Fairfax, VA, USA. The Rev. Cathryn Platine and her sisters walk a way of life that reorders priorities away from competitive striving and toward communal sharing and peaceful community service.

Platine is the principal founder of a movement toward the ancient form of feminine and shared divinity that predates the later, masculinized, version which separated the Divine and subordinated the individual. In the process, she and her sisters in belief have restored an ancient form of religious devotion while challenging outworn assumptions about the sterility of spirituality.


Platine's new book, The Cybeline Revival, provides for the first time an authoritative history of the movement and an account of its contemporary practice. The lively text sparkles with Platine's personal observations and autobiographical notes, making it all the easier to digest what may be material unfamiliar to most readers. While the text is very accessible, make no mistake: Rev. Platine has written a serious book informed by scholarship. The lay reader will be challenged by history left untold in most schools and colleges, while even specialists in religious history are in for more than a few surprises.



The Cybeline Revival. Rev. Cathryn Platine. Palenville NY: Home Brew Press 2011. 1st Ed. PB 117pp. Copyright Maetreum of Cybele, Magna Mater Inc. ISBN:978-1-257-03845-9; $9.00

The Cybeline Revival is available directly from the publisher online.

TS-Si has published opinion columns by the Rev. Cathryn Platine. Click here for a list.But perhaps the history covered here is not so unfamiliar after all. The story of Cybeline ranges over millenia, interwoven with a great deal of familiar history. Through extensive research, Platine and her correspondents have documented the Mother Goddess all the way from prehistory through the Common Era (C.E.).

Yes, you read that right: Platine is appealing to a tradition that extends back to the end of the most recent Ice Age, perhaps to around 10,000 BCE). She shows how our progression from there through the rise of agriculture, home industries, and trade is interwoven with the rise of community and collective self-fulfillment.

Despite an obvious and lamentable record of destruction, humans have also created common community efforts that emphasize community values over material acquisition. And through it all, and by whatever name, Platine shows how the Mother Goddess was there. Although she doesn't specifically mention modern philanthropy, her account can easily be taken as an explanation for institutional altruism.

The book itself is a series of history lessons, reminiscences and cultural essays, organized into chapters that progress from prehistory through to the Common Era and on to the situation today. The late chapters explain the founding of their Maetreum, or temple, in 1999 that began the earnest work of Revival.

The book includes a fascinating account of a quest by Dr. Caillean McMahon (who later became a priestess herself), which McMahon describes as "a spiteful exercise to humiliate others" that ended as "a loving search for my sisters who were lost in the mists of a clouded history". (Chapter 7) She refers to the period when the pagan sisters were researching their predecessors in ancient times. McMahon reports that her "unworthy pursuit" of the rumored resting place of the Temple of Cybele underneath the Vatican yielded a "worthy goal" — and all because she followed the voice of the Great Mother to become better than she was.

A particularly interesting discussion recounts the work that went into "Recovering the Rule" (Chapter 8) that was necessary to ensure an orderly and continuous pagan monasticism. It seems like a well thought out — and heartfelt — canon for a rich and nonviolent spiritual life, governance, and the sharing of Cybeline Hospitality with secular neighbors.

One of the impressions this reader had while reading the book was that Cybeline must be a fun Goddess. After all, here is a discipline that survived rivalries and persecution, inspired homecrafts, organized local economies, gave great parties and seriously annoyed authorities from the Abrahamic religions.

Anyone who could do all that — past or present — earns a good reception from this female reviewer.

And this definitely is a woman thing. Male guests are welcome for brief stays, and even participate to a point, but only the women have access to the special rituals. This makes sense when understood in the context of their belief system. As Platine says in her Afterwords to the book:

"Our theology starts from the simplest basis: That the Divine Feminine principle is the basis of the universe. That all of us, all that we encounter is Her in the aggregate. We are all the Great Mother learning about Herself."

The way they live their lives, everything they do, derives from that core belief, including their organization, rituals, philosophical principles, and charitable outreach. Well, that and more are the Way they lead their lives. Is that so bad?

Centuries ago (and even today), the Christians, especially, couldn't get over the pagan rituals that incorporated what the critics considered to be gender-variant sexual behaviors. This is not a particular surprise given the fear of male authorities when they encounter the female principle. Among the many hysterics, St. Paul attacked when festival participants threw sand in the gears of his legendary prurience, equating Goddess worship with "unnatural sexual behavior" and implying that worshippers are aligned with "murder and wickedness". [Romans 1]

Even today, both miltant atheists and single-minded religious adherents can be hostile to pagans, lumping them in with wiccans, neo-pagans, witchcraft, and other benign manifestations of spiritual quest. Platine gently points out the differences and similarities, while maintaining her love for others and her Maetreum, the Home of the Great Mother, a place with a distinctive connection to what she and her sister priestesses regard as the fundamental of the universe. Heady stuff and easily dismissed by ideological bullies, whether atheistic or fundamentalist, who confuse deep spirituality with some sort of rule-breaking black magic with dire consequences for society.

Oh, please. History is replete with refutations of these dull stereotypes and, best of all, we have a positive example in our midst. Much of the Rev. Platine's book is taken up with a description of how she and her sister priestesses actually live in their acceptance of harmony with each other and their understanding of the Divine essential.

Their Phrygianum, or home, is located west of Boston in the Catskill Mountains of upstate New York. There is no hierarchy per se, but Platine serves as the First Battakes, or high priestess, so designated out of respect. And in that place they have happy women, a temple (the Maetreum), warm bread, and drums. Whatever one believes, it does sound like fun.

When approaching a book like this (or any book, for that matter), it is best to have a clear mind and spirit to better grasp what it actually has to say and connect the contents with our lives and what we perceive as the lives of others. This book, The Cybeline Revival, takes us to a place worth visiting with lessons worth learning. Apart from any other convictions the reader may have, and on that basis alone, the book is well worth a careful read.

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<style type="text/css"><!--.quote {width:400px; padding: 6px; border: solid 1px #456B8F; font: 11px helvetica, verdana, sans-serif; color: #222222; background-color: #ffffff}.quote a {font: 13px arial, serif; color: #003399; text-decoration: underline}.quote a:hover {color: #FF9900; }//--></style><div style="float:left;padding:5px;"><img src="../images/stories/CybelineRevivalLead.jpg" width="125" alt=""/></div><div class="quote"><a href="../the-dialogue/29572-book-review-the-cybeline-revival" target="_blank">Book Review: The Cybeline Revival</a><br/>Thursday, 07 April 2011<div align="right" style="width:400px"><p style="text-align:right;"><a href="/" target="_blank">TS-Si.org</a></p></div></div>

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