Introduction to the
Twentieth-Anniversary
Edition
The publication of the twentieth-anniversary edition of Goddesses
in Everywoman is an occasion for celebration. This was the book that
introduced the concept of “goddesses” as archetypes and became a
bestseller in the New Age and psychology sections of the bookstore.
It has remained a backlist staple when a short shelf life is the norm
for most books. A twentieth-anniversary edition presents an oppor-
tunity to introduce a whole new generation of women to their per-
sonal goddesses and to the energies, meaning, and power that they
exercise within us, as well as a means for intuitive male readers to
understand the feminine in themselves and the significant women
in their lives.
I was surprised when this book became a seminal (“ovarial” would
be a more fitting adjective) influence on the women’s spirituality
movement. Based upon classical Greek mythology and the collective
unconscious described by C. G. Jung, I introduced goddesses as
psychological patterns and symbolic figures, a powerful concept
that struck a spiritual chord in readers. Women who were drawn to
a particular mythological goddess found that this archetype affected
their dreaming life or waking imagination. Goddesses sometimes
appeared in these dreams as numinous or awesome and mysterious
figures. It allowed women to invest personal symbols and sacred
objects with archetypal meaning and beauty. Women began to define
spirituality for themselves, a logical extension of the spirit of self-
definition that characterized the women’s movement. Symbolic
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