“I feel the same way. You’ve probably noticed that Pietro and I have become close friends, and he’d like to share more of what he knows with both of us. So, see you tonight around eight o’clock?”
“Hello, David. It’s great to see you again,” Lorenzo said as they settled down in the alcove. “World events certainly do stir up the psyche, don’t they? Yet, we are becoming less complacent; there’s more potential for change and transformation.” Lorenzo put his hand on the table between them, which drew David’s eye to a crystal obelisk.
“I do agree, and it is very good to see you. I’m sure you get a lot of strange requests, so I’ve got one for you. But, first, we’re both Jewish, we’ve never talked about it, and I think we should.”
“Being Jewish is a convoluted issue. Yes, my mother was Jewish, as was my wife, but we didn’t take our children to temple. Judaism is based on way too many lies—like blaming the Egyptians for the Exodus.” Lorenzo paused to see if he was going to get a bad reaction.
“Don’t worry, Lorenzo. You’re free to say anything you want, since everything in the scriptures about the Egyptians needs reexamination. The Jews doctored up the Hebrew Bible to badmouth the Egyptians, and the Christians doctored up their scriptures to play down the Jewish heritage of Jesus. I don’t want to dig into that, since I’m here for a session. I’m bringing this up to get a sense of your comfort with alternative perspectives before I investigate some controversial ideas with you. Same for Rose and me, we didn’t push our Jewish heritage on our kids.”
“Good, so may I close the topic by saying that I’m totally open to questioning all aspects of Judaism with you, since I do it all the time. Jews need to reconsider their beliefs now that modern theological and historical research has exposed so many blatant falsifications; all religions should constantly examine the basis of their beliefs.”
“Great. I thought that was how you’d feel, but how could I know without asking? My question is, can we tune in to anyone in the past? That is, if I go back into a life in the past, does it have to be my lifetime? Can I time travel freely into the minds of other people in the past with you?”
“That’s a very complex karmic question. Sometimes you can travel into the mind of someone in the past, sometimes not. Yet, you can always travel into one of your own past lives, such as Gaudí or Ramòn Llull. In other words, your past lives are your records, and usually the answers you are seeking are right there in your own past. I’m amazed more people don’t look into their past lives. If you give me an idea of what you want to explore, I might be able to say more.”
“Okay. I want to travel back to the time when animosity first developed between the Jews and the Egyptians, which I think was around 1500 BC, around the time of the so-called Exodus. I believe the Exodus was the expulsion of the Jews out of Egypt because they were too much trouble for the pharaoh. I think what happened then and its distortion is a major source of modern East/West tension. I want to know some things because I want to share my feelings about being Jewish with Simon. I think the pharaoh Akhenaton left Egypt and then transformed into Moses; maybe he was driven out? Can we travel back into his mind to see if that is true?”
Lorenzo’s mind scanned the question. “Excuse me, David. I need to get something.” He got up, went to his desk, and brought back a large turquoise scarab.
“That’s a beautiful scarab. Is it ancient?”
“Yes, from the tomb of Rekhmire, the vizier of Amenhotep II and Thutmosis III. Please allow me to hold it for a moment to see what I get.” Lorenzo cradled the scarab in his right hand holding his left hand over the back and closed his eyes as David watched him intently. Lorenzo jerked as if something hit his body. “Okay, I’ve got the spirit of the scarab: nothing is more sealed than the royal Egyptian karmic records, so this is not the best way to ask the question.” Lorenzo placed the scarab at the base of the crystal obelisk, which David recalled seeing previously when he’d explored his lifetime as Ramòn Llull.
Lorenzo peered into the dancing planes in the obelisk breathing very softly and closed his eyes. “Ahh, I get it, and you could’ve figured this out. We must go back to Ramòn Llull. He invented his wheels based on the ideas common to all three monotheistic religions so that he could convert Jews and Muslims to the Christian faith. He believed peace would come with a common ground, but suffered a horrible demise. Looks like we need to dissolve another past-life block, don’t you think?”
“Lorenzo, at this point, I’m putty in your hands. I’m probably still driven by Llull’s desire to resolve the conflicts between the three religions, possibly the reason I criticize Judaism.”
