Dogma vs. Gnosticism continued

A Reader commented on the last blog post and I decided that these are some really excellent questions worth digging into. Deep stuff. Here we go!

Paul(Nite Reflections) said: "I agree about being innocent by birth. I can also see evidence of the "born in sin" concept. When you look at the selfish instinct of a toddler. I guess if a toddler is told "no don't touch that" he could get protective of his own things. So, I guess that could be a learned response. Sorry I guess I am debating with myself here."

Debate until the day you die, man. Because really, what else is there? If we were stagnant and boring people then what the hell is the point of continuing to breathe? Really. Seriously contemplate that. What's the point of taking that next breath if this is all there is? This world is nuts. If there wasn't a point to it all I'd be six feet under right now. By nature, I am easily bored.

Confronting learned responses one at a time is vital to gnostic growth. Breaking yourself free from them is hard work. Baby steps. 

Here's the gnostic answer to your query about sin and children/adults: we grow through time, just like any other creature. The 'selfish' actions of a toddler are just exactly what they are- the actions of a child with a child's mind and a child's body. Through time we grow and learn what is not selfish. Our parents and community raise us to have morals which will help guide us through society successfully. But, it's up to us to freely use their advice or to ignore it. We create the life we want, period.  You already know this. So now comes the obvious question: where did the original morality come from?

Use it or ignore it, the same is true with pleroma's morality and the freedom that he shouts is available to us. It is up to us to decide how to use that freedom. The freedom has always really been ours but dogma is like a choke chain around our neck. It cuts off the oxygen to our very thirsty brain. It's such a profound thing to tell someone or to have pleroma whisper in their ear, "Life itself is not evil. Live it. Experience it. You can do whatever you want." 

It's like the person's internal bubble bursts and they start clawing and scrambling for walls that aren't there anymore. A lot of people freak out for a few months while they adjust to the epiphany. When pleroma says you can do whatever you want that's exactly what he means. You can get up out of bed for the day or you can lay and daydream. He knows there are repercussions for you choosing the second option and gosh darn it, he's going to let you figure out what they are! That doesn't mean he's not going to chide like the child you're being as you're laying there, though.

To put it into simple context-- If we were truly 'born in sin' then any civilization before Christ's intervention would have been nothing but a slobbery mass of murdering heathens with no concept of morality or organized structure. But this isn't so. Archeology is proving without a doubt that the time before Christ was rich and filled with hope, the same as now. Just for an example of the kind of organization and cooperation necessary to create community and purpose, read about Gobekli Tepe, a place we still know next to nothing about. This civilization is around 12,000 years old!!! Stone Henge is only between 4,000-5,000 thousand years old. Christianity is only around 2,000 years old. Doesn't that make your head spin? 

We're talk about 10,000 years of time before Christ in which these people lived and died and what they left behind is so momentous we are gaping at it like children. And yet look at the skyscrapers and airplanes we've built? Aren't they amazing? And yet we're still gaping like wide eyed children at people's leavings of over 10,000 years ago. 

Even Plato and Plotinus, Euripides, Ptolemy, Porphyry, and the like... these scientists and philosophers are only around 2,000 years old. When you think of what could have come before them, it makes you realize just how much humanity has lost and gained again. We're in a gnostic Renaissance right now. Stretching our intellect inside the tight dogmatic skin we've created for ourselves the past 2,000 years is going to be painful for a while yet.
  

Paul(Nite Reflections) said: "There are some things that are honestly are a stretch for me, having been taught otherwise for 50 years. The biggest question that came to my mind was, where do Gnostics stand on creation vs evolution. If we didn't rise up out of a garden, what is the Gnostic theory?"

This is a fundamentalist mind trap. It's a divisive diversion and we're stuck on it for a variety of reasons. We have to consider here, first, that the theory of evolution has only been in the mainstream education system for a handful of decades. Before that every school had a parochial slant in the science and history department so this is a lot for our older generations to recover from.

The gnostic theory is part of the Donut and Coke Bottle brain teaser I've been talking about for a few months. I believe that the creation/evolution question is never really going to be answered because of dogma. Dogmatic thought and control processes as part of our civilization are just too strong. All we can do is see it's(creation's/evolution's) results. Gnosis will always be a minority thought pattern. We will never have big glorious churches because there is no profit in that(we wouldn't use them anyway!) and the powers-that-be on this world(archons) are all about influence and control. 

