Fundamentalist Christians and its Wrong Approach to Spiritual Teachings (26):
The God of the Machine will come Down to Save Us:
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A God of the Galaxy or a Magician [Posted initially on 01st September 2021]: The last post discussed artist-prophets’ spiritual seekers of imagination and light. And that these people are only a few [an elite privilege]; we also touched upon the antithetical relationship between those with imagination and those without imagination. Those who do not have it can be equated to Schopenhauer’s ‘rock’ – the rock acts as its other who is related or fastened to them. Often, they are regulated to a managerial big bad. Although some are related to them out of necessity, and though they might not be prophetic, they are skilled in their own right. Kirby’s prophetic insights would have been too perplexing if it weren’t for Stan Lee [comic book writer], someone who fully realised or cohered to Kirby’s stories to make sense for public consumption.
T.S. Eliot once described, “The progress of an artist is… a continual extinction of personality,” this is true to an extent. Throughout history, people gifted with genius have moulded and shaped culture. Often from childhood, the likes of Mozart, Van Gough, Edward Munch, Michael Angelo and Francisco Goya all had mental and personality decay. Louis Wain’s anthropomorphic representation of cats can best illustrate his schizophrenic descent. Schopenhauer was right about those with imagination who can indeed call up spirits. However, they often become solitary, and the greater the talent, the more solitary they become – this is the aggressive nature of the imagination. These guys are the ones in the mountains, the Sharmans. From a less extreme point of view, they’re mostly unable to function in society typically, often due to their spiritual transformations through external and internal means.
The artist represents the mortal being as a human and the individual, and with divine prophetic transformations, conjures up mystical anointment as spiritual agents or avatars for the unnameable, the greater intelligence, or the divine. However, Christ [Logos] is different due to its mythological drive of prophecy and expectation of the ‘one’ [messiah]. We have already covered its Astrological association with the stars and its common theme of repeating resurrection mythology alongside other avatar figures. And have mentioned that the Christ-return is more akin to Christ-consciousness return in the self. We also covered the false idolatry image of Jesus used as a paragon or a symbolic representation for hero worship. Ironically, in this fallacy, they cannot see it but can, however, consolidate all intellects from the New Age to Esotericism as occult heretics because they’ve implied in some way [that the personal] Jesus was more of a magician than anything else.
The Flat Earth movement came about like a new rebellion, spreading through various groups that opposed each other. Now, a decade later, it seems the subject has fizzled out. Their scepticism opened a variety of other possible notions, notably by secular groups as opposed to a Christian one. Opinions like whether the possibility of Jesus Christ can ever really exist.
A heliocentric worldview stems from a deceptive experiment that serves as a certainty for the speculation of an absolute. Ultimately, fundamentalists use the same idea to undermine the New Age’s saviours or spiritual teachers. (Like Buddha, Mohammed, Zoroaster, Confucius, Lao Tzu, Saint Germain, etc.) by advocating that there is only one saviour or one messenger. That one messenger is Jesus Christ, who reconciled the world to Himself by his sacrifice of the Cross (2 Cor. 5:19). A heliocentric worldview is also a false absolute. Therefore, one question is whether an exclusive saviour is true, considering that many spiritual teachers existed before Jesus. Anti-cultural trends like the iconoclasts, Biblical literalism and anti-liturgical movements started to develop. Alongside the Protestant movement – all of which was a precursor to atheism. Possibly, during this period of separation, these groups came about.
It would seem contemporary atheism adheres to Western modern liberalism secularist worldview, meaning a belief in Darwinian evolution and a heliocentric universe. The trick lies in believing that fundamentalists and secularists are separate from one another; in this particular case, they’re the same. Fundamentalist groups, mostly traditionalists, believe in a hyperreal-space universe to argue the merit of God, who has dominion over the Galaxy.
The earth is God’s creation, and we live in God’s universe. Man breathes His air by God’s mercy. Man perches precariously on a burned-out cinder with a hot core of nickel, 93 million miles from a large solar furnace that is held in place by a force known as gravity, a force no one really understands. Man spins on the earth at a speed of approximately twenty-five thousand miles per hour in space, and there is no guarantee he will be here in the next microsecond. Christians, however, may feel quite secure. The Scripture says our Father answers our calls to heaven; He never puts us on hold or takes the receiver off the hook. We can face tomorrow because we know He lives. The universe is held together not by esoteric avatars but by the God of the galaxies and the Creator of all things. |
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The only correct statement in this distinct merging of secularist and fundamentalist worldviews is God’s creation of Earth. The rest is malarkey. With the quote: “The Scripture says our Father answers our calls to heaven; He never puts us on hold or takes the receiver off the hook.” What we have here is an ambiguous statement. Does this mean that the Father waits for our spirit to reach heaven? Or is it more about the intuition that He is ever-present as we grow spiritually and consciously? Intuition may be denied when viewed from a strict fundamentalist perspective, leading to an ambiguous interpretation of the statement. We continue believing that He is there, yet we may struggle to grow spiritually because there is only one path to God. Additionally, esoteric avatars need to be considered non-creators—does this include the Incarnate Christ Logos? This is the role of the God of the Galaxy. Esoteric avatars do not hold the universe together, which is not part of their job description. This perspective could be seen as a clever way to instruct other spiritual teachers while excluding their insights and glorifying a God of the Galaxy.
