#11 MORE MARY MORE!

In all western legends, Isis is the greatest female magician, the enchantress, the mistress of magic, the archetype for the High Priestess in the Tarot. There is even a suggestion in the Pyramid Texts that she foresaw her husband’s murder.

There is a wonderful story about how cleverly Isis acquired knowledge. Horus had been stung to death by a scorpion and once again Isis needed to act to return someone dear to her to life. So she collected the spittle of the sun god, Ra, and mixing it with earth, created a serpent, which she placed in Ra’s path to sting him. When Ra was bitten, he became poisoned and near death, Isis counseled him that if he uttered his own secret name its divinity would breathe back life into him. Finally, as death approached, Ra spoke his name out loud and Isis, of course, over-heard it. Now, knowing the secret name of God she was able to appropriate some of his magical powers and use them to return her son to life. While Isis tricked Ra, she was never shown like Loki as selfish or cruel; instead she was crafty, but still compassionate.

Isis’ worship originated around 1700 BC and spread from Egypt throughout the Mediterranean and even reached Britain. She was worshipped by all Egyptians as the major goddess of their pantheon. Her temples are found everywhere in Egypt, and she is the only foreign cult found on Delos beside the temple of Artemis. Isis is depicted as a beautiful woman with a solar disc between cow horns on her head. (A reference to the goddess Hathor). She is also shown crowned with a throne, with her child, Horus, sitting on her lap. Her cult became one of the most antagonistic forces met by early Christians and prevailed until AD 560 when the last temples to Isis were closed.

If all gods and goddesses were human before they were elevated, Isis must once have lived a human life like Artemis. I asked the Gatekeeper to find me an expert on the Egyptian pantheon who knew out about the real Isis. That is how I met Arthur Gilleston, a Fellow from Peterhouse, University of Cambridge, who died in 1869 and who spoke through Dr Lichfield.

“Isis really existed”, he said. “She was an imported Assyrian lady, who married the Chancellor of Egypt, the head of the scribes. Her husband was assassinated and cut into pieces by her murdering brother. She found every one of the pieces of his body and reassembled them for internment. Then, in a meditative state, she went into Hell to find his distraught soul. She tricked the gatekeeper of Hell when in response to his request for her to identify herself she gave her brother’s name. When she found her husband, she soothed him. Her mission of mercy allowed him to go to heaven in peace.

People like Isis became legends; the legends became myths, and the myths, gods. Remember what Emperor Hadrian said: “I must be going to die; I have started to feel like a god.” Her story may have been welded onto the story of the gods when she died, but it’s more likely she was the prototype for Isis.”

“Which master was her husband Osiris? Was he St Germain?”

“No. He is Lord Sananda. He is the essence of practical love. He has the common touch, rare for a god. His purity is equaled only by his humour. There is an aspect of him, which is the entertainer, the fool, the wisest of men. Mostly, Isis or Mary is awake to St Germain. She doesn’t expect much from him. He is a lovable rogue, and women love the rough, the larrikin, the rogue in him. Only with Lord Sananda is there for her a true meeting of the minds, a balance.

Isis has the ability to descend to the lower levels to find the parts of her lover’s body. She shares with Morpheus and Jesus Christ the ability to descend into hell or the lower worlds and rescue lost souls. Isis is the counterpart to Mary when she helps to raise her Son, Jesus, from the dead. She has many complementary traits and abilities to those of Lord Sananda. Robert Graves captured her best as the ‘White Goddess.’

Mary was the Babylonian goddess, the wife of Baal, Shastonikas, which is a Greek corruption of her name. She was associated with Asteroth, originally the Persian Mede version who is almost identical to Isis, its Syrian Semitic equivalent while Ishtar as the Canaanite Syrian deity. They are all virtually indistinguishable. And, by the way, Isis has a great investigative urge in her, obviously she loved jigsaws.You will see this in many of her aspects.” At this point Arthur Gilleston chuckled at a joke, which I did not catch until later. (Litchfield, 2003)

The Gatekeeper returned and expanded on Gilleston’s ideas, “We need to attribute to Isis her unshakeable faith and devotion to Osiris which we will see again in her life as Mary. It threads throughout everything she does. She has also passive aggressive in her determination to resist evil. Isis is embodied in the Piétà, the grieving woman, a mother in Michelangelo’s rendition, a wife in Egyptian tomb drawings- shown in all her nobility.

