Transcript of the interview of Daniel Meurois by Pierre Abraham in « Conversation Papillon », 9 September 2010.
Pierre Abraham: Daniel Meurois, people have been talking about the Essenes ever since the discovery of the first Dead Sea Scrolls; but who were the Essenes actually?
Daniel Meurois: First of all, we should clarify from which standpoint we are looking at the question, because there are actually two ways to answer it. We have the standpoint we can call official, the standpoint of the historians, archeologists and theologians.
Then, we have the standpoint of the mystics. As you probably guessed, I belong to the latter.
To begin with, let us briefly cover the first standpoint…
The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947 near the Qumrân monastery in Israel extended over a period of five to six years, I believe, until 1956.
Nearly 900 scrolls were brought to light in the process. These manuscripts testify of the existence, 2000 years or more ago, of a very strict monastic community considered today as having been a sect within Judaism. It was a group of ascetics, monks and hermits living in seclusion from the world in the desert of Judea on the shores of the Dead Sea. This is the official point of view, and also what can be found in some rare documents written by the historian Flavius Josephus. He was the first and maybe the only one to mention the Essenes in the written texts of his time.
The origin of the Dead Sea Scrolls dates back between the second and third century before Christ and extends to approximately the middle of the first century A.D.
Let us now talk about the other standpoint, which is mine, the standpoint of the mystic. I indeed call myself a mystic in view of the fact that I have been inwardly experiencing a specific perception of the Essenes for about thirty years now. This experience is based on what is called akashic readings. The akashic records constitute the Memory of Time. I take it that my readers know about it, so I will not explain this notion further today. I will only add that it is my working tool, which has allowed me for the last three decades to “read”, in the form of extremely precise and repeated visions, certain events of past history, and more specifically of life in the Essenian Communities two millennia ago.
Those who have the capacity of looking up information in Time know that there were two different ways of belonging to the Essenian Community. There were of course the Essenes of the monasteries like Qumrân, but the greatest part of the Essenian people lived in small villages mostly situated in Galilea. These villages were based on mutual aid and constituted a real Brotherhood that remained discreetly in the background. The members of this Community used to obey a code of conduct based on very important rules relating to physical, mental, and moral purity. Besides, the notion of possession was alien to the Essenes. In their villages, they used to share everything. It is also important to note that the Essenes were very close to Nature and the natural forces. Everyone had his family and his work, and labored fervently in full respect of the sacred aspect of life, while also obeying the general traditions of Judaism, of which they considered themselves “non-standard” members.
The lifestyle of the Essenes of the villages was, I repeat, very different from that of the Qumrân monks, who were known for their extreme rigidity. The latter were exceedingly intransigent ascetics who abode the code of conduct from the Book of Leviticus, famous for its numerous interdictions and obligations. These monks were – it has to be said – rather intolerant. I am more interested in the Essenes of the village communities.
However, I must add that the ideal of these communities living in families was also represented in the Krmel monastery, a huge construction situated on the heights of the present-day city of Haifa. Unfortunately, there are no remains of it left. A Baha’i temple was built in its location. Within these walls were instructed the most psychically gifted children of the whole Essenian Brotherhood. This monastery was a very famous school dating back to the Egyptian Tradition of Amenophis III, Akhenaton’s father.
The Akashic Records confirm that there was a very direct connection between the mystics of ancient Egypt at the time of Akhenaton and the Essenian mystics. This connection is fascinating. It revolves around a tradition the origin of which was lost in the mists of Time, a tradition which was passed on orally between the initiates. This is what my books are essentially about. Why? Because I believe that the heirs of this Essenian tradition, with their sensitivity and their perception of the Sacred, are closest to us today.
P.A.: You are indeed known for having written several books on the Essenes and the role of their Brotherhood. But how did you first become interested in this subject?
DM: Well, I already mentioned it a few moments ago when I explained briefly my working method: akashic readings. So here is a short summary of how it works for those who don’t yet know what it is…
Thirty years or so ago, I discovered the phenomenon of out-of-body experience and consequently the capacity of the consciousness to travel outside of the physical body. I will not get into the details of what is commonly known as “astral journeys”, this would take too long… Maybe it could be the subject of another interview.
