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Summary: Excellent ! Absolutely essential reading for everyone.
Review: (Review will be updated/cleaned up as time permits, but for now ...)Buy this book if you have any interest in the human condition. An earlier reviewer claims that the book contains angry feminist rhetoric. Well, perhaps the authour is justified in her anger. She certainly is a feminist. But who better to speak about the subjugation and degredation of patriarchy than a woman who has lived with/under both? How can any clear minded individual look around them at our world and not be angry, sick, and furious with what we've done to it? Every time I open this book and read a passage, I have an instant "aha" experience. These are the things I have felt and believed, but never had words for. This book is for everyone, from the lifelong feminist to the freshman high school girl (and boy!). Feminists are often accused of wanting to return us to some misty age of superstition. We are accused of being anti-science, anti-technology, anti-progress, anti-human, anti-male. Nothing could be further from the truth. I personally am a very pragmatic, skeptical, science minded person. I love technology and the future is what I am happiest dreaming about. I love change and progress. What I don't love is our social/spiritual systems that feed off of and exist to promote human and planetary genocide. Only those who are the most in denial can say that there isn't anything wrong. But back to the point, the authors of this work use science to make their point. The extensive bibliography is a real treasure trove. The authours don't just say, "we believe it, thus it is so." Instead they cite their references at great length... Don't be disuaded by negative reviews. It's one of the best 20 some dollars I've spent in a very long time. This book will change your life. (One of the most amazing things about this book, was that the author wrote it while virtually starving and freezing to death in a little New Mexico home with her kids. For a year after this book was written, she was even homeless and living on the street! ... Is she angry? Suprisingly, given her life, she is very calm, intelligent, focused, and to the point...)
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Summary: The only way to survive the end...
Review: ...is to return to the beginning. This book is the most important and powerful book I have ever read. It is important to read the book through and understand what is being said before bashing the author as a man-hater, as some have done. There is *such* a difference between bashing men and naming the injustices of the roots of patriarchal religion. For instance, it is men who are dying in the name of a patriarchal God (anti-terrorist and anti-infidel) as I write this. It is boys as well as girls who are starved, beaten and abused within a patriarchal system as children, entirely dependent on women who have all the responsibility for their unpaid labor, and none of the power to make things right. I loved the way the authors articulated the importance of the unpaid work women do, and how much our entire global economy depends on it. This work is not only historical, it is current, prescient, and brilliant. It is crucial to our time, and should be mandated reading for everyone. If only we could make that happen! "Because the enemy does not exist in space, but in time; four thousand years ago. We are about to destroy each other and the world, because of profound mistakes made in Bronze Age patriarchal ontology -- mistakes about the nature of being, about the nature of human being in the world." Touching on *quantum physics*, the authors create a spiral of hope that defies the statement that we are calling for a *return* to a time that no longer exists, but to a time that cannot be destroyed because it is organic and essential to the survival of this planet and the people She embraces. I loved the author's use of words, too, she does not limit her vocabulary or "talk down" to her readers, but she does not talk over their heads either. She knows what she is talking about and it would behoove us all to listen. After all, "People who put in two-thirds of the world's working hours and receive in return one-tenth of the world's income should have something to say about the idea that hard work equals wealth. ... The bitter truth is, under four thousand years of patriarchal 'exploit-for-profit' economics, the women of the world have worked long and hard, often under the worst necrophilic conditions, to keep the human race minimally alive. In return, we receive mostly dismal statistics signifying not reward, but rip-off." The only drawback of this book is that once you read it, once you *get* it, you will never be the same again. And if more people *don't* read it, those who *do* get it are going to be very lonely and hard to live with people. Evolution is a lonely path. Let's walk the journey together, shall we?
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Summary: Perfect first introduction to feminist spirituality
Review: Barbara - I'd love to dialog with you; email me if you've still got internet access. I've bought four copies of this book, not because I'm greedy and hate trees, but because I keep loaning out my copy and it never returns. Thank Goddess it's still in print! I don't read a rigid anti-technology message in this book. I don't have it in front of me, but I seem to remember that one important point was that science & technology AS CURRENTLY ADMINISTERED BY MEN were not going to save us, and that in this technological world of ours, core feminist spiritual values are rising again and forging a new consciousness. And if I may ramble on a tangent of my own, much of our technological/industrial base is built on gross world exploitation and greed (capitalism), fascism and war; a just, peaceful and kind world would have quite a different look technologically. But what indeed would it look like? Returning to a world like the early matriarchate may or may not be viable, but our technological world cannot continue as is, since it carries within it the seeds of its own destruction (pollution & depletion, not to mention the possibility of a pesky revolution from those excluded), so it is not monolithic by any means. I don't have any answers, and I can't say that it is or is not possible to affect change using the tools and toys of a slave-holding anti-spiritual world. "The Great Cosmic Mother" and many other books raised my consciousness, but they were printed with modern technology on trees (the lungs of the earth), producing dioxin in the paper-bleaching process, etc. It's a paradox, and not one easy to reconcile.
