Unveiling the self; Introspection and Theophany

'Withdraw into yourself and look; and if you do not find yourself beautiful as yet, do as does the sculptor of a statue ...
cut away all that is excessive, straighten all that is crooked, bring light to all that is shadowed ...
do not cease until there shall shine out on you the Godlike Splendor of Beauty; until you see temperance surely
established in the stainless shrine.

                                         Plotinus , Ennead, 1, 6, 9.

It is all too easy to invoke the image of a complete,featureless void as a contrast to the persona (Greek for "mask", actually)
we carry, as Armour and utility set - into the world. If we think upon matters spiritual, we reject as a reflex - every flaw,
every ambiguity, every complication; sitting here thinking about the spiritual in man we are ourselves that flaw, that ambiguity,
that complication - that cloud before our eyes of vision. So looking within becomes an escape into judgment and rejection,
the more we reach the more bleak our self become, the more possessive we grow on an unconscious level. Modern man has
evacuated the superior value into pasts long exiled to memory and futures beyond imagination, his images becomes mere
abstractions, with the added density of number, measure and taxonomy. Thus images are emptied before they are truly
inspected, in the light of our vision. For images have a relationship with their transcendent cause, whose imprint they
have become in the world of the Psyche. Wherefore, instead of being invoked at the threshold into the contemplative
life; wherein the Logos, through which everything came into existence - becomes life and light to every man that enters
into this world; and remembered every time a holy book is opened - Theophany has been buried in the sciences of history
and comparative study. Events outside of the soul motivates the soul to reach towards solutions that are directed towards
outward things, the more concrete the situation is experienced as exterior and outside the extension of self - the stronger
the measure taken to make concrete and opaque the contents of its interior. I intend with this observation nothing less than
provide a diagnosis of the tendency to ignore the relational information contained in the treasurehouse of images which
remains the nature of our religions - the relations become visible when external judgment is suspended or detained, wherein
we can observe what they are in the light of what we know are, and hopefully also determine the relationship that which
we know has being, through being alert to our actual existence, within ourselves. The featureless, empty void, while allotting
all kinds of calm and peace and harmony to the mind - says precisely nothing about what is real, about others, and about your
self, or any kind of soul. There is a season for it, just as there is a season for the Angelic, and for Theophany - for visions,
revelations, interior dialogue and exchange. Beauty has no place to go but into the heart by the awakened eye of vision,
and this eye can only look when it reaches, and this reaching towards necessarily needs an object, a subject,an other.
Knowledge of relations requires a transparency of self - not the annihilation of self, we know others through our selves
, using the experiential, emotive and self-cognitant in us as a medium.
The theophanic vision requires a capacity for this recognition, which is determined by the measure of this knowledge; both as it
relates to ourselves, as it relates to others, and in which way it ever reaches towards the divine in either of them.
If we withdraw into ourselves, and strip these our selves naked of all that is appended to them, all that garbs them because
we wish to conceal this nakedness - we should be able to see Beauty not only in these our selves, but also in others.
These other human beings will thereafter no longer appear as strangers and unknown, but intimately known and familiar
by way of this recognition.
Plato writes, in his Phaedo:

"It seems to me, if anything else is beautiful besides the Beautiful itself, it is beautiful through
nothing else than that it participates in that Beautiful: and all things I say likewise...
Nothing else makes it beautiful than the presence or communion of that Beautiful...
but that all beautiful things are beautiful by the Beautiful"  (Phaedo, 100d4-8)

Thus recognition of the Soul, unattended by its tormentors, the passions and authorities, opens up Beauty at the level
of our participation; and likewise, recognition of Beauty in the Soul between us, opens up the Soul at the level of a communal
participation in Beauty.

"For I had gone down below their language"

The idealism of Plato informed the ancient Gnostics in their metaphysics, which counter to the
chauvinism against so-called Sophism in Antiquity, was rooted in a new Image of Man.
Coupled with this figure, which is of a different kind entirely than the self-image of preceding
generations (leaving Kings and Shamans be the category they are to themselves, as much as
they were laws unto themselves, that is) - were a new day, a new alertness, a new cosmology,
a new process of unveiling the true nature and reality of all mysteries, natural and supernatural.

In the Apocryphal accounts we find that when Adam is awoken from his sleep, which some Gnostic myths negate or translate into other things, he is addressed directly and replies to the call, either of his counterpart, Eve, or of
an angelic host. At the determining moment, which seals Adam's fate and plight, Eve turns to him and teaches him a secret; this secret in turn, unifies them in the capacity of "understanding more than their creator(s)".
Two people that are united in the confidence of a secret are unified continously, as they not only remind eachother of themselves, but also of the secret that they hold in common.
The same goes for the blessing of the brotherly bread and brotherly wine - given the context of a new covenant which is secret, which exist between a chosen company of friends, at the last supper. Here also Jesus divulges
a secret, and the secret which is shared is devoured and assimilated by his friends - this secret becomes Jesus among them, and Jesus in them - and will, with a bright flash of recognition, become the Christ in and among them through the mystery of Pentecost.

The Protennoia speaks of her first descent thusly:

I am the first one who descended on account of my portion which remains, that is, the
Spirit that dwells in the soul, which originated from the Water of Life, and out of the
immersion of the mysteries. And I spoke, I, together with the Archons and Authorities.

For
I had gone down below their language

,and I spoke my mysteries to my own - a hidden mystery -
and the bonds and eternal oblivion were nullified. And I bore fruit in them,
that is, the Thought of the unchanging Aeon, and my house, and their Father. And I went
down to those who were mine from the first, and I reached them and broke the first strands
that enslaved them. Then everyone of those within me shone, and I prepared a pattern for
those ineffable Lights that are within me. Amen. Trimorphic Protennoia, (NHC XIII,1.)

Christ became Silence, so that the secret that exists prior to that Silence might have an opportunity to
resurrect in us and ascend through us, and return as fullness which encompasses all stages of existence,
beyond the categories, and below language.

Blogging Hotspots:The Forbidden Gospels Blog

Blogging Hotspots: The Forbidden Gospels Blog

Professor April DeConick belongs to the new generation of scholars who have engaged the background for the New Testament and it's reception with less filers and academic bias than their preceeding generation.
To be said for their predecessors is that they actually anticipated, and were pretty much agreed upon that such scholars were needed in the future.

Dr. DeConick teaches early Jewish and Christian thought to students at Rice University in -
Houston,Texas, I feel quite confident that her students will in the future become the new pioneers who will take over the heavy responsibility of opening up the past to their generation. The inheritance from the Jewish and Christian religion in our culture, even that of heterodox,heretic and "forbidden" - are formidable, and what is not brought into consciousness, good or bad, are bound to participate in us as an autonomous, dischordant presence, the better we have communicators, analysts, exegetics and discerning historians - engage the topic for us and give us occasion to realise what is going on.

I thoroughly enjoy Dr. DeConick's occasional Apocryphote fragments from the heterodox/heretical/forgotten traditions of Christendom, which themselves merit a visit to her blog.

Emergence from Silence, to silence?

I notice that while I have promoted the Silence as a primary context for
reorientation, the ground upon which one can stand as well as the sky above
that meets it. and reaches through us to itself - a numbing phenomenon of
constant zero response meets it. The former blogpost is part 1 of a series
I must write; it's not even pleasant to do so. I should perhaps given a personal
background for it, something to which it could attach, zoom into the place where
I part company with the great shout for Revolution, Armageddon, Justice and Purgation of
Paradise; why I must evaluate our modernity with one foot in the trenches.

Understanding, in any private span of thought, is not capital letter "T" Truth, it is
intimate and ideally part of who you are - it situates you right in what you understand,
there are no sense of distance in it. Therefore we need to have a conversation. We really
do, about what we understand, and how it is even possible to do so. Language is a trap,
but it is more of a beartrap than a hole covered over with branches and filled with spikes -
to be safe from calamity, you have to spring it, with a twig or a branch or something
expendable. Transport it all into the situation of mind, and you will see voluntarily
sidetracking into thoughts which has fleeting, transitory function looks the part, and
as long as we keep trying to keep up with the world, it is of infinite supply.

The What here is; the "world" has already ended, the "end" of time is here, and whenever
it is acted upon, whenever it is understood, engaged, I pass through it all into the other
side of it. That's what I understand. It continually focus my attention elsewhere than
the difficulties of passing correct and precise judgment on myself or other sentient beings.
That enables me to engage what was once the world, and what passed for time - paradoxically,
every time, every day, or at least every time I am reminded of it. And I am being reminded of
it, it occurs in an encounter, a brief conversation with another human being, the exchange of
looks, a re-cognition of what transpires of entireties in moments and glimpses.

The How here is; as already indicated the assimilation of anything understood occurs
in the Nous, the mind, and everything that is indicated participates in a continuous
progression from the unknown to the known, from hidden to that which is revealed,
through the medium of Being which we, the knowers of the unknown, the revealers
of the hidden, and the resurrection of that which was buried, participate in as well as
act upon.

This also where it attaches to the teachings on Reintegration in more recent Christian
esotericism, and the Apokatastasis Panthon among the ancients, exclaimed most lucid
and most overtly by Saint Origen of Alexandria.
The selfsame transmission that begun in Pantaneus, the first teacher of the cathetical school
situated in Alexandria, even engaging the Library and Platonic academy at the time,
continued with the brightest student from the same, Clement of Alexandria, and mediated
outside of the Alexandrine context through the exile of Origen and the beginnings of the
school of the Desert Fathers addressed that which would become a great and overarching
initiatory transmission beginning in France through the inspiration of among others,
Louis Claude de Saint-Martin.Both the former and the latter emphasized complicity and
participation, and recommended a practise that begun with the withdrawal of arbitrary,
"re-actionary" judgment - continued into a stilling of three centers in man, through
silence, and effectively manifested itself through the emptying out of the "ego",
the containing mind, all contents, particulars, fragments into their origin. The Soul
as Bride, as Monarch, as Hero, as Quintessence - was thusly, practically accorded not
only an abstract metaphysical "origin" that is other-worldly, or transcendent, but accorded
the confidence to find itself demonstrated and revealed in and through individual human beings.
Three Gnostic texts that was discovered barely sixty years hence, or at least was largely unknown
until fairly recently in any case - Trimorphic Protennoia, The Secret Book of John, and
The Gospel of the Egyptians - engage this theme more explicitly than most other sources,
which is astoundingly numerous, so it is not an exclusively Gnostic concern, even though with
some good will, all the aformentioned explicitly Christian thinkers, teachers, mystics, mystagogues
and philo-sophers could be accorded the same name of Gnostic, but as with the theme of the reintegration, and restoration of the fallen intelligences and their splendour, through us, can
even be called an universal concern.

Solve (dissolution)
refers to the particulars here - "the world", or rather the sum of parts that produce it,
and "time", as the state in which the parts produce it; you remove the sum of parts from
its state of fixedness, you end up with chaos - which is the mirror image of that order which
was produced by its conjunction. I wish I could demonstrate this a little better, but it suffices
to say that if we remove the fixed focus of the mind, and allow it to actively engage Silence,
rather than passively receive everything else - this "chaos", or dissolution, or annihilation
demonstrates itself successively through the recline of the image of order itself.
That is why the "psyche" part of consciousness is feared by philosophers, who, after all,
has sat on the knee of their uncles, the rhetorists, for most of their upbringing - are
primarely concerned, to the degree of obsession, with the making, or fabrication, of sense,
and the solidity of images. The Gnostic visionaries was capable of not only retaining the
memory of having seen, not a succession, but a triplicity (or further into tetrads etc.)
of forms - when they encountered the revelation that revealed itself to them and through
them;the middleplatonist Plotinus, and neoplatonist Proclus and a myriad others of their contemporaries did not recognize the
names and imagry and addressed how this vision would be proscribed against by the rational
intellect and belonged with other lower beings, among dreaming animals. My enthusiasm for
Corbin not only depend on his vigilant and always alert endeavour to understand and make understandable, sufi saints and illuminist theosophers, but his personal ability to undergo the same himself - as evident
in his visionary experience and exegesis at Lake Siljan:

".. the Earth has come to Thou, visible as an Angel that would perhaps be a
woman, and in this apparition, this greatly green and thronging
solitude, yes, the Angel too is robed in green, the green of dusk, of
silence and of truth. Then there is in you all the sweetness that is
present in the surrender to an embrace that triumphs over you.

Earth, Angel, Woman, all of this is a single thing that I adore and that is in this forest. "

Further into the letter, Corbin admits that man, and with man, himself, there is a poverty
that confronting such splendour makes a heavy burden filled with sighs and nostalgia,
but man is quickened and raised up through the agency of an other - coming towards
the visionary through the resurrection and company of the Christ. In this context, a
Christos Angelos that descends, alternatively - if complemented with the vision of
the Untitled Text from the Bruce Codex, the earth of man and himself ascends to meet
the descent of the revealer, the Repairer of Vision, the purifier of the medium of Light;
which the Barbelo-Gnosis names Zorokothora Melchizedek.

Another image that also meets this "plasticity" or non-locality is found in the recently discovered apocryphal text that has been named The Gospel of the Saviour by its modern translators - where the disciples assembled abruptly sees with their eyes something which is impossible according to their reason, the saviour ascends to heaven, his head through the clouds with his feet planted on the ground, at the mount of transfiguration, where they stand together.

These events that in no wise informs our understanding of History, or with History, or for that matter, the Sciences according to their own virtue - solve, unknit, dissolve the locality of
"world" and deattach fixed time and duration - experiential and metaphysical - while
informing the process of understanding. The disicples, like Prophets of old, fall flat on their
faces at the rupture of reason in the place of the Transfiguration of Christ, as we find the
event in the canonical Gospels - exemplary of the submission to vision which is continually
inspired by the dissolution of those clouds, in mind and psyche, which incapacitate us, "normally",
according to norm, to participate in a visionary unveiling.

Coagula refers to the Contigent, or the Becoming of Being as a context from above rather than below. From the attempted introduction of an understanding of a world of ideas - we have descended
into the flux of random particles and the inexplicable subsistence of consciousness, disjuncted, mysterious - sporadiously involved with the unfoldment of variety according to fixed sets of rules; Being becomes a quality and a verb, ideas a commodity to produce things, to inspire artifice, to the animal dreaming so despised by generations of philosophers and rationalists.
The contigent is less than nothing and more than everything; Pleroma and Kenoma - Jung's Basilides in his Seven sermons to the dead, said of Abraxas - all at once, containing all categories and being the dissolution of category and object itself.

II.

From Revelation to Apocalyptic

Those events prophesied will come to pass in time.
Will pass into Time. And time will end.
As John at Patmos did write, "the seas will be no more."
The waves being continuous symbols of transciency,
of the passing of moments - and the instability of elements.

I have grown up and out of apocalyptic - it's images in 20th century Christianity
(or rather the repackaged 19th century revivalism, that heroically wrestled the beast
of secular humanism, atheist science and the "death of God") participated in my
"animal" dreamlife, I did sweat and I did wet a bed or two, I was a kid, I cared
for what I did not understand, I valued what I did not know; I was told.
There are possibly more books written on the coming battle of Armageddon than
any other religious topic in the west - still whenever it is indicated and intimated
to us, their contemporaries, those who believe the strongest in the scenario does
that discreetly and with a personal, passionate fervour that for just a few blinks
of an eye involves you, the intimate, the confidante - as if a secret was involved.
It's on big banners spanning miles across, you cannot switch through the register
of your television channels without encountering one or more incidents of the scenario
being held out and up to the light, and still it has this mythical,mystical,magical
ability of being best whispered, or quietly and deliberately communicated.
The particular branch of apocalyptic, millenial, chilianist enthusiastic evangelism
which clinged to daily life in my childhood were ultimately concerned with the consequence
of original sin; everything in the world is orchestrated to suit the need of the fallen
angel Satan to inform mankind that it does not need to hear or heed the word of God,
or believe in Jesus as our personal saviour and the atonement for all of our sins;
all we get of suffering comes from that great big hole in our soul our ancestors, from
Adam and onwards, caused to be there. So I was told, I was given education in the
wrongs, quite oblique, of the people of Sodom and Gomorrah, of the generation of
Noa, and so forth - of the deluge and the rain of napalm, of pillars of salt, of locusts
and devouring seas, and reminded that I should consider how little pleased God is
with humanity now as compared to then. No lack of guts in God's department, no
deficiency in the Machismo department - once he loosens his armies upon mankind
to separate chaff from wheat, the bad from the good, the wicked from the righteous -
not only will the guilty die, they will never have been. You grow up into a consciousness
of whatever has value, life, beauty, strength in you - you need all of it, and tommorrow,
because you cannot understand what they tell you, you stop, shocked, doubt - think
"Why would God want that?", even the less charitable, "Why would anyone in their right
mind want all of that?"

Aggrieved and depressed families will introduce morbidity in the skills department of their
offspring and unconsciously tend to it and nurture it, sometimes to the detoriation of
other, perhaps more useful developing skills. But we are moved by death, we are troubled
by the process of dying and suffering illnesses, we are challenged at every moment we
make sense of, whenever we answer to the affirmative of life - the more powerful our
embrace of life, perhaps, but not always.

So I "solved" Armageddon and went right past Start without collecting a Millenium.










What emerges is another story, that speaks - and that I understand. I know there are other
stories and other worlds.

Beneath me, the Stars

Beneath me, the stars
a pattern scattered upon the waters,
a labyrinth etched behind closed eyelids

I stand,
awoken by the briefest touch,
distance broken,
a vessel that held everything,
in a moment,
shattered into tiny specks,
beneath my feet.

disappearance/reappearance - Gnosis Archive

The Gnosis Archive is online again.
First impression is that it will take a little reconstruction work.
It also gave me a moments pause - it actually means something
that both "our side of the story", that contemporary human beings
respond to, rediscover deep meaning,have a sense of affiliation
with a two thousand year old hushed down,slandered religious
,philosophical and metaphysical tradition - and find a praxis and a
reorientation in it - as well as the fact of these texts, the access
to them in the English language, would become lost.

The Gnosis Archive developed in tandem with my social interaction
and continued dialogue with people who have gone through the same
experiences,troubles and triumphs that I had gone through: In the
autumn of 1994 I met several subscribers of the Gnosis magazine
in a forum dedicated to on-topic/off-topic banter in the ambience
of the topical issues of that magazine; one of the first to present a
less sectarian, less biased, less doctrinaire investigation of the Western mystical traditions... from those discussions, from that exchange of material - an affluence accrued,grew - Thomas Leavitt put it on a site
on the server of his company, Web Communications. Eventually Right Revd.Lance Owens took over editing, announcements was made for the lectures Dr.Stephan Hoeller held at the Gnostic Society, about mid-1996 I was exasperated with the Societas Gnostica Norvegia webpages, I was trying, after all,to create,to make way for a physical space for communication and exchange - so I donated what was then a significant amount of material of transcribed material to the Gnostic Society Virtual Library, from that project/site.
In that way, countless hours spent musing over the wisdom of these tradtions travelled across Atlantic and into a legacy which was greater than anything I could have made on my own. I am very relieved that we are on the way of recovering it. Pax Pleromae

Um,No, that world is not an Illusion. No,sorry,nor is matter.

Know - Be - Do

The Embodiment of the Soul is a continual Sacrifice

I.

Whenever a Chalice is lifted,
and a Bread broken, in the memory of Christ
and according to the type of the Logos,

the chains of the authorities are broken,
the portals to Hades burst open, and all
the dead arisen and put in the presence of
Almighty God.

Whenever a Soul enter the world, Light and Life
enters with Her. Whenever a Soul departs from
this World, the Light and Life restores itself,
its semblances, its forms and all of its offspring,
who had fallen beforehand, to its own.

• We hear the words spoken in the Gospel of John, receiving these words
  in the respect and perspective that we as modern individuals can afford them.
  We hear spoken of, through these words, the Word, out of which the all arrives
  , take shape and enter into life all around us. Inspecting Space, afforded a new
  perspective through the uncommitted stance of our witness, we discovered that

  nowhere is the place where this Life and this Light is received in this universe.
  Although it is from the Word, Logos, that they have their existence and continuity,
  the All does not recognize its own root, its own foundation.
  Therefore it is us that hears these words, therefore it is to us that they are spoken.
  Inspecting Time, afforded a new perspective through the committed stance of our
  witness – we discovered that there are myriads of generations spoken to; we
  are bidden to acknowledge the great descent of messengers, prophets and sages
  throughout the entire expanse of the generations; each of whom may have spoken
  and each of which might have received the words spoken thusly. But it is to us
  that it is given a new foundation, a new root, and a new structure of consciousness
  through the anointed Logos, who came amongst us, entered into our birth, in
  its Life and its Light, and who enter our death – and thusly becomes, verily,
  as foreshadowed in our reception, our assimilation, our appropriation and our
  living the Light-Life of Christ, our Resurrection.

II.

O Soul, while you are in the midst of this life,
do not be hesitate to seek access to your
redemption - with which word I intend to
speak of The Resurrection.
The words spoken through the body of
generations address it as the Cross.
They raise their eyes up to the Cross,
and fixed to its crossbeam, its centre,
they see a light that endures all of history,
this they call Salvation.

Ask to what does all that lives in you goes,
Ask to what death all that dies through you go.
Ask what is returned to the Eternal, the Good,
Truth herself and Being, through you, O Soul.

- Concerning this Cross, it is where the dying of the world meets the resurrection to the real.
The sacredness of the treasures of the Holy of Holies is not that of a refined and super-essential
metal, but that of a light that descends upon it.
This light is essentially different from all light in the world outside of the Temple; It is
prefigured and accentuated through all the spaces of the Temple, in each of the Holies,
in the antechamber and in the courtyard in front of the Temple proper. Wherefore not a jot
nor a fragment of that which is made holy by its participation in light within the Temple might ever be desecrated,
decreased or destroyed; for each exists truly in its participation in the sacrosanct
light, while none of them exists outside of this light. The Temple itself is rubble, ruin and deprecit
- it's architectural, ritual and ceremonial beauty, its glory and its function of transfiguring the senses,
the mind and the bodies of whichever soul sees,approaches or touches – remains transcendent, unapproachable,
unsullied and intangible with anything worldly.
Wherefore, I speak of a specific Cross which elevates, rather than sinks into the ground,
whose verticality can only be compared to the verticality of super-essential,divine Light itself.
Which is to say, its descent is the decent into the proximity of The Soul; it goes nowhere else,
for nowhere else is established on account of receiving it.
Contrast against that image the horizontality of history; We learn at an increasing rate from the studies made of the past
that the Idea of the Sacred and Divine, of God, itself cannot be restored from History, rather that which exists of religious
ideas exists in tandem, but also independently, of the progression of events which make up recorded History,and which
bolster our "historical identification". Wherever there is a dissolving of the ties with the historical in human consciousness,
individual or in a more collective capacity,wherever the fixtures of Tradition itself is shaken to its very foundation -
what arise is not new news as such, but an acute, immediate yet pre-historical identification
with the Sacred as primary rather than secondary capacity in the experiential, creative and imaginative life of our civilizations.

The Soul persists longer than the idea of God.
There is always someone left who could cry out at the sight of the vacated,desecrated and destroyed sanctuary ; "Woe is unto us",
Always a widow, or a mother lamenting at the unmarked grave of some Prophet or friend of God. Always a generation that asks questions whose
answers have become a crime to give, always some mind which dreams the ancients alive again. This will not die.
It will, however, in the course of its living moment, be fixed to the world; lifted up on the crossbeam of existence and bidden to
contemplate its living and dying. This befalls the Soul. This also befalls its relationship with God. If this does not happen to its relationship
with God, with Divine Reality, it is no relationship at all. What it beheld when it was first spoken of, what it sees when it addresses it outwardly,
and what it goes to meet at the threshold of this life will be the selfsame abstraction, a spectre that is not quite dead because it was never quite alive.

That is not to say that The Soul does not go to dissolution with the contents it carries,but in a world
dominated by the Soul and fed as if by a fuel the tension in the Soul between incarnative and de-incarnative movement; descent and ascent,
materialization and spiritualization - the idea of God, the perception of a centre, the dissolution of local contextuality (in the immanent/incarnate "God"
theologies and theogonies) - fluctuates with the Soul's movement.

III.

Pain sits in the Soul,

the Soul rests in Life,

Life dwells in the Body.

- Wherefore you must look for the Son of Man in Man, through the eyes of spirit
rather than the eyes of flesh. This indwelling of Life in the Body
consists in the animation of dead tissue.The Body is on its own already a corpse at birth but through this extended existence it develops and express diverse forms, even beautifully –
despite its condition, rather than because of it.

The Soul's experience of the Body depends on the continual Sacrifice in the Mind and Senses of power and consciousness.

This progression through forms, which through the mind assumes kinds and varieties - is what Nature is.

Such a paradox, that Reason in order to be understood, takes upon itself the flesh, elevate it to a world,
situates the centre of consciousness within it; filling it up completely with Wisdom. Drunk from Reason, Drunk with Wisdom,
the Soul sees itself scattered, torn, spread out thin - into a world which does not receive it, which resists, which rejects, which blasphemes
against it; a world full of rulers that demand justice and tribute for a theft of power and light which never belonged to them, a power and
a light that does not belong among them. But it is there that the Soul discovers its mate, there She sees Reason, and does receive Him,
there She resist Him not, there She accepts Him fully and there where She sings thanksgiving and glorifying hymns unto Him.

Merry Descent and Incarnation of the Holy Logos

A Manichaean Hymn to Jesus

We stand all of one mind and we will reach out our hands in invocation, And rest our eyes upon thy form.
And our mouths we open invoke Thee, and our tongues prepare for praise.
Thee we invoke, who art the fullness of life. Thee we praise, Jesus the Brilliant! New Aeon! Thou art, Thou art the God who performs Truth, a noble Healer, the most beloved Son, the most loved Self.
Come with grace, liberated Lord! Come with aid, good Spirit, Apostle with Peace, Helper of the frail and Conqueror of Aggressors!
Come with grace, new Lord! Come with grace, Redeemer of the subjected! Healer of the wounded! Come with grace, Awakener of the Sleeping and Arouser of the Fatigued, Thou who Causeth the dead arise!
Come with grace, mighty God and hallowing Voice! Come with grace, true Word, great Luminary, and flooding Light! Come with grace, new Lord of the new Day!
Come with grace, Gift of the good, Blessing of the frail, Revered of the Holy!
Come with grace, Loving Father and Just Judge of those who have sought refuge with thee! Come with grace, Father, Thou wh art our stout protection and firm faith!
Now, Just dealer, peace be upon us! And have mercy upon us and love us, Benefactor who Himself art all Love. And reckon us not together with the rebels.
Save thouse who have sought refuge and have mercy upon us, O most Beloved and Loving!
We have beheld Thee, New Aeon, And we have fallen at thy fet, Thou who art all Love. Drunk with joy we have seen Thee, Loving Lord. And we avow Thy name, Messiah, sunder us from amid the deficient, and free us from amid the aggressors!
O Lord, we are thine own, have mercy upon us! Hasten hither and subdue the rebellion! For it has become insolent and have spoken thus: "We are the ones and there is none like us!". Therefore exercise Thy power, and cast the aggressors and enemies down. We praise Thy name, that is all Light, and Thy name, Father! Praise be to thy name, Father! And devotion to Thy Greatness! So be it, Now and Ever More!
AMEN.

Thus the psalm was sung to the revelation of Primal Man, the Christ,
Agathos Daimon, Nous, the Luminary which is Light, the God that
is Love. For the raising of the divine sparks, for the quickening of the
breath and pulse of the Living - eighteen hundred years ago, or so.
It does pretty much encompass all the mysteries, in the open and in
the depths, that I have found contained, also, in Jesus Christ.
A Merry Descent, Incarnation and glorious Revelation of our Saviour,
the Repairer, the Logos, Christ - to all.

Professor Gilles Quispel In Memoriam 30.05.1916-03.03.2006

On Friday the 3rd March, in El Gouna, Egypt , Exhausted from pneumonia contracted in a foreign, but beloved land
-the persona (mask) slipped, the body released back into the embrace to its mother, our earth - '
and the mind returned to its star. Professor Gilles Quispel left us behind.(Jim West's Petros Baptist Church Blog has an English translation of the Obituary published in the Dutch papers on Saturday)


I feel I have been fortunate to hear respecting and almost doting voices speak of Professor Quispel,
it bears thinking about today - since to my experience he was an animate presence behind
the words and sentences I read in a book, or an article. These fortunate associates and friends
of mine has heard his presentations, lectures and table talks, I have read a few lucid articles
and papers presented in topical anthologies..So I am, needless to say, perhaps not the most
qualified to speak of the recently liberated soul.


Having been born, the 30th of May, 1916.
He has throdden the selfsame soil and breathed this air for
an , from our perspective, admirable 89 years.
Professor Quispel discovered quite early in his youth that while
hard and honest labour were difficult to him, he was better equipped
for working with languages, concepts and interrelationships.
Steadily he ascended the often perilous staircase of academic study -
studying the ancient languages of the scriptures, the ancient middle
east, and theology.


While his accomplishments, within this brief space, is too numerous and exhaustive to mention in
detail - I feel, that - Without reservation, It should be stated that Gilles Quispel singlehandedly handed us the Coptic
Gnostic Library discovery from Nag Hammadi, with all its repercussions and consequences.
It was the Professor who purchased , on May the 10th, 1952, the Codex which due to its custodian and protector in the earliest phase of its discovery is called the Jung Codex - which contained 5 Gnostic scriptures, the
first of 53 which would later see the light of day. It also found a temporal home in Zürich,
which eventually lead to a bargain being struck between the Egyptian authorities and the
European scholars, they would get full access to the manuscripts over the expanse of time it
took to take photographs and other preparation necessary, only would they please hand the Jung
Codex back.. Initial work with the Nag Hammadi discovery, thus, were done in a kind of mischiveous,
"secret agent" atmosphere - in addition to the fact that the studies on the Jung Codex contributed to
an increasing academical interest in Gnosticism, Early Christianity and the Sayings tradition.


Four years later, in 1956, Quispel brought back from
Egypt photographs of the first page of the Gospel of Thomas in Coptic, and translated that quite readily.
Ladies and Gentlemen, the Professor set off the Thomas bomb on latter day Christianity.
To many thousands of contemporaries, the event of discovering that particular scripture and its
message had, and continues to have - a great dramatic impact on their spirituality, religiousity
and appreciation of religious history.
His perspective on the Logia contained in the Gospel of Thomas, his critics may say - is possibly
affected by his proximity to the find - he thinks the Gospel may be first century in origin
and that it was participant, on some stage¨, in the developement of the four canonical gospels.
He was also convinced that the early Gnostics were discerning about a, to us, very important
aspect of developement - namely liberation; from being slaves (both metaphorical and actual sense)
to becoming free men and women, Gnosis is a means for this liberation - Gnosis were, and is
participant in our developement towards a more observant,ethical and human civilization.
Thats the reverse of what theologian N.T. Wright thinks of it - he thinks that basically the Gnostics
couldn't be bothered with anything worldly and was sitting around doing nothing but obsessing about their own importance.. I think I can see evidence of this behaviour some place else, but nevermind about all that.
Gilles Quispel remained in the Dutch Reformed Church all his life, while engaging in this kind of work
with _enthusiasm_ and personal investment - it takes a certain kind of integrity,to do that.


Before I read the brief note of Gilles Quispel's death on Stephen C.Carlson's blog
Hypotypoesis, I was thinking it would
be useful, as an experiment or meditation - to consider what message the Gospel of Thomas had
to the specific area of time when it was unearthed and subsequently published (it was published
only in a matter of a few years afte the discovery, later interesting archeological finds of this
nature remains obscure to the rest of the world for decades!); what does the Gospel of Thomas
say to people, in say, 1952 - also, is there a specific difference between now and then, and
almost two thousand years... after which I thought the best possible input, perhaps, for that
would be to ask Professor Quispel for his personal experience, which to me would mean to return
again to his books.


I am a regretful writer of anyone's recent obituary.
I would, childishly, wish minds and hearts and hands to be
active, fervently, in whatever increases the good and decrease
the bad, never idle.. all round, no matter my own prejudices and
other flaws in vision.. I feel I do owe ..words.. and thanks to
Gilles Quispel, for inspiring me during a period of my life that
was quite despairing.


Wikipedia entry on Gilles Quispel in Dutch

Apocrypha is good for you

Last Friday I began listening to Stephan Hoeller's free lecture entitled The Secret Teachings of Yeshu, available from BC Recordings.

The blurb for it reads "Shortly before the year 2000 a document surfaced from out of China containing 72 alleged sayings of Jesus which show Gnostic influences. This document, translated from the original Greek was entrusted to Dr. Hoeller by his book publisher for evaluation for possible publication. Genuine or not, this beautiful material has by its Gnostic merits an authenticity of its own."



It's an presentation of a hitherto unknown apocryphal gospel translated from Greek. It were handed an
undisclosed Professor by two Chinese colleagues who wanted his assistance in
translating the entire manuscript into English.

Briefly stated this scripture is an edited anthology of Logia ascribed to Jesus, much alike what is imagined to be the contents of the elusive Gospel Q(for Quelle, "Source" in German), the Gospel of Thomas unearthed first with the Oxyrhynchus papyri cache in the mid 19th century and later completed in its presently known form by the find of the Nag Hammadi Library. The sayings of Yeshu (Yeshu, a Chinese variation upon the latin Jesus), in Greek and translated by a person well acquianted with the genre, contained in this unknown find - shares several characteristics with those found in the Gospel of Thomas - especially the existencial and psychological tangents: the world is drunk, human beings are addicted to the world, human beings do not possess their full faculties of perception _therefore they are unable to discern what has happened_ (i.e. the entry of Christ into the world and the coming of the Kingdom); religious men and women are conditioned to follow commandments and rules as a safeguard against minor evils and affirmation of worth - both commodities traded for their spiritual integrity being but a puff of stale air since they have no substance, either in this world nor the next. In short, the disciples showing off their ,to the Gnostics, famous ignorance (prior to their coming around to their senses) - mimic the compact ignorance and arrogance of the "Pharisees" and Scribes, while Jesus warns them against their potentionally fatal superficiality.
This may be hard to stomach, and when I heard James complaining about the presence of "effeminate men" and his worry about the contagion of their ritual impurity - being answered with a warning about judgement and neglect to seek purity and recti tude on account of own necessity rather than that of society - just a breather away from Hoeller's comment that he thought the topicality were too up-to-date to our own time and our modern concern about understanding, tolerating and adapting to the multitude of ways in which each individual is human in all of this world...it added to my expectation that the scripture in question will remain without affirmation, either to its being a forgery or authentic, until the end of time, basically.


Be that as it may be.
I contend that as far as perspective goes - Apocrypha is Good for You.

Some Gnostic bloggers (+related) added

I have neglected updating the blogroll somewhat... the rediscovery of Lesa's great research at The Magdalene Review were a great thrill.


Another old blogging acquiantance of mine, Dan, has performed a successful resurrection (reformulation) of
his Taognostic weblog.

Rev.B has a blog out there, where he recently mused about the "recent explosion of Gnosis in the world"...I am also grateful there is such a profound increase of testimonies, discussions and sharing among Gnosis oriented people here on the Internet, I saw it coming already in 1994 when I logged on and discovered a great many people I never expected to find there, and a great deal of really lucid information on the subject. Welcome aboard, Voodoobilly.. :-)

The Gnostic Agnostic.. is a rather quiant concept, from my vantage point its a surface paradox, like the injunction to "keep two thoughts in our mind at the same time"... the blog, however, is really well written and thoughtprovoking.

Another really good read I feel I should mention in the same breath is The Funeral of the Real

Pauline Kilear's blog Dodging Invisible Rays is also worth a read.


Not alone as a Gnostic Blogger in Europe, in Scotland there's a blogger who goes by the nickname of A Glasgow Gnostic..

John Dart on the Gospel of Judas discovery

Many of us are familiar with the work of Professor John Dart with regards to Gnosticism and Early Christianity (for instance the books Jesus of Heresy, and The Laughing Saviour), but some of us were not aware that he is the editor of the conservative journal Christian Century. In a recent issue of the online version of Christian Century he muses over the news about the awaited publication of the much myth-spun Gospel of Judas (Iscariot) early this year.


