What do you know about gnosticism?

Question

I used to get a magazine about it maybe 25 years ago, and the name of it changed. By now I suppose it would be a web site anyway. Who can help me learn more about gnosticism?

Answer 1

Gemini Rising did an alright job of explaining the Gnostic creation myth and got part of the attitude correct but he’s referring to some form of institutionalized or orthodox form of Neo-Gnostic reconstruction definition that has little or no practical use. Determining the validity of a faith by their creation myth makes all faiths except possibly Buddhism extremely stupid, including Wicca. Creation myths can’t ever be taken seriously.

I didn’t find a pamphlet somewhere and read about Gnostics nor did some missionaries come to explain Gnostic thought to me in an effort to save my soul. I had a self-induced near death experience, which I don’t recommend, but fortunately for me I was brought into the presence of Christ then allowed a cosmic level warm fuzzy feeling, then having experienced love I was sent back to both love and experience love for so long as I should live here.

I tried to fit in with Christians and failed to do much more than anger them. Honestly I called myself a Gnostic the first time when someone else called me an Agnostic.

I knew the following things from experience then had it confirmed in the “NORMAL” Bible.

God is love.
We are unified in God.
Christ lives in all people.
Jesus was like me once but sacrificed his ego to assume the Christ spirit identity.
Since we are all unified the life in you is the same life in me with a different perspective.
By harming you I harm myself and by helping you I help myself.
By judging you I judge myself.
If I don’t judge I am beyond all judgment.
Christ is far more than Jesus and doesn’t care if we call the revelation of God other names from other stories so long as we emanate love as the Father does.
In time ALL people will be saved and will have Christ awareness.
There’s no hell.

Since that time I’ve discovered the Gnostic scriptures and just like the other scriptures where most think it’s all analogy, metaphor, and allegory it’s literal. Where most think it’s literal it’s analogy, metaphor, and allegory.

Most people think, “God is Love” as one of Gods properties, but that’s a literal statement, God IS Love.
Many think creation myths are literal but that’s obviously stupid to anyone with any discernment.

I spend a relatively small amount of time reading scriptures that aren’t in the Bible because people have no reason to believe such scriptures and I don’t need them any more than I need the Bible because the Word of god is branded on my heart so my thoughts are scripture anyway. I test these from time to time because if my motives benefit me then they aren’t of God. I am not materialistic I eat only what I need to live (Dove candy bars are a weakness so I have one a month) I have no need for wealth, power, status symbols or sex. Nothing, and I mean nothing is of importance here except the experience of living. I can’t be damned or saved by any action I do in life. I don’t live Spartan because I have to; I do so because it pleases me to do so. Should I decide to perform any act of depravity for the pleasure of satisfying carnal curiosity there’s no damage to my relationship with God. I just have no hunger for anything since I encountered Christ. Such hungers aren't part of me and it's fine even if I had them. I feel empathy for others; I love so much my heart wants to burst sometimes. I weep too much. I laugh too easy. I say inappropriate things at the wrong time like mentioning that the war was wrong at my husbands Christmas party for work. I don’t like to watch the news but I do anyway because you can’t treat a wound you will not look at.

Misconceptions about Gnostics abound. You can call yourself one but you probably aren’t until you can walk away from all aspects of the world. You are literally a new creature and you feed on the revelation of God, the Christ spirit, the word of God, you feed on Love. You drink from that fountain and never thirst again because the love from your spirit never empties and you have plenty for everyone. No book holds the secret and there’s NOTHING genetic about it.

You understand or you don’t, I love you either way, God is patient and you’ll know one day what I know today.

I’d explain more but you wouldn’t understand it.

Answer 2

From Greek gnosis ("knowledge"), this is a general term for a number of philosophies or religions that existed in the few centuries immediately before and after the birth of Christ. Their common features include a belief in two Gods: one who created the world of Spirit ("the Logos"), the other who created the world of Matter ("the Demiurge"). Also, Gnosticism emphasised a return to the world of Spirit by a process of mystical knowledge (ie Gnosis), and a belief in Reincarnation. ...
www.jwmt.org/v1n0/glossary2.html

God bless

Answer 3

Rey, do not learn whatever from the web, quote on a public discussion board, and feel you may have made a factor. It rather makes you seem naive and a little dim. Take from any individual who has had a few lifestyles revel in and a little greater than web potential at the area... you haven't any thought what you're posting. So return to junior top and go away discussion board for the adults.

