Triple Goddess
Encyclopedia
- This article discusses the "Maiden, Mother, Crone" goddess triad of certain forms of Neopaganism. See triple goddesses for other uses.
The Triple Goddess is the subject of much of the writing of Robert Graves
Robert Graves
Robert von Ranke Graves 24 July 1895 – 7 December 1985 was an English poet, translator and novelist. During his long life he produced more than 140 works...
, and has been adopted by some neopagans as one of their primary deities. The term triple goddess is sometimes used outside of Neopaganism to refer to historical goddess triads and single goddesses of three forms or aspects. In common Neopagan usage the three female figures are frequently described as the Maiden
Virginity
Virginity refers to the state of a person who has never engaged in sexual intercourse. There are cultural and religious traditions which place special value and significance on this state, especially in the case of unmarried females, associated with notions of personal purity, honor and worth...
, the Mother
Mother goddess
Mother goddess is a term used to refer to a goddess who represents motherhood, fertility, creation or embodies the bounty of the Earth. When equated with the Earth or the natural world such goddesses are sometimes referred to as Mother Earth or as the Earth Mother.Many different goddesses have...
, and the Crone
Crone
The crone is a stock character in folklore and fairy tale, an old woman who is usually disagreeable, malicious, or sinister in manner, often with magical or supernatural associations that can make her either helpful or obstructing. She is marginalized by her exclusion from the reproductive cycle,...
, each of which symbolises both a separate stage in the female life cycle and a phase
Lunar phase
A lunar phase or phase of the moon is the appearance of the illuminated portion of the Moon as seen by an observer, usually on Earth. The lunar phases change cyclically as the Moon orbits the Earth, according to the changing relative positions of the Earth, Moon, and Sun...
of the moon, and often rules one of the realms of earth, underworld, and the heavens. These may or may not be perceived as aspects of a greater single divinity. The feminine part of Wicca
Wicca
Wicca , is a modern Pagan religious movement. Developing in England in the first half of the 20th century, Wicca was popularised in the 1950s and early 1960s by a Wiccan High Priest named Gerald Gardner, who at the time called it the "witch cult" and "witchcraft," and its adherents "the Wica."...
's duotheistic theological system is sometimes portrayed as a Triple Goddess, her masculine counterpart being the Horned God
Horned God
The Horned God is one of the two primary deities found in some European pagan religions. He is often given various names and epithets, and represents the male part of the religion's duotheistic theological system, the other part being the female Triple Goddess. In common Wiccan belief, he is...
. Many other neopagan belief systems follow Graves in his use of the figure of the Triple Goddess, and it continues to be an influence on feminism
Feminism
Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women. Its concepts overlap with those of women's rights...
, literature
Literature
Literature is the art of written works, and is not bound to published sources...
, Jungian psychology and literary criticism
Literary criticism
Literary criticism is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often informed by literary theory, which is the philosophical discussion of its methods and goals...
.
Origins
Ronald HuttonRonald Hutton
Ronald Hutton is an English historian who specializes in the study of Early Modern Britain, British folklore, pre-Christian religion and contemporary Paganism. A reader in the subject at the University of Bristol, Hutton has published fourteen books and has appeared on British television and radio...
, a scholar of neopaganism, 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 Robert Graves, drawing on the work of 19th and 20th century scholars such as especially Jane Harrison
Jane Harrison
Jane Harrison is an indigenous Australian writer and playwright.A descendant of the Muruwari people of New South Wales, from the area around Bourke and Brewarrina, Harrison grew up in the Victorian Dandenongs with her mother and sister. She began her career as an advertising copywriter, before...
; and also Margaret Murray
Margaret Murray
Margaret Alice Murray was a prominent British Egyptologist and anthropologist. Primarily known for her work in Egyptology, which was "the core of her academic career," she is also known for her propagation of the Witch-cult hypothesis, the theory that the witch trials in the Early Modern period of...
, James Frazer
James Frazer
Sir James George Frazer , was a Scottish social anthropologist influential in the early stages of the modern studies of mythology and comparative religion...
, the other members of the "myth and ritual
Myth and ritual
In traditional societies, myth and ritual are two central components of religious practice. Although myth and ritual are commonly united as parts of religion, the exact relationship between them has been a matter of controversy among scholars...
" school or Cambridge Ritualists
Cambridge Ritualists
The Cambridge Ritualists, the myth and ritual school, were a recognised group of classical scholars, mostly in Cambridge, England, including Jane Ellen Harrison, Gilbert Murray , A. B. Cook, and others...
