SUPPLIES NEEDED            [The images are still missing from this page. To see this page with images, visit our old website here: OMM Initiation Preparation]

  • Click here and print the page it displays.  If you don’t have a printer, draw it as best you can and have it ready for your initiation.
  • Red Altar Egg. If you do not have already have a red Altar Egg, you may use a real egg from the refrigerator! We suggest you hard-boil it first, like an Easter/Ishtar egg.  OR you may go to a craft store, buy a wooden or paper mache egg, paint it red and you’ve got it. If all else fails, hardboil a brown egg. Color it red with a marker, red pencil or even crayon if you’re desperate! Crayon or pencil are actually better than marker (though not as vivid) because they won’t “poison” the egg meat within. You can later peel the egg and eat it, rather than having to throw it away before it rots. A hard-boiled egg will last about 10 days if kept in the fridge, a week if not. If you didn’t eat it you should bury it.
  • Single red rose. Lots of places sell roses, most grocery stores now do. If you can’t get one, then find a picture of one and print it out. (If all else fails, draw one).
  • White cloth or kleenex tissue to cover the rose.
  • Optional: Rosary. Some catholic bookstores have rosaries for 50 cents (and a bonus feature is that some of the 50 cent ones glow in the dark, kids love them.)  A rosary is a working tool of the clergy, and you are about to become a working member of the clergy. Once this initiation is over, you will be sent a daily prayer routine based on the days of the week and will begin to make prayers unto heaven and into the ether of the Universe.  There are cycles of prayers and prayer spells, rituals too, based on our Church Calendar which you will gradually be shown and incorporate into your routine. So if you don’t have one, we urge you to get a rosary—it’s a great help to prayer.  If you don’t want a traditional rosary, but want a Magdalene rosary, there are awesome Magdalene rosaries available now. Start searching here. When we first went online in 1999, we had rosaries made by our friend Sally Norton (sister of Magdalene author Joan Norton). But now, almost 20 years later, you have many beautiful choices. I have two Magdalene rosaries made by Sally Norton and I love them.  Here is a Magdalene Rosary prayer written by Anne Safyre (an OMM member years ago) in our online Prayer Book. Margaret Starbird has an awesome Magdalene Rosary in her and Joan Norton’s co-authored book: 14 Steps to Awaken the Sacred Feminine: Women in the Circle of Mary Magdalene

OathWriting Guidelines

Reading Assignment

Inanna & Tammuz p.3

Magdala & Yeshua Look Back

Study Questions

Inanna & Tammuz p.5

CANDLES NEEDED:

[If for some reason you are not able to burn candles in your home, or are not able to acquire all these candles, please write to the School for the instructions on how to use the alternative method which is substituting colored squares of paper for each of the candles]

  • Two tallish candles. One red, one white.  Or if you have two gold ones, that will do, too. Try to get tall candles, taper  is okay but straight is better because these candles represent the two columns of the Temple. Those two columns were famous and even had names, Jachin (meaning “founding”) and Boaz (meaning “power”).  If you only have votives, that is okay, but try for tall !  Scented is okay, too, especially rose for the red and some kind of floral scent for the white, lily or gardenia would be perfect.
  • Seven small tea-lites or votive candles, the 50 cent kind are fine. Tea-lites are usually white and they will work for this ritual, but much better is:   if you can, try to get one of each of the seven rainbow colors, think Roy G. Biv, red-orange-yellow green and blue-indigo-purple. Tea-lites don’t come in colors, so you’ll have to find votives . In ancient days these were small oil lamps painted the different colors of the rainbow, that’s why short fat votive candles are perfect for these 7 rather than tapers.  If you can’t find indigo, just use a bluer purple than the purple one and purpler blue than the blue one. If that fails, get a different hue of purple, perhaps another brand than the purple one. If that fails, use two purple ones, rather than two blue ones, thus making the seven.
  • The significance of the 7 colors of the visible spectrum is important. This is not just paying tribute to the rainbow. It’s not about rainbows at all. It’s about Light and what the naked eye can see–that little strip of colors called the visible spectrum. Infrared is just to the left of the spectrum and ultra-violet is just to the right, both touching the visible spectrum yet we cannot see either of them with the naked eye. We are going to get our mind’s eyes working. S/He that hath an eye let him/her see.

