April 15, 2025 • 53 mins
In this episode, ancient magic enthusiast and animist practitioner, Vanessa Lavallée joins me to talk about her new book Ancient Goddess Magic: Invoking the Queens of the Heavens.
We discuss the celestial roots of astral magic and the influential goddesses in many classical and ancient Middle Eastern and Pagan cultures.
Highlights include:
- The Legend of Corona Borealis and other constellations.
- The Lady of the Sea, and who is the Goddess Inanna?
- Vanessa shares a much-needed remembrance of the many faces of the goddess, exploring how values and perspective have shifted from symbolic significance to a patriarchal perspective.
- Why it is important to remember our ancestral feminine traditions - Particularly as diviners of planetary intelligence.
- How to invoke specific deities based on thousand-year-old rituals and spiritual practices that are still relevant today.
Vanessa holds a master’s degree in ancient religions and is working towards a doctorate in religious studies. She lives in Montreal, Canada.
Links:
https://www.innertraditions.com/author/vanessa-lavallee
Witches, Out of The Shadows exhibition: https://pacmusee.qc.ca/en/exhibitions/detail/witches-out-of-the-shadows/
Thank you to my new sponsors. This Episode is brought to you by:
• The Sattva Collection - 10% off with code TheConsciousDiva
• Birds & Beans Organic Coffee - 10% off with DIVA2025
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:07):
Hello, and thank you for listening to the Conscious Diva
podcast. I'm Tatiana, and in this
episode, ancient magic enthusiast and animist
practitioner Vanessa Loverly joins me to talk about her new
book, Ancient Goddess Magic. Invoking the Queens of the
Heavens, we discussed the celestial roots and astral magic
of influential goddesses in manyclassical and ancient Middle
(00:28):
Eastern and Pagan cultures. And Vanessa talks about the
legend of Corona Borealis and other constellations.
Vanessa shares a much needed remembrance of the many faces of
the goddess, exploring how values and perspective have
shifted from symbolic significance to a patriarchal
perspective. Her book also teaches how to
invoke specific deities based on1000 year old rituals and
(00:52):
spiritual practices that are still relevant today.
Vanessa holds a Master's degree in ancient religions and is
working towards a doctorate in Religious Studies.
If you love this episode, pleasewrite a review and follow me on
Instagram at The Conscious Diva.Thank you so much for listening.
It's so nice to meet you, Vanessa, and thank you for being
(01:13):
here today. My pleasure to be here with you.
Your new book, Ancient Goddess Magic invoking the Queens of the
Heavens is wonderful. Thank you.
Thank you. I was in Bath in England this
summer and in a Silas Minerva the goddess is there and I
actually bought this little owl.Me too.
(01:35):
Oh, you have the same. Yeah, I love it.
So tell me about your practice, what I mean, because it's of
course we'll talk about the manygoddesses in in this book, but I
was really curious about your personal practice.
Oh, that's an interesting question.
So I would say I started with practices of witchcraft when I
(01:55):
was very young. I come from a Catholic
background. Has everyone here in Quebec,
Canada are from Catholic background because of the French
history? But my mother was very into
magic. So I started as young as maybe 8
years old to speak with the trees and I remember calling I
(02:20):
was into Greek gods. I must say, at the time I was
calling the wind and, and I noticed that sometimes elements
would react to what I was saying, but I was so young so I
just didn't know really what it was.
And I connected with animal very, very early on.
(02:41):
So I'm I was an activist for animal environmental welfare for
a long time. And then when I moved to
Montreal, then I met friends whowere practicing mostly something
that looks like Wicca. So I got into that as well, like
the beginning of my young adult life.
(03:04):
And then I discovered, since I started my studies and religious
studies, then I dug deeper into ancient religions, ancient
goddesses and gods, and I started to have a practice that
is more animistic, less weakenedor less specific to a path, but
(03:25):
more like in tune with how I understood the ancient world.
And then I went to live in Walesin the UK to study ancient
religions where I think I connected even more with the
natural environment. And I discovered
(03:45):
archaeoastronomy where which is the cultural history of the
stars. I I practice astrology also.
I was gifted an astrology book and and it wasn't a way to
calculate your Natal chart, pardon me by hand.
(04:06):
So I was used to do like astrological charts at 10 years
old, but with everything by hand.
So it was super complicated, butI love that.
So for me to discover the ancient cultural history of the
stars related to the knowledge Ihad at the time about astrology
made total sense to me. Because this is the thing, I
(04:29):
think we lost our contact with the sky and I was very
interested in how we used to relate to the sky and the stars.
That's really amazing. I love your story.
And so today when you're practicing, do you have a
particular goddess or do you work with a, a, a variety of
(04:49):
different goddesses during because of the seasons and just
the things that are happening astronomically or, or
celestially or, you know, in thecosmos?
I think that the energies related to Venus because I was
born on a Friday try to engage with me most.
But I am very much into winter spirits and the feminine as in
(05:12):
the book I talk a lot about the ancient feminine as a death
protective energy. And the winter time is also a
season that is seen as feminine because it's the darkness and
it's the night sky. So I would say Orion and the
energies related to Ursa Maja. So the great, the Big Dipper.
(05:37):
I think in English we call it the bear in French.
So yeah, we would be those goddesses especially attuned
with the celestial energy of thebear and eagle.
So anything related to birds. So the warrior figure like
Athena or Anat, the Ciro, Palestinian ancient goddess.
(06:00):
So the warrior figure is also something that I work with a
lot. I also love the winter goddesses
and, and I live in a forest on 10 acres and I feel so blessed
and grateful. And every morning I just thank
the spirits of the land here for, for guiding me to be here
and supporting me and my work and to be here in harmony with
(06:21):
them. It's so amazing.
And now with the snow, you know,there's so much energy that the
snow carries and settles on the ground.
So it's beautiful. I was going to ask you how you
came to discover these ancient goddesses, but clearly it's been
a part of your life since day one.
They've just naturally come intoyour life through your mother.
And but then, so, so then let's talk about what you do now,
(06:42):
because you, you are a scholar. So what do you do?
What's your academic background?And what is it that's taken you,
your you know, all around the world to and I guess expand your
studies that you the book, the goddesses you talk about in this
book? So right now I'm doing my PhD in
religious studies. I'm working on more like
(07:06):
contemporary witches and folklore and how the ancient
narrative are affecting the current construction of identity
and modern narratives in modern feminine spiritualities.
So I do study the history of witches and female demons
(07:27):
starting from the end of the 18th century to today, how it
evolved, transformed, and everything related to that
folklore. So because of that, I also right
now for this year, we have an exhibition in Montreal called
Witches Out of the Shadow, and Iworked on that exhibition with
(07:47):
the team as a scientific advisor.
And where is that in Montreal? Is that?
It's a it's an art. It's the Montreal Puente Calia
Museum. It's an archaeological museum we
have in Montreal and we do we are hosting 60 objects from the
Museum of Witchcraft and Magic in Cornwall.
(08:08):
So the the land 60 objects nevershowed to the public before.
So it's an amazing exhibition that goes from that starts from
the witches trials at the Renaissance up until how it is
how this practice is being done today and within the art
(08:28):
culture. But so they have stuff like
Gerald Garner's items or Doreen Valiante items.
So the the birth of Wicca and modern witchcraft.
So it's a nice yeah. So we we do, they do show like a
Mediterranean amulets, Christianmagical votive objects.
(08:53):
There's a lot of magical objectslike 400.
So it's very interesting to see that's.
Cool. And how long is that addition
running for? Until.
April 6th. Oh wow.
OK. Me, me.
So you just started? That's cool, and I might have to
drive up to Montreal and have a look.
Yes. It's not too far.
(09:14):
No, it's not. It's not OK.
So then, So what led to the writing of this current book,
Ancient Goddess Magic? So what The inspiration for that
book was because my master's degree studies were into ancient
religion and archaeology, so thegoal was to deconstruct some
(09:35):
ideas we have about the feminine.
I say that because sometimes in the modern spiritualities
community, I do see a lot of essentialism applied to the
feminine or women, especially the fertile fertility narrative.
(09:56):
And scholars are working on that.
I mean, and of course sometimes they are female scholars that
try to deconstruct that because the fertile narrative or the
fertile function was a male God function in the ancient time,
not a feminine 1 And we know which colours applied that term
(10:19):
in the 19th century to ancient goddesses.
So it's, I think it was for me, it was a problem.
So I wanted to address that. But also I realized that the
link with the stars were not that often into the books about
goddesses. There's a lot of very good
information everywhere about ancient goddesses, but rarely
(10:42):
the association with, well, how were they perceived relating to
Astro magic or their constellation magic or just how
were they venerated or what, What was the cult?
I mean, you have to dig into archaeological books to find
that. So after my studies in the UKI
(11:04):
also did a four month internshipin France in the archaeological
Maison de Lorean in Mediterrani.So sadly then it was COVID and
so I had to stop that. But I think this book was to
honor my supervisor, my supervisor in archaeology.
(11:24):
Sadly, she passed away due to COVID illness in 2020.
