Stephen King says, “Fiction is a lie. GOOD fiction is the truth within the lie.”

The ELOAH Trilogy is GOOD fiction.

As with many good stories, however, the premises of these books are based on historical facts, scientific studies, or widely known conspiracy theories. I’ve taken artistic license with several of these themes, including the historicity of Jesus, conspiracy theories regarding his crucifixion, paranormal/supernatural studies, as well as scientific theories and the science that supports evolution and alien intervention over creation.

The Historicity of Jesus:

All the major religions of the world assert that Jesus was a living person of the first century C.E. Who he was and what he was about continue to be points of contention.

Christians believe him to be the Son of God and the Savior of humankind who sacrificed his own life in atonement for the sins of all.

Muslims believe him to have been one of four Major Prophets (Moses, David, Jesus, and Mohammad) who was given a book by Allah and directed to accomplish tasks that would ultimately lead to Mohammad and the Koran.

Moses received the Torah, David the Psalms, and Jesus the Gospels.

Typically, a Muslim believes that Jesus (or Isa as named in the Quran) was only a man and prophet sent by Allah to proclaim the coming of Mohammad.

According to the beliefs of Judaism, he was an ordinary Jewish man and preacher, executed by the Romans for speaking out against Roman authority and abuses.

The Messiah, as promised in the Torah, could not be attributed to Jesus. These are: 1) an observant Jewish man descended from the house of King David, 2) an ordinary human being, 3) (he would) bring peace to the world, 4) gather all Jews back into Israel, 5) rebuild the ancient Temple in Jerusalem and 6) unite humanity in the worship of the Jewish God and Torah observance.

Jesus failed to meet these criteria. Some argue that he met the first requirement and spoke often of the third; however, the remaining four were beyond his abilities.

There are, of course, those who believe that Jesus never lived at all. They will argue: “How could the Son of God, or a Major Prophet or a revolutionary Jew escape mention by the noted documenters of Roman and Jewish history – Tacitus, Eusebius, and Josephus – among others?” The short answer is, “Hmmm…”

The Jewish historian, Josephus (37 to 100 C.E.) wrote in his famous work, Testimonium Flavianum, “the testimony of Josephus,” a subtitle within the Jewish Antiquities (written around 80 C.E.): 

“There appeared Jesus, a wise man if indeed someone should call him a man; for he was a doer of startling deeds, a teacher of people who receive the truth with pleasure.

“And he gained a following both among many Jews and among many of Greek origin. He was the Messiah. And when Pilate, because of an accusation made by the leading men among us, condemned him to the cross, those who had loved him previously did not cease to do so.

“For he appeared to them on the third day, living again, just as the divine prophets had spoken of these and countless other wondrous things about him. And until this very day, the tribe of Christians, named after him, has not died out.”

The italicized words in the above verse were so obviously interjected into the paragraph by a Christian scribe that even Christian apologists, after 1600 years of flaunting its authenticity and proof of Jesus as the Messiah, have acknowledged that it is likely a forgery and abandoned the verse.

Though forsaken by the Church, the verse shows the historicity of a Rabbi named Jesus, who was scorned by the Sanhedrin (Jewish ‘Supreme Court’) and turned over to the Romans as a rebel.

During the time of Jesus’ life, magic was considered a major sin among the Jews and was punishable by stoning.

The miracles attributed to Jesus – turning water into wine, healing the sick, feeding thousands with a few loaves of bread and fish, and raising the dead would certainly have resulted in his death, had Jesus not had a large following among his people, in particular the Jewish rebels of Roman occupation.

The Sanhedrin were wary of Jesus’ influence among their people and feared condemning him to death would set him up as a martyr. A better way to get rid of him was to turn him over to the Romans.

Among pagans, however, magic and magicians were esteemed, and they were often considered the best magician gods. Simon Magus, a Sumerian, is the best known among this small group and there will be more about Simon in book two, ‘Treasure’.

Mary Magdalene is alternatively described as a whore or a magician, depending upon whose account you read. Even the Bible provides conflicting accounts of who she was and how she came to be a ‘disciple’, or not, of Jesus.

A variety of conspiracies claim she was a magician of sorts who enjoyed the protection of Jesus. It is also widely believed (among non-Christians) that she was Jesus’ wife and that they produced a child.

The Swoon Theory:

There are several variations on the sequence and details of the events, but essentially all versions postulate Jesus did not die on the cross; rather, he was merely unconscious when removed from the cross and secreted away to a private tomb belonging to Joseph of Arimathea (a disciple of Jesus, while also a member of the ‘Seventy-One’, the Sanhedrin).

He then recovered and was seen among his disciples. Another story is that he left the country with a pregnant Mary Magdalene and their destination remains unknown, although India or France is the most commonly discussed possibility. There is a wealth of information about these theories on the internet. Artistic license is a wonderful thing for fiction writers, and this theory got full treatment in No Heaven by adding a completely new adaptation to the argument.

