(This chapter originally appeared in the book The Christ Conspiracy aka The Rise of the Light Triads)
Perhaps the most touching thing I have ever read was the account of a small Christian Russian family (father, wife, son and two daughters) who had fled Communism in Russia, fearing persecution, escaping to the inhospitable Siberian taiga. They entertained and comforted one another in the most unusual, beautiful and human way when isolated all alone, living hundreds of kilometres away from the nearest town or settlement, at one with nature and their beliefs. They shared their dreams with one another, in lieu of radio, books or television or interactions with any other human beings; they told one another what dreams they’d had the previous night or recounted their favourite dreams from years or decades earlier. They were truly amazing people; their story is inspirational and their willpower unique and pure.
Would they share nightmares with one another? Possibly, yet these things (which are ‘dress rehearsals’ for conflict/forewarnings to keep one on alert) would do little to raise morale and to keep the micro-community going decade after decade, but they certainly shared the dreams that came to them night after night due to choosing to separate themselves from society (just like the Apostles) in order to inspire, entertain and bring joy. The imagination is more profoundly ignited when away from foreign influences or noise. The mind is able to gift the individual with beautiful visions, giving them exactly what they need in that moment in order to allay fears, overcome apathy, offset depression and muster the strength, hope and courage to fight through pain and privation, overcome doubt and pessimism, remain steadfast and ever stoic, committed and strong.
This amazing family of Christians spent their evenings discussing their dreams with one another, which would have caused them all to begin to collectively share one another’s dreams, not only when awake but also whilst sleeping—due to being influenced by the dream as relayed to them and also desiring to experience that same dream also.
The dreams they would have desired to experience the most would have been ‘victory dreams’, where it seemed as though something terrible was about to happen and then, suddenly, unexpectedly, the dream ended in a beautiful, joyful and literary manner—rebirth, rejuvenation, resurrection, salvation.
It was because this family was detached from others, self-segregated from others (like the early Christians, those who personally knew Jesus) that they needed to experience such amazing and profound dreams; it was the thing that kept them going, living off their relatives’ dreams relayed to them when awake and living those same dreams whilst they slept. They sought to escape reality because for them (like it was for the Apostles) life was hard and bleak (summer only lasted five months and food was scarce), so they chose not to think about reality and mortality, instead (like Jesus’ disciples) choosing to believe in immortality and the dream world, ever desiring escapism.
The patriarch of the family, Karp, made the decision to abandon Russia and civilisation in general after witnessing his brother being killed by the authorities who were attempting to stamp their authority on their community of ‘old believers’, those who (the men at least) insisted on wearing beards and whose belief system and way of life had remained unchanged since the 17th century, famously surviving the persecution of Peter the Great, who levied (among other things) a ‘beard tax’ on those who refused to become ‘Westernised’ and modern by being clean shaven. The Lykovs feared history was repeating itself.…
This act, witnessing this faithful peaceful Christian, Karp’s brother, being martyred before his eyes, who to him resembled Jesus in almost every way imaginable, drove Karp and his family into the woods. It would take them weeks of hard travelling before they reached their new home in Siberia, where they found themselves surrounded by wolves and bears as they defeated all the odds to survive, living in a hand-built log cabin no bigger than a modern shed or garage.
Karp had witnessed something terrible, he had witnessed a good and gentle and peaceful Christian being slain for no reason (he witnessed what early Christians claimed to witness). His belief system was rocked; he was in a state of disbelief and massive fear. He did the only thing he could in that moment, he gathered up his family and a few possessions and fled, seeking sanctuary far, far away, heroically saving himself and his family from an unenviable future.
The content of this family’s dreams are unknown because the family members had a deep mistrust and fear of others, so when Soviet geologists stumbled upon them by chance in 1978 (after the Lykovs had lived alone on that mountainside since 1936, when they had fled civilisation), they refrained from giving any great detail about just what it was they were dreaming about other than to say, in reply to one of the scientist’s questions about what they did to pass the time, ‘We tell each other about the dreams we had the night before.…’ How beautiful and innocent. How amazing and humble and human.
The Russian journalist Vasily Peskov later remarked, ‘The family’s principal entertainment was for everyone to recount their dreams.…’
I am certain that a recurring dream in the Lykov household on that faraway mountainside, 6000 feet up, in that heaven for free men, was of Karp’s brother standing up again after being shot by the Russian soldier, standing up defiantly against the Bolshevik soldier who sought to take his freedom and his life from him, who sought to extinguish his spirit. I am certain he would have dreamt that his brother came back from the dead, that he rose again, that he was resurrected because he was a good man, with a pure heart, with no ill intent or malice within him, a beautiful servant of God.
Of course Karp dreamt that his brother survived the Soviet butchery and persecution of Christians, just as the Apostles would have dreamt every single night that Jesus, their brother, their leader, their guide, their everything, had similarly survived the Roman butchery and persecution of Christians – a beautiful and understandable dream – because without this dream, both Karp and Jesus’ disciples would have lost hope. They would have shaved their beards and surrendered; they would have been snapped out of their monotropism; they would have been forced to face the harshness of reality and no longer dwell in a comforting and beautiful dream world where bad things only happen to bad people.
