With God/Jesus dead, where lies theology?

It is exceedingly clear, to those with normal reasoning powers, that God – the reality of an incarnate God anyway – and Jesus as God have been rationally demolished.

Certainly, the idea of a Supreme Force or Creative Entity remains intact for philosophers, theologians, and even physicists.

But for everyone else, the existence of God and Jesus as His beneficent offspring is, or should be, a matter of idle conjecture and/or insane belief.

The God of the Hebrew Bible was a maniac. Jesus of the New Testament was a deluded prophet, or a transitional divine entity whose living presence has become an exoteric concept for the intellectually deficient.



Jesus/Christ, as a concept, is useful and interesting, insofar as He provided, like K’ung fu tzu (Confucius) and other avatarae who’ve dispensed enlightened wisdom for humanity.

But as a Divinity, with eternal existence and salvational dispensation, He has lost His cachet for rational human beings.

God, as represented by Yahweh, in the Old Testament, is not like Allah in the Koran.



Allah is nearer to what philosophers deal with, as the mysterious First Cause.

Yahweh is a metaphorical nightmare.

Jesus doesn’t identify with Yahweh, or the God above God. Jesus merely behaves like the character in Michael Moorcock’s “Behold the Man.”



If one takes away the assumed divinity of Yahweh and Jesus, and recognizes the gods of Hinduism or Greek Mythology, along with the Mormon divinity or other imagined presences thought to be divine as erroneous, what is left?

A residue of mythology – which is accurate or true, in essence, as Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell made abundantly clear.



So what happened in the aetiology of human religious beliefs?

That is, what caused mankind to cogitate upon the Divine Entities that allegedly interacted with humans and show up in the precipitative stages of human history?

Erich von Daniken’s “ancient astronaut” theory is an acceptable alternative to the divinity origins of early human design, and makes the most sense, if one examines the hypothesis,
objectively.



Are there other alternative theories or theologies addressing the incarnate God idea?

Mac Tonnies, recently deceased Science Fiction writer, conjectured in his posthumous book, The Cryptoterrestrials, that there is another, concomitant race of beings inhabiting the Earth along side humans.



(Mr. Tonnies didn’t proffer a conjecture that his race of cryptoterrestrials account for the religious-oriented divinities, but the hint is there.)

E. J. Hammond’s “Parallel Beings and the Gods of Yore” proposes that entities from other dimensions (qua universes) account for the Divine reminiscences of early chroniclers of tracts that have become the bases for various religions.

Gnostic writings of the early Christian era present a theology explaining the nature of Yahweh, Jesus, and other gods that make up the pleroma.



The Gnostic view, however, is just a muddy as the Jewish/Christian theologies, and just as unsubstantiated.

Unfortunately, all religious or paranormal presentations of a Divine presence, in the early accounts of humanity or even today, fall short of credible acceptance by persons with acute thinking faculties.

Thus atheism and agnosticism have attained a healthy cachet among scientific writers and thinkers who skirt the issues of religion and philosophical theology.



But something happened to create the God myths of early man.

If it wasn’t a truly Divine Being, what was it?

UFOs and the Extraterrestrial Message

A new book, UFOs and the Extraterrestrial Message by Richard Lawrence, will be published by CICO Books in September 2010. It is a unique investigation of cosmic communication that presents evidence for extraterrestrial contact in a whole new light, examining how these benign beings might offer humanity a rare opportunity for spiritual evolution.

Click here for Press Release

Amazon buy-site

Mperience -- a special web-site

Here's an esthetic, intellectual, cultured web-site we highly recommend:



Click here to check out Mperience (and sign up).

Jesus (on the Mount?)

Bart Ehrman in his book “Jesus, Interrupted” [HarperCollins, NY, 2009, Page 117] recounts this section supposedly from a heretical Christian sect, the Phibionites, in a work, The Greater Questions of Mary, as presented by Epiphanius in The Panarion (book 26):

Jesus takes Mary [Magdalene] up to a high mountain and in her presence pulls a woman out of his side…and begins having sexual intercourse with her. When he comes to climax, however, he pulls out of her, collects his semen in his hand, and eats it, telling Mary, “Thus must we do, to live.” Mary, understandably enough, faints on the spot.

