Cui Bono?

[I wrote this before the news of Ms. Schiavo's death, but I think there are some valid points from a Gnostic perspective]

I would invite us all to consider that perhaps the time for debate is at an end, and the time for prayer, reflection, and examination is at hand.

This is clearly very emotional and compelling issue, into which a great deal of psychic energy is invested. It can very tempting to want to contribute the vortex, by restating hearsay and projecting onto this tragedy our own fears, experience, and reactions.

But who gains from our contribution? As we know, this is a personal tragedy being exploited by the Christian Right. We cannot stop this exploitation, and our only power is to choose what we will learn from this. We can choose which aspects of ourselves to empower - compassion and responsibility, or fear and vitriol? Part of each of us so desperately wants to be justified by jumping into the fray, to prove our world view, to claim a part of this tragedy for our own like a ghoulish souvenir.

I invite each of us to take responsibility for this - I for one am extremely guilty of it. The logical filter of "Who Gains?" is useful in taking a step back from the emotion of the issue.

Who gains from Ms. Schiavo's death?

Obviously not her parents, who shall grieve her sincerely. Not the doctors who removed the PEG tube, nor the Judges who interpreted the law in this case.

Not Mr. Schiavo. He has been offered tremendous wealth if he would only ignore the intent of Ms. Schiavo and allow her anencephalic body to continue to metabolize. He has no doubt over the years been extremely tempted to surrender his rights in this issue and let Terri's wishes fall by the wayside. He has stayed this difficult course for one reason only - he believes he is doing what Terri would want.

The only beneficiary of the death of Ms. Schiavo's body, is the the stated intent of Ms. Schiavo herself. What else explains the removal of the PEG tube?

Who gains from her life?

Ms. Schiavo's parents do gain comfort by visiting the empty husk that was their daughter, and I do truly feel compassion for their suffering and loss.

Then there is the multi-billion dollar lobby footing the bill and writing the press releases. It must be understood that the "pro-life" movement is on examination nothing other than "pro-control". They favour the death penalty, and politically are overwhelmingly in support of the hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths in Iraq. Their position is that no-one has the right to choose to die. That the Creator alone has any power in this, and the only right that any person has is to obey the will of the Creator. They stand to gain tremendous political capital by showing their ability to overwhelm the force of law, and the concept of human determination.

Who gains from vilifying Mr. Schiavo?

There have been innumerable unsubstantiated rumours, innuendo, and gossip about this man. The evidence shows clearly that Ms. Schiavo starved herself to death, that her injuries resulted from that starvation and the CPR attempt to resuscitate her. And yet the desire of Christians to portray him as a violent abuser, as someone who drove his wife to suicide, is overwhelming. There have been shameless attempts to portray Ms. Schiavo as merely handicapped, even miraculously responsive, rather than brain dead - thus making Mr. Schiavo out to be the heartless murderer.

Why? Because it serves to castigate all who support anyone's right to choose as supporters of domestic violence and the harvesting of the handicapped for organs. It builds a perfect straw man in their ongoing campaign against liberalism and tolerance.

It has been stated that the PEG tube was inserted merely because "the nurses were lazy". This statement is an insult to health care professionals everywhere, and is beyond ridiculous. At its root the statement, and the idea of the statement, is hateful. From whence does this hatred originate? What part of us wants to believe that a powerful establishment of doctors, judges, etc. is so bloodless as to make judgments based on convenience? What are we feeding when we decide to believe this?

As in our analysis of Scripture, we must internalize, listen, and reflect. The meaning here is personal, far more so than political or cultural. We cannot but detect the manipulation by forces which mean to provoke anger, confrontation, and division. How are our own emotions and views buying into the agenda of this power? Regardless of your views regarding choice, life, or palliative care, who gains from such divisiveness?

We bring the Archons into being with our anger. We are outgunned in the Hate War, and our option as Gnostics is see this conflict for what it really is and transcend it.

