EXODUS - MARY MAGDALENE LINEAGE Part 4

What I am posting is leading up to Mary Magdalene, her lineage and why she has become an icon that has been fostered by the Knights Templar and other.

Before I continue with the Great Exodus, Plato in his treatise Law, wondered about the origins of man. He had his own idea and conferred with his peers in other countries who concluded he was correct. Plato put forth that the gods who came here, or the extraterrestrials that ruled the Earth for thousands of years, and after a long extended period decided to divide the Earth into 12 sections with each section having 12 tribes. Each tribe elected a king/ruler and the king of the section was elected or selected from the 12 different tribal kings in the sector. This has a great bearing on the 12 tribes of Israel. Thus we have 12x12 = 144. Each sector would have a god of the pantheon who would be in charge of that sector. The first pantheon of gods after a time became known as the Greek pantheon, the Roman pantheon, the India pantheon and so on.

From my research, Inanna was given the area we know today as India. It is important to realize that the so-called 12 tribes of Israel also had a god overseeing them. In the Old Testament/Talmud the foremost god name is Jehovah although it is sometimes erroneously given the name of Yahweh. Yahweh was a separate god. There was a battle between gods using nuclear weapons and resulting in the devastation of Sodom and Gomorrah. Lot’s wife was said to have looked back and turned into a pillar of salt. Today archaeologists are finding in their digs evidence of nuclear residue near those two former cities. We only have to realize what happened in Hiroshima to know that this was possible. We can also understand why the Dead Sea is devoid of life and has been monitored for its radioactivity.

My understanding of the great Exodus from the Hebrew point of view is that the Jews had been enslaved and wanted to be free of the tyranny of Egypt. Under the guidance of Moses, they departed Egypt and after the Red Sea parted for them, they wandered for 40 years until they came to the Promised Land. Have you ever wondered where they spent those 40 years when it only takes about three hours to travel by SUV from the Nile Delta to Palestine? Have you wondered who the Canaanites were? You know - those people who God gave the Israelites permission to ravish, kill and take-over.

There are researchers who question the validity of the Exodus story as written in the Old Testament (O.T,) and Talmud. Published on October 29, 1999, Ze’ev Herzog wrote an article titled Deconstructing the walls of Jericho in the Ha’aretz, the leading newspaper in Israel that after 70 years of intensive excavations in Israel, archaeologists learned that Israelites did not sojourn to Egypt or make an exodus. They did not wander in the desert. If there is no evidence of Israelites being in Egypt, then what is the Exodus all about? Perhaps the Israelites were not known under the name as given in the O.T.

If one were to research Egyptian history as given in hieroglyphics, paintings and other ancient writings, then another picture begins to unfold. This is very much like cracking a hidden code. The Jewish scholars who promote that the world is only 5764 years old could be right from the point of view that the Jewish or Hebrews had no beginning prior that time under the current names. Since this is the year 2008 AD, this would place the beginning of the Jewish race to around 3757 BC. What was happening around 3757 BC? When I began researching, I learned that even Jewish history scholars cannot agree upon the timelines when important events took place such as the Exodus. In The Gift of the Jews by Thomas Cahill, he writes that the Talmud came into being from oral history and there is no reliable record of written Hebrew before the 10th century BC. If you have ever played the ‘whisper’ or ‘telephone’ game, you have an idea of how garbled the original statements become.

Immanuel Velikovsky researched Egyptian history and the O.T. history extensively and even though there were parallels in both histories, the dates of the events did not agree. He finally realized that the Hebrews and the Egyptians counted time differently and when he learned how to reconcile the differences in times, he realized that their histories were practically the same. When in the O.T. it is written that Abraham journeyed south into Gerar, it could be he was traveling into Egypt because the names Gerar and Egypt were the same. What has been revealed is that the Hyksos were also the Israelites. Where did the Hyksos come from? Some say they came from Babylonia and other say Anatolia or Asia.