But the good things is that trying to get rid of religion in science(and vice versa) is ... well... impossible. The more our brightest scientists learn the more they keep turning to questioning religion and our origins. It's the greatest mystery for the human mind to ponder. Some scientists say it's the only question worth asking and they're finding bread crumbs to follow in everything from DNA folding(our understanding of which came from the art of origami paper folding!!!) to the gasses inside of stars and following their trajectory throughout their life. 

Looking out in the sciences isn't going to get us the real meaty answers, though. Those answers are going to come within and as individuals. This is the exoteric as opposed to the esoteric, however even this is becoming an old way of seeing things now because they're gradually merging! The exoteric sciences are leading to greater understanding of the esoteric sciences of our own soul and existence on this plane of reality.

The mass of humanity won't ever really get it.  But it will not be because information isn't made public; they won't 'get it' because it wont resonate with them on a personal level. They're not ready for it. Personal understanding is essential to going up that ladder toward him.

Read about white holes which are the opposite of black holes. Science is vital to understanding what we are as a physical manifestation but it's amazing to me just how much of this theory overlaps with metaphysical and religious theory. 

For example, some scientists are theorizing(with some proof to back it up so far) that we are nothing but holograms. No computer system today can DISprove it. These, and other scientists are also working on the theory that we are energetic beings which are so closely entwined that when confined alone we would go insane. We need one another for some real physical reason but the electricity is the only formed hypothesis so far. Electricity?!! What are we, batteries? Or is this relating to the aiua theory by Orson Scot Card(sci-fi writer extraordinaire) who has prompted study in this new field? But wait-the 'aiua' isn't new. It's old. Really old. The oldest gnostic thinkers knew about this but told us in allegorical stories. What is old is new again. Or is it being recycled through our massive human consciousness?

I'd never heard of white holes before last week and yet my answer concerning the Donut and Coke Bottle Challenge has already been written(Note: the answer is not a white hole, per say). Now there's a strange coincidence. Which isn't. Which makes it even more cosmically funny. Pleroma's a goofball.

Every gnostic piece of writing and every gnostic I have ever talked to about humanity's genesis have been in either of these two camps: 

1. One group answers with a koan like this, "How do you know we really originated on Earth?"  Truly enlightened people, I tell you.  They call us stardust babies.
2. The other group answers with scientific data and usually shrugs their shoulders and says, "The elder gnostics wrote what pleroma told them and didn't have any other way to explain it. Now we have the science but even so we're still children in that field. The Garden story is a metaphor for humanity growing up, which we are still doing as individuals as we combat dogma." 

Even Jesus himself as a man or spirit or somewhere in between, gnostics are all on the fence about him. Gnosis is individual but with some very common threads. 

We're questioners. That is what we do. That is our job. We are professional students of the human condition.
  

Paul(Nite Reflections) said: "With Sophia being the wisdom of Pleroma would you say that would be kind of the same thing as the Holy Spirit to Jehovah?"

Sophia. This spirit is something of an enigma to me still. Personally, I think I missed her along the way. I jumped right from "Tarot.. hmmm. could be interesting to learn about" which lasted a grand total of a year to "Holy crap, who's singing to me in the shower?!!" 

What I means is that someone can jump from hylic to psychic to pneumatic in weird off the wall ways. I never saw or felt Sophia along my way. I don't feel a separate manifestation from pleroma. I don't feel anything particularly female or separate from his intelligence or strong personality. 

All the reading I've done on Sophia does indicate she is like the Holy Spirit. Or even, in a pagan sense, the Goddess Mother. In my pagan phase I could never conjure up or talk to anyone like her, let along connect with any of those spirits. It would not surprise me in the least if this is exactly what she is; simply a pagan-turned-dogma character gnostics made up to create dialogue with fundamentalists using their concepts. Certainly wouldn't be the first time!

So then is the gnostic 'genesis' story still correct? Did Sophia create the demiurge? I don't know.  Personal experience tells me that I can sense pleroma, the demiurge, and all the archonic forces within our lives. But Sophia? I just don't know. There are some gnostic stories which have speculated that Sophia went on vacation somewhere after creating her awful child or that she merged back with pleroma to be at peace after her decision. So can we still sense her?

When I was a Christian in the dogmatic sense, I never once felt the Holy Ghost. I did feel(what I now recognize) pleroma trying to bust down my mental doors, but there was nothing Ghostly about it, not in anyway the Holy Ghost has ever been described as a spirit or essence of god.

