My Things with Mary Magdalene

By Andras Veszelka

This book is a novel in terms of genre. At the same time, it is a case study that presents a series of religious experiences and how the authenticity of religious experiences are currently being examined, evaluated in the Judeo-Christian cultural circle. Through concrete, personal examples, it will also be seen how researchers outside the centralized psychological-philosophical-logical research are silenced by the Hungarian and international research community. Furthermore, what price they can ask for joining this community and publishing opportunities, instead of scientific ones. It will be possible to trace the depth to which psychiatry is able to grasp spiritual phenomena, and the tools used by psychiatrists in their work. The book also presents concrete examples of how people's actions are influenced by the opinions of their own friends and family members, regardless of how thoughtful it is when people portrayed as professionals in the meantime simply reveal something else, sometimes accompanied by some sort of shreds of arguments.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Andras Veszelka
• Release date: Jul 22, 2020
• ISBN: 9786156208033

Book preview

Introduction

I finished this book half a year before getting started on my book titled The Tree of Life. Back then, not only did I not know what that book would be about, but I didn't even know that I was going to start writing it. But because I ended up getting swept up with things to do about that book, I could not publish this book either until just now. But it is better this way in many aspects. For example, I now re-read this book also, after nearly a year, and I noticed multiple problems with it. Upon re-reading it for the first time I already found it difficult to relate to the first two or so chapters of the book. After that, I could relate to a longer section of the book. And then the final part of the book became stylistically too uneven, at times solemn, or turning embarrassingly grandiose. I felt that the last part was neither properly placed into context throughout nor was it well thought out. Although in this final part the book switched from being a memoir to being a journal. So, it is understandable that the things described there were not that mature just yet. Conversely, I did not want to disrupt the content of the book. I only added a few footnotes at this time, dated June and July of 2020. Partly because I would have liked to preserve the story in its original, unchanged state. And partly because I realized that the real problem with the book was not even this; but that it was missing the appropriate interpretative framework. Most of the elements of this framework are set by my book The Tree of Life. That describes the top-down societal processes, the individual, subjective experience of which is presented in this book. In that book, it is mentioned numerous times how people in modern societies were trained to avoid independent, free thinking. This book presents more than the effects of this on my own life. The few readers of this book so far also bore the hallmarks of these effects. I believe that most of my friends who have read through the book were markedly touched by it. Having read through it, however, there was instead some sort of silence floating around the whole thing; while others did not even want to read it to begin with. The only reason I have been given as an explanation for this was that the religious side of the book sounds improbable; therefore, it is certain that it is not true. Even this one was only shared with me by one former high school classmate of mine. Even though the dictionary definitions of probability and certainty already well demonstrate that one cannot be inferred from the other. However, my former classmate said that because of this she already did not deal with the analyses of my religious experiences in the book. Given that here I was already facing a multi-stage inference system, I felt that I would have made her upset if I had begun to contest what she was saying.

It is a fact that the book begins almost right away with my account of meeting Mary Magdalene in person in my childhood. However, about whom both the readers of the story and I can know with complete certainty that were not there at the time are specifically the readers of the story. I have spent a lot of time thinking about how people can make multitudes of unquestionable decisions while being unwilling to even justify them. Sometimes I have asked my closer acquaintances how one should become ever-present and know-it-all. Because it seemed to be an attractive character. I would have liked to acquire it myself. But I rarely asked this, because even out of my closer acquaintances only a few waved me off, laughing. The others were downright offended by the question. And I liked it better when they laughed. Because of this, I did not attempt at all to borrow their books titled The World as It Is, Facts and Misconceptions, My Views and Other Basic Regularities or other, similar titles. I tried to resign to the fact that I would likely never be able to read these.

Only now, that I contemplated this book again, did I realize that the problem is likely to be that most people are simply unable to differentiate the intention to think from its result. They form a hypothesis, and they believe that it is already the final conclusion. Even though the hypothesis and the final conclusion are easily distinguishable from each other. For example, if someone reaches some kind of conclusion regarding this book, it will suffice if they pull up a sheet of paper to elaborate on their thoughts. If in such instance the sheet of paper seems like an impenetrable stone wall to them, or they are already annoyed by the very suggestion, then they only formed a hypothesis. So, they have not done any thinking, yet, but simply their internal desire for thinking was expressed. This is also how for my high school classmate mentioned above probability could transform into certainty. She had established a hypothesis for herself, for example, that I was a lunatic, and she instantly accepted this as a final conclusion. But at least she gave me enough respect upon my questions to try and derive this.

