Praxis

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Incarnation

Peace and Joy.

How impossible a wish, for our vain, short-tempered, belligerent species. How unimaginable, that within the rough manger of the created world, lies sleeping the infant spark of the Divine.

And yet the timeless recognition that this is so. Our birthright, the Divine seed sleeping beneath the snow of illusion, awaiting the spring and our own waking. How life gives magic to simple carbon, ribbons of living intelligence in our blood dancing, transforming us in an eternal, joyous miracle.

Merry Christmas.

En nombre del cielo, os pido posada

In the name of Heaven, I ask thee for lodging.

The Mass of the Archangel Raphael

Icon via Robert S. Burt
Raphael is the healing light of the setting sun, who descends into the waters to bring forth wisdom. Before the Judeo-Christian matrix, he was known to the ancient Egyptians as Ra-heru.

The Mass of St. Thomas

Now when Thomas came to his companions, they asked him: What did Christ say to thee? Thomas said to them: If I tell you one of the words which he said to me, you will take up stones and throw them at me; and fire will come from the stones and burn you up.

From The Gospel of Thomas
This last line reminds me of Jung's Seven Sermons to the Dead:

The dead now raised a great tumult, for they were Christians.

The idea being, you have orthodoxy [right thinking], all righteous-seeming and stable, and then along comes the Holy Hand Grenade of Knowledge. Scary stuff.

I re-read Thomas last night, and it raised to my mind the fundamental question of who IS this Didymus, this Twin of the Logos?

Literalists and revisionist historians look for an actual birth-twin (sometimes depicted as identical) to the Rabbi Yeshua, and imagine all kinds of political skullduggery between his family (Thomas and James) and the later Petrine Church. But like all who look for a "then/there" archeological Jesus, they run smack into the eternal myth of Osiris/Dionysus/Oannes, and come away muddled.

The author(s) of Thomas likely the earliest Gospel (and certainly the only one composed in the first century) did not believe for an instant that these were the literal words of an historical person, or that they were (despite the title) written by his twin brother. So what was the point? Certainly the format was familiar to any Greek logician of the times, but why attribute this "record" to this particular character?

The other interesting thing is that Thomas himself has become quite the celeb in recent years, with a plethora of books flying off the shelves. Thomas is certainly the most accessible of the Gnostic Scriptures to mainstream Christians. It's true that most of these readers are looking for records: as though he were a documentary filmmaker, following Jesus around and taking notes. Still looking for the "once upon a time".

But it is the "here/now"-ness of Thomas that gives it its power and moving voice. The later redactors of Johnbent over backwards in an attempt to undo Thomas, and the immanence of Divinity.

Split a piece of wood – I am there.
Lift the stone, and you will find me there.

The Rising of the Sun, The Running of the Deer

The holly and the ivy,
When they are both full grown,
Of all trees that are in the wood,
The holly bears the crown

Blessings and Joy on the Return of the Light

Statement of Principles

of the Apostolic Johannite Church

We affirm that there is one Great, Unknowable, and Ineffable Godhead that made manifest the Universe through Emanation and that while the Universe is contained within this Divine Godhead, the Godhead transcends it.

We affirm that every Being contains the 'Sacred Flame,' a Spark of the Divine and that Awareness of the Sacred Flame within constitutes the highest level of Self-Knowledge and the Experience of God simultaneously. This act of Awareness, which is held to be liberating, transcendent and experiential, is called Gnosis.

We affirm that there are many ways in which Gnosis may be experienced. Thus, we promote freedom of thought in pursuit of one's inward Path towards the Divine, whether that pursuit is modern or ancient in origin, or individual or communal in experience.

We affirm that the Godhead is composed of three Persons, which are one in substance – God, the Father Almighty; the Son, the Logos or Xristos Sother and the Holy Spirit or Pneuma Hagion.

We affirm that God guides us towards Unity by the loving example of the Incarnate Xristos, manifested in the life of Jesus, and the ongoing experience of the Holy Spirit as the source of continued Inspiration and Revelation via Gnosis.

We affirm the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church that is built upon the message and authority of the Incarnate Xristos and that the same lives from age to age by the guidance of the Holy Spirit and the stewardship of the Successors of the Apostles.

We affirm the Seven Sacraments of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church which act with the Holy Spirit and the Sacred Flame within us to promote unity with the Divine and in the community of Believers.

We affirm the use of sacred writings that reveal the Divine message of love and compassion throughout history. We especially revere the Christian New Testament, the writings of the Old Testament and others, the Nag Hammadi Library texts and the Corpus Hermeticum as potent sources for this teaching.

We recognize the Sacred Flame to be present in all Beings and therefore our Offices are open to all humanity without discrimination on the basis of gender, race, social status or sexual orientation."

