Thread: Gnosticism?

Gnosticism was a rival christian sect that lost out when what became catholicism and became the official religion of the empire. They weren't to big on divergent beliefs back then.

Check out The Nag Hammadi Library (the gnostic gospels) for some of their holy texts. The manuscripts themselves, hidden during the mainstream persecution of heretical sects of the 4th century (I think), date to the 3rd and 4th century - although the composition dates range across the usual dates for the canonical gospels (80c.e onwards for the gnostics).

I find them interesting because they grew out of the same stuff that the mainstream sect of christianity did, yet it features radically different ideas (IIRC jesus' death/resurrection was purely a metaphysical event). The wikipedia article (and the site I linked above) knows better than me though .

From what I understand, Gnosticism is a branch of Christianity that believes in the evil of the material world. Apparantly, man 'fell' as a result of physically based pleasures, and the corporeal realm is one that occured as a break from God. As a result, Jesus, who was a spiritual being disguised as man, was needed to impart special knowledge to mankind. Through this knowledge, whatever it is, man was supposed to shed the evils of the flesh and become a spiritual being once again. As spoon said, it may be a good idea to check some other, reputable sources.

As I understand it Gnosticism is the mystical branch of Christianity, being more interested in the experience of the divine than with pomp and ceremony. They seek to attain a state of 'gnosis' by whatever means they use, prayer, meditation, possibly hallucinogenic substances and orgasm too?! Gnosticism is to Christianity as Sufism is to Islam. The mystical branches are usually regarded with suspiscion by the mainstream branches. I am no expert however.

sounds fun, maybe I should research them

<div align="center">IN THE FIRST and second centuries, a series of bizarre cults sprang up in various parts of the Roman Empire, notably in Alexandria, that melting pot of peoples and cultures at the mouth of the Nile. These cults were known as Gnostic. Their ideas and activities seem oddly to be both antique and highly advanced. When the black order of hierarchical Christianity rose to ascendancy, it vigorously and violently suppressed these cults. However, you cannot blame Jesus for the religion practiced in his name. The Gnostics left a wealth of written material, and some of their cults survived underground to influence the development of the magic art in later centuries. The medieval Cathars and Albigensians certainly possessed some Gnostic knowledge, and this chapter will suggest that their influence can be detected at many other points.

There are many threads in Gnostic thought. It contains cosmic speculations elevated enough to compare with the most refined of the Eastern systems. Some of these speculations anticipate medieval Kabbalah and astrology. There is a well developed system of magic surviving mostly in the form of artifacts. The Gnostics had a variety of ethical systems based either on complete anarchic libertinism or else on strict asceticism, whichever seemed most likely to lead to liberation in any particular situation. Above all, Gnosticism was concerned with mystical experience - Gnosis - as opposed to mere Pistis or faith. What the world has tended to remember the Gnostics for, however, is their apocryphal stories which mock the orthodox religions of their times.

Gnosticism has been supremely important in the development of Western occultism for it represents a synthesis of Greek, Egyptian, and Oriental enlightenments, which were swiftly forced underground and later appeared in the works of medieval and renaissance magicians, in the Templars, in Witchcraft, in Rosicrucianism, and in our own time.

To the Gnostics, no conception of God or the ultimate or whatever was infinite enough. They considered that the Supreme Being was completely ineffable and beyond anything that could be said of it. They laughed at the hopelessly parochial anthropomorphic conceptions of the Absolute that other religions put forward, and endeavoured to say as little about it as possible, save that it was too immense to have ideas about. To them it was like the Tao or the Void. They did, however, consider that there was a small fragment of this infinitude in man and in every living being. Gnosis meant experiencing this primal spark within oneself.

Exactly how the Infinite fragmented itself and descended into existence with matter was the subject of unending debate amongst the Gnostics. They produced many theories. Some were merely poetic allegories of the process in sexual terms. Some were allegorical commentaries on human psychology - every cosmology embodies a psychology. Some were probably deliberate attempts to ridicule the idea of understanding the process with the mind at all. In constructing these theories, they produced a varied and colourful intermediate magical world of various Aeons and Archons between this world and the ultimate reality.

The ultimate reality gave rise to a number of Aeons, usually thirty, which surround the material universe. These Aeons are not so much periods of time as spiritual principles or principalities. This idea seems to have reappeared in the magical visions of Dr. John Dee who saw them as thirty Aethers. Various tensions inherent in the Aeons resulted in the formation of a number of Archons, or rulers. In other systems, the ultimate reality itself is the First Archon and from this a number of subsequent Archons, usually seven, the Hebdomad, evolved by a process of Ennoia or what we might call thought projection. The Ennoia of the first Archon produced a being, Barbelo (or Barbelon) having a female or androgynous nature. Alternatively, Barbelo might be identified with the Great Silence in which the Prime Cause of first Archon manifested.

Somehow from these cosmic principles the force responsible for the creation of this world arose. This is variously called Ialdaboath or Sabaoth or Iao and many other names. Sometimes the force is sevenfold and identified with the astrological planets. This force is conceived of as androgynous or male with an animal-headed manifestation. It is held responsible for the creation of material beings into which the ultimate reality then condescended to breathe a vital spark. Barbelo is known to us as Babalon or Nuit, the great star mother in whom one must seek reabsorption to penetrate the highest mystery. Ialdaboath was yet another manifestation of the ubiquitous horned god known to the Templars as Baphomet and the Christians as the Devil. The dragon force appears in some Gnostic systems as the world-serpent or Leviathan encircling the universe and biting its own tail.

