SAHARASIA: The 4000 BCE Origins of Child Abuse, Sex-Repression, Warfare and Social Violence, In the Deserts of the Old World [Paperback]

James DeMeo (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 2006

One of the largest and most ambitious scientific and systematic, cross-cultural evaluations of human behavior ever undertaken. Originally a doctoral dissertation undertaken by the author at the University of Kansas, now supplemented with new chapters, and with hundreds of maps and illustrations. "Saharasia" is scarsely known to the wider public, given the controversial conclusions which precipitated from its development. But its findings, made as early as 1980, have been validated repeatedly by subsequent scientific discovery, and by world events. The new edition contains all-new Appendix documentation: "Update on Saharasia" reviewing archaeological evidence suggestive of an ancient period of generally peaceful human social conditions, world-wide.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

Ancient humans were peaceful - modern violence is avoidable. That's the basic message contained in "Saharasia", a controversial "marriage of heresies" over 10 years in the making. It will change forever your way of looking at the world, your home culture, and current events. Saharasia constitutes a revolutionary new discovery on a geographic pattern to global human behavior as deeply embedded within the scientific literature of anthropology, history and archaeology. It covers issues and events which typically are ignored in the "politically correct" academic environment, even though it was produced within that same environment. Saharasia presents the first cross-cultural, anthropological, archaeological and historical survey of human family and social institutions, tracing human violence back in time to specific times and places of first-origin. Saharasia also presents an additional controversy, given the factual identity of the violence-prone Saharasian region to be the homeland of the Islamo-fascist terror brigades. Saharasia has at several times in human history been the region from which massive armies marched out to conquer those moister regions lying at its periphery: into Europe, China, India and sub-Saharan Africa. These would be the early Indo-Aryan, Kurgan and Battle-Axe warriors, the Scythians and Huns, the Mongols, Turks, and Arab-Muslims, all of whom formed gigantic empires encompassing desert Saharasia and parts of its moister borderlands. While the analysis contained in this book starts around 12,000 BC and ends at around 1900 AD, the suggestion is clear, that the modern problem of global terrorism also springs forth from basic Saharasian-warrior roots. If you really want to know why so much of the world is in such a miserable condition, and to fully understand the current "march to war" within Islamic nations, this book will provide answers.

About the Author

Ancient humans were peaceful - modern violence is avoidable. That's the basic message contained in "Saharasia", a controversial "marriage of heresies" over 10 years in the making. It will change forever your way of looking at the world, your home culture, and current events. Saharasia constitutes a revolutionary new discovery on a geographic pattern to global human behavior as deeply embedded within the scientific literature of anthropology, history and archaeology. It covers issues and events which typically are ignored in the "politically correct" academic environment, even though it was produced within that same environment. Saharasia presents the first cross-cultural, anthropological, archaeological and historical survey of human family and social institutions, tracing human violence back in time to specific times and places of first-origin. Saharasia also presents an additional controversy, given the factual identity of the violence-prone Saharasian region to be the homeland of the Islamo-fascist terror brigades. Saharasia has at several times in human history been the region from which massive armies marched out to conquer those moister regions lying at its periphery: into Europe, China, India and sub-Saharan Africa. These would be the early Indo-Aryan, Kurgan and Battle-Axe warriors, the Scythians and Huns, the Mongols, Turks, and Arab-Muslims, all of whom formed gigantic empires encompassing desert Saharasia and parts of its moister borderlands. While the analysis contained in this book starts around 12,000 BC and ends at around 1900 AD, the suggestion is clear, that the modern problem of global terrorism also springs forth from basic Saharasian-warrior roots. If you really want to know why so much of the world is in such a miserable condition, and to fully understand the current "march to war" within Islamic nations, this book will provide answers. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 454 pages
• Publisher: Natural Energy Works; 2nd edition (January 1, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0962185558
• ISBN-13: 978-0962185557
• Product Dimensions: 10.7 x 8.5 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #899,132 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

James DeMeo, Ph.D., is a research scientist and former university professor, now Director of the Orgone Biophysical Research Lab, which he founded in 1978. His work and research is interdisciplinary, from cross-cultural, historical studies on the effects of drought and deserts on the origins of warfare and social violence, into laboratory experiments on cosmic cycles and life-energy subjects, and extensive confirming research on Wilhelm Reich's sex-economic and orgone biophysical findings. He has published over 100 journal articles and book-chapters on the issues of energy resources, health, cultural history, environmental problems, and experimental orgone biophysics. His websites are http://www.saharasia.org and http://www.orgonelab.org, and he blogs at http://obrlnews.wordpress.com.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

33 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A TRUE MASTERPIECE OF SCHOLARSHIP!, May 13, 2005

By 

J Irvin "author of The Holy Mushroom" (California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: SAHARASIA: The 4000 BCE Origins of Child Abuse, Sex-Repression, Warfare and Social Violence, In the Deserts of the Old World (Paperback)

Saharasia is one of the most profound works I've ever come across. Contrary to what some other reviewers have said, I could NOT put this book down. It is definitely a 5 star work!

Dr. James DeMeo details hard evidence of the origins of social violence, rape, genital mutilation, warfare, and the suppression of women, children, etc. With a detailed outline of the origins of this area of research, DeMeo proves Wilhelm Reich's sex-economic theory with dozens of maps, images, engaging history, and detailed, iron clad evidence. He shows us exactly how and why our society got the way it is, and how we can change it by ending sexual suppression--by giving our children the love and attention they need--and defeating indoctrinated beliefs.

