The Pluralism Project at Harvard University
Priestesses of the Goddess
by Grove Harris, reprinted from On Common Ground: World Religions in America, Columbia University Press, 2002 and 1997.
The feminist movement, beginning in the 1960s, provided an important impetus for the growth of contemporary Paganism. Over the course of the last thirty years or so, women began exploring religious forms that were empowering to them. Two modern movements grew out of this exploration: the Eco-feminist movement, which emphasizes the relation of environmental issues to the ancient honoring of the Earth and nature, and the Goddess Spirituality movement, which emphasizes feminine language and images for the Divine. Both movements have grown rapidly and been influential in shaping new American Paganism, which women have found particularly attractive for its religious perspective that honors the earth, respects the body, and emphasizes the interconnection of all things.
Through the exploration of ancient mythology, women also found connection with Goddess imagery to be empowering and concretely helpful in their lives. The diversity of Goddesses includes images that are powerful, nurturing, and protective images as well as wrathful, destructive, and warrior-like. According to those in Wiccan and other Pagan traditions, these images of the Divine have enabled women to embrace and honor the multiple aspects of themselves. For example, the Wiccan Triple Goddess embodies the Maiden, the Mother and the Crone, sanctifying each stage of a woman's life and knowledge. The Maiden is honored for her physical strength and initiative, the Mother for her generativity and nurturance, and the Crone, the wise old woman in the third and final phase of her life, for her sagacity and endurance. As a Crone, a woman may offer guidance to less experienced women and provide a positive model for the middle-aged, celebrating the wisdom of the old in a society focused on youth.
In the Pagan movement every woman can be a leader, for every woman embodies the power and creativity of the Goddess. Many feminist covens use a model of rotating leadership as they develop alternative models of power. Like many populist reform movements, the feminist movement begins with lived experience and strongly affirms that "The personal is political." The feminist Neo-Pagan movement goes on to insist that the personal and political are also spiritual. Many women are drawn to Paganism for precisely this, as it offers positive self-image, and calls for putting spiritual ideals into practice.
Pagan priestesses are women who have practiced a Pagan spiritual path for some time and have trained in group ritual. Some groups recognize High Priestesses, who have an additional level of training and experience. Priestesses may work on a local level, and might be well-known regionally or nationally. A look at several prominent Pagan priestesses today shows the range of their experiences.
Among the most well known American priestesses today is Starhawk, a writer, ritualist, activist, and teacher based in the San Francisco Bay area. Her 1979 book The Spiral Dance (see introduction) an instructive manual of the practice of Wiccan ritual, is considered a primary text on the Craft. She has also published Dreaming the Dark: Magic, Sex, and Politics (1982), Truth or Dare (1987) and a novel, The Fifth Sacred Thing (1993). She also works with the Reclaiming Collective, dedicated to "reclaiming" a spirituality that is both feminist and political. Her political activism has been a model for others on this path: she has protested the nuclear development of Diablo Canyon and led rituals for gay rights activists preparing to do civil disobedience in Washington, D.C. She was arrested for her role in trying to protect old-growth forest in British Columbia. As a leader, she works to enable others to find their own inner authority and ways of leadership.
Selena Fox is another nationally known spokesperson for Paganism and a leading advocate of religious freedom. She is the founder and priestess of Circle Sanctuary in Mt. Horeb, Wisconsin--a nature preserve, community, and organization offering a wide array of resources and services to Pagans. A peace advocate for thirty years, Selena travels to give lectures and seminars, and at home at Circle Sanctuary does private counseling and full-time ministry. Circle Sanctuary sponsors the Pagan Academic Network, the quarterly newspaper Circle Network News, and the Lady Liberty League.
Phyllis Curott is a lawyer living in New York City and a Wiccan priestess who officiates at large public Wiccan rituals, both in New York and around the country. As an attorney, she won the right for the Wiccan clergy of the Covenant of the Goddess to perform legally binding marriage ceremonies in New York. Beyond teaching introductory classes in Wicca, she and a circle of elders from the Minoan Fellowship have formed teaching circles where novice practitioners have the benefit of working with experienced practitioners. As the past First Officer of the Covenant of the Goddess, Phyllis Curott represented this group at the Parliament of the World's Religions in 1993, where she lead a ritual for more than five hundred participants and hosted an interfaith dialogue on the Divine Feminine. She also works internationally on issues concerning women's spirituality as a member of the United Nations Non-Governmental Organizations' Commission on the Status of Women. She is working towards establishing an international women's interfaith council. But while working publicly she also remains rooted in her own coven.
Born in Hungary in 1940, Zsusanna Budapest is a hereditary Witch who was born into a long line of traditional healers. In the 1970s she brought the double heritage of feminism and Witchcraft together to create the Women's Spirituality movement. She became the High Priestess of the Susan B. Anthony Coven #1 in Los Angeles, the first visible women's coven in the United States. Her arrest and conviction for reading Tarot cards served to politicize the local community, which fought for nine years to overturn the unconstitutional laws declaring divination illegal. She is also well known for her political activism on behalf of women, and her controversial use of spells to stop rapists. Her first book, The Holy Book of Women's Mysteries, (1989) a primer on Witchcraft, remains her most radical work; more recent books attempt to reframe the concept of the Goddess for application to mundane modern life.
Laurie Cabot was initiated into Witchcraft at the age of sixteen, but not until she moved to Salem, Massachusetts later in life did the negative rhetoric about Witches compelled her to speak out publicly as a Witch. She took vows to wear ceremonial clothing as an emblem of her spiritual path, and has fought for the freedom to wear black robes and Wiccan jewelry on the streets of Salem in relative safety. In 1986, Cabot founded the Witches' League for Public Awareness to re-educate the public. She also works with the Temple of Nine Wells, offering rituals to the public, and is the author of several books, including Power of the Witch: A Witches Guide to Her Craft (1989). Her current writing focuses on the commonplace use of magical and psychic techniques by women.
While women such as these Pagan leaders are active in the public realm, many more women are leaders in private ritual settings. In the Portland, Maine Feminist Spiritual Community, founded in 1980, the women rotate the work of leading ritual among themselves. All women are considered capable of creating, organizing, and taking the lead in ritual, with help from others when needed. The sharing of leadership is part of the empowerment that ritual offers; the Goddess is manifest in each individual woman.
Glossary: Paganism; Goddess; Wiccan; covens; priestesses; Craft; clergy; Parliament of the World's Religions; interfaith