The Murder of Hypatia: The Coming of the Spiritual Dark Ages
For over a thousand years now, our world has suffered a great imbalance.
The scales of life are painfully weighted to one side, and it’s caused innumerable consequences that have spiraled out of control.
My heart’s urge to spread this message about integrating the Divine Feminine Current back into our lives began with my own awakening to the spiraling condition of modern civilization.
It all comes back to when I learned about a centuries’ old crime that was perpetrated against us with a genius and malignant accuracy. One still alive today, feeding on what it has so cleverly created.
Let me first say this — I don’t see myself as a feminist nor a social justice warrior. Not that there’s anything wrong with either of these — I just think labels are too constrictive; too easily misunderstood and abused.
I am just a man who now sees, all too clearly, what has been done to All That Is Feminine; Our mothers, our sisters, our heavenly Goddesses who hold the womb of the universe deep within their celestial cores.
All of them, stripped of their roles in the co-creation of All That Is.
And this loss is not only heartbreaking, but it’s destroying us from the inside out.
Instead of preaching at you, I want to share a story…
THE story that started the awakening in my own heart.
The Brutal Murder of Hypatia of Alexandria
That Spring day in the year 415 C.E., started out like any other. The sky was clear, with a hot dry sun warming the waters of the Nile. Hopeful merchants crowded the busy streets. Lives were being lived under the watchful eyes of the Gods of Egypt.
The door to a lecture hall, connected to the great library of Alexandria, swung open. From among the clamor and discourse of great minds within, a Pagan noblewoman stepped out into the warm air. She stood tall and sure; clothed in the long robe and signature scarf of the teaching class.
Not knowing what awaited her just a few streets away, Hypatia of Alexandria, climbed into her chariot and drove towards home.
Hypatia (pronounced high-PAY-sha) was the daughter of the mathematician Theon of Alexandria, the last known teacher in the age-old tradition of the Mystery Schools, the spiritual universities of antiquity.
She herself was a rare female scholar and the head of the Platonic school in Alexandria.
Hypatia’s beauty was legendary and, it was said, equaled only by her intelligence, depth of philosophical mastery, and sincere kindness. She was a brilliant lotus flourishing within the sun-baked walls of a harsh, man-ruled society.
And because of this, the role she played in history was anything but simple.
The Coming Stormfront of Religious Fanaticism
The 4th century saw a dark religious Stormfront on the horizon. Already, the winds of fanaticism were carving a division into the heart of the city itself, cleaving it in two.
The formal and official transition of the Roman Empire from a wholly Pagan state to a shared Pagan and Christian entity had begun.
In many places, however, Christianity was starting to come out ahead — particularly in the Eastern Roman Empire.
Alexandria, Egypt, was at the center of this struggle. It was a place where an amalgamation of Pagans, Jews, and Christians shared one space.
And as history would attest in the coming centuries, what little religious tolerance ran through the hearts of the city’s spiritual hierarchy, would eventually trickle down to nearly every person; filling the gutters and turning the sands red with the blood of martyrdom.
That warm Spring day in Egypt, Hypatia unknowingly stepped into her role as a catalyst that would change the world…and not for the better.
The Storm Arrives
As she commanded her chariot with ease, locals called to her with warm smiles and gestures. Her openness, combined with her warm and elegant manner, won her the admiration and affection of most of the townsfolk. She often halted her horses to step down and chat amiably with whoever wished to talk or to debate issues of philosophy with her.
“Such were her self-possession and ease of manner, arising from the refinement and cultivation of her mind, that she not infrequently appeared in public in presence of the magistrates, without ever losing in an assembly of men that dignified modesty of comportment for which she was conspicuous, and which gained for her universal respect and admiration.” Socrates Scholasticus, History of the Church (London: Henry G. Bohn, 1903)
Oh, how she must have cut a striking figure among the crowded streets of that most cosmopolitan of cities.
But the storm of change rolled in and fate took a hideous turn. What came next pushed into motion great and unseen spiritual gears that still grind to this very day.
Hypatia entered a public square near the Caesarean Church, where Christian converts were known to gather. She felt no fear…there wasn’t a reason to. This was her city and her people.
But instead of warm greetings, she found her path blocked by a menacing crowd.
They had been waiting for her.
At the head of the group stood a rough-looking man called Peter the Reader.
