Archive for April, 2009

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What’s in a Name?

Posted in Atheist, Bible, biological traits, Christianity, culture, enlightenment, freethought, humanism, humanity, life, logic, meaning of life, nontheism, random, religion, Uncategorized with tags , , , , on April 26, 2009 by chouck017894

A curious event is presented in the book of Genesis (chapter two) where–after the heavens and the earth were finished–the Lord God brought “every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air” to Adam to see what he, Adam, would name them. This little story element contains an enormous amount of coded information that for generations seems to have escaped detection by even the most professional Bible thumpers.

For one thing, the storyline incident indirectly reveals that the tale is fashioned on information handed down from some older, more scientific teachings on the creative process by which energy is transformed into matter-form. The “Lord God” of the Genesis account personifies the source or the quantum conditions out of which dimensions of energy are radiated. Adam personifies the Life Principle–which is to say, the element of energy activity that is infused with sensitivity–or that which may otherwise be identified with consciousness. It is this primary stage of energy variation radiating from Source (personified as “Lord God”) that units of energy attract into definable patterns (proto-matter-forms), and these are what Adam, personification of the Life Principle, “names.”

Translated into modern understanding, the “name” of the life-form is determined by the DNA and RNA, and we, as energy forms, carry the sensitivity (consciousness) to perceive and interact with other fields of limited energy. As noted in the book The Celestial Scriptures: Keys to the Suppressed Wisdom of the Ancients (page 334), “To know the name of a thing means that there is recognition of diverse combinations of energy involvement that have been utilized as individual fields of energy.” And this illustrates the subtle truth of creation: that there are no “names”–or limitations–in Source; there  is simply the potential for everything. As energy-substances involve with purpose (defining as form) they are baptized in the “waters” of creation (amniotic fluids) and given a “name.” And the “name” identifies the form of limitation that has been imposed upon that unit of creative energy.

Also from The Celestial Scriptures: “Unfortunately, the power of a name has been widely misunderstood as being the means of invoking magical powers for personal benefit, which is the implication in the alleged advice of Jesus to ‘…ask in my name, I will do it.’ (John 14:14) The Life Principle (personified as Jesus) will indeed give forth all the energies necessary for personal expression, but the name by which it is addressed or appealed to will also determine the delivery limits that the name invokes.”

Each of us has been DNA/RNA “named,” and as an energy-entity we are each capable of expanding above our limitations–but that is not going to be accomplished by calling upon a “name” that was defined by its own material limitation.

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Holy Astronomy

Posted in Astronomy, Atheist, Bible, Christianity, culture, freethought, history, nontheism, random, religion, science, Uncategorized with tags , , , , , , , on April 24, 2009 by chouck017894

Astronomy is the most ancient of all sciences, and the knowledge was so all-encompassing in its means of charting and presentation that star groupings (constellations) also served as illustrations for instruction on cosmogony as well as on lessons on life’s meaning. Of course such in-depth knowledge was not available to everyone, but the basic premises and the imaginative illustrations associated with the arbitrary groupings of stars were widely recognized by the masses almost everywhere.

Each constellation’s imagined figure–the symbols for the divisions of the ecliptic groupings and the symbols for the planets–were so intriguing that they passed into lore. This remarkable illustrative tool of astronomical charting is still known today, and we call it the Zodiac.  Astonishingly, the origin of that illustrative tool has been traced back more than 10,000 years. Zodiac figures such as Capricornus and Scorpius are known to have existed in their complete form even then. (The Zodiac’s true purpose should not be confused with the later horoscope practice of astrology.) Since the Zodiac figures and divisions were complete even in those ancient days, it means that the Zodiac, which was mapped out in precise degrees, has to be even older. There is, by comparison, no manmade religion that can claim such an ancestry.

