Mary Magdalene and the 12 Miriams

This article is an introduction to my book ‘The Thirteenth Priestess’. My goal is to wake people up to heal the planet.

A woman named JemmaGirl sent me an e-mail, ‘rebuking’ me for calling myself Jesus. The Jesus she knew was ‘Jewish, hadn’t sold books, and never been married’.

The Truth? Jesus was married, twice, had 4 children, and his earliest disciples were women. Mary, his mother was his first teacher, and he had many female teachers. Mary Magdalene was his beloved lover, wife, and disciple. And I could care less whether fundamentalists, evangelicals, and literalists believe this or not.

The Truth? The story of Religion has been the suppression of Women and the Feminine energy, with unimaginable harm to all of us. It is women’s voices that have been stilled, and women’s history that has been untold. So not as Jesus, but as a son, a husband and a father, I am fulfilling my duty to offer testimony.

The secret (and powerful) underground society of priestesses, in hiding because of the prevailing culture of the times, found its strength in strategic alliances with kings, powerful men, and spiritual groups. They used their sexual and magical power as well as healing, prophecy and wealth to further their aim, which was to heal humanity by joining the power of female and male, and return God to a state of greater balance.

The spirit of the child Jesus was recognized as heralding the being that would heal the world by balancing the opposing male and female natures of God. Therefore they set out to nurture, teach and help him.

Mary, the mother of Jesus, had been the chief priestess from around the time that he was born. His conception and birth was the result of a union of Man and Woman in sacred ritual, not the Immaculate Conception of the Bible, but still a normal act of love and passion that would bring forth divinity. (His father was part of the traditions of Atlan, and not the Joseph of the Bible, but Joseph of Arimathea.)

She had been chosen through her karma to bring forth and nurture this child, and by so doing, becoming the High Priestess of Palestine.

He went to Egypt and India to study during the lost years. He had been there before in his previous lives, but knew that his purpose would be fulfilled in Palestine, through his attempt to redeem and heal the Jewish people. At first his parents accompanied him, but later in his childhood he was sent on his own. Wherever he went, though, he was recognized and supported by many, women as well as men, for he was the awaited one.

Returning to Palestine, he was with the Essenes for a while, though he never belonged to that group. The society of women supported and nurtured him from the background, then openly became his disciples. It may be hard to believe that now, but people actually were much more open to the feminine energies then, and various cultures did coexist in Palestine until Jewish hegemony was established in the 20th century.

(The story of the Jewish people and their origins and karma will be explored more fully in my book, ‘The Children of Atlan’).

As Jesus came into his own magical and spiritual power, women were always at his side. Mary the mother and his first wife Shoshanna (from one of the lost tribes in India) were part of his group. He had a child with Shoshanna, Lazarus, and they returned to Palestine.

Mary Magdalene and her sister Martha were heiresses to one of the great fortunes of Palestine. They were also followers of the High Priestess. When Jesus returned from India, Mary Magdalene had an epiphany, which told her of her love for him and the role she would play in his life. From that moment on she became his principal follower and supporter.

When Shoshanna died his son Lazarus was adopted into the family of Martha of Bethany and Mary Magdalene, and over time a great love developed between Mary Magdalene and Jesus.
The wedding at Canaa was the sacred marriage of Jesus and Mary Magdalene. Eventually they would have 3 children, Ruth, Eleazar, and Sarah.

Mary Magdalene had been chosen to become Mary the mother’s successor as High Priestess, and by taking Jesus as lover and husband, they were ensuring by this act that the traditions would continue, and the salvation of their people would take place. If they choose to follow him.

The women who followed Jesus came to be such a recognizable group they were jokingly referred to as the 12 Miriams because many of them were called Miriam, or Mary. That women have always been involved in spiritual life is a suppressed fact, not just in Palestine but India as well; Krishna and Buddha had female disciples just as Jesus did.

They were the ones out of whom several demons were cast out, their sexual and spiritual practices having left them open to possession. The penitent woman who washed his feet with her tears and anointed him with costly perfume, the woman taken in adultery, the woman who anointed him with the sacred oil, were his earliest disciples.

As Jesus’ group grew many men who joined the discipleship had a hard time accepting women as equals who could and did express their beliefs. Peter was the most vocal of them all. Even though Mary Magdalene had great gifts in her own right, he couldn’t stand to have a woman speak to them about spiritual matters. Jesus rebuked him once, “Why do I love her the most? Because she has more faith than any of you.”