“Now this Peter was a perfect believer in all respects of Jesus Christ,” a zealous convert who admired Cyril, the Christian bishop of Alexandria. (In Alexandria: A Journal of the Western Cosmological Traditions 2, ed. David Fideler).
With a snarl, Peter the Reader roused the gathered men to approach Hypatia and impede her way.
But why?
History tells us that Bishop Cyril had an ax to grind with Hypatia. And his distaste for her and fear for all that she stood for, had flowed into the hearts of his followers, his fellow believers.
The events that followed happened in part because a local prefect prosecuted one of Cyril’s protégés for openly attacking Pagan doctrines. Hypatia had sided with the prefect and the protégé was severely admonished. This had damaged the Christian Bishop’s pride and local standing.
And this had fanned the flames of his outrage. He would not allow this to happen again.
Public opinion held that Cyril, who was on record for calling Hypatia a sorceress, was complicit in what was about to happen in broad daylight.
The Brutal Attack
Peter the Reader exhorted the crowd to throw nearby stone tiles at Hypatia, and then pull her from the chariot. They quickly overpowered her by yanking hard on her loose clothing from all sides. Her long robes and scarf proved an advantage to the mob of angry, rough-handed workmen.
Pulled off balance and falling to the ground, she struggled in vain to break free. But there was no escape.
The mass of grappling hands now began to strip off her robes. They wanted to debase and humiliate this brilliant, proud woman. Teach her a lesson that would never be forgotten. Not now, not ever!
Members of the local populace, Hypatia’s friends and neighbors, stood by helplessly; paralyzed by the horror unfolding before their eyes.
The violence of the mob escalated rapidly, its intensity fed by the raucous shouts of Peter. He called Hypatia a vile heretic and a witch who beguiled people through her beauty and her teachings, which were nothing but the wiles of Satan.
Hypatia protested and cried for help, but a stiff blow from someone broke her jaw.
In a matter of minutes, she was on her knees in a pool of her own blood. Crushed under a flurry of blows and kicks, she was rapidly beaten to death. Not content merely to take her life, the mob pounded her naked body to a pulp and tore her limbs off her torso.
The number of the attackers, and the ferocity of their assault, made it impossible for anyone witnessing the murder to intervene.
Cheers of Triumph
When this once beautiful lotus of Egypt had been reduced to blood and gore, the mob cheered in triumph!
These men, who were self-declared Christians, immediately began to exalt in what they had done. The frenzy of victory was so acute, it could not be satisfied by the mere beating and dismemberment of this defenseless woman.
As if emanating from their pores, some force of inhuman inspiration electrified the haze of violence that fumed around the murderers. Wild-eyed with excitement, several members of the mob ran to the nearby harbor and scooped up the razor-sharp oyster shells found in abundance. They returned and passed out shells, as Peter encouraged his henchmen to scrape every last morsel of flesh from Hypatia’s bones.
When the men were done, they took the scraped bones to a place called Cindron and burned them to ashes in a mock Pagan rite (John Nash; Not in His Image).
The Aftermath: The Coming of the Dark Ages
Historians have long regarded the death of ‘Hypatia of Alexandria’ as the cataclysmic event that defined the end of classical civilization in Mediterranean Europe.
It signaled the end of Paganism and the dawn of the Dark Ages. (Paganism, the generic term for pantheistic religion in the Western classical world, merits capitalization as much as Christianity.)
From this point onward, life on this planet would slowly sink deep into a redemption narrative that, at the heart, one would find an angry, belligerent, and jealous god. A god without mercy or compassion towards other forms of worship and faith.
A god who would demand utter, blind loyalty, or suffer unspeakable punishment.
A male god.
A male god with no female counterpart.
The Purpose of the Elaia Center
When I share this story with those who are curious as to why the Elaia Center takes such a firm stance on ‘restoration of the Divine Feminine’ through our teachings, many invariably ask if we are anti-Christianity.
I always answer, “absolutely not!”
I started the Elaia Center after a profound awakening that was seeded with the story of Hypatia. And that further deepened and flowered over the subsequent two years of research and soul-searching.
Understand this: I was raised in a Christian family and was, at one time, in the ministry as a teenager. I stood on platforms and preached the gospel. I called others to the same salvation that I believed must be accepted, lest one lose one’s soul in eternal damnation and separation from the divine.
I’ve lived that faith, in other words. I know the roads of ‘salvation’ well.