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Fundamentalists’ notion of a saviour exists only through its notion of futurism while also being myopic about any other truth that surrounds the saviour myth; it gives the historical Jesus a way out of reasoning. Even if it had a chance to tell its truth, it’s dealt with many blockages because the truth surrounding the Son of God is so amorphic and buried under the weight of history and propaganda. What is left is a character of a myth that serves as an icon for pardoning people’s misdeeds while projecting other human qualities onto him.
Another potential for futurist notions is the end of days, and according to John, the end of days has been around for two thousand years. These are uncertain times supposedly (as man turns towards the Tree of Death). Mathew 28:20 states: “I will be with you even to the end of the world.” This is a mistranslation of the word ‘world,’ whose precise meaning is Aeon or Age. This misinterpreted astrological allegory has resulted in paranoid doomsday cults and fundamentalism. The end of days and the appearance of Messiah god are no different to the hopeful suggestion of a human mission to Mars. Only to be thwarted by unknown reasons, thereby pushing the date of the planned mission back indefinitely. The same can be said for the supposed end of days: no particular date can be confirmed or determined due to probabilities and a transient future. A hitchhiker’s guide to a fictional restaurant at the end of the universe seems more fitting for the end of days.
Fundamentalists and their close association with Evangelicalism believe themselves to be a unique institution that manifested itself to reality without its history. They have a mindset eerily similar to Calvinists, which they believe to be the chosen elect comes standard. And for the rest of the people outside their cult are sinners and exist only to serve as an example for them not to do. This gives them a reason to condemn people by announcing everyone is going to hell except them. This construct is Narcissistic, and by a deliberate design to put a system of psychological defects to be the spokespersons of the Church while embodying the notion of ego states. Fundamentalist groups wear the title of saints, but in reality, it is diabolical because it’s ideologically driven.
There is no denying the uniqueness of Jesus Christ and his story; this is by no means a way to rob his life of its central and eternal meaning. To do so would mean putting him and his religion in the same league as Buddha, Confucius, etc. Students must identify the fundamental difference between other spiritual teachers so that theory does not become something that takes away spiritual insight. If one is to accept that there is only one saviour, “Jesus Christ is the Son of God in a sense which no other is.” [Jesus was, as he claimed to be, the Son of God, but for that reason, he was and is God himself. Infinity can never be divided. How, then, can God, who is infinite, bestow part of his infinity upon another Being? To think this is to hold the illogical and anti-Scriptural idea of two gods–to step back, as Mohammedans say the Christians have, from monotheism to polytheism. – E.M. Lawrence Gould]
Jesus Christ, as a deity, is something that logic cannot prove or disprove; millions find comfort in him, and he appears in them spiritually via dreams and other spiritual means. Therefore, something outside the collective consciousness is always making itself known. In our current modernity, however, truth is replaced by dialecticism. There needs to be a separation from the deity archetype to the historical deity archetype; both have a commonality of transience, meaning history and memory can become fictional.
The Jesus of History and the Christ of Faith: Reza Aslan, author of Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth, refers to the separation from the Jesus of History versus the Christ of Faith, that the Christ of Faith is far more malleable for the global perspective. The Christ of faith implores a Gnostic idea. That is about building the Christ mythos for more meaningful interpretations of the Gospels and Jesus. [The Logos] becomes a hero and is forever reinterpreted as a heroic story throughout history. It implores the same idea but focuses on the difference between the history of Jesus and Christ of faith, which is different. However, one could go deeper and say that the history of Jesus is, in some ways, inspired by the history of Mithras.
It seems it’s distinguishing the false image of Jesus [commonly seen as androgynous, white-skinned and blue-eyed] as idolatry and hero-worship, which in turn leads towards the dangers of romanticism. So, the Jesus of history starts to morph into this false image of Jesus, which is different from the Christ of faith. This means that if you are white, then your Jesus is white, and if you have more melanin in your skin, your Jesus is of that.
