List of female mystics

Female mystic’s, Buddha’s, Prophetesses, visionaries and saints
By Marinus Jan Marijs

There are many great woman mystics of every tradition

List of female mystics.

Bahá’í faith

Táhirih  Táhirih is considered one of the foremost women of the Bábí religion and an important figure in its development.As a charismatic individual, she was able to transcend the restrictions normally placed on women in traditional society where she lived, and thus attracted attention to the Cause

Bahíyyih Khánum  in adulthood she served the interests of the religion and was even occasionally trusted with running the affairs of the religion and is seen within the Baháʼí Faith as one of the greatest women to have lived

Ásíyih Khánum

Buddhism

Alexandra David-Néel author of books on Tibetan Mysticism  was a Belgian–French explorer, spiritualist, Buddhist, anarchist, opera singer, and writer. She is most known for her 1924 visit to Lhasa, Tibet, when it was forbidden to foreigners. David-Néel wrote over 30 books about Eastern religion, philosophy, and her travels,

Yeshe Tsogyal 8th century CE Tibetan mystic, consort of Padmasambhava(c.757 or 777–817CE) , or b.early 8th cent. – d.mid 8th cent., attained enlightenment in her lifetime and is considered the Mother of Tibetan Buddhism.

Khema  was a Buddhist bhikkhuni, or nun, who was one of the top female disciples of the Buddha. She is considered the first of the Buddha’s two chief female disciples,

Yaśodharā  was the wife of Prince Siddhartha —till he left his home to become a śramaṇa—the mother of Rāhula, and the sister of Devadatta. She later became a Buddhist Nun and is considered an arahatā. (or Lady Arhat).

Patacara  She thus became a sotapanna, the first stage of aryahood. The Buddha said that she was the foremost Keeper of the Vinaya amongst the Nuns, and thus the female counterpart of the monk Upali. Her interest in the “Rules of Conduct” of the monastic life was attributed to her reflections on her former indulgences.

Uppalavanna  who was considered one of the top female disciples of the Buddha. She is considered the second of the Buddha’s two chief female disciples, along with Khema.

Chêng⁴ Yen² Fa³-shih¹; born Chin-Yun Wong; 14 May 1937) is a Taiwanese Buddhist nun (bhikkhuni), teacher, and philanthropist. She is the founder of the Buddhist Compassion Relief Tzu Chi Foundation, ordinarily referred to as Tzu Chi, a Buddhist humanitarian organization based in Taiwan. In the West, she is sometimes referred to as the “Mother Theresa of Asia”. Cheng Yen was born in Taiwan during the Japanese occupation.

Dhammananda Bhikkhuni   Dhammananda Bhikkhuni  was born Chatsumarn Kabilsingh 6 October 1944) is a Thai bhikkhuni (“Buddhist nun”). On 28 February 2003, Kabilsingh received full monastic ordination as a bhikkhuni of the Theravada tradition in Sri Lanka.

Buddhamitrā   was a Buddhist nun living in India during the 1st century

Karma Lekshe Tsomo  Karma Lekshe Tsomo (born 23 September 1944) is a Buddhist nun, scholar and social activist. She is a professor at the University of San Diego, where she teaches Buddhism, World Religions, and Dying, Death, and Social Justice. She is co-founder of the Sakyadhita International Association of Buddhist Women and the founding director of the Jamyang Foundation, which supports the education of women and girls in the Himalayan region, the Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh, and elsewhere. She took novice precepts as a Buddhist nun in France in 1977 and full ordination in Korea in 1982.

Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo is a Tibetan Buddhist nun, author, teacher and founder of the Dongyu Gatsal Ling Nunnery in Himachal Pradesh, India. She spent twelve years living in a remote cave in the Himalayas, three of those years in strict meditation retreat.

Pema Chödrön  Pema Chödrön  born Deirdre Blomfield-Brown, July 14, 1936) is an American Tibetan Buddhist. She is an ordained nun, former acharya of Shambhala Buddhism^[

Thubten Chodron is an American Tibetan Buddhist nun and a central figure in reinstating the Tibetan Bhikshuni (Gelongma) ordination of women. She is a student of H. H. XIVth Dalai Lama, Tsenzhap Serkong Rinpoche, Thubten Zopa Rinpoche and other Tibetan masters.

Rbina Courtin   Robina Courtin (born 20 December 1944, in Melbourne, Australia) is a Buddhist nun in the Tibetan Buddhist Gelugpa tradition and lineage of Lama Thubten Yeshe and Lama Zopa Rinpoche. In 1996 she founded the Liberation Prison Project, which she ran until 2009.

Ani Choying Drolma  (born June 4, 1971), also known as Choying Dolma and Ani Choying (Ani, “nun”, is an honorific), is a Nepalese Buddhist nun of Tibetan origin and musician from the Nagi Gompa nunnery in Nepal. She is known in Nepal and throughout the world for bringing many Tibetan Buddhist chants and feast songs to mainstream audiences. She has been recently appointed as the UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador to Nepal.

Ayya Khema (August 25, 1923 – November 2, 1997) was a Buddhist teacher and was very active in providing opportunities for women to practice Buddhism, founding several centers around the world. In 1987, she helped coordinate the first-ever Sakyadhita International Association of Buddhist Women.

Houn Jiyu-Kennett (Japanese: 1 January 1924 – 6 November 1996), born Peggy Teresa Nancy Kennett, was a British roshi most famous for having been the first female to be sanctioned by the Sōtō School of Japan to teach in the West.

Christianity

Catherine of Alexandria, also known as Saint Catherine of Alexandria, Saint Catherine of the Wheel and The Great Martyr Saint Catherine, is, according to tradition, a Christian saint and virgin, who was martyred in the early 4th century at the hands of the emperor Maxentius.

Catherine of Palma (1533–1574) was a Spanish nun canonised in 1930. She is also known as Catalina Thomás, Caterina Tomàs i Gallard, and Catherine or Catalina Thomasor Tomas. She was born 1 May 1533 at Valldemossa, Mallorca, Spain, in a peasant family.

