HOW I DISCOVERED THE GOSPEL OF THOMAS
Why My Sense of Urgency Was Extreme ___________________________________
When I started waking up, things were different
than they are now. There was no internet and prejudice
and narrow thinking were winning the day. In fact, narrow thinking had won the day. In North America, we were in an
impossible position.
Britain and Europe were in an impossible position, too.
We were on the wrong path and It was
difficult for people to find the right path.We
were living in drought conditions - there was
a real dearth of information in the
popular mind.
I remember very well the day, when I was
nineteen,and at the University of Toronto.
I walked in to Emmanuel College library, which
was a good quiet place to study and read.
I got up to stretch my legs. I walked
over to a tall narrow window which overlooked
the grass of the quad in the inner part of
Victoria College.
There, without really looking for it,I found
a thin dusty hardcover book, black and unread
and stashed away between bigger books
on a non popular part of the library.
I pulled the thin dusty old unread volume
out and I read the small letters on the
cover. On the cover, it said: "The Gospel
of Thomas."
No one had heard of the Gospel of Thomas -
and the way things were going, no one
was going to hear about The Gospel of Thomas.
The suppression of information had already
begun.
Imagine how you`d feel, yourself, if on your
own you discovered an unknown Gospel -
a gospel discovered in 1945. But no one had
spoken of it in 25 years!
Well, I flipped!
The next day, I did the only logical thing: I got up early, had a good shower, ate nothing, dressed all in white and took a strong stimulant to clear my mind.
I sat on the grass outside
the library, watched the sun rise and
went into the library.
The library was open early and the lights were
on. I went straight to the thin dusty
volume and reverently took it off the shelf.
The sun shone on the desk and I felt
a warm glow as the room brightened up
when I sat in that old
stone library by myself that morning.
I opened the Gospel of Thomas and I began
to read.
The opening phrase all alone on the first page was:
HE WHO FINDS THE EXPLANATION OF THESE WORDS WILL NOT TASTE DEATH.
That`s quite an opening, I think you`ll
agree!
O.K., those of you who have
had the experience of light suddenly filling a
room in a golden glow, you can
imagine my reaction, starting almost to levitate
in that old stone chapel....
The stone walled library was starting
to feel ancient.
The words I was reading were ancient.
The next words I read were:
"HE WHO DRINKS FROM THE BUBBLING WATERS
FROM MY MOUTH, HE SHALL BECOMES AS I AM,
AND I SHALL BE HE, AND THE HIDDEN THINGS
WILL BE REVEALED TO HIM.
My God! What I was reading had little
to do with the Christianity I had been taught!
It appeared to me that everything I had
been taught about the words of Christ was wrong.
Not only was what I had been taught wrong, it was
errant nonsense.
First of all I was amazed. A new
truth was revealing itself to me - and this truth
was the most ancient truth of all.
As the sun was dawning through
the old leaded glass windows, I read. And
these were the words of CHRIST!
"CLEAVE A PIECE OF WOOD, I AM THERE.
LIFT UP A STONE AND YOU WILL FIND ME THERE."
I saw the hand of God in this. How could
I not have... There I was, a young man, versed
in law and literature, and learning how to write
I took the narrow dusty black volume
with me, I walked out onto the grass illuminated by
the early morning sun. I had the Gospel of Thomas
in my pack sack.
I got down on my knees, dressed all in white,
my body cleansed and having fasted for twelve hours
I put my forehead into the grass countless times.
And I gave thanks to our Lord of hosts,
the Lord who rides the clouds and rules the heavens,
the Lord of the meeting rivers, for revealing this
for revealing this truth to me.
Again and again, I abased myself, praying,
kneeling, again and again pressing my forehead
into the grass. I remember saying the Lord`s
Prayer out loud . I remember hearing my
voice echoing against the walls of the stone
buildings of the quad.
Classes were not to begin for another
hour and a half. I remember seeing Northrop Frye
walking by, with papers for his morning lecture.
I remember he was observing me quite closely
as he passed.
He walked into old Victoria College.
He opened the heavy wooden door, and then
was gone.
This is why you hear the sense of urgency
in my voice sometimes as I write.
I thought this new ancient truth was
on the verge of being suppressed again,
so I started making copies of this gospel,
found at Nag Hammadi 1945.
I remember re-writing the Gospel of
Thomas and making a drama out of it.
In the drama, God talked to the poet
and to the Christ. It was a three way
conversation. And I thought it
was actually happening.
Even to this day, I`m sure
the conversation actually happened.
Go ahead, call me crazy as a bedbug!"
Others have.
I made about thirty
copies of the gospel and the
dramatic short book that emerged
out it, as I examined the text.
I placed copies of it in about
thirty places throughout Ontario -
just in case the bastards tried to stamp
the Revelation out again.
Needless to say, my life changed
from that point on - and the more deeply
I read the gospel, the more my life
changed.
I stopped eating and I focused.
I drank water and I focused on the gospel.
Then I did the only logical thing I could
think to do. I drove two hundred and fifty miles north of Toronto.
I started walking through the bush and getting
the feel of most of the hilltops surrounding Trout Lake,
to the East of the City of North Bay.
I walked for miles and
miles in the bush, climbing hills.
I was looking for a place of power.
I found one - I found a place
that felt just right.
It was on the top of 150 foot granite cliff.
I started cutting down small hilltop oak trees.
I cut down about fifty of them.
I discovered they were too heavy
to move by myself. So I went to the Sturgeon Falls Burrough`s livestock auction.
I bought a big young black workhorse at the
auction. I had to coax the horse up to narrow goatpath
to the top of the cliff. The horse helped me drag the logs to
the site atop the face of the cliff.
I hired three men. Between the four of us,
we were just able to lift one 14 foot log. That oak
is heavy wood; it`s also holy wood, I was thinking.
In two months, the hut was built.
It had a desk, a bed, a wood stove, two
windows with wooden shutters. The hut was twelve
feet by fourteen feet. with a tar roof and plank floor.
It was just big enough.
I read the Gospel of Thomas carefully,
over the months and I rewrote the whole thing, not
changing the message,but making a drama out of it.
I lived there all through the winter,
with the screaming wind up over the cliff, and the
snow and the ice and the northern lights.
There was no electricity, and no way to drive
there. I just had oil lamps and no radio. It was
silent and beautiful - just the place to work
on a gospel that had been deceitfully hidden
from our Christian world and kept out of our Bible.
I didn`t know what other people thought of
me and I didn`t much care. I didn`t share
with very many people what I was doing up there.
I propose to start sharing what was written on that cliff top with you. I'm putting a copyright on it in order to protect the text on the internet, and so I can derive a living out
what I have done.
I want to make one thing clear, however. I physically
sat on the cliff top and wrote these words down, but many of the words passed through me, as light suffused
the place I was sitting.
Often I found I was understanding only the top
of the page, but my hand was writing the bottom of the
page. My understanding had not reached the bottom
of the page.
Later I would understand what was written on the
bottom of the page.
What I am saying is this: though I am putting down
a copyright on this page to protect the text, I did not
write all of this text.
When I was confused, exhausted and I couldn't
finish a sentence, another Hand finished the sentences
for me. I was reading, after all, the original Gospel and I
wasn't entrusted to do the whole task.
Our Father in Heaven finished many of these
pages for me, and if you don't think such a thing is possible,
I have to say you are mistaken.
I would not have had the courage to write
some of the contents of this text. You don't have to
believe me in this, but I know what has happened,
and I have been shown what is true.
For many years I have been afraid to
publish this text. I was afraid for my own life.
Now I'm older and I realize this is not about me.
It is about all you people in the world
who will carry the dream.
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