More Gnostic Thought and Study

Greetings and welcome back to our study and opinion of Albert Pike’s Morals and Dogma as we continue on with Chapter 26 where Pike is continuing a discourse on the history of gnostic thought, philosophy, and spiritualism.

 

 On a personal note, my path into freemasonry began with a spiritual path into gnosticism. This was a long journey for me, sampling many different religions along the way, as I either participated in different religions or studied different religions. 

 

This path was arduous, sometimes confusing, but at last I found a freedom inside of gnosyic ideology and within freemasonry in its true form.

 

  I write this to encourage the reader to at least have a good idea regarding gnostic thought as I do believe this helps the individual to more fully understand the symbolism in freemasonry.

 

  As I have been reading and studying and opinionating Pike’s Morals and Dogma these past 2 years, I am convinced that very possibly Pike felt the same way based upon my observations of his writings many times using gnostic ideologies as a reference to his lessons.

 

 This chapter seems to be the most complete writing of gnostic history I have read. I am hopeful that you as the reader do not become discouraged as we read along, as this is a lengthy chapter, but a very important chapter.

 

  And now, LET’S READ PIKE!

 

In the doctrine of Valentinus, reared a Christian at Alexandria, God was a perfect Being, an Abyss [Βυθὸς . . Buthos], which no intelligence could sound, because no eye could reach the invisible and ineffable heights on which He dwelt, and no mind could comprehend the duration of His existence; He has always been; He is the Primitive Father and Beginning [the Προπάτωρand Προαρχὴ . . Propato_r and Proarche_]: He will BE always, and does not grow old. The development of His Perfections produced the intellectual world. After having passed infinite ages in repose and silence, He manifested Himself by His Thought, source of all His manifestations, and which received from Him the germ of His

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creations. Being of His Being, His Thought [Ἔννοια . . Ennoia] is also termed Χάρις; [Charis], Grace or Joy, and Σιγή or Ἄρρητον [Sige_ or Arre_ton], Silence or the Ineffable. Its first manifestation was Νους [Nous], the Intelligence, first of the Eons, commencement of all things, first revelation of the Divinity, the Μονογενὴς [Monogene_s], or Only-Begotten: next, Truth [Ἀλήθεια . . Ale_theia], his companion. Their manifestations were the Word [Λόγος. . Logos] and Life [Ζωὴ . . Zoe_]; and theirs, Man and the Church [Ανθροπος and Ἐκκλησία . . Anthro_pos and Ekkle_sia]: and from these, other twelve, six of whom were Hope, Faith, Charity, Intelligence, Happiness, and Wisdom; or, in the Hebrew, Kesten, Kina, Amphe, Ouananim, Thaedes, and Oubina. The harmony of the Eons, struggling to know and be united to the Primitive God, was disturbed, and to redeem and restore them, the Intelligence [Νοῦς] produced Christ and the Holy Spirit His companion; who restored them to their first estate of happiness and harmony; and thereupon they formed the Eon Jesus, born of a Virgin, to whom the Christos united himself in baptism, and who, with his Companion Sophia-Achamoth, saved and redeemed the world.

This form of gnosticism is most well known to me, and what may be most commonly practiced in ritual today though there are many more forms of gnostic ideology.

In this form, we see traits of a more christian gnostic idea where Jesus as a redeemer is born of a virgin, but instead of the Catholic symbol of divine feminine of Mother Mary, we see the divine feminine with the Christos as The Holy Sophia from which inner knowing and wisdom emanates. 

In both the catholic and gnostic forms, both Christ and Mary/Sophia work together to bring back to mankind redemption from the incompleteness of mankinds spiritual nature (to restore mankind from darkness or ignorance) by helping mankind through grace to find the inner spark that is within us all (spiritual knowing regarding mankind’s true home and nature) and to guide us all back to perfection.

 

Next:

 

The Marcosians taught that the Supreme Deity produced by His words the Λόγος [Logos] or Plenitude of Eons: His first utterance was a syllable of four letters, each of which became a being; His second of four, His third of ten, and His fourth of twelve: thirty in all, which constituted the Πλήρωμα [Ple_roma].

The Valentinians, and others of the Gnostics, distinguished three orders of existences:--1st. The divine germs of life, exalted by their nature above matter, and akin to the Σοφία [Sophia], to the mundane soul and to the Ple_roma:--the spiritual natures, φύσεις πνευματικαί [Phuseis Pneumatikai]: 2d. The natures originating in the life, divided from the former by the mixture of the ὕλη--the psychical natures, φύσεις ψυχικαὶ [Phuseis Psuchikai]; with which begins a perfectly new order of existence, an image of that higher mind and system, in a subordinate grade; and finally, 3d. The Ungodlike or Hylic Nature, which resists all amelioration, and whose tendency is only to destroy--the nature of blind lust and passion.

