From chapter 2 of Pure Lust, pp. 102–13, 116.
From chapter 2 of Pure Lust, pp. 102–13, 116.
Arch-Image: Mary: vestige of the Goddess symbol that has been preserved in christianity as a hook for the Heathen masses; tamed Goddess symbol which, although it is intended to conceal the Background Memory of the Archimage, functions at times to evoke Archaic Active Potency in women
Archimage 1: the Original Witch within 2: Power/Powers of Be-ing within all women and all Biophilic creatures 3: Active Potency of Hags 4: Metaphor pointing toward Metabeing, in which all Elemental Life participates.
—Wickedary, p. 63
Mary Daly, by virtue of both her own name and her intellectual training in catholic institutions, retained an interest in Mariology, reinterpreting catholic dogma as an elaborate rape, burial, and plasticization of the Goddess. In this excerpt, she develops the categories of Arch-Image and Archimage—one of her less successful neologisms—to contrast the rage of authentically living women (Archimage) with the “impotent priests’ hatred of Female Power” and “their attempt at ontological castration” of the Virgin Mary.
This section also includes an analysis of tokenism and exceptionalism, as exemplified in the Virgin Mary. Tokenism gives an “illusion of progress” that breaks solidarity among women, “taming the radical impulse with false hope.” The token comes to believe in her own exceptional status, and therefore accepts her sponsorship by the patriarchy. Daly offers an important counterbalance to the process of tokenism in endnote 9 of this excerpt, where she asserts the ontological existence of a Self, regardless of the oppressive attempts to erase it.
Few passages better capture the ecstasy of the intellectual life as Daly lived it than this one:
Such study requires Stamina, staying power, which is also Straying Power—ability to Stray off the tracks of traditions that betray women and nature. Straying is sparked by E-motion, that is, passion that moves women to thinking and acting The Way Out. E-motion is ecstatic, delirious. Delirium is derived from the Latin de (from, off) plus lira (track). Deliberate delirium keeps us off the tracks of trained responses, traditional expectations. Since the word learn is also derived from lira, it is clear that Lusty women’s delirium should be a matter of Studied Unlearning. The word studied is important here, for one must know the tracks well in order to break out of them, without sliding back into them. To be truly truant requires study/training and untiring untraining. The process is unnarrowing, harrowing. Ultimately, its motivating E-motion is Wonderlust/Wanderlust. Its scope is vast, visionary, planetary. The wonderings/wanderings of Straying women are wayward, earthward, skyward. Witches long and learn to fly.
—Editors
It is Crone-logically significant that although belief in the “Immaculate Conception” of Mary was part of popular piety for centuries, it was not made an official dogma of catholic faith until 1854. For this coincides with the period when the so-called “first wave” of feminism was beginning to crest. The year 1848 marked the first Women’s Rights convention in America, in Seneca Falls, New York. From 1848 on, American feminists increasingly voiced their grievances. Susan B. Anthony, Matilda Joslyn Gage, Angelina and Sarah Grimké, Elizabeth Oakes Smith, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Sojourner Truth, and Emma Willard—to name a few—were beginning to find their voices.
Moreover, the killer instinct of the patriarchal males responded immediately. The impotent priests of the medical profession aimed their weapons directly at the female genital area, creating the gynocidal field of gynecology.1
The rise of feminism and the anti-feminist backlash were occurring more or less simultaneously in Europe.2 Throughout Europe, ministers and journalists as well as politicians denounced female independence. In England, distinguished male writers in the late 1840s were protesting against the exercise of intellect in women—for example, Benjamin Disraeli in Sybil (1845) and William Thackeray in Pendennis (1848–50). It is within this context that Crone-ologists should analyze the proclamation in 1854 of the dogma of the “Immaculate Conception” by pope Pius IX, in the Bull Ineffabilis Deus. This bull signaled an advanced stage of chicanery, beautifully parodied in the title of Suzanne Arms’ book on childbirth, Immaculate Deception.3
This dogma is a baffling phenomenon. It presents for belief a concept which is quite inconceivable, as we shall presently see. According to the dogma, Mary was conceived in her mother’s womb without “original sin.” Of course, it might seem that there is really nothing remarkable about such a conception, especially if one does not accept the concept of “original sin.”4 Thus the very fact that such a conception would be proclaimed, and proclaimed as unique, is already mind-boggling. This, however, is only the beginning of the boggle.
