Esoteric Christianity

[passerbye999]

Originally Posted by cramhankie

God didn't write that book. Men did. Men inspired by the Spirit of God.

The doctrine is the Word of God, not the words themselves, the Truth that is communicated is the Word of God.

The doctrine is believed on faith, and it is the exact opposite of your doctrine.

Well then I say everything I write is from the spirit of God and so that makes it the word of God. I do automatic write. So it is the spirit of God guiding my hand. That makes everything I say the Gospel. Do you see how stupid that sounds? It is that kind of faith that makes people reject the gospel and backslide like i did by the bushel. When i believed in Jesus the most in my worst times he was not there. God was there but no Jesus. So I reavalulated the whole concept.

[cramhankie]

Originally Posted by passerbye999

Well then I say everything I write is from the spirit of God and so that makes it the word of God. I do automatic write. So it is the spirit of God guiding my hand. That makes everything I say the Gospel. Do you see how stupid that sounds? It is that kind of faith that makes people reject the gospel and backslide like i did by the bushel. When i believed in Jesus the most in my worst times he was not there. God was there but no Jesus. So I reavalulated the whole concept.

God does not cause automatic writing.

The Holy Spirit speaks and tells a man to write it down, the Holy Spirit does not take control of a man's hand and write with it.

Automatic writing is of Satan, it is your evil witchcraft.

If you truly had faith in Jesus he promised never to leave or forsake you, but you forsook him and now you consort with demons.

[cramhankie]

http://www.davidicke.com/forum/showt...post1060881724

The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, And the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding. -- Proverbs 9:10

Psalm 2

1 Why do the heathen rage
and the peoples plot in vain?
2 The kings of the earth rise up
and the rulers band together
against the Lord and against his anointed, saying,
3 “Let us break their chains
and throw off their shackles.”

4 The One enthroned in heaven laughs;
the Lord scoffs at them.
5 He rebukes them in his anger
and terrifies them in his wrath, saying,
6 “I have installed my king
on Zion, my holy mountain. ”

7 I will proclaim the Lord’s decree:

He said to me, “You are my son;
today I have become your father.
8 Ask me,
and I will make the nations your inheritance,
the ends of the earth your possession.
9 You will break them with a rod of iron;
you will dash them to pieces like pottery. ”

10 Therefore, you kings, be wise;
be warned, you rulers of the earth.
11 Serve the Lord with fear
and celebrate his rule with trembling.
12 Kiss his son, or he will be angry
and your way will lead to your destruction,
for his wrath can flare up in a moment.
Blessed are all who take refuge in him.

Originally Posted by passerbye999

Yeah Jesus probably read this as well to lift him into his exalted state. He new all of these passages and truly believed he was the one but he has accomplished nothing in two thousand years. same old strife no Kingdom of God no Gods wrath. Just life as it flows naturaly. Have you ever stopped to consider prophecy is crap. This man is questioning what he believes and is trying to form his world view and you are just trolling his thread. the only reason I haven't posted is because he already knows what I think i have nothing extra to offer but good journey.

Originally Posted by passerbye999

None of that book is real man it is all allegory a myth teaching lessons like aesops fables. Prove to me from external sources one thing that can be referenced or proven. You can't it would truly be a miracle if you could.

Don't go off on me with that prophecy crap either, I don't believe in prophecy. Where is your God anyway two thousand years and he hasn't returned. He was just a man. The unknown, unseen, unnamed God is just a belief for those who believe there is no proof besides subjective proof He even exists, same with satan.

Ah, now the truth is coming out, your demons are being annoyed so the truth comes out.

Originally Posted by passerbye999

Jesus came to show the way through his ministry he proved his divinity and tried to show us our own. He said those that believe with great faith can do greater things than even himself. What did he mean by belief and faith though. Belief and faith in oneself, as well as belief and faith in the One True God.

Originally Posted by passerbye999

as for Jesus I believe he was a great prophet and master teacher and he showed us the way to overcome the flesh and raise ones spirit like no other master before or after him. When he said" I am the way, the truth and the life no one comes to the Father but by me." He was like a leader in combat yelling "follow me" as he lead his troops into battle.

You hate the Christ, and your hatred will be returned to you.

Much has been accomplished in 2000 years, millions and millions of God's anointed have been washed by the blood of the Lamb.

The Day of the Lord's Judgement has not yet come in 2,000 years, but when was 2,000 years ago?

That was on Monday.

2 Peter 3:1-10 Dear friends, this is now my second letter to you. I have written both of them as reminders to stimulate you to wholesome thinking. I want you to recall the words spoken in the past by the holy prophets and the command given by our Lord and Savior through your apostles.

Above all, you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires. They will say, “Where is this ‘coming’ he promised? Ever since our ancestors died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.” But they deliberately forget that long ago by God’s word the heavens came into being and the earth was formed out of water and by water. By these waters also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed. By the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.

But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.

But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything done in it will be laid bare.

