When God Becomes Goddess suggests that one way in which Americans may keep the traditional Western idea of God alive - paradoxically - is to embrace the Goddess of feminist theologies under the rubric of "enactment theology", Grigg demonstrates how these cutting edge theologies offer much more than critique of patriarchy; indeed, her gender aside, Grigg suggests that the Goddess may create an avenue through which the concept of God might be rescued from the pressing forces of (...) secularization. (shrink)

This paper explores the way some contemporary feminist Pagan practitioners talk about nature and goddess. I see these feminist Pagans as providing an example of a religion of nature, much like that of Donald Crosby’s that focuses on nature as the ultimate. However, unlike Crosby’s religion of nature, which could be perceived as isolationist, these feminist Witches’ willingness to maintain theistic language through religious fictionalism, even though non-realist, supports their community participation in an increasingly realist Pagan context.

This essay explores the notion of female embodiment and its relation to the phenomenon of religion. It explains religious beliefs, acts, and events in terms of the worship of the female body. By elucidating this standpoint, this essay hopes to reclaim the centrality of the female body and its importance in the study of philosophy of religion.

This book on the Tripurārahasya, a South Indian Sanskrit work which occupies a unique place in the Śākta literature, is a study of the Śrīvidyā and Śākta traditions in the context of South Indian intellectual history in the late middle ages. Associated with the religious tradition known as Śrīvidyā and devoted to the cult of the Goddess Tripurā, the text was probably composed between the 13th and the 16th century CE. The analysis of its narrative parts addresses questions about (...) the relationships between Tantric and Purāṇic goddesses. The discussion of its philosophical and theological teachings tackles problems related to the relationships between Sākta and Śaiva traditions. The stylistic devices adopted by the author(s) of the work deal uniquely with doctrinal and ritual elements of the Śrīvidyā through the medium of a literary and poetic language. This stylistic peculiarity distinguishes the Tripurārahasya from many other Tantric texts, characterized by a more technical language. The book is intended for researchers in the field of Asian Studies, Indology, Philosophical, Theological or Religious Studies, Hindu Studies, Tantric Studies and South Asian Religion and Philosophy, in particular those interested in Śākta and Śaiva philosophic-religious traditions. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Buddhist Goddesses of India, and: Goddesses and the Divine Feminine: A Western Religious HistoryRita M. GrossBuddhist Goddesses of India. By Miranda Shaw. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006. 571 pp.Goddesses and the Divine Feminine: A Western Religious History. By Rosemary Radford Ruether. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005. 381 pp.These two very large books should be of obvious interest to those concerned with Buddhist-Christian interactions and comparative studies. (...) They are also especially timely and important, given how much goddesses and the divine feminine have been [End Page 175] overlooked and ignored by those involved in Buddhist-Christian interchange and comparative studies as well as by serious scholars of both traditions.These books will function mainly as goldmines of information about goddesses in Buddhist and Western religions rather than as theoretical and theological analyses about what is at stake in the presence or absence of goddesses and imagery of the divine feminine in either tradition. As is well known, imagery of the divine feminine is longstanding and of considerable importance in Buddhist traditions, even though it was not part of the earliest layers of Buddhist traditions, whereas the divine feminine is largely absent in more recent Western traditions, even though it was common in the ancient Near East. Thus, these two traditions are mirror images of each other’s historical development concerning the divine feminine. It would be fascinating to explore this difference between the traditions. Because neither book is comparative in any way, such questions are not entertained in these books, but at least both books provide a great deal of information that others may use in future explorations of such similarities and differences between the traditions.Most of Miranda Shaw’s analytical comments are found in her brief, thirteen-page introduction. The rest of the book is mainly descriptive. Most of this discussion concerns her choice of the term “goddess” to refer to the many nonhuman, divine females found in Buddhist art and literature. She notes that, while mention of Goddesses is widespread and long-term in works on Buddhist art and history, Buddhist studies in general has not paid much attention to goddesses, and the same basic information has been repeated over and over, with few advances in interpreting and understanding these figures. I would agree with this assessment. She also notes, correctly, that Buddhist goddesses have received scant attention in the recent spate of Western scholarly investigations of goddesses and the divine feminine. Nevertheless, as Shaw points out, various kinds of divine females occupy every niche of the divine hierarchy in Indian and Buddhist cosmology. Indeed, it would be impossible to look at any book about Indian Buddhist art without noticing many voluptuous, highly attractive female figures as well as some more fearsome figures.Shaw justifies her use of the term “goddess” by noting that this is the literal translation of the term routinely used for female divine figures in Indian Buddhist sources. This justification is pointed at several other scholars who have written about Buddhist “goddesses” from a Buddhist point of view but who have avoided the term “goddess” for various reasons, but mainly because of the complexity and explosiveness of that term in Western contexts. The term has also been avoided by Western Buddhist scholars because of possible misunderstandings or confusion that could be caused by the use of such a theistic term in the context of non-theistic Buddhism. Nevertheless, Shaw is correct that the common translation of the terms used in Buddhist texts would be “goddess.” In her discussion of the term “goddess,” Shaw also justifies this English terminology by arguing that the “deities,” especially of Vajrayana Buddhism, are not merely symbols created by human beings or projections of human experiences but have another, transhuman reality. The metaphysics of “deities” or “goddesses” in Buddhism is, however, an extremely complex and subtle matter that cannot be adequately discussed in the few pages Shaw devotes to this issue. [End Page 176]In the rest of her introduction, Shaw details her main emphases in her book, “the origins, iconography, and religious roles of each goddess and discussion of her place in Buddhist history and practice” (p. 4). She tells... (shrink)