The doctrine of the “Virgin Birth” of Jesus—a doctrine that should not be confused with the “Immaculate Conception”—is also subversive of ancient myths of the parthenogenetic goddess.5 Since parthenogenesis would produce only female offspring, the story of the “Virgin Birth” of a male savior should be eminently suspect. Or, to put it another way, the birth of Jesus was indeed a miracle, as Martha Yates has pointed out.6 However, in comparison with the immaculate conception, the virgin-birth-of-Jesus story is but a pale perversion. The greater deception, the deeper mythic undermining of the Originally Parthenogenetic Goddess required the erasure of her own Self, prior to her role as mother-of-god.
Such mythic erasure of Mary’s Self was attempted through the immaculate conception doctrine. According to this inconceivable doctrine, Mary was “preserved” from original sin by the grace of her son immediately at the moment of her conception—not only in advance of his birth, but also in advance of her own. Nor was she merely “purified” as an embryo in the womb of her mother.7 Indeed, according to this astonishing doctrine, Mary never had a moment of life, even of embryonic life, without being “full” of the “grace” merited by her son through his death on the cross. Thus she was purified of autonomous be-ing before ever experiencing even an instant of this.
The doctrine certainly can be read as an expression of the impotent priests’ hatred of Female Power. Indeed it represents their attempt at ontological castration of the Arch-Image, and, through her, of the Archimage.8 Mary is so “full of grace” that she is de-natured, destined to become the mother of a god-son who bestows upon her his pseudo-nature, this “grace.” In this pornographic mythic mirror-world, the son totals his virgin-mother-victim. The immaculate conception is the ultimate depiction of (pre-natal) woman-battering, a mythic model of incestuous assault. It is the primal rape of the Arch-Image. Within the mad ill-logic of dogmatic constructs, it is logically prior to the rape of the Virgin that takes place at “The Annunciation,” when the adolescent Mary is told by the angel Gabriel that she is to be the mother-of-god and gives her fictitious assent. To put it in other words, as a consequence of her initial rape (“grace”) Mary has been totaled, made totally unable to resist divine aggression/lust/rape. At “The Annunciation,” then, the already raped Mary “consents” to further rape.
In the world of christian symbols, then, the immaculate conception exhibits a kind of ultimacy in undermining women—going far beyond the rape, killing, and dismemberment of the full-grown parthenogenetically conceived Goddess. Its target is her parthenogenetic (woman-identified) origin, and thus it undermines her original Power of Self-Naming, and Creation.9 Since the Original Source, the Archimage, cannot be defiled, she has been symbolically simulated and this simulation has been defiled and therefore called “Immaculate.” Such rape of Female Archaic Power is appropriately named the “Immaculate Conception” since it is a purely phallic (mis)conception, a purification/purge of conceptions/memories of Elemental female be-ing. As Anne Dellenbaugh has remarked, this resonates with women’s common experience of rape—one effect of which is the blockage of thoughts, the breaking/interruption of the thinking process.10 Rape “purifies” women’s conceptions, making these conform to phallic norms. Thus the doctrine is a mythic model for the thought/memory-stopping dimensions of rape.
Through its subliminal messages, then, the doctrine of the “Immaculate Conception” sets forth the image of Mary as model rape victim. From the moment of her conception she is ineffably undermined by this sublime spiritual rape. Later, by her inevitable acceptance of Gabriel’s message, she seeks salvation by the rapist. In “real life,” it is also often the case that once raped, a woman finds it difficult to forget the horrible event; she is continually trying to undo it. Conditioned to believe that she is to blame for the rape, she seeks to undo it by seeking male approval, for she no longer trusts the power of her own judgment. Believing that, through her own fault, a male has succeeded in degrading/defiling her, she concludes that only a male can save her. Thus rape implies the need of a male savior. This is one reason for the hold of christian myth upon women’s raped psyches. The myth itself, of course, reinforces the self-blame of victimized women.