Presumably this is what is cited by the experts engaged in education policy and considered to have a progressive mentality, who say that people are not taught how to think. However, these experts have not made much progress in their mentality, either. Because independent thinking can be very easily acquired. The difference between forming a hypothesis and drawing a final conclusion is merely that we also have to test our hypothesis formed. In other words, we have to try to falsify/verify it before ourselves. This is what can be written down on the blank sheet of paper. In analytic works as well, only the description of this process can be seen – arranged in a digestible form. And if someone is unable to defend their own hypothesis even before themselves, then it is pointless for them to foist it on others. If I had to sum up in one sentence what the biggest problem might be in our contemporary societies, then I might say it is that people are constantly foisting on one another their will to think.

It is a strange phenomenon that those working in education and who shape social thought, the intellectuals (if there is anyone left who still remembers this term), are unable to tell people the above few sentences about how the intention to think can lead to result. So therefore people grind down one another and the few who still try to think independently, with their hypotheses treated as final conclusion. And since they are obviously unable to choose from the hopelessly clashing hypotheses, they organize into cliques, and decide on the basis of authority. The press, the experts, the politicians, and others tell them what kind of cliques to have and what to think in those. And on the individual level, it is customary that people mutually abdicate their clashing hypotheses, and they try not to think of them. This is viewed as tolerance. And if they insist on their opposing hypotheses, then they are on bad terms. So therefore if someone does not discard their final conclusion, which may have taken them several years of work to form, because the opposing party proactively discarded their opposing hypothesis earlier, then this person is intolerant, unfriendly, or has some other problem. Overall, therefore, because people are unable to distinguish the desire to think from its result, with their peremptory hypotheses even in the most personal sphere of life almost like hyenas they tear apart those whose thinking is different from what is expected by institutionalized common thinking.

Without an institutional background these days it is nearly impossible to advance professionally anyway. And if one is unable to advance professionally, that alone is considered as a personal flaw. Because in such cases the individual cannot provide for their own subsistence either. Or at least not in a way most people do, who still succeed in this by more or less giving up their principles. So then the environment of the individual in such cases begins to foist on them their relentless hypotheses as to what they should do differently. Although these are unsuitable for arguments, yet they serve them well as a whip. Especially, since people are unable to see the difference between the hypothesis and the final conclusion, they are also unable to recognize what lies between them. Therefore, confirmation-falsification or, expressed in a more common way, arguments for them is merely idle chatter, banter, defiance. According to progressive education policy experts, this is partly because in schools they constantly make you memorize data only. But even these progressive experts have not made it as far as realizing that at school it is not data that must be memorized primarily but connections that others have proclaimed.

On top of that, as in any other activity, mistakes can be made in independent thinking also. The sporting accidents or the rockets exploding during industrial developments gain everyone's recognition. The sportsman, the industry, they keep making heroic attempts. Everyone sees the sportsman's muscles, tightened jaws, injuries. They see the technological constructs of the industry, its excessive experiments, the material and human sacrifices of experiments gone wrong. But they see nothing in the thinker. Since what the thinker is dealing with is precisely what lies between the desire to think and its result. No matter what the thinker does there, it does not interest the education policymakers. And if people are not told on an institutional level what to think of a particular issue, then the issue practically ceases to exist.

Then, within this independent thinking, one may also have religious experiences. However, no matter how paradoxical this may seem, the Church does not analyze or research religious experiences. Therefore, in my experience, they do not help those either who turn to them with similar issues. At least not if you had not consumed their wafers for some years previously. However, even then probably nothing would happen, because I doubt that the dividing line between credible and untrustworthy religious experiences would be the amount of wafers eaten. So therefore instead of the clergy it is psychology/psychiatry, with their modern knowledge of the human soul, which come to the rescue of those who got themselves in trouble with their religious experiences. As a translator, about a year ago, I translated a test used to diagnose schizophrenics. There, the belief in God alone was already considered to be a mild psychotic symptom. And if someone thought that from time to time God spoke to them, and they paid attention to what they heard from God, that already constituted a particularly severe case. It was more positively assessed in the test if the individual thought that God spoke to them, but they paid no attention to it. In such cases they still saw a chance of recovery. There was no contextual analysis conducted during the test. They merely recorded the respondent's answers in a few sentences. And then, based on an answer key, if in these few sentences there was simply any mention of God, a divine message, or any attention given to these, then they drew the tick marks. When during such diagnoses they ask questions, they only do this to see what sort of tick marks they can still draw. Of course, the respondents themselves could also be drawing the tick marks just the same. But then they, as well as their environment, could also see the basis upon which their fate is decided. And then they might get nervous. But this way, they are not. The answer keys are usually patented, confidential. Those who end up at the psychiatrist, as well as their families, never find out that the psychiatrists were only drawing tick marks. They are likely to believe for the rest of their lives that the experts made their decisions relying on their complex expertise. The less discernible indication there is of what they decided, the stronger this belief.

