An exceptional collection of essays about the goddess, with essays by such respected writers as June Singer, Riane Eisler, June Singer, Roberto Assagioli, Gina Cerminara, Dane Rudhyar, Char McKee, Elizabeth Dodson Gray and Merlin Stone. The 21 chapters include such topics as Sophia The Gnostic Archetype of Feminine Soul-Wisdom, Buddhist Female Deities, Oya Black Goddess of Africa, The World Mother, Encountering the Shekhinah The Jewish Goddess, The Beguines in Medieval Europe, The Wise Woman of Western Tradition, Sacred Women of Native North America. Also are included are more psychological chapters such as: The Sadness of the Successful Woman, A Higher View of the Man-Woman Problem, Toward the Companionate Man-Woman Relationship.
Publishers Weekly says: In this trenchant anthology, Nicholson gathers the work of 23 theologians, historians and other scholars in pursuit of what Stone, a pioneer of modern studies of the mother-Goddess, calls "the universal feminine principle"--"the concept of a divine principle in the universe that is specifically associated with the female gender." These essays collectively imply that this feminine principle is far more profound than a simplistic antithesis of all that we think of as masculine. Addressing cultural representations of the mother-Goddess, female worship traditions and Goddess-centered rites, and the psychological, social and political implications of a feminine principle, the discussions are commendably free of jargon, combative rhetoric and scholarly infighting. In a particularly intriguing entry, psychologist June Singer suggests that by imagining their own deaths, hence letting go of a distorting sense of self-importance, women in a patriarchal society may reconcile the "masculine" definition of self through choice of career with the "feminine" emphasis on relationships.
Publishers Weekly says: In this trenchant anthology, Nicholson gathers the work of 23 theologians, historians and other scholars in pursuit of what Stone, a pioneer of modern studies of the mother-Goddess, calls "the universal feminine principle"--"the concept of a divine principle in the universe that is specifically associated with the female gender." These essays collectively imply that this feminine principle is far more profound than a simplistic antithesis of all that we think of as masculine. Addressing cultural representations of the mother-Goddess, female worship traditions and Goddess-centered rites, and the psychological, social and political implications of a feminine principle, the discussions are commendably free of jargon, combative rhetoric and scholarly infighting. In a particularly intriguing entry, psychologist June Singer suggests that by imagining their own deaths, hence letting go of a distorting sense of self-importance, women in a patriarchal society may reconcile the "masculine" definition of self through choice of career with the "feminine" emphasis on relationships.
