Was Mary Magdalene also Mary of Bethany? For centuries, the Church merged them—then modern scholarship pulled them apart. But what if the split itself hides a deeper mystery? Explore the sacred tension of names, memory, and Magdalene’s towering presence at the heart of Holy Week.
I have been wanting to write you the last couple days and request, please tell me about Mary of Bethany and Mary Magdalene. And look at this! This is so helpful!! As I read your post, I asked myself why I need to know. The first answer that came was “to get it right” but hidden in there was, “to be right.” The gentle rebuke of *actual righteousness emerged: I wish to be right-minded, dwelling in the consciousness of love, willing and humble. So even in trying to understand who she is, she’s helping me understand who I am. Thank you for your role in that. (Now can you tell me about the long hair? 😌 I want to understand the significance, since this is one of the things that is used to prove that she was “a sinner”!)
Angela, that honesty is the heart of it. Not trying to be right, but re-minded. That’s where Magdalene does her best work.
About the long hair. When the unnamed woman in Luke 7 lets down her hair to anoint Jesus, it was bold. Publicly unbinding your hair was intimate, even shocking. But Jesus saw love, not shame.
Later, Mary of Bethany does something similar in John 12, and again, it is honored. The act wasn’t sinful. It was sacred. The sinner label came later, when the church got nervous about women holding spiritual authority.
Her hair didn’t prove her guilt. It crowned her devotion.
As an aside - one hook the scripture had for me which led me to acknowledge truth in them (not literally) was that there were women in the story at all. Given the invisibility of women in that time (and subsequent history) I found that amazing. Also that Jesus is shown to have a totally different approach to women as human with a soul. Amazing even that much survived even if it has not be applied.
The fact that any women remained in the story at all is a kind of quiet resurrection. The redactors tried to erase them, but something deeper kept slipping through — a voice, a presence, a tenderness too rooted in truth to fully silence.
And Jesus seeing women not as objects or footnotes but as soul-bearers and truth-tellers? That still startles me. Not because it feels unusual, but because it feels so deeply right... and yet still so rare.
What survived in the text is only a glimpse. But even that glimpse is enough to stir something ancient in us.
Grateful you’re here to help carry the remembering.
Thank you VMB, you have touched on this before but the added clarity is much appreciated as is bringing the feminine into focus in the Christian Scriptures. I believe the sacred feminine is emerging again, and not only in Christianity, to guide us towards a better world.
Steve, thank you. Yes, she’s rising — not as an idea but as a memory the world is finally ready to hold again.
The sacred feminine was never missing from the story. She was written out of the version we were told to memorize. Magdalene, Sophia, Shekinah — they were always there, waiting for the page to turn.
Well, I’ve been hiding in My Secret Garden for days now, waiting for something to compel me to jump back into the conversation. My mind is exhausted…I’ve been digging back into your earlier scrolls…printing the ones that have “pinged” my body, a quiet noticing on my part that “there’s something here meant for me.” Even more interesting to me, is after that, I scoured your writings for reflective questions you have asked at the end of your scrolls. They now have their own tab in my notebook of scrolls I keep re-reading. If I read carefully I can find your questions lurking quietly, but perhaps not yet ready for prime time featuring as your conclusions? Request of you to ponder: generate 2-3 questions that might potentially take us deeper into our own noticing of the state of our embodiment of the Mary. My husband, Bill, Episcopal Priest, would often conclude his sermons with a question to ponder, one to which I did not have a quick knee-jerk response. My choice, then, whether to search my own depths, looking for my own responses (which I now know from you, David Whyte, Caroline Myss, Teresa of Avila) come from God, who resides in the deepest part of my Soul. ”The part of me that already knows,” Davis Whyte. Not surprisingly, this plunge always leads to more questions!!! Damn! How can I possibly integrate anymore new learning, at this rapid pace, without collapsing into a hovel in my bed with my head aching and my jaw tense from wrestling all night with all these pieces that seem to each be meant for me? But, I digress.
