 St. Mary Magdalene, 1490s, Tempera on panel, 72.5 x 76 cm Image courtesy Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica, Rome |
"The real reason that people are so excited by Mary Magdalene today is that there is a huge change in our collective consciousness," explains British psychologist and New Paltz resident Roger Woolger, PhD. "The culture as a whole is ready to throw over the old patriarchy. The first great ripple was the feminist movement, but now it's become a huge wave that is finally reaching the Church." Woolger, renowned for his work in past-life regression, is a scholar in comparative religion and a seasoned lecturer on the spirituality of medieval Europe and the Holy Grail legend.
"Mary Magdalene is exciting to so many people because there is a psychic revival going on about what I call 'the return of the goddess.' She, for me, is the lost goddess." The lost goddess ideology professes that the worship of an exclusively masculine image of God in Christianity is not only distorted, but dangerous in its neglect of reverence for a complementary female figure, the so-called sacred feminine.
"The attraction to the Magdalene has to be seen as a profound awakening of modern consciousness to the idea that the divine—the idea of God, and his human incarnation and son, Jesus—can no longer be separated from their female counterparts and partners," Woolger says passionately. "Father/God must once more be co-equal with Mother/Goddess; incarnated Son/Lover must again be co-equal with incarnated Daughter/Lover."
The Da Vinci Code concludes that Mary Magdalene was the consort of Jesus Christ, as have earlier literary works like the 1983 book Holy Blood, Holy Grail and in the Nag Hammadi texts, a series of early Christian gospels discovered in Egypt in 1945 which suggest that, in addition to there being an intimate relationship between Jesus and Mary Magdalene, she was his chief apostle. Some believe she was a pagan priestess, and bore Jesus a child. Medieval lore holds that following Jesus' crucifixion, Mary Magdalene and a small entourage, fleeing hostility towards his followers, landed in a frail boat on the shores of Les Saintes Maries de la Mer (literally translated, Saint Marys from the Sea) near present-day Marseille, France.
Although no official documentation of her arrival exists today, France's Provençal culture is saturated with tales of this occurrence, manifested in numerous shrines and sacred sites. In fact, it was Woolger's teenage visits to the region that marked the onset of his lifelong investigation into ancient legends and sites. For the past 15 years, he has been sharing his knowledge of Southern France and spirituality by leading pilgrimages to the area's many consecrated sites, allowing travelers to retrace the steps of those who worshiped the divine feminine in pagan and Christian times.
"The essence of pilgrimage is to focus the mind and heart on a spiritual archetype and go to a place where many have already found their faith, had healing or some awakening experience," Woolger explains. The two-week expeditions (called Magdalene Tours) take journeyers from the shores of the Mediterranean at Marseille to the majestic volcanic peaks of the Massif Central region.
Among the sites that reveal aspects of both pagan and Christian reverence of the feminine are the ancient catacombs of old Marseille, where the shrine of a Black Madonna stands in a place once dedicated to the Greek goddess Artemis. Southern France is remarkable for its high concentration of Black Madonnas, first appearing in the 10th century and thought by some to be Christianized effigies of pagan deities.
"I think that these Madonnas are associated with old healing centers that later became Christianized," Woolger says. "What I believe is that these churches and sacred sites were built over, or near, caves or mountains that are actually power places. They have a very strong energy. Dowsers and sensitives will attest to this."
Individuals are compelled to join Woolger's pilgrimages for an array of reasons. Many, "like the readers of The Da Vinci Code," he observes, "are looking for something of the lost feminine in the medieval legends and iconography of Christianity, [and] are dissatisfied with mainstream patriarchal Christianity." Others claim to have perceived a palpable, powerful energy of the region, while others profess a profound fascination with the Middle Ages, which Woolger sometimes attributes to past life connections. Travelers can have intense dreams or healing experiences while on the tour, like one woman whose chronic eye problem resolved while visiting a Black Madonna statue near Carcassonne—one that she later learned is renowned for eye cures.
Another benefit Woolger sees in embra-cing the lost goddess ideology is that it can help reconcile what he and coauthor J.B. Woolger describe in The Goddess Within: A Guide to the Eternal Myths that Shape Women's Lives as a profound split between sexuality and spirituality. "Over the centuries a series of dire equations were established in the minds of Christians: Woman = Earth = Dirt = Sex = Sin," an idea reflected in the popular misconception that Mary Magdalene was a prostitute. (This false attribution was first made by a pope in the sixth century; the Vatican only officially cleared her name as recently as 1969.) The Woolgers attribute the church's negative view of the body and sexuality to an oppression of the legitimacy of a goddess figure, which often is associated with fertility and a healthy sexuality.
Within Christianity, the Virgin Mary is a cherished feminine presence. But the rediscovered Mary Magdalene is a goddess archetype who embodies earthly and sensuous womanhood. Worshippers can experience her not as an unreachable deity of virgin purity in the sky, but in everyday experience.
With millions of people exposed to and enlightened by the ideas of The Da Vinci Code (soon to be followed by Ron Howard's film adaptation), human consciousness is ripe for fully unraveling the lost goddess enigma. "After being suppressed, denigrated, and persecuted for two thousand years," says Woolger, "the Great Goddess is finally returning in all her beauty, wisdom, and glory—as the Magdalene."
This year's Magdalene Tour, "In Search of the Magdalene, the Black Madonna and the Lost Goddess," runs September 30–October 15. Highlights include visits to a holy cave high above Marseille where Mary Magdalene is said to have ended her life in a state of meditative prayer, the Basilica at St. Maximin-Ste.Baume where her enshrined skull is purportedly held, and several chapels housing black madonnas. A detailed itinerary is posted at www.magdalenetours.com. En- rollment ends March 31.