This book is dedicated to the Serpents of Wisdom with thanks

Chapter Fourteen

Mary Magdalene
There were three who walked with the Lord: Mary his mother, and his mother’s sister, and Miriam Magdalene, known as his companion. For him, Miriam is a sister, a mother, and a wife. - Gospel of Philip.

On this account I have said unto you aforetime: Where I shall be, there will be also my twelve ministers. But Mary Magdalene and John, the virgin, will tower over all my disciples and over all men who shall receive the mysteries in the Ineffable. And they will be on my right and on my left. And I am they, and they are I. - Spoken by Jesus in the Pistis Sophia

The reason Jesus says, “I am they, and they are I” is because John and Mary Magdalene are among the Elect. We are too, and we are truly all one body in Christ. I first contemplated about Jesus and Mary’s relationship from the standpoint of whether or not Mary was an important follower of Jesus, as important as we regard the men who were the Apostles. The first thing going in favor of this was the fact that our family for thousands of years had revered the feminine power of God and always shown that they believed in equality of the sexes. Probably the best sources to consider the relationship of Jesus and Mary from are the ancient texts which record actual conversations between Mary, Jesus, and the disciples. The author of Forbidden Faith notes how in these texts, Mary Magdalene is presented as a disciple at least equal to the male disciples. In the ancient gnostic text The Dialogue of the Savior, she is referred to as “The woman who knew the All”. In the text Pistis Sophia, Jesus says to her “Thou art she whose heart is more directed to the Kingdom of Heaven than all thy brothers.” Phillip was an original apostle, yet his book is not in the canonical Bible. Many believe one of the reasons for its exclusion is this verse; “The companion of the (Savior is) Mary Magdalene. (But Christ loved) her more than (all) the disciples (and used to) kiss her (often) on her (mouth). The rest of (the disciples were offended) by it (and expressed disapproval.) They said to him, ‘Why do you love her more than all of us?’ The Savior answered and said to them, ‘Why do I not love you like her?”
The words in parenthesis represent actual holes in the ancient text, but the above translation seems to be accepted among scholars. Many people probably still have the impression that Mary was the woman at the well who “had five husbands.” The Catholic church taught this until fairly recently. The Catholics have back-tracked on this assertion and announced they had changed their understanding of her. The author of Forbidden Faith concluded his comments regarding her by saying; “There is no stain on her character, she has a status at least equal to that of the male apostles, her spiritual illumination surpasses theirs, she is Jesus’s ‘companion’ and possibly his wife.” He then goes on to say that Elaine Pagels, in her book The Gnostic Gospels suggests that Mary Magdalene’s demotion “reflects the reduced status of women in the early Christian church. At first regarded as equals to men, they were gradually reduced to being second class citizens, forbidden to have authority over men or to serve as clergy. The demotion of Mary Magdalene mirrors this shift.”

The Gospel of the Beloved Companion, who according to the Gnostics was Mary Magdalene, is a first century Greek text. The following comes from that text:
On the third day of the week, there was the marriage feast in the house of Shimon (Simon) near Hyrcana (Cana) in the land of Yehuda (Judah). At the feast were Miryam the mother of Yeshua, and his brothers Yakov (Jacob) and Yosef (Joseph) and his sister Miryam Salome. Also in that place were Martha of Bethany, the sister of Miryam called the Beloved Companion and Eleazar (Lazarus) her brother, whom Yeshua would restore to life. Levi whom some have called Mattithyahu was also there, along with Toma called the twin, who was a friend of the companion. All of the other disciples had also been invited. When the wine would soon give out, his mother came to him and said, ‘Soon there will be no more wine.’ Yeshua said to her, ‘Lady, what does that have to do with me? My hour has not yet come.’ His mother said to the servants, ‘Whatever he says to you, do it.’ Now there were six water pots of stone set there for the purposes of purification. Yeshua said to them. ‘Fill the water pots with what little wine you have, to each one a measure.’ So they did as he told them. Then Yeshua stood and raised his right hand and blessed the pots. And therefore he said to them, ‘Now draw what you need, that all the guests may drink their fill.’ He told them also to take some of the wine they had drawn to the steward of the feast. So they took the wine and gave it to the guests and all that were there drank their fill and were satisfied.

When the steward of the feast tasted the wine and not knowing where it came from, he came to the bride and bridegroom and said to Yeshua, ‘Everyone serves the good wine first, and when the guests have drunk freely, then that which is worse. You have kept the good wine until now!’ The disciples wondered at what he had done, but he said to them, ‘Why do you marvel thus? Have I not told you that I am in the Spirit as the Spirit is in me? It is man who sees only poverty, for he sees with the eyes of the master of the world. But where man sees poverty, the Spirit sees only abundance. What the Spirit sees I see, and what I see the Spirit sees. And what the Spirit sees is.’ This beginning of his signs Yeshua did at his wedding feast at a place near Hyrcana in the land of Yehuda and revealed his glory and his disciples believed in him.

.....19: 35: And they said ‘Is this not Yeshua the son of Yosef of the tribe of Judah and Miryam his wife, whose father and mother we know?’

.....35:7 The companion whom Yeshua loved was at the table, leaning against Yeshuas breast. Shimon Kefa (Simon Peter) therefore beckoned to her and said to her, ‘Tell us who it is of whom he speaks.’ She, leaning back as she was on Yeshua’s breast, asked him. ‘Rabbouni, who is it?’

When you think about it, would another man be leaning on Jesus’ chest? That wouldn’t be common today. Do you think it was common in Jesus day? It’s only because we consider Jesus as God rather than a man that we can’t conceive of him being human in all aspects.
35:16 The disciples said to Yeshua, When will you depart from us? Who is to be our leader? And Yeshua said to them ‘I will not leave you orphans. When a father goes away, it is the Mother who tends the children.’ p 17 ‘Only from the truth I tell you, there is one amongst you who has had my commandments and keeps them. That one is the one who loves me and that one who loves me is also loved by me, and by the Spirit. To that one will I reveal myself⁷¹ so that you will know that what I have said to you is true, that I am in the Spirit as the Spirit is in me. And that same one will the Spirit complete in all ways, so that by this sign, you may know my words are true and that my testimony is of the Spirit, the one who sent me.’

43:5 And Levi answered and said to Shimon Kefa (Simon Peter), ‘Shimon Kefa, you have always been hot tempered. Now I see you contending against this woman like the adversaries. But if the Rabbi made her worthy, who are you indeed to reject her? Surely as his companion, Yeshua knew her better than all others. That is why he loved her more than us.’

44:1 These are the words and deeds of Yeshua the Nazorean, the son of humanity. There are also many other things which Yeshua did, which if they would all be recorded, then even the world itself would not have room for the books that would be written. I have testified and recorded all that I have seen and heard in the light and truth of his love and the grace and power of his word. Only from the truth I tell you, those amongst you who understand and believe his words will not know death. I am Miryam, called the Migdalah, the Beloved Companion

The author of World Gnosis believes Mary was the successor of Jesus in the early Church;