While Ehrman was making a point about how some early writers created works to disparage their perceived enemies, the bizarre anecdote he cites confirms, in a strange way, the Morton Smith tenet that Jesus had a secret rite he used to seduce young men.



Further, alchemists thought semen was the “elixir of life” and used it in their experiments.



The idea that semen absorbed by others or from one’s own ejaculation could sustain life or enhance it is analogous with Gandhi’s practice of drinking his own urine, to recapture the minerals therein.



The hidden or subliminal elements in Gnosticism of such Jesus-like perversions is obvious to those familiar with Gnostic literature.



The eating of Christ’s body and drinking of his blood (the combined gesture) is a sanitized, metaphorical version of the semen dictum.

That Jesus and members of the early Church(es) engaged in such pagan rites accentuates a belief by an erudite friend of ours, Shane Johns, that the early Church and Jesus, himself, was a creation of Greek and Roman literateurs, for what reason, we’re not sure.

Nevertheless, it becomes clearer and clearer that Jesus apparently indulged in activity that present-day Christians would find appalling if they were aware of the alleged activity.



And, more importantly, the Roman Catholic Church has hidden the evidence for (or branded it heretical) such inflammatory behavior by Jesus.

Bart D. Ehrman's web-site

Jesus' Secret Homosexuality

Scholar Morton Smith, in his book "The Secret Gospel: The Discovery and Interpretation of the Secret Gospel According to Mark" [Dawn Horse Press, Clearlake, California, 1982], posits that the Gospel of Mark now extant in The New Testament is an expurgated version of an earlier, more authentic Markian Gospel.

And the earlier Gospel, referred to in a letter by Church Father Clement of Alexandria [circa 200 A.D.] to Theodore and found as an underwriting among the Mar Saba manuscripts (notably as part of rewritten pages from a fifteenth-century manuscript of "St. Macarius of Egypt" -- a name used to disguise a colleciton of tracts by ancient Syrian heretics), indicates that the Baptismal rite instigated by Jesus was an homosexual ritual for initiates to His Judaic/Christian brotherhood He fostered.

The following is the portion of the Clement letter, quoting from the Secret Gospel of Mark, which outlines the ritual, but neglects to detail it:

"And they came into Bethany, and a certain woman, whose brother had died, was there...she prostated herself before Jesus and says to him, 'Son of David, have mercy on me.' But the disciples rebuked her. And Jesus being angered, went off with her into the garden where the tomb was, and straightway a great cry was heard from th tomb.

"And going near Jesus rolled away the stone from the door of the tomb. And straightway, going in where they outh was, he stretched forth his hand and raised him, seizing his hand. But the youth, looking upon him, loved him and began to beseech him that he might be with him.

"And going out of the tomb they came into the house of the youth, for he was rich. And after six days Jesus told him what to do and in the evening they outh comes to him, wearing a linen cloth over [his] naked [body]. And he remained with him that night, for Jesus taught him the mystery of the Kingdom of God.

"And thence, arising, he returned to the other side of the Jordan...And he comes into Jerico...And the sister of the youth whom Jesus loved and his mother and Salome were there, and Jesus did not receive them."

Professor Smith equates the rich youth with Lazarus and compares the passage about Lazarus in the Gospel of John [11:17] with the passage above from the Secret Gospel.

Further considerations to the veracity of the Clement letter and the Secret Gospel appear in the canonical Mark Gospel of The New Testament when Jesus is arrested at the Garden of Gethsemane:

"And they all forsook Him and fled. But a certain youthfollwoed Him, wearing a linen cloth on his bare body, and when they seized him, he left the linen cloth behind and fled from them, naked." [Mk. 14:50 ff.]

Professor Smith also elaborates upon the "secret teachings" of Jesus, recounting the references to such in the canonical Gospels.

And the idea that Jesus performed baptism only with and on his disciples, as said by John, purports to show that Jesus, indeed, had a secret teaching or ritual, to which outsiders were not privy.

