Like the historical Jesus, “the Essenes” can easily become a screen upon which one projects one’s own interests and ideological location(s), whether that be Jesus’ “hidden years,” a window into the “secret history” of early Christianity, or an historically non-existent fabrication by Philo, Josephus, and Pliny.
See Also: Jesus, the Essenes, and Christian Origins: New Light on Ancient Texts and Communities (Baylor University Press, 2018).
By Simon J. Joseph
University of California, Los Angeles
www.simonjjoseph.com
November 2018
The Essenes represent an historical enigma within Early Judaism. They are variously imagined as a small, marginal community, an idiosyncratic group that disappeared itself into oblivion, a thriving multi-regional network of village communities, and/or as a militant sect of apocalyptic pacifists ready to participate in great eschatological acts of violence. The Gospels never mention the Essenes. The Rabbis seem to have forgotten all about them. Is that because the Essenes were so ideologically and sociologically different from Jesus and the Pharisees that they moved in completely different orbits? Or is it because the Essenes represented an integral component of Second Temple Judaism that both early Christians and the Rabbis sought to marginalize by omission?
In a previous article published on this site, "On Jesus, the Essenes, and the Anxiety of Influence," I suggested that the Essenes represent ambiguous border lines and boundaries between Early Judaism and Christian origins. Like the historical Jesus, “the Essenes” can easily become a screen upon which one projects one’s own interests and ideological location(s), whether that be Jesus’ “hidden years,” a window into the “secret history” of early Christianity, or an historically non-existent fabrication by Philo, Josephus, and Pliny.
Unfortunately, the reception history of this historical inquiry has a checkered past, for where the biblical scholar working within the evidentiary limits of the ancient evidence may hear only silence, others less constrained by such limits claim to have heard other voices. In 1877, for example, Helena P. Blavatsky, founder of the Theosophical Society, suggested that Jesus had secretly been trained by the Essenes,[i] but left their community in order to become a travelling healer.[ii] Blavatsky, however, did not invent this alleged connection. The idea that the Essenes influenced Jesus and the early Jesus movement had already fascinated scholars, Deists, forgers, and esotericists for well over a century.
Since the classical sources of Josephus, Philo, and Pliny represented the Essenes as a secretive, initiatory community given to the study of “mysteries” and the pursuit of esoteric practices, healing, and various forms of divination, it was not all that difficult to imagine the Essenes as playing a secret, hidden role in facilitating and orchestrating public and political events from behind the scenes. In the late 1700s, Karl Bahrdt and Karl Venturini both attempted to expose Christianity as an Essene plot to change Judaism, combining Enlightenment rationalism and political intrigue to portray the Essenes as a “secret society.” Reform and Orthodox Jewish scholars could also appeal to the Essenes as a marginal reformer of an obscure sect to counter Christian claims that Jesus was the Jewish messiah. At the same time, the Essenes became a staple fixture in various esotericist projects, one of which was Helena Blavatsky’s Isis Unveiled.
Following Blavatsky, Annie Besant, the second President of the Theosophical Society, claimed that Jesus was sent “to be trained in an Essene community” and went to an “Essene monastery” in Egypt, where he was “fully instructed in the secret teachings which were the real fount of life among the Essenes.”[iii] Similarly, Rudolf Steiner, described Jesus as an “Initiate” of the Essene “Order,”[iv] a “lay-brother” of the Essenes who “received” him “as a kind of extern, or outside member.”[v] Although the writings of Blavatsky, Besant, and Steiner appealed to historical and sometimes even scriptural references, most of their assertions were baseless speculation implicitly and explicitly obtained through psychic insights. In a similar vein, Gideon Jasper Ouseley claimed to have found an ancient Aramaic Essene manuscript hidden in a Buddhist monastery in Tibet,[vi] as well as through spiritualist communications from Emanuel Swedenborg, Anna Kingsford, and a discarnate Franciscan friar named “Placidus.”[vii]
Combining the skills and hubris of both the forger and the esotericist, Edmond Bordeaux Szekely wrote the Essene Gospel of Peace, claiming to have found it hidden in the “secret archives” of the Vatican Library and the Royal Archives of the Habsburgs in Austria.[viii] According to Szekely, this “lost gospel” presented the “true Jesus” who talked about the “Earth Mother,” the health benefits of vegetarianism and colonic treatments. Szekely’s text repeatedly echoes the gospels. Note the following passages:
Come to me all that are weary and that suffer in strife and affliction! For my peace will strengthen you and comfort you. For my peace is exceeding full of joy . . .