P 122 Mary’s exalted status as Jesus future successor is also disclosed in a passage of the Pistis Sophia wherein Jesus refers to her as the one who is the inheritor of the Light, meaning it was she who inherited the true Gnostic wisdom or Light from the Master. In the Nag Hammadi texts Mary is repeatedly revealed to be the closest disciple to Jesus and the one who received secret teachings from the Christ that the others did not.
In ancient Gnostic texts Mary Magdalene makes the statement that she is afraid of Peter because he “hates her race” i.e. women. The author of World Gnosis pp 123/4 discusses this. He says that the events of a contentious gathering of Jesus and his disciples was prophetic and destined to become a mirror to the future. He sees that the seeds of a future split among Jesus Apostles was evident at that time and “eventually two divergent churches began to take shape. Mary and John the Apostle would found the Gnostic Christian or Johannite Church and Peter would found what would become the Catholic Church.” He writes that Mary’s church would be based upon the left hand path that exalted the female principle, while Peter’s church was founded upon the male God tradition of the right hand path that denigrated the female principle. The author notes that the name Peter and the Latin Pater, or Father, “is instructive as it reveals Peter to be the emissary of patriarchy and the right hand path while the name Mary with its prefix of Ma, or Mother reveals Mary to be the embodiment of matriarchy and the Left Hand Path.”
At the very beginning of my research some six years ago, I purchased a beautiful brass repousee at a swap meet. This repousee is a magnificently crafted image of the Last Supper sculpted from the reverse side. The artistry to be able to create something so magnificent cannot be overstated. The repousee has high relief, meaning it has an incredible depth to it. One day, I was contemplating whether Mary Magdalene had been an apostle of Jesus. I stood before this beautiful image just staring at it. Out of the blue, the words “look at the hands, look at the hands” went through my mind. So, I looked at the hands - and immediately noticed that they were all very prominent like the artist was trying to attract attention to them. When I looked at one of the apostles at Jesus side, I noticed that she had her hands crossed in front of her breasts! My question had been answered. I believe it was created in the early 1900’s in Spain, as the artist had a Spanish name. Included in the surrounding decor are four Templar crosses. So the artist was one of ‘us’.
Since then, I have come across a picture of the Last Supper, probably from the 1930’s. There are twelve people seated at the table with Jesus making the 13th. One of the apostles has long blond hair and she again has her arms raised to her breasts, not crossed like the other, but in essence almost pointing to them. Jesus is the one who gave Mary the epithet ‘Magdalene’ which means watchtower or stronghold. This is a good time to quote this verse from the Old Testament prophet Micah;
In that day, declares the Lord, I will gather the lame. I will assemble the exiles and those I have brought to grief. I will make the lame a remnant, those driven away a strong nation. The Lord will rule over them in Mount Zion from that day and forever. As for you, O Watchtower of the flock, O stronghold of the Daughter of Zion, the former dominion will be restored to you; “Kingship will come to the Daughter of Jerusalem.”
I am happy to tell you that day is coming soon!
In Bloodline of the Holy Grail p 261 Laurence Gardner writes that the Rosicrucian’s had an ancient history dating back to the Egyptian Mystery school of Pharaoh Tuthmosis II circa 1468-1436 BC. He describes the teachings’ descent to the philosophers Pythagoras and Plato through the Essenes and Egyptian Therapeutae. He mentions that they were allied with the Samaritan Magi who were founded in 44 BC by Menahem a “Diaspora Essene and the grandfather of Mary Magdalene.” He says that Menahems descent was from the Hasmoneans, the family of Judas Maccabaeus who was, “revered in the Arthurian Grail story of Gawain.” Isn’t it amazing how all these disparate people and places have such an inter-woven history?
In The Magdalene Legacy, Gardner writes of Mary; “From the outset of Jesus’ mission, Mary Magdalene is seen as a constant in his life. She sponsored him, traveled with him, anointed him, confided in him, and was companion to his mother and sisters. She was there at the foot of the cross; she went to attend Jesus with spices at the tomb, and was the first to speak with him in the garden. She is documented as Jesus’ consort and the Apostle of the Apostles, the woman whom Jesus kissed and called his blessed one - the woman who knew the All, and the woman that Jesus loved.”
The following is from the foreword of The Woman with the Alabaster Jar and was written by Rev. Terrance A. Sweeney, Ph.D. - author of A Church Divided and What God Hath Joined;

There is nothing in Scripture that proves that Jesus was married, nor is there anything in the Bible that says that Jesus was unmarried, nor that he made a promise or vow not to marry. The Jewish scholar Ben-Chorin presents a chain of indirect proofs’ to support his belief that Jesus was married. In the time Jesus walked the Earth, Judaism regarded marriage as a fulfillment of God’s command to ‘be fruitful and multiply.’ ...Ben-Chorin argues that it would have been quite likely that Jesus’ parents, as was the custom, would have sought out a suitable bride for him, and that Jesus, like every young man, especially those who studied the Torah, would have married. Moreover, if Jesus had not been married, he most certainly would have been reproached for this omission by those Pharisees who opposed him. And Saint Paul, in presenting reasons for supporting the value of celibacy, would undoubtedly have cited Jesus’ own life, had Jesus been celibate. But Saint Paul did not.

He goes on to say that Ben-Chorin concluded that Jesus was married. The author then poses the question; “If Jesus was married why is there no specific mention of this or of his wife’s name in scripture?” He says that Margaret Starbird’s answer to this is that the physical threat to his spouse’s life would have been reason enough to exclude her name from all written records.

In The Woman with the Alabaster Jar, Margaret refers to the book Holy Blood, Holy Grail, which was the first book in recent history to claim that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married. Margaret was a Catholic and is a devout Christian, and reading the book incensed her so much that she decided to write a book to refute it. Margaret remarks that the book had touched on subjects that were of special interest and expertise to her, such as religion, medieval civilization, art, literature and symbolism. Margaret had taught Bible study and religious education for years. She believed that debunking the ‘heresy’ of Jesus marriage would be a simple matter.

