Erin O'Riordan writes smart, whimsical erotica. Her erotic romance novel trilogy, Pagan Spirits, is now available. With her husband, she also writes crime novels. Visit her home page at ko-fi.com.
A nice surprise came in the mail yesterday. It's the mini comic booklet Jesus and Ganesha Go to Valhalla, written by MJ Alexander and Adam Kuphos and illustrated by MJ Alexander.
It's gorgeous work. The plot revolves around a young girl and boy having a toy boat race. She's sailing her boat for Ganesha, and he's sailing his boat for Jesus. The race will determine who is the true lord - but Odin has a different idea.
It's only an 8-page mini-comic, but I only paid $3.50 for it, including shipping from MJ's Canadian home to me in the U.S.
She even wrote me a thank-you and included a sticker. Canadian politeness - not just a legend.
So, if you want to support a very young, very indie illustrator, I highly recommend you visit MJ's Etsy shop. I have absolutely no affiliation with MJ's Etsy shop whatsoever - I'm just a fan of her work. I can't resist a handmade book, especially with a title like Jesus and Ganesha Go to Valhalla.
Tuesday, September 24, 2013: the season premiere of Person of Interest, going into its third season.
When we left off at the end of season 2, The Machine had been set free, Root was recovering from a gunshot wound in what appeared to be a mental health hospital, Sam Shaw appeared to have joined Finch and Reese, and Carter had, for some reason, saved the life of Carl Elias. Kara Stanton's virus has wreaked its havoc, and it's unclear at this point how Finch and Reese will continue to save lives.
This family tree isn't originally my idea. Like so many great things in life, it started with Tumblr. Specifically, with this post posted by the blogger whose blog is Obsesiones Mias. (I feel like I should know her name, but I don't.) The contention of this post is that John Reese seems like he's a little superhuman because, perhaps, his distant ancestor was Kainan - a character in the film Outlander*, also played by Jim Caviezel. The character is an extraterrestrial. Kainan crash-landed on Earth in an Iron Age Viking settlement and, after defeating the space dragon he'd brought with him, he became king of the Viking clan.
At a later time, the Obsesiones Mias blogger said something about adding to the Reese family tree, which got me thinking, until at last I came up with:
It was surprisingly hard to find a way to make fictional family trees online. I gave up the search and instead used a scrapbooking website, CropMom. It's not the most elegant scrapbook page ever - I made it in a bit of a rush.
Let me break down the line of descent:
We can begin the John Reese family tree with Mary.
...married Mary Magdalene (well, that's one possible scenario, isn't it?)...
...who was pregnant at the time of Jesus' death. Different versions of folklore disagree as to whether the couple had a daughter or a son, but let's say, hypothetically, they had a daughter. This is actually an image said to represent Mary Magdalene, but it could be how the daughter of Jesus and Mary looked. (Some people say her name was Sara. I can't remember if her name is mentioned in The Da Vinci Code or not.)
Now let's say that Sara has many generations of descendants - hundreds of years go by. Some say that the Merovingian kings of France were her descendants. Imagining that she was the ancestress of a royal line, let us speculate that some of her royal descendants migrated northward, to the Viking regions. Let's say that one of her descendants was the warrior-king Hrothgar.
Hrothgar is on the viewer's left, portrayed by John Hurt. You may remember John Hurt best as Mr. Ollivander from the Harry Potter movies; I do too, but I also like to think of him as Winston Smith in Nineteen Eighty-Four. You may also remember that Hrothgar is the name of the king whose realm is under attack from Grendel in Beowulf, but I don't think the Outlander movie is meant to imply that this is the same Hrothgar.
Hrothgar's daughter, Freya - a warrior princess - marries Kainan, the outlander.
Presumably, they have children who have both royal DNA and Kainan's extraterrestrial DNA. We'll just assume Kainan's DNA is close enough to that of Homo sapiens that he and Freya can interbreed without difficulty. Their princes and princesses have descendants, some of whom may end up in France (or back in France, if that's where we imagine Mary Magdalene and her offspring ended up).
Hundreds of years later, one of their descendants may have been Edmond Dantes.
Dantes, after many long years of suffering, married Mercedes.
I imagine they had several children together (at the end of the movie, Mercedes rests her hand on her belly, which I always think means she's already pregnant again), but their oldest was Albert. If Albert resembles Superman, it's probably because of the Kainan DNA. Superman is an alien, too.
Albert Dantes, born in the early 1800s, had descendants who, several generations later, included John Reese.