In the article, John Dart reports that:

"in 2004, Rodolphe Kasser of the University of Geneva announced in Paris that by the end of 2005 he would be publishing translations of the Coptic-language version of the Gospel of Judas. As it turned out, the owner was a Swiss foundation, and the torn and tattered papyrus text had been hawked to potential buyers in North America and Europe for decades after it was found at Muhazafat Al Minya in Middle Egypt.


The "Judas" saga was confirmed in detail last month at the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature in Philadelphia. Retired Claremont Graduate University professor James Robinson, general editor of the English edition of the Nag Hammadi Library, said he was first contacted in 1983 about negotiations to buy certain texts, including the Gospel of Judas. Many years later, he saw blurry photographs of part of the text.


Robinson said that early in November he learned that Kasser and several European, Canadian and U.S. scholars had signed agreements with the National Geographic Society to assist with a documentary film and a National Geographic article for an Easter 2006 release and a succession of three books."


That does sound promising.


However, with every right, Professor James Robinson, who has had a prominent role in the publication of the Nag Hammadi Library (and with him John Dart) object to the continued secrecy surrounding the nature of the find. National Geographic has evidently bought the publishing rights, and plans to make a documentary, article and several books out of it. No doubt made even more timely (and profitable) with the release of the Hollywood production of the Sony Pictures Movie based on Dan Brown's bestseller pulp fiction novel The Da Vinci Code in the new year. It might just be me, but I have a feeling that this time around, aside from political (the Palestinian and Egyptian crises in the Post-WWII era) - crass commercialism and marketability has caused serious problems for the Academic community (I recently read a rather well-written thriller which unfortunately was released anew with the blurb "The Norwegian DaVinci Code", Sirkelens Ende, by Norwegian genre writer Tom Egeland - which intuitively brushed the possibility with regards to future finds of "Early Christianity" interest).. but there is other things to consider also. According to our friend the Dutch antiquities dealer, Michael Van Rijns, the Gospel of Judas and the Coptic papyri Codex it was contained in, where held "hostage" by the "International" organization The Macaeanas Foundation, wherein also rather dodgy Middle Eastern black market tricksters and profiteers were involved, wherein the publishing rights were asked consisted of millions of dollars and maximum discretion clauses, unacceptable (until now?) for the Academic community to even consider. How long the Codex in question has been in circulation,what condition it is in and what it contains remains a guarded secret, while its existence is broadcasted all over the place, even by yours truly. It merits some consideration that Old Media has a tendency of making an Amazonan rainforest out of a single leaf, while the new Media, Internet has the potentional of making the story even bigger. In view of that, John Dart's lucid commentary has merit, no matter which side of orthodox definitions of Christianity we belong to.


He pitches in:

"Hardly anything is known about the document's contents "other than a few personages" it names, said Robinson, identifying them as the mythological figure Allogenes (literally, "the stranger") known from some Nag Hammadi texts, and Satan, Jesus and Judas."


That is true, for sure. I have seen the handwritten notes and temporal attempts at translation, wherein Samael and Allogenes is mentioned and which clearly broadcasts a possible affinity with the Sethian Gnostic sects of upper Egypt which is the major contributor to the Gnostic texts we know from the Nag Hammadi find, rather than the Churchfather Ireneaus of Lyons identification of the Cainities as the possessors and possible fabricators of a Gospel of Judas Iscariot. It is sobering to consider that quite a few theologians argued that Ireneaus must have meant the Gospel of Judas (Thomas), and quite a few rather stubborn and religiohistorically completely ignorant conservative theologians still hold to that theory...but I have mentioned that business before, and the translated fraqments is available for our reading pleasure and stilling our curiosity for now, on www.tertullian.org

Blogroll update

Finally Gnostics blogging is a deserved category for my blogroll. I am very happy to see Reverend Father Troy Pierce, of Ecclesia Gnostica in Salt Lake City onboard. with his blog The Path of Gnosis From what I have read so far,it looks very promising. I just love to get a handle on more perspectives and approaches, especially within my "own" Church tradition, and there are quite a variety of those. I was fortunate to meet Reverend Father Lance Owens of Ecclesia Gnostica SLC when Bishop Stephan Hoeller visited us and ordained me a Deacon, I felt it was quite a privilege. I heard many good things about Troy, who at that time was a Deacon like me. I am also very excited about the Gnostic Calendar that he has worked on and finally published, me and Reverend Father Jan Valentin Saether has been discussing the possibility of making something like it for years, but as with a lot of other things it never went past planning stage. There are some sobering posts about the issue of freedom and liberation, from a Gnostic perspective, in lieu of Epiphany, on his weblog right now, so if I was you I would go and take a look.

Added to the Blogroll is also Marsha's blog Emerald City Gnosis.She is a member of the Seattle, Washington parish of Ecclesia Gnostica, ministered to by Reverend Father Sam Osborne . I just discovered she has a secondary blog, Rain City Gnosis, so im going to check it out later.


Also, check out Coe''s Gnostic related blog Enormous Fictions, added a bit late to my Blogroll.


Lastly, I think I should mention Jeremy's brainchild The Palm Tree Garden online Gnostic community. In some sense I have been member of different "online" communities with a Gnostic theme since I began using the Internet in 1994. One of the most interesting ones where an experiment that Lee Irwin organized, the "bark" Hermetica, where every participant attempted to get personal and creative about spiritual and philosophical matters that mattered to them. I see some semblance to that in the forum for the Palm Tree Garden now, and I hope I will find time to participate in the discussions and other activities myself.

Discovery of Coptic manuscripts at Al-Gurna,Egypt

Al-Ahram Online featured in February a brief report on the newly discovered Coptic codexes by a Polish archeological expedition from the Polish Centre for Mediterranean Archaeology.
Leader of the expedition,professor Tomaz Gorecki, said they had found a trove of three ancient codexes in Coptic buried under the remains of a sixth-century monastery located in front of a Middle Kingdom tomb. The Egyptian journalist concluding the article enthusiastically reported that it might parallel or even excel the importance of the Nag Hammadi find, additionally everyone appears to expect that the find will unravel some more information about the practices of the early Christians in Egypt, and that the documents originate from the Gnostics. As both contemporary and later patristic treatment of the Alexandrian school of Christians indicate, there were quite a variation among them. With the Bruce Codex, Berlin Codex , Oxyrhynchus fragments and Nag Hammadi library, certainly, a presedence for "underground", hidden, secret Christians being Gnostic in orientation seems to be laid. If, however, the Coptic writings recently discovered, do indeed originate from the Seventh century we have an additional advantage; we might get to learn about the type of Christian practices which existed at the time of Mohammed's arrival in Egypt, the practices of Christians during the Fatimid dynasty - from their own hand.

However, the description of some page fragments having centered geometrical designs, and the use of the Cross as a matrix for text - reminds me of the Coptic Gnostic scripture The Books of Ieou.I will try to dig up more about this find, and perhaps, the other one which has been dubbed "Dead Sea Scrolls 2".


It's also interesting to see such news of major archeological finds of this period of time (70BC-400CE) come so close to eachother. This was the case with the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Coptic Gnostic library at Nag Hammadi.

Christ as Anti-Zeitgeist; Transfiguration and Baptism

The Christ which receives the baptized is necessarely different than the Christ exterior to the mystery of baptism.
He entered the tomb with them, entered death on their behalf and resurrected with them - to a new life he delivered them, to which is added the Hope of Glory, rid of the transgressions of this age.

In this context it is only proper to reveal the relationship between the eternal and the timebound -

Christ is Anti-Zeitgeist, Zeitgeist is Anti-Christ.

The process towards regeneration, amplified so loud that it was declared a heresy and an atrocity to the traditional churches - by the Theosophers - is a necessary measure, once the bond with the past life is broken. Christ is not understood "in this age", whatever page in the book of history you inspect - the reality beneath Christ, interior to Christ - is misrepresented. It begins with an exteriorising response to that which is interior and irreconcilable with the appearances and constructs of society. We have an example of this reaction, even in the Synoptic account of the life of Jesus: Being witness to the Transfiguration himself, present in the flesh at Mount Tabor, the Apostle Peter was completely unprepared for this critical event. Tradition should have prepared him, one might argue. Apparently quite a few theologians are so frustrated by the conundrum that they never quite face the implications of this account of the Transfiguration:


The Gospel of Mark , Chapter 9,2

New English Translation

9:2Six days later Jesus took with him Peter, James, and John and led them alone up a high mountain privately. And he was transfigured before them,6 9:3 and his clothes became radiantly white, more so than any launderer in the world could bleach them. Then Elijah appeared before them along with Moses, and they were talking with Jesus. 9:5 So Peter said to Jesus,“Rabbi, it is good for us to be here. Let us make three shelters—one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” 9:6 (For they were afraid, and he did not know what to say.) 9:7 Then a cloud overshadowed them, and a voice came from the cloud, “This is my one dear Son. Listen to him!”
9:8 Suddenly when they looked around, they saw no one with them any more except Jesus.
9:9 As they were coming down from the mountain, he gave them orders not to tell anyone what they had seen until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead. 9:10 They kept this statement to themselves, discussing what this rising from the dead meant.

Peter does not give proper heed to what has just happened to him and his fellow disciples, his immediate response to the transfigurative mystery is quite simply to attempt to assimilate it to an exterior situation; clearly Jesus followed in natural progression from the first introduction of an organized kingdom to the last greater prophetic figure, finally to Jesus - in this hierarchical order.
But this is not the nature of the vision which the disciples received.The vision immediately provokes a response from their unconscious mind when faced with unformed and unrecognized, unworldly illumination; it is salvaged from becoming the object of a premature cult, an imitation of the Covenant of Moses at Mount Hermon, which the voyage up the high mountain put them in mind of, by the inexplicable voice from the clouds "This is my Son. Listen to Him!".
This puts the event in a new potency, for if this testimony is true, in effect - real, and relevant - the object of their attention is no longer a participant in the History of Man, but rather a participant in the Eternal unfolding of God; later the disciples saw how relevant it were - through the Gnostic and Apocryphal accounts we now have access to the tradition of intimate conversations and individual visionary encounters with Christ after the crucifixion and before the resurrection, and even later - after the ascension, through the medium of the Holy Spirit, points towards this potency, but only as Mysterium; the Tradition itself is explicit with regards to this; it is necessary that this new Communion between Man and the Divine shifts focus from the fragile, yet magnificent architechture of outward temples and elaborate ritual cults - to a truely new order, far removed from the old order; from which each single new communicant needs to, quite simply, die.
Peter stumbled, At the moment prior to this Divine announciation, the second in the Chronology of the Gospel - for beforehand the witnesses of the Baptism at Jordan, and the Epiphany which occured there, had already been exposed to it; and before the sealing of this Mysterium with Jesus insisting nothing be spoken of it, before he has risen from the grave - that is; nullified the boundaries and attraction of the world and its time and orderl, this Aeon - and in and through it; the annihiliation of death itself.

What kept Peter asleep, even when the veil of this world is torn aside so as to enable the disciples to see with their own eyes the nature of Christ's presence and ministry - is the traditions of the forefathers. Jesus speaks to it, while attending to his disciple who is buried somewhere deep beneath all of it; predictably this affluence of traditional hogwash does not make sense to him either, but apparently it is all he has. Peter earlier receives Christ formally as the Messiah, but only responds after the Resurrection.

The individual response, which is caused by an interior Vision which penetrates all layers of the human personality - is necessary on account of the nature of the Christ. It was the means through which every single convert became a Christian in the Primitive Church. When the Church ceased to be "Primitive", that is to say - oriented from a pre-historical and archaic non-entity; a timelessness in history, a homelessness in the world, it could only fall back on the prior generations, whose numbing and intoxicating poison Jesus repeatedly warned his disciples against.


One interesting issue we approach when we leave behind the orthodoxy proclaimed and embrace the heterodoxy implicit - in the Christian Tradition which necessarely embrace both, is the question of Baptism. I feel I tell no one of my readers anything new, nor am I likely to shock them - if I insist that the baptism of infants can only indirectly affect the recipient party, and only through the mediation of his or her parents and sponsors.This the risk every generation of clergy within the Sacramental Churches have been willing to take; that conscientously the parents in question is fit to, later in life, administer in bite-size particles, the meaning of the sacrament, received while unconscious, to the baptized child. Moreover the aforementioned death will only occur naturally and in reverse order to the intended (this is Explicit in the Gospel) manner of administration - which is a conversion in the heart, an abandonment of former attachments and a circumcision of the heart, that is Metanoia; which comes from a life lived, from wisdom gained and individual, intimate conversation with the Spirit interior to every human being - followed by the conscious immersion into a death to the world and a resurrection to the Kingdom. The Valentinians intuited already in the second century of the common era that something was afoot in the popular Roman Church; the outer communion: apparently their contemporaries had come to the belief that their responsibility were minimal and that they these days could abandon their spiritual duties to the priesthood, and a hope in a resurrection after the fact of death. To wit, they thought that the intended and administered, Apostolic, sacrament of Baptism, fumbled up with the ablution and anointment of infants on account of the superstition that there existed a Sectarian God who would cast the stillborn,and every unbaptized child into Hell for the "disobedience" of its parents - would be automatically insured by this formality, at death. The Valentinians thought someone was lost and became vocal on this matter; but only within their communion - several Valentinian authors, among them the compiler of the Gospel of Philip, addressed this.It appears very likely that the Valentinian Gnostics, as well as a good part of Primitive Church (heterodox as it was) - subscribed to the understanding that each individual human soul pre-existed prior to Incarnation. Incarnation, insofar as its many powerful attractions causes the Soul to forget her origin (see the Exegesis of the Soul for a meditation on this), was itself the great obstacle; the immobilizing Tomb - from which a quickening of memory, an Anamnesis, enables one to rise up from; to resurrect from this forgetting. Birth into the world thus becomes an entry into exile, insofar there is no discernment between one's true self and the representations in the world. Which is the beginning of one's voluntary journey, into discerning exile - into pilgrimage towards the Mount of Vision; whose exact location remains fixed, not in Geography but in Biography, and the Hierosgamos of Spirit with Life, Light with Man, Truth with Wisdom, Logos with Sophia.

The visible, interpersonal experience of Baptism is still central to this our humble communion; but it must be discerned that it is neither subject to the fashions and trends of the contemporary; nor to the rigid dictates of tradition and ancient norm - It is a rehearsal and a recitation of the Redemptive Mystery in the Space between Initiator and Initiate; which is the selfsame pattern which exists above and which is exercised bodily and mentally here.


In the ancient Ekklesia a new orientation; a new childhood, even symbolized by the feeding of the baptized with milk after the incubation (which lasted a whole night)- A knowledge interior to the baptized were confirmed among others who had similarily received and confirmed it. For each additional event, each individual and integral testimony to the same - the Communion of these Equals iun the mysteries were renewed and refreshed.The Ekklesia saw the miraculous birth of many, it saw the face of humanity renewed as something pristine,regenerated and radically different than "the generations" before. Men of Spirit walked among them, and like Philip the Evangelist administered, unconditionally, to persons outside the conjectured confines of the "tradition"; be it Jewish-Christian or Gentile; such as the Ethiophian servant and indeed, Simon Magus.

I have asserted earlier that the Disciples were that type of witnesses to the mystery which had occasion to be the first to receive him, consequently they will be the last to rest in this labour, obliged by the selfsame reception, until the Magnum Opus is completed and perfect in and through Man. Consequently - the truely Apostolic would be those with the least occasion to celebrate either their own personal fame and glory or that of their predecessors- only looking to the Harvest, wherein the true glory, in a future time, lay. All that is in the present is service and the care,love and passion which thrives in the work itself.
To the extent it has been opportune to speak of it in the past, such as has been endeavoured in the Gospels testimony - it is equally true of the Disciples; this is the condition of their inheritance: fragile as is every single thing of soul and intellect - in the grasp, still, of the world. But renewed in a secret capacity towards a love which does not discriminate between human beings out of concern for own gain and propriety towards dead precepts.

Therefore with the incomprehensible, unappraisable quality in the One towards whom every inquiry goes, should they approach it, they need to see it themselves; their self is the medium which, like a mirror or the surface of the waters - it has chosen to be revealed in and by revelation, to increase, in and through.

Today no cipher, no code, no cryptogram is necessary:
language itself as a medium keeps the Sacred intact, on account of it being of so little assistance, and on account of the necessity of every single inquiry towards the true and real to be so focused as to be languageless,voiceless and perfectly in Silence, as the Hermetic saying goes:"Gnosis is Holy Silence and rest to every inquiry".
What language assists is a growing consciousness of exactly the places, in our minds and in our conversation, the Sacred and the Profane is distinguished from eachother and each made plain and distinct from the other. We take language into Liturgy, breaking the Word, the Reason, the Name, the Because - the timebound and causual counterparts, lost in the swirl of galaxies and atoms as much as any human meat apart, so that it may have resurrection in Truth; that action is the beginning of Wisdom.

Today, we may speak of Church, yet it does demand of us a spiritual vocabulary, a spiritual aesthetic, a spiritual discernment - since outside of it, it carries only similes which is just as little effective as "three sanctuaries", one to Moses, one to Elijah and finally one to Jesus, suggested by the Apostle Peter.

The Place of our Cross is not within the Synagogue of our inherited, natural humanity. The world belongs to the world, to the extent that we are indeed exiles, so long as we insist to belong to ourselves, to God and to the Spiritual realm. The Baptism is the place of our Cross, not only is it received only once, but once received it continues to expand and intensify, to the extent we can say; it continues to be received and is not subject to conclusion.

Excerpt from A Vesper to Barbelo

I begun working on a Vesper some years ago, devoted to Barbelo, this is an excerpt from it on occasion of the pause between the Assumptio Sophiae (on August 15th) and the Descent of Sophia.

I wrote it with the Feast of the Annunciation (March 25) in mind, which also happens to be the birthday of my mother (sic!). In a dream my mother told me that I had to be patient and look towards the transformation of "God" through Sophia (Wisdom), which would be simultaneously my own redemption (in terms of the Agon going on in my heart concerning outward and interior religion) and the redemption also, of "him". She told me this, in the dream, with an ambience of a rather rash bid on my own part (in the dream) to win her symphathy for my rejection of the God of the Old Testament, as she belongs to a denomination which belongs to a type of "Protestant Orthodoxy". It is fair to say that whatever we may argue, the Imago Dei is constantly changing. Also, that such change is more dependent on a constant searching of the human heart; a patient observance of how that particular instrument responds to those sublime mysteries we know as
Divine,Suprasensual,True and Godly - than the mechanisms of outward society. Metanoia - as much as regeneration, resurrection and rebirth - occurs first in the interior of individual seekers and only then, through a most mysterious and incalculable process - find a way to affect also the outside world.

Unconsciously, my attempt to wed the traditional Feast of Annunciation, wherein God the Father, through the mediation of the Arhcangel Gabriel forewarns his servant, Mary, that she will be instrumental in the incarnation of God the Son - with the mystery of the Barbelo; approaches this in every turn and byway, where my words unifies with that of liturgy, whether heterodox, such as the one found in the Gospel of the Egyptians, a Sethian Gnostic text unearthed at Nag Hammadi, Egypt in August 1945, a brief week after the horror of Nagasaki, approximately _on_ August the 15th - I found it addressed this mystery; which is not untimely nor impious, for the traditions of the fathers say that God becomes Man so that Man may be glorified and godly; so that they may see Him, rather than hear about him in rumours and rusty reminisciences of the generations.

Celebrant voice:

Holy, Holy, Holy art Thou – before the becoming of the Aeons.
Holy art Thou, Mother of all the Aeons and the Four Lights – Barbelo!
Holy art Thou, the Virgin of Eternity, who shine in beauty and resounds
in Song, in this your Mystery which is interior to all beings!



Holy art Thou, Barbelo
Holy art Thou, Doxomedon, in eternities eternity
Holy art Thou, Protennoia, in eternities eternity
Holy art Thou, Kalyptos, in eternities eternity
Holy art Thou, Sophia, Our Mother, in all eternity, throughout all Aeons!



All:

Blessed be the Virgin who hovers above the Tabernacle of our souls!



Celebrant voice:
May we know Thee truely and safely through Thine Mysteries, so as to receive
superessential sustenance and grow in strenght and beauty; we are born conceived
in the Gnosis of thy most interior chamber; and we have ascended , by Thy Grace,
high above the foundation of the All.



Therefore, as we are Thine – receive the prayer of our heart: We praise Thee, in our great need and in the confoundment of the world.



We have assembled here in commemoration of the Logos, our Word and our Hope of Glory, who deigned to descend below the Limit, on our behalf.

We have attended to the selfsame Call in our inner Man; the Announciation of the Incarnation of the Most Holy Logos into our sleep of the flesh, of ignorance and spiritual atrophy. Our Adam – Forefather to the three people who wander the earth
without respite, and who has as only succour and rest the Heavenly Regions – Let
Him have ressurrection in and through Us.

Hearers voice:
Hear Us in our great need and our plight; Have compassion on Us and assist our
purification and completion; May the Seed that Thou hast sown into our earth
be glorified in Perfect Fruit, in which we have our glory and honour, in which
Thou has Thine glory in Us!



All: Amen

My model of Church: Mystical Communion

I thought that they would throw something nastier at me:

You scored as Mystical Communion Model. Your model of the church is Mystical Communion, which includes both People of God and Body of Christ. The church is essentially people in union with Christ and the Father through the Holy Spirit. Both lay people and clergy are drawn together in a family of faith. This model can exalt the church beyond what is appropriate, but can be supplemented with other models. Herald Model 61% Mystical Communion Model 61% Sacrament model 56% Servant Model 28% Institutional Model 22% What is your model of the church? [Dulles] created with QuizFarm.com

Father Justin's other Journal

I just stumbled upon Father Justin Courtier's LiveJournal Heimskringla:The Saga of a Erstwhile Hierophant, It's a recommended read I think I should say,and updated frequently as well.

The Fravartis added in own section

If you haven't catched my series on the Fravartis in Mazdean Gnosis and its relation to the Gnostics' Path, I have now added a sub-category for the series.
The substance matter for the series is the erudite meditation on the theme which goes throughout most of Henry Corbin's Spiritual Body, Celestial Earth. The latter of course a heartfully recommended work on the continuity of Gnostic themes from pre-historic Zoroaster, through Suhravardi's Oriental Theosophy of Light to more recent developements of Ismailism. I have considered beginning a series of meditations on the theme of the Imago Templi as found in Imago Templi in Confrontation with the Profane, found in the excellent "final" anthology of Henry Corbin's last papers Temple and Contemplation, but will probably settle for a review of the theme of Inner Man,the Man of Light in Gnostic, Christian Esoteric and Sufi perspective - with Henry Corbin's Man of Light in Iranian Sufism as one of the primary sources.

The Heavenly Twin in Mandaean Gnosis

pp.33, Henry Corbin:The Man of Light in Iranian Sufism.

"In Mandaean gnosis, every being in the physical universe has its counterpart in the heavenly Earth of Mshunia Kushta, inhabitated by the descendent of a mystical Adam and Eve (Adam Kasia, Eva Kasia). Every being has his archetypical Figure (mabda) there, and the latter communicates with its earthly counterpart. After the exitus at death, the earthly person abandons his body and takes on the subtle body of his heavenly alter ego, while the latter, rising to a higher plane, assumes a body of pure light. When the human soul has completed its cycle of purifications and when the realm of Abathur Muzunia bear witness to its perfect purity, it enters the world of light and is reunited with its eternal partner.

"I go towards my likeness/ And my likeness goes toward me/He embraces me and holds me close/ As if I had come out of Prison".

Sophia as Palingenesis - Nasiruddin Tusi

Nasiruddin Tusi speaking of what becomes of the faithful adept after he has ascended above the Limit:

"His thought becomes an Angel proceeding from the archetypal world,

his speech becomes a spirit proceeding from this Angel,

his action becomes a body proceeding from this spirit."

The Gnostics discovered a new axis, a new pole of orientation - embedded, against all reasoning, in the substantiality of manifest being. This new centre of being is the central mystery of existence. Approached by human beings, it becomes a human being - but it is wholly Divine and not delimited to human form. Some call her the Anima Mundi, others the Hochma, others again Shekinah - the Gnostics called her Sophia and said of Her;"She is the mother of all the Angels".

We too, look towards the Assumptio Sophiae, the ascent of Sophia into Her own. We do so, because we participate in Her life, as surely as She participates in ours.

Welcome back, Ouroboros

Our unknown friend Ouroboros has got his blog back onto the blogsphere, welcome back. I look forward to following the discussions and postings in the future.

Bogomilism resources

On my rambling trip on the Internet I discovered this pearl of a resource anthology for Bogomilism:

The controversy over the ancient dualist heresy remains with us.
Recently, a thread among otherwise rational Political Analysts has been to label George W.Bush's ideological platform Manichaean; an incredible insult to the thoroughly pacifist and harmless Manichaeans - but also an misnomer, since the Manichaean dualism, religious dualism - that is, is not Cartesian Mind-Body dualism, but a spiritual dualism; which presupposes a genesis out of two original sources; these two sources, in the ontological view of the religions we speak of - cannot possibly be Spirit and Matter, but rather two Spiritual powers (even more controversial to post-Augustinian Orthodoxy) which, on the "horizontal" plane of existence - necessarely are equally represented and equally vital to the reality as perceived by the religionists themselves; as such one is only measured against the other by the medium of Man (the observer), and as Man is neither Good or Evil at default (another controversy), because he is born into unconsciousness.
The Manichaeans and other Dualists have really been sold cheap, even by wellmeaning scholars and rather tendencial "supporters" after Voltaire and onwards.. but not as bad as the Bogomil Church.
They got everything hurled against them, every scathing remark, every sarcasm, every evil-minded rumour..and of course, nobody understood them.

Welcome to the Blogroll,Scott

Scott Rassbach from Wisconsin has created a new blog named The Eight Sermon to the Dead. A nice alliteration, since gnostically speaking Eight might actually be even more potent a number than the traditionally accepted sacred number seven. Scott is involved with the Apostolic Johannite Church, which is presided over by Primate Shaun McGann, and of which my old internet sparring partner Jordan Stratford is an ordained priest.

We've got no way of knowing what goes on in eachothers communions, unless, of course - we keep eachother informed. The Gnostic Blogosphere is excellent for that type of "silent communication", especially regarding Eccleasiastical Gnosticism, a term I am vary of - not only because of the traditional connotations to the exterior organizational structures with which most readers of this blog is probably quite familiar with; practically, the degree of involvement and investment is of a somewhat different color in a modern day Gnostic "revivalist" setting, but also because of the unsettled status of the modern term Gnosticism.

Some new blogs/journals added

I have just added Mike's Archelaus and Sir Gnosis' Daily Pursuit of Gnosis Livejournals to the blogroll, as well as the Gnostic Study forum over at LJ. It looks like younger bloggers use the LJ community. I thought I should keep oriented, and perhaps get refreshingly inspired by some of the discussions over there.

Centennial for the death of Maistre Philippe

Just as my ordination to the Diakonate coincided with the commemoration of the death of Maistre Philippe,Nizier Anthelme Phillipe, 2 August 1905, I thought I should share a quote from his ouevre which Phillip Garver contributed to the Eglise Gnostique list earlier:

"(Man) must descend and become nothing, and when he is nothing, he will be everything, and will obtain all Knowledge."

This directs our attention towards the necessity of emptying which is central to all the disciplines of the Christian Gnosis, and which is sadly neglected in our day and age.

The Theosophers from Jacob Boehme and onwards, spoke much of the Heart, and much is made out of that which they said of the Heart, but almost everything that is made out of what they spoke about the Heart concentrates on a property of emotional attachments, while the Heart is envisioned, by our visionaries - as a fixed point around which all subject to change, Natura herself, revolves, as if in a dervish dance. Another name for the same is Signature, it is attached to a matrix, an original contextuality, which is none other than the Divine Consciousness, from which the Psyche emerges and draws its essence, and to which it hopes to return, and whose life, if we allow it, is a continual response to.

We are brought up to fear the nothing, whether envisioned as death or as loss - we are conditioned to avoid, to plan and create strategies, to avoid overmuch intimacy with that nothing, and therefore much theology, even much philosophy and metaphysics (albeit recent in type) revolves around increasing and expanding the metaphysical All.


Jesus, in the Secret Book of James, says " "Verily I say unto you, no one will ever enter the kingdom of heaven at my bidding, but (only) because you yourselves are full." Whereupon he calls forward James and Peter, insisting that he would "fill them". He says to these two disciples, " Do you not, then, desire to be filled? And your heart is drunken; do you not, then, desire to be sober? Therefore, be ashamed! Henceforth, waking or sleeping, remember that you have seen the Son of Man, and spoken with him in person, and listened to him in person.... 'Become full, and leave no space within you empty, for he who is coming can mock you."

To which Peter protests, "Three times you have told us, 'Become full'; but we are full."

To which Jesus replies, sternly:"For this cause I have said to you, 'Become full,' that you may not be in want. They who are in want, however, will not be saved. For it is good to be full, and bad to be in want. Hence, just as it is good that you be in want and, conversely, bad that you be full, so he who is full is in want, and he who is in want does not become full as he who is in want becomes full, and he who has been filled, in turn attains due perfection. Therefore, you must be in want while it is possible to fill you, and be full while it is possible for you to be in want, so that you may be able to fill yourselves the more. Hence, Become full of the Spirit, but be in want of reason, for reason the soul; in turn, it is (of the nature of) soul."


Those who thirsted imagined themselves to be sated, those who were most wounded, imagined themselves healthy. Arrogantly they refused the physicians cure, on account of reckoning him to be an inferior fellow, despite their deficiencies and unsatisifed needs.The relationship between Jesus and the scribes once he had arrived in Jerusalem is famous, it was not on good tone - since they would not only resist help, but deny others who wanted it to receive it. If they heard a truth coming from lips they did not revere themselves, they would rather lie and make it something unheard, than allow others to weigh it and judge it for themselves. Such was also the situation between Maitre Philippe and his contemporary world, so it was with the Gnostics before him, and such is the situation for us.
But ours is not a contest and argument against those who would prefer not to hear us, those who refuse to receive us and those who would even persecute us - but a continued ordeal against our own still imperfect relationship with these gifts and these virtues, and the Gnosis which embraces them and make them, in and through us, whole.


Praise be unto the Unknown Father, who has not been mocked, who has not been rejected and who has not been a stumblingblock to His people - Praise be unto the Eternally Mercyful, whose wrath transforms into a purifying fire which settles like any storm, and leave the seed planted in good earth to grow into full bloom, as a tree covering the whole world with its branches. Praise be the Mystery which cannot be fabricated. The Truth whose price is itself. Greater still than the Universe, only the ear would hear it and the eyes distinguish its features - for giving us such guiding lights and allowing this brilliance to shine to the generations after, as a signpost towards that place where only Thou Art. Amen

The Imago Templi in Confrontation

In his philosophical exegesis Answer to Job, Carl Gustav Jung introduced the idea of a progressive transformation of the Imago Dei as a result of changes in the consciousness, the recipient and participant agent in man, throughout time. He attempted not to relativize the Sublime in view of cultural influx and trends, but to address.

I think I should explain where I was going with that lenghty excerpt from Henry Corbin's excellent survey on the Imago Templi in Confrontation with the Profane. It has less to do with any fascination with Jacques de Molay and the recurrence of a full-fledged moral or initiatic Templar knighthood - and
more to do with our effort to somehow approach the Gnosis, and if we have received a "glimpse", to hold on to its effective grace.


With the fall of the Temple of Solomon an entire culture experienced to be ejected right back into the terrible ordeal of being a people without a central sanctuary, without its axis mundi. As moderns we may recognize the situation as our own, it does not only have to do with the Sacred, mystical notions about a concentration of a Divine presence withinn a locality of one kind or another;
but loss of identity at a more profound and subtle level than the sociological. Corbin warns against going too far in the direction of a psychological inflation of mere ideas, notions and
personal hermeneutic into carriers or vessels of the Divine -
yet he returns again and again to events which is only intimate,only personal, only subjective - that is to say, which is exclusively and unrepressibly
dependent on radical intimacy at the level of the Solitary.


It is only you who can traverse past the ordeals and travel upon that steep and narrow path which leads to the Mountain of Vision, the "meeting-place of the two seas".Just as the rebuilding of the Temple occurs in the human heart before it takes form any other place.


Henri Corbin, the Mundus Imaginalis - On the Mountain of Vision, paraphrasing Suhravardi's Recital of the Occidental Exile;

"The mountain of Qaf is the cosmic mountain constituted from summit to summit, valley to valley, by the celestial Spheres that are enclosed one inside the other. What, then, is the road that leads out of it? How long is it? "No matter how long you walk," he is told, "it is at the point of departure that you arrive there again," like the point of the compass returning to the same place. Does this involve simply leaving oneself in order to attain oneself? Not exactly. Between the two, a great event will have changed everything; the self that is found there is the one that is beyond the mountain of Qaf a superior self, a self "in the second person." It will have been necessary, like Khezr (or Khadir, the mysterious prophet, the eternal wanderer, Elijah or one like him) to bathe in the Spring of Life. "He who has found the meaning of True Reality has arrived at that Spring. When he emerges from the Spring, he has achieved the Aptitude that makes him like a balm, a drop of which you distill in the hollow of your hand by holding it facing the sun, and which then passes through to the back of your hand. If you are Khezr, you also may pass without difficulty through the mountain of Qaf."

It is to Pilgrimage we are called, not architechture, whether of mind or psyche. Wherein we recover the Other, who has been a stranger to us and with whom we have contested - without knowing him, nor discerned the reason for our struggle. For the ancients all impressions from their interaction with changing Nature, contrasted with the lasting things intuitively understood by them - created a dimension to their lives which allowed an appreciation of wholeness, truth, beauty in their Ideal forms. To them the world was already a great domed temple, the great firmament above stretched out like a tent - which they elaborated as a way of orientating themselves, interiorily and through the medium of primitive art. The situation has changed - we can say with the haunting Knights of the Chapel of Gavornie, "woe unto us, the Temple is destroyed"; while visibly all seems to be in order, the interior integrity of the Temple has been broken - it is no longer a sanctuary, but a place of exile.


Now, the World is _not_ the Temple. Not anymore. To the seekers everywhere, a visit
to "Jerusalem", as the conjunction of the imaginal Jerusalem and the actual, geo-cultural
city-architecture of contemporary, "actual" Jerusalem - will provoke a reaction akin to what
Jung reports about his noctural visitors from the other side - in his Seven Sermons to the
Dead:

"The Dead came back from Jerusalem, where they found not what they sought."

Many have sought that particular, special thing which seekers go and seek after in Jerusalem;
From an eagles perspective much of what comprised the early and central stages of the Middle Ages appears to be centered about Jerusalem, or at least the idea of Jerusalem - many a pilgrim looking down upon a mirage, a fatah morgana.. a building in the sky reaching
beyond where our eyes of flesh - the fires was lit, but it was physical fire, and it consumed not
only the air, but the flesh, its host.


The Diaspora seems to stretch across all the known ages, the Prophecies which foresaw it appears arcane, pre-historical, mythical and lost to our understanding of history
and time alltogether. What better example of this - than the recurring theme: The Bruchion brought
to the fire out of arrogance, the Alexandrine Library destroyed - not once, but three times, the destruction of the First Temple by King Nebuchadnezzar

Welcome to the Blogroll, Matt

Introducing McCravey, a new Gnostic's blog on the block.

I have always thought that a personal perspective sometimes is more relevant and make a topic discussed more weightier - bringing the reader closer to the core experience from which any expression have their beginning. I sometimes fail that objective, being to wrapped up in the topicality and factoid stuff. Matt, on the other hand, have complete and compelling mastery of this particular ability.
Welcome to my "neighbourhood", Matt.

Second Anniversary of my Ordination to the Diakonate

On the 2nd August, two years ago, I was ordained a Deacon for Ecclesia Gnostica at the Capella Santa Sophia in Oslo, by Bishop Stephan Hoeller, in ecclesia Tau Stephanus.

