Esoteric Christianity and the Signs of the Times — Part I of III

Esoteric Christianity and The Signs of the Times

Part I: Christianity’s Dilemma and Its Coming Rebirth

By Richard C. Cook

© 2008 by Richard C. Cook.

Part I: Christianity and the Scientific/Technological Era; Did the Spiritual Revolution of the 20th Century Leave Christianity Behind?; Reaction of the Controllers of Society; The British Petroleum Debacle as Signature Event; Crackdown and Prophecies; My Own Spiritual Search.

Christianity and the Scientific/Technological Era

The Christian churches have not been particularly effective in reconciling themselves to the modern materialistic epoch of science and technology which may appear to make many of their doctrines quaint and out-of-date. An example is the longstanding debate over human evolution vs. creationism, where fundamentalist Christians make their point using accounts in Genesis that are obviously written in a kind of metaphysical shorthand rather than being completely literal.

Understanding the meaning of this shorthand, along with other scriptures written millennia ago, requires a key which this article will attempt to clarify. The Christian revelation may then be seen in a different light through its more “esoteric” interpretations. “Esoteric” in this sense means the act of seeing things more through the eyes of the soul than through outward rituals and doctrines.

Without such a key, how else can Christians effectively address the danger that the technological revolution, whatever its benefits, may continue the march it embarked upon during much of the 20th century of destroying the world that Christianity helped fashion over the previous two millennia?

Two technological innovations in particular have produced both immense progress and tragic turmoil in the landscape of the secularist modern world. One was the transformation of industrial production by application of electricity, the latest phase being the cybernetic revolution. The other was exploitation of the huge deposits of coal and reservoirs of petroleum in the Earth’s crust and the total dependence of the world’s economy on the burning of fossil fuels. A third innovation, space travel, will be explored in Part III.

For now let us simply look at the fact that the world that electricity, coal, and oil have created has provided the material support for enormous growth of the human population—now approaching seven billion, but at the cost of out-of-control consumption of resources and the pollution that has resulted. Control of these resources is also the basis of most of the world’s wealth.

Many thought that technological advances had the potential to free us from the drudgery of working so hard for a living—the famous “leisure dividend.” Among the logical results should have been a renaissance in the arts and a surge in our ability to devote more time to spiritual pursuits. Both have happened to a degree.

But the Christian churches might have been expected to take more advantage of such an opportunity by strenuously promoting the widest possible distribution of the economic bounty technology makes possible. Unfortunately they have not. Instead this bounty has passed increasingly under the control of the rich and powerful.

The churches have been upstaged, not only when faced with technological progress, but also on the spiritual level. For instance, most of them never got comfortable with the idea of a New Age marking the transition from the Age of Pisces to the Age of Aquarius. They also seemed taken by surprise by the major shift in “spiritual geography” that took place during the early to mid-20^th century, when the immense concentration of esoteric knowledge that was harbored and hidden in Tibet and India for millennia seemed to radiate outward.

Did the Spiritual Revolution of the 20^th Century Leave Christianity Behind?

Starting with the appearance of Swami Vivekananda at the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago in 1893, a number of Eastern spiritual figures traveled to Christianity’s Western turf to transmit a different order of ideas. These included such now-familiar names as Swami Yogananda, Hazrat Inayat Khan, Meher Baba, Krishnamurti, Shivabalayogi, Chögyam Trungpa, the Dalai Lama, and many others.

The Theosophical movement, founded by Madame Blavatsky (1831-1891) in New York City in 1875, was an important attempt to integrate Eastern pathways into the consciousness of the West. Theosophy became a major force, not only in the West, but also in India, where Annie Besant (1847-1933), an Englishwoman of Irish descent, led the movement after Blavatsky’s death. Paul Brunton (1898-1981), a British journalist who traveled to India and recorded the teachings of the sage of Arunachala, Sri Ramana Maharshi, made a notable contribution, as did other Westerners like him who searched in the East.