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Notes and Advance Preparations before we begin

1. You will need to know which way is East, South, West and North. Whatever room you are going to use for the rite, be sure to know which way is East and try to set up your Altar Egg and unlit candles facing East with you standing behind it.The big four archangels will assemble all around you, one in each of the four directions. Even if your altar faces a wall, that’s okay, because Raphael (the one who stands in the East) will still come and hover in front of you, just beyond the wall. Walls don’t create problems for Archangels, but they do sometimes for us, so we suggest that you set up your temporary altar, egg, candles and matches, in the center of the room, even setting it up on your bed is okay. Put a piece of wood, a tray or something firm on the bed to use as the altar base. Set the candles and Red Egg on it. Or if you have a little stand to place in the middle of the floor, that’ll work. Find East and stand facing it with the altar in front of you. If you can use another room perhaps the one with the kitchen table, that’s fine, too!
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2.
WRITING YOUR PERSONAL VOW OF LOYALTY & OATH OF SECRECY
Becoming a priest or a nun (priestess we call them) requires the taking of vows. You are about to become intimate with God / dess. Think of this intimacy as though you are marrying into the Godhead. For thousands of years that’s what monks, priests and nuns have done, most even wear wedding rings. We use the wedding ring in our higher degree initiations. If you already wear one you simply add another layer of meaning to it by including your bond with your Divine Spouse in the band’s symbolism. Your earthly spouse usually doesn’t mind such divine association! We don’t use the wedding ring in this particular initiation, but we will in future and explore more deeply its symbolism.

For now just please compose your vow of loyalty and secrecy and send it in advance of your initiation to theMystery School. PLEASE BE SURE to put OMM Initiation Vow in the subject line!  When we receive that vow, and the answers to the 7 study questions (below at the very end) we will send you the actual script of the Initiation. Be sure you have read ALL of the following, especially the reading assignment under “Advance Reading”

GUIDELINES FOR WRITING YOUR VOW.             Back to Top

At one point in the initiation you will read out loud the vow / oath that you have written. You must write in advance your vow of secrecy, loyalty, service to the Cause & Mission of the Order of Mary Magdala and the Church of the Way.  Make it as long or as short as you like. There are only four ingredients that absolutely need to be in your vow, and you can word them any way you like.

A) It must contain a pledge of loyalty to the Divine Masculine and Divine Feminine, also known as God & Goddess, God-the-Father and God-the-Mother, Heavenly Father & Mother, etc. as in the 4-Part Holy Godhead. Special Note: There are other divine names, personalities, “entities” and manifestations of the esoteric Godhead, such as the Holy Spirit, “Son of God” and “Divine Daughter / Bride”.  Using the word “Holy Godhead” encompasses them all, but leaves out all undesirable entities.

B) A pledge of humble service to the cause of ending human suffering in any tasks in which it may come up during the course of our work as clergy. As a member of the Mystery School you have already pledged to use the teachings for the benefit of humanity, so you are just repeating it here.

C)  A pledge of undying sacred brotherly-sisterly type loyalty, discretion and SECRECY to your fellow cloister mates and teachers of our Order.

D)  AND swear never to reveal the ancient knowledge and practices you will be shown, even (especially!) if you leave the Order some day. Down thru the ages, the penalties of revealing occult teachings after swearing an oath of secrecy have been known to be severe. Very severe in some cases. The Divine usually handles these matters…And it’s not just creating bad karma. An oath-breaker gains so much more than bad karma. For example, curses. Some of which extend to one’s offspring,some of which extend down to the 7th generation. All manner of dire warnings are usually given at this stage, but our Order and our Mystery School doesn’t like to lay it on too thick. We RESPECT you for your sense of honor, we TRUST that the Divine wouldn’t have sent you to join with us if you were anything even close to an oath-breaker. However, we know, too, that a few bad apples may slip thru the cracks, usually NOT unaided by an evil force. (If that sounds like medieval superstition, in a way it is, our Order is after all originally a medieval one, before that it was an ancient Order). Again, we hate coming down so “hell and brimstone” here, but we wouldn’t be a “mystery” school if we didn’t. It is not only the teachings that are protected from the misuse and corruption of mal-adepts, it is also YOU that must be protected. New members are precious to us, we need the continuing strength of “new blood”(or old blood whichever the case may be with you!). Our religion and teachings are as ancient as time, we want it to continue to safely thrive into millennia ahead. And if we should be so cursed/blessed? as to live in the End Times, then much more so do we protect the Faith from mal-adepts. This has now become your sacred charge also.

