Martin A. Larson
Encyclopedia
Martin A. Larson was an American populist freethinker and a writer specializing in theological history and the Essenes
. Originally from a fundamentalist Evangelical
background, he "rejected its dogmas and practices" when he was about 20 years old. Following service in the United States Navy, he graduated from Kalamazoo College in Michigan. He earned a Ph.D. in English literature from the University of Michigan
in 1927 with a thesis on the unorthodoxies of Milton
, whom he found to have rejected the doctrine of the Trinity. He retired from a career in business at the age of 50 to devote himself to private study, lecturing and writing.
Larson's lifelong body of work reconstructs a complete version of the story of Christian origins and its theological controversies, detailing its evolution from the cults of Osiris
and Dionysus
to modern times. This includes the synthesis of ideas, deities and personalities that historically gave favor to Christianity against religious competitors such as Mithraism
, which lacked a human founder and barred the general public, or Manichaeism
, which lacked a deified founder. He summarizes the exposition of this story:
Larson was also a tax critic and tax expert, who authored books on the immunities of organized religion, the Federal Reserve, and the IRS, including a text on The Theory of Logical Expression. His articles have appeared in Parade Magazine, Fortune Magazine, Reader's Digest
and other publications, and he had a regular column in The Spotlight
entitled "Our World In Conflict".
Essenes
The Essenes were a Jewish sect that flourished from the 2nd century BCE to the 1st century CE which some scholars claim seceded from the Zadokite priests...
. Originally from a fundamentalist Evangelical
Evangelicalism
Evangelicalism is a Protestant Christian movement which began in Great Britain in the 1730s and gained popularity in the United States during the series of Great Awakenings of the 18th and 19th century.Its key commitments are:...
background, he "rejected its dogmas and practices" when he was about 20 years old. Following service in the United States Navy, he graduated from Kalamazoo College in Michigan. He earned a Ph.D. in English literature from the University of Michigan
University of Michigan
The University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...
in 1927 with a thesis on the unorthodoxies of Milton
John Milton
John Milton was an English poet, polemicist, a scholarly man of letters, and a civil servant for the Commonwealth of England under Oliver Cromwell...
, whom he found to have rejected the doctrine of the Trinity. He retired from a career in business at the age of 50 to devote himself to private study, lecturing and writing.
Larson's lifelong body of work reconstructs a complete version of the story of Christian origins and its theological controversies, detailing its evolution from the cults of Osiris
Osiris
Osiris is an Egyptian god, usually identified as the god of the afterlife, the underworld and the dead. He is classically depicted as a green-skinned man with a pharaoh's beard, partially mummy-wrapped at the legs, wearing a distinctive crown with two large ostrich feathers at either side, and...
and Dionysus
Dionysus
Dionysus was the god of the grape harvest, winemaking and wine, of ritual madness and ecstasy in Greek mythology. His name in Linear B tablets shows he was worshipped from c. 1500—1100 BC by Mycenean Greeks: other traces of Dionysian-type cult have been found in ancient Minoan Crete...
to modern times. This includes the synthesis of ideas, deities and personalities that historically gave favor to Christianity against religious competitors such as Mithraism
Mithraism
The Mithraic Mysteries were a mystery religion practised in the Roman Empire from about the 1st to 4th centuries AD. The name of the Persian god Mithra, adapted into Greek as Mithras, was linked to a new and distinctive imagery...
, which lacked a human founder and barred the general public, or Manichaeism
Manichaeism
Manichaeism in Modern Persian Āyin e Māni; ) was one of the major Iranian Gnostic religions, originating in Sassanid Persia.Although most of the original writings of the founding prophet Mani have been lost, numerous translations and fragmentary texts have survived...