, and the occultist and writer Aleister Crowley
Aleister Crowley
Aleister Crowley , born Edward Alexander Crowley, and also known as both Frater Perdurabo and The Great Beast, was an influential English occultist, astrologer, mystic and ceremonial magician, responsible for founding the religious philosophy of Thelema. He was also successful in various other...
. The Triple Goddess was here distinguished by Hutton from the prehistoric Great Mother Goddess
Mother goddess
Mother goddess is a term used to refer to a goddess who represents motherhood, fertility, creation or embodies the bounty of the Earth. When equated with the Earth or the natural world such goddesses are sometimes referred to as Mother Earth or as the Earth Mother.Many different goddesses have...
, as described by Marija Gimbutas
Marija Gimbutas
Marija Gimbutas , was a Lithuanian-American archeologist known for her research into the Neolithic and Bronze Age cultures of "Old Europe", a term she introduced. Her works published between 1946 and 1971 introduced new views by combining traditional spadework with linguistics and mythological...
and others, whose worship in ancient times he regarded as neither proven nor disproven Nor did Hutton dispute that in ancient pagan worship "partnerships of three divine women" occurred; rather he proposes 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). Here she was according to Hutton "extending" the ideas of the prominent archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans who in excavating Knossos
Knossos
Knossos , also known as Labyrinth, or Knossos Palace, is the largest Bronze Age archaeological site on Crete and probably the ceremonial and political centre of the Minoan civilization and culture. The palace appears as a maze of workrooms, living spaces, and store rooms close to a central square...
in Crete
Crete
Crete is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, and one of the thirteen administrative regions of Greece. It forms a significant part of the economy and cultural heritage of Greece while retaining its own local cultural traits...
had come to the view that prehistoric Cretans had worshipped 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.
Robert Graves
According to Ronald HuttonRonald Hutton
Ronald Hutton is an English historian who specializes in the study of Early Modern Britain, British folklore, pre-Christian religion and contemporary Paganism. A reader in the subject at the University of Bristol, Hutton has published fourteen books and has appeared on British television and radio...
, the concept of a Triple Goddess with Maiden, Mother and Crone aspects and lunar symbology was Robert Graves
Robert Graves
Robert von Ranke Graves 24 July 1895 – 7 December 1985 was an English poet, translator and novelist. During his long life he produced more than 140 works...
's contribution to modern paganism. According to Hutton, Graves, in his The White Goddess: a Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth
The White Goddess
The White Goddess: a Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth is a book-length essay on the nature of poetic myth-making by author and poet Robert Graves. First published in 1948, based on earlier articles published in Wales magazine, corrected, revised and enlarged editions appeared in 1948, 1952 and 1961...
(1948), took Harrison's idea of goddess-worshipping matriarchal early Europe
and the imagery of three aspects, and related these to the Triple Goddess.
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
Hera
Hera was the wife and one of three sisters of Zeus in the Olympian pantheon of Greek mythology and religion. Her chief function was as the goddess of women and marriage. Her counterpart in the religion of ancient Rome was Juno. The cow and the peacock were sacred to her...
in three persons as girl, wife, and widow. Other examples he gives include the goddess triad Moira Ilythia and Callone ("Death, Birth and Beauty") from Plato
Plato
Plato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the...
's Symposium
Symposium
In ancient Greece, the symposium was a drinking party. Literary works that describe or take place at a symposium include two Socratic dialogues, Plato's Symposium and Xenophon's Symposium, as well as a number of Greek poems such as the elegies of Theognis of Megara...
; the triple goddess Hecate
Hecate
Hecate or Hekate is a chthonic Greco-Roman goddess associated with magic, witchcraft, necromancy, and crossroads.She is attested in poetry as early as Hesiod's Theogony...
; the story of the rape of Kore, (the triad here Graves said to be Kore
Kore
Kore is an energy drink distributed by GNC in 250 mL cans.-Ingredients:Water, Sugar, Dextrose, Citric Acid, Taurine, Sodium Citrate, Glucuronolactone, Natural and Artificial Flavors, Caffeine, Sodium Benzoate, Inositol, Caramel Color, Potassium Sorbate, Niacin, D-Calcium Pantothenate, Pyridoxine...