It is now also ten years ago since I met Revd.Jan Valentin Saether, discovering a fellow Gnostic who had found a means to continue in the Gnosis in periods of trial and the problems offered up by every-day life. Since that time we have been able to celebrate Mass together, wherein I gradually took upon myself increasing responsibilities and tasks with the ministry.


I have much to be grateful to him for, by way of friendship, assistance, inspiration and spiritual guidance. Approaching this year is another phase in my commitment to, and affiliation with, the Gnostic Ekklesia - in its specific manifestation in the Ecclesia Gnostica.

As I feel myself called to service at the Altar, as a con-celebration with Christ, with the guidance of the Most Holy Spirit, I hope and pray that I will prove more worthy of this mysterious grace this coming year of service. The Gnosis is lived, after all, and the spaces it fill, is that between human souls.
Pax Pleromae, brothers and sisters in the Gnosis.

Lawrence Durrell's Gnostic Ennui

This summer holiday I have had a book in my knapsack, a book I read a great many years since now, a book which I for various reasons did not think I would read again: Monsieur or the Prince of Darkness, by the English author Lawrence Durrell.

In the novel whose kernel is the suspected suicide of Piers de Nogaret, the assembly of disassociated and enstranged old friends and associates, and a massive recollection, in no less than four of his former aquiantances - we encounter a certain gentleman by the name of Akkad. Akkad is Durrell's "wise old man" archetypal figure, only his persona and vocabulary is slightly sinister, and he is apparently younger than the protagonists.
About Gnostics such as himself, Akkad said:

"People of our persuasion gradually learn to refuse all rights to so-called God. They renounce the empty world, not like ascetics or martyrs, but like convalescents after suicide."(pp13)

This is the fare that Akkad gives us, his universe, while host to many most beautiful forms, reminders - still is unpopulated by any other spark of light or presence but the cold calculating stare of human consciousness, the only way to deal with it is to recognize all that keeps one bound to a condition of slavery, and in fear of Death and God, the authorities par excellence in this world.

"What really dies is the collective image of the past - all the temporal selves which have been present in a serial form focused together now in an instant of perfect attention, of crystal-clear apprehension which could last forever if one wished."(pp14)

"Even death has its own precise texture and the big philosophers have always entered into the image of the world it exemplifies while still alive, so to become one with it while their hearts were still beating. They colonised it."(pp23-24)

A few words on Lawrence Durrell, while sometimes his format verges upon traditional mystery novels they never really make the transition, he is a thoroughly modern (or "modernist") author who are, as is wont to care more about a consistency to interior psyche than conventions of narrative and continuity. I do not feel I exaggerate if I say Durrell's novels is even literarily challenging, in the sense that it is difficult to follow, to grasp in the sense we would indeed do so with the popular mystery novels, for example.
That marred my reading experience with regards to Monsieur because the author has allowed a great ambiguity with regards to the narrative first person of his novel, eventually even the format of the novel is dissolved, not only in longer excerpts from journals and letters, but poetry and long stream-of-consciousness passages without discernable beginning and end. To many critics, these things are not only interesting, but so endearing as to be some kind of stamp of eloquence and genius - to others, the author has performed, by them, a mortal sin against the conventions of literature pure and proper.
Durrell's literary universe is populated by feverish,haunted lovers who have long since lost touch with the contemporary standard of propriety. They are somehow tainted, even the protagonists, they have no heroic strain left in them, they have succumbed to emptyness, to emotional chaos - to decadence. The backdrop of colonial Alexandria and deprecit Avignon in the decades between the world wars, serve up a mystique of its own, but Durrell's characters have minds which filters out the exterior world, outside their rivalries, romances, friendships and antipathies. In Monsieur, Durrell lets us in on a secret thrust between old friends and lovers - at one time they all went to Macabru to meet the illustrious 20th century Gnostic Akkad, a man of mixed Syrian and French heritage who had decamped into some alternative civilization, allowed to do so from living on his inheritance from wealthy, but decadent ancestors - and from his strange combination of business partners and spiritual disciples.
At one time Akkad allows his most recent convert to his "Ophite Gnostic" group to discover an article which unveils his group and his person as nothing but charlatans, dangerous as such - planting the magazine with the barber he knows Piers Lagouret would visit.

Bruce Drexel, the protagonist of Durrell's novel, trying to digest the abrupt death of his friend Piers, the heir of the infamous
traitor of the French Templars- who supposedly had given them away to the ambitious King of France, Philip le Bel, as a form of revenge for the death of his forefathers who had been Cathars -

PP10-11.
"I wondered if in dying he (Piers) remembered the initiation which we had shared in Egypt long ago - at the hands of Akkad, distilled patiently from the doctrines of the desert gnostics? I know he had been deeply marked by them. In the matter of death, I mean, they were crucial and unequivocal. For after that initiation it was impossible to attach any profound importance to the notion of dying. All individual deaths had been resumed by the death of God! I remember how the idea terrified me at the time! When we said goodbye to tender, smiling Akkad he told us:"Now don't give a thought to what you have learned. Simply become it as fast as you can - for what one becomes one forgets." Obviously this belonged to the other kind of death, the gnostic one which would henceforward always overshadow the death of mere time in man; the death which for Akkad and his sect was simply one form of the body's self-indulgence, a lack of fastidiousness."Dying can be a mere caprice if one allows it to happen before discovering the big trick which enables one to die with profit", he said."

My own journey upon the Gnostic path has indeed been much informed about death, more than perhaps what is considered proper by some. The conclusion of this introspection is for me the understanding that I need to embrace the responsibility which I have, on account of the new relationship I have, not with an abstract, not with an authority, not a bloodless prinsciple - but a God alive and spiritual; but it is not only God who formerly were a precarious ghost haunting the subconscious psychic strata in me and my fellow Gnostics, it is the Persona itself, dispossessed of its own, exiled from the "Temple" as it were, wherein it is possible to give thought to, or choose any action with regards to any reality; the world has hijacked us from the day of our birth into this world.

James Gifford and Stephen Osadetz has published an article in the online Journal Agora titled Gnosticism in Lawrence Durrell's Monsieur: New Textual Evidence for Source Materials . They point out quite a few problems with determining both Durrell's access to information on classical Gnosticism, method of using sources and relationship to Jacques Lacarriere, who wrote a rather popular book on the Gnostics in the 70's, named fittingly "The Gnostics", to which Lawrence Durrell wrote the foreword, he considered the book "more a work of literature than of scholarship" and had some reservations about his colleagues' theories. Anyways, they did a better job than I could hope to do with regards to this severly limited area. But I do have some remarks myself with regards to Durrell's "contemporary" Gnostics who according to the plot in his books encamped in the oasis named Macabru annually to go through an initiatory process - Akkad appears as a kind of Max Theon-character who spins an incredible amount of mystique around his own person and the way by which he has received some kind of revelatory license to be a purveyor of Gnosis in the 20th century. His calculated cynicism and "method", however, looks stamped decidedly with Gurdijeff's characteristics. To a limited amount of British people both Max Theon and G.I.Gurdijeff played a significant role in their awakening to a kind of spiritualized intellectualism, alternatively intellectual spirituality. Another aspect to Akkad's personality is his rather sincere and naked nihilism, especially with regards to questions such as Suicide, human sexuality and society; whatever angle I look at it, from having been "socialized" into understanding my visions and interior dialogues in light of classical Gnosticism through first-hand sources, to wit, the Nag Hammadi Library - the ethos of the Egyptian Gnostics has a different, yet as radical, view of these matters. Suicide is not an eleutherian catalyst for salvation at all, it is not even considered a voluntary action but a conditioned response to the incalculatable low odds for an awakened, conscious Self within the dissolving chaos which nevertheless is all this Universe elicits as a description, at least not from "us".

This is also the observation of J.Gifford and S.Osadetz in their article, they compare Durrell's gnostic Akkad's view on suicide with that of the gnostics described in Lacarriere's book on them:

As Akkad explains to Sylvie, Piers and Bruce during their initiation into the heresy, "But then death... What is it after all? It is not enough! We will all die. Yet to the pure Gnostic soul the open gesture of refusal is necessary, is the only poetic act" (Durrell, Monsieur 139). Nevertheless, this tenet of Akkad's Gnosticism, that certain forms of suicide are acceptable, is anything but the belief of a "pure gnostic soul" as Lacarrière describes it; rather, Lacarrière writes, suicide


"is the absolute antithesis of the Gnostic attitude. Not one of them, at any time, preached suicide. The aim of the Gnostic is not the conjugate extinction of life and of consciousness, but the mastering of the one and the other, the attainment of a hyper-life and a hyper-consciousness." (Lacarriere:The Gnostics)

Imago Templi,the Imagination and Templar Spirituality

Ignaz von Dollinger wrote:"If I were asked to name the _dies nefastus_ in the history of the world, the day that would come to my mind would be none other than October 13th, 1307."
(the day when Philip the Fair ordered the arrest of the French Templars). (cited in
Pierre Mariel:Guide...des Templiers. Table Ronde, Paris, 1973.


A few pages further on, the same work makes mention of "a legend whose setting is the amphitheatre of
Gavarnie in the Pyrenees, where six knights of the Temple lie at rest in a chapel.
Every year, on March 18 - the birthday of the last Grand Master of the Order (Jacques de Molay) -
a Knight of the Temple is seen to appear, whose shroud is replaced by the famous white cloak with the four triangled red cross. He is in battle apparel and holds his lance in rest. He walks slowly towards the centre of the Chapel and utters a piercing call, which re-echoes
around the ampitheatre of the mountains:"Who will defend the Holy Temple? Who will deliver the tomb of Christ?" At his call the six entomed Templars come alive and stand up, to answer three times:
"No one! No one! No one! The Temple is destroyed!"


...echoing the lamentations of the Talmudic Sages, each of them sets the same catastrophe at the centre
of world history: The destruction of the Temple, the same Temple.


Occuring and recurring - opposing this dispair with the tenacity of permanent defiance: the image of the rebuilding of the Temple, the coming of the New Temple, which assumes the dimensions of Cosmic Restoration.(pp263).

Henri Corbin,The Imago Templi in Confrontation with Secular Norms

Paris, July 25th 1974.

Published in Henry Corbin:Temple and Contemplation.Islamic Publications Ltd. Routledge&Kegan,London,1986.

Unlike modern philosophers of History, Visionary theosophers always have someone - a personal messenger - who comes to give them instructions and to be their guide. Where does he come from? In the famous recital of Hayy Ibn Yaqzan, composed by Avicenna, the Angel - on being asked by the visionary whence he comes, replies:"I come from the Temple", or to be precise, from the Baut al-Maqdis. This latter term, which is the literal
Arabic equivalent of the Hebrew Beth ha-Miqdash, means, to be sure, the "Sacredotal House"
but as we know, the symbol of the dwelling-place commonly used to denote the temple.
The Arabic term designates Jerusalem, but the answer given to Avicenna refers not to the Jerusalem of this
world, but to the Celestial Temple of which the earthly Jerusalem is the image.

pp265

We hear the same answer given in Suhravardi's Visionary recitals. Often, indeed, for the sake of precision,
we get the expression Na-kuja-Abad, the "Country of non-where", or, Ruh-Abad, the "Country of the Spirit".
Thus the question arises: at what boundary or limit does the meeting place between the visionary and the
Angel "who comes from the Temple"? Hence, too, at what boundary or limit is the image of the Temple disclosed to the visionary, so that he receives the revelation of the Angel who belongs to the Temple?
Our mystical theosophers have explained themselves with extreme clarity on this point, and in doing so show themselves to be in profound agreement with all visionaries of the New Temple.
What is in question is a world which conditions a fundamental spiritual experience, the secret of which initially escapes us occidentals because for us this world has for centuries been a lost continent.

It is the world situated midway between the world of purely intelligible realities and the world of sense
perception; the world that I have called the _Imaginal world_ (alam-al-mithal), _mundus imaginalis_,
in order to avoid any confusion with what is commonly designated imaginary.


Let us be quite clear about this. Our visionary theosophers - Suhravardi's Ishraqiyun - are no less aware than we are of the perils of the imaginary. I will recall briefly the metaphysics of the Imaginary, in say, Suhravardi. The Imagination possesses a twofold aspect and fulfills a twofold function. On the one hand there is the passive imagination, the Imagination that "re-presents" or "re-produces" (khayal). As such the Imagination is, quite simply, the storehouse that garners all the images perceived in the _sensorium_, this latter being the mirror in which all the perceptions of the external senses converge.
On the other hand there is the active Imagination (mutakhayyilah). The active Imagination is caught between
two fires. It can submit docilely to the injunctions of the estimatory faculty (wahmiyah), in which case the
_rational animal_ that accesses things in a way related to that of animals. The rational animal can and in fact does fall preyt to all the deliriums and monstrous inventions of the imaginary obstinately rejecting the judgement of the Intellect. Yet the active Imagination can, on the contrary, put itself exclusively at the
service of the Intellect - of, that is to say, the _Intellectus Sanctus_, as this is called cogitative or
meditative.It should be noted that this is another name for the active Imagination, the _productive_ Imagination.


The whole task consists in purifying and liberating one's inner being so that the intelligible realities perceived on the _Imaginal_ level may be reflected in the mirror of the _sensorium_ and be
_translated_ into _visionary perception_.

pp266


The vision of the Angel, thus _the Imago Templi_ does not emerge from the negativity of an _unconscious_, but descend from a level of a positively differentiated _supra-consciousness_.
This order of Imaginative perception is destribed by Haydar Amuli, the great Shiite interpreter of
Ibn al-Arabi, as being that of "intellective images", metaphysical Images.

Ibn Arabi sees it (Imagination) as the place where the world of pure ideas in their intelligible
substantiality meets with the world of objects of sense perception. It is the world where everything
that appeared inanimate in the world of sense perception, comes alive, the world to which
Moses came before meeting his initiator (Khezr, Khadir). In short, it is at "the meeting-place
of the two seas" that the _Imago Templi_ reveals itself to the visionary.


The _Imago Templi_ at "the meeting-place of the two seas" implies a situation above all speculative,
in the etymological sense of thw word: two mirrors (_specula_) facing each other and reflecting, one
within the other, the image that they hold. The image foes not derive from empirical sources, and is
thus, the criteria by which they are verified and their meaning is put to the test.
It is.. "not to be understood as allegorical; concealing that Other whose form it is, but _tautegorical_ - it is to be
understood in its identity with that Other, and as being _itself_ the thing which it expresses".

Mary Magdalene in memory

22nd July was the feastday and commemoration of Mary Magdalene.


Mary Magdalene is perhaps the most specific and unique manifestation of Gnostic discipleship to the Christ one can imagine. We are reminded in the reports of the Canonical Gospels that Jesus associated people of all levels in society, especially from different degrees of paria-hood with regards to what his contemporaries, each in their own particular sect or branch, considered Orthodox Jewry. We hear that this arrogance also had polluted his male disciples, that they contested amongst themselves for attention and status - and when he reported he would depart from them, for the first time, they immediately began thinking about who would succeed him. All this was prior to quite extraordinary encounters they would have with the Christ, whose revelation to them accorded a change of heart.
Mary Magdalene quitely went into her cell to meditate and pray, to be present spirituality - instead of rushing into the street and see the spectacle of Lazarus' resurrection. Likewise, without flinching, she insisted on treating the body of Christ, upon his testimony that he from then on would be as if dead already, as if it was dead, anointing it, not on account of royalty, but according to custom. The disciples could not bear, physically, to have their feet washed by Jesus, in total contrast to this. The male disciples were becoming accustomed to Mary as being this person who was always present around Jesus, who did not open her mouth in company of others, who meekly faded into the background - but whose actions and attitude greatly pleased Jesus. When she finally began speaking and insist on being heard, they, especially Peter, was outraged; he must have thought she had forgot the lesson the Master had taught her. But it was he, rather, that had not understood what it was she had been taught.
Jesus had not told Mary to act according to the consensus appreciation of what is proper for young Jewish women - he had taught her, by example, in silence, to act what she knew, to respond directly, bodily - to embody the Gnosis in herself.


Henry Corbin, in The Man of Light in Iranian Sufism (pp.15-16), writes:

"it is...the man of light who speaks through the mouth of Mary Magdalene when, in the course of the initiatic conversations between the Resurrected Christ and his disciples, she assumes the predominant role conferred on her in the book of the Pistis Sophia, the New Testament of the religion of the man of light
:"The Power which issued from the Saviour and which is now the man of light within us...My Lord! Not only does the man of light in me have ears but my soul has heard and understood all the words that thou has spoken...The man of light in me has guided mel he has rejoiced and bubbled up in me as if wishing to emerge from me and pass into thee." Just as Zosimos places on the one hand Prometheus-Phos opposite his guide of light who is "the son of God" and on the other the earthly Adam opposite his guide, the Antimimos, the "counterfeiter", so in the book of the Pistis Sophia:
"It is I, declares the Resurrected One, who brought thee the power which is in thee and which issued from the twelve saviours of the Treasury of Light"

By the same inversion and reciprocity which in Sufism makes the "heavenly Witness" simultaneously the one Contemplated and the Contemplator, the man of light appears both as the one guided and the guide: this communicatio idiomatum forewarns us that the bi-unity, the dialogic unity, cannot be taken as the association of Phos and carnal Adam,who follows another guide.The Light cannot be compounded with the demonic Darkness; the latter is Phos' prison, from which hs struggles to separate himself and which will return to its primordial negativity. The syzygy of light is Prometheus-Phos and his guide, the "son of God." This very fact also points clearly to a structure, which has nevertheless been subject to all kinds of misunderstandings. "The power which is in thee," in each one of you, cannot refer to a collective guide, to a manifestation and a relationship identical for each one of the souls of light.

Nor, a fortiori, can it be the macrocosm or Universal Man (insan kolli) which assumes the role of heavenly counter-part of each microcosm. The infinite price attached to spiritual individuality makes it inconceivable that salvation could consist in its absorption into a totality, even a mystical one. What is important is to see that it refers to an analogical relationship presupposing four terms, and this essentially is just what is so admirably expressed in the angelology of Valentinian Gnosis: Christ's Angels are Christ himself, because each Angel is Christ related to individual existence.
What Christ is for the souls of Light as a whole, each Angel is for each soul.Every time one of these conjunctions of soul and Angel takes place, the relationship which constitutes the Pleroma of Light is reproduced.The relationship is in fact so fundamental that it is found again in Manicheism, and is also what, in Suhravardi's "Oriental Theosophy", makes it possible for us to conceive the relationshop between the Perfect Nature of the mystic and the archetypal Angel of humanity (identified with the Holy Ghost; the Angel Gabriel of Qoranic Revelation, the active Intelligence of the Avicennan philosophers." What this Figure represents in relation to the totality of the souls of light emanated from itself, each Perfect Nature represents respectively for each soul.

Henry Corbin on the contemporary refusal of Gnosis

In his late Paper, finished July 25th 1974, in Paris : Imago Templi in confronation with Secular Norms (published in Henry Corbin:Temple and Contemplation.) , Henry Corbin writes:

Faced with a Church which had become a historical power and a society in the time of this world, the longing for the Temple is a longing for a "place" where, during the liturgical mystery and at the
"meeting-place of the two seas", eschatology was realized in the present, a present which is not the
limit of past and future in historical time, but the time of an eternal presence.

This "realized eschatology" was the restoration of Paradise, the restoration of the human condition to its Celestial status. The longing found and finds a response in "Christian esotericism", because this esotericism is unable to conform to the norms of official ecclesiology, to accept that "all is finished",and hence cannot accept the norms of Sociological religion. And it is in its broadest sense - that is to say,
as implying some link or other with the recurrence of the Imago Templi that we must grasp the recurrences
of the word "templars".

The Community at Qumran felt itself to be the New Temple, felt itself to be involved alongside the Angelic powers that were invisibly present in its midst, in the fight of the Sons of Light against the Sons of Darkness. This aspect of the Community makes it a perfect example of "Templar Knighthood".

An previous example had been furnished by the companions of Zerubbabel when building the Second Temple;
they also confronted the demonic counter-powers. An affinity has rightly been shown to exist between the
ethic of Qumran and that of Zoroastrian knighthood. Ormazd could not defend the ramparts of the City
of Light without the help of the Fravartis. The ethic of battle is the same in both cases; it does not consist in waiting for an eschatological event that will take place later, on some distant day.

The battle fought by the beings of Light is eschatology itself in the process of being accomplished, and the Ezekelian Vision
of the Celestial Temple: the defenders of the Holy City are defending the Imago Templi that embraces both
the Celestial and earthly Temples, and connects heaven with earth.

In this way, we do not deviate from our initial hermeneutic, according to which the destruction of the Temple signified our entry into this world, and its rebuilding signified our departure from exile, our return to the original world whence we came.

pp339


The Imago Templi polarized the Western Esoteric Tradition, and this is also why the Image of the Temple Knighthood, of the Order of the Temple, remains indissolubly linked to the concept of Initiatic Knighthood.
pp340


...the transition, since the time of Montanist crisis, from eschatological Christianity - the Christology of
the Christos Angelos- to a Christianity and Christology within History, must surely strike us as fateful,
a sign of the process of corruption. Does not this sign coincide with the refusal of gnosis? And is it not
then the case that the secret of Israel, the secret of the "New Temple", communicated impartially to all nations, is a siogn that the difference between the "temple" and the profane has been abolished?
Unfortunately, all too frequently one hears people say that the Christian Revelation has no secrets about it, nothing esoteric that needs interpretation. "All is finished", as we were reminded earlier, in accordance with this attitude these same people oppose the Christian revelation to gnosis and to the hermeneutic that accompanies gnosis. In compensation, we are told that the Christian mystery is unprofanable because it requires one to be present at this mystery through the sacramental communion of faith.
Any gnostic would see this contrast both as fragile and as painfully artificial, for it starts out by forgetting that
in this same sense gnosis itself is also and par excellence unprofanable.

It is not enough to hear the esoteric meaning uttered; it is necessary to be present at it through a new birth.
Gnosis and palingenesis are inseparable, and this is also the sacramental sense of communion through Gnosis.

On the other hand, to separate the Christian revelation from gnosis is precisely what lays the former open to profanation.
The overwhelming desacralization that is occuring in our times gives us ample food for thought.

pp341


A hostile attitude towards gnosis has led to forgetfulness and ignorance of the original relationship between the
Christian community at Jersualem and Jewish Gnosis. The same hostile atitude has inspired the statement that
all Christian esotericism is doomed to defeat. Unfortunately, what we are witnessing today is the defeat to which
we are condemned by the absence or the refusal of gnosis.

Pistis Sophia finally fully online

Good News, fellow Gnostics! The Internet Sacred Texts Archive has recently published
The Pistis Sophia in G.R.S Mead's translation. It is the
first complete text of the Coptic Gnosticmanuscript which came to light in the mid-19th century among the possessions of a certain Doctor Askew in England.
It should interest all who are intrigued by the Gnostics, especially


An aside to this, im going off-blog for a week or so, vacation in Sweden again (sigh).

Welcome to the Blogroll, Laura

I also happened upon Laura Jane's Weblog The Rhipidon Society, through Jeremy at Fantastic Planet. Another one for the Gnostic Blogosphere... Looking forward to follow your contribution to it, Jane.

Welcome to the Blogroll, Justin

I cannot seem to get beyond checking out the other blogs these days.
Perhaps its too sloppy of me, but I blame an exceptional warm and sunny Summer.

I was happy to see that Justin Courtier, who has commented on Jordan's Posts over at EGiNA, has his own blog, Nascent Gnosis.
Things are looking up for "Gnostic Blogging".
Welcome to the blogroll of this humble site, Justin.

Welcome to the Blogroll,Zac

Been perusing the gnostic blogosphere.... and found Zac's blog Alchemical Braindamage, Kudos to Jesse and The Revd.Max.

I am not part of the conspiracy vibe, but the perspectives which Tim, Revd.Max,Jeremy &co has given on soem of the old spins really inspired me. Someday I will commit literature and all these weird and strange things will be floating there somewhere in my subconscious mind..

Wishing everyone a good holiday...

Welcome to the Blogroll, Arizona

I found Arizona's blog Alchemizade through Jeremy at fantastic planet, and felt like I had struck something like gold. As can be seen from some of my posts I have read quite a few books on Sufism, especially Henry Corbin's work on Ishraqism, Ibn al-Arabi , Najmoddin Kobra and Ismailian Gnosis - anyways, as quite a few of my readers know, I am bound to feel affinity to the illuminated poet and mystic, Jelaluddin Rumi - and to see such a passionate and direct reactions on his poetry and prose really moves me. I hope I will have time enough to read through Arizona's Opus - and take the opportunity to welcome Arizona's blog Alchemizade to my blogroll.

More on Gospel of Judas + 9 fragments translated

Soon quite a lot of people will get on the "Judas" bandwagon, as has happened to Mary Magdalene earlier on. This is only a hunch, of course, but things have a tendency to mature over time.
Anyways, I stumbled upon this entry on the Coptic Gnostic Gospel of Judas at the textcritical theological site www.tertullian.org (sic!) whose other contents should interest serious students of the history of Christianity and the developement of Dogma, anyways. What appears to be unique in that site is that the editor has preserved the english translations presented on Antiquities dealer Michael Van Rijn's website which appeared to be offline at the time.

It now seems like he's back on, and offered the 5th of June an article on the find from The Independent, featuring an interview with himself.
Michael Van Rijn - to the general public, was the whistleblower concerning the "hostage situation" for the Gospel of Judas - an hitherto unknown organization presenting itself as the guardians of poor countries cultural heritage, announced to the Academical community that they had goods which they wished to share, for a fee. A fee which were several millions of US Dollars and which would only buy a restricted access to the manuscript(s) in question. Lots of details got lost when he apparently pulled much of the materials and detailed allegations concerning the find.

Van Rijn makes the following assertion in the Dutch newspaper
Katholik Nieuws Blad
on April the 15th (source the www.tertullian.org feature on the Gospel of Judas):

"The owner of the text, who only wants to make money from it, has carefully timed the publicity surrounding what is called the Gospel of Judas. That is the opinion of Prof. Hans van Oort, who specialises in Gnosticism, Manichaeism, Nag Hammadi and Augustine. He called a press conference on his own initiative, to counter "all the nonsense" being written at the moment about the Gospel of Judas; for example that the Vatican has an interest in the document's not being published. Van Oort is attached to the Faculty of Theology of the University of Utrecht and is Professor of Christianity and Gnosticism at the Radboud University."

Also:"Van Oort does not rule out that it involves the missing codex from the Nag Hammadi codices. What he does rule out is that Judas himself wrote it. "There is no reason whatsoever to assume that he did this. Nothing points to that."


Which is of course, nothing but extraordinary. There has been quite a few hands on the Nag Hammadi find and every single one of these asserts that the missing codex had been used as fuel to boil tea.
Think about the repercussions of someone squirreling away a perfectably readable and authentic document from an UNESCO funded joint operation to secure the documents for the world, and for the Coptic Museum in Cairo, Egypt!


Predictably, this "new" discovery has already caused some dust to whirl.. the Patriarchate of Moscow, for the Russian Orthodox Church found it earlier in this month necessary to let publish a press release on the official position of the Patriarch concerning the new archeological discovery. There he said that while the find might cast new light on historical matters (which I think he intends to mean new light concerning the heretical movement which produced the text in question, which is correct, we should expect), it has absolutely no value or relevance on the teachings and history of the Orthodox Church as well. That isn't remarkable, such a quick reaction, however, is less common - it is usually the privilege of conservative scholars in the philological department and ask-me-a-question theologians by the dozen. Everyone thinks the Gospel of Judas is the product of the gnostic group which Ireneaus deigned to call the Cainites in his Adversus Haereses. It gives the manuscript in question a convenient category for the time being, which is good, I guess - and it also serves as a possible contrast to the already discovered and diagnosed Gnostic scriptures from Nag Hammadi.

What follows in the feature I cited earlier on, is an English translation of no less than nine fragments from the 62-page manuscript in Coptic.

The first is a version of the Gospel story of Jesus' being tempted by Satan in the desert. Here Jesus is called Allogenes, the Stranger - and Satan is called Saklas, the "fool". A brief comment on this: apart from Saturninus calling the leader of the archons (fallen angels), and chief demiurge, Satanael (later used by the Bogomils for the same) - there are no Gnostic scriptures which directly asserts that Satan and the Demiurge is identical. What is evident is that the author of the scripture does not side with Satan in the desert, which puts a question mark behind the allegation that the sect that produced the manuscript themselves were antinomians to the degree of turning the Old Testament hierarchy upside down. The 9 fragments does not mention one of the OT villains, so we have nothing to build a theory on its "Cainite" origin, apart from the positive role of Judas Iscarioth, who is described as being faithful to Jesus, in delivering him to the authorities.


I leave you with the link, I hope the web-editor keeps it up, since it appears to be the most comprehensive archive of the texts.

Paul Sedir on Jesus

This is a brief little quotation from Paul Sedir (Yves Leloup), a mystic who for a while was oriented towards the Eglise Gnostique of Jules Doinel (he was one of the three young men, Tau Jules (Doinel) saw in a vision as those assigned to be his future presbyters; the other two were Lucien Mauchel (Chamuel/Tau Bardesane)and Gerard Anaclet Encausse (Papus/Tau Vincent). There are stories about Sedir to the effect that he never lost opportunity to speak with and teach new souls about the spiritual life and the great necessity for a turning around of our lives especially in this day and age, that he walked many miles during a strike in Paris to lecture for one single person, that he followed his conscience and inner intuition on basically every choice he made. Also, he left behind both the Martinist Order and the Eglise Gnostique in order to be consistent with his own spiritual path - a choice apparently his former confreres respected him for.
This is Sedir's remark on the trends during the early 20th century, to rewrite, redirect and reconstruct basically the entire Gospel in order for it to fit with their Masonic,Spiritualist or Theosophical preconceptions of the Christ;

"Jesus was never an Essene; all that Jacolliot and Notovitch tell about travels and initiations in India is part of their fantasy; Jezeus Christna are impossible words in Sanskrit. Christ did not, as claimed in the Talmud, steal the Tetragram from the Temple in Jerusalem; He never needed lessons or training. In Egypt, when he was three years old, he made what we call miracles by
setting free enchained souls. He was a man, yes; but that man - perfect - contained the whole
of divine Light."

Kudos to Elias Ibrahim for letting me know, it is from a collection of writings by Sedir only recently translated to English.

Gospel of Judas: Question of authorship (Detering) and Ireneaus on the Cainites

This is a post to follow up the past two posts on the discovery and publication (by Easter 2006) of the Coptic Gnostic writing The Gospel of Judas.

As I mentioned earlier, the question of the authorship is far from conclusive. Ireneaus identified the primary scripture used by the Cainites to be "The Gospel of Judas", therefore the scholars might feel it is to be expected that the new gospel will reveal more about the Cainites than what Ireneaus told us in his Adversus Haereses.

In the already introduced summary, courtesy of Klaus Schilling at RadikalKritik, a site dedicated to the radical scholarship of among others, Herman A. Detering - Detering makes these observations viz. the actual authorship of the newly discovered text:

"The Gospel according to Jude explains the term itself: Satan is rebuked because the believer is not of the generation of Satan (i.e. the real world), but from a different race. The scene reminds of the temptation in the desert in the synoptics. Satan is also called Saclas (idiot), a term often found in gnostic literature for the demiurge, the god of the Tanakh : NHC II:1, III:2, XII:3, all deemed generally as Sethian writings. While this hints towards Sethianic authorship, it must be understood that the names of the sects and the distinction from others has usually been mentioned only, and even created by, later polemicists. They were hardly self-denomminations. Further progress in the publication of the manuscript is still to be awaited."

Thus we find themes and specific names already discovered to be generic within the literature discovered at the Nag Hammadi find and identified by a joint scholarship (see Birger A.Pearson(ed):The Rediscovery of Gnosticism, Bd.1 The Sethian Gnostics, and John D.Turner:Gnosticism and Platonism, or even Alaistar B.Logan:Gnostic Truth and Christian Heresy.) as Sethian Gnostic. The role of Jesus in Sethian Gnosticism is of a specific, often considered to be the last - manifestation of the Saviour whose prototype is a heavenly being or Aeon who are generically called Geradamas, Pigeradamas, Adamas or even Seth. What is also typical of the Sethian Gnostic presentation of the Christian Christ (rather than Messiah) or Platonic Logos is that it, unlike most Judeo-Christian groups of the late antiquity, take explicit exception to all Jewish or Hebrew prefigurations of the Messiah itself. Therefore the "Cainite" doctrine associated by Henri-Charles Puech as familiar or similar to the Marcionite doctrine of the descent of Jesus in order to restore, redeem or save the fallen figures of the Old Testament. Akin also is a negative evaluation of a great part of the "Judeo-Christian" pantheon of angelic hierachies - to wit, an unknown angelic host corresponds to or is directly and intimately linked to a hitherto esoteric, unknown and unrevealed (underground, incognito) human family, whose close filiation is explained, in the Sethian myths - as the result of a union of the interior, hidden Adam with the interior,hidden Eve, in a Sanctuary (evocative of the Bridal Chamber) elevated above and outside of the Cosmic Order. As such, all morals and commandments are only accorded to be accessible to these elect individuals, the members of the Sethian or perhaps Cainite gnostic group - in an indirect and to the worldly, secular order of people, including the religious - way, directly through their filiation and sharing of consciousness with the higher and "invisible" hierarchy of celestial beings. That particular heresy may well sound like the Corinthian one that Paul writes against, at the very least on the surface.


Judas Iscarioth is not even mentioned in the Nag Hammadi gnostic materials. It is quite clear that the only Jude or Judas we hear about in the Nag Hammadi library scriptures is Didymos Judas Thomas, known to the world at large as Thomas the Apostle or even Thomas the doubter.It may well be that quite early in the developement of the different initatory schools of the Egyptian Gnostics a dissension over values and emphasis caused some of those most resilient from persecution among fellow Christians, caused the "Judas" symphatisers to be isolated from the rest of the movement.




Charles W. Hedrick wrote earlier in the Bible Review ("The 34 Gospels: Diversity and Division Among the Earliest Christians"):

In sum, in addition to the four canonical gospels, we have four complete noncanonicals, seven fragmentary, four known from quotations and two hypothetically recovered for a total of 21 gospels from the first two centuries, and we know that others existed in the early period. I am confident more of them will be found. For example, I have seen photos of several pages from a Coptic text entitled "The Gospel of Judas" that recently surfaced on the antiquities market.

Ireneaus on the Cainites and the Gospel of Judas(the Roberts-Donaldson translation)Book1, Chapter31:

"1. Others again declare that Cain derived his being from the Power above, and acknowledge that Esau, Korah, the Sodomites, and all such persons, are related to themselves. On this account, they add, they have been assailed by the Creator, yet no one of them has suffered injury. For Sophia was in the habit of carrying off that which belonged to her from them to herself. They declare that Judas the traitor was thoroughly acquainted with these things, and that he alone, knowing the truth as no others did, accomplished the mystery of the betrayal; by him all things, both earthly and heavenly, were thus thrown into confusion. They produce a fictitious history of this kind, which they style the Gospel of Judas."

"2. I have also made a collection of their writings in which they advocate the abolition of the doings of Hystera.Moreover, they call this Hystera the creator of heaven and earth. They also hold, like Carpocrates, that men cannot be saved until they have gone through all kinds of experience. An angel, they maintain, attends them in every one of their sinful and abominable actions, and urges them to venture on audacity and incur pollution. Whatever may be the nature of the action, they declare that they do it in the name of the angel, saying, "O thou angel, I use thy work; O thou power, I accomplish thy operation !" And they maintain that this is "perfect knowledge," without shrinking to rush into such actions as it is not lawful even to name."

