Circle of Christhood

Joel references the Bible often and for years included Bible passage study as part of the Monthly Letter. On tape he tells us that all great literature and philosophy has its basis in the scripture of all cultures.

Yet, he also cautions parents NOT to teach the Bible to children until they are older, for it contains many mistakes.  The Bible is allegory and until one can understand what allegory is, until the brain matures to a stage where it can grasp other meanings beyond a literal tale, we must be very careful.

In a letter to his student, Barbara Muhl, Joel wrote this on April 26, 1963:

"No, I do not want any classes taught in the Infinite Way on the history of Christianity.  If anything, I will do everything in my power to discourage students from undertaking such a study, which is in line with what I have done for the past thirty years.  At every opportunity that I have had of discouraging someone from taking up such a study, I have exercised it, and never with any regrets. Studying the history of ignorant superstition, mythology, paganism, will not get anyone anywhere on the spiritual Path, and all it can lead to is a million questions as to whether Moses really crossed the Red Sea, or whether Jesus Christ actually walked across the ocean, and of course, the history of churchianity is a disgrace that could well be forgotten."

Joel references the Dead Sea Scrolls and Nag Hammadi Texts on tapes. He refers to findings in the Holy Land in 1947 (predicted by Edgar Cayce in 1937).  Joel says that in the coming years, more and more will be learned and revealed from old buried writings. 

In our age, we are witnessing the unfolding of this information. My teacher, Will Hoff, was very interested in this topic and I have remained an observer of it through the years. There are some very sound resources, but the field expands daily with many authors to choose from. I will offer you some few suggestions of reliable and/or very readable authors for your consideration.

The foremost, reliable scholar in the field of Dead Sea Scroll scholarship and Early Christianity is Professor Robert Eisenman. He is a world-class, premier scholar. As such, his writings are very difficult and directed at the academic reader. See his newest book, The New Testament Code.

Michael Baigent is a journalist with sound scholarship and references. He is very readable and he synopsises the last 20 years of research in The Jesus Papers.

This is a piece I used on this web site originally, some years ago.

Joel was familiar with Manly Hall. The statements made here so many years ago by Hall, are echoed in recent archeological finds. (See The Jesus Papers.)This is not Infinite Way teaching, but it is background to what Joel references. It is with the understanding of what happened to the early Christian writings and teachings that we begin to see why Joel was so adamant about his work in The Letter to Norman.

"Reincarnation and The New Testament"

"The New Testament also has suffered greatly from mistranslation and interpolation. Nor would it be proper to ignore the deletions which have peculiarly mutilated the Epistles.  The true authors of the New Testament are unknown, and the present collection of writings is but a small part of the manuscripts in circulation prior to the Nicene Council.

"There are vestiges of the doctrine of metempsychosis in the New Testament, but as in the case of the older writings, most of the quotations advanced concern only preexistence.  The Christian belief that Christ was consubstantial with the Father is inadmissable as evidence of metempsychosis...

"There is, however, one statement from the book of Revelation which appears to be the only positive statement of reincarnation in the two testaments. Rev. ii:12 reads, 'Him that overcometh will make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out.'  The meaning is inevitable.  Those who fail must go out again, that is, must return to the corporeal state. Those who achieve, that is become godlike, return to the Father's house where they become pillars, uprights, and supporters, the living columns in the everlasting house.  These are the adepts, the initiates of great mysteries, those whose lives and works have justified them.

"This is the precise teaching of Buddhism. There can be no doubt that the Jewish mystical sects had contacted Asia.  The Buddhist belief that the sattva or self returns to earth age after age until it achieves liberation is so pointedly stated that we can well understand why Martin Luther believed the Apocalypse to be uninspired. He felt the work to be pagan, and pagan it is.  Its inclusion in the New Testament is a proof of the survival of the great philosophical institutions of paganism in the very book of the Christian Church that had dedicated itself to the destruction of paganism with fire and sword.

"Jesus is believed to have been educated by the Essenes, the ruins of whose monastery still stand at Engedi near the Dead Sea.  This order had also a retreat on the shore of Lake Maoris in Egypt. The entire sect believed in reincarnation and studied the arcane traditions of the Egyptians. Josephus mentions the integrity of the Essenes with the highest praise, stating that they never engaged in any trade of buying or selling, but selected occupations which brought them into slight contact with the commerce of their time.  They were shepards, but they kept their flocks only for wool.  They were carpenters, and also acted as tutors and instructors.  They were learned and pious people in a day of ignorance and false beliefs, and were devoted wholly to the service of the invisible Father whose will and teachings were their law of life.  It was these men who wore their hair long, after the order of Nazirs, and also affected a single white garment woven circularly without a seam, and over this a scarlet cloak.

"If Jesus had been brought up in this brotherhood, he had been educated to believe that enlightenment was an inner experience and that the promised Messiah would come not in the sky but in the heart of the faithful.

"True Christianity as taught by the first Christians prior to the theologizing process was a simple statement of spiritual belief.  God, the principle of infinite wisdom, was manifested in the world through certain enlightened prophets who by sanctity of life had come to approach him and know his mysteries.  These prophets preached to the Gentiles, the un-believers, and sought to direct them into lives of sanctity and virtue.  Such a teacher was Jesus whose good name became the foundation of faith.

"It is my opinion, based upon an extensive survey of primitive Christian doctrine, that this Jesus, whoever he was and whenever he lived, taught reincarnation as had the initiated priests before him.  He taught also the law of compensation and urged men to a higher life upon the authority of the most mystical and profound of Jewish mysticism. Like the Essenes, his immediate teachers, he believed that a good life led to a happy rebirth and ultimate identification with god.  Like the Egyptians and Hindus, his more remote mentors, he accepted unto himself a number of followers, and of these he chose twelve to whom he communicated the mysteries. The substance of their knowledge is lost because it was an oral tradition and died with them.  The church symbolizes its peculiar sanctity by means of a gold and silver key with which it could open all locks.  Would it be too much to say that these keys are reincarnation and karma, the laws which unlock the mysteries of the universe? It is these two laws, these laws alone, which can make all things new, and can assure the ultimate salvation of all souls.

Reincarnation by Manly Hall pp. 71-76