In the book Holy Blood Holy Grail, the authors mention paintings that were made by artists “in collusion with the Grail heresy.” The artists would place secret symbolism related to the Grail story in their paintings. Margaret examined symbols in the works mentioned and cross-referenced them with watermarks of the Albigensians or Cathars of Southern France. Margaret wrote that she was disconcerted to discover that the paintings contained “obvious references in support of the Grail heresy.” She said that her research drew her “deep into European history, heraldry, the rituals of Freemasonry, medieval art, symbolism, psychology, mythology, religion, and the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures.” She says that everywhere she looked she found evidence of the Divine Feminine that had been lost and denied in the Judeo-Christian tradition. Margaret also noted various attempts to restore the Bride to her once-cherished status.
Margaret says that the more deeply involved she became with the material, the more obvious it became that there was real substance in the theories set forth in Holy Blood, Holy Grail. She found that she had been won over to the central tenets of the Grail heresy, “The very theory I had originally set out to discredit.” Margaret does not claim to have proof of their marriage, but states that she can “verify that these are tenets of a heresy widely believed in the Middle Ages; that fossils of the heresy can be found in numerous works of art and literature; that it was vehemently attacked by the hierarchy of the established Church of Rome; and that it survived in spite of relentless persecution.”
P 26 Margaret wrote that medieval poets writing in the twelfth century, when the Grail legends first surfaced, mention a Grail Family. She notes that a connection is sometimes drawn by Grail scholars between the word sangraal and gradales, “a word that seems to have meant ‘cup,’ ‘platter,’ or ‘basin’ in the Provencal language.” Margaret notes that if one breaks the word sangraal after the g, “the result is sang raal, which in Old French means ‘blood royal’.” She also notes the provocative and perhaps enlightening meaning of this second derivation. One can now see a new meaning to the European Grail legend. According to Margaret, “Instead of a cup or chalice, the story now states that Mary Magdalene brought the ‘blood royal’ to the Mediterranean coast of France.”
Margaret notes that both of the New Testament genealogies of Jesus show that he was descended from King David and that the messianic promises to Israel are all specifically tied to the royal blood of Judaic princes descended from the ‘root of Jesse’ the father of King David. Jacob-Israel told his son Judah that his descendants, the line of King David, would never fail to have a leader over Israel. Do we just assume that he meant only until Jesus time and then it would stop? As Margaret writes; “The wife of Jesus, if she bore him a child, would have been quite literally the bearer of the Sangraal, the royal bloodline of Israel.”
P-31 Margaret notes how in medieval and Renaissance paintings, it is invariably the Magdalene at the foot of the cross with Mary, the mother of Jesus. She notes that “these paintings recall for us the mythologies of several pagan sun/fertility gods (Osiris, Dumuzi, and Adonis) who were slain and resurrected. In each case, the bereaved widow (Isis, Inanna, and Aphrodite) poured out her grief and desolation over the corpse of her beloved, bitterly lamenting his death.” By this, we see that Margaret knows of the connection with Gnosticism and Mystery religions and their tie-in with Christianity. Margaret sees the beauty in the pagan mythologies that most people do not see.
P 32 Margaret relates that there is a very old tradition identifying Mary of Bethany with Mary Magdalene, and in medieval art she is identified with the Sister-Bride of the Hieros Gamos or Sacred Marriage in the ancient mythologies. Margaret tells us that the Bride, who was the moon or earth goddess of antiquity, was not only the spouse of the sun god, but was also “the intimate friend and partner of her Bridegroom deity, his mirror image or ‘other half,’ a feminine alter ego or ‘twin sister’.” I might also add that she was his syzygy in the spiritual world. As Margaret acknowledges; “The archetypal Bridegroom just could not be whole without her! The relationship of these two was much more than a sexual union; it was a deep spiritual intimacy and ‘kinship’ summed up in the word sister. The Sacred Marriage of the Bridegroom with the Sister-Bride was not limited to a physical passion; it was a marriage of deepest spiritual and emotional ecstasy as well.”
P 44 Margaret sees that in the Bible, Mary Magdalene’s anointing of Jesus represents the tradition of the royal Bridegroom who is to be slain. She understands that the reason Mary cried while anointing Jesus was that she knew that she was preparing him for his ritual death. Margaret notes; “It is clear from Jesus’ response to the anointing that he understood and accepted it, and that he also accepted his mythic role as the sacrificed Bridegroom/King.”
The following is a conversation between Jesus and Mary Magdalene. I am including it, because in it, we find out that the patriarchs, even the ones who were righteous, were not able to go into the Light Kingdom because one of the gods they served, out of fear and dread, I might add, was Yaldabaoth. These verses also give us additional insight into what the Christ accomplished through his incarnation into Jeshua.
Pistis Sophia Chapter 135
Mary answered and said unto the Savior: ‘My Lord, before thou didst come to the region of the rulers and before thou didst come down into the world, hath no soul entered into the Light?’

‘No soul had entered into the Light before the coming of the First Mystery.’ The Savior answered and said unto Mary: ‘Amēn, amēn, I say unto you before I did come into the world, no soul hath entered into the Light. And now, therefore, when I am come, I have opened the gates of the Light and opened the ways which lead to the Light. And now, therefore, let him who shall do what is worthy of the mysteries, receive the mysteries and enter into the Light.’

