Pursah's Idea of the Kernel of Thomas

Pursah is one of the Ascended Masters, who are the teachers to Gary Renard, with whom he has a dialogue in his books, first The Disappearance of the Universe, and Your Immortal Reality, soon to be joined by a third, Love Has Forgoten No One. In these conversations, she reveals herself as a reincarnation of the apostle Thomas, with vivid--first hand--recollection of the eponymous Gospel.

In the first book a few of the more prominent sayings in the Thomas Gospel are discussed, because they are more or less easy on the modern eye and ear. Then, in the second book, Pursah provides what amounts to a kernel of the Thomas Gospel. She essentially eliminates 44 sayings from the collection of 114 sayings that was found at Nag Hammadi, and leaves 70 as her "kernel" of the Gospel, that she considers authentic. The rest she dismisses as either hopelessly corrupted or simply added later. The ones that survive her scrutiny stay pretty much in tact, aside from some minor editorial tweaks. One of the most fascinating steps in Pursah's editorial process is the contraction of sayings 6&14, which, if you let it sink in for a while is so obvious at an intuitive level, that you'd almost have to conclude that it makes sense regardless. By implication, that editorial decision alone is testimony to Pursah's authority with the material, which is only natural if she were the author of it originally.

You could say that the seventy sayings of Pursah's Gospel of Thomas, are her account of the orginial kernel of that book as it must have existed ca 50 AD, and which made it the first of the Gospel accounts, given that Mark dated from 65 AD, Luke and Matthew from ca 75 AD, and John from 90-110 AD. There is also the internal evidence that Mark, Matthew and Luke all quote from Thomas, just as much as Matthew and Luke also quote Mark. Ergo, Thomas must have been first, even if for a long time we did not have a physical manuscript.

The inadvertent risk of anachronisms

One thing to be clear about, is that what was found in Nag Hammadi in 1945 was not a paperback saying "The Thomas Gospel." That is the same mistake as thinking that the King James Version is actually the Bible, or... that there even is such a thing as "The Bible," because the more you study it and understand where it came from, and how it was different books by different authors that were collected into this sort of orthodox anthology, well, then the monolithic notion of 'Bible' may be less useful. 

We suspected there might have been a Thomas Gospel before that manuscript was discovered in Nag Hammadi in 1945. Ancient writers had referred to one. What was found was just one handwritten manuscript, that thankfully was preserved, but ever since the 1890s we suspected there may be a Thomas Gospel, because of the Greek fragments that had been found in the manuscript at Oxyrrhynchus. Those fragments included Logia 1-7, 24, 26-33, 36-39 and some sentences from 77, besides a lot of other materials. The generally accepted date range of that material is from 130-250 AD. But since we had only bits and pieces, there might have been a few who surmised this might be another Gospel, but we did not know for sure until the discovery at Nag Hammadi. So then we had a Coptic translation, of what originally must have been a Greek manuscript that may have been more or less together ca 150 AD. 

Jesus would have spoken Aramaic. But the common written language of the day was Greek, so the Thomas Gospel in an early form may have been together ca 50 AD. That is certainly the version of events Pursah subscribes to.

A few scholars had attempted to reconstruct a notional Kernel of the Thomas Gospel, so the idea was around in scholarly circles before Gary Renard had the experiences he relates in his books. Pursah's version of 70 'core' sayings that she is willing to vouch for is essentially her representation of that kernel, based on past life recall, etc. The reason it is convincing to a careful student, is because of its inner consistency, which harmonizes well also with the teachings of A Course in Miracles, and that is the connection that Gary's books explore. It also harmonizes with Pursah's authority as being a reincarnation of the author (Thomas), with apparently perfect past-life recall. Again, if you look at her editing skills in combining Logia 6 and 14 as a matter of course, it gives me shivers up and down my spine, for it seems so natural, and the fit so perfect, yet how would you have thought of it, unless you knew something?

In short, the Thomas Gospel must have existed in some form, certainly oral, but most likely written, ca 40-50AD, and because of the Greek manuscripts we knew fairly well it existed ca. 140-150 AD in a form that was later validated by the find in Nag Hammadi. We then have a complete document from Nag Hammadi, which may go back to the Greek, or perhaps via an interim Syriac tradition. What we don't really know is when exactly and how the corruptions and additions to the 'kernel' took place, except somewhere in that time span between 40-50AD and 140-150AD, and possibly after that as well, particularly if it was translated first from Greek to Syriac and then to Coptic. But there's much we don't know in details. The only thing we can say for sure by experience, is after we live with Pursah's collection for awhile, is that the coherence of them is quite convincing, compared to the inner contradictions that are so bothersome in the collection of 114 from Nag Hammadi. And this inner experience eventually becomes our surest guide, if we practice the Course:

The ego will demand many answers that this course does not give. It does not recognize as questions the mere form of a question to which an answer is impossible. The ego may ask, "How did the impossible occur?", "To what did the impossible happen?", and may ask this in many forms. Yet there is no answer; only an experience. Seek only this, and do not let theology delay you. (ACIM:C-in.4) 

Saul, Paul, and how Jesus survived Christianity

How can you who are so holy suffer? All your past except its beauty is gone, and nothing is left but a blessing. I have saved all your kindnesses and every loving thought you ever had. I have purified them of the errors that hid their light, and kept them for you in their own perfect radiance. They are beyond destruction and beyond guilt. They came from the Holy Spirit within you, and we know what God creates is eternal. You can indeed depart in peace because I have loved you as I loved myself. You go with my blessing and for my blessing. Hold it and share it, that it may always be ours. I place the peace of God in your heart and in your hands, to hold and share. The heart is pure to hold it, and the hands are strong to give it. We cannot lose. My judgment is as strong as the wisdom of God, in Whose Heart and Hands we have our being. His quiet children are His blessed Sons. The Thoughts of God are with you. (ACIM:T-5.IV.8)

In Closing the Circle: Pursah's Gospel of Thomas and A Course in Miracles, I paid quite a bit of attention to the issue of the transition that takes place in the traditions about Jesus, between the teachings of Jesus, of which the Thomas gospel seems to be the most authentic record, and Chrisitianity, named after him, but never 'founded' by him in any meaningful sense of the word, but merely ascribed to him by others and given his name, after his death. Because of the profound intertwining of the Jesus tradition with the orthodoxy of Chrisitianity as it solidified in the next 300 years, for a long time it was the "canonical" books of the New Testament that appeared authoritative.
Only with the re-discovery of the Thomas Gospel, once one understands the timeline of how and why it emerged before the gospels of the New Testament collection, does it become insightful where the break occurs - with the introduction of the theological foundations of Christianity, including the exceptionalism about Jesus as God's only son, to the exclusion of the rest of the sonship as 'adopted sons,' the interpretation of the crucifixion, resurrection (bodily, as Paul assures us), the second coming (the puzzling idea of his returning to the world he claimed to have overcome), the Eucharist etc. All of these concepts were features of Pauline Christianity, and there were many other schools of would-be Christian thought which did not have them, or had entirely different notions. Among other things there were many vocal debates about the idea that the moment of the resurrection was really the moment of the Heavens opening up in the story of the baptism in the River Jordan, under John the Baptist. That particular story would be closer to what is reflected in the Course today. The fact is Pauline Christianity won, because it rendered itself palatable to Caesar, and as a result eventually what we now regard as Roman Catholicism. The fact that it was most successful in stamping out other views, and gained the upper hand politically is no recommendation.

After those original debates died down, Christianity went through a consolidation phase, and then a splintering again. With Vatican II the most obvious attempts at mind control were starting to be relinquished, allowing such an oxymoron as Catholic Bible Scholars, or in general Catholic Bible Studies to exist, just when the first serious translations of the Thomas Gospel began to gain currency, while at another place on the planet the dictation of A Course in Miracles got under way.
Since the time of the enlightenment, thinkers such as Thomas Jefferson in the US had become suspicious of the Pauline material, and smelled a rat. Jefferson likened his efforts to cull Jesus' teachings out of the Biblical materials to salvaging 'pearls' from a pile of 'manure.' Paul he called a 'dupe' and a 'fraud.' This was all very perceptive, but name calling does not solve anything. Jefferson's positive contribution, which was only published posthumously as the 'Jefferson Bible' -- he had called it The Life and Morals of Jezus of Nazareth -- however is a powerful turning point and came very close to anticipating the re-discovery of the Thomas Gospel almost 125 years later.

The interesting thing about A Course in Miracles no doubt is that in it Jesus quotes some of Paul's inspired writing on numerous occasions, while at the same time forcefully correcting the fundamental constructs of the Christian theology of which Paul was the principal architect. In other words, the Course shows also in that regard, what forgiveness means -- the mistakes and the messes are cleaned up and corrected, and only the inspired, 'loving' thoughts are remembered. To that extent then it is never useful to pursue this type of critical scholarship of the tradition, unless it also helps us to see how we all make the mistakes Paul made, and forgive him and ourselves in the same breath. Here, the text of the Course is our guide, as the opening quote shows.

TJ and Thomas, and Jesus: Deja vu all over again

With the publication this year of the facsimile of the so-called Jefferson Bible, there has been new attention to his very personal awareness of his relationship with Jesus, which is evidenced in his personal legacy by his lifelong attempts to rescue the pearls of Jesus' real teachings from among the 'manure' that surrounded it. Now the story has gone mainstream, with coverage in Newsweek: http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/04/01/andrew-sullivan-christianity-in-crisis.html

Meanwhile, Gary Renard has acknowledged on the DU list that he agreed that this event, the new publication of the facsimile edition of the Jefferson Bible, is in fact the fulfillment of the words of Arten on page 218 of The Disappearance of the Universe,  where he reports that it was not published by Jefferson during his lifetime, but that "it will be made available soon for those who want to see it." At the time when DU was published in 2003, this particular statement seemed confusing since of course the text of the Jefferson Bible had been available in book form for quite a long time already. In retrospect, this particular statement referred to the original that was about to be restored, and become available for public viewing again. It had been too fragile to be able to be viewed. Thankfully, the Smithsonian published a facsimile edition at the same time, so that now anyone can have access to this material in its original form.

