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Post by Admin on Oct 9, 2020 9:16:36 GMT
Gospel of Thomasen.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_of_ThomasThe Wisdom of the Knowing Ones: Gnosticism: The Key to Esoteric ChristianityManly P. Hall If any group, which shared in the Christian mystery, possessed the esoteric secrets of the early Church, it was the Gnostics. This order preserved to the end the high ethical and rational standards which confer honor upon a teaching. The Church therefore attacked Gnosticism vigorously and relentlessly, recognizing these mystical philosophers as being the most formidable adversaries to the temporal power of Christian theology. b-ok.cc/book/933639/d62d57Manly P. Hall en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manly_P._HallThe Secret Teachers of the Western Worldwww.nyjournalofbooks.com/book-review/secret-teachersTHE GNOSIS AND THE LAWeraofpeace.org/products/the-gnosis-and-the-law-book-1THE DISAPPEARANCE OF THE UNIVERSEStraight Talk About Illusions, Past Lives, Religion, Sex, Politics, and the Miracles of Forgiveness by Gary R. Renard www.garyrenard.com/Preview.htmDecember 2002 AOM: The Other Godby Yuri Stoyanov grahamhancock.com/the-other-god-stoyanov/Boris Mouravieff And GnosisBoris Mouravieff was an enigmatic 'third man', known to Gurdjieff and Ouspensky, who found and learned to practice what he clearly believed to be the complete system of which only 'fragments' had been previously published in Ouspensky's 'In Search of the Miraculous'. On this basis, he formed the 'Centre d'Etudes chretiennes esoteriques' in Geneva - now closed. Many of his discoveries are described in his book Gnosis, which contains in its three volumes the fundamental components of that Christian esoteric teaching revealed by Ouspensky in fragmentary form. This Gnosis is not a modern statement of the second century texts known as 'Gnosticism', but a previously unpublished ancient Christian knowledge tradition. Boris Mouravieff taught Eastern Esoterism at Geneva University for many years, and Gnosis is the result of his teaching. First published in French in 1961, the three volumes of Mouravieff 's Gnosis have since been translated into Greek, and an Arabic text is in preparation. Now - after seven years of work - the translation into English is available. The three volumes of Boris Mouravieff 's Gnosis describe the inner doctrines of Eastern Christianity: Volume I the exoteric teaching Volume II the practical or mesoteric teaching Volume III the truly esoteric Gnosis does more than simply explore the mysterious relation between the ‘Fourth Way' and the little known ‘Royal Way’ of Eastern Orthodoxy; it forms a modern primer in the knowledge tradition of the early church, and gives practical instruction in methods of spirituality for serious seekers. www.bibliotecapleyades.net/esp_autor_mouravieff.htmThe Return of the Rebel Angels The Urantia Mysteries and the Coming of the LightBy Timothy Wyllie www.simonandschuster.co.uk/books/The-Return-of-the-Rebel-Angels/Timothy-Wyllie/9781591431251TIMOTHY WYLLIE www.innertraditions.com/author/timothy-wyllieThe Urantia Booken.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Urantia_BookThe Jeshua Channelings www.jeshua.net/
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Post by Admin on Oct 9, 2020 9:35:26 GMT
A Christian Reflection on the New Ageen.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Christian_Reflection_on_the_New_AgeA Christian reflection on the New Age refers to a six-year study by the Roman Catholic Church on the New Age movement.[1][2][3][4] The study, published in 2003, is highly critical of the New Age movement and follows the 1989 document Aspects of Christian meditation, in which the Vatican warned Catholics against mixing Christian meditation with Eastern approaches to spirituality. The document's title is Jesus Christ, the bearer of the Water of Life.[2][5][6] The document discusses the encounter between Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well, which it characterizes as "a paradigm for our engagement with truth".[2][7] The document considers the New Age based on "weak thought" and emphasizes the differences between Catholic thought and the New Age.[2][5][8][9] According to the review of the document in The Tablet, "there is never any doubt in the document that New Age is incompatible with and hostile to the core beliefs of Christianity."[6] Expressing general agreement with the views expressed by the document, Richard Land, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, said that there would be widespread agreement among Baptists that New Age ideas are contrary to Christian tradition and doctrine.[8]
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Post by Admin on Oct 9, 2020 13:02:01 GMT