Remember, revealing SPECIFIC teachings or lessons is different from “sharing” knowledge and personal wisdom you may gain (or have already gained) from your years with us in esoteric Kristian study. We encourage you to pass such wisdom on to your children, for instance, and share them with your spouse. But if your spouse is unwilling to officially take the vow of secrecy thru our School (they can do this without necessarily paying dues, it’s called the Spouse’s Oath) you must not share specific teachings or practices.

(If you are having trouble wording your oath, one of the instructors will gladly help you, but please at least give it a try first.)
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3. You will see the phrase “blessed am I” several times in the rite. Whenever you see it you are saying, “may I be blessed,” “I am blessed,” “I am fortunate and blessed and lucky to be in this place at this sacred juncture of my life right now.” You are not blessing yourself or being greedy in asking for blessings. You are acknowledging and saying thank you for the blessings in question.

4.  ALTAR SET-UP:

ROSE & ROSARY under Cloth

RED CANDLE      -EGG-     WHITE CANDLE

R   O   Y    G    B    I   V
(seven votive candles)

YOU

Place the Red Altar Egg in the center and flank it with the red and white candles, red on the left, white on the right. They are like the two pillars of the ancient Temple, the Gateway into the Holy Place. The Egg stands in the gateway, representing you. Then place the seven little votive candles all in a row in front of this from left to right starting with red and going to the purple / violet. R O Y G B I V . Behind all this, lay the single red rose and cover it with a small white cloth; a kleenex tissue will work if you don’t have a handkerchief, but be careful not to catch it on fire when it comes time to light the candles. Put your rosary if you have one, with the rose under the cloth. The rose lies beyond the gateway—actually inside the Holy of Holies of the Temple. The Holy of Holies was reached by parting a curtain, a huge veil called Shekinah or the Goddess’ face veil. Make sure the rose is farthest away from you as you stand before your altar. Have yourself-written oath or vow nearby ready to read when the time comes.

Advance Reading before performing the Rite:  Backto Top

1. SEVEN CHAKRAS. If you are not at least somewhat familiar with the seven chakras believed to exist in the body, please read this short summary of the seven chakras: http://users.aol.com/MuseforU/location.html Our school takes the position that the chakras are “stations”, they are energy centers that can be accessed and used in magikal / spiritual work in many ways. Many have written articles full of fear surrounding chakras and their use. This is because people like to scare aspirants away from some spiritual sciences which they don’t truly understand. So-called experts who issue dire warnings about chakra blockage and energy imbalance, always stressing that you need THEM or some qualified instructor trained by them there with you IN PERSON, are usually trying to control you, not really out for your best interest, as they try to frighten you. Usually you can perceive peoples’ motives by their writing and speaking style, so always take everything with a grain of salt, even the teachings you receive from our Mystery School ! Continue to be the free thinker, deciding for yourself if something “feels” right or is trying to use fear or ego tactics to get your attention.

2. The Sacred King and the Goddess, GardenTomb and Resurrection

(as printed with permission from http://www.telisphere.com/~starbird/imaging.html)

Margaret Starbird writes:

So ancient is the idea of the marriage or cosmic dance of the opposite energies that we find in ancient Sumer temples built in pairs to honor the god and goddess of the prevailing fertility cult. The Goddess is the Great Mother, the Earth and all creation, while her consort is most often the sun or fertility deity. In the ancient cultures of the Middle East, the position of royal priestess was a hereditary office passed down through a matrilineal kinship. The priestess typically chose the local warlord or strong man as her bridegroom and conferred kingship on him by virtue of their marriage, in rites usually celebrated at the new year. The rites included an anointing of the bridegroom by the priestess, a foreshadowing of the consummation of their nuptials. These marriage rites are found celebrated in songs and poems inscribed on cuneiform tablets throughout Mesopotamia and attest to the importance of this myth reenacted yearly to ensure the well-being of the people and the land. The Bridegroom/King is the mediator of fertility, prosperity and blessings to the people. After a period of one year (occasionally longer), most often at the Spring equinox, the king is ritually slain, then entombed in a garden. There, after a short period, usually of three days duration, his bereaved wife seeks his burial place so that she can lament his death. Their reunion is celebrated with great joy when she finds him resurrected in the garden, “for love is stronger than death!” An annual feast celebrated the return of the god.

