The Bible. Myth or Reality?

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I appreciate the thoroughness of your analysis. The way I see it is that our existence is really a lot like some kind of programmed video-game or a quantum-programmed quantum-game, therefore, all kinds of phenomenon can exist as a result. Certain things we do in this world might "unlock content" where we can go into more adventures & experiences. Electricity was something I was using only as a metaphor. I do not apply the ideas of good or evil unto any particular phenomenon, but rather, how it is used either brings forth comfort or causes suffering (e.g.: the use of electric to heat up a cozy home as opposed to electrocute someone).

Regarding the "God" vocabulary, well, attempting to put it into the simplest terms that I can, what "God" represents to me is simply a "Law" unto itself: For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction; what goes around comes around; you reap what you sow; everything that you cause others to experience you will also be made to experience; etc. This "Law/God" cannot be thwarted, although many seem to try, whether it be this idea that a swim in the Ganges Sea somehow "baptises" and cleanses out all spiritual-impurities (even though it is not physical-water that cleans the spirit-soul), whether it be the recitation of some mantra or other ritual-prayer five times a day that pardon's one's sins, whether it be the bowing down before some mortal who calls himself a priest & making some kind of profession/professing/confession/confessing, whether it be blowing yourself up into perceived enemies in order to end up in a paradise of 72 virgins, etc., they are all attempts at thwarting the "you must accept all responsibility for your own actions" Law.

The way I see it is that many people try to out-smart God, but instead, they un-knowingly make themselves an enemy out of God, and I know for a fact that God is the one enemy that you can never win against in any kind of eternal chess-game regarding that singular Law (the law that As You Do Unto Others Will Be Done Unto You). I do not regard anything to exist outside of the "frame-work" of God. I don't want to make this response too long but there are many details I should cover although I can clarify things over time as necessary if necessary. The one thing I do want to make clear is that there are mind-controlling forces at work, and as far as our "Book of Life Records" (i.e.: storage of activities within our bio-electro-magnetic-field) are concerned, all of us have our own bio-electro-magnetic-fields, similarly to how the earth has its own electro-magnetic-field. Magnetic-fields are capable of storing much information. A Compact-Disc is nothing more than a mere flat piece of plastic, yet it can store whole entire movies, even hours upon hours worth if in in compacted formats like MP4. Artificial-Intelligence, and self-learning A.I. is a phenomenon I would include, the "regulation-system" within this "material-existence" game is already in place as our activities are recorded in probably a much more hyper-quantum-computer manner.

I don't think we should get caught up in trying to wrestle with whether "God" would or could do this or that or not because, for all we know, the very "laws of physics" could change five seconds from now, not that we would necessarily know or recognise it even happening (consider how, when you are in a dream-state, you do not think of it as being any kind of unusual-experience, even if you could fly or teleport, etc., and you certainly aren't thinking to yourself: "OMG, what happened to my physical-body, the last thing I remember doing was going to sleep back at home in my house in my room, etc." Absolutely not, you don't have any recollection of your "earth-life" during said dream-sequence, but the "laws of physics" that you're working with are certainly different than the material-realm).

I don't know if you're familiar with Tom Campbell's work, the author of My Big TOE (Theory of Everything), NASA-Physicist, but much of how he has determined & analysed & postulated our reality & existence will have a lot of very similar parallels with my current views on our very existence & the god-concept. The important thing is to not fall into any kind of belief-trap of any rigid mental-construct (regardless of whether they are religious or scientific). Like I said, for all we know, the very so-called laws of so-called physics could even change five seconds from now, for all we know, and, like an altered dream-state, that could even be a change that we do not even recognise as happening.

Yeah, I do remember catching a few of his seminars on Youtube a few years ago; he seems to aim a pretty healthy endeavor at bringing physics on one hand and Robert Anton Wilson type observations together. I think the thing he'd agree on with many of the occult greats is that love is the goal of the universal classroom. It's part of why magic or mysticism can't be industrialized or weaponized - its too close to the universe's raw will to be manipulated in such a manner and even those who attempted to gain such power to use it in such ways come to understand quickly that they'd achieve nothing greater than destroying themselves in their endeavors.


Yeah, I'd think anything we'd try to use - even the world's best esoteric system - is woefully incomplete, it's symbols still very childlike compared against the actuality.

