The False Promise of WWW Enlightenment

Never before have so many people been connected together in an instantly responsive network through which memes can spread faster than natural viruses. But the notion that taking the whole world online would create a utopia of netizens, all equal in cyberspace, was always a fantasy—as much a delusion as Luther’s vision of a “priesthood of all believers.” The reality is that the global network has become a transmission mechanism for all kinds of manias and panics, just as the combinati...

 Science of the Ancient Goddesses and Women Heroes

The most important of all the goddesses of antiquity was Isis, the Mother Goddess of the early Egyptians. Women retained a prominent place in Egyptian civilisation longer than in neighbouring Neolithic societies and Isis was often represented as promoting equality for all people. Perhaps this was why Isis cults were particularly attractive to women, commoners and slaves. These cults flourished in Rome and throughout the Mediterranean well into the Christian era. The attributes of Isis and th...