Since 2015 Authentic Freedom Academy and Soul School have been housed within another entity. Effective TODAY we are on our own independent platform with Ruzuku. This it the fulfillment of a dream long in the making.
First I want to thank all of you for your patience, cooperation, and understanding as I have undertaken the arduous work of migrating all current and former students to the new platform. Ruzuku made this work easy, and there were still things I had to do to complete the migration. The migration is now complete and invitations have been sent out to all students who have enrolled since 2020, inviting them to the new platform and to all who have been part of either the Magdalene Priesthood or Order of Melchizedek trainings. If you have any questions about the migration to the new platform, please email me at lauri@lauriannlumby.com. I’m happy to help!
Second, I invite you all to check out our updated website! Please watch the welcome video:
and then check out all of our course offerings. A few old courses have been resurrected and several new courses have been added.
Now and always, I look forward to continuing to offer classes, and services in support of human development, toward the goal of self-actualization. I’m grateful for your presence here and for the honor to accompany and support you in your own journey of the unfolding of your Soul!
The US mid-term elections are this coming Tuesday, November 8th. Many have been predicting a “Red Wave” with Republicans securing majority in both the Congress and Senate, and taking many state Governor positions. If “Red” isn’t your political stance, how might you prepare in the event of a Red Wave?
Happy Halloween/Samhain! This is my favorite holiday as it marks the movement into my favorite time of year – the time of hygge, going inward, quiet, reflection, winter. As a special gift and as a way to support your own inward journey, I am offering my flagship Magdalene Priestess Training at a deep discount. For this offer, I’m rolling back time to the original 2015 pricing! Only $1400.00 for the full training, or 12 monthly payments of $120.00 each.
It has been a productive week at Soul School as I prepare for some big bold moves. Fueling the big and the bold are this week’s video/podcast episodes. If you find these videos helpful, please share them with your friends! Let’s share the love! ❤
Soul Tending with Lauri includes:
Personality, Temperament, and Gifts Assessments.
Exploration of the Soul’s calling.
Uncovering and transforming the obstacles to living out that calling through a variety of mindfulness, creativity, and shamanic practices including Lauri’s trademarked Authentic Freedom™ protocol.
Depth work – identifying ungrieved losses, unhealed wounds, past traumas, ancestral trauma, and learning shamanic practices for transforming and releasing them.
Shadow work – uncovering the unintegrated and often rejected parts of self and bringing them into wholeness.
Our whole lives we’ve been told that illness means there’s something wrong with us. What if the reverse, in fact, is true? What if illness is a gift that designates our power? Can we take what we’ve been told and have chosen to believe and turn it on its head? What if what we’ve been calling illness (chronic illness especially) is really the body’s only way, in an upside-down world, to create the environment the Soul needs to thrive? What if chronic illness is the body responding to abuse of the Soul? What if when suffering chronic illness (ie: fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, Epstein-Barr, migraine, vestibular disorders, anxiety, depression, panic attacks) there’s nothing wrong with us but is our body pointing out everything that is wrong with our world? What can we learn about our Soul and our body’s true needs through the symptoms our chronic illness throws at us? What happens if instead of fighting against illness we give our bodies what they need to feel safe in an unsafe world? How might our world begin to change when we start tending to the deeper needs of our Souls? How might our super-powers begin to emerge when we start tending to the needs of our Soul as dictated by our body?
Waking the Dead
I sang skin back onto my bones like a blanket’s warm embrace.
Enfolding in acceptance all that I am.
A dream within a dream of much more than simple acceptance.
A celebration really,
where a blanket becomes a robe of the deepest blood red.
Sovereign-earned.
Invoking a blessing of holiness
where that which I formerly condemned is honored as gift.
Where pathology is given a new name signifying magic.
And where illness designates power.
Then I sang a song of amens and hallelujahs!
Copyright Lauri Ann Lumby
Grief
When we are struggling with chronic illness or other debilitating and troublesome symptoms, we are cast into a grieving process. We experience all faces of grief – denial, bargaining, anger, depression, and sorrow as we move in the direction of coming to terms with our symptoms.
For twenty-five years, Lauri Ann Lumby has supported people in all forms of grieving. If you are in need of support in grieving your diagnosis (of often lack thereof), please reach out for an appointment.