From what I can ascertain, the Hyksos came to Lower Egypt bringing with them chariots and horses, which had been unknown before then in Egypt. They were not ignorant people. For approximately a span from 1780 BC to 1560 BC, Egypt was split in two. The north (next to the Mediterranean) was ruled by Hyksos pharaohs during this period and the south (including Ethiopia and Nubia) was ruled by Egyptian pharaohs. The pharaohs and kings of ancient Egypt had many different names. There was the birth name, throne name, a name for different countries and it was usual to change the name by royal decree the name of the person so that it would sound more agreeable to the ears of foreign people. As an example: A pharaoh of the Middle Kingdom changed the name of Joseph mentioned in Genesis 41-45, to Zaphnaph-Paaneah. Therefore it is a challenge to know who was who.

During the time of Moses, it is interesting to note that moses was the ending to the name of Tuthmose I through Tuthmose IV. Instead of the O.T. Moses being found in a reed basket along the Nile River, he could have been one of the sons of Tuthmose I and he became Amenhotep IV with his half-brother being Tuthmose II, or Moses' brother Aaron. Or it could have been vice-versa. There is a general concensus of some scholars that Moses was Amenhotep IV who changed his name to Akhenaton and created the monotheism religion of Egypt dedicated to the god Aten or Aton. He even went so far as to establish a city dedicated to this new god and moved his city of power there. This would also mean that Moses aka Akhenaton was a Hyksos.

What if the Pharaoh of Upper Egypt wanted to rid Egypt of Akhenaton and his monotheism and over a period of time offered to pay him to move out of Egypt. There are possibilities that this happened. There is some validation that the Pharaoh of Upper Egypt paid a hefty price for the Hyksos to leave Lower Egypt and when the Hyksos left, they took the tribute paid and also destroyed property.

Regarding the plagues that came to Egypt, the volcano on the island of Thera in the Mediterranean erupted and the famine, river running red and diseases were the results of the eruption. The volcano eruption and the devastation is written about in Charles Pellegrino’s book Ghosts of Vesuvius. Therefore, the story of Moses taking enslaved Israelites out of Egypt and wandering in the desert for 40 years is a made-up story and a myth. It could be that Moses was following the instructions of his god Jehovah. Jehovah had created an Ark of the Covenant so that he could commune with his people. Jehovah was and is a vengeful god. The atrocities committed in the name of Jehovah are legion. The god Jehovah in Exodus 21:7-11 gives this order…And if a man sell his daughter to be a maid-servant (slave), she shall not go out as the men-servants do. If she please not her master, who hath espoused her to himself, then shall he let her be redeemed: to sell her unto a foreign people he shall have no power, seeing he hath dealt deceitfully with her…Is this a loving God? No. The O.T. is filled with Jehovah commanding people to slaughter and to even to eat dung. In Deuteronomy 13:6, 8-15 Jehovah commands his people to kill anyone who would entice them to go and serve other gods. Who is Jehovah? That is the sixty-four dollar question. At this point one can only make assumptions. It could be Enlil who in all probability hated his sister Ninhursag. Or it could be the off-spring from one of the gods in the pantheon. Whoever he is, he is not the supreme God because there is no supreme God. He is an entity who never incarnated as man.

Who is the god the Muslims pray to? If there was one supreme God, then humanity is and has been in a heap of trouble. It doesn’t matter how many prayers are offered, one side will end up the victors in a war and this is usually the side that is the most powerful. It is up to each of us to connect with the Divine within each of us. I call it the Holy Spirit. We do not need anyone to intercede for us nor do we need to listen to priests, pastors or preachers. The ancient Egyptians had a code of ethics that is as valid today as it was in ancient times. In the Egyptian Book of the Dead: The Coming into Day, Chapter 125, it gives a long list of values to live by tht form the basis of the Ten Commandments. In the Egyptian Book of the Dead the gods are referred to over and over because these gods are the Nephilim who gave them the human form, and also gave them a creed to live by.

Mary Magdalene and Jesus came in as messengers and to awaken the god within eveyone. This was written before the time of Moses and is reflected throughout the Bible. It is time for each of us to move from a slave mind into a spirit mind.

