Gnosis Through the Ages

Gnosis

Throughout the ages, the Gnostics have been hunted and persecuted for claiming to be able to directly experience the Divine. This has set Gnosis apart not only from many religions, which place an emphasis on belief and worship, but also from other studies and sciences. The word 'Gnosis' originates from ancient Greek and means 'knowledge'. However, the knowledge it refers to is not that which comes from years of studying books, from degrees, from being an expert in a given field, or from reading widely – but rather, from a direct experience of the truth. The Gnostics have always professed an ability to go to the very sources of wisdom through spiritual practice.

The quest for Gnosis existed in the ancient esoteric schools of Egypt, Greece, and India, in the mystical civilizations of the Aztecs and Incas, among the Buddhists, Zen monks, and Sufis, each with their own legends, symbols, artworks, architecture, and sciences like astronomy and medicine - all containing an amazing wealth of spiritual knowledge. However, historically the Gnostics are most commonly referred to as a group of people who emerged around the time of Christ. According to the second century doctrine of Valentius, Gnosis appeared a century before Christ among the Hellenistic Jews in Syria-Palestine and Alexandrian Egypt. Others believe that elements of Gnosis began to appear in the spiritual community of the Essenes, who lived in the region of the Dead Sea shortly before the time of Christ, and who are renowned for 'The Dead Sea Scrolls'. Jesus and the apostles taught and practiced the Gnostic teachings, although most people until now believed that their teachings were primarily Christian (according to the traditional understanding of Christianity).

It was only through the ground-breaking discovery of some ancient texts in Egypt - known today as The Nag Hammadi Library - that new light has been shed on who Jesus really was, what he really taught, and who the Gnostics actually were. These texts are Gnostic in their content and are thought to have been written around 50-100 A.D. They contain sayings of Jesus never seen before, which shatter many of the ideas previously held about him.

In one particularly famous quote he says, “Now, since it has been said that you are my twin and true companion, examine yourself, and learn who you are, in what way you exist, and how you will come to be. Since you are called my brother, it is not fitting that you be ignorant of yourself.” He then continues, “For he who has not known himself has known nothing, but he who has known himself has at the same time already achieved knowledge about the depth of the all.”

This quote describes the practice of self-knowledge that underpins Gnosis and the true wisdom it refers to - and which is talked about frequently throughout the Nag Hammadi Library. Each of the texts are separate, yet they are bound by unifying principles, which is why they were kept together. The authors, who are still thought to be unknown, speak about overcoming fears, jealousies, lusts, desires, and attaining illumination – teaching in the various treatises and testimonies how to renounce the world and the things in it, to seek ultimate liberation through faith and shaking off 'drunkenness', ignorance, and sleep. Many mysterious things are mentioned, such as the Bridal Chamber, the Aeons, Pleromas, Light Beings, Vestures, and beings called Archons. The Pistis Sophia is another collection of ancient Gnostic scripture that also contains other teachings of Jesus not found in the Bible. Both this text and the Nag Hammadi Library were nearly lost because of the persecutions that the Gnostics faced some hundreds of years ago, but they have recently been re-discovered and have turned the world's attention to the Gnostics - a group of people who have almost gone completely unnoticed throughout the course of history. Now, their beginnings and their perilous journey through the centuries has become the cause of much interest and controversy.

Early Christian Gnosis

The impact that the life of Jesus had upon history is evidently significant. In his own time, he stirred up profound controversy and was condemned by many religious leaders who believed he was a threat to their traditions. Jesus challenged the common perceptions towards humanity and divinity, inviting the ordinary person to extraordinary possibilities. Yet even during his life, few grasped the deep meaning of his parables and symbolic teachings. Commenting to his small group of disciples, he said, “To you it has been given to know the mysteries of the Kingdom of God, but to the rest it is given in parables, that seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not understand”. Gnosis was taught in this way during the time of Christ and also whenever else it was given, because the nature of the teachings so challenged the opinion of the day throughout all the ages in which it appeared, that often for concern of ridicule and even death, it had to be taught in secret and contained in seemingly incomprehensible parables, myths, legends, and even art and music.

In this way, those who were truly seeking spirituality and more to life dedicated themselves to deciphering the mysterious words and symbols and were able to extract their deeper esoteric meaning, whilst those who took the teachings at face value were unaware of their real content.

