Judaism provides a model for humanity. The genius and generosity of Jehovah is the inspiration for the two other Abrahamic faiths, Christianity and Islam. We are all the descendants of Abraham. It is therefore always surprising that we are constantly at war with each other. I wish to make it completely clear that humanity owes a great debt of gratitude to the Jewish people. There are flaws in all humanity which the Bible writers recognised. It is for us to examine the evidence and try to understand these flaws in human behaviour.
Sigmund Freud considered the Oedipus complex as the universal and necessary foundation of cultures. From the story of Oedipus, who murdered his father and married his mother, Freud developed the theory of ‘father murder’: the primal horde of brothers who were angry with the repressive father, rose up and killed him. Freud believed that this was done in ancient pre-history and was the foundation of all cultures.
George Frankl disproved this theory. With all respect to Freud as the father of psychoanalysis, Frankl saw that humanity could not have survived the terrible conditions of the ice age without loving co-operation between the hunters: the sons depended on the fathers to teach and guide them, and the fathers were permissive, rather than repressive towards their sons. Frankl also demonstrates that the hunters carried with them out onto the ice, the mental image of the warmth and love of the females in the caves. With this reassuring image of love, and by loving co-operation, the hunters were successful and humanity survived.
Frankl thus demonstrates that humanity evolved through love. He also proved that all human infants are born loving, providing evidence that all babies love their mothers and proving that human nature is fundamentally good. In his clinical practice with individuals, Freud showed that his patients could be cured of neuroses by investigating and understanding hidden traumatic events from early childhood. He understood that to cure humanity of its collective neuroses, it would be necessary to examine and understand the traumas of human evolution.
Frankl agreed with Freud in this, and continued the work which Freud began.
In his philosophical and psychoanalytical investigations, Frankl formulated the principle of reason with love: reason must be guided by love, and love must be supported by reason. With this principle in mind, Frankl made huge advances in understanding the human condition.
It is significant, however, that neither of these great men made investigations into the role of women in early human evolution, although both had a great deal of evidence in clinical practice of the importance of the mother in the individual’s early life. They knew that the embryo recapitulates the stages of human evolution during the nine months in the womb, and that infants are dependent on the mother. They knew of the existence of matriarchal culture before the emergence of our current patriarchy. But despite this neither man investigated the role of the female principle in early human evolution. But shortly before he died, Frankl did see that he had made an important oversight. In his last book The Three Faces of Monotheism, he writes, “We may trace this belief of women’s fundamental sin, which makes them hide not only their sexual desire but also their personality, to a trauma in primeval time, their cultural infancy.” Sadly he died before he could investigate into this traumatic event. In The Three Faces of Monotheism Frankl analyses the three Abrahamic faiths. He wrote the two parts on Judaism and Christianity in the 1980s, and added the chapters on Islam only after the events of 9/11 made it clear to him that he must do so. He was very reluctant to enter into the task of explaining the nature of Islam and realised that he “was not in sympathy with its extreme and all too often violent hostility towards cultures and nations which do not agree with its fundamental beliefs.”
However, it was during his researches into Islam that he saw and properly examined the Biblical account of Sarah and Hagar, who were the wives of Abraham. It is a story of two women and their sons, and of the difficulty that men have understanding the conflicts between women.
The story of Abraham, Sarah and Hagar appears in Genesis, the first book of the Bible. It is a most intelligent account of the rivalries between mothers and daughters. Genesis was written over three thousand years ago. The people who wrote it down must have had a strong oral tradition and had kept the story alive for countless generations.
There are two accounts in the Bible. In the first the husband and wife are called Abram and Sarai, but by the second account of their story with Hagar, their names are changed to Abraham and Sarah. To avoid confusion, I’ll call them that throughout. Abraham and his wife Sarah have left their homeland and gone in search of a new home. They have many adventures on their journey. They are wealthy people, but Sarah has no children and is now too old to bear a child.
She says to Abraham, “I pray thee, go in unto my maid; it may be that I may obtain children by her.” And Sarah gives Hagar, her maid, to Abraham as his second wife.
Abraham does go in unto Hagar and she conceives. But she looks at Sarah with contempt: “... and when she saw that she had conceived, her mistress was despised in her eyes.”
Sarah is infuriated by this contemptuous look. She complains to Abraham, “My wrong be upon thee: I have given my maid unto thy bosom; and when she saw that she had conceived, I was despised in her eyes: the Lord judge between me and thee.” Abraham refuses to have anything to do with the quarrel between the two women. He replies to Sarah, “Behold, thy maid is in thy hand; do to her as it pleaseth thee.”
And Sarah deals harshly with Hagar who runs away to the wilderness, where she plans revenge against Sarah. Hagar is weeping in the wilderness by a fountain where the angel of the Lord finds her and speaks to her. Hagar complains to the angel who comforts her, “... Behold, thou art with child and shalt bear a son, and shalt call his name Ishmael ... And he will be a wild man, and every man’s hand against him ...”
God makes his covenant with Abraham, and the sign of the covenant is circumcision of the foreskin. Abraham and Ishmael are circumcised on the same day. Ishmael is therefore included in the covenant with God.
God also tells Abraham that Sarah will have a child. Abraham laughs because Sarah is so old, and he says to God, “O that Ishmael might live before thee!” But God repeats that Sarah will have a child.
When she hears this, Sarah also laughs because she is post-menopausal “... it had ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women.” She laughs, but God says, “Is anything too hard for the Lord?”
Sarah bears her son, Isaac. Abraham makes a great feast when Isaac is weaned and Sarah sees Ishmael mocking. She says to Abraham, “Cast out this bondwoman and her son: for the son of this bondwoman shall not be heir with my son, even with Isaac.”
This is very grievous to Abraham. But God says to Abraham, “Let it not be grievous in thy sight because of the lad, and because of thy bondwoman; in all that Sarah hath said unto thee, hearken unto her voice; for in Isaac shall thy seed be called. And also of the son of the bondwoman will I make a nation, because he is thy seed.” So Abraham does what Sarah tells him. Early in the morning Abraham gives Hagar bread and a bottle of water, and sends her away with Ishmael. Hagar and Ishmael go into the wilderness and God does rescue them.
We see right at the start of Judaism, when God makes His covenant with His people, there is conflict between the two women. Both Sarah and Hagar are the mothers of great nations, and Abraham is the father of both nations, but the conflict is not resolved. The writers of the Bible put the story of Abraham and his wives in Genesis: it is an archetypal account of events early in human cultural history.
The story of Abraham, Sarah and Hagar has clear echoes in myths, legends and fairy tales. We find similar characters in literature from Homer to the Brothers Grimm. And possibly it’s worth remembering that the Iliad of Homer was a religious text. In the Iliad, Hera is the senior goddess, wife to Zeus, the senior god. Zeus has many love affairs with younger goddesses and mortals, and Hera is extremely envious of these other women and their children.
Although fairy tales are not religious works, they are part of our cultural heritage, our collective memory. The fairy tale characters are very similar to Abraham and his wives: the beautiful young princess; the wicked step-mother; the king who is kindly but lets himself be led by his angry wife against his good judgement.
A striking common element in the various tellings of this story is that all the accounts are of conflict between younger and older women: essentially between mothers and daughters.
The most striking difference between the myths and the story of Sarah and Hagar is that God reverses the effects of menopause. Although she is so old, Sarah does have a child. She has been absolved.
And here it seems we come to the heart of the matter. In all the other tellings of this story, the myths and legends, the ‘wicked stepmother’ is condemned to an envious old age. Only Sarah is rescued from this fate. And only in her story are we led firmly to the menopause.
There is a widely held view that menopause results from a decision made by our early female ancestors to limit the number of children any individual would have to bear. This is a comforting theory. We gain the impression of a decision freely made to give women a break, a rest from the difficulties of child bearing and rearing.
The theory may in part be true, but it is contradicted by the awful experiences of many women during menopause. They report physical effects: night sweats, hot flushes and insomnia are common, and psychological disturbances which are more terrible. There is anxiety, anger, fear, even terror. There is often a terrible sense of shame. Many women say that they feel they are being punished. Some report that they feel they are bearing a great burden or weight of emotional responsibility – even those who do not have husband, children or elderly parents to care for. And many women feel a great sense of loss, and regret that they won’t be able to have a child after menopause. They feel cheated. And they certainly don’t feel that they have any choice. They feel it is being done to them. They don’t like it. And they don’t understand it. Not all women feel these effects but a great many do. The drug, HRT, can relieve these symptoms, but the cause has not been analysed.
The terrors experienced by so many women point to an underlying trauma which affected humanity, particularly the women, in pre-historical times. If it is true that our early female ancestors freely chose menopause, then it is clear that something else happened to make them regret that decision.
We may say that menopause is an example of phylogeny: modern women whose experience of menopause is difficult, are re-living an ancestral trauma which happened in very ancient times, and which changed the course of our evolution in a dramatic and profound way.
We do not know what that traumatic event was, but speculate it may have been a catastrophic natural disaster which had global consequences: for instance a massive volcanic eruption. We do not know when it happened, but it may have been 100,000 years ago or much earlier.
Motherhood
Menopause is not the only evidence of trauma specific to women which occurred in our cultural pre-history. The difficulties commonly experienced by women in child birth are evidence of a very serious trauma in our evolution.
To understand our pre-history it is necessary to look at the processes of traumatic experiences, particularly in traumatised children. We may say that our early ancestors were more childlike than we are now, and also note that even in adults now there is a regressive effect of trauma, that is, that the traumatised individual regresses to an earlier stage of his or her emotional development.
We must remember the loving nature of children when we examine the effects of traumatic events in a child’s early life, and bear in mind that George Frankl proved that all children are born loving and that human nature is essentially good. Psychologists have observed that one of the worst effects of traumatic experience is that the victim blames himself or herself for what has happened to them. A child who is beaten, neglected or otherwise abused believes itself to be responsible for the pain and distress it suffers.
The child perceives that the abuser is unhappy. The child believes that he or she has caused the abuser to be unhappy. This makes the child feel ashamed and guilty.
However the child knows that it has done nothing to cause the abuse. The child feels angry to be unjustly punished. Regression to an earlier stage of emotional development, fear, anger and shame, and a strong sense of injustice are constants in psychological trauma.
This mix of powerful emotional responses creates a conflict which the child is incapable of understanding or resolving. He or she will try to forget, to repress the memory of the painful experiences, but the memory constantly tries to come back into consciousness. A traumatised individual repeats the trauma or the circumstances of the traumatic event, for instance, an abused child often becomes an abusive parent. This is an example of a process which Frankl describes as ‘the breakthrough of the repressed’.
