Gnosticism: Esoteric Insight and/or Christian Heresy?

Christianity can appear to be pretty depressing as a religion IMO. I don't see how a religion that has to have the sacrifice of a human body in a disgusting way at its centre is ever going to be a religion of joy. My own interest is part of my wider interest in spirituality (sorry about the bad word there) on one level, history on another. I'm not hostile to Christians, I have Christian friends, I accept it does do some good as well as a lot of bad in the world.

Maybe if you want to cheer up you should find something more cheerful to 'lean' towards. There's a kind of darkness that clings to Catholicism, despite any positive ascpects there may be. My post above is not meant to indicate that I think people shuld turn to any kind of Christianity or Gnosticism - just a statement of facts plus a wee bit of my own speculation intended to enhance this discussion. One has to be able to look at things impartially, without always some emotional reaction.

 

I might mention mysticism has appeared in all major world religions--certainly the Hindu yogic tradition and the Muslim Sufis. You may be right about Protestants, although the Pentecostals seem to be very much into direct personal experience with God, and even the Baptists are expected to have their "born again" experiences. But I think Gnosticism is more than just mysticism. It adds the element of "secret knowledge", which the Church has always found threatening because it can easily lead to a church within a church. Freemasons were viewed with suspicion by some Christians, especially Catholics, for much the same reason (and indeed were even thought of as Gnostics). We had an Anti-Masonic political party in the United States in the 1820s, which combined suspicion of secret organizations with anti-elitism, since the Freeasons were associated with the economic elite.

 

I think going to extremes in either direction is a problem. The Catholics, more than other groups, try to make people feel guilty about natural bodily urges, dirty thoughts and masturbation, while allowing drinking and gambling that strike Baptists as shocking (the joke where I live is that Baptists never have sex standing up because people might think they're dancing. we also say that if you're inviting Baptists to a party, make sure to invite more than one so they keep each other from drinking all the liquor). However, society is in trouble when people decide anything goes. I think traditional Christian moralists have paid too much attention to sex and not enough to social injustice.

 

Actually I was just trying to think of a way to help Catholicism.

 

I'd say the knowledge the mystics of orthodox Christianity claim is 'secret' as far as the rank and file go.Especially if they believe in the doctrine that 'no man has seen God'.But I do get your point, and I think it's always been a gripe of the orthodox against gnostics going back to Iranaus. I'm not at all sure that the gnostics with their anti-world ideas would have developed into an economic elite like the Masons are alledged to be,but the idea that an 'elite' group had some knowledge beyond that of the ordinary believer would probably be a recipe for trouble. No one likes a smart ass as they say.

It's also true to say that the Catholics have always been suspicious of mysticism. The case of St. Theresa of Avila is interesting in that she seems to have had to spend a lot of time and energy in convincing the inquisitors that her visions and experiences were from God and not the other fellow..

Incidentally, as far as my reading in the history of all this goes, It seems that the Valentinian Gnostics were trying to be a church within the church just as you say.Valentinus came close to being elected Pope - if that had happened maybe we'd be heirs to a very different version of Christianity. However, given the hierarchical nature of Catholicism, one could argue that the priesthood, and even more the religious, could be viewed as just that - an elite within the church.

But yes - mysticism is common to most religions in varying degrees. Probably Hinduism has more techniques for attaining to a mystical state than most of the rest. (maybe that's my own prejudice to some extent speaking)Within the Catholic tradition really there is only contemplative prayer. That may easily merge into some form of meditation, and it is being popularized these days with the movement in the church for 'centering prayer'.

Meantime there are churches that claim to be gnostic, such as Stephan Hoeller's 'Ecclesia Gonostica', which to judge from their youtube videos is somewhat Catholic in flavour.

 

Agree with the first point there. Also that there has been an imbalance in the attitude towards sex and the body. I suppose that in the pre-contraceptive age it was a bigger issue, but even so, they seem to me anyway to have seriously neglected the social justice aspects.

One of the main reasons I dislike Anglicanism (episcopalian in the USA - the 'state church' here) is because it is so much a part of the British establishment - a rich man's church which traditionally has had little care for the poor or the disenfranchised, other than in a seriously patronizing manner.

I don't think Gnosticism can help much with a social justice agenda either, other than in the sense that if a person were to experience divine love even in a very diluted or fragmentary way it might make them more inclind to care for others, and indeed for all of nature. But any form of actual mystical experience would perhaps do the job.
Like when St.Paul went from persecutor in chief to advocate of Christianity following his experience on route to Damascus.

 

It is exactly what the Cathar version of Gnostic Christianity is and it is one of the better documented sects. Their highest ideal was a perfected man and that is why their teachers called themselves Parfait.

What are you calling classic Gnosticism?

If it has no supernatural content, which is what Gnosis indicates, as it speaks to natural knowledge and not supernatural knowledge, we might be closer in thinking than you think.

Regards
DL

 

Them calling Yahweh a demiurge tell you what about their respecting supernatural claims, if not that they do not fear some supernatural imaginary God?

Sure, our myths had a lot of supernatural but given that Gnostic Christians see heaven here on earth, shoes strongly that they held no supernatural entity.

