Do Gnostic's still believe in the proven evolution? Here are some examples:
The big bang created the universe. What's before the big bang is unknown.
Life was formed in water by non-living chemical reactions, a few hundred million years after the earth was first formed.
All life coming from the first single celled organisms 4 billion years ago in water.
So we are in a cosmic trap , due to a cosmic accident. The only salvation is knowledge. But not just knowledge. Learning something and internalising it are very different. I have to realise so deeply that the world is an illusion , that I am able to bypass the physical mind like Neo on the Matrix or Jesus. No one has ever done that!!!
So we are doomed. Oh and the only true love is our divine spirit which is basically the part of us that is still in the pleroma? That’s so lonely it’s depressing!
And the people we fall in love here on the material world are ways of the archons to distract us? The beauty we experience in nature , or in music , or in animals is an illusion that is just mimicking things from the spiritual world?
Nothing matters, we just have to wait patiently until it’s over and then get sent back here.
Unless we manage to escape which also feels impossible, because of course if the “archons” present to you as your loved ones and make you feel an overwhelming sense of love and acceptance , you’ll listen to them!
This feels hopeless . But then again it’s the only thing that makes sense
By placing the encompassing identity of your being as; your consciousness, personality, individuality, etc. (foregoing the basic agitators of existence via our meatsuits and dumb emotion-having brains) you are straying further and further from the totality that is the Pleroma with each recognition of self, where although such things might possibly exist - there would be no need for such things and certainly no desire or want for such. I considered a slight alteration in the form of ‘We think, therefore we are’ but again, logically, there is no such need for identification so even altering the statement is moot.
Thoughts? My apologies if this has been discussed already.
I’ve been somewhat curious about Gnosticism for a while and the subject seems to be coming up more frequently, so I think I’m ready to start exploring. Any recommendations one where to begin or should I just shotgun straight to the gospels?
Here's a cosmology I've come up with. I'm not claiming this is historical Gnosticism or some lost teaching. It's just a theory I've been thinking about, and I'm curious what people here think of it.
There is one supreme God, the Father, above everything.
God has two divine sons: the Maker and the Savior.
The Maker is permitted to create the material world, but his creation is flawed. Suffering, death and evil exist within it, and humanity eventually becomes increasingly violent, corrupt and wicked.
God looks upon what mankind has become and decides that the world should be destroyed.
But the other son, the Savior, loves mankind and pleads with the Father not to destroy them.
The Savior says he will enter world and teach mankind. The Father tells him that humanity is wicked and tells him that if he enters their world, they will reject him, and kill him.
The Savior chooses to enter the world anyway.
He is born into the world as Jesus.
Jesus' mission is to reveal the supreme God, call humanity to repentance, teach mankind how to live, and turn people away from the evil that has consumed them.
And exactly as the Father warned, mankind rejects and kills Jesus.
Jesus' spirit returns to the Father.
The Father says, in effect: You see now what mankind is. Even when I sent you to them, they killed you.
But Jesus still pleads for humanity.
Rather than allowing the entire world to be destroyed because of human evil, Jesus proposes another judgment: Hell.
Those who ultimately choose wickedness will face judgment there, while those who sincerely repent and turn toward God can be forgiven and saved. In this way Jesus creates Hell as an alternative to the destruction of the whole human race.
The Father accepts the Savior's plea.
Then God raises Jesus from the dead, vindicating him and giving mankind hope that death itself does not have the final word.
So salvation in this cosmology is about turning away from evil, repenting sincerely with your whole heart before the supreme God, trusting the Savior whom God sent, and following the way Jesus taught.
The Maker made the flawed world.
Humanity corrupted itself within it.
The Father was prepared to judge it.
The Savior entered it and gave humanity another chance.
The Thomasines are an hypothetical community of Christians from the 2nd century AD. It's thought they originated from Syria, and were part of a broader pre-Nicene Syriac Christian tradition, although a minority of scholars support their literature being composed in Alexandria.
