Mychael

Since there is no longer anything pertaining to Gnosticism in this
subject, I have gone ahead and responded in the new/old group, Philo
Sophia.

For anyone who is still interested in this subject, it can be
continued over there since it is really off topic here.

Here is the URL, http://groups.yahoo.com/group/esotericromance/

And I will also send out a mailer from here to catch the attention
of people who used to be in the group before it disappeared.

PMCV

--- In gnosticism2@yahoogroups.com, nakedalchemy@a... wrote:
>
> In a message dated 2/2/2005 8:05:57 PM Eastern Standard Time,
> no_reply@yahoogroups.com writes:
>
> The  "mysterious" knife in the last supper is not floating without
a
> body, it  is in Peter's hand bent back and resting on his hip in a
> gesture that  reminds me very much of the way my mother holds a
> spatula when cooking  pancakes or something like that.
>
>
>
>
> the disembodied hand with a knife,lol..I wonder more why Da Vinci
even put
> it there so covertly yet overtly too?
> the other stuff, well, what difference who is who...it is the art
itself
> that mattered most...people and scholars can conjecture all they
want, but
> unless Da Vinci told anyone exactly, then, it is just conjecture.
> I will admit it was a fun read, a page turner, but, one thing ,
after
> reading it kept haunting me..it was very basic, besides not being
correct...this
> isn't the way one should get their message across, with
inacuracies, yet,
> despite so, it seems he did...I think his main intentions were
to "knock the
> church" first, then to make recognized other aspects of
deity..other than these
> simple premises, the rest is not to be swallowed.
>
> mychael

--- In gnosticism2@yahoogroups.com, pmcvflag <no_reply@y...> wrote:
>
> George...
>
> >>>"I don't see where he says the historical facts in the book are
> true.
>
> He does say the descriptions of artwork and architecture are
> accurate. Which are not?"<<<
>
> You are correct... I stated that backwards. He says the art and
> architecture "facts" are true. So, which ones are not? Here are
just
> a few off the top of my head .....
>
> In the The Virgin of the Rocks he states that the infant John is
> Jesus and Jesus is John, the order of which he makes a big deal
> about when in fact he has them backwards.
>
> The Louvre pyramid does not have 666 panes of glass
>
> The "mysterious" knife in the last supper is not floating without a
> body, it is in Peter's hand bent back and resting on his hip in a
> gesture that reminds me very much of the way my mother holds a
> spatula when cooking pancakes or something like that.
>
> There are more. Actually, it is harder to find art or archetectual
> examples in the book that ARE accurate. He wrongly states sizes of
> paintings, their contents, the people who had them commissioned,
> geographical locations of buildings, attributes of buildings, etc.,
> etc..
>
> PMCV

Hi PMCV,
Interesting. Thanks. The only one I knew about was the glass panes.

I do know from his website that he didn't do his own research. It
looks like somebody really messed up. I hope he uses somebody else
for his next book ;-)

BTW, I have been asking this same question for some time in "Da Vinci
Code" yahoo clubs and the only thing anyone came up with was the
number of glass panes being wrong. Thank you for giving more examples.

George

Say Carter, I know you were talking to Gerry here but I thought I
could jump in also. You state....

>>>"On the question...What evidence could they even show to prove
that he(Jesus) lived ... or that he had blood? I would say.. Why
then even believe that George Washington exist? After all, all we
have are some handwritten documents and a bunch of paintings...
possibly some old relics collecting dust in a museum, but not much
more evidence than we have of the life of Jesus."<<<

Actually, this is a lot more than we have concerning whether Jesus
existed since we don't even have any first hand accounts. However, I
do see your point. The thing is, though, there are people who have
theorized that the whole story of "Jesus" is in fact a myth taken
from other Mystery religions like that of Mithras. Now I am not
saying this is any more correct, because I think the reality is a
bit more in the middle of these two extremes. I do think it
important to point out though that part of Gerry's point deals with
the more general Gnostic belief known as "docetism" in which Jesus
did indeed not have blood or semen or a physical body at all....
because in the more common Gnostic outline Jesus is a spiritual
principle that represents one (us) withing whom the Christ can
become manifest... Jesus in this case is an "image" not a "person".
This means at the very least Dan Brown's claim is not Gnostic
whether or not we find it to be accurate outside of this.

