Heavenly Mother Increasingly Mentioned by Mormon Church Leaders

Veiled Mother of the World by Russian esoteric Christian Nicholas Roerich
Veiled Mother of the World, 1930, by Russian esoteric Christian Nicholas Roerich

Yay. God-the-Mother is coming out more and more in various religions. The Mormons have always believed She existed, and a Heavenly Mother has been in their doctrine all along. But they have told their leaders not to preach sermons about Her (due to persecution, being called a “sex cult” back in the 1800s). Now that is changing. Pretty cool.

Mormons also believe Mary Magdalene was Jesus’ wife. My daughters love hanging out with Mormon friends, one whose parents have prominent paintings of Jesus and Magdalene on the wall. (Painted by Mormon artists).
Here’s a news article about the Heavenly Mother being increasingly mentioned by LDS (Mormon) leaders. It has an interesting Madonna-like picture of Her with a hidden face.
 

http://www.sltrib.com/home/4549096-155/meet-the-heavenly-parents-mormon-leaders

God Has a Wife! (and Goddess has a husband) — as we’ve been saying here on this website since 1999. Here’s our 2006 God Has a Wife! slideshow for more images of Her…

 

Esoteric Meaning of Candlemas, Imbolc, Groundhog Day, Feast of the Purification

Here is one of our Mystery School’s esoteric holiday calendar pages:  http://www.northernway.org/school/way/calendar/candlemas.html

Candles lit in a rowFebruary 2, Candlemas, Imbolc, Feast of Purification

You’ve probably heard of Midsummer and Midsummer Night’s Eve.  But did you know today is Midwinter and last night was Midwinter Night’s Eve?

Midwinter, Groundhog Day and Candlemas are part of a very old holiday with a Christian-Pagan history. Its Christian version is called the Purification of the Virgin and is the end or culmination of the forty day period after Mary God-Bearer had her baby on December 25. Jesus is 40 days old today.  He gets to be Christened at the Temple, where Anna the Prophetess and Simon will see the baby and proclaim him the “Light of the World”.

In the ancient world, it was the custom for women to wait forty days after childbirth before entering a church or Temple again due to “uncleanliness”. This 40-day waiting period is still observed in Eastern Orthodox Christian churches today, and all Christian churches still schedule the Christening of a new baby at least forty days after the birth in keeping with this ancient purification practice. Also, there was the idea that the soul takes 40 days to anchor inside the baby.

Therefore today is Yeshua’s Christening or Naming Day when an exorcism is performed and the baby formally enters the Church.This special forty-day period in the Christian calendar is one of four such in the esoteric Church year.  The other three forty-day periods are:  Fall Equinox (Sept 21) to Halloween / AllSaints Day (Oct. 31, Nov.1), Spring Equinox (Mar 21) to May Day (May 1) and of course, Lent. Lent is the forty-day period beginning on Ash Wednesday and ending on Easter Sunday every year.Candlemas is a church “adaptation” of a pagan goddess holiday called Imbolc where people light candles to banish dark spooks. Candlemas is celebrated on the same day as that pagan holiday, February 2nd.
The word Imbolc, variously spelled Imbolg, Oimelc and Imelg, means “ewe-milk” because this is the time lambs were born in old England, Ireland and most of Europe thus bringing back the flow of ewe’s milk.


February 1, Imbolc Today (tomorrow, according to some calendars) is the day of Candlemas, the Festival of Lights, a Midwinter Festival. Known to Neopagans and ancient Celts as Imbolc (Gaelic origin, “in milk” or ” in the belly”), a festival of the Maiden Goddess and a traditional time to bless agricultural implements (especially the Plow) and livestock. Neopagans celebrate the holiday with home blessings and lighting candles to welcome the coming of the light and the Goddess in Spring. In Ireland, the day is the festival of St. Bridget, a holdover from celebrations of the Celtic Goddess Brighid. Traditional corn dollies and Bridget’s crosses are fashioned from straw.

–Jennifer Emick

Bishop Katia writes:

OUR OBSERVANCE

On February 2nd we ask that all members of our Church of the Way and Ekklesia Epignostika light a candle at their altar and carry it across the room to put in a window.  It’s a simple but powerful rite that acknowledges today as a holy day going back 5000 years. You may light more candles if you’d like, the more the better. See the picture below for how many candles Christian churches get ready for this day!

 


Make a Crown of Lights for the Candlemas Queen

Another observance is to light several taper candles (seven is best) which are shaped into a crown, called the Crown of Lights worn by the Candlemas Queen.  See the very end of this page for description:  “A Crown of Lights is prepared for the Mother and left by the altar. Traditionally, the Crown should be of candles or tapers, which are lit during the ritual.”


Mother of God of the Blessed Thunder Candle from Polish TraditionRev. Francis X. Weiser, SJ writes:

The Poles have a beautiful legend that Mary, the Mother of God of the Blessed Thunder Candle (Matka Boska Gromniczna), watches on wintry nights around Candlemas, when hungry wolves are on rampage outside the sleeping village. With her thunder candle she wards off the ravenous pack and protects the peasants from all harm…

All over Europe Candlemas was considered one of the great days of weather forecasting. Popular belief claims that bad weather and cloudy skies on February 2 mean an early and prosperous summer. If the sun shines through the greater part of Candlemas Day, there will be at least 40 more days of cold and snow. This superstition is familiar to all in our famous story of the groundhog looking for his shadow on Candlemas Day.

 


Mark Raines writes:

Imbolc really is the beginning of Spring, despite the fact that there may
still be snow in some places and dreary skies almost everywhere! If you look closely, you will see that the snow is just a blanket covering the beauty of the Mother, which is about to shine through soon. You’ll see the first hints of Spring, if you’re really looking for them. In this spirit, Candlemas is celebrated. (Note: Candlemas is the Christianized name for Imbolc, but the two are used almost interchangeably by many earth-based groups such as Wiccans today. Groundhog Day is a secularized term, but it draws from a Pagan tradition. More on that in a minute)

Imbolc is closely associated with the Celtic-Irish goddess Brigid. Imbolc is sacred to Brigid because she is a goddess of fire, of poetry, and of healing, all things that go along
with the creative powers of the onset of spring. She is a powerful representation
of the Maiden Goddess, and she has been almost perfectly preserved for us
today by none other than the Roman Catholic Church. Rather than call her
demon and risk the displeasure of all Ireland, they canonized Brigid and
made her the patron saint of poetry and healing. This appeased the Irish,
who at the time probably saw the Catholic saints as being very similar to
gods.

There is one very well-known tradition of Imbolc, and that is the tradition
of the groundhog’s shadow predicting our weather. If a groundhog came out
of its hole and saw its shadow, that meant six more weeks of bad weather.
This tradition is still widely celebrated today. Another tradition is to
put a candle in your window on Imbolc Eve, representing the Eternal Flame
of the Maiden Goddess.


Candlemas Christian Setup at the Credence TableFeast of the Purification

In Myth and Ritual in Christianity, Alan Watts says about the Feast of the Purification observed in Catholicism, and by Anglicans and Lutherans: “Finally, the rites of the Incarnation reach their climax with the Feast of the Purification on February 2nd, otherwise known as Candlemas. For at this time the Church blesses all the lights to be used in its ceremonies thruout the year, since it was at Christ’s Presentation at the Temple that Simeon called him “the Light to lighten the Gentiles, and to be the glory of thy people.”…As the choir chants…all the clergy and people assembled for Candlemas receive the blessed candles before the altar, and then go in procession with them around the church, singing: O daughter of Sion adorn thy bride-chamber and welcome Christ the King: greet Mary with an embrace, who is the gate of heaven, for it is she who bringeth the King of Glory, of the new light. … During the mass that follows, all hold their lighted candles during the chanting of the Gospel” and various other times in the ceremony.

