I study the Bible. I study the Bhagavad Gita. I read Gnostic texts. I explore Kabbalah. I look at ancient Sumerian writings.

Because I genuinely believe this…. Truth is not owned.
Truth is scattered. Sprinkled.
Fragmented across cultures, languages, myths, metaphors!!
And I don’t believe I can form my own personal beliefs responsibly without exploring as much information as possible. If something is true, it should not be afraid of comparison. If something is divine, it should not collapse under questions. So I ask questions.

One of the biggest questions I keep circling back to is not Is the Bible false? It’s… Why was it curated so aggressively?
There were hundreds  possibly over 800  early Judeo-Christian and related writings circulating in antiquity. Different communities. Different gospels.
Different cosmologies. Different understandings of God, creation, the soul, and reality itself.
And eventually, councils of men decided which ones counted!!
Not through divine lightning bolts. Not through voices from the heavens. But through debate, politics, power, and theology. And everything outside that selection became labeled heresy. That alone deserves contemplation!

Removing hundreds of spiritual texts does not feel like building an authentic belief system rooted purely in truth and light. It feels like shaping perception. It feels like narrowing the lens. It feels like deciding what humanity is allowed to ponder.
And when you look at what was removed, a pattern emerges. Texts that radically expand how reality works. Texts that place divinity inside the human being. Texts that describe layered worlds, hidden rulers, soul ascent, and cosmic complexity.

So why canonize it this way? Not just why create a canon… But why these books and not those?
Because canonization isn’t neutral. Canonization is curation. And curation shapes reality. At the most basic level… Empires need unity. Unity requires standardized belief. Standardized belief requires a simplified spiritual narrative.
Mystical, layered, contradictory cosmologies are hard to govern. So they were trimmed. Condensed.
Streamlined. That’s the clean explanation.
But there’s another layer. The books that were kept largely frame humans as… Sinful. Broken. Dependent.
In need of external salvation.
The books that were removed often frame humans as… Carriers of divine spark. Capable of direct knowing. Living inside a layered cosmos. Able to awaken. Those two models create very different kinds of people.
One creates dependence. The other creates sovereignty.
And sovereign beings are difficult to control.
So it’s fair to ask…
Were they shaping faith…
Or shaping behavior?!

For example, the Book of Enoch.
Widely read in early Judaism and early Christianity.
Even quoted in the New Testament. It describes Watchers descending to Earth. Hybrid offspring (Nephilim). Humans being taught forbidden knowledge. A corrupted world influenced by external forces. Multiple heavens stacked in layers.
That is not the simple humans messed up story.
That is a story about interference. About Earth as a contested space.
Why remove that?!!
Because it reframes humanity’s condition.
Not merely sinful. But altered.

Then there are the Gnostic texts, such as the Apocryphon of John. They describe a true, infinite Source beyond all gods.
They describe a lesser creator being  often called the Demiurge who fashions the material world.
They describe Archons, rulers of the material realm.
They describe humans as carrying a divine spark trapped in flesh. And they say salvation comes through gnosis …direct knowing. Not blind obedience.
Not institutional permission. Direct inner awakening.
That alone threatens every power structure built on external authority.

The Gospel of Thomas contains sayings attributed to Jesus that sound nothing like modern church sermons… The Kingdom of God is inside of you and it is outside of you. No focus on original sin. No focus on blood s.acrifice. Just inner discovery.
Which makes me ask….If the Kingdom is within you…
Who benefits from convincing you it’s somewhere else?

The Gospel of Mary Magdalene portrays Mary as a primary receiver of hidden teachings.
She describes the soul ascending after death, passing hostile powers associated with fear, desire, ignorance, and wrath. The male disciples doubt her authority.
They question whether Jesus would really teach a woman these things.
So not only does this text describe navigational spirituality… It also exposes suppressed feminine spiritual authority. Which historically makes institutions very uncomfortable.

The Gospel of Judas flips one of Christianity’s biggest moral anchors. Judas is not portrayed as a villain.
He is portrayed as the only disciple who understands Jesus’ true mission. The “betrayal” becomes participation. The crucifixion becomes release from the material body. That dismantles simplistic good-versus-evil theology.
And institutions prefer simple villains.

The Pistis Sophia describes an extraordinarily complex, multi-layered cosmos.
Realms stacked upon realms. Rulers and emanations.
Sophia (Wisdom) falling into lower chaos and later ascending back through knowledge and assistance from higher light. It reads like a map of consciousness. Not a moral rulebook. Which suggests spirituality was once closer to cosmic mechanics than courtroom judgment!

The Book of Jubilees expands Genesis massively.
More angels. More hierarchy. More cosmic order.
Sacred time cycles. Early Judaism looks mystical, layered, and cosmically organized.
Not flat. Not simplistic.

When you line all of these excluded texts up, a very different spiritual picture forms… Reality is layered.
Consciousness precedes matter. Humanity contains divine essence. Hidden intelligences exist. The soul undergoes ascent. Knowledge transforms. Awakening is internal. That is a completely different architecture than… You are broken. You are sinful. Submit.Obey.
… Wait to be saved.

I’m not claiming there was a single evil mastermind behind canonization. History is usually messier than that. Empires require stability. Stability requires unified doctrine. Mysticism creates individual authority. Institutions rely on centralized authority.
Those two models do not coexist easily. So the tradition became streamlined. Standardized.
Simplified. Theologically safer.
The result?…. Humanity received a narrowed spiritual inheritance.

I love the Bible, but I don’t worship it blindly either.
I refuse to base my understanding of existence on a single edited archive. If truth is real…
It should survive comparison. If God is real… God does not fear curiosity. And maybe the bigger picture these removed books paint is this…
Humans are not meant to be obedient pets of the universe. Humans are fragments of something vast.
Something ancient. Something powerful.
Not fallen monsters. Not helpless children.
But conscious beings in a complex, layered reality…
Slowly remembering what they are.