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Great Goddesses are known for providing life and the nourishment of lifeforms. These Gods give birth to other beings. The mother goddesses are known for fertility and stability whereas this is the middle or most stable part or image of a goddesses life

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Mother Goddess sculpture from Madhya Pradesh or Rajasthan, India, 6th-7th century, in the National Museum of Korea, Seoul

A mother goddess is a major goddess characterized as a mother or progenitor, either as an embodiment of motherhood and fertility or fulfilling the cosmological role of a creator- and/or destroyer-figure, typically associated the Earth, sky, and/or the life-giving bounties thereof in a maternal relation with humanity or other gods. When equated in this lattermost function with the earth or the natural world, such goddesses are sometimes referred to as the Mother Earth or Earth Mother, deity in various animistic or pantheistic religions. [citation needed ] The earth goddess is archetypally the wife or feminine counterpart of the Sky Father or Father Heaven, particularly in theologies derived from the Proto-Indo-European sphere (i.e. from Dheghom and Dyeus). In some polytheistic cultures, such as the Ancient Egyptian religion which narrates the cosmic egg myth, the sky is instead seen as the Heavenly Mother or Sky Mother as in Nut and Hathor, and the earth god is regarded as the male, paternal, and terrestrial partner, as in Osiris or Geb who hatched out of the maternal cosmic egg.

Excavations at Çatalhöyük

Seated Woman of Çatalhöyük

Between 1961 and 1965 James Mellaart led a series of excavations at Çatalhöyük, north of the Taurus Mountains in a fertile agricultural region of South- Anatolia. Striking were the many statues found here, which Mellaart suggested represented a Great goddess, who headed the pantheon of an essentially matriarchal culture. A seated female figure, flanked by what Mellaart describes as lionesses, was found in a grain-bin; she may have intended to protect the harvest and grain.[1] He considered the sites as shrines, with especially the Seated Woman of Çatalhöyük capturing the imagination. There was also a large number of sexless figurines, which Mellaart regarded as typical for a society dominated by women: Emphasis on sex in art is invariably connected with male impulse and desire.[2] The idea that there could have been a matriarchy and a cult of the mother goddess was supported by archaeologist Marija Gimbutas. This gave rise to a modern cult of the Mother Goddess with annual pilgrimages being organized at Çatalhöyük.[3]

Since 1993, excavations were resumed, now headed by Ian Hodder with Lynn Meskell as head of the Stanford Figurines Project that examined the figurines of Çatalhöyük. This team came to different conclusions than Gimbutas and Mellaart. Only a few of the figurines were identified as female and these figurines were found not so much in sacred spaces, but seemed to have been discarded randomly, sometimes in garbage heaps. This rendered a cult of the mother goddess in this location as unlikely.[4][a]

In Egyptian mythology, sky goddess Nut is sometimes called "Mother" because she bore stars and Sun god. Nut was thought to draw the dead into her star-filled sky, and refresh them with food and wine.[5]

In Kongo religion, the Sky Mother, Nzambici, was the female counterpart of the Sky Father and Solar god, Nzambi Mpungu. Originally, they were seen as one spirit with one half male and the other half female. After the introduction of Christianity to Central Africa, the description of Nzambi changed to Creator God and Nzambici to his wife, "God the essence, the god on earth, the great princess, the mother of all the animals, and the mystery of the Earth."[6][7]

Hindu goddess Durga

In Hinduism, Saraswati, Lakshmi, Radha, Parvati, Durga and other goddesses represents both the feminine aspect and the shakti (power) of the supreme being known as the Brahman.[8] The divine mother goddess, manifests herself in various forms, representing the universal creative force.[9] She becomes Mother Nature (Mula Prakriti), who gives birth to all life forms and nourishes them through her body. Ultimately she re-absorbs all life forms back into herself, or "devours" them to sustain herself as the power of death feeding on life to produce new life. She also gives rise to Maya (the illusory world) and to prakriti, the force that galvanizes the divine ground of existence into self-projection as the cosmos.[citation needed ]

The Shakti sect is strongly associated with Samkhya, and Tantra Hindu philosophies and ultimately, is monist.[10] The primordial feminine creative-preservative-destructive energy, Shakti, is considered to be the motive force behind all action and existence in the phenomenal cosmos. The cosmos itself is purusha, the unchanging, infinite, immanent, and transcendent reality that is the divine ground of all being, the "world soul". This masculine potential is actualized by feminine dynamism, embodied in multitudinous goddesses who are ultimately all manifestations of the one great mother. Shakti, herself, can free the individual from demons of ego, ignorance, and desire that bind the soul in maya (illusion). Practitioners of the Tantric tradition focus on Shakti to free themselves from the cycle of karma.[citation needed ]

The worship of the mother deity can be traced back to early Vedic culture. The Rigveda calls the divine female power Mahimata (R.V. 1.164.33) which means "great mother".[citation needed ]

Although no Mother Goddess exists in Christianity, both the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church revere Virgin Mary as the Mother of God, a rendering of Theotokos and Deipara since the Ecumenical Council of Ephesus in 431 AD, and disregard Protestant objections to Marian devotion. She is regarded as "Our Mother", the Blessed Mother, or the Holy Mother as she gave birth to Jesus Christ, since Christians alike refer to themselves as " Brothers and Sisters in Christ". There is a Pater Noster but no equivalent Mater Nostra, however the Hail Mary and the Sub Tuum Praesidium have been popular forms of prayer and praise to Virgin Mary for many centuries. Some may perceive a parallel in calling Mary "Our Mother" and the Almighty Yahweh as "Our Father". In contrast to the Pagan notion of a fertility goddess, Mary is both the Perpetual Virgin and the Mother of God at the same time, she is not considered the "Heavenly Mother" in reference to God the Father or the "Heavenly Father" as her consort. St Mary has never been referred to as a goddess in the Gospel's accounts of the Annunciation, Wedding at Cana, or the Magnificat. Since the Apostolic age the church has believed that Mary entered heaven alive after her death and subsequent resurrection, known as the Assumption in the west and the Dormition in the east. As the foremost saint, some Christians believe she continues to supernaturally intervene in the world through Marian apparitions ( Our Lady of Velankanni), Marian shrines ( Our Lady of Zeitoun)& Marian devotions ( Our Lady of the Rosary). According to Mariology and Scholasticism branches of study, though Mary is venerated as the foremost saint, she is still a creature and never viewed as an equal of the Triune God who is the Creator.

In pre-Islamic Arabia, Collyridians were an unorthodox Christian denomination who reportedly worshipped Virgin Mary by making burnt offerings of dough to her. Ancient Christians viewed the Collyridians as heretics, holding that Mary was only to be honoured, and not to be worshipped like the God-man of Christianity.[11][better source needed ]

In the Latter Day Saint movement, particularly the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, many adherents believe in a Heavenly Mother as the wife of God the Father.[12] They are collectively referred to as Heavenly Parents.[13] The theology varies, however, according to the Latter Day Saint denomination.[14] Some believe in multiple Heavenly Mothers married to one Heavenly Father in a polygynous relationship.[14][15][16]

Zahng Gil-jah is a South Korean woman, by the World Mission Society Church of God believed to be "God the Mother" ( Korean: 어머니 하나님 ; RR: Eomeoni Hananim; Korean pronunciation: [17] Church members may also call her "[ʌmʌɲihanaɲim]). New Jerusalem Mother", "Mother Jerusalem", or "Heavenly Mother".[18][19]

In Theosophy, the Earth goddess is called the " Planetary Logos of Earth".

The Mother Goddess, or Great Goddess, is a composite of various feminine deities from past and present world cultures, worshiped by modern Wicca and others broadly known as Neopagans. She is considered sometimes identified as a Triple Goddess, who takes the form of Maiden, Mother, and Crone archetypes. She is described as Mother Earth, Mother Nature, or the Creatress of all life. She is associated with the full moon and stars, the Earth, and the sea. In Wicca, the Earth Goddess is sometimes called Gaia.[20] The name of the mother goddess varies depending on the Wiccan tradition. English historian Ronald Hutton, however, has forcefully stated that any use of the term "Mother-Goddess" can be accounted for, and disregarded, as the scholars and mythographers' own projection of the Virgin Mary onto the evidence and source data.[21] More recently Hutton was criticized in a review for ignoring the evidence of numerous goddesses identified as either mothers or both virgin and mother in pre-Christian antiquity, in addition to providing no evidence or secondary citations with which to substantiate his own position.[22]

Carl Gustav Jung suggested that the archetypal mother was a part of the collective unconscious of all humans; various adherents of Jung, most notably Erich Neumann and Ernst Whitmont, have argued that such an archetype underpins many of its own mythologies and may even precede the image of the paternal "father." Such speculations help explain the universality of such mother goddess imagery around the world.

The Upper Paleolithic Venus figurines have been sometimes explained as depictions of an Earth Goddess similar to Gaia.[23]

In the Baha'i Faith, Baha'u'llah uses the Mother as an attribute of God: "And when He Who is well-grounded in all knowledge, He Who is the Mother, the Soul, the Secret, and the Essence thereof, revealeth that which is the least contrary to their desire, they bitterly oppose Him and shamelessly deny Him.".[24] Baha'u'llah further writes that "Every single letter proceeding out of the mouth of God is indeed a Mother Letter, and every word uttered by Him Who is the Well Spring of Divine Revelation is a Mother Word, and His Tablet a Mother Tablet."[25]

There is difference of opinion between the academic and the popular conception of the term Mother goddess. The popular view is mainly driven by the Goddess movement and reads that primitive societies initially were matriarchal, worshipping a sovereign, nurturing, motherly earth goddess. This was based upon the nineteenth-century ideas of unilineal evolution of Johann Jakob Bachofen. According to the academic view, however, both Bachofen and the modern Goddess theories are a projection of contemporary world views on ancient myths, rather than attempting to understand the mentalité of that time.[26][b][27][c] Often this is accompanied by a desire for a lost civilization from a bygone era that would have been just, peaceful, and wise.[28][d] However, it is highly unlikely that such a civilization ever existed.[28][e]

For a long time, feminist authors claimed that these peaceful, matriarchal agrarian societies were exterminated or subjugated by nomadic, patriarchal warrior tribes. An important contribution to this was that of archaeologist Marija Gimbutas. Her work in this field has been questioned.[29][f] Among feminist archaeologists this vision is nowadays also considered highly controversial.[30][g][31][h]

Since the 1960s, especially in popular culture, the alleged worship of the mother goddess and the social position that women in prehistoric societies supposedly assumed, were linked. This made the debate a political one. According to the goddess movement, the current male-dominated society should return to the egalitarian matriarchy of earlier times (though a matriarchy is not an egalitarian society, but a female-dominated one). That this form of society ever existed was supposedly supported by many figurines that were found.

In academic circles, this prehistoric matriarchy is considered unlikely. Firstly, worshiping a mother goddess does not necessarily mean that women ruled society.[32][i] In addition, the figurines can also portray ordinary women or goddesses, and it is unclear whether there really ever was a mother goddess.[33][34][j][35][k]

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Africa

Egyptian

Guanche

Sub-Saharan Africa

East and Central Asia

Chinese

Japanese

Korean

Turkic

West Asia

Anatolian

Mesopotamian

Semitic

South Asia

Buddhism

Hinduism

Jainism

Meitei

Southeast Asia

Vietnamese

Sundanese

Europe

Albanian

Baltic

Celtic

Germanic

Greek

Roman

Slavic

Oceania

Australian Aboriginal

Polynesian

Americas

Aztec

Chamacoco

Inca

Muisca

Taíno

Modern Religions

Mormonism

Thelema

Neopaganism

1. The idea of the Mother Goddess, also called the Great Mother or Great Goddess, has dominated the imaginations of modern scholars in several fields. The image of the Mother Goddess with which we are familiar today has its modern genesis in the writings of Johann Jakob Bachofen. In 1861 Bachofen published his famous study ^ Das Mutterrecht in which he developed his theory that human society progressed from hetaerism, characterized by unrestricted sexual relations, to matriarchy, in which women ruled society, and finally to the most advanced stage, patriarchy. Bachofen conceived of religious practice as progressing in a parallel manner from a belief in a mother goddess to a more advanced belief in a father god, associating belief in a mother deity with a primitive stage in the development of human society: "Wherever we encounter matriarchy, it is bound up with the mystery of the chthonian religion, whether it invokes Demeter or is embodied by an equivalent goddess" (Bachofen, 88). Bachofen believed that the matriarchal form of social organization derived from the maternal mystery religions (88-9).
As we see with Bachofen, modern theories of the Mother Goddess have inevitably been shaped by modern cultural presuppositions about gender. Lynn Roller believes that "[m]any discussions of the Mother Goddess rely on modern projections ought to be, rather than on ancient evidence defining what she was" (Roller, 9). William Ramsay, the late nineteenth-century archaeologist, who was the first researcher to demonstrate that the principal deity of Phrygia was a mother goddess, drew heavily on Bachofen's theory (Roller, 12). Like Bachofen's, Ramsay's understanding of the national character of matriarchal pre-Phrygian society is based on contestable evidence and relies on stereotypically feminine characteristics; he describes matriarchal pre-Phrygian society as "receptive and passive, not self-assertive and active" (12). For Ramsay, this "feminine" character explains why this culture was conquered by the masculine, warlike Phrygians with their male deities. Thus, constructions of ancient matriarchal societies, which are inseparable from "a glorification of the female element in human life" (12), are suspiciously similar to modern stereotypes of the feminine that are not necessarily native to pre-Phrygian culture. Given these observations, Bachofen's repeated emphasis on the necessity of freeing oneself from the cultural prejudices of one's own time if one is to truly understand these ancient cultures takes on an ironic tone. It is not only Bachofen and Ramsay, but many others after them, who assume the stereotypical femininity of the Mother Goddess. Many of these conceptions of what a mother goddess ought to be stem from "the Judaeo-Christian image of the loving, nurturing mother subservient to her husband and closely bonded with her children" (Roller, 9). -Smith (2007)

