ABSTRACT
Of course, the religious turn in literary and cultural studies promises a new – if still open – perspective on culture that takes into account the recent proliferation of texts and other media dealing with “religion.”3 However, instead of enlarging the perspective of cultural studies, this religious turn is really in danger of constricting its focus by a too-narrow definition of
religion. The esoteric/occult spectrum of religion especially is in serious danger of being occluded, even though it is a statistically vibrant part of the return of and to the religious.4 And it is in particular women’s alternative spiritual and occult approaches that again tend to be marginalised or even excluded altogether from analysis and debate. Because it is women’s occult texts that constitute a major part of the occult literary text production throughout the modern and postmodern periods, the return of the occult should not be addressed without attention to their writing.
