The Self Pt ll (ll). A Self Portrait. Amera Ziganii Rao Photography
Hierophant Self Discovery: The Other Side of Misogyny Pt ll. Women & Desire. Polly Young-Eisendrath
Women and Desire. Beyond Wanting to be Wanted. Polly Young – Eisendrath.
Wanting to Be Wanted
About ten years ago, while reading a biography of the French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, I came across something he said about women that struck me as uncomfortably true: women want to be WANTED, not to be loved. He meant that women sought to be desirable rather than to be fully known. Lacan arrived at this conclusion after years of psychoanalyzing and seducing women. (That is to say, he attempted to psychoanalyze some women and to seduce others. A heavily rationalized womanizer, he seduced many women, but I doubt that he successfully psychoanalyzed any). A sometimes brilliant theoretician, Lacan was also sexist and terribly arrogant, so I wondered if I could take his claim seriously. Yet, despite my doubt, the idea stayed with me.
Over the ensuing years I read many feminist accounts of female desire, but I came across nothing quite as bold and blatant as Lacan’s claim. A psychoanalyst myself, I am also a feminist, a mother and a wife, a writer, a teacher of psychotherapy, and a student of Buddhism. In all of these roles I find it useful to keep my ears and eyes open to the unspoken, the unwritten, and the unconscious. So while I tucked away the idea of women wanting to be wanted and continued to go about my business of seeing people in individual psychotherapy, Jungian analysis, and couples therapy, in the back of my mind this notion was having an effect. That women might be driven by the desire to be desirable, rather than by the desire to be known and loved, became the background music for much that I heard about female desire both in and out of psychotherapy for the next ten years.
I now believe that Lacan was basically right about the problem of female desire, but instead of seeing it as a normal aspect of female character, as he believed, I see it as a damaging AFFLICTION of female development in societies where women are expected to please men. The compulsion to be desired and desirable undermined self-direction, self-confidence, and self-determination in women from adolescence through old age, in all our roles, from daughter to mother, from lover to wife, from student to worker or leader, whether or not the affliction is conscious.
Wanting to be wanted is about finding our power in an image rather than in our own actions. We try to appear attractive, nice, good, valid, legitimate, or worthy to someone else, instead of discovering what we actually feel and want for ourselves. In this kind of conscious or unconscious arrangement, other people are expected to provide our own feelings of power, worth, or vitality, at the expense of our authentic development. We then feel resentful, frustrated, and out of control because we have sacrificed our real needs and desires to the arrangements we have made with others. We find ourselves always wanting to be seen in a positive light: the perfect mother, the ideal friend, the seductive lover, the slender or athletic body, the kind neighbour, the competent boss. In place of knowing the truth of who we are and what we want from our lives, we become trapped in images.
Wanting to be wanted is not co-dependency. It’s not something that develops out of someone else’s needs or demands. Rather, it is a desire for power and control that has been transformed and hidden. Instead of learning how to fulfil this – our own – desire, we learn gradually, but clearly, how to fulfil others’. This dynamic is rooted in the widespread psychological and social constraints on female power. For, in spite of feminism, female power – decisiveness, status, command, influence – cannot be expressed directly at home or in the workplace without arousing suspicion, confusion, fear or dread.
Both women and men still tend to experience female power as exotic at best and dangerous and despicable at worst. Lacking clear avenues for developing our power directly, we learn to be indirect in making emotional arrangements based on others’ needs and wants, and how we would like to be seen.
Nor is wanting to be wanted the expression of a desire for intimacy or closeness. Rather, wanting to be wanted makes us feel as though we have no clear desires of our own. We focus on how to bring things under control by appearing in a certain way, speaking in a certain manner, implying our needs. Yet we never say directly what we want, and we may never actually know. We have been culturally programmes so thoroughly to tune in the subtleties of whether or not we are having the ‘desired effect’ that we fail to tune in to what we really want or to see how strongly we are motivated by wanting to be wanted.
Many times in individual and couples psychotherapy, I have faced a woman and said “What do you want here?” and she has replied, “I really don’t know” or “This is what the children and my husband need” or “What do YOU think?” If I push further and gently ask her to come up with some answer – any answer – she usually gets flustered and apologetic. She either doesn’t know or is afraid to say what she wants.
Female Power
In 1987 Psychologist Florence Wiedemann and I published a book titled ‘Female Authority: Empowering Women Through Psychotherapy’ in which we detailed a condition that we called the double bind of female authority: women are damned if they claim their authority (they are called controlling, dominating, bitches or even feminazis) and damned if they don’t (they are called manipulative, dependent, depressed, or worse, immature and self-defeating). We addressed the problem that results when girls and women believe that authority and knowledge lie wholly outside themselves – in men, gods, or institutions such as school or church. Since then I have helped many women in psychotherapeutic and educational settings to restore their personal authority, claim their competence and voices, and seek satisfaction in their lives.
