The Spiritual Authority of Sisterhoods
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The Hope for Mankind
By: Chet Shupe
When asked what she took away from her participation in making the new version of the movie, “The Color Purple,” Taraji Henson’s reply was profound. She said, “It just reminds me of how powerful we are, as women, when we stick together. This doesn’t mean that we’re coming after you men. If we stick together, you’re taken care of. Relax! You will benefit. Trust me.”
What does she mean by that? And where is the proof? Modern cultures traditionally cast females as the dependent sex. But Hanson is saying the opposite: When women stick together they take care of everything, including the men. I think she is saying it, because that is how things were, before legal systems existed. She doesn’t need proof, nor do countless other women who are beginning to recognize sisterhood as the source of their power, because the message is coming from their souls.
For those who need proof, you can find it in the suffering that humankind increasingly experiences, as a result of the suppression of female spiritual authority, by legal authority. Spiritual authority (or emotional authority, if you prefer) is a gift of evolution. It enables individuals, and groups—most importantly, sisterhoods—to cooperate in ways that serve the life of their species. Because legal systems repress human emotions, the spiritual authority of sisterhoods has been missing from human lives for thousands of years.
But things are changing—fast! It was only around two hundred years ago that women were granted the right to own property—mere minutes, in historical terms. This freed them to function independently of men, for the first time in recorded history. As a result, women are free to care for one another in ways that were not possible, before. Through mutual support, women are reconnecting spiritually, and beginning to recognize the immensity of the power Nature gave them when they “stick together.” As this continues, women will eventually recognize that the spiritual authority of sisterhood is so remarkable that, when emotionally bonded, women have the power to take care of life without any legal authority.
When humans were free of monetary and legal systems,people survived interdependently, in the context of sisterhoods and brotherhoods, living lives that bonded individuals together in a way that modern humans can hardly imagine. But our modern lives are mostly about self, because we must each make it on our own, by accumulating personal wealth, often working at jobs in which we have no emotional investment.
Most of us depend on the institution of marriage for the sense of security and safety that family promises. But the continual rise in divorce rates reveals just how many cracks there are in the modern concept of what makes for a good life. While civilization has provided us with advanced technology, formal education, healthcare, and other desirables, recent developments are raising two important questions: Do progress, prosperity, and longer lives make us happy? And is our modern way of life sustainable? Most people would increasingly agree, the answer is “no,” on both counts. I suspect that virtually all the problems of modern life are symptoms of one thing—the fact that we depend, for survival, on money and laws, rather than each other.
This issue was highlighted by a recent encounter I had with a young woman who approached me, after a speech I gave on the inherent difficulties of modern male-female relationships. She told me that she had recently escaped an abusive marriage. I was sympathetic, as I listened to her story, and said, “I understand why women want marriage. You want a place where you can bring life into this world, and you need assurance that neither you nor your children will be abandoned, or abused. The state tries to provide that safety, by requiring marriage licenses. But, all too often, the institution fails to live up to its promise of a viable home, in which to raise children.”
One of the most devastating results of the flawed paradigm of modern society is that so many women who seek the protection of marriage end up spending their lives in meaningless relationships, or suffer abuse. Sometimes, it costs them their lives. The fact that over half of American adults now live alone reveals that marriage has failed to provide a sufficient framework for men and women to meaningfully relate. So, what is a young woman to do?
Do what all women did before tribal and civil authorities existed! Stop trusting your lives, and those of your children, to the promises of institutions. Trust them, instead, to a sisterhood—a body of women bonded by their real and present need for one another. I can provide no instructions on how to do this. I only know that the human spirit lives in the moment, and that it honors needs, not promises. To make promises, or to expect the promises of others to be honored is to live for the future. This is something that our spirits cannot do. If we base our relationships on promises, not only are we going where our spirits cannot follow, but we also insult our spirits. They evolved to guide us, from moment to moment, in our service to life—NOT to fulfill an idealized notion of what the future should be. It’s all but impossible for a family to succeed, if the spirits of its principal members are absent or offended—the reason family relationships based on promises so often fail.
Though trusting the spirit of a sisterhood may seem alarmingly strange, be cognizant that we are modern humans who have been culturally conditioned, for thousands of years, to believe the human spirit is untrustworthy. It is because we consider our spirits untrustworthy that civilization insists on legally defining family relationships. A sisterhood is bonded by the women’s need for one another—never by social contracts. Trusting a sisterhood will monumentally change your life’s paradigm: You will never again have reason to trust your, or your children’s lives to anyone’s promises. Given the ever-increasing failure of the institution of marriage, I believe the time is soon coming when women will find themselves with no choice, other than to again trust their lives to the spiritual authority of a sisterhood.
