When trying to discover the meaning of ancient sacred texts, immediately a huge problem has to be confronted: the lack of shared experience between the reader and the figures or content in the text.

Shared experience is the basis for language and therefore of meaning. So when we say the word 'cat', everyone with the same language knows what it is that we are talking about.

For crucial elements in sacred texts however, a shared common experience is often lacking. So when Judas in the Gospel of Judas says 'Barbelo', for most people, there is a general absence of experience of what it is that he is talking about. It goes further than a simple difference of language with one word being different from another when describing the same thing, as it is not just another name for a concept that everyone is familiar with, such as 'the dawn of creation'. Even though no one remembers the dawn of creation, most can still discuss the concept. Instead, it is a language that describes something that has a shared experience that is out of the ordinary and is available only to a few people.

We are not dealing here with simple concepts, as figures such as Jesus and Judas spoke with knowledge that was gained by their own direct experience. There is often a shared experience between figures in these texts, but it is limited very often to their own experience and it does not extend to most of the rest of humanity. Moreover, some of the language is symbolic and allegorises other things. So how are we to understand it?

We could try to understand it through concepts, by working out theories as to what meanings we can give to certain things, but this is a shallow understanding compared to personal experience. If we have never tasted an apple before for example, and we wanted to find out how one tasted, would we consult scientific manuals to see how it should taste, or find a historian who could describe how others have described the taste of an apple in the past? Of course not - we would pick up an apple and bite it, thus tasting it for ourselves.

In the same way, through personal experience we gain knowledge of hidden, esoteric things. By learning to travel out of our body and by walking the esoteric path, we can discover new things, go to new places, meet sacred beings, receive spiritual teachings, get new experience and find another common language, spoken by those who inhabit the esoteric 'other' realms that we go to. In so doing, we will therefore be able to talk just as sacred figures did, with a new knowledge based upon esoteric experience, and therefore, a language accessible only to the few who share the common experience.