AGC Statement on the Massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School

"We must substitute courage for caution...we must be concerned not merely about who murdered them, but about the system, the way of life, the philosophy which produced the murderers."

read the full statement here

The Diversity of Early Christianity - 24 lecture series by Bart Ehrman

Bart Ehrman, PhD

I highly recommend this series by Bart Ehrman, PhD, Chair of the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

The full series of 24 videos is available here.

We all vote every day

An excerpt from a poem by James Tracy, from the Buddhist Peace Fellowship:

the most important choices
     we make
are on the days between elections
     picketlines walked
homes unevicted
     communities mobilized
cynicism conquered
     empires deleted
meanings for once
     not lost in translation
kindness given
     love made
to that extent you know

we all vote every day

Knowledge and the Sacred - Seyyed Hossein Nasr

 

Highly recommended: This lecture, Knowledge and the Sacred, was given upon request of Huston Smith when he taught at Hamline University in Minneapolis. Professor Nasr's lecture is based upon his book, Knowledge and the Sacred, which was a compilation of material from his Gifford Lectures.

  Part 1 - 48 minutes
  Part 2 - 40 minutes


Also:

The Heart is the Throne of the All-Merciful

From the 2001 Paths to the Heart Conference at the University of South Carolina.  Professor Nasr's key-note address touches upon the universal doctrine of the heart as the center of the human microcosm in all its levels, from the vital to the emotive to the intellectual and spiritual. It deals with methods of reaching the heart, primarily through prayer, drawing from the teachings of Islam, Christianity and other religions.


Part 1  - 33 minutes

Part 2 - 30 minutes

Eleven (False) New Age Principles

The points and counterpoints below are taken from Living Islam; the quotes are originally from the Left Traditionalist Charles Upton's The System Of Antichrist.  While I do have significant disagreements with Upton and with the Traditionalist school of thought generally, I have a great appreciation for their criticisms of modern spirituality, materialism, and psychologism.  I don't agree with all of Upton's counterpoints here; I'm re-posting them as part of an ongoing examination and discussion of the contemporary environment of spiritual narcissism and decay.

----------------------------------------------------------

1.) Universal evolution of consciousness toward greater love and compassion

"This is certainly false if applied to the human collectivity or the material universe. The receptivity of incarnate time-conditioned consciousness to Divine Reality waxes and wanes in a cyclical manner, and human receptivity to God on the collective level is now in a steep and irreversible decline."

"The truth here veiled is that the destiny of the individual soul on the spiritual path is to 'evolve' in the sense of 'unwinding what has been wound up', dissolving the hard kernel of egotism and self-will. This 'evolution' certainly includes the development of compassion, but (and here the principle is deceptive because incomplete) this 'evolution' also results in the development of true, objective knowledge."

2.) In the context of universal evolution of consciousness, we can be guided both by beings who are more 'evolved' than us, and by parts of ourselves which are themselves evolving.

"It is certainly true that some persons such as the Sufi guide Khidr (peace be upon him)... can in certain rare conditions sometimes be delegated by God to guide us, -as long as we, and they, understand that ultimately God is the only guide."

"But to believe that this rare possibility makes it unnecessary for us to connect ourselves to a revealed tradition, and place ourselves (God willing) under the guidance of a fully-empowered human representative of that tradition, presuming one is available, is false. And to believe that conscious, ongoing contact with a discarnate 'guide' is normal - for anyone but a sorcerer, that is, in communion with his familiar spirit - and that such contact is not an open door to demonic possession, is profoundly deluded."

"Furthermore, to say we can be guided by our 'higher self' which is also evolving, is false; to try to spiritually orient oneself to something which is still in the realm of becoming [such as our 'higher self'] is to reduce the meaning of 'spiritual orientation' to zero."

"If there is any meaning to the term 'higher self', it can only refer, not to the individual soul but to the level of Spirit (rûh) within us that Eckhart indicated when he said 'there is Something within the soul which is uncreated and uncreatable.' The atman (or Divine Self or rûh) does not guide us in the sense that we can hold a conversation with it."

"Psychic reflections of the rûh (Spirit), may certainly appear in dreams or visions. These reflections will be deceptive, ambiguous, or a vehicle of God's Grace, depending upon God's will for that person and his or her state."