Answer 4

Gnosticism is thinly disguised Pantheism. In the beginning was the Depth; the Fulness of Being; the Not-Being God; the First Father, the Monad, the Man; the First Source, the unknown God (Bythos pleroma, ouk on theos, propator, monas, anthropos, proarche, hagnostos theos), or by whatever other name it might be called. This undefined infinite Something, though it might be addressed by the title of the Good God, was not a personal Being, but, like Tad of Brahma of the Hindus, the "Great Unknown" of modern thought. The Unknown God, however, was in the beginning pure spirituality; matter as yet was not.

This source of all being causes to emanate (proballei) from itself a number of pure spirit forces. In the different systems these emanations are differently named, classified, and described, but the emanation theory itself is common too all forms of Gnosticism. In the Basilidian Gnosis they are called sonships (uiotetes), in Valentinianism they form antithetic pairs or "syzygies" (syzygoi); Depth and Silence produce Mind and Truth; these produce Reason and Life, these again Man and State (ekklesia). According to Marcus, they are numbers and sounds.

These are the primary roots of the Æons. With bewildering fertility hierarchies of Æons are thus produced, sometimes to the number of thirty. These Æons 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.

The transition from the immaterial to the material, from the noumenal to the sensible, is brought about by a flaw, or a passion, or a sin, in one of the Æons. According to Basilides, it is a flaw in the last sonship; according to others it is the passion of the female Æon Sophia; according to others the sin of the Great Archon, or Æon-Creator, of the Universe.

The ultimate end of all Gnosis is metanoia, or repentance, the undoing of the sin of material existence and the return to the Pleroma.

Answer 5

tough Q..hmmmm..
i don't have long stories to tell you but in short , as per my understanding

when we talk about agnosticism, it is something like atheism and is more realistic approach, rasing doubts on gods existence..

but when we talk about gnosticism, it is just simply not reverse, it starts swaying more towards spirituality rather than the belief in god, but certainly supported by doctrines.

english is a complex language..something like
patriotism and chauvinism, so near but so far

Answer 6

Here a very good video clip .
The scholar John Allegro talks about it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zuIQVfmBEp8

Answer 7

Those books are even more far-fetched than the books that made into the bible.

http://www.lumen.org/

Answer 8

if u meen agnosticism it just meens u are undecided until proof arrives. but if u meen gnosticism im not quite sure what that is

Answer 9

Oooh, Gnosticism! My favorite dead religion. =)

For a time, I considered myself a Neo-Gnostic as per the books of psychic and author Sylvia Browne. Her books are excellent if you want a modern view of Gnosticism. The basic premise of Neo-Gnosticism is "search for your own truth." In other words, don't believe just what you are told--research everything for yourself, and then let your heart judge.

Ancient Gnosticism is now long gone, although it has been a great topic in recent years because of the discovery of the so-called "Gnostic Gospels" in Nag Hammadi, Egypt, in 1945. These include apocryphal books such as The Gospels of Mary, Phillip, Mark, and Thomas as well as many, many more, all written in Coptic. These have provided much insight into the Gnostic sect that was deemed heresy during its time--they were persecuted just as the Pagans were.

The basic premise of ancient Gnosticism is this: Earth is not real, it is a reality created by the Hebrew God, who in reality is truly a "False God" called the Demiurge. Let's delve into Gnostic creation for a moment...

In the beginning, there was only the Unknowable One. This being was all that existed, but since It was all that existed, It decided to look upon Itself in all Its magnificence. (It is neither male nor female.) In the act of looking upon Itself, long story short, "Heaven" was created--in Gnosticism, the counterpart to Heaven is called the Pleroma. They're basically the same thing. Along with it, an actual knowable form of the Unknowable One, female in polarity, named Barbelo. Then, along with Barbelo came "The Christ." NOT the same thing as Jesus, mind you--but a Christ Conciousness that ruled over the Pleroma.

Along with this "Heaven," the Pleroma, Aeons were created--these are emanations of the various aspects of The Unknowable One. These are basically personifications of such things as Wisdom, Love, Prudence, etc. They were created in male/female pairs in accordance with duality. In other words, there is both a male Aeon for Love and a female Aeon for Love, and they are both required to act in unison. These Aeons are the equivalent to Christian Angels.