THE MAGDALENE MATRIARCHIAL LINK- Part I

There are questions I have asked myself such as why is the bloodline of Mary Magdalene and Jesus so important? Why have the many Catholic churches been given names that include Magdalene and Mary in them? Why has the Church attempted to hide the true greatness of Mary Magdalene? Why are there so many Black Madonnas in churches? Why do so many attribute healings to Mary Magdalene? Why have the Knights Templar kept her memory alive? Why have artists painted her? These are all interesting questions and they really have not been answered by the authors of the many books written about Mary Magdalene. I have also wondered by the many churches dedicated to John the Baptist and also to James, Peter, Paul and other apostles. If Jesus was the only son of God, then why aren't these churches reflecting more of Jesus, a male God instead of the feminine?

The last big question I have asked is why are women the most suppressed and abused species on this planet? When I first began researching for my book Secrets of the Magdalene Scrolls, I began finding information that most biblical scholars overlook. It has been similar to putting together the pieces of a puzzle. Instead of beginning with Mary Magdalene and Jesus, I am going back to the beginnings of how the human was created. I have heard that the answer is in the question. Therefore, I am going back to Genesis in the Bible.

Genesis 1:26-27: Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him: male and female He created them."

These two verses are not fully understood by the clergy who teach the people. Wouldn't you say that these two verses are in conflict, or are they revealing something not understood? There is not just one God. The Christians think their God is the only one and the Muslims think Allah is the only God. These beliefs come from programming of the human mind and it is time to begin unraveling this limited thinking.

The author Zechariah Sitchen asked questions when as a young boy in class to learn the Talmud. When he questioned, the Rabbi told him not to think, but only to accept. This did not satisfy the young boy and when he became an adult, he began a quest. His quest led him to the Sumerian Tablets and he learned to translate them. What he discovered answers the ambiguity of the two verses of Genesis I quoted above. Sitchen has written a series of books titled The Earth Chronicles, which I devoured in the late 80's and early 90's of the last century.

There were gods who came to this planet Earth approximately 450,000 years ago looking for gold to see their planet's atmosphere and they found it here. These gods were called Annunaki and their home planet Nibiru. I am collapsing time because one Earth year is equal to 3,600 Nibiru years. The ruler of Nibiru was named Anu and he sent his two primary sons Enlil and Enki to take charge of our planet. These two sons were half-brothers and they also had a half-sister Ninhursag. After many thousands of years, the Annunaki workers revolted against working the gold mines and something had to be done.

On this planet were primitive beings. Ninhursag being a brilliant scientist and geneticist began experimenting with these primitive beings in her laboratories all over the world. The one we are aware of is the Garden of Eden. Does that ring a bell? This brilliant scientist working with her brother Enki developed the first human body. There was a problem. The human body could not reproduce. Therefore, it was back to the drawing board and what evolved from the first human named Adam (atom?) was Eve. Ninhursag took the eggs from the female primitive species and genetically engineered it with the sperm of the Annunaki - primarily Enki and the female Annunaki carried these new beings in their wombs until they came to term.

How did the term 'gods' come into being? One suggestion is that the new human beings were the slaves for the Annunaki and referred to their masters using the word gold. Eventually the letter l was dropped and the name became god. What intelligence was operating the bodies of not only the Annunaki, but also the slave beings created. There had to be an intelligence operating their brains. The brains are sophisticated computers.

From what I can perceive, Ninhursag created the human brain and tweaked it by dividing it in two parts. This was done to keep the humans as a slave worker for them. She knew that if she gave them the full brain like the Annunaki that they would become intelligent too soon. She also gave the new species their genetics and DNA. Why do you think scientists have been puzzled over the so-called junk DNA? It is there waiting to be activated by us. Ninhursag also created the mitochondria to where the bloodline could only be passed from mother to daughter.

Books and articles that place women beneath men have contributed to the subjugation of women for eons and are tiresome. While writing about Mary Magdalene for my book Secrets of the Magdalene Scrolls, I found it a challenge to find any credible history of her era. Men and for the most part, men who were monks wrote the information available. This should tell us something.
Some books list a supposed genealogy of the bloodline of Mary Magdalene and Jesus and this is even more interesting. Men created the so-called reputable charts and only once in a great while is the mother named. As in the case of the Merovingian lineage, a king had children by different women and perhaps one was a wife. The eldest son of the Merovingian king supposedly carried the lineage forward even though the mother was not the queen. Thus, it became that the lineage was handed down from king to king. This in itself is suspect and I wonder if these kings and men of royalty were hatched in an incubator or an oven. The lack of the mother's name is very telling as to the attitudes regarding women. Science today is indicating that this is not so.

