At the most basic level, a goddess is female Deity, or a Deity who is female. A male Deity is known as a god. A great many cultures have their own goddesses, sometimes alone, but more often as part of a larger pantheon which includes both gods and goddesses.
Polytheist cultures (who recognise many deities as forms of the divine) such as Hinduism, and many ancestral religions, have no difficulty in including female deities. This does not necessarily mean that women's status in those cultures is any better than in others, as the current situation of Indian women shows. In "women's religions" surprisingly, a Goddess is not typical, although such religions certainly never centre on a monotheist God (Sered "Goddess, Mother, Sacred Sister" 1996) and often lack deities as Westerners understand them.
For monotheist cultures (who recognise only one central deity) it is much more difficult to recognise Goddess; recent history has overwhelmingly presented single Deity as male, constantly using the masculine pronoun "he",and images like "Father", "Son", "Lord" etc. This recent trend has almost entirely excluded the feminine pronoun "she" as sacred, and images such as "Mother", "Daughter", "Lady" etc.
There have certainly always been mystics who have used these feminine forms within the monotheist religions, such as the early Christian Collyridians who believed Mary to be a Goddess, the medieval visionary Julian of Norwich, the Judaic Shekinah and Sophia traditions, and discreetly expressed Sufi texts in Islam. But these teachings have never held central place in monotheisms, and some would question whether including a female aspect of deity "as well" in a fundamentally male mythos is enough to mean a Goddess.
Attempts to create more inclusive ways of describing Deity by using both genders in grammar and imagery can seem awkward to some, or plain unnecessary to those whose spirituality has little sense of gender. As a monotheist project inclusive language can seem competitive because there is only space for one deity. Some types of Goddess thealogy have worked as Goddess monotheism, without any parallel God or attendant God consort; this may or may not include hostility for masculinity. However many devotees who prefer to focus only on their Goddess are not anti-male, but pro-female in their inspirations.
Nonetheless inclusive spirituality has been gaining ground since the 19thC Matilda Joslyn Gage introduced living female Deity to American feminists, while her contemporary, the Swiss Joseph Jakob Bachofen, gained attention in Europe for prehistoric matriarchal goddess cultures. Communist countries accepted this version of history via Engels, and Western prehistory conventionally prefaced the 'important' his-tory of male acts with a note on primitive goddess cultures. Since 1970 a rapidly growing Western movement of Goddess Spirituality has emerged as an international, well networked, and richly documented culture, now transmitting its values to a younger generation.
Goddess Spirituality is characteristically diverse: there is no central body to define its dogma. One recent debate examines whether there is one Goddess or many goddesses, but it has been remarked that this is specifically a monotheist's question. To most Goddess devotees it makes little sense, and they slip happily between both concepts so that "the Goddess" is more often than not a short form code for a highly post-modern worldview.
More problematic are issues such as whether the Goddess/ goddesses are "good" or "nice" (see Journal for the Feminist Study Religion, 1979), the popular use of maternal images (see below), and the position of men. About the first point, some Goddess devotees and theologians, notably Carol Christ, are adamant that Goddess is Love, drawing on a compassionate, protective model of femininity, frequently the Mother, contrasted with a harsher experience of masculinity in our world. Here the Goddess is frequently pictured as the guardian of a peaceful way of life, charged with healing and nurture, rooted in nature. Modern Western culture is said to be lacking in feminine values, and some theories of this school profile a dialectical conflict between aggressive, technological, masculine cultures, and cooperative, feminine ones, closer to nature (see [Elinor Gadon]]).
But other Goddess devotees are just as convinced that the Goddess is both dark and light, loving and terrible, since she is Everything. Kali-ma is a Great Goddess whose savage violence teaches this. Yet she is often diminished the other way in the West as only the Terrible Mother, when she is in Bengal her heartland just as much the devoted, Benevolent Mother. This suggests how powerfully westerners are trained to think in either/or terms.
Some criticise a partial, romantic view of the wholly compassionate Goddess, as founded on a social stereotype of women, pointing to historical examples of goddesses of war, cruelty, and ethical indifference. Women are too much mutilated into compulsory compassion that is a passive slavery. (Saiving 1967) But that view does not mean a lack of Goddess ethics as challenged by Melissa Raphael, 'Religion' 1996, but a need for geting closer to a complex Deity encompassing the properly caring Mother, as well as the remote indifferent natural law of the Crone, and the raw feminist desire for selfhood and independence as Maiden (See below for more on the Triple Goddess motif).
Nor is the connection between Goddess and (admired) Nature any more than a recent myth, since ancient goddesses were usually the icons of civilisation and law that aimed to control nature. Goddess, as other deities do, comes newly dressed for different times at need.
However, even if some stand back and debunk the romantic wing of Goddess Spirituality, it is showing considerable social influence, and its revaluing of an assertive compassion that recognises a world wide Web of Life (sic) can be welcome to romantic heart and scholarly brain alike. The connections between feminism and ecology are not new, and are well reflected in Goddess Spirituality (although it is only in some parts feminist and should not be assumed completely so).
The position of men within Goddess Spirituality is only recently beginning to be publicly discussed but this is emerging as a debate of great interest. So much work has been done on women's newfound (or rediscovered) sacrality with the power it bestows, that this can now be taken for granted in most Goddess contexts, while the nature and role of men is an intriguing and relatively unexplored area. Initial assumptions may define men as subordinate, and some groupings do exist where both genders prefer this model, much as certain Neolithic goddess cults held a God to be a secondary Son/ Consort figure. But it is more typical for Goddess groups to be either women only, or equally women and men, and in both cases for members to be seeking a creative way for both genders to use authority. The Pagan communities, labelled NeoPagan</wiki.cgi?action=edit&id=NeoPagan> by many academics, are the most prolific and influential type of this creative effort.
