From International Viewpoints (IVy) Issue 5 - March 1992
 
Philosophical Considerations
By Todde Salén. Sweden

Jesus Christ and Christians

Probably no man has influenced our western civilisation more than the 
man we call Jesus Christ. He was founder of Christianity and the 
source of all the various sects and churches of Christians we have 
today.

Everybody who knows about the history of mankind and the aberations of 
the 3rd and 4th dynamics, should have some insight into what mankind 
will do with knowledge of the kind that Jesus Christ left behind. If 
you know anything about organized religion (control) and the alter-is 
(lies) that occur when human beings are allowed to tamper with such 
materials to benefit their own self-interest, you should expect the 
modern Christian Churches to have deviated quite a bit from the 
original teachings of Jesus Christ. (See article "Control and Lying" 
IVy 4 (December 1991) page 14.)

It is actually imposible to find out exactly what Jesus Christ 
originally was teaching, as there exists no written materials that 
give the exact teachings of this man - Jesus Christ. So this is not an 
effort to prove that I know what his original teaching was all about. 
Instead I will make a few suggestions about what he might have said 
about 2,000 years ago. I will also try to get some support for what I 
am suggesting, by quoting materials that have been located but not 
verified as OK by the modern Christian Churches.

The acknowledged (by the Catholic Church) written materials we are 
supposed to use to learn about Jesus are the gospel books of the New 
Testament. Even they have contradictory material in their texts. So it 
is not easy to find out the truth about the teachings of this man from 
studying the bible.

Khristos People

At the time Jesus was preaching in the Roman Empire (a First Empire 
Civilisation, (In brief: The First Empire is a slave society, where 
wild men or hunters (i.e. tribe people with tribe morals) are educated 
through slavery to become contributing members of a civilisation 
(educated from first dynamic and second dynamic human beings with a 
small hunting pack to third and fourth dynamic human beings that can 
be controlled to work). Our bottom triangle, the CCH triangle. The 
Second Empire is an ARC-civilisation, where the members of the society 
are being offered education and human rights to make it possible for 
the truly spiritual ones to rise to higher levels. Very much like our 
modern western civilisation. Our middle triangle, the ARC triangle. 
The Third Empire is the thousand years Empire (a true group of true 
friends). Our top triangle, the KRC triangle. [Todde is preparing an 
article for "IVy" on the three Empires. Ed],) the Jewish people (and 
most other peoples in the region) were oppressed. Nobody believed in 
help from above to better the conditions of life. From the religious 
perspective they were interesting times indeed. Supposedly the 
foundation of a new kingdom (A Second Empire) was being prepared. And 
Jesus Christ was a very fundamental part of that foundation. He knew 
that it was his task to assist the human beings around him and their 
civilisation, to start a new era with a new kind of civilisation (the 
Second Empire). He knew that he had the duty of getting people to move 
in a new direction towards his "other kingdom". The Jewish religion 
had already declined into the level of rites and rituals (See article 
"Religion" in IVy 1, May 1991page 14.) with some teaching of Dharma (= 
The Laws of Life and the meaning of life). He knew he represented this 
new and better civilisation while the establishment represented an old 
oppressive civilisation. It was his duty to get as many of his fellow 
men as possible to move in the direction of this 2nd Empire. With 
rhetoric, miracles and teaching of Dharma to his disciples, he did 
what he could to accomplish this. He tried to make people around him 
rise to a new level of consciousness. He tried to illuminate the 
slaves of the Roman Empire about their spiritual nature. The greek 
word "Khristos", which gave the Christians their name has the basic 
meaning "anointed (one)". The Indo-European root word to "Khristos" is 
"ghrei-", with the basic meaning "to rub" and especially "to stimulate 
the mind".

The ancient Greeks, that gave this sect the name Khristos people, 
obviously were sufficiently impressed about the fact that they managed 
to raise their awareness by treating their minds somehow, to call them 
the sect of Khristos.

Christian Bureaucracy

Like everybody else who has great success in changing the minds of 
people away from what the establishment desires, Jesus got the 
authorities of those days to strike back at him. And so he was 
crucified.

His followers soon became more obsessed with building a powerful 
organisation than spreading his original teachings and methods. They 
created Jesus into a God and disconnected his followers from his 
teachings. When the four gospels were written there had already been 
so many changes made, that the message to future generations was 
aligned to what the bureaucrats of that organisation felt was needed. 
The worshipping of this godlike man Jesus Christ replaced the 
teachings he had tried to get across to his fellow men. However it 
took yet a few hundred years before the church in Rome managed to 
eradicate the original teachings of Christ from the minds of his 
followers well enough, to make it possible to create a priesthood and 
the church to real bureaucratic authorities.