Yet as successful as many of these women have become, they often feel ‘out of control’ in their personal lives. Although they can speak openly and passionately about the values and principles they believe in, and defend others’ rights, they still resist claiming and asserting personal needs and desires, especially when these are in conflict with others’. They fear being seen as too bossy or too self-absorbed.
Anne is just such a woman, in her midforties, whom I have come to know through weekly sessions of psychotherapy over the past two years. She is a professor and part-time dean at a local college. Articulate, conscientious, always prepared for her therapy meetings, Anne appears to others to be in control of her life. She is the mother of three lively children, one son and two daughters, the eldest of whom is away at college. Her children do well academically and socially. She is married to a “nice guy” – a laid back professional who spends a lot of his free time outdoors with their three children, camping, hiking, skiing. He’s also an egalitarian spouse who runs the kitchen the chauffeurs the kids. Anne appreciates all of this about John, especially his parenting skills.
A grateful feminist, Anne enjoys both her career and her family. She is decisive, well regarded as a leader at work, and admired by her many friends. Certainly no one would dub her a crybaby or victim. On the surface Anne appears to have every reason to be completely happy and satisfied with her life.
You may know someone like Anne who seems to have it all; you may even envy her. But each week when I meet Anne, she is full of complaints. She talks mostly about feeling that her life is out of her control: she never has a moment to herself, is almost always overwhelmed and overworked. She has no time for her own creative outlet, a combination of sculpting and painting, and she feels dominated by others’ needs and demands. The disparity between how Anne appears and what she feels about herself and her life is a symptom of wanting to be wanted.
Anne’s compulsion to be desirable begins with the fundamental belief that power – the right, capacity, or authority to act or influence others on her behalf – is not legitimately hers but resides in the eye of the beholder. She struggles mightily with how she is seen by others, not wanting anyone to think she is demanding or pushy. Anne often tells me about feeling empty – lost, betrayed or abandoned. Sometimes in a dream she is alone in a large building or tent and does not know which way to turn or if there is anyone who can help.
Anne resents many of the things she has agreed to do at work and at home, even with her friends. She recently spent the evening with a good friend who took hours to recount the details of a trek she and her partner had taken through some mountains in South America. Anne felt she had no choice but to listen because the friend had invited Anne for dinner specifically to tell her about the trip. Anne appeared to listen agreeably, although she was bored and even angry. I asked her why she had accepted the invitation in the first place if she didn’t want to spend the evening hearing about the trip.
“I don’t know”, she replied, “I couldn’t imagine turning it down. After all, this friend has spent a lot of time listening to me bitch and moan about my job.”
“And so you set aside your own desire to spend the evening quietly at home?” I inquired.
“Actually, no,” Anne said. “You see, I didn’t know how resentful I really felt until I was sitting there, feeling under her control with no chance of going home. Of course, I couldn’t tell her how I felt. I would never say something that sounds so rejecting to a friend. I wouldn’t want to hurt her feelings.”
To her friend it appeared that Anne chose to spend the evening together, but Anne had actually felt coerced by her own compulsion to be desirable. In order to make a choice, Anne had to have at least two options. Being free to CHOOSE means having alternatives, and in this case Anne would have needed to feel that she could say no in order to give a truthful yes. No one but Anne can make such a personal choice, but she has unknowingly refused to make it and so feels herself to be under the power of another.
Anne’s compulsion to appear agreeable unintentionally leads her to deceive her friend. Like most of us Anne wants to appear supportive of others and their needs, but she does not take full responsibility even for this desire. If Anne really WANTED to appear supportive, then her decision to go to her friend’s would be freely given. But because Anne’s compulsion to be desirable is hidden from her, she feels robbed of her power and control in the presence of her friend. The hidden compulsion to be wanted puts us under a sort of magic spell that makes our behaviour confusing to others, even to ourselves. We seem to have CHOSEN to be in a situation – a dinner party, a committee meeting, even a marriage – but we feel as though we had no choice, so we are there resentfully, holding in our negative emotions with arms crossed and a plastered smile sealing our lips.
What Do Women Really Want?
The Question What Do women really want? Often attributed to Sigmund Freud, but as far as I know its first formal appearance is in a medieval folktale titled “The Marriage of Sir Gawain and the Lady Ragnell”, whose earliest recorded version is from the thirteenth century. Its origin likely goes back further than this version because elements of its plot and themes show up in other folktales and literature in England (such as “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” from Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales) and throughout Europe, indicating that it was widely known by the thirteenth or fourteenth century. Since then it has been told and retold in many forms throughout the world.
