Q&A with Spiritual Mystery Novel Author Penelope Holt “Angel Scroll”
August 2024.
Q1. In your novel, “The Scroll of the Angels,” Jesus visits India. Did Jesus actually travel to India?
There are several books and theories that claim that Jesus traveled to India. This idea is plausible given the claims that Jesus was a member of the Essenes sect, influenced by Hinduism and reincarnation. The Gospels tell the story of how Mary lost the 12-year-old Jesus in Jerusalem and eventually found him in the temple. The young Jesus rebuked his mother, saying, “Know ye not that I am in my Father's house?” After this incident, the Gospels pick up the story of Jesus much later, at the beginning of his ministry around age 30. Scholars contend that it was during these lost or “hidden” years that Jesus traveled to India.
In The Scroll of the Angels, the protagonist Claire Lucas has a vision of Jesus lying on the deathbed of a beautiful young woman in India, and she is compelled to paint a masterpiece depicting the scene, which, when combined with two other incredible paintings, creates a miracle triptych that functions as a visual gospel.
Q2. The characters in “The Angel Scroll” travel to many sacred sites. Why did you decide to include Glastonbury Tor in their adventure?
As Claire seeks to understand the supernatural phenomena that surround her – visions, psychic experiences and the channelling of masterpiece paintings of spiritual significance – she meets and questions figures from a range of faith traditions, including Buddhists and Benedictine monks, and meets anthropologist Josie MacLean, who guides her through Glastonbury Tor, the birthplace of Celtic Druidism and early Goddess worship.
Josie awakens Claire to the power of her creative unconscious and the archetypes present within it, including the Great Goddess. Celtic Druids were ancient priests, scholars and keepers of religious and cultural knowledge in Celtic society, serving as priests, advisors to rulers, judges, healers and educators. They lived on Glastonbury Tor and formed an eternal choir that sang 24/7, literally “enchanting” the land and invoking powerful spiritual energies.
The Druids were polytheistic and revered nature and the universe. They worshiped a variety of gods and goddesses associated with natural phenomena such as the sun, moon, and the elements. Druids performed rituals such as seasonal festivals (such as Beltane and Samhain), agricultural rites, and sacrifices to appease the gods or seek blessings for the community. These often involved sacred places such as stone circles, forests, or hilltops. They passed on their traditions orally, and were skilled at memorizing and reciting myths, histories, laws, and genealogies.
Celtic knots, the Tree of Life and various animal motifs were used in their religious practices and art. They also practiced divination, interpreting natural signs and omens to guide their decisions. With the Roman conquest of the Celtic lands and their subsequent Christianization, Druid practices declined. Their legacy remains in folklore, mythology and modern interpretations of Celtic spirituality.
What makes the storyline of The Angel Scroll so unique is that it weaves together several controversial religious theories and claims. Are the Angel Scrolls really the lost Dead Sea Scrolls? Was Jesus an Essenes? Did he travel to India and why? Additionally, Claire travels to Glastonbury Tor where she discovers it is the birthplace of Celtic Christianity.
Joseph of Arimathea, an Essene who gave Jesus a tomb after his crucifixion, is said to have been sent by his disciple Philip to evangelize the Celts in England. The Druids worshipped a god called Aethas, who they believed to be featured in Joseph's story of Jesus of Nazareth. The Druids gave them a site on Glastonbury Tor, where Joseph built the first Christian church on Earth. Jesus is said to have visited the site and dedicated it to his mother, Mary.
She also learns that Celtic Druids believed a life-regenerating cauldron was buried beneath Glastonbury Tor. Intertwined with this is the legend that Joseph of Arimathea placed a few drops of Jesus' blood into the Holy Grail used at the Last Supper and buried the chalice at Glastonbury. King Arthur, who later ruled the region, founded the famous Knights of the Round Table and embarked on a quest to find the legendary Holy Grail.
Glastonbury Tor's famous Grail Well adds colour to this mythology. Thousands of gallons of water flow from the well every day into an underground man-made chamber. It is said that the water is stained red due to its high iron content, but believers believe that the colour comes from the blood of Christ contained in the Grail that Joseph buried. Druids, Goddess worship, Celtic Christianity, the Holy Grail, King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table – these are the fascinating legends that are woven together and have their place in the sacred and mystical landscape of Glastonbury Tor, even featured in the Angel Scroll.
