Dear Media: Isis is a Goddess

What started me on posting about this issue at this particular moment is Susan Morgaine Stanley's March 20 post on The Motherhouse of the Goddess blog,  "Ritual for Reclaiming the Name of the Goddess ISIS."  Susan writes that listening to the news one night, she again heard  the name of this Goddess used to describe a terrorist organization. She continues:
"I immediately cringed and once again, felt sick inside. I think that for most of us who practice a Goddess-based spirituality, the name of our beloved Goddess becoming the name of an international terrorist organization, is painful....I also began to realize that I just did not want to sit back any longer. I wanted to fight against Her name being taken in vain."
She then offers a ritual, complete with  instructions,  actions,  words, and pics.

I then came across a Feb. 10 post on The Wild Hunt blog by Terence P Ward, "Facebook Deletes 'Following Isis' Group."  And then there is the statement on the Fellowship of Isis website. Some may say "it's just an acronym, get over it." But I can't.  At this point, some newspapers, such as Britain's The Guardian, don't even capitalize all four letters, as is appropriate for an acronym. Here's one example from its U.S. online edition in coverage of the Brussels attacks . And here is the same mistake in its Global edition.

All of these led me to Google "goddess isis terrorist." Here are just some of the links you can find there:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/21/world/europe/when-youre-named-isis-for-the-goddess-not-the-terror-group.html?_r=0

http://sacredcenters.com/in-the-name-of-the-goddess-isis-and-the-thugs-of-iraq/

http://yournewswire.com/goddess-isis-has-magical-powers-stop-associating-her-with-the-islamic-state/

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/isis-thousands-ask-media-stop-using-acronym-islamic-state-1530096

D.C. Demonstration Oct. 30 to Counter NAR

At Hecate's request, I'm passing along this information from a post on her blog:

DC Pagans to Hold Halloween Ceremony Countering the New Apostolic Reformation Cursing Prayer Campaign On October 30th in Lafayette Square Park

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Silver Spring, MD, October 19th, 2011---Priestesses and priests from the Washington, DC Pagan community will hold a Celebration of the Divine Feminine and Religious Freedom in Lafayette Square Park across from the White House on Sunday, October 30th, 2011, as a protest to the New Apostolic Reformation’s 51-day prayer campaign targeting Pagans, Wiccans, Witches, Druids, Heathens, and other Goddess-worshipers nationwide.

The New Apostolic Reformation is a Dominionist group of Christians preaching that all feminine forms of deity are demonic. The NAR is engaged in a 51-day campaign of imprecatory prayer to create a fundamentalist Christian theocracy in the USA. Republican presidential hopefuls Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry are influenced by the NAR agenda.

Reverend Barry Lynn, United Church of Christ minister and executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said, “Some people think the Dominionists and the New Apostolic Reformation are a newfangled movement. I call them what they are: the Religious Right in a new gown. They’re not fooling anyone. This is the same old bunch of theocrats we’ve been dealing with for more than 40 years. It’s the same crew that believes only its narrow version of Christianity is acceptable and pleasing to God. It’s the same collection of people who believe their religion gives them the right to run everyone else’s lives.”

Rev. Lynn went on to say, “I have news for them: Wiccans and Pagans are part of the American religious mosaic, and they’re here to stay. Founding Fathers like Thomas Jefferson and James Madison gave us religious liberty – and that means religious liberty for everyone. The followers of nature-based faiths are going to use it because they don’t want to lose it. What could be more in keeping with the great American tradition?”

Katrina Messenger, a writer, teacher, blogger, poet and Washington, DC native, will be the main celebrant in Lafayette Square Park. Ms. Messenger said, “The methods used by the NAR and other Dominionists are founded upon hate, fear, and ignorance. Their demonization of our Gods and Goddesses uses inflammatory language that can lead to violence and discrimination against followers of minority religions. We have choices in how to respond to this threat to our freedom and our faiths. Many are resorting to prayer, some to writing letters, and some to defensive strategies. We decided to honor the Queen of Heaven, the Goddess Inanna, in a public space, and demonstrate the very freedoms the Dominionists seek to destroy.” Ms. Messenger is the founder of Connect DC and the Reflections Mystery School in Petworth.

