At Pentecost: Why Was the Holy Ghost Ghosted

Stained Glass in the Basilica of Vysehrad in Prague, Czech Republic,
depicting the Descent of the Holy Spirit as a Dove over Mary and the Disciples

Today is the feast of the Pentecost, marking 50 days since Easter and the resurrection of Jesus in Christian doctrine. Based on a Jewish harvest festival, it's the day when Jesus's disciples were imbued with the spirit of their faith's evangelism. "The three most important Solemnities on the Church’s calendar (and the three most important mysteries in her life) are Easter, Christmas and Pentecost," says the National Catholic Register, giving the Church a feminine pronoun, although its gods are all male.

On the Pentecost, it is written in the Bible (Acts 2), that Jesus's apostles were all gathered together to pray, along with "the women" and Mary, the mother of Jesus. Suddenly, there came "a mighty rushing wind," a common symbol for the Holy Spirit—the third godly member of the divine trinity of Christianity, along with the God the Father and the Son (Jesus).

As patriarchal religions wiped out the ancient goddess ones, the divine feminine in the Father-Mother-Child trinity was ghosted, first as the Holy Ghost, then as the Holy Spirit, often symbolized by a dove. John 1:32 describes a baptism thusly:  “I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him."

The Pentecost in particularly important in the Easter Orthodox tradition, where it is celebrated as a three- or seven-day feast, using iconography of the Twelve Apostles seated with the Theotokos (Virgin Mary) shown sitting in the center of them. Similarly in the West, the typical image of Pentecost is that of the Mary seated centrally and prominently among the disciples. Pope Benedict in one of his teachings said that “there is no Pentecost without Mary.”

Starting in the Middle Ages, cathedrals and churches throughout Western Europe were designed with "Holy Ghost holes," open circular windows through which doves or depictions of them were lowered during Pentecost services, while the choirboys would "break into the whooshing and drumming sound of a holy windstorm."  

The dove was a ubiquitous symbol of the goddess religions, probably because of its ability to make milk. Bill Wilson, founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, was one who experienced the sound of rushing wind when he had his psychedelic experience. So it seems that the goddess and the entheogenic religious experience may peek through the shroud of male dominance on this, Pentecost Sunday.

Brittney Griner's "Coming Home"

WNBA star Brittney Griner has released a book, "Coming Home," about her ordeal of imprisonment in Russia after being caught with two cannabis vape pens while entering the country in February 2022. 

The book, co-written by celebrity biographer Michelle Burford, starts with a description of Griner hastily packing to travel to Russia, where she played basketball for seven years, earning much more than she did in the US and, as revealed in the book and her interviews about it, being treated like a star. In her haste to pack her luggage, Griner neglected to remove two nearly empty vape pens containing cannabis, for which she had a doctor's recommendation in Arizona. 

As she tells it, at the airport, a screener gestured to her to unzip her bags. She writes.

"I'd worked my way through the backpack when I opened one last zip. I slid in my hand and felt something inside. The agent stared as I slowly lifted out a cartridge with cannabis oil. Fuck. I'm a licensed cannabis user in the United States, with a medical marijuana card issued by my doctor. He prescribed [sic] cannabis years ago, to help me cope with my debilitating sports injuries. In Arizona cannabis is legal. In Russia it's forbidden. I knew that. Honest to God, I just totally forgot the pen was in my bag. The moment I felt it in that pocket, my stomach sank." 

Griner doesn't write about her use of cannabis or how it helps her, but she does give some insight into how she was treated as an "addict" in Russia, where she was sent to be interviewed by a psychiatrist, who asked her, "When did your drug problem begin?" The book continues: