Just a little thought about the very end - the idea that the collective is calling for a great feminine story - what if this longing is misplaced... What if the feminine is found outside of narrative and story, and *that* is the power of the feminine? What if this power has always been available all along, but people are simply looking in the wrong place... ? Thank you for the evocative discussion ❤️🔥
There are so many things I want to respond to from this episode (and all of them, really) - I wish I was in the conversation with you ;)
The love between you two and in the space you hold is palpable and nourishing - a true embodiment of what you are bringing to the world. The goodness.
I am also someone who was raised Christian and had a lot of unanswered questions after sitting in church every Sunday. The top one being, what is this mechanism of salvation by way of a man dying on a cross? I feel like there’s something more to the story…
It seemed like some things were missing from the doctrine, especially the voice of women. And whenever I brought these things up, no one had anything to say. Church was just a way of life. I wanted to understand why.
So I appreciate this conversation very much, because it gets to the root of my personal experience, and also what I think a lot of us who were coming of age in this new millennia face: what is the truth - not because someone told me it was the truth, but the actual truth? And as we know, this opens the door to Pandora’s box; an unanswerable question (not very convenient for powers that wish to control the masses). This brings me to another thing I appreciate about your work - the breadth of discussion and research, drawing from so many sources and disciplines. No claims, no new doctrine. Simply an invitation to investigate the complexity and layers of the human experience in relationship to Christ (becoming fully human!).
Something you both mentioned at the end of this episode is that Mary Magdalene is what has brought you deeper into faith more than anything else. This has been my experience, as well. After I graduated high school and left home, I went on a long walkabout with my spirituality from throwing it all out the window to finding yoga to studying mystical arts like tarot and astrology…
To land in my bathtub with a vision of a distant ancestor. I asked her name. She said, Magdalena. It was the seed. Then I met my now husband, who has a deep love for Yeshua and Mary. We read some of the channeled works regarding Mary Magdalene and my heart lit up - there could be another way to approach the Christ besides what I was taught?!?! Something of truth came alive in my bones.
Since then I’ve been in a deep dive with early Christian history and gnostic texts and content like your substack/podcast. It has opened a door in my heart that just keeps opening wider. It’s like returning home after a long journey, but better. Mary is a mystery school unto herself, revealing secrets of the self along the rabbit path. Returning to goodness, to wholeness, to humanity, to devotion.
Thank you for this work. Wish I could give you a hug! I hope you are able to continue sharing in a way that is nourishing and supportive for you both. Sending my love and deepest gratitude 🙏🏼🤍🕊️
Hi Sabine! So many ideas and opinions around Mary Magdalene and who she was swirl, especially with that title “priestess.” The truth is we do not know, and will never fully “know,” because not enough historical evidence exists that clearly points to what her role may have been. What we believe, based on what we have pieced together, is that there are strong indications that Magdalene was truly “the apostle TO the apostles,” as even the Catholic Church acknowledges her as now. That evidence includes her name itself, as discussed in The Power of a Name (podcast episode), her moniker “Magnificent” or “Tower,” and even the connotations of “Mary” possibly being a title or category—an idea even scholar Elizabeth Schrader Polzcer has floated. The way she is described as a powerful visionary and channel of Jesus’ teachings in the Gospel of Mary and other “gnostic” texts like the Gospel of Phillip point to her spiritual leadership as well. Then, there is the fact that she was likely (in our opinions) the anointing woman (we talk about this in Christ Maker and our essays Immaculate Deception and A Tale of Two Sisters), her connection to her brother Lazarus who seemed to be going through a resurrection initiation right, there are hints that she and even Jesus may have participated in “rites” that ring of mystical and mystery traditions schools. This a notion that seems far out to some mainstream Christians but to us is very much in the realm of possibility we believe. All to say, a “death priestess,” is not a specific role we would associate with Mary Magdalene, anymore than we see the Egyptians as a “death cult” as many traditional Egyptologists would call them. To the ancients in these mystical traditions, death was life. Best said by the Gospel of Thomas, “Light and darkness, life and death, and right and left are siblings of one another, and inseparable. For this reason the good are not good, the bad are not bad, life is not life, and death is not death.”
