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Devi Viola Strepsata Voltairine has had an adventurous life, from running a BDSM dungeon in Chicago to waking up to bombs exploding while in Baghdad documenting everyday citizens during the U.S. invasion. From earning her MFA in film to writing two popular books on Gynarchy. From parenting her autistic child to leading her small Gynarchist Hive in Colorado.
As a girl, grown men made a habit of trying to destroy their lives at young Viola’s feet. Their hearts would burst open, their bodies on fire with arousal and longing, and their behavior would become obsessive and inappropriate. These adult men would literally cry with yearning to be near her. The strange, powerful effect she had on man after man was confusing. Until, at age 18, Viola Devi experienced Shaktipat while working as a museum guard looking after the relics of a Siva temple. Standing before the murtis, she describes suddenly falling into deep trances for many hours at a time, and being shown a blueprint of the nature of existence. She saw the Divine Feminine as the animating life energy of all matter, and her female body, and all female bodies, as uniquely designed to hold and direct this life energy. She saw all of human history in her own DNA. She saw a field of endless knowledge and memory accessible to all. She saw that the body and spirit were not two separate ideas. She saw that there are dimensions and senses our human minds are not yet able to perceive. She began to see and understand how erotic life energy of the Divine Feminine moved in every aspect of our lives, and how literally nothing could exist without it. Coming out of these trances inside the reconstructed temple within the museum, her body was rocked with spontaneous orgasms. It would take decades for her to find words to express the knowledge gifted to her during this experience.
Having grown up without the yoke of Abrahamic religion around her neck, she decided to study all of the world’s religions in college through their art and sacred texts. After earning her MFA, she dove more deeply into the study of Indian philosophy and Sanskrit via Oxford’s Hindu Studies program and then Maharishi International University. She found a framework and context that helped her intellectually grasp what had happened in those profound moments in the museum. She found words in Sanskrit that fit what she needed to express. She also discovered that the wisdom of traditions like the Trika school and Shaktism came close to matching what she had experienced directly. But rather than appropriate others’ traditions, she was inspired to create her own, as so many had before her. Her uniquely direct insight allowed her to become a consecrated Living Goddess.
Before founding the Devidasa Sacred Gynarchy at age 52, Viola Devi launched a private international organization called The Company, where women have their needs and desires served by a well-screened and carefully selected group of men. She has taught courses on female-led relationships for men and couples since 2018. She believes that Gynarchy begins at home, so she focused on promoting it through heterosexual romantic relationships. As she enters the second half of her life, her goal is to expand her plans from guiding personal relationships to creating a spiritual community and developing more collective experiences and spaces. Being both human and divine, Viola Devi spends her spare time reading, gardening, meditating, and creating podcasts. She is known to tell anyone who will listen that everything you need to know about life can be learned by growing a garden. She lives in Boulder with her beloved dasas. To know more about Viola Devi’s philosophy, read her book The Pillars of Gynarchy, available wherever you like to buy books (or at pillarsofgynarchy.com).
As a girl, grown men made a habit of trying to destroy their lives at young Viola’s feet. Their hearts would burst open, their bodies on fire with arousal and longing, and their behavior would become obsessive and inappropriate. These adult men would literally cry with yearning to be near her. The strange, powerful effect she had on man after man was confusing. Until, at age 18, Viola Devi experienced Shaktipat while working as a museum guard looking after the relics of a Siva temple. Standing before the murtis, she describes suddenly falling into deep trances for many hours at a time, and being shown a blueprint of the nature of existence. She saw the Divine Feminine as the animating life energy of all matter, and her female body, and all female bodies, as uniquely designed to hold and direct this life energy. She saw all of human history in her own DNA. She saw a field of endless knowledge and memory accessible to all. She saw that the body and spirit were not two separate ideas. She saw that there are dimensions and senses our human minds are not yet able to perceive. She began to see and understand how erotic life energy of the Divine Feminine moved in every aspect of our lives, and how literally nothing could exist without it. Coming out of these trances inside the reconstructed temple within the museum, her body was rocked with spontaneous orgasms. It would take decades for her to find words to express the knowledge gifted to her during this experience.
Having grown up without the yoke of Abrahamic religion around her neck, she decided to study all of the world’s religions in college through their art and sacred texts. After earning her MFA, she dove more deeply into the study of Indian philosophy and Sanskrit via Oxford’s Hindu Studies program and then Maharishi International University. She found a framework and context that helped her intellectually grasp what had happened in those profound moments in the museum. She found words in Sanskrit that fit what she needed to express. She also discovered that the wisdom of traditions like the Trika school and Shaktism came close to matching what she had experienced directly. But rather than appropriate others’ traditions, she was inspired to create her own, as so many had before her. Her uniquely direct insight allowed her to become a consecrated Living Goddess.
Before founding the Devidasa Sacred Gynarchy at age 52, Viola Devi launched a private international organization called The Company, where women have their needs and desires served by a well-screened and carefully selected group of men. She has taught courses on female-led relationships for men and couples since 2018. She believes that Gynarchy begins at home, so she focused on promoting it through heterosexual romantic relationships. As she enters the second half of her life, her goal is to expand her plans from guiding personal relationships to creating a spiritual community and developing more collective experiences and spaces. Being both human and divine, Viola Devi spends her spare time reading, gardening, meditating, and creating podcasts. She is known to tell anyone who will listen that everything you need to know about life can be learned by growing a garden. She lives in Boulder with her beloved dasas. To know more about Viola Devi’s philosophy, read her book The Pillars of Gynarchy, available wherever you like to buy books (or at pillarsofgynarchy.com).
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