, Persephone
Persephone
In Greek mythology, Persephone , also called Kore , is the daughter of Zeus and the harvest-goddess Demeter, and queen of the underworld; she was abducted by Hades, the god-king of the underworld....
and Hecate
Hecate
Hecate or Hekate is a chthonic Greco-Roman goddess associated with magic, witchcraft, necromancy, and crossroads.She is attested in poetry as early as Hesiod's Theogony...
with Demeter
Demeter
In Greek mythology, Demeter is the goddess of the harvest, who presided over grains, the fertility of the earth, and the seasons . Her common surnames are Sito as the giver of food or corn/grain and Thesmophoros as a mark of the civilized existence of agricultural society...
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
Akan people
The Akan people are an ethnic group found predominately in Ghana and The Ivory Coast. Akans are the majority in both of these countries and overall have a population of over 20 million people.The Akan speak Kwa languages-Origin and ethnogenesis:...
Triple Moon Goddess Ngame, who Graves said was still worshipped in 1960.
Graves states that his Triple Goddess is the Great Goddess
Great Goddess
Great Goddess refers to the concept of an almighty goddess, or to the concept of a mother goddess, including:*Great Goddess, anglicized form of the Latin Magna Dea*Great Goddess, anglicized form of the Sanskrit Mahadevi, the Shakti sum of all goddesses...
"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
Great Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
, 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.
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
John Skelton
John Skelton, also known as John Shelton , possibly born in Diss, Norfolk, was an English poet.-Education:...
(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.
In the anthology The Greek Myths
The Greek Myths
The Greek Myths is a mythography, a compendium of Greek mythology, by the poet and writer Robert Graves, normally published in two volumes....
(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
Indo-European
Indo-European may refer to:* Indo-European languages** Aryan race, a 19th century and early 20th century term for those peoples who are the native speakers of Indo-European languages...
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. This account has not been disproved but alternative explanations have emerged and is not accepted as a consensus view. The twentieth century archeologist Marija Gimbutas
Marija Gimbutas
Marija Gimbutas , was a Lithuanian-American archeologist known for her research into the Neolithic and Bronze Age cultures of "Old Europe", a term she introduced. Her works published between 1946 and 1971 introduced new views by combining traditional spadework with linguistics and mythological...
(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.
While Graves's work has encountered much criticism in academic literature (see The White Goddess#Criticism and The Greek Myths#Reception), it continues to have a lasting influence on many areas of Neopaganism
Neopaganism
Neopaganism is an umbrella term used to identify a wide variety of modern religious movements, particularly those influenced by or claiming to be derived from the various pagan beliefs of pre-modern Europe...
.
Jane Ellen Harrison
In her discussion of James MellaartJames Mellaart
James Mellaart is a British archaeologist and author who is noted for his discovery of the Neolithic settlement of Çatalhöyük in Turkey. He was also expelled from Turkey suspected of involvement with the antiquities black market and was involved with the so-called Mother goddess controversy in...
's theories regarding Çatalhöyük
Çatalhöyük
Çatalhöyük was a very large Neolithic and Chalcolithic settlement in southern Anatolia, which existed from approximately 7500 BCE to 5700 BCE...
, Lynn Meskell says it is probable that the Triple Goddess originated with the work of Jane Ellen Harrison. Harrison asserts the existence of female trinities, discusses the Horae
Horae
In Greek mythology the Horae or Hours were the goddesses of the seasons and the natural portions of time. They were originally the personifications of nature in its different seasonal aspects, but in later times they were regarded as goddessess of order in general and natural justice...
as chronological symbols representing the phases of the Moon and goes on to equate the Horae with the Seasons, the Graces and the Fates. and the three seasons of the ancient Greek year, and notes that "[T]he matriarchal goddess may well have reflected the three stages of a woman's life."
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-EuropeanProto-Indo-EuropeansThe Proto-Indo-Europeans were the speakers of the Proto-Indo-European language , a reconstructed prehistoric language of Eurasia.Knowledge of them comes chiefly from the linguistic reconstruction, along with material evidence from archaeology and archaeogenetics...
invasion that destroyed it. In the hands of later writers such as Robert Graves, Jacquetta Hawkes, and Marija Gimbutas, this 'lost civilisation of the goddess' came to play the same sort of role in many modern Pagan communities as Atlantis and Lemuria did in TheosophyTheosophyTheosophy, in its modern presentation, is a spiritual philosophy developed since the late 19th century. Its major themes were originally described mainly by Helena Blavatsky , co-founder of the Theosophical Society...
.
The "myth and ritual
Myth and ritual
In traditional societies, myth and ritual are two central components of religious practice. Although myth and ritual are commonly united as parts of religion, the exact relationship between them has been a matter of controversy among scholars...
