The Grail Quest and The Destiny of Man
Part VI: Jesus: The Man and the Myth

In the early sixteenth century, Pope Leo X is on record as declaring: "It has served us well, this myth of Christ."

Was the story of Jesus of Nazareth a myth?

In the earliest contacts with the Cassiopaeans we began to ask questions about Jesus. This was, in a sense, a form of a "challenge" or a "test," from our perspective. It was only later, after much research and work in many areas, I realized that this really wasn't much of a "test!" There are endless variations of material delivered from all sorts of sources identifying themselves as Jesus, Ashtar, Lord Sananda, and who knows else! Some of them claim to be Jesus, some of them claim to have genetically engineered Jesus, some of them claim to have "projected" the Jesus story into history, and on and on and on!

Nevertheless, this was what we did, and the answers we received were sometimes quite in line with modern scholarship and theological opinion; sometimes they dovetailed with more "esoteric" sources from other "psychic channels," and in startling and outstanding ways, some of the answers were completely different from anything we had ever encountered. It was on all of these points that we were challenged to do original research, and I hope to shed some light on the matter here.

It seems that to the "easy believer" everything is possible and they have no problems accepting the word of this or that person or teacher or text that something is so. However, to a person who has studied the varied and often conflicting material and is in search of facts, there are a host of problems with this story of Jesus.

The biggest problem consists in the fact that it is easy to fabricate texts and documents out of nothing. Falsification and counterfeiting are as old as the hills. J.-K. Huysmans wrote in Las-bas,

"Events are for a man of talent nothing but a spring-board of ideas and style, since they are all mitigated or aggravated according to the needs of a cause or according to the temperament of the writer who handles them. As far as documents which support them are concerned, it is even worse, since none of them is irreducible and all are reviewable. If they are not just apocryphal, other no less certain documents can be unearthed later which contradict them, waiting in turn to be devalued by the unearthing of yet other no less certain archives." [Huysmans, 1891, Ch II, quoted by Fulcanelli].

"If there was a historical Jesus, he left little or no impression on his contemporaries. No literate person of his own time mentioned him in any known writing. The Gospels were not written in his own time, nor were they written by anyone who ever saw him in the flesh. The names of the apostles attached to these books were fraudulent. The books were composed after the establishment of the church, some as late as the 2^nd century AD or later... Most scholars believe the earliest book of the New Testament was I Thessalonians, written perhaps in 51 AD by Paul, who never saw Jesus in person and knew no details of his life story." [Walker; 1996]

So, we were not even sure that there WAS a Jesus! But, the Cassiopaeans declared that there was:

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Q: (L) Who was Jesus of Nazareth?
A: Advanced spirit.
Q: (L) Was Jesus an individual who had psychic or unusual powers from birth?
A: Close.
Q: (L) Did he have an awareness from the earliest times of his life that he was in some way special or chosen?
A: yes.

Okay. But, we wanted some details and we decided to start from the very foundation and ignore all other claims and stories. The question of the "Immaculate Conception" seemed like a good place to start:

Q: (L) Was Jesus born from an immaculate conception; that is did his mother not have sex with a man in order to conceive him?

A: No.
Q: (L) She did have sex with a man in order to conceive him, is that correct?
A: Yes.

This was no more than we had expected to hear. The whole story about the Immaculate Conception was obviously a myth. The burning question THEN became " WHO was the father of Jesus?"

Q: (L) Who was the man with whom she had sex to Conceive Jesus?
A: Tonatha.
Q: (L) And who was this individual, Tonatha?
A: Acquaintance.
Q: (L) Was he selected for some reason to be the biological father of Jesus by other beings or powers.
A: Close.
Q: (L) Can you give us any details about him. What was his lineage, where did he come from, etc.
A: He was a member of the White Sect.
Q: (L) What is the white sect?
A: AKA Aryans.

Well, this mention of the father of Jesus being an Aryan simply went RIGHT PAST ME! I had been reading all about the Dead Sea Scrolls and had correlated this information with that of Edgar Cayce which indicated that Mary and Jesus must have been part of the Essene community of Qumran. So, I asked:

Q: (L) Was Mary a member of the Essene group?
A: Yes.
Q: (L) Was this man also a member of the Essenes?
A: No.

So, we now know that the Essenes and this "White Sect" of Aryans were different. And this becomes VERY important further on, though I did not realize it at the time.

Q: (L) And this person, Tonatha, was chosen to be the biological father of Jesus?
A: Yes.
Q: (Laura) Why did Mary not marry him?
A: Feelings were extremely transient. Influenced by telepathic suggestion. Hypnotized level 1.

Well, this says that Mary was in an altered state and was compelled in some way to give herself to some individual named "Tonatha" in order to conceive a "special" child. It is easy to see how such an event could be retold as "The Spirit of the Lord" coming over her. And, in this respect, the next thing I discovered in my corollary reading of the time, was QUITE significant! Reading in a very well researched book entitled "Lost Survivors of the Deluge," by Gerd von Hassler and translated from the German by Martin Ebon, we find the following relating to this mysterious "Tonatha":

"In the Bible it says: "And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto the,, that the Sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose. And the Lord said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be but a hundred and twenty years.