2. At one time, scholars tended to use the 'Mother Goddess' label for all female figurines found at sites. This was largely because of the belief that the worship of fertility goddesses was an important part of agricultural societies all over the world, and also due to a tendency to look at ancient remains through the lens of later-day Hinduism, in which goddess worship had an important place. However, scholars are now increasingly aware of the stylistic and technical differences among assemblages of female figurines. Further, all goddesses need not have been part of a single goddess cult, and not all ancient goddesses were necessarily associated with maternity.^
In the light of such problems, the term 'Mother Goddess' should be replaced by the longer but more neutral phrase- 'female figurines with likely cultic significance.' This does not mean that none of these figurines might have had a religious or cultic significance. It is indeed possible that some were either images that were worshipped or votive offerings that were part of some domestic cult or ritual. However, not all female figurines necessarily had such a function. Whether we are looking at human or animal figurines, in all cases, their possible significance or function has to be assessed, and cannot be assumed. Apart from their form, the context in which they were found is crucial. - Singh (2008) p. 130

3. A popular undercurrent in fringe archaeology concerns the ostensible presence of a ^ lost civilization hidden somewhere in the proverbial dim mists of time. This lost civilization is usually portrayed as having been amazingly and precociously advanced, possessing technological skills as yet still not developed even by our modern civilization and paranormal capacities of which we are not even aware. This lost civilization (or civilizations) is usually presented as the mother culture of all subsequent, historically known civilizations, having passed down their knowledge to them. The lost civilization was, tragically, destroyed, through either a natural cataclysm or some catastrophic technological mishap, and has been somehow hidden from us. - Feder (2010)

4. There is another popular view of figurines, which may be summed up as the "Mother Goddess" issue. The idea of the ascendancy of the Mother Goddess as the primeval deity can be traced back to nineteenth century culture theory, endorsed by Freud and Jung (Parker Pearson 1999:99-100; Talalay 1991), if not before. The modern manifestation was given a huge impetus in the work of Marija Gimbutas (1974, 1989, 1991). To reduce Gimbutas's argument to simplicity, she viewed early Neolithic society as egalitarian, matrifocal, matrilineal, and focused on worshipping a Mother Goddess (Tringham 1993), as evidenced by females figurines found in Neolithic sites in the Near East and eastern Mediterranean region.Few archaeologists support her notion for a number of reasons (Meskell 1995; Tringham 1993, for example). They maintain that the Mother Goddess is an assumption, not a theory, and certainly not a demonstrated thesis. The critics argue that Gimbutas is blending modern myth, feminist ideology, and psychological theory unsupported by clinical research to impose the Mother Goddess archetype on past societies.^ [...]
Gimbutas's own work included excavations at Achilleion (Thessaly). Reviewers of that work (McPherron 1991; Runnels 1990) find problems with the sample size (four 5 x 5 m test units on the slope of a tell), use of dating methods, lack of explanation of field methodology, recording systems or lack thereof, omission of clear criteria for discerning interior versus exterior contexts, typology, statistics---it is hard to find a part of this work not negatively critiqued. - Wesler (2012), pp. 65-66.

5. In her book ^ The Faces of the Goddess from 1997, Motz negated the popular theory of the archetypal fertility cult of the Mother Goddess which supposedly would have existed prior to the rise of patriarchy and the oppression of women.

6. We begin with an issue that is foundational to the modern study of women in the ancient world, namely the Mother Goddess. As Lauren Talalay demonstrates in Case Study I ("The Mother Goddess in Prehistory: Debates and Perspectives"), there was a desire among scholars, particularly in the 1960s and 1970s, to locate a period in the distant past in which women were not secondary, when female power was celebrated, and when an overarching Mother Goddess was the primary divinity. This myth continues to have great appeal, as witnessed in "goddess-tourism" in the Mediterranean even today. While it is no longer an active scholarly theory, the issue of the Mother Goddess continues to be an exemplar for the problems of studying women in antiquity: mysterious images disembodied from their contexts, multiple scholarly biases and motivations, and conflicting interpretations of the scanty and fragmentary evidence. - ^ James; Dillon (2012)

7. Goddesses of the prime of life are often described as ^ mother goddesses, although that term is questionable, given that the goddesses may not be maternal in any conventional sense. For instance, the single child of Cybele was conceived upon her while she was in the form of a rock and was never reared by her (see Southeastern Europe). Similarly, the eastern Mediterranean goddess Ninlil gave birth by making images of people from clay, as did the Chinese goddess Nüwa. The distinction between mother goddess and creatrix is often difficult to locate. In the Pacific, the goddess Papa both created the earth and gave birth to the gods.
The role of goddess as creatrix is common among goddesses, who can create by some other mechanism than birth, as Inuit Aakuluujjusi did when she threw her clothing on the ground, which walked away as animals. - Monaghan (2014)

1. ^ Mellaart (1967), p. 180-181

2. ^ Mellaart (1967)

3. "^ Papyrus of Ani: Egyptian Book of the Dead", Sir E. A. Wallis Budge, NuVision Publications, page 57, 2007, ISBN 1-59547-914-7

4. ^ Brown, Ras Michael (2012). African-Atlantic Cultures and the South Carolina Lowcountry (1st ed.). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. pp. 26-27. ISBN 978-1-107-66882-9.

5. ^ Dennett, Richard Edward (1906). At the Back of the Black Man's Mind; Or, Notes on the kingly office in West Africa. Forgotten Books. pp. 202-207. ISBN 978-1-60506-011-8.

6. ^ Rankin, John (1 June 1984). "Teaching Hinduism: Some Key Ideas". British Journal of Religious Education. 6 (3): 133-160. doi:10.1080/0141620840060306. ISSN 0141-6200. The notion of the feminine in deity is much more pronounced and is evident in the pairings of Shiva with Parvati, Vishnu with Lakshmi, Krishna with Radha and Ram with Sita.

7. ^ Monier-Williams, Monier. "Monier-Williams Sanskrit-English Dictionary". University of Washington. Archived from the original on 25 August 2017.

8. ^ Katherine Anne Harper; Brown, Robert L. (2012). The Roots of Tantra. State University of New York Press. pp. 48, 117, 40-53. ISBN 978-0-7914-8890-4.

9. ^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 24 September 2012.

10. ^ Paulsen, David L.; Pulido, Martin (2011). "A Mother There': A Survey of Historical Teachings About Mother in Heaven" (PDF). BYU Studies. 50 (1). Brigham Young University: 70-97.

11. ^ Fletcher Stack, Peggy (9 May 2021). "Latter-day Saints are talking more about Heavenly Mother, and that's where the debates and divisions begin". The Salt Lake Tribune. Archived from the original on 18 January 2024 - via Internet Archive.

12. ^ a Rosetti, Cristina (1 April 2022). "'O My Mother': Mormon Fundamentalist Mothers in Heaven and Women's Authority". Dialogue. 55 (1). University of Illinois Press: 133. doi:10.5406/15549399.55.1.05. ISSN 0012-2157. b

13. ^ Morrill, Susanna (2006). White Roses on the Floor of Heaven: Mormon Women's Popular Theology, 1880-1920. New York City: Routledge. pp. 55, 108. ISBN 0-415-97735-5.

14. ^ Moench Charles, Melodie (Fall 1988). "The Need for a New Mormon Heaven" (PDF). Dialogue. 21 (3). University of Illinois Press: 83. During the era of polygamy some suggested that she is only one of many mothers in heaven. They reasoned that procreation of spirit children could be accomplished more efficiently if Heavenly Father could impregnate many heavenly mothers, just as exalted mortals' procreation of spirit children could be accomplished more efficiently if exalted mortal males could impregnate many wives.

15. ^ "WATV - Introduction". (English)

16. ^ "Sage Woman" magazine Issue 79 Autumn 2010--special issue "Connecting to Gaia"

17. Hutton, Ronald (1999). ^ The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft. Oxford University Press, pp. 36, 37, and 40.

18. Whitmore, Ben (2010). ^ Trials of the Moon: Reopening the Case for Historical Witchcraft. A Critique of Ronald Hutton's Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft. Auckland: Briar Books, p. 20.,

19. ^ Witcombe, Christopher L. C. E. "Women in the Stone Age". Essay: The Venus of Willendorf.

20. ^ www.bahai.org https://www.bahai.org/not-found.

21. ^ Drewek, Paula. "Feminine Forms of the Divine in Bahá'í Scriptures." Journal of Bahá'í Studies 5 (1992): 13-23.

22. ^ a Feder (2010)b

23. ^ James; Dillon (2012)

24. ^ Talalay in James; Dillon (2012)

25. ^ Let me be perfectly clear about my own position: the maternal Great Goddess is a fantasy, a powerful fantasy with an astonishing capacity to resist criticism. Loraux in Duby, G.; Perrot, M. (1994)

26. ^ Talalay in James, S.L.; Dillon, S. (2012)

27. ^ "Nügua". Oxford Reference.

Balter, Michael (2006). The Goddess and the Bull: Çatalhöyük - An Archaeological Journey to the Dawn of Civilization. Free Press. ISBN 978-0-7432-4360-5. OCLC 883184058.

Bickmore, Barry R., "Mormonism in the Early Jewish Christian Milieu", Mormonism in the Early Jewish Christian Milieu (1999).

Derr, Jill Mulvay, "The Significance of 'O My Father' in the Personal Journey of Eliza R. Snow", BYU Studies 36, no. 1 (1996-97): 84-126.

Feder, K.L. (2010): Encyclopedia of Dubious Archaeology. From Atlantis to the Walam Olum, Greenwood

Gimbutas, M. (1989): The Language of the Goddess, Thames & Hudson

Gimbutas, M. (1991): The Civilization of the Goddess

Hinckley, Gordon B., "Daughters of God", Ensign, November 1991: 97-100.

Hodder, I. (2010): Religion in the Emergence of Civilization. Çatalhöyük as a Case Study, Cambridge University Press

James, S.L.; Dillon, S. (ed.), (2012): A Companion to Women in the Ancient World, Wiley-Blackwell

Jorgensen, Danny L., "The Mormon Gender-Inclusive Image of God", Journal of Mormon History, 27, No. 1 (Spring 2000): 95-126.

Joseph's Speckled Bird, Letter to the Editor, Times and Seasons 6: 892 (1 May 1845).

Mellaart, J., (1967): Catal Huyuk. A Neolithic Town in Anatolia, McGraw-Hill

Monaghan, P. (2014): Encyclopedia of Goddesses and Heroines, New World Library

Motz, L. (1997): The Faces of the Goddess, Oxford University Press

Origen, Origen's Commentary on the Gospel of John: Book II, ¶6. Included in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, 10 vols. (Buffalo: The Christian Literature Publishing Company, 1885-1896) 10:329-330.

Pearson, Carol Lynn, "Mother Wove the Morning: a one-woman play" (October 1992) (ISBN 1-56236-307-7) (depicting, according to the video's description, Eliza R. Snow as one of "sixteen women [who] throughout history search for God the Mother and invite her back into the human family").

Pratt, Orson, Journal of Discourses 18:292 (12 November 1876).

Singh, U. (2008): A History of Ancient and Early Medieval India. From the Stone Age to the 12th Century, Pearson Education India

Smith, Joseph F. et al., "The Origin of Man", Improvement Era (November 1909): 80.

Smith, Joseph, King Follett Discourse, 7 April 1844, published in Times and Seasons 5 (15 August 1844): 612-17, and reprinted in the History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, edited by B. H. Roberts, 2d ed. rev. (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, (1976-1980), 6:302-17; see also "The Christian Godhead-Plurality of Gods", History of the Church, 6: 473-79.

Smith, A.C. (2007): Powerful Mysteries. Myth and Politics in Virginia Woolf, ProQuest

Wesler, K.W. (2012): An Archaeology of Religion, University Press of America

Wilcox, Linda P., "The Mormon Concept of a Mother in Heaven", Sisters in Spirit: Mormon Women in Historical and Cultural Perspective, edited by Maureen Ursenbach Beecher and Lavina Fielding Anderson (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1987), 64-77. Also Wilcox, Linda P., "The Mormon Concept of a Mother in Heaven", Women and Authority: Re-emerging Mormon Feminism, edited by Maxine Hanks (Salt Lake: Signature Books, 1992), 3-18 Women and Authority - 01 |

Woodruff, Wilford, Journal of Discourses 18:31-32 (27 June 1875).

