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Who is She?

This is a question I've been asking since I was a little girl. Despite going to a Christian primary school, I have few memories of being taught about her, other than her being a penitent prostitute and the first witness to the resurrection.

When I was ten I watched an animation movie called the Miracle Maker starring Ralph Phiens as Yeshua and Miranda Richardson as the Magdalene. In that movie she's portrayed as being a mentally ill woman tortured by hallucinations, is healed by Yeshua and becomes one of his closest disciples. I should also add the two are VERY touchy feely with each other in that movie, it's a beautifully chaste semi-romantic bond.

In 2003, when I was getting into Wicca, I met someone in a Pagan chat room who called himself a Gnostic Christian Witch. He said that the Magdalene was his goddess, that she was the Holy Mother Spirit (Sophia) incarnate in her Daughter form, just as the Father was with the Son; Yeshua. This....blew my mind. And led me down a rabbit hole of a bunch of Gnostic and heretical texts.

Then the Da Vinci Code came out and this whole belief about Magdalene being Jesus' wife came into the mainstream. But while everyone seemed to be obsessing over their romantic and sexual life and what children they might have had, none of this really phased me because it the first Gnostic Witch I met already held this belief - but he stressed that it came secondary to who Magdalene was as a spiritual leader in her own right.

Since then I have heard so many different versions of who the Magdalene "really" was that it's hard to list them all but I'll give it a go:

- She was originally from Egypt and trained as a priestess of Isis. Yeshua met her on his travels as he was studying before coming into his role as a teacher himself and they formed a strong bond, she anointed him in the name of God the Mother and he in turn helped to heal her chakras (seven demons), something which he had learned after having travelled to the East. It was at Yeshua and Magdalene's own wedding where he turned water into wine, they had a daughter called Sarah who Magdalene escaped to France with following Yeshua's death.

- Another Gnostic path I came across believed she had no human birth but was Sophia come down in human form, just as the Logos came down as Yeshua. While the Logos returned to the heavens, Sophia remained incarnate as the Magdalene with the promise to keep returning in woman form upon her death until the Second Coming.

- Another believed her to have been a priestess of Asharah, whose temple was sacked and she was subjected to horrific abuse, SA and being cast out and nearly stoned to death until being saved by Yeshua.

- the Ecclesia Pistis Sophia have an oral tradition which was written down into a book by Tau Malachi which said she was born into a wealthy Jewish family, had great spiritual gifts but was forced to suppress them, was forced into marriage by her wicked father and then was attacked and assaulted. These "Sophians" believe that she accepted the spirit of Lilith into herself in order to survive and upon meeting Yeshua he healed her and she became the 'fulness' of the divine feminine with Eve and Lilith becoming one in her. She became Yeshua's "Holy Bride" and they had a son called Michael, rather than a daughter. The same story of her travelling to France occurs.

- Kaia Ra, author of the Sophia Code, claims to have channeled the spirit of the Magdalene who revealed her upbringing to her. That she was the daughter of wealthy parents who, as opposed to her origins in the Ecclesia Pistis Sophia, decided to nurture their daughter's spiritual gifts, that she was given lessons at her home but also travelled with her father to various places and connected with many faces of the divine feminine. She meets a fellow priestess, Mother Mary, who becomes like a second mother to her. She meets Yeshua and joins him on his mission of revealing gnosis but she is not beneath him in any way, it is very much a co-equal journey they go on but in the patriarchal society he is the one who is elevated. She and Mother Mary travel to France after Yeshua's death.

There are probably more that I've forgotten and sadly most of the websites I used to come across in the 00's are now lost.

But all of these stories have shaped my relationship with the Magdalene in some way. Parts I've agreed with, others that don't sit right with me. I don't know if we'll ever know the full truth. Even the ancient texts can only tell us so much, being written decades if not over a hundred years after the Magdalene lived and not even in the language those who knew them would have spoken.

The "canonised" gospels tell us that the Magdalene was the first to see Yeshua after his death. For me that at least speaks of his importance to her. His wife? His best friend? His co-preacher and partner in ministry? Personally I don't think it matters, it speaks of the same thing. Love. He loved her. Whether that love was romantic or platonic or something else, it was love and respect and the deepest trust.

They also tell us that she supported him and the men by her means, implying she was very wealthy, and yet she is not mentioned in relation to any man, neither as daughter or wife of mother. She is simply the Magdalene, ie from Magdala, a fishing village. The name also means Tower, which gives an image of strength and earnest faith.

Luke and Mark both say that Yeshua healed Magdalene of seven demons. I find it interesting how this event takes place off page, as opposed to a lot of other miracles we see Yeshua perform. For me this implies it was a rather intimate healing session between the two of them rather than one the public or disciples witnessed. But this could have been either some sort of exorcism as depicted in the Miracle Maker, or a healing of her mental and spiritual health with something similar to chakra healing as was believed by my Gnostic friend.

Interestingly the gospels do not say that she was the woman who anointed Yeshua's feet and head, this seems to have been either Mary of Bethany or the unnamed 'sinful' woman and it doesn't really make sense why the writers would name Magdalene specifically later but not state it to be her here. But given there is contradictions on where this happened as well as who did it, I don't think it's a stretch for anyone to still believe the Magdalene did anoint him herself at some point.

