Circa 600 B.C., there was a power struggle in the solar temples of the Serpents of Wisdom. The antagonism lasted for several centuries. Indeed – it is still ongoing today. This resulted in the prophets/high priests of Israel leaving Jerusalem circa 300 B.C. They went to the wilderness areas of Damascus and Galilee in northern Palestine – not coincidentally where Jesus ministry was. According to the author Victoria LePage, the Levites disavowed the ancient Judaic mysteries based on the Egyptian religion, exiled the Zadokite prophets to these wilderness areas, and forbade them under pain of death to teach under the name of any prophet later than Ezra. At the same time, the four hundred years of the Israelites lives in Egypt was excised from the Old Testament. It was also at this time that the serpent, once the symbol of the Holy Spirits wisdom, became the outright enemy of God and was no longer seen as the sacred symbol of Higher Mind.
The Zadokite prophet’s exiled to the wildernesses of Syria and Damascus were our ancestors, the High Priests. The Ten Commandments went to the majority of Israelites and the esoteric teachings Moses learned in Egypt went to men hand-picked by him. These were the ones who became known as the Essenes. They went to the Damascene wilderness under the Prophet Samuel. The High Priests of the Temple in Jerusalem at the time of Jesus were the usurpers to the high priesthood. We learn more about this period from the book, The Great Angel; a Study of Israel’s Second God by Margaret Barker. Barker discusses the changes made to the Jewish religion circa 597 B.C., which is the period of the Israelite captivity by the Babylonians. She cites the preface to the book of Deuteronomy in the Old Testament as showing what the Levites removed from the Israelite’s religion. She wrote that first, they were to have the law instead of Wisdom. (Deuteronomy 4:6). She asks the question; “Israel had had wise men of her own, so how did their wisdom teachings relate to the reformed religion, and what was the Wisdom which the Law replaced?” Second, they were only to think of the formless voice of God giving the Law (Deuteronomy 19:12). Margaret wrote; “Israel had long had a belief in the vision of God, when the glory had been visible on the throne in human form, surrounded by the heavenly hosts. What happened to the visions of God?” Thirdly, the Israelite’s were to leave the veneration of the host of heaven to people not chosen by Yahweh. (Deuteronomy 4:19-20). Margaret asks; “Israel had long regarded Yahweh as the Lord of the Hosts of Heaven, but the title Yahweh of Hosts was not used by the Deuteronomist’s. What happened to the hosts, the angels?”
She cites the First book of Enoch, a Zadokite text, which remembers the period of the Israelite exile and restoration as a time of disastrous apostasy, “A time when wisdom was despised and impurity installed in the Temple.” Margaret relates that the Deuteronomists are recognized as the source for the monotheistic texts in the Old Testament and were the first to suppress anthropomorphism, by which she means the belief that God becomes physically manifest in humans. Margaret asks; “If the Deuteronomists do not represent the mainstream of Israel’s religion, was the mainstream of that religion not monotheistic and did it have anthropomorphic theophany at its center?”
Margaret points out that Josiah and the Deuteronomists had hidden the ark, the anointing oil, the jar of manna and Aaron’s rod at that time. Margaret says that from this we can conclude that the reforms of Josiah not only removed the objects associated with Baa’l, Asherah and the host of heaven but also objects associated closely with the cult of Yahweh. In Margaret’s words; “The ark had been the place of his presence, he spoke to Moses from above the cherubim (Exodus 25:22). And the sacred oil had consecrated the one who wore his name and was his anointed, i.e. his Messiah.”
She remarks that their reform seems to have been a time when more than pagan accretions were removed from the Israelite religion. Our Mother the Holy Spirit known as Wisdom, was eliminated. The heavenly ascent and the vision of God were forgotten. The host of heaven – the angels, were removed and the ark and the presence of Yahweh which it represented, were removed. The role of the high priest was altered so that he was no longer considered the anointed, or Messiah. Margaret makes the important point that, “All of these features of the older cult were to appear in Christianity.”
In remarking on the importance of the tree symbolism to the prophets, Margaret says that originally the fruit of the tree in Eden gave knowledge and life and, “The serpent spoke well to Eve when he said that the fruit would open their eyes and make them like the Elohim. This was the original role of the heavenly knowledge; it transformed the human into the divine and thus gave life which was not subject to mortality.” The fruit of that tree is gnosis. It is not knowledge about agriculture or mathematics or jewelry making or any of that. It is gnosis. The fallen side of the family, the ones who took over the roles of high priests circa 300 B.C., were the priests of the Jerusalem temple at the time of Jesus. They are the ones who do not want humans to have gnosis. Margaret asks a very good question; “How is it that Jubilees and Job have an account of the creation which includes the angels, which Genesis does not mention, even though it does have an evil serpent figure of whose origin we are told nothing?”