FEBRUARY 2nd (Excerpt below Ret’d from http://www.fellowshipofisis.com/jc/jcfeb1.html Jan 31, 2004)

Greek: DEMETER and PERSEPHONE; The Lesser Eleusinian Mysteries, Second Day:
(for the first and third days of Feb., see the above link)

Roman: CERES and PROSERPINE; LUPA. (Mosheim, Eccl. Hist. Vol. Il. p. 51)
“the list of festivals for the whole Christian church was swelled by the
consecration of the day [February 2nd] of the holy virgin Mary, that the
people might not miss their Lupercalia, which they were accustomed to celebrate
in the month of February.” Note by Soames: “This was instituted in the reign
of Justinian, and fixed to the second of February . . The Latins called it
. . Candlemass; because many candles were then lighted up; as had been done
on the Lupercalia, the festival of Proserpine, whom her mother Ceres ‘searched
for with candles . . See Hospinian, de Fest. Christ, p. 52.

(Whistler, English Fist. p. 86) “the early Church instituted on February
2nd the Feast of Lights, blessed her candles, placed by the altar in sheaves,
and filled her basilicas with candleshine . . ‘Thus’, said the Pope, ‘what
was done before to the honour of Ceres, is now done to the honour of the
Virgin’. (Foot-note) Quoted by William Hone, The Every-Day Book, Vol. 1 Col.
202”.

JUNO FEBRUA, The Purifier. (Brewer, Dict.) “Candlemas Day. . It was the old
Roman custom of burning candles to the goddess Februa, mother of Mars, to
scare away evil spirits”.

Celtic: BRIGANTIA, BRIGHID. (Denning and Phillips, Magical Philosophy, Vol.
III. p. 166) “Brigid is the most widely powerful of the Celtic Goddesses.
She is the power of the new moon, of the spring of the year, and of the flowing
sea. In Ireland she is most famed, and in Britain she was Goddess of the
widespread tribe of the Brigantes. Her festival, from ancient times to the
present, is the second of February, the Celtic FireFestival of Imbolc . .
In Pagan times, her statue was annually washed in sea or lake to celebrate
her festival, being conveyed ceremonially overland, in a chariot or a boat;
in her associated with a ship – she may be compared to Isis (note: see March
5th). . Always with candles and with water do we greet her, the great
Moon-Mother, patroness of poetry and of all making and of the arts of
healing.”

Candlemas LightbearerClick on the image on the right to read a modern pagan take on Imbolc/Candlemas.

(B. Morgan, Matriarchy Newsletter, No. 2) “Just as Hallowe’en marks the retreat into winter darkness and symbolises menstruation at the dark of the moon, so Candlemass marks the opening out of the natural world, ovulation, and emerges into the pure light of Spring first glimpsed at the Winter Solstice. The festivals symbolise on another level the Celtic belief in reincarnation; death at Hallowe’en followed by gestation in the dark space-womb of the Goddess and rebirth in a new body at Candlemass. This is the time for initiations in witchcraft, a rebirth of the spirit.

“Candlemass is when we come spiralling out again from the darkness, and our matriarchal symbol, the spiral, seems to recur in many aspects of Brigit’s cult. The dynamic shape of her crosses, the curling coats of her sheep and perhaps even the twisted patterns in Aran wool, handed down from mother to daughter, are part of her”.

British-Roman: SUL-MINERVA. (B. Morgan, id.) “Sul-Minerva of Bath seems to be identical with Brigid; a goddess of knowledge and healing with an ‘ashless fire’ in her sanctuary. If Sul, whose name derives from the Celtic words for the eye (i.e. suil) and seeing, is cognate with the Goddess of Silbury Hill, there could well have been a procession at Candlemass to her sacred spring, the Swellowhead, which begins to flow again in February, when the Queen ‘comes from the mound’ “.

English: THE WIVES. (Esther Harding, Woman’s Mysteries, p. 131) “In the north of England . . Candlemas used to be called The Wives Feast Day because it was regarded as a fertility festival”.

General: THE WITCHES, Great Sabbat. (Doreen Valiente, ABC of Witchcraft, p. 98) on Druidic links with Witchcraft: “the Great Sabbats of the witches are identical with the four great yearly festivals of the Druids in Celtic countries; namely Beltane (30th April), Lughnassadh (1st August), Samhain (31st October) and Imbolc or Oimelc (2nd February)”.

Jewish: THE VIRGIN MARY. (Esther Harding, Woman’s Myst. p. 130) “Another ancient festival of candles celebrated long ago for a moon goddess is now repeated on the same date, February the second, for the Virgin Mary, Moon of our Church. . This is the Festival of Candlemas. It corresponds in date and customs to the Celtic Holy Day of St. Bride or St. Brigit. St. Brigit is the Christianized form of the ancient Celtic goddess Bridgit or Brigentis, a triune moon goddess whose worship was at one time very widespread. On February the first, as today in the Catholic Church at the Festival of Candlemas, the new fire was kindled and blessed”.

(Whistler, English Fest. p. 87) An extract from an account written by a
prebendary of Durham, in 1628, of John Cosin, bishop’s chaplain, later Bishop
of Durham: ” ‘On Candlemas Day last past, Mr. Cozens, in renuing that . .
ceremonie of burning candles in honour of Our Ladye, busied himself from
two of the clocke in the afternoon till foure, in climbing long ladders to
stick up wax Candles in the said Cathedral Church. The number of all the
Candles burnt that evening was two hundred and twenty, besides sixteen torches:
sixty of those burning tapers and torches standing up, and near, the High
Altar . .’ ” (id.) “A writer to the Gentleman’s Magazine in 1790 noticed
at Ripon that ‘the Collegiate church was one continued blaze of light all
the afternoon, from an immense number of candles’. Today, in all Roman Catholic
churches, and in some Anglican ones, the feast of lights is remembered, and
there is much blessing and processing with tapers . . Snowdrops are ‘Mary’s
Tapers’ – ‘Candlemas Bells’. They are the day’s particular flower”.

THE CANDLEMAS QUEEN. (Farrar, Eight Sabbats, p. 66) “Imbolg, 2nd February
. . In Christian tradition, the Crown of Lights is often worn by a very young
girl, presumably to symbolize the extreme youth of the year”.

In an illustration shown by Dr. Margaret Murray (The God of the Witches,
p. 15) the Swedish Lucia-Queen is a girl wearing a crown of seven tapers
set in a circle.

THE TRIPLE GODDESS; THE IMBOLG MOTHER. (Farrar, Eight Sabbats, p. 66) “Imbolg
. . The Preparation:

“The High Priestess selects two women witches who, with herself, will represent
the Triple Goddess-Maid (Enchantment), Mother (Ripeness) and Crone (Wisdom)
– and allocates the three roles.

“A Crown of Lights is prepared for the Mother and left by the altar.
Traditionally, the Crown should be of candles or tapers, which are lit during
the ritual”.

Groundhog Day. (Druids Cal.) “February 2nd: Groundhog Day. ” (Fell. of Isis
Dir.) “February 2nd: Groundhog Day. Down to Earth for growth”.

God did have a wife, say religious scholars

Thanks to Msgr James for sending this article link about God’s wife and his “divorce” from MotherGod.  See my “theories” after the short article.

Veiled Mother of the World by Russian esoteric Christian Nicholas Roerich
Veiled Mother of the World, 1930, by Russian esoteric Christian Nicholas Roerich

http://www.helium.com/items/2119975-god-had-a-wife

Religious scholar: God had a wife

by Terrence Aym, March 20, 2011

According to theologian and historian Francesca Stavrakopoulou, God had a wife and her name was Asherah.

Wikipedia states that Asherah is mentioned in the books of Exodus, Deuteronomy, Judges, the Books of Kings, the second Book of Chronicles, and the books of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Micah. She crosses many of the ancient cultures and the ancient Hebrews saw her as God’s wife or “the Queen of Heaven.” She’s generally considered identical with the Ugaritic goddess Athirat by most religious historians.

The Book of Jeremiah written about 628 BC refers to the “Queen of Heaven” and many believe it’s a reference to Asherah that was not expunged by heavy editing several hundred years later.

An Oxford scholar has argued that the Book of Kings reveals the Hebrews worshiped Asherah and Yahweh in Yahweh’s Israelite temple.

Although during the past decades many religious scholars, historians and some theologians have discussed Asherah and her relationship to the Hebrew God Yahweh, it’s generally recognized that the first to discover that the ancient Hebrews worshiped both deities equally was historian Raphael Patai.

Patai voiced the argument of God and His wife, and presented evidence, to the skeptical world of 1967.