" school or Cambridge Ritualists
Cambridge Ritualists
The Cambridge Ritualists, the myth and ritual school, were a recognised group of classical scholars, mostly in Cambridge, England, including Jane Ellen Harrison, Gilbert Murray , A. B. Cook, and others...
, 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."
Marija Gimbutas
The theories of Marija GimbutasMarija Gimbutas
Marija Gimbutas , was a Lithuanian-American archeologist known for her research into the Neolithic and Bronze Age cultures of "Old Europe", a term she introduced. Her works published between 1946 and 1971 introduced new views by combining traditional spadework with linguistics and mythological...
on the Chalcolithic, a period she defined as "Old Europe" (6500-3500 BCE) have been widely adopted by New Age and ecofeminist
Ecofeminism
Ecofeminism is a social and political movement which points to the existence of considerable common ground between environmentalism and feminism, with some currents linking deep ecology and feminism...
groups. (She was dubbed "Grandmother of the Goddess Movement" in the 1990s.) Gimbutas postulated that in ancient Europe, the Aegean
Aegean civilization
Aegean civilization is a general term for the Bronze Age civilizations of Greece around the Aegean Sea. There are three distinct but communicating and interacting geographic regions covered by this term: Crete, the Cyclades and the Greek mainland. Crete is associated with the Minoan civilization...
and the Near East, a great Triple Goddess was worshipped, predating the patriarchal religions imported by nomadic speakers of Indo-European languages
Indo-European languages
The Indo-European languages are a family of several hundred related languages and dialects, including most major current languages of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and South Asia and also historically predominant in Anatolia...
(later superseded by a patriarchal monotheism
Monotheism
Monotheism is the belief in the existence of one and only one god. Monotheism is characteristic of the Baha'i Faith, Christianity, Druzism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Samaritanism, Sikhism and Zoroastrianism.While they profess the existence of only one deity, monotheistic religions may still...
). Gimbutas interpreted iconography from neolithic and earlier periods of European history evidence of worship of a triple goddess represented by:
- "stiff nudes", birds of prey or poisonous snakes interpreted as "death"
- mother-figures interpreted as symbols of "birth and fertility"
- 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
Baba Yaga
Baba Yaga or Baba Roga is a haggish or witchlike character in Slavic folklore. She flies around on a giant pestle, kidnaps small children, and lives in a hut that stands on chicken legs...
. Gimbutas regarded the Eleusinian Mysteries
Eleusinian Mysteries
The Eleusinian Mysteries were initiation ceremonies held every year for the cult of Demeter and Persephone based at Eleusis in ancient Greece. Of all the mysteries celebrated in ancient times, these were held to be the ones of greatest importance...
as a survival into classical antiquity of this ancient goddess worship, a suggestion which Georg Luck echos.
Gimbutas's work has been criticised as mistaken on the grounds of dating, archeological context and typologies
Typology (archaeology)
In archaeology a typology is the result of the classification of things according to their characteristics. The products of the classification, i.e. the classes are also called types. Most archaeological typologies organize artifacts into types, but typologies of houses or roads belonging to a...
with most archeologists considering her goddess hypothesis implausible and her work has been called pseudo-scholarship. This has been echoed by feminist authors such as Cynthia Eller and religion writers such as Philip G. Davis. Linguist M. L. West has called Gimbutas's goddess-based "Old European" religion being overtaken by a patriarchal Indo-European one "essentially sound". 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.
Contemporary beliefs and practices
- The MaidenMaidenMaiden or Maidens may refer to:* A female virgin; see virginity* Maiden name, the family name carried by a woman before marriage; see married and maiden names* Maiden, the first of the three aspects of the Triple Goddess...
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 moonFull moonFull moon lunar phase that occurs when the Moon is on the opposite side of the Earth from the Sun. More precisely, a full moon occurs when the geocentric apparent longitudes of the Sun and Moon differ by 180 degrees; the Moon is then in opposition with the Sun.Lunar eclipses can only occur at...
. - The CroneCroneThe crone is a stock character in folklore and fairy tale, an old woman who is usually disagreeable, malicious, or sinister in manner, often with magical or supernatural associations that can make her either helpful or obstructing. She is marginalized by her exclusion from the reproductive cycle,...
