Yet that very idea is surprising to many, Christian and non-Christian.

Mention Jesus Christ anywhere and it is likely that he will be considered purely of concern to Christians; Christians “own” him, both in their own eyes and in the eyes of the world. Though Christian missionaries preach that Jesus loves the whole world, it is only within the confines of Christianity (whichever form the missionary in question belongs to) that such love is deemed to be expressed and that a relationship between an individual and Jesus Christ is encouraged to develop. The Theosophical Jesus is hardly mainstream and few people have ever heard of the view of Christ as one of the Ascended Masters.  The Qu’ran mentions Jesus and pays homage to him as a prophet, but given the strict monotheism of Islam, Jesus can have no place in its theology.  This is also the case in modern Judaism, where Jesus is an irrelevance – his message of love is adequately conveyed by other voices; and there is no doctrine of Fall and Salvation in Judaism – the Garden of Eden story is interpreted differently from Christian theology. Jews also reject the idea that Jesus was their long-awaited Messiah and consider that the title was wrongly appropriated by Christians.

Beyond monotheism, Jesus has no place in any religious pantheon. Yet pantheons were never meant to be static. In the Ancient world, deities did cross pantheons; the Romans adopted Epona and Mithra, Brigid had various forms and names across the British Isles, the Greeks syncretised Serapis from various deities and added him to an evolving Hellenistic Egyptian pantheon. In the past, Hinduism also had an evolving pantheon.

Nowadays, a mania for literalism has endangered that fluidity. Reconstructionist religions tend to be narrowly focussed on their search for exactitude – adopting deities from other pantheons or religions is a big no-no. Official Hinduism has stultified into a rigid (if vast) pantheon, and the vedas are interpreted as unchanging. The growing Yoruba group of religions have adopted the same stance – orishas are fixed, there is no place for anything “foreign”, apart from what was syncretised by the Santeros several centuries ago (and even those syncretisms of Santeria are rejected by many following Yoruba paths).

Flexible neo-pagans invoke various deities from a number of pantheons; for many neo-pagans, all gods are one god, all goddesses one goddess;  but there is rarely, if ever, a place for Jesus. Why is that? Why does a modern Pagan feel confortable invoking Ganesh one day, Athena the next, honouring the Ancestors and embracing a tree, yet discount Jesus as a focus for worship, invocation – or even simply as a presence to be received and acknowledged?

Amongst those who do not practice any religion but follow a free-form spiritual path, Jesus plays an ambiguous role. While some like to talk of “Christ Consciousness” (a concept derived from Theosophy), few choose Jesus as one of their guides, deities, teachers or spirits to be invoked.

When I talk about Jesus, I don’t mean the historical figure, of which we know so little (we cannot even be certain he existed and wasn’t an amalgam of various personalities); I am talking about the mythological Jesus Christ, as he appears both in the gospels admitted in the New Testament and those left out. I use “mythological” in its noblest sense, as conveyor of a mysterious deeper truth, non-literal but no less objective, real and meaningful than literal, factual truth (and sometimes, more so!)

The main elements in the mythology of Jesus all belong to the great myth patterns of the world: the prophecies and announcement of his arrival; the miraculous birth; the vision of a child of light; the man who is made into a god; the god  who has incarnated as a human for a purpose; the son of a divine father and mortal woman; the divine mission among men; the transfiguration; the sacrifice; death and resurrection; the 3 days spent in the underworld; the ascension. None of these are specific to Jesus and can be found in other world myths, though his story is remarkable in containing so many of the well-known myth patterns; and most especially so many of the patterns of myth that link divine and human realms, which led to Jesus being regarded by Christians not only as uniquely divine, but as a unique bridge between humans and a transcendant god.

Most practicing Christians and many theologians interpret the stories of Jesus as literal truth; and even where progressive Christians might see a particular myth pattern as a metaphor (such as the virgin birth), they usually interpret that metaphor as unique and specific to Jesus. Christians insist that when someone chooses Jesus, they must abandon all other spiritual forms, beliefs and entities – Jesus is not only Saviour (a concept that means little to a non-Christian), but Sole Saviour and incarnation of a sole god: and they believe that Jesus’s story is unique. At most Catholics and Orthodox Christians admit Mary as Mother of God and Co-Redemptrix, and Saints as intercessors (Protestants reject the cult of Mary and the Saints as deflecting from the uniqueness of Jesus – therefore constituting “idolatry”). Even esoteric Christians have written that Christianity is the culmination, the highest expression, the maturing and perfecting of the human religious experience.  It is that very insistence on uniqueness, literalness or perfection, that discounting or subtle downgrading of any other religious form,  that inhibits many non-Christians who might otherwise be open to exploring Jesus from integrating him in their spiritual path – and that even after they have had an encounter with Christ.

