Astarte Healing

What is Astarte Healing Inc?

Astarte Healing is the legacy of the continuing success of God’s Callgirl, the true story of a Catholic girl who became a nun at the age of 18, a callgirl at the age of 34, and then healed her life and her past by courageously addressing the deep emotional issues that had resulted from sexual and other abuse. Carla van Raay is now 72 and her passionate desire is to have the whole world talking about and feeling into what it takes to create healthy relationships and heal from any past, no matter how bitter.

To this end, Astarte Healing is poised to provide education via the internet, via talks, workshops and e-courses. It wants to gather all like-hearted therapists, counsellors, educators and health professionals engaged in the field of sexual wellbeing, and make their services better known and used. Astarte wants to gather funds so that those who can least afford attendance at workshops or receive guidance, can do so with financial support. We want to creatively set up an exchange system, so that the recipients of financial benefit can return a service and so feel and be connected to the growth of others.

The origin and meaning of our name.

ASTARTE is the name of a most ancient goddess originating in Phoenicia in the Bronze Age, the precursor of many others such as Aphrodite (Greek) and Venus, or the Evening Star (Roman) and Isis (Cyprus). She is the goddess of Fertility (the productive power of nature), of war, sex and beauty. What could be more appropriate as a goddess of healing relationships? Astarte had two sons called Eros and Pothos (Desire and Longing). A most ancient statuette depicts her with a bowl under her pierced breasts, which would have produced milk being poured into a hole on top of her head.

Astarte’s energy has been palpable to the members of the committee, as we sat together to feel into what our values were, our goals and our commitments to action.

Astarte’s name came to Carla’s mind spontaneously even before she knew what it meant or stood for.

To us, Astarte represents the female energy in her unadulterated strength and beauty, her ability to set and keep boundaries, her nurturing compassion and her equality to any man.

Astarte encourages men and women to walk hand in hand as equals.