GNOSTIC OPTICS - Looking Down The Well

' There are many looking down the well
but few are diving deeply.'

Taken from The Gospel of Thoma
Translated by Alan Jacobs
Published by Watkins Media Ltd  2006

GNOSTIC OPTICS - If You Fear

' Don't be afraid of the body,
but don't adore it.
If you fear, it will gain mastery:
if you adore, it will render you helpless.'

Taken from The Gospel of Phillip
Translated by Alan Jacobs
Published by Watkins Media Ltd 2006

GNOSTIC OPTICS - Truth In Words & Pictures

'Truth does not come into the world
without robes
it enters through words and pictures.
Truth cannot be received by the world
in any other way.'

Taken from The Gospel of Phillip
Translated by Alan Jacobs
Published by Watkins Media Ltd 2006

GNOSTIC OPTICS - The Creativity Of Your Self

'I am the one who conceals and then reveals your Self
But when you conceal your Self, I shall appear.
When you appear I'll hide.
Hold me to your Self from comprehension and regret.
Take me to your Self in ugly and ruined places.
Rob those who are good, even in their ugliness.
Ashamed, take me to your Self shamelessly;
scold my organs in yourself.

Advance, all that know me and my organs
establish high creatures amongst the lowly.
March onto childhood; don't hate that state
because it appears tiny.
Don't reject greatness in smallness.
My nature is peace; but war comes from me.
I am an exile and a subject;
I am substance and unsubstantial.

Those who do not cling to me are ignoramuses,
but those who dwell in my substance know me.
Those who are close do not know me.
When you are near I am distant.
On the day you are distant I am close.
I am within, in your heart;
I am your true nature,
the creativity of your Self.'

Taken from the chapter Thunder, The Gnostic Gospels
Translated by Alan Jacobs
Published by Watkins Media Ltd 2006

GNOSTIC OPTICS - Unfathomable Silence

' I am the unfathomable silence
and the thought that comes often,
the voice of many sounds,
and the word that appears frequently.'

Taken from the chapter - Thunder, The Gnostic Gospels
Translated by Alan Jacobs
Published by Watkins Media Ltd 2006

GNOSTIC OPTICS - The Filthy Coat

'Such is the habit,
the filthy coat you've put on,
that is yours, 
for it suffocates you and drags you down
into its cruel self, into the gutter.

Otherwise, through aspiration and seeing
the beauty of Truth and the Good
that dwells in you,
you will come to despise this vile enemy
who plots to destroy you.

It ruins the mind and pollutes the senses
by muddying them with gross materialism,
filling them with disgusting lust
for inane pleasure,
to prevent you from understanding
what you should understand.

And what is worse,
it will stop you from seeing forever
what you should really see.'

Taken from Forgetfulness of God
Translated by Alan Jacobs
Published by Watkins Media Ltd 2006

GNOSTIC OPTICS - Feed The Famished

'Feed the famished,
grant peace to the fatigued,
raise up all who wish to arise,
awaken all who wish to awaken.'

Taken from The Gospel of Truth
Translator by Alan Jacobs
Published by Watkins Media Ltd 2006

GNOSTIC OPTICS - He Who Has No Root

'He who has no root has no shoot,
and although he imagines
he has come into existence,
he will cease.
For he who doesn't truly exist
can never come into fullness
of flawless Being.

How then did he regard himself?
As one who comes into existence
like night-time shadows and ghosts.

But when the Light shines on his fright
he sees that he is as nothing.'

Taken from The Gospel of Truth
Translated by Alan Jacobs
Published by Watkins Media Ltd 2006

GNOSTIC OPTICS - Seven Renunciations

"At the first,
he renounces getting and letting go;
At the second,
evil inclination.
At the third,
illusion and delusion.
At the fourth,
his usurping, cardinal, egoistic arrogance.
At the fifth,
wilful presumption and jeopardising bravado.
At the sixth,
greed, avarice, miserliness,springing from passion
for wealth and perishable possession.
At the seventh,
all deceit betrayal, guile and calumny
lurking in ambush.
Then stripped naked of the old man,
he enters the sphere of Sophia,
Divine Wisdom.'

Taken from Poimandres, in the Gnostic Gospels
Translated by Alan Jacobs
Published by Watkins Media Ltd 2006

GNOSTIC OPTICS - Self Knowledge

'He who understands all
but lacks Self Knowledge
lacks all.'

Taken from The Gospel of Thomas
Translated by Alan Jacobs,
Published by Watkins Media Ltd 2006

GNOSTIC OPTICS - Mysteries Beyond Mortal Sight

'Come unto me, and I will teach you
about mysteries beyond mortal sight.
There is a magnificent kingdom, infinite,
whose limits no angel has ever reached.
Inside dwells the Great Invisible Spirit.
No angelic eye has seen,
nor heartfelt intuition grasped,
its immensity,
nor can it ever be Named.'

Taken from The Gospel of Judas
Translated by Alan Jacobs
Published by Watkins Media Ltd 2006

FINISHED READING - The Gnostic Gospels

The discovery of the Nag Hammadhi texts in 1945 seems single handedly to have recreated the modern interest in Gnosticism. It provided other or more complete versions of texts, as well as ones unknown or known about but no text previously existed. Since then a series of translations have surfaced, including this one by Alan Jacobs. His stated aim was to make the texts more readily accessible and understandable. In order to do this he has consciously removed their more esoteric impenetrable aspects. It is probably safe to say this translation should more accurately be called a rendering. Perhaps I held an expectation of what these texts should be like. But I couldn't escape a neutered feeling about this translation I could not quite shake off. Something of their essential character having been stripped from them. Robbed of their full range of linguistic richness, the metaphors impoverished, the imagery dulled.

