Paper 95 Overview: The Melchizedek Teachings in the Levant

The Melchizedek teachings spread throughout southwestern Asia as Salem missionaries traveled across Palestine, Mesopotamia, Egypt, Iran, and Arabia proclaiming Machiventa Melchizedek's gospel. These missionaries experienced varying degrees of success in their efforts to establish belief in the one God. In some regions, their teachings took root and flourished, while in others they encountered resistance or were eventually diluted by local religious practices and beliefs.

The impact of these teachings varied significantly across different cultures and time periods, often reflecting the political and social contexts of the receiving societies. The Salem religion's core message about one Universal God underwent numerous transformations as it interacted with existing belief systems. Despite challenges and setbacks, the Melchizedek teachings served as foundational elements for many of the world's major monotheistic religions, profoundly influencing religious thought throughout the Levant and beyond.

The Levant was the homeland for the faiths of the Occidental world, just as India gave rise to many eastern Asian religions and philosophies. Salem missionaries spread throughout southwestern Asia, traveling through Palestine, Mesopotamia, Egypt, Iran, and Arabia while proclaiming the good news of Machiventa Melchizedek's gospel. In different lands, their teachings found varying levels of acceptance, sometimes failing due to lack of wisdom in their approach, and other times due to circumstances beyond their control.

By 2000 BC, Mesopotamian religions had largely lost the Sethite teachings and were influenced by beliefs from Bedouin Semite invaders from the western desert and barbarian horsemen from the north. Although early Mesopotamians observed a seventh day tradition, it was considered an unlucky day, filled with taboos against traveling, cooking, or making fire. The Salem teachers managed to reduce the number of Mesopotamian deities but could not establish lasting belief in a single God.

Salem missionaries faced significant challenges in Mesopotamia, including the powerful cult of Ishtar, the mother of gods and spirit of fertility. When Nabodad, the leader of the Kish school, attempted to attack the practice of temple harlotry, the Salem teaching suffered a major setback. Following this defeat, Ishtar worship expanded rapidly, along with a resurgence of astrology and fortune-telling. Though the organized Salem movement failed, small bands of believers persisted throughout Mesopotamia, maintaining their faith in one Creator. Many of the Old Testament Psalms were later written by descendants of these Salem missionaries, not by the Babylonian priests.

Melchizedek teachings took their deepest root in Egypt, from where they subsequently spread to Europe. Egypt's religious landscape was periodically enriched by the arrival of superior peoples from the Euphrates valley, making it home to a thoroughly blended type of religious philosophy. Egypt's political and moral climate, rather than philosophical or religious tendencies, made it more receptive to Salem teachings than Mesopotamia was.

Egyptian tribal leaders who fought their way to the throne would proclaim their tribal god as supreme to establish their dynasty, gradually leading Egyptians to accept the concept of a supergod. Egyptians had long worshipped nature gods, with different tribes venerating animals like bulls, lions, or rams. Their burial practices evolved to include embalming bodies and creating burial statues, believing these aided one's journey in the afterlife. They believed stars represented the souls of worthy dead individuals, while others were absorbed into the sun. When Melchizedek appeared, Egyptians believed that properly prepared souls could bypass evil spirits, reach the judgment hall of Osiris, and if judged worthy, enter the realms of bliss.

Although much of Egypt's culture and religion derived from Andite Mesopotamia, a remarkable amount of social and ethical idealism developed naturally in the Nile valley. Moral evolution isn't entirely dependent on revelation; humans can derive high moral concepts and spiritual values from their own experiences because a divine spirit indwells them. These naturally evolved ethical concepts were further enhanced by the periodic arrival of truth teachers, initially from the second Eden and later from Melchizedek's headquarters at Salem.

Thousands of years before the Salem gospel reached Egypt, Egyptian moral leaders taught justice, fairness, and avoidance of avarice. Three thousand years before the Hebrew scriptures were written, Egyptians lived by the motto: "Established is the man whose standard is righteousness; who walks according to its way." They valued gentleness, moderation, and discretion, with a great teacher proclaiming: "Do right and deal justly with all." The Egyptian concepts of good and evil found resonance with the surviving doctrines of Salem religion brought by Melchizedek missionaries, creating fertile ground for religious development.