It will be discussed in the book that one time a psychiatric ward analyzed the authenticity of my religious experiences as well. By the same means. Therefore, I am able to say that no contextual analysis took place after drawing the tick marks, either. The tick marks drawn became the unquestionable truth. In theory, for eternity.

And the clergy has absolutely no objection to this. They do not go the psychiatric wards to see if any of the religious experiences appearing there might be authentic. They do not care. And the psychiatrists do not care that the clergy had been erecting giant buildings for one and a half millennium, primarily for the specific purpose of setting examples for others through people who also thought that God had spoken to them, and who also took special care to pay it attention.

In the event that one test element raises some concern, this tick-mark-drawing tribunal under martial law is still lenient in their convictions. Religious experiences, however, are obviously accompanied by hearing voices, perhaps visual experiences and, in certain cases, some feelings of being chosen, or a sense of mission. And each of these, as far as I could see, is considered as a separate, independent test element. And on such occasions the protocol already urges a summary conviction.

This is partly the reason why in my other book I call this process the inquisition of the modern age. Especially, since similarly to the medieval inquisition this, too, is targeted not only against religious experiences but against any type of novel, unique concepts in general. Let us imagine, for example, that before the Moon landing as a technology/theory was becoming publicly known, one of its staff members had been escorted to an office like this to have them summarize in a few sentences whether they think that the flight to the Moon was possible. Based on the few sentences given, they therefore draw the tick mark, yes. And then, clearly without even the desire for physics or mathematical calculation arising in them, they decide that they think it is impossible. Thus, they inscribe this as a worrying signal. Then they ask the individual what makes them think that this is possible. If the individual happens to speak at some length, from that, too, only the essence meaning, a few sentences is noted. Or perhaps in this case they also draw the tick mark next to overactive thinking. However, no matter the specific scientific area of the theory they might be discussing, the essence in a few lines could only be something along the lines that the individual has a novel theory; that they understood something better than others. To their misfortune, however, according to the answer key, in such cases another tick mark must be drawn. So they ask the individual if they view themselves as being smarter or better than others. But, should they not think that their approach is better than those already in existence, then why would they work on it? So then they are compelled to say that yes, in some respect. So then they draw the tick mark on yes. (Unfortunately, the answer key here only allows for this narrow recording of the answer.) So therefore the clinical picture already begins to take shape, and it gets increasingly worse the stronger the individual believes in their theory and the larger the hierarchical gap between them and their professional opponents who reject their work. With the exception of someone calling from the university to say, um, this individual works there or studies there and their calculations are fine or promising. Because then those in possession of this great knowledge of the human soul will determine that, oh yeah, all right, they were mistaken then. But if no one calls the institution about someone from the universities or the Church or any other professional or governmental organization, then the determination will be made that the individual is unfortunately crazy. With which they actually set the person off on the road to going crazy. Because right off the bet their immediate environment is told very firmly that unfortunately this is how they must be treated. But even their wider environment will be seeing the label on them constantly, Caution; dangerous or pathetic. You are safe only if you, too, notice this. And then they wish the individual much success, and let them go home.

Of course, mandatory chemical (so-called medical) punishment is only imposed if the individual is classifiable as a danger to themselves or to the public. Based on a few additional tick marks. But those who walk their own paths will sooner or later be ground down anyway by their existential problems, the unquestionable hypotheses of their environment, the one-upmanship of the experts who compromise and draw tick marks, and by a label that they might have been branded with earlier. One day they will be consumed by rage, or they will consume themselves with their suppressed rage. So therefore, in the long run, the road leads downhill indeed, unless they give up their activities or integrate into some institution after all. In this book I will mostly present specific examples from the psychologyphilosophy profession, to illustrate what is actually asked for in return for integrating into an institution. In my other book I widely talk about how much the intellectual professions have generally not been themselves anymore on the social level. Thus, I am almost certain that in return for the institutional support similar compromises are requested in other intellectual professions as well. By the way, psychiatric medications are also very expensive. And the state can only help the patients by paying almost the full price of these from taxes. This may be one of the reasons why drawing the tick marks should not be discov-ered and, as it will be discussed in the book, for making potential discontinuation of the medication as difficult as possible.