[passerbye999]

Originally Posted by cramhankie

God does not cause automatic writing.

The Holy Spirit speaks and tells a man to write it down, the Holy Spirit does not take control of a man's hand and write with it.

Automatic writing is of Satan, it is your evil witchcraft.

If you truly had faith in Jesus he promised never to leave or forsake you, but you forsook him and now you consort with demons.

wonk, wonk, wonk you sound like charlie browns teacher. I have heard the still small voice many times as well and have written many psalms because of those experiences. Does that make my psalms the word of God? My life has been much like Job's I have never forsaken YHWH but Jesus is not, was not and was never meant to be YHWH. In my opinion from my personal experience he ans all of the prophets were in untreated religious manias. If you have ever experienced one you would know what I am talking about. Since you haven't you have no clue.

I don't consort with demons, I don't invoke satan and I live a good life and keep my promises to the real YHWH not the demuirge. I have faith and do good works. Jesus is my Teacher. He is my Master. If you can't understand that concept well I can't explain it any clearer.

[passerbye999]

Ah, now the truth is coming out, your demons are being annoyed so the truth comes out.

What demons? You are seriously derranged. I told you I was not going to bother using my subjective experiences and opinions because you just refute them anyway so I am challenging the Book you prophess so highly. You can't prove it is actually the written word of God or that there is anything actually historical in it from outside resources. That proves to me the book is a compilation of stories filled with allegory and synbolism. Alike aesop's fables that do contain moral truths.

I do not believe any man is God whether he is a Pharoah or not yet all men are gods, of course women too. I love the Bible it is my premier reference Book. I understand it for what it is though. The real torah written by "J" who is believed to be a woman be cause of hand and wording style is an excellent novel. It is too bad the editors and redactors added so much crap in around it instead of writing seperate books for their material.

As for the NT well only Paul was an original writer and you know what I think of him. The writers mixed a lot of paganism into the story so it is hard to tell the truth about the actual Jesus I believe in Jesus he has been with me my entire life but not your Jesus. You believe in Zues's son, I believe in a man you was a great prophet who thought he was the messiah. There have been many with similar stories in the history of Judiasm.

You hate the Christ, and your hatred will be returned to you.

I don't hate Jesus, I don't acknowledge the concept of a christ only a messiah.

Much has been accomplished in 2000 years, millions and millions of God's anointed have been washed by the blood of the Lamb.

The Day of the Lord's Judgement has not yet come in 2,000 years, but when was 2,000 years ago?

That was on Monday.

That just sounds sick. Do you understand how revolting that sounds, talk about pagan beliefs with satanic overtones. Washed in the blood of the lamb, of the bull. Your a Mithraisist not a Greek. Well maybe both with a bit of Horus worship in their as well.

Two thousand years ago was monday huh. A thousand years a day roughly. So on the eighth day you expect Jubilee. Interesting so you figure six days to his second coming, sabbath the thousand year rest and then Jubilation. Wow. Well another four thousand years to go then.

I like the idea of the liberation of spirit over being washed in some poor lamb's blood or worse yet the blood of a man. Do you fundies do augeries too? Is that how you figured out how long until the second coming, pulled out his intestines and divined the future.

Then again it is just my demons speaking through me not me teasing you.

[bikerdruid]

Originally Posted by passerbye999

I don't consort with demons, I don't invoke satan and I live a good life and keep my promises to the real YHWH not the demuirge. I have faith and do good works. Jesus is my Teacher. He is my Master. If you can't understand that concept well I can't explain it any clearer.

crackhankie is blinded by ignorance and ego.

[bikerdruid]

Originally Posted by cramhankie

Much has been accomplished in 2000 years, millions and millions of God's anointed have been washed by the blood of the Lamb.

in the last 200 years, christianity has indeed been awash with blood, but not the blood of jesus.
the crusades, the inquisition, the christian cleansing of north america, and other christian wars have killed millions of innocents.
the christian church makes hitler look like a boy scout.

[passerbye999]

The Historical Jesus

‘I am the first and I am the last, and beside Me there is no God’ (Isa. 43. 6) I am the first, I have no father; I am the last, I have no brother. Beside Me there is no God; I have no son.--Exod. Rabba 29.

Isa 43 6-7

I will say to the north, ‘Give them up!’
and to the south, ‘Do not hold them back.’
Bring my sons from afar
and my daughters from the ends of the earth —
everyone who is called by my name,
whom I created for my glory,
whom I formed and made. ”

Would these not be the gods that God created and formed. Who the Jew states firmly are not God. So they are right. Jesus can only be a god not God. We all can only be gods created and formed by God for his glory. Made in the image of the Elohim. There is no trinity only the deistic nature of God the Father YHWH and God the Mother Ruach Hokodesh. I am who creates and the Holy spirit who breathes life into the forms created.