Yeah, I’ve grown kinda weary of titles, slogans, and all the ways we try to describe and lay claim to our unique calling in the world. Titles like lightworker, shadow worker, soul mate, twin flame, starseed, witch, sorcerer, shaman, empath, etc. etc. etc. have all grown a bit tiresome and maybe even useless as we try to describe who we are in a world where we don’t really fit. Yes, these titles help us identify who we are and who we are not. Yes, they help us to find our place of belonging. AND they can tempt us to create separation as we fight over what these words really mean and our right (or not) to call ourselves that.
All that being said, I’ve recently found myself connecting with a “title” I haven’t seen elsewhere and one that seems, better than any of the above, to describe my purpose in the world, and role of others I know who share similar gifts.
It’s an ancient title that is often misunderstood and has therefore been twisted into something that strikes terror and fear in the hearts of the indoctrinated. It is one with only benevolent intent, but which has been made malevolent by those who have sought to rule the world by fear, power, oppression, and control, and those who benefit from a world driven by fear.
The title is: Light-Bearer
A Light-Bearer is one who is the light. We are the light that causes the shadows of the world to creep out from under the rocks and behind the veils where they are hiding so they might come forth into the light. Coming forth into the light allows that which is hidden to be seen so that it can be dealt with. Light-Bearers support the ongoing transformation of the world simply by the power of their presence. That which is hiding in shadow cannot persist in the light of the Light-Bearer.
Sounds cool, right!? Nope. Not really. Light-Bearers are catalysts and shit-disturbers. We upset the status quo. We reveal what is hidden – deceptions, lies, betrayals, untruths, forces of oppression and manipulation, hypocrisy, injustice, and anything else that is not anchored in Love. We don’t even have to do or say a single thing for this unveiling to take place. It happens simply because we are in the room or in your presence. For those with nothing to hide, our presence is a welcome gift. For those who have something to hide, we are abhorred. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been treated like “the enemy,” for absolutely no reason other than I happen to be in the room and shit started coming up from under the floorboards – and yeah, I may have helped it along by pointing out the shit! Hey, university who shall go unnamed, you were in trouble LONG before I showed up. I’m not the enemy here! Hey person who I dated sorry my presence tickled the door behind which you have tried to hide your true orientation. How could you love me when all the while you were loving another?
There is really no place one can hide from the presence of a Light-Bearer. Either you welcome us, or your attachment to keeping something hidden will cause you to project your own self-hatred onto us. Now that I understand this gift, I no longer take it personally when for no apparent reason someone decides to hate me. If it’s someone with whom I had a relationship, I might experience the normal faces of grief, but I get it. We have to be ready to face what we try to keep hidden, and some will never be ready.
Where have you encountered Light-Bearers in your life?
Where might you be aware of the Light-Bearer calling within yourself?
Through Soul School Essentials 1 – Igniting the Flame, you will discover new things about yourself, your gifts, and your calling. You will also learn effective tools that you can apply in your everyday life for supporting the unfolding of your Soul toward the goal of enjoying the meaningful and fulfilling live of your dreams.
Ahhhhhhhh. The Trickster. Satan. Beelzebub. Beetlejuice. By whatever name we call “him,” the role is the same:
That thing that shows up just as something amazing has happened, or as something magnificent is about to happen. That experience that attempts to throw a banana peel into our path. The person who throws spikes across the road of our enjoyment just after we get done fruitfully sharing our gifts in the world.
Yeah….you know of whom/what I speak. We’ve all had these experiences. I’ve gotten to the point now where I know the Trickster when I see it and I name it for who it is. This does not, however, prevent me from feeling the jarring impact of what can only be called a psychic attack.
Here’s how it went:
Thursday and Saturday of the past week, I had the profound gift of presenting to two different organizations. Thursday’s presentation was on Mary Magdalene for the Healer’s Playgroup. Saturday I presented on Mental Health and Resilience in Teens for the Wisconsin Dance Council annual convention. Both presentations were enthusiastically received and I felt completely in my element and anchored in my gifts and my calling. Everything felt right with the world as I gave my introvert/empath a well-deserved day (or two) of rest.
Then “the devil” came a callin’. I will say this is not the first time I’ve had to deal with severely disturbed individuals who are operating out of some sort of delusion that I am the cause of their current life situation. In this case, a person I don’t even know, but who apparently knows me through a shared membership on another platform. I won’t go into the details but to say their language was abusive, graphic, and venomous would be an understatement. Understanding the disease that provokes such outbursts did nothing to protect me from the daggers of hatred carried by these words. My rational mind knew how to respond. My empathic body felt the sting of her words. My inner healer knew what to do to support myself in being free of the venom and how to let my psychic body heal.