Now, more than four decades later, the world is catching up to Patai’s milestone work thanks in large part to Stavrakopoulou’s research while at Oxford University and her continuing work as a senior lecturer in the department of Theology and Religion at the University of Exeter.

In a written statement to the British press accompanying a three-part series airing in Western European countries about her research, Stavrakopoulou stated, “You might know him as Yahweh, Allah or God. But on this fact, Jews, Muslims and Christians, the people of the great Abrahamic religions, are agreed: There is only one of Him. He is a solitary figure, a single, universal creator, not one God among many…or so we like to believe.”

But then she shared her bombshell finding with the media stating that “After years of research specializing in the history and religion of Israel, however, I have come to a colorful and what could seem, to some, uncomfortable conclusion that God had a wife.”

Evidence in scripture and artifacts

Her startling theory which flies in the face of modern organized religion is based on artifacts from the past and ancient texts. She points to many unambiguous artifacts—primarily amulets and figurines—that have been found by archaelogists over the years. Many are from the Ugarit, an ancient Canaanite coastal city located in what later became Assyria and then, Syria.

All of the artifacts, she argues, show that the goddess Asherah was a very powerful figure, linked strongly to Yahweh, as his wife, and as the powerful fertility goddess of Creation.

Agriculture, the first and most important invention of humans, was strongly influenced by such things as a fertility goddess. Because crops were a life or death issue to everyone, Asherah was pictured as being equal to Yahweh and, in fact, his loving bride.

Her link to the Hebrew God, Stavrakopoulou says, is equally evident from an inscription discovered on a section of 8th Century BC pottery recovered from a site in the Sinai desert—as well as within the text of the Hebrew version of the Old Testament.

While describing the importance of the pottery’s message, Stavrakopoulou explained, “The inscription is a petition for a blessing. Crucially, the inscription asks for a blessing from ‘Yahweh and his Asherah.’ Here was evidence that presented Yahweh and Asherah as a divine pair. And now a handful of similar inscriptions have since been found, all of which help to strengthen the case that the God of the Bible once had a wife.”

Ancient Israelites were polytheists

The director of the Bade Museum and an associate professor of Bible and archaeology at the Pacific School of Religion, Aaron Brody, believes that all the hard evidence reveals the ancient Israelites were polytheists.

Asherah fell into disfavor soon after some high-ranking Israelites were banished to Babylon. About that time the famous Temple of Jerusalem was razed. Brody thinks those events during 586 BC were followed by a purge in Judea among the worshipers of Asherah.

Eventually only one male God—without a wife—was accepted and preached and believed by people of all the countries of the world.

Thus it might be said that by the 5th Century BC, as far as the Israelites were concerned, God got a “divorce.”

* * * * * * * * *END OF ARTICLE* * * * * * * *

I don’t think God got a divorce. Mother-God just went underground; they are still married. Her veiling herself up and going into hiding was a mutual decision, I believe, because human-kind was not ready for a Divine Pair. If female humans were not respected enough to have souls, are even not not respected enough to be able to drive cars without being flogged, be able to hold jobs, own real estate, if human females are not respected enough to be able to walk out doors after dark, or stand at the bus-stop, or play in the yard during the day(!) without fear of kidnapping and rape, then female Deities could not be respected, either. She went underground, our Judeo-Christian goddess did.  Only in the Western world are women receiving the above mentioned privileges. The majority of us Western Women are avoiding rape and kidnapping (See Wikipedia’s article on worldwide rape statistics). Therefore, only in the Western world do we have the Sacred Feminine, the “Goddess” taking her veils off and coming into the open again alongside her spouse, Father-God. The Eastern mythologies may have goddesses married to their gods, but they are so sexist and misogynist they kill female babies (China, India), enslave daughter-in-laws (India and other countries), and sexually enslave girls and women for life in horrible brothels (India, the Far East, too many to list).

Asherah or God-the-Mother was considered God’s equal and his spouse for centuries up until around 500 years before Christ. For several reasons at that time, among which was all the perversions surrounding Her worship, it was deemed “safer” to go to all-male-god religion. People just could not separate sex from Goddess worship, and her temples and places of worship (groves of trees on hilltops) had become glorified brothels. Not family friendly at all!

Even today whenever we try to start up churches that worship Mother God alongside Father God, we end up with so many nut-cases that only think with their hormones. There is always one or two who show up at our meetings and ruin it for everyone by doing things like hitting on the under-age daughters of participants, stalking adult female members, and worse. I have seen it again and again in various cities and towns all over this country the past 20 years as I have tried to start God-and-Goddess Judeo-Christian churches. It is easy to see how the ancients got tired of this unfortunate side effect regarding God’s female counterpart and decided to go to all-male deities. In those days you had bandits and even groups of soldiers who would “just for the fun of it” go raid Asherah worshippers, raping priestesses and devotees, murdering anyone who got in the way of their fun. Just think of the brothels in India, the Far East and Eastern Europe where sex slaves are abused daily, repeatedly to this day. Whenever we have a place of worship that centers around a Divine Union of God and God-ess, a large segment of the population fixates on the sexual aspect of that. Even some of the all-Goddess churches I have visited, worshipped with, or worked with have large lesbian memberships (and some have all-lesbian leadership) that frown on heterosexuality.

Mary Magdalene and Jesus depicted as husband and wife, Magdalene pregnant
Pregnant Mary Magdalene & Jesus depicted as Husband & Wife, 1910 Scotland Church window

The hormones really come out whenever the Feminine Divine takes her veils off and gets human attention. For the same reason Mary Magdalene was kept hidden “veiled”, edited out of mainstream Christianity (she remained in Gnostic scriptures and in underground Christianity as evidenced by the stained-glass church window over a century old in Scotland). It’s easier to have a celibate god and a virgin non-sexual mother as we discuss in our Restoring the Goddess  lessons based on Margaret Starbird’s wonderful work. The only females that are “safe” are asexual unnatural virgins or hyper-sexual prostitutes. Males like Jesus must be stripped of their sexuality, made celibate with no hint of human sexuality.

It’s sad, and I don’t know when we will finally get there, but at least here in the Western world we can discuss,  study and have a web-based honoring of Her. In the Middle Eastern world we’d all hang…or be beheaded, stoned to death, etc. for blasphemy, apostasy and perversion. Yes, we would be the perverted ones. Not the people who “circumcise” their female population at the age of 7 or 8 so that 90 percent of (for example) Egyptian women cannot achieve climax during relations with their husbands. Why do they want marriages like that, the Egyptian men? It is baffling that Westerners are called sexually perverted. Even Allah had a wife named Allat (she’s the same as Asherah, but the Arabic version). But don’t bring Her up, either.

I cover all this evidence of God and Allah having a Divine Spouse in my online slide presentation God Has a Wife! here:

I am glad the author of the article mentioned Raphael Patai’s work. In our online study program we have a whole course on his famous book, The Hebrew Goddess. Very inspiring book, in a scholarly way. Here’s our (old) page on the Hebrew goddess. Remind me to update that old page and add this latest research findings and my pet theories. (smile)

If you have watched our God Has a Wife! slide show presentation all the way to the end and want to take our course based on Patai’s book Hebrew Goddess, let me know.  The Hebrew Goddess lessons are on the passworded pages of our Mystery School’s website and we usually charge membership dues for it. Send me an email or comment below if you HAVE THE BOOK and are SERIOUS ABOUT READING IT. I will let you access the Hebrew Goddess lessons thru the back door, at no cost.  Click here to order the book from Amazon: The Hebrew Goddess
In Her,
+Katia

*

Reign of Mary Beginning Soon

Anne, the grandmother of Jesus, with her daughter Mary
Anne, the grandmother of Jesus, with her daughter Mary
“…the fight between the sons of light and the sons of darkness, established by God in Paradise, when He foretold that Our Lady would smash the serpent’s head: an eternal fight that was, is, and ever will be present in History until the end time.
<snip>

At Fatima, Our Lady prophesied her triumph, that in the end her Immaculate Heart would triumph. We are sure that many more and much greater marvels are still to happen in this world.