And so it was at the time also away to finish that work, that
archaeological work and spiritual work, I didn't have
time to finish because of everything that happened in
2020. I also had a daughter on on
(11:47):
December 22nd, 2020. So it was a lot of things
happening. So I took a field trip to Greece
and I went there and I, I said alot of sadly, a lot of people
working on the ancient world never set foot into that world,
(12:08):
let's say ancient Mesopotamia oreven Greece.
It's sad. They work with objects and text,
but they don't go there and see and feel.
So I did that. Also, you mean they didn't?
They don't literally travel to the destination.
Exactly. Yes, this is what I mean, sorry.
Experience to experience the energy of yes yeah I.
(12:30):
Understand many many scholars. They are very good scholars, but
I find it interesting that they just never traveled there to
really get a sense. I think it has helped me a lot
with my interpretation because of course, nobody owns the truth
and we cannot really know what ancient people think, how they
(12:53):
thought, and how they acted. We have clues, but it's always
interpretation. So of course, to be there, speak
with local people. This is how I learned about the
sacred triangle between the three temples.
I was on a beach on the Gina andthey told me oh by the way, do
you know that the Afaya temple is a sacred triangle with the
(13:18):
Afaistos temple and the Parte and Partenon so on the
Acropolis. So I was like what?
Amazing. So I looked OK, the stars, the
stars also. So we, so this is where I, I
learned a lot about the sacred geometry for the ancient Greeks
(13:40):
and also how it could be relatedto the sky as well.
I mean, you do know many ancientsites, especially in Britain,
for example, they are linked to solstices and, and the movement
of the planet. So it was like, OK, well, I
think I got something here too. And it's not very well known,
(14:01):
especially the a fire as well. It is it's an amazing temple
older than the one on the Acropolis.
It was the inspiration for departing on.
And I think it's not known it's the only temple dedicated to
that goddess in all of Greece. It's yes.
(14:21):
I wanted to write about that as well.
So I was able to put everything I had in my head into that book
about ancient celestial energiesand goddesses.
But I could say that if you go to Greece, you, you get it.
You, you sense it, the sea, the forest, the stars.
We could see so many stars. It's very something.
(14:44):
Oh, I love it. And so, I mean, so now talk
about why is it important for usto remember these ancestral
feminine traditions, particularly as they are these
goddesses, these women were diviners of planetary
intelligence, right? They were really looking to the
sky. My take on why would be
(15:08):
important is because it's relating to death.
So what I mean by that is our society right now pushes death
very far away from us, so we don't want to see it anymore,
interact with it. And in the ancient world, at
least for some cultures, like the Egyptian for example, or
even in Mesopotamian cultures, they thought the souls were
(15:34):
going to the Milky Way at the end of their life.
And I think it's comforting to think about death that way that
we could, you know, go back homeinto the stars or maybe we
transform into a kind of star. I think the star Lord related to
(15:55):
our lives, destinies and afterlife.
I think it's it's it really is comforting.
And also that sun goddess of theunderworld that I talk about in
the book. I could in Greece, when you see
the sunset, you can really understand why they thought that
the souls were departing with the sun setting and going
(16:17):
underneath the the earth and thesea.
Honestly, I think that's where Iwould go if I was going to die,
like just go on the beach there and depart with the sun.
And you know, so I think This iswhy it's important because I
think that maybe could help withsome anxiety and fear we have
(16:39):
about death and just to connect with celestial energy and see it
has our home. I love all of that.
I think that theory, I definitely subscribe to that
theory myself, particularly as aMilky Way being this pathway in
the cosmos. When all, when we, when we leave
(16:59):
our human form, we travel back that way.
And when we're coming into humanform, we travel back this way
through the stars. And so that is why I think, you
know, I believe that wind, Western astrology and also the
Vedic astrology, which I find much more powerful when 1 looks
at your chart, they're so when the saying it's written in the
stars, right? It's, it's there and, and to
have these cosmic connections with people or, you know, soul
(17:22):
mates and sort of incarnating and all this you, we really feel
there's something. And the, and of course, the
practice of animism, for those that don't know, you mentioned
it earlier, is shamanistic by nature, where we're connected,
we understand this practice and this connection to all that is.
So I would really love for you to just expand on the importance
of the very specific constellations, Ursa Major and
(17:42):
sickness, because these, you know, and the author Andrew
Collins also makes a lot of verysignificant connections to Deneb
and the Milky Way. So why is Ursa Major an
important constellation? It is a very good question.
I think that it was a major constellation, maybe more
important in the ancient world at the time because it was the
(18:06):
the way to the Milky Way. See the sickness constellation
related to those water birds. Goddesses are were seen as
coming on Earth under the form of birds and they they thought
to be female ancestors. So matrilineal ancestors for
(18:26):
some cultures, especially European cultures in the
prehistoric or Neolithic times. And so when you look at it in
the sky, you see that it's pointing as so as the way to the
home of the soul. Yes, it.
Literally looks like that. Yeah, it looks like a pathway,
right? It looks exactly.
(18:47):
And so I think, I think these patterns of course, were seen as
important spiritually because you know it, it was obvious as
well. So it's something we don't see
now. The only time I saw the Milky
Way was when I like took the a transatlantic trip on the ship.
So in the middle of the Atlantic, you can absolutely see
(19:07):
the the Milky Way. So you're like, oh, OK, So
imagine everything they could see in the ancient world.
So for sure it was patterns thatwere exceptional.
So it must have been intimidating as well.
And so you see Ursa Major, for example, was moving, but it's
(19:32):
still still moving today depending on the season.
So all the stories related to the stars also relates their
travels and change. Anything that was seen as
unstable like the player is, Those ones were sometimes seen
as maybe a bit malefic because it was a source of chaos.
(19:55):
They could not calculate where these stars would go next.
Whereas the divine stars, the gods and goddesses in the sky,
those were fixed, you know? OK, this is this season, it's
movie Venus, for example. They could always calculate
where is she going, where is shecoming, when is she coming back?
(20:18):
But some stars that are unstable, then it's more on the
dark side that so So I guess spiritually, I think it's
important to remember the connection to ancestral mothers
and ancestral female like you said, the priestesses as well.
(20:39):
You know, it was an art that women performed.
And in my studies of witchcraft,I realized that one specific
thing that is very female in thesense that was attributed to
women was this capability to communicate with spirits.
(20:59):
And I will say demons, but in the sense of demons were agents
of the gods, neutral spirits sometimes, you know, tree
spirits or water spirits. So, so when I say demons is not
in the negative sense, but womenwere the ones very good at
divination and communication with spirits.
(21:20):
So you we see that in text from ancient Romans commenting on
ancient Germanic priestesses, ancient Greeks.
So divination and communication with this world is something
that is attributed to feminine powers especially.
So I think this is also, I think, a way I was trying to
(21:43):
reconnect women to this source of to this art and this source
of power. But of course, it does apply
also to anyone who identify as awoman.
Yeah, thank you. When did the the word demon
become demonized? When did this become negative?
It's interesting. So we know Greeks use the word
(22:06):
diamond, but the demons were there way before that.
So the first written sources we have for demons comes from the
Mesopotamian world. So about 5000 years ago we
encountered them in the text andat first, like I said, they are
very neutral. So in Egypt, for example, they
(22:26):
were mostly servants of the gods.
They would communicate between the land of the stars, the land
of the gods and earth. So they would carry, you know, a
message from the gods or disease.
If you, you know, you did something wrong.
You have to, you have to know that in the ancient world they
were very scared because if you would do something that would
(22:49):
upset the God, then you would have a retribution.
So, so in ancient Mesopotamia, alot of disease were associated
with the demons, but they were thought as being sent by the
gods. Demons could help you as well.
It's something, let's say the God, well, the demon best in
(23:10):
ancient Egypt became a God because he was so popular as a
protective demons. So you have those protective
demons, you have those neutral demons, and you have disease
seen as form of demons. So it was a complex world.
The idea of an evil demon was already there before the
(23:30):
Christian world. It's just that eventually the
more Christianity advanced the more some ancient gods became
demons. We have a lot of names for
demons that were ancient gods names.
Abaal for example is a good example.
So he was a storm God in ancientSyria, but he became a demon
(23:54):
known as Baal. But it's a word that just means
Lord because he was a Lord of storms and agriculture.
So of course for the Christians,because Jesus can do exorcism,
but it's something, it's a practice that was there already,
ancient exorcist practice from Mesopotamia.
(24:14):
We have so many texts about that.
So because if you were very healed, very ill or very unlucky
in ancient Mesopotamia, they would perform an exorcism, Yeah,
and just put the demon into something else.
Interesting. Yeah, I can see how that how
that evolved because the the idea of inspiriting and exorcism
(24:39):
are, are very real things. They're really real concepts,
not necessarily associated with being possessed by a demon as as
described in films and modern. Yeah.
And the difference between inspiriting is communicating
with spirits with, with, you know, nature spirits or whatever
(25:00):
you're working with. And they come and merge with
you. When you you activate, they
activate something within us, right?
And then when we become possessed, it might be because
you're not so adept at the practice that that spirit has
take fully taken over. Or you are so open and young and
we're naive to things that it comes and you don't actually
(25:21):
have the ability to take controlof your physical body.
