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INFORMATION TO USERS This manuscript has been reproduced from the microfilm master. UMI films the text directly from the original or copy submitted. Thus, some thesis and dissertation copies are in typewriter face, while others may be from any type of computer printer. The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bleedthrough, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction. In the unlikely event that the author did not send UMI a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Oversize materials (e.g., maps, drawings, charts) are reproduced by sectioning the original, beginning at the upper left-hand comer and continuing from left to right in equal sections with small overlaps. Each original is also photographed in one exposure and is included in reduced form at the back of the book. Photographs included in the original manuscript have been reproduced xerographically in this copy. Higher quality 6” x 9” black and white photographic prints are available for any photographs or illustrations appearing in this copy for an additional charge. Contact UMI directly to order. UMI A Bell & Howell Infonnaticn Company 300 North Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor MI 48106-1346 USA 313/761-4700 800/521-0600 ELIZABETH KELLY: CONTEMPORARY SPIRITUAL TEACHER AND HEALER DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fullfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Roseanne Rini, B.S. Ed., M.A. ***** The Ohio State University 1997 Dissertation Committee: Professor Amy Shuman, Adviser /\pproveaApproved oy by Professor Valerie Lee ^ » AdviserA c ^ r Professor Barbara Rigney English Graduate Program DMI Number; 9801772 Copyright 1997 by Rini, Roseanne All rights reserved. UMI Microform 9801772 Copyright 1997, by UMI Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. UMI 300 North Zeeb Road Ann Arbor, MI 48103 Copyright by Roseanne Rini 1997 ABSTRACT Feminist scholars use oral history research to document the lives of women, lives that have been left out of traditional historical accounts. This dissertation is an oral history study of the life and teachings of Elizabeth Kelly, a spiritual teacher and healer who lives in Yellow Springs, Ohio. My goal was to learn how she came to the role of spiritual teacher and healer and in doing so to contribute to knowledge of women in healing roles, their spiritual lives and life stories. Drawing upon social science methods such as ethnography and life history, I conducted interviews with Elizabeth Kelly which are the basis of two narrative chapters illuminating, in her own words, the ways she came to occupy her current role. I then analyze Elizabeth Kelly's life story from two perspectives: a feminist perspective, which examines the constraints that gender put upon her and her strategies for finding power and fulfillment within those constraints, particularly through the evolution of the role of teacher and healer; and a religious perspective, which looks at her life story and her taking on this role as a recovery narrative or a story of conversion. These two ii narratives not only illustrate different ways of "writing a woman's life," but also the differences between some feminist and religious perspectives. The study places Elizabeth Kelly in a tradition of women's healing and also examines her use of storytelling in perpetuating her world view. By inquiring into the ways that Elizabeth Kelly's world view and spiritual teachings may be compatible with feminism, especially with feminist spirituality, I show how the spiritual life can be a source of empowerment for women. Ill Dedicated to Pat IV ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I wish to thank my adviser, Amy Shuman, for her openness to the questions and concerns I brought to this study, and for her belief in and guidance of the project over many long years. I would also like to thank Valerie Lee and Barbara Rigney, the other members of my committee, for the time they each spent with me discussing the manuscript and making suggestions for its improvement. And I would like to express my appreciation to the Ohio State University Department of English for making it possible for me to complete my degree after an interruption of many years. My thanks to Gail Lichtenfels, owner of The Epic bookstore in Yellow Springs, Ohio, with whom I first discussed the idea for this project, and who encouraged me to do it. I am also grateful to Louise Douce and Terri Paul for emotional support and friendship; and to Terri for technological help as well; to my niece. Rose A. Rini, for her interest in the project and her support; to my brother, Victor P. Rini, for his belief in me and his encouragement of my work; and to my mother, Rose M. Rini, for her faith and her prayers. I thank my husband, Patrick B. Mullen, whose emotional, financial and technological support made this project possible. I thank Robert Kelly for his kindness, generosity and hospitality. And finally, I wish to express my deepest gratitude to Elizabeth Kelly for her generosity in sharing her life story with me, and for her patience over the years it took to complete the project. VI VITA October 8, 1946..................... Born, Cleveland, Ohio 1968.................................. B.S. Ed., Cleveland State University 1974.................................. M.A. English, The Ohio State University 1968 - 1 9 7 0 ..........................Classroom Teacher, John Dewey Elementary, Warrensville Heights, Ohio 1972 - 1 9 7 9 ..........................Graduate Teaching Associate, The Ohio State University 1980 - 1981 ..........................Adjunct Assistant Professor of Literature, Antioch College, Yellow Springs, Ohio 1981 - 1982 ..........................Lecturer, The Ohio State University 1982 - 1983 ..........................Visiting Assistant Professor of Literature, Antioch College, Yellow Springs, Ohio 1984 - present...................... Lecturer, The Ohio State University FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field: English Vll TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Abstract................................................. ii Dedication...............................................iv Acknowledgments.......................................... v V ita .................................................... vii Introduction............................................. 1 A Note to the Reader................................... 41 Chapters : 1. From This Distance in Time: A Reminiscence by Elizabeth Kelly.................. 42 2 . The Making of a Spiritual Teacher and Healer................................................85 Chronology.......................................... 118 3. Part 1: A Feminist Perspective................... 120 Part 2: A Religious Perspective.................. 144 4. Faith Stories....................................... 167 5. Elizabeth Kelly and Women's Healing............... 192 6. Conclusion.......................................... 243 Epilogue................................................278 APPENDICES Appendix A ............................................. 281 Appendix B ............................................. 290 Appendix C ............................................. 309 Bibliography........................................... 317 V l l l INTRODUCTION I met Elizabeth Kelly in the fall of 1982. I had just taken my first academic job as a Visiting Assistant Professor at Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio, where I was teaching courses in literature and women's studies. Yellow Springs, a village in southwest Ohio with a population of less than 5000, was a good place for me to be at this time in my life, a time shaped by my growing interest in feminism and the interdisciplinary field of women's studies, as well as by personal spiritual exploration, mostly of Eastern mysticism and New Age^ philosophies rather than the Christian, specifically Catholic, tradition in which I had been raised. Yellow Springs has a long heritage as a place of freedom and individual expression. It was once the site of a health spa and later a utopian community. It had also been "a way-station in the underground railroad," and "one of the first Ohio towns to desegregate its schools" (Yellow Springs 1987). A pamphlet by the Yellow Springs Chamber of Commerce states, "Yellow Springs is an intentional community, where people live because they want to be here" (Yellow Springs 1988). Reiterating this theme, Kent Bristol, Village Manager, said in an interview. People have to want to live here. .The people who live next door to you are likely to be unconventional in some way, even if it's just their dietary habits. A person who comes to live here has to be adventuresome. It's not a place where everybody is the same (Sloat 12) . Alternative lifestyles are evident in the active New Age community in Yellow Springs, which offers health food stores, a metaphysical bookshop, yoga classes and meditation groups. As an Ohio travel guides says, "Yellow Springs is uniquely itself, a village with a broad sense of democracy that encourages a diversity of lifestyles and a rare personal freedom" (Particular Places 3-4) . The village derives much of its reputation from Antioch College, founded in the 1850's by Horace Mann as "an experiment in egalitarian education.