There is scientific evidence from archaeology combined with the study of the DNA and genes that it is a possibility women and men came from one woman nicknamed Eve. The primary piece of evidence is called mitochondria. An article by Rebecca Cann of the University of Hawaii, together with her two male coworkers, stunned the scientific world when the article was published in the British journal Nature on January 1, 1987. The article, Mitochondrial DNA and Human Evolution, alleges that all people living on Earth now can date their ancestry back to 200,000 years ago to a particular woman living at that time. Since the article was published, there have been other scientific studies and subsequent research alleges it could have been a group of women. What does this mean for women?It means that the hereditary maternal DNA is carried by the mitochondria, which is passed from mother to daughter. Any mitochondria in the male sperm dies and is not passed to the daughters or the sons. Therefore, if a man and woman have only sons, the woman’s mitochondria carrying the lineage dies out. When a son with no female sibling marries a woman and they have a daughter, then that woman’s mitochondria DNA is passed down. From my perspective, it would be quite onerous to trace the lineage unless one knew who the females were.

The ancient Egyptians knew this and this is why a Pharaoh as a father or a son would marry a daughter and have a child in order to carry the bloodline. What is the mitochondrial? From the science reports I have researched, the general consensus is that it carries the power of the energy of a cell. It could also be called the power generator of the cell. The mitochondria also have other functions, but for the purpose of this article, I want to emphasize the importance it has in tracing a lineage because the mitochondria also has its own DNA. I find it a tragedy that down through the ages and today in some cultures, it is the male child who is desired and in a few cultures the female baby is killed.

Due to attitudes of men of history, almost all knowledge of powerful and wonderful women has been either suppressed or eradicated. In some instances such as Mary Magdalene, Cleopatra, Lucretia Borgia, and Marie Antoinette, they have been portrayed as either sinners or in unflattering terms. I chose to portray Mary Magdalene as a powerful woman in her own right and I used my research to write this story in novel form. She was the wife of Jesus and they had two children—a girl and a boy.

I have three sons and therefore my mitochondria is not passed down. It stops with me, however my sister had three girls and they will carry on the line. My granddaughters now carry the maternal lineage through their mothers’ mitochondria. I primarily raised my sons alone, as their father was a career military man and away two-thirds of our married life. This arrangement gave me the opportunity to raise my sons as I wanted to and they have all grown into splendid men. They are loving, caring men and are not prejudice against women.

We, the women must take the responsibility of teaching our sons and daughters that each is an equal. It can begin in the womb. While carrying a child in the womb, the woman can speak to it and begin the teaching along with playing classical music. A fetus is aware in the womb. Now, that is another study in itself.For further research, I recommend reading Zechariah Sitchen’s book The Lost Book of Enki. An excellent website is from a NOVA documentary, Tracing Ancestry Through MtDNA, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/neanderthals/mtdna.html

In my future postings, I will share more about the intelligence operating our bodies and write about Isis and other goddesses.

THE RESURRECTION OF THE DIVINE FEMININE

For eons the Divine Feminine has been nailed to a cross of prejudice, bias, suppression, mutilation, and murder. Now is the time of the resurrection of the Divine Feminine. It is the age of her resurrection in every woman on this planet. Long has she lain dormant, waiting for the moment to be rebirthed. There have been golden threads – both female and male, who have kept her alive in the form of the goddess in mythology

What were the beginnings of the Divine Feminine? From whence did she come? To understand this, one must realize that we live on the Plane of Polarity or Opposites. This is the nature of this planet and there has always been both female and male. One could not exist without the other just as there would be no electricity without the female and male. We only have to look at a garden hose and see that the female component must be hooked up to the male faucet in order to bring forth water. Each human has both female and male and the spirit inhabiting the human form has chosen to express outwardly as female or male.

