Frances Billinghurst, Encountering the Dark Goddess: A Journey
into the Shadow Realms (Moon Books, 2021).
Reviewed by Caroline Tully.
One of the first things that a reader of Frances
Billinghurst’s new book, Encountering the
Dark Goddess, will come to understand is that this is not a book designed
to provide feel good ego gratification. If anything, it is the opposite. This
is a workbook that will teach you how to form relationships with the Dark
Goddess in her various guises, in order that you may traverse your personal
Underworld and emerge back into the light.
Essentially the book teaches you how to endure the Dark Night
of the Soul and survive. Only then may you presume to form an allegiance with
the Dark Goddess and, even then, she may demand that you undergo more trials. As
the author shows, the Dark Goddess will strip you to your authentic core – and
that can be scary. Not only that, but it can be inconvenient. It is far easier to go along through life
avoiding serious introspection, self-questioning, surrender and loss of
control. It is simpler to avoid the chthonian abyss, the underworld, and potential
annihilation. But sometimes it is forced upon you.
In my opinion it is important not to approach the exercises
in this book unless you actually want (or find yourself forced) to embrace
profound personal change. “The Dark Goddess shatters the old, outdated, outworn
structures in our lives and forces us (if we are not willing to accept) to embrace
change and the new. She does away with our rose-tinted glasses that we
comfortably see the world through, tests our courage, resolve and even beliefs,
all with the purpose of enabling us to be reborn with a new awakening state of
awareness, consciousness, and even curiosity about the world in which we
reside, especially the deeper mysteries that lie hidden in the shadow
(subconscious) realms” (177).
If you feel drawn to the Underworld, if you feel that you
must go down, or even that life is forcing you to, through the wise advice in
this book Frances Billinghurst will act as the Sybil who guides you so that you
can navigate the shadow realm and make it back to the upper world.
Encountering the Dark Goddess is not only based on the author’s
thorough research but on decades of experience in magical practice as well as
her own personal, deep relationship with the Dark Goddess and the lessons she
has learned. This is conveyed honestly and we are fortunate to have access to
her personal insights that can help us navigate the shadowy paths that the Dark
Goddess may ask us – or force us – to tread in order to help us accept our own
mortality as well as the finite nature of the people and things we surround
ourselves with in our lives.
As magical practitioners we often expect to be powerful,
successful, in control, and that consequently nothing bad will ever happens to
us; we tell the gods what to do, not vice versa, or we don’t even believe in
them, therefore we can be extremely shocked when a power stronger than us lays
us low. What happens when your illusion of control is taken away and you can’t
do anything about it except endure? This book provides ways to tackle such
situations head on.
So how does it do this? Billinghurst comes from a ‘hard
polytheistic’ perspective – the gods are real – and presents an excellent
synthesis of ancient Pagan ‘dark’ goddesses that are true to the ancient
sources. The portraits of the goddesses are based on thorough research which
results in factual representations, in contrast to the New Age fantasies that
pass for descriptions of the gods in far too many popular Pagan books these
days (see “My new friend Hekate” ).
Unlike a purely Reconstructionist perspective, where we are
expected to step back in time, Billinghurst brings these ancient goddesses into
the 21st century by also incorporating a modern psychotherapeutic
approach. This situates the ancient deities of the past into the present and
helps us relate to the goddesses as both real beings ‘out there’ as well as
personal qualities within our mortal selves. Each section on the goddesses is
thorough in itself and readers can get a good idea of the Dark Goddesses, with
the option to follow up through further research any that they feel they would
like to have a more continuous and deeper relationship with.
The book is full of extremely useful and sensible advice; the
exercises are well-composed, imagined, original and sophisticated; the visualisations are very effective
at getting the reader to immerse themselves in the goddess’s realm and
character; the invocations are very good; there are also instructions for
spells, incense recipes and dream pillows, and the book includes endnotes with
bibliographic references, a bibliography of works that deal with the Dark
Goddess, and an index for quick reference. In addition the text is interspersed with original images of
Dark Goddesses by Soror Basilisk.
While this book is informative and thought-provoking to read,
if one undertakes the tasks outlined within it, it must be emphasised that
action will be required in order to forge a therapeutic a path to realisation
of the self – this is repeatedly emphasised: don’t expect to deal with these Dark
Goddesses and the exercises in this book without changing, resistance is futile.
Embracing the Dark Goddess requires commitment. The book shows
us that spiritual growth, knowledge, gnosis, understanding, clear sight, truth and
attainment of power can be uncomfortable, painful and challenging in real life
terms, and can cause shedding, losses and deaths. “The Dark Goddess is about
change” (165), but don’t be afraid to work through this book if you feel called
to because while change may seem disruptive, the one thing that we can be absolutely
certain about in life is that everything changes.
Encountering the Dark Goddess: A Journey into the Shadow Realms
by Frances Billinghurst
Publisher: Moon Books
ISBN: 9781789045
Release Date: 26 March 2021
Encountering the Dark Goddess: A Journey into the Shadow Realms
by Frances Billinghurst
Publisher: Moon Books
ISBN: 9781789045
Release Date: 26 March 2021
