“Exile of the Bride is over, Mary Magdalene is returning inside women everywhere.” – Joan Norton
For this course you will need the book, The Mary Magdalene Within, written by our friend Joan Norton. The exciting thing about this course is Joan herself wrote the lesson questions.
A copy of The Mary Magdalene Within is our initiation gift to you. Please email Katia with your snail-mail address and we will send a copy out to you forthwith!
Visit Joan’s cool website and blog while you are waiting for your initiation gift to arrive.
Once you have the book, please scroll down…
The Mary MagdaleneWithin
all questions are by author JoanNorton
Chapter 1: Women’s Special Place withGod
Mary Magdalene begins telling her story by using the phrase “inner storyof the times”. She seems to be indicating that there’s another story to tellbesides the one which shows in exterior life, the one which we know in theGospels.
How do you feel your inner story is different from what shows on the outsideof your life?
She says, “It’s true, where I went I was called whore. The feelings aboutwomen in all the thoughts of those times were that way. Whores who couldonly be saved by rules to make them acceptable to God.”
What rules, if any, were you given as a woman, which you now question?What rules are you now stepping away from in order to define yourself asa full partner Christed Feminine self?
Chapter 2: Mary Magdalene’s Visionat Jesus’ Resurrection
“But women are strong in that way; strong in the body sense. He taughtthat the light of God was first in the body, look for it there first.”
In what ways have you felt your body’s tireless efforts for you?
What do you think Jesus and Mary meant when they said the light of God isfirst found in the body?
“I reached forward for the touch to his body and at that moment a lightspread across the room and he was there.”
What have been your experiences with “thought only” communications?
What do you think happened to Mary in the cave, which she describes as her”sight widening”? Have you experienced anything like this?
Have you had the experience of not being believed when you had an intuitiveinsight?
Chapter 3: Jesus Recognizes Mary MagdaleneAs His Teacher
“I spoke what I felt like speaking and could not adjust myself to therules of the day. I went with who I cared for .Stripped of authority(in the world), I felt my own authority.”
How do you experience the difference between society’s authority and yourown inner authority?
“I knew Light from somewhere in my memory, but had not seen it in thesemen. Not these men who would steal blood and keep it for their own.”
What is Mary trying to convey in this idea that men would steal women’s blood?
Chapter 4: LoveGrows
“We lay together , he and I, and I know people do not want to know this.But would you have a God who was not one of you? He was one of us, that washis glory.”
Why do you think people reject the idea of God as fully mortal and thereforewith a sexual nature?
If men thought of their sexual natures as divine, how would it change theirattitude towards women?
“When our bodies twined as one, he said he knew how the rivers loved theEarth, how the oceans felt about the shores. I gave him knowing of love ofthe body as love of the Earth.”
What does this teaching of Mary’s mean to you?
Mary taught Jesus that the Earth’s rhythms are the body’s rhythms. How doesyour respect for your body influence your spirituality?
Chapter 5: Jesus Tells Men They Are To LearnFrom Women
“We taught together, we walked the countryside, he to show people andbeseech people to treat each other as equals, to remember themselves as theliving Godself. He asked me for my opinion in matters to do with God andhe asked it in front of others. Just this was an act of teaching.”
Have you experienced a man behaving to you as Jesus behaved towards Mary?
If men asked women for spiritual help how would it change the world?
What, in your opinion, is special and unique about women’s spiritual knowledgeand wisdom?
“Make them(women) your teachers was his idea, and that caused greatdiscomfort.”
In what way would men benefit from making women their teachers as Jesus didby naming Mary Magdalene as his teacher?
Chapter 6: God Longs ForCreation
“The blessing of creation was the original idea, not the sin ofcreation.”
How do women live the idea of blessing creation in our daily lives?
Chapter 7: Jesus Describes His FemininePerceptions
“When you take the power of the priestess role away from the woman ina household, your religion is not long to last.”
Why do you think Mary places the need for powerful spiritual authority inthe household?
“(Jesus) He was teaching side by side with womankind, with me, and saying,’Do this in your lives and the kingdom of heaven will open to you.”
In what way is this idea threatening to the men of today’s Christianity?
Chapter 8: Love Creates An EnergyField
“The man you know as Jesus Christ was aware of the porous nature of hisEarthly being, and of his origins in the stars. ‘God the Father’ was a wayof talking about his own Lightbody. You would term it thus today.”
This teaching implies that the consciousness of God is available within ourbody/lightbody system. How do you experience wisdom in your body?
