Gnosticism (Knowledge or Knowing)

[Louis Maye]

"

The fundamental doctrine of the Gnostics relates the dualistic nature of the world in which we reside, the eternal struggle between good and evil. They believed that Jehovah, the wrathful god of the Old Testament was a false god and expression of what they called thedemiurge.  For how could a fully enlightened divinity contain within him the base emotions of anger, jealousy and vengeance? For them, the real God was a

loving deity equally and directly accessible to all. This God taught that love, compassion and the true sacrifice and transformation of the self, or ego, was the highest spiritual path.

The Gnostics believed that the plan of this demiurge, or Satan, was to trap spirit in matter, and that the earth itself was a prison in which souls were exiled from their divine home. For them, the real world was the non-material world of spirit and all of their rituals and practices were designed to purify them and provide them with the means to find their way out of the impure world of matter, darkness and suffering and return to their true home in the Light.

Clearly, these sacred esoteric teachings were revolutionary. Unlike the fixed, restrictive, hierarchical systems prevalent during this period, these teachings were open to all, female, male, rich, poor Jew or Pagan. This all-inclusive transmission of teachings formerly reserved for the elite was at odds with the practices of Orthodox Judaism and the emerging Church of Rome. For once the seeker had been touched by this Gnostic current, she or he came to recognize their own divine nature and perceive their place in the world from a whole new perspective. No longer did they need the intercession of a priest or rabbi to connect them with their spiritual inheritance."