The authors identify the general symbol of the "Mother Goddess" as a common sanctified image, and they demonstrate some of the cultural variations in form or function of the symbol in specific sociocultural settings. Although the subject is approached from a wide variety of perspectives, the authors concur that female deities are not mere projections of sociocultural conditions on an ideological screen; divine mother images represent something of the nurturant and sometimes destructive dimension of the cosmic order.

Originally published in 1983.

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