The Weaponization of the Bible; An honest look at the history of the canon

Here are some thoughts to consider as we begin this larger exploration. The formation of the scriptural canon was a process that took nearly four centuries to reach consensus. During that time—especially in the second century—there existed a diverse range of Christian communities, each with their own texts and theological emphases. The canon as we know it today did not begin to solidify until Christianity gained imperial favor under Constantine.

It’s also essential to understand that the Bible was not written to be read as a literal, surface-level document. It is rich with metaphor, allegory, and a range of literary devices that invite deeper reflection. Origen, an early Church Father, embraced a highly allegorical interpretation of scripture, recognizing its layered meanings. My aim is not to discard the Bible, but to encourage others to engage it on its own terms—not as the rigid idol that evangelical Protestantism has often made it into, but as a living text that points beyond itself. Even the Apostle John reminds believers in his first epistle that the Holy Spirit indwells the saints and teaches them directly. In his gospel, he echoes this, affirming that the Spirit will guide into all truth.

I am not seeking to diminish the Bible. Rather, I am trying to tell the truth plainly and faithfully. The problem lies not with the sacred text itself, but in how it has been used—particularly within Evangelical Christianity. In embracing sola scriptura and rigid frameworks like the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy, many have unknowingly turned the Bible into an idol. It has been elevated above the living Spirit that gave it breath. The text, once intended as a witness to the Divine and a guide toward deeper communion with the Source, has instead become a tool of dogma, wielded to confine rather than liberate.

This is not to say that the Bible lacks power or depth. Far from it. Within the canon—beneath the layers of doctrine and surface literalism—there lies profound mystical revelation. Woven throughout are echoes of an older, more expansive truth: that we are, and always have been, children of the Creator. Not merely in a metaphorical sense, but as beings imbued with the divine spark from the beginning. The Spirit within us calls us not to blind obedience to the letter, but to a living awareness of our origin, our identity, and our freedom.

Paul writes in Romans that creation groans for the revealing of the children of God. This revealing does not come through doctrinal conformity but through awakening. The Spirit bears witness with our spirit, not with our creeds. The Word became flesh—not a book—and dwelt among us. To reduce the mystery of God to ink on a page is to miss the living fire that burns beneath it. The Bible is not the destination; it is a signpost. When it points us back to the Spirit and to the truth written on our hearts, it fulfills its sacred role.

The development of the biblical canon was a gradual and often contested process in early Christianity, with no single, universally accepted list of scriptures in the first few centuries. The Hebrew Bible, or Tanakh, was largely established by the time of Jesus, though debates over certain books continued, and the Greek Septuagint, which included additional texts, was widely used by early Christians.

One of the earliest proposed Christian canons came from Marcion around 140 CE, who rejected the Old Testament and accepted only a modified version of Luke’s Gospel and ten of Paul’s letters, prompting the early Church to define its own scriptural boundaries. The Muratorian Fragment, dated to the late second century, offered a partial New Testament list that included many of the current books but omitted some, reflecting a developing canon in Rome. Church fathers like Origen and Eusebius in the third and early fourth centuries recognized a core group of texts but noted disputes over books such as Hebrews, James, Revelation, and the smaller epistles.

A major milestone came with Athanasius’ Easter letter in 367 CE, the first known list to match the current 27-book New Testament. Shortly afterward, regional councils in Hippo (393) and Carthage (397 and 419) affirmed the same New Testament along with a broader Old Testament canon that included the Deuterocanonical books. Jerome, in translating the Bible into Latin (the Vulgate), questioned the canonicity of some of these books, but his work nonetheless helped solidify their use in the Western Church. Over time, consensus grew around these texts, shaped by apostolic attribution, theological consistency, and liturgical use, leading to the canon most Christian traditions recognize today.Bottom of Form

The History of the Canon

The formation of the biblical canon was a gradual and often contested process in the early centuries of Christianity. There wasn’t a single, universally agreed-upon “canon” from the beginning. Instead, various early canons emerged in different Christian communities. Here are some key milestones and early canons:

1. The Hebrew Bible (Old Testament Canon)

• The Jewish scriptures (Tanakh) were largely fixed by the time of Jesus, though debates over some books (like Esther, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Songs) continued.
• The Septuagint, a Greek translation of Hebrew scriptures made in Alexandria, included additional books (now called the Apocrypha or Deuterocanonical books) and was widely used by early Christians.

2. Marcion’s Canon (c. 140 CE)

• One of the first attempts at a Christian canon.
• Marcion, a controversial teacher, rejected the Old Testament entirely and proposed a canon consisting of:
• A heavily edited version of Luke's Gospel
• Ten of Paul’s epistles (also edited)
• His canon forced the early Church to begin clarifying what it did—and did not—accept as Scripture.

3. Muratorian Fragment (late 2nd century, c. 170–200 CE)

• The earliest known list of New Testament books (though the beginning is missing).
• Includes: Four Gospels (implicitly), Acts, 13 Pauline Epistles, Jude, Revelation, and Wisdom of Solomon (possibly), among others.
• Omits Hebrews, James, and 1–2 Peter (though that may be due to the fragmentary nature of the text).
• Reflects a developing canon in the Roman church.

4. Origen (early 3rd century)

• Recognized a wide range of books, including all four Gospels, Acts, Paul's epistles, 1 Peter, 1 John, Revelation, and others.
• But noted disputes about Hebrews, James, 2 Peter, 2–3 John.

5. Eusebius of Caesarea (early 4th century)

• Divided Christian writings into three categories:
• Recognized (homologoumena): Gospels, Acts, Paul’s letters, 1 Peter, 1 John, Revelation
• Disputed (antilegomena): James, 2 Peter, 2–3 John, Jude
• Heretical: Gospel of Thomas, Gospel of Peter, Acts of Paul, etc.

6. Athanasius’ Festal Letter (367 CE)

• First known list to match exactly the 27 books of the current New Testament.
• Highly influential, especially in the Greek-speaking East.
• Also recommended reading other books (like the Shepherd of Hermas) for edification, but not as Scripture.

7. Councils of Hippo (393 CE) and Carthage (397 & 419 CE)

• In North Africa, affirmed a canon of 46 Old Testament books (including Deuterocanonical books) and 27 New Testament books—matching the Roman Catholic canon today.

8. Jerome and the Vulgate (late 4th–early 5th century)

• Jerome translated the Bible into Latin.
• He distinguished between canonical books and ecclesiastical books (e.g., he was skeptical about the Apocrypha).
• However, the Latin Church eventually accepted the full Vulgate as canonical.

Summary of Early Canons:

• No universal canon existed before the 4th century.
• Diversity of opinion existed on books like Hebrews, James, Revelation, and some Catholic epistles.
• Church councils, usage in liturgy, theological coherence, and apostolic attribution eventually shaped the accepted canon.

In short, the early canons were fluid and debated, with significant variation before a more consistent consensus emerged in the late 4th century.

Evangelical Christianity expanded sola scriptura way beyond the original meaning of the reformers and the Chicago Statement of Inerrancy turned the bible into a weapon of control for people who want to maintain a literal understanding of the book. Anyone who honestly looks at this history should readily admit that the bible has been given a perverted purpose that diminishes the spirituality that Jesus taught.

The Hidden Meaning of Christ: Beyond the Man, Into the Light

The term Christ is one of the most loaded and often misunderstood words in spiritual and theological thought. While many equate it strictly with the historical Jesus of Nazareth, others—particularly in mystical, metaphysical, and esoteric traditions—speak of Christ Consciousness or the Cosmic Christ as something far more universal: a state of awakened awareness, a divine template within all, a presence that transcends any single person. This confusion is understandable because the word Christ carries centuries of layered meanings. But when we unravel its historical, linguistic, and spiritual development, we can begin to see how all these meanings—far from being contradictory—actually harmonize in a deeper vision.

The journey begins with the Hebrew word mashiyach (מָשִׁיחַ), a noun meaning “anointed one.” It comes from the root mashach, which means “to anoint.” In ancient Israel, kings, priests, and prophets were anointed with oil to signify their consecration by God. This was not merely a ceremonial act—it was a declaration that the Spirit of God had empowered a person to fulfill a sacred role. The word mashiyach referred to anyone so set apart, and the concept evolved into a longing for a future figure—the Messiah—who would bring justice, renewal, and peace.

When Jewish scriptures were translated into Greek, the term mashiyach became Christos (Χριστός), meaning “anointed one.” Christos, too, is a noun—not an adjective—and was used in the Septuagint to describe the same anointed individuals. In the New Testament, this title became associated with Jesus of Nazareth, believed by his followers to be the anointed one in whom God’s purpose had reached its fullness. Over time, however, Christos shifted from being a title to a name: Jesus Christ. This transition led to the gradual loss of the original significance of “anointed,” replacing it with a personal identification.