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia A mother goddess is a major goddess characterized as a mother or progenitor, either as an embodiment of motherhood and fertility or fulfilling the cosmological role of a creator- and/or destroyer-figure, typically associated the Earth, sky, and/or the life-giving bounties thereof in a maternal relation with humanity or other gods.

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The triple goddesses are the three stages in a goddesses life with Maiden or Virgin being the first. Although the three goddess may sexualize women into three stages of life, it can give insight to the different traits there are with goddesses throughout mythology. Maiden represents not only birth but also shows homage to youthful enthusiasm and the promise of new beginnings

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Triple Goddess

Goddess of the Moon, the Earth, and childbirth

Symbol

Crescent, full, and dark moon (original)

Crescent, half, and full moon (late Antiquity)

Waxing, full, and waning moons (modern)

The Triple Goddess is a deity or deity archetype revered in many Neopagan religious and spiritual traditions. In common Neopagan usage, the Triple Goddess is viewed as a triunity of three distinct aspects or figures united in one being. These three figures are often described as the Maiden, the Mother, and the Crone, each of which symbolizes both a separate stage in the female life cycle and a phase of the Moon, and often rules one of the realms of heavens, earth, and underworld. In various forms of Wicca, her masculine consort is the Horned God.

The Triple Goddess was the subject of much of the writing of the prominent early and middle 20th-century poet, novelist and mythographer Robert Graves, in his books The White Goddess and The Greek Myths as well as in his poetry and novels. Modern neopagan conceptions of the Triple Goddess have been heavily influenced by Graves, who regarded her as the continuing muse of all true poetry, and who speculatively imagined her ancient worship, drawing on the scholarship, fiction and mythology of his time, in particular the work of Jane Ellen Harrison and other Cambridge Ritualists. The influential Hungarian scholar of Greek mythology Karl Kerenyi likewise perceived an underlying triple moon goddess in Greek mythology. Archaeologist Marija Gimbutas also argued for the ancient worship of a universal Triple Goddess in European cultures but, as with Graves, her generalization of these theories to multiple unrelated cultures, and the unsourced homogenization of diverse cultures into one unified cultural and religious figure, has attracted much controversy. Many neopagan belief systems follow Graves' and Gimbutas' proposed figure of a universal, cross-cultural Triple Goddess, and these ideas continue to be an influence on feminism, literature, Jungian psychology and literary criticism.

Various triune or triple goddesses, or deities who appeared in groupings of three, were known to ancient religion. Well-known examples include the Charites (Graces), the Horae (Seasons, of which there were three in the ancient Hellenistic reckoning), and the Moirai (Fates). Some deities generally depicted as singular also included triplicate aspects. Stymphalos, Hera was worshiped as a Girl, a Grown-up, and a Widow.

The most prominent ancient Triple Goddess was Diana, who was equated with the Greek Hecate. According to Robert Graves, who popularized the concept of in the 20th century (see below), Hecate was the "original" triple moon goddess. Diana and Hecate were both represented in triple form from the early days of their worship, and Diana in particular came to be viewed as a triunity of three goddesses in one, which were viewed as distinct aspects of a single divine being: "Diana as huntress, Diana as the moon, Diana of the underworld." Additional examples of the goddess Hecate viewed as a triple goddess associated with witchcraft include Lucan's tale of a group of witches, written in the 1st century BCE. In Lucan's work (LUC. B.C. 6:700-01) the witches speak of " Persephone, who is the third and lowest aspect of our goddess Hecate...". Another example is found in Ovid's Metamorphosis (Met. 7:94-95), in which Jason swears an oath to the witch Medea, saying he would "be true by the sacred rites of the three-fold goddess."

The neoplatonist philosopher Porphyry was the first to record an explicit belief that the three aspects of Hecate (an important goddess in the Neoplatonic tradition of Late Antiquity) represented the phases of the moon: new, waxing, and full. In his 3rd century AD work On Images, Porphyry wrote: "the moon is Hekate, the symbol of her varying phases and of her power dependent on the phases. Wherefore her power appears in three forms, having as symbol of the new moon the figure in the white robe and golden sandals, and torches lighted: the basket, which she bears when she has mounted high, is the symbol of the cultivation of the crops, which she makes to grow up according to the increase of her light: and again the symbol of the full moon is the goddess of the brazen sandals." Porphyry also associated Hecate with Dionysus, who he said they set beside her partially "on account of their growth of horns".

The Graces, Seasons, and Fates

The specific character of the modern neopagan Maiden, Mother, and Crone archetype is not found in any ancient sources related directly to Hecate. Both Diana and Hecate were almost invariably described as maiden goddesses, with an appearance like that of a young woman. However, according to the 3rd century BC grammarian Epigenes, the three Moirai, or Fates, were regarded by the Orphic tradition as representing the three divisions of the Moon, "the thirtieth and the fifteenth and the first" (i.e. the crescent moon, full moon, and dark moon, as delinted by the divisions of the calendar month). The Moirai themselves are traditionally depicted as a young girl, or Spinner of the thread of life, an older woman, or Measurer, and an elderly woman, or Cutter, representing birth, active life, and death. The connection between the Fates and the variously-named Triple Moon Goddess, then ultimately led to the conflation of these concepts. Servius made the explicit connection between these phases and the roles of the Moirai: "some call the same goddess Lucina, Diana, and Hecate, because they assign to one goddess the three powers of birth, growth, and death. Some that say that Lucina is the goddess of birth, Diana of growth, and Hecate of death. On account of this three-fold power, they have imagined her as three-fold and three-form, and for that reason they built temples at the meeting of three roads." Servius' text included a drawing of a crescent moon (representing the new moon), a half moon (representing the waxing moon), and the full moon.

According to Jane Ellen Harrison:

The three Horae are the three phases of Selene, the Moon waxing, full, and waning. ... [T]he Moon is the true mother of the triple Horae, who are themselves Moirai, and the Moirai, as Orpheus tells us, are but the three moirai or divisions ( μέρη) of the Moon herself, the three divisions of the old year. And these three Moirai or Horae are also Charites."

The syncretism of the prominent triple moon goddess (a united figure of Diana/Hecate/Selene), combined with the Orphic belief that the Seasons and the Fates were divisions of this same divinity, along with the latter representing the three stages of life, ultimately gave rise to the modern conception of a Triple Goddess whose symbol is the moon and whose triplicity can be conceived of both in terms of the moon's phases as the "Maiden, Mother, and Crone". However, it was not until the early 20th century that this fairly obscure ancient connection was developed and popularized.

The belief in a singular Triple Moon Goddess was likely brought to modern scholarship, if not originated by, the work of Jane Ellen Harrison. Harrison asserts the existence of female trinities, and uses Epigenes and other ancient sources to elaborate on the Horae, Fates, and Graces as chronological symbols representing the phases of the Moon and the threefold division of the Hellenistic lunar month.

However, Harrison's interpretations and contribution to the development and study of the Triple Goddess were somewhat overshadowed by the more controversial and poorly-supported ideas in her works. Most notably, Harrison used historical sources for the existence of an ancient Triple Moon Goddess to support her belief in an ancient matriarchal civilization, which has not stood up to academic scrutiny.

Ronald Hutton writes:

[Harrison's] work, both celebrated and controversial, posited the previous existence of a peaceful and intensely creative woman-centred civilization, in which humans, living in harmony with nature and their own emotions, worshipped a single female deity. The deity was regarded as representing the earth, and as having three aspects, of which the first two were Maiden and Mother; she did not name the third. ... Following her work, the idea of a matristic early Europe which had venerated such a deity was developed in books by amateur scholars such as Robert Briffault's The Mothers (1927) and Robert Graves's The White Goddess (1946).

John Michael Greer writes:

Harrison proclaimed that Europe itself had been the location of an idyllic, goddess-worshipping, matriarchal civilization just before the beginning of recorded history, and spoke bitterly of the disastrous consequences of the Indo-European invasion that destroyed it. In the hands of later writers such as Robert Graves, Jacquetta Hawkes, and Marija Gimbutas, this 'lost civilization of the goddess' came to play the same sort of role in many modern Pagan communities as Atlantis and Lemuria did in Theosophy.

The " myth and ritual" school or the Cambridge Ritualists, of which Harrison was a key figure, while controversial in its day, is now considered passé in intellectual and academic terms. According to Robert Ackerman, "[T]he reason the Ritualists have fallen into disfavor... is not that their assertions have been controverted by new information... Ritualism has been swept away not by an access of new facts but of new theories."

Ronald Hutton wrote on the decline the "Great Goddess" theory specifically: "The effect upon professional prehistorians was to make most return, quietly and without controversy, to that careful agnosticism as to the nature of ancient religion which most had preserved until the 1940s. There had been no absolute disproof of the veneration of a Great Goddess, only a demonstration that the evidence concerned admitted of alternative explanations." Hutton did not dispute that in ancient pagan worship "partnerships of three divine women" occurred; rather he proposed that Jane Harrison looked to such partnerships to help explain how ancient goddesses could be both virgin and mother (the third person of the triad being as yet unnamed). She was, according to Hutton, "extending" the ideas of the prominent archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans who in excavating Knossos in Crete had come to the view that prehistoric Cretans had worshiped a single mighty goddess at once virgin and mother. In Hutton's view Evans' opinion owed an "unmistakable debt" to the Christian belief in the Virgin Mary.

The Triple Goddess as an archetype is discussed in the works of both Carl Jung and Karl Kerényi, and the later works of their follower, Erich Neumann. Jung considered the general arrangement of deities in triads as a pattern which arises at the most primitive level of human mental development and culture.

In 1949 Jung and Kerényi theorized that groups of three goddesses found in Greece become quaternities only by association with a male god. They give the example of Diana only becoming three (Daughter, Wife, Mother) through her relationship to Zeus, the male deity. They go on to state that different cultures and groups associate different numbers and cosmological bodies with gender. "The threefold division [of the year] is inextricably bound up with the primitive form of the goddess Demeter, who was also Hecate, and Hecate could claim to be mistress of the three realms. In addition, her relations to the moon, the corn, and the realm of the dead are three fundamental traits in her nature. The goddess's sacred number is the special number of the underworld: '3' dominates the chthonic cults of antiquity."

Kerenyi wrote in 1952 that several Greek goddesses were triple moon goddesses of the Maiden Mother Crone type, including Hera and others. For example, Kerenyi writes in "Athene: Virgin and Mother in Greek Religion", 1978, translated from German by Murray Stein (German text 1952) Spring Publications, Zurich, : "With Hera the correspondences of the mythological and cosmic transformation extended to all three phases in which the Greeks saw the moon: she corresponded to the waxing moon as maiden, to the full moon as fulfilled wife, to the waning moon as abandoned withdrawing women" (page 58) He goes on to say that trios of sister goddess in Greek myth refer to the lunar cycle; in the book in question he treats Athene also as a triple moon goddess, noting the statement by Aristotle that Athene was the Moon but not "only" the Moon.

In discussing examples of his Great Mother archetype, Neumann mentions the Fates as "the threefold form of the Great Mother", details that "the reason for their appearance in threes or nines, or more seldom in twelves, is to be sought in the threefold articulation underlying all created things; but here it refers most particularly to the three temporal stages of all growth (beginning-middle-end, birth-life-death, past-present-future)." Andrew Von Hendy claims that Neumann's theories are based on circular reasoning, whereby a Eurocentric view of world mythology is used as evidence for a universal model of individual psychological development which mirrors a sociocultural evolutionary model derived from European mythology.

As a poet and mythographer, Robert Graves claimed a historical basis for the Triple Goddess. Although Graves's work is widely discounted by academics as pseudohistory (see The White Goddess § Criticism and The Greek Myths § Reception), it continues to have a lasting influence on many areas of Neopaganism.

Ronald Hutton argues that the concept of the triple moon goddess as Maiden, Mother, and Crone, each facet corresponding to a phase of the moon, is a modern creation of Graves', who in turn drew on the work of 19th and 20th century scholars such as especially Jane Harrison; and also Margaret Murray, James Frazer, the other members of the " myth and ritual" school or Cambridge Ritualists, and the occultist and writer Aleister Crowley.

While Graves was the originator of the idea of the Triple Goddess as embodying Maiden/Mother/Crone, this was not the only trinity he proposed. In his 1944 historical novel The Golden Fleece, Graves wrote "Maiden, Nymph and Mother are the eternal royal Trinity...and the Goddess, who is worshipped...in each of these aspects, as New Moon, Full Moon, and Old Moon, is the sovereign deity." In his 1946 novel , Graves again described a Triple Moon-goddess of birth, love, and death, who in the story was embodied by Mary, mother of Jesus, Mary of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene.