The conclusions of Andrew Sullivan in his article are interesting also, that Jefferson's point was simply to leave Christianity aside, and to go back to the teachings of Jesus as best as he could cull them out from among the rubble. The rediscovery of the Thomas gospel in and of itself represents the same opportunity, in as much as it gives us back some of the original teachings, not the embellished literary versions of the later synoptics, which all suffer from editorial influences that trace back to Paul. No wonder then that Jefferson's selections should have close correspondence to the Thomas material, because the later evangelists were likely quoting from Thomas at least in part. He saw Paul's influence as a major distortion, and based on what we know today that was a very accurate way of viewing things.

Given the title I chose for my book, Closing the Circle, I have a certain sympathy for this closing of yet another circle. In terms of the national dialogue it seems to certainly put paid to the repeated attempts by the Christian right to hijack the US constitution and the country on behalf of later forms of evangelical Christianity, which evidently would be completely antithetical to everything Jefferson stood for, even if he wisely kept it to himself at the time. Now it is out in the open.

I myself had been contemplating for a long time to start rewriting my book at first in Dutch, and somehow these developments give me a good basis for a revised and updated new edition. Later, in a few years time, it will then hopefully also see a new edition in English, that will be based on the upcoming rewrite in Dutch. Certainly the 'event' of the publication of the facsimile of the Jefferson Bible, and the sort of public attention it seems to be getting is a development that I am going to incorporate in an updated version. At the same time I feel that both my personal work with ACIM, as well as my work on the translation of the work of Margot Krikhaar, whose first book is soon to appear in English as Awakening in Love, would lead to a substantially new and improved version of the book eventually.

Meanwhile Annelies Ekeler in Holland, who runs Inner Peace Publications, and wants to publish the book in Dutch, and has suggested a new title, which I will adopt at least in Dutch: How Jesus Survived Christianity. That is a remarkable story indeed, given the massive effort that is known as Christianity, which clearly did everything in its power to make sure these original sayings would be lost, including book burning on a fairly significant scale. That story is only par for the course of how the ego deals with challenges, including 'if you can't beat them, join them,' which is in the end how it dealt with the teachings of Jesus: co-opting him, all the while making sure that it would be its version of events that would survive, and that its theology would supplant the original taching. That story is now increasingly coming in the open. Our thanks should go to the monks at Nag Hammadi who buried a collection from their library and helped it escape the destruction.

Our job remains to forgive all the images our ego made of Jesus, for they all get in the way of our real relationship with him. In other words, to accept that living relationship in our lives simply requires the abandonment of all of our own misconceptions about how it is supposed to work and what it is supposed to look like.

Is he the Christ? O yes, along with you. His little life on earth was not enough to teach the mighty lesson that he learned for all of you. He will remain with you to lead you from the hell you made to God. And when you join your will with his, your sight will be his vision, for the eyes of Christ are shared. Walking with him is just as natural as walking with a brother whom you knew since you were born, for such indeed he is. Some bitter idols have been made of him who would be only brother to the world. Forgive him your illusions, and behold how dear a brother he would be to you. For he will set your mind at rest at last and carry it with you unto your God. (ACIM:C-5.5)

A Course in Miracles and Christianity: A Dialogue

This little book is practically a classic already: Course in Miracles and Christianity: A Dialogue


A Course in Miracles periodically gives rise to confusion if its use of language is mistaken for Christian. It is not, in the same way that Jesus was not a Christian in the narrow sense, because Christianity was not conceived by him or even during his lifetime, but is an interpretation of him by others who came after him.

A certain amount of confusion has occurred from time to time when statements from the Course get mixed in with Biblical quotes, without clarifying the different context. This books seeks to address this issue, and clear up the confusion by clarifying the profound differences between traditional Christianity and the teachings of the Course. What makes it so valuable, is that the format is one of a dialogue between friends, who obviously mutually respect each other, and undertook this conversation purely to be of service to others, since the evident potential for confusion helps nobody.

However, it would be a mistake to think this book is only for Christians trying to make up their mind about A Course in Miracles. The fact remains that throughout Western culture, we are imbued with the history of Christianity, and the image of Jesus and his death on the cross is ingrained, even if for some that very image, and the presence of suffering in the world, may be part of the reason they rejected the teachings, and became atheists, such as is the case in our day and age with Bart D. Ehrman. The concept of the creator force is the same if we call it God, or Nature, or Evolution. It is the concept where the cause of our life experiences is external to us, and life "happens" to us. Along with this world concept of individual existence and a separate reality, the belief in sacrifice is completely ingrained in the ego's belief system. It is the difference between regarding the universe and the world as an objective, tangible reality, or as "maya," or illusion, a dreamworld caused by the mind, in which we are hoist on our own petard as long as we take that first cause - what the Course calls the "tiny, mad idea" of separation - seriously, but which can also be undone, by learning not to take it seriously any longer, through forgiveness.

A perfect example of taking things seriously is Christianity in all its forms, starting with its redaction of the Bible, and bombarding it into a Holy Book, after selecting just those books that are supportive of the Christian dogma, and discarding, if not burning, the rest. For the purpose of the discussion in this book then, "the Bible" is seen as the instrument of that Christian dogma, and of mostly taking the stories of the Bible quite literally, and granting it a sometimes problematic coherence by regarding it as the Word of God. Outside of the Christian context the Bible could obviously be read in different ways, as is suggested numerous times in the Course itself, a possibility which is also cited in the introduction to this dialogue. Taken at its face value as Christianity does, the Bible is as solid as Newtonian physics, and unreservedly dualistic, granting the physical world reality by declaring that it was created by God. Everything more or less follows from that.

The dialogue in this book represents a very fair and balanced presentation of the differences between this traditional Christian view of the world, which so much permeates the Western world, and the very different view point of A Course in Miracles. The categories which are discussed are basic, and quite conclusive:

• The origin of the world: God created it (Christianity), vs. it's an illusion, a dreamworld projected on the basis of the tiny mad idea of the separation (Course).
• Jesus: Exclusive, and different from us as literally God's only son - the Christ (Christiantiy), or inclusive and same as us, but first to remember Who we really are in truth, and teaching us how we can learn the same thing, in awakening to the Christ Mind where the sonship remembers its oneness. (Course). 
• Crucifixion: Purposely suffered and died sacrificially in an act of vicarious salvation (Christianity), or did not perceive the attack because he knew he was not his body, and did not suffer, but taught only Love and forgiveness (Course);
• Resurrection: Bodily resurrection after the crucifixion (Christiantiy), and the resurrection came before the crucifixion in the form of awakening from the dream and remembering who he was, and doing so before us, so he can now help us, as our older brother and teacher to lead us home (Course). 
• Eucharist: The believers share in Jesus' vicarious sacrifice of his death on the cross, by symbolically partaking of the wine and wafer transmuted into his flesh and blood (Christian), or his followers share in his spirit, celebrating his presence to them in the mind as a demonstration that he did not die, but is alive in them (Course)
• Living in the world: This of course is where the rubber meets the road, and - (very) loosely paraphrasing the book here the alternatives look like:
• Christian style: Jesus, the Word become flesh, God's only son, who suffers and dies for our sins on the cross, and seven days later ascends and goes to Heaven, sitting at the right hand of the Father. He leaves us, the adopted children, with the promise that if we lead good and moral lives in this earth, and present our book with green stamps (good deeds), much like the S&H Green Stamps of old, at the gates, we may join him in Heaven after death, when the tally is made up for a game in which salvation can be won or lost based on making meaningful moral choices of free will. Thus our "stamps" are credits towards a hoped for future redemption. Temptation in this model is the doing of evil deeds on this moral field of experience;
• Course style: Jesus as the manifestation of the Holy Spirit, who went before us as our older brother, remembering the way home before we did, who awakened to his true Identity so that he did not suffer when the world crucified his body, but instead only forgave, demonstrating (teaching) only love, for that is what he is and what we are, and who constantly reminds us that in making the same choice with him, and joining with him in the atonement, we are making the choice of hell or heaven in real time.
  The HS Green Stamps (Holy Spirit Green Stamps) in this case are not meritorious deeds collected towards a future stay with Jesus in the balcony seats of Heaven, but rather miracles - a Holy Instant, a momentary view from the balcony seat with Jesus. While we are still too afraid to choose them permanently, the miracle is our experiential confirmation of what it feels like to choose Him as our teacher over the false authority usurped by our jailer, the ego. When at last we become clear that our only fight is with ourselves and not with an angry God who opposes us, and that we only put the jailer in business by continuing to vote him in office, then we are free to learn how every miracle lessens our allegiance until we finally change our vote and join with Jesus in the atonement. We learn to "teach only love" with him, as we accept his love for ourselves. On this path then, our deeds will become more and more loving as we progress in choosing only Jesus as our teacher and guide, but the choices between A, B, or C in the world are seen as only a distraction, and literally a temptation to solve on the physical level what can only be solved by changing our mind ("metanoia" was the N.T. Greek expression for that). Thus in this model the choices are between heaven and hell, freedom and imprisonment, and we experience it as the ability to shift our allegiance from the ego and its separation thoughts, to Jesus and the Holy Spirit, in a joining with Who and What we really are in truth - spirit, and an integral part of the Sonship.
  This life now is a growth path towards spiritual adulthood, by shifting from a teacher of scarcity, slavery and imprisonment, suffering and death (the ego), towards listening to the Voice for God, who is ever present to us within (the promise of the Eucharist), never mind how much we bury him under the worldly drama. He remains the ever present Alternative, the Other Choice. In this model the world simply loses its hold on us, as we choose for freedom. Thus Jesus' living presence to us in the now, is restored to us by our choices, until we fully realize we really are him, for the illusion of a separate free will was the cause of our suffering and pain, and giving that up is no sacrifice at all. Free will then is the freedom to choose the Love of God, in lieu of the incarceration of the ego.
• N.B. This paraphrasing was very liberal indeed - I made up the whole thing about the green stamps, but hopefully it serves as an illustration. I could also add that in the Christian tradition "taking up our cross,"  has been understood as following in Jesus'  footsteps as the suffering servant, in the mold of the passages in Isaiah which describe this. In the Course, "taking up our cross," would refer to taking responsibility for the fact that we chose the ego and crucifixion, simply because we cannot undo the choice until we first take responsibility for it, and recognize we made it in the first place. This willingness to see that we made the wrong choice and would now make another one is what the Course calls the " little willingness," which opens the gate for us to make another choice now.