These are real things. And so I can see how the idea of
some sort of malefic force associated with a disease from
ancient times could be subjectedonto to the word demon and they
can kind of just they just ran with it.
(25:42):
It was an easy thing to to blame, I'm assuming, based on
just that was the only word thatseemed applicable to something
to a force that seemed so evil. Or exactly would somebody be
harming something so that that's, you know, my interest of
all of that? But like you said, it is
something very real. In the studies, the
ethnographies I do right now, I see a lot of people working with
(26:05):
demons. Of course, sometimes we have
very naive and, you know, unknowing people who will get
some troubles with that and others who are very
knowledgeable. They know what they're doing and
they have great benefits from working with these spirits.
I'm, I tend myself to work more with nature spirits than deities
(26:26):
because even in the ancient times, common people would work
more with spirits than deities because the deities were seen as
so far away, so difficult to reach.
And it was, you know, the, IT, it was the state religion and it
was the the job of the priests and priestesses to connect with
(26:48):
deities. So for the common people,
spirits are the home. Every home had.
So in Greece they would say diamond, but every home had had
a spirit and every family, especially spirits of ancestors
were attached to families. So a cult of ancestors were very
(27:08):
important and the cult of the spirit of your house, of your or
your land. So of course, it's different
today. Many of us don't necessarily own
a land, but in ancient times, you know, people had at least a
bit, a bit of land or a house. So it was attached to a spirit
they would work with as well as a protector of their family.
(27:32):
When we can see that still in Asia, across Asia.
Absolutely through the. Hindu traditions, you see them.
And so if you're in India or Nepal, Tibet, Thailand, you
know, Malaysia, Bali, you know, all these countries, you,
everybody has a spirit house. There's, there's often one
inside the home, whether it's anapartment or actual house.
And they often have a spirit house on the land where they go
(27:54):
and give offerings on a, on a daily basis.
And you know, in Hong Kong, there's quite some famous tombs
that are ancestor tombs where people go and do the offerings.
You know, so we still see this today and we even, you know, in
Asian restaurants, you know, youmight go into a Chinese
restaurant and there's shrine inside.
You know, most Western people don't even know what that means.
What, what's that about? But it's really, it's integral
(28:16):
to the practice, to that family.That's probably the the family
deity that they've been worshipping or acknowledging and
honouring just so long, you know?
I like, I do like to say you're super right.
I I do like to say that India isour last window to the ancient
world. They are one of the only culture
(28:39):
where they still calculate if it's a good day to go outside
according to the stars. But yeah, that's so ancient.
I mean, we do, like I said, I, I, I read a lot of ancient
Mesopotamian texts about that ancient astrology so that there
would be good days and bad days to go outside or to do
(29:00):
something. But they still do it in the
especially in the South of India, the cult of the planets
and all the the dangers of some days it's something we lost.
And I think that would be nice just to maybe remember how it
worked, because I think people have bad luck because they
don't. They don't use that way of
(29:23):
thinking anymore. It's interesting, isn't it?
Like it's about alignment, divine alignment.
And I think we just have put placed emphasis on alignment
with other things. You know, living in alignment is
living in harmony with the universe.
Exactly. But we forgot that part, you
know that that part that is above us.
(29:43):
Totally, totally. OK, so so that in your book
you've got The Legend of Corona Borealis.
What is the story? So I noticed that a lot of
princesses and myths, they were placed in the sky.
So I noticed that in a lot of those figures including also
Sumerian goddess Nanaya were linked to what looks like a
(30:04):
crown in the sky. So it's a constellation named
Corona Borealis because it meanscrown.
So they are feminine figure thatthat were powerful because they
were seen as giver of the lands to the kings.
So of course a lot of the texts we have are related to kings
because you know, the scribes were working for the kings.
(30:29):
So ancient goddesses and specifically ancient stars like
and constellation like Corona Borealis were seen as giver of
power and lands. So This is why I took a Corona
Borealis as a small section in the chapter lady of this,
(30:51):
because I realized that, well, these figures are quite
important historically. We see them in many mythologies
and stories. But nobody, I, well, I, I think
nobody really made the, the connection with Corona Borealis.
And I thought it was interestingthat he meant that it was a they
(31:13):
were giver of kinship and land. So for me it could be an ancient
way of, you know, we knew that. We know that the Celtic people
for example, if I go into the Welsh story of this were giving,
they were matrilineal societies.So so in these stories the the
(31:35):
females, Princess and Queens andgoddess, they give power to
males by giving them the titles.And it was the same for Pharaohs
and other ancient kings. Only the goddesses were able to
give them titles, land and kingship.
So I find it very interesting that this power is only
(31:57):
obtainable by goddesses and feminine figures.
So yeah, this is a constellationto look at.
Many legends are related to Corona Borealis.
They are seen as seven very pretty stars, sometimes Seven
Sisters that would Come Dancing on the land.
Where is it located in the sky? It's in the northern part of the
(32:20):
sky. It's it is moving according to
the season. So only difficult in the
northern hemisphere. Yes, so he really has the the
shape of 1/2 a circle like he looks like a small crown.
So that's why some goddesses will have a Crescent, a
Crescent. Sorry, that's the word I was
looking for. So you see some goddesses
(32:42):
statues, they have a Crescent onthe foreheads.
Some, of course, many researcher, we're linking that
to the moon, but I think it could also be related to Corona
Borealis because it's a Crescentconstellation in the northern
sky, but the December sky is associated to so many stories.
Because of that, we have a lot of stars that are shining very
(33:07):
brightly in December. Orion, the Orion belt is very
bright. Eurostar major Corona, This is
why you have so many stories. You said it's like the Crescent
has seven stars. Is it?
Is this? Does that have anything to do
with invoking the seven spirits of luck that you talk about in
celestial Healing in your book? Oh, the seven spirits of luck
(33:31):
are based on an ancient rituals that were they were more related
here to the seven main planets in the time they thought the
planets were. They included the sun, the moon
and six other planets, so for and five sorry other planets.
So the total was 7. So they are here related to the
(33:52):
energies of each day. So there's seven spirits of
luck. So for a lot of rituals they
would have those little statues inside the house or around the
patient that is sick, for example.
So the idea was that demonic forces would enter underneath
(34:14):
cracks like your window if you have a little window opening or
door opening when the door is closed.
So the the idea was to protect those spaces from malefic
forces, so your ritual would be protected that way or your
patient healed that way as well.And so how are you?
(34:37):
How would you use that today? So today I would use that just
as general protection of your house.
So any entryway, we still do that sometimes, you know, with a
horseshoe above the door, or sometimes people put brooms as
well, or Christian people would put a cross.
(34:58):
So I would still use those. And and brooms.
I would use that near the windows specifically and doors.
Or if you have an altar maybe put it on your altar.
But I like the idea of putting one in each windows, each window
(35:19):
to protect the house and generally speaking.
You know, it's funny, in my house I have brooms.
I've got tons of brooms everywhere and I just told
people there to get the spider webs out.
Your book has lots of practices too, which is great.
At the end of every chapter there's a practice on how to
work about that the the energy of that goddess.
(35:42):
Can we consider these goddesses archetypes?
Because you have in the chaptersCreatrix, the Warrior, the
healer, Lady of the Sea, and then Celestial healing.
So just talk a little bit about that.
So the Creatrix is what we were used to call the Mother of the
Gods, but mother in the sense ofthe create the creator of the
(36:02):
world. So the ancient goddesses were
not pregnant goddesses or they were not necessarily giving
birth to humanity. They were creating gods and the
cosmos and universe. So this and this creatrix is
also associated to the the underworld sun.
So the sun was female. It's still female in a lot of
(36:25):
culture, but in the ancient world, Mediterranean, well, it
used to be female at one point, especially if it was the sunset,
so the sun that would go underneath the earth.
It's related, like I stayed in the book in the chapter of the
Creatrix to tombs and death and afterlife, and the Milky Way is
(36:45):
also linked to that Creatrix category or architect.
So we found a lot of those goddesses that we would that we
used to call mother goddesses, but then they're not necessarily
mothers, but in children's tombsor women's tombs.
I mean, anyone could have some, but we did find a lot of
(37:07):
children's tombs with these little stat feminine statue with
them. So we could think that it was a
way to protect them in the afterlife because they would go
back to the creatrix, the motherof humanity.
The warrior is this figure that is fierceful, vengeful,
sometimes very protective. So we we see in the ancient
(37:31):
world that the warrior goddessesare very popular, especially
with kings and man's and say sailors as well.
Every city had a protective goddess like Athena for example
today in Greece, but it was Anat, eventually Astarte for a
lot of ancient Cyril Mesopotamian cities you had
(37:55):
Inana as well. I've put Inana in Lady of the
Sea chapter, but she's also a warrior goddess.
Inanna, she took many functions.So this is what happened with
popular goddesses. They start as one particular
with one particular function, but the more the time goes and
(38:16):
the more function they observe. Isis had the same thing.
Isis was also a death goddess that became so popular she
became goddesses of the goddess of everything.
Inanna had the same so so the bythe 1st Millennium before our
current era you have less and less goddesses because they just
(38:37):
absorbed 1000 of goddesses. We had 3000 years before our
current era. So the warriors associated with
constellation of the eagle and birds of prey symbols they
transform into the text. We can see they associate them
to birds of prey, eagles or Hawks Falcon even you know and
(39:02):
also is being linked to the Falcon.
