I fear this text needs a preface. Some explanation.

I have spoken of the voluntary voyage in contrast to the natural course. The Magnum Opus is ever thus; it is necessary to become conscious while being in the world – to understand the difference. It is the Opus contra Natura. I mean, comprehend the distinction between the natural birth and a new birth. What is a new birth? Do we insist upon it as a cultural event, a rite of passage, to another aspect of the same life? If we do, we find ourselves very far from the fire. Necessarely each and every single one of you who pursue the path of Christ, are abnormal and unnatural. Each moment of conscious participation in the mysteries produce a transgression against formal religion. Not such transgressions you would profess to your Priest. Not such perturbations of conscience you would lecture upon to your Analyst.

Past generations of seekers, past generations of Gnostics knew this.

So some of them gathered in the desert. The desert is not a natural place for people to dwell. It is a place you pass through.

I believe that the desert is a perfect image for the situation each single Christian Gnostic finds himself or herself to be in – when I say this, I intend with the desert to indicate that there is an intense thirst, an intense stubborn intention in us – to seek water, to seek shelter, to seek a way out of this desert. It is also my belief that this situation were precisely what the disciples of Christ found themselves in first when Jesus died and disappeared, and then again when he ascended adn they were left to their own devices.

This is the precise moment the interior voice and the lightning flashes of vision occur in all the Gnostic accounts, that which were put down in writing so that future generations might read them.

It is my understanding that while there were indeed precursors, revealers and messengers before Christ, this moment where only the interior witness, alive in the disciples – a seed growing inside of them – is the beginning of the Christian Gnosis.

The eve of Pentecost is the archetypal shewbread, the Eucharist commemorated. Wherein all the events from the personal encounter with Jesus, which for each individual disciple were different, unique – to the unique suffering of sorrow,disorientation and perplexity which each of them went through differently – and were comforted differently, which we find examples of in many of the Acts of the Apostles we find in the Apocryphal literature. It is told that Jesus did not baptize his disciples, in the New Testament. The Gnostic testimonies, such as The Pistis Sophia and the Books of Ieou, contradicts this testimony. But when they contradict this testimony, we must remember that the Christ which indeed baptizes his disciples has, through this death, this resurrection and the triumphant ascension, through fulfilling both the descent of the Holy Spirit, the manifestation of the Comforter, the paraclete – and the interior witness in each of the disciples – has become a different Christ than the one which were promised by the prophets, who took the confidence and the hope of his disciples to himself and transformed it, and who was born one night to a woman named Mary and who had a father called Joseph, who was a carpenter. Yes, it was indeed a different Christ and a different baptism. Indeed, it was different disciples entirely.

The reason for this is quite simple – that which indeed happened, the true event, has not taken place in the world we knew, the world we were fed like milk by the generations that went before, to some of us it has not taken place, yet. To the majority of humankind it is not a past event, it is not history, ancient or recent – it is a universal non-event.

As such, the criticism that it is entirely unhistorical cannot be deflected. It is an unspeakable atrocity, a foolishness to the Greeks and an anathema to the Hebrews.

Friends, I am trying to speak of how the Gnosis is different. How the events of the journey of Yeshuah and the disciples is differently received by Gnostics. How we may profess with the Orthodox the same things, with good conscience, with the words we speak signifying a different, esoteric, unspoken meaning. This is not deceit. We know that some are able to partake of the same meal which we prepare. We know that some will hear the precise intention in our words, to see the sincerity in our actions; without being cued or having a lot of arcane boulderdash being explained to them. This is how we can participate in the same communion. And we do not need to insist upon a spectacular outward form for that which is internally unique and received. A Church Catholic is universal, it is not our flesh and our blood, it is neither martyrs or prophets, it is neither clergy nor laity, it is neither male nor female, it has no sexual orientation at all, it answers to no etnicity, culture or race. God is untranslateable to any known language, therefore we break this word that we may live.

Upon Pentecost, further still we go.

The journey goes onward.To the cross of dissolution, upon which Christ crucified this world.Whose mystery is expressed in the words “inasmuch as you have dissolved the world, and are not dissolved yourselves, you are lords over all generation and corruption.”
(Fragments of Valentinus)

Facing West. The mystery of Good Friday greets us with ashes, a rain of blood and a raging wind. A total eclipse of the sun of biological life. A recognition of finitude which penetrate our flesh and takes habitation in the marrow of our bones.

Facing East. Easter Sunday. Here in distance between the men and the women, whose measure of passion is so unequal we speak of one as if she were borne up from a great depth in glory, while another sinks where he stands – the same play of light and dark occur before their eyes.
They receive each a measure according to the capacity he or she has to see beyond the vision of fleshly eyes and the intellect of the Psyche.

To the new birth, in baptism you have seen it coming towards you.

