Witchcraft-and-the-Gay-Counterculture-1

depart. But the wiser and honester sort of people call these womenSahacat, which in Latin signifieth Fricatrices [Lesbians], becausethey have a damnable custom to commit unlawful venerieamong themselves, which I cannot express in any modester terms(Carpenter, 39).In outlining the sacred role of Gay people in non-industrialsocieties, we could go on and on, and cite numerous examples outsideof America and Africa. Suffice it to say that ritual transvestismand sodomy (or the worship of androgynous dieties, which is usuallyindicative of this) are also found in Australia, the South Sea Islands,the Middle East, Europe, and the Far East (including India, China,Japan and Vietnam).In addition, indiscriminate sexual orgies are commonlyand routinely practiced by non-industrialized societies as a form ofreligious devotion. Reports of these sacred orgies come from all overthe world. An excellent account of their practice can be found inGeorge Scott’s book Phallic Worship. (“Phallic” as used in this bookrefers to the genitals of both sexes, and not just to cocks.) For examplein the Americas, pictures surviving from ancient Yucatan showreligious scenes in which men perform acts of “indescribable beastliness”(Scott, 122-123). In the Far East, the situation is the same. InJapan, many of the oldest practices of the indigenous nature religioncontinue under the guise of Shintoism. Ancient Shinto templesare full of orgiastic art and “were the scene of sexual orgies rivalingthe Bacchanalia of ancient Rome” (229). In ancient China, one ofthe most celebrated goddesses was Kwan-Yin, a variant of the greatmother. She was worshipped with orgies that included homosexuality(222). The most ancient religious artifacts of India are filled withdepictions of orgies, and the worship of the sexual organs of bothsexes (183). Jacques-Antoine Dulaure, in his classic book on sex worship,notes that “the celebrated and ancient pagoda of Jagannath, andthe no less ancient one of Elephanta near Bombay, the bas-reliefsof which William Alen sketched in 1784, offer the most indecentpictures that a corrupted imagination could conceive (The Gods ofGeneration, 83).Sacred orgies regularly occurred in the religious rites of ancientpeoples living around the Mediterranean Sea. Such, amongothers, were the worship of Isis at Bubasti in Egypt; the festivals ofBaal-Peor in the Middle East; the worship of Venus at Cyprus; theworship of Adonis at Byblos; and, of course, the Dionysia, Floraliaand Bacchanalia (Bloch, 95).The purpose of these sacred orgies has been much obscuredby modern commentators, who are generally straight males. The orgieswere not done to increase the population as is often maintained.The notion that the purpose of sex is procreation is a modern industrialone, derived ultimately from the Judeo-Christian tradition.Some of the most ancient nature societies did not even know that114self-interested calculation was a sign of rationality. The bourgeoisthrust of Calvinism has led some writers like Max Weber to concludethat Protestantism prepared the way for the rise of capitalism. But aswe have just seen, the entire Christian tradition was working to thisend for a thousand years.The really different thing about Protestantism is that it triedto purge Christianity of influences it had picked up from paganism.The so-called Reformation was in reality a reaction against the Renaissance,where pagan influence (including a looser sexuality) hadhad a major impact on Western culture. Protestants emphasized theanti-sexual, anti-woman writings of Paul of Tarsus. They detestedanything that suggested sensuality. In some cases, they entered existingchurches, smashed the organs, broke the statuary, and whitewashedthe murals (Gilbert, 136). Significantly, they rejected theworship of Mary, whose cult was a survival within the Christian patriarchyof earlier matriarchal values.The Puritans were the most fanatical of the Protestants. JohnKnox attacked the status of women in his pamphlet “The First Blastof the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women” (Partridge,116). Thomas Hall published a pamphlet called ‘The Loathsomenessof Long Haire” (Partridge, 118). Puritans insisted on sexistdress codes. ‘The Puritans attempted, for reasons which should notbe too obscure, to masculinize men as far as possible, and correspondingly,to defeminize and make negative members of the oppositesex” (Partridge, 117-118).All the major sects of Protestantism agreed on severely repressingsexuality; on inculcating unquestioned obedience to authority,both of the state and of the male head of the family; andon scorning non-Christian and non-white cultures. The rising bourgeoisieeagerly embraced these values and translated them into publicpolicy, where they remain to this day.And so the story of human history in the West has been thesickening spectacle of increasing patriarchal power, first gradually inthe Bronze Age, then with a sudden leap in the triumph of Christianity,and finally overwhelmingly with the onrush of industrialism.Corresponding to this rise has been a fall, first in the status ofwomen, then of rural people, then of Gay people, then of non-whitepeople.Everywhere the old nature cultures are gone. The Celts aregone, conquered by Caesar. The peasants of Europe are gone, havingbeen murdered, enslaved, or transformed into an urban proletariat.The Indians are gone, wiped out on orders from the Pope and fromWashington. The Third World has been going every day. They are allgone, and in their place has come that son of the city of God, thatall-conquering Leviathan, the new industrial state.And that’s how it happened that straight white males gotcontrol of our lives.59