The developing brain of a child, whether an abused child or not, repeats the development of evolution. A very young child believes that mummy knows what is in his mind. From very early on young children have vivid internal ‘conversations’. The child will make pacts and deals with mummy, believing that she knows what has been agreed. Mummy, however, may not know that she has agreed to allow little Sophie to watch that dvd, or that she has agreed to give little Johnny a sweetie if he is good. The ‘agreement’ has been made in the child’s head, and the child is upset when mummy reneges on the deal. We note that in times of great stress and trauma, even adults now in modern times make pacts with God.
As in the life of an individual, we find the same processes in the life, the evolution of our species.
Why is giving birth so often so terrible? Why is it seen as natural that women should suffer so much in labour? The Bible religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam all more or less condemn women, and at different times in our history women are often more or less oppressed. Why? What did Eve do wrong? According to the Bible, Eve disobeyed God and is punished for this disobedience. But there is a mismatch between the ‘sin’ and the punishment. The punishment does not fit the ‘crime’.
God allows Adam and Eve to eat of any tree in the Garden of Eden, except the fruit of the tree of life and of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. The story goes that the serpent tempted Eve and she ate of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. When Adam tells God that it was Eve who gave him the apple, Adam is telling the simple truth – he would not lie to God. We may see from this that Eve has a well developed moral sense: she has eaten the apple, that is she knows the difference between good and bad, right and wrong, and she has taught this to Adam. Both Adam and Eve are punished by banishment from Eden. Unlike other animals, they are both condemned to their human consciousness of being alive.
However, God punishes Eve very severely. He says to the serpent, “And I will put enmity between thee and the woman ...” We know that the serpent represents the libido. George Frankl defines the libido as an innate need for love. From the Bible story we understand that God has put a barrier between the woman and her own sexuality and libidinous drives, and this is indeed a terrible punishment.
God then says to Eve, “I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception ...” Clearly the Bible writers were noting what they observed to be the case: women do experience these great difficulties – “I will greatly multiply thy sorrow ...” ; and can have a baby every year – “... and [I will greatly multiply] thy conception...”. God then goes on to tell Eve that she will be monogamous and ruled by her husband: “... and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.”
Why does God punish Eve so severely for her humanity?
Freud and Frankl both saw the need to examine the pre-history of humanity. In Archaeology of the Mind Frankl gives us a wonderful analysis of our male ancestors in the caves. He describes the hunters and demonstrates that humanity evolved through love.
However, Frankl makes no comparable analysis of our female ancestors and we must now try to do so. We will follow his principle of reason with love and see where our investigation takes us. It is a fascinating study and, as Frankl knew, we must speculate.
It is probable that our early female ancestors in the forests gave birth once every three or four years. At that time, in our pre-human pre-history, our ancestors would have been mature adults at the age of three or four years. The mother would thus be able to concentrate on one child until it was ready to have children of its own. As we can observe the way apes now tend their offspring, so we can see how our ancestors would have cared for theirs, with a natural love and attention, the infant being a great source of pleasure to the mother. Only when the first child was ready to move on, would the mother turn to her mate for a new baby.
As in the forests, so in the plains. The planet began slowly to cool, the forests shrank and our ape ancestors left the shelter of the trees. In the long adventure of their evolution on the plains, in the new world opening up to them, the apes slowly developed into hominids, pre-human beings. There will have been new dangers to face, resulting perhaps in an increase of infant deaths, and it is likely that the bereaved mother would turn to her mate to replace the lost child. However, there is no evidence that at this stage the females were more fertile than in earlier times.
It is only when we come to the caves that our female ancestors became increasingly libidinised sexually. The male hunters were separated from the females in the caves and both felt the extreme anxiety of separation. While the hunters were away, the females had duties and functions to perform in and around the cave. As meat eaters, their faeces had become poisonous. Faecal matter would have to be buried outside to keep the cave sweet and to keep predators away from the scent. The females would collect fuel for the fire: dung from the herbivores, peat and other suitable materials which would be taken back to the cave and dried. They might snare small prey and search out other food to supplement their diet. And, of course, they had the children to tend, to teach, to play with and to love. The females would face the dangers and pleasures of living together, co-operating in their activities, relying on each other for survival.
When the males returned, the females would welcome their mates openly with love, the pain of separation dissolved in mutual reassurance and gratification. But it is likely that the females retained the autonomy of their bodies and that, although more often sexually active, they were still able to choose when they wanted to get pregnant. This was found to be true of the Trobriand Islanders in the 1930s.
The cave society was a matriarchy. As consciousness developed, our ancestors worshipped the goddess, the female principle. The mothers ruled. The infants naturally loved their mothers, as babies and infants still do, the males hunted with the image of the warmth and love of the females in the caves. Whatever the hardships, our ancestors survived the terrible conditions, in the all embracing love of the mothers.
In the mind’s eye, we may see the happy confidence of our female ancestors at that time. They were the darlings of that stage of our evolution. The males had shouldered the burden of hunting and finding food, dependent on the love of the females in the cave. The mothers were the givers of life, the representatives of the goddess and were, naturally, worshipped.
What went wrong?
Frankl has shown that the female principle became angry. In explanation of this, he has put forward the theory that the males developed new weapons and spent longer out on the hunt. This deprived the females, who became angry, and the more angry the females became, the more time the males spent out hunting. This may well be true, or part of the picture of what did happen. However, we must examine other possible explanations for the breakdown of the secure matriarchal society.
During the matriarchy of the caves our female ancestors were in charge of their society. The female principle was worshipped and the mothers ruled. All that was good or bad came from the female principle, and our ancestors came to see her as the goddess. The natural love between the people was proof of the loving nature of the goddess. A successful hunt was thanks to the goddess and proof that she loved the people and was pleased with them.
Any event would be seen as coming from the goddess. An unsuccessful hunt would be seen as a sign that the goddess was angry. The people believed they must have offended her to cause a poor hunt or a great storm.
In all this, good or bad, the mothers, the matriarchs were the highest authority within society and were seen as being responsible. The matriarchs received the natural gratitude for their love and protection, but also received the blame when things outside their control went wrong. After a bad hunt or thunderstorm, the people would pray to the goddess. Their prayers would be answered, the storm would pass over, the next hunt would be successful. The people would see that the goddess had forgiven them and the matriarchs would be seen to have restored her good will towards them.
But how would these ancestors respond in a time of great catastrophe when it was seen that the goddess had not forgiven them, indeed seemed to have abandoned them?
Almost two hundred years ago, the volcano Tambora erupted in Indonesia. 90,000 people died. There was famine in Europe as a result of that eruption, and it was known as the year without summer as the dust cloud blotted out the sun. Crops failed. People and animals starved.
The natural disasters, ‘weather events’, which have occurred throughout the evolution of the planet, were traumas which affected the psychological development of humanity as well as the physical environment. An asteroid or meteor strike or a massive volcanic eruption such as Tambora at the time of the matriarchy in our pre-history would have a devastating effect on our ancestors.
Desperate to survive, the people would pray to the goddess, plead and make bargains with her. The matriarchs were seen as, and saw themselves as, responsible. The starving children died and it was understood that the goddess punished the mothers with the death of their children. And still the goddess was angry, there was no light, no fuel, no food. The mothers had nothing to sacrifice except themselves. Although they could not understand why she was so angry, the matriarchs perceived that the goddess was furious.
In exactly the same way that even adults now make hidden sacrifices to God, it is psychologically likely that the matriarchs, with nothing left to sacrifice, sacrificed their own pleasure in life, their sexual, libidinous pleasure to appease the goddess. And in the end, in their perception, she listened. But it is important to recognise the spirit in which that sacrifice was made. They made the sacrifice voluntarily but not willingly. They sacrificed their capacity for conscious pleasure under the duress of the traumatic event.
From this analysis we see that it is not God who punished Eve for her humanity. It is our female ancestors, desperate to save humanity, who sacrificed themselves to what they perceived as the angry goddess.
The males and females suffered the disaster together. But it was the matriarchs who were in charge of their society. As the males had taken on themselves the burden of going out into the ice to hunt and kill, so it was the females who had the burden of overall responsibility for their society. The mothers were in charge, they were the representatives of the goddess. The mothers made the ‘pact’ with the goddess. They sacrificed themselves and bore the terrible burden of the effects of that sacrifice.
Having made their pact with the goddess, the females then had to honour the terms of the agreement. They had promised the goddess that they would deny themselves pleasure and were terrified that if they broke their promise the goddess would be angry again and this time might destroy them. For the females, pleasure became ‘sinful’, pleasure itself became a taboo, a no-go area. And the matriarchs who made this promise, the mothers had to pass this terrible lesson on to their daughters.
But as is usual in the confusion of traumatic events, the reaction of our female ancestors was based on a simple mistake. There was no goddess. The catastrophe, whatever it was, occurred naturally and our ancestors certainly did not have the power to cause volcanic eruption, earthquake, meteor strike or any natural event. Whatever it was, it happened to them and no one, none of our ancestors was to blame.
Whatever that natural catastrophe was, it occurred in some specific place. If it was a volcano it erupted somewhere, and the people of that area will have suffered more than in more distant parts of the world, the females taking the ‘blame’ as they did everywhere else. All the people closest to the epicentre, and especially the females, were more traumatised than elsewhere. When we look around the modern world at different cultures, we see clearly that there are parts of the world where women suffer greatly, are oppressed, punished because they are women, and still carry a burden of responsibility, are still ‘blamed’. We may speculate that the people in these modern societies are the descendants of those who lived closest to the eruption.
We must also consider the possibility that the men of these cultures are not merely repressive, they are also protective. By keeping a strict control of their womenfolk, the men are trying to ensure that such a terrible catastrophe will never happen again. However, we must remember that the ancient females did not, could not, cause such an event: natural catastrophes happen. By continuing to blame women, these societies are creating conditions where war and other manmade catastrophes are more likely to continue.
The Moral Man
In his revolutionary book, The Foundations of Morality, George Frankl proves that humanity evolved as a moral species. I cannot possibly summarise this great work, and urge you to read it. But until very late in his life, Frankl missed the evidence of the female trauma, and along with the other great thinkers of western philosophy, Isaiah, Plato, Kant, Spinoza, Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Einstein and Freud, he overlooked the importance of the female principle.
