"And in that day the country (Egypt) that was more pious than all countries will become impious. No longer will it be full of temples, but it will be full of tombs. Neither will it be full of gods but it will be full of corpses. Egypt! Egypt will become like the fables." (Asclepius, Gnostic papyri)
- The symbol of Matter in the ancient world. When the Israelites escaped from Egypt, it was interpreted to mean they escaped the bondage of matter and their involvement in it. The distinctive qualities of certain Gnostic ideas passed over into Egypt about 120 CE. The Egyptian concept of time probably influenced Gnostic doctrine, and the sciences of astrology, alchemy, and magic were highly developed there. Egyptian religion, since the earliest pharaonic ages, possessed a mystical astrology and distributed its divinities among the stars and heavenly bodies. And, it has always been well-known throughout the world that the Egyptian priests practiced magic.
The Hermetic treatises authored by Hermes Trismegistus are part of Egypt's contribution to the Gnostic manuscripts. Alexandria, Egypt was a center for Gnosticism during the time of Hadrian (110-38 CE), where Basilides, Carpocrates and Valentinus were influential Gnostics. Alexandria soon became a world center for the occult sciences, offering instruction in magical practices. John of Apamea, for one, went there to get occult instruction from the magicians and returned home with Gnostic teachings he had received (about 6th c. CE). From Egypt, Gnosticism spread to Rome where, because of its threat to the newly established Church, the Christian leaders branded it heretical and placed Gnostic books on the Index. The Christian mobs also flayed alive the astronomer and philosopher Hypatia with oyster shells after dragging her from her carriage. And they topped that off with the burning of the great library in Alexandria, Egypt, and lost were the majority of the great writings from the ancient world, all the way back to no telling when. So, we were obliged to start over with a lot of restraints.
- The oldest deity of Canaan, considered to be creator of creatures and father of mankind. Other Canaanite gods were Baal, who struggled to earn the favors of El, Baal-Zebub (Lord of the Flies), Anath, Yam (Sea), Mot (Death), Astarte, Shapash, Kothar, Baalat, and Asherah whose cults were in the Phoenician Ports of Tyre and Sidon. The Israelites struggled to establish their monotheistic cult of Yahweh in this Canaanite, multi-god environment. The name El was carried forward by Judaism as a prefix and suffix god-name (Micha-el. Gabri-el, Auri-el, Rapha-el, El-ohim. Sama-el, Emmanu-el, etc.) El is also found as "Al."
- Composed of male and female elements, Elohim, who lacks prescience, is the second of the three uncreated principles and the father of all born beings. From Elohim and the prescient third principle, Eden, also called Israel, were born the angels of the lower heavens who constituted Paradise. One of these angels is Baruch, the Tree of Life, and another is Naas, the Serpent and the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. The angels of Elohim took the good earth from the upper half of the body of Eden and made Adam.
Elohim ascended to higher regions and saw a perfect light which he had not created. He invoked it and the supreme divinity, whom Elohim had no knowledge of before this, allowed him to attain to his presence. But Eden (Israel), feeling deserted by Elohim, avenged herself on Elohim's creation, humanity. She sent the serpent Naas to cause unrest. Naas seduced Eve and made Adam his minion. Elohim then sent Baruch, the Tree of Life, to instruct men, the Jews, so that they might turn towards the Good. To the uncircumcised pagans he sent Hercules to deliver them from the unrighteous angels of Eden's creation. When Elohim discovered his ignorance of a higher divinity, he desired to attain to its presence, unlike Ialdabaoth who was foolishly proud and became corrupt. In this account, ignorance alone does not lead to corruption. Desire for gnosis of the higher things conquers ignorance. It is pride that "goeth before the fall."
Elohim (god) is distinguishable from Jehovah (lord). In the Old Testament there are two Jewish people, the Hebrews and the Israelites, two Moseses, and two gods, Jehovah and Elohim. Most Gnostic sects considered Jehovah to be the unrighteous creator of the corrupt world. Moses of the Exodus united the duality expressed by Jehovah and Elohim into the unity of Jehovah Elohim, the Lord God.
- Some elements of Gnosticism originated in Sumer in Babylon. In Sumerian belief, the ruler of Wisdom is the third principle, Enki, also called "lil," meaning spirit. From this probably came the mythology of Lillith, Adam's first wife. This domestic drama was undoubtedly deemed unworthy for the Bible. One really shouldn't start a world religion with a story of how Adam divorced Lillith in order to have a new, younger wife, Eve, although you have to admit it's a not-so-hidden pattern in our world. The god Enki reigned over the part of this creation in which grew the Tree of Life and out of which came the legend of Lillith.
