Pagan Portals - The Triple Goddess

An enjoyable and informative read in Rachel’s friendly down to earth style. This book looks at the different phases of the Triple Goddess. She gives examples of goddesses at each stage, lists of correspondences, meditations and rituals. She also introduces a forth stage, the Matriarch, between the Mother and Crone. I would recommend this book to those new to the path and those with more experience looking for different ideas on working with the goddess.

The media could not be loaded.  Rachel Patterson is one of my favourite authors !! shes write from the heart. Her books follow her magical ways of learning , her courses are really good too !! shes a massive support to the old gods & the pagan way.

This book give you a list of the deity's, definition, history and working with them, it gives you a good introduction on how to work with the book, and a really good chapter on the history before going in to a chapter of the triple goddesses. The next chapter is working with the triple goddess, Starting with the maiden, this is really good as it not only gives you examples of alternative name suggestions, but attributes and areas of magic she may help you with, before a list of Goddesses, correspondences and herbs, crystals and foods, as you read further in the book, we move on to the mother, giving names of goddesses, herbs foods crystals ect to use, same as the following chapter crone, Rachel here uses the word, Matriarch, rather than crone, and goes on to explain why, as we get deeper into the book, we find that there are meditations that guide you into meeting the goddess, and a ritual, all in all a pretty neat little book packed full of information on the goddesses. well worth a place on anyone's books case.

I found this book to be almost childlike in its style of writing. Possibly would be good for complete novices but the style of writing is not for me.

Written in Rachel's friendly, down to earth way, this book looks at the common ideas of the Triple Goddess, but then lifts the lid and encourages the reader to step out of that box, to work on their own personal gnosis of this ancient symbol.Another great book from a great author.

This book doesn't say much of anything at all. It's barely 100 pages long, and of that, 20 pages are dedicated to listing goddesses from world mythology who are sometimes found in groups of three. Another 20 pages are spent listing goddesses who might conceivably fit each of the maiden/mother/crone aspects (with a fourth aspect, the matriarch, added into the mix for reasons that are poorly explained). That leaves about 60 pages of actual content, with a few sparse meditations, some correspondence lists of crystals and herbs, and not much else besides. The book doesn't say anything terribly offensive, but that's largely because it doesn't say much of anything at all. There are a few embarrassing factual errors: Patterson writes that the Welsh Blodeuwedd was married to the Irish Lugh; in fact, she was married to Lleu Llaw Gyffes, who is a similar figure to Lugh but is by no means the same. Likewise, the book lists Kali as a crone goddess, when nothing about Kali's mythology or iconography fits with the image of the crone.I appreciated that Patterson takes the time to deconstruct the frequent association of the Triple Goddess's aspects with the imagery of menstruation or the womb. She lists some other ways the aspects may be understood, besides maiden/mother/crone. I would have enjoyed more depth from her on this point, as well as more serious discussion of each of the three aspects. Each aspect has only about 2 pages of serious discussion along the lines of "Here's who this face of the Goddess is," and it's a shame that there wasn't more.Finally, the book was in desperate need of a copy editor. It is riddled with grammatical errors, and at one point (on page 7) there is a paragraph break in the middle of a sentence. Overall, it gives the impression of having been sloppily and hastily slapped together.