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For as long as we have sought god, we have found the goddess. Ruling over the imaginations of humankind’s earliest agricultural civilizations, she played a critical spiritual role as a keeper of nature’s fertile powers and an assurance of the next sustaining harvest. In The Goddess, David Leeming and Christopher Fee take us all the way back into prehistory, tracing the goddess across vast spans of time to tell the epic story of the transformation of belief and what it says about who we are. Leeming and Fee use the goddess to gaze into the lives and souls of the people who worshipped her. They chart the development of traditional Western gender roles through an understanding of the transformation of concepts of the Goddess from her earliest roots in India and Iran to her more familiar faces in Ireland and Iceland. They examine the subordination of the goddess to the god as human civilizations became mobile and began to look upon masculine deities for assurances of survival in movement and battle. And they show how, despite this history, the goddess has remained alive in our spiritual imaginations, in figures such as the Christian Virgin Mother and, in contemporary times, the new-age resurrection of figures such as Gaia. The Goddess explores this central aspect of ancient spiritual thought as a window into human history and the deepest roots of our beliefs.

This book provides a complete historical overview of the Mother Goddess and her influence. All of the major female goddesses found throughout history are covered.

Takes readers through Shakta imagery, philosophy, beliefs, customs, history, folklore and myth. This book includes tales of Adi-Maya-Shakti, Lakshmi, Saraswati, Parvati, Kali, Durga as well as several village-goddesses such as Kanyakumari, Vaishnav-devi, Bahucharmata and heroines such as Anasuya, Arundhati and Savitri.

This is the first thorough account of the nature and the spread of the cult of Cybele, the Great Mother, and the first to present her worship soberly as a religion rather than sensationally as an orgiastic celebration of self-castrated priest-attendants.

Sylvia Browne, in her own indomitable style, again defies convention in this uniquely informative compilation of diligently researched facts and personal accounts about the premise of a female divinity—namely, the Mother God (also known as the feminine principle). Spanning time from the earliest beginnings of humankind, when the time of the "Goddess" was at its peak, to the current era, with its myriad beliefs and religions, Sylvia takes us on a journey of discovery, where she discusses the suppression of the "Mother Goddess" by the male-dominated politics of modern-day religious dogma. Using a combination of historical data and poignant and heartwarming stories revealing the power and miracles attributed to the Mother God, Sylvia leads us from the question of "Does She exist" to the logical, fact-based conclusion that She does . . . and then shows us how to call upon Her to help us in our everyday lives.

Sure to become a classic on female empowerment, a groundbreaking exploration of the personal, cultural, and global implications of intergenerational trauma created by patriarchy, how it is passed down from mothers to daughters, and how we can break this destructive cycle. Why do women keep themselves small and quiet? Why do they hold back professionally and personally? What fuels the uncertainty and lack of confidence so many women often feel? In this paradigm-shifting book, leading feminist thinker Bethany Webster identifies the source of women’s trauma. She calls it the Mother Wound—the systemic disenfranchisement of women by the patriarchy—and reveals how this cycle is perpetuated by wounded mothers who unconsciously pass on damaging beliefs and behaviors to their daughters. In her workshops, online courses, and talks, Webster has helped countless women re-examine their lives and their relationships with their mothers, giving them the vocabulary to voice their pain, and encouraging them to share their experiences. In this manifesto and self-help guide, she offers practical tools for identifying the manifestations of the Mother Wound in our daily life and strategies we can use to heal ourselves and prevent our daughters from enduring the same pain. In addition, she offers step-by-step advice on how to reconnect with our inner child, grieve the mother we didn’t have, stop people-pleasing, and, ultimately, transform our heartache and anger into healing and self-love. Revealing how women are affected by the Mother Wound, even if they don’t personally identify as survivors, Discovering the Inner Mother revolutionizes how we view mother-daughter relationships and gives us the inspiration and guidance we need to improve our lives and ultimately create a more equitable society for all.