Heavenly events were of much concern to the inhabitants of Earth for many generations through the second and first millennia, for neighboring planets were adjusting their orbits. This fact is even attested to in the OT book of Jeremiah (44:18-19) where it is recorded that there was a long history of women offering wine and incense to the heavens from the roofs of buildings.  The planet Venus was of especial interest to them, and it is referred to more than once as “Queen of Heaven.”  Even so, during generations of global upheavals the intimacy once felt for the ancient “celestial picture book” was lost, and the lessons once associated with the star charts became the treasures held as privilged information by a select few. In the passage of time the ancient knowlege became fragmented but would be incorporated into the world’s “holy books.”

The biblical character of Ezekiel, for example, is declared to have played the role of “prophet” of doom from c.597 to c.586 BCE. His most memorable storyline allusion was to a “wheel within a wheel”–which is actually a crafty reference to the Zodiac. And the “faces” that he claimed to have seen in connection to the “wheels”–man, ox, lion and eagle–were ancient references to the quarterly divisions of the Zodiac. These were and are Aquarius, Taurus, Leo and Scorpius (the eagle was the Hebrew symbol for Scorpius). The “eyes” spoken of  in verse 18 as being within the “rings” are but poetic reference to the stars. There are many more disguised zodiacal references throughout the Old Testament.

Naturally such a treasure trove with heavenly implications was not neglected in New Testament literature either. Probably the most prominent example of Zodiac association was the borrowing of its emblematic figures by church fathers to represent the four alleged authors of the approved Gospels. After much shuffling of Gospel story elements, the church fathers decided that Matthew was to be represented with a human head (man=Aquarius) because, they said, he had started the book’s narrative with the genealogy of Jesus. The book of Luke began with the story of the priest Zachary, and so it was deemed appropriate that Luke be represented by a sacrificial ox (Taurus). Mark began his version of Gospel events with the mission of John the Baptist who dwelt in the desert, and because the lion was an inhabitant of the desert it was deemed appropriate to symbolize Mark with a lion (Leo). And finally “St.” John, who began his text version with the words “In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God…” was given the attribute of an eagle (Hebrew figure for Scorpius), for eagles were widely accepted as symbolic and representative of the higher God in Heaven.  And we should not forget that Jesus is said to have had twelve apostles who revolved about him as the Zodiac signs seem to revolve about the sun. 

Unfortunately, even greater perversion of the ancient Zodiac presentations and the lessons associated with them were looted for use and abuse in the book of Revelation.

Much more detailed information is presented in the books The Shiny Herd and in The Celestial Scriptures. How it all came together for modern evangelical power-plays to build upon is given in Time Frames and Taboo Data.

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God’s Henchmen

Posted in Atheist, Christianity, culture, history, random, religion, secularism, Uncategorized with tags , , , , , , on April 22, 2009 by chouck017894

In the last quarter of the twentieth century, May 1985 to be exact, Pat Robertson, the televagelical mogul, was featured in a magazine called On Cable. Robertson, filled as usual with eternal boundless self-righteousness (ego), declared that he sought to remake America into a “biblically based nation.” His fiery right-wing politics was characterized by him as the “conservative, religious, and biblical point of view.” That “point of view” had been so slickly packaged by the time of his 1985 interview that his organization was siphoning in more than seventy million dollars a year.

The long held ideals and the values placed on diversity and plurality by the American people were regarded by Robertson to be “extreme dangers” of a secular state. The rights of minorities were being threatened in his “conservative” view drawn from biblical inspiration (that just happened to see nothing wrong with slavery). In public schools, he insisted, the children were being taught “a collective philosophy” that would lead citizens toward Marxism, socialism, or a communisitic type of ideology. In his humble (egocentric) opinion it was logical to denounce the Department of Education as unconstitutional!

Never shy about telling the nation what God wanted, Robertson asserted that the U.S. Supreme Court of the time had departed from history and the constitution. He worried publicly about “encroachment” of the judiciary. Thus Robertson charted a course to “engage” in what he termed “advocacy journalism,” and his Christian Broadcast Network (CBN) “news teams” began grinding out propagandist mini-documentaries with heavy “conservative” messages. Perhaps the heavily tilted Catholic (5 of 9) Supreme Court of today is more to his approval.

