Tattoos in 21st Century Israel – A Late Bloom

In recent years, we have been witnessing an exciting process of tattoo revival in our region, albeit belatedly. Why is the tattoo renaissance arriving in Israel with a delay of about two decades relative to the U.S., Europe, and the rest of the world? Friedman (2015) notes that the tattoo revival trends observed in other parts of the world, such as the Pacific Islands, have not yet penetrated Africa and the Middle East. Nevertheless, the globalization process has left its mark on Africa and the Middle East, and a tattoo art form rich in styles and influences imported from both East and West is flourishing. Tattoo art is thriving primarily in major urban areas, particularly in North Africa and Israel. The artistic influences of tattoo artists in our region are not indigenous, but global [1]. An underground tattoo scene is also sprouting around us. In Cairo, several tattoo studios operate through a combination of local tattooists and traveling artists from around the world, and in 2015, the first tattoo convention in Cairo was held. A local and international tattoo scene is also beginning to flourish in Lebanon, Jordan, and Dubai.

Collectable tattoo books, courtesy of David Mosko, the Tattooed Sailor

Until the late 1970s, the art of tattooing in Israel suffered from a negative image for several reasons:

Stigma and Prejudices: Most tattoos seen on Israeli streets until the early 80s were done amateurishly and were associated with crime, lack of education, and fringe culture [2]. The tattoo phenomenon was small in scale, and it was rare to see tattooed people in public spaces.

The Jewish Prohibition: The prevailing approach among the public is that Judaism categorically opposes tattoos. Until recently, this argument was a heavy element that led to a cultural attitude viewing tattoos as a “taboo.” Today, new studies and interpretations are entering the public discourse, acknowledging the possibility of the existence of an ancient Jewish tattoo culture (see the articles of Meir Bar-Ilan).

The Holocaust: The marking of millions of Jews in the Holocaust made the act of being tattooed itself abhorrent and impossible for many Israelis, especially those of the first and second generations of the Holocaust. In the collective memory, the act of tattooing was identified directly with coercion, slavery, and the dehumanization of masses of people for the purposes of a murderous and inhumane regime, rather than as an art form with beauty and meaning [3].

Tight Social Control over the Individual: Until the 1980s, the model of parental authority, the education system, and the military in Israel held significant weight within the intimate and familial sphere of the State of Israel. “The sanction for deviating from the collective standard, and especially for highlighting the self, was harsh and painful until the 1970s, deterring many young people from rebelling against Zionist conventions […] Proletarian and resource-poor Israel of the first two decades rejected expressions of aesthetic refinement and glorified a modest, ascetic, and frugal lifestyle, which found its expression, among other things, in the avoidance of external ostentation.”[4]

Undeveloped Nautical Tradition: “Israelis are not known for having produced adventurous explorers or tough admirals. The Israeli Navy has always been a tiny force within the IDF, and the merchant fleet was quite small and employed quite a few foreign crew members.”[5] In this context, it is interesting that the first Israeli tattooist, David Mosko, was a sailor by profession and drew his inspiration from global tattoo culture during his travels at sea.

A lack of information and professional literature in Hebrew on the subject of tattoo anthropology and history led to a fixation on this perception in Israel for many long years.

Images courtesy of David Moskovich (Mosko) the Tattooed Sailor

The first (unofficial) tattoo anthropologist in Israel

Tattoo Culture as a Mirror of the Israeli Existential Condition

Every society encourages a certain body and suppresses another. The meaning given to the body is also determined by society. One can call the body that society encourages to create the “Chosen Body.” We will deal with the Chosen Body in Israeli society. The supervision of society’s boundaries follows us from Jewish tradition and religion.

Art scholar Gideon Ofrat notes a stunning fact: the word “guf” (body) does not appear at all in the Bible and appears for the first time in our sources in the Talmud (in Arabic: jifa). In contrast, the word “body” returns 92 times in the New Testament, usually referring to the body of Jesus. The Bible only knows the word “gufah,” in the meaning of a corpse: “And they carried the corpse of Saul and the corpses of his sons” (1 Chronicles 10:12). In the Hebrew language, the word “guf” signifies the essence of a matter: “to the body of the matter” (to the point). The “I” (self) is identified in Hebrew with a body: “first person” (first body), “second person” (second body), etc. “However, there is no connection whatsoever between all these ‘bodies’ and the body of flesh-and-blood-impulse. The body of Hebrew is devoid of Eros.”[6]

Throughout history, Jews have identified themselves as persecuted by external factors. Judaism has strict laws for preserving the body—laws of kashrut, purity, and more. Halakhic laws are clear regarding the shape of the Jewish body (circumcised, whole for burial), and they distinguish between the Jew and the stranger. The figure of the pioneer (Halutz) and the Sabra constitute the ethos of the Israeli figure, to which Arabs do not belong. Israeli society exists in a state of constant war and a state of fluid national borders that create a constant threat to its “gufah” (corpse/body), whether the feeling is real or constructed by the body politic. Pegis argues for the “existence of a hierarchy of bodies in Israeli society, at the head of which stands the ‘Chosen Body.’ This body is a Jewish, masculine, Ashkenazi, healthy, whole, and perfect body. The design of this body began with the Zionist revolution, which was also a physical revolution—a people of the spirit becoming a people of the earth—and continues to this day”[7].

Courtesy of David Moskovich [Mosko], from the exhibition: Tattoos – The Human Body as a Work of Art, Curator: Yasmine Bergner

It seems that youth in Israel live in a multi-faceted and changing existential state. The IDF is the most powerful agent of the body politic. In it, priority is given to a strong and flawless body. The family and Israeli society cooperate unconsciously with the “prestige” of the body politic. We are witnessing the modification and commodification of the body. The body of the combat soldier becomes the body politic and the Chosen Body. The personal goal and the social goal unite. The body politic through the IDF, which also engages in educational functions, creates docile bodies (Michel Foucault). The Institute of Forensic Medicine reflects the body politic. At this station in the life cycle of the body, there is complete control of the body politic over the individual body, expressed in the circumcision of uncircumcised Jews and (in the past) the removal of tattoos.

“Israeli society is a collective society with clear boundaries and a hierarchy of body, at the head of which stands the perfect combat soldier’s body. In Israeli society, there is a direct link between ideology and politics to body images. Israeli society is special in that although it is a complex society, it is still collective, and the transition to the individualism common in Western societies is unclear and not unequivocal […] The article constitutes a strong subversive call against the perceptions taken for granted in Israeli society” [8].

The complex patterns of Israeli youth can only be understood through the prism of the Israeli existential situation and its implications for the younger generation. Israeli society is very family-oriented. Familiality is a supreme value in Israeli culture, formulated primarily as mutual dependence and intimacy between family members, support, shared destiny, and agreement with family values [9] (Rappaport et al. 1995 in Jacobson and Luzzatto).

Some say that Israeli youth do not develop patterns of protest because of the individual’s immense identification with the ideology of the collective. This helps explain why Israeli youth (almost) did not develop counter-cultures, and especially today we are witnessing the emergence of social protests that are in the stage of a “revolution that has not yet been completed.” One of the prominent characteristics of Israeli youth is its centrality. Youth are considered a security asset to the state. While young people are in the transition stages between childhood and adulthood, they are expected to be future soldiers, and most boys are expected to be combat soldiers. For this reason, youth receive a lot of respect and consideration even at very young ages and are given a platform to express themselves on certain issues. Youth in Israel are aware of the possibility of death on a daily basis—whether their own death or that of their friends or relatives. It was found that awareness of death among Israeli children develops at an earlier age compared to other Western countries [10].

Courtesy of Dan Belilty and Malkiela Ben Shabat

From the exhibition “Representations of Tattoos in Contemporary Art”

Ben-Gurion University, Curators: Yasmine Bergner and Haim Maor

The flourishing of tattoo culture in Israel in recent decades registers several important aspects:

Mass culture and a decrease in social control: Tattoo culture in the 1980s is characterized by symbols and codes that characterize a young subculture, as part of a popular culture and not as a protest or expression of a private position. Since MTV first launched in 1982, music stars have become a leading authority in various fields of fashion. The MTV style influenced popular media culture as a whole, which absorbs and mixes everything and turns alternative cultural forms like hip-hop and grunge into leading alternative fashion and advertising.

These processes bring about a gradual decrease in social control; the margins are approaching the center, and the boundaries of social tolerance are being constantly expanded. The young culture generation of the 1990s and 2000s differs from its predecessor in that it lives in a better economic situation than the generation of the 1960s and 1970s, and indeed, the increasing consumer culture encourages self-cultivation, engagement with appearance and fashion. But to understand the phenomenon deeply, it is worth recognizing the psychological, mental, and spiritual aspects of cultivating the “self” as an empowering means of expression for personal definition. In every cultural trend, there is a fluctuation between fashionability and fleeting superficiality and significant, long-term conscious development.

The tattoo as a strategy of reclaiming ownership over the self that was enslaved by post-modernist capitalist dictates: Decorating the body with tattoos symbolically expresses the yearning to take back the control that was expropriated from the individual within the framework of capitalist culture and within the educational frameworks of children and youth (schools and boarding schools, the army, and youth detention mechanisms). Military service is by its very definition total and oppressive, and a high degree of control over the individual is exercised within it.

In this context, the tattoo can become part of the process of reclaiming ownership of the self, when young people are intensely immersed in these institutions and situations in which they experience an undermining of personal freedom and self-identity (Benson 2000, Douglas 1970, Kingwell 1996, in Jacobson and Luzzatto) [11]. These situations create fluctuations between conformity and protest: sometimes this protest is directed against the establishment exerting pressure, but it is mostly directed against an oppressive existential situation that is considered inevitable and difficult to endure because of the forced uniformity within it.

Decorating the body as a means of social protest against the establishment or the previous generation: Tattoos as expressing a position or identification with aspects of oppression and enslavement in society. The use of a tattoo can constitute an expression of a position directed toward adults, and its central meaning is taking responsibility. The permanence of the tattoo as an irreversible act. In the context of intergenerational discourse, tattoos can express protest against the world and the values of the previous generation; they express negotiation and bargaining regarding the boundaries of their self-expression within the boundaries of conformity with the parent figure. Parents participate in the negotiation, and sometimes even support the tattoo.

Some even get tattooed themselves. This is consistent with the centrality of the family, which is one of the ultimate values of Israeli society, which is strengthened even more when the country is in a state of war. This discourse not only involves the degree of legitimate parental control over the symbolic freedom of choice of young people but may also serve as a bridge between the different existential situations of the generations. The language of tattoos and piercing is multi-faceted. Different symbolic meanings are emphasized according to the context and express a fluctuation between conformity on one hand, and individualism or protest on the other [12].

In Israel, it is reported that the demographic curve is leveling out over time, meaning the tattoo is gradually becoming a fashion that crosses age and class strata. The socio-economic status of those getting tattooed is becoming increasingly diverse. If in the past (until the 1970s) the vast majority were men from the less-educated stratum and the lower class, since the 1980s, the socio-economic status of tattoo culture has been steadily rising and includes the middle and upper class—among them a variety of people in liberal professions [13]. This process parallels the demographic changes in the U.S.

Tattoo researcher Margot DeMello [14] notes that tattoo culture in the U.S. is undergoing a gradual process of sociological and demographic change. From the beginning of the last century, tattoos were associated with fringe people, sailors, prostitution, and delinquency—that is, the lower class. From the 80s onwards, tattoos are observed among the middle class, and from the 90s onwards, tattoos are also associated with members of the upper class.

In the photo: My beloved tattooees: Shani, Oren, and Dave, Kinneret, 2022

The extensive backpacker culture and Israeli tourism in the world find themselves influenced by indigenous iconographies and tattoo cultures in the distant places they visit and even get tattooed in. From the beginning of the 2000s until today, tattoo culture is no longer just “young culture” but is also present among older people aged 40-50 and up.

The first decade of the 2000s was very fruitful in the field of tattoo culture in Israel. In 2002, the first museum exhibition in Israel on the subject of tattoos was presented, “Line on Body” at the Tower of David Museum in Jerusalem (curator Renna Sivan). The exhibition displayed collectibles borrowed from the Dutch tattooist, collector, and tattoo researcher Henk Schiffmacher, who tattooed well-known musicians like Pearl Jam, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and more. Schiffmacher established the Tattoo Museum in Amsterdam, which displays tattoo tools from around the world, as well as tattoo machines designed by the Israeli Tattooed Sailor, Mosko David, tattoo posters, stamps, historical photographs, and special objects.

Since then, additional exhibitions have been held in Israel on the subject of tattoo culture and art [15], and articles have explored the connection between art, culture, and tattoos [16]. Public discourse around tattoo culture has intensified drastically. Intimate blog writing like that of “Tabula Rasa” [17] (since 2010) documents the tattoo culture in Israel and the world in photography and text. The sensitive writing describes with empathy and curiosity full of respect its tattooed subjects:

“The human body fascinates me. The body in motion, the body disguised, the body naked, the body wounded. Through tattoos, I encounter every time this fetishistic idea of the body as a text. Perhaps the first time (but not really) that I encountered this idea was when I watched Peter Greenaway’s film ‘The Pillow Book,’ which describes the story of a woman who was painted on ceremonially from her childhood. The girl grows up to be a writer who wants to publish her books, but the dubious publisher rejects her books again and again. And then, she gets an idea: she will seduce him with young and beautiful men, who are favorites of his, and on their bodies, she will write her books. As she continues the project, the content of the books appears on the body as a form. The Book of Secrets is written in the hidden corners of the body. The Book of Silence is written on the mute tongue. The meaning becomes more mysterious, more coded.”

Since 2013, annual tattoo conventions have been held in Tel Aviv, in which dozens of tattooists from Israel and abroad participate, and thousands of tattooed and curious people visit.

