Rayati

Sorellas Roselyn and Olivia,thanks for joining this forum, in spite of as you have stated, it seldom is active anymore. prior to a couple of days ago I myself had not posted here for at least 6 months.

Sorella Roselyn since you have introduced yourself I will give a little bit of introduction to myself. I am the owner and administrator of this forum. I myself had been a member what I will call the broader community from 2012 until about the middle of last year when for various reasons I felt that I no longer could claim a Deanic religious identity. I see no reason at this time to discuss why I decided to leave the community. I will say this in spite of leaving the community I still worship Dea most days regular in my prayers and meditations. I simply do not hold to much of what is current day De'anism believes. That is enough said now.

Please feel free (both of you) to express your opinions here. I can not state with absolute certainty that everyone here will always agree with them. But I can say that the rule here is that discussion is free and that you will be respected and not personally attacked for your beliefs. I am of course aware that within the Deanic Blogisphere such attacks almost never happen but through out the internet attacks and a lack of courtesy is often the rule. It is not the rule here.

Glenn King

A correction in my recent two posts I made reference to the Deanic blogisphere. I need to correct this what I meant in each case was to the De'anic Tumblrsphere. Sorry for any confusion caused.

Glenn

Sorella Roselyn, thanks for responding to my post. As far as my identification or lack there of to De'anism goes, based on your own brief description of Deanism goes I could identify with it. I do not have any beliefs which would radically compromise such an identification. What I do have are problems with visions of Deanism which were supported by the earliest Madrian Deanists and are still held by most which views the feminine to be ontologically superior to the masculine. I have real problems with concepts such the feminine is spirit while the masculine is mere matter. I have problems with the idea that women are meant to rule religiously which men rule only in the the inferior material sphere. That is the vision developed by the Janites in the middle of last year. I will say though that the Madrians had enough sense to make women the rulers of both the religious and social realms instead of allowing men to hold the much more decisive material and political realms.

I have a problem with hierarchical communities in which one gender either male or female are automatically assigned the right to hod a priesthood / priestesshood of absolute religious authority while the other gender is denied any level of equal rights. What I have always rejected in religions such a Roman Catholicism and other purely patriarchal religions I reject within purely matriarchal ones. OK I have already said enough for now. Clearly I have indicated at least some of the problems that I have with De'anism as I see it now. I have discussed these issues in much more detail within other posts within the blogs which I own and also within this forum.

As far as my current religious situation goes, I continue the religious practices which I have held for several years now. Not much has changed there. What has changed most recently is that I have been deepening my study of the old Sethian and Christian gnostics of the early centuries of Christianity. What I have always admired about the Gnostics was that many ( the Sethians mostly) certainly were willing to see the Godhead as being feminine just as much as it was masculine. And the more doctrinally Christian Valentinians while seeming to be a bit more patriarchal also seem to have had much of interest to say. I think that it is really interesting that the "Father" the supreme spiritual principle of the Valentinians represents qualities such as Depth, Silence, Grace, the ability to give birth to other spiritual beings (Eons) which many modern people would see as qualities more purely feminine than masculine . So any way I am simply in the process of learning these days and dealing with problems in my life as they come up. I am 67 years old have to focus more and more on issues of health. And at least one of my dearest friends has other health issues which I have to help her on as well. So right now I have to do a lot of treading in water just to stay afloat.

Glenn King

P. S. I have been thinking a lot about my relationship with De'anism since completing this message some weeks ago. I will perhaps discuss some of that in future posts here or in my blogs

Glenn

Thank you both for your posts! Glenn, I definitely sympathise with how you feel and since I made my original post here, I have since stopped identifying as 'Filianist', as I feel Filianism emphasises the idea of Feminine Essentialism the most in the Déanic community, at least nowadays. I love and respect Filianists but this is a point I do disagree on. And I know you said this idea was something popularised by the Janites last year or so, from my discussions with ArchMadria Candra Sophia She has changed her view on this. She has told me she does not see humanity as having 'all female souls' and that there is Divine Masculine and Divine Feminine in the world, which I agree with - however, as Déanists, we believe that Déa (Mother God) is the first cause and supreme entity. The Divine Masculine is a reflection of Her, as a son can be as much a reflection of his mother not just his father. The female-only Priestesshood is something just specific to the Janite tradition, just to give a female-only space where one is much needed, She is encouraging towards other traditions who do wish to open priesthood to men. I know this because, before joining the Janites, she initially asked me if perhaps starting my own tradition would be better for the community to open a path for all genders. I would do this, but I am still a brand new devotee and don't have nearly enough experience or knowledge to start my own tradition. Perhaps when I have grown more in the faith and feel more confident I will do just that. I do think it's very important for there to be traditions with women-only priesthoods but it doesn't mean there should ONLY be traditions with women-only priesthoods.

But I sympathise with putting your health concerns first and these are not clear-cut issues. I'm still trying to work out my feelings towards a lot of things in Déanism and its Madrian roots myself.

