- Including a detailed chapter about the Turin Shroud

About the author and the book

Manfred Bauer was born in the Sudetenland (today's Czechia) in 1944 and grew up in the Bavarian Swabia. He has been married for 45 years, has three children, four grandchildren and lives in the Saarland.

As a practicing but not dogmatic Catholic, the resolving of the people's fundamental questions about the existence of God and the sense of life has been of his main concern all his life. In order to find an answer to it, he has delved into religion, science, philosophy and

esotericism. In this connection, Jesus as a person and his doctrines have played a central role. Regular yoga exercises and meditation are conductive to broaden his worldview not only in theory, but also in practice.

As a senior administrative revenue officer, he worked in this field as a company auditor, tax investigator and department manager for many years, so that he could look "behind the scenes" of our society time and again. In doing so, he developed a critical distance to the statements of the authorities from all walks of life in the course of years.

Religious contents, which were coined by the ancient mindscape, have been repeated and dogmatized without thinking way too long. By pursuing their historical origin, the author questions in a differentiated manner whether they are still acceptable in the light of our present understanding of the world.

In this connection, expert opinions are put to the test, whereas it turns out quite frequently that they fall short, and one or another person argues on the basis of a limited or incomplete conception of the world–be it coined ecclesiastically or atheistically.

Our vantage point concerning the disposition and the abilities of spiritual masters–Jesus was one of them–has broadened considerably in the past decades; due to globalization and along with it our increasing insight in other religions and understanding of the world. Since such cognitions have been taken into account only rarely in biographies of Jesus, it was the author's intention to illustrate parallels between Jesus' doctrines and teachings and the spiritual masters of all religions.

What meaning is behind the shroud that is kept in the Turin Cathedral? Did Jesus really lie in it? Has he allowed us to look at his countenance over the course of more than 2000 years?

With criminological meticulousness, the author provides proof that there was something fishy concerning the dating of the shroud according to the radiocarbon method in 1988, which "exposed" it as a medieval fake. In this connection, the role of the Catholic Church leadership is examined carefully and critically.

Hence, the purpose of this unconventional book is to take the reader along to come closer to the sense and destination of human life by the example of Jesus and to reveal the resultant consequences for our way of life.