Mystics and Visionary Women

Teresa de Cartagena (Burgos, c.1425–?) was a Spanish writer, mystic and nun who is considered to be the first Spanish female writer and mystic. She became deaf between 1453 and 1459. Her experience of deafness influenced her two known works Arboleda de los enfermos (Grove of the Infirm) and Admiraçión operum Dey (Wonder at the Works of God). The latter work represents what many critics consider as the first feminist tract written by a Spanish woman.

Saint Teresa of Ávila (1515–82), was one of the great mystics and is a patron saint of Spain. She was the foundress of the reformed, or Discalced, Carmelites. She was born in Avila, in Castile, into an aristocratic family, and in her childhood showed a strong religious bent. Her decision to become a nun was inspired by reading the letters of S. Jerome when recovering from an illness, and after gaining her father's unwilling consent she entered the Carmelite convent of the Incarnation in 1535. From 1536 to 1539 she lived at home during an illness, but then returned to the cloister. Her convent was of the relaxed discipline, and she began to practise mental prayer. In 1555 she experienced an inner conversion which profoundly changed her spiritual life.

María de Jesús de Ágreda (1602 – 1665), was a Franciscan abbess and spiritual writer, known especially for her extensive correspondence with King Philip IV of Spain and reports of her bilocation between Spain and New Mexico. She was a noted mystic of her era. A member of the Order of the Immaculate Conception, also known as Conceptionists, Mary of Jesus wrote 14 books, including a series of revelations about the life of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Her bilocation activity is said to have occurred between her cloistered monastery in rural Spain and the Jumano Indians of central New Mexico and West Texas, as well as Tucson, and inspired many Franciscan missionaries in the New World. In popular culture since the 17th century, she has been dubbed the Lady in Blue and the Blue Nun, after the color of her order's habit.

Ursula de Jesús (1604–1668) was a Roman Catholic mystic of African descent in 17-century Peru. She was born in Lima, Peru, and was the legitimate daughter of Juan Castilla and Isabel de los Rios. Isabel de los Rios was a slave, leaving Ursula to inherit her mother's status. Ursula de Jesus was an African Peruvian who rose out of slavery to become a donada (religious servant) in the Roman Catholic Church. She lived under her mother's owner, Gerónima de los Rios, until she was roughly eight years old. The daughter of slaves, her first experience with mysticism was when she became the property of Luisa de Melgarejo Sotomayor, a mystic and beata, lay pious woman, in Lima.