Then, one day, in this perfect Pleroma, we happen upon the female Aeon of Wisdom, Sophia. Sophia did something...well, not so wise. She decided that she wanted to create without aid of her male counterpart. This did not go well. She created the "Demiurge," or "False God," with the head of a lion, body of a snake, and a whole bunch of other random animal parts. She named her son Yaltabaoth. She was so ashamed and disgusted of this hideous creature that she hid it in a cloud.

However, Yaltabaoth escaped from his fluffy white prison and stole Sophia's power. With it, he created his own realm to rule over (Earth) and his own minions to reflect the Aeons, called the Archons. Not having known anything besides Sophia, whom he deemed weak, Yaltabaoth claimed all power and said, "I am a jealous God--there is no other God apart from me." Sound familiar? Gnostics believed Jews worshipped this false, jealous God Yaltabaoth.

Sophia, now robbed of her power, could no longer dwell within the Pleroma--therefore, it had a part of it missing. The entire Pleroma was screwed up because that part of Sophia was now apart from the rest. To restore the Pleroma, they needed to win Sophia's power back from Yaltabaoth.

So, acting upon Yaltabaoth's childish need to prove himself, Barbelo appeared in physical form before him. Awed by what he had seen, Yaltabaoth tried to recreate it--he named this being Adam.

However, Yaltabaoth's creation didn't move...it just kinda...well, sat there. It was a shell. So as in Genesis, Yaltabaoth breathed life into him, but subsequently gave up all of Sophia's power to Adam. This scared Yaltabaoth, so he cast Adam down into the deepest parts of the world he had created. The Garden of Eden is actually a prison.

Trying to get his power back, Yaltabaoth couldn't just take it--he needed to put it somewhere else. So he took out Adam's rib and created Zoe (Gnostic counterpart to Eve) and placed Sophia's power there. Then the serpent appeared and screwed up Yaltabaoth's plan. The serpent, in Gnosticism, is actually a spiritual teacher that attempts to free the two from deceit. They eat of the fruit of knowledge of good and evil, and Yaltabaoth is pissed. So, he kicks them out of the Garden.

But, Yaltabaoth is still pissed, so he decides to rape Zoe. (Talk about drastic!) However, Barbelo removes Sophia's power from Zoe's body to protect it. Yaltabaoth fathered Cain and Abel, and in Gnosticism, sex is viewed as a terrible act. The Gnostics did NOT tolerate any sexual intercourse at all, thus, they lived a celibate lifestyle.

Adam and Zoe also had a child themselves, Seth, who was the Father of the Gnostics--the so called "pure race." (Gnosticism is even more exclusive than mainstream Christianity today--they believed being "saved" was determined by genetics!) Sophia's power now resides in Seth and all of his children.

Thus, the goal of Jesus, according to the Gnostics, was to enlighten Seth's "immortal race" so that all of Sophia's fragments may rejoin and the Pleroma be restored to fullness. They believed this was to be achieved by literally rising above the material world in their lifetimes--they lived completely ascetic lifestyles. They believed that if you were more spiritual upon your death, you rose up the to the Pleroma even if you WERE NOT part of the immortal race. If you didn't get it right the first time, you reincarnate until you do. If you knew of the Truth but rejected it, you burned in Gnostic Hell for all eternity.

Gnostic Creation Myth now having been explained, they took their primary beliefs from there. Earth is a prison from which we must escape, and the God of the Hebrews is a false, evil God. To return to the Pleroma, a life of asceticism must be lived and all material things rejected, including food, power, money, sex...everything.

Gnosticism was deemed heretical by the majority of the Church at the time, and eventually, they were all killed off in a massive Gnostic witchhunt. However, they hid their books in earthen jars as they were burned, and some of them were discovered in Nag Hammadi in 1945.

Do I hold these beliefs? Absolutely not. They're weird. Anybody who DOES hold them is too.

Then again, we might be saying that about mainstream Christianity if Gnosticism had been the dominant religion of the time...hm.

Either way, I now consider myself Wiccan and no longer associate myself with Neo-Gnosticism. It is basically the religious following of psychic author Sylvia Browne, and I would rather consider myself something that is a little more universal, even though she does make some very good points. If you want to look into Neo-Gnostic views, her books are the only resource out there, and they ARE good, even if her psychic ability is questionable.