goddesses are helpful only when the images fit the woman’s feelings,
for archetypes do not really have names.
C. G. Jung introduced the concept of archetypes into psychology.
He saw archetypes as patterns of instinctual behavior that were
contained in a collective unconscious. The collective unconscious is
the part of the unconscious that is not individual but universal, with
contents and modes of behavior that are more or less the same
everywhere and in all individuals.^2
Myths and fairytales are expressions of archetypes, as are many
images and themes in dreams. The presence of common archetypal
patterns in all people accounts for similarities in the mythologies of
many different cultures. As preexistent patterns, they influence how
we behave and how we react to others.
THE GODDESSES AS ARCHETYPES
Most of us were taught about the gods and goddesses of Mt.
Olympus at some time in school and have seen statues and paintings
of them. The Romans worshipped these same deities, addressing
them by their Latin names. The Olympians had very human attrib-
utes: their behavior, emotional reactions, appearance, and mythology
provide us with patterns that parallel human behavior and attitudes.
They are also familiar to us because they are archetypal; that is, they
represent models of being and behaving we recognize from the col-
lective unconscious we all share.
The most famous of them were the Twelve Olympians: six gods,
Zeus, Poseidon, Hades, Apollo, Ares, Hephaestus, and six goddesses,
Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Artemis, Athena, and Aphrodite. One of the
twelve, Hestia (Goddess of the Hearth) was replaced by Dionysus
(God of Wine), thus changing the male/female balance to seven
gods and five goddesses. The goddess archetypes I am describing
in this book are the six Olympian goddesses—Hestia, Demeter, Hera,
Artemis, Athena, and Aphrodite—plus Persephone, whose mytho-
logy is inseparable from Demeter’s.
I have divided these seven goddesses into three categories: the
virgin goddesses, the vulnerable goddesses, and the alchemical (or
transformative) goddess. The virgin goddesses
Goddesses as Inner Images