Mary Magdalene Revealed Read online

  Praise for

  MARY MAGDALENE REVEALED

  “This book is a masterpiece. I haven’t been this excited or awakened by a book for a decade. This is what it looks like when an artist follows her heart and her passion instead of the crowd.”

  — Glennon Doyle, #1 New York Times best-selling author of Love Warrior

  “The evidence within these pages, both scholarly and lived experience, will change you on a cellular level as you remember what has been forgotten for thousands of years, but has never been untrue: that the feminine is sacred and holy. This book is a revolution.”

  — Kate Northrup, best-selling author of Do Less and Money: A Love Story

  “Meggan Watterson is a modern-day prophetess who sets souls on fire with her lyrical prose and courageous truth-telling. Her unearthing of the hidden and silenced realities of the first apostle’s life and legacy ignites revelations that will transform the hearts and minds of readers who are ready to claim their own power and spiritual authority.”

  — Jamia Wilson, author of Step Into Your Power and executive director of The Feminist Press

  “Mary Magdalene Revealed brings together the exquisite balance of personal experience and the uncovering of spiritual texts that quite simply rock and lovingly challenge the Christianity of the world today. Meggan Watterson is the spiritual teacher to spiritual teachers and this book is a road map to the heart of Christ’s message.”

  — Kyle Gray, best-selling author of Angel Prayers and Raise Your Vibration

  “Mary Magdalene Revealed is a masterpiece of theology, feminism, and just plain spiritual goodness. No matter what your religious or spiritual background, you will find hope, joy, and a bracing new way to think about your body and your life in these pages.”

  — Christiane Northrup, M.D., New York Times best-selling author of Goddesses Never Age and Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom

  “Meggan Watterson is a conduit carrying the electrical charge of spirit and weaving this channeled energy into her work. She is a soul doula, gently holding our hands as we cross the river to spiritual healing and emotional salvation through these pages. If you ever wondered if the feminine is dormant in our spiritual traditions, Mary Magdalene Revealed makes it clear that our past, present, and future lies within her.”

  — Latham Thomas, founder of Mama Glow and author of Own Your Glow

  “Fierce, raw, compelling, disruptive, and deep—Meggan Watterson has penned a classic. Read it . . . savor it . . . read it again, then let it change you.”

  — Colette Baron-Reid, best-selling author of Uncharted

  “She is brave, she is beautiful, she is divine. Driven by passion, by a calling higher than she can see or know. She can deliver us all into a new stratosphere of love and divinity. Am I describing Mary Magdalene? Or Meggan Watterson? Both. They are sisters in this holy mission of bringing Mary’s breathtakingly beautiful gospel to the world, today.”

  — Regena Thomashauer, New York Times best-selling author of Pussy: A Reclamation

  “Like a feminist Indiana Jones, Meggan Watterson goes on a mystical adventure to uncover the hidden teachings of one of Christ’s closest companions and disciples, Mary Magdalene, and her discovery could change history.”

  — Cheryl Richardson, New York Times best-selling author of The Art of Extreme Self Care

  “With deep honesty, soulful artistry, and intellectual rigor, Meggan brings us a picture of the real Mary Magdalene—the one who is alive in each of our hearts—and leads us through how to experience and live from the Christ in each of us in our daily lives.”

  — Robert and Hollie Holden, authors and teachers of A Course in Miracles

  “After so much work, devotion, and innovation, Meggan Watterson deserves to be heard.”

  — Hal Taussig, Ph.D., author and editor of A New New Testament

  “Mary Magdalene Revealed is one of the most beautiful, powerful, exciting, and sorely needed books of our time. Fiercely honest and courageous, Watterson rejects the lies and limitations of patriarchal bias and resurrects the heartbeat of genuine love and intimacy with God and one another through the teachings and life of Mary Magdalene. I couldn’t put it down!”

