Everybody has heard of secret societies and secret services. Many have heard tales of the infamous Opus Dei or the hard-line Jesuits. All of these and more have one thing in common - they recruit zealously from within our places of learning such as colleges and universities and they are often based upon religion. But these are strictly male orientated organisations and they only ever recruit females for specific feminine roles - roles that almost never include positions of power or authority.

In England the Opus Dei have recruited many females and one of these is actually in government. Ruth Kelly is the British Secretary of State for Education and was recruited, along with her brother, Dr Ronan Kelly, at Oxford University. So, even when a female is "allowed" to be in government, she is governed herself by the male dominated Catholic Opus Dei - a society where she can never achieve ascendancy over a man and must follow the dogma and doctrine of a male dominated religion. Her beliefs are governed by the male Church and thereby her decisions whilst in power will come under the scrutiny of her male masters in the Opus Dei.

All of this creates a state of imbalance in society in general. You see balance is a philosophy at odds with our current state of affairs. It was though originally a Gnostic creed stamped out by the Catholic Church and Empire-building rulers. The Gnostics were the original Christians, seen in the ill-fated groups such as Ophites (serpent worshippers) and later in the Cathars or Albingensians and who the Catholic Church went to great expense and effort to eradicate from society. In these groups females often had equality and could even rule their order. Their whole premise was balance and equality and this simply would not do for the powers that ruled through male superiority.

The doctrine of balance was something we all needed in life. Take for instance the balance of desire. We all have desires, both good and bad and these need to be balanced. For instance I have a desire to eat, which is good, but if that desire turns bad then I eat too much, or I eat the wrong food. The same applies to most desires. This kind of balance is our own internal self-balance, but there is also a balance on a more physical level, between man and woman and in the days before our great power wielding religions females were often in positions of equality and even ruled. This is an historical and archaeologically proven fact. We only have to look at the images of mother or female deities from around the world, such as the goddesses of Malta or Crete. These feminine deities are often seen holding aloft two serpents, a symbol of wisdom and thereby revealing their own inner balance of wisdom. It has even been proven anthropologically for instance that Malta in ancient times was perfectly peaceful and without war or strife.

This is not a call for tipping the balance in the opposite direction, which would also cause imbalance, no, it is the call for equality, where women are allowed and even empowered into positions of authority equal to that of man. There can be no perfect world, but there can be a more equal world, where balance is sought and where man does not try to dominate the female through fear of her. For too long our Orthodox religions have striven for male domination; for too long we have allowed this to go unchecked. If the world is to be a more peaceful place, then we need more independent female peace-makers in the Whitehouse.

Biography:

Philip Gardiner is the author of the best selling The Serpent Grail, The Shining Ones and Gnosis: The Secret of Solomon