Isis is the model mother and her first duty is often correction, by setting others right. You see that in her lives as reformers Elizabeth Fry, Mary Wollstonecraft, Margaret Sanger and Marie Stopes. Another characteristic of Isis is the enchantress. This characteristic was exaggerated by the Romans and it’s not always a suitable overlay. It will lead to her soul’s destruction as Morgana but it could also lead to her increased understanding as Annie Besant. She does work magic and is able to materialize supernatural powers to change things in a way not normally seen. Remember how Mary made the sun dance when she appeared in Portugal at Fatima or how she created the flowering of the rose bush in winter in Guadeloupe, Mexico? Because she can move between planes and time warps like a spiritual master, Mary has limited authority to correct certain matters. Her focus in the twentieth century was lifting Russia and its republics from darkness to freedom and light. Using the energy of the chi of the supplication from massed prayers of people reciting her rosary – she was able to achieve Russia’s enlightenment.

Most Marian characters are reticent and keep a low profile like Greta Garbo, Emily Dickinson and Jane Austen and are not as insistently dramatic as St Germain’s lives; although there are some outstanding exceptions like her lives as James I, Horatio Nelson, Sarah Bernhardt, Princess Margaret or Cleopatra. Her lives are principally yin energies and therefore more complex than his. The pantheonic DNA, which comes from the vast entity called Mary, has three main strains, which she has agreed, are to be named Mary the Mother, Mary the Magdalene and Isis, the High Priestess. These are all facets of one being.” [Litchfield 2005]

A year later we returned to Kwan Yin because I found Mary’s connection with the eastern goddess of compassion confusing. Did Mary actually have a life as Kwan Yin and if she did, why do scholars assert that Kwan Yin was originally a masculine energy called Avalokiteshvara, the Lord of Compassion, from Tibetan Buddhism? It seemed as this Bodhishiva moved down the Himalayas and into China and finally into Korea and Japan, he changed into a female called Kwan Yin.

The Gatekeeper reassured me that there was a woman called Kwan Yin. “In northern China about 5,000BC in an area north and east of Beijing, about 180 kilometres away, although Beijing, of course, was not there then: Kwan Yin was born. She was the daughter of a minor chieftain then called a king. Her family was victims of a raid by Mongolians and she only escaped by chance. Kwan Yin, who was thirteen at the time, was away visiting her aunt who was recently widowed and when she returned she saw her village had been ransacked and her family slaughtered. She organized their burial. She was betrothed to a neighbouring warlord king to whom she went for protection. He vowed vengeance on the Mongolians for the murder of her family and she persuaded her husband not to revenge their deaths. ‘They don’t need more company in the other world,’ she said. ‘Don’t kill other men.’

Kwan Yin lived a good life, remarkable for its sanctity; she was incredibly good, gentle and compassionate. For example, she tore her own robes to make bandages for the sores of beggars. She always had to struggle to obtain what she wanted, but she did it without malice and unpleasantness. She fought very hard for mercy for those who stole to feed their families. Kwan Yin had a savage struggle to establish ‘sick houses’ in her husband’s kingdom. She had built separate houses for the sick, suffering from highly infectious diseases like plague, dysentery and hepatitis where they could be quarantined with strict standards of hygiene.

Kwan Yin ascended in that life and would not reincarnate again until her life as Sara, the wife of Abraham when she began her earthly preparation for her life as Mary, who would be the mother of God.”

“Why is she associated with Avalokiteshvara who had to have lived at least 4,500 years after her death and ascension?”

“There was a blending of the two. Such was Kwan Yin’s fame she became revered as a demi-goddess who would survive Daoism and Confucianism, but the Chinese have great difficulty believing a woman can do anything and to suggest she is secretly a man helps her cult. Mostly the Chinese venerate her for the same reasons Westerners venerate Mary; praying to her produces results because she is very well connected and she is merciful. In thousands of temples throughout China and Korea there are accounts of Kwan Yin. As the study of Chinese antiquities grows, her ancient presence will came to light and her real age will be recognized.”