We have all wondered or asked at sometime or other why women are so prejudiced against. It isn’t only the culture of the United States; historically and presently it is in almost every culture. Women are the most prejudiced against species – even more so than dark-skin people. If one were to pull a thread, in all likelihood it would go back to a brother hating his sister in one of the original pantheons of gods. Yes, there have been instances where women were a matriarchal society and there are a few isolated societies today such as the Nagovisi of Bougainvillea in the South Pacific, perhaps one in India and again in Peru.

History is a record of the winners or those in power and written by men. The deeds and greatness of women has almost been obliterated from history. We get snippets of their greatness here and there. Few people know of the greatness of Cleopatra. Historically she has been portrayed as a sexual siren that seduced Mark Anthony. The Egyptian queen was a brilliant mathematician, chemist and philosopher. She wrote science books and Arabic texts suggest she met weekly with scientific experts. Eleanor of Aquitaine was a powerful queen and history has attempted to play down her role in the second Crusade when she accompanied her husband with her female knights that she had trained. These knights were women and there were approximately 300 of them. History will say that they did not fight. Perhaps they did and it just wasn’t recorded.

These were two women who used their brains and their greatness still lives. There have been numerous other great women, however history has given them bad press coverage. Almost all female rulers have bad reputations. Lucretia Borgia has been labeled a poisoner and Pope Gregory I or Pope Gregory the Great gave Mary Magdalene the label of prostitute. The Catholic Church made him a saint and for centuries women have been made to feel guilty and tainted by her label. We have had women imprisoned, sold into slavery, burned at the stake as Joan of Arc was and labeled witches. Even today in some areas of India, husbands burn women if the dowry runs out or if the husband dies, the living wife is burned alive. In parts of Africa we have young girls mutilated by having their clitoris removed so she cannot experience sexual orgasm.

These acts are not evolutionary and this is the age of the Resurrection of the Divine Feminine in its emergence from ignorance to brilliance. No longer should a woman be a sex object or kept barefoot, pregnant and in the home. The recent success of The DaVinci Code has triggered an enormous interest throughout the world about Mary Magdalene. So-called scholars have written books attempting to prove that author Dan Brown was in error. The Catholic Church has even entered into the fray. It made me wonder why and since I have done in-depth research for my book Secrets of the Magdalene Scrolls, I know why.

Dan Brown’s book went further than Holy Blood, Holy Grail and touched the nerve of the Catholic Church and theologians because they have been promoting a lie and if uncovered, it would destroy their credibility.

Mary Magdalene was not a disciple of Jesus. She was his wife, his trusted friend and a teacher in her own right. She was his equal. She was the mother of their two children Sarah and James. Sarah was born in Egypt after the crucifixion and from there Mary Magdalene took her children to southern France.

The Divine Feminine is being resurrected through Mary Magdalene and she is the icon for the women of today. She was intelligent and she carried the message to Europe. Through her ministry she continued the teachings that she and Jesus attempted to impart in Palestine. Both were going through forms of initiation into a higher degree of gnosis. What is gnosis? It means to know.

Women have the innate ability to know or have intuition. It is a trait that men in power have attempted to stamp out for eons and because a god hated his sister, women were told they were soul-less and labeled with vile names. Mary Magdalene carried this stigma for hundreds of years and yet her greatness has been kept alive.

The Church perpetuated the lie about her because she was the one who carried the message to the world. It was not Peter. If one were to have a first pope, it would be Mary Magdalene. She went to France and began establishing centers for learning. The name church was not used at that time. Peter hated women and worked against her and possibly Paul. The Church was established by men who hated women although some male theologians would disagree. Virtually all records regarding Mary Magdalene and her ministry have been obliterated and those of her children. She represents the Divine Feminine.

Why has a thread of knowledge been kept alive? My theory begins with the First Crusade when the Knights Templar had their beginnings. A small group of knights who went to Palestine discovered something. There were nine in number and it is said they remained for nine years and excavated what was supposedly King Solomon’s Temple. There have been numerous books written speculating they found gold, treasures, and riches. My theory is that they discovered knowledge. I would say that these nine knights became members of an ancient school of wisdom and perhaps were taught esoteric secrets of the magi. In all likelihood they learned the truth about Mary Magdalene and Jesus. Perhaps these riches were in the form of scrolls. Why do I say this? After nine years, they formed a group that evolved into the Knights Templar and used this group as a cover outwardly of protecting the roads for the pilgrims to come to Jerusalem. It would be intelligent to use a cover for their beliefs and activities because they would have been persecuted and perhaps put to death.