Courtesy of Msgr. Ken Madden

Various Gnostic Churches

This will have to do as a post for now until I find a few minutes to play with the layout to create a sidebar...

The North American College of Gnostic Bishops
Apostolic Johannite Church
Ecclesia Gnostica
Ecclesia Gnostica Mysteriorum
Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica Hermetica
Église Gnostique Apostolique

Thanks Giving

Crops rushing forth from the deep
A babe rushing forth from the womb
- A Valentinian Thanksgiving Prayer

Sebastian Rowan Drake Silverthorne Stratford
December 13, 2004

Meetup

146 Gnostic Groups Worldwide
Vancouver Gnostic Meetup Group
Victoria Gnostic Meetup Group

The Naasene Psalm [a fragment]

The Law of Universal Genesis was the firstborn thought; the second Chaos shed by the firstborn. The third was received by the soul. Clad in the shape of a deer she is worn away with death´s slavery, Now she has mastery and glimpses light: now she is plunged in misery and weeps. Now she is mourned, and her self rejoices. Now she weeps and is finally condemned. Now she is condemned and finally dies. And now she reaches the point where hemmed in by evil, she knows no way out. Misled, she has entered a labyrinth.

Then the Logos said " Behold, Father, she wanders the earth pursued by evil. Far from thy Breath she is going astray. She is trying to flee bitter Chaos, and does not know how she is to escape. Send me forth, o Father, therefore, and I, bearing the seal shall descend and wander all Aeons through, all mysteries reveal. I shall manifest the forms of the gods and teach them the secrets of the holy way which I call Gnosis."

Where's Nova Albion, Anyway?

As I child I grew up on the west coast of British Columbia. I moved routinely every two years or so between the mid-sized city of Vancouver (about 3 million) to the small colonial capitol of Victoria (about 350,000).

There is a tremendous amount of cartographic evidence that the first Europeans here were on Sir Francis Drake's Golden Hind, in 1579. The land he claimed as a kind of sanctuary from Roman hegemony he called "Nova Albion." There are several points that make this irresistable to my devious Gnostic brain.

1) The evidence is encoded in charts and logs, meaning one thing to the uninformed (38°N), and something entirely different to those in the know (48°N). It's so decoder-ring.

2) The voyage was ostensibly to undermine the Pacific interests of Catholic Spain, during the whole time the Elizabethan court was making nice with Spain, while Roman spies and assasins were sent to England as a matter of course.

3) A secret mission from a gallant privateer (and the associations between later 18th Century piracy and Gnostic Freemasonry are too many to mention here), and an alternate history of the world. Warms my Phildickian heart.

So, Drake is said to have piloted around Vancouver Island (where Victoria is and Vancouver is not, I know I know), and into Burrard Inlet (downtown Vancouver) as far as Indian Arm. And here is this wonderfully pretentious Latin term for all the places in BC in which I can readily meet other Gnostics, in hope of establishing a common Ecclesia to serve both communities.

As for the cross above, it's often called an elevenfold cross, and is comprised of one central "solar" (equilateral) cross quartered by four smaller ones. This represents the four Gospels and Christ; or the four elements and Spirit; or Hod, Netzakh, Geburah, Chesed, and Tipareth; take your pick. The point is that in this cross, the lines from the "lesser" crosses all intersect the central cross, all partake in the Spirit, the Logos, the solar Tipareth. The cross was used by the late 19th Century French Gnostic Bishops, and later by the Masonic orders with which they joined.

I Am the Utterance of My Name

From "Thunder, Perfect Mind"

I was sent forth from the power,
and I have come to those who reflect upon me,
and I have been found among those who seek after me.
Look upon me, you who reflect upon me,
and you hearers, hear me.
You who are waiting for me, take me to yourselves.
And do not banish me from your sight.
And do not make your voice hate me, nor your hearing.
Do not be ignorant of me anywhere or any time. Be on your guard!
Do not be ignorant of me.

For I am the first and the last.
I am the honored one and the scorned one.
I am the whore and the holy one.
I am the wife and the virgin.
I am and the daughter.
I am the members of my mother.
I am the barren one
and many are her sons.
I am she whose wedding is great,
and I have not taken a husband.
I am the midwife and she who does not bear.
I am the solace of my labor pains.
I am the bride and the bridegroom,
and it is my husband who begot me.
I am the mother of my father
and the sister of my husband
and he is my offspring.
I am the slave of him who prepared me.

I am the ruler of my offspring.
But he is the one who begot me before the time on a birthday.
And he is my offspring in (due) time,
and my power is from him.
I am the staff of his power in his youth,
and he is the rod of my old age.
And whatever he wills happens to me.
I am the silence that is incomprehensible
and the idea whose remembrance is frequent.
I am the voice whose sound is manifold
and the word whose appearance is multiple.

I am the utterance of my name.