I had a quick answer to why the male patriarchy would prefer 3 different women acting out this play, rather then celebrating the joy inherent in one’s own learning process: it’s called “divide and conquer.” Comes from minds, usually old (white) men who are scared shitless of losing power over their constituents. In my case, women. Their wrong belief is that we live in a win/lose life: the only way I win is if you lose. The pie of resources is finite. Spoils go to the strong. Books have been written by military on war strategies whose goal is to defeat the enemy. My whole professional corporate career was attempting to teach people in the hierarchy that there is actually MORE to be gained when we approach life and work with a win/win perspective. Blessedly, a few “got it,” thanks to some brilliantly-designed experiential games intact teams could play…which generate the “AHA’s” that are life-changing. But, I digress again.
So, silly me, it’s obvious to me (knowing nothing of the details of which you research and posit theories). My BEING knows that Mary is ONE. Do I want to believe it! YES! Does every voice emanating from body scream, YES. I plan to ask Mary for her input, just-in-case I’m missing something; if I am, I will humbly thank her for pointing out my own hubris. In my coach training I learned the biggest gift I could offer someone at the conclusion of our session was a profoundly deep question to which they had no answer. We would open our next session with what my client experienced answering this question. I would assure them only they had the answers to the questions. I don’t have answers, only questions.
So my head still hurts, my jaws are still stiff, but I’m hoping Tylenol and time outdoors in my Secret Garden, with Jessie, will allow my tensions to melt. I can also sit quietly, do some deep breathing in-and-out of my heart and just listen. As a last resort, I’ll find a good uplifting movie to watch tonight, with one glass of champagne to toast the miracle of all the doors that are opening for me. My Guardian Angels will help me to assimilate each new next step, to an as-yet unknown destination. Gee, maybe the journey IS the destination? Interesting question, huh? Sure is fun!❤️🙏❤️😎🐶
Sandra, your entire comment reads like a scroll that fell out of the Magdalene’s satchel and landed in the Secret Garden.
You’ve named the ache and the awe of this work so well. The feeling of your body “pinging” when truth brushes past — yes, that’s the Magdalene frequency. She doesn’t shout. She stirs.
Your request is a holy one, and it lands deep. I have been planting those quiet questions, half-hidden like seeds, hoping someone would notice they were not just conclusions but invitations.
So here are three, offered back to your notebook:
What parts of me have I exiled that Mary might still call sacred?
When I speak of embodiment, whose voice am I letting return to the body first — mine, or hers?
What if the remembering of Mary is not about theology, but about healing our nervous systems?
Thank you for trusting the tension, the ache, the garden, and the champagne. All of it is part of the remembering.
To say I am grateful to have you walking with us on our unique paths…well, I can only call our meeting a miracle. As I used to say to myself, usually in the women’s room stall where I could be alone for 30 seconds before I walked into a high stakes meeting of mostly white male engineers where I was the facilitator: “God, you got me this far, please don’t leave me now!” You know what? The outcomes of these minds coming together where there was tremendous disagreement, often came out better than anything I could have ever imagined going in. Yep! Miracles! I also want to give a shout-out to you for making our discussions with you (I always feel as if I’m making a personal journal entry) open for all of us to share. I seem to also learn from everyone who replies. Now, I’m off to contemplate your questions. Since none of the answers are obvious to me, I know they’re good ones for me!❤️🙏❤️
Glad you jumped back into the conversation. Caroline Myss & Teresa of Avila are two of my girls (Mirabai Starr is the third thanx to Caroline) & I hope the Tylenol works in your Secret Garden & I just love love love reading what you share. Hope you found a good uplifting movie if a last resort was needed & enjoyed that glass of champagne. 🍾💖
Thank you sooooo much. I’m not holding back nor trying to impress anyone…well OK I do have a special place in my Personal Journal for thevirginmonkboy. He manages in each response to take me to my edges, which is where I have lived most of my adult life. The easy-way-out never made sense to me. Why bother?! I want to get as much as I can out of this precious life of mine. My mantra given to me early in my 30’s…by my very intuitive acupuncturist. She knew my body, and so always seemed to know where my challenges were! “…it’s not the easy nor convenient life for which I search, but life lived to the edge of all my possibilities.” The edges I find now appear as doors to the unknown. I am being encouraged by my Guardian Angels to open them. I’m living one day at a time, taking my time to take the next step on my path which is a mystery unfolding under my feet. And, I’m having more fun than I could have ever imagined! I’ll be looking for you in the Comments! ❤️🙏❤️😎🐶
