Ever felt something was missing in your spiritual journey?
On our spiritual journey we can often feel misunderstood, experience a rollercoaster of emotions that are hard to manage, struggle trusting our intuition, and go through some of the greatest transitions in our lives. We can even feel isolated from family, friends, co-workers, and society.
In early 2017, I started to shift from religion to spirituality, reading books like The Power of Now, Gabby Bernstein and Marianne Williamson, and about one hundred other personal growth and spirituality books. My intuition was growing stronger. I felt more alive than ever before and the love in my heart was expanding. I was healing. I felt so supported by all the signs from the Universe (rainbows, butterflies, numbers, parking spots, etc.).
However, I also felt like my foundation was crumbling. How could something I was taught to be the truth not be true? And I’m not talking about something small. I am talking about something big: religion.
This post is intended to support your gut knowing by sharing hidden truths. The following information was critical for me to learn on my healing journey from religion to spirituality and empowered me to trust my gut knowing.
Here’s what we will cover in this post:
- Hidden Truths in “History” that Led to Modern-Day Christianity
- What No One Has Told You About The New Testament
- Liberation of Hidden Scriptures
- The Proven 3-Step Rediscovery Process to Trusting Your Inner Knowing
As a result of this post, you will be have access to hidden truths to guide you on your healing journey, feel supported in your spiritual journey, and gain confidence in your inner knowing through a proven process.
Are you more of a watcher than a reader? I’ve got you covered, see the associated blog video below.
Are You Feeling The Calling?
Have you experienced the shift to spirituality? Or are you now? Can you feel it in your body? Maybe it’s a subtle gut feeling or a knowing you can’t explain. Yet, you know your craving for spiritual growth outweighs the discomfort of staying stuck in old patterns, cycles, and beliefs.
Ask yourself these questions:
- Are you noticing that something feels off with the beliefs you were raised with? Or the beliefs others want you to believe in or the ones you think you should believe in?
- Do you feel called to more spiritual practices (meditation, yoga, intuition, spiritual awakening, chakras, crystals, oracle cards, healing, journaling, breathwork, visualization, etc)?
- Are you questioning the religious dogma that judges and condemns? Or maybe for you, your religion is kind and beautiful, and yet you’re still questioning.
I questioned, too. As the overachiever I am, I didn’t stop at what I was taught to believe or settle for what was in the spiritual books I read. I needed accurate, credible facts and data backed by academic rigor and resources.
My curiosity and drive to understand the truth behind religion and my desire to better understand spirituality led me to get my master’s in Women, Gender, Spirituality, and Social Justice at California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco, CA, where I study religions, spirituality, and healing practices from around the globe. Here’s what I have found on my journey both in grad school and in learnings outside of grad school.
Unlearning is healing.
So, I want to share this information with you to support your unlearning healing journey. In short, here’s what I have found about the development of Christianity. We didn’t get the whole story. It’s single-sided—one based on fear and control. Self-empowering scriptures were hidden and not included in the New Testament. The hidden scriptures that have been found to date teach that God is within, that there is no such thing as sin, and about women’s leadership in the early Christ movement.
After learning about the truth, I was mad for a while, but even through the anger, I felt liberated. Something inside me activated – TRUST in myself – cells in my body started to feel my inherent worth and connection to the Divine. I feel an uncontainable, unconditional, uncontrollable love within me that moves me to tears in an instant.
This is what I want for every woman, for every person, for you to feel this Love, to feel worthy and connected to your true Self. To Divinity. To trust yourself. To feel confident when you speak about your knowing and have the courage to speak your truth, even when it goes against what others want, or think is best for you. I want you to have the knowledge and wisdom to back what you know intuitively with academic research which instill trust in your intuition.
The content comes from a final research paper I wrote for one of my master’s classes. The paper is titled: “A Feminist Viewpoint on Christian History and the Healing Power of Christian Herstory.” The research paper cites seventy-three credible sources, including The Department of Religious Studies at Duke University, the School of Theology and Ministry at Boston College, and Harvard Divinity School. I have condensed the paper for this post.