In short, it becomes very clear in this book why mixing the two models arbitrarily really does not help anybody, because it muddies up either thought system. This little book is extremely helpful in clarifying the issues in a very elegant way. On another level it is a lesson in tolerance, where it simply becomes worthwhile to learn to understand another thought system and understand it for what it is, for that kind of freedom is loving and natural when we have no investment in the world. Whenever we can do these things in such an even handed manner, we will find ourselves where we are able to agree to disagree, and can simply be honestly curious about understanding another, and can enjoy better relations as a result. We learn to live with differences, not in the ego's way of conveniently ignoring inconvenient facts, which trip us up later, but because we have no investment in differences. Norris Clarke certainly represents Christianity in a very appealing way, and amazingly sometimes wanders very close to the Course in his appreciation, but eventually the unbridgeable differences remain.

One thing you will not find here is the perspective of the pre-Christian Jesus tradition, such as the Thomas Gospel, which in recent years has shown us that the traditional Christian point of view is not compatible with the teachings of Jesus either. When properly seen, the study of Thomas and some of the other pre-Christian literature, which was excluded from the Bible - although Thomas was quoted throughout - puts us on an entirely different track, where the Bible falls apart into a collection of books, that we can then appreciate more selectively as literature, and no longer as the monolithic Word of God. Along those lines we would end up placing a lot of "apocryphal" literature on a level with some of the books of the biblical canon, if not sometimes even give them preference as being more likely unadulterated, or closer to the source. In that respect it is worth noting that none of the "Christian" positions and theology as are investigated in this book and represented by Norris Clarke, can trace their origins to the pre-Pauline Jesus literature such as Thomas and Q.

Personally, I have essentially always been inclined to look at the Bible as simply a significant book, and with the respect that is due the holy book of any tradition, but with inconsistent qualities, and particularly have usually ignored Paul in my readings, but I hasten to add that I have also realized more profoundly as I work with the Course how that "Christian"/Newtonian - and would be "Biblical" - model of the world is ingrained in us as part of the ego thought system. So learning to tell the two apart in all their forms is helpful in learning to understand the Course, and learning what it teaches. I have thus come to regard Paul as the exemplar of the ego's strategy of bringing Jesus into the world, or, in the Course's language, bringing the solution to the problem, i.e. trying to fix the world, whereas the Course advocates bringing the problem to the solution, returning to the mind, where Jesus is present to us, and asking for his vision, in lieu of our own mistaken perceptions, as the only possible way out of problems that are of our own making - our own projections.

Again, looking at this purely from a personal standpoint, it boggles my mind when I read Norris Clarke's accounts of what Christians believe, and it really gets kind of funny for me. For most of my life I would have said that I believed in Jesus, but I wasn't a Christian. My understanding of him would have been closer to the symbolic view in ACIM:T-19.IV.C.10, where the birth of Jesus is equated to the beginning of an inner spiritual awakening. As a kid, I was brought up with the notion that the birth of Jesus was just symbolic of the inner events of spiritual awakening. And his baptism in the River Jordan under John the Baptist symbolic of spiritual awakening. By the same token however, until the Course came along in my life, I was never clear on the underlying content of the ego thought system, even though I looked on Christians as a primitive tribe, doomed to die out as they became more and more irrelevant - for in my native Holland people were leaving the churches in droves when I grew up, going from 90% church attendance at the time of my birth to under 10% by the time I emigrated to the USA some 29 years later.

Looking back today, I see how I had taken leave of Christianity, without much clarity about the thought system it stood for or my own subtle investment in it - although I never believed in his dying for our sins, and was taught early on to see that particular theological slight of hand as a sneaky attempt of the ego to have our cake and eat it too, or if you will, to get away with murder. But again, it was not until I met the Course that sorting out the ego thought system began in earnest, and this book is destined to be a classic which untangles the underlying concepts and prevents the confusion that results if people read no further than some superficial resemblances. From that standpoint it is equally helpful to a church pondering if it should include the Course in the liturgy - it should not - to a Course student who is befuddled by the sometimes Christian sounding language - no, this is not your grandfather's Jesus speaking. Regardless of what your faith may be, clarity can only be helpful, and attempts at being inclusive at the price of lost meaning help no one. You can only pour so much water in the wine and still call it wine. After all, " Jeder soll nach seiner fasson selig werden," as the Prussian King Frederick II put it (Everyone should become happy after their own fashion).

God, Is That The Word

Joe Croker sends me this song about Thomas, and I'm reproducing the text here, as well as his Biblical references.


God, Is That The Word?
By Joe Croker

Peaches and plums -- ripe them up distant sun, burning empty eye
Old men saw God inside, but even you will die -- even you will die
Burst and turn to stone: white dwarf or black little hole
Peaches and plums -- get sweet then they come undone

Look up in the sky -- Orion burns, galactic eye … galaxy so wide
White silk spread in the black of night, it’s

God, is that the word?  Is that the word?  God, is that the word?

Sometimes late at night in the warm pool of my little mind
The softest colors glow -- somehow everything I know
I’m just a little boy -- so at home, so unmoored -- it’s

God, yeah that's the word.  That's the word?  God that's the word.

Thomas wanted the bloody cloths, the fingers in the wounds
The Lord appears, no one swoons … deceptively mundane
Sort of like most everything, but he’s

God, is that the word?  That's the word --  that's the word. 
God, is that the word?
Or is that absurd?

Tackle, trim, bridle, bit: the long-haired mare, girl riding it
On into the barn … undress upon the straw
You’re so pure, you got it all, it’s

God …

•

John 20:24-29
John 20:24    But Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came.

John 20:25    The other disciples therefore said unto him, We have seen the Lord. But he said unto them, Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe.

John 20:26   And after eight days again his disciples were within, and Thomas with them: then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, Peace be unto you.

John 20:27   Then saith he to Thomas, reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side: and be not faithless, but believing.

John 20:28   And Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God.

John 20:29   Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.

And, of course you can buy his album at the ITunes store
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?id=287193905&s=1434

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Some notes to the above.

No doubt Thomas was "on" to the fact that Jesus was inside, not out, that the Kingdom was inside, not outside, etc., based on the material in the Thomas Gospel, and the song reflects that. The quotes from the Gospel of John show the caricature of Thomas, in the Gospel stories, and it is dubious if that was about the real Thomas or just made up for effect. 

The Thomas character in the Johannine tradition is "the doubting Thomas," who represents all of us in a way, portraying the sign of Virgo, and insisting in typical ego manner that form comes before content, or that unless I see the physical proof, I won't believe anything, which turns things on their head. The cause is in the mind, and physical reality is but a reflection of that, and not the other way around, as the Virgo characteristic wants to believe. Since we weren't there, we won't know, but it might be that the "historical" Thomas was in fact this doubter at times and a real Virgo, however, if so, he certainly did learn the message of Jesus later in life to be able to compose the Thomas Gospel as we know it. In that case maybe he once was the doubting Thomas, who later outgrew his doubts. The beatification "pure of heart" who shall "see" God is of course the outcome of those who overcome exactly these doubts, and then, in accepting the atonement for ourselves, which is the completion of the forgiveness process, we would come to "see," i.e. experience God. (notes on the astrological nature of the Thomas character based on J.W. Kaiser, Beleving van het Evangelie, Uitg. Synthese, (p. 216-217). The word the Course tends to use for this "seeing" is vision, which again has nothing to do with the physical eyes, but everything with the question of with whom we are doing the seeing. With the ego we will always see the world of separation, with the Holy Spirit we will "see" the universe of Love.

Former Dutch Queen Juliana 100 years

Today, April 30th Princess Juliana (Dutch Queen from 1948-1980) would have been 100 years old, and the Dutch press has been full of articles recently. Most however are trivial if not banal, and the essence of her reign to this day cannot seem be discussed openly and fully in the Dutch press.

The reason I want to mention her here is because she assisted Professor Quispel, who was one of the first researchers of the Thomas Gospel from the Nag Hammadi library, and who acquired the first manuscript in 1952 with the backing of an American philanthropist, and the manuscript later was apparently donated to the Jung foundation. In 1955 Quispel wanted to research the rest of the manuscripts that still existed in Egypt, at the Coptic Museum in Cairo. Queen Juliana was fascinated at the time with the potential of original words of Jesus being found, and asked the Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs J. W. Beyen, to help facilitate Quispel's access to the Coptic museum in Cairo, and this in turn seems to have led to a publication of further manuscripts in 1956. Quispel apparently remained convinced to his dying day that, but for that mission, the Nag Hammadi library and the Thomas Gospel would have languished in the vaults of the museum and most likely decayed completely by now. If this is true, I'd vote for this to be one of the most important things Queen Juliana did during her reign.

Unfortunately, the reign of Queen Juliana became tainted with a palace crisis of 1956, in which her independent spirit seems to have been effectively suppressed by a deft collusion between her husband Prince Bernhard, and Dutch politicians, who felt clearly threatened by a Queen who had a mind of her own, as did he, since at that point she would not tolerate his extramarital affairs any longer and was asking for a divorce - which would have been the end of the good life for him. By cleverly planting his version of things with the foreign press, passing it off as fact, he managed to turn the whole world against her, including manipulating the Dutch body politic to do his bidding, and basically put the shackles on the Queen while at the same time saving the marriage in name, without having to give up any maneuvering room himself. The episode was shameful enough as it was, but then last year the Dutch Court chartered a friendly historian, by the name of Cees Fasseur, to write a book, which under a thin veneer of critique about some of Bernhards more outrageous behavior, in effect did little else but solidifying his version of events, or at least attempting to do so. Fortunately, the Dutch reading public was slightly smarter, and generally did not accept the fact that Cees Fasseur had access to unverifiable private sources which are not available to anyone else.