3./4.) The earth is at a critical point in its development; we are witnessing a major shift in values, lifestyles, spiritual orientation, we are moving into greater spiritual maturity, the earth is to undergo a purification of values and social organization; there will be earth-changes such as earth quakes.

"It is true that the earth is at a critical point, but the shift in values, lifestyles, spiritual orientation and social organization is not toward greater spiritual maturity, but toward chaos and dissolution. It is true that there will be, and already are, earth changes, as were predicted by Jesus for the end of the age, and true that there will be a purification. But the purification will be apocalyptic, not progressive, and will represent the end of the present humanity. The 'new heaven and the new earth' will be for another humanity."

5.) Guides are now appearing to help us through this transition to an age of peace, new energies of higher frequency will cause minor disturbances in behavior.

"It is false that we are transitioning to a time of peace, unless it be a false and temporary peace; therefore the 'guides' who claim to be helping us through this transition are deceptive. Nor are the present disturbances in behavior minor, to say the least. It is true, in a sense, that we are encountering 'higher energies', but this is because our own level of integration is sinking to the point where the ever-present Grace of God can only be experienced, on the collective level, as wrath, since we are not receptive to it. The 'energy', or ontological level, of the parousia so far surpasses what the world can receive that it will shatter the world, making way for 'a new heaven and a new earth'. (parousia: wrath of God)"

6.) The human being is one part of a multi-dimensional soul or god-self, we are much more than we think we are.

"True and false. As Jesus said, 'ye are all gods, and sons of the Most High.' But he balanced this by saying, 'Why callest thou me good? None is good, save one, that is, God.'"

"It is true that humanity exists simultaneously in higher worlds than the material, namely the psychic and the Spiritual. But we do not simply ascend to these worlds, or enter them for the first time when we die, because the Great Chain of Being represents the 'ray' whereby God created us, and maintains us in existence, instant-by-instant. If we turn against these higher worlds, however - by giving our allegiance to our ego instead of God - then they will - become our Hell: the psyche, an anguished chaos; the Spirit within us, a cutting, blinding Light which forces us away from the radiant Center of Being."

"The central question is this: are these higher aspects of our being claimed by the ego, as if we were self-created, or are they seen as God's gift to us of our very being, which we cannot claim as our own even in material terms?"

"New Age believers like the idea that we exist simultaneously in higher worlds; what they have greater difficulty dealing with is that 'he who tries to preserve his life will lose it, but he who loses his life, for My sake, will find it'. This is because they want to claim these higher worlds for the ego; they teach that we can enter and 'explore' these worlds as a kind of leisure-time activity, by a simple, incremental expansion of our 'human potential', without piety, without sacrifice, without fear of God. Their doctrine is essentially Promethean; they choose to forget that 'twice born needs once dead.'"

7.) We create our own experience on all levels; there are no victims; we create our own suffering as a learning experience.

"It is false to say that we create our own experience if the 'we' in question is the individual psyche, because the psyche does not create itself, being wholly contingent on the Spirit of God, and because other individual psyches exist; the solipsism [i.e. obtaining knowledge only by own sense-perception] here implied is thus refuted both 'vertically'and 'horizontally'."

"There is a way, however, in which this is true, but only in a negative sense, since we certainly do create some of our own perceptual limitations. Rather than 'we create our own reality,' it would be better to say "we create our own illusions, which then become our 'reality'".

"Our view of the world is a learned pattern, determined both by culture and by personal experience, if not by a series of choices based on fear and desire."

"To say 'there are no victims' is true if by this we mean that everything, in the ultimate sense, is an act of God, and God is just, even the suffering of the innocent is justified from the point of view which sees cosmic existence itself, while in one sense necessary, as an imbalance in the face of the Absolute."

"In the words of Rabi`a, 'Your existence is a sin with which no other sin can be compared.' The idea that there are no victims is an interpretation of the law of karma (law of action and ongoing results of actions) - but if it is implied in this interpretation that charity toward the suffering is not incumbent upon us, since 'that's just their karma,' or that we can become liberated simply through creating illusions for ourselves and then seeing through them, then it is false.

"Karma (law of action and ongoing results of action) is not a self-exhausting system; without dharma, (which is) the operative truth which lifts one above the level of karmic cause-and-effect by positing the reality of self-transcendence, karma can never be 'lived out'; without the Mercy of God's Truth, freely given and freely accepted, along with its 'cross', illusion can never be dispelled. Damnation is the proof that not all suffering has the power to enlighten.