As to whether or not the secret baptism or The Kingdom of God was a euphemism for homosexual ritual is moot, but some in the Church of Rome, the Holy Roman Catholic Church, believe that Jesus was homosexual and, thus, allows for same-sex activity even nowadays.

The "theology" is considered gnostic and sacred, even though some in the early Church condemned it to be heretical, especially as practiced by the Carpocratians.

But John Boswell [d. 1994] in his "Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality: Gay People in Western Europe from the Beginning of the Christian Era to the Fourteenth Century" [The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Illinois, 1980] presents a scholarly thesis about the history of the Catholic Church's attitude towards homosexuality, much of it outside the view of the laity, and not denounced as one might expect.

(Further readings about Biblical homosexuality may be found in a number of books, and a pamphlet, The Biblical Paradigm for Homosexuality, can be had for free by sending a postal mailing address via e-mail to rrrgroup@juno.com)

Nick Redfern reviews "Secrets of Death Valley"

Nick Redfern reviews "Secrets of Death Valley" published by Tim Beckley's Global Communications, which covers Contactees, secrets of the Mojave Desert, creepy caverns, and more.

The Review

Nick Redfern reviews "Paranormal London"

Our favorite Fortean reviews Neil Arnold's book, "Paranormal London"

The Review

Monsters of Texas!

A new book by Nick Redfern and Ken Gerhard provides reports of weird things and creatures in Texas.

(We're not surprised. Texas is a weird place, even without the strange thingies that Gerhard and Redfern bring to readers.)

The Book site

Vitriol is okay....

Bloggers and their readers. including us, often gripe about the incendiary and sometimes overly partisan commentary that infuses political, religious, and even UFO discussions.

But Ron Chernow, in The Wall Street Journal, reports on the venomous and divisive discourse engaged in by America’s Founding Fathers.

Here’s Mr. Chernow’s piece.

So, vitriol has a lofty genealogy it seems…

Our favorite Fortean author, Nick Redfern, does radio!

I'm very pleased to announce that from next Thursday night (June 10) at 9PM EST I will be co-hosting a regular, weekly, 1-hour-long radio show with good friend Raven Meindel called Exploring All Realms. For all the information on times, schedules, guests and more, see: http://apexn.com/

If you are an author, researcher, investigator or eyewitness and want to be a guest on the show, do let us know via this email address. Or, if you are a publisher and would like your authors to be on the show, let us know and we'll be pleased to have them on.

And, if you would like to post the banner for the show to your site, let me know and I'll send it along as an attachment.

Feel free to cut-paste the info on, and link to, the show that is contained in this email and re-post.

Exploring All Realms with Redfern and Raven

EXPLORING ALL REALMS with Nick Redfern and Raven Meindel is an exciting, vibrant and mystery-packed talk-show devoted to just about everything paranormal, supernatural, cryptozoological and ufological. Each week, Nick and Raven will be speaking with leading investigators, researchers, eye-witnesses and authors in their respective genres as they seek out the truth about the mysteries of this world and beyond, including Bigfoot, ghosts, psychic phenomena, alien encounters, conspiracies and cover-ups. For all the information on times, schedules, guests and more, see: http://apexn.com/

EPISODE 1: We are very pleased to announce that, for the first episode of Exploring All Realms with Redfern and Raven, the guest will be the acclaimed author Brad Steiger. An expert on numerous aspects of the world of the unknown, Brad has penned approximately 170 books, with no less than 17 million copies in print. His huge list of titles include Shadow World; The Werewolf Book; Real Vampires; Strangers From The Skies; and Worlds Before Our Own. And, on Exploring All Realms, Brad will be speaking with us about his brand new book, Real Zombies: The Living Dead, And Creatures Of The Apocalypse. For more data on Brad, check out his website that he runs with his wife Sherry: Brad & Sherry Steiger's Mysteries and Miracles which can be found at http://www.bradandsherry.com/ Don't miss the chance to hear the words of a true legend in the realms of the paranormal, the supernatural, ufology, and strange creatures!

