La Rosa di Paracelso 1/2018 The Divine Feminine and Pistis Sophia: motherhood, sexuality, and theosophical Gnosticism in Frances Swiney’s feminism Jessica Albrecht By the end of the nineteenth century, a transformation of Britain’s spiritual culture was underway, in particular through an increase in esoteric and occult movements. 1 At the same time, British feminists started to publicly claim and fight for equal rights and enfranchisement. As noted by various scholars, becoming a member of the Theosophical Society (TS) was not uncommon for British first wave feminists. 2 The TS was founded in 1875 in New York by Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (1831-1891) and Colonel Henry Steel Olcott (1832-1907), as an alternative religious movement devoted to forming a universal brotherhood and to “encourage the study of comparative religion, philosophy and science”. 3 The TS played a major role in combining western esotericism and occultism such as spiritualism, “Neoplatonism, Renaissance magic, Kabbalah, and Freemasonry together with ancient Egyptian and Greco-Roman mythology joined by Eastern doctrines taken from Buddhism and Advaita Vedanta to present the idea of an ancient wisdom handed down from prehistoric times.” 4 This dialogue between western esotericism and romantic ideas of the Orient was influential in the globalisation of esotericism. 5 In general, the TS was attractive for women 1 Laura Schwartz, Infidel Feminism: Secularism, Religion and Women’s Emancipation, England 1830-1914 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2013), 20; J. Jeffrey Franklin, Spirit Matters: Occult Beliefs, Alternative Religions, and the Crisis of Faith in Victorian Britain (London: Cornell University Press, 2018), passim. 2 Joy Dixon, Divine Feminine: Theosophy and Feminism in England (Baltimore: The Johns Hop- kins University Press, 2001); Diana Burfield, “Theosophy and Feminism: Some Explorations in 19th century Biography,” in Women’s Religious Experience, ed. Pat Holden (London, 1983); Siv Ellen Kraft, The Sex Problem: Political Aspects of Gender Discourse in the Theosophical Society, 1875-1930 (PhD diss.: University of Bergen, 1999); Herman Erij Oscar de Tollenaere, The Politics of Divine Wisdom: Theosophy and Labour, National, and Women’s Movements in Indonesia and South Asia, 1875-1947 (Nijmegen: Katholieke Universiteit Nijmegen, 1996). 3 Helena P. Blavatsky, “Our Three Objects,” Lucifer (September 1889), 1-7. The TS saw itself as a Wisdom-Religion, a combination and advancement of science, religion and philosophy, H. P. Bla- vatsky, The Key to Theosophy (Pasadena: Theosophical University Press, 2002 [1889]), 13. 4 Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, The Western Esoteric Traditions: A Historical Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 212. 5 Goodrick-Clarke, The Western Esoteric Traditions, 213.