Before you go on to read the post, I’d like to announce the next Channeling Erik Weekend of F-ing Enlightenment this November in Los Angeles. Actually it’s only a Saturday event, not a weekend, so no hotel rooms are needed unless you’re coming from far away. The last one booked up very quickly so please don’t dilly dally as we say in the South. Here are the details: CHANNELING ERIK WORKSHOP
The last celeb was an atheist, so let’s make a 180 and hear from a disciple.
Me: You know who I’d like to bring in for an interview who may have been misunderstood? Judas Iscariot.
Robert: Oh, that’s cool.
Me: What do you think, Erik? Can you go fetch him?
Erik: Guess what I’m going to say, Mom?
Me: What?
Erik: Dude’s already here.
Robert laughs.
Me: All right! Good! Hello, Mr. Iscariot. How are you?
Judas: Good afternoon.
Me: I’d love to give you the opportunity to share your story. Would you like to do that?
Judas: It’s been a long time.
Me: Yes, I know. I feel like you were misunderstood just like Mrs. O’Hair was, so I wanted to give you a chance to speak for yourself.
Judas: Thank you for that, and yes, I would like to set things straight to use 21st century vernacular. I didn’t betray Jesus.
Me: That was going to be my next question. Tell me what happened.
Judas: It was a plan he and I both made together. We had talked about this. In the life I was as Judas, one could say I was very free with my tongue. I didn’t hold things back. I couldn’t keep a secret. Christ knew this. This is why he wanted me in his fold. We had a conversation about this. The way it ended up happening is this: I enjoyed the drink. Wine, you know, alcohol. I was at the local pub, and I was speaking freely about Jesus. I could be a braggart. All of these things, he know I was going to do. We talked about it before. There were soldiers there and others sympathetic to the emperor. He told me it was going to happen, and knowing that, perhaps I made it so. I don’t know, but this is why everything happened the way it did with Christ going into the city –
Robert: He shows an image of Christ traveling on a donkey. I don’t know if that’s when he was arrested. I should know this stuff.
Judas: Many of the things I said when I was drunk and bragging only made the people in power feel more intimidated by him.
Me: Jesus?
Judas: Yes. They saw the power he could wield and how he could influence other people so deeply. They knew that there were far fewer of them than there were of the masses. Many of the struggles that went on in my time go on today. So they wanted to hold onto their power, and it became important to get rid of him. Ultimately, they failed, at least in physically killing him, but they succeeded in silencing him.
Me: That’s true. Did they offer you money to show them where he was?
Robert: He showed me a real quick image of how people saw it like Judas led the soldiers to Jesus.
Me: Yeah. That’s the story, I think.
Robert: And then they arrested him and carted him off?
Me: Right. Was that not the case?
Judas: No, that’s not what happened. That’s not entirely true.
Me: Well tell me what happened.
Judas: Yes, soldiers did show up and attempted to take Christ in, but Christ is a master of communication. He told them that he would turn himself in.
Me: Oh.
Judas: That’s what happened. Christ turned himself in, but not at that moment. The soldiers left, and I received no compensation. Everyone assumes I was paid, but I was not. So remember how I said Christ and I had conversations?
Me: Yes.
Judas: So to piece things together: getting drunk and bragging at the pub got the soldiers to come to Christ. I did lead them there.
Me: Wait. You led them there on purpose, or did they just happen to follow you?
Judas: It didn’t occur in that moment. That came later.
Me: Oh, okay. Well why did you lead them there? I don’t understand.
Judas: To get back to the plan Christ and I talked about, I informed him of what transpired and Christ told me that was his destiny. He told me to please let the soldiers know where I am.
Me: Okay, I got it.
Judas: So I led them there a couple of weeks after that time in the pub. So as I said, Christ told the soldiers he would turn himself in, and they left. Then later, he rode into the town on a donkey and gave himself up.
Me: Now, you killed yourself—
Robert: Oh, I’m sorry. He wants to answer your question, but then Jesus said something.
(Pause)
Judas: I did not kill myself.
Me: Oh! What happened?
Judas: People who found out what happened murdered me.
Me: How?
Robert: He shows himself standing at the edge of a deep ditch, like a ravine. It’s deep enough that you’d hurt yourself or probably die if you fell in. It was getting to be nighttime and a group of men surrounded him.
Me: Okay.
Robert: They started pushing him and yelling at him. One of them picked up a really big rock and smashed him in the head.
Judas: I fell in the ravine and died there.
Me: Aw, that’s too bad.
Judas: I didn’t suffer.
Me: Oh, that’s good.
Jesus makes a cameo appearance!