Examines the ancient cosmic science of the female megalithic astronomers.

In the past few years, anthropological research concerned with the ethnographic aspects of ritual practices has renewed its interest in the meaning of ritual symbolism. This research has been possible because of a methodological inversion, namely, starting with a descriptive study of the rites rather than analyzing religious beliefs, contrarily to what was the moraine frontale of traditional history of religion.

In a modern society arguably disenchanted with religion, numerous Western women are transfixing their reality by making God in their own image. This compelling phenomenon is known as ‘the Goddess Movement’: a non-centralised religious current of neo-pagan origin that reveres the Divine as feminine. The revival of Goddess worship in a vastly secular age which appears not to favour religious devotion is a peculiar occurrence and leads to the following question: Why are women returning to a previously (...) defunct spiritual practice? Building on the research scholars Paul Reid-Bowen and Janet L. Jacobs conducted on Western Goddess worship, as well as drawing on testimonies of Goddess followers, this article aims to elucidate the appeal the Goddess Movement holds for women. It argues that it represents a notable turn in female spirituality which demonstrates that images of feminine divinity offer women the opportunity to find meaningfulness, empowerment, and sexual or psychological healing. (shrink)

To date, the theology and practices of modern pagan religions have not been critically studied using the methods of analytic theology. I discuss some of the challenges presented by these religions for the analytic theologian, and present a possible methodology to address these challenges, based on interview. I then use this methodology to examine the Wiccan practice of “Drawing Down the Moon”, comparing it in particular to the Christian doctrine of incarnation, and considering its philosophical implications.

The military conquest of the Magarant, the Magar land, took place during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when the Thakuri petty kings and their dependents (priests, artisans, soldiers) fled India to settle there. The Magar resistance appears to have been weak, due to their lack of unity and the alliances the conquerors formed with some of them. The Magar people quickly opted for assimilation into the royal caste of the Thakuri, adopting most of their cultural traits, notably their language and (...) religion. Nevertheless they retained or developed particularisms in their relationship to the earth, as we can see in the rites they devote to Bhume. We should emphasize first and foremost that the name Bhume is itself Nepalese, derived from the sanskrit bhû, bhûmî. This goddess is neglected by the Hindi of high caste, whereas she is central to the Magar. This paradox has two possible sources: the Magar might have identified one of their principal goddesses with a minor Hindu deity by virtue of a common relation to the earth, conferring an unusual importance on the latter. Or they might have constructed a divine being on the basis of Hindu concepts, as the result of a new-found need to defend their rights to the earth in the face of the Hindu invaders. The second hypothesis seems more likely, since there is no trace of a Magar earth goddess before Bhume. Even in the regions where the Magar retained the use of their original language (such as in Palpa, Syangja, or in the Kham country) and where, consequently, some of the gods have Magar names, the earth goddess is called by Nepalese terms, such as Bhume, Bhuyar, or Bhayar. Furthermore, even if the Magar themselves once had an earth goddess of their own, the renaming of this deity would indicate a change of identity, given the importance of a divinity's name. (shrink)