The key things I'm really interested in these days - alchemy insofar as regeneration of the personality (one of the things W.E. Butler often used to hammer on about) and balancing of the four elements or really in a way also trying to get my lower sephira properly balanced around Tiphareth. I've started using Bardon's Universal Master Key as a daily read (has 168 mini-chapters that are maybe a page each on average) and while he does say a few things here and there that seem culturally impossible today (like to tell your wife 'no - we're not doing that right now because I have magical work planned') I can tell there's a lot of value that he has to offer regarding the four elements even if he tends to lead into them simply by going on abstractly about various virtues.

Being a couple years into AMORC and BOTA (Builders of the Adytum) I'm enjoying both, albeit it feels like BOTA is closer to settling with my own observations and I still want to see what AMORC has to offer. Neither nor are particularly dogmatic, which is a big plus, and eventually I may very well want to get myself into a more magick-oriented type of lodge, perhaps not A.'.A.'. if I had to accept certain dogmatic tenets of Liber Al that don't make a lot of sense to me but something like Nick Farrell's MOAA seems like it would be an excellent adjunct. If I found a Martinist Elus Cohen order somewhere nearby all the better. A lot of the later is just long-term planning, places I'd love to be in fifteen or twenty years and I see myself at least having another decade or so with AMORC, BOTA, and likely TMO (Traditional Martinist Order) when I feel mor confident that the Kabbalistic systems won't grind each other down.

Got my fingers crossed on a lot of this but for a long time in my life my question has been "What is all of this and how do I get it as right as possible?" (meaning life). That and my early 20's psychedellic experiences pretty well have me poised to enjoy reality and consciousness-hacking for most of the remainder of my life should conditions remain fortuitous enough to allow such.

Mesopotamia and Canaan were seeped in worship of Baal-Hadad who you call El. So even though Zoroaster came along promoting this idea of one supreme deity near or in Persia, the Phoenicians were still heavily influenced by what might be considered Archons of sorts, Lords of This World who were believed to preside over the elements and fertility. Polytheism appeared before monotheism. Zoroaster might have came along before the Israelites' adopted the practice of worshiping one "spirit" entity they refused to give any form but was everywhere all the time and could influence events. I read in Wiki Zoroaster could have appeared as early as 6000 years BCE according to classical writers: Plutarch, Diogenes.
The Israelites have, historically, been good at resisting the religions of the polytheistic civilizations regardless whom they lived under. When the Romans moved into Judea roughly 2000 years ago with their love of Jupiter, Mars and Vesta, Christianity appeared but Judaism didn't disappear.



Zoroaster and some of these prophets from antiquity, especially those found in Judaism, do remind of yogis. I think of this inner reflection and meditation leading to a introspective state of existence where they can delve in and gather info, then tell everyone what it is they have learned. And you see this in Gnosticism too, which encourages people to find an enlightened state of mind in a dark world. The heart contains the fire, the spark. You see this in Catholicism and the image of Jesus with the burning heart. This image is Gnostic in origin. When your heart is on fire, you are a Gnostic. Many people do not realize this is what it means. They do not realize Mary could be considered a form of Sophia.



What we see in this fundamental, evangelical world might have originated with the itinerant preachers with very little imagination, clung the pages of the Bible for absolutely everything. Real Bible thumpers practically hitting people over the head with it, maybe they even did it at times, and in a society without electricity or modern day conveniences, perhaps it was easier to live in that way because people had to depend on each other rather than machines to do everything so you couldn't just abandon them like they do today. It wasn't so easy because it was impossible to catch the next plane out of town. When the railroad appeared and people came from the cities more and more, they were practically eaten alive by people without phones, radios or television. They were not dreaded as "homeless," "no good" or "vagrants" but instead treated as valuable conveyors of information worthy of a meal and a night's rest. Trust was established. Americans have lost this part of civilization which I think was very valuable to people's psyches. The traveler is no longer prized for being an invaluable source of information, rather, an annoying drain on resources that must be stamped out. The ability to care for one another and hospitality has been replaced by alienation and hostility.


This reminds me, there are Gnostics in Syria, and their mystical devotion to light has been around for quite a while. I certainly hope they will not be persecuted by ISIS or ISIL. I was looking for the link I found once but had no luck .
I enjoy it because this is a really old tradition in parts of Syria so I consider it more telling of what Gnostics might have been like. Anytime I see Golden Dawn or Illuminati I am reminded of Gnosticism but some of these organizations might be influenced by modernism and perhaps even Scientology.