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
Church of All Worlds
The Church of All Worlds is a neopagan religious group whose stated mission is to evolve a network of information, mythology, and experience that provides a context and stimulus for reawakening Gaia and reuniting her children through tribal community dedicated to responsible stewardship and...
is one example of a neopagan organisation 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
D. J. Conway
Deanna "D. J." Conway is a non-fiction author of books in the field of magic, Wicca, Druidism, shamanism, metaphysics and the occult, and the author of three fantasy novels. Born in Hood River, Oregon to a family of Irish, North Germanic, and Native North American descent, she has been studying...
, include that reconnection with the Great Goddess is vital to the health of humankind "on all levels". The Goddess is seen to stand for unity, cooperation, and participation with all creation, while in contrast male gods represent dissociation, separation and dominion of nature. These views have been criticised by members of both the neopagan and scholarly communities as re-affirming gender stereotypes and symbolically being unable to adequately face humanity's current ethical and environmental situation.
D. J. Conway includes a trinity of the Greek goddesses Demeter, Kore-Persephone, and Hecate, in her discussion of the Maiden-Mother-Crone archetype.
Dianic Wicca
The Dianic tradition adopted Graves's Triple Goddess, along with other elements from Wicca, and is named after the Roman goddess DianaDiana (mythology)
In Roman mythology, Diana was the goddess of the hunt and moon and birthing, being associated with wild animals and woodland, and having the power to talk to and control animals. She was equated with the Greek goddess Artemis, though she had an independent origin in Italy...
, the goddess of the witches in Charles Godfrey Leland
Charles Godfrey Leland
Charles Godfrey Leland was an American humorist and folklorist, born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was educated at Princeton University and in Europe....
's 1899 book Aradia
Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches
Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches is a book composed by the American folklorist Charles Leland that was published in 1899. It contains what he believed was the religious text of a group of pagan witches in Tuscany, Italy that documented their beliefs and rituals, although various historians and...
. Zsuzsanna Budapest
Zsuzsanna Budapest
Zsuzsanna Emese Mokcsay is an American author of Hungarian origin who writes on feminist spirituality and Dianic Wicca under the pen name and religious name Zsuzsanna Budapest or Z. Budapest. She is the High Priestess and the founding mother of the Susan B. Anthony Coven #1, the first feminist,...
, widely considered the founder of Dianic Wicca
Dianic Wicca
Dianic Witchcraft and Dianic Feminist Witchcraft, is a tradition, or denomination, of the Neopagan religion of Wicca. It was founded by Zsuzsanna Budapest in the United States in the 1970s, and is notable for its focus on the worship of the Goddess, and on feminism...
, considers her Goddess "the original Holy Trinity
Trinity
The Christian doctrine of the Trinity defines God as three divine persons : the Father, the Son , and the Holy Spirit. The three persons are distinct yet coexist in unity, and are co-equal, co-eternal and consubstantial . Put another way, the three persons of the Trinity are of one being...
; Virgin, Mother, and Crone." Dianic Wiccans such as Ruth Barrett
Ruth Barrett
Ruth Barrett is a Dianic Wiccan High Priestess in the direct lineage of Z Budapest.She was a member of the Moon Birch Grove coven before becoming the spiritual director of the Circle of Aradia in Los Angeles, from its founding in 1985 until 2000...
, 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 honor She who has been called by Her daughters throughout time, in many places, and by many names."
Triple-Goddess Stone
Qudshu-Astarte-Anat is a representation of a single goddess who is a combination of three goddesses: QeteshQetesh
Qetesh is a Sumerian goddess adopted into Egyptian mythology from the Canaanite religion, popular during the New Kingdom. She was a fertility goddess of sacred ecstasy and sexual pleasure....
(Athirat), Astarte
Astarte
Astarte is the Greek name of a goddess known throughout the Eastern Mediterranean from the Bronze Age to Classical times...
, and Anat
Anat
Anat, also ‘Anat is a major northwest Semitic goddess.-‘Anat in Ugarit:In the Ugaritic Ba‘al/Hadad cycle ‘Anat is a violent war-goddess, a virgin in Ugarit though the sister and lover of the great Ba‘al known as Hadad elsewhere. Ba‘al is usually called the son of Dagon and sometimes the son of El....
. It was a common practice for Canaanites and Egyptians to merge different deities through a process of synchronization, thereby, turning them into one single entity. The "Triple-Goddess Stone", that was once owned by Winchester College, shows the goddess Qetesh with the inscription "Qudshu-Astarte-Anat", showing their association as being one goddess, and Qetesh (Qudshu) in place of Athirat. The "Triple-Goddess Stone" is sacred to Qadishuma, and the Natib Qadish religion.
