Wiccan Traditions and Paganism

Goddess worship: that real "old time religion?"

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Goddess worship in ancient times:
Most researchers currently accept the belief that modern humans originated in Africa about 200,000 to 250,000 years ago. Until about 8000 BCE, our ancestors organized themselves into hunter-gatherer societies. Humans alone had developed the realization that their life was finite; that they would all die. This resulted in the development of the primitive religious beliefs. Societies which relied mainly on hunting by men naturally developed hunting gods to worship. Those in which gathering was more reliable generally created vegetative Goddesses. The importance of fertility in crops, in domesticated animals, in wild animals and in the tribe itself were of paramount importance to their survival. The female life-giving principle was considered divine and a great mystery. Some Goddess statues still survive from this era. One web site contains photographs of Goddess statues from circa 30,000 BCE to 1987 CE. 1

It is important to realize that many of these findings by archaeologists and historians are speculative in nature. For example, the interpretation that the old European culture stressed the female as divine is largely based on the number of carvings of a female shape found from this era. Some point to the relative lack of equivalent male statues as evidence of a Goddess culture. Others suggest that the female statues might have been the old European culture's equivalent of modern-day erotic photographs.

This "old European" culture lasted for tens of thousands of years in what is now Europe. They generally lived in peace; there is a notable lack of defensive fortifications around their hamlets. As evidenced by their funeral customs, males and females appear to have had equal status. Many historians and archaeologists believe that:

Their society was matrilineal; children took their mothers' names.
Life was based on lunar (not solar) calendar.
Time was experienced as a repetitive cycle, not linearly as we think of it.
Many academics believe that the suppression of Goddess worship in Western Europe occurred a few thousand years BCE, when the Indo-Europeans invaded Europe from the East. They brought with them some of the "refinements" of modern civilization: the horse, war, belief in male Gods, exploitation of nature, knowledge of the male role in procreation, etc. Goddess worship was gradually combined with worship of male Gods to produce a variety of Pagan polytheistic religions, among the Greeks, Romans, Celts, etc. Author Leonard Shlain offers a fascinating alternative explanation. He proposed that the invention of writing

"... rewired the human brain, with profound consequences for culture. Making remarkable connections across a wide range of subjects including brain function, anthropology, history, and religion, Shlain argues that literacy reinforced the brain's linear, abstract, predominantly masculine left hemisphere at the expense of the holistic, iconic feminine right one. This shift upset the balance between men and women initiating the disappearance of goddesses, the abhorrence of images, and, in literacy's early stages, the decline of women's political status. Patriarchy and misogyny followed."


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Goddess Worship during Biblical times:
Further south, as Judaism, Christianity & eventually Islam evolved, the Pagan religions were suppressed and the female principle was gradually driven out of religion. Women were considered inferior to men. The God, King, Priest & Father replaced the Goddess, Queen, Priestess & Mother. The role of women became restricted. A woman's testimony was not considered significant in Jewish courts; women were not allowed to speak in Christian churches; positions of authority in the church were limited to men. Young women are often portrayed in the Bible as possessions of their fathers. After marriage, their ownership was transferred to their husbands. Yeshua of Nazareth (a.k.a. Jesus Christ) rejected millennia of religious tradition by treating women as equals. Women played a major role in the early Christian church. Later, epistle (letter) writers who wrote in the name of Paul, started the process of suppressing women once more.

A feminine presence was added to Christianity by the Council of Ephesus in 431 CE when the Virgin Mary was named Theotokos (Mother of God). But her role was heavily restricted and included none of the fertility component present in Pagan religions. A low point in the fortunes of women was reached during the very late Middle Ages, when many tens of thousands of suspected female witches (and a smaller proportion of males) were exterminated by burning and hanging over a three century interval. Today, respect for the Virgin Mary as a sexually "pure," submissive mother is widespread, particularly in Roman Catholicism.