Ishtar Monday

And there you have it. The Spring Equinox, the Full Moon, the First Day of the Sun, and the God is restored to us, Immortal and incorruptible, as is the spark of Divinity within us all.

This libation is Yours, Wesir,
For You, coming forth from Your son,
Coming forth before Heru.
I come to bring You Heru’s Eye to refresh Your heart.
I have brought it to You, under Your sandals;
This liquid, which comes forth from You.

The living water. The Father from the Son. Lux ex Tenebris. We Know this. We have always Known this.

"That which is called the Christian religion existed among the ancients, and never did not exist, from the beginnings of the human race until Christ came in the flesh, at which time the true religion, which already existed, began to be called Christianity."

- Augustine, Retractions

Good Friday: The Mourning of Isis for Osiris

©Susan Seddon Boulet
For more than four thousand years, the Source Religion that is the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church has recognized this time of year as the seeming triumph of darkness over light, of despair over hope.

Set has overthrown Wesir, and cast him into the rivers. The Empire has murdered the Logos upon the stauros like a criminal. We are lost and undone.

This blackness is to embraced, confronted, transmuted, and then put aside as the faint glimmer of hope blossoms into the full flower of Spring and the Renewal of Life. In the Darkness is encoded the promise Light.

We have Aset to find the scattered body of the Lord, we have the Magdalene to witness the Resurrection. The water of the Incarnate is now the heady wine of the Immutable Spirit.

But not yet.

I would be saved, and I would save.

I would be loosed, and I would loose.

I would be wounded, and I would wound.

I would be born, and I would bear.

I would eat, and I would be eaten.

I would hear, and I would be heard.

I would be thought, being wholly thought.

I would be washed, and I would wash.

Grace danceth. I would pipe; dance ye all.

I would mourn: lament ye all.


The Ogdoad singeth praise with us.

The Twelve danceth on high.

The Pleroma hath part in our dancing.

Whoso danceth not, knoweth not what cometh to pass.


I would flee, and I would stay.

I would adorn, and I would be adorned.

I would be united, and I would unite.

A house I have not, and I have houses.

A place I have not, and I have places.

A temple I have not, and I have temples.


A lamp am I to thee that beholdest me.

A mirror am I to thee that perceivest me.

A door am I to thee that knockest at me.

From The Acts of John.

The Letter

"From thy Father, the King of Kings,
and thy Mother, the Mistress of the East,

and from thy Brother, our second (in Authority),
to thee our Son, who art in Egypt, greeting!

Call to mind that thou art a Son of Kings!
See the slavery,--whom thou servest!

Remember the Pearl,
for which thou was sent to Egypt!

Think of thy robe,
and remember thy splendid toga,

which thou shalt wear and (with which) thou shalt be adorned,
when thy name hath been read out in the list of the valiant,

and thy brother, our viceroy,
thou shalt be in our kingdom."

From The Hymn of the Pearl

This is the allegory of a Prince, sent from a Kingdom in the East (Heaven) westward into Egypt (the material world) on a mission for his Father, the King. Upon arriving in Egypt, he eats the food (partakes of the Materia and forms attachment) and falls into a deep sleep (amnesis), forgetting his heritage and mission.

A secret message is smuggled to the Prince, and upon receiving it, he remembers who he truly is, defeats a Dragon (Leviathan/Satan) and returns a precious pearl (his own spark of Divinity) to the Kingdom.

You are the hero of this story. So where is your letter? Perhaps you received it years ago, and have not yet found the opportunity to read it. Perhaps it is encoded in a television commercial for perfume. The number 23. KING FELIX. Perhaps tonight is the night when the letter will be delivered. Perhaps the discovery of the Nag Hammadi Library in the Egyptian desert in 1945 was the unsealing of a lettter to the whole world...

