Gnostics

[AnthroHeart]

I found this little tidbit about Gnostics.

http://www.truegnosticchurch.org/basic_b...lieve.html

I wonder if am one. Are there good references or websites for gnostic information?


I tried Google but not sure what is right or not.

[Aion]

Be careful with Gnostic teaching as they are largely syncretic and there are many different beliefs. The writings a lot of gnostic teaching is based on the Nag Hammadi Library documents suppose to have been written by the Essenes. Some believe alchemy is actually a way that gnosticism was hidden through the centuries.
However, after exploring it for a bit I found there were just too many inconsistencies.

Also, one of the big gnostic teachers is Samael Aun Weor and I've heard rumours his church is very corrupt and involved with opium and drug trade. The guy himself gives me one of the closest feelings to 'evil' I've ever felt.

[Matt1]

51.6 Questioner: I am unsure as to whether this will provide an avenue of questioning or not that will be fruitful, however I will ask this question since it seemed to me that there is possibly a connection here.


On the back of the book, Secrets of The Great Pyramid, there are several reproductions of Egyptian drawings or works, some showing birds flying over horizontal entities. Could you tell me what this is and if it has any relationship to Ra?
Ra: I am Ra. These drawings of which you speak are some of many which distort the teaching of our perception of death as the gateway to further experience. The distortions concern those considerations of specific nature as to processes of the so-called “dead” mind/body/spirit complex. This may be termed, in your philosophy, the distortion of Gnosticism: that is, the belief that one may achieve knowledge and a proper position by means of carefully perceived and accentuated movements, concepts, and symbols. In fact, the process of the physical death is as we have described before: one in which there is aid available and the only need at death is the releasing of that entity from its body by those around it and the praising of the process by those who grieve. By these means may the mind/body/spirit which has experienced physical death be aided, not by the various perceptions of careful and repeated rituals.

[Billy]

Also, one of the big gnostic teachers is Samael Aun Weor and I've heard rumours his church is very corrupt and involved with opium and drug trade. The guy himself gives me one of the closest feelings to 'evil' I've ever felt.

Glad I'm not the only one who got this vibe. 

I do however find the gnostic teachings quite interesting even though I have only scrapped the surface.  I may be mistaken but I believe that one of the core beliefs that most if not all gnostics adhere to is the idea that our world, being highly flawed and imperfect, is the creation and/or projection of an evil demiurge (who some have associated with the Jewish God Yahweh) who, with the help of his servants (commonly called archons, orion group etc), are hell bent on keeping humanity in a state of myopia and very narrow awareness, for the purposes of control and sustenance.  Hard not to sometimes agree when looking at the state of affairs on this planet.  If this is the case, I wonder who then created the demiurge?  I've read that he was the accidental creation of Sophia, the Goddess of Wisdom, which if so, makes me question her wisdom heh.

[TheFifty9Sound]

There is no "true" Gnosticism any more than there is a "true" Christianity. There are many different traditions that have been lumped under the Gnostic title - From the ancient Gnostics, there are those who believed in the creation story of the Secret Book of John I think were the first to be called Gnostic, the Valentinians, the Manicheans, the Mandaeans (who are still around today, albeit in small numbers) and many, many more.

The demiurge that Folk-love refers to is Yaldabaoth. The story of Sophia and Yaladbaoth comes from the Secret Book of John and is quite complicated, yet fascinating. Basically, what we would refer to as the Infinite Creator, the Secret Book of John refers to as the Great Invisible Spirit. The GIS brought forth the Barbelo (which is kinda of like the feminine principle) and gazed into it. The Barbelo was the first thought and became the universal womb, containing Thought, Foreknowledge, Incorruptibility, Life Everlasting and Truth.

Then the GIS and the Barbelo gaze into each other and create a son, through a kind of cosmic sexual reproduction. This son is the Christ, and then through him a whole other bunch of beings are emanated.

From what I can recall, Christ then brings forth 4 other luminaries, who each contain three luminaries within themselves. One of these was Sophia (or Wisdom). Wisdom wanted to think a thought on her own without her male consort, Christ, and in doing so, mistakenly created Yaldabaoth who was misshapen and incomplete.

Horrified at what she had done, she cast Yaldabaoth into the outer darkness and hid him in a mist from the other luminaries so they wouldn't see her mistake. Problem was, this meant when Yaldabaoth looked up, he saw nothing above him and assumed he was the only God.

It gets even more confusing and complicated after this with the whole Adam and Eve story (a retelling of the way it is presented in Genesis). Some of Wisdom's light gets trapped in Yaldabaoth, and in an effort to return that light to the fullness, Sophia and Barbelo team up to trick him into blowing that light into man. Once Yaldabaoth realises what he has done, he tries to keep man ignorant of his true nature and thus keep the light. Jesus then came to remind us of our truth nature and achieve gnosis.

If anyone here knows this story better than I, feel free to make any corrections.