In his best-known work, The White Goddess: a Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth (1948), Graves described the trinity of the Triple Goddess in several different ways:

Mother/Bride/Layer-out

Maiden/Nymph/Hag

Maiden/Mother/Crone

Graves explained, "As Goddess of the Underworld she was concerned with Birth, Procreation and Death. As Goddess of the Earth she was concerned with the three season of Spring, Summer and Winter: she animated trees and plants and ruled all living creatures. As Goddess of the Sky she was the Moon, in her three phases of New Moon, Full Moon, and Waning Moon...As the New Moon or Spring she was a girl; as the Full Moon or Summer she was woman; as the Old Moon or Winter she was hag."

In the 1949 novel Seven Days in New Crete, Graves extrapolated this theory into an imagined future society where the worship of the Triple Goddess (under the three aspects of the maiden archer Nimuë, the goddess of motherhood and sexuality Mari, and the hag-goddess of wisdom Ana) is the main form of religion.

Graves wrote extensively on the subject of the Triple Goddess who he saw as the Muse of all true poetry in both ancient and modern literature. He thought that her ancient worship underlay much of classical Greek myth although reflected there in a more or less distorted or incomplete form. As an example of an unusually complete survival of the "ancient triad" he cites from the classical source Pausanias the worship of Hera in three persons. Pausanias recorded the ancient worship of Hera Pais (Girl Hera), Hera Teleia (Adult Hera), and Hera Khera (Widow Hera, though Khera can also mean separated or divorced) at a single sanctuary reputedly built by Temenus, son of Pelasgus, in Stymphalos. Other examples he gives include the goddess triad Moira, Ilythia and Callone ("Death, Birth and Beauty") from Plato's Symposium; the goddess Hecate; the story of the rape of Kore, (the triad here Graves said to be Kore, Persephone and Hecate with Demeter the general name of the goddess); alongside a large number of other configurations. A figure he used from outside of Greek myth was of the Akan Triple Moon Goddess Ngame, who Graves said was still worshipped in 1960.

Graves regarded "true poetry" as inspired by the Triple Goddess, as an example of her continuing influence in English poetry he instances the "Garland of Laurell" by the English poet, John Skelton (c.1460-1529) - Diana in the leavës green, Luna that so bright doth sheen, Persephone in Hell. - as evoking his Triple Goddess in her three realms of earth, sky and underworld. Skelton was here following the Latin poet Ovid. James Frazer's seminal Golden Bough centres around the cult of the Roman goddess Diana who had three aspects, associated with the Moon, the forest, and the underworld.

Graves stated that his Triple Goddess is the Great Goddess "in her poetic or incantatory character", and that the goddess in her ancient form took the gods of the waxing and waning year successively as her lovers. Graves believed that the Triple Goddess was an aboriginal deity also of Britain, and that traces of her worship survived in early modern British witchcraft and in various modern British cultural attitudes such as what Graves believed to be a preference for a female sovereign.

In the anthology The Greek Myths (1955), Graves systematically applied his convictions enshrined in The White Goddess to Greek mythology, exposing a large number of readers to his various theories concerning goddess worship in ancient Greece. Graves posited that Greece had been settled by a matriarchal goddess-worshipping people before being invaded by successive waves of patriarchal Indo-European speakers from the north. Much of Greek myth in his view recorded the consequent religious political and social accommodations until the final triumph of patriarchy.

Graves did not invent this picture but drew from nineteenth and early twentieth century scholarship. According to Ronald Hutton, Graves used Jane Ellen Harrison's idea of goddess-worshipping matriarchal early Europe and the imagery of three aspects, and related these to the Triple Goddess. This theory has not necessarily been disproved, but modern scholarship has favored other explanations for the evidence used by Graves and Harrison to support their ideas, which are not accepted as a consensus view today. The twentieth century archaeologist Marija Gimbutas (see below) also argued for a triple goddess-worshipping European neolithic modified and eventually overwhelmed by waves of partiarchal invaders although she saw this neolithic civilization as egalitarian and "matristic" rather than "matriarchal" in the sense of gynocratic.

Scholar Marija Gimbutas's theories relating to goddess-centered culture among pre- Indo-European " Old Europe" (6500-3500 BCE) have been widely adopted by New Age and ecofeminist groups. She had been referred to as the "Grandmother of the Goddess Movement" in the 1990s.

Gimbutas postulated that in "Old Europe", the Aegean and the Near East, a single great Triple Goddess was worshipped, predating what she deemed as a patriarchal religion imported by the Kurgans, nomadic speakers of Indo-European languages. Gimbutas interpreted iconography from Neolithic and earlier periods of European history evidence of worship of a triple goddess represented by:

1. "stiff nudes", birds of prey or poisonous snakes interpreted as "death"

2. mother-figures interpreted as symbols of "birth and fertility"

3. moths, butterflies or bees, or alternatively a symbols such as a frog, hedgehog or bulls head which she interpreted as being the uterus or fetus, as being symbols of "regeneration"

The first and third aspects of the goddess, according to Gimbutas, were frequently conflated to make a goddess of death-and-regeneration represented in folklore by such figures as Baba Yaga. Gimbutas regarded the Eleusinian Mysteries as a survival into classical antiquity of this ancient goddess worship, a suggestion which Georg Luck echos.

Skepticism regarding her goddess-centered Old Europe thesis is widespread within the academic community. Gimbutas's work in this area has been criticized as mistaken on the grounds of dating, archaeological context and typologies, with most archaeologists considering her goddess hypothesis implausible. Lauren Talalay, reviewing Gimbutas' last book, The Living Goddesses, says that it reads "more like a testament of faith than a well-conceived thesis", stating that "Just because a triangle schematically mimics the female pubic region, or a hedgehog resembles a uterus (!), or dogs are allied with death in Classical mythology, it is hardly justifiable to associate all these images with 'the formidable goddess of regeneration'." Lynn Meskell considers such an approach "irresponsible". However, linguist M. L. West has called Gimbutas's goddess-based "Old European" religion being overtaken by a patriarchal Indo-European one "essentially sound".

Academic rejection of her theories has been echoed by some feminist authors, including Cynthia Eller. Others argue that her account challenges male-centred histories and creates a powerful origin-myth of female empowerment. John Chapman suggests that Gimbutas' Goddess theories were a poetic projection of her personal life, based on her idealized childhood and adolescence.

While many Neopagans are not Wiccan, and within Neopaganism the practices and theology vary widely, many Wiccans and other neopagans worship the "Triple Goddess" of maiden, mother, and crone. In their view, sexuality, pregnancy, breastfeeding-and other female reproductive processes-are ways that women may embody the Goddess, making the physical body sacred.

The Maiden represents enchantment, inception, expansion, the promise of new beginnings, birth, youth and youthful enthusiasm, represented by the waxing moon;

The Mother represents ripeness, fertility, sexuality, fulfilment, stability, power and life represented by the full moon;

The Crone represents wisdom, repose, death, and endings represented by the waning moon.

Helen Berger writes that "according to believers, this echoing of women's life stages allowed women to identify with deity in a way that had not been possible since the advent of patriarchal religions." The Church of All Worlds is one example of a neopagan organization which identifies the Triple Goddess as symbolizing a "fertility cycle". This model is also supposed to encompass a personification of all the characteristics and potential of every woman who has ever existed. Other beliefs held by worshippers, such as Wiccan author D. J. Conway, include that reconnection with the Great Goddess is vital to the health of humankind "on all levels". Conway includes the Greek goddesses Demeter, Kore-Persephone, and Hecate, in her discussion of the Maiden-Mother-Crone archetype. Conway specifically believes the Triple Goddess stands for unity, cooperation, and participation with all creation, while in contrast masculine gods can represent dissociation, separation and dominion of nature.

The Dianic tradition adopted Graves's Triple Goddess, along with other elements from Wicca, and is named after the Roman goddess Diana, the goddess of the witches in Charles Godfrey Leland's 1899 book . Zsuzsanna Budapest, widely considered the founder of Dianic Wicca, considers her Goddess "the original Holy Trinity; Virgin, Mother, and Crone." Dianic Wiccans such as Ruth Barrett, follower of Budapest and co-founder of the Temple of Diana, use the Triple Goddess in ritual work and correspond the "special directions" of "above", "center", and "below" to Maiden, Mother, and Crone respectively. Barrett says "Dianics honour She who has been called by Her daughters throughout time, in many places, and by many names."

Some neopagans believe that the Triple Goddess is an archetypal figure which appears in a number of different cultures throughout human history, and that many individual goddesses can be interpreted as Triple Goddesses, The wide acceptance of an archetype theory has led to neopagans adopting the images and names of culturally divergent deities for ritual purposes; for instance, Conway, and goddess feminist artist Monica Sjöö, connect the Triple Goddess to the Hindu Tridevi (literally "three goddesses") of Saraswati, Lakshmi, and Parvati ( Kali/ Durga). Several advocates of Wicca, such as Vivianne Crowley and Selena Fox, are practising psychologists or psychotherapists and looked specifically to the work of Carl Jung to develop the theory of the Goddess as an archetype. Wouter J. Hanegraaff comments that Crowley's works can give the impression that Wicca is little more than a religious and ritual translation of Jungian psychology.

Valerie H. Mantecon follows Annis V. Pratt that the Triple Goddess of Maiden, Mother and Crone is a male invention that both arises from and biases an androcentric view of femininity, and as such the symbolism is often devoid of real meaning or use in depth-psychology for women. Mantecon suggests that a feminist re-visioning of the Crone symbolism away from its usual associations with "death" and towards "wisdom" can be useful in women transitioning to the menopausal phase of life and that the sense of history that comes from working with mythological symbols adds a sense of meaning to the experience.

Fiction, film, and literary criticism

Author Margaret Atwood recalls reading Graves's The White Goddess at the age of 19. Atwood describes Graves' concept of the Triple Goddess as employing violent and misandric imagery, and says the restrictive role this model places on creative women put her off being a writer. Atwood's work has been noted as containing Triple Goddess motifs who sometimes appear failed and parodic. Atwood's Lady Oracle has been cited as a deliberate parody of the Triple Goddess, which subverts the figure and ultimately liberates the lead female character from the oppressive model of feminine creativity that Graves constructed.

Literary critic Andrew D. Radford, discussing the symbolism of Thomas Hardy's 1891 novel Tess of the d'Urbervilles, in terms of Myth sees the Maiden and Mother as two phases of the female lifecycle through which Tess passes, whilst the Crone phase, Tess adopts as a disguise which prepares her for harrowing experiences .

Thomas DeQuincey developed a female trinity, Our Lady of Tears, the Lady of Sighs and Our Lady of Darkness, in Suspiria De Profundis, which has been likened to Graves's Triple Goddess but stamped with DeQuincey's own melancholy sensibility.

According to scholar Juliette Wood, modern fantasy fiction plays a large part in the conceptual landscape of the neo-pagan world. The three supernatural female figures called variously the Ladies, Mother of the Camenae, the Kindly Ones, and a number of other different names in The Sandman comic books by Neil Gaiman, merge the figures of the Fates and the Maiden-Mother-Crone goddess. Alan Garner's The Owl Service, based on the fourth branch of the Mabinogion and influenced by Robert Graves, clearly delineates the character of the Triple Goddess. Garner goes further in his other novels, making every female character intentionally represent an aspect of the Triple Goddess. In George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series, the Maid, the Mother, and the Crone are three aspects of the septune deity in the Faith of the Seven, much as the neopagan triple goddess is incorporated in Marion Zimmer Bradley's The Mists of Avalon.

Graves's Triple Goddess motif has been used by Norman Holland to explore the female characters in Alfred Hitchcock's film . Roz Kaveney sees the main characters in James Cameron's movie as: The Alien Queen (Crone), Ripley (Mother) and Newt (Maiden).

American heavy metal band The Sword's song, "Maiden, Mother & Crone", on their album Gods of the Earth, describes an encounter with the Triple Goddess. The video prominently features three aspects of the goddess and a waxing, full, and waning moon.

The Triple Goddess is referenced in the Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (TV series) , "Chapter Twenty-Eight: Sabrina Is Legend" as the Maiden-Mother-Crone Goddess Hecate. Zelda and her coven invoke the power of Hecate to restore their powers and resurrect her sister Hilda. The Church of Night then anoints Hecate as their chosen entity to worship[circular reference ]

1. ^ Pausanias, Description of Greece, 8.22.2

2. Porphyry, On Images. 3rd c. AD

3. D'Este, Sorita. ^ Is She the Crone? Hekate's Profanation? Patheos, 2016-Aug-11. Accessed 2019-Apr-10 at https://www.patheos.com/blogs/adamantinemuse/2016/08/is-she-the-crone-hekates-profanation/

4. Meskell, Lynn (1999). ^ "Feminism, Paganism, Pluralism", p.87, in Gazin-Schwartz, Amy, and Holtorf, Cornelius (eds.) (1999). Archaeology and Folklore. Routledge. "It seems clear that the initial recording of Çatalhöyük [1961-1965] was largely influenced by decidedly Greek notions of ritual and magic, especially that of the Triple Goddess - maiden, mother, and crone. These ideas were common to many at that time, but probably originated with Jane Ellen Harrison, Classical archaeologist and member of the famous Cambridge Ritualists (Harrison 1903)." ISBN 0-415-20144-6, ISBN 978-0-415-20144-5.
See also: Hutton, Ronald (2001). The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft. Oxford University Press. pp.36-37: "In 1903... an influential Cambridge classicist, Jane Ellen Harrison, declared her belief in [a Great Earth Mother] but with a threefold division of aspect. ... [S]he pointed out that the pagan ancient world had sometimes believed in partnerships of three divine women, such as the Fates or the Graces. She argued that the original single one, representing the earth, had likewise been honoured in three roles. The most important of these were the Maiden, ruling the living, and Mother, ruling the underworld; she did not name the third. ... [S]he declared that all male deities had originally been subordinate to the goddess as her lovers and her sons." ISBN 0-19-285449-6, ISBN 978-0-19-285449-0.

