Courses
Spring (Jan-Apr) 2026 Creatrix Studies Courses
(Details are subjected to change without notice. For more, see Creatrix Studies Programs.)
(Go to Registration & Coursework Application Guides)
Introduction to Creatrix Studies (2 Credits) Detailed Course Information & Registration here
Course no: 101
Instructor: Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, Ph.D.
Time: 9AM to 1PM PT Jan 13-March 3 (Tuesdays, 4 hour-long 8 weekly sessions)
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, Ceto-Magoist Soteriology & Patriarchy and Matristic Histories and Practices), will be discussed.
Female Divine in Myth, History and Culture (0.5 Credit) Detailed Course Information & Registration here
Course no: 405
Instructor: Helen Benigni, Ph.D.
Time: 9AM to 11 PM PT March 2-March 23 (Mondays, 2 hour-long 4 weekly sessions)
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 Birth (0.5 Credit) Detailed Course Information & Registration here
Course no: 403
Instructor: Nané Jordan, Ph.D.
Time: 10AM-12PM PT March 30-April 20 (2 hour-long 4 weekly sessions)
Description: Thealogies of birth explores the birthing-potentiality of the divine female/feminine and Great Mother in connection to women’s birth-giving power. Reflecting on thea-logy, as in study of Goddess, through an embodied, eco-spiritual feminist lens that holds birth, those who give it, and all being born as sacred, we inquire into matricentric (mother-centred) understandings of birth and qualities of experience. Weaving meaning with Earth-honouring thea-perspectives, we explore interconnecting threads of goddesses and mothers—write large and small—at the centre of birthing agency, care, and spirituality, and potentials of such in our lives.
Mago Halmi Creation Folklore and Toponymy Part 1 (0.5 Credit) Detailed Course Information & Registration here
Course no: 301
Instructor: Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, Ph.D.
Time: 10AM-Noon PT April 3-24 (Fridays, 2 hour-long 4 weekly sessions)
Description: This course introduces a plethora of primary sources of folklore and place-names concerning the “creation” of Mago Halmi (the Great Mother), documented, translated, and interpreted by Dr. Hwang within the context of Ceto-Magoism (the Whale-guided Way of Mago, the Creatrix). We will examine actual stories and relevant landscapes (mountains, megaliths, villages, seas/bodies of water, and shrines) and discuss such salient themes as Mago’s names, the methods of creation, whales/dragons/snakes, the Ninefold Cosmic Music, Goma (Heavenly Savior), Mu (Magoist Shamans), and Seons (Magoist Immortals). Participants are invited to take the course as a semantic pilgrimage to Ceto-Magoist Korea.
S/HE Forums Spring 2026 (0.5 Credit) Detailed Course Information & Registration here
Course no: 901
Instructors: Helen Benigni Ph.D., Judy Grahn Ph.D.
Time: January and February (Second and Fourth Saturdays of the month, 16 hours)
Description: The S/HE Forum is a collective teaching course prepared and facilitated by forum organizers (0.25 credit for each forum section). Each of the forum organizers will lead 4 hours of either one or two sessions in a month for the duration of four months. Each facilitator/teacher leads a class focusing on the topic of her own expertise by inviting 2-4 guest speakers who will speak on the topic salient to the forum theme. For a degree program student, you are required to submit a research paper.
If you are interested in taking CSP courses, email Dr. Hwang (magoacademy@gmail.com).
Or start applicaiton process to enroll the courswork by following Coursework Application Guides.
Creatrix Studies Course Descriptions
Core Courses
Introduction to Creatrix Studies (2 Credits)
Course No: 101
Instructor: Dr. Helen Hye-Sook Hwang
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, Matristic 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 entities in the holistic 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, the matriversal origin of LIFE, and the Ceto-Magoist basis of modern civilization.
***
Ceto-ecofeminist Spirituality (2 Credits)
Course No: 103
Instructor: Dr. Helen Hye-Sook Hwang
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.