So here I really wanted to emphasize the very, very big
energy women have you know that fierce energy we we are very
fierce and I think that's what scared men through times.
So I, I think I do personally have a problem with the figure
(39:26):
of women should be tamed and docile and very cute and just
even those who put emphasis on being just a mother when we are,
we are very protective and fierce and I think it's
something to be celebrated like those goddesses were.
So for me, I think I started with this chapter, I must say,
(39:49):
because that was my thing. I, I think women can be scary,
can be extremely combative and competitive.
So we should not be scared of that.
The 3rd chapter is the healer. This one I loved very much
because it's all related to those those goddesses of the
night. So the association with the
(40:12):
stars was were very clear. In the healer.
I start with this very ancient healing goddess called Kula that
is followed by her black dog everywhere.
Eventually she completed with Bao, so we became Gula Bao.
So those goddesses were very important.
(40:35):
They had big healing centers where people would do pilgrimage
and would visit to heal, give votive offerings.
We do have proof that it was associated to Vegas, the Vega
Star, but also the dog I think was linked to Sirius, like I
said in the book. So the Sirius is like a a star
(40:55):
that is very often see as a first a dog figure but also
protector of the underworld goddesses war constellation near
series. So Viga was a very important
star. I do do make an attempt to
associate Gulas and ancestor of the goddess Ekate since we don't
(41:16):
really know where Ekate come Ekate comes from.
I think she has very similar profile as Gula and also we
think that goddess on the yeah, well of the yes of death and
healing. But before she was linked a
Cathay had an association with being a solar goddess before she
(41:38):
was associated with the underworld.
So maybe this interesting StolerSun Underworld sun figure,
because she was a bringer of light, one of her first function
was gatekeeper and bringer of lights sometimes.
So usually it's a solar figure function, but I do like Gula
with her black dogs and Akate aswell.
(42:00):
It became eventually she became dark and Akate became dark and
darker in the folklore and she became now she's a very popular
goddess of witches and witchcraft and ghosts.
So I think it still makes sense.Even if that evolution changed
her function a bit, we can see that what from where it starts,
(42:21):
it still makes sense. And I finished the with the
chapter with the Lady of the Sea.
I call her the Lady of the Sea because a lot of those goddesses
are, look, their temples were located in the city centre near
the sea and the Virgin Mary tookthat place.
(42:42):
So these are goddesses like Astarte.
I put Inana there 'cause she also had a, a place like that.
But I do show how Inana is related.
First. I think as a goddess of
transition and death, she was very scary, sometimes seen as a
scary figure, transformative as well.
So that's why I've put her therebecause the Lady of the Sea, I
(43:05):
do link them with the Moon, Venus, but also sickness.
So this, so these were guardiansof cities and guardians of the
souls and bringer of souls to the Milky Way.
So yes, I think these were quiteimportant.
And goddesses, and we know priestess, priestesses love to
(43:25):
dance for those goddesses, chanting, dancing, making music.
I do believe that these art forms were a representation of
the celestial movements. You know, the Greeks said that
the planets and stars make music.
So the dance, sometimes the dance are a representation of
(43:46):
the movements, but also the music and singing.
We know that chanting with words, it's very powerful, it's
creating reality. But same thing for a song, just
singing, it's so powerful. It can change the energy around
you. So for sure for me it's the best
way to connect with stars and goddesses.
(44:07):
Music of the Spears. Yes, exactly.
Musical. Yes, yes, thank you.
Exactly. They vibrate.
Yeah, they they. Emit a frequency.
It is vibrate. Exactly.
And, and I think we've been shown that actually like this,
not even like just we could use ARM as an example, but there's
so much more. Yes, exactly.
(44:28):
So what we see from the text we have or objects we found in the
ancient world is I, we think, oh, I think personally, those
art forms, they were sacred at first because it was for the
gods, it was for the goddesses, it was to heal people because of
(44:48):
the changing in energy. And I mean, someday today it's
still, it's maybe more mundane, but it was sacred arts.
And I think it's the best way tocontinue to connect with the
goddesses is to perform still danced music and well, I think.
That's why we're seeing the healing modalities of singing
balls become popular, because the people, our physical bodies,
(45:12):
crave that healing on a soul. And we know that that's right.
Yes, we do have description of ancient healing scenes.
So while we so the last chapter ends with celestial healing,
which is based on ancient Mesopotamian astral irradiation.
So they would put people lying outside underneath the stars so
(45:36):
they could get the energy from aspecific star and try to heal.
Of course they were extremely complex ritual.
So I really try to simplify it for today's world and today's
needs. The ritual to get this energy of
the star into the statue, for example, was the ritual that
took three days to accomplish. So I think I put 2/1 day and 1/2
(46:02):
or two instead of three. I had to because I know today
it's very complicated. So I tried everything and that
that worked. That was very that was so I
think that kind of medicine, it was efficient.
But I we have in the text that it was not just being there
(46:26):
underneath the stars. They had a kind of gong that
would make a sound, the vibrational sound.
They had light, they had incense, of course, but
something that would be very bright, sometimes fire.
But I think they they had they had an instrument that would
(46:46):
sometimes just make a light similar to the stars.
We don't really know the translation of the name yet.
It's difficult to work with the ancient world sometimes because
we know, let's say there's a Pettanian name for an herb, but
we don't, we didn't find the equivalent in today's language,
(47:07):
so. When you describe that that
either that tool, it reminds me of Akila the vajra in vajra yoga
because it means diamond right Vajra so.
You probably it's something. And the ritual item that is used
in vajra, you know, Buddhism extremely sort of extreme
version of of Buddhist Tantra. Yes, yes.
So if it means diamond, I think that's the I the closest idea to
(47:30):
this Starlight because in the ancient Mesopotamian text they
call it the may. I do mention it in the book.
So the may was the radiance of the gods.
That means raisins. And so when the May is gone,
it's because the energy is gone,The May is gone.
(47:51):
So, so for me, that was a clear word linked into the light of
the stars, the may, because theyalways speak about the radiance
of the gods. It's your divinity.
You're very radiant. And oh, the may has left the
temple. So you have to do redo the
ritual to bring back the divinity, the star into the
(48:13):
statue because sometimes, you know, the energy doesn't stay
there forever. You have to redo it once, once
in a while. So in the text we had, we don't
really have a good definition except for radiance or well, I
like the idea of diamonds as well.
I think it's very similar. I mean, it's been so interesting
talking to you and have you explain your book.
(48:36):
When you were doing all your research, was there were there a
handful or one goddess that particularly stood out that you
were just like, oh wow, she resonates with me.
This is this is the one, or do you just you just kind of have
an affinity for all of them? I do have a big affinity with
Anat, but I absolutely love discovering she doesn't have a
(49:00):
name but she's called for the ITit it it heights in English?
Is it the people living in Turkey around the 5000?
Yeah, Anatolia. Yeah.
Yeah, from Anatolia. So they call her Goddess of
Night. And for me, there's a I, I want
to investigate further for, for this one.
(49:21):
It's a very, very interesting goddess.
I think we can find an ancient female demons that became a
goddess for them. So they didn't give her a name
except goddess of night and she's powerful.
She's they are scared of her. So they have to really tame her
to get what they need or want. But she's associated to the
(49:46):
moon, specifically the health moon rituals for this goddess
and because I'm also working on traditions that are still alive
came in that comes from the ancient world.
I'm also, I see that this type of goddess, goddess of night,
associate to the night and the moon.
(50:07):
We see that by the end of antiquity, through Middle Ages
and Renaissance and even until the 20th century, women had
cults dedicated to specific feminine entity.
So they were Christian by that time, obviously, but the women,
a lot of women around Europe hadcults dedicated to a fierce
(50:32):
feminine figure. They eventually called her
Diana, but it's she's it's not the diet, the Roman Diana.
It's just that it was a popular name.
So they just gave her. But we have also Abunda
Abundancia. So a lot of feminine figure in
European folklore relate to the knight and just they receive
(50:53):
cult only by women to protect their home.
I think that's linked to this very ancient goddess of night
cult that endure until almost today.
So I'm investigating this right now.
I want to write a second book about winter witches and
feminine figures and European folklore.
(51:15):
So that's my my next idea. I love that I.
Love that. Well so Vanessa, where can we
find your books? I saw online you've got 2
websites, 1 in French and one inEnglish.
Can you share where can we find your information?
Yes, so the book can be ordered online or at any, you know, book
shops or Amazon. So Simon and Schuster, they link
(51:38):
to Amazon At least in Canada it's Amazon or bookstores.
In the US it could be more varied since the inner
traditions are based in Vermont.And yes, my website is still in
on construction right now because I want to put English
and French version, but it's really simpler to just go to the
(52:01):
local bookshop and order it. Well, your website, if people do
want to know, it's your name, your first name and last name.
Vanessa Laverly. Is that how we pronounce it?
Yes, exactly. OK, perfect.
And that link will be actually on the show notes page for.
Excellent. Thank you.
I'll have that there. Yeah, no, yeah.
