Postscript to Easter

Mary Magdalene – Part 2

By Grace Wittenberger Loehr

In the first four or five years of Grace’s psychic unfoldment we had many developmental and many teaching sessions. Of course, it was a time of the development of both of us. I was definitely an amateur when I began psychically developing Grace in 1951, despite my 2-year acquaintance with the very fine New England medium, the Reverent Ruth Mathias, of Everett, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston.

Occasionally in these early sessions our roles would be reversed, with Grace becoming the conductor and I acting as the channel for our Dr. John. Even in those early days we saw good reason for this. Since Dr. John uses the “concept method” of bringing through his messages, Grace’s mind and my mind held different banks of concepts and he could choose which one of us to use for any particular occasion.

This decision of Dr. John and the “Team Upstairs” has proved wise, as the various Open Psychic Question Periods at our conferences and seminars and other work have shown. Dr. John has “two strings to his bow,” with Grace being the first channel and used primarily and I as the second channel.

Ed. – With Grace as the primary channel, Franklin had the time to conduct research and take care of other details of the work of Religious Research. Both channels were important, and the system enabled more to be accomplished.

It was with Grace as conductor and I as channel that we first heard from Dr. John of the identification of Mary Magdalene with Mary of Bethany, sister of Lazarus. This was news to me. I do not recall any particular identification of Mary Magdalene having been brought out in seminary, though when I looked in the Biblical Commentaries I discovered that a number of Bible scholars felt that Mary of Bethany and Mary Magdalene may very well have been one and the same person.

Our own confirmation of this - or that which we took as certainly a confirming event - occurred the Sunday morning following this session. That Sunday I happened to go with Grace and her parents to St. Paul’s Presbyterian Church at the foot of the La Brea Hills of Los Angeles. This Sunday they had a guest minister – the able and popular Reverend Carroll Shuster, the very capable and equally well-liked executive of the large Presbytery of Los Angeles.

In the trance session early that week we had heard Dr. John speak of Mary of Mag-dal-lah, putting the emphasis on the second rather than upon the first syllable. I had never heard this before – but there in the pulpit, guest minister Carroll Shuster pronounced it the same way. He then went on to make the same identification of Mary Magdalene as being Mary the sister of Lazarus, and spoke in some detail as to why he thought this was so. As both the identification and the pronunciation had been quite new to me, I found Dr. Shuster’s use of them on Sunday to be a strong evidential for what Dr. John had brought us earlier in the week.

I do not know how Mary of Bethany came to be called Mary Magdalene. The first assumption would be that Magdala would be a place name, with the people from that place being called Magdalene. I have a feeling there is more to it than simply this, in regard to Mary. Just what, I do not know. I did not think to ask this question while we were receiving these teachings years ago, nor Grace when she was “inside” Mary for the reverie session of which we spoke in the last Journal.

Another evidential for us was that as we were being given the picture of Lazarus, Mary and Martha, we were also told that there was a fourth sibling in that family– a sister Ruth. Ruth was older and married, living with her husband in Joppa. We were also told that she had a bit of a difficult marriage, which became even more of a strain to bear when she wanted to be a follower of Jesus and her strict Jewish husband would not allow her to.

But Jesus and Lazarus in their wisdom of cosmic patterns, told her to stay with the husband – that was her assignment in that life. She did, and eventually he was won to Jesus. This again was something I had never heard in seminary! But a year or more after it had been given to us, by chance I picked up the book The Aquarian Gospel, let it fall open – and there was the identical story of Ruth!

Part One of the Mary Magdalene chapter in our Postscript to Easter brought out a great deal more, of course. The inner dynamics of the relationship, and the clear indication that the forces set up between Jesus and Mary as human beings in that lifetime 1900 years ago will be fulfilled and used at some future point of time when He returns, filled in the picture a great deal.

Now it is my happy task, in Part Two of this story of Mary Magdalene, one of the major “minor characters” of the great Easter drama, to fill in the reincarnational background of Mary. This background has two beginning points – one in Atlantis, the other in the even more important spiritual origin and cosmic purpose of that soul.

Lazarus and Mary were among the members of the same Cosmic Family of which Jesus is the most distinguished Being. (Judas also is a member of the Jesus-Cosmic-Family, as mentioned in Manhunt for Judas.) Also, Mary and Lazarus are twin souls. Since such terms as twin souls, soul mates, cosmic friends, etc., have no common definition established in general usage, it is important before we go further to remember what the term twin souls means as used by Dr. John and in our lessons.

Ed. – Dr. John had to establish terminology as he gave us information from the spirit world. The same terminology may not be used or even known by other schools of teaching and even by other spirit guides. Words are not the means of communication used outside the physical realm. From time to time, it is helpful to review some common terms of Dr. John.

Every soul, we are taught, is an individuation of God. But God is so rich in qualities, powers, and facets of beingness that no soul draws from all parts of God. Even as in the New Testament St. Paul speaks of Christians as being members of the body of Christ, but then points out that even as our physical bodies had different members (eyes, tongue, feet, hands, etc.), so also spiritually we have different “gifts” and functions within the body of Christ.

