Christ Power and Earth Wisdom E-Book

Marko Pogacnik

• Herausgeber: Clairview Books
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

'Human evolution has now arrived at a decisive crossroads. The future of humankind on Earth depends on whether people recognize their determining role in the evolution of the consciousness of Earth.' – Marko Pogačnik Humanity today faces a unique task: to overcome the thousand-year-old division between heaven and earth, spirit and matter. This, says Marko Pogačnik, is our present-day challenge. But we have an important ally in this work in the being of Jesus, also known as Christ, whose teachings are intended to help us at this critical time of human development. Historically, however, Jesus' words of wisdom were harnessed to the construction of an earthly religion, and much of their deeper meaning was lost in the process. Christ Power and Earth Wisdom is the story of the author's discovery of a 'Fifth Gospel', woven invisibly into the four canonical Gospels. It teaches humanity how to live positively in the third millennium. Bringing together knowledge of elemental beings, Earth science and Christ, the author has translated over one hundred of Jesus' sayings into a language that the modern mind can understand. He identifies blockages in the Biblical gospels that have prevented the Spirit of Christ from manifesting in the past era. But the time is now ripe for understanding the multilayered reality of these teachings. Based on methods of investigation and perception that Pogačnik has developed over many decades of work in healing the various dimensions of Earth's landscape and nature, he deciphers the hidden, holistic messages in Christ's teachings, dismantling the obstacles that have arisen through outdated interpretations. The text is complemented with Pogacnik's energetically-charged drawings, forming a feeling counterpart to the thought flow of the book. A new Postscript offers an important update relating to methods of gaining a broader, spiritual perception of reality in the present.

Leseprobe

MARKO POGAČNIK was born in 1944 in Kranj, and lives in Šempas, Slovenia. He worked in Conceptual Art and Land Art as a member of the OHO group during the years 1965–71. He has had exhibitions in Aktionsraum, Munich, the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and Venice Biennale. After 1979 he worked in the field of art combined with integral ecology (geomancy). He has developed a method of Earth healing called ‘lithopuncture’, which utilizes stones complemented with carved ‘cosmograms’. His works stand in many countries around the world, including in Europe, South & North America, Africa and Asia. After 1998 he developed Gaia Touch body exercises to tune to the essence of the Earth and its transforming process. His books in English include: Nature Spirits & Elemental Beings, Touching the Breath of Gaia, Turned Upside Down, Gaia’s Quantum Leap, Sacred Geography and The Universe of the Human Body. In 2016 he was appointed by the UNESCO Secretary General as Artist for Peace. Marko’s website is www.markopogacnik.com

CHRIST POWER

AND EARTH WISDOM

SEARCHING FOR THE FIFTH GOSPEL

Marko Pogačnik

CLAIRVIEW

Clairview Books Ltd., Russet, Sandy Lane, West Hoathly, W. Sussex RH19 4QQ

www.clairviewbooks.com

Published by Clairview Books 2019

First published in English by Findhorn Press, 1999

Originally published in German under the titleErdsysteme und Christuskraftby Droemer Knaur, 1998

Translated by Tony Mitton

© Marko Pogačnik 1997

This book is copyright under the Berne Convention. All rights reserved. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, electrical, chemical, mechanical, optical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner. Inquiries should be addressed to the Publishers

The right of Marko Pogačnik to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978 1 912992 11 9

Cover by Morgan Creative featuring image © Marko Pogačnik Printed and bound by 4Edge Ltd, Essex

Contents

Foreword

Preface

1 On the Quest of a Fifth Gospel

2 Testing the Etheric Layers of the Gospel Texts

3 The Invisible Archetypal Pattern of the Gospels

4 The Realization of the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth

5 Traces of the Feminine and the Voice of Nature in the Gospels

6 Conversations with the ‘Old Wise One’

7 An Essential Step Forward

8 Obstructive Patterns of Power

9 The Several Layers of Jesus’ Teaching

10 Who Jesus Was and Who Christ Is

11 The Christ Archetype Across Cultures

12 Sacred Geomancy: Expression of Christ Power on Earth

13 Cinderella: a Folk Tale of Human Evolution

14 Humanity in the Mirror of the Present Earth Changes

15 Contemplating Some of the Sayings of Jesus

Bibliography

List of the Sayings of Jesus Quoted in the Book

Foreword

by Tony Mitton (translator)