The Sumerians believed the structure of man parallels that of the universe, with the universe as the magnified image of a person - a Pre-Gnostic elucidation of macrocosm and microcosm. The knowledge of the existence of seven planets, counting the sun and the moon, is very ancient. Medallions from ancient Babylon feature seven Archons crowned with astral symbols.
- In Jewish beliefs, Enoch is an astrologer who founded the astrological traditions expressed in the Great Hekhaloth. In that system of astrology, the Lord Sabaoth, seated on the Merkaba, the chariot-throne, is the Pole Star, now Polaris. The circumpolar stars and planets, hosts of angels and powers, revolve around him.
I think is evident on the Phaistos Disk in the hidden pattern of what appears the North Star surrounded by the circumplar stars.
Enoch is said to have written the Books of Jeou in Paradise, as dictated to him by Jesus. With Seth and Hermes, he is credited as Author of Egyptian and Jewish literature, and cited by the Gnostic Sabian sect as a prophet who did not die, but was permanently caught up into heaven, as was Elijah. This belief, a kind of "carnal resurrection, "accounts for the second question of the ancient religious riddle: "Who died, but was never born?
Of course, UFOlogists interpret this as clearly an instance of "Beam me up, Scotty." How else would you explain someone dematerializing? Speaking of which, been there, done that.
- Contained in this book is a description of the cosmic veil, the curtain around the Merkaba. The cosmic veil separates the images of all pre-existing things from the vision of the material world of forms. The story of King Solomon's khalkhydras is told in Book of the Secrets of Enoch. Enoch is caught up into heaven, which has ten levels. At the tenth level is God, with whom Enoch converses.
The UFOlogists interpret this as a very good vision of the Mothership, all the different levels and of course, God/Alien Being.
- One of the four important Jewish sects during and after the life of Jesus Christ. Jesus was baptised by John the Baptist, who was probably an Essene as he preached and baptised in the area where the Essenes had their largest community. The celibate Essenes were apolitical, withdrawing completely from the political issues in which two other important sects, the Sadduces and Pharisees, who Jesus criticized, were deeply involved. The Essenes were established at Sodom and Gomorrha, and it has been suggested that Qumran was, in fact, Gomorrha. Sodom and Gomorrha, at one time, had a reputation for sanctity owing to the presence of the ascetic Essenes.
Jesus may have been an Essene, suggested because it is believed he spent some time in an Essene monastery. There is a long period of time in his life when nothing about him was known. It has been theorized he spent this time in an Essene monastery. Also theorized is that he spent this time in India. He also advanced personal beliefs nearly identical with the Essenes. They believed in the immortality of the soul, the advent of the Messiah to come, heaven and hell, and purification by baptism. They had a protocol for seating almost identical to that of the Last Supper, and a ritual identical to a Christian communion. They believed in a divinely sent Messiah whom they called the "Teacher of Righteousness" and who had died violently at the hands of the Sons of Darkness.
It's my impression, from reading all this literature like this, that nearly all the religious sects wanted to own Jesus as their own, but when they did so they imbued him with all kinds of qualities and powers that were distinct to their sect, so that the literature about Jesus is very interesting and even bizarre.
"And I was not like them, but I clothed myself with everything of theirs." (Jesus to James, The First Apocalypse of James, Gnostic papyri)
The first Teacher of Righteousness died 65-53 BCE. Jesus is the new Messiah who rekindled the faith, concentrated on himself the adoration of men, and died violently at the hands of the Sons of Darkness, the Romans.
In 30 CE, Jesus founded the fourth Jewish sect, the Christians. He may have established his sect because the Essenes did not accept him as messiah, because the Essenes, who may have been the sect that produced the Dead Sea Scrolls, were not acceptable to him as disciples, or for other reasons known only to Jesus who, perhaps, "was not like them.''
- An important Gnostic thinker, transcriber of the Sacred Book of the Invisible Great Spirit, also known as The Gospel of the Egyptians, a book Eugnostos said he channeled ("a book written from God.") He authored the Epistle of Eugnostos the Blessed. His spiritual name is Eugnostos "the well-known," a name attached to five Gnostic manuscripts. He took the surname, "the Agapite." His secular name of Goggessos means "the murmurer," because he murmured his texts to his followers and because he murmured his prayers. Zoroastrian sects also murmured their texts and prayers.