Silver Birch - silverbirchpublishing.co.uk/Welcome to the Spiritual Truth Foundation website. This charity holds the copyright to Silver Birch teachings and Maurice Barbanell writings. No man can set aside the channels where the power of the spirit shall flow. The power of the spirit cannot be regimented; it cannot answer to dictation; it cannot be restricted; it cannot be confined to any instrument. Matter is inferior; spirit is superior. Matter lives only because it is the reflection of the spirit. When Silver Birch was asked if the spirit world is as natural to the spiritual senses as the physical world is to our present senses Silver Birch replied - Far more, for the Spirit World IS reality. You are at present prisoners, hampered by the material body by which you are restricted on all sides. You are only expressing a very small portion of your real selves in the material world. silverbirchpublishing.co.uk/books.phpAbout Silver Birch and His “New World” goldenageofgaia.com/the-2012-scenario/2012-history-4/silver-birchs-new-world-2/White Eagle Lodge - www.whiteaglelodge.org/www.whiteagle.org/where-we-areen.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_White_Eagle_LodgeQuakersen.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quakerswww.quaker.org.uk/'The Starseed Transmissions' Books Channelled by Ken Carey(Ken Carey: Dec 1, 1949 - Jan 5, 2017) www.ascensionnow.co.uk/ken-carey.htmlCosmic Christen.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_ChristThe cosmic Christ is a view of Christology which emphasises the extent of Jesus Christ's concern for the cosmos. The biblical bases for a cosmic Christology is often found in Colossians, Ephesians, and the prologue to the gospel of John.[1] The Universal Christuniversalchrist.cac.org/A New Vision of Realityby Bede Griffiths An extension of ideas explored in the author's earlier book, "The Marriage of East and West", this volume looks at Christianity in the context of modern physics on the one hand and Eastern mysticism on the other. The author looks at the history of the growing consciousness of humanity. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bede_GriffithsBede Griffiths OSB Cam[1] (17 December 1906 – 13 May 1993), born Alan Richard Griffiths and also known by the end of his life as Swami Dayananda ("bliss of compassion"), was a British-born priest and Benedictine monk who lived in ashrams in South India and became a noted yogi. Griffiths was a part of the Christian Ashram Movement. Anthony de Melloen.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_de_MelloAnthony de Mello, also known as Tony de Mello (4 September 1931 – 2 June 1987), was an Indian Jesuit priest and psychotherapist. A spiritual teacher, writer, and public speaker, de Mello wrote several books on spirituality and hosted numerous spiritual retreats and conferences. He continues to be known for his storytelling which drew from the various mystical traditions of both East and West and for introducing many people in the West to mindfulness-based practices he sometimes called "awareness prayer." Peter Deunoven.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_DeunovPeter Deunov (/ˈdʌnɒv/ DUN-əv; Bulgarian: Петър Дънов [ˈpɛtɐr ˈdɤnof]; July 11, 1864 – December 27, 1944), also known by his spiritual name Beinsa Douno (Bulgarian: Беинса Дуно [bɛinˈsа doˈnɔ]), and often called the Master by his followers, was a Bulgarian philosopher and spiritual teacher who developed a form of Esoteric Christianity known as the Universal White Brotherhood. He is widely known in Bulgaria, where he was voted second by the public in the Great Bulgarians TV show on Bulgarian National Television (2006-2007).[1] Deunov is also featured in Pantev and Gavrilov's The 100 Most Influential Bulgarians in Our History (ranked in 37th place).[2] According to Petrov, Peter Deunov is “the most published Bulgarian author to this day.”[3] Pierre Teilhard de Chardinen.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Teilhard_de_ChardinPierre Teilhard de Chardin SJ (French: [pjɛʁ tejaʁ də ʃaʁdɛ̃] (About this soundlisten (help·info)); 1 May 1881 – 10 April 1955) was a French idealist philosopher and Jesuit Catholic priest who trained as a paleontologist and geologist and took part in the discovery of the Peking Man. He conceived the vitalist idea of the Omega Point (a maximum level of complexity and consciousness towards which he believed the universe was evolving), and he developed Vladimir Vernadsky's concept of noosphere. Teilhard's ideas had a profound influence on the New Age movement. In 1962, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith condemned several of Teilhard's works based on their alleged ambiguities and doctrinal errors. Some eminent Catholic figures, including Cardinal Ratzinger and Pope Francis, have made positive comments on some of his ideas since. The response to his writings by scientists has been mostly critical.
