Goddessing: A Goddess / Pagan Blog

Students and others who practice paganism are commonly misunderstood, because of the entertainment industry's interpretation of their religion, Raymond says.

Nikki Bado-Fralick, assistant professor of religious studies and folklorist, says magic is really about appreciating nature and improving oneself.

She says the entertainment industry tends to portray certain pagan practices, including witchcraft or Wicca, with a thriller aspect.

The magic presented is commonly in the form of what Bado-Fralick calls "kitchen witchy spell books."

"America wants a quick fix, so there is a big market for that kind of crap. A lot of pagans and witches are kind of amused by that," she says.

Born in 1921 in the U.K. of refugee Polish Jewish parents, Asphodel (formerly Pauline) Long has been called a grandmother of the Goddess Movement in Great Britain.

She is a founder member of the European Society of Women in Theological Research, the London Matriarchy Study Group (1975) and the Matriarchy Research and Reclaim Network (1980). She received a degree in Theology at London University in 1983 at the age of 62. In 1996 she was the first Sophia Fellow at the University College of St. Mark and St. John, Plymouth.

Her course "Female aspects of deity" was offered by the Centre for Continuing Education at the University of Sussex in an unbroken cycle from copyright_31987 to 1994. The syllabus, included Goddesses of the World, Goddesses of Britain, and Goddesses of the Ancient Near East. She was joined by Magenta Wise who gave several classes on ritual and celebration in the same series.

From 1993 to 1996 she was a tutor in the Feminist Theology outreach programme of the University of Wales at Lampeter, again focusing on "Female aspects of deity"; the programme led to the award by the university of the Certificate in Feminist Theology, and was accepted at various colleges as credit towards a BA in Religious Studies. She taught a similar course in 1996 at the University College of St. Mark and St. John in Plymouth.

Asphodel is an author of numerous writings on Goddess topics and also on Jewish women's history and on antisemitism. Her book, In a Chariot Drawn by Lions: the Search for the Female in Deity (The Women's Press, London 1992; Crossing Press, Freedom CA 1993) is a discussion of Wisdom Goddesses, looking at goddesses in Hebrew and Ancient Near Eastern traditions, researching into the background of Western culture with emphasis on Hochma/Sophia - her reign, her banishment and return. The book also addresses a theme, now commonplace among biblical scholars, though not yet known to the general public, that the ancient Hebrews were not monotheists, but worshipped both the god Yahweh and the goddess Asherah. Scholarly material is used in an accessible manner and analyses the causes of misogyny.