Original subtitles

hey there i'm mike ragnetta this is

crash course mythology and today we're

going to talk about symbols dreams and a

couple of very busty figurines it's the

great mother goddess you excited tote

yeah i know you don't have a mother you

created yourself but come on she's the

best unless of course she doesn't exist

and if that's the case what do i do with

all of these great goddess mother's day

cards

[Music]

the mother goddess is an archetype

psychology fans will know about

archetypes from the work of carl jung

who saw the repeated patterns in myths

as emanations of what he dubbed

humanity's collective unconscious

meaning the symbols and ideas that all

humans share simply as a result of being

human archetypes can be used to explain

why the same patterns emerge in

different myths from different places

throughout the world some of the

archetypes that repeat all willy-nilly

are the dying god the destroyer god the

trickster and the primordial pairing of

the sky and the earth hey sky dad hey

earth mom the archetypes we'll be

examining in the next few episodes are

just those the father creator and the

great mother ugh cosmic parents i mean i

guess the upside is that if you have to

move back in with them after graduation

their basement is literally infinite

downside being of course that it is also

literally hades we're doing an episode

on female divinity before archetypal

male divinity because there are some

theories that earth mom actually did

come first as i've pointed out most

human societies are patriarchal and have

been for a long long time but certain

historians sociologists archaeologists

literary critics and mythologists have

argued that in prehistoric times human

societies were more matrifocal less

violent and more cooperative the idea

that human societies began as matrifocal

and goddess-oriented goes back a long

long way with scholars asserting that

many if not most primitive societies

featured a religion that was based

around ideas of fertility and motherhood

according to mythologists scott leonard

and michael mcclure throughout the 19th

and 20th centuries the literature of

several disciplines took for granted the

existence of primal mother or great

goddess and further assumed that her

religion and the societies based upon it

were part of the primitive past from

which man happily escaped through the

logocentric power of intellect yeah

that's right we reasoned ourselves right

out of peace fertility and harmony good

go in human mind a leading proponent of

the great goddess theory was maria

gimboutus who connected archaeology to

the women's movement and who probably

would have liked it a lot if you put the

venus of villendorf on your sign at the

women's march those involved with the

goddess movement of which kimbutus was a

leader saw in this mother-centric

religion an appealing alternative to the

brutality materialism spiritual

bankruptcy and ecological

short-sightedness of modern patriarchal

social systems tell us what you really

think the goddess movement is a very

cool idea but it does have a couple

problems for one it's based a lot on

images like this one hey there she is

again the venus of villendorf sort of

makes you feel more fertile already but

here's the thing the discovery of female

figures like the venus of willendorf was

taken as evidence of religious practices

that focused on the fertility aspects of

the female but there's no real proof

that figurines like these were part of

any worship or ritual at all maybe they

were just sexy lawn ornaments there are

problems with creating a picture of

female-centric social organizations

based on figures like this that

signified fertility and magical desires

for successful births also we've

discovered lots of female figurines and

not all of them have the

attributes associated with fertility and

not all of the figurines are female many

of them are male a lot of them are even

androgynous this lack of gender

specificity points to what might be the

biggest challenge to the goddess school

it relies on modern gender binaries and

stereotyping supporters of the goddess

movement reversed the values of

male-dominated victorian era science

which saw women as primitive natural

beings separate from and inferior to

rational men

never questioning whether our

prehistoric forebears imposed the same

male female polarities upon their world

or held the same assumptions about the

erotic and the symbolic as we do this is

a good reminder that we always need to

be aware of how we are imposing our own

beliefs and values on history and

pre-history and if i can impose my own

values for a second yes victorian

science is the worst so maybe you

believe in a fertile peaceful

paleolithic matriarchal world order that

spawned great goddess myths around the

world maybe you don't but there are

stories of goddesses from everywhere at

all times and they share some

similarities one of the most common

literary ideas is that of the triple

goddess which robert graves wrote about

in his book the white goddess an

influential typology the triple goddess

sorts goddesses into one of three types

virgin mother and crone if you find this

virgin mother crown thing troubling you

are not alone it's a system that sees

women through the eyes of men and

basically categorizes them on whether

