To the Gnostics there was one all-embracing feminine wisdom, including both the virgin and the whore, which they called Sophia or the Holy Spirit. The Feminine Principle, as Ean Begg wrote in The Cult of the Black Virgin, “…is not a theory but real and it has a will of its own which we ignore at our peril. It is an independent principle and cannot be forced against its will to go anywhere or do anything without bringing retribution on the perpetrator. She brings forth, nourishes, protects, heals, receives at death and immortalizes her children who follow the way of nature…” As the spirit of light in darkness, she comes to break the chains of those who live in the prison of unconsciousness and restore them to their true home.

-- Begg, Ean, The Cult of the Black Virgin, Arkana, London, 1985; revised edition 1996. Page 100, 134.