The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ (full title: The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ: The Philosophic and Practical Basis of the Religion of the Aquarian Age of the World and of the Church Universal) is a book by Levi H. Dowling. It was first published on 1 December 1908. Dowling said he had transcribed the text of the book from the akashic records, a purported compendium of mystical knowledge supposedly encoded in a non-physical plane of existence. In the later 20th century, it was adopted by New Age spiritual groups. The title is derived from the practice in astrology of naming time periods in terms of constellations and their dominant positions in the sky, according to the earth's axial precession. In that system, the Age of Aquarius is approaching.

Composition

Major points

The Aquarian Gospel makes the following claims, among others:

Difficulties

In his 1931 book Strange New Gospels, the biblical scholar Edgar J. Goodspeed noted: "'Augustus Caesar reigned and Herod Antipas was ruler in Jerusalem.' This opening sentence of the new gospel does not encourage any very high hopes as to its historical value. It is generally accepted that Antipas never rules in Jerusalem but in Galilee. Of course Dowling means Herod the Great." Goodspeed also noted that Dowling borrowed a number of details from the apocryphal Gospel of James, a work that may not be older than the fifth century, such as details about the childhood of Mary and her marriage to Joseph, the birth of Jesus in a cave, and the account of the death of Zacharias which differs from the account given by Origen and other early Fathers. Goodspeed notes that the many ancient religions and philosophies taught, in many different countries, to young Jesus in the book seem "colored by Christian Science." Eric Pement has pointed out difficulties in Dowling's text: Supporters of Dowling argue that within theosophical thought, figures such as Meng-Tse, Matheno, Miriam, Moses, Elijah, and Vidyapati exist in an ascended state. As such, they communicated with Jesus after they had passed on from earthly existence.

Aquarian church

The Aquarian Christine Church Universal, Inc. (ACCU) is a denomination based on the Aquarian Gospel. Members are commonly called Aquarians, but the proper term would be Aquarian Christines. The name Christine is used in the Aquarian Gospel instead of Christian, emphasizing that the church is the Bride of Christ. The church was incorporated in 2006, but had existed for numerous years previous to incorporation. There are no paid professional clergy. The teachings of the Aquarian Church are based primarily on the Aquarian Gospel, but also on other writings by Levi Dowling, and share many teachings with the I Am Activity (I Am Movement) and Ascended Master Teachings. Some of the teachings include a Triune God composed of God the Father, Christ the Son and the Mother Holy Spirit, release from the cycle of rebirth through the Ascension Process, the equality of the races and sexes and the transformation (transmuting) of the individual and the world through the study and practice of the teachings. The Moorish Science Temple of America, a religion predominantly adhered to by African-Americans, founded five years after the publication of the Aquarian Gospel, takes much of its "Holy Koran" from the Aquarian Gospel.

Text sources