From International Viewpoints (IVy) Issue 5 - March 1992
Philosophical Considerations
By Todde Salén. Sweden
Jesus Christ and Christians
Probably no man has influenced our western civilisation more than the
man we call Jesus Christ. He was founder of Christianity and the
source of all the various sects and churches of Christians we have
today.
Everybody who knows about the history of mankind and the aberations of
the 3rd and 4th dynamics, should have some insight into what mankind
will do with knowledge of the kind that Jesus Christ left behind. If
you know anything about organized religion (control) and the alter-is
(lies) that occur when human beings are allowed to tamper with such
materials to benefit their own self-interest, you should expect the
modern Christian Churches to have deviated quite a bit from the
original teachings of Jesus Christ. (See article "Control and Lying"
IVy 4 (December 1991) page 14.)
It is actually imposible to find out exactly what Jesus Christ
originally was teaching, as there exists no written materials that
give the exact teachings of this man - Jesus Christ. So this is not an
effort to prove that I know what his original teaching was all about.
Instead I will make a few suggestions about what he might have said
about 2,000 years ago. I will also try to get some support for what I
am suggesting, by quoting materials that have been located but not
verified as OK by the modern Christian Churches.
The acknowledged (by the Catholic Church) written materials we are
supposed to use to learn about Jesus are the gospel books of the New
Testament. Even they have contradictory material in their texts. So it
is not easy to find out the truth about the teachings of this man from
studying the bible.
Khristos People
At the time Jesus was preaching in the Roman Empire (a First Empire
Civilisation, (In brief: The First Empire is a slave society, where
wild men or hunters (i.e. tribe people with tribe morals) are educated
through slavery to become contributing members of a civilisation
(educated from first dynamic and second dynamic human beings with a
small hunting pack to third and fourth dynamic human beings that can
be controlled to work). Our bottom triangle, the CCH triangle. The
Second Empire is an ARC-civilisation, where the members of the society
are being offered education and human rights to make it possible for
the truly spiritual ones to rise to higher levels. Very much like our
modern western civilisation. Our middle triangle, the ARC triangle.
The Third Empire is the thousand years Empire (a true group of true
friends). Our top triangle, the KRC triangle. [Todde is preparing an
article for "IVy" on the three Empires. Ed],) the Jewish people (and
most other peoples in the region) were oppressed. Nobody believed in
help from above to better the conditions of life. From the religious
perspective they were interesting times indeed. Supposedly the
foundation of a new kingdom (A Second Empire) was being prepared. And
Jesus Christ was a very fundamental part of that foundation. He knew
that it was his task to assist the human beings around him and their
civilisation, to start a new era with a new kind of civilisation (the
Second Empire). He knew that he had the duty of getting people to move
in a new direction towards his "other kingdom". The Jewish religion
had already declined into the level of rites and rituals (See article
"Religion" in IVy 1, May 1991page 14.) with some teaching of Dharma (=
The Laws of Life and the meaning of life). He knew he represented this
new and better civilisation while the establishment represented an old
oppressive civilisation. It was his duty to get as many of his fellow
men as possible to move in the direction of this 2nd Empire. With
rhetoric, miracles and teaching of Dharma to his disciples, he did
what he could to accomplish this. He tried to make people around him
rise to a new level of consciousness. He tried to illuminate the
slaves of the Roman Empire about their spiritual nature. The greek
word "Khristos", which gave the Christians their name has the basic
meaning "anointed (one)". The Indo-European root word to "Khristos" is
"ghrei-", with the basic meaning "to rub" and especially "to stimulate
the mind".
The ancient Greeks, that gave this sect the name Khristos people,
obviously were sufficiently impressed about the fact that they managed
to raise their awareness by treating their minds somehow, to call them
the sect of Khristos.
Christian Bureaucracy
Like everybody else who has great success in changing the minds of
people away from what the establishment desires, Jesus got the
authorities of those days to strike back at him. And so he was
crucified.
His followers soon became more obsessed with building a powerful
organisation than spreading his original teachings and methods. They
created Jesus into a God and disconnected his followers from his
teachings. When the four gospels were written there had already been
so many changes made, that the message to future generations was
aligned to what the bureaucrats of that organisation felt was needed.
