Author: My blog (Page 1 of 2)

This controversial text is about the meetings that took place in Basel, Switzerland, in 1897 at the time of the first Zionist congress. The meeting was between the Jews and the Freemasons, which (Allegedly) discussed ways in which to subvert Christianity in Europe, and in case of that failing, their governments as a whole.

The text was first printed in Russia and was abbreviated in 1903 in the newspaper Znamia, which means “Banner” in Russian. While this was it’s first documented (And likely true) first appearance, not all that many people saw it. Think of your own local newspaper, and then think of an article about halfway through, and the likelihood of that gaining international reverence from that paper alone.

It was posted again in 1905 as an addendum to a religious tract by Serge Nilus, a civil servant for the Tsar. Notably, this is the first time that the text was legitimately published, catching far more eyes than it’s initial debut in 1903.

Following the 1905 posting it begun to be translated into German, French, English, and other European languages in 1917 and quickly cemented itself as a classical work of antisemitic literature worldwide. 

In the US, the text was cited in a private newspaper by Henry Ford (Dearborn Independent) multiple, recurring times as evidence of a Jewish threat. A couple of decades of this text circulating internationally (Notably before the internet was invented) gave enthusiasts and learned scholars alike the chance to attempt to dissect it. What they found was that the text was strikingly similar to a satirical text written by a French lawyer named Maurice Joly, published in 1864. It was called Dialogue aux enfers entre Machiavel et Montesquieu, translated to english, “Dialogue in Hell Between Machiavelli and Montesquieu”. Strikingly similar, as in directly plagiarized.

Subsequent investigation headlined by a Russian historian named Vladimir Burtsev revealed that the text was actually a compilation of forgeries compiled into a single piece by officials of the Russian secret police (KGB). It was composed mainly of the satire of Joly (The french novel with an inexcusably long title and more vowels than there are consonants) written in 1864, of a novel called “Biarritz” by Hermann Goedsche in 1868, and several other more minor sources.

To this day it continues to hold significant relevance in the east, and not just the middle east. Though it does sell incredibly well in Turkey and Syria, it also sells well in Japan, and is in fact a staple still of Russian orthodox bookshops. In 2002, there was a long-running Egyptian television series based off of the text. While it is impossible to prove without direct citation, with this work being as old and influential as it is, it is not only theorized but plausible and likely that many more modern movements that share tenets with the text look to it for inspiration, or in the style of the text’s author, directly plagiarized. Several websites cite movements such as Qanon as drawing inspiration from the time-tested instillation of fear that this work, and other similar works hold over the populace. It’s more modern implications are typically out of study of these occurrences, as well as used in reference by those clinging to the antisemitic ideology of the early to mid twentieth century in an attempt to justify their beliefs.

The protocols of the elders of Zion was an interesting read to say the least, and within seconds it is impeccably easy to see why this literature is controversial. If there was one word I would use to describe this text, it would be fearmongering. With every protocol, paragraph, sentence, and even down to words alone this text has but one clear aim: To incite fear.

The content of it follows as the title suggests, being protocols being given by the elders of Zion (The highest of Jewish leadership), is a set of instructions given by the highest ranking Jewish officials to all other Jews so that they make take over Europe. It is read in the perspective of those “Other Jews”, and is a set of instructions as to how to subjugate and take over the world through a series of strategies and subtleties. The primary focus of these strategies is done through economic means, such as hoarding material wealth (Gold) and manipulating economies in more deliberate ways. Another section of the book details that it is imperative that Jews must situate themselves with a countries legal system in order to infiltrate and subjugate legal particulars. It seems as if most of this is a general guideline that is supposed to be made available to all Jews, instead of a specific set of instructions for every single one, as it describes the process of instilling fake leaders, something that not every single Jew would be required for.