Religious scholar Saul M. Olyan (author of Asherah and the Cult of Yahweh in Israel), calls the representation on the Qudshu-Astarte-Anat plaque "a triple-fusion hypostasis", and considers Qudshu to be an epithet of Athirat by a process of elimination, for Astarte and Anat appear after Qudshu in the inscription.
Neopagan archetype theory
Some neopagans assert that the worship of the Triple Goddess dates to pre-Christian Europe and possibly goes as far back as the Paleolithic periodPaleolithic
The Paleolithic Age, Era or Period, is a prehistoric period of human history distinguished by the development of the most primitive stone tools discovered , and covers roughly 99% of human technological prehistory...
and consequently claim that their religion is a surviving remnant of ancient beliefs
Witch-cult hypothesis
The Witch-cult is the term for a hypothetical pre-Christian, pagan religion of Europe that survived into at least the early modern period. As late as the 19th and early 20th centuries, some scholars had postulated that European witchcraft was part of a Satanic plot to overthrow Christianity; most...
. They believe 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
Archetype
An archetype is a universally understood symbol or term or pattern of behavior, a prototype upon which others are copied, patterned, or emulated...
theory has led to neopagans adopting the images and names of culturally divergent deities
Cultural appropriation
Cultural appropriation is the adoption of some specific elements of one culture by a different cultural group. It describes acculturation or assimilation, but can imply a negative view towards acculturation from a minority culture by a dominant culture. It can include the introduction of forms of...
for ritual purposes; for instance, Conway, and goddess feminist
Goddess movement
The Goddess movement is an overall trend in religious or spiritual beliefs or practices which emerged out of second-wave feminism, predominantly in North America, Western Europe, Australia and New Zealand in the 1970s...
artist Monica Sjöö
Monica Sjöö
Monica Sjöö, , was a Swedish painter, writer and a radical anarcho/eco-feminist who was influential in the Goddess movement. She first came to Britain in the late 1950th and eventually settled in Bristol where she lived for many years, before she died of cancer...
, connect the Triple Goddess to the Hindu
Hinduism
Hinduism is the predominant and indigenous religious tradition of the Indian Subcontinent. Hinduism is known to its followers as , amongst many other expressions...
Tridevi
Tridevi
The Tridevi is a concept in Hinduism.Saraswati the goddess of learning and arts, cultural fulfillment. Lakshmi the goddess of wealth and fertility, material fulfillment ; and Durga) the goddess of power and love, spiritual fulfillment.In the Navratri festival, "the Goddess is worshipped in three...
(literally "three goddesses") of Saraswati
Saraswati
In Hinduism Saraswati , is the goddess of knowledge, music, arts, science and technology. She is the consort of Brahma, also revered as His Shakti....
, Lakshmi
Lakshmi
Lakshmi or Lakumi is the Hindu goddess of wealth, prosperity , light, wisdom, fortune, fertility, generosity and courage; and the embodiment of beauty, grace and charm. Representations of Lakshmi are also found in Jain monuments...
, and Parvati
Parvati
Parvati is a Hindu goddess. Parvati is Shakti, the wife of Shiva and the gentle aspect of Mahadevi, the Great Goddess...
(Kali
Kali
' , also known as ' , is the Hindu goddess associated with power, shakti. The name Kali comes from kāla, which means black, time, death, lord of death, Shiva. Kali means "the black one". Since Shiva is called Kāla - the eternal time, Kālī, his consort, also means "Time" or "Death" . Hence, Kāli is...
/Durga
Durga
For the 1985 Hindi Film of Rajesh Khanna see DurgaaIn Hinduism, Durga ; ; meaning "the inaccessible" or "the invincible"; , durga) or Maa Durga "one who can redeem in situations of utmost distress" is a form of Devi, the supremely radiant goddess, depicted as having eighteen arms, riding a lion...
).
Jungian psychology
Several advocates of Wicca, such as Vivianne CrowleyVivianne Crowley
Vivianne Crowley is an author, university lecturer, psychologist, and a High Priestess and teacher of the Wiccan religion. She was initiated into the London coven of Alex Sanders at the age of eighteen, but later joined a Gardnerian coven...
and Selena Fox
Selena Fox
Selena Fox is a Wiccan priestess and activist, psychotherapist, self-published author and lecturer in the fields of Neopaganism, Wicca, New Age and comparative religion.- Circle :Rev...
, are practising psychologists or psychotherapists, and the work of Jung has had a large influence on their work. 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.
