Mary Ellen Tracy
Encyclopedia
Mary Ellen Tracy (b. 1943) is the self-proclaimed high priest
ess of the Church of the Most High Goddess, who was convicted in 1989 of a single misdemeanor
count of running a house of prostitution
in connection with the operation of the church, located in West Los Angeles, California
. Ms. Tracy is a graduate of the University of Miami
, cum laude in chemistry, did graduate work in chemistry at UCLA, and received her masters in Environmental Sciences/Chemistry
from Portland State University
.
. They were subsequently convicted in a trial in state court and sentenced to jail terms: Wilbur Tracy for 180 days plus a $1,000.00 fine; Mary Ellen Tracy for 90 days plus mandatory screening for STDs
.
- created and founded the neo-pagan Church of the Most High Goddess following a divine
revelation
received at an ocean side cottage in Santa Monica
, California in the year 1984. In testimony later given in a Los Angeles
superior court, Wilbur Tracy described "a brilliant light," through which "knowledge was being poured in without voice." Tracy further claimed that God
appeared to him as an old man, with flowing white beard and long white hair.
As a result of their alleged divine experience, Mary Ellen and Wilbur Tracy founded their church, with precepts based on their own research into ancient Egyptian
practices. Ms. Tracy, a classical scholar in her own right, assumed the role of High Priestess of the church, whose divine
duties included engaging in sexual intercourse
with congregants. According to Ms. Tracy herself, she had sex with over 2,000 men as part of a ritual of spiritual cleansing.
Some scholars such as Robert A. Oden
, Stephanie Lynn Budin and others, have questioned whether the practice, as an institution whereby women and men sold sex for the profit of deities and temples, ever really existed at all. Scholar Julia Assante has suggested that the classical view of temple prostitution is more of a construct of the 19th Century Western European mindset than an anthropologically correct representation of facts. Other writers, such as Jungian psychologist Nancy Qualls-Corbett, believe that there is ample evidence to support the view that the sacred prostitute did in fact exist as an essential and vital part of ancient cultures. One of Dr. Qualls-Corbett's key observations is that modern men and women are diminished by Western culture's separation of sexuality from spirituality, and that by studying the works of ancient sacred prostitutes and sexually oriented temple priestesses, a healing "union of opposites" can be achieved, thus restoring sexuality to its rightful place in spiritual and religious thought in particular, and human life in general.
Writing with great candor of her personal experiences as a sexual High Priestess, Mary Ellen Tracy says:
As a result of her various legal difficulties, Mary Ellen Tracy was asked to permanently discontinue her voluntary work with the Placerita Canyon Nature Center in Newhall
, California.
talk show
series, Sabrina On... . She has also appeared in a number of x-rated
films under a variety of stage names, including the Positively Pagan series, and Club Head 2 (1991). On January 29, 1992, Mary Ellen Tracy was featured on a television broadcast of [Donahue], as well as The Montel Williams Show
, appearing with such other New-Age spiritualists as Aidan Kelly
, First Officer of the Southern California Local Council of the Covenant of the Goddess
, and Avilynn Waters of the Los Angeles Nest of the Church of All Worlds
.
High priest (disambiguation)
A high priest is a term often used to describe the leading figure in a religious organization. High priest may also refer to:*High Priest by Timothy Leary*The High Priestess, Tarot card...
ess of the Church of the Most High Goddess, who was convicted in 1989 of a single misdemeanor
Misdemeanor
A misdemeanor is a "lesser" criminal act in many common law legal systems. Misdemeanors are generally punished much less severely than felonies, but theoretically more so than administrative infractions and regulatory offences...
count of running a house of prostitution
Prostitution
Prostitution is the act or practice of providing sexual services to another person in return for payment. The person who receives payment for sexual services is called a prostitute and the person who receives such services is known by a multitude of terms, including a "john". Prostitution is one of...
in connection with the operation of the church, located in West Los Angeles, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
. Ms. Tracy is a graduate of the University of Miami
University of Miami
The University of Miami is a private, non-sectarian university founded in 1925 with its main campus in Coral Gables, Florida, a medical campus in Miami city proper at Civic Center, and an oceanographic research facility on Virginia Key., the university currently enrolls 15,629 students in 12...