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Modern Goddess Worship:
A renaissance of Paganism, with its worship of Goddesses and Gods occurred in the middle of the 20th century with the re-emergence of Wicca (popularly called White Witchcraft, the benign religion of the ancient Celts) and other Neopagan traditions. Author Leonard Shlain believes that an "Iconic Revolution" has been made possible by the invention of imaged-based technologies, such as photography, movies, television, the Internet and graphic advertising. "Shlain foresees that increasing reliance on right brain pattern recognition instead of left brain linear sequence will move culture toward equilibrium between the two hemispheres, between masculine and feminine, between word and image." 1

Most Neopagan traditions worship the Goddess and God in balance. However, with the rise of feminism, new Neopagan traditions Wicca have been created in which the Goddess grew in importance, and the role of the God shrank into obscurity. One such tradition is Dianic Wicca.

The Goddess in both Goddess Worship and Neo-Paganism is often visualized in three aspects: Maiden, Mother and Crone. Her aspects are mirrored in the phases of the moon: waxing, full and waning.

The Maiden represents youth, emerging sexuality, the huntress running with her hounds. The Mother symbolizes feminine power, fertility, and nurturing. The Crone is wisdom, the compassion which comes from experience, and the one who guides us through the death experience.

Goddesses have been called by many names by different cultures and ages: Anat, Aphrodite, Aradia, Arianrhod, Artemis, Astarte, Brighid, Ceres, Demeter, Diana, Eostre, Freya, Gaia, Hera, Ishtar, Isis, Juno, Kali, Lilith, Ma'at, Mary, Minerva, Ostare, Persephone, Venus, Vesta, etc.


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Book References:
The following books are listed in alphabetic order by author. Books that we have found particularly interesting are shown in bold.

G. Ashe "Dawn Behind the Dawn: A search for the earthly paradise", John Macrae, New York NY (1992) Limited availability.
Anne Baring & Jules Cashford, "The Myth of the Goddess: Evolution of an Image," Arkana, (1993). We haven't read this book. However, all of the Amazon.com customer reviews of the book gave it a perfect five star rating. We were motivated to buy a copy for our library. Read reviews or order this book safely from Amazon.com online book store
Mary Condren, "The Serpent and the Goddess; Women, Religion and Power in Celtic Ireland", Harper & Row, San Francisco, (1989) Read reviews or order this book Out of print but often available used.
Lawrence Durdin-Robertson, "The Year of the Goddess, A Perpetual Calendar of Events", Aquarian Press, Wellingborough, England (1990)
Riane Eisler, "The Chalice & The Blade: Our history, our future", Harper & Row, San Francisco, (1988) A remarkable, life changing book. Read reviews or order this book
Janet & Stewart Farrar, "The Witches' Goddess: The feminie principle of divinity", Phoenix, Custer WA (1987). Describes the evolution of belief in the Goddess; includes brief descriptons of in excess of 1,000 Goddesses. Read reviews or order this book
M. Gimbutas:
"The Civilization of the Goddess: The World of Old Europe", Harper, San Francisco, CA, (1991) Out of print.
"The Language of the Goddess: Unearthing the hidden symbols of Western Civilization", Thames & Hudson, (Reissued 2001) [Contains many images of Goddess and related figures] Read reviews or order this book
B. Johnson, "Lady of the Beasts: Ancient Images of the Goddess and Her Sacred Animals", Harper & Row, San Francisco, CA (1994) Read reviews or order this book
Glenys Livingstone, "PaGaian Cosmology: Re-inventing Earth-based Goddess Religion," iUniverse, (2005), Read reviews or order this book It can also be read online at: http://pagaian.org/
Jean Markdale, "The Great goddess: Reverence of the Divine Feminine from the Paleolithic to the Present," Inner Traditions Intl, (2000). Read reviews, read sample pages, or order this book
T. Robbins & D. Anthony, "In Gods We Trust: New patterns of religious pluralism in America", Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick, NJ, 1993, P. 353-384. Limited availability.
Leonard Shlain, "The Alphabet versus the Goddess," Viking, (1998). Read reviews or order this book
Monica Sjoo & Barbara Mor, "The Great Cosmic Mother: Rediscovering The Religion of The Earth; 2nd Edition", Harper, San Francisco, (1991) Very highly rated by reviewers. Read reviews or order this book
Merlin Stone:
"When God was a Woman", Harvest/HBJ, San Diego, (1978) Also, very highly rated. Read reviews or order this book
"Ancient Mirrors of Womanhood: A treasury of Goddess and Heroine Lore from around the World," Beacon Press (1990). Read reviews or order this book
Barbara G Walker, "The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets", Harper & Row, San Francisco, (1983), P. 346-347, etc. Read reviews or order this book

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Goddess Worship
This page is part of the Pagan History website, which is devoted to investigating the ancient roots of modern Paganism.