And having seen it, you took courage and entered the tomb with him.

You entered the place below the crypt, and you submitted unconditionally to this death, all the clothes you have received from the robbers on your way down to this place, and you have entered into the place of the resurrection so that you yourselves might be clothed in His glory.

Now it has become a living being which stands up and whose eyes

now has visions of the real, whose ears at every occasion it speaks it, and whose mouth is consecrated to song and to testimony.

You go to light and life in Him, He is in you, and You are in Him.

Heaven or Earth might see this countenance; upon seeing it, the entirety professes; It is You.

This one professes that before he was entirely an orphan.

No Father knew he. No Mother knew he. And he knew neither Father or Mother. You speak so proud of the generations before. But look into this night, this desolate place – where are your glorious past?

The heartbeat that insists upon it, is your own. They swear upon the end of the world. Since it will never come. But it has already happened.

Fear not, rather, do not be shy.

This is the glorious Cross. This is the continued life and breath of the Holy Spirit.

This Thursday we commemorate the triumphant ascension of The Christ. Wherein he left history and the boundaries of time behind.
Wherein he also allowed his beloved upon the earth to move in and through the promised kingdom while incarnate and in the throes of darkness, pain and under the shadow of death.

Wherein he offered up his part on hehalf of his disciples so they may receive the Holy Comforter, through which they will live and have their being, like he had life and being through them.

The Logos is prior to the world. The Logos remain unassailed by all the powers which exist, in matter and in the mind. The Logos remain the Truth and Glory of the unvanquished race of Man. A Living Presence, ever immanent, ever descending, ever ascending in and through Mankind. The Logos is the marrow of the bones, the iron in the blood – air in the breath – of Man. The Logos is the true friend of all men and women who are born into this world overshaddowed by a malicious enemy, of both God and man.Anathema upon the Counterfeit Spirit who build myriad temples to his vain glory.
Where the man threads air, travails the invisible ladder beyond all horizons – the Spirit remains the crowned King of all those who live and breathe, all those who glory in the glory of First Primal Man, the design and the essence of the human race, far superior to the races of angels and spirits – since the Logos deigned to enter into them and reveal unto the All that which it had promised from the beginning, whose purpouse,intent and compassionate will the Unknown

Father had for Him.

The First Book of Ieou (from the Bruce Codex)

The apostles said to him: ” Speak to us, O Lord, that we may hear thee. We have followed thee with our whole hearts. We have left behind father and mother, we have left behind vineyards and fields, we have left behind goods and the greatness of kings, and we have followed thee, so that thou shouldst teach us to know the life of thy father who has sent thee”

The living Jesus answered and said : “The life of my Father is this : that you receive your soul from the race of understanding mind, and that it ceases to be earthly and becomes understanding through that which I say to you in the course of my discourse, so that you fulfil it and are saved from the archon of this aeon and his persecutions, to which there is no end.

But you, my disciples, hasten to receive my word with certaintiy so that you know it, in order that the archon of this aeon may not fight with you – this one who did not find any commandment of his in me – so that you also, my apostles, fulfil my word in relation to me, and I myself make you free, and you become whole through a freedom in which there is no blemish. As the Spirit of the Comforter (Parakleiton) is whole, so will you also be whole, through the freedom of the spirit of the Holy Comforter.”

In the same scripture – is given us:

“These mysteries that I shall give you, guard them, do not give them to any man unless worthy of them; do not give them to father or mother, to brother or sister or relative. Guard them; do not give them to anyone at all for the sake of the goods of the whole world. Do not speak to anyone of these mysteries of the Treasury of the Light, save to those who shall be worthy of them, having left the whole world and all its affairs, being in no faith other than the Faith of the Light, listening to one another and treating one another as Sons of the Light.”

Would only we be able to discern correctly between our interest in the world and our interest in the Pleroma. That we treat eachother according to righteousness, justice and always within the jurisdiction of true love. That our walk in life be undisturbed by the archons, interior as well as exterior, out of the body as well as incarnate. That each fragile man and woman be guarded perfectly from the lure and the oppressive violence of the servants of the rulers of this world. That our eyes see exactly that which is spiritually there and not be charmed by the father of lies.

The occasion of this rather involved post is that again it has come to my knowledge a tremendous abuse of the word and that which is associated with, namely, the simple word “Gnostic” – this word was so guarded, so potentionally harmful on account of the flagrant arrogance which it might produce in the hearts of those using it on themselves, as individuals or members of a community or a sect, that those which history has called “Gnostics” never used the Greek term “Gnostikos” on themselves. The possessors of Nasirutha, the Mandaean or ancient Aramaic corollary to the term “Gnosis” or “Gnostic wisdom”, remained anonymous to every profane individual, even members of the same religion and people.

