Ecclesia Gnostica in Nova Albion

EGINA Volume 2

2006-06-04T12:07:00.000-07:00

For future posts, click here.

I discovered something the other day; this blog takes a very, very long time to load for a lot of you.

So I started to play with Blogger's Archiving feature, but a look at my site traffic stats reveals that many people, discovering this for the first time, scroll down and read the whole thing over the course of an hour. So I've decided to make this whole thing the archive, and create a Volume 2 at egina2.blogspot.com.

That's where all the new stuff will go, it'll look the same, and all the old stuff will remain here.

Rethinking "Williams": An Argument for Dismantling a Dubious Reasoning

2006-06-02T18:19:00.000-07:00

we must conclude that there really is no such thing as a "hammer" and we should dispense with the term altogether.

Further;

not

Further further;

there is no such thing as a walrus.

And yes, he really does employ this reasoning to insist that there's no such thing as us. Instead, we're "biblical demiurgicals"; a term which is merely an awkward euphemism for "Gnostic".

Bart Ehrman says "Doing away with 'Gnosticism' entirely would be to fragment our knowledge to such an extent that we can't know what we're talking about."

Setting Jonas and even Quispel's framing aside, the common thread among "Gnostic" scripture, myth, and movements was and is soteriological; what makes us free is the gnosis of who we were, of what we have become.

Political Tangent: Smart and evil.

2006-06-02T14:12:00.000-07:00

So the Conservative government has chosen to commit suicide by calling a Fall vote on whether some Canadians should be less Canadians than other Canadians. Why would they do such a thing? Is it because they are dumb as well as evil? Oh no, Prime Minister Bush... er.. Harper, is smart and evil.

1) The vote will fail, and everybody knows it.

2) Harper is hoping the vote triggers a non-confidence motion, which will be successful and bring down his own government.

3) An election will be called before the Liberals' Leadership Convention in December. As this is scheduled to be a Coronation of the next Prime Minister, forcing a vote before the Coronation will catch the Grits off-guard.

4) Anger (at the Liberals bringing down the freshman cabinet) at such an early election before the Liberals have a chance to rebrand at the convention will result in the same minority government numbers, and give the Conservatives another year in power, at a cost of only $150M of tax payer's money for the election.

I'd do it, if I were their head spin-meister. Here's what I'd do if I were the Liberals.

1) Defeat the idiotic, medieval and mean-spirited vote.

2) Call the non-confidence vote

3) Whip the benches into abstaining from the non-confidence vote you just called.

4) The vote will fail, the Tories will be in power until December, and utterly, utterly humiliated.

5) Have the leadership convention in December

6) 30 seconds after the new leader is chosen – and seriously, who cares who it is, a frozen low-cal entree in a cardboard box would win a majority – call a non-confidence motion on the basis that the current government isn't Liberal, which is against the natural order of all things Canadian.

7) Motion passes, election called, Frozen Entree is sworn in as Liberal Prime Minister for the next 15 years, and we're back to normal.

[Don't like me calling an anti-gay marriage bill evil? One cannot reasonably be in favour of marriage and then exclude adult citizens from entering such an institution on the basis of who they are – it's exactly the same as denying green-eyed persons the right to own property, or keeping the left-handed from having passports. Evil, and I won't call it less.]

The Lost Gospel of Orpheus?

2006-06-02T08:04:00.000-07:00

Waterhouse, Nymphs Finding the Head of Orpheus
Nah, that was a shameless attention grab from a degenerate and jaded copywriter (me). Interesting find nonetheless, as the stories of Orpheus contains seeds of both the Christ and JBap myths. This article's author even throws us a Gnostic bone.

Orphism believed that man's salvation depended on his knowledge of the truth.

Associated Press

What Gives Me The Right?

2006-05-30T08:35:00.000-07:00

Some of you are really, really not going to like this.

I'm going start up an "internet church" today. I'll make a nice website, start a Yahoo! group, call myself the Episcopus Emeritus or somesuch. I'll never meet a Parishioner, minister a Sacrament, visit a hospital, sit on a local panel of interfaith dialogue, or wash a dish at a function. We won't go in for any of that dogmatic stuff. Oh my site will be peppered with chunks of Gnostic Scripture, drizzled over almost-entirely-Protestant theology with a little bit of Vatican-bashing ("oppresses women, kept the true secrets of the Faith from the faithful in its Archonic appetite for power..." etc.) and maybe a nice Abraxas gif on the sidebar, right next to the "donate now" button. Ta da! I'm a Gnostic too!