While Reza Aslan’s notion of the Christ of Faith versus the Jesus of History makes a lot of sense, the malleability of the ‘Christ of Faith’ allows other countries and their nationality to have an inclusive quality for their understanding of Jesus, as opposed to an exclusive fundamentalist approach. This malleability, however, is open to all the facets and criteria for political correctness and is accessible to corruptness by woke-isim. Philo identified the same sort of thing by using logos as beings acting as agents or intermediaries to bridge the gap between God and the material world. To this, Jesus Christ is the incarnate Logos, the supreme Logos. You have to realise there is a difference between Jesus and Christ [Logos]. And it’s the Christ Logos that is malleable.
The Jesus of history is frozen or transfixed in place. And there are very few people who know about him. These are the facts. Take away the Gospels and Christian writings. The total of textual evidence is minimal. Christian writings do not count as evidence. They are documents of faith or creedal formulas. They are testimonials of faith, not historical biographies. What we do know is that Jesus was a Jew preaching Judaism to other Jews. The different historical footnote is that Jesus launched a popular apocalyptic messianic movement, one out of dozens. This movement signified the Kingdom of God, an idea adopted by John the Baptist, Jesus’s mentor. As a result of this movement, he was arrested for the crime of sedation by Rome. And ultimately was crucified; that is the total of Jesus of history.
Describing oneself as a Messiah during Jesus’s time was against the law. Being a messiah meant you were the descendant of King David, and we’re here to re-establish David’s Kingdom on Earth, ushering in the rule of God (and reconstituting the 12 tribes of Israel). If you claimed this at that time, it meant treason because you advocated for the dismantling of Caesar. The punishment was death through crucifixion, which was an exclusive Roman punishment for crimes against the state.
The crucifixion of Jesus was also about punishment for the practice of magic. Both Roman and Jewish people opposed any use of magic at the time. The mystery cult groups teach the work of Mark, which was kept hidden. It describes Jesus as a magician. This notion separated Christianity from Judaism. Before the crucifixion, Jesus and Mary were possibly taken in by John the Baptist and his wife. And this is where [speculating] Jesus was educated by (John) the Baptist – then he went to Egypt to work as a labourer and studied while being influenced by Heraclitus. Jesus left Egypt and, through his works, began a type of growth and understanding that one must go through levels of spiritual grades, which get categorized through different steps of Maguss.
Simon Magus was the first to claim that every human being has a shard of divinity, the divine fire. Some of these are mentioned through the work of the oldest Jesus material. Works that preceded the Gospel or even Paul, and what is there is a consolidation of material of the Eucharist. The study entails different variations that go back to Aramaic and Hebraic traditions. These are not Jewish but Egyptian; notions of ingesting the blood of a god played a role in the deep mystical religious traditions. It also indicates Jesus’s and Magdalene’s magical initiations by utilizing magical techniques to heal. Magdalene was the first key disciple and witness to the resurrection. Simon Magus was a disciple of John the Baptist with no mention of Jesus. Jesus, the name comes from Yahushua – the original being Joshua (saviour). Spiritual teachers at that time were referred to as saviours.
Simon Magus, the Samaritan, and his group practised mystery religion, a fusion of esoterica, Judaism, and Greek mystical thought. They hid this work in allegory through the character of Jesus, which was then taken up by more orthodox groups. The history of Christianity and what it is now would only be so astute with acknowledging Simon Magus’s work. There is even the notion among esoteric researchers that Magus and Jesus are the same.
Most of the Samaritan’s influences came from the Greeks, and they also had the original idea that Yahweh had a wife and a kid. This merging of influences and ideas resulted in a movement. And a way of thinking known as ‘Gnosis,’ further inspired by the Nag-Hammadi text ‘Gnosis the Blessed.’ This old document comments on the divinized God the Father, Adam and Seth (the divine man and saviour); the son of Man means Adam, the Son of Man being Seth.
Four canonized Gnostic Gospels (Mathew, Mark, Luke, and John) were inherently distinct. Mathew and Luke were writing the Gospels with no knowledge of each other. Other than having Mark’s work with them, they were trying to expand on Mark’s work, which is incomplete. What they added was the infancy narrative and the concept of resurrection. Mathew, Mark and Luke are known as Synoptics. The Gospel of John came about when it was no longer a Jewish Movement. It’s now Christianity, a Roman movement that has divorced itself from Judaism – the Jews are seen as the enemy. Seventy years ago, in a cave in a village called Nag-Hammadi in Upper Egypt. Numerous documents were found known as the Gnostic Gospels. These Gospels didn’t cut, including the works of Thomas, Phillip, Egyptians, and Magdalen. These writings represent diverse beliefs about early Christianity and who Jesus was. The work encapsulates the notion of inner divinity, the fire or shards of light. Information for a non-Biblical Jesus, however, is limited or doesn’t exist at all.