8.) Matter follows thought, our physical reality is created, and can be changed, by our beliefs.

"Matter follows God's thought, not ours; to imply otherwise, to say that we are co-creators in our own right, is false. It is true that our experience can be changed by changing our beliefs, but this change cannot be sovereign, or arbitrary."

"We can't simply believe whatever we want and think we're thereby controlling the world, because there really is an objective reality, both within us and outside us, something which is exactly the way it is no matter what we happen to believe."

"A change in belief can change our experience in two ways only: if we conform our beliefs to objective spiritual Truth, we will see the universe as it really is, as both contingent upon that Truth and a manifestation of it, (but) if our beliefs are determined by our ego, which interprets the world around it only on the basis of its own fears and desires, we will perceive and produce only chaos."

"It is true that if we all perfectly conformed our consciousness to objective spiritual Reality, the material world would dissolve and be transformed into Paradise. But this is the farthest thing from the idea that our beliefs create reality out of nothing, given that such perfect conformation - which, of course is impossible in practical terms - could not be a function of belief, which sees 'through a glass, darkly,' but only of true objective knowledge. As I pointed out above, the ego does not create; it only edits."

9.) Although our individual expression demonstrates much diversity, we are all ultimately one.

"True. The only question is, in what sense are we one? If this is meant horizontally, on the social level or in terms of sharing in the same subconscious motivations, then the best that can be said is that, for better or worse, we are related, or only 'relatively one'. Our true unity is vertical, (meaning) by virtue of atman or Divine Self within us; we are all creations, or symbolic manifestations, of the One Divine Self."

"By virtue of this atman (or Divine Self) we are, at the deepest level of our being, both unique and universal. The Self within us is pure, transpersonal, universal Being, without attributes; in another sense, It is even beyond Being. But since God is unique as well as universal, the Self is also the principle of our unique human integrity, according to which we are not simply humanity in the abstract, but actual human beings, commanded by God to be precisely ourselves, no greater, no less, and no other."

"And yet this uniqueness is also universal, since it is shared by all human beings, and in fact by all things. Self as the principle of uniqueness is not other than Self as the principle of pure Being, as when God, speaking to Moses in Exodus, names, Himself 'I Am That I Am' that is to say: My unique Essence is not other than My pure Being; it is My unique Essence to be pure Being. And what God can say of Himself, we can also say, virtually at least," of the Divine Self within us.

10.) That psyche and Spirit are identical.

"As I demonstrate in many places throughout this book, this principle is entirely false."

11.) That spirituality is a personal achievement, an exploit, a tour-deforce.

"As I demonstrate in many places throughout this book, this principle is entirely false."

A counterfeit is worse than a simple error...

"Dr Rama Coomaraswamy, in an article entitled 'The Desacralization of Hinduism for Western Consumption, lists nine New Age principles, which he takes from a book by Dr Catheryn Ridall, Ph.D., representing the essence of todays channeled spirit teaching. Above is a summary of them, in which I attempt to disentangle elements of spiritual truth from the matrix of error which is New Age doctrine."

"A counterfeit is worse than a simple error. These nine principles are full of errors which, however, are precisely designed to obfuscate specific metaphysical truths. And the effect of such counterfeits is that 'you are damned if you do and damned if you don't.' The Devil loves to employ counterfeits, because to accept them is to be led into error, while to reject them without exposing the counterfeit - that is, without bringing forth the true principle which the counterfeit was designed to hide - is to be, maneuvered into rejecting the truth that is being counterfeited. I'll attempt to deconstruct the above 'principles', expose the counterfeits they are made of, and present the traditional principles they veil."

