Some Scholarly Stuff about Thomas

Occasionally it makes me bristle when Gary or anyone states that my work would be 'scholarly,' in my view it is not, strictly speaking. I find that epithet a bit off-putting in the sense that I neither produce college textbooks or original research, even if I am--at times at least--a keen watcher of what is developing in some of the literature surrounding Thomas. And some good stuff has been percolating for years now in the community that studies Thomas with an open mind. A very interesting discussion about Thomas in relationship to Mark (my favorite of the canonical gospels), can be found here: http://users.misericordia.edu//davies/thomas/tomark1.htm and here http://users.misericordia.edu//davies/thomas/tomark2.htm

The above material in essence documents in a formal, scholarly fashion, having recourse strictly to the form of the material, and the sequence and circumstance of its borrowing, the transformation of Jesus teachings in their raw, relatively unedited form in the Thomas gospel, towards the Pauline/Christian rendering of him, of which Mark is the first example. Clearly the dominant influence behind all this is Paul and his interpretation of Jesus, which progressively pulls him into this world, and puts all kinds of theological make-up on him, ultimately insisting that the resurrection and second coming are of the body, thus accomplishing what the ego always wants to do, namely to pull Jesus down into the muck of this world with us, and solve our problems here, instead of us learning to follow him to a Kingdom not of this world, of which he speaks to us always. But which we do not want to hear about in the worst way. This last issue is of course the crux, and it is the reason why the Course spends so much time putting us in touch with our resistance to what Jesus teaches.

So, the simple thing to take away from it all is that the reason Jesus in Thomas does not sound like a Christian, is because Christianity is an ego-dominated, dualistic, distortion of his teachings, which fully makes the world real, and as such ensures that we do not hear what Jesus teaches in reality. And as Course students we may then always recognize that this is merely a very useful mirror of our own tendency to want to do all of these things with Jesus, thus compromising the Course. Our ways of doing so are often very subtle, but as we progress with our work they will become more and more clear and easy to recognize, and for many who are 'recovering Christians' forgiving Paul will be one way this process can take form, for different from what Dan Brown et al. believe, we were not duped into believing certain things while an evil church withheld the truth. The ego's conspiracy is always to set it up so that someone else can be blamed for our betrayal of our true Self, which in this Judaeo-Christian imagery is symbolized as the betrayal and crucifixion of Jesus, and we simply do not hear, and do not want to hear his message of forgiveness, the meaninglessness of the body and the fact that he does not believe in betrayal (ACIM:T-6.I.15:5) for those reasons, knowing us, as he does, as spirit. He is asking us to follow him and do the same, and we simply reinterpret him to make sure we don't, so that the ego stays firmly in charge. We simply resist, because we realize that if we are spirit, we didn't happen, and so we have to keep on killing Christ, as Wilhelm Reich fathomed in his own funny way (see his The Murder of Christ).

Fun with Thomas

In a way it would seem to be no accident that Jefferson's first name was Thomas, considering how his Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth, came so close to guessing the outlines of the Thomas Gospel, even if Jefferson's personal position as a "materialist" in a way prevented him from seeing the content of Jesus's teaching. In fact it is really remarkable, if you consider that what has generally been mis-labeled as "The Jefferson Bible," was completed in 1819, and the Thomas Gospel was not rediscovered till 1945, but translations did not begin to appear till well into the 1950's. The most salient feature of the Thomas Gospel is of course that it makes irrevocably clear why Jesus was not a Christian (since they had not been invented yet, and he never attended Paul's catechism classes), and Jefferson sensed in his stocking feet that Paul had distorted the teachings of Jesus, and called him names like a "dupe and impostor," and ruthlessly took out all of his writings, but also all of his theological influence (by excluding the narrative and interpretative dimensions of the canonical gospel materials).

With my own growing involvement in this topic the Thomas sightings are increasing, in a variety of forms. For one there was a time when I was in the studio audience when both Gary Renard and Micael Ledwith were on a panel discussion on New Realities TV, about spirituality and the new science, and I was aware that both Gary and Micael have recollections of past lives as Thomas. Then there's Michael Tamura, a friend of Gary's who also has past life memories of Thomas. More recently I met someone who was in India in Kerala, in the area where Thomas spent the final years of his ministry, and who experienced an appearance of Thomas while there. Further it appears as if recently there is a proliferation of people in my life with Thomas as either first or last name, and it is just kind of fun. I started writing about Thomas and he seems to be showing up around every corner.

