If you haven’t catched my series on the Fravartis in Mazdean Gnosis and its relation to the Gnostics’ Path, I have now added a sub-category for the series.

The substance matter for the series is the erudite meditation on the theme which goes throughout most of Henry Corbin‘s Spiritual Body, Celestial Earth. The latter of course a heartfully recommended work on the continuity of Gnostic themes from pre-historic Zoroaster, through Suhravardi‘s Oriental Theosophy of Light to more recent developements of Ismailism. I have considered beginning a series of meditations on the theme of the Imago Templi as found in Imago Templi in Confrontation with the Profane, found in the excellent “final” anthology of Henry Corbin’s last papers Temple and Contemplation, but will probably settle for a review of the theme of Inner Man,the Man of Light in Gnostic, Christian Esoteric and Sufi perspective – with Henry Corbin’s Man of Light in Iranian Sufism as one of the primary sources.

pp.33, Henry Corbin:The Man of Light in Iranian Sufism.

“In Mandaean gnosis, every being in the physical universe has its counterpart in the heavenly Earth of Mshunia Kushta, inhabitated by the descendent of a mystical Adam and Eve (Adam Kasia, Eva Kasia). Every being has his archetypical Figure (mabda) there, and the latter communicates with its earthly counterpart. After the exitus at death, the earthly person abandons his body and takes on the subtle body of his heavenly alter ego, while the latter, rising to a higher plane, assumes a body of pure light. When the human soul has completed its cycle of purifications and when the realm of Abathur Muzunia bear witness to its perfect purity, it enters the world of light and is reunited with its eternal partner.

“I go towards my likeness/ And my likeness goes toward me/He embraces me and holds me close/ As if I had come out of Prison”.

Nasiruddin Tusi speaking of what becomes of the faithful adept after he has ascended above the Limit:

“His thought becomes an Angel proceeding from the archetypal world,

his speech becomes a spirit proceeding from this Angel,

his action becomes a body proceeding from this spirit.”

The Gnostics discovered a new axis, a new pole of orientation – embedded, against all reasoning, in the substantiality of manifest being. This new centre of being is the central mystery of existence. Approached by human beings, it becomes a human being – but it is wholly Divine and not delimited to human form. Some call her the Anima Mundi, others the Hochma, others again Shekinah – the Gnostics called her Sophia and said of Her;”She is the mother of all the Angels”.

We too, look towards the Assumptio Sophiae, the ascent of Sophia into Her own. We do so, because we participate in Her life, as surely as She participates in ours.

Our unknown friend Ouroboros has got his blog back onto the blogsphere, welcome back. I look forward to following the discussions and postings in the future.

On my rambling trip on the Internet I discovered this pearl of a resource anthology for Bogomilism:

The controversy over the ancient dualist heresy remains with us.

Recently, a thread among otherwise rational Political Analysts has been to label George W.Bush’s ideological platform Manichaean; an incredible insult to the thoroughly pacifist and harmless Manichaeans – but also an misnomer, since the Manichaean dualism, religious dualism – that is, is not Cartesian Mind-Body dualism, but a spiritual dualism; which presupposes a genesis out of two original sources; these two sources, in the ontological view of the religions we speak of – cannot possibly be Spirit and Matter, but rather two Spiritual powers (even more controversial to post-Augustinian Orthodoxy) which, on the “horizontal” plane of existence – necessarely are equally represented and equally vital to the reality as perceived by the religionists themselves; as such one is only measured against the other by the medium of Man (the observer), and as Man is neither Good or Evil at default (another controversy), because he is born into unconsciousness.

The Manichaeans and other Dualists have really been sold cheap, even by wellmeaning scholars and rather tendencial “supporters” after Voltaire and onwards.. but not as bad as the Bogomil Church.

They got everything hurled against them, every scathing remark, every sarcasm, every evil-minded rumour..and of course, nobody understood them.

Scott Rassbach from Wisconsin has created a new blog named The Eight Sermon to the Dead. A nice alliteration, since gnostically speaking Eight might actually be even more potent a number than the traditionally accepted sacred number seven. Scott is involved with the Apostolic Johannite Church, which is presided over by Primate Shaun McGann, and of which my old internet sparring partner Jordan Stratford is an ordained priest.

We’ve got no way of knowing what goes on in eachothers communions, unless, of course – we keep eachother informed. The Gnostic Blogosphere is excellent for that type of “silent communication”, especially regarding Eccleasiastical Gnosticism, a term I am vary of – not only because of the traditional connotations to the exterior organizational structures with which most readers of this blog is probably quite familiar with; practically, the degree of involvement and investment is of a somewhat different color in a modern day Gnostic “revivalist” setting, but also because of the unsettled status of the modern term Gnosticism.