Anne o Saint Bartholomew 1 October 1550 – 7 June 1626) – born Ana García Manzanas – was a Spanish Roman Catholic professed religious and a professed member from the Discalced Carmelites. She was also a companion to Saint Teresa of Ávila

Beatrice of Nazareth Flemish nun  (c. 1200 – 1268) was a Flemish Cistercian nun. She was the first prose writer using an early Dutch language, a mystic, and the author of the notable Dutch prose dissertation known as the Seven Ways of Holy Love.

Bertken, Sister (c. 1427–1514) Dutch nun and writer. Born c. 1427; died 1514. Spent 57 years of her life in a convent in Utrecht; her poems are allegorical and frequently laced with Biblical allusions.

Catherine of Bologna [Caterina de’ Vigri] (8 September 1413 – 9 March 1463) was an Italian Poor Clare nun, writer, teacher, mystic, artist, and saint.

Catherine of Genoa (Caterina Fieschi Adorno, 1447 – 15 September 1510) was an Italian Roman Catholic saint and mystic, admired for her work among the sick and the poor and remembered because of various writings describing both these actions and her mystical experiences.

Joan of Arc French saint  is considered a heroine of France for her role during the Lancastrian phase of the Hundred Years’ War, and was canonized as a saint.

Teresa of Avila Spanish saint  A Carmelite nun, prominent Spanish mystic, religious reformer, author, theologian of the contemplative life and of mental prayer,

Maria Bolognesi Italian (blessed)  Bolognesi was beatified on 7 September 2013 and Cardinal Angelo Amato presided over the beatification on the behalf of Pope Francis

Bridget of Sweden Swedish Saint  Sweden (c. 1303 – 23 July 1373); born as Birgitta Birgersdotter, also Birgitta of Vadstena, or Saint Birgitta (Swedish: heliga Birgitta), was a mystic and saint, and founder of the Bridgettines nuns

Heilwige Bloemardinne  (1265? – 23 August 1335) was a Christian mystic who lived in Brussels

Marguerite Bays Swiss (blessed)  Marguerite Bays (8 September 1815 – 27 June 1879) was a Swiss seamstress and Roman Catholic mystic who was a member ofthe Secular Franciscan Order. She lived a simple life as a Franciscan and adapted the tenets of the order’s charism into her own life and social apostolate, Pope John Paul II beatified her in 1995 after the recognition of a miracle attributed to her intercession. She was canonized by Pope Francis on October 13, 2019.

Maria Domenica Lazzeri
(1815–1848) also known as la Meneghina was an Italian mystic.

Margaret Mary Alacoque  (22 July 1647 – 17 October 1690), was a French Roman Catholic Visitation nun and mystic, who promoted devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus in its modern form

Hildegard of Bingen German saint  c. 1098 – 17 September 1179), was a German Benedictine abbess and polymath active as a writer, composer, philosopher, mystic, visionary, and as a medical writer and practitioner during the High Middle Ages. She is one of the best-known composers of sacred monophony, as well as the most recorded in modern history.^[3] She has been considered by many in Europe to be the founder of scientific natural history in Germany.

Hildegard’s convent elected her as magistra (mother superior) in 1136. She founded the monasteries of Rupertsberg in 1150 and Eibingen in 1165. Hildegard wrote theological, botanical, and medicinal works, as well as letters, hymns and antiphons for the liturgy. Furthermore, she wrote poems, while supervising miniature illuminations in the Rupertsberg manuscript of her first work, Scivias. There are more surviving chants by Hildegard than by any other composer from the entire Middle Ages, and she is one of the few known composers to have written both the music and the words. One of her works, the Ordo Virtutum, is an early example of liturgical drama and arguably the oldest surviving morality play

Christina Ebner (also Christine), (26 March 1277 – 27 December 1356) was a German Dominican nun, writer and mystic.

Margareta Ebner (1291 – 20 June 1351) was a German professed religious from the Dominican Nuns. Ebner – from 1311 – experienced a series of spiritual visions in which Jesus Christ gave her messages which she recorded in letters and a journal at the behest of her spiritual director; she was ill for well over a decade as she experienced these visions.

Mary Of Egypt c. 344 – c. 421) was an Egyptian saint highly venerated as Desert Mother in the Orthodox and Coptic Churches, as well as the patron saint of penitents in the Roman Catholic Church.

Edith Stein German Saint  2 October 1891 – 9 August 1942) was a German Jewish philosopher who converted to Christianity and became a Discalced Carmelite nun. She is canonized as a martyr and saint of the Catholic Church; she is also one of six co-patron saints of Europe.

Elisabeth or Elsbeth Stagel (c. 1300 – c. 1360) was a Dominican nun and prioress of the Töss Convent.

Catherine of Siena Italian saint  (25 March 1347 – 29 April 1380), a lay member of the Dominican Order, was a mystic, activist, and author who had a great influence on Italian literature and the Catholic Church. Canonized in 1461, she is also a Doctor of the Church.

Itala Mela Italian Venerable  (28 August 1904 – 29 April 1957) was an Italian Roman Catholic who was a lapsed Christian until a sudden conversion of faith in the 1920s and as a Benedictine oblate assumed the name of “Maria della Trinità“. Mela became one of the well-known mystics of the Church during her life and indeed following her death.

Consolata Betrone Italian nun  was a Catholic mystic and nun of the Franciscan Capuchine order. Betrone was born in Saluzzo, Piedmont, Italy,

Antoinette Bourignon de la Porte (13 January 1616 – 30 October 1680) was a French-Flemish mystic and adventurer.

Sarah Edwards (mystic) (January 9, 1710 – October 2, 1758) She began to have profound spiritual experiences, called religious ecstasy, over nine days. She felt “swallowed up with light and love and a sweet solace, rest and joy of soul that was altogether unspeakable

Eva Margareta Frölich  (c. 1650 – September 1692 in Stockholm), was a Swedish mystic, prophet, visionary and Pietistic writer.

Hadewijch Dutch nun  was a 13th-century poet and mystic, probably living in the Duchy of Brabant. Most of her extant writings are in a Brabantian form of Middle Dutch. Her writings include visions, prose letters and poetry. Hadewijch was one of the most important direct influences on John of Ruysbroeck.