Anything last words you'd like to share about your book of the
(52:23):
Goddesses or why you think it's important for us to to know
them? Yeah, I think it's an
interesting read, specifically if you don't necessarily know
about the ancient world goddesses.
It could be a little bit advanced in magic if you're not
used to practice magic, but I think it's very important to
(52:43):
share that narrative, you know, new ways of interpreting
goddesses, but also just to tamefear of death.
I think that's my main the my main goal with this book is just
really to understand death and goddesses better.
Thank you so much. Thanks to you was very fun.
(53:05):
Thank you. Well, enjoy.
The amazing the beautiful winterseason.
Thank you. You too was a pleasure.
Thank you.
Hello, and thank you for listening to the Conscious Diva
podcast. I'm Tatiana, and in this
episode, ancient magic enthusiast and animist
practitioner Vanessa Loverly joins me to talk about her new
book, Ancient Goddess Magic. Invoking the Queens of the
Heavens, we discussed the celestial roots and astral magic
of influential goddesses in manyclassical and ancient Middle
(00:28):
Eastern and Pagan cultures. And Vanessa talks about the
legend of Corona Borealis and other constellations.
Vanessa shares a much needed remembrance of the many faces of
the goddess, exploring how values and perspective have
shifted from symbolic significance to a patriarchal
perspective. Her book also teaches how to
invoke specific deities based on1000 year old rituals and
(00:52):
spiritual practices that are still relevant today.
Vanessa holds a Master's degree in ancient religions and is
working towards a doctorate in Religious Studies.
If you love this episode, pleasewrite a review and follow me on
Instagram at The Conscious Diva.Thank you so much for listening.
It's so nice to meet you, Vanessa, and thank you for being
(01:13):
here today. My pleasure to be here with you.
Your new book, Ancient Goddess Magic invoking the Queens of the
Heavens is wonderful. Thank you.
Thank you. I was in Bath in England this
summer and in a Silas Minerva the goddess is there and I
actually bought this little owl.Me too.
(01:35):
Oh, you have the same. Yeah, I love it.
So tell me about your practice, what I mean, because it's of
course we'll talk about the manygoddesses in in this book, but I
was really curious about your personal practice.
Oh, that's an interesting question.
So I would say I started with practices of witchcraft when I
(01:55):
was very young. I come from a Catholic
background. Has everyone here in Quebec,
Canada are from Catholic background because of the French
history? But my mother was very into
magic. So I started as young as maybe 8
years old to speak with the trees and I remember calling I
(02:20):
was into Greek gods. I must say, at the time I was
calling the wind and, and I noticed that sometimes elements
would react to what I was saying, but I was so young so I
just didn't know really what it was.
And I connected with animal very, very early on.
(02:41):
So I'm I was an activist for animal environmental welfare for
a long time. And then when I moved to
Montreal, then I met friends whowere practicing mostly something
that looks like Wicca. So I got into that as well, like
the beginning of my young adult life.
(03:04):
And then I discovered, since I started my studies and religious
studies, then I dug deeper into ancient religions, ancient
goddesses and gods, and I started to have a practice that
is more animistic, less weakenedor less specific to a path, but
(03:25):
more like in tune with how I understood the ancient world.
And then I went to live in Walesin the UK to study ancient
religions where I think I connected even more with the
natural environment. And I discovered
(03:45):
archaeoastronomy where which is the cultural history of the
stars. I I practice astrology also.
I was gifted an astrology book and and it wasn't a way to
calculate your Natal chart, pardon me by hand.
(04:06):
So I was used to do like astrological charts at 10 years
old, but with everything by hand.
So it was super complicated, butI love that.
So for me to discover the ancient cultural history of the
stars related to the knowledge Ihad at the time about astrology
made total sense to me. Because this is the thing, I
(04:29):
think we lost our contact with the sky and I was very
interested in how we used to relate to the sky and the stars.
That's really amazing. I love your story.
And so today when you're practicing, do you have a
particular goddess or do you work with a, a, a variety of
(04:49):
different goddesses during because of the seasons and just
the things that are happening astronomically or, or
celestially or, you know, in thecosmos?
I think that the energies related to Venus because I was
born on a Friday try to engage with me most.
But I am very much into winter spirits and the feminine as in
(05:12):
the book I talk a lot about the ancient feminine as a death
protective energy. And the winter time is also a
season that is seen as feminine because it's the darkness and
it's the night sky. So I would say Orion and the
energies related to Ursa Maja. So the great, the Big Dipper.
(05:37):
I think in English we call it the bear in French.
So yeah, we would be those goddesses especially attuned
with the celestial energy of thebear and eagle.
So anything related to birds. So the warrior figure like
Athena or Anat, the Ciro, Palestinian ancient goddess.
(06:00):
So the warrior figure is also something that I work with a
lot. I also love the winter goddesses
and, and I live in a forest on 10 acres and I feel so blessed
and grateful. And every morning I just thank
the spirits of the land here for, for guiding me to be here
and supporting me and my work and to be here in harmony with
(06:21):
them. It's so amazing.
And now with the snow, you know,there's so much energy that the
snow carries and settles on the ground.
So it's beautiful. I was going to ask you how you
came to discover these ancient goddesses, but clearly it's been
a part of your life since day one.
They've just naturally come intoyour life through your mother.
And but then, so, so then let's talk about what you do now,
(06:42):
because you, you are a scholar. So what do you do?
What's your academic background?And what is it that's taken you,
your you know, all around the world to and I guess expand your
studies that you the book, the goddesses you talk about in this
book? So right now I'm doing my PhD in
religious studies. I'm working on more like
(07:06):
contemporary witches and folklore and how the ancient
narrative are affecting the current construction of identity
and modern narratives in modern feminine spiritualities.
So I do study the history of witches and female demons
(07:27):
starting from the end of the 18th century to today, how it
evolved, transformed, and everything related to that
folklore. So because of that, I also right
now for this year, we have an exhibition in Montreal called
Witches Out of the Shadow, and Iworked on that exhibition with
(07:47):
the team as a scientific advisor.
And where is that in Montreal? Is that?
It's a it's an art. It's the Montreal Puente Calia
Museum. It's an archaeological museum we
have in Montreal and we do we are hosting 60 objects from the
Museum of Witchcraft and Magic in Cornwall.
(08:08):
So the the land 60 objects nevershowed to the public before.
So it's an amazing exhibition that goes from that starts from
the witches trials at the Renaissance up until how it is
how this practice is being done today and within the art
(08:28):
culture. But so they have stuff like
Gerald Garner's items or Doreen Valiante items.
So the the birth of Wicca and modern witchcraft.
So it's a nice yeah. So we we do, they do show like a
Mediterranean amulets, Christianmagical votive objects.
(08:53):
There's a lot of magical objectslike 400.
So it's very interesting to see that's.
Cool. And how long is that addition
running for? Until.
April 6th. Oh wow.
OK. Me, me.
So you just started? That's cool, and I might have to
drive up to Montreal and have a look.
Yes. It's not too far.
(09:14):
No, it's not. It's not OK.
So then, So what led to the writing of this current book,
Ancient Goddess Magic? So what The inspiration for that
book was because my master's degree studies were into ancient
religion and archaeology, so thegoal was to deconstruct some
(09:35):
ideas we have about the feminine.
I say that because sometimes in the modern spiritualities
community, I do see a lot of essentialism applied to the
feminine or women, especially the fertile fertility narrative.
(09:56):
And scholars are working on that.
I mean, and of course sometimes they are female scholars that
try to deconstruct that because the fertile narrative or the
fertile function was a male God function in the ancient time,
not a feminine 1 And we know which colours applied that term
(10:19):
in the 19th century to ancient goddesses.
So it's, I think it was for me, it was a problem.
So I wanted to address that. But also I realized that the
link with the stars were not that often into the books about
goddesses. There's a lot of very good
information everywhere about ancient goddesses, but rarely
(10:42):
the association with, well, how were they perceived relating to
Astro magic or their constellation magic or just how
were they venerated or what, What was the cult?
I mean, you have to dig into archaeological books to find
that. So after my studies in the UKI
(11:04):
also did a four month internshipin France in the archaeological
Maison de Lorean in Mediterrani.So sadly then it was COVID and
so I had to stop that. But I think this book was to
honor my supervisor, my supervisor in archaeology.
(11:24):
Sadly, she passed away due to COVID illness in 2020.
And so it was at the time also away to finish that work, that
archaeological work and spiritual work, I didn't have
time to finish because of everything that happened in
2020. I also had a daughter on on
(11:47):
December 22nd, 2020. So it was a lot of things
happening. So I took a field trip to Greece
and I went there and I, I said alot of sadly, a lot of people
working on the ancient world never set foot into that world,
(12:08):
let's say ancient Mesopotamia oreven Greece.
It's sad. They work with objects and text,
but they don't go there and see and feel.
So I did that. Also, you mean they didn't?
They don't literally travel to the destination.
Exactly. Yes, this is what I mean, sorry.
Experience to experience the energy of yes yeah I.
