The Golden middle-class Goddesses
by VICTORIA MOORE
11th August 2006
Gold standard? A follower of the 'Goddess' in her ceremonial robes
What makes otherwise sensible middle-class women dress like this and dance on a hilltop with only their animal 'spirits'for company? Welcome to the weird world of...The Golden Goddesses
The High Priestess of Avalon is robed in gold, her cheeks are spangled and there is a yellow heart hanging from her neck. "These are the colours of the grain and the harvest," she tells me, "although they are quite hard to wear, as we discovered when we went shopping after deciding they should be the colours of the conference. You can't find gold stuff anywhere!"
She gives a cackle that is more Pauline Fowler than Queen Guinevere.
We are in Glastonbury, the Somerset mecca for psychics, faith healers, mystics, druids and the spiritually challenged (and where Jesus is supposed to have set foot when he was young). I am here to attend the annual Goddess Conference.
Usually a specialised affair, this year it has been inundated with visitors, who have converged on the small town after reading about Goddess worship in Dan Brown's blockbuster The Da Vinci Code. Some have even flown halfway round the world specially for this five-day extravaganza.
The centre of the action is Glastonbury town hall, decorated specially for the occasion.
There are bright drapes on the ceiling, a stage lined with amateur paintings of female deities, leaflets about 'Esoteric Soul Healing', a harvest festival altar and middle-aged ladies saying: "Excuse me dear, mind out of the way while I wave this incense." The overall effect is Ladies' Day at Woodstock meets Play School.
The mastermind behind the goddess cult is the golden figure who greeted me, Kathy Jones, who used to be a BBC science researcher.
As well as the conference, she also runs threeyear training courses for followers who want to pledge their services to the Goddess by becoming a Priest or Priestess of Avalon, which means they can take a ceremonial role in the eight annual festivals of worship.
Devotion does not come cheap - the course costs £1,985 - but with the current fashion for abandoning traditional religions in favour of more free-and-easy, individually-tailored forms of 'spirituality', there is no shortage of recruits.
"The Da Vinci Code has had a major effect," says Kathy, 59. "It has really brought us into the mainstream and helped us catch the attention of people who would not have found us before."
The centre of Kathy's world is the Glastonbury Goddess Temple, which sounds elaborate but turns out to be a small, dark, purple room above a trinket shop in the town centre. Opened in 2002, it's registered as a place of worship and its capacity of 60 is already too small to house the growing numbers of her cult. "When we hold ceremonies, hundreds of people have to stand outside," she says.
So who or what is the Goddess? And where does Avalon come into things?
"She's the creatrix, the female face of the divine," says Kathy, ushering me to a seat between Georgina, a fully trained priestess, and Christina, who teaches Arthurian studies at Bristol University. "Oh, never mind. You'll get the hang of it."
When I ask Georgina whom the Goddess is, she says: "You are sitting on her."
I move my chair hurriedly. 'No,' says Georgina. "I'm talking about Mother Earth."
She patiently explains that the concept of Goddess worship is more than 20,000 years old - "She has her roots in paganism" - and refers to the Venus of Willendorf, a droopy-breasted, pot-bellied limestone statuette found in Austria and thought to date back to 30,000BC.
"People accuse us of being New Age, but I say: 'If you want new, go to the Catholic church down the road. It's only been going for 2,000 years.'"
The ceremonial opening of the conference, conducted by first-year priestesses, interrupts her. "You carry me across your land," they chant. "You carry me across the water."
Then Kathy takes the stage and talks about how the Goddess came to her when she was recovering from cancer. She tells us that, according to legend, Glastonbury is the site of the lost Isle of Avalon, the final resting place of King Arthur. In ancient times, the low-lying plains were flooded - only Glastonbury's famous Tor peeked above the waters.
She is also convinced the town is built upon a natural monument to Avalon's Goddess, Nolava (Avalon spelt backwards).
"If you approach Glastonbury from the southeast, the landscape reveals the shape of a woman, sunk into the earth, lying on her side. Chalice Hill is her pregnant belly. The Tor is her left breast, standing proud and, like most of us women, when she lies on her side, her right breast has slid over."
There's an appreciative ripple of laughter. Kathy's strident tones are reminiscent of the battle cries of the feminist movement - and no wonder. Despite her scientific background, she came to Glastonbury 30 years ago, in the hippydippy days of the Seventies, aged 29, to practise 'full moon meditation'. She went on to become a Greenham Common activist and was heavily involved in local women's groups when feminism was at its peak.
"That was when my spirituality changed," she says. "I became aware we only ever referred to God as a masculine entity. I realised there was a Goddess, and she began to speak to me. I believe it's my destiny to reclaim the traditions of Avalon."
