Customer Reviews

Lost Goddesses of Early Greece: A Collection of Pre-Hellenic Myths

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The other reviewer says that if the book had not been presented as history it would deserve a 5 star rating. I also thought when I picked up the book that the historical argument was tremendously tenuous. However, taken as modern artistic interpretation of "Old European" goddess culture, not documentary about such culture, which is all it technically claims to be, it is wonderful. Myths are NOT historical. None of them. Sometimes a historical story is behind a myth, but often not recognizable. But myths are gross revisions of stories. The key is the revisions appeal to some part of the human unconscious, and seem to make "true" statements about the state of the collective human psyche. As such, and the author does after all present these as "reconstructed myth" not actual transcripts of old texts, then anyone reading the fine print would not be mislead about historicity, and the book should get its deserved 5-star rating.

Some of the reviews of this book I believe are misleading. Yes, Ms Spretnak is a feminist; yes, she can be political about it. But I don't think she was presenting an agenda with this book. She took fragments of pre-Hellenic myths, and fleshed them out so they'd make sense. And she did so in a beautiful lyric style!

"The goal of such work [extending the knowledge of pre-Hellenic culture] is not the reinstatement of prehistoric cultural structures, but rather the transmission of possibilities" As we know, history is written by the winners, and when the gods we now are most familiar with, the "classical" myths, were brought into the culture, the older myths which were more matrifocal largely vanished. Not to devalue Homer, but there is genuine value in these much older myths, just as we hold Virgil and Homer in high regard for their telling of newer gods.

The pre-Hellenic myths give us a glimpse into a culture where Hera (for instance) was powerful in her own right, not merely a consort and sister to Zeus. How can knowing two sides of a story be a bad thing? History may be written by the winners, but those who were conquered left traces of themselves behind, too, and you can read about some of it here.

Like Robert Graves, Spretnak has merged history and myth, using both to support the other. As such, she has left herself open to accusations of presenting bad history which leaves her poetry ignored. And, like the White Goddess, it is the poetry that is this book's strength and purpose. Unlike Graves, though, her scholarship is not all bad. She gives her interpretation of evidence, which she then references for anyone to see where she got her ideas. I would have liked to see her give an explanation for her interpretations, and I would also have liked for her introductions to each myth to have been more in depth; for this only four stars. However, her interpretations are in line with other authors who have looked at the Goddesses of Greece as more than background characters for the male actors. For more scholarly works on the subject of early Greek goddesse, I would recommend The Transformation of Hera by Joan O'Brien, and Foley's translation and commentaries on The Homeric Hymn to Demeter

Previous comments misrepresent this book as touchy-feely, matriarchal, rock worship. Such is not the case. Hellenic women were married at an early age in order to `tame' them - an unmarried, post-pubescent girl was thought to be dangerous (compare with myths of male heroes taming the Amazons by sleeping with their Queen). This book, while growing out of feminist and earth-centered movements, is myth and history illuminating who these goddesses may have been before myth tamed them through marriage to gods.

....that might have been longer. After reading the introductory material I was surprised at the brevity of the chapters: a consequence, perhaps, of how much lore has been lost down the centuries.

This book broke new ground not only by celebrating the goddesses (and by implication women and femininity) but by pointing out that "the" Greek myths known far and wide were preceded by matriarchal traditions transmuted by incoming Dorian patriarchs (see also the work of Maria Gimbutis and Riane Eisler) and centuries of his-story. The author strives to recover something of the earlier traditions in her lively, and at times lyric, reconstruction of the pre-Olympian goddesses.

The book left me with an open reflection. To some extent the story of Ulysses has followed me for years (or I have followed it), and I've come to appreciate what I perceive as the feminine warrior protectiveness of Athena, one of my favorites of the Greek pantheon. As Minerva her visage adorns the Great Seal of my homeland, California. And yet according to this book, Athena was made into a soldier by bloodthirsty male barbarians. Although there can be little doubt about the patriarchal distortions of the Greek goddesses--how many positive stories do you hear about Hera?--I'm wondering if we lose something in relegating quite so much to these distortions. Athena "feels" fiercely protective (but not soldierly) to me in dreams, in active imagination, and in fantasy: is this her quality, an archetypal aspect of her being, or does it merely derive from my being a man raised in a patriarchy? Or a man with an assertive anima? I don't know.

