Richard J. Hooper

Rev. Richard Hooper is a former Lutheran pastor and current Interfaith minister. His books include: The Crucifixion of Mary Magdalene: The Historical Tradition of the First Apostle, and the Early Church's Campaign to Suppress It *** The Gospel of the Unknown Jesus: The Secret Teachings of Jesus from the from the Gnostic and Apocryphal Gospels *** Jesus, Buddha, Krishna, Lao Tzu: The Parallels Sayings *** Hymns to the Beloved: The Poetry, Prayers and Wisdom of the World's Great Mystics *** The Real Secrets of Christianity (ebook)and End of Days: Predictions of the End from Ancient Sources. Rev. Hooper holds a Bachelor's degree in the Philosophy of Religion from San Francisco State University, and a Masters degree in Theology from Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary. During the early 1970s, Rev. Hooper was the American Lutheran Church's "token" hippie pastor to the Counter Culture on the Monterey Peninsula and Big Sur Coast of California. As part of his ministry he founded the House of the Rising Sun, a half-way house for young people in various kinds of trouble. During these years he also produced conducted weekly radio interviews with spiritual luminaries of the day, including Ram Dass, Timothy Leary, Elizabether Kubler-Ross and Richard Bach. After leaving the Church and the Lutheran ministry, he became a nature recordist, music producer, and CEO of World Disc Productions. Over the course of eleven years, he produced more than seventy CD titles and along with his wife, Sharon, pioneered music and nature recordings sales in the gift industry. Along with his wife, he won the Small Business Association's Business Person of the Year for western Washington (state, and was twice nominated entrepeneur of the year by Inc. Magazine. After selling the company eleven years later, Hooper founded the Pacific Northwest Indian gallery, Nat sa lane in Friday Harbor, Washington. His writing career began after moving to Sedona, Arizona. He is a member of the Order of Universal Interfaith, the Community of the Mystic Heart, and associate member of the Jesus Seminar. He is director of ed the Sedona Institute for Comparitive Religion and teaches classes in the areas of comparative religion, the historical Jesus, early Christianity and the Gnostic Gospels.