Lucrecia de Leon  born in Madrid in 1567,, a young woman of modest background who gained a dangerously popular reputation as a prophetic dreamer predicting apocalyptic ruin for her country. When Lucrecia was still a teenager, several Catholic priests took great interest in her prolific dreams and began to record them in detail. But the growing public attention to the dreams eventually became too much for the Spanish king. Stung that Lucrecia had accurately foreseen the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588, Philip II ordered the Inquisition to arrest her on charges of heresy and sedition. During Lucrecia’s imprisonment, trial, and torture, the carefully collected records of her dreams were preserved and analyzed by the court. The authenticity of these dreams, and their potentially explosive significance, became the focal point of the Church’s investigation.

Úrsula de Jesús  (1604–1668) was a Roman Catholic mystic of African descent in 17-century Peru. She was born in Lima, Peru, She stated that she experienced divine visions, particularly with the souls in purgatory who sought her intercession to gain their release. Throughout her lifetime, she was notable for her mystical visions and her claims of communicating with the souls of those who died and went to purgatory. She felt she had the ability to do so because of her near-death experience.

Luisa Melgarejo de Soto (1578–1651), 

Catalina Ballester of Mallorca, Spain (1629–1660)..

María Jacinta Montoya. (also known as María Jacinta de la Santísima Trinidad)

Catalina de Vargas  lived from 1681 to 1726. She was born on Tenerife in the Canary Islands but
spent most of her life in Las Palmas, the archipelago’s most significant city, on the island of Grand Canary. The Canary Islands

Luisa de Carvajal  Luisa Carvajal y Mendoza (formerly known as Doña Luisa de Carvajal y Mendoza) (January 2, 1566 – January 2, 1614) is best known for her mystical religious poetry

Maria Cotonilla,

Jeanne Guyon  French; 13 April 1648 – 9 June 1717) was a French mystic and was accused of advocating Quietism, although she never called herself a Quietist.

Anne Catherine Emmerich (blessed)  8 September 1774 – 9 February 1824) was a Roman Catholic Augustinian Canoness Regular of Windesheim, mystic, Marian visionary, ecstatic and stigmatist.

Angela of Foligno (1248 – 4 January 1309) was an Italian Franciscan tertiary who became known as a mystic from her extensive writings about her mystical revelations. Due to the respect those writings engendered in the Catholic Church she became known as “Mistress of Theologians”.

Jacqueline-Marie-Angélique Arnauld, S.O.Cist. or Arnault, called La Mère Angélique (8 September 1591, in Paris – 6 August 1661, in Port-Royal-des-Champs), was Abbess of the Abbey of Port-Royal, which under her abbacy became a center of Jansenism.

Barbe-jeanne Avrillot,Acarie, (born Feb. 26, 1566, Paris—died April 18, 1618, Pontoise, Fr.), mystic whose activity and influence in religious affairs inspired most of the leading French ecclesiastics of her time.

Jane Frances de Chantal (Jeanne-Françoise Frémiot, Baronne de Chantal; 28 January 1572 – 13 December 1641) is a Catholic saint, who was beatified in 1751 and canonized in 1767. She founded the religious Order of the Visitation of Holy Mary. The order accepted women who were rejected by other orders because of poor health or age.^[2] When people criticized her, Chantal famously said,

Marie Guyart, founder of the religious order of the Ursulines in Canada, mystic and writer (born 28 October 1599 in Tours, …

María de Agreda  Spanish mystic  Born: April 2, 1602 Spain:  May 24, 1665 (aged 63) Spain

Douceline of Digne (c. 1215/1216 – 1274) was the founder of the Beguines of Marseilles and the subject of a vita that survives today,
The Life of Douceline de Digne introduces a 13th-century woman mystic of great significance in the study of female spirituality in the middle ages.

Margery Kempe  (c. 1373 – after 1438) was an English Christian mystic, known for writing through dictation The Book of Margery Kempe, a work considered by some to be the first autobiography in the English language. Her book chronicles Kempe’s domestic tribulations, her extensive pilgrimages to holy sites in Europe and the Holy Land, as well as her mystical conversations with God. She is honoured in the Anglican Communion, but was never made a Catholic saint.

Marguerite Porete (French; 13th century – 1 June 1310) was a French-speaking mystic and the author of The Mirror of Simple Souls, a work of Christian mysticism dealing with the workings of agape (divine love). She was burnt at the stake for heresy in Paris in 1310 after a lengthy trial, refusing to remove her book from circulation or recant her views.

Christina of Markyate
was born with the name Theodora in Huntingdon, England, about 1096–1098 and died about 1155
Flower A. Newhouse  In 1940, Newhouse and her husband founded Questhaven Retreat and the Christward Ministry. Her ministry was a hybrid theology drawing on Christian mysticism.

Julian of Norwich  was an English anchoress of the Middle Ages. She wrote the best-known surviving book in the English language written by a mystic, Revelations of Divine Love, which is also the earliest surviving book in English known to be written by a woman.
Margaret of Cortona (1247 – 22 February 1297) was an Italian penitent of the Third Order of Saint Francis. She was born in Laviano, near Perugia, and died in Cortona. She was canonized in 1728.

Maria Petyt, also Petijt^[ or Petiyt (1623–1677), was known as a “great mystic, Her writings have been cited as “unequaled in volume and mystical content within the historical context of the Flemish-speaking 17th century.”

Marguerite Porete  13th century – 1 June 1310) was a French-speaking mystic and the author of The Mirror of Simple Souls, a work of Christian mysticism dealing with the workings of agape (divine love). She was burnt at the stake for heresy in Paris in 1310 after a lengthy trial, refusing to remove her book from circulation or recant her views.

Today, Porete’s work has been of interest to a diverse number of scholars. Those interested in medieval mysticism, and more specifically beguine mystical writing, cite The Mirror of Simple Souls in their studies. The book is also seen as a primary text regarding the medieval Heresy of the Free Spirit. Study of Eckhart has shown a similarity between his and Porete’s ideas about union with God. Porete has also been of interest to those studying medieval women’s writing.^[

Mechtilde of Hackeborn   (1240/1241 – 19 November 1298) was a Saxon Christian saint (from what is now Germany) and a Benedictine nun. She was famous for her musical talents, gifted with a beautiful voice. At the age of 50, Mechtilde went through a grave spiritual crisis, as well as physical suffering.

