Greetings (ritual, hell, gnostic, spiritual, verse)

[sandhill]

I am looking forward to the future posts here. I went through the FAQ and the concept of having one set of forums for debates and others for serious discussions makes a lot of sense.

[Victor]

Greetings and Welcome to the forum.

[Feathers in Hair]

Flame war? Our Gnostics seem to be a fairly quiet bunch, but maybe we haven't seen that side of them yet.

Hello and welcome!

[sandhill]

Well, I used to hang out over at Jim Berkland's syzygyjob site, and about five years ago they had a general forum called "Prophecy". And the flame wars erupted constantly between the Biblers and anyone else. In time that board was split into two, "Dreams and Visions" and "Religious Prophecy". It was there that I found that anyone who would dare to mention Gnosticism usually drew a lot of fire. The concept that people have an innate spiritual function by which they can directly apprehend spiritual truth or "Reality", does pose a threat to those who feel that the human being is inextricably stuck in the Original Mud associated with Original Sin. I won't go too much further on that subject as it is more a topic for debate than anything else.

My general attitude is that those who believe that spiritual access to deeper/higher realms of awareness is limited by sin or the very nature of the human mind itself, aren't very appreciative of "Gnosis" in any way.

And trying to explain where one is coming from stirs up those flames. When I had a major mystical insight and realized in the nowness of living that living and being aware on this level, is like trying to walk in a field of mud up to one's neck, it changed my attitudes about a lot of things.

[Terrywoodenpic]

Originally Posted by sandhill

My general attitude is that those who believe that spiritual access to deeper/higher realms of awareness is limited by sin or the very nature of the human mind itself, aren't very appreciative of "Gnosis" in any way.

And trying to explain where one is coming from stirs up those flames. When I had a major mystical insight and realized in the nowness of living that living and being aware on this level, is like trying to walk in a field of mud up to one's neck, it changed my attitudes about a lot of things.

I am even longer in the tooth than you.
But I must admit to having trouble understanding "Gnosis" though we have a number of Gnostic bretheren on the site.
I am looking forward to being enlightened in this belief system.

Terry_____________________-
Blessed are the pure of heart, they shall behold their God.

[sandhill]

I started my own searching back in college and forty seven years later ... have been down many wrong alleys and gotten stuck more times than I care to admit.

But thanks to some recently published work, I feel I can make a reasonable statement and will do so over on the Gnosticism forum.

What I will do is to write some small papers ... say one to two pages ... and then start a thread with the paper as a basis for discussion.