And, my inner spiritual teacher knew exactly what this was:
“Hello Trickster, the fact that you are here is telling me something magnificent is happening.”
Indeed. THIS is the role of the Trickster. To startle us out of our enjoyment, trip us up on our path, plant the seeds of confusion and doubt in our mind – all for the purpose of testing our resolve.
The Trickster is here to ask us: “Are you sure about this?”
Um. Yes, I’m sure. I’m certain about my gifts. I’m certain of my call to serve. I’m certain I’m called to serve the world through my gifts of teaching, providing guidance and counsel, and being a force of Love in the world. All the tricksters in the world are not going to convince me otherwise. As I reached out to a colleague who had a similar encounter with this individual, her words said it perfectly:
Not today Satan! Not today!
Where and how have you experienced the Trickster in your life?
What tools do you have for moving through and past the Trickster’s shenanigans?
Only $28.00 for this 2 hour workshop
Join Lauri Ann Lumby as she breaks open the ancient mysteries related to the adversary – the natural inner force that has been corrupted into an external demon that should be feared. Even the ancient names given to this helpful and benevolent force have been appropriated by those who seek to manipulate others through fear, intimidation, and threats of eternal damnation.
Discover the ancient names given to the adversary and their true meanings.
Understand the natural cycle of spiritual growth including necessary times of resistance characterized by temptation, doubt, confusion, and difficulty.
People often ask me, “How do you know this stuff?” The short answer is – a lifetime of study. The longer answer is what I have come to call “embodied learning.” Yes, I have read literally hundreds of books on the topics I teach and in the areas that I counsel. But more than just reading, I have done my best to embody the best of what scholars before me have articulated through their words, and have applied the practices of the mystics and contemplators and experienced the benefit of these practices in my own life.
Below is just a glimpse into the many books I have studied in forming the foundation of the offerings of Soul School. The benefit to my client and students is that they don’t have to read all these books. They can just show up for the classes and enjoy the distillation of all I have accumulated and gathered in a lifetime of study, integration, and practice.
Lauri Ann Lumby Reading List 2022
Books Related to Mary Magdalene:
Scholarly Works:
Begg, Ean, The Cult of the Black Virgin, Chiron Publications, 2006.
Bourgeault, Cynthia, The Meaning of Mary Magdalene – Discovering the Woman at the Heart of
Christianity, Shambhala Publications, 2010.
Haskins, Susan, Mary Magdalene – Myth and Metaphor, Harcourt Brace & Company, 1993.
King, Karen, L., The Gospel of Mary of Magdala – Jesus and the First Woman Apostle,
Polebridge Press, 2003.
Leloup, Jean-Yves, Judas and Jesus – Two Faces of a Single Revelation, Inner Traditions, 2006.
Leloup, Jean-Yves, The Gospel of Mary Magdalene, Inner Traditions, 2002.
Leloup, Jean-Yves, The Gospel of Philip, Inner Traditions, 2003.
Leloup, Jean-Yves, The Gospel of Thomas, Inner Traditions, 2005.
Leloup, Jean-Yves, The Sacred Embrace of Jesus and Mary – The Sexual Mystery at the Heart of
the Christian Tradition, Inner Traditions, 2005.
MacDermot, Violet, The Fall of Sophia – A Gnostic Text on the Redemption of Universal
Consciousness, Lindisfarne Books, 2001.
Starbird, Margaret, The Woman with the Alabaster Jar, Bear & Company, 1993.
Starbird, Margaret, The Goddess in the Gospels – Reclaiming the Sacred Feminine, Bear &
Company, 1998.
Starbird, Margaret, Mary Magdalene – Bride in Exile, Bear & Company, 2005.
Fiction or Channeled Works:
Heartsong, Claire, Anna – Grandmother of Jesus. S.E.E. Publishing, 2002.
Heartsong, Claire, Anna – the Voice of the Magdalenes, S.E.E Publishing, 2010.
Kenyon, Thomas & Sion, Judi, The Magdalen Manuscript, Tom Kenyon Orb, 2006.
McGowan, Kathleen, The Expected One, Touchstone, 2007.
McGowan, Kathleen, The Book of Love, Touchstone, 2010.
Pevehouse, Dolores, I, The Christ, Hampton Roads, 2000.
Wilson, Stuart, Essenes – Children of the Light, Ozark Mountain Publishing, 2005.
Wilson, Stuart & Prentis, Joanna, Power of the Magdalene, Ozark Mountain Publishing, 2008.