Elizabeth of Hungary (1207–1231) is said to have fed nine hundred starving people at her castle door. She built a hospital for lepers and was known to remove her jewels before entering the chapel, putting on the robes of the Franciscans—foreshadowing the day she would give away her vast wealth to the poor.

Mechthild of Magdeburg
c. 1207 – c. 1282/1294), a Beguine, was a Christian medieval mystic, whose book Das fließende Licht der Gottheit (The Flowing Light of Divinity) is a compendium of visions, prayers, dialogues and mystical accounts.^[3] She was the first mystic to write in German.

Marie of Oignies (Maria Ogniacensis, born Nivelles, now Belgium, 1177, died 1213) was a Beguine saint, known from the Life written by James of Vitry, for Fulk of Toulouse.

Marie “did not live a cloistered life following an approved rule, but rather adopted a free form of devout life marked by strenuous asceticism and manual labour, as well as mystical gifts of a new kind.”^[2] Marie is purported to have received many visions

Adelheid Langmann (* 1306 in Nürnberg; † 22. November 1375 in Engelthal) was a nun and mystic in the Dominican convent Engelthal near Nuremberg.

Adelheid Van Schaarbeek (d. 1250)

Juliana Of Cornillon   (1192-1258)  was a medieval Norbertine canoness regular and mystic in what is now Belgium.

Clare Of Assisi (1194-1253)  was an Italian saint and one of the first followers of Francis of Assisi. She founded the Order of Poor Ladies, a monastic religious order for women in the Franciscan tradition, and wrote their Rule of Life,^[2] the first set of monastic guidelines known to have been written by a woman

Rose of Lima (born Isabel Flores de Oliva; 20 April 1586 – 24 August 1617) was a member of the Third Order of Saint Dominic in Lima, Peru, who became known for both her life of severe penance and her care of the poverty stricken of the city through her own private efforts.

Roswitha of Gandersheim (c.940-1002)
was a female playwright and nun who lived in the tenth century, completing her works in Latin. She lived in a convent in Gandersheim and followed the Order of Saint Benedict. The Cardinal Gasquet considered her plays the best of the feudal age, an even more impressive feat due to Germany’s reputation as the least civilized of regions during this time period. He noted her deep knowledge of the scriptures, philosophers both Christian and Roman, Christian texts, and theater. She was especially influenced by the playwright Terence. While her birthdate cannot be pinpointed exactly, she was born between 912 and 940 into a noble family. She entered the abbey in her early twenties and remained in Gandersheim until her death, date suspected around 973. Her manuscripts lay in the convent for hundreds of years until their discovery and publication at the turn of the 16thcentury. Her plays glorify chastity and feature women who pursue virginity above all other virtues.

Elisabeth of Schönau (c. 1129 – 18 June 1164) was a German Benedictine visionary.^[a] She was an abbess at the Schönau Abbey in the Duchy of Nassau, and experienced numerous religious visions, for which she became widely sought after by many powerful men as far away as France and England.

Mother Shipton  (c. 1488–1561 s said to have been an English soothsayer and prophetess.

Catherine of Siena  (25 March 1347 – 29 April 1380), a lay member of the Dominican Order, was a mystic, activist, and author who had a great influence on Italian literature and the Catholic Church. Canonized in 1461, she is also a Doctor of the Church.

Madre Juana de la Cruz: saint of 16th-century Spain

Beatrice of Silva Born in 1424 Saint Beatrice de Silva was born of Portuguese parents at Ceuta on Moroccan soil, and manifested a special attachment to our Immaculate Mother very early in life.

Lilian Staveley  (1871–1928) was a Christian writer and mystic whose anonymous works have only recently been credited to her.

Simone Weil  3 February 1909 – 24 August 1943) was a French philosopher, mystic, and political activist.  Taking a path that was unusual among 20th-century left-leaning intellectuals, she became more religious and inclined towards mysticism as her life progressed. Weil wrote throughout her life, although most of her writings did not attract much attention until after her death. In the 1950s and 1960s, her work became famous in continental Europe and throughout the English-speaking world. Her thought has continued to be the subject of extensive scholarship across a wide range of fields. A meta study from the University of Calgary found that between 1995 and 2012 over 2,500 new scholarly works had been published about her. Albert Camus described her as “the only great spirit of our times”.

Maria Maddalena de’ Pazzi  April 2, 1566 – May 25, 1607), was an Italian Carmelite nun and mystic. She has been declared a saint by the Catholic Church.  It was believed that de’ Pazzi could read the thoughts of others and predict future events. For instance, during one ecstatic event she predicted the future elevation to the papacy of Cardinal Alessandro de’ Medici (as Pope Leo XI).^[8] During her lifetime, she allegedly appeared to several persons in distant places and cured a number of sick people.

Gertrude the Great – Saint  anuary 6, 1256 – November 17, 1302) was a German Benedictine nun, mystic, and theologian. She is recognized as a saint by the Catholic Church and by The Episcopal Church.

Margaret Mary Alacoque  (22 July 1647 – 17 October 1690), was a French Roman Catholic Visitation nun and mystic, who promoted devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus in its modern form

Bahinabai  (1628–1700 AD) or Bahina or Bahini is a Varkari female-saint from Maharashtra, India. She is considered as a disciple of another Varkari poet-saint Tukaram

Eva von Buttlar  (22 June 1670, Barchfeld, Hesse-Kassel – 27 April 1721) was a mystic-libertine sectarian and the eponym for a group known as Buttlarsche Rotte (Buttlarian gang).