Well I finally found what I was looking for - Manichaeism! They still practice today in Syria.

Truthfully I don't know what the 'Illuminati' is when people use that word in modern terms. You may have certain groups of political synarchs (people who reckon themselves modern day druids playing keep-away with knowledge) but it doesn't fit the original Bavarian thing. The Bavarian Illuminati was a very devout order espousing moral evolution and purification of society despite a lot of the conjecture otherwise.

As far st Golden Dawn vs. Scientology you need to sort out the chronology on that. The Golden Dawn first formed in the 1880's, founded by W Wynn Wescott and the 'cypher manuscripts' that he supposedly received from a lady in Germany who was either a Rosicrucian initiate herself or who's husband or father was who she'd inherited the documents from. They used this manuscript to build a grade/progress system based on the ten sephira of the Tree of Life (ie. 1 = 10 or Zelator was for Malkuth, 2 = 9 or Theoricus for Yesod, on up to the Portal grade where one was supposed to balance and rehash everything from Malkuth up to Netzach (Philosophus) so that they had their elemental balance before crossing the first threshold or abyss on the path of Samech (25th intelligence of the Sephir Yetzirah - that of probation) before moving on to 5 = 6, adeptus minor, and performing their ritual for 'Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel.

Aleister Crowley was an early break away from that; he and George Cecil Jones partnered up to work together, GCJ initiated Crowley most of the way, Crowley then had his apparent revelation in Cairo during 1904. That was the beginning of the Thelemic movement as defined by caliphate OTO and A.'.A.'. (it might not have been an original concept at that point, I just mean in reference to Crowley's specific teachings).

Where Scientology came from: in the 1930's you had a gentleman named Jack Whitesides Parsons who was momentarily head of California OTO, also Temple of Set, he was a very well-known jet-propulsion and rocket scientist and supposedly was, if not THE founder, one of the founders of NASA-JPL. He was very big into what people call the '93 current' or Crowley diaspora ideas, took them a few steps further in his own direction, and one of his close roommates was a guy named L Ron Hubbard. I believe it was in the 1940's when Jack Parsons did an eleven day sex magic ritual to find his 'fire elemental' - which when he came back a very psychic red-head by the name of Marjorie Cameron showed up at his doorstep who later became his wife. Parsons, after Crowley calling himself 'The Beast', declared himself the Antichrist and declared Majorie the Scarlet Woman. They attempted to create what was deemed a Moon Child based on some kind of extensive ritual Crowley had designed to make sure a child was born strictly under lunar astrological influence even to the point of being too angular potentially to have a human soul.

All of that L Ron Hubbard was there for and after he left he did his own thing, Scientology, which strangely has very little resemblance to Thelema except for that it decided to have grade systems, decided to have its own version of Raja Yoga (ie. thought control) and went super-extensive on the later, but to the point where you get the kind of problems that Jenna Hill Misgavich was talking about.

Freemasonry seems like it was the hatching point for the Golden Dawn (as it was earlier in the late 18th century and later revival in the 19th century the hatching and revival point for Martinism), Crowley's breaking away from the Golden Dawn had him later taking over most of Ordo Templi Orientis, founding his A.'.A.'., some people know this and some don't but modern Wicc as founded by Gerald Gardner was a product of his grabbing up the OTO system and applying it the way he wanted to (the anti-masonic conspiracy videos that claim Freemasonry is satanic because wicca has the same thing - that's because wicca was founded on a replica basis off of a replica of Freemasonry). I believe Temple of Set was it's own sort of further dark-side evolution of the 93 diaspora, Set being the Egyptian 'ha satan' archetype, and of course off of Jack Parsons and his occult knowledge - rather indirectly - sprang L Ron Hubbard. How Golden Dawn and Thelema hardly grew much at all but Scientology captured so many people with a homemade science-fiction basis and not a shred of historical anything - I have no idea aside from that far more people are into Elizabeth Clair Prophet and David Icke's work than they are anything standardly on the western mystery tradition front.

Scary thing is I'd guess fewer than 20% of Scientologists or pop-new agers have any idea who Manly P Hall was or have any notions of what Secret Teachings of All Ages was about. I'm pretty sure most Scientologists, if they'd read that, would have known immediately that the system was a joke and to stay as far away from it as they could.

