Goddess Spirituality Research Articles

Goddess Spirituality: Revisiting Debates over Essentialism in Dialogue with New Materialism

Goddess Spirituality: Revisiting Debates over Essentialism in Dialogue with New Materialism

Vietnamese lived religion, Confucianism and women: goddess spirituality in Nguyễn Dữ’s the young woman from Nam Xuong

Vietnam as a nation is deeply rooted in the wet-rice agricultural civilization, which is characterized by the Yin (female) principle and the religion worshiping Mother Goddess. However, Chinese Confucianism significantly influenced Vietnam throughout the feudal dynasties (10–19th centuries). Confucian kingship propagates symbols of virtuous women to establish the moral order of a male-dominated society. In contrast, by practicing lived religion and spreading folk narratives, Vietnamese people turn virtuous women into Mother Goddess with a liberal, creative and patronage identity. This study, thus, examines the position of women in Confucian Nguyễn Dữ’s The Young Woman from Nam Xuong, a canonical story reconstructed from legend. It is important to address the main concern about metaphors of a duality culture and a conflict discourse of Confucian politics and Vietnamese lived religion through the issue of Goddess spirituality. This article uses an interdisciplinary approach to demonstrate that resistance to Chinese Dominance and anti-Sinicization were significant issues of Vietnamese medieval literature and culture.

Reclaiming Yoga as a Practice of Female Empowerment

Abstract: Womb yoga is a women’s yoga practice developed in the UK from the observation that male bodies and experiences are privileged in mainstream yoga. Based on modern postural yoga, womb yoga integrates the philosophy and mythology of śakta tantra in reference to scholarly texts and reinterprets tantric traditions in line with Anglo-American Goddess spirituality. Through body practice, chanting, visualization, and ritual, female cyclic experiences and the different stages of women’s lives are approached as gateways to the divine and as opportunities for spiritual empowerment. In addition, by offering a seasonal understanding of the menstrual cycle and establishing energetic resonances between natural elements and the body, womb yoga fosters experiences of cosmic connection and communion. The study is based on ethnographic research, combining participant observation and in-depth interviews. It details the practice of womb yoga and the experiences it engenders among participants, and discusses its feminist potential.

Seeking Sekhmet

Despite their seemingly secular location within numerous museums across the globe, ancient statues of the Egyptian goddess Sekhmet have become focal points of contemporary spiritual pilgrimages for those seeking knowledge of “Herstory” and the numinous. The purported experiences of Goddess devotees indicate the development of a canon of reception which regards museums as both educational resources and houses of the sacred. This article examines the intersection of contemporary Goddess Spirituality with museum exhibits featuring statues of Sekhmet, considering the implications of secular institutions housing artifacts deemed of sacred significance. It will conclude by outlining how the engagement of special interest groups, such as Goddess devotees, present specific concerns, as well as potential benefits to the heritage industry.

Paganism, Goddess Spirituality, and Elsa in Disney’sFrozen 2

Audiences in the United States recognize Pagan elements like the use of magic and animism in the Disney film Frozen 2. This article discusses such Pagan ideas in the Frozen films and then applies two archetypal themes from Goddess spirituality to Elsa’s characterization. Scholars like Carol Christ and Starhawk of nature-based Pagan Goddess movements in the United States are employed to compare Elsa in Frozen 2 with notions about the fifth element and rebirth. The article engages neo-Pagan religious ideas about female independence, balance, and transformation, providing a comparison to Elsa’s heroic journey. A discussion about Elsa’s deification in popular culture and body image conclude the article.

“The Goddess is Alive. Magic is Afoot.”

This article analyzes the influence of radical and cultural feminist ideas on the writings produced by Zsuzsanna Emese Mokcsay (b. 1940), a seminal Pagan activist who spearheaded the development of the Dianic Witchcraft tradition during the 1970s and 1980s. An examination of Budapest's writings reveals the ideological background of Dianic Wicca, found in the specific aspects in the works of radical and cultural feminist thinkers such Mary Daly, Adrienne Rich, Robin Morgan, Susan Griffin, and Susan Brownmiller, which suited Budapest's lesbian-separatists leanings. The article thus sheds light on the politics of Goddess Spirituality during its formative years that have made modern Paganism what it is today. This is particularly important in light of the challenges to Dianic Wicca (and Goddess Spirituality in general) in recent decades, as third-wave feminism and transgender rights highlight a generational gap between veteran and younger Dianic women.