And, being a discerning individual, you will visit my instant website cum church and state that my efforts are "not Gnostic". And probably not even a church. What gives you the right?

I mean, aside from reality, discernment, intelligence, and a genuine desire for the word "Gnostic" to mean something other than soggy Protestant-flavoured New Age-ism, anti-Catholic bigotry, papyrus backgrounds and badly pixelated jpg files?

I'm going to pick on Rev. Troy for a second. Hi Troy. Now, I look at what his Parish is doing, in stark contrast to the above. He's meeting real people in a real space, listening, teaching, learning, leading, paying chapel rent, publishing a calendar, buying candles, (no doubt) failing, forgetting, stumbling, but making something real and beautiful and present. Not to mention the fact that he spent several years of his life in Minor Orders, studying, serving at Mass, being challenged, questioned, examined, and proving not only his intellect and grasp of history and theology but also his praxis and caritas; his willingness to do the work, and his compassion.

I look at that and say "that's Gnostic". Shame on me! What gives me the right?

*Dismounts high horse*

Listen. There's a cave up there, and I'm pretty sure there's treasure in it. Let's go explore it together.

With what? Flashlights? Rope? Canaries? No, we're going to use other tools. Our intellect. Our education. Specific and meaningful language. Our imagination. Our wit and courage and compassion. Our discrimination: discrimination is what keeps us from being so open-minded that our brains fall out. This is how such caves are explored, how such treasures are always discovered.

So Gnosticism is admittedly not entirely binary, in the way, say, that Symbolist painting overlaps the Pre-Raphaelites, and yet is still distinct: the labels exist for a reason. Gnosticism is and must be defined by its soteriology: the idea that gnosis of one's relationship with the Divine is necessary for salvation from Ignorance. When we let it mean "whatever you want it to mean" the word becomes meaningless, and the language that has stood for millennia is no longer remotely useful to us as a tool with which to explore the cave and discover the treasure.

My Licentiate of Sacred Theology doesn't give me the right to this treasure. In fact just the opposite: it says that the ownership is explicitly not mine. The Tradition is there to remind me to hold the treasure in trust, to care for the rights of the next seekers into the cave. I didn't invent my Church, declare myself to be x, and start marking territory. My role is older than I am, and it will outlive me, those who inspire me, and those whom I teach and touch. It's humbling: that's what it's for.

Two Gods?

2006-05-28T20:51:00.000-07:00

William Blake, The Red Dragon & The Woman Clothed With the Sun

– WB Yeats

Twice in the last two days I've seen an unusual idea presented: that Gnosticism espouses "two gods"; a deadlocked dueling dualism between the god of spirit and the god of matter. This is of course Manichaeanism, and while Manichaeanism contains many Gnostic elements, this idea is not Gnostic per se – in fact it is ultimately antithetical to positions taken in Thomas and Philip.

Definition time:

Monotheism: the idea of one – and only one – personal "third party entity" Deity.

Polytheism: the idea of many personal "third party entity" Deities

Pantheism: the equation of Deity with the universe (everything is God)

Panentheism: that Deity contains the universe, but the universe does not contain Divinity. "God is everything... and then some."

Chart time:

Perhaps a simpler way to explain is this;

Monotheism: God is one noun
Polytheism: Gods are many nouns
Panentheism: God is one verb with an infinite number of adverbs

The emanations model of Gnostic cosmologies points to an explicitly panentheist view;

- The Gospel of Philip

- Gospel of Thomas: 77

Gnostic Tradition teaches that the Pleroma "the Fullness") is the Ultimate Godhead; everything – everything – radiates out concentrically from the Godhead like ripples from a stone dropped in water: Christ, Sophia, the Demiurge, you, me, chartered accountants, loofas, squids, ginko trees. The Pleroma is also the stone, and the water, and the idea and act of "dropping". This is a good analogy, as a wave/ripple is a transitory expression of a phenomenon rather than an object unto itself.

Christianity is superficially monotheistic, although a closer reading of scriptural texts proves it to be in fact polytheist yet monolatric; recognizing numerous deities but worshipping only one. In Christianity this is a hangover from Augustine's stint as a Manichaean (think of the cartoon shoulder-angel vs. shoulder-devil). The OT does seem to give God-status to Ba'al (although Ba'al just means "Lord" – it's like hearing fundamentalists say that Muslims don't worship God because they pray to Allah). The Marian cults of the 20th century are clearly evidence of polytheism, although with a great deal of hoop-jumping and spin-doctoring Fatima and Međugorje can be euhemerized away (an act criminal yet predictable).