“You may be right, so let’s see if we can bring Ramòn Llull back.”
David lay down on the couch and spaced out listening to Lorenzo’s hypnotic voice. “Now, David, I have a burning question,” Lorenzo said in a sensual and alluring voice. “Tell me, what is it about those wheels? What are they for?” Lorenzo asked because he was watching concentrically arranged circles filled with odd symbols and letters rotating above David’s body like a complex astral clock mechanism.
“My wheels express the truths of God—eternity, goodness, wisdom, will, fair judgment, faith, and truth—Christian beliefs in common with Judaism and Islam. They are logical and I am logical, so when I use the wheels with people, they convert to Christianity when they realize it is God’s religion.”
“Why do you want to convert them?” Lorenzo probed.
“Look, doctor, consider this. If I don’t convert them, their lives will be horrible. I live in Palma, Majorca, where the Catholics recently conquered the Muslims. Most of them left, and we made the ones who stayed into our slaves. Since we have the same God, they should convert to Christianity.”
“If you all have the same God, then why does it matter?”
“It is the only way to stop all the fighting. If they convert to Catholicism, that will be the end of the argument, what the pope wants.”
“Uh, huh, I see. So you conquered them and enslaved them, and they are supposed to believe in your God? Ramòn Llull, something is missing here . . . What?”
“The Jews don’t look at God the way we do because something divided our religions. I don’t know what, but maybe someday, somebody will. Until that happens, I’m bringing them back to God whether they like it or not.”
“Why?”
“Because Catholicism is the true religion. Remember, I am a holy martyr exalted in death!”
Lorenzo considered guiding Llull through his stoning again, but decided not to. Instead, he brought David back into current time, and they went right to the alcove.
“David, what do you think of Ramòn Llull?” A moment later he looked up from his notes because David was stifling a guffaw.
“I think he was a bull-headed, stubborn fool like the people I run into these days who believe in religion, especially Christian fundamentalists. At this point, religion is such a pile of horseshit that you have to be mindless to stay with it. This session was good for me because I didn’t really understand how people like that think and feel, but now I do: they have the truth, so the more people that join up with them, the better off they will be. If they feel threatened, they force people to adopt their beliefs. My rotating rational circles turned me into a zombie in that lifetime, Lorenzo. Since Llull is thought to be the inventor of computational theory, the basis of modern computers, are computers turning us into idiots?”
That evening Simon, David, and Pietro gathered in the library, and David began the think session. “Pietro, thanks for this get-together. Simon, after thirty years of deep thought, I’ve decided to offer you my real thoughts about Judaism. Pietro is with us because I want to know whether the story I’ve put together is in the Templar records. My thoughts are based on the work of Ahmed Osman and Sigmund Freud, the thinkers who first made me realize there is something odd about Moses and Akhenaton. Maybe I could hear Freud because he’s Jewish, and I also learned a lot from Osman, a Muslim scholar who headed dow
n the same path. The roles played by Akhenaton and Moses and their beliefs are too much alike, as if they were the same person, but with an Egyptian and Jewish identity. Once I looked at it that way, I found myself critiquing the Jewish hatred of the Egyptians and I couldn’t stand Passover anymore. This hatred never made sense to me because the Egyptians were very advanced, much more than the ragtag Semitic tribe in the desert that became the Jews. I’d like to simply tell this as a story rather than explain the sources of it, all the arguments, if that’s okay with you.”
They nodded. David took time to sip on his red wine before starting in on a mini lecture. Simon yawned.
“Here we go, the original story of the Egyptians and the Jews! Abraham took his beautiful wife, Sarah, to Egypt saying she was his sister. The pharaoh heard about her beauty and wanted her, so Abraham sold Sarah to Thutmosis III. The marriage would have been quickly consummated. Later in Palestine, Sarah gave birth to Isaac, the son of Thutmosis III. He didn’t look like Abraham at all; everybody could see it. Abraham was Isaac’s stepfather, possibly the reason he almost sacrificed him. Seems to me, Abraham would have fried his stepson on the pyre if Yahweh had not intervened!” Simon was embarrassed. What in hell is going to come out of his mouth next? Is this what he talks about with Pietro? Dad sounds like he’s nuts!