, cum laude in chemistry, did graduate work in chemistry at UCLA, and received her masters in Environmental Sciences/Chemistry
Chemistry
Chemistry is the science of matter, especially its chemical reactions, but also its composition, structure and properties. Chemistry is concerned with atoms and their interactions with other atoms, and particularly with the properties of chemical bonds....
from Portland State University
Portland State University
Portland State University is a public state urban university located in downtown Portland, Oregon, United States. Founded in 1946, it has the largest overall enrollment of any university in the state of Oregon, including undergraduate and graduate students. It is also the only public university in...
.
Background
During the late 1980s, The Newhall Signal, a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles County, presented a series of articles about the Church Of The Most High Goddess, founded by Mary Ellen Tracy and her husband Wilbur Tracy, where sexual acts played a fundamental role in the church's sacred rites. The articles aroused the attention of local law enforcement officials, and in April 1989, the Tracy's house was searched and the couple arrested on charges of pimping, pandering and prostitutionProstitution
Prostitution is the act or practice of providing sexual services to another person in return for payment. The person who receives payment for sexual services is called a prostitute and the person who receives such services is known by a multitude of terms, including a "john". Prostitution is one of...
. They were subsequently convicted in a trial in state court and sentenced to jail terms: Wilbur Tracy for 180 days plus a $1,000.00 fine; Mary Ellen Tracy for 90 days plus mandatory screening for STDs
Sexually transmitted disease
Sexually transmitted disease , also known as a sexually transmitted infection or venereal disease , is an illness that has a significant probability of transmission between humans by means of human sexual behavior, including vaginal intercourse, oral sex, and anal sex...
.
The Church
According to Mary Ellen and Wilbur Tracy, the couple - both former devout and dedicated MormonsMormons
The Mormons are a religious and cultural group related to Mormonism, a religion started by Joseph Smith during the American Second Great Awakening. A vast majority of Mormons are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints while a minority are members of other independent churches....
- created and founded the neo-pagan Church of the Most High Goddess following a divine
Divinity
Divinity and divine are broadly applied but loosely defined terms, used variously within different faiths and belief systems — and even by different individuals within a given faith — to refer to some transcendent or transcendental power or deity, or its attributes or manifestations in...
revelation
Revelation
In religion and theology, revelation is the revealing or disclosing, through active or passive communication with a supernatural or a divine entity...
received at an ocean side cottage in Santa Monica
Santa Mônica
Santa Mônica is a town and municipality in the state of Paraná in the Southern Region of Brazil.-References:...
, California in the year 1984. In testimony later given in a Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
superior court, Wilbur Tracy described "a brilliant light," through which "knowledge was being poured in without voice." Tracy further claimed that God
God
God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....
appeared to him as an old man, with flowing white beard and long white hair.
On April 24, 1984, in broad daylight, I had a revelation that changed my life and the way I perceive the world and others. However, because I was blinded by the ignorance of the modern education, which I foolishly accepted as knowledge, I did not immediately understand the full impact of the revelation. I failed to understand that the mind can perceive only what the mind can conceive. What I experienced was beyond my conception, while my perception was completely distorted by what I had been taught was enlightenment. It was only when I set aside my prejudices--those beliefs which I had been conditioned to accept as fact, but which were in fact false--that I began to understand the experience.
As a result of their alleged divine experience, Mary Ellen and Wilbur Tracy founded their church, with precepts based on their own research into ancient Egyptian
Ancient Egypt
Ancient Egypt was an ancient civilization of Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. Egyptian civilization coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh...
practices. Ms. Tracy, a classical scholar in her own right, assumed the role of High Priestess of the church, whose divine
Divinity
Divinity and divine are broadly applied but loosely defined terms, used variously within different faiths and belief systems — and even by different individuals within a given faith — to refer to some transcendent or transcendental power or deity, or its attributes or manifestations in...
duties included engaging in sexual intercourse
Sexual intercourse
Sexual intercourse, also known as copulation or coitus, commonly refers to the act in which a male's penis enters a female's vagina for the purposes of sexual pleasure or reproduction. The entities may be of opposite sexes, or they may be hermaphroditic, as is the case with snails...
with congregants. According to Ms. Tracy herself, she had sex with over 2,000 men as part of a ritual of spiritual cleansing.