Spiritual authority is the key feature of life, endowed by evolution. It empowers each animate being to serve its purpose, by complying with “The Law of Life:” To serve life, do what feels good, and avoid activities that result in emotional pain.
The Law of Life works, because evolution programmed the feelings of every individual, so that, when it seeks pleasure and avoids pain, it behaves in ways that enable its species, and countless others, to live in sufficient harmony for life to flourish, on this planet. Spiritual authority governed all animate life, in this way, until just a few thousand years ago, when humans subjugated themselves to “legal authority.” That mistake forced all people to depend, for survival, on legally imposed promises. This prevented them from ever again honoring their feelings of the moment, which instantly stripped them of spiritual authority! Hence, the increasingly stark nature of modern existence.
Modern people depend so completely on complex systems of law, to survive, that they might well argue that “the Law of Life is far too simple a directive to govern something as complex as life.” Of course, life is complex, beyond our wildest imaginations. But, the complexity is in the organism—NOT in the rules! A perfect example of this can be seen in the way early automobiles functioned. They were so difficult to manage that owners had to hire mechanic drivers to operate them. But, the far more complex modern automobiles we now drive are so simple to operate that they can be driven by anyone. This is how complexity hides itself, both in machines, and in living organisms.
During pre-civilized times, our complex human organism governed our existence, and life was as simple for humans as it is for animals, today. Evolution programmed our feelings, just as it did the feelings of other social species—to take pleasure in placing the needs of our “sisters and brothers” above our own. In this way, each of us naturally served our own and our species’ needs.
But everything changed with the advent of money. To this day, humans remain subjects of monetary systems, with little choice other than to depend, for survival, on the promise of personal wealth. This shift, from dependency upon each other to an exclusive dependency on money, has rendered utterly useless the spiritual authority through which evolution once rewarded each of us with pleasure, when serving life. It has also made useless most of the complexity of the human neurological system, through which evolution endowed us with spiritual authority.
Having lost our spiritual authority, we can no longer take care of life, by serving one another. Thus, we no longer experience the intimacy of sisterhood and brotherhood that is inherent to our natural way of life. And we suffer—even in the most comfortable of homes.
Lack of intimacy is the main source of human suffering, in modern life. We can recover it only through the spiritual authority of sisterhoods. In the presence of such a body of women, functioning as an autonomous unit, thus without legal authority, humanity can regain the intimate relationships all humans once took for granted.
It is because life comes from the female that evolution commissioned women to be life’s caretakers, just as Taraji Henson implied, in her remarks. On the other hand, evolution commissioned men to be life’s protectors. It takes far more emotional intelligence to take care of life, than to protect it. This is why the spiritual authority of females is more important to natural social order, than that of men. Men’s role of protecting life is important, of course. But, if women weren’t taking care of life, men would have nothing to protect.
Unlike masculine power, which is the power to create things that can be controlled, Feminine Power is the power to manifest that which is beyond our control, including those things that our heart most yearns for—intimacy, relatedness, creative expression, authentic community, meaningful contribution, and authentic success.
—Dr. Jean Houston
Men’s emotions attach greater value to the lives of the people they are protecting than their own. In this way, evolution provides them with the spiritual authority needed to protect life. Their crucial role, as protectors, explains why men focus on control. To protect life requires that they control the situation at hand, in times of danger.
A woman once asked me: “Why are there more male prophets, theologians, and philosophers than female?” I replied: “Because women have important things to do.” I explained that humans know what life is about,through feelings, notwords, intellect, knowledge, or study. Women serve life—not by controlling it—but, by experiencing the pleasure of satisfying the feelings evolution gifted to them, for doing so. Mankind’s legal subjugation eliminated sisterhoods, and, with them, the spiritual authority that women must have, to take care of life. As a result, women are now without “the power to manifest that which is beyond our control, including those things that our heart most yearns for…”
Of course, men, too, are feeling beings, even though they’re more likely than women to base their decisions on reason. If men were exclusively rational, it would not be possible for them to value the lives of others, above their own. However, it is, in fact, the male bent toward rationality and control that caused—and continues to cause—our species to lose its way.