This sounds like, to this Gnostic, really tedious work, repeating every action mechanically along the spectrum, just to rule out the possibility, perhaps, that one omits to do an action in a certain lifespan only to be forced to perform it in another. But it might well be that Ireneaus got it exactly wrong - to take an example, Ireneaus could not understand the Sabbatarian mysticism of Sabbatai Zevi or his disciple Yakhov Leib Frank with its transgressing against the commandments in order to fulfill the Law, revealing the true and most valuable tablet of all, of all laws - the human heart whereupon is written the fateful commandment, in a single sentence, by the hand of God itself. Tricking the mechanical hierarchies of cultural conditioning, while an art developed painstakingly throughout several centuries, were only known to a few real geniuses, and I do intend to say in addition that it was not accesible to all initiated into any system, myth or direction of the Christian Gnoses either, at that time - and could not then be explicated or discussed in a language known to Ireneaus. I mean - look at the impending mess of the myriad popular writers on Gnosticism, they know not the head or tail of it, nor that it even has any. I maintain that all this business with wombs, with idiot-fool-godlings, angels and so forth - while left for obvious reasons in the hands of philologian experts, historians and archeological technician geniuses, are not that very accessible to any mainstream, neither secular nor religious. I also maintain this: that it will end being what it is, and end up also, in addition, not being observed or registered in our minds as an actual phenomenon of thought and idea - if we for some reason elect to not bother with anything problematic, or incomprehensible, to our sensibilities.
Therefore, of course, I am among those who will sit up and listen and make notes from the discovery of a possible only exstant relic of the Cainite heretics.. or Sethians for that matter.

A little more on the Gospel of Judas +diverse reflections

I forgot to mention that it is Ireneaus of Lyonswho identifies the Gospel according to Judas as the product of the Cainite heretics.
The Catholic Encyclopedia (1913,no less) has this to contribute about the Cainite heresy:

They regarded all characters held up to retrobation in the Old Testament as worthy of veneration, as having suffered at the hands of the cruel God of the Jews; hence Cain, as the first man cursed by Hysteraa, the Demiurg, claimed their special admiration.

The author of the article also makes a point of mentioning that Hippolytus thought them of so little consequence and threat that he only mentions them.
Which is well and good, only that there are entire books missing from the only copy, a 14th century Greek transcription - of his Philosophumena,discovered at the middle of the 19th century. One may well argue, as one would, that the extant Summary would cast light on which heresies his missing books addressed; had it not been for that the aforementioned summary also are curiously fragmentary. With regards to the Naassenes, who nevertheless get an unaccountable large space in the Fifth Book, Mark L.Gaffney, in his The Gnostic Secrets of the Naassenes (I will review that particular book later, time permitting.) makes a lot out of this curious correlation between missing portions of the Summary and the books which those portions would cover, perhaps too much, given we are in no position to know anything about the contents of the missing parts of Hippolytus Philosophumena before a complete manuscript lands in our hands.

Nevermind all that. I messed up the prior post by not giving the cognitive link between the Cainites and the Gospel of Judas and explicating what all that Jazz was about.I should hope that has been cleared up now. An additional commentary viz. the name of the heretical sect and the "offspring" of the elder son of Adam, Cain - the conspiracy buffs of the far-further-furthest right wing oriented Christian fundamentalist kind have cherished the fact that an important character in Masonic lore is Tubal-Cain, i.e. he has an ancient semittic name which makes reference, at least superifically, to the Patriarch of the "wrong kind". If we look at the various answers these conspiracists, you will find they are always barking up some genealogical tree which has a racial and etnic connotation attached. Perhaps more than anything, Hesse's use of the concept of "Mark of Cain" upon certain human beings, whose destinies appears to be attached to be forever the travelling stranger, points towards the problematic of this very seed. Some Gnostic systems divided Humanity into three; A Hylic (material) or Sarkic(fleshly) humanity; a Psychic (soul'ish) humanity and a Pneumatic (spiritual) race - all these were usually associated with the three "sons" of the first nuclear family: Cain the elder, Abel the middle and Seth the youngest. There are many ways of reading and understanding this tripartition and apparently the three are sometimes viewed as present as potentionalities within each individual human being. Doubtless, with our "psychological sophistication", being "Contemporaries" - modern Gnostics have a proclivity towards viewing humanity as such as unitary, while the characteristics of the true spiritual man are the product of some exertion, developement and divine assistance. My comment here is that the Nomadic peoples, since the "triumph" of agrarian civilization while forever travelling "strangers" to city-dwellers and rural peasants (or Pagans if you must) alike, with their usual lifestyle and means of sustaining themselves more properly correspond to the first martyr of the Old Testament, Abel - not Cain. The kingless (because each is accounted a King when they have become "men", women and men alike), ummovable, individuated and never-fading "race of Man" - the Pneumatics, the offspring of Seth, forever the Stranger, Allogenes, however, is the Gnostics.
In a English language summary of the German scholar Herman D. Detering on the Gospel of Judas , courtesy of Klaus Schilling at RadikalKritik -
Detering observes that through the Patristic sources there are scant to go on with regards what the Gospel of Judas used by the Cainites
contained.The scripture is only named and called spurious by Ireneaus.
Henry-Charles Puech apparently viewed Ireneaus report on the Cainities as associated to the particular soteriology of Marcion of Sinope - wherein some Patristic sources on Marcion asserts that according to his heresy - Jesus descended into Hell explicitly to save the "villains" of the Old Testament, a flipside of the early Christian redaction of the Pseudepigraphic Ascension of Isaiah where the prophet is given a vision of the future death and descent into hell of the Saviour, in order to save the Old Testament heroes, who were damned to hell for not acknowledging the Messiah before his coming(sic!).

In the newly discovered Gospel of Judas, first chapter, a great deal is made out of the amount the priests pay Judas for the delivery of his teacher, and also that the priests think Judas is a true disciple of Jesus and fear he will deceive him. It also appears as if this is what Judas wants to do, i.e. not tell the truth to the priests, but he is encouraged to go continue his task by a vision of Jesus himself, whom he addresses as Allogenes.Since the first translated fragments of the manuscript in question deals with events before the crucifixion, we are left hanging with regards to the salvific ministry of Jesus, perhaps, to the villains of the Old Testament. The insinuation puts me in mind of the "universal salvation" brought by Jesus according to the Gospel of Philip - he came, from the beginning of time, to redeem and save, not only the good, but the evil with the good. And that, apparently, the Apokatastasis Panton, is the greatest stumbling block of all - anathema to the Hebrews and foolishness to the Greeks.


Hermann Detering's current work "Judas und das Judasevangelium" available in German on <http://www.radikalkritik.de/judev.pdf>

The Gospel of Judas Redux- a news release+more

Re: The discovery and subsequent translation of -a- Gospel of Judas (Iscarioth).


The I-News Wire recently released a press release about the find of a hithero unknown Gospel of Judas in Coptic, in Basel, Switzerland.
It is the first official "word" on the status of the Gospel of Judas whose rumoured find in Egypt and covert witholding from public and scholarly notice have circulated over the internet the last few years.

According to the churchfather Ireneaus of Lyons a specific group among the ancient Gnostics venerated the person of Judas of Iscarioth, along with Cain, Nimrod,Esau, Koram and a score of such persons who in the Old Testament were the enemies of the friends of God; Prophets, Patriarchs and Kings. These Gnostics, if they were, were nicknamed Cainites and appears to have held a very strong antinomian ethic which basically made it a virtue to transgress against the Commandments, no transgression evaluated baser than another.
These Cainites, in my view, could very well have been the group of Christians who according to the polemic of the 4th century Coptic Gnostic text Pistis Sophia were accused of performing Masses wherein female menses and male sperm were mixed with Barley and ingested in the name and to the glory of Esau and Koram. The resentment and revision of myth found in the system of Menander, a supposed disciple of Simon Magus, along with a certain Saturninus or Satornil - wherein the God of Israel are specifically referred to as a fallen angel, has found a ritual expression, perhaps, in the breaking of the commandment, by partaking of the impure with the pure(sic!), and invoking the name of enemies and villains of one's own cultural and religious history and mythos.
The Cainites were also known to celebrate their functions called by them Agape, as did the early Judeo-Christian groups in Palestine in the nude, while holding all property, including women (...) in common. A very controversial bit this, but the Cainites have been subject to, and prototype, for many accusations past and contemporary. These views and practices have not found a passive audience, they are indeed subject to much polemic, also among Gnostics proper, as was seen in the inclusion of a specific condemnation ascribed to the Saviour himself in the 4th century text
Pistis Sophia and obliquely in the Books of Ieou.

To wit, a very great divide existed between the Gnostic groups represented by the first-hand accounts we have from the Chenoboskion (Nag Hammadi) find, as well as the Codex Berlin, Codex Bruce, Codex Askew and so forth. What these shared where at the very least a redaction with a very strong ascetic or encratic orientation - and these Cainites, or others like the Phibiontes (named after "dirt", according to Epiphanius of Salamis these had so uncouth habits about their persons that ordinary pagan citizens in their townships refused to have anything to do with them..a very Tantric-sounding group, if for anything but association with taboo-restricted areas in their respective cultures), contrary to the general confused image of the Gnostics en generis - there are no actual cult of Cain, apart from Ireneaus and Epiphanius report on the rural "Cainites", in Gnostic literature which has found its way to us. Neither are Judas of Iscarioth counted in the canon of Apostolic age saints among any known Gnostic group. With the exception, of course, of these Cainites. Both the Cainites and the legend of their veneration of both Cain and Judas of Iscarioth has featured prominently among themes chosen by modern authors who have written with reference to the ancient Gnostics - one should mention Swiss author Hermann Hesse, who in his novel Demian lets his protagonist, a certain Max Demian, teach his friend Emil Sinclaire, the hero of the story, about the famed "Mark of Cain" and its soteriological and existencial implications - this type of person is always a stranger, in any company, an enigma, someone shunned by the good people of any town. This situation is replayed in Count de Lautramont's Maldoror, in the work of Lawrence Durrell, who puts the "Ophite" ritual of the serpent "blessing the sacraments" in the post-world war 1 Egyptian colony of more or less decadent British, Belgian and French intellectual functionaries of the Colonizing powers.The same with certain other French poets of the Romantic area. Above all, to persons with a liberal, libertarian and perhaps even libertine sentiments and orientation, feel at home with the briefly described heretics with the strongest controversiality with conventional Christendom,or Judaism for that matter. But little has been heard from them.None of the Nag Hammadi texts hint at the practices, or even the attitudes, of these ancient antinomians, the closest we come are the 17th century Antinomians with a prophetic penchant in Cromwellian Great Britain, or Utopian experiments in the wilderness of America, such as the Oneida Creek Community lead by the visionary and somewhat ambigious character John Henry Noyes.


Now, the first page translated into English from what appears to be an authentic Coptic codex containing the Gospel of Judas(Iscarioth - not Judas Didymos Thomas) make use of the very name, in Coptic - Allogenes,predictably as the name for Jesus.
The first fragment translated by Charles W.Heidrick (No less) appears to speak about the humiliation of Jesus, which is more or less a taboo in itself - to the ancient Gnostic Christian groups we know of that is - and a more desperate invocation of aid from God than we are used to. I will look closer into this later.. so this is the first of several posts on this press release.

Books im reading..10: Wisdom's Book

Briefly Reviewing Arthur Versluis' Wisdoms Book:The Sophia Anthology.

being a kind of introduction

The last two decades has seen the emergence of a wide array of literature discussing the ancient veneration for the Divine Feminine.
As a contemporary Gnostic oriented towards the every-day enigma of our modernity, I sure hope it is not just another trend - but that it will remain a literary and philosophical stimulation upon the imagination and consciousness of our age throughout many decades still.I am not prone to make prophecies and even avoid putting my stamp of approval on rather sober prognostifications for the future, but I have a hunch, call it an intuition, perhaps even an educated guess - that the potentional of Sophia is yet to be mined completely in this post-modern age.

At the intersection between our own modernity - with its beginnings, so far as a move from a terra-centric,flat earth,"vertical" hierarchical consciousness through the midwifery of the european renaissance, towards the anthropocentric (sic!),humanistic,"planar" orientation in the "enlightenment" and onwards - and the antiquity, we find evidence, literary at most, sometimes barely accessible - of a continued undercurrent, an awareness among the very few of the workings of an invisible Grace which fills all things with meaning, even the meaningless. She assumed many names and these names fulfilled many roles and had many implications and consequences on that which is outside and inside the minds of us individual human beings. If we for a moment pause from our projections - we find the sapientia with its methods,crafts,approaches and ratios alive and kicking in the cryptical writings of the Alchemists. There is a measure which is difficult to grasp but easy to see applied everywhere, in the Hebrew Kabbalah. There is an appreciation, a sensitivity towards the mechanisms of emotional and intellectual stimulus and the consequence of withdrawal among the Sufis. Added to which is all the influences from the East which has no doubt contributed to the birth of a "New West". Most important of all these, for reasons I hope has come clear through my series on the Fravartis - for a Gnostic, a reoriented voyager, is Our Lady Sophia.


Wisdom. A synonym has been applied to it:Wit. Pentecost is called Whitsunday, and this refers directly to Wisdom. An image emerges from this conjunction in Christian vocabulary: The Pentecost may be asserted to be the collective reception of the sense, the sensitivity and affiliation with Wisdom just as much as it can be considered the occasion of a descent of the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit, the Comforter of post-incarnation Christianity. As Versluis explains in the introduction to his Anthology of Sophianic writings from the 17th to 20th century within the Christian tradition of Theosophia, Sophia or Wisdom, is not exclusive to said tradition but enters center stage for a specific reason. The reason for this, in my view - is that Christian lore suggests the event of a rupture which makes acquiantance of things divine and godly a personal responsibility.
Take for instance the event alluded to by the synoptic evangelists when they state that the Temple veil tore upon the terminal exhalation of Jesus. The exact location interior, of the crucifixion, Golgatha, the crucified one, and the three last words is subject to introvert contemplation in generations of Christian mystics and esoterics and many will come, even though Christianity crystallizes itself in different forms and expressions in this our day and age. A possible "reading" of this act of violence on the part of revealing grace - can be found in the Gospel of Philip, unearthed to the world in the August 1945 find of the Nag Hammadi Library
:

The mysteries of truth are revealed, though in type and image. The bridal chamber, however, remains hidden. It is the Holy in the Holy. The veil at first concealed how God controlled the creation, but when the veil is rent and the things inside are revealed, this house will be left desolate, or rather will be destroyed. And the whole (inferior) godhead will flee from here, but not into the holies of the holies, for it will not be able to mix with the unmixed light and the flawless fullness, but will be under the wings of the cross and under its arms."

The connotations to the rending of the veil and the destruction or desoplation of the place has precisely to do with the Temple. In actual historical course, the Temple was left desolate at the onslaught of the Roman occupiers as a means to break the back of the once-proud people they had oppressed throughout many centuries. In theological course, the selfsame has happened repeatedly throughout the stories of the prophets and friends of God. The two stories merge together around the theme of Shekinah, and of Wisdom - in the Western mystical tradition, especially those of a judeo-christian orientation.


When Jacob Boehme enters the stage, so to speak, the location of the Temple or Sanctuary of Spiritual Reality has moved into mankind: it is to be found in the interior of living human beings. Not only did the Protestant reformation and its precursors, among which one can assuredly count the Albigensian Church - contribute to shatter, or at the least disturb, the assumed role of a human, mortal organisation with its own legislature and architechture, almost becoming identical to the organization of the Temple at the time of Jesus: it provided with a renewed interest in the Wisdom traditions of ancient Judaism.The first text in Versluis collection is not participant with the "modern" revival of Sophianity or the Ancient Wisdom, but one of its foundation documents: The Book of Wisdom. Wherein the ancient king (Solomon)'s voice is heard to speak about the finding and winning of the heart of Wisdom:

"Wisdom shines brightly and fades not; she is quickly discerned by those who lo ve her, and those who seek her find her. She is quick to make herself known to those desiring knowledge of her; he who rises early in search of her will find her seated at his door."

Near all the Theosophers (I intend no likeness of Madame Blavatsky's at all, think 17th century and who ennobled the term so that it became attractive for the Madame and her successors to apply to themselves)
agrees with the truth of this discovery - once resolved to seek a deeper acquiantance with being, one of careful attention and compassionate yet stern love, with the flow of the Holy Spirit, they discovered that it was She who moved them towards such new and troubling values. Valuables so precious they no longer could serve as legal tender in a world grown corrupt from uniformly not paying attention. Arthur Versluis has written an engaging survey of the impact and importance of these anonymous (at times to almost all, not only the world at large - such as Robert Ayshford and Anne Bathurst) where he remarks on the apparent disinterest of the feminists and controversialists who have adopted Sophia as one of the many names for their monolithic Goddess - in the more recent and immediate expressions of the Sophian tradition; the Christian Theosophia of the 16th to early 20th century; spanning from Jacob Boehme to Nicolai Berdyaev, from Protestant mysticism to passionate, yet mystagogic Eastern Orthodox philosophy;,

"..as we look closely at these books, we discover something rather surprising; they have absolutely no references whatever to the actual Sophianic tradition as represented in this book. How could this be? How could numerous books emerge on the figure of Sophia, even on Sophia as the future of spirituality, yet there appears not an inkling of the preexistent theosophic tradition of Boehme, Gichtel, Pordage or Leade?"

Arthur Versluis:Wisdom's Book:The Sophia Anthology, Paragon Press,Minnesota,2000. pp18, introduction.

One reason is that the Sophia found in the Theosophia is not a personal projection of conventional worship; another may well be that the orientation of the theosophers, male as well as female, went beyond simple gender politics as their tendency might be - Sophia is depicted in prose,poetry and art as equally male, but above all, in either manifestation to the recipients, the visionaries, the voyagers and contemplatives (which all depend on own interior disposition, ability - and discipline)-Virginal. I have actually found reference to the romantic,renaissance and theosophic Sophia in other literary contexts and found there that the reason is even more focused: The Sophia of the Theosophers, while entering man rather than the remains of a geo-political architecture such as the Temple of Jerusalem, a romantic depiction of the original as it was from the very beginning;
populate a Christian cosmology prior either to its destruction or to its reversal; they assert the same about the Sophia of the Gnostics and therefore, if there is any help, their Sophia can only be the anonymous and anemic replica of something far more ancient, from the elder cultures of the West, or wholly from the East. Yet, even Daena signifies something radically different and completely inacessible to the propagandic consciousness of these latter-day radicals.

I feel Arthur Versluis are doing in this anthology the noble favour to the Christian Theosophical tradition and its Sophianity, as did Henry Corbin with his anthology with commentaries Spiritual Body and Celestial Earth for the Ismailian and Mazdaean Gnoses.
I recommend it thoroughly. You will find excerpts from the works of Jacob Boehme, Thomas Bromley, John Pordage,Johann Georg Gichtel,Gottfried Arnold, Friedrich Christoph Oetinger, Franz von Baader and many others who are not as of yet fully represented in English translation.

Philippe Roy on the Cathars

I just discovered a website which represents a Traditionalist (Guenon,Schuon,Evola,Pallis,Ware etc. Traditionalist) take on the Cathars and their lasting influence on modernity.
Religio Perennis is a website which gives an overview of the Perennialist School of philosophy and its approach to many traditions - not only from the Christian and Abrahamite religions.
It even has its own section on the Cathar Tradition.

The section is comprised chiefly of excerpts from a book by Philippe Roy which has been translated by Patricia Reynaud.

A longer excerpt titled "Katharis and Gnosis in Catharism" discusses the importance of katharsis, purification, on the path of the Cathars. This is his introduction to the topic:

Purification as a means to receive spiritual baptism was an active element of Cathar spirituality. Purification followed a progression and was upheld by several vehicles, described in the first chapter. Truly it was a progression toward a spiritual awakening.
It was based upon two principles: the development of a gnosis and an inner metamorphosis.
No access to baptism was possible without a previous katharsis and an authenticated ripening of spiritual aptitude. Cathar initiation was not meant to form a cleric but to give rise to a genuine Christian, one proven along his path. In the same way that spiritual baptism was the very heart of Catharism, katharsis remained the concept that best summarized its unfolding. The name "Catharism" thus comes from the Greek word for "purification." For the adept, the meaning and the goal of Katharsis were "… and be renewed in the Spirit of your minds, and put on the new nature, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness," Ephesians 4: 23-24. Therein lies the spirit of Catharism and there the Spirit is found in Catharism; for the only desire that the spiritual being keeps maintains to the end is that of reaching the Spirit.

As we should know about the Gnostic tradition as well - not a single of the ancient gnostics, either desert dwelling ascetics or city dwelling moderates such as Valentinus, taught that it was possible to receive the spiritual baptism without preparation.


Philippe Roy, further asserts:

Catharism was a gnosis as well, one which played an important part in man’s spiritual development, for it laid the foundation of an intimate experience. Man is a creature of consciousness; there is no real reaching of the Spirit without developing consciousness in all its potentials up to a point of balance and sufficient expansion.
For the gnostic, to believe is not enough; he must also experiment, feel, and know in consciousness. It implies an allowed spiritual freedom that enables one to be united with the divine in oneself. It is a total commitment of the self that leads one to the discovery of his soul, with the help of the individual Spirit existing as a seed in consciousness, an inner center. This Spirit is designated as the "inner God" who inspires the soul in its spiritual quest. For it is neither a doctrine nor a cleric who fulfills katharsis for man and in man, but his own will born of a deliberate choice. In this, Catharism presented itself as a spirituality meant for free individuals and it could be considered by the Church, and rightly so, as a dangerous ferment for the order established under its psychological influence. Freedom is necessary for consciousness to be fulfilled but, as I have previously pointed out, freedom can also lead to deviations when it happens too prematurely.

I look forward to reading more of this article later on,just wanted the readers of this blog know about this.

Welcome to the Blogroll

Reverend Scott is a Priest under Bishop Tau Ioannes Harmonius, John Cole - the Gnostic Church of Christianopolis, I found his blog which appears to be somewhat negelected recently and thought that it belonged in the blogroll vis a vis other gnostic bloggers.

I also found via Jeremy at Fantastic Planet that Revd.Illuminatus Maximus, creator of the Gnostic Friends Network webpage has made another go at blogging. A bit desolate presently, but I expect we will be seeing posts which intersect the interests of myself,Jeremy,Jesse at Homoplasmate and Tim Boucher's Occult Investigator blog...

Third out is Bishop Shaun McCann, of the Apostolic Johannite Church, who has his own blog which discusses aspects of the sacramental ministry of the contemporary Gnostic Ekklesiae.


Lastly, I have added the Projet Guenon, due to the frequency of materials posted which should interest us gnostics there.

Congratulations to the Right Reverend Jordan Stratford, AJC

Upon logging on to the Internet today I came upon a post (with pictures) concerning the Consecration of my fellow brother in the Gnosis, Jordan Stratford, to the Priesthood. The consecration was
conducted by Most Reverend Bishop Mar Iohannes IV (Shaun McCann) of the Apostolic Johannite Church at the Parish of St.Joseph of Arimathea in Calgary, Alberta.

I know Jordan from way back (on the Internet), I have always thought he was a worthy sparring partner, a combination of intelligence, sincerity,humour and humility never goes wrong - even if you happen to disagree on quite a few things.

A quite essential feature of the Gnostic priestly ministry is a mediatory presence , the ability to step back and let the languageless powers which you have opened yourself up to may speak in and through you. In fact, to be two, three or a whole community, in communion, receiving the Holy Spirit and allow it movement. I do not know Jordan personally, but can attest and confirm that I have experienced him quite able to have a mediatory presence for others - which is to say, I know him to be someone who walks the walk, not only talk the talk. When I found out Jordan had chosen to contribute both to the little community of sincere "ecclesiastical gnostics" on the Internet, but also within the Gnostic Church, I became very happy even though I couldn't quite articulate why; I suspect what it means to me now is that I happen to think the Apostolic Johannite Church, as one expression, one body of many, of the Gnostic and Universal Ekklesia - is quite fortunate to have receive Jordan amongst its own.
Pax Sophiae et Pleromae, Jordan - blessings and wellwishes on your journey. You are a Priest Forever after the fashion of Melchizedek.

Welcome to the Blogroll

It has been a very busy time and strictly speaking I should be studying, but having a look "around" the blogs of friends and compadres, known and unknown have admittedly taken up a little of my time...

Now, I'd like to welcome Tim Boucher and his Occult Investigator blog to my blogroll, along with Sparwidget and his Homoplasmate site, it'll be nice to see more impulses on the subject of Gnosticism and Modernity..which is one of my main themes as well, even though you can accuse me of quoting a load of dead guys...

Ecclesia Gnostica feature in LA Weekly

Ecclesia Gnostica and its beloved bishop, Most Revd. Stephan Hoeller has picked up a lot of local interest and
This time I feel the article, although brief, has accomplished to catch the quintessence of what the Ecclesia Gnostica is about and how Stephan Hoeller thinks. Thanks to Jeremy at Fantastic Planet for letting us know.

Concluding Remarks: The Transfiguration of the Earth

The credo of the Knighthood of Sophia, as referred to in my series of meditations and commentaries on Henry Corbin's Spiritual Body and Celestial Earth, were "May we be among those who will bring about the Transfiguration of the Earth".

Let me remark that you will find little support for environmental activism, or even tendencies towards pantheism as you would find with the Romantics of the 18th and 19th century, in this blog. That does not mean I am entirely disinterested with the conditions for continued life on this earth, now or for any unknown future. Neither am I very symphatetic with the corporate culture of mass consumption which has been going on as long as I have been alive in my part of the world, the "industrialized, developed West".

When I posted this series on one of the forums I participated in many years ago, I got a limited amount of feedback. This way around I got none. I am not disheartened at this, I am quite sure some of you have found the time to read and ponder upon what I have contributed.
Some of the feedback was questions. That was quite inspiring, since questions raised function as a signal that something is received.
One of the questions were: "What is your perspective on the mystery of restoration". I linked the concept of restoration with said Transfiguration intuitively, which is an unpardonable intellectual vice - but the result, I felt, answered the question. An additional observation before giving you my old answer to this challenge, the Book of Revelation, historically held to be written by John the Apostle while imprisoned on the island Patmos, gives us a vision of the old world, heavens and earth included, consumed and rolled up, devoured and entirely annihilated, to be replaced with a Paradisical new earth with some quite interesting features, such as the description of the "sea being no more". I have been unable to read this apocalyptical vision as anything an interior vision which draws upon the experiences the writer and the reader have with the phenomenal, physical world. The Transfiguration we may seek to participate in, involves a deeper understanding of everything which is - from a point of enquiry well beyond the finite and mortal realms of newborn stars and dying suns. This point coincides with the most interior, most hidden, yet most intimate of all: your starting point for every enquiry - your Self.

The restoration was mentioned, in fact, in the first paragraph of the 6th part of the series, and described as:


"Transfiguration of the world and the expulsion of the powers of darkness from the existencial sphere human,natural and angelic- restoring the "paradisical purity""


But what in the world would that might be?


Within the specific hermeneutic applied by Corbin in his treatment of this theme "the transfiguration of the earth", the task of the "Knighthood of Sophia" - there is a distinction between oppressive darkness,intervening with Being - which has a myriad names but constitute the same thing, which might be considered within a moment, or within a potentionality of eternities (which nevertheless is not eternal) - and a luminous darkness, which could be likened to the soil, or even earth, from which the sparks of light, the souls, the beings - hid inside it,can be retrieved.
Sophiology, as we might find it in the slightly heterodox thinkers Vladimir Solovyev and Nicolai Berdyaev, as well as the more orthodox oriented thinkers such as Sergei Bulgakov and Pavel Florensky - operates with Dual aspect of Sophia, or a dual expression of Sophia (Wisdom); a creaturely Sophia and a Divine Sophia - the might be considered the same "person" under different circumstances,conditions and predicaments, co-existing.
They are unified through the agent of Man who can "wed" the separate realms and dimensions of being in himself through the discipline which in this context is called a "Sophianity".


Achamoth (Echmoth) can be construed to be the substantiality which fills the galaxies of forms and potentional existence, she "leaks" life, or "bleeds" it - into all containers, and upon contact, participates in the natures, which is to say, in this "diminishing" of herself into a plurality
- she "creates", fashions or "gives birth to" ..worlds. Taking on the nature or participating in the life which is shaped by this union, a certain Wisdom accrues, while also it is subject to the mortality of the recipient forms, their fragility. Her presence fills up every form, every person, every globe - and those who experience, like she experiences, the exchanges between the outer and the inner, between the twilight and dawn, is informed of what Beauty is, what longing is (a very wise endeavour, but shut in, by itself.. Eros, according to the myth - is born of the union of such longing with industry (activity)) and what suffering means.
What lacks here, at the foundation of such existence, such being - galaxies and universes, is a connection with the initial identity, the initial integrity, and a resolve of will, of conscious participation - an active knowing.

"He that knows the All, yet lacking Self-Knowledge, lacks everything" -

to paraphrase the Gospel of Thomas.. but this "lacking" is an continuous condition of our "earth", and because of this condition the aforementioned powers, dark or evil we might say, have their say and influence on all that participates in the self-same "life".

I am trying to state something difficult: That your "god", your "consciousness" - everything elevated to some distance of value or integrity, all "powers", "angels" and "principalities" - not calling them demons,archons or tyrants as such, they might become this, just as we might become bitter men and women, corrupt, perverted, misanthropes, hating not only the world, our next, any "god" - but also oursleves, our lives etc. participating in the continuous "sin against the Holy Spirit" - is party to this condition, this predicament.. and subject to a Shadow, which enlivens the passive/active ignorance,arrogance,forgetting,uncharity. That Shadow is not Achamoth, but every "child" of Achamoth, like Herself, is born into a world which is dominated by the active pollution of the Shadow of every single particle or universal; they would not have been born into that particular predicament.. had not the flaw of their mother been reproduced in their own interior. So men, in a unconscious capacity, in amnesis, forgetting -and subservience to these powers - "create the world", as well as becoming products,charges,debtors to the selfsame.

Every child, again, contains a Dual aspect - they are as much the child of the Higher, redeemed,unfailing Divine Sophia, as they are a child of Achamoth, just as much are they the product of the union of Logos with Sophia, as they have become the bastard product of the union of Ialdabaoth with Achamoth; or as much from "Heaven" as they are from "the World"; and every child again, is not exclusively human, animal, angelic etc. but represents all that are emanated out of Sophia - whether into Her own, in the Pleroma - or into Achamoth, which becomes Kenoma (emptiness) continuously; this also represents a Dual Aspect, in origin it is One, but becomes many in the multiplicity both of Light and Dark, only in the struggle between the two, does it become divided.


From a Gnostic perspective - the redemption of identity through interior knowledge, Gnosis - is that predicament which is of greatest priority; without that, there is no true power in us to interfer,assist or parry - whatever powers,developements and events come our way, we can only do damage.. call that "sin" if you will, but at the very least there is lesser or greater damage being done.


Zoroastrianism being decidedly Monotheistic in cosmology (sic!) recognizes only one possible outcome for the All, but appreciates the nature of man as something a bit different than other monotheistic orthodoxies: Like Angels who are messengers, lighthouses of intent,information,wisdom..and power of intercession - Man is a redeemer and a repairer, who paradoxically is in the closest vicinity of that which needs redemption..

The Good is defined, not in the passive and docile enjoyment of a paradisical condition as such, but in the active participation in making things better, the Good is, very primitively put, Love..not the thought of Love, or sentiment, or ideal - but that transformative intercession. While most souls will travel to the Bridge of Chinvat with a very heavy baggage, and meet something resembling a gruesome parody of a man or a woman, once they arrive - some will participate in the work represented by the Advocate, like some parts of existence and reality will shine the brighter, reflecting the Light of the Divine, even if its present form and constitution..will be ruined at the end of the "last day" when all is accomplished.


Some traditions of Gnostic Christianity, as well as- certain traditions of the Esoteric or "hidden" aspect of so-called Orthodox Christianity, as well as with the Kabbalistical tradition of Isaac Luria (I cannot vouch for all the others) - teach an Apokatastasis Panthon - the restoration of all things into their origin; they will no more linger in a middle condition, being not exactly of this constitution or the other, not truelly fulfilling their natures or revealing their true identities, not really participating in a reality which is informed by their potentionality; what looses itself to darkness, is darkness, and what looses itself to light, is light - that which is born out of this process of purification, this distilling of the true light from the mixture - becomes a new, truer being, for they are children of redemption. Of Christ-Sophia.
So with Man, He either works upon "nature", or "nature" works upon him. If he takes no part, still he is a child of Sophia, but he has not "put on the robe of light", he has not "intervened on behalf of "his" soul, which is *not* his self" - he is no Knight, nor a page.. he is some uncharitable person who nevertheless profit by way of the redemption of the kingdom, for it will provide a sanctified spot for him to continue to be passive,uncharitable,cowardly and whatever else he desires, until he tires of it.. finally gravity itself will pull his roots up and land him right in the trouble which brought him here, and finally this trouble will be resolved.

The Fravartis part 14 with conclusion

"In Yasht XIX we hear celebrated the creatures
who are to come from the world of light and , in the
form of the Saoshyants, renew earthly existence,
making it an existence in the nature of Fire, when all
creatures will possess an incorruptible body of luminous
Fire. But that is an event toward which all creatures
of light are working now, in the present. This work
and this event were the very reason, from the beginning, for the choice and battle of the Fravartis. The creatures of light receive their capacity to fulfill or to anticipate this metamorphosis thanks to the victorial Fire whose radiance embodied in beings is called by the personal name of the Angel Arshtat."

Henry Corbin:Spiritual Body and Celestial Earth...pp.45

"This tranfiguring energy of which the Imago Gloriae is the source and organ, envelopes the whole soul. Perception of the Fire of earthly Flory proclaims the radiance of a spiritual Fire bringing the soul to incandescence, to the Light of saving knowledge (gnosis) introduces the soul to the Earth of Light, and to all the beings composing its own world, the world for which it
is answerable. That is why the figure of Daena, the light of knowledge and the Imago Animae, is sometimes
substituted for that of the Angel Arshtat.
And that is also why at the "judgement" which is the confrontation of
the soul with the celestial archetypes for which it had to answer on earth, the Angel Arshtat stands at the side of Zamyat, the Dea terrestris, at the
"weighing" of the soul, both of them assisting the archangel
Amertat.For this confrontation causes the soul to ask: with what "weight" did it weigh its own Xvarnah which was
for the transformation of being? To what degree was it itself a Saoshyant, thus fulfilling the vow of its own prayer: "May we be among those who are to bring about the Transfiguration of the
Earth".." Henry Corbin: Spiritual Body and Celestial Earth..pp.45-46

"In Eran-Vej, close by the mountain of Hukairya <Hugar, the very High - a mountain as high as the stars, from which the spring of life,the Heavenly Waters of Ardvi Sura Anahita. More about the conncection between Hukairya and Ardvi Sura Anahita later. TDB>, there is a mountain of the dawns (Ushidarena). The Liturgical chant to the Angel Zamyat opens with a strophe in praise of this mountain of the dawns. it is made of ruby of the substance of heaven: It is situated in the middle of the cosmic sea Vourukasha, into which it pours the waters it receives from Hukairya.It is the first mountain to be lighted up by the auroral fires; for this
reason, it is the receptacle, the treasury of the dawns,
and likewise (by homophony) that which gives Intelligence to men. It is said that "the mountain first lighted up by the rays of the dawn also enlightens the intelligence, since dawn and intelligence are one (Usha and Ushi).
Finally, the ritual affirms the connection which is essential here between the mountain of dawn and
eschatology; it prescribes that an offering be made to the
Angel Arshtat at the hour of Aushahin ( between
midnight and dawn), and the reason given is that the mountain of dawn is mentioned in order to propriate the Angel Arshtat.And now the connection becomes clear: It is at the dawn that rises after the third night following death that the soul has to face the ordeal of the Chinvat Bridge. Thus,the mountain of dawn is invested
with the Light of Glory <Xvarnah> at the same exact hour when the soul is called upon to testify concerning its earthly existence in the presence of the Angel Arshtat and Zamyat, the Angel of the Earth, both of whom assist the Amahraspand Amertat in the
"weighing of the souls"." Henry Corbin: Spiritual Body and Celestial Earth, pp.27


The Ritual and Liturgy opens up a landscape, a pattern which is a habitation of spiritual presences in confrontation with earthly destiny and attainment. It is event (a dawn, in both the
literal and symbolical sense) and space (in the case of
"the mountain of dawn"): event and space are both
biographical in relation to the greater context of The Soul on
Its Journey and its fateful weighing on the third day after the bond of the body is loosened. Transfiguration occurs on a Mountain. Transfiguration represents the outpouring,a libation, of supernatural and celestial light which "disturbs" the forms and structures which is
delineated by the senses. This we may compare well and good with the New testament gospel account of the Transfiguration of Jesus at the "Mount of Vision", the Mountain Tabor. The "threeformed" spiritual presence of living intelligence is also typified in the early christian tradition by assigning the identities of Jesus as Christ with Moses and Elijah on his right and left hand. Do we
have, in the west, a ritual comparable to the splendour of the "Ritual of Dawn (Aushahin)"?