“The Egyptians were the real players. Isaac’s son, Jacob, fathered Joseph, who was sold by his brothers into Egypt. The Egyptians would have known he was the grandson of Thutmosis III, since they kept very meticulous records of all the royal wives, so Joseph was beloved. He remained in Egypt and married Aseneth, an Egyptian priestess with royal blood. In a few generations, Akhenaton became the pharaoh, but he was driven out of Egypt because he imposed monotheism on the polytheistic Egyptians. If Akhenaton did transform into Moses after the Exodus, there goes Jewish hatred of the Egyptians! Whatever happened, Egyptian religion heavily influenced both Judaism and Christianity.
“It’s time to skip ahead in time and go to Jesus, who was a Nazarite—a Jewish group from the Jewish-Egyptian lineage. The patrimony of Jesus was Egyptian magic and sacred marriage. Pietro, how does this story fit with the Templar records?”
“Wait a minute, gentlemen,” Simon interrupted. “Dad, do you believe this? Sarah and I have looked into this stuff, but I never thought I’d hear it from you. You seem to think that Jewish negativity toward the Egyptians comes from the Jews being part Egyptian and trying to cover it up. Do you believe that?”
“These are the questions that plague modern historical analysis, but the faithful never hear about this stuff because it contradicts religious dogma. However, when you view the biblical period through Egyptian eyes, the events in Palestine clarify and sort out because the Egyptians kept solid historical records that they rarely revised. On top of this, the Egyptian Muslim scholar, Ahmed Osman, has explored the Koran for a new perspective on Egypt and the Hebrews because he could see that Muhammad had put a new spin on it that reveals some things. Who cares? Well, the religions derived from Abraham are the cause of the total meltdown in the Middle East and the world. If more people knew the real story, maybe fratricidal divisions could end. Really, is the human race going to destroy the world because of petty sectarian arguments about God?”
“David,” Pietro broke in, “I’d like to address your question about Templar beliefs. Your basic story is in our records, and I commend you for being able to examine your own background with such a broad mind. Yet, regardless of all that, the change of the ages gives us much better information about what was probably going on: the Egyptians developed during the grounded and peaceful Age of Taurus over 6,000 years ago; the religions of Abraham developed during the martial Age of Aries; then Jesus brought compassion and love during the divinely inspired Age of Pisces.
“Jesus and John the Baptist were Nazarites. As you say, David, the Nazarites were Egyptian Jews who believed in the wisdom of Egypt—peace and order—and wanted it to continue in the world. Jesus lived in Egypt when he was young and trained as a magician and healer, a great magus of high Egyptian wisdom. Simon, surely you know that your father is a great magus in this tradition? He has recovered his real origin, which of course can be yours. Jesus wanted to retain the polytheistic and goddess-worshipping wisdom of the Age of Taurus because without it, Arian monotheism would foster violence and the abuse of women, exactly what happened. Jesus brought love and compassion, Piscean ideals, to transmute Arian violence. Jesus was slated to be the avatar of the Age of Pisces, a loving human who was also divine. Significantly, his teachings are not yet complete; they are coming to a head now.”
Simon was on the edge of his seat. “Hey, you two sages! You are both chewing on the central distortion that has poisoned the world with overwhelming violence—monotheism. It makes people judgmental, violent, and misogynist by trying to force them into believing in one God, everything black or white. Armando, Claudia, Sarah, and I have been exploring a Jesus who loved Mary, a priestess of some sort, probably Isis. As for me, I need time to think about Egyptian influences on Judaism, particularly Ahmed Osman’s Muslim perspective. But it’s time to call it a night. Dad, you never cease to surprise me. I thought I knew what a Jew was, but now I don’t.”
“I know what you mean, Simon. These distortions have spawned ferocious anger and division between Sunni and Shi’ite, between the Hassidim and liberal Jews, and between Christian fundamentalists and liberals. Extreme radicals fight for God, have babies for God, and spit on one another while they wait for the end of our beautiful world. True stories about Moses, Jesus, and Mary could capture the hearts of the masses and inspire people to reach out to each other. Simon, as my son, you must know the real story, your friends must know. We are all connected worldwide, and the real truth about our past is exciting, sensual, evocative, and humanly revealing. As the next generation, you and your friends will tell these stories when the liberating forces of Aquarius flow in the hearts of the people helping everyone remember how to share and connect!”