The legitimate fearmongering part of the text is spread throughout it, and to reiterate, imbibes every protocol, paragraph, sentence, and word. Each word I imagine is painstakingly chosen, each sentence carefully posed, and each paragraph carefully structured as to build suspense, anxiety, and above all, fear. It speaks of the non-Jewish people, otherwise known as the “Gentile”, “Goyim”, or “Goy”, in a manner similar to animals at worst, and slaves at best. It treats them as a nuisance, something in which will be eradicated in their religious and righteous fury. This, coupled with the several strategies that mimic real world events, would be enough to scare the hell out of anyone reading this that didn’t have adequate understanding of it’s providence. It speaks of weakening economies, liberalism, and other such progressive movements that occur naturally over a society’s progression, and in fact have appeared in ours. The text is not, in fact, a transcript of an order given by the elders of Zion to the Jews to take over the western world, but an attempt at inciting racial prejudice against Jews by insinuating that they were attempting to kill off all non-Jews, inciting a sense of urgency in the fearful, racially prejudiced, or both.

The gospel of Judas Iscariot was an interesting read, and while similarly grouped with the controversy of the gospel of Mary Magdalene, it is wildly different in it’s message and tone, as well as overall content in general.

One of the major differences that I believe is noteworthy is that in gospels such as the one orated by Mary Magdalene, the one associated with Judas Iscariot is not primarily focused on Judas Iscariot’s words themselves, but his mere involvement and conversation with the savior. Mary Magdalene speaks (Whether you believe legitimately or not) of conversations with the savior, though does so herself. This gospel tells of Judas’ conversation with the savior, a conversation which is mostly a one-sided explanation of circumstances on his part, with Judas struggling to understand and keep up.

The major theme of the text is about Jesus (The savior) pulling Judas aside from the other disciples to talk with him personally, after a confrontation among all of them. In a disagreement, Jesus asks all of the disciples if they were willing to stand against him, and look him in the eyes. None were but Judas Iscariot (Though notably he was unable to meet the gaze of the savior), who was then told several harrowing truths by the savior in private conversation. Truths about his fate in this mortal world, about heaven, and of god and his angels.

This calls into question the providence of this text. While it is more than possible that a conversation between a meeting of all disciples would be recorded by someone, it is explicitly stated that the meat of this text was a private conversation between Judas Iscariot and the savior. Very promptly thereafter, the savior was given up to the guard by Judas, and shortly thereafter that Judas took his own life. While some may see a very narrow window in which Judas could have written this down, or have told someone, that seems unlikely since other writings by Judas have not been found or identified. This is similar to the journalistic habits of the savior, which were nonexistent. This leaves a much smaller gap in which to imagine this gospel was written down, implying that a sneaky bystander (That either was literate, or happened to know someone who was and just had impeccable memory) saw the entire conversation, or that it was simply made up by someone later down the line for an unknown motive. While it’s a question that will never be answered properly, it certainly is an interesting one to ponder over. Who wrote this oddly specific, esoteric lore filled article of Christianity, and why?

When I was originally asked to do this project, the example topic given was “Freud”. As a psychology major, I jokingly stated “But I could write three hundred words on Freud without going to the library”. It is because of this egregious mistake that I have chosen to instead write about someone else. Someone as wildly different and estranged as possible from him: Skinner.

In laymens terms, yes, Skinner and Freud were both psychologists. They were both men, they both participated in formal academia, and this is where their similarities end. Whereas Freud definitely helped inspire other psychologists, Skinner was one of the people that put his theories to practical use.

In most psychology courses and internet searches, Skinner’s work is simple enough. He was a behaviorist, he patented the “Skinner box”, a small box used to gauge the behavior of small animals. What’s more, he did all of this without ever mentioning children. However, since I am still learning about Skinner in my gen-ed psychology course, I chose to cover something that it did not: His life outside of the Skinner box.

