Sunday, June 15, 2025
Christ and Jesus at the BBC - London 1986
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Picture: The Ancient of Days watches from the heights of the East.
Picture: Old library. As the lightning cometh out of the east. It is written.
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BBC misses biggest story in English history
UK church establishment rejects Second Coming of Christ
Why did the BBC, the Queen and the Church of England bishops choose to ignore the Second Coming of Christ in 1986?
Picture: Stealth Eschatology. BBC misses the Second Coming of Christ in 1986.
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Christ has quietly returned. Share International reports that he has been based in the Asian community of London (UK) since July 1977. He is in physical form, visible in the third dimension, and photographable.
Jesus has also returned. He has been based in the suburbs of Rome (Italy) since 1984.
Christ and Jesus, contrary to received church mythologies, are two separate human beings with two separate personal evolutions on Earth. They work closely together on spiritual, social and humanitarian initiatives across the world. Each is a resurrected and ascended master. Each is an active healer.
Another name, or title, for Christ is The Maitreya Buddha. He is The World Teacher, recognised by various names in many different spiritual and religious traditions. One old tradition calls him Melchizedek. These days he is known simply as Maitreya. He is not a religious figure. He does not want followers or worshippers. He never has. And neither has Jesus.
In the mid-1980s, Christ made himself known to the BBC in London. He had three meetings in Broadcasting House there, in January, February, and March 1986, in the run-up to Easter. Present at those meetings were the BBC Director-General, Alasdair David Gordon Milne, and several of his senior colleagues, some still alive.
The fact and content of the BBC meetings with Christ were minuted. Those papers still exist in at least three different locations. Several of the people who drafted them, or edited them, or circulated them, or saw them at the time, are still alive.
The official papers are lodged at the BBC Written Archive Centre (Caversham Park, Reading, Berkshire), the Lambeth Palace Library (London), and in the Royal Archives at Windsor Castle Round Tower (Berkshire). A substantial, scattered and varied secondary (or derivative) literature is also extant.
One of the things which Christ did when he spoke to the BBC top brass was, with their permission, to demonstrate a spiritual technology which indicated his bona fides. He showed them a series of immersive, holographic scenes. These he produced on his own, without the aid of physical technologies.
The BBC executives were shown the last hours of Jesus on the cross, as if they were there themselves as witnesses. The BBC people witnessed the crucifixion. They saw it with their own eyes. They experienced it. They saw, heard, smelled and felt the whole scene: the suffering; the blood; the people present; the languages used; the emotions; the location.
On another occasion, at another of the BBC meetings, Christ asked Jesus to attend with him. He did. The BBC managers sat in a room with both Christ and Jesus, and spoke to each of them.
The upshot of all this was that the BBC agreed with Christ to mount a big press conference (at Easter 1986?) at which he would appear, talk to the journalists, and answer all their questions.
However, the BBC decided that they should do something else first. They decided to bring the matter to the attention of Queen Elizabeth II, in her capacity as Head of Church and State.
Technically, the Queen is Defender of the Faith and Supreme Governor of the Church of England, and the church claims an old historical link with perceptions about Christ and Jesus.
The Queen and her senior staff, and (probably) one of her Anglican chaplains, undertook to bring the matter to the attention of the archbishops and bishops of the Church of England, and to seek advice from them.
At least one meeting took place, attended by the Archbishop of Canterbury (Robert Alexander Kennedy Runcie) and the Archbishop of York (John Stapylton Habgood). Other senior bishops were also there, including the Bishop of Durham (David Edward Jenkins) and the Bishop of London (Graham Douglas Leonard). It is thought that the BBC was represented by Alasdair Milne, for at least the first part of that meeting. Several of the people who participated are still alive.
The result of the royal consultation was that the bishops advised the Queen that the two individuals which the BBC had met and talked with could not possibly have been Christ or Jesus. Such epiphanies would not have taken place without the bishops themselves knowing something about them in advance through élite church conduits.
The matter was dropped. No announcement or press conference was arranged by the BBC. No Thought for the Day mentioned it. There was a complete embargo on the whole issue.
The pertinent papers have still not been released, even though the events took place more than 30 years ago.
Both Christ and Jesus were rejected as non-newsworthy by the UK ecclesiastical establishment. The BBC missed the biggest story in English history. But how was it allowed to happen? Were the bishops blind because they were afraid to see? And if so, was there another card in play? A card deliberately played to foment their fear?
The person who knew most about this botched media shambles, apart from the principals themselves, was Benjamin Creme. He was the Editor-in-Chief of Share International Magazine and put the whole BBC thing on the public record on several occasions, for example downpage here (15.10.05) and here (April 2010).