Event organizer Caroline Kenner is a Washington, DC-born shamanic healer and teacher who now lives in Silver Spring, Maryland. “Nationally, many in our community are appalled by the scurrilous lies about our Goddesses spread by the New Apostolic Reformation. We Pagans are proud American citizens entitled to all the religious freedom granted by the Founders of this country in our Constitution. We are dismayed by the hate-filled rhetoric the New Apostolic Reformation uses, and we wish to show the public that our Goddesses are beneficent and peaceful deities.”

The event in Lafayette Square Park begins at noon and ends at 5pm on Sunday, October 30th, Samhain eve to many Pagans, leading into one of the most holy days of the Pagan year. “Samhain, or Halloween, is the Feast of the Ancestors in some of our Pagan religions. We will invoke the Founding Fathers and Mothers of our nation during our ceremony, along with a multitude of Goddesses from pantheons both ancient and modern. Among our Goddesses will be Lady Liberty and Columbia, the Goddess who stands guard atop the Capitol Building,” said Ms. Kenner. “The New Apostolic Reformation people would topple Columbia from Her pinnacle, and rename DC the District of Christ.”

There will be a number of people offering prayers during the ritual, including a Unitarian Universalist minister and celebrants from several Pagan faiths. After the religious ceremony, there will be drumming, dancing, chanting and energy raising designed to protect people in all fifty states and DC who support freedom of religious belief and practice for everyone. People of all faiths or none are welcome to join the event.

Sacred Space, an annual conference on metaphysics, mysticism and magick, now in its 22nd year, is the sponsor of the celebration in Lafayette Square Park on October 30th. Supporting organizations include Connect DC, Reflections Mystery School and Gryphons Grove School of Shamanism. Individual supporters include Washington, DC Pagan bloggers Hecate Demeter, Literata and David Salisbury.

Selena Fox and Dr. Bob Hieronimous in Support of Libertas

This evening Selena Fox was guest on the Dr. Bob Hieronimous Show on 21st Century Radio broadcasting out of Baltimore (AM). Her topic: "Goddess of Freedom: From Libertas to Lady Liberty." If you missed the show, you can listen to it in the radio station's archives on 21stcenturyradio.com . Hieronomous has also posted an article titled, "Lady Liberty Needs Your Help" on the radio station's website. An article by Selena Fox on the history of these Goddess representations appears as a "Note" on the Circle Sanctuary's Facebook Page (you don't have to have a Facebook account to access it). The broadcast and articles are part of the response of Pagans, and people of other spiritual paths interested in preserving religious freedom, to the crusade titled DC40 and other activities of the New Apostolic Reformation and other Christian Dominionists who seek to establish a theocracy in the United States. One of their goals, for example, is to turn the District of Columbia into the "District of Christ."

Candidates, Dominionists, & NAR

I don't usually get into much politics on this blog, but I feel I must offer at least one post about the relationship of the right wing Christian groups known as Dominionists, including the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR). Why now? In the past few days, Governor Rick Perry of Texas, reportedly preparing to announce his candidacy for the Republican Presidential nomination, held a "prayer rally" which featured a number of people affiliated with the NAR, a group which fancies itself the second group of Apostles of Jesus, whose aim it is to combine their brand of Christianity with government and just about every other part of American society. Some of their distasteful, to put it mildly, beliefs include:

-- The Statue of Liberty is a demonic idol

--Oprah is the forerunner of the "harlot" movement (a notion related to the emergence of the antichrist)

--the Emperor of Japan has sex with the Sun Goddess who is a demon and this caused the Japanese stock market to crash, as well as the earthquake in Japan.

Rachel Maddow, who has been one of the few mainstream media persons reporting on this, in earlier coverage referred to the Sun Goddess mainly as "a demon" or "demons." But tonight she finally identified her as the "Sun Goddess" (Amaterasu, a Goddess central to the Japanese Shinto religion).

Closely related philosophically to the NAR views are those of a group of Christian Dominionists who identify the Democratic Party as "the party of Jezebel," and they don't mean it as a compliment. They are planning "take back" Washington DC from the Goddess Columbia in a late October event called DC40; they want to rename the U.S. capital the "District of Christ" and are mightily offended by the statue of Columbia (aka Freedom) who stands atop the U.S. Capitol dome.