Where Scientology came from: in the 1930's you had a gentleman named Jack Whitesides Parsons who was momentarily head of California OTO, also Temple of Set, he was a very well-known jet-propulsion and rocket scientist and supposedly was, if not THE founder, one of the founders of NASA-JPL. He was very big into what people call the '93 current' or Crowley diaspora ideas, took them a few steps further in his own direction, and one of his close roommates was a guy named L Ron Hubbard. I believe it was in the 1940's when Jack Parsons did an eleven day sex magic ritual to find his 'fire elemental' - which when he came back a very psychic red-head by the name of Marjorie Cameron showed up at his doorstep who later became his wife. Parsons, after Crowley calling himself 'The Beast', declared himself the Antichrist and declared Majorie the Scarlet Woman. They attempted to create what was deemed a Moon Child based on some kind of extensive ritual Crowley had designed to make sure a child was born strictly under lunar astrological influence even to the point of being too angular potentially to have a human soul.

All of that L Ron Hubbard was there for and after he left he did his own thing, Scientology, which strangely has very little resemblance to Thelema except for that it decided to have grade systems, decided to have its own version of Raja Yoga (ie. thought control) and went super-extensive on the later, but to the point where you get the kind of problems that Jenna Hill Misgavich was talking about.

Freemasonry seems like it was the hatching point for the Golden Dawn (as it was earlier in the late 18th century and later revival in the 19th century the hatching and revival point for Martinism), Crowley's breaking away from the Golden Dawn had him later taking over most of Ordo Templi Orientis, founding his A.'.A.'., some people know this and some don't but modern Wicc as founded by Gerald Gardner was a product of his grabbing up the OTO system and applying it the way he wanted to (the anti-masonic conspiracy videos that claim Freemasonry is satanic because wicca has the same thing - that's because wicca was founded on a replica basis off of a replica of Freemasonry). I believe Temple of Set was it's own sort of further dark-side evolution of the 93 diaspora, Set being the Egyptian 'ha satan' archetype, and of course off of Jack Parsons and his occult knowledge - rather indirectly - sprang L Ron Hubbard. How Golden Dawn and Thelema hardly grew much at all but Scientology captured so many people with a homemade science-fiction basis and not a shred of historical anything - I have no idea aside from that far more people are into Elizabeth Clair Prophet and David Icke's work than they are anything standardly on the western mystery tradition front.

Scary thing is I'd guess fewer than 20% of Scientologists or pop-new agers have any idea who Manly P Hall was or have any notions of what Secret Teachings of All Ages was about. I'm pretty sure most Scientologists, if they'd read that, would have known immediately that the system was a joke and to stay as far away from it as they could.[/quote]

I have always been a bit leery of Crowley though I do like his tarot work and have a copy of his Thoth deck. I like his tarot and interest in the past but not a huge fan of the phenomena known as Magick. I don't like spells particularly, either, not just Crowley's but anyone's. I dislike the idea of following a recipe which a lot of it is just idiosyncratic, in hopes of acquiring a particular result. To me it seems pointless. This is where Crowley loses me. It's just too pretentious and seems like hype. Another thing I am suspicious of is his childhood and he seemed to be caught up in rebelling against these overly strict, puritanical parents. At least this is how he appears at times but I don't write him off completely. Just mostly. When people obsess on him like he's the best thing that ever existed I just kinda think overrated and, oh another person that is completely obsessed with this guy. I cannot get into being fascinated by him on that deep a level and he does kinda seem like a prototype for L. Ron Hubbard. Just a little. I get that vibe from L. Ron.

It seems like L Ron attempted to lasso people who might vaguely get Crowley but yearned for something a bit more modern. Just an impression I get and I have read Anton Lavey compare Scientology to Satanism.


You made some of these points in your post, which is very detailed. I haven't read too much about Scientology or Crowley, just basic stuff and not too often, just every now and then. I just haven't had the in depth interest needed to study either Crowley or Scientology. L. Ron Hubbard seemed a bit too fantastical for me to take seriously. He tried too hard to blend sci fi with religion but you never know. His ideas about aliens influence on mankind blend well with modern gnostic sects belief in reptilian overlords known as Archon's covert influence on humanity's past and future. I like exploring these ideas. I have never been nervous about exploration even though some are quick to exclaim it's stupid or impossible. I still like thinking about such scenarios. I tend to get a bit mystical about a sci fi story of mine but have no desire to start a movement that draws in other people and requires them to join my organization and give me monetary dues. To me, it's just a personal meditation.