  — Sonia Choquette, best-selling author of Waking Up in Paris

  “I have been waiting to read Mary Magdalene Revealed my entire life. Its pages will reveal the humble power of your soul and a truth that can be felt but cannot be put into words.”

  — Rebecca Campbell, best-selling author of Rise, Sister, Rise

  “It is rare to find a book that catalyzes a mystical awakening, a book that feels like a reunion with a long-lost key to your soul’s evolution.”

  — Sarah Drew, best-selling author of Gaia Codex

  “Meggan has given us an extraordinary gift. Through her compelling and courageous work, we are called back to ourselves as bodies, as spiritual beings, to our wholeness and fullness, helping us to find our inner voice which will ultimately set us free.”

  — Celene Lillie, Ph.D., director of translation for A New New Testament

  Also by MEGGAN WATTERSON

  The Divine Feminine Oracle*

  How to Love Yourself (and Sometimes Other People), with Lodro Rinzler*

  REVEAL*

  The Sutras of Unspeakable Joy

  *Available from Hay House

  Please visit:

  Hay House USA: www.hayhouse.com®

  Hay House Australia: www.hayhouse.com.au

  Hay House UK: www.hayhouse.co.uk

  Hay House India: www.hayhouse.co.in

  Copyright © 2019 by Meggan Watterson

  Published in the United States by: Hay House, Inc.: www.hayhouse.com®

  Published in Australia by: Hay House Australia Pty. Ltd.: www.hayhouse.com.au

  Published in the United Kingdom by: Hay House UK, Ltd.: www.hayhouse.co.uk

  Published in India by: Hay House Publishers India: www.hayhouse.co.in

  Cover design: Mary Ann Smith • Interior design: Bryn Starr Best

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced by any mechanical, photographic, or electronic process, or in the form of a phonographic recording; nor may it be stored in a retrieval system, transmitted, or otherwise be copied for public or private use—other than for “fair use” as brief quotations embodied in articles and reviews—without prior written permission of the publisher.

  The author of this book does not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use of any technique as a form of treatment for physical, emotional, or medical problems without the advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. The intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional, physical, and spiritual well-being. In the event you use any of the information in this book for yourself, the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.

  Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress

  Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-4019-5490-1

  e-book ISBN: 978-1-4019-5429-1

  e-audio ISBN: 978-1-4019-5430-7

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  1st edition, July 2019

  Printed in the United States of America

  This book is for my son, Shai

  —which means “gift” in Aramaic

  In French, love at first sight is coup de foudre—

  “lightning strikes”

  This is what it felt like when I first saw you, Shai—

  I recognized you

  It felt like witnessing the proof of

  a love that has always existed

  My heart flipped inside out

  and has been expanding ever since

  Sister, we know that the Savior
loved you more than all other women.

  Tell us the words of the Savior that you remember, the things which you know that we don’t because we haven’t heard them.

  Mary responded, “I will teach you about what is hidden from you.”