In any case this book remains a nice counterbalance to the usual versions of Homeric and Olympian mythology we find even now in most books dealing with Greek deities. There is also a cutting criticism of Jungian conflations of goddess, femininity, and darkness that will delight readers tired of hearing about the passive, yin-like, and shadowy "archetypal feminine," a convenient category for shoring up unjust power relations.

[...]

Lost Goddesses of Early Greece feature long lost stories of the early goddesses of Old Europe. It starts out with an interesting introduction that sheds light on how Ms. Spretnak researched these myths. This follows with chapters on Gaia, Pandora, Themis, Aphrodite, Triad of the Moon: Artemis, Selene & Hecate, Hera, Athena, Demeter and Persephone. The stories reveal the goddesses in their true forms before the coming of the Olympian gods. The last chapter tells an eye-opening story about Demeter and Persephone. Most people (myself included) are familiar with the mythic story of the rape of Persephone by the God of the Underworld. This book's message is that Goddess worship was around for at least 25,000 years--long before any other religion. These times were relatively peaceful times until invaders brought their warring "Zeus" god to Greece.

I found this book to be interesting and it makes sense to me that the Goddess would be the first religion. I have studied the Hellenic Greek myths and it is obvious to me that the classical myths degrade women. Another point is that all of the classical writers were men. I am a believer in the theories revealed in Lost Goddesses of Early Greece. I highly recommend this book to those who wish to explore an unknown road in mythology. I think every female should read this book--it may be a life changing experience for some.

Ho trovato questo libro davvero ben fatto e pieno di spunti interessanti sull'antica religione della Grande Madre, libera, potente, bellissima e priva delle catene impostele dalla mitologia Olimpica. Lo consiglio vivamente!

(I've found this book very good and full of interesting clues about the ancient Great Mother religion. A Great Mother free, powerful, beautiful and deprived of Olympic mythology chains!
I recommend it!

If the author had presented this book as a feminist utopian religious tract, it would have rated 5 stars, but as history, it's abysmal. The writing in the main body of the text is pretty enough to rate 2 stars, but the opening essay is an ideological nightmare: shaky claims for a pre-Indo-European matriarchy are only the beginning. If you buy this book, enjoy the myths for what they are, but take the "historical" intro--which fills almost a third of this slim book--with a full shaker of salt.

I read this book after reading Kenn Kassman's "Envisioning Ecotopia," which talked about Mystical Deep Ecology and used this author as primary source material. I wanted to get a closer look at the wacky ideas found in Kassman's book. I wasn't disappointed. I do have to say this book is kind of hard to describe. On the surface it is mostly made up of little biographies of Greek goddesses, but when one looks closer, sinister motives can be seen. The book turns out to be a mishmash of pseudo-history, pop psychology and touchy-feely leftism all rolled up into an unpleasant mixture. Spretnak has used material found in this book in some of her other works, such as "The Spiritual Dimension of Green Politics", another book I'll force myself to review here on Amazon.com.

Spretnak is one of the main theologians/theorists of the leftist Deep Ecology movement, which advocates a return to a simplier time when people regularly prayed to rocks and starved to death when the weather turned bad. Answers to problems were solved by ritualistic prayers to some goddess who could make everything well with the wave of a hand. These rituals involved a lot of hand holding, singing and other warm and fuzzy things that leftists love so much.

To be fair, Spretnak does give the reader a brief introduction that explains her cosmology. In short, Spretnak believes that the old Greek goddesses, which represented a better time when women rightfully controlled everything, were overthrown by the patriarch-dominated society that was created when Greece was invaded in antiquity. These male invaders subordinated the goddesses, who were earth based and replaced them with sky gods such as Zeus. Spretnak wants to help women regain their lost mantle by showing the reader how these goddesses were originally before male hegemony forced them into unnatural roles.

This book is miserable drivel, and as a historical work, it stinks. I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone who isn't on heavy thorazine treatments. Actually, when I think about it, maybe the author was on thorazine when she wrote this. It would certainly account for the mindlessness of the whole thing. I gave the book two stars due to the artwork of the various goddesses, which was fairly well done. Still, this book has some value in giving the reader a close look into the mind of the Deep Ecology movement.