By now there are beginning to be some critical voices who do not swallow this pablum, one of them Elsbeth Etty, who is a book reviewer for the major newspaper the NRC/Handelsblad, and who delivered a pretty devastating speech to celebrate the publication of the book, Juliana en Bernhard, by C. Fasseur. The other interesting independent voice is one Wim Duzijn, who writes a blog for the newspaper De Volkskrant, and who thankfully does think independently about these things too, and produced a very worthwhile discussion of the whole episode in context, here: "Bernhard wist niet wat een pooier was." (Bernhard did not know a pimp from a hole in the wall.) On the whole however, it is clear that the dominant coverage in leading Dutch newspapers remains confined even 53 years after the fact to the frame of reference of the German magazine Der Spiegel, which at the time published an article that was clearly inspired by Bernhard. But, thanks to the brilliant intervention by the assorted greengrocers of Dutch politics, appearances were saved by telling the Queen she would have to toe the line. The slight of hand that was used, was to turn the relationship that the Queen had with the "faithhealer" (as she was designated in the press), and channeler, Miss Hofmans, into a putative cause of her marital problems in lieu of recognizing this situation as a symptom of a situation that was clearly out of hand on many levels. This allowed the politicians to slaughther this sacrificial lamb instead of dealing with the issues, and so to save appearances and the bad peace. To this day, this duplicitous and cruel solution has hardly been seen through except by a precious few commentators.

Also, Queen Juliana's farsighted and humane way of conducting herself during her reign, remains under the cloud of these events, even though she remains the most popular Dutch Queen ever, and in many ways was truly a healing influence who helped resolve many crises (including the ending of the Dutch Colonial ambitions by supporting the independence of Indonesia). In other areas she proved likewise to be very farsighted, for just as she understood the colonial era was over, she also understood that the emerging "cold war," was more likely to become a run-up to world war III than a way to prevent it, and as we now know, events nearly proved her right at times, the most dramatic of which was perhaps the prevention of nuclear war by the Soviet Lt. Colonel Stanislav Petrov, which could have been the end of the world as we know it.

Consequently, I suspect that it will once again have to come from the foreign press to shed light on these things, and render it possible in Holland for the events to be discussed the way they actually were, so that former Queen Juliana can finally be recognized as the great and farsighted leader of a people who she really was, and which was recognized in popular opinion, but never by the establishment. A hundred years from now the critical role she played in helping professor Quispel gain access to the sources of the Thomas Gospel may also finally be recognized as something for which the world owes her a debt of gratitude. I just figured I'd make a start with it right here and now, because I feel that this particular contribution was near and dear to her heart, and more reflective of her spirit than much that's talked about in the popular press, and its importance without a doubt is global. As with everything else it's often the seeming little things that count, and that are much bigger in retrospect than they seemed at the time.

Sadly, since I first posted this piece, this day was spoiled by some disturbed person taking a kamikaze trip in their car, trying to spoil the festivities, and in the process killing several people (5 at this writing) and wounding others (12 at this writing), and the hospital reports that his own life may be in danger still.

All the Dumb Questions

Once when Krishnamurti was asked by a reporter what he would think of when the same question was asked for the umpteenth time, he said "tennis." This was late in his life, he might have been ninety at the time. By this time also he felt at times at least, that for all his sixty years of teaching, and God only knows how many books, no one or nearly no one had ever truly understood him. Dr. Helen Schucman, who was the scribe of A Course in Miracles had similar feelings at the end of her life. The Thomas Gospel talks about "hidden sayings" (Logion 1). None of that is elitism, though it has often been misinterpreted in that kind of light. The simple truth is that very few people really want to be bothered with the wisdom of the ages. Too much hassle. As the Romans knew, the people want bread and games (panem et circenses). Don't bother me with the Truth. No need today.

In the Gospels the scene at the end of Mark, when Mary Magdalene tells the other apostles of the resurrection, is priceless. The arguments that followed are equally telling, including the endless disputes of whether the resurrection was of the mind or of the body. What became Christianity adopted the latter position, though some other schools toyed around fairly seriously with the notion that the resurrection was of the mind. Certainly with the advent of A Course in Miracles it could not be clearer that this is the only way that the story makes any sense at all. But again these are concepts which we don't know right away what to do with, since on the face of it we seem to be a body that has a mind, whereas in the Context of such teachings as A Course in Miracles, it is clear that we are a mind projecting a body, and watching the experience of "My life," which is one of many thousands we could have ordered from Netflix, or picked up at Blockbusters. The main thing is we get so engrossed while watching, and we identify with the hero of the story, we end up completely believing we are him or her, oblivious to any other way of looking at the story. The Course however does tell us to learn to look at things from Above the Battleground:

     Those with the strength of God in their awareness could never think of battle. What could they gain but loss of their perfection? For everything fought for on the battleground is of the body; something it seems to offer or to own. No one who knows that he has everything could seek for limitation, nor could he value the body's offerings. The senselessness of conquest is quite apparent from the quiet sphere above the battleground. What can conflict with everything? And what is there that offers less, yet could be wanted more? Who with the Love of God upholding him could find the choice of miracles or murder hard to make? (ACIM:T-23.IV.9)

In short, whenever you get sick and tired of being sick and tired, you may remember this kind of advice. In Logion 42 of the Thomas Gospel Jesus expresses the same idea with fewer words: "Be passersby." Learn to watch what you're doing, observe it, don't identify with it and lose yourself, for that leads you to the way out.

It is only when we don't really like the story any more (our own damn fault for taking out a tragedy, when we could also have picked a comedy for the same price), that we begin to look at things a different way. And then when we find a teacher, like Jesus, Krishnamurti, or the Buddha, who hangs out not where the crouds are, but "in the wilderness," or "the desert" etc. this means we're now turning away for a moment of our ego's bread and games, and we immediately start having questions. This is what I read, when I look at the stories of the apostles, when I read the transcripts from Krishnamurti workshops/lectures, when I listen to tapes of workshops of the foundation for A Course in Miracles. These people are all asking all the questions that we all want to ask. Sometimes we haven't realized it yet, but if we haven't yet, we will realize at a later point that we're asking a question we heard somebody ask at a workshop, etc. Ultimately what will answer the questions however, is if we do so through our own experience, as long as we stay stuck in answering questions, we are really throwing up roadblocks against the experience that part of us wants, and part of us is deadly afraid of. Ultimately this is the type of reasoning which Jesus offers in ACIM: if you're in doubt if this is for you or not, try it for a while, and see if you like it. The great big risk is that you might feel more peaceful. Another important clue is in Logion 108 from Thomas, "Whosoever drinks form my mouth shall become like me. I myself shall become that person, and the hidden things will be revealed to that person." As usual this should not be read literally but figuratively. It is about sharing his experience, and becoming one with him on an experiential level, for only the experience will tell us where words fall short. It is not about the words, it is about a willingness to have the experience, and that means giving up on the ego's next ride (because we already know to expect the same old result from the same old actions), and following him in deed, not in word, and the means for that, as they appear in the Course are the practice of his forgiveness practice, which are a way of switching from the way our ego sees the world to the way Jesus sees it. A way to get out of our bad old habits which are making us miserable. And while we are at it we can listen to all the dumb questions, or ask our own dumb questions, which will only fade away when the experience catches up to us and we finally realize what he was talking about. As I pointed out in an earlier post, in Gary Renard's books he is really asking all the dumb questions for us, AND his teachers help him to experience the answers as much as answering him in words, so vicariously through him, we get the point that it is about opening ourselves up to the experience, instead of closing our minds, thinking we have all the answers.

Lemme 'splain

Today I was in a social situation, where my book came up, as part of introductions, and I got to practice (again) just how to explain simply where it fits. I had to be exact, for there was an evangelical theologian in the company. I'm finding that it is becoming easier and easier to do as I go along, and the notion is simple, Jesus was not a Christian, since that faith was invented after his time.

Jesus and the Buddha were spiritual teachers in their day and age, just like Krishnamurti was one in our day, and they were not founders of religions. Krishnamurti was very specific about that. Those religions were founded afterwards, by followers - Krishnamurti has been spared that fate sofar.

The fact that those followers did not necessarily teach the same thing as the people in whose name they built these religious systems has become blatantly clear from the Thomas gospel because it is the oldest of the Gospels, predating St. Paul by some 20 years, and it contains nothing at all of the theological ideas that made Christianity what it is. Moreover the dating of the Thomas gospel prior to the canonical Gospels, which reflect the editorial influence of Paul, is clear. Besides the absence of key (Christian) theological ideas, there is the fact that in the case of many sayings which later do appear in the Canonical Gospels, the form of those sayings is invariably more primitive in Thomas, leading to the inevitable conclusion that Thomas had to come first.

So the rest is a matter of personal preference. If Christianity works for you, fine. If you're interested in the teachings of Jesus in their own right, the Thomas gospel should be one of your primary sources, and you should clear your head of the cobwebs of Christianity. That's all there is to it. The biggest reason that people have had problems understanding the Thomas gospel, is because they cannot mentally sort out that the Jesus who speaks in Thomas is not a Christian. It is absolutely necessary that you're clear about that, otherwise you're bound to keep on misreading him.

Coming Soon: Gary Renard in Amsterdam

As I'm working my way through the final bits of translating Gary Renard's newest book, Love Has Forgotten No One, which is now slated to appear in Dutch about four months before it appears in English, and will be introduced at Gary's workshop in Amsterdam on May 23rd, with a booksigning in the American Bookstore on the Spui in Amsterdam on the day before, May 22nd, I'm also playing a background role with the preparation of the re-launch of his books on the Dutch market, as an outflow of my role as translator.

And my friend and collaborator in Holland, Annelies (www.xanga.com/liesje56knegt), just posted a marvelous video about Gary's work, and about the forgiveness teachings of A Course in Miracles, which are nothing more or less than the original teachings of Jesus, with which we are familiar from the Thomas Gospel, but presented in modern form. This little video presentation is a joy and a half to watch, so I wanted to post it here.

Forgiveness Video  This one is worth watching!!!

