The Esoteric Origins of Feminist Misandry: Guillaume Postel and the Theology of the Fourth Epoch

Introduction

Contemporary ideological structures—especially those governing gender, sexuality, and identity—are often interpreted as modern or postmodern phenomena. Yet these structures frequently conceal deeper esoteric genealogies that transcend the secular horizon. Among the most significant yet under-explored roots of contemporary feminist hegemony lies a figure who is often dismissed as a mystical eccentric: Guillaume Postel (1510–1581). Far from a marginal Renaissance theologian, Postel emerges as a prophet of a coming gynocratic order and the metaphysical architect of a male-hostile epoch. His synthesis of Christian Kabbalah, mystical eroticism, and apocalyptic vision anticipates many core features of what has now become to be know as the western welfare state.

This essay reconstructs Postel’s theology as a proto-ideological blueprint for feminist metaphysics, feminist inclined polyamorous sexuality, and institutionalized misandry. It places him in a lineage that stretches from Cathar dualism and Christian Kabbalah to feminist eschatology, postmodern sexuality, and the structural logic of the modern welfare state. By tracing these hidden roots, we expose a vast subterranean continuity—one that has helped shape the totalizing ideological apparatus of the present.

I. Postel and the Inversion of Power: From Gynocentric Harmony to Feminist Supremacy

In his works, most notably "The very Marvelous Victories of the Women of the New World, Postel articulated a vision of world harmony achieved by a female pope and messiah. However, this female salvation was not egalitarian by nature but hierarchical. It posited a metaphysical transvaluation in which the female principle not only complements but ultimately supplants the male. The “fourth epoch” in Postel’s historical schema—following the Adamic, Mosaic, and Christian epochs—is defined by feminine supremacy, with Joanna, the “Shekhina incarnate,” as its ultimate redeemer instead of Christ.

This epoch does not merely elevate informal feminine power (as earlier societies often did through maternal cults or symbolic reverence) but transfers formal institutional and salvific authority to women. This theological inversion marks the ontological core of what would become totalizing feminist ideology. Postel replaces gynocentric harmony with a spiritual-political matriarchy—a critical shift that anticipates the modern reconfiguration of power under what is now has established and reconstructed as state feminism

Analytical Tool: The formal/informal power dichotomy can serve as a recurring lens throughout this work. In premodern societies, informal feminine influence was often celebrated within a larger gynocentric structure that balanced female informal power and male formal power. Postel’s system upends this by formalizing female authority—turning symbolic elevation into systemic dominance. This is the metaphysical logic now institutionalized in the ideological feminist state apparatus.

II. Feminist Eschatology: Double Christology and the Woman Redeemer

Postel’s most radical theological innovation is what we might call Double Christology—a doctrine in which the salvific work of Jesus is incomplete until completed by a female redeemer. This figure is no mere allegory or spiritual metaphor; Joanna is a living woman, divinely possessed by the Shekhina, whose earthly manifestation inaugurates the new age.

This introduces an entirely new eschatological structure: Feminist Salvationism or Gynocentric Millenarianism. Here, salvation does not come through grace or individual repentance but through collective submission to a female messiah who embodies divine justice, harmony, and order. The female redeemer is not simply a co-savior but the eschatological end-point of historical teleology.

This idea feeds directly into contemporary ideologies that depict women as morally and spiritually superior, inherently peaceful, and uniquely capable of “healing” the world from the sins of the alleged "patriarchy". This is not merely feminist rhetoric—it is a secularization of Postelian metaphysics.

III. Joanna and the Shekhina: Sacred Sexuality and Feminist Mysticism

Postel’s sexual mysticism reaches its apex in his relationship with Joanna. He claims to have been born spiritually from her, making her both his mother and divine consort. Joanna is the Shekhina in flesh, the mystical feminine presence exiled in Jewish Kabbalah, now returned to judge and redeem.

This dynamic has uncanny resonances with Tantric and Gnostic imagery, particularly the theme of sacred sexual inversion. The male becomes subordinate to the mystical feminine, whose erotic and theological power merges into a single salvific force. In Postel’s case, this meant not only personal devotion but total metaphysical submission.