The Martyrdom of Chevillon

Bishop Constant Martin Chevillon - (26.10.1880 - 22.03.1944), Patriarch for both Eglise Gnostique Universelle and the Eglise Gallicanne - was cruelly executed this day in 1944 by PPF collaborators and Gestapo agents for his service and devotion to Gnosticism.

I pray that he has found peace and dissolution into the Fullness of the Infinite.

Palm Sunday and Prada

Some recent Gnostic blog posts (here and here) brought to my attention a short film which debuted at the Berlin Film Festival, directed by Sir Ridley Scott. The piece is a commercial for a fragrance by Prada, the controversy arising from the fact that, unrelated to either the product or the storyboard, the narrator intones a fragment of Thunder, Perfect Mind. The commercialization of Gnosticism is decried.

I'm probably uniquely qualified to rant on this topic, as I'm quite likely the only Gnostic who works in advertising as a Creative Director. I've not seen the film, but I have no doubt it's beautiful shot and edited. Scott does have a feel and a familiarity with Gnosticism (Blade Runner was based on Philip K Dick's "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" and deals with blatantly Gnostic themes: the dubiousness of memory, and raging against the Creator).

There is no want of irony in the application of a Sophianic doxology to the branding of what is, after all, an alchemical product. Fragrance is primal, emotional, it sneaks under the radar of the rational. The association is almost poetic. I would invite you not to think of the piece as defilement, but rather as a code.

Gnosis is viral, it appears to act as though it were self-organizing and intelligent. Gnosis is our experience of the Divine, the spark of the Pleroma which has been implanted in us by Sophia, the Queen of Heaven. Advertising is international, global, universal. It would seem an excellent carrier wave of signal: in Dick's VALIS Fat, the psuedonymical protagonist, having suffered for his own meeting with Sophia, awaits for a sign via television commercials.

To my mind it doesn't matter if Nike decided to sell Abraxas sneakers or if Coke came out with a Logos brand softdrink. You could get the Host out of vending machines in "zesty ranch" flavours. All it could ever be was vaguely funny. No matter how you attempt to package the experience, gnosis is slippery, ironic, vaporous. The wine will adapt itself to the shape of the vessel, and be just as intoxicating (Calix meus inebrians).

The Logos can ride into Jerusalem on an Ass, without affecting the Divinity of the Rider.

The Day of the Holy Martyrs of Montsegur

In this day in 1244 CE some two hundred Gnostics - the last holdouts of a year-long siege - proceeded solemnly from the gates of their ancient stronghold and into the waiting fires of Catholic France. These Parfait or clerics of the Cathar religion were flowers of a culture centuries ahead of their Roman murderers in literacy, medicine, mathematics, and in what was later to be regarded as civil and human rights. They practiced pacifism, sexual equality, contraception, and vegetarianism; believed in re-incarnation to a degree, and marched nobly into inescapable martyrdom.

The massacre at Montsegur was part of the Albigensian Crusade, a vicious campaign waged by the armies of the Catholic Church upon the people and culture of the Languedoc in what is now southern France. The cities of Europe were emptied of those willing to slaughter in the name of the Bishop of Rome, for forgiveness of any sins and for whatever land they could seize. Montsegur tore the heart out of the Cathar nation, but the Crusade did not end until the fall of Quéribus in 1255.

Some of the surviving eleven knights and 1,500 men-at-arms, along with 500 or so civilians, were allowed to live after renouncing their faith, all properties and any future rights. But many, on the eve of the fall of the fortress of Montsegur, chose instead the Consolamentum, the ordination of the Parfait, and certain immolation.

Today we honour their sacrifice and dedication to the Truth, and their surrender to it.

Holy Father, rightful Lord of the faithful souls, Who never erred, Who never lied, Who always followed the rightful course, Who never doubted lest we should accept death in the world of the wrong god; as we do not belong to this world and this world is not ours - teach us what You know and love what You love."