Many of the Western followers of the Eastern masters gained in enlightenment. Together they created a lexicon, published books, founded schools and study groups, and introduced an array of meditation and other spiritual techniques, including Yoga, that today are deeply embedded into our mentality and culture.

Many Christians more advanced in their thinking did in fact welcome the Eastern revelations, starting with Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and other New England transcendentalists over a century-and-a-half ago. Also deeply influenced was American poet Walt Whitman.

The era also saw movements among some Western Christians toward greater consciousness, including the Quakers, Unitarians, Christian Scientists, and proponents of Unity and New Thought. And many of the mainstream churches have also been affected positively, though perhaps to a lesser degree. Also becoming a spiritual force by the mid-20^th century were Alcoholics Anonymous and subsequent “twelve-step” programs with a strong Christian orientation but open to Eastern ideas.

Reaction of the Controllers of Society

But in the face of this broad spiritual awakening, there was a reaction by the controllers of society, who seemingly have not wanted humanity to become more happy, joyous, and free unless it produces a profit. Worse, the benefits of science and technology have often been woefully perverted, putting spiritually-minded people of all persuasions on the defensive.

We see, for instance, that the “knowledge explosion,” resulting from exponential growth in the power of electronic communications, has opened a gateway to the inner world of thought and consciousness never before accessible to such large numbers of people. An individual living today has almost immediate access to the sum total of recorded information from the beginning of history. The technological factor, which can be dated to Gutenberg’s first printed Bible in 1454-55, has aided immeasurably in the diffusion of spiritual knowledge.

But how effectively can a person utilize and gain from that knowledge when the waters of enlightenment have been fouled by horrendous displays of greed, selfishness, and aggression resulting from the use of technology to produce ever more horrible weapons of war? Technology has polluted the Earth so much that whole species of flora and fauna are being wiped out and has diverted an ever-increasing portion of the world’s wealth into the hands of the rich who own the banks and corporations that control the global economy.

For the wealthy elite, the expansion of consciousness has meant refining the techniques of controlling or neutralizing individual awareness through propaganda or mass-media indoctrination expertly targeted at producing in the psyche of people such emotions as greed and fear. Does addiction to TV and video games produce greater consciousness or its opposite? Such pastimes lock people in to habitual patterns of brain waves that make perception of spiritual reality impossible.

And even with communism supposedly defeated, what of the massive national bureaucracies instituted to manage every aspect of modern life, with their mountains of paperwork, forms, accounting systems, tax documents, licensing, and regulations? What of the layers of national, state, and local governments, each with their own  overlapping codes of law that grow by the day?

What of the growing reach of the modern police state with high-tech surveillance methodologies, stun guns, arsenals of sophisticated weapons, and SWAT teams always on alert? And it’s all paid for by the public through taxes or by overhead on the cost-of-living. Do these things enhance or destroy the freedom of the human spirit, human dignity, or human self-respect?

Here neither the Christian churches nor their New Age counterparts have been particularly helpful in calling out or rolling back these excesses. Many spiritual professionals find it safer to support the dominant military-political-financial paradigm, or at least to acquiesce in it.

Within the churches, many are bound to rituals whose origins few have effectively translated into modern relevance. Others may be uneasy about the drift of events in the world at large but, while trying to uphold their spiritual ideals, lack clarity and conviction.

Others may only be able to counsel their flock on how to endure pain and suffering. Others pray for peace in the world but with what result?

Within the Catholic Church, the search for expanded spiritual experience among both the priesthood and laity that grew out of Vatican II under Pope John XXIII was attacked by reactionaries from within. So was the Catholic liberation theology movement that appeared most strongly in Central America, where the priesthood joined with impoverished peasants in demanding land reforms. Priests, nuns, and lay leaders were murdered by death squads.

The Catholic Church today has retreated from both its liberalizing tendencies and concerns with social justice and is reverting to strict doctrinal interpretations and “safe” social issues such as the anti-abortion crusade. On the Protestant side, many evangelicals have also become vehemently conservative, viewing as inspired by “the devil” anything not conforming to their literalist interpretations of scripture.