The Gnostic writings are fascinating. Like anything, you need to take what resonates with you away and leave the rest behind. There are some gems of wisdom in there. In the Apocalypse of Peter, Jesus predicts the future of the church saying "They will cling to the name of a dead man, thinking that in this they will become pure", and I think it's the Gospel of Phillip that says something like "Truth did not come into this world naked, it came in types and forms so that you may recognise it."

One of the main problems with Gnosticism is up until the last 50 years, all we've even known about it is what we were told through the eyes of it's detractors, such as Irenaeus. Since the discovery at Nag Hammadi, scholars have started to piece together a more complete view of what it really was, and hopefully will continue to do so.

If you're interested in learning more about ancient Gnosticism, I highly recommend the following audiobook - http://www.audible.com/pd/Religion-Spiri...783&sr=1-1

[Billy]

There is no "true" Gnosticism any more than there is a "true" Christianity. There are many different traditions that have been lumped under the Gnostic title - From the ancient Gnostics, there are those who believed in the creation story of the Secret Book of John I think were the first to be called Gnostic, the Valentinians, the Manicheans, the Mandaeans (who are still around today, albeit in small numbers) and many, many more.

The demiurge that Folk-love refers to is Yaldabaoth. The story of Sophia and Yaladbaoth comes from the Secret Book of John and is quite complicated, yet fascinating. Basically, what we would refer to as the Infinite Creator, the Secret Book of John refers to as the Great Invisible Spirit. The GIS brought forth the Barbelo (which is kinda of like the feminine principle) and gazed into it. The Barbelo was the first thought and became the universal womb, containing Thought, Foreknowledge, Incorruptibility, Life Everlasting and Truth.

Then the GIS and the Barbelo gaze into each other and create a son, through a kind of cosmic sexual reproduction. This son is the Christ, and then through him a whole other bunch of beings are emanated.

From what I can recall, Christ then brings forth 4 other luminaries, who each contain three luminaries within themselves. One of these was Sophia (or Wisdom). Wisdom wanted to think a thought on her own without her male consort, Christ, and in doing so, mistakenly created Yaldabaoth who was misshapen and incomplete.

Horrified at what she had done, she cast Yaldabaoth into the outer darkness and hid him in a mist from the other luminaries so they wouldn't see her mistake. Problem was, this meant when Yaldabaoth looked up, he saw nothing above him and assumed he was the only God.

It gets even more confusing and complicated after this with the whole Adam and Eve story (a retelling of the way it is presented in Genesis). Some of Wisdom's light gets trapped in Yaldabaoth, and in an effort to return that light to the fullness, Sophia and Barbelo team up to trick him into blowing that light into man. Once Yaldabaoth realises what he has done, he tries to keep man ignorant of his true nature and thus keep the light. Jesus then came to remind us of our truth nature and achieve gnosis.

If anyone here knows this story better than I, feel free to make any corrections.

The Gnostic writings are fascinating. Like anything, you need to take what resonates with you away and leave the rest behind. There are some gems of wisdom in there. In the Apocalypse of Peter, Jesus predicts the future of the church saying "They will cling to the name of a dead man, thinking that in this they will become pure", and I think it's the Gospel of Phillip that says something like "Truth did not come into this world naked, it came in types and forms so that you may recognise it."

One of the main problems with Gnosticism is up until the last 50 years, all we've even known about it is what we were told through the eyes of it's detractors, such as Irenaeus. Since the discovery at Nag Hammadi, scholars have started to piece together a more complete view of what it really was, and hopefully will continue to do so.

If you're interested in learning more about ancient Gnosticism, I highly recommend the following audiobook - http://www.audible.com/pd/Religion-Spiri...783&sr=1-1

This is so very interesting.  There is a book titled 'Not in His Image' which although I have not read myself, is apparently a good and detailed book about Gnosticism and it's origins.

[Kaaron]

I have studied Gnosticism for a few years.TheFifty9Sound summed it up.
I suggest taking it in at an objective level at first. There are many branches to the Gnostic tree and some can lead you down a path of separation. I know this from experience l.
Gnosticism is linked to the Essenes, a group some claim Jesus was a member of.
Like TheFifty9Sound said...It's like Christianity in the sense that there are those more distorted views which can distract those of a less pure intention.
For example, nihilistic Gnostics are more likely to believe that all physicality was created by the demiurge. That the soul is a prison for the spirit and we are forced to reincarnate until we learn to free ourselves. There are Archons that guard each heaven as you ascend to the "true heaven" of the true, infinite creator. You need to have conquered each of your vices (synonymous with raising vibration through use of catalyst) to pass, although there are majical hebrew phrases I have somewhere that allegedly allow you to pass if recited.
However, there are those Gnostics who believe that physicality was the result of emanations from infinite creator. Then a demiurge created humans in his image and usurps the worship due the infinite creator, for himself. Feeding off the energy.

I feel like a balance of Gnosticism and Hermetic thought has been beneficial for understanding the creator. Also the Ra material and other more specific information.