List of female mystics
Encyclopedia
Buddhism
- Alexandra David-NéelAlexandra David-NéelAlexandra David-Néel born Louise Eugénie Alexandrine Marie David was a Belgian-French explorer, spiritualist, Buddhist and writer, most known for her visit to Lhasa, Tibet, in 1924, when it was forbidden to foreigners...
author of books on Tibetan Mysticism - Yeshe TsogyalYeshe TsogyalYeshe Tsogyal , was the consort of the great Indian tantric teacher Padmasambhava, the founder-figure of the Nyingma tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. Nyingma tradition considers her equal in realization to Padmasambhava himself. The meditational practices related to her, stress her enlightened...
8th century C.E. Tibetan mystic, consort of PadmasambhavaPadmasambhavaPadmasambhava ; Mongolian ловон Бадмажунай, lovon Badmajunai, , Means The Lotus-Born, was a sage guru from Oddiyāna who is said to have transmitted Vajrayana Buddhism to Bhutan and Tibet and neighbouring countries in the 8th century...
Christianity
- Beatrice of NazarethBeatrice of NazarethBlessed Beatrice of Nazareth or in Dutch Beatrijs van Nazareth was a Flemish Cistercian nun. She was the very first prose writer using the Dutch language, a mystic, and the author of the notable Dutch prose dissertation known as the Seven Ways of Holy Love...
Flemish nun - Joan of ArcJoan of ArcSaint Joan of Arc, nicknamed "The Maid of Orléans" , is a national heroine of France and a Roman Catholic saint. A peasant girl born in eastern France who claimed divine guidance, she led the French army to several important victories during the Hundred Years' War, which paved the way for the...
French saint - Teresa of AvilaTeresa of ÁvilaSaint Teresa of Ávila, also called Saint Teresa of Jesus, baptized as Teresa Sánchez de Cepeda y Ahumada, was a prominent Spanish mystic, Roman Catholic saint, Carmelite nun, and writer of the Counter Reformation, and theologian of contemplative life through mental prayer...
Spanish saint - Hildegard of BingenHildegard of BingenBlessed Hildegard of Bingen , also known as Saint Hildegard, and Sibyl of the Rhine, was a German writer, composer, philosopher, Christian mystic, Benedictine abbess, visionary, and polymath. Elected a magistra by her fellow nuns in 1136, she founded the monasteries of Rupertsberg in 1150 and...
German saint - Heilwige Bloemart
- HadewijchHadewijchHadewijch was a 13th century poet and mystic, probably living in the Duchy of Brabant.Most of her extant writings, none of which survived the Middle Ages as an autograph, are in a Brabantian form of Middle Dutch...
Dutch nun - Margery KempeMargery KempeMargery Kempe is known for dictating The Book of Margery Kempe, a work considered by some to be the first autobiography in the English language. This book chronicles, to some extent, her extensive pilgrimages to various holy sites in Europe and Asia, as well as her mystical conversations with God...
- Anna KingsfordAnna KingsfordAnna Kingsford, née Bonus , was an English anti-vivisection, vegetarian and women's rights campaigner.She was of the first English women to obtain a degree in medicine, after Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, and the only medical student at the time to graduate without having experimented on a single...
- Christina of MarkyateChristina of MarkyateChristina of Markyate was born in Huntingdon, England c. 1095–1100, and died perhaps after 1155. As a young girl or adolescent, named Theodora, she took a vow of chastity, so her parents' attempts to force her unwillingly into marriage led her to run away from home and go into hiding under the care...
- Flower A. NewhouseFlower A. NewhouseFlower A. Newhouse was an American Christian mystic and spiritual teacher.-Early life:She was born Mildred "Mimmi" Arlene Sechler in Allentown, Pennsylvania. Her father died of heart failure when she was seven. Her mother, Jennie Romig Sechler, was a milliner and entrepreneur. She had one sibling,...
- Julian of NorwichJulian of NorwichJulian of Norwich is regarded as one of the most important English mystics. She is venerated in the Anglican and Lutheran churches, but has never been canonized, or officially beatified, by the Catholic Church, probably because so little is known of her life aside from her writings, including the...
- Marguerite PoreteMarguerite PoreteMarguerite Porete was a French mystic and the author of The Mirror of Simple Souls, a work of Christian spirituality dealing with the workings of Divine Love. She was burnt at the stake for heresy in Paris in 1310 after a lengthy trial, after refusing to remove her book from circulation or recant...
