With the caveat that I did not finish this book, it was impressive, insightful, and far-reaching. The authors go very in-depth into the character and religious practices of several living goddesses to take a whack at characterizing the face of goddess worship as a whole in the modern world.

I liked everything I read, but read only about a third of it after a month of occasionally picking it up. The book is dense and academic; I saw no glaring flaws in their academic rigor but simply did not have the time or mental processing energy to keep reading. Like many multi-topic religious studies, this would probably serve best a reader willing to skip to sections about particular topics rather than try to go cover to cover. ( )

A guided tour of the feminine principles, symbols and imagery found in Hinduism, Taoism, Buddhism and Sufism.

Much has been wriiten about the Goddess in recent times: a common understanding being that Goddess worship died out with the end of pagan culture, stamped out by the patriarchal religions that followed. Here, Thomas Cleary and Sartaz Aziz demonstrate that the feminine face of the Divine has never really disappeared from religion - even those religions conventionally perceived to be patriarchal. To the contrary, whether conceptualized as deity, saint, mythic figure, archetype, or abstract principle, the Divine Feminine has remained a subtle yet powerful presence in world religious traditions up to our time.

Chapter Titles: Divine Matrix - Mother Goddess, Tantric Goddess, Godess of Rebellion, Yin Factor, Usurping the Yin, Women of the Way, Cult of Orgasmic Energy, Underground Path, Goddess of Wisdom, Wakeful Women, Lotus and Thunderbolt, Kissing Kannon, Twin Souls, Reverencing the Womb, Saintly Women, Marriage That Pervades All Creation.