The Search for the Pale Prophet in Ancient America

WAS HE THE MESSIAH ON A GOD-GIVEN MISSION TO BRING PEACE AND COMPASSION TO UNCHARTED, FARAWAY LANDS...OR POSSIBLY AN ANCIENT ASTRONAUT ON AN OFF-WORLD ASSIGNMENT?

The conventional wisdom has always held that Jesus Christ lived his entire life in Roman-occupied Israel. How then to account for the enormous wealth of stories concerning a "Pale Prophet" who traveled the Americas in the first century A.D.?

The rebellious, subversive anthropologist, L. Taylor Hansen, flouted tradition in many ways, the most enduring of which was with her classic book, "He Walked The Americas," published in 1963. Hansen collected the chants and legends of many Native-American tribes that had heard the stories of the coming of a miraculous healer who taught their ancestors the civilizing ways of peace and to forsake their long-established war-making and rituals of human sacrifice.

The voice that speaks to the indigenous peoples of the Americas resonates with the same authority as the Christ portrayed in the four Gospels of the Bible. The Pale Prophet's love and compassion for the people - who would come to be called "heathen" by the European invaders 1500 years later - is unmistakably authentic and pure.

"The Search for the 'Pale Prophet' in Ancient America" includes an overview of the mysterious sojourner's mission of mercy among the Native-Americans as well as author Sean Casteel's Biblical insights and interpretations, which make it easier to see the uncanny links between tribal lore and the scriptures.

Also included are selected essays from Hansen's "Amazing Stories" column "Scientific Mysteries," first published in the 1940s. Although "Amazing Stories" was a pulp sci-fi magazine, its esteemed editor, Ray Palmer, made room for Hansen to air her thoughts and grievances about the many controversies raging in the field of anthropology. Hansen was ahead of her time in espousing a non-racist approach to the study of indigenous peoples, while others clung to notions that the superiority of the white race could be "proven" by prejudicial "science."

For those interested in Ancient Astronauts, among Hansen's essays we find references to the flying saucers, as recollected by the aged chief of the Paiute tribe, who said the ships were familiar to them and had been seen since before the counting of time. The wise men among the natives had a fearful reverence for the mysterious airships, and it was said among them that it was not wise to be "too curious" about the saucers or their occupants. There are also Native-American allusions to Atlantis and Lemuria discussed in Hansen's essays.

And what of L. Taylor Hansen herself? She is a fascinating example of a woman so determined to succeed in a field dominated by the male element that she shortened her first name - Lucile - to the letter "L" and pretended to be a man. It was a strange kind of feminism, but it served her well as she went about changing our views of what is possible in regard to Jesus and the long-buried history of the people of the American continents.