After Rome took over Christianity, a little known story is that some Christians left in droves to the desert... our desert fathers. They went as far south as Ethiopia, as far east as India and China, as far west as... they lived their whole lives in little caves and holes in walls, drew a circle around themselves and sat to get to *know* the Father... Their students started the original monasteries!
The tradition of Jesus, the desert fathers, is the tradition of the Esoteric Christianity...
a +brother