It was the Deuteronomists who evicted Adam and Eve from the garden once they had acquired knowledge, “…so that they would not also acquire life, and thus the heart of the older belief was destroyed. Humankind could not become divine just as the divine could not become human. Separation was the key to true religion, and knowledge, said the new men, did not transform the wise into gods, but rather drove the disobedient from the presence of God.” But Margaret points out that the Wisdom writings remembered older ways; Wisdom did give life – “he who finds me finds life.” (Proverbs 8:35). And this was immortality; “Because of her I shall have immortality or the life to be restored to the faithful at their resurrection.” “And the righteous shall arise from their sleep, and Wisdom shall arise and be given unto them.” (1 Enoch 91:10).
What we see here in the words of this author is the schism between the prophet and priest class of the Israelites – the same schism as between the patriarchal and matriarchal forms of religion. One says there is a vast chasm between humans and God and that intermediaries are needed between them. The other knows that God dwells within humans and there is in reality no separation between humans and God. In the Jeshua channelings, Jeshua says that the angry, vindictive God of the Old Testament is a “construction of human minds.” Those humans were the Deuteronomists, the lawgivers, those purveyors of the patriarchal religion who’s Old Testament of the Bible we still use today.
Barker also helps us understand that, “The roots of Christian Trinitarian theology lie in pre-Christian Palestinian beliefs about the angels. There were many in first century Palestine who still retained a world view derived from the more ancient religion of Israel in which there was a High God and several Sons of God, one of whom was Yahweh, the Holy One of Israel. Yahweh, the Lord, could be manifested on Earth in human form, as an angel or in the Davidic king. It was as a manifestation of Yahweh, the Son of God, that Jesus was acknowledged as Son of God, Messiah and Lord.”
We learn something important from the Bible’s book of Isaiah 63:16: That is, that Yahweh is the father of Israel. This means he is also called Yahweh Sabaoth; “…Some called on Yahweh as their Father and Redeemer even when the rest of Israel did not acknowledge them.” We also learn from this that all Israel did not follow the same God.
Margaret says that all the texts in the Hebrew Bible distinguish clearly between the divine sons of Elohim/Elyon and those human beings who are called sons of Yahweh. She points out that this must be significant. It must mean that the terms originated at a time when Yahweh was distinguished from whatever was meant by El/Elohim/Elyon. She says that there are many texts that continued to distinguish between El Elyon and Yahweh who were father and son. By tracing these patterns through a great variety of material and over several centuries, Margaret believes that Israel’s ‘second God’ can be recovered.
Barker believes the Deuteronomists intentionally blurred the lines between the two Gods, so that El, Yahweh, the Lord, Adonai, etc. were all considered one God. She says they did this by assimilation, that is, by attributing aspects of one deity to another. I have seen other authors say the same thing. In the uncorrupted Qumran, or Essene Dead Sea Scroll version of Deuteronomy 32:8, it is written that Yahweh received Israel for his portion when El Elyon divided the nations among the sons of God. Barker also relates that the patriarchs set up rural altars and had sacred trees and pillars and that the Deuteronomic reformers prohibited them. In the Kabbalah, which is the Hebrew Old Religion, and in Freemasonry, these symbols are of the utmost importance. The tree symbol, as stated in an earlier post, relates to the structure of the sacred anatomy built into the human body.
Barker talks about the book Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic by F.M. Cross which uses Ugaritic materials to set the Old Testament in its ancient context. According to Cross, even in ancient times of the people, Yahweh was judge and war leader. He is the one who revealed himself to the patriarch Moses and led Israel out of Egypt and into Canaan. But Cross notes that there is another strain that entered Israel’s primitive religion, that of the high and eternal one, El the creator of Heaven and Earth, the father of all. Barker asks the question, how did the book of Daniel in the Bible have a tradition of the Baal traditions of Ugarit, and how could it employ pagan ideas? She replies that, “The answer must surely be that these ideas were not pagan, but deeply rooted in the most conservative of Israel’s traditions.”
Hopefully the reader will have some understanding that there may be more than one deity figure in the Old Testament. It is, after all, the story of the Hebrew people and like the other nations, who all had their god who ‘chose them’, Yahweh not only chose Israel, but physically incarnated and so literally fathered them as well. In trying to understand the relation of Yahweh to others mentioned in the Bible, it’s important to note that Yahweh of Hosts is described in the Bible as sitting on his throne surrounded by Seraphim angels. I think we can assume that this would mean that Yahweh, Lord of Hosts is none other than Adonai (Lord) Sabaoth – the one who created the Seraphim, the seventy-two angels/gods of the people of Earth, Israel, Judah-his ‘choice vine’, and Jesus. Yahweh Sabaoth is the administrator of God’s justice. Yahweh is the Father in heaven that Jesus speaks of. In the gnostic texts, he is the Father-Mother in Heaven. He reigns with a wife. Call her Asherah, Ninhursag, Isis, Diana, Sophia, or whatever name you like. I call her Mother. In the Pistis Sophia text, Yahweh Sabaoth rules in the 7th heaven. Jesus sits on his right and the Virgin of the Holy Spirit sits on his left. Yahweh Sabaoth is the son of Yaldabaoth who rebelled against him and was the first to be repentant and forgiven.
