The Mystery of The Essenes Lost Science of A Forgotten People

 

The Mystery of the Essenes Lost Science of a Forgotten People People   Copyright ©2000 Gregg Braden

Dear Reader, Reader, Welcome to the fall/winter issue of Translations, the newsletter of Sacred Spaces/ Ancient Wisdom. During the last months of 1999, some of the best minds of our time were asked what they foresaw in the first decades of our new century. In addition to the anticipated surge of information and communication through the world-wide-web, an increase in the average life expectancy attributed to new technology and changes in lifestyles, there was another category of change that wove its way throughout the future visions. Ranging from unprecedented extremes in weather, new diseases that we have no cure for, and the possibility of a third global war, the scientists, religious and spiritual leaders believed that the next few years may very well hold the greatest challenges ever to face humankind! At the same time, many of the leaders shared a sense that the technology of our world will fail us in the presence of such challenges.

Five hundred years before the birth of Christ, a mysterious group of scholars formed communities to honor an ancient teaching that began before history as we know it. Collectively known as the Essenes, Roman and Jewish historians referred to the members of this spiritual tradition as "a race by themselves, more remarkable than any other in the world." The underlying wisdom of many Essene traditions pre-dates the dominant traditions of their day and is traced through ancient writings to at least 4,000 years BC. Key elements of nearly every major belief system existing in the world today, including those of China, Tibet, Egypt, India, Palestine, Greece, even those of the American Desert Southwest, appear to have common roots in this ancient lineage of wisdom. Additionally, many While such scenarios are not necessarily new, the of the great spiritual traditions of the western world, suggestion that our outer technology may fail us as different as they appear from one another today, brings even greater relevance to understanding appear to have originated from this lineage of the role of prayer in our lives. Twentieth-century wisdom, including the Free Masons, Gnostics, science has now measured, validated, and Christians, and the Kabalists. Also known as the replicated the effects of another technology, the "Elect" and the "Chosen Ones", the Essenes were inner technology of a non-denominational, nonthe first people to openly condemn slavery, the use mystical, feeling-based prayer available to each of servants, and the killing of animals for food. woman, child and man that walks our earth. At the Viewing physical labor as a healing communion dawn of our new century, we find ourselves at a with the Earth, they were agriculturists, living close time when the impact of feeling-based prayer to the land that gave them life. The Essenes viewed upon the conditions of our lives can no longer be prayer as the language through which to honor discounted. Ancient traditions remind us that nature and the creative intelligence of the cosmos-- prayer is the single-most empowering force ever they made no distinction between the two. to grace our world. The Isaiah Effect and this issue of Translations is dedicated to exploring Their prayers were practiced on a regular basis. precisely such technology. Please accept my The first prayer of the day was offered upon arising thanks for creating the time to enjoy our in the pre-dawn darkness to work in the fields. newsletter. These were followed by prayers before and after each meal, and again upon retiring at the end of the Gregg Braden day. The Essenes viewed their practice of prayer Northern New Mexico as an opportunity to participate in the creative September, 2000 process of their lives, rather than a structured ritual required of them throughout the day. Strict vegetarians by today's standards, members of the The Great Essene communities abstained from animal flesh, blood foods, and fermented liquids. Perhaps one of Isaiah Scroll the clearest explanations of their diet may be found in the following passage from the Dead Sea Scrolls: "Kill not the food which goes into your mouth. For if you eat living food, the same will quicken you, but if you kill your food, the dead food will kill you also. For life comes only from life, and death comes One of the most always from death. For everything which kills your controversial of the Essene libraries was foods, kills your bodies also." Their lifestyle discovered hidden among forgotten caves in an permitted them to enjoy advanced ages,attaining area known as Qumran, a mountainous area 120 years or more with vitality and great adjacent to the shores of the Dead Sea, between