Was Mary Magdalene a Jew, or, a Guti Cutie?

Let us explore the most succesful Judaic transplant into White Folk’s Society, whereas Jesus is rejected by many white people, while his alleged consort, Mary Magdalene, is let in all doors – along with her infant with the hood on.

After my fall on the rocks, and death, I emerged from my bedroom and came into the living room where around ten members of the Brotherhood of Eternal Love were waiting for me. My future art patron was there. The first thing I said, was; “I am thirsty.” When I read these were Jesus’ words on the cross nearly thirty years later, I had to get real serious about my purpose in life.

In 1969 I discovered the Pre-Raphaelite artists at the Oakland Library. I read they were influenced by the Nazarene Artists of Germany who let their hair grow long – after the Nazarites. I let my hair grow long. A year later, Rena would walk out of a dark doorway in the middle of the night and ask; “Can I walk with you?”

In June of last year my sister Victoria and I began to talk to one another after many years, we falling out after the death of our famous sister, the artist ‘Rosamond’. Our brother had disappeared after he fought with Vicki. “We are the only ones left.” Vicki said.

Well, that was not the whole truth. Our nieces Drew Benton, and Shannon Rosamond are alive, and I am now being told Stacey Pierrot is out of the picture, all the copyrighted images now in the control of Rosamond’s daughters.

“If they could just get along!” Vicki said, I refraining from casting blame for the twelve year legal battle these half-sisters experienced in a Superior Court in Monterey that opened our wounds even wider so the parasites could get in – that much easier!

Before I went to Bullhead City to smoke the peace pipe with all members of my family, I talked to Marilyn Reed about becoming the Manager of the New Rosamond Legacy – and cult – for it was a cult, there more secrets contained on the Rose of the World Cabal, then demons in Pandora’s Box.

I suggested to Marilyn she design Rose of the World clothing modeled after the Pre-Rpahilte images. This morning, I found a blog that contains my idea.

I told my daughter she might be key in bringing her two cousins together and creating a New Trust, where she could be employed in a New Gallery where is shown the artwork of the creative members of our family. Folks love Family Success stories. Unbeknownst to me, my daughter had a secret plan to open a Bar & Grill, possibly funded by monies her rich aunt would supply – she too living in Bullhead City. Heather did not tell me of this plan because three of her propespeive partners like to drink a whole bunch! Heather knew the end of our story was about the miracle of Sobriety. My daughter and her helpers were authoring a secret script – and I was not in it!

Being sober for twenty four years had disqualified me. But, there was another secret agenda – that will amaze you!

Dante Gabriel Rossetti was in love with his Muse, Fanny Cornforth. Fannie was the model for Fair Rosamond, and Mary Magdalene. My grandmother, Mary Magdalene Rosamond, was an early California model. My family owns the Pre-Raphaelite Legacy. However, we are not going to do anything with it, because the non-creative members, the non-gifted members of my family are too intimidated, too jealous, to even look at what we have. It all comes down to what they didn’t get!

I chose the Pre-Raphaelites after looking for a spiritual media for my art, because when I died – I saw heaven! The untalented members of my family really hate this idea – because they never saw heaven. They call me “nuts” and a “parasite” on society. They have worked extremely hard to make sure I never have any money, lest I lose the beloved titles they attached to me in order to drive me mad and destroy me – like they did Christine – who was seeing three therapists when she drowned! She was surrounded by hangders-on! I never got a dime from her art! This is why I can’t be trusted!

In the probate of Christine Rosamond Benton is filed my claim wherein I mention Mary Magdalene and the Holy Grail. I tell the executor I am authoring a book. This was 1997. Dan Brown and his wife are lurking in a yeahoo group I am a member of where Mary and the Knights Templar are being discussed. There are many books on Mary Magdalene – and a thousand articles on the web.

Jon Presco

Copyright 2012

The most provocative woman in the Gospels, Mary Magdalen makes only a few, dramatic appearances. You always knew there had to be more to the story…

Make way for Maeve, the feisty, outspoken Celtic Mary Magdalen, telling her own story, on her own terms. No one’s disciple, she is lover, bard, priestess, healer. And like her beloved Jesus, Maeve incarnates the divine mystery of love—in the flesh.

Flesh we first encounter stripped naked and displayed on a slave block in Rome. Born to warrior witches on an island in the Celtic Otherworld, raised to be a hero, Maeve is determined to find her lost beloved, a young man known to the Celts as Esus, whose life she once saved at enormous cost to herself. She has survived a shipwreck, trekked through the mountains of Celtic Iberia. Only an imperial power could slow this woman down.

Snapped up by an aristocratic madam, Maeve becomes not only an accomplished whore but also has a close encounter with the goddess Isis, whose story of loss and longing affects Maeve deeply. A failed attempt at escape results in even more bitter slavery when Maeve is sold to a spoiled young matron with a terrible secret. Here in the house of her enemy, Maeve learns the healing mysteries that become the basis of her life—and his. When Maeve lands in mortal trouble, priestesses, whores, matrons, and even Rome’s chief Vestal Virgin must unite to bring about a her rescue.