St. Ratford's Definition of a Gnostic

"Catholic on the outside, Buddhist on the inside. Quotes a lot of dead Greek guys."

Mandaean Monday

"From the primeval couple Adam and Eve descend the Mandaeans; they comprise the ‘family of Life’ for their souls derive from the World of Light and ever since they have had to take up their residence in the ’darkness’ or bodily (earthly) world.

The redemption of Adam is held to be a prototype of redemption in general. This event stands at the center of the Mandaean concern. After the soul’s fall into the body of Adam, Manda dHaii – the ‘Knowledge of Life’ a personification of redemptive knowledge; gives the Ginza to Adam, revealing the ‘mysteries’ of cosmos to him. Adam is therefore assisted to knowledge and redemption. Redemption consists in the happy return of the soul to the World of Light, and every instruction has this object in view."

From A BRIEF NOTE ON THE MANDAEANS:
THEIR HISTORY, RELIGION AND MYTHOLOGY

Are Witches Gnostic? Part II

[The point of my orginal post was that many Wiccans are seeking a deeper theology and an integral connection to Western Spirituality that includes, for many of them, the Eucharist of their childhood. Gnostic Churches, in my opinion, should be receptive to the common ground between Wiccans and themselves via Wicca's ultimate origins in the French Gnostic Revival.]

As much as I would regret for this blog to become a debate on Wicca - I am not Wiccan and as I stated in my last post on the subject am not overfond of its aesthetic, which I tend to find superficial - I thought my response to a particularly spiteful comment on that post should be out here for all to see.

The comment in its entirety is here. The Cardinal's comments are in quotes.

"Here's the facts, kids. According to dictionary.com, a "religion" is a sincerely held set of beliefs, part of a tradition and a way of life. Wicca fails on all three counts."

dictionary.com says Wicca is a religion, specifically:

A polytheistic Neo-Pagan nature religion inspired by various pre-Christian western European beliefs

"Sincerely held beliefs: They aren't."

Wildly inaccurate. All the Wiccans I have ever met sincerely hold

to the Gaia hypothesis, that the earth is a living organism that acts as though it were intelligent,

that magic is demonstrable and practical, and

to the principle of animism, that everything is alive and has a soul.

These ideas are expressed through poetry, ritual and myth, while the expressions are held to be metaphoric and not literally true.

"Nobody of even average intelligence could possibly actually believe any of this to be literally true."

I would argue that nobody of average intelligence could possibly actually believe that the Virgin Mary was herself the result of a Virgin Birth, or in the infallibility of the Bishop of Rome. Augustine didn't. Aquinas didn't. And yet one billion people have to believe it, or they're out of the club.

"Therefore, by syllogism, the vast majority of so-called "Wiccans" are not sincere in what they claim to believe. This point is important, so it bears analysis."

It does warrant analysis, and in doing so it again proves false on two counts: the first, that the above tenets of Wicca are in fact sincerely held, and secondarily that you've confused the meal for the menu. The myth and rituals are not seen to be literally true, but that does not discount the beliefs which the rites are there to illustrate. An elementary school Christmas pageant is not meant to actually be the birth of Christ, it is meant to illustrate an aspect of the Christian myth.

Can we talk about Gnosticism for a second? The central rite of Traditional Gnosticism is the Eucharist, and we use the language of the Incarnation, and of transubstantiation as do Catholics. However, we are not naive enough to assume that popping a Host under a microscope will reveal it to be turned into tissue. There is belief, and there is literalism. The latter is fine for teaching six year olds in Sunday School, but it does not a cogent theology make (and some of your six year olds will be wanting something a little chewier)

"Not only are the beliefs of Wiccans ridiculous to the point of risibility, they're also provably fabricated and internally inconsistent."