I love the philosophy of Emanationism that Eugnostos taught, even if he was a strange guy sitting there murmuring. Maybe he murmured because what he was teaching was so beautiful that he was concerned he would be overhead by the Unworthy. That's my guess, anyway. As usual with Gnosticism and just about all over historical religions, his worldview involves a man giving birth to the entire universe as something like thought-babies, since any other kind of birth is not possible. What sets Eugnostos apart from most others is his concept of chaos as having hidden patterns. This really is a philosophy evident on the Phaistos Disk
in about 1,600 BCE. The idea of chaos being chaotic, as dependant upon your perspective, is quite an advance for Gnosticism and is really interesting to me as well as, apparently, to the creator(s) of the Phaistos Disk.
He taught that the universe and the Father of the universe are unbegotten. The Father, called Pro-Father, and the universe are both intelligent, immortal, without beginning, and inconceivable. That is the first principle of Gnosis. Eugnostos instructed that the hidden things, the unmanifest, are to be considered first, that it is these invisible things which give rise to all things physical, and it is Faith in the unmanifest which brings it manifest. Therefore, Eugnostos taught, the unmanifest is always contained in the manifest. This means that all things corruptible are born of incorruptibility and indestructibility. Eugnostos said he channeled the following information.
Pro-Father saw himself as if in a mirror. This image of his took on life just by Pro-Father having seen it, so powerful is his creativity. This emanation, Father, is the embodiment of Pro-Father manifesting himself as Father of himself and Generator of himself. Father is equal in duration with Pro-Father, but unequal in power. Pro-Father emanated a generation of such powers, the Sons of the unbegotten Fathers who trust in him. These are the infinite, begotten powers.
In the infinite, the Father emanated by himself an androgynous person whose feminine name is Sophia-Pansophos. This androgyne created Aeons of Powers, with gods and archangels, called God of Gods and King of Kings. This creation also possesses intelligence and is a living, thinking entity. The androgynous person united its masculine self with its feminine self to engender a hermaphrodite son, named First Father who Begets. This is the Son of Man, also called Adam of the Light. Adam creates an aeon peopled with angels called the Church of the Holy Lights, and unites with his feminine self and produces a bisexual luminary who is both Savior-Creator of all things and Sophia Generator of All, also called Pistis.
From these are engendered six couples of spiritual hermaphrodites who produce 72 more, as well as 360 other beings who are modeled on the patterns of eternity; the eras, the years, the months, the days, the hours and the instants. Eugnostos taught that every second that ticks by is sacred, and that nothing, not even Chaos, exists without its guardian deity and its hidden patterns. The Savior, Immortal Man, and Sophia, his companion, create for the six couples 12 aeons and 12 angels, six heavens in each aeon and five levels in each heaven. From them, all things, even Chaos, take their patterns.
Seems he is attempting to describe a hologram while using math that is very similar to the Phaistos Disk, which has 24 line segments on the outside spiral, 12 on each side, and the spiral has five levels. Perhaps telling it while murmuring causes the hearer to focus on the vision rather than on the voice.
"She taught me a word of knowledge of the eternal god." (Adam to Seth about Eve, The Apocalypse of Adam, Gnostic papyri)
- In Revelation of Adam to his Son Seth, Adam, at age 700, tells Seth that the Archons created him and Eve from Earth. In this account, Eve, while in communication with angels, teaches Adam what she has learned of the everlasting God and tells him that the angels are intervening on their behalf. When the Archons who created them heard her tell this to Adam, they became angry and cut them off from the Aeons of the Powers, thus creating two aeons. Adam and Eve lost their glory and their primordial knowledge and learned mortal things like man learns. This is why, Adam tells Seth, that he was named Seth, meaning man. Adam then prophesies the Great Flood, Noah and his ark, the redemption of the Perfect, and a succession of Saviors.
Audius, in the Book of Strangers, relates that Eve conceived with God, not Adam. In some accounts, it is the Archons, entranced by her beauty, who seduce her. They create Adam from earth in the image of the supreme divinity, but Adam cannot stand upright. The demiurge breathes strength into him, places him in Paradise, and warns him never to eat of the Tree of Life. The Archons then create Eve out of Adam's side. Eve is so spiritual that her birth causes Adam to become ensouled. He names her "Mother of the Living.'' But the Archons are so dazzled by her beauty that they pursue her while she laughs at their stupidity. The son of the Demiurge, the Serpent, suggests to her that she eat of the Tree of Life. She does so and, as expected, the creator then expels the naked couple from Paradise (left) and away from Eve's pursuers.
(I guess that's the upside of being expelled from Paradise. At least you no longer have Archons stalking you.)