Anna von Munzingen  a German prioress of the 14th century, who descended from a well known noble family at Freiburg. In 1318 she wrote a “chronicle” of the mystical experiences of her nuns in the work Adelhausen Schwesternbuch (Sister-book of the Adelhausen Covent). The text was originally composed in Latin, but only a Middle High German translation survives. The chronicle comprises a collection of thirty-seven biographies of the sisters, focussing on visions, theophanies and mystical experiences. Anna focussed entirely on the experiences of the women within the convent, emphasizing a sense of independence from the friars, whom many of the sisters resented.

Gemma Galgani  (12 March 1878 – 11 April 1903), also known as Saint Gemma of Lucca, was an Italian mystic, venerated as a saint in the Catholic Church since 1940.

Rebecca Cox Jackson (1795–1871) was a free Black woman, best known for her religious activism and for her autobiography. Female mystic

Hinduism

Vedic and classical

Ghosha  was an ancient Vedic period Indian female philosopher and seer.

Gargi Vachaknavi  (born about 9th to 7th century BCE) was an ancient Indian philosopher. In Vedic literature, she is honored as a great natural philosopher, renowned expounder of the Vedas, and known as Brahmavadini, a person with knowledge of Brahma Vidya

Maitreyi  was an Indian philosopher who lived during the later Vedic period in ancient India. She is mentioned in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad as one of two wives of the Vedic sage Yajnavalkya; he is estimated to have lived around the 8th century BCE. In the Hindu epic Mahabharata and the Gṛhyasūtras, however, Maitreyi is described as an Advaita philosopher who never married. In ancient Sanskrit literature, she is known as a brahmavadini (an expounder of the Veda). Maitreyi appears in ancient Indian texts, such as in a dialogue where she explores the Hindu concept of Atman (soul or self) in a dialogue with Yajnavalkya in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad. According to this dialogue, love is driven by a person’s soul, and Maitreyi discusses the nature of Atman and Brahman and their unity, the core of Advaita philosophy.

Lopamudra  was a female philosopher according to ancient Vedic Indian literature. She was the wife of the sage Agastya who is believed to have lived in the Rigveda period (1950 BC-1100 BC) as many hymns have been attributed as her contribution to this Veda

Medieval

Akka Mahadevi  (c.1130–1160) was one of the early female poets of the Kannada literature and a prominent person in the Lingayatism sect of Hinduism in the 12th century.^[2]Her 430 extant Vachana poems (a form of spontaneous mystical poems)

Sant Andal (Nachiar or Goda-devi)  is the only female Alvar among the 12 Alvar saints of South India.

Sant Avvaiyar  who lived during the Sangam period is considered to be contemporary to poets Paranar, Kabilar and Thiruvalluvar. She is attributed as the author of 7 verses in Naṟṟiṇai, 15 in Kuṟuntokai, 4 in Akanaṉūṟu and 33 in Puṟanāṉūṟu

Lalleshvari  (Kashmiri pronunciation; 1320–1392), was a Kashmiri mystic of the Kashmir Shaivism school of Hindu philosophy. She was the creator of the style of mystic poetry called vatsun or Vakhs, literally “speech” (from Sanskrit vaak). Known as Lal Vakhs, her verses are the earliest compositions in the Kashmiri language and are an important part in the history of modern Kashmiri literature.

Sant Mirabai  was a 16th-century Hindu mystic poet and devotee of Krishna. She is a celebrated Bhakti saint, particularly in the North Indian Hindu tradition

Gangasati  was a medieval saint poet of bhakti tradition of western India she composed several devotional songs in Gujarati language.

Sant Molla  (4 October 1922 – 28 April 1962) was an Italian Roman Catholic pediatrician.

Sant Muktabai  was a saint in the Varkari Movement. She was born in a Deshastha Brahmin

Sant Nirmala  was a poet in 14th century Maharashtra, India. As the younger sister of Chokhamela, she was deemed equally holy with her brother and thus is also deemed a Hindu saint

Sant Rupa Bhawani, saint-poet  (c. 1621 – c. 1721 birth name: Alakheswari ) was a Kashmiri . She was a 17th-century Hindu saint who lived in present-day Kashmir.

Lalleshwari  1320–1392), was a Kashmiri mystic of the Kashmir Shaivism school of Hindu philosophy. She was the creator of the style of mystic poetry called vatsun or Vakhs, literally “speech” (from Sanskrit vaak). Known as Lal Vakhs, her verses are the earliest compositions in the Kashmiri language and are an important part in the history of modern Kashmiri literature.

Sant Sahajo Bai, 1725-1805

Sant Sakhubai

The Unnamed Saint in King Janaka’s Court
A female saint

Sri Sarada Devi  In recent times Sarada Devi, wife of Ramakrishna Paramhansa, was Guru to many and is considered Divine Incarnate

Gargi Vachaknavi  Brahmavadini Gargi Vachaknavi, daughter of Vachaknu, is honored as a great natural philosopher, renowned expounder of the Vedas. She is said to have written many hymns in the Rigveda. In the 6th and 8th Brahmana of Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, her name is prominent as she participates in the Brahma Yajna, a philosophic debate organised by Brahma Gyani King Janaka of Videha and challenges the Brahma Gyani Sage Yajnavalkya.

Sant Rupa Bhawani  (c. 1621 – c. 1721 birth name: Alakheswari ) was a Kashmiri .^[1] She was a 17th-century Hindu saint who lived in present-day Kashmir.

Hemalekha (mentioned in Tripura Rahasya)

Queen Chudala (mentioned in Yoga Vasistha)

Bhairavi Brahmani  In 1861, Ramakrishna accepted Bhairavi Brahmani, an orange-robed, middle-aged female ascetic, as a teacher. She carried with her the Raghuvir Shila, a stone icon representing Ram and all Vaishnava deities. She was thoroughly conversant with the texts of Gaudiya Vaishnavism and practised Tantra. According to the Bhairavi, Ramakrishna was experiencing phenomena that accompany mahabhava, the supreme attitude of loving devotion towards the divine, and quoting from the bhakti shastras, she said that other religious figures like Radha and Chaitanya had similar experiences.

