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"Amma, universally known as "The Hugging Saint, " went through a two-decade transformation from a simple fisherman's daughter to an international wonder worshiped by millions. Gail "Gayatri" Tredwell was there every step of the way{u2014}from early devotee to head female disciple, ever-present personal attendant, handmaiden, whipping post, and unwilling keeper of some devastating secrets. At age nineteen, when she was a happy-go-lucky, adventurous lass from Australia, Tredwell never imagined that she would soon be trading her free spirit and skimpy clothing for a life of submission in an ankle-length sari. Her eager decision to serve the young "saint" began with innocence and a pure desire to please her new guru. In time, the relationship transformed into virtual enslavement in which Tredwell was on call 24/7 and worked herself nearly to death in the hope of finding God. Because she became fluent in the Malayalam language and had continual intimate proximity to Amma for twenty years, Tredwell is uniquely capable of portraying this famous woman. She tells her tale with straightforward honesty, fairness, and a dash of Aussie snap and wit. Although the guru{u2019}s flaws are a necessary part of her story and awakening, she strives to be factual throughout, digging deep to eschew victim frameworks and take responsibility for her own role in accepting the abuse and perpetuating the lies. The book evokes the joys of early devotional life and vibrant images of rural India. Through Tredwell's eyes, we watch a modest and traditional ashram metastasize into a business-oriented, bustling, mega-international organization. We also see how such a dizzying rise created vast opportunity for abuse, deceit, and hypocrisy. Tredwell takes us vividly through her varying stages, starting with naïveté and innocent devotion, then on to dawning awareness and confusion, finally to emotional breakdown and her shocking "enlightenment"{u2014}her realization that the liberation she urgently required was is in fact liberation from her own guru. In a gradual yet determined struggle, she managed to untangle herself from the web of myth and indoctrination. Only then was she able to muster her battered but not quite broken spirit and plot her escape. Gail's flight to freedom{u2014}her victorious recovery from a life of abuse and disillusionment{u2014}displays extraordinary strength and inspiring courage."--Publisher description.

Spiritual life --- Women mystics --- Women religious leaders --- Vie spirituelle --- Femmes mystiques --- Femmes chefs religieux --- Hinduism --- Biography --- Hindouisme --- Biographies --- Amritanandamayi, --- Tredwell, Gail, --- testimony --- Amma --- ashram --- guru --- Doubt --- escape

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Amid political innovation and social transformation, Revolutionary America was also fertile ground for religious upheaval, as self-proclaimed visionaries and prophets established new religious sects throughout the emerging nation. Among the most influential and controversial of these figures was Jemima Wilkinson. Born in 1752 and raised in a Quaker household in Cumberland, Rhode Island, Wilkinson began her ministry dramatically in 1776 when, in the midst of an illness, she announced her own death and reincarnation as the Public Universal Friend, a heaven-sent prophet who was neither female nor male. In The Public Universal Friend, Paul B. Moyer tells the story of Wilkinson and her remarkable church, the Society of Universal Friends. Wilkinson's message was a simple one: humankind stood on the brink of the Apocalypse, but salvation was available to all who accepted God's grace and the authority of his prophet: the Public Universal Friend. Wilkinson preached widely in southern New England and Pennsylvania, attracted hundreds of devoted followers, formed them into a religious sect, and, by the late 1780's, had led her converts to the backcountry of the newly formed United States, where they established a religious community near present-day Penn Yan, New York. Even this remote spot did not provide a safe haven for Wilkinson and her followers as they awaited the Millennium. Disputes from within and without dogged the sect, and many disciples drifted away or turned against the Friend. After Wilkinson's "second" and final death in 1819, the Society rapidly fell into decline and, by the mid-nineteenth century, ceased to exist. The prophet's ministry spanned the American Revolution and shaped the nation's religious landscape during the unquiet interlude between the first and second Great Awakenings. The life of the Public Universal Friend and the Friend's church offer important insights about changes to religious life, gender, and society during this formative period. The Public Universal Friend is an elegantly written and comprehensive history of an important and too little known figure in the spiritual landscape of early America.