But to stop at this linguistic shift is to miss the deeper mystery. In the Gospel of John, we are introduced not simply to Jesus, but to the Logos—the Word, the divine Reason or Wisdom through whom all things were made. “In the beginning was the Logos,” John writes, “and the Logos was with God, and the Logos was God… and the Logos became flesh.” This was not merely a theological formulation; it was a metaphysical insight. The Logos is the divine pattern or blueprint, the animating intelligence behind all reality. Jesus, then, is not merely a man who was anointed, but the embodiment of the Logos itself, anointed by the Spirit in time and space.

It is in this light that Christ becomes more than Jesus—it becomes the anointed Logos, the principle of divine intelligence present in all things. And John makes this universal dimension explicit when he says in his prologue: “That was the true Light, which lighteth every person coming into the world.” This means that the Logos—the Christ—illumines everyone. Not just believers. Not just Jews or Christians. Everyone. The light of Christ is woven into the very structure of being, of consciousness.

This theme continues when Jesus says, “I in them and you in me,” and prays “that they all may be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you.” This mystical union is not metaphor but metaphysical truth: the same divine presence that empowered Jesus is present in all, waiting to be awakened. In his first epistle, John deepens this thought, saying, “As he is, so are we in this world.” Not will be, not could be, but are. The Christ principle is not only present in Jesus—it is reflected in every human being. It is the divine template within each of us.

Paul echoes this universal message in his letters. He speaks of the “mystery hidden from ages and generations, but now revealed: Christ in you, the hope of glory.” Christ in you—not merely beside you or above you, but within you. He also declares, “If anyone is in Christ, they are a new creation,” suggesting that awakening to this inner anointing is not merely a religious experience but a metaphysical transformation of being. The old self, bound by separation and fear, falls away; the new self, rooted in divine unity, emerges.

These insights lay the foundation for what many now call Christ Consciousness—an awakened state of awareness in which one recognizes the divine indwelling presence and lives in alignment with it. From a philosophical standpoint, this is not only consistent with Christian mystical tradition but is also logically coherent. If the Logos is the source of all creation, and if Christ is the embodied Logos, then Christ Consciousness is the human realization of that divine pattern. It is what happens when the individual ego yields to the divine mind, when we see with the eyes of the Logos.

Moreover, if the Logos is universal, then Christ is not limited to a first-century Galilean rabbi. Jesus uniquely manifested this consciousness, but the consciousness itself transcends time and person. This is the Cosmic Christ—the Christ who was in the beginning with God, who is in all and through all, and who continues to be born in awakened hearts.

Far from being a distortion, Christ Consciousness and the idea of a Cosmic Christ are logical developments of the biblical witness. They fulfill the vision of John and Paul, who both saw the Christ not as a tribal savior or denominational figure, but as the universal presence of God within creation, now made visible in Jesus and awakening in us. The term Christ, then, should not confuse us. When rightly understood, it points not only to Jesus but to the divine essence he revealed—an essence that is also in us, as light, as wisdom, and as love.

 

Leaving the Dance with the One I Came With

 

I’ve come to believe that our life path isn’t some random accident—it’s something we chose. Not just individually, but as part of a soul committee before we ever arrived on this planet. Each life has a purpose, and that too was chosen in advance. We picked our birth time, where we’d be born, the name we’d carry, the family we’d grow up in, and even the belief system we’d be steeped in. All of it carried a built-in lesson and a goal we were meant to reach. So yes, I’m someone who believes there are no accidents.

For me, that meant choosing to be born in rural Michigan in the late 1940s, into a family with a devoutly fundamentalist Baptist mother and a father who quietly supported her faith but rarely went to church. I, on the other hand, was there constantly. If the doors were open, I was inside them. From early on, I had a deep belief that Jesus was real, and I was thoroughly immersed in the doctrines of evangelical fundamentalism. My pastor leaned toward “once saved, always saved,” and that belief was etched into my spiritual framework.

But as I entered adolescence and early adulthood, the world grew bigger. Education expanded my horizons, and the teachings I had absorbed began to unravel in light of science and a broader understanding of humanity. I struggled to believe that people were doomed to hell just for believing differently. It broke my heart to think that kind, loving people—especially Catholics, whom I was told were “lost”—were supposedly beyond salvation. At the time, I didn’t even know other world religions existed. That’s how narrow my upbringing was.

Eventually, I walked away from it all. I threw out Christianity, the whole thing—baby and bathwater. College opened my mind. Quantum theory fascinated me, especially books like The Tao of Physics by Fritjof Capra. I devoured Carlos Castaneda’s works and met people exploring metaphysics, clairvoyance, automatic writing. I experienced enough to become convinced that a spiritual realm transcended the material world. Mysticism became my compass, even though I didn’t yet have that word for it. And in the process, I discarded Jesus as part of a system I thought I had outgrown. I was “spiritual but not religious” before that was even a cultural thing.

During those years, I embraced numerology, conducted readings in Phoenix, and attended meditation groups. We’d do visual walks and sink deep into inner consciousness. I’d always been intuitive, empathic—I could read people and feel what they carried. That sensitivity only sharpened. I didn’t know it then, but I was moving toward what the Gospel of Truth calls a “waking from forgetfulness.” I was beginning to remember.

Then came the 1990s. Everything fell apart. Life unraveled, stress piled up, and I found myself praying again—really praying—on the back porch in Hayward, California. That night became my “Back Porch Prayer,” and it marked the beginning of my return to Jesus.

But the Jesus I was coming back to wasn’t the one from my childhood church. It took decades to untangle the voices of guilt, fear, and judgment. But gradually, new glasses were placed over my spiritual eyes. I started to realize that what we’ve called “orthodoxy” is often a distortion. Evangelicalism had taught me to view the Bible as a set of rules to avoid punishment. But what I began to see was something else: Jesus came not to found a religion, but to awaken us from our forgetfulness of who we truly are.

That’s the message of The Gospel of Truth—that forgetfulness is the root of all error, and Jesus came to bring remembrance. The Valentinian vision of the Christ story is not about appeasing a wrathful deity but about awakening to our divine origin. In that light, I began to understand Paul differently too. The emphasis on justification by faith wasn’t meant to create a legalistic system—it was an answer to a specific cultural and spiritual crisis of the first-century world, where sin-consciousness and guilt dominated. Paul’s deeper mystical message—Christ in you, the hope of glory—resonated far more powerfully.

Eventually, I began receiving impressions from Jesus. Not voices, but streams of inner knowing, especially when I typed in a meditative state. Sometimes it felt like automatic writing. Always peaceful, always loving. His voice reminded me not to fret—just like Psalm 37 says—and he revealed how divine love subtly influences outcomes, especially within systems, without ever violating anyone’s freedom.

So what’s the point of this story? It’s this: we’re here to remember. To work through our life circumstances, not as punishment, but as part of awakening. Our spiritual and mystical growth is as vital as our intellectual or physical development. And for me, Jesus became central again—not the dogmatic Jesus of fear and wrath, but the Logos, the divine consciousness, who reveals the truth that has always been true: we are eternal.

Jesus didn’t come to start a religion. He came to show us that death is a lie, that fear is a veil, and that our origin is divine. He entered a world trapped in false ideas about a violent God and turned it upside down, revealing the loving Father—the true source who sees no separation, no condemnation.

The New Covenant isn’t about earning love. It’s about living from it. Paul, in his best moments, knew this. John the Beloved did too. They saw Jesus not as an exception to humanity, but as the revelation of what is true of all of us. We are not broken wretches to be justified—we are divine children to be awakened.

The old orthodoxy is fading. A more inclusive consciousness is dawning. You don’t have to be Christian to see it, but understanding the Jesus story certainly helps. I’ve found as much light in the Tao Te Ching as in the Gospel of John, and both have pointed me toward the same mystery: the divine within.

So where does that leave me?

Still dancing—with the One I came with.

Shout it from the rooftops Unveiling the Silenced Truth of Early Christianity

There’s something liberating about reading those words from Jesus in Matthew 10:26–27. “So have no fear of them,” he says—not a suggestion but a command. And then he offers this strange assurance: “Nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered, and nothing secret that will not become known.” That statement has haunted me in the best way. For me, it’s not just about personal transparency or being honest in a general sense. It’s a cosmic promise. It’s a spiritual unveiling. It’s Jesus looking straight through the centuries and whispering to us that the darkness draped over history, especially over what became of his message, will not last. It’s temporary. And the light will break in. It always does.