Let’s get started.
The impacts of Christianity can have both negative and positive impacts on people. The inaccuracies or rather distortions of the early Christ movement by church Fathers have been a contributing factor in women’s experiences of shame, guilt, and unworthiness. If we want true transformation, we must understand the root cause, or we will just be placing band-aids on wounds requiring reconstructive surgery.
Hidden Truths in “History” that Led to Modern-Day Christianity
While some believe Christianity was an invention of the Roman emperor Constantine (reign 306-337 C.E. – source) and had little to do with Jesus himself, others believe the “origins in the movement started by the surviving disciples of Jesus of Nazareth.” (source) Upon strenuous research, key common threads in the development of Christianity showed (1) Jewish and Greco-Roman influence and (2) the power and dominance of Constantine. (source 1 & 2) A central component to the establishment of what is known as modern-day Christianity, was developed at the first ecumenical council at Nicaea in 325 C.E. by Constantine . (source) (C.E. = Common or Current Era)
The Council of Nicaea, led by Constantine, was attended by approximately three hundred and eighty bishops and was considered the establishment of Christian doctrine with creed, canon, and Easter. (source) Scholars state that “Undoubtedly, the most important result of the First Ecumenical Council was the Nicene Creed.” (source) Which is written below, a commonly known prayer.
Nicene Creed: We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of all things both visible and invisible; and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten from the Father, only begotten, that is, from the substance of the Father; God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten not made, consubstantial with the Father through whom all things came into being, both things in heaven and things on earth; who for us humans and for our salvation descended, became incarnate, was made human, suffered, on the third day rose again, ascended into the heavens, will come to judge the living and dead; and in the Holy Spirit. (source)
It was at the Council at Nicaea that the doctrinal standard for Christendom was established. (source) Due to the conflict between Jews and Christians, the Easter celebration was changed to not coincide with Jewish Passover. (source) Yes, that’s right, the Easter date was set at the Council at Nicaea.
Much happened before the Council at Nicaea. However, the Council at Nicaea set the course for what Christianity would look like moving forward.
What No One Has Told You About The New Testament
Christianity was growing. However, we must remember that it was not easy to be a Christian. Greek-Roman and Jewish ways were dominant, women were subservient and many Christian teachings went against the teachings of the times.
Christianity wasn’t a religion. It was a movement, which is why its beginnings are referred to as the early Christ movement. I would argue a feminist movement, but that’s for a later post. (Women were teachers, preachers, priests, and deacons.)
Here’s what you need to know.
- Jesus was not trying to start a religion.
- He was working to speak the truth.
- Jesus did not leave instructions on the organization of a church. (source)
- No scriptures were written until approximately 20-30 years after Jesus’s death, some not until 140 years after his death. (source)
- Jesus and his apostles did not write the scriptures.
Instead, stories were shared verbally for various reasons, including persecution and literacy rates. In 1820 C.E., the world population’s literacy rate was approximately 12% (source), so you can imagine how low the literacy rate was in the time of Jesus.
Also, there were multiple versions of Christian teachings, just as today. So, developing a doctrinal standard was considered necessary due to the complexity of the Christian beginnings. Hahn, an author with a Ph.D. in Biblical Theology, explains that in the church’s beginning, there were no Bibles, no missals, and no hymnals. (source)
Hal Taussig, a Professor of Biblical Literature and early Christianity at Union Theological Seminary, shares that the New Testament, which was comprised of the gospels, letters, and apocalypses, did not exist for at least the first three hundred if not five hundred years after Jesus. (source)
The New Testament was developed after Christian churches spent centuries in arguments and political debates to determine which books would be included in the New Testament. (source) On Easter in 367, Athanasius of Alexandra wrote the Festal Letter, listing the twenty-seven books that eventually became the canon of the New Testament. (source)
Upon consensus of the canonical texts (the gospels in the New Testament), the other gospels that were not included in the New Testament were considered non-canonical and heretical. (source) The non-canonical and claimed to be heretical texts were attacked, often violently, forcing many to hide these sacred scriptures. (source)
The Liberation of Hidden Scriptures
In 1945, a jar of fifty-two documents from early Christianity was found in the desert of Egypt near the town of Nag Hammadi. (source) In this collection, works like The Gospel of Mary, The Thunder: Perfect Mind, The Gospel of Thomas, The Gospel of Truth, and many more were discovered. Upon evaluation, one can see why the church considered these gospels heretical.