The worshipping of this godlike man Jesus Christ replaced the
teachings he had tried to get across to his fellow men. However it
took yet a few hundred years before the church in Rome managed to
eradicate the original teachings of Christ from the minds of his
followers well enough, to make it possible to create a priesthood and
the church to real bureaucratic authorities.
Nag Hammadi & Qumran
Since then some old written materials have been located. First the Nag
Hammadi library was found in Egypt in 1945 and then the Dead Sea
scrolls in Israel in 1947. (What a coincidence! Within two years both
these are located after being hidden for almost 2000 years! Could a
bigger being have had his hand in this?) The Dead Sea Scrolls were
written between 150 BC and a few decades AD. The Egyptian writings
were dated in the first five centuries AD. (They revealed that the
early Christian teaching was very much closer to the Essenian Dead Sea
Scroll Masters.)
In the 5th century Rome prohibited all Christians to study any
materials that were not authorised by the church in Rome. That is when
the monks at Nag Hammadi choose to bury their library instead of
seeing it burn. In very much the same way the Dead Sea Sect (the
Essenians) decided to hide their holy scriptures in nearby caves at
Qumran. When they hid their scrolls, they were still preaching their
message of a new Messiah-like civilisation, that would be erected very
soon (even after Jesus had been crucified).
One very interesting aspect of these two finds is that quite a lot of
the early Christian traditions of the Essenian sect at the Dead Sea
seem to have been maintained in the early Egyptian version of
Christianity. With this bridge between the land where Jesus was born
and his followers in Egypt, it is a lot easier to view the original
philosophy of Christ. Probably that kind of philosphy is what Jesus
was teaching his original followers (at least it would be a lot closer
(Jesus emphasises that you salvage yourself (your soul) by performing
"good deeds" and not by believing. He said that only those who had
eyes that could see and ears that could hear (he was actually talking
about those who had enough spiritual awareness) could truly understand
his teaching. And Jesus was no meek person. He was quite ruthless with
those who were unable to understand his teaching. Mark 4:10-12)).
There are many leads pointing to Jesus being a member of the sect of
Essenians that hid their holy scrolls in the caves at Qumran. Even
before the scrolls of the Dead Sea were discovered a lot of
researchers were of the opinion that Jesus was a member of the
Essenians of the Jewish people. The Essenians were around 4,000
members altogether. The Dead Sea group was their elite group.
Original Christianity
What Jesus was teaching to his followers was no real news to those who
knew the holy scriptures of the Essenians of those days. (For example
Jesus was supposedly coming to the Jews to inform them of the second
steps of the plan for world salvation. The Jews were chosen through
Abraham to collect and maintain the sacred books of the old testement.
And at a proper time Melchizedek would incarnate among the Jews to
give the world step 2 of the plan for world salvation. That is what
the Essenians (among them John the Baptist) were preparing for. So
Christianity is the second step of that plan.) The Essenians
themselves already knew that it was their duty to "pave the way for
the new Kingdom". They as a group created with their discipline and
their teachings an environment where the "Son of God" could arrive and
bring forth his teachings. And they knew that this was their duty.
According to this sect the highest priest (and king of Justice)
Melchizedek (In the Mormon church Melchizedek is the higher order of
priesthood. See letter to Hebrews 7:1-10.) gave the ancestor of Israel
- Abraham - the plan for world salvation. Once the Messiah (Christ)
was born it was his (Christs) duty to prepare the world for the next
step of the plan. The Essenians were a very secret society and they
shared their secrets with nobody. "The master will pave the way for
each of his followers in accordance with his (the disciples)
understanding and karma. He shall hide the Dharma for all children of
lies and give true teaching to those who have chosen to walk on the
road to truth" (This is from the Qumran Scrolls)
Compare these words to what Jesus told his disciples: "You (my true
followers) have been introduced to the secrets of the Kingdom of God,
but to those who have not learned these secrets it is just fables.
Because they see only with their (human) eyes and hear only with their
(human) ears without understanding. Thus they cannot change and rise
to higher awareness" (Mark 4:10-12 (not an exact quote))
If you study the Dead Sea Scrolls more in detail you will find many
explanations about what original Christianity was all about. They will
change your viewpoint about what Jesus Christ was actually teaching
away from a concept that the organised churches of Christianity want
you to believe in. You will start to realize that Jesus Christ
(whatever his real name was) had quite a different viewpoint on Dharma
than the organised religions of the modern Christian world want you to
believe.