"With this Divine dictum, the golden times, when gods and their direct offspring lived to be 900 years old, and more, came to an end.

"For hundreds of years, these lines have troubled religious scholars, because direct and literal translations specifically yields the term "Sons of God," as pursuing human maidens. Accordingly, some 2,000 years were devoted to many an inspired and convoluted explanation, in order to come to terms with a notion that fits neither the concepts of the Bible, nor that of a heavenly Divine Creator, but had to be given an appropriate interpretation.

"This is a fact [since the Deluge] we have lost godlike Near-Immortality and all the efforts to intensify the quality of the divine blood through incest - as both the Inca Emperors and the Pharaohs attempted - had to fail. [...] The Divine Blood had been diluted.

"But God had desired the equality of the divine with the human. The Bible tells us: And God said, let us make man in our image, after our likeness...

"Let us make man in our image' is but one of the somewhat dictatorial decisions of democratic majorities within a family of gods, to be found in all the world's myths.

"This brings us to the crucial question. It is, indeed, so vital and controversial that St. Boniface, when he presented it to the Frisians during his missionary journey on June 5, 754, was put to death by the sword! Today, we may ask such a question without facing the sword; it is: Just what is the name of the God-Creator? What is the name of the god who governed the earth even before the Deluge; this God of Gods, rightly called Father of the Gods, and thus Father of all Mankind? To put it even more simply: If a highly developed civilization existed more than 10,000 year ago, governing the world's then populated regions, and if the God-King was able to aid his contemporaries in surviving the Deluge catastrophe, surely the name of this ruler must have been handed down to later generations of survivors; who was he?

"We know from the Epic of Gilgamesh, of the horrible Enlil, who was responsible for the Deluge. The other gods did not think highly of him, but feared him a good deal. His influence never extended beyond Mesopotamia. His antagonist, Shamash, the Sun God, enjoyed greater prestige. He remains, notably in Asia even today, a figure of magical power, the epitome of the shaman. But even the early Egyptians called their Sun God by a different name, Ra. This need not mean much, because Plato tells us that the Egyptians had even then developed a unique and high level of civilization hostile toward the unknown earlier culture.

"The Egyptian term 'Ra' was integrated into the language of early Peru, where we encounter the annual sun festival Rami or Raymi. But this adaptation undoubtedly dates back only to the period following the Deluge, as does the word 'Wotan.' This enables us to draw a firm dividing line: we are able to eliminate all gods who emerged from the post-Deluge civilizations as creators of cultures, builders of cities, magicians or agronomists. The ONE God for whom we search has to be the father - or even ancestor - of this post-Deluge generation of gods. Just as Tuisto, father of Mannus, was the ancestor of Germanic culture.

 "Tuisto? Can that be accurate? Or did Tacitus fail to understand the name correctly? The curious linking of the darkest and lightest vowel in our language brings back a curious association. Of course! It is Tiu, the god whom the early Germans recalled when they made up the calendar and named one day of the week after him: Tuesday. Otherwise he has been overshadowed by the ever-present Wotan-Odin, as the highest Ruler of the Heavens. This replacement took place, at the latest, during the Volkerwanderung, the Great Migration that caused a gigantic upheaval of populations on the Eurasian land mass. We may even assume that, just because Tiu (or Ziu) was removed heavenward, the very vigorous Wotan managed to take his place in human imagination and thought. It was a fate that Wotan experienced himself later on, when missionaries cut down the very oaks that had been dedicated to his divine presence.

"Tiu-Ziu was just as much one of the Aesir as Wotan had been. And the Aesir had even managed to infiltrate the antagonist worlds of Egypt and Mesopotamia, representing the sun and divine wisdom. [...] I do think, however, that our search for the original name of the primal Creator-God should not get bogged down in such minute details. The survivors of the Deluge of whom we learn from the Bible and the earlier Gilgamesh Epic and other traditions, were themselves survivors of the earlier world of gods. [...] Over thousands of years, they passed on a handful of names. No doubt, precisely how much and what one name or another had originally meant may simply have been forgotten over the long, long years.

 
"If we concentrate on the godlike of God Ziu, we discover the following points:

"All of this narrows down to one conclusion - which nevertheless is not definitive - and that is: our old Tuesday God, Tiu, was a divine Ruler-God in primeval times and his name imprinted itself so deeply into human memory that it has survived thousands upon thousands of years." [Von Hassler, 1976]

So, we find an interesting thread relating to the "bloodline" of Jesus. Where will it ultimately lead? Who and what was this "Tonatha" who bears one of the oldest names of God? The interesting thing about this particular bit of information from the Cassiopaeans was the fact that this name proved to later connect to information that went back into the mists before recorded history. Yes, it is true that it is information that was known in some circles before we received it, but it was definitely unknown to us in any way. Does this prove that the Cassiopaeans are, actually, who they say they are? No. But, if nothing else, it demonstrates a "connnection" to SOME source, even if only the universal consciousness or "akashic records."