Meanwhile, the first step of this process is a new release in March of Gary's 1st book, The Disappearance of the Universe, in an all new Dutch translation by yours truly. All new, because in the prior Dutch version Gary said approximately the opposite of what he said in English about once every other page or so, and his meaning was being misconscrewed (there's a Gary-ism for you) in minor ways several times a page. Now of course the interesting thing will be to see if it makes any difference for the sales of his book. That would be the proof I'm eager to see. Sofar I'm having fun submitting some articles here and there in the Dutch press, and begin to draw attention to this major cultural invasion, that is about to hit their shores. I thought I was going to watch it from New York, but it now appears that I may make it over there for the event. I'm sure I'll report more on this as it unfolds.

The Santa Claus Syndrome

When I was very little, I (which is to say through my parents) knew this woman who I now feel channeled Jesus. Her name was Ms. Hofmans. She did not usually refer to him as Jesus, but referred to him generally as the Help, or God's Help. She always emphasized this faculty was always present to anyone who needed and wanted it, but she also always pointed out that Jesus was not like Santa Claus, and that the deal was to accept the Help on his terms, not on your terms. Her focus was always on praying with you more than for you, though she would frequently also channel messages, but the focus was clear, asking for Help meant letting go of your definition of the problem. In other words, let go of your preconceived notions of what the problem is and what the solution might be. This runs entirely counter to what the world wants.

This is also the psychological foundation of why Christianity reconstrued Jesus' teaching completely, and its theology creates an escape hatch from his urging to follow him to a Kingdom not of this world, and replaces it with a theology in which we get to have our cake and eat it too. We get to have our lives the way we think we want it, and he'll come back to save us later. Pfui. It was a close call, but at least we got away with it, or so it seems. So we leave him safely hanging on the wall, on his little wooden cross, and we don't have to bother with him much, but just go on and do our thing. He'll catch up with it later. Of course this kind of thinking also sets up a certain level of fear of him, that runs totally contrary to what he is and teaches, which is par for the course for separation in any form. We end up hating that from which we separate, but then feel subliminally threatened by it.

The Jesus we do want, is the Santa Claus version, which Ry Cooder sings about Jesus On The Mainline - "You can call him up and tell him what you want," "The line ain't never busy, you can call him up and tell him what you want." (What a gifted musician, by the way, and it is one of my favorite songs of his, look at the versions that are there on youtube!!!) We see that reenacted daily in various "predicitions"  of the second coming, or the coming of the Maitreya, etc. etc. etc. This is the vicarious savior, who dies for our sins, instead of us (which is what the word vicarious means - standing in for), who gives HIS life for OUR "sins," that type of a savior is par for the course for the ego, which wants to keep us firmly asleep, and not feeling responsible for the predicament we find ourselves in, instead of taking responsibility for our spiritual well-being. Or as I said before, we get to have our cake and eat it too, and Jesus comes back afterwards to fix the booboo, at least as story would have it.

The teachings of Jesus as we find them in the Thomas gospel, and in a more current form in A Course in Miracles, are more direct, and about taking responsibility for the way in which we see the world, and once we do that, Jesus can indeed help us to change our way of looking at the world and our experiences. That change of mind is his process of forgiveness, which is the way out of the hell hole. So the vicarious savior fits with a picture where we don't have to take responsibility for anything, and the world happens to us. Jesus the Inner Teacher, as he is expressed through the Thomas sayings and in A Course in Miracles, show us how to change our own role in the miserable experience we're having, by letting go of our judgment, and choosing his forgiveness instead. That is the way out of hell, it is empowering. This prayer goes a bit like this: "I've got it all wrong, I seem to be caught up in all of this mess, please help me see this differently." Again, therein lies the way out. Like any good therapist knows, no healing is possible unless the patient at least begins to acknowledge their responsibility for the predicament they are in. "And please tell me, who was it again who found nineteen abusive husbands/boyfriends in a row?"  Nothing changes until we deal with our role in the fiasco, and decide to change our mind about it. In the end it turns out to be a lot less painful if we stop banging our head against that concrete wall. Turns out Jesus is a pretty savvy therapist, then.

My recent explorations on this blog on the transformation from the direct teachings of Jesus to the later versions of him which became Christianity, and were adopted as the state religion of the Roman Empire, serve to put us in touch with how we all mangle his message, which turns out to be inconvenient, because we do prefer to be right, more so than happy.

Your Immortal Reality

The full title of the book is: Your Immortal Reality: How to Break the Cycle of Birth and Death, and for reference purposes on the Yahoo! group on Gary's work, it was promptly abbreviated to YIR. Within the work of Gary Renard, this book is the most important one with respect to the Thomas Gospel specifically, for it is here that Pursah gives us her version of the text, which comes in Chapter 7.  Her presentation lines up well with history. While the Nag Hammadi library was clearly buried around the time that Bischop Athanasius was propounding the Canon of the New Testament, and would-be Christians were turning violent against any books that disagreed with the accepted positions, and therefore around 375 CE. We know from the correspondence with the fragments of Greek Text which we have from a find dating back to the end of the 19th century that the text of the Thomas Gospel existed in similar form in Greek, which would have been the original language, in ca. 140 CE. And circumstantially it is now clear that the Thomas Gospel must have existed as an identifiable collection ca. 50 CE, or within the first 20 years after Jesus's death.

Pursah's proposition is that she is reducing the collection of 114 sayings to a presumed kernel of 70 sayings, corresponding to 71 in the Nag Hammadi collection because of the contraction of Logia 6 &14. Her edits are mostly fairly cosmetic, but for a few cases. In all cases her edits produce a crisper statement, without any compromise, usually leaving off stuff that feels like it could very reasonably be suspect. Her proposed contraction, discussed on page 161 of the book, of 6 & 14 into one statement makes so much sense, that one wonders why we did not think of it ourselves. In short her edited version is very convincing, and leaves off about 1/3 of the collection, of which Pursah says they were generally added later and subject to some amount of correction, and in the process some inner contradictions are removed. In short she proposes, based on her recollection, that these 70 sayings she selects are the ones she can vouch for were very close to the original, going sofar as to say that if you rendered these in Aramaic, you would have just about the words Jesus spoke back then. As I've argued in my book, Closing the Circle, the rest is a personal decision, quite along the lines of the distinction William James made between formal and personal religion: we have only our own inner compass to go by if we want to rely on Pursah's version. I did, and I even wrote a book about it. So for me it's a done deal. One important comment Pursah makes, which should be obvious, but merits mention here, is that quite evidently the Thomas Gospel is not a complete presentation of Jesus's thought system. The quotes are a bunch of pearls on a string, however in the treatment in both DU and YIR, it becomes evident that the string is the thought system of the Holy Spirit of which we do have a very profound and complete presentation in the form of A Course In Miracles.

The book as a whole is a continuation of Gary's deeply inspiring personal learning experience of the Course, as guided by Arten and Pursah. And in spite of all the clowning around he does, giving us so many ways to recognize ourselves in his exploits, he remains thoroughly humble in his overall presentation, presenting himself as just another Course student, but sharing with us just exactly how much it is all in the application, not in the theory. If Gary could learn it, we could too. We may not have the experiences he has, but we can still learn from his experiences, and the implicit promise is that to us all experience will come along the way in forms that we can understand. So it is never about imitating the form, as was the old Christian misunderstandig about the Imitatio Christi, which was the early Christian belief that if we only let ourselves be crucified for our tenaciously held beliefs we would go to heaven. Of course that was never what Jesus meant to teach, and he firmly disabuses us of that notion in the Course. It is always about learning to walk the talk, and Gary's sharing his own struggles with us via these books remains a powerful encouragement that we can do the Course, for we all can identify with him, since we've all done what he's done, and sometimes worse, or at least different variations. But in the process he really works through all the issues we all have with learning the Course.

The Disappearance of the Universe

Gary Renard's work is at the center of Closing the Circle, because it is in his work that the connection is laid between the tradition of the Thomas Gospel, and A Course in Miracles, symbolized through his teacher Pursah in the book, who tells him she was Thomas in a prior incarnation.

This book is unique, and it became a huge hit without advertising budgets, just through word of mouth and through clever promotion over the web. Soon it became known as DU, and a Yahoo! group formed around it. It's also impossible to explain the book, beyond the obvious facts, for it really takes you on a ride over about a ten year period of the author's life, which is pretty indescribable. The title clearly grabs a lot of people, and if it works that way for you, you're in for a treat. The premise of the book is simple. Gary Renard is a regular guy with his fair share of troubles who at some point in time in his life strings together some fairly successful years as a guitarist, until it doesn't work for him anymore, and he takes a hard left turn. Among other things he has been practicing meditation, and one day when he comes out of a meditation in his living room in Maine, he sees on his living room sofa two people, who introduce themselves as ascended masters, Arten and Pursah, who in prior lives had been the apostles Thaddeus and Thomas. The form of the book is a series of dialogs based on this series of visits.

I recently reread the book very much in depth, because I was doing a translation of it into my native Dutch, which was definitely a fun challenge, as well giving me a good foundation to write some notes here. The book is in dialog form, and Gary's visitors give him a serious education in spirituality, which reframes his entire life, and part of that process works through introducing him in the early chapters to A Course in Miracles, which he was not very much aware of before this introduction. Arten and Pursah take him on a whirlwind tour, helping him to use his own experience to understand the application of the principles of the Course, focusing naturally mostly on the essential teaching of true forgiveness, which Jesus, as the Voice who addresses us in the Course, explains as the core of his teaching. It is evident that a meaningful understanding of forgiveness, requires the metaphysical framework of the Course, which has its roots in everything from Plato to Jesus, to Shakespeare, Freud and quantum mechanics. In other words, we are at a stage now, where we culturally have the ability for a much deeper understanding, and through this book Gary shares his own learning experiences with us, and the dialogs explore the Course concepts in every day language, making for a highly enjoyable read.