Jesus was a historical man only a few scholars deny his existence. Where they agree to disagree is not in his natural birth, his baptism or his death on the cross but in the supernatural works attested to him by his followers. Let’s take a look at the writers of the NT first and foremost we have Paul of Tarsus who wrote his epistles decades before the gospels were written. He never met Jesus only persecuted his followers.

Then in a so called miraculous encounter with a voice in the desert on the way to Damascus he is blinded and converted into a follower of Jesus.

Saul’s Conversion ACTS 9 1-7
9 Meanwhile, Saul was still breathing out murderous threats against the Lord’s disciples. He went to the high priest 2 and asked him for letters to the synagogues in Damascus, so that if he found any there who belonged to the Way, whether men or women, he might take them as prisoners to Jerusalem. 3 As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. 4 He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”
5 “Who are you, Lord?” Saul asked.
“I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,” he replied. 6 “Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.”
7 The men traveling with Saul stood there speechless; they heard the sound but did not see anyone. 8 Saul got up from the ground, but when he opened his eyes he could see nothing. So they led him by the hand into Damascus. 9 For three days he was blind, and did not eat or drink anything.
10 In Damascus there was a disciple named Ananias. The Lord called to him in a vision, “Ananias!”
“Yes, Lord,” he answered.

Now here it states the others heard the voice but never seen the vision. Later on it says something different.

22 1 “Brothers and fathers, listen now to my defense.”
2 When they heard him speak to them in Aramaic, they became very quiet.
Then Paul said: 3 “I am a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but brought up in this city. I studied under Gamaliel and was thoroughly trained in the law of our ancestors. I was just as zealous for God as any of you are today. 4 I persecuted the followers of this Way to their death, arresting both men and women and throwing them into prison, 5 as the high priest and all the Council can themselves testify. I even obtained letters from them to their associates in Damascus, and went there to bring these people as prisoners to Jerusalem to be punished.
6 “About noon as I came near Damascus, suddenly a bright light from heaven flashed around me. 7 I fell to the ground and heard a voice say to me, ‘Saul! Saul! Why do you persecute me?’
8 “‘Who are you, Lord?’ I asked.
“ ‘I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom you are persecuting,’ he replied. 9 My companions saw the light, but they did not understand the voice of him who was speaking to me.
10 “‘What shall I do, Lord?’ I asked.
“ ‘Get up,’ the Lord said, ‘and go into Damascus. There you will be told all that you have been assigned to do.’ 11 My companions led me by the hand into Damascus, because the brilliance of the light had blinded me.

And now Paul alone sees the light and hears the voice.

12 “On one of these journeys I was going to Damascus with the authority and commission of the chief priests. 13 About noon, King Agrippa, as I was on the road, I saw a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, blazing around me and my companions. 14 We all fell to the ground, and I heard a voice saying to me in Aramaic,[a] ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.’

Paul can’t seem to keep his story straight. Either that or the Author of Acts doesn’t know fact from fiction. The gospels were written decades later by followers of the names of the gospels with Mark being the Earliest Gospel and John being the last. None of these Authors can get there stories quite straight either except where the copy from each other or the lost text Q. The gospel of Thomas has many of these stories as well and other more personal sayings of Jesus. As a matter of fact the Gnostic gospels fill in the picture of the Synoptic Gospels and John making the story clearer.

Paul though never read these Gospels only went by the voices in his head. So he created his own religion referred to as Paulinism. He created the myth of Iesues. The Roman/Greek God man. The historicity of Jesus the man is without question but the mythical Godman is in serious doubt and highly debated by scholars and various sects of Christianity and Judiasm as well.

Since Paul never knew Jesus and had never seen Jesus and his convertion is highly questionable and he is the main Author of the NT this puts a serious doubt as to the historical facts being presented. In Judiasm the Messiah was to accomplish specific goals as stated by prophecy. Jesus never fulfilled them so he could have been a messiah but not the Messiah. Here are the goals he was to accomplish and failed because of his death on the cross.

The Mishneh Torah, an authoritative work of Jewish law, provides the last established consensus view of the Jewish community, in Hilkhot Melakhim 11:10–12 that Jesus is a “stumbling block” who makes “the majority of the world err to serve a divinity besides God”.

“Even Jesus the Nazarene who imagined that he would be Messiah and was killed by the court, was already prophesied by Daniel. So that it was said, “And the members of the outlaws of your nation would be carried to make a (prophetic) vision stand. And they stumbled.”[Dan. 11:14] Because, is there a greater stumbling-block than this one? So that all of the prophets spoke that the Messiah redeems Israel, and saves them, and gathers their banished ones, and strengthens their commandments. And this one caused (nations) to destroy Israel by sword, and to scatter their remnant, and to humiliate them, and to exchange the Torah, and to make the majority of the world err to serve a divinity besides God.”

One can see the Jews point they were expecting a Messiah who would save them, gather the banished ones and strengthen their commandments but all that happened for them from the forming of Christianity was the ultimate destruction of the Temple and Jerusalem itself and the people were scattered and killed. Jesus to the Jew just brought destruction and death. I of course have a different view but we can all agree that he lived and died a man. The supernatural events of his life to me are not questionable there were many recorded holy men from Galilea who preformed miracles. The performance of miracles though does not make one God.