Gender Changes

Gender differences in tattoo selection in Israel during the 1970s to 2000 are consistent with findings of studies showing that body cultivation is emphasized more in women, who are subjected to tighter social control regarding their external appearance (Silverstein et al. 1986, Stein and Nemeroff 1995, Udry and Eckland 1984, in Jacobson and Luzzatto) [18]. In their study from the beginning of the 2000s, they find prominent differences between women and men. Young women (of all ages) tend to attribute a symbolic meaning to their choice that connects to relationships and positive emotions like friendship, gentleness, love, and the search for beauty.

Furthermore, feminine choices versus masculine ones are consistent with gender construction in Israeli society, where women are educated to be dependent on emotional relationships, to demonstrate refined behavior, and to avoid aggression, while men are expected to demonstrate assertiveness and aggression and to be warriors. This limited freedom symbolizes the situation of women in society. In contrast, men tend to prefer larger tattoos (birds of prey and wild animals) (symbolizing control and physical strength), among other things, to prove masculinity, courage, and the ability to withstand physical pain. Sometimes male sexuality is expressed by decorating the body in erogenous areas.

Until the beginning of the 2000s, tattoos in Israel were done mainly by men. Until a decade ago, the number of professional female tattooists in Israel was very small, but today, Israeli tattoo culture is undergoing significant transformations in this area. There are already several dozen professional female tattooists. Numerically, the situation is still far from being equivalent to men, but it is becoming balanced. As mentioned, it seems that the choice of a tattoo among young Israelis at the beginning of the 2000s is related to the Israeli existential gender situation, which causes a high degree of conformity among members of the same sex and highlights the difference between the genders.

At very young ages (13-14) there is less difference between the genders, because boys and girls tend to choose cartoon characters. Prominent differences are registered at ages 15-17 when boys choose more powerful motifs (monsters or wild animals); it seems that military service reinforces gender differences even more. Today, such gender differences are becoming balanced, in the world and also in Israel. The tattoo is taking up a wider part of the skin of those getting tattooed, and the styles are already unisex in their essence, although not always.

Revital and Gil

Fleeting Fashion or Significant Cultural Development?

Contemporary Israeli tattoo culture is a mixture of cross-cultural influences. It is difficult to point to homogeneous lines for the figure of the average Israeli tattooee, and this is probably a combination of personal preferences and social influences. Global tattoo culture is seeping rapidly into Israeli society more than ever. Tattoo subjects in Israel are influenced mainly by tattoo cultures imported from around the world. The borrowing and artistic and value-based inspiration they provide become significant and layered and establish themselves more and more within the local culture. Tattoo art in Israel is also developing as a profession. More and more, it is possible to find tattooists who specialize in a specific style with great virtuosity.

Following the discussion on the subject of the “Chosen Body” in Israeli culture, the body as an object operated, designed, and tamed by power mechanisms. In this context, tattoo subjects who turn their bodies into an extensive and multi-year tattoo project represent a reverse process that strives to free the individual from the patterns of the “docile body.” The body that was subdued and exploited by the dictates of social, religious, political, and capitalist power mechanisms—reinvents itself and frees itself.

Methods of discipline existed for a long time (in monasteries, armies, detention facilities, hospitals, and workshops) and gradually became of a militaristic disciplinary nature that reached its peak in post-modern factories. In the 17th and 18th centuries, general formulas of rule were made that led to the construction of deep patterns of obedience and efficiency, which are at the heart of capitalist culture. “The historical moment of disciplines is that in which an art of the human body is born, which is directed not only to the growth of its skills and no longer to the burden of its enslavement, but to the creation of a relationship that in the same mechanism itself makes it more obedient the more useful it is and vice versa. Then a politics of coercions is consolidated that are work on the body, a calculated operation of its elements, of its gestures, of its behaviors. The human body enters into an array of power mechanisms that digs into it, disassembles it, and reassembles it, a ‘political anatomy'” [19].

Contemporary sociological studies show that the body is returning to the forefront of the social sciences. Since the late 70s, the study of the body has been enriched with a collection of cultural, relational, and political approaches. Issues related to the body have risen to the top of the social research agenda. Weiss [20] notes that the study of the body as a social phenomenon has undergone several changes that can be examined on a continuum moving from the physical body, through the social body, to the body politic. The social body, its origin is in the anthropology of Mary Douglas, and it is defined as the way we use the body as a symbol, as a concept through which we understand society, nature, and culture. The body as a site of self-definition and social definition, a mirror reflecting the relationship between the individual and themselves and between themselves and the society in which they live. In this context, the language of tattoos and carrying symbols on the body forever function as social networks that communicate with each other [21].

“Our perception of the body, and how it should be and look, is influenced by social control. Social control over the body exists in all human societies. In simple societies, it is direct and open control, disobedience to which leads to punishment by the community. Also in modern society, there is control over the body [22], but in an indirect and more disguised way, so that the individual is most of the time under the illusion as if he or she are supervising themselves and of their own free will over their body and determining their external appearance. But in fact, also in modern society, there exist and operate various and diverse control mechanisms over the body, according to the dictate of society and culture, class, and fashion” [23].

Effi and Liel

The body is always in the process of becoming. Or as musician Ani DiFranco says, “We are a work in progress.” This is a way to express the gap between the personal body and the social body and the process of integration between them. In the post-modern era, the body is an “unfinished project,” we are “working on the body,” and this work never ends. The body is characterized by a constant lack, and in an attempt to fill this lack, the individual can approach the ideal of the whole body. People who have chosen to cover their bodies with tattoos use this tool to approach their private ideal externally and internally.

The tattooed body is a performance, a statement that we wish to etch into our consciousness and into the consciousness of the observer. The symbol tattooed on your body gives it a public status and therefore again political. The tattoo is both an internal essence and an action in time and space. In my opinion, the main goal of tattoo subjects around the world and in Israel today is ultimately mainly empowerment and personal and social expression.

Summary

In summary, it seems that in Israel 2016 (when this article was written) tattoo art has captured our hearts and is here to stay. The idea of a tattoo as a symbol of individuation and personal expression, as a rite of passage and personal initiation, is gradually seeping into consciousness. Many Israelis say that every tattoo marks significant periods in life; many relate to the tattoo as a kind of amulet. They develop long-term relationships with their body. They change and design it gradually until it becomes a “Chosen Body” of a new, more authentic type. The tattooed body as a personal body diary, reminding us where we came from and where we are going, is experienced more and more in the Israeli public as a deep internal and spiritual process. “There is something empowering in physical pain, in the knowledge that you choose it and that it is not necessarily a negative thing, but a part of life. The tattoo has the ability to produce a creation from the pain. The tattoos connect me to this place in me and to the internal forces that I have. It’s like wearing my beliefs on my body” [24].

“A tattoo does not cross the skin barrier and yet it has a special ability to connect body and soul, between one person and another, and between the individual and the culture in which they exist. If in the past tattoos were considered an expression of rebelliousness and non-conformism, today they represent more than anything our freedom of choice. Tattoos are an illustration of our ability to change and be changed. Through them, a person can take ownership of their body and turn it into a temple, a canvas, or a private billboard” [25].

[1] Anna Felicity Friedman, World Atlas of Tattoo, Yale Univ. press, 2015
[2] David Mosko, “World of Tattoos, Secrets from the Forbidden Art,” self-published, 1980
[3] Yasmine Bergner “Bodily Ownership of the Symbol,” article, Erev Rav, online magazine for culture and art 2013.
[4] Oz Almog, Tattoos in Secular Society in Israel, article. Anashim-Israel-The Guide to Israeli Society, Samuel Neaman Institute, National Policy Institute, p. 12 2008
[5] Ibid p. 12
[6] “The Body is Political,” Hadas Ofrat, Gideon Ofrat, Dror Harari, Uri Drummer, Journal: Dance Now, Issue 13, December 2005, pp. 32-34
[7] “Anthropology of the Body – Analysis of the Chosen Body Thesis,” article, Michal Pegis
[8] Ibid p. 7
[9] Diana Luzzatto, Yehuda Jacobson, Israeli youth body adornments- Between protest & conformity, Young- Nordic Journal of Youth Research, 2004
[10] Ibid p. 157
[11] Ibid p. 157
[12] Ibid p. 160
[13] Oz Almog, Tattoos in Secular Society in Israel, article. Anashim-Israel-The Guide to Israeli Society, Samuel Neaman Institute, National Policy Institute, 2008
[14] Bodies of Inscription- A cultural history of the modern tattoo community, Duke University Press, Durham & London 2000
[15] (“Ancestors,” Benjamin Gallery, Tel Aviv, July 2013, Curators: Yasmine Bergner and “Tattoos- Representations of Tattoos in Contemporary Art,” Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Curators: Yasmine Bergner and Prof. Haim Maor, October 2013.)
[16] Yasmine Bergner Archive, Erev-Rav, online magazine for culture and art, 2012-2014
[17] http://tabularasa.haoneg.com/page/2
[18] Diana Luzzatto, Yehuda Jacobson, Israeli youth body adornments- Between protest & conformity, Young- Nordic Journal of Youth Research, 2004
[19] “Discipline and Punish,” Michel Foucault, Resling, 2015, from French: Daniela Yoel p. 172
[20] Weiss, Meira (2002) The Chosen Body. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
[21] Makiko Kuwahara, Tattoo- An anthropology, Berg, Oxford International Publishers LTD, 2005
[22] “Discipline and Punish,” Michel Foucault, Resling, from French: Daniela Yoel 2015
[23] Weiss, Meira (2002) The Chosen Body. Stanford: Stanford University Press. P. 1
[24] “Tattoos of Our Character,” article, “Hayim Aherim” magazine, Oriana Shapi, 2016 (p. 40)
[25] Ibid, p. 43

Research and writing: Yasmine Bergner

הפוסט History of Tattoo Culture in Israel | By Yasmin Bergner הופיע לראשונה ב-גיאומטריה מקודשת.

Wearable Technology

In 2015, the first version of the ARK crystal resonance technology was released from Nassim Haramein’s laboratory: lab-grown crystals that can be worn on the body. The crystals are designed and structured geometrically to create a molecular structure that has the ability to resonate with the quantum field. This wearable technology creates harmonic synchronization with the unified field and amplifies the energetic efficiency we can receive from it. The results show that exposing water to them increases the resonance of the water. For example, if we water plants with water exposed to such crystals, the plant will grow 300 percent faster, and the quality of seeds is increased by about ten percent.

“In other words, the resonance created by these synthetic crystals has a beneficial effect on biology. Since we are made primarily of water, I wanted to create crystals that could be worn on the body, to restructure the water within it, and receive health-promoting and beneficial effects for the body and soul. The mother technology that produces the crystals is in development, with the goal of providing the world with gravity-control technology and releasing free energy.”

ARK crystals restructure atoms and water molecules, empowering them and making them more vital. This allows our bodies and our agricultural and ecological systems to produce healthier growth and cellular activity, and to create the conditions suitable for balance and biological integrity. This is just a glimpse of the potential changes that can occur when the basic principles of unified physics are applied. At the same time, changes in our internal values become a natural part of progress as we adopt a more holistic and integral worldview.

How did the idea to create ARK crystal technology begin?

Getty Images
Nassim: ARK crystal technology is the more esoteric side of my research in physics, so it is important to me that the context in which it is done is understood. For several decades, I have been dissatisfied with the Standard Model in physics. I began to create my own theories and correct errors in the standard physics model, specifically where the model split or reached a dead end. In addition to research in physics, I felt deeply that much can be learned from ancient cultures, as they survived for thousands of years and thought about the same issues that modern physics deals with: what is the nature of reality, what is the nature of existence, and the universe. I had a feeling that I might find something there that modern science is missing.

Working with geometry turned out to be a significant factor for me, and I noticed that in modern conceptual physics and mathematics, there is insufficient reference to geometry. Albert Einstein created the geometry of space-time within the framework of his General Theory of Relativity, using very high-level conceptual mathematics. Therefore, I began to study the Pythagorean school, Plato, and the esoteric research of Newton. Not many know that Newton was an alchemist who dealt with esoteric mathematics and physics and researched the First Temple. He studied and wrote much about the ancient Hebrew script. Newton believed that if we deeply understood the structure of the First Temple, we could understand the principles of gravity control (anti-gravity).

According to belief, the First Temple was built for the purpose of housing the Ark of the Covenant in the Holy of Holies. It is fascinating to me that the Hebrew, Muslim, and Christian traditions meet in the context of the Ark of the Covenant. The Foundation Stone (Even HaShetiya) on the Temple Mount is the holiest site for Muslims—which, according to belief, was inside the Holy of Holies in the First Temple and the place from which the Prophet Muhammad ascended. The Ark of the Covenant is one of the most central subjects in Judaism.

The research I conducted led me to believe that the power of the Ark of the Covenant stemmed from its being a technological power source of gravity control. I believe this is a technology that was created within the pyramids, brought from Egypt by Moses, who held a high status in Egypt and had access to this technology. The Bible clearly describes Moses leading the tribe of Israel from Egypt toward the Red Sea, with a pillar of light standing by night before the camp and a pillar of smoke during the day, which today we can interpret as a type of vortex.

I believe this is an advanced technology, much older than the Jewish or Egyptian cultures. Likely a culture that existed before the last Ice Age and the cataclysmic event of the Flood. Archaeologists around the world, and especially in the field of ancient Egypt research, are becoming more unanimous that the ancient structures we see around the world in ancient Egypt, in the Mayan and Inca cultures, are remnants of much older civilizations that preceded them before the last Ice Age.

I believe that these ancient cultures possessed advanced technologies of gravity control. The ancient monuments we find around the world are built of massive stones weighing thousands of tons that can barely be moved even with the advanced technology of our day. These massive stones were moved distances of hundreds of kilometers in some cases. With the technology at our disposal today, we can move such stones no more than a hundred meters, but not such vast distances along rivers and dunes.

