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It tells us that there was a time when woman and man lived in harmony with one another and with nature. It helps us understand the shift from a partnership way of structuring human relations to a what I call a dominator model. That is a myth that offers some fascinating clues to what archeology, linguistics, art history, and the study of folklore increasingly regard as the key event shaping culture as we know it. London: So, in that sense, the story of Adam and Eve represents a myth, for example.Įisler: Yes, very definitely. I use the term myth in both senses as a story we have been taught about the ultimate truth, and as a story that came out of the social construction of human relations. Because so many myths have been shown to be "illusions," we tend to equate myth with falsehood. As you know, a myth, at least in the scholarly sense, is a story that represents some ultimate sacred truth, one that people often take for granted. London: One of the things you've set out to do in your work is to dispel some pervasive myths about sex and spirituality.Įisler: Yes. So, that is how the title Sacred Pleasure came to be. That is something that many, many people today are trying to move toward. The sacred was originally associated with the celebration of life, with nature, and, yes, with pleasure. People associate spirituality with the fear of God, or with divine retribution, or with Hindu deities chopping each other to bits often it's associated with either the inflicting or the suffering of pain. London: The title of your book Sacred Pleasure brings together two words that many people would be hard-pressed to use in the same sentence "sacred" and "pleasure."Įisler: Yes, we have been taught to associate the sacred with fear, not pleasure. So many people today are saying, "Wait a minute, I want to put them back together I want sexuality and the sacred back in my daily life right now." It's the same kind of experience that you might have while meditating or fasting that moment of incredible illumination that you cannot put into words.īut there is an intellectual way in which I also linked sex and spirituality by studying the history of sexuality and spirituality and asking, "How did we get here?" "How did we come to this place of so much confusion?" As a culture, we are now trying to reconnect this link. So I think that many of us who have left behind this notion that sex is bad and dirty, and that our bodies are somehow sinful, are able to have what we might call an altered state of consciousness experience with sex an ecstatic experience. We know from studying evolution, and we know from studying neuropeptides now (which is such a fascinating area of study), that we get chemical rewards not only by being loved but also by loving someone, not only by being touched in a pleasurable way but by touching another, be it a lover or a child, in a way that gives pleasure. Riane Eisler: I actually began to see the connection the way many people begin to see it experientially. Scott London: What inspired you to take up the relationship between sex and spirituality?
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But it began with the subject of her then newly-published book Sacred Pleasure. Our conversation ranged widely, touching on subjects like Paleolithic art, pornography, Charles Darwin, Christianity, modern business practices, and much else. I spent an afternoon with her exploring her views on women, men, and the politics of sexuality. She's also the author of The Partnership Way and Tomorrow's Children. She's the author of The Chalice and the Blade, an international bestseller translated into more than 20 languages, and widely recognized for her work in anthropology, human rights, peace, feminist, and environmental studies. Riane Eisler has been at the center of the effort to create a more "gender-holistic" society. The old formulas no longer seem adequate to address our mounting global problems. What's interesting is that much of the anthropological probing in this area is being done at a time when we're beginning to recognize the need for new models and new ways of organizing human affairs in politics, economics, education and, not least, personal relationships. There was a time in early human history, culminating some 5,000 years ago, when the feminine principles of inclusion, partnership, and harmony between the sexes were the norm in human affairs. But there is growing evidence today that it wasn't always that way. Our history books are replete with tales of battles, conquests, and the struggle for dominion. Looking back over the history of western civilization, it appears that our culture has long been dominated by stereotypically "masculine" values like competition, violence and domination.