And Jesus answered ‘Happy are you, that you hunger for the truth, for I will satisfy you with the bread of wisdom. Happy are you, that you knock, for I will open to you the door of life . . . Your Mother is in you, and you in her . . .
For no man can serve two masters. For either he serves Beelzebub and his devils or else he serves our Earthly Mother and her angels . . .
It was said to you: ‘Honor thy father and thy mother that thy days may be long upon this earth.’ But I say to you, Sons of Man: Honor your Earthly Mother and keep all her laws, that your days may be long on this earth . . .
And your true brothers are all those who do the will of your Heavenly Father and of your Earthly Mother, and not your brothers by blood.[ix]
To the unsuspecting, the Essene Gospel of Peace may appear to be authentic as the frontispiece of the book uses a copy of the photograph of the Copper Scroll taken from DJD I, obviously displayed in order to lend mystique and credibility to Szekely’s claims. Yet the Copper Scroll was not discovered until the 1950’s, over twenty years after Szekely’s so-called “discovery.” Unsurprisingly, Szekely’s claim to have discovered an ancient manuscript in the Vatican has never been confirmed. There are no references to an Essene Gospel of Peace in any ancient source. There are no photographs, facsimiles, transcriptions, or translation notes on this alleged ancient Aramaic text. Consequently, pending the unlikely arrival of this long-lost document, it seems fairly clear that The Essene Gospel of Peace is “a sheer forgery, written entirely by Szekely himself.”[x] Szekely almost admitted as much in a subsequent publication:
I myself wrote and published a number of books on the Essenes, most of them some twenty years before the discovery of the first scroll in 1947. Starting in 1927, these books were based on certain historical sources such as the works of Josephus, Philo and Plinius, and on manuscripts in the Archives of the Vatican, the Library of the Habsburgs in Vienna, and the Library of the British Museum.[xi]
Considering that these alleged “manuscripts” have never been seen, studied, photographed, or catalogued, it seems fairly certain that the Essene Gospel of Peace is solely “the fruit of nearly twenty years’ purely historical study and research into the origins of Christianity.”[xii] A closer look at Szekely’s writings reveals that his motives were nothing less than to expose Christianity as “one of the greatest deceptions in human history,”[xiii] to deride biblical scholarship as “hopelessly sterile in substance as it is monotonous in form,” and mock its methods as “grounded upon falsehoods,” its conclusions being “either childish or obscure, or else so extravagant as to be almost laughable.”[xiv] Szekely describes the Gospels as “the literary fabrication of Jewish scribes”[xv] and Christianity as “the product of innumerable forged documents.”[xvi] Without a trace of irony, Szekely accuses the earliest Christians of forgery and fraud while asserting that “for me, a historian, fraud is just plain fraud. I leave it to the reader to decide whether ‘pious’ fraud . . . is not all the more contemptible.”[xvii]
The most elaborate and detailed esoteric representation of the Essenes as the “cradle of Christianity,” however, comes from the Edgar Cayce readings.[xviii] These “Life Readings,” performed between 1934 and 1945, represent an extraordinary database of dozens of Cayce’s clients’ past lives spent in ancient Judea and Galilee at the time of Jesus.[xix] Cayce claimed to have accessed this information (via trance) directly from the “Akashic Records.”[xx] On one hand, however, these readings reflect what seems like genuine faithfullness to the Gospel narratives of Jesus’ birth, life, and death, especially the Nativity stories of the Virgin Birth, Jesus’ Davidic lineage, the Inn at Bethlehem, the visit of Wise Men, the Slaughter of the Innocents, and the Flight to Egypt. On the other hand, these readings contain numerous historically unsupported assertions of an Essene “Brotherhood” on Mount Carmel led by a teacher, healer, and prophetess named “Judy” who supervised Jesus’ education, ministry, and foreign travel.
