(Last updated on May 1, 2019)
A brief History
The Mago Work, a collection of different projects created to serve the mandate of Mago Bokbon (Return to Mago’s Origin), began to spin its first nexus as a result of my interview with Jayne DeMente and Anniitra W. MaKafia Ravenmoon, co-hosts of Creatrix Media Live, March 23, 2011.
The Mago Circle, Facebook Group, was created shortly after the above interview, May 23, 2011. Founding members included Dr. Mary Ann Ghaffurian, Dr. Rosemary Wright, Deirdre Cruickshank, MaryAnn Columbia, Leslene della Madre, and Anne Wilkerson Allen.
Return to Mago, Magoism the Way of S/HE officially began August 15, 2012. Changed to a full-fledged Webzine with a new URL (magoism.net) in February 3, 2014.
Mago Academy (https://magoacademy.org) began to operate in fall 2012.
Conduct Mago Pilgrimage to Korea annually since 2013.
Hosts online classes and forums since 2014.
Hosts Nine Day Mago Celebrations
Hosts Virtual Midnight Vigil to New Year since 2018.
Some details:
Offered “2013 Mago Pilgrimage to Korea,” June 2013.
“2014 Mago Pilgrimage to Korea,” October 2014.
“2015 Virtual Mago Pilgrimage to Korea” October 2015.
“2016 Mago Pilgrimage to Korea” June 2016.
Online class “Gaia and Mago: Rekindling Old Gynocentric Unity,” co-facilitated by Dr. Glenys Livingstone and Dr. Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, Feb. 15-July 19, 2014.
Anna Tzanova joins Mago Scholars for the Magoist Studies Program, 2015.
Online class “Korean Historical Dramas,” co-facilitated by Dr. Helen Hwang and Anna Tzanova, MA, Feb. 2016.
Sumaiyah Yates joins Mago Scholars for the Magoist Studies Program, 2016.
Online class “Introduction to Magoism,” October 2016.
Amina Rodriguez joins Mago Scholars for the Magoist Studies Program , 2017.
Wendy Stiver joins Mago Scholars for the Magoist Studies Program, 2018.
Mago Books (https://magobooks.com) began on December 23, 2014.
Publishes textbooks, collective writing anthology series, Mago Almanac series, Magoism books.
Some details:
Published the first anthology of the collective writing series, She Rises: Why Goddess Feminism, Activism, and Spirituality? Volume 1 in June Solstice, 2015.
Published The Mago Way: Re-discovering Mago, the Great Goddess from East Asia Volume 1 in October 3, 2015.
Published the second anthology of the collective writing series, She Rises: How Goddess Feminism, Activism, and Spirituality? Volume 2 in June Solstice, 2016.
2017 Mago Work Calendar, November 2016.
How The Mago Circle Facebook Group began:
This Blog, Return to Mago, Magoism the Way of S/HE, (now Webzine) was an offshoot of the Mago Circle, a Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/magoism/, which began as a result of Dr. Hwang’s roundtable discussion in the Creatrix Media Live, an internet radio show [http://www.blogtalkradio.com/creatrix-media-live# or http://www.blogtalkradio.com/creatrix-media-live/2012/03/18/march-mago-madness-with-dr-helen-hwang-phd].
The following is an excerpt from Helen Hye-Sook Hwang’s discussion with Jayne DeMente and Anniitra Ravenmoon for the Creative Media Live aired on March 23, 2011.
Jayne DeMente: Welcome Helen, I was fortunate to read some of your research and I applaud you because, we in the Western WSE movement have long needed to hear more from Asian women spiritual leaders and feminists and your reference to the Neolithic timeline…
For our listeners and participants online, let’s lead with the question of who is Mago, was she a mother figure, what is Magoism, does any other deity pre-date her?
Helen Hye-Sook Hwang: Mago is the great goddess known to East Asians throughout history. She is the first mother of all, cosmogonist, and ultimate sovereign/ruler. She has many names. Among them are Triad Deity (Samsin), Grandmother (halmi), Auspicious Goddess (Seogo), Evil (Magui), and Old Goddess (Nogo). She is also known as the Giantess who shaped the natural and cultural landscape. Her manifestations are so multivalent that one may think they do not refer to the same goddess. She was well loved, given high esteem, celebrated by East Asians in the past. She was almost completely forgotten, however in modern times, up until the 1980s in Korea, when the principal text of Magoism, the Budoji, re-emerged.
