Grace and Power: An Overview of "Women's Spirituality"

Featured This Month in the Patheos Book Club

Women's Spirituality: Power and Grace

By Mary Faulkner

Foreword by Patricia Monaghan

Oprah Winfrey and Hillary Clinton are modern-day Athena women, leaders and CEOs; while the late Princess Diana embodied the archetype of the faithful and loyal goddess Hera.

These fun facts and more are included in WOMEN'S SPIRITUALITY, a sweeping historical and social look at women's spiritual experience from pre-Christian to modern times. Writer and psychotherapist Mary Faulkner offers the inside scoop on goddesses, Amazons, and ancient matriarchal societies, along with a look at current feminist theology, the healing arts, and pagan rituals. WOMEN'S SPIRITUALITY offers a comprehensive guide to one of the most profound movements at work in the world today.

In WOMEN'S SPIRITUALITY, you'll discover:

1. What excavations in Turkey and Greece reveal about early matriarchal societies and the important work of archeologist Marija Gimbutas.
2. Goddess archetypes in modern society: Aphrodite, Hectate, Demeter, Hera and more.
3. Women who have led the way in developing the healing arts, herbal medicine, and ecofeminism.
4. Modern day Witches, Wicca, and Magic-the living goddess Starhawk, journalist and author Margot Adler, and founder of Dianic witchcraft, Z. Budapest.
5. Wiccan, Celtic, Jewish, Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, Native American, and African/Caribbean spiritual traditions.
6. The impact of women such as Margaret Sanger who opened America's first (illegal) birth control clinic in Brooklyn in 1917, and Wilma Mankiller, the first female chief of the Cherokee Nation who worked tirelessly to improve employment, health care, and the advancement of Native American women.

In WOMEN'S SPIRITUALITY, Faulkner examines the work of well-known writers, theologians, and academics who have contributed to the field, including Barbara Walker, Luisah Teish, Alice Walker, Rosemary Ruether, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Sallie McFague, Mary Daly, Carol Christ, Sue Monk Kidd, and many more. For the novice, adept, or the simply curious, this book offers an inside look into one of the most profound movements and moving religious impulses of today.

About the Author

Mary Faulkner is a writer, psychotherapist, and director of the International Institute of Integrated Healing Arts in Nashville, TN. She was the founding editor of the San Francisco-based magazine Recovery and is the author of The Complete Idiot's Guide to Roman Catholicism and The Complete Idiot's Guide to Women's Spirituality.