Why not check out these references all of which are sympathetic with the world-wide (Perennial) Gnostic Tradition.
The Sword of Gnosis Metaphysics Cosmology Tradition by Jacob Needleman
Eternal Wisdom The Esoteric Gnosis of Perennial Philosophy by Gwendolyn Taunton
Christian Gnosis From Saint Paul to Meister Eckhart by Wolfgang Smith
Wolfgang Smith is associated with the World Wisdom Society which promotes The Perennial Philosophy which in turn promotes gnosis as the essential/necessary key as the foundation/platform for the practice of Esoteric Spiritual Religion.
I as surprised to like this article after initial resistance. The glimmerings of the true path - the knowledge with every breath, every move, every exchange, every thought that we are being guided by forces beyond our selves is the crux. This knowledge penetrates every true spiritual path. If it doesn’t do this and fails to inspire the individual to it - it isn’t worth the time. To further understanding.
To begin with, the Gnostic One is the same as the Father in the trinity. Beyond all definition he can only ve described through apophasis, since he can't have any limitation he has to be everywhere, hold all knowledge and all possibilities.
The Aeon of Sophia ie wisdom is a reflection of God's omniscience, but here we enter into duality, as wisdom gives rise to it's opposite: foolishness, blindness and shame. The description given here can be mapped straight unto the genesis passages it aims to elucidate. Ie,cit should be read as exegesis of genesis and not as a separate myth.
So God being beyond all definitions emanates an image of wisdom which is to he understood as God's understanding of his own wisdom. This reflection in turn creates it's shadow, it's backside which is ignorance. This in turn leads to a field of ignorance in which separateness is possible, and this is where humanity dwells.
Our entire ontos, ie Being is as separate beings, that separateness, ie limitation, is the foundation of our being. This is an illusion born from ignorance, ignorance itself being the backside of wisdom.
Thus when we gain wisdom we liberate ourselves from ignorance, which is done by identifying ourselves as the One. As a part of the whole. Thus we start our ascent back to God, as a drop of the water returns to the sea.
This exegesis of the meaning of tue word Sin, ie sin being ignorance which creates separateness (blindness), shame and the mortal condition is in accordance with the etymologi of the word itself which in it's original meaning means: to miss the target.
Because we are never separate from God, we only think we are. And as we are unable to bring ourselves out from ignorance God makes that step for us, reaches out to us and brings us back. At least those who hear his calling.
Yeah, I wrote about the gender identity thing basically being Gnosticism. James Lindsay has also pointed it out with the woke becoming "wise" with their "critical consciousness" and the belief system is everywhere in a sense these days. So if people don't know Gnosticism they're missing out on a critical part of what is going on in the woke culture these days.
Thanks, that's a much fairer representation of Gnosticism than you provided earlier.
Now, onto the subject of blasphemy against Christian orthodoxy: Have you read or listened to Mauro Biglino? Because he sheds considerable light onto exactly what Yahweh was.
While they may not have referred to themselves as 'gnostics', a number of the oldest Gnostic texts trace back to the same period as the New Testament texts. In fact, a number of them are actually older that some NT texts.
The Church of Rome decided which texts would be included in the official canon - and the process had nothing to do with the question of whether or not they were authentically apostolic. A number of the NT books' actual authors are unknown & the names presented are either pseudonyms or simply attached to originally anonymous texts.
The point is, the Church of Rome defined 'christian' doctrine after a several centuries long discussion. What Rome decided has been the 'official' doctrine - ever since Rome was able to stamp out all other christian doctrines that arose during the same period of the early christian movements. Simply put, the 'gnostics' can claim just as much validity to their philosophy as the Church of Rome. They are all man-made faiths/philosophies.
The Nazarene didn't write any texts. All christian texts are interpretations of the meaning of the Christ. Because some writers claimed, 'Jesus said...' does not make that necessarily so.
The message of the 'Kingdom is within' is significant. It's NOT written in books, or man-made texts. If more people would come to understand THAT - rather than mortally invented dogmas - far less torture and bloodshed would have come from those who claim themselves 'christian'.
One could argue that if this message were taken to heart, the judgemental attitudes between all christian factions would be moot. The inner Divine would be the judge - not the personal preference of agenda driven men and their mortally invented dogmas.
It’s probably redundant to mention this but Eric Voegelin wrote a lot about the gnostic foundations of modern eschatological political movements, I.e. the various flavours of Marxism.
John Lamb Lash considers himself and expert on the Aeon Sophia, and his book "Not in His Image" is available here: http://theredpilloftruth.com/John%20Lamb%20Lash%20-%20Not%20in%20His%20image.pdf and I agree with some of it, although I have a traditional Christian upbringing. Just to show how a person can find creative ways to interpret the Bible along some gnostic lines, this page is summary of my very in-depth site about some "false" traditional Christian ideas: https://www.theoriginofgod.com/desktop/colesnotes.html and no doubt the writing there will trigger many. But read my site in-depth or ask me questions rather than just ad-hominin attacks. People are lazy and easier to do that, than actually read and have something intelligent to say.
Uman animals invent such crappy stories when we can't understand stuff and as Time goes by those crappy stories turn in religions. Funny is to see what uman animals do in the name of the religion they prefer. Nothing balanced comes out of such craps.
Please check your email.
Why not check out these references all of which are sympathetic with the world-wide (Perennial) Gnostic Tradition.
