| Women's spiritual experiences are under-theorized in philosophy and in thealogy. Drawing on contemporary women's stories of their exceptional spiritual experiences and the empirical evidence of new studies in science and parapsychology, this theoretical study seeks to answer the following questions: What worldview and philosophical paradigm might make women's exceptional spiritual experiences---such as nature mysticism; experiences of numinous others, including deities, spirits, and discarnate ancestors; experiences of transpersonal identification with others; and apparent out-of-body and life-after-death experiences---intelligible and coherent? And, how might this worldview shape an understanding of Goddess in post-traditional Goddess thealogy?;Beginning with the ecological postmodern epistemological stance of the ecofeminist philosopher Charlene Spretnak, I first conduct a spiritual feminist, integral, transpersonal phenomenological analysis of contemporary women's stories of their exceptional spiritual experiences, drawn from the literature of Women's Spirituality. I then undertake a spiritual feminist, integral, heuristic synthesis of these experiences, taking into account the evidence of new studies in science and parapsychology to identify a worldview in which these experiences might be intelligible and coherent. The resulting worldview is compatible with Spretnak's cosmological self-world gestalt and her organismic, radically nondual metaphysics.;This worldview can also be substantially expressed as a feminist process philosophy. The philosopher Alfred North Whitehead speculated that his process philosophy could theoretically explain experiences of telepathy and action at a distance. The philosopher of religion David Ray Griffin has proposed how process philosophy might support extrasensory perception (ESP) and psychokinesis, as well as experiences of life-after-death. However, he does not consider a broad range of women's exceptional spiritual experiences.;Next, using the methodologies of speculative philosophy, integral methodology, and the embodied thinking of Carol P. Christ, I develop an ecological-postmodern feminist process philosophy that I propose can make women's exceptional spiritual experiences intelligible and show how this worldview might explain a broad range of women's exceptional spiritual experiences.;Finally, I consider the implications of the cosmological self for post-traditional feminist Goddess thealogy, developing a conceptualization of Divinity that can support monotheistic, polytheistic, and non-theistic perspectives. |