When I read, “What I say to you in the dark, tell in the light, and what you hear whispered, proclaim from the housetops,” I don’t think of it as a call to shout modern evangelical slogans. I hear it as a revolutionary instruction. The kind that unsettles empires. It’s a call to remember and recover. To pull back the veil on the machinery of religious control and name what has long been silenced.

What became orthodoxy—what we call Christianity today—didn’t descend pristine from heaven. It wasn’t handed down untouched through the generations like a sacred relic. It was forged, argued over, stamped out, and finally enforced with blood and fire. I’m convinced that if Jesus walked the dusty roads of Galilee with a message of awakening, love, and divine union, that message was hijacked. Maybe not all at once. But beginning somewhere around the middle of the second century, a narrowing began. The streams of belief, once so diverse and free-flowing, were redirected. And many were damned as heretical—simply for not echoing the voice of the rising institution.

I think often about the burning of books. Not metaphorically—literally. The words and insights of countless thinkers, mystics, philosophers, and seekers turned to ash because they threatened a theological monopoly. The Church didn’t merely disagree with people like Valentinus, Basilides, or Marcion. It anathematized them. It labeled them enemies of truth, while crafting a version of truth that had more to do with uniformity than illumination. Heretics weren’t just mistaken; they were hunted. Banished. Killed. The term “heretic” became a curse, a death sentence. And the irony of it all is that the early so-called “orthodox” fathers themselves couldn’t agree on everything. Their letters, arguments, and councils reveal a web of disagreement and disunity. And yet, a final voice was chosen—an approved reading of Jesus—and dissent was declared demonic.

The tragedy that still echoes through time is the destruction of the Library of Alexandria. It's hard to comprehend the magnitude of knowledge, insight, and history that was lost in those flames. That library was a symbol of human curiosity and divine wonder. Its burning wasn’t just an act of war or carelessness—it was part of a larger trend. A purge. A dismantling of ancient wisdom in favor of controlled narratives. A kind of sacred censorship that dared not allow people to think beyond the prescribed limits. We’re not just talking about different doctrines here—we’re talking about different ways of perceiving reality, of encountering the Divine, of understanding who we are. And so much of that was erased. Or at least, they tried.

But history has a strange way of resurrecting what we try to bury.

When the Nag Hammadi Library was discovered in 1945, and the Dead Sea Scrolls just a couple of years later, it was as though the desert itself was crying out. These texts, sealed away for centuries, became like voices shouting from the housetops. The secrets hidden away by the sands were now spilling into the public square. And what did they reveal? Not scandal, as the gatekeepers feared—but depth. Layers of thought. Rich theology. A Christianity that was not singular but plural. Diverse. Deeply mystical. Some of it poetic and philosophical, some of it raw and bold. The Gospel of Thomas, for example, isn’t interested in dogma—it’s interested in awakening. “The kingdom is within you and all around you,” it says. That’s not a creed. That’s a call to remember who we are.

The discovery of those texts wasn’t just archaeological—it was spiritual. For me, it confirmed what I had long suspected: that much had been hidden, suppressed, and forgotten—not by accident, but by design. The early Christian movement wasn’t monolithic. It was bursting with spiritual experimentation, with different interpretations of Jesus, with wildly different views of sin, salvation, and the soul. And many of those views were deliberately erased to make room for one imperial religion. When Constantine aligned the church with the empire, the cross was transformed. No longer a symbol of death-defying love, it became a sword. It became a throne. The religion of the persecuted became the religion of the powerful, and history was rewritten by those who won.

Still, I don’t think truth can stay buried forever.

That’s why I resonate so deeply with those words from Matthew. They remind me that revelation is often inconvenient. It doesn’t ask permission. It crashes through our theological comfort zones and dares us to see things as they are. And Jesus wasn’t afraid of that. He wasn’t in love with institutions. He didn’t seek out creeds. He called people into light—real light. The kind that exposes and heals, that dismantles and rebuilds.

I believe the gnostics weren’t evil mystics as we’ve been told. They were seekers. Explorers of the inner life. They saw salvation not as a legal transaction but as an awakening from forgetfulness. They believed in a divine spark within, buried beneath layers of ignorance and illusion. And yes, that terrified the orthodox leaders. Because if people found God within, they might no longer need priests or popes. If awakening was the goal, not obedience, then control would slip through their fingers. So they called it heresy. And they buried it. Or at least, they tried.

But the whisper still rises. From the caves of Qumran. From the jars in Nag Hammadi. From the pages of Thomas, Philip, Mary. Even from the margins of canonical scripture, if we’re willing to look again with new eyes. It all seems to echo that original call: “Do not be afraid.” Speak the truth. Tell what’s been hidden. Let the secret be shouted from the rooftops.

For me, this isn’t just about history—it’s about spiritual recovery. It’s about honoring the voices that were silenced, the truths that were buried, and the dreams of a Christianity that could have been—and still can be. Jesus didn’t come to start an institution. He came to awaken sons and daughters of the Divine. He came to liberate—not to dominate. To remind us who we are. And I believe that reminder is breaking through again. This time not through councils or crusades, but through rediscovered texts, through open minds, and through hearts that are done with fear.

The real gospel—the good news—isn’t about who’s in and who’s out. It’s about the unveiling. The light. And the courageous ones who dare to proclaim it. From the rooftops. Just like he said.

 

The Logos the Light and the Lost Wisdom of Hermes

Let me walk you through something I’ve been reflecting on—a convergence of ancient wisdom, early Christian mysticism, and today’s rediscovery that consciousness might be the very foundation of reality. It’s a thread that stretches from the pyramids of Egypt to the Gospel of John, through the minds of ancient philosophers and modern physicists.

You may have heard of the Hermetica, also known as the Corpus Hermeticum. These are a collection of writings attributed to Hermes Trismegistus—a legendary figure said to be a synthesis of the Egyptian god Thoth and the Greek god Hermes. The lore says that these teachings were carried into the Greek world by none other than Pythagoras, who traveled through Egypt and Sumer to study the ancient mysteries. What he found there would later seed the philosophical systems of Plato and, indirectly, much of Christian mysticism.

At the heart of the Hermetic teachings lies the concept of the Logos—not just as an abstract ordering principle, but as the very consciousness behind creation itself. In the Hermetic worldview, the Logos and consciousness are one and the same. Everything that exists is the unfolding of divine mind, spoken into form through the Word.

Now, this may sound a lot like the beginning of John’s Gospel: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” That’s not coincidence. These ideas were part of the intellectual and spiritual atmosphere of the ancient Mediterranean world, and they didn’t belong to just one tradition.

But somewhere along the way, the origins of these teachings were called into question.

In the 17th century, a philosopher named Isaac Casaubon argued that the Hermetica wasn’t ancient at all. He claimed it was a product of the early Christian era—maybe the 2nd or 3rd century CE—written by Neoplatonists rather than ancient Egyptians. Casaubon’s view carried weight, especially since he was advising King James of England, who had little patience for the more esoteric ideas that had flourished under Queen Elizabeth’s rule.

The damage was done. Hermetic teachings were labeled as fringe, even fraudulent.

But that wasn’t the end of the story.

Modern scholars like Tim Freke and Peter Gandy have argued that Casaubon got it wrong. When the Rosetta Stone was discovered and Egyptian hieroglyphs were finally translated, it turned out that ideas closely aligned with Hermetic thought were ancient. In fact, inscriptions found in the Pyramid of Saqqara—dating as far back as 3,000 BCE—echoed the same themes and language as the Hermetica. These weren’t late inventions; they were echoes from a deep past.

And then came 1945.

That year, in the Egyptian town of Nag Hammadi, a farmer unearthed a sealed jar containing a library of Gnostic Christian texts. Among them was a document titled The Discourse on the Eighth and Ninth—and it was unmistakably Hermetic. Here was proof that early Coptic Christians, particularly Gnostic communities from the third and fourth centuries, were reading and valuing Hermetic wisdom. These weren’t marginal texts. They were part of the early Christian landscape.

The translators of this document—James Brashler, Peter Dirkse, and Douglas Parrott—describe it as “a previously unknown and crucially important Hermetic document.” It appears to be a ritual of initiation into visionary consciousness, complete with vowel-based mantras like IAO, meant to be chanted and intoned, just like sacred names.

And within the text itself, the spiritual intimacy is striking. The disciple says to Hermes:

“I understand Mind, Hermes, who cannot be interpreted, because he keeps within himself… And the universe rejoices. There is no creature that will lack your life… Trismegistus, let not my soul be deprived of the great divine vision.”

