Sept-Dec 2026 Creatrix Studies Courses

(Details are subjected to change without notice. For more, see Creatrix Studies Programs.)

Ceto-ecofeminist Spirituality (2 Credits)
Course no: 103
Instructor: Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, Ph.D. with guest speakers

Time: Sept 2-Oct 21 (Tuesdays, 2 hour-long 8 weekly sessions)

Description: Cetaceans (whales) are traditionally venerated as the terrestrial divine, nurturing all planetary beings by way of their biological-sonic-aquatic behaviors. Through the lens of Ceto-Magoism (the Whale-guided Way of Mago, the Creatrix), we will explore how restoring the human bond with the Natural World headed by whales, as it was in pre-patriarchal times, can stop the doomsday clock set by modern patriarchal drives. Demonized as sea monsters as well as dragons and serpents, whales hold the key to guide the Human World. The Magoist Cosmogony wherein the Cosmic Music is attributed to the creative force of the matriverse (maternally perceived universe) offers insights into how whale songs are cosmogenic.


Patriarchal Usurpation of the Great Goddess (1 Credit)
Course no: 401
Instructor: Helen Benigni, Ph.D.

Time: Sept 1-Sept 22 (Mondays, 2 hour-long 4 weekly sessions)

Description: This course outlines how the Great Goddesses of the Paleolithic, Neolithic, and Bronze Ages were diminished and molded by the onset of the patriarchy in Western Europe and the Mediterranean in the Iron Age. An explanation of how the Goddesses later were transferred into saints, martyrs, witches, and dark figures or even monsters in the myths of the patriarchy may be used to reclaim their original powers and restore their original status in our eyes.


Wisdom of Mary Magdalen (1 Credit)
Course no: 402
Instructor: Judy Grahn, Ph.D.

Time: Nov 6-Nov 27 (Thursdays, 2 hour-long 4 weekly sessions)

Description: Resurfacing after 1500 years, the unique “Gospel of Mary Magdalen” is full of wise, counter-patriarchal teachings on peace, justice, emotional intelligence and more. Studying the text plus scholarly sources including Professor Karen L. King of Harvard Divinity school, and poetic deciphers of Dr. Grahn’s poetry, students will be encouraged to learn to interpret an ancient text through what experts have said, what you see in it, and what your own intuitive art approach tells you.


Virtual Mago Whale Pilgrimage to Korea I (1 Credit)

Course no: 301
Instructor: Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, Ph.D.

Time: Sept 20-Oct 11 (Saturdays, 2 hour-long 4 weekly sessions)

Description: We will visit Bangudae whale petroglyphs in Ulsan and the Buddhist Temple of Gameunsa (Graced Temple) in Gyeongju to trace the sites mentioned in the Myth of the Pacifying Flute in which a dragon is described as the carrier of sea waves originated from the pods of narwhals or single-tusked whales. This will offer the key to open the symbolism of a dragon sculpted on the top of a gigantic metal whale bell better known as the Korean temple bell, which leads to the understanding of Sillan Temple Bells as the replica of whale songs to augment the salvific singing of whales from the seas.

Restoring the Magoist Calendar (13 Months 28 Days) I

Course no: 302
Instructor: Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, Ph.D.

Time: Nov 21-Dec 12 (Fridays, 2 hour-long 4 weekly sessions)

Description: The 13 months and 28 days Magoist Calendar (lunar-menstrual-solar) is the key of entering the matriversal reality of WE/HERE/NOW wherein ALL are membered as kindred in the Cosmic Mother. Charting the synchronized cycle of women’s menstruation, lunation, and the Earth’s revolution around the sun, the Magoist Calendar guides human lives in harmony with the creative force of the Matriverse, the Cosmic Music or Ninefold Sonic Numerology. Characterized by regularity and synchronicity, the Magoist Calendar leads human societies in tune with the Cosmic Music, a ceaseless interplay of nine numbers, which creates, nurtures, and transforms ALL (including inorganic entities).

Creatrix Studies Course Descriptions 

Core Courses

Introduction to Creatrix Studies (2 Credits)

Course No: 101

Instructor: Dr. Helen Hye-Sook Hwang with guest speakers

Description: Creatrix Studies is born as a modern revival of the pre-patriarchally originated Ceto-Magoism (the Whale-guided Way of Mago, the Creatrix), which largely remains demonized as sea-monsters/dragons/serpents today. Chiseled by Goma better known as Ungnyeo (Bear/Head Woman) among Koreans, the Magoist Mudang Queen Mother in the early fourth millennium BCE, the matriversal (of maternally perceived universe) consciousness to be revived transforms feminist spirituality into its destination, Matriversal Soteriology. We restore the bond between the natural world headed by cetaceans/whales and the human world bequeathed by our matricentric ancestors across cultures. The core course topics (Magoist Cosmology, Ceto-ecofeminist Spirituality, Matriarchal Histories and Practices, and Ceto-Magoist Soteriology) will be discussed.