Now, as a gnostic I think back to that time and realize that the reason was that it's all one. There is no two or three. It's just one. We try to personify him and compartmentalize him out into parts we can understand in human terms but it's just impossible.  He's massive. And this is the reason why he tries to be so gentle with us; he knows he overwhelms us! Look at all of the gnostic definitions for pleroma. Just reading down a small portion of that list makes my head throb. It's a physicists worst nightmare, trying to quantify that. And yet look at our universe itself. Is there a coincidence there?

In my article Gnostic Universe at a Glance I talk about the three main variations of how gnostics view our universe. I am more partial to the onion-verse. It makes more sense to me, especially regarding the demiurge(Jehovah/Yahweh).

Paul, with your background you'll probably find the mainstream Cathar depiction to be more understandable, at least for now. It looks quite a bit more like what you're used to. 

I'm going to be posting the answer to the Challenge soon and since I am referencing the Gnostic Universe at a Glance here I wanted to give another small hint-- invert the onion.

Our Path is Not Narrow!

A fellow gnostic has lamented lately that he feels a little unnerved he has not been able to put the proper 'label' on his faith. He feels adrift, in a way; watching other religious people around him classifying their beliefs in nice, neat pre-packaged ways is disturbing when he feels like there really isn't a classification for his beliefs. In the end he states that during his father's failing health and death he came to a few realizations about himself:

"The first is, I am not a Christian. Not in any traditional sense.  The good thing is all those old grudges were healed through my experiences with good kindly Christians during his sickness and death.  I know there are closed minded and psycho people who claim to be Christians, but I don't blame the whole religion for them.  I know many are not that way.  So why I am I not a Christian?   My God is bigger.  My God has so many describers.....many not biblical in the least.  God to me is Mother, Father, Lover but also friend, nature, Goddess, Shakti, Sophia, Krishna, Jesus, Kali, the tree in my front yard, the rolling plains, sunset, land my spouse.  My faith story is not limited to the Biblical characters whether from the Bible or Nag Hammadi. I find spiritual meaning in myth, in life, in experiences, and in my relationship with others.  My scriptures could be a poem, nature or any holy book.  Some might argue that this is their Christian faith (Many liberal or emergent Christians might say that)  In that case I might be a Christian by such a broad definition, but I know that most Christianity would not. 

I do believe and love God/the Divine.  She is the Goddess to me.. the maiden, mother, and crone associated with nature, the elements and the moon.  He is the God...utterly masculine and silent, revealing his mysteries in silence.  He is also Jesus who loved the outcasts.  He is Krishna the playful and wise one.  She is Mother Mary who welcomes us all  to be held within her embrace.  She is Kali who would sever us from our weaker natures.  God is nature, and an awareness that is beyond any anthropomorphizing or personification found in all things. 

So what does this mean?  For me, it means I can rest confident in my love and faith of God.  I can talk God and Jesus with the Christians.  I can speak of the Goddess and God with Wiccans.  I can speak of Brahman with the Hindus and the way of Nature with the Taoists and Pantheists. 

This time of my final days with my father, being visited by good Christians caused me to reflect.  I love their peace.  I love their foundation and solidness in their faith.  I envy belonging to the dominant religion that would never cause me to somehow self-doubt my right to believe the way I do.  But my understanding and experience of the Divine is broader and more encompassing.  My morality less constricted while remaining ethical and virtuous. 

This is why I am a Universalist.  This is why I am a Priest of this God.  The Universalist Church of the Sacred Path constantly challenges me to expand and reflect.  I am thankful for that, even when it is not comfortable."

My comment to the Green Monk in his blog post is really something I want to say to all gnostics everywhere:

I empathize. When we look at all the literal 'trappings' of Christianity it becomes a burden on our heart. It saddens us to look at it but on two fronts: we're somewhat jealous that at least they have a way of quantifying and qualifying their every move and every word as being just and holy or unjust and profane. But also it saddens us because we do understand how tightly they have tethered themselves to this world.

The All isn't a burden but a blessing for us to see and feel and experience.

Gnosis is so vast that only the expansive label of 'gnosticism' seems to fit because gnosis itself is as big and complex as the universe we inhabit.

Your Church of the Sacred Path is blessed to have you in it, brother. I know the path is wide and gives us much room to wander but I know also that when comparing yourself and your faith to the literalist faiths of Christianity then gnosis can feel like you're swimming in an ocean with no land in sight. Literalist Christians and others of literalist faiths have boundaries they've set for themselves. Good for them, if that is what they require currently. But you are free, brother. You are free to fly as high as you can imagine. Stay away from that cage and you'll be blessed a thousand times over.