The CBN “news team” at that time was headed by a man once the editor of  The Washington Times, which just happened to be owned by the “Reverend” Sun Myung with all his questionable North Korean connections. The “born again” population, Robertson averred, was seriously under-represented in government. The evangelical then tried to ease the minds of skeptics declaring,  “The basic thing people do not understand is that evangelicals in America are not plotting to take away the rights of everybody else.”

Robertson, the modern age version of the biblical prophets, then announced that “God is going to thrust his people into positions they never dreamed they were capable of taking on.” (Bush, Cheney and others that schemed their way into federal government positions did seem to fill the requirements as set down by most biblical stars.) If the heavy tilt of religiously obsessed persons in government positions in recent years has been any indication, and if their corruption of true democratic principles is an example of a “biblically based” nation, can we truthfully say the sly takeover that Robertson advocated was “fairly benign”? 

His prophecy was on the button though; the U.S. got a born againer thrust into a government position that he was incapable of taking on.  With the blessings of eight years of bible-based leadership and conduct now behind us,  is there any doubt that a “biblical point of view” raised the nation’s standards in corruption, spying, waging war, wealth dispersion, imprisonment, torture and similar biblical niceties? 

The rise of televangelism in America from the 1950s is assessed in Time Frames and Taboo Data: A History of Mankind’s Misdirected Beliefs.

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Faith or Obsession?

Posted in agnoticism, Atheist, culture, freethought, history, humanism, nontheism, random, religion with tags , , , , , , on April 20, 2009 by chouck017894

Obsession and faith often tend to  share a perverted relationship. Indeed the definition of mental imbalance referred to as “obsession” too often also applies equally to religious “faith” to an alarming degree.

Obsession is defined as a compulsive preoccupation with a fixed idea or compulsive feeling that generates a driving emotion—more often than not with symptoms of anxiety. When unreasonable ideas or emotions infect mental function to the point of preoccupation, extremism becomes the inevitable consequence. The now-archaic understanding was that obsession was the state of being beset or actuated by the devil or evil spirits. On the other hand, hearing voices from a burning bush or from visions that no one else could detect is presented as  being divinely endowed.

Such “faith” is routinely whitewashed as: “A confident belief in the truth, value, or trustworthiness” of an idea, thing, or person. Religious “faith” is therefore presented as a reliance that need not depend on logical proof or material evidence–miracles, to them, are answers, not things that are questionable. “Faith” is also praised for an unquestioning loyalty to man-formulated doctrines and for extending numb trust that “sacred” texts that were written by various unknown mortal beings present the only access into spiritual enlightenment for man. The difference between “faith” and “obsession” thus hinges soley on how an individual’s egomaniacal temperament functions.

Both the words “faith” and “obsession,” in actuality, refer to some form of ego-gratifying conviction that panders to a sense of exclusivity. And any sense of exclusivity always results in mental obstructions. The next step for the faithful or the obessessed is then extremism–a condition that today infects so much of the world.  When “faith” fanatics try to take over worldly politics, history has shown that the end result has always been disaster for the subjugated, and mankind’s potential for truly moral conduct has been rendered impotent.

Recent research into brain activity has revealed that prominent neurological occurances linked with religious impressions are activated and intensified in the limbic system–the part of the brain governing basic activities such as self-preservation, reproduction, and expressions of fear and rage. It has been shown also that the prefrontal system of the brain–the prefrontal cortex and the parietal cortex of the brain–play an influential role in an individual’s religious devotion. Interestinly, persons suffering from obsessive-compulsive disorders are shown to have dysfunctional activity in the same prefrontal systems.

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Secularism and History

Posted in agnoticism, Atheist, culture, freethought, history, humanism, nontheism, random, religion, secularism, Uncategorized with tags , , on April 19, 2009 by chouck017894

Human history has shown that secular thought—by which is meant the evolved life essence that seeks unity and mutual respect in human affairs—is not exactly a natural animal ambition. In this regard we might therefore conclude that secular dedication—or humanism—is spirit (if you will pardon the expression) that is evolved above the ego-gratification that activates religious posturing and which seems constantly seeking victims to put down.