The following rendition most closely resembles a modern retelling published in ‘The Maid of the North: Feminist Folk Tales from Around the World’, edited by Ethel Johnston Phelps. Phelps selected stories in which the female characters, especially the heroines, contrast with those of the traditional fairy tales and folktales that are commonly told to us as children. On the one hand, the heroines of our most popular children’s tales, like Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty, are known mostly for their beauty, grace, or generosity – and their submissiveness to Prince Charming. The tales chosen by Phelps, on the other hand, portray women as strong, capable, and resourceful, as well as hardworking and self-determining.
Gawain and The Lady Ragnell
One day, King Arthur was out hunting a great white stag at the edge of the oak woods when he looked up and found himself confronted by a tall, powerful chieftain, swinging his sword and appearing as if he would cut down the king on the spot. This man was Sir Gromer, who declared that he was seeking revenge for the loss of some of his northern lands to Arthur. Since Arthur was unarmed, Sir Gromer showed the king mercy and gave him a chance to save his life.
Gromer issued a challenge: the king had one year to return unarmed to this spot with an answer to the question What do women desire above all else? If Arthur answered the question correctly, his life would be spared; if not, he would lose his head.
Arthur agreed, but he was very discouraged. This must be a trick question, he thought. He felt certain that no one knew the answer. Back at the castle Arthur told the entire story to his nephew Sir Gawain, who was known as the wisest, bravest, most compassionate and courteous of all the Knights of the Round Table. The young knight, in contrast to the king, was hopeful. He and Arthur had a year to search the kingdom, and he was certain they would find the right answer.
Almost a year passed, and Arthur and Gawain collected many answers, but not one had the ring of truth. The appointed day was almost upon them when one morning Arthur rode out alone through the purple heather and golden gorse, deep in thought about his predicament. At the edge of the oak woods, he was suddenly confronted by a large, grotesque woman who was covered with warts and almost as wide as she was tall.
Her eyes met his fearlessly as she declared, “You are Arthur, the king, and in two days you must meet Sir Gromer with an answer to a question".
“Yes,” Arthur replied hesitantly, “but how do you know about this?”
“I am the Lady Ragnell, and Sir Gromer is my stepbrother. You don’t have the right answer, do you?”
“I have many answers, and I don’t see how it concerns you,” Arthur retorted, gathering his reins to turn and ride home.
“You do not have the right answer,” said Ragnell with a confidence that filled Arthur with gloom. “I have the answer.”
Arthur turned and leaped off his horse. “Tell me the answer and I will give you a large bag of gold!”
“I have no use for gold,” Ragnell replied calmly.
“Nonsense, woman, you can buy anything you want with it! What do you want, then? Jewelry, land? Whatever you want, I will pay you – that is, if you have the right answer.”
“I know the answer, I can promise you that,” responded Ragnell. After a slight pause she added, “I demand in return that Sir Gawain become my husband.”
Arthur gasped. “Impossible!” he shouted. “You ask the impossible, woman. I cannot give you my nephew. He’s his own man, not mine to give!”
“I did not ask you to GIVE me the knight Gawain. If Gawain agrees to marry me of his own free will, then I will give you the answer. Those are my terms.”
“Terms! What right do you have to give ME terms? It’s impossible! I could never bring him such a proposal.”
Ragnell stared calmly at the king’s face and simply said, “If you should change your mind, I will be here tomorrow.” Then she disappeared into the woods.
Shaken from this strange encounter, Arthur rode home at a slow pace, thinking to himself that he could never speak to Gawain of this matter. The loathsome woman! How dare she ask for the finest knight in marriage! But the afternoon air was soft, and the fateful meeting with Gromer weighed heavily on Arthur. When the king returned to the castle, he found himself telling his nephew about his adventure, concluding, “She knows the answer, I’m sure of it – but I didn’t intend to tell you any of this”.
Gawain smiled sweetly, not yet knowing Ragnell’s specific proposal. “But this is good news, Uncle. Why do you sound so discouraged?”
With his eyes averted, the king reported Ragnell’s demand, along with a detailed description of her grotesque face, warty skin and bulging size.
“How fortunate that I can save your life!” replied Gawain immediately. Over his uncle’s protests Gawain stated, “It is my choice and my decision. I will return with you tomorrow and agree to the marriage, on the condition that her answer saves your life”.
Early the next morning Gawain rode out with Arthur to meet the Lady Ragnell. Even seeing her face-to-face did not shake Gawain’s resolve. Her proposal was accepted, and Gawain bowed to her courteously. “If tomorrow your answer saves the king’s life, we shall be wed.”
On the fateful morning Gawain rode out part of the way with Arthur, who assured the knight that he would try all the other answers first.
The tall, powerful chieftain was waiting for Arthur, his broadsword gleaming in the sun. As Arthur read out one answer after another, Gromer shouted, “No! No! No!” until at last he raised his sword high above his head. “Wait!” the king cried. “I have one more answer. What a woman desires above all else is the power of sovereignty, the right to exercise her own free will.”