If you belong to the Jewish religion you will again realize, that the
problem of organised religion is the reason why the Jews of Israel
have been hiding these Qumran Dead Sea Scrolls from the public since
they were discovered in 1947.
Essenians
The Essenians themselves considered that they were building the
foundation for the new empire that was to be erected. They considered
that they by living in accordance with the laws of life (Dharma) and
through their urge to increase their awareness, prepared the way for
the Messiah. They felt that the time had come when the destiny of the
Jews that Melchizedek had outlined for Abraham (the word Abraham has
the basic meaning "father of multitudes") was going to change
according to the heavenly plan for Mankind. Their Messiah was going to
give them the secret plan for the next step in the plan for the
salvation of the world. (This Melchizedek was quite an interesting
being according to the Bible (Hebr 7:2-8) as he is claimed to have
eternal life as a priest, which is of course the reason why the Mormon
Church use his name for their own highest priests.)
If you care to study the Qumran scrolls and the Nag Hammadi finds you
will soon cease getting suprised about the obvious closeness between
the early Christian churches and the Essenians. But already in the 4th
century AD the Christians had lost their roots. So the Christian
churches of those days ridiculed the Essenians, just like all
religious sects tend to attack other sects that have similar teachings
rather than attacking sects of a widely different religion.
The Essenians also talked about a "last day", but it was not a day
only but a forty year period where the Messiah would introduce the new
teaching to the world (the war scroll 1QM. (Q is for Qumran, i.e.
scrolls found in the Qumran Cave - could it be Hubbards 40 active
years 1939-1979? Nostradamus said the "New Religion" of "A sect of
philosophers" would be started in 1939 - when LRH claimed to have
written Excalibur.)) The Essenians believed in reincarnation and
compared the unorganised moving of the spirit from one human existance
to another to "rolling stones". In the 40 year period of the
"judgement day" the spirits that were called to lay the foundation for
the 1,000 year empire are supposed to "stop their unorganised rolling"
and come to rest as pillars in the foundation of the 3rd kingdom. You
will also find that Jesus used this expression in the gospel, when he
tells his disciples to stop "rolling" and instead find their place as
pillars in the temple of God. The Essenians considered reincarnation
as a fact and did not argue about it. Jesus obviously did the same
when he in the Gospel implied that the prophet Elia had reincarnated
as John the Baptist (Math: 11:14 and 17:10-13). (In the Nag Hammadi
library is a book where Paul in a vision meets Jesus and Jesus shows
him the "secret of man", i.e how a soul rises from the dead to the
4th. heaven where it is punished for it's misdeeds in a human body.
The soul feels it's guilt and enters a new body that has been
prepared. Entering a (babies) body after death is -not- an idea you
are liable to meet in most of the various present day Christian
churches.) The early Gnostic Christians, who strongly believed in
reincarnation, were condemmed by the church in Rome when the Qumran
inheritance was forgotten. And of course the most obvious teachings of
reincarnation occurred in the sacred books that the church of Rome
removed from the Dharma of Christianity.
The Essenian belief in Messiah was connected to Melchizedek, the king
of Justice. They did not only believe in Melchizedek as a source for
their Dharma and goals and purposes of their religious sect, but also
that he would reincarnate in their midst, to lay the foundation for
the second Empire and he would make a sacrifice for mankind in the
Easter period (11Q, Melchizedek. (Qumran scroll #11 "Melchizedek".))
The belief that Jesus was Melchizedek survived among the followers of
Jesus in Egypt several hundred years before the church in Rome put an
end to it. In the gospel the author of the Hebrew Letter implies that
Jesus and Melchizedek are somehow connected in the 5th chapter. This
chapter is very hard to understand if you do not know about the
Essenians and their Dharma (see also John 8:56-58).
The Holy Spirit of Truth
In the same letter (Hebr, 8:8-12) it is clearly stated that the new
gospel is about teaching the Laws of Life (Dharma) so well to the
people that "the laws shall be in their minds and in their hearts, so
they will no longer need any teachings". Instead the people shall know
the laws of life by themselves (by learning to know their true self).