Because Sumerian texts found on cuneiform tablets have so much similarity with the Song of Songs (also called the Song of Solomon or Canticles) many Bible scholars believe that the Song is a rewriting and adaptation of the ancient poetry honoring the union of Inanna and Tammuz / Dumuzi. Because of the commingling of mythologies and deities in the Mediterranean lands, the ritual poetry of other cults, including that of Isis and Osiris in Egypt, has a very similar tone and quality. The Song of Songs is really a dramatic dialogue spoken by the Bride and Bridegroom telling of their passionate love, their separation, and their reunion.

Ishtar / Inanna with an Alabastar Jar like Mary Magdalene is known for. Christian Goddesses are based on her.
Queen Ishtar / Inanna is holding the proverbial alabaster jar.  The priestesses of Ishtar were said to sacrifice the God-King for the rejuvenation of the land each year. She is the Goddess the earliest Arabs worshiped.  The nearly extinct non-Muslim Marsh Arabs of Iraq, persecuted and nearly wiped out by Saddam Hussein and then the Islamic State a decade later, still “remember” her. Later Christian goddesses, especially the Magdalen, were connected to or based on Ishtar and Inanna.

3. Inanna & Tammuz,the first Bride and Shepherd King  Back toTop

Please read the following short entries written by Freeman Allan at SacredSource.com (which we urge you to go check out in order to see the wonderful altar figurines they sell).

Tammuz. This grain god was also the original “good shepherd” of flocks, the divine son-lover of the Great Goddess and a prototype of the “year king” archetype. In Sumer, more anciently, the same deity was known as Dumuzi, and a youth chosen to represent him was actually sacrificed so his “holy” blood might fertilize fields in the coming year. [+Katia inserts: So glad human sacrifice no longer exists! Thank you Old Testament for teaching against it with the Isaac story and the substitution of special animals] By the late Babylonian era Tammuz was the consort to Ishtar, symbolically slain in the form of a Holy Lamb or scapegoat. This “kouros” image is adapted from archaic Greece, where Tammuz was worshiped under the name Adonis (lit. “Lord”). His worship was imported by the Jews after their Babylonian exile, and the wailing of women accompanied his annual death on the Day of Atonement. Many aspects of Christian symbolism are the legacy of Tammuz, the dying and resurrecting god. [+Katia inserts: other experts believe the ancient Hebrews worshiped in this manner before the Babylonian exile. They did not import it, although they would have recognized it while there in Babylon.]

Osiris, Godhead as Resurrection. This seated image from the CairoMuseum (http://www.sacredsource.com/all/page.pl?item=OS ) depicts him bearded and wearing the conical helmet of Upper Egypt. He carries the flagellum and crook, connecting this most ancient god of rebirth to the Neolithic arts of agriculture and herding. The bringer of vegetative growth, Osiris annually was resurrected by Isis. Many elements of his cult influenced later Hebrew and Christian ritual. His animal surrogate is the bull Apis.

Inanna.  The Queen of Heaven and Earth. The flowering of Sumeria, its temples, ordered cities, irrigated fields, birthplace of cuneiform writing and codes of law, and mastery of terra-cotta arts, all offer tribute to this earliest named Great Goddess. Worshiped as early as 7000 BCE, Inanna was still widely revered after patriarchal incursions into the Euphrates plain. She descended from heaven to bring prosperity to Her people, then descended into the Realm of Death in a quest for wisdom. [+Katia inserts: She is believed by some esotericists to have been a daughter of Adam and Eve who lived for a thousand years or more and thus became a “goddess” to the ancient people. Tiamat is also considered such a long-lived daughter of Adam and Eve who became a goddess.]

* * * * * * *

The original Dance of the Seven Veils was to commemorate Inanna’s descent into the Underworld, her sister Ereshkigal’s realm, where she was gradually stripped naked as she passed through the seven gates. First went her crown, next earrings, then necklace, breast pins, belt of zodiac birthstones, then bracelets and finally her gown. No acts of procreation or birth could take place on earth while Inanna was in the Underworld.   The world began to languish.  So Damuzi / Tammuz dies in order to take her place, he dies for her just as Yeshua dies for mankind.  Then nothing will grow while he is absent because he is the Ruler of Earth, the God of Fertility and shepherding.  All the world begins to weep for him and finally when Inanna cannot stand living without him any longer, cannot bear the sound of the women weeping for Tammuz, she takes action.  She gives up her earthly powers to descend once again, bargain with her dark sister, Queen of the Underworld, and brings him back.  He stays part of the year with her, and part down in the dormant underground realm—just like the crops.