I do agree with David on feelings towards Gnosticism, despite being a Gnostic Christian myself for many years and still being a Sophian devotee. While they may have had more involvement of the Divine Feminine in their Godhead than Orthodox Christians, the feminine is still viewed as something negative or receptive. Sophia, the Mother, becomes a damsel needing to be rescued by the male Father and Son. Even probably the most 'feminist progressive' Gnostic school I came across, Ecclesia Pistis Sophia, had the Father at the 'top' of this hierarchy in the Godhead, beyond the Mother who acted as a mediator. And the 'Daughter' (or Bride, as she's demoted to) below the Son who She is dependent on. I can understand and respect people who wish to see God as beyond gender, or even those who perceive God as the Divine Masculine for whatever reason, but I think as Déanists we personally recognise the Female of the Divine Creator which is reflected in the vast majority of biological life on Earth. This is why we see God as Mother beyond all things.

I also agree with what David says about duality of the material world - we are seeing this more so now with the younger generation like myself going outside the duality of male/female. We have trans people who blur the line of what we think of as man or woman, we have Nonbinary people, and Intersex people who wish to stay Intersex as they were born rather than making a choice of whether to be man or woman. I don't think this is a phase either, I do think it is something which will evolve to the point the idea of just being 'two genders' will seem baffling to people of the future. But I could be wrong.

Sorella Roselyn, thanks for the response to my posts. Before going into any answers to your last message, I might as well say that over the last few weeks I have been reexamining my relationship with De'anism. And I have decided that in spite of my differences with many within the religion on several issues the fact is that I am still in broad outlook closer to the De'anic than I am to any other major tradition. Of course this perceived closeness is based on my own interpretation of the authoritative texts of the tradition. I would never have gotten into the tradition if I had been offered Feminine Essentualist or purely Madrian theology from the start. Thus I am certainly closer to the basic vision of Deanism than to than to the orthodox versions of the Abrahamic faiths with their male Godhead. And the Deanic scriptures relate closer to most of my concerns than do the Hindu Shakti scriptures and traditions which in fact I do deeply admire. Apparently there is now a Hindu woman who now is attempting to synthesize the Deanic traditions with the Shakti traditions. I look forward to looking at what she produces. The end point of all of this is that it is beginning to appear to me that it may no longer make much sense to me to continue to reject a Deanic identity.

Of course that being said, I have no intention to attempt to conform my own ideas of Deanism to that of the community in general. Furthermore and I am strongly influenced by certain other religious traditions such as the justice, liberation traditions found within the Abrahamic faiths. I am certainly closer to the egalitarian social vision of Christian liberation theology than to the radically hierarchical caste based visions of society expounded by Rene Guenon of the Traditionalist school, to that of the Madrians as articulated within The Coming Age, and to that of the Aristasians.

OK. Thanks for explaining to me where you are coming from in so many ways. In regards to the question of the issue of the divine masculine and feminine goes, the fact is that I have never had an understanding that has ever made complete sense to me on this issue. For years now I have simply seen God/ Dea as female ( I am not taking about material biological gender here) and I have worshiped her as such. On the other hand I believe that there is nothing intrinsically wrong for others Christians, Jews, Muslims, etc to worship God in a male persona if all of the patriarchal and exclusivistic stuff that the Abrahamic faiths add to this is rejected. Simply put I believe that is more important that one live a righteous, just, and loving life than that one gets the correct gender of God right.

As to regards to the Gnostics go, I agree with much of what David and you have said. Certainly the Gnostics did see the supreme reality as being masculine in nature. And it attempted even to interpret the next highest being Barbelo / Forethought as being "Thrice Male." And yet it is always clear that the tradition as represented in such book as the Revelation of John, one of its most important texts, clearly sees her primarily as a feminine being. Further more while the Father's himself takes direct role in human affairs, Barbela particularly in the form of her agent / earthly manifestation Epinoia / Zoe plays the primarily role in liberating humanity from the dark prisons of the Rulers. I see many similarities between the descents of Pronoia to rescue the oppressed in their dungeons and the descent of the daughter within Filianism. Please note I am not saying they are the same. All that I am saying is that there are parallelisms that are quite interesting and perhaps significant. Of course there are also obvious parallels between the Deanic mythos and that of Christianity which I also I believe are significant. I think that if one takes a Perennialist theological view that all traditional religions contain truths, then it makes sense to be interested in these parallelisms and not simply reject them as insignificant as some might do.

Well enough for now. Thanks a lot for giving me to opportunity to discus things with you Roselyn. It has been months I have had this type of conversation.

Glenn

Sorellaroselyn,

The ordination of women in the Church of England is a recent modification to a 2,000 year old religion. It's come at a time when our culture is dominated by materialistic philosophies like Marxism, and people just don't think about spiritual principals. People who were not members of the Church of England joined in the debate, because they didn't understand the principals at stake, and thought it was just a matter of women's rights to do men's jobs. These women were Christians because that's the accepted religion of our culture, all other religions being considered eccentric, and we grow up knowing about Christianity. They didn't have to find out what it is.

David.

I agree with just about all of Rebekah's points here. In particular I have several times heard the feminine Essentialist argument which Rebekah summarizes used by Deanists of a Jewish heritage to deny that Judaism is a patriarchal religion. They in fact attempt to show that within Judaism women have a higher more spiritual role than men within the religion. Now I have a high regard of much within all of the monotheistic Abrahamic faiths, but all of them in their traditional forms are patriarchal. Perhaps some grouping from within these religions such as those of liberal Protestantism and Reform and Conservative Judaism have attempted to escape their patriarchal roots by opening up their clergies to women and by rejecting those scriptures which have traditionally been used to place women within a subordinate status. These denomination should be praised for their efforts. But it seems that in general patriarchy still rules through out these religions as a whole.

Glenn