Edgar Cayce on the Mysterious Essenes - John Van Auken

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the scrolls to Khalil Eskander Shahin, known as “Kando,” who was a part-time antiques dealer. The Bedouin left one scroll with Kando and sold three of the scrolls to a Syrian Christian dealer. It was in 1947 that the original seven scrolls caught the attention of Dr. John Trever, who compared the script in the scrolls to that of The Nash Papyrus, the oldest biblical manuscript then known!

      As so often happens, war stopped the research. In March of 1948 the Arab-Israeli War forced the scrolls to be moved out of Israel to Beirut. In April 1948, Millar Burrows, head of the ASOR, announced the discovery of the scrolls in a major press release. Later that year, Bishop Mar Samuel, Archbishop of the Syriac Orthodox Church of Antioch, bought the Isaiah Scroll, the Community Rule, the Habakkuk Peshar, and the Genesis Apocryphon. Bishop Samuel showed the scrolls to Professor Ovid R. Sellers, the new Director of ASOR. Professor Sellers attempted to get the Syrians to assist in the search for the cave, but he was unable to pay their price. In early 1948, the government of Jordan gave permission to the Arab Legion to search the area for the Qumran caves. As a result of this, Cave 1 was rediscovered in January 1949 by Belgian United Nations observer Captain Phillipe Lippens and Arab Legion Captain Akkash el-Zebn.

      The rediscovery of what became known as “Cave 1” prompted an excavation of the site from February 15 to March 5, 1949 by the Jordanian Department of Antiquities led by British archaeologist and Director of the Jordanian Department of Antiquities, Gerald Lankester Harding, and by Roman Catholic priest Father Roland de Vaux. The Cave 1 site yielded discoveries of additional Dead Sea Scroll fragments, linen cloth, jars, and other artifacts.

      In November 1951, Father Roland de Vaux and his team from the ASOR began a full excavation of Qumran. By February 1952, the Bedouin people had discovered thirty fragments in what was to be designated Cave 2. The discovery of a second cave eventually yielded three hundred fragments from thirty-three manuscripts, including fragments of Jubilees, the Wisdom of Sirach, and Ben Sira written in Hebrew (Ben Sira was a second century BCE Jewish scribe and sage in Jerusalem). The following month, March 1952, the ASOR team discovered a third cave! This one had fragments of Jubilees and the now famous Copper Scroll. Between September and December 1952, the fragments and scrolls in Caves 4, 5, and 6 were discovered! Between 1953 and 1956, Father Roland de Vaux led four more archaeological expeditions in the area to uncover scrolls and artifacts. The last cave, Cave 11, was discovered in 1956 and yielded the last fragments to be found in the vicinity of Qumran.

      Chapter 4

      Essenes and the

      Legendary Magi

      Since the 500s BCE the term “Magi” signified a follower of Zoroaster, the Persian prophet who founded the religion called Zoroastrianism. He was originally known as Zarathustra (660-583 BCE) and the primary sacred text was and remains the Avesta, a word that may best correspond with the English word “Praise.” It’s often referred to as the Zend-Avesta, where Zend or Zand means “interpretation of,” thus, the name of the text may be “Interpreted-Praise.” There are two forms of manuscripts composing the whole Avesta or Zoroastrian Bible. One is the Zend-i-Avesta, in which the individual books are gathered together with their interpretation and commentary. The other manuscript is the Vendidād Sadeh, in which the Yasna (ritual), Visperad (festival recitations), and Vendidād (the laws or rules) are set in order and used in the ceremonies. The aim of a Zoroastrian ceremony is to preserve the integrity of the cosmic good of God’s creation—a tall order!

      Zarathustra experienced a vision in which the “Wise Lord” or “God of Light” (Ahura Mazda) instructed him to learn, to live, and to teach specific concepts, ideals, and practices to the people. Fundamentally, the teaching is that the “bountiful mind and spirit” (spenta mainyu, where “mainyu” means both mind and spirit, and “spenta” means bounteous) is in a constant struggle with the “destructive mind and spirit” (angra mainyu, where “angora” means destructive, inhibitive, malign, and the like). Since human beings have been given the freewill power to live as their hearts move them, they must choose between these two states of being and thinking, and they will grow to personify one or the other of these dual states of being—and thereby becoming more constructive or more destructive. The former leads one to be more selfless and caring as well as a light and comfort to all, while the latter leads one to the point of being totally self-centered and selfish, taking life rather than giving life. See Deuteronomy 30:15 for the Hebrew version of this freewill gift in which the same options are set before us: good and evil, light and dark. Eventually the time of the opportunity to choose freely will come to a close and the Bountiful Mind and Spirit will dissolve the destructive mind and spirit, while all those who chose the constructive life will rejoice in their eternal life with the Bountiful Mind and Spirit, which was their original Creator. These two opposing forces are often spoken of and even personified in the Avesta texts as Light and Darkness, Good and Evil.

      Zoroastrians hold these three principles to be their pillars of wisdom: “Good thoughts, good words, good deeds” (Avesta, Vendidād 21: “Humata, Hūkhta, hvarshta”). Here is another example of their fundamental principles:

      Question: By what means can one make Bountiful Mind and Spirit, His Bountiful Immortals, and the fragrant and pleasant Heaven his own?

      Answer: By Wisdom, Contentment, Truthfulness, Gratefulness, Devotedness, Generosity, Moderation, Endeavor, and Trust (in God). By these means, one reaches Heaven and is in sight of God. (Avesta: Mino-

-Kherad, 43:1-14)

      You can see how these principles easily fit with Judeo-Christian principles. Consider as an example the writings of the Christian disciple Paul who also saw two forces struggling against one another, the spirit and the flesh, and listed the “fruits” of these:

      I say, walk by the Spirit, and you won’t fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one other, that you may not do the things that you desire. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are obvious, which are: adultery, sexual immorality, uncleanness, lustfulness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, strife, jealousies, outbursts of anger, rivalries, divisions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these; of which I forewarn you, even as I also forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the Kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and lusts. If we live by the Spirit, let’s also walk by the Spirit. Let’s not become conceited, provoking one another, and envying one another. (Galatians 5:17-26)

      Edgar Cayce’s discourses saw the struggle to be between love and selfishness, seeing God as the spirit of love, and selfishness as misuse of the gift of free will for self-gratification, and self-exaltation: “The only sin is self . . .” He saw this as the reasoning behind the two great commandments: love God and love one another.

      In addition to these examples, some of the Zoroastrian stories are also found in the stories of the Jews and Christians. For example, Zoroaster, like Jesus, is tempted by the personification of the Destructive Mind and Spirit, or Satan in the Christian story, to follow its ways with the promise that Zoroaster would become the sovereign of the whole world! But Zoroaster, also like Jesus, rejects the Destructive Mind and Spirit’s temptation, pushing it out of his personal mind and spirit. (Vendidād 19 and Matthew 4:1-12).

      Where did Zoroastrianism and its Magi first connect with the Jews and thereby the Jewish sect of the Essenes? It can be traced all the way back to the Babylonian captivity of the Jews of the First Temple, when the First Temple was destroyed and the Jewish captives were carried off to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar II (597-582 BCE)—even the prophet Daniel was among the captives. At this same time and after, Zoroastrianism was the religion of Persia (modern-day Iran) and Babylon was their next-door neighbor (a portion of modern-day Iraq). When the Persians finally invaded and conquered Babylon (539 BCE), they eventually

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