Inanna’s first time in the Underworld is short and parallels the time the moon is in its dark phase, the new moon. Her absence is therefore a symbol of the lunar cycle.   Tammuz’s absence is longer, and thus is a symbol of the solar seasons, spring resurrection and vegetation growth. To this day the Jews calculate their months based on the new moon. Muslims use a lunar calendar, too.

Ishtar. Babylonian culture flowered from 600 to 200 BCE under Ishtar, She who endowed [the king] with prestige. A version of the ancient Sumerian Goddess Inanna, Ishtar’s priestess-queens may have engaged in periodic ritual sacrifice of their kings to insure good omens and prosperity. Her king’s blood, whether symbolic or real, was assumed to fertilize fields and bring bountiful harvest. The city of Mari worshiped Ishtar as a birth Goddess symbolized by the Urn of Life held tight to her belly. Worship of her consort Tammuz was imported by the Jews after the Babylonian captivity, and his symbolic death was lamented annually in the temple at Jerusalem. The identifications with Mary, the Virgin Queen, and her divine yet dying son whose blood brings life, are important Christian borrowings. [+Katia inserts: the author is a bit biased about Judaism and Christianity being borrowers. The ancient wisdom was carried on thru the ages, guided by the Godhead and their prophets, not really “borrowed” or “copied”.]

Extra Reading:  Ishtar, Lady of Heaven.  Excerpt:

“It is known in literature as that of Venus and Adonis, or, to use the traditional Phoenician names, Astarte and Eshmun, the same pair in Babylonia appearing as Ishtar and Tammuz, and in Egypt as Isis and Osiris.” – Donald Harden, The Phoenicians

“On Middle Assyrian lead figurines depicting intercourse, the man stands and the woman always rests upon a high structure, usually interpreted as an altar. These figurines may very likely represent ritual intercourse, although definitely not the earlier Sacred Marriage, which involved a bed, and not an altar. Instead they are probably in some way associated with the cult of Ishtar as goddess of physical love and prostitution, and were, in fact, found in her temple at Assur.” – Black and Green, Gods, Demons and Symbols of Ancient Mesopotamia

“Each of the goddesses [Inanna, Hathor, Anat, Athena and Kali among others] is explicitly described as a celestial body, identifiable with the planet Venus; and the imagery surrounding each goddess is consistent with that universally associated with comets (e.g., long, dishevelled hair; serpentine form; identification with a torch; association with eclipses of the sun; etc.).” – Efemeral Research Foundation, “Exploring the Saturn Myth”

“The Goddess Inanna or Ishtar was the most important female deity of ancient Mesopotamia at all periods. Her Sumerian name Inanna is probably derived from a presumed Nin-ana, ‘Lady of Heaven’, it also occurs as Innin. The sign for Inanna’s name (the ring-post) is found in the earliest written texts. Ishtar (earlier Estar), her Akkadian name, is related to that of the South Arabian (male) deity ‘Ashtar’ and to that of the Syrian goddess Astarte (Biblical Ashtoreth), with whom she was undoubtedly connected.

[+Katia inserts: You may enjoy this Inanna Wikipedia article with pictures]

Cybele / Rhea Mother Earth. From Pre-classic Greece to early Christian times she represented Gaia, the deified earth, and inherited many attributes of the ancient Sumerian goddess Inanna. In this depiction Cybele’s queenship as Magna Mater of Rome is symbolized by her throne and lions. The blazing torch symbolizes her bull-consort Attis in resurrection. Saint Peter’s Cathedral stands upon the site of Cybele’s temple in Rome. The Sybils at Cumae were her priestess-oracles.