This is very confusing to many, because this puts us in a position where we don’t think we belong. In our thinking, we worship the highest God, in fact, the only God. The Old Testament itself in at least two places says that sons of God were put over the different people, but I don’t believe people think about the ramifications of that. They don’t understand that this still applies today. What the Deuteronomist’s did was to obscure the different divinities in the Old Testament and assimilate them all to one mean and angry god who can’t decide if he wants his people to follow the Ten Commandments or break every one of them – on his orders.
According to Barker, Yahweh manifested in the Davidic kings. She makes the remark that, “Yahweh’s incomparability lay in his wisdom.” I cannot stress how important a clue this statement is. The Mystery religions are also called Wisdom religions. It is Enki/Ea who is known as the Lord of Wisdom. The understanding I have is that Yaldabaoth’s mother Pistis Sophia in conjunction with Sabaoth introduced the matriarchal religion in order to remind the angels embedded in materiality of their former high estate and enable them to re-acquire that estate, as angels and co-creators with God. Barker talks about Philo, a well-known Jewish Christian who lived in the middle of the first century C.E. In his written works, Philo describes a second God with two aspects represented by the two cherubim on the top of the Ark of the Covenant. Philo wrote that both cherubim represented the divine mediator or the two aspects of the God of Israel, who was the son of El Elyon. Philo believed they were male and female and that creation was the work of both of them. He said that the mother figure was called Knowledge or Wisdom. Philo has been accused of being a Hellenizer of Judaism, but in fact he believed just what Jesus did.
This last paragraph is important to our understanding of the God of Israel. In the original Gnostic texts, Jesus refers to his Mother-Father in Heaven, something removed by the patriarchal priests. Even the Babylonian Talmud (a text of the dark ones) relates that it was the androgynous Yahweh who created Adam and Eve in his/her image. In the ancient Mesopotamian texts, it’s Enki/Ea and his half-sister Ninhursag who create Adam and Eve. Enki uses an egg from a black headed female, his own sperm and Ninhursag serves as a surrogate. From the Jeshua channelings, which also feature words from Mary Magdalene, Mary says; “As for the void and chaos, these are the primordial ground from which God has created; and the one creating is the demiurge. For in truth, what God creates is emanation, and the emanations of God create. Therefore, Yahweh emanated and Elohim created. There is not beginning to this, nor is there an end. Consider this when you meditate on the End of Days.”
I have used the term demiurge for Yaldabaoth. Demiurge literally means ‘half maker’. This means that the demiurge creates with materials that God has already provided. I have come to believe that everyone who has been given the ability to create by God is a demiurge, as we too create with materials provided by God. What is interesting is that Mary Magdalene says that Yahweh emanated, indicating that Yahweh is the highest God – at least of this creation. Could it be that the highest God stepped in to help sort out this troubled creation? Christians believe that God is a Trinity composed of Father, Holy Spirit and Son. They also believe that God actually manifested into the world in the person of Jesus. This is the anthropomorphism that Barker mentioned.
So could it be that the ‘highest God’ is the God of Israel? Could the God of Israel be the Mother-Son portion of the highest Trinity? I believe the answer just might be yes. Margaret Barker goes on to tell us about the androgynous Yahweh who is both Yahweh and Asherah or as known by the Gnostics as Sophia-Wisdom. She is considered the Holy Spirit and the mother of Pistis Sophia and Christ and the other Aeons. The Logos is considered their father. The Logos and Sophia/Holy Spirit are two-thirds of the Trinity and according to Margaret, together they are Yahweh.
In the following, Margaret is quoting from ancient texts called the Book of Wisdom, the Book of Esdras, and Sirach; ‘She had formed everything, for Wisdom, the fashioner of all things taught me.’ The power to create or to control and order the creation was intimately bound up with knowledge of the creation. It was this issue of creative power which lay at the heart of the crisis in Israel’s Wisdom tradition. Knowledge of the natural order gave power over the creation and thus gave to the wise man a godlike status.” The Wisdom texts and traditions also relate that Wisdom/Sophia empowered and inspired the kings and prophets. Solomon was given the Spirit of Wisdom and said; “Therefore I prayed and understanding was given to me; I called upon God and the spirit of Wisdom came upon me.” (Wisdom 7:7). The Spirit of Wisdom lived in the heavenly counterpart of the king, in the Elect One who was to be ruler and judge. “The Elect One standeth before the Lord of Spirits and in him dwells the Spirit of Wisdom and the Spirit which gives insight and the spirit of understanding and of might and the Spirit of those who have fallen asleep in righteousness.” (1 Enoch 49: 2-3). Margaret remarks that, “The Spirit of Yahweh was the spirit of Wisdom and the spirit of the fear of Yahweh. How the Spirit of Yahweh could be both is not easy to imagine, but this pattern of plurality meets us at every turn.” Margaret says that not only were the king’s embodiments of Yahweh, they were the vehicle of the seven-fold spirit. If I am correct, those seven-fold spirits are the archangels. The archangels are emanations of Yahweh, just one step removed from Yahweh. I believe they may also be the same as the Aeons.
