The Gospel According to the Beatles

The Gospel According to the Beatles New Book by Steve Turner Traces Beatles’ Path from Fun-Loving Moptops to Shamans for a Generation By Dan Wooding Founder of ASSIST Ministries

The Moptops

LONDON, ENGLAND (ANS) -- Although I was born in Nigeria, I spent my early years in the hometown of my parents, Liverpool, England, birthplace of the Beatles and years later, when I was a journalist based in London, I met both Paul and Ringo.

Steve Turner

I can still remember seeing the “Moptops” making their first appearance on BBC Television and watching their career rocket to worldwide influence.

Imparting a gospel to a generation had not been the Beatles intent when they first got into rock & roll. They were looking for kicks, girls, and a life of leisure, not transcendence. But as British rock journalist Steve Turner, a long-standing friend of mine, shows in The Gospel According to the Beatles (Westminster John Knox Press, $19.95, August 2006), the Fab Four went from pop stars to shamans — from “she loves you, yeah yeah yeah” to “turn off your mind, relax and float downstream”— in the space of three years.

“Bigger than Jesus”

It was forty years ago this year, that John Lennon’s comment that the Beatles were bigger than Jesus caused protests and record burnings in the U.S. Lennon was simply observing that for his generation the Beatles occupied the position traditionally held by religious leaders. The Beatles didn’t aspire to be gurus, but this is the role they played from 1966-1970.

“Millions of young people smoked pot, dropped acid, investigated Eastern religions and marched for peace as a result of things the Beatles said or did,” Turner says. “And it wasn’t just impressionable fans but fellow artists and cultural commentators who thought of the Beatles as savior figures capable of transforming lives.”

The Beatles’ gospel is found in their hunger for transcendence rather than in conformity to a creed. Their “good news” was love, peace, and especially, freedom, Turner says. “The human problem in their eyes was one of limitations and constraints. We couldn’t reach our full potential if we were inhibited: ‘One thing I can tell you is you got to be free.’”

Their advice is always to expand the consciousness—to open up your eyes (Dear Prudence); to free your mind and change your head (Revolution); to learn to see (Blackbird); and to see beyond yourself (Within You Without You).

Cover of Steve Turner's book

Turner traces the Beatles from their Liverpool childhoods to early stardom; from experimentation with hallucinogens to their disillusionment with the drug culture; and from their introduction to Eastern religions to their lives after the band broke up. He surveys the religious, spiritual and philosophical ideas—including Christianity, existentialism, Transcendental Meditation and Krishna Consciousness—that influenced the music and lives of the Beatles, and through them, their fans and succeeding generations.

The Beatles were skeptical of the Christian church, yet many of their beliefs—love, peace, hope, truth and transcendence—were secularized versions of Christian teachings. Still, the Eastern view of life took over from the rudimentary Christian outlook of their youth. God was an impersonal force rather than a personal being. They meditated rather than prayed, believed in the karmic wheel rather than heaven and hell, visited an astrologer for guidance rather than a priest.

Hallucinogenic drugs were the crucial turning point in the Beatles spiritual explorations, Turner shows. “It’s unlikely that they would have been transformed from skeptical, worldly Liverpool boys who only believed what their eyes could see into mystics speaking of karma, nirvana and the coming golden age, if it hadn’t been for this chemical catalyst,” Turner says.

With almost 80 interviews conducted by the author, including with John Lennon and Yoko Ono (from 1971) and with Pattie Boyd and Cynthia Lennon, the former wives of George Harrison and John Lennon, and access to never-before-published material, Turner offers fresh insights into some of the most notorious incidents in Beatles history, from the “more popular than Jesus” controversy to the truth about the first time they dropped acid.

Bono – a big fan of the book

John, Paul, Ringo and George -- from the Cover of Let it Be

Among Steve Turner’s fans is Bono, the lead singer with U2. He said, “I'm a big fan of Steve Turner's A Hard Day's Write. It's an inspiring and humbling book.” Bono invited Turner to write the book of the U2 movie ‘Rattle and Hum’ in 1988, and since then he has focused almost exclusively on writing books, which have also included .

Steve Turner, himself a committed Christians, has covered the rock music scene in Britain and the U.S. for more than thirty years. He is the author of several books, including the authorized biography of Johnny Cash, A Man Called Cash, and Amazing Grace: The Story of America’s Best-Loved Song. His groundbreaking study of the stories behind the Beatles songs, A Hard Day’s Write, has now been in print for ten years and has sold over 250,000 copies.

During his career, Turner interviewed many rock icons: John Lennon, David Bowie Elton John, Frank Zappa, Rod Stewart, Lou Reed, Alice Cooper, Tim Buckley, Cat Stevens and members of the Who, Byrds, Band, Moody Blues, Roxy Music, Black Sabbath, T. Rex and Grateful Dead.

He has written for British and American rock magazines such as Rolling Stone, New Musical Express, Mojo and Paste. His 1974 interview with Eric Clapton, the first the guitarist had given after years of heroin addiction, made the cover of Rolling Stone. Turner’s first book, Conversations With Eric Clapton, (1976) was an extension of the interview. He was the first British journalist to see Bruce Springsteen (supporting jazz-rock group Chicago in June 1973) and the first to report on the Sex Pistols for a national newspaper (Guardian, December 1976).