We ask her to imbue our souls not only with nostalgia for that past era of faith, but above all with a hope for this future. An ardent hope should inspire us to do everything that we can to accelerate this future so that the Reign of Mary will come as soon as possible. Making penance for our faults, maintaining our desire for a complete victory for Our Lady, and completely rejecting the present day abominations in the Church and society are the backdrop for this prayer. By our suffering, work, fight, and dedication, by the risks we are willing to face, we should help in the restoration of Christendom and the implantation of her glorious Reign.”


* * * * * *

I got to the above excerpt by searching for info about today’s only female saint, Saint Gibitrudis of France. Her spiritual teacher was Saint Fara and it was on St Fara’s page (be sure to click thru to see nice illustrations) I read the above stirring words. It is so obvious that Catholicism reveres Mother Mary as God-ess. She is called Our Lady, the coming of HER reign is looked forward to, not just His reign.  In the first line above, Mother Mary is Mother of All Life, the New Eve who will crush the evil one … just as Jesus is said to do at the end of time in the book of Revelation. Catholicism reveres the Feminine Divine whether they admit it or not.

Mary’s mother, Jesus’ grandmother, Saint Anne is also depicted as a God-ess with statues of her shown giving the priestly blessing, while Mother Mary — a child — sits at her feet wearing a beautiful crown of pink roses.

Our Christian Goddess is part of theology, but the powers-that-be will never admit it openly, only indirectly. Reminds me of the Mormon church who I am told will not admit or talk openly about the Heavenly Mother, yet they acknowledge She exists and is part of their theology.

Makes you hope reform from the inside might be possible.  Some day. Not any time soon considering the way Rome (and the LDS church for that matter, come to think of it) is so against women in the priesthood.

Here’s the link about Saint Fara and all the princesses who left their kingdoms in the 7th Century to go become her spiritual students. Today one of those princesses, Gibitrudis, has her feastday. I had to find a female saint for today because my 3 year old insisted on baking a cake for SOMEbody… baking cakes is her form of self-therapy. I am reminded of the “baking cakes for the Queen of Heaven” function priestesses-of-the-home have performed since Old Testament times.

+Katia

Mary Magdalene a Goddess?

We were discussing last week on the GoddessChristians forum whether Magdalene is a goddess or not. Many ask whether Jesus was a god, was he divine, was he “just” a spiritual teacher with a divine message. So when it comes to the Sacred Feminine we come up with the same questions.  Were Mother Mary and Mary Magdalene “goddesses”?Divine beings? Or enlightened teachers? Margaret Starbird wrote in to say:

I guess it’s time to ask the question, “What is a Goddess?”

Many theologians identify “God” as pure energy, personified in a
masculine image (like the Almighty Father in Michelangelo’s “Creation”
on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. But everyone knows that “He” is
not really “the One”–who is ineffable and defies description. Judaism
and Islam allow no images of God because God is beyond all human
ability to create such an image.

Yet we know of many “gods” in the ancient world… Could we say that
they are “incarnations” of the masculine attributes of “God”? and,
given this, might we then say that Mary Magdalene is an “incarnation”
of the “Goddess” attributes of wisdom/compassion/love?

I believe that just as Jesus embodied the Jewish tradition of Yahweh
as the “Bridegroom of Israel,” Mary Magdalene embodied their tradition
of the “Daughter of Sion” as Bride (as in the rabbi’s interpretation
of the Song of Songs that has so many verses in common with an ancient
liturgy honoring Isis and Osiris). The Jesus/Mary Magdalene story was
a “personification” of the ancient and archetypal marriage covenant
between “God” and his Beloved–His chosen people.

peace and well-being,
Margaret
“Mary Magdalene, Bride in Exile”
www.margaretstarbird.net

Candlemas / Imbolc, Pre-Christian & Christian both

Candlemas, Imbolc, Groundhog Day and the Lady
This is one of those cool holidays that like Christmas has inspiring pagan and inspiring Christian rites to go along with it.  Other holidays may have both pagan and Christian observations, but one or the other is less inspiring, boring, depending on the holiday.  Like Valentine’s Day — the pagan observations are far more exciting than the Saint day observations.  St. Patrick’s Day is like that too — pagan part more inspiring than Christian saints day observations.  The reverse is true for Easter, whose pagan observations aren’t as sublime as its Christian elements. Candlemas / Imbolc has the best of both worlds.  Both pagan and Christian rites are awe-some-awe-inspiring.
A Fellowship of Isis member named Denise aka GreenElfMom@aol.com writes:
My Imbolc poem for you all

Daylight lingers longer,
the days a little warmer.

The Lady lights her candles;
the God as Stag King rambles
in the Sacred Wood.
His cry stirs our Life's Blood.

We turn our faces sunward.
Again we're filled with wonder
as the land begins to waken
from the Death's Sleep it had taken.

Let us reach out, hand to hand,
every woman, every man,
to circle with the sun
on the Cycle now begun.

Happy and Blessed Imbolc to all!

      --Elf/Denise
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And here is our Esoteric Mystery School Candlemas/Imbolc observation.
Light your candle for the Lady!
–Katia

January 6, Jesus’ “original” birthday observed by very early Christians

http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en-us&q=january+6+jesus+birthday&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

January 6 was observed for centuries as Jesus’ birthday.  So happy birthday again, baby Jesus, and good for you Holy Mother for manifesting the Light as only Sophia-Maria can do…

–Katia

Is God Beyond Gender? The taboo Judeo-Christian Goddess in YHVH

Rabbi unveils a secret of God

http://www.lohud.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2008807210344

By Gary Stern, The Journal News

 The tradition-bound Western image of a he-man, masculine God may already be thousands of years out of date, says a Westchester rabbi who believes he has unlocked the secret to God’s name and androgynous nature.

 Rabbi Mark Sameth contends in a soon-to-be-published article that the four-letter Hebrew name for God – held by Jewish tradition to be unpronounceable since the year 70 – should actually be read in reverse. When the four letters are flipped, he says, the new name makes the sounds of the Hebrew words for “he” and “she.”

 God thus becomes a dual-gendered deity, bringing together all the male and female energy in the universe, the yin and the yang that have divided the sexes from Adam and Eve to Homer and Marge.

 “This is the kind of God I believe in, the kind of God that makes sense to me, in a language that speaks very, very deeply to human aspirations and striving,” Sameth said.

 “How could God be male and not female?”

 Sameth, 54, the spiritual leader of Pleasantville Community Synagogue, first hit on his theory more than a decade ago when he was a rabbinical student.  Since then, he has quietly pieced together clues and supporting evidence from the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament and the vast body of rabbinic literature.

 His article “Who is He? He is She: The Secret Four-Letter Name of God” will appear in the summer issue of the CCAR Journal, published by the Central Conference of American Rabbis, an association of Reform rabbis.

 Sameth’s theory is not as outlandish as it might seem to the uninitiated.

For one thing, Jewish mystical traditions have long found levels of meaning in the Hebrew Bible beyond those that come from a literal or metaphorical reading. For another, there is a deep tradition in Jewish prayer and thinking, particularly among the so-called mystics, of seeking to reconcile the male and female elements in the universe.

 Sameth’s article includes this: “What the mystics called ‘the secret of one’ is the inner unification of the sometimes competing, sometimes complementing masculine and feminine energies that reside within each of us, regardless whether we are male or female.”

 The notion that God is what Sameth calls a “hermaphroditic deity” could energize the growing movement in many religious traditions to present God in gender-neutral terms, particularly in Scripture.

Rabbi Lawrence Kushner, a revered scholar among liberal Jews who has written extensively on Jewish mysticism and spirituality, called Sameth’s article “delicious, thought-provoking and wise.” Kushner is among a small group of scholars and friends with whom Sameth has shared his article in recent weeks.

“I think most people assume the God of the Hebrew Bible is masculine, but Mark, through some sound and clever research, suggests that God may have always been androgynous, ” Kushner said. “This can affect the way we consider holiness and the divine, and invites us to reconsider our own gender identities, which is kind of a bombshell.”

 The Hebrew name of God that is known as the Tetragrammaton – the four letters Yud-Hay-Vov-Hay – appears 6,823 times in the Hebrew Bible. Since early Hebrew script included no vowels, the pronunciation of the name was known by those who heard it.

 According to Sameth’s footnotes, the name was said only by priests after the destruction of the First Temple in 586 BCE. After the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, the name was no longer said and the pronunciation lost.