5. Harrison, Jane Ellen (1903). ^ Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p.286ff. Excerpts: "... Greek religion has... a number of triple forms, Women-Trinities.... the trinity-form was confined to the women goddesses. ... of a male trinity we find no trace. ... The ancient threefold goddesses...."
- (1912). Themis: A Study of the Social Origins of Greek Religion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- (1913). Ancient Art and Ritual. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

6. Hutton, Ronald (1997). "The Neolithic Great Goddess: A Study in Modern Tradition" from Antiquity, March 1997. p.3 (online copy).

7. Hutton, Ronald (1997). ^ "The Neolithic Great Goddess: A Study in Modern Tradition" from Antiquity, March 1997. p.7 (online).

8. ^ The Myth and Ritual School: J.G. Frazer and the Cambridge Ritualists. Routledge. ISBN 0-415-93963-1, ISBN 978-0-415-93963-8.
Hutton, Ronald (1997). "The Neolithic Great Goddess: A Study in Modern Tradition" from Antiquity, March 1997.

9. ^ Pausanias, Guide to Greece 8.22.2

10. University of Virginia's "Ovid Illustrated" site, ^ http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/latin/ovid/ovidillust.html, the lines from Skelton being explicitly sourced from Ovid in a note at http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/latin/ovid/trans/MetindexBCD.htm, retrieved 18 April 2011.

11. Hutton, Ronald (1997). ^ "The Neolithic Great Goddess: A Study in Modern Tradition" from Antiquity, March 1997. p.7 (online). See also relevant Wikipedia articles, Dorian invasion, Mycenaean Age Greek Dark Ages

12. Gimbutas, Marija (1974). ^ The Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe, 7000-3500 B.C.: Myths, Legends and Cult Images. London: Thames and Hudson. ISBN 0-500-05014-7, ISBN 978-0-500-05014-9.
- (1999). The Living Goddesses. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-21393-9, ISBN 978-0-520-21393-7.

13. Talalay, Lauren E. (1999). (Review of) The Living Goddesses in Bryn Mawr Classical Review 1999-10-05.

14. ^ Luck, Georg (1985). Arcana Mundi: Magic and the Occult in the Greek and Roman Worlds: A Collection of Ancient Texts. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 0-8018-2548-2, ISBN 978-0-8018-2548-4. p.5 suggests that this goddess persisted into Classical times as Gaia (the Greek Earth Mother), and the Roman Magna Mater, among others.

15. Richard D. Lyons, Dr. Marija Gimbutas Dies at 73; Archaeologist With Feminist View New York Times[1], (1994)

16. ^ Meskell, Lynn (1995), "Goddesses, Gimbutas and 'New Age' Archaeology", Antiquity, 69 (262): 74, doi:10.1017/S0003598X00064310

17. ^ West, Martin Litchfield (2007). Indo-European Poetry and Myth. Oxford University Press. p.140. ISBN 0-19-928075-4, ISBN 978-0-19-928075-9.

18. ^ Adler, Margot (1979, revised 2006). Drawing Down the Moon: Witches, Druids, Goddess-Worshippers, and Other Pagans in America Today. Penguin Books. ISBN 0-14-303819-2, ISBN 978-0-14-303819-1.

19. Zell, Otter and Morning Glory. ^ "Who on Earth is the Goddess?" Archived 2010-11-17 at the Wayback Machine (accessed 2009-10-03).

20. Conway, Deanna J. (1995). ^ Maiden, Mother, Crone: the Myth and Reality of the Triple Goddess. Llewellyn. p. 54. ISBN 0-87542-171-7, ISBN 978-0-87542-171-1.
See also: "... being as it were the queen of all nature, we find her identified with Demeter...; and as a goddess of the moon, she is regarded as the mystic Persephone" ( "Hecate". Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. 2. 1870. p. 364.).
See also: "As a chthonian power, she is worshipped at the Samothracian mysteries, and is closely connected with Demeter" ("Hecate" . Encyclopædia Britannica. 13 (11th ed.). 1911. p. 193.); and "She was sometimes identified with Hecate" ("Proserpine" . Encyclopædia Britannica. 22 (11th ed.). 1911. p. 456.).

21. Barrett, Ruth (2004). The Dianic Wiccan Tradition.

22. ^ http://wicca.dianic-wicca.com/ Archived 2009-08-30 at the Wayback Machine (accessed 2009-10-03)."

23. Mantecon, Valerie H. (1993). ^ Where Are the Archetypes? Searching for Symbols of Women's Midlife Passage, pp.83-87, in Nancy D. Davis, Ellen Cole, Esther D. Rothblum (eds.) (1993). Faces of Women and Aging. Routledge. ISBN 1-56024-435-6, ISBN 978-1-56024-435-6.

24. Radford, Andrew D. (2007) ^ The Lost Girls: Demeter-Persephone and the Literary Imagination, 1850-1930, Volume 53 of Studies in Comparative Literature. Rodopi. ISBN 90-420-2235-3, ISBN 978-90-420-2235-5. p.127-128.

25. ^ Roberts, Jeanne Addison (1987-1988). "Shades of the Triple Hecate". Proceedings of the PMR Conference 12-13: 47-66.

26. ^ Walker, John Lewis (2002). "Shades of the Triple Hecate by Jeanne Addison Roberts (abstract)". Shakespeare and the Classical Tradition. p. 248. ISBN 9780824066970.

27. ^ Roberts, Jeanne Addison (1994). The Shakespearean Wild: Geography, Genus, and Gender. University of Nebraska Press. pp. 142-143, 169ff, passim. ISBN 978-0-8032-8950-5.

28. ^ Swift, Carolyn Ruth (Spring 1993). "The Shakespearean Wild". Shakespeare Quarterly (Review). 44 (1): 96-100. doi:10.2307/2871177. JSTOR 2871177.

29. ^ Wood, Juliette (1999). "Chapter 1, The Concept of the Goddess". In Sandra Billington, Miranda Green (eds.) (1999) (ed.). The Concept of the Goddess. Routledge. p. 22. ISBN 9780415197892.

30. ^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2010-08-24.

31. ^ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilling_Adventures_of_Sabrina_(TV_series)#Part_3_(2020).

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Triple Goddess Goddess of the Moon, the Earth, and childbirth Symbol Crescent, full, and dark moon (original) Crescent, half, and full moon (late Antiquity) Waxing, full, and waning moons (modern) The Triple Goddess is a deity or deity archetype revered in many Neopagan religious and spiritual traditions.

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The figurine known as the Venus of Willendorf is an example of a mother goddess or mother figure in ancient times with it originating roughly twenty five thousand years ago. Modern interpretations noted these figurines as fertility deity's that associated them with childbirth, sex and pregnancy. The larger figure was to promote childbirth.

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Statue of nude Venus of the Capitoline type, Roman, 2nd century AD, found at Campo Iemini in 1794. It was given to the British Museum by William IV in 1834.

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Venus was not only a name for different figurines found through art but is a reference to the Roman god of Beauty, Venus. Also named and modeled after Aphrodite in Greek mythology, Venus embodied beauty, sex, fertility and love. Shown here is a statue of Venus to show her beauty.

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Gaia is the Greek term for the Earth. Gaia in several mythologies and in even in modern interpretation is a living being. Like many life forms, the purpose is to live and to give life to others. The Earth can be seen as no different, it gives life to all beings and like all others, it is dying as well. Many see Gaia as a mother goddess because of this reason. It gives life and spirit to what would be an alternative to the idea that life is a "depressing picture of our planet as a demented spaceship, forever travelling, driverless and purposeless, around the inner circle of the sun.”
(pg 146)

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Gaia was historically one of the most important of all Greek gods and goddesses, although her name is not one that is often thought today in that connection. In Ancient Greece though she was revered, for not only was Gaia the Greek goddess of the Earth, but she was also the Mother Goddess, the ancestor of most other deities.

Today, neo-paganists still revere Gaia as she is still considered to be Mother Earth.

Gaia would come into existence at the very start of the cosmos, for she, according to Hesiod, was one of the first gods, a Protogenoi, emerging from Chaos. There were four "first born" deities, Chaos, Gaia, Tartarus and Eros. The earth at this time was shapeless, but Gaia would get to work bringing forth features and life. Gaia would also bring forth other Protogenoi, the ten , the Mountains, Pontus, the Sea, and Ouranos, the Sky.

Ouranos would become the first supreme deity, and would thereafter partner with Gaia, with the Earth giving birth to the three Cyclopes, the three Hecatonchires, and the 12 Titans.

With Pontus, Gaia would also give birth to several sea deities, including Ceto, Eurybia, Nereus, Phorcys and .

Cronus would take up an adamantine sickle, and whilst his brothers held Ouranos still, Cronus would castrate his father, and as the blood of the Sky god fell onto Gaia, Gaia would give birth to the Gigantes, the Erinyes and the Meliae.

Eventually Zeus would lead a rebellion against the Titans, and overthrow them during the Titanomachy.

Gaia was initially pleased when Zeus freed her children, the Cyclopes and Hecatonchires, from Tartarus, but then was displeased when Zeus locked up many of the Titans in their place.

Gaia would then incite her 100 Gigantes sons in rebellion, although this rebellion, the Gigantomachy, was less successful than the ones previously undertaken at her behest, for the gods of Mount Olympus, aided by Heracles, would defeat and kill the Gigantes.

Zeus though did not punish his grandmother, and indeed Gaia would bear Zeus a son, King Manes, with Poseidon she would mother Antaeus and Charybdis, and with Hephaestus she bore King Erichthonius.

Gaia was widely worshipped in Greece for she was the ancestor to most of the most important deities, and she was also the first goddess associated with the vitally important Oracles.

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Gaia was historically one of the most important of all Greek gods and goddesses, although her name is not one that is often thought today in that connection. In Ancient Greece though she was revered, for not only was Gaia the Greek goddess of the Earth, but she was also the Mother Goddess, the ancestor of most other deities.

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The Acropolis at Athens (1846) by Leo von Klenze. Athena's name probably comes from the name of the city of Athens.

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Athena is a very influential maiden goddess in mythology, she was well known for the wisdom she carried with her. She is "one of the most intelligent and wisest of Greek gods." Pictured above is the ancient city Athens where she had gotten her name from. Several cities and "testimonies from different cities in ancient Greece attest that similar city goddesses were worshipped in other cities and, like Athena, took their names from the cities where they were worshipped. For example, in Mycenae there was a goddess called Mykene, whose sisterhood was known as Mykena."

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Athena has not only appeared in art and mythology but she is pictured in shows like the Animated series, Hercules.  Showing in the picture above is the owl that Athena is commonly associated with.

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Crone Goddesses are commonly associated with rude old lady's and death. Also known as the death goddesses and the completion of the three Great Goddess archetypes as well as the completion of the lunar cycle.

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In folklore, a crone is an old woman who may be characterized as disagreeable, malicious, or sinister in manner, often with magical or supernatural associations that can make her either helpful or obstructive. The Crone is also an archetypal figure, a Wise Woman. As a character type, the crone shares characteristics with the hag. The word became further specialized as the third aspect of the Triple Goddess popularized by Robert Graves and subsequently in some forms of neopaganism, particularly Wicca in which she symbolizes the Dark Goddess, the dark of the moon, the end of a cycle; together with the Mother and the Maiden she represents part of the circle of life. In New Age and feminist spiritual circles, a "Croning" is a ritual rite of passage into an era of wisdom, freedom, and personal power.

As a noun, crone entered the English language around the year 1390, deriving from the Anglo-French word carogne (an insult), itself deriving from the Old North French charogne, caroigne, meaning a disagreeable woman (literally meaning " carrion"). Prior to the entrance of the word into English, the surname Hopcrone is recorded (around 1323-1324).

In Norse myth, Thor wrestles the crone Elli who personifies old age.

The Slavic witch Baba Yaga is a crone and liminal guardian to the Otherworld.

In the local folklore of Somerset in southwest England, the Woman of the Mist is said to appear sometimes as a crone gathering sticks; sightings of her were reported as late as the 1950s. In the Scottish Highlands tale "The Poor Brother and the Rich", a crone refuses to stay buried, until her son-in-law provides a generous wake, after which he becomes as wealthy as his more fortunate brother.

