Reviews

Book Review – Pagan Portals: The Temple Priestesses of Antiquity by Lady Haight-Ashton

Book Review
Pagan Portals:
The Temple Priestesses of Antiquity

by Lady Haight-Ashton
Publisher: Moon Book
Publication Date: July 29, 2022
128 pages

 

 

Temple Priestesses are sadly a thing of the past. These women were revered and held in high esteem, unlike a lot of women nowadays. This book was not only empowering, but informative and a joy to read.

Lady Haight, a Third Degree Gardnerian High Priestess, wrote this, not just intellectually, but with such reverence that I could not put it down. She explains the life of the ancient Temple Priestesses and how society saw them as if she was there and experienced it herself.

I learned a lot about the various Oracles, Sibyls, and Priestesses. As a witch who worships multiple goddesses, there were things about the Goddesses themselves that even I didn’t know.

Not only did Lady Haight delve into the ancient Temple Priestesses, but also talked about modern day priestesses such as Doreen Valiente, Laurie Cabot HPS, and herself, Lady Haight-Ashton HPS – Oracle, Sibyl, and Sacred Dancer.

She discusses Mesopotamia and the first Priestess, the Egyptian goddesses Isis and Hathor, the Priestesses of Goddesses Artemis and Diana, and the Goddess Athena and her importance to Athens, Greece.

I was shocked, but delighted, that she goes into female Shamans, Priestesses of the ancient Druids, and even has a chapter covering the Labyrinth of Hades and the Oracles of the Dead. Shocked because when most think of Temple Priestesses, they will normally associate them with the Goddesses and not Gods… especially Hades. Most will shy away from discussing Hades and certainly do not want to think about, or imagine, Oracles or Priestesses of the Dead. Well, someone had to give messages to people about their passed on loved ones!

This book is such a deep well of information, I will be reading it over and over and I hope that others who are interested in ancient HERstory and wish to understand more the life of the ancient priestesses, as well as modern ones, pick this book up!


Lady Haight-Ashton is a Third Degree Gardnerian High Priestess, a Third Degree Cabot Witch within the Cabot Hermetic Temple and a Priestess of Selket within the Fellowship of Isis, where she was also honored with an Adepthood in Sacred Healing Dance. She is the High Priestess of Sacred Moon Coven and the Iseum of the Graceful Goddess, member of the Crossroads Lyceum and an elder within the Temple of Nine Wells in Salem, MA. She regularly publishes magazine articles Sacred Dance, The Goddess and Witchcraft. She lives in Maine, USA.

 

Pagan Portals: The Temple Priestesses of Antiquity on Amazon

 

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About the Author:

Cyndi Snow-Pilcher is an urban faery just trying to make it in this insane world. English was her favorite subject and spent hours writing short stories and poems. She gave up writing when life got in the way with the military and family duties. Then, after meeting the love of her life in 2000 and the support of friends, she started writing again.

She co-owns Fae Corps Publishing, LLC, an indie author publishing company that she started with her best friend and partner Patti Harris. They published quite a few anthologies and single author books since they started in July of 2019.

She has been in a few of the anthologies: Through the Sunshine, Faery Footprints, Nightmare Whispers Vol I, and will be penning something for Fae Corps Halloween anthology, Fae Shivers which comes out around the middle to end of October, 2021.

Her first book was The Woodland Adventures: Nita and the Honeybees, published in 2015. Soon after, she published Keko and the Lost Bananas. Neither are available at the moment as she will be republishing them under Fae Corps Publishing, LLC sometime in 2022.

She is currently working on a mystery novel and her Faery world of Cassari.

You can find her on her blog at: RedBird’s Storytime

Or follow her on Instagram at: https://www.instagram.com/redsstorytime/