Two years after the BBC London rejection of Christ, another well-witnessed appearance was recorded in Africa. This time the story was not suppressed. It took place on Saturday 11th June 1988, at the Church of Bethlehem in Kawangware, just outside Nairobi, Kenya. Maitreya (Christ) appeared with Mary Sinaida Akatsa, a local spiritual teacher and healer. He spoke to a crowd of six thousand people and healed scores of them. Pictures here. Reportage here and here.
Were it not for the determined opposition, or the spiritual insecurity, or the theological confusion of the UK Church of England establishment, Christ might have been doing open public meetings and healing ministries of the Kawangware kind, in England, regularly, for three decades by now.
In medieval devotion, England was sometimes thought of as St Mary's Bower or Mary's Dowry (Anglia Dos Mariae). St Mary, also, was the Bower of Christ. It was not accidental that Christ sought to make his first acknowleged public appearance, as a returned and ascended master, in England.
For people unaccustomed to esoteric spirituality, there is an X-Files vibe to all this. The rabbit hole goes a long way up. UFOs and crop circles are involved, and there is a return for the Bethlehem starship over Kawangware and many points west.
The visible principals, Maitreya and Jesus, have appeared in many different ways, and have been seen in many different guises. Since the 1980s, millions of people have met them visually in full waking consciousness; many on more than one occasion. Often the veracity of the encounters doesn't register until afterwards. Subsequently, the memories persist with unusual cohesiveness.
In the December 2007 issue of Share International Magazine, Maitreya and Jesus were shown together. They had been photographed in Rome, Italy. On that occasion, Maitreya appeared as woman begging on the street, and Jesus appeared as her seven-month-old-baby. Pictures here. Source page here.
Ten years earlier, Christ (Maitreya), in the guise of a homeless man, had been caught on camera playing a flute in a New York public library (US). Picture here. Source page here.
On Sunday 25th March 2012, Christ was seen again, on three occasions, in the Rue de Fécamp, Paris (France). This time he adopted the appearance of an elderly woman out shopping. There was a conversation with the photographer covering a variety of topics, including UFOs, Syria, a local light-circle miracle, and the world's need of hope. Picture here. Source page here. Story detail under the Well-versed heading downpage here.
There have been other indications, recently, that Christ can be be quite vocal when faced with potential photographers. For example, he was spotted in England, at the London Climate Change March on Sunday 29th November 2015, in the guise of an Indian holy man. In Parliament Square, Westminster, a marcher asked him: “Do you have a message for us?” He replied: “Message? I don’t have any message. I am; I just am. We are all interconnected; all together in unity. We are life! We are love!”
A little later on the same day, he was approached again and he gave his permission for a photograph. The photographer asked him where he lived. He replied that he lived in everyone's heart. There was also an exchange about the spiritual significance of the universal number thirteen, which featured in his clothing. Picture here. Source page and further detail here.
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Picture: "Stairway to Heaven" by Eugenio Merino.
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More examples of artwork by the Spanish sculptor, Eugenio Merino, and by seventy other progressive artists and illustrators, are linked from this blog page here.
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Benevolent ETs living among us
Crop circles - mystery glyphs from the Higher Evolution
Living through the pole shift and the global end-time tsunami
Index of blog contents
Wednesday, June 04, 2025
The resurrection of the shaman
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Picture: "Shaman" by Marjorie Davis.
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It wasn't just Jesus of Nazareth, Apollonius of Tyana and St Francis of Assisi who were shamans. Shamanism is undergoing a revival today.
The emergence of the New Spirituality in the West has focussed educated attention on the healing and nature-working abilities which are inherent in all of us.
Dr Leslie Gray, executive director and founder of the Woodfish Institute, is a Native American shaman and a university lecturer in anthropology and research methodology. Based in San Francisco (USA), she has studied with medicine people and elders from various tribal backgrounds.
She advocates a new vision of health care: the integration of ancient healing and modern medicine. And she consults with individuals and organizations on the practice of ecopsychology.
Leslie Gray is a bridge person. She links two cultures, ancient and modern. And like all shamans, she links two dimensions. She travels in full waking consciousness from the physical world to the spiritual world and back. Her work in shamanic healing requires this.
Controlled transdimensional travelling enables the shaman to access powerful spirit-healing technologies and powerful spirit-healing people. Some of these may be highly evolved animal-people of a kind known as power animals in traditional cultures.
All human beings have the innate ability to develop safe, conscious, transdimensional travelling abilities. And all human beings have the innate ability to become spiritual healers. Children, in particular, find these shamanic processes natural and easy.
The shamanic journey involves entering an altered or non-ordinary state of consciousness, usually with the help of sonic driving: a repetitive, monotonous drumming, rattling or changing of body postures. These create what Gray calls "trance-portation."