In Baruch, Eve is seduced by the serpent. In Diagram, she is seduced by the Archons and begets some who are angels. Also in Diagram, an Aeon, the Mother, takes on the appearance of the serpent and induces Adam and Eve to eat of the fruit which the unrighteous creator, Ialdabaoth, has forbidden them. They do so and acquire knowledge (Gnosis) of the virtue above all things, and turn away from Ialdabaoth, who expels them from Paradise along with his son the serpent. The serpent begets six sons, and together they become the seven heads of the Dragon of chaos and injustice, who are secretly at war with the human race. It was this Dragon who caused Cain to kill Abel. In biblical terminology, these seducers of Eve would be called fallen angels, which does not truly describe then and what they represent, but is the closest biblical approximation or point of reference.
The stories of Adam and Eve tie two times together: the time when knowledge of human life was utterly lost and the time when the human mind could express itself in literature. The stories also embody the basic duality of human life; the existence of the subjective inner world, more real to some of us than the objective outer world.
For proof that the creator of the physical world is a second-class god, the Gnostics relied heavily on the scriptures of the Old Testament.
"But what sort of God? First he maliciously refused Adam from eating of the tree of knowledge. And secondly he said, 'Adam. where are you?' God does not have foreknowledge; otherwise would he not know from the beginning? And afterwards he said, 'Let us cast him out of this place, lest he eat of the tree of life and live for ever.' Surely he has shown himself to be a malicious grudger. And what kind of a God is this? For great is the blindness of those who read, and they did not know him. And he said, 'I am the jealous God; I will bring the sins of the fathers upon the children until three and four generations.' And he said, 'I will make their heart thick, and I will cause their mind to become blind, that they might not know nor comprehend the things that are said.' But these things he has said to those who believe in him and serve him!"
God says, "I am a jealous god." Jealous of whom? God asked Adam, "Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree...?" Is this God not omniscient? Eve tells Adam, "I have gotten a man from the Lord." How did this happen? Eve says, "God hath appointed me another seed instead of Abel." In Gospel of Eve are written the words:
"I was standing upon a high mountain, when lo! I saw one person of tall stature and another who was lame. Then I heard a voice like thunder...I drew near...and the vision addressed me in those words: 'I am identical with thee, and thou are identical with me; wherever thou art, there am I, for I am known in all things; wherever thou wilt thou reapest me; but in reaping me it is thyself that thou reapest."'
"There are many animals in the world which are in human form." (The Gospel of Philip, Gnostic papyri)
- Of necessity, the opposite of Good. The concept of Evil as pre-existing the birth of humanity is bequeathed to us straight out of Dualism. Battai of the Kantean sect taught that, before the beginning, the supreme divinity divided Himself into two, and from the two issued Good and Evil, the light and the dark. Evil gained understanding of its position and waged retaliatory war on the supreme divinity who, in defense, uttered a word from which the Lord God (Jehovah Elohim) was created. The Lord God uttered seven words which engendered seven powers, and Evil engendered seven demons in response. The seven demons overcame the seven good powers and stole Adam. The Lord God destroyed Adam and remade him.
"Good cannot result from evil." (On the Origin of the World, Gnostic papyri)
In Gnostic doctrine, a human serves two gods, one good and one evil, and has two souls, one heavenly and one material. Salvation is the uplifting of a person who is good, but fallen. The universe of sensory experience is defined as evil (corrupt).
It is not hard to understand how these stories gained ground in the time of the world in which they were created. After all, polarity or positive and negative poles is the basis of our physics in this part of the universe, so naturally we would see things in this dualistic way. Also, during that time, these writers had to deal with the Romans breathing down their necks about every little thing and killing whoever they pleased whenever they pleased. Just like repression engenders neurosis, this kind of reality engenders escapism.
Perhaps it is not escapism but intense creativity that results from intense pressure of life. I have had, in my own life, people accuse me of escapism via this website, claiming it's a much better dimension than the world in which we live. But I disagree that escapism is my motive or the motive of the Gnostics or the highest power escaping eternal solitude. Well, that was the theory of many Gnostic sects, that we are here because the Father got lonely and created for himself some company and some drama for entertainment. But I think we are here because the highest power is not the Father or the Mother or the Monad but is Creativity, and the highest value is Art. It's easy to think this way when Roman soldiers are not chasing me to kill me, or any other thugs, because how will creativity and art save me from that? In that instance, I will definitely need a higher power to help me but how will the Father or the Mother or the Monad save me? That's why guns were invented.
