Research and Historical Essays

Occasionally someone will comment on various conclusions and observations contained in my essays and the lack of footnotes or often the methods at which I arrived at them.  I have spent a lifetime in personal research in a variety of subjects but often many of my conclusions are inspired by some tibbet of information gleaned from a totally unrelated source.  The conclusion about the possible role of transsexual women in the domestication of cattle was one such inspiration that came from a question in the back of my mind about the ancient and persistent connection of Mother Goddess worship and bulls.  Having been around dairy farms at various parts of my life it seemed self evident to me that when raising dairy cattle one culls the bull calves for meat and quickly learns to castrate them young to make raising them to an age suitable for slaughter less dangerous.  Often these "leaps" seem self evident to myself but I am learning they are less so to others.

The various essays are works in progress.  Eventually I hope to combine them along with the work of other Cybeline priestesses into a more traditional scholarly reference book or books so that the work will be in a less fragile form than electrons stored on various computers.  When I write those books, I shall try to expand and explain the process by which I reached my conclusions and, time allowing, will post those changes to the various essays I have on the web.

My own background lacks the "professional" credentials of scholarship.  When I attended college I took advantage of the times and size of Ohio State to "fall between the cracks" and spend the entire first three years of study following my own interests and curiosity without a declared major.  My interests in the humanities therefore led me to a course of study that spanned anthropology, psychology, economics and sociology beyond the introductionary courses a liberal arts program would require.  Classical literature I pursued on my own over the course of a lifetime out of pure joy of reading.  Joy of learning has led to my sharing thousands of hours of discussion with a wide range "credentialed" scholars in friendship over the course of my lifetime.

I have found myself appalled over and over by what passes as scholarship today.  If someone with a big enough reputation makes a statement, it is passed as "revealed truth" by writer after writer afterwards with almost no examination of the basic premises or foundational facts.  I make no apologies for my own position of inspired writing, but try to label it as such and constantly test my own ideas against further readings, conversations and research.  Over and over I have found myself handed source material at precisely the moment I needed it or was ready to understand its significance.  At my age I no longer can believe in coincidence especially when I was educated in statistics and analysis and these sort of things happen to me personally over and over in flagrant violation of the laws of chance.   It should also not be a surprise that someone who has devoted her life to theological research and restoration feels the hand of something larger than ourselves guiding her.