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Post by Admin on Oct 9, 2020 14:25:11 GMT
Spiritual but not religiousen.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiritual_but_not_religious"Spiritual but not religious" (SBNR), also known as "Spiritual but not affiliated" (SBNA), is a popular phrase and initialism used to self-identify a life stance of spirituality that takes issue with organized religion as the sole or most valuable means of furthering spiritual growth. Historically, the words religious and spiritual have been used synonymously to describe all the various aspects of the concept of religion,[1] but in contemporary usage spirituality has often become associated with the interior life of the individual,[2][1] placing an emphasis upon the well-being of the "mind-body-spirit",[3]:63 while religion refers to organizational or communal dimensions.[1] Perennial philosophyen.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perennial_philosophywww.theosociety.org/pasadena/ts/pere_wis.htmThe perennial philosophy (Latin: philosophia perennis),[note 1] also referred to as perennialism and perennial wisdom, is a perspective in philosophy and spirituality that views all of the world's religious traditions as sharing a single, metaphysical truth or origin from which all esoteric and exoteric knowledge and doctrine has grown. Perennialism has its roots in the Renaissance interest in neo-Platonism and its idea of the One, from which all existence emanates. Marsilio Ficino (1433–1499) sought to integrate Hermeticism with Greek and Jewish-Christian thought,[1] discerning a prisca theologia which could be found in all ages.[2] Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463–94) suggested that truth could be found in many, rather than just two, traditions. He proposed a harmony between the thought of Plato and Aristotle, and saw aspects of the prisca theologia in Averroes (Ibn Rushd), the Quran, the Kabbalah and other sources.[3] Agostino Steuco (1497–1548) coined the term philosophia perennis.[4] A more popular interpretation argues for universalism, the idea that all religions, underneath seeming differences, point to the same Truth. In the early 19th century the Transcendentalists propagated the idea of a metaphysical Truth and universalism, which inspired the Unitarians, who proselytized among Indian elites. Towards the end of the 19th century, the Theosophical Society further popularized universalism, not only in the western world, but also in western colonies. In the 20th century universalism was further popularized in the English-speaking world through the neo-Vedanta inspired Traditionalist School, which argued for a metaphysical, single origin of the orthodox religions, and by Aldous Huxley and his book The Perennial Philosophy, which was inspired by neo-Vedanta and the Traditionalist School. Unitarian Universalismen.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unitarian_UniversalismUnitarian Universalism (UU)[2][3][4] is a liberal religion characterized by a "free and responsible search for truth and meaning".[5][6] Unitarian Universalists assert no creed, but instead are unified by their shared search for spiritual growth, guided by a dynamic, "living tradition". Currently, these traditions are summarized by the Six Sources and Seven Principles of Unitarian Universalism, documents recognized by all congregations who choose to be a part of the Unitarian Universalist Association. These documents are 'living', meaning always open for revisiting and reworking. Unitarian Universalist (U.U.) congregations include many atheists, agnostics, and theists within their membership—and there are U.U. churches, fellowships, congregations, and societies all over America—as well as others around the world. The roots of Unitarian Universalism lie in liberal Christianity, specifically Unitarianism and universalism. Unitarian Universalists state that from these traditions comes a deep regard for intellectual freedom and inclusive love. Congregations and members seek inspiration and derive insight from all major world religions.[7] The beliefs of individual Unitarian Universalists range widely, including atheism, agnosticism, pantheism, panentheism, pandeism, deism, humanism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam,[8] Hinduism, Sikhism, Buddhism, Taoism, syncretism, Omnism, Bahá’i, and Neopaganism.