, which lacked a deified founder. He summarizes the exposition of this story:
And so we see that Egypt gave the world the god-man savior, who was several times reconstituted in the Greek and barbarianBarbarianBarbarian and savage are terms used to refer to a person who is perceived to be uncivilized. The word is often used either in a general reference to a member of a nation or ethnos, typically a tribal society as seen by an urban civilization either viewed as inferior, or admired as a noble savage...
mysteries. Persia filled the void with fears of hell, with hopes of paradiseParadiseParadise is a place in which existence is positive, harmonious and timeless. It is conceptually a counter-image of the miseries of human civilization, and in paradise there is only peace, prosperity, and happiness. Paradise is a place of contentment, but it is not necessarily a land of luxury and...
, and with the concept of the Last JudgmentLast JudgmentThe Last Judgment, Final Judgment, Day of Judgment, Judgment Day, or The Day of the Lord in Christian theology, is the final and eternal judgment by God of every nation. The concept is found in all the Canonical gospels, particularly the Gospel of Matthew. It will purportedly take place after the...
, and with the expectation of a renovated universe. The Jews and the Brahmanas gave us the priest-state. The Buddhists gave us renunciation, which made sex, family, wealth, labor and comfort into crimes and which made of idle communismCommunismCommunism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
and parasitismParasitismParasitism is a type of symbiotic relationship between organisms of different species where one organism, the parasite, benefits at the expense of the other, the host. Traditionally parasite referred to organisms with lifestages that needed more than one host . These are now called macroparasites...
the saintly way of life. The Greeks gave us democracyDemocracyDemocracy is generally defined as a form of government in which all adult citizens have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives. Ideally, this includes equal participation in the proposal, development and passage of legislation into law...
and private property, which PythagorasPythagorasPythagoras of Samos was an Ionian Greek philosopher, mathematician, and founder of the religious movement called Pythagoreanism. Most of the information about Pythagoras was written down centuries after he lived, so very little reliable information is known about him...
attempted to replace with a celibate but self-reliant communism. He also popularized the Zoroastrian metaphysics, the Brahmanic-Buddhist eschatologyEschatologyEschatology is a part of theology, philosophy, and futurology concerned with what are believed to be the final events in history, or the ultimate destiny of humanity, commonly referred to as the end of the world or the World to Come...
, and the Egyptian-Dionysiac soteriologySoteriologyThe branch of Christian theology that deals with salvation and redemption is called Soteriology. It is derived from the Greek sōtērion + English -logy....
in the Graeco-Roman world. PlatoPlatoPlato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the...
absorbed the communism, anthropology, and eschatology of Pythagoras, but rejected his celibacyCelibacyCelibacy is a personal commitment to avoiding sexual relations, in particular a vow from marriage. Typically celibacy involves avoiding all romantic relationships of any kind. An individual may choose celibacy for religious reasons, such as is the case for priests in some religions, for reasons of...
and his soteriology, as well as his concept of religion as a mystery-cult. Aristotle rejected the features of PythagoreanismPythagoreanismPythagoreanism was the system of esoteric and metaphysical beliefs held by Pythagoras and his followers, the Pythagoreans, who were considerably influenced by mathematics. Pythagoreanism originated in the 5th century BCE and greatly influenced Platonism...
which Plato accepted and embraced the concepts of private property and the secular life, in this respect returning to the ideology of HesiodHesiodHesiod was a Greek oral poet generally thought by scholars to have been active between 750 and 650 BC, around the same time as Homer. His is the first European poetry in which the poet regards himself as a topic, an individual with a distinctive role to play. Ancient authors credited him and...
. The EssenesEssenesThe Essenes were a Jewish sect that flourished from the 2nd century BCE to the 1st century CE which some scholars claim seceded from the Zadokite priests...
were Pythagoreans who encased their pagan religious synthesis, which Jesus absorbed, in a Jewish entegument, which he rejected, although He considered Himself one of the prophets of YahwehYahwehYahweh is the name of God in the Bible, the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Jews and Christians.The word Yahweh is a modern scholarly convention for the Hebrew , transcribed into Roman letters as YHWH and known as the Tetragrammaton, for which the original pronunciation is unknown...
