The wisdom beyond

the witch

article by Viviana Adame

The Three Fates \n Alexander Rothaug, c. 1910 \n Public Domain. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

I have heard many girls in our generation joke that they would have been burned in the witch trials centuries ago. While the literal flames are gone, women who challenge intellectual boundaries can still face judgment, not by fire but by dismissal. Throughout history, women whose work engaged with spirituality, symbolism, or metaphysics were often dismissed as mystics, irrational thinkers, or witch-like figures. Yet many of them were engaged in rigorous philosophical exploration.

On International Women’s Day it is worth asking a simple question. Why is intellectual work taken seriously when it comes from philosophers, yet dismissed as mysticism when it comes from women? Questioning that label invites a closer look at the women whose work has too often been placed outside the realm of serious thought. Across different periods and disciplines, many produced ideas that were every bit as rigorous and intellectually ambitious as those we readily recognize as philosophy.

I. Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (1648–1695, New Spain, modern-day Mexico)

Portrait of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz \n Miguel Cabrera, 1750 \n Public Domain. Source: Wikimedia Commons

One of the earliest examples that comes to mind when thinking about brilliant women intellectuals is Sor Juana. Although she is widely recognized as a pioneer of women’s writing and a central figure in Latin American literature, it is worth emphasizing the philosophical and theological depth of her work. When I was first introduced to her, I was not aware of how rigorous her intellectual pursuits were. She was often framed simply as a nun or a poet.

Yet in Primero Sueño she writes verses such as, “Luchó la mente por ascender a la verdad, pero fue detenida por sus límites,” meaning “The mind struggled to ascend to truth but was halted by its limits.” The poem reflects on the limits of human reason and the endless pursuit of knowledge. Her relationship with the divine was equally complex. As a nun she was devoted to her faith, yet she approached theology with deep intellectual curiosity, seeing reason and faith not as opposites but as intertwined paths toward truth.

Yes, she wore the habit, but she was also a formidable intellectual. Revisiting her work invites us to recognize her not simply as a religious figure or literary voice, but as a thinker engaged with some of the most enduring philosophical questions about knowledge, reason, and the nature of the divine.

II. Hilma af Klint (1862–1944, Sweden)

A woman artist I recently rediscovered and became fascinated by is Hilma af Klint. She was indeed a mystic, deeply involved in spiritualism and Theosophy, and she believed her work was guided by higher spiritual forces. Yet through this framework she developed a remarkably intricate cosmology, a symbolic system exploring dualities, spiritual evolution, and unseen structures of reality.

Hilma af Klint Paintings for the Temple, installation view \n Photograph by Ryan Dickey, 2018 \n CC BY 2.0. Source: Wikimedia Commons

Today she is often described as a pioneer of abstract art, possibly predating figures such as Wassily Kandinsky, though this remains debated. Af Klint left behind extensive notebooks explaining the metaphysical ideas behind her paintings. She believed the visible world was only one layer of reality and that art could serve as a language for expressing deeper spiritual truths.

At her request much of her work remained unseen for decades after her death. When it was finally exhibited widely, most notably in the Guggenheim exhibition Hilma af Klint: Paintings for the Future, audiences began to recognize the philosophical ambition behind her work. Yes, she was a mystic, but her paintings reveal a sophisticated attempt to visualize metaphysical ideas. Through color, geometry, and symbolism she transformed abstract cosmological concepts into visual form.

III. Maruja Mallo (1902–1995, Spain)

Maruja Mallo was a major figure of the Spanish avant garde and a member of the Generation of 27, yet her legacy is often overshadowed by her male contemporaries. Her work explored ritual, geometry, mythology, and the relationship between human life and cosmic order. In series such as La religión del trabajo she examined the dignity of labor and the symbolic structures underlying everyday life.

Because of the surreal and symbolic nature of her work she was sometimes described as eccentric rather than taken seriously as an intellectual artist. Yet Mallo’s paintings reveal a highly structured vision of the world, one in which myth, modernity, and social life intersect. Revisiting her work reminds us that what is often labeled as eccentric in women’s art may in fact reflect a deeply considered philosophical worldview.

Portrait of Maruja Mallo \n Unknown photographer, 1928 \n Public Domain. Source: Biblioteca Nacional de España / Wikimedia Commons

The list of women whose intellectual work has been overlooked extends far beyond these examples. Artists such as Frida Kahlo, Remedios Varo, and Leonora Carrington explored symbolism, metaphysics, and the inner dimensions of experience in ways that were often described as eccentric or mystical rather than philosophical.

Philosophy itself offers an interesting starting point for this question. In classical Athens, Aspasia was known for her intellect and rhetorical skill, and some ancient sources suggest she may have influenced the thinking of Socrates. Whether this claim is fully verifiable or not, the possibility is striking. If a woman could have shaped thought at the very origins of Western philosophy, why has women’s intellectual lineage been so easily sidelined?

Aspasia Conversing with Socrates and Alcibiades \n Nicolas André Monsiau, 1801 \n Public Domain. Source: Wikimedia Commons

Even today philosophy remains a field largely dominated by men, where the topics traditionally explored and valued often reflect male perspectives. Meanwhile thinkers such as Clarice Lispector, whose writing engages deeply with existence, consciousness, and the metaphysical dimensions of everyday life, are rarely placed alongside the canonical philosophers whose questions they resemble in depth and ambition.

This imbalance is not accidental. As Simone de Beauvoir famously argued, women have historically been positioned as “the Other” in intellectual life. Within this framework, forms of knowledge associated with women such as intuition, spirituality, symbolism, or emotion are often treated as secondary to the rational traditions that dominate academic philosophy.

Philosophy and Christian Art \n Daniel Huntington, 1868 \n Public Domain. Source: Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Yet this distinction is far less clear than it appears. Many of the women discussed here were engaging directly with metaphysics, cosmology, and the nature of reality. Their ideas were rigorous even when expressed through poetry, painting, or symbolism. Perhaps the question is not whether their work belongs within philosophy, but why the boundaries of philosophy have been drawn so narrowly in the first place.

The Fortune Teller \n Alfred Jones (engraver) after S. Jones, 1842 \n Public Domain. Source: New York Public Library Digital Collections

Woman Having Her Palm Read \n Harry Herman Roseland, 1906 \n Public Domain. Source: New York Public Library Digital Collections

Seen in this light, the figure of the witch begins to look different. Historically the witch was imagined as a woman with access to hidden knowledge, someone who understood nature, symbols, and the unseen forces of the world. In other words, a woman whose way of knowing did not fit comfortably within the accepted intellectual order.

The True Trinity in True Unity \n Hildegard of Bingen, c. 1165 \n Public Domain. Source: WikiArt

Many of the women explored here were not witches, of course, but their work was often treated in a similar way. Fascinating, mysterious, even eccentric, yet somehow outside the realm of serious thought. Reexamining their ideas invites us to ask whether the label of mysticism has sometimes functioned less as a description and more as a way of dismissing knowledge that did not emerge from traditional centers of power.

Sombra proyectada de Milvia Maglione \n Lourdes Castro, 1966 \n Fair Use. Source: WikiArt

Perhaps the women joking today about being burned in the witch trials are not entirely wrong. The flames may be gone, but the suspicion toward certain forms of knowledge still lingers. Paying closer attention to the intellectual contributions of women does more than correct the historical record. It expands the boundaries of thought itself and reminds us that the search for knowledge has never belonged to one voice alone.