Au Ier siècle de notre ère, une dédicace à Livie divinisée est placée dans le sanctuaire de Némésis à Rhamnonte (Ve siècle av. n.è.). Cet article étudie l’inscription sur l’arrière-plan de l’histoire du sanctuaire, du développement du culte impérial à l’est et de la réception de Némésis à Rome. Il développe des hypothèses antérieures concernant l’asso­ciation du sanctuaire avec l’idée de vengeance contre des ennemis orientaux et révalue les témoignages qui associent la dédicace à Claude. L’inscription implique une identification remarquablement (...) étroite entre une impératrice et une divinité, et elle constitue une contribu­tion importante à la discussion sur l’interaction entre le culte impérial et la religion grecque traditionnelle. (shrink)

The Goddess People of Avalon, a young and flourishing religious community in Glastonbury (South-England), have been defining themselvesprincipally as a revitalization of the prehistoric worship of the Great Goddess. Based on fieldwork data of the author, the article offers an introduction into the religious tradition and ritual praxis of the contemporary Goddess People. Specifically, the analysis focuses on the ritual genre of Sacred Drama with its interpretationof the general and local history of religions. The variety of recursivity (...) (as a reference to the past), which this ritual genre expresses, is examined within an analytical frame that has been developed for different forms of ritual dynamics. Particularly, the analytical concepts ritual transfer, adaptation, invention and ritual design are discussed. Within the lastyears, a change in the self-image and legitimizing strategies of the Goddess People has occurred: Whereas in their nascent years, they understood themselves as a reactualization of primordial spirituality, they tend to see themselvescurrently more as a newreligious tradition, inventing their rituals creatively and confidently. The article argues for the use of the analytical concept ritual design to describe this aspect of ritual dynamics. Thus, instead of evaluating the degree of originality of rituals from an academic point of view, the legitimizing strategiesof religious agents come to the fore. (shrink)

Conceptualizing the image of a dancing Supreme Goddess in the Hindu tradition presents a philosophical challenge because it demands a coherent rational reconciliation between her nature as continuously changing into multiple forms and the realm of pure, absolute, never-changing, formless being. Different strategies have been proposed in the history of philosophy in India. This paper analyzes the image of the dancing Goddess as it appears in the Devī Māhātmya and in the Tantric iconography of the Goddess Kālī. (...) An argument is developed to show that Śākta philosophy resolves this tension through a radical non-dualist understanding of the role that a mental image (vikalpa) plays in accessing supreme reality. (shrink)

A collection of ten essays explaining ethical positions in major religions on such issues as sexuality and sexual difference, contraception and reproduction, death and dying, and ecology and warfare. In addition to the standard Buddhist, Hindu, Judaism, existential Christianity, and Islam, they include goddess religions and aboriginal philosophies. Two consider feminist challenges to ethics and religious responses to global ethical issues. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR.

Lecture 1. Hinduism in the world and the world of Hinduism -- Lecture 2. The early cultures of India -- Lecture 3. The world of the Veda -- Lecture 4. From the Vedic tradition to classical Hinduism -- Lecture 5. Caste -- Lecture 6. Men, women, and the stages of life -- Lecture 7. The way of action -- Lecture 8. The way of wisdom -- Lecture 9. Seeing God -- Lecture 10. The way of devotion -- Lecture 11. The (...) goddess and her devotees -- Lecture 12. Hinduism in the modern period. (shrink)