In Cuban traditional folklore old women often appear as helpful characters, as in the tale of the sick man who cannot get well until he meets an old woman who advises him to wear the tunic of a man who is truly happy. According to writer Alma Flor Ada, "They tend to be the ones who keep the family together, who pass on the traditions, who know the remedies that would cure the different illnesses".

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In folklore, a crone is an old woman who may be characterized as disagreeable, malicious, or sinister in manner, often with magical or supernatural associations that can make her either helpful or obstructive. The Crone is also an archetypal figure, a Wise Woman. As a character type, the crone shares characteristics with the hag.

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Although the depiction of this show might be cliché, Planet earth, the show, has an incredible insight to the life that earth gives and how beautiful it can be. Earth is the mother to all living beings and many fail to recognize that.

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Medusa is commonly associated with her erotic desire and death, fitting into a female fatal archetype. Versace uses the imagery that the myths behind Medusa create.

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Hestia is another Greek Goddess sharing the same "Virgin" trait like Athena. Hestia is the Greek goddess of family, home, state and hearth. She is also featured alongside Athena in Disney's Hercules.

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Persephone "became the queen of the underworld after her abduction by her uncle hades." She is the goddess of the dead, destruction, life and nature

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The myth of her abduction, her sojourn in the underworld, and her temporary return to the surface represents her functions as the embodiment of spring and the personification of vegetation, especially grain crops, which disappear into the earth when sown, sprout from the earth in spring, and are harvested when fully grown. In Classical Greek art, Persephone is invariably portrayed robed, often carrying a sheaf of grain. She may appear as a mystical divinity with a sceptre and a little box, but she was mostly represented in the process of being carried off by Hades.

Persephone as a vegetation goddess and her mother Demeter were the central figures of the Eleusinian Mysteries, which promised the initiated a happy afterlife. The origins of her cult are uncertain, but it was based on ancient agrarian cults of agricultural communities. In Athens, the mysteries celebrated in the month of Anthesterion were dedicated to her. The city of Epizephyrian Locris, in modern Calabria (southern Italy), was famous for its cult of Persephone, where she is a goddess of marriage and childbirth in this region.

Her name has numerous historical variants. These include Persephassa (Περσεφάσσα ) and Persephatta (Περσεφάττα ). In Latin, her name is rendered Proserpina. She was identified by the Romans as the Italic goddess Libera, who was conflated with Proserpina. Myths similar to Persephone's descent and return to earth also appear in the cults of male gods including Attis, Adonis, and Osiris, and in Minoan Crete.

In a Linear B Mycenaean Greek inscription on a tablet found at Pylos dated 1400-1200 BC, John Chadwick reconstructed the name of a goddess, *Preswa who could be identified with Perse, daughter of Oceanus and found speculative the further identification with the first element of Persephone. Persephonē ( Greek: ) is her name in the Ionic Greek of epic literature. The Homeric form of her name is Persephoneia (Περσεφονεία , Persephoneia). In other dialects, she was known under variant names: Persephassa (Περσεφάσσα ), Persephatta (Περσεφάττα ), or simply Korē (, "girl, maiden"). On 5th century Attic vases one often encounters the form (Φερρϖφάττα ) Plato calls her Pherepapha () in his Cratylus, "because she is wise and touches that which is in motion". There are also the forms Periphona (Πηριφόνα) and Phersephassa (Φερσέφασσα ). The existence of so many different forms shows how difficult it was for the Greeks to pronounce the word in their own language and suggests that the name may have a Pre-Greek origin.

The etymology of the word 'Persephone' is obscure. According to a recent hypothesis advanced by Rudolf Wachter, the first element in the name ( Perso- () may well reflect a very rare term, attested in the Rig Veda (Sanskrit parṣa-), and the Avesta, meaning 'sheaf of corn' / 'ear [of grain]'. The second constituent, phatta, preserved in the form Persephatta (Περσεφάττα ), would in this view reflect Proto-Indo-European , from the root "to strike / beat / kill". The combined sense would therefore be "she who beats the ears of corn", i.e., a "thresher of grain".

The name of the Albanian dawn-goddess, goddess of love and protector of women, , is thought to correspond regularly to the Ancient Greek counterpart Περσεφάττα ( Persephatta), a variant of ( Persephone). The theonyms have been traced back to the Indo-European *pers-é-bʰ(h₂)n̥t-ih₂ ("she who brings the light through").

A popular folk etymology is from φέρειν φόνον , pherein phonon, "to bring (or cause) death".

The epithets of Persephone reveal her double function as chthonic and vegetation goddess. The surnames given to her by the poets refer to her role as queen of the lower world and the dead and to the power that shoots forth and withdraws into the earth. Her common name as a vegetation goddess is Kore, and in Arcadia she was worshipped under the title Despoina, "the mistress", a very old chthonic divinity. Günther Zuntz considers "Persephone" and "Kore" as distinct deities and writes that "no farmer prayed for corn to Persephone; no mourner thought of the dead as being with Kore." Ancient Greek writers were however not as consistent as Zuntz claims.

Plutarch writes that Persephone was identified with the spring season, and Cicero calls her the seed of the fruits of the fields. In the Eleusinian Mysteries, her return from the underworld each spring is a symbol of immortality, and she was frequently represented on sarcophagi.

In the religions of the Orphics and the Platonists, Kore is described as the all-pervading goddess of nature who both produces and destroys everything, and she is therefore mentioned along with or identified as other such divinities including Isis, Rhea, Ge, Hestia, Pandora, Artemis, and Hecate. In Orphic tradition, Persephone is said to be the daughter of Zeus and his mother Rhea, rather than of Demeter. The Orphic Persephone is said to have become by Zeus the mother of Dionysus / Iacchus / Zagreus, and the little-attested Melinoë.

Seated goddess, probably Persephone on her throne in the underworld, Severe style c. 480-460 BC, found at Tarentum, Magna Graecia (Pergamon Museum, Berlin)

In mythology and literature she is often called dread(ed) Persephone, and queen of the underworld, within which tradition it was forbidden to speak her name. This tradition comes from her conflation with the very old chthonic divinity Despoina ("[the] mistress"), whose real name could not be revealed to anyone except those initiated into her mysteries. As goddess of death, she was also called a daughter of Zeus and Styx, the river that formed the boundary between Earth and the underworld. In Homer's epics, she appears always together with Hades in the underworld, apparently sharing with Hades control over the dead. In Homer's , Odysseus encounters the "dread Persephone" in Tartarus when he visits his dead mother. Odysseus sacrifices a ram to the chthonic goddess Persephone and the ghosts of the dead who drink the blood of the sacrificed animal. In the reformulation of Greek mythology expressed in the Orphic Hymns, Dionysus and Melinoë are separately called children of Zeus and Persephone. Groves sacred to her stood at the western extremity of the earth on the frontiers of the lower world, which itself was called "house of Persephone".

Her central myth served as the context for the secret rites of regeneration at Eleusis, which promised immortality to initiates.

In a Classical period text ascribed to Empedocles, c. 490-430 BC, describing a correspondence among four deities and the classical elements, the name Nestis for water apparently refers to Persephone:

"Now hear the fourfold roots of everything: Enlivening Hera, Hades, shining Zeus, and Nestis, moistening mortal springs with tears."

Of the four deities of Empedocles' elements, it is the name of Persephone alone that is taboo - Nestis is a euphemistic cult title - for she was also the terrible Queen of the Dead, whose name was not safe to speak aloud, who was euphemistically named simply as Kore or "the Maiden", a vestige of her archaic role as the deity ruling the underworld. Nestis means "the Fasting One" in ancient Greek.

As a goddess of the underworld, Persephone was given euphemistically friendly names. However, it is possible that some of them were the names of original goddesses:

(dems-potnia) "the mistress" (literally "the mistress of the house") in Arcadia.

Hagne, "pure", originally a goddess of the springs in Messenia.

Melindia or Melinoia (meli, "honey"), as the consort of Hades, in Hermione. (Compare Hecate, Melinoë)

, the Orphic Hymn to Persephone identifies Praxidike as an epithet of Persephone: "Praxidike, subterranean queen. The Eumenides' source [mother], fair-haired, whose frame proceeds from Zeus' ineffable and secret seeds."

Kore, "the maiden".

Kore Soteira, "the savior maiden", in Megalopolis.

Neotera, "the younger", in Eleusis.

Kore of Demeter Hagne in the Homeric hymn.

Kore memagmeni, "the mixed daughter" (bread).

The goddesses, often distinguished as "the older" and "the younger" in Eleusis.

The thesmophoroi, "the legislators" in the Thesmophoria.

The Great Goddesses, in Arcadia.

Karpophoroi, "the bringers of fruit", in Tegea of Arcadia.

Persephone's abduction by Hades is mentioned briefly in Hesiod's , and is told in considerable detail in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter. Zeus, it is said, permitted Hades, who was in love with the beautiful Persephone, to abduct her as her mother Demeter was not likely to allow her daughter to go down to Hades. Persephone was gathering flowers with the Oceanids along with Artemis and Pallas, daughter of Triton, as the Homeric Hymn says, in a field when Hades came to abduct her, bursting through a cleft in the earth. Demeter, when she found her daughter had disappeared, searched for her all over the earth with Hecate's torches. In most versions, she forbids the earth to produce, or she neglects the earth and, in the depth of her despair, she causes nothing to grow. Helios, the Sun, who sees everything, eventually told Demeter what had happened and at length she discovered where her daughter had been taken. Zeus, pressed by the cries of the hungry people and by the other deities who also heard their anguish, forced Hades to return Persephone.

The Rape of Proserpina by Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1621-22) at the Galleria Borghese in Rome.

Hades complies with the request, but first he tricks Persephone, giving her some pomegranate seeds to eat. Hermes is sent to retrieve her but, because she had tasted the food of the underworld, she was obliged to spend a third of each year (the winter months) there, and the remaining part of the year with the gods above. With the later writers Ovid and Hyginus, Persephone's time in the underworld becomes half the year. It was explained to Demeter, her mother, that she would be released, so long as she did not taste the food of the underworld, as that was an Ancient Greek example of a taboo.

Various local traditions place Persephone's abduction in different locations. The Sicilians, among whom her worship was probably introduced by the Corinthian and Megarian colonists, believed that Hades found her in the meadows near Enna, and that a well arose on the spot where he descended with her into the lower world. The Cretans thought that their own island had been the scene of the abduction, and the Eleusinians mentioned the Nysian plain in Boeotia, and said that Persephone had descended with Hades into the lower world at the entrance of the western Oceanus. Later accounts place the abduction in Attica, near Athens, or near Eleusis. The Homeric hymn mentions the Nysion (or Mysion) which was probably a mythical place. The location of this mythical place may simply be a convention to show that a magically distant chthonic land of myth was intended in the remote past.

The Return of Persephone, by Frederic Leighton (1891)

In the hymn, Persephone eventually returns from the underworld and is reunited with her mother near Eleusis. The Eleusinians built a temple near the spring of Callichorus, and Demeter establishes her mysteries there.

In some versions, Ascalaphus informed the other deities that Persephone had eaten the pomegranate seeds. As punishment for informing Hades, he was pinned under a heavy rock in the underworld by either Persephone or Demeter. When Demeter and her daughter were reunited, the Earth flourished with vegetation and color, but for some months each year, when Persephone returned to the underworld, the earth once again became a barren realm. This is an origin story to explain the seasons.

In an earlier version, Hecate rescued Persephone. On an Attic red-figured bell krater of c. 440 BC in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Persephone is rising as if up stairs from a cleft in the earth, while Hermes stands aside; Hecate, holding two torches, looks back as she leads her to the enthroned Demeter.

The 10th-century Byzantine encyclopedia introduces a goddess of a blessed afterlife assured to Orphic mystery initiates. This Macaria is asserted to be the daughter of Hades, but no mother is mentioned.

Fragment of a marble relief depicting a Kore, 3rd century BC, from Panticapaeum, Taurica (Crimea), Bosporan Kingdom

The abduction of Persephone is an etiological myth providing an explanation for the changing of the seasons. Since Persephone had consumed pomegranate seeds in the underworld, she was forced to spend four months, or in other versions six months for six seeds, with Hades. When Persephone would return to the underworld, Demeter's despair at losing her daughter would cause the vegetation and flora of the world to wither, signifying the Autumn and Winter seasons. When Persephone's time is over and she would be reunited with her mother, Demeter's joyousness would cause the vegetation of the earth to bloom and blossom which signifies the Spring and Summer seasons. This also explains why Persephone is associated with Spring: her re-emergence from the underworld signifies the onset of Spring. Therefore, not only does Persephone and Demeter's annual reunion symbolize the changing seasons and the beginning of a new cycle of growth for the crops, it also symbolizes death and the regeneration of life.