***
Ceto-Magoist Soteriology and Patriarchy (2 Credits)
Course No: 104
Instructor: Dr. Helen Hye-Sook Hwang
Description: Established by Goma and her Mudang Queen successors in the pre-patriarchal past, Ceto-Magoist civilization is teleological, aligning humans back to the paradisiacal living on the planet by tuning the terrestrial resonance with the Cosmic Music, the creative force of the Matriverse. Returning to the Matriversal Origin means to overcome the two correlated planetary catastrophes caused by humans; the dietetic conundrum (eating lifeforms for subsistence) and the patriarchal advancement, which is expressed in the symbol of ouroboros. We will examine how the Ceto-Magoist soteriological vision — the whale-back riding homecoming journey to the abode of Mago, the Creatrix, in the northern center of the Matriverse — is expressed in Korean traditional culture, art, literature, customs, rituals, and religions.
***
Matristic Histories and Practices (2 Credits)
Course No: 105
Instructor: Dr. Helen Hye-Sook Hwang or TBA
Description: This course examines the premise that the original form of human societies was matristic confederacy, not patriarchal monarchy, carved out to undertake the shamanic mandate of restoring the matriversal home on the planet. 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 materialization of the Ninefold Cosmic Music, the creative force of the Matriverse, in the human world. The exogamous matrilineal practices of ancient Silla (ca. 57 BCE-935) and Gaya (1 C BCE-562) as well as Ceto-Magoist institutions will be closely discussed.
***
Methodology (1 Credit)
Course No: 106
Instructor: Franceca Tronetti & Helen Hye-Sook Hwang
Description: This course trains the scholarly mind with necessary 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. This course awakens how Orientalism and Cultural Appropriation fail one’s scholarship. 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.
* For a Ph.D. degree, the Methodology course may be replaced with an elective course.
Elective Courses
S/HE Forums (0.25 Credit for each section) Course no: 901
Instructors: Forum Organizers
Description: The S/HE Forum is a collective teaching course prepared and facilitated by forum organizers (0.25 credit for each forum section). Each of the forum organizers will lead 4 hours of either one or two sessions in a month for the duration of four months. Each facilitator/teacher leads a class focusing on the topic of her own expertise by inviting 2-4 guest speakers who will speak on the topic salient to the forum theme. For a degree program student, you are required to submit a research paper.
***
Special Themes in Matricentric Cosmology (0.5-1 Credits)
Course no: 902
***
Special Themes in Nature-based Spiritual Practices (0.5-1 Credits)
Course no: 903
***
Special Themes in Matricentric Societies (0.5-1 Credits)
Course no: 904
***
Independent Study (0.5-1 Credits)
Course no: 905
***
Research Paper Writing (1 Credit)
Course no: 906
Description: This course is a mandatory course for the Lifetime Education Certificate taught by your advisor. As an outcome, a student must, among others, write and submit one research paper of a publishable quality (a minimum of 6000 words, notes and references are not included in the word count) or its equivalent. This research paper may be considered as a qualifying exam for your certificate program. Your advisor will guide you in your research paper writing course and will recommend it to the academic peer-reviewed journal, S/HE: An International Journal of Goddess Studies, for submission.
***
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 Magdalene (1 Credit)
Course No: 402
Instructor: Dr. Judy Grahn
Description: Resurfacing after 1500 years, the unique Gospel of Mary Magdalene 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.
***
Creatrix and Mothers: Thealogies of Birth (0.5 Credit)
Course No: 403
Instructor: Dr. Nané Jordan
Description: Thealogies of birth explores the birthing-potentiality of the divine
female/feminine and Great Mother in connection to women’s birth-giving power. Reflecting on
thea-logy, as in study of Goddess, through an embodied, eco-spiritual feminist lens that holds
birth, those who give it, and all being born as sacred, we inquire into matricentric (mother-
centred) understandings of birth and qualities of experience. Weaving meaning with Earth-
honouring thea-perspectives, we explore interconnecting threads of goddesses and
mothers—write large and small—at the centre of birthing agency, care, and spirituality, and
potentials of such in our lives.
***
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
***
Female Divine in Myth, History, and Culture (0.5 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.
***
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 the ancient worldview that carries traces of the Bear-Great Mother worship or the Bear Religion through oral storytelling and archeomythology. 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). The course presents information on cross-cultural bear goddesses and reveals their importance to an ecosocially more sustainable future.
