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Drawing upon the rich inter-connected levels of meaning within the Fakir culture, especially with respect to the living, breathing paradigmatic Mother--as Nature, as the Goddess to be worshipped and as the mother whose service is her identity--The Goddess and the Slave demonstrates the crisis faced by the unique Baul-Fakir sadhana, by the non-urban Bengali, and by Indian society itself through the major changes brought by modernization and globalization.

Rudrani Fakir, as an anthropologist and as a practitioner, uses the Fakir sadhana as a critical tool of understanding, presenting this objective study through her highly engaged subjective perspectrive. The first part of this book outlines the Fakir society and esoteric sadhana. The second part delves into the decline and decay of the reality of the Goddess, the changing status of women and of the true nature of wealth, and draws together the threads of the old knowledge paradigms--esoteric and modern, spoken and wordless, powerless and empowered.