We underwent our first communally complete Easter these past weeks at the

Capella Santa Sophia in Oslo. It is difficult to explain what were going on – although we were together, we were each on our own journeys – perhaps a mirror of what might have occured to the disciples when Jesus disappeared, some would say – died. The exterior, visible focus of attention – the beloved,adored or appreciated person whose presence assured and affirmed the community, where just lifted out of it with a quick and precise thrust.

Instead of the anticipated multi-purpouse answer, instead of the assurance and affirmation of expectation – a deep question, an unease, a restlessness – replaces it. Now, I have a suspicion the adherents of mainstream of western religiousity much prefers it otherwise – notice how important Christmas is, the advent of the child – who has promise, who is glory and hope and belongs to the future. Despite all the talk about being “Born again”, they get enthused about Christmas but only obliquely nostalgic over the bloody and cataclysmic time of Good Friday. I am quite grateful I now have been able to enter into another chamber, a lower, subterreneous chamber – of the mystery which is Easter – where things really happen. A time out of time. A space out of space.

Strangely, immersed in the oppressive darkness and silence of the tomb – it was the heartbeat of the womb I heard; and the two became superimposed.

What happens when we after a very long struggle to maintain our grasp on things, when all manner of prestige,encouragement and pressure can no longer assist or fuel our pursuit to that end.. when we loose?

The answer is what makes anyone victorious – Grace, Mercy, Beneficence, Love.

“And it happened that day, when John had come up to the temple, that a Pharisee named Arimanius approached him and said to him, “Where is your master whom you followed?” And John replied, saying : “He has gone to the place from which he came.” The Pharisee said to him, “With deception did this Nazarene deceive you (pl.), and he filled your ears with lies, and closed your hearts (and) turned you from the traditions of your fathers.”

When John heard these things he turned away from the temple, and went to a desert place. And he was greatly troubled in his heart, saying, “How then was the savior appointed, and why was he sent into the world by his Father, and who is his Father who sent him, and of what sort is that aeon to which we shall go? For what did he mean when he said to us, ‘This aeon to which you will go is of the type of the imperishable aeon, but he did not teach us concerning the latter, of what sort it is.” A paraphrase of the beginning of the Apocryphon of John.

I feel these questions lay at the root of the Christian Mystery tradition, and addresses the things which Jesus promised his disciples to speak of “plain and without parables” – in effect the instruction which easter day would bring to the candidates for Initiation (baptism) in the primitive Church.

Amazing as it might seem, I just haven`t the patience or time to participate in the kind of discussion the Gnostic Heresy forum offered. Im not even sure I would recommend it to anyone. Throughout my 9 years on the Internet I have been interested in discussions on the theme of Gnosticism, Gnosis, Hermeticism, the Western Mystery tradition, Esotericism, the Hermetica, Kabbalah and so forth. Still my fondest memories where with Lee Irwin`s bark Hermetica, David Fideler`s Alexandria journal readers forum and Dean Edwards original Gnosis list which spawned the Gnosis Archive in its day (edited by Thomas Leavitt at that time, consisting of faq`s, tidbits, extracts from scriptures, news and rumours)..now it is the homepage for the Gnostic Society, Ecclesia Gnostica and home for the Gnostic Virtual Library which I began working on independently in 1994.

I also have fond memories from my time in the Rosicrucian Free-Speech Forum , to which I was invited, despite of the fact I am not a Rosicrucian nor aspire to become one.

But alas, I think I will let that particular list “Gnostic Heresy” go past..

Conformists Die, but Heretics Live on Forever!

So says the blurb on Jan Valentin Saether and Hanne Ofteland

handtomouth.

I have always had serious issues with the naming of certain schools

of thoughts as Heresy because the usage of the term has been inflated

by its historical use of it by especially the Roman Catholic Church as license and excuse to persecute,purge,imprisoned and burn fellow human beings.

Moderns who have been fortunate to only suffer the intolerance and banter of what now has become a fringe movement of self-proclaimed conservatives and orthodoxists, tend to adopt the term as uncritically to denote the novelty and progressive nature of specifically their attitude and other peccadilloes of a more intellectual kind.

“The word heresy derives from the Greek hairein, “to make a choice” (good or bad) hence hairesis, an “opinion”.

“A heretic was a dissenter formally condemned by an accepted ecclesiastical authority. At least that was the theory. In practice, the term heretic was often flung to discredit one`s enemies; in the Middle Ages a number of popes,bishops,monks,theologians, and laypeople were called heretics in loose and virtually meaningless vituperation.”