These large Citadels kinda spook me, like the Institute of Basic Life Principles. I saw a picture of one high rise that looks like a Citadel or something Wouldn't want a family member or myself to get lost in something like that! I am very much against these types of approaches to problems, where a giant high rise is thought of as a way to treat life's difficulties. They just throw someone in them and forget about them until they reappear "fixed." It kinda reminds me of something Scientologists would own and endorse and I do remember seeing similar buildings owned by Scientologists in the media to treat psychiatric problems. I saw a copy of one of the papers the I B L P uses as a counseling guideline and it is just confusing. Just a bunch of jargon and that is supposed to heal someone. It's supposedly Bible based, completely so.

You'd have to help me regarding this 'archon' business.

What I know is that most of the old religions have major deities that break down into the seven archetypes which typicaly emalgamate as the Seven Elohim. We still have the days of the week named after them - Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, and Saturn; interestingly enough when you compare that to the Ptolemaic order arranged in the circle it traces an obligue heptagram - skips every second and third planet.

The Phoenician gods, the Egyptian gods, the Greek and Roman Gods, the Nordic Gods, all the polytheistic systems were really on the same god-archetypes and ended up there somewhat by natural process. I'd think it would be a stretch to consider the seven Elohim 'archons', just that both in the astrological planets and zodiac - as applied to the ancient forerunner of Jungian psychology - these governed both positive and negative traits aligned with each planet or each sign of the zodiac; which is why I really prefer the concept of Qliphoth - which simply means that each sphere has a light side, ie. the Tree of Life, and a dark side, Qliphoth, which is less a deliberate evil so much as meaningless application of the principles which leads to pain.



Part of the Jewish answer to polytheism came out of Alexandria and neoplatonist thought - ie. the Kabbalah. What the Kaballah does, particularly with the Tree of Life, is tells people that you can have one God with ten aspects, and that you can take any pagan polytheistic system and plug each of their major archetypal deities - their dark cosmic mother or grim reaper, their thundering sky-god, their god of war and sex drive, their dying/sacrificed god, their goddess of love and beauty, their god of linguistics, philosophy, magick, wisdom, etc., their lunar goddess, and their goddess of grain, harvest and fertility - and plug them all into different aspects of one deity. Demeter? Ceres? That's Adoni Ha Aretz. Selene and Hecate? Shadai El Chai. Hermes, Thoth, Mercury? That's Yahweh Elohim. Venus/Aphrodite? That's Yahweh Sabaoth. That goes all the way up the tree from Venus to the Solar Sphere of the dying god archetype to the Martial sphere of the warring God archetype, to the father god archetype of Jupiter, crosses the abyss to the dark supernal mother archetype (great example being Kali in the Hindu system, Chronos in the Greek system, the Thelemites made something of a western Kali Shakti from Babalon of Revelations 17, people also like to throw Isis in as supernal mother) - this Saturn.

So partly they were able to look at polytheists as just confused monotheists, and that's something that guys like Pythagoras and Plato would have largely agreed with them on. It's part of why they weren't all that tempted to jump off into that (plus the Old Testament is filled with strong admonitions against polytheism that suggest that the Father God of Jupiter would come down on them with furious anger if they did practice polytheism).

As far as I can tell Christianity was a further external neoplatonizing of Judaism, particularly by way of John and Paul. It also reincorporated the dying god mythos and intended to purify it - really the suggest seems to be that Jesus had full consciousness of the inner workings of the One True Self (of all people anywhere) in that system, YHVH Tetragrammaton, and when he spoke as the 'true vine' he spoke for the collective Higher Self or perhaps the Archetypal Man of which all humanity were branches, it's part of how Paul spoke of us as being members of the 'body of Christ'.


Mary and Sophia are also both archetypes of the Great Lady of 10,000 names - Isis. Reading Proverbs back when I was still stuck in the fundamentalist Christian rut really blew my mind open, particularly Proverbs 8, as I could tell the Wisdom of Solomon was none other than the White Isis of Nature - Unveiled as HP Blavatski would like to put it.