This book is different. It is packed with information which in itself is an experience, opening the reader to greater sensitivity and heightened perceptions. An ordinary book begins with a premise, develops arguments and leads to a conclusion, but in this work the reader will find that he or she is the main subject. Each chapter subliminally addresses different levels of heart and mind: the instinct for truth guiding intellect through the response of the heart; the sense of one’s own long history out of past incarnations; the actual sense of the unity of the human race and our desire for love; the longing for real relationships with the human, natural and angelic worlds; the frustration as we confront the barriers which oppose us. And beyond all, the feeling of joy and awe which accompanies us as we recognize and surmount the obstacles, and go forward.

The book has many aspects. It tells stories; it researches and investigates; it travels to distant lands; in places it reeks of excitement, reading like a detective story as the author pursues his quest for the Fifth Gospel, which is the book’s sub-title. He eventually discovers this woven into the Gospel texts in separate messages. These messages offer perspectives sharply different from the usual biblical interpretations. They speak of love and wholeness, male and female, and the union and communion of all humankind with Earth and the world of angels. The dualism of good and evil has no part in them. Pogačnik concludes that the Fifth Gospel was edited out of the canonical texts, either because their message was too far removed from contemporary understanding, or because they interfered with plans for the formal, hierarchical theo-political structure which we know as the Church. Yet these messages are deeply meaningful for our present time and our transition to the next stage of our evolution.

Those who have been puzzled by the variations in the tone of the New Testament, which ranges from the widespread bestowal of blessings to unwarranted curses and damnation, will find here a key to determine which words were really spoken by Jesus and which have been interpolated. Pogačnik’s method of distinguishing between true and false is carefully described and replicable. Authenticity is validated or disproved by the etheric structure of the text. The author brings a scientist’s precision to his psychic abilities, and describes his methods exactly so that his conclusions are open to peer review by anyone gifted with psychic sense or able and willing to develop it.

The intellect is intrigued by these descriptions and the emotions engaged by the sheer drama of the quest. At the same time the plane of the soul is directly accessed from various angles: the reader participates as an observer in the miracle of transubstantiation; listens to intensely validating conversations with the elevated consciousnesses of elementals and angels; reads a moving account of the humanity of Jesus experienced in a previous lifetime; engages in an experience of the mystic union of Christ and Sophia, the Earth Goddess. And so comes to the incredible understanding that all these powers are part of us.

There is more here than the written word to work upon the soul. Pogačnik’s inimitable sketches accompanying the text have a direct visual impact that reaches down within us, seeking the core from which they came. This is indeed the secret of the book, that it continues to work within long after the reading is finished, long after the reader may consciously have forgotten the words. If my own experience is any guide, insights and new approaches will occur, often in quite unrelated circumstances.

We are enjoined to love Earth for herself, not just for what she does for us. We are told that whatever we need for growth in any given moment is there for us, and so we should view every relationship and every event as meaningful for our wider understanding; and therefore to watch for the guidance from angelic realms which comes in impulses, happenings and new acquaintances, but to be discriminate. We need to become aware of the changes occurring now in Earth and in ourselves. And to understand that not one single person will be left behind when it is time for us to move forward to our next evolutionary step, which is to help make Earth the kingdom of God.

The book moves our consciousness forward so that we may become active participants in the evolutionary change rather than just passive observers. And indeed, active participants are urgently needed, for the usual contradiction obtains: on the one hand all is very, very well, and on the other we need to be actively engaged; on the eternal plane of the Spirit, the end is already accomplished, whereas on the plane of time we seem to be asleep and must wake up and be aware if we are not to linger on in a hell of our own making. Sure, there is always a Plan B, but no need to activate it yet again. And our failure to complete on time will seriously impede the evolution of Earth and of the angelic world with which humanity is linked.