But, first things first. We must get back to our gathering of data:

Q : (L) What date, counting backwards in our calendrical system, was Jesus born on?
A: 01 06 minus 14.
Q: (L) What time of day was he born?
A: 6 am.
Q: (L) Was there any unusual celestial event in terms of star or planet alignments at that time?
A: No.
Q: (L) Was there an event where the Magi came to present gifts?
A: Close.
Q: (L) Who was it that came to present him gifts?
A: 3 prophets.
Q: (L) What country did these prophets come from?
A: Iran. Also known as Persia. [The "Persian connection" later proved to be VERY significant!]
Q: (L) What was the "star" that indicated to the prophets...
A: Spaceship.
Q: (L) What kind of space ship?
A: Mother.
Q: (L) Where did this mothership come from?
A: Other realm.
Q: (L) Does that mean other realm as in dimension or density?
A: Yes.
Q: (L) Do we know of these other realms or densities as other star systems or planets?
A: Partly.
Q: (L) Jesus grew up to the age of twelve, at which point he was bar Mitzvahed, is that correct?
A: He was bar Mitzvahed at the age of 10. Aramaic rite.
Q: (L) Did Jesus, during the course of his growing up years travel to other countries and study under other masters?
A: No.
Q: (L) Where did he receive his teaching or training?
A: Channeled to him.
Q: (L) Did he at any point in his life travel to India?
A: No. [This surprised us as MANY channeled sources have claimed this to be so.]
Q: (L) Did he travel to Egypt and undergo an initiation in the Great Pyramid?
A: No. [This also was a surprise in contradiction to our expectations as it was part of the "New Age" dogma!]
Q: (L) He lived his entire life in Palestine? [I was somewhat incredulous!]
A: Near. In that general area. The Bible is not entirely accurate.
Q: (L) When Jesus attended the marriage at Cana, whose wedding was it?
A: Did not happen.
Q: (L) Did Jesus feed thousands of people with a few loaves and fishes?
A: No.
Q: (L) Are you saying that all the miracles of the Bible are myths?
A: Remember this is corrupted information altered after the fact for purposes of political and economic gain and control.
Q: (L) Tell us what Jesus really did.
A: He taught spiritual truths to those starving for them.
Q: (L) And what was the basis of these spiritual truths?
A: Channeled information from higher sources.
Q: (L) What is the truth that Jesus taught?
A: That all men are loved by the creator and are ONE with same.
Q: (L) Did he perform any miracles?
A: Some.
Q: (L) Can you tell us about one or two of them?
A: Healing.
Q: (L) Was he able to literally heal with the touch of his hand?
A: Yes.
Q: (L) Did he perform exorcisms?
A: Close.
Q: (L) Is Reiki the method he used to heal, or something similar?
A: Yes.
Q: (L) Is there any way to enhance the Reiki energy to make it powerful enough that one could do in a very short time what now takes quite a while? [As it seems apparent that Jesus did.]
A: Yes.
Q: (L) What can one do to enhance the Reiki energy?
A: Attain lofty spiritual purity.
Q: (L) Are the only miracles he did healing?
A: No.
Q: (L) What other kinds of miracles did he do?
A: Telekinesis.
Q: (L) Did he walk on water?
A: No.
Q: (L) Did he turn water into wine?
A: No.
Q: (L) Are these all just stories?
A: Yes.
Q: (L) What is the purpose of the stories?
A: Control.

So, at this point, we have several issues to deal with. I admit that this material was somewhat disturbing to me, especially considering all of the conflicting stories that were being told by various current "channels" as well as the theories of the theologians.

But, we felt that it was useless to compare one channeled teaching to another - that would be like trying to define x in terms of y and vice versa. So we were looking for "hard facts," something we could get our teeth into, so to speak. I hit the books again. Here is a small part of what I found:

"As early as the 1740s, scholars had deployed what we would now recognise as a valid historical methodology for questioning the veracity of scriptural accounts. Thus, between 1744 and 1767, Hermann Samuel Reimarus, a professor at Hamburg, had argued that Jesus was nothing more than a failed Judaic revolutionary whose body was removed from its tomb by his disciples. By the mid-nineteenth century, German biblical scholarship had truly come of age, and a dating of the Gospels had been established which - in its approach and in most of its conclusions - is still deemed valid. Today, no reputable historian or biblical scholar would deny that the earliest of the Gospels was composed at least a generation after the events it describes. The thrust of German research was eventually to culminate in a position summarized by Rudolf Bultmann of the University of Marburg, one of the most important, most famous and most esteemed of twentieth-century biblical commentators:

"'I do indeed think that we can now know almost nothing concerning the life and personality of Jesus, since the early Christian sources show no interest in either, are moreover fragmentary and often legendary.'" [Baigent, Leigh & Lincoln, 1986]

WHAT?!!!!

Is he REALLY saying that the early Christian sources show NO INTEREST in the LIFE and PERSONALITY OF JESUS?!!