I am conducting research into the advanced ARK gravity-control technology—which is actually a merging of advanced unified field physics with ancient forms that I believe were representations of this power source and technology—technology that manages to connect to the structure of space-time itself. The physics I wrote in this context has reached significant achievements. I succeeded in predicting the scale of the atomic nucleus, the proton, and the electron, and all the electrons of the periodic table in a much more accurate way than any other contemporary theory that exists.

The standard model in physics deviates from the radius of the proton by about 4%, which is not insignificant in terms of quantum physics. My theory is within the error margin of the experiment, which is considered a very high level of accuracy. Therefore, it is important for me to emphasize to the readers that these ideas do not come only from philosophy and esoteric knowledge, but from very well-founded contemporary theories in advanced physics—physics that has the ability to predict and foresee what we see in the world of phenomena. At a later stage, I started experiments in experimental physics with the aim of creating this technology in the laboratory. I believe that now, at this current stage in the evolution of the human species, we are given the ability to decipher and rediscover this knowledge so that eventually we can become part of the galactic community and allow ourselves to explore outer space. In fact, we have no choice. Planets are unstable and ecological and cataclysmic changes occur all the time. We must understand the principle of gravity control in order to expand beyond the borders of the planet.

Yasmine: Stephen Mehler, an independent Egyptologist from the Great Pyramid of Giza Research Association in Cairo, wrote two books on the ancient Egyptian wisdom passed on to Abd’el Hakim Awyan, an Egyptian archaeologist and wisdom keeper.

According to indigenous understanding, the ancient pyramids were structures of initiation and stationary technology for transforming water and stone and creating solar energy. They were never used for the burial of pharaohs as is commonly thought. In the original language: PER NETER — House of Energy or House of the Universal Principle: they were a geometric structure intended to create resonant transformation between natural water sources and the earth and bedrock that were near them.

Nassim: The ancient information emerging today from Egypt is amazing. I spent a considerable amount of time with the Khemetology School (founded by the Awyan family) last October at the first annual conference of my institute. They gave us guided tours of sacred sites all over Egypt.

Yasmine: Would you like to tell us about the Resonance Foundation conference that was recently held in Egypt? How was it and what insights did you gain from the conference?

Nassim: These were three amazing weeks. I have been studying the culture of ancient Egypt, its architecture, and megaliths for 25 years, but it is one thing to study from books and a completely different story to be there and witness this miracle with your own eyes. The people who take part in the Emissary program are such intelligent people with amazing abilities. Our guides were excellent, knowledgeable in both traditional and alternative Egyptology, what is known today as Khemetology. Therefore, they can bridge the gaps between the schools of thought. We conducted in-depth field research. Being in the place and seeing the precise cutting of the stones, the sophisticated angles, and understanding that it is impossible to create such structures and hard materials using copper chisels—which is what is commonly thought to have been the tools in the Bronze Age—is mind-boggling. Direct observation hits you and makes you realize that their achievements were created using technology much more advanced than what is commonly thought. In addition to that, the energy in Egypt is extremely powerful. It is hard to describe how transformative the experience was for everyone and changed us forever. And I am already very excited about the second annual conference that will be held in Peru.

Yasmine: Do you have anything to say to the Israeli public that is considering traveling to Egypt but is afraid because of the sensitive political situation?

Nassim: I think there are so many levels to the conflict and political situation, and I believe it is an energetic conflict at its core. The conflict is not necessarily between the people or between religious worldviews, but between political and economic forces. The conflict is produced by governmental economic agendas that have something to gain from keeping the Middle East in a state of instability. I believe that if the economic agendas of the world’s governing powers were not pushing and encouraging the conflict, Jews and Muslims would find a way to live in peace. You have shared roots; you are brothers and sisters. The Quran refers to Moses and the Jewish tradition is embedded within it. The instability in the region is produced and perpetuated by military and industrial organizations for their own profit.

At this point, it is possible that my work on the subject can help. Because everything returns to that same event of the Exodus and the technology that may have been in the possession of the Israelites that was held in the Ark of the Covenant. This is a point that has not yet been properly understood, which I believe connects the three major religions: Judaism, Islam, and Christianity.

The connection between Jesus, the Ark of the Covenant, and the First Temple is not well understood, in my opinion. In the New Testament, Jesus is called the “Living Ark of the Covenant,” and as part of his journey, he goes to the Temple in an attempt to re-establish the Ark of the Covenant in the Second Temple. I believe that the Ark of the Covenant was taken out of the Temple long before the birth of Jesus and brought to the Essene community as part of a “Plan B” by the priests in case the Temple was attacked. After all, underground tunnels have been found leading from the Temple to the city. I believe that the Dead Sea Scrolls, and especially the Copper Scroll, describe the arrival of the Ark of the Covenant to the Essene community in Qumran. I speculate that the Ark of the Covenant was in the possession of the Essene community by the Dead Sea for quite some time, at least until the first century CE, until the occurrence of the events linked to the historical figure of Jesus.

Yasmine: Today it is accepted among scholars that the people of Qumran were the Essenes. In the middle of the Second Temple period, in the period when they were exiled from the Temple during the dispute with the Hasmoneans, the prevailing hypothesis is that these were various priestly circles that were prevented from serving in the Holy place following exile, destruction, or withdrawal from the Temple. They held independent doctrines and philosophy. Many of the many writings found in the Qumran caves and studied by the Community of the Unity of Qumran (as they probably called themselves) were unknown to us before their discovery at this site. The Community of the Unity maintained an extensive library containing spiritual and intellectual assets of immense value, and its members engaged in study, contemplation, writing, and translation. The essence of the group is highly controversial, and in some places, it is described as an ideal, peace-loving, and separatist community. It is not known who the writers were, and it is likely that there were about 500 writers in different periods. There is an interesting assumption that the Qumran scrolls represent the totality of written Jewish creation before the process of canonization and were brought to the Dead Sea caves before the Great Revolt.

Archaeologist Vendyl Jones (on whom the character of Indiana Jones is based) found remains that match what is described in the Copper Scroll in a cave near Qumran. I am raising a theory that Jesus was born into the Essene community. The special powers attributed to Jesus, such as healing the sick, may have been a phenomenon of amplifying the resonance of the water molecules. And walking on water may have been an effect of gravity control, since he learned to use the power that was inside the Ark of the Covenant. The New Testament tells that at age 32, Jesus went to the Temple with the goal of returning the Ark to the Temple. When he arrives there, he realizes that the Temple has been desecrated and idols have been brought into it, which causes him emotional turmoil. The High Priest does not want to give up his position of power and therefore convinces the Romans to execute Jesus. I believe that Jesus did not die on the cross but was healed through the power of the Ark. So through this perception, we see that Christians, Muslims, and Jews all meet in the story of the Ark of the Covenant.

Nassim and Vendyl Jones are not the only ones to speculate that the Ark of the Covenant was brought to the Essene community in Qumran. In her book “Jesus and the Essenes,” the pioneering American hypnotherapist Dolores Cannon says that the historical figure of Jesus indeed lived in Qumran. Cannon reports this through a patient in deep hypnosis. Under hypnosis, the patient experienced, she claimed in a past life, being a teacher of Jesus in Qumran.

Yasmine: At Masada, which is near Qumran, there is a beautiful floor mosaic in a Greco-Roman style, and even though it is almost completely destroyed, one can see the remains of a Flower of Life in its center. This is very rare archaeological evidence. It is very rare to find archaeological remains of sacred geometry in the Land of Israel, and no one gives them an explanation (see the following photo).

Nassim: Ossuaries found in a cave in Talpiot, Jerusalem, currently in the Israel Museum, are claimed to have contained Jesus and his family members. On the sides of the ossuaries, dated to the first century CE, are carved very large seeds of life.

Two seeds of life are carved on an ossuary found in an ancient burial cave, Talpiot, Jerusalem. On the ossuary, the name “Yeshua bar Yosef” (Jesus son of Joseph) is carved. It is likely that the geometric engraving is much older than the later text engraving (Y.B).

Yasmine: It is interesting to learn how Judaism integrated sacred geometry into its spiritual studies and its worldview.

Nassim: Part of my work was the understanding that the Kabbalistic Tree of Life has a tetrahedral structure, and then I realized that doubling 8 Trees of Life creates the complex tetrahedral structure which is the geometric archetype of the universe. Also, the Star of David (Magen David) has a tetrahedral structure, and it is very possible that it represented the power that was inside the Ark of the Covenant. And therefore it is found on the flag of Israel. Today we know that the Star of David in its three-dimensional form is the fundamental structure of the cosmic field. It is the skeleton of the torus dynamic and zero-point energy. The spheres of the Tree of Life are actually spheres representing the Flower of Life. The infinite fractal structure of the universe is represented by the 10 spheres. And within each sphere, there are 10 spheres, and so on to infinity.

Yasmine: It is amazing how these myths influence us today, thousands of years later. On the politics in the Middle East. The myth of Jewish slavery, the Exodus. It is fascinating to try to understand why these myths have taken such deep root and what we must do to free ourselves from them.

Nassim: I think the true story should come to light. What really happened, and what is the true identity of the tribe of Israel and the true affinities that exist between Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. That everyone meets in the myth of the Ark of the Covenant. And perhaps if a true understanding is created, it will open the way to reconciliation between the cultures and between the peoples. It can help us develop compassion for one another. After all, everyone wants the same thing—to raise their children, to get an answer to our basic needs, to be fed and feel safe, and to love and feel loved. No one is born with hatred; it only happens through states of distress when people feel they have no other choice.

Naturally, people are born as wonderful creatures of purity and love. It is so important that we develop a connected worldview, with the understanding that we all need to thrive together. I believe that the political and military power mechanisms are also changing for the better. The development of free-energy technologies will eliminate the necessity to fight over oil resources, and therefore will eliminate most territorial conflicts.

So there is much hope, but we must roll up our sleeves and hurry to make the changes on every possible front.

Yasmine Bergner is a multidisciplinary artist, spiritual companion through tattooing, and researcher.

Nassim Haramein is a scientist, physicist, and sacred geometry researcher.

The article was originally published in Hayim Aherim (Other Lives) magazine, 2018.

הפוסט The Field Boy | Interview with Nassim Haramein #2 | Interviewer: Yasmin Bergner הופיע לראשונה ב-גיאומטריה מקודשת.

Wetiko – The Greatest Epidemic Known to Humanity – by Paul Levy

Translated from English: Yasmine Bergner

Opening image: Bouguereau, Dante and Virgil in Hell, 1850

In the book Columbus and Other Cannibals, the indigenous author Jack D. Forbes [1] vitally investigates a psychological disease affecting human behavior that is destructive to itself, which the indigenous people of the American continent felt on their own flesh for years. After reading the book, it was clear to me that it describes the same psycho-spiritual illness of the mind that I wrote about in my book The Madness of George W. Bush: A Reflection on Our Collective Psychosis. In it, I presented the idea that since the dawn of human history, our species has fallen victim to a collective psychosis, which I call “malignant egophrenia.” Speaking about this same mental epidemic, Forbes writes: “For several thousand years, human beings have suffered from an epidemic. A disease more terrible than leprosy, worse than malaria, harder than smallpox” [2]. Indigenous cultures have identified this same mental virus [3], which I call malignant egophrenia, for many hundreds of years. They call it “Wetiko” – a term from the Cree tribe referring to a negative person or entity that imposes terror on others. Professor Forbes, who was one of the founders of the American Indian Movement in the 1960s, says that “tragically, human history in the last 2000 years tells the story of the epidemiology of the Wetiko disease” [4].

Wetiko/malignant egophrenia is a “psychosis” in the true sense of the word, as it is a disease of the spirit/mind. Although we use different names, Forbes and I are trying to point to the same illness of the mind which lies at the root of humanity’s inhuman behavior toward itself.

As we come to investigate the Wetiko entity, we must awaken its spirit and enter into a relationship with it, just as if we were performing a magical ritual. We must contemplate and engage with Wetiko in the most objective way possible, just as if it existed outside of ourselves. Because of its unique psychological origin, the epidemiology of Wetiko is very different from any other disease. A fundamental challenge to our investigation of the Wetiko virus is the fact that it revolves within the mind, which is itself the instrument we use for our investigation. Referring to the paradox inherent in this, Forbes says he aspires to study the disease from a perspective that is as free as possible from assumptions created by the disease we are studying [5]. If we are not aware of the viewpoint from which we are examining the Wetiko virus, our investigation will be infected by the virus itself and will cloud the sharpness of vision needed to begin the healing process. We must learn how Wetiko embodies itself in others and how it embodies itself within us; this will allow us to see it with greater objectivity. Observing the ways in which the psychological disease manifests in the world is a mirror through which we can potentially recognize the same disease rising subjectively from within our own consciousness.

Hans Ulrich

In awakening an entity like Wetiko, if we want to examine it as objectively as possible, we must hermetically seal it within an alchemical vessel. This ensures that its mercurial spirit does not evaporate back into the hidden unconscious, where it would act upon us and through us. Jung consistently emphasized the importance of developing a vessel designed to contain disturbing spirits such as Wetiko. Jung suggests shifting the disturbing spirit from its place and placing it within a vessel located at a distance between the individual and their neighbor. “For the sake of humanity, we must build such vessels where we can place all this vile poison. Because it must always exist somewhere. Not to trap it, to deny its existence, gives it the best chance to grow” [6].

Wetiko is an elusive entity, and it is very challenging to focus the gaze on its essence, yet it is very important to analyze it into its components. Unlike a physiological virus, the Wetiko virus cannot be isolated materially, but its unique characteristics can be discerned and discovered through the extraordinary actions of the mind that is under its spell. Not acknowledging the existence of the Wetiko germ—to say that “it does not exist”—allows the mental infection to manifest in action (acting out) without restraint. Being “always everywhere” means being non-local, always around, even potentially and especially within ourselves. By awakening the spirit of Wetiko, we simultaneously create (through the personal investigation itself) the vessel we need to study the germ and understand what we are actually dealing with. We learn how it operates in the world, in others, and subjectively—within ourselves. In order to complete the circle in this exercise/exorcism [7] of observation, we must homeopathically return the gaze inward toward ourselves. Like in a dream where the inside is the outside, we can understand that the Wetiko virus we observed “in the outside world,” outside of ourselves, is a reflection and exists in interaction with this process within ourselves. Within the symptomatology of the Wetiko virus, deep insight is encoded, something essential that we must know.