According to Cayce, the Essenes not only expected and anticipated the arrival of the Messiah, they also “prepared the way” for Jesus.[xxi] They were “a group of individuals sincere in their purpose, and yet not orthodox as to the rabbis of that particular period.”[xxii] Indeed, John the Baptist and Jesus were both raised within the Essene community although “John was more the Essene than Jesus. For Jesus held rather to the spirit of the law, and John to the letter of same.”[xxiii] Cayce claimed that the Essenes were not a monolithic group, but had internal “divisions,”[xxiv] and it was among a special inner group of Essenes that the most rigorous preparations were made for the advent of the Messiah:
In the days when there had been more and more of the leaders of the people in Carmel – the original place where the school of the prophets was established during Elijah’s time, Samuel – these were called then Essenes; and those that were students of what ye would call astrology, numerology, phrenology, and those phases of that study of the return of individuals – or incarnation . . . These having been persecuted by those of the leaders, this first caused that as ye have an interpretation of as the Sadducees, or ‘There is no resurrection’ or there is no incarnation, which is what it meant in those periods . . . Here there was continued preparation and dedication of those who might be channels through whom the chosen vessel could enter through choice – into materiality. Those in charge at that time were Mathias, Enos and Judy. Thus in Carmel where there were the priests of this faith . . . twelve maidens were chosen who were dedicated to this purpose, this office, this service. Among them was Mary, the beloved, the chosen one; and she, as had been foretold, was chosen as the channel. Thus she was separated and kept in closer associations with and in the care of this office. That was the beginning, that was the foundation of what ye term the Church.[xxv]
Cayce claims that this inner group of Essenes was led by a prophetess named “Judy.” It was Judy, moreover, who sent Jesus “to Persia, to Egypt, yea to India, that there might be complete the more perfect knowledge of the material ways in the activities of Him that became the Way, the Truth!” According to Cayce, then, Jesus received his final training in Egypt just prior to his appearance in Israel and baptism by John.[xxvi] Although there is no ancient evidence that the Essenes accepted women as their leaders or Gentiles as members, Cayce not only claimed that the Essenes “took Jews and Gentiles alike as members” but had developed into a group “where women were considered as equals with the men in their activities, in their abilities to formulate, to live, to be, channels. They joined by dedication – usually by their parents.” Consequently, both Mary and Joseph were “dedicated by their parents” to the Essenes as potential “channels” for the birth of the Messiah.[xxvii] The cumulative picture gained from the readings is not simply a complex network of various members of Edgar Cayce’s Association for Research and Enlightenment (ARE) seeking hidden knowledge about their past lives, but an already well-developed alternative esoteric narrative of Christian origins. In the 1940s, the Cayce readings represented the culmination of a two hundred-year long esotericist fascination with the Essenes – an intellectual-esoteric reception history and tradition almost as fascinating as the ancient Essenes themselves – even if this esoteric history has not added much to the scholarly conversation.
To this day, New Age works show clear signs of being influenced by Szekely’s Essene Gospel, taking his forgery as inspiration, not only for constructing contemporary “neo-Essene” communities, but also for an alleged ancient recipe for baking “Essene bread!”[xxviii] Rabbi Gabriel Cousens, the founder and director of the Tree of Life Foundation in Arizona, is the current leader of the “Modern Essenes” who trace their lineage directly back to Szekely and refer to themselves as “doers of the Torah” who follow “the Great Torah Way of enlightenment” based on “the Essene Archetype.”[xxix] These modern Essenes adhere to a vegan diet “as an authentic Essene expression” under the working assumption that Jesus and John the Baptist were Essenes, resurrecting, once again, the “Essenes” in a twenty-first century esotericist framework.[xxx]
This reception history of esoteric speculation(s) on Jesus and the Essenes – as fascinating as it is in its own right – also reflects a much wider cultural suspicion – apparently supported by ancient discoveries like the Dead Sea Scrolls – that there is much more to the Jesus story than we know, always just beyond the reach of our present evidentiary limits.
Notes
[i] H. P. Blavatsky, Isis Unveiled: A Mastery-Key to the Mysteries of Ancient and Modern Science and Theology (2 vols, Pasadena, CA: Theosophical University Press, 1976 [1877]), 133. See also The Secret Doctrine: The Synthesis of Science, Religion, and Philosophy, vol.1, Cosmogenesis, (Pasadena, CA: Theosophical University Press, 1963 [1888]).