Alchemist-this-Jesus: In some of the previous posts, I described magic as a natural quality of our cosmos. Or precisely an observer cosmos that puts man at the centre, and according to psychedelic studies, this cosmos is language-based. And that our relationship with nature is essentially a relationship with magic. Which can be engaged naturally or practically; the practical engagement of this quality is what traditional and fundamentalist Christians view as occult practice, witchcraft or sorcery. And this is something that they are unwilling to understand. At the same time, certain Christian groups like the Pentecostals, with their practice of speaking tongues – are not recognised within their circle – but as long as they vote Republican, they can continue with their magic. Or any other form of divination that may come naturally in dreams. Commonly in the form of Christ’s Logos, which reveals it in all its divine glory – remember, the logo is malleable and may look like any other Avatar. To remedy this, they will stamp it with the approval of being ‘born again’ and change the Logos to Jesus.
A particular form of practical quality with nature [alongside magic] became known as ‘alchemy,’ which is about understanding the process of ‘matter.’ This included astrological doctrines. Alchemy is also a religion of Osiris, which became Christianity. Most secret societies have links to alchemy. The Templar’s Red Cross represents an astrological marker for the sun, and the red and white colours represent the two colours of the two stones. And the Rosicrucian name itself is related to dew [or Ros]. It is about water circulation outside the oven to capture the light. In genesis [which, in alchemy, is the practice process of matter] is described as good. The Alchemical process of capturing ‘light’ or ‘good’ is also about capturing water vapour through the four elements [earth, water, fire and air]. For my speculation, I summarise the oven as the allegorical cosmic egg. The antithesis of Dew is Crux, and the symbolic Rose is to mean design.
Jesus’s [or Logos] symbolic function in Alchemy is to represent the obelisk, notably the triangle at the top, to signify the ideal god with the perfect shape. And the Masonic six-pointed star meant bringing the upper and lower waters together. The eye in the middle of the triangle is Horus’s eye. It is akin to the unification of Jesus with his Father and being brought back down again. And this is represented in the connection of Osiris uniting with Horus, the union of matter and the sun as perfection.
Jesus as a magician is a view that can’t be acknowledged among traditionalists and fundamentalists. Doing so would mean breaking out of a demoralised state and centuries of brainwashing mechanisms set in place by thousands of years of religious-political dominance. It would somewhat consolidate numerous aspects of doctrines and then refute them all with a single biblical quote. We know this is a type of missing information tactic. Below is an example of such consolidation. Just remember it’s without its full context.
Johannes Trithemius (1462-1516) | An esoteric occult magician and a mentor to Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa. He devoted himself to writing on angelic magic and integrated Jesus into his magical invocations. |
Arbatel of Magick (1655) | “The Spiritual Wisdom of the Ancients.” Jesus Christ is presented in the opening paragraphs as one who blesses magic and magical invocations. |
Heinrich (Henry) Cornelius Agrippa (1486–1535) | German philosopher, writer, and university lecturer on magic, the occult, and Cabala. He claims there was particular magic in the name of Jesus, especially the Cabalistic four letters for Jehovah that he transforms into Jesus or Jesu. |
Emanuel Swedenborg (1688–1772) | In Swedenborg’s Earths in the Universe, we read that Jesus appeared on Jupiter, “The spirits and angels who are from the earth Jupiter . . . acknowledge our Lord. . . . They were asked, whether they know that the only Lord is a Man. They replied that they all know that He is a Man, because in their world He has been seen by many as a Man.” |
Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (1831–1891) | Taught the existence of a Hierarchy of Ascended Masters in heaven. Jesus is one of them. They teach the law of Karma and reincarnation that they claim Jesus taught and was also subject to. Blavatsky stated that Jesus is not the Christ: “For Christ—the true esoteric Saviour—is no man but the DIVINE PRINCIPLE in every human being.” |
Levi H. Dowling (1844–1911) | Dowling taught that there are many christs and that one is sent to “every world and star and moon and sun. His book Aquarian Gospel inspired by visions to build a white city, this knowledge brought forth from the Akashic Records from the Aquarian Masters. The Aquarian Gospel states, “When we say ‘Jesus the Christ’ we refer to the man and to his office; just as we do when we say Edward, the King, or Lincoln, the President. Edward was not always king, Lincoln was not always president, and Jesus was not always Christ. |
Alice Bailey (1880–1949) | Her first revelation of the Christ came in June 1945, during “the Full Moon of the Christ, just as the Full Moon of May is that of the Buddha.” She received an invocation (prayer) that her followers recite daily, and she informed them that Jesus Christ and the Hierarchy of the Ascended Masters also recite it daily. In the Hierarchy, Buddha and Christ will be exalted together: “Buddha and the Christ will together pass before the Father . . . and eventually pass to higher service of a nature and a caliber unknown to us.” |
