[Author’s Note: This essay was written as part of the Introduction to She Summons: Why Goddess Feminism, Activism, and Spirituality? Volume 1, Co-edited by Kaalii Cargill and Helen Hye-Sook Hwang. Forthcoming June Solstice, 2021.]
BEGINNINGS . . .
Introductions by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang and Kaalii Cargill
HELEN HYE-SOOK HWANG, Ph.D.
She Summons: Why Goddess Feminism, Activism and Spirituality? Volume 1 is the fourth anthology of its kind following after[A1] her sisters of the She Rises trilogy. We published She Rises: Why Goddess Feminism, Activism, and Spirituality? Volume 1 in 2015, She Rises: How Goddess Feminism, Activism, and Spirituality? Volume 2 in 2016, and She Rises: What Goddess Feminism, Activism, and Spirituality? Volume 3 in 2019. Engineered to charge against the various forms of capitalist colonialist modern patriarchy by way of constructing the wheel of Goddess feminist activist spirituality, these sister warriors are sent out to the battleground of our daily lives. They are built to invoke the matricentric power from within, which unites elemental beings beyond differences. Structurally, each book is organized as three mothers (parts) and nine sisters (chapters). And the nine is the mother number manifest as the triad (3×3).
Heralding the arrival of the fourth volume through this introduction, I am led to some clearer visions of Magoist anthologies. What distinguishes the volumes of She Rises and She Summons, Magoist anthologies for short, from other anthologies lies in the fact that each anthology once birthed constitutes a spoke of the wheel called Goddess feminist activist spirituality. Put differently, each[A2] Magoist anthology partakes and shapes the very structure of the Goddess feminist activist spiritual movement or the Way of the Great Mother. Each volume is an embodiment of the purpose AND the means of achieving the purpose. Magoist anthologies undertake the task of kindling a flame in the mind of readers to join the Fire of Life on behalf of all planetary beings. Magoist[A3] anthologies consciously unfollow the patriarchal convention of a book-making business. Our sister-books are NOT an intellectual commodity for buyers to pay for their consumption. We are born out of[A4] the gift-sharing of our co-editors and co-authors. We are here to “buy” the mind/heart of readers to the cause of Goddess feminist activist spirituality by giving, persuading, and sharing ourselves.
It is unequivocal that the collective writing anthology series of She Rises and She Summons are an endeavor to underscore the inseparable unity of feminism, activism, and spirituality in the Great Mother or the Creatrix. Thealogy and experience, life and religion, and nature and humans are not oppositional to each other. We humans are living the one reality of Life. And we share the same Life with other terrestrial beings.
As the first of the She Summons forthcoming trilogy, this volume interweaves the howling and churning voices of Goddess feminists, activists, and spiritual practitioners. Moving onward and forward under the banner of Goddess feminist activism spirituality is no small feat. Continuity itself is our power. She Summons speaks with the Great Mother. That said, there is another salient character in this volume. This book, She Summons Volume 1, carries a birthmark of the Covid 19 pandemic, a virus previously unknown to humans, which continues to take a toll on human lives and their non-human companions. Our co-authors, emboldened in our tones, dare not to quit. We have survived the Covid 19 pandemic. Survivors by definition prove that they have refused to be defeated. We soar in spirit even when our bodies are tied up. This book is a powerful statement of WE/HERE/NOW at the core.
We, 21st century moderns, are witnessing a pandemic caused by the previously unheard-of coronavirus. As of May 21, 2021, deaths mark 3.44 millions with 166 millions for a total number of the infected. About a year ago when it began to break the daily record for the number of new cases and deaths around the globe, most people were uninformed of what its outbreak would entail and how it would impact our lives for good. In fact, who could have been prepared for what, when it comes to a pandemic? It is plain that a pandemic escapes an individual’s preparedness. Yet, the pathogen destroys people individually, taking each person as its own prey. Lethal and contagious, a pandemic attacks organisms indiscriminately. We rarely hear these questions raised in public: Are people just expected to fear infection? Is there anything that we people in general [A5] can do to help the situation? Why do humans have a pandemic in the first place?[A6] What is the larger role of viruses and pandemics within an eco-system? What are the lessons that moderns learn from the 21st century pandemic? Ultimately, I am interested in these questions: What is a pandemic for us, People of the Great Mother? How do we make sense of a pandemic for all in WE/HERE/NOW?
Standing at the point of time when the Covid 19 pandemic has been sweeping globally for more than a year now, we are hearing its impacts everywhere on all levels individually and collectively. What is evident is that socio-economic-political activities have been restricted to an unparalleled degree, at least for the past few decades. Foremost, the pandemic has changed fundamental routines[A7] of modern lives for good. While human-to-human contacts are avoided, the virtual mode of social interactions through the internet has become a new normal.
