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.

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Tag: The Hierarchy of the Fullness

  • Thumbnail for How The Hierarchy of the Fullness Came To Be

    Gnostic Insights Podcasts, New Gnostic Gospel Simply Explained & Illustrated

    How The Hierarchy of the Fullness Came To Be

    For each of the Aeons is a name corresponding to each of the Father’s qualities and powers. Since He exists in many names, it is by mingling and through mutual harmony that they are able to speak of Him by means of logical thought. Thus the Father is a single name because He is one, but nevertheless innumerable in His qualities and names.

    Interesting that logical thought was mentioned in the Tripartite Tractate, because it is important to realize that logic is part of the mind of God. We are given the ability to reason and to be logical.

    The newly self-aware Aeons were not separated from the One Who Is. Rather, their birth has the form of a spreading out by which the Father spreads Himself out into that which He wishes, in order that those who have gone forth from Him may exist as well. The Father of the Aeons, that being the Son, and embodiment of the Formless One, is the Holy Spirit that breathes through the members of the All and moves them to search for the Unknown. Just as somebody is moved by a fragrance to seek the source of the fragrance. For its sweetness lets the Aeons sense an indescribable pleasure and gives them the thought that they should be united with the One Who Desires, that they should know Him in oneness, and that they should assist one another, having no occasion to turn away through thoughtlessness from that in which they are placed.

  • Thumbnail for Correspondence with an Educated Atheist pt.2

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    Correspondence with an Educated Atheist pt.2

    Welcome back to Gnostic Insights. Last week, we had part one of Correspondence with an Educated Atheist, and after posting that, I received an email…

  • Thumbnail for The Son, Part 2: The Generation of the Aeons

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    The Son, Part 2: The Generation of the Aeons

    Last week’s episode was supposed to be about the Son. But we’ve hardly heard anything about the Son himself. We hear about the Father being indescribable and we hear about the infinite number of spirits of the Church that form the body of the Son. But we really haven’t heard much in the way of descriptions of the Son itself. This is because the only way that the Son can be described is through the Aeons, which is to say, through the fractals that come out of the Son. As we trace the path of emanations flowing out of the inconceivable Father and through the barely conceivable Son, we become more and more concrete in our ability to understand the nature of God. It is when we enter the realm of the Aeons that we can begin to recognize the panoply of properties of the Father and Son.

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    The Anti-Christ

    The anti-Christ is to be found within the oft repeated mantra that we can take care of each other and build a better tomorrow without God. That more and more powerful governmental and corporate entities will satisfy our needs and give us that Paradise on Earth that will dispel hunger, climate change, and poverty for the betterment of all. That we can live forever through technological manipulation. That we deserve everything we desire. Kinkier sex. Fancier food. More stuff dropped on our doorsteps by Amazon. That these will make us happy. That this will bring fulfillment. This is the spirit of the anti-Christ.