The nature of the πνευματικὸν [pneumatikon], the spiritual, is essential relationship with God (the ὁμούσιον τῷ θεῷ . . Homoousion to_ Theo_): hence the life of Unity, the undivided, the

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absolutely simple (οὐσία ἑνικὴ μονοειδὴς . . Ousia henike, monoeides).

The essence of the ψυχικοὶ [psuchikoi] is disruption into multiplicity, manifoldness; which, however, is subordinate to a higher unity, by which it allows itself to be guided, first unconsciously, then consciously.

The essence of the ὑλικοὶ [Hulikoi] (of whom Satan is the head), is the direct opposite to all unity; disruption and disunion in itself, without the least sympathy, without any point of coalescence whatever for unity; together with an effort to destroy all unity, to extend its own inherent disunion to everything, and to rend everything asunder. This principle has no power to posit anything; but only to negative: it is unable to create, to produce, to form, but only to destroy, to decompose.

By Marcus, the disciple of Valentinus, the idea of a Λογος του οντος [Logos Tou Ontos], of a WORD, manifesting the hidden Divine Essence, in the Creation, was spun out into the most subtle details--the entire creation being, in his view, a continuous utterance of the Ineffable. The way in which the germs of divine life [the σπέρματα πνευματικὰ . . spermata pneumatika], which lie shut up in the Eons, continually unfold and individualize themselves more and more, is represented as a spontaneous analysis of the several names of the Ineffable, into their several sounds. An echo of the Ple_roma falls down into the ὕλη [Hule_], and becomes the forming of a new but lower creation.

We read in these paragraphs the belief of the ineffable name of the highest god, the god of perfection of whom mankind cannot name or in a way mankind would adulterate that word and that deity. In Scottish Rite rituals, we are in search of that holy word. 

 

Next:

 

One formula of the pneumatical baptism among the Gnostics ran thus: "In the NAME which is hidden from all the Divinities and Powers" [of the Demiurge], "The Name of Truth" [the Αλήθεια [Aletheia], self-manifestation of the Buthos], which Jesus of Nazareth has put on in the light-zones of Christ, the living Christ, through the Holy Ghost, for the redemption of the angels,--the Name by which all things attain to Perfection." The candidate then said: "I am established and redeemed; I am redeemed in my soul from this world, and from all that belongs to it, by the name of ‏ו ?Y?H?W?H‎, who has redeemed the Soul of Jesus by the living Christ." The assembly then said: "Peace (or Salvation) to all on whom this name rests!"

The boy Dionusos, torn in pieces, according to the Bacchic Mysteries, by the Titans, was considered by the Manicheans as simply representing the Soul, swallowed up by the powers of darkness,--the

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divine life rent into fragments by matter:--that part of the luminous essence of the primitive man [the πρῶτος ἄνθρωπος [Protos Anthropos] of Mani, the πράων ἄνθρωπος [Prao_n Anthro_pos] of the Valentinians, the Adam Kadmon of the Kabalah; and the Kaiomorts of the Zendavesta], swallowed up by the powers of darkness; the Mundane Soul, mixed with matter--the seed of divine life, which had fallen into matter, and had thence to undergo a process of purification and development.

The Γνῶσις [Gnosis] of Carpocrates and his son Epiphanes consisted in the knowledge of one Supreme Original being, the highest unity, from whom all existence has emanated, and to whom it strives to return. The finite spirits that rule over the several portions of the Earth, seek to counteract this universal tendency to unity; and from their influence, their laws, and arrangements, proceeds all that checks, disturbs, or limits the original communion, which is the basis of nature, as the outward manifestation of that highest Unity. These spirits, moreover, seek to retain under their dominion the souls which, emanating from the highest Unity, and still partaking of its nature, have lapsed into the corporeal world, and have there been imprisoned in bodies, in order, under their dominion, to be kept within the cycle of migration. From these finite spirits, the popular religions of different nations derive their origin. But the souls which, from a reminiscence of their former condition, soar upward to the contemplation of that higher Unity, reach to such perfect freedom and repose, as nothing afterward can disturb or limit, and rise superior to the popular deities and religions. As examples of this sort, they named Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle, and Christ. They made no distinction between the latter and the wise and good men of every nation. They taught that any other soul which could soar to the same height of contemplation, might be regarded as equal with Him.

We find that in this version of gnosticism, mankind, once knowing the true god and a willingness to soar to the highest unity, might become an equal to the highest god. 

 

 Some religions still teach a version of this today. 

 

 And, this is where we will end the study for today as the next paragraphs deserve a longer look than would be fair to the attention the reader to give as we have already touched upon some profound ideals, and quite possibly these ideas are ones that many have not ever contemplated before, so I know this takes time to absorb fully.

 

 Thank you for joining me!  I will see you all next time!