For those of us who prefer to think for ourselves and subscribe to rational interactions with others, it must be admitted therefore that we are not exactly following animal inclinations. Secularism is something of a cultivated, cultured awareness of human inner potential that develops out of a calm intellect and wide-ranging compassion. This is a bit unlike religious practice that wears a benevolent mask to cover a face of emotional and spiritual insecurity. These are animal fears, which drive them to pretend exclusive access to, or favoritism from an alleged prejudiced “maker,” and from that sand fortress they seek to climb to heaven over the bodies of those not related to their pack.

The underlying drive in animal behavior is physical survival, whether loners or pack animals. Devotion, respect and love does not extend beyond their immediate needs or wants. Seen in this light, the practice of organized religions is anchored in and dedicated to the primal animal inclinations from which we should be striving to evolve above, for catering to such inclination cannot be said to be the means of approaching humankinds’ higher potential.

In a very real sense, secularism/humanism is an abiding understanding that higher human potential is not shackled to theistic pretentiousness. However, liberal humanism is a relatively recent development in human affairs—an unfolding–or the evolvement–of intellectual empathy that heralds humankinds’ ability to transform itself into a more noble status. The religionists’ idea of Heaven seems likely to be but a dim primitive perception of this process of evolution into higher potential. Unfortunately, they have yet to learn that ultimately the only means of approaching and receiving man’s higher potential is to meet the diverse faces of life with genuine respect, compassion and integrity.

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RNA/DNA’s Covenant with Life

Posted in Bible, biological traits, culture, naturalism, random, religion, science with tags , , , , on April 18, 2009 by chouck017894

The claim of “covenant” with God is one of the fundamental theological motifs of Hebrew and Christian scriptures. The political spirituality that is suggested in too many scriptural situations very often have a hollow echo of priestly fabrication. On the other hand, the principle emphasis that is placed upon God’s alleged covenant with the Israelite people—i.e. the promised descendants of Abraham and Sarah—may be allusion to the properties through which life arises. In a very real sense, Abraham and Sarah can be said to serve as personifications of the characteristics of DNA and RNA.

As primal energies involve in accordance to the covenant held with the Life Principle—which may be said to be active as RNA (Ribonucleic Acid) with DNA (Deoxyribonucleic Acid) in the blue print of life—all manifestations of life follow the identical creative process into physical manifestation. All vertebrates (animals with backbones) evolved from a common ancestor: the genetic information that determines their development is virtually the same. Even human fetal development confirms the unity that exists between all life forms, for the primary stage of the human embryo development reveals visible indications of gills to be present in the potential life form. These are rapidly modified, however, as energies involve according to the covenant with the Life Principle—the covenant made manifest as the RNA with the DNA blueprint of life. These are the “laws” of life which determine the name of the thing.

The brief and rapidly changing embryonic resemblance to other life forms is, typically, shrugged off by science as only superficial in appearance. Nonetheless, it affirms that all life issues from one source, but embryos diverge in their gestation early-on to involve along separate genetic paths. This really is not something to shrug off as superficial!

As energy-substances involve with purpose it is, figuratively speaking, baptized in the waters of creation and is given its name (physical identity). This accounts for the biblical assertion that to know the name of a thing or person is to possess special power, for it identifies the form by its limitations.

There are only preliminary specifications set down in the DNA, and in the creative process there is always an avoidance of unnecessary extravagance. The physical organ of the brain, one of the marvel-constructions of genetic power, is an excellent example in avoidance of creative excess for it is assembled from a narrow spectrum of genetic material. Brain activity (and heartbeat) begins about the sixth week. The entire physical body of every living person is composed of only about one hundred-thousand genes, and yet out of this relatively small amount of genes the brain is forged which has in excess of one hundred trillion-trillion nerve cells! And each nerve cell may, in turn, form as many as ten thousand connections with its neighbor cells! In face of these figures there seems to be a vast discerpancy between the low number of genes and the astronomical number of nerve cell connections.