[ii] Blavatsky, Isis Unveiled, 144. Thus “the Nazarene Reformer, after having received his education in their dwellings in the desert, and been duly initiated in the Mysteries, preferred the free and independent life of a wandering Nazaria, and so separated or inazarenized himself from them, thus becoming a traveling Therapeut, a Nazaria, a healer.”
[iii] Annie Besant, Esoteric Christianity: Or the Lesser Mysteries (5th edn.; Adyar, Madras, India: Theosophical Publishing House, 1950 [1901]), 97.
[iv] Rudolf Steiner, The Fifth Gospel: Investigation of the Akasha Chronicle; Five Lectures given in Christiania, 1st to 6th October, 1913 (trans D. S. Osmond and M. Cotterell; London: Rudolf Steiner Publishing Co., 1950), 79.
[v] Steiner, The Fifth Gospel, 79.
[vi] G. J. R. Ouseley, The Gospel of the Holy Twelve: known also as the Gospel of the Perfect Life, translated from the Aramaic and edited by a disciple of the Master, and with former editions compared and revised; Issued by the Order of At-one-ment and United Templars’ Society (Paris, Jerusalem, Madras, Brighton, 1901); The Gospel of the Holy Twelve (London: John M. Watkins, 1957); The Gospel of the Holy Twelve (The Christian Gospel Trust, Henley Bridge House, Ashburnham, Battle, Sussex, 1972); Gideon Jasper Ouseley and E. Francis Udny, The Gospel of the Holy Twelve (Kessinger Publishing, 2004).
[vii] Apparently the spirits made the translation from the Aramaic and gave Ouseley the text in English. On the other hand, according to the English 1972 edition, St. John wrote it in prison in Rome and then it was taken to a Tibetan monastery, it was found in the 1870s and hidden in the Vatican. For a brief discussion of the text, see Per Beskow, Strange Tales About Jesus: A Survey of Unfamiliar Gospels (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983), 66-74.
[viii] Edmond Bordeaux Szekely, The Essene Gospel of Peace (Nelson, British Columbia, Canada: International Biogenic Society, 1981). According to Szekely, this manuscript was saved by “Nestorian priests who, under pressure of the advancing hordes of Genghis Kahn, were forced to flee from the East towards the West.” Yet “exactly how the texts traveled from Palestine to the interior of Asia into the hands of the Nestorian priests, archaeologists are not yet able to reconstruct for us.”
[ix] Edmund Bordeaux Szekely, The Essene Origins of Christianity (Nelson, British Columbia, Canada: International Biogenic Society, 1993), 184, 187, 191, 192, 205.
[x] Beskow, Strange Tales about Jesus, 89; 84: “reading through such a large Aramaic manuscript is a difficult task demanding months of work. The copying is in itself an extensive procedure with many difficulties. Szekely, however, never seems to have had any problems with this. He just ‘read’ the manuscript.” Beskow points out that though Szekely claims to have discovered an ancient Aramaic manuscript, no copy of this document has ever been presented in any shape or form nor have Szekely’s academic credentials ever checked out. Indeed, the University of Paris, where Szekely claimed to have done his doctoral work and reporting his findings, does not have any record of his dissertation nor is the professor who assessed his research known.”
[xi] Szekely, The Essene Origins of Christianity, 174. This work seems to have been originally intended as the introduction to Szekely’s Essene Gospel of Peace.
[xii] Szekely, The Essene Origins of Christianity, 27.
[xiii] Szekely, The Essene Origins of Christianity, 8.
[xiv] Szekely, The Essene Origins of Christianity, 15.
[xv] Szekely, The Essene Origins of Christianity, 28.
[xvi] Szekely, The Essene Origins of Christianity, 66.
[xvii] Szekely, The Essene Origins of Christianity, 27.
[xviii] Cayce identified a number of clients and ARE members as “Essenes.” See John Van Auken and Ruben Miller, Edgar Cayce on The Mysterious Essenes: Lessons from Our Sacred Past (Virginia Beach: ARE Press, 2016). Cayce himself believed that he was the reincarnation of “Lucius,” purportedly the same “Lucius of Cyrene” mentioned in Acts 13:1 and Rom 16:21. For a past-life regression therapist’s attempt to recover the Essenes, see Dolores Cannon, Jesus and the Essenes (Ozark Mountain Publishing, 1992; They Walked with Jesus: Past Life Experiences with Christ (Ozark Mountain Publications, 2000).
