NeoPagan Goddess Concepts
Or
The Goddess Is Not Yahweh in Drag!
Presented by Liz La Posta
Gaia: Greek Goddess of the Earth






Oldest divine being
Parthenogenesis: can
reproduce independently
Mother of all (Greek) Deities
In times of conflict She sides
with offspring
Can be literally the ground we
walk on
Python: a giant snake who
protects the Oracle of Delphi
Gaia
Josephine Wall
Demeter: Greek Grain Goddess
Granddaughter of Gaia
 Focus on Agriculture
 Mother of Persephone
Queen of the Underworld
 Inherits the snake
symbolism
 Persephone myth: how the
seasons came to be

Demeter
By “Katlyn”
By Mati Klarwein
Isis: Egyptian Mother Goddess of Magick




Encyclopedia Mythica
“Queen of the Throne”
Egyptian ideal of loyal wife
and mother
Used Her magick to resurrect
murdered husband Osiris (God
of Underworld) and bore His
child Horus
In “The Golden Ass” by
Lucius Apuleius, Isis is
considered THE Great
Goddess
Isis
JoAnna Cameron,
“The Secret of Isis”
CBS ’75-’76
Is the Divine One or Many?








Polytheism: many Gods exist and are worshiped
Monotheism: only one God/dess exists and is worshiped
Henotheism: many Gods exists, but one or few are worshiped
Soft Polytheism: one divine being with many different aspects
and names
Hard Polytheism: individual separate Gods, no single divine
source
Duotheism: one God and one Goddess, usually with Soft
Polytheism
Pantheism: God is equal to the forces and laws of the universe
Metaphor-theism: God/dess are convenient metaphors for
human qualities and issues, but are not literally real. (Pagan
Humanism)
The Major Trends






In my humble experience, within NeoPaganism soft
polytheism and duotheism are the most commonly
practiced NeoPagan deity concepts, especially within
Wicca.
The Universal Divine: “The Great Mystery”
The Personal Divine: Patron Deities
Facets of a Diamond: to comprehend the UD we break It
into bite sized parts. Because of our limited powers of
perception, we can not fathom the entire whole.
“The (Wiccan) God” and “The (Wiccan) Goddess”
The Great Goddess ?
NeoPagan Ideas vs Traditional Christian Ideas







Immanent: the manifest world is the
offspring of the divine, we are
inherently sacred (Thou Art
God/dess!)
Multiple in that there are usually
many different names and
expressions of the divine, even if
only one is believed in
Dogma is self determined, and
seldom the “Only Way”
Usually the divine is not all powerful,
or all knowing, but is a Higher Being
than us
Salvation is unnecessary
Karma punishes
Emphasis on the Feminine







Transcendent: the manifest
world is separate from the
divine, we are not inherently
sacred (original sin)
Single form with limited
names and expressions
Dogma: “One Right Way” TM
Divine is all powerful and all
knowing
Salvation from Hell
God punishes
Emphasis on the Masculine
Charge of the Goddess




One of the oldest and most widely used
and adapted pieces of Wiccan liturgy.
Attributed to Doreen Valiente (19221995), a Gardnerian Wiccan Priestess
who was taught by Gerald Gardner, the
“Father of Wicca”.
Adapted from Charles Leland’s
“Aradia, or The Gospel of the Witches”
(1899) and some ideas from “The Book
of the Law” by Aleister Crowley, a
Golden Dawn Occultist
The original version was published in
“Eight Sabbats for Witches” by Janet
and Stewart Farrar.
Questions ?
Waterhouse