Given such a context, it is easy to see why Christian apologists would project their own polytheistic God-vs-Satan dualism on panentheistic Gnosticism. Which begs the question: Does the Demiurge exist?

There's an interesting hide-and-seek phenomenon in particle physics; every time somebody theorizes about a new particle x, it's immediately discovered. Never fails. It's as though these things simply hang around waiting to be noticed. I'm not suggesting that we're inventing subatomic particles, but I do want to draw attention to the close relationship between intellectual constructs and observable reality.

"The way of the world" – domestic violence in down-market neighbourhoods, African poverty, sharpied swastikas on synagogues, parochialism and xenophobia and planned obsolescence – this exists as a construct in the minds of six billion and change earthlings. It is a meme, an idea which while not alive acts as though it were a virus, protecting and replicating and insinuating itself. The Demiurge is not some big bad wolf waiting to huff and puff and blow our houses down; he is the acceptability of "the way of the world", a self-fulfilling prophesy of our apathetic inhumanity. Even though the Archons are not real, they act as though they were through provable, observable and (tragically) repeatable phenomena, all the while slouching towards Bethlehem.

And yes, this meme, this set of constructs, of assumptions, is the Demiurge; the half-creator of the world in which we live; what Rastafarians refer to as the Babylon System. The Matrix.

Rejection of such a system does not make us dualists, or polytheists. Recognizing that we, as daughters and sons of God, can and should do better is not "world-hating". We as Gnostics sound the clarion call to accept our responsibility for ignorance and deception, and to awaken to gnosis: not to do battle with some malevolent third-party entity and settle this once and for all in an Armageddon-style smackdown, but to champion the compassion that is the antidote to Archonic force. To make art and poetry and music, to take a lover, raise a child, extend caritas that is just as visible, just as real a ripple in the pool of God.

Gnostic priest addresses Da Vinci Code controversy

2006-05-26T15:03:00.000-07:00

Victoria News

Well there's some local press. Arrived in my inbox via Google Alerts (which is where most of my Gn news comes from). Ta da!

In HOC Signo

2006-05-26T10:14:00.000-07:00

It was of course the older, pagan, Sol Invictus cross, the equal armed cross, to which Constantine owes his victory at Milvian Bridge. It represents the harmonization of the four elements, centering the wearer at its nexus. I have always responded to this "swiss" cross, and my wedding ring has a motif of four of these around it equidistantly.

$5 from the sale of this tee shirt goes to the American Red Cross, which is as worthy a cause as I can think of.

Neither Cup Nor Princess

2006-05-25T13:34:00.000-07:00

Is 'The Da Vinci Code' Good for the Pagans?

Yeah, I called her "Mimi". O, how we laughed and laughed... it was the '80s.

Pagels on "The Truth at the Heart of the DVC"

2006-05-24T10:37:00.000-07:00

the disciples themselves are not likely to be their authors

the thought of the divine energy manifested through all creation, even rocks and logs, sounded dangerously like pantheism. People might end up thinking that they could be like Jesus themselves and, in fact, the Gospel of Philip says, "Do not seek to become a Christian, but
a Christ.

these secret texts speak of God not only in masculine images, but also in feminine images

I am the Father; I am the Mother; and I am the Son

Elaine Pagels

Perspective

James Ingall Wedgewood, 1883-1951

2006-05-23T10:20:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday, Wedgie!

Bishop Hoeller has a wonderful must-read article on the Wandering Episcopate; the piece contains one of my favourite lines in modern Gnosticism:

Quite a large number of these bishops are simply people one would not wish to invite to dinner.

Bearing that in mind, I raise a glass to Ole Uncle Wedgie, truly an exception to that unfortunate rule. The liturgies of both the AJC and EG run rich with the legacy of the Liberal Catholic Church – +Wedgewood was one of the first to recognize that much of the mysticsm and transcendence the Victorian Theosophists sought in the East was abundant in the liturgical traditions of the West as well.

Gnostic Celebs: Tori Amos?

2006-05-22T10:04:00.000-07:00

The Beekeeper: Original Sinsuality

The Denver Post reports; "Tori Amos writes in her memoirs Tori Amos: Piece by Piece about the importance of Gnosticism to her personal growth."

Amos' pal Neil Gaiman (he moved into a house owned by Amos and her husband to write American Gods) has long been suspected of being a closet-Gnostic, and there may be a third degree due to the acquaintance (I read they were friends) of Gaiman with the Gnostic V for Vendetta and Promethea author Alan Moore.