This section looks at examples of Goddess Worship ... before Goddess Worship was cool.

".... they did not as yet understand the properties of the Goddess ...."
the Emperor Julian, from his Oration to the Mother of the Gods

("there's no place like home....")

(All material on the Internet is copyrighted, whether or not you see a copyright symbol: ©)



More suggested reading

Things to Read about Goddess Worship

1. The Metamorphoses by Apuleius.
This 2nd century A.D. novel tells the story of Lucius, who is turned into a donkey and can only recover his human form with the help of the Goddess Isis.

2. Isis in the Ancient World by R.E. Witt.
An overview of the cult of Isis in Egypt, Greece and Rome.

3. Oration to the Mother of the Gods by the Emperor Julian.
Julian's oration to Magna Mater is avialable in translation on line here.

4. Mother of the Gods: From Cybele to the Virgin Mary by Philippe Borgeaud.
A highly idiosyncratic and free-ranging discussion of the "career" of the Great Mother Goddess in the Greek and Roman world.

5. In Search of God the Mother: The Cult of Anatolian Cybele by Lynn E. Roller.
A thorough and meaty book on the Mother Goddess in Anatolia, Greece and Rome.

6. The Cults of the Roman Empire by Robert Turcan.
Chapter One is on Cybele and Chapter Two is on Isis.

7. Tantric Visions of the Divine Feminine: The Ten Mahavidyas by David Kingsley.
And excellent book on a fascinating aspect of the Goddess Kali - her manifestation as ten distinct Goddesses known as the Mahavidyas, or Wisdom Goddesses.

8. Offering Flowers, Feeding Skulls: Popular Goddess Worship in West Bengal by June McDaniel.
Goddess Worship in modern day Bengal.

9. Seeking Mahadevi: Constructing the Identities of the Hindu Great Goddess edited by Tracy Pinchtman.
How can there be one Great Goddess but also thousands of Gods and Goddesses? A collection of scholarly essays tackles this and other tricky issues.

10. In Praise of the Goddess: The Devi Mahatmya and Its Meaning translated with commentary by Kali Devadatta.
A fantastic wealth of information on Maha Devi in all Her glory - with the complete text of the central text of Saktic Hindusim.


Is the Isis of Apuleius' Metamorphoses "atypical"?
Ronald Hutton is willing to admit that he has heard of some old book called The Metamorphoses written by some Roman guy named Apuleius. Hutton even let's slip that in this book Isis is described as a Great Goddess - a very Great one, indeed. In fact, Apuleius tells us that Isis comprises many different Goddesses in One - thousands of Them!

Nevertheless, Hutton reassures us that Apuleius' Isis is "atypical".

Such is Hutton's insightful analysis of one of the most celebrated literary works of the ancient world - and the most famous example of a first-hand account of Goddess worship written by a classical Pagan. And not just any Pagan - but one who was a world travelling celebrity in his own lifetime, and who is still considered an important source for the study of Platonic philosophy by scholars today.

What evidence does Hutton amass to back up his assertion? If Apuleius' Isis is atypical, surely Hutton will tell us what is typical? Unfortunately Hutton does not provide anything whatsoever beyond mere assertion. Apparently, it is supposed to be obvious that Apuleius' Isis must be atypical - because otherwise, well, otherwise .....

The world in which the worship of Isis was widespread was, in fact, a world in which there was really no such thing as "typical" spirituality. Hutton's attempts to get away with disparaging Apuleius' "interpretation" of Isis as being out of the mainstream begs the question of what "typicality" might have been for the Isis religion - and what sources Hutton relies upon for his sweeping unsubstantiated pronouncement.

