In short – DON’T!
I just finished reading a book that was recently recommended to me about Mary Magdalene. I will start by saying it was a good recommendation. There were parts of the book that resonated with me on some level. At the same time, there were portions of the narrative that DID NOT resonate with me at all. In fact, I found them disturbing and unsettling. They triggered rage in me. Rage over the following question:
Why do some authors find it necessary to sexualize the Magdalene to tell her story?
I admit, my NOVEL, Song of the Beloved – the Gospel According to Mary Magdalene included an experience of sexual assault, and an experience between Jesus and Mary Magdalene in their marriage bed was hinted at, but in my mind, there is a difference between including the realities of the human journey (ie: 1 out of 4 women have experienced sexual assault) and describing the source of the Magdalene’s power as dependent on her beauty and what is and what is done between her legs. Perhaps this is all about my Venus in Capricorn, but I find the sexualizing of the Magdalene insulting and gross.
Can sexual intimacy be a beautiful, even transcendent spiritual experience through which one might encounter “God?” Absolutely. Is it a necessary, even required component in one’s spiritual awakening and personal empowerment? History tells us no. Is it possible that Mary Magdalene and Jesus, in addition to being emotionally, spiritually, and psychologically intimate, experienced sexual intimacy – absolutely. Whereas there exists no scholarly evidence to support that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married (or had children), this too is not beyond possibility.
With none of this do I take issue. I do, however, take issue with authors who use sex to sell their Magdalene stories. First, it’s lazy. Then I find myself offended. I find myself especially disgusted when authors choose to describe both sexual assault and “spiritual initiation” in unnecessarily explicit detail – and then try to pass it off as truth.
In sexualizing the Magdalene, these authors are no better than early Church leaders (specifically Pope Gregory I (540-604 C.E.)), who claimed the Magdalene to be the sinful woman mentioned in the gospels, a claim that has no foundation in scripture, but is still the common belief today.
Despite the efforts of scholars and laypeople alike, the Magdalene continues to be judged as less-than, when in fact, she was a woman of power, near-equal (if not equal) to Jesus. Moreover, as was the case with Pope Gregory, it is her sexuality by which she has been judged. Modern authors have continued this trend by attempting to sanctify women’s sexuality by suggesting it is the source of her power. This is both an insult and an assault against both women and men. Our personal power has nothing to do with sex.
To further describe the so-called hiero-gamos as a necessary step in human enlightenment reduces human beings to simply sexual creatures. To say it is by manual or coital manipulation that one becomes awakened is a corruption of the purpose of both sexual intimacy and the human journey of self-realization. To say that either Mary Magdalene or Jesus reached the height of their awakening solely through sexual rituals diminishes the inherent power of both. To remove sexual intimacy from love, insults the very mission that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were trying to accomplish.
The Source of Mary Magdalene’s power (and Jesus’ for that matter) had nothing to do with her appearance, her desirability to men, or with her sexual nature. The Source of Mary Magdalene’s power was within – in the Love that she had come to know as herself, and the Love she was in the world. This Being Love is the message and purpose of the Magdalene. To suggest anything else is to have missed the whole entire point.
Teachings of the Magdalene
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Lauri Ann Lumby 
The issue of the serialization of Mary Magdalene is the idea of her having been sold into sexual slavery. One of the authors who discuss this, and whose teachings on Gnosticism have much merit, is Tau Malachi. In it, we see “the bride” being discovered by dark forces from birth, and who is stalked her whole life. These same forces blind her parents to her innate power. And when her father sells her into marriage, her caravan is attacked by bandits who rob her not only of her wealth, but her “injocence” as well (i.e., she is raped). Subsequently, on the night of this happening, Lilith witnesses a kindred spirit and decides to possess her, imaging her with great powers. She then proceeds to kill the men. Then Mary flip I th continues on her journey and becomes a well-payed prostitute.
Another version I came across recently showed her as fiercely independent at a young age, and one day, as a 12 year old girl, she goes to fetch water, and is brutally raped by a group of men. After this, her father drags her to the square where he and others prepare to stone her to death. At the last moment, her estranged brother rescues her and takes her far from that village and brings her to his home far away, where she spends her days trapped in her own internal hell. Some time passes and a mysterious rabbi comes and makes an earth shattering statement: “Mary. Its not your fault.”
While rape is very much the deepest wound of all females, there is almost a perverse necessity these authors feel to include that in the story. To make it part of her story, her history. Many authors will use the “fully human/fully divine” argument, as they have done with Jesus.
But I am reminded of a scene I had initially written for my book, Mother of Peace. I will only say this: it was a bit rapey. And it was so unlike the surrounding scenes…more disturbing even than the dance Salome enacted for King Herod in the previous scene. As the book itself was a series of channeled sessions, I feel that something else tried to creep into my writing. I feel the same thing is happening here…they don’t even realize it. The idea of MM being a penitent whore is such a prevailant image, that even Gnostics find it difficult to shed it.
There is a desire to humanize MM and Yeshua on some level…and they were human…but in this almost perverse focus on their possible sex lives instead of the message they attempted to convey, debase them and the message.
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Hah! The book you are referring to is mine: Song of the Beloved. 🙂
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I thought it sounded familiar! Ha ha
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