Free at last, Maeve goes straight to Palestine where she meets Mary of Bethany, a prickly would-be rabbinical scholar, and Ma (yes, his mother), a fey but autocratic matriarch. Neither one knows where Jesus is; he has vanished again. What is a girl to do but settle down in the good-time town of Magdala and open her own holy whore house, welcome each stranger as if he were a god—until, at last, he is.

Equally strong-willed and charismatic, Maeve and Jesus form a union that is as stormy as it is ecstatic. Throughout the terrain of the Gospels—healings, exorcisms, miracles, feasting, riots, and terrifying prophecy—the lovers fight and make love, nurture and confront each other, infusing this unique passion narrative with passion in all its meanings.

In this central novel of The Maeve Chronicles, acclaimed novelist Cunningham brings us a Mary Magdalen who defies all stereotypes- old and new. Passionate and unrepentant, feisty and tender, Maeve leaps off the page, a luminous, embodied archetype for our time.

HistoryIn 1809, six students at the Vienna Academy formed an artistic cooperative in Vienna called the Brotherhood of St. Luke or Lukasbund, following a common name for medieval guilds of painters. In 1810 four of them, Johann Friedrich Overbeck, Franz Pforr, Ludwig Vogel and Johann Konrad Hottinger moved to Rome, where they occupied the abandoned monastery of San Isidoro. They were joined by Philipp Veit, Peter von Cornelius, Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld, Friedrich Wilhelm Schadow and a loose grouping of other German artists. They met up with Austrian romantic landscape artist Joseph Anton Koch (1768–1839) who became an unofficial tutor to the group. In 1827 they were joined by Joseph von Führich (1800–1876) (illustration above right).

The principal motivation of the Nazarenes was a reaction against Neoclassicism and the routine art education of the academy system. They hoped to return to art which embodied spiritual values, and sought inspiration in artists of the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance, rejecting what they saw as the superficial virtuosity of later art.

In Rome the group lived a semi-monastic existence, as a way of re-creating the nature of the medieval artist’s workshop. Religious subjects dominated their output, and two major commissions allowed them to attempt a revival of the medieval art of fresco painting. Two fresco series were completed in Rome for the Casa Bartholdy (1816–17) (moved to the Alte Nationalgalerie in Berlin) and the Casino Massimo (1817–29), and gained international attention for the work of the ‘Nazarener’. However, by 1830 all except Overbeck had returned to Germany and the group had disbanded. Many Nazareners became influential teachers in German art academies.

[edit] Legacy

The artistic achievement of the Nazarenes is difficult to evaluate; their finished paintings appear less impressive with the perspective of history than they did to their contemporaries. Awkward composition, weak colouring and derivative themes detract from the challenge of their work in its time. However, the programme of the Nazarenes—the adoption of honest expression in art and the inspiration of artists before Raphael—was to exert considerable influence in Germany, and in England upon the Pre-Raphaelite movement. In their abandonment of the academy and their rejection of much official and salon art, the Nazarenes can be seen as partaking in the same anti-scholastic impulse that would lead to the avant-garde in the later nineteenth century.

http://www.passionofmarymagdalen.com/pages/sacred%20whore%20paper.html

The DaVinci Code, the suspenseful thriller written by Dan Brown that was #1 on the New York Times Bestseller List for many weeks, has recently introduced thousands to the ancient but little known mysteries surrounding the Biblical figure of Mary Magdalene. The Gospel of Mary Magdalene, discovered in 1896 but known only to the few scholars who studied such ancient texts, has been hailed as “the appropriate gospel to inaugurate the third millennium.” (1) The December 8, 2003 issue of Newsweek magazine carried an article titled “Mary Magdalene: Decoding the DaVinci Code.” These are just a few of the recent signs that the divine Feminine is emerging powerfully today in the figure of Mary Magdalene – not the “spiritualized” Virgin Mother of Christ – but the more complete and complex figure of Mary that integrates sexuality and spirituality. The divine Feminine that has been hidden within Christianity has been very well disguised in the personage of Mary Magdalene. The Feminine that has been reviled and persecuted by the patriarchal traditions of Christianity can be seen in Mary Magdalene, whose role as the spiritual initiate and consort of Christ was perverted into that of the repentant whore. But the hidden and persecuted divine Feminine is now making herself known in all of her guises – not only as the compassionate mother, but also as the spiritually powerful and wise consort. The divine Feminine, known in the Judeo-Christian tradition as Sophia, is claiming her place once again in the consciousness of humanity. And in the possibility that we may finally be open to receiving her wisdom lays the hope for our future.

