Asherah, the Hebrew goddess, was demoted to being wife of Yahweh and later cast out altogether. In rabbinical Judaism, she was replaced by the Shekhinah, the disembodied divine presence of God—His feminine aspect.
The Zohar then quotes a passage related to the biblical queen Jezebel's worship of other gods, and informs us that the priests of Baal and Asherah (male and female deities) are worshippers of the sun and moon. The sun and moon, the Zohar goes on, are really Tiferet and Malkhut, the Holy One (male divinity) and the Shekhinah (female divinity). Baal and Asherah worshippers, the very people whom the Torah rejects as the worst of pagans, are actually worshippers of the (legitimate) masculine and feminine Divine. The Zohar appears to be saying that pagans and Jews are worshipping the same aspects of divinity by different names.
"It says in Deuteronomy, '"You shall not plant for yourselves an asherah or any kind of tree beside the altar of the Lord thy God which (asher) you shall make for yourselves." Are we to suppose that anywhere else it is permitted [to plant an Asherah]? [Of course not!] The truth is that the He' [the letter of God's name that represents the feminine Divine] is called Asherah, after the name of its spouse, Asher, and the meaning of the verse is therefore: "You shall not plant another Asherah by the side of the altar which is established upon this [Asherah]." Observe that throughout the Scriptures the worshippers of the sun are called servants of Baal and the worshippers of the moon servants of Asherah; hence the combination "to Baal and Asherah." If this is so (that Asherah is the name of the feminine aspect of God), why is it not used as a sacred name? The reason is that this name brings to mind the words of Leah, "happy am I, for the daughters will call me happy (ishruni)," but this one is not "called happy" by other nations, and another nation is set up in its place. It is written, "all that honored her despise her" (Lam. 1:8). But the real altar is one that is made of earth, as it is written, "An altar of earth you shall make for me." That is why it says in Genesis, "dust from the earth." Zohar I, 49a
It is important to know that Canaan was the region that included Israel, Lebanon, Jordan, Syria and northeastern Egypt, which would include Giza. Thus, we find that the Shekinah pillar (also referred to as a pole or tree) was a unifying symbol for all of the feminine deities in this region from Babylonian Ishtar to the Egyptian goddess Isis and her Ankh.
At the same time, many of the feminine gods in Canaan were associated with the planet Venus. This included Ishtar and Isis, but also Astarte, Inanna, Semiramis, Lilith, Ashtoreth or Asherah. Later, this migrated out of Canaan to become Demeter, Hathor, Kali, Ostara, Eastre, Aphrodite and the Roman Venus, from which the planet is named. Some believe that all of these goddesses originated in India as Vena and that all religions therefore must have originated in the Indus Valley near Tibet. The words Vena, Veda and Venus do share a common etymology.
In the Hebrew Kabbalah, there is a story where the goddess Lilith is transformed into a Shekinah pillar, also called the Asherah pole after the goddess Asherah. In this fable we find that the Shekinah pillar is also a symbol for the planet Venus, combining with another symbolic geometry for Venus, the pentagram. This symbol originates in the astronomical fact that Venus aligns with the Earth five times over an 8-year period, thus tracing a pentagonal rose in the night sky (i.e., the Star of Bethlehem). This is an important point, since the intersections of a pentagram form a golden ratio of about 1.618 (called the divine proportion), very close to the orbital resonance of Venus to Earth at 13:8 = 1.625 (the difference is John Dee's secret number .007).
In Rosslyn, the Shekinah pillar has pentagram stars carved into the top, confirming this association.
The feminine divine has had many names in many cultures: Ishtar in Babylon, Inanna in Sumeria, Athena, Hera, Demeter, and Persephone in Greece, Isis in Egypt, Durga, Kali, and Lakshmi in India. She is the Shekinah of the Cabalists, and the Sophia of the Gnostics. - Rudolf "Ahriman" Steiner
But you Catholics really do worship pagan gods like Inanna/Ishtar/Isis unknowingly, the so called "Queen of Heaven" disguised as Mother Mary.
Real Christians only worship the one and only Lord of lords and King of kings Jesus Christ because he is the incarnate Godhead, and the only true Messiah.
In the end it is Jesus Christ who will crush the head of the serpent (satan/lucifer), and not Mary like your false Vatican preachers are trying to tell you.
I'm just a simple believer in Jesus Christ who actually is God, but your false Church really worships Mary as the pagan Queen of Heaven.