Freemasonry | Masons teach that they can become Christs: “It is far more important that men should strive to become Christs than that they should believe that Jesus was Christ. . . . Jesus is no less Divine because all men may reach the same Divine perfection.” |
Guy Ballard (1878–1939) and Edna Ballard (1886–1971) | Founded a movement called the I AM movement and the Saint Germain Foundation. The Ballards made Jesus Christ one of the members of the Great White Brotherhood of Ascended Masters, which is a hierarchy of heavenly beings (much like Theosophy). The Hierarchy, as it is called, is also known as the White Lodge, the Great White Lodge, and the Brotherhood. |
Harvey Spencer Lewis (1883–1939) and Max Heindel (1865–1919) | These American groups widely popularized Rosicrucianism, but others trace its history to small followings from the fourteenth century. Lewis claimed that Jesus was not Jewish— “Jesus was born of Gentile parents through whose veins flowed Aryan blood”—and he did not die on the Cross—“Jesus was not dead. |
Edgar Cayce (1877–1945) | Cayce taught that Jesus and Christ are distinct entities: “Christ is not a man! Jesus was the man! Christ was the Messenger! . . . Christ in all ages!” Jesus was a man who had been reincarnated as “Amilius, as Adam, as Melchizedek, as Zend, as Ur, as Asaph, as Jeshuah—Joseph—(Joshua)— Jesus. |
Dolores Ashcroft-Nowicki (b. 1929) | Director of the Servants of the Light School, a European New Age group. She interpreted Jesus’ statement in John 20:17, “Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father” (KJV), as meaning that he had a body of proto matter that consisted of pure energy. |
Benjamin Creme (b. 1922) | A New Age student of Theosophy, who surprised the world with the 1982 announcement placed in seventeen of the world’s largest newspapers that “the Christ Is Now Here.” When asked how he knew this, Creme revealed that he received telepathic psychic messages from a Tibetan (similar to Alice Bailey) whom he had never seen nor met. He founded the TARA Center, a New Age organization. |
Linda Goodman, born Mary Alice Kemrey (1925–1995) | Goodman claimed to be a Christian, but she wrote that Jesus was a married man and had a “Twin Soul.” Everybody can be “the Christ” as Jesus was, since “Christ is simply another term for the Holy Ghost or the Holy Spirit, which can enter into anyone.” On Jesus and the Trinity, she wrote, “Pluto’s vibratory Zero also contains the secret mystery of Christianity’s Holy Trinity. |
Helen Schucman (1909–1981) | Author of “A Course in Miracles (1975)” channeled by an inner voice she claimed was Jesus Christ. Schucman’s book aimed to correct errors in orthodox Christianity, which resulted in redefining many aspects of Christianity. |
David Spangler (b. 1945) | Promoter of paranormal and occult experience (out-of-body experiences, channeling and UFOs) and also embrace esoteric writings. He states: “The true birth of the Christ was not the birth of Jesus. Jesus was an individual who himself had to recapitulate certain stages. He built upon the pattern the Buddha had established. . . . He himself had to become awakened. He had to, in his consciousness, touch this Christ pattern.” |
Jane Roberts (1929–1984) | Roberts wrote a series of books called The Seth Material, based on her encounters with this entity. In Roberts’s view, the Christ is not Jesus alone, but is a group of people, chiefly Jesus, John, and Paul, the last of whom she stated, “The third personality of Christ will indeed be known as a great psychic.” |
Elizabeth Clare Prophet (b. 1939) | Prophet wrote, “Jesus used mantras and he taught them to his disciples in the Upper Room, but much of this is not recorded in Scripture.” In their prayers, Prophet’s followers call for the Cosmic Christ: “I call for the great light of understanding of the Cosmic Christ, Lord Maitreya; of Jesus Christ and Kuthumi, the World Teachers; of Gautama Buddha and all who are serving with the evolutions of the earth for the advancement of consciousness.” |
Paul Twitchell (1918–1971) | A religious organization that practices esoteric soul-travel. ECK is the Divine Spirit. As an ECK Master, the reincarnated Jesus Christ soul-traveled and helped others do the same. Christ is actually an ECK Master from 3000 BC. Years later these particular individuals found that it wasn’t Jesus at all; it was the ECK Master Gopal Das.” Gopal Das, who is identified as Jesus Christ here, is also called the founder of the mystery cults of Osiris and Isis. |
Charles Boyd Gentzel “El-Morya” (1922–1981) and Pauline Sharpe “Nada-Yolanda” (1925– 2005) | Founders of Mark-Age, Inc., an occult group that mixes UFOs with Theosophical ideas. Gentzel and Sharpe received messages from UFO aliens and “etheric teachers” via automatic writing, and they taught that Jesus was the Christ or Sananda, orbiting the earth in a UFO as the commander of a fleet of UFOs that occasionally landed to demonstrate their reality to earthlings. |
Claude Vorilhon (b.1946) (1987) | Also known as Rael, is the founder of the UFO cult the Raelian movement (1987). They surfaced in international news in 2002 by claiming to clone the first human baby. Rael claims extraterrestrial creators were misunderstood as “gods” and that they originated our main religions, namely that, “Jesus, whose father was Eloha, was given the task of spreading these messages [the Rael messages] throughout the world.” It was further stated that Jesus, Moses, Buddha, and Mohammed were alive on the extraterrestrials’ planet through an advanced cloning technique, which they claim is “the secret of eternal life.” |