In another interpretation of the myth, the abduction of Persephone by Hades, in the form of Ploutus (, wealth), represents the wealth of the grain contained and stored in underground silos or ceramic jars ( pithoi) during the Summer seasons (as that was drought season in Greece). In this telling, Persephone as grain-maiden symbolizes the grain within the pithoi that is trapped underground within the realm of Hades. In the beginning of the autumn, when the grain of the old crop is laid on the fields, she ascends and is reunited with her mother Demeter. This interpretation of Persephone's abduction myth symbolizes the cycle of life and death as Persephone both dies as she (the grain) is buried in the pithoi (as similar pithoi were used in ancient times for funerary practices) and is reborn with the exhumation and spreading of the grain.

Lincoln argues that the myth is a description of the loss of Persephone's virginity, where her epithet koure signifies "a girl of initiatory age", and where Hades is the male oppressor forcing himself onto a young girl for the first time.

Head of Persephone. Earthenware. From Sicily, Centuripae, c. 420 BC. The Burrell Collection, Glasgow, UK

According to the Greek tradition a hunt-goddess preceded the harvest goddess. In Arcadia, Demeter and Persephone were often called Despoinai (, "the mistresses"). They are the two Great Goddesses of the Arcadian cults, and evidently they come from a more primitive religion. The Greek god Poseidon probably substituted for the companion ( Paredros, ) of the Minoan Great goddess in the Arcadian mysteries. In the Arcadian mythos, while Demeter was looking for the kidnapped Persephone, she caught the eye of her younger brother Poseidon. Demeter turned into a mare to escape him, but then Poseidon turned into a stallion to pursue her. He caught her and raped her. Afterwards, Demeter gave birth to the talking horse Arion and the goddess Despoina ("the mistress"), a goddess of the Arcadian mysteries.

In the Orphic "Rhapsodic Theogony" (first century BC/AD), Persephone is described as the daughter of Zeus and Rhea. Zeus was filled with desire for his mother, Rhea, intending to marry her. He pursued the unwilling Rhea, only for her to change into a serpent. Zeus also turned himself into a serpent and raped Rhea, which resulted in the birth of Persephone. Afterwards, Rhea became Demeter. Persephone was born so deformed that Rhea ran away from her frightened, and did not breastfeed Persephone. Zeus then mates with Persephone, who gives birth to Dionysus. She later stays in her mother's house, guarded by the Curetes. Rhea-Demeter prophecies that Persephone will marry Apollo. This prophecy does not come true, however, as while weaving a dress, Persephone is abducted by Hades to be his bride. She becomes the mother of the Erinyes by Hades. In Nonnus's Dionysiaca, the gods of Olympus were bewitched by Persephone's beauty and desired her. Hermes, Apollo, Ares, and Hephaestus each presented Persephone with a gift to woo her. Demeter, worried that Persephone might end up marrying Hephaestus, consults the astrological god Astraeus. Astraeus warns her that Persephone will be ravished and impregnated by a serpent. Demeter then hides Persephone in a cave; but Zeus, in the form of a serpent, enters the cave and rapes Persephone. Persephone becomes pregnant and gives birth to Zagreus.

It was said that while Persephone was playing with the nymph Hercyna, Hercyna held a goose against her that she let loose. The goose flew to a hollow cave and hid under a stone; when Persephone took up the stone in order to retrieve the bird, water flowed from that spot, and hence the river received the name Hercyna. This was when she was abducted by Hades according to Boeotian legend; a vase shows water birds accompany the goddesses Demeter and Hecate who are in search of the missing Persephone.

Persephone opening a cista containing the infant Adonis, on a pinax from Locri

Adonis was an exceedingly beautiful mortal man with whom Persephone fell in love. After he was born, Aphrodite entrusted him to Persephone to raise. But when Persephone got a glimpse of the beautiful Adonis-finding him as attractive as Aphrodite did-she refused to give him back to her. The matter was brought before Zeus, and he decreed that Adonis would spend one third of the year with each goddess, and have the last third for himself. Adonis chose to spend his own portion of the year with Aphrodite. Alternatively Adonis had to spend one half of the year with each goddess, at the suggestion of the Muse Calliope. Of them Aelian wrote that Adonis' life was divided between two goddesses, one who loved him beneath the earth, and one above, while the satirical author Lucian of Samosata has Aphrodite complain to the moon goddess Selene that Eros made Persephone fall in love with her own beloved, and now she has to share Adonis with her. In another variation, Persephone met Adonis only after he had been slain by a boar; Aphrodite descended into the Underworld to take him back, but Persephone, smitten with him, would not let him go until they came to an agreement that Adonis would alternate between the land of the living and the land of the dead each year.

A mosaic of the Kasta Tomb in Amphipolis depicting the abduction of Persephone by Pluto, 4th century BC

After a plague hit Aonia, its people asked the Oracle of Delphi, and they were told they needed to appease the anger of the king and queen of the underworld by means of sacrifice. Two maidens, Menippe and Metioche (who were the daughters of Orion), were chosen and they agreed to be offered to the two gods in order to save their country. As the two of them were led to the altar to be sacrificed, Persephone and Hades took pity on them and turned them into comets instead.

Minthe was a Naiad nymph of the river Cocytus who became mistress to Persephone's husband Hades. Persephone was not slow to notice, and in jealousy she trampled the nymph, killing her and turning her into a mint plant. Alternatively, Persephone tore Minthe to pieces for sleeping with Hades, and it was he who turned his former lover into the sweet-smelling plant. In another version, Minthe had been Hades's lover before he met Persephone. When Minthe claims Hades will return to her due to her beauty, Persephone's mother Demeter kills Minthe over the insult done to her daughter.

Theophile was a girl who claimed that Hades loved her and that she was better than Persephone.

The hero Orpheus once descended into the underworld seeking to take back to the land of the living his late wife Eurydice, who died when a snake bit her. So lovely was the music he played that it charmed Persephone and even stern Hades. So entranced was Persephone by Orpheus' sweet melody that she persuaded her husband to let the unfortunate hero take his wife back.

When Dionysus, the god of wine, descended into the Underworld accompanied by Demeter to retrieve his dead mother Semele and bring her back to the land of the living, he is said to have offered a myrtle plant to Persephone in exchange for Semele. On a neck amphora from Athens Dionysus is depicted riding on a chariot with his mother, next to a myrtle-holding Persephone who stands with her own mother Demeter; many vases from Athens depict Dionysus in the company of Persephone and Demeter.

Persephone also convinced Hades to allow the hero Protesilaus to return to the world of the living for a limited period of time to see his wife.

Socrates in Plato's previously mentions that Hades consorts with Persephone due to her wisdom.

Persephone was worshipped along with her mother Demeter and in the same mysteries. Her cults included agrarian magic, dancing, and rituals. The priests used special vessels and holy symbols, and the people participated with rhymes. In Eleusis there is evidence of sacred laws and other inscriptions.

The Cult of Demeter and the Maiden is found at Attica, in the main festivals Thesmophoria and Eleusinian mysteries and in a number of local cults. These festivals were almost always celebrated at the autumn sowing, and at full-moon according to the Greek tradition. In some local cults the feasts were dedicated to Demeter.

The myth of a goddess being abducted and taken to the underworld is probably Pre-Greek in origin. Samuel Noah Kramer, the renowned scholar of ancient Sumer, has posited that the Greek story of the abduction of Persephone may be derived from an ancient Sumerian story in which Ereshkigal, the ancient Sumerian goddess of the underworld, is abducted by Kur, the primeval dragon of Sumerian mythology, and forced to become ruler of the underworld against her own will.

The location of Persephone's abduction is different in each local cult. The Homeric Hymn to Demeter mentions the "plain of Nysa". The locations of this probably mythical place may simply be conventions to show that a magically distant chthonic land of myth was intended in the remote past. Demeter found and met her daughter in Eleusis, and this is the mythical disguise of what happened in the mysteries.

In his 1985 book on Greek Religion, Walter Burkert claimed that Persephone is an old chthonic deity of the agricultural communities, who received the souls of the dead into the earth, and acquired powers over the fertility of the soil, over which she reigned. The earliest depiction of a goddess Burkert claims may be identified with Persephone growing out of the ground, is on a plate from the Old-Palace period in Phaistos. According to Burkert, the figure looks like a vegetable because she has snake lines on other side of her. On either side of the vegetable person there is a dancing girl. A similar representation, where the goddess appears to come down from the sky, is depicted on the Minoan ring of Isopata.

Rape of Persephone. Hades with his horses and Persephone (down). An Apulian red-figure volute krater, c. 340 BC. Antikensammlung Berlin

The cults of Persephone and Demeter in the Eleusinian mysteries and in the Thesmophoria were based on old agrarian cults. The beliefs of these cults were closely-guarded secrets, kept hidden because they were believed to offer believers a better place in the afterlife than in miserable Hades. There is evidence that some practices were derived from the religious practices of the Mycenaean age. Kerenyi asserts that these religious practices were introduced from Minoan Crete. The idea of immortality which appears in the syncretistic religions of the Near East did not exist in the Eleusinian mysteries at the very beginning.

Walter Burkert believed that elements of the Persephone myth had origins in the Minoan religion. This belief system had unique characteristics, particularly the appearance of the goddess from above in the dance. Dance floors have been discovered in addition to "vaulted tombs", and it seems that the dance was ecstatic. Homer memorializes the dance floor which Daedalus built for Ariadne in the remote past. A gold ring from a tomb in Isopata depicts four women dancing among flowers, the goddess floating above them. An image plate from the first palace of Phaistos seems to depict the ascent of Persephone: a figure grows from the ground, with a dancing girl on each side and stylized flowers all around. The depiction of the goddess is similar to later images of "Anodos of Pherephata". On the Dresden vase, Persephone is growing out of the ground, and she is surrounded by the animal-tailed agricultural gods Silenoi.

Despoina and "Hagne" were probably euphemistic surnames of Persephone, therefore Karl Kerenyi theorizes that the cult of Persephone was the continuation of the worship of a Minoan Great goddess. It is possible that some religious practices, especially the mysteries, were transferred from a Cretan priesthood to Eleusis, where Demeter brought the poppy from Crete. Besides these similarities, Burkert explains that up to now it is not known to what extent one can and must differentiate between Minoan and Mycenean religion. In the Anthesteria Dionysos is the "divine child".

Triptolemus and Kore, tondo of an Attic red-figure bowl by the Aberdeen Painter, c.470~460 BCE. (Louvre, Paris)

There is evidence of a cult in Eleusis from the Mycenean period; however, there are not sacral finds from this period. The cult was private and there is no information about it. As well as the names of some Greek gods in the Mycenean Greek inscriptions, names of goddesses who do not have Mycenean origin appear, such as "the divine Mother" (the mother of the gods) or "the Goddess (or priestess) of the winds". In historical times, Demeter and Kore were usually referred to as "the goddesses" or "the mistresses" (Arcadia) in the mysteries . In the Mycenean Greek tablets dated 1400-1200 BC, the "two queens and the king" are mentioned. John Chadwick believes that these were the precursor divinities of Demeter, Persephone and Poseidon.

Some information can be obtained from the study of the cult of Eileithyia at Crete, and the cult of Despoina. In the cave of Amnisos at Crete, Eileithyia is related with the annual birth of the divine child and she is connected with Enesidaon (The earth shaker), who is the chthonic aspect of the god Poseidon. Persephone was conflated with Despoina, "the mistress", a chthonic divinity in West-Arcadia. The megaron of Eleusis is quite similar to the "megaron" of Despoina at Lycosura. Demeter is united with her, the god Poseidon, and she bears him a daughter, the unnameable Despoina. Poseidon appears as a horse, as usually happens in Northern European folklore. The goddess of nature and her companion survived in the Eleusinian cult, where the words "Mighty Potnia bore a great sun" were uttered. In Eleusis, in a ritual, one child ("pais") was initiated from the hearth. The name pais (the divine child) appears in the Mycenean inscriptions.

In Greek mythology Nysa is a mythical mountain with an unknown location. Nysion (or Mysion), the place of the abduction of Persephone was also probably a mythical place which did not exist on the map, a magically distant chthonic land of myth which was intended in the remote past.

The Eleusinian trio: Persephone, Triptolemus and Demeter (Roman copy of the Great Eleusinian relief hosted by the Metropolitan Museum of Art)

Persephone and Demeter were intimately connected with the Thesmophoria, a widely-spread Greek festival of secret women-only rituals. These rituals, which were held in the month Pyanepsion, commemorated marriage and fertility, as well as the abduction and return of Persephone.

They were also involved in the Eleusinian mysteries, a festival celebrated at the autumn sowing in the city of Eleusis. Inscriptions refer to "the Goddesses" accompanied by the agricultural god Triptolemos (probably son of Gaia and Oceanus), and "the God and the Goddess" (Persephone and Plouton) accompanied by Eubuleus who probably led the way back from the underworld.

The Romans first heard of her from the Aeolian and Dorian cities of Magna Graecia, who used the dialectal variant Proserpinē (). Hence, in Roman mythology she was called Proserpina, a name erroneously derived by the Romans from proserpere, "to shoot forth" and as such became an emblematic figure of the Renaissance. In 205 BC, Rome officially identified Proserpina with the local Italic goddess Libera, who, along with Liber, were closely associated with the Roman grain goddess Ceres (considered equivalent to the Greek Demeter). The Roman author Gaius Julius Hyginus also considered Proserpina equivalent to the Cretan goddess Ariadne, who was the bride of Liber's Greek equivalent, Dionysus.