- In Gnosticism, Fate is determined by great celestial figures and, above all, by the planets that dispense fatality. The sphere of Heimarmene (Fatality) separates the 12 aeons from the terrestrial world.
Fate instigates against Adam (Phos). In pre-Gnosticism, Adam is freed from Fate. Humanity is enslaved by Fate, imprisoned in the chains of the material and the temporal. The physical body is the body of fatality because it is formed from the four elements, fire, water, air, and earth. Humanity longs to escape from Fate and return to its original form and to the spiritual from which it has fallen. Jesus is said to have changed the course of Fate by reversing the rotation of the spheres.
Fatality is inherent in the cyclic Time of the created world. Between the temporal world and the timeless world there is a frontier, a Limit (Horos), which is absolute and impassable. In Chaldaean astrology, after death the soul re-ascends into heaven, escaping at last from Time and Fate. On re-ascent. the soul successively discards the clothing of Time and Fate, the physical body, layer by layer, as it passes by the spheres.
"And he almost regretted that he had created the world." (A Valentinian Exposition, Gnostic papyri)
And that was written after the Crucifixion of Jesus but before World War I, World War II, Hiroshima, Bubonic Plague, Vietnam War, the Holocaust, French Revolution, burning of the Cathars, Spanish Inquisition, Jack the Ripper, the movie "Psycho", Twin Towers, Pearl Harbor, War of the Roses, Spanish Civil War, and the Crusades. Wonder if he has any regrets now?
- The name of God, the supreme divinity existing as the existence that is nonexistence, or negative existence. The supreme divinity is "the one who encircles all spaces while there is none that encircles him." (The Gospel of Truth). In other words, The Uncontained that Contains. Principle of Containment is an ancient philosophy seen on the Phaistos Disk.
He "stretched himself out and it was that which he stretched out which gave a foundation and a space and a dwelling for the universe." He is "unfathomable in his sweetness." "He is the one who projects himself thus, as generation..." "He is the fullness of paternity."
He is also shaped like doughnut, according to some Gnostics:
"They wear him while he wears them." (The Tripartite Tractate)
The Aeons are silent about the Father, his form and his nature and his greatness. The Father exists in many names. He is a unity, yet is innumerable in his Properties and names.
In Gnosticism, God is undoubtedly a man, and that much hasn't changed about how the Christians and nearly all the rest think about God. Here are nineteen Gnostic names for God that include "Father." Father of All (Barbelognostic); Father of the Universe, First Father, Pro-Father, Father of Himself, Unbegotten Father (Eugnostos); Invisible Father (Gnosticism); Living Father, Kingdom of the Father (Gospel of Thomas); Father on High (Ophite); Immobile Father (Peratean); Nous the Father, Androgyne Father (Poimandres); The Fatherhood (Revelation by Dostheus); Father of the Universe (Sophia of Jesus); Everlasting Father (Sacred Book of the Invisible Great Spirit); Amon-Re, Father of Fathers (Egyptian); Father of Greatness (Kantean); Fathers in the Heights (Manichaean).
"Ignorance is the mother of all evil." (The Gospel of Philip, the Gnostic papyri)
- The Greek word meaning knowledge, also intended to mean spiritual elevation. The Gnostic position is the root of all occult philosophy (mostly because of Hermeticism, I would imagine). Gnosis, with Wisdom (Sophia), are the highest virtues and the path to immortality. Gnosis is the revelation of the higher world, not so much a knowing as a remembering of one's original nature, superior to matter, a remembering of one's identity and position, original purpose and origin. Through gnosis, a person knows that spiritual origin and destination are the same. The result of gnosis is a restoration to the everlasting part of one's self beyond the powers of Fate and Time. The Saviors, Divine Messengers who bring this revelation, remain strangers in this world of Time.
I personally know this to be true but whether these strangers won't identify themselves or can't identify themselves I'm not sure about. I asked them one time to explain to me the nature of their consciousness and they replied, "You go first." I think that can be interpreted in a couple ways, one of which is that no one can explain the nature of their consciousness and the other way is that my consciousness is the apriori condition to theirs. That agrees with some Gnostic tenets regarding the spirit that accompanies the human into birth as a helper or guide through life's journey. This accompaniment makes the individual Thrice-Blessed or Trismegistus. Socrates had these Divine Messengers, whom he called Daimons, and he said they kept him from making mistakes but they never told him what to do. That is an accurate description of their method of guidance.
Gnostics venerated the serpent because a Divine Messenger, disguised as a serpent, brought gnosis to Adam and Eve and taught them complete knowledge of the mysteries from on high.
