Andrew Harvey tunes his sacred activism to a new pitch in this deep dive into the divine feminine, looking closely at the often overlooked or misunderstood relationship between Mary Magdalene and Jesus Christ.
Harvey sees the full trajectory of Christian mystical experience through the lens of what goes unsaid in the Gospel of John’s twentieth chapter after Mary Magdalene meets the resurrected Jesus in the garden where his tomb lay. She becomes the first witness — to the huddling, frightened male disciples, and thus, then, to the world. But there is much more to it than that, as Harvey writes:
“In the hours between witnessing and being irradiated by the glory of the Resurrection and telling the astounding news to the male disciples, Mary Magdalene realized in her whole being the secret, miraculous meaning of her entire relationships with Jesus … that she would be the one chosen by the Divine, in which the whole story of their union unfolded to be the first living flame of what Saint Paul called ‘the glorious liberty of the children of God.’”
It is that “living flame” of divine union that Harvey goes on to open up, in this exploration of the mystical underpinnings of the New Testament gospels, with references as well to gnostic gospels, poems of Kabir, late medieval female mystics, and the writings of other moderns such as Sri Aurobindo and Cynthia Bourgeault, among others. Along the way, ideas and practices such as gazing, annunciation, desert, sex, anointing, and holiness are offered in passionate, clear ways. And, as one of the late chapter titles indicates, the purpose of all of this, for any reader or anyone, is “Birthing the Sacred Marriage Now.”
For more about the work of Andrew Harvey, visit the many other pages we’ve written about him in our Living Spiritual Teachers Project.