A Disease of Culture
Wetiko/malignant egophrenia is a disease of culture, or of its absence. To quote Forbes loosely: “The development of the Wetiko disease strikingly parallels the rise of civilization through Western eyes; this is not a coincidence” [8]. The nature of industrial society is unsustainable and requires more and more violence in order to sustain and maintain it. The true meaning of society is, simply, not to kill people. Referring to the lack of culture in modern society, Gandhi was asked what he thought of Western civilization. His answer was, “I think it would be a good idea.” It makes sense that indigenous peoples knew of the existence of malignant egophrenia, through which they were oppressed, but at least in the beginning, they were not under the bewitching influence of Western culture. Living under the control of modern culture can feel as though something foreign to our nature is being forced upon us, or as if we are living in occupied territory. Modern culture suffers from a primarily one-sided dominance of rationality, of the intellectual mind. A one-sidedness that ostensibly disconnects us from nature, from empathy, and from ourselves. As a result of its dissociation from the holistic whole, the Wetiko disease is a disorder of the order of humanity and the natural world. It is a disease that spreads aggression and can ignite violence among living creatures. The Wetiko virus is the root cause of the inhumanity found at the heart of human nature. This “mental virus,” this system failure, informs and illustrates the madness of the so-called society, which in a feedback loop perpetuates and feeds the madness within itself.

Forbes continues: “This disease, this (cannibalistic) psychosis called Wetiko, is the disease of the most epidemic magnitude known to man” [9]. We, as a human species, are in the midst of a widespread mental epidemic. A contagious collective psychosis that has been brewing in the cauldron of the human mind since the dawn of days. Like a fractal, Wetiko operates in multiple dimensions simultaneously: in the intra-personal dimension (within individuals), the inter-personal dimension (between individuals), and the collective dimension (as a human species). “Cannibalism,” in Forbes’ words, is “the consumption of the life of the other for personal gain” [10]. Those infected with the Wetiko virus, like cannibals, consume the life force of the other—human and non-human—for personal purposes or profit, and do so without giving anything in return from their own lives. One example that symbolizes the madness of collective self-destruction is the destruction of the Amazon rainforest by oil companies, the lungs of planet Earth. This is a living example that strikingly illustrates what we are doing to ourselves. Another tangible example that symbolically embodies the Wetiko complex in action is the genetically engineered sterile seeds of the Monsanto corporation, which are prevented from reproducing into a second generation of seeds and force farmers to buy new seeds from the corporation again and again for the coming year’s harvest. This agricultural terrorism makes it very difficult for small farmers to survive and has ignited a wave of suicides among farmers, while Monsanto corporation only grows and steadily enriches itself in the process.

Forbes writes: “The compulsive/trampling characteristic of Wetiko is the fact that it consumes other human beings, or in other words, it is a kind of predator and cannibal. This is the central essence of the disease” [11]. Predators, Wetiko entities that embody themselves overwhelmingly, are not in contact with their humanity, and therefore are unable to see humanity in others. Instead, they treat others as potential prey or as a threat to their dominance. Individuals fully infected with Wetiko psychosis consume the lives of others physically, emotionally, mentally, and metaphysically—beyond the material body and physical assets—to the level of meaning itself. Wetiko victims are the anti-artists of our culture. They embody the opposite of what creative artists do. Unlike an artist who creates life-affirming meaning and enriches the world without robbing others (see my article: The Artist as World Healer), Wetiko consumes and takes without giving anything in return, steadily depleting and emptying the world of its resources.

We are currently in the midst of the greatest epidemic disease known to man (see my article: Diagnosis: Mental Epidemic). Many of us are not aware of this, because our collective madness is so widespread that it has undergone “normalization.” Our collective madness has become transparent to us, while we see and interpret the world through it, making our madness invisible, and inadvertently conspiring with the collective psychosis that sows destruction and death on our planet. Being “transparent,” our madness is far beyond visibility; it is invisible. Our collective psychosis is invisible to us because it expresses itself both in the way we observe and in the way we are conditioned not to observe. Thanks to its cloak of invisibility, we fail to notice our madness, a mental blindness that makes us partners in creating our madness.

Many of us are unable to grasp the scale of the evil to which Wetiko-filled entities have fallen victim and what they are capable of. Our inability to imagine the evil that exists potentially in humanity is a direct result of a lack of intimacy with the potential for evil that exists within us, which allows the cruelty of Wetiko to rule without restraint in our world (see my article: Shedding Light on Evil). Through our mental blindness, we become partners in spreading the evil of Wetiko psychosis, a systemic evil whose depth reaches far beyond the ability of words to describe. Evil paralyzes our ability to verbalize the experience and creates an ostensibly unbridgeable gap between language and the event described. In finding the place where language fails, we discover and create a new language, a universal language that transcends language itself—a language known as art.

A Parasite of a Different Order
When people are infected with the Wetiko virus, Forbes writes, they become the “hosts” of the Wetiko parasite [12]. The Wetiko virus is a kind of mental “worm,” a parasite of consciousness. Similar to computer viruses or malware infecting and programming a computer to destroy itself, a consciousness virus like Wetiko can program the human biological computer to think, believe, and behave in ways that result in self-destruction. Wetiko is a contagious mental pathogen that sneaks thought-forms into our consciousness that activate and feed it, and eventually kill the host (us). The pathogen does not want to kill us too quickly, because in order to successfully carry out its agenda, to reproduce and spread itself in space, it must allow the host to live long enough to spread the virus. If the host dies too soon, the virus will be evicted prematurely and will suffer the inconvenience of finding a new home.

Like a cancer of the mind that sends out metastases, in Wetiko disease, a pathological part of the mind attaches and incorporates all healthy parts to itself to serve its pathology. The personality reorganizes a coherent external display around the pathogenic core, hiding the internal dysfunction and making it very difficult to identify. In this military coup of the mind, the Wetiko virus displaces the personality and takes it over, and it becomes its puppet. Like a parasite, the Wetiko virus can take over the free will of an animal more developed than itself, thereby making it a servant of its malicious agenda. Once the parasite is well-rooted within the mind, the main command coordinating the person’s behavior comes directly from the disease, which is now the one pulling the strings. Just as a person infected with the rabies virus will resist drinking water that could wash away the infection, a person infected with the Wetiko virus will refuse any help that could assist them in getting rid of the disease. Wetiko patients are phobic toward the light of truth, and they avoid it like the disease itself. In advanced stages, this process takes over the person completely until we can honestly say that the person “is not really there,” but rather an empty shell functioning through what looks like a human being. The person now identifies completely with their mask, their persona, but it seems as if there is no one behind the mask.

Hans Ulrich

A Foreign Intrusion
The spiritual teacher Don Juan, in Carlos Castaneda’s books, speaks in his own language about Wetiko. He says that the ancient shamans made it clear that this is “the subject of subjects” [13]. Don Juan explains: “We have a life partner… We have a predator that came from the depths of the universe and took control of our lives. Human beings are its prisoners. This predator is our ruler” [14]. It seems this is the same state of affairs described in the New Testament, when in the Gospel according to John, the Devil is referred to as the “ruler of this world” (14:30; 16:11). Paul speaks of the Devil as the “god of this world” (2 Cor. 4:4). The Gnostic Gospel of Philip says that the root of evil originated from within us, implying in fact that if we do not recognize the evil, “it rules over us, we are its slaves, and it takes us captive” (II, 3, 83.5-30). Speaking of the predator, Don Juan continues: “It has made us submissive, helpless. If we want to protest, it suppresses our protest. If we want to act independently, it demands that we do not do so” [15]. It is impressive how Don Juan explains how the influence of Wetiko is expressed in our society, which is becoming increasingly militaristic. Our freedoms and rights are being taken away from us, just as if there is a latent and internal unmanifested archetypal pattern within the human mind that embodies itself in and shows itself through the external world. To quote Don Juan: “We are indeed prisoners! This was an energetic fact for the sorcerers of ancient Mexico” [16]. Don Juan refers to an “energetic fact,” in the sense that we can all connect to it, “something” within us that prevents us from expressing our inner genius creativity and realizing our full potential. These “predators” are “time thieves,” stealing the precious hours of our lives, as if we are wage slaves on a prison planet “doing time.” Deepening his description of these “predators,” Don Juan continues: “They gave us their mind, which became our mind” [18]. Just as if they are in “competition” with us to share a piece of our mind. The predator changes shape and is fashioned according to our shape, and if we are not aware of its disguise, we will identify with its intrusive thought-forms as if they were ours and act upon them. We will mistakenly think that we are acting according to our own impulses, with the best of intentions. This predator, Don Juan continues, “fears every moment that its moves will be discovered and food will be withheld from it” [19].

The Wetiko predator is driven by an internal and compulsive necessity born out of terror that continues to feed itself out of a desire to delay its expected death. Don Juan continues: “Through the mind, which is ultimately their mind, the predators insert into human beings what is convenient for them (the predators)” [20], hiding themselves within our form; this predator penetrates under our skin, disguising itself beneath us, deluding us into recognizing the false version of ourselves (that is why the abbreviation of Malignant Egophrenia is “ME disease,” and it refers to the distortion of our identity—our sense of “I”). Instead of being in our power and in service to others, we become servants of the predator. Instead of recognizing our inner authority, and the creation of reality from our thoughts, we are formed by them, because the predator thinks for us and sits in our chair.

Remedios Varo

Speaking of the predator’s conspiracy, Don Juan says: “It offers something, agrees with its own premise, and makes you believe that you did something of value” [21], just as if there is a foreign presence within us, a metaphysical alien entity, invading subliminally into our consciousness until we identify with it completely and disconnect from our own consciousness. Don Juan refers to this state as a kind of “foreign installation,” as if an alien race had set up a station within our consciousness. This is what the Gnostics (“the knowers”) meant when they spoke of a foreign entity they called “Archons,” infiltrating and infiltrating into our consciousness [22] to the level that we are not aware that a foreign entity has taken control of our mind. We are recruited against our will to the dark agenda of the predator, inadvertently becoming its slaves. This internal state of war happening within the mind echoes and is reflected through the psychological moves and dark forces we witness in the external world. This disease is fed by our lack of awareness of it.

Vampires
Forbes writes: “Wetiko psychosis is a disease of the spirit that takes human beings down an ugly and heartless path… After all, Wetiko disease turns human beings into werewolves and vampires, creatures from the world of European nightmares and creatures from the Wetiko reality” [23]. Werewolves and vampires are shapeshifters, symbolic representations of the threatening potential existing in the heart of us all, which is liable to take over and embody itself in action as the archetypal “shadow,” returning us to a regressive state of mind of being like a predator or a sub-human creature. When these pre-human mental energies erupt into consciousness and are not mediated by the conscious, Jung writes: “They sweep away everything before them like a flood and turn human beings into creatures for whom the word ‘monsters’ is too good a word” [24].

Vampires, considered the darkest creature in the arsenal of evil, have drawn our imagination for many hundreds of years, because they represent a living process existing in the heart of the human mind. A vampire is not a human figure but a soulless creature, an entity that has lost its soul, and if it has not lost its soul, it has become “cursed,” which means the loss of a soul. Either way, something is missing. Isolated from the world, it has lost the connection with the part of itself that communicates with everything else. From its point of view, the world exists simply for its use. Although it has lost its heart and soul, the vampire has not lost its consciousness (although in a certain sense it has), since vampires are often endowed with a sharp intellect that hides their pathology and makes it hard for us to see it. This is similar to the way in which people in a deep state of trauma can be blessed with a brilliant mind, a gift that makes it easier for them to hide the scope of their trauma and makes it difficult to diagnose their illness. Instead of the vampire’s sharp mind being dedicated to developing inner insights into the illness and healing from it, it is dedicated to passing the illness along and spreading its dark art. As a kind of living-dead, the vampire is death taking the form of human life. The Wetiko virus is not, in the end, something alive, but a living form of death. Like a virus, Wetiko is “lifeless” matter. Because only within living creatures can viruses sustain “life-by-proxy.” A vampire is a kind of living-dead. Like a mature vampire, developed Wetiko entities have been stripped of their humanity and have become a conduit for the impersonal and transpersonal Wetiko virus to revolve and act through them. They have become a living portal, an opening torn into the three-dimensional fabric of space and time through which a multi-dimensional contagious virus spreads locally and non-locally in the field.

Lacking a soul dimension, Wetiko entities are efficient “machines,” dedicating themselves to the service of “the State, which [to quote Forbes] is itself a Wetiko entity that has taken over the mechanisms of power” [25].

A mature Wetiko becomes a robotic automaton, conditioned to react to reflexive stimulation. They become part of “the machine,” without spontaneity, creativity, originality, or free thinking. Wetiko entities undergo a process of dehumanization and lose contact with the sense of aesthetics and with the ability to appreciate the inherent beauty of life, becoming “an-aesthetic,” devoid of feeling and emotion for everything that is human. Messengers of a patriarchal, military, and authoritarian planetary “society,” the Wetiko germ spawns fascism and terror. To quote the great healer Wilhelm Reich: “Fascism is the vampire that attaches itself to the living body. The urge to kill gains absolute control” [26]. Fascism is the external collective political expression of the destructive inner landscape of an individual who has been oppressed and maimed by the authoritarian civilization of “the machine.”