We could argue that in your opinion the three points above are invalid, however one could be equally mean-spirited about a religion that has a patron saint of lost car keys, or that of the Witnesses who claim that the 144,000 tickets to heaven are all sold out. The Christian Gospels are inconsistent on numerous points, even to whether Jesus was hanged in a cage vs. erected on a pole, who his grandfather was, or his last words. One does not discount an entire religion based on inconsistency of doctrine.

"The entire religion of Wicca was created out of whole cloth in 1952 by a British Civil Servant called Gerald Gardner. [...]. And, furthermore, every half-educated Wiccan knows that this is the case."

Yes, that was covered in detail in the post had you bothered to read it - although your 1952 date must be dismissed as that's the publication date of HMA which was written at least a decade earlier.

"...the best the Brits could come up with was a Carry on Camping version of the Bacchanalia we all learn in third year Latin."

Okay you were being uncharitable and vindictive, but that was funny so I'll forgive you.

"A tradition: Put it this way. Nobody was brought up Wiccan. [...] there is nobody whose neopagan "beliefs" locate them in a long line of believers starting with their parents, and their parents' parents. Of course there isn't. Simply to pose the possibility is to see it as ridiculous."

I personally know a number of families where children entering their teens are Wiccan, of Wiccan parents, and Wiccan grandparents. I find it hardly ridiculous.

"People become Wiccans in order to offend their parents"

As I wrote in my post

A love of the sense of community, an honouring of the role of myth, imagination and play, a strong attraction to the role of the Divine Feminine...

"Which is why telling a Wiccan to stop wearing his severed rabbit head or his inverted pentagram is absolutely nothing like removing the cross from a Christian school or depriving a Jew of his Star of David."

Wiccans do not wear rabbits heads or inverted pentagrams, they wear upright pentagrams or the triquetra. I'm assuming you know this and are being obtuse, apologies of course if I'm mistaken. Legally, Wicca is a recognized religion by both the Canadian and American governments, with chaplains in hospitals, universities and military bases worldwide, and the census of both countries allow their citizens to identify as Wiccans. This is not the case, interestingly enough, for my religion, Gnosticism, although I'm not greatly concerned.

"...like the organised simper which goes in the West by the name of "Buddhism", is a religion which, unusually, makes no practical demands whatever on its adherents."

This shows your incredible ignorance of the rigorous mental, spiritual, and ethical discipline that Buddhism requires.

"Suited to the intellectually flabby, scruffy, lazy slacker teenagers who believe in it, Wicca is not a religion which gives a code by which to live one's life. It has no observances..."

Ad hominem arguments will get you nowhere on this blog, pal. Except the funny ones. And of course all the Wiccans I know keep monthly lunar observances in addition to their eight major holy days each year.

"That's not a religion. It's a pose. And, of course, and not coincidentally, an excuse to ensure that there's no black people invited to your fraternity parties because they're not "Celtic" enough. "

Curiously enough, one of the leading figures of the Victorian Wiccan community for more than 20 years is in fact of African heritage. To imply that racism, even veiled, is a part of Wicca is merely idiotic. And I didn't see a lot of Jews coming out of St. Andrew's yesterday morning, either.

Admittedly, "Teen Wicca" can be posey, pretentious and embarrassing. I should know, bearing the former title of Worst Offender. However it is really no more ridiculous, pretentious and embarrassing than say the Intervarcity Christian Fellowship, The Campus Crusade for Christ, or the Prayer Circle Breakfast at the Boise Chamber of Commerce. And if you think Wicca alone is guilty of the above charges, I have two words for you.

Christian. Rock.

A Mandaean Prayer

Diffuse Thy light over all who love Thy name of Truth (kusta). Thou hast spoken with Thy Word and hast commanded us with Thy commandment, "Over your words My Word hath precedence : and at the raising of your right hands towards Me. My right hand will be lifted towards you. Ye will call, and I will answer you quickly. Ye will seek My hand and I will not withhold it from your hands".