[xix] An inventory of clients identified as “Essenes” in their past lives (with their identification number, age at the time of the reading, and the date of the reading), includes the following:
(1) 489-1; “Essene” named “Veronicani” [female, 53; January 17, 1934];
(2) 649-2; “Essene” [female, 18; August 8, 1935];
(3) 540-4; “Essene” named “Mary” [female, 32; February 20, 1936];
(4) 1196-2; “Essene,” (Keeper of the Inn); [male, 58; June 23, 1936];
(5) 1211-1; “Essene” [male, 36; July 3, 1936];
(6) 1283-1; “Essene” prophetess [female, 61; October 31, 1936];
(7) 1391-1; “Essene” leader named “Eloise” [female, 62; June 22, 1937];
(8) 1424-3; “Essene” named “Simeon” [male, 50; August 31, 1937];
(9) 1152-3; “The Inn Keeper’s Daughter”; [November 27, 1936];
(10) 1450-1; “Essene” named “Philo” [male, 19; October 6, 1937];
(11) 1472-1; “Essene” named “Judy” [female, 57, November 6, 1937];
(12) 1463-2; “Essene” named “Marlan/Sardenia” [November 8, 1937];
(13) 1479-1; “Essene maiden” [female, 54; November 17, 1937];
(14) 1472-3; “Essene” named “Judy” [Judy/Julia Chandler, 57; November 18, 1937];
(15) 1151-10; “Essene” [male, 48; November 21, 1937];
(16) 1468-3; “Essene” [female, 47; January 6, 1938];
(17) 1592-1; “Essene” [female, 56; May 16, 1938];
(18) 1472-6; “Essene” named “Judy” [female, 58; June 19, 1938];
(19) 1851-1; “Essene” named “Zacheus” [male, 65; March 27, 1939];
(20) 1981-1; “Essene maiden” [female, 18; August 22, 1939];
(21) 1602-4; “Essene” [female, 41; September 26, 1939];
(22) 2067-1; “Essene” [female, 52; December 22, 1939];
(23) 1877-2; “Essene” named “Anna” female, 45; [April 18, 1940];
(24) 2173-1; “Essene” named “Sofa” [female, 50; April 19, 1940];
(25) 2425-1; “Essene” named “Sophie” [female, 21; January 3, 1941];
(26) 2441-2; “Essene” named “Durkon” [female, 36; March 11, 1941];
(27) 2505-1; “Essene” named “Jarael” [male, 53; May 21, 1941];
(28) 2603-1; “Essene” named “Anna” [female, 67; October 15, 1941];
(29) 2608-1; “Essene” named “Japhter” [female, 56; October 18, 1941];
(30) 420-6; “Essene” [male, 62; January 24, 1942];
(31) 1010-17; “Essene” named “Josie” [female, age 71; June 21, 1942];
(32) 2795-1; “Essene” son of “Judy” [male, 28; August 9, 1942];
(33) 2175-6; “Essene holy woman” [female, 30; October 17, 1942];
(34) 2148-7; “Essene” [male, 2; November 19, 1942];
(35) 2880-2; “Essene” associate named “Zermada” [female, age 47; March 22, 1943];
(36) 2982-1; “Essene” student [female, 34; April 27, 1943];
(37) 2946-3; “Essene” maiden [female, 48; June 18, 1943];
(38) 3652-1; “Essene” mother named “Macha” [female, 22; January 12, 1944];
(39) 5148-2; “Essene” [female, 55; May 29, 1944];
(40) 3175-3; “Essene” named “Martha” [female, 43; June 17, 1944];
(41) 2072-15; “Essene” [female, 34; June 20, 1944].
