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Author: Frances Swiney
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781910121740
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 86
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Book Description
Though Gnosticism long preceded Christianity, the Gnostics were the first Christians; they accepted Christ in the full realization of the word; his life, not his death, was the keynote of their doctrine and their practice. Thousands of years before the Egyptian Seers prognosticated the spiritual evolution of the soul in the seven stages of probation in the life beyond the grave. They conceived of a mystical Christos, a divine type of character that could only be attained through the soul's conflict with evil in the spiritual spheres of nebulous idealism. The Gnostics welded the ancient mythos into mundane practicability. They recognized the divine nature of the Universe, the eternal progression of all things, and of the human in particular. Therefore, it is easily conceivable that they were misunderstood, maligned and discredited by the crude primitive minds of the Goth, the Vandal and the Hun, who had drunk too deeply of the draught of oblivion to remember their former phases of existence. ..".Swiney has much in common with modern scholars like Elaine Pagels or Elizabeth Schussler Fiorenza, who attempt to restore the lost voices of the women of early Christianity... The Esoteric Teachings of the Gnostics is an important book." by Philip Jenkins, Distinguished Professor of History, Baylor University."
Author: Frances Swiney
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781910121740
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 86
Get Book Here
Book Description
Though Gnosticism long preceded Christianity, the Gnostics were the first Christians; they accepted Christ in the full realization of the word; his life, not his death, was the keynote of their doctrine and their practice. Thousands of years before the Egyptian Seers prognosticated the spiritual evolution of the soul in the seven stages of probation in the life beyond the grave. They conceived of a mystical Christos, a divine type of character that could only be attained through the soul's conflict with evil in the spiritual spheres of nebulous idealism. The Gnostics welded the ancient mythos into mundane practicability. They recognized the divine nature of the Universe, the eternal progression of all things, and of the human in particular. Therefore, it is easily conceivable that they were misunderstood, maligned and discredited by the crude primitive minds of the Goth, the Vandal and the Hun, who had drunk too deeply of the draught of oblivion to remember their former phases of existence. ..".Swiney has much in common with modern scholars like Elaine Pagels or Elizabeth Schussler Fiorenza, who attempt to restore the lost voices of the women of early Christianity... The Esoteric Teachings of the Gnostics is an important book." by Philip Jenkins, Distinguished Professor of History, Baylor University."
Author: Elaine Pagels
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 1588364178
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 281
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Book Description
Selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best nonfiction books of all time The Gnostic Gospels is a landmark study of the long-buried roots of Christianity, a work of luminous scholarship and wide popular appeal. First published in 1979 to critical acclaim, winning the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award, The Gnostic Gospels has continued to grow in reputation and influence over the past two decades. It is now widely recognized as one of the most brilliant and accessible histories of early Christian spirituality published in our time. In 1945 an Egyptian peasant unearthed what proved to be the Gnostic Gospels, thirteen papyrus volumes that expounded a radically different view of the life and teachings of Jesus Christ from that of the New Testament. In this spellbinding book, renowned religious scholar Elaine Pagels elucidates the mysteries and meanings of these sacred texts both in the world of the first Christians and in the context of Christianity today. With insight and passion, Pagels explores a remarkable range of recently discovered gospels, including the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Mary Magdalene, to show how a variety of “Christianities” emerged at a time of extraordinary spiritual upheaval. Some Christians questioned the need for clergy and church doctrine, and taught that the divine could be discovered through spiritual search. Many others, like Buddhists and Hindus, sought enlightenment—and access to God—within. Such explorations raised questions: Was the resurrection to be understood symbolically and not literally? Was God to be envisioned only in masculine form, or feminine as well? Was martyrdom a necessary—or worthy—expression of faith? These early Christians dared to ask questions that orthodox Christians later suppressed—and their explorations led to profoundly different visions of Jesus and his message. Brilliant, provocative, and stunning in its implications, The Gnostic Gospels is a radical, eloquent reconsideration of the origins of the Christian faith.
Author: Frances Swiney
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Gnosticism
Languages : en
Pages : 87
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Book Description
Author: Karen L. King
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674017627
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 372
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Book Description
A study of gnosticism examines the various ways early Christians strove to define themselves in a pluralistic Roman society, while questioning the traditional ideas of heresy and orthodoxy that have previously influenced historians.