As language evolved, it eventually expanded human consciousness, to incorporate imagined future events. As a result, people began to worry about how to ensure their safety into the future, yet unknown. This was a concern that had previously never existed, thus one for which our innate wisdom has no answer. But, when men—life’s protectors—began thinking about potential dangers, it was natural for them to view future uncertainties as just another enemy. And, quite naturally, they reasoned that they could eliminate the future’s uncertainties, by force of manmade laws. Unfortunately, in mistaking the future’s uncertainties for just another enemy, humanity became engaged in a conflict it cannot win.
Prior to the advent of nation-states, each individual’s wellbeing had always depended on the wellbeing of his or her sisters and brothers. We took care of each other as if they were us. Emotionally, we could hardly tell the difference. But, once the state took over, our sense of wellbeing depended on how good each of us looked in the eyes of the law. Instead of experiencing the natural sense of belonging and commitment inherent to interdependent relationships, we had no choice, other than to compete against each other, in pursuit of wealth and privilege. This destroyed sisterly and brotherly love! It also destroyed spiritual trust. As institutionally subjugated people, we universally view humans as untrustworthy, not because humans are naturally deceitful, but, because we are all emotionally alone and afraid, thus, cannot possibly behave like normal humans, no matter how wealthy we are.
At the cost of sacrificing our emotional lives, we have proven that the power of pure reason can control the future…for a while. What we do not realize is that, because the uncertainties of the future are limitless, they will eventually overwhelm us, no matter what we do. The evidence for this has been visible throughout history, in the inevitable fall of every civilization, which reveals this axiom: Any effort to eliminate future uncertainties is ultimately counterproductive, and leads to eventual total and complete ruin.
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
—Excerpt from “Ozymandias,” by Percy Bysshe Shelley
How did kings first appear? Though no one knows, I will offer a scenario. Whether I’m right or wrong, at least it provides a perspective on how easily heretofore unimaginable things can happen. Previous to mankind’s subjugation by kings, the idea of allowing one’s activities to be controlled by any person was unthinkable. Now, we are so dependent on the services provided by centralized systems of power that the idea we can exist without everyone being controlled is unthinkable!
Regarding the appearance of kings, it all started, some six to eight thousand years ago, when men decided that the world would be a better place, if they had the right to own women. So, to eliminate the uncertainties of the future, regarding family relationships, men claimed the right to own women, through the sacrament of marriage. But, in doing so, they destroyed sisterhoods, thus the spiritual authority through which women had previously provided human cultures with a natural sense of purpose, meaning, and direction. In other words, with sisterhoods in control, people didn’t need ideologies, religions, plans, or dreams to provide them with a sense of who they were.
To fill the leadership vacuum that resulted from the elimination of sisterhoods, tribal cultures took over, until, with the advent of the written word, legal authorities appeared. Mankind has been subject to Kings—or, more to the point—Gods, ever since. First, we were subject to the will of earthbound mortal Gods, then to the imagined will of an immortal God, who lives in heaven, and finally, to the God of money, which is mindless and thus, has no will, at all. Money is an artificial system of accountability through which people who live for the future keep track of how much they owe one another.
A mindless accounting system, not the human spirit, now governs human activity on this planet. If we do not bow to the dictates of money, we suffer, sometimes alone on a park bench. But worse, even people who meet its demands suffer, because money is a false God—as are all gods whose authority is based on the future they promise. For instance, “The World Happiness Report” reveals that people who live in the richest countries have much higher suicide rates than those who live in poor ones. When subject to a false God, there is no way to escape the pain, whether one successfully complies with its demands, or not.
I trust that Shelley would not mind, but, I will venture to change a few words in his epic verse, to express my concern about what is to come, if humankind continues worshipping false Gods:
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Money, God of Gods;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
When monetary systems fail, as do all false gods, eventually, mankind will face a choice: We can return to trusting our futures to the will of our earthbound or heavenly Gods; We can create a completely new false God in whom to trust; Or, we can return to the way of life that evolution prepared us for, by surrendering our designs on the future, and again trust our lives to the spiritual authority of the human soul, as manifested through sisterhoods.
As for now, money owns the world. If you want to live here, you have to pay. The question is, how will the human race ever cease worshiping false Gods, given that our emotional and material survival now depends on continuing the practice? That’s like asking a cosmologist how to go back in time. The reply would probably be, “You need a wormhole.”