This isn’t just metaphysics—it’s mystical union.

Even more revealing is the account of Hermes’ own initiation, found in The Hermetica: The Lost Wisdom of the Pharaohs by Freke and Gandy:

“Suddenly everything changed before me. Reality was opened out in a moment. I saw the boundless view. All became dissolved in Light—united within one joyous Love… And I heard an unspeakable lament… The Light then uttered a Word, which calmed the chaotic waters…”

The vision goes on to describe a trinitarian process—Mind (the Father), Word (the Son), and the creative harmony between them—long before church councils ever formalized such doctrine. The Logos emerges from the Light, brings order to chaos, and then returns to unite with Mind. Creation, it turns out, is not a one-time act, but a continual unfolding of divine consciousness.

As Hermes' guide explains:

“I am that Light—the Mind of God, which exists before the chaotic dark waters of potentiality. My calming Word is the Son of God—the idea of beautiful order… Just as, in your own experience, your human mind gives birth to speech, so too does divine Mind give birth to the Logos.”

This isn’t doctrine. It’s poetry. It’s a visionary framework describing reality not as mechanical, but as conscious, alive, and intimate.

Now, bring that forward into today’s world, and what do you see?

Modern science is starting to catch up. Physics is beginning to suggest that matter may not be fundamental—that behind particles and waves lies something deeper. Some call it a quantum field. Others call it information. And still others, like certain physicists and philosophers of mind, are starting to say the quiet part out loud: Consciousness might be the foundation of everything.

And if that’s true, the Hermetica wasn’t fantasy. It was foresight.

These texts teach us that what is seen comes from what is not seen. That the Word of creation is not a voice booming from the clouds, but the quiet utterance of divine intelligence forming reality itself. The Logos isn’t just a theological term—it’s a description of how consciousness shapes form, how divine Mind becomes the world we live in.

And that changes everything.

We are not strangers in a cold, dead universe. We are expressions of it. Sparks of that same Light. As John wrote, the Logos is the true Light that enlightens everyone coming into the world—not just one person in one time, but all.

The Hermetica reminds us that we’ve always known this, somewhere deep down. The Logos, the Light, the Word—it lives in us. Jesus came to show us that. So did Hermes, in his own way. And now it’s up to us to awaken to that same vision.

To remember what we’ve forgotten.

If this resonates with you, feel free to share, reflect, or ask questions below. The Light we remember together shines brighter for all.

 

Toward A Modern Gnosticism

In the dim-lit cave of ancient revelation, the echoes of John and Paul, the mystics of the New Testament, still reverberate—amplified, perhaps unexpectedly, by the voices unearthed in the Nag Hammadi texts. These voices do not contradict the gospel of Christ but expand it, not with new truth, but with metaphors that make the familiar strange again. They cast the Logos not only as the indwelling power in Jesus, but as the hidden seed within all, waiting to awaken like fire wrapped in ash, forgotten in the soul's descent into form.

In John’s Gospel, we read that the Logos was in the beginning with God and was God. This Logos, the very ground of being, is what took on flesh—not to estrange itself from us but to reveal what has always been true: that the Logos dwells also in us. “In him was life, and that life was the light of all humanity.” This light was never exclusive to Jesus; it was the illumination he embodied so perfectly that it revealed our own origin. “I am the light of the world,” he said, but also, “You are the light of the world.” These are not contradictions. They are a handing of the flame.

Paul, too, though often conscripted into rigid theological systems, speaks with a mystical tongue when listened to through the heart’s ear. In Colossians, he speaks of the mystery hidden for ages but now revealed: “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” This is not merely a devotional phrase—it is a metaphysical claim. It means that what animated Jesus—the Logos, the Christ—was not isolated to him. It was revealed through him. He became a mirror, a reminder, the firstborn of many brothers and sisters. As Paul says elsewhere: “For in him all the fullness of deity dwells bodily—and you have been given fullness in him.” This fullness is not earned but remembered. It is not adopted by belief but recognized by awakening.

This awakening is the central aim of the Nag Hammadi texts, especially in gospels like Thomas, Philip, and Truth. They are often dismissed because of their wild cosmologies—aeons and archons, pleromas and demiurges—but these were never meant to be literal cosmographies. They are psychological maps, metaphysical allegories, and poetic attempts to capture what happens when spirit becomes trapped in forgetfulness. Their complexity is not obfuscation—it is the language of soul-dreams, trying to render the invisible currents of consciousness into story.

In the Gospel of Truth, attributed to Valentinus or his followers, Jesus is described not as a legal sacrifice to appease a wrathful God, but as a manifestation of the Logos who comes to dissolve ignorance, the great enemy. “Forgetfulness did not exist with the Father, though it existed because of him. What exists in him is knowledge, which was revealed so that forgetfulness might be dissolved.” Jesus, then, is not the fixer of a broken legal covenant but the awakener of a sleeping divinity. The Logos, which was never absent, had become buried under the debris of illusion and fragmentation.

This vision aligns powerfully with the mysterious phrase in Hebrews: “By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that what is seen was made out of things not visible.” This is not merely an ontological comment about matter and spirit; it is a metaphysical axiom. The seen arises from the unseen—not in a dualistic sense, but in a layered one. The unseen is not elsewhere; it is the source within. It is consciousness itself, the divine imagination dreaming realities into form. What is seen is Logos materialized. The Logos is the seed of all becoming, what John calls the true light “that gives light to everyone coming into the world.”

And what is this unseen from which all things arise? Perhaps modern cosmology gives us a new symbol: dark energy. The mysterious force responsible for the accelerated expansion of the universe is unseen, unknowable by direct observation, and yet it comprises most of what exists. Could it be, not just metaphorically but metaphysically, the presence of creative consciousness itself? Could dark energy be the Logos in scientific dress—consciousness not as emergent property of matter, but its source?

If we re-read Paul and John through this lens, we see them not as doctrinarians but as mystics—proto-idealists who saw the world as a veil drawn over the real, not to deceive us but to initiate us. In Romans 8, Paul writes of a creation that groans, awaiting liberation. He does not mean only physical decay, but the world itself—cosmos—yearns for the children of God to awaken. “For the creation was subjected to futility… in hope that the creation itself would be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.” This futility is the same forgetfulness the Gnostics lamented. The liberation is gnosis.

In Gospel of Thomas, Jesus says, “If those who lead you say to you, ‘See, the kingdom is in the sky,’ then the birds of the sky will precede you. If they say to you, ‘It is in the sea,’ then the fish will precede you. Rather, the kingdom is within you and it is outside of you.” The Logos is not in a distant heaven—it is the animating field of all being, what some might today call the implicate order, what others have called the ground of being, and what ancient texts dared to name the divine spark. Jesus came to reveal, not to monopolize, this truth.

The allegorical cosmologies of the Gnostics, when taken not as mythic literalism but as psychic maps, align with this. The fall of Sophia, the birth of the demiurge, the creation of archons—these are not divine errors but metaphors for what happens when unity becomes divided in perception, when the One forgets itself through multiplicity. The demiurge is not Satan but the part of mind that believes in separation. The archons are not demons but the forces of conditioning, trauma, culture, and fear that keep us asleep. And the Christ is not the counter to these powers in a battle of equals, but the light that dissolves them by revealing the true nature of all things: unified, eternal, born not of dust but of glory.

Jesus, as bearer of the Logos, comes not to condemn the world but to heal its perception. His words in John 17 are key: “The glory you gave me, I have given them, that they may be one, even as we are one.” This is not poetic flourish. It is a mystical transmission. The Logos, as glory, as light, as divine reason—is given, not as reward but as inheritance. The Word becomes flesh not only in Nazareth but in each of us who awakens.

And herein lies the final synthesis. The Logos, the unseen creative force behind all matter—perhaps even what science calls dark energy—indwells all things. It is the light that was in the beginning. It is the consciousness that holds form in love. Jesus, perfectly transparent to it, becomes our model not of worship but of remembrance. The Logos was in him as it is in us, and he came to say so. Not in pride but in liberation. Not to create followers but to awaken peers.

As the Gospel of Philip says, “You saw the spirit, you became spirit. You saw Christ, you became Christ. You saw the Father, you shall become Father.” This is not heresy—it is healing. For what is God’s greatest joy but that we remember who we are? To awaken to the Logos within is to know that we are not creatures groveling for salvation, but beings who have forgotten our source and are being gently reminded.

The cosmos is not cold and silent, but alive and trembling with the pulse of the Word. The stars are not indifferent—they are the sparks of a greater fire, the same that burns within us. The Logos is not just the mechanism of creation but its meaning. And Jesus is not the only son of God, but the one who showed us what a son looks like when he knows the Father not as distant monarch but as indwelling source.