We will pray with Thee the 'uthras' prayer and ask of Thee, of Life, a petition for ourselves, for our friends, for our friends' friends and for those who love the great Family of Life, for the whole Nasiruta of Life, fulfilled and disseminated on earth. Thou wilt bring us some of Thy radiance, thou wilt lend us some of Thy light. We will enter into Thy radiance will go forth in Thy light, will rise in Thy name and be kept right by Thy nature . Truth is Thy name, Knowledge of Life is Thy name, precious is Thy name, magnified is Thy name, victorious is Thy name, victorious are the words of truth which issue from Thy mouth, and victorious are all Thy deeds .

And Life is victorious!

- From The Canonical Prayerbook of the Mandaeans

The Plight of Iraq's Mandeans: Worse Off Now Than Under Saddam

If you don't know much about the Mandaeans then I strongly urge you to learn more about our Brothers and Sisters in Gnosis. The majority of these 150,000 pre-Christian Johannite Gnostics live in Iraq under US occupation, and in Iran, with a significant Diaspora in Australia.

According to Occupation Watch

"The ongoing turmoil since the invasion of Iraq has exposed non-Muslim religious minorities to persecution that is worse than what they experienced during the regime of Saddam Hussein. They merit protection from the governments with armed forces in Iraq.

[...] The Mandaean religion resembles ancient Gnosticism in some respects: God did not create the world directly, but delegated its creation to deputies who made both a superior world of light and an inferior darker world in which humans live, it being impossible to create a world of light without also creating a world of darkness. Salvation is the successful transition to the world of light after death. Many early Christians were Gnostic, but such ideas were also condemned in the early Church as well, and by the time of the Emperor Constantine, Christian Gnosticism was quite marginal. It did not survive very long in the West. It is a testimony to the traditional tolerance of Islam that a Gnostic or quasi-Gnostic religion, in the form of Mandaeanism, was able to survive throughout the medieval Middle East and into modern times, although I do not mean to imply that it was always easy for it do so.

[...] In December 2003, a Mandaean was confronted in front of a group of people in Baghdad and told to convert to Islam. When he refused, he was killed on the spot."

And this from Mandaean Union -

The Mandaeans have lived in Iraq and Iran for thousands of years. They have tolerated all kinds of persecution and mistreatment and learned how to deal with them. However, what they are facing now is a real threat for their own existence. The UNHCR, the International Community, the Coalition Forces, and The Iraqi Governing Council must evaluate and conclude that the cumulative persecution of the Mandaean people as a whole is a serious matter and that support must be generated to ensure their very survival. It is recommended that the following be implemented:

During the formation of a new Iraq emphasis to stop to all religious persecution and social discrimination be enacted and a motion set into place where a protective shield will exist for the minorities in regards to social, legal, educational or political aspects.

• Full legal recognition and constitutional protection in the future Iraq .
  
• Full control of Mandaean internal religious affairs with no outside interference.
  
• Prohibit by law the conversion of any Mandaean to another religion without his consent. This law should cover minors until they reach 18 years.
  
• In a divorce case the custody of children as a result of an inter-religious marriage should be awarded to a parent based on financial, emotional, psychological needs rather than the custom of the child going to the Muslim parent regardless of the situation.
  
• Assistance in acquiring available financial aid needed for the various Mandaean Community establishments. In Iraq this aid is needed most urgently for education and basic human needs. There is also a need to ensure the continued existence of the Mandaean people as important sector of human culture and heritage.
  
• Full refugee status for all the Mandaeans refugees especially those in Australia , Indonesia and Yemen with fast and proper resettlement. For those Mandaeans who have lost all hopes to live in a free society, aid must be available for those who are forced to return to Iraq .
  
• Stop the deportation of any Mandaean from Australia to Iran . As they will face death or severe persecution if they are forced to go back.
  
• Assistance in securing finical and material aid for the Mandaean Communities in the Diaspora like USA , Canada , Europe and Australia to preserve their language, culture, heritage and religion, or this religion will be extinct in the next few years after surviving for more than three thousand years. Aid will also be need for refugees for education, second language skills, and social adjustments.
  