El presente estudio propone una lectura de la novela de José Saramago O Evangelo segundo Jesus Cristo a la luz de aquellos textos antiguos judíos y cristianos de temática bíblica que han sido excluidos de los correspondientes cánones sagrados de los judíos, protestantes y católicos. El análisis de la obra del escritor portugués revela un alto nivel de lo que se podría denominar intertextualidad inversa. Para reconstruir la vida de Jesús, Saramago se apropia de episodios, personajes y símbolos tanto de (...) la Biblia como de esos apócrifos antiguos y los transforma de tal manera que adquieren un significado opuesto al que poseen en sus respectivas fuentes textuales. De esta forma, Saramago lleva a cabo una exégesis personal particularmente osada que tergiversa o desmonta ciertos presupuestos que se consideran parte esencial de la tradición bíblica. Para lograr su propósito, el novelista pone en práctica una serie de técnicas literarias y hermenéuticas afines a las que se usaban en los textos apócrifos de la Antigüedad. Al igual que en un midrás hebreo, Saramago vuelve a contar una historia sagrada desde una perspectiva distinta, en este caso la de los débiles y desposeídos. Igualmente, su deseo de rellenar los huecos que quedaron sin explicación en los Evangelios canónicos hace eco de la técnica judía del derás. A través de un análisis detallado de los personajes principales y de algunos símbolos recurrentes que aparecen en la novela se descubre una glorificación de lo pequeño y de los marginados como focos de resistencia contra las fuerzas poderosas que desean dominarlos y silenciarlos. En el centro de esta lucha se encuentra un Jesús profundamente humano que busca inútilmente la respuesta a algunas de las interrogantes fundamentales que siguen atormentando a la humanidad: ¿Por qué entraron al mundo el mal y el dolor? ¿Por qué castiga Dios a los seres humanos? ¿Por qué tiene que sufrir el hombre la angustia de la culpa? (shrink)

It is not objectionable in modern science that the woman was deified earlier than her husband, and the sacred books of religions of the Abrahamic tradition capture the next stage of society's development: the transition to a new way of farming and the rule of man in all spheres of life. Judaism and Islam did not recognize the cult of the goddesses and always struggled with it. For the Jews, Yahweh was both a patron of women. In Judaism, a woman (...) does not actively participate in religious life. It is not necessary here, because its vital activity is itself a religious one. The functions of a woman in a family are identical to religious service. Each Jewish woman is a Goddess. Like God, she creates a man and she is unnecessary intercessor to the outside world. A man has to pray for her, for she is, by his very nature, the leader of the will of God. (shrink)

The merits of this sourcebook are too innumerable to list in entirety but it must be said that it has achieved an almost perfect balance among the requirements of representativeness, comprehensiveness, and structured presentation. The only traditions in religion which are not represented are Christianity and Judaism, and Eliade has made the right decision to presuppose a familiarity with this material on the part of the student so that he might present more material, within a manageable compass, on religions (...) which are less familiar to the occidental mind. There are 360 separate but moderately cross-referenced entries, and in choosing these Eliade has drawn on the primary documents, of course, most heavily. Where these are lacking, however, as is particularly the case with primitive religions, he has provided deftly selected accounts taken from anthropological studies. The selections are grouped around six main themes: I. Gods, Goddesses, and Supernatural Beings; II. Myths of Creation and Origin; III. Man and the Sacred; IV. Death, Afterlife, Eschatology; V. Specialists of the Sacred: From Medicine Men to Mystics and Founders of Religions; VI. Speculations on Man and God. Each of these sections is then subdivided into between five and ten parts, with occasional further structuration going on in some of the subparts. The book would complement any systematic study in comparative religion, and, as might be suspected, meshes beautifully with Eliade's own Patterns in Comparative Religion.—E. A. R. (shrink)

The history of the concept of “religion” in Western tradition has intrigued scholars for years. This important collection of eighteen essays brings further light to the ongoing debate. Three of the invited participants, W.C. Smith, M. Despland and E. Feil, has each previously written impressive books treating this subject; the last two acknowledged the impact and continuing influence of Smith’s work, The Meaning and End of Religion. An introduction and a recapitulation of Smith’s contribution as a scholar set (...) the stage for a retrospective look at the published literature. Contributors then examine the transformation of words (the classical religio to the modern religion), particularities of religion in nineteenth-century France, Troeltsch’s concept of religion, the study of religion from an Asian point of view and the categorization of “World Religions.” The concluding essays elaborate contemporary anthropological, cross-disciplinary, semiological, deconstructive and psychoanalytical methodological approaches to the concept and study of “religion.” Exploring critically different aspects of the concept and study of religion, these provocative essays typically reflect the methodological pluralism currently existing in the field of Religious Studies. Of interest to scholars and students alike, this collection also contains a complete bibliography of W.C. Smith’s publications. (shrink)