Episode 4 — The Guest List

In this episode, MaryAnna takes a deep dive into one of the central questions of the podcast: why is it acceptable to ask dead saints for help, but not your own grandmother?

It starts with a personal story — a visit to a local Orthodox church that left her speechless. The ancient aesthetic, the veneration of saints, the practice of intercession — asking the dead to advocate on your behalf — all of it fascinated her. But when mediumship came up, the same wall appeared that always appears.

From there, MaryAnna walks through the history of the Christian church: Pentecost as the starting gun, the five patriarchates that governed the early church together, and the Great Schism of 1054 that split Rome and Constantinople into two very different directions. The Filioque controversy — a single Latin word Rome added to the Nicene Creed without asking anyone — is unpacked as less of a theological disagreement and more of a power grab.

The episode then turns to the Bible itself. MaryAnna examines Deuteronomy 18, the passage most often used to condemn mediumship, and traces it back to its original context: the worship of Moloch and ritual human sacrifice — which has nothing to do with what modern mediums do. She breaks down the words necromancer, sorcerer, and diviner as they appear in both the Hebrew Bible and the Septuagint, and makes the case that "questioning the dead" through dark ritual is not the same thing as a medium sitting across from a grieving mother.

A key point: the word "medium" itself is a mistranslation that evolved over centuries. The original Hebrew terms were translated differently depending on the language, the era, and the translator — and scholars still debate what some of them actually meant.

The episode closes with a reminder that the wall between you and Spirit was built by people. Which means it was never real to begin with.

Topics covered:

• Saint intercession vs. mediumship — what's actually the difference?
• The Orthodox Church: history, structure, and surprising beliefs
• Pentecost and the five patriarchates
• The Great Schism of 1054 and the Filioque controversy
• Deuteronomy 18 in context — Moloch, human sacrifice, and mistranslation
• Necromancer vs. medium: the words are not the same
• The Septuagint and how Bible translation shapes theology
• The Desert Fathers and a non-Hollywood view of demons

Find Before Rome:Spotify | Apple Podcasts | beforerome.comNew episodes every Thursday

Episode 3: How Did God Become God?

Before Rome: Mediumship and God with MaryAnna

Episode Summary

In this episode, MaryAnna takes us back to the ancient world to explore one of the most provocative questions in religious history: How did a regional deity named Yahweh become the God — singular, universal, and unchallenged? This is not a debate about faith. It's an invitation to be curious, ask questions, and follow the historical evidence wherever it leads.

What We Cover

• The world Abraham actually lived in — a polytheistic landscape full of gods of storms, fertility, war, wisdom, cities, mountains, and even household deities
• Polytheism vs. Monotheism — what these words mean and why the shift from many gods to one was not sudden or clean
• Yahweh's origins — scholarly evidence that Yahweh began as a regional storm and warrior god, fierce and territorial, before becoming the universal God
• Asherah, Yahweh's wife — archaeological evidence that was systematically edited out of scripture
• The priestly class of Jerusalem — how centralizing worship meant centralizing power, and how that shaped the texts we have today
• King Josiah and 622 BC — the purge that changed everything: smashed altars, executed priests, burned bones, and eliminated seers, diviners, mediums, and "knowers" (Yidioni) from Israelite life
• The Ob (medium) and the Yidioni (knower) — who these people were, what they did, and how they were woven into everyday community life
• Direct ancestral contact — why ancient consultation was specific, relational, and intentional, not a free-for-all with the dead
• The Witch of Endor — a preview of a future deep-dive episode
• Who controls access to the divine — the argument that has never ended, from ancient priests to modern churches
• A seed planted: The Desert Mothers — coming in future episodes

Key Takeaway

The wall between you and Spirit was built by people — which means it was never real to begin with. You don't need permission from a priest, a pastor, or a building to access whatever you believe God is.

Mentioned / Coming Soon

• The Witch of Endor (future episode)
• The Desert Mothers (future episode)
• Demons, angels, and fallen angels (future episode)

Find the Podcast🎙 iHeartRadio | Amazon Podcasts | Spotify | Apple Podcasts🌐 beforerome.com

Before Rome: Mediumship and God

Episode 2 — Voices

Hosted by MaryAnna

Why does Abraham get to hear a voice from God and become the father of three religions — but if your neighbor said the same thing, you'd give him the side eye? That's the question MaryAnna starts with in this episode, and it only gets more interesting from there.

This episode digs into the world Abraham actually lived in: a bustling Mesopotamian city built around moon god worship, a world full of gods, omens, and divine messages — none of which looked anything like the biblical religion that would later be built around his story.

In this episode:

• Who Abraham really was before Judaism, Christianity, or Islam existed
• Ur of the Chaldeans — the moon god city where Abraham grew up
• Why the name "Yahweh" showing up in Abraham's story may be an anachronism
• The Israelites weren't monotheists — and the archaeological evidence backs that up
• How centuries of priestly editing, the Council of Nicaea (325 AD), and the Catholic Church shaped which gods made the final cut
• Why we accept ancient spiritual experiences as sacred but dismiss modern ones as suspect
• The double standard we apply to mediums, intuitives, and anyone who claims to hear from Spirit today

Key question of the episode: If Abraham showed up today and told you God spoke to him and he was selling everything to walk into the desert — would you believe him?

Next episode: Who was Yahweh before the Bible tells us who Yahweh was? Let's go dig up some gods.

Before Rome: Mediumship and God is about reclaiming the history the church was never entitled to take — especially from women. New episodes explore the deep, complicated, and inconvenient roots of spirituality, mediumship, and divine communication.

Before Rome: Mediumship and God — Episode 1

In this debut episode, host MaryAnna introduces herself and the premise of Before Rome — a podcast exploring mediumship, spirituality, and the ancient roots of spirit communication. MaryAnna shares how she stumbled into mediumship about 10 years ago (it started with tarot) and why she wants to demystify it: there's nothing to fear, and it can be deeply healing.

What's covered:

• Why MaryAnna created this podcast and what she hopes listeners will take from it
• Her belief that mediumship is a learnable human skill — not a rare celebrity gift
• A deep dive into how ancient civilizations (Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, Rome, and beyond) treated the spirit world as an ordinary part of daily life
• How ancient people viewed the dead: still part of the community, capable of offering guidance, protection, and warnings
• The role of dreams, omens, and visions in ancient cultures — including how kings and priests made major decisions based on them
• How ancient people understood discernment: not every spirit is trustworthy, and that question hasn't gone away
• MaryAnna's honest admission: she doesn't know with certainty how mediumship works — and she's okay with that

Teaser for next episode:The ancient Jewish world and the Old Testament — a reality filled with dreams, angels, visions, and supernatural encounters that may be far stranger than modern believers realize.

Also mentioned:

• An upcoming companion series: The Police Don't Like Mediums: The Gretchen Story — a forensic mediumship case in which MaryAnna participated, with the person of interest now arrested.

www.beforerome.com