A human soul is composed of three elements; hylic, psychic and spiritual. The spiritual element of a human can be perfected through gnosis. Hermeticism defined itself as a gnosis.
- "Lord, whence have thy disciples come, whither are they going, and what will they do down there?" This is the fundamental question which begins all Gnostic meditations. Gnosticism is an eclectic, mystical, religious and philosophical doctrine of early Christian times, at its height during the 2nd and 3rd centuries CE. The Gnostics were the first mystics within the Christian environment who appear in the history of religions under the names of Gnostics and Hermeticists.
At the root of Gnosticism is Dualism, the concept that the creation of the universe is brought about by the interplay of opposites; Light and Darkness, Male and Female, Truth and Error. Some Gnostics maintained that this interplay creates a kind of womb from which is born creation, and that built into creation are equal proportions of its parents, the opposites. From this comes the philosophy of the "middle ways." It is in the best interest of all created things to keep to the middle way, not favoring one opposite over the other. This also is Gnosis.
The Gnostics are known for their professed belief that all things become the greater besmirched the closer they get to Earth. Their initiates received the Gnostic sacraments in order to escape the corrupt influences of the planets and to return to the heavenly origin.
In an important Gnostic belief, this world of Time and Fate is accompanied by a parallel dimension of Timelessness. The temporal and the timeless are interactive opposites. The denial of the timeless, the unmanifest world, amounts to polarization toward a belief in death everlasting. The Gnostic Eugnostos taught that it is Faith in the invisible things which brings them manifest. Gnostics, especially Eugnostos, developed the theory that everything which exists in matter comes into being first as an idea or template upon which matter then patterns and substantiates itself. I loved this idea so much I wrote "Forms and Archetypes of the World Soul."
Everything that exists is composed of the corrupt and the incorruptible, the destructible and the indestructible, the spiritual and the material. The opposite of a Gnostic is an Agnostic (a-gnostic), a person who believes that nothing can be known first-hand about the existence of the spiritual world or about things outside of human physical experience. That's because they've never had that experience. It's like how people never believe in UFO's until they see one, and then they do. Same thing with invisible beings.
Because the Gnostics believed in a direct, personal experience of the spiritual realms, and because many of their books were channeled, their literature is passionately subjective and richly diverse. They professed knowledge (gnosis), rather than Faith, to be the key to life's mysteries, and that such knowledge comes from spiritual insight gained through the inner mystical experience. Gnostics are the "sons of interior knowledge." Gnosis takes religion out of the realm of Faith and places it in the realm of personal experience. Gnosis brings a state of wakefulness contrasted with the nightmarish existence of those in ignorance. Christianity was an added element in the Gnostic religious environment.
The Gnostics were true eclectics. The Tomb of Aurelii, a burial tomb for Gnostics in Rome, unearthed in the early 20th century, is a testamonial to their eclecticism. On the walls of this tomb are scenes of the Last Supper juxtaposed to Odysseus, Penelope and Suiters; the Apostles John, James and Matthew are near the figures of Sophia and Mariamne. Adam and Eve receive gnosis from the Serpent near the Triad of the Pleroma.
The Gnostics appreciated any literature which expressed their beliefs. Because of their eclecticism and the subjectivity of their literature, and because of the appeal of their religious philosophy to the populations of the Mediterranean world, the Christian doctors branded them heretics and placed their books on the Index.
The Gnostics posed a serious throat to the Church that St. Paul had worked so hard to establish, a Church the Gnostics inadvertently established by spreading the name of Jesus throughout the ancient world. The Christian heresiologists furiously refuted Gnosticism, solidifying Christian theology into orthodoxy. Many Christian leaders of that time had been Gnostics and had abandoned that philosophical position. The Phoenix is one of the most important symbols of that era, and it
probably represents both resurrection from death and resurrection of the Christian leaders from their own Gnostic ashes.
It was not until the Gnostic manuscripts were discovered that historians and scholars gained a good knowledge of the subject. Although there was a quantity of Christian writings refuting Gnosticism, these were deemed unreliable because it was believed they lacked objectivity.
Gnosticism was wide-spread during a period of time which is described as an important age in the development of human consciousness, that period in history before and after the birth and crucifixion of Jesus, when Rome ruled most of the civilized world. As far as the Gnostics, people of conscience, were concerned, the Sons of Darkness, the tyrannical Romans, were installed upon the throne of the world. Gnostics were people who were very sensitive to the problems of human destiny.