In Wisdom 7:27 is written; “In every generation she passes into holy souls and makes them friends of God and prophets.” This is the gift of the Spirit of Yahweh in the Old Testament texts. As Margaret says, the Spirit gave warnings through the prophets but had been ignored. The seventy elders prophesied after the Spirit came upon them. The Spirit entered into Ezekiel and he saw visions. The Spirit inspired Balaam and Saul. Wisdom is Israel’s guardian angel. She is our mediator between ourselves and the Highest. She was the High Priest in the sanctuary in Jerusalem and she was the consort, or royal spouse of the King. She was driven out of the Temple and lives of the Israelites by the Deuteronomist’s. In return, the Israelite’s were given minute details regulating every aspect of their lives and the priests were given authority and power over their ‘subjects’. Because the priests had no spiritual authority or power, they used temporal authority and power instead. Jesus came to relieve Israel of the venal oppression they were under. That is why he says in the Bible that he came for Israel and that his disciples should witness to the lost sheep of Israel.
In the ancient Mesopotamian texts, it is Ea/Enki who saves Noah from the Flood. In the Wisdom traditions it is our Mother who does that. She is the one who guided Jacob and protected Joseph from being killed by his brothers. It is she who delivered Israel out of Egypt and who drowned their oppressors. As Margaret states; “The expulsion of Wisdom and her corruption was seen by the apocalyptists as the key to understanding the evils of their age.” To get some understanding of the false High Priests corruption during the time of Jesus family, look up the story of Jonathan Annas or Ananus. I guarantee – it will horrify you.
Margaret tells us that Wisdom, or the female aspect of Yahweh, was not forgotten. She was known to the first Christians. Paul described Jesus as, “The Power of God and the Wisdom of God,” a two-fold incarnation. In 1 Corinthians 1:24 and Romans 10:6-10, Paul uses words which in Deuteronomy 30:12-14 are said of the Law and in the Wisdom text Baruch 3:29-30 of Wisdom and applies them to Jesus. Margaret says that in each case, “There was something or someone who was not inaccessible in heaven or far away but on Earth and near at hand.” She wrote; “The evangelists imply Jesus spoke as Wisdom; the words which Matthew 23, 24 attributes to Jesus, Luke 11:49 attributes to Wisdom.” Margaret relates that, “It is only by recognizing this double aspect of the ancient Yahweh that we can begin to understand the writings of the first Christian centuries with their trinity of El Elyon, Yahweh and Wisdom. (Father, Son and Mother)
The Deuteronomists tell us that it’s because Adam and Eve wanted ‘knowledge’ that the Earth has been corrupted. Yet the ancient texts of our ancestors show that it is the fallen angel’s corruption of the heavenly Gnosis that was the cause of the corruption and bloodshed on the Earth. Jesus says in the Jeshua channelings that the corruption on Earth started as corruption in Heaven. He says that humanity is innocent and God and the Host of Heaven are on the side of humans in the battle. Margaret makes the statement that a scholar named Suter did a study of the fallen ones that showed that the fallen angels were the priests of the second temple, the one existing at the time of Jesus.
In summation of the reforms of the Jewish religion Barker wrote; “The reform of Israel’s religion was like a great shipwreck; fragments of the older ways surfaced in later literature for centuries, and it is only the earlier beliefs about the manifold presence of Yahweh the second God which can explain the diversity but consistency in later texts.”
We find something very interesting in Margaret’s book; “There was one angel who was chief captain of the heavenly host and first minister before God, but he was also Jacob: If one accepts from the Apocrypha presently in use among the Hebrews the one entitled ‘The Prayer of Joseph’ he will derive from it exactly this teaching…that those who have something distinctive from the beginning when compared to men, being much better than other beings, have descended from the angelic to human nature. Jacob, at any rate, says I, Jacob who am speaking to you, am also Israel, an angel of God and a ruling spirit. Abraham and Isaac were created before any work. But I, Jacob, whom men call Jacob but whose name is Israel, am he whom God called Israel, a man seeing God, because I am the first born of every living thing to whom God gives life. Am I not Israel, the archangel of the power of the Lord and the chief captain among the sons of God? Am I not Israel the first minister before the face of God?”
If Jacob-Israel is saying that he is the chief captain among the sons of God, this is additional confirmation that he is also Adonai (Lord) Sabaoth, Captain of the Heavenly Host. I learned very early in my research to look for multiple identities for the same person/soul. According to the Phoenician historian Sanchoniathon, Jacob-Israel is Kronos, whom I believe is Enki, Lord Sabaoth. According to the Phoenicians and Greeks, this is the same being as El Elyon/El. This would be correct because Wisdom and Yahweh, the Mother and Son are two thirds of the Highest God – of this creation. Some of the various identities I know for Enki or Yahweh are: Ea, Oannes, Dagon, Poseidon, Neptune, Ahura Mazda, Yam, Kerabu, Skanda, Jnana Pandita, Manda dHiya, Melchizedek, Enoch, Joseph, Seth, and Jacob-Israel. To give this some perspective, Yahweh can manifest in an innumerable number of ‘beings’ in innumerable ‘places’ at the same time and has been around a very long time!