(12:30):
Understand many many scholars. They are very good scholars, but
I find it interesting that they just never traveled there to
really get a sense. I think it has helped me a lot
with my interpretation because of course, nobody owns the truth
and we cannot really know what ancient people think, how they
(12:53):
thought, and how they acted. We have clues, but it's always
interpretation. So of course, to be there, speak
with local people. This is how I learned about the
sacred triangle between the three temples.
I was on a beach on the Gina andthey told me oh by the way, do
you know that the Afaya temple is a sacred triangle with the
(13:18):
Afaistos temple and the Parte and Partenon so on the
Acropolis. So I was like what?
Amazing. So I looked OK, the stars, the
stars also. So we, so this is where I, I
learned a lot about the sacred geometry for the ancient Greeks
(13:40):
and also how it could be relatedto the sky as well.
I mean, you do know many ancientsites, especially in Britain,
for example, they are linked to solstices and, and the movement
of the planet. So it was like, OK, well, I
think I got something here too. And it's not very well known,
(14:01):
especially the a fire as well. It is it's an amazing temple
older than the one on the Acropolis.
It was the inspiration for departing on.
And I think it's not known it's the only temple dedicated to
that goddess in all of Greece. It's yes.
(14:21):
I wanted to write about that as well.
So I was able to put everything I had in my head into that book
about ancient celestial energiesand goddesses.
But I could say that if you go to Greece, you, you get it.
You, you sense it, the sea, the forest, the stars.
We could see so many stars. It's very something.
(14:44):
Oh, I love it. And so, I mean, so now talk
about why is it important for usto remember these ancestral
feminine traditions, particularly as they are these
goddesses, these women were diviners of planetary
intelligence, right? They were really looking to the
sky. My take on why would be
(15:08):
important is because it's relating to death.
So what I mean by that is our society right now pushes death
very far away from us, so we don't want to see it anymore,
interact with it. And in the ancient world, at
least for some cultures, like the Egyptian for example, or
even in Mesopotamian cultures, they thought the souls were
(15:34):
going to the Milky Way at the end of their life.
And I think it's comforting to think about death that way that
we could, you know, go back homeinto the stars or maybe we
transform into a kind of star. I think the star Lord related to
(15:55):
our lives, destinies and afterlife.
I think it's it's it really is comforting.
And also that sun goddess of theunderworld that I talk about in
the book. I could in Greece, when you see
the sunset, you can really understand why they thought that
the souls were departing with the sun setting and going
(16:17):
underneath the the earth and thesea.
Honestly, I think that's where Iwould go if I was going to die,
like just go on the beach there and depart with the sun.
And you know, so I think This iswhy it's important because I
think that maybe could help withsome anxiety and fear we have
(16:39):
about death and just to connect with celestial energy and see it
has our home. I love all of that.
I think that theory, I definitely subscribe to that
theory myself, particularly as aMilky Way being this pathway in
the cosmos. When all, when we, when we leave
(16:59):
our human form, we travel back that way.
And when we're coming into humanform, we travel back this way
through the stars. And so that is why I think, you
know, I believe that wind, Western astrology and also the
Vedic astrology, which I find much more powerful when 1 looks
at your chart, they're so when the saying it's written in the
stars, right? It's, it's there and, and to
have these cosmic connections with people or, you know, soul
(17:22):
mates and sort of incarnating and all this you, we really feel
there's something. And the, and of course, the
practice of animism, for those that don't know, you mentioned
it earlier, is shamanistic by nature, where we're connected,
we understand this practice and this connection to all that is.
So I would really love for you to just expand on the importance
of the very specific constellations, Ursa Major and
(17:42):
sickness, because these, you know, and the author Andrew
Collins also makes a lot of verysignificant connections to Deneb
and the Milky Way. So why is Ursa Major an
important constellation? It is a very good question.
I think that it was a major constellation, maybe more
important in the ancient world at the time because it was the
(18:06):
the way to the Milky Way. See the sickness constellation
related to those water birds. Goddesses are were seen as
coming on Earth under the form of birds and they they thought
to be female ancestors. So matrilineal ancestors for
(18:26):
some cultures, especially European cultures in the
prehistoric or Neolithic times. And so when you look at it in
the sky, you see that it's pointing as so as the way to the
home of the soul. Yes, it.
Literally looks like that. Yeah, it looks like a pathway,
right? It looks exactly.
(18:47):
And so I think, I think these patterns of course, were seen as
important spiritually because you know it, it was obvious as
well. So it's something we don't see
now. The only time I saw the Milky
Way was when I like took the a transatlantic trip on the ship.
So in the middle of the Atlantic, you can absolutely see
(19:07):
the the Milky Way. So you're like, oh, OK, So
imagine everything they could see in the ancient world.
So for sure it was patterns thatwere exceptional.
So it must have been intimidating as well.
And so you see Ursa Major, for example, was moving, but it's
(19:32):
still still moving today depending on the season.
So all the stories related to the stars also relates their
travels and change. Anything that was seen as
unstable like the player is, Those ones were sometimes seen
as maybe a bit malefic because it was a source of chaos.
(19:55):
They could not calculate where these stars would go next.
Whereas the divine stars, the gods and goddesses in the sky,
those were fixed, you know? OK, this is this season, it's
movie Venus, for example. They could always calculate
where is she going, where is shecoming, when is she coming back?
(20:18):
But some stars that are unstable, then it's more on the
dark side that so So I guess spiritually, I think it's
important to remember the connection to ancestral mothers
and ancestral female like you said, the priestesses as well.
(20:39):
You know, it was an art that women performed.
And in my studies of witchcraft,I realized that one specific
thing that is very female in thesense that was attributed to
women was this capability to communicate with spirits.
(20:59):
And I will say demons, but in the sense of demons were agents
of the gods, neutral spirits sometimes, you know, tree
spirits or water spirits. So, so when I say demons is not
in the negative sense, but womenwere the ones very good at
divination and communication with spirits.
(21:20):
So you we see that in text from ancient Romans commenting on
ancient Germanic priestesses, ancient Greeks.
So divination and communication with this world is something
that is attributed to feminine powers especially.
So I think this is also, I think, a way I was trying to
(21:43):
reconnect women to this source of to this art and this source
of power. But of course, it does apply
also to anyone who identify as awoman.
Yeah, thank you. When did the the word demon
become demonized? When did this become negative?
It's interesting. So we know Greeks use the word
(22:06):
diamond, but the demons were there way before that.
So the first written sources we have for demons comes from the
Mesopotamian world. So about 5000 years ago we
encountered them in the text andat first, like I said, they are
very neutral. So in Egypt, for example, they
(22:26):
were mostly servants of the gods.
They would communicate between the land of the stars, the land
of the gods and earth. So they would carry, you know, a
message from the gods or disease.
If you, you know, you did something wrong.
You have to, you have to know that in the ancient world they
were very scared because if you would do something that would
(22:49):
upset the God, then you would have a retribution.
So, so in ancient Mesopotamia, alot of disease were associated
with the demons, but they were thought as being sent by the
gods. Demons could help you as well.
It's something, let's say the God, well, the demon best in
(23:10):
ancient Egypt became a God because he was so popular as a
protective demons. So you have those protective
demons, you have those neutral demons, and you have disease
seen as form of demons. So it was a complex world.
The idea of an evil demon was already there before the
(23:30):
Christian world. It's just that eventually the
more Christianity advanced the more some ancient gods became
demons. We have a lot of names for
demons that were ancient gods names.
Abaal for example is a good example.
So he was a storm God in ancientSyria, but he became a demon
(23:54):
known as Baal. But it's a word that just means
Lord because he was a Lord of storms and agriculture.
So of course for the Christians,because Jesus can do exorcism,
but it's something, it's a practice that was there already,
ancient exorcist practice from Mesopotamia.
(24:14):
We have so many texts about that.
So because if you were very healed, very ill or very unlucky
in ancient Mesopotamia, they would perform an exorcism, Yeah,
and just put the demon into something else.
Interesting. Yeah, I can see how that how
that evolved because the the idea of inspiriting and exorcism
(24:39):
are, are very real things. They're really real concepts,
not necessarily associated with being possessed by a demon as as
described in films and modern. Yeah.
And the difference between inspiriting is communicating
with spirits with, with, you know, nature spirits or whatever
(25:00):
you're working with. And they come and merge with
you. When you you activate, they
activate something within us, right?
And then when we become possessed, it might be because
you're not so adept at the practice that that spirit has
take fully taken over. Or you are so open and young and
we're naive to things that it comes and you don't actually
(25:21):
have the ability to take controlof your physical body.
These are real things. And so I can see how the idea of
some sort of malefic force associated with a disease from
ancient times could be subjectedonto to the word demon and they
can kind of just they just ran with it.
(25:42):
It was an easy thing to to blame, I'm assuming, based on
just that was the only word thatseemed applicable to something
to a force that seemed so evil. Or exactly would somebody be
harming something so that that's, you know, my interest of
all of that? But like you said, it is
something very real. In the studies, the
ethnographies I do right now, I see a lot of people working with
(26:05):
demons. Of course, sometimes we have
very naive and, you know, unknowing people who will get
some troubles with that and others who are very
knowledgeable. They know what they're doing and
they have great benefits from working with these spirits.
