How do you worship?

[Shermana]

That is right, rules are an external application of an idea, a law. Spiritual growth is the internal development of the spirit. Our guide for this development is Christ, the knowledge of Truth (gnosis) is not forced upon us as a law is forced upon us. We choose to believe and choose to grow spiritually and choose to follow Christ because deep inside us our very nature tells us it is right and it is proven to us everyday in our dealings with the world. We are not lawless, nor without rules, our laws are laws of the heart and rules of the heart. Our standard for these internal personal laws and rules is simply to 'Love the Divine most of all' and to 'Love our neighbour as ourselves'. You have heard that many times no doubt, those phrases are so much more than just words. Have a read of Romans C2 pay particular attention to v11 to 16 inclusive.

So you don't consider any of the teachings of Christ to be "forced upon you"? As a "guide", what do you think he was guiding in the first place? What do you think were his authentic teachings and what do you think were interpolated later? You think that all Jesus taught was ". 'Love the Divine most of all' and to 'Love our neighbour as ourselves'"? You discount everything else he taught about such love is achieved? He specifically said that in reference to the Law and said that each of the commandments is somehow "hanging" upon those two, not replaced by. A common mistake by Orthodox Christians as well is to assume that's what Christ meant. So you're saying that "love" is all that Gnosticism is about? What do you do with 99% of all else that Jesus taught? You know, the specifics. You don't consider any of the rules and rituals that the early Gnostics connected to the Gnosis process to be "forced upon us"? I don't think you have a clear understanding of what such "Spiritual development" is in the first place. What is it? What defines it? Who determines what it is? Like I said, ALL of the early Gnostic groups that we know about had rules and regulations that they "forced" upon their members as requisites to achieve Gnosis. The notion that "Spiritual development" is something that is devoid from externally imposed regulations would be considered absolutely ridiculous to even the most libertine of Gnostic sects. It's a notion that has no place in "Gnosticism" unless you radically redefine what "Gnosticism" means. Quite simply, the Gnostics, all of the sects we know about, were just as ritualistic and regulationist as the Orthodox Christians if not far more so. Many of the early Gnostics believed in extreme self-control and restraint as a requisite to achieve this "Spiritual development".

So if we're talking about some radical "Do as thou wilt" philosophy, that's nothing close to ancient Gnosticism. If we're talking about something that's completely devoid of "Forced" "rules" and "regulations" and is about some vague, undefined "Spiritual development", that's nothing remotely close to any historical notion of Gnosticism.

Are we rewriting what Gnosticism means or are we going by what Gnosticism and Gnosis have historically been understood as, assuming we even are able to understand what the ancients believed about it?

 

[theosis]

Shermana, I think it's admirable that you're trying to reconstruct some kind of gnostic orthodoxy. However, your theology (some kind of Valentinian reconstruction, I take it) does not have a monopoly on the term "gnosis." Remember that this concept existed in Hellenistic thought before the development of "big G" Gnosticism.
There are no real orthodox gnostic religions today (except Mandaeism) and so we are all taking inspiration from dead religious traditions and incorporating them into our own.

 

[Shermana]

Shermana, I think it's admirable that you're trying to reconstruct some kind of gnostic orthodoxy. However, your theology (some kind of Valentinian reconstruction, I take it) does not have a monopoly on the term "gnosis." Remember that this concept existed in Hellenistic thought before the development of "big G" Gnosticism.
There are no real orthodox gnostic religions today (except Mandaeism) and so we are all taking inspiration from dead religious traditions and incorporating them into our own.

Of course it does not have a monopoly. However, we need to have some kind of limit as to what constitutes "gnosis" and "Gnosticism" otherwise the term becomes whatever anyone wants it to be devoid of any meaning. We should at least limit it to what the "dead traditions" had in mind, (Or what we THINK they had in mind, based on the available evidence) and there's quite a bit of variance within that to work with.

Now as for the concept existing in Hellenistic thought, that's debatable as to what exactly it constituted before the Christian era. As we've discussed, it originates from a completely Jewish "heresy", of which we know little of the original details, except that it may have been the roots of Kaballah.

Props to you for recognizing that my beliefs are close to "Valentinian!" (Of which the beliefs came quite before Valentinus). I definitely like the Gospel of Philip. Nonetheless, I have some very critical differences. Some differences so critical that I hesitate to say my beliefs are close.

