Customer Reviews

Maiden, Mother, Crone: The Myth & Reality of the Triple Goddess

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I understand that D.J. Conway is a highly popular author in the Llewellyn stable, however, I don't think she could research her way out of a paper bag.

I used to own a metaphysical bookstore, and was very dissapointed when this book came out. I was hoping for a well-researched and documented work on the Goddess, and found instead a book filled with incomplete information.

The author didn't take much time to research her subject. This is patently obvious when she makes the statement that there are no surviving Goddess traditions in African religion. This is a patent fallacy; a not very close look at West African traditions will reveal not only a surviving tradition of female Divinity, but a thriving tradition that spread with the African diaspora to the Americas, and the Carribean during the slave trade.

If you want a serious book about the Goddess, do yourself a favor and buy Janet and Stewart Farrar's book, "The Witches' Goddess." That book is well-written, interesting to read, with solid research behind it. Another excellent book on the subject is Patricia Monaghan's "The New Book of Goddesses and Heroines." This book is also well-researched and written in an engaging, lively style.

Ms. Conway is one of my favorite authors and with this book she really hits home. She expains the three aspects of the triple Goddess in detail, complete with myths and lore. The untrue myth that the dark goddess is all about gloom and doom is completely shattered in the section on the Crone. The Goddess is to be respected in all her aspects and is essential to birth, death and rebirth. This book also contains meditations to meet with and understand all three of the Sacred Mother's faces. A definite keep in my library!

This book is a wonderful intro to the mysteries of the Goddess, it gives very clear insight into seeing how She works in and which aspects apply to situations in our daily lives. This book makes one want to delve more deeply into Goddess lore and legend I highly recommend it.

This book is quite informative in addressing many different Goddess stories and legends from many different cultures in a brief, fun-to-read format but the historical information the author provides seems rather vague and incomplete. It proves to be an entertaining indulgence, nonetheless. However, if you want to address the worship of the Goddess in a more practical and educational manner, I would suggest looking elsewhere. There is some good advice here for beginners and those who wish to use the book as a quick-reference guide or as a possible overview, but I wouldn't use this book for any in-depth studies of the craft. Also, the repetitive spelling errors can become quite annoying.

This book might -- MIGHT -- be of use to the beginner or the casual practitioner, but anyone who has been involved in paganism or wicca for any length of time will not find much here that hasn't been covered elsewhere. And, I am sorry to say, covered in more depth. The illustrations are nice, though, and for someone who is not very familiar with wicca or paganism this might be helpful, but ONLY as a start down the path. If you're further on down the Way, there's not much of any interest here, sad to say. And what is it with Llewellyn and spelling errors? This book is loaded down with them. People, Microsoft Word includes a spellcheck function - USE IT.

Maiden, Mother, Crone suffers from the same lack of direction and rather shallow research that other books I've read by Ms. Conway suffer from. The first part of this book is simply a disorganized collection of very brief notes on a number of Goddesses from various cultures. Many fascinating deities and archetypal goddesses are provided no more than a sentence or at best a short paragraph. There is no attempt to organize or compare these varies figures by cultures or similarities or to draw any conclusions about the mythology of the goddess whatsoever. Part two of the book is simply a dictionary of symbols that seems to have been included to simply fill space. If you are interested in comparative mythology or in increasing your knowledge of various deities there are numerous other books of better quality out there.

This book brings togeather all sorts of goddess myths and Conway has sectioned them into catagories. A great read for understanding the relationship of the goddesses in many diffrent patheons. However the guieded meditations in the back are a little diffrent. I would seggest reading other books on goddess worship before you choose this form of connection.

as a couner-point, I feel it necessary to mention that Maiden, Mother, Crone was my first adventure into the realm of Goddess based religon. As a result of reading this book I am proud to say I am a recovering Catholic. Yes, maybe for the experienced pagan this work is oversimpilified. All I can say is I'm hooked on Goddess. Thanks D.J.

I feel this book realy helps one connect with the Goddess and to fully understand her three faces. When reading this book you seem to go on a little journey from the history of the Goddess to each aspect of her. Ever wonder which goddess to invoke for certain spells well this book will help you understand this better. Wonder how to explain the crone without making her seem scary well read about her and the history of her youll know how to tell her story a bit better. This is a very informative book that proves very helpful and if you have struggled at all with the 3 aspects of the Goddess struggle no more you will have a much better understanding of her and knowledge on how to do rituals to help you with this as well. Though this will prove invaluable to an intiate I think even a high preistess will find sastifaction and help in reading this book I think this is a must for anyone in the craft or anyone that just wants a better understanding of the Goddess!!

Good to finally see her books on Kindle. Would love to see another classic of hers called Falcon Feather And Valkyrie sword. That was my very first real introduction to the Goddess.