The more liberal churches doubt that such a thing as “the devil” even exists, as do most New Age advocates. Psychologists with a spiritual outlook identify the devil as a projection of our own separate, competitive egos that we dare not see and accept.

So we project it onto another, often a person of a different race, religion, or political persuasion. When the ego is in charge of religion, little can be expected but more anger, violence and confusion. It’s the same for Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, or whatever.

The god of the given religion, personifying the frustrations of the faithful,  may then be seen as angry and vindictive, even one who demands outright warfare between its adherents and whoever the outsiders are perceived to be. How can peace on Earth ever be possible unless our idea of God changes?

The British Petroleum Debacle as Signature Event

A recent example of the way science and technology have failed and religion gropes for an answer is the British Petroleum oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. Through the horrendous pollution and destruction of the natural environment that has taken place, America’s Bible Belt South, base of the Republican Party for decades, has been threatened economically, socially, and ecologically.

The BP tragedy shows that no matter how much money you have or how powerful you think you are, no one, including the elite, can negate the Law of Unintended Consequences or the Law of Cause and Effect.

One of the world’s largest and most profitable and powerful companies, BP is as much an American corporation as a British one. It has played a major role in U.S. politics through the lavishing of campaign contributions on Democrats and Republicans alike. BP supplies a huge amount of the petroleum products that fuel American military operations worldwide.

Since the 1954 overthrow by the CIA and MI-6 of the elected government of Iran that was in the process of nationalizing BP—then called the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company—has relied on the military might of the Anglo-American empire to keep the world safe for its business interests.

Ironically, there are credible published reports that the U.S. government knew about and pressured BP to conduct these particular drilling operations in the Gulf for purposes related to current war plans against Iran. The on-line Wayne Madsen Report, an authoritative source based on news leaks from intelligence insiders, says the government influenced BP to shift drilling operations to the Macondo site in the Mississippi Canyon off the coast of Louisiana, because the enormous size of the oil deposits could supply American needs if, during an attack on Iran, the Strait of Hormuz were closed to oil traffic.

No doubt many Christian churches, as well as the Vatican Bank, are investors in BP or related companies that provide support to the war machine. Few that I am aware of have taken a public stance against the possibility of war with Iran. Large numbers of American churchgoers serve in the armed forces or work for military contractors, so are obliged to go along with official policy, whether or not they have reservations.

The point the oil gusher illustrates is that side-by-side with growing spiritual awareness among ordinary people, the world seemingly is becoming both more and less conscious at the same time. While more people are waking up to their spiritual potential, those who remain asleep at the helm are becoming more desperate to hold on to what they perceive as control.

This control is maintained by economic leverage carried out by those in power against the larger populace. The world at large has a deeply divided mind over being in thrall to the controllers while conditions are getting worse for so many people. So the world is in a constant state of tension that is increasingly becoming unbearable.

Crackdown and Prophecies

When officialdom began to notice over the past several decades that an epochal change of consciousness was underway, they cracked down. For instance, the idea of a New Age became trivialized as a component of pop culture not to be taken seriously.

The concept of the Age of Aquarius became a song in the platitudinous Broadway musical Hair only after being shorn of its revolutionary implications. The creative burst that manifested in the popular music of the 1960s and 1970s by artists such as Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, John Lennon, Donovan, and many others dried up after official corporatism took over and shifted the focus within the music industry to the depression, triviality, and nihilism so evident today.

While the appearance of hallucinogenic drugs had opened the eyes of many young people to a new way of seeing the world, their overuse, along with a flood of opiates and other addictive substances, crippled the minds of many. Allegations persist and evidence has been presented that the drug abuse that has devastated so many people over the past two generations has been in part a covert “psy ops” attack and/or money-raising scheme by Western intelligence agencies. A similar attack was the way right-wing think tanks and pro-corporate institutions like the Rockefeller, Ford, and Carnegie foundations gained dominance in publishing and higher education and rooted out writers and teachers unwilling to parrot the party line of the corporatocracy.