In ancient cultures the Divine typically manifested in the polarity of a god and goddess, united in the divine syzygy that integrated both masculine and feminine elements. The Great Goddess and her Son/Lover can be seen in figures that span an immense variety of ages and cultures, such as Isis and Osiris, Ishtar and Tammuz, Inanna and Dumuzi, Asherah and Baal, Cybele and Attis, and Aphrodite and Adonis. The two aspects of the feminine function, the “static” or mother goddess, and “transformative” or goddess of love,(2) are united in the archetypal Great Goddess. But in both of her roles, as mother and beloved, the essence of the Feminine is directly related to sexuality. Feminine power is expressed through fruitfulness that is rooted in the instincts – in birth-giving, the seasonal cycles of Nature, and intimate relationship. Although this figure of the Great Goddess was harshly suppressed by the Christian Church, as an archetypal essence she can never be completely destroyed. She has re-emerged in various guises throughout Christian history, but particularly in the figure of Mary. However, the symbol of “Mary” as representative of the divine Feminine in Christianity was split asunder into two opposing images: the Virgin Mary and Mary Magdalene. The ancient symbolism of the Great Goddess and her Son/Lover is hidden in this duality, for Jesus Christ is the son of the Virgin Mary and the beloved of Mary Magdalene. The urgent need today is to restore wholeness to this archetypal image of the divine Feminine that has manifested in Christianity and which therefore has profound significance for Western culture. This task will be accomplished particularly through re-imaging the role of Mary Magdalene and restoring her to the position of power that she held in the early Christian community.

The figure of Mary that has been dominant in Christian history, the “Blessed Virgin” and “Mother of God,” expresses one pole of the archetypal energies of the Goddess. The story of how the humble, obedient young woman depicted in the gospel accounts of Jesus’ nativity was transformed into the “Queen of Heaven” (a title given previously to the ancient Goddess) is in itself a fascinating exploration of an evolving mythology within Christianity. Christian theologians have emphasized that Mary herself is not divine – only her Son is God – yet dogmas established by the Church throughout the centuries have had the effect of divinizing her status. The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, which states that Mary’s own conception was sinless or “immaculate,” and the dogma of the Assumption of the Virgin, which claims that Mary was assumed bodily into Heaven, serve to remove her from the earthly human world and place her within the realm of the divine. But the Virgin Mary as presented in Christian tradition is a greatly diminished embodiment of the figure of the Great Goddess. As the “second Eve,” Mary overcomes the sin of the original Eve of Genesis, which came to be interpreted by the fathers of the Church as sex. Thus, the figure of the humble, pure, ever-Virgin Mary completely reversed the role of the powerful, sensual, fertile Great Goddess. The primary figure of the divine Feminine in Christianity was now sexless.(3) This image of the Feminine was never an easy one for women to use as a model in their ordinary lives, and is especially anachronistic in our modern world as women increasingly claim their power in all areas of their lives, including sexuality.

In contrast to the dominant role of the Virgin Mary in Christianity, Mary Magdalene presents a much more mysterious and ambivalent figure. Very little is actually known about her. Yet there are powerful clues in the canonical Gospels that clearly demonstrate the importance of Mary Magdalene’s role in the early Christian community. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John all make reference to her as one of the women followers of Jesus. In the Gospel of Luke she is included among the “women who had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities: Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out.” (Luke 8:2) The healing of Mary Magdalene by casting out her “seven demons,” probably what we today would label a mental illness such as dissociative disorder or schizophrenia, was very likely the initial experience that prompted her to follow Jesus. Another pertinent fact in this passage is that the appellation “Mary, called Magdalene,” referring to her birthplace rather than her role as someone’s wife, mother, or daughter, indicates that she has a unique, independent status among the female followers of Jesus.

Mary Magdalene’s primary significance in the canonical Gospels, however, relates to the role that she plays during the events of Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection. She is explicitly mentioned as one of the women present at Christ’s crucifixion, a demonstration of feminine courage fueled by love, as most of the male disciples had fled the scene in fear. In all of the Gospel stories it is she, sometimes accompanied by other women, who goes to the tomb of Christ on “the third day.” In some accounts she carries spices to anoint his body. This is the image the early Christians had of her – as one of the myrrhophores, or ointment bearers.(4) Her love of Jesus and continued faithfulness to him endures beyond his bodily death and the agonizing doubts following his Crucifixion. It is the power of her love and the purity of her faith that enables her to witness his Resurrection. The beautiful passage in the Gospel of John that so movingly describes Mary’s experience at the tomb is familiar to all Christians:

http://thebeautifulnecessity.blogspot.com/2011_11_01_archive.html

http://thebeautifulnecessity.blogspot.com/2011_11_01_archive.html

The Beautiful Necessity
This blog is devoted to all things Pre-Raphaelite and Arts & Crafts. The two movements began during the Victorian era, and celebrated a return to the aesthetics and simplicity of medieval times, as well as the romance of nature and chivalry.

The central tenets of the two movements are still very important today, perhaps even more so.

About Me

Grace
I am a 31-year-old library employee with a fixation on all things Pre-Raphaelite, William Morris, and Arts & Crafts. I also sometimes enjoy trying to recreate Pre-Raphaelite art in photographic form.

Shields was a Manchester painter, watercolourist and decorator whose artistic career was determined when he saw the works of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood at the Manchester Art