Modern humans have attempted to cope with pandemics by developing vaccines. Although vaccination seems to be effective, eradication of pathogens is NOT in the hands of humans. That pandemics are the most formidable foe to humankind is underestimated. According to an expert, the coronavirus born anew in the 21st century will survive the vaccine, lurking and biding its time in the very biology of humankind:
Yet experts tell us that even with successful vaccines and effective treatment, COVID-19 may never go away. Even if the pandemic is curbed in one part of the world, it will likely continue in other places, causing infections elsewhere. And even if it is no longer an immediate pandemic-level threat, the coronavirus will likely become endemic – meaning slow, sustained transmission will persist. The coronavirus will continue to cause smaller outbreaks,
much like seasonal flu.[1]
The hard fact is that the pandemic holds a stranglehold on humankind. Infectious through contact or air, a pandemic puts public health at risk. However, it is too naïve to think that a pandemic is only a public health issue. It threatens the very foundation of socio-politico-economic establishments. Thus, a pandemic, fallen under the control of governments, directly affects state’s security. It is only cogent that today’s researchers assess and study [A8] pandemic from the perspective of public health and state security:
The recent global experience with severe infectious disease epidemics has triggered much interest in understanding the broader pandemic threat landscape. A substantial proportion of pandemic and biological threat preparedness activities have focused on list-based approaches that were in part based on pandemic influenzas of the past, historical biological weapon development programs, or recent outbreaks of emerging infectious diseases (e.g., SARS, MERS, Ebola) (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 2017; Casadevall and Relman 2010). But such an approach inherently fails to account for agents not currently known or those without historical precedent. For that reason, preparedness activities that are limited to these approaches may hamper preparedness and lessen resilience.
The purpose of this study was to analyze the characteristics
of pathogens that could be capable of causing a global catastrophic biological risk (GCBR). These would be events in which biological agents – whether naturally emerging or reemerging, deliberately created and released, or laboratory engineered and escaped – could lead to sudden, extraordinary, widespread disaster beyond the collective capability of national and international governments and the private sector to control. If unchecked, GCBRs would lead to great suffering, loss of life, and sustained damage to national governments, international relationships, economies, societal stability, or global security (Schoch-Spana et al. 2017).[2]
Controversies over its origin to be “whether naturally emerging or reemerging, deliberately created and released, or laboratory engineered and escaped” surprise no one. Today, international political powers are divided into the two camps, the U.S. and its allies vs. China and its followers. Blaming and slandering have become a normative practice for international politics. But also anything lethal is weaponized. In fact, it is no secret that biological weapons have been developed and employed in modern patriarchal warfare. Secrecy and espionage are its language. No state would openly proclaim that they develop a biological weapon. We may never know which epidemics are purposefully or accidentally engineered in a laboratory. What we know, as the following report informs, infectious pathogens have rapidly increased for the last few decades as a result of “biological warfare research.” Resultantly, we are introduced to “previously unheard-of diseases”:
The pathogenic Mycoplasma used to be very innocuous, but biological warfare research conducted between 1942 and the present time has resulted in the creation of more deadly and infectious forms of Mycoplasma… Despite reporting flaws, there has clearly been an increased incidence of all the neuro/systemic degenerative diseases since World War II and especially since the 1970s with the arrival of previously unheard-of diseases like chronic fatigue syndrome and AIDS.[3]
Biological weapons are seemingly the scion to modern weapons of mass destruction after nuclear weapons, chemical weapons, and radiological weapons. Moderns are doubtless more vulnerable for a pandemic, as pathogens are militarized and politicized by state powers. Authors of the above account come to us as the voice of a secular prophet, in saying, “If unchecked, GCBRs would lead to great suffering, loss of life, and sustained damage to national governments, international relationships, economies, societal stability, or global security.” Alas, patriarchy has been gambling for its gains by pawning humankind and all planetary beings. Pandemics remind all that pathogens do not allow themselves to be manipulated by patriarchal warmongers.
Today, we are living in the era of global warfare. “Peace” guaranteed by arms is no peace but a ceasefire. A ceasefire implies an ongoing war. In patriarchy, peace is no reachable reality. In fact, peace is foreclosed by the definition of patriarchy that it antagonizes women and the rest of beings in Nature. Patriarchy is a warfare reality. That is no mere critical feminist statement out of feeling an impasse. It is a matricentric assessment on patriarchy. Patriarchy must be viewed within the scope of the trans-patriarchal matricentric reality. The pandemic is a wakeup call from Mother Nature.