One of the greatest revolutions of human history was the introduction of the one male God. We cannot prove or disprove the existence of God, and for our purposes here we use the idea of the one God as a means to help us understand ourselves.
As a three year old child, I was introduced to the concept of Jehovah. It may have been a radio programme, or a conversation between my father and his friends. Kindly male voices explained God, and as such a young child, it seemed that they were speaking directly to me. They said that He was Omnipotent, all powerful, Omniscient, all knowing, and Omnipresent, everywhere. He has no face or form, so we cannot see Him, but we see Him everywhere in all His creation. He made everything in His own image, and He made the world and everything in it out of His infinite love. He wanted us to be like Him, loving as He is. He has no name, but we may call Him God. All this made perfect sense to me. It was a revelation and a liberation which opened my mind. At that age, everything I looked at sparkled with life, and now I understood that this was God creating the world. I felt that I was His little helper, helping Him in His work, simply by looking and seeing! I mention my own experience to show what the feelings of our ancestors may have been when they experienced what they consciously identified as God.
Where the goddess ruled with love, and increasingly with fear, the introduction of the male God brought reason. When the rule of love broke down as a result of the female trauma, the male God provided laws for His people by which they could live. His laws were moral and just. In the moral chaos following the female trauma, such laws as an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth showed the people that there must be a limit to vengeance: if a man knocks your eye out, you must not kill him, but he must compensate you to the value of your lost eye. God loves humanity and says “Vengeance is mine”, and thus takes the burden of vengeance off humanity. His laws provide moral guidance on how to behave without using the traumatised and ancient law of vengeance.
God is inclusive, and has the attributes of the female principle, the all-embracing love of the mother, as well as the male principle.
Most importantly for the traumatised human psyche, the one God provided a focus of attention: by focussing our minds on Him, we had the means to see and begin to understand the true nature of life. God is good and all humanity may be united in His love.
God, with His rule of loving reason, came from the minds of men as an attempt to overcome the chaos of the female trauma. The traumatised female principle could never fully accept the male God. Men do not understand women, and that all women have to some extent inherited the consequences of the ancient specifically female trauma. We remember that God first tells Abraham to let Sarah deal alone with her rivalry with Hagar, and later God tells Abraham to do as Sarah tells him. Abraham never asks, perhaps never dares to ask what the quarrel is actually about. God is in Abraham’s mind, and Abraham does not recognise the trauma: God does not recognise that half His people are suffering an ancient trauma.
Women may love God, may recognise His great goodness, may want to follow His guiding principles but rarely succeed because God does not fully recognise women. Although in the minds of men, God created everything, including man and woman, in His own image, and although, in the minds of men, God therefore represents the good of all humanity, God overlooks the specifically female difficulties. We may say that although God created women, He does not understand women. Or, if we do not want to be blasphemous, we may say that God is waiting for us to tell Him what is wrong: He is waiting for women to use the human capacity for reason.
Located in the forehead of a human being are the prefrontal lobes, the higher cortical function of the brain. Antonio Damasio calls the prefrontal lobes the moral centre of the brain. In his book, The Feeling of What Happens, he gives detailed reports of many cases where patients have suffered major damage to the front of the brain through tumours or accidents which rendered them incapable of social relationships, concern for others or any sense of responsibility; they cannot learn from mistakes and appear utterly unaware that their behaviour is antisocial and irrational. The physical connections to the prefrontal lobes, the moral centre of the brain, have been broken.
Neurologists have recently shown that the brains of abused children show signs of brain damage. We begin to understand that the physical connections to the prefrontal lobes of abused children have not been formed, or not properly formed. When we do not love our children, when we reject their love, by neglect or other abuse, we are making a race of brain damaged, antisocial, criminal or even psychotic adults. However, Frankl has proved that this is reversible. In individuals who have not suffered major damage to the front of the brain through tumours or accidents, we can restore, re-establish, make those physical connections to the forebrain, the moral centre of the brain.
In individuals who do not have those connections to the forebrain because they have suffered abuse as children, it is necessary to recognise the trauma of abuse, to uncover that trauma, to examine and so overcome the effects of the trauma. By doing this, the moral connections to the forebrain can be established. When the individual has received the understanding and care that he or she needs, it becomes natural for him or her to have empathy for other people.
The Biblical story of Abraham, Sarah and Hagar is extremely well written. The psychology of these three people is well drawn in the internal conversations that they have – for when they talk to God or the angel of the Lord, they are talking to themselves, using their own capacity for reason. Abraham is a moral man. Throughout his travels from his homeland he consults frequently with God. And when he talks to God – that is, when he thinks - the decisions that Abraham takes are conscious and consciously moral.
Sarah is good humoured and generous, she gives Hagar to Abraham as his second wife. (We in the 21st century will question the morality of anyone owning another person and we are tempted to say that Sarah is wrong to give her maidservant to her husband. However, we must not judge the ancients entirely by our own moral standards. At that time it was accepted practice for wealthy people to own their servants – and later the Hebrews set legal limits on the length of time that a man or woman could be owned. By giving Hagar to Abraham as his second wife, Sarah behaved generously, and it would be an honour for Hagar to become Abraham’s wife.)
Sarah trusts Abraham’s moral judgement. But when she asks him for help in her quarrel with Hagar, he refuses to intervene. He does not think, he does not talk to God about it. He says, “Behold, thy maid is in thy hand; do to her as it pleaseth thee.”
Later, when Sarah tells Abraham to banish Hagar and Ishmael, Abraham does talk to God. He does not want to banish his second wife and his first son. He is troubled and thinks. He asks God - his own higher cortical function - but God doesn’t know the answer, Abraham doesn’t understand the problem. The best Abraham can do is obey Sarah.
Both these people are moral and loving. But both are driven by the hidden terrors of the ancient female trauma. Sarah is a good and honest woman, but her behaviour is driven by the terror of that trauma. She does not receive the understanding and care that she needs to overcome the hidden effects of the trauma that still haunts us.
Abraham has inherited the effects of the female trauma at second hand. We must understand that this trauma is not part of his male phylogenic inheritance. We begin to see that the two halves of humanity are split apart, and that Abraham cannot understand Sarah’s dilemma, because it is not directly in him to understand. However, as men develop in reason, they will surely begin to see.
The physiological effects of trauma include damage to the brain. It is also true that traumas create taboos: that is to say that the victims of psychological trauma develop defence mechanisms to protect themselves from the memory of the painful event. Within the brain, therefore, it is likely that the neurological pathways around the physical areas of memory are blocked or damaged. The greater the trauma, the greater will be the damage caused to the brain.
It is true to say that the traumatised individual makes the decisions to bury the memory of the trauma, and may therefore philosophically be held responsible for making those decisions. But the decision to forget is a defence mechanism and is made under the duress of the trauma. It would be quite wrong to blame a traumatised child for trying to forget the pain of the event. It would equally be wrong to blame women because they cannot understand their own lives. However, adults must begin to learn to consciously take full moral responsibility for their own actions.
We understand that most, if not all, women have inherited the effects of the female trauma. It is known that the brains of men and women are different, and that these differences have been present for 100,000 years. It seems likely that the brains of many women have inherited neurological blocks and inhibitions, both from the memory and to the forebrain which are not so evident in men.
Men have escaped the full impact of the female trauma, but it may be that they too have specific neurological blocks and inhibitions which relate to the experience of that trauma. This might explain the fact that many men find it so difficult to listen to women.
Empathy
We all miss the natural empathy which should exist between all human beings. We are all aware of this lack of empathy, of fellow-feeling. We are animals, and before we developed spoken language, our ancestors communicated as other animals do, that is, by empathy. They were connected to each other by instinctive, empathetic understanding. With the development of human consciousness and the guilt and shame caused by the succession of traumatic events, our ancestors learnt to hide their feelings from each other. Language was developed as an attempt to replace empathy. Though we now use words to try and explain ourselves, the empathy has not gone away. The empathy has gone underground but we are all still connected.
We create and then slavishly follow the fashions we have created, and those individuals who resist the prevailing fashion suffer exclusion. It is said that human beings are social animals. Often it seems that we are herd animals, moving together, apparently without individual will. But animals herd for the common good, whereas human behaviour is conditioned by the effects of unacknowledged traumas of our evolution. Sometimes the fashions are good, as for instance the revolutions of the one God, and in Athens, the Renaissance, the Age of Enlightenment, when men of loving reason led the way to liberation. But when we try to break free, the hidden effects of those traumas pull us back. The hidden effects of those traumas undermine all liberation movements, and make a mockery of individual free will. Men obey women. It is very unfashionable to say that.
We see the obvious oppression of women by men in some cultures, but wives often complain that their husbands never do what they are told. Wives expect their husbands to obey them, and most men learn, sooner or later, that they must obey their wives, and if in their culture men do not obey their wives, they obey their mothers. All children, boys and girls, must obey their mothers. Girls grow into women, and must learn to give the orders. But undermined by the effects of the female catastrophe, historically women had to learn to be manipulative, to tease, cajole, to sulk, to weep, to use ‘feminine wiles’, to be ‘the power behind the throne’, hugely influential, but using their powers covertly. The women’s liberation movement hoped to free all women from all this baggage. Many feminists used anger to try to get what they wanted, but more intelligent women noted that anger is counterproductive. In the changing fashions post feminism, many women have reverted to the old manipulative ways. It is very difficult to break free from the effects of the female catastrophe.
I knew George Frankl for over thirty years, and worked closely with him. His aim was to free the life affirming forces of humanity and so defeat the life denying and destructive forces, which become apparent in war, for instance. Up until the mid 1980s he often talked about the need to break free of the undermining power of the angry mothers, which he recognised was life denying. He was very sympathetic to women. He saw and empathised with the historical sufferings of women. But in his clinical practice he observed that many of his patients had suffered at the hands of their mothers, and he urged his patients to break away from the undermining, life denying power of the angry mothers.
He sympathised with the aims of the women’ s liberation movement, but he deplored the methods of feminism. He saw that the anger of the feminists would alienate their menfolk, and would undermine the aims of sexual liberation by turning men away from women. Apart from anything else, a woman’s anger will make her husband impotent.
Naturally he based his view of women on his own experience with his mother. She was a beautiful, intelligent woman, and a socialist. She enjoyed intellectual discussions with her husband and his friends, and also enjoyed gossiping with her women friends. She was a liberated woman of the 1920s and 30s. She enjoyed the privileges of a good middle class life, and was eager that others should have the same advantages. Above all, she loved her husband and sons. Without demeaning herself, and without considering that she would be demeaned, she loved and respected her menfolk. This was Frankl’s model of motherhood and he believed that this is how mothers inherently are: he believed that fundamentally all mothers are good and loving like his own mother.