How can this be?!

Well, there seems to be the crucial distinction between the Jesus of history and the Christ of faith. As long as this distinction is acknowledged, specifically in relation to the story of Jesus, faith can remain tenable. A person believes because they CHOOSE to! Absolutely, positively, undeniably NO OTHER REASON!!! Because the FACT is, if one attempts to base their faith in Jesus on ANY verifiable, historical document, such a faith would find itself without any foundation whatsoevere! None, zero, zip, zilch. There is NO historical proof that such an individual EVER eixisted. And, in fact, there is mounting evidence based on modern research methods of text analysis that not only is there no proof that Jesus existed, there is proof that he did NOT exist at all! At least not as he is presented as a person in a particular milieu and time period!

"But, each contribution in the field of biblical research is like a footprint in sand. Each is covered almost immediately and, so far as the general public is concerned, left virtually without a trace. This is extremely curious and rather a sort of "backward" proof that something extraordinary is taking place here.

"Why should this be? Why should biblical scholarship, which is pertinent to so many lives, be thus immune to evolution and development. Why should the great mass of believing Christians in fact know less about the figure they worship than about historical figures of far less relevance? In the past, when such knowledge was inaccessible or dangerous to promulgate, there might have been some justification. The knowledge today is both accessible and safely promulgated. YET THE PRACTICING CHRISTIAN REMAINS AS IGNORANT AS HIS PREDECESSORS OF CENTURIES AGO; AND HE SUBSCRIBES ESSENTIALLY TO THE SAME SIMPLISTIC ACCOUNTS HE HEARD WHEN HE HIMSELF WAS A CHILD. (emphasis, mine)

"A fundamentalist might well assert that this situation bears witness to the resilience and tenacity of Christian faith. ... But we are NOT talking about faith here. We are talking about documented historical facts." [Baigent et al]

In 1995, Helen Ellerbe read a letter from Pope John Paul II. It had been written "confidentially" to a group of cardinals, but was later leaked to the press. It said, in part:

"How can one remain silent about the many forms of violence perpetrated in the name of the faith - wars of religion, tribunals of the Inquisition and other forms of violations of the rights of persons?"

Ms. Ellerbe then decided to prepare a short history of the "dark side" of Christianity. She thought that it would be fairly simple to write and that she would be able to find all the resources in a well-stocked bookstore. Guess again! There was almost nothing available on the subject. Yes, there has been a lot written, as we noted above about the state of Biblical research, but the problem is that these things have not been let out to the public in general. Experts write about it for other experts, and it seems to be a subject that is NOT likely to be widely welcomed by the world at large, which has so much invested in the beliefs of the Christian churches. Ms. Ellerbe, after doing her research, came to the unavoidable conclusion that Christianity has played the major role in creating a world in which people feel alienated from the sacred!

What a commentary on religion! And, as Ms. Ellerbe asks:

"Why, at a time when so many are searching for deeper spiritual meaning, isn't there more accessible information about the history of the institutions which are purported to convey such spiritual truth?"

The fact is, organized religion, most particularly Christianity, has a VERY long history of domination and persecution. It is often explained as the "good intentions gone wrong" of the early Church; their hearts were in the right place, but it was a semi-barbaric time. But, I submit to you that the prosylitizing Jehovah's Witness who knocks on your door uninvited, to tell you THEIR version of the "truth," are just as guilty of trying to dominate your mind and soul as the Grand Inquisitor who followed the dictum: "kill them all; God will know his own." It is merely a matter of degree.

But, we are talking about Jesus. Or possibly, we are talking about Jesus. We may be talking about somebody altogether different from the mythical Jesus; a seed person or event around which a body of stories formed, which then were corrupted and became a tool in the plan of unscrupulous power mongers whose only desire was to control the whole world. And they knew, as Machiavelli enunciated, that religion is the best means of doing so. What was true in Machiavelli's time is still true in our own.

Machiavelli observed that religion and its teachings of faith, hope, charity, love, humility and patience under suffering were factors that render men weak and cause them to care less about worldly and political things, and thus they will turn political power over to wicked men who are not influenced by such ideals. Of course, the real trick is to convince people that the "afterlife" is the only thing worth thinking about, and it is to this end that Christianity has been formulated.

Another of Machiavelli's ideas is that a religion is good only if it supports the state and contributes to state ends. By using religion, one can give "divine sanction" to laws which people would otherwise have no reason to obey. Therefore, the state must control the teachings of the Church. This is certainly what Constantine had in mind when he made Christianity the state religion. He never foresaw that the later Popes would attempt to use his very tactic against the state.

The most pivotal belief of Christianity is the belief in a singular, supreme being whose son and representative they served as intermediaries. At the time of the forcible imposition of Christianity, monotheism differed radically from the widespread "pagan" beliefs that divinity could be manifest in a multiplicity of forms and images.

As people were hypnotized to believe that God can have only one face, they also were convinced that worth or godliness among other people can also have but one face. Different genders, races, classes or beliefs were all ordered as "better than" or "less than" one another. No longer could two notions or opinions exist harmoniously together - one of them must be superior to the other. And, this was mandated politically!