>>>"In fact, under this kind of scientific scrutiny, why should we
even believe that there is a Divine creator(s), since we have even
less evidence to prove the existance of a god."<<<

Which may be part of the reason that Gnostics have little respect
(and sometimes even derision) for the notion of that divine creator.
Gnostics didn't believe that this "God" you are talking about is a
real god.

>>"Some truths have to be accepted solely on faith. I can't prove
that if we both ate a piece of chocolate from the same batch, that
my piece tastes even remotely the same as yours, But I accept on
faith that it probably does taste quite similar! So apples and
oranges still have relevence."<<<

The word for faith used in these traditional sources is "pistis",
and it is in contrast to "gnosis". Gnostics are called "Gnostics"
for the very reason that they held this gnosis above that pistis.
There is a difference between the kind of belief that comes from
empirical or at least experiencial sources.... like the fact that my
foot is likely to stop when it hits the ground.... and the kind that
has no evidence of any nature to back it. It is not only "faith"
that makes you assume two bites from the same candy may taste the
same (an assumption I would not make, BTW, having experience to the
contrary ;) *lol*), but a number of evidences that may or may not be
valid. For instance, your knowledge that all the candies are
supposed to be the same flavor vs the veriety pack may inform you
assumption.... but there is also a chance that a different candy was
mistakenly put in the box at the factory which could make this
belief wrong.

In any event, the function of "faith" is something that draws a line
between Gnosticism and common religiousity.

>>>"Is there not mention of the biblical stories and texts in the
Nag Hammadi scrolls? Why shouldn'y they be considered in contrast to
other documents?
lol."<<<

Sure, we should consider them in contrast. We just like to make
clear the differences between the Biblical and the Gnostic
understanding of these things ;) You may have other sources for your
understanding of these texts, but there are many beginners here and
we don't want them to become confused by not knowing when this club
is dealing with a Gnostic understanding vs one we are contrasting.
For this reason we can't simply say "according to the Bible, God
says ______" without pointing out that the Gnostics didn't always
agree with this "Bible".

PMCV

__________________________________________________
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Gich

In the last two posts you ask for a general outline of Gnostic
belief. I will try to give something basic, but I want to point out
that a full blown system cannot be accurately outlined in short. For
instance, if you aksed me to outline "Existentialism" it would be
very hard to reduce. So, besides the brief outline I am about to give
you, I would suggest you take a look at the reading lists we provide
in the files section here, and get your hands on some of the books
that deal with traditional Gnosticism.

In brief, Gnosticism is....

A category created by modern scholors to refer to a number of
historical groups that had certain attributes in common. These common
attributes include the notion that salvation rests on "gnosis"
(rather than faith or moral practice), a common cosmology (which is
Platonist and includes a seperation between the so called "Creator"
and the true unknowable), and a belief in certain initiatory
practices that use special "secret" allegorical interpretations and
rituals.

For more specific attributes we can continue the conversation so that
it deals with the more subtle Platonist destinctions... such as the
difference between "intellect" and "reason", or the function
of "forms"..... or we can talk about the Gnostic cosmology such as
the Archons and the Aeons, as well as the , Bythos, Barbelo, and the
Logos and Sophia, but I am not sure at this point exactly what you
are familiar with in Gnosticism and what you are not. Perhaps you
have more specific questions?

PMCV

I would like this thread to continue.

I could not reply from e-mail and had to come to the site. Said
because I did not disclose my e-mail address?
Pam

Carter....

>>>"When speaking of God or a God or Gods, I mean it in a general
sense, which is why I threw in the words Divine creator(s), to make
the distinction between any specific form."<<<

Ah, ok, I see. However, it is questionable whether even "God" in this
general sense exists in Gnosticism. Remember, the Gnostic "God"
didn't "create" anything, so perhaps it is the term "Divine Creator"
that is throwing us off a little.