(And it was the male disciples who would later distort Jesus’ essential message and obscure the female contribution to his teachings)

Jesus traveled throughout Palestine with his disciples. His message was based on the Way of Atlan, the hidden knowledge that had been expressed through the world’s religions and also through his previous incarnations as Thoth /Hermes, Krishna, and Buddha.

He combined Earth Magic and Sky God principles of the Spirit to accomplish what he did.

Great crowds came to listen but they weren’t ready to hear his essential message, about karma, love, and peace. Even the miracles weren’t enough to convince them. Many of his own followers saw him only as a projection of their hopes and expectations, not who he truly was. In the end, Jesus knew that his purpose would only be accomplished after he left. But first, he had to die in fulfillment of prophecy.

The Last Supper was served to women as well as men. Mary Magdalene sat by his side. Think how much better a place the world was then, and could have been! (Incidentally, the young 'man' beside him in Leonardo DaVinci’s painting is wearing a red robe, and red was Mary Magdalene’s favourite colour and the colour of her hair).

Jesus served them, his blood in remembrance of his sacrifice, and asked them to protect his children. He served them his flesh, in commemoration of the body that would no longer be with them. He washed their feet, to wash away their karma (sins).

And even though he was in pain that he must go away, he consoled them, and even though he knew that many would run away in fear, and betray him, and lose faith, he promised he would always be with those who believed.

Jesus cried out to the people he had come to save, and who rejected him. Jerusalem, Jerusalem!

In the end it was their karma that the Jewish people refused to see him as the Messiah. He was of the Davidic line, not just through blood but also through reincarnation, as one who once was Solomon. He was condemned to the Romans as a claimant to the throne and therefore sent to the cross as a political punishment.

There is a spiritual technique by which one can give up life. His spirit left his body, and he died. All who saw him realised what they had done, and darkness descended upon their souls. And Mary the Mother placed a terrible curse on the people of Israel, just as a previous High Priestess had done. (See ‘Battle for the Soul of The Jewish People’)

Jesus had to die, and he had to return. Mary Magdalene, Martha of Bethany and other priestesses performed a superhuman feat of healing to bring him back, just as Jesus had once brought back Lazarus. And on the third day, he rose up, and was so transformed that even his wife Mary Magdalene couldn’t recognize him. She went and told Peter and the others, and that is the true story of Easter.

Jesus stayed with the disciples a while longer, taught them to perform miracles, and sent them out into the world. His brother James, Peter and Paul would eventually change his message and pay the price. And Jerusalem was destroyed by the Roman legions shortly after.

His children had been hidden with different families. A Zealot who hated Jesus’ renunciation of the Jewish faith killed Lazarus. Eleazar grew up and died at Masada. Ruth lived a happy, peaceful life in Palestine for a while. Mary Magdalene fled with their youngest child, Sarah to France. Mother Mary traveled through Asia Minor and Greece, eventually ending up in Rome.

Mary Magdalene was protected by her friends in France and set up the first Christian communities there (who evolved into the Cathar Heresy that was the subject of the first inquisitions). Where she landed near Marseille is the scene of a festival every year, and she is the patron saint of France. Her daughter Sarah married into nobility and the bloodline of Jesus and Mary Magdalene was sought and carried through the European monarchs who felt it conferred some sort of legitimacy upon them.

The Magdalene performed many miracles wherever she went. Tradition holds that she died in France, but that isn’t true. However when she left she promised in thanks for the kindness given her she would return one day when she was needed. More than a thousand years later, she reincarnated as Joan of Arc, but that is another story.

Jesus went to England where he set up the first church and even to North America where he preached to the Native peoples. After that he returned to India in search of the lost tribes of Israel. From there he called Mary Magdalene to join him.

Mary Magdalene, Ruth, and Mother Mary traveled to India. There is a town called Murree in the foothills of the Himalayas. I visited it many years ago. There is a grave there and the local people say it is the grave of Miriam, the mother of Jesus. I looked out from there to the distant mountains, and yes I felt her wild, restless spirit.

And Jesus and Mary Magdalene and their daughter lived in happiness and peace for the rest of their lives in a beautiful valley, hidden away from the rest of the world.

The man known as Jesus has returned. Married once more to Mary Magdalene, they and their children are here for the dawning of the New Age, when Earth and Spirit can be reunited again.

c- Naseer Ahmad 2002