The New Female Mystics
A vanguard of self-schooled female mystics are doing an end-run around the mainstream self-help and New Age movements — and are advancing a radical, 21st century spirituality. Call it the ‘Anti-Me Generation.’
In this series, we introduce some of the leading lights of the sage sex, and their teachings. Across the centuries, spiritual seekers have invariably been women and the teachers men; From Jesus to Gurdjieff and Rumi to Ramana Maharshi, enlightenment has been a male-dominated business. But figures like Byron Katie are in the vanguard of an astonishing advent in the mystical tradition: she is a leading light in a scattered coterie of women who have propounded a radical, new esoteric spirituality and seem to have leap-frogged ahead of male counterparts in the pursuit of the sacred.
Their work, if you want to call it that, isn’t wholly cribbed from Indian gurus or apprenticeships in Asian monasteries but forged in a homegrown fashion in the crucible of the modern, over-caffeinated, high-tech West – sometimes as a result of frustration with oriental traditions. Alongside Katie, these self-schooled spiritual masters include Oregon-based Catherine Ingram, Santa Fe’s Pamela Wilson, Hawaii's Katie Davis and Calgary, Alberta-based Karen McPhee (pictured here).
Next: The ‘Anti-Me’ Generation
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the beautiful cycle of life...lambs in the spring...wild flowers in the summer...enlivening winds in [...]
on 08 Mar 2008 at 5:22 am 1.BC said …
caffeine is good! why is that a bad thing?
on 10 May 2008 at 6:46 am 2.SoulsCode: Everyone's a guru said …
[...] I follow Oprah’s movements, I respect Oprah — I do not trust Oprah. I trust the women that this site calls The New Female Mystics. [...]
on 02 Jun 2008 at 6:10 pm 3.Rita Robinson said …
If you want to learn more about what you call “Female Mystics”–check out a new book called Ordinary Women Extraordinary Wisdom which is a collection of interviews with some of the women featured in this article and more. This is an exciting phenomenon which invites everyone to awaken into their true nature–not just a special few!
on 13 Jun 2008 at 3:32 am 4.SoulsCode: Everyone's a guru said …
[...] the late great Milton Erickson did with patients in hypnosis. Featured in the Soul’s Code slide show, Female Mystics, Wilson comes as advertised: this participant and 60 others were moved by the power of her presence [...]
on 24 Jun 2008 at 9:53 pm 5.SoulsCode: Everyone's a guru said …
[...] for a time). In sacred literature this is often referred to as entering the wilderness, facing the dark night of the soul, annihilation of the ego or dying to oneself to be born again. It is a fundamental transformation [...]
on 03 Jul 2008 at 5:06 pm 6.NamasteBeloved said …
Finally! A kindred Spirit I have found! Ms. Ingram, I like the cut of your gib!
on 09 Jan 2009 at 3:13 pm 7.Mark Michael Lewis said …
I love the irony of an article on non-logo, non-ego teachers being grouped according to their sex! That is fun!
Question to ponder - if becoming “free” isn’t about “me” - who or what is it for?
What is it that desires freedom? What is it that inspires that “desiring thing?” And most important, who is it that pays for the female mystics courses? (and while we are at it, who is it that markets/profits from them?
No Mind, No Meaning. Choose Intelligently.
Mark Michael Lewis.
When in doubt…Thrive!
on 07 Jun 2009 at 9:28 pm 8.Rohan said …
You are a fraud. Just like the rest of the “New Age” con artists.
on 08 Jul 2009 at 8:59 am 9.Jeanine Austin said …
This article made me jump for joy! It helped to give me some language to further describe my intention about my work. I recently did a radio show and I told the host before we got started “I must warn you I don’t have a sexy message”. We laughed about that. This is what I was getting at. I don’t want to write a book, go on a lecture circuit or be on Oprah. I just want to work one on one with women. Well intended people tell me you must have an angle, a gimmick a marketing selling point.
I think we can use mind to transcend mind, and maybe this is what some of these beautiful women have done. It feels like the next wave and not a minute too soon. In Spiral Dynamics it is the shift from Green Meme to Yellow Meme consciousness. Thank you again for this article. I gave me great peace to read it.
on 18 Aug 2009 at 5:32 am 10.Farida Sharan said …
We are are all female mystics feminine before the divine - receptivity to the divine is a feminine quality and beyond duality all aspects of spirituality belong to both male and female - we make the effort and that is a so called masculine process and we receive the divine blessing and that is a so called feminine process - I invite truly deep mystics to move beyond separating feminine from masculine and develop both aspects of effort and grace in our interior practice and exterior service in the world.
In my teachings I have worked mostly with women however the men that come are just as devoted to the mystic process and their divine receptive feminine. I hold this process within the container of self healing and the study and gaining of professional skills as anyone that approaches healing or medicinal work needs to work with respect for the mystery of life and the continuum process of each person in their life journey.
Mysticism, that reaching seeking longing to understanding the unknown, they mystery of life, is a part of all of us, individually and collectively. It is our ground of being and the purpose of our life. Mysticism belongs to all of us.
on 30 Aug 2009 at 9:11 pm 11.jessica said …
how do i do this?
it doesn’t matter that we are female
but on that
we are more emotional and left sided (brain)
its always been men, theres no reason why women cant also
it helps the balance of knowledge
it is mentioned because not that long ago there was feminism
and women like to work together- most of the time
its not about money
but it’s there job and therefore they should earn money
as that is how we survive
all this ‘new age stuff’ is connected
and there is nothing wrong with it
as it is helping individuals and therefore communities and therefore the world
on 12 Oct 2009 at 6:55 am 12.Dawn Dancing Otter said …
Namaste, All
Whether female or male, when the mind, body, heart are in alignment - this is an open door to manifestation and compassion. The mind is not an enemy, it is a tool.
But you know what has been said about tools- every tool is a weapon depending on how you hold it.
I respect the mind, and it is aligned with my heart and body.
Big Love,
dawn dancing otter
on 30 Oct 2009 at 4:59 am 13.Jonah K said …
A few years ago, on holiday on a beautiful beach I heard this from my seven year old daughter speaking to my five year old son, “You cannot fit the ocean in a bucket.” I am still contemplating that wisdom.
The student finds their teacher, it is really none of our business who chooses whom.
Love ALways Finds A Way,
Jonah K.
on 25 Dec 2009 at 6:49 pm 14.cristina ogarov said …
Abstraction and the sickening intellectualising posing as ‘wisdom’ thanks to new age spirituality nearly killed me. I loathe it all.Gurus be damned ,we’re all the same .I wrote DIARY OF SLUTKA as a fiction to assist young women to find their own true voice,their own innate feeling center and to bypass the ‘do good’ mentality and the pleeasing of others that is more destructive than anything.
It’s out in another month; I’ll meet you then.
on 25 Feb 2010 at 4:55 pm 15.hisssing dream said …
You should ALL express your silent thanks to Don Juan Matus who was the first to articulate in a coherent modern way the key importance of decrowning the ‘me-cult’ and self-importance founded social order and an extremely effective and sober system to achieve this!
Thank you Don Juan & fellow men and women travellers!
Thank you women mystics andmen mystics of today!