One thing your saying here that's angular though is 'in a dark world'. That's where Manichean and Christian Gnostic traditions take up the exoteric confusion of the far east in believing that matter is evil, that it's 'maya', or that it's a trap in the western case set up by beings referred to as archons under a Yaldaboth that they consider the YHVH of the OT to be. The Hermetic diaspora of thought really goes in a completely different direction - ie. that it's all of God, that the earth and the creation of the physical plane are God's crown fruit of achievement, and that the longer we're here the longer our evolution will bring it into being a paradise. As Rev. Ann Davies of BOTA liked to often say we're like undeveloped limbs, most of the evil and dischord in our actions is a matter of spiritual primacy, similar to how a baby can't feed itself and usually ends up wearing half of the food it was meant to eat. Reincarnation is the bettering of the earth, our technologies and building of computers, cars, and other technology are in another way enriching and evolving the mineral kingdoms (the atoms of which retain a memory of all the things they've done and eventually through enlightenment evolve to plant life, then animal, then man). It's not that this is hell or an archon-created trap, more like it's currently a messy place, run by very young and out-of-focus beings, and that over the course of hundreds and thousands of reincarnations it will continue toward being more and more the paradise that it was created to be - particularly as people's spiritual faculties evolve and the delusion and fog of separateness such as individual identity starts to lift and people start to realize that we're all one God, all each other, and hence Love God with all of your heart mind and soul and love your neighbor as God has loved you, as Jesus was noted for saying was very much 'treat your other selves the way you'd want to be treated' because there's nothing you'll ever see, meet, or find in this world that isn't you.

The recipes as far as I understand them are just ways to organize your own will and add power to your intentions, under the assumption that we're in a panentheistic monist universe, that all is thought, and that we have the ability to have a small effect on externals or how they come together - really influencing it at the level most people would call 'luck'.

Probably the most useful way of utilizing it, in my opinion, is learning cosmic laws and trying to ask the quesion 'What's the best thing I can do with my efforts to edify the reason I was put here?'. To take the occult track is to fast-track your own evolution by speeding up the learning curve considerably. To me ceremonial magic and banishings/invokings are just prayer in motion, it's putting forms in the subconsicous that are profoundly helpful in getting a grip on internal (meaning big collective-internal) dynamics and also being able to catch yourself when your veering off course and knowing how to field your own reactions to things so you ride on top of the waves of life rather than getting sucked in and thrown around by them.

The 78 cards/archetypes of the tarot are also for that purpose - ie. identifying situations in realtime, understanding their archetypal connections, and having a quick database of answers and a way to understand how things fit together.

I'd agree with you that approaching this stuff like The Secret and saying "Woooeeyy!! Party!! ! I can get anything I want!! !!" is a bit myopic. Moreso than that you get a lot of sorrows because so much of what people want - whether it's stuff, whether it's a dream-lover, it comes with big obligations and the very reasons they don't have those things is that they aren't ready for those obligations - hence they find out the hard way when whatever they asked for shows up.

That's part of why I like the old, if not somewhat staunch Masonic outlook, that this - mysticism and magick - are things used for the primary goal of regenerating the personality, learning how to have what it takes to live more and more like a saint, and to truly shed a light on the world by perfecting your own being.

That for me at least is where magick has its integrity. One book you might find interesting along those lines is WE Butler's Lords of Light. It's a book written on a series of his 1978 lectures which centers on metaphysics and ceremonial magic but specifically has a very morals-heavy tone. Hermetic morality has a lot in common with sort of a wise-old-Catholic disposition, and not ironically it's blown me away - particularly since really getting into this stuff - just how much of Roman Catholicism truly is Hermetic Qabalah. W.E. Butler in fact was a priest in what was called the Liberal Catholic Church (Catholicism meets Theosophy) as well as being a renowned ceremonial magician. If you read people like Papus, Dion Fortune, Gareth Knight, even Paul Foster Case to some extent you get a very similar sense that this stuff - ie. magick - is primarily a vehicle for building personal and spiritual integrity rather than just 'grabbing stuff'.

TechStep,

Gnostic teaching is more dualistic and even crosses over into negating the physical world nearly completely, as in, very little interaction with it, complete abstinence from sex, choosing to not procreate, eating very little (John ate locusts and honey, lived like a wild man.) It's much like a traditional Nazirite life. It's not about this world evolving into a better one...it's about the Plemora (realm of light) being a place we cannot access because we are creatures born of the Aeon Sophia's Demiurge Creation. It is completely at odds with Westernism which encourages everyone to consume as much as possible, living completely in the material world, even if it means going into financial debt, becoming morbidly obese, suffering the ravages of various forms of addiction, which is the lifestyles followers of the Overlords or Archons, what some call Satanists, promote.