The Sword of Gnosis Metaphysics Cosmology Tradition by Jacob Needleman
Eternal Wisdom The Esoteric Gnosis of Perennial Philosophy by Gwendolyn Taunton
Christian Gnosis From Saint Paul to Meister Eckhart by Wolfgang Smith
Wolfgang Smith is associated with the World Wisdom Society which promotes The Perennial Philosophy which in turn promotes gnosis as the essential/necessary key as the foundation/platform for the practice of Esoteric Spiritual Religion.
http://www.worldwisdom.com/public/home.aspx
Among other thing this site features the writings/work of over 200 philosophers including Wolfgang Smith many of whom are Christians.
I as surprised to like this article after initial resistance. The glimmerings of the true path - the knowledge with every breath, every move, every exchange, every thought that we are being guided by forces beyond our selves is the crux. This knowledge penetrates every true spiritual path. If it doesn’t do this and fails to inspire the individual to it - it isn’t worth the time. To further understanding.
Very decent overview, with some minor mistakes.
To begin with, the Gnostic One is the same as the Father in the trinity. Beyond all definition he can only ve described through apophasis, since he can't have any limitation he has to be everywhere, hold all knowledge and all possibilities.
The Aeon of Sophia ie wisdom is a reflection of God's omniscience, but here we enter into duality, as wisdom gives rise to it's opposite: foolishness, blindness and shame. The description given here can be mapped straight unto the genesis passages it aims to elucidate. Ie,cit should be read as exegesis of genesis and not as a separate myth.
So God being beyond all definitions emanates an image of wisdom which is to he understood as God's understanding of his own wisdom. This reflection in turn creates it's shadow, it's backside which is ignorance. This in turn leads to a field of ignorance in which separateness is possible, and this is where humanity dwells.
Our entire ontos, ie Being is as separate beings, that separateness, ie limitation, is the foundation of our being. This is an illusion born from ignorance, ignorance itself being the backside of wisdom.
Thus when we gain wisdom we liberate ourselves from ignorance, which is done by identifying ourselves as the One. As a part of the whole. Thus we start our ascent back to God, as a drop of the water returns to the sea.
This exegesis of the meaning of tue word Sin, ie sin being ignorance which creates separateness (blindness), shame and the mortal condition is in accordance with the etymologi of the word itself which in it's original meaning means: to miss the target.
Because we are never separate from God, we only think we are. And as we are unable to bring ourselves out from ignorance God makes that step for us, reaches out to us and brings us back. At least those who hear his calling.
Yeah, I wrote about the gender identity thing basically being Gnosticism. James Lindsay has also pointed it out with the woke becoming "wise" with their "critical consciousness" and the belief system is everywhere in a sense these days. So if people don't know Gnosticism they're missing out on a critical part of what is going on in the woke culture these days.
Really appreciate this follow-up, especially since it’s something you regard as blasphemous. Well done.
Thanks, that's a much fairer representation of Gnosticism than you provided earlier.
Now, onto the subject of blasphemy against Christian orthodoxy: Have you read or listened to Mauro Biglino? Because he sheds considerable light onto exactly what Yahweh was.
While they may not have referred to themselves as 'gnostics', a number of the oldest Gnostic texts trace back to the same period as the New Testament texts. In fact, a number of them are actually older that some NT texts.
The Church of Rome decided which texts would be included in the official canon - and the process had nothing to do with the question of whether or not they were authentically apostolic. A number of the NT books' actual authors are unknown & the names presented are either pseudonyms or simply attached to originally anonymous texts.
The point is, the Church of Rome defined 'christian' doctrine after a several centuries long discussion. What Rome decided has been the 'official' doctrine - ever since Rome was able to stamp out all other christian doctrines that arose during the same period of the early christian movements. Simply put, the 'gnostics' can claim just as much validity to their philosophy as the Church of Rome. They are all man-made faiths/philosophies.
The Nazarene didn't write any texts. All christian texts are interpretations of the meaning of the Christ. Because some writers claimed, 'Jesus said...' does not make that necessarily so.
The message of the 'Kingdom is within' is significant. It's NOT written in books, or man-made texts. If more people would come to understand THAT - rather than mortally invented dogmas - far less torture and bloodshed would have come from those who claim themselves 'christian'.
One could argue that if this message were taken to heart, the judgemental attitudes between all christian factions would be moot. The inner Divine would be the judge - not the personal preference of agenda driven men and their mortally invented dogmas.
It’s probably redundant to mention this but Eric Voegelin wrote a lot about the gnostic foundations of modern eschatological political movements, I.e. the various flavours of Marxism.
John Lamb Lash considers himself and expert on the Aeon Sophia, and his book "Not in His Image" is available here: http://theredpilloftruth.com/John%20Lamb%20Lash%20-%20Not%20in%20His%20image.pdf and I agree with some of it, although I have a traditional Christian upbringing. Just to show how a person can find creative ways to interpret the Bible along some gnostic lines, this page is summary of my very in-depth site about some "false" traditional Christian ideas: https://www.theoriginofgod.com/desktop/colesnotes.html and no doubt the writing there will trigger many. But read my site in-depth or ask me questions rather than just ad-hominin attacks. People are lazy and easier to do that, than actually read and have something intelligent to say.
Uman animals invent such crappy stories when we can't understand stuff and as Time goes by those crappy stories turn in religions. Funny is to see what uman animals do in the name of the religion they prefer. Nothing balanced comes out of such craps.