In Jesus and the Shamanic Tradition of Same-Sex Love I tell the story of the discovery of a lost Gospel of Mark, a text older than the gospel we know today with passages that it doesn't have. These describe Jesus performing a rite with a young man that imparts the experience of ascending to heaven. It seems to be connected to the incident at Gethsemane, when a naked youth flees from the garden when Jesus is arrested, and with the raising of Lazarus. The text, discovered by Morton Smith in 1958 in a monastery outside of Jerusalem, is certainly controversial. Nonetheless, over the years a number of scholars have accepted its authenticity: it is older than our Mark but written by the same author.
Since Jesus was published in 2004 two remarkable discoveries have added new evidence of a magical rite in early Christianity linked to same-sex love.