From Living Islam

Related:

•  "...since you don't believe you are sick, there can be no cure."
• From Notes on "Spirituality"
• Seeking Ancient Wisdom in the New Age: New Age and NeoGnostic Commentaries on the Gospel of Thomas
• On Psychology, Cosmology and Morality

Zach's Emergency Fund

My dear friend and collaborator, Bill C. has sent out the following appeal:

Hello friends, family and associates,

I am typically not one to ask for financial assistance but there was a recent tragic event that happened to my son Zach while I was out of town visiting a family member that is battling cancer. On Friday (10/5) Zach was violently attacked as he was leaving a restaurant where he and his friends were playing pool. The incident was unprovoked. The attacker came out of nowhere and hit my son so hard that he fell unconscious face-first on the concrete knocking out his two front teeth in the process. The attacker fled the scene of the crime while my son lay unconscious on the ground. A police report has been filed and the investigation is ongoing. Unfortunately the restaurant, as well as other businesses in the area, do not have any security cameras. I recently lost my job where I had medical and dental coverage for my son. The immediate family is coming together to try to raise funds for hospital and dental bills. I realize times are hard for a lot of people right now, yet if you have the means to do so, please consider a donation of any amount (everything helps). All donations will be applied directly towards medical/dental expenses for Zach. 

Please consider passing this note on your social network circles to spread the word. The direct link for this page is:

http://www.gofundme.com/1bohao

Thank you for taking the time to read this and for any donations, prayers and healing you might be able to offer.

Sincerely,

Bill

Crowdfunding

The Maimed

Chris Hedges delivered this talk in New York City at a protest on the 11th anniversary of the war against the people of Afghanistan:

Many of us who are here carry within us death. The smell of decayed and bloated corpses. The cries of the wounded. The shrieks of children. The sound of gunfire. The deafening blasts. The fear. The stench of cordite. The humiliation that comes when you surrender to terror and beg for life. The loss of comrades and friends. And then the aftermath. The long alienation. The numbness. The nightmares. The lack of sleep. The inability to connect to all living things, even to those we love the most. The regret. The repugnant lies mouthed around us about honor and heroism and glory. The absurdity. The waste. The futility.

It is only the maimed that finally know war. And we are the maimed. We are the broken and the lame. We ask for forgiveness. We seek redemption. We carry on our backs this awful cross of death, for the essence of war is death, and the weight of it digs into our shoulders and eats away at our souls. We drag it through life, up hills and down hills, along the roads, into the most intimate recesses of our lives. It never leaves us. Those who know us best know that there is something unspeakable and evil many of us harbor within us. This evil is intimate. It is personal. We do not speak its name. It is the evil of things done and things left undone. It is the evil of war.

We do not speak of war. War is captured only in the long, vacant stares, in the silences, in the trembling fingers, in the memories most of us keep buried deep within us, in the tears.

It is impossible to portray war. Narratives, even anti-war narratives, make the irrational rational. They make the incomprehensible comprehensible. They make the illogical logical. They make the despicable beautiful. All words and images, all discussions, all films, all evocations of war, good or bad, are an obscenity. There is nothing to say. There are only the scars and wounds. These we carry within us. These we cannot articulate. The horror. The horror.

War gives to its killers a God-like power to take life. And there are those here tonight that have felt and exercised that power. They turned other human beings into objects. And in that process of killing they became objects, machines, instruments of death, war’s victimizers and war’s victims. And they do not want to be machines again.

We wander through life with the deadness of war within us. There is no escape. There is no peace. We know an awful truth, an existential truth. War exposed the lies of patriotism and collective virtue of the nation that our churches, our schools, our press, our movies, our books, our government told us about ourselves, about who we were. And we see through these illusions. But those who speak this truth are cast out. Ghosts. Strangers in a strange land.

Who are our brothers and sisters? Who is our family? Whom have we become? We have become those whom we once despised and killed. We have become the enemy. Our mother is the mother grieving over her murdered child, and we murdered this child, in a mud-walled village of Afghanistan or a sand-filled cemetery in Fallujah. Our father is the father lying on a pallet in a hut, paralyzed by the blast from an iron fragmentation bomb. Our sister lives in poverty in a refugee camp outside Kabul, widowed, desperately poor, raising her children alone. Our brother, yes, our brother, is in the Taliban and the Iraqi insurgency and al-Qaida. And he has an automatic rifle. And he kills. And he is becoming us. War is always the same plague. It imparts the same deadly virus. It teaches us to deny another’s humanity, worth, being, and to kill and be killed.