The immaculate conception thus illustrates and legitimates the ineffable circularity of rapism. Already violated at her conception, Mary affirms at the annunciation her need of male acceptance. Her initial violation made the later one—when “she conceived of the Holy Ghost” in order to become the mother-of-god—unavoidable. Pure rapism is inconceivably circular.11
Mary’s victimization is astonishing. She was totaled across time. Anne Dellenbaugh has remarked that as “Virgin” she is a reminder to women of their destiny to be raped, for in the patriarchal system, a virgin is a future rape victim.12 Since she is “forever virgin” (despite her maternity), she is forever future rape victim. The message is even exacerbated by the extremity of her tantalizing purity.13 Moreover, as archetypal “Mother,” she is past rape victim. Encompassing all time, her rape is the perpetual entombment of her life-time.
By their subliming of this monstrous mythic disguise for the Archimage, the impotent priests produced an archetype who could not have had a Divine Daughter because she had been purified of her Self, and indeed never had been herSelf. Such a being would be inconceivable to herself. Totally de-natured of her Powers as parthenogenetic Goddess, she was set up as model for patriarchal women. And indeed patriarchally possessed women cannot have Daughters, although they may have female offspring. Patriarchal women cannot create, for they have been made unable to conceive of themselves—of their Selves. Thus an Elemental Female tradition within patriarchal structures is inconceivable.
Faced with this mythic and lived out boggle/baffle, Musing women can choose to exorcize the patriarchal myth through Naming and Living our own lives—which is to breathe forth the Archimage within. Only women who choose to participate in the Archimage can conceive of our Selves, creating our Selves and our tradition.14 As more Websters find the Original Witch within, we obliterate the raped replacement and make ancestral Memories more available. It is by Self-identified creating that women can crack the archetypal mirrors, finding Archai/Beginnings, becoming Verbs, unleashing our Powers.
We have seen that the doctrine of the immaculate conception appeared much later in christian myth and theology than did the virgin birth. Many centuries of preparation were required for acceptance of this belief.
To put the matter bluntly, symbolically speaking the Goddess had to be totally done in, in order to be an appropriate mother-of-god. The fact that the church could not get around to this tidying up of the Goddess-murder program until recently would seem to have been a matter of political strategy. For, as we have seen, the power of the Arch-Image had been needed in order to convert the “pagans,” even at the risk that this power might get out of hand. Moreover, it is Crone-logically significant that the proclamation of this dogma followed the European Witchcraze, for the mass murder of women and its deep psychic impact paved the way for the deceptively degrading dogma.
The promulgation of the dogma was equivalent to an advanced refining/subliming of the Arch-Image—a further battering of Female Power into archetypal shape—purifying the intuition of Elemental female be-ing to such a degree that this became inconceivable, inaccessible, while pretending that under christianity women are “on a pedestal,” and, of course, Sublime.15
Shrewds who reflect upon this phenomenon will be able to see some interesting clues concerning the strategies of tokenism. Since the tokenizing of strong women is a primary feature of anti-feminist politics at this time, it is useful to consider in what ways the dogma may throw light upon the dilemmas posed by such politics. Bearing in mind that myths often function as self-fulfilling prophecies, we might well ponder the message of this mythic development. I suggest that the “news” is not cheering, but that the worst mistake would be refusal to know it.
We have seen that on the symbolic level the immaculate conception fosters a delusion of advancement of women’s position while it undermines the possibility of conceiving any image of autonomous female transcendence. In this respect it resembles tokenism. Indeed, the case can be made that the proclamation of this dogma in 1854 ushered in the Age of Female Tokenism and subliminally contained prophetic messages concerning the ways in which the tactics of tokenism would be developed.
Since women have been incorporated (in limited numbers) into the professions in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the phenomenon of tokenism warrants close attention.16 Hags might ask our Selves forthright questions, for example: Will there be a second Witchcraze? If so, what form will it take? There is, of course, a perpetual Witchcraze in patriarchy, and I have discussed some of its forms elsewhere. For example, gynecology and psychotherapy are gynocidal weapons of the patriarchs. My precise concern here, however, is to find the most deceptive and Modern Mode of gynocide, succeeding the European Witchcraze (which terminated in the mid-eighteenth century), in Western industrialized society. My method is to look at the recent Marian dogmas [ . . . ] as mythic paradigms disclosing and foretelling social reality.