***
Magoist Cosmology (2 Credits)

Course no: 102

Instructor: Dr. Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

Description: Magoist Cosmology offers a window to the matriversal (of maternally perceived universe) reality of WE/HERE/NOW unfolded by the Ninefold Cosmic Music. The ever-presently birthing, growing, and transforming process of each entity in the whole reality according to the principle of causal becoming washes away the linear-monolithic-dualistic worldview. The Magoist Cosmogony recounted in the first four chapters of the Budoji (Epic of the Emblem Capital City), the principal text of Ceto-Magoism (the Whale-guided Way of Mago, the Creatrix), takes the mind to the Great Unity of ALL in the Creatrix.

***

Ceto-ecofeminist Spirituality (2 Credits)

Course No: 103

Instructor: Dr. Helen Hye-Sook Hwang with guest speakers

Description: Cetaceans (whales) are traditionally venerated as the terrestrial divine, nurturing all planetary beings by way of their biological-sonic-aquatic behaviors. Through the lens of Ceto-Magoism (the Whale-guided Way of Mago, the Creatrix), we will explore how restoring the matricentric human bond with the Natural World headed by whales, as it was in pre-patriarchal times, can stop the doomsday clock set by modern patriarchal drives. Demonized as sea monsters as well as dragons and serpents, whales hold the key to guide the Human World. The Magoist Cosmogony wherein the Cosmic Music is attributed to the creative force of the matriverse (maternally perceived universe) offers insights into how whale songs are cosmogenic.

***

Matriarchal Histories and Practices (2 Credits)

Course No: 104

Instructor: Dr. Helen Hye-Sook Hwang with guest speakers

Description: The premise that the original form of human societies was matriarchal confederacy, not patriarchal monarchy, carved out to undertake the shamanic mandate of restoring the matriversal home on the planet will be explored. In the mytho-history of Magoist Korea (People and State of Mago, the Creatrix), Goma, the pre-patriarchal Mudang Queen Mother who established and bequeathed Ceto-Magoist civilization, stands out for the nine-state confederacy of Danguk (State of the Living Tree Altar), a realization of the Ninefold Cosmic Music, the creative force of the Matriverse, in the human world. Ninefold symbols and customs we moderns inherited across cultures offer the lens to assess the unified front of matriarchal confederacies in pre-patriarchal times.

***

Ceto-Magoist Soteriology and Patriarchy (2 Credits)

Course No: 105

Instructor: Dr. Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

Description:The legacy of Ceto-Magoism, although demonized as sea-monsters/dragons/serpents in world’s major religions, is indelible in modern lives across cultures. Established by Goma and her Mudang Queen successors in the pre-patriarchal past, Ceto-Magoism (the Whale-guided Way of the Creatrix) is teleological, bringing humans back to the paradisiacal living on the planet by tuning the terrestrial resonance with the Cosmic Music, the creative force of the Matriverse. That the Ceto-Magoist soteriological vision lies in the very civilization remains to be known. Returning to the Matriversal Origin means to overcome the two correlated planetary catastrophes; the dietetic conundrum (eating lifeforms for subsistence) and the patriarchal advancement, which is expressed in the symbol of ouroboros.

***

Methodology (1 Credit)

Course No: 106

Instructor: TBA

Description: This course trains the scholarly mind with necessary and brilliant techniques in studying Creatrix Studies from the interdisciplinary and/or comparative perspectives. While a broad reading is encouraged to contextualize one’s thesis, it is strongly recommended to engage it with the foundational questions and implications. Each student anonymously brings her/his paper (the whole or a part of it) to work with the instructor and classmates within a friendly, ethical, and critical environment. During this process, students will learn not to commit inadvertent plagiarism and cultural appropriation.

* For a Ph.D. degree, the Methodology course may be replaced with an elective course.

Elective Courses

Patriarchal Usurpation of the Great Goddess (1 Credit)

Course No: 401

Instructor: Dr. Helen Benigni

Description: This course outlines how the Great Goddesses of the Paleolithic, Neolithic, and Bronze Ages were diminished and molded by the onset of the patriarchy in Western Europe and the Mediterranean in the Iron Age. An explanation of how the Goddesses later were transferred into saints, martyrs, witches, and dark figures or even monsters in the myths of the patriarchy may be used to reclaim their original powers and restore their original status in our eyes.