The last chapter of the book places the responsibility squarely in our lap, not through intellectual exhortations and admonitions, but through a series of brief texts and commentaries provided for our further contemplation. This is our opportunity to discard fear, accept responsibility and work upon ourselves in wholeness and communion, which is the active spirit of this book.

Tony Mitton April 7, 1999

“Whoever believes that the All itself is deficient is (himself) completely deficient.”

Words of Jesus from the Gospel of Thomas, Log. 67.

Preface

Human evolution has now arrived at a decisive crossroads. The future of humankind on earth depends on whether people recognize their determining role in the evolution of the consciousness of Earth. To us has come the unique task of overcoming the thousand year old division between heaven and earth, spirit and matter. Heaven and earth desire to be united in the process of human evolution. At the beginning of our era, Jesus, who was later also called the Christ, pointed the way to Mankind’s goal through his words and life. But in the following centuries his teaching became totally harnessed to the construction of a new world religion. Every single word of Jesus’ teaching which his contemporaries preserved from forgetfulness has been given a role in the framework of the growing religious structure, a role which often diverges widely from the original intent. In this way, certainly, the words and deeds of Jesus have been successfully rescued from the silence of anonymity and brought into the consciousness of humankind, but their deeper message, which was intended for the climax presently occurring, has been lost in the process.

Now the time is ripe for recognition of the whole multilayered reality of the sayings and teachings of Jesus, and especially for the uncovering of that layer which relates to the evolution of humanity in the third millennium and which is important to us now, quite independently of the past.

The book in front of you concerns the discovery of a ‘Fifth Gospel’. This was woven invisibly into the four named Gospels from their very beginnings, and its message is intended for the present time when great changes are taking place.

To its deciphering I have applied the different methods of investigation and perception which I have learned during my many years of working with earth-healing in the various dimensions of landscape and nature. These methods are described in the book to make quite clear the process I have used for dealing with the subject of my investigation.

This book represents my heartfelt attempt to work out a wide variety of ways in which to gain an insight into the holistic message of Christ, and in this way dismantle the obstacles which have arisen through the current extensive and outdated interpretations of Jesus’ words in the four canonical gospels.

In my work I received help from many quarters. I wish especially to thank my daughter and co-worker Ana Pogačnik who received the messages from the angelic world for this book. Only a small portion of the messages received from the angel Michael on the theme of the ‘Fifth Gospel’ are here included. The most important part will be published independently. Also I must mention the collaboration of my editor Hanna Moog, which was devoted to more than smoothing the language of my German manuscript; I wish to thank her for insights into the fabric of the contents of the text, which made possible its refinement.

Finally, I should like to mention the drawings which I have put on paper— not only to offer additional information but above all to provide the reader with space which is sufficiently charged energetically to help him or her in their progress through the book. Some of these drawings are directly connected to the themes discussed in the text; others have a purely aesthetic character: drawings of sprouting twigs, flowers, pieces of dead wood, stones, crystals, and objects which have issued from a human hand. I have drawn them in such a way that they concentrate the powers of life, and so form a counterpart feeling-wise to the thought flow of the book.

Easter Sunday, April 12, 1998 Marko Pogačnik

Chapter 1

On the Quest of a Fifth Gospel

It was no accident that my first experience of that presence, which in Western culture we call the Christ, took place in Venice. Venice is one of the many places in Europe where the spiritual vision of Christianity has been embodied in a network of churches and monasteries; and this is amplified by a strong emotional quality for which Venice has its ever-present waters to thank. As is well-known, this unique city has been built in the middle of a sea-lagoon. The city’s buildings soar directly from the water. This creates an ambiance where a heart encounter can occur which shakes a person to the very roots of their being.

The encounter came to pass by chance. On May 13, 1989, after a lengthy period of absence, I was visiting Venice to connect anew with my especially beloved little places, scattered throughout the whole city. And so towards evening I came into the Basilica of St. Mark’s, its walls covered in golden mosaic, to experience once more the heart quality of its spaces. There I noticed that a little gate to the left of the altar, which formerly had always been closed, was now standing open. The notice, “Entry Prohibited,” had been taken down, and I saw a few individuals hurrying to the gate and disappearing into the dark passage behind the door.