>>>This would seem in accord with gnosticism and the dieties and
spiritual levels described in the origin of creation."<<<<

The book I believe you are talking about, Origin of the World, does
use Gnostic sources as an influence. However, the status of the book
as technically "Gnostic" is debated. May I point you to another
source that makes the cosmological point of destinction concerning
the apophatic source a bit more clear... the Valentinian Exposition.

>>>"The notion of Jesus as a spiritual principle interests me as well
as its' connection to Mithraism. One thing though... If he never
fully existed, then why did Rome place so much importance on the date
of his crucifixion and supposed ressurection? What I mean by this is
shouldn't the current date be somewhere in the 5500's rather than
2005?"<<<<

To answer your question with another question; why did Rome place so
much importance on dates relating to Mithras in spite of the fact
that he most likely never existed? And how about Jupiter, and
Bacchus? I am not saying Jesus didn't exist, it is very likely that
he did (or was maybe even a couple of people who's stories got mixed
together into one, along with stories from Mithras and Dionysus), I
am only saying that the importance placed on Jesus birthday,
crucifixion, etc., were centuries after the actual person, and were
created to coincide with established Roman holidays. Jesus' birthday
is on the day originally celebrating Mithras, etc.. The importance of
these days in Roman religion were established before the man "Jesus"
was ever even born, and the connection made between them and Jesus
were long after he was dead.

>>>"It would seem strange for them to honor a purely gnostic concept
unless there was a hidden motive for doing so! One could argue a
conspiracy theory to obtain control over the masses through the dogma
of Christianity, but why even include the 4 gospels, since the
already had a pretty good system using Judaeism?"<<<

Judism was established, Christianity was a mish mash of conflicting
ideas and groups that was very popular but very lacking in cohesion.
It was not a purely "Gnostic" concept, it was a wide range of groups
that were very different from each other. Some of those group were
what was to later become "orthodoxy" while others were to be cast
out.

And at this time there were not only 4 gospels, there were many. The
process of creating lists of texts to be used by the
wider "Christian" poppulation is actually a study in how to think
backwards. We can go into it in more detail if you wish. In any
event, much of the so called "New Testement" is really forged
documents created long after the people who's names they are
attributed to. Only about half the books of Paul are actually
possibly by him. Matthew is not by Matthew, John doesn't even claim
to be by John... and these are very late creations.

>>>"I use the word faith here because I am still attributing some
accuracy to texts written by men concerning something that otherwise
cannot be interpreted! I have no choice really, since the alternative
is less appealing to me."<<<

And Gnosticism itself is not appealing to many people. However, in
the case of these books whe have the choice of believing something
because we like it, or because it is fact... the two are not always
the same. I don't say that to be patronizing in any way, just to
caution that we should look at these things with a critical but open
mind, not just with what we are traditionally used to believing.

>>>"On a different subject though, concerning the similarities
between Zoroastrianism and Gnosticism, I find the outline of
spiritual principles or "causes" similar,
But even more interesting is a statement made by Zoroaster which is
similar to the golden rule..
         "That nature is good which does not do unto another that
which it does not do unto oneself" One can hardly miss the
similarity!"<<<<

Oh, yes, the "Golden Rule". The Bahai relgion does a local display of
this which includes the Golden Rule stated in literally hundreds of
religious texts including Buddhist, Islamic, Hindu, and so on. In
that case, yes, there are similarities between Zoroastrianism and
some specific Gnostic systems (not necessarily all), as well as many
other religions. I simply thought you meant to go into more specific
things that are not also found in other religions (and I think there
are some comparisons to be made). I misunderstood.

PMCV

--- In gnosticism2@yahoogroups.com, pmcvflag <no_reply@y...> wrote:
<snip>
> Judism was established, Christianity was a mish mash of conflicting
> ideas and groups that was very popular but very lacking in
cohesion.
<snip>

I just want to add here that Christianity at that time was very much
like the modern New Age Movement. Lots of different ideas all mixing
together and separating and then mixing again.

