The Faces of the Goddess Book

This book should not be read by devout believers in the universal Goddess or Earth Mother. It attacks that religion's center as a modern theology, one that 'flattens' the diversity of form, purpose and personality of archaic goddesses, and overstates the independence of pre-modern women in conception and safe child birthing.

The evidence for the archaic diversity, and its relation to the concerns and lives of pre-modern women is well sampled: chapters cover northern Eurasia, northern North America, Latvia, old Mesopotamia, old Anatolia, pre-classical/ classical Greece, pre-Columbian México and Japan. The text proper is supplemented by numerous footnotes, which often go beyond sourcing. (In some cases opinion that does not support the chapter's themes is relegated to these footnotes; for example, Footnote 76 to Chapter 10. So the reader is advised not to skip them.)

There is an absence of similar depth of research in the assertions of the development of the Great Mother religion starting with 18th century scholars, or of the Goddess religion as supported by (re-)interpreted myths written by 20th century feminists. That is, the modern religion's statements about the past are well refuted by Lotte Motz, but the development of that modern religion is only sketched. This is disappointing.