There are two forms of divinity. When I say this I do not mean to imply that I have seen with spiritual sight into the nature of divinity and understood it on its own terms. I mean instead to say that, from the perspective of comparative religion, all human conceptions of divinity which have over the ages been presented through religion and philosophy can be divided into two distinct categories.
These two categories are:
- The Transcendent Divine
- The Immanent Divine
The transcendent divine is Our Father in Heaven. He is distant and pure. He is the sperm of creation, the prima causa or first cause, the logos, the initial impulse and energy which sparked creation. He is perfection, attained through cold, hard, uncaring judgement. He is reason and truth, order exalted until the world is nothing but a machine. The perfect beauty of a well designed circuit board. The transcendent divine is zero: he is the emptiness of the void, which is pure energy and potential. He is the purpose of all things.
The immanent divine is Our Mother Earth. Or perhaps in this age Our Mother Universe may be more appropriate. She is the prima materia or first material, the world soul, the very substance of creation. When one says that, underlying the superficial realities of difference, we are all one, she is the one thing that we all are. She is Florence Nightingale healing the sick and she is Hitler gassing the Jews. In both, as in all things, she rejoices. Nature, red in tooth and claw, and love divorced of all morality. She is the nature of all things.
One may surmise from these descriptions, and the negative characteristics that I ascribe to each, that I do not much wish to adhere to either one. In this you would be correct. I subscribe to the philosophy of union. Yoga, the alchemical marriage, the union of Shiva and Shakti, EHEH and the Shekinah, Jehovah and Sophia. I believe that the highest purpose we can choose in this life is to try to get mum and dad back together. But that is not what this particular page is about. This page is about…
The Redemption of the Goddess
The main purpose of this page is an introduction to Goddess worship for beginners. That is not to say that I wish to revive some naive view of the old ways. The Goddess worship I speak of is the veneration of, the devotion to, the raising up of immanent divine – the divinity within all things.
There is a strand within what may be called the ‘western mystery tradition’, and indeed within traditional western religions such as Christianity, which views the the divine feminine as fallen. This fall mirrors the fall from spiritual grace of humanity itself. In the traditional exoteric teachings of the religions of the book Eve is intimately connected with the fall. In more esoteric teachings we find the fallen Shekinah in Qaballah or the goddess Sophia in gnostic texts which must be redeemed by the seeker of spiritual growth.
If you accept the association of the goddess with the immanent divine this seems to make sense. The separation of the divine masculine and the divine feminine leads God to rise beyond connection, to become separated and isolated. God is spirit in opposition to matter. Pure, perfect, alone and cold. The goddess, as the immanent divine within all things, falls with us. God is the ideal we aspire to. The goddess is us.
If you have found this page please be advised that this is a new website and still under construction. Additional content will be added to this page, and the rest of the site, soon. I can only apologize that you have found this site before it is ready – I have done nothing to promote it and did not wish for you to be here at this time, but if by chance you have found it I ask only that you consider checking back in the future. DW 27/10/21024.