The work of shamans is the business of travelling either to the upper world to bring back down power, information or healing, or to the lower world to bring back up personal empowerment for living here in the middle, physical world.
Most shamans view the universe as composed of these three realms. The upper world tends to be the land of the ancestors, the middle world that of ordinary consciousness, and the lower world the place of power animals.
The shamanic journey begins with the traveller finding an opening to another realm of consciousness. While in some cultures people literally dig a hole in the floor to provide this entrance, in others they regard the opening as a phenomenon within the shaman's consciousness.
The nature of this opening is highly individual. Leslie Gray invites people to think of an opening into the earth from ordinary reality, to enter that opening, go down a tunnel and come out the other side; and from there, to explore the lower world. As people become more proficient at doing this, they begin to encounter allies in that lower world. And they use information gained from communing with these allies to help themselves or others back up here in the physical, middle world.
Traveling to the upper world is similar. The only difference is that you choose an opening that will take you up rather than down, such as a whirlwind, a hollow tree trunk, or a fireplace and chimney. Whatever comes to you as your personal opening is what you use.
One thing which Leslie Gray refuses to do is to tell people what they can expect to find in their travels. "Part of what is empowering to them," she says, "is developing their own maps. For me to develop a map for them would be the very opposite of personal empowerment and would make them dependent on my worldview - not just of this world, but of all the worlds. At the core of the process of acquiring power in shamanism is the ability to find things out for yourself, to know what the upper and lower worlds are like."
Shamans always journey with a mission. The art of shamanism is mastering the ability to bring back important information to heal yourself or others. It is not just journeying to see pretty pictures. A person might do this in the beginning as a way of mastering the technique, but after that, he or she should visit the other worlds with a mission or purpose.
There is nothing to fear on a shamanic journey if it is done properly. A shamanic journey has two advantageous features. First, the beings in the other worlds won't tell the traveller more than she or he can handle at a given time. And second, a guardian spirit generally accompanies the journeyer as a protector. "I think you have more to fear crossing the street in a major city," comments Gray, "than you do going on a shamanic journey with a power animal."
Leslie Gray fosters and promotes what she calls "reciprocal transformation." The idea is to make the inevitable encounter between indigenous systems and technological systems mutually enhancing.
She argues that "conventional analyses have primarily acknowledged the manifest poverty of contemporary indigenous cultures in comparison with the obvious material wealth of industrial-technological societies. In the 21st century, however, the spectre of planetary destruction forces us to also see 'wealth' in wisdom about how to live sanely on the earth, in practices of sustainable land use and in evolved knowledge of community-building - all of which exist in the traditions of autochthonous peoples. Correspondingly, mounting evidence of imminent environmental catastrophe forces us to see 'poverty' in the underdeveloped ecopsychology of the technoculture."
Leslie Gray's Woodfish Institute can be found here and she has an introductory article entitled "Reading the Mind of Nature - Ecopsychology and Indigenous Wisdom" here.
Other articles on the Woodfish website worth noticing include: Altered States - An Interview on Shamanism, Using Shamanism for Personal Empowerment, and Shamanic Counseling and Ecopsychology. #
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The picture at the top of the page is "Shaman" by Marjorie Davis. #
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Look until you see
Said the Owl
Listen until you hear
Said the Deer
Touch until you feel
Said the Mole
Lie upon my belly
Until you know my heartbeat
Said the Earth
(words from Faith Nolton)
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Shaman
A picture by Susan Eleanor Seddon-Boulet
Shaman
A picture by Leonard Paul
The Shaman
A picture by Rod Millar and Dan Cummings
The Shaman at Work
A picture by Emily Fiegenschuh
Traditional Siberian shaman
A photograph
Modern Siberian shaman drum
A photograph
Yarn art from the Huichol Indians
A Mexican shaman is depicted blessing a crop field
Intergalactic shaman rebalancing the universe
A picture from Celestial-Art
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The Woodfish Institute
Leslie Gray's shamanism site
The Foundation for Shamanic Studies
Michael Harner's site
Shamanism
An introduction on the Crystalinks site
Thoughts on modern urban shamanism
Pete Dalton
Shamanic drumming: Calling the Spirits
A book by Michael Drake
Shamanism - working with animal spirits
Research links to examples of animal wisdom
Shamanism and peacemaking
An essay by Myron Eshowsky
Sacred Earth Network
Humanity must quickly restructure its relationship with the miraculous, interconnected living system that is our Earth.
