The electric Jesus : the healing journey of a contemporary Gnostic

172 Pages·2011·1.06 MB·English

by  Phillips

Praise for The Electric Jesus
“Every cultural scene needs good personal narratives. Jonathan Talat
Phillips’ Electric Jesus raises a proud flag for the post-modern Burning
Man and techno psychonautic era. However, Phillips also seeks for more
than just a flashy escape hatch from the burdens of a materialistic or
pop-cultural corporate worldview. The Electric Jesus is about the quest
for true Gnosis as much as it is about the crazy costumes we wear along
the way. This book is sure to be one of those that defines the psychedelic
resurgence that has been recently constellated by Reality Sandwich and
the Evolver Social Movement.”
—Adam Elenbaas, author of Fishers of Men: The Gospel of an Ayahuasca
Vision Quest
“Entertaining, celebratory, burning, reflective, and electric—but
definitely not for the faint of heart or hard of head. With tales of sex,
drugs, elves, and Jesus, this memoir romps through the hinterlands of
body and soul.”
—Sharon Gannon, cofounder of Jivamukti Yoga and co-author of The Art
of Yoga
“Jonathan Talat Phillips discovers Gnosis, transforms himself, goes off
the deep end, and somehow stays grounded in the material world. I
enjoyed reading The Electric Jesus, a lively and well told story.”
—Jeremy Narby, author of The Cosmic Serpent: DNA and the Origins of
Knowledge
“A moving tale of a journey into places most of us don’t even know
exist.”
—Gary Lachman, author of Politics and the Occult: The Left, the Right, and
the Radically Unseen; bassist for Blondie
“In this vividly written and deeply personal memoir, Jonathan Talat
Phillips, cofounder of the Evolver Social Movement, travels through the
key stops on the current countercultural railroad—Burning Man,
ayahuasca sessions, kundalini awakenings, MDMA—and winds up in
unexpected places, thoroughly off the tracks, seeking planetary
transformation on a new scale—a classic heroic journey, bringing out of
his own darkest places a gift not for himself but for his people.”
—Stephan Beyer, author of Singing to the Plants: A Guide to Mestizo
Shamanism in the Upper Amazon

Copyright © 2011 by Jonathan Phillips. All rights reserved. No portion of this book, except for
brief review, may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by
any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without written
permission of the publisher. For information contact Evolver Editions c/o North Atlantic Books.
Published by Evolver Editions
Evolver Editions’ publications are distributed by
North Atlantic Books
P.O. Box 12327
Berkeley, California 94712
The Electric Jesus: The Healing Journey of a Contemporary Gnostic is sponsored by the Society for
the Study of Native Arts and Sciences, a nonprofit educational corporation whose goals are to
develop an educational and cross-cultural perspective linking various scientific, social, and
artistic fields; to nurture a holistic view of arts, sciences, humanities, and healing; and to publish
and distribute literature on the relationship of mind, body, and nature.
North Atlantic Books’ publications are available through most bookstores. For further
information, call 800-733-3000 or visit our
website at www.northatlanticbooks.com.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Phillips, Jonathan Talat.
The electric Jesus : the healing journey of a contemporary Gnostic /
Jonathan Talat Phillips.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-1-58394343-4
1. Phillips, Jonathan Talat. 2. Spiritual biography—United States. I. Title.
BL73.P55A3 2011
200.92—dc23
[B]
2011016868
v3.1
There is light within a person of light,
and it shines on the whole world.
—The GOSPEL OF THOMAS
For Jade, Rena, and my family,
and the healing we’ve undergone together
T , although I still find a few of them
HE STORIES IN THIS BOOK REALLY HAPPENED
difficult to believe. I changed several names and details, however, to
protect the privacy of friends and acquaintances.
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Epigraph
Dedication
Author’s Note
Introduction by Graham Hancock
Prologue: January 17, 2011
1. The Great Lost Hope
2. Eden: Trouble in Paradise
3. A Galileo-Type Paradigm Shift …
4. Bedtime for Gnomes
5. Climbing the Tree of Life
6. The Phillips Legacy
7. The Bambino di Praga
8. Gnosis: The Not-So-Secret History of Jesus
9. Vomit and Vision
10. Cosmic Snakes and Ladders
11. When Doves Fly
12. Reptiles in Space Suits?
13. The First Extraterrestrial City on Earth
14. The Rise of Reality Sandwich
15. In Walks Chaos
16. The Galactic Cowboy
Epilogue: January 17, 2011
Acknowledgments
Notes
About the Author
H is locked in a struggle between the past
UMANITY IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
and the future.
Specifically: Are the patterns set during the past two thousand years
going to continue to dominate us and define our thoughts and behavior
in ways that no longer serve us? Or are we going to break free and
embrace the next stage of our evolution?
There can be no certainty as to the outcome. Evolution may seem
unstoppable, but the status quo we are struggling to evolve from is
supported and defended by such huge political and ideological forces,
and by such vast institutional inertia, that it is by no means certain we
will be allowed to move on.
Nevertheless, who can doubt that a new kind of humanity is beginning
to emerge in the twenty-first century?
These new humans recoil from the growing power and intrusion of the
large, centralized State into their lives and believe they are capable of
finding new ways to cooperate with others that don’t depend on State
supervision, regulation, or taxation.
These new humans do not feel any special allegiance to the “nation”
or “country” they happen to have been born in—and thus do not
automatically feel closer and more connected to a fellow human being if
he or she happens to have been born in the same country. Their primary
identification is not with their national gene pool but with others of like
mind, wherever they find them in the world. It follows that the new
humans are acutely aware of the absurdity of war and of the artificial
and constructed nature of the fear, hatred, and suspicion used by States
to justify wars of all kinds.
These new humans see the sterility of politics and economics, where
the choice currently seems to be between some form of free-market
capitalism and some form of socialism. From the new human’s point of
view, both systems are essentially the same, being rooted and grounded
in materialism and in the unproven assumption that reality is confined
to the realm of matter. Socialists and capitalists argue about how the