I feel so much the same Sandra. The last few years of my life have been . . . unsettling. My spiritual life has been the biggest part of me for a long time but the last several years I’ve had one life challenge after another coming from every direction and there has hardly been time to gather my wits and strength before I’m faced with yet another one. It’s been impossible to have the quiet solitude I need, time alone to contemplate, to journal, to meditate, to just think. I haven’t felt like the human “being” I want to be but rather have felt like I’ve backslidden into being nothing more than a human doing. I’ve been “drowning” in a way. Some days there has only been a few moments upon wakening to turn my heart and mind inward to connect with Love and seek spiritual softening and wisdom to face whatever the day holds. It’s only been the last few months that life has become more manageable and I’ve had more time to just think. To realize that in no way have I been alone in all that has happened. The Book of Stories mentions “a great cloud of witnesses” which the religion I once was part of perpetrated as a fearful thing where every move I make is being watched, documented and judged. NOW I think of my personal “great cloud of witnesses” as “my team” - heavenly beings that include Papa/Mama God or Love, Jesus, Spirit, my ancestors, and many angels - light bringers, mind protectors, guardians, comforters and encouragers. I don’t understand how this can be I just know it is. It is They who have guided me through some pretty terrible times and now I’ve reached a time of rest, and oasis of being able to have solitude and time to read and journal again. And contemplate the miracle of how every trial and heartache has brought me to this place where I’ve found Virgin Monk Boy and this community. (Or perhaps it is they who found me in this mystical journey🙏😌) The revelations about Magdalene/Mary fill my heart with serenity, hope, affirmation, joy and feminine comfort that we/women are indeed valued, wanted, needed, even anointed in the Kingdom of Grace and Goodness. We are neither wrong nor disgraceful in admitting that we are called and have a place in sharing the Good News in spite of patriarchal misogyny that has worked so hard to intimidate, devalue and keep us down. We’ve been told to shut up and sit down and have it drilled into us that if we want to contribute something it will be in the kitchen, cleaning the bathroom, obeying husbands and caring for children. But our “knowers” have always known better. Learning about Magdalene and all the other women is just amazing. I’m at a loss for descriptive words. All I know is my cup runneth over. 🙏😌☺️
VMB; Very thought provoking and thank you. I know of a very traditional Catholic priest who is of the belief that they are one and the same. In your mind; what is the nature of the 'seven devils"? I know some attribute this to sexual sinfulness but an interesting premise that I have read is something of a nature of being involved in some sort of occultist activity? Your thoughts. appreciated.
The tradition that conflates Mary Magdalene with the “sinful woman” and folds in Bethany’s Mary is rooted more in interpretive anxiety than in the text itself. That mash-up came centuries later, mostly to flatten her into something manageable.
As for the seven devils, no, I don’t think it’s about sexual sin, and I’m even more skeptical of the occultist angle. That language reflects how we read possession through a modern filter. In the ancient world, "demons" were often metaphors for psychological fragmentation, trauma, or the grip of oppressive systems.
Evagrius called them logismoi—inner thought-forms or passions that distort perception. Seen through that lens, Christ casting out seven devils could symbolize the full liberation of the inner self. Magdalene isn’t a cautionary tale. She’s a prototype of awakened consciousness.
Thank you. Regards occultism the reference was to the 'hocus pocus' as I would call it, that was being practiced by the leaders of the day; as I was coached on this matter by a very solid priest of whom I refer to as a mentor.
That whole theory about Mary Magdalene being tied to occult practices is pure projection—19th-century fearmongering dressed up in church clothes. It's not in the text. It's not in the early tradition. It's not even good folklore.
Magdalene is the first apostle. Not a sex object. Not a sinner-in-chief. And definitely not a scapegoat for the stuff men were too scared to face in themselves.