There are days we wish we were whole. We wish we could put down this cross. We envy those who, in their innocence, believe in the innate goodness of America and the righteousness of war and celebrate what we know is despicable. And sometimes it makes us wish for death, for the peace of it. But we know too the awful truth, as James Baldwin wrote, that “people who shut their eyes to reality simply invite their own destruction, and anyone who insists on remaining in a state of innocence long after that innocence is dead turns himself into a monster.” And we would rather be maimed and broken and in pain than be a monster, and some of us, once, were monsters.

I cannot heal you. You will never be healed. I cannot take away your wounds, visible and invisible. I cannot promise that it will be better. I cannot impart to you the cheerful and childish optimism that is the curse of America. I can only tell you to stand up, to pick up your cross, to keep moving. I can only tell you that you must always defy the forces that eat away at you, at the nation—this plague of war.

    Sometimes I feel like a motherless child?
    A long ways from home
    A long ways from home

Towering about us are banks and other financial institutions that profit from war. War, for some, is a business. And across this country lies a labyrinth of military industries that produce nothing but instruments of death. And some of us once served these forces. It is death we defy, not our own death, but the vast enterprise of death. The dark, primeval lusts for power and personal wealth, the hypermasculine language of war and patriotism, are used to justify the slaughter of the weak and the innocent and mock justice. ... And we will not use these words of war.

We cannot flee from evil. Some of us have tried through drink and drugs and self-destructiveness. Evil is always with us. It is because we know evil, our own evil, that we do not let go, do not surrender. It is because we know evil that we resist. It is because we know violence that we are nonviolent. And we know that it is not about us; war taught us that. It is about the other, lying by the side of the road. It is about reaching down in defiance of creeds and oaths, in defiance of religion and nationality, and lifting our enemy up. All acts of healing and love—and the defiance of war is an affirmation of love—allow us to shout out to the vast powers of the universe that, however broken we are, we are not yet helpless, however much we despair we are not yet without hope, however weak we may feel, we will always, always, always resist. And it is in this act of resistance that we find our salvation.

See also:  Veterans and Allies Arrested in New York as Afghanistan War Enters Year 12

John Dear: On the Killing of 8 Afghan Women

If you looked carefully at the news over the past two weeks, you might have heard a report from Afghanistan about how the U.S./NATO forces bombed and killed eight Afghan women who were out walking in the mountains early in the morning before dawn to collect wood. Eight other women were seriously injured.

But you probably didn't hear that story. Who cares about the death of eight Afghan women from our bombs?

So a few women were killed in our nation's longest war in a remote mountainous region on the other side of the world!? That's the cost of war. That's what we call "collateral damage." There's nothing that can be done. It was probably their fault anyway. They were probably Taliban rebels. Don't give it another thought. What about poor Lindsay Lohan, Kate Middleton, or Katie Holmes? Now there's a real story.

That's what the culture of war would tell us.

The Gospel of peace suggests otherwise. Jesus always sides with those most marginalized, threatened, and hurt by the culture of war, beginning with women and children. If we Christians take the Gospel seriously, then we know that the nonviolent Jesus grieves for these women, welcomes them into paradise, and holds in contempt the forces of death that killed them. In other words, the nonviolent Jesus cares -- and so should we who claim to follow him -- and everyone who has a conscience.

I know this sounds harsh and judgmental, but what is our response to our nation's massacre of these eight women -- and the hundreds of other women and children we've killed in Afghanistan?

full article here

 See also:

• The Myth of Redemptive Violence 
• Beyond Just War and Pacifism: Jesus' Nonviolent Way  

State of the College Address

This statement was delivered by HE Mar Iohannes, Patriarch of the Apostolic Johannite Church and President of the North American College of Gnostic Bishops at the AGC's 2010 Conventicle.  I was rereading it this morning and though it was delivered more than two years ago, it is still timely and on point.

The following is the text of the State of the College address from the President of the North American College of Gnostic Bishops, delivered at the 2010 Alexandrian Gnostic Church Conventicle:

Your Eminence, Your Grace, Your Excellency, Brothers, Sisters and Clergy of Alexandrian Gnostic Church, the Apostolic Johannite Church, guests and friends.

I want to thank His Eminence and the Alexandrian Gnostic Church particularly for the opportunity to address this Conventicle as well as for your hospitality, fraternity and dedication.

Everything you are gathered here to do reflects the best the College has to offer and most of all embodies the principles of the North American College of Gnostic Bishops.