4. Mary Magdala & Yeshua Look Back Across the Millennia   Back to Top

Why does the Order of Mary Magdala concern itself with ancient practices of Temples that existed before the time of Krist and the Magdalene? To answer that question we would first point out that those temples existed DURING the time of Yeshua and Magdala, too. Picture for a moment, Yeshua and Mary Magdalene standing on the great hill called Mount Tsion (Zion). They are standing together and looking East to where the sun comes up. They would be facing the land of Sumer, the land of Mesopotamia called the “fertile crescent” where the Tigris and Euphrates still flow to this day and where the gods are said to have first walked the earth. The Earth Goddess and Queen of Heaven was Inanna and the Heaven-Sun God and King of Earth was Tammuz. Yeshua and Magdala knew all about them, as did every middle easterner of those days. They knew their stories, their courtship, marriage, and the death and resurrection story just as we today know well the stories of Moses’ life and the life of Jesus Christ. We look back 2000 years to see Jesus’s life story and we look back about 3500 years to see Moses story (1500 B.C.) Go back to Yeshua and Magdala standing on that hill. Do you see them? Yeshua reaches over and takes Magdala’s hand. She squeezes his in answer and the two continue to gaze eastward, their thoughts embracing their roots.  They know exactly where they come from. They must look back over centuries, over almost four millennia to approximately 3500 BC. There we find the courtship stories of Inanna and Tammuz first being written down. But Inanna was known as early as 7000 BC, that’s NINE THOUSAND years ago for you and me, and 7 thousand for Yeshua and Magdalene. But the detailed myth of Inanna, Queen of Heaven and her lover Tammuz didn’t finish fully developing until somewhere between 4000 BC and 3500 BC. So Yeshua Krist and Mary Magdala would look back that many years to the founding of their religion, just as Christians look back 2000 years to the founding of Christianity and Jews look back to Moses 3500 to 4000 years ago.

Now suddenly Yeshua and Magdala turn and look over their shoulders—to the west. YOU have caught their attention, they feel your gaze. Turning now they gaze back at you. Or should we say they gaze forward. They smile, you smile.

Forward 2000 years they can see you. And now they wave their hands back to the East, as if gesturing you to look even further back than them. You see another couple standing on a hill in Sumer, a hill near the city of Ur where Abraham and Sarah left to follow where God-the-Mother and God-the-Father would lead them. The sun is just barely touching this couple, you see they look golden and silhouetted, almost lost to your view, so dim is this ancient past. Suddenly the man lifts the shepherd crook in his hand in salute, and the woman waves. They see Yeshua and Magdalene and are waving at them. Then the Shepherd King Tammuz sees the Shepherd King Yeshua wave in your direction, so he holds his hand over his eyes to make a sun visor, scanning the far horizon to see what Yeshua is trying to show him. Now he drops his hand and gestures for the woman, Inanna, to look, too. It’s you they see now, you looking back to them past millennium after millennium of time. We live in the 3rd millennium AD (or CE “common era”). They live in the 4th millennium BC (or BCE “before the common era”).  7 “days” separate us, 7 millennia. A “day in the Lord” is considered one thousand years, so we are living on the “third day” as well as on “the seventh day.” The cosmic week of the Lord is almost complete.

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Our Order of Mary Magdalene focuses on this ancient religion, these ancient near eastern gods and goddesses because they are our roots. Our true faith and culture comes from that time. We reconstruct it in its most original pure form, based on the seasons, the growth and harvest of that which feeds our bodies, the herding of sheep (food and clothing, yarn, wool, etc) the Sacred Marriage, the give and take of the earth, her natural rhythms and steady cycles.

In addition to embracing the Krist events that happened 2000 years ago, Our Order also reconstructs the actual religion of Mary Magdalene and Yeshua, but especially the training, religion and practices of Mary Magdalene. She was a high-priestess of Isis and a high-priestess of Inanna. In later initiations we study the Isis connection. It is fascinating, too, and once again MaryMagdalene gets blended with Mary the Mother of Jesus because Mother Mary also inherited attributes from Isis and Inanna, including titles like God-Bearer (Isis bore the god Horus, Mary bore Jesus) and Queen of Heaven (Inanna’s title later given to Mother Mary). But for now we’re exploring the earliest of those feminine divine archetypes, our “grandmother” of goddesses so-to-speak, the Bride and Earth Goddess, Inanna, perhaps a literal daughter of Adam & Eve.

“The great queen of heaven, Inanna, I will hail!
The only one, come forth on high, I will hail!
The pure torch that flares in the sky,
the heavenly light shining bright like the day,
the great queen of heaven, Inanna, I will hail!
Of her standing in the sky like the sun and moon,
known by all lands from south to north,
of the greatness of the holy one in heaven
to the Lady I will sing.”