Thank you. This helps me immensely. I have struggled with CPTSD, depression, recovery from abuse and what it does to your psyche whether you’re a child or an adult. In some of the church settings I’ve experienced, seeking professional psychological assistance was taboo. I was “diagnosed” as “just” having demons that only they could “cast out”. The things they said I had to do and things they did to me drove me to the brink of insanity!! Sweet Jesus! The cry of my heart in THEIR insanity. Leaving all that, keeping “the baby” of Love and Truth while “throwing out the bath water” was the best thing I ever did. I’ve been blessed with wonderful counselors who along with my spiritual life have brought me into a place of blessed balance. (Well, somewhat🤣) Healing to me is a journey and the work of a lifetime - something that keeps growing and releasing, and expanding both physically and mentally. . I love the concept of “remembering” who I am. I love remembering Mary/Magdalene, who she was and is, and all she has modeled. How her spirit both calls to us and, I think, lives within us! I am so happy and grateful to find myself in this place at this time with you and this growing community. 🙏♥️
I love this view of the Marys! And to reclaim Mary the Tower just feels so right. It makes sense to me that the offical recorders of the stories would fragment the female characters into smaller bits - it's a pretty effective way of diminishing their presence and the power of their witness.
The first time I read Woman with the Alabaster Jar I found myself longing for a feminine expression of the Divine. I'm still longing for her, and am grateful for your pointings to Magdalen's continuing presence in the tradition.
Yes, fragmentation was the strategy. Diminish the whole by scattering the parts. Turn a tower into rubble, then claim there was never anything standing.
Woman with the Alabaster Jar cracked open that same longing in me too. It’s not just about recovering a figure. It’s about recovering the feminine current that was buried with her.
And she’s still here. Not waiting to be found, but waiting to be recognized.
HOW DO YOU DO THAT
I have been wanting to write you the last couple days and request, please tell me about Mary of Bethany and Mary Magdalene. And look at this! This is so helpful!! As I read your post, I asked myself why I need to know. The first answer that came was “to get it right” but hidden in there was, “to be right.” The gentle rebuke of *actual righteousness emerged: I wish to be right-minded, dwelling in the consciousness of love, willing and humble. So even in trying to understand who she is, she’s helping me understand who I am. Thank you for your role in that. (Now can you tell me about the long hair? 😌 I want to understand the significance, since this is one of the things that is used to prove that she was “a sinner”!)
Angela, that honesty is the heart of it. Not trying to be right, but re-minded. That’s where Magdalene does her best work.
About the long hair. When the unnamed woman in Luke 7 lets down her hair to anoint Jesus, it was bold. Publicly unbinding your hair was intimate, even shocking. But Jesus saw love, not shame.
Later, Mary of Bethany does something similar in John 12, and again, it is honored. The act wasn’t sinful. It was sacred. The sinner label came later, when the church got nervous about women holding spiritual authority.
Her hair didn’t prove her guilt. It crowned her devotion.
Thank you. It is more to ponder.
As an aside - one hook the scripture had for me which led me to acknowledge truth in them (not literally) was that there were women in the story at all. Given the invisibility of women in that time (and subsequent history) I found that amazing. Also that Jesus is shown to have a totally different approach to women as human with a soul. Amazing even that much survived even if it has not be applied.
Celia, yes. That’s exactly it.
The fact that any women remained in the story at all is a kind of quiet resurrection. The redactors tried to erase them, but something deeper kept slipping through — a voice, a presence, a tenderness too rooted in truth to fully silence.
And Jesus seeing women not as objects or footnotes but as soul-bearers and truth-tellers? That still startles me. Not because it feels unusual, but because it feels so deeply right... and yet still so rare.
What survived in the text is only a glimpse. But even that glimpse is enough to stir something ancient in us.
Grateful you’re here to help carry the remembering.
Thank you VMB, you have touched on this before but the added clarity is much appreciated as is bringing the feminine into focus in the Christian Scriptures. I believe the sacred feminine is emerging again, and not only in Christianity, to guide us towards a better world.