There are clues in the fact that the Witchcraze in Western Europe was fostered and fueled by the rising professional power block. Not only priests and ministers, but members of the legal and medical professions had an active role and vested interest in the killing of the Witches. Looking at the professions today, we can see a continuation of this vested interest and overt violence against women, for example, by the medical profession. The phenomenon that I intend to focus on here, however, is the false inclusion of women within the professions as a means of destroying female integrity and powers. There are several points to be considered.
First, looking at the immaculate conception and at the tokenizing of women—in the professions and, by extension, in various men’s/boys’ clubs, such as male-led political groups—we find that both promote an illusion of progress. Both Mary and tokens are “raised up.” What is obliterated from memory is the knowledge of who put them down in the first place. The fact of the sexual caste system is disguised, or at least the impression is created that if it ever existed, it has now been overcome—or is well on the way to being overcome. Of course, nothing could be further from the truth. The immaculately conceived/deceived woman is being prepared for the ultimate Self-destruction—the selling out of her Self and of her sisters. As Judith Long Laws points out, she is appointed to the role of hatchetman to her sisters.17 Like Mary, she has been prepared to assent to the spiritual rape that will reproduce the myth of male divinity.
This delusion of progress inhibits radicalism. Some insight concerning the strategy operative in this production of delusion can be gleaned from Ralf Dahrendorf’s critique of Marxian theory. He makes the following point:
A class composed of individuals whose social position is not an inherited and inescapable fate, but merely one of a plurality of social roles, is not likely to be as powerful a historical force as the closed class Marx had in mind. Where mobility . . . is a regular occurrence, and therefore a legitimate expectation of many people, conflict groups are not likely to have either the permanence or the dead seriousness of caste-like classes composed of hopelessly alienated men [sic].18
The point is that the appearance of social mobility, or progress, squelches the instinct to revolt and create radical change. Tokenism provides this appearance/illusion for women (and all oppressed groups), taming the radical impulse with false hope.
A second point of comparison between the dogma and the strategy of tokenizing women is the employment of the delusion of exceptionalism. The immaculate conception worked a symbolic transformation, rendering Mary an exception, free of “original sin.” As Laws shows, “the self-attribute of exceptionalism . . . is central to the psychology of the Token.”19 If we ask: “Exception to what?” the answer is clear. The token woman believes herself to be an exception to the alleged incompetency and array of weaknesses ascribed to women in general, that is, to the “original sin” of being a woman. If the tokenized woman in this situation is a woman of color, or Jewish, or lesbian, or elderly, or of working class background, or belongs to any other stigmatized group, her self-attribution of exceptionalism is, of course, multiplied.
Third, Mary is exceptional because she is full of grace, that is, full of male-identification, bestowed by her son, who is her “Savior.” Likewise, the token is in a role partnership with a male sponsor/savior who legitimates her male-identification. However, as Judith Long Laws points out:
Once the Token is confirmed in her role, her interaction with the larger group is facilitated and need not be mediated by the Sponsor.20
Like a brain surgeon after performing a lobotomy, the sponsor knows when his work is done. The token has lost a great deal of her capacity to cause trouble. She has been groomed to deny her autonomous Self.
Fourth, the immaculately conceived Mary is immaculately deceived—emptied of autonomous intellect and will. She can have no memory of woman-identified consciousness. Her mind is, as it were, a clean slate. Similarly, the token “is more unaware of her stigma [of being a woman] than any member of the dominant class.”21
What does all of this tell us about the strategies of the contemporary Witch-killers? Following through on the mythic paradigm employed here, I suggest that the strategy of tokenizing women is ultimate purification from society, or, more precisely, from women’s consciousness, of woman-identified Elemental/Original thinking and passion. The perfect token is the perfect traitor, betraying her Self and womankind. She gives her assent to rapism. The spectacle of her betrayal feeds the patriarchally embedded hatred of women in women.