Chapter 9: Unholy Commerce and Misuse of WomenMake God Angry
“He brought the knowing to me that we were anchoring a great Light ontothe Earth, that through our bodies’ embrace was remembrance of our originsmade possible.”
Mary is saying that the conscious marriage (integration) of masculine andfeminine energies within ourselves will open our minds to the other dimensions.
Please describe some of the characteristics of your own inner masculine energiesand how they support your feminine spirit.
Chapter 10: Loving Acceptance HealsSickness
“Much of the healing of bodies was brought about by the acceptance wegave them about their illness. Jesus held them and looked into their eyesand this was the beginning of healing.”
How does this concept of loving acceptance of illness differ from our culture’sconcepts about illness?
Imagine yourself giving loving energy to someone illness. What does thisenergy feel like in your body?
Chapter 11: God’s Teachings About PhysicalLove
“God Re-balances Humankind through the Feminine Spirit” ” It was not meantto be brought forth into the aura of the planet through only the male, throughonly the being known as the Christ. What message would that convey? The vibrationand genetic introduction of love would seek a home in the receptivity ofthe Feminine spirit. That was the plan. It was meant to be personal, as betweenhe and I.”
In your opinion, why is the idea of a wholly personal physical love betweenMary Magdalene and Jesus so frightening to people?
“It was at that time like introducing a new color into the world, a colornever before seen. The words were not available to describe it and most couldnot even see it.”
Have you ever felt this way, as though you were not perceived, seen, understood?
In what way does carrying the consciousness of Jesus and Mary as the DivinePartners place you outside society’s commonly held beliefs?
Chapter 12: The Kingdom of God isYou
“Light of Godself, remember Thyself in thee.”
“I looked into the eyes of the leper and I bade him remember his own trueself and that would heal him.”
What does Mary mean here?
“Mary said this to the leper, ‘You are God yourself. You are the selfof God, you yourself are your God. Thy and thy Father are One. Heal yourselfwith love of self. Love thy own God’s body and ask the Earth the favor ofhealing.'”
This implies that helping someone get in harmony with the Earth’s rhythmswill help them heal. How do you see this as true?
Mary Magdalene-Body-Earth ..how can this concept benefit Creation?
Chapter 13: Within Harmony There is NoDominance
“Would you not assume that the teachings of the effect of love on thephysical universe would come in some form through a woman? How would a teachingof the blessing of physical life be given only through a body which couldnot create physical life?”
Have you ever been taught about womankind by a male priest/reverend/fatherfigure? What feelings happened in you?
“The mental and emotional belief patterns of the time were so closed towomen’s value that I can say now it was as if we were invisible.”
How did the early Roman church make this true?
Do you see this today in any way?
Chapter 14: Mary Magdalene is ChristConsciousness
“We were aware that the nature of our companionship could not be seenby the eyes of the time.”
What has changed in your awareness to make it possible for you to perceivethe Divine Couple?
What obstacles do you encounter in sharing this with others?
Mary conveys to us this belief of Jesus’. “The enslavement of womankindinto a position of ‘lesser’ is the ultimate mistake .take Mary as yourGod and ye will be closer to the truth.”
Why does Jesus say this is the ultimate mistake, as though nothingcan go right without a feminine/masculine Christ Consciousness?
Chapter 15: God the Father, God theMother
“His presence intensified the vibrational pattern of all who stood near.”
How does this teaching of Mary’s relate to healers and healing?
What is your own spiritual practice/routine for raising your own vibrationalpattern?
Chapter 16: Danger Threatens andMen Tremble
“You see, it was simply the experience of love in the person of a manwhich was the whole story, which was the revolution, which was the teaching,which was the truth God wished to be known.”
Mary describes men as trembling and weeping when they experienced Jesus’love for them, and that it was much more shocking to men than to women.
How do you see this as changed or not in our present time?
Chapter 17: The Old God MovesForward
“Anytime there is a truly new value and new ideas introduced into a groupmind or an individual, there exists true upheaval. Jesus himself was themost confrontational idea possible ..”
Have you experienced upheaval in yourself and your life from your ideas aboutMary Magdalene as Jesus’ co-messiah?
Chapter 18: The Death, Departure, and Loveof Holy Week
Please read this chapter and talk about its teachings in light of your ownexperiences with death.
Chapter 19: “I was his teacher, I was hislove, I was his wife with child.”
What does this statement of Mary Magdalene’s mean to you personally?