Histories are no collection of separate past events. Like geological strata, they carry the consequences of interrelated past events. What has happened shapes us today and what we do today shapes tomorrow. The rise of patriarchy has affected the living for good. Regardless of who caused the pandemic, all human beings are affected. The impact reaches all on the planet and beyond. Pandemics send the alarm[A9] that humankind has gone wrong[A10] .
In the case of traditional Korea, epidemics were handled by matricentric shamans for a long time[A11] . For example, Mudangs held authority in handling smallpox outbreaks. We are informed of various forms of smallpox gut rites. The gut performed to cure and prevent smallpox for a child was an enactment of its distinctive thealogy in which the virus was deified as a fierce mother, a messenger of Mother Nature. Furthermore, a child or a person who contracted smallpox was treated with high esteem in that the smallpox mother chose to dwell in the person. Korean Mu tradition of smallpox is a topic that escapes the scope of this space due to its complexity and graveness. Suffice it to say that smallpox was given the title of “Mama (Mother)” or “Hogu Mama (the mother who visits houses),” among others, and placated through the various rituals presided by Mudangs. Family members [A12] displayed [A13] extreme piety to the infected in the hope that the smallpox mother would leave the person without harming. Deification of epidemics as the divine mother is not limited to traditional Korea. By the name of Shitala (She Who Cools) or Ma, smallpox was venerated by Hindus in the subcontinent of[A14] India. Was smallpox “placated” by such devotions? Intriguingly, we are told that smallpox is the only eradicated pandemic through “vaccination.”[4]
What is lost among moderns is not just pandemic-related shamanic rituals but also a Magoist assessment of a pandemic. The pandemic is a testimony that Nature is potent and capable of thwarting the very survival of humankind. A breakout of an infectious disease signifies an inherent corruption within an organism and its conglomerations. If a lifeform is internally corrupted, it loses its ability to self-correct and harmonize with everything else,[A15] the environment. Humankind under patriarchy is the case. A pandemic manifests as a self-defensive mechanism of Mother Nature against human assaults on all levels. In that sense, pathogens are the messenger of the Great Mother.
We the generation who have witnessed the Covid 19 pandemic are led to ask this question: What does a pandemic mean to us, the People of the Great Mother or the Mago Descent? The pandemic awakens us, the People of the Great Mother, Magoists, to a manner that is otherwise not possible. Mother Nature has spoken to humans loudly and clearly: Return to the Origin of the Great Mother! We as part of Mother Nature are experiencing the power of Mother Nature. We learn that Mother Nature is leading the course of HER Life on Earth. Mago, the Creatrix, is the Source of Nature. S/HE acts through natural phenomena. The Creatrix has her own plans for Life to be shared by all beings on Earth. And S/HE manifests in the principle of causality, an action entails a consequence.
Mother Nature does NOT allow the patriarchal humankind to continue to destroy and suffocate the breath of Life in all beings. Pandemics counterprove [A16] patriarchal ideology that men hold superiority [A17] over all other beings on Earth. Truth is that patriarchal forerunners are incapable of protecting their own lives from a pandemic let alone public health and state security. A pandemic derides male supremacy.
Personally, the Covid 19 pandemic began as I was settling in this new home located in the valley of a mountain by a creek. We moved here about 3 years ago. Before then, this land was wilderness. For the first 2 years, I was planting fruit trees creating a rock garden with the vision of creating a place for Magoists. The pandemic was not near around me and I was able to focus on researching and writing on the topic of Magoism without being shaken by it. And I have arrived at another breakthrough, which is an execution of the first virtual Whale Pilgrimage to Magoist Korea. In the sense that nothing has interrupted me from moving onward and forward with my life’s mission of bringing back the matricentric reality of WE/HERE/NOW. I take it as S/HE is with me and us!
[1] Nükhet Varlik, “How do pandemics end? History suggests diseases fade but are almost never truly gone in The Conversation (October 14, 2020). https://theconversation.com/how-do-pandemics-end-history-suggests-diseases-fade-but-are-almost-never-truly-gone-146066 (May 21, 2021).
[2] Amesh A. Adalja, Matthew Watson, Eric S. Toner, Anita Cicero, and Thomas V. Inglesby
“Characteristics of Microbes Most Likely to Cause Pandemics and Global Catastrophes” in Global Catastrophic Biological Risks (2019, 424: 1–20). Published online Aug 30, 2020. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7122301/ (May 21, 2021).
[3] Donald W. Scott, “Common Mycoplasmas – Now Weaponized, Pathogenic & Deadly” in Nexus Magazine, Volume 8, Number 5 (August-September, 2001). https://rense.com/general18/mcc.htm (May 25, 2021).
[4] Nükhet Varlik, “How do pandemics end?