That we each issue out of quantum reality is testified by the energy out of which we are made manifest. The active principle that we speak of as “life” has no weight and no limited dimension, and yet that principle holds within it the presence and potential of every living and inanimate thing. That awesome power exists from the greatest manifest matter-forms even into the most microscopic limits where transparent, almost invisible protoplasm twists and wiggles with proto-life. That quantum-like power is incomprehensible, for if all genes responsible for all the people living in the world could be collected in one container there would be less than a thimbleful!

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Hanky-Panky in the Promised Land

Posted in agnoticism, Atheist, Bible, culture, freethought, history, nontheism, prehistory, random, religion, sex taboos with tags , , , , , , , , , on April 17, 2009 by chouck017894

As the stories in the Bible have been passed down from the editing pens of priest-authors, the deliberate misinformation that was incorporated as “holy word” has well served them as the core of a mind control system that is held in regard as religion. We have also seen in previous web postings that modern archaeological and anthropological finds have proven that a heady amount of revered “holy” accounts simply do not jibe with evidence that has been systematically unearthed and studied. The conquering of the “Promised Land” known as Canaan, it is shown, did not occur through an invasion of war as the “holy book” stories imply.

This means that all the blood and guts of Joshua’s holocaustic indugences was simply priestly abuse of facts–probably fabricated in the hope of intimidating the more powerful neighbor-nations around them.

The priest-authors were often sloppy about characterization and plotlines, and certainly would have made lousy generals. But taking of Canaan–supposedly promised to them by god, of course–was made into an epic with a cast of thousands. Moses and Aaron are portrayed as leading the Israelites out of Egypt under god’s promise that “…you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and an holy nation.” Exodus 19:6. Curiously, the Creator of all things seems always to have to rely on the bestial side of his favorites to accomplish anything of merit among humans.

There are a number of things that are rather sidestepped in the epic of “capturing” Canaan for god–and his priests. After the invasion was set, Moses appointed twelve men to advance and reconnoiter the land to be occupied. Among those men selected were Joshua, son of Nun, and Caleb, a member of the tribe of Judah. Much is made over Joshua’s bloodlust as a heroic obsession which propelled him into virtual savior status among Jews. (So admired was he that even the name Jesus is derived from the name Joshua.) But of Josua’s buddy, Caleb, there are some tolerable references but a sparse storyline.

Part of the priest-authors’ downplay of Caleb rests in the name itself, which is Keleb in Hebrew, and means “dog.” Although Caleb had been admitted into the tribe of Judah, the later account says that Caleb “…again separated himself from god, while remaining faithful to the q’deshim” (or “holy ones”). The part that is brushed aside with this statement is that Caleb adopted Canaanite religious customs, the q’deshim cult in particular, according to Deuteronomy.

Genuine history shows that early Hebrews had sacred prostitutes in their temples–a common custom in Babylonian, Assyrian and other neighboring cultures of the time. Female prostitutes were known as q’deshah–and the male equivalents were the q’deshim, who were known as dog-priests for the positions they assumed for their service. That Caleb was an acknowledged member of the tribe of Judah is consistent with the legend that Judah himself was an unashamed user of temple prostitutes.

Apparently in that historic age the Lord had not yet gotten all his prejudices sorted out, for a personal favorite of his, David, came from the tribe of Judah (and he had loved Johathan), and David had used Caleb’s territory, Hebron, as his capital until he supposedly captured Jerusalem.