So it is with the begetting of souls from the Father-Mother God. The Hindus say that every soul is a cell in the body of God. That is a thought-provoking idea. Certainly in our reincarnation research we have found that every soul is different from every other soul. At first this might seem a bit strange, with all souls being individuated portions of God. But individuality itself is a characteristic and quality of God. To understand that each soul carries into incarnation this individual nature, helps to explain why and how each soul is different.

There are different bonds and levels of closeness among souls. All souls are related very closely in their very nature and origin. Indeed, the Christ may in a sense be that portion of God or aspect of God’s doing through which all souls receive their individuation and come into beingness. The writer of the Gospel of John certainly has something of this concept in mind when he says in Chapter 1, verse 3, “All things are made through Him (Him referring to the Christ), and without Him was not anything made that was made.” I do not yet understand this interrelationship of all persons and all souls enough to bring a teaching on it. The identification of ourselves with another as is made in the Buddhist saying “I have met the enemy and he is I,” has much truth in it but also leaves something to be desired. There is a oneness of all of us in the whole, yet there is an individuation of each one of us as individual parts of that whole.

Turning now to particular souls, we find that as the whole soul is prepared for its incarnate experiences, it is divided or polarized into two halves with the qualities we call “masculine” going into one part, and the qualities we think of as “feminine” going into the other. These two parts are, in our usage, the soulmates. It is not often that they incarnate together; moreover, when they do it may not be as husband and wife but in some other supportive relationship.

Next to soulmates, the closest bonds between souls probably exist with cyclemates. Years ago a man and wife who had received life readings and who had been told they were cyclemates sent us a letter shortly after, saying that the term suggested to them the idea of getting bicycles for recreation, which they had done and were now enjoying very much – and they just wanted us to know how accurate John was in calling them “cyclemates”!

Soul wise, your cyclemate is that one other soul who will incarnate with you more than any other soul in a particular cycle. This cycle may be the entire grand total of our earth lives, or it may be one of the sub-cycles within the large cycle of incarnations.

Twin souls, we are told, individuate at or about the same time from the same or very nearly the same “portion” of God. This makes for a great closeness between twin souls, since they are so alike in their basic soul beingness.

(This does not mean that in every incarnation as they come together they will find a great congeniality of temperament or similarity of interest. Indeed, the basic soul bond between them may be used to help bring them together in incarnations which are very difficult for one or both.)

Since Lazarus was an incarnation of the Moses soul, and the Moses soul is that one other soul closest to the Christ as a servant, it would be natural for the twin soul of the Moses soul (It is not the soulmate I refer to here but the twin soul. Remember the difference.) to incarnate as sister to Lazarus in that climactic lifetime of the Jesus soul. Mary is one of the two major names of the soul which had the Mary of Bethany, Mary Magdalene incarnation. So we shall use that name for her, the “Mary soul.”

The Mary soul and the Moses soul were together, not surprisingly, in the Moses lifetime. She was then the older sister Miriam. She had an important place in the life of Moses. As an older sister, she played a key role in Moses being discovered by the Pharaoh’s daughter and then given back to his own mother to nurse and rear.

And years afterwards, as Moses led the children of Israel from Egypt to Palestine, the sister Miriam and brother Aaron were key persons – presenting some difficulties (yes, they were jealous of their younger brother) but on the whole bringing needed strength to the movement. Incidentally, the jealousy which had crept into the Mary soul during that Moses epoch was worked out in a later lifetime when the Moses soul, in that new incarnation, developed the Mary soul in her then incarnation into a position of leadership. This was spiritual leadership, and she fulfilled her role then very capably and happily.

Let’s get back to Atlantis. Jesus was with the Moses soul and the Mary soul in their Atlantean incarnations – at least in one of them. Jesus was one of the rulers at that time, the Moses soul was leader of a research group (Atlanteans were studying and researching many things), and the Mary soul was scribe for that particular research group. This gave them all a first-hand participating experience in the Atlantean developments for good, some of which certainly are being rediscovered in our day, perhaps in preparation for the Second Coming of Jesus to rule.

In a Sumerian lifetime the Moses soul and the Mary soul were together as priests in the temple. Once a year one of the priests became a blood sacrifice priest at the most important annual ritual. Jesus had been a blood sacrifice priest there earlier, and when He spoke of “drinking my blood” he subconsciously (and consciously?) knew how literally that had been done in ancient Sumeria.

There the blood of the sacrifice priest was caught in small golden cups, about twice the size of a thimble, and the celebrants in a mystically stylized dance (a part of the ritual) would drink the thimble full of blood. If the blood sacrifice priest lived – as sometimes happened – he was expected to have a much greater mystical insight. The Moses soul priest did live, for several years after the ritual. The Mary soul, a very close friend and confidant, shared with him the private bewilderment at not finding some new insight or psychic opening descending upon him from the experience.