[xx] Levi Dowling, The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ: The Philosophic and Practical Basis of the Religion of the Aquarian Age of the World (Marina del Rey, CA: Devorss, 1907); Jeffrey Furst, ed., Edgar Cayce’s Story of Jesus (New York: Berkley Books, 1968); Anne and Daniel Meurois-Givaudan, The Way of the Essenes: Christ’s Hidden Life Remembered (Rochester, VT: Destiny, 1993). See also Claire Heartsong, Anna, Grandmother of Jesus: A Message of Wisdom and Love (Santa Clara, CA: S.E.E. Publishing Co, 2002). Heartsong’s book is “channeled” by Anna, the grandmother of Jesus who describes her life as a 600-year old Essene living at the Essene community on Mount Carmel. Finally, for another case of purported “Source Readings,” see the work of Paul Solomon (“Jesus & His Essene Teacher”) http://www.wisdomofsolomon.com/psr13.html.
[xxi] On May 20, 1941, Cayce was asked the “correct meaning of the term ‘Essene’?” and answered “Expectancy” (254-109), although it is not clear whether Cayce was attempting to define the etymological origin of the term as opposed to interpreting its “meaning” (that is, its significance). Cayce also reported that the “individual preparation” of the Messiah was the “first purpose” of the group and the Messiah’s “being sent out into the world” was “secondary.”
[xxii] 2067-11.
[xxiii] 2067-11.
[xxiv] 2072-15.
[xxv] 5749-5. Dated June 27, 1937, a reading for Mr. Thomas Sugrue, an “Active Member” of the ARE in Virgina Beach.
[xxvi] 1472-3.
[xxvii] 254-109. On June 21, 1942, Edgar Cayce gave a reading for an “Associate Member of the Association for Research and Enlightenment” in Virgina Beach. The member is simply identified as “1010,” but she is identified as the reincarnation of the soul known as “Sophie” or “Josie, a handmaid to Mary, Jesus and Joseph.” This particular reading is highly detailed. The Essenes included “special groups of individuals who had made some preparations for the expected activities that were to come about during that particular period; especially those of the Essenes who had chosen the twelve maidens to indicate their fitness. The choice was to be made by those selections indicated by the spirit, and Josie was the daughter of Shem and Mephibosheth that was among these . . . This entity, Josie, was close to Mary when the selection was indicated by the shadow or the angel on the stair, at that period of consecration in the temple. This was not the temple in Jerusalem, but the temple where those who were consecrated worshipped, or a school – as it might be termed – for those who might be channels. This was a part of that group of Essenes who, headed by Judy, made those interpretations of those activities from the Egyptian experience, as the Temple Beautiful, and the service in the Temple of Sacrifice. Hence it was in this consecrated place where this selection took place. Then, where there was the fulfiling of those periods when Mary was espoused to Joseph and was to give birth to the Savior, the Messiah, the Prince of Peace, the Way, the Truth, the Light, - soon after this birth there was the issuing of the orders first by Judy that there should be someone selected to be with the parents during their period of sojourn in Egypt . . . Do not understand that there was only Joseph, Mary, Josie and the Child. For there were other groups that preceded and followed; that there might be the physical protection to that as had been considered by these groups of peoples as the fulfilling of the Promised One . . . The return was made to Capernaum – not Nazareth – not only for political reasons owing to the death of Herod but the division that had been made with the kingdom after the death of Herod; and that there might be the ministry or teaching that was to be a part of the Brotherhood; - supervised in that period by Judy, as among the leaders of the Essenes in that particular period . . . There was the sending or the administering of the teachings to the young Master, first in Persia and later in India, and then in Egypt again – where there were the completions . . . [the training] from six years to about sixteen, which were in keeping with the tenets of the Brotherhood; as well as that training in the law, - which was the Jewish or Mosaic law in that period.”
[xxviii] Karen Knowler, “Essene Bread,” The Raw Food Coach, March 19, 2011, http://therawfoodcoach.com/essene-bread/ [accessed May 28, 2018]; Owen Bond, “The Benefits of Essene Bread,” Livestrong.com, October 3, 2017, https://www.livestrong.com/article/325385-the-benefits-of-essene-bread/ [accessed May 28, 2018]. For a cookbook for “Essene bread,” see Karen Romani, Everything Essene Bread: Simple Guide to Essene Bread (Manna Bread/Sprout Bread) with Recipes (2015). For neo-Essene communities, see, for example, the web-site of the “Order of Nazorean-Essenes: A Buddhist Branch of Original Christianity” (http://essenes.net/subindex8.htm); the “Essene Church of Christ” led by “Brother Nazariah” in Elmira, Oregon (http://www.essene.org); the “Essene Nazarean Church of Mount Carmel,” the congregation of the B’nai-Amen Temple” (www.essene.com); and the “Essene Healing Ministries of the Sevenfold Peace” (http://www.sevenfoldpeace.com).