When the Gospel of Thomas and the Book of Thomas the Contender were first found among the codexes found at Nag Hammadi, scholars were quick to suggest Gnostic providence. However, scholars have reevaluated both the definition for Gnosticism and the Gnostic providences of different texts among the codexes, and have now suggested that the Gospel of Thomas was not originally written by Gnostics.
The Gospel of Thomas, the Book of Thomas the Contender, and the Acts of Thomas have all been suggested as texts used by an hypothetical Thomasine community. Although the first two books were found in their most complete form in Coptic, they were most likely originally written in Greek; a minority of scholars support the texts having originally been written in Syriac. The Gospel of Thomas, the core Thomasine text, has been hypothesised by Elaine Pagels, as well as members of the Jesus Seminar, to date to the 1st century. However, a majority of scholars across the Greek and Syriac camps today more confidently date the Gospel of Thomas to various points in the 2nd century.
There is no unified theory for Thomasine scholars, and some scholars reject the idea that the Gospel of Thomas is wholly systemised. Scholars lean towards the Thomasine texts being rooted in Jewish mysticism or Sapiential traditions. Here are the most notable theories:
The common ground of all the theories is that the Thomasines, in practice, were an itinerant, ascetic group, that lacked the institutionalism of Greek churches at the end of the 1st century. They also likely had Docetic tendencies. The Christology of the Gospel of Thomas is ambiguous, although potentially divine according to Bloom's theory. An Angelomorphic Christology is explicitly rejected by the text. Logion 13 is one of the most awesome and terrible sayings of the Gospel of Thomas and it's easy to make the conclusion that the Apostle of Thomas' mystic vision concluded with Jesus being YHWH, similar to the conclusion of the Merkabah vision of the Apostle Paul. However, DeConick has made a more mundane interpretation of the logion describing an early Eucharistic formula. Logion 30 is another seemingly radical saying, that at first glance seems to divide the Trinity into three separate deities. However, it is most likely, a Coptic mistransmission of the original Greek: "where there are three, they are without God," which according to Marvin Meyer is essentially Matthew 18:20 turned on its head to denounce churches or gatherings, in favour of personal, mystical experience. Robert M. Grant and David Noel Freeman also suggest that the saying was perhaps later "Gnosticised" into regarding gods, rather than just regarding human individuals.
The Thomasines seem to have ignored the biographical details of Jesus' life. In contrast to other early Syrian Christian groups, there is the real possibility of the Gospel of Thomas and the Thomasines being, to a degree, antinomian. It's debated and DeConick hypothesises if a later accretion was written in light of a dispute regarding circumcision in the community. Logion 19, also cross-referenced in the Acts of Thomas ch. 27, perhaps references the five words for mind: hauna (sanity), mad'a (reason), re'yana (mindfulness), mahshebhatha (imagination), and tar'itha (intention), further supporting the Thomasines nevertheless being part of a greater Syriac Christian tradition.
The Thomasines were never mentioned in Patristic sources explicitly. Possible Thomasine beliefs, such as Docetism, Audianism, Modalism, were individually denounced but were attributed to various heresiarchs, rather than a single Christian school or community. What unites Thomasine texts such as the Gospel of Thomas and the Acts of Thomas is also a high view of Thomas Didymus -"the twin"- and recurrent twin motifs throughout the text. The "heresies" of the Thomasines resemble that of other Christian groups from the same geographical area like the Audians, Naassenes and Elcesites.
Interestingly, key evidence for the Thomasines may be found in the New Testament itself. The Doubting Thomas narrative in the Gospel of John lacks cross-references with the other synoptic Gospels. As the story goes, Thomas struggled to believe that Jesus had literally resurrected in his flesh. It was only when Jesus made Thomas literally see and touch his wounds from the crucifixion that Thomas believed. Gregory J. Riley has hypothesised that this narrative was polemic against the Thomasines for their equivalent of Docetism. In contrast, the community or author of the Gospel of John asserted the incarnation. Even though the text may be from the 2nd century onwards, this hypothesis may put the beginning of the existence of the Thomasine community in the 1st century.