The Triple Goddess as an archetype
Jungian archetypes
Carl Jung created the archetypes which “are ancient or archaic images that derive from the collective unconscious” Also known as innate universal psychic dispositions that form the substrate from which the basic symbols or representations of unconscious experience emerge...
is discussed in the works of Carl Jung
Carl Jung
Carl Gustav Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist and the founder of Analytical Psychology. Jung is considered the first modern psychiatrist to view the human psyche as "by nature religious" and make it the focus of exploration. Jung is one of the best known researchers in the field of dream analysis and...
and Carl Kerényi, and the later works of their follower, Erich Neumann
Erich Neumann (psychologist)
Erich Neumann , was a psychologist, writer, and one of Carl Jung's most gifted students.-Career:Neumann was born in Berlin. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Berlin in 1927. He later moved to Tel Aviv. For many years, he regularly returned to Zürich, Switzerland to give lectures at the...
. 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 theorised 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."
Karl Kerenyi, wrote in 1952 that several Greek goddesses were triple moon goddesses of the Maiden Mother Crone type, including Hera
Hera
Hera was the wife and one of three sisters of Zeus in the Olympian pantheon of Greek mythology and religion. Her chief function was as the goddess of women and marriage. Her counterpart in the religion of ancient Rome was Juno. The cow and the peacock were sacred to her...
and others.
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 evolution
Sociocultural evolution
Sociocultural evolution is an umbrella term for theories of cultural evolution and social evolution, describing how cultures and societies have changed over time...
ary model derived from European mythology.
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.
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 root cause of the alleged persecuting of witches. Fantasy and science-fiction author Ursula Le Guin comments that the lack of acceptance of change for women (exemplified by the youth and beauty myth) in contemporary society has led to an erasure of the Triple Goddess, into a single, Marilyn MonroeMarilyn Monroe
Marilyn Monroe was an American actress, singer, model and showgirl who became a major sex symbol, starring in a number of commercially successful motion pictures during the 1950s....
-faced goddess.
According to Goddess Feminist Barbara G. Walker
Barbara G. Walker (author)
Barbara G. Walker is a U.S. author and feminist. She is an influential knitting expert and the author of several classic encyclopedic knitting references...
various supernatural female triads like the Gallo
Roman Gaul
Roman Gaul consisted of an area of provincial rule in the Roman Empire, in modern day France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and western Germany. Roman control of the area lasted for less than 500 years....
/Germano
Germania
Germania was the Greek and Roman geographical term for the geographical regions inhabited by mainly by peoples considered to be Germani. It was most often used to refer especially to the east of the Rhine and north of the Danube...
-Roman
Ancient Rome
Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....
Matres and Matrones (frequently depicted in trios), the Greco-Roman
Classical mythology
Classical mythology or Greco-Roman mythology is the cultural reception of myths from the ancient Greeks and Romans. Along with philosophy and political thought, mythology represents one of the major survivals of classical antiquity throughout later Western culture.Classical mythology has provided...
Erinyes
Erinyes
In Greek mythology the Erinyes from Greek ἐρίνειν " pursue, persecute"--sometimes referred to as "infernal goddesses" -- were female chthonic deities of vengeance. A formulaic oath in the Iliad invokes them as "those who beneath the earth punish whosoever has sworn a false oath"...
or Furies, or the Morrígan to whome she applies the Maiden Mother Crone model.
Fiction, film and literary criticism
Author Margaret AtwoodMargaret Atwood
Margaret Eleanor Atwood, is a Canadian poet, novelist, literary critic, essayist, and environmental activist. She is among the most-honoured authors of fiction in recent history; she is a winner of the Arthur C...
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. Atwood says that it put her off from being a writer. Atwood's work has been noted as containing Triple Goddess motifs who sometimes appear failed and parodic. Atwood's Lady Oracle
Lady Oracle
Lady Oracle is a novel by Margaret Atwood. It was first published by McClelland and Stewart in 1976.-Plot summary:The novel's protagonist, Joan Foster, is a romance novelist who has spent her life running away from difficult situations. The novel alternates between flashbacks from the past and...
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
Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy, OM was an English novelist and poet. While his works typically belong to the Naturalism movement, several poems display elements of the previous Romantic and Enlightenment periods of literature, such as his fascination with the supernatural.While he regarded himself primarily as a...