At the end of her rousing speech, she exhorts us to buy her book, Priestess Of Avalon, Priestess Of The Goddess, which detracts slightly from the spirituality of the moment, as it costs £14.95.
After a slideshow of Goddess paintings and a singing interlude - all fiercely monitored by Kathy, who interrupts anyone who dares to over-run their time slot - the brightly dressed audience is rapt.
But the power of the Goddess seems to be passing me by. Perhaps an afternoon workshop will help.
There are seven from which to choose, including 'Women's Ecstatic Chants', 'Rhythm Is The Cure' and 'Aspects Of The Mother In Collage'. 'Singing For Your Soul' led by Anique Radiant Heart (that is actually someone's name - Anique is Australian and used to be a professional jazz singer) is the most popular.
I choose 'Weaning Ourselves Off The Madonna', hoping it will not require too many extrovert displays of creative expression. It is run by a nice lady in navy pantaloons called Annie Spencer, a teacher of Native American traditions based in Bath.
Taking off my shoes (everyone else is bare-footed), I sit on a grimy carpet next to Susan, a gravelvoiced, don't-mess-with-me mother from Sydney. "You must spread the word about the Goddess," she begs earnestly. "Put her out there. Just remember - the power!"
I nod, and pick off a few glitterstars that have stuck to my feet.
Annie urges us to think about ways in which we can reclaim our power. "Women's power in the spiritual world has been demeaned," she chants, shaking a rattle.
To the sound of a beating drum and the smell of burning sage, Annie promises to take us on an inner journey, or 'guided fantasy'.
We close our eyes, lie back and feel ourselves "sinking back, going down a path to a meadow, a happy place, and then to a forest where you will meet the forest's guardian". Our guardian takes us to our 'animal mother' and we ask her for a gift.
Afterwards, we are given crayons to draw our fantasy. Marcella, an NHS worker from Bristol, draws a series of sketches that represent a swaying movement she was given by her animal mother, 'that will act as a gateway back to the world'.
Then Annie tells us to move around 'with the energy of your animal mothers' and a roomful of grown women pretend to be goats, bears, spiders and wild pigs.
In the evening, I join a silent, ragtag procession of hundreds of women, and a handful of men, looking for the Goddess on Chalice Hill.
Everyone is dressed in old sheets and tatty clothes in the colour that corresponds with their star sign - black for earth, red for fire, gold for water and white for air.
On top of the hill, each group chants. The earth posse sings: "Mother Earth, we sing to your soul, voice of power and healing hands."
A BBC Somerset reporter filming the event whispers: "If I were the High Priestess, I'd organise better costumes." I have to agree.
I still cannot find the Goddess, but there is one last hope: the Lammas - harvest - bonfire. I troop through the fields with first-year priestess trainee, Kim, 40, a local psychiatric nurse, and fellow trainee Jack, 46, who works in Germany as 'a healer and soul reader'.
Hmm. I turn to Kim. "Do you have to ask him to get out of your soul if there are things you don't want him to know about?"
"No, it's not like that," says Jack, quickly. "It's an energy thing that both people have to open up to."
Both Kim and Jack say that joining the Priestesses and Priests of Avalon has changed their lives, both physically and spiritually. As we wait for the crocodile of Goddess worshippers to pass through a kissing gate (a lengthy business, considering the amount of love they have to share), we catch snatches of conversation like, "I've got a Sagittarius moon so I'm quite gregarious", and "the Goddess has really helped my power as a healer".
At the bonfire, Kaye, a feisty American air stewardess who has flown in for the conference, tells me I must find a piece of old wood, think about all the things I want to banish from my life, and throw them with the stick into the flames.
"How many can I throw in?" I ask, hastily gathering together a small faggot. But Kaye has read my mind.
"You can't throw people in," she says. "You can only throw away your bad thoughts about them."
What has Kaye tried to banish? "The debt I incurred getting here." Night is falling and as the crowds round the fire are jostling to hurl in their sticks, I take my leave. Glastonbury is a strange place. I have met a lot of well-intentioned, kind people. But the Goddess?
Like so many other cults, she is simply a botched construct, designed by Kathy and her cronies, with a smattering of myths and legends for a veneer of authenticity.
Designed as a one-stop, female-friendly solution to our eternal need to love and be loved, she offers hope to those who lack the confidence to make their own way through life.
It can scarcely be a coincidence so many followers are women in their 50s, who came to the Goddess while recovering from an illness or coping with the loneliness of middle age.