The Sacred Prostitute
Much has been written in recent decades about the phenomenon of the so-called Sacred Prostitute in ancient religion. According to Tracy, ancient women possessed... power and authority through the use of their intellect and femininityFemininityFemininity is a set of attributes, behaviors, and roles generally associated with girls and women. Though socially constructed, femininity is made up of both socially defined and biologically created factors...
, just as men today have power and authorityAuthorityThe word Authority is derived mainly from the Latin word auctoritas, meaning invention, advice, opinion, influence, or command. In English, the word 'authority' can be used to mean power given by the state or by academic knowledge of an area .-Authority in Philosophy:In...
through their intellectIntellectIntellect is a term used in studies of the human mind, and refers to the ability of the mind to come to correct conclusions about what is true or real, and about how to solve problems...
and masculinityMasculinityMasculinity is possessing qualities or characteristics considered typical of or appropriate to a man. The term can be used to describe any human, animal or object that has the quality of being masculine...
. As a Pagan and the High Priestess of The Most High Goddess of the ancient Egyptian ReligionEgyptian religionEgyptian religion may refer to:* Modern Religion in Egypt* Ancient Egyptian religion...
, I am aware of the worth of a woman. I do not want to be, nor do I try to be like a man. The ancient Pagan priestess was a guide who lead men on the path to the divine. Men were cleansed and brought to a higher level of spiritualitySpiritualitySpirituality can refer to an ultimate or an alleged immaterial reality; an inner path enabling a person to discover the essence of his/her being; or the “deepest values and meanings by which people live.” Spiritual practices, including meditation, prayer and contemplation, are intended to develop...
through the rituals of The GoddessThe GoddessThe Goddess is a 1958 Columbia Pictures drama film starring Kim Stanley and Lloyd Bridges. Others in the cast include Steven Hill, Betty Lou Holland, Joan Copeland, Patty Duke, and Elizabeth Wilson....
. When the influence of male dominated religions increased, the Christians and Moslems killed the priestesses in the name of male gods and destroyed the teachings and writings of the goddess religions. A woman who enjoys sex is no longer killed as a witch, a hereticHereticA heretic is a person who commits heresy.In literature:* Heretic, an autobiography of Peter Cameron* Heretic , the third volume in The Grail Quest series by Bernard CornwellIn music:...
or an adulteress. But we've still got a long way to go to get back to the open sexual freedom enjoyed by women in the days when the religion of The Goddess covered the earth... We need to progress 'backward' in time and attitude, to pry ourselves out of the 'Dark Ages' of this sex-negative societySocietyA society, or a human society, is a group of people related to each other through persistent relations, or a large social grouping sharing the same geographical or virtual territory, subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations...
and truly appreciate and enjoy the wonderful Goddess given gift of our bodies.
Some scholars such as Robert A. Oden
Robert A. Oden
Robert Allen Oden Jr. was the president of Kenyon College from 1995-2002, and president of Carleton College from July 1, 2002 until June 30, 2010...
, Stephanie Lynn Budin and others, have questioned whether the practice, as an institution whereby women and men sold sex for the profit of deities and temples, ever really existed at all. Scholar Julia Assante has suggested that the classical view of temple prostitution is more of a construct of the 19th Century Western European mindset than an anthropologically correct representation of facts. Other writers, such as Jungian psychologist Nancy Qualls-Corbett, believe that there is ample evidence to support the view that the sacred prostitute did in fact exist as an essential and vital part of ancient cultures. One of Dr. Qualls-Corbett's key observations is that modern men and women are diminished by Western culture's separation of sexuality from spirituality, and that by studying the works of ancient sacred prostitutes and sexually oriented temple priestesses, a healing "union of opposites" can be achieved, thus restoring sexuality to its rightful place in spiritual and religious thought in particular, and human life in general.