The Knights Templar brought back to France the knowledge of sacred geometry and they were responsible for the architecture of the great Gothic cathedrals. The Cathedral at Chartres is filled with symbology that only one who has studied ancient symbols would know, and I have studied ancient symbols. Another aspect is that the Knights Templar promoted Mary Magdalene and it would be appropriate to say they were responsible for the proliferation of the statues of the Black Madonna not only in France but also in Italy, Spain and other countries.

There are those who will say the worship of the Black Madonnas belongs to the cult of Isis. From my viewpoint, the origin of the Black Madonna go all the way back to Ninhursag – Mammy, the creator of the human form. It’s like connecting dots where there were large gaps in understanding. Mary Magdalene was the torchbearer and she was black and Ethiopian. The Knights knew this and when you go to the churches in the Languedoc region of France, you will usually find the church is dedicated to Mary Magdalene and it has a Black Madonna.

If Mary Magdalene were alive today, I have a sense that her message to women would be

Question all assumptions, values and definitions

Become aware of one’s thoughts and the words spoken.

Question every known system of thought that places limitations on the female.

Trust in one’s own knowingness even when criticized.

Begin developing one’s own intellectual courage and it may mean standing alone.

Having the courage to stretch one’s own concepts.

Having the courage to risk failure.

Moving away from the need for approval.

Giving up stereotypes of a woman’s role.

An open mind unlocks doors to new adventures and greater knowledge. A lack of knowledge keeps a woman subordinate. An open mind also means acknowledging the greatness of some men. Men are not all bad. Most of them have been programmed to think that the female is the weaker sex. It is time for us to gently lead them away from that programming. I have been fortunate in having three sons and in retrospect I did a great job in virtually raising them alone. They are beautiful men and treat women with respect.

What else would Mary Magdalene tell the females of today? I offer something I learned as a student at the Ramtha School of Enlightenment, an academy of mind and Gnostic teachings. The words we think and say are what create our lives. Our brains are like computers: garbage in, garbage out – the old GIGO. From Ramtha I learned that the word always is a key word to use and if we want to change our mind about an attitude, concept, need for approval or whatever, we create a new thought beginning with I have always…I have always been intelligent.

I have always been competent.

I have always been brilliant.

I have always been able to speak well.

I have always been loved.

I have always loved myself.

I have always had value.

I have always welcomed new ideas and new thoughts.

I have always been forgiven.

I have always been free of guilt.

I have always had an open mind.

I recommend saying your words until they become a mantra and begin each day with this until the brain accepts it and you no longer have feelings of doubt or guilt. This is an exercise for the males in your family also if they are willing to take the plunge.

The Roman Goddess Minerva and the Greek Goddess Athena have been given the attribute of wisdom. Each is depicted wearing a helmet and has been also been given the title of being a warrior. She is a great representation of the Divine Feminine and her helmet represents the skull that houses the brain. There is a beautiful reproduction of a painting by artist Mihran K. Serailian in Manly P. Hall’s book The Secret Teachings of the Ages. One can go on-line to the Philosophical Research Foundation’s site and click on Books. From there search the paintings until you come to The Opening of the Third Eye. It is worth it and this is my reminder of the power in women that has been kept from them through the ages.

Our brain is the greatest computer every created and we use so little of it. It is written that Jesus said, In my Father’s House are many mansions. During the time of Jesus, he didn’t have the words to say in my brain are many neuronets and each one is a new place I can live from. He was teaching illiterate people who could not read or write and he had to use words they could understand. Mary Magdalene was his partner and wife. She also knew this.