William S. Sadler (1897–1969) | Founder of the Urantia Foundation (1955) and the transcribing and publishing of The Urantia Book. In The Urantia Book, the Paradise Trinity consists of “the Universal Father, the Eternal Son, and the Infinite Spirit.” They created “Creator Sons” called “Michaels.” The Creator Michaels created some 7 trillion inhabited planets (including earth), where “they are as Creators and Gods.” Michael of Nebadon is the creator of Urantia (earth). Jesus’ incarnation is described as follows: “The Eternal Son did come to mortal man on Urantia when the divine personality of his Son, Michael of Nebadon, incarnated into the human nature of Jesus of Nazareth. “His material or physical body was not a part of the resurrected personality. When Jesus came forth form the tomb, his body of flesh remained undisturbed in the sepulcher.” |
Chelsea Quinn Yarbro (b. 1942) | Yarbro popularized the Michael Teaching groups, and subsequent authors have published more than a dozen additional books containing “Michael Teachings” from various Michael groups in America. HE states: “Greek thought had much influence upon the man Jesus; particularly Epicurius . . . Jesus was an occult master. . . . The man you call Jesus did not die on the Cross but died later.” Michael went on to reveal that Jesus was not virgin born and that he was a married man. |
Patricia Crowther (b. 1927) | A Witch high priestess and spokesperson for Witchcraft, said this about Jesus: “I believe he was a Witch. He worked miracles or what we would call magic, cured people and did most things expected from a Witch. He had his coven of thirteen.” |
Jeane Dixon (1904–1997) | A world-famous psychic and astrologer who claimed to predict the assassination of the United States president John F. Kennedy through psychic powers. Dixon claimed that her psychic gifts came from the Lord, saying, “It is an awesome and inspiring feeling to be a worker for the Lord,” and, “I have been given certain psychic gifts which I have been working to develop and use in accordance with God’s will.” |
Mary T. Browne (n.d.) | A New York–based psychic and best-selling author who has more than five thousand clients from Wall Street and other upper-class professionals dependent upon her psychic abilities for their careers. Browne said of Christ, “Jesus was psychic. He told Thomas [correction, Peter], ‘Before the cock crows, you will betray me three times.’ Tell me; is that not a psychic prediction?” |
Anton Szandor LaVey, born Howard Stanton Levey (1930–1997) | The author of The Satanic Bible (1969) and the founder of the Church of Satan (1966). The Satanic Bible says little about Jesus Christ, since that is not the subject; however, the following lines call Jesus a powerless “mad redeemer” and mock his crucifixion. |
Judy Zebra Knight (J. Z. Knight), born Judith Darlene Hampton (b. 1946) | A deep trance channeler for a thirty-five-thousand-year-old spirit named Ramtha; she is the founder of Ramtha’s School of Enlightenment (1987). Knight wrote that Jesus was a God, just as other humans are, which places him in the status of a brother and not a savior. She also claimed that Jesus became a Christ, just as other humans have done, and that Jesus is not responsible for our salvation, because he was saving himself through the realization that he was God. |
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This tactic avoids an argument that proves their argument too weak when juxtaposed with the full context of other researchers. For example, Swedenborg was a prolific author. He was also a scientist, philosopher, and theologian, often described as a universal genius. Jesus appearing in Jupiter is akin to Christ appearing before Jehovah, and we know Jupiter is another name for Jehovah. What makes Swedenborg interesting is his claim that he had a spiritual awakening in his mid-50s. From here on, his writing would become prophetic, an artist-prophet, but his intention was not for entertainment but something else. Perhaps educating people on the knowledge of what comes after death. Therefore, one must refrain from summarising its meaning in one synopsis.
Both Traditional/new-fundamentalists identify the New Age’s endeavour to alter Jesus’ nature to something magical or otherworldly. Taking such considerations is out of the question. Approaching Jesus as an idea instead of a person is not considered either. They feel they are blending Jesus into any mixture of false doctrines. And the way to differentiate these other ideological doctrines is to understand the theological term Christology. This can then separate Christianity from the New Age, which is a magical or occult worldview; as we know, Christian theology concerning a person, nature, and the role of Christ cannot be absolute without its history. The evidence for a historical Jesus, excluding the Gospels and Christian writings, is minimal or non-existent. We know Christian writings are non-evidential Creedal formulas and not historical biographies. One can identify a manipulation tactic when the Biblical Jesus is the standard to which all others must take a back seat. This means other philosophies or principles fall into the second favour. The effect can be stifling. Never mind the non-canonized Gnostic text that didn’t make the cut or other spiritual teachers that came before Christ.