The cult of Isis had no Pope, nor even an Archbishop of Canterbury. However unique Apuleius' own take on Isis may or may not have been, there is absolutely no basis for setting up a hypothetical - oh let's be honest and call it what it is: imaginary and nonexistent - "typical" Isis-centered Religion to be counterposed against the single most important source that we have for this Religion!

If there were such a thing as a "typical" example of Isis worship from antiquity - one that would show us just how "atypical" Apuleius was - we can be sure that somewhere in 450 pages Hutton would tell us about it. That he does not is more than mere absense of evidence - it is genuine evidence of absense.



Examples of Goddess Worship


The Great Mother
Beginning in the 8th century BC there is clear evidence of the worship of a Goddess called by the Phrygian people simply Matar, which is the Phrygian word for "mother". According to Lynn Roller, author of In Search of God the Mother, the Phrygian people had no other significant Deities other than Matar. The Phrygian cult of Matar is not a matter of speculation or conjecture - it is a well documented, uncontroversial, historical fact.

Sometime in the 4th century BC the Athenians "imported" the Goddess from Her home in Anatolia. They called Her Cybele, from the Phrygian word for "mountain" (in Phrygia she was often called "Mountain Mother"). From Athens, Her worship spread throughout the Greek speaking world, and became especially important in Alexandria.

In 203 B.C. the Romans "imported" the Goddess to Rome - they called her simply Magna Mater, Latin for "Great Mother". Livy claims that Magna Mater was already mentioned in the Sybilline Books - which were books of prophecy written in the Etruscan language and already considered ancient in the 3rd century BC. From Rome the cult of Magna Mater spread throughout the Empire - as far as Britain. The Emperor Julian composed an oration to Her around 360 AD, and She continued to be worshipped into the 5th century AD, but Her worship was eventually driven underground by the Christians.


The Goddess Isis
The Goddess Isis was worshipped by people that we would today call "Romans", "Greeks" and "Egyptians". Things were not always so simple back in the day. The author of the well-known essay "On Isis and Osiris" was named Plutarch - one of the most famous authors of the classical world. Plutarch was a native speaker of the Greek language, and he was born where the country "Greece" is today. But he was born a Roman citizen and he rose to high rank in the Roman political administration. An even more complex example is that of the philosopher Plotinus - who was born in Egypt, spoke Greek, and became famous teaching in Rome. And many of those who carried on Plotinus' teachings were "Hellenized Semites" who came from such places as Tyre and Damascus.

The worship of Isis was a truly universal Religion. Not only did She comprise all Goddesses within Herself, her worshippers comprised the entire known world in their linguistic, ethnic, geographic and political diversity. There were even Temples of Isis as far north as the island of Britain.

The worship of Isis is, however, clearly Egyptian in origin. The spread of Her cult through the lands of Greece, Rome and beyond is an indication of the high regard that all ancient peoples had for Egyptian culture in general - and Egyptian spirituality and philosophy in particular. The name "Isis" appears over two dozen times in the "Pyramid Texts" which date from before 2,000 BC. By the time Her worship spread to the the rest of the world, Her cult was already a very "old religion" indeed!


The Maha Devi and Kali
One of the great spiritual books of the Indian subcontinent is the "Devi Mahatmya" - which tells the story of how the Great Goddess (which is the literal English translation of her title/name: "Maha Devi"), triumphed over the evil Demonic powers that even the Gods (including Brahma and Vishnu) were powerless against. The Devi Mahatmya, also called "Chandi Path", is still recited in Hindu temples all over the world, including throughout North America.

The Devi Mahatmya was composed sometime around 600-700 AD - but it is widely assumed that it existed as an oral tradition long before this. The Great Goddess of the Hindu tradition has Her roots in ancient traditions of Goddess worship found in both the "Aryan" traditions (Sanskrit) and in the Tamil ("non-Aryan") traditions of southern India.