Have no doubt that this book is HUGE, but don't let its size stray you away from this most fascinating read. A good portion of its size is due to the fact that he has so many maps and images. It took me about 12 days to read it from cover to cover. I normally read a book a week. However, I do recommend that those who wish a gentler introduction to this work, to read Reich's Invasion of Compulsory Sex-Morality, as a pre-requisite to this book.

DeMeo finds no need to sugarcoat truth and facts into deluded, bitesize tidbits. Those who think he pounds the information in too hard, disregard the fact that this book is all about getting to the truth.

Those who have doubted Reich's theories may doubt no more!

This book is probably one of the most important works of the last century, and DeMeo has certainly earned the title. May this book live through history and open minds as an accepted "Great Work"!

I'm adding DeMeo to my favorite authors list!

27 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Foundations of patrism, October 4, 2000

By 

Mrs. S. A. Oliveira "Kitchen Goddess" (West Palm Beach, FL) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: SAHARASIA: The 4000 BCE Origins of Child Abuse, Sex-Repression, Warfare and Social Violence, In the Deserts of the Old World (Paperback)

First, this book is not out of print! A copy should be lodged in every public and school library to inform readers that the world was not always the way we think it is. There was a different time and a different culture before 6,000 years ago. Dr. DeMeo has done a remarkable job of mapping the Sahara/Asia regions and spread of patrism and warfare even to the New World. His sources are impeccable and well worth reading for additional research. Yes, there was sporadic warfare, piracy, etc. prior to 6,000 years ago, but nothing like the organized armored gangs of thugs that wiped out towns, villages, cities and entire civilizations leaving destruction and desolation in their wake. Even the leading military experts cannot find much evidence for organized warfare prior to 3500 BCE, fortressing, etc. De Meo's and Reich's detractors are skating on thin ice if they are going to propose that violence is innate in Homo sapiens, thereby justifying that humankind is predisposed to violence and warfare. Read this book, it's fascinating, educational, and very disturbing. What is to be done to stop generational patrism? DeMeo has some suggestions.

44 of 51 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Superior But Unreadable, July 16, 2002

By 

C. E Sutter "Fujisawa" (Fujisawa-shi, Kanagawa-ken Japan) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: SAHARASIA: The 4000 BCE Origins of Child Abuse, Sex-Repression, Warfare and Social Violence, In the Deserts of the Old World (Paperback)

This is the best book I know of for providing a panoramic picture, how the world has come to be so volatile and dangerous, by holistically gathering creditable information from psycholgical sources as well as the usual archeological, historical, and scientific viewpoints. The overall picture, when we get to see it, is absolutely stunning and convincing.

Unfortunately, this is very difficult information to communicate. Not because it is intellectually difficult, but because the information is saturated with emotional landmines. It is important directly because it is so effective at 'pushing anyone's buttons'; the truth is locked away behind a universal hypersensitivity to this material. A straight-ahead strategy of treating this material objectively cannot work-- I've tried-- because our subjective emotional experience always gets in the way.

And that, of course, is one of the themes of the book.

DeMeo goes from the micro to the macro, dictated by the breath of this concept. We have to understand that the human being has a very sophisticated reason for our emotions and emotional functions: by taking in continuous information of the outside world and releasing it emotionally, we are able to remain minutely responsive to all inputs and make wise, integrated and creative decisions throughout our lives. This mechanism of emotional release was coined the term 'discharge' by Wilhelm Reich, who studied it extensively in the 1920s and 30s, building on the work of his mentor, Sigmund Freud. It refers to crying, laughing, sighing, shivering, yawning, and other feeling-expressions. The calm, hopeful, potent peace we feel after a long cry is an example of discharge at work.

But as Reich discovered, and as DeMeo exhaustively maps, our society has very thoroughly built mechanisms for suppressing the emotional discharge of its members into the very fabric of our culture, following cultural and historic trends which have existed for at least 5000 years. So the subject is how we all have been acculturated by very common mainstream childraising practices to undermine our own abilities to think clearly and rationally, and to be happy; how -and why- society has imbedded into itself this all-encompassing inhibition of our emotions.

Reich knew that we are all very confused about our emotions; in a society where completely natural emotional expression is essentially taboo, we all are forced to hide our emotional selves inside armor that we have all built to protect ourselves. DeMeo's purpose is to restore a holistic society in which our emotional armoring is not necessary. But its a nearly impossible order; our armor is primed to become defensive at the very mention of our emotionally inhibiting practices.

That said, the strategy DeMeo uses is totally wrong; rather than gently walking us through an exposition of how the emotional baby we've been burying in the closet really holds our most profound truths, he rubs our noses in a long and grisly academic proof that the more sexually violent and misogynistic a society is, the more dysfunctional. He does this by painstakingly charting twenty sexually abusive practices as they've spread culturally in migration routes across the globe over a span of five or six thousand years. No one I've talked to who has read this book has gotten all the way through it; its brutal!

I think the core of this material is emotional, not academic, and requires a personal, not factual approach. By the time DeMeo has completed his brilliant proof, no one is alive to appreciate it, not even his supporters. Which is a shame, because this might be the most important set of ideas at large in the world at this time.

Its a book still waiting to be written.