However, I mention the fact because it is in this state of exteriorization of the soul outside of my physical body that I can connect to what is called the Memory of Time. This Memory is accessible on a sort of wave length or vibratory frequency. Everything experienced or felt by a consciousness is systematically recorded in it. One could say that the “Memory of Time” is analogue to an incredible and gigantic natural “hard disk” on which is stored every single event happening in a life.
When a soul – or a consciousness, if you prefer – discovers through self-improvement its capacity to connect itself to this wave length, it is then able to penetrate the Akashic Records and read the film of the past.
Personally, I discovered this working method completely unintentionally, thirty years ago.
One of the consequences of this fundamental experience has been for me to accept the reality of reincarnation. I then understood clearly that I had once lived in the midst of an Essenian community at the time of Christ. This is how I came to investigate intensely a certain period of the past and bring back some extremely precise notions.
Today, I can say that I lived among the Essenes two thousand years ago and that the memories I can access on a regular basis are a continual source of information concerning this period. I am therefore writing and testifying out of my own experience, and this is why there are a number of issues concerning the person and time of Jesus on which I differ with the Christian church. It is clear to me that Jesus was of Essenian origin and the heir of a very old tradition.
With this in mind, I am increasingly aware of the strong distortion that exists between the dogma laid down by the vast majority of theologians and historians and what really happened in Palestine two millennia ago…
P.A.: You have written some thirty books to date… Have most of them been inspired by the Essenes or only some of them?
D.M.: Only a few… One thing is sure, my work is not restricted to researching traces of the Essenes and the true face of Christ in Time… However, the sensitivity which this quest awoke in me has an undeniable influence on all of my work. This is unavoidable. You cannot remain unmoved by such an intensive experience and move on to another topic of reflection and testimony, just because this one has already been “explored”… No, I don’t think that the evangelical times, the person of Master Jesus and the contribution of the Essenian tradition to our world have yet been explored thoroughly enough. I doubt this can ever be the case. With my outlook on the origin of our present era and of Christianity, I am just trying to meet the need for hope in a time when we seem to be losing all our values. A true ideal of life and hope is what most of us lack today.
P.A.: Can you tell us about the way of life of the Essenes of the villages and explain in which way they differed from the others?
DM: The Essenes of the village communities were very different from the Qumrân Essenes, even if they also led a rigorous life governed by strict rules. On the whole, they led a life in accordance with the Jewish tradition of their time, but at the same time, they lived marginally because they were more open-minded and flexible due to their constant connection with the forces of Nature.
We know that Judaism is a religion characterized by a number of rather rigid principles requiring the observance of many laws. All this was respected in the Essenian villages, but the inhabitants felt totally apart inasmuch as they used to speak much more freely of a number of subjects. They had far less taboos between them than the rest of the Jewish people who tried to obey the law to the letter.
However, all this and the fact that Master Jesus grew up among them does not mean that the Essenes were all initiates as we understand it in the so-called spiritual circles. You know, they tend to be a little too idealized today. They are often described as some kind of absolute initiates in various books written about them.
P.A.: It was not so?
D.M: There were of course some great initiates among them, real Masters of Wisdom, but, to the risk of disappointing a few, I would say that most Essenes were just people trying to put into practice a way of life based on purity of conscience and moral purity above all things, and where they learned to share and to give. Some of them used to learn what they called the “milky voice”, meaning the art of speaking softly and flowingly. But this does not necessarily mean they were perfect! You must understand that it was not enough to be an Essene to claim being a Master of Wisdom or an initiate.
Most of the Essenes from the villages were simple illiterate people who, like everyone else, could also express anger and frustration, etc. Of course, they were a fascinating community because they were much more open-minded than the average at the time, but, I say it again, they should not be idealized to the extreme.
P.A.: Can you tell us something of the other communities of that time?
D.M.: First of all, let us clarify that the term “Essene” was not commonly used at the time. Most of the time, the Essenes were mistaken for Nazarites and Nazarenes, who were mystics known for their white robes, long hair and beard, and also for some rituals.