Angelus Silesius.God is an utter Nothingness,
Beyond the touch of Time and Place:
The more thou graspest after Him,
The more he fleeth thy embrace.

Stevan Davies. The savior is not a celestial being brought to earth; the savior is a capacity of the mind, and the savior’s journey from above is actually one’s own journey from within.

John Lennon. It seems to me that the only true Christians were the Gnostics, who believed in self-knowledge, I.E. becoming Gods themselves, reaching the Christ within, the light is the truth. Turn on the light. All the better to see you my dear.

Regards
DL

 

They have. Karaite Jewry. They are the brightest as the put man above God just as Gnostic Christians do.

Regards
DL

 

Yes but they too are literal readers of myth just as all who fly the cross must be. I do not think you can be a Christian without literally believe in Christ. Mind you, with the, what, 3,000 + sects, the odd one might have escaped my view.

Regards
DL

 

As long as your cold is not a lying preacher, they are all lying preachers, you will recover.



Read your bible. It lies less than the one trying to pick your pocket.

Regards
DL

 

It is. All a religion is is another tribe. It appeases our insecurity and fellowship desires/need. Atheists are finding that truth and starting churches of their own primarily for that reason. They do not want to lose their children to foul supernatural thinking if they should seek fellowship with one of the lost religions like Christianity or Islam.

To my knowledge, all Christian believe in a literal Christ. Which denominations are you thinking of?

The is the Gnostic Christian belief. God defined as an ideal in rules and laws to live life by.

Did I show you this yet?



Regards
DL

 

On the other hand you could get pneumonia and die. Just from a virus - no preachers necessary. Or you might get some other fatal disease which cares not at all if you think you are God.

Instead of posting up all these videos which give other people's ideas. why not just say what you yourself think? The videos don't give it any more weight

 

Two things came to mind while reading your view on the reformation and your view of what Protestantism is. I do not think it is what Martin Luther, possibly a Gnostic Christian, thought.

Compare him to the Pope in their diametrically opposed thinking on God.





I am not sure if I agree with the first part of what I quoted of your post.

Christianity and Christians would have to make a complete about face and drop their idol worshiping of the supernatural and embrace reality. That would mean that the church hierarchy would have to turn honest and I doubt that they ever will.

I see Gnostic Christianity as in a race between religious extinction and Gnostic Christianity being recognized, even though it calls itself a religion, as the best ideology for both the religious and the secular.

If the most freedom humankind can have is freedom of thought, then Gnostic Christianity has to be the ideal as it demands it of it's adherents.

Regards
DL

 

Hi Meagain - yes, I would tend to agree. The question is I suppose, what kind of religion?

 

What if there is the supernatural and it could even be proved. Where would that leave the interpretation of religion and God?

 

Guilt is a part of our bias. Our biases are with us to protect us. You cannot take sin, the doing of harm to another, if you are evolving. You must compete and the losers will see their lose as harm, sin in religious terms..

You seem to want to shed what is good for you. That or I misunderstood your post.

"The word spirituality is depressing. It doesn't really mean anything."

If you apply it to the physical, correct.

John 6 ; 63 It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.

Luke 11:52 Woe unto you, lawyers! for ye have taken away the key of knowledge: ye entered not in yourselves, and them that were entering in ye hindered.

Mark 7:13 Making the word of God of none effect through your tradition, which ye have delivered: and many such like things do ye.

Regards
DL

 

What anti world ideas?
Refuting that was one of my first posts in this thread. Let me repeat.

I wrote this to refute the false notion that Gnostic Christians do not like matter and reality that the inquisitors propagated to justify their many murders of my religions originators. It shows that Christians should actually hate matter and not Gnostic Christians.

The Christian reality.

1 John 2:15Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.

Gen 3; 17 Thou shalt not eat of it; cursed is the ground for thy sake; in toil shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life.

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The Gnostic Christian reality.

Gnostic Christian Jesus said, "Those who seek should not stop seeking until they find. When they find, they will be disturbed. When they are disturbed, they will marvel, and will reign over all. [And after they have reigned they will rest.]"

"If those who attract you say, 'See, the Kingdom is in the sky,' then the birds of the sky will precede you.

If they say to you, 'It is under the earth,' then the fish of the sea will precede you.

Rather, the Kingdom of God is inside of you, and it is outside of you.

[Those who] become acquainted with [themselves] will find it; [and when you] become acquainted with yourselves, [you will understand that] it is you who are the sons of the living Father.

But if you will not know yourselves, you dwell in poverty and it is you who are that poverty."

As you can see from that quote, if we see God's kingdom all around us and inside of us, we cannot think that the world is anything but evolving perfection. Most just don't see it and live in poverty. Let me try to make you see the world the way I do.

Here is a mind exercise. Tell me what you see when you look around. The best that can possibly be, given our past history, or an ugly and imperfect world?

Candide.
"It is demonstrable that things cannot be otherwise than as they are; for as all things have been created for some end, they must necessarily be created for the best end.”

That means that we live in the best of all possible worlds, because it is the only possible world, given all the conditions at hand and the history that got us here. That is an irrefutable statement given entropy and the anthropic principle.

Regards
DL