Reforming Gnosticism

When people say, “My goodness, your Gnosticism is so different than what I have come to understand Gnosticism to be,” that’s because I didn’t take it from secondary sources. I took it from the original sources.  Then of course, Valentinian Gnosticism is an early form of what has come to be called Christianity. Christianity diverged immensely from the original message around the 300’s and on up, when the gnostic books were taken out of Orthodoxy. Those folks that are called heresiologists are the people that went around slapping heresy labels on the early Christianity—the early Valentinian Gnosticism. They weeded it out of the official sacred texts that made their way into the New Testament.

The main book of the Nag Hammadi that I relate to is called the Tripartite Tractate. I believe it to be the purest form of gnosis. It has very little in the way of mythologies, of extraneous characters, of the names of things and the numbers of things and the astrology of it all.

Valentinian Gnosticism from the Tripartite Tractate is unique in that the fallen Aeon is not called Sophia, a female character. The Aeon who fell is called Logos, not to be confused with the Son of God, Christ, or Jesus.

Listen now
Thumbnail for Reforming Gnosticism

Tag: the All

  • Thumbnail for Three Glories

    Gnostic Insights Podcasts, New Gnostic Gospel Simply Explained & Illustrated

    Three Glories

    “For no one can conceive of him or think of him or draw near to that place toward the exalted, toward the truly preexistent. [That would be the original Father they’re talking about.] But every name that is thought or spoken about him is brought forth in glorification as a trace of him, according to the capacity of each one of those who give him glory.”

    So this is saying that the full glory of the Father cannot be known. The Son can be known because he is coexistent with the Totalities of the ALL. So they are him and he is them. But the Father can be perceived as this trace. And in other places, it says like a sweet odor wafting to your nose.

  • Thumbnail for The Fullness of God–Consciousness Branches Outward

    Gnostic Insights Podcasts, New Gnostic Gospel Simply Explained & Illustrated

    The Fullness of God–Consciousness Branches Outward

    If the members of the ALL had risen to give glory according to the individual powers of each, they would have brought forth a glory that was only a semblance of the Father, who Himself is the ALL. [verse 68]
    For that reason they were drawn into mutual intermingling union and oneness through the singing of praise. From their assembled Fullness they were one and at the same time many, accurately reflecting the One who Himself is the entirety of the ALL. Out of perfect union with itself and with the Son, and by means of a single shared effort, the ALL gave glory to the Eternal One who had brought it forth. The glory given out of this perfect communion left the ALL perfect and full, as it was perfect and full to begin with, and the object of their glory was also perfect and full. [68, 69]

  • Thumbnail for Father, Son, ALL–Love Unfolding

    Gnostic Insights Podcasts

    Father, Son, ALL–Love Unfolding

    The Father’s basic consciousness is not thoughts, but rather love, the sensation of knowing what we call love. So this consciousness simply is, without time, without any prior existence, unchangeable, unmovable, without beginning, without end, utterly quiet, utterly still, utterly alone. This Father is often described as all-knowing, but what is there to know? All-seeing, but what is there to see? All-loving, but what is there to love? Omnipotent wisdom, will, but to what end? There’s nothing there.
    Now imagine that this consciousness gives birth to a emanation of itself. In the Simple Explanation blog, we call this a fractal. In the religious texts, they call it a Son.

  • Thumbnail for Is the Gnostic Son of God the same as the Biblical Son of God

    Gnostic Insights Podcasts, New Gnostic Gospel Simply Explained & Illustrated

    Is the Gnostic Son of God the same as the Biblical Son of God

    “Who is the image of the invisible God, firstborn of all creation, because in him were created all things in the heavens and on Earth, the visible as well as the invisible (whether Thrones or Lordships or Archons or Powers); All things were created through him and for him, and he is before all things and all things hold together in him, And he is the head of the body of the assembly—who is the origin, firstborn from the dead, so that he might himself hold first place in all things—For in him all of the Fullness was pleased to take up a dwelling, And through him to reconcile all things to him, making peace by the blood of his cross through him, whether the things on Earth or the things in the heavens.” Colossians 1:15-20

  • Thumbnail for Gnostic Cosmos Origin Story

    New Gnostic Gospel Simply Explained & Illustrated

    Gnostic Cosmos Origin Story

    To church folks this will initially sound like heresy, while to non-believers it will sound too churchy. To those folks who have fallen away from the church because they can’t reconcile inconsistencies between the Old and the New Testament, it will come as a welcome relief. And to those people who have never believed in God, this version of Christianity may be exactly what they haven’t been expecting and didn’t realize they were hoping for.

  • Thumbnail for Our Spiritual Inheritance

    Gnostic Insights Podcasts, New Gnostic Gospel Simply Explained & Illustrated, Podcasts

    Our Spiritual Inheritance

    The Father’s consciousness and spirit flows out from him in an unending stream. It is His reflected glory, initiating through their singing of the hymns, that disposes the Totalities to grasp their own Selfhood, their own “individuality, seeds, and thoughts,” and that they will “live forever,” along with the Son. We are of that inheritance. We have inherited the dispositions and qualities of the Fullness of the Aeons, the Totalities of the Father. And to awaken to Selfhood, the way to do it isn’t to focus egoistically upon ourselves—it’s actually to focus on the Father, and to give glory to the Father. And it’s in that reflected glory that we can see ourselves.

  • Thumbnail for The Emanation of the Son and the ALL

    Podcasts

    The Emanation of the Son and the ALL

    The Son reflects the Father’s boundless greatness and love. The Son possesses every trait of the Father, for the Son is a complete encapsulation of the Father in which it dwells. Every trait of the Father is expressed now as a singularity, and that singularity is called the Son.

    And yet although it was a singular manifestation of the Father, the moment the Son was formed, it was no longer alone, for not only the Son, but what is called the ALL, or the Totalities, arose at once.  The ALL immediately appeared as the offspring of the Son, because the Son could not help itself from bringing others into existence, even as it was brought into existence by the Father.

  • Thumbnail for Praise and Glory–Aeonic Romance

    Podcasts

    Praise and Glory–Aeonic Romance

    The Father loved and admired the Son, and the Son loved and admired the Father. These two were well pleased with themselves, and they gave praise and glory to one another. From their exchange of “kisses,” the ALL arose.

  • Thumbnail for Yearning for the Pleroma

    Gnostic Insights Podcasts, Podcasts

    Yearning for the Pleroma

    This episode challenges the notion that there’s something wrong and “unChristian” about the Gnostic’s Pleroma of God.