The New Age cannot be defined as one statement because it’s essentially doctrineless and an amorphous spiritual movement. The golden age of the New Age no longer exists, which once housed an eclectic amalgamation of knowledge – from esotericism to hidden history, philosophy, mysticism and so forth, due to a deliberate effort of a post-hippie neo-Theosophist subculture to undermine the movement which began after the death of Esalen co-founder Dick Rice. The handing over of the movement to corporate powers like the Rockefeller groups helped build it into a New Age empire. This resulted in numerous books that were watered-down versions of ancient teachings that have been around for thousands of years.
Furthermore, the magical notions of Jesus (now consolidated as the New Age according to a fundamentalist perspective) are all in their way identifying the magical Jesus as their ‘Christ of Faith.’ Fundamentalists will try to convince people to forget or ignore theologians’ and Unitarian’s historical observations of the gospel and the Dead Sea Scrolls. This would mean acknowledging the Gospel teaching of Mark (These teachings were canonised works anyway) but was kept hidden, and it describes Jesus being a magician. They will instead elude you to the concept of Christology and for you to ask yourself: who is Jesus of Nazareth? And if you answer He is the eternal God in human form, anything occult disintegrates. However, it has more to do with acknowledging the Christ of Faith rather than the Jesus of History because we know the Jesus of History doesn’t match historical evidence. Fundamentalists would argue, “the Jesus of the occult is not the Jesus of the Bible” It’s beside them that Jesus of the Bible is not the Jesus of History, but the Christ of Faith. They wish for Jesus of the Bible to be Jesus of history as an attempt to use literalism as a tool to invert the higher self.
Fundamentalists-Christians and their dialectic nemesis, mythicists, and esoteric authors are usually forever in contention with each other. Some outside religions exist, mainly students, bloggers, sympathisers, etc. Who argues against pessimistic people about the historical Jesus but doesn’t fully sway towards fundamentalism. There is a debate between facts and reason (evidence versus common sense). Logically, people should lean towards evidence before reason in a sane world. However, they are always on the back foot because of various stringent fundamentalist structures set in place. Essentially, fundamentalist Christians can believe in this […] without evidence because of religious faith but cannot recognise evidential facts.
The main argument stems from the lack of evidence outside Biblical reference and no historical documentation for Jesus’ existence. Believers of a historical Jesus will give unsubstantial reasons like Jesus was a political rebel, and that alone is enough to be written out of history. Furthermore, the only sources for information back then came from Jewish or Roman scribes, who would’ve had no interest in documenting a trouble-making Jew who claimed to be a Messiah, which was many at the time. As for having parallels with pagan fertility gods like Adonis and Osiris or solar saviour sun gods, it only proves Jesus as a mythological figure. While fundamentalists will argue testimony from apostles supported by archaeological findings is enough for a credible historical Jesus to exist.
Common sense as reason gives an intriguing perspective (because it pulls at the heartstrings of intuition). However, it will always come down to shared knowledge as reason that will get rational people on board. Finding that acquired evidence thereby influences the collective – although finding evidence that doesn’t exist is troublesome, they will usually counterfeit evidence anyway (Josephus comes to mind). Josephus is the evidence Christians give for a historical Jesus, but Bishops have called it a forgery. Josephus mentions Christ as the anointed one (which is a title anyway). Josephus lived around the same time as Saint Paul, and Paul was the leading Christian figure in Rome then. His works seem to be forgery, not by him but by the Church. If you separate his epistle writings from the New Testament, he clearly describes the story from the crucifixion onwards and never references Jesus. Scholars identify Paul as having parallels with Apollonius, meaning it could be the same person. In the Greek understanding of names, Apollonius (Apollos) equals Paulus (Paul).
Apostle Paul influenced the development of Christianity and Philo. Philo was a philosopher who attempted to combine Greek and Jewish philosophy. Philo discussed the incarnate word ‘Logos’ (the living word of God), an idea developed by the Greeks. Philo thought that God created and governed the world through mediators. Logos is the chief among them, the next to God, and the demiurge of the world. Logos is immaterial, an adequate image of God, his shadow, and his firstborn son. Being the mind of the Eternal, Logos is imperishable. He is neither uncreated as God is nor created as men are, but occupies a middle position. He has no autonomous power, only an entrusted one.
Philo describes the word that appears in the New Testament. Is it just a mere coincidence, or is it something manufactured and copied?