With a loud oath Gromer dropped his sword to his side.
“You didn’t find that answer on your own! My cursed stepsister Ragnell gave it to you! I’ll cut off her head. I’ll run her through with my sword!” He turned and plunged back into the forest, a string of curses echoing after him.
Arthur returned to where Gawain waited with the Lady Ragnell. All three rode back to the castle in silence. Only Ragnell seemed in good spirits.
The news spread quickly through the castle that a bizarre wedding was to take place between an ugly hag and the magnificent Gawain. No one could imagine what had persuaded Gawain to marry this creature. Some thought she must possess great lands and estates. Others thought she must have some secret magic. Most were just stunned at the fate of poor Gawain.
King Arthur drew his nephew aside. “A postponement might be in order,” he said.
“I gave her my promise, Uncle. Would you have me break my word?” Gawain replied.
So the wedding took place in the abbey, and the strange wedding feast was held before the entire court. Throughout the long day and evening, Gawain remained pleasant and courteous. In no way did he show anything but kind attention to his bride.
At last the wedding couple retired to their chamber. “You have kept your promise well and faithfully,” Ragnell observed. “You’ve shown me neither pity nor revulsion. Come kiss me now that we are wedded.”
Gawain went to her at once and kissed her. When he stepped aside before him stood a serene beautiful woman with gray eyes and a smiling face. His scalp tinged with shock, and he jumped back. “What manner of sorcery is this?”
Ragnell replied, “Do you prefer me in this form?” as she turned slowly in a full circle.
“Yes, of course, but I don’t understand,” stammered Gawain, confused and frightened.
“My stepbrother Gromer has always hated me. He obtained a knowledge of sorcery from his mother and used it to change me into a monstrous hag. He commanded me to live in that shape until the finest knight in Britain willingly chose me as his bride.”
“But why did he hate you so cruelly?” asked Gawain.
With her lips curled in amusement, Ragnell stated, “He thought me bold and unwomanly because I refused his commands, for both my property and my person.”
With great admiration Gawain said, “Then you have won the impossible condition, and his evil spell is broken!”
“Only in part, my dear Gawain.” Her eyes held his steadily. “You have a choice which way I will be. Would you have me in this, my own shape, at night in our chamber? Or would you have me grotesque in our chamber at night and my own shape by day in the castle? Fair by night, or fair by day – think carefully before you choose.”
Gawain knelt before his bride and responded at once. “It is a choice I cannot make. It concerns you, my dear Ragnell, and only you can choose. Whatever you choose, I will willingly abide by it.”
Ragnell released a long, deep breath. The radiance in her face overwhelmed him.
“You have answered well, dearest Gawain. Your answer has broken Gromer’s evil spell completely. The last condition he set was that, after marriage, the greatest knight in Britain, my husband, must give me the power of sovereignty, the right to exercise my own free will. Only then would the wicked enchantment be broken forever.”
And so in wonder and joy began the marriage of Sir Gawain and the Lady Ragnell.
Hag Psychology and the Mythical Dangers of Female Desire
This ancient story holds dimensions of meaning that are much deeper than its entertaining surface. It is a tale not only about self-determination and self-confidence in women but also about the confinement of a traditional patriarchal marriage, which, when the story was set down in written text, required by law that a woman surrender her freedom and property to her husband. Indeed, I am certain that this folktale was told as a warning to women and men about the psychological and interpersonal dangers of a condition that eliminated a woman’s personal sovereignty.
In the medieval period, when the tale originated, the power of the mythical hag to rob people of their vitality was well known to audiences. The hag was said to ride the bodies of men and children at night while they were sleeping, absorbing their vigour into herself. In the morning her victims would wake to feeble will and lifeless gloom. Her kiss was her most potent weapon. Getting close to her lips meant risking having your soul sucked out. A medieval audience would have appreciated Gawain’s courage in kissing his bride so directly. They would also have guessed that he performed this act without hesitation because he sensed Ragnell’s true nature. He would have been thought to have seen beyond her appearance in order to trust that she was not really a destructive hag who would exhaust and dominate him.
Stories about the evil power of the hag were one way that earlier societies demeaned and demonized female power. Portraying female power as devitalising, overwhelming, poisonous – especially for unsuspecting men and children – encouraged a belief in a negative emotional spell that could be cast exclusively by a demanding woman.
Today when women want to be wanted they unintentionally reinforce the misogynist belief that a demanding woman is to be dreaded and subdued. When we act as though our desires are too powerful and can overtake another’s free will or good sense, we reinvent the negative psychology of the hag-bitch. We are at risk of identifying ourselves and our desires with an alien, almost superhuman emotional power.
When Anne, for example, prefaces her own needs or wants with phrases such as “Do you mind if I...”, or “It would be so nice if you....”, she implies that she wants something especially burdensome or difficult that cannot be stated directly. When we cloak our desires in niceties and seductions, we protect ourselves from being known directly and imply that others must always be nice to us. This kind of eggshell quality of female desire suggests that our needs must be hidden, that they are dangerous.
