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Max Dashu

@maxdashu.bsky.social
440 followers 76 following 244 posts

Restore women to cultural memory, political analysis, spiritual awareness, globally. Founder, Suppressed Histories Archives: suppressedhistories.net and on FB. Books: www.veleda.net www.youtube.com/@maxdashu/videos

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Max Dashu @maxdashu.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Ten years ago we celebrated the release of my first book, Witches and Pagans: Women in European Folk Religion, 700-1100. I began writing it in 1978. Video from 2016 book release event, with Judy Grahn, Arisika Razak, Mancha de Plátano, Evelie Sales Posch & more. oldwitch.substack.com/p/video-from...
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Max Dashu @maxdashu.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
Prudencia Ayala was an Afro-Indigenous feminist, anti-imperialist, unionist, the first Latina to run for president (El Salvador, 1930), after founding a newspaper Redencion Femenina (“Female Liberation"). She fought for social justice on every front. More: oldwitch.substack.com/p/prudencia-...
oldwitch.substack.com
Prudencia Ayala, "la sibila santaneca"
Afro-Indigenous feminist, anti-imperialist, unionist, presidential candidate
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BrooklynDad_Defiant! @mmpadellan.bsky.social · 01/07/2026
18 year term limits. Expand the court. Save America.
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Lady Becky, Baroness of Bunzy, Bestie of Kim, Co-CEO Execubetch™️ @beckybunzy.bsky.social · 01/07/2026
Men all deep in their feels 'cuz Supergirl's strength isn't realistic, but they have no problems with Superman's strength. It's a mystery I tell you.
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Max Dashu @maxdashu.bsky.social · 26/06/2026
Mapping the Ancient Female Icons: a work in progress, 52 years in. I made this map in 1974 for a global view of the ancient female figures, and kept it for 52 years. Sunday, it came full circle, populated with these ceramic, stone and bone icons. Read more at: oldwitch.substack.com/p/the-ancien...
oldwitch.substack.com
The Ancient Female Icons
Mapping their global reach: a work in progress, 52 years in
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Max Dashu @maxdashu.bsky.social · 18/06/2026
Devastating indictment of deeply engrained misogyny and structural patriarchy, in which South Africa’s leaders perform “change,” without accountability, while violent oppression of women continues. substack.com/home/post/p-...
substack.com
The Rainbow Nation Has Always Had a Body Count
South Africa is not a rape capital by accident
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Max Dashu @maxdashu.bsky.social · 14/06/2026
"We rise to heaven and brush away the comets.” --Song of the Wu. Old sources show the Wu performing invocation, divination, dream interpretation, healing, exorcism, driving off evil spirits, and performing ecstatic rain dances. See a richly illustrated article: oldwitch.substack.com/p/the-wu-ecs...
oldwitch.substack.com
The Wu: ecstatic priestesses of ancient China
An entire history of Chinese women that has been withheld
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Max Dashu @maxdashu.bsky.social · 12/05/2026
I began writing this series in 1978, askingWhat Happened to Women in Europe? How did men take over the priesthood, demonize and smash the goddesses, and preside over the witch hunts? How do we integrate an understanding of patriarchy, class, and colonialism? oldwitch.substack.com/p/secret-his...
oldwitch.substack.com
Secret History of the Witches
Contents of the 16-Volume Series by Max Dashu (preview)
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Max Dashu @maxdashu.bsky.social · 02/05/2026
All this was being signaled, even before Project 2025 was published. But denial was strong, and now look, they’re doing it all. Along with blocking the Black vote.
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Max Dashu @maxdashu.bsky.social · 27/04/2026
The Potency of Old Woman: new video course surveying traditions and images of Old Woman, as creatrix, goddess, ancestor, cultural founder; legendary and historic women who were movers and shakers in their societies. Plus extra readings. Subscribe for $20 at maxdashu.freshlearn.com/checkout/Cou...
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Max Dashu @maxdashu.bsky.social · 25/04/2026
In Yakutia, the old Sakhá iduan Alykhardaakh confronted and overcame local Party cadres who were persecuting shamans, How she did it severely embarassed these men, and will make you laugh. The article goes into Russian colonial repression of Indigenous North Asians in the name of liberation.
