My personal journey has been particularly lonesome for a long time. I had found a ring that constituted the meeting point between quantum physics and depth psychology, between inner and outer. But academic science rejected the ring, because it was a symbol of love and relatedness, a symbol of the holy marriage. In an active imagination of theoretical physicist Wolfgang Pauli, the ring was called ‘the fourth.’ A Chinese lady, a personification of the divine Sophia, told him: ‘You forget the fourth, the timeless. That alone is the unity in the conflict between the three (past, present, future) which constitutes life itself.’

I was unable to share the ring with the world of science and for 17 years I lived as if I had never found the ring which the Chinese lady had taken from her finger to declare: ‘The ring is the marriage and at the same time the realm of the middle, which you can never reach alone but only in pairs.’ One of the difficulties was that there was no woman in my life suited to make that journey with me to the realm of the middle. Such a woman was called in alchemy a mystical sister. She only comes by surprise and by fate. 

At the beginning of Spring in the year 2011 Mary Magdalene entered my life during a workshop guided by Judith Moore, a conscious trance-medium and messenger of the feminine Christ. For me Mary Magdalene came as a life saver, as a ‘saving angel,’ as we say in Dutch. She started to help my family survive difficult times. I knew she was the female Christ and the Living Grail. In March 2012 Mary Magdalene spoke to me through Judith trying to reconcile me with the disappointments in my life. Basically there was nothing lost: ‘You will succeed.’

That summer I went with my wife Inge to Glastonbury to thank Mary Magdalene and Joseph of Arimathea for their support. Next I started to write two books in Dutch about Mary Magdalene. They were based on the transmissions of Judith. I was not able to put my experience of the ring into the books, but I could benefit from my book on modern alchemy in which thirteen levels of consciousness are sketched, ‘the thirteen tones of creation.’ 

After a few months I felt rather exhausted and in November 2012 I entered cranio sacral therapy. To my surprise I started to dream as if I had found my mystical sister. In particular I had a dream during the Christmas night in which I had the severed hand of God with me. I had had such a dream earlier in my life and knew that something would happen that would enable me to get rid of this hand. To my surprise the therapy turned more and more into a Jungian analysis. 

As a teacher in Jungian psychology and modern alchemy I knew that I had a chance now to become conscious of the anima, the female personification of the unconscious. But a relationship with the anima requires that you have a relationship with your alchemical partner as well. My therapist was helpful in seeking a way for us that would enable me to relate to the feminine within.  At the end of the fourth cranio sacral session I heard her say: 

‘I see the symbol of holiness between your ears. It is slightly twisted. I will set it right.’ She meant the symbol of the quaternity, the circle divided by four. My head in some way became a symbol of integrity. Next she heard the words: ‘Now we are both ready for the work.’

It was such a relief. I suddenly felt like Simon Templar from the television series the Saint. And I knew the ring of love and relatedness had returned. But I had no idea what I was going to do as the Saint. During a workshop with Judith in May 2013 I fell ill and I knew that I had to change the direction of my life. Laura, the daughter from my first marriage, suggested me to write a fairy tale. Then she would illustrate it. Within a month I completed ‘Joel and the lost Grail princess.’ I was quickly healed when I started to give expression to a tale of love instead of explaining further the transmissions of Judith.

The fairy tale will be published this month in Dutch by Frontier Bookshop. In essence it describes the first step towards love without limits. That step can involve serious conflicts, since the ego is not willing to leave the small world it has built. And all kind of shadow elements from the unconscious have to be purified before you may begin to sense the philosophers’ stone within yourself. The wiser your partner is, the easier the transformation. Depth psychologist Marie-Louise von Franz once told in the tv-documentary series ‘Passion of the Soul’ that in the beginning the process of becoming conscious is not agreeable: ‘But if you succeed in really loving the other person, if you really relate, then all sorts of miracles happen.’