I believe he was right. Despite the evidence that shows us over and over again how destructive mothers can be, I believe that all mothers fundamentally are good and loving. I believe that the overwhelming love mothers are presumed to feel for their babies is there, but that it is often buried under the weight of the female trauma.
As a good man, Frankl naturally assumed that everyone was good as he was. He recognised the flaws of patriarchy and assumed that if women were victims, they were victimised by men, by the patriarchal system. He saw that there is something wrong with men, and set out to discover what is wrong. His father, Hugo, when he was arrested by the Nazis, left a message for his son, “Tell George that he must explain how such terrible things can happen.”
It was a monumental task. Frankl knew he had to look for the answer in the psychological evolution of humanity and he began in his psychoanalytic practice with individual patients. Like Freud before him, he knew he had to apply his psychoanalytic method to society, and by the 1980s he was ready to begin writing The Social History of the Unconscious. There was an impediment, however: he did not understand women.
He knew he did not fully understand women, but he did not consider it was important. He saw men as the major players, the decision makers, the law givers and the warmongers. He saw women in a supportive role. He failed to see the huge power of the female principle. He would often say that one must look at things the other way round – he failed to do this with the power of women.
He wanted to press ahead, to investigate the psychology of society in his writing, and felt that he was held back by his lack of understanding of women. He became impatient.
In the mid 1980s Frankl said to me that God needs a wife. I was appalled by the idea, and I asked why God needs a wife. He said that God is lonely up there in heaven, it isn’t healthy for Him and He needs a wife. What Frankl meant, of course, is that the male principle of reason needs the loving co-operation and support of the female principle. At the time I did not understand this, and felt that the idea of ‘God’s wife’ was a bad one. He laughed and changed the subject.
I did not know that Frankl had already chosen someone to be ‘God’s wife’, that is someone who would advise him on all matters relating specifically to women. He looked around his friends and found what seemed the perfect candidate: a woman he had known for several years. She was a mother, and he assumed that she was like his own mother. He felt confident in his choice, and that by choosing her he would provide a model of good motherhood. However, they decided that her involvement would be a secret. ‘God’s wife’ became the power behind the throne. In his impatience to press ahead with his major work, he made a mistake. As he knew, secrets, covert activities are not accessible to reason. We cannot understand anything we cannot talk about.
Frankl believed that the woman he chose to be ‘God’s wife’ was like his own mother, but he had missed the female trauma, and did not understand that the woman he had chosen to advise him was inherently deeply traumatised.
In his psychoanalytic practice Frankl helped his patients to uncover hidden traumas from infancy; with the patient he then analysed and resolved the traumas. With ‘God’s wife’ he discovered that her own mother had been angry and life-denying. They dealt with this by “kicking her out” of the psyche of ‘God’s wife’. This was a crucial psychoanalytical and philosophical mistake. He did not ask why the mother of ‘God’s wife’ was angry and so did not analyse the anger. He was able to recognise and analyse the historical traumas as they related to men, but not in women. He failed to follow his own guiding principle of reason with love and missed the opportunity to uncover what he later described as the trauma in the cultural infancy of women, the female catastrophe. ‘God’s wife’ was personally absolved of the effects of the female trauma, but there had been no resolution of the problem. The angry mother had not been “kicked out”; she was still there, still life denying, and trapped deeper in the unconscious of ‘God’s wife’, less accessible now to reason and love.
‘God’s wife’ remained frightened, haunted by her angry and life denying mother, and projected her own fears onto the women around her. Psychological projection is a common defence mechanism. A very simple example of projection might occur when a wife accuses her husband of wanting to sleep with another woman; but the wife herself has become bored with her husband and wants to have an affair with another man. Instead of facing up to her own moral difficulties, the wife projects her dilemma onto her innocent husband, accusing him of wanting to be unfaithful. Or again a politically correct individual may accuse a colleague of being racist, when it is she herself who has unresolved doubts about people from other races. Projection of this kind can lead to a blame culture and very murky waters. We must avoid laying blame.
We must not blame ‘God’s wife’ for her fears. We must not blame George Frankl for his oversight: he was a very great man, but as a man it was not in him to recognise the female trauma.
For my part, I was so convinced of Frankl’s genius, it never occurred to me that he could have made such a silly mistake as taking up the idea of ‘God’s wife’. He was still my open hearted, generous friend, and I trusted him implicitly. In 1989 Frankl published The Social History of the Unconscious. I was delighted by his description of the hunters, their co-operation on the ice, and the image of the warmth and love of the females which they carried with them out onto the ice. However, I saw there was something missing, and I asked Frankl about the experience of the females in the caves. He dismissed my question lightly. The experience of the females within the caves was not important in his view.
I persisted in asking this question, not knowing that the females had been traumatised, any more than he did at that time. But I did know something was wrong with many women and I wanted him to tell me what it was. But he refused to listen, and in his later years he became very deaf, though he could hear me clearly when I talked about anything else. I tested this, and talked about Beethoven, the news, the genius of Picasso, the weather, keeping my voice purposely quiet and he could hear me. But when I mentioned the females in the caves, he could not hear. He would not hear.
The atmosphere around Frankl slowly changed from open hearted optimism to sadness. His men friends gradually left and he complained of being intellectually isolated. He often said to his women friends, “None of you talks to me. Why don’t you talk?” But, if the others were like me, all we really wanted to talk about was the one thing he refused to discuss: what about the experience of the females in the caves?
In 2000 Frankl published The Foundations of Morality in which he proves that human nature is fundamentally good, and that all babies are born loving. He was deeply puzzled, therefore, that the behaviour of humanity continued to be so bad. We are all connected. His work should have had a great effect on human behaviour. Once he knew and published something so momentous as the proof that humanity is fundamentally good, human behaviour should have begun to improve. But Frankl failed to make the connections fully conscious. He missed the female trauma and therefore failed to analyse it. He did not know that half the human race is suffering the effects of that trauma, and that mothers particularly are often inherently traumatised. By his failure to see the female trauma, to bring it into consciousness and to analyse it, that trauma retreated deeper into the collective unconscious. Instead of liberating the mothers’ life affirming power as he intended, he unintentionally re-inforced the undermining and life denying power of the mothers, leaving many women like ‘God’s wife’ with unconscious, unresolved fears which they projected onto other women.
When Frankl made ‘God's wife’ the ideal mother, he put her in a position of great power. Over the years, as his work failed to make the impact on society which he had hoped for, he wanted to know where he had gone wrong in his analysis of human behaviour and depended more and more on her advice. He gave her moral authority.
In autumn 2004 Frankl discovered the evidence for the trauma in the cultural pre-history of women when he was writing The Three Faces of Monotheism. He wanted to publish his analysis of the story of Abraham, Sarah and Hagar, but was prevented from doing so when one of his publishers angrily and fearfully rejected his analysis. By then Frankl was too frail physically to insist and the analysis which appears in The Three Faces of Monotheism is the generally accepted Judaic analysis, not his own analysis, and not what he wanted to publish. The Three Faces of Monotheism was published after his death.
Now in the last few weeks of his life, Frankl saw that he could talk freely to me. Prevented from publishing his true analysis of the female trauma himself, he told me what I must do.
We must understand that the angry, fearful publisher and ‘God’s wife’ are real people, actual women, with all the human attributes and frailties. We must recognise the mothers clearly as human beings, to see the children behind them.
Doctors and social workers failed to see that Baby Peter was systematically tortured by his mother and the two men she was involved with. The professionals employed to protect the child did not see the child. They did not see his terrible and visible injuries. Somehow the mother hoodwinked them.
Frankl was so focused on ‘God’s wife’ – who reassured him that his psychoanalysis of society was correct and complete – that he failed to see the children. We must challenge the life denying power of the angry mothers. We must look beyond the mothers to see the children. We must speak for the children. I failed to do so in the first edition of this book. I have a better understanding now.
The Children
Does the child have free will?
Sigmund Freud proposed three parts of the human psyche which he called in German das Es, das Ich and das Über-Ich – translated for the English-speaking world into the Latin: Id (It), Ego (I) and Super-Ego (Over-I). In Freud’s theory the child-like Id develops into the adult, rational Ego. (The Super-Ego is widely understood as God, or the conscience, and we point out that a bad conscience is not necessarily a good moral guide.)
In Freud’s theory, the Ego knows itself as a separate individual and also understands that other people are individuals with needs and desires of their own, which the Ego respects. The Ego, being rational, is capable of free will. As the child develops the Ego, he or she has understanding of and compassion for others, and is capable of making moral choices. Frankl believed the child would have, or begin to learn this understanding of the needs of others and begin to be able to make moral choices at the age of two.
This Ego model is confused and misleading.
Charles Darwin taught us that in the nine months in the womb, we recapitulate the evolution of our race. In those nine months the embryo undergoes the evolution which took millions of years. This process continues after birth. The infant grows physically and mentally, and evolves. We may see the evolution of our race when we watch our children develop. The embryo goes on the long evolutionary journey, of course, with the mother. Those nine months in the womb represent his or her entire experience. At birth, the baby has no concept of time as we adults know time. A few hours may be in the infant’s perception hundreds of thousands of years of evolutionary time. If the baby is left alone, without the mother while still evolving, he or she is deprived of the primary guide and teacher.
The baby continues to need his or her mother, the primary guide and teacher in the new world outside the womb. She is the link with ancestral evolution, and the baby is the continuation of the mother’s story. There is no emotional separation in nature between mother and baby.
Each child is of course an individual, but develops along the broad lines of our ancestry. And in the phases and stages of a child’s life, we see the great changes which our ancestors encountered in their time.
Very young babies do show some capacity for independence. A tiny baby will squirm and wriggle some distance searching for the breast. Little babies show pleasure in and preference for the mother. In a short time, the baby is taking an interest in other people, and very often the mother will distract her baby away from interacting with other people. When distracted away from interacting with other people by the mother, the baby focuses on the mother. The baby obeys the mother.
The baby is always extremely sensitive to the feelings of the mother. Where there is conflict in the relationship between mother and child, as for instance where the baby is very whiney and miserable, or does not thrive, Frankl has shown that the difficulty comes from the mother’s anxieties or conflicts; her negative feelings for the baby are transmitted to the child, and he or she responds accordingly – is obedient to the mother’s feelings. The mother’s feelings instruct the infant.