Steve, thank you. Yes, she’s rising — not as an idea but as a memory the world is finally ready to hold again.
The sacred feminine was never missing from the story. She was written out of the version we were told to memorize. Magdalene, Sophia, Shekinah — they were always there, waiting for the page to turn.
“ tension not as a problem to solve, but as a doorway into the sacred mystery of transformation.
one half of a sentence
neatly packing in an entire orbit of discovery
It’s the kind of line that doesn’t resolve, just reverberates. Tension as threshold. Not a flaw in the story, but the story’s hinge.
Thank you for catching it like that. You heard it the way it was meant.
♥️
I love that. 🙏
Well, I’ve been hiding in My Secret Garden for days now, waiting for something to compel me to jump back into the conversation. My mind is exhausted…I’ve been digging back into your earlier scrolls…printing the ones that have “pinged” my body, a quiet noticing on my part that “there’s something here meant for me.” Even more interesting to me, is after that, I scoured your writings for reflective questions you have asked at the end of your scrolls. They now have their own tab in my notebook of scrolls I keep re-reading. If I read carefully I can find your questions lurking quietly, but perhaps not yet ready for prime time featuring as your conclusions? Request of you to ponder: generate 2-3 questions that might potentially take us deeper into our own noticing of the state of our embodiment of the Mary. My husband, Bill, Episcopal Priest, would often conclude his sermons with a question to ponder, one to which I did not have a quick knee-jerk response. My choice, then, whether to search my own depths, looking for my own responses (which I now know from you, David Whyte, Caroline Myss, Teresa of Avila) come from God, who resides in the deepest part of my Soul. ”The part of me that already knows,” Davis Whyte. Not surprisingly, this plunge always leads to more questions!!! Damn! How can I possibly integrate anymore new learning, at this rapid pace, without collapsing into a hovel in my bed with my head aching and my jaw tense from wrestling all night with all these pieces that seem to each be meant for me? But, I digress.
I had a quick answer to why the male patriarchy would prefer 3 different women acting out this play, rather then celebrating the joy inherent in one’s own learning process: it’s called “divide and conquer.” Comes from minds, usually old (white) men who are scared shitless of losing power over their constituents. In my case, women. Their wrong belief is that we live in a win/lose life: the only way I win is if you lose. The pie of resources is finite. Spoils go to the strong. Books have been written by military on war strategies whose goal is to defeat the enemy. My whole professional corporate career was attempting to teach people in the hierarchy that there is actually MORE to be gained when we approach life and work with a win/win perspective. Blessedly, a few “got it,” thanks to some brilliantly-designed experiential games intact teams could play…which generate the “AHA’s” that are life-changing. But, I digress again.
So, silly me, it’s obvious to me (knowing nothing of the details of which you research and posit theories). My BEING knows that Mary is ONE. Do I want to believe it! YES! Does every voice emanating from body scream, YES. I plan to ask Mary for her input, just-in-case I’m missing something; if I am, I will humbly thank her for pointing out my own hubris. In my coach training I learned the biggest gift I could offer someone at the conclusion of our session was a profoundly deep question to which they had no answer. We would open our next session with what my client experienced answering this question. I would assure them only they had the answers to the questions. I don’t have answers, only questions.
So my head still hurts, my jaws are still stiff, but I’m hoping Tylenol and time outdoors in my Secret Garden, with Jessie, will allow my tensions to melt. I can also sit quietly, do some deep breathing in-and-out of my heart and just listen. As a last resort, I’ll find a good uplifting movie to watch tonight, with one glass of champagne to toast the miracle of all the doors that are opening for me. My Guardian Angels will help me to assimilate each new next step, to an as-yet unknown destination. Gee, maybe the journey IS the destination? Interesting question, huh? Sure is fun!❤️🙏❤️😎🐶
Sandra, your entire comment reads like a scroll that fell out of the Magdalene’s satchel and landed in the Secret Garden.
You’ve named the ache and the awe of this work so well. The feeling of your body “pinging” when truth brushes past — yes, that’s the Magdalene frequency. She doesn’t shout. She stirs.
