Thursday, November 19, 2009

A NEW REVELATION OF THE HISTORICAL JESUS

JUST WHEN FINDING NEW FACTS ABOUT JESUS SEEMED IMPOSSIBLE…

My Testament of the Magi:Mysteries of the Birth and Life of Christ available shortly on Amazon (the end of this month I’m told) is definitely different. It’s different from anything I’ve yet written or that you will have yet read. Not a mere exercise in speculation but in development of already respected research, Testament offers genuine and uniquely new data on Christ and takes the reader closer to Jesus’ psychology and self-understanding than is usual.

I call my data exact as a fingerprint for Jesus, so exact it couldn’t possibly be for anyone else. And simply to draw attention to the surprising nature of the book and the element of fifth gospel attaching to it, on my website and when preparing promotional material I have emphasized my use of a micro-astrology of names, places and concepts and how the names of leading ancestors appear in Jesus’ house of origins while his birth produces a super-conjunction of his names. However….. though such facts are remarkable and statistics-defying, much of the wonder of what I demonstrate (through extensive commentary and 22 diagrams) arguably exists elsewhere. It is something more psychological and theological as one begins to see what Jesus believed and expected and how he would have experienced such as the crucifixion for which the most dramatic and unmistakable patterns emerge….

Data for this event include even Lucifer in opposition to Peter and both asteroids in tension to the cock of the famous denial. But again, this decidedly eerie fact does not belong with the more psychological and theological picture amid which it stands and which would seem as much and more important. I devote a whole chapter to just the data for the crucifixion whose details, diagrammatized, should be more accessible to the average reader than if I had dealt with it only via the details and methods of traditional astrology and the Event Chart.

The first part of the book is (readably, accessibly and differently) astrological in emphasis while the second part, much less astrological, is about three disciples, the Magdalene, John and Judas. They are the figures who seem most to provoke interest and controversy today and whose precise relation to Jesus is under the spotlight and subject to much renewed speculation. Readers of Testament of the Magi may never read the gospels in quite the same light again and they should certainly never again be in doubt about the dating of the beginning and end of Jesus’ life. They may also realize too how the data for Jesus is still working for Christ issues to this day.

TESTAMENT OF THE MAGI, THE PUBLIC, AND PUBLISHING.

Despite being several times regularly published in religion, including with critical success, the book is being offered directly on Amazon. Not uniquely among writers in religion today (but a little more controversially given the exceptional subject matter), I have had to contend with a marked indifference, occasionally hostility, of regular publishing to even looking at the project. One editor at Transworld who exceptionally did see something of it declared it “groundbreaking, fascinating and publishable” but for certain reasons recommended it for another large publisher which promptly lost the ms then found it and refused it without explanation. Overall, publishers and agents are increasingly liable to inform a writer they “don’t take religion or spirituality” (which often means won’t look at anything Christian) or if they do, their list is already filled, or that the theme wouldn’t suit some apparently inviolate “programme” for the year you’re applying. Obviously this can finish a sort of modern “no room at the inn” situation where no effort, dispatch or respect will prevail for the genuinely exceptional or sacred.

Some authors like the now successful Roy Williams suffer through the publishing long haul such as took his God Actually through thirty six houses and many agents before achieving acceptance. In the case of the ideas in Testament, not only have I anyway waited very long, too long to want to wait further – I knew the core the data and the general thesis twenty years ago even if the new information and the micro-astrology of the book is precisely new – but this time round in conscience it has not felt completely right to take begging bowls to the heedless when offering the virtual grail of astrology itself, the final solution to a millennia old mystery. So, some independent action seemed appropriate.

KNOWING THE KAIROS (THE RIGHT/APPOINTED TIME)

Truth is often hidden. Sometimes it even needs to be so as the gospels assure us and it must be conceded there are a few limits to how much should or even can be revealed of the subject matter I’ve been – periodically - engaging with over the years. But it’s in no one’s interest that there should there be a ban or pre-censorship on it and one feels that some people (I include people in the churches and astrology) who might have known better, have contributed to keep things in this area hidden too long from a wider audience on the lamest of pretexts. Not wanting to burn the page I won’t speak of certain astrology writers in America and Britain, but the words of a feature editor for a leading religious newspaper who I suggested might feature what I was doing are rather classic: “We know all there is to know about Jesus, we don’t need to know about the Magi”. One wonders if knowing “everything” means knowing about the kairos – supposedly the gift of true Christian perception!

Whether revelations of Testament will finish known by many or few isn’t my moral and spiritual responsibility though I do believe the time, the kairos, is right to know some of the facts I deal with due to issues that exist and may be expected to emerge around understanding of Jesus.

It’s been very difficult to get to this stage! Living where I presently do in the country and not being an expert in computer and graphics, getting the cover and diagrams done, and going through the whole publishing process without the usual benefits of editing advice and technical assistance, (though I have troubled helpful local friends for some of the latter) has been a terrible marathon. Even if I yet make a few corrections and additions (even now I’ve seen a few more relevant stellar factors along with some dropped commas since I stopped!) it’s still time to go ahead so that the larger picture can be known and even just the fact of having the knowledge is known. Having made the discoveries and regardless of their reception I feel relief finally to have done what’s necessary and released the information even if it’s not with the fanfare of big business promotion but somewhat more of the quiet, scarcely announced arrival of the Magi themselves.

See excerpts on my website of Testament of the Magi: Mysteries of the Birth and Life of Christ, and more extensively shortly at fReado