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Max Dashu @maxdashu.bsky.social · 23/03/2026
New visual talk on women’s demos and initiatives worldwide: inspiration! 2 showings: Thu 2 April, 6pm, and Sat 12 noon (both California time). 90 min + discussion. Recording upon request til May 5. $20, register at www.paypal.com/ncp/payment/... (No paypal? look for debit/credit card button.)
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Max Dashu @maxdashu.bsky.social · 21/03/2026
No War. No bombing. Stop ICE. We’re coming together again on March 28 to make it clear that Trump's fear and intimidation aren’t working. We have NO KINGS; power still belongs to the people. app.sosha.ai/s/C2gYMYHZ
app.sosha.ai
Join me at the next No Kings Day
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Max Dashu @maxdashu.bsky.social · 21/03/2026
Bits from Women's Power, Women's Oppression, Women's History, my keynote at Feminism in London in 2015: Never recorded, so I'm sharing some screenshots from the section on Re-Sisters. Begins with a few other images I like. Had to cut description, no space here. oldwitch.substack.com/p/stand-up-w...
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Max Dashu @maxdashu.bsky.social · 23/02/2026
Whale Rider: one of the best movies I've seen. Paikea Apirana overcomes her grandfather's insistence that only boys matter, to live out her destiny. Māori cultural reclamation in Aotearoa. youtu.be/XVLyRbatI0A?...
youtu.be
Whale Rider
YouTube video by YouTube Movies
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Max Dashu @maxdashu.bsky.social · 12/01/2026
Grandmother Stones video on female statue menhirs in Europe, 4000-900 BCE. The deep history is in the icongraphy! Missed the live sessions? you can view the recording up until Feb 9 by registering here, only $20: www.paypal.com/ncp/payment/... (If link doesn't work on mobile, try another device.)
paypal.com
Grandmother Stones zoom
Newly expanded visual talk on female statue menhirs in Europe, 4000-900 BCE. Iconography of the ancestor-face; breasts-and-neckace motif, and other symbols. France, Portugal, Spain, Guernsey, Sardini...
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Max Dashu @maxdashu.bsky.social · 12/01/2026
Video of my visual overview of women's history can be streamed here:
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Max Dashu @maxdashu.bsky.social · 11/01/2026
Screen cap essay! "Advisory from ancient Sumeria: “Do not bend your neck for that which cuts necks.” Conditions in the US are alarming as all hell. Click over and read it, screen caps of public statements from the current govt tell the story. oldwitch.substack.com/p/were-in-fo...
oldwitch.substack.com
We're in for it now
The absolute state of things
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Esmée Streachailt @esmeestreachailt.bsky.social · 11/01/2026
At my joint - other's wisdom before my own reminders how not to crumble inward. #DismantleICE #EpsteinFiles #EpsteinSurvivors #FashHateWomen #FeminismOrDeath
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Sonny Wasinger @stageplay.bsky.social · 11/01/2026
Pam Bondi needs to obey the law. The laws says to release ALL of the Epstein Files. She has not yet done so. She is a big part of a massive government cover up to protect Trump, who was a very close friend of Epstein’s for years, from being exposed.
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Timothy Snyder @timothysnyder.bsky.social · 11/01/2026
We have cleaned up the crime scene and blocked a local investigation and hidden the perpetrator and invaded the state and that is how you know that we are acting in good faith and that everything was the victim’s fault. www.nytimes.com/live/2026/01...
nytimes.com
Trump Administration Live Updates: Noem Says ‘Hundreds More’ Agents Will Be Sent to Minnesota Over ‘Corruption’
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Joy-Ann Reid @joyannreid.bsky.social · 11/01/2026
First thought: we are boycotting Target so please shop elsewhere if you can. That store should rightly be empty. Second thought: ICE is not welcome ANYWHERE where decent people are. Not even in boycotted stores.
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Max Dashu @maxdashu.bsky.social · 18/11/2025
Visual talk via zoom Thus 20 Nov, 6pm, and Sat 22 Nov, noon, (both California time!) on Old Woman as creatrix, goddess, ancestor; and also old women in history and world cultures. $20. Note: computer goes into shop tomorrow, so access links will go out on Thurs. www.paypal.com/ncp/payment/...