The Gary Controversy Revisited

... those who seek controversy will find it. (ACIM:C.in.2:1)

From a recent post on Gary's site, I take it the controversy surrounding him is still being fed by some, apparently including the originators of it, the MPM-trio (Mundy, Perry, Mackie), as I deduced from the appearance of an article on his site by Dr. Michael Mirdad.

Since my book relies on Gary's work, I wanted to add a clarification of my own. Gary is irrelevant. I repeat that: Gary is completely irrelevant to the whole conversation. There is the simple matter separating the message and the messenger. If Gary blew it in your mind, or you don't like his looks, or his eyes, or his new Hollywood hairdo, so be it - forgive him already. Don't believe or disbelieve his work either because anybody says so, even Gary, or tells you not to, like the MPM-trio. The Course indeed is not a religion, there is no pope of the Course, though periodically some appear to be running for the job, but there is no such position available, since it is a self-study program. How you learn the Course is up to you, so it's your own decision if you find Gary's writings helpful or not. I could put that a different way. If you find yourself to sometimes feel like a fool, like Gary, who needs all the help he can get to learn the Course, slips on every available bananapeel the ego throws you, crawls back up, and yet realizes (like the little children of Lake Wobegon) that he has an above average ability to remember who he is in truth, perhaps you will identify with the story, and it can be helpful to you. If you don't, it won't, so don't bother.

Indirectly I address this issue also in my discussion of the "Pursah version" of the Thomas Gospel in Closing the Circle. Other than to note that it makes a lot of sense, the same goes here: you are entirely on your own in deciding if it is credible or not. Don't believe me either. Follow your heart. As I've pointed out in the book, Pursah just happens to make a lot of sense, and tangentially, it would seem pretty hard to make such a thing up, even if some of the edits Pursah offers seem quite compelling on close scrutiny. To think of them on your own, without any real guidance, would seem impossibly hard to me. Thus I think it is with this material much like it is with the Course, if it works for you, use it. And if it doesn't, don't bother. No harm, no foul.

In case of doubt about the above, the reader may note that Gary's books even says so. In particular on page 378 of Disappearance, Gary says to Arten: '... I always have to be reminded--and you're not just talking to me ayway, are you? And Arten responds: 'You got it, buddy.' And if you think about it, that says in two lines, what I just argued in this post. The books stand on their own. Take them or leave them, but their value to you is up to you, and is independent of anything else Gary says or does, and of whoever likes him or does not like him, or his books.

Preparations for a Booksigning Party

It all started with Sam painting the painting for the cover of my book, a painting which we titled: "Teach Only Love" with a quote from the Course. Sam is a Brooklyn resident, and a native of Haiti. A French ACIM (UCEM) study group we had for a few years, started in his basement/studio. I live in the Bronx myself. Somewhere along the line Isma, another Brooklyn resident offered to help organize a booksigning, not to mention Bernice (also from Brooklyn) who is also helping with the same.

Then I was on the phone with Sam and he told me that he has an artshow coming up with his work and some Haitian artists to raise money for Haiti in the aftermath of the storms--four hurricanes in a row. What organization to donate to? Enter my friend Peter (see www.tr-ac.net.com), who knows his way around in these things, and we selected Fonkoze. The artshow opens on 9/25/08, and from memory I thought that was the official publication date of my book, which however seems to actually be September 26th, but who cares. We're having the book signing party at the opening of the art show, organized as a fundraiser for Fonkoze. The event is at Artisan Gallery, owned by Mery, who is a native of Senegal. Mery and Sam were brought together by one Percy Thomas, who is quietly orchestrating various parts of the program.

So we are having a suitably international event, typical New York, the city where at last count some 120 languages are spoken. And the coming together of this event in a very serendipetous and spontaneous manner is one of those experiences which sometimes makes people say: "Only in New York!", though we should not forget that spontaneous living is really our birthright, regardless of where we live-even in New York-if we only get our egos out of the way. The pictures above are of Mery and Sam discussing the planning for the event on September 16th.