Scholars are overall somewhat affirmative of the Thomasine community. However, Simon Gathercole believes the Gospel of Thomas is dependent on the synoptic gospels and Pauline letters, making the Thomasines a much later sect than believed by the likes of Riley and DeConick. Nicholas Perrin, a proponent of the Gospel of Thomas having originally been written in Syriac, argues that the text is a redacted form of Tatian's 2nd c. Gospel harmony with Syriac literary techniques. Perrin's position makes up a minority, but it is an interesting notion, and it remains an open possibility.
The Gospel of Thomas had a significant influence on the Valentinian school of Gnosticism. According to the newest theories that point towards the Gospel of Thomas being non-Gnostic or a Proto-Gnostic text, then Gospel of Thomas and the Acts of Thomas show signs of either Valentinian redactions, or rather signs of the community being influenced by Middle Platonists and other Gnostics. The most complete texts we have were copied and used by Gnostics.
Stephen Patterson hypothesises that the Thomasines may have struggled with Christianity's transition from being an itinerant network to institutionalised churches. Another possible cause for the disappearance and lack of records for the Thomasines is the resultant suppression of Jewish Christian sects following the Council of Nicaea. What's curious is that the Acts of Thomas became an hagiographical source for orthodox Nicene Christians in the following centuries, and post-Nicene Syriac Christian traditions continue today in the Syriac Orthodox church, the Maronite Church, the Chaldean Catholic Church and the Assyrian Church of the East.
Thomasine literature seems to have also been passed down to the Manichaeans who, possibly via their Elcesite heritage, continued and expanded upon Thomasine beliefs. The Naassenes used the Gospel of Thomas and may have shared a belief in an Anthropos-like figure; the Naassenes have been proposed as a community that developed from the Thomasines, or rather that they were the successors of the Thomasines after their beliefs evolved into what can more confidently be described as Gnosticism.
While the Gospel of Thomas seems to reject conventional forms of piety in Logion 14, by no means is it certain that the Thomasines were not liturgical or sacramental. David W. Kim suggests that the group kept ritual baptism and, like other Jewish Christian groups, the Sabbath was kept. Found at Qumran, the Songs of Sabbath Sacrifice is a liturgical texts of angelic priests singing before the throne of YHWH. Mystic hymn-singing and chants may have also happened among Thomasines. If DeConick's Eucharistic hypothesis is correct, then Thomasines might have believed in some form of communion. Their view of communion is difficult to ascertain, however, because the Thomasines may have been Docetists; this would potentially rule out a transubstantial view of the Eucharist. Taking the logia at face value, communion may have rather been seen as a liquid source for the precious Wisdom (as so valued in the Book of Thomas the Contender) that would aid in a Thomasine's ascent.
One of the reasons why it's so difficult to reconstruct the practice of any Merkabah/Hekhalot group is the Guruism. Each heaven has its own angelic gatekeepers that would require the Mantric recitation of angelic names, special postures, secret seals and numerological codes, to achieve the ascent. This would have been passed down as part of communal transmission in secrecy. Just like how many Gnostic sects and mystery cults lost the history of their practice, so may have the Thomasines. It just goes to show how crucial the Dead Sea Scrolls discovery was in uncovering the history of early Jewish mysticism.
Anyone here come to this conclusion without using psychoactive drugs? Looking for people to chat with about this to help build a better understanding without the use of psychoactive substances lol some of us are full time moms 😅
Here is where I found this: https://art.thewalters.org/object/42.868/
You may hear someone say "Gnostics think they possess secret knowledge and believe they have everything figured out."
It's not that simple.
The word Gnostic comes from the ancient Greek gnōstikós, meaning “knowing,” “able to know,” or “pertaining to knowledge,” from gnōsis, meaning “knowledge.” So “Gnostics” can reasonably be rendered as “the knowers.”