Gnostics In The World- But Not Of It

Stephen Hoeller of the Ecclesia Gnostica says it simply and best. (blog author's comments below)

1) Do Gnostics strive to improve the world?

Yes, by improving themselves through Gnosis.

2.) Why is this so?

The world is in large part the domain of the Archons. As such it is not perfectible. Still it can be somewhat improved and its inherent deficiency diminishes every time a human spirit attains to liberating Gnosis.

3.) Are Gnostics inclined to any particular system of worldly government?

Individual Gnostics may support any worldly cause or none. The Gnostic world view, however, advises caution concerning all such involvements.

4.) Does the Gnostic world view uphold or rebel against worldly "establishments"?

It does neither, for its attitude is well stated in one of its scriptures: "Do not put your trust in the potentates, rulers, and the rebels of this world, for their authority passes away and comes to an end and their works are as naught."

5.) What is the chief requirement of the Gnostic in worldly society?

The chief requirement of the Gnostic in worldly society is an optimum degree of freedom, for without freedom the pursuit of Gnosis becomes very difficult. Since the freedom of Gnostics cannot be separated from the freedoms of all others, the freer all human beings are, the better this is for Gnosis and for Gnostics.

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Mr. Hoeller's response to the first question is quite intriguing to me right now because I remember telling myself that very same thing when I decided to start this blog two months ago. The rationalization was that I am in this world. I am seen and I am heard. That means that I can have an impact. Each of us can. That makes us powerful. We are not the 'masses.' We are individual. And we can reach out as individuals to better the world if we choose-- as long as we're not trampling on another person's free will.

That is easier said than done, of course, when you think about all the things we do every day trying to impose our will on others. I'm not proposing an anarchistic society. But I do think that as a sentient species we need to grow up and learn from our mistakes from the past. Teach our children about the horrors we have committed and let them take those lessons to heart. Let our children form new ideas about how to maximize human freedom while still maintaining order and safety.

Part 1 of Gnostic Defininitions

Aeons??! Who are they? What are they? And who the heck is Sophia? I never heard of her in my Sundays School class as a child.

When I first began to delve within gnostic texts there were so many confusing new terms to learn I thought I'd go nuts. Gnostic literature is entrenched in metaphor and pseudonyms to both distance the reader from the question of "who is the author?" and grab their attention concerning the real meaty substance of their writing. A double edged sword, really.

This rampant use of metaphor, personification, directional paradox, and other literary tools confound most beginners. They think they're reading riddles which are purposely created to drive them insane. Gnostic writing is another language and flavor of communication altogether than what modern readers are accustomed to. Equate it with elaborate poetry; something which takes time and patience in order to unravel. Think it's another language? You're right. Most terms are, coincidentally, in Greek. That is the difficult thing to consign yourself to. There is studying involved in the search for gnosis.

I'd like to put together some simplified definitions and examples of basic concepts in gnosticism. There are variations within different sects and even within time frames between gnostic text authors. Once these main ideas are learned and well thought out, real gnosis begins. So yes, you are reading words based in the Greek language. But only because that is where the written ideas began to take shape on paper.... er.. papyrus. You're reading about a completely different way of thinking. And this demands a different discipline of the mind. So relax... and get ready for your brain to be twisted into a knot. I promise it'll be worth it.

Gnosis: Knowledge. To know. To explore learning. Insight. Intuition. Intuitive reasoning. Enlightenment. Knowledge via contemplation.

Gnostic: Person who pursues gnosis. Because of the radical anti-Nicene views of gnostics this has led to quite a bit of trouble for them through the centuries. Dubbed as heretics by the Vatican and often pursued for trial, even today.

Proto(first)-Gnostics: Valentinus, Philo, Basilides, Simon Magus, Cerinthus. Menander of Antioch, Zostrianos, early Sethian leaders, Ptolemy, Heracleon, Mary Magdalen, John the Evangelist, Jesus Christ, St. Paul, Plato .... and dozens more. Too many to name. Many of them were philosophers you've seen and heard of all your life. They all have connections to one another in some way. A great many of them even wrote to one another. And as you can tell from that eclectic list several of these were martyred for their beliefs.

