Growing Up Without the Goddess: A Journey through Sexual Abuse to the Sacred Embrace of Mary Magdalene [Paperback]

Sandra Pope (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 7, 2008

In Growing Up Without the Goddess: A Journey through Sexual Abuse to the Sacred Embrace of Mary Magdalene, Sandra Pope chronicles her spiritual journey to recover from lifelong punishing patterns caused by a secret abuser when she was a child. When the past reveals startling, wounding events but does not disclose her hidden abuser, no one believes she was abused. Sandra receives healing visions from Mary Magdalene that reveal her abuser’s identity and expose deeply disturbing truths for all who grow up without the goddess.

Product Details

• Paperback: 458 pages
• Publisher: BookSurge Publishing (October 7, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1419693530
• ISBN-13: 978-1419693533
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,500,893 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Loss of the Sacred Feminine creates an atmosphere for sexual abuse, January 14, 2009

By 

Joan Norton "author ,14 Steps To Awaken the S... (Los Angeles) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Growing Up Without the Goddess: A Journey through Sexual Abuse to the Sacred Embrace of Mary Magdalene (Paperback)

Author Sandra Pope was kind enough to thank me in the dedication of her book, but I'm really writing this review as a "Magdalene community" member, one of those who work to raise awareness of Mary Magdalene as the sacred feminine in Christianity.
Growing Up Without the Goddess is the spiritual memoir of a little girl without an image of herself as sacred and divine, which is where we've all been left without Mary Magdalene in our Christian story. This little girl had to learn the hard way, on the hard road of sexual abuse, what it means to be a spiritually motherless child. Reading this story, we can all shutter at the thought of her physical abandonment and revel in the spiritual recovery of her life and love and divinity.
But I'm ahead of myself. Let me tell you about little Sandra, Southern girl of the Pope family in a small town in North Carolina, mothered by . . . no one.
Lots of women suffer through mothering dysfunctions, and we have plenty of those type of books. But Sandra's recovery to "thriving, not surviving" gave her back the sacred feminine "role model" of Mary Magdalene, and that makes this a different kind of book. She makes a clear case for sexual abuse being a normal aspect of religious patriarchal power abuse, meaning it's "built in" to any religion without a Goddess.
This is something we don't think about often, that without the story of a Beloved Goddess who is loved by a Beloved God, women are simply not as important and, therefore, they are very vulnerable to misuse. Raised to please the menfolk becomes a very dangerous idea.
We meet Sandra first as a young women of the 60's committed to the left wing politics of the time, working on voter registration and integration issues. Almost joined the Weather Underground, but came out to California instead. Life goes on the way it will for young women, with wonderful motherhood of twin girls, new career directions, and new marriage. She says she was never interested in the self-reflection "stuff" of the consciousness movement of the 70's, never overly worried about her inner self.
You can guess where this is going. In Los Angeles, in a guided imagery experience that a friend dragged her to, Sandra attempts to talk to her literary role models -- Plato, William Blake, and Wordsworth. They won't talk and instead a photograph of her long lost mother shows up in her inner vision. And so the journey begins. This is the mother who sent her to live with people who touched her and beat her and saw to it that she felt like a sinner. Oh no, not her.
If you ever wondered just exactly what it's like to discover you've been hurt badly and to feel what it's like to think you must be imagining it, Sandra's book will take you there. You learn about her therapeutic work, her dreamwork through which the truths of her soul were told, her efforts to see and feel the sick patterns in herself and try to stop them. Reading and feeling these struggles will make you want to do everything you can to be kind to yourself, knowing that you, too, share in the recovery of the sacred feminine dimension in yourself. Men, too.
This book is so important because, as Sandra explains, one in four young women will be abused by the time they are 18. That's right now! So shocking. In a later chapter of description of her continual recovering, Sandra gives us a very clear, bullet-point list of the ways abuse warped her life. You may see yourself on that list . . . we all share it.
Growing Up Without the Goddess reads like a novel. The writing style draws you in, painting a picture of small town life in the 50's rural South, with the dialog and attitude that fit the times. The difference is that this memoir has an "observing voice" which narrates the "journey of a wounded healer," giving us insight into ourselves as well as the story of a little girl harmed. This may be familiar territory to some readers; the stories of how abuse can cause anorexia and other physical ills, suicidal inclinations, impossible relationships, and searing self doubt. The difference here is recovery into "prophesy and revelation" by Mary Magdalene and her daughter, and the meaning in that for everyone's recovery of their own sacred dimension.
By the way, one of the very interesting stories within the book is that Sandra comes from a family heritage of "fire healers," people who can remove burns. In recovering memories of abuse, she also recovers her own ability to heal, and today she works as a vibrational healer. I think she has recovered her own inner fire as well. ' '
You can hear an excerpt of the book at www.GrowingUpWithoutTheGoddess.podomatic.com, and read excerpts and author information at Sandra's website at www.GrowingUpWithoutTheGoddess.com
Reviewer Joan Norton, M.F.T. is author of The Mary Magdalene Within (iUniverse, 2005)and 14 Steps to Awaken the Sacred Feminine, Women in the Circle of Mary Magdalene (with Margaret Starbird) (Inner Traditions, 2009). You can hear her Magdalene Meditations at www.MaryMagdaleneWithin.podomatic.com and participate in "all things Magdalene" at www.blog.MaryMagdaleneWithin.com.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A fine and highly recommended read, May 7, 2009

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Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Growing Up Without the Goddess: A Journey through Sexual Abuse to the Sacred Embrace of Mary Magdalene (Paperback)

The mind does not like terrible things, so it will often repress them. "Growing Up Without the Goddess: A Journey Through Sexual Abuse to the Sacred Embrace of Mary Magdalene" is the psychological coping of author Sandra Pope. When her mind continues to give her visions of a haunting past, she prays to the figure of Mary Magdalene, whom she says gives her the power to finally name the one responsible. A dive into the world of faith and repressed memories, "Growing Up Without the Goddess" is a fine and highly recommended read.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Powerful and healing, April 10, 2009

By 

Living the DREAM! (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Growing Up Without the Goddess: A Journey through Sexual Abuse to the Sacred Embrace of Mary Magdalene (Paperback)

WOW! Sandra Pope has magnificent courage! Her skills as a writer are phenomenal, but the story itself is absolutely gripping. I literally could not put the book down. I HAD to devour it. It demanded to be read.

Growing up Without the Goddess is one of the most powerful books I have ever read on self discovery, personal growth and healing. It is a true testament to the power and resilience of the human spirit and the profound spiritual connection to the sacred feminine. The epic journey that Sandra Pope describes in her book is tragic, poetic and empowering. Her ability to dissect the circumstances of her life provides the reader a true glimpse of their own sacred feminine.