Nag Hammadi & Qumran

Since then some old written materials have been located. First the Nag 
Hammadi library was found in Egypt in 1945 and then the Dead Sea 
scrolls in Israel in 1947. (What a coincidence! Within two years both 
these are located after being hidden for almost 2000 years! Could a 
bigger being have had his hand in this?) The Dead Sea Scrolls were 
written between 150 BC and a few decades AD. The Egyptian writings 
were dated in the first five centuries AD. (They revealed that the 
early Christian teaching was very much closer to the Essenian Dead Sea 
Scroll Masters.)

In the 5th century Rome prohibited all Christians to study any 
materials that were not authorised by the church in Rome. That is when 
the monks at Nag Hammadi choose to bury their library instead of 
seeing it burn. In very much the same way the Dead Sea Sect (the 
Essenians) decided to hide their holy scriptures in nearby caves at 
Qumran. When they hid their scrolls, they were still preaching their 
message of a new Messiah-like civilisation, that would be erected very 
soon (even after Jesus had been crucified).

One very interesting aspect of these two finds is that quite a lot of 
the early Christian traditions of the Essenian sect at the Dead Sea 
seem to have been maintained in the early Egyptian version of 
Christianity. With this bridge between the land where Jesus was born 
and his followers in Egypt, it is a lot easier to view the original 
philosophy of Christ. Probably that kind of philosphy is what Jesus 
was teaching his original followers (at least it would be a lot closer 
(Jesus emphasises that you salvage yourself (your soul) by performing 
"good deeds" and not by believing. He said that only those who had 
eyes that could see and ears that could hear (he was actually talking 
about those who had enough spiritual awareness) could truly understand 
his teaching. And Jesus was no meek person. He was quite ruthless with 
those who were unable to understand his teaching. Mark 4:10-12)). 
There are many leads pointing to Jesus being a member of the sect of 
Essenians that hid their holy scrolls in the caves at Qumran. Even 
before the scrolls of the Dead Sea were discovered a lot of 
researchers were of the opinion that Jesus was a member of the 
Essenians of the Jewish people. The Essenians were around 4,000 
members altogether. The Dead Sea group was their elite group.

Original Christianity

What Jesus was teaching to his followers was no real news to those who 
knew the holy scriptures of the Essenians of those days. (For example 
Jesus was supposedly coming to the Jews to inform them of the second 
steps of the plan for world salvation. The Jews were chosen through 
Abraham to collect and maintain the sacred books of the old testement. 
And at a proper time Melchizedek would incarnate among the Jews to 
give the world step 2 of the plan for world salvation. That is what 
the Essenians (among them John the Baptist) were preparing for. So 
Christianity is the second step of that plan.) The Essenians 
themselves already knew that it was their duty to "pave the way for 
the new Kingdom". They as a group created with their discipline and 
their teachings an environment where the "Son of God" could arrive and 
bring forth his teachings. And they knew that this was their duty. 
According to this sect the highest priest (and king of Justice) 
Melchizedek (In the Mormon church Melchizedek is the higher order of 
priesthood. See letter to Hebrews 7:1-10.) gave the ancestor of Israel 
- Abraham - the plan for world salvation. Once the Messiah (Christ) 
was born it was his (Christs) duty to prepare the world for the next 
step of the plan. The Essenians were a very secret society and they 
shared their secrets with nobody. "The master will pave the way for 
each of his followers in accordance with his (the disciples) 
understanding and karma. He shall hide the Dharma for all children of 
lies and give true teaching to those who have chosen to walk on the 
road to truth" (This is from the Qumran Scrolls)

Compare these words to what Jesus told his disciples: "You (my true 
followers) have been introduced to the secrets of the Kingdom of God, 
but to those who have not learned these secrets it is just fables. 
Because they see only with their (human) eyes and hear only with their 
(human) ears without understanding. Thus they cannot change and rise 
to higher awareness" (Mark 4:10-12 (not an exact quote))

If you study the Dead Sea Scrolls more in detail you will find many 
explanations about what original Christianity was all about. They will 
change your viewpoint about what Jesus Christ was actually teaching 
away from a concept that the organised churches of Christianity want 
you to believe in. You will start to realize that Jesus Christ 
(whatever his real name was) had quite a different viewpoint on Dharma 
than the organised religions of the modern Christian world want you to 
believe.