My interest was immediately awakened. I knew that the passage led into a narrow courtyard behind the church, and that this was only opened to the public on special occasions. For myself, I had not yet had the good fortune to be able to visit there. In the courtyard stood a Renaissance jewel, the chapel of St. Theodore, the work of Giorgio Spavanti around 1490. I guessed that the people whom I saw disappearing into the passageway were hurrying there to evening mass.

I seized the opportunity and followed them, although I did not plan to attend the mass. I felt drawn just to cast a quick glance into the celebrated chapel which, to my knowledge, must represent a supplementary pole to Saint Mark’s Basilica. However, I did not succeed in merely satisfying my curiosity, for the service began the instant I stepped into the chapel. I remained standing by the door and decided that I would choose an appropriate moment to withdraw, using the time to visit other little places in the city. Then I noticed that, among the few, rather elderly people who had come to the mass, every eye was turned on me, a relatively younger man. A strange hope could be felt in their gaze, and I could not resist the pressure to seat myself and give myself over to the progress of the ritual.

Scarcely had I come to terms with the unexpected situation than I noticed an energy sphere pulsating high above the altar, directly beneath the vault of the apse. Its white light poured into the church’s interior. I became firmly convinced that I was perceiving an angel of ceremonies who was accompanying the mass.

I was greatly surprised, for this was the first time that I saw with open eyes something that did not exist on the material plane. Admittedly, I had for long concerned myself with the invisible planes of reality and thus developed a special personal sensitivity. Up until now, this had expressed itself through a certain feeling in my hands which could “touch” into the subtle forces in my environment and distinguish them by their qualities. Now, how-ever, there was something new being added: a sort of inner looking that ran parallel to the perception of the physical eyes. On one plane, I could observe the actions of the officiating priest, an elderly man who obviously found his duties burdensome. At the same time, on the other plane I could perceive the calm rays of the white core of light which hovered above the altar. Then, at the moment that the priest made the sacrificial offering of bread and wine, an event occurred which left me dumbfounded. Vertically descending from above, a human-like figure manifested whose form was composed of fine threads of light. It was unmistakably recognizable as the figure of Christ which has been impressed on the common consciousness of our culture through countless works of art. Still later, as the Host was divided among the congregation flocking around the priest, I could perceive his presence in their midst. I even feel assured that I saw him lovingly touch some of the believers without their noticing. I felt pity for them in their stubbornness, and at the same time rejoiced that I was representing them.

It was not easy for me to fit this experience into my picture of the world. I have learned to pursue my spiritual path on my own, independent of any sort of institution or movement. Thanks to a personal discipline which I have built from my experiences, I have always sought a relationship with the inner core of my being and through it, like every other person, tried to come into resonance with the whole of creation. The relationship entails the cultivation of an inner silence and work on personal grounding. It is not a matter of following fixed forms, but rather a process which is to be perceived as constantly changing, so that it can be shaped differently every time.

After the experience in Venice, I had to admit that spiritual power, which until now I had thought to be free from forms of every sort, can also flow through an institutionalized framework which had seen no noteworthy change in centuries. This was an experience which gave me much to think on. In later, repeated observations of the Eucharist it remained true that it was impossible to deny the identity of Christ’s presence which was changed into a human-like figure composed of a pure light-form and coupled with a special quality of feeling1.

Through these experiences I became ever more convinced that these visions had meaning for my own evolutionary path. Finally, during my times of deep meditation, I began to concentrate on the figure of Christ as I had experienced it at the mass. It was on such an occasion, and with no expectations on my part, that this same figure emerged from the center of my heart and spoke to me. Admittedly I did not hear the words but I understood them in the following sense: in that period when his power and knowledge were incarnate and taught through Jesus, he made the promise of which the Gospels tell: Christ will be present with his blessing whenever bread is broken in his Name. It is this promise which is still kept today. What puzzled me, however, was the feeling of deep sorrow embedded in the statement.