Yes, the ritual is a reminder and an "opening" into the event of
final dissolution of fate (!), the union with the celestial self, the heavenly "I", the Daena - it typifies death,resurrection and transfiguration.

What could contain these codes, these images, of our western heritage? The Eucharist celebrated in the sacramental churches. The
Eucharist is prefigured by several antecedent archetypes practised in many cultures and in many different mythos, but its internalization and direct relevance to the "Soul on its Journey" were never more clear than within the Christian Gnosis, lost to almost all who today
profess to be Christians.

The Fravartis part 13

"Ashi Vanuhi is the Angel who radiates Xvarnah,the Light of Glory; but this radiation everlasting,
that is to say, the perdurable radiance thus restored
by vision,now becomes the Angel who is called by the
name Arshtat. In her person she is the Imago
Gloriae reflecting to the soul the Image of an Earth
transfigured into the image of the soul that transfigures
it."
Henry Corbin:Spiritual Body and Celestial Earth,pp.45.

This notion of Arshtat as the Mirror held Up to the Soul in its capacity as transfigurating agent - reminds me of an Manichaean hymn fragment I read once, referring to Jesus, the hymn says "He held up a mirror to us, and in it we saw the world"
Arshtat is intimately linked to the Gnostic concept fo "light-man", as well as "divine twin". In the Books of Pistis Sophia, a scene shows us Sophia seeking the Light, encountering the Logos - she is not able to see his face for
some reason,but she sees her own countenance glorified in his luminous garments.

Why could and why would a soul seek the transfiguration spoken of in
relationship to both the Angels (specifically the initiatory Fravartis)? First, it is itself sought after,loved,coveted..and the world is trembling and sighing in anticipation for the manifestation of the Children of the Living God..but what good does it do it? The Gospel of Philip speaks of the original man, named Adam in this instance - that "<He>.. came into being
from two virgins; from the spirit and from the virgin
earth." Moreover - "Adam´s soul resulted from an act of
blowing. Its partner is the spirit. The element that was
impartd to him is his mother. His soul was taken away and
he was given a spirit in its place. When it had
become joined to him the Rulers envied him because he
spoke words superior to their own.."
It is also
indirectly refering to the "Sethian" myth of Adam and Eve,
where Eve comes into being as a direct incarnation of Zoe - the "heavenly life" as opposed to mere "Bios"; the intelligence and sensuality of man and woman together, all alone in the garden - produce "offspring" which is not corporal- which might be called "words superior to legislation"; The Poetics of Spiritual acquiantance, this "producing" or emanation is nothing but the reflection of their union in the Bridal Chamber - in the Mirror which is existence.

Particles of the broken word. Upon Pentecost.

I fear this text needs a preface. Some explanation.

I have spoken of the voluntary voyage in contrast to the natural course. The Magnum Opus is ever thus; it is necessary to become conscious while being in the world - to understand the difference. It is the Opus contra Natura. I mean, comprehend the distinction between the natural birth and a new birth. What is a new birth? Do we insist upon it as a cultural event, a rite of passage, to another aspect of the same life? If we do, we find ourselves very far from the fire. Necessarely each and every single one of you who pursue the path of Christ, are abnormal and unnatural. Each moment of conscious participation in the mysteries produce a transgression against formal religion. Not such transgressions you would profess to your Priest. Not such perturbations of conscience you would lecture upon to your Analyst.
Past generations of seekers, past generations of Gnostics knew this.
So some of them gathered in the desert. The desert is not a natural place for people to dwell. It is a place you pass through.

I believe that the desert is a perfect image for the situation each single Christian Gnostic finds himself or herself to be in - when I say this, I intend with the desert to indicate that there is an intense thirst, an intense stubborn intention in us - to seek water, to seek shelter, to seek a way out of this desert. It is also my belief that this situation were precisely what the disciples of Christ found themselves in first when Jesus died and disappeared, and then again when he ascended adn they were left to their own devices.
This is the precise moment the interior voice and the lightning flashes of vision occur in all the Gnostic accounts, that which were put down in writing so that future generations might read them.
It is my understanding that while there were indeed precursors, revealers and messengers before Christ, this moment where only the interior witness, alive in the disciples - a seed growing inside of them - is the beginning of the Christian Gnosis.

The eve of Pentecost is the archetypal shewbread, the Eucharist commemorated. Wherein all the events from the personal encounter with Jesus, which for each individual disciple were different, unique - to the unique suffering of sorrow,disorientation and perplexity which each of them went through differently - and were comforted differently, which we find examples of in many of the Acts of the Apostles we find in the Apocryphal literature. It is told that Jesus did not baptize his disciples, in the New Testament. The Gnostic testimonies, such as The Pistis Sophia and the Books of Ieou, contradicts this testimony. But when they contradict this testimony, we must remember that the Christ which indeed baptizes his disciples has, through this death, this resurrection and the triumphant ascension, through fulfilling both the descent of the Holy Spirit, the manifestation of the Comforter, the paraclete - and the interior witness in each of the disciples - has become a different Christ than the one which were promised by the prophets, who took the confidence and the hope of his disciples to himself and transformed it, and who was born one night to a woman named Mary and who had a father called Joseph, who was a carpenter. Yes, it was indeed a different Christ and a different baptism. Indeed, it was different disciples entirely.
The reason for this is quite simple - that which indeed happened, the true event, has not taken place in the world we knew, the world we were fed like milk by the generations that went before, to some of us it has not taken place, yet. To the majority of humankind it is not a past event, it is not history, ancient or recent - it is a universal non-event.
As such, the criticism that it is entirely unhistorical cannot be deflected. It is an unspeakable atrocity, a foolishness to the Greeks and an anathema to the Hebrews.

Friends, I am trying to speak of how the Gnosis is different. How the events of the journey of Yeshuah and the disciples is differently received by Gnostics. How we may profess with the Orthodox the same things, with good conscience, with the words we speak signifying a different, esoteric, unspoken meaning. This is not deceit. We know that some are able to partake of the same meal which we prepare. We know that some will hear the precise intention in our words, to see the sincerity in our actions; without being cued or having a lot of arcane boulderdash being explained to them. This is how we can participate in the same communion. And we do not need to insist upon a spectacular outward form for that which is internally unique and received. A Church Catholic is universal, it is not our flesh and our blood, it is neither martyrs or prophets, it is neither clergy nor laity, it is neither male nor female, it has no sexual orientation at all, it answers to no etnicity, culture or race. God is untranslateable to any known language, therefore we break this word that we may live.


Upon Pentecost, further still we go.


The journey goes onward.To the cross of dissolution, upon which Christ crucified this world.Whose mystery is expressed in the words "inasmuch as you have dissolved the world, and are not dissolved yourselves, you are lords over all generation and corruption."
(Fragments of Valentinus)


Facing West. The mystery of Good Friday greets us with ashes, a rain of blood and a raging wind. A total eclipse of the sun of biological life. A recognition of finitude which penetrate our flesh and takes habitation in the marrow of our bones.

Facing East. Easter Sunday. Here in distance between the men and the women, whose measure of passion is so unequal we speak of one as if she were borne up from a great depth in glory, while another sinks where he stands - the same play of light and dark occur before their eyes.
They receive each a measure according to the capacity he or she has to see beyond the vision of fleshly eyes and the intellect of the Psyche.


To the new birth, in baptism you have seen it coming towards you.
And having seen it, you took courage and entered the tomb with him.
You entered the place below the crypt, and you submitted unconditionally to this death, all the clothes you have received from the robbers on your way down to this place, and you have entered into the place of the resurrection so that you yourselves might be clothed in His glory.


Now it has become a living being which stands up and whose eyes
now has visions of the real, whose ears at every occasion it speaks it, and whose mouth is consecrated to song and to testimony.
You go to light and life in Him, He is in you, and You are in Him.

Heaven or Earth might see this countenance; upon seeing it, the entirety professes; It is You.

This one professes that before he was entirely an orphan.
No Father knew he. No Mother knew he. And he knew neither Father or Mother. You speak so proud of the generations before. But look into this night, this desolate place - where are your glorious past?
The heartbeat that insists upon it, is your own. They swear upon the end of the world. Since it will never come. But it has already happened.

Fear not, rather, do not be shy.
This is the glorious Cross. This is the continued life and breath of the Holy Spirit.

The Fravartis pt.12

"The soul is again invited to experience another
intuitive anticipation by Daena´s other sister <Corbin
described the ritual celebration of Zarathustra´s Daena as
an anticipatory vision of his future meeting, as a
Soul on Its Journey, with her on the bridge of
Chinvat>, the Angel Ashi Vanuhi, who also, in the trilogy
of the powers described above, serves as mediatrix
between Spenta Armaiti, whose daughter she is, and Daena,
whose sister she is. Her attributes resembles theirs:
she is also an "daughter of Ahura Mazda, and sister
of the Archangels "Yazatas"; she takes on the
form of a proud and beautiful maiden, her girdle tied
high, pure, noble, and
invincible..."

Corbin:Spiritual Body...pp.43

"In Eran-Vej, that is medio mundi, Zarathustra also meets the Angel Ashi Vanuhi.
This event is strikingly described in Yasht XVII. The
Angel-Goddess, driving her chariot of Victory, is invoked as
all-powerful and as herself possessing Xvarnah (Light of Glory).This Iranian Gloria Victrix is
indeed the sister of the Nike of the
Greek statuary (those "Victories" who, principally owing to
Gnostic influence, were the origin of the Angel in early
Christian iconography).Then, erect on her triumphal chariot,
she invites Zarathustra to approach, to mount and sit beside her:
"Thou art beautiful, O Zarathustra, thou art very fair ..
to thy body Xvarnah is given and to thy soul lasting
bliss. Behold, thus I proclaim it to thee.."
Thus,
the Angel Ashi Vanuhi possesses and bestows Xvarnah,
the Light of Glory, bur at the same time she herself
is the Victory, the victorial Fire. In her person
are concentrated the significance both of Glory and
of Destiny, the Aura Gloriae of a being of
light."

Corbin:Spiritual Body and Celestial Earth,pp.44

I would be neglectful of my own inheritance as a Norseman, If I did not compare Zarathustra´s journey with the Queen of Victory with what fares a warrior when he has died in battle, namely that he is
approached by the Valkyries who bring him safely to his home
in Valhall. I am also reminded of how Abraxas is sometimes depicted on ancient "gnostic" gemstones, as riding a Chariot..he is also a "Victor"; he has overcome his "destiny" as twin-brother and officer to Ialdabaoth - and converted according to his own Sophianity.. She is called "Angel of the Paradisial abode". An assitant to Spenta Armaiti, who is the Abode of the Choosers, the Knighthood of Sophia.

The Fravartis part 11

Daena-Sophia has sisters.

Among them is the
Angel Chisti, which is celebrated in Yasht XVI (the
Avestan hymn-cyclus), which is specifically dedicated to
Daena.

"Her name .. conveys the idea of an active Light which
illuminates and reveals a Form of Light. It is she who
confers on each being the faculty of vision, particularly on the participant in the liturgy, who by her is enabled to see and penetrate the meaning of the words and gestures of the Ritual. As it is recalled in the Yasht:

"Zarathustra sacrificed to her, saying: "Rise from thy throne, come from the Abode of Hymns, O most upright Chisti, created by Mazda and
holy.."

In the liturgy consecrated to Daena, it is therefore
Chisti who reveals her presence in mental vision as mediatrix for her "sister" and as the performer of this liturgy. She carries the oblations, she is the priestess in person. Since it is she who confers vision, she herself therefore is the vision, that defines the features of her iconography: tall and slender, clothed in
white and herself white."

Henri Corbin, Spiritual Body and Celestial Earth, pp.43.


Zharathustra petitions Chisti to rise from her throne, to greet him and assist him in his liturgy, which is devoted to his divine Daena, his Sophia, his direct anchor into the
deep of Spenta Armaiti´s mysteries. She is the Angel of the liturgy - she is the sight which sanctifies the text, words pronounced, sounds emitted, gestures performed, oblations consecrated and ingested, the mixing of the cup of Hoama, the burning of incense..the
activity of the Active Imagination in transforming mere visual data into a vision of the Transfigured Earth, and standing at its borders, the Persona of the Knight (among whom we must surely account Zarathustra to be) Transfigured.

Each of the inheritances from Primal Man, in each
transmission, in each version; as we can find in Manichaean and
Mandaean sacramentology - we encounter "the spirit of the
Ritual". Marcus the Valentinian (2nd century Gaul) called
upon the name of "Charis" (Grace), and prepared the
eucharist so that she may "descend upon the chalice" as
well as filling the "inner man" of those who had
communed under her. This Charis is a Sophian presence,
just as the Paraclete and Mani´s own celestial twin.
I´d like to add that it is my understanding that
either of these are *more* than personifications of
abstract "powers"; they are approached as presences whose
place is to stand in front of the thin veil which
stands between "our world" as administered through the
senses, and the Pleroma of the divine worlds. Just as
they guard the gate, they also assist in transmutation
of the souls who pass between them. To the ancients,
each >Ritual occasion represented a specialy
prepared "space" where the discerning could interact with
the spiritual reality from which they claim actual
origin. Persephone is another "Priestess" of Mysteries - as she
mixes the cup of Kykeon whose aroma is both bitter and
sweet. Hoama, which is a counterpart to it - imparts
"immortality" as well as "death swift and certain". The vision
of Daena at the bridge is apparently prefigured in
Zarathustra´s encounters with Daena´s sisters..he sees them all
and do them due honour, but he knows his Daena in the
same way our Dante knows his Beatrice.

Upon Ascension Day. Christ, Protect Us All against all false guidance

This Thursday we commemorate the triumphant ascension of The Christ. Wherein he left history and the boundaries of time behind.
Wherein he also allowed his beloved upon the earth to move in and through the promised kingdom while incarnate and in the throes of darkness, pain and under the shadow of death.

Wherein he offered up his part on hehalf of his disciples so they may receive the Holy Comforter, through which they will live and have their being, like he had life and being through them.


The Logos is prior to the world. The Logos remain unassailed by all the powers which exist, in matter and in the mind. The Logos remain the Truth and Glory of the unvanquished race of Man. A Living Presence, ever immanent, ever descending, ever ascending in and through Mankind. The Logos is the marrow of the bones, the iron in the blood - air in the breath - of Man. The Logos is the true friend of all men and women who are born into this world overshaddowed by a malicious enemy, of both God and man.Anathema upon the Counterfeit Spirit who build myriad temples to his vain glory.
Where the man threads air, travails the invisible ladder beyond all horizons - the Spirit remains the crowned King of all those who live and breathe, all those who glory in the glory of First Primal Man, the design and the essence of the human race, far superior to the races of angels and spirits - since the Logos deigned to enter into them and reveal unto the All that which it had promised from the beginning, whose purpouse,intent and compassionate will the Unknown
Father had for Him.

The First Book of Ieou (from the Bruce Codex)

The apostles said to him: " Speak to us, O Lord, that we may hear thee. We have followed thee with our whole hearts. We have left behind father and mother, we have left behind vineyards and fields, we have left behind goods and the greatness of kings, and we have followed thee, so that thou shouldst teach us to know the life of thy father who has sent thee"

The living Jesus answered and said : "The life of my Father is this : that you receive your soul from the race of understanding mind, and that it ceases to be earthly and becomes understanding through that which I say to you in the course of my discourse, so that you fulfil it and are saved from the archon of this aeon and his persecutions, to which there is no end.

But you, my disciples, hasten to receive my word with certaintiy so that you know it, in order that the archon of this aeon may not fight with you - this one who did not find any commandment of his in me - so that you also, my apostles, fulfil my word in relation to me, and I myself make you free, and you become whole through a freedom in which there is no blemish. As the Spirit of the Comforter (Parakleiton) is whole, so will you also be whole, through the freedom of the spirit of the Holy Comforter."

In the same scripture - is given us:

"These mysteries that I shall give you, guard them, do not give them to any man unless worthy of them; do not give them to father or mother, to brother or sister or relative. Guard them; do not give them to anyone at all for the sake of the goods of the whole world. Do not speak to anyone of these mysteries of the Treasury of the Light, save to those who shall be worthy of them, having left the whole world and all its affairs, being in no faith other than the Faith of the Light, listening to one another and treating one another as Sons of the Light."

Would only we be able to discern correctly between our interest in the world and our interest in the Pleroma. That we treat eachother according to righteousness, justice and always within the jurisdiction of true love. That our walk in life be undisturbed by the archons, interior as well as exterior, out of the body as well as incarnate. That each fragile man and woman be guarded perfectly from the lure and the oppressive violence of the servants of the rulers of this world. That our eyes see exactly that which is spiritually there and not be charmed by the father of lies.


The occasion of this rather involved post is that again it has come to my knowledge a tremendous abuse of the word and that which is associated with, namely, the simple word "Gnostic" - this word was so guarded, so potentionally harmful on account of the flagrant arrogance which it might produce in the hearts of those using it on themselves, as individuals or members of a community or a sect, that those which history has called "Gnostics" never used the Greek term "Gnostikos" on themselves. The possessors of Nasirutha, the Mandaean or ancient Aramaic corollary to the term "Gnosis" or "Gnostic wisdom", remained anonymous to every profane individual, even members of the same religion and people.

The reason is to be found in the way Gnosis is received. It is neither collective nor properly a social commodity, it is not to be regarded as produced out of intellect, nor fidelity, nor moral or physical perfection. It is not a product of conditoned evolution.
It has no quality which is comparable to anything of the quality of this present world, nor the heavens between it and the Treasury of Light. It is truely miraculous, undiscernable, unproven and vulnerable to all and every kind of mockery. It is neither rational in this potency or another unknown potency, yet it possesses characteristics which weds it to the spiritual centre of man wherever and whenever it is received. It is wholly accountable to Grace. Nothing else has jurisdiction over it, nothing else speaks of it, nothing else facilitates it. Submission to the interior will of God, which is revealed when each and every one of us have emptied ourselves of the prejudices which cause violence to be done upon the Sacred in our lives, in our hearts and in our intellects - is the only step forwards to it. Such a step, as I have said before, is a step away from all that we associate with the world, including our profane personalities. Consider these personalities valuable, consider them stories on the story tree, consider them episodes in the most enigmatic of soap operas..if you will. But observe how fast they are all drained in the face of the most sublime of mysteries, how little we thirst after any particular detail which they have to offer us, how little we long to unify ourselves to them.. we have left the devil behind, and we are unlike dogs, again we become sober and when we have become sober we do not allow ourselves to return to that which we have vomited up.


Jeremy at Fantastic Planet reports on a recent episode which has reached the courts in Washington State, USA (Seattle?). A certain individual had organized a type of self-help centre for people with ambitions towards supermanhood, towards becoming "gods", towards awakening from a meek semi-religious, confused post-modern condition of spiritual inertia towards all the undreamed of potentionalities of the grand "New Age". It is reported he predated upon those with whom he had gained confidence, without regards for themselves, he meddled with reference to "sexual energies" which needed neutralization. Indeed, he thought it was his "perfect" self that should provide such neutralization. Apart from being absolute "flapdoodle", which I should hope people are intelligent enough to steer away from - but one thing is this philosophy exposed for what it is, another is whatever is packaged by charisma and rhetoric by this perpetrator.
It matters little that I or Jeremy or any other so-called "neo-gnostics" testify that we are apalled and confused by the use this person made of the term "Gnostic", for those hurt by this gentleman, whatever is "Gnostic" will be associated with the transgressions he wrought against them for his own satisfaction. Would we not agree that this activity is harmful, that it can even be said to be diabolic?

I admit the Gnosis turns the world upside down. If you turn something upside down, details you have ignored will become visible. You know already the whole picture from the convenient and usual angle, turned upside down we recognize there are things we have missed. Some of these are significant. If you admonish someone to turn around and reorient themselves, without taking care to admit first hand that it is a solitary and perhaps exhaustingly lonely journey back towards a wholeness which resemble that which you live - you are actually doing violence to their souls. They will damage themselves, failsafe. If you ask someone to become empty, without knowing the nature of their "fullness", you are in fact asking them just to lower their defences. Psychological defenses, although obstacles in the whole and complete journey towards ourselves, are of vital importance and should always be respect, albeit paid compassionate attention by all friends, all family, all fellow seekers.. all "guides" and hierophants. We are not fully aware all the time. I repeat this, we are not fully aware, we would like to be, it is a neat and precious ideal, it sounds quite good to be like that. Bigtime supermen and superwomen who can zoom though life completely independent from all the hangups and mechanisms of fear which govern the life of the majority of mankind. In the hands of certain individuals, the wisdom of Assagioli - who cared about his fellow human beings and were deeply emphatic to their suffering, equally Jung and other researchers in the conscious and unconscious of mankind - become weapons of extortion. In the care of certain individuals, the Good News of the Gospels become poison. From the mouths of certain individuals, words like freedom bear barbs and fangs.


I am acutely reminded of the event of the Ascension leaving the disciples in a confused and disturbed agitation over what will become of them now that their master has left them. Yes, indeed, Jesus arose never to return bodily into history. All pretenders have been proven false prophets, by the wear and tear of the ages, so I dare say this. But in the place of this presence, so ambigious because some of the disciples indeed developed an impression of him as someone he was not (see my post On the Capacity of Visionary Participation)
- came our Holy Comforter, came our Hope of Glory, came the challenge of all the false witnesses, who assembled like a great storm and threatened to tear us apart - came the mild and ever loving Holy Spirit in whom we have, in each in our lives, already encountered. That was the time when Gnosis was introduced into the world with a strength I dare say the generations before had not felt, as the witness in the Letter to the Hebrews professed - before you have received voices intoning messages from a distance, now the Gnosis has taken a body and walked among you, and when that body ascended to the Kingdom it had promised you, it took a dwelling in you and with you - just as God had vacated the Temple destroyed by the Persians, and taken up a dwelling among His people.

On the capacity for Visionary participation

From Henry Corbin: Divine Epiphany and Spiritual Birth in Ismailian Gnosis.
A paper reproduced in Papers from the Eranos Yearbook Vol.XXX: Man and Transformation. ed. Joseph Campbell.

A summary from the Acts of Peter with commentaries by Henry Corbin.

pp.69

Before a gathering of people the apostle Peter refers to the scene of the Transfiguration that he witnessed on Mount Tabor. And essentially all he can say is this: Talem eum Vidi qualem Capere potui ("I saw him in such a form as I was able to take in.").
...In this gathering there are several widows, afflicted at once with physical blindness and a incredulity of heart. The apostle speaks to them in a tone of urgency:
"Perceive in your mind that which ye see not with your eyes."

The assemblage begins to pray, and hereupon the hall is filled with a resplendent light; it does not resemble the light of day, but is an ineffable, invisible light such as no man can describe.
And this radiant "invisible light" shines into the eyes of these women, who alone are standing in the midst of the prostrate assemblage.
Afterward, when they are asked what they have seen, some have seen an old man, still others a little child who lightly touched their eyes and made them open. Each one has seen in a different form, appropriate to the capacity of her being; each one may say: Talem eum Vidi qualem Capere potui.

pp70

In the Acts of John in the narrative of the calling of the apostles, when John and his brother James return in their boat on the sea, both of them behold on the shore a being who beckons to them. But their visions differ; one has seen a child, the other a pleasant and comely man of noble bearing. Perhaps we shall find the key to these visions, the basis of their reality and their variations in a few striking pages of the same Acts of John.

On the evening of Good Friday the Angel Christos, while the multitude below in Jerusalem, imagines that it is crucifying him, causes the apostle John to go up the Mount of Olives and into the grotto illuminated by his presence and there the angel reveals to John the mystery of the "Cross of Light." This cross is called sometimes Word, sometimes Mind, sometimes Jesus and sometimes Christ, sometimes Door, sometimes Way, sometimes Son, Father, Spirit, sometimes Life, and sometimes Truth. It separates the things on high that are (TdB:or that which is established in the height), from the things below that become (the things of birth and of death), and at the same time, being one, stream forth into all things. "This is not the cross of wood which thou wilt see when thou goest down hence: neither am I he that is on the cross, whom now thou seest not, but only hearest his voice. I was reckoned to be that which I am not, not being what I was unto many others... Thou hearest that I suffered, yet I did not suffer; that I suffered not, yet I did suffer.. and in a word, what they say of me, that befell me not. But what they say not, that I did suffer."

This brief quotation from the sublime discourse will suffice for our purpouses. This mystery of the Cross of Light, which was one of the favorite themes of Manichaean piety (tdB: Which makes explicit reference to the Jesus Patibilis - Jesus hanging upon every tree: that the Divine does not shrink from suffering with and in Being, but participate in it as much and to the degree Being participates in the Light and Life of the Pleroma.), recurs explicitly in Shiite Ismailian Gnosis. The texts we have just cited from the so-called "apocryphal" scriptures (like many others from the same source) give us the right tonality and may serve here as a prelude. If we reflect on the scene recorded in the Acts of Peter, we shall come to conclusions that will serve us as premises.
We are dealing with visions, theophanic visions. There is actual perception of an object, of a concrete persopn: the figure and the features are sharply defined; this person presents all "appearances" of a sensuous objct, and yet it is not given to the perception of the sense organs. This perception is essentially an event of the soul, taking place in the soul and for the soul. As such its reality is essentially individuated for and with each soul; what the soul really sees, it is in each case alone in seeing. The field of its vision, its horizon, is in every case defined by the capacity, the dimension of its own being: Talem eum Vidi qualem Capere potui.

The community of vision will be established not by reference to an external object, an evidence uniformly and fully given to all, but by reason of a dimension of being that is common to this or that group or family of souls. This adequation of vision to the dimension and capacity of the soul in which it takes place is the foundation fo what we may call the metamorphoses of theophanic visions. We find a distinct formulation of these metamorphoses in Origen, where, speaking precisely of the Transfiguration, he declares that the Saviour existed not only in two forms - the one in which he was commonly seenm the other in which he was transfigured - but that in addition "he appeared to each one according as each man was worthy" (sed etiam unicuique apparebat secundum quod fuerat dignus - Origen, Commentaria in Matthaeum). This statement is in keeping with the conceptio of the metamorphoses of the Logos, no doubt derived from Philo and frequent in the works of Origen, according to which the Saviour appears to men as a man and to the angels as an angel. It fits in with the vision of the steps of the Temple, in which the Saviour is, by reason of his humanity,the first and the lowest step and, by reason of his angelic nature, the uppermost step dominating all the others, so that all the steps are the Saviour.

The Fravartis pt.10

Daena II continued.

Agathos Daimon is considered in many traditions of both the occident and the orient to be the Initiator of all souls.

This presence has jurisdiction over all initiations - before the portal of any Mystery it asks and it receives.

In the Mazdean hermeneutic Agathos Daimon is considered the direct initiator of Zharathustra, it is from Agathos Daimon he receives the mysteries of Divine Wisdom, which he becomes
a custodian and "prophet" of. This Agathos Daimon, in context with the earlier terminology, is none other than Daena. She is the Anima Coelestis; Heavenly "I" and Supernal selfhood. The aforementioned initation served as a foretaste of the Transfiguration of the Earth into its internal and celestial vision through its Angel (Spenta Armaiti,Spendarmat- "our Sophia") - as well as the meeting between the Soul on its Journey and the Angel Daena, daughter of our Sophia - at the fateful entrance of the Chinvat Bridge. Daena is both the "Visionary Soul" and the Visionary Organ of the Soul - serving as a vision of the celestial
world when it is lived. She correlates to the Action which is born out of Thought (over which presides Spenta Armaiti) and which is sister to Word(over which
presides Ashi Vanuhi, the Mistress over the "Abode of Hymns"). She is the face representing the activation of the Celestial earth of vision as a ruling prinsciple
within the soul, once it has chose its own "Sophianity".

The Fravartis pt.9

Daena II

Who is this Daena?

We can inspect the soteriology of souls according
to the Mazdeans, to receive a hint
(Note:I paraphrase Corbin.. he admittedly looks at the ancients
through eyes tinted with Sufism,Ismailism,Neo-Platonism and
Gnosticism..among other things):

At the Dawn of the third day, the Soul on its Journey arrives to The Bridge of Chinvat. Here it either meets with Daena, who is its celestial “I”; or on the contrary - it
confronts a terrible apparation, a monster, reflecting nothing but an “I”; it is mutilated and disfigured by every kind of ugliness, since it is cut off from its celestial Archetype.

This monster drags its victim down with itself to the
depths from which it never escapes, where it has ever dwelt, where it has forced the Soul in its life of degradation to live and dwell in thought and deed. The Perfected Soul however, crosses the Bridge of
Chinvat (over our “River Styx”) by the impetus of Spiritual flight and the power of its purity in thought and action:

It moves on towards the stars, then to the Moon, then
to the Sun, and then to the infinite Lights.

Remember the story of the Advocate? It is a variant of
this account.

The "mutilated face" confronting the "erring" Soul on this "third day" - puts me in mind of the "miscarriage" of Sophia which resulted in the Demiurge. If we read that particular component of myth as a
parable of the soul, it is suggestive. If I have eyes to see, when I surrender the life of this body - what shape will my image, my person be in? What in life, have I "produced"?

The Fravartis pt.8

Daena:

Spenta Armaiti, Spendarmat - the feminine
Archangel of Earth, is the Mother of Daena.

Corbin, Spiritual Body.. pp.15 paraphrased

“Daena is, in fact, the feminine Angel who in herself
typifies the transcendent or celestial “I”; she appears as the soul at the dawn following the third night after its departure from this world: She is its Glory and its Destiny, Its Aeon.”

The capacity of Daena as Archetype of the Soul on its Journey, rather than souls per se, or souls in any static
condition - presents her as a Heroine in all Narratives. Yet she is also a guardian of a most glorious secret, the secret which leads to the manifestation of the fullest and most hidden Pleromic Grace of her
Mother, Spendarmat, our Sophia. To those who are acquianted with the Eleusinian mysteries, these figures correlate directly to Demeter and Korè Persephonè. And
those who have read the Pistis Sophia will also find a correlation between the Virgin of Light (Barbelo) and her daughter Sophia Achamoth. In relation to Daena as the Soul´s Glory, the term Aeon is used by Corbin.
Aeon typifies alternatively age, persona and world (or “universe”) - to me this is very suggestive. Especially in
light of what we have been told so far about the Mystery of the Fravarti and the Xvarnah destiny of the human being who “Choose” the Path of Recollection, who choose to submit to the Quest belonging to the Knighthood of Sophia. Whose Motto is recited in the Yasna
Liturgy as

:" May we be among those who will bring about
the Transfiguration of the Earth".

,and whose profession is:

"My Mother is Spendarmat (Sophia), Archangel of the Earth, and my Father is Ohrmazd(Christ), the Lord of Wisdom."

The Fravartis pt.7

Henri Corbin continues:

"For man to
undertake such a work,is primarely for his own being what
the Pahlavi texts call Spendarmatikih (an abstract
noun derived from Spendarmat, the Pahlavi form of the
name Spenta Armaiti), and which we can translate as
Sophianity, the Sophianic nature of Spenta Armaiti considered as Sophia (Plutarch translated the Pahlavi concept
thus)..By assuming this nature, the human being is then, in
the true sense, the son of the Angel of the Earth, and so able to have a mental vision of her. The soul then awakens also to consciousness of its celestial kinship."

pp.37 Spiritual Body and Celestial Earth.

The Soul awakens to its function as co-redeemer - on each
of its side it has the host of Sophian and Christic angels (to translate it into western terms) - who ocillate between their functions; from unions into individual quests.Corbin here suggests the specific Xvarnah/Spendarmat relationship as one of Sophianity, which is interesting, since quite a lot of our "gnostisizing" and
mystical orienations actually encompass a recognition of the ensouled life as a specific compartment of human identity; this Sophianity presents Man with a duty ; first to become re-acquianted with his initial kinship, secondly to participate in the mystery of restoriation, which he already endeavoured, although at first
semi-consciously.

In other lore the Archangel Gabriel is consigned as both "Angel of the Earth" and "Angel of Mankind"; this dual image is what this concept of Sophianity contains. The sharing of predicament, on a deeper level - is also part of the plight of this "Knighthood of
Sophia" (especially described in Arthur Versluis: Theosophia:
The Hidden Dimensions of Christianity").

----------------------
I read an interview with Jose Saramago, the
Portuguese Nobel´s Literary Award winner of 98- where he
basically denied the existence of acollectively
verifyable and humanly normative"reality"; I do not
remember precisely what his argument where, but he would
need some kind of distance from so-called
"objectivity" even to be narrator/story-teller with good
conscience. He´s a contemporary disciple of Plato and quoted
the Republic quite a lot.A true poet needs to
believe that the soul needs liberation, he must truelly
be interested in how the cage feels and looks like
for the nightingale.. if he says "Oh, what a nice
song that bird produces".. he belongs among the
spectators, not in blindfolded at the firing range, which is
the place of every true adventurer in life... In
this nightmare of counterfeits, produced of
convenience and the attempt to calm the mind, still the
senses and numb the feelings..it is important to
remember why we ask questions about the veracity of any
thing or being or concept: it is because we need to
know the direct relevance of these things presented to
us. If we awake in the middle of that night which is
the world in its sleep, we must move beyond the
safehouse of the collective dream - and commune with
another reality. And why is that? We awoke because we
were touched..we were embraced..we were aroused by its
perfumes, moved by the beauty of its song.But then,
alas, we become lost to the world.. no more can we
become devalued,degraded and prostitute to its false
glories...

Wisdom in your pocket...

Stephan Hoeller's lectures have followed me around the past ten years or so now... I studiously borrowed the dear cassettes from my friend Jan Valentin Saether, since I had such a long bus rides home everytime I had business in the big city. I live about an hour's drive north of Oslo, so I usually got to listen to a lecture each visit on my Walkman. Times are changing and I remember the topic was dicussed that perhaps it would be more rational to create archives of the specific lecture series, in for example CD-RW or CD-Rom format, so that it would be all in one place and also accessible through more than one medium. Cherished as the old cassette players where, it was fading out.

I now notice that Bruce Campbell at BC recordings have decided to make a compromise that at least some people will find useful. BC Recordings is digitizing and making mp3 versions of Stephan Hoeller's lectures. This may help preserve both the existing collection as well as the new additions for the future.
In addition to the free Real Audio format lectures that Lance Owens in Utah has formatted and published on the Gnosis Archive, - you can now find a growing assortment of more recent lectures held by Stephan Hoeller at the Gnostic Society, Philosophical Research Society &c, which you may purchase through their new online store.

I for one has paid attention to the Friday lecture schedule for years thinking it is a damn shame I live so far away, like for instance, last month he held a series on the Apocryphon of John, a Gnostic scripture I think is quite unique among the remains after the Alexandrian school of Christian Gnosticism because it contains a complete account of the Gnostic myth as well as an extensive soteriology. I'll be checking out BC Recordings store occasionally to see if some of the semi-old lectures (the Gnostic Library in Oslo has a few hundred cassettes which spans the late 80's and onwards to the late 90's or somesuch, along with lectures by Roger Weir, modern renaissance man and hermetic philosopher.. who I feel complement Stephan Hoeller's work quite brilliantly.) from 2000 and onwards is available for purchase.
I'd like to see John Goeltz, Lance Owens, Jan Valentin Saether and others who have guest lectured at the Gnostic Society represented as well, but thats another issue.