But they weren't talking about knowing in the sense of accumulating intellectual information. In many of the traditions we call Gnostic, gnosis refers to a direct or experiential knowledge of the divine that no external authority can simply grant you or take away. No one can prove or disprove such an experience. It's simply not that kind of thing. God is too great for ordinary language and cannot be reduced to intellectual concepts. We can encounter or experience the divine, but thinking about God is not the same thing as knowing God. In ancient Hebrew and Greek religious contexts, “knowing” could also carry a deeply experiential and relational meaning rather than referring only to intellectual understanding.
This is also why I think a lot of people get the “mystery” part of Gnosticism wrong. Gnosis does not necessarily mean claiming to have solved the mystery. Rather, a Gnostic may claim to have encountered the Mystery directly. The Gnostic experiences the divine; they aren't necessarily outlining an intellectual diagram of God.
So, the Gnostic isn't someone who claims to have the answer. The Gnostic is someone who has encountered what cannot be reduced to an answer, or remains open to such an encounter.
This question comes from two places, one a lot of religions seem to have a group like Theistic Satanist, that worship the adversity/adversaries of a religion. And two a year ago I came across a weird banner ad. I clicked on and took me to a website which seem to be a group worshipping the demiurge. However. this could have easily been a weird advertisement for a product or a one off weird religious belief, i unfortunately, can't find the book mark I had for it. It did, however, get me thinking about how an argument for the demiurge would look like.
einiges habe ich durch die gnosis erfahren. es deckt sich tatsächlich mit dem was gnostiker berichten. jeder macht ja so seine eigenen erfahrungen.
glaube und wissen sind keine gegensätze. sie sollten eins werden.
Have any of you seriously read Plotinus' Against the Gnostics (II.9), or the account in Porphyry of the dispute between Plotinus' circle and the Gnostics?
What do you think Plotinus gets wrong?
And where you disagree with him, what is the strongest Gnostic philosophical response - not simply "he misunderstood Gnosticism"?
I’m not currently religious but I’m very interested in exploring Gnosticism more.
That being said, once I’ve learned of logion 114 I’m a bit put off by that.
If you’re a feminist and Gnostic could you please explain the correct meaning/perspective of this logion?
TIA
I'm a very eclectic witch, though I am still not comfortable with that term. I have had a close personal relationship with Archangel Michael since childhood. I am deeply drawn to the concept of the Feminine Divine, but I arrived at it through Buddhist practice, particularly revering Green Tara.
I know bodhisattvas are not goddesses, but the fiercely protective vibe and sense of personal empowerment were very attractive. The lack of personal contact with Buddhists where I live and the rigors of Vajrayana practice solo scared me off. My health and living situation are pretty precarious. To my shame, I felt I couldn't do real Buddhist practice amidst physical squalor.
But then, while I was coming to terms with my relationship with Michael, a dear friend was reading Tarot for me. He laid out the cards, then looked me in the eye and called me "a child of Sophia" to explain the Archangel's diligent protection of me.
Ÿĝ started looking for information on Sophia. To then, I'd only heard a few references to Sophia being an alternate name for the Holy Spirit. Which led me to start reading about Gnosticism. What a scary rabbit hole! I didn't want back into a church that looked like traditional Catholicism, and even though I have a little training in Hermetic magic, I wanted nothing to do with the OTO or Thelema.
But I found that the stories of Sophia credit Her with giving all of humanity a Divine Spark of Herself to help with achieving Gnosis and reaching our highest selves. But it still seems that being told (and feeling the resonating shock at the news) that I'm a "child of Sophia" meant something more.
I don't know what it could mean, or if it is only about the spark we all may have. I'm not trying to give myself airs, but this is truly a struggle for me. I need to learn more about Sophia's story, Gnostic ideas in general, and maybe angelology. I desperately want a dialog with people who don't assume I'm crazy to measure these ideas against a yardstick of reality.
A long time ago, I was on a email listserv called "Fiat Lux" which hosted many wide-ranging discussions. I need a good judgment-free group to learn with.
Where can I do this? How should I approach further study of Sophia and Gnosticism within my limited means?
Thank you if you've read this entire post. And double thank you if you have something constructive to offer me.