There are quite a few books, both biographic and autobiographic, regarding Skinner’s life. The two that I chose to reference were “B.F. Skinner: A life” by Daniel W., and “The shaping of a Behaviorist”, by B.F. Skinner himself. I won’t bore you with the details, because the details frankly were boring. Skinner attended Harvard, though his career did not start out as glorious as it was at it’s peak, it’s end, or in memorandum. He was immediately greeted with a housing issue, and as he went to school before the second world war, things weren’t nearly as advanced as they were not. He regales how due to circumstance, the only room available to him was a single (With others all being doubles) carved from the remains of what was once a walk-in closet. Due to the nature of this dormitory, he specified that there was to be one toilet among a discouraging number of occupants, something he didn’t quite expect from attending Harvard.

My articles I reference, “Teaching machines” by B.F. Skinner, and “A new approach to teaching Intermediary Mathematics” by Karl Menger focus on a different part of his life. His studies in rudimentary behavior in animals were impactful, however the impact that those studies had was in the world of teaching. Skinner had many theories and discussions on the implication of behaviorism in teaching, and theorized in how behaviors in students could be changed in a learning environment.

The gospel of Mary Magdalene was an interesting read. Unlike some of the other works in regards to, or by the Christians, this one was relatively short. Granted more than half of it was missing, the translation left over was something simple to read, yet difficult to follow.

There are only eight pages, which likely ends up as more if you’re viewing it in an online reader like I did. Only a few lines in I was immediately reminded of the tenants of Gnosticism. Though I am poorly versed in this field, the line “If they have ears, let them hear” when contextualized is one of the core principals of Gnosticism. It is easy to see why this text would be considered incredibly controversial by Christians, whether it was in the era that it was written in, or the era that it was rediscovered and translated. While it is hypothesized by Christians and historians alike that the writer of this scroll could not possibly have had reliable firsthand information confirming these interactions between Mary and the disciples, with just how old the texts are, and with the implications that they were making, it’s easy to see why the Christians might not take too kindly to it. It has notable similarities to mainstream Christianity, though with the primary subtle difference between the two being that Christianity demands reverence of a god in able to save your soul and escape the material world into heaven, and that Gnosticism explicitly doesn’t mention a cohesive higher power. It is this deliberate withdrawal of the concept of a god that makes it so controversial, as the savior said through his mother that the disciples were to seek enlightenment and escape from the material plain.

Another controversial tenant of Gnosticism that is solidified in this short passage is that to escape from the material plane, a person must have the devices in which to do so. The line “If they have ears, let them hear” is symbolic more than literal. While yes, it is possible for a person not to have ears, this typically wasn’t the primary barrier between a person and enlightenment. More so, it is a requirement that the person truly be able to listen, which in a world drenched in Christianity, was a tall order. The line “Whoever has a mind, let them understand!” is another solidifying factor to this concept that there are factors to being capable of pursuing this path.

While the tenants of Gnosticism are certainly interesting, I wanted to highlight one more thing in particular that really stuck out to me. While of course the constant degradation of the material world is a factor of Gnosticism, it is also a universally agreed-upon scientific principal referred to as “Entropy”. So many reinforcing factors come up during the text, incredibly deliberate explanations that sound as if they came right out of a text book. Whether you believe the gospel or not, the fact that there was someone writing about the incredibly abstract concept of entropy in a nearly identical manner as to how we do today is absolutely astounding. Coincidental pessimism, or deliberate machinations of the mind?

This is where I’m going to be posting all of my entirely voluntary and completely enthusiastic literary criticisms on books that I’m reading solely out of my own volition and boredom.

This work argues that the primary causes of the second world war are imperialism, and the craving of the nations who previously lost the war (germany, italy, japan) for power, predominance, and revenge against the other countries for depriving them of their “fair share” and “[their] place in the sun.” After the anti-comintern pact, fascist states became more and more aggressive. the US and england turned a blind eye to northern China, where Japan was invading. They did this because they hoped that Japan would invade the Soviet Union, which would have been beneficial, because it would be two problems taking care of each other. However, this did not happen. Fascist states in Europe also began to become more aggressive. Germany and Austria unified. Czechoslovakia was in peril: their independence was at stake, but they still refused to accept help from the Soviet Union. The conflict of interest between the two imperialist groups only served to benefit the Fascist states.

