Re-envisioning female power: Wildness as a transformative re-source in contemporary women's spirituality

Abstract

Bricolage, the mixing of diverse religious resources, has been highlighted as a key process in contemporary spiritualities. Since, in this process, historically or culturally distant and foreign traditions are self-referentially drawn upon as representatives of a true spirituality deemed lost in the materialistic West, exoticism has further been identified as its core feature. In this article, through an in-depth ethnographic study, I examine operations of bricolage and exoticism in spiritual women workshops in North Western Europe that focused on the trope of the "wild woman."In particular, I highlight the transformational power of these retreats in reference to Michael Taussig's notion of mimesis as a sensuous embodiment of imagined otherness. I argue that, through enacting wildness in their bodies, the participants were overtaken by their own - historically determined - imaginations of primitiveness and naturalness, which not only created new visions of the feminine and female power, but also led to important life changes.