George

--- In gnosticism2@yahoogroups.com, pmcvflag <no_reply@y...> wrote:
>
> Gich
>
> In the last two posts you ask for a general outline of Gnostic
> belief. I will try to give something basic, but I want to point out
> that a full blown system cannot be accurately outlined in short.
For
> instance, if you aksed me to outline "Existentialism" it would be
> very hard to reduce. So, besides the brief outline I am about to
give
> you, I would suggest you take a look at the reading lists we
provide
> in the files section here, and get your hands on some of the books
> that deal with traditional Gnosticism.


The files section has a little, but most reading suggestions are
found in the "links" section:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gnosticism2/links


;-)

Cari

--- In gnosticism2@yahoogroups.com, pmcvflag <no_reply@y...> wrote:
>
> Carter....
>
> >>>"When speaking of God or a God or Gods, I mean it in a general
> sense, which is why I threw in the words Divine creator(s), to make
> the distinction between any specific form."<<<
>
> Ah, ok, I see. However, it is questionable whether even "God" in
this
> general sense exists in Gnosticism. Remember, the Gnostic "God"
> didn't "create" anything, so perhaps it is the term "Divine
Creator"
> that is throwing us off a little.
>


The concept of emanation found in Gnostic mythological systems is
distinguished from the doctrine of creation in the following essay:

  http://www.iep.utm.edu/e/emanatio.htm

Hope this is somewhat helpful.


Cari

--- In gnosticism2@yahoogroups.com, "Gerry" <gerryhsp@y...> wrote:
>

<snip>

Following PMCV's lead I am posting my answer to the esotericromance
club although I can't see as it is any more on topic there than it is
here.

George

Mychael...

>>"I will give him this much...as I already said, he got the words
out there Divine Feminine and Gnosticism..hopefully it will help ,
not hinder people as they do their own further research."<<<

I do hope you are right there, that it could be a boon rather than a
hinderence. I am curious, have you read Jesus Mysteries as well? I
was thinking, if these two books were read together they could
offset each other and maybe the person reading them would literally
be foreced to look at the situation just because of the fact that
these two extreme opposite theories cannot be reconciled.

Well, teh Divine Feminine is the essence of the other club, at any
rate, and I have been talking about it for many years before Dan
Brown ;)

PMCV

Mychael qoth....

>>>"Evben George Washington is surrounded by mythic proportions..
the cherry tree, the crossing the Delaware....et all"<<<

Very true, and there are even supernatural stories like the story of
his riding horseback into battle and the bullets passing through him
without harming him.

It is funny that some people who are attempting a Christian apology
use the argument that if Jesus' miracles were not true the legends
could not have started while his apostals were still alive. This
line of reasoning is not only illogical, we can historically
disprove it by simply looking at people like George Washington.

>>>"The Moral Washington
and one truth, though ,I find interesting is that Washington was a
Deist, and not a Christian even though he attended church"<<<

As were most of the "Founding Fathers", being as they were, members
of a Deist organization. This is another group that often gets
confused and mixed with Gnosticism in popular works. Though, I am
not inclined to say that because he was a Deist he was not a
Christian, just that he was a Christian Deist (as the vast majority
of his movement were and are). I wonder if he would have had the
same view of the Gnostics that Pike does? Of course, there is no way
to know beyond conjecture ;)

I remember not too long ago there was an evangelical program being
sent out to many churches that included two movies to be shown
together. It was quite odd that one was about the evils of
Freemasons, and the other was about the holiness of our American
founding fathers as true "Christians", with a heavy emphasis placed
on George Washington. It is really strange how people can delude
themselves into believing two mutually exclusive things at the same
time by simply choosing to ignore some details. But I am going off
topic now so I will quit my rant *lol*.

PMCV

Hello nakedalchemy@...

