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15 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Mystery of Ourselves, May 21, 2006
This review is from: The Dream Culture of the Neanderthals: Guardians of the Ancient Wisdom (Paperback)
History has shown an inexhaustible capacity for conflict. Its hypnotic pendulum motion is often brilliantly described but rarely explained. Stan Gooch has spent a lifetime understanding the pre-historic dynamics that have impacted on our historic past. This exceptional scientist, psychologist, linguist, philosopher, writer, is one of the few people who has made sense out of the confusion of our inheritance.
The Dream Culture of the Neanderthals is a much appreciated reprint of Guardians of the Ancient Wisdom that first appeared in 1979. In it, Gooch further expounds on the enigmatic pre-history of the Neanderthal people and their cultural legacy that forms the submerged mass to Europe's, tip of the ice burg history.
Essentially, modern people are a dualistic hybrid of two pre-historic species; the older moon worshipping, matriarchal, black Neanderthal and newer sun worshipping, patriarchal, white Cro-Magnon. Gooch reveals Neanderthal's psychic understanding of the moons influence on the menstrual cycle of women, and its direct connection with fertility that resulted in an omnipresent reverence of the blood of life and death; holy blood. Yet we are wonderfully reminded that this is at least 50,000 years BP (before present). No doubt such elemental power doesn't come without sinister overtones of human sacrifice, cannibalism and the drinking of human blood (werewolves and vampires); yet on the positive side of the ledger there is an extraordinary range of intuitive creativity, paranormal phenomena and cosmic understanding.
Many of the iridescent myths and legends that have come down to us evoke a tropical paradise of wonder that finally becomes historic with the Egyptians, Minoans, Greeks and Celts. Here is a sample of what you should let yourself in for...`In the eastern Mediterranean, sacred trees became formalised as stone pillars! A Greek temple, then, is a stylised forest grove.' `It seems possible that magic mushrooms were available to the Druids, the contents of the mystical Celtic cauldron were also said to grant inspiration.' `Regarding the origin of mazes, it is thought they arise from increasingly complex movements of ritual dancers-probably of a `womb dance' that leads symbolically to the origin of life and out again.' `The witch burnings of the middle ages and earlier were `menstrual murders.' Such persecution is a punitive reaction to those aspects of the female that are most in evidence during menstruation.'
With the appearance of Cro-Magnon (the Indo-European!) in about 35,000 BP, Gooch argues that although there would have been systematic slaughter of Neanderthal by this warrior species, they were not exterminated but interbred, resulting in the unstable yet dynamic hybrid of modern people; hence the eclipse of the moon religion and it's thirteen month lunar calender by the dominant sun religion, and eventual repression of both by the combined energies of monotheism (Judaism, Christianity and Islam), adding to the multi-layered confusion of our inheritance. The resurrection of Christ is symbolic of the return of the Sun, raised up by the moon, to give life to the barren landscape of winter.
No review can do justice to the breadth of understanding that Gooch wears so lightly. Yet all of his philosophical, psychological rovings are put through the disciplined scrutiny of the scientist. Everything, in fact, is based on reality, whether mental or physical. There are no UFO's here!
Stan Gooch is a sorely missed writer who has advocated for balance between our internal and external dualistic power struggles that continue to unleash conflict within ourselves and upon the world, while so much creative potential is missed. He warns against the over rationalisation of society at the expense of intuitive creativity, and continued misunderstanding of our Neanderthal past that was psychically connected to the profound, elemental, mysterious yet regulative power of the earth and moon. It is hoped another of his publications will appear before too long as Gooch's insights give back memory to a formidable puzzle.
A Personal Review
Not long after I had read another of Gooch's dazzling books, Cities of Dreams, I was asked to give access to an electrician onto a Maori Marae at the University of Auckland (New Zealand) where I worked. Upon unlocking the front door to the meeting house, entering and switching on the light, I noticed at the base of the main pillar in the middle of the room a large, carefully carved black spider. It suddenly occurred to me that the heavily tattooed checks (both facial and buttocks) of the Maori were, to use Gooch's language, stylised representations of a spider's web. Those tattoos are often spirals that are not unlike the maze patterns Gooch has also discussed. Also, the prominent colours of most Maori meeting houses are red, white and black. The red paint on the Neanderthal looking wooden statue outside the meeting house by the main entrance is covered in an ochre tinted red. Fresh from reading Cities of Dreams, I started to explain to the electrician that the spider indicated a matriarchal society and that the tattoos were spider's webs. His eyes widened, but when I continued with red paint being symbolic of menstrual blood, or the blood of life and death, he decided it was time to change the subject and the conversation drifted onto sport. This seemingly incidental moment turned so much of Gooch's pronouncements into vivid reality.