The reason is to be found in the way Gnosis is received. It is neither collective nor properly a social commodity, it is not to be regarded as produced out of intellect, nor fidelity, nor moral or physical perfection. It is not a product of conditoned evolution.

It has no quality which is comparable to anything of the quality of this present world, nor the heavens between it and the Treasury of Light. It is truely miraculous, undiscernable, unproven and vulnerable to all and every kind of mockery. It is neither rational in this potency or another unknown potency, yet it possesses characteristics which weds it to the spiritual centre of man wherever and whenever it is received. It is wholly accountable to Grace. Nothing else has jurisdiction over it, nothing else speaks of it, nothing else facilitates it. Submission to the interior will of God, which is revealed when each and every one of us have emptied ourselves of the prejudices which cause violence to be done upon the Sacred in our lives, in our hearts and in our intellects – is the only step forwards to it. Such a step, as I have said before, is a step away from all that we associate with the world, including our profane personalities. Consider these personalities valuable, consider them stories on the story tree, consider them episodes in the most enigmatic of soap operas..if you will. But observe how fast they are all drained in the face of the most sublime of mysteries, how little we thirst after any particular detail which they have to offer us, how little we long to unify ourselves to them.. we have left the devil behind, and we are unlike dogs, again we become sober and when we have become sober we do not allow ourselves to return to that which we have vomited up.

Jeremy at Fantastic Planet reports on a recent episode which has reached the courts in Washington State, USA (Seattle?). A certain individual had organized a type of self-help centre for people with ambitions towards supermanhood, towards becoming “gods”, towards awakening from a meek semi-religious, confused post-modern condition of spiritual inertia towards all the undreamed of potentionalities of the grand “New Age”. It is reported he predated upon those with whom he had gained confidence, without regards for themselves, he meddled with reference to “sexual energies” which needed neutralization. Indeed, he thought it was his “perfect” self that should provide such neutralization. Apart from being absolute “flapdoodle”, which I should hope people are intelligent enough to steer away from – but one thing is this philosophy exposed for what it is, another is whatever is packaged by charisma and rhetoric by this perpetrator.

It matters little that I or Jeremy or any other so-called “neo-gnostics” testify that we are apalled and confused by the use this person made of the term “Gnostic”, for those hurt by this gentleman, whatever is “Gnostic” will be associated with the transgressions he wrought against them for his own satisfaction. Would we not agree that this activity is harmful, that it can even be said to be diabolic?

I admit the Gnosis turns the world upside down. If you turn something upside down, details you have ignored will become visible. You know already the whole picture from the convenient and usual angle, turned upside down we recognize there are things we have missed. Some of these are significant. If you admonish someone to turn around and reorient themselves, without taking care to admit first hand that it is a solitary and perhaps exhaustingly lonely journey back towards a wholeness which resemble that which you live – you are actually doing violence to their souls. They will damage themselves, failsafe. If you ask someone to become empty, without knowing the nature of their “fullness”, you are in fact asking them just to lower their defences. Psychological defenses, although obstacles in the whole and complete journey towards ourselves, are of vital importance and should always be respect, albeit paid compassionate attention by all friends, all family, all fellow seekers.. all “guides” and hierophants. We are not fully aware all the time. I repeat this, we are not fully aware, we would like to be, it is a neat and precious ideal, it sounds quite good to be like that. Bigtime supermen and superwomen who can zoom though life completely independent from all the hangups and mechanisms of fear which govern the life of the majority of mankind. In the hands of certain individuals, the wisdom of Assagioli – who cared about his fellow human beings and were deeply emphatic to their suffering, equally Jung and other researchers in the conscious and unconscious of mankind – become weapons of extortion. In the care of certain individuals, the Good News of the Gospels become poison. From the mouths of certain individuals, words like freedom bear barbs and fangs.

I am acutely reminded of the event of the Ascension leaving the disciples in a confused and disturbed agitation over what will become of them now that their master has left them. Yes, indeed, Jesus arose never to return bodily into history. All pretenders have been proven false prophets, by the wear and tear of the ages, so I dare say this. But in the place of this presence, so ambigious because some of the disciples indeed developed an impression of him as someone he was not (see my post On the Capacity of Visionary Participation)

– came our Holy Comforter, came our Hope of Glory, came the challenge of all the false witnesses, who assembled like a great storm and threatened to tear us apart – came the mild and ever loving Holy Spirit in whom we have, in each in our lives, already encountered. That was the time when Gnosis was introduced into the world with a strength I dare say the generations before had not felt, as the witness in the Letter to the Hebrews professed – before you have received voices intoning messages from a distance, now the Gnosis has taken a body and walked among you, and when that body ascended to the Kingdom it had promised you, it took a dwelling in you and with you – just as God had vacated the Temple destroyed by the Persians, and taken up a dwelling among His people.

