Echoes of Immortality

Dedicated to Daniel R. Porter for his outstanding and comprehensive synthesis of recent conclusions on the Resurrection problem and the Shroud of Turin.

It has been said that a great problem with many people is the implausibility of the Resurrection, especially amongst the scientific fraternity, who would, as a whole, be dismissive.

It makes it even more improbable, in the light of the carbon dating to between 1260 and 1390 of the Holy Shroud, making the latter blatantly obvious as medieval and a "nonsense" to the world in real terms.

In fact to the enlightened of today, it would amount to religious delusion, fanaticism and sheer ludicrous mumbo-jumbo.

It was never my complete reaction to reject the Shroud. It was simply not an issue, as my own Christianity was of the symbolic kind, Christ represented the inherent spirit of Man, the gel that bonded us together as Mankind, an interior consciousness of Christos the pure light, man's inherent innocence and goodness, giving us a purpose in life and making us one in an unadulterated stream of consciousness.

I could not worship God in the form of a single individual, for it seemed to me that we are all Christ and each individual is worthy of respect for their own inherent divinity. I really could not bring myself to follow an orthodox path of external prayer towards a God man Jesus Christ.

Yet there were too many mysteries, too many unknowns. There were centuries of miracles, worked in the name of Christ. There were the lives of saints, and the presence of the stigmata of St Francis. There were spectacular preservations of the bodies of saints relatively uncorrupted after their demise, all of which are recorded in the annals of Church history well documented and available to research.

It is not the purpose of this communication to explore this area but rather to reveal what I myself know, not because it was ever my particular interest, but because it has come to me through sheer force of recognition of something I could not ignore.

As an artist and writer on the Mandean-Nazarene world of belief and religious practice in the ancient past, I inadvertently stumbled on incredible details, which being intensely curious and visually aware, I simply could not reject.

As a lecturer in Colour Studies at the University of Brighton, I had, with my students discovered a series of scales commonly in use - though not consciously defined - throughout the history of Art and based on the musical octave, and as law-conformable as that of music, each scale having definite properties and visual effects, one of which was to define the nature and character of personality, to characterise specific types of humanity.

From monochrome photographs of the past, it actually enabled us to enhance by the use of transparent acetates and the precise frequency of colour resonance, the life qualities and inherent structure of people long dead in a rather unusual form of pictorial regeneration. No touching up or "hands on" interference was ever used. The results were to say the least, thought provoking.

I would like to stress that not a single line or brush stroke had anything to do with it, purely the application of the science of colour in relation to form.

Which brings me to the Turin Shroud.

It was simply a chance encounter with the image that seemed to be an ideal subject for just such an exercise in regeneration. I did not for one moment imagine that something would come of it, but when I saw the effect of the life size image intensification I had the odd feeling that it was alive and definitely telling me something - but what?

Coincidentally I already had a substantial background of knowledge about Nazarene customs of burial and many other aspects of the Mandean-Nazarene baptismal sect at the time of John, and was able to distinguish the curious and above all, meaningful, details which emerged.

First, there were the compelling semi-open eyes; secondly, there seemed to be a wreath around the head protruding beyond the hair line and all around the head; thirdly, there was this rectangular frame around the face, and, last but not least, a kind of cord suspended from the left-hand side of the image in the photograph with something rounded on the end of it.

Consulting my various documents on the burial rites, I discovered something quite extraordinary: that each detail corresponded in fact with the burial of Mandean--Nazarene hierarchy (the Mandeans and Nazarenes are traditional ramifications of the same sect) (see E. S. Drower, The Mandeans of Iraq and Iran. E. J. Brill. Leiden, The Netherlands).

They were in fact at one time inhabitants of the area around Petra in Jordan and the Holy Land, later migrating to Mesopotamia and now resident in Baghdad and southern Iraq.

As a higher representative of the Nazarene persuasion, Jesus would have been buried with a myrtle wreath around his head as their supreme emblem of immortality in the soul's life after death.

The rectangular cloth known as the Padan covered his face to prevent pollution, the cord suspended from the brow with an iron ring on the end known as the Skandola bore the signs of Lion, Hornet and Uroborus (if this exists in a museum somewhere, it could be a revelation). I have only come across similar rings in Jordan, but not the precise ring itself.

This may be unlikely perhaps, but nonetheless curiously homely and intimate, precise evidence of a very real person at an exact time and place with a definite and unique identity, an identity which has become diffused and distilled with the rather more impersonal God man and universal icon.

Here is a real man who we know to be a Nazarene, loved by his followers, bestowing upon him marks of respect as we ourselves deliver wreaths of flowers to the funerals of those we cherish.

So far we have examined only the marks of his pain and crucifixion, but what of the images bestowed by those that knew him that tell of his beliefs, in strange photographs taken centuries later?

Details that distinguish him as a particular individual as opposed to a well-known archetype, as a man among men known as Jesus the Messiah baptised by John in the Jordan, who was himself central to the sect of Gnostic baptisers.

So why did this countenance manifest itself with all the characteristics which belonged to him during his lifetime? These are clearly evident, if without prejudice we observe the Secondo Pia 1898 photographs, as Daniel Porter states: "There are blood stains seemingly in the man's hair not in proper registration with the source wounds on the side of the forehead: thus indicating that the cloth was in a different position when the bloodstains and images were formed."