ABOUT NICK REDFERN:
Nick Redfern is the author of numerous books on the world of the paranormal, including There’s something in the Woods; Science Fiction Secrets; Contactees; Memoirs of a Monster Hunter; and A Covert Agenda. He has appeared on many TV shows, including the SyFy Channel’s Proof Positive; the History Channel’s Monster Quest; the BBC’s Out of this World; and the National Geographic Channel’s Paranatural. He can be contacted at his website: http://www.nickredfern.com

ABOUT RAVEN MEINDEL:
Raven Meindel runs the blogs Raven’s Crypto Haven (http://www.cryptoraven.com/index.html) and Raven’s Mysterious Haven (http://ravensmysterioushaven.blogspot.com/). She has appeared on the History Channel’s Monster Quest, and is the Michigan representative of the British-based Center for Fortean Zoology - a full-time group dedicated to the investigation of unknown animals, such as the Abominable Snowman, the Chupacabras, and the Loch Ness Monster - and has written for the CFZ's in-house magazine, Animals & Men.

Our favorite Fortean author

Nick Redfern is (not) arguably the best writer of Fortean phenomena we have come to know.

He has a score of terrific books about things strange and stranger.

Click here for a compendia of his oeuvre

Roswell Witnesses [REDUX]

A New Yorker piece in the January 25th, 2010 issue by Daniel Mendelsohn about literary memoirs [Page 68 ff.] should be essential reading for those who think that the Roswell witnesses provide proof of an alien space craft crash near their town in 1947.



Discounting Freud’s remarks about the mendacity of memoirs, Mendelsohn provides this about memory (and the recounting of past events):

“…[people] always manage to turn…memories into good stories – even if those stories aren’t quite true. Anyone who writes a memoir doesn’t need psychology experiments to tell him that memories can be partial, or self-serving, or faulty.”

Mendelsohn goes on to relate instances where events he was privy to were added to and re-constructed by others who inserted themselves into the events, believing that they were actually involved. (Not quite Freud’s mendacity but just as errant when it comes to truth.)

Many Roswell “witnesses” have been caught lying outright about their participation in the 1947 incident. Others, now old and subject to natural mental diminution and senility or dementia, have created scenarios in which they are an integral part.



UFO tyro Joseph Capp [UFO Media matters] is a Roswell witness crusader who extols witness accounts as if they were handed down by the hand of God, ignoring the reams of material by psychologists, law enforcement, and neurologists that indicate witness accounts are some of the most flawed elements in event reconstruction.

All people, and especially older people, are also flummoxed by the Smiley Blanton Syndrome, which is where separate events are amalgamated into one event, with elements and remembrances intertwined in such a way as to create a new “reality.”



In Roswell, something happened that was strange, even convoluted, exacerbated by a few persons, Mac Brazel, Walter Haut, and Jesse Marcel Sr., who were almost hysterical during the 1947 period, followed by a gaggle of UFO investigators who were just (and many still are) as hysterical many years afterwards.



We think several things happened near Roswell in July 1947: a missile launch that went astray perhaps, a Mogul experiment that ended up in the mix, a (possible) flying disk accident, and/or a “secret” military event that was brief but significant.



Any two of those possibilities would provide gist for the Smiley Blanton Syndrome, and evoke faulty memories years later by those who were involved or at the edge of any of the events.

In the rush to augment or prove their extraterrestrial inclinations, many UFO researchers, all with limited qualifications to be called “researcher” on the face of it, have tried to use witness testimony to bolster their ET predilections.

But as many true experts on memory and witness testimony, such as Daniel Mendelsohn, “prove” with actual scientific data and experiments that people deliberately or by natural mental deficiencies mis-remember past events, ufologists and wannabes (such as Capp, Rudiak, Randle, et al.) continue to proffer Roswell witness testimony as proof positive that something foreign to this Earth crashed in the New Mexico desert in 1947.



And those ufologists wonder why they are scoffed at or seen as loonies. They are in a state of denial far worse than that of the witnesses they exploit.

It’s beyond sad; it’s insane…..