What do all these (pick one or more: scary, twisted, nutty) beliefs have in common? In addition to being a step towards taking over the political platform and erasing the separtion of Church and State in the US, they are all grossly misogynist. Notice that all the sources of "evil" are either goddesses or powerful women. The one male character in these scenarios, the Emperor of Japan, they present as simply a deluded fellow, lured and/or underattack by a female demon who was once (or is at the same time?) a Goddess, in a way that is to me reminiscent of the story of Adam being led to evil by Eve. This demonization of Goddesses and women perceived as powerful (Oprah and Jezebel, a queen) by extension demonizes women in general.

Hecate and Literata have been providing good coverage of the DC40 aspect of this. And Jason Pitzl-Waters on The Wild Hunt has been providing ongoing coverage of the Dominionist movement and NAR. I suggest you visit these blogs for more information.

Huffington Post on 'Mother Goddess'

I was compiling this month's "Buzz Coil" when I came upon a post, "Mother Goddess, Ascending" by Michael Vlahos posted on Sept. 23 in the Huffington Post, and felt that my response to it couldn't wait until I compiled the Coil. Vlahos begins by seducing us with a large pic of Venus of Willendorf and a reasonable presentation of Mother Goddess in prehistory and the transformation of Goddess imagery in early Christianity in the images of Mother Mary and Joan of Arc. But his viewpoint becomes distorted as he begins to tie nationalism in later centuries with Goddess veneration calling this "the Goddess of religious nationalism," which he portrays in very negative terms. He then twists the search for, or resurgence of, Goddess into being something that grows out of fear (I'm not making this up!), discusses what he thinks Americans are afraid of, and why a Mother Goddess would calm their fears. He gives Evita Peron as an example of a woman who became to be viewed as a goddess because of similar needs and fears and then proposes that Sarah Palin serves the same need. No, I'm not kidding!

He, himself, stirs up fear with this piece that ends with this:

We are not there just yet, but be forewarned: We may soon in the impoverished years that lie ahead become increasingly impatient, restless, and afraid. We will be weak and so all the more inclined toward the mercies of the steely-eyed, those who would take us toward the Goddess who is loving but also stern. Then we will cry out for the rebirth that comes with blood, and redemption that breathes only after sacrifice. And when we cry out to her it will be as well for a very different America.

He totally disregards the views and reasons for the contemporary Goddess movement, its ties to feminism, which have nothing to do with nationalism and war and everything to do with peace, cooperation, equality, and care for Mother Earth. Either he has a axe to grind and is using "Goddess" to sharpen it, or he simply disregards or is ignorant of the actual Goddess movement, which is now international in its scope and membership. Some people have left comments on this Huff Post piece expressing their disagreement and trying to inform him of his errors. To me, where this piece leads is a place of sickening distortion, and can only serve to make people (even more?) suspicious of Goddess religions.

Palin & Religion

Concerns about the effect US Republican Veep candidate Sarah Palin’s religious affiliations might have on a McCain/Palin administration – or, even worse, should she ascend to the Presidency – are being expressed by many bloggers. The congregation of The Assembly of God church with which Palin is connected in Alaska is known to have beliefs connected with Christian Reconstructionism , "Third Wave" Christianity, and Dominionism. The latter takes its name from the exhortation in Genesis for "man" to have "dominion" over the Earth. According to some accounts , the Dominionists take this further, believing that God wants believers in (a certain type of?) Christianity to have dominion over people of other faiths, and has as one of its aims, establishing a Christian theocracy in the USA, with militarism and violence part of the picture. Let me say at the outset, that although it’s known that people in Palin's church advocate this and the other beliefs, what’s not known is to what extent Palin believes and acts on these. This would make an excellent question for a reporter to ask her – should the McCain campaign ever allow her to answer reporters’ questions.

