Christians are unaware that a fictitious ‘Ghost’ played a major part in the development of their religion, and major elements of its ‘life’ found their way into the pages of the New Testament. In many stories appertaining to pre-Christian religions, a mysterious make-believe ‘Ghost’ stood out, and for centuries, legendary characteristics surrounded its life. Exploits of that chameleon-like figure are found in religious books of very remote antiquity, particularly those with oriental origins. The world came to know more of the ‘Ghost’ in a mid-First Century writing called ‘Memoirs’, documented by a scribe named Damis of ‘Old Ninos’ in Syria. He wrote a ‘History of the Ghost’, and relayed its life as an author, traveller, a medium, a hero and a performer of amazing miracles such as walking on water, calming storms, and saving souls in hell. The ‘Ghost’ was born of a virgin, raised the dead, healed the sick, and when it entered cities it was hailed ‘with hosannas and songs of praise to the one who came in the name of the Lord’ (‘Candid Words to the Christians’, Guerickes). The ‘Ghost’ eventually retired to a cave on the Isle of Patmos where it wrote its life story.
Special stories compiled for ‘ghouls’
Damis compiled his story from an old scroll that had been preserved by an early-First Century satrap named Phraotes of Taxila who claimed the document was of very ancient origin. It was believed that the ‘Ghost’ originated in India, Babylon, or Egypt, with some ancient authors extending the view that it was the origin of the story of Krishna. Others opine that the ‘Ghost’ story was expanded in the Third Century by presbyters to appease Christians who reveled in ghoulish stories about haunting and the supernatural. The Bible describes early Christians as ‘not so many wise’, and Bishop Tertullian (d. c. 220) said of them, ‘Of fools the number is endless’.
The ‘Ghost’ converts to Christianity
Damis’s ‘holy Ghost’ story subsequently came into the possession of a Second Century scribe called Flavius Philostratus (170-249) who wrote an extensive biography of the ‘Ghost’ called the ‘Life of a Ghost’. The concept of the ‘Ghost’ was officially introduced into Christian doctrine at the Council of Nicaea in 325, and its life story then became the essence of the first ‘fifty sumptuous copies’ of the Gospels written at that time. Hierocles (d. c. 330), successively proconsul of Palmyra, Bithynia and Alexandria, publicly and boldly charged that the ‘Ghost’ was now the Gospel Jesus Christ. That accusation caused the priesthood to frantically put to work every means that would conceal that damaging information, and Bishop Eusebius (260-339) then destroyed Hierocles’ proclamation, as was every account of the ‘Ghost story’ that could be found.¹ It is possible to judge from Bishop Eusebius’s records the nature of the charges made by Hierocles, and Eusebius’s bitter reply revealed his satisfaction to the news of the destruction of Damis’s writings. He then dismissed the matter of the ‘Ghost’, saying, ‘Neither think upon nor enquire after, for no ancient manuscript now records it’.²
The Vatican’s violent reaction
However, Eusebius was wrong, for not all copies were destroyed. In 1394, Pope Benedict XIII (1394-1423) created four new cardinals to specifically seek out and destroy two Second Century books that contained ‘the true name of Jesus Christ’ (‘Catholic Encyclopedia’, Pecci Ed., vol. iii, p. 389). They were unsuccessful, and in 1501, Aldus Manutin printed Philostratus’s version of the ‘Life of a Ghost’ in Latin in Europe. Then, in 1680, Charles Blount made the first English-language translation of the scroll of Philostratus’s work. Blount’s translation raised such a storm that in 1693, the translation was condemned by the Vatican and further publication prohibited under severe penalty. As to the devastating effect of Blount’s translation, F. A. Campbell wrote:
‘Fierce passions were let loose. Sermons, pamphlets and volumes descended upon Blount like hailstones and fireballs, and his adversaries did not rest until the Church had forbidden him to publish the remaining six manuscripts’.
In 1809, publisher Edward Berswick produced 500 copies of the first complete English translation of all eight manuscripts of the scroll. It was immediately listed on the ‘Index of Prohibited Books’, and the Vatican burnt copies so fast that in 1907, two London bookshops of worldwide repute advertised internationally for a copy ‘in any condition’, but without success.
A bishop hid the evidence
In the mid-1800s, the ‘Life of the Ghost’ was so seriously interpolated that many factors in the original account might never be known. A Vatican bishop named Colenso rewrote the story and replaced the word ‘Ghost’ with that of Apollonius, a First Century Greek sage and wanderer from Tyana. Colenso also changed the title to ‘Life’, printed 200 copies of the restructured document and distributed them to ‘the priests of Rome’ (Colenso’s records). When later 19th and 20th Century researchers came across Colenso’s fabricated story they assumed that it was a mystical story of Apollonius, being unaware of the priesthood’s restructuring of Philostratus’s original ‘Life of a Ghost’ a century or so earlier. Verification that the Vatican feared the existence of the ‘Ghost story’ is found in Guerickes’s book, ‘Candid Words to the Christians’. Guerickes provided detailed evidence that the imaginary ‘holy Ghost’ that existed in pre-Christian religious thought is Jesus Christ in the Christian Gospels.
Gospels ‘a farrago of nonsense’
The doctrine of the ‘Ghost’ was universal in ancient thought, and as the extent of the fictitious nature of Christianity unravels, the thinking reader will see how the ‘imaginary’ ‘Ghost’ is now personified in the story of Jesus Christ and surrounded by people who never existed in real life, like Peter and Mary Magdalene. All efforts to expose the story of the ‘Ghost’ and its parallels to the Gospel tales have been vigorously suppressed by the Vatican, but sufficient evidence exists to show that the ‘Ghost’ became not only ‘Jesus Christ’ of the Gospels, but also ‘Paul’ of the Epistles, and ‘John’ of the Book of Revelation. In other words, an ancient fantasy character called the ‘Ghost’ is now the essence of the Christian religion and the entire New Testament is a work of fiction structured around a non-existent ‘Ghost’s’ non-existent ‘life’.
¹’Ecclesiastical History’, Eusebius, Vol. 2
²’Ibid’
³Luke 2:26
4 John 14:26