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Max Dashu @maxdashu.bsky.social · 10/11/2025
More on the event: “Women’s history is necessarily interdisciplinary, because this knowledge is hidden, marginalized, and then rediscovered... a rich, layered, and complex history of womanity: rock art, sculpture, ceramic paintings, murals, figurines, codices. oldwitch.substack.com/p/restoring-...
oldwitch.substack.com
Restoring Women to Cultural Memory
A global visual survey of long-obscured treasures for and by women
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Max Dashu @maxdashu.bsky.social · 10/11/2025
More at substack.com/home/post/p-...
substack.com
Revival & Survival: Women's History
No, it's not all over and done with. We need to know more, much more...
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Max Dashu @maxdashu.bsky.social · 10/11/2025
On Oct 27, I gave the 23rd Annual Pat Reif Memorial Lecture at Claremont Graduate University: RESTORING WOMEN TO CULTURAL MEMORY. Karen Torjesen, eminent historian of women priests, introduced my global visual survey of long-obscured treasures. youtu.be/3J6kW-PrH7k?...
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Max Dashu @maxdashu.bsky.social · 30/07/2025
Bishop Theophilus stands atop the Serapeum—with an African deity in the aedicula below him. He ordered its destruction, but the people of Alexandria opposed the demolition in pitched street battles, for years. See my book excerpt: open.substack.com/.../p/destro...
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Max Dashu @maxdashu.bsky.social · 30/07/2025
Also started publishing here, including excerpts from Magna Mater, Paulianity, and the Imperial Church: substack.com/@oldwitch?ut...
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Max Dashu @maxdashu.bsky.social · 30/07/2025
I blog on global women's history here—just passed 260,000 followers. www.facebook.com/profile.php?...
facebook.com
Redirecting...
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Max Dashu @maxdashu.bsky.social · 30/07/2025
For a long time I was researching and teaching with images, while struggling to earn a living. I began my series Secret History of the Witches in 1978 but it took decades to complete the first book. Began www.suppressedhistories.net in 2000, Suppressed Histories FB page in 2010. See next post.
suppressedhistories.net
Suppressed Histories Archives
Overview of women's history with a global perspective, including patriarchal and egalitarian societies, women warriors and shamans and witches.
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Max Dashu @maxdashu.bsky.social · 28/07/2025
Women's history, integrated with archaeology, linguistics, orature, and lots of images from the cultural record.
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Max Dashu @maxdashu.bsky.social · 26/07/2025
New chapter excerpt, War on Pagans, in my book on church-state authoritarian repression, Magna Mater, Paulianity, and the Imperial Church. "Firmicus Maternus exhorted the emperor to suppress “the lethal infection of a vanquished idolatry.” oldwitch.substack.com/p/the-war-on...
oldwitch.substack.com
The War on Pagans
Smashing goddesses, temples, and other persecutions
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Max Dashu @maxdashu.bsky.social · 12/07/2025
He's violating the Constitution in every direction. Supreme Kourt is allowing it. So much for "strict constructionism."
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Max Dashu @maxdashu.bsky.social · 11/07/2025
Diabolism: Ideologies of Domination: Th 24 July 6pm & Sat 26 July noon, US PT. Check timezone converter for your local time! If you can't attend either session can request a link to recording of the second session. $20 Register at py.pl/4jvowPHRxi8 More info: oldwitch.substack.com/p/diabolism-...
oldwitch.substack.com
Diabolism: Ideologies of Domination
(new visual webcast, July 24 and 25, 2025)
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Max Dashu @maxdashu.bsky.social · 06/07/2025
Found while researching something else: "End [Female Genital] Excision
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Max Dashu @maxdashu.bsky.social · 04/07/2025
Goddess Seals and Priestesses of Iran, free excerpt from Ancient Iran video. youtu.be/suc1-S_2iuE Snake goddess, grain goddess, horned goddess, and women's ceremony in the cylinder seals of Kerman, S. Iran, ca 2400 bce. These important cylinder seals are rarely seen except by academic specialists.
youtu.be
Goddess Seals and Priestesses in Kerman, Iran
YouTube video by Max Dashu
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Max Dashu @maxdashu.bsky.social · 02/07/2025
Made up, but I love it anyway.
