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Rating: 
Summary: Thirteen excellent essays on the Goddess
Review: "There are thirteen excellent essays, each written by experts in their field on interesting topics around the themes of the book - healing, identity and empowerment...Each essay stands alone and could be read by someone with only a sketchy background in Goddess Spirituality, while at the same time, informing the most seasoned exponent...Wendy Griffin's book highlights a truth known to humanistic psychologists...If one follows an idea through to the end, its opposite is also true. In Griffin's case, the experiential is the academic; by being with the Goddess, however we know her, we are doing thealogy research. Very definitely a book that left me wanting more."
Rating:
Summary: Thirteen excellent essays on the Goddess
Review: "There are thirteen excellent essays, each written by experts in their field on interesting topics around the themes of the book - healing, identity and empowerment...Each essay stands alone and could be read by someone with only a sketchy background in Goddess Spirituality, while at the same time, informing the most seasoned exponent...Wendy Griffin's book highlights a truth known to humanistic psychologists...If one follows an idea through to the end, its opposite is also true. In Griffin's case, the experiential is the academic; by being with the Goddess, however we know her, we are doing thealogy research. Very definitely a book that left me wanting more."
Rating:
Summary: Good introduction to the subject
Review: A number of books are available on the subject of goddess religion, but few offer the breadth of information in this volume. Although academic in approach, the essays are accessible and well-written, and include practitioners as well as theorists. I especially enjoyed the participant/ observer essay on belly-dancing as feminist religion; its inclusion typifies Griffin's open approach. Good for the serious, intelligent reader.
Rating:
Summary: "Daughters" Speaks Eloquently to Male Readers, Too
Review: The prudent man who sets foot upon the Goddess/Gaian path quickly learns to listen, and very carefully, to whatever companions with whom he is fortunate to share the journey. This is at once both exhilarating and sensible, since the majority of one's companions is likely to be female, and they are drawn to the Goddess/Gaian path by experiences, perceptions and myriad desires that often have no clearly drawn counterparts within the male sphere. This is why Wendy Griffin's "Daughters of the Goddess," a 13-essay survey of contemporary Feminist Witchcraft and Goddess Spirituality by British and American writers, is potentially so rewarding to male readers. Much is in this book, pointedly subtitled "Studies of Healing, Identity & Empowerment," that even the most thoughtful of men might otherwise never encounter, assimilate and, if they so choose, embrace. "Who are the Daughters of the Goddess?" Griffin asks in her introduction. "They are women in the United States and Britain who may call themselves Witches, neo-pagans, pagans, Goddesses, Goddess women, spiritual feminists, Gaians, members of the Fellowship of Isis, Druids, and none of these names." They are also indirectly or directly our companions, gentlemen, and whether or not they acknowledge us as such, if we fail to encounter them, fully, it's our considerable loss. "Daughters of the Goddess" offers an engaging look at the scope of what men might gain instead through a fuller understanding. Griffin herself is that rarest of academic essayists, blending rigorous observational discipline with a narrative lyricism that is at times almost painfully beautiful. But she can sting, as well; consider her comment in a recent interview: "If being on the Goddess Path means doing personal magic, dressing up like fairies, dancing through the woods and nothing else, it is pure escapism. Patriarchy should love it." And so, gentlemen, if you find yourself scratching your head over what "patriarchy" has to do with Goddess/Gaian spirituality, please purchase this challenging, wonderful book and open yourself up to the voices of the 13 fiercely eloquent women Griffin has so skillfully brought together between its covers.
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