AN INTRODUCTION TO THE HEART OF THE GODDESS (original) (raw)

The ‘Goddess’ and Contemporary Spiritual Values

Psychology and the Arts: Perceptions and Perspectives (pp.85-93)

In this paper I will be discussing why some artists, musicians and writers use the 'Goddess' as a spiritual ideal in their work and life. We are going to see why during these last few decades images of goddesses became very popular with some female artists. In the early 1970's a good number of female artists were significantly influenced by the Goddess Movement. Women especially in the Women's Spirituality Movement in the 1960's felt that they had no authoritative role in conventional religions. Female artists started to include images of Goddesses in their work and the prehistoric goddess became for them the symbol of female spirituality. Primarily goddesses appeal to all those who are dissatisfied with mainstream religions, political institutions and all male-centred cultures. Many feminists find that institutionalised religions are dissatisfying because of the missing female element.

Divine Objectification: The Representation of Goddesses and Women in Feminist Spirituality

Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, 2000

One of the outstanding features of the feminist spirituality movement is its pronounced visual orientation. Drawing heavily on feminist art of the 1970s and beyond, feminist spirituality is especially interested in representations of goddesses and women, which are used for ritual and meditation, among other purposes. After describing the visual materials of feminist spirituality and discussing how they work to symbolize the movement’s thealogy, I argue that this use of female images is problematic in feminist terms for two reasons: first, because it tends to perpetuate the objectification and specularization of women familiar in sexist western culture, as well as women’s often self-defeating preoccupation with bodily appearance; and second, because religiously it limits goddesses (and through them, women) in a way that the male deities of Western religion—who are almost always considered to be beyond representation—are not limited.

MAKING THE DEITY: WOMAN SACRIFICE, GODDESS AND PATRIARCHY

Indian Historical Review, 2004

The village goddess, and by extension the sanskritic goddess, was known as mata, the mother. The goddess was always seen in terms of fertility, as a multiplier. In contrast, the sanskritic goddess also had its ugra roopa or angry manifestation, like Kali, Chandi, etc. They were the slayers of the demons, the masculine evil force. None of the local or village goddess manifested such an attribute; there was no or little challenge to the patriarchal set up. These village goddesses were the deities of productivity-as the guardian deity of water spring and tutelary deity of forest or fields; they were invoked for rain against famine and disease. They sustained and nurtured. How were these village deities created? Is the conception of ‘classical’ deities different from the local? Is there a structural difference in their constitution? How is social reflected in the mythology of the goddess? What is the response of the patriarchal institutions? These are the questions that are addressed in the present study, using the example of the goddess largely from Chamba and Kangra.

GODDESS WORSHIP AND NEW SPIRITUALITY IN THE POSTMODERN WORLD: A BRIEF OVERVIEW

Anthropological Measurements of Philosophical Research, 2021

The paper aims at examining the phenomenon of the rebirth of the Goddess in the contemporary world. The study is based on the ideas of Carol Christ, Margot Adler, Miriam Simos, and Jean Shinoda Bolen. The rebirth of the Goddess is not a deconstruction of the God. The face of the Goddess is one side of the binary opposition "Goddess-God". Life on the earthly plane presupposes masculine and feminine dualism. However, these polarities are not mutually exclusive and mutually suppressive, but complementary to each other. The return of the Goddess to the throne and a profound appreciation of Femininity is a necessary step forward in establishing true equality and restoring lost harmony. As humanity returns to the Absolute that transcends duality, as divinity is revealed in feminine and masculine forms, and, finally, as humans get in touch with their true self, the two faces, feminine and masculine, will inevitably merge. Identifying herself with the images of the Goddesses, a woman develops self-awareness and self-acceptance that contribute greatly to her reintegration with a wider spiritual reality. The cult of the Goddess finds practical application in women's lives. These are magical rituals, work with the archetypes, life-changing tours. Recognizing her right to the fullness of being, a woman overcomes rigid gender roles and stereotypes, ceases to be an object of manipulation and becomes the supreme arbiter of her own life.