Like a vampire, in a mature Wetiko entity “there is no one home,” and this is one of the reasons why, symbolically, vampires have no reflection in a mirror (which, from a mythological point of view, reflects back an image of the human soul). Mature Wetiko people are empty to the bone, so there is nothing that can be reflected. Internally, there is only an infinite void, a sponge that can never absorb, a devouring black hole that feeds on the universe. Their degenerate soul has been emptied of content like a hollow tree trunk emptied by mental termites. Mature Wetiko people are compulsively haunted by the unconscious in its destructive version, denying consciousness in a way that they are unable to see or experience themselves, which the philosopher Hannah Arendt argues is one of the main characteristics of evil. Devoid of the ability for self-observation, they have no access to the mechanism of the mind that allows this action. One of the reasons why we cannot see a vampire’s reflection in a mirror is because our inner unconscious vampire dims the reflection, and the meaning is that the ghost of the unacknowledged “shadow” of ourselves blocks our gaze.

A vampire casts no shadow. In order to cast a shadow, there must be a source of light. Inside a vampire, there is no light, only infinite darkness. Because it is not a living creature, a vampire has no inherent reality, no essence. Only an object with essential existence can produce a shadow. Vampires cannot cast a shadow because they are the living embodiment of the “shadow” archetype. A shadow cannot cast a shadow itself and is devoid of essence. There are certain advantages to a vampire not casting a shadow—it allows it to hide its true identity more easily, to move between shadows, to become invisible, and to lie in wait for people. The vampire, a shapeshifter and master of disguise and camouflage, can more easily seduce and mislead the innocent, just as a sugar-coated vampire traps us using our unconscious “shadow” and blind spots. In this sense, denying our “shadow” can lead to energetic vampirism. The vampire archetype is activated within us when we turn our back and deny our inner darkness and make it invisible to us. We fail to see vampires because we chose not to see the dark “vampiric” aspects within ourselves. Our unwillingness to see the “vampiric” qualities within ourselves blinds us to the “vampiric” traits in others.

In addition to the weak and defenseless, the vampire also seeks those who are on the verge of a quantum evolutionary leap in consciousness but have not yet managed to integrate their insights and “come out on the other side.” Such human beings are in a charged and sensitive state energetically. The openness of their heart and their vulnerability invites vampiric entities to covet and feed on the light of their expanding consciousness. The strategy of these predators is to divert our attention outward, thereby preventing us from recognizing our inner light, which would “kill” the vampire. If we hold up the mirror and reflect the madness projected onto us by the people suffering from it, we risk being the ones labeled “crazy.” If we manage to gain access to the light within us and try to share it with others, it is possible that non-local vampiric entities (what I previously called non-local demonic entities) which are not limited to three-dimensional existence and the laws of space and time will try, through their access to the non-local field, to block us by influencing other human beings to act against us. This process is liable to destroy us, unless we have the meta-awareness to see it in action—to have the skill to navigate our way wisely—and this will deepen our resilience and intent, deepen our covenant with the light of clarity, and strengthen our creative ability to broadcast our insights and cultivate compassion and openness of heart. It seems as though those non-local mental vampiric entities are the guardians of the threshold of evolution.

Just like vampires, mature Wetiko entities feel an intense thirst for the very thing they lack—the mystical essence of life, the “blood” of our soul. By coveting other human beings, Wetiko disease is a kind of mental “eating disorder,” where the damaged mind “consumes” other souls, and ultimately itself. Wetiko entities are a kind of “soul-eaters,” destroyed by the wildness of their ceaseless hunger, by their insatiable appetite. This vampiric feeding is an unnatural parody, a demonic reflection of the self-renewal of life. This unnatural internal process is projected onto us collectively by the consumer society we are part of, a culture that relentlessly fuels the flame of ceaseless craving, conditioning us to always want more. We are in a feeding frenzy, trying to fill a bottomless void, as if we are starving. This violent process of obsessive/compulsive consumption is a mirror of a shared, deep, internal sense of spiritual hunger. The entity of the global economic system itself is a living symbol of uncontrolled Wetiko disease in action.

In vampiric lineage, self-replication is achieved through the family system (family of origin, or the human family). The legacy of abuse (physical, sexual, political, psychological, or spiritual) is passed between generations personally and collectively, steadily rolling between lives. The Wetiko virus passes along its broken logic and its distorted code into the bodymind of the other through the traumatic shattering of our wholeness. Our species suffers from an inherited collective PTSD, just as if it were under a curse.

High Risk of Contagion
Speaking of Wetiko, Forbes says: “They are not sane in the true sense of the word. They are mentally ill and, tragically, this mental illness they carry is contagious” [27]. Wetiko psychosis is, as mentioned, highly contagious, spreading through the channel of our collective unconscious. The pathways of contagion and spread do not move like a physical pathogen. This nomadic wandering germ moves in a “plasmatic” way, penetrating and feeding on our unconscious blind spots and strengthening them in a feedback loop, and thus spreading itself in the field non-locally. In Wetiko, there is a “code” or a certain logic that influences/infects consciousness in a way parallel to how the DNA of a virus passes and infects the cell. People who communicate the frequency of Wetiko align with each other through psychic resonance, which strengthens the shared consensus and maintains their distorted perception of reality. As they cooperate with their shared psychosis, groups of people gathered together by the unconscious could potentially become a socio-political force to be dealt with. When a group of people is in agreement, regardless of whether it is true or not, their alignment with each other creates a contagious magnetic force-field that is liable to sweep up and magnetize the unconscious person toward it.

People who have been taken over by the Wetiko virus usually do not suspect that they have been “scammed.” Wetiko culture does not offer them any incentives to examine themselves and contemplate their sad state. On the contrary, the non-local field programs itself to conspire and allow the continued nurturing of the psychosis. When someone is a full Wetiko entity but does not recognize it themselves, the field around them twists in order to protect, conspire, and feed on the psychosis in a way that leaves those around them in a trance.

Under the spell of Wetiko, they lose the ability to recognize Wetiko pathology in others. In a situation of “social narcissism,” Wetiko entities at different stages of the disease take certain positions and roles relative to others, with the goal of protecting themselves from their own madness and darkness. They strengthen and feed each other’s narcissism, because it strengthens their own. Forbes writes that the type of personality that is typically liable to fall victim to the Wetiko virus is the individual whose “strings are pulled by others, or those who walk a life path dictated by others. They are the ones who are ripe for the Wetiko virus” [28]. Because they are not in contact with their inner guidance, they project authority outside of themselves and become very prone to influence regarding consensus opinion and the agreed-upon opinions of the dominant group. Because they have lost the ability for internal discrimination and critical thinking, the “masses” become a mindless herd and fall victim to groupthink, whose members enable, in the form of codependency, their version of the world (Wetiko). Their group consensus on the nature of reality becomes harder and harder to maintain as time passes, but like a house of cards about to collapse at any moment, their perception of reality is based on a fundamental error. Strangely, people subject to the collective enchantment of Wetiko sometimes become fanatic supporters of an agenda that is completely contrary to their own interests. This is an external reflection of the internal state of being subject to the seduction of self-destruction caused by the Wetiko parasite.

It even seems as though a holy-less, negative, or “unclean” entity has taken control of the person subject to Wetiko and resides in them. Such people are exploited against their will as tools, as secret agents of this dark and unclean entity, to allow it to spread itself in the wider field. As secret agents of the disease, the secret of Wetiko is a self-secret, a secret they hide even from themselves. Just as sometimes something larger than us takes control of us, so Wetiko victims do not know how much they are controlled in every moment. The experience of being controlled by something vast, larger than you, happens in their blind spots (see my article “Are We Possessed?”).

The Wetiko germ affects our perception by stealth and deceit with the goal of hiding and confusing us from being seen. Wetiko sows its seeds and strikes root within consciousness. Like mental vegetable foliage, it covers, distracts us, and diverts us from the calling of our true destiny and from our spiritual path. The alienating and alien effect of the Wetiko virus, exactly the thing we must notice, hides within the perception, the thought, and the meaning we attribute to our experience. When someone has fallen as a full member into a Wetiko “cult” (see my article “The Bush Cult”), it seems as though their consciousness has been populated by the virus in such a way that they have no faint clue about their pathological state. Wetiko entities do not perceive themselves as needing help; for them, other people are always “the problem.” Their disease does not bother them, and they do not recognize it, because it is all they know, and their leaders and the society in which they live encourages them. They have no assessment of their disorder, and they do not understand how sick they are.

Forbes writes: “One of the central traits characterizing the extreme negative form of Wetikoism is arrogance” [29]. Full Wetiko entities are wrapped in self-importance, “inflated” tools of evil, and arrogantly, ignorantly, and self-righteously, they are sure that they are acting in the service of truth and the general good. It seems they fail to perceive the negativity of their actions and think that everything they do is good. Forbes concludes: “In any case, Wetiko disease, the disease of exploitation, has been spread widely in the last several thousand years. Because we are not vaccinated against it, it seems to be getting worse with time. More and more people are infected with it, in a more wide-ranging way, and those people become the teachers of the younger generation” [30]. Wetiko cultures are taught both at home and in “academia,” where people become “qualified” in the depths of this world and therefore receive credit and empowerment in spreading the corrupt ways in a more wide-ranging way than ever before.

Writing about the wide-ranging spread of the Wetiko virus, Forbes writes: “It is spread by Wetiko entities themselves, who recruit and corrupt others. It is spread through history books, television, military training programs, police, comic books, pornographic magazines, movies, right-wing movements, fanaticism of various types, high-pressure missionary groups, and countless governments” [31].

All mainstream corporate institutions, subject to social sanctions, are in the business of indoctrination (brainwashing), telling us what to think and what not to think, and of course, how to think. Our consciousness is fashioned into a certain form by the dominant society, and it seems that our “true face” undergoes a facelift. We are robbed of our spiritual abundance. It seems our society has become the mouthpiece for the propaganda organ of the disease, hypnotizing us into being convinced into this perception while we drain what is more important than anything else in the world. The culture that informs and is fashioned around Wetiko disease is itself a channel for its spread. If we sign on the dotted line and act according to its life-denying perception, it will finally consume us, and we will become the extensions of its orders. This is how the “mental empire” of the collective psychosis operates, spreading itself and expanding, trying to approach full distribution.

Full Wetiko entities can be petty tyrants at home or at work, but can also be on the depleted and oppressed side that exercises no power in the world around them. When Forbes speaks of “Big Wetikos,” he refers to full Wetiko entities who have “climbed the Wetiko ladder,” jumped through the Wetiko hoops, and risen in Wetiko status, finding themselves presiding over positions of power through which they can influence and control events in our world and operate the system. “Big Wetikos” who navigate the levers of control, whether they are the wealthiest, corporate executives, bankers, or heads of state, are particularly dangerous because they define the terms of the dialogue and control the reigning historical narrative. They manage our perceptions through the propaganda engines of the mainstream corporate media controlled by them (see my article “The War on Consciousness”). Big Wetikos in positions of power create the boundaries of discourse and debate. Wetiko is an ideological virus whose currency is conceptual syntax.

Wetiko shifts our mental syntax, the laws of our language creation, and therefore distorts the semantics (grammar), the meaning we attribute to our experience of ourselves and the world. Wetiko is a semantic disorder because it changes the axioms through which the mind fashions, projects, and bewitches the words, and from there draws the experience. The thought-forms and beliefs that express and represent the viral Wetiko act as an inherent system of control, fashioning the boundaries of the imagination of what we experience as possible, as individuals, as nations, and as a human species. Wetikoism supports and perpetuates the myths, stories, dogmas, and the (non) sacred books that validate their self-serving agenda. Books and other forms of information that do not support the Wetiko version of the order of things are metaphorically “burned” (or literally in some cases—as in the case of the books of Dr. Wilhelm Reich mentioned above, which were burned by the United States government. In describing what he called “the mental epidemic,” Reich pointed in his own way to the evil of the Wetiko virus).

We live within a world which, similar to a dream, constitutes an interactive mirror inseparable from our internal personal entity. As a reflection of a deep state within ourselves, Wetiko is an unmediated phenomenon, a direct manifestation of the dream-like nature of the universe, and this is the deep understanding that Wetiko shows us. Recognizing the dream-like nature of our situation produces a living antidote made of consciousness that is personally fashioned in order to neutralize the mental pathogen of Wetiko. In other words, within the pathogen itself is found an insight, a revelation, which is the cure for the disease (please see my article “Shadow Projection is its own Medicine”). The self-recognition of Wetiko offers mental healing, but in order to enjoy the benefits of the cure, we must recognize and understand deeply the miracle of maintaining psycho-spiritual health. How amazing it is that the thing that can potentially destroy us is simultaneously what wakes us up. A potential catalyst for our evolution as a human species, we all create and dream Wetiko together. Wetiko is truly a quantum phenomenon, in that it is the most lethal poison and the most healing medicine, joined together. Will Wetiko kill us? Or will it wake us up? Everything depends on whether we recognize what it potentially reveals to us. The prognosis for Wetiko/malignant egophrenia depends on the way we dream it.

Now, when we have in our possession the understanding and the knowledge (dia-gnosis and pro-gnosis), all that we need to do is to discover the cure, a thing which in itself requires understanding (gnosis).

All rights reserved to Paul Levy
Translation: Yasmine Bergner

הפוסט Votiko | The Greatest Plague Known to Mankind | By Paul Levy | Translated by Yasmin Bergner הופיע לראשונה ב-גיאומטריה מקודשת.

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In the midst of a brave wave of women exposing documentation of sexual harassment in various industries, many of us, women and men alike, are beginning to grasp the breadth of this reality of rampant misogyny. As a culture, we must ask: why do so many men have the urge to belittle, hate, and harm women? Where does this reality come from? And what can we do to stop it?

What’s Going on With Men? The Mother Wound as the Missing Link in Understanding Misogyny – Bethany Webster – translated by Yasmine Bergner

As a globally recognized expert on the mother wound in women, I am often asked to speak about the mother wound in men. At this critical time of exposure of sexual assaults, I wanted to write an article that explores how the mother wound is the missing link in understanding the phenomenon of misogyny. In this article, I examine how boys develop in the modern world, analyze the unprocessed rage lurking beneath the surface in men’s lives, the role of privilege, and the internal work that men and women can do to change the situation.