 Jewish tradition has long held that the name was too sacred to articulate.

Jews have generally used Adonai, “the Lord,” in place of the Tetragrammaton.

Various Christian groups have pronounced the name as “Yahweh” or “Jehovah.”

Sameth has no intention of speaking the “reversed” name of God that he has uncovered, preferring to focus on its meaning.

“I still won’t pronounce it, intentionally, as God’s name,” he said. “I’m not suggesting that anyone pronounce the name.”

Sameth became fascinated with Jewish mysticism while a rabbinical student in Jerusalem during the early 1990s. He studied with Moshe Idel, a pre-eminent scholar on mysticism, and learned how medieval Spanish Kabbalists and others uncovered mystical meanings from the Torah that had been shrouded in patterns of words and letters.

Once back in New York, at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, the Reform seminary, Sameth was studying the biblical story of the prophet Nathan reprimanding King David for murder, which becomes a turning point for David. Sameth realized that the Hebrew forms of both names, Nathan and David, are palindromes, words with spellings that can be reversed.

It was, as they say, a revelation.

“It’s about reversibility, ” Sameth said. “King David is changing the direction of his life, and the two key characters, their names are palindromes.

What are the chances of that?”

A new zeal for biblical reversibility led Sameth to flip the four Hebrew letters of the unpronounceable Tetragrammaton. [YHVH becomes HVHY] In his head, he heard the Hebrew words hu and hi. That’s “he/she” in English.

And he felt connected to a long line of Jewish mystics who have mused about the male and female coming together.

“I really believed that I had found something significant, ” Sameth said.

“Then I did 10 years of study to see if I could find support for it.”

Much of his article consists of weaving together clues and examples from Jewish Scripture and wisdom that offer historical context for his thesis. For example, Sameth contends that the Zohar – a medieval, mystical Torah commentary – was referring to God’s dual-gender “when it suggested that the sin of Adam was that he ruined the marriage between the feminine and masculine halves of God by divorcing himself from the feminine.”

He also writes: “We realize now that the secret was almost revealed by the 13th-century Torah commentator Rabbeinu Bachya, who makes note of every four-word cluster in the Torah whose rashei teivot, or initial letters, spell out the Tetragrammaton in reverse.”

Rabbi Jonathan Stein, editor of the CCAR Journal, was on vacation and not available for comment.

Sameth has been the only rabbi at the decade-old Pleasantville Community Synagogue, a self-described “trans-denominational” congregation that includes elements of Reform, Conservative and Reconstructionist Judaism. Congregants come from many backgrounds and communities to the synagogue, which has become known for hearty singing and dancing during services.

Talking recently about his years of study to grasp the meaning of God’s name, Sameth had to stop, swallow hard and take a breath when describing what it’s like to receive sparks of insight from the great Jewish thinkers of long ago.

“It is a form of transcendence to be connected in that way,” he said.

Sameth doesn’t believe that he has stumbled on a previously unknown understanding of God’s name, but that he has been able to connect the dots in a fresh way.

Those who find meaning in his work, he said, may encounter a different understanding of God that is comforting to feminists and those on many spiritual journeys. They may also read the Torah differently.

“If this interpretation is correct, it says that the Torah is a mystical or esoteric text,” he said. “The mystics have been saying all these years that the text conceals more than it reveals. It is structured with different levels of meaning and reveals itself over time. We’re talking about one tradition that goes all the way back.”

Katherine Kurs, a religion scholar who teaches at New School University and is an associate minister at West-Park (Presbyterian) Church in Manhattan, said that the image of God presented by Sameth will have great appeal to many people who are searching for spiritual meaning.

“Mark’s unveiling is part of a mystic lineage that presents a prismatic experience of God, that says there are ways of experiencing God that contain and explode categories simultaneously, ” said Kurs, who has known Sameth since they studied together almost 20 years ago. “This God is not a male or even a female but a male-female or female-male, a God that holds tension and paradox, a full-spectrum bandwidth God.”

Sameth has shared his image of a dual-gendered God with the seventh- and eighth-graders he teaches at his synagogue. He said they’ve been very receptive, which isn’t surprising because they are growing up in a post-modern age.

“As post-moderns, we’ve been conditioned to a different relationship with language,” he said. “That’s why there is all this interest now in Jewish mysticism.”

He wonders how, 2,000 years from now, people will understand the final chapter of “Ulysses,” which includes no punctuation.

Will they try to add punctuation, believing that it’s been lost? Or will they grasp that James Joyce knew what he was doing?

“Joyce was playing with language, using language to play with the medium,” Sameth said. “And the Torah isn’t just about Noah taking the animals, twosies by twosies. If that’s what the Torah was all about, how could it have captivated Western civilization for 3,000 years? There had to be more.”

RESPONSES TO THE ABOVE:

— In spiritwithoutborders@yahoogroups.com, Rachel wrote:

> The only problem with the article is that G-d has never been seen as male in Judaism; calling G-d “He” is convention. There is no neutral gender word in Hebrew. G-d is neither (not both but neither) male or female in the Jewish religion; having no physical attributes or even emotions as we understand it. When it talks about humans being created in G-d’s image it means spiritually. G-d has always been spoken of in the feminine as well as masculine, for example as a mother or father, as a master or mistress (when we are referred to as bondsmen or bondswomen).

> I don’t understand a Rabbi who hasn’t learned that. It is a bit odd to me.

Katia writes:  Seems to me the very fact there is no gender neutral word in ancient Hebrew, the original language of theology, basically proves there was no gender neutral God in Judaism.

GLENN KING responded to Rachel by posting the following to the DivineMother forum.

Rachael, I am certain that you are right in stating that the formal theology of Judaism states that God is beyond all aspects of gender. That is also the position of Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and liberal Protestantism. My problem is that I doubt that few people in their hearts of hearts really believe this. I also suspect that few Jews historically have believed it either.

      First let me explain a few things. It is certain that the biblical God is not a male in the same physical way that a human man is or as Greek god such as Zeus. The god of the Israelites did not relate to other gods and to human women as did the Greek gods. Clearly the bible discourages that point of view.

       However after stating that, it is clear that in most respects the biblical writers saw Yahweh is in a deep way as male. “He” is Lord and King and never lady and Queen. G-d has mostly “male” roles of ruler, judge, warrior, etc. It is true that sometimes this male aspect slips and in few places he is seen as like a female eagle, or a woman in labor. But in general the male images hold.

       There is other evidence of this. G-d is often called Elohim in the bible. My understanding is that Elohim is the masculine plural of Eloah which  can quite properly be translated as “goddess.” Yet the verbs associated with this are always masculine and singular. My point is that the biblical writers had a multiple of opportunities to dispel the idea that G-d is some how intrinsically wrapped up with maleness. Yet the writers repeatedly do not do this. Thus I would argue that the idea that the biblically male language of G-d in the bible is purely conventional is incorrect. On the contrary the male language of god in the Bible betrays the very strong patriarchal culture of Israel which believed that if god has to be imaged as personal then G-d has to be male even if not conventionally so.

      I would also suggest, whatever the rabbis’ point of view, that they were not the authors of the biblical text. The understanding of the rabbis, most of them wrote and commented on the Torah after the time of Jesus, is not necessarily the view of earlier pre biblical Israel i.e. of the period 1300 BCE to about 600 BCE. It seems that monotheism only fully triumphed in Judah after the exile. Thus the understanding of the majority of Israel’s people and of her elites were not doubt quite different than that of the latter rabbis.  It is also obvious that the latter Cabbalist Medieval writers had a different point of view. To a large degree their theology was that the High Holy One, the King, had lost his connection with his Shekinah i.e. Queen or daughter who was in exile with Israel. The Shekinah, the Sabbath Queen, etc were all seen as basically female. I am of course aware that latter day theologians and philosophers have argued that all of this Kabalistic language was all merely metaphoric not to be taken literally. To defend this language I am sure that even the Kabbalists themselves stated that it was all just metaphor. The problem is why use all of this metaphor if it just confuses the issue. Why talk as if there is in fact a female and male presence of God if God is only a singular, sexless “spiritual” (what ever that means) being.

      My real suspicion is of course that these people did have a radically different vision of G-d  which was not compatible with Rabbinic orthodoxy. Thus what they did is cover it up with their talk of allegory and metaphor. It would not be very pleasant to be exiled even from the exiles.

