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.