  — THE GOSPEL OF MARY MAGDALENE

  CONTENTS

  INTRODUCTION

  The Eye of the Heart

  Why I Could Kiss a Copt

  We Can’t Half-Ass Death

  THE FIRST POWER • DARKNESS

  What We Have Forgotten

  The Christianity We Haven’t Tried Yet

  How a Feminist Sees an Angel

  The Secret Ministry of Currer Bell

  Leviticus in Bunny Slippers

  THE SECOND POWER • CRAVING

  The Girl Who Baptized Herself

  The Passion of Saint Perpetua

  Grandma Betty’s Lightbulb Eyes

  The Angriest Christian I’ve Ever Met

  The Buddha Tara’s Badass Vow

  Misunderstanding Mr. Mister

  The Three Marys

  The Red Thread

  THE THIRD POWER • IGNORANCE

  What Happens in the Wilderness

  The Gospel of Mary Magdalene

  What It Means to Be Saved

  What It Means to Be Human

  What I Learned as the Burning Bush

  How to Meditate Like Mary Magdalene

  The Red Egg

  The Body Never Lies

  Mary Magdalene Was Not a Prostitute

  No One Was There to Witness the Witness

  The Power to Judge

  The Red Spring

  Like a Same-Sex Divine Feminine Noah’s Ark

  A Religion Every Body Belongs To

  Why I Am Proud to Be Part Impala

  How the Long Island Medium Answered My Prayer

  THE FOURTH POWER • CRAVING FOR DEATH

  A Ship Without Sails

  The Yoni of the Mountain

  What I Heard in Mary Magdalene’s Crypt

  THE FIFTH POWER • ENSLAVEMENT TO THE PHYSICAL BODY

  The Princess of Mercy

  The Cave of Eggs

  She Who Confirms the Truth

  THE SIXTH POWER • THE FALSE PEACE OF THE FLESH

  The Whole Point Is That It Never Ends

  Love Has Already Won

  The White Spring

  THE SEVENTH POWER • THE COMPULSION OF RAGE

  What We Have Remembered

  The Woman with the Alabaster Jar

  The Language of the Angels

  The Prayer of the Heart

  AFTERWORD

  I Believe Mary

  Appendix 1: The Soul-Voice Meditation

  Appendix 2: Mary Magdalene’s Red Thread Reading List

  Appendix 3: Resources for Giving and Receiving Support

  Endnotes

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  INTRODUCTION

  The Eye of the Heart

  (Pages 1–6 are missing.)

  — MARY 1:1

  Mary Magdalene’s gospel starts with missing pages. These are the words we can’t get back, this is the wisdom, the voice of Christ from the heart of a woman, that was torn out and most likely destroyed before the rest of her gospel was buried. There was something so incendiary in these first six pages that her gospel starts on page seven.

  And there’s something poetic about that, since according to Mary’s gospel, seven is the number of stages we need to go through, or powers we need to confront within ourselves, to reach a clarity or singularity of heart that lets us see past the ego of our own little lives to what’s more real, and lasting, and infinite, and already here, within us.

  Three copies of the Gospel of Mary have been recovered—two in Greek and one in Coptic. All three versions of her gospel are missing the beginning, and then also, four pages in the middle. And those four pages would have contained the answer to what I believe is one of the most significant questions we could ever know. Mary asks Christ,

  “So, now, Lord, does a person who sees a vision see it with the soul or with the spirit?”

  All we have of his answer is this provocative yet cryptic start:

  “The Savior answered, ‘A person does not see with the soul or with the spirit. Rather the mind, which exists between the two, sees the vision and that is what . . .”

  “Mind,” here, isn’t the modern, dualistic concept of the mind that we think of today. It’s not mind devoid of body. It’s a word that’s hard to translate from the Greek. It’s actually best to keep it in Greek, although the first time I came across it, I thought it was in French. It’s nous. Nous in French means we. Nous in Greek means the eye of the heart. It’s the vision, or perception of the soul.

  How we see anything, changes everything. And there’s so much at stake here, which is why her question to Christ is still ours to answer. And which is why perhaps the answer to her brilliant question was torn from her gospel in the first place. Because it would have revealed to us how we perceive the divine directly, from within.

  What’s at stake is spiritual authority. And what I mean by that is both the struggle to determine who has the power to tell Mary Magdalene’s story and, subsequently, the authority to tell the truth about our own story.

  If how we see, truly see, is not with eyesight, but with a vision, a form of spiritual perception that allows us to know what’s real, what’s lasting, what’s actually true, if this comes from within us; then no one has power over us.

  Simple, right?

  Yes. And, simply revolutionary.

  For me, these seven powers in Mary’s gospel serve as the template of what it means to be human. It’s like being handed a road map for the inner terrain. Here are the seven routes the ego can (and most likely will) take while you’re embodied. Here are the places as human beings we get stuck. These are the climates, the states of mind that can compel us to act in ways that are not indicative of who we really are. These are the powers that can silence us from within.