The Redeemer Complex
I am neither Jewish nor Muslim so I can’t comment on those faiths with any integrity. But, what I can comment on is what most religions have as a foundational belief that powers the movement:
A male-centric deity with a core message of inherent sin and the need for salvation. A salvation that can only come through him, of course.
And what I am is anti-patriarchy in every form.
Let me explain a bit more…
The fourth-century saw the imposition of the death penalty on Pagan religion by Theodosius I and Theodosius II.
‘These men were described by one historian as “two of the most cruel and powerful Christians of any time who were already laying the basis for the Inquisitions and the future religious wars of Europe.” Samuel D. Marble, Before Columbus (New York: A.S. Barnes & Co., 1980)
Following and co-opting the Jewish tradition of “sacred history,” the Salvationist program, (the cornerstone belief of inherent sin and the need to be redeemed in order to stand before God in righteousness), enforced a linear historical plan upon the entire human species.
Joined together, the Old and New Testaments constitute a directive script, a story encoded with beliefs that drive the behavior of those who adopt it.
Sanctioned by the ‘redeemer complex’ patriarchy had written its own agenda, and attributed the authorship to a vindictive paternal ‘male’ God.
Their Divine Father had a plan for conquest and conversion that was to be perpetrated in Europe for a thousand years. This led to its victims, themselves being transformed into perpetrators, carrying it forth under the sign of the Cross to the New World.
The story that was to guide Western civilization for sixteen hundred years gradually crystallized in favor of this patriarchal scheme of divine redemption.
These ‘patriarchal gears’ were fully put into motion with the murder of Hypatia of Alexandria.
Her death and what it represents casts a long, chilling shadow that has never left us.
Victims into Perpetrators Via an Off-Planet Deity
The damage resulting from this Divine Father ‘redeemer complex’ on the world, human beings, and our souls and psyche — can not be overstated.
Stripping the Divine Feminine, in all forms from human consciousness, has left humans with heartbreaking wounds and a broken sense of how to express a living relationship with life itself.
Guidance for those seeking faith and relationship with the divine has been cast in iron shackles. Conflicting and suppressive spiritual rules of behavior have made everyone guilty of sin from the second they were born.
Instead of a loving relationship with our world, and one another, that easily flows from empathy, tolerance, and openness — the great patriarchal religions of the world have used guilt and fear to turn victims into perpetrators by encoding their doctrines with hideous conversion narratives.
These narratives drive us to colonize and dominate other cultures in the name of a very unforgiving, off-planet deity.
I thoroughly believe that a world with balanced and harmonized energies would never degrade into such behavior.
Final Thoughts
A quote from the legendary sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”, given by British Colonial Christian theologian, Jonathan Edwards to his congregation on July 8, 1741, has an essence that can be found in every patriarchal religion alive today:
‘He will crush out your blood, and make it fly . . . so as to stain all his raiment.’ And once this judgment begins, there’s no turning back and ‘your most lamentable and dolorous cries and shrieks will be in vain.’
This theme of unrelenting anger and violence is at the bedrock of all Patriarchal religions. All one has to do to see the effects of this kind of religion is to look at the outcomes and actions of the world’s major, male-centric faiths.
Look at our world and ask yourself “How soon before we go too far to turn back?”
I firmly believe that if we are to ever have a chance to evolve into a more heart-centered, compassionate species that lives deeply aware and in tune with our beautiful planet and solar system — we must turn away from Patriarchal faith and restore the beauty and dignity that comes with balanced, harmonious consciousness.
It is my dream and intention to bring a better understanding, devotion, and daily expression of the Divine Feminine to as many people as we can.
To all who are open and ready to hear, and help spread this message.
Without this balance and inner-connection with our Divine Mother restored; I truly believe our fate on this planet is all but sealed.
If anything I have said resonates with your heart and mind, please connect with us on social media or join our Elaia’s Living Letters email newsletter. There is so much remaining to share and discuss that a single message such as the above, is only the beginning.
As the Elaia Center’s philosophies and practices find and quicken those ready to hear, one truth will always stand firm at our core:
There is a critical need for restoration of the Divine Feminine Current of Energy in our modern Patriarchal world.
In future writings, I will go more deeply into how our school is aiming to help tip the balance on this patriarchal scale towards a more Divine Feminine Flow — so stay tuned!
Damien Rourke