Arachne’s Voice: Race, Gender and the Goddess

This article considers the issue of racial difference in the Goddess movement, using the mythological figure of Arachne, a skilful weaver whom the goddess Athena transformed into a spider, to explore the unequal relational dynamics between white Goddess feminists and women of colour. Bringing Goddess spirituality and thealogical metaphors of webs and weaving into dialogue with postcolonial and black feminist perspectives on the politics of voice, marginality and representation, the article points to some of the ways in which colonial narratives weave through Goddess feminism, including practices of silencing and the romanticization of racial difference. Ultimately, I argue that feminist spirituality must recognize and address structural inequality between white women and women of colour, or in other words, listen to Arachne’s voice.

The Rise of the Fourfold Goddess Construct among Western Goddess Women and Feminist Witches

Most contemporary writers and groups who practice forms Goddess Spirituality and Wiccan-based Paganism relate to the Divine Feminine in the form of a Threefold Goddess (Maiden, Mother, Crone)—a concept popularized during the mid-twentieth century by writers such as Robert Graves (1895–1985). This article examines the recent rise of a Fourfold Goddess concept among certain Goddess women and proponents of feminist Witchcraft. It surveys the proliferation of this view, with an emphasis on its embryonic emergence among the 1970s-1980s British matriarchal and Pagan milieus, and discusses the ways in which the concept is used by various groups and individuals (each with their own unique construct of the four aspects of the Goddess) in challenging patriarchy in general, and the perceived reduction of the Goddess (and woman) by the male gaze in particular.

Transforming Deities

This article examines a variety of ways in which deities from the ancient Mediterranean have been re-appropriated, re-interpreted, transformed, and invented for contemporary religious and socio-political purposes by local Pagan communities—especially in Greece, Italy, Iberia, and Malta—and by followers of the global Goddess spirituality movement.

The New Cultus of Antinous

The contemporary Pagan movement, or Neo-Paganism, constitutes a growing sector of modern Western religiosity. While much scholarly attention has focused on larger Pagan religions like Wicca and Goddess Spirituality, this has come at the expense of studies into many of their smaller counterparts. Among those neglected faiths has been the contemporary cultus of Antinous, a small yet growing number of practitioners who venerate the deified lover of the Roman Emperor Hadrian (76–138 ce). Given the same-sex nature of the couple’s relationship, Antinous has come to be seen by many practitioners as “the Gay God” and his cultus has primarily attracted gay men. This article represents the first academic study of this new religious movement, outlining its historical development, examining the beliefs and practices of its adherents, and arguing that it reflects both continuity with earlier forms of Queer Paganism as well as novel developments.

‘Holistic Mothers’ or ‘Bad Mothers’? Challenging Biomedical Models of the Body in Portugal

This paper is based on early fieldwork findings on ‘holistic mothering’ in contemporary Portugal. I use holistic mothering as an umbrella term to cover different mothering choices, which are rooted in the assumption that pregnancy, childbirth and early childhood are important spiritual occasions for both mother and child. Considering that little social scientific literature exists about the religious dimension of alternative mothering choices, I present here a first description of this phenomenon and offer some initial anthropological reflections, paying special attention to the influence of Goddess spirituality on holistic mothers. Drawing on Pamela Klassen’s ethnography about religion and home birth in America (2001), I argue that in Portugal holistic mothers are challenging biomedical models of the body, asking for a more woman-centred care, and contributing to the process, already widespread in certain other European countries, of ‘humanising’ pregnancy and childbirth.

Invoking Hecate at the Women’s Peace Camp: The Presence of Goddess Spirituality and Dianic Witchcraft at Greenham Common in the 1980s

This article examines the presence and importance of Goddess Spirituality and Dianic Witchcraft at the Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp during the first decade or so of its existence. The influence of radical and cultural feminisms on the women who lived at the peace camp and assembled there for large scale anti-nuke demonstrations has been explored by many researchers in the past, but the issue of spirituality – and particularly Goddess Spirituality and feminist/Dianic Witchcraft – at the camp has yet to receive adequate scholarly attention. This article uses archival records, memoires and oral histories in order to shed some light on this under-studied phenomenon, and in addition attempts to contextualize the camp as an arena for exchanges of views and knowledge between non-feminist British Wiccans and American-influenced radical feminists and Goddess women.

Christian Goddess Spirituality and Thealogy

This article reports on the preliminary findings of a research project on the phenomenon of the blending of Christianity and Goddess Spirituality1 (‘Christian Goddess Spirituality’), with particular reference to the beliefs and values of practitioners. The contours of a grassroots Christian Thealogy (‘reflection on the female divine’) are sketched by drawing from the transcripts of over 100 interviews with women who self-identify as blending Christianity and Goddess Spirituality.