I'm, I tend myself to work more with nature spirits than deities
(26:26):
because even in the ancient times, common people would work
more with spirits than deities because the deities were seen as
so far away, so difficult to reach.
And it was, you know, the, IT, it was the state religion and it
was the the job of the priests and priestesses to connect with
(26:48):
deities. So for the common people,
spirits are the home. Every home had.
So in Greece they would say diamond, but every home had had
a spirit and every family, especially spirits of ancestors
were attached to families. So a cult of ancestors were very
(27:08):
important and the cult of the spirit of your house, of your or
your land. So of course, it's different
today. Many of us don't necessarily own
a land, but in ancient times, you know, people had at least a
bit, a bit of land or a house. So it was attached to a spirit
they would work with as well as a protector of their family.
(27:32):
When we can see that still in Asia, across Asia.
Absolutely through the. Hindu traditions, you see them.
And so if you're in India or Nepal, Tibet, Thailand, you
know, Malaysia, Bali, you know, all these countries, you,
everybody has a spirit house. There's, there's often one
inside the home, whether it's anapartment or actual house.
And they often have a spirit house on the land where they go
(27:54):
and give offerings on a, on a daily basis.
And you know, in Hong Kong, there's quite some famous tombs
that are ancestor tombs where people go and do the offerings.
You know, so we still see this today and we even, you know, in
Asian restaurants, you know, youmight go into a Chinese
restaurant and there's shrine inside.
You know, most Western people don't even know what that means.
What, what's that about? But it's really, it's integral
(28:16):
to the practice, to that family.That's probably the the family
deity that they've been worshipping or acknowledging and
honouring just so long, you know?
I like, I do like to say you're super right.
I I do like to say that India isour last window to the ancient
world. They are one of the only culture
(28:39):
where they still calculate if it's a good day to go outside
according to the stars. But yeah, that's so ancient.
I mean, we do, like I said, I, I, I read a lot of ancient
Mesopotamian texts about that ancient astrology so that there
would be good days and bad days to go outside or to do
(29:00):
something. But they still do it in the
especially in the South of India, the cult of the planets
and all the the dangers of some days it's something we lost.
And I think that would be nice just to maybe remember how it
worked, because I think people have bad luck because they
don't. They don't use that way of
(29:23):
thinking anymore. It's interesting, isn't it?
Like it's about alignment, divine alignment.
And I think we just have put placed emphasis on alignment
with other things. You know, living in alignment is
living in harmony with the universe.
Exactly. But we forgot that part, you
know that that part that is above us.
(29:43):
Totally, totally. OK, so so that in your book
you've got The Legend of Corona Borealis.
What is the story? So I noticed that a lot of
princesses and myths, they were placed in the sky.
So I noticed that in a lot of those figures including also
Sumerian goddess Nanaya were linked to what looks like a
(30:04):
crown in the sky. So it's a constellation named
Corona Borealis because it meanscrown.
So they are feminine figure thatthat were powerful because they
were seen as giver of the lands to the kings.
So of course a lot of the texts we have are related to kings
because you know, the scribes were working for the kings.
(30:29):
So ancient goddesses and specifically ancient stars like
and constellation like Corona Borealis were seen as giver of
power and lands. So This is why I took a Corona
Borealis as a small section in the chapter lady of this,
(30:51):
because I realized that, well, these figures are quite
important historically. We see them in many mythologies
and stories. But nobody, I, well, I, I think
nobody really made the, the connection with Corona Borealis.
And I thought it was interestingthat he meant that it was a they
(31:13):
were giver of kinship and land. So for me it could be an ancient
way of, you know, we knew that. We know that the Celtic people
for example, if I go into the Welsh story of this were giving,
they were matrilineal societies.So so in these stories the the
(31:35):
females, Princess and Queens andgoddess, they give power to
males by giving them the titles.And it was the same for Pharaohs
and other ancient kings. Only the goddesses were able to
give them titles, land and kingship.
So I find it very interesting that this power is only
(31:57):
obtainable by goddesses and feminine figures.
So yeah, this is a constellationto look at.
Many legends are related to Corona Borealis.
They are seen as seven very pretty stars, sometimes Seven
Sisters that would Come Dancing on the land.
Where is it located in the sky? It's in the northern part of the
(32:20):
sky. It's it is moving according to
the season. So only difficult in the
northern hemisphere. Yes, so he really has the the
shape of 1/2 a circle like he looks like a small crown.
So that's why some goddesses will have a Crescent, a
Crescent. Sorry, that's the word I was
looking for. So you see some goddesses
(32:42):
statues, they have a Crescent onthe foreheads.
Some, of course, many researcher, we're linking that
to the moon, but I think it could also be related to Corona
Borealis because it's a Crescentconstellation in the northern
sky, but the December sky is associated to so many stories.
Because of that, we have a lot of stars that are shining very
(33:07):
brightly in December. Orion, the Orion belt is very
bright. Eurostar major Corona, This is
why you have so many stories. You said it's like the Crescent
has seven stars. Is it?
Is this? Does that have anything to do
with invoking the seven spirits of luck that you talk about in
celestial Healing in your book? Oh, the seven spirits of luck
(33:31):
are based on an ancient rituals that were they were more related
here to the seven main planets in the time they thought the
planets were. They included the sun, the moon
and six other planets, so for and five sorry other planets.
So the total was 7. So they are here related to the
(33:52):
energies of each day. So there's seven spirits of
luck. So for a lot of rituals they
would have those little statues inside the house or around the
patient that is sick, for example.
So the idea was that demonic forces would enter underneath
(34:14):
cracks like your window if you have a little window opening or
door opening when the door is closed.
So the the idea was to protect those spaces from malefic
forces, so your ritual would be protected that way or your
patient healed that way as well.And so how are you?
(34:37):
How would you use that today? So today I would use that just
as general protection of your house.
So any entryway, we still do that sometimes, you know, with a
horseshoe above the door, or sometimes people put brooms as
well, or Christian people would put a cross.
(34:58):
So I would still use those. And and brooms.
I would use that near the windows specifically and doors.
Or if you have an altar maybe put it on your altar.
But I like the idea of putting one in each windows, each window
(35:19):
to protect the house and generally speaking.
You know, it's funny, in my house I have brooms.
I've got tons of brooms everywhere and I just told
people there to get the spider webs out.
Your book has lots of practices too, which is great.
At the end of every chapter there's a practice on how to
work about that the the energy of that goddess.
(35:42):
Can we consider these goddesses archetypes?
Because you have in the chaptersCreatrix, the Warrior, the
healer, Lady of the Sea, and then Celestial healing.
So just talk a little bit about that.
So the Creatrix is what we were used to call the Mother of the
Gods, but mother in the sense ofthe create the creator of the
(36:02):
world. So the ancient goddesses were
not pregnant goddesses or they were not necessarily giving
birth to humanity. They were creating gods and the
cosmos and universe. So this and this creatrix is
also associated to the the underworld sun.
So the sun was female. It's still female in a lot of
(36:25):
culture, but in the ancient world, Mediterranean, well, it
used to be female at one point, especially if it was the sunset,
so the sun that would go underneath the earth.
It's related, like I stayed in the book in the chapter of the
Creatrix to tombs and death and afterlife, and the Milky Way is
(36:45):
also linked to that Creatrix category or architect.
So we found a lot of those goddesses that we would that we
used to call mother goddesses, but then they're not necessarily
mothers, but in children's tombsor women's tombs.
I mean, anyone could have some, but we did find a lot of
(37:07):
children's tombs with these little stat feminine statue with
them. So we could think that it was a
way to protect them in the afterlife because they would go
back to the creatrix, the motherof humanity.
The warrior is this figure that is fierceful, vengeful,
sometimes very protective. So we we see in the ancient
(37:31):
world that the warrior goddessesare very popular, especially
with kings and man's and say sailors as well.
Every city had a protective goddess like Athena for example
today in Greece, but it was Anat, eventually Astarte for a
lot of ancient Cyril Mesopotamian cities you had
(37:55):
Inana as well. I've put Inana in Lady of the
Sea chapter, but she's also a warrior goddess.
Inanna, she took many functions.So this is what happened with
popular goddesses. They start as one particular
with one particular function, but the more the time goes and
(38:16):
the more function they observe. Isis had the same thing.
Isis was also a death goddess that became so popular she
became goddesses of the goddess of everything.
Inanna had the same so so the bythe 1st Millennium before our
current era you have less and less goddesses because they just
(38:37):
absorbed 1000 of goddesses. We had 3000 years before our
current era. So the warriors associated with
constellation of the eagle and birds of prey symbols they
transform into the text. We can see they associate them
to birds of prey, eagles or Hawks Falcon even you know and
(39:02):
also is being linked to the Falcon.
So here I really wanted to emphasize the very, very big
energy women have you know that fierce energy we we are very
fierce and I think that's what scared men through times.
So I, I think I do personally have a problem with the figure
(39:26):
of women should be tamed and docile and very cute and just
even those who put emphasis on being just a mother when we are,
we are very protective and fierce and I think it's
something to be celebrated like those goddesses were.
So for me, I think I started with this chapter, I must say,
(39:49):
because that was my thing. I, I think women can be scary,
can be extremely combative and competitive.
