Goddess

Isis - The Queen of Heaven [Excerpts]
 
“The Goddess has now emerged from the dark moon phase of a long-term lunar cycle at a time when humanity is collectively passing through a dark phase in the precessional age solar cycle. With the rebirth of the Goddess, we are being given the opportunity to reclaim her dark aspect."
 
- Demetra George, Mysteries of the Dark Moon: The Healing Power of the Dark Goddess, p. 266.
 
[Berit Kjos commented recently] "You probably wouldn't expect to find goddesses in a conservative farming community in North Dakota. I didn't. But one day when visiting my husband's rural hometown, a neighbor told us that a new bookstore had just opened in the parsonage of the old Lutheran Church. 'You should go see it,' she urged.
 
I agreed, so I drove to a stately white church, walked to the parsonage next door, and rang the bell. The pastor's wife opened the door and led me into a large room she had changed into a bookstore, leaving me to browse. Scanning the shelves along the walls, I noticed familiar authors such as Lynn Andrews who freely blends witchcraft with Native American rituals, New Age self-empowerment, and other occult traditions to form her own spirituality.
 
Among the multicultural books in the children's section, one caught my attention. Called 'Many Faces of the Great Goddess,' it was a 'coloring book for all ages.' Page after page sported voluptuous drawings of famed goddesses. Nude, bare-breasted, pregnant, or draped in serpents, they would surely open the minds of young artists to the lure of "sacred" sex and ancient myths.
 
Driving home, I pondered today's fast-spreading shift from Christianity to paganism. Apparently, myths and spiritualized sensuality sound good to those who seek new revelations and "higher" truths. Many of the modern myths picture deities that fit somewhere between a feminine version of God and the timeless goddesses pictured in earth-centered stories and cultures." (Kjos, A Twist of Faith, pp. 10-11)
 
Commenting on this universal goddess aspect, Professor Cesar Vidal writes,
 
“The importance of mother goddesses in the various mythologies of paganism is so evident that even a shallow description could easily fill entire volumes . . . The mother goddess received different names and external appearances, but, in substance, she was always the same. In Egypt, she was called Isis. In Crete, she was represented as a mother who made friendly contact with snakes. In Greece she was known as Demeter, and in Rome she was worshiped as Cybele, the Magna Mater (Great Mother), a mother goddess of Phrygian origin. There is practically no ancient culture that did not worship this type of deity.” ('The Myth of Mary,' pp.74, 75)
 
Our modern culture likewise has a propensity to following the “Queen of Heaven.” The New Age Movement has been a real force in this, bringing the Gaia concept to the forefront-the idea that the Earth is a living organism, a “hypothesis” intrinsically linked to the goddess movement and “Mother Earth.”
 
Christianity isn't immune to the allure of the goddess. In 1993, at the Re-Imaging Conference in Minneapolis, Minnesota, 2000 women from a variety of protestant denominations were introduced to Sophia, the goddess personification of “Divine Wisdom.” Furthermore, this particular event, which included creating a “sacred space” and Sophia invocations, received funding from a number of major protestant/evangelical church bodies [for more on this event, see A Twist of Faith].
 
“Mother Earth,” too, can be found in our modern church culture --especially through Earth Day celebrations within the Christian community (See Goddess Earth by Samantha Smith and Dave Hunt's Occult Invasion: The Subtle Seduction of the World and Church).
 
But goddess influence within churches goes beyond Mother Earth and Sophia. The biblical figure of Mary has been erroneously elevated to a goddess status by Roman Catholic theologians. She is known as the Queen of Heaven, Mother of God, Eternal Virgin, Queen of Peace, Our Mother, Lady of the Good Death, Co-mediatrix, and Blessed Mother. Thousands of shrines around the world commemorate her. Visions, apparitions, visitations, and channeled messages accompany the mystical experiences of her followers.
 
Detailing the broader New Age-goddess/feminist influence within church and society, Berit Kjos writes,
 
“. . . This new spiritual movement is transforming our churches as well as our culture. It touches every family that reads newspapers, watches television, and sends children to community schools. It is fast driving our society beyond Christianity, beyond humanism -even beyond relativism -- toward new global beliefs and values. No one is immune from its subtle pressures and silent promptings. That it parallels other social changes and global movements only speeds the transformation. Yet, most Christians -- like the proverbial frog-have barely noticed.
 
The point that Mrs. Kjos makes is essential to understanding our times: Christianity is facing a paradigm shift of global proportions, and the goddess thrust of the New Age Movement is an important facet of this spiritual and societal-wide change.
 
(http://www.crossroad.to/articles2/05/teichrib/goddess.htm).