I have just added Mike’s Archelaus and Sir Gnosis’ Daily Pursuit of Gnosis Livejournals to the blogroll, as well as the Gnostic Study forum over at LJ. It looks like younger bloggers use the LJ community. I thought I should keep oriented, and perhaps get refreshingly inspired by some of the discussions over there.

Just as my ordination to the Diakonate coincided with the commemoration of the death of Maistre Philippe,Nizier Anthelme Phillipe, 2 August 1905, I thought I should share a quote from his ouevre which Phillip Garver contributed to the Eglise Gnostique list earlier:

“(Man) must descend and become nothing, and when he is nothing, he will be everything, and will obtain all Knowledge.”

This directs our attention towards the necessity of emptying which is central to all the disciplines of the Christian Gnosis, and which is sadly neglected in our day and age.

The Theosophers from Jacob Boehme and onwards, spoke much of the Heart, and much is made out of that which they said of the Heart, but almost everything that is made out of what they spoke about the Heart concentrates on a property of emotional attachments, while the Heart is envisioned, by our visionaries – as a fixed point around which all subject to change, Natura herself, revolves, as if in a dervish dance. Another name for the same is Signature, it is attached to a matrix, an original contextuality, which is none other than the Divine Consciousness, from which the Psyche emerges and draws its essence, and to which it hopes to return, and whose life, if we allow it, is a continual response to.

We are brought up to fear the nothing, whether envisioned as death or as loss – we are conditioned to avoid, to plan and create strategies, to avoid overmuch intimacy with that nothing, and therefore much theology, even much philosophy and metaphysics (albeit recent in type) revolves around increasing and expanding the metaphysical All.

Jesus, in the Secret Book of James, says ” “Verily I say unto you, no one will ever enter the kingdom of heaven at my bidding, but (only) because you yourselves are full.” Whereupon he calls forward James and Peter, insisting that he would “fill them“. He says to these two disciples, ” Do you not, then, desire to be filled? And your heart is drunken; do you not, then, desire to be sober? Therefore, be ashamed! Henceforth, waking or sleeping, remember that you have seen the Son of Man, and spoken with him in person, and listened to him in person…. ‘Become full, and leave no space within you empty, for he who is coming can mock you.”

To which Peter protests, “Three times you have told us, ‘Become full’; but we are full.”

To which Jesus replies, sternly:”For this cause I have said to you, ‘Become full,’ that you may not be in want. They who are in want, however, will not be saved. For it is good to be full, and bad to be in want. Hence, just as it is good that you be in want and, conversely, bad that you be full, so he who is full is in want, and he who is in want does not become full as he who is in want becomes full, and he who has been filled, in turn attains due perfection. Therefore, you must be in want while it is possible to fill you, and be full while it is possible for you to be in want, so that you may be able to fill yourselves the more. Hence, Become full of the Spirit, but be in want of reason, for reason the soul; in turn, it is (of the nature of) soul.”

Those who thirsted imagined themselves to be sated, those who were most wounded, imagined themselves healthy. Arrogantly they refused the physicians cure, on account of reckoning him to be an inferior fellow, despite their deficiencies and unsatisifed needs.The relationship between Jesus and the scribes once he had arrived in Jerusalem is famous, it was not on good tone – since they would not only resist help, but deny others who wanted it to receive it. If they heard a truth coming from lips they did not revere themselves, they would rather lie and make it something unheard, than allow others to weigh it and judge it for themselves. Such was also the situation between Maitre Philippe and his contemporary world, so it was with the Gnostics before him, and such is the situation for us.

But ours is not a contest and argument against those who would prefer not to hear us, those who refuse to receive us and those who would even persecute us – but a continued ordeal against our own still imperfect relationship with these gifts and these virtues, and the Gnosis which embraces them and make them, in and through us, whole.

Praise be unto the Unknown Father, who has not been mocked, who has not been rejected and who has not been a stumblingblock to His people – Praise be unto the Eternally Mercyful, whose wrath transforms into a purifying fire which settles like any storm, and leave the seed planted in good earth to grow into full bloom, as a tree covering the whole world with its branches. Praise be the Mystery which cannot be fabricated. The Truth whose price is itself. Greater still than the Universe, only the ear would hear it and the eyes distinguish its features – for giving us such guiding lights and allowing this brilliance to shine to the generations after, as a signpost towards that place where only Thou Art. Amen