In the book Pursah makes the connection between the Voice of Jesus from A Course in Miracles, who points out a number of ways that his teachings have been misunderstood, and the Gospel of Thomas, which has often been misunderstood, because it doesn't sound like Christianity at all, but it was clearly older than the other Gospels which were included in the New Testament. Aha! So Jesus was not a Christian, because it had not been invented yet in his time. And suddenly the whole thing makes sense. In this particular book, Pursah discusses twenty two sayings from the Thomas Gospel, which she feels are most easily understandable for the modern reader. In my book, Closing the Circle, I've highlighted those sayings, as well as included a list of them in the back. Her point is simply that it's these 22 Logia, which the accepted Greek word for these Jesus sayings, are easier to get into without struggling too much with some of the cultural differences between then and now. Her comments on the Thomas gospel are seamlessly woven into the story, so that besides being a wonderful first introduction to A Course in Miracles for some, a refresher course for others, it is also a very powerful introduction to the more unvarnished Voice of Jesus (Gary calls him "J" in his books), which speaks from the pages of the Thomas Gospel.

In this context, Gary's choice for "J" instead of Jesus certainly has merit, for there is less of a tendency with that abbreviation to let our minds be cluttered by the whole historical burden of Christian tradition and theology, which has little to do with what he taught. We are now learning to listen to him fresh again, and that can be very helpful for our own relationship with him, and evidently for many of us this book has become not only an exciting read, but also an accellerator of our own spiritual lives, by connecting theory and practice in a previously undreamt of manner. This book is definitely of the "where the rubber meets the road" variety. You'll read it many times.

The Thomas Logia sound like Zen Koans sometimes

That sort of a comment has been quite common in the discussions around the Thomas gospel. By now we know enough to understand what happened to the Jesus tradition after his death: substantial embellishment. So no wonder that these early materials should have a different character.

Jesus may or may not have been to India in those first 33 years about which we know so little. We may not be able to know this for sure. However philosophically, since truth is one, and oneness is a non-dualistic concept, therefore it should not surprise if Jesus sounded like Buddha or like Advaita Vedanta at times. The explanation is not necessarily that he was exposed to those sources, although he may have been. People did travel. The summary of these different forms of belief system, from dualism to pure non-dualism is very well explained in Gary's 2nd book, Your Immortal Reality.

The philosophical point is perhaps more compelling. If truth is true, and all else is a lie, well, there are only so many ways you could express truth in words, particularly since words are by nature dualistic, and so you can only approach it, never state it explicitly. So at some level the most abstract expressions of wisdom teaching would have to sound recognizably similar. So to be "like the Buddha," Jesus does not have to be a Buddhist, or even have known about the Buddha. From that standpoint I am totally at ease around Gary Renard's frequent observation that A Course in Miracles is sometimes closer to Buddhism than to Christianity, although of course there are very dualistic traditions in Buddhism, but it does seem that in Buddhism more of the original non-dualistic teachings survived and even thrived at times.

The Christ Myth

Arthur Drews has become mostly forgotten, but this particular book from 1910 continues to be reprinted steadily. And the importance of his work continues to be recognized in the school of Radikalkritik, which is primarily a German/Dutch phenomenon, though it has some offshoots in the USA also. See here: www.radikalkritik.de

While I don't find myself agreeing with Drews too much in detail, I find his overall thesis a helpful anti-dote to the never ending stream of literature about the so-called historical Jesus. His is one of several traditions in European letters which have looked at Jesus as symbol more than a historical person, which I find actually more helpful than thinking about the supposedly historical accounts, which only draw us into the play, rather than watching it, and watching what it's telling us. In eighteenth century France the idea of Jesus as a solar hero had already been seriously explored, something which would be expanded upon by the theologian of the Christian Community, by the nineteenth century theologian Dr. Hermann Beckh, and then developed further in Holland by Johan Willem Kaiser in the 20th. In entertaining this possibility the mind looks much more at the meaning of Jesus's life than at the factual circumstances, which can only  be helpful.

The book is also helpful in exploring the three phases of Jesus, the pre-Chrsitian, the Pauline and the Jesus of the Gospels, for it is really by pulling those traditions apart and becoming aware of them that we begin to see the way that interpretation shaped the traditions about Jesus, and here Drews' observations make us just all the more conscious of the evolutionary aspect of how the world has looked at Jesus, and how our perceptions of him have been molded by the tellers of the story. In the context of the Thomas gospel I find this particularly helpful because it really has that "Just the facts ma'am" quality, which leaves out any editorial, explanation, or interpretation. In other words, in the Thomas Gospel the mythmaking really has not yet begun.

For the rest you can reflect on this book on any number of levels, including the realization that in a profound sense it is true, entirely in the sense of the notions in the Course that all of duality of necessity is metaphor, metaphor for aspects of an experience which can only exist after we entertain the possibility of being seprate from God, the separation myth, which usually takes the form of a creation story, in which we are absolved from the blame for the mess we're in. For the rest then there are only two sorts of metaphors, those that have us wandering away further from home, and those that help us find the way home. The Jesus myth of course is of the latter variety. Interestingly enough the way this book is written allows for the possibility that the notion of the mythical character of the Jesus tradition is not automatically tantamount to debunking him, but rather understanding him on a different, more spiritual level.

What to me is most important about this book and others like it, is that they provide counterbalance to the overwhelming interest in the historical Jesus and his physical circumstances, which has dominated the literature since the middle of the 19th century. I guess it would not make for light reading in the eyes of most, but it's very instructive if you have this kind of mindset.

On Joining the Y

If it wasn't going to be Closing the Circle, perhaps the title of the book should have been Joining the Y, but while on the one hand the first required a subtitle to avoid confusion with other books with the same title, on the other hand Joining the Y might have been mistaken as a membership drive for a venerable youth institution, so Closing the Circle it is. However, I like the graphical notion of the Y as a symbol for the book, namely that it has two legs, ACIM and the Thomas Gospel, which come together in one Jesus. Just another way of looking at it, but it makes the point that the book is all about realizing that in truth, allowing for different times and places, the voice and the message never changed. This was the real promise of the Last Supper and the ritual that has been distorted as the Eucharist - Jesus promises that he is present to us in our mind whenever and wherever at our slightest invitation, exactly because he is not a body, he is not promoting the cannibalistic ritual Christianity has promoted instead. And the cover represents the one Jesus for all time, who is just the symbol of God's Love in our lives. We got lost, but we have the option of wandering back any time we like, and he comes in at our invitation.

The way it seems to be working out in practice is that the painting, Teach Only Love, on the cover really is the shortcut to the book, and I am gratified to see that it is being picked up by readers who previously did not know much about either ACIM or the Thomas Gospel. The first reports I received from Holland was that the picture practically made the book jump into people's arms. And the longer it is out there, I realize that my collaboration with the painter, Sam Augustin, is really a central feature of the book, and the fact that it's so inviting really is an integral part of the book itself. If a picture is worth a thousand words, the painting is better than any lenghty introduction.

Coincidentally, some people have asked why the two sources of light over Jesus' head in the cover art. Sam answered that in his mind that symbolized the omnipresence of Love, which then was focused in the presence of Jesus. It occurred to me that on some level it could also represent exactly the Y I'm talking about in this post, i.e. the two legs of ACIM and the Thomas Gospel, connecting to the one consistent manifestation of Jesus as the presence of Love.

Entering the Mainstream...

The other day I picked up at a news stand copy of a "Collectors Edition" of US News & World Report, titled "The Secrets of Christianity." I was amazed, for finally some relatively serious information is entering the mainstream, in a format that is easily accessible, and relatively informative. It seems to be a good omen ahead of the publication of my book. After all if US News and World Report is not mainstream, nothing is.

Several years ago, when Tim Freke and Peter Gandy just had their first books out in which they pursued in their way the notion that the earthly life of Jesus is not the point but the spiritual symbolism is -remember the Course calls him a manifestation of the Holy Spirit- I had a correspondence with one of them, I believe it was Peter, and they seemed to be unacquainted with what I assumed to be their precursor literature from the school of Radikalkritik and their predecessors in turn reaching back all the way to the 18th century in France and England. Today their books are featured on websites on Radikalkritik. At its hight, Radikalkritik (the major website is www.hermann-detering.de which has multilingual information in German, Dutch and English) flourished mainly in the 2nd half of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th in Germany and Holland. The twin pillars of inquiry were the lack of historical detail about Jesus, and the mythological character of the literature, and the exploration of the disconnect between Jesus and Paul, including the fact that some researchers entirely dismissed the letters of Paul as the product of Christian self-justification in the 2nd century, attributed to Paul, but historically dubious. Somewhat to my surprised, Radikalkritik is now discussed in the opening article of this publication, and at some length.

In other words, the fissure between Jesus and Christianity is now entering mainstream awareness, and this ties in very nicely with the growing interest in apocryphal literature, and exploration of the possible meaning of Jesus beyond the boundaries of the Christian churches. So it would seem that after the youthful silliness of The DaVinci Code, which sort of exploded the latent interest in these issues from a rebellious standpoint that daddy lied to us (or in this case the Pope lied to us), without and real historical credibility to its arguments, we are as a society now entering a phase of broader inquiry into the real issues. This connects quite well with the Jesus of the Thomas Gospel and the Course, both of which clearly do not sound like the Jesus of Christian orthodoxy at all. The Course clarifies those differences mostly in the first 6 Chapters of the book, but occasionally reverts to it later, since it clearly deliberately uses the terminology to evoke for the reader an experience of cognitive dissonance, which rousts us out of our traditional understanding of Jesus, as not a figure of history, but as an inner presence which can lead us back home, out of the ego's insanity.

I feel that it is very helpful to realize that amidst the broad appearance that Christianity continued unabatedly to maintain the Pauline dogma through the ages, that in fact there have been very substantive groups of thinkers, who smelled a rat, and who perceived a dissonance between Paul and Jesus. For myself this whole picture did not come together completely until the Course, but being aware of it since growing up, the Course simply clinched it, and once we begin to understand the Thomas Gospel for what it is, it all becomes even clearer why the Jesus who speaks to us from its pages is not a proto-Christian at all.