The Oxford Dictionary defines misogyny as: “dislike of, contempt for, or ingrained prejudice against women.”

In order to understand misogyny, we must explore the first-ever relationship a man had with a woman: with his mother.

For both girls and boys, the relationship with our mothers is one of the most significant relationships we will experience in our lives. The fundamental importance of this relationship and the way it affects our well-being into adulthood cannot be overstated.

In the weeks and months of our early life, the mother is nourishment, the world, the body, and the self. For both women and men, the mother wound is a product of patriarchy, a product of living in a society based on control over women.

“The mother-child relationship, blurred as the first relationship harmed by patriarchy.” – Adrienne Rich

On a personal level, the mother wound is a system of internalized limiting patterns and beliefs – arising from the relationship with the mother. The mother wound exists on a spectrum between a healthy, supportive mother-child system and a traumatic, abusive mother-child system. Many complex factors define the uniqueness of how the mother wound manifests personally and where it lies on this spectrum. In men, it largely depends on the specific dynamic between the child and his mother, and on how the father supported or opposed this initial bond.

Patriarchy is a principle of dominance and can be embodied by both men and women. The role of the patriarch in a boy’s life can be expressed through both mother and father. For example, some boys experienced their mothers as neglectful or domineering. Some experienced their mothers as victims of their fathers, while others experienced their mother as the dominant parent and the father as the more passive parent.

“Patriarchy demands that men become and remain emotionally crippled. Because it is a system that prevents full access to free will, it is very difficult for any person from any class to adopt a rebellious approach toward patriarchy, to be disloyal to the patriarchal parent, whether father or mother.” – bell hooks

A boy growing into the modern world today is socialized by his father, other men, and society regarding the meaning of being male. Media culture, education, and patriarchal religion perform the same function. Unfortunately, there is ample evidence that this socialization process includes internalizing control over others, repressing emotions, and devaluing women (see sources at the end of the article). This creates both personal and collective trauma.

Healing personal trauma is central to dismantling patriarchy.

Unlike the modern world, the history of civilization is full of examples of cultures that provide boys with initiation into mature masculinity through periods of physical challenges, helping them symbolically cross a psychological bridge from the relative comfort of childhood to the challenges of adulthood.

These boys are supported by ELDERS (mature men), who provide empowerment and positive connection. In this process, emotional or physical “wounding” occurs that helps the boy connect with his inner powers, self-confidence, and sense of personal responsibility. In today’s modern world, most boys experience this “wounding” without positive transformation. There are very few authentic initiation rites, very few mature men (ELDERS), and very few masculine role models beyond the toxic status quo.

The societal expectation to devalue women, and in this context their mothers, creates cognitive dissonance in the boy regarding the significance of his mother, destructive to his ability to express emotions, allow himself to be vulnerable, express physical affection, and more. In this way, the mother is generally experienced as a “lost source” for the boy. And the father, as the facilitator of the boy’s integration into the world of men, is experienced as severing the bond with the mother, the source.

For white men, privilege plays a critical role. In addition to repressing their emotions and enhancing their dominance, society grants them unfair advantages denied to other groups, including women and minorities. According to American sociologist Prof. Michael Kimmel, privilege is invisible to those who have it. This leaves white men with a triple wound: an impaired ability to process emotions, blindness to the privilege they possess, and a lack of empathy toward those they harm. This triple wound in white men remains relatively unconscious and causes immense suffering in our world.

I encountered a striking quote by Adrienne Rich from 1977 in her essay from the book “On Lies, Secrets, and Silence” (not translated into Hebrew), speaking powerfully about the connection between misogyny and the mother wound in men:

“Much of men’s fear of feminism is the fear that by becoming fully human, women will cease to be mothers for men, to provide nourishment, lullabies, and continuous attention associated with the mother-infant relationship. Much of men’s fear of feminism is actually infantilism – the desire to remain the mother’s baby, to fully dominate a woman for his own needs. These infantile needs of adult men toward women have been treated sentimentally and romantically, too permissively, as ‘love.’ This is the threshold of violence. Because the social, economic, and legal systems heavily favored men, the infantile needs of the grown man were validated by power structures, which did not grant the same validation to the needs of adult women. The institution of marriage and motherhood perpetuates the infantile male needs as law in the adult world.”

What is happening now, thanks to the #MeToo movement, as women share experiences of sexual assault and expose their abusers, is that men’s overall control over women in domestic and workspaces is diminishing. Women increasingly refuse to remain silent objects onto which men project their unprocessed pain and remain unaccountable. Additionally, male witnesses are increasingly unwilling to look the other way.

Sexual assault as hostile power

Sexual assault is not about sex, but about control. Alexandra Kettahakis, a sexual therapist and clinical director at the Center for Healthy Sexuality in Los Angeles, explains: “Men involved in this behavior hold immense rage toward women and often suffered abuse in childhood. For example, their mothers may have been emotionally abusive or failed to protect them from paternal abuse. As these men grow, they project the rage they feel toward women through sexualized behavior. They assign a sexual character to their feelings because they have no other way to act.”

It appears the inner child in men is unconsciously trapped between the painful longing for the “lost source” represented by their mother and social conditioning to hate her as a woman. In other words, men are caught between their natural desire for full humanity (the ability to be emotional, vulnerable, and empathetic) and their desire to maintain privilege and dominance. One cannot be both. Holding onto dominance (patriarchy) gradually erodes your humanity. True humanity means letting go of the desire for control and all the horrific ways it manifests. No amount of privilege (wealth, power, fame, or status) can ever compensate for the destruction patriarchy wreaks on the inner child. Only through internal work can one reclaim this lost inner essence.

A man can find this ‘lost source,’ not in a tangible woman but through inner inquiry, attempting to understand what the mother or feminine represents within himself. For example, the significance of emotional functioning, the world of feeling, the experience of deep connection with oneself, and the sense of authentic belonging with those around him. However, to connect with these essential qualities in the dark, the man must connect with the inner child enraged over the meager gains he received in exchange for abandoning essential aspects of his self.

It is easy to project rage onto a “mother substitute” or “father substitute” somewhere in the world. Male privilege allows a man to remain blind to the mother and father wounds while the world burns.

It takes courage to trace these consequences and process the rage toward the inner patriarch, the archetypal cruel, unfeeling father, who admitted him into the world of men at the heavy cost of disconnecting from his authentic self. The innocent child who entered the world with an innate ability to express empathy, emotion, and vulnerability. The rage belongs to the patriarchal father (personal or collective) who broke the boy’s bond, forcing him into male fraternity at the cost of cutting off an essential part of himself to be accepted as a man. The rage also belongs to the mother who could not protect him from the patriarchal wound or caused it herself. (See my article https://womboflight.com/the-most-insidious-forms-of-patriarchy-pass-through-the-mother). When men direct their rage there, where it truly belongs, things can begin to change.

“Misogyny is the outward-projected rage of the son against the mother who could not protect him.” – Gabor Maté

For both men and women, the core task of healing the mother wound is the same: to separate the symbiotic “mother” membrane from both internal and external life in order to connect with full potential and self-realization.

In his book “Under Saturn’s Shadow,” Jungian analyst and author James Hollis summarizes:

“When we understand that patriarchy is a social invention designed to compensate for helplessness, we realize that men, contrary to popular belief, are actually the more dependent sex. The Marlboro man, the rugged individualist, may find himself attacked by his inner femininity, which he completely denies. Whenever a man is required to be the ‘good boy’ or feels he must be the ‘bad boy’ or ‘wild man,’ he is still compensating for the power of the mother complex.”

I am not saying it is the man’s fault that he is so vulnerable, so dependent, so human. But his responsibility is to recognize how much every child needs positive motherhood and how much this need shapes his psyche and operates beneath the surface. He may pretend to be an empowered man, holding government offices or wallets, but stress fissures penetrate deeply into his relationship with his mother. Men must recognize this and take responsibility, or they will continue to embody these infantile patterns forever.

Healing the mother wound in men involves redirecting rage away from women and processing it directly with its true object—the patriarchy itself—and the specific traumatic events of their childhood.

For men to do this deep inner work, they critically need support from other men who have already undergone significant parts of this inner journey, including professional support from experienced male therapists in this field.

Broadly defined, internal and external work for men includes:

Processing rage toward the parent (father or mother) for parental betrayal that forced them to give up essential parts of themselves to be considered a man, mourning the heavy cost.

Examining life honestly, acknowledging hidden secrets, and taking responsibility for actions.

Finding the lost inner source and reclaiming it. Connecting with the inner child.

Connecting with genuine remorse for how they have harmed others and the planet through unconscious projections of pain, both personally and collectively, and initiating empathetic actions regularly.

Creating community with other conscious men on the path of healing and reconciliation.

Men must commit to long-term internal work and also experience the immediate consequences of their actions here and now.

Sean Wastal explains that sexual assault in the workplace is not due to lack of training or understanding by men, but because men understand too well: that they can avoid punishment. They can rationalize, hide, justify, and no one will hold them accountable. “In other words, until men achieve enough internal integrity to restrain them from sexual assault, real intervention is required in workplaces and relationships to stop toxic behavior. Fundamentally, men require global intervention. Social ‘no’ echoes calling for awakening and recognition of realities they have been blind to until now.”

To support this process, women must say “no” in every possible way to the angry boys inside the men in our lives, whether they are friends, colleagues, brothers, or husbands. Referring again to Rich’s quote, women must withdraw from over-functioning or acting as mothers for the men in their lives.

“We must step back with the demon, the lullaby, the ceaseless attention associated with the mother-infant relationship.” In this way, men can feel the weight of the difficult situation, which is the first step toward meaningful and lasting change.

Only when men feel the painful gap of what women are no longer willing to tolerate for them, will they experience sufficient motivation to finally act and fill the gap from within themselves.

The process gradually develops paths of:

-Taking responsibility for their emotions, containing and processing them internally, and obtaining support.

-Engaging in sexual relations from a place of intimate connection, not as a means to feel powerful.

-Comforting the inner child when activated.

-Differentiating past pain from what is happening in the present.

-Developing awareness of the consequences of actions and the ability to see women in their lives as humans, not objects.

-Amplifying marginalized voices, developing listening skills and learning from them.

As women, we must continue to use our voice, speak out against abuse of power whenever possible, and amplify the voices of other women suffering male abuse, especially among minorities and indigenous cultures.

As women, we must cease:

– cooperating with male illusions arising from ignorance regarding their entitlement.

– remaining silent to avoid friction.

– internalizing the consequences of unprocessed male rage.

– minimizing our feelings in their presence.

– accepting crumbs of respect instead of what we truly deserve.

– giving power and strength through therapeutic relationships.

– giving time and energy to men who refuse to do inner work.

The truth is women are very limited in their ability to assist men in healing. We can hold space for them, but cannot do the work for them. This is their journey, and they must want it. Meanwhile, let us expand our self-worth consciousness away from the male gaze, prioritize our inner work, and heal our childhood wounds. Let us maintain clear boundaries with people in our lives who are not doing inner work and spend more time with those who are. True female fellowship is a crucial source of nourishment at this time.

Harnessing our rage as fuel for wise action

The more we connect to the truth of our power as women, the more we feel rage at the destruction caused by toxic masculinity. Rage is an essential tool at this time to sharpen refusal to align with oppression of any kind, including internalized misogyny directed at ourselves. For white women, this is a refusal to play the role of the patriarch toward others and to acknowledge how we mediate oppression of men and women in ethnic groups different from our own.

“We suppress what we fear.” – James Hollis

Healing from patriarchy requires that every group benefiting from entitlement confront its ignorance and develop genuine empathy for the ways its privilege harms others.

Allowing ourselves to be emotionally affected by the horrors committed as a result of our entitlement is often avoided but is essential if we wish to create true equality among people. Just as white women must connect to a genuine shock at how we mediate white supremacy over minorities, white men must do the same regarding their ignorance toward the entitlement they enjoy and internalize the immense pain it creates in the world for women, minorities, and the planet.

“The artist’s role is identical to that of the lover. If I love you, I must make you aware of the things you do not see.” – James Baldwin

May this growing surge of female rage inspire a wave of brave men willing to explore their inner space, embrace the abandoned child within, process legitimate rage, and mourn what patriarchy stole from them: their full humanity. Collective change will occur when enough individual men change. May men take full responsibility and humbly embrace exposed discomfort as the remedy they need to heal their personal and collective mother wounds. And may women refuse to allow the behavior of unconscious men to define them.

All rights reserved to Bethany Webster 2017

Translated from English by Yasmine Bergner

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Resources for Men:

Under Saturn’s Shadow: The Wounding and Healing of Men by James Hollis

Understanding Patriarchy by bell hooks

King, Warrior, Magician, Lover: Rediscovering the Archetypes of the Mature Masculine by Robert Moore and Douglas Gillette

The Middle Passage: From Misery to Meaning in Midlife by James Hollis

The Eden Project: The Search for the Magical Other by James Hollis

Iron John: A Book about Men by Robert Bly

Castration and Male Rage: The Phallic Wound by Eugene Monick

Finding our Fathers by Sam Osherson

Phallos: Sacred Image of the Masculine by Eugene Monick

The Macho Paradox: Why Some Men Hurt Women and How All Men Can Help by Jackson Katz

The Mankind Project

Jackson Katz

Link to the original Bethany Webster article in
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הפוסט What’s Up with Men? The Mother’s Wound as the Missing Link in Understanding Misogyny | Bethany Webster | From English: Yasmin Bergner הופיע לראשונה ב-גיאומטריה מקודשת.

These days, a fascinating exhibition curated by Chaim Maor (curator of the university galleries) in collaboration with students from the curation course, titled “Portraits of Cain – Representations of Others in Contemporary Israeli Art,” is being presented at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.