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Gnostic vs. Judaic/Christian

Posted in agnoticism, Atheist, Bible, culture, history, naturalism, nontheism, religion with tags , , , , , , , on April 15, 2009 by chouck017894

The writings we refer to today as the Old Testament were regarded by Gnostics as the accounts of Jehovah’s crimes against humanity. Jehovah (Yahweh) was not accepted by them as the true god but was assessed as the identity of a Demiurge (creator of the material world).  Such OT characters as Abraham, Moses and the like were regarded as the henchmen of Jehovah who were dedicated to misdirecting the souls of humans into matter and ignorance. This, of course, was considered heretical by the Jewish priests and Christian fathers. But the Gnostics believed that inquiry into spiritual truth was of  more spiritual value than brainless adherence to priest-concocted rituals and ceremonies.

Of the Gnostics themselves very little is known of their true doctrines, with most of the accounts of them provided by opponents and detractors, thus those accounts are probably not too reliable. Because the Gnostics did not regard matter-life to be the true residence of the human spirit they tried to avoid creating material evidence of their entrapment in this material plane. Any writing or illustrative work on Gnostic belief was regarded with contempt, for it was judged by them to provide the means of engendering new errors. As a result there is very little true Gnostic literature or artifacts available for study.

Despite the accounts by opponents and detractors whose interest was promotion of their own belief systems, Gnosticism was, for the most part, centered on the highest ethic. That their concept of ethics was held to be judged from an amoral perspective is difficult to comprehend by modern western religions that insist that everything is to be classified as either good or evil, black or white, or positive or negative. Sex, for example, was not deemed a horrendous wrongdoing by them as western religions chose to pretend and have used to chain people to dogmas through a sense of guilt. Sex was held by the Gnostics to be strictly the business of consenting partners or participants. As Basilides, and Alexandrian Gnostic master of the early first century CE said, “The perpetration of any voluptuous act whatever is a matter of indifference”–to the highest powers.

Indeed, consensual sexual activity was held with positive regard in the little that is known of Gnostic theology, for it was recognized as the means of experiencing the indiscriminate Life Force. The sexual impulse was understood by them to be the highly personal energy field that can open a release from the constricting pressures of this matter world. In other words, sex was seen as a means of re-creating their identity within the universal creative powers –the primary intent of sexual activity. And since the Gnostics sought to avoid entrapping others in this material plane crafted by the Demiurge, procreation was regarded as less than of secondary importance. To the Gnostics the command to go forth and multiply was the enticement to moral and ecological disaster.

Maybe they were on to something.

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Institutional Faith

Posted in Atheist, Bible, Christianity, history, religion with tags , , , , , , , , on April 14, 2009 by chouck017894

In the timeframe in which Jesus is accounted for in the New Testament there was no word for an institutional-type place of worship. The closest approximation to that idea was the Greek word ekklesie, Latinized as ecclesia, meaning assembly or gathering–from which we give respect to the word ecclesiastical, now used to pertain to church or clerical things. From ekklesie there also evolved the Ecclesiastiucus, a book of the Apocrypha that is also known as “Wisdom of Jesus, the Son of Sirach.” And we should not forget the word ecclesiology was coined to mean the study of the Christian Church as an institution. Nor can we ignore the word eccelesiolatry which is a reference to worship of the church, especially extreme devotion to its principles or traditions.

The point of this is that nothing was ever suggested in NT presentation (or OT) that instructed the establishment of an institutional complex where faith could be utilized as a business venture to be presided over by a dogma-mesmerized and material-minded hierarchy. The Christian “fathers,” based in Rome and inspired by the Roman Empire manner of governing, contrived to choose church personnel in a manner that paralleled the “chosen people” of the Old Testament.

Christianity was then presented and marketed by the “founding fathers” as a new revelation of truth, and those men in supposed attendance of Jesus have been characterized as enlightened men and saints by generations of faithful. That the average Christian does not pay any attention to their claimed “holy word” is disclosed by passages in the NT that spoke of the disciples as “unlearned and ignorant men.” The faithful also refuse to note that the disciples brought before Jewish judges were judged to be idioti–idiots. And various cultures within the Roman Empire spoke of the early Christian movement as a “vulgar faith.” Celsus, the second century Platonic philosopher, spoke of the Christians as, “The rude and menial masses, who had hitherto been almost beneath the notice of Greek and Roman culture…”

Many, many men who influenced the early church did not have any particular respect for those whom they attracted. Jerome, for example, called a “saint,” spoke of the fierceness of the followers’ ardor which so frightened those who came to join that they fled in fear saying “…it is better to live among wild beasts than with such Christians.” And Julian (331-363), the Roman Emperor, renounced Christianity comparing them with “…the deadliest wild beasts (that) are hardly so savage against human beings as most Christians are against each other.” Julian also noted, “There is no wild beast like an angry theologian.”