We can have no greater exemplification of the purpose of the North American College than what we can each see here reflected so plainly in the faces of our brothers and sisters gathered this weekend.

Communion, education, dialogue, respect, the sharing of resources, a common intelligible voice, informed by compassion, guided by reason, fueled by action, framed in diversity and grounded foremost in the experience we call Gnosis.

It is these very things that have driven and enabled the Churches of the College to achieve some remarkable things in the last six years.

The foremost of these things are education and organic communion.

Through the dialogue of NACGB Churches- the member jurisdictions have been better equipped to create on the one hand, and maintain on the other, Active Seminary programs that not only educate and encourage historical, theological and religious exploration, but pastoral exploration as well- working to create true formation for its candidates, with a direct impact on spiritual and social value derived by the good people for whom these candidates are formed. Creating spiritually and socially aware individuals in the Body of Christ, institutionally promoting the exercise of conscience, while leaving its exact determination to the individual themselves.

At the same time, the exchange of ideas found in the halls of the College has enabled its member jurisdictions to promote Gnostic education in a way that helps define, nurture and recognize the individual traditions and customs which each Church brings to the table, while being committed to ensuring the independence of those same Churches, and enshrining the same in the College’s Constitution itself.

Through the exchange of reading lists, course material, event speakers and the continuing education of clergy and laity- the Jurisdictions of the North American College work to bridge the gap between intellectual and scholarly study, responsible for reminding and grounding us in our historical roots and a boots-on-the-ground theology possessed of a transformational quality which brought each one of us here in the first place.

Making a priority of these things in turn better equips the Jurisdictions of the College as we prepare to enter a new decade of mainstream exploration and examination of Gnosticism as an historical movement, a modern religious movement and a personal spiritual path.

We have also seen an unprecedented exchange of information, resources and people- providing community, support, pastoral care and sacramental service in situations where one individual church cannot sufficiently provide alone.

Neither is this exchange limited to clerics, dignitaries and administrative personnel- indeed we have seen the flowering of spiritual exchange and friendship at the heart of each of the NACGB Churches- particularly through our Conclaves and Conventicles- clergy and laity of different churches, each offering all they have freely, to give rise to a unity that transcends the need for uniformity. You don’t have to take my word for it, ask yourself how you feel when our time here this weekend comes to a close.

What defines the North American College of Gnostic Bishops to the rest of the movement and determines the success we have in interacting with it, is how we interact and conduct ourselves with each other.

Through its commitment to common causes- be they social, spiritual or otherwise, and through profound statements of intent followed by examples of action- the North American College has worked through adversity and opposition to create an environment where those jurisdictions and peoples on the margin can be brought into the center- promoting voice and respect alike in equal measure to all within the movement as befits the dignity of each individual Gnostic’s calling.

One such means whereby the Churches of the NACGB have sought to do this, and whose efforts have been validated is the All Saints Accord.

Bringing together twelve signatories from ten very different Gnostic Bodies both within and beyond the NACGB- the All Saints accord embodies the best principles present in its members through the commitment to the respect, equality and openness found at the heart of each of these Churches.

Statements such as this one, combined with regular consultation, interaction and participation have created an organic communion enforced by common respect, common trust and most importantly- a common desire- to see that no one is turned away.

We have gone further than we ever have to make our common tradition a living and open one, accessible by many, bringing together scholars and seekers, philosophers and pilgrims, each enriching the journey of the other.

Yet despite the advances I have already outlined, there remains challenges to the continued success of the College and the Ecclesiastical Gnostic movement in general. These are challenges and impulses that have been created over the last two centuries of our history. Isolationism, one-up-man-ship, backbiting, legalism, revisionism, to name a few.

For many looking on and looking in, the face of Ecclesiastical Gnosticism as it has been known in the last two centuries appears by a casual glance to have been dominated not by spirituality but by rote religion, not communion but recognition. Egocentricity in the guise of individuality, tolerance in the clothing of acceptance, a supplanting of the organic with the organizational, and prizing the cult of personality over the veneration and sanctity of personal experience. Machination over metanoia, arrogance over amity, narcissism over nepsis.

When our Churches provide a thousand words about our pedigree and ten words about where we can be found or what we can do for our brothers and sisters, we have a problem.