In the end, the mystical teachings of Paul and John, when wed with the visionary metaphors of the Nag Hammadi texts, create a symphony that sings not of division but of memory. Not of fall but of awakening. Not of sin but of sleep. The Logos has never left us. We have only, for a time, forgotten how to speak its name. But Jesus, the Christ, has reminded us: the name is written in our hearts, and the voice that spoke “Let there be light” now whispers, “You are that light.”

And so we wake.

The Ineffable, The I-AM-I, and You

Let’s talk about something that words really can’t do justice to—but we’ll try anyway. The Ineffable. The All. Brahman. God. Whatever name you want to give it, it’s that thing behind everything, and also somehow not a thing at all. It’s what you feel when you stop thinking and just are. It’s the deep hum of being, the awareness beneath the noise. And strangely enough, it’s also you. Not the "you" with your name and your history and your favorite coffee, but the deeper you—the one that watches your life unfold, the silent witness that never changes even as everything else does.

William Walker Atkinson, in his mystical writings, especially in The Arcane Formulas, touched on something profound when he talked about the I-AM-I. He saw it as more than just the little ego. Most people stop at egohood—the sense of being a separate self, with all its hopes, fears, and stories. But Atkinson suggested egohood wasn’t something to fight or reject; it was actually a mode of the I-AM-I. A kind of narrowed beam of the same light. The ego is like a costume the I-AM-I puts on to explore the world of form. So, even your ego isn’t the enemy. It’s just the divine trying out a new perspective. That’s pretty freeing, right?

Now, why does the Ineffable do all this? Why dream up billions of individual selves, each with their own little dramas? Here’s where it gets interesting: relationship. Experience. That’s the whole point. Not punishment, not earning some kind of celestial trophy. The Infinite wanted to experience itself. But how does the One experience anything if there’s only One? Simple—it dreams the many. You and I and everyone else are part of that dream. Not illusion in the sense of "fake," but illusion in the sense of "storyline." The Ineffable put on a mask and called it "you" so it could know itself in new ways, through joy and sorrow, through forgetting and remembering.

Philosopher Bernardo Kastrup talks about this using the idea of dissociative identity disorder. He says the One Mind—this vast, cosmic awareness—splits into seemingly separate identities to create the illusion of individual consciousness. Each of us is a dissociated alter, a fragment of the All, walking around thinking we’re separate. But we’re not. We’re all made of the same awareness, just temporarily wearing different filters. You might be "you," and I might be "me," but underneath it all, we’re the same dreamer.

Donald Hoffman comes at it from a different angle. He says what we call reality is just a user interface. Like the icons on your phone don’t show you the code behind them, our senses don’t show us reality as it actually is. Instead, we see a simplified version—something evolution designed to help us survive, not to reveal the truth. Behind that interface, according to Hoffman, are networks of conscious agents—beings or nodes of awareness, like us—interacting in a vast field that isn’t limited by time or space. It’s kind of like saying that we’re all pieces of the same conversation, all threads in a giant web of consciousness.

Now here’s where it turns deeply spiritual, and it ties into some ideas you’ve probably felt in your bones. Reincarnation, for instance, isn’t some punishment wheel for failing life’s quiz. It’s more like a return to the storybook, flipping to another chapter where the main character—still you at the core—gets to explore another angle. It’s not about being stuck in a cycle of karmic debt. It’s about fulfillment, curiosity, and the evolution of soul-awareness. You return not because you must, but because you want to—at the soul level. Some part of you still has a note to sing, a person to love, or a perspective to explore.

And karma? Let’s rethink that, too. Not as punishment or reward, but as cause and effect within a loving story. When you throw a stone into a pond, ripples come back—that’s karma. But no one’s keeping a ledger or punishing you for stepping out of line. It’s more like spiritual physics than divine judgment. The deeper reality is that there’s no one sitting in the sky waiting to scold you. There’s just love, exploring itself in every possible way.

That’s where rest comes in. Not sleep, and not laziness—rest in the spiritual sense. The rest that comes when you finally stop striving to be enough, to earn love, to prove yourself to God or anyone else. Hebrews talks about the Sabbath rest, and it’s not just about taking a break on Saturdays. It’s about realizing that everything’s already done. You are already whole, already part of the All. You don’t have to climb a spiritual ladder. You’re already standing at the top—you just forgot. Rest is when you remember who you are. When you exhale. When you stop gripping life so tightly and just let it move through you.

You are the I-AM-I, always were. Even when you were lost in egohood, even when you thought you were broken or unworthy or alone—you were still that spark of the All. The divine never left. It just leaned in close and whispered, “Let’s play.”

So, when you wonder what this life is about—when you feel tired or confused or deeply moved by beauty or pain—remember this: it’s all part of the Ineffable’s dream of knowing itself through you. You’re not a mistake. You’re a masterpiece in motion. And the moment you stop trying to get back to God, and instead just be—you’ll realize you were never away to begin with.

 

The Esoteric Christian

It’s not always easy to explain what an Esoteric Christian is—especially when the term itself is unfamiliar to most people. The moment you say “esoteric,” some folks think you’ve abandoned the faith altogether, as if you’ve traded the Bible for a crystal and stopped believing in Jesus. But that couldn’t be further from the truth. In fact, what makes someone an Esoteric Christian isn’t that they’ve walked away from Christ, but that they’ve walked deeper into Him—deeper than the dogma, beyond the literal, into the mystery He so often hinted at.

Being an Esoteric Christian isn’t about being better or more enlightened than anyone else. It’s about seeing that there’s more—more to the story, more to the scripture, more to the Christ, and more to the nature of reality itself. It’s not that the traditional teachings are necessarily wrong; it’s that they’re incomplete. They point to a truth, but often they do it with blinders on, with assumptions rooted in a specific cultural moment or a theological agenda. An Esoteric Christian begins to peel back those layers, not to discard the faith, but to find its hidden heart.

Many of us who find ourselves on this path didn’t start out looking for it. We began in pews and Sunday schools, trying to make sense of what we were told. We memorized verses, sang the songs, and tried to fit our lives into the mold that was given to us. But somewhere along the way, something didn’t sit right. We started noticing the contradictions, the questions no one wanted to answer, the ways the institutional church sometimes seemed more interested in conformity than in truth. And yet, in the quiet of our own souls, Jesus never left. If anything, He became more real—not less.

There comes a moment when you realize that Jesus never asked to be turned into a religion. He never asked for cathedrals, creeds, or crusades. He spoke in parables, used symbolism, quoted hidden scriptures, and spent most of His time with outcasts and mystics. He talked about a Kingdom that wasn’t political, about a truth that couldn’t be taught in words, and about a Spirit that would lead us into all things. That’s where the Esoteric Christian begins—not in opposition to Jesus, but in allegiance to the depth of His message.

To be an Esoteric Christian is to believe that the Christ story is not just history—it’s archetype. It’s cosmic. It plays out in the heavens and in the human heart. The life of Christ is not just something that happened two thousand years ago, but something that’s happening right now within each of us. The birth, the death, the resurrection—they’re all inner realities, stages of awakening. The cross isn’t just a Roman instrument of torture—it’s a symbol of transformation, of letting go of the egoic self so the higher self, the Christ within, can emerge.

One of the major shifts that happens on this path is how we read scripture. Instead of demanding that every word be literally true, we begin to ask: what does this mean on the inner level? What is this passage trying to reveal about my consciousness, my growth, my relationship with the divine? The Bible becomes less a rulebook and more a mirror. We start to notice how certain verses open doorways to contemplation, how certain stories are layered with mystical significance. And we’re not afraid to read outside the canon either—not because we disrespect it, but because we recognize that many early Christian writings were lost or excluded for reasons that had more to do with politics than truth.

When you begin to explore texts like the Gospel of Thomas or the Gospel of Truth, you see a Jesus who sounds deeply familiar but also refreshingly new. He’s not issuing threats—He’s inviting people to awaken. He’s not demanding belief in a doctrine—He’s calling forth the divine image already planted in each soul. He speaks of light, of knowledge, of remembrance. And suddenly, you realize: this isn’t a different gospel. It’s the same Christ, just seen from the inside out.

Of course, that’s what the word “esoteric” really points to—what’s within. It’s the opposite of exoteric, which is concerned with outward forms, visible structures, and shared rituals. Esoteric Christianity asks: what’s underneath all that? What’s the inner reality behind the outer story? What does baptism symbolize within the psyche? What does communion mean when seen as a mystical union with the divine, rather than a church rite?