[9] The Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) was formed in 1961 through the consolidation of the American Unitarian Association, established in 1825, and the Universalist Church of America,[10] established in 1793. The UUA is headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, and serves churches mostly in the United States. A group of thirty Philippine congregations is represented as a sole member within the UUA. The Canadian Unitarian Council (CUC) became an independent body in 2002.[11] The UUA and CUC are, in turn, two of the seventeen members of the International Council of Unitarians and Universalists.[12] The Evolutionary tree of Religion - www.infographicsblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/the-evolutionary-tree-of-religion.jpg
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Post by Admin on Nov 13, 2020 19:23:51 GMT
"Our faith must be alive. It cannot be just a set of rigid beliefs and notions. Our faith must evolve every day and bring us joy, peace, freedom, and love.... Our actions must be modeled after those of the living Buddha or the living Christ. If we live as they did, we will have deep understanding and pure actions, and we will do our share to help create a more peaceful world for our children.." ~ Thich Nhat Hanh Living Buddha, Living Christ by Thich Nhat HanhPosted on January 13, 2015 creativesystemsthinking.wordpress.com/2015/01/13/living-buddha-living-christ-thich-nhat-hanh/“We often think of peace as the absence of war, that if powerful countries would reduce their weapon arsenals, we could have peace. But if we look deeply into the weapons, we see our own minds- our own prejudices, fears and ignorance. Even if we transport all the bombs to the moon, the roots of war and the roots of bombs are still there, in our hearts and minds, and sooner or later we will make new bombs. To work for peace is to uproot war from ourselves and from the hearts of men and women. To prepare for war, to give millions of men and women the opportunity to practice killing day and night in their hearts, is to plant millions of seeds of violence, anger, frustration, and fear that will be passed on for generations to come. When we respect our blood ancestors and our spiritual ancestors, we feel rooted. If we find ways to cherish and develop our spiritual heritage, we will avoid the kind of alienation that is destroying society, and we will become whole again. Learning to touch deeply the jewels of our own tradition will allow us to understand and appreciate the values of other traditions, and this will benefit everyone. We long for permanence, but everything is changing. We desire an absolute, but even what we call our “self” is impermanent. We seek a place where we can feel safe and secure, a place we can rely on for a long time. When we touch the ground, we feel the stability of the earth and feel confident. When we observe the steadiness of the sunshine, the air, and the trees, we know that we can count on the sun to rise each day and the air and the trees to be there tomorrow. Because you are alive, everything is possible. Enlightenment is always there. Small enlightenment will bring great enlightenment. If you breathe in and are aware that you are alive—that you can touch the miracle of being alive—then that is a kind of enlightenment. When we are caught in notions, rituals, and the outer forms of the practice, not only can we not receive and embody the spirit of our tradition, we become an obstacle for the true values of the tradition to be transmitted. We lose sight of the true needs and actual suffering of people, and the teaching and practice, which were intended to relieve suffering, now cause suffering. Narrow, fundamentalist, and dogmatic practices always alienate people, especially those who are suffering. Jesus said, “If those who lead you say to you, ‘Look, the Kingdom is in the sky,’ then the birds of the sky will get there first. If they say, ‘It is in the sea,’ then the fish will get there first. 