Women in Mysticism and Spiritualism

Women stand at the centre of the esoteric and mystical traditions, often as their founders. Teresa of Ávila mapped the soul’s Interior Castle; Anna Kingsford’s The Perfect Way reshaped Christian esotericism; Blavatsky founded Theosophy; Emma Hardinge Britten became Spiritualism’s historian.

In the twentieth century Evelyn Underhill wrote the classic study of mysticism and Dion Fortune built one of the most influential magical orders of the century. This room brings their voices together.

The writers gathered here range from a Carmelite reformer to Victorian mediums, Theosophists, occultists and a modern scholar of mysticism. Their circumstances differed enormously, but many share a common difficulty: they had to claim spiritual authority in institutions that rarely granted it to women. Read Teresa of Ávila’s Interior Castle and Evelyn Underhill’s Mysticism for the contemplative tradition, then Blavatsky, Anna Kingsford, Annie Besant and Emma Hardinge Britten for the nineteenth century, and Dion Fortune for the twentieth. Several of their books were edited or introduced by men, and it is worth noticing how those framings shaped the way their work was received.