What is a Gnostic? - Read it in their own words

Folks, after receiving a rather vituperative comment on the brief summary comparison on the previous post, The Teachings of Jesus according to the Catholics and to the Gnostics Compared, I decided to research the matter a bit. The results are equivalent to say "I've discovered America." Duh.

The Gnostics are not hiding. They operate in the open daylight. Their beliefs are public and open for inspection.

They have a church (The Ecclessia Gnostica), a catechism, a lectionary, and a liturgy "which resembles the Mass of the Roman Catholic communion," which they declare to be "the supreme transformational rite of Christian Alchemy." Their church is presided by a scholarly gentleman, the Rt. Rev. Stephan A. Hoeller, who is also their bishop and I would say, the main force behind the restoration of Gnosticism within a liturgical structure resembling that of the Catholic Church, as well as of their principal historical narrative.

Bishop Hoeller is also the author of the first critical study of Carl Jung'sRed Book, "The Gnostic Jung and the Seven Sermons to the Dead." They are pretty laudatory of Jung as well as of many other likely-minded authors, such as Elaine Pagels. You can all check it out here.

But, what is a Gnostic? Bishop Hoeller answers this question himself in his essay of the same name, What is a Gnostic?:

To understand Gnosticism, said Hans Jonas, one needs something very much like a musical ear. Such a Gnostic "musical ear" is not come by easily. One person who seemingly possesses it is Professor Clark Emery of the University of Miami. In a small work on William Blake, Emery summarizes twelve points on which Gnostics tended to agree. Nowhere in the current literature have I found anything else so concise and accurate in describing the normative characteristics of the Gnostic mythos. Hence I shall present it here as a suggested collection of criteria that one might apply in determining what Gnosticism is. The following characteristics may be considered normative for all Gnostic teachers and groups in the era of classical Gnosticism; thus one who adheres to some or all of them today might properly be called a Gnostic:

•The Gnostics posited an original spiritual unity that came to be split into a plurality.

•As a result of the precosmic division the universe was created. This was done by a leader possessing inferior spiritual powers and who often resembled the Old Testament Jehovah.

•A female emanation of God was involved in the cosmic creation (albeit in a much more positive role than the leader).

•In the cosmos, space and time have a malevolent character and may be personified as demonic beings separating man from God.

•For man, the universe is a vast prison. He is enslaved both by the physical laws of nature and by such moral laws as the Mosaic code.

•Mankind may be personified as Adam, who lies in the deep sleep of ignorance, his powers of spiritual self-awareness stupefied by materiality.

•Within each natural man is an "inner man," a fallen spark of the divine substance. Since this exists in each man, we have the possibility of awakening from our stupefaction.

•What effects the awakening is not obedience, faith, or good works, but knowledge.

•Before the awakening, men undergo troubled dreams.

•Man does not attain the knowledge that awakens him from these dreams by cognition but through revelatory experience, and this knowledge is not information but a modification of the sensate being.

•The awakening (i.e., the salvation) of any individual is a cosmic event.

•Since the effort is to restore the wholeness and unity of the Godhead, active rebellion against the moral law of the Old Testament is enjoined upon every man.

Like I've said, they are completely "in the open" thanks to our blessed 1st Amendment rights. In their own words again:

Today in the United States we no longer need to disguise our Gnostic interests and dedications by locking them behind sealed portals or lodges and temples. Happily we have no need to guard our teachings and practices with passwords and handshakes. Our church is open to all those who wish to avail themselves of our sacramental ministrations, and our teaching ministry offers its instruction to all who wish to receive it. Safeguards and stratagems that were advisable in the 18th Century need no longer form a part of our Gnostic procedures today.

In other words, they consider themselves heirs and users of Freemasonic tradition.

I don't want to slide into the world of paranoid conspiracy. That's not the aim of this blog, which is simplify to testify to the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and how to live it with simplicity and purity of heart. I will say this, though: I see nothing in the above lists of defining Gnostic beliefs contradicting what I wrote in the comparison table published The Teachings of Jesus according to the Catholics and to the Gnostics Compared.

How do you face the resurgent Gnosticism? By prayer, fasting, and loving one another as Jesus, True God and True Man, taught us to do.

- Greetings, Gnostics from the Palm Tree