An early Common Era Gnostic would ask you, "What is the pattern that indwells you?" This dictionary will help you to answer that. As far as I know, this is the only dictionary of Early Common Era Gnosticism available, except for the copies of it on the net without my permission, but this the newly annotated, opinionated version. It is based on literature of The Nag Hammadi Library, The Secret Books of the Egyptian Gnostics, The Other Bible, The Lost Books of the Bible and The Forgotten Books of Eden, and my opinions as well.

This research material was compiled many years ago when I was reading mystical writings of the 1st through the 4th centuries CE. I was looking for connections to the geometry theology that I had found on the Phaistos Disk as it worked its way down through time and informed ancient Western religion of 2,000 years later. It seemed to me that religious sects along the Nile River might be a good place to look, and I was right. I had to read a lot of books, though, that I never expected to read, but these books were amazing. As I researched the books, I kept alphabetized notes that became this dictionary.

This magnificent literature of early Common Era Gnosticism reaches out to us from the first New Millennium of our times, 2000 years ago. The purpose of this book is to share with you this literature that is so enlightening, there is enlightenment to be had merely by reading my dictionary of notes.

Once upon a time in the world, men and women wrote and spoke books of divine law and other brilliant things and communed with beings of light and a hundred other powers in the Universe. When was this, now or in the past?

But these enlightened mystics were not alone in the world, co-existing with rude and materialistic people who spun ideas out of matter rather than out of stardust. They believed that those people and their ideas would be rectified by the world and ultimately they would be induced to enlightenment by a Higher Order. Does this sound familiar? Does it sound like our times?

Unfortunately for the Gnostics, the Christians of the times believed the Gnostics needed an inducement to cease their spiritual activities of contemplation, meditation and writing, as such activities were considered heresy and outside the realm of early Christianity. To make them obey, they set Roman legions after them with the instructions, "Destroy them and their books. Drive them out of Egypt. If they remain, kill them." This is exactly what the army did. It's a different world if this doesn't happen because their philosophy and literature would have extended its reach and changed our view of reality, for the better I think.

The Gnostic writings were heretical in that they did not deny the truth of the Gospels but tried to reveal a higher order. Probably, the Christians were aggravated by the statements made by the Gnostics that the Christian level of spiritual understanding and enlightenment was not of the highest order. This might have been just another ideological battle but for the support the Roman Emperor Constantine gave the Christians, when they appealed to him for use of his Roman Legions in destroying and dispersing the Gnostics.

In the 4th century CE, newly empowered Christians organized the Emperor Constantine and his Roman army against the Sethian Gnostics living peacefully along the Upper Nile in Egypt. The Emperor Constantine, his Roman legions, and the early Christians began the Roman Catholic Church by burning libraries. The Roman Legions attacked the secluded mystics living along the Nile. They destroyed their library, except for the books held most dear. The Sethians buried those books in an earthen jar at the base of the cliff tombs of Gebel el-Tarif in Egypt.

In 1945, these books and the relevant material they contained were dug up by camel-riding bedouins in the desert, and some of this priceless literature was burned to boil tea. What remained was buried once again, this time under the weight of the near-simultaneous discovery of the popular Dead Sea Scrolls.

As we move into another new millennium, we realize the beauty of the small library bequeathed us by the Sethians. While reading this Gnostic material you will see many references to the spirit entities which spiritual writers of our new millennium are connecting with now. Where Thoth is mentioned, there you will see the angels described. Where Manes is mentioned, there you will see the great channeler who lives among us now as an individual we all know. Where Melchizedek is mentioned, there you see the beginning of the priesthood of the Melchezidekians. More and more these beings are speaking once again to those in the new millennium who hear clearly their Inner Voices. The themes are much the same and the messages are clear, addressing the subjects of the cosmology of the universe and the enlightened beingness we are trying to establish as we search for our place within the administrative workings of the planet.

Read this literature carefully, study it closely. You will see yourself in it and you will learn how to protect yourself against those natural and pervasive forces of materialism that shake you as you anchor the Light. You will see what can be destroyed by the power of a confused, popular religion in partnership with a mindless federal army. Together, they can put out the Light and keep the world stumbling in the dark. We can learn so much from the Sethian Gnostics, who believed they would be safe and unbothered by the religious zealots of their day if they sequestered themselves, studied together quietly, meditated together and kept out of the way of the world. But they were wrong. This richly diverse and spiritually subjective literature continues to teach us how to hold up the lantern of enlightenment so that all who follow may walk in the Light.