course, rather than what she prefers, because she is a good wife who
provides good meals (Hera), is motivated by her maternal nature to
take care of him (Demeter), does what pleases him (Persephone), or
seeks to be attractive to him (Aphrodite). But if Hestia is the goddess
who influences her, a woman will set the table and provide a real
meal for herself when she is alone. And the house will stay in its
usual good order. If the other goddesses provide the housekeeping
motivation, it’s more likely to be neglected until just before her
husband’s return. A Hestia woman will bring in fresh flowers for
herself that will never be seen by the absent man. Her apartment or
house always feels like home because she lives there, not because
she makes it that way for someone else.
Next came the question “Would others also find this way of
knowing about women’s psychology through myths useful and
helpful?” The answer came when I lectured on “Goddesses in
Everywoman.” The audiences were turned on, intrigued, abuzz with
the excitement of using mythology as an insight tool. This was a
way for people to understand women, a way that was emotionally
moving. As I shared these myths, people saw and felt and heard
what I was talking about; as I interpreted the myths, people had
“Aha!” reactions. Both men and women grasped the meaning of
myths as personal truth, verifying something they already knew
and were now making conscious.
I also spoke at meetings of professional organizations and dis-
cussed my ideas with psychiatrists and psychologists. Parts of this
book were first developed as presentations before the International
Association for Analytic Psychology, the American Academy of
Psychoanalysis, the American Psychiatric Association, the Women’s
Institute of the American Orthopsychiatric Association, and the
Association for Transpersonal Psychology. My colleagues found
this approach clinically helpful, and appreciated the insight into
character pattern and psychiatric symptoms that an understanding
of the “goddesses” can provide. For most of them, this was the first
presentation on the psychology of women they had heard given by
a Jungian analyst.
Only my Jungian colleagues were aware that I was (and am) ad-
vancing new ideas about feminine psychology that dif-
There Are Goddesses in Everywoman