When our Churches talk strongly about the rightness of our cause, the wrongness of our enemies, but offer no opportunity, ear or hand for the poor in spirit, we have a problem

When our histories are wielded like weapons to fight imaginary wars from the slights of the past,  we have a problem

When our Churches refuse to dialogue, because we feel that offering a seat at the table to a brother or sister church is beneath us, we have a problem

While the NACGB neither created nor sought these problems, we are and must ever be, opposed to them with every resource at our disposal, but more importantly we must be resolved to be a part of the solution.

The North American College of Gnostic Bishops began as a counter-impulse to these all too human tendencies, working to create mutual assistance, amity and communion.

There is no quick or easy solution to banishing the negative characteristics in our movement but the path to overcoming where our movement is not at its best is through this same counter-impulse.

When we realize that our lineages exist not merely to honour our past but to motivate our future, we have the makings of a solution. When we realize that in turning our backs to those in need, that no one is right, and everyone is wrong, we have the makings of a solution. When we realize our histories are to be laid out like landmarks to guide towards wholeness, compassion and understanding,we have the makings of a solution. When we realize that honouring another’s vocation honours our own and that never is anything lost by listening, we have the makings of a solution.

Just as the experience of Gnosis is the beginning, so too are these realizations a beginning.
How we meet them in the world, on the streets and between the pews is where the real work unfolds.

In order to meet these challenges we must expand and develop the efforts of the College, started six years ago and continuing here in this very gathering: dialogue, education, respect and cooperation.

We must reach beyond the limits of territorial instinct through efforts like the All Saints Accord, and work to strengthen our relationships with those Churches, Bishops and organizations outside of the College’s boundaries and mandate- recognizing where our brothers and sisters labour sincerely and with love to the betterment of their fellows. Churches like the Ecclesia Gnostica Mysteriorum and the Ecclesia Gnostica, without whom, much of these efforts would not be possible, and the Gnostic Church of Mary Magdalene, Communities like Palm Tree Garden and Spiral Inward, where Gnostics at great distance, can meet, discuss and share their experiences.

In the coming years, the North American College of Gnostic Bishops will open its doors in new directions, establish new relationships, and strengthen the ties it already participates in- the last of which we’ve already begun through Constitutional changes to allow a jurisdiction to submit clergy and lay representatives for the formation of Advisory Council to the College. This will, in time, ensure that the College always has resource of perspective in how its projects, and policies impact the people who labour the most directly towards making our movement a better, more inclusive, more responsible movement.

We’ve also implemented a standing constitutional committee to guarantee that the College always serves the best interests of its members by protecting it from potential abuses from those who are elected to serve those members. A North American College that is grounded in process, reason and compassion in working with its existing members, is all the better equipped to face the challenges that are presented to it.

Finally, and most importantly- beyond legislation, committees, and accords, there remains a more powerful tool to ensure the success of the College and Ecclesiastical Gnosticism in the years to come. It is made all the more powerful by the fact that it is something that is shared by the entire movement, The NACGB, Gnostic Churches and each individual Gnostic- and that is the power of our example.

More powerful than the words of scripture are the actions inscribed on the parchment of our lives. More pervasive than lineage and succession are the connections we can make and maintain with each other. More moving than ancient tradition, custom or rite, is the communion of humanity and divinity through the power of community. Our scriptures, our lineages, and our tradition are not replacements for these things, but exist to serve them and taking them out into the world is the most powerful alchemy we possess.

I want to thank each of you here, as well as many of our brothers and sisters who couldn’t be here, for your commitment, hard work, and most of all, for your example. We’ve come a good distance, and our work here is by no means complete, but with your continued help and dedication to not only your own spiritual journeys but to our collective journey as well- complete it we shall.

May the Divine Beloved Bless you: +Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

The Gospel of Jesus' Wife - tonight on Talk Gnosis

Tonight on Talk Gnosis: The Gospel of Jesus' Wife
9 pm Eastern Time

If you miss the live discussion, you can watch this and other videos on our YouTube channel.

Why not become fire?

Abba Lot went to see Abba Joseph and said to him, "Abba, as far as I can I say my little office, I fast a little, I pray and meditate, I live in peace, and as far as I can I purify my thoughts.  What else can I do?"

The old man stood up and stretched his hands toward Heaven.  His fingers became like ten lamps of fire, and he said to him, "If you will, you can become all flame."