I agree we need more initiations
Just a little thought about the very end - the idea that the collective is calling for a great feminine story - what if this longing is misplaced... What if the feminine is found outside of narrative and story, and *that* is the power of the feminine? What if this power has always been available all along, but people are simply looking in the wrong place... ? Thank you for the evocative discussion ❤️🔥
There are so many things I want to respond to from this episode (and all of them, really) - I wish I was in the conversation with you ;)
The love between you two and in the space you hold is palpable and nourishing - a true embodiment of what you are bringing to the world. The goodness.
I am also someone who was raised Christian and had a lot of unanswered questions after sitting in church every Sunday. The top one being, what is this mechanism of salvation by way of a man dying on a cross? I feel like there’s something more to the story…
It seemed like some things were missing from the doctrine, especially the voice of women. And whenever I brought these things up, no one had anything to say. Church was just a way of life. I wanted to understand why.
So I appreciate this conversation very much, because it gets to the root of my personal experience, and also what I think a lot of us who were coming of age in this new millennia face: what is the truth - not because someone told me it was the truth, but the actual truth? And as we know, this opens the door to Pandora’s box; an unanswerable question (not very convenient for powers that wish to control the masses). This brings me to another thing I appreciate about your work - the breadth of discussion and research, drawing from so many sources and disciplines. No claims, no new doctrine. Simply an invitation to investigate the complexity and layers of the human experience in relationship to Christ (becoming fully human!).
Something you both mentioned at the end of this episode is that Mary Magdalene is what has brought you deeper into faith more than anything else. This has been my experience, as well. After I graduated high school and left home, I went on a long walkabout with my spirituality from throwing it all out the window to finding yoga to studying mystical arts like tarot and astrology…
To land in my bathtub with a vision of a distant ancestor. I asked her name. She said, Magdalena. It was the seed. Then I met my now husband, who has a deep love for Yeshua and Mary. We read some of the channeled works regarding Mary Magdalene and my heart lit up - there could be another way to approach the Christ besides what I was taught?!?! Something of truth came alive in my bones.
Since then I’ve been in a deep dive with early Christian history and gnostic texts and content like your substack/podcast. It has opened a door in my heart that just keeps opening wider. It’s like returning home after a long journey, but better. Mary is a mystery school unto herself, revealing secrets of the self along the rabbit path. Returning to goodness, to wholeness, to humanity, to devotion.
Thank you for this work. Wish I could give you a hug! I hope you are able to continue sharing in a way that is nourishing and supportive for you both. Sending my love and deepest gratitude 🙏🏼🤍🕊️
I thought Mary Magdalene was considered to be a. Death Priestess or psychoomp.
Hi Sabine! So many ideas and opinions around Mary Magdalene and who she was swirl, especially with that title “priestess.” The truth is we do not know, and will never fully “know,” because not enough historical evidence exists that clearly points to what her role may have been. What we believe, based on what we have pieced together, is that there are strong indications that Magdalene was truly “the apostle TO the apostles,” as even the Catholic Church acknowledges her as now. That evidence includes her name itself, as discussed in The Power of a Name (podcast episode), her moniker “Magnificent” or “Tower,” and even the connotations of “Mary” possibly being a title or category—an idea even scholar Elizabeth Schrader Polzcer has floated. The way she is described as a powerful visionary and channel of Jesus’ teachings in the Gospel of Mary and other “gnostic” texts like the Gospel of Phillip point to her spiritual leadership as well. Then, there is the fact that she was likely (in our opinions) the anointing woman (we talk about this in Christ Maker and our essays Immaculate Deception and A Tale of Two Sisters), her connection to her brother Lazarus who seemed to be going through a resurrection initiation right, there are hints that she and even Jesus may have participated in “rites” that ring of mystical and mystery traditions schools. This a notion that seems far out to some mainstream Christians but to us is very much in the realm of possibility we believe. All to say, a “death priestess,” is not a specific role we would associate with Mary Magdalene, anymore than we see the Egyptians as a “death cult” as many traditional Egyptologists would call them. To the ancients in these mystical traditions, death was life. Best said by the Gospel of Thomas, “Light and darkness, life and death, and right and left are siblings of one another, and inseparable. For this reason the good are not good, the bad are not bad, life is not life, and death is not death.”