Egypt produced a remarkable teacher called by many "the son of man" or Amenemope, who elevated conscience to the highest level of judgment between right and wrong. He taught that sin leads to punishment and proclaimed salvation through calling upon the solar deity. His teachings were translated into Hebrew and became a sacred book for the Jews long before the Old Testament was compiled, significantly influencing Hebrew philosophy with the concept that riches and fortune were gifts from God.

Amenemope instructed that God-consciousness should guide every moment of life, and his teachings to his son about honesty in government positions would still be honored by modern statesmen. He taught that "riches take themselves wings and fly away" and that all earthly things are temporary. His greatest prayer was to be "saved from fear," and he urged people to turn from "the words of men" to "the acts of God." His philosophy influenced both Hebrew and Greek thought, as his writings were translated into both languages, preserving ethical evolution and moral revelation that shaped Western civilization.

As Amenemope's influence waned, an Egyptian royal woman embraced the Melchizedek teachings through the influence of a Salem physician and convinced her son, Pharaoh Ikhnaton, to accept the doctrine of One God. Ikhnaton possessed an extraordinarily clear understanding of Salem's revealed religion, maintaining the monotheistic channel that would be vital for the future bestowal of Michael. This connection to Melchizedek's teachings explains why the child Jesus was taken to Egypt, where some spiritual successors of Ikhnaton recognized aspects of his divine mission.

Ikhnaton demonstrated remarkable determination in his religious reforms, changing his name, abandoning his capital, building a new city, and creating new art and literature to support monotheism. He established the worship of the Universal Father under the guise of the sun-god Aton, writing extensively about "The One God" and composing hymns, some of which are preserved in the Book of Psalms. However, his reforms moved too quickly and failed to address his people's material needs. After his death, priests restored the old gods, though the concept of one God continued to influence Egyptian thought, particularly through the family life values that later influenced Jewish culture in Palestine.

Melchizedek missionaries from Palestine traveled through Mesopotamia to the Iranian plateau, where they made progress for over five hundred years. The entire nation was gradually embracing the Melchizedek religion when a change in rulers triggered bitter persecution that nearly eliminated monotheistic teachings. When the Abrahamic covenant was almost extinct in Persia, Zoroaster appeared in the sixth century BC to revive the Salem gospel. After learning of ancient traditions in Ur of Mesopotamia, he developed a program to reform his people's religion.

Zoroaster created a militant religious philosophy focused on action rather than rituals, presenting a supreme God of wisdom who championed civilization against evil and backwardness. While he didn't teach fire worship, he used flame as a symbol of the pure and wise universal Spirit. His religion preserved the Dalamatian and Edenic teachings about the Seven Master Spirits, though it didn't fully develop a Trinity concept. Zoroastrian ideas about heaven, hell, and devils influenced Jewish scripture during the Persian cultural dominance of the Jews. Through Judaism and Christianity, and later Mohammedanism, Zoroaster's teachings significantly shaped Western religious thought.

The Melchizedek teachings of one God were established in the Arabian Desert relatively recently compared to other regions. Salem missionaries failed in Arabia due to misunderstanding Machiventa's instructions about overorganization, though they correctly avoided using military force or civil compulsion to spread their message. Despite its proximity to Salem, Arabia experienced one of the most complete failures of Melchizedek teachings, with each tribe continuing to worship its traditional fetish and many families maintaining household gods for thousands of years.

Throughout Arabia, scattered families and clans preserved vague ideas of one God, treasuring traditions of Melchizedek, Abraham, Moses, and Zoroaster. The one common factor among Arab tribes was their shared reverence for a black stone fetish in a temple at Mecca, which later became central to Islam. Islam's strength has been its clear presentation of Allah as the one and only Deity, while its weakness lies in using military force for its promotion and its degradation of women. Nevertheless, Islam has consistently maintained the concept of a universal Deity who is "merciful and compassionate," "plenteous in goodness," and who "heals me when I am sick."