Philo: | The logos of the living God is the bond of everything holding all things together … | ||
Colossians 1:17 | And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. |
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Testimony from the Apostles as evidence can be disenchanting when you are forced to take it as absolute because the four Gospels conflict with fundamental matters of Jesus Christ’s life. Due to competing schools of Christian thought, they were brought together in the New Testament because they all agreed that Jesus should be someone who lived. This is why other Gospel stories were left out of the New Testament; it outlines some of Jesus’s stories as fictional; these other Gospel stories are known as Gnostic Gospels.
Justin Martyr was one of the leading Christian writers who wanted to make Jesus a historical figure. His writings are available in original Greek, and the Catholic Church made no changes. In these original writings, Justin quotes the Old Testament over 300 hundred times and never quotes Mark, Mathew, Luke or John, but he does refer to Gnostic Gospels. In his writings, Justin continually argues with the Gnostics about whether Jesus existed. From his writings, historians can reconstruct the arguments with Gnostic Christians who knew Jesus was not originally a historical figure. These prove that the Four New Testament Gospels did not exist before Justin’s death in 165 AD. The Apostles did not write the Gospels, as evidenced by the Catholic Encyclopaedia. Therefore, with the admittance of historical documents and Christian scholars, if the Apostles didn’t write the Gospels, it meant the Apostles never existed, and neither would Jesus. Such suggestions indicate the Gospels are not analogies of history but rather comparisons of historical fiction. In another way, fictional drama added to a historical setting. So, it could very well be that Jesus was a solar deity of the Gnostic Christian sect, and like all other Pagan gods, he was a mythical figure.
The myth was the language of the ancient world, somewhat synonymous with science-fiction writers of today. It’s about documenting stories; within it, little motifs are taken from everywhere and put together in a new order, which can be transformative. That’s what myth is and what Jesus’ story is. Roman Catholic Church adopted literalist Christianity, then forced almost by its logic to turn on the ancient mysteries. In this supposition, you have the idea that one Man has come and is the son of God, and you must also believe in him to be saved. You become duty-bound to enforce it, and the spiritual tolerance that marked out the ancient world would end. As a result, mysterious groups, such as pagan and gnostic sects, were abolished. This led to the suppression of the ancient world’s intellectual foundation. Consequently, the Western world experienced a collapse that ultimately resulted in the onset of the Dark Ages.
Every culture in the ancient Mediterranean has taken this perennial myth, which probably originated in Egypt (or it could be as oldest as the Neolithic era) and made its own. What we see happening is the story of Jesus or Joshua (Joshua being the first template) started to merge with the Pagan story (dying and resurrecting). These can be accounted for in Alexandria, where 25 per cent of the population was Jewish, and all spoke Greek. This is where Jewish and Pagan mythology came from, which is made more evident by texts (known as intertestamental texts) that clearly outline the Pagan and Jewish crossover.
Consider common sense as a form of reasoning and the notion that history has separated Jesus from mythology. This is a claim with merit because it indicates that Jesus was a follower of John the Baptist. Jesus began his ministry after John’s arrest. Jesus was a mystic and a magus, preaching an explicitly spiritual message during an intensely political time. A reference in the “Jewish Mysticism and Magic: An Anthropological Perspective” indicates Jesus as a mystic and a magician. It describes scientists led by Franck Goddio of the Oxford Center for Maritime Archaeology finding a bowl dating between the late 2nd century B.C and the early 1st century A.D. What they found engraved in the bowl seems to be the first reference to Christ. The typography reads: “DIA CHRSTOU O GOISTAIS,” which has been interpreted by the excavation team to mean either; “by Christ the magician” or “the magician by Christ.” If this is a reference to the Biblical Christ, it confirms that Christianity and paganism were intertwined. Frank Goddio said, “It could very well be a reference to Jesus Christ, in that he was once the primary exponent of white magic.”
This little declaration goes against fundamentalist ideals and their attempt to generalize notions of magic and anything else that goes against their literal Biblical ideology, which always at times comes around to contradict themselves. For fundamentalists to accept archaeological findings or evidence is wishful thinking, considering they can’t even accept Jesus as a (Jewish) Mystic. To them, scholars (and occult writers) are arbitrarily adding false attributes that fit their purpose because mysticism allows them to form Jesus in their image and not in his biblical image. It is safe to say that the Biblical image of a blue-eyed, androgynous white saviour is adopted. If you want to track the historical image of Jesus, you will come to find a dark-skinned spiritual teacher. Something fundamentalism that started as a racially radical movement would have trouble coming to terms with. A seemingly better way to rationalize a Biblical image of Jesus is through the Christ of Faith, making the image of Christ more flexible. According to them, they add false attributes to fit their purpose. As we know, no (non-Biblical) historical evidence exists for Jesus Christ. Accepting the archaeological findings would mean being flexible regarding the Biblical image. The notion of ‘Curious arts’ does not mean acts of divination but encompasses magic more in tune with the nature of spirit.
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