To say that certain books change how we view the world is an over used cliche. Nevertheless, the multiple hypotheses that Gooch offers is constantly backed up by a reality on the ground and within. His books, unfortunately, are rare items but, like the ancient wisdom they speak of, are well worth tracking down.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Hybrid MultiRegionalism Theory, April 8, 2008
This review is from: The Dream Culture of the Neanderthals: Guardians of the Ancient Wisdom (Paperback)
Reading this book was like a validation for many ideas I've had about our prehistoric past. Finally I have found a scholar who sees what I see in the depths of prehistory! Woodwoses, ogres and trolls.... dwarves, sidhe and fay...all come from real encounters some 35,000 to 10,000 years ago. And Neanderthal was not completely exterminated from the face of the Earth, but did indeed breed with homo sapien. Only the most extreme neanderthals, the classic neanderthals of inner europe, actually became extinct.
Though the book is somewhat dated, a student of modern anthropology can easily gain great insight by allowing that Gooch's definition of "neanderthal" is much broader than what we currently define as such.
Gooch understands that we're hybrids, and bolsters the arguement for multiregionalism. If one were to change his Neanderthal 1 to Heidelberg and Sons, (Heidelberg, Idaltu, Neanderthal, Classic Neanderthal, etc) and his Neanderthal 2 to Erectus and Sons (the asian ones, not ergaster), and his Northern Indian cro-magnon ancestors to Antecessor and Sons, then we might have a more updated version of the theory. Personally, I'd like to add that all of the above could have very easilly been hybrids; not just us.
Hybrids of hybrids of hybrids. Because erectus was mating with antecessor was shagging ergaster was loving habilis, and they might even invited rudolphensis every third month on the full moon. We are a species that likes to do other species, and not even always just primates, so it shouldn't be so surprising to these scientists. It's going to happen, and every once and a while it's gonna work in a reproductive sense, because all these species of hominid are very close to one another. We just had too many chances for it not to work sometimes with one brand of hominid or the other.
What's more we're pack animals; nomadic, sometimes even herding. We've been migrating out of Africa along the coast to Sundaland and then getting flooded out and sent back to Africa for millions of years, and to Europe and back for almost as long do to the shifting glaciers. Europe and Sundaland were and are natural evolutionary machines.
Yes, somewhere there was a bottleneck, and some other as of yet unknown anomalies, that make it hard for us to figure out the genetic trail. But if our mother is only 180,000 years old, then she had at least a little bit of all of the above in her. When genetics discounts neanderthal man, it doesn't account for any crossover before 180,000. It doesn't consider that only one sex of a species may have survived. When comparing modern man's DNA to that of a 27,000 year old hominid, they don't consider that traces which are extinct today may not have been extinct 1000 years ago, or 10,000. Genocide happens repeatedly throughout history.
But this book is not so much anthropological as cultural and psychological. The author provides us with observations that only one of his varied disciplines could summon. For in addition to brilliant sociological, archeological, and anthropological insights, Gooch provides us with excellent insights into the ancient religion of the Neanderthals, as well as the origin of many of our more well-known fairy tales, myths and legends. Painstakingly researched and innovative in its understanding, this is an essential book for those who are curious about the true origins of our culture and species.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
I just want to say "Thank you"!, December 6, 2008
This review is from: The Dream Culture of the Neanderthals: Guardians of the Ancient Wisdom (Paperback)
During all my life I have tried to answer many questions related to religion, violence, sexuality, and human nature in general. This is the first time I find all the answers compiled in a single book that also explains the origin of what we are are as a species. I can't understand why isn't this author more acclaimed and famous. I will definitely look for and read the rest of his books. The Goddess bless you, Mr. Gooch!
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