There are at least two sets of beliefs adopted by Palin’s AoG church that readers of this blog might want to examine further. First, is the connection between Pastor Thomas Muthee , who, looking for the cause of a Kenyan village’s problems that included an increase in car crashes, pointed the finger at a woman in the village whom he accused of witchcraft, eventually causing the woman to flee for her safety. This is the aspect of Palin’s religious connections that has been most widely covered in the mainstream media. Palin credits Muthee's praying over her, with being largely responsible for her being elected Governor of Alaska. Palin has praised him for his "prayer" in which rather than ask God to help Palin win, Muthee tells God to clear the way for Sarah to come into political power. Update: An additional instance of Muthee praying to protect Palin from "witchcraft" was reported shortly after this post was written. See AP article linked below.

I'm not aware of there being much, if any MSM discussion about another set of beliefs, possibly because of their complexity. But I think this is of interest to readers of this blog. Dominionists/Christian Reconstructionists/"Third Wave" Christians conflate the "Queen of Heaven" against whom the prophet Jeremiah rails in the Hebrew scriptures, with "Diana" (aka "Isis") of Ephesus, and with Mary, Mother of Jesus (apparently because she was called "Queen of Heaven" extra-biblically by the Catholic church). All these they lump together as being demonic Diana, the enemy of Dominionist Christians.

Here are some links to more on all of this (which will lead you to even more....):
Dark Christianity--many posts, the most recent to date on Sept. 24
Wild Hunt Blog--several articles, latest Sept 18:"Update:Palin's Anti-Pagan Co-Religionists"
Daily Kos--"You Tube Censors Viral Video On Palin's churches"
Street Prophets--"Voodoo Palin...."
Street Prophets--"Sarah Palin:Daimonizomai & Belief in Powerful Demon Possession"
Starhawk on WoPo "On Faith"
Radical Goddess Theology--"Curled My Hair"
Alternet.org--"Weird Theology in Wasilla: A Look Inside Sarah Palin's Pentecostal Church" (includes discussion of anti-Goddess aspect)
AP: "Palin once blessed to be free of 'witchcraft' "

TAGS:news Sarah Palin Elections Dominionism Thomas Muthee Christian Reconstruction Queen of Heaven

Where Are We Now?

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO US!!!

While we were out partying, Medusa Coils passed her first blogerversary (or is it bloggerbday?). Our first post, "Why are We Here?" , appeared July 1, 2006. We’ve accomplished many of the goals we set for ourselves and plan to continue doing what we’re doing. In that first post, we stated our intent to:

counter a trend many of us have noticed in the last few years: A tendency to downplay the contributions of spiritual feminist scholars, including Goddess authors. We are also here to provide information about other concerns of people involved in modern feminist Goddess religions and spiritual paths, including the various permutations now snaking through some Jewish and Christian circles.
....to try to give you the real story on writings and other statements that are critical of Goddess claims, concepts, practices, particularly when it's done in a way that distorts them.

We’ve begun to do the this, and a good example of the latter is our review of an otherwise excellent book by William Dever.

That first post continues:

We also plan to point out writing that takes concepts from Goddess or feminist theological writings but fails to credit them as such....We will be particularly critical of writing that ignores the Goddess or feminist sources of ideas it espouses while at the same time putting down modern Goddess religion or spiritual feminism.

An example of this is our review of a Tikkun article by Shaul Magid.

We continued:

We also plan to help readers find articles and information...and give you information about Goddess groups in various geographical locations. We are particularly interested in groups that have incorporated as religious non-profits and/or who have a building dedicated to Goddess use.

Our posts on Goddess Temples, our mini-reviews of Goddess e-zines, our monthly Buzz Coils pointing you to posts of interest on other blogs, and our monthly Events Coils, giving links to event info world-wide are significant strides on this path.

OK. Enough of us patting ourselves on the back. Pass the Birthday Cake, please.

WaPo 'On Faith' panelist bashes Goddess

"Have women fared well or badly in the world's religions down through the ages?" is today's discussion question on The Washington Post's online, On Faith. One of the panelists, Wendy Doniger, takes the opportunity to attack Goddess feminists, and WaPo highlights her Goddess-bashing quote and gives her top billing. There are already some responses, but if you want to tell her what you think, here's a shortcut: http://tinyurl.com/2vgdrn. Responses from a number of other panelists are more balanced and make interesting reading, so you might want to check them all out. And I'm glad to see discussion on this issue on a mass media site.

