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Followers of the Wiccan, Dianic, and Neopagan religions, as well as some archeologists and mythographers, believe that long before the coming of the Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, the Triple Goddess embodied the three-fold aspect of Gaia, the Earth Mother (Roman Magna Mater). A mother goddess was worshipped under a variety of names not only in the Ancient Near East and the Aegean and Anatolia, but also in pre-Islamic Arabia.
The three aspects of the goddess are The Maiden (Greek Persephone), pure and a representation of new beginnings; The Mother (Greek Demeter), wellspring of life, giving and compassionate; and The Crone (Greek Hecate) wise, knowing, a culmination of a lifetime of experience. These aspects may also represent the cycle of birth, life and death (and rebirth). More than anything, though, Neopagans believe that this goddess is the personification of all women everywhere.
Neopagans also claim historical antecedent for their beliefs, holding that in Old Europe, in the Aegean world, and in the most ancient Near East, the Triple Goddess preceded the coming of nomadic speakers of Indo-European languages. In South Arabia the moon-god Hubal was accompanied by the three goddesses, Uzza the youngest, al-Lat ("the Goddess") and Manat the crone, the three cranes.
Other trifold goddesses, such as the Moirai, the Wyrd Sisters, the Morrigan, Brigid or even the Furies, may not be associated with life stafes or the Maiden/Mother/Crone archetype, but may be sisters.
Descriptions of the relation between Greek Mythology and the Triple Goddess can be found in many of the myths translated in Robert Graves' anthology The Greek Myths and more cryptically and poetically in his book The White Goddess. Graves' theories on the origins of the Greek myths are generally considered highly speculative.
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