There is even a published account that the greatest and most ancient of Tibetan monasteries, one that survived the Chinese takeover, was destroyed and its monks murdered through an assault by covert operatives in the early 1990s. It is said this monastery was the inspiration for the rumor that somewhere in the heart of Asia was a place of peace and harmony under a higher form of law, the place known in legend as “Shangri-La.” Persons familiar with its destruction say the event had been prophesied and that once it took place, the end of our so-called civilization became assured.

What we may be seeing, though, is the Butterfly Effect, where infinitesimal changes in consciousness produce major outcomes. Many believe this is about to happen.

Many, myself included, have written of the “end of the age.” A Google search on “Armageddon” brings 12 million entries. Hundreds of internet websites, and a huge number of books, are devoted to attempts to define the changes to come.

Many of these speak of UFOs or the coming to Earth of extraterrestrials. Such possibilities will be evaluated in Part III of this article. The point for now is that the end of our age, if it happens, also implies a new beginning, as indicated by the ancient spiritual symbol of the ouroboros, the snake swallowing its tail.

Among Native Americans, the recurring live births of white buffalo calves are fulfillments of their own prophecies of an end and a new beginning. The predictions of doom implied by the termination of the Mayan calendar on December 21, 2012, have inspired books, articles, and motion pictures. Though the Mayan elders themselves say much of the hype is the fantasies of non-native popularizers, they still affirm something profound is going on.

Another auspicious event may be the unexplained appearance of gigantic crop circles based on extremely abstract principles of higher mathematics such as the Julia or Mandelbrot sets. I also spent several years working with a guru from India, who said it is common knowledge that the Kalki Avatar, the 10^th incarnation of Vishnu, has been born in India and resides there incognito, preparing for his mission. And in the U.S., a recent poll indicated that an astonishing 40 percent of those asked said they believe the Second Coming of Christ will take place within the next half-century.

My Own Spiritual Search

Is there a deeper spiritual meaning to such prophecies that are accessible to us today? If so, how can we find it? And can Westerners find truth within the traditional Christian religion?

The existence and importance of the hidden aspects of Christianity have been a major preoccupation in my life, since, as a boy growing up in Michigan, I imbibed the soothing peace in a basement chapel in the Episcopal Church my family attended.

In my twenties my life was transformed by the teachings of P.D. Ouspensky (1878-1947) and G.I. Gurdjieff (1866?-1949) in a group in Washington, D.C. Ouspensky was a Russian esoteric philosopher and Gurdjieff a Greek-Armenian spiritual master. Just as World War I was breaking out, Ouspensky met Gurdjieff in Moscow, where the latter was teaching a system of ideas based on his travels through Eastern Europe, Egypt, the Near-East, and Central Asia.

Gurdjieff called his system The Work and used the term “esoteric Christianity” to describe it. In his writings, Gurdjieff describes periodic visits to Earth from highly-conscious beings from other parts of the Universe whose job is to oversee and assist with situations arising here, though sometimes the “help” has unexpected consequences.

From there I studied under a Sufi master named Abdullah Dougan, reading the Koran and other teachings of Islam, and learned much from the practical study of Buddhism, Hinduism, Yoga, Taoism, and Native American lore. I then spent almost a decade learning and practicing meditation with gurus from India, including the beloved figure we called “Swamiji.”

But I was yearning to return “home,” always having felt that my spiritual ideal was Jesus. He was not, however, the Jesus of the Christian churches, most of which seemed too stuffy, superficial, conventional, dogmatic, and gloomy for my tastes.

At times I toyed with the idea of attending a seminary and becoming a minister but couldn’t face a curriculum heavy on church history, ritual, and doctrine. For I was, and will always remain, a spiritual seeker at heart.