The fanatical Christians, believing in literal mythology, went on to smother rationality, and Europe was plunged into centuries of darkness as the church institution, never dreamed of by Jesus, reigned supreme. Is it any wonder that Jesus chose not to return?

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Born Again Secrets

Posted in Atheist, Bible, Christianity, culture, history, random, religion with tags , , , , , on April 13, 2009 by chouck017894

In Christian gospel there appears in one book, and one book only, a two-word phrase found nowhere else in biblical lore: born again. As is the habit of those who confuse their ego with divine worthiness, they have lifted the phrase out of context to use as a title of their self-proclaimed worthiness of heaven’s favoritism.

It is curcial, however, to understand when, where, and to whom Jesus supposedly said the phrase “born again.” The words are found in a brief scene in “St John’s” rendition of the Jesus story, and the words are said to a bit-player named Nicodemus, identified as “a ruler of the Jews,” who appears only twice in John’s storyline. It should be noted that the book of St John was written c.105-106 CE, when resistance to Roman rule was so sharp that the Pharisees actively discouraged Jews from travel in Italy and other parts of the Roman Empire declaring them to be “unclean.” But the John book was inserted later between Luke and Acts– both written c.84-90–to give the appearanace of event-continuity in Jewish resistance to the new cult movement.

The name given for the “ruler of the Jews” is a shrewd clue that passes along covert meaning only to those who were privileged to secret ancient teachings. The name is manufactured on neco-demon, loosely translated as “matter as devil.” This is Gnostic material, which the church fathers held to be heretical, but here it is so well reworked that it has become deeply rooted in some Christian sects, and the castoff line to a bit-player is taken as Jesus’ prime message to the world. But since the writer of the tale made a point in verse one of chapter three that Nicodemus was “a ruler of the Jews,” it is to the Jews that Jesus says, “You people must be born again.” (In many reworkings of this verse the word “people” has been edited out.) Then later, verse 10, Jesus asks, “…Art thou a master of Israel and knowest not these things?” The implication is that the Jews, whose alleged “ruler” was Nicodemus, epitomized matter as of the devil.

The single meeting of Jesus with the bit-player Nicodemus gives additional clue to the secret meaning in the name, for Nicodemus is portrayed as coming to Jesus “in the night” and just before Passover. With this single line there is cunningly welded together four approaches to “faith”: Jewish, Gnostic, the struggling Christian hybrid, and the suppressed ancient teachings that predated even the Egyptian and Sumerian civilizations.

Artfully admitted in St John 3:5-7, in the comment attributed to Jesus, is that ancient secret teachings are being referred to: “Most truly I say to you, Unless anyone is born from water and spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. What has been born from the flesh is flesh, and what has been born from the spirit is spirit. Do not marvel because I told you, You [people] must be born again.” Thus ancient teachings on man’s energy composition, then known only to select persons, was reduced to political maneuvering. (See The Celestial Scriptures: Keys to the Suppressed Wisdom of the Ancients for original teachings on energy as matter, and what water, spirit, night, and pass-over meant.)

The second and last strange appearance of Nicodemus in 19:39 casts him as providing the material for the entombmentof Jesus’ mortal remains.

It should be noted that St John summed up his account of Jesus’ life in a statement that is illogical in regards to a mortal man–even a god-sired man. “And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written.”

This superfluous tidbit between narrator and audience was typical of all Pagan passion plays and was often employed in Roman presentation. (It is noted in Time Frames and Taboo Data that no one has ever provided authentication of John.)

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