Triple Goddess

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This article is about the neopagan view of divinity. For other triple goddesses see Triple deity


The Triple Goddess is one of the two primary deities found in the neopagan religion of Wicca. She comprises three separate goddesses united; a Maiden Goddess, a Mother Goddess and a Crone Goddess, each of which symbolises a separate stage in the female life and lunar cycles. She represents the feminine part of the religion's duotheistic theological system, the other part being the male Horned God, although in the tradition of Dianic Wicca only the female deity is worshipped.

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[edit] Neopaganism

According to historian Ronald Hutton, the concept of the Triple Goddess with Maiden, Mother and Crone aspects and lunar symbology was Robert Graves' contribution to modern pagan witchcraft.[1] Many witches and other neo-pagans believe in the "Triple Goddess" of maiden, mother, and crone that originated with the first neo-pagans in mid-twentieth-century England. In their view, sexuality, pregnancy, breastfeeding—and other female reproductive processes—are ways that women may embody the Goddess, making the physical body sacred.[2]

Wiccan "Triple Goddess" symbol of waxing, full and waning moon[citation needed]
  • 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, fulfillment, stability, power and life represented by the full moon.
  • The Crone represents wisdom, repose, death, and endings represented by the waning moon.

Many neo-Pagans and Wiccans believe that women can identify with the deity in ways unachievable by patriarchal religions by echoing the normative model of the female life-cycle which is represented by the Triple Goddess.[3] This model is also seen to encompass a personification of all the characteristics and potential of every woman who has ever existed.[4] Other beliefs held by worshippers, such as D. J. Conway include that reconnection with the Great Goddess is vital to the health of humankind "on all levels" and that the Goddess stood for unity, cooperation, and participation with all creation, while in contrast male gods represent dissociation, separation and dominion of nature. [5] These views have been criticised by some neopagans and scholars as re-affirming gender stereotypes and symbolically being unable to adequately face humanities current ethical and environmental situation. [6]

Most neopagans assert that the worship of the Triple Goddess dates to pre-Christian Europe and possibly goes as far back as the Paleolithic period. Consequently, many believe that their religion is a surviving remnant of ancient beliefs. They believe the Triple Goddess is an archetypal figure which appears though various different cultures at throughout human history, and that many individual goddesses can be interpreted as Triple Goddesses.[4] This multiplicity of identity has led to neopagans adopting the images and names of culturally divergent deities for ritual purposes.[7]

[edit] Drawing Down the Moon

One of the graver rituals of Wicca, "Drawing down the Moon", involves the high priestess either going into a reverie and speaking as the Goddess, or recites dramatic prose (different branches of Wicca have different rationales and methodologies). Slightly different rituals are performed at the different phases of the moon. The priestess is assumed to be functioning as a prophetess of the Goddess or her corporeal form. Mel D. Faber explains this in psychological terms of attempting to re-unite with the protective mother fantasy of the psyche.[8]

[edit] Origins

Robert Graves popularized the term Triple Goddess in his The White Goddess (1948). Graves wrote about an archetypal goddess triad which he referenced to several European mythologies, and his theories are popular with many neopagans due to the similar Victorian-synthesis approach to myth and history.[9]

The theme of the goddess trinity can also be found in the works of Jane Ellen Harrison,[10] who initially formulated and published the idea in (1912), which was to later inform the origins of Wicca and influence Graves.[11]

The White Goddess has been seen as a poetic work where Graves gives his notion of mans subjection to women in love an 'anthropological grandure' and further mythologises all women in general (and several of Graves lovers in specific) into a three-faced moon goddess model.[12] However, Graves' intention was that the work should be read as an authentic work of history that rather than a personal poetic vision.[13] Graves' value as a poet aside, elements of Graves' scholarship such as poor philology, use of inadequate texts (for example, the 'pseudo-Celtic' Canu Taliesin from the 19th century which he believed to represent an ancient document[14]), and use of out-dated archeology have been criticised.[9] Scholars, particularly archeologists, historians and folklorists generally do not receive the work favourably. [15] Graves was disappointed that his work was "loudly ignored" by the majority of Celtic scholars,[16], however it was accepted as history by many non-scholarly readers and, according to Hutton, The White Goddess remains a major source of confusion about the ancient Celts and influences many un-scholarly views of Celtic paganism.[17] While Graves made the association between Goddesses and the moon appear 'natural' , it was not so to the Celts or other ancient peoples.[18] Some neopagans have been bemused and upset by the thorough debunking that the 'Triple Goddess' has received in recent years from such scholars[19] whilst others have appreciated its poetic insight but never accepted it as a work of historical veracity.[20]