Margaret also notes how, “The Great Angel lives in the 7th Heaven.” Margaret calls the ‘second God’, i.e. two thirds of the Trinity, the Great Angel. This is a very important clue to the identity of the Great Angel. According to the Nag Hammadi text The Pistis Sophia, it is Lord Sabaoth who was enthroned in the 7th Heaven to rule over the Host of Heaven. From the ancient gnostic text On the Origin of the World we again read of Pistis confrontation of Yaldabaoth;
“Then when Pistis saw the impiety of the chief ruler, she was filled with anger. She was invisible. She said, “You are mistaken, Samael,” (that is, ‘blind god’). “There is an immortal man of Light who has been in existence before you, and who will appear among your modeled forms; he will trample you to scorn, just as potter’s clay is pounded. And you will descend to your mother, the abyss, along with those that belong to you. For at the consummation of your (pl.) works, the entire defect that has become visible out of the truth will be abolished, and it will cease to be, and will be like what has never been.” Saying this, Pistis revealed her likeness of her greatness in the waters. And so doing, she withdrew up to her light.
Now when Sabaoth, the son of Yaldabaoth, heard the voice of Pistis, he sang praises to her, and he condemned the father […] at the word of Pistis; and he praised her because she had instructed them about the immortal man and his light. Then Pistis Sophia stretched out her finger and poured upon him some light from her light, to be a condemnation of his father. Then when Sabaoth was illumined, he received great authority against all the forces of chaos. Since that day he has been called ‘Lord of the Forces’.
He hated his father, the darkness, and his mother, the abyss, and loathed his sister, the thought of the prime parent, which moved to and fro upon the waters. And because of his light, all the authorities of chaos were jealous of him. And when they had become disturbed, they made a great war in the seven heavens. Then when Pistis Sophia had seen the war, she dispatched seven archangels to Sabaoth from her light. They snatched him up to the seventh heaven. They stood before him as attendants. Furthermore, she sent him three more archangels, and established the kingdom for him over everyone, so that he might dwell above the twelve gods of chaos.
…… Now Pistis Sophia set him (Sabaoth) apart from the darkness and summoned him to her right, and the prime parent (Yaldabaoth) she put at her left. Since that day, right has been called justice, and left called wickedness. Now because of this, they all received a realm in the congregation of justice and wickedness. …Thus, when the prime parent of chaos saw his son Sabaoth and the glory that he was in, and perceived that he was greatest of all the authorities of chaos, he envied him. And having become wrathful, he engendered Death out of his death: and he was established over the sixth heaven.”
In these last paragraphs the father and prime parent is Yaldabaoth, the darkness. We also see in here the cause of the War in Heaven. We plainly see that Sabaoth, who is on the right, is considered ‘justice’ and on the left, Yaldabaoth, i.e. the prime parent, is considered ‘wickedness’. The reason I stress this is two-fold. First of all, there are some who believe Sabaoth/Enki/Satan is the wicked one. Second, some people think that the God of Justice and vengeance in the Old Testament is a repentant Yaldabaoth. Sabaoth, the Lord of Hosts, is the one who attains justice on behalf of God. We see too in the previous paragraph what we all plainly know, that the world we live in is a “congregation of justice and wickedness”, and we see where both of those opposing factions come from; Sabaoth – justice and Yaldabaoth – wickedness.
Margaret tells us that, “The belief that a human being could be transformed into an angel when he experienced the presence of God is one of the characteristics of texts which retained the patterns of the royal cult.” What is portrayed in the texts is that what had formerly been the ascent of the king became the ascent of the mystic. The ascent transformed him – that is enlightened him. Margaret says that when the reformers denied that Yahweh was present in the Temple, that he had a voice but no form, they removed from their tradition, “What was to become the taproot of Christian theology, namely belief in incarnation.”
What is even more incredible to me is that not only had the ‘Name’ become a substitute for Yahweh’s presence, the ‘Name’ was forbidden to be spoken! In this, the Deuteronomists made themselves intermediaries between their ‘subjects’ and God. Margaret cites a scholar named Mettinger who wrote; “In the Name theology, not only the Sabaoth designation but also the cherubim throne have disappeared. God himself is no longer present in the temple, but only in heaven. However, he is represented in the temple by his Name. When Yahweh was no longer Yahweh Sabaoth, the host of heaven also disappeared and thus we see how the three vital strands of the older cult, the angels, the presence and the human form, were suppressed.”
If Enki is Kronos and Yahweh Sabaoth you might ask, “How can two-thirds of the Trinity need to be repentant and forgiven?” The explanation to this conundrum is this; Yahweh, i.e. Sophia and Logos, incarnated into Sabaoth/Enki/Jacob-Israel etc., and came into this world to rescue a creation gone wrong. When he/she did this they came into the world ‘blind’ just as we do. They are subject to the same unchangeable laws of Creation as everyone else. They committed themselves to endless incarnations in human bodies so that they could figure out how to heal angel-humans, how to extricate them from matter. To do that, they needed to know exactly what angel-humans go through. Edgar Cayce said that in Adam the Christ fell, and in Jesus he redeemed himself. Jesus in redeeming himself became the pattern for the rest of us angel souls trapped in earthly incarnation.