Turner contributed to the London newspapers The Times, Sunday Times, Independent and Mail on Sunday, profiling such celebrities as Sting, Mick Jagger, Phil Collins, Bono, David Byrne, Bob Geldof and Jackson Browne. He also interviewed cultural figures such as former Black Panther Eldridge Cleaver, Martin Luther King’s assassin James Earl Ray, evangelist Billy Graham and Beat poet Allen Ginsberg. As a travel writer he reported from Australia, Europe, North Africa, North America, the Middle East and Southeast Asia.

Spiritual Profiles of the Beatles adapted from The Gospel According to the Beatles by Steve Turner

John Lennon: Restless Seeker

“People got the image that I was anti-Christ or anti-religion. I’m not at all. I’m a most religious fellow. I’m religious in the sense of [admitting there is] more to it than meets the eye. I’m certainly not an atheist. There is more than we still could know.”

John’s doubts about orthodox religion coupled with his mystical bent provided the foundation for his subsequent ideas. His quest was to find a frame work that could contain both his skepticism and his spiritual awareness.

John was consistently attracted to the inexplicable and the unknown. His enduring contempt for conventional thought meant that he rarely dismissed a theory simply because it flew in the face of science or reason. He flitted from view to view without developing a complete understanding or making a commitment. >From investing in an “Orgone Accumulator” (a machine developed by Wilhelm Reich to trap positive energy) to considering trepanation (drilling of holes in the skull to expand consciousness), from astrologers to televangelists, Lennon dabbled in myriad spiritual techniques until his murder in 1980. The one constant was his faith in Yoko Ono, who became the biggest influence in his life.

Paul McCartney: Pragmatic Hippy

“If anyone wants to save the planet, all they have to do is just stop eating meat. That’s the single most important thing you could do. Vegetarianism takes care of so many things in one shot: ecology, famine, cruelty.”

Paul was as unlikely to contemplate having holes drilled in his head to expand his consciousness as he was to shave his head and devote his life to Krishna. His interest in religion was never rekindled after he left the Maharishi’s ashram in 1968. The closest thing to a religion in his life has been vegetarianism and concerns for animal rights and environmentalism. He campaigns against meat eating with fundamentalist fervor. Like religion, these causes involve issues of purity (of body), sanctity (of all life) and salvation (of the planet).

Although Paul was often perceived as the straight man in contrast to surreal John and mystical George, he absorbed many hippy elements into his lifestyle. He lived on an organic farm in unfashionable East Sussex. He sent his children to public schools, was a heavy user of marijuana, painted, wrote poetry, loved nature and sang songs for peace.

George Harrison - Eastern Mystic

“Everything else can wait but the search for God cannot wait.”

George had been the most dissatisfied with the emptiness of fame and the one who most doggedly pursued a spiritual path. He was the only Beatle to remain convinced by Eastern religion although even his view was syncretistic, combining elements of Hinduism with Taoism, Buddhism and even a dash of Christianity. Krishna was the focus of his prayer and worship, but he never joined a religious order or participated in regular group worship

George was the most unwavering in his beliefs. When he first espoused Hindu thought it was generally assumed to be another fad, but from the earliest days he was adamant that he would stick to it for his lifetime—and he did, until his death from cancer in November, 2001. His posthumous album, Brainwashed, recorded as he was dying, shows that his final thoughts were about God, worship, reincarnation and the karmic wheel.

Ringo Starr - Happy-go-lucky Idealist

“I’m quite happy to sit back and wait for whatever’s coming next. I haven’t found the answer to the question ‘What’s life all about?’ and I don’t suppose I ever will. It would take millions of philosophers millions of years to sort that out.”

Ringo had never had more than a loose interest in the group’s philosophical meandering. He’d smoked dope, dropped acid, and meditated, but he was never as dedicated a pilgrim. But despite his happy-go-lucky exterior, Ringo was an idealist and a believer that peace would slowly be ushered in as the baby boomers took over positions of power.

His interest in religion was superseded by his interest in booze and partying. He was more forthcoming on the subject of spiritual values after being treated for alcohol dependency in 1988. He said he was now “comfortable with my spirituality” but that he had to go through a lot of turmoil to get there.

Details of the book

The Gospel According to the Beatles by Steve Turner Westminster John Knox Press $19.95 hardcover 256 pages • 6" x 9" • 35 b&w white photos.

For an interview with Steve Turner, please contact Kelly Hughes at (312) 280-8126 or kelly@dechanthughes.com.

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Dan Wooding is an award winning British journalist now living in Southern California with his wife Norma. He is the founder and international director of ASSIST (Aid to Special Saints in Strategic Times) and the ASSIST News Service (ANS). He was, for ten years, a commentator, on the UPI Radio Network in Washington, DC. Wooding is the author of some 42 books, the latest of which is his autobiography, "From Tabloid to Truth", which is published by Theatron Books. To order a copy, go to www.fromtabloidtotruth.com. danjuma1@aol.com.

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