What if it were possible to read eyewitness reports revealing that the great prophet and healer, Jesus Christ, was influenced by the power of the women around him-Mary Magdalene, Mother Mary and their contemporaries? How might our belief systems change if we learned that the healing talents of Jesus were preceded by those of his mother - and that his compassionate wisdom matured through his marriage to Mary Magdalene? How might our view of women's spiritual authority change if we learned that Mary Magdalene, her sister, Martha; sister-in-law, Ruth; and other women were a critical part of Jesus' ministry?
In the Old Testament-based religions that have shaped Western thought -- Judaism, Islam and Christianity -- divine power has always been presented as utterly masculine. Only in recent years have both the scholarly research and the intuitive insights of women begun to balance the one-sided picture of Western religious history. Through the work of such researchers as Elaine Pagels, Marija Gimbutas, and Riane Eisler, we have gained glimpses of a long-suppressed, more feminine spiritual heritage. What we have lacked so far is a direct and intimate woman's-eye view into the very heart of sacred doctrine.
It was my disagreement -- not only with patriarchal religions, but also with the patriarchy within my profession of psychotherapy -- that led me to transpersonal psychology. With the blending of psychology and Eastern spirituality, I was able to help my clients use the feminine quality of intuition, or gnosis, and to integrate mystical experiences into their everyday lives. About midway through my thirty-six years of practice, I introduced past-life regression therapy, with astonishing positive results. Then through a series of synchronistic events, I began seeing people who reported past lives during the time of Christ. My first book, The Messengers, co-written with G.W. Hardin, chronicles the story of one such client, Nick Bunick, who reported a past life of having been Paul, the Apostle. Among others who tapped into ancient times, were dozens of women whose past-life stories and mystical experiences convinced me that the perspective of women was missing from most accounts of Jesus' mission, and that Mary Magdalene's considerable role as a priestess in that spiritual revolution had been vastly underrated.
Drawing from reports of fifteen women who came to me for past-life regressions, a powerful case is made that their underlying mission was much broader than traditional dogma suggests. The core purpose of Jesus' religious teachings was not such simple moralism as "do unto others" but the metaphysical challenge to fully recognize the God and Goddess within everyone.
These historical visionaries revealed that the heart of the gospel was to restore balance between the male and the female by recognizing and honoring the equality of masculine and feminine traits within oneself, as well as the equality of the sexes in the outside world. As a young girl, Mother Mary studied at the Mt. Carmel Monastery, and together she and Jesus sought to overcome the fundamentalism of the male-dominated Hebrew religion, returning the Mother God to her place alongside the Father. They taught that the Kingdom of God was within, rather than a place in the hereafter, and that through androgyny -- "when you make the two one ... and when you make the inner as the outer" -- an individual could experience the reality of heaven on earth.
They claim that the women in Jesus' life were not just servants or temptresses but his teachers, friends, lovers, and co-creators. They taught him in his youth, participated in healings, formed a community of support around him based on their own intuitive insights, and continued teaching the gospel after his death. This Sisterhood of compassion was a critical component of Jesus' powerful message, yet until now it has not been recognized or validated.
The reports of these women change the common picture of the religious past in ways that reverberate powerfully in the present, and are just now being validated by recent translations and interpretations of the Nag Hammadi libr
ary. Current research, scholarship and my own observations, support what my subjects reported under hypnosis.
The stories of the Lost Sisterhood come from women who have reported lives as Myrium (or Mary, Jesus' mother), Ruth (Jesus' younger sister), Martha (sister of Lazarus and Mary Magdalene), Mary Magdalene and other holy women. Through past-life hypnotic sessions, these and other clients testify that women were an integral part of Jesus' ministry and personal life. They report that his mother, Mary, was a powerful teacher herself -- a mystic who studied in Asia along with Jesus and was said to have had direct knowledge of spiritual matters. The women recount how Mary Magdalene tapped directly into the Divine Source and led an underground of women mystics. Most dramatically, however, they witness Jesus and Mary Magdalene as husband and wife, insisting that the union was necessary for Jesus to come fully into his spiritual power.
In further sessions, these women also bitterly report that soon after Jesus' death, the men began to push them aside. One woman, Sarah of Arimathea, claims she wrote extensively during her apostleship but that her writings exist nowhere in Christian literature today. Many of my clients asserted that when women were pushed out of the inner circle, key aspects of the mission were lost. Consequently, their goals of peace and balance -- to be at one with the God/Goddess within and to love one another accordingly -- have yet to be attained.
Whether one regards these women's reports as real or imagined, their provocative messages are undeniable: Women are tired of being left out of the history of spiritual evolution. We are tired of being portrayed only as the silent handmaidens of male prophets, tired of being subject to religious laws without participating in their creation and tired of being the victims of religious wars. The Lost Sisterhood presents a revisioning of our religious past that will help to shape our spiritual future.