Still another teaching of Machiavelli is: The political leader must APPEAR to be religious, even though he does not believe in nor practice religion. This is certainly true of Constantine who actually worshipped Sol Invictus, and was only baptized into Christianity on his death bed as a sort of "Pascal's wager" type of ploy... better to do it and be wrong than to not do it and be wrong. The flagrant LACK of Christianity among the very popes and princes of the church who imposed the system on the masses should tell anyone how much confidence THEY had in the new religion!

Machiavelli writes:

"to see and hear [the Prince], he should seem to be all mercy, faith, integrity, humanity, and religion... for men in general judge more by the eyes than by the heads, for everyone can see but very few have to feel... Let a prince therefore aim at conquering and maintaining the state, and the means will always be judged honourable and praised by everyone, for the vulgar is always taken in by appearances." [Machiavelli, The Prince]

Another precept of a successful plan for the domination of humanity is:

"love is held by a chain of obligation which, men being selfish, is broken whenever it serves their purpose; but fear is maintained by a dread of punishment which never fails." [Ibid.]

Within Christianity, God is understood to reign not by love and support, but by fear. The Bible repeatedly exhorts people to "fear God." The 3rd century Church Father, Tertullian wrote:

"But how are you going to love, without some fear that you do not love? Surely [such a God] is neither your Father, towards whom your love for duty's sake should be consistent with fear because of his power; nor your proper Lord, whom you should love for His humanity and fear as your teacher."

St. John Chrysostom believed that fear was absolutely necessary:

"...if you were to deprive the world of magistrates and the fear that comes from them, houses, cities and nations would fall upon one another in unrestrained confusion, there being no one to repress, or reple, or persuade them to be peaceful through the fear of punishment."

Violence, says Machiavelli, is an effective means of holding onto power. Violence must be used quickly and mercilessly because violence can engender hatred and hatred can make a person willing even to sacrifice his life in order to gain revenge.

When a new leader comes to power, he should be quick to suppress opposition with complete ruthlessness - cut it off quickly and cleanly. The new ruler should then seek out and cultivate the minority groups that were oppressed under the preceding administration to use them as a foundation of support.

"Christianity owes its large membership to the political maneuvering of orthodox Christians. They succeeded in turning Christianity from an abhorred minor cult into the official religion of the roman Empire. Their goal was to create what Bishop Irenaeus called 'the catholic church dispersed throughout the whole world, even to the ends of the earth.' To that end, they used nearly any means. They revised Christian writings and adapted their principles to make Christianity more acceptable. They pandered to Roman authorities. They incorporated elements of paganism. Orthodox Christianity appealed to the government, not as a religion that would encourage enlightenment or spirituality, but rather as one that would bring order and conformity to the faltering empire. The Roman government in turn granted orthodox Christians unprecedented privilege, enabling the Christian church to become the very sort of authoritarian power Jesus had purportedly resisted!

"Winning acceptance for Christianity was no small feat; Christians were not well-liked within the Roman Empire. Romans had easily incorporated new gods and goddesses into their pantheon with the hope of adding to their own protection and security. The 313 C.E. Edict of Milan, for example, granted everyone religious freedom so 'whatever divinity is enthroned in heaven may be well-disposed and propitious towards us and all those under our authority.' Christians, however, believing theirs to be the one and only god, refused to allow Him to be worshipped alongside others. When they refused to profess loyalty to the Roman pantheon of gods, Christians were seen as likely traitors to the Roman state.

"Christians held attitudes that did little to endear them to Romans. Bishop Irenaeus declared: 'We have no need of the law for we are already far above it in our godly bahavior.' Accounts from around the year 200 reflect the dislike Romans had for Christians: '...they were the ultimate filth,' a gang of ignorant men and credulous women, who with meetings at night, solemn fasts and inhuman food made up a hol-in-the-corner, shadow-loving crew, silent in public, but clacking away in corners, spitting on the gods and laughing at holy things....' "(Gosh! Sounds like the young punk/neo-Nazi type kids of today! Elitist and haters of all who are different from them!)" [Ellerbe, 1995]

Someone in the background of the Christian movement of that time was very clever. They not only used politically expedient means, they designed an organization that is clearly NOT focused on developing spiritually, but rather is set up to manage large numbers of people. They simplified the criteria for membership to the "club," by requiring only that a person confess the Creed, accept baptism, participate in worship, obey the church, and believe "the one and only truth handed down from the apostles." Such a criteria suggests, as one historian wrote, "to achieve salvation, and ignoramus need only believe without understanding, and OBEY the authorities."

And that's the key: OBEY.

The Bible was assembled NOT to bring together all the Christian writings, but to cull and curry them so that they would be uniform. By prohibiting and burning any "dissenting" texts, the impression eventually became established that the Bible with its four gospels was the original Christian view! Yet, as late as 450 C.E., Theodore of Cyrrhus mentioned that there were at least 200 different gospels circulating in his diocese. Amazing that none of these have come down to us. These guys are thorough if nothing else!

