Panel: RE-MEMBERING MEDUSA. A RADICAL AND INTERSECTIONAL REVISIONING OF CONTEMPORARY SPIRITUALITY



169.2 - "RE-MEMBERING" MARY MAGDALENE. A RETROSPECTIVE READING OF HER-STORY IN NEOPAGAN DIGITAL SPIRITUALITIES

AUTHORS:
Stornaiuolo P. (University of Bari "Aldo Moro" ~ Bari ~ Italy)
Text:
This contribution investigates the practices of symbolic re-signification carried out by Neopagan Priestesses of Mary Magdalene, who consciously draw from a heterogeneous archive of sources (e.g. canonical and apocryphal texts, medieval legends and New Age repertoire) to construct a polyfunctional and strategically oriented image of the Magdalene figure. Adopting a retrospective perspective and the lens of reception history, the paper frames this exegetical operation as a form of interpretive drift. It aims to deconstruct the patriarchal narratives of Abrahamic traditions and promote not only a new "her-story", but an alternative spirituality centered on the sacralization of the female body and the rehabilitation of eros as a path to knowledge. Through an analysis conducted using digital ethnography tools, the paper demonstrates how this re-created Magdalene -an apostle, initiate into the mysteries of the womb, and spouse- is disseminated and ritualized on social media platforms, particularly Instagram. These digital spaces configure themselves as veritable temples of the Magdalene, where carefully coded self-presentation strategies - from evocative nicknames and curated visual branding (roses, uterine iconographies, clothing) to the performance of specific rituals- transform devotion into an act of communal self-legitimation. The paper argues that these dynamics represent an intentional strategy of mythopoietic reappropriation. The continuous reshaping of Mary Magdalene thus reveals a broader cultural process of "re-membering": a political reassembly of fragmented memories, aimed at creating new sacred imaginaries in which the feminine, the corporeal and the marginal become central to the contemporary negotiation of female identity and its physical and symbolic spaces of power.