The hidden gospels, that were hidden for over 1500 years, are life-changing, especially when you have been taught to believe that God judges and condemns and that women cannot have a prominent place in the church. The hidden gospels dispel the ideas created by early church fathers that invoked fear to control the people.
The Gospel of Thomas proclaims the ‘radical’ idea that God is within, The Thunder: Perfect Mind reframes what it means to be women and men, and The Gospel of Mary opens the door and inspires women with the truth of female leadership in the early Christ movement. (source)
The Gospel of Mary Magdalene has transformed my life forever. Books like Mary Magdalene Revealed by Meggan Watterson (Harvard Theologian) and The Gospel Of Mary Of Magdala by Karen L. King (Professor of Ecclesiastical History at Harvard University) are books I read daily.
These books guide us to remember our inherent worth and power as women. The power within us is what the church fathers wanted us to suppress. I have found the two most powerful forces women have, besides love, are anger/rage (think mama bear) and sexuality. Is it a coincidence that these two natural human experiences are the most sinful/condemned in the church, especially for women? Not when you are working to control others by taking their power away. Claiming there is only one way to God, through the Son, i.e., the church, is the perfect teaching for people to willingly offer up their sovereignty.
Yet, as the once-hidden Gospel of Thomas proclaims, God is within us. Contrary to what the church wants us to believe, we do not need an intermediary. This aligns with many New Age teachings, such as God is within. However, it’s not new. It’s a tale as old as time. Now confirmed by scriptures. Yet, the whole time hidden in the last place we’ve been taught to look, within ourselves.
I would love to continue into women’s places in the early Christ movement and the impacts of modern-day Christianity on women, including religious trauma but this will have to be saved for another post.
The Proven 3-Step Rediscovery Process to Trusting Your Inner Knowing
Trusting your inner knowing on your spiritual journey is crucial. In order to trust our inner knowing we have to start listening to it, develop a relationship with it so we can discern (discernement is key), and trust.
When something feels off, it could be fear or intuition. The key is understanding, specifically understanding ourselves, and our experiences. What do we feel, where do we feel it, what happens when we feel it, where does it stem from? The key question:
Is it truth or trauma?
In my book Reclaim Your Self, I teach the 3-Step Rediscovery Process to guide women through healing in minutes a day. The proven 3-Step Rediscovery Process guides women through healing and reconnecting to their soul. Our soul has the truth, yet sometimes it can be hard to tap into that truth because of trauma (including religious trauma which will be discussed in another post).
As you will come arcoss many teachings on your spiritual journey, the most important and accurate teachings are the ones within. Here is a glimpse into the 3-Step Rediscovery Process to guide you to trust your inner knowing.
Guidance to Trust Your Inner Knowing on Your Spiritual Journey:
- Step 1 – Realize: Become aware of the insight, decision, though, or belief (may not be accruate/may be old). Recognize and acknowledge how you feel about this experinece. Know that when truth speaks to you and through you, you know. You can feel the truth of it.
- Step 2 – Reconnect: Honor and accept your truth. Your truth may be clouded by thoughts, emotions, the truth others want you to believe, or trauma. You will know your truth by the openness of your heart. You can feel it within.
- Step 3 – Release: The fastest way to trust your inner knowing is forgiving anything in the way of accepting unconconditional love. (P.S. – The only thing in the way of accepting unconditional love is you because unconditional love already exists within you.) The key is self-forgivness.
My hope is that at some point in this post you found the clarity, answer, or confirmation you’ve been seeking. And that experience instilled more trust in yourself and guided you to remember your inherent worth.
With love, Jessica