Unitive Gnosticism/Gnostic Christianity:
Douglas-Klotz, Neil, The Hidden Gospel: Decoding the Spiritual Message of the Aramaic Jesus,
Quest Books, 1999.
Douglas-Klotz, Neil, Prayers of the Cosmos, Harper One 1993.
Eisler, Riane, The Chalice and the Blade, Harper Collins, 1987.
Strange Symptoms, Empathy and the Call of the Mystic
The call of the mystic is often accompanied by the gift of empathy – the ability to feel what other people are feeling, and to feel things that are happening in the world. This gift of empathy is often identified by strange, otherwise unexplainable physical and emotional symptoms: physical pain, vertigo, ringing in the ears, dizziness, nausea, migraines, visual disturbances, unexplained sorrow, anxiety, grief, fear, etc. While it’s important to consult a medical doctor in the event these symptoms have a medical and treatable cause. If not, it might just be that you’re an empath.
Soul Lessons – Tonglen
In this video, you will learn about and be guided in a Tonglen practice. Tonglen is a powerful and effective practice for transforming our inner wounds, compulsions, past trauma, and societal conditioning. It’s a great remedy for guilt, shame, loneliness, anxiety, and so much more.
The Way of Love – The “G” Word
This week’s Way of Love Video Podcast explores the “G-word.” Humanity’s evolution as it relates to our concepts of that from whence we came. Is it the old man in the sky? A many-armed God? Or will our human conceptualizations of the Source always fall short of what “G” really is?
I have been profoundly honored to be invited to present for a wide variety of corporate gatherings. This coming week, I have two such events. On Thursday I will be presenting on Mary Magdalene for the Healer’s Playgroup out of the Twin Cities, MN, and on Saturday, I’m presenting: Supporting Resilience in Teens: Mental Health and Wellness for Dancers for the Wisconsin Dance Council annual conference. I’m grateful for these and other organizations who understand the value of personal development and are committed to bringing these resources to their employees, members, and clients.
It was so exciting to have Lauri, with 30 years of expertise in the field of human development, visit our craft-centered writing group, Much Ado About Writing. Her in-depth knowledge of enneagram types was the perfect complement to our discussions of characterization, and her presentation summarizing each of the types – their main traits, fears, and compulsions – had us all seeing the characters in our works-in-progress (and ourselves) in a new light. If you are looking to inject fresh energy and perspective into your writing group’s discussions of craft while deepening your understanding of human temperaments and interpersonal relationships, invite Lauri to come chat with your group about her work!
Kate Penndorf and Valerie Heller, Much Ado About Writing
Lauri Lumby partnered with my company Nutritional Healing to offer her Authentic Freedom education to clients of all backgrounds and needs. We offered a half-day workshop focused on ‘the mindful body’ for self-development that helped our clients learn how to bring awareness and joy back to eating. Lauri helped attendees focus on saying goodbye to things such as emotional eating, self-medicating, limiting beliefs, low self-esteem, and other bad habits. My clients also learned how mindless munching and emotional eating doesn’t serve us, and what steps we can take to become aware of what our body truly needs and become more body-aware with each bite we take.
Additionally, Lauri helped my clients beat stress and prevent any moments of emotional eating during one of the toughest times of year – the holidays. Lauri taught attendees how to acknowledge and recognize any triggers as they show up during the holidays, and how/why we often turn to food and alcohol to numb these feelings. From there, my clients were taught basic practices for dealing with these triggers.
I would recommend the work of Lauri Lumby on an individual basis as well as in a corporate setting to make an impact in helping individuals do the deep work we all need for true healing!
Kimberly Stoeger, Nutritional Healing
Ms. Lumby has been a returning implementer for Currie Management Consultants. Inc. We’ve been in business over four decades as consultants to industrial equipment manufacturers, dealers and distributors. We have included Enneagram work as part of our ongoing Leadership and Executive Development work. The Enneagram, and Lauri’s work, have become essential parts of our programs. Lauri engages our clients extremely well, delivers with precision, and her impeccable work ethic is highly professional. She is a respected colleague of ours and our hope is that this relationship grows and continues into the future. Experts like Lauri are necessary for developing strong corporate culture, and for building teams of effective leaders and executives that work with purpose and intention.
Robin P. Currie, Currie Management Consultants, Inc.
Lauri Ann Lumby designs workshops and tools to meet the individual needs of businesses and their employees.
Lauri Ann Lumby 