 

[theosis]

Of course it does not have a monopoly. However, we need to have some kind of limit as to what constitutes "gnosis" and "Gnosticism" otherwise the term becomes whatever anyone wants it to be devoid of any meaning. We should at least limit it to what the "dead traditions" had in mind, (Or what we THINK they had in mind, based on the available evidence) and there's quite a bit of variance within that to work with.

I think if you take the basic gnostic framework -- a flawed physical world as a prison for the soul -- you can take the concept in wildly different directions and remain gnostic.

I don't believe in most of what one would consider the supernatural -- for me, archons, gods, miracles, angels, etc. are merely metaphors for psychological truths. I am quite certain that none of these exist outside our minds.

Yet I still consider myself a gnostic -- why? For me, all that is exists is the Monad or Ein Sof. All emanations of Ein Sof are mental constructions that ultimately obstruct our ability to attain gnosis. The archons are, in effect, part of us; they are the part of our minds that chains us to the physical world.

As we are creators of the divine (the aforementioned emanations of Ein Sof) we need to understand our true spiritual power to attain gnosis and achieve divinity.

My favorite Phillip quote is apt:
God created man. [...] men create God. That is the way it is in the world - men make gods and worship their creation. It would be fitting for the gods to worship men!

 

[Shermana]

a flawed physical world as a prison for the soul -- you can take the concept in wildly different directions and remain gnostic.

Technically we could call Scientologists Gnostic.

For the record. That broken verse could read a variety of ways, and I believe it could be read as "men create a god", with the Anarthrous.

Though I do like Gospel of Philip, I don't consider it necessarily as authoritative nonetheless, especially since I don't think the Virgin Birth was part of the original Christology.

What do you believe "Gnosis" actually is, Theosis? How do you believe one attains it?

 

[nazz]

what if the physical world itself is a mental construction?

 

[nazz]

Says who? How is Spiritual development necessarily disconnected from "externally imposed" regulations? How do you define Spiritual development in the first place if not from Externally imposed concepts? Do you think its something intrinsic that people just automatically know? I don't think so.

The Law is made for lawbreakers; to set limits and impose punishments. The spiritual man has no need of the Law, no need to be informed of right and wrong. For that he has the Holy Spirit living inside of him; the Law is written upon his heart. Doing what is right, doing good, becomes second nature to him. That is spiritual transformation or what the Holiness movement calls "sanctification".

Once again, most of the early Gnostics had a wide variety of "Externally imposed" concepts that were integrally connected to the development of Gnosis. Even the most Libertine of sects had various 'Externally imposed" concepts that had to do with their idea of Spiritual development. To say otherwise is a radical departure from anything remotely close to what has been called "Gnosticism".

Source? The very fact there were both ascetic and libertine Gnostic groups should tell you something.

 

[Shermana]

The Law is made for lawbreakers; to set limits and impose punishments. The spiritual man has no need of the Law, no need to be informed of right and wrong.

This is a common argument I get in with orthodox Christians. If the Law is made for lawbreakers, and the Spiritual Man has no need of the Law, it's because the Spiritual man is ALREADY OBEYING THE LAW. Obviously only a person who is actually obeying the Law and all its precepts is obeying the Law. The concept of "Following the Law" never changed. Being a so-called "Spiritual Man" does not give one the right to break the Law and say they have no need for the Law since they are following it according to their own interpretation of what it means to follow the Law without actually following the Law. But to go further would become a debate, and a debate which has more place in a forum regarding historical orthodox Christianity. Many early Gnostics were ardent believers that one had to follow a strict set of behavior to not just attain Gnosis, but to save their soul from the Archons and the Great Dragon, and as we see in the Pistis Sophia, some believed those rules corresponded to the Law itself. So it's a bit more complicated than just claiming you are a spiritual person who does the right thing. You have to know what the right thing is, and there were many variant views about what behaviors were encouraged or discouraged.

For that he has the Holy Spirit living inside of him; the Law is written upon his heart.

And who has the Spirit inside of him exactly? Anyone who claims he does? The Bible claims that those who have the Spirit will make it manifest through miraculous gifts like speaking languages they never learned, even Paul says this. And the Spirit only resides in those who are pure spiritually, and then the question is once again, how do we become spiritually pure?

Doing what is right, doing good, becomes second nature to him. That is spiritual transformation or what the Holiness movement calls "sanctification".

If only it were as simple as saying what is "right, doing good" then there wouldn't have been so many Gnostic sects, let alone Christian sects. Such vague, hollow generalizations that are devoid of specifics beyond a generality of "doing what's right" are inherently meaningless. The early Gnostics were very peculiar about what exactly was right and wrong and had strict ideas of what types of behavior governed one. The Pistis Sophia is an excellent example of this.

