/r/Gnostic
r/Gnostic is a community dedicated to understanding, discussing, and learning about ancient, medieval, and reconstructionist Gnostic movements.
Gnosticism (from gnostikos, "learned", from Greek: γνῶσις gnōsis, knowledge; Arabic: الغنوصية) is the thought and practice, especially of various cults of late pre-Christian and early Christian centuries, distinguished by the conviction that matter is evil and that emancipation comes through gnosis.
/r/Gnostic
So before I discovered Gnosticism and religion I was just relaxing contemplating god one day after being an atheist my entire life. My thought process was pretty vague but to make a long story short I thought that humans don’t understand what happened before the Big Bang and there’s clearly some information that seems to be above human understanding and after contemplating this for a while I all of a sudden felt a warmth across my body and for some reason this felt like god. It felt like pure love and care if that makes sense and now after looking into gnosis and how the divine is within the self I’m more sure than ever that god IS real and he is inside all of us. Not sure if anyone will find this interesting but anyone else had this type of experience and a follow up question is this gnosis?
hopefully this is the right sub, i'm choosing this place because other subs may not like what spiritual dilemma i'm in right now. i still see it as a cop-out honestly so i'd rather not talk about to anybody whose mainstream religious let alone atheistic, sorry if i'm stalling.
its definitely a personal interpretation of a demiurge, so hopefully i'm not meant to tell of this? and also still a vague one at that, i haven't had that much time or bravery to think it out, or analyze the Bible to test my belief i guess i can call it. and while still think Samael is still real and i may have worshipped perhaps heard him communicating to me before (unless its just the voices in my head) i simply find the concept of Saklas being the only god who who pretends to/is attempting to/tricks people into thinking of him as the Almighty as laughable. this personal demiurge still takes on the task of being the god that Jesus was referring to when he was talking about the Father of Lies. i called this demiurge "Yahweh" but that just sounded offensive to me, oddly enough the name "Deimos" and i quote 'just came to me' if that makes any sense, like i don't feel like its something i thought up but was put in my mind, just for transparency this has happened to me before, a lot of the ideas going through my head don't feel like mine.
i still don't know the motivation of this demiurge or why they want to be the supreme god and over throw the Almighty. i still think of him as being basically Yahweh, still the storm warrior god whose subservient to El, and is still against Ba'al, but i'd rather not mix Deimos with Yahweh, i still have respect for the old testament god, maybe out of fear, i don't know.
the best way i can describe this demiurge is through my current interpretation of Abraham's attempt to sacrifice Isaac to God. my idea is that the true all powerful God told Abraham to make a sacrifice of his son in Mount Moriah, but this Deimos god i've thought up, was guiding him, making him attribute his anger or lust to seek divination. but when Abraham was about to slay Isaac, God had an angel intervene, telling him to not lay a hand on his only son, because God knew that Abraham feared him. my *current* idea for why the Almighty had sent an angel to stop him, was because he knew that Abraham would be sharing the sacrifice of Isaac to Deimos as well as to him, and through grace: God had Abraham stopped and the Jews would become a people as result, but as far as i know i still think that Isaac was going get slain if Deimos wasn't trying to steal the sacrifice. aside from that i have been thinking of how i can know if Deimos or God is influencing me, if i feel like i suddenly need to a work for God just for the sake of it than i think its Deimos, like a mad dash urge something akin to bipolar. but i lovingly do something for the Lord calmly and with a level head than i think that the God most high is influencing me. its all still so vague to me so i hope that doesn't frustrate anybody, btw i still believe in the gnostic demiurge, i'm not replacing him with this Deimos that i sense, i still think its very much possible that i worshipped the lion snake dude a long time ago, and maybe heard him talking to me. if theres any spiritual guidance which can be offered to me than please do, and i'll maybe make some other posts about this if i have any theories of this Deimos as i'm calling him showing up in the Bible.
Are there any terms in modern science that directly correlate with Gnosticism? By that I mean, can you explain gnostic ideas so that a modern man could understand them?
Thank you :)
Its pretty obvious the real God is Yaldabaoth. Why do they serve them? Or whatever I should call it cause He is the one who created humans and (very likely) animals. And how these people who choose to keep living just bring more people here,its kind of odd...Why they just decide its worth it to live ?Unless they believe in other religions like Christianity which doesn't sound real of an all-powerful/knowing 'God'
What would be best books for someone new to gnosticism?
So far I've read the gospel of Thomas and Judas. And will soon read the secret apocryphon of John. Which other ones are worth reading?
Just like standard Christianity has Satanism does Gnosticism give way to worshippers of the Archons for evil purposes? I’m interested for a book idea, a reimagined Pistis Sophia.
I wanted to post this to reveal some internal experiences I had to get some insight on what it was or if anyone could relate. Excuse my sentence structuring.
Most of the time, these things happen at night where my subconscious and conscious are forming as one, as I'm drifting off to sleep.
Sometimes, it is almost possible when I am fully awake, but I'd have to be at the peak of my meditative periods, where I can almost feel the essence of truth coming to me all at once.
There are many feelings I'd learned to feel through the wisdom journey, and hopefully you likewise know it too. But there had been one in particular that had expressed itself inside of me one night, where I'd hardly focused myself at all on what I'd learned. It happened very quickly as well.
For maybe at most 2 seconds, i could feel a weightless light take over my everything. I couldn't see nor feel the weight of my body. But rather i felt a childlike light- although i couldnt see it, it felt so colorful, with white being at the center. (Also, not sure if anyone else could relate to it, but certain higher feelings i've felt often feel like colors. For example the one of higher human conscious love, feels like a golden yellow to me. And great comfort feels like the color green to me. Kindness feels like the color light blue to me. Idk that all could be delusional.)