       I think of course that the same thing has happened within Christianity in relationship with Mary. Official Catholic and Orthodox theology claim that Mary’s role as Queen of Heaven, Co mediatrix and of her power and Glory are all just borrowed powers from Jesus to whom all real power and glory resides. Thus all of Mary’s power and glory  is simply at bottom not real.

The problem with this is why in fact would God even permit this. If this is all there is to Mary, then Protestantism makes all the sense in the world. Of course again I think that all of this talk is subterfuge to hide the real fact that psychologically and really Catholics love and adore Mary in ways very similar to how the old Pagans used to worship Isis, Inanna and other goddesses. The point of this being that official doctrines of religions often hide as much as they reveal. Often they hid radical realities rather that admitting the radical truth of the real situation.  –Glenn

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Ricardo from our local Meetup wrote:

This documentary talks about this topic in a very interesting way:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7261415312649669138

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BURL HALL RESPONDS TO GLENN LINE BY LINE:

Glenn King writes:

Rachael, I am certain that you are right in stating that the formal theology of Judaism states that God is beyond all aspects of gender. That is also the position of Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and liberal Protestantism. My problem is that I doubt that few people in their hearts of hearts really believe this. I also suspect that few Jews historically have believed it either.

* * * * * * * * *

BURL responds: 

I think to take gender out of the Godhead is to deny our relationship to the greater whole.  When I see the Sun’s rays entering my cells and feel them unfold their potential by absorbing those rays, then I tend to see my cells as acting in a female role and the sun in a male.  In other words, gender is reflective of cosmic process.

Another piece is that if you read other myths and scriptures from throughout the world, no other culture is shy about describing that which is before manifestation (i.e., the Unmanifest) in the Feminine.  The Feminine is the container of potential, be that potential be in the form of a seed in the ground, an egg in a mammal or bird, or as hidden knowledge in the depths of our minds.

* * * * * * * *

>>First let me explain a few things. It is certain that the biblical God is not a male in the same physical way that a human man is or as Greek god such as Zeus.

Genesis 1:27 reads: “God created humanity is “his” image, male and female created he them.” However after stating that, it is clear that in most respects the biblical writers saw Yahweh is in a deep way as male. “He” is Lord and King and never lady and Queen. G-d has mostly “male” roles of ruler, judge, warrior, etc. It is true that sometimes this male aspect slips and in few places he is seen as like a female eagle, or a woman in labor. But in general the male images hold.

* * * * * * * *

This change could also be seen as a holographic tidal wave on this planet.  … all one movement of one tidal wave that will eventually rescind and calm down (will we become extinct in the process, or transform? is the question).  Your work, my work, the work of the people in this group is to be the beginning of this transformation.  So is the work of the locavores or local food movements and so on.  While you may not see the relationship of these two movements (and many others), I do.  They are one wave that hopefully will gain momentum (according to Sophia’s desires which operate much like the moon on the water (and our bodies) to replace these dark ages.

 

> Thus I would argue that the idea that the biblically male language of G-d in the
> bible is purely conventional is incorrect. On the contrary the male language
> of god in the Bible betrays the very strong patriarchal culture of Israel
> which believed that if god has to be imaged as personal then G-d has to be male
> even if not conventionally so.

Looking at this holographically, I would also say that seeing God as purely male reflected a shift towards more externalized thinking.  We have wars because we are more interested in conquering and controlling them over there then we are about developing our inner potential.  This is what Sophia is, in my opinion.  she is the infinite inner world of all creatures and contains all potentials that unfold according the interactions of Her son and husband, Eros, or Creative Desire.  Or as Hermes said (I’m paraphrasing), “Sophia is the container of potential and Eros initiates that unfolding.” Hence, in sexual reproduction, the egg exists as a potential person that unfolds as a body upon the union with sperm.  Or, in the Stanza’s of Dyzan “Darkness (female) radiates Light and Light drops one solitary ray into the Mother’s depths.  The eternal egg thrills and divides…”  And, wa-la here we are having this conversation.

> It is also obvious that the latter Cabbalist Medieval writers had a different point

> of view. To a large degree their theology was that the High Holy One, the

> King, had lost his connection with his Shekinah i.e. Queen or daughter who was in

> exile with Israel.

 

When you get down to it, the Holy One entails the knowledge of unity in diversity.  The mystical aspect of the people existing when the U.S. came to be knew this in their “E Pluribus Unim,” IN UNITY DIVERSITY.  There is unity in diversity and diversity in unity.  As the chaos theorists now realize, this is one Planet that operates as a single organism.  We, in other words, are cells in the Planet and are not the Kings or Queens of it.  Due to our arrogance and our “growth without end” mentality, we have become cancerous cells..this is what cancer is, growth gone wild.

* * * * * * * * *

The Shekinah, the Sabbath Queen, etc were all seen as

> basically female. I am of course aware that latter day theologians and

> philosophers have argued that all of this Kabalistic language was all merely metaphoric

> not to be taken literally.

Ah!  Merely metaphoric!  Metaphor according to Burl and Gregory Baetson IS the language of the universe.  Metaphor is the language that connects.  If we look at the external orientation of our modern day, we can see the male externalized genitals.  We are more interested in invading other countries and controlling the population (politicians, scientists, etc) then we are our inner world.  Yet, it is in our inner world that a new world can unfold.  It is only by tapping into the Feminine that we can create a peaceful planet.

Hence, one of Sophia’s names is Salem, Shalom or Jerusalem meaning peace.  Giving birth to Sophia (i.e., the Daughter), we give birth to peace on Earth.

* * * * * * *

To defend this language I am sure that even the

> Kabbalists themselves stated that it was all just metaphor. The problem is why use

> all of this metaphor if it just confuses the issue.

* * * * * * * *

Metaphor is holographic.  Understanding one, you understand the all. Gregory Baetson says that metaphor is Nature’s language. I can figure every one of our individualized and creative paths through the Wizard of Oz.  The Wizard of Oz is metaphor.  One person argued with me about Baum’s story being political.  “Well, I said, that’s true too.”

Now, how could I say that?  Easy, in my holographic universe, the political interpretation of this man was one with my spiritual [interpretation].  The sun’s rays shining through a prism breaks down into a multitude of colors.  Each interpretation is one strand of color existing in one ray of Light emanating from the Womb of Sophia.  (Baum states that the story just erupted into his consciousness.  Need I say more about Sophia’s hand being there?)  We are all Dorothy in Oz (manifestation) seeking Kansas (Heaven or the land of non-duality as reflected in the flat greyness).

>         I think of course that the same thing has happened within

> Christianity in relationship with Mary. Official Catholic and Orthodox theology claim

> that Mary’s role as Queen of Heaven, Co mediatrix and of her power and Glory are

> all just borrowed powers from Jesus to whom all real power and glory resides.

> Thus all of Mary’s power and glory   is simply at bottom not real.

 

Another slant on this is that Mary, Marie, means Ocean (marine, marina, etc).  When the Spirit moved over the face of the Deep in Genesis, the Holy Spirit came upon Marie in the New Testament. Hence, the Light of the world was born, the Word.  Again, this happens beyond time and space, in infinity, and as such is as much a possibility for each one of us as it is for some externalized woman living during the Roman times.  “Of what use Gabriel your message to Marie / unless you deliver that same message to me,” a mystic once said.

* * * * * * * * *

> The problem with this is why in fact would God even permit this. If this is all there is to Mary, then Protestantism makes all the sense in the world. Of course again I think that all of this talk is subterfuge to hide the real fact

> that psychologically and really Catholics love and adore Mary in ways very > similar to how the old Pagans used to worship Isis, Inanna and other goddesses.

Ya just can’t kill your love for your Mother.

 

> The point of this being that official doctrines of religions often hide as much

> as they reveal. Often they hid radical realities rather that admitting the 

> radical truth of the real situation.

