Today, we meet a woman whose name comes to us not from myth, but from a real courtroom - a woman accused, convicted, and executed for sorcery in Classical Athens. Her name was Theoris of Lemnos, and her story brings up tough questions about fear, gender, medicine, law - and what happens when they all collide.

What did Theoris really do? Was she a poisoner or a healer? Was she targeted for who she was, more than what she did?

Let’s find out.

Eurynome, often referred to as "the Goddess of All Things," is depicted as a figure central to a matriarchal creation story. This myth portrays Eurynome as the origin of the universe, arising from the sea or Chaos, and either creating the cosmos herself or birthing a cosmic egg from which all things emerged. In these narratives, Eurynome is a powerful, independent creator, often associated with the sea, fertility, and the nurturing aspects of the earth.

Born Violet Mary Firth (1890–1946), Dion Fortune was a British occultist, ceremonial magician, and writer. She co-founded the Fraternity of the Inner Light, an organization that promoted esoteric philosophies, many of which she claimed were taught to her by spiritual entities known as the Ascended Masters. Her teachings uniquely combined spirituality, social ethics, sexuality, and magic.

Dion Fortune regarded sexual energy as a sacred and powerful life force with immense spiritual potential. At the core of her work was the belief that sexuality, when consciously directed and sublimated, could be used for both personal transformation and societal healing.

She rejected the coital magic of Aleister Crowley - magic based on physical sexual acts and instead taught sublimation: the redirection of sexual energy into spiritual power. For Fortune, orgasm was an “earthing force” that expelled energy, whereas true sexual magic required the raising and focusing of sexual force through ritual.

According to van Gennep the “betwixt or between” period is the liminal period that pertains “rites of passage.” Rites of passage tend to be found in smaller simple societies whose lives follow the cyclical rhythms of nature, being the seasons and the moon cycle, but also “rites which accompany every change of place, state, social position, social behaviour and age” (Turner, 1979, p.234).

As a result of his explorations, Van Gennep marked rites of passage by three phases: separation, margin, and aggregation, to which three-fold structure Turner agreed and

Since both, liminal consciousness and liminal behaviour are associated with allowing one to realise how they are more than their individual egos and the ability to think beyond the boundaries of given structures and identities, hence this can lead to self-realisation.renamed as preliminal, liminal and postlimimal rites.

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Refs:

https://www.eomega.org/article/what-mary-magdalene-wanted-us-to-know

http://www.gnosis.org/library/marygosp.htm

Nicolaides, A. (2018). Mary Magdalene and Orthodoxy: Apostle, Heroine or Feminist. Pharos Journal of Theology, 99(13).

Balstrup, S. K. (2015). Interpreting the lost Gospel of Mary: Feminist reconstructions and myth making. Literature & Aesthetics, 25.

Ref: Bieringer, R., & Vanden Hove, I. (2007). Mary Magdalene in the Four Gospels. Louvain Studies, 32(3), 186-254.

It’s believed that Mary Magdalene was indeed from a wealthy family and although in a patriarchal society it was rare for a woman to have wealth MM seems to be the ‘rebel’ of the feminist of her time where she was able to access wealth and use it as she pleased.

Because of this it’s believed that this is why she was labeled the w***e not because she was a prostitute literally as we understand it, but because she did not follow the norms of what women where doing in her time… she was loose… and did not have a male guardian as all other women where expected to have.

How do women approach the divine feminine?

Research has found that this occurs through devotion to the divine feminine.

Women’s selection of the divine feminine is inclusive of Christianity such as the Virgin Mary, the Black Madonna, Eve, Mary Magdalene, the Holy Spirit but also saints including St. Teresa of Avila and St. Brigid.

Other’s express this devotion to deities of other religious traditions or from ancient Greek deities like Hecate and Diana or through the ancient archetype of the trinity Maiden, Mother and Crone.

Devotional practices include creating an altar, writing a song or poem, painting or contemplating on iconography, prayer, meditation, going on a pilgrimage, breathwork, yoga, and being in nature.

These are all considered offerings of love towards the deity asking for the reciprocation of that love from the divinity, a seeking to know her and feeling a pull towards her that won’t let go.

Ref. PhD thesis entitled: Prayer of the Body: Reflections on Archetypal Divine Feminine Figures in Embodied Spirituality, by Sarah Bond, in 2022.

Consequently, Mary Magdalene and the other woman are the first to see the risen Christ in Matthew. This is definitely the most important difference with Mark, one which gives Mary Magdalene a new significance and an extra dimension: She is the first to whom the risen Christ appears.

Ref:

Bieringer, R., & Vanden Hove, I. (2007). Mary Magdalene in the four gospels. Louvain Studies, 32(3), 186-254.

In her book In memory of Her, Elizabeth Schussler Fiorenza, begins by stating: In the passion account of Mark’s Gospel three disciples figure prominently: on the one hand two of the twelve – Judas who betrays Jesus and Peter who denies him – and on the other, the unnamed woman who anoints Jesus.

But while the stories of Judas and Peter are engraved in the memory of Christians, the story of the woman is virtually forgotten. Although Jesus pronounces in Mark 14:9: And truly I say to you, wherever the gospel is preached in the whole world, what She has done will be told in memory of her’, the woman’s prophetic sign-action did not become a part of the gospel knowledge of Christians.

Even her name is lost to us. Wherever the gospel is proclaimed and the Eucharist celebrated another story is told: the story of the apostle who betrayed Jesus. The name of the betrayer is remembered, but the name of the faithful disciple is forgotten because she was a woman.

Ref:

Bieringer, R., & Vanden Hove, I. (2007). Mary Magdalene in the four gospels. Louvain Studies, 32(3), 186-254.