Gnosticism: Esoteric Insight and/or Christian Heresy?

Where did you find this information?

As esoteric ecumenists, I cannot believe that we would restrict where we find knowledge and wisdom. That would be counter to our being free thinkers and perpetual seekers of the best laws and rules to live by.

Regards
DL

 

Maybe the Cathars weren't "esoteric ecumenists".

 

When you say the inquisition was 'used on us' what do you mean? You didn't live in the 13th c. And if you don't like 'the intelligentsia' would you rather follow the stupid, the ignorant?

I'm not interested in your beliefs which seem like some very limited modern concoction. I was speaking of the Cathars of the mddle ages, not you. Surprised?

You also failed address my question:if the Cathars didn't believe in literal re-incarnation, how did they understand it?

 

'We' is utterly irrelevant in this context.

I found this information in my studies of the Cathars. If you want to read about them, I suggest 'The Lost Teaching of the Cathars' by Andrew Philip Smith as a reasonably succinct and accurate introduction.

 

It seems extremely unlikely they were, or indeed, that such terms even formed a part of their vocabulary.

This is another example of the way in which moderns tend to project their own concepts and concerns back in time onto various gnostic groups.

 

Seems to me that the newfangled "Gnosticism" The Greatest is presenting to us has more to do with Hermeticism, that other body of mystic lore from second and third century Alexandria: similar to the Gnostics in many respects but not Christian, not hostile to the world, and much into controlling it through secret knowledge. It was also suppressed by the Church, but revived by the Rosicrucians in the seventeenth century and taken over by the occultic Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, a masonic like organization in 1887. The Hermetic Order combined freemason-like organization based on initiations and hierarchy with occultic beliefs and practices: magic, astral travel, etc. It disintegrated over internal power struggles, but the Theosophists, esoteric ecumenists extraordinaire, incorporated much of its esoteric thinking into their movement, which spawned a number of pseudo-Gnostic groups including the I Am cult of the Ballards.

 

It's also worth mentioning that Hermeticism became a big influence during the Italian Renaissance. Manuscripts were acquired by Cosimo Da Medici during the first half of the 15th century, and rapidly translated into Latin (originals were in Greek) by Marsillio Ficino. These ideas combined with other knowledge that was being recovered from the classical world had a huge infuence on renaissance thinking.

'Man is the measure of all things' said Ficino, but I don't think he was arrogant enough to think of himself as God, more of a humanist. Generally, the renaissance reaction to Hermeticism was tempered by the strong hold Christianity had on virtually all Europeans of that epoch. But this is quite a big topic in it's own right, so enough for now.

 

Since we've mentioned Gnosticism, Hermeticism and Christianity as religious and philosohical currents in Alexanria in the first centuries CE (nearly always still start to type AD by mistake there) better mention Neo-Platonism too, as it was widely influential. Unlike gnosticism and hermeticism it didn't get simply rejected by Chrisrian orthodoxy but was more or less subsumed into it by early Christian philosophers such as Origen, Saint Augustine and Pseudo Dionysius.

There was some platonic or neo-platonic influence on some of the gnostics too. The quote I posted earlier in this thread from the Secret Book of John is very platonic in nature.
It can be tempting sometimes to think of the old gnostics as a kind of meld of Greek and Hebrew/Proto-Christian religious ideas. Almost a halfway-house between Paganism and Christianity. That may not be the entire truth or the whole picture, but I think it's certainly one facet of all this.

 

I think they were and that is apparent in their rejection of Yahweh.

They saw the poor morality and rejected it out of common sense and intelligence.

Regards
DL

 

I answered this elsewhere by saying that that, like the crucifixion all happen in our minds.

Regards
DL

 

If you read the old Christian writers, would you get a clear view of Christianity.
No way in hell.

So why do you want me to base my ideology on really old teachings?

Do you see a lot of good coming from the older homophobic and misogynous Christian teachings?

Regards
DL

 

Which has you ignoring what he said.

If we are the measure of all things, then we are to compare all the Gods to us.

You are reading what you want to hear and not what is said.

Regards
DL

 

I think you are referring to the Chrestians, a mix of Chrestians and Karaite Jews, who, I think, originally formed Gnostic Christianity after Christianity usurped our writings. I think I gave you that link showing this.

Regards
DL

 

First point: I am familiar with many Christian writings from the inception of Christianity up to the present, including many from antiquity. I wonder though if that's the case with you.

Second point: I don't really care much on what you base your ideology. But it isn't based on old teachings. It's maybe your own concoction, or maybe as Okie thinks, some kind of cult brainwashing. What is annoying is that you DO claim it is the same as 'old teachings' when it suits you, and change your line when it doesn't. Hence you say 'we' when taliking about the Cathars for instance, when you're not a Cathar, or anything resembling one. And in fact hold beliefs directly contrary to all that is known about the Cathars.

I'm not championing either homophobia or misogyny. Just interested in getting the facts of history right, unlike you who seem to have virtually no understanding of the cults of which you claim to be the modern descendant.

 

Has it occured to you that because I quote someone doesn't mean I necessarilly agree with them?

I think the idea of man as the measure of all things may have looked good back in the Renaissance, but nowadays is not really sustainable given that we're busy toxifying the earth and probably extincting ourselves as well.

 

And the point is that the version of "Gnosticism" that GreatestIam is pushing is really Hermeticism, or a garbled mixture of the two filtered through theosophy or some such esoteric rendering.

 

He obviously felt it as his duty to mix the two as an ecumenist :-D

 

If not man as the measure of all things, then who?

A supernatural God who is imaginary?

It is impossible for us to base our laws as in heaven.

Regards
DL

 

So beneath the pseudo-Gnostic trappings there lies a Sophist. "Man is the measure of all things" was the takeaway line of the Sophist philosopher Protagoras. The implications of his position are subjectivism, skepticism, and relativism, which we have in superabundance in our postmodern age. Socrates' comeback, in Plato's Protagoras, argues for objective and transcendent realities--values the Christian Gnostics of antiquity also held to be paramount. I think Socrates had the better of the argument. Humans, through reason, can discover, but not invent, ethical and moral truths.

 

Ethics and morals aren't a human invention?