I am not an extreme Gnostic, like the Nazirites, more a moderate. I do not engage in materialism as much as some but I do not completely abstain, living on locusts and honey, either.

We each have a small spark or flame of the Plemora within us since our world (and therefore ourselves) was created by Sophia's offspring, the Demiurgent One and our salvation would be, once our material form ceases, the spark returns to this Plemora of light which you could interpret as a heavenly, celestial realm that we cannot fully understand in our present state.

There are also other parts of the divine realm among us such as Aeon Bythos which imparts profundity, besides Sophia and Christos. Several different forms of Gnostic thought exist and modern individuals will work out a Gnosis that makes sense to them. Not all Gnostics subscribe to the same liturgy and most do not even believe in one. Liturgical thought is reserved for Catholics.
I cannot reconcile matter with spirit so I separate them and the reason I do this is based on conditions we face on earth, physical death of the corporeal body being the main one. Sickness and death are regarded as evil by modern mankind even though a few here and there say they are okay with dying, for the most part, it is not desired.

In the Realm of Light there simply isn't such a thing as death. The concept doesn't exist. So it becomes a place of liberation, salvation, enlightenment.

I don't see the material world changing any time soon. In other words, life will exist for a while, then cease, violence is a fact of life, conditions are harsh, we must eat other living things to survive, physical bodies can experience pain and sickness, so I see it always existing as imperfect. It is impossible for it to be otherwise. You could say it is inherently evil and there is no escaping it HOWEVER thanks to the Plemora, Sophia and other Aeons from the Realm of Light, we can access states of mind that help us manage the evil without making it worse. It's this idea of the divine spark. Some consider the Holy Spirit to be an Aeon as well. Christos energy will ease our suffering in the Demiurge's world. Christos will enable us to heal more effectively and avoid so much unnecessary heartache through adherence to compassion, kindness and grace. We will try to understand the motives of fellow living beings in hope it will ease our discomfort or hatred of them. Christos is like the FEMA of the Plemora and here the energy appears whenever anyone is in need and seeks it.

The Archons are simply the overlords, various pagan gods, one example would be Ba'al. He is not the Demiurge itself, merely an overlord. Some people refer to Ba'al as Satan. Notice in the Bible's O.T. you have a man by the name of Job and he's a nice guy who tries to do what he thinks is the right thing, to promote an environment conducive to the growth of his family and yet the Demiurge and his Archon have this conversation about how they will hurt Job in order to "test" him? This is an example of how the world we live in functions. You can be as "good" as you know how and yet evil will enter your life and that of those you love, even though you try your best. Eventually, it works out for Job but we know, in real life, it doesn't always work out. We say, "it's when evil happens to good people," we have all seen it.

Well, how do you deal with what is an injustice? As a human, we can contemplate such abstract ideas as this, and you could say it is due to our ability to access gnosis and the spark within us. We develop an awareness that is unique. We are able to figure out ways to deal effectively with conditions of the Demiurgent World, so long as we have the right knowledge to guide us. If we do not have it, we perish.

You can take what I am typing and apply it to the mind and psychology, forget about the spiritual component completely. It's not just limited to metaphysics and mysticism. Gnosticism is very flexible. It doesn't have to be metaphysical. You can be an atheist and still apply it to your way of thinking. It's knowledge-based understanding of the world and how to maneuver through it.

I'd fully agree with your definitions of it, and also add that I'm not a Gnostic - rather the thoughts I was expressing regarding my own beliefs are fundamentally Hermetic in their philosophic orientation. The two, Gnostcism and Hermeticism, are worlds apart on the issues of dualism, incarnate existence, and matter.

Especially when our friend does not understand what he is talking about.

He says that matter is not good yet Gnostic Christian Jesus says it is.

He says he is a Gnostic Christian but looks without instead of within.

Jesus said, "If those who attract you say, 'See, the Kingdom is
in the sky,' then the birds of the sky will precede you. If they
say to you, 'It is under the earth,' then the fish of the sea will
precede you. Rather, the Kingdom of God is inside of you, and it is
outside of you. [Those who] become acquainted with [themselves]
will find it; [and when you] become acquainted with yourselves, [you
will understand that] it is you who are the sons of the living
Father. But if you will not know yourselves, you dwell in poverty
and it is you who are that poverty."

