My Personal Favorite Women Spiritual Leaders:

Amanda Yates Garcia

Mandi Em

adrienne maree brown


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Women Spiritual Leaders - Historical/Foundational

- Enheduanna (Sumerian high priestess, earliest known author in history, 23rd century BCE)

- Hatshepsut (Egyptian pharaoh, spiritual authority)

- Fatima bint Muhammad (Islamic spirituality, daughter of Prophet Muhammad)

- Mary Magdalene (Apostle to the apostles, Gnostic teacher - reclaiming her from patriarchal erasure)

- Perpetua and Felicity (Early Christian martyrs whose prison diary became spiritual text)

- Rabi'a al-'Adawiyya (Sufi mystic, 8th century)

- Hildegard of Bingen (Medieval Christian mystic, composer, herbalist, visionary)

- Mechthild of Magdeburg (Beguine mystic, author of The Flowing Light of the Godhead)

- Marguerite Porete (Beguine mystic, burned at stake for her spiritual writings)

- The Beguines (Medieval women's spiritual movement outside church control)

- Julian of Norwich (Christian mystic, Revelations of Divine Love)

- Catherine of Siena (Christian mystic, Doctor of the Church)

- Teresa of Avila (Spanish mystic, Interior Castle)

- Mira Bai (Bhakti poet, spiritual devotee, 16th century India)

- Kateri Tekakwitha (Mohawk-Algonquin Catholic mystic)

- Hypatia of Alexandria (Neoplatonist philosopher, mathematician, astronomer)

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Women Spiritual Leaders - Indian & Hindu Traditions

- Anandamayi Ma (Indian mysticism, 20th century)

- Holy Mother Sri Sarada Devi (Indian spiritual guide, wife of Ramakrishna)

- Mirra Alfassa ("The Mother," Sri Aurobindo Ashram)

- Gurumayi Chidvilasananda (Siddha Yoga)

- Amma – Mata Amritanandamayi (The Hugging Saint)

- Anandmurti Gurumaa (Indian contemporary mystic)

- Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi (Founder of Sahaja Yoga)

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Women Spiritual Leaders - Buddhist Traditions

- Dipa Ma (Theravada Buddhist, mindfulness teacher)

- Pema Chödrön (American Tibetan Buddhist nun, author of When Things Fall Apart)

- Lama Tsultrim Allione (Tibetan Buddhism, feminine lineage, Feeding Your Demons)

- Tara Brach (Compassion-based Buddhism, Insight Meditation)

- Sharon Salzberg (Insight meditation, loving-kindness practice, co-founder of Insight Meditation Society)

- Sylvia Boorstein (Buddhist teacher, psychotherapist)

- Joan Halifax (Zen Buddhist priest, end-of-life care pioneer, Upaya Zen Center)

- Diana Winston (Mindfulness teacher, UCLA Mindful Awareness Research Center)

- Jenée Johnson (Mindfulness and healing innovator)

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Women Spiritual Leaders - Christian Mystics & Theologians (Contemporary)

– Harriet Tubman (Liberationaist Extraordinaire)

- Mother Teresa (Compassion, service, Missionaries of Charity)

- Dorothy Day (Catholic Worker Movement, radical hospitality)

- Simone Weil (Mystic, philosopher, activist)

- Pauli Murray (First Black woman Episcopal priest, poet, activist, civil rights pioneer)

- Mary Daly (Radical feminist philosopher-theologian, Beyond God the Father)

- Rosemary Radford Ruether (Ecofeminist theologian)

- Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza (Feminist biblical scholar, In Memory of Her)

- Phyllis Trible (Feminist Old Testament scholar)

- Elaine Pagels (Gnostic Gospels scholar, reclaiming suppressed feminine Christian texts)

- Sue Monk Kidd (Feminine divine, The Dance of the Dissident Daughter)

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Women Spiritual Leaders - Islamic & Sufi (Contemporary)

- Amina Wadud (Islamic feminist scholar, female imam)

- Laleh Bakhtiar (First woman to translate Quran into English)

- Asra Nomani (Muslim feminist, women's mosque leadership)

- Camille Helminski (Sufi teacher, translator)

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Women Spiritual Leaders - Jewish Mysticism & Renewal

- Rabbi Shefa Gold (Jewish Renewal, chant, embodied prayer)

- Rabbi Tirzah Firestone (Kabbalah, psychology, healing)