Pinax of Persephone and Hades from Locri. Reggio Calabria, National Museum of Magna Graecia.

At Locri, a city of Magna Graecia situated on the coast of the Ionian Sea in Calabria (a region of southern Italy), perhaps uniquely, Persephone was worshiped as protector of marriage and childbirth, a role usually assumed by Hera (in fact, Hera seems to have played no role in the public worship of the city); in the iconography of votive plaques at Locri, her abduction and marriage to Hades served as an emblem of the marital state, children at Locri were dedicated to Proserpina, and maidens about to be wed brought their to be blessed. Diodorus Siculus knew the temple there as the most illustrious in Italy. During the 5th century BC, votive pinakes in terracotta were often dedicated as offerings to the goddess, made in series and painted with bright colors, animated by scenes connected to the myth of Persephone. Many of these pinakes are now on display in the National Museum of Magna Græcia in Reggio Calabria. Locrian pinakes represent one of the most significant categories of objects from Magna Graecia, both as documents of religious practice and as works of art.

For most Greeks, the marriage of Persephone was a marriage with death, and could not serve as a role for human marriage; the Locrians, not fearing death, painted her destiny in a uniquely positive light. While the return of Persephone to the world above was crucial in Panhellenic tradition, in southern Italy Persephone apparently accepted her new role as queen of the underworld, of which she held extreme power, and perhaps did not return above; Virgil for example in writes that "Proserpina cares not to follow her mother", - though note that references to Proserpina serve as a warning, since the soil is only fertile when she is above it. Although her importance stems from her marriage to Hades, in Locri she seems to have the supreme power over the land of the dead, and Hades is not mentioned in the Pelinna tablets found in the area. Many pinakes found in the cult are near Epizephyrian Locri depict the abduction of Persephone by Hades, and others show her enthroned next to her beardless, youthful husband, indicating that in Locri Persephone's abduction was taken as a model of transition from girlhood to marriage for young women; a terrifying change, but one that provides the bride with status and position in society. Those representations thus show both the terror of marriage and the triumph of the girl who transitions from bride to matron.

It was suggested that Persephone's cult at Locri was entirely independent from that of Demeter, who supposedly was not venerated there, but a sanctuary of Demeter Thesmophoros has been found in a different region of Locri, ruling against the notion that she was completely excluded.

The temple at Locri was looted by Pyrrhus. The importance of the regionally powerful Locrian Persephone influenced the representation of the goddess in Magna Graecia. Pinakes, terracotta tablets with brightly painted sculptural scenes in relief were founded in Locri. The scenes are related to the myth and cult of Persephone and other deities. They were produced in Locri during the first half of the 5th century BC and offered as votive dedications at the Locrian sanctuary of Persephone. More than 5,000, mostly fragmentary, pinakes are stored in the National Museum of Magna Græcia in Reggio Calabria and in the museum of Locri. Representations of myth and cult on the clay tablets (pinakes) dedicated to this goddess reveal not only a 'Chthonian Queen,' but also a deity concerned with the spheres of marriage and childbirth.

The Italian archaeologist Paolo Orsi, between 1908 and 1911, carried out a meticulous series of excavations and explorations in the area which allowed him to identify the site of the renowned Persephoneion, an ancient temple dedicated to Persephone in Calabria which Diodorus in his own time knew as the most illustrious in Italy.

The place where the ruins of the Sanctuary of Persephone were brought to light is located at the foot of the Mannella hill, near the walls (upstream side) of the polis of Epizephyrian Locri. Thanks to the finds that have been retrieved and to the studies carried on, it has been possible to date its use to a period between the 7th century BC and the 3rd century BC.

Archaeological finds suggest that worship of Demeter and Persephone was widespread in Sicily and Greek Italy.

Evidence from both the Orphic Hymns and the Orphic Gold Leaves demonstrate that Persephone was one of the most important deities worshiped in Orphism. In the Orphic religion, gold leaves with verses intended to help the deceased enter into an optimal afterlife were often buried with the dead. Persephone is mentioned frequently in these tablets, along with Demeter and Euklês, which may be another name for Plouton. The ideal afterlife destination believers strive for is described on some leaves as the "sacred meadows and groves of Persephone". Other gold leaves describe Persephone's role in receiving and sheltering the dead, in such lines as "I dived under the kolpos [portion of a Peplos folded over the belt] of the Lady, the Chthonian Queen", an image evocative of a child hiding under its mother's apron.

In Orphism, Persephone is believed to be the mother of the first Dionysus. In Orphic myth, Zeus came to Persephone in her bedchamber in the underworld and impregnated her with the child who would become his successor. The infant Dionysus was later dismembered by the Titans, before being reborn as the second Dionysus, who wandered the earth spreading his mystery cult before ascending to the heavens with his second mother, Semele. The first, "Orphic" Dionysus is sometimes referred to with the alternate name Zagreus ( Greek: ). The earliest mentions of this name in literature describe him as a partner of Gaia and call him the highest god. The Greek poet Aeschylus considered Zagreus either an alternate name for Hades, or his son (presumably born to Persephone). Scholar Timothy Gantz noted that Hades was often considered an alternate, cthonic form of Zeus, and suggested that it is likely Zagreus was originally the son of Hades and Persephone, who was later merged with the Orphic Dionysus, the son of Zeus and Persephone, owing to the identification of the two fathers as the same being. However, no known Orphic sources use the name "Zagreus" to refer to Dionysus. It is possible that the association between the two was known by the 3rd century BC, when the poet Callimachus may have written about it in a now-lost source. In Orphic myth, the Eumenides are attributed as daughters of Persephone and Zeus. Whereas Melinoë was conceived as the result of rape when Zeus disguised himself as Hades in order to mate with Persephone, the Eumenides' origin is unclear.

Italy. Renaissance relief, Rape of Persephone. Brooklyn Museum Archives, Goodyear Archival Collection

There were local cults of Demeter and Kore in Greece, Asia Minor, Sicily, Magna Graecia, and Libya.

Attica[143]

Athens, in the mysteries of Agrae. This was a local cult near the river Ilissos. They were celebrated during spring in the month Anthesterion. Later they became an obligation for the participants of the "greater" Eleusinian mysteries. There was a temple of Demeter and Kore and an image of Triptolemos.[144]

Demeter drives her horse-drawn chariot containing her daughter Persephone at Selinunte, Sicily 6th century BC

Piraeus: The Skirophoria, a festival related to the Thesmophoria.

Megara: Cult of Demeter thesmophoros and Kore. The city was named after its megara .[145]

Aegina: Cult of Demeter thesmophoros and Kore.

Phlya: near Koropi. The local mystery religion may have been originally dedicated to Demeter, Kore, and Zeus Ktesios; Pausanias mentions a temple to all three there. It seems that the mysteries were related to the mysteries of Andania in Messene.[146]

Boeotia

Thebes: purportedly granted to her by Zeus in return for a favor.[147] As well, the cults of Demeter and Kore in a feast named Thesmophoria but probably different. It was celebrated in the summer month Bukatios.[37][148]

A feast in Boeotia, in the month Demetrios (Pyanepsion), probably similar with the Thesmophoria.

Peloponnese (except Arcadia)[37]

Hermione: An old cult of Demeter Chthonia, Kore, and Klymenos (Hades). Cows were pushed into the temple, and then they were killed by four women. It is possible that Hermione was a mythical name, the place of the souls.[34]

Lakonia: Temple of Demeter Eleusinia near Taygetos. The feast was named Eleuhinia, and the name was given before the relation of Demeter with the cult of Eleusis.

Lakonia at Aigila: Dedicated to Demeter. Men were excluded.

near Sparta: Cult of Demeter and Kore, the Demeters (Δαμάτερες , "Damaters"). According to Hesychius, the feast lasted three days (Thesmophoria).

Triphylia in Elis: Cult of Demeter, Kore, and Hades.[34]

Arcadia[38]

Pheneos : Mysteries of Demeter Thesmia and Demeter Eleusinia. The Eleusinian cult was introduced later.

Pallantion near Tripoli: Cult of Demeter and Kore.

Tegea: Cult of Demeter and Kore, the Karpophoroi, "Fruit givers".

Megalopolis: Cult of the Great goddesses, Demeter and Kore Sotira, "the savior".

Mantineia: Cult of Demeter and Kore in the fest Koragia.[149]

Trapezus: Mysteries of the Great goddesses, Demeter and Kore. The temple was built near a spring, and a fire was burning out of the earth.

Islands

Delos: Cult of Demeter, Kore, and Zeus-Eubuleus. Probably a different feast with the name Thesmophoria, celebrated in a summer month (the same month in Thebes). Two big loaves of bread were offered to the two goddesses. Another feast was named Megalartia.[37][148]

Mykonos: Cult of Demeter, Kore, and Zeus-Buleus.

Crete : Cult of Demeter and Kore, in the month Thesmophorios.

Rhodes: Cult of Demeter and Kore, in the month Thesmophorios. The two goddesses are the Damaters in an inscription from Lindos

Egypt

Alexandria: According to Epiphanius, a temple of Kore existed in Alexandria. He describes a celebration of the birth of Aion from Kore the Virgin which took place there on 6 January.[150] Aion may be a form of Dionysus, reborn annually;[151] an inscription from Eleusis also identifies Aion as a son of Kore.[152]

Asia Minor

Sicily

A fest Koris katagogi, the descent of Persephone into the underworld.[37]

Libya

Persephone also appears many times in popular culture. Featured in a variety of novels such as Persephone by Kaitlin Bevis, A Touch of Darkness by Scarlett St. Clair, Persephone's Orchard by Molly Ringle, The Goddess Test by Aimee Carter, The Goddess Letters by Carol Orlock, Abandon by Meg Cabot, 'Neon Gods' by Katee Robert and Lore Olympus by Rachel Smythe, her story has also been treated by Suzanne Banay Santo in Persephone Under the Earth in the light of women's spirituality; portraying Persephone not as a victim but as a woman in quest of sexual depth and power, transcending the role of daughter, though ultimately returning to it as an awakened Queen.

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Zuntz, G. (1973) Persephone: Three essays on religion and thought in Magna Graecia.

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The myth of her abduction, her sojourn in the underworld, and her temporary return to the surface represents her functions as the embodiment of spring and the personification of vegetation, especially grain crops, which disappear into the earth when sown, sprout from the earth in spring, and are harvested when fully grown.

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Medusa is highly popularized because of her ability to turn people into stone. Not only is she in the brand Versace but she is also in video games and movies. Dota 2 for example, she plays as a "hero" where she immobilizes other characters by giving her "stone gaze"

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Like Persephone, Isis is the Egyptian goddess of death and rebirth. She is one of the most well known goddesses in Egyptian mythology. She was the first daughter of Geb and Nut

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Great mother Isis, the goddess of healing and magic, was crucial to ancient Egyptian religious beliefs. She is known today by her Greek name Isis; however, the ancient Egyptians called her Aset. Her name translates to "Queen of the Throne" which is reflected in her headdress, which is typically a throne. Sometimes she is also depicted with the vulture headdress of the goddess Mut, and other times with a disk with horns on the sides, attributed to the goddess Hathor. She took on their headdresses as she assimilated their traits. Isis can also be seen as a winged goddess who brought fresh air to the underworld when she went to meet her husband.

Isis was the sister and wife of the god Osiris, ruler of the underworld. It is said that she and Osiris were in love with each other even in the womb. Isis was also the mother of Horus, the protector of the pharaoh. The most famous story of Isis begins when Seth, the jealous brother of Osiris, dismembered him and scattered the parts of his body throughout Egypt. The ancient sacred stories say that the other deities were so impressed with Isis's dedication to finding her beloved husband, that they helped her revive him.

Isis was very important to the ancient Egyptians because she had so many different powers. She was both the protector of women and the bringer of magic. Isis began as a secondary figure to her husband Osiris, however after thousands of years of worship, she was transformed into the Queen of the Universe and the embodiment of Cosmic order. By the Roman period, she was believed to control the power of fate itself.

Image: RC 1652 Isis Figure at the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum.

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Great mother Isis, the goddess of healing and magic, was crucial to ancient Egyptian religious beliefs. She is known today by her Greek name Isis; however, the ancient Egyptians called her Aset. Her name translates to "Queen of the Throne" which is reflected in her headdress, which is typically a throne.

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Death note had an incredible story and is most well known for the Shinigami (death god). Misa Amane had received a death note from rem, making the two a pair of death goddesses.

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Hecate is the virgin goddess of witchcraft, the moon, ghosts and many more attributes. Although Hecate has the personality of a crone, she is a virgin goddess because she is unmarried and has no consort.

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Virgin Mary, from Christian and Hebrew texts is a prominent figure and is seen throughout art. Virgin Mary is the mother to Jesus but is seen as a maiden goddess since Jesus was conceived through the holy spirit.