Ubhaya Barati  When Adi Sankara was proceeding on his Jaitra Yatra (victory march), the great scholar Mandana Mishra in Mahishmati presently Mahishi. Sankara entered into a scholarly debate with him. Ubhaya Bharati, the wife of Mandana Mishra, was also a great scholar. She was well-versed in the principles of Ritham, Sathyam, Mahattattwam, etc. It was decided that Mandana Mishra would take to Sannyasa if he were to be defeated in the debate. Sankara chose Ubhaya Bharati to be the adjudicator of the contest. As the debate was in progress, she listened to the arguments and counter arguments with utmost concentration. She was impartial in her judgement and declared Sankara to be the winner. Being one of wisdom, she did not feel dejected that her husband was defeated in the debate. Mandana Mishra took to Sannyasa in accordance with the terms and conditions of the debate. Ubhaya Bharathi, being his Ardhangi (better half), followed suit.

Both husband and wife renounced the world and propagated the path of wisdom. Human life has no value if one does not acquire wisdom.

Sahajo

Saint Andal  Andal is an 8th century Tamil saint and one of the twelve Alwars (saints) and the only woman Alwar of Vaishnavism. She wrote the great Tamil works of Tiruppavai (30 verses) and Naacchiyaar Tirumozhi (143 verses).

Lalla or Lal Ded as she was known, was a rebel female saint of India in fourteenth-century Kashmir. A mystic of the Kashmiri Shaivite sect who inspired and interacted with many Sufis, she created mystic poetry, verses that are among the earliest compositions in the Kashmiri language called Vaks (literal meaning: speech or voice).

Born in Pandrethan (ancient Puranadhisthana) near Srinagar into a Kashmiri Pandit family, she was trained in Trika, a mystic tradition of Shaivism in Kashmir.

Meerabai was a sixteenth-century mystic poet and devotee of Krishna who has been claimed by the North Indian Hindu tradition of Bhakti saints.

Janabai, known as Sant Janabai, was a Marāthi religious poet born in the thirteenth century

Sant Sakhubai was a saint of the Bhakti movement era from the same region. She too was a great devotee of Panduranga Vitthala.

Modern

Amma Sri Karunamayi  (born 1958) is a Hindu spiritual leader. Sri Karunamayi travels internationally promoting global peace and meditation

Anandamayi Ma  30 April 1896 – 27 August 1982) was an Indian saint

Mata Amritanandamayi  27 September 1953), often known simply as Amma (“Mother”), is an Indian Hindu spiritual leader, guru and humanitarian, who is revered as ‘the hugging saint’ by her followers

Ma Devi Jnanabhanishta

Mahadeviyakka  She is particularly striking among the early leaders of the Vīraśaiva movement because she was a woman, a mystic, and a poetess, and today she  is still a source of inspiration for religious thinkers, writers, and social activists, even well beyond the borders of Karnataka. She is considered one of the greatest women poets of all time in the Kannada language

Bhakta Ghosa

Daya Mata  (Sanskrit for Compassionate Mother),^[1] born Rachel Faye Wright, (January 31, 1914 – November 30, 2010) was the president and sanghamata (mother of the society) of the only organization that Paramahansa Yogananda created to disseminate his teachings, Self-Realization Fellowship (SRF)^[2] in Los Angeles, California / Yogoda Satsanga Society of India (YSS), for over 55 years.
Daya Mata was one of the first women to lead a worldwide religious organization and monastic order

Sister Nivedita  Sister Nivedita (Bengali) born Margaret Elizabeth Noble; 28 October 1867 – 13 October 1911) was an Irish teacher, author, social activist, school founder and disciple of Swami Vivekananda.^[

Sant Kanhopatra  Kanhopatra (or Kanhupatra) was a 15th-century Marathi saint-poet, venerated by the Varkari sect of Hinduism.

Sant Bahinabai  (1628–1700 AD) or Bahina or Bahini is a Varkari female-saint from Maharashtra, India. She is considered as a disciple of another Varkari poet-saint Tukaram. Having been born in a Brahmin family, Bahinabai was married to a widower at a young age and spent most of her childhood wandering around Maharashtra along with her family. She describes, in her autobiography Atmamanivedana, her spiritual experiences with a calf and visions of the Varkari’s patron deity Vithoba and Tukaram.

Shree Ma  was born into one of the most extraordinary families in India, which included both extremely wealthy businessmen and highly advanced yogis. Her family was descended from Ramprasad Sen, the famous Bengali poet, whose songs are still popular through

The Mother  February 1878 – 17 November 1973), known to her followers as The Mother, was a spiritual guru, an occultist and a collaborator of Sri Aurobindo, who considered her to be of equal yogic stature to him and called her by the name “The Mother”. She founded the Sri Aurobindo Ashram and established Auroville as a universal town; she was an influence and inspiration to many writers and spiritual personalities on the subject of Integral Yoga.

Mother Meera  Mother Meera’s reported task on Earth was in calling down a dynamic light-force from the Supreme (Paramatman – the supreme Self) in collaboration with other saints and divine beings, as she says, making spiritual progress on earth easier

Gurumayi Chidvilasananda. is a Siddha Guru who walked the path of yoga under the guidance of her Guru, Swami Muktananda.

Islam

Rabi’a al-Adawiyya  (714/717/718 — 801 CE) was an Arab Sunni Muslim saint and Sufi mystic. She is known in some parts of the world as, Hazrat Bibi Rabia Basri, Rabia Al Basri or simply Rabia Basri

Hazrat Babajan a Pashtun Muslim saint considered by her followers to be a Sadguru or Qutub. Born in Balochistan, Afghanistan, she lived the final 25 years of her life in Pune, India. She was the original master of Meher Baba, an Indian spiritual master.

Fāṭima of Nishapu  One of the most famous Sufis of the ninth century was a woman named Fatima (d. 838) who lived in Nishapur. She was a Shaykha and gnostic who abandoned her life of luxury for the Sufi path. She spent all her wealth on serving the poor.

Umm Alī Fāṭima of Balkh. the medieval female mystic

Muadha al Adaiyya of Syria,

Nafisa of of Mecca,

Zainab of Persia

Ishi Nili of Persia

Shams of Marchena

Fatima of Cordova

Sayyida Nafisa

 Judaism

The seven Hebrew prophetesses:

Sarah  a biblical matriarch and prophetess, a major figure in Abrahamic religions.