The baby knows itself and the mother. The tiny baby encompasses the mother, that is to say includes the mother in its universe. This inclusion extends very quickly to other family members, the father and older siblings. If a new adult or older child is introduced into the family when the infant is perhaps a year old, the infant will choose to include the new family member. Similarly, with a new, younger baby. But the infant has a hierarchy of importance and inclusion: itself, first naturally, mummy, daddy, established siblings, new family member in that order, and the order does not change.
The infant is very well aware of the individuals in his or her family. Mummy, daddy and older siblings who are in the family when the child is born, are the characters in the infant’s personal mythology. A younger sibling, if close enough in age, becomes part of the infant’s personal mythology. Grandparents, aunts and uncles and close family friends are move or less peripheral, but the infant will know these people and recognise that they are members of the extended family. The infant is aware of subtleties of feelings in the mother, but does not perfectly understand these nuances and subtleties: for instance the infant will not understand the adult behaviour of flirting, or family politics. The infant will be aware that ‘something is going on’, but will not be sure what. The infant is very honest and straightforward and mummy is his or her guide. If, for instance, mummy says crossly that big sister Susie is a bad girl, the infant will believe it and will be cross with the big sister because she is a bad girl. The infant believes mummy and obeys her feelings in the matter.
A change takes place in the child’s behaviour at about 15 months old, when the infant apparently makes a bid for independence. This may be seen as a phylogenic eruption, a breakthrough of an ancient event in human evolution.
At about this age, the child becomes very wilful, ‘naughty’. Infants of this age do seem to behave like miniature teenagers, and in very ancient times they would now be on the verge of sexual maturity. In our time a 15 month old baby would not survive independently, but our infants do not know this. The little boy wants to do what he is prompted to do by nature, and this very often seems to be exactly what mummy does not want him to do. Observing infant behaviour in the park I have noted that if mummy points in one direction, he will run off in another direction. It can seem that the infant is being deliberately perverse, but we must remember that he is obeying his instinct. His brain has reached that point of development when our ancestors would have been in the process of becoming sexually mature. We may say that the little boy is looking to make his own way in life, looking for a mate and a suitable place to set up home for himself. (We may now recognise that the pointing finger indicates danger; that when the mother points with her finger at something the infant understands that she is warning of danger from that direction. The pre-verbal language is strong and is understood unconsciously by us at all ages. In the instance outlined above, an open handed gesture by the mother towards the location she intends to go, would show the infant that the location is safe - it is the open handedness of the gesture which is relevant. The pointed index finger may be seen as being like a sharp weapon, and is often still used by the individual to show anger towards or disapproval of, or fear of another individual. In the instance outlined above, the child 'read' that his mother was fearful of the indicated location and that her gesture of pointing was a warning of danger.)
There does seem to be a gender difference. Little girls of about this age are often seen running rings around mummy. The little girl runs round in circles laughing happily with mummy in the centre of the circle. Mummy often chases the child, and it may be that the child invites this response, in ancient terms perhaps wants to show the mother where she will be. It seems like play, but there may be clues here to understanding our ancestors. In this behaviour we may be witnessing an ancient separation ritual, the young female acknowledging the importance of and gratitude to the mother. There may be some reluctance to leave, as the little girl continues to circle the mother, but does sometimes run further away, if mummy does not show interest in knowing where the child will be.
The little boy shows no sign of fear or reluctance to leave. He wants to go and he sets off purposefully, in the direction where she will not be. Mummy has signalled where she intends going and the infant boy chooses his own distinct path. It may be that the infant boy is actually obeying the mother: when she points in the direction she wants to go, he may receive this as an ancient signal of where he should not go; she is showing him her territory and informing him that he must therefore find somewhere else. What the mother perceives as perverse ‘naughty’ behaviour may in fact be obedience to her wishes. The brain of the modern infant of 15 months old is as developed as a young adult in ancient times. The infant obeys the mother’s signal before he obeys her words. When we see conflict between mother and child of this age, we may be seeing a conflict of languages – words in conflict with ancient signals. The child understands the words, but does not yet know that words have become more important than the ancient signs and symbols.
In our world now, mummy must signal to the child what she wants it to do. As long as mummy is tolerant the infant will obey the promptings of ancient instinctive behaviour. He or she will not be seen to obey the mother’s stated wishes. But when mummy ‘puts her foot down’, is angry, or when the child perceives she is angry, he or she will obey the mother’s commands. Even so the child obeys reluctantly and often howls piteously. Mummy, of course, may simply pick up the child bodily, and the child howls. In the infant’s perception, it is very wrong of mummy to prevent it following the course of nature. In the infant’s perception, it is mummy who is being perverse.
However, the infant must obey the angry mother - or the mother who seems to be angry - is impelled by some force in itself to obey.
There is another phylogenic eruption when the child reaches two and enters the period commonly known as the ‘terrible twos’. He or she starts shouting at the mother. By two years old the child may have good language skills, with a good vocabulary, but he or she does not talk to mummy about what is the trouble, the child just yells. This behaviour is seen as perverse and does not show that the child has compassion for and an understanding of the needs of other people.
Observing children of this age in the park, it seems clear that the child does not want to shout, and may be bored by the constant shouting at mummy. One little girl, whose patient and good humoured mother told me was just two years old, was shouting constantly at the mother, and also now and then looking around, apparently interested to see what was going on in the world. The child wasn’t looking to see what effect her behaviour had on others, but seemed to be more interested in what else was happening than in her own constant shouting. However, she did not stop shouting at her mother.
On another occasion I started talking to the parents of a small boy who was yelling. The child stopped shouting, came over to me and stood looking intently up into my face. He seemed unhappy to be yelling constantly, and I had the impression that he thought I might be able to help him. However, he soon saw that I didn’t have any information for him. He dismissed me, turned away and began yelling again. He seemed a very intelligent child, keen to engage with me, and seemed very disappointed that neither I nor any other adult could help him.
The yelling child does not know consciously why he or she is shouting, but again is impelled to do so, and may feel it is a duty.
It has recently been reported that there is a high incidence of constipation in children of around this age. If we make the connection we may find that the yelling phase corresponds with the time in our evolution when our ancestors began eating meat. Far from being bad, our children may be reiterating an ancient warning to the mothers that eating meat is ‘unnatural’: meat is difficult to digest and is dangerous as it makes the faeces poisonous.
The third great phylogenic eruption into the life of our children happens to the child at the age of 3 1/2. The child’s behaviour at this stage has traditionally been seen as bad, or even wicked, as evidence of the innate evil of humanity. Throughout our history, children have been beaten, to ‘get the devil out’. However, we now know that this phase corresponds with the coming of a major ‘weather event’, most likely a great glaciation in our ancient pre-history. It is very wrong to beat the child. The child’s ‘tantrums’ are not evidence of wickedness: they are screams of terror, the ancient memories breaking through into consciousness as our ancestors suffered disaster.
In between these distressing phylogenic eruptions, the child continues to develop, to evolve more or less on the course laid down by our evolution. The child is in itself good in thought and in action. The child naturally feels good, and thinks and does good. The infant constantly gives the mother presents. Frankl has observed that the infant defecates as a generous and loving gift to the mother; the baby smiles at the mother; reaches out to the mother; gives itself to the mother. Where the mother does not accept the child’s love, the child suffers greatly, and its healthy development may be seriously impaired.
The infant goes through the phases and stages of development at the appropriate times, sits up, starts to grow teeth, crawls, stands, walks and talks with the mother and for the mother. In its own brain, the infant shares each new experience with the mother, ‘tells’ the mother what it sees, for instance, and ‘gives’ the experience to the mother. As this is done in the child’s brain, the mother does not know she has been given a beautiful present, though the child believes that the mother does know. There is great pleasure to the child in sharing with and giving to the mother. If the mother is ‘naughty’, is unkind or abusive, the child will recognise her lack of interest or appreciation and may withhold these gifts from her.
There is a time of glory in the child’s life, when its eyes become libidinised, when everything he or she sees sparkles and glows with life. In the child’s own understanding he or she creates this extraordinary beauty in the act of seeing.
The child’s fingers become libinised, are filled with life and feeling. The child wants to see and touch everything. The genitals become libidinised, and the child naturally masturbates, and should be allowed to do so, at least in the home, without any interference. The loving mother is pleased by her child’s pleasure.
And there is the phase when the child constantly asks why? which is the moral question.
There is a time when the child is on top of the world, corresponding with a great spurt of achievement for our early ancestors when they had achieved consciousness, discovered they were cleverer than other creatures, were strong and free to roam, when there was plenty of food in great variety, when they owned the world they lived in.
And then suddenly comes the third and terrible phylogenic eruption, the ‘tantrum threes’, and it is during this period that the child begins to develop its Ego in the Freudian sense.
I have witnessed a dreadful exchange of screaming and shouting between the parents and child, the desperate parents shouting and the boy screaming uncontrollably. The weeping child finally calmed down and promised to be ‘good’. His face was wet with tears, he looked shocked and pale, he was also horrified by what he had just been through and by what he had done. When his mummy firmly told him he must be good now, he agreed. He looked guilty and humiliated, and was now afraid that she would stop loving him. He wanted to be good. His loving parents did not understand the cause of his terrible behaviour, and they might have assumed that his ‘tantrum’ was an act of free will. But his ‘tantrum’ was not an act of free will. He had been gripped by the ancient terror. The child had in fact suffered an appalling trauma, an ancient trauma, just as his parents had done in their infancy, right down the generations to our early ancestors who first suffered the traumatic event.
The child agreed to be ‘good’ under the duress of the trauma; again this is not an act of free will.
Traditionally, the boy now looks to his father for guidance. The boy needs to learn to be a man, and his father is now a better teacher than his mother. The girl, however, must learn to be a woman, and she must learn from her mother. While the boy begins to move away from the influence of the mother, the girl must continue the close interaction with the mother. The boy has the opportunity, if only in his imagination, to get away from the domestic scene, the little girl does not. She must learn her skills from the mother.
The girl wants to learn from her mother. She wants to know how to cook, to wash the dishes and do the laundry. It is quite likely that she wants to be the mother, and may indeed want to supplant her mother in the home. The girl cannot get away.
From the age of 15 months or so, the children have been trying to leave home, as their ancestors left home. Over the ages of human evolution, our period of childhood has extended, delaying sexual maturity. This is known as the ‘maturation delay’. At several phases the infant is prevented from following the course of instinct. In ancient times, by four years old this child would be an adult, fully mature, with a mate and possibly with a child of her own.