Today the Divine Feminine has been resurrected with Mary Magdalene being the icon and torchbearer. Now is the time for each woman to develop this within and to pass it on to her daughters and/or friends. We do not have to act a certain way or be a certain way. All we have to do is give up the past programming and be ourselves. It is that simple. Simple, yes – but not easy. The first step is to be willing to give up old habits of thinking. It takes patience and determination to change. It takes repetition over and over and over. It is seeking knowledge and applying it to our lives. It is a journey into the unknown where great riches await each of us, and great experiences with gifts that are ours to enjoy. It is a journey of becoming the Divine Feminine. You can become whatever you want to be.

copyright: Bettye Johnson

THE HOLY GRAIL MYSTERY

Bettye Johnson ©

Mystery. It appears that all the world loves a mystery and one of the most intriguing is the mystery of the Holy Grail. According to some records, the earliest writing came from a French poet named Robert de Boron who lived in the 12^th – 13^th centuries and his poem Joseph d”Armathie tells of Joseph bringing the Holy Grail from Palestine after the crucifixion of Jesus. The Holy Grail has been depicted as a magic cauldron; a silver chalice, a dish, bowl, plate or the cup used by Mary Magdalene or Joseph of Arimathea to catch the blood of Jesus after a Roman soldier supposedly named Longinus pierced his side with a spear. It has also said that it was the cup Jesus drank from at the Last Supper. Many have portrayed Mary Magdalene carrying the Holy Grail to Europe in the form of her children after the crucifixion.

In the 12^th century, the wonderful tales of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table emerged and the search for the Holy Grail became their mission. From these stories came the age of the romance stories passed around by bards and troubadours.

There are some writers who say that the myth of the Holy Grail originated from a Celtic myth of Bran the Blessed, which tells the tale of Bran an archetypal British Celtic hero. It is possible that Bran became the basis of the character known as the Arthurian romance Fisher King. Within all myths and legends there is a seed of truth with many of the facts becoming distorted. If you have ever played the ‘Telephone’ or ‘Whisper’ game, then you will understand my meaning.

When one looks at the etymology of the word Grail, it is an adaptation of the Old French word graal meaning cup or flat dish; or it could be from the M.Latin gradalis meaning a dish brought to the table in different courses of a meal. Meandering from this definition, we can go to the Greek word krater whose meaning is mixing wine with water.

The word graal or grail evolved into saint graal or sang real meaning Holy Grail. This, in turn evolved into sang rial meaning royal blood. From this we have a proliferation of books and stories regarding the Merovingian lineage as being the royal blood of Mary Magdalene and Jesus.

I am going to digress for a moment and bring in King David from the Old Testament. It is written that he had 300 wives. If each wife had only one child, then David would have 300 plus children and if each of them had two children, then picture a huge pyramid of a dynasty. There would be deaths, wars, and inter-marriage and considering some did not live to be an adult, it brings the lineage to an extravagant number of descendents. Mary Magdalene and Jesus had two children and if each of these children had children and they inter-married, think of how many descendents they would have and not all would be only the royalty of Europe. The myth of the Holy Grail is found only in the Western world and spawned by Christianity.

What are the attributes of the Holy Grail? It has been written that it is a goal that is distant and an almost impossible or unobtainable goal to achieve. We have only to read the stories of the Knights of the Round Table to get the picture. When I was a little girl, there was a comic strip titled Prince Valiant. It was created in 1937 and this Nordic Arthurian prince traveled the world over and is still in print telling of his heroic deeds and the perils he surmounted. In the beginning he was searching for the Holy Grail.

The Holy Grail stories have always portrayed the male as the seeker and usually there is a fair maiden that he rescues from time to time. As with most his-stories, the female is relegated to a lesser role. However, lets examine other attributes. The hero must prove himself worthy and must grow spiritually and mentally. It is said that it is a symbol of God’s grace and available to all and only fully realized by those who seek and prepare themselves spiritually. This includes the females. Now, we are getting to the crux of the issue.

It is time to take the wrappers off of the symbol of the Holy Grail and reveal its true meaning. The wise ones, both female and male, who have gone before us, prepared the way by leaving a trail of symbols whose meanings have become meaningless or distorted on one level. However, there is a code within our brain that resonates with certain symbols and we know they have a deeper meaning. The Holy Grail is one such symbol.

The greatest deterrent to one’s Journey is religion. Religion and spirituality are not the same. Religion has become a form of control and it doesn’t matter which sect one is affiliated with, the message is the same that one must conform to their set of beliefs and rules. One must believe that a god outside of self is the only way to salvation and redemption and usually this includes a belief in the devil or Satan. Anything else is labeled the anti-christ.