Source? The very fact there were both ascetic and libertine Gnostic groups should tell you something.

Ritual in Gnosticism

My point was that EVEN the Libertine groups like the Sethians and Nicolations had their rituals and beliefs of structure. It tells me a lot. (Though a lot of those rituals, I agree with the Pistis Sophia that they deserve the worst of damnations for).

 

[theosis]

What do you believe "Gnosis" actually is, Theosis? How do you believe one attains it?

I take it to be self-knowledge first and foremost -- understanding ourselves as more than our bodies, the physical entities that we represent.

 

[nazz]

This is a common argument I get in with orthodox Christians. If the Law is made for lawbreakers, and the Spiritual Man has no need of the Law, it's because the Spiritual man is ALREADY OBEYING THE LAW.

Yes, that is precisely what I am saying. But what law exactly? It is the law of Christ, the law of love. As both Christ and Paul said such law is fulfilled by the following the two great commandments to love God and love our neighbor as ourselves. I we truly love God and neighbor we will not murder, steal, defraud, etc. If anything the Torah law was too lenient; Christ actually strengthened the Law by applying it in ways not before seen. But we are under no obligation to perform all the ritual minutiae of OT law especially as expanded upon by the Pharisees.

Many early Gnostics were ardent believers that one had to follow a strict set of behavior to not just attain Gnosis, but to save their soul from the Archons and the Great Dragon, and as we see in the Pistis Sophia, some believed those rules corresponded to the Law itself.

So you keep saying but I've not seen a reference to that.

So it's a bit more complicated than just claiming you are a spiritual person who does the right thing. You have to know what the right thing is, and there were many variant views about what behaviors were encouraged or discouraged.

Again it is the Holy Spirit who informs our conscience of right and wrong. That is all that is needed.

And who has the Spirit inside of him exactly? Anyone who claims he does? The Bible claims that those who have the Spirit will make it manifest through miraculous gifts like speaking languages they never learned, even Paul says this. And the Spirit only resides in those who are pure spiritually, and then the question is once again, how do we become spiritually pure?

We don't have to be pure for the Spirit to reside within us. It is the presence of the Spirit that does the purifying.

Ritual in Gnosticism

This is not an ethical system but a ritual one.

 

[Shermana]

I take it to be self-knowledge first and foremost -- understanding ourselves as more than our bodies, the physical entities that we represent.

I agree there's some self-knowledge involved, but I believe the original concept of Gnosis involved a lot of passwords, Heavenly names, divine Cosmological secrets, etc. Besides, what exactly is this "Self knowledge" beyond being aware that we are souls who inhabit vehicles of flesh?

What I'm saying is that when we reduce the concepts of "Gnosis" down to the minimum concepts, and vague concepts at that, we are left with nothing close to what Gnosticism was all about, in all its versions, and we lose the great depth of what it was intended to encase, it becomes just buzz words with little actual substance or direction.

 

[nazz]

I agree there's some self-knowledge involved, but I believe the original concept of Gnosis involved a lot of passwords, Heavenly names, divine Cosmological secrets, etc. Besides, what exactly is this "Self knowledge" beyond being aware that we are souls who inhabit vehicles of flesh?

What I'm saying is that when we reduce the concepts of "Gnosis" down to the minimum concepts, and vague concepts at that, we are left with nothing close to what Gnosticism was all about, in all its versions, and we the great depth of what it was intended to encase, it becomes just buzz words with little actual substance or direction.

I actually intend to start a thread on this to discuss what Gnostics may have meant by Gnosis. I agree it entailed more than just self knowledge.

 

[frangipani]

So you don't consider any of the teachings of Christ to be "forced upon you"? As a "guide", what do you think he was guiding in the first place? What do you think were his authentic teachings and what do you think were interpolated later? You think that all Jesus taught was ". 'Love the Divine most of all' and to 'Love our neighbour as ourselves'"? You discount everything else he taught about such love is achieved? He specifically said that in reference to the Law and said that each of the commandments is somehow "hanging" upon those two, not replaced by. A common mistake by Orthodox Christians as well is to assume that's what Christ meant. So you're saying that "love" is all that Gnosticism is about? What do you do with 99% of all else that Jesus taught? You know, the specifics. You don't consider any of the rules and rituals that the early Gnostics connected to the Gnosis process to be "forced upon us"? I don't think you have a clear understanding of what such "Spiritual development" is in the first place. What is it? What defines it? Who determines what it is? Like I said, ALL of the early Gnostic groups that we know about had rules and regulations that they "forced" upon their members as requisites to achieve Gnosis. The notion that "Spiritual development" is something that is devoid from externally imposed regulations would be considered absolutely ridiculous to even the most libertine of Gnostic sects. It's a notion that has no place in "Gnosticism" unless you radically redefine what "Gnosticism" means. Quite simply, the Gnostics, all of the sects we know about, were just as ritualistic and regulationist as the Orthodox Christians if not far more so. Many of the early Gnostics believed in extreme self-control and restraint as a requisite to achieve this "Spiritual development".