- Rabbi Jill Hammer (Jewish earth-based ritual, Kohenet movement)

- Kohenet Hebrew Priestess Institute (Collective leadership reclaiming feminine Jewish spiritual authority)

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Women Spiritual Leaders - Indigenous & Cultural Wisdom Keepers

- Grandmother Agnes Baker Pilgrim (Takelma elder, International Council of Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers)

- Grandmother Flordemayo (Mayan elder, healer, Council of Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers)

- Luisah Teish (Ifa priestess, author of Jambalaya)

- Sobonfu Somé (Dagara elder, ritual keeper)

- Maria Sabina (Mazatec curandera, sacred mushroom ceremonies)

- Rigoberta Menchú (K'iche' Maya spiritual activist, Nobel Peace Prize)

- Wangari Maathai (Kenyan environmentalist with spiritual Earth-based practice, Nobel Peace Prize)

- Vandana Shiva (Ecofeminist, seed keeper, Earth democracy advocate)

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Women Spiritual Leaders - Goddess Spirituality & Earth-Based Traditions

- Merlin Stone (When God Was a Woman, archaeomythology)

- Marija Gimbutas (Archaeologist, Goddess culture researcher, The Language of the Goddess)

- Raine Eisler (The Chalice and the Blade, partnership societies)

- Barbara Walker (The Women's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets)

- Starhawk (Reclaiming Tradition Wicca, ecofeminist, activist, The Spiral Dance)

- Z Budapest (Dianic Wicca founder, feminist witchcraft)

- Margot Adler (Pagan priestess, author of Drawing Down the Moon)

- Mama Donna Henes (Urban shaman, ceremonialist)

- Monica Sjöö (Artist, The Great Cosmic Mother)

- Vicki Noble (Motherpeace Tarot, shamanic healer)

- Diane Stein (Women's healing, Reiki, Essential Reiki)

- Luisa Francia (Witch, author, feminist spirituality)

- Silvia Federici (Caliban and the Witch, analyzing witch hunts as war on women)

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Women Spiritual Leaders - Ecology & Deep Ecology

- Joanna Macy (Deep Ecology, The Work That Reconnects, systems thinking, World As Lover, World As Self)

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Women Spiritual Leaders - Human Potential & Transformational Work

- Jean Houston (Mysticism, Human Potential Movement, The Possible Human)

- Gabrielle Roth (5Rhythms movement meditation, ecstatic dance)

- Caroline Myss (Medical intuitive, energy medicine, Anatomy of the Spirit)

- Louise Hay (Affirmations, self-healing pioneer, You Can Heal Your Life)

- Marianne Williamson (A Return to Love, Course in Miracles teacher)

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Women Spiritual Leaders - Depth Psychology & Archetypal Work

- Clarissa Pinkola Estés (Women Who Run with the Wolves, Jungian analyst, cantadora)

- Marion Woodman (Jungian analyst, feminine psychology, addiction and embodiment)

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Women Spiritual Leaders - Healing, Embodiment & Somatics

- Resmaa Menakem (Somatic abolitionist, trauma healing, My Grandmother's Hands)

- Judith Herman (Trauma and Recovery, foundational trauma work)

- Pat Ogden (Sensorimotor psychotherapy, trauma healing)

- Françoise Bourzat (Indigenous wisdom, psychedelic healing, Consciousness Medicine)

- Rachel Yehuda (Trauma and epigenetics researcher)

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Women Spiritual Leaders - Mystics, Channels & Visionaries

- Eileen Caddy (Findhorn Foundation co-founder, inner voice guidance)

- Dorothy Maclean (Findhorn, communication with nature spirits and devas)
- Helen Schucman (A Course in Miracles channel)

- Jane Roberts (Seth Material channel, The Nature of Personal Reality)

- Esther Hicks (Abraham-Hicks teachings)

- Barbara Marciniak (Pleiadian teachings, Bringers of the Dawn)

- Lynn Andrews (Medicine woman teachings, though controversial)

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Women Spiritual Leaders - Visual Art & Spiritual Practice

- Hilma af Klint (Visionary spiritual art, abstract pioneer before Kandinsky)

- Pamela Coleman Smith (Tarot symbolism, Rider-Waite-Smith deck illustrator)

- Leonora Carrington (Surrealist, mystical artist)

- Remedios Varo (Mystical surrealist painter)

- Emma Kunz (Healer, geometric visionary art)