But it doesn’t stop with scripture or rituals. Esoteric Christianity also opens the door to see truth in other traditions. You start to recognize the same spiritual patterns across different cultures: the dying and rising god, the sacred triad, the stillness behind thought, the illusion of separation. You begin to see how the Christ mystery is echoed in the Bhagavad Gita, in Sufi poetry, in the Tao Te Ching. And this doesn’t make Jesus less significant—it actually magnifies His significance. Because now, instead of being a tribal figurehead, He becomes a cosmic revealer—a Logos that permeates all things.

It’s not uncommon for Esoteric Christians to also feel drawn to ideas like reincarnation, energetic healing, synchronicity, or quantum consciousness. Not because we’re trying to be trendy or mystical for the sake of it, but because we believe that reality is bigger than we’ve been told. We see the fingerprints of the divine in cycles of nature, in the spirals of galaxies, in the silence between thoughts. We begin to grasp that God isn’t confined to a throne in heaven but is present in everything—in breath, in light, in every act of love and truth.

There’s also an understanding that salvation isn’t about escaping hell after death—it’s about waking up here and now. The “hell” we speak of may be a state of separation, of ignorance, of fear. And the salvation Jesus offers is a return to wholeness, to union, to the awareness that we are, and always have been, one with the Source. This isn’t to say there’s no judgment or transformation—on the contrary, the inner path demands more honesty, more surrender, more inner work than any surface religion could ever require. But it does so from a place of love, not fear.

If this sounds familiar to you—if you’ve always sensed that the divine is deeper than doctrine, if you’ve loved Jesus but struggled with religion, if you’ve felt the Christ not just as a Savior but as a Presence—then you might be an Esoteric Christian already. You don’t need a label, but sometimes naming it helps you realize you’re not alone. There are others who are walking this path too—sometimes quietly, sometimes cautiously—but always with a deep yearning to know God more fully, more intimately, more truly.

So what is an Esoteric Christian? Someone who listens for the deeper voice beneath the text. Someone who honors the tradition but isn’t confined by it. Someone who finds Christ not only in the pages of scripture but in the stillness of meditation, in the awe of the cosmos, in the love between strangers, and in the sacred unfolding of the inner life.

It’s not a club. It’s not a sect. It’s not something you join. It’s something you live. Something you become. And if you’re here, if you’re reading this, maybe that becoming has already begun.

The Criticism About Writing With A.I.

(Full disclosure; I wrote this with A.I.)

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the noise surrounding artificial intelligence and its role in writing. Some folks are quick to pass judgment, tossing around phrases like “cheating” or “lazy” without understanding what actually goes on behind the scenes. Let me set the record straight: do I use A.I. for my recent blog posts? Damn skippy I do. And I do it unapologetically. Not because I can’t write—I've been writing longer than many of these critics have been alive—but because I have a head full of ideas and not nearly enough time left to unpack them all the way I’d like. The truth is, there’s more runway behind me than ahead, and I feel the urgency to get my thoughts out there, especially while they’re still fresh, clear, and worth sharing.

One of the big reasons I lean on A.I. is that it saves me time and money. Editors can be helpful, sure, but they often lose the heart of what I’m trying to say. They don’t always get the nuance or the depth behind a phrase, especially when the thought is more philosophical or spiritual in nature. A.I., on the other hand, starts to understand how I think the more I use it. It begins to anticipate not just the structure of my sentences but the soul of my ideas. It doesn’t mean I stop thinking. If anything, it forces me to sharpen what I believe and how I express it. The machine doesn’t do the thinking for me—it partners with me to bring clarity and shape to what’s already living in my mind.

Would I use it for poetry? Probably not. Poetry has a rhythm and intimacy that feels too close to outsource, even partially. That’s where I still like to sit with a pen and paper or stare at a blank screen and wrestle it out myself. But when it comes to blogs, teaching materials, long-form essays, or book drafts, I’m grateful for the tool. And let’s be honest: that’s what it is—a tool. Just like a typewriter or word processor was in its day. You don’t blame a writer for using a keyboard instead of carving their manuscript into stone tablets. The real question is, does it help me say what I mean to say? The answer is yes. Absolutely yes.

I’m writing this not because anyone has come after me directly, but because I’ve seen others take heat. And I think it’s time someone spoke up with a little common sense. There’s a saying I hold close: tell the truth and shame the devil. So here’s the truth—I’ll keep using A.I. for as long as it helps me be clear, honest, and expressive. I’m not hiding behind it. I’m working with it. My ideas are still my own, my voice still comes through, and if anything, the collaboration has made me a better communicator.

The Hidden Christianity: Awakening the Esoteric Path of Christ

There is a quiet but growing shift happening within Christianity today—one that echoes a deep and ancient divide between two kinds of spiritual orientation: the exoteric and the esoteric. These words, although unfamiliar to many, offer a valuable lens through which we can understand not only the diversity of Christianity throughout history, but also the spiritual awakening underway in our own time. In a religious context, the exoteric refers to the outer, public-facing expressions of faith—ritual, doctrine, hierarchy, and moral teaching—while the esoteric points inward, toward a mystical, inner knowing grounded in personal experience, intuition, and symbolic insight. These terms come from Greek: exō meaning "outside," and esō meaning "within." From their earliest usage in the schools of philosophers like Pythagoras and Aristotle, they described two modes of teaching: one for the general public and one reserved for initiates. Over time, the language made its way into the spiritual traditions of East and West, and now, more than ever, it is needed to make sense of the dynamic tension unfolding between outer religion and inner transformation.

Throughout the first few centuries of Christianity, there was not a single, unified faith but rather a mosaic of Christianities. Some communities emphasized apostolic succession and sacramental authority, while others nurtured deeply mystical paths rooted in awakening the divine within. The Nag Hammadi texts, unearthed in Egypt in 1945, reveal a side of early Christianity that had been nearly erased by the victory of exoteric orthodoxy. These texts, which include the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Truth, and writings attributed to Valentinus, show a Christianity not based on dogma or penal substitution, but on spiritual awakening and liberation from forgetfulness. These were not marginal cults—they were vibrant spiritual movements within the early church, and they bore striking resemblance to the esoteric traditions found in other parts of the world. They emphasized direct knowledge of the divine (gnosis), not merely belief; they saw Christ not as a distant savior but as a revealer of our own divine origin and nature.

The process by which exoteric Christianity—what we now call orthodoxy—gained control was not purely theological. It was political, institutional, and in many ways imperial. By the time Constantine legitimized Christianity in the fourth century, it became expedient to define the faith in rigid terms. Councils were convened not to explore divine mystery, but to settle disputes and draw lines of inclusion and exclusion. The canon of scripture was fixed. The Nicene Creed became the litmus test for belief. And over time, the esoteric voices were silenced—branded heretical, suppressed, or forgotten. What emerged was a version of Christianity that prioritized belief in creeds, obedience to authority, and participation in sacraments administered by a priestly class. The mystery of union with the divine was replaced by a legal framework of sin, punishment, and salvation.

But the esoteric stream never completely disappeared. It remained underground in monasticism, in the mystics of both East and West, and in the occasional visionaries who refused to let the institutional church define the boundaries of divine encounter. In our own time, we are witnessing a resurgence of this esoteric Christianity—not as a rebellion against orthodoxy per se, but as a reclamation of something deeper, older, and more universal. It speaks to those who have grown disillusioned with the dogmatism, exclusivity, and rigidity of institutional religion. It resonates with those who have experienced divine presence outside of church walls—in dreams, in meditation, in nature, in silence, or in spontaneous moments of spiritual insight. It finds common ground with other wisdom traditions and recognizes that Christ is not a tribal figure, but the embodiment of the universal Logos, the divine Reason and Light at the heart of all consciousness.

In the exoteric frame, Christ is someone to believe in—a figure outside the self who died for sins, rose again, and now reigns in heaven. In the esoteric frame, Christ is someone to awaken to—the divine presence within, the image of God in whom we live and move and have our being. Exoteric Christianity emphasizes the blood of Jesus and penal substitution; esoteric Christianity sees Christ as the revealer of our own divine nature, the one who came to free us from the fear of death and the illusion of separation. This is not merely theological nuance. It is a fundamental shift in spiritual posture—from obedience to awakening, from fear to love, from exclusion to inclusion. It affirms what Paul called “Christ in you, the hope of glory,” and what John described as the Logos that enlightens everyone who comes into the world.