Religion and American cultures: tradition, diversity, and popular expression

Religion and American Cultures: Tradition, Diversity, and Popular Expression. 2nd ed. Edited by Gary Laderman and Luis Leon. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2015. 4 vols. Acid free $399 (ISBN: 978-1-91069-109-3). E-book Available (978-1-61069-110-9), call for pricing. The second edition of this work has been expanded to four volumes and has increased its coverage greatly. Although the editors state clearly that the work is not meant to be comprehensive, it does provide an excellent, and general, overview of religion within American culture. Each volume, in many ways, can stand alone, but together they provide a wonderful introduction to the state of religion in the United States and its influence on American culture. Volume 1 focuses on ethnicity, institutions, and communities. The broad topics include African American religions, Asian American religious communities, Buddhism in America, Catholicism in America, Hinduism in America, Islam in America, Judaism in America, Latina/Latino religious communities, Native American religions and politics, New Age, new religious traditions, Orthodox Christianity, and Protestantism in America. Under each major topic are from four to six related articles. For example, under the section on Asian American religious communities are separate entries for Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Pacific Islander, and South Asian religious communities in America. Under New Age are shorter articles on channeling, goddess spirituality, New Age bestsellers, Raelian Movement, Whiteshamanism, and Wicca. Thus, the full range of organized religion is covered with the exception of groups such as Unitarian-Universalists, atheists, and humanists. Many of the topics from this work, especially on specific religions, are covered in a variety of other resources such as the Encyclopedia of Religion in America (CQ Press, 2010) which provide greater historical depth. The strengths of the articles in the current set are their currency and their specificity, especially as related to popular expression of religion in the United States. Volume 2 covers broad, general topics that are not covered in other encyclopedias of religion in the United States. These topics include the body, death, generations, material culture, popular culture, popular theodicies, public theologies and political culture, ritual and performance, sacred space, sacred time, science, sexuality, and violence. These general articles and the more specific entries associated with them are among the more interesting readings within the work. …

Connecting British Wicca with Radical Feminism and Goddess Spirituality during the 1970s and 1980s: The Case Study of Monica Sjöö

This article attempts to chart some of the ways in which ideas of radical feminism, Goddess Spirituality, and feminist Witchcraft—which originated in the United States during the late 1960s and the 1970s before taking root in Britain—were introduced to British Wiccans during the latter half of the 1970s and throughout the 1980s. Several UK-based radical feminists who combined their newfound political awareness with Goddess Spirituality acted as important conduits for the transference of these ideas. This will be shown through the use of a case study of the artist and Goddess Feminist Monica Sjöö (1938–2005).

Review

Reviewed by: Running with the Fairies: Towards a Transpersonal Anthropology of Religion by Dennis Gaffin Jessica Jernigan (bio) Running with the Fairies: Towards a Transpersonal Anthropology of Religion. By Dennis Gaffin. Newcastle upon Tyne, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2012. 293pp. Toward the end of his introduction to Running with the Fairies, Dennis Gaffin lays out his intentions for the book: to “elevate fairyology to a respected branch of the anthropology of religion and of religious studies”; to encourage other scholars to study “spirits and god-like beings in European and American religion and spirituality”; to present a model of “participatory anthropology”; to show that “some of the features of fairy mystical experience,” which might be categorized as phenomena belonging to “indigenous ‘others,’” are actually part of Western experience; to “explore the relationship between the anthropology of religion and the transpersonal psychology of religion”; and to interrogate the “relationships between belief and knowledge in discourse on religiosity, spirituality, and mysticism” (22–23). An assessment of how the author fairs in realizing some of these goals—establishing “fairyology” within [End Page 160] the study of religion and situating experiences with fairies within a broader cultural context—offers useful insight into the book as a whole. Is Fairy Faith, as Gaffin describes it, a legitimate subject for scholars of religion? Certainly, anyone interested in new and emerging forms of spirituality might find something of interest in the author’s own experiences with “fairy energy” (33) and the accounts of his informants. But one of the most striking features of this quest for legitimacy is Gaffin’s effort to distinguish his Fairy Faith from New Age movements and belief systems. There is an implied disdain for people who, for example, might consult Healing with the Angels Oracle Cards, but the fairies Gaffin describes have a great deal in common with spirit guides, power animals, and—yes—guardian angels as they are envisioned and experienced by contemporary seekers. He is dismissive of writers who conflate fairies with aliens and poltergeists, but his own description of “mystical Fairy Faith” could apply to innumerable modern belief systems: “The mystical Fairy Faith, in its mild-mannered ways, provides an avenue for both psycho-spiritual development and a unique, increased attachment to God and Nature” (24). This sentence works just as well if we replace the phrase “mystical Fairy Faith” with “goddess spirituality” or “shamanistic practice.” The offhand denigration of New Age beliefs is just one element of Gaffin’s strategy for establishing Fairy Faith as a “legitimate” set of beliefs. The author also strives to situate his own experiences and those of his informants within the context of world religion and Western mystical tradition, and he aligns himself with other writers he identifies as “fairyminded” believers, such as William Butler Yeats, Arthur Conan Doyle, and the anthropologist Walter Evans-Wentz (91). To note similarities between fairies and such entities as nymphs and djinni is unremarkable—in fact, Gaffin might have added depth and nuance to his presentation if he had read the opening chapters of Diane Purkiss’s At the Bottom of the Garden: A Dark History of Fairies, Hobgoblins, Nymphs, and Other Troublesome Things (2001) (a book not listed in the bibliography). Instead, the author turns to Paracelsus: Gaffin’s “quintessential” fairy is an “elemental” of the air, whereas “earth fairies include elves and leprechauns whose energy is heavier than the lighter, airy sylph fairies” (97). At this point the student of traditional fairy lore is confounded. For Gaffin and his informants, fairies are ethereal entities best understood as “messengers, representatives, embodiments, partial manifestations, or aspects of God, the Creator, or the Source” (25). Gaffin’s fairies occupy a space in between the human and the divine, but their liminal nature is one of the only features these fairies share with their folkloric counterparts. Gaffin acknowledges this in passing references to how fairies have been understood in the past, but his engagement with the rich history of fairy belief is superficial and unpersuasive—to the extent that informed readers who come to this book hoping for a [End Page 161] sophisticated introduction to contemporary Fairy Faith will likely lose all confidence in the author. An example: While...