(Jesus supposedly said "I am the way, the truth and the life". Could
he possibly have said "The I (= true self) is the way, the truth and
the life"?) This is also what the Essenians tried to accomplish. This
is the state of awareness the buddhist was striving to reach. To know
the Dharma and by that knowledge live a life of actions in harmony
with those laws of life, fulfilling the meaning of life. In the gospel
it was also said that a "helper"(John 14:15-26) - the holy spirit -
would assist the followers of Christ after he had left.
Also in the gospel (John 8:48-59) Jesus himself claims to have lived
before Abraham and that Abraham liked to see him. The writings in the
gospel are much easier to understand if you know about the Essenians
and their teachings (Dharma). Knowing about these teachings you can
also understand that what Jesus is actually asserting (John 8:56-58)
is that he is Melchizedek.
In the following chapter of the gospel of John, Jesus claims that the
spirit of truth will one day come to mankind and take over his
teaching. It is this Holy Spirit that will bring the human beings into
the kingdom of God (the father).
The question that is up to each one of us who reads "IVy" to answer
is: "Is the Dharma we are taught in Scn inspired by the holy spirit?
Did LRH get his teachings from that holy spirit? Are we new Christians
who will prepare the way for the second coming of Christ?"
Second Coming of Christ
Just like the Essenians prepared the way for Christ, by creating a
group that lived in harmony with the laws of life, so we can create
groups that prepare the second coming of Christ (or the arrival of
Maitreya) by careful studies of the Dharma that Hubbard has left for
us to learn. And by doing the actions (KRC) that this teaching tells
us to do.
The Christian religion and the various Christian churches and
organisations have given us a second empire civilisation that we can
work from. It is up to the members of this modern Western civilisation
to continue from there and get busy laying the foundation for the
third kingdom - the civilisation of true friends organised in true
groups.
If you believe that you can assist in this, you need to get trained in
the laws of Life, so you know them by yourself. I say that you get
that training when you train yourself to become a meditor (called an
Auditor in Scn), that can deliver the teachings to others.
Christianity was an important step in the religious plan to salvage
the world (as outlined by Melchizedek). The Jewish people had an
important role in the same plan. Now it is the duty of those people
who are aware enough (i.e. have enough knowledge about Dharma) to
understand and apply the technology to spread the new gospel to
others.
Many were called but few were chosen.
Where are you going to get that training?
[Editorial Note: When I had typed the above in I had a number of
questions which I sent to Todde. Some of his answers are incorporated
in some of the footnotes to the article, and the rest is in the
following, which he says he has freely translated from the source he
got his data from.]
The Jewish author of the Gospel according to St. Mathew obviously
considered Jesus to be a "messenger bring new Laws (replacing Moses)
to the Jews, as he had Jesus deliver his famous speech from the top of
a mountain - above the audience, while the greek author of Luke places
Jesus on a plain, level with his audience and thus more of an equal
and less of an Authority. Luke probably considered Jesus to be more of
a "social worker" amongst the people.
All the four gospel authors (Mathew, Marcus, Luke and John) agree that
he was a "son of God", who was tragically sacrificed because of human
aberrations. In the Gospel of John the disciples complained "Why did
they (the people) not understand our teacher, why did they not
acknowledge him?"
When Jesus was accused by the court he did not have much to say in his
defence that changed the issue, as his teachings were so much in
disagreement with what the order of the Empire regarded as reality
that he could not really say anything (Luke 23:2-9).
Thus he was eventually crucified as a magician and anti-Roman prophet.
And his followers soon built a cult around his person, the like of
which has never again been seen. And focussing on the worship of
Jesus, the Christians soon lost their roots to other sources. Thus the
Gospel made the philosphy of Jesus into the work of only one man
(compare this to the cult around Hubbard in the Cof$). No historical
background material was saved.
Even so the impressive new ways of thinking of early Christianity
concerning the abilites of man was already starting to deteriorate
with the second generation of authors (what we call today the Gospels
of Luke and Matthew). The need to create Jesus into a holy "Son of
God", soon replaced the teachings of this remarkable man. And so the
arguments of the Christian movement more and more concentrated on the
What? When? and Who? he really was, the history of what happened
around him got lost.