Graves continued to be inspired by his Triple Goddess concept, and it found its way into many of his subsequent works. In his novel Watch the North Wind Rise (1949) Graves extrapolated his theory further into a future world where the present Monotheistic religions are discarded and the Triple Goddess rules supreme (one of the Goddess' manifestations is called "Mari", asserting that the Mary of Christianity is a disguised form of the same Goddess) (see [3]). 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 Goddess mysteries.[21] Some classicists and scholars in comparative mythology have called the work a compendium of misinterpretations.[22]

[edit] Appropriation of historical theory

The relationship between neo-paganism and scholarship is contentious. While contemporary scholars have rejected the theories of anthropologists and historians such as Margret Murray, James Frazer and Robert Graves, they still have an influence on much contemporary pagan thought.[23]

Marija Gimbutas, dubbed "Grandmother of the Goddess Movement" in the 1990s,[24] theories on the Chalcolithic, a period she defined as 'Old Europe' (6500-3500 B.C.E.) [25] have been widely adopted by New Age and eco-feminist groups.[26] Gimbutas postulated that in ancient Europe, the Aegean and the Near East, a great Triple Goddess was worshipped, predating the patriarchal religions imported by nomadic speakers of Indo-European languages (later superseded by a patriarchal monotheism). Gimbutas interpreted iconography from neolithic and earlier periods of Europen 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" [27]

Gimbutas' work has been criticised as mistaken on the grounds of dating, archeological context and typologies[26] with most archeologists considering her goddess hypothesis implausible [28] and her work has been called pseudo-scholarship.[29] This has been echoed by feminist authors such as Cynthia Eller[30] and religion writers such as Philip G. Davis. Linguist M. L. West has called Gimbutas' goddess-based 'Old European' religion being overtaken by a patriachal Indo-European one "essentially sound".[31] Her histories have been seen as a poetic projection of her personal life onto history hidden behind a facade of positivistic 'explanation', with her goddess-orientated society being based on her childhood and adolescence.[32]

[edit] Goddess Feminism and social critique

The figure of the Triple Goddess is used by goddess feminists to critique societies roles and treatment of women. Literary Critic Jeanne Roberts sees a rejection of the "Crone" figure by Christians in the middle ages as a persecuting witches in the middle-ages. [33]. Similarly fantasy and science-fiction author Ursula Le Guin comments that the lack of societies acceptance of change for women (exemplified by the youth and beauty myth) has led to an erasure of the Triple Goddess, into a single, Marilyn Monroe faced goddess.[34]

[edit] Jungian psychology

The Triple Goddess mytheme was also explored by psychologists involved in the study of archetypes Carl Kerenyi,[35] Erich Neumann, and Carl Jung.[35]

[edit] Fiction, film and literary criticism

  • The concept of the triple goddess has been applied to a feminist reading of Shakespeare[36].[37]
  • 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' Triple Goddess but stamped with DeQuinceys own melancholy sensibility.[38]

Modern fantasy fiction plays a large part in the conceptual landscape of the neo-pagan world.[39] 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. [40] In Alan Garner's The Owl Service, based on the fourth branch of the Mabinogi and influenced by Robert Graves, clearly delineates the character of the Triple Goddess. Garner goes further, in his other novels in making every female character intentionally represent an aspect of the Triple Goddess.[16] 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.

The figure of the Triple Goddess has also been used in film criticism. Norman Holland has used Jungian criticism to explore the female characters in Alfred Hitchcock's film Vertigo using Graves' Triple Goddess motif as a reference. [41] The main characters in James Cameron's movie Aliens have been seen to reflect aspects of the triple goddess: The Alien Queen (Crone), Ripley (Mother) and Newt (Maiden) by Rob Kaveney. [42]