In therapy sessions I often remind people that direct requests for reassurance, appreciation, even compliments are necessary when the need is urgent. Women frequently challenge me, saying, “That spoils the effect. People should just give these things spontaneously.” My response is that there are no shoulds when it comes to such interpersonal supports, and that clear and direct communication avoids the indirect message that others must intuit our desires. Attempting to evoke responses from others without claiming one’s needs not only is confusing but carries the hidden meaning of danger – that something is so troubling it cannot be put into words.
It is only when we speak directly, with a secure self-confidence, that we step outside this negative meaning of female desire. Recognising our desires as human-size (rather than monstrous) means that we can speak about them calmly and clearly. Although she was doomed to be a loathsome lady, Ragnell knew that her needs and desires were acceptable. She made her demands to King Arthur in a way that showed confidence in herself and her knowledge that Gawain had a choice in responding to her. She did not apologise, nor did she blame. She spoke boldly from her heart.
But, as many women have pointed out to me, Ragnell does not win her freedom all by herself. She has to conform to the conditions set by her stepbrother: that the greatest knight in all of Britain must agree to marry her, and that this knight, her husband, must grant her the power of her own sovereignty, the right to make her own choices. For some readers these conditions seem to diminish Ragnell’s accomplishments. But we should not be too literal in our understanding of this tale.
The story of Ragnell symbolises the development of a woman’s self-determination within the confines of a patriarchal tradition that demanded that she give up her rights and property after she married. Ragnell has to depend on men in power to assist her in becoming a free agent, but that is not so different from our situation today. At no point is Ragnell passive, compliant, or indirect. She defies her stepbrother and finds a way to meet his conditions. She even confronts the king, telling him that he does not know what a woman desires. She watches her new husband carefully, and she skilfully presents her challenge to be taken seriously (to kiss her) at a moment when it is likely to be most effective. And ultimately, she is aware that she cannot become self-determining without relying on others; she poses her questions to Gawain to test him, to see if he has grasped the fundamental dilemma of her life.
Ragnell symbolises a process through which a woman claims the authority to be her own person, to command her own actions. When we first meet her, she is the dreaded hag-bitch, the symbol of the emotionally demanding woman. Yet we can tell that she is something more, for even the king is convinced of her wisdom. As the story progresses we are won over by her courage and good humour. We are pleased that she will not be humiliated or subdued by the opinions of others. And finally, when Gawain comes forward to kiss her, we believe that he also senses something different about her.
Of course, he IS startled by her transformation, as are we. What of this transformation? Not until Gawain kneels before her and answers well, do we fully understand that she has been transformed not by his kiss but by the process of her own courage in pursuing her freedom and confronting her new husband.
By example, Ragnell shows us how to respond to the constraints of patriarchy in order to become a self-determining woman. First, she keeps her own counsel in the face of challenge. Although by all standards she is ugly, she is unconcerned about her appearance and definite in her stance. She is who she is. She speaks from her own authority in challenging her stepbrother and the king. She feels free to arrange her life according to her desires, even though she may be at risk for retaliations. She is knowledgeable about her desire for personal sovereignty, and she will not be discourage by spells cast on her, insults, or rejections. She will not have her motives demeaned, even by the king.
To understand why, many hundreds of years later, it is still such a struggle for women to follow Ragnell’s lead, we need to look more closely at the curse of her stepbrother, Gromer, who thought Ragnell was too bold and unwomanly in refusing his commands. She was a threat to his male dominance, the prototype of the uppity woman. So her stepbrother turned her into his image of that threat – an ugly, frightening hag, an emasculating bitch. His wish was that Ragnell would stay that way forever, but her self-determination was more than Gromer had bargained for. She stepped outside his spell in commanding her own life.
Polly Young-Eisendrath. An Excerpt. Women & Desire. Beyond Wanting to be Wanted.
Polly Young-Eisendrath
Polly Young-Eisendrath, Ph.D. is an internationally recognised Jungian analyst, a psychologist and an author. An experienced clinician and teacher, she is Clinical Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Psychology at the University of Vermont and Consultant in Leadership Development at Norwich University. She has published fourteen books that have been translated into more than twenty languages, including The Resilient Spirit, The Cambridge Companion to Jung and Women & Desire.
Helping women reclaim true desire for themselves. Not since Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex has female desire been explored so deeply and provocatively. This groundbreaking book delves into the complex world of female desire where women simply "want to be wanted." Many women encourage others to identify or validate images that give them feelings of worth or vitality and then feel resentful because they have sacrificed their real needs and desires. Instead of knowing who they really are and what they would like to do with their lives, they become trapped in their images. As a result, self-direction, self-confidence, and self-determination are undermined from adolescence through old age. Dr. Polly Young-Eisendrath examines this damaging syndrome of female development, showing women, and girls, how to untangle themselves from the web of reflected images that confuses or conceals their authentic wants and needs. Women and Desire empowers women to understand and take control of their sexual, social, and spiritual lives.