"Beyond choosing from the many gospels and writings to construct the Bible, the Church edited its message with each translation. The Roman philosopher Celsus, witness to the falsification of Christian writings already in the second century, said of the revisionists: 'Some of them, as it were in a drunken state producing self-induced visions, remodel their Gospel from its first written form and reform it so that they may be able to refute the objections brought against it.'" [Ellerbe, 1995]

The Catholic Encyclopaedia remarks:

"[the] idea of a complete and clear-cut canon of the New Testament existing from the beginning... has no foundation in history." and "In all the departments forgery and interpolation as well as ignorance had wrought mischief on a grand scale."

Nevertheless, Christianity's emerging "uniformity" appealed to Constantine who was looking for the tool to bolster his own military power. This was a guy who executed his own son and had his wife boiled alive. Constantine saw Christianity as a means of getting rid of dissent.

To make things even more uniform, Constantine presided over the first ecumenical council at Nicea in 325. At this council, Constantine considered all the religious questions from a political point of view. He assured himself of unanimity by banishing all the bishops who would not sign the new profession of faith. In this way, unanimity was achieved!

What did the Council of Nicea do besides establish some serious controls for the Control System? Well, it set up the foundation for the control and subjugation of women. The belief in the Trinity - the Goddess impregnated by the God, thereby producing the cosmos and all that was in it - was so old that it could not really be done away with, so it was transmogrified from the synergy of male and female producing a magical, holy being, to a same-sex father-son duo, coupled to a sexless holy spirit!

It was probably thought by the early Church Fathers that they could enlist the aid of the downtrodden and potentially useful Jewish population, by "validating" their God Jehovah through the establishing of his son as the new Representative on Earth. This actually backfired on them, but that is going in another direction. Nevertheless, this amalgamation seems to have been the plan and the adoption of the Hebrew Bible was a political maneuver. Included in this Bible was the Hebrew myth of creation which assumed a posture of contempt for the female, and this move was used to lock women into the role of passive and inferior beings.

Even today, Hebrew males are taught to offer the daily prayer:

"Blessed art Thou O Lord our God, King of the Universe, who has not made me a woman."

As the years went by, the church continued to hold to its course of creating and maintaining a male-dominated society. In the new religion, ALL men were to be considered as direct messengers of the Lord, not just the priests in church, but ordinary men in the privacy of a woman's kitchen and bed. Women were to be obedient, denying themselves the right to speak up and even to think!

All of this was directed at further suppression of the old Pagan religions which were feminine and cyclical, nurturing and cooperative and which did NOT postulate an End of the World, in which Hell-fire and Damanation were imminent, and for which a "savior" outside of oneself was necessary!

But, back to Machiavelli: he wrote that, as far as possible, a prince should get someone else to do the injuries for him so that any hatred that might arise will then be directed at the perpetrator of the violence, and not at the prince.

A regime based upon the support of the masses is more stable than one based upon the support of the aristocracy, therefore, a prince should found his support on the people rather than the nobility. The politically sophisticated nobility is more likely to suspect the motives of the prince, to distrust his actions, and to look for hidden meanings. Since they are less trusting, they are less manageable and hence, more likely to resist.

Power and authority can be most easily obtained where people obey because they believe that obedience is morally appropriate. Machiavelli taught that authority is preferable to coercion because coercion is a terribley inefficient method to comple obedience. It requires enormous resources to "hold a gun" against the heads of the masses. Because, in the end, raw power is inadequate in holding a whole population in line by the use of force.

Therefore, an astute prince would harness the power of emotions and manage the passions rather than guide men through reason. The prince must make use of the human passions of love, hate, fear, desire for glory and power, and even boredom.

After Constantine, there were the barbarian hordes. The adoption and imposition of Christianity was followed by the fall of the Roman Empire. A cosmic statement, perhaps? Doesn't matter - they weren't paying attention! Nevertheless, the period following this, the period in which Christianity was struggling to recover, and Europe as well, there were other interesting developments in a number of ways that bear upon the last remarks of Machiavelli above.

"For centuries western Christendom had been separated from its source, the Holy City of Jerusalem. In AD 638 a Moslem army had captured the city, and it had remained subject to Islam ever since. Moreover, the Orthodox Christians of the East looked not to the pope but to the Byzantine emperor in Constantinople for spiritual leadership; and even before the conquest of Jerusalem various unorthodox heretical sects had arisen which acknowledge neither pope nor emperor. Chief amongst these were the Nestorians, the Jacobites and the Copts. The Nestorians, based in Syria, and with missionaries as far east as India and China, separated Christ's spiritual and human natures; the Jacobites and Copts stressed his spiritual nature so much that they virtually denied his humanity.

"Both the Jacobites and the Copts sprang from a heretical sect, the Monophysites, founded in the fifth century; the main distinction between the two was that the Jacobites, like the Nestorians, were based in Syria, and the Copts in Egypt. There were others - Manichaeans, the Gnostics, the Armenians - and with the combination of the Eastern Church, the heretical groups and the vast numbers of Muslims, there was no part of the eastern Mediterranean where the pope could claim authority.