On Saturday I went to the discount bookstore, as I may have mentioned. I picked up three books in Nalini Singh's Psy Changeling series, as well as a stack of magazines (they sell them for $1 each) and, for only $1.40, Breaking the Da Vinci Code by Darrell L. Bock, Ph.D.
This last one is a 2004 book about Dan Brown's book that was first published in 2001. I know this is a subject that was popular 100 years ago in pop culture time, but if you've been reading this blog very long, you know I love to read about books I've read. This isn't the first time I've read a book that supplements The Da Vinci Code. I already own Da Vinci Code Decoded by Martin Lunn (which I've read) and The Unauthorized Dan Brown Companion edited by John Helfers (2006 - I have skimmed it, but not read it the whole way through).
Now I've read Breaking the Da Vinci Code. I very much enjoyed it. Bock is a Protestant Biblical scholar, and his book looks at various ancient texts mentioned in Dan Brown's book to show systematically, using the original source material, that 1) the books of the Bible are as authentic a historical source as any other ancient text, and probably much more so, and 2) the ancient texts show very clearly that the relationship between Jesus and Mary Magdalene was understood by witnesses of their time to be teacher/student, not sexual or a marriage relationship.
One of the sources that Bock addresses is Against Heresies (Adversus Haereses in Latin), a second-century work by Irenaeus, considered one of the "church fathers" and a Catholic saint. Irenaeus, a bishop of what is now Lyons, France, but which was then part of the Roman Empire, wrote in part to combat the Gnostic writings of Valentinus, which were popular in Lyons at the time. Valentinus was a Hellenic Egyptian; he or his followers wrote The Gospel of Truth, which was rediscovered in modern times at Nag Hammadi in 1945.
Bock quotes Frederica Mathewes-Green, an Eastern Orthodox Biblical scholar, in her magazine article "What Heresy?" (Books and Culture, November-December 2003). Mathewes-Green wrote:
"The version attributed to Valentinus, the best-known Gnostic, is typical. Valentinus supposedly taught a hierarchy of spiritual beings called 'aeons.' One of the lowest aeons, Sophia, fell and gave birth to the Demiurge, the God of the Hebrew Scriptures. This evil Demiurge created the visible world, which was a bad thing, because now we pure spirits are all tangled up in fleshy bodies. Christ was an aeon who took possession of the body of the human Jesus, and came to free us from the prison of materiality.
"'Us,' by the way, didn't mean everybody. Not all people have a divine spark within, just intellectuals; 'gnosis,' by definition, concerns what you know. Some few who are able to grasp these insights could be initiated into deeper mysteries. Ordinary Christians, who lacked sufficient brainpower, could only obtain the Demiurge's middle realm. Everyone else was doomed. Under Gnosticism, there was no hope of salvation for most of the human race."
Bock explains that "demiurge" is simple a Greek word that means "maker" or "builder," referring to the making of the material world.
If the story of the cosmic spirit-being Sophia giving birth to evil sounds vaguely familiar, it may be that you, like me, are a fan of Lady Gaga. It's the bones of what Lady Gaga wrote in "The Manifesto of Mother Monster" in the full-length "Born This Way" video.
This is the text of the manifesto:
This is the manifesto of Mother Monster:On G.O.A.T, a Government Owned Alien Territory in space, a birth of magnificent and magical proportions took place. But the birth was not finite; it was infinite. As the wombs numbered, and the mitosis of the future began, it was perceived that this infamous moment in life is not temporal; it is eternal. And thus began the beginning of the new race: a race within the race of humanity, a race which bears no prejudice, no judgment, but boundless freedom. But on that same day, as the eternal mother hovered in the multiverse, another more terrifying birth took place: the birth of evil. And as she herself split into two, rotating in agony between two ultimate forces, the pendulum of choice began its dance. It seems easy, you imagine, to gravitate instantly and unwaveringly towards good. But she wondered, “How can I protect something so perfect without evil?”
That the text represents Gnosticism is not my idea, but rather something I read at MKCulture (which you may remember from last year's conspiracy theory post), an inactive blog that is, as of this writing, still able to be accessed. The blogger doesn't elaborate much in the blog post "Descendants of Sophia," but writes, "In my last post I explored the ever-present theme of the Goddess archetype within the context of pop culture. That inquiry ended with 'Born This Way,' the latest [as of April 2011] music video from pop star Lady Gaga. In the video Lady Gaga embodies Gnostic Goddess Sophia." The rest of the post veers off into Kate Bush's album, Elliot* Page's career, and then goddesses associated with the owl and the peacock.
