A comprehensive study that draws upon poetry and mythology, art and literature, archaeology and psychology to show how the myth of the goddess has been lost from our formal Judeo-Christian images of the divine. It explains what happened to the goddess, when, and how she was excluded from western culture, and the implications of this loss.

Part 1 The mother Goddess and her son-lover: in the beginning - the Paleolithic mother Goddess; the Neolithic great Goddess of Sky, Earth and Waters; Crete - the Goddess of Life, Death and Regeneration; the Bronze Age - the mother Goddess and her son-lover; Inanna-Ishtar - Mesopotamian Goddess of The Great Above and The Great Below; Isis of Egypt - Queen of heaven, Earth and Underworld; Tiamat of Babylon - the defeat of the Goddess; Goddesses of Greece - Gaia, Hera, Artemis and Athena. Part 2 The sacred marriage: Goddesses of Greece - Aphrodite, Demeter and Persephone; Cybele - great Goddess of Anatolia and Rome; the Iron Age - the great father God Yahweh-Elohim; the hidden Goddess in the Old Testament; Eve - the mother of all living; Mary - the return of the Goddess; Sophia - mother, daughter and bride; the sacred marriage of Goddess and God - the reunion of nature and spirit. Appendices: prehistoric times; the Christian gospels.