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An emerging spirituality for The New Age of Aquarius
An Invocation for the New Age
Meditation - the direct encounter
The emergence of the transpersonal soul
Astral projection, the soul and the spirit
Index of blog contents
Friday, March 30, 2007
Jesus is performing healing miracles through Torbi el Mekki in Morocco
He can cure any disease, and refuses to accept money from anyone. He simply shakes the hands of the pilgrims coming for cures, touches the water bottle or bag of sugar they have brought to be blessed, and dismisses them. "God gave me this talent so I have to use it. Even some doctors have come to see me and you will see cases of people who have been cured. There was a man with cancer that came all the way from France and now he is cured." At this point it is not known whether Torbi el Mekki has cured people with Morgellons Disease. Thousands make the journey to Skhirat every day to see Father Mekki. As well as performing healing miracles through people like Torbi el Mekki, Jesus is understood to be active in directing healing energies through physical artefacts such as The Den Bosch Madonna in The Netherlands. And in recent years many photographs of light blessings from Jesus have been recorded around the world.
Sources: BBC News (London, UK) 07.02.07 and Share International Magazine - April 2007 - Signs of the time section (down page).
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Wednesday, February 14, 2007
Jesus anticipates an American economic collapse
Page update: 18.08.08
TF, the driver, commented that the stockmarket system had changed the world into a global casino. Jesus agreed and said that the system is very unjust and that the lack of justice is the main problem in the world today. So many people work so hard and gain so little, while others can be immensely rich, without contributing anything to the community. He pointed out that this problem can only be solved by justice and sharing. According to Jesus, the world stockmarkets are due to crash soon, in spite of the efforts of a group of very skilful and intelligent men who have managed to keep them going with their political and business tricks.
Source: Share International Magazine (Letters to the editor) January/February 2007
The preceding story from Slovenia in March 2006 has a clear spiritual connection with another story recorded in Liverpool (UK) in February 2007. Crowds were drawn to the Liverpool Academy of Arts (UK) to view a statue that was emitting a strange paranormal energy. It was a steel and bronze depiction on fibreglass entitled the ‘Cleansing of the Temple’ (detail shown here). A larger and better image can be viewed by following the 'Cleansing of the Temple' link on this page here.
The artwork, by atheistic sculptor Brian Burgess, portrays an angry Jesus, brandishing a whip in his right hand and a broken chair in his left hand. He is about to drive the moneylenders from the Jerusalem Temple in the first century CE. There are dice, playing cards, coins, treasury notes and collection plates in the background. Two screaming capitalists with their hands in the air protest at Jesus' interference in their business.
Brian Burgess' image derives from biblical stories in the New Testament Gospels (Matthew 21:12-13, Mark 11:15-17, Luke 19:45-46 and John 2:15).
Visitors claim that the artwork has miraculous powers, is shooting sparks from its eyes in a directed manner, and is engendering trance or meditation states in some viewers who report experiencing a new and vital connection with God.
Sources: The Liverpool Daily Post (UK) 13.02.07 here and here.
Late note: Share International Magazine (March 2007), in its Signs section, has confirmed that this miracle was manifested by Maitreya, the World Teacher. Maitreya is known as "Christ" in church mythology. He used this particular statue to underline the symbolism of his work in encouraging humanity to turn away from gross materialism and towards a system of sharing and justice for all. Maitreya, who is now based in London (UK), works closely with Jesus, who is now based just outside Rome (Italy).
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Jesus is performing healing miracles through Torbi el Mekki in Morocco
Photographed light blessings from Jesus
How important is Jesus?
Miracles are waiting to happen in Den Bosch
The Share International revelations
The American Problem
NESARA announcement
Strange news; strange times
Traditional Norfolk koans
Index of blog contents
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
Jesus recounts a dream he had about George Bush
One of the energising claims of the New Spirituality is that for the first time in 98,000 years here on Earth, the spiritual leaders of the planet are returning back into everyday physical life and are making themselves known to ordinary people again. One of those spiritual leaders is the individual known to Western history as Jesus of Nazareth.
In his Palestinian incarnation (24BC – 9AD), Jesus was known locally as Joshua Ben Pandira. He was an active Essene mystic in a progressive Jewish tradition of the time. In 16AD he took another physical incarnation known to history as Apollonius of Tyana. A few centuries later, working from the spiritual planes, he gave the Prophet Muhammad the original text of The Holy Qur'an and taught the Prophet during his night journeys to the Holy Land.
On the 13th April 1952, speaking to a meditation group in Santa Fe, New Mexico (USA), Jesus said: "And soon will come the time when the light which I pour forth to individuals in response to their calls to me can be easily photographed, even by that mechanical perfection to which you have attained thus far." On another page of this weblog we have assembled links to some of these photographs, which were originally published and authenticated by Share International Magazine.