This might not mean much to people who are not familiar with the work of Stephan Hoeller, who is the Director of Studies at the Gnostic Society as well as a respected Bishop in the English Gnostic lineage.
I recommend checking out the lecture section of the Gnosis Archive which is the official homepage for the Gnostic Society.

The Fravartis pt.6

Henry Corbin:

"The victory of the soul incarnated in terrestrial existence is measured by the degree of this restoration /transfiguration of the world and the expulsion of the powers of darkness from the existencial
sphere human,natural and angelic- restoring the
"paradisical purity",that is, by the degree of the soul´s
Xvarnah (Light-of-glory, "substance of superessential
luminousity"), of its growth toward its celestial existence to
come, of it´s resurrection body, the substance of which, reciprocally, is made of that celestial Earth
which is its action and its work."
pp.37 Spiritual
Body and Celestial Earth.

This course is what Corbin´s book Spiritual Body and Celestial Earth - map through his writing as well as a compilation of several representative voices of the "tradition" - not the least among them being the "Oriental" Yahya Suhrawardi.
Here Man cannot help but be
implicated and responsible in the reintegration of being,
and a progressive "redemption" - his past obligates
him, his future beckons and begs him..

The Fravartis pt.5

Henri Corbin:

"The filial relationship with
the Archangel Spenta Armaiti extends from the pre-existencial celestial "I" to that celestial "I" by and for whom She will engender the man. It is the consummation of a form of existence preluded in Heaven at the dramatic moment when the Fravartis accept to descend to the material Earth and there wage battle on the side
of the Powers of Light against all the human-faced demons. For the human soul, it is the moment of choosing to come to Earth and answer there for the Powers of Light, as the latter will answer for it post mortem.."

(TdB:reminding me of the persian legend of the Advocate.);
"Therefore the choice of the soul will also be its judge.Participating at each moment of the Aeon in the final work of the Saoshyants, each soul of light must fight for the Transfiguration of the Earth, for the expulsion of the demonic Powers from the Ohrmazdian creation.."
pp.37 of Spiritual Body and Celestial Earth.

Participatory eschatology is evident in near all the Gnoses east and west, this is what makes them controversial to certain Orthodoxies, who nevertheless cannot endorse their system of order by way of filiation and fealty, since the adherents of the former actually have fealty only to a pre-incarnation and manifestly interior Lordship.

However, the man of light and the Fravarti (in Pistis Sophia a
similar interior syzygy is referred to, as interchangeably - "power of Barbelo"(fem.) and "man of light/christ"(masc.))are each defenders of a world of light, obscured, yet through vision delineated, within the material realm of
existence.They represents a celestial and mortal Knighthood
against the "world of darkness". As such, we find a definite "dualism" represented in this philosophy, and
also in the consideration of the role of the Fravarti.

But only so in reference to the intermediate condition of Man and Earth; neither of them are dark, or source of evil, rather - they can be thought of as besieged at all sides by the powers of darkness..A similar "militarism of the spirit" can be found in the apocryphal and apocalyptic material found at Qumran, the so-called Dead Sea Scrolls.

The Fravartis pt.4

Henri Corbin:speaking of "Geosophy"(he begins by a description of the "transfigured earth"
experienced by the `Urafa (Gnostics in terms of devotees of
the Spenta Armaiti/Sophia) as a bounty won by their "choosing" in emulation of the Fravarti ("choosers"))

"The very term geosophy suggested is merely a
translation of the name Spenta Armaiti, the Sophia and the Feminine Angel of the Earth. What this term makes apparent from the start is the striking difference between a
vague feeling (and the commonplace notion) of being a "son of the earth" on the one hand and on the other the feeling and knowledge characteristically expressed in the Mazdean profession of faith, and impressed on the adept in that context, of being a human
individual who is the son of Spenta Armaiti, the feminine Archangel of the Earth.The second term in the filial relationship is now no longer a man imprisoned between the boundaries of terrestrial birth and death, but a human being in his totality, including the past of his pre-existence and the future of his superexistence."

The Gnostic notion of direct filiation with Sophia and the Pleroma is here expressed in a different context; in the Barbeloite system Spenta Armaiti would correspond to Eleleth, one of the Four Lights/Luminaries..they are also
specified as female - and in conjunction with five "Male offspring" of Monogenes..

Manichaean miniatures and the Digital Silk Road Project

On the Internet there is no telling what you will find. Ricardo Franco has recently been very active posting links to the Manichaean discussion forum at Yahoogroups, a lot of what he offers I have seen or read before, but Die Buddhistische Spätantike in Mittelasien--Die manichaeischen Miniaturen - by A. Von Le Coq is a new one for me. I have studied, rather than read, Hans Joachim Klimkeit's monography on Manichaean calligraphy and iconography and got an impression of the "field" of Manichaean iconography - but the name Le Coq was new to me. Apparently it was published in Berlin in 1923.
The book in question is in German, but with tools like Babelfish it is possible to get an arbitrary impression of the contents, if you like me do not understand the language. It is presented in high resolution scans of the pages, but it features a useful OCR representation of the contents.

The book was published by the Digital Silk Road Project in Japan which has made a lot of material from the two centuries of archeological digs in the wide cultural and geographical area of the ancient Silk Road.The illustrations, of which there are few, but which are rare indeed, is nevertheless worth a tour of the book.

You are Axis Mundi

From the First Book of Ieu, Chapter 3


The living Jesus said : "Blessed is the man who has known these things. He has brought heaven down, he has lifted the earth and has sent it to heaven, and he has become the Midst for it is nothing."
The apostles answered, saying : "Jesus , thou living one, Lord , interprete for us how we may bring heaven down, for we have followed thee in order that thou shouldst teach us the true light."
The living Jesus answered and said : "The Word which existed in heaven before the earth came into existence - this which is called the world - but you, when you know my Word, you will bring heaven down, and it will dwell in you. Heaven is the invisible Word of the Father; but when you know these things you will bring heaven down. As to sending the earth up to heaven, I will show you what it is , that you may know it : to send the earth to heaven is that he who hears the word of gnosis has ceased to have the understanding mind of man of earth, but has become a man of heaven. His understanding mind has ceased to be earthly, but it has become heavenly. Because of this you will be saved from the archon of this aeon, and he will become the Midst, because it is nothing."
The living Jesus said again : "When you become heavenly you will become the Midst because it is nothing, for the .. . .. rulers and the wicked powers (exousiai) will you and they will envy you because you have known me, because I am not from the world, and I do not resemble the rulers and the powers (exousiai) and all the wicked ones. They do not come from me. And furthermore he who (is born) in the flesh of unrighteousness has no part in the Kingdom of my Father, and also he who know me according to the flesh has no hope Kingdom of God the Father."


You are Axis Mundi. You are the centre of a myriad worlds. But who are you? When you have received knowledge of the Kingdom of Heaven no geography tracing its contours over the entire universe can attract an undue attention, an admiration, an awe, a worshipful pose from you. No crafted image giving off the most beautiful lustre, swaddled in the delicate of forms does your thought any justice. No jumble of words, however well phrased, will satisfy your hearing or your reading. No answer will address itself to the question you have finally deared to ask, which is the entirety of the Fullness from the entirety of Fullness, no longer a similitude, but the most intimate and the most far-reaching of all questions, which lays waste all answers given by all preceeding generations. Your fathers are dust, your mothers are ashes, their forefathers a sentimental notion, no particle left. They are mist. If you look, you are apostate of the generations which came - where are your blood running off for now?
What a problem. The credo is consistent enough, "May I be one who assist in the transfiguration of the earth." But what manner of work is this transfiguration? A Kosmos is and will always remain a confined term, it is confinement and limitation in itself - if the law of languages allows me or anyone else to say "All", to say "Everything", to say "God" and with those words, according to the limitation which is the only remaining witness, resistance, obstacle -cloud before the Pleroma, what prohibits our words to signify the nothing according to the flesh, which never was, and never is, and never will be more than a lifeless corpse. The Kosmos is a lie. It is not that which raises up. It is not that which gives substance to anything else. It is not some magnification of the gods of our forefathers into an absolute panentheistic democratic anemic divinity beyond theology, myth or philosophical abstraction. The Kosmos is the system, the everything of the insuffiencient grasp, the imperfect knowing, the miscomprehension, the failing glance,the mishearing.. hamareithia, Sin - Missing the target; intending without contact with that which intelligently intends, intelligently and authentically wills. The Gnostic understands he goes nowhere to seek refuge, sanctuary. He understands that while there are many places, there is no space hospitable, wide, beautiful enough for him to dwell, there is no day like today, there is no day like yesterday, there is no day like tomorrow. There are no travelling here, the paths have left horizontality, there are no maps. There are no landscapes for maps to portray. This is where it begins. You bring that which were before existence into existence, you shape it before and above the creation, the universe, the world, the universe, Cosmos.. Chaos, call it what you will. In this twilight, the unborn God is born.
Then the day which has no today, no yesterday and no tommorrow will die forever, not to have been - time folds upon itself to become an attempt to interrupt eternity, to silence consciousness, stop breath, arrest motion, still the pulse, which now, before the beginning of all beginnings, has failed and cease to be.

Gnosis is Holy Silence and a rest for every inquiry.

The Secret Adam:A Study of Nasoraean Gnosis - online!

I came across Dame Elisabeth S. Drower's The Secret Adam: A Study of Nasoraean Gnosis earlier this week, much to my delight. It is published in the Mandaean scriptures section of a website administered by the "open-source" Thelemite Church named Ecclesia Gnostica Universalis by its founders. I am going to give the link to the section here - both due to the fact that the online document is in Acrobat PDF format, and out of respect for the pioneering spirit and effort made by those responsible.

This dissertation does a rather arcane subject some justice.
It has been alleged that the Mandaeans are the only surviving religion or tradition associated with Gnosticism in antiquity, moreover there has always been a mystique attached to the Mandaeans, about whom it has also been alleged they in the middle ages, when encountered by Christian travellers, would profess to be "Christians of St.John" - it would only take a few scarce centuries before this profession of affiliation was brought into question, some saw the colourful reports of this strangely serene people, untouched by western and eastern Christian orthodoxies and the painfull controversies which lead to the great schism over the Filioque clause in the 11th century - as direct ancestors of a type of Christianity in direct rivalry with the mainstream of tradition from the onset, as followers of St.John the Baptist, not St.John the Apostle. Eventually some missionaries, Jesuits would you not guess it, with their orientalist appetites and sensibilities, hoarded sacred scriptures and manuscripts, not only from the Mandaeans, but also from Zoroastrians, Nusairies (so-called "Ansiree", also associated with a St.John) and Yezidis (Ms. Drower also published a study on the Kurdish Yezidis titled Peacock Angel, published at www.avesta.org ) and other living traditions of the Middle and Near East. Such hoardings and loot did indeed serve as kindling for a new activation of consciousness about context, meaning,wholeness and eternity in the minds of Western intellectuals, among whom there were many Christians with a proclivity for simplifying and generalising. Among these, notably, a Professor named Lidzbarski associated with the German "religionsgeschichte" school, went so far ahead with a few of the Mandaean scriptures he was translating as to assert that Christianity had sprung out of the Mandaean, and thus, indirectly, Gnostic movement, rather than vice versa; he was inclined to consider the sacraments of the Mandaean religion as more pure, primitive expressions of the sacraments found in the Church, i.e. the Catholic Church contemporary to himself. The Theosophist G.R.S. Mead made a similar observation upon publishing his translation of the Mandaean scripture Sidra D'Yahia - which he titled The Gnostic Book of John the Baptist, based on a discovery found within the text itself: Here we find asserted that John and Jesus grew up together and held familiar ties, John being his cousin, but that John was the result of a divine intervention whereas Jesus, although elect and priveleged to be party to the Nasirutha, the initiatory Gnosis of their religion - they were Mandaeans, eventually went astray, because he spoke of the secret and forbidden mysteries of the religion he belonged to, to basically everyone and did not observe the strict discipline of his forefathers, he became a betrayer, whereas John became a prophet, a rescuer of the tradition - but not a savior or Messiah.

Drower, The Secret Adam.

"Only as manuscript after manuscript is studied does a picture gradually form of an ancient theosophy true to the type we call gnostic, which developed in the syncretistic centuries which preceded the fall of classical paganism. This theosophy was hybrid. It embraced the star-knowledge and wisdom of Babylon and Egypt, the dualism of the Iranian sages and Plato, the high speculation of the Greeks, and the stern morality of the Jews and its book of books. Deeper roots may have reached yet farther east. If one may venture into hypothesis, seedbeds in which Nasirutha (secret knowledge) could well have germinated were the flourishing Jewish colonies in commercial towns in Parthia,Media, and Babylonia.These were, of course, in constant touch, not only wih one another, but with Jerusalem. I suggest that such a sect may have spread into the Jordan valley, Galilee, and Judaea, where it would naturally have split into sub-sects, one of them possibly Christianity, which recognized in Jesus its crowned and anointed king - the Messiah. It is a striking fact that in all the Mandaean texts the word msiha (Messiah, Christ) is only used with the qualification "lying" or "false" of Jesus, and this is the more suprising as every priest is a king (malka), crowned and anointed, as microcosm of the macrocosm Adam Kasia, the crowned and anointed Antrophos, Arch-priest and creator of the cosmos made in his form.
The word oil of unction is msia and the verbs for its application are RSM and ADA.The implication is that the word msiha (the anointed one) was so inextricably connected with the hated Jew and Christian that the root MSH was banned from Nasoraean use.
Having set foot on the slippery road of speculation, I assume that it might well follow that after the destruction of Jerusalem, when the Jewish Christians for the most part settled in East Jordan, our Nasoraeans, hating, and hated by, both Jew and Jewish-Christian, would naturally seek harbour in the friendlier atmosphere of Parthia and the Median hills - exactly as the Haran Gawaitha related,and, according to that manuscript, a number of them migrated later under Parthian protection into Babylonia and Khuzistan.
Did they find in the well/watered marsh districts there a baptizing gnostic sect like - or affiliated to - their own?
It might explain much,but here I can only refer the reader to Chapter X of this book."


"In the "secret scrolls" Jesus and John are unmentioned. In the two condices accessible to the uninitiated (Ginza Rba and Drasha d' Yahia, the Book of John)the former is represented as a perverter of Nasoraean teaching. In contrast, when Jesus appears in the Coptic Christian gnostic manuscripts (TdB: Drower refers to the discoveries and publications of the Codex Askew and Codex Brucianus and the first published fragments from the Nag Hammadi Library. She wrote this book in the late 1950's to 1962)he is used as a mouthpiece of gnosis.There is no attempt to represent him as an historical figure, although by use of his name the Coptic gnosis is given a Christian aspect."
pp.xi-xii, Introduction, The Secret Adam, E.S. Drower, Oxford University Press, 1962.



pp.xiv
"That Nasoraeans were originally a Jewish group or partly Jewish group is suggested by their claim that John the Baptist was a member of theirs ect, and by the fact that the Jordan is an essential and central feature of their tradition. Today the word yardna (jordan) is applied not only to running water as used in baptism and immersion, but to any flowing stream; yet the conjunction of John the Baptist and Jordan is significant.
Epiphanius (Adversus Haereses, xxix:6) says that there were Nasoraeans amongst the Jews before the time of Christ. The name could have been applied to any strictly law-observing Jewish sect for the root (TdB:in Hebrew,sorry I have no means to transcribing it) means to "keep,observe, guard" and could have been used as a laudatory term for more than one group of dissidents, particularly if they had secret teachings. Nasoraeans of the Mandaean type "keep and observe" ritual law with zealous fidelity and "keep back" - even from their own lairy - mysteries considered deep and easily misunderstood by the uninitated.Nasoraean hatred for Jews must have originated at a period at which Nasoraeans were in close contact with orthodox jewry and at a time when the orthodox Jews had some authority over them. All this points to the truth of the Haran Gawaitha tradition. Heterodox Judaism in Galilee and Samaria appears to have taken shape in the form we now call gnostic, and it may well have existed some time before the Christian era. In the Schweich Lectures given by Dr.Moses Gaster in 1923 on the Samaritans, the lecturer, speaking of settlements of Jews and Samaritans in the Diaspora, mentioned similarities which exist between Parseeism, Judaism and Samaritanism, and pointed out the possibility that Mandaeism might also have sprouted in such seedbeds.
The figure of Pthahil and its connexion as demiurge with the Egyptian god Ptah, the Mandaean tradition that they once had fellow religionists in Egypt, and the apparently ancient belief transmitted by word of mouth that they dove slaughtered before the masiqta is called a ba (unsatisfactory though these may be as evidence, for I find little to justify them in the texts) must be considered contributory when assessing the possibility that Nasirutha originated in semi-paganized Jewish circles.


In this book I have tried to view Nasoraean gnosis as a whole and have not concealed my belief that the secret teaching, based upon the Mystic Adam, goes back to the first and second centuries. Vitally significant aspects of that gnosis are evident in unpublished scrolls held as a closely-guarded heritage by the inner circle, the Nasoraeans. These a layman, however pious, is not allowed to see or hear. They contain tenets imparted only to an initiated few; indeed, Nasirutha could be called truly esoteric - a religion within a religion, a gnosis within a gnosis, and its heart is the interpretation which it attaches to sacramental acts."

The latter assertion makes Drower's brief introduction to this tradition in the form of her study The Secret Adam quite interesting reading for both Gnostics and those who for whatever reason pursue a study of ancient Gnosticism. At the end of the introduction Drower lists some principal features of the gnosis, the Nasirutha:

pp.xvi

"1. A Supreme formless Entity, the expression of which in time and space is creation of spiritual, ehteric, and material worlds and beings. Production of these is delegated by It to a creator or creators who originated in It. The cosmos is created by Archetypal Man, who produces it in similitude of his own shape."
TdB:This bears very close resemblance to the system found in the Apocryphon of John.

"2. Dualism: A Cosmic Father and Mother, Light and Darkness, Right and Left, syzygy in cosmic and microcosmic form.

3.As a feature of this dualism, counter-types, a world of ideas.

4.The soul is portayed as an exile, a captive; her home and origin being the supreme Entity to which she eventually returns.

5.Planets and stars influence fate and human beings, and are also places of detention after death.

6.A saviour spirit or saviour spirits which assist the soul on her journey through life and after it to the "worlds of light."
7. A cult-language of symbol and metaphor. Ideas and qualities are personified.

8. Mysteries, i.e. sacraments to aid and purify the soul, to ensure her rebirth into a spirituyal body, and her ascent from the world of matter. These are often adaptations of existing seasonal and traditional rites to which an esoteric interpretation is attached. In the case of the Nasoraeans this interpretation is based on the Creation story, especially on the Divine Man, Adam, as crowned and anointed King-priest.

9. Great secrecy is enjoined upon initiates; full explanation of 1, 2 and 8 being reserved for those considered able to understand and perserve the gnosis."

"Other features and developements occur in various syncretic and gnostic systems, but the above are, upon the whole, the distinguishing features of Nasoraean gnosis, Nasirutha."


She also comments that many of the writers of the secret scrolls appear to be, in the eyes of westerners, poor literary craftsmen, who "dilate upon matters repellent to the Western mind, such as the organs and the functions of the Body of the Secret Adam."
Which shows she might not have been exposed to overmuch of the Kabbalistical tradition, perhaps, although she does quip Gershom Scholem occasionally, with regards to the hypothesis of a Jewish proto-gnosticism. She explains this, though, eloquently:

"To a Nasoraean the human body is a replkica of the glorious cosmic Body, the holiest of mysteries, and every organ in it, including those necessary to digestion, reproduction, and evacuation, has for him deep symbolical significance and is revered as an expression of the Divine chemistry of genesis, purification, and catharsis."

If we visualize, if we imagine, if we allow ourselves for a moment to enter a universe - a wholeness, a completion, an expanse having no boundary which simultaneously is reflected in the form of a man - necessarely, this physique, especially when he is explicitly the Antrophos, the Arch-Propator of humanity, the Autogenes (self-generate) Adam itself, and moreover, which every single, particular man is a perfect microcosmos of; there can be no more bashfulness and indignation over its naked and raw qualities as far as its physique, its anatomy goes. I am also reminded that the form of Adam also received an inside in both the first and second phase of his evocation into the earthly sphere by the Archons, as we find the process in the aforementioned Gnostic mythical and metaphysical text the Apocryphon of John - here each of the Archons attempt to stamp their mark upon him, as so many engineers, and gain dominion over him. Since every part portrayed in matter exists in the ideal, ehteral, astral.. Pleromic realm, and is presently subject to the dominion of ... well, demons, small infernal busy-bodies whose inclinations appears to me to become more and more comparable to those busy-bodies which exist in the particular mythology called biology and the subject matter of the empirical human anatomy.. the secret knowledge of both the order of creation of each organ, its function and the name of its hierarchic lord, a demonology of the human body - followed and became part of what might be called "Gnostic Folk Medicine". Curiously aspects of this survived until the time of Paraclesus and perhaps beyond, it became en vouge in the Renaissance, especially in France, which fostered its own brief generation of "gnostic mages" long before the time of Monsignor Jules Stanys Doinel.

Abstracts from E.S.Drower's pioneering work in more thorough, modern manner on the Mandaeans ; The Mandaeans of Iran and Iraq, first published in 1962 can be found at the "Holy Order of ONE" website, which contains spread throughout a lot of information about Manichaeanism and the Mandaean tradition. Introduction, continued here. ,
which Drower reports a census made 30 years before the book was published: "According to the last census (April 1932) the number of Subba in Iraq is given as 4,805". Fortunately this is not currently the case but the Mandaeans are struggling against great odds. The Middle East has historically not been a good climate for minority groups, etnic or religious, who have little in common with the major power-houses of raw political power, be they secular or religiously inclined. This people with a symphathy for the Christian Gnosis of the first centuries are painfully aware of. If anything, it is feasible for modern students to project a motif of an extremely hostile environment as a background for the Cosmological Agon between the powers of Light and the powers of Darkness.

Peace Be Upon John Paul II

During the newsround on occasion of John Paul II, the spiritual leader of the worldwide Roman Catholic Church, a nun commented that the Pope has left behind time and history and entered the peace and abundance of God. Time, meaning this world. However successfull the Roman Church, or for that matter any organization around the theme of Ekklesia, this is what each single participant in religion may hope for - a final transcendence of the boundaries of local time and space, which confines our consciousness to a desolate realm of shadows and types, this world under this world's regent, who is not God and never where God and never will be God, and who has no characteristic in common with the Divine Logos. Karol Wojtyla always struck me as a thoughtful, sincere practicioner of the Christian faith, a person of mystical and contemplative disposition who understood the meaning of duty. Alas, the Roman Catholic Church, like any ecclesiae, types and images striking at times powerful similes, but never more than that - of the true Church, the only claimant to any perfection any Pleroma (fullness.. I mention this because the Vatican has made use of the term to describe the worldly organization of the Roman Catholic Church in this current age and world, an assertion even the most ecumenical of Gnostics are bound to disagree with)- laid claim on him. Through his illness I became increasingly aware of the frail condition of all mankind through his suffering, and how we with old age and the tearing of time and gravity upon our bodies, succumb to an inglorious end. Or such an end the world sees, but alas, the world is blind. When the Logos descended, raining like a drop out of the Pleroma, it was not the Kosmos that received it, but Man. In this sense the Man is the Logos incarnate and the distinctions which the disciples insisted upon, which Christ on his own part dissuaded - are as clouds before the luminous sun.
Rome will see in the coming days a great pilgrimage, it will be marked by reverance, love and a sincere sorrow at the loss of the leader of the Roman Catholic Church, but also of a person whose attention and care they greatly respected, like they would respect their (biological) father. For my part I will be attentative to the necessary change which will come over the greatest, numbers-wise, religious denomination of the world and the most continuous representative of the Apostolic Christian tradition.
Pope John Paul II. has overcome the world, he stepped out of time, his journey, however, as the mysteries reveal, has just begun.

The Fravartis Pt.3

The nature and person of the individual entity,whether Yazata or Fravarti, or among the tutelary angels/servants/messengers - are understood in Mazdean ontology to be discernable in one of two ways;
a getik(material,earthly,"ordinary") way and a mentok (imaginal,visionary,"suprasensual") way;
unlike some speculations of like kind,to the Mazdean the getik state is not accorded as being a "degradation" of the splendour and glory of spiritual beings; but that this aspect of its being, once it is
comprehended and accorded attention - actually lifts up the
sensory appreciation of the "seer" into another world, one which does not consist of shadow and minor lights, but only supernatural and primordial Light.

Every being can be considered and "perceived" in one of
two ways; so also for the Fravarti of Earth (zam) the
Spenta Armaiti.Through these one might arrive at a
understanding, no longer only of what these beings are - but
who they are, and what relationship each have with
the other and with ones own.

H.Corbin:

"It is quite evident that the mental vision of the Angel of
the Earth, for example, is not a sensory experience.If, by logical habit, we classify this fact (of the vision) as imaginary, the question nonetheless remains as to what can justify an identification of what is imaginary with what is arbitrary and unreal, the question
as to whether representations, deriving from physical perception are the only ones to be considered as real knowledge, whether physically verifable events alone can be evaluated as facts. We must ask ourselves whether the invisible action of forces that have their
purely physical expression in natural processes may not bring into play psychic energies that have been neglected or paralyzed by our (mental) habits, and directly touch an Imagination which, far from being arbitrary invention, corresponds to the Imagination which the
alchemists called Imaginatio vera which is the astrum
in homine."
H.Corbin :Spiritual
Body and Celestial Earth.pp.10-11.

The world of the Fravartis are "known" through events
which does not accord explanation or exegesis purely
and simply within the regime of logical or normative
analysis. These events, because of this quality are known
to disturb the psychological equilibrium of those who experience them. This mainly because they are at loss in justifying the contents of their consciousness at a time immediately after such an
"encounter".

The Fravatis pt.2

The Kyrios Soter - the Lord Saviour - of the Zervanite Persian tradition, has three male and three female Archangels.
Ohrmazd along with his three male archangels are called "Yezatas"- each of these four are accorded a formal liturgy, a Yasna, and assigned a quarter of the liturgical year for observances.
Whereas the four male "Powers" of the Heptad are accorded especial attention and festivals,the three single female Archangels are considered as the consecrating "Powers" which oversee the liturgies and spiritualize the worshippers with gifts (like the Muses do in Greek and Roman formal and mystery religions).
The three "archetypes" or "ideal figures" of all the other Fravartis are
the following:

1. Spenta Armaiti (Isfandarmuz),
whose representative symbolical image is that of the
Earth, and who is sometimes referred to as "Image of
Wisdom", and representation of a "Woman clothed with
Light".
2.Haarvata (meaning integrity, variant. Pers: Khurdad) - which is connected to the Waters, with her is
associated all kinds of aquatic images - she is possibly the
origin of the "Mermaid".

3.Amertat (meaning immortality, variant Pers: Murdad) -connected to the plants, with her is associated all kinds of vegetative imagry.

The Fravartis pt.1

Within the Mazdean cosmology one encounter a multitude of Celestials such as Ohrmazd and the Amahraspands.Every physical or moral entity, every complete being or group of beings belonging to the world of Light, including Ohrmazd - has its own Fravarti. In reverse of an occidental attitude -the "male" Celestials are referred to as being Yazata (Pers. Izad) which means "Adorable ones", so the Fravarti of these are lovers/adorers.

Fravarti means "those who are chosen," those who have in
themselves decided to fight in order to come to the help of Ohrmazd, the individual "Savior" of not only human souls, the worlds, the universes(dimensions) - but also of the angelic hosts and all the other Yazatas.

In short, one gets the impression they consist in a vast and complex Knighthood.The Fravartis are considered to be feminine, and sometimes depicted in the iconography of Persian and Parthian illuminated manuscripts of the Mazdean/Zervanite (2nd and 3rd generation
"Zoroastrianism" - beginning in the persian hellenistic area ca.
200 BC, ending at the time of continental dominance in the middle east of Islamic Sunnah orthodoxy ca. 900CE) tradition - as young girls. In comparison with the internal symbology of Dante Alighieri´s Divina Commedia - one is reminded of the character of the virgin Beatrice who meets the young Dante at the gate of a garden. The description the Poet and his later
"disciples" make of Beatrice is evocative of the character of
the Fravarti.

The Fravartis: Introduction

Some years ago, I began a series of meditations on the Yahoo Club Philosophia, which is devoted to the traditions of the Fedeli
d`Amore,Courtly Love and Chivalric Ideal - especially seen in context with Gnostic spirituality. It concerned the Zoroastrian concept of the "Fravashi" - as well as a central one among these, Daena - who is alternatively called "the Celestial I", "the daughter of Sophia" and even "the Sophia of the Souls". It was prompted by this quotation from Henri Corbin, in his book
THE VOYAGE AND THE MESSENGER (pp.223):

Upon The Longing of God


"...Consider the idea of a God who is essentially sadness and
longing, yearning to reveal himself, to know himself through a being
who knows him, thereby depending on that being who is still himself,
Yet who in this sense *creates* him. Here we have a vision which has never been professed outside of a few errant knights of mysticism.
To profess this essential bipolarity of the divine essence is not to
confuse creator and created, creature and creation. It is to
experience the irrevocable solidarity between the Fravarti and its
Soul, in the battle they undertake for each other`s sake."



I received the question: But what does he intend with the word
Fravarti and what is it´s relationship to the Soul, and to the relationship between Earth and Heaven?
Much of the answer, in a sense, on the exterior - can be glanced from
Henri Corbin´s study of the Image and Ideal of the Celestial Earth in
the metaphysical traditions of Iran : SPIRITUAL BODY AND CELESTIAL
EARTH: From Mazdean Iran to Shi`ite Iran.


Consequent of this, were also a similar post from the same chapter of
VOYAGE AND THE MESSENGER, called The Sophia of the Sufis: (pp.222)



Upon Meeting the "Other"

"The two are eternal companions who answer to each other - this is
the metaphysical idea of a single essence which is also
a couple. This idea was as present in Manicheism as it was in
Zoroastrianism. All hope and lightness of heart in the face of
death resided in this: The encounter with my own being which
created me in its Image, as a part of itself."


" For us it is otherwise. It is more in fear that one enters into
confrontation with one´s true self, at once oneself and yet Other.
Furthermore, we are virtually incapable of conceiving of a God
(Whether in belief or disbelief) which
is not the same, identical lord for everyone. Hence the Iranian idea
of the Fravarti angel may currenlty be the most alien of ideas to our
will. Yet, is it not true that every mystical marriage has secretly
undergone such an experience? But official theology is easily
secularized into sociology, which has no use for such an idea.
Certainly it has no use for a God who, like Ormazd, the Lord of
Wisdom, could also have his own Fravarti, and be drawn by Her towards
that which is unforceable. Beyond the immutability which all our
theodicies have postulated, thereby indulging themselves in a
demonstration of it."



Fravarti - its creation and creator..It is
the Soul refracted through Being,but specifically
- before the Soul forgets it is Born, not
made, not an object,but a subject. Now currently
its "tendrils" or beams, reach from one end of the
multiverse to theother.. reminding itself.We may
know God´s longing to be known, to be received, to be
appreciated.. fulfilled.. as our own, but I feel Corbin
contributed something very important in daring to suggest
this.. Especially since he were saying this in a lecture
about the "Sophia of the sufis" in Teheran,
1974..Why would the God of faith not need a consort?The
mystery beyond all revelations and discoveries is the
essential essence which upholds every thing and their
absence.. no words describe it sufficiently, no name is
named, no presence is known..However, if Love
needs the Two...then the purpouse of this is crystal
clear..

I get the sense that the Fravarti, and especially
the Archangel of the Earth, Spenta Armaiti, Sophia (I
now saw that Plutarch translated Her persian name
into the greek Sophia..so "historically" we are a
little safe with he use of Sophia.. moreover, now we
could even use an alchemical illustration of the Anima
Mundi/Sophia to point towards Her mystery) represents
Consciousness in the Soul which is specific - Daimon would
indeed be something I am reminded of when studying this
Archetype..

Real life Ouroboros

Just a brief lite tone here.

Ananova presented a quirky some days ago about a Texan King Snake which ate its own tail. I am astonished.

As some of you know, the tail-eating Serpent is an archetypical symbol for different things in many spiritual and religious traditions. All the while, no such behaviour has been observed among reptiles in real life. Self-cannibalism is obviously quite rare in the animal kingdom.

Us Wayfarers - on Najmoddin Kobra's Adab al-Suluk

I am constantly re-reading Henry Corbin's The Man of Light in Iranian Sufism.

I have until now been unable to find a full text by this brilliant representative of the eastern tradition of Sufism. Until for a while ago, when I just happened upon a book named "Adab al-Suluk: A Treatise on Spiritual Wayfaring", on www.al-islam.org . The Translator's preface filled in some details I was unaware of, from reading Corbin's analysis of many of the themes that Najmoddin Kubra takes up in his treatises, that is - the details about the life and developement of the shaykh who would assist, through his disciples who also became great saints (wali) and teachers (murshid), to found many Sufi orders, many of which exist until this day, among them the Dhahabiyyah and Qurbaniyyah orders.
Also, that he and his disciples tried to fight off the Mongolian hordes attacking their village, where Najmoddin Kobra had founded a hospice with his family. It was here his disciples received tuition, wrote their treatises and commentaries and lived for long periods of their lives.

From the author's preface to the Treatise:

O slave of Allah! Know that you are a wayfarer (salik)seeking your Lord and ultimately one day you would meet Him, as said in a tradition: Whoever hopes to meet God should know that the time of the meeting will come. And you should know that God, the Exalted, by leis perfect Might and Wisdom has destined two journeys for the Children of Adam. One of them is involuntary (qahri), and the other one is voluntary (ikhtiyari).
As to the involuntary journey, the starting point is the father's loins (sulb); the second stage is the mother's womb; the third stage is the physical world; and the fourth stage is that of the grave, which is either a garden out of the gardens of paradise or is a pit out of the pits of hell.The fifth stage is the Day of Resurrection, which is equal to fifty thousand years of this world. After that stage you will reach your eternal home and attain the real abode ‑ that is, the abode of peace (dar al‑salam)and the paradise of security and peace, in case you are among the felicitous and the friends of the Haqq; or your home will be the abode of fire and torture, if, God forbid, you should be among the wretched and the enemies of the Haqq, as Allah has said: "On the Day of Resurrection a group will be in paradise and a group in hell." Every breath that you take is a step towards the stage of death. Every day of your life is equal to a parsang. Each month is like a stage (marhalah)and each year like a station (manzil). Your journey is like the movement of the sun and the moon ‑ yet you are oblivious of this journey and movement ‑ and in your ignorance and forgetfulness you have failed to make ready and equip yourself properly for the station (manzil)of the grave and the onward journey to the station of the Day of Resurrection and your eternal and real home.

But the voluntary journey is of two kinds: one is the journey of the souls and the hearts toward the Almighty and All‑powerful King of the world. The second is a physical journey (safar jismani)in the earth of God. We will devote a separate chapter to each one of these two journeys, so that you receive the required guidance for attaining their goals and are guided in preparing the means, in opening the gates, and in learning the principles (adab), which will be your companion and assistant in matters relating to every good and piety, and so that it assists the people of love (`ishq)and yearning during their journey, and serve insha' Allah ta’ala, for the compiler as a provision for the Day of Resurrection vis‑a‑vis his Lord (Mawla).


O Lord, open the gates of Your grace and mercy to us! O Lord, Who art Bounteous and Magnanimous!

The involuntary journey has begun, for every living, breathing human being. It has to begin like this, because it is the way everything in the biological, incarnate condition begins. That Jesus was born of a virgin is made a point in Orthodox christologies in that he did not possess this involuntarity, that he was perfectly like the future humanity, promised in the Gospel about the Kingdom, from birth. That he did not depend on sexuality to come into existence. There is dissension over this - there was dissension going already when the canonical gospels were written. The sequence of birth almost did not make into the Gospel of Luke, who made a concentrated bid for an alternative christology by introducing the Davidic lineage into the corporal Jesus through genetical inheritance. Which would be difficult to reconcile with the fact of the virgin birth, since this lineage descends into Joseph, not Mary.