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 children of the living Father. But if you will not know yourselves, then you dwell in poverty. It is necessary to die in order to be reborn. As soon as you experience impermanence, non-self, and interbeing, you are born again. But if the plant does not become dormant in the winter, it cannot be reborn in the spring. Jesus said that unless you are reborn as a child, you cannot enter the Kingdom of God. Thomas Merton wrote, “The living experience of divine love and the Holy Spirit… is a true awareness that one has died and risen in Christ. It is an experience of mystical renewal, an inner transformation brought about entirely by the power of God’s merciful love, implying the ‘death’ of the self-centered and self-sufficient ego and the appearance of a new and liberated self who lives and acts in the Spirit.” Everything, even the trees and the clouds, has come together to bring about the presence of your body. Keeping your body healthy is the best way to express your gratitude to the whole cosmos, to all ancestors, and also not to betray future generations. You practice this precept for everyone. If you are healthy, everyone can benefit from it. When you are able to get out of the shell of your small self, you will see that you are interrelated to everyone and everything, that your every act is linked with the whole of humankind and the whole cosmos. Our faith must be alive. It cannot be just a set of rigid beliefs and notions. Our faith must evolve every day and bring us joy, peace, freedom, and love. Faith implies practice, living our daily life in mindfulness. Some people think that prayer or meditation involves only our minds or our hearts. But we also have to pray with our bodies, with our actions in the world. And our actions must be modeled after those of the living Buddha or the living Christ. If we live as they did, we will have deep understanding and pure actions, and we will do our share to help create a more peaceful world for our children and all of the children of God.” ~Written by Thích Nhất Hạnh~ Living Buddha, Living Christ
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Post by Admin on Nov 15, 2020 20:21:18 GMT
Artaud and the Gnostic Dramajane goodall scarletimprint.com/publications/artaud-and-the-gnostic-dramaIn Artaud and the Gnostic Drama, Jane Goodall offers a reappraisal of the importance of Antonin Artaud (1896–1948), mythologised as an icon of failure and madness, and examines the intricate parallels between his heretical dramaturgy and the heresies of ancient Gnosticism. The book situates Artaud, as the most extravagant of heretics, in company with the Gnostics whose speculations served to define heresy in the beginnings of the Christian tradition. Artaud subscribed to the Gnostic idea that the sensible world was created by a demiurge who was "imperfect, possibly evil and depraved.” His cosmology is inherently dramatic, setting creature against creator, force against form, matter against spirit, pious knowledge against heretical gnosis. Jane Goodall argues that major post-structuralist critics such as Derrida, Deleuze, and Foucault, who have enlisted Artaud in their own anti-orthodoxies, have refused to pay attention to the terms of his own heresy. In this refusal, they display an anxiety towards the gnostic drama and its heresies, which mount an assault that may be more powerful than their own upon the founding tenets of western thought. This work was first published by the Clarendon Press, Oxford in 1994. The text has been lightly revised for this second edition, and is illustrated.
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Post by Admin on Nov 16, 2020 21:04:40 GMT
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Post by Admin on Nov 19, 2020 18:01:02 GMT
"This pilgrimage of ascension and this descent for the labour of transformation must be inevitably a battle, a long war with ourselves and with opposing forces around us which, while it lasts, may well seem interminable.
For all our old obscure and ignorant nature will contend repeatedly and obstinately with the transforming Influence, supported in its lagging unwillingness or its stark resistance by most of the established forces of environing universal Nature; the powers and principalities and the ruling beings of the Ignorance will not easily give up their empire.
The battle and conquest and empire in the shape of a victorious conflict with the Powers of Darkness, an entire spiritual self-rule and mastery over inward and outward Nature, a conquest by Knowledge, Love and Divine Will over the domains of the Ignorance is life's true object.
Great titan beings and demoniac powers, World-egos racked with lust and thought and will, Vast minds and lives without a spirit within: Impatient architects of error's house, Leaders of cosmic ignorance and unrest And sponsors of sorrow and mortality Embodied the dark Ideas of the Abyss."
- Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis of Yoga [last paragraph from Savitri]
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Post by Admin on Nov 19, 2020 18:03:39 GMT
Information about AscensionAscension is the expansion of conscious awareness that extends beyond the physical senses. Ascension is the raising of ones personal vibrational or vibrational frequency. By raising awareness of that which extends beyond the physical and developing the spiritual senses, one raises and refines their own energy and ascension is the result. At the subatomic level everything is made up of energy, and that which appears solid to our physical senses is merely energy. This energy vibrates at a particular rate--either higher and more refined and subtle, or lower and more dense, or solid. Everything around us and each and every one of us vibrates at a particular frequency or rate of vibration--even particular thoughts or emotions have particular frequencies. These vibrational frequencies change according to our conscious awareness of them, and our physical, mental and emotional states of being are also changed vibrationally depending on the vibrations of other people and surroundings. That which is of the higher vibrational frequencies are often invisible or undetected to those of a lower vibration, unless one is 'in tune' to that particular frequency by vibrating similarly. That being said, everything is energy and vibration and consciousness is the ground of all being. This expansion of awareness, or ascension process, comes naturally when we process anything that is of a low vibration such as fear. We must release and let go of any subconscious programming, old-worn out patterns or belief systems and any attachments that are based on fear. As one released these lower vibrations naturally their is an improvement in overall health and well being on the physical level, as well as emotionally and mentally. As negative energies are released and higher energies are embraced, the overall vibrational states of an individual begins to raise, or ascend, and they are able to tap into and work within higher 'dimensions' beyond the physical planes, or more refined states of consciousness. Ascension in the new age is not about leaving the physical body and the physical body does not 'disappear' into thin air or fly away to another place or space in time. The physical body is a key element of functioning within the solid 3D environment. When we start ascending and moving into a higher vibrational state of being within our lives, our bodies do follow suit in many ways; we may begin to have an aversion or not be able to tolerate certain physical things of a lower vibration such as unhealthy foods or anything with chemicals or toxins, even certain music, environments, people, etc., that are vibrating at a lower frequency. It takes time for the physical body to adapt to the new and higher vibrations. The ascension process is unique for each individual and the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual aspects of it can vary. The concept of Initiation is also recognized in the Ascended Master Teachings, a group of spiritual philosophies loosely based on Theosophy. In the Ascended Master Teachings, it is referred to as Ascension. Ascension is the process of the evolution of consciousness and is leading the way towards the new golden age. We are all ascending in one way or another. This is the natural evolutionary process of humankind and even the planet itself is changing in many ways seen and unseen--but felt. Vibration is feeling. We are in the next phase of a cycle and this ascension is an ascension of consciousness itself. As we understand more we discover more, and as we discover more we understand more. This time humanity will expand to new heights and levels of understanding that will go far beyond the mere 5 physical senses. During the ascension process, there is a heart knowledge and expansion of heart awareness--a spiritual love--that emerges from the breakdown of the old, fixed and limited way of being. This is happening to humanity collectively as a whole on a physical level on the earth, but also for each individual, it is an internal rather than external process that is unique. But one can either be unconsciously ascending/evolving or consciously aware of the process as it is occurring. Spiritual ascension is also a personal choice. Being consciously aware of the internal and spiritual ascension process can actually speed the process and make it easier. Those who are not conscious of the ascension process may be going through an extremely difficult time as they witness the external and internal world break down and it only adds to their suffering and confusion. Those who are aware of the changes occurring and who are choosing to ascend can benefit through self-healing and inner-work during this process, and this can indeed benefit the whole as we are all connected to one another. www.newagesearch.com/ascension-information.html