In 1975, "A Course in Miracles" was published by Helen Schucman and William Thetford. Jesus headed a team of writers on the spiritual planes who are said to have compiled this. The text was transmitted to Schucman and Thetford by a process of mental impression, inner dictation and inspiration. The text is written as though Jesus is the author speaking in the first person.
In recent years, according to Share International, Jesus has been appearing in physical form all over the world to ordinary individuals. Often this happens in the wake of disasters, at peace demonstrations, or at Mind, Body and Spirit festivals. The physical appearance he adopts for these appearances varies.
On the morning of Sunday 12th February 2006, Dick Larson and Jackie Cochrane were running a booth at the Whole Life Expo in Los Angeles (USA). Jesus turned up in the form of an African American man of average height and slim build. He appeared to be in his early 30s. He was dressed casually, wearing a turquoise and white vertical striped shirt, and beige trousers. He was not immediately recognised.
After some general conversation with Larson and Cochrane about the exhibits being displayed, Jesus said: "You know, I had a dream. In the dream I had the plans for the solutions to all the world’s problems in my hands. I entered a room that was filled with corporate executives. I gave a copy of the plans that I had to each person in the room. Then you know who walked into the room? George Bush. I also handed him a copy of the plans, but he tore it up and threw it away. So then I washed my hands.”
Jesus then shook Larson and Cochrane's hands, and walked away. This account of events appeared in the Letters to the Editor section of the September 2006 edition of Share International Magazine and can be found here.
Elsewhere, in the same edition of Share International magazine, in the Questions and Answers section, two related pieces of information about American politics and policy are offered. First, Benjamin Creme, the editor, describes the last presidential election in the USA as being "the most corrupt, I think, that has ever taken place in a modern state. You must make sure that you do not have another election like that. Do not stand for it. The voting machines were pre-programmed to change every fifth vote for Kerry into one for Bush. Those elections were completely false. Ohio was won by Kerry, although he lost it. Florida was won by Kerry, so was New Mexico. The result would have been completely different but for the corruption. There was a massive vote against Bush but also a strong vote for him. But Kerry won the election and was denied it, just as in the previous election Al Gore won the election and was denied it. The world would be a completely different place had either Gore or Kerry become President."
Second, Benjamin Creme was asked the following question: "In July 2006 torrential storms affected much of the East coast of the USA. In Washington DC, the storm caused the US Department of Justice and other major federal buildings to be closed and a 100-year-old elm tree on the White House lawn to fall. The tree is featured prominently on the back of the $20 bill. Were the storms due to karma?" Creme's answer was yes. He was then asked: "Was this a karmic reaction for America’s actions in Iraq, or for something else?" Creme replied: "America’s actions in Iraq."
An abridged version of the September 2006 edition of Share International Magazine can be read online here.
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The Share International revelations
The American Problem
Photographed light blessings from Jesus
Tuesday, December 14, 2004
Da Vinci's Magdalene
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The international success of Dan Brown's popular novel "The Da Vinci Code" (2003) and the film version of the book (2006) has once more stimulated informed discussion about the nature of the relationship between Jesus of Nazareth and Mary Magdalene.
Influential elements within the early church gave Mary Magdalene the title "Apostle to the Apostles." The view is emerging that Mary has a better claim to be considered the founder of the Church than St Peter or St Paul.
In 2003, the Irish artist, Emer O’Boyle, produced a painting depicting Mary Magdalene preaching to the Apostles. That picture can be seen here. And in 2005, Christina Miller painted an image entitled: "Yeshua and Magdalena a Week Before Passover." That painting can be seen here.
But how intimate might Jesus and Mary Magdalene have been?
In his book "Born of a Woman" (1992), Bishop John Spong noted that negativity towards the idea that Jesus may have been married to Mary Magdalene seems increasingly strange in our age.
Lynn Picknett addresses this issue in "Mary Magdalene - Christianity's Hidden Goddess"; Constable and Robinson (2003); ISBN 1841-1984-47. This is what the Spring 2004 edition of the "The Watkins Review" said about her book:
"The Gnostic Gospels reveal that for the early Church, Mary Magdalene was second in importance only to Jesus. Mary and Jesus were lovers and spiritual partners, and she may even have borne him a child. She may or may not have been a Jewish woman, but could have come from Ethiopia."
"Picknett re-evaluates the evidence from the Gospels, the contemporary Gnostic works, and ancient Egyptian texts, seeking Christianity's hidden goddess in fields as diverse as the art of Leonardo da Vinci and the statues of Black Madonnas."
"Picknett believes that virtually everything the Church teaches about Mary is a deliberate attempt to cover up uncomfortable facts; that it is time to see the real woman and to reassess the history of Christianity."