What do the travellers on an involuntary journey have to hold on to, to hope for? That the Lord is Merciful.

This is in itself interesting, because we see here that this course, this progression through time, through hardships not chosen and which ultimately will prove to result in no reward - the natural order - does not bring Man closer to God, or to ultimate truths, far from it; moreover, this natural order of things negates the ability of Man to choose and take responsibility for his choices and his own actions. Here one can only hope that the executioners blade is sufficiently sharp, so as to kill more than to maim. There is something to wake up from, and it is a terrible, terrible dream.


Given the peculiarly manichaean-sounding practices (colored photisms, the phenomenon of progressive concentration), theories and approach of this medieval sufi shaykh - as I have found them in Henry Corbin's discussion on the themes in the Man of Light , the journey in the earth of God should provide much to ponder.


Going back to Henry Corbin's Man of Light in Iranian Sufism.
Central to the book is the theme of orientation. It is also a central theme for myself.

My subjective experience of the universe, given a very peculiar light, is that there are events and worlds which coincide on several levels, and that the chief characteristics of these are illusionary, temporal manifestations and aspects of the foundational and eternal Being. While making a whole lot of itself, sound and fury, the world of the phenomenal manifestations signifies, if we look for meaning, absolutely nothing. Truth does not insist so loudly, for it has really no true and real opponent. Yet such an Agon, such a struggle, that occurs in the minds of men these days.

The first true impression of our own condition is not a pleasing sight. Here there is no golden age. Here is no more paradise. Here is no more the childlike innocense we think of, when someone speaks about the world before the great war began, before evil and good became available for us to use or abuse. Yet, nuances does not serve the very optical task we have taken upon ourselves - while we may receive visionary impulses, all in greys, we do not see object and subject alone, distinguished from all else, before we allow ourselves to become divided completely. Full stop. Let me explain this situation. Our great sorrow is that our cultures have allowed the human soul to become the bearer of culture, tradition, values, languages, religions, philosophies, sciences and all else that occupies societies, civilizations and similar "things" (which do not exist by themselves - without flesh and blood, without incarnate beings, without the human individual, all that would be left is artefacts and artful ruins.) - to the degree that the developement of the soul is evaluated from its ability to comprehend the aforementioned, to remember the "fathers and mothers", to repeat, imitate and fulfill the past in new and fascinating ways. This is the paraded "wisdom of men", the common heritage of generations past and generations to come. It also devalues the intelligent self into a mere servant of culture. The living organism is subject to a paracite which only secretes more of itself into its host. So the world is annihilates the soul,so to speak. While the task would be, to paraphrase Valentinus, "to dissolve the world, while not ourselves dissolved in the same action." That is to say, we become totally distinguished, in our understanding and experience, from our envoirment, from our situation, from our so-called fate - from society, from "the world". It is important because above all each single one of us is first and foremost our selves, and secondly human, and thirdly intelligent and participant beings in a vibrant and living universe. The worlds constructed by letters, numbers and variables relative to culture, history and ideology - are only so real that they have substance; they have only form and substance in the eye of the beholder, within the mind, in the hearing ear, in the participant body. Are we not well advised, then, to remember that the dependence of the former is upon the latter, and that the latter - the very last thing we discover in the whole multiverse of options, our self - carries all responsibility if the former is allowed to invade and finally devour whatever intelligent spark is left within itself.

The seeker should know which is which, or else meaning leaks out of the jar on the way from the well - Who "would have eternal life?", and who "would die" - which fulfills the law, which negate and abolishes it, who is the object of love, who is the lover - who observes, who acts - who answers and who ask. The conventional, culturally conditioned answers to many riddles which paradoxically is carried from generation to generation by way of the culture, the tradition itself - predictably serves to make obscure the reason why the riddles were put forward; as challenges to conventional wisdom and the knowledge of "everyone".

This condition, this confused and overloaded experience of reality, self and whatever authority figure serves as "god" or "prinsciple" in this triad - Valentinus compares, in the Gospel of Truth, to a confused dream wherein the role of the observer and participant is not clearly defined, where at one time one is pursued, and at another one is the pursuer. If all this confusing motion was arrested, and someone pressed a "freeze" button on the curious VCR of life - no one would have been able to explain which was what. The Post-modernists would jump at such an opportunity to speak about this great rush of nothing and inexplicability, an occasion to delve deep and wide into the meaninglessness of meaning and the meaningfulness of the meaninglessness and suggest you flip a coin and draw a diagram on the results.

Henry Corbin's book describes the way several different personalities in the Iranian tradition of Sufism attempted to make headway out of the situation into which they were born. A chief theme is the new pole of orientation - which is the new person, which develops a new sense apparatus - and finally is enabled to see the new world; ever renewed in Spirit, not dross - in Light.
I will attempt to say more about these things at a later occasion.

Welcome to the Blogroll

I'd like to wish In Search of Knowledge welcome to my blogroll. I have been looking for likeminded blogs for a while, it appears that recently there has been a fortunate upsurge of Gnosis oriented bloggers. A trend I am generally positive of.

Jeremy at Fantastic Planet recently commented on the infrequency of posts on this blog. While some students have the conscience to let the world know about their outer and inner lives, I have personally, with three years curriculum to be concluded in six months, found it damn near impossible to combine. It does not mean that I do not care for this medium, nor does it mean I have nothing to say. I have a lot to say, both opinions, observations and near revelations - but they are confined to this mind, as well as assorted scribbled notes in the margins of my schoolbooks. But to quip the Governor of California; I'll be back .:-)
Also I am observing a very interesting fast for Lent, I am avoiding sugar products like Soda, candy, Chocolate, condiments.. to my great surprise it takes a lot of concentration to add popping those into your mouth, and it is damn near everywhere. Wish me luck.

Stephan Hoeller's meditation on the Tsunami disaster

With all my school blues these days, Stephan Hoeller's contribution to the debate over the consequences of the Tsunami in South-East Asia went completely by me.

I thought I should share it with you, now that I have found it. Thanks, Jeremy for letting me know about it on your weblog.


Gnosis at a time of disaster.

A meditation on the Earthquake-Tsunami disaster of 26 December 2004


"On the day after Christmas of last year, a gigantic earthquake accompanied by a tsunami took the lives of thus far over 150,000 human beings in an area extending from Indonesia to Somalia. A natural catastrophe of unique scope visited humanity, and causes us to reflect on its possible meaning and implications. Questions are being raised by people of many faiths and of none. Most of these may be summed up in one word:“Why?”"<br> begins Stephan Hoeller's meditation.

Saint Valentine's Day

Since the Roman Catholic Church invented the martyrs Valentine and Valentine (sic!), unrelated, who wrote pious little declarations of charitable intentions - the name Valentine has been a definition of the passionate lover, who anonymously bestows a gift of words, of flowers, of jewelry.. or indeed, chocolate - to his dearest.
The international icon for Christmas has become the Christmas tree, only challenged by a fat cartoon character in a red suit and a long white beard. The international icon for Valentines is a heart.
Since Valentinus, the actual origin for the traditional celebration of St.Valentines - declared boldly that beyond all other characterizations God, the divine, is Love: and all beings owe their existence to the situation that Love needs an object (or rather, a Subject) - and because the Bridal Chamber (also called Nymphon) is the central mystery (sacrament) of the Valentinian school; the heart comes closer to describe this "Holy Day".

"Valentinus was born in Phrebonis in upper Egypt about 100 AD and educated in nearby Alexandria. There he became a disciple of the Christian teacher Theudas who had been a disciple of Saint Paul. He claimed that Theudas taught him secret wisdom that Paul had taught privately to his inner circle." - source D.Brons, Valentinus and the Valentinian School.

One event is certain as determining for his further mission as a Gnostic visionary, the vision of the infant that declared to him that he was the Logos. In the infant Valentinus recognized the entire contextuality of the universe as he saw it - Reality is ever freshly born, ever renewed, ever penetrated by light; but like with the Word in the Prologue in the Gospel according to John, it is not received by the universe, that is to say, the universal - but in the individual, specific person; the vessel which receives a glimpse of light to perceive what is really exists, beyond all fictions and appearances - the heart which can appreciate the enormous power of love, rests within Man. It needs to be awakened, and this awakening represents a new creation process. A process which is informed by Gnosis, and by absolute consent from the Origin itself - not as the illicit affair which Sophia formerly had with creating something on her own; wherein all her doubts, all her fears, all her worries overshaddow the brilliant light, and stifles the enormous power of such an action.

Ideally in romantic love, the lover looses himself or herself completely at first - an ecstasy turns everything on its head, challenges all conventions and authorities - but in the end,
he or she finds himself\herself again - renewed, in a new light, to which is added the potency of the other which has become completely now a part of his\her reality - his passion, his strenght, his dream, his vision .. and his sorrow or joy. In the mysticism of the Valentinian Gnostics asceticism could only assist any man or woman to the half distance of the path they has to go; whether the richness is corporal, sensual or domestic where a secondary concern so far as all divine light,love,compassion,righteousness,understanding and wisdom participated in such a life as we have. In renouncing the authorities, which every loving pair will have to do, and understanding them correctly for what they are - in leaving behind the world and seeking the sanctuary of Love (capital letter "Love" - if you are confused, inspect Paul's 1st letter to the Corinthians, for an example - or Socrates speech on Agape in Plato's Symposion)
they may well understand what the mysteries of the Apolytrosis (redemption, rest, resurrection etc.) and the Hieros Gamos (Bridal Chamber, Nymphon, Union) consists in... The hunger of the archons is that for intelligence - not an intelligence of facts and the relationships between external things - but an intelligence of the relationship between the inner and the outer, male and female (as considered from the vantagepoint of the internal and interpersonal world), right and left, true light and true darkness, true good and true evil; an intelligence which draws the shape of the wolf out of the appearance of the sheep, so the eye may see it and the mind might take appropriate action.

In many ways Valentinus was the most dangerous of foes for the proto-orthodox Catholics, because he intended to present his perspective and vision within a universal, Churchly, context. He did not shy away from making mythical intuitions and initiatory axioms accesible in plain language, one of the reasons Jacob Boehme, Louis Claude de Saint Martin and later mystics often are compared superficially with Valentinus, no matter how intimate they were with the mythical and philosophical foundation he represented.

It took only a few generations before the Valentinians who actually resisted the stereotyping into some kind of sect - by embracing dual membership as legitimate and in accord with Apostolic tradition (the dual affiliation of Valentinus with the Episcopal authority in Alexandria alongside his "secret" initiation at the hands of Theudas; who, mind you, belonged to a minority group in the Egyptian Church for the simple reason that the majority was judaizing Jewish Christians who held to the programmes of Mark,Peter and Matthew, somewhat enstranged from the Gentile Church of the Paulines, is an example). The further scholars look into the conundrum of Valentinus, especially as represented by verified sources from the tradition itself, the more assured they become in that Valentinus was actually a participant in the foundation of what later became known as the Catholic Tradition.

A very good source for information about Valentinus is David Brown's website Valentinus and the Valentinian School, which is mirrored at the Gnostic Archive.


Stephan Hoeller, the Bishop for Ecclesia Gnostica and director of studies at the Gnostic Society, wrote many years ago an article for Gnosis Magazine about Valentinus, entitled Valentinus - a Gnostic for all seasons. I recommend it.

Jeremy on Theodicy and the recent Tsunami

Jeremy Puma posted this friday, "Tsunami and Theodicy"
at his fantastic Planet weblog.

.
As I wrote earlier today, I wished that I could contribute some words concerning what has occured. Mostly I just wish to keep the tenderness in my heart that came to my attention at the Requiem service for the dead, on December 28th, in our community in Oslo.
But that would mean to actually keep entirely silent, also with regards to the written word.
I am very happy Jeremy took the time to pursue such a grave matter with the qualities he has demonstrated he possesses to the full,

"if God is all good, how could He/She/It allow such a monstrous thing to occur?" he asks.
"This is pretty much the Ultimate Question when it comes to monotheism."
The claims made about God knows no end. Some flatter God, others drag God down to such a level as most living mortals, whatever their walk in life, would step abruptly one step back just so as not to be confused with whatever common denominator is at work. The flailing pride in the sneer we find in the Book of Job, a biblical scripture curiously neglected by most of the Gnostic scriptures found in the Nag Hammadi find - gave pause to much reflection in Carl Gustav Jung's work "Answer to Job", and apparently disturbed William Blake profoundly also in his Bible Studies. Most of these words ascribed to God, is no answer at all, it appears to continue an inglorious monologue with no subject at all, except perhaps the appreciation of own self the orator might be intoxicated with. It is not difficult to imagine a certain fear in those words as well, since Job is quite content that as a mortal he may and can only die, and after such a bloodied and senseless martyrdom, such an effective infamy as was visited upon certain great cities in the old ages, by angelic or human hands - what could its perpetrator accuse its victim of?
It is, without exception, poets - they be prophetic or not, historians and theologians who rushed to the task of recording to posterity whatever might be the words and utterances of this wilfull God.. It appears to me that such a task, so as to truthfully report what goes on between the eternal world and the realms of mortals, and provide the readers with a means of comprehending what it is and how it is, and ... why, the most difficult question of them all, in these matters - is damn near impossible to most, also those who have gone before us, and attempted the same.
The Bishop Preses of the State Church here in Norway replied that he thought one of the more popular hymns which glorified the earth and the perfection of God's creation in very suggestive tones should better be understood as beseeching God to understand what has happened, since all these words now ring untrue, harsh and false.. like the glories spoken by the priests whose hearts are empty of praise, in the accusation made by St.Stephen against those who judged him and put him to death, otherwise.


Jeremy observes:

"The "answers" people give to this perfectly valid question cover pretty much the entire spectrum. Some twisted individuals celebrate the tsunami as a display of God's wrath against "America-hating" Muslism and the Indonesian sex trade. Other almost-as-twisted individuals see the tsunami as more evidence that the rapture is almost at hand. These answers, though perhaps emotionally satisfying to the inner-hatred set, are pretty blatantly based on the individuals-as-objects premise, from which Evil actions tend to spring. The abstract "They" are being punished for some kind of human transgression and, since it's all part of "God's plan," therefore deserved what "They" got. "We," on the other hand, are "Good," and so God's on our side and blah blah blah."


I try to listen and see if I can comprehend what I hear, when I hear these things, I mean - can someone just say that, what kind of values does these statements betray? Am I living in the same universe as them, and lastly, If I am not, should I not consider myself very fortunate indeed.


"These arguments are, of course, absurd. A Good God *wouldn't* kill 150,000 people for any reason whatsoever. A Good God most certainly wouldn't cause the kind of devestation we've seen over the past few weeks."

Amen to that. But what God are we left with then? That is indeed the question which ired so many in the first centuries.
I recently read Jose Saramago's book "The Gospel of Jesus" and was left with the impression that he was picking at that particular scab in the collective consciousness of Christian civilization.


"Now, of course, some people will claim that it wasn't God, but Satan who committed these acts. This brings us back to the original question: why does evil exist in the first place? If God is all knowing and all powerful, why create Satan if God knew that he would eventually destroy so many lives with a tsunami? This also opens the door to the idea that nature itself is evil and under the auspices of the Dark Forces, or at least outside of the realms of God, an argument used in the so-called "Enlightenment" to justify environmental destruction and degredation. Besides, if "Satan" thinks he's gonna win converts or sympathy by destroying so many people, he's pretty stupid, and I have it on good authority that that's not the case (not that I even believe in Satan, mind you . . . )."


I am not particularly bothered to confess that I believe there's one huge enemy of mankind... but it is quite easy to miss him, since he has insituated himself with the greatest of authority. The accuser is the opposite of the advocate, and necessarely must be found somewhere along the way wherein such roles and such figures have any say and presence at all. I wont go further into it, since that would mean shifting focus on the question of Theodicy, as well as perhaps causing a lot of problems in terms of terminology.


Jeremy, like myself, finds an answer in Gnosticism...


"Gnostic mythology, whether you choose to accept it as literal or not, holds that the world was created not by the God that's all-Good, but by an insane demigod and his assistants, the Archons, who rely on control of the created world for their continued existence. Now, keep in mind, this insane demiurge (called Yaldabaoth in many Gnostic texts) isn't *evil* in the way that we understand evil. Rather, it's mad, schizophrenic even, with a bona-fide God complex (probably the biggest one). It can be quite good, actually, to those with whom it's pleased."


"Yaldabaoth is the supreme puppetmaster. It was created by accident, as an improper iteration within the fractal equation that brought about Being, and it resides, with us, within its creation, an imperfect, incomplete, illusory and often insane reality. Yaldabaoth remains in power because people let him do so. Every time someone commits an act based on a selfish, imagined concept of deity, every time someone treats other individuals as mere objects instead of free individuals deserving the respect one gives one's self, Yaldabaoth and his pals grow a little fatter. Needless to say, most people who worship Yaldabaoth don't even know they're doing so.

Yaldabaoth isn't YHVH, he's the god who impersonates YHVH and orders murder. Yaldabaoth isn't Allah, he's the false image of Allah who commands people to order suicide bombings. Yaldabaoth isn't Jesus Christ, he's the illusory Jesus of the Left Behind series who casts nonbelievers into the pit of fire. "


Somewhat harsh words, but this is perhaps the safest surface scratching you can make when you come near this Saklas.
Precisely such a Saklas and such a Samael - I mean, a fool and a blind god, would attempt to justify blind and foolish violence after the event, instead of exercising necessary restraint.


"There is, however, a real, true God who exists above the illusory reality of the Black Iron Prison. This is the God of the Christos, who is all Good but whose power within the realms of the false reality is "covered up" by the illusions cast by Yaldabaoth and the Archons. This Power can be uncovered by humans, who can actually rebel against the Rulers of this World and their servants. This is the True, Hidden God of the Gnostics, who descends into the limitations of matter to redeem and purify the unreal and insane world of the demiurge."


And May We Have Wisdom To Perceive and Understand The Difference.
Amen.

New Gnostic Blog - Ecclesia Gnostica in Nova Albion (Canada)

I just discovered that my old friend from all dem gnostic discussion lists, Jordan Stratford, has started a blog called

Ecclesia Gnostica in Nova Albion
A Voice for the Traditional and Apostolic Gnostic Communities in Victoria and Vancouver, British Columbia. I have added it to the Index presently.

The most recent post cites Revd. Steven Marshall, of Ecclesia Gnostica's homily on the feast of Epiphany.
Here Revd. Marshall cites the Seven Sermons to the Dead by
Carl Gustav Jung - “In the immeasurable distance there glimmers a solitary star on the highest point of heaven. This is the only God of this lonely one. It is his world, his pleroma, his divinity...This star is man’s god and goal. It is his guiding divinity; in it man finds repose. To it goes the long journey of the soul after death; in it shine all things with the brilliance of a great light. To this One man ought to pray. Such a prayer increases the light of the star. Such a prayer builds a bridge over death. It increases the light of the microcosm; when the outer world grows cold, this star still shines.”

This particular sermon is also delivered in the Requiem service for the dead in Ecclesia Gnostica, wherein we are also reminded that the voyage towards transformation neither begins with this earthly life, nor is terminated at the end of the present physical incarnation.


I look forward towards following Jordan Stratford's weblog, and wish him and his loved ones all protection, wisdom, sustenance, empowerment and strenght in the New year.

First entry in 2005

I wish to extend my condolances to all those of my brothers and sisters, human beings upon this earth, who have lost their loved ones or are in a state of confusion, sorrow and profound loss of composure, during the tragedy of the Tsunami in the Indian Sea, 26th December 2004.
Also, I would like all those whose faith are troubled by these recent gruesome events, to know that, whatever help is in it - I am with you and know what you are going through.

I was going to deliver a kind of meditation on how the ancient Gnostics would have approached the challenge of such events, but found it somewhat difficult.
Instead I thought I would share these sentiments given by


Louis Claude de Saint-Martin, in his Man, His True Nature & Ministry

Ch.1 Man, not outward nature, the True witness to Divinity

It must surely be to the glory of our species, and show the great wisdom
of Providence, that all the proofs taken in the order of this world are
so defective. For, if this world could have truely shown the Divinity,
God would have been satisfied with that witness, and have
had no need to create Man. In fact, Man was created merely because the
whole universe, notwithstanding all the grandeurs it displays to our
eyes, never could manifest the riches of Divinity.

A far different effect is produced by those great writers who,
in maintaining the existence of God, take Man himself for their
proof and the basis of their demonstrations: Man as he should be,
at least, if not as he is. Their evidences acquire force and fulness
and satisfy all our faculties at once. The evidence drawn from Man
is gentle in its effect, and seems to speak the language of our
own nature.

That which is drawn from the outside world, is cold and arid, and like
a language apart, which requires laborious study: besides, the more
peremptory and decisive this kind of evidence, the more it humbles
our antagonists, and disposes them to hate us.

That which is taken from the nature of Man, on the contrary, even
when it obtains a complete victory over the unbeliever, causes him
no _humiliation_, because it places him in a position to feel
and partake of all the dignity which belongs to his quality as Man.

Stars above, Stars Below

Another quote, by Athanasius Kircher, a version of the well-known
Smaragdine "Axiom":
"Heaven above, Heaven below;

Stars above, Stars below; all that is above thus below."


A quick observation - From a Gnostic perspective, above and below
does not become absolute references with regards to location; it is
feasible to translate these references as "exterior" and "interior"

thus:

"Heaven without, Heaven within;
Stars without, Stars within; all that is without is thus within."


In the Pistis Sophia, even - there is the Mystery Which Looks Within,
and the Mystery Which Looks Without; in the Gospel of Philip, there
is no allowance to go off speculating about the lower and higher Son
of Man (i.e. the always murmured christological position of somehow
a definite distinction between the two; who both appears in the scriptures,
and this Apocryphal, Gnostic work addresses itself beyond questioning
to those who are acquianted with the former); but rather one inner which
is revealed, made visible and accessible through the outermost and so forth.


If the Universe is "eternal" and "infinite" there is no absolute point of entry,
no definite shortage of "it", whatever "it" is - and no definite conclusion to it;
as such, where are we standing and what are we doing when we stand and observe our own exteriority and compute its relationshipm with the exteriority of everything else; above a hell, below a heaven?

Descartes quote

"As far as I know,it is perfectly possible that the entire outer world,
everything that I perceive, including my own body, could be an
hallucination or a delusion generated by some diabolical creator."
Renè Descares.



Well, isn`t that special - as the Church Lady in Dana Carvey`s guise would say in glee. As far as I know also, this is a good run away from the absentism discussed by the Deists; closer to the claustrophobic metaphysics of Matrix and other pop-cultural phenomena. Not that I am going to drag the rather idealistic (with regards to thinking and the inspection of naval-lent, sorry, introspection and analysis of epistemological, ontological and cognitive phenomenon which Descartes, as well as most of his critics, represented) philosopher involuntarily, and probably kicking and screaming, into such company... just observe how this bit of suggestion from Descartes fits in both in the conspiracy ruckus and how worse it fits with the entire "holotropic" theorem which is based in conjecture that anything which can be thought, imagined or in any way construed by the mind or the senses - must be real and must necessarely exist; that is to say - the psychoanalytical tail to this quotation is how such existence, if delusional, is directly associated with a diabolical creator. To a certain type of conservative thinker you can`t get more at odds with the values which apparently our entire civilization for the last three centuries has been sustained to preserve - and hence could well prove as yet another example of the "infection" of Gnosticism into Modernity.
And here I waste my time and your time and probably generated hits for both Conservative, Gnosticism and Modernity by mentioning them in the same paragraph... my point being that if you just attend classes for the Examen Philosophicum (my particular class was thaught by Jostein Gaarder.. I was sidetracked enough and at 18 I was trying to "multitask" thought-processes which would provoke migraine in adepts.. oh well) you get exposed to these thoughts and get the sense that there are a pattern in education, in literature, history, public debate and "inner" personal orientation.

Incredibly, the two questions "What is real?" and "how do I know anything is real?"- on one hand, attracts certain types of young persons, such as myself, to both philosophy and fantastical literature (science-fiction etc.) - and on the other hand it repulses, almost violently, another type, usually older and more experienced. The former lacks skills in critical and deductive thinking, which they may _repair_ from such experiences and experiments presented to them in the form of ever expanding and far reaching riddles and challenges; the latter appears to be somewhat condition by fear for the self-same.

It`s difficult to anyone who haven`t had one - to understand what is involved with an hallucination. If you have experienced hallucinations, however, even without sophisticated language, you can maneuvre yourself through an inquiry concerning the reality of reality, the illusionary nature of illusionary things (...) and mental, emotional and cognitive projections/imagining.

Moreover, Descartes touches the touchy area of the outer and inner - in discussing the outer, as the phenomenal world; the physical world, that world in which we are at leisure to pull everything and anything apart - suggested, for a jest, that it is plausible that it (the entire outer world, including _my_ body) is all the production of the inner; to wit, the diabolical creator, having a delusion or suffering a hallucination. That is not a flattering treatment of either the creation nor the creator, I know - but it also demonstrates that the same reasoning which appears to be somewhat valid in conventional Christian theology and thinking, at least from Augustine and later the Thomists onwards - could and was put into use by such as did not subscribe to the same diagnosis of the situation; with the world, with the mind, with the phenomenal and mental/psychological universe of objects and subjects - or with the hidden or revealed source of it all.

1st Anniversary of my Ordination

I was ordained Deacon for the ministry of the Church of Gnosis (Ecclesia Gnostica) by Most Revd. Bishop Stephan A.Hoeller (Tau Stephanus) on Saturday the 2nd August 2003, which coincided with the Eglise Gnostique Apostolique`s Comemoration of the death of the French Mystic and healer Nizier Anthelme Philippe (1849-1905), called Maistre Philippe of Lyons by friends, admirers and for posterity- and the Anglo-Catholic celebration of Lammas.

At that time I had participated in the sacramental ministry for 8 years, not actually contemplating entering the Diaconate, since while I felt privileged to assist Revd.Jan Valentin Saether at the altar, and to be able to serve in that capacity, I had some doubts about how I would be able to attend to the duties and qualifications which follows the ancient charge of the Deacon.

I do not, generally, consider myself a person whose gifts outweighs his flaws - it is not a situation I am proud of, but I must humbly admit I am making a sincere bid at doing the best I can. I have confidence in God`s mercy, his forgiveness, grace and providence - and that all such wondrous and apparently "absurd" blessings are given to men and women without any prejudice and without any qualification of their own. I also have confidence in the Apokatastasis Panthon, and that within that restauration of all beings into their origin in God lays the clearest answer we can ever get to the meaning and nature of life itself; while the former is a qualified and shared belief within the Church, the latter is a private admission of faith/confidence/orientation. I am not about to attempt to negotiate with anyone that they should subscribe to the same, but it does explain some of my reluctance at embracing the symbols and attire of sacrosanct priesthood: If I believe in the intervention and mediation of mortal men and women, on behalf of the Son, at the command of the Father, in communion with The Holy Spirit - and moreover believe as I do (I am not afraid of using that word, or any other), the question concerning the disposition and qualification of the servants suggests itself again and again. I can only act, live and interiorily pray through life - alas, that I should be worthy, or rather, equipped to participate in this Great Work.

Other websites on Marguerite Poretè &c

The Mirror of Annihilated Simple Souls, Marguerite Porete
by M.D. Coverley, University of Texas.

Actually it is an hypertext weave which uses as its departure point
the writing The Mirror of Simple Souls as a launchpad into an
examination of several issues. One of which is the persistence of the
written word, throughout the developement of new media .

More relevant perhaps is the Deb Platt`s Mysticism in the World Religions site`s
section of quotations from Marguerite Poretè`s Mirror of Simple Souls


Other Women`s Voices: Marguerite Poretè - excerpts and a brief biographical
sketch.

Also, Bonnie Duncan has 14 chapters and introduction from Ellen. L. Babinsky`s
translation of Marguerite Poretè`s Mirror of Simple Souls in its own section on her homepage.

As you may well remember, about a week ago I posted to this
blog some details about the tragedy of the heresy trial against the young
woman Marguerite Porète, whose fervour, bordering if not breaching into
fanaticism (are we in any position to know the type of character her passion
had? I doubt it.), and her endeavour to let the voice speaking to, in and from
her be heard in the minds ,and above all , hearts (she argues none of what
she wrote would be properly understood if received only within the monopoly of reasoning) - of her readers. Like Stephanus, who could not help flying in the face of the self-righteous judges, not only of him, not only of the earliest Christians, but of the entire demographic excluding their choice traditionalist elite, and being filled up with spirit, his self-criticism decreasing and vaporising at the very temperature of that presence - were bound to pay the price, for such words, apparently does not fit; it is received in one way or another, either the powers that be ignore it, pretending they did not hear it, or assured themselves it came from the lips of a madman - or else it is censured with extreme prejudice, which means the free expression of thoughts,ideas,feelings and knowledge has been evaluated to be extremely dangerous. Or with St.Paul who by no means were winning the contest of being the most popular and readily available voice within the entire of Christendom, even then. If we zoom forward we find certain men and women driven out into the desolate wilderness, not only are they fleeing the contagion of a mind and soul closing up on itself, once the Empire overshaddowed the Kingdom, devoured Christ Jesus, and spat out something or somebody else - already in the 4th century. Priscillian of Avila saw it as his lot, after finally being persuated or pressganged into the role of Bishop - to extend and make available methodical study of those scriptures which is, to us, in the 21th century, foundational in understanding the preceding generations, the primitive Christians, understanding of Holy Writ; he sent agents to the Levant and beyond, to extract from its monastic communities the contents of a tradition reduced to pastiche, parody and ignorant clichès in the west due to the arrogance of the foundlings and favourites among the ecclesiastical hierarchies. In some sense he was among the first voices of a kind of reformation, attempted during the Renaissance, then several times afterwards - however, the reward was that the world turned briefly upside down, a rather venomous developement involving trials failed, intervention from St.Martin of Tours, false testimonies given, the exchange of a pope for another pope (or Presiding vicar of Peter) at the behest of the emperor, new trials and the final burning of Saint Priscillian of Avila, along with his ecclesiastical servants (deacons and priests), and several nobles whose property (the motif for this crime) was expropriated and divided between the usurping bishops and the emperor to whom they pledged allegiance. While it also reached a tragic end, he believed, like Marguerite Poretè, that his words, his values and his ideas were worth enough to stand up for, or fall down for.

The Beguines, which loosely Marguerite Poretè were associated with, were not in favour of secrecy; they did not feel it was proper to undermine the confidence and trust which common people had in them, and they believed that if only the clericals and monastics would lend them their ears, they would naturally want to partake of that wealth which they believed themselves to have received by providence and divine mercy. Many of them lived brief lives, especially the vagantive, travelling stars, strangers - which we can count Marguerite Poretè among; their lifestyle, especially representing the female gender adapting such a lifestyle - was reprehensible and considered a threat against societal order. The Houses, with which the Beguines are more traditionally associated - represented rather the sort of institution that from the 4th century were conceded by most as being necessary for the good of those who were widowed (forbidden explicitly of re-marrying, since women sustained themselves from the profits of households owned by their husbands or fathers, they were basically doomed in any other aspect, a widows house and lot was usually expropriated, stolen by either Church or State.), disturbed or suspect of having dreams, visions and suchlike (the most famous of these, Hildegarde of Bingen was sent away by her family briefly after having her first period - the combination of her mystical predelictions and her impassioned and charged personality, let loose upon their village, was too much to bear for her parents; some women were even bricked up in towers where they would be induced to pray for people, while receiving small amounts of food and water deemed appropriate for an ascetic (which, if we think about it, might well be the last thing they were).) or otherwise considered damaged goods and unmarriable. In many cases, if the Houses allowed themselves to be ruled by properly elected ecclesiastics of the Church, usually a Fransiscan Elder, and abided by the rule of that or another order (even though they were mendicants and properly lived under their own rule, even in the sense of personal, unique mystic discipline, much akin to the originals of the entire travesty of monastic communities - the hermits in Syria, Palestine, Egypt and North-Africa in the 3rd to 5th centuries CE), wandering preaching mystics, like Marguerite Poretè was another issue altogether.

There isnt many articles on the Beguines ordinarly available on the internet, most of those available are repetitions of others, usually drawn from the Catholic Encyclopedia of 1911, with all that entails.
One of the few original articles, is The Beguines: Feminine Piety Derailed, by
Marygrace Peters, O.P. (in the online magazine Spirituality Today).
It should be noted that Marygrace Peters is a novice of the feminine order of the Dominicans, but also, considering the dissonance between medieval Catholic society and our modern society, even in Catholic ecclesiasticalinstutitions - our author has received an education, she is self-sustained, she is independent, opinionated - and writes papers, books and even conducts lectures on Church History. Like Rufus M.Jones remarked once , I feel compelled to remark to just as the Church is indebted to Heretics, so are Marygrace Peters - for her freedom, privileges and that which basically, as a believing Christian and Catholic, made her who she is today.

Some of M.Peters observations:


"The Beguine movement was born in a twelfth-century Europe that was a bubbling cauldron of diverse and colliding energies, fired by an immense mixture of conflicting concerns. As feudalism declined, a new class of people arose in urban communities. These merchants and tradespeople of the towns appeared during the transition from a gift economy, in which goods and services were exchanged, to the market economy, in which things were expected to have an assigned value.
The sharp contrast between wealth and poverty became more striking in the towns, as the ranks of urban poor swelled. Many reveled in the new opportunities for acquiring fortune and for indulging consumption. Still others were repelled, seeing in these opportunities the lure of Satan. These latter often felt impelled to renounce all property, power and privilege. Such craving for renunciation cut across all class distinctions, so as to include even the merchants who derived the most material benefit from these new conditions, like Francis of Assisi, or Peter Waldo, founder of the Waldensians, a group later deemed heretical by the church. Peasants, too, whose poverty was unavoidable, sought a more extreme destitution which they understood as meritorious in the eyes of God.
...

Central to the preaching of these voluntary poor was the return to the vita apostolica, the hallmarks of which were poverty, humility, charity, a life lived as a witness to the faith, that is, which was in accord with the beatitudes (Mt 5:3-12). They had an acute sensitivity to the dynamics of gospel spirituality and the primitive church, especially as it was described in the Gospel of Luke (10:1-10). Often they were condemned as heretics. Early in the thirteenth century the mendicant orders arose, whose male membership led active lives in conformity to those ideals espoused by supporters of the vita apostolica. While these wandering preachers won the devotion of the urban masses, and vast numbers of laity joined them as Dominican and Franciscan tertiaries, midway through the century they lost much of their primitive fervor, and their prestige slackened.

..
Beguine spiritual heritage is replete with emphasis on intense devotion to the humanity and passion of Christ, especially as revealed in the eucharist. The reception of the eucharist was regarded as the culmination of a mystical marriage between the soul of the Beguine and Christ, the heavenly bridegroom (Bowie 27). In Holy Feast, Holy Fast, Caroline Walker Bynum has given considerable attention to the significance of food as central to the contemplative and ascetic spirituality, as well as the charitable activities of pious women in the medieval period (115-129). Bynum's descriptions demonstrate that the Beguine spirituality is quite representative of the period. Popular accounts of the lives of Marie d'Oignies, Beatrice of Nazareth, and other Beguines described them as submitting themselves to intense mortification and asceticism with regard to food, a deprivation that often resulted in illness and led to unusual stigmata-like bleeding. Prolonged fasts served to unite the Beguine with the suffering Christ and to produce states of ecstasy accompanied by mystical visions. The Beguine's ascetic imitation of Christ's sufferings was seen as a way of substituting for the suffering of others for the salvation of the world. Her body, sustained by holy food alone, was given over to become sustenance for others, just as the broken body of the suffering Christ had been handed over in redemptive death. "


This is the impression we get of some of the Beguine sisters and their acute theology; it is centered around an intense experience of being broken out of
a mold which sustained alienation from one`s true self, even one`s will and living being - it is directly associating all longings, all insticts as being directed towards the husband, the bridegroom, the answer, the redeemer - whose redemption is immediately and crucially neccessary. This might well be the type of meaning Marguerite Poretè in her writing says the theologians cannot grasp.
The theologian, because he reasons, and subjects himself to historical presedence and all kinds of regulations, rules and canons - and his immediate superiors looking over his shoulder or lurking in backrows of the conservatory - cannot afford to think specifically, except in a general way - everything he speaks of as true is objectively true through the qualification of what informs his conscience as being right, according to presedence, we might even say - legislation. Marguerite Poretè was different from the generalization above and it might well be that it is only attentative to those Beguines who were not corporally executed or punished or incarcerated for their teachings....