The author Victoria LePage said that she believed Jesus ‘Way’ of transformation was psyche oriented. I pondered what she meant by that. What I have come to believe is that Jesus understood that we are pioneering angel souls who are still suffering from the effects of our first separation from God. Actually, we are not, and never have been, separate from God, but to our minds, we are. The Jeshua channelings are all about bringing psychological healing to angel-humans. Evidently that is what Sophia/Logos learned through his/her incarnations into the human psyche and body. We need to know who we are, we need to know that we have been given internal technologies to allow us to re-connect with God, and we need to heal ourselves and move forward in evolution.
Jesus says our particular soul group of Light workers, are very involved with Terra, the New Earth. It will be a new experience made possible by our journey of the last four and a half billion years. I keep a picture of the famous painting by W. Strutt called And A Little Child Shall Lead Them which shows the child, the lion, the lamb, the wolf and other animals who will all live in peace with each other in the New Earth. It’s my inspiration and I look forward to that time.
Margaret goes on to talk about the writings of Philo, a first century Hellenized, Jewish Christian who lived in Alexandria Egypt. I can tell you from my research that this is a person one would listen to, to find the truth about what Jesus taught. According to Margaret, Philo believed that there were two chief powers called God (Elohim) and Lord (Yahweh), but these were two aspects of the One. God was the beneficent power who made the world, and Yahweh, or the Lord, was the power that rules and punishes Gods creations.
In one of the Nag Hammadi texts, one of the disciples asks Jesus how he can say that God is one since the book of Genesis uses the term Elohim, which is plural. In essence, what Philo just said is what Jesus tells his disciple. I do believe however, that the assembly of gods mentioned in the Bible, are referred to as Elohim – what I call ‘lower case g’ gods.
Barker says that according to Philo, the menorah is the symbol of the presence of Yahweh. Philo taught that Wisdom, the Holy Spirit, was the first to be brought forth and the Logos was the firstborn. In our family’s myths this has led to some uncomfortable stories because Sophia, or Isis or Asherah or whoever else represents our Mother, is represented as the mother, sister and spouse of the Logos, who is the son, brother and spouse of his mother. It appears to me that our ancestors took this a little too literally throughout time, as evidenced in their relational patterns! It is Yahweh, who is the Father-Mother or Wisdom and Logos, who were and are the agents of creation. They are the Yahweh who emanate and everything below them are demi-urges, half creators, as told by Mary Magdalene.
Philo taught that Wisdom pervaded and penetrated all things and the Logos was the bond of the universe. He also taught that Wisdom and Logos were given Israel for their inheritance, so that again is confirmation that they are Yahweh Sabaoth. In the Jeshua channelings, Jesus says that he and Israel are one. The Christ is literally our Oversoul. We are extensions into material reality by Christ. Jeshua tells us that there isn’t one authority over us. We are God and angel and the beings closest to the throne of God.
In the Jeshua channelings, Jeshua points out that humans are not at fault for all the problems in the world. He says that it’s the errant angels who have brought evil and strife into the world. Believe me, humans are just pawns in the drama that has been playing out for thousands of years. In the Jeshua channelings, Jesus mother Mary says that God forgives people’s sins before they commit them.
All the Gnostics believed that the serpent in the Garden of Eden was a good thing, not evil, that the knowledge Adam and Eve gained was beneficial. Margaret Barker wrote that, “The myth of Eden had originally described the holy mountain and the judgment of the proud heavenly beings, but the historicization of Israel’s religion, along with its new emphasis on personal responsibility for sin and the centrality of the Mosaic Law led to this myth being incorporated into the history of Israel. It described the disobedience of human beings, rather than the cosmic disaster of disobedience in heaven.”
Yeshua says that he came to be an example of the greatness of humanity. He tells us we can do everything he did and more. Sadly, I believe the majority of Christians don’t believe that. They believe, as my own sister said, that Jesus was able to attain those powers because he was sinless and because humans are unable to attain sinlessness, they are unable to attain those powers. So what my sister and other Christians who think like her are saying is that Jesus is a liar, because in the Bible, Jesus does say that we will be able to do everything he did and more. He tells us in the Bible that we are gods! If you don’t believe that humans are capable of being like Jesus in every way, including his ‘miracle’ working powers – then you won’t strive to be like him. Jesus own doctrine has been corrupted by the belief that humans are intrinsically sinful and that Jesus came to save us from our sins. The Old Testament has been corrupted to emphasize the sins of humans when, as Jeshua states in the channeled messages, the real problem was the evil brought into the world by the fallen angels. It was the law makers, the Deuteronomists who claimed that people were at fault for the problems of the world. It’s the forces of darkness in the false high priesthood of Judaism that have called the gift of knowledge, i.e. Gnosis, a sin. They know that it makes people like God, which is what God wants, but the forces of darkness don’t.
