Extracts from LAUGHTER OF APHRODITE, and from THE POLITICS OF FEMINIST SPIRITUALITY edited by Charlene Spretnak. Anchor Books, New York.

Symbol systems cannot simply be rejected, they must be replaced. Religious symbol systems focused around exclusively male images of divinity create the impression that female power can never be fully legitimate or wholly beneficent.

Man enjoys the great advantage of ... witch persecution followed the pattern of suppression of female symbolism and female power that occurred in the formative periods of Hebrew and Christian traditions.

Because religion has such a deep hold on the deep psyche, feminists cannot afford to leave it in the hands of the fathers.

Christianity celebrates the father’s relation to the son and the mother’s relation to the son, but the story of the mother and daughter is missing.