But there is plenty of other accessible stuff on the web about all this. For example there are useful introductory essays by Tau Malachi and Lesa Bellevie.
Tau Malachi observes that "nowhere in the New Testament does it state that Jesus was celibate. As a matter of fact, in Judaism an unmarried man is considered incomplete. Typically, all Jewish holy men – teachers and prophets alike – were married. It would have been highly unusual for a recognized rabbi (teacher) to be single. Originally, Christianity was a Jewish spiritual movement, and Jesus taught Jewish individuals primarily. Bearing that in mind, it would have been easier for students to accept that Jesus was married than to accept a rabbi unwilling or unable to sustain a marriage. This is quite the opposite of the unnatural view we have been led to believe – that the union of Jesus with a wife and consort would somehow diminish his spiritual status. The truth is that it would have exalted him all the more, and this is precisely the Sophian view."
And Lesa Bellevie quotes from The Gospel of Philip: "There were three who always walked with the Lord: Mary, his mother, and her sister, and Magdalene, the one who was called his companion. His sister and his mother and his companion were each a Mary." Bellevie comments: "The word 'companion' has often been interpreted to mean 'consort,' which implies a very different sort of relationship between Mary Magdalene and Jesus."
Orthodox sceptics might find solace from these ideas in Birger Pearson's capable survey of recent Magdalene enthusiasms here.
Excerpts from "The Gospel of Mary" in a Coptic papyrus can be found here.
The same fragmentary text of "The Gospel According to Mary Magdalene" with archive notes can be read here.
And The Reluctant Messenger has a small piece entitled a "Syncretic View of the Gospel of Mary Magdalene" here.
In recent years, Mary Magdalene’s own words about her relationship with Jesus have been brought to light. For example, in one place she states: “The Gospels recount me as a prostitute, for all Initiates of my order wore a gold arm bracelet that was a serpent; and it was understood that we practiced sexual magic; and in the eyes of the Hebrews we were whores.”
“When I saw Yeshua (Jesus) and our eyes met, I understood that we had been destined for each other. What I am about to tell you has not been known, except by those who were with me. Many legends abound as to what happened. But for me it is a story of deepest love. That Yeshua had a vision of the world does not touch me. My story is a love story.”
“Many people followed Yeshua. And the opportunities for us to be alone together were very few. It is not written in the Gospels for no-one knew, only the closest to us. Before Yeshua went to the Garden of Gethsemane, we conceived a child, and her name was Sarah.”
I quote from pages 17-18 of “The Magdalene Manuscript” by Tom Kenyon and Judi Sion (2002); ORB Communications; ISBN 1-931032-05-X.
The publisher’s blurb for this book can be found at Tom Kenyon’s website here.
One of the interesting issues arising from the success of The Da Vinci Code is simply accounting rationally for its success. Why should a self-confessed fiction of this kind be so widely noticed and so widely railed against? Similar questions have been asked about the Harry Potter novels.
Perhaps it is because the core energy of these books connects with what a lot of people intuit to be veridical. Or to dip into the overworked vocabulary of churchianity, perhaps it is because "The Holy Spirit" is bringing certain of the central ideas in these books to wider attention.
It has been suggested that The Da Vinci Code cannot be taken seriously, first because it is fiction, and second because it is historically inaccurate at a number of important points. But the Bible has far more fiction in it, and far more historical inaccuracy than The Da Vinci Code, and those things have not stopped it from being successful.
The uncomfortable reality for both modern Western liberals and modern Western fundamentalists seems to be that certain texts very obviously have the force with them, and certain other texts very obviously do not. And, frankly, we haven't a clue why.
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Scholarly Smackdown: Were Mary Magdalene and Jesus Married?
A debate on Beliefnet (May 2006). Bart Ehrman says there is no evidence. Barbara Thiering disagrees, arguing that John's Gospel and a Gnostic text offer clues to a marriage.
Mary Magdalene's Secret
Extracts from Margaret Starbird's book "The Woman with the Alabaster Jar" (1993).
God's Wisdom
What we're talking about when we talk about the feminine divine in Christianity - an article by Rosemary Radford Ruether on Beliefnet.
The great Da Vinci Code distraction
Article by Geza Vermes, Professor Emeritus of Jewish Studies at Oxford University - Times (London) 06.05.06
The code breakers
Martyn Palmer discusses Ron Howard's 2006 film of The Da Vinci Code - Times (London) - 06.05.06
Catholics form Da Vinci film team
British Roman Catholic leaders are afraid of the influence of The Da Vinci Code film. They have set up the Da Vinci Code Response Group - BBC News (London) - 06.05.06
Why the world is chasing its Grail
Article about The Da Vinci Code book and film by Peter Conrad, English lecturer at Christ Church, Oxford University - The Observer (London) - 07.05.06
Thrills, fun but no masterpiece
James Christopher's review of the 2006 Da Vinci Code film in The Times (London) - 17.05.06
Dan Brown has resurrected a heresy that rattles the Church
Article by Boris Johnson in The Daily Telegraph (London) - 18.05.06
The Da Vinci Code - a true phenomenon or a load of codswallop?