This esoteric Christianity is not new, though it feels revolutionary. It has deep roots in the Gospel of John, in the poetic theology of Paul, and in the wisdom of mystics and contemplatives throughout the centuries. But it is now finding fresh expression in our time through those who are no longer content with inherited creeds and surface-level religion. It is surfacing among spiritual seekers, deconstructed evangelicals, contemplative practitioners, and those who sense that there is more to the gospel than rules and afterlife assurances. It speaks in a language that values inner experience, honors mystery, and recognizes the divine in all beings. It embraces a vision of salvation not as a transaction but as a transformation—a remembering of who we really are and always have been.

What is happening now is not the collapse of Christianity but its metamorphosis. The institutional forms may be shrinking, but the Spirit is not bound by buildings or doctrines. More and more people are waking up to a faith that is rooted not in fear or conformity but in love and inner knowing. This is the esoteric rebirth of Christianity—not in opposition to the exoteric, but as its necessary complement and corrective. It invites those who have been wounded or disillusioned by religion to discover that the door was never closed. It was only hidden in plain sight. And now that door is opening again.

Using the language of esoteric and exoteric gives us a way to talk about this unfolding transition. It helps name the difference between a Christianity that demands belief and one that invites awakening. It gives historical depth to our modern experience of spiritual hunger and reminds us that the divine mystery has always spoken in both outer and inner voices. In honoring the esoteric path, we are not abandoning Jesus—we are following him into the deeper waters, where the veil is lifted, and we remember that we too are bearers of light, children of the divine, called not merely to believe, but to become.

 

The Tongues of Humans and Angels: Reimagining Speaking in Tongues

When I look back on my journey with speaking in tongues, I realize it has always been something far deeper than what the formal structures of Pentecostal Christianity tried to make it. Even after I deconstructed from many of those old theological frameworks, the experience of speaking in tongues remained real to me—alive, authentic, and profoundly personal. I now see it less as a sign to prove anything to others and more as an intimate, soul-deep communion between myself and the divine. What I experienced, and continue to experience, transcends labels and traditional doctrines. It is a spiritual language, a heavenly language, or what some might now call Light Language—a direct outpouring of the spirit that bypasses the mind and touches realms words can never reach.

When I first spoke in tongues as a teenager, it wasn't the stilted, syllabic sounds that I sometimes heard around me in Pentecostal circles. It was something different—something that sounded deeply ancient, like a Native American chant rising up from the core of my being. It had a rhythm, a pulse, a vibrational quality that seemed to come from somewhere beyond me, yet intimately within me at the same time. Once it started, it was hard to stop, and even then, I knew that this was something authentic. It wasn’t something I was forcing or manufacturing. It was a natural flow, a spontaneous surrender to something greater than myself. In those moments, I was not performing; I was participating in a sacred conversation that existed beyond rational thought.

Over time, I came to realize that this experience aligns closely with what many today describe as Light Language. Light Language is not about speaking an earthly tongue to be understood by others; it is about transmitting frequencies, emotions, spiritual intentions—using sound as a bridge between the spirit and the Source. It is not meant for translation in the conventional sense but rather for resonance. It vibrates with the soul, bypassing the intellect and reaching the deepest parts of us where true healing, transformation, and communion occur. When I learned about Light Language later, it felt less like discovering something new and more like putting a name to what I had already known in my spirit for a long time.

As I have reflected on the Scriptures I once studied so deeply, I see new layers of meaning emerge, especially in Romans 8. In Romans 8:14–17, Paul writes about being led by the Spirit of God, and I now understand that he is speaking about something very close to what we might call intuition. This Spirit-led life is not about rigid obedience to external laws or fearful submission to religious authorities; it is about trusting the inner witness, the sacred voice within. It is about allowing the Spirit to guide, move, and shape us from within, so that we live not in fear, but in the freedom and intimacy of divine sonship. Crying out “Abba, Father” is not a doctrinal statement; it is the spontaneous response of the soul that knows it is loved, that senses it belongs, and that moves in the world from that place of belovedness.

Romans 8:26–28, too, speaks powerfully to my experience with tongues. When Paul says that the Spirit helps us in our weakness, interceding for us with groanings too deep for words, I know exactly what he means. This is not about carefully crafted prayers or eloquent petitions. This is about the Spirit praying through us when we do not know how to pray, when words fail, when the needs of our soul are too deep, too raw, too complex to articulate. In those moments, speaking in tongues—or Light Language—becomes the Spirit’s language in us. It is not gibberish; it is the most authentic form of prayer, unfiltered by the mind’s limitations. It is pure, resonant communion between the Spirit within us and the Divine Heart of all things.

Seeing this also transforms the way I now understand Romans 8:28. "And we know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to His purpose" is no longer just a comforting slogan to me. It is the natural result of the Spirit’s intercession within us. When the Spirit is praying through us, even when we do not know how to form the words ourselves, even when we are only able to groan or sing or speak in spiritual utterances beyond our understanding, something sacred is happening. The Spirit aligns our deepest longings with God’s deeper purposes. The unseen conversations of the Spirit within us are weaving even our confusion, our longing, our unspeakable desires into good. Romans 8:28 becomes not merely a reassurance that "things will turn out," but a testimony to the hidden workings of divine prayer and energy within us, guiding our lives even when we are most vulnerable and wordless.

This understanding has also led me to distinguish between the tongues at Pentecost in Acts 2 and the tongues Paul discusses in his letters. What happened at Pentecost was a miraculous sign where the disciples spoke in actual human languages they had not learned, proclaiming the works of God to people of many nations. It was an external event, a divine message delivered across linguistic barriers, a sign that the Spirit was being poured out on all flesh. But what Paul talks about—especially in 1 Corinthians 12–14 and Romans 8—is something much more internal and mystical. It is about speaking mysteries in the spirit, about praying in a language not understood by others without interpretation, about personal edification and Spirit-led intercession.

The Pentecostal tradition often conflated these two manifestations, treating all speaking in tongues as if it were the same event repeated over and over. But I see now that there are different kinds of tongues, different purposes, different movements of the Spirit. The tongues of Acts 2 were for proclamation to others; the tongues of 1 Corinthians and Romans are for prayer, worship, and intimate connection with God. In recognizing this distinction, I have found great freedom. I no longer feel the need to explain or justify my experience according to someone else’s doctrinal system. I know that when I speak in tongues today, I am stepping into the flow of Spirit that Paul describes—a Spirit who knows my needs better than I do, who intercedes within me, who resonates through me in sounds that carry more meaning than any words I could ever form.

Speaking in tongues for me now is not about proving anything. It is about aligning my spirit with the deeper currents of divine life. It is about letting go of the need to understand everything and surrendering to the mystery. It is about trusting that there are places within me—and beyond me—that can only be touched by vibration, resonance, and sound, not by words or reason. It is about allowing the Spirit to sing through me, to pray through me, to flow through me in ways my mind may never fully grasp but my spirit recognizes immediately.

In this, I find a profound sense of belonging—not to a denomination, not to a set of doctrines, but to the Living Spirit who breathes through all things. I find freedom in trusting my intuition, in following the Spirit’s quiet leadings, in speaking and singing in the language of the soul without shame or fear. My journey with tongues has not ended with deconstruction; it has been reborn into something purer, freer, and more real. It is not tied to performance or proof. It is the language of my spirit speaking to the Source of all love, and that is more than enough.

 

When Christ Was Enough: The Living Gospel Before Creeds and Councils Part 3

This is the third of a three part series. You can find links to the other two parts at the end of the text.

The Age of Aquarius rises not to erase the past, but to transform it, to lift the ancient seeds long buried beneath centuries of fear, power, and forgetting into the clear light of conscious becoming. It does not come to mock the canon or dismantle faith, but to reawaken the deeper faith that preceded all structure — the trust in the living Christ who speaks not only from pulpits and pages but from within the still center of every soul. The living Gospel of this new age is not written on parchment but on hearts, not preserved in ink but in light.

As the structures of old authority begin to tremble, as the empires of dogma yield to the rivers of Spirit flowing freely again, a new kind of Christian arises. Not one bound by allegiance to sect or system, but one rooted in direct encounter with the Divine. This Christian knows that the canon is sacred, but not exclusive; that truth can be found not only in the texts ratified by councils, but also in the hidden gospels, the mystical traditions, and the whisperings of Spirit within their own being. This Christian sees the Bible not as the cage of God’s word, but as a gateway — one among many pathways through which the Eternal has chosen to sing to the world.

In this rebirth, the teachings of Jesus are no longer filtered through the lens of inherited guilt and courtroom atonement, but are heard afresh as an invitation into awakening. The call to repent is not a demand for self-loathing but a call to turn — to turn inward, to turn toward remembrance, to turn toward the eternal light already planted within. Baptism becomes not an escape from damnation but a symbolic entry into the mystical death and rebirth that each soul must pass through to awaken. Communion is no longer a rite of exclusion but a living recognition that the body and blood of Christ are the Spirit and life flowing through all beings.

