We Can Do Hard Things

Women’s Voices So Dangerous They Buried Them: Meggan Watterson

November 25, 2025

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  • The erasure of women's gospels, such as the Gospel of Mary, beginning in the Fourth Century was a deliberate tactic by empire-aligned powers to suppress spiritual information that decentralized authority and promoted self-connection. 
  • The concept of the Divine Feminine acts as a 'corrective lens' to a predominantly masculine view of the divine, allowing for a fuller perception of God or love. 
  • The story of Saint Thecla, who defied patriarchal expectations and baptized herself, serves as a powerful, though suppressed, precedent for female spiritual leadership and self-authority within early Christianity. 
  • The practice of seeing through the 'eye of the heart' involves affirming the body's worth as the soul's chance to be present, using intentional breaths to drop consciousness inward toward the soul or voice of love, which is characterized by clarity, completeness, and unconditional love. 
  • Those guided by an inner voice, like the saint Thecla, may face persecution or misunderstanding from others loyal to different structures, but this inner guidance provides an unshakable foundation. 
  • Reclaiming the feminine, as modeled by Thecla's triumph and embrace with the Queen, involves rejecting the patriarchal conditioning that forces women to compete for limited power and instead fostering trust and collective strength within sisterhood. 

Segments

Introduction and Guest Context
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(00:00:00)
  • Key Takeaway: The episode is a crucial ’tentpole’ for the season, promising life-changing insights about missing spiritual narratives.
  • Summary: This conversation was planned as a cornerstone of the current season of We Can Do Hard Things. Guest Meggan Watterson is a Harvard-trained feminist theologian whose work focuses on reclaiming silenced female voices from biblical scripture. The discussion aims to reveal what has been missing from established religious narratives and how reclaiming it can change one’s life.
Defining the Divine Feminine
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(00:05:10)
  • Key Takeaway: The Divine Feminine encompasses female embodiment of the divine, female mystics, and the spiritual practice of connecting inward through contemplative prayer.
  • Summary: The Divine Feminine includes images and stories of the goddess across world religions, such as Inanna and Kali. It also refers to the spiritual practice of connecting to the divine from within the body via contemplative prayer or meditation. Lacking this perspective is described as seeing the divine like a cyclops, needing the feminine lens for fuller sight.
Erasure of Mary Magdalene
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(00:06:50)
  • Key Takeaway: Mary Magdalene’s gospel was labeled apocryphal in the Fourth Century, leading to her later defamation as a penitent prostitute by the Sixth Century.
  • Summary: The empire under Constantine labeled scriptures like the Gospel of Mary as ‘apocryphal’ (of doubtful authenticity) to align religion with imperial power. This erasure undermined her position as a spiritual leader, solidifying an exclusive male succession of divine authority. Internalizing this silencing causes individuals to doubt the authenticity of their own inner voice of truth or love.
The Bible’s Political Creation
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(00:10:32)
  • Key Takeaway: The canonical Bible was curated in the Fourth Century by removing gospels, like Mary’s, that promoted female leadership or encouraged looking inward, as this decentralized power away from the empire.
  • Summary: The stories currently in the Bible were written around the same time as those excluded, such as the Gospel of Mary. Constantine co-opted Christianity, removing texts that contradicted the power structure he was establishing. Texts encouraging direct, inward connection to the divine were removed because the empire needed people looking to external authorities for power.
Preservation of Suppressed Texts
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(00:13:16)
  • Key Takeaway: Rebellious monks preserved suppressed gospels, including the Gospel of Mary, by literally burying them in urns in the Egyptian desert, where they were rediscovered largely after 1945.
  • Summary: The edict to destroy scriptures proving female leadership (like the Gospel of Mary and the Acts of Paul and Thecla) was defied by monks who buried the texts. The Gospel of Mary was found in several locations along the Nile, indicating its prior popularity, similar to a ‘New York Times bestseller.’ This buried information symbolizes knowledge that was also hidden within the human spirit.
Mary Magdalene’s Gospel Insights
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(00:15:11)
  • Key Takeaway: The Gospel of Mary presents a metaphysical map where Christ teaches her that ‘where the mind is, there is the treasure,’ with ‘mind’ referring to the nous, or the spiritual eye of the heart.
  • Summary: In the Gospel of Mary, Peter acknowledges her as a sister, indicating radical equality practiced by early Christians. Christ’s teaching emphasizes that direct perception of the divine comes from the nous, the spiritual eye of the heart, not just the soul or spirit. Mary’s unwavering belief in her inner vision is what made her worthy of receiving these teachings before Christ’s separation.
Sin vs. Egoic Powers
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(00:26:00)
  • Key Takeaway: The Gospel of Mary states there is no original sin; rather, ‘sin’ is the misunderstanding where one identifies with the ego instead of recognizing one’s true nature as love.
  • Summary: Sin is defined as ‘missing the mark’ by mistaking the ego for the soul, not as an intrinsic flaw originating with Eve. The seven powers listed in Mary’s gospel, later distorted into the seven deadly sins, are described as ‘climates’ or aspects of the ego that humans are meant to experience. The practice is to awaken within these states, listen to the information they provide, and then release them through self-emptying love (kenosis) before acting.
The True Human and Salvation
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(00:52:51)
  • Key Takeaway: The true human (anthropos) is understood as being both fully human (experiencing egoic powers) and fully divine (connected to the eternal soul), a concept radical in a time when women were considered subhuman.
