This paper analyzes esoteric ways of knowing in Mormonism to illuminate how particular LDS women have synthesized, supplemented, or replaced Mormonism with elements of twenty-first century New Spirituality. The New Spirituality is the current generalized spiritual milieu in the United States: dynamic, competitive, flexible, and hybrid—an inclusive category that can cover the wide range of non-institutional options available to Americans for spiritual self-expression as well as innovative theological trends in institutional religions. It can represent what Americans once considered New Age practices and ideas such as astrology, reincarnation, channeling, and divination (the belief in and use of which are diffuse in American culture). It can also refer to what has become a revitalization of established religious traditions in America toward a progressive, more humanistic spirituality.

Doe Daughtrey