Goddess Worship In Contemporary Religion

Goddess worship/spirituality in contemporary society has re-emerged at a very poignant time. The thousands of years of social and religious devaluation have been placed upon women by patriarchal systems. Feminine qualities of intuition, instinct, nature, life and connection to the human consciousness that have been repressed (Pessoni, 1995, p. 440) are now being reversed, and the Goddess is one of the vehicles in which is it being done (Christ, 1997, p. 92). Reverence for the Goddess is older than current mainstream religions, and interest has re-emerged for many reasons. She represents the world and empowers us to love and be happy and satisfies both male and female attributes, giving a balanced and refreshing outlook on life. Women are shown …show more content…
However, there is a huge body of pre-historical evidence of goddess worship in the earliest societies of our world, showing that Goddess worship is indeed older than contemporary patriarchal systems (Schulz, 1999, p. 2). From the sparse evidence of worship in the upper Paleolithic period of 25,000BCE, to the strong evidence of a well established reverence to the supreme Creator as the Goddess in the Neolithic period of 7000BCE (Mueller, 2000, p. 1). The Semetic people of the Middle Eastern areas in and around Syria called upon the Creator of Life as She (Hamid, 2003, p.1). In these times of Goddess worship, women had a very different social standing to contemporary society. Their role in relation to food and the community were equal or more to that of the male. Women were given primary authority over religious issues because of their purpose in sustaining and reproducing the community (Mueller, 2000, p. 1). In places like Sumer, Babylon and Canaan, it was common for women to sleep in or around temples as an important aspect of tradition and spirituality (Hamid, 2003, …show more content…
1), brought about devastating changes to the matriarchal system (Hamid, 2003, p.1). The Indo-European, Indo-Iranian and Indo-Aryan sky-worshipping pastoral tribes swept through the area with a love of conquest, weapons and their worship and veneration of male gods (Schulz, 1999, p. 3). The two cultures were completely different and as the Indo-Europeans took over, the Goddess’ position slowly changed from one of pre-eminence to one of inferiority (Schulz, 1999, p. 3). As a result, women too steadily lost their dominance in society (Mueller, 2000, p. 1). The Levites of the Hebrews (who have been shown to have connections to the Indo-European priestly class) were a very exclusive group whose influence on the world of women was great. Their exclusivity resulted in many restrictions on the type of woman a priest could marry. Among others, she had to be a virgin and be of the same tribe (Hamid, 2003, p.3). This tradition, as well as the general degrading of women, extended into society as a requirement for all women (Hamid, 2003, p.3). Women became the property of man, with restraints over marriage, sex, religion, property and anything else that could be restrained (Hamid, 2003, p.4). The original custom of children inheriting the