Various stories about Mary as mother of Jesus the Enlightened One were evidently based on older stories about Maia, the Virgin Mother of Hermes, the Enlightened One, which in turn were related to Far-Eastern stories about Maya, the Virgin Mother of Buddha, the Enlightened One. The name of Maya/Maia meant “magic” and provided the root of our own merry month of May, season of rebirth and renewal. Maia was caught up into heaven and became one of the Pleiades, a myth that may have provided a basis for the later doctrine of Mary’s Assumption. Maia made her son Hermes the Psychopomp, or “Conductor of Souls,” a role that was assigned later to Jesus, but earlier to the Hindu god Ya-Ma, a male reversal of the sacred syllables of the Goddess’s name.