  I guess this story I’m about to tell you is what religious scholars would call a “conversion story.” The Gospel of Mary did convert me, or her gospel helped me understand why I’ve never felt at home in a Christianity that excluded it.

  From a theological perspective, Mary Magdalene’s gospel is considered an “ascent narrative,” which means that it describes a path that we can navigate to liberate the soul; not in death, but here in this lifetime. The word ascent, though, is misleading in that the imagination immediately goes upward. Thinks transcendence. Ascension according to the Gospel of Mary is more accurately a descent into the heart; so farther up is actually further in.

  For me, finding Mary Magdalene’s voice meant recovering my own. This is why I’ve spent the majority of my life studying her gospel, and following her legend through history. I hope in sharing her voice in this book, you will hear the voice of your own soul. (Which might feel lofty, and intimidating, I know, but it’s just this clear, calm, unassuming voice of love inside you.)

  I also want to clarify that this is going to end the way it began. It’s very T. S. Eliot and the Four Quartets: “And the end of all our exploring / Will be to arrive where we started / And know the place for the first time.” It’s not about getting somewhere, or reaching someplace else. Although I will tell you how I ended up perched like a baby goat in yoga gear on the side of a mountain in the South of France searching for Mary Magdalene’s “Cave of Eggs.”

  The point of Mary’s gospel is not to suggest that we need to become someone else, someone “better.” There isn’t this om-vibrating version of yourself that you figure out how to be by the end of this book, or that I’ve become by living it.

  It’s about acquiring a vision that allows us to see what has always been here, within us. It’s about the quality and intensity of our existence. It’s about the possibility of actually being present, instead of being caught without even realizing it in the endless stories the ego tells; fr
om the second we wake up, dividing us from what’s already right here, dividing us from each other and ourselves, dividing us from what we consider good, or god. It’s about really waking up to the fact that our system of understanding the world is no longer serving us.

  Or so this is how my conversion story goes. I wake up to a way I’ve been operating in the world, the world created by my ego; and I see the suffering it perpetuates. I see that there’s another way.

  And that way does not include finding some hot, saucy pants lover, who completes me (not so far anyway), or the discovery of a tried and true recipe for uninterrupted joy. Not fame. Not success. There’s no end point here, no fixed state of completion. There’s no master or guru status. It’s just alpha, then omega, ad infinitum. This is what I’m trying to explain. There is no X marks the spot.

  It’s simpler than that, and far more difficult.

  It’s more of a series of perpetual moments when you remember that you don’t have to feel separate from love—if you don’t want to. Even in the midst of the worst of what we say to ourselves, even when someone we love most in the world can’t see us at all, we can practice a way that humbles us, that disrupts the ego’s grasp, and lets us return again, with ease (even eventually, with levity), to love.

  It’s all very quiet and unremarkable, though. It’s not showy, or exciting. It’s more like this, from Elizabeth Gilbert: “Never forget that once upon a time, in an unguarded moment, you recognized yourself as your friend.”

  And in that moment of recognition, this is when we save ourselves, from the self that was never real to begin with. This is when we see with the eye of the heart.

  Why I Could Kiss a Copt

  I am the first and the last. I am she who is honored and she who is scorned. I am the whore and the holy woman. I am the wife and the virgin. I am the bride and the bridegroom. I am she, the Lord.

  — THE THUNDER, PERFECT MIND 1:5–10

  The earliest evidence of the lost gospel of Mary Magdalene was discovered in January 1896, at an antiquities market in Cairo, by a German scholar named Carl Reinhardt. It was written in Coptic on ancient papyrus. Coptic is an Egyptian language that is still used today by Egyptian Christians, called “Copts.” It was placed in the Egyptian museum in Berlin with the official title and catalogue number of Codex Berolinensis 8502, which is a mouthful. So, scholars refer to it as the Berlin Codex.