As if to confirm my feeling, an intuition came to me which I would put into the following words: the purpose of Christ’s original incarnation among men was to lead mankind into a new phase of evolution. This is the phase of independent spiritual evolution which can be accomplished not only by an influence deriving from outside, but also by reinforcement from within.

The Coming of Christ ‘from without’, such as I observed at the celebration of the mass, signifies only temporary support. People who admit the experience of his presence to their hearts, even quite unconsciously, experience an opening, an offer to join themselves to the Christ power within. The sorrow that I had felt stirring was because we all shy away from our potential, which is to take responsibility and independently incarnate what is aroused by the Christ impulse.

For me personally this insight resolved the conflict between the Coming of Christ ‘from without’ and his Coming ‘from within’. It became clear that the Christ power can take either path to inspire or support people in their evolution. It is simply a matter of whether or not we are ready to proceed on our spiritual path independently. Whether the help comes from without or within is irrelevant.

For the next three years my attention was steered elsewhere. I had first seen the nature spirits, also called elemental beings, in the winter of 1993, or to put it more precisely, I did not see them with my physical eyes, but perceived them with my inner sight. Like the experience of the Christ presence described above, my perceptions in the elemental realm were also imbued with such a deeply gripping and inspiring feeling that I felt obliged to lay aside all reservations and uncertainties about their authenticity.

Up to that point in time, I had concerned myself almost exclusively with earth at the level of her forces, her vital energetic systems. It is their role to nourish the earth’s surface, inclusive of all creatures dwelling there, and replenish it continuously with life forces of various sorts. For example, the ‘vital energetic centers’ or power points belong to these systems. These concentrate the life forces arising out of earth and then distribute them over the landscape. This distribution comes about partly through a fountain-like outpouring, and partly through the flow of power-pathways called ley-lines which carry and distribute the forces to the countryside. These ley-lines spread from the vital energetic center in question in the shape of a star and reach out across the landscape.

It would fill a whole book if I were to catalogue the individual force phenomena, so rich is the complexity of earth’s systems2. Now the perception of the elemental beings added a new dimension: the overall consciousness of Earth. My first unsystematic, almost casual observations of tree spirits, or of the elemental beings which enliven a river or dance through the air, soon solidified to a conviction that this was not a matter of individual beings inhabiting the earth, water, air or fire realms of the planet, but of an overall planetary consciousness. This consciousness concerns itself with the maintenance and further development of every little flower, every single beast or person, every mountain and every landscape on the surface of the earth. To carry out this almost unmanageable number of tasks, the overall consciousness of earth is individualized through a great variety of cells of consciousness, which we describe as elemental beings or nature spirits. In my experience, a fairy is not an individual being like a man or woman, but an individualized aspect of the overall consciousness of earth, one which takes care of a particular ambiance or space.

Over the years, the broader my insights into the multidimensionality of earth’s systems, the clearer has become the key role that humanity plays in them. It is not only that we have diverted the greater part of earth’s surface for our own needs and built over vast areas; not only that, through our practically uninterrupted battles and wars, we have put whole countries into a state of shock; we have also taken upon ourselves the right to grasp at the very being of life itself, and have pushed a specific level of existence — the material level — overwhelmingly into the foreground, so that others are shoveled into forgetfulness. By these others, I am thinking of the above-mentioned subtle levels. We have created a picture of the world that is distinguished by the exclusion of the overwhelming part of reality. This picture of the world does not just stay in our heads, but, because of our world-wide ‘busyness’, it oppresses quite shamelessly the life systems of earth. In brief, we believe that the earth is really as we see it in our one-dimensional view, and we misapprehend her true multi-dimensionality.

One possible way of representing the multi-dimensionality of the landscape.