If you belong to the Jewish religion you will again realize, that the 
problem of organised religion is the reason why the Jews of Israel 
have been hiding these Qumran Dead Sea Scrolls from the public since 
they were discovered in 1947.

Essenians

The Essenians themselves considered that they were building the 
foundation for the new empire that was to be erected. They considered 
that they by living in accordance with the laws of life (Dharma) and 
through their urge to increase their awareness, prepared the way for 
the Messiah. They felt that the time had come when the destiny of the 
Jews that Melchizedek had outlined for Abraham (the word Abraham has 
the basic meaning "father of multitudes") was going to change 
according to the heavenly plan for Mankind. Their Messiah was going to 
give them the secret plan for the next step in the plan for the 
salvation of the world. (This Melchizedek was quite an interesting 
being according to the Bible (Hebr 7:2-8) as he is claimed to have 
eternal life as a priest, which is of course the reason why the Mormon 
Church use his name for their own highest priests.)

If you care to study the Qumran scrolls and the Nag Hammadi finds you 
will soon cease getting suprised about the obvious closeness between 
the early Christian churches and the Essenians. But already in the 4th 
century AD the Christians had lost their roots. So the Christian 
churches of those days ridiculed the Essenians, just like all 
religious sects tend to attack other sects that have similar teachings 
rather than attacking sects of a widely different religion.

The Essenians also talked about a "last day", but it was not a day 
only but a forty year period where the Messiah would introduce the new 
teaching to the world (the war scroll 1QM. (Q is for Qumran, i.e. 
scrolls found in the Qumran Cave - could it be Hubbards 40 active 
years 1939-1979? Nostradamus said the "New Religion" of "A sect of 
philosophers" would be started in 1939 - when LRH claimed to have 
written Excalibur.)) The Essenians believed in reincarnation and 
compared the unorganised moving of the spirit from one human existance 
to another to "rolling stones". In the 40 year period of the 
"judgement day" the spirits that were called to lay the foundation for 
the 1,000 year empire are supposed to "stop their unorganised rolling" 
and come to rest as pillars in the foundation of the 3rd kingdom. You 
will also find that Jesus used this expression in the gospel, when he 
tells his disciples to stop "rolling" and instead find their place as 
pillars in the temple of God. The Essenians considered reincarnation 
as a fact and did not argue about it. Jesus obviously did the same 
when he in the Gospel implied that the prophet Elia had reincarnated 
as John the Baptist (Math: 11:14 and 17:10-13). (In the Nag Hammadi 
library is a book where Paul in a vision meets Jesus and Jesus shows 
him the "secret of man", i.e how a soul rises from the dead to the 
4th. heaven where it is punished for it's misdeeds in a human body. 
The soul feels it's guilt and enters a new body that has been 
prepared. Entering a (babies) body after death is -not- an idea you 
are liable to meet in most of the various present day Christian 
churches.) The early Gnostic Christians, who strongly believed in 
reincarnation, were condemmed by the church in Rome when the Qumran 
inheritance was forgotten. And of course the most obvious teachings of 
reincarnation occurred in the sacred books that the church of Rome 
removed from the Dharma of Christianity.

The Essenian belief in Messiah was connected to Melchizedek, the king 
of Justice. They did not only believe in Melchizedek as a source for 
their Dharma and goals and purposes of their religious sect, but also 
that he would reincarnate in their midst, to lay the foundation for 
the second Empire and he would make a sacrifice for mankind in the 
Easter period (11Q, Melchizedek. (Qumran scroll #11 "Melchizedek".)) 
The belief that Jesus was Melchizedek survived among the followers of 
Jesus in Egypt several hundred years before the church in Rome put an 
end to it. In the gospel the author of the Hebrew Letter implies that 
Jesus and Melchizedek are somehow connected in the 5th chapter. This 
chapter is very hard to understand if you do not know about the 
Essenians and their Dharma (see also John 8:56-58).

