[Author’s Note: This essay was published in S/HE: An International Journal of Goddress Studiess V5 N1 (2026). Footnotes numbers of these sequels do not match with those in the original publication.]
Abstract Creatrix Studies is about reviving the pre-patriarchally originated legacy of Matriversalism, the Way of the Matriverse (maternally perceived universe). It is an oeuvre of my life and a contribution to the world as a matriversal feminist of Korean descent. Creatrix Studies has arrived with the aim of guiding the searching mind to Matriversalism in the face of an escalating planetary uncertainty posed by AI-backed technologies in particular in the coming decade. It recognizes that the scope of patriarchal history and teaching is too myopic to assess the course of human ontology on the planet. According to my research on Ceto-Magoism (the Whale-guided Way of Mago, the Creatrix), the pre-patriarchal Neolithic world reached a civilizational apogee in human history. By adopting cetacean intelligence and venerating the Cetacean Providence (the dragon), archaic Ceto-Magoists named and tapped into the cosmogenic force, the Cosmic Music, and reified it in the human world. Simply put, heaven was realized on earth by Neolithic Ceto-Magoists. And it was the Cosmic Mother who was exalted. The Origin Mother — the Cosmic Mother (personal and theistic) and the Creatrix (non-personal and non-theistic) — represents the Cosmic Music, the central tenet of Ceto-Magoist cosmology. The cetacean-human alliance of the Neolithic gave birth to the soteriological consciousness of the Creatrix Mother. Ceto-Magoists of Old Korea (the One Mother People of the Earth) carved out matriversal ontology (the maternal way of intercosmic becoming) in the form of civilization, which I call Ceto-Magoist civilization, for generations to come. Ceto-Magoism entails brilliant, pacific, and spiritual civilizational advancements including matristic governance, calendrics, maritime prowess, architecture, astronomy, linguistics, education, religion, geography, medicines, and cures as well as sono/numeric institutions. That Goma, better known as the Bear/Head Woman among Koreans, was the founder of Ceto-Magoism is largely unknown. As the Shaman Queen of the fourth millennium BCE, she established and flowered Ceto-Magoist civilization. These civilizational inventions were carried out to the world by the “mermaids” and “mermen” under the leadership of Goma and her Mudang Head successors of Old Korea for the mission of restoring matriversal ontology in the human world. The pre-patriarchal world maintained unity not only among peoples but also with the natural world headed by the Cetacean Divine. Based on the plethora of primary sources including The Budoji (Epic of the Emblem Capital City), drawn from Korea, China, Japan and beyond, I have reconstructed Ceto-Magoist Studies to explore and advocate the pre-patriarchally originated matriversal legacy cultivated, flowered, and innovated by the Neolithic cetacean collaborators. Unveiling the cetacean-human alliance, Ceto-Magoism comes to us as the matriversal language shrouded in worldwide religious practices and mythologies.
Keywords Cosmic Mother, Mago, Creatrix, Matriverse, Old Korea, Goma, whales, dragon, Ceto-Magoism, Matriversalism, cosmology, ontology, civilization, soteriology, second-wave feminism, Goddess Studies, feminist spirituality, mythology, Neolithic, Zhuangzi
This essay discusses the central pillars of Creatrix Studies drawn from my Ceto-Magoist research and its methodology. Creatrix Studies treats multidisciplinary works on the Cosmic Mother to investigate how they can be reassessed in a new light of matri-cosmology (the way of knowing the Matriverse) released by Ceto-Magoist Studies. Creatrix Studies is not just a collective summing of Goddess talks focusing on her creative or creating nature. Matriversalism (the Way of the Matriverse) that Creatrix Studies unfolds is not merely a syncretic conclusion or a broad inference of Goddess research results and spiritual practices. Creatrix Studies springs up from its own root, Ceto-Magoism (the Whale-guided Way Mago, the Creatrix), which manifests cross-culturally in various forms. Ceto-Magoism constitutes the core of Old Korea (the One Mother People and Land of the Earth).[1] Unpacking Ceto-Magoism entails the mytho-historical-cosmological legacy of Old Korea. That is, Ceto-Magoism is the indigenous text, which explains not only the origin of ancient “Goddesses” but also the full-fledged, pre-patriarchal feature of matri-cosmology and matriversal ontology. Creatrix Studies rooted in Ceto-Magoism necessarily explores pre-patriarchal Old Korean history, mythology, and culture as the matriversal context for all deities including the male. Once the paradigm of Ceto-Magoism is recognized, Creatrix Studies will not only house Goddess talks at large but also offer the framework to assess how worldwide Goddess topics are interrelated. Further it will reexamine patriarchal histories and religions as well as mythologies, wherein Matriversalism is appropriated and distorted. Creatrix Studies channels what has been lost in the course of history, the pre-patriarchally originated matristic legacy, which I call Ceto-Magoism. The etiological nature of Ceto-Magoism sheds a new light on the themes of world-wide deities, histories, and myths.
Creatrix Studies is an applied format of Ceto-Magoist Studies, which serves as a forum to cross-examine individual research processes and results and build new insights concerning the Cosmic Mother. Both Creatrix Studies and Ceto-Magoism are new in mainstream academia. Intriguingly, the onset of Creatrix Studies coincides with the expansion of AI (Artificial Intelligence) in global life. I present Creatrix Studies as a sign of the times. I hope that it should be known to humanity before AI-powered mechanical ontology takes shape. And that is the mission of Ceto-Magoism. Creatrix Studies guides the direction of AI-equipped human intelligence to cope with global crises and bring a new terrestrial equilibrium.