In many ways, no one is more suitable than Maor, born in 1951, to curate a group exhibition that constitutes an additional and impressive layer of his long-standing exploration of the subject. In the opening of the catalog accompanying the exhibition, he writes that “[…] even now, as I return to this subject as a curator and teacher, I do not cease to engage with it as an artist. The figure of Cain and its incarnations, the mark of Cain, and the gazes directed at the ‘others’ are subjects of great importance, and my engagement with them has accompanied me for many years.” This curatorial approach is part of a long-term process of expanding the scope, from Maor’s interpersonal research to collective exploration of this topic in the Israeli art world, as well as a universal phenomenon.

At the same time, a large-scale solo exhibition of Maor called “They Are Me” is currently on display at the Open Museum in Omer (curator: Ruth Ofek). The exhibition reflects the broad range of the artist’s interdisciplinary work and distills the content he has been dealing with over the years. The exhibition consists of six rooms, each dedicated to a different figure connected to Maor’s life, through whom he addresses the concept of the “other.” The first room of the exhibition is dedicated to the figure of “Cain” and the mark of Cain, to the concept of the “double” / “shadow” that follows. Another room is devoted to the fragile relationship with second- and third-generation Germans post-Holocaust, the chasm between us and them, alongside the sincere effort to heal the wound through Suzanna, Maor’s German friend. Sibling rooms are dedicated to Maor’s family anthology, which is a microcosm of genocide, a genealogy of memory. Another room is dedicated to Hader and Ashah and their family, a Palestinian artist married to a Bedouin woman, and the Palestinian “other.” All the rooms together form a kind of mental map of reflection and a humanistic worldview, a sincere contemplation of the human psyche. Each room is constructed as an independent space emerging from an inner center. In the center of each room stands a central work acting as a compass (visual and ethical), and the works hanging on the surrounding walls relate to it.

Maor’s first solo exhibition, called “The Mark of Cain,” was presented in 1978 (Kibbutz Gallery, curated by Miriam Tuvia Bona). Observing his work over the years allows a better understanding of the contextual and emotional background to the exhibition “Portraits of Cain.” His pioneering body of work as a body artist since the 1970s is among the most impressive seen in Israel. Compared to the extensive American and European body art, in the 1970s only a handful of Israeli body artists worked alongside Chaim Maor, the most prominent of whom were Yocheved Weinfeld, Gideon Gechtman, Michael Druks, and Moti Mizrahi (the latter two also participate in the “Portraits of Cain” exhibition).

The performance works Maor created between 1975 and 1980 deal distinctly with the heavy personal traumatic legacy of a “second-generation Holocaust” artist, with representations of oppression and stigma through markings and body boundary delimitations (see my reference in the article “Bodily Ownership of the Symbol”). The family myth of Cain becomes a formative myth for large-scale and severe historical events, such as the Holocaust (Ch. Maor, from the 2012 catalog). He creates visual connections between concepts like “marking,” “victim,” and “sacrifice” through a disturbing physical presence. This breadth of meaning strengthens the understanding of social oppression as a universal human phenomenon.

“Portraits of Cain” observes the figure of Cain and the essence of the mark of Cain from multiple perspectives. This is a subject that currently arouses great interest among artists and scholars. The academic, philosophical, literary, and artistic interpretation of the biblical story is nourished by the social, political, religious, and criminal realities, in Israel and worldwide, and responds to them. Maor notes that hovering above the exhibition are the figures of social psychologist Dan Bar-On, who researched the ‘others’ within us and beside us, and the artist Michael Sgan Cohen, who offered fascinating interpretations about the figure of the artist as ‘Cain.’

Already in the Book of Genesis (Chapter 4, Verse 15), in the story of Cain and Abel, the idea of a tattoo is presented, at least conceptually: “And the Lord set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him.” Cain becomes a wanderer, the first exile in history, as an act of punishment and atonement for the bloodshed he committed (Murder Case No. 001). The nature of the “mark” is not specified, but it likely refers to some external sign, a kind of identification meant to protect him from harm Cain fears. There is a dual meaning: the symbol is on the one hand a revealing mark of disgrace, and on the other hand, a protective symbol. Since then, the “Mark of Cain” has become an archetype symbolizing the gaze directed at the other, the ways in which society marks human beings. The act of marking is a primary means of their segregation, ostracism, expropriation, humiliation, and sometimes elimination. Many interpretations have been linked to the story of Cain and Abel, whose core is perhaps humanity’s internal struggle with the forces of good and evil within them: “If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door; its desire is for you, but you must rule over it” (Genesis 4:7). Historical interpretation links the conflict to the clash between ancient agricultural culture and pastoral culture – between those settled on their land and nomads following their flocks.

It is no coincidence that the exhibition “Portraits of Cain” was accompanied by a fascinating interdisciplinary conference, inviting researchers from various fields to delve into issues of labeling and stigma, to investigate the socio-semiotic tools available to society, which create on the one hand protection and glorification, and on the other, exclusion and deprivation. The exhibition presents many such faces: Jews and Arabs, religious settlers and seculars, men and women, wanted individuals and snipers, hunters and hunted, captives, prisoners, and more. In some works, the stereotypical image is distorted, displaced, or shifted to different contexts of time and place. In some works, the artists present themselves or their characters as marked with the mark of Cain and sometimes rebel against being marked. Marking and identity, then, are complex and intricate concepts in themselves, and they accompany the works displayed in the exhibition in various ways. They shed light on social, political, religious, and gender issues present in both the works and the society in which they were created. These definitions have probably been in use since the dawn of history. The conflict arises in the encounter between different systems that oppose each other or express intolerance toward another group. In the exhibition catalog text, Maor wisely asserts that the identity of the marker is as important as that of the marked and their identifying signs.

The work of Micha Bar-Am, “S = Captive,” stands out as a chilling example of identity erasure. The captives are photographed from behind, with a large black stamp in the form of the letter “S” (“Shavuy” – captive) on the back of their shirts. The captives are faceless, without identity. The mark is a decisive factor in creating the dehumanization of the marked. A glimpse over the bent bodies evokes, like a punch in the stomach, the feeling of humiliation accompanying the denial of human dignity. “S” also = “Shavur” (broken). “The work is an example of Bar-Am’s ongoing attempt to create complex and layered images, going beyond dry documentation of the subjects photographed. The camera angle exposes the viewer to the position and interpretation he gives to the situations he encounters during his work as a field photographer.”

In the work “Marking, Trade Strike, East Jerusalem,” the concepts of “marking” and “designation” receive interpretation in connection to the mark of Cain in several ways: as tangible marks meant to highlight an object (a closed shop door), or as association with a certain status (such as a prisoner of war). The letter “S” printed on the captives’ backs (resembling also a target on a shooting board) or the X inside a painted circle on a photographed iron door are powerful logo-like symbols. Bar-Am does not shy away from emphasizing the stigmatic mark in ways that evoke mixed, difficult, and provocative feelings, “similar to branding on living flesh or tattoo inscription,” in his words (Bismuth, Omer, Leibovitz, 2012).

Biblical scholar Meir Bar-Ilan points to fascinating findings revealing the existence of a Jewish tattoo culture in biblical times, providing evidence in his remarkable article “Magical Seals on the Body among Jews in the First Centuries CE” (2011). He argues that biblical tattooed individuals marked themselves with the last letter of the ancient Hebrew alphabet, which was likely the letter “X.” Simply because this was the simplest and clearest marking method. Various Torah laws were written to define what constituted a “proper” tattoo of a work of God, as opposed to a tattoo “like the gentiles.” A tattoo done for the service of God was an essential part of ritual and sacred intention before entering the mystical Merkavah vision. There is a theory that biblical Cain was tattooed with this mark. An ethnographic survey I conducted of various tribal tattoo cultures clearly shows that the “X” or “cross” symbol is the most ancient and widespread tattoo archetype in the world, originating in sun worship in ancient animistic belief systems, the cradle of religions.

The work of Eric Weiss presents his double portrait, in positive and negative, echoing billboards. On his forehead is stamped the mark of Cain in the form of the bitten apple, the logo of the company “Apple.” The caption under the portraits, ICain, references the word iPad, the company’s flagship product. “Weiss uses the brand to divert it to a new context: from the biblical context of Cain and his punishment, he connects it to the contemporary story of enslavement to brands. The mark of Cain on his forehead – in Weiss’s work – alludes to the original sin of his parents, eating the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. In a contemporary context, Weiss responds that ‘in today’s world, the “sinners” are branded toward themselves. They lose their inner self-personality and become part of a herd of users, worshipping their idols, external signs, and branded objects'” (Maor, 2012).

“Paul Goldman titled the photograph presented in the exhibition ‘Holocaust Survivor, Nahalal, 1945,’ but left no information about the subject, the circumstances of the photo, or its context. There is no doubt regarding the shocking power and implied meaning of the image – Jewish women in the Holocaust forced to serve as ‘field prostitutes.’ However, historically and in other respects, the photograph raises questions and no one can provide a definitive answer about it. There are hypotheses that the photo is staged. The reliability of the photograph as authentic documentation of a Holocaust survivor is undermined by the fact that the words on the woman’s chest (‘field prostitute’) are written in German as one word, Feldhure, not as two words separated by a space, as seen in the photo. Additionally, such a tattoo would be on the women’s back, not the chest. The main question is that Jewish women did not serve as field prostitutes to satisfy German soldiers or officers, since racial laws forbade any contact between Aryan men and Jewish women. ‘Field prostitutes’ were only Polish or German women. Nevertheless, this photograph is one of the most chilling artistic images in the Holocaust context” (Teshuva, Alon, Bernstein, 2012).

Among the participants in the exhibition are Asad Azi, Eyal Adler-Klener, Adi Ness, Micha Kirshner, Vardi Kahna, Vered Aharonovitch, Erez Israeli, Hader and Ashah, Michael Druks, Ken Goldman, Boaz Lanir, Assi Meshulam, Moti Mizrahi.
Quotes in the article are taken from the exhibition catalog.

“Portraits of Cain,” group exhibition, Art Gallery, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, curators: Prof. Chaim Maor and students from the curation course, Department of Arts, April 2012 – June 2012
Chaim Maor: “They Are Me,” solo exhibition, Open Museum Omer, curator: Ruth Ofek, February 2012 – September 2012

הפוסט Mark of Shame and Symbol of Protection By Yasmine Bergner הופיע לראשונה ב-גיאומטריה מקודשת.

Ancient Future – The Great Initiation Journey:

Yasmine Bergner on mythical art, utopian art, and the sweeping spiritual proposition of transformative festivals.

Originally published in the online magazine Erev Rav

The identity of this emerging social movement, as reflected in the documentary series “The Bloom”, mirrors the blossoming of a global cultural renaissance. The filmmakers, Jeet K. Long and Akira Chan, show how, through ancient and new modes of expression, the triad of myth-ritual-the sacred merges in a way that reflects the era we live in — one of evolving consciousness.

Mythical art seeks to create a personal myth to guide the individual’s path and provide keys to self-discovery. This artistic trend demonstrates that it is possible to live the myth and the longing — to walk within your own legend. These emerging artists bring their persona into the public space, become visible to others, and create interaction, aiming to traverse boundaries from one space to another.

Burning Man Festival

Ideas resonating from the Earth

The festival “Faeryworlds” takes place annually in England in nature, after the first harvest — a period celebrated since ancient times. During this ancient pagan festival, people pray to the earth to remain fertile and abundant throughout the season and offer her gifts. Modern festivals like “Faeryworlds” awaken gratitude and appreciation for the universe and the abundance that sustains us.

The contemporary world and industrial revolutions have freed us from many dark sides of prejudice, yet life in a materialistic Western society — where the highest value is maximizing profit, and humans are reduced to “consumers” and “service providers”, “clients” and “bosses” — leaves many in spiritual emptiness and existential death.

We now live in a secular and rationalistic society where a process of “disenchantment”, or awakening from the mythical state, has occurred. Religions hold a monopoly over spiritual concepts and ritual boundaries. The new movement represents the longing to return to a state of enchantment, where myths are recreated through a diverse and compelling personal ritual, filling participants’ lives with content that was previously dictated to them.

The narratives we tell each other about what is “real” and “unreal” gradually lose their rigidity, partly through contemporary physical theories that collapse prior theories and challenge our perception of reality. As utopian artists, we bear the duty and responsibility to respond to this call and spread these ideas, resonating from the earth calling to us, so we can tell a new story of connection with the sacred. Myth is the tool that helps us tell this story.

Performance is one of the most powerful tools for embedding myth. This art acknowledges the deep meaning inherent in the act of creation and theatrical gesture. Connection with myth is vital to the soul and heart of the individual and to the joint creation of a new culture, welcoming artists from all creative paths.

This is a continuation of a collective narrative emerging since the dawn of history. Especially now, in the technological age, we can “pull” what is relevant to us, choose which archetype we must embody as artists, and bring the myth into performance, expressing different states of mind through dance, theater, music, and visual arts.

Burning Man Festival

Every person is a mirror of the sacred, an aspect of ourselves. Performance functions as a reflection of the self. The movement reconnects us with the body. Through renewed awareness of the body, there is enormous potential for transformation. Especially in an era when we are glued to computers for hours, it is vital to rethink our relationship with our body, go outside, and share what is true for us, what inspires us.

This is how spirit moves through us. We can consider ourselves fortunate that our art transforms into broader myths for our surroundings, creating collective consciousness.

One of the goals of transformative festivals is to allow internal content to be revealed and manifested externally. This trend empowers the creators and requires dismantling the master narrative. We are allowed to play, invent new myths, and engage in fully personal rituals where we connect with inner inspiration.

Myth is meant to create a mental space, a sanctuary of consciousness, for humans. The larger the story, the more it can contain. At the “Burning Man” festival, many installations conclude with a large bonfire (similar to the Israeli counterpart, the Zik group). In the apocalyptic era we live in, destruction manifests visually in many ways. Many structures collapse, and what enters next remains unclear. When something ends, space opens for surprises.