Philip French's review of the 2006 Da Vinci Code film in The Observer (London) - 21.05.06
The secret's out - The Da Vinci Code is dull, verbose - and yes, worse than the book
Cosmo Landesman's review of the 2006 Da Vinci Code film in The Sunday Times (London) - 21.05.06
Same suspense, same success, same errors
Review of the 2006 Da Vinci Code film by The Rev Dr David Hilborn, Head of Theology at the Evangelical Alliance
Who cares what the reviews say?
Mark Lawson considers why the Da Vinci Code film-goers are taking no notice of the critics - The Guardian (London) 24.05.06
Opus Dei murder
Secretive Opus Dei honours banker who was cut up with a chainsaw - Sunday Times (London) 23.07.06
The saint and his virgin
Sacred sexuality in early Christianity and the inner teachings of Jesus - an article by Walter Last
The Order of Mary Magdala
This is the website of a modern esoteric Christian order which studies the teachings, mystical techniques, meditations and prayers of Yeshua and Mary Magdalene. The site includes a Magdalene images gallery here. And there is a useful essay entitled "Temple Prostitutes and Temple Virgins. Were they Temple Priestesses?" here.
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Unusual cloud-form over Launceston
How important is Jesus?
Jesus said: "I am Evolution"
Jesus said: "You must be reincarnated"
Friday, November 19, 2004
Jesus said: "You must be reincarnated"
What was Jesus talking about when he said: "You must be born again"?
The text is found in John 3: "Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, 'You must be born again.' The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit." (Jn 3:6-8 NIV)
A growing number of modern New Age Christians are coming to the view that to be born again means to be reincarnated.
Although emerging evidence suggests that Jesus taught reincarnation, it is fair to observe that some church-based Christians still feel a little uncomfortable with the idea of individual human beings living a succession of different physical lives during their evolutionary return to God. But reincarnation, being born again, has become an important new emphasis in Western spirituality over the last 150 years.
The underlying idea of reincarnation and karma is very simple. Human perfection ("salvation") is the assured destiny of the spiritual self of everyone. Reincarnation, as the evolutionary method, provides the necessary time and opportunity for self-perfecting. The law of action and constantly modified reaction ensures justice to all. "God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows." (Gal 6:7b – NIV) The attainment of perfection is rendered certain by the interior presence of an infinite, divine power ceaselessly at work within the spiritual self of every human being.
Jesus of Nazareth, himself, taught reincarnation and those around him took it for granted. There are passages in the Bible where it is evident that Jesus' inner circle understood and accepted reincarnation as part of the natural mechanism of humanity's spiritual journey.
When Jesus said: "You must be born again" (Jn 3:7b – NIV), he was talking about reincarnation. When Jesus said: ".... before Abraham was born, I am!" (Jn 8:58b – NIV), he was talking about reincarnation. When Jesus, perhaps with Malachi 4:5 in mind, explained to the crowd that John the Baptist was the reincarnation of Elijah (Mt 11:7-15), he was talking about just that.
It seems that the people around Jesus were equally at home with the reality of reincarnation. On one occasion Jesus asked his disciples: "Who do people say the Son of Man is?" They replied, "Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets." (Mt 16:13b-14 - NIV) In other words, people were taking the view that John or Elijah or Jeremiah had been reincarnated as the Son of Man.
On another occasion, Jesus and his group encountered a man who was congenitally blind. The disciples asked Jesus: "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" "Neither this man nor his parents sinned," said Jesus, "but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life...." (Jn 9:2b-3 - NIV)
The question as to whether the man himself had sinned and in consequence had been sightless shows the clear thought that justice demanded that the transgression should have occurred in a physical body. As this could only have happened in a former life on Earth, belief in reincarnation is implicit in the question. In the disciples' minds the man might have been born blind because of events in one of his previous lives.
But important objections can be made to all this: If Jesus believed in reincarnation, wouldn't he have talked about it more? And wouldn't what he said about reincarnation have been expressed in rather more explicit terms?"
These are fair points. One possibility is that the cultural milieu within which Jesus taught at that time (like that of the more advanced spiritualities in the East) accepted without question that reincarnation happened. It was not therefore necessary for Jesus to be explicit about it.
