goddess

main reference

• TITLE: god and goddess (deities)
  generic terms for the many deities of ancient and modern polytheistic religions. Such deities may correspond to earthly and celestial phenomena or to human values, pastimes, and institutions, including love, marriage, hunting, war, and the arts. While some are capable of being killed, many are immortal. Although they are always more powerful than humans, they are often described in human terms,...

ancient European religions

• TITLE: Celtic religion
  SECTION: Goddesses and divine consorts
  ...reflect the coupling of the protecting god of tribe or nation with the mother- goddess who ensured the fertility of the land. It is in fact impossible to distinguish clearly between the individual goddesses and these mother- goddesses, matres or matronae, who figure so frequently in Celtic iconography, often, as in Irish tradition, in triadic form. Both types of goddesses are...
• TITLE: Hellenistic religion
  SECTION: Religion from the death of Alexander to the reformation of Augustus: 323–27 bc
  ...Characteristic of this first period of Hellenistic religious history were the following developments: (1) the introduction of Oriental cults into the West, especially those associated with female deities who were either worshiped in frenzied rites of self-mutilation ( e.g., the Phrygian Cybele, brought to Rome in 204 bc; the Syrian Atargatis; or the Cappadocian Ma-Bellona) or...

Wicca and Neo-Pagans

• TITLE: witchcraft
  SECTION: Contemporary witchcraft
  ...movement, as a silly fad or an incompetent technology, but some now understand it as an emotionally consistent but deliberately anti-intellectual set of practices. Adherents to Wicca worship the Goddess, honour nature, practice ceremonial magic, invoke the aid of deities, and celebrate Halloween, the summer solstice, and the vernal equinox. At the start of the 21st century, perhaps a few...
• TITLE: Wicca (religion)
  SECTION: Origins and beliefs
  ...of World War II, Gardner became involved in the British occult community and founded a new movement based on a reverence of nature, the practice of magic, and the worship of a female deity (the Goddess) and numerous associated deities (such as the Horned God). He also borrowed liberally from Western witchcraft traditions. Following the 1951 repeal of England’s archaic Witchcraft Laws,...