Tori Amos' music has accompanied some very pivotal times of my life; one adopts such artists and their mediated sympathies as old friends. And she's not Tom Cruise, which is a definite plus.

Now on to the inevitable conversion of Scarlett Johansson, and my plan will be complete.

Gnostic Priest Authors "The da Vinci Prayerbook"

2006-05-19T09:07:00.000-07:00

The da Vinci Code

The da Vinci Prayerboook: Gnostic Reflections on the Divine Feminine

The da Vinci Prayerboook

thedavinciprayerbook.com

- 30 -
Sent this out to local media and PR Web today, and I post this not out of more book hype but to show that Gnostics are speaking for themselves.

Represent!

The da Vinci Prayerbook

2006-05-17T17:01:00.000-07:00

Site is live, with a few important bits to come, but the book can be previewed and purchased by clicking here.

All Nuptialed

2006-05-15T16:47:00.000-07:00

Many blessings and thanks especially to Erik and Michelle of the Aquarian Tabernacle Church – the ceromony was held in an historic cemetery, and was a combination of elements from the AJC, ATC, and EGM, with poetry from Robin Skelton, William Shakespeare, and Pablo Neruda.

Best. DVC Review. Evah.

2006-05-12T07:41:00.000-07:00

The Da Vinci Code

the Brad and Angelina of Judea

the L. Ron Hubbard of France

the Tom Cruise of literature

Betty Bowers,

Landover Baptist

I've always loved Landover as a viciously acidic guilty pleasure, although I prefer the gentler satire of Lark News.

Yeah, okay, I'm going to go get married now.

Scholars & Goddesses

2006-05-09T15:19:00.000-07:00

"It has the advantages of both Catholicism and Unitarianism,"

Charlotte Allen, Scholars & Goddesses

Getting Married

2006-05-09T09:35:00.000-07:00

...on Saturday, so posting will be non-existent for a week or so. Also, expect e-mail to be slow. Also also, don't take this the wrong way, but I'm not going to miss any of you. ;-)

Blessings and joy,

J+

סֵפֶר הַבָּהִיר: The Book of Brightness

2006-05-05T12:23:00.000-07:00

a spontaneous upsurge from the depths of the soul's imagination

– "Bahir", Encyclopedia Judaica "

Excellent question. More on the Bahir, and a tip o' the yarmulke to the Soferet.

Pulled

2006-05-04T21:26:00.000-07:00

There has been a rash of articles recently, posted mostly by Protestant Christian pundits, claiming that the falloff in mainline church attendance is due to the fact that yoga, tai chi, "spirituality" and the occult are easy, whereas Christianity is hard. Ofttimes Gnosticism is explicitly counted among the easy.

Easy?

Part of the reason I identify as a Gnostic is that firmly around my right wrist is the inexorable pull of the Roman Catholic Church; its solidity, ubiquity, liturgy and aesthetic. I could be so Catholic it's not funny: and not one of those tie-dyed chasuble guitar-Massing Vatican II theowobbly neo-Caths either, but a full-frontal SSPX Tridentine UberTraddie.

A similarly continual but contrary tug around my left wrist is Judaism; its wit, iconoclasm, spiritual literacy, and humanity.

My brain – well it thinks like a Buddhist. I trained it that way; to doubt, and to doubt my doubts, to suspend, detach, examine. and defer always to compassion.

But at the very center of these forces is my Witch's heart; my blood is salty with poetry and sex and lunar magics and imagination. The turning of autumn leaves brings out cravings for bonfires and woad and howling to the Great Mother.

Needless to say this agon, this ongoing negotiation of forces, is for the most part crazy-making, and it's little wonder that in any conversation I undertake I come across as a dilettante bibliophile, with either too much Kerouac or too little; either an overdose or tragic deficit of Aristotle. An ADD-addled molotov-hurling William Burroughs vs. my inner pipe-smoking tweedy Victorian Latin-spouting harrrrumph!er. Easy?

So how do I, personally, equilibriate these opposing forces? By identifying, fighting for, and championing common ground in Her name. Shekhina. The Holy Spirit. Sophia. By the understanding (Gnostics don't have beliefs, we have understandings), as in Theodoto, that what makes us free is the gnosis of who we are, of what rebirth truly is.

And what it is, is work.

Easy. Pffft.

Feast of St. Ratford

2006-05-04T12:43:00.000-07:00

How will your family celebrate this special day? With the customary offerings of red wine and sushi? Secretly judging people by their shoes? Or by drinking too much coffee and arguing theology in chatrooms? Post your stories, and any craft ideas for the children...

