Lost Goddesses of Early Greece: A Collection of Pre-Hellenic Myths

by Charlene Spretnak

Book Overview

"Charlene Spretnak has succeeded extremely well in presenting pure characterizations of the Old European goddesses as they were revered for millennia, long before the Indo-European elements were... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0807013455
• ISBN13: 9780807013458
• Release Date: January 1984
• Publisher: Beacon Press (MA)
• Length: 132 Pages
• Weight: 0.40 lbs.

Customer Reviews

A compelling and insightful read

[...] Lost Goddesses of Early Greece feature long lost stories of the early goddesses of Old Europe. It starts out with an interesting introduction that sheds light on how Ms. Spretnak researched these myths. This follows with chapters on Gaia, Pandora, Themis, Aphrodite, Triad of the Moon: Artemis, Selene & Hecate, Hera, Athena, Demeter and Persephone. The stories reveal the goddesses in their true forms before the coming of the Olympian gods. The last chapter tells an eye-opening story about Demeter and Persephone. Most people (myself included) are familiar with the mythic story of the rape of Persephone by the God of the Underworld. This book's message is that Goddess worship was around for at least 25,000 years--long before any other religion. These times were relatively peaceful times until invaders brought their warring "Zeus" god to Greece. I found this book to be interesting and it makes sense to me that the Goddess would be the first religion. I have studied the Hellenic Greek myths and it is obvious to me that the classical myths degrade women. Another point is that all of the classical writers were men. I am a believer in the theories revealed in Lost Goddesses of Early Greece. I highly recommend this book to those who wish to explore an unknown road in mythology. I think every female should read this book--it may be a life changing experience for some.

a pre-Olympus revisioning....

....that might have been longer. After reading the introductory material I was surprised at the brevity of the chapters: a consequence, perhaps, of how much lore has been lost down the centuries.This book broke new ground not only by celebrating the goddesses (and by implication women and femininity) but by pointing out that "the" Greek myths known far and wide were preceded by matriarchal traditions transmuted by incoming Dorian patriarchs (see also the work of Maria Gimbutis and Riane Eisler) and centuries of his-story. The author strives to recover something of the earlier traditions in her lively, and at times lyric, reconstruction of the pre-Olympian goddesses.The book left me with an open reflection. To some extent the story of Ulysses has followed me for years (or I have followed it), and I've come to appreciate what I perceive as the feminine warrior protectiveness of Athena, one of my favorites of the Greek pantheon. As Minerva her visage adorns the Great Seal of my homeland, California. And yet according to this book, Athena was made into a soldier by bloodthirsty male barbarians. Although there can be little doubt about the patriarchal distortions of the Greek goddesses--how many positive stories do you hear about Hera?--I'm wondering if we lose something in relegating quite so much to these distortions. Athena "feels" fiercely protective (but not soldierly) to me in dreams, in active imagination, and in fantasy: is this her quality, an archetypal aspect of her being, or does it merely derive from my being a man raised in a patriarchy? Or a man with an assertive anima? I don't know.In any case this book remains a nice counterbalance to the usual versions of Homeric and Olympian mythology we find even now in most books dealing with Greek deities. There is also a cutting criticism of Jungian conflations of goddess, femininity, and darkness that will delight readers tired of hearing about the passive, yin-like, and shadowy "archetypal feminine," a convenient category for shoring up unjust power relations.

Glimpses of Goddesses Before They Were Demoted

Some of the reviews of this book I believe are misleading. Yes, Ms Spretnak is a feminist; yes, she can be political about it. But I don't think she was presenting an agenda with this book. She took fragments of pre-Hellenic myths, and fleshed them out so they'd make sense. And she did so in a beautiful lyric style!"The goal of such work [extending the knowledge of pre-Hellenic culture] is not the reinstatement of prehistoric cultural structures, but rather the transmission of possibilities" As we know, history is written by the winners, and when the gods we now are most familiar with, the "classical" myths, were brought into the culture, the older myths which were more matrifocal largely vanished. Not to devalue Homer, but there is genuine value in these much older myths, just as we hold Virgil and Homer in high regard for their telling of newer gods. The pre-Hellenic myths give us a glimpse into a culture where Hera (for instance) was powerful in her own right, not merely a consort and sister to Zeus. How can knowing two sides of a story be a bad thing? History may be written by the winners, but those who were conquered left traces of themselves behind, too, and you can read about some of it here.

Genuine & Appealing Insight

The other reviewer says that if the book had not been presented as history it would deserve a 5 star rating. I also thought when I picked up the book that the historical argument was tremendously tenuous. However, taken as modern artistic interpretation of "Old European" goddess culture, not documentary about such culture, which is all it technically claims to be, it is wonderful. Myths are NOT historical. None of them. Sometimes a historical story is behind a myth, but often not recognizable. But myths are gross revisions of stories. The key is the revisions appeal to some part of the human unconscious, and seem to make "true" statements about the state of the collective human psyche. As such, and the author does after all present these as "reconstructed myth" not actual transcripts of old texts, then anyone reading the fine print would not be mislead about historicity, and the book should get its deserved 5-star rating.