Paganism, Goddess Spirituality, and Elsa in Disney’s Frozen 2

Audiences in the United States recognize Pagan elements like the use of magic and animism in the Disney film Frozen 2. This article discusses such Pagan ideas in the Frozen films and then applies two archetypal themes from Goddess spirituality to Elsa’s characterization. Scholars like Carol Christ and Starhawk of nature-based Pagan Goddess movements in the United States are employed to compare Elsa in Frozen 2 with notions about the fifth element and rebirth. The article engages neo-Pagan religious ideas about female independence, balance, and transformation, providing a comparison to Elsa’s heroic journey. A discussion about Elsa’s deification in popular culture and body image conclude the article.

“The Goddess is Alive. Magic is Afoot.”

This article analyzes the influence of radical and cultural feminist ideas on the writings produced by Zsuzsanna Emese Mokcsay (b. 1940), a seminal Pagan activist who spearheaded the development of the Dianic Witchcraft tradition during the 1970s and 1980s. An examination of Budapest's writings reveals the ideological background of Dianic Wicca, found in the specific aspects in the works of radical and cultural feminist thinkers such Mary Daly, Adrienne Rich, Robin Morgan, Susan Griffin, and Susan Brownmiller, which suited Budapest's lesbian-separatists leanings. The article thus sheds light on the politics of Goddess Spirituality during its formative years that have made modern Paganism what it is today. This is particularly important in light of the challenges to Dianic Wicca (and Goddess Spirituality in general) in recent decades, as third-wave feminism and transgender rights highlight a generational gap between veteran and younger Dianic women.

Arachne’s Voice: Race, Gender and the Goddess

This article considers the issue of racial difference in the Goddess movement, using the mythological figure of Arachne, a skilful weaver whom the goddess Athena transformed into a spider, to explore the unequal relational dynamics between white Goddess feminists and women of colour. Bringing Goddess spirituality and thealogical metaphors of webs and weaving into dialogue with postcolonial and black feminist perspectives on the politics of voice, marginality and representation, the article points to some of the ways in which colonial narratives weave through Goddess feminism, including practices of silencing and the romanticization of racial difference. Ultimately, I argue that feminist spirituality must recognize and address structural inequality between white women and women of colour, or in other words, listen to Arachne’s voice.

Transforming Deities

This article examines a variety of ways in which deities from the ancient Mediterranean have been re-appropriated, re-interpreted, transformed, and invented for contemporary religious and socio-political purposes by local Pagan communities—especially in Greece, Italy, Iberia, and Malta—and by followers of the global Goddess spirituality movement.

‘We are all Goddesses’: female sacred paths in Italy

This chapter reflects on the relations between gender and religion, by analysing a new form of spirituality coming from the Anglophone world — Goddess Spirituality — which has arrived in Italy in the new millennium. Goddess Spirituality is one of the most important and challenging forms, where the movement of rediscovering paths of the sacred female is evident. As some studies demonstrate, while an ever increasing proportion of women leave the Catholic Church, the majority do not redirect their spiritual seeking outside the Catholic milieu by approaching the world of so-called alternative spiritualities. Goddess Spirituality's contemporaneous spiritual/secular orientation is a source of empowerment for its adherents because it is capable of integrating into its symbolic, axiological universe a gender concept with a sacred dimension.