On 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).

Fractio panis, Roman catacomb of Priscilla

It's a rare instance where women were involved in anything sacramental or powerful in the New Testament. While some scholars are accepting of the interpretation of the Fractio Panis (Breaking of the Bread) fresco in the Roman Catacomb of Priscilla as depicting female figures participating in a Eucharistic ceremony, others vehemently deny the visible evidence. 

In Judaism, the Holy Spirit (Hebrew: ruach ha-kodesh) refers to the divine force, and its feminine aspect, shekhinah, is associated with the dove. The Hebrew noun ruacḥ is feminine, and can refer to "breath," "wind," or some invisible moving force.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.”

As patriarchal religions wiped out the ancient goddess ones, Jesus supplanted Dionysus, the son of the goddess Demeter in the Eleusinian mysteries. 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. Luke 3:22 describes Jesus's baptism saying, "And the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form, like a dove." Depictions of the event feature a dove hovering over Jesus as he is baptized. 

St. Catherine of Alexandria in Prison
Artist: Paolo Veronese (c. 1615)

The dove was a ubiquitous symbol of the goddess religions, possibly because of its ability to make milk. Doves are associated with the Mesopotamian goddess Inanna/Ishtar as early as the beginning of the third millennium BC. In the ancient Levant, doves were used as symbols for the Canaanite mother goddess Asherah. The ancient Greek word for "dove" was peristerá, which may be derived from the Semitic phrase peraḥ Ištar, meaning "bird of Ishtar." In classical antiquity, doves were sacred to the Greek goddess Aphrodite, who frequently appears with doves in ancient Greek pottery.

Catherine of Alexandria, the Christian saint who was tortured on the Catherine Wheel, was said to have been fed daily by a dove from heaven while imprisoned. She was one of the saints who appeared to Joan of Arc. 

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." 

Bill Wilson, founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, was one who experienced the sound of rushing wind when he had his first psychedelic experience. Another was Emily Dickinson. 

So it seems that the goddess and the entheogenic religious experience may peek through the shroud of male dominance on Pentecost a/k/a Trinity Sunday.