Miriam   a prophetess and first appears in the Book of Exodus. The Torah refers to her as “Miriam the Prophetess” and the Talmud names her as one of the seven major female prophets of Israel.

Deborah According to the Book of Judges, Deborah (was a prophetess of the God of the Israelites, the fourth Judge of pre-monarchic Israel and the only female judge mentioned in the Bible.

Hannah  The narrative about Hannah can be found in 1 Samuel 1:2–2:21 Hannah is considered to be a prophetess: in her song of thanksgiving (1 Samuel 2:1–10) she is inspired “to discern in her own individual experience the universal laws of the divine economy, and to recognise its significance for the whole course of the Kingdom of God”

Abigail  Abigail is also listed as one of the seven Jewish women prophets,

Huldah  Huldah was a prophet mentioned in the Hebrew Bible in 2 Kings 22:14–20 and 2 Chronicles 34:22–28. According to Jewish tradition, she was one of the “seven prophetesses”,

Esther  female Hebrew Prophetess

Inés of Herrera | The Child Martyr | 1488-1500
Inés told her many followers of her ascents to heaven, guided by angels.
(Out of the Body Experiences)
 
Fioretta of Modena | The Kabbalist Bubbe | 1522-1580

Asenath Barzani | The Kurdish Rosh Yeshiva | 1590-1670

The Women of Vital’s Book of Visions

Francesa Sarah | The Maggid Whisperer | 16th Century
Joseph Sambari, in his history of the Jews under Muslim rule (written in the mid-17th century) describes Francesa Sarah as “a woman, wise and great in her deeds … She had a maggid (angelic medium) speak to her to inform her of what was to be in the world. The sages of Safed tested her several times to know if there was substance to her words, and if everything that she said came to pass.”

Daughter of Anav | The Oracle | 16th Century
there is extensive documentation of her activities in Damascus in the year 1609. This young woman served as an oracle to the entire Jewish community, and was consulted, and obeyed, by its leading rabbinic figures.
 
Rachel Aberlin | The Patron | 16th Century
Rachel enjoyed visions of Elijah the prophet regularly, and was described by Vital as having been “accustomed to seeing visions, demons, souls, and angels, and most everything she says is correct, from her childhood and through her adulthood.”

Sonadora | The Dreamer | 16th Century

Eva Frank | The Queen Messiah | 1754-1816

The Daughter of Joseph | The Redeemer | 12th Century

Sicilian Prophetess | The Pregnant Messiah
Chapter Four | Hasidism | Mysticism for the Masses

The Maiden of Ludmir | The Hasidic Rebbe | 1805-1888

Hasidic Women | Odel the Daughter of the Baal Shem | 1720 -1787

Etty Hillesum | The Diarist of Heaven and Hell | 1914–1943

Hannah Rachel Verbermacher  1805–1888  was the only independent female Rebbe in the history of the Hasidic movement

Jainism

Sister Champa  (1913―1993) was a mystic in the Kanji Panth sect of Digambara Jain

Sikhism

Bebe Nanaki  lit. ’Sister Nanaki’; c. 1464–1518) was the elder sister of Guru Nanak, the founder and first Guru of Sikhism. Nanaki is an important figure in Sikhism, and is known as the first Gursikh. She was the first to realize her brother’s ‘philosophical inclination’, and is credited for inspiring his use of music as an instrument of devotion to God.

Taoism

Sun Buer (1119–1182)
Chinese Taoist Priestess, poet and author of A Personal Tao. She founded the Taoist lineage called the ‘Purity and Tranquility’ tradition. She is known as one of the few female Taoist ‘Immortals,’ a title that stands for spiritual realization and occult mastery.

Western mysticism and syncretism

Helena Blavatsky  12 August [O.S. 31 July] 1831 – 8 May 1891) was a Russian author who co-founded the Theosophical Society in 1875. She gained an international following as the leading theoretician of Theosophy.

Annie Besant  1 October 1847 – 20 September 1933) was a British socialist, theosophist, women’s rights activist, writer, orator, educationist, and philanthropist. Regarded as a champion of human freedom, she was an ardent supporter of both Irish and Indian self-rule. She was a prolific author with over three hundred books and pamphlets to her credit. As an educationist, her contributions included being one of the founders of the Banaras Hindu University. For fifteen years Besant was a public proponent in England of atheism, scientific materialism. Besant’s goal was to provide better employment, living conditions, and education for the poor.

Besant then became a prominent speaker for the National Secular Society (NSS), as well as a writer, and a close friend of Charles Bradlaugh. In 1877 they were prosecuted for publishing a book by birth control campaigner Charles Knowlton. The scandal made them famous, and Bradlaugh was subsequently elected as a Member of Parliament (MP) for Northampton in 1880.

Thereafter, Besant became involved with union actions, including the Bloody Sunday demonstration and the London matchgirls strike of 1888. She was a leading speaker for both the Fabian Society and the Marxist Social Democratic Federation (SDF). She was also elected to the London School Board for Tower Hamlets, topping the poll, even though few women were qualified to vote at that time.

In 1890 Besant met Helena Blavatsky, and over the next few years her interest in theosophy grew, whilst her interest in secular matters waned. She became a member of the Theosophical Society and a prominent lecturer on the subject. As part of her theosophy-related work, she traveled to India. In 1898 she helped establish the Central Hindu School, and in 1922 she helped establish the Hyderabad (Sind) National Collegiate Board in Bombay (today’s Mumbai), India. In 1902, she established the first overseas Lodge of the International Order of Co-Freemasonry, Le Droit Humain. Over the next few years, she established lodges in many parts of the British Empire. In 1907 she became president of the Theosophical Society, whose international headquarters were, by then, located in Adyar, Madras, (Chennai).

Besant also became involved in politics in India, joining the Indian National Congress. When World War I broke out in 1914, she helped launch the Home Rule League to campaign for democracy in India, and dominion status within the British Empire. This led to her election as president of the Indian National Congress, in late 1917. In the late 1920s, Besant traveled to the United States with her protégé and adopted son Jiddu Krishnamurti, who she claimed was the new Messiah and incarnation of Buddha. Krishnamurti rejected these claims in 1929. After the war, she continued to campaign for Indian independence and for the causes of theosophy, until her death in 1933.

