On Jesus and  
the Expansion  
of Consciousness

by Bill Ingle

The following is a comment to a thread on Michael Prescott’s blog¹ about the teachings of Jesus and how they relate to the stages of personal development studied by transpersonal psychologists.

I would rip the Christian myth to shreds before endeavoring to probe this area. One way to start might be to watch the entire From Jesus to Christ PBS Frontline documentary, available for viewing on the PBS website. (Alternatively, you might read dozens and dozens of scholarly works, including those pertaining to the latest archeological discoveries.)

Our common understanding of the time, place, and situation is grossly distorted owing to the enormous influence of Christianity over the centuries, while many tend to ignore the fact that the gospels were written long after the events they allegedly describe, each written to serve particular communities, and each different in details.

There were a number of other gospels, as well, and these periodically come to light — the “official” gospels are just that; four tales of many chosen by a gradually hardening church organization concerned with perpetuating itself (before long the information in these official gospels would become “true or else,” all other versions stamped “heretical”).

This is aside from the fact that all gospels are primarily symbolic in nature, and clearly borrow from other traditions, including earlier Jewish myth (the killing of infants was borrowed from the tale of Pharaoh and Moses, parts of that tale itself a modified Mesopotamian myth created for the political purposes of Sargon of Akkad, while other elements in the Gospels were borrowed from Egyptian myth and even the symbolic tales of Mithras).

Comparing members of apocalyptic Jewish sects alive in a time of great political and religious tension living in a particular and unique situation to “ordinary” modern people is a great mistake. How many of us are thoroughly convinced the world is about to end? None of us are currently 1^st Century Jews, practicing some variation of Judaism (it was not a uniform religion at that time) in a land in which animal sacrifice was a primary element of worship at a central temple, a land occupied by Rome in what was still, after all, the ancient world.

This is the external view, always subject to change in the light of continuing discoveries, analysis, and so on, this analysis reflecting the times and beliefs of those doing the analyzing.

Before leaving this outer view completely, I might add that in that time and place any number of wandering healers existed, while Judea was also part of the larger Hellenic world with all of its traditions, religions, mystery schools, and what not. Again, elements from those traditions were borrowed and grafted onto the newly emerging Jewish sect.

The inner view is much more difficult to even discuss, owing to the charged nature of the myth, our modern minds thoroughly infused with its elements.

My approach has been to attune directly to the larger entity or soul of the man upon whose shoulders the myth has been largely draped. Such beings are time transcendent.

This is much more difficult than most might think, owing to the above infusion — how can one even imagine doing this without invoking ideas of the Christ; i.e., elements of a huge and preposterous myth? (“Christ” is a title applied after the fact, part of the myth and not a name.)

This entity or soul is that of a man, a very Jewish man. How many of the words attributed to him in the gospels are likely to have ever issued from his mouth? (It’s true that there are quite a few sayings that are found in many gospels, not just the official gospels; it is likely that someone uttered these — within a context we find difficult to imagine, today — and that someone may indeed have been the brother of James. Of course these weren’t actually written down until decades after someone — or several people — said them)

Restating: Attuning directly to this particular entity is made difficult owing to our present mental associations with the massive myth that has greatly influenced our civilization and has for centuries — these greatly distort whatever genuine inner perceptions may arise.

You can speculate on the nature of reality based on largely imaginary teachings containing elements borrowed from various sources — you might gain something from doing this; some of these teachings might actually convey gems of wisdom, after all, but why do this when much more direct methods are available?

An aside: I’m reasonably convinced that Jehoshua, brother of James, existed, and that he was a wandering healer with a following, underwent an experience of transcendence, and that some of the sayings found in multiple gospels may be attributed to him, no matter how distorted and out of context those sayings are in our minds.

An experience of transcendence is notoriously difficult to transmit or convey, however, while under certain circumstances a huge unwieldy religion may result, gathering endless encrustation with the passage of time.

We can attempt to create our own experience of transcendence, as free as possible from such encrustation.

As part of such an endeavor, we might attempt to attune to the particular entity, larger self, or soul in question.

I would say no more, not wishing to color anyone’s unique experience.

Notes:

1 See this article .