The true seeker may dabble in a religion for a time, but becomes dissatisfied and seeks something that will bring inner peace and knowing. There is a longing to know more and this is part of the Journey. Over the ages, women and men have been kept in a proletarian state of mind – or a captive mind. The seeker is seeking to break out of her or his captivity.

Each society has its own set of morals and values and it is up to the individual to examine hers or his and discard those that do not serve Self. Self is the higher aspect of self and it is the seat of our spirituality. We have been taught conformity and there comes a moment when we know we must break away from our past programming. This is all part of the Journey – the Quest.

Buddha has been quoted as saying that it is better to conquer yourself than to fight a battle and Ramtha the Enlightened one has said, go and conquer yourself. There have been many messages left to us such as the inscription of the Oracle of Apollo at Delphi, Greece from 6 B.C.: Know thyself. Even Plato said know thyself. Shakespeare wrote in his play Hamlet: This above all: to thine own self be true. Sir Francis Bacon left a profound message: Knowledge is power.

The Holy Grail represents the Quest or the Journey that each of us has undertaken when we left the house of our Creator. We hold within us the tools to carry us through life or lifetimes, but the perils we have to battle are those of our fears, emotions and beliefs. We become ensnared in our own fears, judgments, biases, prejudices, and the emotions of jealousy, resentment, anger, and in the hopes of redemption we think there is something or someone outside of our self while not realizing that we must conquer our self in order to know Self.

I can only share knowledge and wisdom I have gained during my own Journey, which has been one of many twists and turns. Sometimes it appeared I was butting up against a stone wall, but by perseverance I went through the wall. Each twist and turn has a gift in the form of wisdom and it is up to each of us to discover the wisdom in our own experiences. The Great Labyrinth in the Cathedral at Chartres, France is a lasting symbol left there by the Knights Templar and it represents the Journey of each individual. This is why so many visitors to the Cathedral resonate to it whether they are Christian, Atheist, Agnostic, Hindu, Buddhist or Muslim. It is a universal symbol.

My quest began at the age of forty when a thought came into my head, by the time you are fifty, your life will be different. At that time I was becoming a disillusioned a WASP Republican housewife. For those of you who do not know what WASP is, it stands for “white, Anglo-Saxon, protestant. “ At age fifty I had a ‘coming-out’ party celebrating my new status of being a divorcee and on my Journey of discovery. I was like a sponge soaking up all the knowledge and experience I could get. I studied Religious Science, Divine Science, Unity, metaphysics, meditation, a multitude modalities of healing, the tarot, astrology, crystals and perhaps other modalities that I do not remember. A well-known and often repeated statement is, when the student is ready, the teacher appears.

It was the last week in December of 1982 when my new husband and I attended a weeklong spiritual workshop at Asilomar, California with Dr. Brugh Joy and David Spangler. On the 30^th of December, the evening program was three people who would channel their entities and talk about peace. I was not into channeling and I lay back on the floor thinking how boring. The first two people did their thing and then the third was a petite blond from Tacoma, Washington who left her body and the moment her entity took over and said “Indeed!” I shot up into a sitting position and was mesmerized. I knew that I knew him and that I had heard him before. I also knew he was a Master Teacher. I had never heard of Ramtha the Enlightened One, but I knew this teacher. Later I knew I recognized him from a soul memory.

I did not fully understand this encounter and still caught up in my new relationship and becoming a minister of Divine Science, I now realize I was completing unfinished business and did not reconnect with Ramtha until 1985 when I was invited to see a video of him. I have been a student of Ramtha ever since and my husband and I moved to Washington state in 1986.

Each of us is to connect with a teacher at some point in either in this life or a lifetime to come. Ramtha is not necessarily the teacher for everyone. He so happens to mine. The Ramtha School of Enlightenment in Yelm, Washington is an academy of the mind and also of Gnostic teachings. We are each one a facet of the Creator and it is an individual journey so that the Creator may know itself.

Ramtha has taught that we are here to make known the unknown and that is the quest for the Holy Grail. There is no one path for all because we are each a facet of the Creator and we are each individuals with our own destiny. The Holy Grail is the unique facet of the Creator in you. You are the Mystery.