The Gnostics&#39; attitudes to a material life - although apparently contradictory - are a direct consequence of their Gnosis and their cosmological speculations. Having experienced the spark of the infinite within, they realised they could not be touched by anything, and thus were free to do anything at all. Some considered particular forms of activity more likely to obscure the vital spark and other forms more likely to liberate it. Some were libertines, some ascetics - they usually chose to be the opposite of prevailing social customs. The material world was considered to be entirely evil, corrupt, and imperfect. This was chiefly because of its obvious impermanence. Only the vital spark was immortal and would reincarnate until it achieved union with the infinite, either at the end of the universe or by liberating itself in the meantime. This then, briefly, was the Gnostic view of reality. Gnosticism was never an organised religion, but existed as a series of elitist cults led by such notables as the wizard Simon Magus, the philosopher Valentinius and Apollonius of Tyana.

Each teacher spread his gnosis by word of mouth, couching the message in a form suited to the local belief structure, adapting Gnostic practices to local need. In addition, a great deal was written down, partly to remind particular teachers what they had taught and also to sow confusion and dissent in the ranks of the main organised religions of the day - Christianity and Judaism. A number of alternative bits of the Bible were produced to put across some important Gnostic speculations. Firstly, the God Yahweh of the Old Testament was seen as a vicious, senile old fool intent on persecuting humanity, while the serpent (who gave knowledge) was seen as humanity&#39;s friend. Secondly, Jesus was seen as a true messenger of the infinite, but his crucifixion was considered meaningless. Only his message of love and the power above were thought important.

The Gnostics were true anarchists of the spirit. They saw all other religions as encouraging enslavement to priesthoods and secular powers with their legal and moral structures. Against these things they ranged their cosmological jokes, their anti-morality, and their magic.

Gnostic magic included the use of familiar spirits, necromancy, and the use of potions for erotic and dream inducing purposes, but their main practices were orgiastic, telesmatic, and incantatory. Their orgiastic rites included the consumption (as sacraments) of the mixed male and female sexual elixirs and menstrual blood after coitus. They were also reputed to have consumed their own deliberately aborted fetuses. Most Gnostic sects were not interested in reproduction - which they considered to be a repetition of a fundamental error. Their sexual rites were designed to cheat the evil Archon of further human victims, and to give an inspirational foretaste of the final and ultimate reabsorption into Babalon.

The Gnostics left behind them innumerable, intricate, and beautiful impressions on stone, jewels, ceramic, and metal which go under the name of Gnostic gems. These would have functioned as talismans and amulets charged with various spells and enchantments. They have also left us some very striking and bizarre votive statuary which would have functioned as fetishistic centrepieces in rituals.

Many of the words of power and barbarous names of evocation that exist in medieval and contemporary magic have their origin in Gnostic incantations. These are often woven into invocations of great beauty and power, such as the Bornless or Headless ritual. The word Abracadabra, itself, comes from the name of the Gnostic god Abraxas. A number of Gnostic sects were active around the Damascus area, and if one were trying to rediscover or even invent the dread Necronomicon of the Lovecraft mythos, then Gnosticism would be the best source.

The timeless themes of magic appear in their completeness in Gnosticism because it was able to draw its techniques from Egyptian learning, from the Greek Mystery Schools, and from systems further East, each of which had preserved traditions from that ultimate wellspring of magic - Shamanism.

~ Peter J. Carroll, Psychonaut

Originally Posted by spoon

Gnosticism was a rival christian sect that lost out when what became catholicism and became the official religion of the empire. They weren&#39;t to big on divergent beliefs back then.[/b]

Close. "Gnosticism" is a bad word, in my opinion. It wasn;t a unified religion, or anything close to.

It&#39;s a term used to apply to a variety of religious and mystical movements in the first century onwards. What LATER became catholicism was one such movement. Most of these movements grew out of a combination of traditions, including eastern mysticical influences, the gospels, both canonical and extracanonical, etc. Essentially in the more pseudo-pre-christian of the movements, they spread by the passing around of one or two gospels and private readings to small audiences. Catholicism gradually picked and chose which of the gospels it accepted as canon. It worked, I suppose, by amalgamating some of the gnostic movements into itself. That&#39;s my belief, anyway.

I am not even Christian (baptised but not practising) but wasn&#39;t Catholicism created centuries later? (Back then there was one Christian Church, then there was the Schism of eastern and western Christianity?)

Originally Posted by The

Close. "Gnosticism" is a bad word, in my opinion. It wasn;t a unified religion, or anything close to.

It&#39;s a term used to apply to a variety of religious and mystical movements in the first century onwards. What LATER became catholicism was one such movement. Most of these movements grew out of a combination of traditions, including eastern mysticical influences, the gospels, both canonical and extracanonical, etc. Essentially in the more pseudo-pre-christian of the movements, they spread by the passing around of one or two gospels and private readings to small audiences. Catholicism gradually picked and chose which of the gospels it accepted as canon. It worked, I suppose, by amalgamating some of the gnostic movements into itself. That&#39;s my belief, anyway.[/b]

I tend to disagree... Well after all the stuff I read of course, you probably read other stuff so you probably will disagree with me...

Catholic Christianity was just a control device of the Roman Empire... Council of Nicea... There was no "catholic sect" before the roman empires made it the state religion... you had all kinds of Christian sects but such diversity was too hard too control that&#39;s why they institutionalized it