So we should not be scared of that.
The 3rd chapter is the healer. This one I loved very much
because it's all related to those those goddesses of the
night. So the association with the
(40:12):
stars was were very clear. In the healer.
I start with this very ancient healing goddess called Kula that
is followed by her black dog everywhere.
Eventually she completed with Bao, so we became Gula Bao.
So those goddesses were very important.
(40:35):
They had big healing centers where people would do pilgrimage
and would visit to heal, give votive offerings.
We do have proof that it was associated to Vegas, the Vega
Star, but also the dog I think was linked to Sirius, like I
said in the book. So the Sirius is like a a star
(40:55):
that is very often see as a first a dog figure but also
protector of the underworld goddesses war constellation near
series. So Viga was a very important
star. I do do make an attempt to
associate Gulas and ancestor of the goddess Ekate since we don't
(41:16):
really know where Ekate come Ekate comes from.
I think she has very similar profile as Gula and also we
think that goddess on the yeah, well of the yes of death and
healing. But before she was linked a
Cathay had an association with being a solar goddess before she
(41:38):
was associated with the underworld.
So maybe this interesting StolerSun Underworld sun figure,
because she was a bringer of light, one of her first function
was gatekeeper and bringer of lights sometimes.
So usually it's a solar figure function, but I do like Gula
with her black dogs and Akate aswell.
(42:00):
It became eventually she became dark and Akate became dark and
darker in the folklore and she became now she's a very popular
goddess of witches and witchcraft and ghosts.
So I think it still makes sense.Even if that evolution changed
her function a bit, we can see that what from where it starts,
(42:21):
it still makes sense. And I finished the with the
chapter with the Lady of the Sea.
I call her the Lady of the Sea because a lot of those goddesses
are, look, their temples were located in the city centre near
the sea and the Virgin Mary tookthat place.
(42:42):
So these are goddesses like Astarte.
I put Inana there 'cause she also had a, a place like that.
But I do show how Inana is related.
First. I think as a goddess of
transition and death, she was very scary, sometimes seen as a
scary figure, transformative as well.
So that's why I've put her therebecause the Lady of the Sea, I
(43:05):
do link them with the Moon, Venus, but also sickness.
So this, so these were guardiansof cities and guardians of the
souls and bringer of souls to the Milky Way.
So yes, I think these were quiteimportant.
And goddesses, and we know priestess, priestesses love to
(43:25):
dance for those goddesses, chanting, dancing, making music.
I do believe that these art forms were a representation of
the celestial movements. You know, the Greeks said that
the planets and stars make music.
So the dance, sometimes the dance are a representation of
(43:46):
the movements, but also the music and singing.
We know that chanting with words, it's very powerful, it's
creating reality. But same thing for a song, just
singing, it's so powerful. It can change the energy around
you. So for sure for me it's the best
way to connect with stars and goddesses.
(44:07):
Music of the Spears. Yes, exactly.
Musical. Yes, yes, thank you.
Exactly. They vibrate.
Yeah, they they. Emit a frequency.
It is vibrate. Exactly.
And, and I think we've been shown that actually like this,
not even like just we could use ARM as an example, but there's
so much more. Yes, exactly.
(44:28):
So what we see from the text we have or objects we found in the
ancient world is I, we think, oh, I think personally, those
art forms, they were sacred at first because it was for the
gods, it was for the goddesses, it was to heal people because of
(44:48):
the changing in energy. And I mean, someday today it's
still, it's maybe more mundane, but it was sacred arts.
And I think it's the best way tocontinue to connect with the
goddesses is to perform still danced music and well, I think.
That's why we're seeing the healing modalities of singing
balls become popular, because the people, our physical bodies,
(45:12):
crave that healing on a soul. And we know that that's right.
Yes, we do have description of ancient healing scenes.
So while we so the last chapter ends with celestial healing,
which is based on ancient Mesopotamian astral irradiation.
So they would put people lying outside underneath the stars so
(45:36):
they could get the energy from aspecific star and try to heal.
Of course they were extremely complex ritual.
So I really try to simplify it for today's world and today's
needs. The ritual to get this energy of
the star into the statue, for example, was the ritual that
took three days to accomplish. So I think I put 2/1 day and 1/2
(46:02):
or two instead of three. I had to because I know today
it's very complicated. So I tried everything and that
that worked. That was very that was so I
think that kind of medicine, it was efficient.
But I we have in the text that it was not just being there
(46:26):
underneath the stars. They had a kind of gong that
would make a sound, the vibrational sound.
They had light, they had incense, of course, but
something that would be very bright, sometimes fire.
But I think they they had they had an instrument that would
(46:46):
sometimes just make a light similar to the stars.
We don't really know the translation of the name yet.
It's difficult to work with the ancient world sometimes because
we know, let's say there's a Pettanian name for an herb, but
we don't, we didn't find the equivalent in today's language,
(47:07):
so. When you describe that that
either that tool, it reminds me of Akila the vajra in vajra yoga
because it means diamond right Vajra so.
You probably it's something. And the ritual item that is used
in vajra, you know, Buddhism extremely sort of extreme
version of of Buddhist Tantra. Yes, yes.
So if it means diamond, I think that's the I the closest idea to
(47:30):
this Starlight because in the ancient Mesopotamian text they
call it the may. I do mention it in the book.
So the may was the radiance of the gods.
That means raisins. And so when the May is gone,
it's because the energy is gone,The May is gone.
(47:51):
So, so for me, that was a clear word linked into the light of
the stars, the may, because theyalways speak about the radiance
of the gods. It's your divinity.
You're very radiant. And oh, the may has left the
temple. So you have to do redo the
ritual to bring back the divinity, the star into the
(48:13):
statue because sometimes, you know, the energy doesn't stay
there forever. You have to redo it once, once
in a while. So in the text we had, we don't
really have a good definition except for radiance or well, I
like the idea of diamonds as well.
I think it's very similar. I mean, it's been so interesting
talking to you and have you explain your book.
(48:36):
When you were doing all your research, was there were there a
handful or one goddess that particularly stood out that you
were just like, oh wow, she resonates with me.
This is this is the one, or do you just you just kind of have
an affinity for all of them? I do have a big affinity with
Anat, but I absolutely love discovering she doesn't have a
(49:00):
name but she's called for the ITit it it heights in English?
Is it the people living in Turkey around the 5000?
Yeah, Anatolia. Yeah.
Yeah, from Anatolia. So they call her Goddess of
Night. And for me, there's a I, I want
to investigate further for, for this one.
(49:21):
It's a very, very interesting goddess.
I think we can find an ancient female demons that became a
goddess for them. So they didn't give her a name
except goddess of night and she's powerful.
She's they are scared of her. So they have to really tame her
to get what they need or want. But she's associated to the
(49:46):
moon, specifically the health moon rituals for this goddess
and because I'm also working on traditions that are still alive
came in that comes from the ancient world.
I'm also, I see that this type of goddess, goddess of night,
associate to the night and the moon.
(50:07):
We see that by the end of antiquity, through Middle Ages
and Renaissance and even until the 20th century, women had
cults dedicated to specific feminine entity.
So they were Christian by that time, obviously, but the women,
a lot of women around Europe hadcults dedicated to a fierce
(50:32):
feminine figure. They eventually called her
Diana, but it's she's it's not the diet, the Roman Diana.
It's just that it was a popular name.
So they just gave her. But we have also Abunda
Abundancia. So a lot of feminine figure in
European folklore relate to the knight and just they receive
(50:53):
cult only by women to protect their home.
I think that's linked to this very ancient goddess of night
cult that endure until almost today.
So I'm investigating this right now.
I want to write a second book about winter witches and
feminine figures and European folklore.
(51:15):
So that's my my next idea. I love that I.
Love that. Well so Vanessa, where can we
find your books? I saw online you've got 2
websites, 1 in French and one inEnglish.
Can you share where can we find your information?
Yes, so the book can be ordered online or at any, you know, book
shops or Amazon. So Simon and Schuster, they link
(51:38):
to Amazon At least in Canada it's Amazon or bookstores.
In the US it could be more varied since the inner
traditions are based in Vermont.And yes, my website is still in
on construction right now because I want to put English
and French version, but it's really simpler to just go to the
(52:01):
local bookshop and order it. Well, your website, if people do
want to know, it's your name, your first name and last name.
Vanessa Laverly. Is that how we pronounce it?
Yes, exactly. OK, perfect.
And that link will be actually on the show notes page for.
Excellent. Thank you.
I'll have that there. Yeah, no, yeah.
Anything last words you'd like to share about your book of the
(52:23):
Goddesses or why you think it's important for us to to know
them? Yeah, I think it's an
interesting read, specifically if you don't necessarily know
about the ancient world goddesses.
It could be a little bit advanced in magic if you're not
used to practice magic, but I think it's very important to
(52:43):
share that narrative, you know, new ways of interpreting
goddesses, but also just to tamefear of death.
I think that's my main the my main goal with this book is just
really to understand death and goddesses better.
Thank you so much. Thanks to you was very fun.
(53:05):
Thank you. Well, enjoy.
The amazing the beautiful winterseason.
Thank you. You too was a pleasure.
Thank you.
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