***
Patriarchy as the Epistemological Catastrophe (0.5 Credit)
Course no: 407
Instructor: Dr. Helen Hye-Sook Hwang
***
The Forgotten Bond with Whales, Dragons, Serpents, and Sea Monsters (0.5 Credit)
Course no: 408
Instructor: Dr. Helen Hye-Sook Hwang
This course explores bio-sono-aquatic-meteorological features of cetaceans (whales) and their symbols of the dragon, the serpent, and the sea monsters from a multidisciplinary perspective. Outsourcing scientific, biological, mythic, linguistic, cultural, architectural, and astronomical data yet to be known to the world, we aim to decode and tap into the anciently originated consciousness of the Cetacean Mother or Ceto-Magoism (the Whale-guided Way of Mago, the Creatrix). This course is potentially capable of engendering a tangible intellectual/spiritual force to be experienced by participants.
***
The Neolithic Matriverse: From Sacred Mother Worlds to Contemporary Erasure (0.5 Credit)
Course No: 409
Instructor: Dr. Danica Anderson
Description: This course examines the Neolithic Matriverse—maternal-centered cosmologies, social systems, and symbolic structures documented in the archaeological work of Marija Gimbutas, with emphasis on Joan Marler’s anthology honoring her work. The course traces how matriversal systems were dismantled through patriarchal conquest, militarization, religious domination, and economic extraction, and how these ruptures continue to shape contemporary violence against women, transgenerational trauma, chronic survival states, and collapsing birthrates. Using Kolo-Informed Trauma, the course integrates feminist archaeology, biopsychology, social epigenetics, and biosemiotics.
***
Perspectives on Mosuo Communities (1 Credit)
Course No: 410
Instructor: Dr. Tami Blumenfield
Description: When women are valued and respected as household authorities, what impact does that have on the broader society? How do men fare in places where women are equal partners? How do families work together to raise children, and what is it like to grow up as a child in a gender-balanced community? This course helps students explore these questions by examining the Mosuo community. Although their population is relatively small, the Mosuo people and their ways of life have had an outsized impact on the fields of anthropology and gender studies, because they are so unique. Through films, readings, and other media, prioritizing Mosuo people’s own voices wherever possible, students will gain an in-depth view of this special group. Comparisons with other groups will help contextualize the Mosuo experience and allow students to analyze similarities and differences with more familiar societies.
***
Virtual Mago Whale Pilgrimage to Korea I to III (0.5 Credit for each level)
Course No: 301
Instructor: Dr. Helen Hye-Sook Hwang
Tour 1 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 (0.5 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.
***
Whale/Dragon Bells: Whale Songs from Ancient Silla Korea (0.5 Credit)
Course no: 303
***
Goddesses of Ceto-Magoist Korea Part 1 to Part 3 (0.5 Credit for each part)
Course no: 304
***
Mago Halmi Creation Folklore and Toponymy Part 1 to Part 3 (0.5 Credit for each part)
Course no: 310
Description: This course introduces a plethora of primary sources of folklore and place-names concerning the “creation” of Mago Halmi (the Great Mother), documented, translated, and interpreted by Dr. Hwang within the context of Ceto-Magoism (the Whale-guided Way of Mago, the Creatrix). We will examine actual stories and relevant landscapes (mountains, megaliths, villages, seas/bodies of water, and shrines) and discuss such salient themes as Mago’s names, the methods of “creation,” whales/dragons/snakes, the Ninefold Cosmic Music, Goma (Heavenly Savior), Mu (Magoist Shamans), and Seons (Magoist Immortals). Participants are invited to take the course as a semantic pilgrimage to Ceto-Magoist Korea.
***
Ceto-Magoist Origin of Korean Shamanism (1 Credit)
Course no: 320
***
Reading the Budoji Part 1 to Part 9 (0.5 Credit for each part)
Course no: 330
***
Ceto-Magoist Root of K-Culture (1 Credit)
Course no: 340
***
Ninefold Sonic Numerology: The Cosmic Music and the Creatrix (1 Credits)
Course no: 390
***
** All courses are subjected to modification without notice.