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BOOK OF THE MONTH DECEMBER 2006
THE LAUGHING JESUS
by Timothy Freke & Peter Gandy
Synopsis
What if the Old Testament is a work of fiction, Jesus never existed and Muhammad was a mobster? What if the Bible and Qur'an are works of political propaganda created by Taliban-like fundamentalists to justify the sort of religous violence we are witnessing in the world today?
What if there is a big idea which could free us from the us-versus-them world created by religion and make it possible for us to truly love our neighbours, and indeed our enemies, as our self? What if it is possible to awaken to a profound state of oneness and love which the Gnotstic Christians symbolised as the laughing Jesus?
Discover for yourself why the Gnostic Jesus laughs.
Reviews
I found this book fasinating and refreshing. It offers an alternative view of history where events in the bible are meant to be taken as metaphore rather than fact. We were never meant to believe that Jesus actually existed, but rather to learn from and be challanged by the ideas and concepts the bible contains. There are similar interpretations of the Old Testament and the Qur'an. The Gnostics view of the world is that there is only one intelligence and that this is dreaming our reality. We are all aspects of this dream. We are both ourselves living the dream and the greater intelligence dreaming the dream. The authors don't ask us to take this on faith, but rather to experiance it ourselves through meditation and reflection. At the core of the Gnostic way is the idea that we shouldn't believe anything unless we experiance it for ourselves, that we must each find our own truth, our own reality.
(Inspirational Friends Review)
Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy, authors of The Jesus Mysteries [090529, £6.35] and Jesus and the Goddess [120810, £6.35] return with a powerful indictment of religious fundamentalism and a passionate reinterpretation of Gnostic spirituality. According to Freke and Gandy, religiously inspired acts of violence, such as the attacks of 9/11, are nothing new. They are the continuation of a long and bloody history of divinely sanctioned brutality, caused by mistaking bizarre old books for the Word of God. The time has come to end religious intolerance and to wake up to oneness, by rediscovering the Gnostic way of transforming oneself and the world. The authors show how it is possible to awaken to a profound state of oneness and love, which the Gnostic Christians symbolised by the enigmatic figure of the laughing Jesus. The way to awakening is spelled out with clarity and simplicity. Opinion is left far behind, and the experience of knowing, or Gnosis, is ours for the taking. Discover for yourself why the Gnostic Jesus laughs.
(Cygnus Books).
You can buy this book from Cygnus Books for £6.50.
PAST BOOKS OF THE MONTH
NOVEMBER Cave In the Snow by Vicki Mackenzie
OCTOBER The Dharma of Star Wars by Matthew Bortolin
SEPTEMBER The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight byThom Harmann
AUGUST Elderwoman by Marian Van Eyk McCain
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