 — Glenn

 

Or, is it that we don’t understand the language in our literal, empirical, results oriented, society.  Doctrines are living documents.  The Bible, the Rig Veda, the Tao Te Ching, the Upanishads, etc are all living, interactive beings.  There words are seminal in unfolding potential within you.  They are not to be taken literally, for to take them that way would be to kill them.  Rather, one should dance with all religious writings and in hearing other interpretations, one should dance with those also.  As the Three Musketeers stated, “Its all for one and one for all.”  In the diversity of interpretations is the mirror of the Holy One….Sophia who is male and female in Her divine essence.  Her kiss is Her Son, Eros.  Every time He visits me, I create an article, a book, or an insight.  What is unmanifest becomes manifest in me when I am in His arms.  And who is His arms if not Her extension?

–Burl Hall, author of Sophia’s Web

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LORE WRITES:

I would go further and note that this claim of a genderless God only arises when one is discussing the Goddess. As long as the pronouns remain masculine, no one makes this argument. It is just another way of keeping the Goddess from being discussed. Their argument can be boiled down to this: If God is genderless, there is no point in discussing the sacred feminine because it either doesn’t exist or is included in the masculine references.

This is the same argument made against using genderless titles (ie flight attendant, chairperson) back when the second wave of feminism began to demand that women’s titles be the equal of men’s. The argument that the male title actually includes the female was quite popular with those who wanted to resist feminine empowerment. This argument went so far as to claim that the laws didn’t need to be changed to include women because the words “man” and “men” actually included women — this despite the exact opposite argument had been made to deny any rights to women for centuries.

In “The Goddess vs. The Alphabet,” Leonard Schlain argues that the Hebrew ban on images was a direct attempt to erase the Goddess. The Goddess religions that preceded patriarchal monotheism made liberal use of images, especially sculpture. When we understand this, the God of Moses banning all “graven images” takes on a new context.

 

We can even argue that the concept a genderless God arose from the need to eliminate the Goddess. The Goddess worshippers were too powerful to [get rid of] all at once, therefore they began to indoctrinate the masses with the idea that God has no gender. This would have developed over decades or centuries until no one remembered that the “genderless” God (expressed as male) was needed to eliminate the feminine Goddess.

 

The people that claim God is genderless are disturbed when I use exclusively feminine pronouns and references when speaking of deity.  If God is genderless, then my use of these sacred feminine words shouldn’t matter. It is obvious they do, thus it is obvious that despite their claim God is genderless, they are accustomed to thinking of God as masculine and are not comfortable with thinking of God as feminine.

But in my world, this argument about how the Hebrews and rabbis think of God is moot. I was raised Christian where God is very definitely male. The RCC made official pronouncements to this effect just recently, going so far as to denounce and deny all marriages whose marriage rites contained gender-neutral language. The Sistine Chapel is very clear: the image of God is powerfully male. I wasn’t raised RCC but their images bleed over into all Christian religions. No traditional Christian would make the argument that God is genderless nor do they easily accept the idea of the sacred feminine, even in the abstract. Even those who claim God is genderless do not easily accept having the sacred feminine being plainly addressed or represented alongside their easy acceptance of the sacred masculine address or representation (ie using God and Goddess equally or displaying both images in equal prominence). This is why they engage in their genderless God rhetoric. Discussion of the Goddess or any version of the sacred feminine makes them uneasy, therefore I should not feel free to use it.

As long as we’re willing to engage in their argument — that God is genderless therefore we don’t need to use any sacred feminine references, we are reacting on the defensive and allowing their definition of deity to be the primary definition of deity. If indeed their God is genderless, my use of the sacred feminine in any of Her variations should not bother them. As long as they argue otherwise, it is an indication that their genderless claims are denied by their passionate need to keep me from referring to the sacred feminine.

When they no longer care, then I would believe their God is indeed genderless.

I don’t really care what the ancients believed or how they thought of God. I prefer to claim the sacred feminine alongside the sacred masculine, therefore their preferences are meaningless to me.

Lore continues:

At 11:36 8/24/08, Burl wrote:

>I think to take gender out of the Godhead is to deny our

>relationship to the greater whole.

It is not by accident that we yearn to identify with the sacred feminine. It is the completion we need to have a healthy relationship with all of life and the universe. Gender is indeed reflective of the cosmic process, as you noted. It is so integral that it is represented in every species, even those that are androgynous. As a species, we cannot imagine life without either gender. Even our material items are referred to as gendered (ie a ship is “she”). Trying to make a monotheistic deity one gender or genderless defies this deep natural instinct and creates imbalance in our thought processes.

It also creates a masculinized world that devalues and fears anything associated with the feminine while worshipping anything associated with the masculine. This worship of all things masculine is what allows our society to glorifies the mass extinction of others (including other species) via war, genocide, rape of the earth, etc.

Since creativity is viewed as feminine, it too is feared and devalued. We cannot make progress without creativity, yet men who display prowess in overtly creative endeavors (ie an artist) are ridiculed as “feminine” and shunned.

There is no way to have a balanced society that strictly worships a monotheistic deity that is either one gender or genderless. It is an abnormal and deformed way of viewing the universe and our world experience. Like all things that are deformed, this abnormal belief cannot create the balance and acceptance of Self, Earth and Universe that we desperately need.

–Lore

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Katia wrote later:

I really like the new theory by Rabbi Sameth about YHVH being reversed to say He/She.   He/She makes alot of sense for the Divine’s name, and the major names of God in our very Bibles literally mean just that.   Elohim means “God and Goddess” and Yahweh/Yahovah/YHVH is a combination of the God Yah and Goddess Havah (Havah is Hebrew for “Eve”, and means Mother of All). 

The Tetragrammaton name of the Divine, written YHVH, has the added benefit of meaning God/Goddess no matter which way you look at it — front to back or back to front.   No matter how you flip it, there is Goddess-and-God simultaneously.

Jesus “just” a myth or historical? –OR BOTH?

Mystery School member Faith writes:

One author that I have read and gained a lot of insight from is the late Alvin Boyd Kuhn. I imagine that you have read some of his works, too. What he revealed about the Christ being “the fire of Divine Intelligence” distributed among all of humanity, I believe is true. He explained that all of the myths of antiquity are depictions of the descent (incarnation), evolution in matter (Mother), and ascent (resurrection) of the Christ (the Sun of God) in us, as us. This being the meaning of the Gospel stories, I wonder whether or not Jesus and the Apostles were actually historical people. I understand that “the living Jesus” of the Gospel of Thomas was the Cosmic Christ, not a particular human being.

Katia answers:

Hi Faith! Good thought-provoking questions. You have hit upon the historicity of Jesus argument long debated by theologians and historians since the writing of the New Testament. In the past 200 years the Myth vs. Historical Jesus debate has raged with new fervor. It’s fascinating.

I abscribe to the JRR Tolkein (Lord of the Rings author) and CS Lewis (Chronicles of Narnia) viewpoint. CS Lewis was struggling with the Jesus myth thinking it was all symbolic, archetypal, etc. and therefore he couldn’t believe it was “real”. His best friend Tolkein told him something very profound. Yes, said he, Jesus is a myth and the fulfilment of myth. An archetype bearer. But Jesus’ story is a myth that also happens to be true…historical. In other words, BOTH are true! This is why the debaters can’t solve this issue, because they are both right.

It’s like an onion. Each layer is “real” separately but they are part of a whole truth. The whole onion. Dream interpretation can be that way, too. Dreaming your brakes went out and you can’t stop your car can mean you should literally check your brakes — this could be your intuition warning you of a physical danger. AND it can mean that you are a bit out of control in your waking life and need to figurately “put the brakes on” regarding some issue or situation in life. We would ask the dreamer, how are you going too fast, how do you need to slow down and get control, get safe? So both interpretations can be true simultaneously. Like God can be real in the spiritual realm as well as the physical realm if She chooses. It’s cool! Goddess came as Mother Mary — Mary was an archetype-bearer of Sophia or God-the-Mother. And Magdalene and Yeshua also bore archetypes. They “actualized” the male and female wise-teacher god/goddess Krishna, Buddha archetypes or entities.

>Faith wrote:

>The ancient Gnostics deplored those who believed the gospels as literal history.