It does make one a great Prophet and Holy man. A master of the arcane arts and the wisdom of the spirit. He was a Magi who invoked YHWH and received miracles. Prayer is a form of invocation. He connected with people spirit to spirit. His spirit had transcended the flesh. How he accomplished this is mentioned in the Gospel of Philip.

It is through water and fire that the whole place is purified - the visible by the visible, the hidden by the hidden. There are some things hidden through those visible. There is water in water, there is fire in chrism.

It is from water and fire that the soul and the spirit came into being. It is from water and fire and light that the son of the bridal chamber (came into being). The fire is the chrism, the light is the fire. I am not referring to that fire which has no form, but to the other fire whose form is white, which is bright and beautiful, and which gives beauty.

The Lord did everything in a mystery, a baptism and a chrism and a eucharist and a redemption and a bridal chamber. [...] he said, “I came to make the things below like the things above, and the things outside like those inside. I came to unite them in the place.” [...] here through types [...]and images.

Those who say they will die first and then rise are in error. If they do not first receive the resurrection while they live, when they die they will receive nothing. So also when speaking about baptism they say, “Baptism is a great thing,” because if people receive it they will live.

These things point at a form of Alchemy was practiced based on Jesus’s life so it must have been an inner teaching he shared only with his inner circle. These ideas are not far fetched and are supported by ancient texts outside of the Bible.

[passerbye999]

The Demuirge

Gnosticism presents a distinction between the highest, unknowable God and the demiurgic “creator” of the material. Several systems of Gnostic thought present the Demiurge as antagonistic to the will of the Supreme Being: his act of creation occurs in unconscious semblance of the divine model, and thus is fundamentally flawed, or else is formed with the malevolent intention of entrapping aspects of the divine in materiality. Thus, in such systems, the Demiurge acts as a solution to the problem of evil.

Mythos

One Gnostic mythos describes the declination of aspects of the divine into human form. Sophia (Greek: Σοφια, lit. “wisdom”), the Demiurge’s mother a partial aspect of the divine Pleroma or “Fullness,” desired to create something apart from the divine totality, without the receipt of divine assent. In this act of separate creation, she gave birth to the monstrous Demiurge and, being ashamed of her deed, wrapped him in a cloud and created a throne for him to be within it. The Demiurge, isolated, did not behold his mother, nor anyone else, concluded that only he himself existed, being ignorant of the superior levels of reality.

The Demiurge, having received a portion of power from his mother, sets about a work of creation in unconscious imitation of the superior Pleromatic realm: He frames the seven heavens, as well as all material and animal things, according to forms furnished by his mother; working however blindly, and ignorant even of the existence of the mother who is the source of all his energy. He is blind to all that is spiritual, but he is king over the other two provinces. The word dēmiourgos properly describes his relation to the material; he is the father of that which is animal like himself.

Thus Sophia’s power becomes enclosed within the material forms of humanity, themselves entrapped within the material universe: the goal of Gnostic movements was typically the awakening of this spark, which permitted a return by the subject to the superior, non-material realities which were its primal source.

Angels

Psalms 82:1 describes a plurality of gods (ʼelōhim), which an older version in the Septuagint calls the “assembly of the gods,” although it does not indicate that these gods were co-actors in creation. Philo had inferred from the expression, "Let us make man," of Genesis that God had used other beings as assistants in the creation of man, and he explains in this way why man is capable of vice as well as virtue, ascribing the origin of the latter to God, of the former to His helpers in the work of creation.

The earliest Gnostic sects ascribe the work of creation to angels, some of them using the same passage in Genesis. So Irenaeus tells of the system of Simon Magus, of the system of Menander, of the system of Saturninus, in which the number of these angels is reckoned as seven, and of the system of Carpocrates. In the report of the system of Basilides, we are told that our world was made by the angels who occupy the lowest heaven; but special mention is made of their chief, who is said to have been the God of the Jews, to have led that people out of the land of Egypt, and to have given them their law. The prophecies are ascribed not to the chief but to the other world-making angels.

The Latin translation, confirmed by Hippolytus, makes Irenaeus state that according to Cerinthus (who shows Ebionite influence), creation was made by a power quite separate from the Supreme God and ignorant of Him. Theodoret, who here copies Irenaeus, turns this into the plural number “powers,” and so Epiphanius represents Cerinthus as agreeing with Carpocrates in the doctrine that the world was made by angels.

Yaldabaoth

A lion-faced deity found on a Gnostic gem in Bernard de Montfaucon’s L’antiquité expliquée et représentée en figures may be a depiction of the Demiurge.
In the Ophite and Sethian systems, which have many affinities with that last mentioned, the making of the world is ascribed to a company of seven archons, whose names are given, but their chief, “Yaldabaoth” (also known as "Yaltabaoth" or "Ialdabaoth") comes into still greater prominence.

