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Paperback
Publisher: Suspect Thoughts Press
Jesus and the Shamanic Tradition of Same-Sex Love won the 2004 Lambda Literary Award for Spirituality/Religion. Jesus and the Shamanic Tradition of Same-Sex Love is a passionate exploration of the history of Western religion as seen through the queer eye of one of the most widely acclaimed authors in gay spirituality. Drawing on recently discovered ancient sources, Will Roscoe offers a striking new view of Jesus as a charismatic mystic, whose teachings on love and the kingdom of heaven were complemented by a secret rite that served to impart the experience of entering heaven. After meticulously reconstructing this rite, Roscoe seeks its ultimate origins--an odyssey that eventually leads him to the margins of the inhabited world, where the ancient practices of shamanism survive to today. Whether discussing early Christianity, Plato's Symposium, the rites of shamans, or the myths of ancient Mesopotamia, Roscoe uncovers fresh insights at every turn. He builds a persuasive argument that mysticism and gay love are powerfully connected, and that this connection forms a hidden tradition in the history of Western religion.
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| A CRYING SHAME -- A PUBLIC SCANDAL |
| Customer Rating: 5 out of 5 |
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Scholarship of this magnitude deserves to be, and should have been, published by one of our major university presses -- Oxford University Press, Yale University Press, Harvard University Press -- the list is long. That is was not so published is a public scandal. After numerous, unconscionable rejections by major publishers JESUS AND THE SHAMANIC TRADITION OF SAME-SEX LOVE finally found the light of day through Suspect Thoughts, a "press for connoisseurs of transgressive, intelligent literature." What it transgresses is the massive, unconscious -- or semi-conscious -- conspiracy of silence about the recent discoveries of the origins and errors of Christianity. That conspiracy prevail because the churches are unable to cope the truth. "You shall know the truth, and the truth will make you free" said Jesus. The truth is making men free, but it is scaring the churches to death. What scares them is the truth about the connections between sex and religion that recent scholarship have uncovered, and they cling to untenable dogma like drowning men clutching at straws. The sound of revolution are in the street, and the churches cannot shut it out. The revolutions brought on by the 18th century Enlightenment pale by comparison with the revolution now underway. One of our more level headed leaders of that revolution is Will Roscoe, and what he tells us leaves the establishment frighten out of its wits. The pews stand empty. The churches are going out of business. The very fabric of Western civilization, as my book BE DONE ON EARTH demonstrates, is decadent and under stress. And the establishment cannot save itself by sticking its collective head, ostrich like, under the sands of media babble. Another Bastille Day is dawning. Right on Roscoe!
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| RITUAL NOTIONS OF ONE FLESH, ONE SPIRIT |
| Customer Rating: 5 out of 5 |
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A great read for anyone willing to court the notion of a shamanic healing ritual that involves passing spirit from one person to another through nudity and touch to become one flesh before separating into two bodies. This is NOT a gay tantric sex manual. It is a study of Jesus in history, religion, and literature in the light of shamanistic healing. It explores the implications of historical scripture version suppression...as in the suppressed version of the Gospel of St. Mark. It suggests a hierarchy of mystical baptisms...implying what Catholic and Protestant Churches have to offer are ...if not lacking... at the very least, fundamental. Seek ye the Truth and the Truth shall set you free.
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| Earliest Baptisms and Their Possible Effects |
| Customer Rating: 4 out of 5 |
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In "Jesus and the Shamanic Tradition of Same-Sex Love", Will Roscoe suggests that baptism is a Christian adaptation of some shamanic rituals in which a spirit passes from one person to another. There are cults in which the two individuals, one with a spirit, are nude and touch, with or without sex, to become one flesh with one spirit, before separating into two bodies with two spirits.
An alleged attack on a "Secret Gospel of Mark" made by Clement of Alexandria (ca. 200 CE) reveals that at least that source was saying that some Christian practices involved one nude man with another. Roscoe gathers parallels and arrives at the scene in Gethsemene in Mark 14:51-52 where a young man ran away naked from Jesus's camp. The suggestion is that Jesus and the young man were engaging in a spiritual transfer of this shamanic type.
For me one interesting thing was that this interpretation suddenly makes the story of Judas more plausible. Before, I wondered why merely identifying Jesus to the gang from the chief priests made Judas such a hated figure. Judas is not shown testifying against Jesus, and the Temple authorities could have seized Him any time. I think the key is that the arresting gang had to have witnessed something happening at Gethsemene itself. The shamanic ritual could have been it. Jesus would be taken in for some sodomy- or pedophilia-related charge, in addition to those for overturning the tables at the Temple and harrassing the authorities. Adding these unreported charges to the list before sending Jesus to Pontius Pilate might have made some difference in the decision to execute Jesus. Any of this would make a big change in how we view all of Holy Week, God, and same-sex relationships. Now I can guess why Judas is considered such a rat and why no one cared to tell the truth about it.
The author's premise is inevitably thin, given the lack of direct evidence. Still, the implications are worth considering.
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| Good work, not quite for the uninitiated or unsophisticated |
| Customer Rating: 4 out of 5 |
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This work is clearly not for amateurs or those unsophisticated in trends of Biblical interpretation dating back to...oh, 1920!
i think it is necessary to at least read the prologue before jumping to hasty conclusions about what Roscoe's agenda is.
Strange, but he seems to address all of the issues raised by a previous reviewer. That reviewer seemed to fall into every possible misunderstanding of the text which Roscoe, himself, discusses and places into context in his prologue.
As someone with a background in Greek cultural history and religion and the development of Christian teachings over time (they were very diverse for about several hundred years and only the strongest in the political sense survived), I really enjoyed having this book and have given it away twice.
I enjoyed this book and gave a copy to a priest friend of mine who does a lot of public speaking on issues of masculinity and spiritual initiation. This book is very useful for understanding the context and issues of interpretation surrounding this interesting passage in the traditional Gospels as well as "Secret Mark."
This text would have gotten five stars from me if not for the confusing and overlapping letters in the typesetting of terms from ancient languages. Better to keep them un-italicized in the next edition for clarity.
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| Morton Smith Wannabe |
| Customer Rating: 3 out of 5 |
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Roscoe's dependence on "Clement of Alexandria and a Secret Gospel of Mark" by Morton Smith as the only source for same-sex ceremony in early Christianity is worrisome; could he not find other documents that witnessed the same thing, instead of depending on customs of Greek philosophy to fill in the gaps of his theory? Roscoe does as much, without knowing it, to prove the validity of the Mormon temple ceremony as he does his own point--and both proof are conjecture based of circumstantial evidence.
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