The Legacy of the Sacred Prostitute Part 1

​It has always been of interest to me to understand the Herstory of the women who were called Sacred Prostitutes. Who were these women, where did they come from and what happened to the cultures that they were revered and honored in? 

That is why I have decided to write a series of three articles on the Sacred Prostitute and the Holy Whore so that we might discover what happened to cause their story to go untold and their gifts to us forgotten. The time for us a women to reclaim these forgotten aspects of ourselves is now and I invite you to do so if  you choose.

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When God Was a Woman 

Imagine a time when God was a woman 15,000 – 5,000 BCE,  and women were considered holy and their bodies sacred. These cultures were connected to the Earth and called her the Great Goddess and were primarily peace loving and depended upon the land to survive.
Most of these cultures during this time period were matrilineal that means that the mother passed on her wealth to the daughter.

Women’s roles often combined motherhood, gathering food, seeds, nuts and berries, herbs for healing and were the ones who sustained the community and provided its’ foundation and center.  They are often thought of as partnership societies because men and women’s roles had equal importance and neither sex overpowered the other.
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Women were seen as the mediators between the Goddess and the tribe. A woman could access the power of the Goddess and it was thought that she could identify more easily with Her.

Women were considered a mystery and most like Her because they could give birth to new life and bleed without dying.  They seemed to have magical abilities and their womb, and their bodies were considered sacred. They were considered nearer the Divine and the act of sexual intercourse with a woman was the closest thing a man could do to be with the Divine.
 

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Inanna's Daughters

 The first women sexual healers were called Inanna’s Daughters of Heaven. They were also called nu gig, the pure and spotless and qadishtu, holy women. They were the handmaidens of Inanna and they followed Lilith who was thought of as the original archetype of woman.

"Lilith is considered an original archetype as the “natural woman” who solidified tribal cohesion and unity through sexual bonding and appeasement." – Lilith Keepers of the Flame
 
  They understood the healing power of their sexual energy and the right use of sex. They would gather the male members of the tribal community and conduct sacred rituals that would teach them how to use their sexual energy correctly. They did this by offering a connection to the divine through their bodies and sexual intercourse. Sexuality with a woman evoked within a man the sacred and opened his heart to divine love.

It was thought that a man needed a woman in order to give birth to the potential Goddess/Divine Feminine within himself. This was called apotheosis and because of this all women had a high status within their tribe/community.

These women were also called the Keepers of the Flame for the understood that within the womb of woman the original blueprint of humanity.  They knew that within them lived the sacred flame of the divine self and they kept this knowledge sacred. They were also the fire keepers of their tribes and so kept alive the sacred magic of light and the warmth of the heart and to this day we still use the symbol of the Red Light in the Catholic Church, in airplanes and in the Red Light districts.

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