explains to people the true nature of things and of their own souls, which are of “the above” and the “imperishable light”, together with the primeval father, from the beginning of the ages.
Lucas Cranach the Elder (1472 – 1553), Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden
Should it be the case, one can assume those souls are immortal like the God. Gnostics were saying a human soul is in the material world until it accomplishes all its assignments. The soul must experience all joys and sufferings and also overcome all temptations and obstacles, which it has to go through. Furthermore, it takes not one life but several lives, which oriental religions call “reincarnations” or moving souls of dead in new earthly bodies. Gnostics used to substantiate some of their principles by means of Gospel parables.
Raymond Moody, a philosopher, psychologist, physician and author, in his most famous book “Life After Life”, tells about impressions by those people who survived clinical death. Surprisingly, such impressions are the same for all dying. The new book “Life before life” tells about reincarnation. Science acknowledges the facts, that the people’s subconscious retains some memory fragments, which in fact are the fragments of memories from our previous lives that we lived earlier. This makes many people interested in their distant past. Based on multiple accumulated data, scientists conclude that our mysterious archive of the subconscious is full to the limits with very old memories collected during thousands of years of reincarnations.
Life after death, flying through the tunnel
Joseph John Campbell, an American mythologist, writer and lecturer, wrote about reincarnation: “It suggests that you are more than you think you are. There are dimensions of your being and a potential for realization and consciousness that are not included in your concept of yourself. Your life is much deeper and broader than you conceive it to be here. What you are living is but a fractional inkling of what is really within you, what gives you life, breadth, and depth. But you can live in terms of that depth. And when you experience it, you suddenly see that all the religions are talking of that.”
It turns out, that summoning the information about our previous life transformations from our subconscious may be possible, when our mind in hypnotized to some “half-dream state”, i.e. borderline state between the awakening and dreaming. Our mind, normally controlled by the central nervous system, is then partly turned off granting the way to our subconscious controlled by the peripheral, or parasympathetic nervous system.
Now is the time to turn back to our story. It was already in the I century, when there were 59 Gospels and other holy texts. That was also the time when Christians began debating on which of those books were truly holy.
Marcion of Sinope, a rich ship-master, decided to solve the problem. In the year 144 he wrote the list of the New Testament writings, obligatory for Christianity, also known as the First Canon, consisting of only the Gospel of Luke, the ten Epistles from Paul, and the apocryphal Epistle from Laodiceans, and complemented with his own writings comprising rather questionable statements.
Several centuries later, fathers of the Church began making a different, canonical New Testament themselves. Twenty-seven writings of the New Testament were declared canonical by Synod of Hippo (in 393 A.D.), and, later, by Councils of Carthage (in 397 and in 419 A.D.).
According to some information, it was until XVI century, that 12 Gospels existed, by the number of Jesus Christ’s apostles. However, only four Gospels were left for Christians after some time: those are the Gospels of Mathew, Mark, Luke and John, while the remaining were forbidden and ordered to be destroyed, preferably by fire, everywhere. What could the remaining eight Gospels comprise so inappropriate, yet written by Jesus Christ’s apostles, that no Christian Church adherer had the right to be even aware of?
Anthony van Dyck, Apostle Peter, 1618
As we know, the Aswan High Dam in Egypt was constructed in the second half of the XX century. Archeological excavations were carried out throughout large territories, which were to be flooded. During one such excavation, a coffin was found with priceless ancient Gospels in good state.
Apparently, Christian religion followers had no wish to destroy the holy texts and decided to save them for future generations in such a manner. However, as soon as Vatican was informed about the finding, its officials made titanic efforts to seizure those priceless books from scientists. The only compromise Vatican was ready for was a promise by Vatican officials to grant the scientists access to, and permission to publish, just some photocopies of several sheets from those Gospel texts, which did not comprise any forbidden secret knowledge.
In particular, scientists obtained photocopies of some sheets of the Gospel of Thomas, which were even translated to Russian and published in limited circulation by the Academy of Sciences in USSR in 1960s. I, too, used the chance to have a look at that unique edition.
Here are just a few of his phrases, which I quote as I remember them:
“If you think God is in Heaven, then celestial birds will be ahead of you to join Him.
If you think God is in the ocean depth, then ocean creatures will be ahead of you to join Him.
Know it, that God is in the soul of every one of us”.
Peter Paul Rubens (1577 —1640), Saint Thomas
It is this way that Apostle Thomas reminded us about the Divine Temple, which is in the soul of every one of us, and which Jesus Christ was able to revive several days after his death. The following writings by Apostle Thomas, in the Apocalypse from Thomas, tell about life after death.
In later years, some more apocryphal Gospels were found, which were published, too. The Gospel of Judas, the Gospel of Mary, the Gospel of Nicodemus and others were shape shifting not only for scientists, but also for hundreds of thousands other people.
There was much interesting in the Dead Sea Scrolls, which had been written long before Jesus Christ was born, and yet describe in details what he did in life! Here comes the question: when did Jesus Christ actually live?
(There is more on the subject in my other book: V.I. Zhiglov.“The mistake of gods, or warning against experiments with human genome”. Published in 2010 by Golden Proportion Publishing House; the second edition: published in 2016 by Ridero Publishing House. This book is based on multiple archeological artifacts and relevant information, and it describes significant differences between people and so-called Celestials, or aliens, which earlier visited our planet Earth, and about exciting genetic experiments they carried out here. Also, they married the Earth people, and children were born in such marriages, and this, too, is mentioned in the Biblical texts. Ancient Sumerian texts on clay plates found in the Babylon library of Ashurbanipal, an Assyrian king, describes in details the reasons for the elimination of the human civilization by the Celestials by the Flood).
Origen Adamantius (185 – 254 A.D.)
Let us recall the words by Origen Adamantius, a well-known Christian theologian, scientist and philosopher, the founder of the biblical philology, who lived in 185 – 254 A.D., which he wrote in his famous commentary on the Book of the Revelation by John:
“For those, who understand literally, we give the Gospel from the historical point of view, teaching them with Jesus Christ, and His Crucifixion, but for those knowing, enflamed with love to the Divine Wisdom, we present the Logos”.
Apparently, the theologian who was standing by the roots of Christianity knew much more about the subject than all modern