A citation from Mysticism in World religions:

"To you little ones who in desire and will take prey for your nourishment, desire that you be such as (the liberated soul) is. For whoever desires the lesser part and desires not the greater part ... allows himself to fall, and so it appears that he is always hungry.
(p. 105)


Those who live in perpetual desire ... think and believe that there is no better state than the state of desire where they dwell and wish to dwell. Thus they perish on the way because they are satisfied by what desire and will give to them.
(p. 132) "

Martyrdom of Sr. Marguerite Porète 1.June 1310

SAINT Marguerite Porète, Martyr 1st June 1310, Paris, France.

Marguerite of Hainault, called la Porète, were in her early thirties when she suffered the rather controversial trial in Paris which ended with her being
marched out with dignitaries and soldiers to the common field of La Greve on Monday the 1st 1310, trussed to a stake, surrounded by kindlingwood, which was then ceremoniously ignited. She was burnt alive.


The Chronicler William of Nangis describes the trial and execution
thusly:

"Around the feast of Pentecost it happened at Paris that a certain pseudo-woman from Hainault, named Marguerite and called "la Porete," produced a certain book in which, according to the judgment of all the theologians who examined it diligently, many errors and heresies were contained; among which errors [were the beliefs], that the soul can be annihilated in love of the Creator without censure of conscience or remorse and that it ought to yield to whatever by nature it strives for and desires. This [belief] manifestly rings forth as heresy. Moreover, she did not want to renounce this little book or the errors that are contained in it, and indeed she even made light of the sentence of excommunication laid on her by the inquisitor of heretical depravity, [who had laid this sentence] because she, although having been lawfully summoned before the bishop, did not want to appear and held out in her hardened malice for a year and more with an obstinate soul. In the end her ideas were exposed in the common field of La Greve through the deliberation of learned men; this was done before the clergy and people who had been gathered specially for this purpose, and she was handed over to the secular court. Firmly receiving her into his power, the provost of Paris had her executed on the next day by fire. She displayed many signs of penitence, both noble and pious, in her death. For this reason the faces of many of those who witnessed it were affectionately moved to compassion for her; indeed, the eyes of many were filled with tears." excerpt from Richard Barton, Assistant Professor of History University of North Carolina at Greensboro
translation from Latin sources which you can find at his website which has a lot more information on the time period and Marguerite Poretè.

The Book in question was in 1945 established to have been The Mirror of Simple Souls by the scholar Romana Guarnieri ; a dialogic treatise which delineates in a clarity unparalelled the ecstatic mysticism of the Beguines, until that time left unidentified and anonymous. Guarneri`s research also brought the public`s attention to the fact that many of the medieval women mystics and poets paralelled, and even excelled in their relationship to their male counterparts. They also represented a challenging hermeneutic almost lost to the modern mind by the orchestrations of the inquisitional processes and their accounts of the Beguines.

Marguerite Porète was a wandering Beguine, she had apparently learned several languages, and were not afraid to share the product of her visions and interior contemplation with members of the clerical professions. Apparently she corresponded with several, who, upon discovering she had either been warned, censured or even explicitly excommunicated and her book and written words put on index and the readers of such subject to the inquisition, turned against her for fear of further suspicion. It is a fact that when these things happened to Marguerite, other Beguines were in fact given leisure and was left alone by both ecclesiastical and secular goverment; so apart from the suggestion in the charge laid against her -
which included (citing Richard Barton`s translation again), according to the Dominican inquisitor, William of Paris:

"You appeared at this trial and were personally commanded by us canonically and legally and on several occasions to swear an oath concerning the whole, pure, and full truth about what was spoken by you and others concerning those things which are known to fall under the jurisdiction of the office of inquisitor (which has been entrusted to me). Yet you refused to swear [the oath]. Even though you were questioned by us many times and in many places about this, you always remained contumacious and rebellious about these matters; because of your obvious and notorious contumacy and rebellion, and with the prompting of counsel offered on this matter by many wise men, we placed a sentence of greater excommunication on both you, as a rebel and obstinate person, and on [your writings]. Even though this sentence was made known to you, you endured it with a pertinacious soul for almost a year and a half after you were notified; [you persisted in this state] despite the fact that we frequently offered you the sacrament of absolution, which would be granted to you according to church practice as soon as you should humbly request it. Until now, however, you have disdained to seek absolution, and you have thus far wanted neither to swear nor respond to us concerning the aforesaid matters. On account of your refusal to do these things, and according to the holy canons, we hold you - as indeed we ought to hold you - both as convicted and confessed and as one lapsed into heresy; that is, we hold you to be a heretic [the scribe used a feminine ending for heretic here]."

Also she had produced a book which upset him mightly, or else, offending the "order of life". The charge and sentence was the following:

"We gave careful consideration to all the above matters, and took counsel with many experts concerning the truth of both sides [of the matter]. Finally, keeping sight of God and the Holy Gospels, and with the counsel and assent of the reverend father and lord, Lord G., by the grace of God Bishop of Paris, we condemn you, Marguerite, not only as one fallen into heresy but also as a relapsed heretic, and we relinquish you to the secular justice, asking it to act as mercifully towards you, excepting death and bodily mutation, as the sanctions canonically permit. Inasmuch as your erroneous and heretical book contains heresy and errors, by the judgment of and advice of the masters in theology residing in Paris, we finally condemn you and now want you to be excommunicated and burned. [And] we command - singly and as a group - all those in the district who possess the said book, under the pain of excommunication, to deliver it without fraud to us or to the prior of the Dominicans of Paris, our agent, before the next feast of the Apostles Peter and Paul."

It was not the end of it: True, she was burned. The books were confiscated everywhere they could find it, with all the other books they were spooked by - but they multiplied, translated into several other languages, including Latin. The book in fact, became many a noble and many a cleric`s "guilty secret". Soon it was forgotten who had written it and why it was forbidden, because she had not signed her name to it, it was only known she had written it. Eventually only the book renaimed, its author left anonymous and faceless, like the author of the Cloud of Unknowing.

An excerpt from the 122nd chapter of The Mirror of Simple Souls:

from The Song of the Soul...


I used to be enclosed in the servitude of captivity,
When desire imprisoned me in the will of affection.
There the light of ardor from divine love found me,
Who quickly killed my desire, my will and affection,
which impeded in me the ent erprise of the fullness of divine love.

Now has Divine Light delivered me from captivity,
and joined me by gentility to the divine will of Love,
there where the Trinity gives me the delight of His love.
This gift no human understands, As long as he serves any Virtue whatever,
or any feeling from nature, through practice of reason.

O my Lover, what will Beguines say and religious types,
when they hear the excellence of your divine song?
Beguines say I err, priests, clerics, and Preachers,
Augustinians, Carmelites, and the Friars Minor,
bBecause I wrote about the being of the one purified by love.
I do not make Reason safe for them, who makes them say this to me.
Desire, Will, and Fear surely take fr om them the understanding,
the out-flowing, and the union of the highest Light
of the ardor of divine love.

Truth declares to my heart
that I am loved by One alone,
and she says that it is without return
that He has given me Hi s love.
This gift kills my thought
by the delight of His love,
which delight lifts me and transforms me throughout union
Into eternal joy of the being of divine Love.

And Divine Love tells me that she has entered within me,
a nd so she can do whatever she wills,
such strength she has given me,
from One Lover whom I possess in love
to whom I am betrothed,
who wills that He loves,
and for this I will love Him.

I have said that I will love Him.
I lie, for I am not.
it is He alone who loves me:
He is, and I am not;
and nothing more is necessary to me
than what he wills,
and that He is worthy.
He is fullness,
and by this am I impregnated.
This is the divine seed and Loyal Love.

As you can see her tone is familiar, this annihilation is what almost all the medieval mystics and their descendants, in Dionysius the Areopagite, in Meister Eckhart and also to a certain degree, Jacob Boehme just to mention some - but like with Al-Hallaj, martyred
Sufi saint, the intensity of some words which needs be intense, simple and remain mysterious to all without experience, it couldnt be tolerated by her contemporaries. Similar to Hadjewich of Antwerp`s poetic renditions of visions, many characters in the cast of the exchanges are feminine - like Love Divine. Now, God is Love and the Lover is God, but only by sustaining, receiving, lifting up the Love of God; Valentinus the Gnostic, in fact, Paul the Apostle - also, maintains, John the Apostle, with him - that God is Love. How can that be? What does it mean? The explanation and the meaning is not got at by exegesis or theological deliberation - it is not words and letters, sentences, paragraphs that in their arrangement may make such accessible.. it is experience and experience alone. I would like to commemorate Sister Marguerite of Porète, for her refusing to yield, refusing to be silenced and for letting the essence of her heart and greatest things she was given, which could be shared with other souls - without regard for her own safety - thanking her as I thank the evangelists themselves, for speaking about Jesus, as I thank the hierophants of the Church, for speaking about the Life of the Spirit, for the wandering apostolate for the songs about the journey and the return home, for human regeneration and the finding of the peal of great price. I have so much less to praise and thank or even remember certain doctors of theology and law for.

Websites:

On Marguerite Porete:

Marguerite Porete:Gathering the Ashes of the Pearl of God.
Excerpts from The Mirror of Simple Souls Ch.119-122
Ganesha-Gate: Marguerite Porete, 1280-1310. The Mirror of Simple Souls
(excerpts from three chapters with commentary (hinduist perspective))
A poem about Marguerite Porete
Spiegel der einfachen seelen - Requiem für Marguerite Porete, a dramatical requiem play in German.

On the Beguines:

The Beguines
Sisters Between: Gender and Medieval Beguins by Abby Stoner

Books:
Marguerite Porete: Mirror of Simple Souls, Classics of Western Spirituality,
Paulist Press - tr. Ellen L.Babinsky.

Nobility and Annihilation in Marguerite Porete's Mirror of Simple Souls
by Joanne Maguire Robinson.

Some commemorations missed

A mixed bunch of comemmorations which I feel is pertinent to the Gnosis,
since I didnt share my thoughts with you about these on time, when they
were immediate events, they will remain for me to explicate:


16th March 1244where the 760th anniversary of the surrender of the Montesegur
fortress and the consequent burning of some 200 parfaits, faidits and
believers on the mountains outside of it. For many this marks the dramatic
end of the Albigensian/Catharist movement: a heresy entirely erradicated
from the face of the earth, for reasons we today have problems with believing.
What else is new, my brothers and sisters? I will return my attention to the Cathars later; their teachings have been consistently misrepresented both by self-appointed enemies - especially conservative Roman Catholics, and by self-appointed supporters, much of their history is legendary - which means, it has been forgotten and then re-membered after a fashion. They did leave a heritage, they did inspire an undercurrent within our very culture - in fact, their influence lingers where you would never expect it to appear, still it does.


18th March 1314- 690 years ago Jacques de Molay, the last formal Grand Master of the Templar Knights, where put to the pyre after a long imprisonment on charges of sorcery,heresy,buggery and above all treason against the Church and the Empire. Much has been said of the Templars, there are even Templar revivals, I have addressed the Larmenius/Fabre-Palaprat lineage in an earlier post to this very blog.
The original constitution of the order was really quite plain: a pilgrimage, spawned by troubled times in the Christian West, were progressing steadily
towards the East and Holy Lands there, with it followed industry,trade and the exchange of other commodities - of symbolic,intellectual,societal and economical value to the Christian West, it was still quite volnurable for the onslaught of enemies, raiders, brigands and so forth.. so a chivalry which were attuned to all the concerns of this activity, and its participants were created with a sacred duty towards the protection of the symbols of Christian and Jewish heritage (sic!); The Poor Knights of the Temple of Jerusalem was founded and were the first chivalric order to adopt mendicant (which is to say, Monastic but not monestary-bound) vows and discipline. No chivalric order has gained such an exotic and eccentric following in Modern Age; I am uncertain if it has been continued, or if it was revived. And also, what portion of it has been, if it was revived. Consider the Premiss: The GodTemplars on one end and the Ordo Templi Orientis on the other...


18th March 1944 - a rather humble artiste was born somewhere in Norway, around Oslo, who I was fortunate to befriend the Autumn of 1995, Jan Valentin Saether - has survived another decade within the talons of the watchers of this world; interiorily and visibly transfiguring and dissolving shadow images and impressions deep in our psychic soil - through his work as an artist; always re-inventing himself in the process (speaking of artistic expression, I dare not comment on anything else). He had his 60th anniversary some time ago, and is now preparing an exhibition of over 35 years vocation as painter, sculptor etc. In addition to his vocation as painter and teacher, Jan has also functioned over 17 years as a Gnostic priest in Ecclesia Gnostica, it was this occasion and our shared interest in Gnosticism and related traditions, which
caused the two of us to meet, and through our meeting together on subsequent
sundays, the formation of the Oslo Parish of Ecclesia Gnostica. 9 years coming up on my part as participant in this ministry. Time presently prohibits me from elucidating more on this. But I`ll be sure to revisit it.


22nd March 1944. - 4 days later, Constant Martin Chevillon, nome d`eglise Tau Harmonius, was gunned down by the partisans of the German occupants of France - 1one of the reasons for his swift assasination his involvement with
Masonry, Rosicrucianism, Martinism and the Gnostic Church (and its fraternal
allied in the cultural and political trenches of the occupation - the National
Gallician Catholic Church). I wrote a memorial a year ago about him.


23rd March 1948 - Nicolai Berdyaev, an important russian thinker and theologian, with a special place in the idealist and Sophiological current
inspired by Vladimir Solovyov, dies in exile, Paris. More about him later, I hope.


27th March 1765 - Franz Xavier Von Baader, industrialist and Theosophist, is born. Of the little I have read of Von Baader as well as what has been rephrased from him in different books I have read throughout the decades of my romance with the western mystical traditions, I feel very affiliated to him and his mentor/friend, Louis Claude de Saint-Martin.


30th March 1202 - The Prophet of the Fourth Age, The Age of the Holy Spirit - Friar Joachim of Fiore, transcended the limitations of his own age. While guilty of what I quite idly would call a tremendous heresy and a stumbling-block to be sure, his authorship and vision carries more authority and clarity for everytime I permit myself exposure, because what he
writes can be mediated by such filters as must have existed in his own mind
as well, for Friar Joachim was not a Savonarola, he was not a head-dunker, flagellant, arsonist or crusader.. however, perhaps what came later were a
little more extreme. A catalyst, if not a prophet.


24th April 1575 was the birthday of Jacob Boehme... As im re-reading his dialogues... Jacob Boehme is a rather important figure in my own spiritual developement, given time I`ll excerpt from my meditations
on his Way to Christosophia(the dialogues in question) later on.


25th April 277 was Mani`s Behma what does this mean? That he
sat down upon the Mercy Seat; He was guilty of a trespass against
the authoritarian,jealous rule of certain Magian priests in the court of the
Sassanids, being himself of noble descent, brought up in Babylon at the hands
of the Mugtashila (baptisers) in their closed-up monastic society - he contributed to Iranian culture with the invention of instruments, painting styles and metres.
Manichean religionists spread from Fujjian and Taiwan in the East to the Gaul (France) in the West, one famous ex-Manichean is Augustine, and many blame
him for introducing so-called alien teachings into Catholic Christendom such as
original sin, the low estimation of women, asceticism and dualism of body against spirit, by way of his former adherence to Manicheism. Strangely
enough, in contrast to certain traditions of the Gnostic tradition, the Manichean doctrine of matter views it as particularly necessary for Redemption itself; without the intervention/embodiment in the material
vessel, which can be broken apart and is moreover mallable and subject to
certain processes we would associate with chemistry and physics today -
the sparks of Light which had been devoured by the darkness would remain unredeemed. It is consciousness and the priority of spiritual energy within a body and its interfacing with matter without proper care that is the subject of the asceticism, at times extreme and stern, of Manicheism. Here the original Manichaean teachings are in extreme contrast with the Cathar ethics and certain of the earlier Gnostic schools; but the strongest difference between all are on superficial matters. It is a certain ethics of custodial nature; proper care, right praxis, conscience and the applying of love,compassion and Agape whilst in the world - and how to remedy what appears to be a universally recognized predicament: How man has come to forget who he is and where he is and where he is heading, and what he should do.
There`s less gristle to chew than one expects, with the Manichaeans.


On the same day, Maistre Anthelme Nizier Phillippe was born, in 1849.
An important figure in the history of Modern Martinism and the French Gnostic Church even though he personally were never directly involved with either, but rather inspired Paul Sedir, Phaneg, Papus and a few other early acolytes of this tradition.


30th April - the world comemorates the passage of the brilliant mystic Meister Johannes Eckard (Meister Eckhart), who died in 1328.


May the 3rd was the festival of the Ikon Our Lady of Czestochowa, who for a time was the emblem of the L`Eglise Gnostique Apostolique ,
and a Black Madonna. The current Roman Catholic Pope, H.H. John Paul II,himself a Polish national, is Catholic protector and patron of the tradition and Ikon of Our Lady of Czestochowa.


...

Way behind + some Thomas

Im way behind on this blog; naively I thought I could catch up with the anniversaries of many important events and persons in the story of
Gnosticism, Christian Mysticism, Hermeticism and all other particulars
of the Western Mystery Tradition. I`ll see if I can contribute something about
those persons and events eventually.

I am also way behind on my personal correspondence (per email), begging everyone pardon. please be patient with me...

One of those disquieting tendencies among enthusiasts about Gnosticism, early Christianity & all that western mystical jazz...is a certain absence of humour.
I hate to be the one to admit Im among the grinners rather than those devoted to the guffaw and the equal spreading of amusement. Or rather, im not the premeditated nor the impulsive (or compulsive) joker. I could blame my introvert personality, or perhaps my cultural heritage.

Strangely, Wisdom inspires tears of contrition and laughter of release.
If the comedian has a sensitivity for the absurd, as well as the simple within the complex - hiding itself in its own little game.. I suspect I appreciate his art nevertheless. I just can`t tolate desperation.. and needy, attention-craving, suffocating egos playing social charade, manipulating for kicks.

..So it was a joy to discover Brother Tom`s Book of Signs and Wonders at Jeremy`s Fantastic Planet Blog (one of the blogs I follow weekly for developements, He is seriously studying the Gospel of Thomas and shares his insights, impressions &c. not only from reading translations from the Coptic in english, but by conducting translation from Coptic himself)
it is a folksy version of the Gospel of Thomas.

L'Abbé Julio + 3.March 1912

We remember:
Jules-Ernest Houssaye (or Hussay); b. 1844 + 3.March 1912


Abbe Julio was born in 1844 in Mayenne.
He was the son of an engineer, but sought education towards the Roman Catholic priesthood. In 1870 he became the vicar at Grand Oisseau. At the instigation of the war he volunteered to become a chaplain for the Volontaires de l'Ouest of the Cahtelineau General. His service with the forces made Julio a national hero, not because of any strategic successes of his troop but rather due to his devotion to the wounded and dying; he volunteered to cross over into enemy territory to bring back the wounded. In his memories the Cathelineau General praises him officially as the "the honest Abbot Houssaye".

After the cruelties and hardships of the war he is elected for the vicariate of Juvigné, later of Javron; but his health was deteriorating quickly due to
fatigue, he lived a very modest, very spartan life and the countryside had little to offer in those hard times as it was. This was simultaneous with the emergence of almost suave priests pontificating in the greater cities of France, causing near scandal when news reached the poor villages and townships
outside, who nevertheless were quite disenchanted with the Church Romaine as it was. In some sense the Abbé`s own personal register of experience only encompassed the calamity and suffering of the poor and ailing and their joy and gratitude at deliverance and the selfless care of ministers to soul and body
could provide. During his stay at Javron, Julio collapsed and had to be interred in the military hospital, to abandon all his cares and duties until his recovery.

Instead of returning to Javron, Abbé Julio accepts the position as Vicar at St.Joseph`s in Paris. The war had poleraized the classes against eachother, but also enstranged many privileged people from the machinations of the Roman Catholic Church; one Cardinal Richard insisted on a censure and persecution of doctrinal and practical errors in clergy as well as laity, he obviously sought to elevate standards so that it would deflect any critical eye from "his" city and environs. Sure enough, when the good Abbé arrived in Paris and carefully oriented himself concerning the parish which he had been called to serve, he discovered that his flock were terrified of the Cardinal and felt he
was persecuting them for no reason, they stubbornly insisted they did as they had always done and modestly and sincerely wished to fulfill the "obligations" that the Mother Church put them under, and because of this representative of the Pope, they almost believed themselves to be persecuted as the Apostles had been, by the Romans, moreover they see the 1870 declaratrion of the infallibility of the Pope as an offence against the faith, the tradition and the charge of the Apostles.

Julio maintains discretion over this, but by 18th February 1885, he is caught in the maelstrom of the Cardinals last throes of frantic fanaticism; he is released of all his duties and privileges, threatened with excommunication and subjected to an insiduous smear campaign which again threatens to dispose of his
health. He continues as an itinerant and independent preacher, in lieu of his past ecclesiastical charge, serving the selfsame community - but now as a kind of independent mage and healer. Memory of his dedication, selfnessless, modesty in contrast with the extravaganza of the "Modern" priests and bishops in Paris, calm and resolve not to harm or cause offence in contrast to the aggression and paranoia of the Cardinal - and certain contacts with the nobles, intellectuals, artistes and patrons of late 19th century France - form a kind of immunity around him. He is allowed to continue. Knowing it would full well damage any chance at reclaiming his office and return to pastoral duties in Paris or any other place, Abbé Julio began to write, his first channel being the La Tribune du Clergé (Platform of the Clergy), a newspaper addressed to those within or outside the Roman Catholic communion who
sought a preservance and amplification of Sacramental and ecclesiastical ministry. Then he began to write books, first on his consistent vision of the apostolic charge contained in the Gospels, and the great message of love and
compassion contained in the words,works and example of Jesus Christ. Then eventually upon mysticism and the practical application of understanding, spirituality and extraordinary gifts, Charisms.

From 1888 he collaborated others at the forefront of a kind of spiritualizing reform movement expressing their perspective and message through the newspaper "L'Ami de l'Humanité"(Friend of Humanity). From 1888-1889,
he helps found and collaborates on a third newspaper, or rather, a small periodic sheet named "La Tribune Populaire"(The Popular
Platform),organ for religious democracy and the defense of the rights of the clergy, it only ran for a year but caused more disenchanted clergy to "fill the ranks" of this movement. Julio can now barely afford food, much less clothing, all his resources goes into appeals, to ministry without mandate, to the aid of confreres, to travel.. even if he lectures, even if teaches classes directed at prayer, at reading the scriptures, at making sense of the Gospel and its relevance to man today, even occasionally ministering to ailing, sick
or confused and anxious faithful, there is nothing left. One day, in this condition, he stumbles across another disenchanted fellow, active in the same type of unprivileged ministry:Jean Sempé.

The mystical healer Jean Sempé was a complex personality, a contrast to the simplicity of Abbé Julio, he was also a legend and hero, but people hushed their voices when they spake of their rendezvous with him.
What he thaught others, what he lectured upon, or even wrote - were subject to the most private and discrete exchanges among Parisians. Abbé Julio had paradoxically all the skills of the heart, to provide care and consolation unto the suffering, to administer the last oil, to pray on the behalf of the ailing, to serve - yet wrote about extraordinary gifts, charisms - which he had absolute confidence were available to man today, as man needed them more than ever. During the last three years before encountering Jean Sempé he came to doubt
that the Roman Church even had such to offer, and that if it had it, it ungraciously, pittilessly and most arrogantly witheld it from the less privileged. At the same time he reoriented himself towards the mystical approach to
suffering and to the ministry which were long forgotten within the modernized Church. What, he would ask, is wrong with an exorcism, it was addressing evil interrupting with the lives of men, and the wholeness
of their hearts, seeking Christ`s assistance in chasing these influences out of men, reclaiming an integrity which had been lost somewhere, either by intervention, violence or own carelessness. What was wrong with
exorcism in 1890 is almost self-evident: It augmented the accusations levelled by rationalists against religionists that the core and life the religion always was superstitions and irrational fear. 5 years prior to the danse macabre of the Affaire Leo Taxil, you would be suspected of an insidious form of heresy
within the Church if you ventured in that direction. With Sempé he now leaves the prospect and subject of the Roman Church entirely, it is his conviction that it has lost its spiritual authority, and only its faithful and the clergy represent its spiritual graces and effectiveness, the Church depending on its constitutent and particular members rather than vice versa. In a sense this is a direct negation of the arrogance of Cardinal Richard who believed the faithful needed the Church for their salvation and safekeeping, and that it was practically the
property of one man: The heir of Peter in Rome, whose present possessor, he hoped, obviously, to himself succeed.

Henceforward any mention of the word "Catholic" addresses the invisible, universal faithful of God who tries to follow Christ`s example on earth, who attend to and themselves are attended to, by the ministers and assembly of any
Church, who themselves are Christ`s own. He does not ungraciously deflect the suggestion it exists in the very Church he was forced to vacate by Cardinal Richard and his kind, but he insists it is thus in no way by virtue of its
administrative, historical and organizational hierarchy. Inspired by his confreres, now a good handful of ex-ecclesiasticals from the Roman Church, he pursues the trail of the Primitive Christian Church and for guidance concerning the reorganization of its rituals, its ministry and the original Mandate of the Holy Spirit. Unlike many whose names we have
heard prior to this, including Pierre-Michel Eugene Vintras who briefly attended a seminary, relatively late in his life, Abbé Julio were in an unique position with regards to Spiritual reform. Many approached him to learn what he was finding out, to contribute their own and to express their symphaty with his quest. During this period he wrote several inspirational pamphlets which detailed his discovery of the ancient Christian approach to Prayer. Most of what was detailed in these pamphlets, of details and citations, would not have been news to people belonging to the Orthodox tradition, but merging with the particular perspective and fervour of Julio, all these words from the obscure corners of the ecclesiastical history of the entire Church, not only the Catholic, were renewed and charged with an urgency few would have found in the rather pragmatic translations of Alphonse Migné and his like. Eventually he translated these into practice in an outward capacity and adopted its disciplines, which he thaught others. This is how he attracted the attention of several young occultists, intellectuals, mystics and philosophers who would broadcast his name, fame and message beyond the constraints of continental France. Among them is the young Jean Bricaud, who frequented the circle of Jean Sempé, another, who had a more direct and active relationship with Julio and who assisted him in the capacity of volunteering clerical and secretarial services to him, was young Yvon Le Loup, better known as Paul Sedir. His works are now followed, commented and reviewed in the sprawling phenomenon of the "free press" of the occult in Paris. He is now controversial as well as popular, mystified and dangerous. He leaves Paris, and
retires to write the most epochal of his works Livre des Secrets Merveilleux (The Book of Marvelous Secrets). Simultaneously with his publishing of a
book which broadcast the similtude and spiritual correspondence between Roman Catholic, especially Benedictine spiritual discipline and ancient Theurgy as thaught both by Christian neo-platonists in the later antiquity and by
hermetists in the later generations; showing that both address the same powers and faculties. The Book is a religious manual, a handbook for the Pentacle of Healing and Evocation.. to the uninformed it looks like a kind of christianized
Grimoire. Simultaneously, Abbé Julio`s "universal" ecclesiology disposes him more and more towards a trend of ecumenism and enthusiasm over the possibility of unification, of exploding the monopolies and self-inflicted
alienation of all the communities in the "same Body of Christ"; he founds another periodical L'Etincelle Religieuse, Libérale et Sociale (the Religious,Liberal and Social Spark: Organ for the Union of the Churches). In 1901, while living at Fontenay sous Bois, he is visited by an enthusiatic Monseigneur Joseph René Vilatte, with whom he maintained contact and fond support for the rest of his life. Msgr. Vilatte knows about all the activities, all the ideas, all the attitudes, all the peccadilloes the good Abbé has - he has read all his books, he is now sent by friends his periodical, he is
attended upon by faithfuls and clergy symphatetic to himself, who all bears good words concerning this mysterious saintly man; who like the Monsigneur - had become enstranged from the Roman Church, and who believed the
effective graces and the Holy Spirit to be elsewhere. Again and again he was asked if he would visit him, upon his return from North America, he elects to visit the older gentleman, to speek with him of important matters.

Thanks to the efforts of Jules Ernest Houssay this movement had not only a protegeè and Apostolic protector in the guise of Villatte, and a history - which reaches back to the Gallicanne dissension against Rome in the
17th century, or contact with other communities of like attitude around the world, with Houssay`s ouevre, his research, his reassambling, they had a liturgical dossier: The Liturgy of Gazinet (Old Gaul Rite): authentically reflecting the same and attaching the movement to a greater background of history, transmission and community. His work provided access to the spiritual
and religious content behind the labels which Villatte had received at his consecration in Goa at the hands of the independent Catholicate and Mar Julius Francois Xavier Alvarez in 1889. Vilatte was approached by his consecrators and communicants to establish a consolidation, not in precis an application of the American Old Catholic Church and its style, and not the original Old Catholic Church in Holland - but with regards to a French national heritage of independent, non-papalist Catholicism. In some sense, it was perceived Abbé Julio had embodied and still embodied this very thing and
without being overtly aware of it, nevertheless had served as its mouthpiece for many years at the time.

On December the 4th, 1904 Jules-Ernest Houssaye is conscecrated Bishop and installed as the Apostolic chief for the Free Catholic Church of France, a communal body in by Monsignore Paolo Miraglia-Gulotti, in which capacity he served until his death. He was succeeded in this capacity by Louis-Marie Francois Giraud (1876-1951), an Ex-Trappist
who vacated his monastery in 1905 due to a dispute over the infallibility of the Pope and the introduction of alien disciplines,liturgy and hours imposed upon them by the Roman See. He became consecrated a Priest of Vilatte`s Church March 19th 1907 and a year later to the Episcopate. He is sent as a missionary Bishop to Switzerland, wherefrom he returns to succeed Abbé Julio upon his
departure from this world beneath the veil. With Msgr.Giraud the tradition Gallicanne becomes popularized and less arcane, he is a superb organizer and administrator and maintains a network of contacts the equal of Msgr.Vilatte`s. He also introduces the first definition of the Gallicanne liberties - which makes the Church distinct from almost all other independent Catholic ministries of the same period: the abolition of clerical celibacy: allowing marriage, communion for all and with two species: bread and wine,
Liturgy in the vernacular; in French not Latin, the communal election of Bishops: the community choses her stewards, the nullification of excommunication, and the abolition of excommunication as "sacrament"...From Msgr.Giraud`s time and onwards the Gallicanne Church is at once radical in relationship to the egalitarian message of Jesus, and conservative with regards to retaining practices and observances abandoned by the counter-reformation and anti-modernist Catholic Church of Rome.
While there were unfortunately many enthusiasts routing for the Nazi occupants among Catholics, the Gallican`s were targeted at once and without hesitation by the Gestapo, prominent members were arrested, the Church`s members were forbidden to congregate, the publications of the Church was confiscated and publically burned.. Constant Martin Chevillon, one of its faithful
Bishops, were murdered on an open street by members of the Front Nationale Populaire. The Gallican, the newspaper of the Church, actually became an underground newspaper for the resistance under the occupation, they had chosen sides, and to the partisans of Klaus Barbie they appeared to be as dangerous as the communists. After the occupation the Church emerged, intact, as a victorious respository of Liberty, Equality and concord - news circulated that they received anyone, charging nothing and that they did not exercise their "ecclesiastical" right to excommunicate such as for instance - freemasons.

Monsignore Giraud, Abbé Julio`s successor, has sometimes - like his predecessor, been labeled a Gnostic Bishop, it is uncertain if this is technically sound with relation to his actual affiliation at the time, but we see that a certain attitude manifests in France at that particular time, which is even the more overtly present in the ministry of the accertainly
Gnostic Bishop Jean Bricaud. Msgr.Giraud consecrated him , with the sponsorship and witness of Abbé Julio - in 1907, thus allowing him to incorporate an Apostolic and Catholic ministry into his synodical L`Eglise Gnostique Universelle.

Msgr.Giraud, Msgr.Houssay and in fact, Msgr.Vilatte Knew about Jean Bricaud`s affiliation and intentions.

This is important info to all who are suffering under the grand illusion that somehow Vilatte or anyone of his direct successors were fooled
by the Templars, Gnostics and Masons of the period into giving a representative of theirs an Apostolic consecration, and thus claim upon affiliation
with the Church Universal, or Catholic as it is so often named... considering many more "orthodox", or rather, "neo-orthodox" communities today which possess a succession from Msgr.Vilatte and touts it with no uncertain pride, it is quite the reverse in many cases; while these, divorced by generations
and multitudes of complicated transmissions of the same lineage, are very much removed from an opportunity to prove their merit and demonstrate a true and correct intent; Monsigneur Julio Ernest Houssay and Jean Bricaud, had this opportunity, and they most certainly did prove themselves.

Addendum:
Upon Abbé Julio: A private declaration: I, Terje Dahl Bergersen, in the privacy and seclusion of one soul addressing the fullness of God`s grace,
in remembering Julio, declares Julio Blessed. And I, in the capacity of my own understanding and in my gratitude to the service of this Blessed one
of God`s Church for France and for the union of all the Ecclesiae of the One Household of God; True, Inviolate, never Corrupted, always Regenerated
Catholic - Universal - and Apostolic Church which was,is and shall ever be - declare Julio,a Saint of God`s Church:

Saint Julio the Priest, of Mayenne.

Blessed Henry Suso 1300-1366

Heinrich Suso /Sus /Seuse.
Writing as Amandus
Catholic Memorial 2nd March

assigned feast in the Dominican Order to 2nd March
upon the declaration of him being Blessed, in 1831
by Pope Gregory XVI.


Born March 21. 1300, in Constance

Dead Jan 25. 1366, in Ulm



Accounted to be foremost among the Friends of Godalong with John Tauler(1300-1361). This society of pious persons, both ecclesiastical and lay, sought different measures to advance the life of holiness in Catholic society. An endeavour inspiring many others, both heterodox and orthodox - among them The Brethren of the Common Life, founded by Geert Groote, and attended by Thomas à Kempis who was himself greatly inspired by HenrySuso.

He studied under Meister Eckhart in Cologne in a period from 1322-1325, enrolled with the Dominican Order at the time he turned 13.
Already in whilst still a young man put in charge of several mendicant "houses" for the society The Friends of God, whose
administration and organization resembled that of the Beghards and Beguines.
Began teaching theology to students in Constance. Spent years imprisoned in a dungeon "due to slander" and his association with Meister Eckhart, a controversial figure in his own time (Eckhart`s authority was never revoked, but mysticism troubled the Catholic church due to the influx of dissenting and apostatizing sects, among them the great bogaboo of the day, the Brethren and Sisters of the Free Spirit.

Like Eckhart, Suso was repeatedly forced to exercise discretion with whom he associated, especially spiritually - that is to say, to whom he spoke with and wrote with in confidence and earnestly, sincerely and passionately from the heart.

Henry Suso came from a family of nobles, but chose early away the privileges which his blood would have secured him. This coincides almost with all traditional
mystics from that period, as well as a good share of the heterodox enthusiasts.
He was secured the very best education in spiritual, religious and judicial matters. He chose to bear the name of his mother`s family line, since she was a devout Christian in contradistinction to the mighty,wealthy and rich father who was firmly invested in his trade. Henry was a delicate and sickly child, and tradition predicated that he was destined to ministry, to be abandoned under the ministrations of the monastic institutions; with illness comes melancholy, idle thought and unproductive meditation; that such people comes anywhere near such influence the secular trades would secure them was an unseemly, frightful prospect, which his contemporaries sought to war