Thealogy views divine matters with feminine perspectives including but not only feminism. Valerie Saiving, Isaac Bonewits (1976) and Naomi Goldenberg (1979) introduced the concept as a neologism (new word) in feminist terms. Its use then widened to mean all feminine ideas of the sacred, which Charlotte Caron usefully explained in 1993: "reflection on the divine in feminine or feminist terms". By 1996, when Melissa Raphael published Thealogy and Embodiment, the term was well established. As a neologism, the term derives from two Greek words: thea, , meaning "goddess", the feminine equivalent of theos, "god" (from PIE root *dhes-); and logos, , plural logoi, often found in English as the suffix -logy, meaning "word", "reason" or "plan", and in Greek philosophy and theology the divine reason implicit in the cosmos. Thealogy has areas in common with feminist theology, the study of God from a feminist perspective, often emphasising monotheism. Thus the relation is an overlap as thealogy is not limited to deity in spite of its etymology; the two fields have been described as both related and interdependent. History of the term The term's origin and initial use is open to continuing debate. Patricia 'Iolana traces the early use of the neologism to 1976 crediting both Valerie Saiving and Isaac Bonewits for its initial use. The coinage of "thealogian" on record by Bonewits in 1976 has been promoted. In the 1979 book Changing of the Gods, Naomi Goldenberg introduces the term as a future possibility with respect to a distinct discourse, highlighting the masculine nature of theology. Also in 1979, in the first revised edition of "Real Magic", Bonewits defined "thealogy" in his Glossary as "Intellectual speculations concerning the nature of the Goddess and Her relations to the world in general and humans in particular; rational explanations of religious doctrines, practices and beliefs, which may or may not bear any connection to any religion as actually conceived and practiced by the majority of its members". Also in the same glossary, he defined "theology" with nearly identical words, changing the feminine pronouns with masculine pronouns appropriately. Carol P. Christ used the term in "Laughter of Aphrodite" (1987), claiming that those creating thealogy could not avoid being influenced by the categories and questions posed in Christian and Jewish theologies. She further defined thealogy in her 2002 essay, "Feminist theology as post-traditional thealogy", as "the reflection on the meaning of the Goddess". In her