So when the Essenes came to a place, they were mostly taken for Nazarenes or Nazarites. As a matter of fact, they were extremely discreet. The main difference between them and the Nazarenes or Nazarites was their practice of healing therapies. They were very interested in plants and liniments and in what we call today “energetic therapies”. Maybe we can talk about this later. The Brotherhood as such was relatively unknown, but people knew that healers were trained in its midst.
At the same time, the Essenes were rather feared by the rest of their contemporaries, who were under the impression that they worked with what they called magic, meaning the energetic laws… and the general feeling was that their practices were not always very “clear”.
Of course, this wasn’t true, but let us say it increased their tendency to set themselves apart, excessively sometimes. Many among them undeniably felt that they belonged to an elite.
Despite all this, there was a kind of fluidity between the small Essenian communities and the rest of the people. There was a flow and it used to work well, but nevertheless… the Essenes were still considered different. People used to appreciate their healing skills and fear them a little at the same time.
P.A.: Because of their tendency to elitism?
D.M.: Many among them obviously considered themselves an elite. People didn’t automatically see them as such, but they were puzzled and sometimes worried by their marginality and this set them apart from the others, with everything that it entails.
P.A.: Can we say despite all this that they were initiates for their time and their environment?
D.M.: Well, we would have to define first what an initiate is…
P.A.: That was going to be my next question.
D.M.: You can say that an initiate is a person on the path, on a conscious and voluntary quest for Wisdom. This Wisdom implies extensive knowledge of the energetic laws of our universe enabling the soul and the heart to flourish. This Wisdom also means a certain familiarity with the subtle anatomy of the human body and enables contact with non-earthly forms of life.
There were quite a lot of persons of this caliber in the Essenian community, but – I repeat – it is important not to generalize. They were still a minority among their minority.
Most of the time, the most gifted and mystical Essenes used to go to the Krmel monastery where they were subjected to an extremely exacting discipline in order to develop their psychic capacities and put them to the service of others.
Their goal was the expansion of consciousness. Those who had it were said to be bearers and transmitters of Knowledge. In this sense, it is quite clear that not all Essenes, in spite of their specificities, were to be considered initiates, far from it. They were usually called Brothers in white or Brothers with the milky voice.
P.A.: They say Jesus was one of them. You have also said so yourself… But were the apostles Essenes, too? What is your opinion?
D.M.: As a matter of fact, my opinion… is not an opinion! It is an experience. As far as I am concerned, I cannot say “I believe that…” or “I think that…”, because a belief has no great value in my eyes if it is not supported by experience. Although it may seem a bit presumptuous, I can confirm from my own experience that Jesus was indeed born into an Essenian family. He spent his early childhood with his family and then went to the Krmel monastery to be instructed. There, he received the complete basic teaching reserved to those who were considered Essenian initiates. Of course, the instruction he received was very special and adapted to the exceptional being that he was. You can say that within the walls of Krmel, the child Jesus learned to be the Master he was going to become before being fully inhabited by the Presence of Christ.
In this sense, he achieved the full realization of the Essenian ideal… Needless to say, the expansion of heart and consciousness which was manifest in him went way beyond that.
Personally, on the basis of my own memories through the Akashic Records, I cannot just speak of Jesus as the greatest Essenian Master. This would not do justice to the truth.
One can easily understand that he acquired a fully different dimension after being filled with the Spirit of Christ. At that moment, the basic principles of Essenism just exploded – if I may use this term – in him. They disintegrated entirely because they were far too restrictive. I think this is easy to understand…
Christ was not an Essene, he manifested himself in the body of an Essene, the body of Master Jesus; this is something else altogether.
As I was saying before, the Essenes had their limits. They were open-minded, but still not able to transcend some cultural aspects. Their main task has been preparing Jesus to be filled with the consciousness of Christ. They were best suited for this work involving the physical body and the soul.