Dora van Gelder Kunz  Dora Kunz née Theodora Sophia van Gelder (April 28, 1904 – August 25, 1999) was a Dutch-American writer, psychic, alternative healer, occultist and leader in the Theosophical Society in America. Kunz has published around the world in Dutch, English, French, German, Polish, Portuguese, and Spanish.

Anna Kingsford  16 September 1846 – 22 February 1888), was an English anti-vivisectionist, vegetarian and women’s rights campaigner

Baba Vanga  3 October 1911 – 11 August 1996), commonly known as Baba Vanga (Bulgarian: Баба Ванга, lit. ’Grandmother Vanga’), was a Bulgarian mystic,

Vera Stanley Alandal clairvoyant, and herbalist

Lucille Cedercrans  (1921–1984) was an esoteric mystic apparently influenced by ecumenical gnostic theism, particularly (neo-)Theosophy. However, she stated that the source of her writings was the result of a meditative stat

Corinne Heline  (August 18, 1882 in Atlanta, Georgia – July 26, 1975) was an American author, Christian mystic, and occultist who published 28 books.

Maria Franciszka Kozłowska
was a Polish Christian mystic and visionary who founded a movement of renewal in the Roman Catholic church in the Russian Partition of Poland. It was to follow the simplicity of the life of Mary, mother of Jesus. Early in the 20th-century, the movement was excommunicated and became an autonomous church in fellowship with the Old Catholic Church of the Netherlands.

Nakayama Miki  8 April 1798 – 26 January 1887 was a nineteenth-century Japanese farmer and religious leader. She is the primary figure of the Japanese new religion Tenrikyo. Followers, who refer to her as Oyasama, believe that she was settled as the Shrine of Tsukihi from the moment she experienced a divine revelation in 1838 until her death in 1887.

Upon her divine revelation, she gave away most of her family’s possessions and dismantled the family’s house, thereby entering a state of poverty.

Thérèse of Lisieux (French: sainte Thérèse de Lisieux born Marie Françoise-Thérèse Martin (2 January 1873 – 30 September 1897),
Therese has been a highly influential model of sanctity for Catholics and for others because of the simplicity and practicality of her approach to the spiritual life. Together with Francis of Assisi, she is one of the most popular saints in the history of the church. Pope Pius X called her “the greatest saint of modern times”

Mary Baker Sddy  (July 16, 1821 – December 3, 1910) was an American religious leader and author who founded The Church of Christ, Scientist, in New England in 1879.^[1][2] She also founded The Christian Science Monitor, a Pulitzer Prize-winning secular newspaper, in 1908

Ann Lee  (29 February 1736 – 8 September 1784), commonly known as Mother Ann Lee, was the founding leader of the United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing, or the Shakers.

Ellen G. White  November 26, 1827 – July 16, 1915) was an American author and co-founder of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

Evelyn Underhill (6 December 1875 – 15 June 1941) was an English Anglo-Catholic writer and pacifist known for her numerous works on religion and spiritual practice, in particular Christian mysticism.

In the English-speaking world, she was one of the most widely read writers on such matters in the first half of the 20th century. No other book of its type matched that of her best-known work, Mysticism, published in 1911. She was a poet and novelist as well as a pacifist and mystic. An only child, she described her early mystical insights as “abrupt experiences of the peaceful, undifferentiated plane of reality—like the ‘still desert’ of the mystic—in which there was no multiplicity nor need of explanation” The meaning of these experiences became a lifelong quest and a source of private angst, provoking her to research and write.

Gemma Umberta Galgani (12 March 1878 – 11 April 1903), also known as Saint Gemma of Lucca, was an Italian mystic, venerated as a saint in the Catholic Church since 1940.^[1] She has been called the “Daughter of the Passion” because of her profound imitation of the Passion of Christ.

Therese Neumann (9 April 1898 – 18 September 1962) was a German Catholic mystic and stigmatic

Thea Bowman (born Bertha Elizabeth Bowman; December 29, 1937 – March 30, 1990) was a Black Catholic religious sister, teacher, and scholar who made a major contribution to the ministry of the Catholic Church toward her fellow African Americans. She became an evangelist among her people, assisted in the production of an African American Catholic hymnal, and was a popular speaker on faith and spirituality in her final years. She also helped found the National Black Sisters Conference to provide support for African-American women in Catholic religious institutes. In 2018, she was designated a Servant of God.

Sojourner Truth  wrote of her own mystical encounters with God in the third person:

Helena Roerich  Helena Ivanovna Roerich (born Shaposhnikova; Russian: Елéна Ивáновна Рéрих; 12 February 1879 – 5 October 1955) was a Russian theosophist, writer, and public figure. In the early 20th century, she created, in cooperation with the Teachers of the East, a philosophic teaching of Living Ethics (“Agni Yoga”).^[

Fannie Lou Hamer Townsend; October 6, 1917 – March 14, 1977) was an American voting and women’s rights activist, community organizer, and a leader in the civil rights movement.

Jarena Lee  (1783 – ?) was a nineteenth century African-American woman who eloquently described her mystical experience  in her autobiography, Religious Experience and Journal of Mrs. Jarena Lee.  Lee was the first African American woman to have an autobiography published in the United States.

Thakar, Vimala
born 15 April 1921 Ramnavmi day at Bilaspur and died on 11 March 2009 at Falgun Poornima at Mt. Abu) was an Indian social activist and spiritual teacher. Born into a middle-class family living at Akola city in Maharashtra state in India, she was interested in spiritual matters from an early age. She pursued this interest with meditation and spiritual practices throughout her youth.^[1] She post graduated in Eastern and Western philosophy, Dr. Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan was one of her professors.

Later she became active in the Bhoodan (Land Gift) Program. This program, led by Vinoba Bhave, persuaded landlords to give land to poor farmers. Through the 1950s, several million acres of farmland were so redistributed