Spoken Miracles

Visitors to the Yahoo! group on The Disappearance of the Universe will recognize the name of Martha Lucía Espinosa immediately, and know that there was a discussion on the forum about her plans for this upcoming book, which is based on a hint that was contained in DU, namely that the 365 Course quotes contained in that book provide a complete summary of the Course's teachings, which one could use for daily meditations etc. Because of her editorial choice to present these "quotes" as a "sayings collection," I felt a discussion of the book was in order here. Those of us who have really worked with Gary's books are in no doubt that they are inspired material, for they speak to us on so many levels all at once, and they clearly represent yet another dimension to facilitate our learning of the Course, by re-casting it in the framework of Gary's conversations with his friends, the ascended masters Arten and Pursah. Gary's experiences with Arten and Pursah, and with learning the Course, on one level are nothing but a dramatization of our own learning opportunities with the Course, inviting us to empathize, and identify with Gary as Course student par excellence, as he goes through his own slapstick routines of Course learning. Clearly, in preparing this little book Lucía has discovered yet another dimension in which this material operates, which she reflects in her choice of title. Not only was the Course spoken to Helen Schucman, the 365 quotes from the Course were again spoken through Gary's books during his conversations with Arten & Pursah. And Lucía heard the spoken quality in those quotes, in particular also because of the context of the Thomas Gospel  which permeates Gary's work, in as much as his own discovery of having been Thomas in a prior life, as well as Pursah representing the recollection of that lifetime, which is obviously central to the book. Throughout Gary's books the focus is on what "J" really did say, 2000 years ago as recorded by Thomas, and today in the form of ACIM, and to clear away the clutter of subsequent interpretation and distortion, and to get back to what the words were meant to say as they were spoken by the speaker. The Thomas Gospel is fast becoming the symbol of hearing the authentic teaching of Jesus, before the distortions of it began to accumulate in the narrative Gospel tradition which came later, and which was never again to get out from under the heavy editorial influence of Paul, whose first letters are contemporaneous with the Gospel according to Mark, which in and of itself has perhaps the least amount of Pauline influence, but nevertheless already shows some of the influences that were to distort the teachings of the living Jesus into the dead body of Christian dogma (eucharist etc.). Pursah's kernel of the 70 authentic sayings in the Thomas Gospel help us find the "historical" Jesus in pure form, free of the materials that were added on later. In Spoken Miracles, Lucía hears a kernel of the Course, almost as a sayings tradition, which can speak to us in a very direct way as a refresher of the Course - though it could also be an introduction to the Course. The book represents Pursah's Cliff-notes for A Course In Miracles, and as such it is a wonderful way to straighten us out, if we get wrapped around the axle with the ego's complications again. Lucía's own introduction is fascinating, and may serve to make the material accessible to many seekers. No doubt few might have wandered as widely and at such a young age as Lucía has, starting with studying a form of Gnosticism at age 13, but as she meandered through various spiritual and religious traditions, she touches seemingly on anything that is around in the contemporary landscape, including a brush with the dogmatic certainty of fundamentalist judgment and the Leave Behind series, to which Gary also offers some choice comments in the course of his books. The Course itself emphasizes in the first entry of the Manual for Teachers, that God's Teachers come from anywhere and everywhere, from any religion or no religion, and in that spirit Lucía's wide ranging explorations will offer many readers the opportunity to recognize themselves in her, and thus to hear again the still small voice inside, which leads us to truth in the end. Reading the book is a mind-blowing experience, for even if we already realized the rich crystalline structure of the Course, until Gary came along, most of us would have thought a popular introduction to the Course was an impossibility, and a meaningful summarization equally an impossible task, except that it turns out that DU, like a Russian doll, contained this supposedly impossible summarization. It just took Lucía's faithful scribal work to free it up from its rough shape and to polish the diamond. This resulting little gem of a book truly astound us with the brilliance of the Course on yet another level, as impossible as that seems. I've studied the Course for too long to venture a guess how this book would strike someone who came to it without a knowledge from the Course, it seems to me that very much like the sayings of Thomas it would evoke a hunger to know and understand more of the thought system that was being implied more than explained in them, in which case it could lead people to the Course. As a refresher for long standing Course students, it is definitely... well... if I may say so: refreshing! It could be used as the thoughts for the day for a year long refresher program, or also simply read, or you could dabble in it. Last, not least, this book is also a great buy at $9.95, and in a way it provides a more portable Course than the portable Course - the small format edition of the Course from the original publishers, which is still more luggable than portable. So for a weekend trip take this one along if you are traveling light!  And I supect that just like The Disappearance of the Universe itself serves as an introduction to the Course for many people, this little book too may become a first invitation to the Course for a great many people - kind of a no risk trial.

---

Thomas one of Five? Ask the Jesus Seminar.

 This has to be one of my favorite editions of the Gospels currently on the market in English. This book is thorough and complete, and it really empowers you to study, ask your own questions, and it is not beholden to church positions which force other authors to assume later dating of Thomas, ultimately so as not to upset the applecart of Christian orthodoxy.

The book starts with a thorough exposé on the historical position of the Thomas Gospel as a precursor to the narrative gospels (synoptics), relying on the common sense insight that the sayings gospels were a type that preceded the more elaborate and interpretative narratives of later authors, all of which seem to date two or more generations after Jesus. The Q and Thomas traditions which just collected sayings seem to go back to the first generation, immediately following Jesus' death, roughly the years 35-55 AD. They lay out the time line very carefully, showing both Q and Thomas as originally oral traditions that flowed gradually into the written traditions and provided raw material for the later writers.

The translation is fresh and new and thought-provoking. They provide a reasoned accounting for their assessment of the authenticity of the Thomas sayings, which makes a fascinating read if you're in to that. By providing thorough cross-referencing they offer plenty of food for thought and opportunity to make your own assessments of the likely flow of ideas. One inspiring notion is their translation of 'Kingdom' as 'Heaven's Imperial Rule.' To my personal taste that seems a case of 'close but no cigar' because of the awkwardness of the 'imperial' moniker, given how Jesus uses Caesar as a symbol of the ego, and the ruler of the world. However in Pursah's version she chooses in some places the expression 'God's Heavenly Rule,' and that seems to be a next step along the same line of thinking, which does make sense, and so clearly Pursah is concerned to convey a more practical sense of the meaning of the somewhat forbidding term 'Kingdom,' though she uses it as well, as does the Course.

Besides the Marvin Meyer translation, this is probably the Thomas version I use the most. It is remarkably free of prejudice overall, because it does recognize that Thomas is from an early date. The one thing we might ask is, why do they make the editorial choice of putting the synoptics in chronological order (Mark first), rather than in the accepted (orthodox) theological order (Matthew first), but yet they still put Thomas last? Purely chronologically Thomas should come first. However this raises the next question, and that is why indeed stop at five? Just because Thomas is the most complete? This is still an indication that the book belongs to a Christian world view. I believe the independent world view at the present state of our knowledge would simply recognize that the canonical tradition has nothing to recommend it, other than that they won out, with a little help from their friend, the Emperor Constantine, solidifying the intellectual supremacy of a Christian orthodoxy which relied on Paul, Peter, bishops Irenaeus, and Athanasius, congealing first in the Nicene Creed at 325, and later Athanasius' list of the NT Canon in 367. So, in putting Thomas last, this edition still is deferential to the canon. I would argue so are some of its conclusions about the authenticity of Jesus' statements, except that by providing the full accounting they do, the reader can really draw his own conclusions.

In short, if we let go more and more of the limiting framework of later orthodoxy (post Nicea), we would simply read the literature from those years in a spirit that evidently nobody completely understood Jesus, some succeeded in making a world religion out of him, arriving at the opposite relationship to the Roman Empire of what Jesus had foreseen ('Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, give to God what is God's.'). Others followed quite their own path in a variety of contemplative paths, gnostic philosophies and religions, mystery religions, faiths and practices, all of which highlight very different aspects of his teaching, and the sheer variety of which practically defies the imagination. Ever more we would find ourselves in a fix, having to decide that we are really on our own, and need to follow our intuition as to what Jesus really said. For me, the only real answer in the end comes not from the rubble of history, no matter how brilliant the treatment, but from the statement at in the preface of A Course in Miracles, saying that "Its only purpose is o provide a way in which some people will be able to find their own Internal Teacher," or in fact in the oft repeated injunctions from Jesus in the old literature: "Seek and ye shall find," as well as "Follow me, and I'll make you fishers of men." Without our own relationship with him, which is questioning and based on the acceptance that we have not understood, but we're willing to learn, so that we now come to him as a student, as a disciple, and no longer as a theologian who already knows, and really ends up telling Jesus what he means to say, which is what Christianity has mostly done.

Besides a general collection of the Nag Hammadi writings, this book is probably the single most helpful source for someone raised to some degree in  a supposedly Christian world, to begin to develop a broader view of what the historical impact of Jesus might have been, what his authentic meaning might have been, before he was bombarded into being a proto-Christian after the fact by the 'winning' clan of Bishops gathered at Nicea.

Elaine Pagels: Re-discovering Thomas

Active interest in the Thomas Gospel dates from the 1890's, pursuant to the discovery of the first Greek fragments of it in the Oxyrrhynchus papyri, and started to seep into popular culture ever since translations of fragments became part of major collections of apocryphal NT literature in the early 20th century. In protestant Northern Europe these found mass circulation in the early 20th cetury, apparently less so in English speaking markets, though it was available around the same time. After the discoveries at Nag Hammadi this interest went into overdrive. Translations of the Coptic Thomas Gospel started appearing in the late 50's, and seem to have grown to a steady stream.
I experienced some of the early excitement as a child, when my parents attended a presentation from Prof. Gilles Quispel in the 1960's - finally Jesus in his own words! and no longer through the filter of Paul and the church... Somehow it seems that with Elaine Pagels' book, Beyond Belief the afterburners kicked in at least in the Anglo-Saxon market, and the Thomas Gospel truly began to enter the mainstream. Why was it that, when Elaine Pagels published this book it seemed as if, at least in the English speaking markets, interest in the Gospel of Thomas suddenly took flight? I don't know. Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code as well as Gary Renard's The Disappearance of the Universe, both of which were published at the same time, seemed likewise to take completely unexpected flight, playing in part into the same material in different ways. So the time was right for Thomas, and these three authors caught the wave.