Author: Andrew Phillip Smith
Publisher: Watkins Media Limited
ISBN: 1780284640
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 251
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Book Description
According to the ancient Gnostics—the early Christians who wrote such controversial texts as the recently discovered Gospel of Judas—we are all capable of gnosis, or direct knowledge of the true reality that lies behind the material world. Andrew Phillip Smith, author of respected works on the lost sayings of Jesus, the Gospel of Philip, and other Gnostic subjects, now offers a highly accessible layman’s introduction to this long-suppressed philosophy that offers an intriguing alternative to accepted Christian beliefs. With references to The Da Vinci Code, The Matrix, and other fictions inspired by the Gnostic worldview, this is an eye-opening, and possibly life-changing book meant to revive forgotten traditions, and perhaps even allow readers to experience gnosis themselves.
Author: Boris Mouravieff
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781872292120
Category : Gnosticism
Languages : en
Pages : 106
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Book Description
Volume 3 of Boris Mouravieff's Gnosis contains ancient keys to a tradition of Christian esotericism that was necessarily hermetized 1800 years ago and has since remained unpublished, surviving to the present only in unwritten form.
Author: Garry W. Trompf
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317201841
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 716
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Book Description
The Gnostic World is an outstanding guide to Gnosticism, written by a distinguished international team of experts to explore Gnostic movements from the distant past until today. These themes are examined across sixty-seven chapters in a variety of contexts, from the ancient pre-Christian to the contemporary. The volume considers the intersection of Gnosticism with Jewish, Christian, Islamic and Indic practices and beliefs, and also with new religious movements, such as Theosophy, Scientology, Western Sufism, and the Nation of Islam. This comprehensive handbook will be an invaluable resource for religious studies students, scholars, and researchers of Gnostic doctrine and history.
Author: Annie Besant
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Christianity and other religions
Languages : en
Pages : 430
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Book Description
Author: Tobias Churton
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1620554224
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 389
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Book Description
An exploration of the sexual practices and doctrinal secrets of Gnosticism • Reconstructs the lost world of Gnostic spiritual-erotic experience through examination of every surviving text written by heresiologists • Investigates the sexual gnosis practices of the Barbelo Gnostics of the 2nd century and their connections to the Gnostic Aeon Sophia, the Wild Lady of Wisdom • Explains the vital significance of “the seed” as a sacrament in Gnostic practice Examining every surviving text written by heresiologists, accounts often ignored in favor of the famous Nag Hammadi Library, Tobias Churton reveals the most secret inner teaching passed down by initiated societies: the tradition of sexual gnosis--higher union with God through the sacrament of sex. Discovering actual sex practices hidden within the writings of the Church’s authorities, he reconstructs the lost world of Gnostic spiritual-erotic experience as taught by initiated masters and mistresses and practiced by Christian couples seeking spiritual freedom from the world. Churton explores the practices of the “first Gnostic,” the historical Simon Magus, and explains the vital significance of “the seed” in Gnostic practice, showing it to be the sacramental substance par excellence. He illuminates the suppressed truth of why the name “Valentine” came to be associated with ennobling erotic love and reveals profound parallels between sexual gnosis and Tantra, suggesting that gnosis lies at the root of the tantric path. Solving a millennia-old riddle regarding the identity and secret symbol of Sophia, the mysterious Gnostic “Aeon,” Churton investigates Sophia’s connections to Barbelo, also known as Pruneikos, the Wild Lady of Wisdom, and the central focus of the Barbelo Gnostics of the 2nd century, whose religious sex practices so shocked orthodox Christian contemporaries that they were condemned, their cults of spiritual gnosis and “redemption by sin” driven underground. Churton exposes the mystery of Sophia in the philosophy of the medieval Troubadours and explores William Blake’s inheritance of secret Renaissance sexual mysticism through the revolutionary English poet Andrew Marvell. Showing how Blake’s sexual and spiritual revolution connects to modern sexual magic, Churton also examines the esoteric meaning of the free-love explosion of the 1960s, revealing how sex can be raised from the realm of guilt into the highest magical sacrament of spiritual transformation.
Author: Abdullah Dougan
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780473481223
Category : Bible
Languages : en
Pages : 158
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Book Description
"Three works are explored as threads in the Gnostic esoteric teaching that has instructed mankind for thousands of years and is the core of all religions." --Back cover.