The Goddess can be whoever these women want her to be. No wonder she is so revered.
dailymail.co.uk
by VICTORIA MOORE
11th August 2006
Gold standard? A follower of the 'Goddess' in her ceremonial robes
What makes otherwise sensible middle-class women dress like this and dance on a hilltop with only their animal 'spirits'for company? Welcome to the weird world of...The Golden Goddesses
The High Priestess of Avalon is robed in gold, her cheeks are spangled and there is a yellow heart hanging from her neck. "These are the colours of the grain and the harvest," she tells me, "although they are quite hard to wear, as we discovered when we went shopping after deciding they should be the colours of the conference. You can't find gold stuff anywhere!"
She gives a cackle that is more Pauline Fowler than Queen Guinevere.
We are in Glastonbury, the Somerset mecca for psychics, faith healers, mystics, druids and the spiritually challenged (and where Jesus is supposed to have set foot when he was young). I am here to attend the annual Goddess Conference.
Usually a specialised affair, this year it has been inundated with visitors, who have converged on the small town after reading about Goddess worship in Dan Brown's blockbuster The Da Vinci Code. Some have even flown halfway round the world specially for this five-day extravaganza.
The centre of the action is Glastonbury town hall, decorated specially for the occasion.
There are bright drapes on the ceiling, a stage lined with amateur paintings of female deities, leaflets about 'Esoteric Soul Healing', a harvest festival altar and middle-aged ladies saying: "Excuse me dear, mind out of the way while I wave this incense." The overall effect is Ladies' Day at Woodstock meets Play School.
The mastermind behind the goddess cult is the golden figure who greeted me, Kathy Jones, who used to be a BBC science researcher.
As well as the conference, she also runs threeyear training courses for followers who want to pledge their services to the Goddess by becoming a Priest or Priestess of Avalon, which means they can take a ceremonial role in the eight annual festivals of worship.
Devotion does not come cheap - the course costs £1,985 - but with the current fashion for abandoning traditional religions in favour of more free-and-easy, individually-tailored forms of 'spirituality', there is no shortage of recruits.
"The Da Vinci Code has had a major effect," says Kathy, 59. "It has really brought us into the mainstream and helped us catch the attention of people who would not have found us before."
The centre of Kathy's world is the Glastonbury Goddess Temple, which sounds elaborate but turns out to be a small, dark, purple room above a trinket shop in the town centre. Opened in 2002, it's registered as a place of worship and its capacity of 60 is already too small to house the growing numbers of her cult. "When we hold ceremonies, hundreds of people have to stand outside," she says.
So who or what is the Goddess? And where does Avalon come into things?
"She's the creatrix, the female face of the divine," says Kathy, ushering me to a seat between Georgina, a fully trained priestess, and Christina, who teaches Arthurian studies at Bristol University. "Oh, never mind. You'll get the hang of it."
When I ask Georgina whom the Goddess is, she says: "You are sitting on her."
I move my chair hurriedly. 'No,' says Georgina. "I'm talking about Mother Earth."
She patiently explains that the concept of Goddess worship is more than 20,000 years old - "She has her roots in paganism" - and refers to the Venus of Willendorf, a droopy-breasted, pot-bellied limestone statuette found in Austria and thought to date back to 30,000BC.
"People accuse us of being New Age, but I say: 'If you want new, go to the Catholic church down the road. It's only been going for 2,000 years.'"
The ceremonial opening of the conference, conducted by first-year priestesses, interrupts her. "You carry me across your land," they chant. "You carry me across the water."
Then Kathy takes the stage and talks about how the Goddess came to her when she was recovering from cancer. She tells us that, according to legend, Glastonbury is the site of the lost Isle of Avalon, the final resting place of King Arthur. In ancient times, the low-lying plains were flooded - only Glastonbury's famous Tor peeked above the waters.
She is also convinced the town is built upon a natural monument to Avalon's Goddess, Nolava (Avalon spelt backwards).
"If you approach Glastonbury from the southeast, the landscape reveals the shape of a woman, sunk into the earth, lying on her side. Chalice Hill is her pregnant belly. The Tor is her left breast, standing proud and, like most of us women, when she lies on her side, her right breast has slid over."
There's an appreciative ripple of laughter. Kathy's strident tones are reminiscent of the battle cries of the feminist movement - and no wonder. Despite her scientific background, she came to Glastonbury 30 years ago, in the hippydippy days of the Seventies, aged 29, to practise 'full moon meditation'. She went on to become a Greenham Common activist and was heavily involved in local women's groups when feminism was at its peak.
"That was when my spirituality changed," she says. "I became aware we only ever referred to God as a masculine entity. I realised there was a Goddess, and she began to speak to me. I believe it's my destiny to reclaim the traditions of Avalon."