Women and religion --- Women evangelists --- Women religious leaders --- Evangelists --- Religious leaders --- Religion and women --- Women in religion --- Religion --- Sexism in religion --- History --- Wilkinson, Jemima, --- United States --- Church history --- Universal Friend, --- Publick Universal Friend, --- Public Universal Friend, --- PUF,

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In this book, historians of religion and gender studies explore the biographies of a number of female leaders, and the factors within their groups and cultural contexts that support these women’s religious leadership. New Religious Movements have been supportive of women taking roles of leadership for a long time. Authors of this book examine issues of gender and female leadership from diverse theoretical and methodological standpoints. The book covers a broad range of groups both with regard to time and place, covering Paganism, Hindu guru groups, Christian organizations, esoteric/ mystical movements, African churches, and a Japanese NRM. The common focal point is the powerful, prophetic, charismatic women who have founded and/ or led New Religious Movements.

Cults. --- Women religious leaders. --- Religious leaders --- Alternative religious movements --- Cult --- Cultus --- Marginal religious movements --- New religions --- New religious movements --- NRMs (Religion) --- Religious movements, Alternative --- Religious movements, Marginal --- Religious movements, New --- Religions --- Sects --- Gender identity-Religious aspect. --- Religion and Gender. --- Gender identity—Religious aspects.

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"From the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries, women across northern Europe began committing their visionary conversations with Christ to the written word, requiring multiple transformations: divine speech into human language, aural event into textual artifact, visionary experience into linguistic record, and individual encounter into communal repetition. This ambitious study shows how women's visionary texts form an underexamined literary tradition within medieval religious culture, one which became both widespread and influential, reconfiguing traditional hierarchies and positions of spiritual power for female authors and readers in ways that reverberated throughout late-medieval literary and religious cultures. In translating their visionary conversations with Christ into vernacular text, medieval women turned themselves into authors and devotional guides, and formed their readers into textual communities shaped by gendered visionary experiences and spoken imitatio Christi. Comparing texts in Latin, Dutch, French, and English, this work explores how women's visionary translation of Christ's speech initiated larger transformations of gendered authorship and religious authority within medieval culture. The book will interest scholars in different linguistic and religious traditions in medieval studies, history, religious studies, and women's and gender studies."

Jesus Christ / Apparitions and miracles / History / To 1500 --- Visions / History / To 1500 --- Women / Religious life / History / To 1500 --- Visions --- Women --- Visionaries --- Women religious leaders --- 248-055.2 --- 248-055.2 Vrouwen en spiritualiteit --- Vrouwen en spiritualiteit --- Religious leaders --- Persons --- Apparitions --- Human females --- Wimmin --- Woman --- Womon --- Womyn --- Females --- Human beings --- Femininity --- Parapsychology --- Religion --- History --- Authorship --- Religious life --- Jesus Christ --- Christ --- Cristo --- Jezus Chrystus --- Jesus Cristo --- Jesus, --- Christ, Jesus --- Yeh-su --- Masīḥ --- Khristos --- Gesù --- Christo --- Yeshua --- Chrystus --- Gesú Cristo --- Ježíš --- Isa, --- Nabi Isa --- Isa Al-Masih --- Al-Masih, Isa --- Masih, Isa Al --- -Jesus, --- Jesucristo --- Yesu --- Yeh-su Chi-tu --- Iēsous --- Iēsous Christos --- Iēsous, --- Kʻristos --- Hisus Kʻristos --- Christos --- Jesuo --- Yeshuʻa ben Yosef --- Yeshua ben Yoseph --- Iisus --- Iisus Khristos --- Jeschua ben Joseph --- Ieso Kriʻste --- Yesus --- Kristus --- ישו --- ישו הנוצרי --- ישו הנצרי --- ישוע --- ישוע בן יוסף --- المسيح --- مسيح --- يسوع المسيح --- 耶稣 --- 耶稣基督 --- 예수그리스도 --- Jíizis --- Yéshoua --- Iėsu̇s --- Khrist Iėsu̇s --- ‏عيسىٰ‏ --- Apparitions and miracles --- Christian dogmatics --- Christian church history --- anno 500-1499 --- Visions -- Europe --- Littérature chrétienne médiévale --- Femmes et littérature -- Europe --- Femmes mystiques -- Europe --- Mystique