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The Politics of Women's Spirituality: Essays by Founding Mothers of the Movement

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This is a comprehensive, accessible collection of articles on a range of aspects of women's spirituality. I have had it for years, keep dipping back into it regularly for inspiration and stimulation. It is a fabulous book.

This book gives an in depth look at real women's spirituality and its very early beginnings. It gives one an understanding of where we lost our spirituality and how to gain it back. This is a must read for every woman who feels like something is missing as this book will help send you in the right direction to gain it back.

Charlene Spretnak (born 1946) is an author, activist, academic and feminist who teaches in the philosophy and religion department at the California Institute of Integral Studies. She was a co-founder of the Green Party in the United States, and is also the author of Relational Reality: New Discoveries of Interrelatedness That Are Transforming the Modern World, The Resurgence of the Real, Missing Mary: The Queen of Heaven and Her Re-Emergence in the Modern Church, etc., and primary author of GREEN POLITICS.

She wrote in the Introduction to the first (1982) edition of this book, "All of the pieces in this anthology are active rather than reactive, revolutionary rather than reformist, and express broad political awareness... The title 'The Politics of Women's Spirituality' refers to our attitude toward life on Earth (i.e., spirituality) and the perception, manifestation, and use of power (i.e., politics) that stem from that attitude."

Here are some quotations from the book:

"The centrality of IMMANENCE in feminist spirituality---that is, the recognition of the divine in all life forms---involves a rejection of the centrality in traditional Western religion of (male) transcendence of body and nature as the optimal spiritual path." (Pg. xiv)
"Goddess religion is unimaginably old, but contemporary Witchcraft could just as accurately be called the New Religion." (Pg. 50)
"The Goddess gives birth to a pantheon that is inclusive rather than exclusive; She is not 'a jealous God.'" (Pg. 179)
"...the re-sourcement is a movement of women, and that means that it has a strong and unashamed lesbian component." (Pg. 203)
"Of course, it is impossible to give definitive proof about the practice and beliefs of Witches who lived many years prior to the twentieth century. It is even impossible to decide whether or not the millions of so-called 'witches' who were brutally massacred in the Middle Ages at the urging of Christian clergymen were Witches at all." (Pg. 214)
"Without the politically motivated prohibitions against homosexuality enforced by partiarchal brotherhood, sisterhood must be firmly understood to include a sexual relationship, providing the emotional-spiritual ties and life-supporting strength of the sex bond." (Pg. 515)