Reincarnation

Many people in the west do not believe in reincarnation. It is not part of present day Christianity. Most of the references to it have been removed from the Bible. Why? In 553 AD, 165 Church officials condemned reincarnation. Up until then, it had been a fundamental Christian teaching, reinforced by the Council of 451. It is hard to believe that a woman called Theodora was largely responsible for this. 

Justinian* became Roman emperor in 527. His wife, Theodora, had made a sharp social ascent. Daughter of a bear tamer from Constantinople, she began as a young beautiful prostitute greatly sought after by the aristocracy. She rapidly ascended the social ladder, becoming one of Justinian’s concubines, then his favourite, and finally in 523, his wife. In 527, she and her husband were crowned Empress and Emperor of the Roman Empire. Quite an achievement.. Theodora still had one remaining ambition – her own deification. Only then would she be equal with the Caesars of old. Previously Roman Emperors were automatically deified and received a place of worship in the temple halls.

* In 550, Justinian was the same emperor mentioned in ‘Mary Magdalene’s Final Legacy’ who ordered the destruction of the shrine containing the bones of Montanus, Priscilla and Maximilla and turned all Montanist buildings in the city over to the orthodox Church.​

Justinian and Theodora

Christianity had brought an end to this custom, and reincarnation provided a stumbling block; what could prevent the errant empress from being reborn as a simple beggar? As long as reincarnation was anchored fast in Christian consciousness, the people would never accept her as a goddess. And so reincarnation had to be blotted out..

Theodora selected the monophysitist monks, who were soon to be pardoned from their excommunications, as willing helpers. They were to ensure that every teaching of reincarnation completely disappeared from all church documents.

But it was not earthly power alone that accomplished this evil. People would forget their true divine goal (to one day become gods and goddesses themselves), subjecting themselves to the mercy of an external god and forgetting their own divinity. They wait for a salvation that would never come, as each person can only save themselves.

The powers of darkness had found two helpers with great influence in Theodora and Justinian. Both of them were reported to be possessed. The historian, Procopius, quotes Justinian’s mother as confessing to her confidantes that Justinian was sired by a demon. 

Thoedora died of cancer aged 48 in 548 AD before the church officially declared the doctrine of reincarnation heresy in 553 AD.

Fortunately, some texts were hidden and preserved.

‘The Holy Gospel of the Twelve’ is an Aramaic text discovered in a Buddhist monastery in Tibet in 1870…  Jesus makes numerous references to reincarnation:-

1. “The soul is purified through many births and experiences.”

2. “So through many births will ye be made perfect.”

3. “As all creatures come from the unseen into this world, so they return to the unseen, and so they will come again till they be purified.”

4. “Blessed are they who suffer many experiences, for they shall be made perfect through suffering: they shall be the angels of God in heaven and die no more, neither shall they be born anymore, for death and birth have no dominion over them.”

Why is reincarnation relevant?

Because my next blog is about a young American woman called ‘Katie’ (not her real name) who under hypnosis recalls a past life as a teacher in the Essene community at Qumran. One of her students is Yeshua..