1 see this as a question of interpretation, as they are not bloodstains but foliage, which is not only in the hair, but protrudes out in leafy twigs beyond the brow. it was the Nazarene custom to place sprigs of myrtle into the head filet as a leafy crown, not only in death, but also in life as one of the attributes of spiritual kingship - hence the appellation "King of the Jews".

Once again we see the image of a man with a definite vocation. Do we not today even in our own churches assume the garments of priesthood and was not Jesus "a priest for ever after the order of Melchisedek? (Melchi-Zedek was a prototype of the long line of priests going. back to the time of Abraham to whom he administered the bread and the wine.)

The rectangular cloth otherwise known as the Mandylion is none other than the original Padan or face cloth as was known in the community of Thomas in Edessa, as the Thomas Christians were closely akin to the Mandeans.

Proof of this was startlingly revealed in a recent BSTS Newsletter, (issue no.54, November 2001, page 34) by Archbishop Gewargis Silwa, who is the head of the Church of the East in Iraq and lives in Baghdad and who came across a letter written by Archbishop Isho-yahb, head of the Nestorians between the years 620-658AD. In the translation from the Syriac it states:

"... in the city of the Mighty Lord, the city of our God i.e. Edessa] he granted us the simple designation of venerable exile (banishment).
In other words, in the holy place which the Omnipotent God chose from all the countries of the world so as to render it as a sanctified throne for the Image of his adorable face and his glorified incarnation."

This is really of quite outstanding interest and significance, since the Nestorian Church with its flowering cross is more akin to the Mandeans who venerate the "Great Life" above all else. To the Nestorians the crucifix is forbidden. It is possible that the photographs are much more representative of the all pervading life body transmuting the Shroud images into a body of light than even the extraordinary negative of that body as seen on the original cloth.

The above quotation by Bishop Isho-yahb of Edessa would certainly indicate that aspect to be of the highest significance. It is surely to see the transcendent aspect more clearly through the lens of Secondo Pia and the full-length figure of Enrie in 1931.

Those life size images of front and back views tell us an incredible story yet to be told, in which the word glorified implying great beauty and vigour is no exaggeration.

Another function of the Face cloth relates to a separate strip of white cloth attached to the head wreath worn in priestly ceremonial.

Dare we consider that the Mandylion really did once bear the sign of the Resurrection? Is it possible that the myrtle wreath, so far unrecognised because unknown, was truly the sign of that countenance of the one who came to bring life: "Yea Life more abundantly"? Was it possible that the Thomas Christians of Edessa had a specifically intimate knowledge of Christ unlike any other?

The Gospel of Thomas implies a unique identity with Jesus, a close physical identity with the Living Christ. Could this not possibly be related to the miracle of resurrection?

I do not have direct answers, only oblique questions, yet I am reminded of the words of the Thomas gospel:
"These are the secret words which the Living Jesus spoke and Didymos Judas Thomas wrote. And he said: Whoever finds the explanation of these words will not taste death. Let him not cease seeking until he finds, and when he finds he will be troubled, he will marvel and he will reign over the all".

Reading these words of Thomas, one cannot help but feel that in this aura of secrecy something was not a secret to those who knew, something that gave a singular taste for reality and redemptive Gnosis.

Had I not researched this subject in depth and also experientially, I really do not think that I would have felt remotely capable of considering a physical redemption of the body, but there is an infinite amount to understand with our heads and with our hearts that this single image has to teach us about ourselves and our humanity.

After all, was it not Thomas the doubter to whom the revelation was given of the wounds in the Saviour's side and of his psychophysical presence? Is this in fact a biblical reference to a happening that took place in actuality with regard to the marks on the Shroud that Thomas could see and touch with his own hands?

We do not know, but piecing the threads together, might there not be echoes down the ages of something real that we have since mythologized?

Even in the Nazarene gospel of the Hebrews, there is a remarkable confluence of images which associates the gospel with the sect to which Jesus belonged:

"And the Lord had given the linen cloth to the servant of the priest he went to James and appeared to him, for James had sworn that he would not eat bread from that hour in which he had drunk the cup of the Lord until he should see him risen from that sleep. And shortly thereafter the Lord said: Bring me a table and bread! And immediately it is added: he took the bread, blessed it, and gave it to James the Just and said to him: My brother, eat your bread, for the Son of Man is risen from among them that sleep."

(From The Other Bible, compiled and edited by Willis Barnstone, Harper, San Francisco 1984)

Norma C. Weller

For further information and details of these discoveries, the booklet
"New and Undisclosed Secrets of the Turin Shroud" (price £8.00 incl. of postage)
is available directly from
Norma Weller at her own
Hove Ikon Gallery,
3 Albany Mews,
Fourth Avenue,
Hove,
East Sussex.
BN3 2PQ
Telephone (01273) 775630

The Gallery houses a permanent exhibition on the Turin Shroud and also paintings by Norma Weller.
It can be visited throughout the year by appointment and is also open from April to September inclusive on Sundays from 2 to 5pm.

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