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The Company.
Writer, Speaker and Enlightener, Amera Ziganii Rao, is now putting together a comprehensive and unique programme of Alchemy & Liberation & Humanity™. A programme of learning that is specifically about one particular kind of woman. And one particular kind of man. The Sacred Whore High Priestess™ and the Sacred Whore High Priest™, and the true society that they come from and the one they, in particular, she can and has to return to and that anyone can join her and him in. This is about Paradise on Earth.
This is about The Sacred Whore High Priestess™ and the Sacred Whore High Priest™, and the Alchemy and Liberation and Humanity that is for all as a result of their healing and in particular, hers. This is about the kind of woman who is at the bottom of the pile in a Patriarchal Toilet Tribe from Hell Society™, the norm, the conventional world and the world of the Tribe. This is about the kind of man who is next in line from the bottom. The sensitive man and the female chattel. The High Priestess and High Priest of a profane society, that has long forgotten who they are.
This is about being at the bottom of the pile, for the forgotten and strangled shamans, and for her, the story of escape. Abused by her family, her friends, her men, her whole society, by the very nature of who she is and who they are and what has happened on this Earth. It is about women of love, of Spirit and of sex. It is about men of love, of Spirit and of sex. It is about the Cinderellas of this world. It is about the The Sacred Whore High Priestess™. Who she is and how, loving her is the secret to Paradise on Earth and how we have been living a lie for 8000+ years. A lie of male (non High Priest) religion with a male ‘God’ and with Patriarchs and Patriarchal types and Matriarchs and Matriarchal types ruling over us and making our lives hell, all in the name of family, the tribe and the way things are and should remain. Hate, fascism and profanity. A sick society that vilifies, more than anyone else, the The Sacred Whore High Priestess™, just because it was told to. A sick society that calls her Eve. A sick society that has forgotten who we all are, let alone the The Sacred Whore High Priestess™ and the Sacred Whore High Priest™. This is about us remembering and knowing who WE are.
This is a programme of healing for the The Sacred Whore High Priestess™, and the Sacred Whore High Priest™, to take them and particularly, her, from monstrous levels of low self esteem and lack of self knowledge, back to herself and it is a programme for all those who truly want to love her, and indeed, him. This is a programme for the greatest carers on Earth, who are vilified, destroyed, ridiculed, ignored, abused, used, misused and hated for being everything that those who would steal from us are not. This is a programme to turn Cinderellas into The Sacred Whore High Priestesses and for anyone who wants to love her or live by the values of the The Sacred Whore High Priestess Society™. And this is a programme to turn sensitive men into Sacred Whore High Priests™ and for anyone who wants to love him and live by the values of the The Sacred Whore High Priestess™ and High Priest Society. Love, humanity, Spirit and sex. This is a programme to reverse 8000+ years of witch burning, women hating and healer ridicule. This is about the The Sacred Whore High Priestess™ and all those who would love her and live by her values.
This is about the chance for Paradise on Earth. This is a programme for the most beautiful, kind hearted, wounded women and men on this planet. A programme of how to implement a system of how to beat life, how to survive life and how to resurrect from the grief that is a true life. Alchemy and Liberation and Humanity of the lower mind into the higher mind, the soul and the inner heart and therefore one's true, confident, ‘happy’, successful, creative, sexual, sensual, individual, intelligent, emotionally healed, capable of loving and being loved self. How to turn grief into creation and survive and thrive, despite all the shit, all the pain and all the hurt. How to live in a world of madness, hollowness and cruelty and how to be a winner. How to stand up for oneself and to take back the power that has been stolen from anyone with heart, Spirit and sex. The art and science of Alchemy.
This is a programme, based on my scholarly and non scholarly work over 15 years (so far), if not for my whole life, and my extensive and intense, visceral experiences of self transformation from resignation, cynicism and despair to a state of relative bliss, and above all, the right to be. The programme and the courses and my speaking and indeed my forthcoming book, will cover the method of change. The psychological, sociological, spiritual, cultural, political, emotional and physical and even anthropological methods of change. Why we are here. Who the Sacred Whore High Priestess™ is and why she is here. And who the Sacred Whore High Priest™ is. Why we are here. Who we are and what we are and why we are. The beauty and glory of the truth. The meaning of life, no less. This will be on offer in the future.