Apart from this sense of being too far removed from its original source, what else did I find? Well, the texts are mostly very different in character to the accepted Gospels of the Bible. Some phrases by Christ re-emerge in slightly different form or contexts. Most of these 'gospels' are not gospels in the traditional sense, but collections of reputed sayings or dialogues by Jesus or a disciple. Some resemble later commentaries or poetic evocations. There are no stories or parables. When I read them it seemed quite obvious why these would be left out of the official gospel selections. The metaphysical theology beneath them diverges significantly from the considered norm. The central idea being that we learn to become one with the Godhead, reborn as the Son or Daughter of the divine. Which gives a whole new slant to what the epithet Son of God is meant to infer. It may not be a literal, but a spiritual state.

Their outsider status, is as much to do with the Gnostic in Gospel's use of language tone, metaphorical language, symbolism and imagery of the spiritual path, which sets them apart from the New Testament texts. Without commentary or explications these would be basically indecipherable to the casual layman. These are not parables or teaching stories. They require quite a bit of unpacking. If these really are a whole other set of teachings by Jesus ( and I do say If ) then they were probably for his close and more experienced disciples only. One of whom, Mary Magdalene, has the honour of being the only female disciple of Jesus to have her own gospel, via this 'Gnostic' tradition.

Similar to the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Nag Hammadhi texts are texts written for a particular sect of early Christianity which no longer exists. These sects are randomly grouped together under the Gnostic banner. Though it appears there was no one singular identifiable stream of  Gnostic Christianity.  There were just a bunch of unorthodox traditions, one offs so to speak, that gradually declined before history could capture their essence, or establish what teachings they may have held in common. Leaving a cache of apparently disconnected texts in pots in caves etc. The nearest living relative to these early sects is the Coptic Church in Egypt.

Gnosticism as we currently know it, is a modern reconstruction of  a tradition that most likely never existed in the form it has now been given. Which is why modern Gnosticism can appear to be such a hotch potch of Christian Esotericism, Spiritualism, the Alchemical, Occultism with a fringe of New Age mysticism, and Uncle Tom Cobbly and all and all. Perhaps they never did hang together as a coherent religious philosophy. But they do show how the early sects of Christianity absorbed a broad range of influences and were wildly eclectic with non conformist tendencies.

CARROT REVIEW - 4/8

FINISHED READING - Gnosticism by Stephan A Hoeller

In looking for a general introduction to Gnosticism I chose this. It certainly provided an overview of the beliefs, gives you short biographies of significant Gnostics their life and ideas, and outlines Gnostic movements. But there is something in its chosen style of exposition that gets in the way of a clearly well thought out exposition, namely the author.

Stephan A Hoeller is a professor and practitioner of Gnosticism and goodness does he want you to know. The book is littered with his personal theories, opinions, defences and proselytising of Gnosticism. The last few chapters are really a succession of statements about the contemporary ills and flaws in modern society and how much better we'd all be if Gnosticism was more widely practiced. He declares Hinduism and Buddhism are essentially gnostic in principle, and a lot of things are apparently. And its not as if he is not right in many of the things he asserts, but a bit less subjectivity and expression of partisan viewpoints and more distance would not have gone amiss. To show not tell. There are a lot of words here, specialist gnostic words, Jungian words, umbrella words that require careful decoding and explanations. Words that tend in Hoeller's hands, unfortunately, to get in the way, he got in the way. Making it more difficult to connect with the theoretical structures, or what gnostic texts had to say for themselves

Gnosticism does have a lot within to excite and recommend it.  Its central idea being that the world and us within it, are made flawed from the moment of inception. It's not therefore the fault of our sinning. We do not need to be punished, nor be redeemed. We are born into a fractured relationship with ourselves, the world and the gods. We begin by using our deepening self knowledge to investigate and restore our relationship with the unknowable god. To mend and rejoin our being with that fundamental essence of all things. Becoming one through gnosis with gnosis. Myth and allogory replacing dogma, are strong qualities in Gnostic teachings too. I've certainly gained a few pointers of where to read next. So this has not been a complete waste of time to read.

As a religious philosophies go Gnosticism is probably the most esoteric and hence harder to pin down. Its been challenged before for its heretical concepts by numerous Christians, challenged about whether it really existed as a coherent religious movement ( it can appear tenuous ), challenged over the authenticity of its ' secret' texts. ( they're old but what they represented was piecemeal until the Nag Hammadhi Texts were found ) 

There is also something about texts being dubbed 'secret'. They were actively censored, forbidden and suppressed, this appeals to the modern predilection for conspiracy theories, challenging perceived conventions, and alternative facts.  Wholeheartedly exploited by Dan Brown in The Da Vinci Code. If the Gnostic Gospels are actually 'gospels', then what they say they are represents an entirely different spiritual discourse that Jesus employed privately to his disciples. More metaphysical than his simpler public talks, where he used parables as teaching devices. 

I don't know what scientific and textual analysis has been done on these 'secret' texts to establish their age or original provenance. This book is by a 'devotee', so is probably not the place to find that out. Hoeller is too concerned all the time to justify or castigate the Catholic orthodoxy and to sell you Gnosticisms self evident theological richness and diversity. I just don't think he does a particularly good job of that.

CARROT REVIEW 4/8