The Goddess Re-Awakening: The Feminine Principle Today
In this trenchant anthology, Nicholson ( Ancient Wisdom--Modern Insight ) gathers the work of 23 theologians, historians and other scholars in pursuit of what Stone, a pioneer of modern studies of the mother-Goddess, calls "the universal feminine principle"--"the concept of a divine principle in the universe that is specifically associated with the female gender." These essays collectively imply that this feminine principle is far more profound than a simplistic antithesis of all that we think of as masculine. Addressing cultural representations of the mother-Goddess, female worship traditions and Goddess-centered rites, and the psychological, social and political implications of a feminine principle, the discussions are commendably free of jargon, combative rhetoric and scholarly infighting. In a particularly intriguing entry, psychologist June Singer suggests that by imagining their own deaths, hence letting go of a distorting sense of self-importance, women in a patriarchal society may reconcile the "masculine" definition of self through choice of career with the "feminine" emphasis on relations. Illustrations not seen by PW.Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.