The Essence Of The Gnostics

For what is it that the All lacked, if not the knowledge of the Father?' - Gnostic text from the Gospel of Truth Long before there was a system of belief called Gnosticism there were those who reached for a special intimate knowledge of God and His mysterious ways. The possession of such knowledge, they believed, would bring salvation from suffering. All religious traditions acknowledged that the world is imperfect. Where they differ is in the explanations they offer for this imperfection - and in what they suggest might be done about it. While many religionists hold that humans are to be blamed for these imperfections, the Gnostics believed that the world is flawed because it was created in a flawed manner, thereby implicating the creator. Such a perspective was regarded as blasphemous by fellow-Christians at the dawn of the new religion, and led to the sect's persecution. Equally concerning were the Gnostics' liberal views regarding sex, the role of women, and toleration of other faiths. In The Essence of the Gnostics Bernard Simon offers a fascinating insight into this ancient and yet in many ways surprisingly contemporary faith, and explores the reasons for its current renaissance.

Building on critical work in biblical studies, which shows how a historically-bounded heretical tradition called Gnosticism was 'invented', this work focuses on the following stage in which it was “essentialised” into a sui generis, universal category of religion. At the same time, it shows how Gnosticism became a religious self-identifier, with a number of sizable contemporary groups identifying as Gnostics today, drawing on the same discourses. This book provides a history of this problematic category, and its relationship with scholarly and popular discourse on religion in the twentieth century. It uses a critical-historical method to show how and why Gnosis, Gnostic and Gnosticism were taken up by specific groups and individuals – practitioners and scholars – at different times. It shows how ideas about Gnosticism developed in late nineteenth- and twentieth-century scholarship, drawing from continental phenomenology, Jungian psychology and post-Holocaust theology, to be constructed as a perennial religious current based on special knowledge of the divine in a corrupt world. David G. Robertson challenges how scholars interact with the category Gnosticism, and contributes to our understanding of the complex relationship between primary sources, academics and practitioners in category formation.

A study of gnosticism examines the various ways early Christians strove to define themselves in a pluralistic Roman society, while questioning the traditional ideas of heresy and orthodoxy that have previously influenced historians.

Gnosis is a Greek word meaning “knowledge”. In this case, knowledge acquired by direct experience and personal understanding, contrary to knowledge acquired by the accumulation of information. Gnosis is the essence of humanity’s wisdom, expressed in art, science, philosophy and religious traditions. It is the understanding of sacred geometry and the rules that control the whole universe. It was the faith of the Christians who were persecuted by the Catholic Church, and later the faith of the Knights Templar, once they discovered the Gnostic gospels. The path of Gnosis is developed through meditation, by opening the Third Eye, traveling astrally, developing psychic abilities, talking to saints, avatars, guides, and even by talking to the dead. The ultimate purpose is to develop an aura of Saint and finally merge with God. Those who follow this path, develop mastery once in possession of powers that transcend their body, such as fortunetelling, premonitions, telepathic abilities, and so on. And they do know that darkness is necessary for there to be light, they embrace it, but they ultimately work on the side of the light to bring order out of chaos. They are co-creators with God, builders or masons that co-create with the architect of the universe, God.

This work covers the relationship of Gnostic mysticism to the inner teachingsof Plato; the insights of Valentinus, and others; magical meanings of talismanic gems; the spiritual glory of Alexandria and the Gnostic essence of the Christian message. Illustrated with Gnostic artifacts. This is a must for all those intrigued by this popular subject.

If Jesus Christ is not God, of the same essence with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit, having all the attributes of the Trinity while on earth as well as while He reigned in Heaven, then we, of all men, are most miserable. And how do we know that He is, and always has been, God from eternity? It is written in the Holy Scriptures. But what if the version of the Bible we read is ambivalent, in one place saying He is co-equal with God, and in another place denying Him one or more of the attributes that are essential to God? Read this book and you will see that all but three of the new versions are guilty of denying Christ's goodness, sinlessness, omnipresence, omniscience, omnipotence, and a dozen more of the attributes of God. You will see it written in black and white, with exact quotations from eight of the new versions. This important challenge to the trend so evident in the new versions (the despising of the words God-breathed out through the prophets and apostles, and the mixing in of the corrupt wisdom of men), ought to be supported by every one of you who love God and His Word as HB wrote it.

The Message of the Alien God and the Beginnings of Christianity

“It came to pass, when Jesus had risen from the dead, that he passed eleven years discoursing with his disciples, and instructing them.” The Apostles wrote down what Jesus taught them during those eleven years, resulting in The Pistis Sophia, the most important Gnostic scripture. Includes an extensive commentary by Samael Aun Weor.