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It’s the great remix: Isis meets Instagram, the Oracle of Delphi runs a podcast, and the modern spiritual seeker is equipped with a guru, a moon app, and a social media strategy.

The New Age is what happens when women go to Burning Man or Glastonbury Well, and return as priestesses.

Contemporary spirituality in the West has been called the wellness industry, and it involves an ingredient from various traditions—often borrowed, re-assembled or self-invented and filtered through affirmation decks, oracle memes, and a merge of cacao ceremonies and ecstatic dance.

This isn’t entirely bad: the hunger is real, and the seeking is sincere. But when spiritual longing is shaped by market logic, it risks becoming performative instead of initiatory.

This is where the real work begins.

Not all that shimmers is gold. And in an age where the sacred has become stylised and the veil of mystery traded for visibility, this essay explores the delicate tension between reverence and performance.

What happens when spiritual practice meets spectacle; when devotion becomes Instagram content?

Perhaps because I’ve been based in Bali for the past month, the whopping gap between the richness of the rituals and traditions here, and the spiritual landscape of my own industrial Western culture is especially jarring. This is a topic that might stir things up a bit, but these are things I feel strongly about. This essay is intended as a call to reclaim something a little truer within the modern spiritual world.

On the full moon last week, I attended a Balinese ceremony marking the moment a newborn’s feet touch the earth for the first time. For the first 105 days of life, a baby is not allowed to touch the ground, because they are understood to still belong, in part, to the divine realm from which they came.

In this cosmology, the earth is not neutral. It is powerful, dense, and spiritually charged, and to touch it is to enter into the full conditions of incarnation. The ceremony, then, isn’t simply symbolic but preparatory. Offerings are arranged with care, prayers are spoken, holy water is used to purify and protect, and the child is gradually introduced to the world they are about to join.

I watched as the baby, dressed in ceremonial cloth, was carried slowly through the space and then lowered with a kind of deliberate tenderness, as though crossing a threshold. When his feet finally met the ground, it did not feel like a milestone in the modern sense, but something closer to an initiation—a quiet, cosmological acknowledgment that this being, who had hovered between realms, was now entering fully into human life.

I was struck not only by the ritual itself, but by the way it was held—or perhaps, not quite held—by those around it.

iPhones were everywhere. Not only in the hands of foreigners, which might have been easier to dismiss, but also among the Balinese themselves. Screens lifted almost instinctively, people leaning slightly out of the moment in order to capture it, as though the event needed to be secured elsewhere in order to be real.

The ceremony seemed to unfold along two parallel tracks: one grounded in lineage, timing, and inherited meaning, and another mediated through framing, recording, and the quiet anticipation of its afterlife as an image.

It is difficult to separate this from the influence of Western tourism, which brings with it a particular way of looking—one that turns experience into image, and image into currency. Over time, even the most intact traditions begin to feel that gaze, adjusting almost imperceptibly to its presence.

The ritual was still taking place, and the prayers were still being spoken, but they lacked a quality of attention. Something of the inwardness—the contained, almost sealed quality that gives a rite its depth—seemed to loosen as the moment opened itself to being seen, documented, and later shared.

I found myself wondering where the meaning of such a ritual now resides when it is simultaneously experienced and recorded. Whether the act itself remains primary, or whether it begins, even slightly, to bend towards its representation. And whether the presence of a future viewer—someone not yet watching, but implicitly anticipated—alters the field in ways that are difficult to name, but impossible to ignore.

The ritual exists to situate the child within a cosmology, to mark their entry into a world that is understood as layered, relational, and alive with unseen forces. It is an act of continuity as much as of beginning. And yet even here, within a living tradition that has retained so much of its structure and meaning, the conditions of modern visibility have begun to enter and disrupt.

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Divinity has gone viral

The sacred once moved in the hands of women who were rigorously prepared to know the names of trees and herbs and stars; to midwife the sacred thresholds of birth, death, and the mysteries of life itself; to read the movements of birds and bees and help communities make sense of our place within the greater whole.

Today, it arrives in an email funnel promising to awaken your inner Magdalene in three modules and a bonus Q&A.

Now, priestesses offer 6-week goddess activations for $1,111 and post selfies from sacred sites with hashtags like #blessedandbooked.

This is not a critique of devotion, but a question of what exactly we are selling—and what we have forgotten.

What happens when the great mystery is monetised, and priestesshood becomes branding? Is it possible to reclaim the sacred without repackaging it?

In the Tao Te Ching, Laozi writes:

Those who know do not speak.
Those who speak do not know.

Close the mouth,
Guard the senses1

There was a time when rites were held in secret spaces. Today, we scroll past photos of women anointing their faces with menstrual blood, hands lifted to the moon in choreographed reverence, and the body—like our modern advertising campaigns— used to sell anything from organic skin care activated with rose quarts, to natural fabrics that simulate the togas of priestesses from three thousand years ago.

The sacred has gone viral.