I must stress here that the four year old child now is a child and that children must not be sexually used by any adult or older child. However, in at least part of the little girl’s own brain, she is an adult.
And though we have recently tried to change the course of evolution by involving boys and girls together in all kinds of play and learning activities, the facts of the course of our evolution cannot so easily be changed. I am not clear how much free will adults have. It may be that infants before the age of 31⁄2 display more free will than adults do.
Freud defined the libido – the primal drive of the infant – as a sexual impulse. Frankl redefined the libido as an innate need for love. The child needs the love of the mother. I would emphasis here that the child also needs to know that his or her love is accepted by the mother.
Frankl holds that our loving instincts turn to aggression and destructive drives if thwarted.
By the female trauma, the loving instincts of many women have been thwarted. Because many mothers do not feel the power of love for their children, the loving instinct has turned to a desire for power over their children. Frankl had assumed that with the development of the Ego the child would be capable of making moral choices and exercising free will. He quite failed to see the female trauma and the inherited effects. He failed to see that the brain of the child evolves around what he or she is taught by the mother. The development in the child of the Freudian Ego, is merely the child’s acknowledgement of the authority of the mother over the will of the child.
Development of the Freudian Ego requires acquiescence to the power of the unacknowledged and unresolved female trauma. The Ego as described by Freud in fact deprives the child of free will, and prevents the development of free will in the adult he or she will become.
Naturally the mother protects her child. I do not see that the child ‘owes’ the mother anything.
Money
In The Unknown Self George Frankl points out that our relationship with gold, money, is ambiguous. He writes, “In popular dream interpretation faeces always means wealth, and all the metaphors of all languages contain allusions to the equations; excrement – money, dirt – treasure.” He points out that we talk of the filthy, stinking rich and the dirt poor; he shows that money and faeces are connected in our perception, and that this comes from the fact that since we became meat eaters our faeces became poisonous; therefore, the infant’s natural desire to play with its own faeces – its own created product – must be prohibited by the mother. The baby creates and loves its own faeces, and gives its faeces to the mother as a lovely present. If the mother herself has anal anxieties, she will make her child anxious. So Frankl shows that our relationship with money is bound up with the anxieties surrounding the ice age when our ancestors had to eat meat to survive and thus to make our faecal product and therefore to some extent ourselves poisonous to ourselves. Gold, money is, or should be, a safe, clean alternative to the poisonous faeces. The rich, stinking though they may be, become the ‘clean’ people and the poor are ‘dirty’.
Frankl talks of the splitting of the self-image into the dirty self and the pure self. This is the case both individually and culturally. “The dirty self, dominated by anal drives, is split off and projected outwards and seen in the dirty people – the lower classes, the impure. Cleanliness becomes synonymous with purity, with goodness, whereas uncleanliness becomes symbolical of all that is disgusting and ‘low’. The dirty people represent the repressed anal fantasies of clean people and are, therefore, not only considered uncivilised, distasteful and belonging to a lower order but they are a constant threat to the pure classes. Dirty people are constantly before children as the horrid example of what would happen to them if they do not behave and keep themselves clean and pure.” The ‘dirty’ people are the ‘others’.
And all this is, of course, operating at a deep unconscious, or pre-conscious level. Consciously, we do not understand money or our relationship with it.
As we have seen recently, the laws governing money are hideously complicated, so that actually no one understands them, neither the law makers nor the bankers and money men. It is probably this complication in the laws which made it easy for the fraudsters to steal billions, and for the predatory but law abiding bankers to grant themselves legitimate pensions and bonuses of millions, legally depriving their investors. But the complications in the laws reflect our failure to understand our ambiguous and conflicted relationship to money.
The great cycle of disasters which we continually recreate goes on. At the moment, the world, the entire globe is struggling with the money paradox. It is very difficult to understand why this should be so. Why do we need money? Even now, when there are six billion human beings on the earth, there is enough to feed everyone, yet millions starve. Because they do not have money. Most people that I know are financially anxious; many people lie, cheat and steal to get money. In some cultures, in our own time, some mothers sell their children into slavery very like a business enterprise. We cannot eat money, and yet we must have money to get food. But why? Why have we organised our lives around this symbol of faeces? Why are we dominated by money? Why, at a deep unconscious level, are our lives, institutions, and pleasures dominated by our confused, ambiguous relationship with our own excrement?
Although Frankl does note the role of the individual mother in her child’s perception of its own faeces, he fails to recognise the power of the female principle in his analysis of money, and therefore fails to examine the relationship between the female principle and faeces. To put it simply, he does not ask why so many mothers are so anxious about faeces. We must recognise that globally we are in the grip of something very like terror in regard to our money system, and therefore to our faeces.
We are dominated by the traumas of our evolution and are recreating disasters of the past. We are apparently re-experiencing an ancient terror which is somehow connected with the act of defecating. We must take a look at the conditions in the caves.
While the hunters were out on the ice co-operating for survival and carrying with them the mental image, the memory of the warmth and love of the females in the caves, what were the females doing in the caves?
We have speculated that the females also co-operated for survival. They went out into the ice together, to gather fuel and food, to defecate, and to play and take exercise. Inside the caves, too, they worked together, tending the fire, feeding themselves and the children, teaching the children, playing, singing, naturally taking pleasure in their lives, and longing for the return of their menfolk, who would bring food and sexual love.
All this makes a very pleasant picture. It is a memory of the past in happy times. But over the course of the millennia of evolution in the caves, there were many natural disasters. We must recognise that there were times when there wasn’t enough food, and individual mothers fought each other for food for themselves and their children. It is likely that during storms and other bad weather conditions, our ancestors would not go out to defecate and the atmosphere in the cave would become foetid and nasty. It would stink, not just from unburied faeces, but also from the quarrels among the females. The people would be trapped in a prison, a kind of hell.
Of course, good times always follow the bad times, but the memory is retained, and any resentments and angers are there in the memory. In bad times, these memories rise again, not consciously, but as uneasy feelings, fears and a sense of ‘badness’. As consciousness developed in our ancestors, and as they discovered the deity, they would begin to blame each other for any traumatising events: for we all know “I am good”, so if anything goes wrong it must be the fault of someone else. During the matriarchy of the caves, when the mothers were the law, and during bad times, the bad memories of even the distant past rose up again. It must be that suspicion and mistrust developed in the society. Resentments and angers against each other would be harder to repress, come nearer the surface of consciousness, though the actual starting of the miseries would be lost in time and repressed from conscious memory. As the ages passed, and the little store of historical resentments grew, there will have been more fights, expulsions and divisions in their society. As the rulers of the communities, it must be accepted that the matriarchs would call on the support of the fathers and of their sons in any rivalries among themselves.
The males, of course, had the opportunity to escape these domestic trials. At such times, the males will have welcomed the chance to go out hunting even in the terrible conditions of the ice. The hunters would obviously be aware of the difficulties within the caves, but once out on the ice, the need to co-operate and the ancient memory of the warmth and love of the females in the caves would rise again into their minds. In the perception of the hunters, this reassuring image of domestic love and happiness would still be the truth, the reality of life in the caves, and this persists to our own times.
But there is something missing in this speculative reconstruction of what was going on among the females in the caves. In good times and in bad, the children, both male and female, grew up with their mothers. Both male and female, the children would perceive and should therefore have a deep understanding of the distresses between their mothers. In the process of evolution, the length of childhood increased: the boys would be longer with their mothers, and should therefore have more understanding of the anxieties within the caves. There is no evidence that this is the case. Men still do not understand women. Even in our own times men still feel that the rivalries between their womenfolk have nothing to do with them.
Why should this be so? What crucial difference is there between men and women? The answer, of course, is the physical, functional difference. Men have penises, women have vaginas. This naturally affects their relationships to each other, and in the world, and to and in themselves.
We could discuss how or even whether the differences in genitalia affect men and women differently in the world. However, in the act of sex, the male goes out and enters into the female. The female receives the male, draws him into her. The man gives his seed into the woman, and she carries and bears the child. In her primary act of creation, the mother then releases the baby. We hope that in the sex act both man and woman give and receive pleasure. But in the primary function of procreation, physically the male gives; whereas the female physically both receives and gives.
And there is one aspect of this physical difference which, it seems to me, has never been properly analysed, and which seems to me very important.
Men give out from their bodies: they excrete faeces, urine and release their sperm. Women excrete faeces and urine, but they take in the sperm, and they hold on to the baby for nine months until it is ready to come out, when the mother releases it. So the adult woman’s primary creative function involves both giving and retaining. Women also menstruate, release blood. But the conflict seems to be that between the giving out of excrement and the receiving of the sperm, the holding on to the embryo, and the release of the baby at its birth.
All this, of course, is natural, designed by nature. But we do not live in ‘natural’ ways. So it seems that many problems of our lives and evolution may come from the psychological link between the female genitalia and the female bowels. Medicine only recognises the physical: medical practitioners recognise the physical links, for instance, in ear, nose and throat, and in the urinary tract and the genitals. Presumably, obstetricians and medics who attend births are aware that there may be complications involving the lower digestive tract during pregnancy and labour. But, so far as I am aware, there is no branch of medicine that makes the psychological connection. But, of course, medical doctors do not treat the psyche, and many medical doctors do not recognise the psyche.
As we know, little children assume, take it for granted, that babies come out of mummy’s bottom, (where they know the pooh comes out). It may be that men, who after all do not have wombs, retain this infantile perception of giving birth. It seems very likely that this physical, functional difference lies at the core of men’s inability to understand the distresses of women. It may also be at an unconscious, infantile level, that many women retain the early belief that babies come out of the mummy’s bottom.
Our ancient ancestors, before the ice came down, were fully mature adults but their psychological perceptions were infantile in our terms. As animals they would not question their natural functions. There would be no psychological splitting off from their primary functions. As vegetarians, they would not have poisonous faeces; though they might bury their faeces to protect themselves from predators, the faeces, their natural product itself would not be dirty to them, nor make them dirty before they were meat eaters. But as the planet cooled, our ancestors became increasingly anxious. They experienced hunger. They had to search for food and eventually they had to learn to kill and to eat meat. Their faeces became poisonous and another source of anxiety.
