In this edition of Women In History, celebrating intuitive and spiritual women from the past, I want to tell you about a book I am currently reading that is a fascinating record of the history of several women who were considered prophets. The book is ‘Voices of Thunder’, Radical Religious Women of the Seventeenth Century by Naomi Baker.
When considering spiritual and intuitive women in history, it is inevitable that we have to know about those who considered themselves religious. Whilst I do not align myself with any religion or God, yet consider myself intuitive and spiritual, that is because I have the choice to create my own belief system. My spirituality is that there is an Other Worldly that can help and support us, but our ancestors really did not have such a choice. The women in this book were religious in that they believed in God, but they were also rebellious. They chose to follow new ways of praising God and joining churches that were dissenting from traditional worship. As well as being rebellious, in today’s view of the world we could also see them as feminists, women who were prepared to ‘stand their ground’. Why should God only choose to talk to men? As the women in this book point out, women are just as worthy to have visions and to also speak to God.
The author has used some wonderful historic sources that most of us would never know about or have access to, that tell us about the lives of these women. Their religious experiences were profound and whilst they had supporters, of course there were authorities and organisations that saw them as problematic. Potential witches, women ready to subvert the traditional order of religion and the rights of men.
As well as reading about the visions of these women, we learn about how they started preaching. I find it hard to conceive of how much courage it must have taken these women to live their truth at such a time in the world. Then I remember, when we are truly connected to something bigger than ourselves, to something beyond us, we can never deny it. These women knew they had to follow their destiny, knowing that at any time they could be arrested and imprisoned and even worse, lose their life.
Voices of Thunder is a wonderful book to learn about intuitive and spiritual women in history, but also has a place as book that fills more gaps about the history of women in our world.
I purchased my copy of Voices of Thunder from Bookshop.org: Buy books online. Support local bookshops.
Thanks for reading. Ruth