Talisman-Graham Hancock

[lilorphant]

Is anyone else here a Graham Hancock fan?<br><br>I hav been for years and I just picked up a book, "Talisman" co-wrote with Robert Bauval. I am about 1/3 of the way in, and it ties neetly the Cathar belief system as an inspired form of gnosticism, or dualist Christianity. I have read books on the Cathar, and how visciously the chuch went after them, but Graham relates many other influnces and players at work. The Nicene convention, which put the accepted bible did not allow for verbal traditions, or alternative viewpoints, yet in enclaves the traditions were handed down, until the time of the Cathars. After that, Graham believes these ideas to have found their way into the Renaissance, (through the Medici family and others), hidden in "plain view" for those who can see.<br><br>The book touches on architecture being one way the gnostic ideas have been passed down, from Egyptian times, to modern, as we see in Washington D.C. <br><br>I feel that the conflicts within Christianity may be partly explained by an examination of gnostic traditions. There were differences between sects, and the times they existed, and all considered themselves "true" Christians. They felt, that divine presence was attained through personal enlightnment, a devotion to an aesthetic lifestyle, (yet this was a totally voluntary thing, reserved for higher adepts), and the idea that Jesus,as a divine presence, was not killed per-se but reborn, and that to concentrate on the death part institutes guilt, which basically stunts our spiritual growth. The worship of the cross, they believed was wrong, a cross was a <br>Roman torture device, not something to be held up as a symbol of faith.<br><br> I feel sure the use of the cross as done by the churches with all it's negative connotations, is used more as a sledgehammer to keep us all in line, is entirely uninspiring, and brings conflict to our ideas of Christ's identity and his work.<br><br>The real question is who was/is right about the message and meaning of Christ? The Church, the later reformers, or was there an ancient root Jesus' teachings, that have been perverted to further the cause of wordly schemes, ie, the church, the monarchy, and nation-state as Western civilization views it, a product of capitalist venture?<br> <p></p><i></i>