• The approval by law of the return of forced converted ‘Muslims’ back to their original religion of Mandaeism without fear of death or repatriation by the Muslim community.
  
• Prohibit the drafting of Mandaeans in the army as armed combatants. The carrying of weapons is in direct violation of Mandaean religious laws, which prohibit the killing of any human being or the carrying of guns.

More at Refugees International and mandaeans.org.

The Pagan Christ

"Not only did the early Christians take over almost completely the myths and teachings of their Egyptian masters, mediated in many cases by the Mystery Religions and by Judaism in its many forms, but they did everything in their power, through forgery and other fraud, book burning, character assassination, and murder itself, to destroy the crucial evidence of what had happened. In the process, the Christian story itself, which most likely began as a kind of spiritual drama, together with a 'sayings' source based on the Egyptian material, was turned into a form of history in which the Christ of the myth became a flesh-and-blood person identified with Jesus (Yeshua or Joshua) of Nazareth. The power of the millennia-old Christ mythos to transform the whole of humanity was all but destroyed in the literalist adulation of 'a presumptive Galilean paragon.' Centuries of darkness were to follow."

-The Pagan Christ

To my mind, Harpur has drawn a line in the sand with this book, and Christians - particularly Gnostic Christians - are going to have to decide on which side of the line they sit. Either Jesus Christ was a man who lived 2,000 years ago, suffered under Pontius Pilate and died, or he was not. Alternatively he was, rather is a Mythic Hero, a godman indistinguishable from the timeless and universal Truth of Wasir/Heru (Osiris/Horus), Dionysis, and Mithras.

One can, I suppose, choose a middle road - once upon a time there was possibly a Rabbi, maybe an Essene, who said a lot things quoted/misquoted in the Gospels and ran afoul of the authorities in some fashion - a hybrid historical personage onto whom later was grafted the ideals of Hellenized Jews in Egypt, inheriting cultural strata from numerous mythic sources. This is the Jesus Seminar route - Jesus was an historical person, the Gospels are more or less accurate, but the specific sayings which can be accurately attributed comprise only about 15 percent of what is generally accepted. But they still attempt to put a real, breathing man on the scene.

Fair enough; extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, you can't prove a negative, and absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. And there's a Jesus-shaped hole in the evidence.

The precedence of Wesir/Heru (the Light of the World, the Slain and Risen) is astonishing in the details of its parallel, and well documented in the mean-spirited-but-factually-bang-on Jesus Never Existed.

This is of course a terrifying prospect to Nicene Christians, but we Gnostics should have no such fear in moving forward. So what are we left with, in this Christ-unlimeted-by-Jesus-narrative scenario. We find ourselves well-prepared, for the answer is the Logos, the Bridegroom of Sophia, the Living Water, and the Light of Gnosis. We remain unburdened by the non-existence of a first-century Nazareth, or the evidential vacuum of real Bible personages. We're left with (most of) Paul, minus the third century forgeries of the Pastorals and Literalist redactors. And we're left with an Universal and personal truth.

I cannot say with any certain what Christians (Gnostic or otherwise) will do with this opportunity, but I can say what it has done for me.

I for one feel enormously liberated, having spent my spiritual life outside Christianity, to now find a spark of communion with those who see themselves as Christians. We are all part of one Tradition, six or eight or even twenty thousand years old, the Western Religion. The immediate and realized lessons of the annointed spark of Divinity within each of us is the birthright of humanity, not just a few blessed by history or geography. In short it has made real for me the one Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.

Invocation of Sophia

"Come, hidden Mother, come; come, you who are made manifest in your works, and give joy and rest to those who are bound to you. Come and partake in this Eucharist which we perform in your name, and the agape for which we have assembled at your invitation."

- Acts of Thomas