It's all about me.

The idol of your self is the mother of all idols.
To regard the self as easy to subdue is a mistake.
- Jalal al-Din Muhammad Rumi

From "Man and Nature: Permanence Amidst Apparent Change""

"It is often forgotten that before man began to view his relation to nature only from the aspect of change and impermanence, he had become himself inwardly detached from the immutable principle of the Intellect, the nous, which along with revelation is the only factor that can act as the permanent and immutable axis for the machinations of human reason. With the weakening of gnostic elements in Christianity the rational faculty of Western man became gradually estranged from the twin sources of immutability, stability and permanence: namely, revelation and intellectual intuition. The result was on the one hand the nominalist trend, which destroyed philosophical certainty, and on the other this reduction of man to the purely human cut off from any transcendental elements, the man of Renaissance humanism." - Seyyed Hossein Nasr

full article here

All Saints Accord - new signer

Recognizing the true face of Gnosis in the brothers and sisters of each of our Church communities and acknowledging our common heritage in the One Apostolic Succession through which the Master has promised to be present to his Church until the end of time, we the undersigne

d Bishops of the Gnostic Church in its myriad forms, do affirm and commit to uphold the following principles... full text

 The recently-consecrated +Tim Mansfield has added his name to the growing list of bishops who have signed the All Saints Accord.

The Accord was the initiative of our friends at the AJC, specifically Msgr. Jordan Stratford, who wrote:

What it is: It's a survey. Who here supports the following ideas as self-evident, and who does not?;

• That Apostolic Gnostic Churches are in fact Apostolic Gnostic Churches
• That we honour our common heritage
• That we do not deny the sacraments to someone from another Church
• That we as clergy are all here to serve the people

Why it's special: Because it's unilateral – this isn't an agreement between Churches amongst themselves, this is a declaration that "I welcome you even if you don't welcome me". It's caritas in praxis, leaving Church X free to disagree and exclude while Church Y includes and welcomes. Which position would you rather your church take?

You can read the full Accord with a current list of signers here.https://sites.google.com/site/alexandriangnosticchurch/about-us/all-saints-accord

Valentinian Cosmology - The Pleroma

As for ourselves, let each one of us dig down after the root of evil which is within one, and let one pluck it out of one's heart from the root. It will be plucked out if we recognize it. But if we are ignorant of it, it takes root in us and produces its fruit in our heart. It masters us. We are its slaves. It takes us captive, to make us do what we do not want; and what we do want, we do not do. It is powerful because we have not recognized it. While it exists it is active. Ignorance is the mother of all evil. - Gospel of Philip

Talk Gnosis - The Sethians

Meet the Early Gnostics

The chief obstacle

The chief obstacle to the attainment of self-consciousness is that we think we have it. One will never get self-consciousness so long as one believes that one has it. There are many other things we think we have, and because of this we cannot have them. There is individuality or oneness —we think we are one, indivisible. We think we have will, or that if we do not have it always, we can have it, and other things. There are many aspects to this, for if we do not have one thing, we cannot have another. We think that we have these things, and this happens because we do not know the meaning of the words we use. - P.D. Ouspensky

Something real...

It is necessary to catch fire. It is necessary to see we are in the presence of something real - yes, real, but finely made, and very gentle, very delicate, and beautiful. - Maurice Nicoll