ABSTRACT
The Work of Imagination, in various guises, both psychoanalytical and philosophic, is at the heart of Irigaray’s project. In Between East and West, Irigaray proposes that a woman who is ‘faithful to herself’ is ‘close to Eastern cultures, close to the Buddha, who, moreover, venerates the feminine spiritual. Irigaray has been somewhat at a loss to provide specific images from traditional Christianity to illustrate these new forms of relationship. Irigaray, however, no longer confines her imaginative explorations on this topic to Western civilisation. Irigaray is particularly interested in two interrelated aspects of Indian/Hindu culture and their importance for providing data on the subject of a female divine, and a divine couple. Irigaray also recognises that the breath is of utmost importance in this yogic/ tantric discipline of spiritual transformation. Irigaray, in her concern for the spiritual aspects of tantric Hinduism, does not question other aspects of the tradition that are less favourable for women.