My first book of consciousness, my first book of the spiritual politics of humanity, of authentic power and of self love and strength. A comprehensive series of online courses, live events and audio and visual material. Books, live events, CDs and DVDs. And one on one personal empowerment consultations. The Amera Ziganii Rao Method of Change™. The right to be and the way to have the right to be. And indeed, how to maintain the will to live without love. How to BE unconditional, self sufficient, self caring, self love. The right to be and the will to be and the unparalleled success that comes with that. The Lost Knowledge™. HOW to live. And how to heal others, the profane and the sick and the soulless. The others. My Business and that of any Sacred Whore High Priestess™ and Sacred Whore High Priest™, is Human Rights, The Right to a Sexual Society, Self Actualisation and Freedom.
My Business is To Overthrow Fascism, in the Home and in the Country. My business is also mastering destiny. Overthrowing the ultimate 'fascism'. Our journey on Earth and The Return To The Source. Our healing, our ascension and our redemption. Fate. The daily crucifixions of a true life, the challenges and the fury of being healers and people of love on a planet like Earth.
Submitting to the journey to liberate and evolve oneself, through following one's heart, however much heartbreak and devastation it leads to on the long long long journey to freedom and then the longer journey to happiness. 'Long Road to Freedom', as Nelson Mandela says. My business is always taking risks, never giving up and making the endless sacrifices it takes to become whole. Enlightenment, Nirvana and then Parinirvana and beyond. My business is pain. My business is bliss.
My business is seeing the truly glory of Spirit on Earth. The Sacred Whore High Priestess Society™ and all that it is. Spirit, humanity, sex and love again at last. And the end of our legacy as either servants or witches or unpaid carers or indeed, ignored mistresses, other women, other men even, and the weirdos that are at the bottom of society. This is our world and it is time to take it back and I can show you how. And that makes my life, truly, worth living.
I want you to feel the way I do. Alive, with the right to be and the belligerence to exist in this profane and male ‘God’ led world of male supremacy, female supremacy, domestic, casual fascism, tribe rules from hell, with beautiful and kind, love intelligence laden, female and male Cinderella warriors at the bottom, caring for everyone else and getting nothing but hatred, ridicule and isolation for it. The meek are already inheriting the Earth and I can show you how.
Amera Ziganii Rao © 2012
I am THE High Priestess Monarch of the ancient past and I forgive you for becoming enslaved and taken over by the machines of the alien reptile force that invaded and took over Earth 8000 years ago. They taught you to hate me and my kind and you believed them. They told you I and my kind were dictators and that you were slaves, when all we had done was love you, honour you as companions and above all, we had let you just live.
We were the holy communers, the ones who gave birth to human beings, the leaders of society, the creators of society, the vehicles of Divinity on Earth and the channels of wisdom. The ones who looked after everything and the ones who built everything and ran everything, because we could. And because we loved it. We are and were the force of creation. And you loved us and you lived.
But they told you that you ‘deserved’ power too and that we were the ones standing in your way. And you believed them. The oldest ‘divide and rule’ strategy of hate in history and it worked. They used it and you bought it, hook, line and sinker. You had to give up sex, love, magic and your own spiritual gifts and you burnt, destroyed and violated me for 8000 years.
The world calls that male supremacy. And indeed, family supremacy, Matriarchal supremacy and supremacy of the material world and all who believe in it. Men and women like you. When all that you are are slaves to a reptile force to generate hate energy for them to live and thrive and vampire the human race. The puppets of a hate force, that chose to destroy women and men like me, for hate to grow, so they could live. You bought it and it worked. The greatest fraud in the history of the world.
I am THE High Priestess Monarch of the ancient past and I forgive you for becoming enslaved and taken over by the machines of the alien reptile force that invaded and took over Earth 8000 years ago. They taught you to hate me and my kind and you believed them. They taught you that my mind was evil. My mind, my sex, my body and my ways of life.
The humanity, the glory of sexuality and the glory of creation and creativity and the glory of Divinity in each and every one of us. Our souls. They taught you that human beings are separate from Divinity, that sex was wrong and that women who have minds of their own are uppity slaves. They vilified us but much much worse than that, they destroyed your relationship with all that is unseen, all that we honour and love.
They taught you to hate what is really God. By teaching you to hate us, you hated all that is good in yourselves. They taught you to hate the light. They taught you to kill us. The daughters of The Universe. The High Priestesses of God. The Spiritual Mothers. The Sacred Whore High Priestess Avatars of The Universe™. The Sacred Army of Love on Earth.
The Shamans, the Mystics and the Communers. The Hierophants.
They called me Eve and blamed me for the downfall of the human race and created the awesome profanity that is religion. Of men, by men and from men. Of reptiles, by reptiles and from reptiles. Christianity, Islam and Judaism and every other philosophy around the world was poisoned. There are no female spiritual leaders left. It is all profanity. They chose you to represent them because they wanted to divide us and they did. They told you to hate me. And you believed them. Now I am back and I forgive you.