With Love and Light,
Sam
I have a very rudimentary understanding of Gnostic cosmology, so forgive me if I’m oversimplifying something here.
If the Demiurge and the Archons are trapped in ignorance and separation, what might happen if we looked upon them with the deepest love rather than seeing them as a mistake?
I understand the emphasis on gnosis as a path to liberation, but I wonder whether love itself might also have a liberating power.
It makes me think of Jesus’ teaching to love your enemies. Perhaps there’s something similar here.
To me, it’s a way of reminding myself of what I am and what I am not.
Genuinely curious how people here see this.
Obviously Yahweh created us with 100% foreknowledge of who he would damn beforehand and we already know why this is (likely).
In Romans 9 (basis for Calvinism):
"22 What if God, although choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath—prepared for destruction? 23 What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory—" (Romans 9:22-9:23 NIV).
So there's your answer right there on the creator side.
But what about on the entity side, specifically entities and spirits? We know that the serpent was basically Satan and that he represents the opposite of Yahweh in practice. And that Lucifer with 1/3 of the angel's rebelled because there was a major disagreement.
So why would THESE entities hate us for no reason if we are also questioning Yahweh the same way they did?
And I have done an extensive look into fallen spirits and entities and I have determined that although many can and do provide material benefits in this world (and even maybe a "friendship" to some), their goal is ultimately to steer you down their own chosen path (that represents the serpent)... To do this they would never tell you about the actual existence of a hell because they actually want to see you in there suffering because they get off to it. These entities may play the long game but they get a high out of human suffering and almost anybody who has worked with who has worked with fallen entities will tell you they have seen that mask slip before...
So what does this mean for us? It basically means entities and God basically DGAF about human suffering or pain. We were put in this torture chamber of a simulation without our own consent and Yahweh already knew before he created the world many would be damned.. But he believes it is nessecary because why? Because he is God and you are not and he deserves that level of glory even if it means 80% of humans being in an eternal torture chamber 24/7 in order for us to have free will and "choose him".
Anyway, it does make you wonder why entities are so unbelievably callous towards humans and basically hate us for no reason just for existing.
Oil painting I did on Zoë (Life) as described in “On The Origin Of The World” from the Nag Hammadi Library. More art on gnosticism coming, @sr_monogram on socials.
“[She dispatched a bird], which in their world would spend its thousand years in Paradise, a living creature imbued with soul, called “phoenix.” … the phoenix is also symbolic of a human being, of which it is written, “the just man will blossom like a phoenix, and the phoenix appears first alive, and dies, and rises again, functioning as a symbol of what will happen” (“On The Origin Of The World” (Nag Hammadi Codex II, 5)
In this text Zoe (Life) is the daughter of Sophia (Wisdom). She teaches Adam, or mankind, about what they lack in wisdom in order for them to return to eternal life. Zoe is also equated with Eve and described as: “the Non-Jealous One, the Blessed One, the Joyful One, the True One, the Non-Envying One, The Beloved One, The Faithful One, Peace, Gladness, Joyfulness, Blessedness, Truth, Love, Pistis.”(@sr_monogram)
(NHC II, 5 translation by S. Zinner, M. M. Mattison https://www.luminescence-llc.net/on-the-origin-of-the-world)
From the Gospel of Truth:
For now, their works lie scattered. In time, Unity will complete the realms. Within Unity each one will receive themselves, and within knowledge they’ll purify themselves from multiplicity into Unity, consuming matter within themselves like fire, and darkness by light, death by life. If indeed these things have happened to each one of us, then it’s right for us to think about all, so that this house will be holy and silent for the Unity.
If you look at his qualities:
You can see that these are the qualities required for ascension. There's one more thing though: it is the burden of the heart commonly known as guilt. Due to these qualities and because his heart was light like a feather he was able to ascend. He didn't carry any kind of heavy guilt in his heart that would hold him down from ascension. And he effortlessly forgave any/all transgressions against him.