Mary continued and said: ‘But, my Lord, I have heard that the prophets have entered into the Light.’

Of the prophets, the Savior continued and said unto Mary: ‘Amēn, amēn, I say unto you, no prophet hath entered into the Light, but the rulers of the æons have discoursed with them out of the æons and given them the mystery of the æons. And when I came to the regions of the æons, I have turned Elias and sent him into the body of John the Baptizer, and the rest also I turned into righteous bodies which will find the mysteries of the Light, go on high and inherit the Light-kingdom.’

‘Of the patriarchs, unto Abraham on the other hand, and Isaac and Jacob, I have forgiven all their sins and their iniquities and have given them the mysteries of the Light in the æons and placed them in the region of Yabraōth⁷² and of all the rulers who have repented. And when I go into the Height and am on the point of going into the Light, I will carry their souls with me into the Light. But, amēn, I say unto you, Mary, they will not go into the Light before I have carried thy soul and those of all thy brethren into the Light.’

‘Of the souls of the righteous from Adam to Jesus, the rest of the patriarchs and of the righteous from the time of Adam unto now who are in the æons and all the orders of the rulers, when I came to the region of the æons, I have through the Virgin of Light made to turn into bodies which will all be righteous, those which will find the mysteries of the Light, enter in and inherit the Light-kingdom.’

Please note that it is the Logos, or the Christ, who was a direct emanation of the Logos, in the body of Jesus, who just referred to Jesus as one of the righteous.
From Isaiah, the fifty-third chapter:
We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth. He was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away.

And who can speak of his descendants? For he was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people he was stricken. He was assigned a grave with the wicked and with the rich in his death, though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth. Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the Lord makes his life a guilt offering, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand.

