GR '(S)tree(t)s'

[Terrance]

Scott Badger wrote:
> 
> Unfortunately, my copy of Grave's WG is presently out of reach, but I wonder
> if anything might be gleaned there....

I don't know but, as I'm sure you remember, there is a lot about trees,
crosses, and Return. The book is not easy reading. I think that Stencil
is invested with Graves and young TRP has fun with Graves in V. because
his vision is rather paranoid (in the negative and not the religious or
positive sense as defined in GR)--everything is connected to the white
goddess, she is the white whale of moby-dick and the White Rocket of GR.
In any event, while I'm sure this book would interest a few here, it's
more likely to be tossed across the room by even the most patient
readers on this List. But, I think all would enjoy Chapter 26, "The
Return of the Goddess." 

...the early Gentile Christian  borrowed from the Hebrew prophets the
two religious concepts , hitherto unknown in the West, which have become
the prime causes of out unrest: that of the Patriarchal God, who refuses
to have any truck with Goddesses and claims to be self-sufficient and
all wise; and that of a theocratic society, disdainful of the pomps and
glories of the world, in which everyone who rightly performs his civic
duties is a 'son of God' and entitled to salivation, whatever his rank
of fortune, by virtue of direct communion with the Father. 

Both these concepts have been vigorously contested within the Church
itself. However deeply Westerners may admire Jesus's singleminded
devotion to the remote, all-holy, universal God of the Hebrew prophets,
few of them have ever accepted whole-heartedly the antagonism between
flesh and spirit implied in his cult. 

And not only has Hebrew monotheism been modified at Rome by the gradual
introduction of Virgin worship, but the ordinary Catholic layman has
long been cut off from direct communication with God: he must confess
his sins and acquaint himself with the meaning of God's word, only
through the mediation of a priest. 

Protestantism was a vigorous reassertion of the two rejected
concepts...the Virgin-hating Puritan Independents, who envisaged an
ideal theocratic society in which all priestly and episcopal pomp should
be abolished, and every man should be entitled to read and interpret the
scriptures as he pleased, with direct access to God the Father.
Puritanism took root and flourished in America, and the doctrine of
religious equallitarianism, or democracy, a theory which has since
dominated Western Civilization. 

What ails Christianity today is is that it is not a religion squarely
based on a single myth...usurping father god....