The Holy Spirit of Truth

In the same letter (Hebr, 8:8-12) it is clearly stated that the new 
gospel is about teaching the Laws of Life (Dharma) so well to the 
people that "the laws shall be in their minds and in their hearts, so 
they will no longer need any teachings". Instead the people shall know 
the laws of life by themselves (by learning to know their true self). 
(Jesus supposedly said "I am the way, the truth and the life". Could 
he possibly have said "The I (= true self) is the way, the truth and 
the life"?) This is also what the Essenians tried to accomplish. This 
is the state of awareness the buddhist was striving to reach. To know 
the Dharma and by that knowledge live a life of actions in harmony 
with those laws of life, fulfilling the meaning of life. In the gospel 
it was also said that a "helper"(John 14:15-26) - the holy spirit - 
would assist the followers of Christ after he had left.

Also in the gospel (John 8:48-59) Jesus himself claims to have lived 
before Abraham and that Abraham liked to see him. The writings in the 
gospel are much easier to understand if you know about the Essenians 
and their teachings (Dharma). Knowing about these teachings you can 
also understand that what Jesus is actually asserting (John 8:56-58) 
is that he is Melchizedek.

In the following chapter of the gospel of John, Jesus claims that the 
spirit of truth will one day come to mankind and take over his 
teaching. It is this Holy Spirit that will bring the human beings into 
the kingdom of God (the father).

The question that is up to each one of us who reads "IVy" to answer 
is: "Is the Dharma we are taught in Scn inspired by the holy spirit? 
Did LRH get his teachings from that holy spirit? Are we new Christians 
who will prepare the way for the second coming of Christ?"

Second Coming of Christ

Just like the Essenians prepared the way for Christ, by creating a 
group that lived in harmony with the laws of life, so we can create 
groups that prepare the second coming of Christ (or the arrival of 
Maitreya) by careful studies of the Dharma that Hubbard has left for 
us to learn. And by doing the actions (KRC) that this teaching tells 
us to do.

The Christian religion and the various Christian churches and 
organisations have given us a second empire civilisation that we can 
work from. It is up to the members of this modern Western civilisation 
to continue from there and get busy laying the foundation for the 
third kingdom - the civilisation of true friends organised in true 
groups.

If you believe that you can assist in this, you need to get trained in 
the laws of Life, so you know them by yourself. I say that you get 
that training when you train yourself to become a meditor (called an 
Auditor in Scn), that can deliver the teachings to others.

Christianity was an important step in the religious plan to salvage 
the world (as outlined by Melchizedek). The Jewish people had an 
important role in the same plan. Now it is the duty of those people 
who are aware enough (i.e. have enough knowledge about Dharma) to 
understand and apply the technology to spread the new gospel to 
others.

Many were called but few were chosen.

Where are you going to get that training?

[Editorial Note: When I had typed the above in I had a number of 
questions which I sent to Todde. Some of his answers are incorporated 
in some of the footnotes to the article, and the rest is in the 
following, which he says he has freely translated from the source he 
got his data from.]

The Jewish author of the Gospel according to St. Mathew obviously 
considered Jesus to be a "messenger bring new Laws (replacing Moses) 
to the Jews, as he had Jesus deliver his famous speech from the top of 
a mountain - above the audience, while the greek author of Luke places 
Jesus on a plain, level with his audience and thus more of an equal 
and less of an Authority. Luke probably considered Jesus to be more of 
a "social worker" amongst the people.

All the four gospel authors (Mathew, Marcus, Luke and John) agree that 
he was a "son of God", who was tragically sacrificed because of human 
aberrations. In the Gospel of John the disciples complained "Why did 
they (the people) not understand our teacher, why did they not 
acknowledge him?"

When Jesus was accused by the court he did not have much to say in his 
defence that changed the issue, as his teachings were so much in 
disagreement with what the order of the Empire regarded as reality 
that he could not really say anything (Luke 23:2-9).

Thus he was eventually crucified as a magician and anti-Roman prophet. 
And his followers soon built a cult around his person, the like of 
which has never again been seen. And focussing on the worship of 
Jesus, the Christians soon lost their roots to other sources. Thus the 
Gospel made the philosphy of Jesus into the work of only one man 
(compare this to the cult around Hubbard in the Cof$). No historical 
background material was saved.

Even so the impressive new ways of thinking of early Christianity 
concerning the abilites of man was already starting to deteriorate 
with the second generation of authors (what we call today the Gospels 
of Luke and Matthew). The need to create Jesus into a holy "Son of 
God", soon replaced the teachings of this remarkable man. And so the 
arguments of the Christian movement more and more concentrated on the 
What? When? and Who? he really was, the history of what happened 
around him got lost.