The blogger has a YouTube account as well, on which this video can be found. It explains the Gaga-as-Sophia concept in a little bit of detail.
If you want the full "Illuminati" explanation of this same video, visit Vigilant Citizen's "Born This Way" post. I'm not much for Illuminati conspiracy theories. I don't doubt that a small group of people has far more power than it should in this world, and that they probably have some screwed-up ideas about how the world should run, but I also believe pop culture is run more by a quest for increased profit than by some sort of ideological (Masonic/Luciferian/Satanic - depends on who you ask) cabal. But it's there to read, if you want it.
Madonna may be the Material Girl, but Lady Gaga-as-Sophia gave birth to the creator of the material world. Maybe that's why "Born This Way" subtly samples Madonna's "Express Yourself," according to some listeners.
My trusty Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets has more than two pages on Sophia, under the heading "Saint Sophia."
Barbara J. Walker describes Sophia (the name literally means "wisdom" in Greek) as "God's mother" but also the shakti, or female soul/power source, of God. Her symbol was the dove, as some of her incarnations include Aphrodite, Isis/Hathor, and "The Holy Ghost." She writes:
"Some said Jesus became Sophia's spouse and his glory depended on this sacred marriage; for he was only one of the Aeons, a minor spirit, the 'common fruit' of the Pleroma [the Gnostic "one true God," a transcendent being].
"Some said Sophia was also Jesus's mother, for she was the Virgin of Light whose spirit entered into the body of Mary to conceive him...Some said Sophia was to God as Metis was to Zeus, his 'mind.'"
Walker goes on to report that when the Church of Hagia Sophia was constructed in Constantinople in the 6th century, it was a shrine to Sophia the Goddess, but to cover up the appearance of goddess worship, Christians made up the "virgin martyr" Saint Sophia. Walker cites the 8th and 9th chapters of the Biblical book of Proverbs as having an ambivalent attitude toward Sophia, or wisdom.
In one passage, following Wisdom is to be praised, but in another, "she sitteth at the door of her house, on a seat in the high places of the city [her temple]," calling to passersby to turn toward her, but if anyone turns into her temple "he knoweth not that the dead are there; and that her guests are in the depths of hell." Walker sees this as two factions - one in favor of worshiping the Goddess Sophia and another that worships only the male God - having a debate.
If Sophia is thought of as the mother/spouse of Jesus, and she's associated with the "high places of the city" (the temple or watchtower, magdala in Hebrew), it's possibly Sophia is also associated with Mary Magdalene.
Perhaps this is another reason why Lady Gaga appears as a Mary Magdalene figure in her "Judas" video, which came out after "Born This Way."
(However, after having watched a little video about Kenneth Anger and Hollywood Babylon the other day, I learned about Anger's experimental film Scorpio Rising. In it, Anger intercut clips of a Biblical drama featuring Jesus with footage of a leather-clad biker, set to 1950s rock 'n roll. The "Judas" video may be an homage to Scorpio Rising. Now, Kenneth Anger - he was openly a Satanist, and would proudly have told you he followed the teachings of Aleister Crowley.)
Neo-Gnosticism is a favorite topic of a blogger I mentioned yesterday, Christopher Loring Knowles. He seems to genuinely believe there is a world of spiritual or energy beings, hidden from us most of the time in the material world, but which seems to break through at times and communicates with us in a language of symbols and coincidences (synchronicities).
VISUP will occasionally mention Gnosticism as well. In one post, VISUP mentions that some Gnostics referred to the Demiurge as Samael, which VISUP says means "blind idiot." Where have I read that name before? In Devil's In the Details, where Samael is the name of Satan's fiance. Synchronicity? Maybe. Dog days of summer weirdness? It's a little early for that, but perhaps.
One day late - in the church, the feast day of St. Mary Magdalene is July 22nd. Part of the reason she was such a popular art subject seems to be that she served as an early pin-up girl, an excuse to depict a beautiful, sensual woman. This 16th-century image is by Titian.
Sticks by you through your crucifixion. Mary Magdalene is a ridadie chick.
The companion of Jesus of Nazareth is an extremely popular subject in classical European painting. This image is by Luca Signarelli (1450-1523) and was painting in or around 1504, making it about 30 years older than the Titian. P.S. I totally love her shoes.
