And herein lies both Wilson’s typically mischievous nature and serious intent – in its original, weaponized form, the book that became ‘Ishtar Rising’ is nothing less than a mytho-feminist screed masquerading as an antique stroke book; a brilliant, compact summary of ‘matrist’ attitudes, their cruel demotion and degradation, their struggle for survival, and their hoped-for triumphant restoration.

‘Ishtar’ is a book of revealing – the undressing of the Goddess as she descends into the Underworld, where, shorn of the accoutrements of Divinity, she must confront her True Naked Being to survive the ordeal. It speaks also of the return of the repressed. The journey of the now-enlightened Goddess back from the murk and mysteries of the Nether World to Get Some Shit Tidied Up. It speaks from its rear-view mirror times of a still-overdue resurgence of connectivity, kindness, sex-positivity, respect for Nature and for Life. It wonders what a world ruled by the Goddess would look like, in contrast to those Dark Satanic Mills and centuries of slaughter presided over by an unforgiving God.

• Grant Morrison, from his Introduction to Ishtar Rising