I forgive you because I can. Because I came here to save your soul. And because I finally know who I am. I am THE High Priestess Monarch of the ancient past. I came here to return your soul to The Source. God, The Mother, The Universe. To return you to what is really God. Because I love you. And because She loves you and your kind, whatever you have done.
Whatever you have done to me and whatever you have done to Her. And most of all, whatever you have done to yourself. We forgive you. This is your redemption. Your freedom and your ascension. We are here to save your soul.
Amera Ziganii Rao © 2012
You bought the Sacred Whore like a piece of meat and you called that a wife. Your trophy wives. Your dancing girls. Your chattel and serving girls. Your piece of beauty. You bought us like you would cattle. Then you called it wives. Now you call it prostitution. The High Priestesses of the real God. You bought us to buy God, The Mother, The Universe and you caged us, separated us from our Divine gifts and skills in the Temple and drove us mad and then lost interest in us, because we had no gifts left, no excitement, no hunter in ourselves and no hope or joy left. Then you just called us mad and discarded us. You called us evil and you call love obedience, even though it had already killed us. You moved into our Temples and you played with the divination tools and thought you communed. The destruction of Atlantis was your gift.
You stole us from God, The Mother, The Universe and you tried to usurp us. You vilified us, enslaved us and you still envy us today. You call it intuition. You might want to think about this when you hate us out of your jealousy. The mystic gene means physical tortuous pain and taking on the empathy of the human race. All their pains, evils and dark thoughts. We see and feel everything. We make crucial sacrifices to be near Spirit and the unseen and we go without for years. To be shaman is not glamour. I make it glamour. To be shaman is a specific Samurai existence, ascetic and harsh. We commune to be guides. And you take that and you shame yourselves because you just want the meat. You didn’t just want the meat. You wanted our beauty of spirit, our personalities and our love and kindness. And you destroyed them, because you caged us and called us wife.
Amera Ziganii Rao © 2012
The High Priestess Sacred Whores, the High Priests and the true protectors. Those who do not have the gift like either the High Priests or especially like the highest of all, the High Priestess Sacred Whores but who honour, protect and facilitate them to the world. Who honour the Shaman Sacred Whores of this world most of all, and who know who they are and who they are not. Who know the difference, who do not envy and who protect and love the representatives of Spirit, GOD, THE MOTHER, THE UNIVERSE, on Earth. Who honour their wisdom and who honour the latent Shaman in themselves too and who honour the communing ability of the High Priestess Sacred Whores. The non violators. Our only friends. The New Society exists. It is called Enlightenment. It is called Love. It is The Holy Grail.
Amera Ziganii Rao © 2012
The master race. It's all a lie. You are brought up to be a despot king and it is only your sister who ever tells you that you have become a pratt. The master race is all a lie. There are no kings in an equal world. Your father was misinformed. What he brought you up to be was a killer. Pure and simple. A misogynist. A modern misogynist. A polite killer.
Amera Ziganii Rao © 2011
I enter the magical hours of pure feeling, pure thought, pure imagination and I think and I write and I 'mysticise' the Universe. I escape at will, the truth of my humanless, Samurai solitude, and I pursue the truth of love in myself and in everyone else. I am philosopher. I am shaman. I am alone. I frontier the Soul to be spirit on Earth.
Amera Ziganii Rao © 2011
Amera Ziganii Rao is a former hard news journalist who is now turning professional with her art forms and indeed, her healing forms, after a long journey of inner searching, self teaching and exploring many layers and areas of both craft and wisdom. She is now working on her first book of philosophy and esoteric thought, and social, cultural and spiritual commentary. She is also showing her first photography collections. And last but most definitely not least, she is building a business to share her Sacred Whore High Priestess Society consciousness and empowering explorations to reach as many people as possible across the world. She is in her forties and lives in London.
Amera Ziganii Rao © 2011
In the meantime, please enjoy this website. I have included many of the subjects I am covering, areas of experience and insight that I will be exploring to the fullest in my book, the courses and all the other work that is to come as a dramatist, novelist and essayist. I also of course, include many of the wise people on this planet, who have come long before me; authors, screen dramatists, playwrights, film makers, artists, and other enlighteners and grand carriers of the wisdom I have found the most helpful on my journey, to find peace and become enlightened. The seemingly impossible journey, in the face of oneself and one’s circumstances. People who have contributed massively to my healing on this mad journey called life, in this insane existence called The Universe. People who have helped to make me as good a carrier of wisdom as I in turn, can be. Thank you.
Amera Ziganii Rao © 2011
Copyright and intellectual property rights are serious issues. And legally protected. Please do not reproduce my work anywhere without due credit and obviously, never for financial gain. 'Big Sister' is watching you! Other than that, please continue to enjoy my original work and the work of (credited) others, for free, while I work on using my material in further professional formats. Thank you for your interest and support.
Amera Ziganii Rao © 2012
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