Who do you think the prophet Isaiah is speaking of here? No doubt he’s speaking of Jesus. Do you see that the Bible tells us he had descendants and offspring? Do you see he lived after his resurrection, that his days were prolonged? Do you believe the Bible to be the “inerrant word of God”?
The author of The Magdalene Legacy p 148 wrote that the biblical almahs of the New Testament, who included Jesus’ mother Mary and Mary Magdalene, were the equivalent of conventual nuns. From the age of seven they were raised and educated for the prospect of dynastic marriage. He calls them, “high-bred priestesses who were assigned to various tribal Orders such as those of Dan, Asher and Manasseh and were attached to the ascetic Therapeutae community at Qumran.” I don’t think the author realizes there were Essenes at Mount Carmel too. The author notes that “sexual activity was not a leisure or pleasure pursuit, nor even particularly related to affection.”
I have learned and presented to you, that Jesus was married when he was eighteen and that his wife died when he was twenty-five. It was the custom of our people that the groom’s father would choose a wife for him and he would be married at eighteen. This is not something that would have gone unheeded. Also, a man couldn’t be a rabbi at that time unless he was married. I have included texts that have Jesus speaking against marriage and children. However, Jesus was a scion of one of the Grail family lineages, of the line of David, which the Bible tells us will be re-formed in the “last days”.
We saw earlier how Jesus’ brothers James and Jude and his cousin Cleopas were martyred not long after Jesus was crucified. In fact, the Romans and the Jews wanted every member of the royal line of David dead. If for no other reason, than for safety and to facilitate the endurance of the line, any child of Jesus would have to be hidden or exposed to probable death.
In The Woman with the Alabaster Jar, Margaret Starbird discusses the use of the word vine as a metaphor for the chosen people of God. She cites; “A vine thou didst bring out of Egypt.” Psalms 89:9 “The vineyard of the Lord of Hosts is the House of Israel and the men of Judah are his cherished plant.” Isaiah 5:7 Several passages refer to the vine as feminine: ‘Thy wife is like a fruitful vine.’ Psalms 128 ‘Your mother is like a vine planted by the water, fruitful and branchy…but she was torn up…and now she is planted in the desert…she is now without a royal branch, a ruler’s scepter.’ Ezekiel 19:10-14
She states that the transplanted royal vine is understood by biblical scholars to refer to the royal Davidic line of Judah. She notes that in the New Testament book of Mark, Jesus tells the parable of the caretakers of the vineyard (Israel) who beat the servants of their master when they came to inspect the condition of the vines and then killed the master’s son. She writes; “No one who knew Jesus of Nazareth and who ‘had ears to hear’ was in any doubt as to the identity of that faithful son.” Jesus was the legitimate heir to the vineyard of Judah. Margaret says that “The transplanting of the Davidic vine would have come as no surprise to the Zealot fundamentalist friends of Jesus. They knew it had been prophesied. (Ezekiel 17) It had happened before, when the people of Israel were taken as slaves to Babylon. But it could also happen again.” Margaret makes the logical comment that, “In light of the danger to the vine of Judah, the royal blood-line, it is likely that the friends of Jesus took strong and perhaps desperate measures to protect the family of Jesus. It would have been their top priority.”
At one point in my research, my sister asked me if we had black ancestors. She said that because we have dark curly hair! No doubt she probably thought that at some point in our ancestors sojourn in the southern states of the U.S. there was inter-racial mixing. I told her that I believed we did have some black dna. I didn’t mention that I believed that connection was from inter-marrying with Noah’s son Ham’s family or that our ancestress Mary Magdalene was said to have been an Ethiopian! In the book The God Kings of Outremer the author states that John the Baptist was married to a woman named Anya who was the daughter of King Aretas of Ethiopia. Through his wife, John would have been heir apparent to the throne of the Sabean-Nabataean Empire, which was a mixed Semitic/Hamitic (Hebrew/Arab/African) race, connected to the biblical land of Sheba. Nabataeans was the Arabic name for Aramaeans. Jesus and his family spoke the Aramaean language which was the “language of the angels.” According to Robert Morcot “the priestess daughters of the nobles of Egypt and Ethiopia under the black Pharaohs were called Chantresses to the Lord of Miam, or Mi-ri-am.”
P 18 The author goes on to point out that in 31 B.C. the Nabataeans lost a large part of their kingdom to the Romans, who gave Herod the Great control over it. In order to regain control of their land, king Aretas married one of his daughters to Herod Antipas, Herod the Great’s son, with the understanding that any son of theirs was to become Tetrarch (ruler) after Herod Antipas, through which the land would come back into the Nabataean kingdom. Later on, Herod Antipas was divorcing King Aretas daughter so he could marry his deceased brothers’ widow. King Aretas’s daughter found out about this, and fled to her father in Petra. King Aretas mounted a military campaign to overthrow Herod Antipas. John the Baptist was furious, not so much because of Herod’s wishing to marry his brother’s widow, but because Herod’s current wife was John’s sister-in-law. To the books author, the story in the Bible given for the reason of John’s beheading always seemed far-fetched. He believes John was held hostage during the battle, and that in revenge, Herod Antipas had him beheaded. This all brings us back though, to Mary Magdalenes having been an Ethiopian.
Some of you may be familiar with the Black Madonna’s portrayed in statuary and art in the European cathedrals built by the Knights Templars. From what I understand, the Madonna’s, black or otherwise, are not representative of the Virgin Mary at all, but of Mary Magdalene. I will add though, that the Black Madonna’s are also said to represent the destructive power of the Goddess. That author p 37 goes on to say that the Valois Dynasty of France claimed descent from Jesus and Mary Magdalene. One of their descendants, a queen, bore a black child. The Queen was said to have had a black dwarf as a servant. The Queen was accused of having sexual relations with him, but she always protested her innocence! Pictures of the Valois dynasty do show a propensity for curly hair. This can be seen in many pictures of European royalty. Queen Elizabeth the 1st is a good example. Hugh Montgomery tells a story of the British King Edward III who was called “The Black Prince”. He cites “both Froissart and the French who called him ‘dark visaged’.”
In his book Bloodline of the Holy Grail p 100 Laurence Gardner writes that there are stories written about Mary Magdalene dating well beyond the 5th century. He says that King Louis the XI was insistent on Mary’s dynastic position in the royal lineage of France. Gardner cites a book titled Saint Mary Magdalene by the Dominican friar Pere Lacordaire, published after the French Revolution, that “is a particularly informative work, as is ‘La Legende de Sainte Marie Madeleine’ by Jacobus de Voraigne, Archbishop of Genoa." He wrote; “Both de Voraigne and Maar state that Mary’s mother Eucharia was related to the Hasmonean royal house of Israel, descended from King Saul, a Benjamite.”
In The Sign of the Dove by Elizabeth van Buren, the author writes;
Caesar Baronius, librarian of the Vatican in 1596, wrote in his 'Annales Ecclesiastici' of his discovery in the Vatican Library of a most ancient manuscript which told of the voyage of a company of our Lord's friends, who traveled in an old boat which had been abandoned by its master and was without oars or sails. Baronius dated the arrival of this boat in France as 35 A.D. ...The coming of Lazarus and his sisters to the West was not only to convert the people to Christianity, but to perpetuate the old Mystery religion. Lazarus, as John, was the head of the secret church of Christ, which possessed knowledge that was only for initiates. It was the same knowledge that had been cherished by those such as the Celts, whom the exoteric Church was to condemn as pagans in later times.
When the author says “Lazarus, as John” she is referring to John as a dynastic title of the leader of the Johannites. The author wrote that on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea outside Marseilles at Les Saintes Marie de la Mere, there is a chapel dedicated to Mary Magdalene. Within the chapel are paintings of her arrival from Palestine in a small rudderless boat. According to local legends, soon after the Crucifixion and Resurrection, Mary Magdalene and her family were expelled from the Holy Land, set adrift on the Mediterranean Sea and made their way to the region of Southern France. At that time, there were already many Jews living in the area. There was a Jewish city known as Glanum Levi whose ruins can be found today in Provence.
The author notes how in the midst of the cosmopolitan confluence of cultures in the area, there must have been an exchange of philosophical and religious ideas. She writes; “It is very possible that during this period many spiritual and symbolic links were discovered between these diverse peoples and their traditional belief systems that stretched back to the temples of Egypt.” She notes that before her arrival in Les Saintes Marie Sur Les Mere, France was riddled with Isis cults. She notes that the name Paris etymologically can be linked to the pre-Celtic ParIsis, the grove of Isis. She states; “Clearly this region was fertile ground for Mary Magdalene’s mission.”