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Ronald Hutton The Triumph of the Moon p.194
  2. ^ Pike, Sarah M. "Gender in New Religions" in Bromley, David G. (ed) Teaching New Religious Movements, OUP USA (14 Jun 2007) ISBN 978-0195177299 p. 214.
  3. ^ Helen A. Berger, Witchcraft and Magic p.62
  4. ^ a b Paul Reid-Bowen, Goddess as nature. p67 Ashgate.
  5. ^ Conway, D. J. "Maiden, Mother, Crone: The Myth and Reality of the Triple Goddess". Llewellyn Worldwide, 2003.
  6. ^ Frances Devlin-Glass, Lyn McCredden Feminist poetics of the sacred. p.39-42 Oxford University Press 2001
  7. ^ Kathryn Rountree Embracing the Witch and the Goddess p.47
  8. ^ Mel D. Faber, Modern Witchcraft and Psychoanalysis p. 96
  9. ^ a b Wood, Juliette (1999). "1, The concept of the Goddess". in Sandra Billington, Miranda Green. The Concept of the Goddess. Routledge. p. 12. ISBN 0415197899, 9780415197892. http://books.google.com/books?id=IoW9yhkrFJoC&printsec=frontcover&dq=%22Concept+of+the+goddess%22#PPA11,M1. Retrieved on 2008-12-23. 
  10. ^ Jane Ellen Harrison, Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion, London, Cambridge University Press, 1903, revised 1922.; Themis: A Study of the Social Origins of Greek Religion, London, Cambridge University Press, 1912; Ancient Art and Ritual , London, Cambridge University Press, 1913.
  11. ^ Joanne Pearson, A Popular Dictionary of Paganism p.147
  12. ^ Jefferson Hunter, The Servant of Three Mistresses, Robert Graves: His Life and Work by Martin Seymour-Smith, The Hudson Review, Vol. 36, No. 4 (Winter, 1983-1984), pp. 733-736
  13. ^ Hutton, Ronald (2001). "2". The Triumph of the Moon:A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft. Oxford University Press. pp. 41-42. ISBN 0192854496, 9780192854490. http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&id=gK43x-BFDuEC&dq=%22triumph+of+the+moon%22+hutton&printsec=frontcover&source=web&ots=9pEFXwRAtM&sig=bxnEBc4HxaumLxNutbBCYOW_26A&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=4&ct=result#PPA41,M1. Retrieved on 2008-12-23. 
  14. ^ Hutton,'The Pagan Religions of the Ancient British Isles' p.320
  15. ^ The Paganism Reader p.128
  16. ^ a b White, Donna R. A Century of Welsh Myth in Childrens Literature p.75
  17. ^ Hutton,'The Pagan Religions of the Ancient British Isles' p.145
  18. ^ Hutton, The Pagan Religions of the Ancient British isles P.145
  19. ^ The Pomegranate 7.1, Equinox press, Jacob Rabinowitz, The Rotting Goddess: The Origin of the Witch in Classical Antiquity’s Demonization of Fertility Religion Review.
  20. ^ James R. Lewis, Magical religion and modern witchcraft, p.172
  21. ^ Von Hendy, AndrewThe Modern Construction of Myth p. 354
  22. ^ Michel W. Pharland Greek Myths, White Goddess, Graves Cleans up an Awful Mess in Graves and the Goddess ed. Ian Firla p.183
  23. ^ Clifton, Chas, Drugs, Books and Witches in Researching Paganism p. 93
  24. ^ Bryn Mawr Classical Review 1999.10.05 [1]
  25. ^ Marija Gimbutas, The Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe. London: Thames and Hudson, 1974; The Living Goddesses. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999.
  26. ^ a b Roberta Gilchrist Gender and Archaeology: Contesting the Past p.25
  27. ^ Civilization of the Goddess, Marija Gimbutas, HarperCollins Publishers p223
  28. ^ Nelson, Sarah Milledge Handbook of gender in archaeology p 756.
  29. ^ William G. DeverDid God have a Wife p.307
  30. ^ Eller, Cynthia P., The Myth of Matriarchal Prehistory
  31. ^ West, M. L. (2007) Indo-European Poetry and Myth. Oxford University Press. p. 140.
  32. ^ Chapman, John. A biographical sketch of Marija Gimbutas inExcavating Women p.299-301
  33. ^ Jeanne Addison Roberts, The Shakespearean Wild: Geography, Genus, and Gender (University of Nebraska Press, 1994), passim,
  34. ^ Ursula Kroeber Le Guin (1990), "The Space Crone", in Ruth Formanek (ed.), The Meanings of Menopause: Historical, Medical, and Clinical Perspectives, (Routledge).
  35. ^ a b C. G. Jung and C. Kerényi, Essays on a Science of Mythology. Bolligen/Princeton University Press, 1967.
  36. ^ Jeanne Addison Roberts, "Shades of the Triple Hecate", Proceedings of the PMR Conference 12–13 (1987–88) 47–66, abstracted in John Lewis Walker, Shakespeare and the Classical Tradition p. 248 online; revisited by the author in The Shakespearean Wild: Geography, Genus, and Gender (University of Nebraska Press, 1994), passim, but especially pp. 142–143, 169ff.
  37. ^ [2]
  38. ^ Joseph Andriano Our Ladies of Darkness: Feminine Daemonology in Male Gothic Fiction p. 96
  39. ^ Wood, Julliette, The Concept of the Goddess, p.22.
  40. ^ Gaiman, Neil et al. The Sandman Papers: An Exploration of the Sandman Mythology p 151.
  41. ^ Norman Norwood Holland Meeting Movies p. 43
  42. ^ Roz Kaveney, From Alien to The Matrix p. 151
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