Invoke the Goddess; Visualizations of Hindu, Greek, and Egyptian Deities (Paperback)

~ (Author) "Usually she can be found by the sacred river's edge, her black hair flowing in waves down the back of her moon-white sari, the air..." (more)
Key Phrases: mundane archetypes, base chakra, following visualization, Higher Self, New Age (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"...an excellent resource guide to Goddesses of different cultures." -- Rev. Rosemary Riley

"...helpful for anyone looking for the Goddess inside themselves." -- Silver Wheel, Lughnasa 2000

"A lovely workbook for self-development." -- Children of the Earth, Fall 2000

"Superlative package of fine work! This is one very inclusive and thoroughly researched book for many pathways." -- Tara News, May 2000

"Trobe does a wonderful job of describing the multifaceted female character types represented by goddesses throughout the world..." -- Beliefnet.com

Hecate, the crone, who knows the world and can see past exteriors. Artemis, the athlete, androgynous and attentive, whose independence is countered by a sense that the world is against her. Isis, the goddess of the interior world, spiritually inclined and always a little distant from harsh reality, inclined towards pretension. Radha, the embodiment offeminine adoration and forgiveness, the misguided dreamer. These are just a few of the characters introduced in Kala Trobe's "Invoke the Goddess." Though the book is full of "magickal" exercises and visualization techniques which the reader can use to channel the power of the goddesses in her own life, its most interesting, memorable aspect is its description of the character types represented by goddesses around the world, the innumerable feminine archetypes. Trobe does a wonderful job of describing the multifaceted female character types embodied by the goddesses, and sometimes her efforts to update the goddesses to the modern world are nothing short of delightful--as when she describes Kali as a teenager, who "enjoys fierce music and pours scorn on her peer group's proclivity toward boy bands." Who wouldn't like to be her friend--or at least visualize her for company every now and again? (Beliefnet, June 2000) -- From Beliefnet

About the Author

Kala Trobe (UK) is the main nom-de-plume of Kate La Trobe-Bateman. She is author of the award-winning work of fiction The Magick Bookshop and the new Magick in the West End, a dazzling collection of short stories that brim with imagination and come straight from the theatre-lit, gaudy, blinding, yet, bewitching streets of London's West End - and all seen through the eyes of a magically-minded young and aspiring occultist at one of Londons most well-known esoteric bookshops.

Kala Trobe is the author of several works of Llewellyn non-fiction including Invoke the Goddess: Visualizations of Hindu, Greek, & Egyptian Deities, Magic of Qabalah, Invoke the Gods: Exploring the Power of Male Archetypes and The Witchs Guide to Life, and is also published by Random House UK.
Ms Trobe currently divides her time between London and Amsterdam.

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Llewellyn Publications; 1st edition (June 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1567184316
• ISBN-13: 978-1567184310
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #918,020 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Goddess Meditations, November 7, 2001

By	Cynthia M. Caton "minion" (Ireland) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The strength of this book lies in the ritual baths and goddess meditations. While I thought the meditations were a bit too structured and guided, I appreciated the creativity behind them. It did surprise me, however, that the suggestion was placed where a goddess may refuse you during the meditation. I think planting that idea in someone's head is defeating the purpose of the working. It would have been better to say "how does the goddess respond to you" instead of going into the meditation worry if the goddess is going to refuse you. Also, there was little mention of thanking that goddess for her gifts/audience.

I thought the weakness of the book was in the Mundane Archetypes. For the most part, it gave the impression that the goddess are petty and the information did not necessarily follow the mythology presented earlier in the chapter - especially for Artemis (orgies?!). The book "Goddesses in Everywoman" by Jean Shinoda Bolen is a much better resources for this type of information. I think the author would have been better served to leave out these sections and maybe focussed more on the Tarot aspects.

I would recommend this book for the ritual baths and meditations (with less structure). I would not turn to it as a resource for goddess information. However, I was inspired to check out the author's bibliography to see where she got her background information.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great magickal information and Goddess Exploration, February 22, 2004

By	Raven Digitalis (Missoula, MT United States) - See all my reviews

I have read this book and found it to be VERY helpful in my magickal practices. Kala Trobe's book is great; second to her other *Essential* book "The Witch's Guide To Life".. The deities focused in this book, "Invoke the Goddess," are of the Greek, Hindu & Egyptian pantheons; much like the Gods focused on in her other book "Invoke the Gods." This book goes into more detail about these particular Goddess archetypes than any other book I've seen. There are pages upon pages of essential information about each Deity. It's great! I have found the information to be extremely helpful for magickal work and invocation. I could not compare the detailed descriptions of the Deities within to any other book. If you are looking for a huge list of various gods and goddesses (that does not go into as much detail as this book), I would recommend Janet & Stewart Farrar's "The Witches' Goddess" & "The Witches' God".. However, if you are looking for more in-depth information about Deities of these particular paths (Greek, Hindu & Egyptian), I would highly recommend this book. I have seen it on more witches' bookshelves than I have the Buckland classics! All in all, it has helped out my practices and understanding of Deity to a much greater extent. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED! Thanks Be to Kala Trobe!

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the best Goddess books around, April 15, 2001

By	Elen Hawke "author of In the Circle, The Sacr... (Oxford UK) - See all my reviews

This book is extremely well written, interesting and enjoyable. If you haven't done any meditations or visualisations, then you will find the book helpful, and if you are used to creative visualisations then you will get some fresh ideas. I found the information on the different goddesses fascinating, especially the Hindu goddesses, about which I knew comparitively little. The different female deities are used as a symbolic and archetypal interface with the divine, and also as a way of understanding the self and relationships with others. There are a lot of useful hints in the text, such as a grounding in the chakras and how to work with them, advice on diet, and such issues as how to prepare solarised gem elixiers. Each goddess section also gave preparations for and an outline of an interactive ritual to heal some part of your life. I'm not generally a great advocate of guided visualisations because so many of them are badly thought out, but the ones in this book seem to be based on sound psychic, spiritual and psychological knowledge. After reading the section on interacting with Isis, I actually felt that I had experienced a profound interchange with this goddess (one of my favourites). I also found myself delving through the chapter endings to see which of the mundane archetypes applied to me. Kala Trobe shows how it is possible for each of us to work with different goddesses in turn, according to our current needs. The book was very deep, but it was also readable and fun. This is certainly one of the most original and sound books on the subject i have ever read, and is founded on accurate research material and very valid spiritual principles.