The Pagan Origin of Mary worship/adoration
The Lady of the Jesuits is not even an invention of Jesuitism, but an adoption of a pagan conception which cursed Babylon, the prototype of the modern Babylon, centuries before Christ appeared as the son of Mary. Pictures of the mother and child were then worshiped. In almost all the devotional books of the Roman Catholic Church, the mother of God is crowned, sceptred and enthroned as the Queen of heaven. ["She has been appointed by God to be the Queen of heaven and earth", Pius IX, 1854, but not made "official" till 1954 by Pius XII.] "I can never," said the Rev. M. Hobart Seymour, in his Evenings with the Romanists, page 254, "forget the shock I received when I first saw in their churches in Italy, the Virgin Mary crowned as Queen of heaven, seated on the same throne with Jesus crowned King of heaven. These were the God-man and God-woman enthroned alike. There was nothing to distinguish the one above the other."
The origin of this idolatry had its root in ancient mythology. Astarte of the Assyrians, Ashtoreth of the Sidonians and Bowaney of the Hindoos held the place that Mary occupies in the church of Rome. Greece had her Venus and Rome her Juno. The Diana of the Ephesians was a female, from whose body in every part there seemed to be issuing all the various animals of creation, symbolizing the conception and creation of all things.
The Egyptians on the one hand and the Etrurians on the other had their Isis, the same symbol, a female divinity whom they regarded as "the mother of the gods." Jeremiah describes the Jews who had rebelled against God as making cakes to "the queen of heaven" (Jer 7:18; 44:17), the title given to Juno in the Scandinavian theology. Rome has adopted this element of heathenism, this product of the carnal heart. In all its essential elements the Roman Etrurian and the Romish Mary brought from Babylon and adopted by papal Rome are in accord - Romanists are idolaters. In their churches are pictures of the Virgin that are worshiped because of the wonderful things professedly done by them. In St. Peter's is a picture of the Virgin bearing the inscription that it had miraculously shed blood when struck by a stone. A picture of the mother and child is at Lucca, of which it was affirmed that when some one flung a stone at the face of the child she transferred the child to the other arm and thus saved it from injury. The Jesuits defend this.
It is claimed by Romanists that the mother and child sustain the same relation in heaven which they have assigned them on earth, and that Jesus is more the mediator with Mary than Mary is the intercessor with Christ. From Babylon, this worship of the mother and child spread to the ends of the earth. In Egypt, in Assyria, in China and in Greece and elsewhere, this form of worship suited to the carnal heart gained sway. Circe, the daughter of the sun, taken from Pompeii, has the nimbus or circle surrounding the head in the very same way as the head of the Roman Madonna is at this time adorned in the pictures given of this mistress of Rubens, this lady of the Jesuits. Can any one believe this coincidence accidental?
Now tell me, if you're not a Mary worshiper why exactly are you so triggered telling me to repent for the luciferian "Queen of Heaven" that the heretical Jesuits in the Vatican worship?
Sophia has a long history in Orthodox Christianity as the female embodiment of God's wisdom. Where do you think the Hagia Sophia got its name. Sounds like you just lumped together a bunch of unrelated figures to fit your narrative.
https://ebisupublications.com/inanna-ishtar-and-esther/
http://www.interferencetheory.com/Articles/files/b891fe4194dc402167d845975cca4b5f-33.html
https://ritualwell.org/ritual/ishtar-lilith-shekhinah/
Thanks for this comment, much effort fren.
Make reparations for the sins and insults made against the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
But you Catholics really do worship pagan gods like Inanna/Ishtar/Isis unknowingly, the so called "Queen of Heaven" disguised as Mother Mary.
Real Christians only worship the one and only Lord of lords and King of kings Jesus Christ because he is the incarnate Godhead, and the only true Messiah.
In the end it is Jesus Christ who will crush the head of the serpent (satan/lucifer), and not Mary like your false Vatican preachers are trying to tell you.
I don't worship Mary, pastor Bill.
I'm just a simple believer in Jesus Christ who actually is God, but your false Church really worships Mary as the pagan Queen of Heaven.
https://www.nairaland.com/1266269/pagan-origin-virgin-mary-worship
Now tell me, if you're not a Mary worshiper why exactly are you so triggered telling me to repent for the luciferian "Queen of Heaven" that the heretical Jesuits in the Vatican worship?
Because I, and Jesus Christ, don't appreciate you insulting His mother.
Sophia has a long history in Orthodox Christianity as the female embodiment of God's wisdom. Where do you think the Hagia Sophia got its name. Sounds like you just lumped together a bunch of unrelated figures to fit your narrative.