A further possibility is the exact opposite. It may have been Jesus' view that the people he spoke to were not yet spiritually equipped to assimilate the concept of reincarnation, and so he played it down or coded it into metaphor in his teachings.
A third possibility is more sinister. This is that there were plenty of explicit references to reincarnation in both the Old and New Testaments of the Bible (in the texts as originally given), including many clear statements on the subject by Jesus himself, but these references were edited out of the Bible for political reasons in the sixth century.
Prior to the Second Council of Constantinople in 553 CE, the indications are that there had been many clear references to reincarnation in the Bible. But Justinian I (483-565), an energetic Byzantine Emperor, and his wife, didn't like the idea of reincarnation – it tended to reduce the power of priest-caste dogma, and therefore their own power – so they convoked the Council and, among much other gerrymandering, got the Church Fathers to issue a decree to remove most of the references to reincarnation from the extant biblical texts.
But in the early Christian communities, reincarnation was a datum. Origen (c185-254) asks: "Is it not more in conformity with reason that every soul for certain mysterious reasons is introduced into a body, and introduced according to its deserts and former actions? Is it not rational that souls should be introduced into bodies, in accordance with their merits and previous deeds, and that those who have used their bodies in doing the utmost possible good should have a right to bodies endowed with qualities superior to the bodies of others? The soul, which is immaterial and invisible in its nature, exists in no material place without having a body suited to the nature of that place; accordingly, it at one time puts off one body, which was necessary before, but which is no longer adequate in its changed state, and it exchanges it for a second." (from 'Contra Celsum')
And in another place, Origen says: "The soul has no beginning nor end. Every soul comes into this world strengthened by the victories or weakened by the defeats of its previous life. Its place in this world as a vessel appointed to honour or dishonour is determined by its previous merits or demerits. Its work in this world determines its place in the world which is to follow this." (from 'De Principiis')
These two passages from Origen are cited in "Reincarnation: An East-West Anthology" edited by J.Head & S.L.Cranston (1961); Quest Books ISBN 0-8356-0035-1.
A capable essay entitled "Reincarnation in Christian History" can be found here and more historical detail about the Second Council of Constantinople is compiled here.
Among several books of scriptural status which were kept out of the official church Bible, perhaps for fear that they might empower the vulgar, was the Pistis Sophia. In this text there is a passage in which Jesus explains a little more about the reincarnation of Elijah as John the Baptist than the Bible (at Mt 11:7-15) has space for: "I found Elisabeth, the mother of John the Baptist, before she had conceived him and I cast into her a power which I had received from the Little Jao, the Good, who is in the Midst, so that he should be able to preach before me, and prepare my way and baptise with water of forgiveness. Now that power was in the body of John. And again, in place of the soul of the archons which he was due to receive, I found the soul of the prophet Elias in the aeons of the sphere; and I took it in and I took his soul again; I brought it to the Virgin of the Light, and she gave it to her paralemptors. They brought it to the sphere of the archons, and they cast it into the womb of Elisabeth. But the power of the Little Jao, he of the Midst, and the soul of the prophet Elias were bound in the body of John the Baptist." (Pistis Sophia - Book 1 - Chapter 7)
The full text of Book 1 of the Pistis Sophia can be found here, G.R.S.Mead's introduction to the Pistis Sophia can be found here and an instructive blurb about J.J.Hurtak's influential book on the Pistis Sophia is accessible online here.
Richard Holmes' well-regarded website has a section entitled The Reincarnation FAQ. This covers reincarnation life histories, past life regressions, and some of the common questions which people ask about the workings of reincarnation.
Some people think that reincarnation is a deception wrought by demons on the undefended Christian mind. An intelligent presentation of why orthodox Christianity and reincarnation may be incompatible is offered by Ernest Valea here.
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I died in spaceshuttle crash says four-year-old Indian girl
Upasama Kumar is a four year-old girl who has been drawing crowds to the village of Nar Mohammadpur in Uttar Pradesh (India). She was born two months after the death of Kalpana Chawla, the Indian astronaut who was killed in the US spaceshuttle Columbia above Texas (USA) on the 1st February 2003. Ever since she learned to talk Upasama has insisted that her real name is Kalpana Chawla and she died up in the skies four years ago when a huge ball of ice collided with the spaceshuttle and destroyed it. Locals say that it would appear that Upasama Kumar is the reincarnation of Kalpana Chawla. Upasama even knows the name of Kalpana Chawla's father.
Source: Hindustan Times (New Delhi, India) 07.07.07.
China bans reincarnation in Tibet
United Press International (Washington, USA) 03.08.07
China tells living Buddhas to obtain permission before they reincarnate
The Times (London, UK) 04.08.07
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