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Post by Admin on Dec 7, 2020 12:22:07 GMT
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Post by Admin on Dec 15, 2020 1:34:52 GMT
The Gnostic Eve: William Blake and The Secret Doctrine, by H. P. Blavatskythehumandivine.org/2020/12/13/the-gnostic-eve-william-blake-and-the-secret-doctrine-by-h-p-blavatsky/Blake’s art speaks in symbols. But what exactly are symbols? And why are all of the deepest ancient esoteric truths always communicated through symbol and image? Pike suggests that symbols are the most powerful way to mediate and convey a “truth” that lies beyond ordinary conscious, “rational” thought programmes and parameters: “The first learning in the world consisted chiefly in symbols. The wisdom of the Chaldæans, Phœnicians, Egyptians, Jews; of Zoroaster, Sanchoniathon, Pherecydes, Syrus, Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, of all the ancients, that is come to our hand, is symbolic. It was the mode, says Serranus on Plato’s Symposium, of the Ancient Philosophers, to represent truth by certain symbols and hidden images.” And one of the most powerful, and recurrent, of all these ancient symbols, he notes, is that of the serpent or dragon. “This will be found to be confirmed by an examination of some of the Symbols used in the Mysteries. One of the most famous of these was THE SERPENT. The Cosmogony of the Hebrews and that of the Gnostics designated this reptile as the author of the fate of Souls. It was consecrated in the Mysteries of Bacchus and in those of Eleusis. Pluto overcame the virtue of Proserpine under the form of a serpent; and, like the Egyptian God Serapis, was always pictured seated on a serpent, or with that reptile entwined about him.” “It is found on the Mithriac Monuments, and supplied with attributes of Typhon to the Egyptians. The sacred basilisc, in coil, with head and neck erect, was the royal ensign of the Pharaohs. Two of them were entwined around and hung suspended from the winged Globe on the Egyptian Monuments. On a tablet in one of the Tombs at Thebes, a God with a spear pierces a serpent’s head. On a tablet from the Temple of Osiris at Philæ is a tree, with a man on one side, and a woman on the other, and in front of the woman an erect basilisc, with horns on its head and a disk between the horns. The head of Medusa was encircled by winged snakes, which, the head removed, left the Hierogram or Sacred Cypher of the Ophites or Serpent-worshippers. And the Serpent, in connection with the Globe or circle, is found upon the monuments of all the Ancient Nations.” (Pike, Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry). The symbol of the serpent weaves and writhes throughout all ancient human cultures and systems of thought, but what exactly does it signify? Clearly the snake and serpent, insofar as they link with physical, ‘actual’, animals, denote and convey very emotive responses in humans, often concerning issues of death, and protection, relating to their curious shedding of skin (resurrection), their poison (which can also be used for healing, as an antidote or form of ‘vaccine’), their apparent sense of defensive ‘cunning’ or intelligence, their sexualised, wreathing undertones, and their striking mode of motion – a sort of hypnotic, spiral-like wave of coil around coil. They are deeply ambiguous symbols both in those cultures that ‘worship’ then, and those than ‘demonise’ them. And as such we find them rearing their fascinating, transfixing heads, in Blake’s remarkable visions and imagery. Trying to understanding this powerfully enigmatic and ambiguous symbol through our normal, ‘naturalising’, ‘rationalising’ ways of seeing and thinking about the world is both pointless and deeply ironic: for the ‘snake’, in many senses (according to these ancient systems of thought), is what created and generates that program in the first place. It’s an inner serpentine form that generates its own self-enclosed and enclosing ratios, its spiralling double helix of birth and death, its dissociated dissatisfaction with the energy that both drives it and binds it. One of the most illuminating writers on what the serpent means in these ancient ways of thinking – systems of thought that Blake not only knew about and drew upon but also in many ways subverted – is the theosophist H. P. Blavatsky, more often perhaps known as ‘Madame Blavatsky’. She was deeply familiar with the secret and arcane systems of knowledge that lie behind many of our most ancient and familiar myths: the Garden of Eden, Eve, Horus, the Creation. In The Secret Doctrine she reveals some of these occluded dimensions.
