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Overview of The Mystical Power of Women
The Dalai Lama said to Andrew Harvey in 1989, “The world will be saved by spiritually empowered women and the men that honor, support and learn from them.” Andrew Harvey’s work has been dedicated to the “Return of the Mother”, the return of the full power of the divine feminine in its fierceness as well as its tenderness, its passion for justice and equality as well as its loving honoring of full life.
This course, “The Mystical Power of Women”, is designed for all women on all paths but also for all men who long to integrate the mystical power of the divine feminine into their own masculine and so become more grounded, passionate and compassionate in the defense of life against the forces that now so obviously menace it. In this course, Andrew Harvey concentrates on the Christian mystical tradition, on a radical revisioning of its two crucial feminine figures, Mother Mary and Mary Magdalene, and on two as yet little known but revolutionary mystic women saints, Hadewijch of Antwerp and Elizabeth of the Trinity, who drew their deepest and most empowering inspiration from them. Andrew Harvey hopes that both women and men will find in his presentation of the witness, lives and teachings of these astonishing women the empowerment, courage and wisdom that he continues to do, with gratitude and amazement.
Lesson 1:
Mother Mary: The Jewel of Soft Radical Power
The patriarchal church could not help honoring Mary for obvious reasons, but imprisoned her splendor and power by relentlessly celebrating her as humble, gentle, patient and self effacing.
Andrew Harvey will show that this is a damaging half truth by diving into the full story of Mary’s life and teachings that reveal her as both humble and radical, gentle and fierce in her passion for justice and for social, economic, political revolution in the name, and through the transforming power of, Love.
Lesson 2:
Mary Magdalene: The Jewel of Passion
The traditional interpretation of Mary Magdalene as a repentant prostitute, which held sway for two millennia, was detonated by the discovery of the Gnostic Gospels in 1945 especially the Gospel of Mary and the Gospel of Phillip and by the astonishing publication of her own gospel kept hidden by the Cathars, The Gospel of the Beloved Companion, into 2010. These reveal Mary Magdalene as far more than one of Jesus’ loving followers, far more even than what the church has called her, the Apostle of the Apostles. The one person who truly understood Jesus’ mystical teaching, his most beloved companion essential to the true revelation. Andrew Harvey is currently writing a book on Mary Magdalene and will present its essential claims, that Mary Magdalene was in fact Jesus’ wife, that her unique and passionate truth and wisdom instructed Jesus as deeply as Jesus’ wisdom infused her, and that the Grail is not an object but the vision and tradition of Transfiguration that their mutual love birthed and seeded for all of us to be transformed by.
Lessons 3:
Hadewijch of Antwerp: The Jewel of Nobility
Hadewijch of Antwerp is one of humanity’s greatest and most inspired female mystics. In his new book, Love is Everything: A Year of Hadewijch of Antwerp, Andrew Harvey presents in 365 poems, visions and contemplations her glorious uncompromising voice, silenced for six centuries. Hadewijch was a beguine and lived in the first half of the 13th century in the vibrant spring of the Beguine movement that empowered tens of thousands of spiritual women to live free, sacred lives beyond marital or ecclesiastical control. The church brutally suppressed the movement in the 14th country and Hadewijch’s work was forgotten until the 19th century. The governing vision of Hadewijch was of the soul’s nobility, a nobility forged in suffering, revelation and a relentless brave commitment to sacred service and to telling truth to power, whatever the price and consequences. Andrew Harvey will celebrate this sublime woman and show how her vision of nobility empowers us all in our chaotic and dangerous times.
Lesson 4:
Elizabeth of the Trinity: The Jewel of Praise
Elizabeth of the Trinity was a Carmelite nun who lived between 1880 and 1906 when her young life was tragically cut short by Addison’s disease. She was canonized by Pope Francis in 2016 which has led to an astonishing spread of her work worldwide. In the last months of her terrible illness she wrote what are being widely recognized as magnificent and original mystical masterpieces. In them she proclaims her own mission and the essential mission of all true mystics as being one of becoming what she calls (drawing on Saint Paul), a “Praise of Glory”. Elizabeth used the extreme suffering visited on her not to howl or complain but to dive so deep into love that she became herself transfigured into a living praise of glory in such a way that she completely transformed the lives of those around her who witnessed this rugged miracle. In his presentation, Andrew Harvey will dive deep into what Elizabeth meant by being a Bride of Christ and what her astounding writings on becoming a Praise of Glory have to teach us all about how to live in sacred power in our agonizing times.
About Andrew Harvey
Andrew Harvey is Founder & Director of the Institute for Sacred Activism, an international organization focused on inviting concerned people to take up the challenge of our contemporary global crises by becoming inspired, effective, and practical agents of institutional and systemic change, in order to create peace and sustainability.
Sacred Activism is a transforming force of compassion-in-action that is born of a fusion of deep spiritual knowledge, courage, love, and passion, with wise radical action in the world. The large-scale practice of Sacred Activism can become an essential force for preserving and healing the planet and its inhabitants.