The Blurbs are In

2006-05-01T15:01:00.000-07:00

I've received, through the generosity and kindness of some very special people, some very kind words about the book. The tricky part is in "blurbing" them, which is to say, chopping the things into sentence fragments and making tight, punchy sentences for teeny tiny space allowed by book-cover real estate. I'm tremendously humbled and overwhelmed;

"Explores the Code phenomenon from a spiritual point of view without radically revising Western history...acknowledging that ideas need not be historical in order to be spiritually meaningful. Stratford has opened the way."

The Magdalene Review

The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Mary Magdalene

"Fresh and accessible, a brilliant overall picture of the myth – The da Vinci Prayerbook is a bridge connecting artists, mystics, and writers of the past with readers of today. This is required reading for seeker and devotee alike... a perfect work of Sophianic inspiration and insightful scholarship."

– Bishop +Rosamonde Miller

“Fr. Jordan makes a thoughtful exploration of the Magdalene tradition, gently peeling back the veil to reveal a glimpse of the real mystery of the Bridal Chamber.”

About.com

Beltane: I join'd them fairly with a ring

2006-05-01T09:34:00.001-07:00

Did Thomas Write Thomas?

2006-04-29T10:30:00.000-07:00

When you know yourselves, you will be known, and you will understand that you are children of the living Father.
I've been re-reading Jeremy Puma's extraordinary manuscript, The Face of Heaven and Earth, which is slated to go to press in May. Of course any discussion of a Gnostic Gospel is topical these days, with an irritatingly disproportionate attention paid to the dating of such texts. The reasoning goes, if it wasn't written in the first century then it can't have been written by the person who claims to be the author, and therefore is unreliable. All that matters, the thinking goes, is authorship, not content, and authorship is entirely authenticated by date.

[We'll have to set aside the illogic of this insistence, at least for the time being, as yet another instance of psychic literalists putting all their eggs in one basket (at their peril).]

Dr. Elaine Pagels, currently in the crosshairs of an ad hominem attack by modern-day Iranaeuses, suggests that Thomas may have influenced John, and we know John was around in 130 because we have one. But Pagels may be wrong; she readily admits this is conjecture (let's not get dragged into this belittling of her scholarship and play into the hands of the New Inquisitors, okay?).

We should bear in mind the following;

Because we're firmly in the realm of myth here, repetition of themes is to be expected. It's okay. The origins of the material in no way make it less spiritually resonant. It is what it is.

So did Thomas write Thomas? Was there really a series of secret conversations between John the Apostle and Jesus resulting in The Gospel of Thomas?

No.

Judas didn't write Judas either. These texts authors weren't trying to fool anybody; they were using a literary technique common in the ancient world of employing known characters to convey wisdom tradition. It's not history, it wasn't meant to be history, and the first audiences of this material were smart enough to realize that.

The first audiences of Mark were probably smart enough to realize it, too.

As I said, any discussion of these texts is met with the refutation that the Gnostic Gospels are too late to accurately describe their events as history (assuming that they were meant to do so, which they weren't), and that the canonical Gospels are first-century eyewitness accounts. I accept that this is accepted by the majority of biblical scholars. I also accept that it's based on... absolutely nothing.

We don't have any first century canonical Gospels. We don't have any first century mention of any first century Gospels. We have Paul, and evidence of first-century oral transmission. And that's it.

vague references at best and could easily be the result of oral tradition

Ignatius may have known a source of Matthew rather than the gospel itself.

Oracles of the Lord Explained

Thus, it is not certain that Papias was describing either canonical Matthew or Mark

Journal of Biblical Studies

The arguments for ignoring the evidence and dating all the canonical gospels in the first century are as follows:

A defense of the orthodox take is here, but every argument made can be countered with a Q. If late-first-century Christians over here agree with late-first-century Christians over there, it does not prove that they all found Gideons in their hotel rooms; rather it suggests access to a common source (or sources) of oral material.

The Gnostic Gospels don't matter because they're contemporary with the canonical Gospels (which they are), they matter because they're beautiful. Because they speak to the imagination and our nascent recognition of the indwelling Divine. Not because they happened (they didn't), but because they are Real.

Lesa's Manifesto

2006-04-27T15:53:00.000-07:00

Lesa Bellevie, Editrix of the excellent Magdalene Review, to which I am indebted for obvious reasons, posts a truly wonderful "Personal Manifesto":

This one is my favourite;

9. I believe that truth is an indication of archetypal resonance.
Lesa is also the author of TCIGT The Mary Magdalene.

Definitely worth the read (both book and site).