Your request is a holy one, and it lands deep. I have been planting those quiet questions, half-hidden like seeds, hoping someone would notice they were not just conclusions but invitations.
So here are three, offered back to your notebook:
What parts of me have I exiled that Mary might still call sacred?
When I speak of embodiment, whose voice am I letting return to the body first — mine, or hers?
What if the remembering of Mary is not about theology, but about healing our nervous systems?
Thank you for trusting the tension, the ache, the garden, and the champagne. All of it is part of the remembering.
Grateful for your presence on this path.
To say I am grateful to have you walking with us on our unique paths…well, I can only call our meeting a miracle. As I used to say to myself, usually in the women’s room stall where I could be alone for 30 seconds before I walked into a high stakes meeting of mostly white male engineers where I was the facilitator: “God, you got me this far, please don’t leave me now!” You know what? The outcomes of these minds coming together where there was tremendous disagreement, often came out better than anything I could have ever imagined going in. Yep! Miracles! I also want to give a shout-out to you for making our discussions with you (I always feel as if I’m making a personal journal entry) open for all of us to share. I seem to also learn from everyone who replies. Now, I’m off to contemplate your questions. Since none of the answers are obvious to me, I know they’re good ones for me!❤️🙏❤️
Glad you jumped back into the conversation. Caroline Myss & Teresa of Avila are two of my girls (Mirabai Starr is the third thanx to Caroline) & I hope the Tylenol works in your Secret Garden & I just love love love reading what you share. Hope you found a good uplifting movie if a last resort was needed & enjoyed that glass of champagne. 🍾💖
Thank you sooooo much. I’m not holding back nor trying to impress anyone…well OK I do have a special place in my Personal Journal for thevirginmonkboy. He manages in each response to take me to my edges, which is where I have lived most of my adult life. The easy-way-out never made sense to me. Why bother?! I want to get as much as I can out of this precious life of mine. My mantra given to me early in my 30’s…by my very intuitive acupuncturist. She knew my body, and so always seemed to know where my challenges were! “…it’s not the easy nor convenient life for which I search, but life lived to the edge of all my possibilities.” The edges I find now appear as doors to the unknown. I am being encouraged by my Guardian Angels to open them. I’m living one day at a time, taking my time to take the next step on my path which is a mystery unfolding under my feet. And, I’m having more fun than I could have ever imagined! I’ll be looking for you in the Comments! ❤️🙏❤️😎🐶
I feel so much the same Sandra. The last few years of my life have been . . . unsettling. My spiritual life has been the biggest part of me for a long time but the last several years I’ve had one life challenge after another coming from every direction and there has hardly been time to gather my wits and strength before I’m faced with yet another one. It’s been impossible to have the quiet solitude I need, time alone to contemplate, to journal, to meditate, to just think. I haven’t felt like the human “being” I want to be but rather have felt like I’ve backslidden into being nothing more than a human doing. I’ve been “drowning” in a way. Some days there has only been a few moments upon wakening to turn my heart and mind inward to connect with Love and seek spiritual softening and wisdom to face whatever the day holds. It’s only been the last few months that life has become more manageable and I’ve had more time to just think. To realize that in no way have I been alone in all that has happened. The Book of Stories mentions “a great cloud of witnesses” which the religion I once was part of perpetrated as a fearful thing where every move I make is being watched, documented and judged. NOW I think of my personal “great cloud of witnesses” as “my team” - heavenly beings that include Papa/Mama God or Love, Jesus, Spirit, my ancestors, and many angels - light bringers, mind protectors, guardians, comforters and encouragers. I don’t understand how this can be I just know it is. It is They who have guided me through some pretty terrible times and now I’ve reached a time of rest, and oasis of being able to have solitude and time to read and journal again. And contemplate the miracle of how every trial and heartache has brought me to this place where I’ve found Virgin Monk Boy and this community. (Or perhaps it is they who found me in this mystical journey🙏😌) The revelations about Magdalene/Mary fill my heart with serenity, hope, affirmation, joy and feminine comfort that we/women are indeed valued, wanted, needed, even anointed in the Kingdom of Grace and Goodness. We are neither wrong nor disgraceful in admitting that we are called and have a place in sharing the Good News in spite of patriarchal misogyny that has worked so hard to intimidate, devalue and keep us down. We’ve been told to shut up and sit down and have it drilled into us that if we want to contribute something it will be in the kitchen, cleaning the bathroom, obeying husbands and caring for children. But our “knowers” have always known better. Learning about Magdalene and all the other women is just amazing. I’m at a loss for descriptive words. All I know is my cup runneth over. 🙏😌☺️
VMB; Very thought provoking and thank you. I know of a very traditional Catholic priest who is of the belief that they are one and the same. In your mind; what is the nature of the 'seven devils"? I know some attribute this to sexual sinfulness but an interesting premise that I have read is something of a nature of being involved in some sort of occultist activity? Your thoughts. appreciated.