And so these secret teachings remained hidden, while the teachings of Paul of Tarsus (today known as an apostle, though he was not, nor had he ever met Jesus) became the foundation of the orthodox Christian Church. This became the public aspect of the teachings, in which the parables were taken literally. Once the apostle James the Just – referred to by Jesus as his brother - was murdered, the teachings of Paul were able to take off virtually unopposed, and it was not long after in 312 A.D. that the Church was officially established, endeavoring to spread the teachings of the Bible as we know it today, in which the Nag Hammadi texts were excluded.

The magnificence behind Jesus’s death and resurrection led to a formation of believers who constructed dogmas, laws, and religious stations around the gospels. This mass of people formed the orthodox Church, and throughout the centuries branched off into the many different forms of Christianity we see today. However, Jesus demonstrated through the events of his life and death how to actually walk the spiritual path – illustrating in a real way how each person can die, resurrect, and be born again through the secret techniques he taught in parables and showing how man can become god and obtain immortality.

And so there were those who joined the orthodox or public aspect of Christianity, and those who understood the true meaning of Jesus's words and life. And in this way the Church grew and spread the teachings of Jesus, and those seeking spiritual truth had the opportunity to find Gnosis.

Those who understood his teachings used them to begin their own spiritual transformation and discover their own innate divinity. They carried on, in many cases underground, spreading the actual practical keys of Christianity to those who sought them. These people were the Gnostics, who connected the human and the divine, and who professed that every person could reach an immortal spiritual state if they dedicated themselves to changing profoundly into a wholly new being.

In the Nag Hammadi Library, Jesus says, “Whoever finds the interpretation of these sayings will not experience death.” Another saying of his soon follows, “If those who lead you say to you, 'See, the kingdom is in the sky,' then the birds will precede you. If they say to you, 'It is in the sea,' then the fish will precede you. Rather, the kingdom is inside of you, and it is outside of you. When you come to know yourselves, then you will become known, and you will realize that it is you who are the sons of the living father. But if you will not know yourselves, you dwell in poverty and it is you who are that poverty.”

However, it was not long before the Church began its violent campaign of suppression against the Gnostics and other spiritual groups in an attempt to eradicate what it saw as threats to Christianity and its power. The majority of believers, who did not pursue the practicalities of Jesus’s teachings but rather him, were outraged at the Gnostics' statements of connection with the divine and the possibility of man becoming God through mystical practice. They eventually attempted to wipe the words of the Gnostics from history, destroying their spiritual texts wherever they were found in an effort to reduce all opposition to their beliefs and doctrines. Due to this, most historical information about the Gnostics has been documented through the writings of those who opposed them, and consequently the world's remembrance of who they were is largely distorted.

In the 380's, the first laws of heresy were introduced – and this is when the Nag Hammadi Library was ordered to be destroyed, and the Pistis Sophia banned. In an attempt to save the writings from destruction, the Nag Hammadi Library was buried and the Pistis Sophia disappeared. In the fifth century there were over 100 statutes aimed at heretics. Entire volumes were written by members of the orthodoxy in an effort to denigrate the Gnostics publicly. Later, the infamous Holy Inquisition began, burning not only heretical books, but also those people deemed as heretics.

The Survival of Gnosis

However, Gnosis itself survived. Small groups of people continued its study, and over the centuries it re-emerged in such forms as that of Medieval Alchemy, very early Freemasonry, and early Rosicrucianism. The teachings were instead concealed in legends and myths such as the Quest for the Holy Grail, which is like a coded guide to the spiritual path, and to the illumination and salvation referred to in the Gnostic texts. The Order of the Knights Templar, formed in 1118, used this as the foundation of their spiritual practices.

The persecutions continued however, as in 1307 the Grand Master of the Templars and sixty of his senior knights were arrested on charges of idolatry by the King of France at the time, and tortured. The remainder of the order are said to have fled to Lombardy, Scotland, Portugual and the Baltic states. It was in Scotland that they are speculated to have founded two branches of underground Gnostic study – that of Freemasonry and Rosicrucianism.