Contactees – A (short) Review by Adrian Wells

$15.99 at bookstores everywhere. [See press kit in earlier posting here, below]

A book that I couldn’t set aside. Nick Redfern provides relevant information and pertinent minutiae about those now considered to be part of the UFO fringe. I found details that many of us (UFO aficionados) have never read, or heard, before, and all in a serious, sometimes breezy style that makes Mr. Redfern a delicious writer to read.

The flying saucer pantheon of contactees is presented by Mr. Redfern respectfully, even when it is obvious that he doesn’t believe a word of their obtuse tales.

One could have hoped for more photos of the contactee culprits, but since many died long ago, and copyright issues often prevent using photos found in the public arena, Mr. Redfern’s descriptions provide a visual idea of how they appeared, to followers and those suspicious of their elaborate saucer sagas.

Mr. Redfern does offer photographs of locations and artifacts that he’s taken himself, and that fleshes out many of the 22 Chapters (plus) in this entertaining and thoroughly research book.

More importantly, it seems to me, are the common threads that run through the stories related by the Contactee hierarchs: George Adamksi, Truman Bethurum, Orfeo Angelucci, George Van Tassel, Daniel Fry. And one common thread is use of the Planet Venus as the home-base for most of the entities that afflicted these contactees. Another thread is the FBI’s mingling in many of the affairs contrived or related by these men.

The (in)famous Villas Boas case gets several viewpoints – the well-known Fontes account, Mac Tonnies’ observation, and the (possible) CIA contrivance.

Those ufologists who’ve looked into the contactee stories are enumerated and given ample note by Mr. Redfern – Greg Bishop, Colin Bennett, Regan Lee, Adam Gorightly, Jim Moseley, Bob Short, Leon Davidson, and Timothy Green Beckley among them.

Crop circles get a nod, and much peripheral but significant material supplements the contactee gist that Mr. Redfern delineates.

Readers will find much to chew on in this 256 page book, and they will find tasty tidbits along with a UFO entrée that totally satisfies

Mr. Redfern also includes an Index, one thing that many UFO books ignore.

The book is a must for UFO devotees and would make a wonderful Christmas gift for those who like to read about strange behavior by persons with a patina of normalcy even as they create scenarios too bizarre to believe.

Fiction can’t compare to what Mr. Redfern presents in this marvelous book. But are all the Contactee stories really fiction? That’s something you can decide.

Nick Redfern (on his "Contactees" book)

Contactees, Cryptoterrestrials, and Mac [Tonnies]

Nick Redfern's latest book: CONTACTEES

Press Kit

Rest in Peace Officer Lonnie Zamora

Mac Tonnies gone?

Greg Bishop notifies readers of UFO Mystic that the brilliant and young Mac Tonnies has died (of natural causes).

This is a loss to science, science fiction, and ufology that is immeasurable.

We only knew Mac indirectly, but considered him one of the bright stars of ufology and all things avant garde.

This is a great loss.

Rest in peace, buddy…..

Nick Redfern's tribute

In defense of the Socorro hoax hypothesis by Zarkon II

Anthony Bragalia’s recent postings about the Socorro/Zamora sighting of 1964 have raised hackles among the UFO mainstream.

Mr. Bragalia presented a scenario that strikes at the heart of ufology’s belief-system: that UFOs and flying saucers are extraterrestrial craft, piloted by alien life-forms or robotic creations.

When that belief system is questioned, no matter how obliquely, UFO’s “believers” move aggressively to squelch the heterodoxy.

This is what happened when Mr. Bragalia had the temerity to suggest that the 1964 Socorro sighting was a prank promulgated by students at the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology.

Ufologist Ray Stanford became particularly exercised by Mr. Bragalia’s assertion(s). Why?

Mr. Stanford’s “fame” in the UFO community – he has none in the real world – rests on his intrepid “investigation” of the Socorro episode, almost immediately after it occurred.

His book about the sighting has become a UFO Bible of sorts for the Socorro event and its aftermath.

If someone were to rebuke Mr. Stanford’s “research,” he would be left without the legacy he has accumulated for the past forty-five years. So one can understand his pique and desperate attempts to protect his turf.