In tribal cultures, rites of passage and initiation were integral to collective culture. Today, rites of passage and initiation are almost entirely absent from our Western lives. Transformative festivals explore how rituals can restore meaning and purpose to collective experience in a non-imposing, inviting, and enabling way, offering personal and artistic freedom above all.

Tears are the river that washes the salt

Artist Paradox Folk says that ritual is “myth in practice.” Mythology embodies symbols charged with meaning, while ritual expresses how humans embody mythical perception. Ritual is a tool that brings people closer, fostering connection between self and self, self and others, and self and place — a call for the soul to rise.

Ritual focus frames attention on something experienced as important and significant beyond daily life, yet returning to it. Artist Lux Moderna seeks in transformative festivals to act as a catalyst for experiences of unity.

At a South American festival synchronized with “Burning Man”, various indigenous tribes were invited to share their ancient knowledge. Our learning is that to receive, we must give, and to give, we must learn to receive. This creates a circle of gratitude to the earth for all we receive, asking permission to be here and create space, allowing ourselves to be present and authentic, connecting from the heart with open arms regardless of background or life experiences.

As we engage in integrative internal work, we can overcome inhibitions and lift the veil from what prevents us from connecting to essence. The more we externalize beauty and truth, the more we can touch others who feel separate. The ancient essence of these festivals originates in intention; intention to sow seeds or give thanks to the heavens. Communally, this is grounding. A collective connection between heaven and earth.

Ideas that endure through history and evolution must stimulate and develop human instincts. Tragedies occur daily worldwide, yet systems do nothing to improve the situation. They do not know how. If we do not externalize our sorrow and grief, we remain blocked.

“Tears are the river that washes the salt,” says myth researcher Michael Meade. Through creating a collective and supportive community, we enable the capacity to contain and cope with grief, sorrow, and loss. We must improve our communal response to individual grief.

Burning Man Festival

A canon of collective consciousness leaps

A new collective narrative is emerging, defining the meaning of being human, based on an intimate connection to the source; being here and now in receptivity. This social trend moves from the more peripheral areas of society into the mainstream, into music, cinema, and visual arts. Films like “The Matrix” and “Avatar” present agendas of consciousness development and humanistic and ecological stances, serving as representatives of new artworks that have already become canonical, a canon of collective consciousness leaps in our culture.

The technological age provides us with precious gifts. All information about traditions across generations and world mythologies is accessible to us at the touch of a button. We can deconstruct and reassemble them, integrate them in ways relevant to our lives. We are undergoing a quantum leap in understanding our individuality and its power, reconnecting with the ecstatic unity of the self and the world. This trend demonstrates how prayer can become play or a daily artistic act, and that we can indeed enjoy lives of devotion.

Terence McKenna calls this trend the “Archaic Revival”; individuals relating to their community as Beloved can awaken the sacred within the community. This transformation lifts the veil from the symbols separating us from the sacred, making them more accessible.

Our connection to the sacred is actually the most essential element in our lives, whether we are aware of it or not. It is the highest way to connect as humans. If we make this connection central, it becomes the key unlocking enormous potential for expressing inner wisdom through community service.

Jeet K. Long, director of “The Bloom”, says interpersonal connection, inclusion, and inspiration propagated through transformative festivals actually express the fundamental frequencies humans need. We need these in the pragmatic society we live in to realize our potential. “Burning Man” most clearly represents this ethos.

Temples were originally mental spaces for soul healing, says the artist Shrine, creator of stunning temples/installations from waste. The temple as a concept returns to the landscape of our hearts — shared spaces of communion. We must re-sanctify art, enter it knowing nothing except our naked longing for true substance. It is an undeniable reminder of compassion. Kneeling in humility reminds us that we are all fractals of the One.

Sources:
Mircea Eliade
http://he.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D7%9E%D7%99%D7%A8%D7%A6%27%D7%94_%D7%90%D7%9C%D7%99%D7%90%D7%93%D7%94
Jeet K. Long

“The Bloom” film series
http://thebloom.tv/public/index.php/dashboard/view/25
Myth researcher Michael Meade

Lux Moderna
http://luxmoderna.bandcamp.com/
Shrine

Shrine

Burning Man
http://www.burningman.com/

הפוסט Ancient Future | The Great Initiation Journey | Article by Yasmin Bergner הופיע לראשונה ב-גיאומטריה מקודשת.

Opening Image: Tattooed slaves on a wall in the Temple of Seti I, Egypt, relief. Drawing: Yasmine Bergner

The practice of body adornment may date back as far as 100,000 years ago, or even earlier. Shells and bone tools discovered in [1] Blombos Cave (today in the region of South Africa) were found containing remnants of pigment made from red ochre. Archaeologists believe the cave served as a workshop for preparing pigments. This likely represents evidence of technology, artistic production, symbolic thinking, and language during the Middle Stone Age.

It is very possible that the ochre was used for body painting and that the shells functioned as tattooing tools [2]. In the Kid Cave [3] (Es-Skhul Cave) on the Carmel coast and in Qafzeh Cave in the Galilee, caves of a similar character were discovered and attributed to the Mousterian hunter-gatherer culture, dated to the same period and possibly even earlier. In these caves, Homo sapiens bones were found buried together with animal bones, tools, and shells. Large pieces of ochre were also discovered in this cave, brought from other regions and believed to have been used for body or burial decoration.

*This text is part of the exhibition catalog “Tattoos – The Human Body as a Work of Art,” research and curation: Yasmine Bergner, Eretz Israel Museum (MUZA), 2016–2017*

Across Africa, extensive practices of scarification and tattooing existed, as well as practices combining both, creating a type of raised tattoo. Colonial interventions during the 20th century led to a significant decline in these traditions. As in other parts of the world, missionary activity and Christian imperialism suppressed traditional indigenous arts.

Traditional tattooing and scarification practices still exist throughout Africa, such as in Ethiopia, Cameroon, Mali, Congo, Benin, Mozambique and more [4]. In various Mesopotamian cultures, clay figurines bearing body paintings made with the common ochre pigment have been discovered. Sometimes the female figures show incisions on the body, which can be interpreted as expressions of body art.

In the exhibition “Tattoos – The Human Body as a Work of Art,” three female figurines (in the photo below, in the middle display case) are presented, likely fascinating remnants of these ancient local cultures. The Yarmukian culture was an important local culture that existed about 8,000 years ago during the Pottery Neolithic period and was probably the first in our region to use ceramics. Among the many fertility figurines discovered at the archaeological site of Sha’ar HaGolan, a clay figurine with body incisions on one of its legs was also found. The chalice symbol (the goddess holding a churn in the middle display case) is also one of the prominent symbols of the ancient Great Goddess cultures that filled the globe between approximately 30,000 and 5,000 years ago.

Photographs: Dr. Lars Krutak, tattoo anthropologist

Display case: Right: Goddess figurine, Yarmukian culture.

Center: Goddess holding a churn (the Megiddo woman),

Left: The Revadim figurine

Courtesy of the Israel Museum, Jerusalem

Special thanks to Dorit Shafir, Chief Curator of the Department of Ancient Cultures

A unique figurine type was found in several locations in the Land of Israel. The Revadim figurine depicts a female figure with a tormented expression, her hands placed near her genital area. She is nursing twins who suckle from her breasts, and on her neck appears the symbol of the moon. On her thighs are engraved animals and palm trees. It is believed that this figurine served as a protective amulet for women giving birth (possibly of twins). The animals and palms likely serve as a visual reminder of sacred sexuality, fertility, and domestic harmony.

It is assumed [5] that in the cultures of the ancient Near East, the woman and the tree were intertwined symbols, since both the woman and the tree bear fruit and were therefore objects of reverence and worship as feminine deities. Parchia Beck [6] notes that the placement of the decorations on the thighs resembles tattooing customs common in nearby Neolithic cultures and in ancient Egypt, where thigh tattooing was very common, suggesting that these may indeed represent tattoos.

The special symbols on the figurine – the moon, the goats, the palm trees, the act of breastfeeding, and the vulva – indicate that the figurine most likely belongs to one of the ancient Goddess cultures of our region thousands of years ago and tell the story of a deep connection to the earth and the perception of the planet as a nurturing mother.

Goddess figurine nursing twins, Revadim, drawing: Yasmine Bergner after Parchia Beck

In the Middle East and in the Land of Israel, tattoo cultures existed among Muslim communities, particularly among women. Tassi [7] notes that Egyptian women dyed their hands and the area around their mouths with small blue dots, pricking themselves with needles and rubbing charcoal into the wounds. Edward Lane (1860) wrote during his stay in Egypt that women from the lower classes tattooed their faces with blue designs, usually on their chins and foreheads, but also on the backs of their hands, their arms, their feet, and the center of their chest. Dots, circles, and simple lines were common.

Tattoos played a role in defining the individual and maintaining the continuity of social relationships and social units. Blackman [8] (1937) wrote that indigo and charcoal have antiseptic properties that helped prevent infections. Medicinal herbs such as clove or white beet leaves were also used after the tattoo was completed to strengthen the design and reduce swelling of the skin.

Tattoo traditions also existed among Bedouin communities throughout the Middle East, although conservative interpretations of the Qur’an regarding the practice, along with fundamentalist political influences, led to the suppression and significant reduction of tattoo culture among Muslims today in North Africa. In the Islamic Hadith, it is argued that tattooing harms the spiritual integrity before God. It is claimed that tattoos prevent water from penetrating the skin during purification rituals, one of the five fundamental principles of Islam. Nevertheless, tattoo culture survived for centuries within Islamic cultures in North Africa. In Morocco, for example, collections of popular prayers that included quotes from the Prophet Muhammad determined that tattoos between the eyebrows and on the cheeks were “traditional” and therefore legitimate.

Drawing: Yasmine Bergner after Thomson

The Byzantine physician Aetius described in the 6th century in his medical work TETRABIBLON the method of performing tattooing and even provided recipes for preparing pigment and methods for removing tattoos, for example in cases of freed slaves who had been tattooed on their faces [9]. Levy [10] writes that during the spread of early Christianity into the Mediterranean basin, it began a missionary process among ancient pagan communities who practiced tattooing. This created an ambivalent attitude toward tattooing in Christianity. In the 8th century, Christian monks in Egypt began tattooing symbols belonging to the Coptic tattoo tradition on their bodies. The inspiration for this practice may have come from their neighbors, the Ethiopian Copts, who tattooed their faces and arms. He mentions the earliest documentation of a Jerusalem Cross tattoo on the arm of a European pilgrim, the German knight Alexander von Peppenheim, during his journey to the Holy Land in 1653–4. A Jaffa Arab tattooed a small cross on him for which he paid one medin. Those who usually performed pilgrim tattoos were translators (known as dragomans). This profession fulfilled the need for translation in a region rich in intercultural encounters like the Middle East. They became permanent residents in Jerusalem and Bethlehem, served as guides for pilgrims, and tattooed pilgrimage tattoos, especially during Easter.

By the 17th century, the reputation of the Jerusalem tattoo had already spread far and wide and was documented in travel literature about the Holy Land. In the 18th century historical documentation on tattooing decreased, but in the second half of the 19th century sources again multiplied describing the custom of pilgrimage tattoos, as missionaries, pilgrims, and curious travelers noticed the phenomenon gaining renewed popularity during their visits to Jerusalem. The French traveler Charem recounted in 1880 that he was tattooed with the symbol of the Jerusalem Cross in the Old City by Francis Souben. In Souben’s shop he found about 200 framed recommendations, including one stating: “This is to certify that Francis Souben tattooed the Jerusalem Cross on the arm of His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales” (son of Queen Victoria and later King Edward VII). The Jerusalem Cross also adorned the arm of the Duke of York, later George V, as well as the Prussian Crown Prince Frederick (later Emperor Frederick III) in 1869 [11].

John Carswell visited Israel in 1956 and wrote a book on the Coptic tattoo [12] after visiting the tattoo studio of the long-established Razzouk family, who have been tattooing pilgrimage tattoos in the Old City since the 17th century. These tattoos expressed religious devotion and also served as a symbol of religious belonging, and probably symbolized identification with the stigmata wounds of Jesus. The pilgrimage tattoo is a phenomenon unique to the Land of Israel and is created using a unique technique in which the tattoo is transferred to the skin using beautifully carved wooden stamps featuring complex Christian iconography. The preserved printing blocks allow us to understand the meaning of the symbols and their frequency among pilgrim tattoo bearers. The invention of the modern electric tattoo machine replaced the manual hand-poking technique, but the use of the ancient tattoo patterns has been preserved.

Wooden tattoo stamp images: Courtesy of Wassim Razzouk

An unusual pattern in Carswell’s catalog (52a) presents the Hebrew inscription “Jerusalem”. Part of the Temple Mount plaza can be seen, and in the foreground the location of the Western Wall is hinted at. Mordechai Levy believes that the presence of this pattern among Coptic tattooists suggests that Jews may also have desired tattoos. He finds support for this hypothesis in the memoirs of the English tattooist George Burchett, who deserted the British Navy in his youth while his ship was anchored in Jaffa. When he arrived in Jerusalem, probably in the early 1890s, he opened a small tattoo stand near the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

Burchett recounts that “The Holy City has been the center of tattooing for fifty years. Tattooists from among the Greeks, Maronites, Syrians, French, Jews and Italians worked there. The tattooists in Jerusalem were fully occupied tattooing pilgrims and tourists.” [13]

A pattern bearing the inscription “Jerusalem”

The practice still exists today among Kurds in northern Iraq and southern Turkey, and its origins are likely related to Balkan tattoos. In Iraq until 1930, both men and women commonly tattooed protective and healing tattoos as well as beauty-enhancing tattoos. Women were often the tattooists, and the ink was prepared by mixing soot with breast milk. The design was simple and geometric and applied to all parts of the body [14]. In Iraq there were women mullahs who conducted joint rituals of prayer and tattooing. The mullah was…

הפוסט Body Decoration and Tattoos in Africa and the Middle East | By Yasmine Bergner הופיע לראשונה ב-גיאומטריה מקודשת.