However, after Master Jesus was filled with the Power of Christ, the truth is that he was not particularly well accepted by all of the Essenian community. Except for a few high authorities, the Essenes just saw in him a rabbi taking himself for someone much greater than he actually was. Why? Because in the messianic context of that time, Jesus, filled with Christ, through his word and his way of life, was the equivalent of a real revolution, not only for Judaism, but also for the Essenian communities and all of mankind.
They could not accept it, and neither could the rest of the people and especially the religious leaders. It disturbed everything! When the scriptures say –in Matthew’s Gospel, I believe – that Christ was forcibly driven away with stones and that people tried to throw him into a ravine, you have to understand that this happened in an Essenian village… So, this means that he was expelled “manu militari” by the “meek Essenes”. This example shows how much he had pushed the
boundaries of Essenism. The expansion of his heart and his unfathomable dimension could not be content with the sole observation of Essenian principles, however beautiful they may have been.
As much as Jesus the Master was an Essene, Christ was Christ, in other words universal. In the same way, it is clear that Buddha was not a Buddhist, he was Buddha, that’s all.
P.A.: Now what about the apostles?
D.M.: A large number of persons who read me and write to me are under the impression that Christ had necessarily… collected, chosen the apostles – or rather his disciples – out of the Essenian community. That’s not at all how it happened! There were of course a few Essenes around him, among them Simon, the person I incarnated two thousand years ago and whose life I have outlined in my book “The Way of the Essenes”; but they were a minority.
John the Baptist, as a cousin of Jesus, was from the same Essenian community as he was, but he cannot be counted among the disciples. Most of the official and non-official apostles were not Essenian at all. They were common folk. It is easy to understand why… The Essenes were too marginalized to be close to the people and credible in their eyes. Inasmuch as Master Jesus, filled with the Spirit of Christ, wanted to reach every one, it was logical that he should not choose his disciples among the members of a marginalized community.
When we read the Gospel or listen to priests, we may get the impression that Jesus chose specific persons from the crowd, saying something like “Come to me, you shall be my disciple…” Maybe I am oversimplifying, but in a way, this is what people tend to believe. Well, there may have been a few persons he specifically picked out, but most of all, there were men and women who spontaneously came to him and gathered around him because they had been attracted by the speech and radiance of the Master… but that did not make them Essenes! Finally, one should also realize that the number of disciples was constantly changing.
The official history of Christianity has set their number at twelve but this figure has a purely symbolic value. At the time, the disciples never knew that they were going to be reduced to “twelve apostles”. There were several circles of disciples and in each one of them, there have been disciples who abandoned their quest. Some of them came back after a while. Actually, it was comparable to the situation today around a particularly radiant person. Friends come and go, disciples came and went.
All this was very fluctuating and extremely lively, but, to come back to the question, one cannot say that the Essenes had infiltrated the group of the followers of Christ; not at all!
P.A.: But, by the way, what happened to the Essenes after Christ’s passing away?
D.M.: From the historical point of view… not much! They died out rapidly. After all, the movement counted only few men and women. It was a small community, maybe one to one and a half thousand persons in the whole country, split up into very small villages and monasteries which did not count that many souls either.
You know that the Roman Empire had spread across the whole of Palestine two thousand years ago. There had been extremely violent confrontations and the Essenes had finally made common cause with the Zealots. The latter were the Resistance fighters of that time against the Roman army. In the year 66 A.D., the Essenes, fully caught up in messianic fever, sought shelter at their side in the fortress of Masada, on an imposing rocky plateau facing the Dead Sea. There, they withstood together for days on end the siege of the Roman legion, but they ended up being slaughtered.
After the fall of Jerusalem in the year 70, nothing more was heard from the Essenes. At that time, they seem to have vanished into thin air. The community probably broke up entirely, just like the Zealot movement. As you can see, the Essenian Brotherhood has had a relatively short life in History, at least as a structured community.
P.A.: How many years are we speaking of?
D.M.: About three to four hundred years. Not more than that.
P.A.: That’s not much!
D.M.: Yes it’s true. However, their knowledge continued to circulate underground across the Middle East and in the West. It has inspired some initiatory schools that still exist today. I am thinking for instance of organizations related to the Rosicrucians.
There is an obvious connection, even if it does not stop there.
