Dedication
Contents
Introduction: The Chalice and the Blade
Human possibilities: two alternatives
The evolutionary crossroads
Chaos or transformation
CHAPTER 1 Journey into a Lost World: The Beginnings of Civilization
The Paleolithic
The Neolithic
Old Europe
CHAPTER 2 Messages from the Past: The World of the Goddess
Neolithic Art
The Worship of the Goddess
If It Isn’t Patriarchy It Must Be Matriarchy
CHAPTER 3 The Essential Difference: Crete
The Archaeological Bombshell
The Love of Life and Nature
A Unique Civilization
The Invisibility of the Obvious
CHAPTER 4 Dark Order Out of Chaos: From the Chalice to the Blade
The Peripheral Invaders
Metallurgy and Male Supremacy
The Shift in Cultural Evolution
Warfare, Slavery, and Sacrifice
The Truncation of Civilization
The Destruction of Crete
A Disintegrating World
CHAPTER 5 Memories of a Lost Age: The Legacy of the Goddess
Evolution and Transformation
A Golden Race and the Legend of Atlantis
The Garden of Eden and the tablets of Sumer
The Gifts of Civilization
A New View of the Past
CHAPTER 6 Reality Stood on Its Head: Part I
Mother-Murder Is Not a Crime
The Dominator and Partnership Mind
The Metamorphosis of Myth
CHAPTER 7 Reality Stood on Its Head: Part II
The Rerouting of Civilization
The Absence of the Goddess
Sex and Economics
Dominator Morality
Knowlege Is Bad, Birth Is Dirty, Death Is Holy
CHAPTER 8 The Other Half of History: Part I
Our Hidden Heritage
The Cyclic Unity of Nature and the Harmony of the Spheres
Ancient Greece
Androcratic Right and Wrong
CHAPTER 9 The Other Half of History: Part II
Jesus and Gylany
The Suppressed Scriptures
The Gylanic Heresies
The Pendulum Swings Back
CHAPTER 10 The Patterns of the Past: Gylany and History
The “Feminine” as a Force in History
History Repeats Itself
Women as a Force in History
The Female Ethos
The End of the Line
CHAPTER 11 Breaking Free: The Unfinished Transformation
The Failure of Reason
The Challenge to the Androcratic Premises
The Secular Ideologies
The Dominator Model of Human Relations
Forward or Back?
CHAPTER 12 The Breakdown of Evolution: A Dominator Future
The Insoluble Problems
Human Issues and Women’s Issues
The Totalitarian Solution
New Realities and Old Myths
CHAPTER 13 Breakthrough in Evolution: Toward a Partnership Future
A New View of Reality
A New Science and Spirituality
A New Politics and Economics
Transformation
Special Epilogue for the Twenty-Fifth Printing
Notes
Index
Acknowledgments
More Praise for The Chalice and the Blade: More Praise for The Chalice and the Blade:
Also by Riane Eisler
Copyright
About the Publisher