The Logos of Soul

A Novel on the Light and Sound

Currently available on Amazon in most countries and Barnes & Noble.

Softcover, 6x9, 328 pages, Print ISBN: 978-0-9839838-0-4, Digital ISBN: 978-0-9839838-1-1

Denver, CO, 2003 – Alyson Sego has lost everything, her husband, her daughter, and her career, when she receives a two thousand year-old earthenware jar discovered in a Turkish bazaar. The jar contains Mary Magdalene’s personal journal, dubbed the Logos Notebook. Despite the warning from her aunt to “beware of answers, for they may be a form of death,” Alyson trusts the translated papyrus codex will bring her the peace she craves.

Ephesus, Turkey, 54 C.E. – Some twenty years after the crucifixion of her beloved Rav Yeshua (Jesus), Miryam the Magadan (Mary Magdalene) lives with her sister in exile on a mountaintop near Ephesus in ancient Turkey. A fertile crossroad of the Roman Empire, it is here where Miryam discovers the works of Greek philosophers on the Logos, which closely parallel Rav Yeshua’s secret teachings. Paulos of Tarsus (Saint Paul), a self-proclaimed apostle, attempts to create a foothold in Ephesus for his own mission. Desperate to keep the Inner Way hidden, Miryam struggles over Paulos’ radical and boisterous departure from the teachings.

Today – Logos, or Word, is called the Shabda Dhun, the Light and Sound, an audible river of divine love that constantly flows through the consciousness of every being and eventually returns the soul to its origin. For Miryam, the inner Logos guides her through her studies and conflict toward new heights in soul. For Alyson Sego, the Logos Notebook is a message in a jar to seek out the Light and Sound in a modern world.

Review by "Stan" on Logos: "A delightful novel to read, an intriguing story, and a theme that relates directly to my interest in the original teachings and early experiences that have led to each of the major religions. I've read a number of Mary Magdalene novels over the years, enjoying each one for the perspective it offers. This one is unusual in offering not only a well written story and an appealing perspective, but an approach to spirituality that few know exists. It focuses on the inner spiritual experience of the individual, and how this relates to the earliest teachings of Jesus and the subsequent evolution of the early Christian writings, both biblical and gnostic. The book is very well researched and includes extensive material from early Christian writings, together with related material from Hebrew, Greek, and Hindu traditions of the same time frame. Throughout the novel, the author weaves this historical material directly into the narrative and the dialogue, along with insight from her own experience with a contemporary spiritual path. It's a many-layered novel, set in the framework of two inter-connected mystery stories that are fun to read simply to see how they unfold. The story opens with the personal struggles of Alyson, a Denver woman who is just beginning her spiritual search, and then shifts 20 centuries earlier to the life and spiritual experiences of Miryam, a devoted student and evolving teacher. Deeper layers within the story include the distinction between esoteric and exoteric teachings and glimpses of esoteric spiritual experience itself. To absorb fully the author's approach to these deeper layers, it took me more than one reading and was well worth the effort."

Ephesus in Biblical Times

Founded more than 3,000 years ago, Ephesus, on the western coast of Turkey (now Türkiye) near present-day Selçuk, was home to the famous temple of Artemis as one of the Seven Wonders of the World. To the early Jesus movement, Ephesus was the most important Christian city after Jerusalem and Antioch, thanks to Paul of Tarsus. According to the Acts of the Apostles, Paul spent up to three years in Ephesus where he established a base for his mission and where he may have written several of his epistles. He also burned books and instigated a riot among the Artemision silversmiths there. John, "the beloved disciple," is said to have lived in Ephesus at the end of the first century, where he or his surrogates wrote his gospel about the Word, or Logos, made flesh. Ephesus was also the birthplace of the Greek concept of the Logos (or word, speech, reason), first explored by the philosopher Hereclitus some five hundred years earlier. There are legends that Mary, the mother of Jesus, moved to Ephesus after the crucifixion, and there is one small legend that says Mary Magdalene lived in Ephesus. Many modern scholars postulate that it was Mary Magdalene, and not John, who was the beloved disciple. This is the premise for The Logos of Soul, which follows a fictitious Mary Magdalene who records her studies of the concept of the Logos.

Today Ephesus is in ruins and is a popular tourist attraction. The house of the Virgin Mary on Mt. Keressos near Ephesus is an important Christian and Muslim shrine. I'm told that a copy of The Logos of Soul was left on the bookshelf in one of the rooms at the Selçuk Ephesus Castle View Suites in in nearby Selçuk, Izmir, Turkey.

Read: My Journeys to Selçuk-Ephesus - A Guest Post by Francine Ney.

Below: Satellite image of the Ephesus ruins in Turkey (Türkiye).