Over the years I consistently fought off temptations to dabble in the occult or in magic, especially after a potentially disastrous encounter with an ouija board. I was helped by warnings from my Sufi teacher about how easily aspirants could fall under the influence of malignant spirits he called “goaffadh birds,” entities that he said were known as “djinn” in Islam.

Eventually, after a series of personal crises involving a divorce and retirement from a career spent working for the federal government, I began to think and write without restraint. New horizons opened. I became a student of a teaching called “The Infinite Way” that was created by an American spiritual master, Joel Goldsmith.

This teaching, which saw Jesus Christ as “The Master,” turned much of my thinking around on what constituted perception and reality. I saw clearly, as Goldsmith pointed out, that nothing we perceive that does not have the Law of God maintaining it can possibly be real. This included poverty and physical illness.

Goldsmith (1892-1964) was born to a non-practicing Jewish family in New York City and become a Christian Science practitioner. The founder of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy (1821-1910), had been driven to a deeper consideration of Christ’s teaching through her puzzlement that the ancient art of spiritual healing had seemingly become lost. Thanks to her, spiritual healing is now practiced as a regular discipline in the West, despite mainstream attempts to ridicule or suppress it.

Joel Goldsmith took the practice to deeper levels, which he described in his books and  tapes, including The Art of Spiritual Healing, Practicing the Presence, and The Thunder of Silence.

In 2009 I married a woman who was a lifelong churchgoer and had been part of the Charismatic movement during the 1970s. Her father was a church deacon. She was, like me, still searching.

As I wrote about economic and monetary matters and published books on the space shuttle Challenger disaster and the economic crash of 2008-9, my wife and I embarked on an intensive study of the ancient Jewish sect of the Essenes and the teachings of Edgar Cayce. We were initiated into the Order of Melchizedek, founded by a group based on knowledge derived from the near-death experiences of an American named Tom Sawyer, described in the book What Tom Sawyer Learned By Dying by Sydney Saylor Farr.

My wife and I now attend church every Sunday, where visions of Jesus come to me regularly. This has helped me to see that whatever its shortcomings, the quiet and modest local church devoted to worship, the liturgy, spiritual music, and good works has been the one institution keeping many communities throughout the Western world somewhat safe and sane through the ages.

This is particularly so today for churches that have started contemplative prayer groups or that recognize and encourage that sort of prayer and meditation. The touchstone for authenticity seems whether a church fosters the attainment of individual inner peace through the “still small voice.” If so, it is working for truth.

One day, my wife came across a book in a used bookstore that introduced us to one of the most profound sources of human spiritual evolution I had yet encountered, through a teaching that claims to date from the time of Atlantis. This book, entitled The Children of the Law of One and the Lost Teachings of Atlantis, provided some crucial links.

Finally, we encountered what may be one of the mother lodes of esoteric knowledge that is transforming the world in preparation for the truly incredible changes in world consciousness that we are confident are about to occur. As a spiritual master told me, “You have no idea of the spiritual forces at work today.”

One thing is certain: the Christianity of the modern-day scribes and Pharisees is dead. Is the next phase about to be born?

For there must be a next phase. Humanity is not going to be allowed to destroy itself, which it will do if it fails to embrace the revelations to come.

Conclusion

This concludes Part I of this article. I intend to devote Part II to a concise account that explains, as best I can, how esoteric Christianity interprets the history of man. This is essential, because, as Gurdjieff pointed out, only if we have authentic information about humanity’s past, can we live meaningfully in the present.

But the account of the past the esoteric teachers offer is much different from most of the notions of “official” academic or religious thinking. The scope of this difference is often staggering. This is because the authentic Christian teachings really derive from the movement the organized churches suppressed which we know today as Gnosticism.

Finally, Part III will identify what I feel to be the “mother lode” and elaborate on its implications, including the topic of “Extraterrestrials and Christ.” I invite you to stay with me on this most interesting journey.

Richard C. Cook is a former U.S. federal government analyst, now a writer on contemporary spiritual, economic, and political issues. His books can be ordered from his website at www.richardccook.com.