The Essenes and the Women Around Yeshua (Anne Baring Part 4)

About this episode

What kind of spiritual world could have formed Yeshua before Christianity existed? This is Part 4 of my multi-part series of conversations with Anne Baring, recorded across September and October 2026. While each episode can stand on its own, I recommend beginning with Part 1, The Forgotten Feminine Face of God, and following the series in order. ☽ Christianity often starts its story when Jesus begins preaching. In this conversation, Anne and I go further back and ask what was already there. Anne takes us into her understanding of the Essenes and Therapeutae, contemplative communities she believes preserved an older Wisdom tradition concerned with healing, direct experience of the divine and disciplined development of consciousness. They called themselves Children of the Light. Anne places Yeshua inside this religious world and describes him as an elder brother and teacher who had gone further in his spiritual development and could show others what a human being was capable of. We talk about what spiritual training was actually for. Anne describes meditation, inner vision and ascension, along with an understanding of healing based on restoring harmony within the person. T