's 1891 novel Tess of the d'Urbervilles
Tess of the d'Urbervilles
Tess of the d'Urbervilles: A Pure Woman Faithfully Presented, also known as Tess of the d'Urbervilles: A Pure Woman, Tess of the d'Urbervilles or just Tess, is a novel by Thomas Hardy, first published in 1891. It initially appeared in a censored and serialised version, published by the British...
, 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 .
The concept of the triple goddess has been applied to a feminist reading of Shakespeare.
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.
The triple goddess is referenced in Marion Zimmer Bradley's book "The Mists of Avalon
The Mists of Avalon
The Mists of Avalon is a 1983 novel by Marion Zimmer Bradley, in which she relates the Arthurian legends from the perspective of the female characters.-Plot introduction:...
."
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
Neil Gaiman
Neil Richard Gaiman born 10 November 1960)is an English author of short fiction, novels, comic books, graphic novels, audio theatre and films. His notable works include the comic book series The Sandman and novels Stardust, American Gods, Coraline, and The Graveyard Book...
, merge the figures of the Fates and the Maiden-Mother-Crone goddess. In Alan Garner
Alan Garner
With his first book published, Garner abandoned his work as a labourer and gained a job as a freelance television reporter, living a "hand to mouth" lifestyle on a "shoestring" budget...
's The Owl Service
The Owl Service
The Owl Service is a novel by Alan Garner first published in 1967. It is a contemporary interpretation, which Garner described as an "expression of the myth", of the story of the mythical Welsh figure of Blodeuwedd, whose story is told in the Fourth Branch of the Mabinogi.The legend concerns a...
, based on the fourth branch of the Mabinogion
Mabinogion
The Mabinogion is the title given to a collection of eleven prose stories collated from medieval Welsh manuscripts. The tales draw on pre-Christian Celtic mythology, international folktale motifs, and early medieval historical traditions...
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
A Song of Ice and Fire
A Song of Ice and Fire is a series of epic fantasy novels by American novelist and screenwriter George R. R. Martin. Martin began writing the series in 1991 and the first volume was published in 1996. Originally planned as a trilogy, the series now consists of five published volumes; a further two...
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
Alfred Hitchcock
Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, KBE was a British film director and producer. He pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres. After a successful career in British cinema in both silent films and early talkies, Hitchcock moved to Hollywood...
's film Vertigo
Vertigo (film)
Vertigo is a 1958 psychological thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring James Stewart, Kim Novak, and Barbara Bel Geddes. The screenplay was written by Alec Coppel and Samuel A...
using Graves's Triple Goddess motif as a reference. Roz Kaveney
Roz Kaveney
Roz Kaveney is a British writer of both fiction and non-fiction, and editor. She was born male but changed to and thereafter has lived as a female...
sees the main characters in James Cameron
James Cameron
James Francis Cameron is a Canadian-American film director, film producer, screenwriter, editor, environmentalist and inventor...
's movie Aliens
Aliens (film)
Aliens is a 1986 science fiction action film directed by James Cameron and starring Sigourney Weaver, Carrie Henn, Michael Biehn, Lance Henriksen, William Hope, and Bill Paxton...
as reflecting aspects of the triple goddess: The Alien Queen (Crone), Ripley (Mother) and Newt (Maiden).
One of the most popular songs performed by the American heavy metal band The Sword
The Sword
The Sword is an American heavy metal band that formed in Austin, Texas, in 2003. Since its inception the band has comprised vocalist and guitarist John D. Cronise, guitarist Kyle Shutt and bassist Bryan Richie, and currently includes touring drummer Jimmy Vela following Trivett Wingo's departure in...
is, "Maiden, Mother & Crone", with lyrics describing an encounter with the Triple Goddess. It was featured on their album Gods of the Earth
Gods of the Earth
-Lyrics:Several songs reference Conan the Barbarian stories by fantasy author Robert E. Howard. "The Frost-Giant's Daughter" is based on Howard's short story by the same name and "The Black River" was inspired by "Beyond the Black River". "To Take the Black" is a direct reference to the Night's...
. The official video prominently features the three aspects of the goddess and a waxing, full, and waning moon.
A book written by Michael J Scott called The Alchemyst
The Alchemyst: The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel
The Alchemyst: The Secrets of the Immortal Nicolas Flamel is the first novel in the six book series The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel. It is written by Irish author Michael Scott and was published in May 2007...
features a character known as Hekate. She is personified as a woman who changes age through the cycle of the day, starting in the morning as a girl, then aging to an adult woman, and finally becoming an old woman as the day draws to a close before dying and being reborn at the beginning of the next day. Each day she would start the cycle anew.