by Tamra Lucid.
I heard a lot about the Space Mother Principle. Marie told me I intuitively, down to my DNA, got what she meant. After hours of explanations, charts, statistics, graphics, I felt like I was under hypnotic trance. Two hours into it Marie hadn’t taken a breath. It looked like Manly Hall had been snoozing for an hour, and I had a headache. Marie paused to ask Mr. Hall if he knew a certain date. Eyes still closed he was right there with it. I thought the old boy had nodded off.
By the end of her stream of consciousness, I felt groggy from a non-stop utopian Germanic monologue. Ronnie seemed to be following her theory. He surprised her by asking questions that I didn’t understand. Her beaming smile lit the room. “You see, Manly, he gets it! He’s young, he doesn’t need those dusty books!” Mr. Hall glanced at me with a comical expression of sorrow, which of course made me laugh. “Oh, Papa!” Marie scolded Mr. Hall. As always, our reward for our patience was dessert.
Marie talked about the Space Mother Principle with great affection. Like Marie, the Space Mother remained unknown despite offering salvation for all. Because the Space Mother was the source of all creation, enlightenment had to be inevitable. “People will wake up,” she’d smile with animated conviction, “I’ll bet you dollars to donuts.”
What was Marie’s Space Mother? The Goddess behind all the other Gods and Goddesses, that gave them being and place. Her infinite love allows them to forget her. Marie was moved by that forgetting, and by the selfless love of the Space Mother willing to be forgotten. Infatuated with power, certain Gods forgot the Space Mother. The creations of their amnesia trap souls in bodies. As above so below, when the Gods forget we all forget, and that is how we human beings forgot our true natures.
For Marie the second coming of Christ was nothing less than the awakening of the higher consciousness in every single human being. Her eyes welled up with tears as she described the grace and the grandeur, the billions of infinitely merciful hands of the bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara.
Marie practiced a unique form of astrology. Her mythological approach gave the planets souls and personalities. The planet Jupiter is no mere gaseous giant named after an ancient Roman deity. As far as Marie was concerned the Romans had rebranded the ancient Greek ruler of the gods Zeus. The planet Jupiter, then, is the vehicle of Zeus in the ongoing evolution of civilization. By understanding how celestial Jupiter has interacted with humanity throughout history an astrologer can see the actual will of Zeus in action.
Marie used Roman numerals to explain how consciousness divides into matter, a complicated process involving vibrations, angles, directions and dimensions. I was touched by her view of time as a merciful law of the universe, eternity’s power of creating imaginary divisions and measures to allow even the most humble beings to evolve. She pointed out that she never wore a watch, “I have too much respect for time to wear it on my wrist.”
Right about now you may be wondering how I remember so much detail about Marie’s beliefs after I said I didn’t get it. Repetition, my dear reader, repetition.
Central to her mission was the Universal Reformation as understood by the Rosicrucians. However, Marie’s Universal Reformation was a truly equal society of plenty where no one would horde while others lacked. A world where women, with our soulful understanding of life would wake humanity from the nightmare of history.
Marie took initiate fever to a different level. Perhaps it’s best to let her explain in her own words:
Whether or not we have recognized them, or appreciated them as such, throughout immature microcosmic Soul and Family-history on Earth and in Time, solar enlightened, and soul-enlightened members of either our own macrocosmic Solar Family system, or “relatives” and professional members pertaining to other space-studding cosmic-solar Family-systems, perhaps even to “more advanced” and therefore “enlightened” microcosmic offspring of other Solar-Family systems, etc., have periodically become incarnated from among our human earth-generations for specific assignment to a divine-parentally appointed task.
Marie’s favorite term for these higher beings from other worlds incarnating into ours to help us was “babysitters.” Her Francis Bacon was the reincarnation of not only Adam, but also Saint Peter, born the legitimate son of Queen Elizabeth I, from her secret marriage with the Earl of Leceister.
Marie considered the fictional character Dr. Dolittle an esoteric key to the understanding of Francis Bacon’s mission. Dolittle had regained Adam’s language, and so he could talk to the animals, symbolic of Bacon’s many scientific pursuits that allowed nature to speak her secrets.
Marie found reflections of her theories in unlikely places: a patriotic Red Cross poster distributed to American schools during World War II, mysterious marks on Colonial gravestones, a children’s movie starring Rex Harrison, the obscure poetry books The Sonnets of G.S.O., and The Testament of Beauty by Robert Bridges.
Marie unabashedly plundered all religions for her metaphors. The entire world magnified the meaning of her theories. She discovered obscure connections between people who otherwise had nothing in common. Secret messages were broadcast to her from any place, even billboards and dreams.
In her magnum opus, Inquiry Into the Nature of Space and of Life in Space, Marie expressed optimism that it would be the mothers of humanity whose conscience and consciousness would first awaken. She had boundless faith in the power of mothers to change society for the good of their progeny. To Marie all human beings were one family, of what she called immature soul collectives. For her the world was a glorious creation of generations of beings incarnate and otherwise, but also an illusion, and a pitfall, where the infinite forgets itself in the finite. But divine love shines always. Love is the way to grace. Marie considered herself a Christian, but she was unlike any Christian I had ever met, or ever would again. Her father had been a school teacher in Germany, and a devout Catholic. She laughed that her grandfather’s name had been Christian Teufel, Christian Devil. In her philosophy even the most fallen angel could and would be saved, she called this the Christ-Lucifer Reconciliation.
Occasionally, impressionable guests were moved to declare that Marie must indeed be a master, like her husband. Marie didn’t accept that praise. She pointed out that to be a master you had to have slaves, and she had no interest in slaves, even if they were willing. “We’re all in this together,” she’d say earnestly.
This is an excerpt chapter from Making the Ordinary Extraordinary: My Seven Years in Occult Los Angeles with Manly Palmer Hall, published in 2021 by Inner Traditions.