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Summary: The most informative book I have ever read
Review: I am a fifteen year old male and was given this book by a freind of my mother. I have read the book two or three times since then, and it has completly changed the way I look at the world! At first I was scared by what I read, then I gradually, as I continued to read, accepted what I knew, deep within myself, to be true (that is to say that the essence of the universe is not a duality between good and evil, but rather, a whole, not torn and divided but together). This book has also helped me to understand the state of modern society (especially its unspoken, but sometimes murmered, antagonism towards ecstasy, not the drug, and visionary experiences).
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Summary: She Changes Everything She Touches... :}
Review: I am in the middle of the book as we speak. It is excellent! Very large and packed with empowering information about everything you've ever wanted to know about prepatriarchal matristic civilizations! Makes me want to go smack some men upside the head, and go live far away from "modern" society. Brightest Blessings to both Miss Sjoo & Miss Mor.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting but based on nothing but hopes and dreams
Review: I first read this book when I was 22 (about 10 years ago) and was deeply inspired by it. Since then I have become a neo-pagan and have followed a goddess-oriented path. In my quest to educate myself in my chosen spiritual path, I discovered that the Matriarchal Prehistory movement was based on speculation, not fact. Surprisingly, I would recall proponents of this theory saying things like "before written history, society was centered around women." Well, there's the clue. This theory was not based on journals or diaries of women living during a time of matriarchal rule, but on archeological evidence that has been interpreted to compliment radical feminism. Again, while not all written documentation can be relied upon as unbiased or accurate, private journals and such are usually more reliable. What is being present in this book as fact is in reality THEORY. A rather nice theory, but a theory nevertheless. Is is true? Who knows. But it is not proven historical fact. All anthropologists and social theorists have to work with are some female figurines and other assorted artwork. Those female figurines, while currently being hailed as goddess representations, may really be pornographic figures. We just don't know. Enjoy the book but remember that this work is based on theory passed off as fact.
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Summary: You will never forget this book
Review: I have never read a more important book. With breathtaking insight and analysis, The Great Cosmic Mother constructs a new and exciting epistemology for humankind. I am a changed person now and I can only thank the profound wisdom of the two authors for helping me to illuminate my true path. The multidisciplinary scope of their vision is truly astounding, and speaks of a lifetime of learning and independant thought. Cynical? Read it. A bible for the new mellinium.
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Summary: You can't help but want to underline in it
Review: I like this book's function as a critique of patriarchal religion. The authors provide the reader with several scenarios and musings that underscore how much patriarchy keeps certain people down, like women, minorities, and gays. The text is easier to read than most academic writings. If I had to give one negative criticism of the book, it would be what I deem is the crux of Mor and Sjoo's argument- destroy technology and return to matriarchal, prehistoric living conditions. While laudable in theory, it certainly isn't a viable option for the modern world.
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Summary: A book that changed my world-view
Review: I read this book about 1987 and it changed my views on the world. In this book I found an alternative to patriarchal religion and I am still very greatful to that. Although today I have been a little more critical of some parts of the book I still very much want to recommend it. That neolithic (and probably even palaeolithic) society was matrifocal and centered around a cult of the Great Goddess is, in my opinion, proved irrefutably by archaeological findings from the 20th century. I agree with Sjoo and Mor that this fact indeed is very important for us today. I think the book is wonderful and gives a convincing picture of the goddess religion. Unfortunately the authors often describe later Bronze Age and even Iron Age societies as matriarchal and goddess-worshipping, although these societies, with the exception of Minoan Crete, already was patriarchal and quite warlike. One example is the Canaanites/Phoenicians, who in fact had a quite bloody and oppressive religion, centered on child sacrifices and "sacral" prostitution. The excavations of Phoenician colonies in Northern Africa has showed many examples of ritual child sacrifices. But this is a minor point. I think Sjoo/Mors book is one of the important books in the 20th century. You could argue with it, dislike parts of it, but if you are seriously interested in finding alternatives to patriarchal society and religion you must read it!
Rating:
Summary: Excellent excellent, it covers everything!
Review: I really like this book, and wish more people were reading it. It covers everything from the Neolithic cultures to the beginnings of patriarchy to the breaking of the Goddess into her many "aspects" to the rise of xianity to the Crusades, the Inquisition, the Burning times, everything. The atrocities that "man" and "the church" has done against the earth and females in general are well spelled out. Even explains why and how bisexuality & homosexuality were acceptable in prepatriarchal times & why they aren't acceptable to "the church". Very very thorough, very well researched. Very recommended!
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