Pagels writes from the vantage point of a "recovering" Christian - the opening line of her book is about her visit to the (Episcopalian) Church of the Heavenly Rest in Manhattan - and that approach brings with it some limitations in appreciating Thomas, but also some unique qualifications to open the field, since this is where most of her readership starts from. As a first exploration of Thomas this book has a lot to recommend it for many readers who are curious, the last word it is not. Dan Brown's book does its job with chutzpah and the flights of fancy of a suspense thriller even if sometimes with a regrettable pretense of historicity bordering on a hoax, which plays into a juvenile sentiment that the church is holding out on us (which is historically accurate in a deeper sense of course). Gary Renard's work brings up the rear with what may arguably be the most logical and appealing presentation, though for a general reader some of his story may seem utterly fantastic at first, except that the result is easily the most logical, coherent and consistent approach to the phenomenon of Thomas. Old Occam would be pleased. But back to Pagels for now.

Pagels starts out with sharing a personal existential crisis, the death of her young son (age six), and how she found herself going back to church during some years of struggling with his health crisis ever since he was born. This experience brings back into awareness what she likes about the church (community), and what she dislikes about it (dogma, and exclusivity). She uses these personal ruminations to introduce us to the Thomas Gospel, which she thereby positions as another tradition which to her mind shattered the closed-minded world of churchianity, and opened up the consideration that early Christianity (which did not get its identity till 300 years later anyway), was a much more mixed and varied phenomenon than what the canonical tradition holds it out to be. This personal approach makes it easy for other Christians, who are interested in widening their horizons to appreciate the sense of wonder Pagels seems to have about the Thomas Gospel, and clearly there is a large readership with those qualifications. The title Beyond Belief is therefore well chosen, and mention of Thomas appropriately is only in the subtitle, since it is hardly the main topic. I'm not sure if this is doing Thomas any favors, as I don't believe Christianity was his concern, the teachings of Jesus were, but that's because I do believe Thomas dates from 45-50, and thus he would the influence of Paul who was the real revisionist here, and the actual founder of Christianity. It is really after the year 60AD with the influence of Paul that the institutionalization of Jesus gets seriously under way. "Bitter idols have been made of him who would be only brother to the world," he says of himself in the Course (ACIM:C-5.5:7).

The first chapter uses these personal issues to qualify Pagels' approach to the task of discussing the Thomas Gospel, which she then develops in the lengthy second chapter by juxtaposing it with the Gospel according to John, going so far as to assume - without adducing any supporting research or evidence - that the Thomas Gospel dates from ca. 60-100 AD, and therefore may have been almost contemporaneous with John's Gospel (ca. 90 AD).  All of this frames the subject matter in a way that makes Jesus a sort of proto-Christian, and treats all Gospels as if they are alike. More specifically, it sets up the Thomas Gospel as if it is like the Gospel of John a theological product from several generations after Jesus, involved in a theological argument with the community of John. Most of this happens by implicit assumption, without reference to critical scholarship of Thomas - which might suggest otherwise.

It is true of course that in John there are several comments that indicate disagreement with the Thomas tradition, and I can see why for a doubting Christian this evidence of disunity in the early years is an interesting discovery. However bringing these personal issues to the subject without a critical accounting of them limits the treatment. As we can see here, how we look at the Thomas Gospel critically depends on how we place it historically in the tradition. If we conclude that like Q, it dates from the period of the first generation after Jesus, and that "sayings" gospels indeed constitute a more primitive literary form, which was more reporting than theologizing and interpreting, and which was only partially copied in the later narrative Gospels (synoptics) this would make the treatment of this book impossible. If, like Pagels does here, we assume that Thomas is of a later date, and 2 to 3, or even 4 generations after Jesus, like the Gospel of John, that means we do not assume it to be more original or authoritative, but rather a later interpretation, the differences with John and the synoptics come in a very different light.

In short, Pagels frames her argument in terms of her personal crisis of faith, and her primary audience therefore is by definition the millions of Christians who are having comparable doubts that the homogeneity of Christianity is not what it's cracked up to be. Thomas research has suffered from this sort of fog and obfuscation since the early days, and where Jean-Yves Leloup and others use this framework for a wide ranging speculative exploration of Thomas in a more New Age sort of way, Pagels frames it in the context of challenging her Christian standpoint, and her treatment in that sense is on a par with Bart D. Ehrman, a recovering fundamentalist like Pagels, except that Pagels remains more positive to Thomas than Ehrman does. While noting these limitations, I also want to emphasize, as I've argued elsewhere, that dropping the pretend-homogeneity of Christianity, and seeing it for the revisionist history that it is, is the first step towards attempting to listen to Jesus on his own terms, underneath or behind the beliefs about him which cloud our vision, just like the throngs of the crowds in the Markan stories often make it hard to get to him. There's no reason to listen to him as long as we are ourselves telling him what he should say. We need to first be curious about what he does say.

Along these lines Beyond Belief happily meanders on about early Christian history, and we might note that for the Johannine community to have a difference of opinion with the Thomas community their Gospels did not logically have to be contemporaneous. For the Gospel of John in the late first century to criticize the Thomas Gospel, the latter needs to preexist the former, that is hardly a tight argument however, for someone could say the comments aren't about the Gospel, but about the Thomasine community. In all however, the absence of Christian concepts in Thomas, the form of the Gospel itself, and the very reasonable reconstruction of the historical order of NT quotes, which makes it highly probable that Thomas predated the synoptics, are all short-circuited by this book's assumption of a date in the 60-100 AD range. And thus the bulk of the book does not explore why Jesus comes across so differently in Thomas, but again simply assumes Jesus is a proto-Christian and then thus it continues with explorations of the early Christian communities in an anachronistic fashion which makes all conversations of the first 300 years seem to happen in parallel within the framework of a Christianity that does not yet exist at that time.

In the course of tracking some of the more interesting ideas extant in the literature from those first few centuries Pagels does turn up some interesting ideas, some of which at least might be connected with Thomas material in a positive way, but she does not explore those possibilities, so the book on that level is more exposé than explanation, and the connecting tissue is Pagels' personal interest, not the Thomas Gospel. In a list of interesting highlights I would put her quote of a Westerner turned Buddhist, who says if he'd known the Thomas Gospel, he might not have been a Buddhist. Now that comment makes sense, but it is not developed at all. The book remains preoccupied with the wild growth of ideas in the centuries just after Jesus, and in the process it leads us up to the formation of the the NT canon by bishop Athanasius in 367. It explores how the canon was established, and what was left out, along the way connecting the time of the likely burial of the Nag Hammadi treasure trove with the time of the establishment of this canon of the then emergent Christian orthodoxy, ensuring that at least these books escaped the subsequent destruction that was to be the fate of most copies.

Other worthwhile themes that are highlighted are the notion that the Resurrection is a spiritual, not a physical event, as well as the related idea of the laughing Jesus on the cross, from the Apocalypse of Peter, and also a notion from the Gospel of Mary Magdalene that the Son of Man is within, not to mention the seeming prominence of Mary Magdalene in some of this literature. Different spiritual explanations of the virgin birth are listed, and amidst all this wild growth of spiritual exploration, we find bishop Irenaeus laboring away on his theory of the four-formed Gospel all of which is to lead up to the council of Nicea, the Nicene creed, and later the NT canon.  With a light brush stroke meanwhile the implication is raised that the Thomas Gospel was not written by Thomas at all but merely ascribed to him, which is a necessary assumption if Thomas was in India or dead at the time when Pagels has his Gospel being written. What is not clear is that while such practices were common in antiquity, why is it necessarily the case here, except to suit the theory of her counter-intuitive dating of the manuscript? And all the while bishop Irenaeus is still at it, whipping up his concepts of Christian orthodoxy.

By chapter 4 the book takes us on a fascinating exploration of Valentinus, who promoted an allegorical view of the literature, surely blasphemy for followers of a teacher who constantly repeated that he taught in parables, or at least so in the eyes of bishop Irenaeus. The world as a (bad) dream is a central feature in the Valentinian Gospel of Truth, and so is our responsibility for sight. There is a brief discussion of the Round Dance of the Cross, which brings out a parallel to the Buddhist teaching that by becoming aware of suffering we find release from it, a notion that to Course students would not sound unlike the notion that the miracle "looks on devastation," and "reminds the mind that what it sees is false." (ACIM:W.pII.13.1:3) Another very important topic is the discussion among the apostles in the Acts of John, where they all see Jesus differently. And so the exposé of heretical teachings continues, along with an account of Irenaeus' writings that seek to dismiss them and establish a proper orthodoxy. From him she quotes another fascinating report about a second "spiritual" baptism practiced among some gnostic groups: "Others performed apoloutrosis as a kind of spirtual marriage, which joins a person in union with one's "life hid with Christ in God," that is, the previously unknown part of ones'being which connects one with the divine." (p. 159) This practice was associated with acquiring true gnosis, and makes an interesting pre-cursor of the Course's notion of the Holy Relationship.

The final chapter of the book covers the exploits of the Emperor Constantine, lending his force to the establishment of a state religion which embodied the romantic notion of the Catholic Church, and the account seemingly naively reports that contrary to some reports Constantine left the Bishops collected at the Council of Nicea relatively free in their deliberations. One wonders if perhaps we need to be reminded who picked up the tab for that gathering? By the end of the book we have an interesting picture of many of the divergent issues of the first 400 years of pre-Christianity, up until the time when in 367 heretical books like Thomas were thrown out, and most of the discussion seems to be organized most directly by Pagels' own crisis of belief, which many doubting Christians might identify with. Little of the book really deals directly with the Gospel of Thomas, but the translation in the appendix reads nicely. It is based on Marvin Meyer's with some slight polish borrowed from the Scholar's Version of the Jesus seminar. What escapes notice is the idea that Christianity in the service of Caesar is pretty much the opposite of what Jesus taught, and a re-reading of Prof. G. J. Heering's The Fall of Christianity, might be in order. If we finally would understand such ideas, then we would also start to see the logic of why Thomas really is an early book, and its Jesus is not at all like the Jesus of Christianity, and some of those gnostic dudes might have made some sense. On the whole the book touches on so much that it probably serves to make the reader hungry for more specific information. And somehow or other it seemed to open the floodgates for an interest in Thomas.