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Lost Years of Saint Issa [VHS]

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The accepted "books" of the Bible only refer to Jesus at 12 years of age, discussing religious teachings with the rabbis (unheard of, normally), and again when he reappears at the age of 30. Where was he in the intervening years? Theories, while varied, also contain many common elements. This video provides evidence of the possibility that Jesus traveled to India, Nepal, and Egypt to study and teach in those locations. This is in keeping with several other sources, such as Edgar Cayce, who state that Jesus was an "adept" in several mystical traditions. While this information will probably never be accepted by the Roman Catholic church or Christian Fundamentalists, it certainly gives pause to those willing to consider alternative points of view. Highly recommended for those who, while wanting to accept the reality of this special person proclaimed "The Christ", have lingering questions that mainstream Christianity cannot satisfactorily answer.

LOST YEARS OF JESUS (1977)
directed by Richard Bock
approx. 1 hour 30 minutes

Near the end of the ninteenth century, a man named Nicolas Notovitch published a book which was said to have been translated from ancient texts from the Hemis Buddhist monastery. The book is titled 'The Unknown Life of Jesus' and gives an account of years of Jesus' life that are not detailed in the New Testament. According to this story, Jesus left home as a teenager and travelled to India where he was known as "Issa". He sampled the country's spiritual salad bar, studying with Jainists, Hindus and Buddhists before leaving for Persia. Notovitch's writings have been republished many times and circulated widely within different branches of the New Age movement. When I was younger, the prime mover of this theory was Mark and Elizabeth Clare Prophet's Church of the Universal and Triumphant.

This video starts off as a documentary version of Notovitch's book, going from country to country and showing various Swamis stating why they are convinced of the theory. One statement which is made over and over again is that Jesus was able to perform miracles because he had mastered yoga techniques. Also one of the narrators sounds like James Earl Jones and is very good. We go from area to area, hearing traditional music and seeing local religious ceremonies. Visually the movie is very nice, but after a point, Jesus' "lost years" seem to take a backseat to the various interpretations of his actions. That is to say that his life in the Bible is viewed through the lense of his supposed life in India. I would say that this movie is more about the history of people who have believed the Jesus-in-India story than it is an in depth study of that story.

There are also two other segments on questionably relevant subject matter: the spear that pierced Jesus' side and the shroud of Turin. The spear, called the spear of Longinus or spear of destiny, has changed hands amongst powerful men throughout history. The movie presents it as an object with extraordinary powers that led to the rise of the Third Reich and Hitler's suicide! As for the famous shroud, the movie notes that there are high hopes to evaluate the cloth with the Kirilian photography.

The problem that I have with a lot of this sort of thing is that many people who believe in these lines of thought open a Pandora's box of things that are totally alien to Biblical thought. This is fine for people who aren't serious about religious study, but it does a disservice to both Hinduism and Christianity to say that Krishna and Jesus were some kind of counterparts. Similarity doesn't mean equivalence and each has his own rich tradition that is more complicated than trans-religionists want to acknowledge. For example, one "expert" shown in this movie says that not only was Jesus in India, he also believed in reincarnation, in fact Jews believe in reincarnation. Well some do, but that doesn't mean that it is a part of Jewish religion! As if that wasn't bad enough, the video includes what is basically an infomercial for Sathya Sai Baba, an Indian guru who is said to perform supernatural feats. The relevance is supposed to be that Jesus unlocked something within himself that we all have (a "Christ nature") whereby the limitations of the physical world can be overcome in a yogic fashion. Indeed this is presented as the "moral of the story" when all is said and done!

One last note: The entertainment magazine VARIETY has reported that Drew Heriot, the director of the DVD based on "The Secret", is now making a movie titled 'AQUARIAN GOSPEL' about the Jesus-in-India myth. The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus is actually a totally different text which tries to link Christianity to astrology. Be on the lookout for the renewed interest in these stories to start a new "Alternative Jesus" fad, embraced by celebrities in a similar way as Kabbalah in the early 2000s!