Margaret believes the Garden of Eden myth was rewritten to teach that human disobedience and the craving for knowledge were the source of evil rather than pride in heavenly places as found in the Eden of Ezekiel, the priest of the first temple. She says that not everyone accepted the reformed teachings of the Israelite’s who returned to Palestine after their release by Nebuchadnezzar. Margaret asks the question, “How might these other people have perpetuated and adapted their ancient beliefs?
She answers that many of them would have left their homeland and became scattered into the Diaspora. She believes you would probably find expressions of anger felt by worshipers of Yahweh who had been excluded by what she calls the purists of the restored community. The restored community refers to the Israelite’s who returned to Palestine after being freed by the Babylonians. Those ‘purists’ declared that Yahweh and El were one, that in effect there was not a Trinity. This conveniently did away with our Mother the Holy Spirit and her representative embodiment of Asherah – the spouse of Yahweh. Margaret says that we should expect to find a hostility to the Jews, “Since this was the name by which the returned exiles were known.” She says that we should expect to find a belief in the plural nature of Yahweh, a cult of angels and an origin of evil such as that found in the stories of the fallen angels. She says that all these elements can be found in the Gnostic texts that followed this period. I will confirm that all these elements are found in the beliefs of the Gnostic Essenes and the Gnostic Jewish-Christian sects that followed them. She also wrote that, “Modern scholars are now returning to the idea that the Gnostics were, in fact, rooted in Judaism.”
Margaret discloses that at that time, Wisdom left the Earth and went back to the heavens. She wrote; “Wisdom would be given back to the Elect at the end of time when they awoke from their sleep.” (Enoch 91:10). That’s what I am trying to do here. This is the end of time and I am trying to help wake up the Elect and remind them of our Mother! Margaret makes the important statement; “Here, surely, is a root of the gnostic myth; the gift of Wisdom and resurrection are closely linked. – The possession of knowledge was the key to eternal life.”
Margaret continues to explore what she terms the ‘near’ God and the ‘far’ God and relates that both of them are termed ‘Father’ which has led to further confusion. One has sons that are angels the other has sons that are humans. Also, I know that it’s confusing that the nations ‘gods’ were meant to be, to them, their ‘Gods’. They were given national gods in order to have a God that their more primitive minds could relate to. An abstract, unseen God wasn’t relateable to a more primitive people.
Margaret goes on to cite early Christian writings that corroborate the doctrine of the two Gods in early Christianity. She says that the first Christians identified Jesus as the God of the Jews and that the Son of God was their name for Yahweh. As part of the key to deciphering the terminology of the Bible, she says that when ‘the Lord’ is referred to, it’s Yahweh being spoken of. She says that Paul sees this distinction and relates this in 1 Corinthians 8:6: “There is one God, the Father…and one Lord, Jesus Christ.”
Margaret relates that the confusion between the two Gods led to centuries of conflict in the early years of Christianity over the belief that Jesus had been equal with God. When Jesus was baptized, the Spirit of Sophia descended upon him. Thus at that time, Jesus was the Son of God, and a part of the Trinity of Father-Mother-Child. Previous to that, Jesus was just a Jewish man. Southern Baptist’s say that Jesus was ‘fully human and fully God’ – and they are right.
Margaret tells us that the substitution of Yahweh for El would be natural once Yahweh became the principal cult name. She writes that we have inherited a double distortion. The reformers edited much of what we read in the Hebrew Bible and then modern interpreters have told us what the whole of the Hebrew Bible was saying. I might add that none of those interpreters knew the codes used in creating the Bible and so had no understanding of it themselves. Margaret asks the question, “How was it that Christian theology grew so quickly into a complex system if the greater part of that system had not existed within the Judaism from which it grew?”
As examples, Margaret wrote that when we read Isaiah, we are reading texts which envisaged more than one deity; there was the High God El Elyon, there were the angels or gods of the nations and there was Yahweh, “the avenging angel, protector and judge of his people.” Margaret makes the statement that, “The evidence of the Old Testament must be allowed to speak for itself and we must be prepared to read it as its first users did.” She claims that the original readers of the Old Testament knew differently. They knew that Yahweh was one of the sons of Elyon. They knew that Yahweh and the Angel of Yahweh were identical. They knew that it was Yahweh who was present at the Exodus. And they knew that Yahweh and Elohim were not identical but represented different aspects of the second deity. They also knew that Yahweh was manifested in human form as high priest, king and judge. Margaret says that in the centuries between the exile circa 597 B.C., and the Christian era, both fusion and confusion occurred. Yahweh was identified with Elyon and his angel was considered a separate entity with no name. Anthropomorphism and the vision of God were suppressed.
Margaret says that the Gnostic texts show that their system originated in the temple cult. She wrote that, “Fragments of many philosophies can be seen; we even recognize some of the ancient gods of Egypt. But underlying all is the world of the ancient temple.” She says that the Gnostics testify to the belief in the second God who was the Creator, the Logos, the Man. She relates that the crucial information the Gnostic texts supply, is that they identify the second God with the God of the Jews, and that several writers of the first three Christian centuries believed that El Elyon was God the Father and Yahweh, God of Israel, was the Son and identified with Jesus.