31
The Ruby Crystal
In May 2016, Donald Trump became the Republican Party nominee for the presidential election in the U.S. What goes on in U.S. politics is rarely very noteworthy overseas, but similar rabble-rousing, xenophobic politicians were infiltrating European politics. The U.S. election process confused the world, and the incessant slaughter of young American black people by the police made Europeans wonder whether the great empire was crumbling. They feared U.S. instability and civil violence after living through two world wars. They reasoned that terrorist attacks in the U.S. were next.
In mid-June, Omar Mateen mowed down more than fifty people in a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, with assault weapons. The FBI was supposedly watching him as a potential terrorist. The killer, who claimed to be aligned with ISIS, had his day of fame in the media while he left hundreds of families to mourn. As for Mateen’s easy procurement of assault rifles, a New York Times editorial had reported in 2011 that an ISIS recruitment video said America was fertile ground for ISIS attacks because it was loaded with easily obtainable firearms. The bloody Orlando massacre spotlighted several critical problems in America—radicalized homophobia, the National Rifle Association’s assistance to terrorists and madmen by their consistent blockage of effective gun control, and the sad human helplessness in the face of mass shooters—the perfect issues to inflame the public. The incident in Orlando was small in comparison to the suffering going on every day in Iraq and Syria or in any other war-torn country, but its public impact was huge: Americans could see that violence was coming home.
As the world closed in during the summer, the group gathered at Claudia’s old apartment. Strolling down her old hallway, Claudia was pleased to see everything was just as she’d left it since moving last summer, except for a small rag doll with red-yarn hair slung over the cabriole legs of a gilded French provincial hall table. Sarah waited for her at the back end of the hall. “It’s so good to have you come home, Claudia. Teresa is not allowed to play in
the parlor with your best antiques and upholstery where we will meet tonight. She plays in the dining room and only comes into the parlor to sit with us. We’ve done this to protect your lovely things, yet we’ve discovered this was also the easiest way to teach her how to behave in anyone’s house.”
Sarah was very relaxed. They strolled into the parlor arm in arm, basking in the sheer joy of feminine touch.
Simon looked up as they came in and smiled. “Ladies, you are smashing, the three most beautiful women in Rome.”
Jennifer was sitting back on a plush chair upholstered in canary yellow and silver stripes. Her short, dark, spandex skirt hugged her hips as she flashed a long thigh when she crossed her leg. She laughed. “Now that Claudia’s my designer, I take chances with how I dress.”
Claudia appraised Jennifer. “Oh, darling, I wondered how that skirt would look with that chemise top, absolutely divine.”
Armando relaxed on one end of the cranberry-and-gold-striped loveseat. He motioned for Sarah to come sit with him at the other end. “Sarah, how have you been?”
Jennifer listened, while watching Armando and Sarah discreetly. Sometimes I wonder whether I missed the one to be jealous of. Imagine how much he must have adored her. She’s saintly, uncanny. I wonder whether she loved him? Jennifer was seven months pregnant and beginning to show. She bloomed with happiness and expectation.
“Jen,” Sarah said, interrupting her reverie. “You look wonderful! You’re going to have such a strong healthy baby; Teresa can’t wait! Today, she played Momma Jennifer singing to her baby doll!”
The bantering went on for a few more minutes. Simon stood by the alcove window observing them, and then he opened the discussion when they’d all settled easily into place. “World events are going out of control, and it’s harder to make sense of anything going on in the Middle East. The suffering in Fallujah is heartbreaking and the carnage of young blacks in America is ugly; it suggests the police can kill anybody and get away with it. Sometimes I wonder whether any of my writing will make any difference at all. Now that I’ve come up to speed on the Great Ages, I’ve realized my own father was using this paradigm to decode current events. Chaos and pain take over when we move into a new age, who wants to live during these wrenching transitions?” He looked around the group who were giving him their full attention, so he went on.
Revelations of the Aquarian Age Page 30