I would like to point out that a number of Essenes at heart, a number of persons of Essenian sensitivity were reincarnated among the Cathars. The mental attitude of the Cathars, some of their disciplines and their asceticism, too, strongly remind of the Essenes.
The most amazing is what happened at the end of Catharism… Everybody knows how the Cathar movement was crushed after the fall of Montségur. This fortress, besieged by the army of the King of France, sheltered a group of Cathars assisted by – and this is less known – a few Templars. All of them ended up being slaughtered or burned at the stake.
What had happened in Masada about one thousand two hundred years before? There was a fortress, too. The Essenes (future Cathars?) had sought shelter there and made common cause with the Zealots, who were men at arms just like the Templars later. Both ended up in practically the same way: the Essenes and the Zealots chose to commit suicide rather than surrender to the Romans and the last survivors set themselves on fire while two or three furtively escaped at the back of the fortress, foreshadowing what was going to happen in Montségur.
Of course, the Cathars did not commit suicide, but their desperate resistance was equivalent to a programmed death. Though they did not set themselves on fire, they still perished by fire after their castle fell into the hands of the royal army. This is history repeating itself… This analogy has always fascinated me. Be that as it may, the Essenes were never heard of anymore after that, at least not as incarnated Brotherhood.
P.A.: Did they meditate?
D.M.: Yes, they did. Meditation has always been practised in all great initiatory traditions of our world. Yet, they used to pray more than meditate, perhaps. Their prayer consisted in repeating meaningful sounds… what is actually called mantras in the Hindu and Buddhist tradition. The
Essenes had their own mantras. They also practised contemplation.
I have nothing particular to say about this here, but maybe this could be the subject of another book: the restitution, transcription of the meditation methods and Essenian prayers. See, this idea just popped into my head. After saying this, I am sure people are going to tell me “Do it, do it…” Well, I don’t know. If it can be of some use, I will get down to it.
So yes, the Essenes used to meditate. They used to spend a lot of time praying and meditating whether in the Krmel monastery, in Qumràn, or in the small villages. Meditation has never been considered – by those who really know its power – as a way of escaping from the world, but on the contrary as a way of being more alive to the world, of being more oneself in the world, and then of … becoming like an intermediary between the different expressions of life. Someone who meditates is a bridge between the Invisible and the Visible, between Eternity and the illusion of matter.
P.A.: The Essenes are said to be therapists, and you too, Daniel, have said so yourself. For that matter, there is much talk about Essenian therapies nowadays… What about it exactly?
D.M.: Yes, the Essenes were indeed therapists. This is official… Strictly speaking, they had neither invented a healing method nor collected a variety of therapeutic data, but they had inherited it from the ancient Egyptians… I am speaking of the Egyptians at the time of Amenophis III and Amenophis IV, better known as Akhenaton. They had made it their mission to collect all therapeutic knowledge available at the time; data which had been circulating underground since remote times. Some say since Atlantis, but you could also say since Lemuria, in other words since the beginning of Time as we can humanly fathom. The Egyptians used to reign over the whole of the Mediterranean Basin. They are the ones who built the famous Krmel monastery I was speaking about before in the vicinity of what later became the city of Haifa. One can say that this monastery was known as a major embassy for Egyptian therapeutic and initiatory knowledge on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. At that time, this land was not yet Palestine where the people of Israel settled down. It was a land under Egyptian domination.
This explains why the Essenes, as spiritual heirs of the Egyptian therapists, have carried on their work in this place. Moses has been the main transmitter of Egyptian knowledge to the Jewish people. After that, the Essenes, who were a very small minority in their midst, found themselves with a large amount of data of essentially therapeutic character. This is why at the time of Christ they were renowned for tending the sick.
They had also organized a real network of health centers, more or less underground or troglodytic, where they used to practise their therapies. In Palestine, they were called bethsaids. Health care was free of charge or based on exchange of services.
The Essenes were known for these care centers – often used as maternity centers for example – and for what I would call the “occult” knowledge of the subtle laws governing the human body. It is on the basis of this reality that the energetic approach of the human body and the corresponding techniques were transmitted to the West.