The story of the jar is recorded in Luke 7: 36-38 in the Christian Bible:
"36 When one of the Pharisees invited Jesus to have dinner with him, he went to the Pharisee’s house and reclined at the table.37 A woman in that town who lived a sinful life learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee’s house, so she came there with an alabaster jar of perfume.38 As she stood behind him at his feet weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them and poured perfume on them." This image, by Domenico Piola (1627-1703), painted circa 1674, is called Magdalene in the Desert. It refers to a legend of Mary Magdalene in which she spent many years of her life after the resurrection of Jesus as a penitent, leading a semi-monastic life to make up for earlier sins. (Luke's account calls her a sinner, but never specifies what her sins might be. As we learned in the Epic Easter Post, Joan Borysenko identifies her with ancient Near Eastern temple priestesses, servants of the Great Goddess.)
This image is of Blanche d'Antigny portraying the Penitent Magdalene. The photographer, Paul-Jacques-Aime Buadry, lived 1828-1886. This image is in the public domain.
She has been portrayed by Lady Gaga...
...and by the Italian-born actress Monica Bellucci**. (I remember her best as Persephone from the Matrix movies - although, like the Rosario Dawson character in Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief, she's not a very powerful Persephone.)
Here she is in a contemporary image from Pinterest, still holding her jar.
This one is beautiful. It's unclear whether her white gown is supposed to represent her purity (in her penitent state, presumably) or her status as Jesus' bride. Both, perhaps? The doves are also ambiguously Christian or Goddess religion, symbols of both the Holy Spirit and Venus.
Here she is in the Eastern Orthodox icon style. In her hand, she holds a red egg. This comes from a folk legend about eggs turning from white to red when Jesus rose from the dead on the original Easter Sunday.
One of the most fascinating images you can find on Pinterest by searching "Magdalena" is the comic book The Magdalena. The series depicts a line of women, all descendants of Jesus and Mary Magdalene (and their fabled daughter Sarah, as mentioned in The Da Vinci Code), who inherit the Spear of Destiny (the spear that pierced the side of their ancestor Jesus on the cross) and fight to defend the Catholic Church.
The French version of the word Magdalene is Madeleine, which may remind you of the French breakfast treat. I ate them when I went to Spain.
So, in a way, you could honor Mary Magdalene by eating madeleines, reading Marcel Proust and getting your Remembrance of Things Past on. Just be sure to pronounce "Proust" to rhyme with "roost," or you may be mocked in song - see "Bitches in Bookshops."
** Sometimes, Bellucci remains in the Gucci name, but if the movie version of Jesus and Mary Magdalene were one of those couples who dressed alike, it might look something like this:
If you're not using Gather.com, you may have missed some of my latest, freshest writings. In case you did, let me catch you up:
My tribute to the late Betty Page: A Film Review
In honor of the passing of model Betty Page at the age of 85, I've decided to share my review of the 2001 DVD Betty Page in Bondage. If you are a Betty aficianado, you can rent the film from www.dvdavenue.com. Not one of my personal favorites, really, but here's the info you need to know before you rent the DVD:
"Actually, my favorite part of this DVD was when I first took it out of its sleeve. The picture on the disc itself is a pretty one. Betty Page had a really nice body. To truly enjoy this video, though, one would have to be a hard-core Page fan. It's composed entirely of antique "stag reels" of her . . . interesting 1950s costumes and music, but only mildly naughty by today's standards. Scenes of girl-on-girl bondage that were probably quite titillating in the mid-20th century are just rather quaint and even bizarre now."
Other Recent Posts:
Original Short Story, "God and The Devil Are Married" at http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474977754375
Reprint of "Chocolate Jesus and the Oral Thing" at http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474977754159
Review of Witch's Heart, a book by Tabitha Shay at http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474977741950
And don't forget to take the latest Facebook quiz and find out "Which Beltane Character Are You?" You can find it at http://apps.facebook.com/whichbeltanesowgpc/?_fb_fromhash=3bb3bf9c249e2c69417dfeae82690e0c.
If you love Beltane, buy "Bomb Pop" from Erotique Press at www.erotiquepress.com. (Note: the website may be down for a redesign for a day or so, but keep checking back!)
. The series depicts a line of women, all descendants of Jesus and Mary Magdalene (and their fabled daughter Sarah, as mentioned in The Da Vinci Code), who inherit the Spear of Destiny (the spear that pierced the side of their ancestor Jesus on the cross) and fight to defend the Catholic Church.
