Where the New Age, UFOology and Christianity Intersect

Where the New Age, UFOology and Christianity Intersect

A discussion of George Wilkinson’s “Jesus in the Criminal from the Planet Uranus,” available from Amazon.Com

By Stephen Michael Tomlinson

The “Gods and Aliens” website maintains a series of discussions that examine the work of George Wilkinson, an author who might best be described as a hybrid of mythicisim, UFOology, and a revisionist interpretation of the Christian faith. The discussion of Wilkinson’s work at “Gods and Aliens” is refreshing because it dares to take seriously alternative explanations for the origins of the Christian religion. Further, the authors at “God and Aliens” are open to the possibility that we human beings are indeed not quite alone in this universe. George Wilkinson is a fascinating individual, a man who is now in his senior years who has struggled with Dissociative Identity Disorder (so-called “multiple personality syndrome”) for virtually his entire life. Wilkinson’s unique psychological experiences that have results from his “disorder” have allowed him the opportunity to develop a deeply reflective view of life, and the place of humanity in the universe.

For 45 years, Wilkinson has pursued a theory first developed by Dr. Paul Brunton, that the person of Jesus Christ, the central figure of the Christian faith, did indeed walk the earth approximately 2000 years ago, and that this historic figure performed the many supernatural acts that are attributed to him by the Christian tradition. However, George Wilkinson is not an orthodox Christian. Instead, Wilkinson has developed a thesis that will be regarded as heresy by believers and unbelievers alike. It is the contention of George Wilkinson that Jesus Christ possessed the super powers that he is believed by Christians to have had because he was in fact an alien from another world. Certainly, such a claim seems far-fetched an outrageous on the surface not only for its seemingly science fiction-like claims about extraterrestrial life, but also because of its extreme departure from the beliefs about the origins of the Christian faith that have long been held by believers and unbelievers alike.

Of course, the traditional Christian view has always been that Jesus Christ was the son of the ethno-tribal war god of the ancient Hebrews, Yahweh, and that he came to earth from heaven in the form of a human child who was born after a young virginal Jewish girl was impregnated by magical means. The child was called Jesus, and he grew up to be a Palestinian superman who was capable of great deeds such as healing people from terrible diseases and disabilities, invoking supernatural powers to engage in exorcisms, turning water into wine, making extraordinary amounts of food appear instantaneously, walk on the water, calm storms, and others and even himself from the dead. Historically, skeptics have claimed that such stories were simply myths, and that while a historical Jesus may or may not have existed, it was certainly true that he did not have such powers in reality. Of course, the historic Christian position has been that Jesus was not divine being and as a result was able to perform the magical feats that were attributed to him.

George Wilkinson offers a third position on the question of Jesus’ origin and identity. He suggests that Jesus was a real being, but not a human being. Instead, he was an alien, most likely from the planet Uranus. He was the son of a mayor of a city on Uranus, and he came to earth largely for the purpose of engaging in such feats as a prankster. Wilkinson offers the parallel thesis that the figure from the history of human religion that is Jesus’ closest parallel, i.e. the Buddha, was likewise an alien, who most likely originated from the planet Neptune. In part, Jesus visit to Earth in the first century A.D./C.E. may have been intended for the purpose of countering the influence of his rival from Neptune who had arrived on Earth some time before. The writers at “God and Aliens” cover this information very well, and it is refreshing that an innovative scholar of the caliber of George Wilkinson is receiving due credit for the ideas that he has brought to the table.

In recent decades, the emergence of the so-called “New Age” movement has motivated many people, particularly in Western societies, to rethink traditional religious beliefs in many important ways. Since the time of the Enlightenment, traditional Christianity has been losing its influence in the Western world. As Nietzsche predicted in the nineteenth century, the loss the cultural moorings of the Western world that have been associated with “the death of God” have had the effect of creating a kind of cultural existential crisis. The sense of certainty that accompanied traditional religious and metaphysical beliefs is no longer available. The New Age phenomenon has represented bold attempt to reconsider the meaning of the spiritual. For example, new approaches Christology have emerged that have portrayed the character of Jesus (as well as other historic religious figures such as the Buddha or the Prophet Muhammed) in a new light. Some New Age thinkers have been considerably more open minded than their skeptical counterparts concerning the possibility of not only the existence of extraterrestrial life, but also the possibility that such beings have visited Earth at various points in the past.

Yet it has only been the boldest of thinkers such as Dr. Paul Brunton and George Wilkinson that have worked to put each of the pieces of these puzzles into their proper place. The thesis that has been developed by Wilkinson essentially involves a harmonization and reconciliation between New Age thought, traditional Christianity, and the study of extraterrestrial life. Wilkinson affirms that Jesus did indeed exist, and that he possessed the magical powers that are attributed to him by orthodox Christians. However, it was not his divine nature but his extraterrestrial nature that gave him these powers. By offering this thesis, George Wilkinson has reaffirmed the legitimacy of the role of the supernatural in the human story.