[Ancient hymn adapted from The Treasures of Darkness: A History of Mesopotamian Religion, by Thorkild Jacobsen]

Here is a list of Some of Inanna’s titles. Notice the similarity to Mother Mary and Mary Magdalene’s titles:  Our Lady – Queen of the Universe – Mistress of Heaven – Queen of Heaven – Lady of Uruk and Nineveh – The Storehouse – Protectress of Harlots (Mary Magdala filled this role in the Middle Ages, some 5000 years after Inanna first did. “Harlots” means the Temple Hierodules, or fertility priestesses, who were not really prostitutes) – Queen Moon -Nin-me-sa-ra, Lady of Myriad Offices  – according to another translation the name Inanna literally means “MoonQueen” and she was often depicted with the crescent moon at her feet, just as the Madonna is frequently shown. Nin-Ana means Lady of Heaven  Nin (Lady) Ana (Heaven or Sky).

5. INANNA & TAMMUZ                          Back toTop

Inanna and Tammuz are ancient gods of Sumeria, the land where the Garden of Eden sat, where the Tower of Babel stood, the land of Babylon and Ur, Abraham’s hometown. These are ancient gods from the oldest written religious records still in existence, those from Mesopotamia, the fertile crescent, the “land between the rivers”—Tigris and Euphrates, now part of Iraq, Syria, Jordan and Lebanon. The gods of the Holy Land usually come from two places, Sumeria (also called Sumer) and Egypt. The Sumerian gods are actually OLDER than the Egyptian ones, making Inanna older than Isis, but not by much. Both Tammuz and Osiris are dying and resurrecting gods that also happen to be called Shepherd Kings. It’s not a coincidence. Osiris is always shown holding the small shepherd’s crook as one of his symbols, as well as the flail a symbol of the fertility of agriculture. Inanna and Isis are very similar, too, sharing attributes of earth-dominion, divine nurturers, mother-goddesses and the priestess queen archetype whose love resurrects her god-spouse.

The Hebrews, Philistines, Canaanites and Phoenicians were all worshippers of these ancient deities of Sumer and Egypt. The Israelites spent time in both Egypt and Sumeria as captives thus giving them even more time to absorb these gods, more ancient than their own. And we should never forget that Abraham and Sarah were from Sumer. They are “Father Abraham” and “Matriarch Sarah,” the great-great-grandparents of all Israel, and they are from Ur, one of the ancient cities of Sumer where Inanna and Tammuz, Tiamat-the-Planet-Mother, and Marduk the Star King were revered. Of course, later Old Testament prophets tried to say these gods are false gods, are abominations even, but the fact is they are the same gods, just different Hebrew names were given to them. Inanna became Ishtar and Astarte or Asherah. Tammuz became Baal meaning “husband” “master/mister” or simply “Lord.” Tiamat the Planet-Mother is Tehom to the Hebrews and is mentioned in the very first verse of Genesis, “the EARTH was without form and void”. Earth is Tehom, or Tehom-mat (Tiamat). Tehom is also mentioned in the LAST book of the Bible, Revelation as the earth-goddess who rescues the woman in Revelation 13 by swallowing her up and hiding her from the Beast. Old Testament Gods like Yahweh and El Shaddai or El Elyon, Elohim are forms of other Sumerian (or Egyptian) Gods.

As Mary Magdalene Cloister members we need to know about the Sumerian goddess Inanna who descended into the underworld (erroneously called “hell” in later Middle Ages in order to frighten people away from the Earth), thru all seven levels, giving up one of her powers at each station in order to resurrect her beloved. Later her powers are retrieved on her way back up, but she still had to have great courage to make that descent. It was her love for Tammuz that made her continue on, just as Magdalene’s love for Yeshua while she sat in the tomb with his corpse, caused Magdalene to descend into hell after Yeshua to bring him back up.

We re-enact this descent in the first initiation, and every year during the Easter resurrection the great descent happens again. Nowadays the priests and priestesses of our Order — just like our ancient counterparts — participate in this powerful death-rebirth-fertility ritual, as you may know if you have spent an Easter Cycle with us.

Inanna’s Great Descent

And now back to Inanna, and the original recorded version of her great descent. At each station or “hell” Inanna confronts a guardian (later called a “demon”) and “pays him off” not only by giving him one of her articles of regalia/ queenship but by saying a magik word, a PASS word (so that she can “pass” thru). She also uses her beauty and determination as Queen of Heaven and Goddess of Earth. It was believed that Inanna made this descent in order to show that she had dominion over the Earth, and was not just Queen of Heaven. Her title Queen of Heaven was later granted by the Catholic Church to Mother Mary at the insistence of Bernard of Clairvaux (later St. Bernard), the patron and co-founder of the famous, but ultra-secret Knights Templar. Bernard and the Templarism “religion” he helped to create were well-balanced and honored both a goddess AND a god. We study that in our New Order of Knights Templar and the Daughters of Tsion here at the Mystery School. You may want to join us over there some time!