We may speculate that at this point in their evolution, perhaps several hundred thousand years ago, they did not have well defined guilt or blame. However, they would quickly learn to be conscientious in the disposal of their faeces: any carelessness could alert predators and might be fatal to the entire tribe or family group. They were already vulnerable as weaker animals, and now they were predators themselves, had a closer understanding of the nature of predators, and aware that the increased smelliness of their own faeces would make them more vulnerable to predators. It is likely that the coming of guilt, the ‘original sin’ is connected to the disposal of their faeces. If one of the family or tribe made a careless mistake, they would be punished by disapproval, at least. If a predator threatened the group, it is likely that our ancestors looked at each other to see who had exposed them to danger. Our ancestors became personally fearful in a way they had not been before.
Our ancestors lived in terror of predators. Instead of defecating naturally when they needed to, they had to learn to regulate their bowel movements, and became self- conscious. And even the delightful smell of pooh became the dangerous stink of shit: they had to learn not to take pleasure even in the smells they made. It is no wonder they split themselves psychologically from their own natural product.
The males and the females had to learn these lessons. For the males there is less complication, but for the females there was the complication in primary functions of giving and receiving.
In a succession of traumatic events, and as consciousness developed, it is very probable that our female ancestors became confused in the giving and receiving, that giving birth became confused in their psychological perception with the act of defecation. And this occurred in the cultural infancy of human evolution. At this stage of our evolution, these ancestors of ours were children. Moreover, they were children suffering from the effects of traumatic events, trying to make sense of their world.
Now we are more adult. We must resolve their confusion. We must tell those traumatised ancestors of ours that we are no longer terrorised by predators, and that defecating is a good natural activity. They are still with us, deep in our collective unconscious and we must talk to them directly as if they were little children among us now. We must tell them clearly and kindly in simple language that faeces come out of their bottoms, that this is good and healthy, and that it is pleasurable to defecate. Then we must tell them that the babies come out of the mother’s vagina, that the babies must be released when they are ready to be born. Our ancestors will probably argue with us, be angry and defiant at first because they feel silly to have made such a mistake, but if they are intelligent they will understand.
It is likely that our ancestors took gold to be proof that the ancient mother goddess was still alive: even though the earth was cold and unfruitful, the product of the goddess was found in golden seams in the caves, or nuggets the hunters picked up on their treks after game. In the bowels of their caves our ancestors found the golden faeces of the goddess and were reassured. Gold doesn’t perish, or rot or stink, and for our ancestors it became the idealised faeces of the goddess, a symbol of life.
We may say that we human beings now seem to be shitting all over the world, polluting our planet with filth, chemicals and broken goods we have thrown out of the pram, all the slurry of modern ‘civilised’ life. Faeces itself has practical value. If we weren’t so traumatised, so desperate to be considered ‘clean’ we would see that faeces is a valuable resource as a very natural fertiliser.
Money is also seen as compensation for what we have lost, given up, the love, self love and the lost empathy. But as we know, nothing can compensate for the loss of love. It seems to me that the only value money has is as a means of managing our complex economic lives, and that until we find a better system, we must continue to use money – more rationally – for this purpose. In his book Blueprint for a Sane Society, Frankl has provided an excellent guide.
The unresolved conflict of the female libido, prompted feminists to join the patriarchal money culture. But what about Everywoman? What was in the minds of ordinary, adult women?
The Perfect Baby
Little girls imagine the perfect baby. From a very early age, infant girls have in their minds the picture of the baby they will make when they are grown up. One day, they will have the perfect baby, and they are ready in their minds, though of course their bodies are not yet ready.
They see the baby in their minds’ eye and it is glowing and beautiful. Naturally they feel the love for the baby and, of course, the baby loves them. The love goes without saying. The baby is the product of their love.
During what is called the latency period, which is roughly from seven years old until adolescence, girls and boys are encouraged to think of other things. They have lessons and activities, and girls learn it is silly to play with dolls. But the image of the perfect baby is still there in themselves, though it has retreated to the unconscious. Again, in our time there is the further delay in maturity of extended education, and the need to make more and more money before young people can set up home.
During pregnancy the baby reasserts itself, in the mother’s womb, and in her mind. Pregnant women dream of the perfect baby they are making, just as they did when they were little girls. The baby is the mother’s creation: it is hers and she is making the baby with her body and in her mind. But along with most other realities and truths of the female principle, the image of the perfect baby became a hidden pleasure as a result of the female trauma.
The image of the perfect baby is not only in the woman’s mind, and there is a crucial difference in the experience of men and women in love. When men love, they feel the love all over their bodies: when women love they feel the love all through their bodies. Men feel love over themselves, as a warm embrace; women feel the stream of love all through and inside themselves. The woman also has the image of her perfect baby in her body, she loves her baby with her body as well as her mind. She imagines the perfect baby in a perfect environment: in her imagination she makes a beautiful garden, a perfect home for her beloved baby.
These dreams and imaginings provide great pleasure to the woman and in them she shows her creative ability. The image of the perfect baby is the proof that women are as capable of creative activity as men are. Though it is often hidden from consciousness, the image of the perfect baby is constant. The idea of the perfect baby, the beautiful creation, lives in girls and women as a sustaining inspiration.
Girls need an education; girls as well as boys have big brains, which need feeding with ideas and food for thought, just as all children need physical nourishment and exercise. All women do not have babies; some women cannot, and some women don’t want to have children. And of course women don’t have to have sex only when they want to get pregnant: women can choose if and when they want a baby. Women have the ability to be creative in all sorts of ways, as well as by being mothers, but women’s creativity starts in and stems from the image of the perfect baby.
As we have seen, Eve’s legacy is a barrier between women and their own libidinous drives. Psychoanalytically, we understand that our ancient female ancestors suffered a terrible trauma and as a result denied themselves the natural pleasures of love. The time scales are difficult to grasp. As consciousness developed, and over hundreds of thousands of years, our ancestors were traumatised by a series of naturally occurring events, made their pacts with their deities and punished themselves. Each traumatic event added to the last, until human beings, and particularly women, were repressed and burdened with a terrible weight of guilt.
Human beings have a huge capacity for memory, and memory is a natural resource of human evolution. As Sigmund Freud discovered, the individual remembers traumatic events, but pushes the painful memory away, buries it in the unconscious. George Frankl said that everything is in the memory, every event of the individual’s life is retained in his or her memory. The individual retains the memory of the event and of the feelings he or she had during the trauma. What is true of individuals is true of the human race collectively: everything our ancestors experienced in still in the collective memory.
In psychological trauma, individually and collectively, the victim or victims set up taboos, creating barriers to remembrance. In the time following a trauma, we forget, push the memory of the painful event into the unconscious, but our behaviour betrays our traumatised state. We know only that we are unhappy, something is not right, but we set up taboos, denying ourselves the means to uncover the trauma and investigate the causes of our miseries. Much of our behaviour re-enforces the trauma, making it more difficult to uncover.
Different cultures try to deal with the specifically female trauma in differing ways. God punishes Eve in the Bible, so that in Judaism, Christianity and Islam, women are the second sex, less than men. But God created everything in His own image and it is a paradox, we might say blasphemous, to perceive women as less than men are.
At one extreme, among some Muslims there is the terrible re-enforcing punishment of female circumcision, which is the often brutal cutting out from the body of the clitoris. It should be remembered that it is older women – the mothers - who perform this barbarity on the daughters. Although female circumcision is illegal in Britain, it is still done here, sometimes on girls as young as two years old.
At the other extreme, there is the feminist over emphasis of the clitoris. This over emphasis on the pleasurable excitement in the clitoris is almost as denying to women’s pleasure as the Islamic practice of female circumcision.
George Frankl’s understanding of women was incomplete, but he recognised the humanity of women and understood that women need the deep release of vaginal orgasm. What men have outside their bodies, women have inside. The man releases his sperm into the woman, she receives his sperm inside her vagina.
The clitoris is not a generative organ. Research has shown that clitoral orgasm is merely orgastic spasm, which without vaginal orgasm, can lead to congestion of the pelvis, muscular tension in the pelvis and back, and rigidity in the lower body. Women need the release of vaginal orgasm, the total body experience, the deep relaxation and the feeling of triumph and gratitude which follows. On its own, clitoral orgastic spasm denies this, and the woman who does not also have the release of vaginal orgasm is left feeling isolated, frustrated and angry.
I do not want to deny the pleasure of the clitoris, but I do want to affirm that there is much more to making love than this superficial clitoral excitation. Denying the needs of the vagina is a denial of womanhood. Women who believe they have satisfied their needs with clitoral orgastic spasm only are denying their own femininity.
The feminist experiment has led to a disastrous betrayal of the female principle, of womanhood, of women’s sexuality and libidinous creativity. The feminist message has been dominated by the conflict between making money (the anal product) and making babies, the vaginal product. In the early days, feminists mocked motherhood, denigrated and belittled the primary creative function of women. The all-pervasive feminist rhetoric and proselytising bullied women into believing it was better to have a career, to make money, than to have children, but at the same time insisted that women were free to make their own decisions.
It was a massive propaganda exercise, with a very mixed message, which left many women very confused. Women are encouraged to delay motherhood, to channel their creative energy into the office routine. Government has become feminist, and mothers are required to return to work instead of being with their own children. Mothers are told it is right to be miserably unhappy in the office, and it is not much comfort to them to know that they are trapped by the decisions they themselves have made.
Of course it is the children who suffer most. While there is increasing infantilism among adults, the children are on the front line in this social experiment. Middle class mothers as well as fathers eagerly pursuing money are too busy to nurture or even protect their children. There is a new fashion in middle class families, in which the parents apparently blame their own children for being bullied; the parents ask their children who are being bullied at school, “But why do you let them bully you?” And at the other end of the social scale, mothers in the desperate underclass take to drink, drugs and prostitution; uneducated, impoverished financially and intellectually, they see on tv the rich fascinating lives other people live, but themselves have so little and no moral support, and their frustration breaks out in violence against their children. And feminism has played its part in this. By denigrating their primary function, feminism has sent out the message that motherhood is, and children are, contemptible.
But we must remember the guiding principle of reason with love. I note that many women are afraid they will not be good mothers, and believe they are doing the best for their children by hiring ‘experts’ to do the job for them. And again, feminists probably really believed they were offering a better alternative for all women. But the feminist model suits very few women. Feminism also mocks men with contemptuous remarks such as, “They think with their balls! Their brains are in their cocks!” The primary function of all living organisms is to reproduce. As animals, men are led by their primary genital organs; as human beings men think with their brains. Women think with their brains, and are led by their ovaries and wombs. The vagina seeks the penis. Men have a feeling of security in the ancient image of the warmth and love of the females in the caves. Women have a sense of belonging in the primal image of the perfect baby. It is a different experience, a different idea of love from the male experience and idea.