So how could others ascend? It is to reach the same qualities and same lightness of heart by redeeming oneself. One unburdens one's own heart of guilt by confessing the Truth and making past wrongdoings right. If e.g. you've stolen someone's money, you can redeem this by confessing and returning what was stolen. If after receiving the confession of Truth they are not able to forgive it remains their burden and not yours. They will carry the burden of unforgiveness in their heart which will only prevent their own ascension.
So the key is: unburden your heart by confessing the Truth of all guilt and making it right. Naturally these works of redemption would cause much 'tribulation'. Upon completion of Unity no works lie scattered as they have all been made right. This means each and everyone has finally completed their own works.
As a former evangelical Protestant, I distanced myself from the church several years ago and began to explore other, very different traditions on my own, whilst developing a passion for philosophy. I discovered the Gnostic movements about a year ago, and I have read the Nag Hammadi texts avidly, whilst remaining open-minded towards every religious tradition, trying to seek wisdom wherever it may be found. I retain a certain critical spirit and do not wish to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
What, I believe, has nevertheless struck me about the Gnostics is that they are the only ones to have taken the problem of evil seriously. Many traditions treat evil as an event, a fall (preferably of humankind, as the anthropocentric viewpoint dictates), whereas my intuition leads me rather to believe that evil lies in the very structure of the sensible world. The ‘fall’, if there is one, has for me a cosmic significance, as evidenced by the chaos and entropy that preceded humankind: predation, extinctions, competition for resources and survival, the dangerous nature of the world, the fragility of ecosystems, … Apparent harmony is only relative.
This aspect of evil has been inadequately addressed by all attempts at theodicy, when it is not simply ‘mocked’ by modern theologians. The Gnostic solution seemed the most appropriate, since they recognised the tragedy of the fall into matter. Other schools of thought offer interesting alternatives, but these deny the reality of evil or its gravity:
- For example, by regarding it as a necessary property of the system (as in Plotinus, the Corpus Hermeticum, the Tao, Spinoza or Nietzsche), but life remains, overall, a blessing, a stroke of luck or an opportunity
- By assuming that multiplicity is an illusion, which implies that there is no true fall and that the idea of our separation from God is a veil that must be lifted (the Advaita Vedanta solution)
But if we accept that evil is real and pervasive on a cosmic scale, then we must explain it. Introducing a disruptive force is the solution proposed by the Gnostics in the form of the demiurge, but this solution is not entirely satisfactory either. Shifting the blame onto the demiurge or the fall of Sophia is merely a roundabout way of admitting a propensity for division within the very heart of the original unity. And that is precisely my current position. I believe that the Gnostics are still far too optimistic.
In my view, the whole difficulty lies in the very transition from the One to the Many, which gives rise to differentiation, individuality and personal perception, introducing the likelihood of disharmony and thus sooner or later duality, suffering, separation, fragmentation, exile. The sensible world cannot constitute a blessing, for it is, by its very nature, a perpetual increase in entropy. Nor can it be the will of the One, since will and interest, by definition, presuppose a lack to be filled, and thus a rupture in unity. The Many can only be accidental, an epiphenomenon. Yet the Many is not confined to the sensible world. It is already present in the Pleroma, through the many aeons that the One generates in superabundance, and which act autonomously, as its personified attributes. In other words, the worm is in the fruit: separation was already inherent in the generation of the aeons, which may well have endeavoured to work harmoniously together, but which, nevertheless, from being One, were henceforth many. The problem with being ‘many’ is that, however hard we strive for harmony, the fact remains that we are endowed with a personal will and limited perception. Given this fact, it was inevitable that one of the Aeons would eventually fall out of harmony with the others and begin to cause chaos, hence the fall of Sophia.
My conclusion is therefore far more tragic than that of the Gnostics: either unity has never existed, or it once existed but has been lost for good, the possibility of a future restoration of the original unity seeming unlikely when one considers the increase in entropy in our universe and the exponential proliferation of beings destined for destruction since the emergence of life. The ‘fall’ is still ongoing.
What is your view on this matter?