Paranormal / Supernatural Abilities:

The history of humankind is full of stories about people who practiced or demonstrated fantastic feats that were considered to be in the realm of gods. Jesus was but one of these, except that in his case, these acts were called miracles.

Today, examples of telepathy, telekinesis, astral projection, psychic healing, and the actual existence of a spiritual entity in living creatures have been demonstrated and documented.

Okay, not necessarily scientifically proven, so let’s simply state that accounts have been published. Though rare, and limited to very few, the scientifically documented events, in particular in the areas of telepathy and psychic healing, are proof that such things are at least possible.

Could not these abilities have been evident two or ten thousand years ago? Could we also attribute them to aliens or visitors from a parallel universe? With what we know today and the long strides being made in studies of quantum physics and human consciousness; the answer has to be a resounding, YES!

The Institute of Noetic Studies, IONS, in California, USA, is the world leader in experimenting, examining, testing, and documenting paranormal, psychically induced phenomena.

They widely publicized the institute in Dan Brown’s, “The Lost Symbol” as having conducted experiments that prove the existence and departure of a soul shortly after physical death. According to the fictional account, the spirit is energy with mass and weight. Anything with mass and weight is measurable. The fictional experiment noted an instantaneous weight loss after physical death.

Dr. Duncan MacDougall of Haverhill, Massachusetts, conducted an actual experiment in 1907. His experiments were crude and largely disdained, but he discovered a measurable loss of weight – 3/4’s of an ounce – at the time of death that any other physical activity could not explain. His conclusion: He’d proven the existence of the human soul.

Quantum Physics: The Eloah trilogy takes full advantage in expanding upon three quantum physics theories – entanglement, string, and the many-worlds hypotheses.

 Rather than a detailed explanation of each of these theories, below are excerpts from innovative, unorthodox physicists – past and present – who are discovering no conflict at all between physics and belief in the paranormal and the afterlife.

Indeed, they show that the phenomena we now call “paranormal” are normal and consistent with the laws of science.

Professor Fred Alan Wolf sums up [his] view when he writes: I believe that the findings of quantum physics increasingly support Plato [who taught that there is a more perfect, non-material realm of existence].

There is evidence that suggests the existence of a non-material, non-physical universe that has a reality even though it might not as yet be perceptible to our senses and scientific instrumentation. When we consider out-of-body experiences, shamanic journeys, and lucid dream states, though they cannot be replicated in the true scientific sense, they also point to the existence of non-material dimensions of reality.

Professor Dr. Ernst Senkowski is a professor of physics and electronics who conducted intensive paranormal and afterlife research for over twenty years. Dr. Senkowski repeatedly got positive paranormal and ‘afterlife’ results.

He and several others have published books arguing that materialist science is incomplete and therefore unable to adequately account for positive paranormal evidence.

They urge the acceptance of a new paradigm or worldview, which includes psychic phenomena and the existence of multiple universes, including the so-called afterlife.

Professor John Bockris in his book The New Paradigm—A Confrontation Between Physics and the Paranormal Phenomena (2005) discusses the evidence for the paranormal, including telepathy, near-death experiences, out-of-body travel, reincarnation, apparitions, possession, distant healing, and other phenomena.

He concludes that other concepts, such as the paranormal, theories about consciousness, and interconnectedness must integrate into science to enable a superior understanding of reality.

His central proposal is that we are living in a “synchronized universe,” one layer with which we see and interact and are in synch with and identify as the “real” universe; and other universes alongside this real universe that are just as real.

This, he states, offers a way to understand how the soul, the center of human consciousness, can exist in a permanent form, surviving human death. It offers a useful beginning to a deeper understanding of the universe and of ourselves.”

Dr. Claude Swanson has collated the “best evidence” illustrating the inadequacy of our present scientific paradigm. In his book, The Synchronized Universe, he describes scientifically controlled remote viewing and ESP experiments, demonstrations of long-range healing, psychokinetic (mind over matter), scientifically controlled experiments in levitation, teleportation (quantum leaping), and out-of-body phenomena (OBE) (astral projection).

Dr. Larry Dossey, MD, writes in Healing Beyond the Body and Reinventing Medicine: “A historic development is occurring: compelling evidence is being produced by admirable scientific experiments revealing a dimension of consciousness which has been (largely) ignored within conventional science. This aspect of the mind functions infinitely—non-locally beyond the body and outside the present moment. These findings are of incalculable importance because of their implications for the nature, origin, and destiny of consciousness.”

And Finally:

A great deal of research has been devoted to paranormal abilities, quantum physics theories, and historical characters, locations, and events. This research, coupled with lifelong experiences, was given a whirl in a large blender, enriched with fantasy, science fiction, and conspiracies to produce this fictional account of Jesus’ (Eloah) second coming. The blender is still whirring away, with new ingredients added, as I continue to learn about and discover hidden secrets.