Thank you to NetGalley and Llewellyn Worldwide for providing me with an advanced copy of Angels and Goddesses by Crystal Pomeroy in exchange for my honest review!
From Goodreads: This book is all about connecting with archangels and their twin flame goddesses. You will discover seven pairings of angels and goddesses with dozens of hands-on invocations, prayers, mandalas, visualizations, and rituals. This book also teaches you how to work with chakras and focuses on bringing out feminine archetypes as you work with goddesses from a variety of world cultures.
Each chapter explains who the archangels and goddesses are, how they can help, and how to connect with them. Angels are here to help you retrieve your hidden gifts—from healing, compassion, and transmutation to courage, focus, and authority. The techniques in this book will support your work with the angels and their goddess companions so you can restore your confidence and true power.
I hate to begin my relationship with a beloved publisher on such a sour note, but unfortunately Angels and Goddesses just doesn't cut the mustard. Frankly, there is just so much in this book that I disagree with. As a witch who lives with bipolar disorder and chronic illness, I vehemently disagree with the idea that mental and physical illness is due to negative entities which needs to be banished, something the author speaks about in Chapter Two. It implies that these things are controllable with positive thinking. While thinking positively can have an effect on our mental and physical health, it is not enough to cure people. Implying that negative entities (like demons, for example) are the cause of our ailments is dangerous and irresponsible. And while the author does have a disclaimer at the beginning of the book to use her advice in concert with conventional medicine, it doesn't remove the need for the author to wield her words and ideas responsibly.
I also find it odd that the author has, in essence, created her own feminine archangels by taking several goddesses that share similar traits and coalesced them into an archetype that she then labels as the twin flame to actual, well-known masculine archangels. And then she uses all of these goddesses interchangeably, removed from their pantheons, cultures, and religions, which is incredibly appropriative. She also divorces the archangels from their Abrahamic roots, stating that they existed before religion. While angelic entities are present in many religions, albeit in differing forms, the archangels she chose for the book are, in fact, pulled directly from Abrahamic faiths, prominently Christianity and Judaism. As someone who works with Judeo-Christian figures in her practice, I don't mind their inclusion in the book, but I do wonder why the author chooses to erase their roots.
There are also other things that I can't personally support, such as statements about the "mass hysteria around danger for women" or the appropriation of practices and concepts such as mandalas and chakras while divorcing them from Hinduism for mass consumption without context. This book is also essentially Christian faith healing in New Age-y clothing, with a side of prosperity gospel. So many of the toxic parts of Christianity that people long to leave behind and actively are working to deconstruct show up in this book under the guise of New Age spirituality, but are just as harmful divorced from religious trappings.
I did appreciate how much the author focused on the divine feminine and how tapping into sacred femininity was important for and attainable for both men and women. However, those passages were a small part of a far larger, messier work. The concept for the book seems like a good one, and I'd love to see a book that connects angels and deities written by a much more thoughtful, reverent author. This one, unfortunately, just wasn't it.
I cannot in good faith recommend this book, but I do think it can spark a larger conversation in the spiritual community about things like toxic spirituality, science vs. faith, and cultural appropriation, among other things.
PUBLISHER: Llewellyn Worldwide
PUBLICATION DATE: February 8th, 2022
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