In the Apocryphon of John circa 120-180 AD, the Demiurge arrogantly declares that he has made the world by himself:


Now the archon (ruler) who is weak has three names. The first name is Yaltabaoth, the second is Saklas (“fool”), and the third is Samael. And he is impious in his arrogance which is in him. For he said, "I am God and there is no other God beside me," for he is ignorant of his strength, the place from which he had come.

He is Demiurge and maker of man, but as a ray of light from above enters the body of man and gives him a soul, Yaldabaoth is filled with envy; he tries to limit man's knowledge by forbidding him the fruit of knowledge in paradise. The Demiurge, fearing lest Jesus, whom he had intended as his Messiah, should spread the knowledge of the Supreme God, had him crucified by the Romans. At the consummation of all things all light will return to the Pleroma. But Yaldabaoth, the Demiurge, with the material world, will be cast into the lower depths.

In Pistis Sophia Yaldabaoth has already sunk from his high estate and resides in Chaos, where, with his forty-nine demons, he tortures wicked souls in boiling rivers of pitch, and with other punishments. He is an archon with the face of a lion, half flame and half darkness.

Yaldabaoth is frequently called "the Lion-faced", leontoeides, with the body of a serpent. We are told also, that the Demiurge is of a fiery nature, the words of Moses being applied to him, “the Lord our God is a burning and consuming fire,” a text used also by Simon.

Under the name of Nebro (rebel), Yaldabaoth is called an angel in the apocryphal Gospel of Judas. He is first mentioned in “The Cosmos, Chaos, and the Underworld” as one of the twelve angels to come “into being [to] rule over chaos and the [underworld]”. He comes from heaven, his “face flashed with fire and whose appearance was defiled with blood”. Nebro creates six angels in addition to the angel Saklas to be his assistants. These six in turn create another twelve angels “with each one receiving a portion in the heavens.”

Names

The most probable derivation of the name “Yaldabaoth” is that given by Johann Karl Ludwig Gieseler, “Daughter of Chaos,” from Hebrew yalda bahut,ילדא בהות.

“Samael” literally means “Blind God” or “God of the Blind” in Aramaic (Syriac sćmʻa-ʼel). This being is considered not only blind, or ignorant of its own origins, but may in addition be evil; its name is also found in Judaica as the Angel of Death and in Christian demonology. This leads to a further comparison with Satan. Another alternative title for the Demiurge, “Saklas,” is Aramaic for “fool” (Syriac sćkla “the foolish one”).

The name has also been inscribed as "Ariel Ialdabaoth", and the figure of the archon inscribed with "Aariel". The angelic name "Ariel" has also been used to refer to the demiurge and is called his "perfect" name, and in some Gnostic lore, Ariel has been called an ancient or original name for Ialdabaoth.

Marcion

According to Marcion, the title God was given to the Demiurge, who was to be sharply distinguished from the higher Good God. The former was díkaios, severely just, the latter agathós, or loving-kind; the former was the "god of this world" (2 Corinthians 4:4), the God of the Old Testament, the latter the true God of the New Testament. Christ, though in reality the Son of the Good God, pretended to be the Messiah of the Demiurge, the better to spread the truth concerning His heavenly Father. The true believer in Christ entered into God's kingdom, the unbeliever remained forever the slave of the Demiurge.

Valentinus

It is in the system of Valentinus that the name Dēmiourgos is used, which occurs nowhere in Irenaeus except in connection with the Valentinian system; we may reasonably conclude that it was Valentinus who adopted from Platonism the use of this word. When it is employed by other Gnostics either it is not used in a technical sense, or its use has been borrowed from Valentinus. But it is only the name that can be said to be specially Valentinian; the personage intended by it corresponds more or less closely with the Yaldabaoth of the Ophites, the great Archon of Basilides, the Elohim of Justinus, etc.

The Valentinian theory elaborates that from Achamoth (he káta sophía or lower wisdom) three kinds of substance take their origin, the spiritual (pneumatikoí), the animal (psychikoí) and the material (hylikoí). The Demiurge belongs to the second kind, as he was the offspring of a union of Achamoth with matter. And as Achamoth herself was only the daughter of Sophía the last of the thirty Aeons, the Demiurge was distant by many emanations from the Propatôr, or Supreme God.

In creating this world out of Chaos the Demiurge was unconsciously influenced for good; and the universe, to the surprise even of its Maker, became almost perfect. The Demiurge regretted even its slight imperfection, and as he thought himself the Supreme God, he attempted to remedy this by sending a Messiah. To this Messiah, however, was actually united Jesus the Saviour, Who redeemed men. These are either hylikoí, or pneumatikoí.

The first, or material men, will return to the grossness of matter and finally be consumed by fire; the second, or animal men, together with the Demiurge, will enter a middle state, neither Pleroma nor hyle; the purely spiritual men will be completely freed from the influence of the Demiurge and together with the Saviour and Achamoth, his spouse, will enter the Pleroma divested of body (hyle) and soul (psyché). In this most common form of Gnosticism the Demiurge had an inferior though not intrinsically evil function in the universe as the head of the animal, or psychic world.