Writing with great candor of her personal experiences as a sexual High Priestess, Mary Ellen Tracy says:
In my calling as a priestess, I have sex with men of all sizes, shapes, colors, backgrounds, professions -- an infinite variety -- every day, several times a day (and even more often would be better). To date I've had vaginal sex with over 2,779 different men, oral sex with over 4,000 different men, and being bisexual, I have eaten a couple of hundred pussiesCunnilingusCunnilingus is an oral sex act performed on a female. It involves the use by a sex partner of the mouth, lips and tongue to stimulate the female's clitoris, vulva, or vagina...
along the way. Since I'm a very sexual person, I've had sex, not just in the religious rituals, but in a wide variety of places in addition to the usual bedrooms, sofas, chairs and back and front seats of cars - like doctor's examination tables, college professor's offices, faculty lounges, dormitories, showers, swimming pools, Jacuzzi, beaches, woods, tents, campers, business offices, back rooms of stores, warehouses, rest rooms, government offices, parking lots, trucks, elevators, on the hood of cars, in adult films--on and off camera. I've even sucked cocksFellatioFellatio is an act of oral stimulation of a male's penis by a sexual partner. It involves the stimulation of the penis by the use of the mouth, tongue, or throat. The person who performs fellatio can be referred to as the giving partner, and the other person is the receiving partner...
through the open window of my car and through a hole in a wall. No! I hadn't met the men before. Men hit on me everywhere I go and I'm not one to pass up an up-ortunity (sic) to enjoy myself sexually.
As a result of her various legal difficulties, Mary Ellen Tracy was asked to permanently discontinue her voluntary work with the Placerita Canyon Nature Center in Newhall
Newhall
Newhall may refer to:Places in England:*Newhall, Harlow, Essex*Newhall, Cheshire*Newhall, DerbyshirePlaces in the USA:* Newhall, Santa Clarita, California, a district of Santa Clarita that was formerly independent* Newhall, IowaPeople:* Christopher G...
, California.
Film, television
During the early 1990s, Mary Ellen Tracy hosted her own Public-access televisionPublic-access television
Public-access television is a form of non-commercial mass media where ordinary people can create content television programming which is cablecast through cable TV specialty channels...
talk show
Talk show
A talk show or chat show is a television program or radio program where one person discuss various topics put forth by a talk show host....
series, Sabrina On... . She has also appeared in a number of x-rated
X-rated
In some countries, X is or has been a motion picture rating reserved for the most explicit films. Films rated X are intended only for viewing by adults, usually legally defined as people over the age of 17.-United Kingdom:...
films under a variety of stage names, including the Positively Pagan series, and Club Head 2 (1991). On January 29, 1992, Mary Ellen Tracy was featured on a television broadcast of [Donahue], as well as The Montel Williams Show
The Montel Williams Show
The Montel Williams Show is a syndicated talk show hosted by Montel Williams. On January 30, 2008 it was announced that The Montel Williams Show would stop production on new episodes at the end of the 2007-2008 television season after seventeen years...
, appearing with such other New-Age spiritualists as Aidan Kelly
Aidan Kelly
Aidan Kelly is an American academic, poet and influential figure in the Neopagan religion of Wicca. Having developed his own branch of the faith, the New Reformed Orthodox Order of the Golden Dawn, during the 1960s, he was also initiated into other traditions, including Gardnerianism and Feri, in...
, First Officer of the Southern California Local Council of the Covenant of the Goddess
Covenant of the Goddess
The Covenant of the Goddess is a cross-traditional Wiccan group of solitary Wiccan practitioners and over one hundred affiliated covens . It was founded in 1975 in order to increase co-operation among Witches and to secure for Witches and covens the legal protection enjoyed by members of other...
, and Avilynn Waters of the Los Angeles Nest of the Church of All Worlds
Church of All Worlds
The Church of All Worlds is a neopagan religious group whose stated mission is to evolve a network of information, mythology, and experience that provides a context and stimulus for reawakening Gaia and reuniting her children through tribal community dedicated to responsible stewardship and...
.
External links
- Website for Sabrina Aset (Mary Ellen Tracy)
- A Feminine Feminist by Sabrina Aset, High Priestess of the Church of The Most High Goddess
- An Overview of Religion in Los Angeles from the 1930s to the 1980s, compiled by Clifton L. Holland
- Find A Case: August 28, 1996 SABRINA ASET ET AL., APPELLANTS v. GIL GARCETTI, AS DISTRICT ATTORNEY, ETC., APPELLANT Appeal from Second Appellate District, Division 4, No. B087160
- Novelguide.com: Witchcraft and Neo-Paganism