[SEE UPDATE BELOW Unfortunately, Starhawk, who is one of On Faith's regular panelists, wasn't included among the responders to today's question (could it be that she wasn't asked?). Her most recent post on Jan. 15, which you shouldn't miss, is "Our Goddess Weeps at Our Wars." ]

UPDATE,Jan.21: The order of the comments has been changed, so that Doniger's no longer is highlighted at the beginnning of the discussion AND a panelist post by Starhawk (dated Jan. 16),"Woman and Goddess" has been added (Actually I don't know if this was added from somewhere else or existed somewhere on this topic and just wasn't showing???)

TAGS:life news WaPo On Faith Goddess women and religion Goddess Spirituality

Article Double-Whammies Goddess

In Medusa Coils’ first post, Why Are We Here?, we stated that one of this blog’s goals is to counter the practice of downplaying contributions of spiritual feminists, including Goddess authors. We said we would "be particularly critical of writing that ignores the Goddess or feminist sources of ideas it espouses while at the same time putting down modern Goddess religion or spiritual feminism." We promised to post soon about such an article. Here it is:

The article we’re going to point the finger at is certainly not the only example of this shall-we-call-it genre, and likely will not be the last we discuss. It just happens that it’s the one I came across at about the time I decided to launch this blog. It appears in a journal that you might not expect to publish such a point of view, Tikkun, whose name is Hebrew for a concept that humans have an obligation to repair and perfect the world. Its publisher is listed as the nonprofit "Institute for Labor and Mental Health." The magazine is associated with the Jewish Renewal Movement, a liberal (or progressive, take your pick) form of Judaism, and with the Network of Spiritual Progressives, an organization formed to counter the political clout of fundamentalist religions. Tikkun’s editorial board includes at least two well-known female feminist authors; it appears that only 20-25 percent of its 49-member editorial board are women. Because this publication and organization project a reputation of being feminist-friendly, it’s of even more concern (to me, anyway), when an article dismissive of aspects of spiritual feminism appears in it.

Tikkun’s masthead includes a disclaimer that "Articles in Tikkun do not necessarily reflect Tikkun’s position on any issue." So I suppose we shouldn’t hold Tikkun as a whole responsible for the views in the May/June 2006 article, "Jewish Renewal and American Spirituality." Yet its author, Shaul Magid, is one of Tikkun’s contributing editors. So I’m still worried – and not a little angry.

This article engages in the double-whammy of appropriating ideas previously developed, expressed, published by spiritual feminists – particularly Goddess feminists – while at the same time putting down Goddess feminism. A neat trick, eh?

In the first paragraph of the article, Magid explains that:

"As a particularly American form of Judaism, Jewish Renewal can trace its spiritual lineage back to these American Spiritualists as much, or even more than, it can claim Eastern European Hasidic ancestry."

Magid then discusses the influence of Eastern Religious thought, inspiration from the Transcendentalists, and then in the 20th century the Beats, the Beatles (?!) and the "New Agers." Nowhere does he mention the strong interrelationship between first-wave feminism and Spiritualism (see Other Powers by Barbara Goldsmith), nor does he discuss any contribution of 20th century spiritual feminist thought other than a brief dismissal several paragraphs later (yes, I'm coming to that, grrrrrr).

Magid says,

"Renewal added to that mix Jungian and neo-Jungian psychology, theories of holistic healing, and a belief in multiculturalism – creeds straight out of the New Age culture that developed in the 1970s."

Though he doesn't define exactly what "New Age culture" includes today, he does say that it re-emerged in the 1970s bringing with it concepts from 19th century metaphysical thought. He also apparently doesn't include feminist/Goddess thought under the rubric "New Age." I agree with both of these assessments.

Under the subhead, "Paradigm Shift," Magid observes:

"Renewal founder Reb Zalman Shacter-Shalomi calls what he is doing a 'Paradigm Shift' from a theology where God exists but is utterly distant, to a world where God is an organic part of creation."