This is not a rejection of sacred embodiment or modern priestesshood, but it demands we ask: when ritual is performed for the camera, and mystery becomes a brand, what are we actually invoking? Divinity, or visibility? And who are the gods behind the latter? They are surely not divine…

A Return to the Priestess: what was she, really?

The religious historian Karen Armstrong describes the sacred role of priestesses in the ancient world as:

…not a role seized, but one conferred by long preparation and communal trust, often involving years of disciplined training and ceremonial readiness. This kind of priestesshood was deeply embedded in tradition, not declared by intuition alone.2

The scholar Joan Breton Connelly tells us that in the ancient world, priestesses underwent extensive and structured training before assuming any spiritual authority. She writes:

Initiation into the priesthood demanded rigorous preparation, ritual purity, and a demonstrated capacity to uphold the sacred traditions of the polis. It was not a title taken lightly, but one earned through deep responsibility and service.3

The word "priestess" has surged back into spiritual vocabulary with fierce longing. And rightly so. We need to restore our ritual attendants, or wise folk, our elders—the people of power that the various waves of suppression in Europe did so well at eradicating.

However, in ancient cultures, priestesses were not influencers. They were intermediaries between humans and the more-than-human worlds. They guarded the thresholds of temples, tended lunar calendars, harvested honey, guided the dying... Their work was often unseen. This is not because it was unimportant, but because it was too holy to be made a spectacle out of.

As the poet Octavio Paz teaches, ritual is not the act of appearing, but of disappearing:

The religious rite abolishes time and plunges the faithful into an archetypal and indestructible present.4

Modern priestesshood: power, branding, and performance

There was a time when to be called a 'priestess' required rigorous training, years of spiritual discipline, and formal initiation within a religious or ceremonial structure. There were vows and lineage holders to supervise the women being initiated.

In contrast, today, the title can be claimed by anyone who has attended (or hosted) a few full moon circles or attended a twelve-month “womb-priestess” training. There is little to no communal accountability, and very few thresholds that facilitators must cross before initiating others.

And so we find ourselves in a time where the uninitiated are initiating.

Not surprisingly, it’s causing a bit of chaos. The result is confusion, dilution, and spiritual inflation.

In myth, initiation was never casual. Psyche had to sort an entire mountain of seeds before she could earn a step closer to Eros. Inanna had to descend through seven gates and be stripped bare before returning from the Underworld. Persephone’s transformation, too, required a descent into the Underworld. These initiations were not self-declared; they were earned, suffered through and endured.

When we bypass these inner processes, we lose the gravity that gives spiritual authority its weight. And instead of priestesses, we end up with personas—untethered from lineage, yet claiming to guide others into sacred depths.

I remember once being invited to a ceremony held in a candlelit yurt, where the self-appointed 'high priestess' began the night by reciting a channeled invocation that sounded suspiciously like a cross between Pinterest affirmations and the introduction I’d recently heard to a TED Talk. She then proceeded to lead the group through a “womb rite” she had apparently received from a dream the week before.

There was no grounding, no sense of safety, and certainly no lineage.

I left that night feeling cheated; more disoriented than initiated, and with the quiet grief of knowing that something once ancient was being re-enacted without any roots. I felt no soul.

A series of experiences like these in the early days of my own spiritual seeking left me feeling hollowed and empty. Actually, they broke my heart.

We live in an era of reclamation. Women are remembering what was once banned and suppressed. But as priestesshood rises again, the line between sincere service and self-promotion blurs. We see women conveying supposedly ancient teachings from Egypt or Greece, but also wearing the subtle costume of the algorithm.

Who is the ritual on instagram for?

The land? The ancestors? Or the viewers watching through glass screens, hearts briefly stirred before scrolling on?

As Thomas Merton said:

There is a pervasive form of contemporary violence... [in] the overexposure of our lives.5

I wrote more about the modern distortions of the sacred here:

Alone in the God House

Gabriela Gutierrez

·

Feb 15

At the start of each week since beginning the Before Olympus series, a part of me descends into the damp underbelly of the old forest, and waits. This is the place where something of the first song still rings like a muffled bell. Where the Earth dreams out loud in glimmering creation stories that tell of acorns becoming oaks, the birth of bees, and the opening petals of love between first man and first woman.

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Ceremony for the camera: the ethics of photographing the sacred

In many initiatory and magical traditions, for instance within Celtic and Wiccan lineages, students are traditionally asked to remain in reflection and not speak of the ceremony for “a year and a day” following initiation. This sacred pause is meant to allow what has been received to settle and integrate, away from the eyes and opinions of the world. It is a time for rooting and integrating, not revealing; a space where the unseen is given the dignity of maturation.

As the Irish poet and philosopher John O'Donohue writes:6

There is a time for everything to ripen, and when you prematurely present something not yet ready, it betrays the sacredness of its own becoming.

In a culture of instant sharing, we must ask: what sacred work are we rushing to reveal before it has rooted in us?

It’s not only about what we share, but when.

