Glossary - exWitch Australia (formerly 'Born Again Pagan')

MOTHER GODDESS

A modern scupture of the Mother Goddess, by Oberon Zell, founder of 'Church of All Worlds'

The generic term for female deities who represent the fertility and fecundity of the earth and its progeny.

They have probably been recognised since prehistoric times when fat, pregnant images of womanhood were carved by the Palaeolithic hunters. Among the earliest known by name are Inanna (Sumerian), Ishtar (Akkadian), Demeter (Phrygian), Isis (Egyptian) and Circe (Roman).

Such Goddesses are also sometimes referred to as the Queen of Heaven (see ISHTAR).

The consort of the Mother Goddess in ancient mythology is the Sacred King, the dying and rising god, who reflects through his abdication or slaughter, the death of life in winter and, in his restoration, the coming of spring and genesis of new life.

In Neo-Paganism and Wicca, the second aspect of the Goddess is that of Mother. Among her names by which she is called are the Great Mother and Mother Nature which signifies Neo-Pagans and Wiccans believe her to be the Mother, Creatrix and life-giver to all of nature and to every thing within.

This at first may seem confusing to many Christians who acknowledge God the Father as the Creator. The findings of numerous female figurines and drawings in many locations supports the fact that during such ancient times the female was very honoured. The depictions self-fertilization and women giving birth states the Goddess has been very honoured for motherhood.

Seas, fountains, ponds and wells were often thought of as feminine symbols in archaic religions. Such passages connecting to subterranean water-passages were often thought as leading to the underground womb. Wiccan apologists are quick to claim that currently science partly substantiates these archaic beliefs. It is known that huge quantities of microscopic plants and animal live close to the ocean surface. Upon this sea life's death its shell remains settle to the ocean floor, and when studied through accumulations of sediment core samples, which represent millions of years of sea life, they provide a continuous history of the earth's environmental stages.

Accordingly, to this extent, the ocean, which according to Evolutionary theory, contains the beginning stages of life, is thought of as the Mother's womb. "And water, like love, was (is) essential to the life-forces of fertility and creativity, without which the psychic world as well as the material world would become an arid desert, the waste land."

Wiccan apologists claim that this idea of the Goddess or maternal womb is embedded in history. It was and is symbolized by the ceremonial bowl. When used in the Egyptian temples as the temple basin it was called the shi. Such bowls or vessels were used for illustrations, baptisms and various initiation and purification ceremonies.

In the ancient maternal temples this womb-vessel was very much respected for its inherent fertile power. Its holy waters were revered as they were considered spiritual representing the birth-giving energy of the Goddess.

Throughout the history of Goddess worship, witchcraft, and currently in Neo-Pagan witchcraft the cauldon has been a feminine symbol associated with the womb of the Mother Goddess.

The Gnostics were a heretical Christian sect in the 1st and 2nd Centuries AD that also regarded deity as feminine. It is in the Apocryphon of John one sees the apostle John grieving after the crucifixion (see GNOSTIC CONCEPTION OF THE CRUCIFIXION). John was in a "great grief" during which he experienced a mystical vision of the Trinity:

the [heavens were opened and the whole] creation [which is] under heaven shone and [the world] trembled. [And I was afraid, and I] saw in the light... a likeness with multiple forms... and the likeness had three forms.

To John's question of the vision came this answer: "He said to me, 'John, Jo[h]n, why do you doubt, and why are you afraid?... I am the one who [is with you] always. I [am the Father]; I am the Mother; I am the Son.'"

Obviously, the Gnostics did not adhere to the orthodox Christian teaching. Possibly one reason was that many of the Gnostic leaders, particularly Simon Magus, were of Greek or Samaritan heritage, and within these heritages polytheism and feminine deities were known and accepted.

In The Sacred Book one reads:

(She is) ...the image of the invisible, virginal, perfect spirit... She became the Mother of everything, for she existed before them all, the mother-father [matropater]...

In the Gnostic Gospel to the Hebrews, Jesus speaks of "my Mother, the Spirit". Again, in the Gospel of Thomas "Jesus contrasts his earthly parents, Mary and Joseph, with his divine Father - the Father of Truth - and his divine Mother, the Holy Spirit". And, in the Gospel of Philip, "whoever becomes a Christian gains 'both father and mother' for the Spirit (rurah) is 'Mother of many.'"

In a writing attributed to Simon Magus it states:

Grant Paradise to be the womb; for Scripture teaches us that this is a true assumption when it says, "I am He that formed thee in thy mother's womb" (Isaiah 44:2)...Moses... using the allegory had declared Paradise to be the womb... and Eden, the placenta...

Within modern culture the 'role' of Goddess as Mother can be seen to be reemerging. While the psychanalyst Sigmund Freud down played the emergence devotion to the Goddess as infantile desires to be reunited with the mother, his theory was challenged by C.J. Jung who described this emergence devotion as "a potent force of the unconscious."

Jung theorized that "the feminine principle as a universal archetype, a primordial, instinctual pattern of behavior deeply imprinted on the human Psyche, brought the Goddess once more into popular imagination."

The basis of Jung's theory rested on religious symbolism extending from prehistoric to current times. His archetypical concept is that it is not "an inherited idea, but an inherited mode of psychic functioning, corresponding to that inborn 'way' according to which the chick emerges from the egg; the bird builds its nest; ...and eels find their way to the Bermudas."

Many men have expressed the need to return to the Goddess, indicating that this is not only a woman's search or desire. "English therapist John Rowan believes that every man in Western culture also needs this vital connection to the vital female principle in nature and urges men to turn to the Goddess. In this way men will be able to relate to human women on more equal terms, not fearful of resentful of female power. Perhaps this is how it was in prehistoric times when men and women coexisted peacefully under the hegemony of the Goddess."

RESOURCES FROM OTHER CHRISTIAN SITES:
(Opens in a New Window)
WICCA: A BIBLICAL CRITIQUE at Probe Ministries
THE GODDESS AND THE CHURCH at Probe Ministries
GODDESS WORSHIP at Christian Information Ministries

PLEASE NOTE:
One of the major problems with 'defining' Paganism and/or its beliefs and practices is that it is an 'organic' movement, in that it is undergoing constant change and re-evaluation from within, and as such any 'one-size-fits-all' approach to understanding Paganism will be found wanting.

Due to the very 'organic' nature of Paganism, and the many differing Paths and Traditions within it, in many cases no one definition may be universally accepted by all Pagans. Therefore, where such cases of possible conflicting and/or contradictory meanings of certain terms occur I have endevoured to give not only the generally accepted meaning, but also any major 'variations' in belief and/or practice.

Christians who believe this difference in meaning of certain key terms, beliefs and practices to be unique to Paganism need to remember that such conflicts also arise within the Body of Christ - the Church. Take for instance the differing practices amongst Christians concerning Baptism and the different attitudes towards women in the clergy.

- Jean-Luc