Another lifetime of which we have been told is that of Elisha (the Moses soul) and his young manservant (the Mary soul). This was a lifetime which also brought very closely together the Moses soul and the Elijah soul, Elisha being the student and successor of Elijah. This helped prepare for the close working together of Lazarus and John the Baptist, an event not noted in the scriptures because it took place mostly before Jesus’ coming into his public ministry – at which time the Biblical spotlight focuses upon Him. In the Elisha time, a strong reassurance was given to the Mary soul in both Elisha and the spiritual forces working with him.

One morning the servant awoke before his master, went outside, and discovered they were surrounded by enemies come to capture them. The servant was quite perturbed, but not Elisha. Elisha prayed that the young man’s eyes might be opened to see the tremendous spiritual forces around them – “legions of angels” and shining ones encircling Elisha and the boy. They got through that experience quite well, and the Mary soul’s deeper trust for the Moses soul was given strong rootage and development at that time, to be used later.

Not all of the former incarnations shared by the Moses soul and the Mary soul were religious or serious. They had one lifetime as very simple Russian peasants, some time within the last thousand years. They were childless, but had a strong bond of very practical down to earth love between them. The then personality of the Moses soul liked the way his wife fixed potato and onion soup, and the two of them lived strong, complete, unheralded, lifetimes together, expressing and furthering the love bonds between them.

Then there was a time in the 1600s or early 1700s when they shared a life that was quite foreign to any who feel that the Moses soul and the Mary soul must always be high-minded, spiritual, etc. In this French life they met in a “fun house.” I have not read in history books of this development, but it sounds so very logical that I would be tempted to believe it probably true even without the strong correlative evidence of it being brought through by Dr. John.

The principle behind these “pleasure houses” was quite simple: syphilis was rampant in Europe, and some of the older men, knowing from their own experience the hot blood of youth, established these closed fellowships to give their members all the sexual expression they wished without running the risk of contacting syphilis. The young men who belonged to any one house were examined before being admitted to membership, and then were required to confine their sexual activity only to that house. One or more attractive girls, equally examined and equally confining herself or themselves to that one house, made the partners for the young men. The light-hearted, warm-blooded gaiety of upper-class French society at that time gave to the “fun houses” a great deal of very real pleasure. In one of these, the Mary soul was the reigning young woman, and the Moses soul was one of the young men.

Ed. – All souls have to balance their lives. A soul who has many spiritual lives will have to have a very earthy life to keep that soul from becoming over balanced in the spiritual. Otherwise the soul not only would get out of balance, but also could not relate to earth living and earth people.

It is also interesting to note that when the young man later married – as they were free to do – the girl he married was the then incarnation of the Judas soul. This was one step in the process of using the Moses soul as an important instrument in reclaiming the Judas soul.

The Mary soul has had many other past lives, of course. These have emphasized, more often than is the usual case, psychic development and mystical openness. Each soul has its own basic nature, determined by its own individuality, by the “Realm of Being” to which it belongs and by God’s purpose for it. Some are artists, some artisans; some thinkers, some who bring richness of feeling. The Mary soul has emphasized a spiritual ministry involving many lives as priestess, a seer, a priest – always, apparently, with a strong spiritual orientation and in a religious framework.

We also have been told of several lifetimes yet to come. The Moses soul and the Mary soul have, as a simple matter of fact, inevitably developed some points of disagreement or tension between them. They are destined to have an “escape valve” life in India sometime ahead of now. The Mary soul will be husband and the Moses soul wife, and this is primarily to vent any negative energies or tag ends of such which may be in the Moses soul as the result of experiences in past lives.

It also, and mainly, will be a good lifetime strengthening in Earth the great love bond of their souls. This life is to prepare them then for becoming the grandmother (the Mary soul) and the mother (the Moses soul) of a world religious teacher and leader, whom we have been told is to come within the next 300 to 800 years.

So this is the story of Mary Magdalene – Mary of Bethany, sister of Lazarus – as it has been brought to us through the years.

Postscript to Easter. Jesus is the central figure of that drama – winning on Crucifixion Good Friday and on glorious, victorious Easter the battle against evil, completing His mastery of human life without evil getting any hold upon Him – winning the right for the governments of the world to rest upon His shoulders as King of Kings, wielding power beyond all powers known now to men, to make of the Earth a place where first the human community and in time all life, will be so ordered that experience will reward only good, and hence good will be promoted by experience – Jesus is central to Easter, and we rightly give Him all attention that Day of Days.

But in Postscript to Easter we have looked at three of the lesser characters of that drama: Lazarus, trusted older friend, way shower to the Orient for occult training, willing guinea pig for Jesus’ use of His ability to restore life to a dead body; Judas, younger cosmic family brother, winsome, eager, wounded, healed, redeemed member of the Line of Light; and Mary Magdalene, Mary of Bethany, the woman closest to the Master, and beloved by Him.

Religious Research Home

Back to Postcripts to Easter Index