The Goddess Book: Understanding the Greek Goddesses of the Earth

By Kristina Benson

Before Christianity, Judaism, and Islam captured the hearts and spirits of the Western world, there existed a rich variety of Goddesses and demi-Goddesses in most, if not all, cultures and groups. To this day, followers of Hindu, Voodoo, Shinto, and Native American religions make room for Goddesses in their views of the divine. This book explores the greater and best known of these goddesses, including Goddesses from almost every corner of the world. When possible, stories are told and context is given. Ways to worship each Goddess are also listed when they are not obvious from the stories in which they are featured.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Equity Press
• Release date: Sep 20, 2011
• ISBN: 9781603322430

Book preview

Introduction

Before Christianity, Judaism, and Islam captured the hearts and spirits of the Western world, there existed a rich variety of Goddesses and demi-Goddesses in most, if not all, cultures and groups. To this day, followers of Hindu, Voodoo, Shinto, and Native American religions make room for Goddesses in their views of the divine.

This book explores the greater and best known of these goddesses, including Goddesses from almost every corner of the world. When possible, stories are told and context is given. Ways to worship the Goddesses are sometimes listed if it’s not explicit from the stories in which they are featured.

Happy reading, and blessed be.

THE ANCIENT GREEKS AND ROMANS

The Greeks did not have a term for religion or belief in the way that we have come to understand those words. To the ancient Greeks, the Gods and Goddesses existed, and that was a fact, so there was little use in figuring out the extent to which one believed in them. To them, the idea of believing or not believing in the Gods was an irrelevant question because they were taken for granted as a given.

Although the different Greek peoples all recognized the major gods, there were differences on local levels about the nature or method of worship of the gods. The Athena conceived of by Athenians, for example, was a different creature than the Athena worshipped in Ephesus. And although the 12 gods were recognized and worshipped all over Greece, different Gods and Goddesses were given varying levels of reverence and importance in different locations.

Greek religion spanned a considerable period of time, and ideas continued to develop over the course of the rise and fall of the Greek empire. Throughout this time, however, the nature of the myths remained consistent—they were regarded as history, not as parables or fables.

As the Romans conquered their surrounding territories and rose in power, their system of religion commingled with the Hellenistic religion of the Greeks. Greek gods were absorbed and renamed, given some different characteristics and legends, but still accorded the honor befitting deities. Though the names of the Gods and Goddesses changed, the essential nature of them remained recognizable in their Roman incarnations.

Gaia

In the creation story of the ancient Greeks, broad-breasted Gaia rose out of Chaos to become the foundation of the gods of Olympus. She birthed Uranus, the skies, and the stars to cover her, and from herself made the hills and the sea. She then gave birth to the Titans, the fifty headed Hecatonchires, Cyclopes, Steropes, and finally to Cronus, the youngest and most terrible of her children.

Uranus hid the Hecatonchires and the Cyclopes in Tartarus so that they would not see the light. Gaia then made a flint sickle and asked Cronus and his brothers to help her. Only Cronus would help, taking the sickle she offered and using it to castrate his father Uranus. From the blood and semen that resulted from the castration, Gaia birthed giants, tree-nymphs, and Aphrodite, and eventually birthed Echina, Typhon, and Tartarus.

Gaia is believed by some to be the deity behind the Oracle at Delphi. She passed her powers on to Poseidon, Apollo or Themis.

On Athenian vases, Gaia is depicted as a matronly, motherly woman half raised from the earth, often in the act of handing the baby Erichthonius to Athena. In mosaics, she appears as a woman resting upon the earth surrounded by a host of infant gods.

Semele

Semele, also known as Luna and Selene, was a priestess of Zeus, a mere mortal who attracted his attention one day when she slaughtered a bull at his altar, and then swam in the river naked to clean herself of the blood. Zeus observed her and fell in love, and she became one of his many consorts.

His wife Hera, however, became enraged, and when Semele became pregnant, she could no longer turn a blind eye. Appearing as an old crone, Hera befriended Semele, who confided in her that her husband was Zeus, the mighty God. Hera pretended not to believe her, and Semele demanded of Zeus that he reveal himself in all his glory as proof of his greatness. He did, and when confronted by him in his full glory, died of the shock, consumed in fire.

The child she carried, however, was saved—Zeus sewed the fetus into his thigh to protect and nourish him. Soon thereafter, Dionysus was born.

When he grew up, Dionysus journeyed to Hades to rescue his mother from the dead, and she became the Goddess Thyrone.

The most usual setting for the story of Semele is the palace that occupied the acropolis of Thebes, but Semele was worshipped at Athens at the Lenaia, when a yearling bull, serving to represent Dionysus, was sacrificed to her. One-ninth was burnt on the altar in the Hellenic way; the rest was torn and eaten raw.

When the cult of Dionysus was imported to Rome, Semele’s name became Stimula.

Eventually, Diana came to take over Semele’s role as the moon goddess, and the cult of Semele shrank in number.

Worshipping Semele

Semele the moon goddess is associated

Reviews for The Goddess Book

[Kristy Miller · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Really bad information. Someone didn't do their homework before they published this crap.