Magid sources this idea to Buddhism and New Age thought. I question this. We usually think of Buddhism as teaching that the primary quality of life and the material world is suffering, and that the way to nirvana (an egoless state of utter peace) involves movement away from the material world and thus away from suffering. Most of us think of Buddhism as having little to say about "God," certainly in the Abrahamic sense of a single all-powerful deity. But even if we were to ascribe some deity description to Buddhism as it is most commonly understood, because of its negative view of the material world one could hardly describe that deity as "an organic part of creation." I suppose, however, that since there are so many varieties of Buddhism, it’s possible that one or more of them could somehow be interpreted to include immanence of deity in the material world. But it’s certainly not what one commonly thinks of as Buddhism. As for "New Age thought," as Magid indicates, much of this is material carried forward from metaphysical groups and writing of the late 19th century. And in the 21st century it still retains strong elements of separating the spiritual from the material, and also tends to be hierarchical (for example, the board of directors type group that you supposedly meet after you "cross over").

Which contemporary spiritual path does involve extensive discussion of a paradigm shift from transcendent ("utterly distant") God to organic deity? Three guesses and the first two don’t count. That’s right – Goddess spirituality. From Starhawk to Riane Eisler to Carol Christ – and beyond. But does Magid mention this connection? Hah!

Magid says:

"American practitioners of Eastern religions – and particularly those who identify with New Age movements – share a belief in the world as a living organism, or as Reb Zalman calls it, 'Gaia consciousness,' a belief that refracts nature religion and pantheism through a revised monotheistic lens. . . .Zalman argues that the disciple [sic? does he mean discipline?] of your father represents the old paradigm, the Torah of patriarchy. If one can no longer hear that Torah, there is still the instruction of your mother, [italics Magid's] the Torah of Gaia, the notion of the world as an organism..."

But the concept of Gaia consciousness is not only refracted by Reb Zalman; it’s also common among Goddess and non-Goddess folks. It has both spiritual and scientific aspects. The scientific Gaia Theory, which sees the Earth as a living organism, was first proposed by James Lovelock in the 1960s, but not widely accessible to the general public until the publication of Lovelock’s book, The Quest for Gaia in 1975. Was it synchronistic that this occurred at about the same time that Goddess feminists/ecofeminists were pointing out the relationship between the trashing of the environment and religious views in which "man" is given "dominion over" the Earth? Or do you think perhaps there was some sharing of opinions along the way? In any case, naming the theory and "consciousness"(and type of Torah!) after Gaia, ancient Greek Mother Goddess, certainly points to Goddess influence, and the spiritual views now called "Gaia consciousness" were elucidated early on by Goddess feminists. Then how can "Gaia consciousness" be called specifically New Age? While it’s true that many who consider themselves "New Agers" are interested in it, not all New Agers are avid environmentalists. And not everybody who sees Earth as an organism and relates to this idea spiritually is part of the "New Age culture." Interest in the scientific basis of and relationship to global warming issues of Gaia theory/consciousness extends far beyond the boundaries of New Age. Could it be that Magid credits Gaia consciousness to "New Age" to avoid giving credit to Goddess and/or Neo-Pagan thealogy, which, after ignoring, he then disses and dismisses under the subhead, "Post-Monotheism":

"Zalman's Judaism is not a neopagan pantheism that seeks to retrieve a pre-monotheistic paradigm that was corrupted by the (patriarchal) domination of monotheism."

Whew!!! I was worried there for a while, but now when you assure me that this isn't Neo-Paganism, I feel soooooo much better, especially when you go on to tell me in the very next sentence that spiritual feminist stuff is also simply a retrieval and restoration project: "

"One does find that view among Zalman's contemporaries, particularly in the works of feminists such as Adrianne [sic] Rich (especially her early work), Meryll [sic] Stone, Riane Eisler, Starhawk, and perhaps most prominently Jenny Kien's Reinstating the Divine Woman in Judaism....
Rather the theology Zalman suggests is more constructive than restorative...."

