Christianity - A Journey from Facts to Fiction — Page 90
90 Christianity – A Journey from Facts to Fiction and retain our right to describe it as a state of deep coma and not death. If correctly understood and applied, the phrase ‘resurrection of Jesus as ’ cannot mean the return of his soul to the same human body which it had deserted at the moment of death. The term ‘resurrection’ only means the creation of a new astral body. Such a body is spiritual in nature and works as a sort of crucible for a rarefied soul within. It is created for the eternal continuation of life after death. Some call it a sidereal body or astral body and some call it Atma [Atman]. Whatever name you give it the essential meaning remains the same; resurrection applies to the creation of a new body for the soul which is ethereal in nature and not, we repeat, not, the return of the soul to the same disin- tegrated human body which it left previously. St Paul has spoken at length in exactly these terms about the resurrection of Jesus Christ as. He believed in the resurrection of not only Jesus as but the resurrection in general of all those who die and are deemed fit by God to be given a new existence and a new form of life. The personality of the soul remains the same but its abode is changed. According to St Paul, this is a general phe- nomenon which has to be accepted, otherwise there would be no meaning left in Christianity or religion. St Paul’s letters to the Corinthians must be studied in depth because they are central to the issue. They leave no room for doubt, in my mind at least, that whenever he spoke of Jesus as having been seen alive after the Crucifixion he spoke clearly and without ambiguity of his resurrection and resurrection alone, and it never crossed his mind that the soul of Jesus as had returned to