A spiritual teacher dies, her community has to continue without her, and centuries later the written record can no longer tell us exactly how her teachings moved from one generation to the next. What, if anything, survives?
This is Part 6 of my multi-part series with Anne Baring, a writer and Jungian analyst who has spent decades studying Divine Wisdom, Christian mysticism and the feminine dimension of divinity. Each conversation can stand on its own, but they build on one another. If you’re new to the series, I recommend starting with Part 1, The Forgotten Feminine Face of God.
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Last week, we focused on Miriam Magdalene and early Christian writings that present her as a woman with spiritual authority of her own. This week, Anne takes us west.
In the tradition Anne works with, Miriam travels to Gaul after Yeshua’s death and spends the rest of her life teaching there. After her death, the historical record gets much harder to follow. Centuries pass before medieval France gives us another dense concentration of religious images, stories and devotional practices that Anne believes deserve serious examination.
That gap sits at the center of this episode. A book can be confiscated or burned, while people can continue visiting a statue, singing to her, asking her for healing and teaching their children to make the same pilgrimage. How much religious knowledge can survive that way, even when later generations no longer fully understand what earlier generations were preserving?
Anne takes us into the Black Madonna tradition, sacred caves and medieval devotion, and later into the Grail stories and the wounded king whose dying country can only recover when someone finally asks about his suffering. We also spend time with the Lady of courtly love and an old attempt to teach men trained for war another relationship with women and power.
After Anne and I finished recording, I kept reading Jessie L. Weston’s From Ritual to Romance, which Anne recommends during our conversation. I discovered that I had misunderstood an important piece of the Grail material we had just discussed. I come back after the interview to tell you what I found, why it changed the way I hear the Grail story, and why I’m now wondering how often a culture keeps the image, ritual or story while slowly forgetting how earlier generations understood it.
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EXPLORE ANNE BARING’S WORK
This series draws on Anne Baring’s book, Divine Wisdom and the Holy Spirit: The Forgotten Feminine Face of God. You can listen to the complete audiobook for free on YouTube, narrated by Anne herself, and explore her books and research on her official website at annebaring.com.
SUBMIT A PRAYER INTENTION AT THE GROTTO OF MARY MAGDALENE
The Dominican friars who care for the Grotto of Sainte-Baume in southern France, traditionally believed to be where Mary Magdalene spent her final years, welcome prayer intentions from people around the world. You can submit yours through their website, and it will be passed along to the friars. ** Submit your prayer intention here **
STUDY COMPANION
✦ Jessie L. Weston, From Ritual to Romance
✦ Annine van der Meer, research on the Black Madonna and Mary Magdalene
✦ Peter Kingsley, In the Dark Places of Wisdom
✦ James George Frazer, The Golden Bough
PEOPLE AND TRADITIONS DISCUSSED
☿ Black Madonna devotion
☿ Parmenides and ancient incubation rites
☿ Chrétien de Troyes and the Grail romances
☿ Eleanor of Aquitaine, troubadours and courtly love
☿ The Knights Templar, Sufism and medieval intellectual exchange
☿ The wounded king and the Waste Land
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