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Post by Admin on Dec 20, 2020 19:45:04 GMT
A Tale of Christianity & It’s True Origins, Before The Birth of Jesus ChristBy Tom Bunzel www.collective-evolution.com/2018/05/18/a-tale-of-christianity-its-true-origins-before-the-birth-of-jesus-christ/This made me think of Gurdjieff, who was ever mysterious and veiled in his claims about the source of his teaching–which also included deep physical and psychological inquiry into the nature of thought. Gurdjieff posited the existence of three brains that need to work harmoniously in order to connect to higher wisdom and suggested that modern humans are asleep and oblivious to their true nature. But in addition to mentioning a map to “pre-sand” Egypt which fueled his journey to the pyramids (where he worked as a guide) Gurdjieff would suggest that his teaching was the “true” Christianity – preceding the life of Jesus, as well as the Egypt of the pharaohs with its source in “prehistory.” While much of Gurdjieff’s ideology can be viewed as “Eastern” and he may have traveled to India and Tibet, a deeper look at his cosmology and biological notions suggest that what he brought to light may have been the original and undistorted teaching of a superior civilization that eventually gave way to both Egyptian and Meso-American cultures that attempted to preserve its scientific wisdom. A modern philosopher and scholar who writes in depth about Gurdjieff in relation to modern issues, Jacob Needleman probes this aspect of the teaching in his book, Lost Christianity. In this book Needleman engages with a scholar and monk whose research has taken him deeply into the sources of Eastern Orthodoxy and more esoteric interpretations of scripture. Needleman writes: “What has been lost everywhere in the life of man is the confrontation within oneself of the two fundamental forces of the cosmic order: the movement of creation and the movement of return, the outer and the inner. The whole of what is known as “progress” in the modern world may be broadly characterized as an imbalanced attention to the outward-directed force of life, combined with a false identification of the “inner” as the realm of thought and emotion. The thoughts and emotions that are given the name of ‘inwardness” actually serve, as has been shown, the movement outward and degradation of psychic energy. In Christian terms, this is “flesh.” Thoughts and emotions are not the soul.” (222) What this suggests is that the original “pre-Christian” teaching was about inner energetic knowledge and the discovery of man’s true nature through deep inquiry and concrete experience. The quote above actually suggests the Advaita inquiry of Neti Neti – “not this, not this” – in the pursuit of reality and the resulting recognition that what “I am” as not my thoughts, not my emotions, and not my sensations; the body is experienced as yet another “external” object to one’s true being. This is indeed a very timeless notion of truth that we now may see as “eastern” or “mystical,” but one that has been preserved in stories since the dawn of time. Joseph Campbell brought many of these stories to light in his work (which inspired the Star Wars films) and one can find more information in Bernardo Kastrup’s latest book, More Than Allegory: On Religious Myth, Truth And Belief. Bernardo, who also wrote Why Materialism is Baloney eschews the low hanging fruit of fundamentalist religious dogma to probe more deeply the sources of wisdom in our psyche and in our historic heritage of myth that suggest connection to higher energies and influences. Of course science itself has given us the basis for this – we know that we use wifi (wireless) transmission of energy every day and our computer software encodes active conceptual intentions and produces results without human intervention – suggesting that mental energy and truth does not need a physical foundation in order to “exist.” In addition to these connected efforts to unearth the sources of wisdom that may have been lost, the actual historical civilizations that modern history seems to avoid even mentioning are covered books like Chariots of the Gods, by Erik von Daniken and more recently in Magicians of the Gods: The Forgotten Wisdom of Earth’s Lost Civilization by Graham Hancock. It may well be that we are on the verge of rewriting not only our history of science and religion, but in fact the history of the origin of our species as we connect these various dots and rethink even the basis of religions we have always taken for granted: Judaism (with the Kabala and its mystical aspects) and Christianity as being sourced not in the teachings of Jesus, but in the ancient history of mankind itself.
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Post by Admin on Jan 10, 2021 13:08:07 GMT
The Gospel of Thomaswww.youtube.com/watch?v=Oxi5-6LdSpEIntroduction to New Testament (RLST 152) We have known of the existence of the Gospel of Thomas from ancient writers, but it was only after the discovery of the Nag Hammadi Codices that the actual text became available. The Gospel of Thomas is basically a collection of sayings, or logia, that sometimes seem similar, perhaps more primitive than sayings found in the canonical Gospels. Sometimes, however, the sayings seem better explained as reflecting a "Gnostic" understanding of the world. This involves a rejection of the material world and a desire for gnosis, a secret knowledge, in order to escape the world and return to the divine being. 00:00 - Chapter 1. The Nag Hammadi Codices and Thomasine Literature 10:35 - Chapter 2. The Sayings of the Gospel of Thomas 28:15 - Chapter 3. Proto-orthodoxy and "Gnosticism" Complete course materials are available at the Open Yale Courses website: open.yale.edu/coursesThis course was recorded in Spring 2009.
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Post by Admin on Jan 12, 2021 18:40:23 GMT
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Post by Admin on Jan 12, 2021 18:44:04 GMT
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