On 02/04/05, you wrote:

>
> In a message dated 2/3/2005 8:07:13 PM Eastern Standard Time,
> no_reply@yahoogroups.com writes:
>
> I remember not too long ago there was an evangelical program being
> sent out to many churches that included two movies to be shown
> together. It was quite odd that one was about the evils of
> Freemasons, and the other was about the holiness of our American
> founding fathers as true "Christians", with a heavy emphasis placed
> on George Washington. It is really strange how people can delude
> themselves into believing two mutually exclusive things at the same
> time by simply choosing to ignore some details. But I am going off
> topic now so I will quit my rant *lol*.
>
> PMCV
>
>
>
> I heard this ,too...in fact, there is a site online..I will have to
> look for it, that shows how the founding fathers viewed religion as
> such, and, is offset by their deep humanist concerns, which should
> be common knowledge.
>
> mychael

As should the fact that Washington, Jefferson, Franklin and others
were Freemasons.  Look at the back of the great seal on the back of a
dollar bill, for instance.  Of course if you have no familiarity with
Freemasonry it will show you nothing.

Regards
--
Mike Leavitt  ac998@...

Carter....

>>>"When speaking of God or a God or Gods, I mean it in a general
sense, which is why I threw in the words Divine creator(s), to make
the distinction between any specific form."<<<

Ah, ok, I see. However, it is questionable whether even "God" in this
general sense exists in Gnosticism. Remember, the Gnostic "God"
didn't "create" anything, so perhaps it is the term "Divine Creator"
that is throwing us off a little.

>>>This would seem in accord with gnosticism and the dieties and
spiritual levels described in the origin of creation."<<<<

The book I believe you are talking about, Origin of the World, does
use Gnostic sources as an influence. However, the status of the book
as technically "Gnostic" is debated. May I point you to another
source that makes the cosmological point of destinction concerning
the apophatic source a bit more clear... the Valentinian Exposition.

>>>"The notion of Jesus as a spiritual principle interests me as well
as its' connection to Mithraism. One thing though... If he never
fully existed, then why did Rome place so much importance on the date
of his crucifixion and supposed ressurection? What I mean by this is
shouldn't the current date be somewhere in the 5500's rather than
2005?"<<<<

To answer your question with another question; why did Rome place so
much importance on dates relating to Mithras in spite of the fact
that he most likely never existed? And how about Jupiter, and
Bacchus? I am not saying Jesus didn't exist, it is very likely that
he did (or was maybe even a couple of people who's stories got mixed
together into one, along with stories from Mithras and Dionysus), I
am only saying that the importance placed on Jesus birthday,
crucifixion, etc., were centuries after the actual person, and were
created to coincide with established Roman holidays. Jesus' birthday
is on the day originally celebrating Mithras, etc.. The importance of
these days in Roman religion were established before the man "Jesus"
was ever even born, and the connection made between them and Jesus
were long after he was dead.

>>>"It would seem strange for them to honor a purely gnostic concept
unless there was a hidden motive for doing so! One could argue a
conspiracy theory to obtain control over the masses through the dogma
of Christianity, but why even include the 4 gospels, since the
already had a pretty good system using Judaeism?"<<<

Judism was established, Christianity was a mish mash of conflicting
ideas and groups that was very popular but very lacking in cohesion.
It was not a purely "Gnostic" concept, it was a wide range of groups
that were very different from each other. Some of those group were
what was to later become "orthodoxy" while others were to be cast
out.

And at this time there were not only 4 gospels, there were many. The
process of creating lists of texts to be used by the
wider "Christian" poppulation is actually a study in how to think
backwards. We can go into it in more detail if you wish. In any
event, much of the so called "New Testement" is really forged
documents created long after the people who's names they are
attributed to. Only about half the books of Paul are actually
possibly by him. Matthew is not by Matthew, John doesn't even claim
to be by John... and these are very late creations.

>>>"I use the word faith here because I am still attributing some
accuracy to texts written by men concerning something that otherwise
cannot be interpreted! I have no choice really, since the alternative
is less appealing to me."<<<

And Gnosticism itself is not appealing to many people. However, in
the case of these books whe have the choice of believing something
because we like it, or because it is fact... the two are not always
the same. I don't say that to be patronizing in any way, just to
caution that we should look at these things with a critical but open
mind, not just with what we are traditionally used to believing.