[xxix] Gabriel Cousens, “Who Were the Essenes?,” Gabriel Cousens’ Blog, June 25, 2014, http://treeoflifecenterus.com/who-were-the-essenes/ [accessed May 28, 2018]. Cousens states that “The Modern Living Essene Way is not an attempt to go back to or mimic what we think the ancient Essenes were and did, but it is energetically aligned with these primordial energies” and seems to blend Kabbalistic principles (of develkut and the Ein Sof) with “The Essene consciousness.” Moreover, “All life includes the four shamanic Essene kabbalistic categories of the living planet.” Cousens further claims that “oral tradition” holds that Enoch was “the first Essene” and that (Islamic!) Sufis and the Essenes “may indeed have been one and the same mystic group at one time.” Again, much of this esoterica is creatively adapted from the work of
scholar and Essene translator Dr. Edmond Bordeaux Szekely.” Cousens’ appeal to “Mount Carmel,” however, seems to be a distinctive borrowing from the Cayce readings. Although Cousens claims not to be atempting “to go back” to the ancient Essenes, he nonetheless claims that “The Modern Living Essene Way represents the authentic historical teaching and practices of Jesus as it comes from his spiritual and historical context as an enlightened Essene, who many of the Essenes felt was the messiah of that generation.” See also Rebbe Gabriel Cousens, Creating Peace by Being Peace: The Essene Sevenfold Path (Berkeley: North Atlantic Books, 2008).
[xxx] “The Essene Archetype,” Tree of Life Foundation, http://www.treeoflifefoundation.org/service/peace/modern-essenes/ [accessed May 28, 2018].
Article Comments
I was going to say the same…
I was going to say the same. Jesus trained them!! After all, He IS the Son of God!!
I feel this article is well…
I feel this article is well researched and seems fairly accurate. I do think that there is an underlying assumption that Edmond Bordeaux Szekeley waslying, and that cannot be proven unless you have full access to the Vatican libraries.
Eusebius mentions the …
Eusebius mentions the "Gospel of Peace" in his writings. He documented the early Christian Church.
If you are suggesting that…
If you are suggesting that an small farming Orthodox religious community deliberately put Edgar Cayce up to copying old esoteric texts before him - information that they would COMPLETELY disagree with.. Even the idea that Edgar Cayce slipped off to the cities somewhere and studied ancient esoteric information so he could copy it, is just LAUGHABLE! Oh, the skeptics arrived at his door left and right. One doctor even ripped the finger nail right off of him while he was in trance, only to find Cayce didn't budge at all. They investigated his personal library, expecting to find all sorts of intellectual books on Ancient Egypt and old Esoteric knowledge - NONE could be found. Just a bunch of "Old dumb books", as far as the professors and doctors could see. They were never able to prove he was a fraud. Simply because he wasn't. Edgar Cayce had an eighth grade education and was practically considered illiterate. His community and his family did not put him up to a lifetime of "Fake channeling" trance states. He worked 8-9 hours in service to others for free, for decades. If ones reads enough Edgar Cayce, one realizes quickly there is no way he could have faked the things he did. In fact, 1000's of clients of Dolores Cannon, people who had NO previous fascination with any of these topics - many simple business people with no spiritual leanings - would up in past lives only to confirm many of the unique and ONE OF A KIND details that left Edgar Cayce's mouth. There isn't some huge conspiracy out there for thousands of people to secretly study Edgar Cayce or Rudolf Steiner for that matter, then pretend to know the information while in a "Fake" trance state. You ought to read Dolores Cannon's "Jesus and the Essenes", detailing a young woman named Katie, who spent over a YEAR with Dolores cannon going into sessions detailing that of an old Essene life she had, one who walked with Jesus and John the Baptist. The lifetime was known as Suddi. The information that came through was one of a kind, and later much of it was confirmed by recent excavations and insights that have only been discovered in recent years. Katie was so freaked out by it all, and all the information that was flowing through her, that she moved away to get away from Dolores Cannon, accepting a business promotion 100's of miles away. She couldn't handle it. Furthermore, there is plenty of information that came from Cayce that was NOT repeated anywhere in the previous 200 years of esoteric knowledge available. Details no one could possibly know, and details that were later confirmed archaeologically. 1000's of people benefited from Edgar Cayce's medical readings. Doctors were constantly in awe of him, and they were never able to prove he was a fraud. This was a simple man with simple thinking. He was no genius in his "conscious" life. In many sessions, he could scan some one from 100's of miles away (without there even having to be present in person) and knew precisely what medical conditions they were facing. His medical advice always proved to work. He could see there entire systems through the astral/spiritual realms. This ability was granted to Edgar Cayce from the higher angelic realms as a one off "gift". He wasn't like this every single lifetime. He was selected for a mission, so that this would one day serve as a testament to the power of spirit, and so that those that have ears to hear and eyes to see, could see and hear.