Anyone who has experienced earth’s power, say in an earthquake or storm at sea, will have an inkling of the significance of such a perversion of earth’s systems. There is only one way out of this crisis: a change in people’s consciousness. We must change our basic attitudes towards ourselves and towards earth’s systems. Then it will be relatively easy for Earth to ‘dance’ up and away from her present hampered performance. Of this I am convinced.

A consciousness change in humankind — yes! But what model should we follow? Who can move humankind to enter a process of change? We know very well that people are not inclined to leave the traveled path, especially when the changes envisaged are so far-reaching.

To answer these ever recurring questions, I was vouchsafed a vision which announced Christ’s presence in another way. It happened during the night of April 17, 1996 after an evening presentation in Ottersburg, North Germany, while I was sleeping at a friend’s house. Around three in the morning, I was suddenly awakened and made aware of a strange vibrational quality in the room. It took a little while before I adjusted to the unknown presence which was penetrating every atom of my being. Only then could I order my impressions and allow images to arise before my inner eye.

It was the same Christ presence, unmistakable after the experiences previously described. This time however, I did not sense it as being alone, but as inwardly connected with a second presence which felt as if twinned with that of Christ. I would however describe it as softer and womanly. I could best paraphrase the vision thus, that two spiritual beings were present in me and around me, and yet formed a single rounded whole.

I intuitively responded to this duality, and two names rose in my consciousness: Sophia and Christ. My mind wanted to interject that it would be more correct to recognize the pair as Mary the mother and her son Jesus.However, my feeling rejected this and gave me to understand that quite clearly it concerned one and the same presence, which, in a constantly changing rhythm, was showing two aspects of its being, one masculine and the other feminine. The mother-son relationship would bring in a certain distance which did not correspond to the unity which I perceived.

The Blessed Virgin Mary shown with the Jesus child on the portal of the Lechkirche in Graz, Austria. The dragons symbolize the earth systems, and the crown the spiritual dimension. Mary, with the orb of wholeness, stands for Sophia; Jesus, who is gesturing towards the source of the Word, stands for Christ.

The vision continued to pulsate in and around me, and, using it as a mirror, I tried to understand as precisely as possible the meaning of these names which are so decisive for our culture. If Mary and Jesus stand for the names of two historical persons, then Sophia and Christ should stand for the two spiritual powers which have revealed themselves to humankind through the two persons. Translated as to their content, Sophia means ‘The Wisdom of the Original Beginning’ and Christ ‘The Anointed of God’. Here we are dealing with symbolic names which indicate the feminine and masculine aspects of the Godhead, Goddess and God in one.

At the same moment, I noticed how these thoughts were diverting me from the direct experience of the divine presence; my mind was trying subliminally to control their effect on my consciousness. I took issue with the distraction and let go of the thought stream, opening myself feeling-wise to the sweet charm of the presence’s vibration and letting its quality enter deep into my inner being.

After some while — I could not tell in terms of time how long the revelation lasted — I had the feeling that I was standing on the threshold of a new phase of my development; the touch of the Sophia-Christ Being sought to encourage me to take a step into the New, and at the same time indicate the nature of the task. Yet, just as it goes for most men these days, the inspiration was lost in daily chores over the following months. To be honest, it was as true for me as for many that I followed the common model of mankind and shied away from the changes which such a step would bring into my life. Later events also showed that I was not ready for them then.

Fortunately, during the summers of the last few years, I have been able to take at least 13 days off to pursue my further development. I withdraw with my family to a small, rocky island in the Adriatic, to meditate on my paths of personal development and sow the seeds for future activities. This time I would make my priority my relationship with the Christ power — securely based on the contact in Ottersburg.

On September 12, 1996, I was preparing a list of subjects to talk about in the following year when the theme of the ‘Fifth Gospel’ came into my head. Scarcely had I written the title down when additional explanatory words came to me, although I was not planning to provide commentaries for the different titles at that time. The explanation, which ran onto the paper as if of its own accord, stated: “There is no ‘Fifth Gospel’, taken by itself. Like an invisible network, it is woven into the four recognized Gospels. It speaks to that which men were incapable of understanding in the time of Jesus. For the first time, now, on the threshold of the third millennium, people are ready to hear it.”