It is unclear, however, exactly when these mystery schools began, but the time is said to have been generally around the 15th to 16th centuries in Europe. Medieval Alchemy also began around this time. It was characterized by an external or exoteric practice of converting lead into gold. However, hidden from the public eye was the esoteric practice of converting the lead of the personality into the gold of the spirit. This type of alchemy is that enshrouded in the visions and sayings of the ancient Gnostic texts with all their symbolism. The 'bridal chamber' mentioned in the Bible and in Gnostic writings refers to the Tantric practice in which the philosophical stone of the Alchemists is formed. This is the same stone Jesus refers to in the Gospel of Thomas in the Nag Hammadi Library, when he says, “Show me the stone which the builders have rejected. That one is the cornerstone,” which the spiritual work or Magnum Opus of the Alchemists is built upon.

Perhaps the most prolific symbol that links these later emergences of Gnosticism with that of its earlier roots is the symbol of the cross, which itself is the symbol for alchemy. Jesus was crucified upon this symbol, representing the death, resurrection, and transformation through the practice of tantrism. The cross appeared in Medieval Alchemy, Rosicrucianism, and Freemasonry in the form of the rose cross – referred to as the 'Rose Cross Mystery'.

However, the meaning of these mysteries became lost over time, and so too did the ability to understand them. In order to preserve them from destruction they were shrouded in secrecy, and thus, as those who were able to unlock their secrets became fewer and fewer, they became locked in the past.

Gnosis Re-emerges

Then, in the Egyptian region of Nag Hammadi, in 1945, two brothers were gathering fertilizer for their fields, when they uncovered a large jar of papyrus books. These papers were what later became known as the Nag Hammadi Library. Over a millennium and a half ago, these Gnostic texts had been buried, in a time when Christianity had become the official Roman Religion, and Gnosticism existed under a prevailing environment of suspicion and fear. When they were unearthed in 1945, times had changed, and a few decades later they were translated and provided to the public - made freely available for academic study and eventually in bookstores.

Although The Pistis Sophia had also emerged from obscurity, finding its way into the hands of the British Museum in 1795, it wasn't until 1851 that work began on its translation, and even then the apparent complexity of the work made it difficult for to understand. The Nag Hammadi Library, therefore, was more publicly accessible, even though it also possesses much esoteric symbolism.

In 1917, Victor Manuel Gomez, who came to be known as Samael Aun Weor, was born with a mission to publicly reveal the keys to spiritual awakening – those very same ones taught by Jesus almost 2000 years ago. During Jesus's time, the secret practices of Gnosis had been hidden in parables and stories, but now they were to be given plainly and clearly so that anybody could understand them, and therefore everyone would have the opportunity to find Gnosis. It was Samael, then, who was given the task to not only to re-discover the spiritual path which Jesus had demonstrated during his life, but also to give afresh the ancient teachings of Gnosis for the modern age.

In the 1960's, he became a celebrated founder of modern Gnosis. It was a disciple of his, Rabolu, who then continued to spread the teachings further throughout the world – and now it is a disciple of his, Belzebuub, who through using the Internet has spread them even more publicly and widely across the globe.

The Practice of Gnosis

And so, despite persecution, censorship, and all other efforts through the ages to destroy Gnosis, it has survived. And that is because it is the very thing that characterizes it that cannot be destroyed.

Samael Aun Weor was able to re-discover the lost keys to enlightenment through this characteristic – through direct experience of the divine, through practice. Whilst the Gnostic teachings were written down, on papyrus or paper, or etched into stone, they cannot be understood simply through reading – indeed, those who try only get so far into the complex codes and symbols, and in the end are left only with theories. Gnosis itself is alive in those who practice it. It is knowledge which is experienced by the individual, and so that individual understanding and experience cannot be destroyed.

Those secret practices that allowed the Gnostic aspirants to make direct contact with the divine are still taught today. In this age of information, students are able to use the techniques of the ancient Gnostics to go beyond opinion, interpretation, and theory to find out themselves what is really going on. Through practice, not only can we begin to understand the parables, symbols, and legends of old – unlocking their secrets once more - but also uncover the amazing potential we each have for an intimate experience of the divine, for the discovery of true wisdom, and for the achievement of the salvation and immortality to which Gnosis has, since its very beginning, been showing the way.

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