Q3 How did you use the concept of reincarnation in your book and why?
Reincarnation is a widespread spiritual belief in many religious traditions, and even features in early Christian lore. The novel explores the idea that if Jesus belonged to the Essenes, he would have been influenced by Hinduism and reincarnation.
During her adventure, Claire also meets the Buddhist monk Bodhipaska, who teaches her about the belief in reincarnation and how it works – our actions, good and bad, determine how we will be reincarnated in our next life. Finding herself at the center of the scroll's prophecy, Claire begins to investigate whether the individuals she met in her visions, who were followers of Jesus in India, have reincarnated in the present to create a visual gospel – one that uses images rather than words to have a more direct and transformative impact on 21st century humans who view it.
Q4: Why did you explore in this book the idea of a visual gospel formed when three miraculous paintings are combined into a triptych?
The famous Russian mystic George Gurdjieff believed that true works of art are inspired by God and evoke deep meanings and associations when we view them. Our unconscious is stimulated by symbols and archetypal images that we find in the world around us or depicted in art.
Sacred geometry, on the other hand, explores the belief that certain geometric shapes, patterns, and proportions have spiritual, symbolic, or metaphysical meaning. These shapes and patterns are often found in nature, art, and architecture and are thought to represent the fundamental structure of the universe, embodying the connection between matter and spirit.
Claire experiences mystical visions through the third eye, or vesica pisces, which is the sacred geometric almond or eye shape created when two circles intersect, representing the intersection of the upper and lower worlds, the conscious and the unconscious.Clare has visited sacred sites such as Jerusalem, Rome, Siena and Glastonbury Tor, experiencing time and again the power of sacred geometry and how it manifests in sacred art and architecture.
She learns that the advent of the printing press allowed the written Bible to become widely available, which allowed Christian reformers to promote the written Bible as an alternative to the popular religious paintings and icons that told the story of Jesus, His Church, and His saints, which the reformers believed were idolatrous and should be removed from religion.
For Clare, it makes sense that the New Gospels, adapted for the new century, might represent a return to inspirational, divinely inspired art. In this way, the work can avoid the false analyses, differing perspectives, and misunderstandings that accompany debates about language and meaning. The novel's three paintings are made to open the soul, bypassing the intellect to penetrate the individual and inspire love and healing.
Q5. Why does your heroine encounter characters from different faith traditions: a Benedictine monk, a Buddhist monk, and an anthropologist studying ancient goddess worship?
Claire finds herself lost, widowed, alone and seized by bewildering supernatural and hallucinatory experiences – all of which transforms her into a spiritual seeker seeking answers to life’s big questions. And like many modern spiritual seekers, she has left behind the religious practices of her youth, leaving a God-sized hole in her life that she desperately wants to fill so that she can regain hope, gain a deeper understanding of life's challenges, and find answers to why she is so plagued by mystical experiences.
As Claire encounters characters, both religious and secular, throughout the book, who explain her strange experiences, but offer different and sometimes contradictory ideas, she must grope her way to find the truth for herself, drawing on the wisdom of others, but ultimately realizing that she must use her intellect, intuition, and creativity to design a life that is expansive enough to accommodate the unique, otherworldly, and miraculous events that challenge her old identity and belief system.
Q6. Why is it implied that Claire, the book's main character, has hallucinations and supernatural experiences because of a medical problem, rather than because she has embraced her role as a psychic?
As each of us searches for a vision for our lives and the belief system that will guide us, we are confronted with a myriad of perspectives from the people around us and from a world filled with diverse ideas and beliefs. Among them, there are inevitably materialists who see little value in metaphysics or the concept of God or a higher power. They strictly follow the scientific method, observing only nature and physical processes, never incorporating the ineffable qualities and evidence of the supernatural world into their analysis.
While Claire explores faith traditions throughout her journey, her central figure and influence is her doctor, Dr. James Bentley. A benign materialist, he views Claire's strange hallucinations and visual disturbances through a medical lens; he connects them to the medical problems Claire is experiencing. This means that Claire must decide whether her spiritual experiences are simply symptoms of a malfunctioning body, or something else entirely.
To learn more about Penelope Holt and her work, visit www.penelopeholt.com She is available for interviews and as a guest author for book clubs.
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