A variant of Goddess Spirituality is a non-religious use of its power. Transcendental Psychology, Jung and others include powerful Goddess metaphors that enables many to touch base without committing as devotees. Some thealogians also speak a non-realist goddessing, where Goddess is the spirit of women's heartfelt movement for freedom. Carol Christ named this "womenspirit" in 1979 (though Christ is a devotee now she was closer to non-realism then). However it is important not to overlook that the vast majority of Goddess devotees worldwide are not feminist, and even in Western societies there are plenty of non-feminist types of goddessing. The work of Jung has been criticised as narrowly based on Western sexual stereotypes, and therapy can inspire and strengthen but also placate and adapt to the status quo.
Finally, it is important to distinguish the inner journeys of self growth from the interactive dialogue of religion. Self growth may (or may not) lead into spiritual dialogue so that what is 'just in the mind' becomes so vast as to render the phrase meaningless. But from the devotee's view the Goddess metaphor, however cherished and awesome, does not match the sheer relating of spirituality. The relationship may be solemn, or funny, polite or rude: the restrictions of pious godform do not apply. Alternatively from the non-realist view of sacred metaphor, the Goddess devotee is calling on unjustified or unknown reality, dancing with illusion, comfortinmg or stimulating as that may be. The two are obviously very different and rely on starter assumptions, distinct paradigms: there is an Other/ there is not. For such profound choices there is no guide.
Wiccan and Neopagan practice includes veneration of the Great Goddess along with the Horned God. While not all Pagans make the Goddess an important part of their Paganism, none would deny the Goddess as a central Pagan tradition in general (it is important to recall the diversity of both Goddess and Pagan movements).
Notes on terms: 1) In the USA Wiccan and Neopagan are roughly similar in meaning but in Britain, where the movement began, Wiccan is clearly distinct as one type of Neopagan. 2) Goddess and Pagan devotees do not usually use the term "worship" as this implies an acutely hierarchical dialogue between deity and human, with the human in a very humble mode. To indicate the self assertion and dynamic interaction between divine and human (or as some would say, two kinds of divine) terms like "veneration" are preferred.
There has been some association of the Goddess with Mother Earth (orMother Nature), and with the moon. These metaphors are very popular to the point of being assumed as dogma, but some Pagans are affectionately critical of them. The Mother Earth motif powerfully joins deep emotional loyalties to our mothers, to the ecological needs of the planet. However this can backfire in the case of those whose mothering was not wonderful, and some feminists question the over centralising of (biological) mothering at a time when increasing numbers of women refuse or limit it.
As for some other sectors of Goddess devotees the Great Goddess is believed by many Pagans to have been the Deity of a universal pre-historical matriarchial religion. This faith model is controversial, and while evidence clearly suggests many and widespread examples of Goddess religions, the story is not universal, but complex and variable.
The Goddess is known as the Lady of the Ten Thousand Names, as Isis was. She is referred to as 'Queen of Heaven', 'Lady of the Beasts', 'Creatrix' and just 'the Lady.' She is sometimes approached through her different aspects, represented by individual goddesses like Isis, Kwan Yin, Kali, PeleorAthena. Among some Wiccans in particular, the Graeco-Roman goddess Aradia is perceived as a kind of messianic Daughter deity. The yoniorvulva is revered as a symbol of the Goddess, together with the cowrie shell, the (Moon) Crescent, the Earth, the Serpent, the Tree, the five pointed Pentagram and the Eight Pointed Star, the Quartered Circle (cf Celtic Cross), and many animals and birds. .
The Goddess is popularly recognised as threefold in one; as Maiden (or Virgin), Mother, and Crone. The three forms represent the stages of life of women, though again, this has been queried by some feminists as too biologically based and rigid. Often the three stages of the moon (waxing, full, waning) are considered equivalent to the three forms of the Goddess, and put together in a single symbol of a circle flanked by two mirrored crescents. Critiques of the Triple Goddess use the fourth stage of the moon, the dark moon, to inspire a symbol of a fourth stage of the Goddess; this can be interpreted as the Dark Goddess, the Wisewoman, or the Nymph.
Of all sectors of Goddess Spirituality, Paganism has the most well developed culture of a divine polarity of gender which has strong parallels with Tantra. The God is a powerful inspiration to a "third way" for men, neither wimp nor bully but "everything the male can be." In almost all ways the divine couple can mirror each other's attributes, as in the Horned Huntress, and Old Horny or the Hunter. Both are the Divine Lover to be found in all mystical traditions. While the priestess is often (though not always) held as slightly pre-eminent, the priest is deeply respected in his own right.
While some Wiccan groups can, in insisting on the sacred polarity, exclude a positive role for homosexuals and lesbians unless they act as ceremonial heterosexuals, others actively welcome a variety of sexual orientation and explore mythos that can reflect it.
Until recently, most Pagans were converts, especially from the explosion of interest in the '80s and '90s; only a small number had grown up in the Pagan faith. That has been slowly changing and an increasing number of Pagan households are nurturing Pagan children, or have produced Pagan adults. Pagan parents do not typically insist on their children adopting their faith yet it is commonly the case that they do, perhaps because it is flexible to independent interpretation. Since the emphasis on Goddess, and very often a dynamic balance between Goddess and God, is markedly variant from the dominant culture's weighting of male status and resources, it appears that children and young adults from Pagan families do have a vigorous and adaptive attitude to gender which could offer a fertile field for gender research.
Shan Jayran, Jan 2002 based on short but well organised prior text. Shan@shansweb.co.uk
(I will delete this signature when I see the text alter significantly)
See Goddesses for a list of goddesses worshipped by different religions. Also see Goddess Worship.