I have a personal experience to relate here. A couple of years ago, my father and I were driving to Granada in Andalusia, where my parents spend part of the year, and we decided to stop 24 hours in Toledo on the way. Both art lovers, we went to see the paintings of El Greco, Toledo’s most famous artist, which are dotted all around the city, from museum to a number of Churches (El Greco’s subjects were mostly religious). We were in the Church of Santo Domingo el Antiguo and I went to sit on a pew in a corner, to look at a Resurrection of Christ. I gazed at the representation of Jesus resurrecting. Time stopped, and I felt myself drawn into the painting, which came alive, swirling with the uncanny colours of El Greco’s palette. I rose with Jesus, in a state of complete enchantment. I heard a voice say “come with me”.

A part of my mind was astonished and I asked: “how can I? I am not a Christian.” And the voice answered – “I do not belong solely to Christians, but to all who are open to me.” I asked: “but are you not considered “the way, the truth and the life”, and only by you can we reach the Father? I don’t even believe in that kind of Father.”  And the voice said: “it is through the experience of resurrection that you become like me; through your personal resurrection you can attain the most blissful state that human soul can reach, which will be your own experience of reaching “The Father”. And then – even as I was still swirling up among the colours and with El Greco’s Jesus at my side, his intense eyes in mine – I was shown the inside of my soul and knew that there lay “the way, the truth and the life”, because it was experiencing itself in bliss, resurrecting.

Resurrection doesn’t belong to Jesus alone, of course. Innana/Ishtar also brings us to Resurrection and a number of other spiritual encounters – involving or not a deity or  spirit – can lead to an experience of renewal, even bliss, through a form of spiritual resurrection – to a personal gnosis where one is lifted up. It often follows – just as it did for Jesus and Innana – time spent in the Underworld. And indeed, when I had my vision in Toledo, I had recently been living in a physical and emotional underworld – I was recovering from a painful relationship breakup and from a debilitating broncho-pneumonia.

Yet there is no doubt that Jesus can catalyse an experience of Resurrection; and because of the richness of his myth, he can offer many other mystical experiences, bring many spiritual gifts and even assist in magickal work (it would be appropriate to invoke Jesus in a healing ritual, for example).  Jesus, like the rising Horus, can lead us to Ascension. Through his passion, through a vision of Christ on the cross, we might make spiritual sense of personal suffering and sacrifice and transcend them. Yet for non-Christians to integrate Jesus successfully in a spiritual practice, we must emancipate ourselves from the beliefs that only Christians are able or entitled to meet Jesus, that an encounter with Jesus will necessarily lead us to convert to Christianity, or that his story and meaning are solely mediated by Christian doctrine. There is enough in the writings about Jesus, the various gospels within or outside the New Testament, to work with outside of a framework of Christianity. And there is always El Greco…I don’t think it was chance that my encounter took place in Toledo, historically a town where many faiths intersected and influenced each other.

It’s not necessary for everyone to encounter Jesus  in order to have a fulfilled spiritual life; but rejecting the possibility also denies the opportunity for some rich and profoundly meaningful experience. So I suggest that leaving ourselves open to such an encounter – even adopting Jesus in our spiritual lives  -  can be enriching  for non-Christians; and I know that the more open among the Christians, those for whom the message and example of Jesus is universal, will agree.

Have I been able to integrate Jesus in my own spiritual practice? I have to admit this has been problematic. My encounter with the Resurrecting Jesus, my own Resurrection with him, was so mind-boggling, so shocking to me, that though I keep it as a precious experience of gnosis, I’ve not been able to make sense of it in my daily life;  I simply don’t know where to place that event, though it changed me profoundly.  It is the reason I wrote this piece in the first place. In theory, there is no reason why Jesus cannot be integrated in any spiritual path. In practice, the weight of history, the almost exclusively Christian associations that have been grown around him since the apostle Paul first wrote about his own mystical encounter,  and the protectionism that surrounds most religions and even many free-form spiritual paths,  mean such integration is challenging.

For all the spiritual gifts to be found in an encounter with Jesus, for all the richness of his myth, as non-Christians we will continue to suffer many inhibitions – not to mention some degree of rejection (this is particularly the case among ex-Christians or those who have been persecuted by Christians, such as Jews).

But I don’t despair. I don’t think my vision in Toledo was a missed opportunity. It had some meaning for me, which somehow I hope be able to integrate more fully, in time. I think Jesus ultimately escapes attempts to circumscribe or co-opt him – as one who leads soul through the underworld and to resurrection, or to  ascend to its highest pitch, he is free. At the very least, I lived through something extraordinary – my blissful soul in flight.

* such as Bishop John Shelby Spong, retired Episcopal Bishop of Newark, New York, author of Jesus for the Non-Religious, though he specifically rejects the mythical Jesus in favour of the human, Jewish Jesus – which I personally find less interesting than the myth, and about which we know next to nothing that is certain. I am also grateful to my friend JMD, whose inclusive interpretation of the sentence  “I am the way, the truth and the life, no man comes to the Father but by me“ – so problematic for non-Christians – was truly illuminating.