Theos-Talk Archives (August 2004 Message tt00146)

--- In theos-talk@yahoogroups.com, "krishtar" <krishtar_a@b...> wrote:
> What do you mean with the " in my possession."?

Intellectually only. When I was a kid I was systematically terrified 
by hokey preachers and other fanatics who told me I would go to hell 
if I did not agree with their theories about this and that and would 
there burn forever and ever (Amen!) The absurdity of it all got to 
be too much, so I dumped the Baptist church as a belief system when I 
was 18 or 19, but wanted to know what the truth was as a way of 
putting the thing to bed for once and for all.

Pascal argued that one cannot know the truth, so it makes sense to 
place a bet and believe the pope (he was Catholic) and thereby escape 
the ultimate penalty of being wrong. He is right that one cannot 
know the metaphysical truth, but wrong IMO that one cannot know the 
historical truth. In other words, it is possible with sufficient 
research to discover what these ancient mystics BELIEVED to be true, 
even though the question of whether they were right or not remains a 
matter of faith. I find this as satisfying as the unattainable 
alternative.

The historical facts are quite complex, but at a high level of 
abstraction one can say:

(1) There is plenty of evidence Jesus studied with the Therapeutae of 
Alexandria (Egypt), which means among other things thet he would have 
been exposed to channeling, the allegorical (esoteric) system of 
interpreting Judaism, communal living, which was the basis on which 
his own movement was origially organized, and the Egyptian (as 
distinguished from Palestinian) system of Judaism. Allegorical 
interpretation, antinomianism, the Logos doctrine, etc., were 
Egyptian and rejected in Palestine.

(2) The origins of Jesus are unknown. In keeping with the rules of 
the Therapeutae he left his birth family and adopted the Therapeutae 
as his new family. He moreover required his followers to do the 
same. He appears to have had a Galilean accent, but other than that 
we do not know his origins. He could have grown up in The Galilee, 
or among Galineans in the Alexandrian Jewish community. He was 
accused of being illegitimate, and there is a legend that he was the 
product of a Jewish woman's passion for a Roman soldier, which 
suggests he may have had a non Jewish appearance. There is other 
evidence that his appearance may have been more Aryan than Semitic, 
whether the soldier and other stories are true or not.

(3) It is likely the name Jesus (Yehoshua, meaning "He who saves") 
was an initiatic name conferred on initiation and not his birth 
name. It is also likely that this is a clue as to one of the 
mystical systems into which he was initiated.

(4) His esoteric system consisted mostly of the two schools of Jewish 
mysticism, i.e., the Yetzireh (Creation) and Merkabah (Chariot) and 
likely another system described briefly in writing for the first time 
in the thirteenth century CE and kept secret before then. REVELATION 
has long been known to be a Merkabah vision, and there are less 
striking bits of evidence elsewhere that he passed this knowledge to 
his disciples. Paul's ascension to the third heaven is also known to 
be a Merkabah vision.

(5) As the True Messiah he expected that he would be protected from 
crucifixion, and was very surprised when he was tied to the cross. I 
suspect the Romans were bribed to tie him to the cross and not nail 
him, since gospels strongly imply they were bribed to let him down 
after a brief period of time. The prophecy he expected to fulfill is 
likely a statement in THE WISDOM OF SOLOMON, which predicted someone 
would be sold into slavery, miraculously saved, and elevated to king 
status. The kingdom of God he wanted to establish seems to have been 
a communal system on the order of the one used by the Therapeutae and 
Essenes.

Some of the legends seem to have been misunderstood by the gospel 
writers, but I suspect they did this in good faith, not knowing what 
to make of some of what they heard. The Ascencion is part of 
Merkabah mysticism, the Descent in Hell is part of Luria's Kabbalah 
(which appears to have been old when Luria was born), etc.

Some writers (Blavatsky, HS Lewis) thought all the esoteric 
information is still the property of the prelates in the catholic 
church and that they keep it from the masses in keeping with the 
practice that started at the very beginning. Whether that is true or 
not or whether they have lost the keys as others say is impossible to 
say for sure. They keys all appear to be there in ancient documents, 
even though some effort has been made to suppress this information.