The Ten Major Principles of the Gnostic Revelation

From Exegesis, by Philip K. Dick

The Gnostic Christians of the second century believed that only a special revelation of knowledge rather than faith could save a person. The contents of this revelation could not be received empirically or derived a priori. They considered this special gnosis so valuable that it must be kept secret. Here are the ten major principles of the gnostic revelation:

1. The creator of this world is demented.

2. The world is not as it appears, in order to hide the evil in it, a delusive veil obscuring it and the deranged deity.

3. There is another, better realm of God, and all our efforts are to be directed toward

a. returning there
b. bringing it here


4. Our actual lives stretch thousands of years back, and we can be made to remember our origin in the stars.

5. Each of us has a divine counterpart unfallen who can reach a hand down to us to awaken us. This other personality is the authentic waking self; the one we have now is asleep and minor. We are in fact asleep, and in the hands of a dangerous magician disguised as a good god, the deranged creator deity. The bleakness, the evil and pain in this world, the fact that it is a deterministic prison controlled by the demented creator causes us willingly to split with the reality principle early in life, and so to speak willingly fall asleep in delusion.

6. You can pass from the delusional prison world into the peaceful kingdom if the True Good God places you under His grace and allows you to see reality through His eyes.

7. Christ gave, rather than received, revelation; he taught his followers how to enter the kingdom while still alive, where other mystery religions only bring about amnesis: knowledge of it at the "other time" in "the other realm," not here. He causes it to come here, and is the living agency to the Sole Good God (i.e. the Logos).

8. Probably the real, secret Christian church still exists, long underground, with the living Corpus Christi as its head or ruler, the members absorbed into it. Through participation in it they probably have vast, seemingly magical powers.

9. The division into "two times" (good and evil) and "two realms" (good and evil) will abruptly end with victory for the good time here, as the presently invisible kingdom separates and becomes visible. We cannot know the date.

10. During this time period we are on the sifting bridge being judged according to which power we give allegiance to, the deranged creator demiurge of this world or the One Good God and his kingdom, whom we know through Christ.

To know these ten principles of Gnostic Christianity is to court disaster.

Advent

More personal to me this year than others, as our due date is today/tomorrow, and we have a baby boy coming. For Christians, Advent is the pre-Christmas "get ready" season. For Gnostics, what does it mean?

I think it represents and opportunity to calm and center oneself in anticipation of the Incarnation, the awakening of the Light of Gnosis in the seat of the soul. If you're climbing the tree from Malkuth to Tipareth (as it's Hanukah today I thought I'd throw in a little Kabala out there) you need to make sure everything is balanced and stable. For me it's been more exoteric - getting baby stuff, getting on with house renos, catching up on work so there's time after baby arrives. But the point is pretty much the same for those gathering fresh straw for shopping-mall mangers. A place needs to be prepared for the Light to reside.

The idea of the Incarnation of Light/Return of the Sun at this time of year is as old as we are. The Christian invention of Advent is a very useful one, taking time to brace yourself for Everything Changing. Quite sane.

Such Churchitude brings out the heebie jeebies in many non-Christians. Why use the Catholic liturgical Calendar at all? What do we need the Mass for? Why the titles and vestments and trappings of those who hunted us down, imprisoned and massacred us?

Because it's not "theirs".

Remember, we're not making this up all of a sudden. For centuries, Gnostic ideas flourished in the Catholic church (I'm making a distinction here from "Christian" just to leave the Protestant and Orthodox tangent for another day). Countless Catholic Bishops died peacefully in their sleep after lifetimes of preaching and practicing Gnosticism. These people contributed, debated, and crafted much of what we see of Catholic liturgical culture today. The Cathars and Bogomils had Bishops. The Valentinians and Nestorians celebrated the Eucharist. And of course the Gnostic Revival of the nineteenth century also embraced the structure and liturgy of Catholicism, with a pneumatic understanding.

There is (and I believe was) also a deeper understanding of the pre-Christian nature of such things as the Offices, calendar, and indeed of the Eucharist itself. The Mass is the greatest and most accessible repository of the rituals of the western mystery tradition, reminding us that Divinity is real and present - here/now, not there/then. The roles of Deacon, Priest, and Bishop are echoes of Roman State Religion, while the elements of the Mass have roots in Mithraism and the the cults of Dionysus. Such things are the cultural heritage, if not the property, of the western world.

Gnosticism 102

This has been edited and updated and is now here.

Gnosticism 101

This has been edited and is now here.

Gnosticism For Dummies

Never. Gonna. Happen.

Sophia Redemptrix...

... Queen of Heaven, Holy Wisdom, Celestial Bride, make open to us the Veil that we may partake in gifts of the Bridal Chamber.

Oh thou Holy and Secret Wisdom, having blessed grape and grain, bestow upon us life and joy.

Amen.