As far as I am concerned, I discovered all this by myself, not through the Akashic Records in the first place, but via channelings which began in the fall of 1984. My readings in the Akashic Records helped me bring additional details to this knowledge over the years. At that time, in a small village of Périgord, I began receiving and transmitting information on therapies coming from consciousness spheres not belonging to our planet. This information was given by non-terrestrial beings who had already in distant past communicated with the ancient people of our world, in particular with the Egyptians and the Essenes.
The Essenes were men and women who, psychically speaking, were easily in relation with the Invisible. Consequently, they used to receive frequent information and teachings from a non-terrestrial source of cosmic proportions – one could say directly connected to the Divine.
It so happened that in 1984 I was led to reconnect with my past Essenian and Egyptian lives and began receiving information on Essenian – or more exactly Egyptian-Essenian – therapies, two or three times a week in public in front of a small audience of thirty to fifty persons. I personally wrote down this information, it was also sometimes recorded on tape while being transmitted live in front of the public. I have worked in this way in France for about a dozen years with the persons attending the channelings. And so we started to disclose and practise a method of energetic healing based on the messages I was receiving, with all the details and information I had been provided with.
In the end, we had put together a corpus of knowledge to which I added other information provided to me or found in numerous readings of the Akashic Records…
This is how it all started… Today, we have an abundance of information. Of course, over time, other persons have started transmitting this information. They follow the basic method and teach it in their own way.
This is how the “Essenian therapies” have been reinitialized today. When they reappeared through my channelings, they were not yet specifically called “Essenian”; we spoke of universal energetic therapies. We finally called them Essenian by assimilation, because the Essenes were those who practised them best two millennia ago.
Today, I keep on receiving information to enlarge the corpus.
About twenty-five years ago, this research yielded an initiation book known by many: “Les robes de lumière”. A few years later, I wrote “Ainsi soignaient-ils”, and then “Ce qu’Ils m’ont dit”, which sets the information in its original context…
Perhaps there will be a second volume of “Ainsi soignaient-ils” one day… Anyway, this therapeutic tradition is really alive; it represents a universal heritage.
I don’t think anyone can claim authorship of this method, even if I am shocked to discover that some are thinking of patented appellation… Of course, an impulse was necessary for this tradition to reappear. It has to be said, this was done through me, a few decades ago. This is the naked truth…
Beyond this historical aspect and the fact that this is a method with its own techniques, this approach requires above all things the opening of the heart and consciousness.
You know, I could write two, three or four hundred pages about this energetic healing method, and still that would not make therapists out of my readers. The most important thing with this kind of therapy is love, empathy and compassion for the other. This works in a triangle between the Divine, the patient and the therapist. This triangle activates the flow of a “Force of Consolation in body and soul”. We always return to the principle of Trinity… Without this flow, without this wave of love flowing in a triangle, well… all techniques of the world are useless, no matter how beautiful, or if they originate in Atlantis, Egypt or Essenism – it always amounts to the same thing in the end. The impulse from the heart, the expansion of the heart are what counts.
In order to emphasize this point, I agreed two years ago to assist my wife Marie-Johanne Croteau in teaching these therapies, which she has also always known. Together, we have initiated in France a training course for a limited number of persons over a period of three years.
This did not come as a sudden idea, but was the result of countless requests I had been receiving. People were continually asking “Mr Meurois, when are you going to start a training course, etc.” For my part, I did not feel called to take up this type of work again, but my wife Marie-Johanne was aware of the urgency and importance of the task. She was undoubtedly right and we finally seriously considered doing it. We thought the time had probably come to take over the transmission of this tradition with the required sensitivity. Marie-Johanne was the one who structured our teaching method in the present training cycle in France. She is therefore the initiator and project manager of this training course.