- Mother Shipton
- Catherine of SienaCatherine of SienaSaint Catherine of Siena, T.O.S.D, was a tertiary of the Dominican Order, and a Scholastic philosopher and theologian. She also worked to bring the papacy of Gregory XI back to Rome from its displacement in France, and to establish peace among the Italian city-states. She was proclaimed a Doctor...
- Mother TeresaMother TeresaMother Teresa , born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu , was a Roman Catholic nun of Albanian ethnicity and Indian citizenship, who founded the Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta, India, in 1950...
- Lilian StaveleyLilian StaveleyLilian Staveley was a Christian writer and mystic whose anonymous works have only recently been credited to her.-Early life:Née Lilian Bowdoin, Staveley was born to an affluent family, descended on both sides from Huguenots of the old French nobility. Her early life was not one of outward...
Medieval
- Akka MahadeviAkka MahadeviAkka Mahadevi was a prominent figure of the Veerashaiva Bhakti movement of the 12th century Karnataka. Her Vachanas in Kannada, a form of didactic poetry are considered her greatest contribution to Kannada Bhakti literature. In all she wrote about 430 Vachanas which is relatively fewer than that...
- Sant AndalAndalAndal is the the only female Alvar of the 12 Alvar saints of South India, who are known for their affiliation to Vaishnava tradition of Hinduism. She is credited with the great Tamil works of Thirupavai and Nachiar Tirumozhi that are still recited by devotees during the Winter festival season of...
(Nachiar or Goda-devi) - Sant Avvaiyar
- Sant BahinabaiBahinabaiBahinabai or Bahina or Bahini is a Varkari female-saint from Maharashtra, India. She is considered as a disciple of another Varkari poet-saint Tukaram. Born in a brahmin family, Bahinabai was married to a widower at a tender age and spent most of her childhood wandering around Maharashtra along...
- Sant JanabaiJanabaiJanābāi was a Marāthi religious poetess in the Hindu tradition in India, who was born likely in the seventh or the eighth decade of the 13th century. According to folklore, she died in 1350....
- Sant KanhopatraKanhopatraKanhopatra or Kanhupatra was a 15th century Marathi saint-poetess, venerated by the Varkari sect of Hinduism.Little is known about Kanhopatra. According to most traditional accounts, Kanhopatra was a courtesan and dancing-girl...
- Lalleshvari
- Sant Mirabai
- Sant Molla
- Sant MuktabaiMuktabaiMuktabai or Muktai was a saint in the Varkari tradition. She was born in a Deshastha Brahmin family and was the younger sister of Dnyaneshwar, the first Varkari saint. Muktabai wrote forty-one Abhang throughout her life span. "Tati ughada dnaneshwara" is one her most insightful works, being a...
- Sant Nirmala
- Sant Rupa Bhawani, saint-poetess
- Sant Sahajo
- Sant Sakhubai
Modern
- Amma Sri Karunamayi
- Mata AmritanandamayiMata AmritanandamayiMātā Amṛtānandamayī Devī , primarily known simply as Amma ["Mother"], is a Hindu spiritual leader and guru, who is revered as a saint by her followers. She is widely respected for her humanitarian activities...
- Ma Devi Jnanabhanishta
- The MotherMirra Alfassa-Early life:Mirra Alfassa was born in Paris in 1878, of a Turkish Jewish father, Maurice, and an Egyptian Jewish mother, Mathilde. She had an elder brother named Matteo. The family migrated to France the year before she was born. For the first eight years of her life she lived at 62 boulevard...
- Mother MeeraMother MeeraMother Meera, born Kamala Reddy is believed by her devotees to be an embodiment of the Divine Mother .-Life account:...
- Shree Maa
- Sarada DeviSarada DeviSarada Devi , born Saradamani Mukhopadhyaya , was the wife and spiritual counterpart of Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, a nineteenth century mystic of Bengal. Sarada Devi is also reverentially addressed as the Holy Mother by the followers of the Ramakrishna monastic order...
- Gurumayi ChidvilasanandaGurumayi ChidvilasanandaGurumayi Chidvilasananda is the commonly used name of Malti Shetty , who is the current guru of the Siddha Yoga lineage. She is formally known as Swami Chidvilasananda or more casually as Gurumayi...
- Daya Mata
- Sister NiveditaSister Nivedita- A benediction to Sister Nivedita by Swami Vivekananda Sister Nivedita ; ; , born as Margaret Elizabeth Noble, was a Scots-Irish social worker, author, teacher and disciple of Swami Vivekananda. She met Vivekananda in 1895 in London and travelled to Calcutta, India in 1898...
External links
- Joan of Arc - Joan of Arc Archive.