Créativité et incertitude dans les nouveaux rituels contemporains

This paper is based on fieldwork among Portuguese, Italians, Catalans and Spaniards influenced by the transnational Goddess spirituality movement. Through an analysis of ritual narratives the author analyses the role of doubt and uncertainty in contemporary rituals created within Goddess spirituality. She will show that contemporary crafted rituals offer a privileged window on the uncertainty intrinsic in ritual because participants feel less constrained by a long-standing religious tradition and talk more openly about their doubts and their strategies to neutralize them than in the case of secular ceremonies. Drawing on Simon Coleman’s analysis of pilgrimage and ritual (2009, 2013) she suggests that uncertainty may play an important role not only in rituals created in the context of ‘New Age’ spirituality but also in other contemporary rituals created in plural and increasingly secularized Western contexts.

'God Giving Birth' - Connecting British Wicca with Radical Feminism and Goddess Spirituality during the 1970s-1980s: The Case Study of Monica Sjöö

Ideas of radical feminism, Goddess Spirituality and Feminist Witchcraft— which originated in the United States during the late 1960s and the 1970s before taking root in Britain—were introduced to British Wiccans during the latter half of the 1970s and throughout the 1980s. Several United Kingdom-based radical feminists who combined their newfound political awareness with Goddess Spirituality acted as important conduits for the transference of these ideas. In the case of the artist and Goddess-feminist Monica Sjoo (1938-2005), I show some of the ways in which radical and spiritual feminist religious ideas did, contrary to a commonly held view, influence the British Pagan scene in the 1960s and 1970s.

Neo-Paganism, Native Faith and indigenous religion: a case study of Malta within the European context

This article surveys European neo‐Pagan and Native Faith movements that have emerged in the context of pan‐regional developments, new political configurations, environmental concerns and globalisation. While all engage with indigeneity, two broad trends are identified under the Pagan/Native Faith umbrella: (1) the adaptation of Anglo‐American Pagan traditions (e.g. Wicca, Druidry, neo‐shamanism, Goddess spirituality) to local contexts, thereby indigenising them in various ways, (2) the reconstruction of indigenous European religious traditions in connection with contemporary identity politics. Against this backdrop, the paper discusses the indigenising project of Maltese neo‐Pagans, a project characterised by adaptation and inventiveness within the local Catholic context.

Goddess Spirituality and Nature in Aotearoa New Zealand

Participants in Goddess spirituality in New Zealand share two fundamental characteristics: their feminist political stance and their deep sense of connection with, love for and concern about the natural environment. Eschewing the essentialist formulation of women/nature, men/culture, they wish to dismantle all such dualisms, to advocate the embracing of Green philosophies and practices by all people, and to promote a worldview that honors the sanctity and inter-relatedness of all life. To some extent, these ideas have much in common with indigenous Maori ideas about nature, even though each belief complex is uniquely embedded in its own culture and unique relationship to landscape and history. Nonetheless, Goddess spirituality’s ideas about nature have a great deal more in common with worldviews that perceive the ‘natural world’ as entirely animate and intimately connected with humanity than they do with the ideas of modern capitalist societies, which reduce nature to an inanimate resource available for human exploitation.