Neither of us intends to establish a School as such, but let us say that we felt called to teach what we knew about these therapies, because there was obviously far too much information which had not yet been published. I had had this knowledge in me for a long time, but she also carried it in her own memory. You must know that Marie-Johanne, due to her own experience, is in very close connection to her own Essenian memory and the source memory of two thousand years ago. As you can see, it is no coincidence that we ended up finding each other…
In this way, the work goes on and is transmitted under her impulse… We should thank her for that. As I was saying a few moments ago, technique represents only a small part of the whole approach. Our work primarily consists in seeking what is called the Sacred Energy of Healing. It is the art of connecting to the sacred aspect of the human being. The most important is to find again and give the Essence of Life.
We do not train “technicians” who are going to master countless practices, however fascinating they may be. We are working towards awakening, as much as can be hoped for, of course.
So, this is what I can say today about the therapies. Whether they are called Essenian, Egyptian-Essenian, or of Essenian-Egyptian sensitivity, does not really matter. The terminology does not matter because this method is our common heritage and nobody can claim ownership of these therapies. There is just something beautiful and sacred to pass on, and the essence of it speaks for itself. This is what Marie-Johanne Croteau and I are trying to do. The “Essenism” of two thousand years ago had no other purpose either.
P.A.: According to you, is it possible today to live like the Essenes? Is there anything which can bring us closer to them?
D.M.: Theoretically, I would like to say yes… But practically, I do not really believe it can be possible, because two thousand years have gone by and our world is not the same at all. The Essenes used to live under a certain climate, in a wholesome nature and with very little psychic pollution. You know, today we are continuously being polluted by countless things. In our Western societies, we are constantly assaulted – I don’t think this is too strong a term – by a multitude of waves: We always carry our cell phone in our hand, don’t we? Our cell phone, which is also our miniature TV and radio set, isn’t it? It is also our portable computer, we have video games in it; in short, all of this is getting… tyrannical. We are trying to avoid at all costs being a single moment alone with ourselves!
Information flows in from everywhere, we have access to I don’t know how many TV channels. The fact is that we are stressed by an incredible mental and psychic pollution and the result is that we cannot be like we were thousands of years ago anymore. The times when human beings were simple, intuitive and spontaneous are long past.
Moreover, if you consider the particular case of the Essenes, you must understand that they used to eat much less than we do today. Their body was healthier than ours. In the Mediterranean Basin, people know that a certain type of climate is favorable to frugality. We also know that in the past millennia, the physical body was generally much more resistant than today and reacted more strongly to the subtle emanations of Nature.
Whether we want it or not, our body today is saturated with numerous chemical products, with substances which we absorb through the lungs or our food, even if we try to eat as naturally as possible. We should not lure ourselves about this… Our products are not as healthy as they used to be. No need to insist on this, it is obvious.
Even if modern medicine has saved numerous lives and relieved sufferings, it is also responsible for considerably weakening our immune system… For this reason, we have to use today an infinitely greater armamentarium of energetic therapies to reach the same result as two thousand years ago. The human body is somehow armoured against everything, to its own detriment.
Our society has necessarily moved on and the goal is not to go back in time: “I am going to live like the Essenes… no TV, no car, no phone…” This is quite utopic. Of course, you can create a community and live comfortably with like-minded people and claim to be Essenes. This does not harm anybody, except for the fact that it might bring about a form of elitism which separates you from others. As long as we “esoterize” (forgive me for the term), we will not be able to reach the consciousness of most.
I believe that we must reconnect to the great loving Principle of Life, based on an open exchange, a communion with Nature which does not try to show off, a dialogue with the One which does not necessarily claim to come from some archangel or other.
The basis of Essenism was discreet. Why claim “We are going to be Essenes today”? There is something else to build… The past is past, even if in absolute terms, Time is an illusion.
Today, we are living in another time and what we probably should do is adapt the best of the Essenian way of thinking, bring it up to date while keeping in mind that the Essenes of two thousand years ago did not live like the Egyptians at the time of Akhenaton, just as those did not live like at the time of Atlantis or Lemuria, etc… Each time period has its own characteristics and we should not dwell in nostalgia.
Let us take from the past what was good and constructive; let us inspire ourselves from it, but why should we recreate it and idealise what was just a phase? This doesn’t seem right to me and it does not fit with what I sense and comprehend of Christ’s thought. Of course, everyone can do as he pleases. Still, there is enough beauty asking to be created without always wanting to go back to the past.