Mago is a mother figure in the sense that she bore two daughters, Gunghee and Sohee, and managed her household called the Castle of Mago, the primordial paradise of humanity. She is the ancestor of all races. She takes care of everything on earth via the equilibrium of cosmic music/sound/vibration.
Magoism is the term that refers to the totality of culture/civilization venerating Mago as the great goddess. It is a tradition largely unnoted but co-opted and distorted in major East Asian religions. The concept of Magoism helps one identify and understand Mago’s multivalent manifestations that are found trans-nationally. It also makes possible to name the female-centered original/primal civilization that gave birth to the forthcoming East Asian civilizations and religions.
Whether Mago is the earliest deity known to East Asia is unknown. In fact, there are goddesses unearthed from “pre-historic” archaeological sites without their names. The life-sized goddess statue was unearthed in the site of Hongshan Culture, northeastern region of present China dating from 4,700 to 2,900 BCE. The heavy use of jade along with the partly bear-figured female icon is congruent with the account of Magoism in the Budoji. Also, of course, there are numerous female figurines called dogu excavated in Japan’s “pre-historic” times.
The ancient origin of Mago or Magoism has a merit to explain some facts that remain a mystery, so to speak. Korea is also known as the land of dolmens. Half of the world megaliths are populated in the Korean peninsula. There are numerous pyramids found in mainland China. There is a documentary film about the sunken temple beneath the sea of Okinawa Japan, etc. dating to 10,000 years ago.
Then, how early does Mago date to? It is difficult to date the earliest evidence of Mago or Magoism simply because written history does not exist in pre-patriarchal times. As you see here, when we talk about the earliest of something, everyone assumes it is of Chinese. So let me follow this line of thought: Ge Hong’s record on Magu from China dates to the early fourth century CE (Ge Hong 283—343 CE). However, Daoist scholar Robert Ford Campany states that the cult of Mago dates back to the Stone Age.
It is more difficult to date Mago in Korean records simply because ancient written records did not survive. Two books, the Budoji and the Handan Gogi, alleged to have been written in the late 4th or early 5th century and subsequent later times, which refer to Mago otherwise known as Samsin (Triad Deity) remain controversial. Considering that the name Mago is embedded in Korean language as in “gom,” “geum,” and “gam,” whose meaning indicates ruler, sovereign, and head, the origin of Mago is as old as these words. Likewise, most materials that recount Mago as cosmogonist are of folklore, place names, literature, arts, and debris of historical and religious records, most of which are difficult to date for its origin.
(For the whole content, please read http://magoism.wordpress.com/2012/07/08/mago-the-first-mother-of-east-asia/)
Online publications and radio talks on Mago and Magoism by Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, Ph.D.
The Female Principle in the Magoist Cosmogony
http://www.universitadelledonne.it/mago.htm
http://www.c-s-p.org/flyers/9781847183903-sample.pdf (pp. 10-33)
http://www.triviavoices.com/returning-home-with-mago-the-great-goddess-from-east-asia.html
http://www.triviavoices.net/archives/issue9/index.html
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/creatrix-media-live/2012/03/18/march-mago-madness-with-dr-helen-hwang-phd (CML Radio Roundtable Talk Show)
Publication about Helen Hye-Sook Hwang and her Research about Magoism
http://www.matrifocus.com/IMB06/scholar.htm
http://www.examiner.com/article/goddess-studies-scholars-claim-their-place-u-s-academia
http://hearthmoonblog.com/review-she-is-everywhere/
http://gaiasgarden.com.au/index.php/aboutus/articles-by-gaias-garden/132-goddess-mago
http://besom.blogspot.kr/2009_03_01_archive.html
http://youngandjung.blogspot.kr/search?q=helen+hwang (The Daily Dreamer)
See also here for essays published Return to Mago, Magoism the Way of WE in S/HE.