One of the main doctrines of Gnosticism relates that the Invisible Father emanated a Thought, which became the Mother. She fell into Matter from which she had to be rescued. The Gnostics conceived of the visible world as being the corrupt creation of unrighteous powers whose activity is recorded in Genesis, but meaning the opposite of its customary meaning. The Old Testament thus represents the doctrine of the falsity of the god of the Old Testament and of the Law to which humanity is subjected. Some Christian doctors expressed their belief that Mosaic Law was unfortunate, but necessary because humanity, by its deeds and thoughts, placed itself in need of subjugation to such laws.
In modern times, Albert Einstein expressed such a belief when he said, about the atom bomb, "Since I do not foresee that atomic energy is to be a great boon for a long time, I have to say that for the present it is a menace. Perhaps it is well that it should be. It may intimidate the human race into bringing order into its international affairs, which without the pressure of fear, it would not do."
Gnosticism makes an important contribution to the history of religion and to the history of philosophy by bringing ancient beliefs out of the dim corridors of time and infusing them with life. In Gnosticism, the Aeons of the Powers, ancient entities of the supernal universe as old as time, strive against each other to create the physical world, and by their very striving do so. Their continued striving keeps the world in motion. These eternal beings of the Light and the Darkness are emanations from the Supreme Unknowable Divinity. They are God's Victory, Knowledge, Understanding, Wisdom, Will, Thought and Word. They co-exist in beauty and harmony as a philosophical system. They are the occult forces of the universe.
- The lower heavens of the material world. The Ogdoad is the higher world and the Ennead is a still higher world above. These are the three levels or categories of the universe. The Hebdomad, as the lower heavens of the material world, refers to the seven planets and their respective heavens. The Hebdomad also refers to the seventh heaven.
- Historically identified with Thoth (Tat). Hermes is the only Egyptian deity to be recognized as a prophet in Gnostic literature. The Sabians, a baptist sect of Mandaeans of Lower Mesopotamia, recognized Hermes as a prophet of the same stature and importance as Enoch, Seth, and Asclepius. Hermes wrote The Wing. He is also the spirit whom Tat channels in the Authentic Discourse of Hermes to Tat. In these traditions of the teachings of Tat by Hermes, Tat receives the teachings "upon the mountain," like Moses on Mt. Sinai. Scholars suggest that some Jewish myths were stolen by the Egyptians and stamped as written by Hermes.
In the Hermetic literature of alchemy and astrology, there is a predilection for themes touching on the miraculous discovery of secret texts inscribed on stone. In the Roman catacombs, there is the frequent occurrence of Hermes as the last name of those entombed there.
- Long considered the "Father of Alchemy" and the most important figure of alchemy through the ages. Many have researched the real identify of Hermes Trismegistus. The name may signify an ideology or school of thought rather then one single person. In Popular Hermeticism, Hermes Trismegistus is identical to the Egyptian god Thoth (Tat). This Hermes is also thought to be Hermes Mercurius of alchemy.
Trismegistus in translated variously to mean "Thrice-greatest","Thrice-engendered","Thrice-blessed," and "three parts of the philosophy of the whole world, poet, prince and philosopher." The Gnostic Naasenes venerated Hermes as the Word (Logos), who has expressed and fashioned the things that have been, that are, and that will be. Trismegistus may mean, as the Naasenes defined it, "the things that have been, that are and that will be." Trismegistus may mean 'born, born again, and reborn."
The writings under the name of Hermes Trismegistus bear little relation to Gnosticism, yet the eclectic Gnostics included several Hermetic treatises in their buried library for future generations to find. In Authentic Discourse of Hermes to Tat, Hermes, the Nous (Mind), tells his son Tat that he has seen that speech is impotent to reveal the mysteries and that the entire hierarchy of heaven sings the hymn in silence. The Gnostics may have liked this treatise in particular because it records the telepathic conversation of spirit guide and physical person, and because Hermes prophesies to Tat that the world (earth) will subside into disorder, marked by three seals - atheism, dishonor and unreason. The world will then end by calamity and be restored for a new cycle. (I think we might be getting there :(
Historically, Hermes and Tat are considered to be the same person. Alchemically, they are symbolized as Mercurius, the Divine Messenger who is half-human and half-divine. It may be that the Hermes/Tat duality represents an instance of two souls occupying one body, that of Tat's.
The Hermes Trismegistus literature expresses a clear and tranquil Hellenic philosophy, Greek Hermeticism. This philosophy, to which Plotinus, for one, was devoted, regards creation as a beautiful, good and ordered universe. Gnosticism, tempered by Hellenism, becomes an expression of the sheer beauty of the world.