On the one hand, Ceto-Magoism is recognizable as the symbol of sea-monsters/dragons/serpents often demonized in major world religions and mythologies. On the other hand, it is simply forgotten or remains covert today. Because the concept of the Creatrix is absent in patriarchal religions, erased or replaced by the male god, it is necessary for Creatrix Studies to outsource matri-cosmology unleashed by Ceto-Magoist Studies. Methodologically, Creatrix Studies is an iconoclastic field, which plows the untouched and ever-unfolding depth to overturn the patriarchal crust. Thus far unchecked patriarchal premises and assumptions would be questioned. For example, Creatrix Studies contests such assumptions: that human history began with patriarchy; that God created the world; and that the male is normative. Further, our scholars in Creatrix Studies finally are invited to assess patriarchy in light of matri-cosmology. Ceto-Magoist Studies introduces that archaic Ceto-Magoists of Old Korea put patriarchy on trial for its sin/crime to cause a colossal catastrophe, deviating from the matriversal course of terrestrial history. Misdirecting the human world by denying the intercosmic unity of ALL as the progeny of the Creatrix Mother, patriarchal monarchy was an irreconcilably faulty enterprise.
Ceto-Magoism, unveiling the matristic cetacean-human hybrid intelligence of the ancient world, undergirds the pre-patriarchally originated consciousness of the Cosmic Mother.[2] All are co-originated interdependently through the Cosmic Music represented by the Cosmic Mother. The discussion of Ceto-Magoist thealogy requires the aquatic-meteorological-environmental operation of whales, traditionally perceived as the dragon. In this essay, I briefly discuss it through the thought of Zhuang Zhou, commonly known as the philosophical branch of Daoism. A later section of this essay dives into my own personal journey to the establishment of Creatrix Studies, and how Creatrix Studies takes the second-wave feminist movement to matriversal feminism. In short, Creatrix Studies embraces the fields of feminist spirituality and Goddess Studies in that the Ceto-Magoist non-Eurocentric root of Creatrix Studies lies in a pre-patriarchally united matriversal world.
In my reconstruction of Ceto-Magoism, I draw from a wide range of ancient and traditional sources from Korea, which are cross-verified in Chinese and Japanese sources and elsewhere beyond East Asia. Among them paramount is The Budoji (Epic of the Emblem Capital City), the principal text of Ceto-Magoism (the Whale-guided Way of Mago, the Creatrix). I quote The Budoji passages from my forthcoming book, The Budoji (Epic of the Emblem Capital City), the English Translation.[3] The Budoji quotes come with chapters and verses in that I have numbered all verses, the number preceding the sentence or the clause, in all chapters of The Budoji.
I take this essay as an opportunity to share with my readers, apart from my research outcomes, a sense of euphoria that I have felt while researching Ceto-Magoism for the past two and half decades. Ultimately, a sense of otherworldly joy accompanied by ever-revealing insights has led me to the current destination of Creatrix Studies. I did not plan the timing of its arrival. I did not know it would be named Creatrix Studies until a few years ago. It just evolved and unfolded in its own time. I see that Creatrix Studies is a beginning of a new movement, Matriversalism, to be fully defined in the course of time.
That said, I am unearthing a set of new matriversal terms: the Creatrix, the Cetaceans, and Old Korea. All of these terms are mutually supportive, revealing what has been suppressed in the course of patriarchal history. They summon matriversal (of maternally perceived universe) reality, which remains dormant in the modern mind. Ceto-Magoist Studies intends to expose the matristic course of human history, a segment of history inaugurated in the Neolithic.[4]
(To be continued)
[1] The One Mother People and Land of the Earth is a modified expression of “the One Tribe” in “human beings comprise the One Tribe.” See The Budoji (Epic of the Emblem Capital City) 26:7. Hereafter “The Budoji” refers to my forthcoming English translation of The Budoji. Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, The Budoji (Epic of the Emblem Capital City), the English Translation (Mago Books, forthcoming). Some chapters are available on the website of Mago Academy, https://www.magoacademy.org/the-budoji-epic-of-the-emblem-capital-city/.
[2] After I coined the expression “cetacean-human hybrid intelligence” in this essay, I came to connect it with the mythic theme of a half-human half-snake or “mermaids” and “mermen” whose lower part of the body comes in as a fish, dragon, or snake.
[3] Hwang, The Budoji (Epic of the Emblem Capital City), the English Translation (Mago Books, forthcoming).
[4] Primary sources including The Budoji indicate the onset of Ceto-Magoist history headed by Magoist Shaman Queens in approximately 7000 BCE, which roughly coincides with the Early Neolithic in the wake of the Younger Dryas (12,900 to 11,700 years BP). See The Budoji Chapter 26. I postulate that the Early Neolithic is marked by the human encounter with cetacean divine intelligence. It requires an extensive discussion on the Chapter 3 of The Budoji (Appendix A), to be made elsewhere due to its complexity. Suffice it to say that the symbol of dragon for the Cetacean Providence emerged in the Early Neolithic suggests that cetacean-human hybrid intelligence prompted Early Neolithic Ceto-Magoists to reason and cope with human ontological problems for the first time.