A re-enactment of Inanna’s descent was the exact initiation used to ordain new priestesses (and priests) in the ancient temples of the Near East, Sumer, Phoenicia, Canaan and Israel. The verse in the Bible which says Mary Magdalene had seven demons cast out of her is believed by more than a few New Testament scholars to show she was initiated in this priestesshood. We too believe this, because it is part of the lore that has passed down thru our Order over the centuries. It has always been part of our first initiation as a priestess or priest into the order of Mary Magdala.

If you are male, please note: Try to identify with Inanna and Magdalene, but if you have a hard time identifying with them for gender reasons, you should still “follow along” with Inanna during her descent but then put yourself into the place of the Sacred Bridegroom, Tammuz. Feel the descent of the Sacred Feminine coming down to you, where you languish in the seventh “hell,” deep in the Earth waiting to be rescued by the Bride Queen’s show of love.

This descent and then travelling back up thru the 7 Earth-levels to the “surface” is akin to going down the 7 chakras thru your body and then back up again. In Jungian terms you are descending down thru the levels of consciousness to even below your subconscious where you encounter the archetypes that make the universe go round. This is the place where you also encounter your own Shadow self. Inanna encountered her dark earthly shadow self, her “sister” Ereshkigal the Dark Underworld Goddess. She “bargained” with Ereshkigal, came to terms with her, just as we must come to terms with our Shadow self, embrace it and make peace. Only then could Inanna take Tammuz her beloved (in Jungian terms the contrasexual self, called the animus if it is male, anima if it is female) back up to the “surface” or conscious waking level with her. This great act of embracing the shadow and then joining with the opposite gender self is called individuation by Jung. Contemporary terms for it are “wholistic” “holistic” “wholeness” and “integration.” Inanna, Tammuz and Inanna’s shadow self Ereshkigal were the first archetypes in recorded earth-history to show us the way to individuation/ wholeness. There are a few other deities that took part in the myth and had to be “joined” with the whole, but they are too complicated to go into yet, we will explore that as we go along thru the degrees. If this Jungian theory mythology turned into psychology stuff bores you, don’t worry, we will always label it as such so you’ll know when it’s coming!

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SEVEN DAY WEEK

In ANE (Ancient Near East) temple life the seven days of the week were regarded as holy and each was observed as part of the descent which then culminated on the Sunday of resurrection. The 7th Day was the last day of creation, a day of rest / death / stasis in the tomb just before resurrection. To this day Jews still enact this weekly cycle with the 7th day as Saturday, the Sabbath. The 7 day weekly cycle was adapted by ancient Hebrews into a commemoration of Creation. But for ancient Sumerians and probably Egyptians, Persians and proto-Greeks, the 7 day weekly cycle commemorated a resurrection, a weekly reminder. No wonder they took so well to Christianity when it came around. Yeshua was a God who had resurrected at that exact magikal time when the 7th day becomes the 1st day of every week, when Rest day becomes Resurrection Day. We moderns know well and love that magikal time—we call it Saturday Night!

The 7 level descent and rising back up is also like doing a scale on the piano or guitar, going down one octave and back up. 7 notes in the scale, 7 chakras, 7 days of the week, 7 heavens, and 7 levels of the underworld (“hells”).

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STUDY QUESTIONS:                    Back to Top

Cut and paste into an email the following questions. Answer them and send it to the Mystery School. When we receive the answers and your personal Vows / Affirmations we will send you the actual Initiation ritual.

1. Who were the first Bride and Bridegroom gods?

2. What other Goddesses inherited attributes from Inanna?

3. What does ANE stand for?

4. What part of the world does the ANE consist of?

5. What did the middle ages church authorities call the levels of the underworld in order to scare people?

6. Why should we OMM clergy learn about the practices of the ANE temples of Inanna? In other words, what meaning or value does that ancient religion have to us? Please explain.

7.  Name two Inanna titles that were later given to Mother Mary, and name another title that shows how Inanna was connected to Mary Magdalene.

8.  Write and submit your personal vow of loyalty to the cloister and promise of secrecy regarding the teachings. See guidelines for writing your vow / oath above.

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