She says that, “The evidence that the first Christians identified Jesus with the God of the Jews is overwhelming.” She says it was their customary way of reading the Old Testament. The appearances of Yahweh were seen as manifestations of Christ. She believes this is seen in Paul’s works too as he applied several ‘Lord’ texts to Jesus. She gives as an example the verse 1 Corinthians 8:6 “There is one God, the Father…and one Lord, Jesus Christ.” She remarks “This is, to say the least, a remarkable contradiction of Deuteronomy 6:4, if he understood that verse in the way that we do, as a statement of monotheism. If, on the other hand, it was a statement of the unity of Yahweh as the one inclusive summing up of all the heavenly powers, the ‘Elohim’, then it would have been compatible with belief in God Most High also.” I will state again that in reality it is ALL GOD! All those gods and Gods are just Source! There is only One and it is the Great I AM.
In his book The End of Days Zechariah Sitchen wrote; “To the Hebrew Prophets, Yahweh was not only El Elyon – ‘God Supreme’ – and not only God of the gods, El Elohim, but a Universal God – of all nations, of the whole Earth, of the universe. Though His abode was in the Heaven of heavens, He cared for his creation – Earth and its people. Everything that happened was by His will, and His will was carried out by emissaries – be it Angels, be it a king, be it a nation.”
Victoria LePage wrote that El is an “…androgynous impersonal cosmic Power, the Mother-Father God of the whole of creation who would one day be rediscovered by Qabalist’s and Christian Gnostics. Far from being extinguished by the cult of Yahweh, the worship of El Elyon remained a very powerful influence in the princely courts of Samaria and Judah and in the legend of the United Monarchy preserved in the Hebrew scriptures (1 Sam 2-3). In that legend, Solomon decrees that the king of Judah is to be served by a Zadokite royal priesthood that ranks above the Levitical priesthood.”
I have spoken of titles for our soul group that stem from their Serpent or Masters of Wisdom designation. Some that would apply more specifically to our Israelite identity, according to the Biblical scholar Robert Eisenmann are; The Sons of Light – the Sons of Truth – the Sons of Zadok or Zaddikim (Zadokites) – the Men of Melchizedek – the Ebionim (the Poor) – the Hassidim (the Essenes) and the Nozrim (the Nazoreans). According to Eisenmann, these are all one and the same – not different groups, but different metaphors or titles for essentially the same group. Eisenmann wrote; “The primary objective of this movement seems to have been oriented towards the dynastic legitimacy of the high priesthood. In the Old Testament, the High Priest of both David and Solomon is called Zadok, either as a personal name or as an official title. He is traditionally associated, very closely with the Messiah, the anointed one, the rightful king. More specifically he is associated with the Davidic Messiah.”
Victoria LePage recognizes that the religion of Jesus’ family was a branch of a, “Far greater spiritual movement that had mysteriously originated in Egypt and spread throughout the Diaspora.” She calls this the Hasidean movement. The Hasidim were, “mystics, prophets, healers, exorcists, and rainmakers who, like Jesus, infuriated the rabbinic herbalists to the south by working their healing miracles by no other means than the power of prayer, the laying on of hands, and the forgiveness of sins – even though, according to the rabbis, only God had the power to forgive sins.” “Their supernatural powers”, says Vermes, “were attributed to their immediate relation to God independent of any institutional mediation,” and were seen as of divine origin.”
The Essenes eventually split up into the Pharisees and Essenes. The Therapeutae of Egypt were a branch of the Essenes. Other branches were spawned at the same time such as the Nazoreans, which were a more ascetic branch of the Essenes, the Ophites and the Ebionites. Victoria wrote that the immediate aim of the Hasidim, “Was to reinstate the Davidic line on the throne of Israel and the rightful Zadokite high priesthood to the Jerusalem temple, but beyond these goals, they sought the return of the prophetic tradition in new Kabbalistic guise. …The Gnosis, the Hasidim insisted, must return to Israel; the messianic ideal must be enshrined again in the heart of Judaism and the Goddess given new meaning, dignity, and relevance as the Angel of Wisdom.”
Victoria says that all these sectarian groups shared the same revolutionary social ideals of the New Covenant, “as well as the same Gnostic, messianic, and apocalyptic ideas; all were related by bonds that went back to Israel’s old Mystery tradition. .…And at the very heart of the dispute, the hidden engine that drove it, lay the Hasidic opposition to a patriarchal religious creed that failed to give due honor to the Mother of the World.”
I hope you will think about that last sentence very carefully. The worship of our Mother had become highly degraded. Our family’s aim was to restore her dignity by worshiping her as ‘Wisdom’ rather than as a fertility goddess. The doctrines of the Gnostic Christians, Templars and early Freemasons are a testament to that.
What is very troubling to me is that the successors of these groups, the Baptists, Freemasons, the Church of Latter Day Saints and others, are all very patriarchal. I wonder, do any of them really know that the Holy Spirit is feminine? Do they have enough conviction to state that? Can they make changes within their systems or are they too entrenched in their ways?