David Rudiak, another ET die-hard, also came out of the woodwork to take on Mr. Bragalia’s thesis. Mr. Rudiak is nothing if not thorough in his attention to minutiae of various UFO accounts – Roswell and Socorro among them.

Where Mr. Rudiak goes wrong, and he is off base in his ET bias when it comes to Socorro, is that he overlooks the mundane aspects of the Socorro details as related by Lonnie Zamora: the blue-flame of the propulsion that landed and lifted Zamora’s craft; the “beings” seen outside the egg-shaped craft, wearing white overalls; the flight pattern of the craft as it lifted and flew off; the indentations left behind, in the sand; the “roar” that accompanied the thing, et cetera.

The Zamora craft wasn’t exotic enough to be an alien craft.

Ufologist Frank Warren posted a kind of rebuttal to Mr. Bragalia’s exposé. One of the points made by Mr. Warren was that other egg-shaped UFOs were spotted before and after Zamora’s sighting.

What Mr. Warren didn’t note was that egg-shaped craft have been listed among UFO reports often, but none with an insignia, unique to Zamora’s UFO, nor any that had beings outside them, wearing human-like clothing. And none had produced the “roar” that Officer Zamora heard.

Mr. Warren is offended by Mr. Bragalia’s direct assertion that the Socorro event was hoax, ostensibly and admittedly a premature assertion since Mr. Bragalia hasn’t produced (yet) the person behind the prank or the methodology of their prank.

But Mr. Bragalia has only posed the possibility – one that has been raised before – that the Socorro episode was hoax-oriented, and Mr. Bragalia has mustered some interesting circumstantial evidence to support his hypothesis.

However, the Socorro sighting is so entrenched in the ufological psyche as an extraterrestrial landing (for repairs it seems) that any hypothesis outside the ET one will be attacked viciously and illogically, as is the case when any belief system is challenged.

I suggest Eric Hoffer’s insightful book “The True Believer” [Mentor Books, NY, 1951] to make my point.

And to see how hoaxes work, the Curtis D. MacDougall book “Hoaxes” [Dover Publications, NY, 1940/1958] for details about the mind-set of those perpetrating hoaxes and those who fall for them.

Ronald Millar’s “The Piltdown Men” [Ballantine Books, NY, 1972] also tells how grat men can be duped by hoaxes and hoaxers who are less skilled then they should be when it comes to discovering how a hoax operates.

In the world of ufology and UFOs the gullible are legion. And when it comes to the sacred cows of the UFO literature – the Arnold sighting, the Trent photos, Roswell, Socorro, and even Rendlesham, the UFO believers will do anything to make sure that anyone or anything that undercuts the “extraterrestrial” premise of those sightings should be stomped out and eliminated from any dialogue about UFOs.

The Bragalia hoax hypothesis has legs, of a kind, it is shaky perhaps, but not moribund and not unsound, if what he has uncovered has any merit whatsoever.

And when it comes to UFOs, nothing should be so sacrosanct that it can’t be thrown on the table for review and civil discussion. Otherwise, we shall find ourselves with a fascistic approach to truth-seeking; that is, only the orthodox shall prevail and anything that goes against that orthodoxy should be quelled at all costs – even if it means a diminishment of the truth.

New Zecharia Sitchin book

Zecharia Sitchin’s latest book, “The Earth Chronicles Handbook” (Inner Traditions / Bear & Company 2009) is available

As you know, Sitchin has published numerous books that collectively make up the Earth Chronicles series - a historical and archaeological adventure into the origins of mankind and planet Earth. This latest release serves as an encyclopedic companion to provide a navigational tool for the entire series. Entries are coded to indicate, at a glance, their cultural origin and contain summations and commentaries that reflect Sitchin’s unique insights into the past.

I thought this new release would be of interest to some of our readers.

If you'd like more information, you can contact: http://www.sitchin.com/

A New Nick Redfern Book

Our Friend Nick Redfern has a new book we highly recommend. Go to Nick's site for more about the September release:

Science Fiction Secrets