Witnessing your brother being killed in front of your eyes would cause most to choose not to believe he was killed, that what they saw wasn’t real, because the trauma and shock of witnessing a loved one being killed is overwhelming, because a man is not very different from his brother just as one Christian is not very different from another Christian, which is why Karp refused to believe his brother remained dead, because that would mean he could die also.
Christians who had met and followed Jesus felt the same way after witnessing a fellow Christian and brother being executed after his power and freedom had been stripped away from him. They all felt as though they were being rendered powerless and weak and were being humiliated and killed also. This terrified them, which is why they refused to believe it could be happening … unless Jesus wanted it to be happening, that is.
In order to psychologically protect themselves, just like Karp and his family, the Apostles immediately began conjecturing that ‘this was Jesus’ plan all along’, that Jesus was a hero rather than merely a victim of Roman cruelty and domination, that Jesus (like Karp’s faithfully Christian brother) only died momentarily and afterwards was reborn, resurrected, because they didn’t wish to be hurt or killed themselves. This forced them to believe that Christians couldn’t be hurt or killed unless it was their choice to embrace such things, for the purpose of increasing faith and belief, with those who martyred themselves guaranteed the best seats in Heaven, due to the example of Jesus loving and raising up the Apostles, bringing them to his bosom and showering them with his love, wisdom and affection.
It is important to remember that all the Apostles were Jewish (by blood) and would have also been raised in the Jewish faith, which meant that they would have been very familiar with the story of Joseph and how his dreams were considered to be prophetic visions or portent more than merely that which our minds gift us in the interest of providing comfort and care. The Apostles believed dreams could be prophecy or visions, so a dream about Jesus resurrecting would have caused them to believe he had resurrected or would return.
The Christians who witnessed Jesus’ execution would have experienced a mix of powerful dreams and nightmares that evening, influenced by fear, trauma, PTSD, anxiety, shock and almost unimaginable grief (the same things felt by the family members of those burnt at the stake by Christians in the coming centuries). These fears and emotions caused several of his followers (whose writings appear in the New Testament) to have the types of terrifying nightmares that inspired books such as the Book of Revelation, all fear, all hysteria, all paranoia, all dark and primal conjecture, whilst others (perhaps those who didn’t drink alcohol that night or not as much or were at the back of the crowd rather than at the front as Jesus was killed) would have almost certainly dreamt that Jesus resurrected after the execution, that he rose again from the dead, that he was a miracle worker after all, not only in terms of his logic, philosophy and wisdom but an actual physical miracle worker who was able to bring himself back to life. What a beautiful, inspirational dream!
As one of the Apostles soothed himself with a large glass of red wine on the morning after Jesus’ execution due to the harrowing nightmares witnessing such a spectacle caused him to experience, perhaps dreaming that he himself was being tortured and killed, another burst into his room beaming from ear to ear seeking to share the ‘good news’:
‘He didn’t die, he didn’t die, he didn’t die! I had a vision last night that brother Jesus, our leader, exited his tomb and walked the earth once again. It was real, it felt so amazingly real. Jesus is back, he rose from the dead, he resurrected, it’s a miracle!’
When the other Apostles soon all appeared, after hearing the commotion and elation, which dream do you think they were fonder of and chose to convert into a prophecy or portent, the vision of all the Apostles being executed or the vision of Jesus defeating death by resurrecting?
Just like Karp’s Christian family, this Christian family (the Apostles) would have shared this dream within their number, with each of them in that moment desperate to also experience that dream, because they believed hope had died when Jesus died, but this wouldn’t be so if he appeared to them in their dream, this shared and very specific dream.
To process his loss, to accept Jesus was gone, would mean embracing massive grief, accepting that they were mortal, accepting that bad things do happen to good people and likely conforming by adopting the majority culture/religion/social norms. To process what had occurred and to accept reality would have meant changing in every way possible and admitting they were wrong, which none of Jesus’ followers wished to do because they were Christianity as Christianity was them. There was no further use for them to be individuals due to their identity being that of Jesus after he had imprinted himself upon them—his superiority, his strength, his monotropism, his self-belief, his everything.
They were members of the fan club of Christ without Christ; they were cultish followers of Christ without Christ. Their leader was gone, which took away their purpose, which meant a predictable thing needed to occur; they had to bring him back from the dead.
As more and more early Christians heard the story of the beautiful dream of the defiant and invincible autistic savant (more on that later) self-resurrecting, the dream soon became a reality as all came to experience it because they desperately needed to experience it.
Eventually the dream became reality with a portion of Jesus’ followers forcing themselves to actually believe that he did in fact rise from the dead, that it was more than just a dream, more than just a vision, more than just a wish, whilst a select few, who knew and accepted the truth, who knew Jesus was still in the tomb days, weeks and years later, only parroted this line in the interest of maintaining followers (because if Jesus hadn’t risen again, Christianity would have ended).
For some, the resurrection softened the blow of losing their leader, for others it prevented them having to process grief and loss and pain and fear, whilst for others it gave them the greatest tool imaginable, which would guarantee the ascension of Christianity towards becoming a world religion, something Jesus could not achieve when he was alive, something that necessitated his death and the dream of his rebirth, the tool that was The Greatest Story Ever Told—man made God, the Prince of Peace who defeated death. And the rest, as they say, is history.
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