Mary Magdalene and the Charism of Inceptual Thinking
Prophecy, Ancient Greek Liminality, and the Spiritual Vision of The House of New Bethany
What follows outlines the developing theme of “inceptual thinking” as a charism of St. Mary Magdalene and, through her, to The House of New Bethany. Inceptual thinking expresses prophecy in the original sense: proclaiming God’s message. Living in the liminal space between God’s silent Being and the world of beings, the prophet proclaims God’s message. To prophecy is to speak on behalf of the silence of Being. To speak as such, the prophet must “see” what emerges in the liminal space between the hiddenness of silent Being and the world in which they live. They must faithfully speak the given. The prophet is not a calculative metaphysician but an interpreter of what silent Being gives.
Mary Magdalene, washing Jesus’ feet with her tears, choosing the “best part” at his feet, and anointing him a second time before his crucifixion, is the prophet in the liminal space who can “see” emerging refulgence and interpret its meaning without bias. She has a pre-cognitive understanding of Jesus and who he is as the Christ and Messiah. This “prophetic” charism of “seeing” the emerging is a definition of “inceptual thinking.”
Magdalene’s inceptual intellect operated in the liminality of her situatedness in 1st century Palestine. As such, she was the New Testament prophet making straight the path for the Lord just as John the Baptist was the last of the Old. John cried out, “Repent!” Mary Magdalene was that repentance. To “see” in Magdalene’s mode of Being is to repent before the emerging light of Christ. Her prophetic charism of inceptual thinking is the primordial ground of repentance and contrition.
After the persecutions in Jerusalem, Provence (and later France who inherited it) became her mission and the recipient of her magnificent charism. Seven times each day, angels carried her to the summit of the massif where her grotto lay hidden to feed her the Eucharist. This miracle of grace symbolizes the hidden spiritual reality of Magdalene’s liminal “inceptual thinking.” This is her gift of prophecy, not in the popular sense of speaking about the future, but in the genuine sense of standing before silent Being, interpreting, and proclaiming the given. This mode of Being is sitting silently at the feet of Jesus, anguishing at the foot of his cross, weeping before his silent tomb, and rejoicing at the sound of his voice. “Mary!”
Thus, the outline below is merely a sketch of a much more significant discussion around liminality, metaphysics, and modern nihilism. We will go back to antiquity, to the ancient Greeks and Romans, to investigate the world with which the Church collided once freed by Constantine in the 4th century.
Our reflections will include another astonishing saint who plays a seminal role in our understanding of liminality as the “playground of the gods,” the space we as The House of New Bethany seek to occupy in our kingdom of Mystical France. That saint is Philomena, a Greek Princess martyred under the reign of Diocletian. St. Philomena will intercede for us with Our Lady and the Lord Jesus to raise the siege upon our minds and reveal the glimmering refulgence of prophetic, inceptual thinking through her royal Greek lineage.
The Pantheon’s Whisper: A Call to Look Back
This section introduces the central insight—the Pantheon as a symbol of a deeper, foundational antiquity that predates the classical and medieval periods. It frames the argument for revisiting the roots of Western civilization to address modern nihilism.
The moment I walked into the Pantheon in Rome, the notion struck me that to understand the contemporary time in which we live, we must look beyond the medieval and classical worlds to western antiquity. It is not sufficient to look merely at the beginnings of Christendom after the western classical Roman world died and the new Holy Roman Empire (HRE) emerged. We must look even beyond the classical Roman world of Augustus Caesar, Cicero, and Julius Caesar. The key to addressing contemporary nihilism lies in revisiting antiquity, which founded all the rest.
Beyond the Classical World: The Trojan Legacy
This section explores the significance of the Trojan War and Homeric epics as a liminal space where gods and mortals interacted, forming the bedrock of Western consciousness long before metaphysics took hold.
The Trojan War in the 12th century BC and its literary manifestation in the Iliad and the Odyssey in the 8th or 9th centuries BC revealed the liminal playground of the gods well before the metaphysics of Plato and Aristotle formed the western field of intellectual vision. Plato’s forms were not an advancement over a more primitive, superstitious era; they were in a different space all together. Plato’s forms and Aristotle’s metaphysics were not superior to Mount Olympus. They simply excluded and then forgot about the Olympian palace.
Plato, Aristotle, and the Veil Over Antiquity
This section examines how Platonic forms and Aristotelian metaphysics, while foundational to Christendom, obscured the earlier dynamism of the Olympian world. It argues that classical philosophy did not surpass antiquity but shifted the framework entirely.
With the Church, Platonic forms, and later Aristotelian metaphysics, founded Christendom. It was a Platonic civilization with a Christianized understanding of the forms. However, Greco-Roman antiquity was a liminal world, a place between the gods of Olympus and the mortals of Olympia. Greek antiquity was about the dynamic movement between the world of the divine and that of mortals. Christendom saw itself as ever striving to attain the eternal form of the Kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven. Antiquity saw itself as ever transforming in a lively back and forth between their world and the Olympian.
Liminality vs. Metaphysics: The Crusades and Troy
This section contrasts the motivations behind the Crusades, driven by metaphysical ideals, with the Trojan War, characterized by a direct interplay with the divine. It highlights the differing visions of what is worth defending and why.
The driving force behind the Crusades was a Christianized Platonic understanding of the world. The Crusaders were defending the Kingdom of God on earth. A liminal understanding of the world drove the Trojan War. They were told by the gods what to defend. The immortals, the “deathless ones,” moved in and out of the Greek and Trojan camps, encouraging, chastising, aiding, and frustrating the warriors. Gods and mortals alike filled the plains of Troy.
The Forgotten Playgrounds of Gods and Mortals
This section laments the modern world’s severance from the Olympian and liminal traditions of antiquity, emphasizing the cultural and spiritual barrenness left in their absence.
Our world began in the liminality of antiquity. We later cloaked ourselves in classical metaphysics. We then used metaphysics to destroy the Olympians. However, in our calculative war with the gods, we woefully left barren to decay the alethic immortal palaces and mortal plains where they had played.
Reawakening Antiquity: A Path Forward
The concluding section proposes that rediscovering the liminality and dynamism of antiquity is essential for confronting contemporary nihilism and restoring a sense of awe and meaning to the modern world.
I used ChatGPT and ProWritingAid™ to assist in editing my original work on this piece which included help in developing some descriptive content.
This looks intriguing Walter! I look forward to seeing it unfold.