Created in Her Image: Models of Feminine Divine

Created in Her Image is the culmination of the author's search for the sacred image that, for each, would be an affirmation of her own femininity and testimony to her strong experience of the Holy Spirit as a feminine presence embodying wisdom, strength, and inner truth. Eleanor Rae and Bernice Marie-Daly combine their insight, experience, and theological expertise to develop a new perspective on the Feminine Divine in light of present world conditions. They begin by reviewing the feminine aspect of the Christian Trinity as revealed in traditional Hebrew and Christian religious systems and reexamining the contribution of Jungian psychology to the personal and social liberation of women, including a new understanding of the failure of the Virgin Mary as an adequate symbol of the Feminine Divine. They continue their search by studying the cultures that practiced worship of the Goddess and the contemporary revival of Goddess rituals and reevaluate the conversion experiences of early mystics - crucial to their perspective because of the unity of body, spirit, and body politic inherent in such experiences. The authors then show how the accepted myths of patriarchy and an exclusively male God have brought about our present social environmental, and nuclear crises by rewarding such male qualities as class division, possession, racism, and violence, By linking the domination of women and the domination of nature to anthropocentric society, Rae and Marie-Daly declare that the survival of the human race and in fact the planet depend upon letting go of patriarchal attitudes and instead rewarding peace, partnership, and the welfare of the common good - attributes of the Feminine Divine.

Rae combines Christian spirituality, feminist analysis, and social and environmental concerns into a powerful book claiming the Holy Spirit as an important image of the feminine divine. The book explains why finding such an image is important today, discusses the Holy Spirit in Jewish and Christian tradition, explores the contributions of psychology to the development of the concept of feminine, explains the Goddess historically and currently, delineates various models of the Trinity, and outlines feminist prophetic mysticism. It concludes with an eco-feminist critique that sets forth a vision uniting the personal and the political, proclaiming not only Creation but also the Creatrix who has been there from the beginning but who needs articulation in the new world that is dawning. This is recommended for all libraries.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.