o yield to
the influence of suggestion. Moreover, because of the emphasis on
chastity and the taboos with which she was surrounded, any neurotic
tendencies which might be inherent in her nature were sure to be
developed to the utmost.

As Lombroso suggests, hysteria and other neurotic phenomena are classed
as evidence of spirit possession by the untutored mind. Thus it happened
that observing the strange psychic manifestations to which woman was
periodically subject, the ancient peoples endowed her with
spiritualistic forces which were sometimes held to be beneficent and at
other times malefic in character. Whatever the attitude at any time
whether her _mana_ were regarded as evil or benignant, the savage and
primitive felt that it was well to be on his guard in the presence of
power; so that the taboos previously outlined would hold through the
swing of man's mind from one extreme to the other.

As goddess, priestess and prophetess, woman continued to play her role
in human affairs until the Christian period, when a remarkable
transformation took place. The philosophy of dualism that emanated from
Persia had affected all the religions of the Mediterranean Basin and had
worked its way into Christian beliefs by way of Gnosticism,
Manicheanism, and Neo-Platonism. Much of the writing of the church
fathers is concerned with the effort to harmonize conflicting beliefs
or to avoid the current heresies. To one who reads the fathers it
becomes evident to what extent the relation of man to woman figures in
these controversies.[16]

The Manicheanism which held in essence Persian Mithraism and which had
so profound an influence on the writings of St. Augustine gave body and
soul to two distinct worlds and finally identified woman with the body.
But probably as a result of the teachings of Gnosticism with its
Neo-Platonic philosophy which never entirely rejected feminine
influence, some of this influence survived in the restatement of
religion for the folk. When the restatement was completed and was
spreading throughout Europe in the form which held for the next
millennium, it was found that the early goddesses had been accepted
among the saints, the priestesses and prophetesses were rejected as
witches, while the needs of men later raised the Blessed Virgin to a
place beside her son.

Modern psychology has given us an explanation of the difficulty of
eradicating the worship of such a goddess as the Great Mother of Asia
Minor