The message inspired my very depths. I wanted to leap into searching for the Fifth Gospel immediately, and then write a book about it. The following night I had a dream which I should have understood as warning me that I was not yet sufficiently mature for such a task. However, in my euphoria I was convinced that the dream was trying to warn me of disruptions emanating from certain contrary powers, which would try by their workings to dissuade me from the task I had just discovered. I regretted that I had not brought a Bible with me to the island, so as to start at once on unlocking the ‘Fifth Gospel’, in despite of all threatening dangers.

The Greek word for gospel,euaggelion,means ‘health bringing message’ and signifies the health bringing message conveyed by the teaching and works of Jesus Christ in Palestine at the beginning of our era. All the historically established Christian institutions, whether they belong to the Orthodox, Catholic or Protestant Churches, recognize only four gospel texts as being faithful to the truth. These were written by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. These four Gospels, established by decision of the early Church Councils, became the basis on which Christian culture was constructed in the centuries following.

Yet, from the time of its foundation, there has been a suspicion within Christendom that the four Gospels — they are called the canonical gospels — may not preserve the whole of the Christian message. There may exist a ‘Fifth Gospel’ which will impart all that was forgotten or excluded. The gospel fragments which have emerged here and there since the Middle Ages can be counted as part of this concept. They are called ‘Apocrypha’. In Trieste during the first half of the 19th-century Jakob Lorber wrote a ‘Fifth Gospel’ which he called ‘The Great Gospel of John’3. This ran to about 20,000 manuscript pages, received through the inner word. Rudolf Steiner published his spiritual scientific investigation into the background of the life and works of Christ under the title “The Fifth Gospel4.” As a seer, he could read the memories of that epoch — in the so-called Akashic Record — and observe directly what the writings had not preserved. In the years 1913-1914, he lectured on the subject throughout Europe.

In 1945, the Gospel of Thomas was found at Nag Hammadi in Egypt. This contains 114 of Jesus’ sayings translated into Coptic. This gospel was buried, along with an array of Gnostic books, by a nearby monastic community; supposedly, this had happened in the sixth century and had been done to preserve the writings from threatened destruction by the official Church.

The ‘Jerusalem Cross’. Through the configuration of the four crosses, symbolizing the four Gospels, a fifth invisible cross is formed — a symbol for the fifth gospel.

When I returned home from my island retreat, I rushed at once to the four gospels to look for the hidden references. I found none. The textual model of the gospels, excellent and logically constructed, presented no single tiny opening through which I could gaze into its interior. It seemed as if I was up against a brick wall. My intuitive trust, that within the textual structure of the four canonical gospels lay a ‘Fifth Gospel’, was severely tested.

When there seems no way out, I ask my daughter Ana Pogačnik for help. She has been communicating with angelic beings for the past seven years and we have worked together countless times on healing projects in town and country, in the course of which she has turned to the Angel of Earth Healing for the necessary information about the place where the work was to be carried out. This time I requested her to ask her angel teacher whether my intuition about a ‘Fifth Gospel’ made any sense. The reply, received on September 15, 1996, stated:

The four gospels are primarily devoted to people’s relationship with each other, but the ‘Fifth Gospel’ speaks to the relationship which a single individual has with their own being, and to their relationship with their environment only as a consequence of that. It places the individual at the center point, as a person and not as part of a crowd. You can learn more about this matter from an angel who is ‘active’ in this area. He possesses insight into people’s collective and individual evolution and helps one to search for one’s personal spiritual path.

The ‘Fifth Gospel’, in the sense that you have understood it, is an important source of inspiration for the evolution of humankind. It deals with a change in your evolutionary path, a great ‘forward step’ which is confronting humanity and all of creation. A whole host of angels is extremely active in this special area. They work by inspirational guidance, and by leading try to help. The angel I mentioned previously is one of them. His name is Michael.