The legends reveal that following her arrival in France, Mary was said to have travelled the land, preaching the authentic gnostic gospel of Jesus which had been transmitted to her during his time on Earth and in mystic visions after his return to the “more subtle dimensions of light.” She claims that French religious literature from the Middle Ages is filled with legends and stories of the life of Mary Magdalene. “Tales abound of her miraculous healings, her performance of the ritual of baptism, her aid in fertility and childbearing and even her ability to raise the dead. There are even reports of a secret tradition of the healing arts that exists today in France and traces its roots back to Mary Magdalene.”

Van Buren noticed that when one looks at the history of the area, one finds evidence that with Mary’s arrival there was a surge of spiritual awareness, a code of ethics and respect for feminine values. “The alchemists began their flurry of Cathedral building to preserve the secret metaphysical teachings passed down to them from ancient Egypt.” She also notes that the Crusades and the ‘Back to Jerusalem movement’ began in the area. The mystical Kabbalistic texts, the Bahir and Zohar, emerged from the region, “Bringing to the Jewish people knowledge of the Shekinah, or ‘indwelling presence’ and ‘feminine potency of God’.” She notes that the cults of the Virgin Mary, Mary Magdalene and Black Madonna, who symbolically represented the three aspects of Isis in her role as Universal Goddess, arose there and spread throughout Europe.

It was from this area that the troubadours and poets such as Wolfram von Eschenbach, Robert de Boron and others sang their songs of devotion to the feminine principle and wrote their fables of the Holy Grail. And it was there in the mountains and valleys of Provence and Languedoc, “that the Cathars, as carriers of the Gnostic transmission of Jesus and Mary Magdalene, rebelled against what they considered to be the excesses of the priestly hierarchy, renounced all worldly possessions and fully committed themselves to the path of spirit.”

I highly recommend books by Tau Malachi, a gnostic Christian. In his book St. Mary Magdalene the Gnostic Tradition of the Holy Bride, he has excerpts from a book he channeled from Mary Magdalene. That channeled book is called The Gospel of the Sophia of Ain Sof. In it, Mary Magdalene talks about the New Jerusalem. She says that “When all the sparks are gathered in and all of the vessels of light are mended, you will see the glory of New Jerusalem coming out of heaven and in it you will behold the bridal chamber and the image of the Anointed One in it.” That gathering of sparks refers to the sparks or spirits of God who are sprinkled among humankind. When she speaks of the vessels of Light being mended, she is referring to us. We were created as true humans, as are all current humans, but the archons interfered with our dna, making us ‘creature humans’. We will undergo a process of cleansing that will take us back to our true human state.
Mary speaks of the gnostic sacraments which are baptism, chrism, the wedding feast, the ransom and the bridal chamber. She says that baptism is water, chrism is fire (or Spirit) and the ransom is earth. The wedding feast is the air. You might have noticed that she refers to the four elements. She says that the wedding feast is in the air, “for in the Spirit we shall meet the Anointed in the air on the Day of Joy, and then the element of the bridal chamber shall be fully revealed. Everything the Lord accomplished he accomplished in a mystery, and the Anointed Bride is the mystery.”
Mary says in regards to the feminine side of God that “The Divine Mother is Light and she is darkness, she is the saint and she is the sinner, angels and demons are image in her, as are the gods and all of the archons; yet she is beyond all of these.” She tells us to know our Mother in all things so that we will be free of bondage, “even as the Anointed is free.” The Anointed she refers to is Jesus as the Messiah or Christ. The root word of Messiah is messah, which means ‘to anoint’. When Mary tells us to “know our Mother in all things” what she means is that just as Jesus did, we have to accept all things. As long as we are judging or comparing, we are not accepting. It is hard to accept that our Mother, or the manifest or active part of God, is both good and evil, but one must accept this before they can become Christed.
Mary also warns us; “Beware! If you blaspheme the Mother Spirit, there will be no one to save you, for she is the Spirit of salvation and your very life.” Mary tells us; “Do not be deceived by the name ‘Comforter’ that is given to the Holy Spirit. Before she is the Comforter, her name is Deep Trouble, and she will seem as an angel of wrath before appearing as an angel of mercy.”