Joanna thus prefigures the archetype of the Black Sophia—dangerous, dark, and all-powerful. She anticipates modern feminist mythologies of divine femininity (as seen in ecofeminism, New Age spirituality, and Wiccan theology) and provides a sacred warrant for male subordination. The symbolic energy of the Black Madonna, long suppressed in Christian tradition, is resurrected here as ideological fuel for feminist mysticism.

IV. Soteriological Misandry: Postel as Prophet of Male Inferiority

Postel’s theology culminates in what can only be called soteriological misandry—the belief that men cannot be saved by their own means and must pass through the redemptive authority of a female messiah. This is not simply a spiritual claim; it institutionalizes male inferiority at the level of being and destiny.

In Postel’s system, women are not only more spiritually advanced—they are the vessels of cosmic order. Men are fallen, chaotic, and disoriented unless redeemed by female light. This metaphysical framing gives theological justification for what has later morphed into state feminism now operationalizes as ideological misandry: the assumption of male guilt, toxicity, and unworthiness.

Feminist theory’s presumption of male power, violence, and corruption can be traced back to this metaphysical root. Feminism, whether incorporated into the western welfare state or explicitely as state feminism does not invent misandry—it inherits and secularizes it from a hidden theological source.

V. Polyamory and Sexual Liberation as Ritual Inversion

Influenced by feminism and postmodern thinking, contemporary movements for polyamory and non-monogamy often present themselves as liberatory projects, opposing alleged patriarchal norms of possessiveness and control. Yet viewed through a Postelian lens, they represent a form of ritualized inversions of the concepts they claim to fight.

Polyamory is not just about sexual multiplicity—it is a sacrament of feminist eschatology. It dethrones male emotional centrality, erases paternal authority, and initiates participants into a post-gynocentric  matriarchal sexual economy. In this economy, the male is fragmented, decentred, and spiritually humbled—precisely the posture Postel demanded before Joanna.

Drawing on Bataille’s philosophy of eroticism as transgression, polyamory can be read as a reenactment of mystical sacrifice. The sacred is accessed not through purity, but through the ecstatic dismantling of order—a principle that Postel encoded into theology and feminism re-codes into ideology.

VI. The Querelle des Femmes Reconsidered: From Advocacy to Conquest

Postel’s work must also be situated within the broader intellectual context of the Querelle des Femmes—the centuries-long debate over the nature and worth of women. While the claim that the Querelle des Femmes aimed at protecting women against misogynistic attacks is a false natrative spread by feminist gender ideologues,

Postel’s work (as that ofvthe other writers of thos genre) exposes its true nature. He does not argue for equality or dignity; he proclaims feminine supremacy and male spiritual dependency.

Postel surpasses even Christine de Pizan and other male writers of this vast body of literature. Postel transforms advocacy into conquest. His theology becomes a manifesto of domination disguised as salvation—a move that feminist ideologues would later repeat under the guise of equity.

This move transforms the Querelle from a covert form of debate into a  full blown religious war afainst men—one whose theological echoes now resonate in every accusation of “toxic masculinity”, "the gender war", "the future is female," and every bureaucratic structure of gendered power under the the modern state feminism.

VII. Occult Foundations of state feminism and the Modern Welfare State: Postel as Proto-Architect

All of these elements—gynocratic eschatology, mystical misandry, sacred sexuality, and feminist salvationism—converge in the ideological deep structure of the modern state feminism often incorporated within the structured of thr modern welfare state. Postel is not merely a historical figure; he is a prophet of ideological inversion. He reconfigures Christian metaphysics into a feminist cosmology, anticipates modern identity politics, and provides the spiritual substrate for what would become ideological hegemony masked as moral progress.

In this sense, Postel belongs in a pantheon of occult architects of the modern feminist state apparatus—alongside figures like Heinrich Cornellius Agrippa, Helena Blavatsky, Aleister Crowley, Wilhelm Reich, and the feminist spiritualists of the 19th and 20th centuries. His Fourth Epoch is now our present: a world in which male subjugation is sanctified by centuries of hidden theology and consecrated anew in the language of rights, equity, and liberation.