It hardly needs saying that this message had a heady effect on my still rudimentary investigations. Certainly, the key had not been put directly in my hand, but the multidimensionality of the gospel texts had been confirmed. For the past 2000 years, the superficial, externally oriented dimension of the gospels had been the focus of attention. It had served as the basis for the construction of a religious institution which describes itself as the Christian Church. This had created a mediating authority which offered all people two things: the possibility of reuniting with the divine origin of their being through its priesthood; and of establishing a community resting on the commandment to love one’s neighbor.

The other dimension, which I describe as the ‘Fifth Gospel’, is not perceptible when one reads the gospels in the usual way, because it lies, figuratively speaking, beneath the strata of external text. As characterized by the angel, itscontentis oriented quite differently. It does not put the commonality of mankind in the foreground, but instead gives priority to the individual. It contains instruction for the personal spiritual path which is shaped differently for every single man and woman, though that does not mean that a person should lose themselves in the labyrinth of their own personality. What the angel’s message indicated was that new, deeply penetrating relationships with earth, nature and one’s fellow humans would be made possible, grounded for the first time on the processes of personal self-knowledge.

The first messages which Ana received from the angel Michael in connection with the above very quickly formed a picture of what is meant by the personal spiritual path. In the first place, it does not mean what nowadays is canvassed about as New Age practice — there are no particular forms of meditation or prayer, no prescribed invocations or rituals and no esoteric disciplines. On the contrary, our quite normal, everyday life is presented as the most competent method of schooling the individual. The tasks and problems which our many-dimensioned life brings to every single person contain the opportunity for one’s soul and spirit to ascend to perfection. It does not matter whether we recognize the divine plan in our life’s path and give ourselves over to it, or whether we simply ignore it.

To give a small glimpse into this world of thought, I would like to quote from one of the earlier messages which Ana received from Michael on September 28, 1996, in Ljubljana, capital of Slovenia.

You are on different steps of your evolution, and that is the reason why you work together, completing one another. In evolution, no-one is more useful or more important than another, even though one person may stand on a higher evolutionary step. You are all essential to the general evolution and therefore to the Cosmos as a Whole. Everyone of you, man and woman, carries in yourselves a piece of the whole pattern, and also a message which has meaning for the onward path of all humanity. When you become capable of binding all these personal pieces and all your messages together into one whole, then only will you become a true community and be able to stride forward on your joyful way. No-one will be excluded from this unity, and no single person is unimportant in the Wholeness.

In this, neither your age nor your profession has any importance. Only this is important, that you should learn to unfold the individual message which you carry within you, and apply it in your life. That means that you handle your personal life within the framework of collective evolution, so that it leads to the divine unity of all things.

One may have no trouble accepting the content of the message and yet still have doubts about its origin. Where is the world of angels? My intuition suggests that there is a richly articulated consciousness which pulsates between the divine dimension and the plane of manifested life — binding the innermost of the cosmos with its outermost. This is the realm of the angels. The name comes from the Greek wordangelos,which means ‘messenger’. Angels were perceived as messengers who travel between the sphere of the divine and the world of men. They are a personification of the cosmic consciousness. To better understand them in their being, we should release the image of their human-like appearance and see them rather in the manner of a pure consciousness. Their ‘body’ is a vibrational structure which serves as the bearer of this consciousness.

For a person in the information age, such a concept should be easily comprehended. More difficult is the question of the various hierarchies of angels, as they were traditionally proposed. My hypothesis would view individual hierarchies as different outreach levels of the universal consciousness — that is to say of the angelic world. It must be understood that there is no distinction in eternity between consciousness and the beings who ‘embody’ this consciousness. The beings who are described as Seraphim and Cherubim can be understood as embodiments of specific qualities which pervade the whole universe and every single one of its parts: for example, the qualities of love, compassion or wisdom. The function of angels on the archangelic level is to infuse specific world developments or cultural revolutions with divine qualities. They were mentioned in the first quoted message as angels who support the evolution of mankind, inspiring and leading it. Among them is the angel named Michael. I will not call him ‘archangel’ because to do so would energize an outdated hierarchical model which in these times would act as an undesirable division between the two complementary worlds, the world of man and the realm of angelic consciousness.