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Max Dashu @maxdashu.bsky.social · 26/06/2025
Kourt: fine for Trump to send immigrants to third party countries where they might be tortured or killed (and, in most cases, do not even speak the language). www.thenation.com/article/soci...
thenation.com
The Supreme Court Just Cosigned One of Trump’s Most Lawless Immigration Moves
Deporting people to countries where they might be tortured or killed? All good, according to the six GOP justices.
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Max Dashu @maxdashu.bsky.social · 25/06/2025
Cambridge anthro prof Alison Murray discovered that prehistoric women were buff... their bone structure was 11-16% stronger than today’s elite rowers. The modern cultural obsession with thinness is very recent, born of fashion, patriarchy, postwar consumerism. time.com/7293999/body...
time.com
Becoming a Bodybuilder Taught Me Women Aren’t Meant to be Thin
"We’ve been taught to disappear, but our true power lies in taking up space," writes Anne Marie Chaker.
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Max Dashu @maxdashu.bsky.social · 23/06/2025
Devastating illustration of the rhetoric used first against Iraq, and now against Iran—and Los Angeles. No, really, watch the historic and current clips: youtu.be/l8c8q8vhEnM?...
youtu.be
Jon Stewart & Klepper on Trump's Response to Israel-Iran and MAGA's War Pushback | The Daily Show
YouTube video by The Daily Show
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ersyla.bsky.social @ersyla.bsky.social · 13/06/2025
youtu.be/RgjF4S8oqLY?...
youtu.be
Following Senator Padilla's forced removal, Cory Booker and Democrats continue to hold Senate Floor
YouTube video by Senator Cory Booker
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Erica Chenoweth @chenoweth.bsky.social · 13/06/2025
My team and I at the Crowd Counting Consortium (@djpressman@bsky.social, Soha Hammam, & Chris Shay) have a new piece out: wagingnonviolence.org/2025/06/amer.... In it, we show that through May 2025, the size and scale of anti-Trump protests have dwarfed those in 2017. 🧵
A line chart with a blue line showing a large growth of protest events from Jan 20 - May 31, 2025, and a green line showing the relatively modest growth of protest events during the same period in 2017.
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Rex Huppke @rexhuppke.bsky.social · 12/06/2025
Americans are giving off a real “Aw, hell no!“ vibe right now. This weekend should be interesting.
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Max Dashu @maxdashu.bsky.social · 12/06/2025
Latest installment from The Imperial Church, chapter 7 in my unfolding online book: where the word "colonialism" came from. open.substack.com/pub/oldwitch...
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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 10/06/2025
"who was president in 2020" remains the most difficult question in the world for a sizable chunk of americans, professional commentators included
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Max Dashu @maxdashu.bsky.social · 11/06/2025
Free to subscribers to my Womanity course, along with all other monthly webcasts and photo essays on matriculture, historical processes of patriarchalization and colonization, medicine women, and various cultural treasures. Subscribe anytime: suppressed-histories.teachable.com/p/restoring-...
suppressed-histories.teachable.com
WOMANITY
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Max Dashu @maxdashu.bsky.social · 11/06/2025
Mother Law is an Indigenous name for matricultural societies, their cooperative ethos centered on life matrix, mother-kin, sister and brother-kin. Visual talk & discussion. Two showings, Sun June 22 noon (PT) and Wed 25 June 25th at 6pm (PT), the 2nd zoom is recorded. Subscribe here: py.pl/2AsUYx
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Max Dashu @maxdashu.bsky.social · 07/06/2025
Secret police in the USA
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Max Dashu @maxdashu.bsky.social · 07/06/2025
"In the Big Beautiful Bill, there is a segment that says, for the next 10 years, they are not allowed to legislate or regulate AI in any way, shape, or form. It is prohibited by an act of Congress if this goes through. ... It's authoritarian. And it's also the pathway to fascism."
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Max Dashu @maxdashu.bsky.social · 07/06/2025
"But this is a system of control. This is what other authoritarian countries do. There's no regulation. ... And, you know, one of the key things about it was you have no privacy legislation in the US. There is nothing to protect your data. You have no rights here whatsoever apart from, California"
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