I suggest that the mythic paradigm of the immaculate conception carries the war against female Elemental be-ing beyond earlier stages. This is not simply physical massacre of women. It is killing of consciousness and integrity in women. In this Second Coming of the Witchcraze, the chief character of the story is missing. There is no Witch to be crazed/razed. Moreover, this mythic model goes far beyond the symbol of the twice-born Athena, who was born, male-identified, from the head of Zeus. For a born-again might have some memory of her previous life. After all, Athena’s mother, with Athena in her womb, was swallowed by father Zeus. Athena is tokenized and she betrays women, but the myth itself reminds us of her original parthenogenetic mother, Metis, the Goddess of Wisdom. In contrast to this, the immaculately conceived Mary has no memory of a Divine Mother. She is not a Daughter. In the age of the second Witchcraze, Memory of Gynocentric Origins is obliterated. Tokens, having memorized male words and uncritically copied male texts, become complicit in the destruction of Memory. The token, detached from her Self, filled with gratitude to her sponsors, destroys the Source, which would have been her only recourse. Moreover, she knows not what she does. The Pure Token is an Immaculate Conception, freed from all knowledge of the stain of Original Female Nature, freed from consciousness of stigma.
To put it starkly and simply, the Second Coming of the Witchcraze will employ different methods. This time, women are trained and legitimated to do it to each other. Women have been coached by the impotent priests to destroy each other.
A particularly lethal instrument of this training is man-made and male-controlled pseudofeminism. One of the most deadly effects of pseudofeminism is the manufacture and spread of disillusion among women, who have been tricked into believing that the “illusion” is feminism itself. Thus the illusion-makers create the illusion that feminism is an illusion. Since this causes deceived and discouraged women to turn to the phallic sponsors for support in their crisis of feminist faith, the further spread of tokenism is achieved.
In the process of embedding this confusion, the master tricksters rely upon the unexorcised mechanisms of horizontal violence.22 Their success is measured by the degree to which they are able to erase women’s Archaic Elemental Memory. Since men cannot by themselves completely erase Memory from women, they must channel women into effecting the erasure ourselves, of our Selves. The most effective means employed by males to induce women to perform this dirtywork has been and continues to be the manufacture of illusions which trigger the mechanisms of Self-hate and horizontal violence among women. Thus programmed and activated in the direction of Self-destruction, women actively will not to re-member deep Memory, for woman-identified knowledge has been made to seem repugnant. Fixed by the pushers of pseudofeminism, women are “purified” of even the desire to re-member. Filled with the “grace” of false knowledge of “feminism,” women turn to their saviors/sponsors, cooing, “Let it be done to me according to your will.” Thanks to the purifying effects of phallic lust, this immaculate conception is achieved. Bored by the stimulations of female be-ing, women retreat further into the amnesic state of totaled tokens. Complicit in their own brainwashing, women thus totaled become intellectual scrub-women, fanatically cleansing the minds of others. The fanaticism reaches fantastic proportions, especially when a woman is consumed with the Need not to know her Self. Immaculately conceived, women often have a zeal that can only rarely be ascribed to males—for this is Elemental vigor turned against its Source.
The only hope for Overcoming this Second Coming of the Witchcraze is to risk be-ing the Crazed Witch, re-calling Rays of Elemental Memory. This involves facing the blinding light of the mythic paradigm of female assimilation/tokenism—seeing through the conception of deception, Undeceiving ourselves, Believing our Selves. [ . . . ]
[. . . This] requires Stamina, staying power, which is also Straying Power—ability to Stray off the tracks of traditions that betray women and nature. Straying is sparked by E-motion, that is, passion that moves women to thinking and acting The Way Out. E-motion is ecstatic, delirious. Delirium is derived from the Latin de (from, off) plus lira (track). Deliberate delirium keeps us off the tracks of trained responses, traditional expectations. Since the word learn is also derived from lira, it is clear that Lusty women’s delirium should be a matter of Studied Unlearning. The word studied is important here, for one must know the tracks well in order to break out of them, without sliding back into them. To be truly truant requires study/training and untiring untraining. The process is unnarrowing, harrowing. Ultimately, its motivating E-motion is Wonderlust/Wanderlust. Its scope is vast, visionary, planetary. The wonderings/wanderings of Straying women are wayward, earthward, skyward. Witches long and learn to fly.