Reincarnatiopedia

Natalia Beketova, a young woman from Anapa on Russia’s Black Sea coast, fainted during a school maths lesson and woke up speaking languages she had never studied. She went on to describe more than a hundred and twenty past lives, one for each language. In 2003 her story ran in the Russian newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda; … Read more

Several living religions were founded or led from the start by women. Mary Baker Eddy founded Christian Science, Ellen G. White co-founded the Seventh-day Adventist Church, Aimee Semple McPherson founded the Foursquare Church, Ann Lee led the first Shakers, and the Japanese farmer’s wife Nakayama Miki founded Tenrikyo. Helena Blavatsky co-founded the Theosophical Society, and … Read more

Women have led religious life since the earliest written records — as priestesses, prophets, judges, saints, teachers and founders of whole faiths. Yet in most of the world’s large religions the highest offices — the altar, the pulpit, the religious court — were for centuries reserved for men. This guide shows both sides: where and … Read more

Can a woman become a fully ordained Buddhist nun, a lama, even a Buddha? In Buddhism the answer has changed over 2,500 years — and it is still changing. The order of nuns, the bhikkhunis, began with the Buddha’s own foster-mother; in Tibet a line of female reincarnate lamas has continued since the fifteenth century; … Read more

Rabia al-Adawiya, also known as Rabia Basri or Rabia of Basra, was an eighth-century Muslim mystic and teacher from Basra in southern Iraq. Sufi tradition honours her as the first to teach the love of God for His own sake — not from fear of Hell, not for the reward of Paradise. A freed slave … Read more

Pope Joan is a medieval legend about a woman who disguised herself as a man, rose to become pope in the ninth century and was exposed when she gave birth during a procession in Rome. Historians agree she never existed: there is no gap in the list of popes where she could fit. Yet for … Read more

Was there once a time when humanity worshipped a Great Mother and women ruled? The idea is old and much loved. The archaeologist Marija Gimbutas argued that Neolithic “Old Europe” honoured a Goddess and was centred on women, until male warrior cultures replaced it. Most archaeologists today do not accept that there was a universal … Read more

Helena Blavatsky (1831–1891) was the Russian-born co-founder of the Theosophical Society and one of the people most responsible for bringing the words karma and reincarnation into everyday Western speech. Her view of rebirth changed over time: in Isis Unveiled (1877) she called reincarnation on Earth “an exception”, but in The Secret Doctrine (1888) and The … Read more

The first woman formally ordained a rabbi was Regina Jonas, in Germany on 27 December 1935. Long before her, a Kurdish scholar named Asenath Barzani headed a yeshiva in Mosul in the 17th century, and in the 19th century the “Maiden of Ludmir” led a Hasidic following of her own. Today women serve as rabbis … Read more

The Bible names five women as prophetesses in the Hebrew Scriptures — Miriam, Deborah, Huldah, the wife of Isaiah and Noadiah — and the New Testament adds Anna and the four daughters of Philip. Jewish tradition counts seven: the Talmud lists Sarah, Miriam, Deborah, Hannah, Abigail, Huldah and Esther. Some of these women judged a … Read more