In Search of the Lost Feminine: Decoding the Myths That Radically Reshaped Civilization [Paperback]

Craig S. Barnes (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 15, 2006

Here, for the first time, threads of truth explaining the mysterious disappearance of ancient cultures-in which women and the environment were at the center-have been woven together to illustrate this loss which has dramatically influenced 3,500 years of western history. The ancient world had not only treated women with respect but had been more resistant to war, more attentive to earth's cycles, more ecstatic. Then suddenly the whole culture vanished. The loss was ushered in by volcanoes and poets, gods of death and caricatures of maddening women, Scylla, Charybdis, Medea, and Calypso-all of whom were intended to discredit an old civilization and install a new order. That new order secured patriarchal property, installed male gods, and established a requirement that respectable women be either virgin or married.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"...a pastiche of scholarship, creative reinterpretation of Greek myths, and personal passion." -- Pasatiempo, November 10, 2006

"A good read...Complex stuff, but Barnes' book...is not a dense, academic tome." -- Sage Magazine, November 2006

"A rich work filled with excellent research and beautiful writing. Highly recommended!" -- USABookNews.com

"This book is filled with intense, heartfelt reaserch, and brings into focus the suppressed role of women throughout history..." -- MariJo Moore, author of Eating Fire, Tasting Blood

"recommended pick for any strong women's studies or women's history holding ... uses archaeological and social facts to follow ancient history..." -- The Midwest Book Review, September 1, 2006

"weaves together threads that explain the mysterious disappearance of ancient cultures in which women ... were the center.." -- USABookNews.com, October 3, 2006

About the Author

Craig Barnes began his career as a public interest lawyer dealing with women's rights and the environment. He was also active in politics and civil rights, running for Congress in Denver as a peace candidate in 1970.

Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Fulcrum Publishing (May 15, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1555914896
• ISBN-13: 978-1555914899
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 7.4 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,044,835 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Feminine From Early History to Today, September 25, 2006

By 

Donald G. Wismer "Don Wismer" (Corrales, NM USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: In Search of the Lost Feminine: Decoding the Myths That Radically Reshaped Civilization (Paperback)

I was astonded at the depth and breadth of this work. The scholarahip of ancient history covers material from many ancient cultures. This includes a fresh perspective on Biblical history and especially the place of the person Jesus. The sweep of history of the church and Western civilization from the past to the present enabled me to develop understandings about those times that I had not gotten anywhere else.

At first I had wondered how the claims that were made early in the book would be substantiated but with patience you brought in evidence from many cultures and writings that closed the circle for me and enabled me to accept the validtiy of those claims. Bringing it all down to present day made it quite relevant. The book emerged from the sordidness of the past with a strongly positive view of how far we have already come in undoing what the ancient patriarchal cultures created that have held sway in most western cultures until now. Obviously, we still have far to go.

Thanks so much for contributing to my enlightment. The main contribution was in enabling me to see how the feminist cause is a necessary effort at correcting the deeply rooted beliefs and social structures that have been in place in the western psyche and institutions for centuries. It is not just about equal pay, women in the board room or the oval office and freedom from domination in the home. Nor is it only in the service of women, but it is vital to the liberation of the the human spirit in all human kind, beginning with our children.

Beside all of that, your style of writing and "trial lawyer" method of writing made reading it a pleasure.

I deeply appreciated this work.

Don Wismer

Corrales, NM

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Liberation of Humanity Follows the Decoding of Myths, May 1, 2007

By 

Carol M. Norris (Santa Fe, NM) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: In Search of the Lost Feminine: Decoding the Myths That Radically Reshaped Civilization (Paperback)

Craig Barnes' book gives us our roots as women in Western Civilization, while at the same time liberates both women and men from these "stories" that have become our psychology and social fabric. Without this orientation, our understanding of women and men in today's world is incomplete. If I had only one book to give my own daughter, this would be my choice.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant and Timely, March 4, 2007

By 

Anne P. Kaspar "bodybybliss" (Santa Fe, NM) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: In Search of the Lost Feminine: Decoding the Myths That Radically Reshaped Civilization (Paperback)

Rarely, during more than 30 years of researching origins of the divine feminine, advocating women's' rights through private and public activism, including creating the gender discrimination class action, Cremins et. al. vs. Merrill Lynch in 1996, have I encountered such well-researched, documented and written scholarly tributes to "the lost feminine" - a history as real as the one we've been fed for the last 3500 or more years in the Western world.

With temperance and reverence, Craig Barnes leads us through the movement of western civilization from EROS to THANATOS - from the pulse to love and to live, to the pulse of death, of destruction. No better example of this insane THANATOS (which Freud recorded well throughout his work) pulse can be found than the world's use of Depleted Uranium (DU) since the first Gulf War. DU is a true weapon of mass destruction. It has unleashed levels of radiation upon the earth (the original divine feminine and great giver of life) that equal the dropping of 400,000 Hiroshima bombs!

With scholarly examination and a lawyer's attention to fact, to detail, to evidence, Barnes elucidates, for women and men, how manufactured our patriarchal history actually is; how women, since the written word of the Greeks and the Hebrews have been stripped of their inherent power and beauty; denied their crucial contribution to our cultures, our world; raped of their cyclical life-giving force; demonized and tortured for their innate flow to ecstasy, to healing, to life, death and rebirth.

Barnes shows how "word created" man has been defined only by his ability to war successfully, control manically, hoard stupendously, and lie horrifically. He details how the Greeks and Hebrews, our "greatest story-tellers," the creators of the written word for the Western world, were truly "telling stories." And these stories, borne of the thrust to cruel power and dominion, had very little foundation in reality.

Barnes articulates gently how we need to embrace the balance of the feminine and masculine. He beacons us back to a time of NO TIME. "In Search of the Lost Feminine" calls us back to our remembrance of ourselves as authentic, Divine beings, female and male.

I would strongly urge any human being searching for how to understand our times, how to create options for redemption as a species, to read over and over again "In Search of the Divine Feminine." -- Anne Kaspar