Women Who Fly Goddesses Witches Mystics and Other Airborne Females 1st Edition by Serinity Young ISBN 9780190659707 019065970X

1. Earth, Sky, Women, and Immortality

Earth, Sky, and Birds

Magical Flight, Ascension, and Assumption

Dreams, Women, and Flying

Humans, Divinities, and Birds

Apotheosis

Birds

Bird Goddesses

PART I Supernatural Women

2. Winged Goddesses of Sexuality, Death, and Immortality

Isis

Women, Death, Sexuality, and Immortality

The Ancient Near East

Ancient Greece

Athena and the Monstrous-Feminine

Aphrodite

Nike

3. The Fall of the Valkyries

Brunhilde in the Volsungs Saga

Images and Meanings

Brunhilde in the Nibelungenlied

Wagner’s Brunhilde

4. Swan Maidens: Captivity and Sexuality

Urvaśī

Images and Meanings

Northern European Tales

Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake

Asian Swan Maidens

Feather Robes and Dance

Two Middle Eastern Tales

Hasan of Basra

Janshah

5. Angels and Fairies: Male Flight and Contrary Females

Angels and Demons

Fairies

Morgan le Fay

Fairy Brides

Asian Fairies

6. Apsarās: Enabling Male Immortality, Part 1

In Hinduism

Relations with Heroes

Seducing Ascetics

Kings, Devadāsīs, and Fertility

In Buddhism

Seductresses

The Saundarānanda

7. Yoginīs and Ḍākinīs: Enabling Male Immortality, Part 2

Tantra

Yoginīs

Yoginī Temples

Practices and Stories

Sexual Yoga

Taming

Ḍākinīs

Subduing

Tibetan Practitioners

Part II Human Women

8. Witches and Succubi: Male Sexual Fantasies

Medea

Ancient Witches and Sexuality

Circe

The Witch of Endor

Succubi and Incubi

Witches in Christian Europe

The Witches’ Sabbath

Women and the Demonic

Flying

9. Women Shamans: Fluctuations in Female Spiritual Power

The Nišan Shaman

Becoming a Shaman

Magical Flight, Ritual Dress, and Spirit Animals

Gender

Transvestism and Sex Change

Sexuality

10. Flying Mystics, or the Exceptional Woman, Part I

St. Christina the Astonishing

Flight and Sanctity

St. Irene of Chrysobalanton

St. Elisabeth of Schönau

Female and Male Mystics

Hadewijch of Brabant

11. Flying Mystics, or the Exceptional Woman, Part II

Islam

Rābi’ah al-‘Adawiyya

Other Aerial Ṣūfī Women

Daoism

Sun Bu’er

Daoist Beliefs and Practices

Buddhism

Human Ḍākinīs

Machig Lapdron and Chod Practice

12. The Aviatrix: Nationalism, Women, and Heroism

Wonder Woman

Amelia Earhart

Death and the Heroine

Hanna Reitsch

Women, Heroism, and Militarism

Conclusion

The Exceptional Woman

Women and War

Notes

Works Consulted

Index