The tradition that conflates Mary Magdalene with the “sinful woman” and folds in Bethany’s Mary is rooted more in interpretive anxiety than in the text itself. That mash-up came centuries later, mostly to flatten her into something manageable.
As for the seven devils, no, I don’t think it’s about sexual sin, and I’m even more skeptical of the occultist angle. That language reflects how we read possession through a modern filter. In the ancient world, "demons" were often metaphors for psychological fragmentation, trauma, or the grip of oppressive systems.
Evagrius called them logismoi—inner thought-forms or passions that distort perception. Seen through that lens, Christ casting out seven devils could symbolize the full liberation of the inner self. Magdalene isn’t a cautionary tale. She’s a prototype of awakened consciousness.
Thank you. Regards occultism the reference was to the 'hocus pocus' as I would call it, that was being practiced by the leaders of the day; as I was coached on this matter by a very solid priest of whom I refer to as a mentor.
That whole theory about Mary Magdalene being tied to occult practices is pure projection—19th-century fearmongering dressed up in church clothes. It's not in the text. It's not in the early tradition. It's not even good folklore.
Magdalene is the first apostle. Not a sex object. Not a sinner-in-chief. And definitely not a scapegoat for the stuff men were too scared to face in themselves.
Thank you. This helps me immensely. I have struggled with CPTSD, depression, recovery from abuse and what it does to your psyche whether you’re a child or an adult. In some of the church settings I’ve experienced, seeking professional psychological assistance was taboo. I was “diagnosed” as “just” having demons that only they could “cast out”. The things they said I had to do and things they did to me drove me to the brink of insanity!! Sweet Jesus! The cry of my heart in THEIR insanity. Leaving all that, keeping “the baby” of Love and Truth while “throwing out the bath water” was the best thing I ever did. I’ve been blessed with wonderful counselors who along with my spiritual life have brought me into a place of blessed balance. (Well, somewhat🤣) Healing to me is a journey and the work of a lifetime - something that keeps growing and releasing, and expanding both physically and mentally. . I love the concept of “remembering” who I am. I love remembering Mary/Magdalene, who she was and is, and all she has modeled. How her spirit both calls to us and, I think, lives within us! I am so happy and grateful to find myself in this place at this time with you and this growing community. 🙏♥️
I love this view of the Marys! And to reclaim Mary the Tower just feels so right. It makes sense to me that the offical recorders of the stories would fragment the female characters into smaller bits - it's a pretty effective way of diminishing their presence and the power of their witness.
The first time I read Woman with the Alabaster Jar I found myself longing for a feminine expression of the Divine. I'm still longing for her, and am grateful for your pointings to Magdalen's continuing presence in the tradition.
Blessings!
Yes, fragmentation was the strategy. Diminish the whole by scattering the parts. Turn a tower into rubble, then claim there was never anything standing.
Woman with the Alabaster Jar cracked open that same longing in me too. It’s not just about recovering a figure. It’s about recovering the feminine current that was buried with her.
And she’s still here. Not waiting to be found, but waiting to be recognized.
🕯️✨🏮
Loving this. Want to read the New New Testament too. So happy to be hearing more about the women that have been left out of Christianity.