So if we're talking about some radical "Do as thou wilt" philosophy, that's nothing close to ancient Gnosticism. If we're talking about something that's completely devoid of "Forced" "rules" and "regulations" and is about some vague, undefined "Spiritual development", that's nothing remotely close to any historical notion of Gnosticism.

Are we rewriting what Gnosticism means or are we going by what Gnosticism and Gnosis have historically been understood as, assuming we even are able to understand what the ancients believed about it?

The Truth is not something one learns and applies solely from external sources, and then attempts to apply to the external person. The truth is something God given (the Spark of life) it is the Soul. The Truth is not applied internally either, rather when one seeks the Truth it grows internally and strengthens the Soul. When people who seek the real Truth seek, they find books like the Bible and Nag Hammadi Scriptures do two things, the writings confirm to the seeker what they already know deep in their heart is true and help the seeker understand more fully the true nature of their being.
There is no doubt evolution is a fact in the development of the planet and the physical man. Most would agree that the physical mankind has been around for tens of thousands of years, no different from the animal kingdom. We are dualists meaning in part we believe the Gnostic story of Creation. It was easy for us because we always wondered why a God of love would create such a savage world. Our deep feeling was He didn't, we always knew there was more to it. That deep feeling is the Spark of Life prompting us to seek the answers. So, why is it that some argue mankind has only been on Earth for arguably six to eight thousand years? It is because it was at that time the demi-god, the creator of the matter universe breathed life into the man Adam and he became a living soul. It was here that man was made in the image of the demi god, when he was given a soul. This was the error and never meant to happen. It is here at this point in time that mankind became human beings that's where our six to eight years comes from. Prior to that mankind were no more than the animal kingdom, some cognitive ability, enough to survive and to learn to perform for personal gain. The soul at this point was unbalanced and it took Sophia to right her wrong (creating the demi god) to create that balance of soul, the knowledge of right and wrong, it is here that man was made in the image of God, and became a redeemable soul. Christ was sent into the chaos (the world) to give those living souls the knowledge of the Truth so each soul had the opportunity to be redeemed to God, it was not forced upon us, each person from the time of Christ until the present has to choose to find and develop the Truth. To this day there are people born with and without souls, those with a soul can find Truth if they are not confounded by the madness of the demi god's world. These people without souls are no different from a trained animal, today in psychology we refer to them as sociopaths and at the extreme end psychopaths. This is a very simple overview, but one can see the journey to find Truth is an individual one, in this world for most a solitary one. For many the world around us, the very structure of our societies are designed to fill our minds with everything and anything but the Truth. The jealous god, the demi-god has created this situation through his archons to confound the seeker, in history it was the churches and some government that persecuted Christ. Why were they so vehement against Him? Perhaps because He threatened their livelihoods, religion was big business and paid off financially, satisfied pride, etc. No different in many cases to day. Past religious groups, ancient history are all interesting topics to debate, but Truth is unchanging and is not found externally in the past, present nor future, Truth is found internally, in the present, within the individual and once found it grows as it grows it is manifest in the life of that individual through their behaviour, their behaviour changes because their mindset changes.

 

[theosis]

What I'm saying is that when we reduce the concepts of "Gnosis" down to the minimum concepts, and vague concepts at that, we are left with nothing close to what Gnosticism was all about, in all its versions, and we lose the great depth of what it was intended to encase, it becomes just buzz words with little actual substance or direction.

I leave it vague simply because I don't know -- I haven't achieved gnosis. A big point of difference between us is that I'm a pantheist. That's going to make my theology look extremely "minimal" from the point of view of a more traditional theist.

For me gnosis is vaguely "self-knowledge" because no deities exist. This leaves the self (in particular, the soul's relation to the Monad or Universe) as the focus of spiritual understanding.

 

[Shermana]

I leave it vague simply because I don't know -- I haven't achieved gnosis. A big point of difference between us is that I'm a pantheist. That's going to make my theology look extremely "minimal" from the point of view of a more traditional theist.

