The book covers 7 Greek Goddesses: Persephone, Ariadne, Hera, Athene, Gaia, Artemis and Aphrodite. The writing is beautiful but I am not sure I can relate to the author. It is like her voice is from a different age--being 28 years old, her view of "the Feminine" is foreign to me.The book assumes the reader is familiar with Greek mythology--I would say that I have a moderate amount of exposure to the Greek myths, and to Homer and not much knowledge at all of the tragedies and I understood the book pretty well. But if you know nothing of Greek myth--you might be a little lost.There were two things about this book that disturbed me. The first was that in the chapter on Persephone, the author states that the rape needed to happen. This may be true on a psychological/mythological level--but the author did nothing to say that actual physical rape is a horribly scaring violation. Perhaps she imagined her readers to be her peers and does not think a young rape victem would have exposure to this book--but I find it hurtful to not take into account the feelings of real women.The other thing that disturbed me was the autobiographical portions of the book. To read about the author's affair while married, and it's devasting effect on her lover's wife--clouded the whole book for me. She speaks of affairs as if they are something natural. I found myself not liking the author and doubting everything she wrote and questioning whether it had any meaning for me. Because the author's morals are so different from my own, her credibility as a guide to the Greek Goddesses was lost to me.I do think this is a very good book--but my feelings are mixed. Read it and decide for yourself.

It is difficult to remember that when Christine first wrote and published this book in 1981, there were few books about women's spirituality and connection to the ancient Goddesses. Chris Downing is a foundational person in feminist religious studies. This book blends strong scholarly research with personal reflections to create a deep psychological and spiritual offering. It is a classic, a book that anyone interested in the Goddess movement should own.

I have read most of the books available which blend psychology and mythology -- and have written in the field of myself -- and after 15 years still believe Goddess by Downing belongs in the TOP FIVE of all time - perhaps it deserves #1. This is the most outstanding in-depth portrayal of the goddesses and their psychological meanings that I have encountered; in comparison, Bolen's work and other contemporary interpretations of the goddeses appear superficial. Over and over again, I return to GODDESS and find new meanings continually unfolding for me within it. Although the scholarship in the book is outstanding, its strength is how it relates the myths to the deeply personal. DON'T MISS THIS BOOK! Get it while it's still in print.

This is a comprehensive survey of female sibling relationships in fairy tales, Greek myth, Sumerian and Egyptian myth, depth psychology, and contemporary and historical feminist psychology. It is liberating to read someone else's unabashedly personal search for the meaning of her relationship with her sister, not hesitating to criticize existing material based on her need to see it from the perspective of a late-life lesbian with five children and a younger sister with whom she has never had a satisfactory relationship. I, in turn, am critical of her narrow viewpoint, but applaud the prodigious effort in bringing together everything that could be found on sisterhood from sources that would yield archetypal images. It was illuminating to read how Freud was a firstborn and derived his theories from his personal process and that Adler was a secondborn and, likewise, developed his birth-order theories based on his personal experiences. The section discussing Greek myths wil! l be difficult for anyone who does not know them well, because Downing talks about them but never summarizes them--it was rather like listening to someone talk about a movie. I never grasped the connection between sisterhood and death that Downing subscribes to and said that Freud subscribed to. The chapters on depth psychology and feminist psychology I found good reading, relying as they did on the experiences of real people, rather than archetypes. Being frozen in a very painful symbiosis with my own sister, I practiced transference during the first half of the book, knowing full well that I was reading the excuses of an elder sister. As I progressed through the pages and forgave Downing for her birth order, the information became more interesting. Downing proposed that she would show how her survey of sisterhood thought applied to the larger sisterhood of all women. She never quite succeeded in that effort, as her own very personal struggle permeated every page through the ! final entry.