This passage became one of my immediate favorites the first time I read the Kolbrin, and nowadays it seems more relevant than ever.“It is far easier to be a weakling than to be a Real Man. Were the Earth less harsh or the circumstances of life less austere, man would destroy himself before the shrine of the languid goddess. Only Real Men can with safety destroy the tangled forests and wilderness of Earth and make from them gardens, but will those who inherit the gardens be Real Men? The law decrees that they must be, or the wilderness will reclaim its own.â€
I didn’t understand that reference to the shrine of the languid goddess for a long time, now I do.
The languid goddess to me represents the type of unbalanced feminine polarity we see nowadays manifesting in society . After many years of prosperity and lack of real challenge from the environment people have grown hedonistic and complacent leading to a spoilt generation. What this means is that we’ve bred a generation that won’t be able to protect what the older generations created. Languid means lacking vitality, virility. I feel it describes our world nowadays perfectly. When I say our world I mean the western world because other societies who are more virile than ours do exist and may see a chance to take from us what we can’t defend anymore. I believe that part is what is implied in the metaphorical wilderness taking over.
The Kolbrin does give several examples of this happening in the book of gleanings, both when eloma returns to her people to find them overcome by foreigners who had a more warlike God than themselves and also when the children of God in the Maya and Lila story are overcome by the more warlike group of men banished for having illicit relations with Lila.
The tytler cycle also describes this dynamic very accurately
In greek mythology AERGIA was the female spirit (daimon) of idleness, laziness, indolence and sloth.
It's worth noting that the Kolbrin holds femininity as the most important and key aspect of a successful society. According to the Kolbrin the feminine aspects hold the entire fate of civilization. It seems that if the feminine energies are on the right frequency things go great but when they become distorted then everything goes to hell. Just to be clear feminine energies or polarities does not mean women but how femininity is perceived in general and what attributes does it embrace.Just as well, when masculinity is distorted to an undesirable polarity you end up with societies like the ones from the children of men in the Kolbrin that treat women like a chattel and are extremely warlike and destructive. It seems both these dark feminine /masculine stages and brought precisely as a consequence of one another in an endless cycle.
I like your descriptions of what can occur in times of distorted masculinity as well…
However, do you think the cycle just reverts from one unhealthy distortion to the other, or do you suppose there are also periods of healthy and vibrant BALANCE on both ends of the spectrum?
If a healthy balance is possible, or has occurred, what would it take to get there?
In other words, what are the cures or means to achieve a balanced femininity for our time? And what would be the cures in other ages or cultures for a distorted masculinity?
I think the balanced periods are precisely half way in between each swing towards the extreme. I don't think a healthy balance can be attained during one of the extreme points. I guess you could say there are positive aspects in the extreme periods but buried in between a lot of undesirable things
The cycle, as you theorize it, certainly must be more complicated than that, as surely there are times of where one side is healthy, the other is not, then vis versa, then imbalance for both, then balance for both… This would make the cycle, and the causes and procession of the cycle more complicated, no?
Also, the Kolbrin, as well as countless other ancient and modern ethical texts implore us to modify our attitudes and behaviors in such matters, precisely in order to balance and improve the society. If this cannot be accomplished because we are swept along, as on a tidal drift, this would imply that the Kolbrin and similar works are fundamentally incorrect, as these texts imply we have free will to change these things.
Do we live in a deterministic cycle that controls our ultimate state of being? And is the Kolbrin wrong to instruct us in changing what is wrong or imbalanced because of this deterministic state?
I do believe there's an inertia. This inertia is caused because during the times of exacerbated feminine energy feminine polarized people become oppressive of men and manly things and vice versa and thus whenever one energy takes over then all the people tuned to that energy become hostile to the other.Of course we can break from that inertia just like the hermetic principle of the pendulum teaches. The wise individual knows how to rise above each swing, but the majority are carried along by it.
I see… but wouldn’t you agree that there are periods of general health and balance for the entire society? The Kolbrin claims there has been… and it is unlikely that inertia, by itself, would lead an entire society to balance, no?
Well in middle periods perhaps
So… my question remains: if not by inertia, what are the causes and cures to return to these ‘middle periods’?
I believe we are ever on the edge of heaven and hell on earth, every time is a dangerous time, every age has its heroes and its villains and sometimes they are one and the same.
For instance in the Maya and Lila story they had a very strict matriarchal society. Things seemed great but the seed of discord was already sprouting. This strict moralistic society was destroyed by its own lack of warring capacity. The exiles could easily gather a war band and burn it down. So can we say that period of extreme polarity was really good? It had certain desirable qualities but it was fallible.There’s a patriarchal example in the story of the flood where the mountain men descend upon the city people and conquer them but end up becoming complacent and turning weak like the city people themselves. But this story doesn’t give many negative details about the actual society. In fact it’s described as wholly good in itself, the weakness is shown in the men themselves who fall for the temptations of the pleasures of the city folk
I’m not sure where you got that the culture of Maya and Lila were matriarchal…
“The people were not governed by princes or by statutes, but WISE MEN sat in council.†– The Book of Gleanings, Chapter One
There is also no reference to this culture being unable to defend itself in war, as they were surrounded by hordes of the ‘Children of Men’ and defended themselves from superior numbers.
I would agree that the seeds of inertia and destruction are present even in the most balanced societies, however. This culture, I believe, was one of them… and those seeds were allowed to grow…
So how would a culture such as the “Children of God†come about in the first place from the muck and the beasts?
We are spirit beings first. So were they.
Agreed Rex, and Earth is the arena for the tempering, testing, and strengthening of the Spirit.
They were brought before the high council, which was the council of elders, and the council of wise women, which questioned them, saying, "Wherefore have you done evil unto us?"Sounds to me like a matriarchal or at least quite matriarchal society.
Also I get the sense that the Maya and Lila society was sheltered due to geographical placement. Clearly they were overrun by their own people who knew how to sneak in at night and we’re easily defeated.
The feminine is the domain of the hearth and home, the domain of the family… of love and relationships… In a balanced society, a council of women would be ideal to consider and judge those who have broken the laws of hearth and home…
This does not imply that the entire society was matriarchal, merely that those judging transgressions related to the feminine be women…
It says the ancestors of the children of God crossed some sort of great void which made them closer to God
"So how would a culture such as the “Children of God†come about in the first place from the muck and the beasts?"Honestly, I believe in avatars as well as those who have out of body or near death experiences relaying the messages to their community to being how religions gets started.
Well clearly they had a Council of elders too but they appeared to work together and not necessarily regarding female matters as they speak about all types of moral issues. They were a morality policing Council.I’d say it was heavily inclined towards matriarchy. Ironically female oriented societies are very top down control oriented despite what it may initially appear. These folk however seemed to have a very good sense of morality, a more spiritually aware kind.
I believe the balance can only be preserved through extreme effort. People fail because in times of peace and prosperity they are prone to become undisciplined. This is told plenty of times in the Kolbrin.