"Most or the eastern Christians found the arrangement quite satisfactory. ...after the fall of Jerusalem, both they and the heretics, somwhat to their surprise, found that the infidel Moslem rulers were reasonable and just. Taxes were much lighter than they had been under Christian domination, and in accordance with the law of the Prophet Mohammed, the 'People of the Book,' - the Christians and Jews - were given freedom of worship." [Howarth, 1982]

Europe was in the depths of the Dark Ages. For the vast majority of people, life was a grinding struggle to have enough to eat, to be warm, and to be safe from the harshness of the arbitrary rule of the overlords and the church. The people were kept in line by their assurance that life could NOT be any better, and that, anyway, it didn't matter because the world was going to end soon. Better to suffer now so that at the End, one could have a "crown of glory."

"In the year 1000 serfdom still existed. The peasantry, free men, were little better off than serfs; and even the rich, whose wealth was not in money bult almost entirely in kind, led lives that we would see as brutal, harsh and precarious. Settlements were very small, separated by vast forest regions; travel was difficult, dangerous and extremely slow. A man would usually live and die in the village where he was born. His life was ordered by three major forces: the need for food, killed in the forest or dragged crudely and inefficiently from the soil; his duties to the local landowner; and the need to save his soul. For Christianity before the millenium was, for many people, a religion of guilt, and the Christian God a god of wrath and terror. ...in AD 1000, the simple, brutish majority expected that Christ would descend at almost any moment to take vengeance on a sinful world.

"However, when the millenium had passed without any obviously disastrous results, the eleventh century slowly brough some relief." [Howarth, 1982]

By the time 1050 rolled around, things had settled somewhat, most people had enough to eat, and with this development, there were more people. There were three classes of people: the nobility, the clergy, and the peasants. The nobility, as a population, was increasing as well, and this meant a lot of younger sons who were trained in the arts of war, and became knights, as all sons of overlords were expected to do, but with nothing really to do except fight each other. It was clearly getting out of hand.

Meanwhile, the people were no longer as fearful of God as they ought to be. The promised End had not come, and some of the church's credibility had been lost. Some returned to their pagan ways, and since lightning from heaven did not strike them dead, the idea began to spread. The church began to lose some ground, and this, coupled with the fact that some of the new pagans were among the knight class, created a real problem that needed a solution.

At the same time, the quarrel between the Easter Orthodox Church and the Church at Rome really got out of hand: they mutually excommunicated each other!

"In 1075, Pope Gregory VII dreamed of complete papal supremacy in East and West. In his mind a new Rome arose, to rule the world through religions. Constantinople would rejoin the fold; Jerusalem would be Christian once more; and very monarch of Christendom would bow to the pontiff of Rome." [Howarth, 1982]

But Gregory died in 1085. He had made many enemies with his demands that everyone submit to the papal authority. A weak and ineffectual Victor III was put on the papal throne, but he soon died. This provided a "time out" period in which all the hot tempers could cool down, and in 1088 Urban II was elected.

Urban II is an interesting study in terms of Machiavelli's perfect "Prince." He was tall, handsome, courteous and gentle, though he could also be stern. He was "meditative and patient," but it becomes rather clear with subsequent events that he was quite a fox!

He got together with the Byzantine Emperor, Alexius Comnenus, absolved the interdict of excommunication, and suggested that the West could help out with Alexius' war against the Seljuk Turks. What Urban really had in mind is clearly revealed by later events. The immediate practical advantage to helping Alexius was that, instead of having to curb the belligerant knights of Europe who posed a serious threat to the church, he could simply get rid of them by sending them to fight the Turks! At the same time, of course, he could use this project to unify Christianity (under Rome, of course); promote this war as a "holy war," thereby making it a a means of salvation; and very likely get some serious booty in the process! A brilliant idea, indeed!

Urban traveled all over the south and west of France in the autumn of 1095. It is interesting that, as the tour progressed, rumors began to circulate - people had seen the aurora borealis, showers of stars and even comets! During the summer of his journey, the mood of expectation of something about to happen grew and grew. Everywhere he went, Urban announced a great council to be held in Clermont in November.

In retrospect, it is easy to see that it was likely that he was promulgating these rumors of "signs and portents" himself. But, there actually were records of unusual astronomical phenomena during the time.

Urban made a great show of holiness - in keeping with the prescription of Machiavelli, even if he never heard of Machiavelli - and he prayed at tombs and consulted with aged and revered abbots in an ostentatious way. He traveled around being "courteous and kind" and showing his "attractive" and holy self all over the place.

The council at Clermont commenced on November 18. For nine days the hundreds of clerics debated many issues and made decisions. Things that the people had complained about were dealt with, such as an anathema pronounced against simony, clerical marriage, and the retention of ecclesiastical benefits by lay people. The high point was reached when the king, Philip I, was excommunicated for his adulterous marriage to the Countess of Anjou.

