ABSTRACT
After the death of her merchant first husband, the nonconformist Hannah Allen pondered about the relationship between the carnal and the spiritual, concluding that "the Soul of Man hath a singular affection for its own Body". Allen demonstrated a particular concern with the actual workings of the soul and the body in preparing the individual for salvation as well as her agency in it. Jerald Brauer located early mystical elements in Puritanism as springing primarily from a reaction to extreme literalism, gaining strength with Bernard of Clairvaux and medieval German mysticism. The psychoanalytical connections between mysticism and gender have long been explored by post-structuralist feminist scholars, especially with regard to language, desire, and the body. Gender equality for women begins in the realm of the spirit, and prophecy acts as a platform where a woman can claim her spiritual status as a speaker of minds and souls for her benefit and that of her community and the world at large.
