Reading the Gospels

October 1991 through October 1992 was my one-year stint in an intense super-secret Fourth Way teaching school that had relocated in Louisville from Colorado just as I joined, and which moved on to Lexington, Kentucky, shortly after I got myself kicked out.  There were two teachers who were husband and wife, and about twenty students.  At first, most of the students were the ones who had re-located with the teachers from Colorado.  The focus of study was through a direct line of teaching from G. I. Gurdjieff, through P. D. Ouspensky, through Rodney Collins.

It was here that my reconciliation with Christianity began.  It was here that I first encountered a plausible alternative interpretation of the Gospels that made sense to me at the time.  The value to me at that time was immense. It opened a crack in the seemingly monolithic and impenetrable fog of contemporary mainstream Christian discourse that I didn't believe or respect.  It involved questioning the purpose and intent of the gospels.

The suggestion was simply this: The Gospels were never intended to be read literally.  The Gospels were written in coded language which could be understood only if the keys to understanding were shared by one who knew. The only way to know the secret was by direct transmission of the secret in an unbroken line by word of mouth only.  It is a Western form of Guru-ism, except the focus was not upon the teachers themselves, it was upon what they taught.

The written Gospels are a teaching tool and not a primary source of understanding.  There are four Gospels because there are four basic types of men and women, or four different levels of psyche.  Each Gospel speaks to a different level.  This explains the apparent inconsistencies.

I shall gather basic resource information and update here.

My theory is that reading A Course in Miracles apart from its relationship to everything else is a mistake. It is an ego mistake.

When you think about it, that's what the ego does - it separates, isolates and makes different. It makes "better-than" or special. Everything in the world, including sacred texts, can be used for opposite purposes.

So, I don't think it is even possible to usefully apply the teachings of A Course in Miracles without a basic knowledge of Christianity. But, I have found it very useful to read the Gospels with a questioning mind.

My reading the of the Gospels as suggested here was not an end-point for me. It was a starting point. After investigating the metaphorical meanings of the Gospel stories, there is then a return to literalism. Time is a spiral.

-oOo-

Tom Fox
Louisville, Kentucky

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