If Magid had read all the books more thoroughly (and respected the authors enough to get their first names right: Adrienne Rich, Merlin Stone) he might have come to different conclusions. Though there may be a few Neo-Pagan groups who are trying to exactly reconstruct ancient polytheistic religions, they are in the minority and Goddess feminists are not usually among them. The authors Magid mentions don’t propose to just retrieve ancient religions. What Stone, Eisler, Starhawk, and Kien do is deconstruct religious beliefs using what we have of the history of religion, then reconstruct in our imaginations – not propose that they be adopted exactly as they were – what pre-patriarchal religions might have been like, and then construct in real life new spiritual forms.

For example, in her still-popular 1979 book, The Spiral Dance, Starhawk, who is also an environmental activist, describes one idea of what might have been "the Ancient Religion of the Great Goddess," but ends the book with a chapter on ,"Creating Religion: Towards the Future," in which she says:

"When God is felt to be separate from the physical world, religion can be split off from science, and limited to the realm of things having to do with God. But Goddess is manifest in the physical world, and the more we understand its workings, the better we know Her. . . . I would like to see the Goddess religion of the future be firmly grounded in science."

Starhawk goes on to discuss the spirals of DNA and galaxies.

And then there’s Riane Eisler. In her influential 1987 book, The Chalice and the Blade: Our History Our Future, Eisler traces the anthropological and sociopolitical history of religion back to the early Neolithic (6000 BCE), but not so that we will adopt ancient Goddess-worshipping religions exactly as they were then. Rather it is so that we will understand that society was not always structured on domination and hierarchy but at one time, before Goddess worship was forcibly suppressed, was built around cooperation and equality. Eisler’s concern for the present and future is not primarily the establishment of religions; rather she hopes historical knowledge will help us move out of our present dominator (her term) paradigm to a new social paradigm based on what she terms "partnership." The last chapter in Chalice and the Blade is about building "a Partnership Future." A later book she wrote with David Loye, The Partnership Way, and their organization, the Center for Partnership Studies focuses on how to put partnership theories into practice now and in the future in various types of non-sectarian groups and relationships.

And then we come to Jenny Kien's 2000 book, Reinstating the Divine Woman in Judaism, which Magid elevates to prominence (as well it should be—it’s a terrific book!). Kien, a Ph.D. neurobiologist, looks specifically at the history of Goddess worship in the Ancient Near East and its relevance to Judaism and sees as one possibility, the inclusion of Asherah in modern Judaism. But contrary to Magid’s implication, she doesn’t advocate the restoration of pre-Abrahamic Goddess worship as it existed in antiquity. Here’s what Kien, does advocate (on pp. 201-202) :

"...a compromise, a mixing of the new (or old) imagery with the current traditions, an evolution instead of revolution’.
"There are many paths that this evolution can take. One of them is the taking up of old goddess religions, redefining them according to our needs, and developing a modern form of spirituality. This is the path taken by the new goddess religions and the modern feminist spirituality movement that center on the Divine Woman....I do not advocate turning our backs completely on the traditional religions. Instead, it is necessary to reinstate the Divine Woman in all religions where she is missing."

It's certainly clear from these quotes and from just about anything else you might read by Goddess feminists, that we are not advocating restoring ancient Goddess religions exactly as they were in antiquity. I wonder why Magid needed to make it seem otherwise?

We Goddess feminists don’t pretend to know all the details of religions before 3000 BCE, we can only make educated guesses. But what we do know from extensive and growing archeological evidence is that they included imagery of the divine embodied as female, i.e., goddesses. Most of us realize, however, that there would probably be parts of these religions that would be anachronistic, even possibly distasteful. What we do do, and what these authors did, is create anew by combining what we have discovered about pre-patriarchal religions with what has gone on in religion and spiritual beliefs in the thousands of years since then, sometimes introducing concepts, images, rituals, etc. to counter that influence.

We’re almost through here, but I can’t stop without sharing a couple of other Magid quotes. Under the subhead, "A Leap 'Outside' ," in the next to the last paragraph in the article, Magid writes:

"The God that is (re)created in Jewish Renewal is no longer the God of classical monotheism, nor is it the 'return of the gods' in the Nietzschean fashion or the new spirituality of neopaganism..."

Wait! Neo-Paganism has a new spirituality??? But I thought you just said it's merely retrieving a pre-monotheistic paradigm.... Oh well, go ahead

"but a post-monotheistic God who is both one and many, close at hand and within one's reach."

