Taking Care of (My Father's) Business
Elvis’ ring means Taking Care of Business.
Inspired by Mitch Horowitz’s recent pilgrimage to Graceland, I have started a year-long project to read as many spiritual books as I can that were part of Elvis Presley’s cherished personal library. (You can learn more about Elvis’ reading in his spiritual mentor Larry Geller’s book “Leaves of Elvis’ Garden.”)
The first book I chose to read was Levi Dowling’s “The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ.”
Levi Dowling said that his gospel was transcribed from the Akashic records.
Like Elvis, I was brought up in the Assemblies of God denomination of the Pentecostal faith. Because of my background, I found this book a little off-putting—a version of the gospels giving off an occult vibe felt a little scary to me. Flipping through the book, I was struck by odd anachronisms—like a reference to a harpsichord . But as I read it through, I began to like it more and more, finding it sweet and likeable, almost like outsider art. I especially liked how Levi’s version of Jesus is generally so concerned with animal welfare.
Levi Dowling’s Jesus cares about animal rights.
This passage is an obvious re-envisioning of the story of the Gadarene Swine. Instead of a herd of pigs, there’s a dog. And instead of allowing the spirit to enter the animal, as Legion (“We are many”) was allowed to enter the herd of swine which destroyed themselves, Jesus refuses. “It is not yours to throw the burden of your sin on any living thing” (This also relates to objections to animal sacrifice throughout Dowling’s gospel). Another retelling of the Gadarene Swine story appears in the Aquarian Gospel, and oddly, that time Jesus allows the spirit to enter into some animals and be destroyed. If I remember correctly, the animals are described as vermin carrying the Plague, so maybe that is how Dowling rationalized telling this version of the story.
A portrait I drew of Levi Dowling. I read the Aquarian Gospel story of Jesus’ birth on Christmas Eve.
Levi Dowling was an interesting figure, and I’m looking forward to reading more about him. In 1904 he planned (and apparently at least partially constructed) an intentional/mixed-use community (complete with a high school called The Temple of Resplendent Light) in California called Mount-Carmel-by-the-Sea. (You can read a newspaper article about it from the time here. The article, which refers to Levi and his followers as Gnostics, is an example of early 20th century snark).
Much of the Aquarian Gospel is concerned with Jesus’ missing years. Jesus travels the world and talks with spiritual masters from every religion. Like so much of the Aquarian Gospel, not something that I was taught in the Assembly of God church that I attended.
After I’ve read more books from Elvis’ spiritual library, I will be interested in revisiting this fascinating revision of the gospels, Levi Dowling’s “The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ.”