And then you get to the Gnostic gospels and the apocryphal texts and these just elevate the Magdalene even further when she was clearly already an important figure before. The Gospel of Philip connects her to Sophia and says that Yeshua would kiss her often and the disciples were jealous that he "loved her more than them". The Gospel of Thomas has Yeshua refusing to heed Peter's request to send Mary away as "females are not worthy". In The Dialogue of the Savior, it is said that she "spoke this utterance as a woman who understood everything." In the Pistis Sophia, the Magdalene is constantly questioning and offering up her own visions to Yeshua who heaps tons of praise on her for her insight and says "You are more blessed than all women on earth, because you will be the fullness of fullness and the completion of completion." And again he becomes protective when Peter's sexism makes her afraid. And all of this culminates in her own Gospel, which very little remains but is so fascinating. In this text, it is the Magdalene who stands up and takes on Yeshua's role while the men weep in fear and loss of what to do. Peter voices that they all knew Yeshua loved her most among women and pleas for her to share her visions. Sadly most of what she shares with them is lost but what remains seems to be a vision of how the soul rose above the seven demons that struck her to its Higher Self. Peter and Andrew reject what she shares but Levi defends her.

What does all of this lead to for me in the end?

It leads me to see the Magdalene as any other goddess. As many have contracting legends and myths and origins, the same is true of Her. And to me she is a goddess, she is Zoe Sophia - the Divine Daughter - in a human form, an ascended master and high priestess. She is not the first or only instance of this, but she is the one I most connect with. Whatever the "true story" of who she was is irrelevant, at this point it's all these various beautiful legends that inspire the mind and spark the soul's ascension.

Many people focus on the Magdalene for her faith and devotion. Many focus on her "sacred marriage" to Jesus and see her as a figure of romantic and faithful love, as well as motherhood, as well as what intimate and potentially sexual spiritual experiences they may have had together.

For me, the Magdalene is a balance of dark and light. While many I see position her as just "Christ with a feminine face", or another form of Mother Mary as a loyal follower and caretaker, for me she has an energy and personality that is so unique to herself and separate from them. Though of course they are a huge part of her life and her story, I don't have either Yeshua or Mother Mary in my personal pantheon, and I don't believe it's necessary to in order to connect to the Magdalene. She was very much a powerful spiritual woman before she met either of them.

For me the Magdalene is passion, she is fire, she is strength and wisdom and courage. She is in no way passive, she is a constantly active eternal flame. She was not just a student receiving knowledge but also inspiring Yeshua and others around her, a seeker and dreamer, a spiritual shield maiden. I don't believe Jesus cast any demons out of her with a wave of his hand, I believe he taught her how to heal them herself. Because we all need help from time to time. I do believe she may have had traumatic experiences that impacted her mental health, this is something I very much connect with and feel her with me when I am at my lowest. She has met those demons and conquered them. And anyone who calls upon Her to protect them from demons, she will descend like a mother bear. The Magdalene is loyal but not submissive. Patient and caring but not meek and mild.

I do believe she loved Yeshua and was devoted to him, whether as a friend or lover it makes no difference, it was a powerful love. But while she called him Teacher out of respect, he revered her as a priestess just as much and they were fully equal. I do not believe as the Sophian Gnostics do that she subjugated herself before him. She was not his Holy Bride or Consort. Her relationship with Yeshua was her great love but not her only one. I believe she and Mother Mary loved each other as mother and daughter. I believe she had close and powerful friendships with female disciples such as Mary of Bethany and Salome. I also believe she had a daughter, Sarah, who may have been Yeshua's or not, but either way she would raise her as a single mother (with her community of friends). The Magdalene also loved God. In that, she is a goddess of divine love but in all its wonderful and various forms.

I felt compelled to write all this out for my own benefit as I've come to embracing the Magdalene back in path and my pantheon. Having tried my hardest to search around, most of those who claim to be Magdalene Priestesses all have their own beliefs about her and charge a fortune just to interact with someone looking for Her. In the end I felt called to save my time and money by trusting my own intuition and experience with her. I love having her back on my altar, only this time it's Cernunnos who sits opposite as the divine masculine. I respect Yeshua but he is not part of my faith and the Magdalene has told me that's okay.

Nothing inherently had any value, even before realization every meaning you think was innate to experience was actually a meaning you attached to whatever the experience might have been

The point of non duality is not to extract value or meaning but to show that value/meaning are fundamentally empty mental phenomena and narratives, and this comes back to the understanding of how “all is mind” which states that appearances cannot be separated from the “meaning” they have and these meanings are synthesized internally, in the mind for lack of a better word

So do not see anything as pointless, that is veering into nihilism NOT non duality. If you feel after knowing this life has become distasteful or less interesting then be rest assured this idea is nothing more than just another appearing narrative you can choose to transcend or believe—up to you

Vintage French Zodiac Cancer Amulet

Joseph Campbell, from The Hero with a Thousand Faces