The lies and hypocrisy of feminism has made the world indigestible to many women, and the life experience as a woman more difficult and complicated. In the mockery and denigration of motherhood, feminism has re-inforced the ancient taboos surrounding the female trauma. But again, we must be careful not to lay blame: though feminists targeted men as the villains of society, in truth feminism is part of the ancient battle between mothers and daughters, and the feminists were too afraid to confront their own mothers, their own fears.
Victorian society was hypocritical in its attitude to women, but for all our modern sexual ‘openness’ it is quite possible that our Victorian great-great grandmothers had more sexual satisfaction than many sexually active women do now. Recent research has shown that women need to feel secure to enjoy sex. In a stable marriage, the woman is able to relax, may in fact feel more pleasure making love simply because she is in a stable relationship. Victorian women were allowed to feel grateful to their husbands for providing stability for themselves and their children. Victorians acknowledged that women are women. In our time, with the feminist denigration of motherhood and over emphasis on the clitoris, there is a sense that we are all some kind of men. In vaginal sex, while it is still sadly true that many women do not consciously experience the deep satisfaction of vaginal orgasm, they do often have the orgasm. The body experiences the benefits, though the mind may still deny conscious pleasure. Of course, women naturally want to feel the pleasures of life and love consciously. To have conscious awareness of our pleasure, we must understand that it is our minds which are closed to pleasure. We must therefore look at what is in our minds.
In western countries for the past fifty or so years, most babies have been born in hospital. But this is a very recent innovation. If we look at primates living in the wild, it may be that the mother goes a little apart from her tribe to give birth, but giving birth is still an entirely natural act, without the complications of human self consciousness.
Throughout evolution, with the development of consciousness, and the emergence of guilt as a result of a succession of traumatic events, our ancestors became increasingly conflicted. Natural functions became subject to the effects of the traumas, and the natural creative act of giving birth was confused in the psychobiological conflicts.
During the ice age, the families lived together closely. Giving birth was a communal activity. The infants would be aware of what was going on. It is very likely that infants would often see a mother give birth, and they would certainly hear the event. As birth became more conflicted and difficult, the infants would increasingly be aware of the mother’s pains of labour. It is likely that from very early in human evolution these perceptions of conflict in giving birth became part of the female phylogeny.
For the boys there was and is a natural distance from the mother’s troubles. Men have a different idea and experience of love. We may say that women’s experience of love is more ‘holistic’. Girls feel what the mother feels more viscerally than boys can feel what the mother feels. The mother is the teacher, and the daughter learns from her mother how to be a woman. If the mother is anxious during pregnancy, the daughter will experience that anxiety. If the mother withdraws her libido, good feeling, from her breasts or buttocks, for instance, the daughter will mimic her mother. The daughter will feel what the mother feels, mimic what the mother does, and learn by example how to be a mother.
More than this, the embryo feels what the mother feels. If the mother experiences terrible difficulties giving birth, the baby also experiences those difficulties. Boys of course will never give birth, but baby girls start to learn from their own experience of being born how to be women and how to be mothers.
The Life Force
We toil to keep in check our natural joy, but it constantly breaks through. We are desperate not to cause offence, but however hard we try to conform to the life denying power of the angry mothers, to repress and restrict ourselves and our children, the life force constantly breaks through.
In the 1970s I read a short article by a new mother. She wrote that she had been warned of the dangers of giving birth, the screaming agony of labour, and that when the baby was born she would never get a good night’s sleep, she would be exhausted, and she would feel stupid. She was told all the horror stories, and became anxious and afraid. But when the baby was put in her arms, she felt an overwhelming love for it. No one had ever mentioned the love she would feel and she wondered why. Reading the article, I also wondered why, and thought then that perhaps the love a mother feels for her baby is a secret, though I couldn’t work out why it should be a secret.
Recently one woman described to me the love she had felt for her new born baby. She said, “I felt such love that I thought my heart would burst. I didn’t know you could feel such love and survive.” She spoke very happily and reverently of the love she had felt then, and told me that she still felt strong love for her daughter. She valued this love, and her daughter, above everything else in her life. The love she felt was her own self fulfilment and she had looked after her child according to that love. Now the daughter is grown up and all she wants is to have a baby herself. The mother told me this very shyly, in case I might criticise her for not encouraging her daughter to get a university education. But I understood that the mother wanted her daughter to experience the same deep pleasure of love that she herself felt.
The overwhelming love that such mothers feel provides its own reason. Mothers who feel this power of love know how to bring up their baby. They do not seek power over their baby, or over other people.
We recognise many mothers do not feel overwhelming love for their babies. In fact, I believe that this power of love is comparatively rare, and breaks though into consciousness only in some cases.
True power is love, and love is inclusive. It is our babies who have the power of love, who understand love, and we must learn to be guided by the innate love of our children. As we teach them the new language of words, we must be aware of their means of communication, the old language of empathy. We must become more conscious of our own natural ability to empathise. It may be that the mother of Baby Peter used a look, a complicit look to fool the social workers and doctors. It may be that she used – misused – the maternal instinct to protect her child, by drawing attention towards herself, away from the child. There is a world of ancient empathetic meaning still used or misused – we still convey meaning in a glance, approval or disapproval in a glance or gesture, and we still depend on the approval or disapproval of each other. Our conscious language of words is easily undermined by the hidden language of empathy. We must patiently explore this ancient language and gradually learn to understand.
One of the last things Frankl said to me was, “It is all in the memory.” Everything we experience as individuals is in the individual memory, and everything we experience as a race is in the race memory. The memory of everything we have experienced is in our brains. But, of course, what we have experienced is interpreted by our understanding, and our conscious understanding is limited.
In the confusion over the Freudian model of the Ego we may have missed something very important. It may be that philosophically, the Freudian Id (It), the childlike element of the human psyche, is analogous to the Good of Plato, the Noumenon of Emmanuel Kant, and the eternal, imperishable soul or spirit of the Abrahamic faiths.
In our society, we have tended to demonise the child, but it is clear that the Id (It) is more God-like than at later stages of psychological development.
There is a deep-seated terror in humanity which may come from the dawn of consciousness, when our ancestors began to leave the shelter of instinct and were afraid. This terror marks a very early trauma in our evolution. It breaks out from time to time, comes near to the surface of consciousness. But it has been too hard, too painful to recognise consciously, and we have been too afraid to confront it. And then we turn on the ‘enemy’, we look for scapegoats, for someone to blame for our fear and the anger which comes from fear. We project our fear and anger onto the ‘others’. One section of society rises up to kill the ‘others’, or one nation or tribe goes out to find the ‘enemy’. The people of a society which does so are trying to protect themselves from the painful memory of that ancient terror. But it is time to consciously examine even our deepest fears, for we are all human, we do not need scapegoats. It is alright to be afraid, but we must be very brave, we must have the great courage to face our fears.
Darwin’s work on the evolution of species opened our minds to many possibilities. However, he left us another legacy in his description of the animal and plant kingdoms as a frantic, frenzied struggle for survival. Over the last fifty or sixty years naturalists such as David Attenborough have given us a more balanced view of the natural world. We have seen many examples of loving behaviour: the female crocodile carrying her newly hatched young tenderly in her terrible jaws; the tigress playing gently with her cubs; tenderness in mating. Orphaned female elephants adopt infant orphans to care for; and among domestic beasts and pets we know of examples of inter-species friendships.
The herds of deer are alarmed by predators, but when the danger is past, the deer settle down to graze peacefully again. The natural world is not as terrible as Darwin seems to have believed. Animals do not live in fear as we humans do. It is our consciousness of being alive and the taboos surrounding the traumas of our evolution which make us afraid.
We must learn to think lovingly and rationally. Natural catastrophes happen. And although we blame ourselves for traumatic experiences outside our control, we seem unable to recognise our responsibility for man-made disasters: for instance, we say, “War has broken out.” But it is human beings who decide go to war, who decide to kill other human beings. We humans are part of the continuing play of life on earth and we are responsible for what we do.
It seems to me that over the course of our evolution our brains have not simply developed, but that there has been a seismic shift in the way we use our brains. There is anger with the earth, and with mothers, because it was seen that the earth punished the people with traumatic events, and that the matriarchs were to blame. In their terror, our ancestors closed off that part of their brains which connects to memory. And that seismic shift in the way we use our brains may have impaired our capacity for free will. It seems that we do have the capacity to act freely and morally, but that we need a consensus. Our fear of the past has made us afraid to think for ourselves. As we become less afraid, we will learn to value memory as a vital evolutionary sense, we will reconnect with our ancestors and discover ourselves as we really are.
And as our brains are liberated from the ancient traumas, we will become honest. Then we will discover a world full of exciting possibilities, and that we humans have a huge capacity for love, knowledge, learning and understanding. We will rediscover that life is a joy.
I do not believe in heaven and hell. I believe in life; life here on Earth, in all its tenderness and strength, its generosity, its variety and its determination to procreate. I believe that when I die I am dead, that is to say that the individual has no more consciousness, no more being as an individual. But I am aware of the energy of life in me, and that energy is within the life force and cannot be destroyed. When an individual human being or any life form dies, the energy released seeks new forms, the energy becomes part of other forms of life.
And that is why, I believe, we humans should love and respect the Earth.
Amendment
The Libido
In this text I observe that Frankl redefines the libido – the primal drive of the infant – not as in Freud as a sexual impulse but as an innate need for love. I believe this redefinition is mistaken.
I now see that the libido is a loving creative force. Defining the libido as an innate ‘need for love', suggests that the libido is passive, and this seems to me a mistake. The libido is active, and as a creative force it must be active.
I now understand that the libido is love, and that the libido, love, is the motivating power of the Life Force.
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Postscript
In the last few weeks of his life when George Frankl saw he could talk freely to me, he told me what I must do. To help me write this book he gave me a list of instructions.
He said:
“If you know something, even if you’re the only person on earth who believes it, you must say it, you must write it down.”
“You must use simple language.”
“You must speak for the children.”
“You must always think for yourself.”
“You must be honest.”
“It is alright to be afraid, but you must be very brave, you must have courage.”
"You must be the mother now."
“You must keep your sense of humour! Don’t spend all your time writing, and remember you won’t understand everything.”
“You must always remember reason with love, that all babies are born loving, and that human nature is fundamentally good.”
In writing this book I have tried to follow his instructions faithfully.