h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

P. D. Ouspensky: A New Model of the Universe
Ch. IV: Christianity and the New Testament
(an essay constructed between 1911 and 1929)

The idea of esotericism occupies a very important place in Christian teaching and in the New Testament if these are properly understood ... The four Gospels are written for the few, for the very few, for the pupils of esoteric schools. However intelligent and educated in the ordinary sense a man may be, he will not understand the Gospels without *special* indications and without *special* esoteric knowledge ...

The New Testament is a very strange book. It is written for those who already have a certain degree of understanding, for those who possess a key. It is the greatest mistake to think that the New Testament is a simple book, and that it is intelligible to the simple and humble. It is impossible to read it simply, just as it is impossible to read simply a book of mathematics, full of forumae, special expressions, open and hidden references to mathematical literature, allusions to different theories known only to the 'initiated', and so on. At the same time there are in the New Testament a number of passages which can be understood emotionally, that is, which can produce a certain emotional impression, different for different people, or even for the same man at different moments of his life. But it is certainly wrong to think that these emotional impressions exhaust the whole content of the Gospels. Every phrase, every word, contains hidden ideas, and it is only when one begins to bring these hidden ideas to light, that the power of this book and its influence on people, which has lasted for two thousand years, becomes clear ...

In each of the four Gospels there are many things consciously thought out and based on great knowledge and deep understanding of the human soul. Certain passages are written with the definite calculation that one man should understand them in one way, another in another way and a third in a third way, and that these men should never be able to agree as to the interpretation and understanding of what they have read; and that at the same time all of them should be equally wrong, and the true meaning consist of something which would never even occur to them of themselves.

A mere literary analysis of the style and content of the four Gospels shows the immense power of these narratives. They were written consciously for a definite purpose by men who knew more than they wrote. The Gospels tell us in a direct and exact way of the existence of esoteric thought, and they are in themselves one of the chief literary evidences of the existence of this thought.

P. D. Ouspensky: A New Model of the Universe
Ch. IV: Christianity and the New Testament
(an essay constructed between 1911 and 1929)

This is very interesting. I think that the New Testament has a plain sense which should not be disregarded, and can be read with perfect understanding in tbis plain sense, for the most part.

Every religion has its esoteric side: Judaism has the Kabballah (please: not the watered-down adulterated version involving wearing a vastly overpriced red thread on your wrist and writing crap childrens' books. There is a REAL Kabballah).

Islam has the Sufi mysticism. For those who think Islam is only about blowing people up and killing heretics in various interesting ways, find out about Sufi, it will open your eyes.

Christianity certainly has its esoteric side: Rosicrucianism, for instance, or the Jesuit Disciplines. And there are certainly all those points in the New Testament where you gain a suspicion that more is happening than is actually being said, which fail to be referred to in the official doctrine, or at best get a scholarly footnote along the lines of "The true meaning of Our Lord's statement that "Have I not said? Ye are all Gods!" remains obscure"