But it felt so safe and, for some reason very truthful. Like the essence of truth itself, and not the concept. Interestingly, i learned that many emotions and thoughts exist as both a feeling and a concept. Like the feeling love and concept of love. Then there is the feeling of righteousness and the concept of it. I only hope these are objective truths ofcourse.
But anyway, when i felt it, my entire existence, the whole material world, and just all the things inside of me felt like the essence of lie itself. I knew it was real, but it still was lie. I really cant explain it more than this.
I dont want anyone to feel left out or feel like im flexing this experience, im genuinely just concerned and curious as to what happened. Im very young and just now transformed into the gnostic community, HOWEVER the beliefs some texts reveal, i have thought those ideas prior to even knowing of gnosticism. Self generation of said knowledge gave confidence that this was the right, ruling way.
Anyway, after that there'd be some nights where id almost feel something inside of me being awakened. And everytime i do the very first thing it does is want to leave. My body? I dont know, but it feels very much alive and very much understanding.
yeah thats all bye.
So I'm really new to the ideas of gnosticism but there's something that's been on my mind. Why is Sophia called Wisdom when the actions she took were so unwise and resulted in the demiurge? Did she become known as Wisdom after she repented?
Someone please explain it to me and be gentle lol
Any tips for possible rituals or spiritual practices to connect with the divine?
I keep seeing many people say Barbelo is the Holy Spirit and Jesus’s mom, and I see some people saying it was Sophia.
Has anyone heard of the Khlysts? And if so would you consider them to be linked to the gnostics?
What are y’alls thoughts on Rosicrucianism?
The pain, suffering, not fitting in. Dark thoughts. Things I didn't want to acknowledge about the world. Things I didn't want to acknowledge about my self. The painfull. The ugly. The things deemed unwanted. I pushed them away. Buried them deep. There they sat all alone in their own little separated universes. Thinking there was no one there besides themselves, they started to create a world on their own.
Hello everyone! English ia not my native language so I apologize for any mistakes I might commit. I am relatively new to the world of gnosticism. I am part of a Native American indigenous religion. We worship our ancestors in a regular basis. However, we are 100% free (and encouraged) to look after higher beings (divinities, as some say) for personal and spiritual growth. Since I've got to know a little bit of gnosticism, something really light iluminated my heart and I was able to feel love for Yeshua and The Monad for The first time (orthodox christianity is known to be intolerant, sometimes even violent, to indigenous cults here in my country.) Well, lets get to the point. I need strength to cut off some vices and bad habits. But addiction is tricky, I feel insufficient and not strong enough to let go. Would some of my brothers reccomend me some verses of light and encouragement, from a gnostic point of view? I would really apreciate the kindness. May The living God bring light and resilience for ALL of us who wish It.
Asking for a friend, if (Holy) Spirit = Wisdom (Proverbs 8), see also Life (John 1:4) = Mary, then being “born again” of a Virgin birth sounds a lot like gnosis to me and that’s Heresy!
It's counter to Gnosticism in a lot of ways since there is devotion to YHWH but has anyone else studied the Jewish kabbalah as a supplemental to Gnosticism? I find the sephirot and tree of life fascinating and certain aspects such as law of assumption (which originally derives from Kabbalah) have a lot of power and tangibility behind them. I view Kabbalah as almost a master key to more abstract aspects of spirituality and gnosis in general. I wonder if it can be studied and practices used without being completely counter to Gnosticism?
Most of the gnostic teachings are against the current world order and our world in general. But all of the Abrahamic religions are defending the current world and are positive regarding the spreading life over this realm. I feel that they are part of the opposition, the matter. This world where we live is kinda hybrid because of the two realms union and Gnosticism teaches that because of the hardships and inequalities in all fields teaching opens some ways to avoid this realm and traps and recommends doing everything in your hand in order to change perception and consciousness of the people. Couple of ways are avoiding archons after the death, or going through the process of being in dreaming and etc. But what about the world of matter, do you have any ideas what kind of world/realm/being it is and how it operates?
Just asking since the idea of Hermeticism is the belief in many other religions’ Gods yet believe in one creator God.
Ive seen many comments here stating that its acceptable under gnosticism yet the pistis sophia states that its “blasphemy”
I just started researching this so i apologize if this seems like an uneducated question i just cant seem to find a real answer.
A day for the commemoration of Salome, another female disciple of Jesus Christ who's role has been obscured and de-emphasised by orthodox Christianity. Her presence at several key events indicates she may have been among Jesus' closest followers, and the fact that the Carpocratian Gnostics claimed a transmission of sacred wisdom from her opens the possibility that she may have been a recipient of his inner teachings.
From A Gnostic Calendar
I was watching a video the other day where I found it very beautiful and motivating how Krishna told Arjuna to not dwell on the future but to only focus on his duty without any regard for the result and to continue in doing so. Is there anywhere in the Gnostic Gospels of Lord Jesus Christ motivating Judas Iscariot in a similar situation?
I've compiled a table of the early church fathers that reveals a striking conclusion: they're all heretics!
We're told that Nicene Christianity is all there is, and that the early church fathers held basically the same beliefs, with only minor variations in practice. Nothing could be further from the truth.
A quick look at this table shows that basically every revered church father, from the prolific Origen to the charismatic Tertullian, was a heretic. In other words, they passionately defended things that would be unacceptable to share in congregations today.
If you were to teach a Sunday school the beliefs of the early churches, you'd be asked to leave. Think about what this says for Christianity today. I think one should be much more open to theological speculation and "heretical" positions after researching all of this.
After all, it means trinitarian theology is a 4th century development -- a claim often levied against Gnosticism. What do you think though? What heresies do you think are true?