Incidentally, it is an interesting phenomenon that psychiatric tests only contain philosophical and spiritual issues as sources of problems. For instance, there is no limit set for the number of dimensions in a mathematical space that is still healthy. But they also fail to ask anyone if they have ever heard of the string theories and, if they have, how much attention they paid to them. My other book discusses what could have caused the scales to tip this much in modern societies toward natural sciences.

A year ago I still wrote this book anonymously, because back then I still believed that it was me who should have been ashamed of it. As I did not want to disrupt the flow of the text, I still only provided the specific information in footnotes at this time. Additionally, at some places, particularly at the end of the book, I furnished new, longer analytical footnotes to try to help the reader better understand the content.

As far as the authenticity of the religious experiences described in the book is concerned, the reader will probably never be able to decide on this with full confidence. Especially if they believe that my arguments are actually relatively on point. But this is how it should be. Religion should be cloaked in a veil of uncertainty even when some of the religious experiences may actually be real. Because each person must decide for themselves, make choices for themselves. Not with the aim to get rewarded or punished later on, but to avoid having someone else tell them constantly what is right and what isn't. Something like this would not bring results anyway in the long run. But people also enjoy life less if they must constantly follow the dictates of others. So the readers will probably try to rely on bits and pieces of connections gathered from here and there to decide if this story is real or if I have gone mad. Just to give my two cents to help with the decision on this matter, contrary to popular belief I do not think it would be harmful to mental health even in the long run if we made no decision on what we cannot decide on.

This is perhaps the main framework that may make it easier for the readers to interpret and approach this book.

But naturally I, too, have changed through living the story. Today I see many things differently. For example, my interpretation of the Bible in my book titled The Tree of Life has become greatly refined, in my opinion. The readers will also see that I myself have struggled a lot in this book with the question whether my religious experiences were real or not. I think that The Tree of Life provides further useful information in this respect also, and it outlines a picture that seems to be a relatively coherent image overall.

Similarly, in the story of this book I still took the approach relating to Mary as if she was my lover. Today I see this this more nuanced as well. The matter could have been true within the framework of the story to the extent that this was probably the way it could touch me the deepest. I mention a girl in this book in passing that I partially grew up with around the age of 1–2. We could have been around 3–4 years old when we were separated; during the time when children begin to awaken to consciousness. Our relationship, therefore, still preceded this state. The families and relatives perceived this as childhood love. I think this was simply the best term they could come up with. Today, I think that we might have been functioning together as some sort of joint consciousness. One time during the past months I may have successfully remembered that we could have shared part of the perception of the world with each other. There were things that she perceived better, and there were some that I perceived better. We simply read these off each other's faces; or we sensed what the other one was thinking. For us, this was the most natural thing in the world. Only others would trip on words. The truly great love stories of youth, the kind in which the lovers die almost simultaneously at the end of their lives because they can't live without each other, generally begin much later in life. And I already lost this whole thing for good by the time I was 6–8 years old. And at the age of 6–8 one simply cannot die from this. But my consciousness must have already borne this girl's unique handprint so much by then that afterward it was already impossible for anyone else to reproduce this. But I came to understand this, too, only a few months ago. Previously, this had always appeared before me only as an unconscious choice. I have always felt that I either betray what I consider to be love, or I have to live out my life alone. I chose the latter. Perhaps the girl chose the former.

So, this was the contextual framework in which I met Mary when I was around 10–11 years old, as the story goes, the description of which actually starts off this book. Considering that for those who believe in such things she is a higher spiritual entity, she was able to place her own signature into this unique handprint. Not long ago, being awoken from a daze of half-sleep, I saw a vision before my mind's eye that I seem to represent for her from the other side what the shadow is for a tree. And then another, that God is an infinite forest. I've been told it was time for me to grow up.

When in the story I met Mary, this thing did not feel like love to me at that time either. Then, too, it was simply the most natural thing in the world that she was there with me.

As the story describes, when I first met Mary I had to ask her for something. She said that was customary. I could have asked anything of her, and she would have granted it. While writing this book I did not yet recognize the significance of this, but I already remember knowing even back then that Mary would only stay for a few hours, and then I will never be able to see her again for the rest of my life.