  • Summary: To be fully human means embodying both the egoic aspects and the soul, which is the part connected to eternal love that survives the ego’s death. The early Christian concept of salvation meant ’to be made more alive’ in the present, not just achieving life after death. This emphasis on immediate aliveness and direct connection contrasts with messages designed to keep power centralized by encouraging suffering now.
The Significance of Saint Thecla
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(00:58:39)
  • Key Takeaway: Saint Thecla’s story, found in the suppressed Acts of Paul and Thecla, demonstrates a conversion path where she moves from patriarchal confinement to self-baptism and ministry, proving a precedent for female spiritual authority.
  • Summary: Thecla resisted external expectations by meditating for three days, choosing the desire of her soul over societal roles like marriage. When facing execution, she was stripped bare, yet the governor marveled at the power of her soul surviving the loss of external identity. She ultimately baptized herself after Paul refused, demonstrating that spiritual authority is claimed from within, not granted externally.
Sponsor Read: Gain Detergent
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(01:17:37)
  • Key Takeaway: Gain Detergent released a limited edition ‘Wicked for Good’ collection collaborating with the world of Oz.
  • Summary: The Gain Detergent Flings in Fantabulous Floral is highlighted for making laundry smell delightful, adding joy to the chore. This limited edition collaboration immerses users into the Wicked universe through scent. The Gain Wicked for Good collection is available nationwide.
New Show Promotion
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(01:18:24)
  • Key Takeaway: Abby introduced the new sports-focused show, ‘Welcome to the Party,’ co-hosted with a friend.
  • Summary: The new show, ‘Welcome to the Party,’ celebrates and uplifts stories around athletes and leaders across various sports like soccer, basketball, and hockey. Its mission is to bring the joy and love of sport to the audience. New episodes are released every Tuesday and Thursday.
Sponsor Read: Mill Food Recycler
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(01:19:19)
  • Key Takeaway: Mill is an odorless food recycler that converts scraps, including bones, into nutrient-rich grounds overnight.
  • Summary: Mill processes food scraps like pie crusts and turkey bones into grounds with zero odor, keeping the kitchen clean even after hosting. The resulting grounds can be added to compost, used for plants, or sent to an independent farm. A major sale runs from November 20th through December 1st, with a standing discount code available.
Soul Voice Meditation Practice
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(01:20:35)
  • Key Takeaway: The ‘soul voice meditation’ involves three intentional breaths to affirm body worth, drop consciousness inward, and merge with the spiritual eye of the heart.
  • Summary: The practice begins by understanding the body is as worthy as the soul, serving as the body’s chance to be here. The first intentional breath locates consciousness inward, while the second merges with the soul or ‘voice of love,’ which offers clear, complete, and loving guidance. The third breath surfaces the practitioner, feeling more embodied and seeing clearly with the eyes of love.
Interpreting Persecution and Inner Guidance
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(01:25:11)
  • Key Takeaway: Experiencing persecution or abandonment when guided by inner truth should be reframed as listening to different ‘music’ than those operating from external conditioning.
  • Summary: When facing external chaos, like Thecla did, one should avoid viewing it as abandonment but rather as a difference in internal guidance systems. Being guided by innerness makes one unshakable because the source is direct, even if others do not hear the same voice. This perspective allows for a more peaceful, less binary response to those who do not understand one’s path.
Agency and Embodiment
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(01:27:54)
  • Key Takeaway: The luxury of choice, which is lost during trauma, is reclaimed by seeing that the truest source of power always exists within our own embodiment.
  • Summary: Thecla’s story models reclaiming personal agency siphoned off to others throughout life. Being human offers the practice of merging with love’s presence to choose what is right for oneself, breaking repeating traumatic patterns. We are only as far from power as we are from our own embodiment.
Feminine Triumph and Sisterhood
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(01:30:04)
  • Key Takeaway: The triumph of the feminine, exemplified by Thecla and the Queen embracing, represents unconditional love freed from patriarchal expectations and the need to fight for scraps of power.
  • Summary: The reclamation of the feminine involves freeing women and mothers/daughters from indoctrinating daughters into patriarchy or fighting over limited power. This ancient healing requires believing in the inner voice of love and trusting each other, rejecting the doubt that discounts women and severs the power of sisterhood and the collective.
Missing Gospel Pages Metaphor
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(01:33:03)
  • Key Takeaway: The missing four pages of Mary’s gospel are a call to action: to actively fill in the absence of love by embodying it personally, regardless of external narratives.
  • Summary: The missing pages are hoped to surface literally, but metaphorically, they represent the work of knowing and remembering that the presence of love is meant for the individual. The personal calling is to figure out how to continue being a presence of love even in its absence. The rest of that story remains unwritten by the individual.
Concluding Thoughts and Book Promotion
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(01:34:50)
  • Key Takeaway: Meggan Watterson’s work helps people find themselves, and her books, Mary Magdalene Revealed and The Girl Who Baptized Herself, are considered required reading.
  • Summary: The hosts praised Watterson’s ability to help listeners find themselves and suggested she create a supplemental brochure to offer a corrective lens for interpreting scripture in churches. Her books are described as scholarly, personal, and gorgeous. The episode concludes with gratitude for Watterson’s contribution.