Women and the New Spirits:
In the United States, Canada and Western Europe, a paradoxical and fascinating
religious movement for women, loosely called feminist spirituality, has emerged.
As a movement, feminist spirituality is unorganized and decentralized to the point
of anarchy there are no official gurus. The closest thing to leaders are the authors
of best-selling books, both novels and nonfiction. No one even knows how many people
are involved; there are certainly enough to sustain conferences, retreats, covens,
congregations, bookstores, mail-order houses, support groups, discussion groups,
and many other manifestations of a growing movement. Some of the labels applied to
it include the Goddess Path, the pagan path, new-paganism, eco-feminism, Wicca, and
other New Age terms.
In her book, Living in the Lap of the Goddess (1993), theologian Cynthia Eller
lists five features at the heart of feminist spirituality. These are:
(1) magick and ritual in the service of being female,
(2) respect and veneration for the environment (Mother Nature),
(3) working for women�s empowerment,
(4) women as the focus of religious inquiry, and
(5) a recognition of the movement�s sacred history.
However, given the movement�s commitment to diversity, no one is required to
believe all of the above nor to give up prior religious practices or affiliations
with normative religious groups.
The feminist spirituality movement is interesting primarily in terms of its
religious syncretism and its gender politics. Most new religions show an interest
early on in consolidating their belief systems and establishing authority structures.
Spiritual feminists, however, remain determinedly eclectic, borrowing deities,
meditation techniques, and magical recipes from whatever culture appeals to them.
Though feminist spirituality is syncretistic, it has a definite selection criterion
in mine: namely, that all beliefs and practices, whether individual or communal,
must be conducive to the feminist struggle against a patriarchal social order.
(Eller 1991:281)
Susan Sered notes that the feminist spirituality movement has developed in a
social and political climate in the United States in which women marry late,
divorce often, and become single parents through choice or necessity. American
women are in effect, creating matrifocal families and acting as heads of households.
This is certainly true for many lesbians and divorced and professional women. The
women in the movement tend to be white, middle class, and literate. There are
probably more lesbians and victims of traumas at the hands of men
(incest, molestation, battering, beating, and so forth) than the population
figures alone would predict.
Practitioners and followers of feminist spirituality say that women were not
treated well in the image of the divine or the sense of the sacred in world
religions. So they have turned to a variety of charismatic sisterhoods, goddess-
centered rituals, circles of healing, and matrifocal households. Furthermore,
women and feminists in the movement have become social and political activists
who seek alternatives to hierarchical, rule-based, and vertical models of the
patriarchal religions. Although men are included, female principles of sacredness
and women- centered experiences are paramount.
These new women�s movements find their roots in a sacred history of female-
friendly and relatively equalitarian societies, in the goddesses and life-affirming,
rituals that they think empowered women in the past. They look to prehistoric
matriarchies (even if anthropologists don�t) In anthropology they find cultures
that are matrilineal, matristic, matrifocal, or gynocentric in some enviable
fashion. They invoke the witch-hunts in late medieval Europe as evidence of malice,
structural violence, and even conspiracy from male-centered religious and medical
systems. Some in the feminist spirituality movement call themselves witches. They
form covens and stage rituals similar to those of pagan; times Wicca is a good
example. They take the terms "pagan" and "witch" as a positive heritage of women-
centered spirituality. Many turn to herbal remedies, alternative healing, midwives,
and trance work.
Women in this movement say, the ground of the sacred is here and now. In other
words, human beings are not just passing through this life and women do not have
to wait until death to alleviate suffering or find justice or mercy. Spirits and
deities are immanent, that is, they are in and of everything. They are not
transcendent, above all or on top of a hierarchy. There are multiple paths to the
spirit world. There is not one way, one truth, one god, one government, or one
husband. The feminist spirituality movement shares these characteristics with other
women�s religions around the world. As Susan Sered says:
Comfortable with other people, women are willing to meet their gods and goddesses
face to face and even share their bodies with divinities (in spirit possession).
Transcendent, monotheistic male deities have little meaning for mothers who daily
confront existential issues of birth, suffering, and death. (Sered 1994:285)
As the final characteristic of women�s religions, Susan Sered reports that none
of the groups she studied go to war. None have militaristic inclinations or justify
aggression. None convert others with force, reason or guns. Moreover, none of the
women-centered religions worship a single, powerful male god.
Taken from 'A World Full of Women' - Second Edition - Martha C. Ward