Jesus: I wanted to explain why it had to happen the way it did. When I was a human being, I had frequent conversations with the Father, and I knew exactly what my destiny was, which was to sacrifice myself for humankind. I spoke of love in every message I gave, and the love I spoke of is unconditional, but it had a flavor of rebellion in it. One should rebel in order to appease those parts of you that feel you’ve been stripped of the ability to choose for yourself. That’s one side. On the other side, you must also, if you’re going to fully love, respect the law of the land. I wanted to teach human beings that, if we’re to get along as human beings, we need to know that there are some things the law does that runs counter to what an individual knows within his or herself as right, but you should still respect them. That doesn’t mean you don’t rebel against them.
Okay, I’m confused.
Jesus: So my message was that you do what you’re inclined to do, but at the same time, you be willing to accept the consequences. Had I not gone through what I did, then I would have been sending the message to humans that you must fear the consequences.
Me: So Jesus, did you pretty much instruct Judas to report you to the authorities so you could sacrifice yourself?
Jesus: I don’t tell people to do anything. I only ask them to do what they feel they must, and what they must do is what they, as an individual, are inclined to do. So I merely gave Judas the insight into what I saw would transpire and said nothing further.
Me: He made the decision. I understand.
I guess it’s not technically betrayal if you’re given the green light.
Me: Looking back, Judas, do you have any regrets?
Judas: At the end of my life right before I died, I regretted that people did not see that I was just being who I am. In that moment, it made me wonder if I should have been who I was. That was self-judgment on my part. I thought, ‘I brought this on myself, and betrayed the Savior.
Me: But you said you didn’t betray him.
Judas: But that’s what I believed while I was in the physical world. I did not feel that way until the men surrounded me and confronted me. I started to believe what they told me. I saw the reaction my action created.
Me: If you hadn’t have done what you did, starting with mouthing off in the pub and so on—
Judas: It would have still occurred.
Me: What would have occurred?
Judas: I still would have died in the way I did, and Christ still would have—
Me: Been crucified but not died on the cross.
Judas: Right.
Me: I don’t know where this question comes from but some say you lied to the Jews to defend Jesus. Is that true?
Judas: Rarely was I a conscious liar.
Robert chuckles.
Judas: Because I always spoke so freely. To speak freely, you really can’t have lies in your heart. It takes time to formulate a lie.
Me: So you didn’t lie?
Judas: But—
Robert laughs. Is Judas hemming and hawing?
Judas: –there were moments when I mixed lies with the truth.
Me: What do you mean?
Judas: Anything I thought could undermine the message of Christ I put in the back, and anything I thought would elevate the message I’d put in the front. So I accentuated—
Erik starts singing that song from The Jungle Book: “Accentuate the positive…”
Robert and I laugh. Not sure if Judas has seen the movie. He’s keeping quiet.
Judas: Well that’s what I did.
Robert: I don’t know what you were referring to.
Me: I don’t either! I made this list of questions a while back! So Judas, apparently Jesus didn’t die on the cross. Do you want to talk about that? Were you involved in saving him?
(Pause)
Robert: Yeah, I was asking him to repeat that several times for me. The first thing that I heard, and he repeated it several times was that the crucifixion was underway when—
Me: He died?
Robert: Yeah. That’s what he’s leading me to believe. Either he wasn’t able to get there to help, or he already died.
Me: Okay. What is your relationship with Jesus now, Judas?
Judas: Nothing has changed since when we were in the physical world.
Me: Well tell me about your relationship, then. We haven’t really talked about that.
Judas: The thing that I observed in the physical world but wasn’t always fully conscious of until I crossed over is that Christ treated every one of his disciples and everyone he encountered in the exact same way.
Me: Mm!
Judas: The only thing that changed was that his interaction with a person would be tailored to who he or she was, individually. That’s love. It transforms into what the person needs.
Me: Right. Oh yeah.
Judas: In the physical world, Christ gave me what I needed to continue to be my true self. He did that with everyone else. In the spiritual world, it continues, but you’re not contained by the human mind. The human mind can only be aware of so many things at once. In the spiritual world, it’s infinitely deeper and associated with infinite awareness.
(Pause)
Robert: He tears up when he talks about this.
Me: Aw.
Judas: The other thing Christ does, which I could feel unconsciously and which caused people to be drawn to him is his ability to give you what you need. In the spiritual world, he reflects everything you need back to you, and you realize that reflection he gives you is the same as what you send to him, so you realize that you’re no different from Christ or any of what people would consider the great spiritual teachers. We’re all exactly the same. That’s a gift. That’s an amazing and beautiful gift.
Robert: I’m getting chills.
We conclude the interview with Judas the next day.