The Nag Hammadi finds and the Dead Sea Scrolls however do reveal that 
there was a background behind Jesus and other sources. The Nag Hammadi 
library was found in a field in Egypt in 1945, while the Dead Sea 
Scrolls of the Essenians were located in Israel in 1947. The Essenians 
of the Dead Sea Scrolls hid their scrolls to prevent their destruction 
by Roman soldiers, as they still preached their message about a 
Messiah that would "salvage the Jews and the world", even after Jesus 
had been crucified several decades earlier. And about two years later 
(A.D. 70) the Romans levelled Jerusalem to the ground.

Studying the Essenian scriptures and the early Christian scriptures of 
the Nag Hammadi, there is very obviously a strong link between the 
teachings of the Essenians and this form of Christianity. This makes 
it possible to get an insight into what the philosophical climate 
around Jesus really was like.

Almost all leads indicate that the roots of early Christian philosophy 
goes back to the Essenians from the Dead Sea region of that time. 
Already during the 19th century many researchers in this area of 
philosophy realised, that this is where the early Christians had their 
roots. The discovery of Qumran writings further strengthens this 
assumption. The problem today is only that the establishment is too 
heavily locked in on the Authoritarian beliefs to rewrite the early 
history of the church.

The 19th century researchers of history around early christianity only 
had access to materials from three antique writers about the 
Essenians. Today we also have the Dead Sea Scrolls and the parallels 
to the teaching of Jesus are striking.

The early church almost deleted the Gospel of John as they considered 
it to be too much out of line with what they wanted, but they did not. 
And in it you discover more of the original Christian teachings than 
in any of the other three Gospels (maybe we should only say that the 
Gospel of John more resemples the Essenian philosophy than the other 
three).

For example, in John somebody asks: "Who is the son of Man?" (John 
12:34-36), and Jesus replies: "Step into the Light, while it is here 
with you, to become sons of the light yourself!". Actually the 
Essenians called themselves "Sons of Light" (Rule of the Order - 
column III). Jesus hoped that more people would join their order and 
become "Sons of Light".

The Essenians were famous for being very honest and truthful. This was 
such a well known and respected fact, that they did not even have to 
swear by any oath to King Herod, which was really extraordinary for 
that time. Jesus in his preaching from the mountain said: "You shall 
swear no oath at all, not by heaven, as it is the throne of God, nor 
by Earth, as it is by his foot" (Matt 5:34-37). Considering the 
Essenian order and rules this is not as suprisingly new a thought as 
you may believe. An Essenian set of rules (from the Damascus group) 
gives a more original version (columns XIV-XV):

"He shall not swear by ... (the unspeakable name of God)

Nor by A L (Elohim)

Nor by A D (Adonia)"

Jesus seems to have been their leader or at least one of the highest 
leaders. They (the Essenians) considered themselves to be "the new 
Israelians", that God had liased himself to after the Babylonian 
exile. They were a faithful few who lived with "the Law" (Dharma) 
solidly engraved in their hearts. And they called themselves "the 
holy" and " the poor". Significances that we today connect with 
Christians.

Even when you study the gospel books you will get a picture of Jesus 
that is not showing a meek personality, but a very strong and 
determined person (Just realize what it takes to control priests 
inside their own temples).

An Essenian who had been introduced to the heavenly mysteries had 
access to various occult methods, that were never written down. One of 
their powers was "healing" and that is something we know from the 
gospels that Jesus was active in.

References:

a) The Nag Hammadi Library in English - James Robinson, Harper & Row, 
1981.

b) The Dead Sea Scrolls in English, Introduction and translation: Geza 
Vermes, Pelican, 2nd. edition, 1981

c) The Qumran Community, (Selected writings of the Dead Sea), Michael 
A. Knibb, Cambridge University Press, 1987.

d) Josefus Notes about the Essenians from Christian D Ginsbergs essay 
"The Essenians, their history and doctirnes", Routledge & Kegan Paul, 
1864.

e) The Essene Odyssey, Element Books, 1984

f) Jonas Hans: The Gnostic Religion, Beacon Press, 2nd. edition, 1963

g) Allegro, John M.: The Dead Seas Scrolls and Christian Myth, 
Westbridge Books, 1979.

h) Scholem Gershom: Kabbalah, Meridian, 1978

i) Perrin, Norman & Duling, Dennis C: The New Testament - An 
Introduction, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 2nd edition, 1982.