A novel by William Pierce in which a violent revolution leads to the overthrowing of the government. Then nuclear war occurs, and finally a race war occurs in which all non-white people are completely wiped out. It has been described as being racist and anti-semitic. This work inspired many hate crimes, hence its presence among banned texts. It inspired the bombing of Oklahoma city and the assassination of Alan Berg, among other things. Personally, what comes to mind when reading this book is anarchism and the set of ideals associated with it. Also heavily pushed in this work is the right to bear arms and the potential result of banning guns and other weaponry. Additionally, the philosophy behind Jews in power is similar to the work we read previously, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Basically, people assume that Jews have this secret vendetta against all non-Jewish people and plan to take over the world.

Basically this text is an advocacy text for the mail-bomb policy. The mail-bomb policy is a campaign promoting the idea of blowing up important pieces of technology, because the text argues that modern technology (universities, airlines) is ultimately a detriment to society. He argues that the industrial revolution has merely created a society that prioritizes individual need over the need of a society. He argues that this is destroying nature and inhibiting personal freedoms. He argues that technology destroys small societies and groups of people. Ultimately, he argues that the kind of society promoted by technology is a society that goes against the tide of human potential. Although Kaczynski didn’t commit any crime himself, his manifesto urges readers into committing crime. He argues that the society technology promotes encourages drug usage, expansive police powers, etc. It was interesting to see this work dabble into drug usage and police power: I definitely wasn’t expecting that when I initially looked at/heard of this work.

Basically this text is an advocacy text for the mail-bomb policy. The mail-bomb policy is a campaign promoting the idea of blowing up important pieces of technology, because the text argues that modern technology (universities, airlines) is ultimately a detriment to society. He argues that the industrial revolution has merely created a society that prioritizes individual need over the need of a society. He argues that this is destroying nature and inhibiting personal freedoms. He argues that technology destroys small societies and groups of people. Ultimately, he argues that the kind of society promoted by technology is a society that goes against the tide of human potential. Although Kaczynski didn’t commit any crime himself, his manifesto urges readers into committing crime. He argues that the society technology promotes encourages drug usage, expansive police powers, etc. It was interesting to see this work dabble into drug usage and police power: I definitely wasn’t expecting that when I initially looked at/heard of this work.

Research question: Is PETA an extremist organization? What are the policies of PETA, and do they live up to what they say their values are?

Methodology: I will use Questia, among other sources, to find scholarly articles related to PETA’s behavior, as recent as I can find them. I will also make sure to mention noteworthy events in PETA’s history, regardless of whether they paint PETA in a positive or negative light.

Abstract: PETA, also known as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, is the most well-known animal charity to date. PETA is an organization of the stance that animals should not be used for farming, entertainment, experimenting on, or killing for clothing items. Some sources say that less than 1% of PETA’s funding goes to animals. PETA has made a lot of bold campaign choices, which some people find highly distasteful and a waste of donated money. Additionally, although PETA’s aim is to help animals, they still euthanize a lot of animals, some going as far to say that they kill more animals than regular animal shelters. Some of their most offensive ad campaigns include: comparing pregnant women to fattened sows, a person dressed as a giant vanilla condom, comparing animal use to the death of millions of jews in the holocaust, urging Ben and Jerry’s ice cream to use human milk instead of cow milk, etc.

Potential conclusions: PETA, as an organization, makes radically offensive and inaccurate ad campaigns, and a majority of the money risen from PETA doesn’t even go to funding measures against animal cruelty. PETA is definitely an extremist organization, but not the best organization to donate to in an attempt to prevent animal cruelty.