- Agnes Martin (Contemplative abstract painter)

- Georgia O'Keeffe (Spiritual landscape painting)

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Women Spiritual Leaders - Creativity as Spiritual Practice

- Shiloh Sophia (Intentional Creativity movement, Color of Woman)

- Julia Cameron (The Artist's Way, creativity as spiritual practice, morning pages)

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Women Spiritual Leaders - Literature & Spiritual Themes

- Octavia Butler (Spiritual themes in fiction, Parable series, Afrofuturism)

- Maya Angelou (Spiritual activism in poetry, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

- Toni Morrison (Spiritual themes in literature, ancestral wisdom, Beloved)

- Gloria Anzaldúa (Borderlands spirituality, Chicana mysticism, Borderlands/La Frontera)

- Cherríe Moraga (Chicana feminist spiritual activist, This Bridge Called My Back)

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Women Spiritual Leaders - Activism & Liberation Theology

- Malala Yousafzai (Peace, courage, education, youngest Nobel laureate)

- bell hooks (Love as spiritual practice, feminist Buddhism, All About Love)

- Audre Lorde (Erotic as spiritual power, Black feminist thought, Sister Outsider)

- Dolores Huerta (Farmworker activist with deep Catholic spiritual roots)

- Fannie Lou Hamer (Civil rights activist, spiritual warrior, "sick and tired")

- Coretta Scott King (Spiritual activist, peace movement)

- Ella Baker (Civil rights organizing with spiritual foundation)

- Grace Lee Boggs (Philosopher-activist, spiritual revolutionary, The Next American Revolution)

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Women Spiritual Leaders - Contemporary Teachers, Authors & Influencers

- Iyanla Vanzant (Spiritual counselor, Acts of Faith, Yoruba priestess)

- Glennon Doyle (Embodied spirituality, LGBTQ+ advocacy, Untamed)

- Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat Pray Love, creative spirituality, Big Magic)

- adrienne maree brown (Pleasure activism, emergent strategy, transformative justice, Pleasure Activism)

- Rachel Pollack (Tarot teacher, transgender spiritual writer, Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom)

- Karen Armstrong (Comparative religion scholar, A History of God, The Case for God)

- Sahara Rose (Embodied spirituality, Ayurveda, podcaster)

- Kate Northrup (Abundance and wellbeing, Do Less)

- Kristen Schwartz (Empathic teaching)

- Sarah Jenks (Sacred feminine ceremonies, Live More Weigh Less)

- Tita Angangco (Mindful leadership)

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Women Spiritual Leaders - Disability Justice & Neurodiversity

- Mia Mingus (Disability justice, transformative justice, spiritual practice)

- Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha (Care Work, disability justice as spiritual practice)

- Alice Wong (Disability Visibility Project, spiritual dimensions of disabled life)

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Women Spiritual Leaders - Psychedelic & Consciousness Work

- Rachel Harris (Listening to Ayahuasca, women's experiences with plant medicine)

- Zoe Helene (Cosmic Sister, women and psychedelics, ethnobotany)

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Women Spiritual Leaders - Tarot & Divination

(In addition to those already listed under Art)

- Mary K. Greer (Tarot scholar, Tarot for Your Self)

- Rachel Pollack (Already listed above - Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom)

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Nonbinary and Gender-Diverse Spiritual Leaders

- Jemima Wilkinson / Public Universal Friend (Genderless Quaker prophet, 18th century)

- We'wha (Zuni Lhamana - two-spirit person, cultural ambassador, 1800s)

- Two-Spirit elders and teachers (Collective recognition - many prefer not to be individually named by non-Indigenous people)

- Angel Kyodo Williams (Zen priest, Black, queer dharma teacher, Radical Dharma)

- Rev. Dr. Cameron Partridge (First openly transgender priest ordained in Episcopal Church)

- Rev. Megan Rohrer (First openly transgender bishop, ELCA)

- Ben Mann (Nonbinary pastor and chaplain)

- Katelyn Coburn (Nonbinary spiritual educator)

- Rae Strozzo (Nonbinary Buddhist teacher)

- Sand Chang (Nonbinary Buddhist teacher and organizer)

- Alok Vaid-Menon (Performance artist, spiritual activist, gender non-conforming wisdom)

- Ma Rainey (Blues singer, bisexual, spiritual influence through music)

- Gladys Bentley (Gender nonconforming performer, spiritual rebel)