----------------------------

The modern Gnostic Christian view on evil matter is that matter is not evil. It is evolving perfection.

We never really believed matter was evil but unfortunately the language of that day used the term evil. Gnostic Christians could not believe matter was evil because we believe that we have a spark of God within our bodies, (matter), and the kingdom of God is both within us and around us as Jesus taught.

Luke 17:21 Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you and around you.

Gnostic Christians of that day were into duality of matter and non-matter. As above so below.

Above would have been seen as perfect while here below, at that time, Gnostic Christians did not see perfection. It was thus said that it was good above and evil below.

Modern Gnostic thinking has evolved somewhat and we now say that matter is evolving perfection. Many think this quote was not written seriously but to a Gnostic Christian it will be understandable as a truth.

Candide.
"It is demonstrable that things cannot be otherwise than as they are; for as all things have been created for some end, they must necessarily be created for the best end.”

This means that we all live in the best of all possible world and that is why modern Gnostic Christians call what we have around us, evolving perfection.

Be you a believer or not, the notion that things cannot be other than what they are and are, evolving perfection is irrefutable even though it is a fairly hard concept to grasp. This does not mean that we cannot improve as we each evolve further.

Regards
DL

Probably a bit of both...I mean for one it was initially a collection of various ancient scrolls/documents that where eventually put together into the singular bible, so it wasn't even written as one book and had various authors so it would not make sense for it to be 100% consistent. I imagine some things in it are just stories, other things might be historical accounts written from the perspective of the writer of that segment....also it should be taken into account the ancient mindset it is quite possible things that happened and do have a more 'scientific' explanation where described without that kind of language. For instance say a group of ancients saw a modern day plane flying through just hypothetically....are they going to say 'one day a large plane flew over' or are they going to say' a large bird like creature that spits fire and makes a large roar as it passes by without flapping its wings' or something to that effect? and perhaps think God sent it as some kind of omen or something. I mean keep in mind when european settlers came to the american continents the natives did not see/perceive the ships until they where essentially up on the beach they initially just noticed more ripples in the water because they had no concept of a large ship on the ocean let alone the white men that came off of them. Though Columbus was an a** and enslaved people and killed them off all simultaneously...at least the Vikings when they discovered the northern hemisphere of america left the natives too it mostly after finding they met their match in battle. Anyways back to the bible.

So a collection of myths, human accounts of events(which of course consider how they may have perceived things in ancient times and general human error of reporting events 100% accurately), also some could be hallucinations at the time things like psychosis may not have been understood and depending on if people got any toxins/molds or other weird things in their foods that could have caused psychotic like states, delirium so there is that potential factor in some of the stories as well.

And to go way out of the box what if.....aliens, lol. There are a few accounts that seem to describe large and strange things in the sky which if those ones aren't myths, hallucinations or misunderstandings of weather phenomenons and what not perhaps extra-terrestrial space crafts cannot be ruled out. Then again why would anyone from another planet really care so much about the goings on, on this one or even bother to stop here. Or someone figured out time travel lol.


I have tried reading the bible literally and it really makes no sense that way...the numerous translations its undergone also don't help the flow/smoothness of the writing, very choppy...hard to follow and lots and lots of lists of names I mean good god how many Abrahams are there.

So could someone who would refuse help out of a dire situation or medication/treatment for a potentially deadly condition on account of it being gods will or based upon faith god will save them if he means to be considered a literalist?

Like the joke/story of the drowning man who turns down three ships that pass by and offer to toss out a rope for him to climb aboard...because god will save him. Then he dies, asks god...why he let him drown since he's been such a faithful christian and god says 'well I sent you three ships'. I feel that is a good example of being blinded by faith.

Well put. Thanks.

Do you see it as portraying a moral God or one who is not s moral?

Regards
DL

No argument for sure.

Lets thank secular law for ending J. W. deaths from lack of a blood transfusion.

I understand that these days, some but few deaths are cause due to that kind of abuse and neglect.

Regards
DL

All gnostics claim they have the correct knowledge (gnosis). Yet, here they are arguing amongst themselves what this knowledge even is?
So the gnostics don't have the knowledge (gnosis).
Ironic, isn't it.