From Henry Corbin: Divine Epiphany and Spiritual Birth in Ismailian Gnosis.
A paper reproduced in Papers from the Eranos Yearbook Vol.XXX: Man and Transformation. ed. Joseph Campbell.

A summary from the Acts of Peter with commentaries by Henry Corbin.

pp.69

Before a gathering of people the apostle Peter refers to the scene of the Transfiguration that he witnessed on Mount Tabor. And essentially all he can say is this: Talem eum Vidi qualem Capere potui (“I saw him in such a form as I was able to take in.”).

…In this gathering there are several widows, afflicted at once with physical blindness and a incredulity of heart. The apostle speaks to them in a tone of urgency:
“Perceive in your mind that which ye see not with your eyes.”

The assemblage begins to pray, and hereupon the hall is filled with a resplendent light; it does not resemble the light of day, but is an ineffable, invisible light such as no man can describe.

And this radiant “invisible light” shines into the eyes of these women, who alone are standing in the midst of the prostrate assemblage.

Afterward, when they are asked what they have seen, some have seen an old man, still others a little child who lightly touched their eyes and made them open. Each one has seen in a different form, appropriate to the capacity of her being; each one may say: Talem eum Vidi qualem Capere potui.

pp70

In the Acts of John in the narrative of the calling of the apostles, when John and his brother James return in their boat on the sea, both of them behold on the shore a being who beckons to them. But their visions differ; one has seen a child, the other a pleasant and comely man of noble bearing. Perhaps we shall find the key to these visions, the basis of their reality and their variations in a few striking pages of the same Acts of John.

On the evening of Good Friday the Angel Christos, while the multitude below in Jerusalem, imagines that it is crucifying him, causes the apostle John to go up the Mount of Olives and into the grotto illuminated by his presence and there the angel reveals to John the mystery of the “Cross of Light.” This cross is called sometimes Word, sometimes Mind, sometimes Jesus and sometimes Christ, sometimes Door, sometimes Way, sometimes Son, Father, Spirit, sometimes Life, and sometimes Truth. It separates the things on high that are (TdB:or that which is established in the height), from the things below that become (the things of birth and of death), and at the same time, being one, stream forth into all things. “This is not the cross of wood which thou wilt see when thou goest down hence: neither am I he that is on the cross, whom now thou seest not, but only hearest his voice. I was reckoned to be that which I am not, not being what I was unto many others… Thou hearest that I suffered, yet I did not suffer; that I suffered not, yet I did suffer.. and in a word, what they say of me, that befell me not. But what they say not, that I did suffer.”

This brief quotation from the sublime discourse will suffice for our purpouses. This mystery of the Cross of Light, which was one of the favorite themes of Manichaean piety (tdB: Which makes explicit reference to the Jesus Patibilis – Jesus hanging upon every tree: that the Divine does not shrink from suffering with and in Being, but participate in it as much and to the degree Being participates in the Light and Life of the Pleroma.), recurs explicitly in Shiite Ismailian Gnosis. The texts we have just cited from the so-called “apocryphal” scriptures (like many others from the same source) give us the right tonality and may serve here as a prelude. If we reflect on the scene recorded in the Acts of Peter, we shall come to conclusions that will serve us as premises.

We are dealing with visions, theophanic visions. There is actual perception of an object, of a concrete persopn: the figure and the features are sharply defined; this person presents all “appearances” of a sensuous objct, and yet it is not given to the perception of the sense organs. This perception is essentially an event of the soul, taking place in the soul and for the soul. As such its reality is essentially individuated for and with each soul; what the soul really sees, it is in each case alone in seeing. The field of its vision, its horizon, is in every case defined by the capacity, the dimension of its own being: Talem eum Vidi qualem Capere potui.

The community of vision will be established not by reference to an external object, an evidence uniformly and fully given to all, but by reason of a dimension of being that is common to this or that group or family of souls. This adequation of vision to the dimension and capacity of the soul in which it takes place is the foundation fo what we may call the metamorphoses of theophanic visions. We find a distinct formulation of these metamorphoses in Origen, where, speaking precisely of the Transfiguration, he declares that the Saviour existed not only in two forms – the one in which he was commonly seenm the other in which he was transfigured – but that in addition “he appeared to each one according as each man was worthy” (sed etiam unicuique apparebat secundum quod fuerat dignus – Origen, Commentaria in Matthaeum). This statement is in keeping with the conceptio of the metamorphoses of the Logos, no doubt derived from Philo and frequent in the works of Origen, according to which the Saviour appears to men as a man and to the angels as an angel. It fits in with the vision of the steps of the Temple, in which the Saviour is, by reason of his humanity,the first and the lowest step and, by reason of his angelic nature, the uppermost step dominating all the others, so that all the steps are the Saviour.