WiseWomen · Wise Women: Beliefs and Networks of Female Spiritual Figures in Central European Vernacular Religion

Wise Women: Beliefs and Networks of Female Spiritual Figures in Central European Vernacular Religion

The Action looks to describe and understand the feminine aspects of spirituality, including magical practices, esoteric phenomena, and religious belief. To highlight these processes from the women’s perspective a specific actor of contemporary religion is put in the centre of attention: the wise woman. Present day wise women of urban and rural communities are experts of magic, religion and healing. Many of them also take up religious roles, such as prophetesses or priestesses. With the New Age vogue of alternative medicine, new religious movements, and alternative spiritualities their popularity is emerging. The Fellow conducting this research is particularly interested in 1) the roles that women take as religious actors, 2) the processes how women’s individual beliefs are created, 3) the way how women’s religious experience is born, expressed, and negotiated. To gain a deeper insight on these topics, the Fellow studies various types of present-day wise women in both urban and rural communities of Southwestern Hungary and Slovenia. She also seeks to find out, how wise women’s new-type, internet-based, globalized knowledge is produced, disseminated, and received. This research is socially relevant because female spirituality is rapidly evolving in contemporary Central European societies. Women’s spiritual communities contribute their social and psychological well-being and shape their attitudes towards physical and mental health issues. Women's expertise in present-day alternative and complementary medicine proves to be a rich repository that can be exploited by public health policy making. Objectives of this MSCA were 1) to chart historical source material and compile an inventory of wise women from the late medieval / early modern period up to the modern era; 2) to explore the social and virtual arenas where local and global ideas meet and are negotiated by internet ethnography; (3) to investigate present-day wise women’s religious ideas and activities, such as spiritual healing, afterlife belief, and ritual performances at sacred places by ethnographic research. The Action provided a deeper insight on the various roles that women may take in the field of religion. It explored how new religious movements encourage women’s religious creativity, provide them with religious agency and social power in contemporary Central Europe. Healing as one of the central fields of investigation proved to be a highly relevant choice during and after the pandemic. The ethnographic study of individual experts of healing and communities facilitating women’s social and physical well-being during the pandemic revealed women’s reactions, attitudes and strategies while coping the situation.

Data: CORDIS, © European Union