Sources:
https://greatnonprofits.org/org/people-for-the-ethical-treatment-of-animals basic information on peta’s stances
https://speakingofresearch.com/2011/01/18/where-do-petas-donation-dollars-go/ bold campaign choices
https://www.activistfacts.com/organizations/peta-people-for-the-ethical-treatment-of-animals/ Less than 1% goes to animals
https://zoos.media/media-echo/peta-shelter-2021-death-rate-increases-significantly/?lang=en euthanization rates

When I first heard of this book, my first instinct was that calling it a “cookbook” would be, all in all, a misnomer. For being so controversial, surely the work contained more than recipes for baking/cooking foods. However, the misnomer wasn’t in the title; it was in its definition of being an anarchistic book. It’s more accurately nihilistic. The book references drugs like they’re a cure-all to the current set of laws. The author knows a suspiciously high amount of information about drugs. The author details 3 different kinds of pot, and 2 methods of growing it. They also manage to incorporate every part of a marijuana plant into a recipe of some sort. Before this, I had never heard of hash. It’s apparently just a block of marijuana plant extract. The author guides the reader through the process of making hash. The author mentions a man named Antonin Artaud, whose life was drastically changed for the worse after taking LSD, and romanticizes his experience as “[finding] his own truth.” There are rules about buying off the black market: never buy from a stranger or on the street, don’t front money, don’t hold large amounts of money with people you don’t trust around, etc. He also mentions LBJ, which is a mix of acid, belladonna, and heroin, describing the trip as “the freakiest, worst, most fucked-up trip you will ever go on.” He then quotes a patent on how to make acid. During the peyote segment, he goes off on a tangent, telling a story about the first time he tried it. After reading the peyote segment, I don’t understand why people would get high off of it. It smells bad, tastes bad, and makes one vomit. How is that desirable? The rest of the drugs listed follow a similar pattern of: where it comes from in nature, origin of usage, people who can use it to get high legally, preparation of drug to ingest, recipes for drug ingestion, and how to grow some in a lab setting or from home.

To start my blog post about this book, I will first write the things I found interesting about the introduction. It was shocking to see that a lot of Hitler’s speeches and writings were recorded and preserved. An interesting comparison is made: Hitlerism and Mein Kampf are said to be equal to christianity and the bible; both texts having beliefs that come from wildly misconstrued or out of context pieces of the work of their origin. I’d like to think this point is a good preface for the rest of the work; it allows the reader to better understand the differences between what is said in the book and the beliefs of the axis powers as a whole. It’s also quite interesting that it’s possible Hitler himself was partially jewish, but this is not known for certain. I had known that Hitler was a failed artist, but I didn’t know that he was homeless for a long period of time after failing to get into art school. Hitler came to hate his father, and in doing so, came to also hate the people he worked for: the Habsburgs. Hitler joined the army, and was recommended the Iron Cross by, ironically, a jew. Hitler was said to have been a natural orator. He was very convincing and was extremely good at demoralizing enemies and creating propaganda. Hitler soon took leadership of the Nazi party in Germany, and he bought the newspaper. Although briefly in jail, Hitler was able to use his position and beliefs to manipulate the judges into giving him a lighter sentence. Hitler also stirred up great animosity between the Weimar Republic and the German Government. Although bits and pieces of Hitler’s ideology can be traced to (possibly) certain people, there was no one man who “gave Hitler his ideas.” His political stance was unique to him.

Now, I will comment on chapter 4. He starts talking about Munich, a place where “one does not know German art if one has not seen Munich” (Hitler 116). He mentions the German alliance policy, mentioning that though he disagreed with it at the time, it was merely “self-deception.” He shows clear anger at the difference between the speeches of statesmen and the content of the press. He calls people stupid for thinking that Italy would stay on Austria’s side. He says that the only option for Italy was either to pretend to be allied with Austria to prepare for a war with them, or skip it and immediately go to war with them. Hitler then says that Germany is growing at an unsustainable rate, and that there are four key ways to stop this: birth control by humans/nature, internal colonization, acquiring of new land, or buying all needed supplies from other countries.