; but he incorporated a definitely Buddhist element, not found among the Essenes. In the Gospel, therefore, we find a synthesis of Osirian-Dionysiac soteriology, Zoroastrian eschatology, Buddhist ethics and renunciation, Pythagorean communism, and the Essenic ParousiaParousiaParousia is an ancient Greek word meaning presence, arrival, or official visit.-Classical usage:# Physical presence, arrival – The main use is the physical presence of a person, which where that person is not already present refers to the prospect of the physical arrival of that person, especially...
. (Origins 416-17)
Larson was also a tax critic and tax expert, who authored books on the immunities of organized religion, the Federal Reserve, and the IRS, including a text on The Theory of Logical Expression. His articles have appeared in Parade Magazine, Fortune Magazine, Reader's Digest
Reader's Digest
Reader's Digest is a general interest family magazine, published ten times annually. Formerly based in Chappaqua, New York, its headquarters is now in New York City. It was founded in 1922, by DeWitt Wallace and Lila Bell Wallace...
and other publications, and he had a regular column in The Spotlight
The Spotlight
The Spotlight was a weekly newspaper in the United States, published in Washington, D.C. from September 1975 to July 2001 by the now-defunct Liberty Lobby...
entitled "Our World In Conflict".
Published books
- The Essene-Christian Faith (1989, 273 pp. ISBN 0-939482-16-9). Larson's views on the development of the Essene movement.
- New Thought: A Modern Religious Approach (1985, 458 pp. ISBN 0-8022-2464-4). A historical overview of the New Thought movement, giving it origins in the European EnlightenmentAge of EnlightenmentThe Age of Enlightenment was an elite cultural movement of intellectuals in 18th century Europe that sought to mobilize the power of reason in order to reform society and advance knowledge. It promoted intellectual interchange and opposed intolerance and abuses in church and state...
of the 18th century. New Thought broadly describes the set of religions that claim to be based on the Bible and Jesus Christ but which, in Larson's view, reject many basic Christian doctrines : Phineas Quimby, Warren Felt Evans, and Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of Christian Science. Modern New Thought institutions: the Church of Divine Science, Unity, the Churches of Religious Science, and the International New Thought Alliance.
- Martin Larson's Best (1984, ISBN 0935036067)
- The I.R.S. vs. The Middle Class (1980-02, 209 pp. ISBN 0-8159-5824-2)
- Jefferson: Magnificent Populist A collection of quotes from Thomas JeffersonThomas JeffersonThomas Jefferson was the principal author of the United States Declaration of Independence and the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom , the third President of the United States and founder of the University of Virginia...
, organized into Larson's categories.
- The Continuing Tax Rebellion (1979, 273 pp., ISBN 0-8159-5220-1)
- Tax Revolt: U.S.A. (first printing, 1973, 283 pages Library of congress catalog number 72-97025). Why and how Thousands of Patriotic Americans Refuse to Pay the Income tax.
- The Story of Christian Origins (1977, 711 pp. ISBN 0883310902 ). First published as The Religion of the Occident 1959, this expanded volume details the synthesis of facts regarding the Christian epic, from its pagan origins, Palestinian primary and secondary sources, and age-old religious concepts introduced by the Egyptians, Babylonians, Assyrians, Persions, Buddhists, Greeks, Jews, Phrygians, and Syrians. It also examines the soteriology, eschatology, ethics, and the Messianic concept which make up Christianity.
- The Religious Empire: The growth and danger of tax-exempt property in the United States (1976, 281 pp., ISBN 0-88331-082-1)
- The Federal Reserve (Devin-Adair Publishing, 1975, ISBN 0815955146)
- The Great Tax Fraud: How the Federal government favors the rich and exploits the masses (1968, 326 pp., ISBN B0007E793A)