A Brief History of God traces the last three thousand years of patriarchal religion and its creation of Western culture.
Underlying the writing of this book is the great gap left in our society by the slow and lingering death of God the Father Almighty. That fathers should, right into the twentieth century, own their children and mothers have no rights to them, was the legacy of the One God. That women could not keep their own money—their husbands owned it and have done so throughout our history – comes from the same place. We are a crippled culture, facing now our own extinction, and only beginning to find our potential to deal with it. Though ‘God’ is indeed dead, as Nietzsche told us a little while ago, the mystery that things exist—that anything exists at all, let alone this world with all its beauty and its depths—surrounds us with greater force than any aroused by ‘God'; and it is Einstein, the scientist, who points us towards it: ‘The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science,' and certainly the source of this book.
“A Brief History of God is an absolute gem! Erudite, entertaining, and permeated throughout with a profound blend of magic, mystery and razor sharp intellect – Julian David is a true elder, a wisdom-keeper, healer and storyteller. This book deftly and fluently answers questions that are both pertinently historic and profoundly existential…about how we have come to the current critical state of social and environmental crisis.”
Colin Campbell, African Medicine Doctor, Botswana and Cape Town.
“Julian David reveals a hidden tradition of reflection on how much we have lost, forever searching for what is truly of value. His wise and gentle voice invites us to consider the same question the Sphinx asked Oedipus: ‘What is a Man? What makes a human?’ In the Nietzschean tradition of the ‘death of God,’ it is tempting to wonder if this book might become the ‘death of Yahweh’?”
Jules Cashford, Jungian Analyst, lecturer and author of ‘The Moon: Myth and Image.’
“In this vitally important book Julian David frees us from our
unconscious shackles to the patriarchal sky God that has made our
culture so supremely destructive of nature. With skill and poise he
redirects us to the earlier hermaphroditic divinity of nature which we
so desperately need to solve the current global crisis. This
wonderful book is sheer liberation for the mind and soul.”
Dr Stephan Harding, Ecologist, Senior Lecturer in Holistic Science at Schumacher College and author of ‘Animate Earth’.
“Without attempting to psychologize religion, this fascinating, brief, yet scholarly enquiry into the history of God, shares with the reader a deep understanding of the psychology of the phenomenon, its underlying cultural, mythopoetic origins and not least, the dark side of the patriarchal politicization of religion and concept of God. To me, it is a masterly ‘once upon a time’ story… an enquiry that has something to do with you and me. An important, timely and timeless book.”
Ian McCallum – psychiatrist, analyst and author of Ecological Intelligence – Rediscovering Ourselves in Nature.