The Feminine Mystic

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Even so, as a feminist, Flinders is well aware of the mysogynistic aspects of the major religions. But what about her own practice? Is there also something inherently anti-feminist about a life given to spiritual contemplation?

In her book, Flinders boils the problem down to its simplest terms. Spiritual seekers must learn to be silent, restrain the ego, resist desire, and remove themselves from the world. But the feminist credo is just the opposite: Find your voice, know who you are, reclaim your body and its desires, and move in the world freely, without fear. In the feminist view, she adds, 'unless a woman can choose them freely, knowing that she could come and go as she likes, say what she wishes, and be somebody, then her apparent embrace of those renunciations is relatively meaningless and surely can't be expected to bear fruit.'

For Flinders, the simple act of defining this paradox was the first step toward resolving it. She eventually concluded that, for her, feminism and spirituality 'were mutually necessary: for either to be fully realized, both would have to be accommodated.' Both originated in the same deep desire for self-knowledge and meaning. And both could be used to mend her broken ties to other women.

Connection is a recurring theme for Flinders: connecting with worshipers of other faiths, connecting with women of other ages, connecting with deeper awareness in herself. Yet another connection is the wide-scale one she'd like to see someday between her two passions. Something similar has happened before, she notes, in the work of Mahatma Gandhi and the American civil rights movement. 'Feminism will really catch fire,' she concludes, 'when it re-establishes itself as a resistance movement based in spirituality.

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