The Nag Hammadi finds and the Dead Sea Scrolls however do reveal that
there was a background behind Jesus and other sources. The Nag Hammadi
library was found in a field in Egypt in 1945, while the Dead Sea
Scrolls of the Essenians were located in Israel in 1947. The Essenians
of the Dead Sea Scrolls hid their scrolls to prevent their destruction
by Roman soldiers, as they still preached their message about a
Messiah that would "salvage the Jews and the world", even after Jesus
had been crucified several decades earlier. And about two years later
(A.D. 70) the Romans levelled Jerusalem to the ground.
Studying the Essenian scriptures and the early Christian scriptures of
the Nag Hammadi, there is very obviously a strong link between the
teachings of the Essenians and this form of Christianity. This makes
it possible to get an insight into what the philosophical climate
around Jesus really was like.
Almost all leads indicate that the roots of early Christian philosophy
goes back to the Essenians from the Dead Sea region of that time.
Already during the 19th century many researchers in this area of
philosophy realised, that this is where the early Christians had their
roots. The discovery of Qumran writings further strengthens this
assumption. The problem today is only that the establishment is too
heavily locked in on the Authoritarian beliefs to rewrite the early
history of the church.
The 19th century researchers of history around early christianity only
had access to materials from three antique writers about the
Essenians. Today we also have the Dead Sea Scrolls and the parallels
to the teaching of Jesus are striking.
The early church almost deleted the Gospel of John as they considered
it to be too much out of line with what they wanted, but they did not.
And in it you discover more of the original Christian teachings than
in any of the other three Gospels (maybe we should only say that the
Gospel of John more resemples the Essenian philosophy than the other
three).
For example, in John somebody asks: "Who is the son of Man?" (John
12:34-36), and Jesus replies: "Step into the Light, while it is here
with you, to become sons of the light yourself!". Actually the
Essenians called themselves "Sons of Light" (Rule of the Order -
column III). Jesus hoped that more people would join their order and
become "Sons of Light".
The Essenians were famous for being very honest and truthful. This was
such a well known and respected fact, that they did not even have to
swear by any oath to King Herod, which was really extraordinary for
that time. Jesus in his preaching from the mountain said: "You shall
swear no oath at all, not by heaven, as it is the throne of God, nor
by Earth, as it is by his foot" (Matt 5:34-37). Considering the
Essenian order and rules this is not as suprisingly new a thought as
you may believe. An Essenian set of rules (from the Damascus group)
gives a more original version (columns XIV-XV):
"He shall not swear by ... (the unspeakable name of God)
Nor by A L (Elohim)
Nor by A D (Adonia)"
Jesus seems to have been their leader or at least one of the highest
leaders. They (the Essenians) considered themselves to be "the new
Israelians", that God had liased himself to after the Babylonian
exile. They were a faithful few who lived with "the Law" (Dharma)
solidly engraved in their hearts. And they called themselves "the
holy" and " the poor". Significances that we today connect with
Christians.
Even when you study the gospel books you will get a picture of Jesus
that is not showing a meek personality, but a very strong and
determined person (Just realize what it takes to control priests
inside their own temples).
An Essenian who had been introduced to the heavenly mysteries had
access to various occult methods, that were never written down. One of
their powers was "healing" and that is something we know from the
gospels that Jesus was active in.
References:
a) The Nag Hammadi Library in English - James Robinson, Harper & Row,
1981.
b) The Dead Sea Scrolls in English, Introduction and translation: Geza
Vermes, Pelican, 2nd. edition, 1981
c) The Qumran Community, (Selected writings of the Dead Sea), Michael
A. Knibb, Cambridge University Press, 1987.
d) Josefus Notes about the Essenians from Christian D Ginsbergs essay
"The Essenians, their history and doctirnes", Routledge & Kegan Paul,
1864.
e) The Essene Odyssey, Element Books, 1984
f) Jonas Hans: The Gnostic Religion, Beacon Press, 2nd. edition, 1963
g) Allegro, John M.: The Dead Seas Scrolls and Christian Myth,
Westbridge Books, 1979.
h) Scholem Gershom: Kabbalah, Meridian, 1978
i) Perrin, Norman & Duling, Dennis C: The New Testament - An
Introduction, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 2nd edition, 1982.