The Organisation and Religion to Re-unite All Religions

The Gnostic Experience
by: Rev. George C. Koukouris c.r.m.

   Visualize with me for a moment. You have woken up. It is after midnight and your bladder has been calling for you, for an hour, to go to relieve yourself. You stumble in the dark to find some glasses; hanging your legs from the bed to find your balance, you get up and make your way to the bathroom. You get to the doorway of the bathroom (stumbling into walls and doorways, stubbing your toe on the shoes you left on the floor), feeling against the wall, like a blind man, to switch on the lights. You can't see; your eyes haven't adjusted to compensate for the lack of light. It is pitch black. You manage to switch on the light, as your eyes slam shut from the burst of blinding light. Some people at this point would be turning the light back off. The light is blinding and it hurts your eyes. You can't see much. It doesn't hurt your eyes in the dark. Then there are those who stay in the light. After a while the light doesn't hurt so much because your eyes adjust. This is how spiritual truth works. Anyone who has read a book on spiritual truths can validate this, when they feel their head begin to hurt, from taking in too much knowledge, in a relatively short amount of time.

 Spiritual illumination, as much as it is about self-discovery, is more about self-recovery. In the beginning this can be very difficult, shocking, and life changing. It is tough to take a look at ourselves; like Neo within the Matrix, many realize that, what we thought was real was anything but. So we ask that famous question, "Who am I?" Deep within each human being lays the answer, dormant. A vast potential for a great ten thousand things exists; this potential is the seed that is watered and then cultivated... until the time of harvest.

 "Direct, personal, and absolute knowledge of the "authentic truths" of existence is accessible to human beings, and moreover, that the attainment of such knowledge must always constitute the supreme achievement of human life." -- Stephen A. Hoeller.

 According to ReligiousTolerance.org, about 33% of the world's population consider themselves to be Christian. For the last two thousand years this number has remained stable with about 75% of American adults and similar number of Canadians identifying themselves as Christians (Religious Tolerance, 2003). These numbers have recently been dropping about one percentage point a year. The sudden increase in non-theists, such as Agnostics, Atheists, Humanists, etc... and an in creasing number, of the population, are following other minority religions such as Buddhism, Hinduism, and Muslim traditions (which is the second most popular religion at about 20%). With the emergence of alternative spiritual/religious groups like "New Age", Wicca, and other Neo pagan religions, Christianity is decreasing in number every day.

 Currently in the North America, Christianity is divided into over 1,000 denominations, which are organized into three groups of conservative, mainline, and liberal. Conservative Christians (often called "Fundamentalists") and other Evangelical Christians look upon "saved" individuals as the only true Christians. Mainline Christians have been more lenient and inclusive, as they accept anyone who follows the teachings of Jesus Christ. Liberal Christians tend to run along side the Mainline Christians, but often reinterpret most long-established Christian beliefs.

 Born circa 4 to 7 BCE (before common era), Yeshua Ben Joseph (Jesus "the Christ") has become one of, if not, the most influential individuals in the history of humanity. Cantered in Jerusalem, the Jewish Christian movement took form. One of the most influential figures, in Christian history, is Paul; although Catholics will claim it was Peter. Paul's Epistles and other written works have helped to shape and mould the ideas and beliefs that have come to be called Christianity. Among the diversity of Christians, in the first century till late fifth century, began to emerge a group who was later called "Gnostics" (which means "to know"). Gnosticism involved harmonizing beliefs and ideas which brought together elements from Asia, Babylonian, Egyptian, Greek, and Syrian pagan religions, from Astrology, and from Judaism and Christianity: the other two being: The remnants of the Jewish Christian sect which was founded by Jesus' disciples after his execution and centred in Jerusalem, and the Churches started by Paul, that were eventually to grow and develop into "mainline" Christianity by the end of the third century. Those who were called Christian-Gnostics, were set on attaining "gnosis". Gnosis derives from the Greek, meaning "knowledge" or the "act of knowing". When hearing the word Gnostic, one tends to think about the word "agnostic" which, at it's root, means literally "not knowing"; a knower of nothing. The knowledge implied by "gnosis" is one of personal experience, divine revelation, and inner knowing; not derived by worldly intellect (carnal knowledge), but purely personal experience of the divine.

 Two thousand years later, Gnosticism and the teachings of "gnosis" are making a come back. In 1945 a Muslim camel driver, in Egypt, unearthed clay jars at a cave near the town of Nag Hammadi. Among these jars were found 13 volumes of 51 different works and over 1,153 pages of texts. Within the collection were the Gospel According to Thomas, Gospel of Truth, Treatise on the Resurrection, Gospel of Phillip, Wisdom (Sophia) of Jesus Christ, Revelations of James, Letter of Peter to Phillip, Gospel According to Mary, On the Origin of the World, and other writings. The most important, and most looked of these writings, is the Gospel According to Thomas. Also called the Gospel of Thomas (gospel meaning "good news") contains a list of 114 sayings attributed to Jesus and recorded by Judas Thomas Didymos (Thomas is Hebrew meaning "twin" and Didymos is Greek meaning "twin" also). With new texts such as the Gospel According to Thomas, we begin to receive more information about the diversity of early Christian beliefs. It forces us to ask these questions. Did Jesus say anything outside the "canonical" Bible? And... How do the findings at Nag Hammadi affect the beliefs of those in Christian faiths? For Christians, in the mainstream, books like the Gospel of Thomas would be seen as not authentic. Any text outside of those in the Holy Bible (which have you noticed that the information in the bible is all copywrited?-- which I'll talk about in a later article). One of the early Christian writers, named Tertullian (c. 210), wrote prominently about the Gnostics.

"Meanwhile, [to be one of them] you must believe that Sophia has the surnames of Earth and of Mother-- "Mother earth", of course-- and... even Holy Spirit. In this way they conferred all honor on the female."  One of the main themes in Gnostic theology, was the idea of Sophia. In Greek, Sophia means Wisdom and in ancient times Sophia was seen as the divine feminine principle; the "first thought" and female aspect of God. In the Bible, there is a whole book dedicated to Wisdom, and in proverbs chapter eight, verse 22: "The Lord possessed me at the beginning of His way, before His works of Old." It goes on to talk about how God created everything and Wisdom (Sophia) was there when it happened, and it actually happened through Her. Gnostics would say that, within texts like Gospel of Thomas, there exists great wisdom; a truth about knowing thyself.

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