The Concept of the Goddess

2002

The last ten years have seen an upsurge in the study of the feminine aspect of the sacred. Archaeologists, theologians, feminist critics, psychologists and popular writers have produced analyses of every type imaginable, and 'the Goddess' has become one of the buzz words of New Age, neo-pagan and certain feminist writers. By no means everything discussed here fits under the umbrella of the New Age: much of the scholarship dates from before the term was coined, and many of the writers would reject such a title. However, in its emphasis on the necessity to revitalize culture, New Age thinking in its broadest sense provides a good starting-point for examining both the historical background and the current range of thought about the Goddess. 1 The importance of New Age thinking in the late twentieth century has been widely recognized, and despite recent media attention to some of its more dramatic features, it is a phenomenon which cannot be written off as trivial (Ellwood 1992:59-60). Critics and historians stress the similarity of New Age thinking to the kind of alternative spirituality that has reappeared regularly in Western societies. Despite the essentially discrete nature of these spiritual movements, certain themes recur: for example, belief in the perfectibility of human kind, at least on the non-material plane; the direct access of all to enlightenment without the need of institutions such as priesthoods. Spirit and matter are viewed as intimately connected in a basically hierarchical, ordered, complexly integrated world (often presided over by a benign but impersonal force such as the Numen or Gaia). Priority is nevertheless given to the spiritual, and one of the aims of these movements is to open the individual's consciousness to some kind of non-material understanding. This understanding of the complexities of the cosmos comes about through a process of initiation which, although not directed by an institutionalized priesthood, is often facilitated by contact with an intermediary being. These intermediaries take various forms: the psychopomps of the Neo platonists, the angelic beings of ritual magic, the spirit guides of theosophy,

Nané Jordan and Chandra Alexandre eds., Pagan, Goddess, Mother (Bradford, ON: Demeter Press, 2021), reviewed by Barbara Bickel

S/HE: An International Journal of Goddess Studies, 2022

Mission Statement: S/HE: An International Journal of Goddess Studies is a web-based, peer-reviewed international scholarly journal committed to the academic exploration, analysis and interpretation, from a range of disciplinary perspectives, of Goddesses and the Female Divine in all religions, traditions, and cultures, to be ancient, historical, or contemporary. The journal is a multidisciplinary forum for the publication of feminist scholarship in Goddess Studies and for discussion, comparison, and dialogue among scholars of differing feminist perspectives.

The Return of the Goddess: Mythology, Witchcraft and Feminist Spirituality

The historical transition from the Late Antique world to the Early Middle Ages was characterized by the decline of traditional polytheistic paganism and its replacement by Christian Trinitarian monotheism in Europe. In the early modern era colonial expansion and missions established this form of religion throughout the world (Neill, 1975 [1964]; Lewis, 2004). With the advent of modernity and particularly the Enlightenment, reason and secularism challenged Christian normativity and the influence of churches declined. The secularization thesis initially argued that religion would wither and die entirely; such faith would be unnecessary, as science would provide undisputed and rationally evidenced meaning for human life (Clark, 2003: 559-560). However, the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries saw an upsurge in scholarly and popular interest in non-Christian religions, both ancient and modern. In the twentieth century these intellectual currents crossed the boundary between academic interest and actual religious practice, and dramatically manifested in a variety of new religions devoted to the revived worship of the Goddess, including Wicca (the Craft), Feminist Spirituality and Ecopaganism (Hanegraff, 1998: 85-88). This chapter investigates the mythology of originary matriarchy and the Great Goddess, and examines Wicca, Feminist Spirituality (primarily Goddess-centred but also within the Judeo-Christian tradition) and the broader Pagan movement as new traditions actively reviving the Goddess. The Goddess serves to critique the Christian God; her gender challenges the masculine norm and her sometime multiplicity challenges monotheistic unity and erasing of difference (Morgan, 1999: 51-59). Worshippers of the Goddess, male and female, view themselves as revitalizing a decadent and dying Western society, and as participants in a revolution that will save the environment and assure a better future for humanity (Rountree, 2002: 486). Finally, this chapter will comment briefly on the effect of the return of the Goddess on the academic study of religion.

Goddess worship and Mutating Gender Relations (chapter of a book)

Women: A Journey Through The Ages, 2019

Goddess worship is not new in Indian subcontinent. Many goddesses abound but all may not be treated at par with male deities. There does exist a hierarchy within ‘Hindu’ pantheon that has mutated with time. What is the true goddess tradition? What kind of gender relations get expressed through changing position of the goddess within the pantheon in early India? Are these relations truly reflective of changing social relations? These are some of the issues that I have sought to unravel in this article which is a chapter in the book titled, Women: A journey Through Ages, ed. by Veenus Jain and Pushpraj Singh