Katia writes:

I have always read that there were 200 or more Gnostic sects and they were about 50-50 on the historicity argument. In other words, some Gnostics believed and taught he had come in the flesh — perhaps they had great grandmothers who had been healed by him or heard one of his famous sermons, etc. The Mandeans are a Gnostic sect still alive today in Iraq and they believe firmly in the historicity of Jesus. They think he stole the messiah-ship from John the Baptist, but they believe they were all historical characters! I have studied Valentinian and Sophian Gnosticism and enjoy it very much. Valentinus certainly believed Jesus was historical. But the Sophians seem to have clergy who believe one way or the other depending on personal preference. They need to merge the opposites — do the Zen on it(!) and realize that BOTH are true. Yes he was a Sun-god myth and Dying-resurrecting God and yes Christianity is/was a cool solar “cult”. But. He also got himself a body and walked around this earth awhile, just like Buddha and Aristotle did. Wisemen who lived centuries before Jesus — and made their mark on earth even bigger a mark than Jesus some could argue! — yet they are never thought to be un-historical, or myth-only.

>Faith wrote:

>These ideas have me feeling uncertain concerning the ideas concerning Jesus and Mary Magdalene implied in the lessons and suggested readings at the Esoteric Mystery School.

Katia writes:

You are not the first member who has brought up this discussion with me. Our Catechumen Lessons, most of them, are quite old. We’ve been using them for years with a bit of overhaul here and there, but I am wondering if I need to address the myth vs. historical debate — that BOTH are “true” — right from the start. What do you think? Where specifically do you think in the Catechumen lessons maybe we are emphasizing too much of the historical Jesus and not reminding folks of his mythical cosmical (is that a word?!) function/fulfillment? I mean, what was it — besides the fact we recommend members read Holy Blood Holy Grail (HBHG) — that got you feeling uncertain, as you put it?

>Faith wrote:

>As symbols of elements of our Being they inspire us to lovely virtues and ideals, and faith in our inner powers. But if the stories are regarded as historical, I can easily see how the ideas in the book, Holy Blood, Holy Grail, developed among literalist people over the centuries. A bloodline of Jesus misses the whole point of Gnostic teachings, which is the Inner Christ nature which is being brought to birth within us as children of the Father-Mother.

Katia writes:

Oh so true about HBHG making people go LOOPY when they think of the literalism of it. Margaret Starbird herself says the bloodline thing is a huge distraction, a big red herring that makes people miss the point just as you say. She says believing/realizing Jesus was a lover and a co-parent in the physical realm is enough. We don’t also have to believe his descendants are alive today. Too much ego gets in there — and too much insanity. I get emails ALL the time from people thinking they are one of them.

If only that bloodline hype hadn’t mired us in the physical so much after some decades of being “only” in the spiritual / mythical realm. Hah. Margaret told me once that the bloodline nonsense really muddies the waters and I believe it can be a stumbling block big-time. So you are definitely on to something, yet I still “confess that Jesus Christ came in the flesh,” as the test of spirits tests for….

Funny and lucky how we can believe in both. It’s so very Zen…

I think much of this Jesus-was-just-a-cool-myth is an understandable backlash against obnoxious churchianity insisting one BELIEVE in Jesus, “ACCEPT” him, believe, believe, BELIEVE in him! Ugh. Many free-thinking people are put off by this extreme mind manipulation. Believe like me or you will DIE. Uh, no thanks we say. Knowing instinctively that their lopsided Jesus never did exist, we then kinda throw the baby out with the bathwater and say well, I guess he never was an historical person at all! These goof-ball fanatics have sure scared me away from being down-to-earth about this.

There are so many cool Zen masters that everyone knows by name. And dozens of inspiring wandering rabbis, teachers, mystical rabbis. There are Buddhist sages and Hindu sages galore who lived at the time of Jesus and before that nobody doubts whether they existed or not. It’s because those sages aren’t being singled out and shoved down our throats, aren’t being used as a weapon. Even King Arthur is said to have existed although they know there were several characters whose stories may have been compiled to make his myth. The King Arthur myth is mythology, but he still probably was based on a real live man. Some say even Osiris was perhaps a real Pharoah way back in Egypt’s distant pre-historical origins. The Gods and Goddesses of the Northern Europeans may have been real people, or used real people just after we emerged from the last Ice Age.

Jesus gets the most attention because he has taken the most abuse! Manipulative control-freaks have hijacked his story, name and his teachings for such a long time. They are really turning a lot of us off. Fact is, Jesus was a liberator, a Zen-master sage dude whose true message and teachings have been all but lost. I think we can find the real teachings there under the layers of churchianity, and I think what he taught is very inner, very esoteric, at least semi-gnostic, and completely alternative to the extroverted “mundane” un-mystical mainstream.

Ya gotta have Faith, like your magikal name. <grin> Yet you also gotta resist insulting your free will, not to mention your intelligence!, by this oppressive mainstream beast best called by the name “Churchianity”.

–Katia

Bloodline the Movie, evidence of Magdalene & Jesus in France

Magdalen Papess Card by Robert PlaceEveryone is talking about — and my friend Joan Norton, author of The Mary Magdalene Within, is blogging about — the mysterious film coming out next month called Bloodline: the Movie. The filmmakers interviewed Margaret Starbird whose work we very much appreciate and very much study in our Order of Mary Magdala. Margaret told us on our Yahoogroups forums she doesn’t even remember a word she said the day they interviewed her because producer Bruce Burgess showed up on her doorstep, cameras in tow, just hours after she had learned of the death of her beloved father. She had forgotten he was even coming. Evidently the interview ended up being quite powerful because the Bloodline movie people have posted it in full to their website (click on Screening Room).  I need to go over and have a look. They also have an interview with the supposed head of the Priory of Sion, an organization I thought was basically made-up by Frenchman Pierre Plantard (of Holy Blood Holy Grail fame). The film claims to be following up on the mysteries of the groundbreaking book Holy Blood, Holy Grail (as brought into the public forum by DaVinci Code), a sort of whodunnit digging thru clues and artifacts in France and uncovering a chest of treasures dating to 1st Century France. Somewhere online a few years ago I saw photos of the contents, on a website of one of the filmmakers, I believe. Anyway, there was a scroll (I think) and a cup (the Holy Grail?) and some other items. Very cool. Then the Indiana Jones type explorers found a tomb with a mummy draped in a shroud bearing a red cross.

It sounds a bit fantastic, too good to be true, but hey, I will be in the front row watching the movie and taking notes. Well actually, I don’t live where it’s going to be screening! Bloodline: The Movie is being shown only in limited theaters in Los Angeles — and maybe New York? Joan has it posted on her blog where you can go view it in L.A. on May 9, I think it is. They are going to have a question and answer session after the premier. Then it’s going straight to DVD after that, so the rest of us won’t have to wait too long.

Sophia, copyright Hrana Janto, used with artist permission. Note her wings, holy spirit dove, pregnant belly with crescent moonThe blogs and forums are all discussing the topic and it’s good to have dialog about our favorite Christian “theory”, that Magdalene and Yeshua were married and the Sacred Union is at the heart of Christianity.I say theory because as Margaret Starbird often quips, “we don’t have a marriage certificate!” Having both a Christian Goddess and God is a spiritual “doctrine” that brings Christianity into balance, no longer a lop-sided dysfunctional religion, but one with heart AND soul. I believe Mother Mary was also a Judeo-Christian Goddess, an incarnation of Sophia, the God-ess mentioned in the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) as being co-creator with God, called the Holy Spirit and Tree of Life. See Proverbs 8 and the apocryphal book of Sirach.

You and I have Christian goddesses! — and acknowledging them can make all the difference in our spiritual practices.

As for the Bloodline Movie, I only hope they are not gonna say that mummy is Jesus’, since we just went thru all that agony (and I believe, nonsense, call me a snob) over the Talpiot Tomb.

If they imply it is Magdalene’s body, then okay, I can handle that. I guess I can even be open to it being Yeshua’s, since I do believe after the resurrection he lived among his disciples awhile (one Gnostic text says 11 years!) teaching and getting the teachings preserved. I mean, he died to deliver that message, so it makes sense he’d want them to get it right. Okay, we didn’t said message so well back then, but he, Magdalene and their students seeded the earth’s consciousness so to speak so that now we can get the point, or at least work on getting the mystery. Digging around the ‘Net, contemplating and pondering, researching, studying ancient wisdom, is delving into those mysteries…

What mysteries are you studying, pondering or digging into lately?

–Katia