On the last day, Tuesday, November 28, Urban made his move; and history was changed forever. Our "kind and patient and attractive" pope made a most interesting speech!

"By then the crowds in Clermont were so immense that there was no single building that could accomodate them all. The council moved from the cathedral to the church of Notre-Dame-du-Port on the city's eastern edge. Outside the church was a large open space, the Champet; and there the crowd gathered.

"In the crowd there was a monk named Robert. A few years later, at the instigation of his abbot, he wrote down what he had seen and heard on that autumn day in Clermont. He was writing from memory, so his report of Urban's speech is probably not absolutely accurate; but in all the main points it agrees clsosely with the three other contemporary accounts. The pope, he says, addressed the crowd 'with a persuasive eloquence.' Urban made it clear that he was speaking not only to the assembled people, not only to France, but to all the Christian nations of the West. He spoke of their special sanctity, and of the terrible threat to their brothers and sisters in the East. His description of Saracen behavior was calculated to arouse the disgust and anger of even the most unprincipled: 'They overturn and desecrate our altars; they circumcize Christians and pour the blood of the circumcized on the altars or in the fonts. They will take a Christian, cut open his stomach and tie his intestine to a stake; then stabbing at him with a spear, they will make him run, until he pulls out his own entrails and falls dead to the ground.'

"There was more in the same tone, and Urban emphasized that these were not isolated incidents. Throughout the East, from Jerusalem to Byzantium, such things were happening, and no one seemed to care. He put before his audience the example of Charlemagne, and begged them to remember the virtues of their ancestors. He quoted the words of Christ: 'Whoever should abandon in my name his house or his brothers, his father or his mother, his wife or his children or his lands, will receive them again a hundredfold and will come to eternal life.' He implored the people to forget their quarrels - the royal and holy city of Jerusalem cried out for deliverance. 'Take the road to the Holy Sepulchre,' he cried, 'and tear the land from the hands of these abominable people!'

"He had barely finished when the crowd, as one person, shouted 'God wills it! God wills it!'

"From Robert's account it is apparent that even the pope was taken aback by the strength and unity of the response. But he was a true orator, and he used the reply immediately. How could so many have spoken as one, he said, unless the Holy Ghost was present in all their hearts? And he called on all who were willing to take the cross to come forward at once and do so. But his agile mind could foresee a problem in the wild popular enthusiasm, and he hurriedly pointed out that only able-bodied men should volunteer." [Quoted by Howarth, 1982]

Urban stumbled across the method of hypnosis and entrainment that has been used by the church ever since! What a classic sermon! Pure Neuro-Linguistic Programming! It has everything designed to engage every yearning of the heart of man! To inspire! To inflate the ego! To give meaning to life! Hope! Glory! What a guy!

But, an important point to be made here is this: Urban II, of all people, had access to accurate intelligence about the state of the Islamic rule of the Holy Land as well as whether or not it needed to be "reclaimed." He was lying, plain and simple. No way around it.

So, he got rid of his troublesome knights, hauled in some booty, and made things ready for the expansion of the church over the whole world! Never mind the many thousands upon thousands of people who were killed, the orphans and widows left behind to struggle as best they could. Never mind that the financial backs of many of the noble families were broken with the investment needed to go on a crusade! (That could be seen as a benefit from the point of view of Urban!) Never mind that he was laying the groundwork for the later Inquisition which took the lives of thousands upon thousands more people. He had invented a formula; and it has been used repeatedly, even up to the present day, by the best Fire-and-brimstone preachers! But, of course, nowadays they only ask for your money, not your life. Or do they?

It is entirely likely that, if Pope Urban had not preached the crusades on that November day in 1095, the whole world might be different today. Maybe it would be worse, but then again, it might have been better. How can we say that it is what it ought to be when it was built on a foundation of blood and gore and suffering?

But, if this is how Christianity came to be, if it came to be by force and manipulation and trickery and deceit and NOT because it was clearly the "one true religion," what does that make of the story of Jesus?

We already know that we are not going to find a historical Jesus in all that mess of lies and obfuscation and control issues and bloody martyrdom. If he existed at all, they surely got rid of him long before! So, where was he? Who was he? What did he do, really?

Well, let's continue and see if we can find out.

Continue...

References:

Huysmans, J.-K., Paris, Plon, 1891,Ch II, quoted by Fulcanelli in Dwellings of the Philosophers, Boulder, Archive Press, 1964

Walker, Barbara, [1996] The Women's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets; Edison, NJ, Castle Books

Von Hassler, Gerd [1976], Lost Survivors of the Deluge, translated from the German by Martin Ebon, Hamburg, Verlagsgesellschaft R. Gloss & Co.

Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh & Henry Lincoln, [1986] The Messianic Legacy ; New York, Dell

Machiavelli, Niccolo [1984] The Prince ; New York, Bantam

Howarth, Stephen, [1982] The Knights Templar, New York, Atheneum

Ellerbe, Helen,[1995] The Dark Side of Christian History, Orlando, Morningstar and Lark

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