"He is not manifest, but invisible to those remaining with Limit. And he possesses four powers: a separator and a confirmer, a form-provider and a substance-producer." (A Valentinian Exposition, the Gnostic papyri)
- There is a distinction between Greek Hermeticism of Hermes Trismegistus and popular Hermeticism of astrology, magic and alchemy, elements of Fate and the occult. Greek Hermeticism sees the universe as a beautiful creation-in-progress. Hermeticism, of Egyptian appearance, is typified more by abstract reasoning than cosmogonies or evocation of prophets living at the dawn of human history. The Hermetic manuscripts, widely influential in the 3rd century CE, know nothing of the unrighteous creators or corrupt demiurge of early Common Era Gnosticism.
In modern times, popular Hermeticism is not traceable to Gnosticism, with its Persian and Chaldaean ideologies, but to alchemical literature and Jewish cabalistic sources of relatively easy access. An extensive alchemical iconography developed in the Western world from the 14th to the 18th centuries.
In Poimandres, a Hermetic treatise most like Gnosticism, the Nous (Mind, Intellect, Divine Genius) channels information on Dualism to the anonymous narrator. The Light is on high, the Darkness in below, coiled into spirals like a serpent. The Darkness is a moist abyss out of which fire arises. The Light sends a holy Word to cover up the lower inferior abyss where the fire flames up over the waters. The Nous, Poimandres, explains to the narrator the meaning of this vision of the Light and Dark and the place of transformation between them.
Out of the Light, the supreme Nous, came forth the Word, his son Nous the Father. Nous the Father, an androgyne, created with Life and Light a second Nous, the demiurge, god of fire and wind. The demiurge formed the seven rulers of the planetary circles, the masters of Fate. Through the association of the Word with the demiurge, the seven circles were made to revolve, and their rotation produced the lower elements and caused the birth of various animals.
Then, the first Nous created a primordial man in his own image. This newly created Anthropos saw his own reflection in the water and on earth. Admiring it, he was lured into the abyss by an illusion and ensnared by matter. Thenceforth, humanity is a duality; mortal in body, immortal in soul.
Nature then gave birth to seven terrestrial hermaphrodites. The divinity began to separate all the creatures which are bisexual into males and females. Thus began the humanity to which we belong. At death, the material body is abandoned and the soul re-ascends through the planetary circles, discarding layers of passions as though layers of clothing. These layers of passions had been taken on by the soul during its descent to the body that it was to animate at birth. The soul attains to the Ogdoad and becomes one with God, the goal to which Hermetic gnosis aspired.
"The holy spirit is in the revealed: it is below. It is in the concealed: it is above." (The Gospel of Philip, Gnostic papyri)
- The heavenly partner with whom a union, a marriage, is formed. The Holy Spirit delivers its human partner from death and seals that soul so that it will no longer be capturable by the lower powers (Archons). Holy Baptism, a ritual much older than Christianity, is a purification by fire and by water to assist one to receive the heavenly partner, the Spirit.
"We rejoice because while we were in the body, You have made us divine through Your knowledge." (The Prayer of Thanksgiving, Gnostic papyri)
Isaac Luria, the 16th century cabalist, defined the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of God that was left behind as an essence when God withdrew from the Creation, so that the universe would be free to follow the Process of Creation. The Holy Spirit is also named at-Taum (twin). In the Pistis-Sophia, the Holy Spirit visited Jesus while he was a child and mysteriously merged with him. The Holy Spirit is also called Zoe, Mother of the Living, and is sometimes described as feminine, and often symbolized as a dove.
In the The Gospel according to Thomas, a Gnostic manuscript, Jesus says, "He who has blasphemed the Father will be forgiven, and he who has blasphemed the Son will be forgiven: but he who has blasphemed the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven either on earth or in heaven."
- Homeric texts were fashionable during the first centuries of our era. Homer's images of Hades have influenced Christian and Jewish concepts of hell. The Odyssey attracted the attention of the Gnostics, particularly the episodes of Odysseus and Calypso, and Odysseus, Penelope, and the Suitors. The Greeks interpreted Homer's poems as allegorical. The Gnostics applied a mystical interpretation to The Odyssey: the experiences of Odysseus were interpreted as the soul wandering through the world here below; Calypso was interpreted to be the imprisoning body from which Odysseus did, and did not, want to escape; Penelope represented Philosophy, which Odysseus regained after Reason (Hermes) had secured his release from Calypso.
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