The Head of the Medusa

By Perseus

PREFACE

‘ A friend of wisdom is a friend of myth.’

— Aristotle

The Medusa was one of the Gorgons - three horrible sisters in Greek Mythology. A cursed and monstrous woman, she could turn to stone anyone who dared to look upon her face. The myth of the Medusa probably derives from three main sources. The serpent Goddess of the Libyan Amazons (representing female wisdom) was combined with both the dark, Egyptian Goddess, Nieth, (the Crone or Destroyer) and also with one of the triple personae of the North African goddess, An-Ath. The Greeks then imported this amalgam and made Medusa the patroness of Athens; her image embossed on the city’s shield.

The rich heritage of myth and legend can reveal to us the collective knowledge, wisdom and experience of the human race. The very fact that these archetypal stories have come down through the millennia with us, held deep within the collective human subconscious, testifies to their power, their relevance and their ultimate truth. As we face the end of the 20^th century, what relevance does this ancient legend have to us, you may ask? Re-examining these myths from our own current perspective, we may discover in them the truths that we need to re-learn, the wisdoms that are essential to ensure our survival now and for the future.

Throughout this work, the Medusa myth and contemporary social commentary have been interwoven to give a frightening but deeply insightful vision of our current, yet age old, predicament.

DEDICATION

~ This book is dedicated to Joe B - a hero of our time ~

THE HEAD OF THE MEDUSA - PART ONE

Medusa began life as beautiful, young girl famed for her glorious hair. She was so beautiful, in fact, that she made Athena, the queen of the Gods, jealous. To make matters worse, Poseidon seduced the girl in one of Athena's temples. Athena was so incensed that she turned the girl into a Gorgon – a monstrous creature with serpents instead of hair, ferocious claws, the teeth of swine and a face so horrific that it would turn anyone who gazed upon it to stone.

The genuine movement for female equality, which has had a long and respectable history since the mid-nineteenth century, has been hijacked and perverted. The new radical 'feminazis’ do not want equality but rather they demand female supremacy and the destruction of men. Looking back to the myth, there are striking parallels between the feminazis lust for power and the Medusa legend. By looking in the mirror offered by the myth, we may begin to understand our current state of affairs and, more importantly, see how to fight back, just as Perseus - the hero of the myth, did - with courage and a few well timed gifts from the gods.

Three major developments have dominated the course of society in the post war world.

DEVELOPMENT ONE

For the first time, human beings left the Earth, ventured into the void and looked back from a new perspective at the cradle of humanity. To many of us, brought up with science fiction novels, films and television, the sight of those huge, phallic, blazing rockets blasting into virgin space was a stunning and even moving experience though perhaps a little unreal. A few years after the first men set foot on the moon, people were tired and even irritated by the TV coverage of such events. They complained about the cancellation of soap opera re-runs and as they sat in their living rooms, their lives transformed by the technology the space program had given birth to, they complained about its irrelevance and its cost. Like spoiled children, in our spangly new, throwaway world, we threw away our grasp on the significance of what was happening. We were naively unaware of the human cost of our complacency.

DEVELOPMENT TWO

Every major event in history has its positive benefits and its negative aspects. The discovery of computer technology, born out of the darkness of the Second World War, was seen as a shining way forward to the future. It went hand in hand with the space program and brought about a terrestrial communications revolution. The world became a smaller place for those of us down here on Earth - a perception graphically illustrated by the astronauts, who stood on the barren surface of the moon and eclipsed the blue jewel in the black sky with the fingers of one hand. We had learned to see our world from a new perspective. But, we were not looking back.

DEVELOPMENT THREE

Around the same time, another revolution was taking place in the lives of ordinary men and women. For the first time, human reproduction could be effectively controlled. In the western world, the contraceptive pill became widely available, transforming the lives of millions of people. For women, it meant liberation from the oppression of unwanted pregnancy. It freed them from the constrictions of motherhood and opened doorways to what was seen as unlimited opportunity. Perhaps for the first time in history, western women, at least, had real choices. For men, it meant the beginning of an age of deep uncertainty. Biologically, their roles were unchanged but psychologically things would never be the same again.

This shift in balance and the resulting schism which developed between men and women allowed the Medusa, like a horrific angel of the apocalypse, to come shrieking into the world. We did not hear her though, for the myths and legends had been thrown away with the rubbish. In their place were stories and images of materialism and consumerism showing us the false treasures we could fill our lives with. They told us what we needed to aspire to, to make us whole. They told us reassuringly, what we wanted to hear, but they lied.

To Chapter Two

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Posted 2000 04 19
Updates:
2000 05 10 (reformated)
2006 10 31 (reformated)