- Sayings of the Desert Fathers

Help Save Occult of Personality!

Occult of Personality Podcast produces high-quality informative podcasts featuring interviews with writers, mystics, esotericists, and philosophers.

Unfortunately, as many of us have learned over the years, there are individuals who devote themselves to silencing and harassing people they disagree with.  The Occult of Personality site was targeted by a DNS attack and is offline.  Because this site is a major source of income for the Kaminsky family, they're facing an immediate and urgent crisis;  please consider helping out if you can.

http://www.gofundme.com/198q8o?pc=fb_d

From the Kaminskys:

Kaminsky family is in "all hands on board" crisis mode this morning and we need your help! Greg's website was hacked last night and is out of commission. The hosting company said that denial of service messages came from thousands of IP addresses that kept changing and were targeting specifically Greg's website. Sounds like a major conspiracy theory stuff from a bad movie and it would be amusing if we didn't rely on Greg's site to generate half of our monthly budget! As of now, the hosting company has dropped Greg's website and he needs to find a new hosting company that specializes in handling malicious attacks. We welcome any suggestions you might have there.

For now, we need to deal with the reality of the site being gone. While Greg is going to rebuild it, that will take time and money. Better security costs more! And some of Greg's subscribers are jumping ship which is totally understandable. After all, would you be paying a monthly fee if you could not even get to the website?

Who knew that posting interviews with esoteric authors is such a dangerous business?! I certainly didn't think so! As I listen to the podcasts while Greg edits them, inevitably the message is about the human race awakening, spirituality playing a bigger role in our lives, and different ways of following a spiritual path.

I would like to ask for your help in covering the website rebuilding costs for Greg. Better security means higher monthly costs and apparently each time there is an attack like this there is a one-time fee to deal with it. There is also a lost time and subscriber cost that makes me nervous. Did I mention this is how we pay our bills? Every little bit you can give will help us get over this unfortunate event, help Greg bring his site back, and put food on the table. Food is good!

Thank you for your help!

You can donate here.


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Update:  As of today (10/9/12),  supporters and friends of Occult of Personality have come through with more than $2,500 since they were "palm-treed" by a deliberate DNS attack that specifically targeted the site.  Over the past few years, several of us in the Gnostic/Esoteric community have been the targets of disinformation campaigns, slander, criminal stalking, and other forms of harassment by self-appointed heresy hunters.  The overwhelming support for Greg and the Occult of Personality is an important victory of community and free inquiry over the modern inquisitors.  If you haven't taken a stand to support Occult of Personality, you can still contribute here.

Confessio Fidei

From the AGC website:

In the name of the unknown Father of all, by Aletheia, the Mother of all, by the name which descended upon Jesus,

We affirm that there is One, Ineffable Godhead, which first manifests as the primal Dyad, Bythos (Depth) and Ennoia (Silence), and that from this Dyad emanated the Aeons of the Pleroma: the Ogdoad, the Decad and the Dodecad.  

The fall of Sophia, the youngest of the Aeons, gave birth to the Kenoma, the realm of deficiency and ignorance.  She gave shape to the world of the Kenoma through the agency of the Demiurge, for the purpose of bringing the Spiritual Seed to maturity.

We affirm the work of redemption through the descent of the Aeon Jesus, who is joined to Sophia Achamoth as Bride and Bridegroom.

We confess the doctrine of Emanation and Salvation through Gnosis, which is the noetic apprehension of spiritual truths and spiritual union with the Pleroma.

We confess the Church of the Holy Gnostic Assembly, the earthly manifestation of the pre-existent Ekklesia, directed by Our Lady the Holy Spirit.

We wait for the advent of Our Lady Pneuma Hagion, the eternal Feminine.   

We aspire to the world of the Lord, the Ogdoad. The Feast of the Marriage of the Lamb will take place there. The Pneumatics will receive angels for spouses, and their love will be eternal.

We acknowledge only one law, the Law of the Kingdom given to us by the Aeon Jesus:

Blessed are the poor in spirit,

for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are those who mourn,

for they will be comforted.

Blessed are the meek,

for they will inherit the earth.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,

for they will be filled.

Blessed are the merciful,

for they will be shown mercy.

Blessed are the pure in heart,

for they will see God.

Blessed are the peacemakers,

for they will be called children of God.

Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,

for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.