Later Gnostic Leaders: the prophet Mani, St. Augustine of Hippo(until he turned tail and decided he wanted to be a bishop of the Christian Church instead), and the in-hiding leaders of the Manichean, Sethian, Archontic, Basilidean, Cerdonina, and Valentinian sects. After the third century announcing you were a gnostic was akin to putting a neon Shoot Me sign on your forehead. By the fourth century all gnostic books were banned and gnostic meetings were illegal. In the Roman Empire such religious leanings were met with a death penalty. There are many other sects of gnosticism. This list is by no means complete. For example: William Blake is a known gnostic. However he was a cryptic one. A closet gnostic.

Pleroma: Greek, meaning "the fullness." The totality of divine powers. The Divine Principal. The good god. The one who is incomparable and incomprehensible. The All. The one who made the elements that the universe is made from but not the one who made the universe itself. He did not give it form. He simply exists as The All.

Yahweh/God/Jehovah/demiurge/the arrogant one: the Judeo-Christian God described in the New Testament who said in Exodus, "for I, Yahweh your God, am a jealous God." The child of Sophia and the grandchild of pleroma. The one who formed the universe from the elements pleroma made. Also known as the "half-maker" because he had taken the divine substance and fashioned out of it a world. He is the spiritual being who had become forgetful of his origins, even of the ultimate God. He thinks that he is God and there is no other God before him.

Archons: servants of the demiurge. False rulers. The angels and demons of the Old Testament. The lures and distractions of this material world.

Sophia: Greek for "wisdom." This female personality is a bit tricky to pin down. In some Eastern Orthodox Christian sects she is seen as the Virgin Mary. In some gnostic texts she is also known as Eve, in that she was duped or made a mistake which lead to the flaws and separation of man from God. In others she is described as the female child of the Divine Principal. There are correlations between these variations but some are subtle while others are more blatant. The cross over from the Christian tradition into the Gnostic tradition is that "Eve" was the first female child of a god and so was Sophia. Both gave birth. Sophia's childbirth was virginal whereas Eve's was not. So this calling Sophia "Eve" is more of a half-truth based descriptive, merely letting readers know that Sophia was The First of her kind.

The gnostic Sophia was formed out of the mind of The All. Sophia then makes a decision to do some action(text explanations vary widely) and in the process of attempting this, she creates the demiurge(God/Yahweh). Embarrassed, and fearing reprisals from The All, she hides Him away in a void all by himself. God, thinking he's all alone and the only god in existence creates the earth and heavens as well as human beings to worship Him. That's the extremely short and sweet version.

Aeons: emanations of The All. In the various systems these emanations are differently named, classified, and described, but the emanation theory itself is common to all forms of Gnosticism. They are described as existing in layers(like an onion) between human beings and The All. Complex hierarchies of Aeons are thus produced, sometimes to the number of thirty. These Aeons belong to the purely ideal, noumenal, intelligible, or supersensible world; they are immaterial, they are hypostatic ideas. Together with the source from which they emanate they form the Pleroma ("region of light"). The lowest regions of the Pleroma are closest to the darkness—that is, the physical world.

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In the Letter of Peter to Philip, Peter is relating a mystic occurrence on the Mount of Olivet in which the spirit of Jesus appeared to teach them.

On The Deficiency of the Aeons:

"To begin with, concerning the deficiency of the aeons, this is the deficiency. When the disobedience and the foolishness of the mother(Sophia) appeared, without the command and majesty of the father, she wanted to set up eternal realms. When she spoke, the arrogant one(demiurge) followed. But when she left behind a portion, the arrogant one grabbed it, and it became a deficiency. This is the deficiency of the aeons.

"When the arrogant one took a portion, he sowed it. He placed powers and authorities over it, and he confined it within the mortal realms. All the powers of the world rejoiced that they had been brought forth. But they do not know the preexistent father, since they are strangers to him. Rather, he was given power, and they served him and praised him.

"But the arrogant one grew proud because of the praise of the powers. He was jealous and wanted to make an image in place of an image and a form in place of a form. He assigned the powers within his authority to mold mortal bodies. And they came into being from a misrepresentation of the appearance."

On Fighting The Rulers, Peter relays:

The messengers worshiped again, saying, "Lord, tell us, how shall we fight against the rulers, since the rulers are over us?"

A voice called out to them from the appearance, saying, "You must fight against them like this, for the rulers fight against the inner person. You must fight against them like this: come together and teach salvation in the world with a promise. And arm yourselves with my father's power, and express your prayer, and surely the father will help you, as he helped you by sending me. Do not be afraid. I am with you forever, as I already said to you when I was in the body."

(Deficiency is also synonymous in gnostic texts with "smallness" or "pettiness.")