Next, chapter 5. The chapter begins with Hitler lamenting the period of time he was born in, wishing there was more violence and war. Hitler was eager to enlist when the war actually started. He mentions it’s unreasonable to “identify the German worker with Marxism” (Hitler 154). He continues, saying that one can’t be rid of people with certain ideologies by using brute force.

In chapter 6, Hitler talks about propaganda. He mentions that, on his side, the usage of propaganda was so unskillful that it had negative impacts. He takes on the “the ends justify the means” mindset. The target audience is the masses, rather than the educated few at the top. It must be simple.

In chapter 7, Hitler discusses the demoralization of troops at the front line over time. He discusses his time fighting the war. He describes the terrible conditions in Germany as a whole, especially Munich. He describes how “toxic” the Jewish people were to Germany at this time. He talks about the munitions strike. He talks about the vain sacrifices, and what motivates him to begin to get into politics.

Finally, in chapter 8, Hitler returns to the army after getting sick. He found himself unable to join existing political parties, but still wanted to arouse change in the nation. He listens to Feder’s lecture, and finds himself agreeing with all of his points. Hitler mentions that the most influential works of times always come in an era of misunderstanding and overlooking, which I find highly ironic.

There were a lot of unexpected things I encountered whilst reading Bambi. First, the Disney version of the text and the actual text are vastly different. The messages delivered by the Disney version are more to the theme of animal hunting being inhumane, whereas the novel itself is about the weak and powerless being hunted by others. The author himself had a forest under his name, and although he spent a lot of time in it peacefully, he also hunted animals there. The Disney film vastly misinterpreted the main point of the novel. It was shocking that the author only got $1,000 for the movie rights of Bambi, and never really made more off of the book. The Disney movie completely eradicated the characters of the old prince and Gobo, which is possibly why the meanings of the two are so different. As sad as the Disney movie is, I didn’t feel much emotion when reading the book. In retrospect, that’s probably due to the fact that I’m kind of resistant to that after reading 120 Days of Sodom. It was interesting how the author himself, though born jewish, didn’t see himself as a jew but rather an austrian. Despite this, he made the perfect book to represent the unlawful and unjust hunting of minority groups. I can kind of understand why this author wasn’t popular: not only did he argue a scarcely agreed upon subject, he also had little to no variation in his works. Almost all of his works were about animals, and I can understand how one would get tired of it.

Although I had taken a trip to the holocaust museum a few years ago, it was interesting to come back and see the new exhibit. I found the portion of the museum with the shoes of the slain Jewish populace especially impactful. The new exhibit, with the polls that you could physically flip over to see, was shocking. I figured that the decisions regarding the treatment of Jewish people were hated by people in other countries, and that the USA was eager to go to war against the axis powers. Unfortunately, I wasn’t feeling well on that particular day, so I spent a lot of my time there sitting down and didn’t go through the exhibits as thoroughly as I would have liked to.

It was fascinating to read such an extensive plan on world-domination. Even more shocking is that it was written for Jewish, by Jewish, to Jewish people. The work was very controversial and didn’t shy away from saying shocking things such as “WE SHALL DESTROY GOD” (Protocol No. 4, 3). One of the main themes in this work was that non-Jewish people are subservient to Jewish people, and that these non-Jewish people were born to serve as proletariats paid in breadcrumbs for hard, rigorous work. Alongside this, the work encourages the form of a secret government run by only Jewish people, that rules over pretty much all freedoms one can think of. Religion, press, authority, beliefs, what’s taught in schools, etc. There’s no shortage of outrageous phrases in this writing. It’s horrifying to think that this work isn’t fictional. When reading this work, I was struck by the minor comparison of this writing to The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli. Both share a central theme of preferring to be feared rather than loved, but this work specifically focuses more on where The Prince focuses on arousing only fear from the subjects. Although this book isn’t a solid justification for what happened against the Jewish people during the world wars, I can see where people would read this book and irrationally assume it to be fully truthful, and thus gain a fear of Jewish people. They have everything part of a plan to take over the world present in this work, even things less commonly thought about like the financial means in which to take over the world.