Yes, and we call this post-monotheisitic deity Goddess, right?

But no, because when crediting the influences of this "post-monotheistic" concept of deity Magid lists:

"Baal Shem Tov, the Seer of Lublin, Nahman of Bratslav...Emerson, Whitman, Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, Henry Steel Olcott, Felix Adler, Thomas Wentworth Higgenson, Jiddu Krishnamurti, Thomas Merton, the Beats, and others in the American spiritualist tradition...."

But not, definitely not, Starhawk, Eisler, Kien, (and others most of us could name) and not even Carol P. Christ, a Ph.D. in Religious Studies from Yale, who has written about these concepts in modern Goddess religions for at least 25 years and most recently in her 1997 book, Rebirth of the Goddess, and has even written about the similarities between Goddess concepts and process theology in her 2003 book, She Who Changes. Why not?

Why does Magid go out of his way to distance himself, to put it politely, from feminists and Neo-Pagans while appropriating their concepts?

Well, maybe you can think of some answers to these questions. Maybe not. Certainly articles like this one leave a big question mark in my mind. Medusa Coils plans to look at other articles and maybe even books that similarly raise our blood pressure from time to time. If you know of any we should consider, hope you’ll leave a comment. In the meantime, I’ll be stocking up on bp meds.

TAGS: news spiritual feminism Goddess Network of Spiritual Progressives Tikkun feminism feminist Jewish Renewal Shaul Magid Gaia Riane Eisler Adrienne Rich Merlin Stone Jenny Kien Carol Christ

Why Are We Here?

As Medusa Coils, we hope to counter a trend many of us have noticed in the last few years: A tendency to downplay the contributions of spiritual feminist scholars, including Goddess authors. We are also here to provide information about other concerns of people involved in modern feminist Goddess religions and spiritual paths, including the various permutations now snaking through some Jewish and Christian circles.

Goddess authors, philosophers, researchers, and practitioners have spent a good deal of time and effort over the last several decades researching the history of the suppression of the divine embodied as female. Unlike the adherents of most other religions, who are rarely challenged when they base their beliefs on faith, Goddess people have used anthropology, archeology, and history to substantiate their claims. Yet we are still criticized for lack of evidence, a criticism that few would level at mainstream religions.

It seems to some of us that when we aren't being criticized with unfounded and distorted statements, we are being ignored. By ignored, I mean that concepts, ideas, historical findings, that originated with Goddess thinkers and writers are now being un-Goddessed: the thoughts and ideas are used pointedly without reference to Goddess spirituality and sometimes at the same time as the writer or speaker is putting down "that Goddess stuff" or feminist theology. As the Goddess is being disappeared from discourse, so are women's contributions to 20th and 21st century religious and spiritual thinking being erased. Sound familiar?

Medusa Coils is going to try to give you the real story on writings and other statements that are critical of Goddess claims, concepts, practices, particularly when it's done in a way that distorts them. Some writers have already been doing this. Two examples are Max Dashu's "Knocking Down Straw Dolls" and Starhawk's "Response to Charlotte Allen's Article" . These were written a few years ago and are terrific. We plan to do more! And we hope you will help by leaving suggestions in the comment area about examples of these we should cover.

We also plan to point out writing that takes concepts from Goddess or feminist theological writings but fails to credit them as such. Although a certain amount of "borrowing" from one spiritual path to another is common, it seems to us that much of what is going on today is an intentional slight of Goddess scholars and of women. We will be particularly critical of writing that ignores the Goddess or feminist sources of ideas it espouses while at the same time putting down modern Goddess religion or spiritual feminism. Look for a diary here on such an article in the near future. And if any instances of this devious practice comes to mind, please leave a comment for us to follow up.

We also plan to help readers find articles and information on Goddess websites and blogs, tell you about opportunities to publish papers and articles, and give you information about Goddess groups in various geographical locations. We are particularly interested in groups that have incorporated as religious non-profits and/or who have a building dedicated to Goddess use.

This blog is named after Medusa, a protective goddess sometimes associated with righteous anger. Her hair has, or is, coiling snakes, a symbol of regeneration. For more about her, go here