The two minor goddesses who together with Kwan Yin give insight into the characteristics Mary will demonstrate in her lives are the mother and daughter; Demeter and Persephone. In Greek legend, Demeter is the earth goddess of corn, harvest, and fruitfulness; daughter of Cronus and Rhea and mother of Persephone by Zeus.

The Gatekeeper gave his perspective on their legends.

“The story of Persephone with all its overtones of Isis is about the harrowing of hell. It is the clearest recognition of the Marian ability to move between planes of existence. Now you no longer believe people can move from one plane of existence to another- it’s not thought possible but there are many instances of it. You see examples with saints and Eastern holy men. It’s the ability of souls to be in more than one place at a time, leave their disembodied selves and go somewhere else. Like the Buddha or St Francis being in two places at once or Chinese masters living at the bottom of lakes. So Mary can move quietly between the dimensions, without fanfare, and in this case visit the underworld and return bringing spring back to the earth.”

“What about the story of Demeter?”

“Demeter is the earth mother, rounded, full breasted, unlike the almost mannish Diana. She is Anne of Austria, the mother of the Sun King, handsome and articulate and a wonderful mother.

Demeter is the aspect of eternal fruitfulness … the primavera … she is Brigid of Ireland, able to feed all and you can see her in the bounty of Mary’s garden. It is her ability to transcend want and make plenty. Remember George Sand not only wrote novels but kept a garden, loved her children and served her guests lavish food and loved of animals and nature. The story of Demeter and Persephone gives insight into the Marian characteristics.”

Two questions remained. First, “Were St Germain and Mary opposites to one another faced off like light and dark or were they complements like the twins Apollo and Artemis as sunlight and moonlight complement one another?”

“They are complementary rather than opposites”, the Gatekeeper replied, “They translate as gold and silver.”

“Can they blend into one entity?”

“There is partial and observable blending…compare St Germain’s Katherine Hepburn with Mary’s Catherine Parr – both tall, strong, handsome, outspoken, articulate and compassionate. But St Germain and Mary are oil and water, swirl them together and they don’t mix. Yin and yang do not mix to make a compound, but they co-exist side by side in happiness so that neither loses its identity. In the same way that souls who have ascended join the chorus of the Creator to add to the light while retaining their identity. They make excellent partners.”

My second question related to St Germain and Mary was their role as deities in other cultures. Where was St Germain in Hinduism, in Buddhism, in Egyptian religions and where was Mary? Do their characteristics remain consistent?

Paraphrasing the Gatekeeper, St Germain is present in the Hindu pantheon as Krishna, a life he shared with Hilarion, and as Hanuman, in Buddhism. His trickiness is displayed again the impertinent Monkey King who is asked by the Buddha to help a young boy travel from China to India to retrieve Holy Scriptures. As one of the heroes of Wu Chengen’s fourteenth century novel A Journey to the West he outwits demons, robbers and greedy monks. While he is not present in the Egyptian pantheon, he is as Loo Bei, the founder of Daoism, and Lao Tzu prominent in Chinese Daoist beliefs.

Mary, on the other hand, plays a dynamic role in Buddhism and Hinduism. Mary is Tara in Tibetan and she is Maya and Kwan Yin in Buddhism generally. She is also the consorts Sita and Parvati in Hinduism.

Just as Parvati and Maya gave birth to gods, so does Mary, she is the bearer of God, the Theotakos. Mary comes from the Judeo tradition of a stern and jealous father, a single dominant god who brooked no others. From her Greco-Roman beginnings as Artemis and Diana and her Egyptian dominance as Isis she merges with the new religion of the Greek speaking lands to become for all intents and purposes a new goddess, Mary, the mother of the son of God, and the Queen of Heaven. Now she is moving on and in The Line to God she displays her complexity and compassion and although she embodies all the virtues of the model wife and mother she demonstrates as well her intelligence, style, wit, femininity, feminism, tenacity, courage, endurance, wisdom and creativity.