interesting historical piece…
interesting historical piece, but are there no serious efforts to compare Jesus his language and claims with those of the Essenes sect now that we have so much of documents from the sect in the Dead Sea Scrolls?
A.R. McFarlane
I have read a few books…
I have read a few books regarding ancient philosophy, theology, Egyptian History/Mythology, Hebrew scriptures, etc. I find in my research information on the Jesus question mysterious. The article above has inspired me to dig even deeper in my quest for answers and truth. A lie and misinformation can only exist when the truth is not present.
The Essenes (Essenoi), were…
The Essenes (Essenoi), were the attendants of the Temple of Artemis, in Ephesus (see the 3rd century BCE inscriptions- Syll_352 , Syll_354, Syll_363).
Philo properly identified the Qumran group as Essaoi (Essaens, after Essa in Decapolis, in modern Jordan). They were Nasoreans (not “Nazarenes”), and always identified by ancient geographers, coming from east of the Jordan River (which the Gospel of John even claimed). They are currently called Mandaens (named after the laity, not the priestly caste).
Josephus inexplicably confused the two, yet (allegedly) was from Joffa. That seems more of an error a Roman would make, not an orthodox Jew.
“Nazaret” itself, is a reflection of this. It’s the Greek form of Eretz of the n-s-r (“Keepers”). It wasn’t the name of a fictitious town in Galilee (which Josephus literally lived 1 mile away from, yet never mentions).
Great article, but let us…
Great article, but let us look deeper. Knowing there is the evil one- who comes to "kill, steal and destroy" ( the deceiver) it is interesting to note that whenever truth is unfolding, you find Satan at work to discredit by all means necessary. In fact when you see much effort by spiritists, occultists, mediums etc to take a little truth about the Essenes, for example, and then take the narrative off the rails so wildly that no "normal" Christian or Jew would dare look any further into their background - one may well suspect something is up( apologies for the run-on sentence)
Satan attempts to deceive Jesus using God's Word. The satanic bible twists God's Word to flip it and make Satan the "good guy" and Jesus the "bad"guy. We know that the demonic spiritual realm was present to know what activities were going on relating to the Essenes. Recent genuine work by Christian researchers Josh Peck and Ken Johnson has uncovered prophecies of the Essenes declaring that the true Messiah would come soon, that He was not coming to overthrow the oppression, but was coming to make a way for the world to be delivered from the consequences of sin. And in the blockbuster Rev, they said He would die in what we refer to as the year 32AD. The Pharisees hated the Essenes, as they held the Oral Torah as equal with the actual Word of God. And their interpretation was that Messiah would overthrow using violence ( witness Maccabees). See once they emerged the "winners" could they have removed/destroyed/suppressed these prophecies as they would have provided the proof that they had literally rejected the Messiah and had him put to death? What if the devil used his "spirit" to neutralize the impact the Dead Sea Scrolls would have when they would be discovered by using guilt by association, the way present day politicians try to "define" their opponent before their views gain a following? If indeed Johnson and Peck have uncovered the above evidences(their reputations are unassailable) this is blockbuster as a witness to the world and especially the modern Jew that Jesus was and is in fact the Messiah, the way, the truth and the light, and that no one will ever see the Father unless he comes through Him.
Can you provide me some further information? I loved The Essene Gospel of Peace. I'd appreciate to read more of what the Essenes wrote. May Ashaya bless you.