The devil

Opinions on the devil, and his relationship to the Demiurge, varied. The Ophites held that he and his demons constantly oppose and thwart the human race, as it was on their account the devil was cast down into this world. According to one variant of the Valentinian system, the Demiurge is besides the maker, out of the appropriate substance, of an order of spiritual beings, the devil, the prince of this world, and his angels. But the devil, as being a spirit of wickedness, is able to recognise the higher spiritual world, of which his maker the Demiurge, who is only animal, has no knowledge. The devil resides in this lower world, of which he is the prince, the Demiurge in the heavens; his mother Sophia in the middle region, above the heavens and below the Pleroma.

The Valentinian Heracleon interpreted the devil as the principle of evil, that of hyle (matter). As he writes in his commentary on John 4:21,


The mountain represents the Devil, or his world, since the Devil was one part of the whole of matter, but the world is the total mountain of evil, a deserted dwelling place of beasts, to which all who lived before the law and all Gentiles render worship. But Jerusalem represents the creation or the Creator whom the Jews worship. . . . You then who are spiritual should worship neither the creation nor the Craftsman, but the Father of Truth.

This vilification of the Creator was held to be inimical to Christianity by the early fathers of the church. In refuting the views of the Gnostics, Irenaeus observed that "Plato is proved to be more religious than these men, for he allowed that the same God was both just and good, having power over all things, and Himself executing judgment."

Cathars

Catharism apparently inherited their idea of Satan as the creator of the evil world from Gnosticism. Gilles Quispel writes,
There is a direct link between ancient Gnosticism and Catharism. The Cathars held that the creator of the world, Satanael, had usurped the name of God, but that he had subsequently been unmasked and told that he was not really God.

[valmar]

Originally Posted by passerbye999

wonk, wonk, wonk you sound like charlie browns teacher. I have heard the still small voice many times as well and have written many psalms because of those experiences. Does that make my psalms the word of God? My life has been much like Job's I have never forsaken YHWH but Jesus is not, was not and was never meant to be YHWH. In my opinion from my personal experience he ans all of the prophets were in untreated religious manias. If you have ever experienced one you would know what I am talking about. Since you haven't you have no clue.

I don't consort with demons, I don't invoke satan and I live a good life and keep my promises to the real YHWH not the demuirge. I have faith and do good works. Jesus is my Teacher. He is my Master. If you can't understand that concept well I can't explain it any clearer.

I understand exactly. Your automatic writing was your instinctive side, your intuitional side. I'm get like this when I'm high of pot.

[valmar]

Originally Posted by bikerdruid

crackhankie is blinded by ignorance and ego.

Ignorance and ego do not come together. If he had an ego, cram would not be on this path. Cramhankie has no true Ego, no true Self to speak of. He does not sound like a true independent thinker, which only a person with a true Ego could have.

Look up the etymology of Ego, bikerdruid and tell me what you think.

Selfishness is not always bad. The situation in which it is used matters. As long as one's selfishness has no tangible impact on another person, then I do not worry. My Ego is the one writing this! Eating food to live is being Selfish, because it concerns survival of one's body! Too many people have to wrong idea about the Self or Ego.

[passerbye999]

Originally Posted by valmar

I understand exactly. Your automatic writing was your instinctive side, your intuitional side. I'm get like this when I'm high of pot.

Pot does help automatic writing it brings out intuition. Your subconscious comes forward and connects thought for the conscious mind very quickly. You are right about ego in a way but we each have our own understanding of what it is. So nobody is completely right or wrong.

[gerrardthor]

I do what can be considered automatic writing on a regular basis. I basically have conversations with myself and pretend it's God. I really actually do believe it's God I'm talking to but I wouldn't put my silly activities on such a pedestal. I have some fucked up conversations and develop some weird theologies and it doesn't always stand up to being God - but - its how I express my relationship with such a terrible and abstract concept known as God.

[passerbye999]

Originally Posted by gerrardthor

I do what can be considered automatic writing on a regular basis. I basically have conversations with myself and pretend it's God. I really actually do believe it's God I'm talking to but I wouldn't put my silly activities on such a pedestal. I have some fucked up conversations and develop some weird theologies and it doesn't always stand up to being God - but - its how I express my relationship with such a terrible and abstract concept known as God.

The still small voice is very real and many times appears as your own inner voice. Just always use discernment because sometimes other beings can supplant thoughts as well. You're right one shouldn't put such a thing on a pedestal for it happens to many but it is also something very unique to searchers. Ask and you shall be answered.

[exu156]

Originally Posted by cramhankie

no Biblical canon was chosen at the Council of Nicea, you have just revealed more of your ignorance.

The decision process by which the Council of Nicea decided which books to include in the Biblical text is itself interesting and revealing.