At the end of her rousing speech, she exhorts us to buy her book, Priestess Of Avalon, Priestess Of The Goddess, which detracts slightly from the spirituality of the moment, as it costs £14.95.
After a slideshow of Goddess paintings and a singing interlude - all fiercely monitored by Kathy, who interrupts anyone who dares to over-run their time slot - the brightly dressed audience is rapt.
But the power of the Goddess seems to be passing me by. Perhaps an afternoon workshop will help.
There are seven from which to choose, including 'Women's Ecstatic Chants', 'Rhythm Is The Cure' and 'Aspects Of The Mother In Collage'. 'Singing For Your Soul' led by Anique Radiant Heart (that is actually someone's name - Anique is Australian and used to be a professional jazz singer) is the most popular.
I choose 'Weaning Ourselves Off The Madonna', hoping it will not require too many extrovert displays of creative expression. It is run by a nice lady in navy pantaloons called Annie Spencer, a teacher of Native American traditions based in Bath.
Taking off my shoes (everyone else is bare-footed), I sit on a grimy carpet next to Susan, a gravelvoiced, don't-mess-with-me mother from Sydney. "You must spread the word about the Goddess," she begs earnestly. "Put her out there. Just remember - the power!"
I nod, and pick off a few glitterstars that have stuck to my feet.
Annie urges us to think about ways in which we can reclaim our power. "Women's power in the spiritual world has been demeaned," she chants, shaking a rattle.
To the sound of a beating drum and the smell of burning sage, Annie promises to take us on an inner journey, or 'guided fantasy'.
We close our eyes, lie back and feel ourselves "sinking back, going down a path to a meadow, a happy place, and then to a forest where you will meet the forest's guardian". Our guardian takes us to our 'animal mother' and we ask her for a gift.
Afterwards, we are given crayons to draw our fantasy. Marcella, an NHS worker from Bristol, draws a series of sketches that represent a swaying movement she was given by her animal mother, 'that will act as a gateway back to the world'.
Then Annie tells us to move around 'with the energy of your animal mothers' and a roomful of grown women pretend to be goats, bears, spiders and wild pigs.
In the evening, I join a silent, ragtag procession of hundreds of women, and a handful of men, looking for the Goddess on Chalice Hill.
Everyone is dressed in old sheets and tatty clothes in the colour that corresponds with their star sign - black for earth, red for fire, gold for water and white for air.
On top of the hill, each group chants. The earth posse sings: "Mother Earth, we sing to your soul, voice of power and healing hands."
A BBC Somerset reporter filming the event whispers: "If I were the High Priestess, I'd organise better costumes." I have to agree.
I still cannot find the Goddess, but there is one last hope: the Lammas - harvest - bonfire. I troop through the fields with first-year priestess trainee, Kim, 40, a local psychiatric nurse, and fellow trainee Jack, 46, who works in Germany as 'a healer and soul reader'.
Hmm. I turn to Kim. "Do you have to ask him to get out of your soul if there are things you don't want him to know about?"
"No, it's not like that," says Jack, quickly. "It's an energy thing that both people have to open up to."
Both Kim and Jack say that joining the Priestesses and Priests of Avalon has changed their lives, both physically and spiritually. As we wait for the crocodile of Goddess worshippers to pass through a kissing gate (a lengthy business, considering the amount of love they have to share), we catch snatches of conversation like, "I've got a Sagittarius moon so I'm quite gregarious", and "the Goddess has really helped my power as a healer".
At the bonfire, Kaye, a feisty American air stewardess who has flown in for the conference, tells me I must find a piece of old wood, think about all the things I want to banish from my life, and throw them with the stick into the flames.
"How many can I throw in?" I ask, hastily gathering together a small faggot. But Kaye has read my mind.
"You can't throw people in," she says. "You can only throw away your bad thoughts about them."
What has Kaye tried to banish? "The debt I incurred getting here." Night is falling and as the crowds round the fire are jostling to hurl in their sticks, I take my leave. Glastonbury is a strange place. I have met a lot of well-intentioned, kind people. But the Goddess?
Like so many other cults, she is simply a botched construct, designed by Kathy and her cronies, with a smattering of myths and legends for a veneer of authenticity.
Designed as a one-stop, female-friendly solution to our eternal need to love and be loved, she offers hope to those who lack the confidence to make their own way through life.
It can scarcely be a coincidence so many followers are women in their 50s, who came to the Goddess while recovering from an illness or coping with the loneliness of middle age.
The Goddess can be whoever these women want her to be. No wonder she is so revered.
dailymail.co.uk