Mary tells us that the Logos emanated into the world for the redemption of Sophia. She says that unless the redemption of Sophia is received in the world, the world will not be redeemed. She says that Sophia received the Logos, and those who cleave to Sophia have received the Logos and are redeemed. She explains that it is Sophia in us that receives the Logos and is saved. The Sophia in us is our fallen soul. Mary says that Logos is the name of the Lord and Sophia is the name of the Bride. In the bridal chamber, their name is Christos.

Mary tells us that of all things, she wishes us to have the Sacred Heart of Christ, which is compassion. She describes compassion as the womb of the Mother in which Christ is born, and in this way, Christ will be born in us. She advises us to pray to the Mother Spirit to have her womb and to conceive and birth the Anointed in us.

Some disciples asked Mary about the end of time. Mary called it the ‘Day of Understanding’. She relates that in that time, there will be holy apostles who bring the knowledge of the covenant of the Mother Spirit, and also many false prophets. She describes a great Light and great darkness that will enter the world and a great conflict and confusion. She tells us that the Bride will be with the holy ones. She says that if peace is attained, then all would come to pass by way of pure grace, but if peace is not attained then “grace shall surely appear as woes and wrath.” She says that because of the archons, it is unlikely that peace will be attained before that day. But the holy shall be set apart, and though they die, yet shall they live to enter the bridal chamber.” You, like I, are probably not too comforted by that last line! Jeshua said that we are living in a womb in which nothing is guaranteed for the individual. It is not news to us that Light workers are often martyred.

Consider the next statement from Mary a wake-up call; “In the day of the coming of the Anointed, many shall look and see, and among them many will be unwilling to enter the Light, for they shall not recognize the Light in the Daughter sent among them. One who knows the Mother is near to the Father, but one who denies the Mother is far from the Father. There is not two, but only one God and God is both Father and Mother.”
Later in life, Mary was said to have withdrawn to a cave in Ste. Baum where she spent the remainder of her days in prayer and seclusion. She is believed to have been buried at Ste. Maximin where her remains were watched over by Cassianite monks from the fifth century until the Saracen invasion. In a 1058 papal bull, Pope Stephen acknowledged the existence of her relics in the church of Vezelay. The novel The DaVinci Code, infers that Mary Magdalene’s remains are now kept under the glass pyramid at the Louvre in Paris.
In Tau Malachi’s words;
P 172 With the dawn of male-dominated orthodoxy and fundamentalism, which occurred some 300 to 400 years into the Christian movement, and the complete rejection that followed of the Holy Bride, St. Mary of Magdala, the deeper mystical and magical elements of Christianity were rejected. I dare say the true spirit and soul of the Christ revelation was lost to the majority of Christians. Today, we can only wonder what the face of Christianity and our Western societies and cultures would look like had the Holy Bride been well received and the Sacred Feminine remained a central part of Christianity. Of course, we cannot go back in time and undo the injustice and harm that has been done, but we can actively seek to reclaim the Sacred Feminine and restore the Holy Bride to her rightful place alongside the Bridegroom, seeking a more holistic and integral Christianity. Given the extreme imbalance between the masculine and feminine in our present human condition and world and the evolutionary crisis we are facing, the need to reclaim the Sacred Feminine and to restore the Holy Bride to her rightful place is clear.

When we seek to reclaim the Sacred Feminine in our spiritual quest and to actively invoke the Holy Bride, we do so not only for ourselves, but for the sake of humanity and the world. According to the Sophian vision of the Christ revelation, it is the coequality and mystical union of the masculine and feminine that is the spiritual hope for the future of humanity and Planet Earth.

Heavenly Father, Earthly Mother, may the Holy Bride be

received and may the dawn of the Age of the Mother Spirit come.

May the fullness of the Truth and Light shine among us,

the image of the Bridegroom and Holy Bride in the bridal chamber!