About forty Gospels were submitted to the Bishops. As they differed widely in their contents, the decision was difficult. At last it was determined to resort to "miraculous intervention." The method used was known as the Sortes Sanctorum, or "the holy casting of lots for purposes of divination." Its use in the Council of Nicea was described by another eye-witness, Pappus, in his Synodicon to that Council. He says:

"Having promiscuously put all the books referred to the Council for determination under a communion table in a church, they (the Bishops) besought the Lord that the inspired writings might get upon the table, while the spurious ones remained underneath. And it happened accordingly."

When the Bishops returned to the Council room on the following morning, the four Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were resting on the communion table. Their presence in the New Testament is due to the art of divination, for practicing which the Church subsequently condemned men and women as sorcerers, enchanters and witches, and burned them by the thousands.

The Council of Nicaea was/is of utmost importance because it was at this important meeting that the dogma of Christianity was devised.

On June 21 (the day of the Summer Solstice) a total 2048 'presbyters, deacons, sub-deacons, acolytes' and even 'exorcists' gathered and formulated a blending of Jewish myth and solar cult. Just previous to this gathering the Emperor Constantine had been initiated into the religious order of Sol Invictus, one of the two thriving cults of the time that regarded the Sun as the one and only Supreme God (mithraism being the other). His (Constantine) entire reign was known as the 'Sun-Emperorship.' Coins of his reign are inscribed with the sun on one side and his face on the other and he ordered the construction of a huge ornate stone arch (still standing today) which he dedicated to the the 'Invincible One the Sun our Father.'

It is important to understand that ;

"Constantine never actually accepted Christianity...Constantine never totally abandoned Paganism...and was known to continue to worship pagan gods. Even after his conversion, Constantine was well known for his brutality." - Andras Nagy, Constantine - The Making of a Saint

Furthermore;

"Constantine pursued the great object of his ambition through the dark and bloody paths of war and policy; and, after the victory, he abandoned himself, without moderation, to the abuse of his fortune. He declined in the practice of virtue; and the same year of his reign in which he convened the Council of Nice was polluted by the execution, or rather murder, of his eldest son." -The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire By Edward Gibbon, 1887, Chap. xx.

and

"It was Constantine who changed the day of worship from Saturday to Sunday, despite the fact that Jesus, and all of the apostles strictly observed the Sabbath on Saturday. His decision was influenced by the fact that Sun-Day was the Roman day of worship of the Sun-God, Apollo." -The Thirteenth Disciple: Constantine and The Trinity by Nozrem ha Brit page 42

under his control;

"Constantine turned Christianity into a piece of political machinery." - Paganism Surviving in Christianity By Abram Herbert Lewis ' The Control of Christianity by the State Under Constantine and his Successors' Chapter X; pg. 208

The Council itself was far from a peaceful and well ordered affair where wise men sat down and passed down their regulations. The great historian Sibenius of Herecla (c. 326) tells us regarding those that attended that;

"Excepting Constantine himself, and Eusebius Pamphilius, they were a set of illiterate, simple creatures who understood nothing."

Dean Milman tells us;

"Nowhere is Christianity less attractive, and if we look to the ordinary tone and character of the proceedings, less authoritative, than in the councils of the church...The degeneracy is rapid from the Council of Nicaea (325AD) to the first of Ephesus (431AD), where each party came determined to use every means of haste, maneuver, court influence, bribery, to crush his adversary; where there was an encouragement of, if not an appeal to the violence of the populace, to anticipate the Decrees of the council, where each had his own tumultuous foreign rabble to back his quarrel, and neither would scruple at any means to obtain ratification of their anathemas through persecution by the civil government." - Dean Milman History of Latin Christianity. Book IV., chs.1 and 2. (Vol. II. p. 109)

Records in fact state that Eusebius (second in importance to Constantine) was so disgusted with the corruption even before the start of Council of Niceaea that it was stated that he "has related that whatever might redound to the glory, and that he has suppressed all talk of the bribery and scandal that could tend to the disgrace of that religion" (Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol V, 1 May 1909, p. 619)

[pepsi78]

Originally Posted by cramhankie

God didn't write that book. Men did. Men inspired by the Spirit of God.

The doctrine is the Word of God, not the words themselves, the Truth that is communicated is the Word of God.

The doctrine is believed on faith, and it is the exact opposite of your doctrine.

So by definition if someone is bullshiting me intentionally and makes up stuff secretly that is not true, I have to have faith in what he says and let him bullshit me all the way. No questions, no digging, no analysis if something matches or is at least partially true. Then why the hell do you have a head on your shoulders for, I thought it was to check.

What is faith.
Faith is in something that you know, something credible that you at least feel is right, that you beilive it is true. That is faith, not being a zombie.
Your version of faith is worrying me.Faith is to believe, it's what faith translates to. To believe is to know, when you know someone you believe in that person, but you know that person and that is how you believe in it.