(J.B.Russell: Dissent and Order in the early Middle Ages. New York, 1992).

With special reference to the Middle Ages, R.I.Moore in The origins of European Dissent (1985) writes:

“Heresy was defined by the medieval church as an “opinion based on human perception, founded on the scriptures, contrary to the teaching of the church, publically avowed and obstinately defended”

and “Orthodox Christians, and orthodox historians, have always assumed and frequently asserted that heresy is unnatural, and therefore requires not only correction but explanation”.

Which is ironic out of the consideration of the doctrine that the Kingdom, the subject and axis of the reorientation of Christians of any age – is not of this world, which is to say – it is in and of itself in any manifestation (short of counterfeits and forgeries, such as the arrogation of the Roman Catholic Church that its institution of Men and Man-Made structures _is_ the Fullness of Time described in the New Testament.) per definition unnatural. The other irony relates to the “contrary to the teaching of the Church”, unless our blinders have grown so wide we have no sight, we must acknowledge that it has changed to the extent that yesterdays orthodox becomes todays heretic.

The modern Gnostic Church tradition cultivates a culture of heterodoxy – which is to say, it recognizes the need for each individual to develop and seek towards truth, understanding and Gnosis – according to own inherent and acquired experiences, perspectives and references; and the tolerance of such contending views, seeing that it has to do with the fullness and multiplicity of minds and hearts whose contents thankfully and gloriously are different from eachother.

Where each voice is unique and there might be as many songs sung on the great pilgrimage as there are voices, for each assuredly has its time and season.

When Paul uses (as the first Christian writer using it) the term it signifies contending subgroups within the Christian community, one place he opines that “it is necessary that there should be haereses among you”, this has been read to signify that such contentions are necessary so that it might produce the right doctrine, but it can as easily be read to mean that it is necessary that there be disagreement so that there will develop integrity,confidence and sincerity among grown-up and mature adherents. An incident is instructive, Paul encounters a certain Apollos in Corinth, upon being informed about the substance and nature of Apollos teaching, especially as it pertained to observing the commandments and customs of the Jews, whose diaspora community Apollos specifically ministered to – he found it right to inform Apollos that there existed in the Christian tradition more than one baptism, to wit, there were the “watery baptism” of John the Baptizer, dubbed “forerunner to Christ”, and the baptism of the imposition of hands which the Apostles after the departure of Christ practiced. Apollos represented an earlier generation, an earlier tradition – possibly connected to the 70 witnesses Jesus sent into the different Jewish populations to preach “the Gospel” (which were about the coming times, the nature of the kingdom “not of this world” – rather than the dramatic story of Jesus crucifixion and resurrection which still was to come) – a direct convert from among the followers of John the Baptizer. As such, Apollos, for obvious reasons were not informed of these new institutions nor their intended meaning among other Christians. Paul and Apollos could battle it out with a great braveur, and excommunicate eachother and their followers to their hearts content – but they didnt. Paul tries to explain by saying that the intention of the community were not that they should follow one or another current instructor, and say “I belong to the party of x (Paul)” or “I belong to the party of y (Apollos)” – but rather that they should be one – which is neither x nor y, but z. Still Paul is largely read as a polemist, a schismatic, a founder of sects – and the strongest testimony of the authenticity of any Christian sect you can think of.

What spurred me to write this much were the gracious invitation of yours truely to the Gnostic Heresy discussion forum on yahoogroups. Although I have had many experiences with such forums to be too optimistic about such, I have still chosen to join. Hope it will be worth my while there. Although I am not so sure about the wisdom of “admitting heresy” on account of the fact that the Middle Ages have come back to stay, and in the past, such frivolty were punishable with seven kinds of death.

A little sniblet – the first person to be put on trial for heresy and executed were a Bishop. His name were Priscillian of Avila. Around 389ce he and 5 of his priests were found guilty of “heresy,sorcery and conspiracy against the Holy Roman Emperor” and first boiled alive, to be decapitated and lastly burnt – with his head put up as a warning to the rest of the population. Which is to say, the Roman Catholic Church did not battle sects or deviants, but its own faithful with the institution of the Inquisition (which also were founded around the time of Eusebius and the Nicene Council, so whereas the big beast grew terrible and expert at its task – the Inquisition existed 900 years prior to the big bonfires in the Middle Ages)…