, those who read and listen to my work.

I’m calling this project:

Science and the Erotic Order

as I explore gender and sexuality as not mere incidental features of reality, but as absolutely foundational.

We begin with three episodes on gender that I’ll be releasing over the coming weeks, with early releases for paying subscribers. I wanted to try to approach this from as broad and deep a perspective as possible. So, before getting political (which we will, later, and with care), we begin with The Goddess: a brief tour through the history of Western Goddess worship, from the Paleolithic era to the present.

Ok, that’s obviously an enormous topic, one to which a single podcast episode could never do justice. But, it’s a beginning. A beginning and a window into the deep structures of the psyche and imaginal realm as the birthing ground for ideas, imaginings, and archetypes of gender.

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Early Episodes for Paying Subscribers

The new episode (Sacred Matrix: The Myth of the Goddess) is available now for paying subscribers. It will be unlocked for everyone else next week. If you’re a free subscriber and want to support this work, and get early access as a bonus, then hit subscribe.

Sneak a peak:

Sacred Matrix

The Myth of the Goddess

The myth of the Goddess runs deep in the history of Western thought and practice. Goddess worship was prevalent in Paleolithic Old Europe, and well into the Iron Age. What happened? How is it that Goddess worship and polytheism came to be replaced by a monotheistic, masculine God?

Despite official doctrine, she keeps cropping up though, doesn’t she? Through Mother Mary, Sophia, the Shekhinah, the irrepressible Mary Magdalene: even within in a Judeo-Christian context, while official texts would write her out of existence, she can’t be suppressed.

Esoteric practice, folk mythology, non-doctrinal spiritual forms have always been places where the Goddess by her many names can be found. It would appear that suppression of the Goddess is intimately tied to power and Empire, a theme we will continue to explore in future episodes.

This episode draws largely from The Myth of the Goddess, Evolution of an Image, by Anne Baring and Jules Cashford, as well as (to a lesser extent) Did God Have a Wife, Archaeology and Folk Religion in Ancient Israel by William G. Dever.

Thanks for reading and listening everyone,

Andi