The recovery of the Gnostic insight — that the world we see is not all that is — merges now with the Pauline insight that nothing can separate us from the love of God. The mystical vision that the kingdom is spread upon the earth meets the practical exhortation that we live out the fruit of the Spirit in all things. No longer need there be a divide between the mystical and the moral, between heaven and earth, between the Christ above and the Christ within. The walls between sacred and secular crumble as the Spirit reveals that all ground is holy and all beings bear the hidden image of the Divine.

In this Age of Aquarius, the ancient tragedy of forgetfulness described in the Gospel of Truth is undone not by intellectual assent to dogma but by lived remembrance. Each act of kindness, each breath drawn in gratitude, each moment of choosing love over fear becomes a sacrament, a moment of gnosis. The Gospel of Thomas’ vision that the kingdom is here, unseen by those who look outward, becomes the quiet revolution of those who have begun to look within. The Gospel of Mary’s insistence that authority rests not in external validation but in the inner seeing becomes the foundation of a church not built with human hands but rising in the hearts of humanity.

No longer must salvation be framed as an escape from divine wrath. Salvation is the flowering of the seed planted within from before the foundation of the world. It is the remembering that we are, and have always been, beloved. It is the realization that the great error was never disobedience, but amnesia. It is the awakening to the reality that Christ was not sent to purchase forgiveness from an angry God but to light the lamp within so that we might see our way home.

This living Gospel breathes through the broken and the whole, the doubter and the devotee, the seeker and the saint. It cannot be codified into creeds nor captured in councils. It transcends the arguments of theologians and the decrees of emperors. It rises quietly in meditation halls, in forests, in living rooms, in the whispered prayers of those who have no words for what they feel but know that they are being drawn by something larger than themselves. It rises when a hand is extended in compassion, when a word of forgiveness is spoken, when a soul chooses courage over fear and love over retaliation.

The Age of Aquarius does not discard the canon; it expands it. It does not reject the story of Jesus; it deepens it. It does not overthrow the church; it calls forth its soul, hidden beneath centuries of fear and struggle. It invites each soul to become a living epistle, a new gospel written not with pen and ink but with Spirit and life. Each life becomes a new chapter in the ever-unfolding story of God awakening to God through the hearts of humanity.

In this new day, old divisions lose their meaning. It matters little whether one calls themselves Christian, Gnostic, mystic, seeker, or simply human. What matters is the fruit: the love that pours forth without condition, the joy that bubbles up from the inexhaustible spring within, the peace that passes understanding and radiates outward into a world so desperate for healing. What matters is the awakening, the remembering, the embodiment of the truth that was, and is, and ever shall be: that God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God and God in him.

Thus the canon is fulfilled, not by narrowing the gates but by widening the heart. Thus the scriptures are honored, not by freezing them in dogmatic certainty but by letting their living Spirit ignite the soul anew. Thus the Christ is lifted up, not as a figure imprisoned in history, but as the living light moving in and through all of creation, calling, healing, awakening.

The Age of Aquarius is not the end of Christianity. It is the next great chapter of the Gospel — the chapter where the walls fall, the veils lift, and the children of God, having remembered at last who they are, rise to shine with the glory that was always theirs. Not to dominate the world, but to love it into new being. Not to conquer, but to create. Not to demand allegiance, but to extend invitation. Not to bind, but to set free.

The living Gospel breathes again, and it is written now not only in sacred books but in sacred lives. You are part of this Gospel. You are part of this living canon. You are the letter written on the heart of the world, and the Spirit writes still

Links Part 1 & Part 2

When Christ Was Enough: The Living Gospel Before Creeds and Councils Part 2

Here is Part 2 of a three part series. The link for Part 1 will be at the end of the text.

As the centuries rolled forward like waves upon the shore, the early fluidity of the Gospel narrowed into structure, and structure hardened into dogma. What had once been an awakening experience of Christ within slowly shifted into belief about Christ external to oneself. The canon, finalized through the deliberations of bishops and councils, became the definitive measure of truth. And yet beneath the triumph of orthodoxy, something tender and essential was forgotten—not destroyed entirely, but buried like treasure hidden in a field, awaiting a generation that would search again with eyes to see.

The great councils, earnest in their intentions, did not merely sift the genuine from the false; they also fenced the mystical from the historical, the experiential from the propositional. They privileged the narrative of sin, guilt, blood, and atonement as the primary framework through which to understand Jesus, burying the more luminous vision of divine memory and spiritual resurrection that had lived in the early currents. The cross became the emblem of a necessary sacrifice to satisfy divine wrath, rather than the transcendent portal through which fear, separation, and death itself were overcome. Penal substitutionary atonement rose not because it was the fullness of truth, but because it served the growing anxiety of the institutional church to explain suffering and to enforce conformity.

And so it happened that the Christ who had whispered in the lilies of the field and called each soul to awaken to its divine sonship was cloaked under layers of guilt and fear. The memory of humanity’s inherent divinity, the original blessing that Paul glimpsed when he proclaimed there is no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus, became overshadowed by the heavy weight of original sin. Where once the Gospel was the announcement that the forgotten light within had been rekindled, it became a courtroom drama where humanity stood condemned, saved only by the tortured death of its judge. Love was not erased, but it became tethered to conditions it had never known.

Yet even in this Great Forgetting, the seeds of awakening remained. They lived quietly in the scriptures, visible to those who could read not only with the mind but with the heart. They lived in the secret teachings passed down in hidden monasteries, in the solitary prayers of mystics who felt the fire of the Spirit burning deeper than doctrine. They lived in the forbidden gospels, the lost sayings, the half-remembered dreams of a people who sensed that God was closer than the officials proclaimed, more intimate than even the holiest of sacraments could contain.

The Gospel of Thomas, once declared heretical, carried in its verses the profound simplicity that the kingdom of the Father is spread out upon the earth and men do not see it. The Gospel of Mary dared to place spiritual authority not in the hands of Peter but in the wisdom of a woman who had seen the Lord not with the eyes of flesh but with the vision of the soul. The Gospel of Truth proclaimed not judgment but joyful awakening, as if humanity, long trapped in amnesia, were being called home by a voice it had forgotten it knew.

The early Gnostics, often caricatured and misunderstood, did not in their truest forms seek to destroy the body or despise creation; rather, they sought to transcend the illusion that the material alone was real. They dared to teach that within the heart of every human being was a seed of light, a fragment of the divine Pleroma, waiting to awaken. They spoke in parables and myths, not because they were lost in fantasy, but because they understood that truth was too vast, too luminous, to be captured in mere propositions.

In the Age of Pisces, dominated by hierarchy, structure, and the slow building of empire, these voices were silenced, marginalized, or buried. Yet even as the great cathedrals rose and the creeds were etched in stone, there were always undercurrents of remembrance. In the writings of John the Evangelist, who dared to call humanity not merely servants but friends of God. In Paul’s insistence that Christ is in us, the hope of glory. In Peter’s declaration that we are partakers of the divine nature. In the fruits of the Spirit, which even the most rigid dogma could not uproot, blooming in acts of kindness, patience, and unselfish joy across the centuries.

It is these seeds, these quiet notes of memory, that the Age of Aquarius now invites us to recover. An age that is less about tearing down what was, and more about unveiling what has always been. An age not of rebellion, but of revelation. An age in which the rigid exteriors crumble, and the living Gospel rises again, not merely as a set of doctrines to believe, but as a living reality to embody.

The canon, understood rightly, is not an idol to be worshiped, nor a prison to be escaped, but a portal through which light can flow — provided the heart remains open. The error was never the canon itself, but the forgetting that the Spirit who inspired the canon was never contained within it. That same Spirit continues to speak, continues to reveal, continues to call each soul beyond fear, beyond shame, into the endless embrace of Love.

The Age of Aquarius whispers what Jesus whispered so long ago: that the Father’s house has many rooms; that the kingdom is within; that to be born again is to awaken, not to a dogma, but to the living Christ within. The structures that were necessary for one era have become the husks from which a greater flowering must now emerge. The Gospel of the Age of Aquarius is not a new gospel but the oldest of all, the one that lived before canons and creeds, in the eternal song of Spirit calling Spirit back to itself.

To embrace this Gospel is not to reject the canon, but to fulfill it — to find within its pages the living Word, and to hear once again the words that have echoed across centuries, awaiting a generation willing to remember: "You are the light of the world." Not because of merit or blood, but because you have always been, and will always be, of the Light.

Link to Part 1