I had already read other books dealing with the sacred feminine and Mary Magdalene, such as "Holy Blood, Holy Grail" and "The Da Vinci Code" and I really enjoyed this book. It really made me think about the whole idea of the wholeness of God, and the idea that a masculine God completely limits the deity. It's amazing how humans, in trying to make God into their own image, limits the deity into a half-entity.
I enjoyed the chapters about the Tarot and the symbols hidden in art. I'd love to read more on that subject.

I always enjoy reading a book that challenges the tenets of traditional Christian doctrine. Even in grade school, I intuitively felt an urge to question it while my parents insisted the family attend church every week. Yet I never questioned that Jesus was a great spiritual master. Margaret Starbird's scholarly, yet unconventional treatment of the historical role Mary Magdalen played in the life of Jesus is both refreshing and fascinating.

The book is a detailed study of the early Christian heretics, and an exploration of how their knowledge and traditions were kept secret and handed down through time in art and symbolism. One of the most important points about heresy she makes is this: "The question of heresy does not hinge on truth, but rather whether or not the doctrine is in line with the official statement of the faith." Then she goes on to provide dozens of correlations between ancient scripture, medieval art, pagan traditions, matriarchal cultures, sexual symbolism, the inquisition, the templars, gypsies, Dead Sea scrolls, tarot cards and even unicorns to support the idea that Mary Magdalen may have been married to Jesus and carried his child. The idea is that Mary herself is the Holy Grail, the vessel that carried the "blood of Christ", and that she disappeared (fled) soon after his crucifixion.

Anyone with an interest in Christian spirituality in its more mystical form will find this book fascinating. The only thing I found challenging was in trying to keep up with the author's vast knowledge of historical information, mythology and the secret teachings of the gnostics. I've read a fair amount on all of these subjects, yet often found myself struggling to follow her. It may simply be that the details were so broad and far-reaching, that a comprehensive look at all the ideas she included in her book would have made it too long. The tone of the writing seems to assume the reader already has a pretty strong background in the areas she covers.

For example, she sometimes discusses medieval art but without the appropriate illustrations to accompany the text, it is difficult to relate to it. There is a group of colored medieval art illustrations in the center of the book, but they are not dated or related to the information in the book in any more than an indirect way. We are left to guess what symbolic imagery inspired her to place them there.

Still, the book is full of interesting facts and folklore, and the author's knowledge is impressive. Personally though, I often wonder why people get so hung up on trying to prove or disprove spiritual traditions. As Margaret Starbird says herself in chapter 6: "The heretics did not simply believe a creed; they lived a life of personal encounter with God." So call me a heretic.

Moonstone Star White is the author of the spiritual growth book High Way from Hell: Using Emotion to Fan the Fire of Enlightment.

She presents interesting research but her writing style is somewhat disjointed. This makes it difficult at times to follow her train of thoughts. There have been a few instances where she has gone back to the initial theme with an "oh yes I need to tie it in" attitude. It has taken me a while to finish it because it is not enthralling as I had hoped having read several other books with this theme.

According to the back cover of this book "Margaret Starbird's theological beliefs were profoundly shaken when she read Holy Blood, Holy Grail, a book that dared to suggest that Jesus Christ was married to Mary Magdalen and that their descendants carried on his holy bloodline in Western Europe. Shocked by such heresy, this Roman Catholic scholar set out to refute it, but instead found new and compelling evidence for the existence of the bride of Jesus".

Having read Holy Blood Holy Grail and, subsequently, this book, I can say quite determinedly that this book engrossed and captivated me much more than HBHG. First of all, Starbird's writing style is much easier to handle than the one employed in HBHG. In fact, the first 25 pages read like literary fiction with Mary Magdalene being shocked that she has produced a daughter, not a son.

I loved everything about this book. The notion of the sacred feminine itself interests me a great deal and this book has handled the subject in a lucid and comfortable manner. In fact, another book The Rozabal Line has taken the Starbird notion one step further by establishing a connection between "the sacred feminine" and the "divine feminine trinity" of Eastern tradition.

When Margaret Starbird read the Holy Blood and the Holy Grail she was infuriated by it and decided to do some of her own research to refute it. However she found herself caught up in the story and with her own variant on it. Unfortunately some of the sources she found weren't particualarly historical or accurate and some of her leaps of faith are a bit overdone.

To my mind sometimes a flower is just a flower. There are many examples of artisans finding particular shapes and colours that just appealed to them, and I'm sure they could have done in their sleep to fill in backgrounds. I stitch myself and I find myself being attracted to some of the same imagery over and over, sometimes I look deeper for the meaning but sometimes that pattern just plain appeals to me. I'm sure it was the same with some of the papermakers that Starbird mentions in the book. There may have been some who had meaning but there may have been others who just picked a shape because it was easy, well known, had a relationship with their master or just plain appealed to them.

And this is the main flaw of the book. Just because an image has certain meanings to certain people does not mean that everyone imbues it with that meaning. Just because certain people or peoples imbue certain items with certain meanings does not mean that all people do the same.

It may be that Jesus married Mary Magdalene, and some of the arguments for are quite compelling (the fact that non-married men were a rarity and that this would have been mentioned in the Bible is one of many); but we may never know the truth. The truth at the moment is that Christianity has ignored the female and the feminine for a long time and this is begining to be something they may not be able to ignore for much longer.

This book gained a few points for making me think but lost some for it's slightly rigid view of the feminine and the masculine. Some of the flights of literary fancy are a little overwritten, but her heart is in the right place.