For me gnosis is vaguely "self-knowledge" because no deities exist. This leaves the self (in particular, the soul's relation to the Monad or Universe) as the focus of spiritual understanding.

And then the next question is, what is this self-knowledge in the first place? What is the self's relationship to this alleged Monad? Who has the answer?

If anything I think Gnosticism and Gnosis was not meant to be up to personal interpretation, it was meant to be very "cultic" you could say, in the sense that it was an "Enlightened Master" sharing specific information, very detailed information about Cosmology, Ritual, and what specifically entailed in this "discovery of self". (Regardless if we may think some of these "Enlightened Masters" were pulling shams). There was a defined "Mythos", a Pantheon of deities (that differed in exactness from sect to sect), and an organized structure of how one went about attaining such Gnosis. Obviously, we don't know which of these groups had it right, or what was right to begin with, BUT we can know for almost certainty that they all shared a root base of concepts, and its impossible to deny that this root was normative Judaism. From there, we can see that the roots diverged a bit from group to group, some turning Jewish Creation Mythology on its head, while others like the Valentinians basing thier ideas on the same concept, going against groups that thought the OT god was evil like the Sethians, while still retaining some of the more "Libertine" aspects of those groups (though those may have been later developments). While we can speculate that perhaps they had some hidden secrets about the Jewish cosmology that were lost by the Pharisees and Masoretes later on, that they perhaps had some links with esoteric groups like the Essenes and Nazarenes (Which is my view, regarding the earliest Gnostics, including "Jacob the Gnostic" and the group that wrote the Pistis Sophia), we have to establish a fine line between what is known traditionally as "Gnosticism" and what we may interpret such "Gnosis" to be. I would also think that none of the early Gnostic groups thought their Cosmological gods and archons to be purely mythological or abstract analogies, instead they ALL viewed them as 100% real beings.

Otherwise, terms like "Gnosis" and "Gnosticism" have no real solid structure, it's basically discussing a mostly undefinable Semantic rather than the complex movement in question. Reconstructing the "Gnostic orthodoxy" in one way or another I believe is important to have a cohesive understanding of what "Gnosis" and "Gnosticism" actually involved. Otherwise, we can call a huge range of beliefs that involve some concept of "Enlightenment" to be "Gnosticism", whether they have anything in common with the movement or not.

 

[theosis]

And then the next question is, what is this self-knowledge in the first place? What is the self's relationship to this alleged Monad? Who has the answer?

Strangely enough, I think Wikipedia puts it well: "Gnosis taught a deliverance of man from the constraints of earthly existence through "insight" into an essential relationship, as soul or spirit, with a supramundane place of freedom."

This "supramundane place of freedom" is the Pleroma which I take to be identical to the Monad since I am a strict monist.

I would also think that none of the early Gnostic groups thought their Cosmological gods and archons to be purely mythological or abstract analogies, instead they ALL viewed them as 100% real beings.

They also believed that the Earth was a few thousand years old, that it was at the center of the solar system, that the dead resided in an actual underworld under the ground and that Heaven lay somewhere in the physical heavens, etc. We don't have to recreate everything they believed.
I come from a Christian background (Jewish roots) but I was an atheist for over a decade before I discovered the gnostic scriptures. In these texts I saw a spark of the Divine and I was dissuaded from my strictly physicalist view of the Universe.

But I have a science background and I'm not willing to contradict fact for the purpose of a beautiful mythological system (which gnostic sects e.g. the Valentinians definitely offer). I see no room in modern times for belief in angels, miracles or an afterlife. I believe that salvation occurs during our lifetimes (we achieve gnosis) or never, since there is no survival of the soul (the soul is the psyche, the mind). I don't believe in the traditional gnostic separation of the soul and the spirit.

My theology is like the Reconstructionist Judaism of gnosticism (and admittedly has likely more in common with the former than with the latter).

 

[nazz]

This "supramundane place of freedom" is the Pleroma which I take to be identical to the Monad since I am a strict monist.

I'm curious as to why you believe there is no plurality. Considering that there are many separate minds in existence.

 

[biased]

And the Spirit only resides in those who are pure spiritually, and then the question is once again, how do we become spiritually pure?

Can you cite your source that confirms/affirms that statement.

 

[vtunie]

There are too many questions here, perhaps?

Tentatively but firmly I suggest: less questioning seems to lead to greater truth as long as the eyes are kept open in the spirit of compassion; and the answers accumulate by themselves.