they're sexy and since that is

uncomfortable making we're going to look

at the basic roles of goddesses in myths

in the terms used by maria gambutas life

death and regeneration goddesses of life

are maternal often associated with the

life-giving earth the greek gaia is a

prime example although there aren't a

lot of myths about her specifically

she's often supplanted by demeter

sometimes these life-giving goddesses

are associated with primeval creation

like tiamat in the sumerian creation

stories or si pactly the great goddess

of mexico who swam through the

primordial waters of chaos in the form

of an enormous crocodile which seems

like a pretty sweet way to travel

life-giving goddesses are occasionally

seen as protectors as well as nurturers

an example is the persian goddess

anahita who was sometimes depicted in

armor sometimes as a nurturing mother

and who was said to have power over the

water in dry as heck with two hockey

sticks persia water mom brings forth and

preserves life and as moms often do also

probably reminds you to shower goddesses

of death are often seen as queens of the

underworld like persephone whom we've

met and isis who was able to resurrect

her husband osiris in these roles great

goddesses control the cycles of growth

decay and rebirth

the seasons one of the goddesses we met

in an earlier episode itsunami died and

went to the underworld after giving

birth to fire her husband isanagi went

to look for her but finding her as a

rotting corpse was terrified so he ran

away i mean can you blame him izanami

considered this a divorce which also

seems reasonable and so she returned to

the underworld on occasion goddesses

associated with death are portrayed as

witches or seers often appearing as wise

old women like the greek witch hecate

who is sometimes said to have three

heads a snakes a horses and a dogs

making her a one goddess petting zoo

death goddesses are also often

associated with fate apportioning a

person's life ordaining health disease

prosperity and suffering the greek

moirai and the norse norns were

goddesses of this type and finally

goddesses of regeneration often relate

to sexuality in myths appearing as

virgins or nymphs sometimes they're also

responsible for creativity according to

leonard and mcclure their pulsing sexual

energies impel mortal creation to renew

itself and thus their influence redeems

individual mortality through beauty

passion and offspring pulsing sexual

energy

is it getting hot in here is it just

these mother goddesses one other

interesting thing about goddesses of

regeneration they seem to have a

tendency to bestow their favors on

mortal men and that just does not seem

to work out for example we're going to

go somewhere we haven't visited yet

ireland take us there thoughtbubble one

irish regeneration goddess is neve of

the golden hair whose name means beauty

neve was the daughter of the sea and tyr

nanoog the land of the blessed one day

neve stole the poet ashen away from his

people and brought him to tiranganog

where they lived together as lovers for

what turned out to be a very long time

while he was with her ashin remained

young and virile and chanted as he was

ashan forgot about his people who

continued to age and to die as mortals

tend to do he stayed at tiernanog for

centuries and really it's tough to blame

him but ashin became homesick eventually

neve grew tired of his complaining so

she sent him home on a magical horse

with a warning not to dismount but as

soon as the magical steed touched human

soil the saddle buckle broke and ocean

fell to the ground in an instant all of

the centuries that ocean had spent on

the isle of the blessed caught up with

him and he grew old

and died strangely there's an almost

identical story from japan in this one

the sea goddess atohime falls in love

with a mortal fisherman and takes him to

her palace under the sea after a few

days of romance the fisherman starts to

worry about the people he left at home

he begs atohime to let him return and

she agrees but only if he promises to

carry a tiny box to the surface

and never open it so you see where this

is going hundreds of years had passed

not just a few days and guess what

he opens the box all of the years that

had passed surround him like a mist and

his body withers into dust thanks for

that thought bubble that was uplifting

so great mother goddesses can create the

world and grant you fertility and peace

and equality and all that other good

stuff

or they can steal you away from your

home ravish you for a couple centuries

and then turn your body into dust that's

part of what makes great goddesses so

powerful no matter what form they take

they're usually multifaceted unlike some

gods i could name zeus great goddesses

are almost always complex and

contradictory which is the way we like

it here at crash course i'm definitely

sending that mother's day card now

thanks for watching we'll see you next

time

check out our crash course mythology

tote tote bag and poster available now

at dftba.com crash course mythology is

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studio in indianapolis indiana and is

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watching and if we've learned anything

today it's that those old mythic words

ring true don't look in the box chicago