Hanna Fries

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Mythologies

Is a goddess worshiping culture common today/ No, Today’s society is made up of a male centered culture, which is much different from the original culture of Europe. In the original Europe were talking before 420 B.C. 420 B.C is when the male centered culture took hold of European culture. The great goddess society is a time which is little known compared to the now culture of male centrism.

Matriarchal is a woman dominated society. Gimbutas is one of the top sources for information concerning goddess centered society. She has written The Living Goddess,  and Gods and Goddess of old Europe. These books speak towards the matriarchal society of old Europe and the goddesses of today, the goddesses, which live inside every single female today. In recent dig there have been found sculptures and idols with women like features on them, extremely large bellies, large breasts, and other things to that effect. It is thought that these idols were worshiped by the matriarchal culture, which then proves that a matriarchal culture did exist. This is a great accomplishment by scholars to find and prove the time of the great goddess.

Jung, Freud’s side kick, had a theory, a great theory concerning why there was a shift from a matriarchal culture to a male centered culture. Myth and Knowing in chapter 3 describes Jung theory as “in order to deliver itself from the primal power of the mother (the unconscious), the paternal principle of the logos (the consciousness) in each person must engage in the creative act of matricide.” This is basically saying one must be engaged in the matriarchal side at first if ever to escape from the unconsciousness into the consciousness.  Then if Jung’s theory is correct that is the reason why the culture changed from matriarchal to a male dominated society, it was to escape from the first level of civilization and move on to the next level.

Now some about Goddesses. Goddesses are a special type of god. Obviously, they are female instead of male and also have been depicted a little differently than gods have been. Goddesses’ interactions with humans are much less than that of the gods. Goddesses have been looked as an on looker god, small interaction. Some pictures of goddesses show them with animal or children surrounding them, so says “Bryn Mawr Classical Reviews”.  “Bryn Mawr Classical Reviews” goes on to say “artifacts are what has lead to the finding of the goddess culture.” Joseph Campbell is another authority on the matter of goddesses. According to Campbell “goddess religion was an expression of the primordial attempt on humanity’s part to understand and live in harmony with the beauty and wonder of Creation.” He goes on to say that this is a contrast with the creation story in Genesis.

There are four different types of the archetype female or goddess. There is the elementary positive which is the nurture mother. Described in many creation devour and separation creation myths, but is also described in the Vietnamese female divine story of “A Taste of Earth”. This story is about a goddess from a different world coming to our world falling in love and creating the human race. The reason why this is an example of elementary positive is that Au Co the goddess takes very good care of her children and gives them traditions and other means of survival.  The seconded archetype female is the elementary negative witch is the smother mother, the mother who would put arsenic in your cookies. Another archetype is the transformative positive, the temptress. A women who is considerable beautiful and is wanted by all men, this is seen in the goddess Aphrodite. The last archetype of the female is that of the transformative negative, also known as the unfaithful wife. All four of these archetypes are shown in the Hindu female divine myth of “Kali Beheaded’’. This myth is about the most beautiful goddess who is both the transformative positive and elementary positive. Later on she is beheaded by an evil trick from the gods and takes on the roll as negative transformative and negative elementary.  As you can see the female divine takes on many different rolls as a goddess.

Today there are a few but still some cultures which are goddess worshiping religions. Wicca is one of these cultures. Instead of praying to a male they pray to a woman, many woman in fact. Paganism is the basis of the Christian religion today and in paganism females were worshiped.

In conclusion the great days of the great goddess are basically over but evidence of their once flourished existence is still coming to light. The world of the great goddess is one which should be study in-depth and for years to understand every part of it. It is hard looking from the world of a male centered society to understand how our ancestors worshiped the female instead.