Poet Rainer Maria Rilke reminds us of the sacred timing required for true expression:

Everything is gestation and then bringing forth. To let each impression and each embryo of a feeling come to completion, entirely in itself, in the dark, in the unsayable, the unconscious, beyond the reach of one’s own understanding… and wait with deep humility and patience for the hour when a new clarity is born: this alone is what it means to live as an artist: in understanding as in creating.7

It is one thing to share the fruits of sacred work. It is another to make the sacred itself into content.

The image of a woman anointing herself with her menstrual blood may be powerful and real. But when it’s posted within minutes of a ritual’s end, or during the ritual itself, what part of the rite remained intact? What part was performed with the viewer already in mind?

Our behaviour changes when we know we are being watched.

Mystery traditions—both ancient and indigenous—often held that power resides in what is veiled, unnamed, and protected.

Perhaps what we receive in moments of genuine spiritual engagement is not always meant for public display. Some things are meant for our eyes only—for the quiet chamber of the soul, not the stage.

As Emily Dickinson reminds us:

The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind.8

The body as bait: when nudity becomes branding

There is a power in reclaiming the body, in celebrating flesh as sacred rather than sinful. But there is a growing trend in which women's bodies are used not to express the sacred, but to attract attention under the guise of spirituality.

Nude photos in ceremonial settings, sensual self-portraits framed as priestess practice, or staged rituals where the body becomes a brand asset—these raise important questions.

Is the body being honoured, or, once again, used? When we collapse sensuality and spirituality into performance for visibility and ‘likes’, we risk turning devotion into a curated seduction that draws the viewer into a personal agenda.

Who is the performance for? Who is watching, and why?

The rise of spiritual business has allowed many to live their soul's calling. But it has also invited the sacred into the marketplace. Today, we can purchase priestess trainings, moon rituals, blood rites and Magdalene codes all wrapped in scarcity marketing and highly stylised photography.

To be clear: Sacred work is not above being paid for, but when the mysteries are flattened into a sales funnel, we must ask: what are we selling? And what is being lost in translation? As Bell Hooks warned:

When commodified, even resistance becomes a product.9

So, what can actually be reclaimed?

To critique is not to condemn. This is a call to deeper discernment. Sacred work can be shared with integrity. It can be witnessed without being performed. But it asks us to root below the surface into deeper presence, listening, and right-relationship.

We might ask before filming or photographing a ceremony: Is this mine to share? Is the ritual complete within me first? Who is this really for?

If you’re reading this and are a facilitator in the wellness-industry, I invite you to sit with these further questions:

• Where do I draw the line between sacred sharing and sacred stewardship?

• What is the difference between being witnessed and performing?

• What forms of guidance, supervision, or lineage truly hold my practice?

• What am I accountable to beyond myself?

There is a particular magic that takes place when we experience the sacred privately; when we allow it to remain unspoken, and intact—an encounter simply between us and the numinous. As Hafez wrote some seven centuries ago:

Go on! Go on! Go on! Find God and tell no one.

Monthly Poem

I happened to be standing, by Mary Oliver

I don't know where prayers go,
or what they do.
Do cats pray, while they sleep
half-asleep in the sun?
Does the opossum pray as it
crosses the street?
The sunflowers? The old black oak
growing older every year?
I know I can walk through the world,
along the shore or under the trees,
with my mind filled with things
of little importance, in full
self-attendance. A condition I can't really
call being alive.
Is a prayer a gift, or a petition,
or does it matter?
The sunflowers blaze, maybe that's their
way.
Maybe the cats are sound asleep.
Maybe not.
While I was thinking this I happened to
be standing
just outside my door, with my notebook
open,
which is the way I begin every morning.
Then a wren in the privet began to sing.
He was positively drenched in
enthusiasm,
I don't know why. And yet, why not.
I wouldn't persuade you from whatever
you believe
or whatever you don't. That's your
business.
But I thought, of the wren's singing, what
could this be
if it isn't a prayer?
So I just listened, my pen in the air. 

Self-Study Courses & Lectures On Demand

Three of my online courses are available in self-paced format, so you can journey through the material in your own time:

• DARKNESS DREAMING | Three-week journey into a new relationship with the archetype and symbology of Darkness, not as something fearful, but as a womb-like, fertile, and illuminating ally. Through animistic methodologies, we explore how darkness can reveal the self beneath layers of conditioning and trauma, and how to weave its guidance into everyday life

• THE THREE SECRET SELVES | A month-long exploration of the mythic idea of the polytheistic self—that we are made of many parts: human, animal, and angelic. Across three weeks, we uncover these hidden aspects through myth, story, dreamwork, and soul flight, learning to form a living relationship with our secret selves.

• THE BEE PRIESTESSES | 8 videos exploring the tradition of the Melissae of the ancient Aegean. This self-paced course is designed for participants to move through at your own rhythm, with eight 2.5-hour video sessions, guided homework, reading materials, and dreamwork practices to explore between modules.

• WHEN WOMEN WERE THE SHAMANS | Lecture series tracing the forgotten lineages of female shamans across prehistoric cultures, uncovering their roles as healers, seers, and guardians of the sacred.

VIEW ALL COURSES & LECTURES