***
Wisdom of Mary Magdalen (1 Credit)

Course No: 402

Instructor: Dr. Judy Grahn

Description: Resurfacing after 1500 years, the unique Gospel of Mary Magdalen is full of wise, counter-patriarchal teachings on peace, justice, emotional intelligence and more. Studying the text plus scholarly sources including Professor Karen L. King of Harvard Divinity school, and poetic deciphers of Dr. Grahn’s poetry, students will be encouraged to learn to interpret ancient texts.

***

Archaic Roots of Spiritual Rituals and the Mother/Bear Worship (1 Credit)

Course No: 406

Instructor: Dr. Kaarina Kailo

We will study the key elements of ancient rituals that carry traces of the Bear-Great Mother worship from the Paleolithic to Neolithic eras (particularly Old Europe).  I show how the religious shrine has developed from the cave bear’s abode and its ritual aspects and how its vestiges are found even in saunas and North American sweat lodge rituals. The  persistent elements carried over to modernity include the notion of rebirth, regeneration, the protective Great Mother in her many guises (Sheela-na-Gig and Artemis). 

***
Female Divine in Myth, History, and Culture (1 Credit)

Course No: 405

Instructor: Dr. Helen Benigni

Description: This course traces the evolution of the basic archetypes of the Goddesses of Life, Death and Regeneration outlined by Marija Gimbutas as they evolve from the Paleolithic Era to the Bronze and Iron Ages. Focus on the Creatrix and Regeneration Goddesses in Western Europe and the Mediterranean reveals attributes in the matricentric cultures that allowed all forms of the Goddess to flourish as part of an expression of the Female Divine in myth, history and culture.

***
Creatrix and Mothers: Thealogies of Birthing (1 Credit)

Course No: 403

Instructor: Dr. Nana Jordan

Description: TBA

***
Women’s Sacred Texts (2 Credits)

Course No: 404

Instructor: Team taught by Dr. Judy Grahn, Dr. Nane Jordan, Dr. Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

Description: TBA

***
Virtual Mago Whale Pilgrimage to Korea I to III (1 Credit for each level)

Course No: 301

Instructor: Dr. Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

Description: We will visit Bangudae whale petroglyphs in Ulsan and the Buddhist Temple of Gameunsa (Graced Temple) in Gyeongju to trace the sites mentioned in the Myth of the Pacifying Flute in which a dragon is described as the carrier of sea waves originated from the pods of narwhals or single-tusked whales. This will offer the key to open the symbolism of a dragon sculpted on the top of a gigantic metal whale bell better known as the Korean temple bell, which leads to the understanding of Sillan Temple Bells as the replica of whale songs to augment the salvific singing of whales from the seas.

***

Restoring the Magoist Calendar (13 months 28 days) I to III (1 Credit for each level)

Course No: 302

Instructor: Dr. Helen Hye-Sook Hwang

Description: The 13 months and 28 days Magoist Calendar (lunar-menstrual-solar) is the key of entering the matriversal reality of WE/HERE/NOW wherein ALL are membered as kindred in the Cosmic Mother. Charting the synchronized cycle of women’s menstruation, lunation, and the Earth’s revolution around the sun, the Magoist Calendar guides human lives in harmony with the creative force of the Matriverse, the Cosmic Music or Ninefold Sonic Numerology. Characterized by regularity and synchronicity, the Magoist Calendar leads human societies in tune with the Cosmic Music, a ceaseless interplay of nine numbers, which creates, nurtures, and transforms ALL (including inorganic entities). By way of the Magoist Calendar, we humans are found kindred not only with other humans but also with ALL else in the Matriverse.

***

Mago Halmi Skirt-Creation Folklore and Toponymy (1 Credit)

***
Whale Bells: Whale Songs in the Land (1 Credit)

***
Ninefold Sonic Numerology: The Cosmic Music and the Creatrix (2 Credits)

***
Ceto-Magoist Origin of Korean Muism (1 Credit)

***
Ceto-Magoist Perspective in K-Culture (1 Credit)

***
Patriarchal Misrepresentation of the Ninefold Sonic Numerology (1 Credit)

***
Reading the Budoji Part 1 to Part 9 (1 Credit for each part)

***

Special Themes in Matricentric Cosmology (1-2 Credits)
Special Themes in Nature-based Spiritual Practices (1-2 Credits)
Special Themes in Matricentric Societies (1-2 Credits)
Independent Study (1-2 Credits)

** All courses are subjected to modification without notice.