The Magdalene Healer

One of the recurring themes in my psychoses is that I am the reincarnation of Mary Magdalene. I am not sure if it’s residual damage from years of Catholic School, an interest in the Gnostics, studying psychology or being studied by psychologists.

It may be a desire to heal men, sexually or otherwise, and I have picked up a few stray dogs over the years. This has led to some abuse at the hands of the men who were supposed to love and care for me, but thankfully, those days are past now and the worst of these abusers is now dead.

This happened several summers ago, during the Bethlehem Music Fest. I was studying Ho’ono pono pono. I’m sorry. I love you. Please forgive me. Thank you.

The story behind this is fascinating. A doctor was studying patients at a mental hospital. As many hospitals are, the hospital was overcrowded and understaffed and the patients were not improving. A doctor came up with the idea to look at the files of all of his patients and just say Ho’ono pono pono. I love you. I’m sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you. He did this every day, without even seeing his patients. Amazingly, these patients started to improve.

Another scientist, Masuro Emoto’s experiments with water demonstrated that simply by taping a message to water, eg. “I love you,” “I hate you,” “You make me sick,” “Thank you,” et cetera, the water then froze to resemble the message. Emoto’s point was that since the human body is composed of 98 percent water, if thoughts could do that to water, imagine what they could do to a person. Similar experiments have been done with plants, giving the same result.

These were the things that I fed myself with as I moved in and out of the rooms of Recovery, in and out of psychiatric institutions, and a brief stint in jail. I was going to overcome this. I was going to embrace the Magdalene within, become not only a sinner, but strive to become a saint as well.

During this time, it is unclear if I was taking my medication as prescribed. I had been hanging with people who told me that my medication was poisoning me, was useless, would take years off my life. They advised me to flush my medication, eat a raw foods vegan diet and drink lots of water. While the diet is good, it is no replacement for modern medicine or much needed psychiatric care, although it took me years to learn this.

On the day of Musicfest, I was pretty manic, my boyfriend at the time and I went to the local 7-11 to load up on snacks. I’m not sure if I looked crazy, if I said something off, or if I was giving the cashier a hard time, because he threw me out and called the police. I wish I could remember why.

This was not long after a mentally ill man had been killed by a neighboring police station, so of course, I asked the police if they were going to kill me as well, simply for being mentally ill and attempting to buy groceries.

They were not thrilled, but let me go & we continued to Musicfest.

I know that we either didn’t have money to buy tickets, or it had sold out. We walked around outside the venue, listening to music. What stuck out most to me was the huge Amish pipe organ that was playing.

My boyfriend and I discussed the Essenes, Mary Magdalene and Jesus, and the possibility that they had a child together who was hidden of in a monastery somewhere and that there could be a line of descendants from Jesus to this very day. This comment was met by a very cacophonous chord from the Amish pipe organ, and my boyfriend ushered me away.

Musicfest was winding down, but we weren’t, so we decided to find someplace nearby to hike. Immediately, I took off my shoes to connect with the Earth.

Across the creek, on the other side of the park, we could hear another couple fighting loudly. With my shoes off, I stepped pretty far into the creek and arms outstretched began to recite the Hail Mary at the top of my lungs, over and over and over.

After several minutes of this, the man yelled across to me, “Go home!” The fighting had stopped though. Prayer had worked, I guess. I continued to walk with my shoes off, talking to God, giving thanks.

As dark fell, we returned home, my boyfriend worried about my mental state. A few days later, I checked myself into a mental health facility to address these Magdalene issues.