Magic and the Power of the Goddess: Initiation, Worship, and Ritual in the Western Mystery Tradition | 
 enlarge | Author: Gareth Knight
Publisher: Destiny Books
Category: Book
List Price: $14.95
Buy New: $8.25
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Avg. Customer Rating:  2 reviews
Sales Rank: 476360
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 224
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 8.8 x 5.9 x 0.7
ISBN: 1594772355
Dewey Decimal Number: 202.114
EAN: 9781594772351
ASIN: 1594772355
Publication Date: March 27, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
A manual of magical and mystical techniques for contacting the Goddess within
• Draws from two thousand years of source material to demonstrate the ongoing reality of the feminine power and its relevance for today
• Includes rituals, exercises, and techniques for evoking the Goddess
• Explains how the dynamics of the sacred or magic circle serve as a guide to living harmoniously
In this wide-ranging view of magic and ritual, Gareth Knight demonstrates the presence of the Goddess throughout Western esoteric traditions. From Greek myths and the Mysteries of Isis to the emergence of the cult of the Blessed Virgin and seventeenth-century Rosicrucian spiritual alchemy, he shows how the Goddess--the elemental consciousness of Earth--has revealed herself in different times and places.
Honoring her many guises, Knight explores the powers of the Goddess as maiden, mother, initiator, protector, sorceress, and faery queen. Guided meditations on each of these qualities lead the practitioner into direct contact with the potent healing energy of the Divine Feminine. The author also offers rituals, exercises, and other practical tools for integrating the Western magical tradition with worship of the Goddess. He shows how we, and our planet, have suffered due to the repression of the feminine principle. For our own health, and that of our environment as well, we must recognize the power of the Goddess within to reconstitute and guide our existence.
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| Customer Reviews:
 A Ground-breaking Book May 9, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Originally published in 1985 as "The Rose Cross and the Goddess," then later substantially revised and expanded under the title "Evoking the Goddess", this latest edition has a new preface by the author.
In many ways, this book was, and still is, ahead of its time. For it presents the Western Mystery Tradition not as an inalterable secret "system" controlled by a hierarchy of reticent adepts, but as a dynamic, living approach to sacred lore. It is a way of transformation and spiritual service that is applicable to any religious or mythological tradition, yet is bound by none.
The book is divided into two main parts, which taken together provide a rare opportunity to work magic from beginning exercises to advanced levels of service. Indeed, the book could well be taken as a course of training in and of itself and I would certainly wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone interested in the Magical Way.
There are times in this book, particular in the practical segments, where Knight's literary style, already accomplished and impressive, seems overshadowed by yet a greater voice. A poetic muse or spiritual contact seems to speak with unusual power from those passages.
In the chapter headed "The Faery Queen and the Magic Mountain, Knight remarks more fully on an important theme running through the book. This is "the democratization of the Mysteries," which he rightly links to the power of the Goddess. He mentions the current spate of books and workshops on once secret doctrines and practices as evidence of this process, and from my own experience as a teacher and writer, it does indeed seem as if the roles of priest and priestess are moving away equally from confinement in conventional religion or traditional Mystery Lodges into wider, more accessible and integrated expressions in the daily lives of spiritual people.
The book closes with a chapter on the Initiation of the Earth, in which Knight gives visionary examples of how this new priest and priestess-hood is undertaken in the context of the Goddess and sacred sites. Effective participation in this kind of spiritual service requires, the author tells us, "breadth of vision and largeness of soul" ~ a phrase which aptly sums up this book.
CYHB
 New title for a previous book May 4, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Previously published as The Rose Cross and the Goddess, this is an updated version. Lots of Goddess information and mythic descriptions. I guess you could call it a text book of the Goddess, all of which makes it a bit of a grind to read. It comes across rather dry because it is so chock-full of myths and characters. Worth having as a reference.
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