There are many things in this book that are considered controversial, both in the past and now. In the context of when the book was published, there were definitely more things considered taboo than there are today. For example, the act of anal sex (sodomy) was considered indecent and immoral back then, but is now commonplace and widely accepted. During the period this book was written, medical knowledge wasn’t as advanced as it is now. People didn’t know a lot of the things we know about medicine today, such as how germs spread. Looking at the vomit chapters now, one is greatly disgusted and concerned for the spread of disease from this activity, but back then they didn’t know that this is directly linked to an increased chance of illness and death. Also during this period was the peak of commonplace Christianity; almost all of Europe believed in God and were devout in their faith more than almost any time in history. That being said, that only makes the anti-Christianity themes of the book (and the upside down cross on the cover) more controversial and potentially upsetting to the masses.

Although I only read the introduction, I can already tell this book is going to be extremely problematic. There’s no shortage of incest, physical violence, rape, torture, and other morally wrong sorts of crime. It was extremely gross to have to read the graphic descriptions of the body parts of these characters, especially the older characters. There are a lot of aspects of this book that I don’t understand, especially the decision to include people who are either way too young or way too old to be normal. This book really isn’t something to be read while eating. I wish I had read more of it (to get it over with,) but I was busy with other homework and honestly lost track of time.

From the get-go, the Gospel mentions that Jesus does not present himself in front of his disciples as himself, but rather as a child. That’s really strange to think about, but I don’t have much experience with religious texts, so I can’t really compare it to any other works. The lack of verb usage is also pretty odd, and I imagine it would be very hard to read if not for the addition of the words in brackets. This text portrays the other disciples as weaker when compared to Judas, and like the Gospel of Mary, highlights the relationship between Jesus and one specific disciple. It’s also worth noting that in this text, Jesus is very carefree and lenient with his disciples. There’s a lot of [ … ] sections that make the text very confusing to read. The disciples have a troubling vision and Jesus simply tells them, in essence, to get over it because bad things happen all the time and there’s nothing we can do to stop them from happening. Judas then also has a vision where he is stoned to death by the twelve disciples, and Jesus responds to this vision by telling him his “star has led you astray.” He’s told that, as the 13th disciple, he will “be cursed by the other generations.” Jesus teaches Judas about cosmology, among other things. The Gospel ends with Judas betraying Jesus. This was really hard to read, especially with certain lines being omitted. It was like listening to a radio broadcast that was frequently interrupted with static.

For a text that’s as dated and as inconsistently available as The Gospel of Mary, it introduces a lot of radical ideas, especially considering the age it originates from. Ideas such as the concept that there is no sin, that Jesus held Mary (a woman) in a higher regard than men, etc. It differs from previous texts massively, making the introduction of the texts to Christianity at its time of discovery revolutionary (especially when noted that, at the time, most of Christianity was spread orally.) According to the introduction, over 85% of known Christian literature from the first two centuries has been lost. It’s practically impossible to grasp the “truth” of Christianity, so all one can do is collect the few pieces of literature that remain and make hardly-educated guesses on the contents of said lost literature. As a result, churches varied massively in perspectives of Christianity. There was no “commonly established church order or chain of authority,” A lot of well known hallmarks of Christianity, at the time, weren’t present. Early documents around this period showed great strife in matters such as circumcision, Jewish food laws, etc. Although the publication was a rocky process, it was ready by 1955. Since then, many new fragments have been added and edited. It’s possible that the lack of copies of the Gospel of Mary in the first place was due to active suppression, but it will never be known if that is the case.