Over the course of my developing interaction with Sophia, I’ve dug up some of my favorite sources and have been taking a fresh look at Gnosticism. I have long cited Gnostic thought as one of my main influences, though as with a lot of systems, I stop short of calling myself a Gnostic because I don’t identify with a lot of things that people typically associate with the term.

Nonetheless, I take a lot of inspiration and insight from various Gnostic scriptures, and more recently I’ve had the idea to incorporate this in my writing. This piece marks the beginning of a new category for the blog, “Gnosis.” Mixed in with my regular articles I will periodically be taking a passage and writing up an exposition of the meaning I get out of it. Before I start that, I figured it would be useful to give it some context by explaining what Gnosticism is, and what it is to me. At least a basic knowledge of Gnosticism is important for anyone who is a seeker or otherwise interested in religion and spirituality though, as many commonly held beliefs and ideas are influenced or directly taken from it, often without knowing where that influence originated. …I’ve got a thing for the underdogs, okay?

What Do We Know About Gnosticism?

As simply as I can put it, Gnosticism is practiced by those seeking Gnosis, or subjective, experiential revealed knowledge.

Beyond that, Gnosticism is hard to define or categorize for a number of reasons. Much like early proto-orthodox Christianity, Gnosticism was not a single movement with a specific body of beliefs and practices; it is a modern umbrella term which covers a diverse range of belief systems.

It factors in signficantly that the Gnostics were heavily persecuted. The developing and later increasingly militarized proto-orthodox church worked fervently to stamp out the Gnostic movements, and by about the 6th century, had done a pretty good job of it, forcing those who remained further underground. As a result, until more recently most of what we knew of the Gnostics were from the writings of their theological opponents. Needless to say much of this material is openly slanderous and its factual accuracy largely suspect, save for when it quotes Gnostic sources directly. This changed with the discovery of the Nag Hammadi Library, a large collection of well preserved Gnostic scriptures unearthed in northern Egypt in 1945. Even still, due to deterioration as well as the long road from being discovered (and partially destroyed in the process) to being translated, published and finally released to the public decades later, many of those scriptures are incomplete, missing sections ranging from a few words to several pages of material.

Additionally the Gnostics were deliberately obscure, and made extensive use of metaphor and symbolism in their writings. Whereas mainline exoteric Christianity was otensibly a movement for the masses, Gnosticism was not meant to be for everyone. Many of their beliefs and practices were kept in strict secrecy until one became an initiate. More literal minded orthodox detractors often made the mistake of taking Gnostic writings at face value and criticizing them based on these faulty interpretations. While the results were often amusing, the misconceptions perpetuated by these practices certainly don’t help those of us trying to piece together a more accurate picture of what these movements were all about.

All that nonwithstanding, there are commonalities between the various Gnostic groups that can be pointed out and discussed in order to get a generalized feel for what they represented.

Gnostic cosmologies begin with a single unknowable Source, usually called the Pleroma, or Bythos, from which comes a series of emanations, divine figures called Aeons. Of these Aeons, Sophia is generally seen as the lowest, meaning the closest to our third-dimensional reality. Central to Gnostic belief is the idea that the world is inherently flawed, not because of any “fall” on the part of mankind, but because it was created that way from the beginning by a flawed deity who falsely believes “I am god, before me there is no other.” This creator, known as the Demiurge and often associated with the god of the Old Testament, is ignorant of the higher realities and divinity above himself. The Demiurge, in turn, creates beings known as Archons, which maintain the physical world system, and present obstacles and obstructions for anyone who might try to free themselves from it. Man contains a “spark” of true divinity, but like the Demiurge has forgotten who he is and where he came from. “Salvation” then would perhaps more rightfully be called “liberation,” and is not from punishment after death, but from ignorance, and the prison of materiality. It comes not through faith in an external savior, but through gnosis. Jesus is seen as a teacher of gnosis, who incarnated not to save man from sin, but rather to show us how we might free ourselves. It soon becomes easy to see why the Gnostics were persecuted by the Roman church — since, if we’re all sovereign beings who can connect with God freely via direct personal experience, then what need is there for a priestly class, a church hierarchy, or an ever-present collection plate?

What Does Gnosticism Mean to Me?

For my part, I’ve seen a lot of discussion in various forums of what makes one a “True Gnostic™”, which I find almost laughably ironic and more well suited to a discussion of evangelical fundamentalism. The fact that this goes on, and that many Gnostic groups today seem to have taken on roughly the same structure and function of the mainline churches that reject them, are big reasons why I don’t call myself one. Another reason is that we simply don’t know for sure what went on at those initiations, or exactly how the Gnostics interpreted their scriptures behind closed doors. Needless to say I’m less concerned about coming up with a bullet pointed list of True Gnostic Beliefs™ and more interested in exploring and discussing where my seeking after gnosis is leading me.

This concept that man carries a spark of the divine is at the heart of my own spirituality; most if not all other truths stem from this. We are simultaneously and paradoxically more sovereign as individuals and more interconnected as a collective whole than we could imagine. To me Gnosticism is a rejection of any authority higher than the self, while at the same time impelling us to be impeccable, to represent our highest ideal selves, which is where our authority lies. I don’t subscribe to the rigid dualism, but as far as I’m concerned it follows that this concept has been misrepresented in many common portrayals of the Gnostics. Even if the world is a good few steps removed from the Source, relatively speaking, it’s all still from the same Source as everything “higher.” The material world is not evil, bad or the enemy — spiritual ignorance is. This is simply a system with its own set of parameters that makes a certain range of experiences, and lessons, possible. The system has been hijacked by those who would turn it into a prison, but the creation itself is not at fault; it just IS.

Thus I am not necessarily in favor of escaping the material world, but rather transforming myself and becoming free within it, and charting my own course from there. But freedom is not found by either of the usual extremes: renunciation, or unbridled hedonism, which are really just two sides of the same coin that, in themselves, are unbalanced. And with that statement I may be the only person on earth who’s in danger of getting beaten up by LaVeyans and Buddhists alike. The ego, represented by the false creator, or Demiurge, is not something to be defeated, destroyed, relinquished, killed or otherwise done away with, but neither are we meant to indulge in or be ruled by its false beliefs about itself. The ego is an aspect of the self, a tool used for having experiences and interacting with the material world — but when we go to war within ourselves, who wins? No, the ego is to be transmuted by the purifying, alchemichal flames of gnosis; to be balanced and shown its true form by Spirit. This catalyzing process is every individual’s apocolypse, which literally means “unveiling”; a trial by fire that brings forth a whole new creation.

For further reading:

The Gnostic Gospels by Elain Pagels (aff.)

Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew by Bart D Ehrman (aff.)

The Nag Hammadi Library by James L. Robinson and Marvin Meyer

The Other Bible by Willis Barnstone (aff.)

The Gnostic Bible by Willis Barnstone (aff.)

–Palehorse

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