>>>"On a different subject though, concerning the similarities
between Zoroastrianism and Gnosticism, I find the outline of
spiritual principles or "causes" similar,
But even more interesting is a statement made by Zoroaster which is
similar to the golden rule..
        "That nature is good which does not do unto another that
which it does not do unto oneself" One can hardly miss the
similarity!"<<<<

Oh, yes, the "Golden Rule". The Bahai relgion does a local display of
this which includes the Golden Rule stated in literally hundreds of
religious texts including Buddhist, Islamic, Hindu, and so on. In
that case, yes, there are similarities between Zoroastrianism and
some specific Gnostic systems (not necessarily all), as well as many
other religions. I simply thought you meant to go into more specific
things that are not also found in other religions (and I think there
are some comparisons to be made). I misunderstood.

PMCV

__________________________________________________
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http://mail.yahoo.com

Hey Carter, you state...

>>"Also... What some people call Platonism or even neo platonism is
actually just compiled information taken from various sources in and
around Alexandria. If you study the lives of the great philosophers,
you will find mention, usually by a pupil or successor, of trips
made to Alexandria for the purpose of study,by well known
philosophers such as Pythagoras, and possibly Plato as well.It is
also known that Alexandria had a huge library, and that many
idealogical  beliefs florished there among the people, including
Zoroastrianism."<<<

I think we need to correct a couple of things here. Alexandria did
not exist yet in the time of Pythagoras, so he could not have gone
there. The same is true for Plato. Alexandria was founded by
Alexander the Great, who commisioned it to be built over the top of
a very small and relatively unknown fishing village that had no
previous history as a center of learning or culture (though it was
known as a haven for pirates).... it was called Rhacotis.

There was a sort of Egypt Vogue in the time of Plutarch and some of
the other authors who wrote "histories" of these philosophers, and
it was very common to say at this later date that this philosopher
or that one went to Egypt. However, these histories are not
generally accurate.

However, Alexandria WAS and area where these philosophies fourished
and interacted. It was also the largest Jewish population in the
world, and this raises some interesting points concerning Israel and
it's language and cultural make-up in the time of Jesus. It is very
possible (maybe even probable) that Alexandria (or somewhere nearby)
was the birth place of Gnosticism.

PMCV

Mychael....

>>"Not that you have to tell me, but are you a historian? You know
so much, it baffles me how smart you are..makes me feel pale beside
you, but I admire it and I would use your knowledge as a reference
point."<<<

OH no, don't use me as a reference point Mychael. Heck, I can't even
spell. We all have our special areas of knowledge or skills, and you
have yours as well.

PMCV

--- In gnosticism2@yahoogroups.com, carter stevens
<cherrycreamon@y...> wrote:

>>>Concerning Zoroastrianism and Gnosticism, there is probably more
that they have in common, I just don't have the reading material on
hand. I could of course look it up on line, but to do so and then
print out copies to use for reference in order to illustrate my
point, would of course take some time. That is why I have avoided
doing so thus far! Laziness I suppose. Most of what I've spoken about
is from memory, which is why there are some errors.<<<



Yes, I was sure there must have been a good reason for that.



>>>Concerning the Golden Rule... Sure, I've seen similar statements
about loving your neighbor and so forth, but Zoroasters' statement
seems to be almost identical to Jesus'. . . <<<



Say, Carter, since you seemed to be keen in your previous posts on
establishing a connection here (short of actually cracking open a
book or otherwise researching the topic), I'm curious as to why you
see the statements attributed to Zoroaster and Jesus as being MORE
nearly identical than other examples of the Golden Rule?  I'm sure
you're not basing your point of comparison on the literal wording of
modern translations since neither Jesus nor Zoroaster (if either
actually existed) would have spoken English.

Personally, I'm struck by how very similar the sentiment is between
ALL of these verses, whether we're talking about the Talmud, the
Mahabharata, the Udana-Varga, or the Analects of Confucius.  I
suppose I'd like to think that the Ethic of Reciprocity is something
that has occurred to civilized peoples everywhere, even if we
recognize it more in theory than in practice.

Gerry