And this had a significant impact on how I reacted to the situation. Because the one single thing that I would have wanted to ask of her was that she should just stay with me. Not in this afterlife-remote relationship sort of way, but the way it is otherwise customary in general. But I could not ask this of her, because I would have found this very unnatural. But if I had asked anything else of her, then I would not have told the truth. I could not even come up with anything else that I could ask of her. On top of that, if I had asked for anything else of her, then afterward, when we met again, she could have asked me if she had granted my request. And I could have said, yes, she did. To which she could have said, well then, go ahead, get on with your business. And if later I had said that this was not what I had wanted to ask of her, then she surely would have asked me why I didn't ask for what I wanted and why I asked for this instead. Which I would have found difficult to explain. Meanwhile, however, Mary kept pushing it, that I should still ask for something from her. But then this way I could not ask of her anything. At the end of the book Mary mentions that I also could have asked her to just simply go away. But this would have been nothing but an escape route for me, in case I decided that I'd rather not take on this situation. But my problem was precisely that I didn't want Mary to go away. So therefore I could definitely not ask her to do this. The only solution, therefore, was that I had to ask something of her while there was nothing good for me to ask of her. Which, of course, made me more and more frustrated. On top of that, I also became unsure about which side Mary was on, having set such a trap for me. And it was also suspicious that it would be this simple to get Mary. So, in the end this is why I told her or, as she interpreted it, this is why I asked her, to go to hell. To which she said, as it will be apparent, only after me. This will follow all along this book how I kept going back to being torn about why I told Mary to go to hell. The readers will see that I was unable to figure out the real reason all the way through the end of the book.

The book does not mention, either, although I already knew this at the time of its writing, that there are two ways to go to hell. Either still in our lifetime, actively, or in the afterlife, but then passively. In other words, as per our agreement that we eventually concluded with Mary, if I undertook the ordeal due to the issue still in my lifetime, then she also undertook the same ordeal the same way for me. But if in my lifetime I simply would have left it at that, then afterward she would not have come after me actively to hell, either. But, for example, only for a visit.

Then in the end it seems that I undertook the ordeal still in my lifetime. On top of that, having asked Mary – using a more positive wording – to fight for me have still equipped me with some sort of bargaining position. Because if Mary will ask me if she has fulfilled my request, then I will be able to tweak it, questioning compared to what, what is considered fulfillment, how can it be measured, and so on. Therefore, this seemingly worst answer was the best possible one that I could give. Others may believe, of course, that in the story I acted like an idiot. Firstly, because Mary did not come to send me away. Secondly, because it does not matter what I come up with, I would still not be able to force her into something that she does not want. And thirdly, because it is possible that I could not have even figured out on my own that I could have phrased my request in a positive way, too. For I could have asked her to arrange things in a way that when the time would come for her to decide, she would decide with the greatest possible chance that she would become my everything. Nevertheless, it could have been still just acceptable from a 10–11-year old child not to be able to formulate such elaborate and sophisticated language. At least if this was, indeed, the root of the problem. So therefore it is also understandable that according to the story, as you will read later, God did not like it that this is what I asked of Mary. He must have thought, Are you this big of a hell-beast that you push away from you for no reason my most sacred treasure? Or are you only having difficulties expressing yourself?

But his way in the story at least the balance of my sense of justice could be restored, because I still had to fight for Mary. For instance, if throughout my life in my own unconscious way I would have made any compromise at any time in connection with something that I otherwise believe to be right, then afterward I probably would not have been able to explain why I was intolerant of a compromise when it came to Mary when I told her to go to hell. If, however, I was only having difficulties expressing myself, then that could be greatly helped already by writing two books.

With the presupposition that the readers still have their sheet of paper at hand, I would like to note one more thing here; that after writing The Tree of Life I even find it conceivable that this whole thing was actually a test as well, to see how much a person is capable of love, to what length one goes in fighting for a love so deeply rooted and so unaffected by external influences. Which Mary, according to the story, ultimately adopted from the previous unconscious love of my early childhood. In this respect, my second book extensively analyses Cain from the Bible who, as I describe there, I believe was also the redactor of the Biblical story of the fall into sin. A redactor, who depicted himself first as a snake in the story of the fall into sin, and later as Cain. In that book there is extensive discussion about Cain's unusually strong rationalism, and about his task which, besides respecting the truth, was actually supposed to be to elevate the heart (in psychological terms, the unconscious mind). However, he was chasing knowledge instead, which is why he ended up buried under his heartless rationalism on a personal level as well. And afterward his approach was widely spread, at the social level also. For me, in my particular case, my subconscious might have been unusually strong and, consequently, everything that we associate with the subconscious. Therefore, in line with this analogy, I had to work very hard primarily on my rationalism in order to be able to balance my subconscious impulses.

I actually asked Mary once, why is it that I would have