Faith is not blind folded as you think. I could be selling you bullshit and asking you to trust me (like religions do), then I could congratulate you, and tell you to keep up the -good work while I keep on bullshiting you over and over again. without you knowing about it.

You see that is faith according to your spin.

Simply faith=to believe.
To believe = to know.

When you will be asking people, they simply have faith in other people because they know them, they know how they are, so they put their faith in them, they grow to admire, love and have faith in other people because they have came from a long way to knowing those persons. Knowlege is the answer as it is to know.

[passerbye999]

Originally Posted by pepsi78

So by definition if someone is bullshiting me intentionally and makes up stuff secretly that is not true, I have to have faith in what he says and let him bullshit me all the way. No questions, no digging, no analysis if something matches or is at least partially true. Then why the hell do you have a head on your shoulders for, I thought it was to check.

What is faith.
Faith is in something that you know, something credible that you at least feel is right, that you beilive it is true. That is faith, not being a zombie.
Your version of faith is worrying me.Faith is to believe, it's what faith translates to. To believe is to know, when you know someone you believe in that person, but you know that person and that is how you believe in it.

Faith is not blind folded as you think. I could be selling you bullshit and asking you to trust me (like religions do), then I could congratulate you, and tell you to keep up the -good work while I keep on bullshiting you over and over again. without you knowing about it.

You see that is faith according to your spin.

Simply faith=to believe.
To believe = to know.

When you will be asking people, they simply have faith in other people because they know them, they know how they are, so they put their faith in them, they grow to admire, love and have faith in other people because they have came from a long way to knowing those persons. Knowlege is the answer as it is to know.

Good post pepsi78 I think you hit the nail right on the head so to speak. This guy is troubled in many ways. He has blind faith in the Book and expects everbody else to beleive his way. He doesn't bother me much any more I tend to bother him when I feel like it.

[exu156]

Originally Posted by pepsi78

So by definition if someone is bullshiting me intentionally and makes up stuff secretly that is not true, I have to have faith in what he says and let him bullshit me all the way. No questions, no digging, no analysis if something matches or is at least partially true. Then why the hell do you have a head on your shoulders for, I thought it was to check.

What is faith.
Faith is in something that you know, something credible that you at least feel is right, that you beilive it is true. That is faith, not being a zombie.
Your version of faith is worrying me.Faith is to believe, it's what faith translates to. To believe is to know, when you know someone you believe in that person, but you know that person and that is how you believe in it.

Faith is not blind folded as you think. I could be selling you bullshit and asking you to trust me (like religions do), then I could congratulate you, and tell you to keep up the -good work while I keep on bullshiting you over and over again. without you knowing about it.

You see that is faith according to your spin.

Simply faith=to believe.
To believe = to know.

When you will be asking people, they simply have faith in other people because they know them, they know how they are, so they put their faith in them, they grow to admire, love and have faith in other people because they have came from a long way to knowing those persons. Knowlege is the answer as it is to know.

Some good solid common sense right here.

[passerbye999]

“(In esoteric Christianity) there is greater emphasis on resurrection rather than crucifixion, not just of the physical body, but of self to Self. Jesus didn’t save us from our sins (die for our sins) because our sins are for us to deal with ourselves. He showed us how we can become our own saviors – by raising our consciousness through love and the path of initiation. All people have the capability to become fully human / fully divine.”

“Jesus and the Christ are seen as two separate entities. The Christ refers to the living flame of love that guides all life and evolution on our planet. Jesus was a man who was able to perfect himself enough to hold the high energy of the Christ, and thus become Jesus, the Christ.”

These are some quotes I found from anonymous writers. How true they are and they resonate with my thoughts on Esoteric Christianity like an echo on the wind. Human divinity does not mean we become or can aspire to be the unknown, unseen God but we can aspire in life to be gods. In Psalm 82-6 it gives reference to us being divine, it says “ I have told you you are gods” but we will die a mortal death.

In the Garden when the serpent approached eve and bade her to eat of the fruit of the Tree of Good and Evil we gained a conscience but we gained far more being made in the image of the gods and having ate of the fruit God said they have become like us knowing good from evil and in jealousy he removed them from the Garden so they wouldn’t partake of the Tree of Life and become immortal completing the transformation.

In the Gospel of Mary and the Gospel of Philip as I have posted before They tell of how Jesus taught and became the Christ. It is a form of Internal Alchemy that leads one to transcend the flesh by the spirit. Growing a Radiant Spiritual Body. The Spirit and the Soul are immortal they form our consciousness and its ethereal body. They can be raised in life so one can enter the Kingdom of The Spirit as it states in the gospel of Thomas and then we can be lifted up and be conscious and aware after death.

In order for the resurrection to take place after death we must be resurrected within this life. The transfiguration is proof of this resurrection in life. Jesus showed us the way through his ministry to accomplish this feat but we all already are divine within. Some just place there light under the table others set it on top for everybody to see.

[jconnar]

Greg Braden Healing Powers - YouTube

Greg Braden Healing Powers - YouTube