To regain access to Nature’s governance, we need sisterhoods. Only through the spiritual authority of sisterhoods can we escape the illusion that human intellect has given us dominion over the forces of Nature that created us—the illusion upon which our present reality stands. Only then will we be free to re-embrace the reality in which earlier humans once thrived. We’ve lived far too long without the state of contentment into which humanity was born—the natural world, where we tended to our own needs, and life’s needs, simultaneously, by seeking pleasure and avoiding pain.
Caution: To live in the moment requires spiritual honesty. We must be true to what we feel in every moment, regarding the situation at hand. Whether the feeling is to love, or reject, to celebrate or to mourn, to self-sacrifice, or kill, we are commissioned by evolution, for the sake of our species’ wellbeing, to act upon what we feel. Thus, it is essential to avoid, at all costs, any individual who presumes to know what is good, and what evil. That, according to the authors of Genesis, is the knowledge for which humanity was expelled from Eden. How could that knowledge not estrange us from the reality in which Homo sapiens evolved? As a result of our belief that we possess the knowledge of good and evil, most modern humans have been taught that we are born in sin. Thus, to be socially acceptable, we must ignore, or repress, the very feelings through which evolution normally governs our species! To teach that our emotions are our enemies, not our friends, is tantamount to declaring war on the forces of Nature that created us. Who do we think will win?
People who are emotionally constrained by beliefs about good and evil, are not free to exercise their spiritual authority, by acting on how they feel. This results in spiritual dishonesty—lying about how one feels, in order to comply with the precepts of a belief, whether religious or secular.
Presently, we have no choice, other than to comply with verbally prescribed notions of good and evil. But, presume, for a moment, that a natural family did form—a family bonded by needs, not promises. If someone who thinks they know right from wrong gains the sisterhood’s confidence, the family relationships will at once begin transforming from a body of people bonded by their real and present need for one another, into a cult, or a commune—just another assemblage of people living for the future. Worse yet, given time, and enough true believers, it may transform into a nation-state.
Men created moral laws for the flawed purpose of prescribing what’s good and what’s evil. The first moral law was probably the one that relegated women to the property of men through the sacrament of marriage. In general, women have been mistreated, ever since. Most importantly, the institution of marriage destroyed sisterhoods—and, with them, the spiritual authority of women. Modern humans have been running “open loop” ever since—going everywhere in search of contentment, belonging, and meaning, but getting nowhere, in terms of finding it.
Suppose our species regains control of its life, through sisterhoods. How would men fit into that picture? Well, we men also need a place to live, where evolution rewards us, for serving life. If there were sisterhoods around, I would personally address that problem by knocking on one of their doors, to ask a question. “Is there any way I can help?” (Note: I would not ask for sex. That would be to make a fool of myself.) If they invited me in, and it turned out that I was more a benefit than a nuisance, they might allow me to stay. And, if enough other men wanted to support the sisterhood, and the women found them more a benefit than a nuisance, then, I would have a purpose: Help the men protect and support the women and their children. I would also have a brotherhood, some guys to hang out with—which is my idea of Heaven.
For humans to know lasting contentment, and for our species to survive, evolution must regain control of our lives, through the spiritual authority of women. Only women, bonded by their need for one another, are endowed with the ability to take care of life—which includes saving men from our universally held illusion that, by legal authority, mankind controls its destiny.
Evolution gifted sisterhoods with the spiritual authority to manifest something that legal authority never can: The survival of our species. In the deepest recesses of our hearts, isn’t that what we all want?
Throughout the thousands of years that mankind has been subjected to legal authority, we have sensed that something about our lives is not right. But, we’ve continued to put our faith in gods or institutions, sincerely believing that, by our devotion, we will eventually find relief in the futures they promise. However, as our suffering continues, it is becoming clear that if there is to be relief, it will never come from the “powers that be.” The solution lies in reawakening to the wisdom of our souls, and allowing our spirits to guide us, rather than insisting that our lives be planned—an insistence that subjugates us to false gods. By no means will this new reality be risk- or trouble-free. But, by living in the moment, we will be guided by the wisdom of human nature, rather than by our fears, or dreams, about what the future will bring—something we can never know.
Keep in mind that the spiritual authority of sisterhoods is an expression of evolution. It does not come from Heaven, ivory towers, or any external source. It comes from life! It is rooted deep within each of us, and could very well be the last hope for our kind.
New beginnings are disguised as painful endings.
—Lao Tzu