The Goddess traditions of India assert that She has the ability to manifest herself in infinitely many ways - but that She is nevertheless One. A perhaps startling instance of this was the "appearance" of the Goddess "Santoshi Maa" in 1975 .... in a movie! Prior to the release of the movie, entitled "Jai Santoshi Maa", few people had ever heard of this Goddess - but She became a major religious figure when the movie became a hit. Her devotees insist that Santoshi Ma has always existed, and that there is no essential difference between Her and other Hindu Goddesses. It is said that during public showings of the film, the theatre "is transformed into a kind of temple, and the act of seeing the film is often taken as an act of worship." (Stanley Kurtz, All the Mothers Are One: Hindu India and the Cultural Reshaping of Psychoanalysis, 18)

One of the most intriguing and important manifestations of Maha Devi is the Goddess Kali. Many of the most important figures in modern Hinduism, including Swami Vivekananda and the Saint Ramakrishna, have been devotees of Kali. Also the great Medieval sage whose name is synonymous with the nondualistic Advaita school, Sankaracarya, was a Kali worshipper as well. Kali is inseperable from Hindu Tantrism - and with everything implied and suggested by the word Tantra. Her most common iconography is as a naked woman with jet-black skin, wearing a necklace of human skulls, waving a bloody sword over Her head as she dances on the entranced body of Her husband - the God Shiva. The non-dualism associated with Kali respects no boundaries.


The Buddhist Cults of Tara, Juntei and Kwan Yin
The Devi Mahatmya became a central text of Indian spirituality at a time when Buddhism was still a major religion on the sub-continent. It is far from certain how or why Buddhism eventually disappeared as a distinct religious movement in India - the land of its birth. Part of the explanation probably lies in the intimate interactions that occurred between what are today considered the two separate religions of "Hinduism" and "Buddhism". During the "Medieval" period of Indian history, these two religions overlapped a great deal. The Buddhism of today actually is greatly influenced by Hinduism - and vice-versa. It's very likely that in India the two religions simply merged together.

The forms of modern day Hinduism that are the most similiar to Buddhism are those closely associated with Maha Devi - especially in Her form as Kali. And the forms of modern day Buddhism that are the most similar to Hinduism are those in which the Goddesses Tara, Cundi and Kuan Yin are very prominent.

Buddhists during the Medieval period both imported many of the Hindu Gods and Goddesses, and also invented some new ones of their own. Technically these Beings were called Bodhisattvas rather than Gods. One of the most important of the Buddhist "Celestial Bodhisattvas" was the Bodhisattva of Compassion, Avalokitesvara. Originally Avalokitesvara was a "male" God, and in Tibetan Buddhism Avalokitesvara is still portrayed like this. But in Chinese Buddhism Avalokitesvara became a Goddess known as Kuan Shih Yin or simply Kuan Yin. Kuan Yin has also been historically revered by Taoists and Confucianists as well as Buddhists. From China worship of Kuan Yin spread to Korea, Japan and Vietnam. Her name literally translates as "She who hears the cries of the world" - a reference to Her embodiment of the Buddhist ideal of Compassion.

An example of a direct "borrowing" of a Hindu Goddess by Buddhism is that of the Goddess Cundi found in Chinese Buddhism. Cundi is simply the Chinese form of the Sanskrit Candi, which is one of the names of the Maha Devi. In Korea Cundi is called "Junje Bosal", while in Japan she is called Juntei, or sometimes simply "the Japanese Durga". Durga is another name given to the Great Goddess of the Devi Mahatmya. The Buddhist Goddess Cundi is often referred to as "the Mother of all the Buddhas" and "the Bodhisattva of magical powers."

Tara is an example of a Goddess having the same name whether She is being worshipped by Hindus or Buddhists. The Buddhist "version" of Tara is very similar to Kuan Yin - a Bodhisattva/Goddess who exemplifies the ideal of Compassion. Her Hindu counterpart, on the other hand, is a little edgier. The Hindu Tara has a fierce side, and She is closely associated with the ferocious and powerful Goddess of the Devi Mahatmya. The Buddhist Tara is found primarily in Tibetan Buddhism, where She is said to have been born from a tear streaming from Avalokitesvara's eye.