You might say: “But you yourself are always looking at the past through the Akashic Records”. This is true… but not for the sake of the past. By bringing the roots to light, I am trying to extract the elements which can help us progress. Nostalgia is not part of my tools. I can understand the feeling, but it is a sign of flight. Of course, horrible things are happening today, but they were happening in the past too, so let us not idealise the past.
P.A.: You are planning a trip to Israel in April 2011. What can you say about it? What will be special on this journey?
D.M.: I am not really planning it… Let us say instead that I was asked, together with Marie-Johanne, to accompany a group of persons in Israel in coming April, just like we did last spring in Egypt. It is the same organization, Oasis Voyages, who asked us to think about an itinerary; they will bring in their skills and we ours. This agency is very experienced and provides excellent logistic services. I am going to act as a guide in this context. Marie-Johanne will perform a number of Essenian rituals and I will share my knowledge, my memories on location across Judea, Samaria and Galilea… I will share my experience of the “Essenian time” in order to bring a better understanding of the role of the Essenes and the approach of Master Jesus.
I am going to offer the travellers a very different outlook from that of Christianity as a whole. My approach, our approach will be different. It will inevitably be a heretical outlook, the outlook of two persons with memories of evangelical times, even if this seems a bit pompous at first glance. We will all try to open our hearts for what is going to happen. It will not be a history lesson, but an invitation to refine one’s consciousness. Anyway, this is how we are going to try to live these moments together.
P.A.: To sum it up, what will be different between this journey and the one you made in Egypt?
D.M.: Well, it will have the same ring of nonconformism to it as the previous journey in Egypt. We will surely digress from the catholic dogma and the doctrines of Christian churches during this visit to the Holy Land. We will cast a different light on some official sites.
Let me give you an example… Even if we, as witnesses from that time, do not necessarily agree with the location of Christ’s tomb as indicated today on the site of the Holy Sepulchre in the heart of Jerusalem, we will still go and visit it, because it nevertheless represents a Holy place, if only because it has been infused with extraordinary faith over the last two thousand years. But, to be true to our quest, we shall also go a bit further, to the place where Jesus was really buried, according to our memory.
Of course, this is only a detail, because it really does not matter whether the events took place here or there, five hundred meters away. What we are going to try and get in touch with on this site, is the essence of the teachings of Christ as He offered it to the people of that time.
Marie-Johanne and I will be there as witnesses… We are calling all those who do not raise any barriers in their hearts, minds or consciousness. That’s all… It is as simple as that, we are going towards joy and we already know that we will all feel the benefits of this journey, right there in the center of our chests!
P.A.: Thank you, Daniel. Finally, can you tell us about your next conference coming November 19 in Quebec, entitled “Life beyond life”?
D.M.: Yes… It’s a bit off topic, but yes indeed, I am happy to give a conference on the subject of “Life beyond life” on November 19th in Quebec City. The conference will begin at 19:30, I believe, at the Plaza Hotel, Boulevard Laurier.
Why go into such a classic subject? A lot of things have been said and done around the subject of death… But in spite of the numerous books and conferences about the subject, many persons come to me with urgent and often anxious questions. They are always the same concerns, fears and fundamental existential or spiritual questions.
I realize that a lot of things have yet to be said on the subject of death, or a lot of things have been wrongly said or misunderstood. I would like to use everything I tried to explain in my last book “Il y a de nombreuses demeures” in the context of death, because if there is a lot of talk about care for the dying, about the instant of separation, about what happens – technically speaking – at the instant of death, people seldom talk – or talk very vaguely – of life after death, of what we will be doing there.
What are exactly the mansions of the soul? What are these worlds our soul visits, goes through in what we globally call the “Hereafter”? This is what I want to talk about… not just to inform people, but to defuse their fears and help them understand better the meaning of our lives on Earth.
It is a fact that we are generally afraid and anxious when we don’t understand, when we don’t know… The answers are often extremely simple… So I will try to share my experience on this subject with new information, a different outlook… Above all, I would like to impart inner strength to the persons who need it…