/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.10940077]

How does one start with Gnosticism?

[Anonymous No.10940084]

>>10940077

Undertale

[Anonymous No.10940091]

Mother!

[Anonymous No.10940097]

Nag Hammadi library

[Anonymous No.10940100]

>>10940077
Start with the realization of the self, and undergo gnosis

[Anonymous No.10940180]

>>10940077

put on hermes's boots, fly too high, fall, climb back up, back where you started, something has changed, not sure what, now funny faces are funnier

[Anonymous No.10940183]

The
Hermerticum

[Anonymous No.10940187]

>>10940077
there's some really interesting passages in the OT and NT that say something about who owns the world and what earthly power amounts to, can't quite recall what they were about or referring to but, i know fascists and christfaggots really fucking hate them.

Anyway, I'm sure you'll pick up the trail for me anon.

Gospel of Thomas
Pistis Sophia is a nice place to start but there's dozens of these texts and many say different things. Technically gnosticism survived with the Cathars into the middleages

[Anonymous No.10940314]

>>10940077

Read your bible, specifically the Pentateuch, Wisdom literature and the Gospels

>Nag Hammadi Library
>Pistis Sophia

Understand that there are several different gnostic sects that put out different writings.

personally i fall in line with the Valentineans the closest because their cosmology, cosmogony and theology is far more coherent and ten times less edgelord than the others, but that doesn't mean some wisdom can't be found in their writings

pray, self-reflect, contemplate, and learn with an open heart and mind

Matt. 7:7-8: “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened."

[Anonymous No.10940375]

>>10940314
>>10940077

some good pieces to start within the Nag Hammadi are

>Gospel of Truth
>Exegesis of the Soul
>Thunder, Perfect Mind
>Gospel of Thomas

you can't go wrong with a good Biblical foundation so you should at least understand that before sinking your teeth into the heavier gnostic stuff

try to avoid a lot of the exegetic material that is posted around because "gnostic" is an umbrella term for a lot of different things and it's likely that without proper knowledge you'll be led astray into some dumb satanist LARP bullshit before too long.

may God bless you on your journey to Him!

[Anonymous No.10940422]

>>10940314
>>10940375
scared little christfaggots don’t realize the church is incompatible with gnosticism and this is why it was banned
>oh don’t look at this anon its DANGEROUS!

its worth noting that many gnostics did not think Christ was god at all

[Anonymous No.10940441]

hey guys am i doing it right?

muh demiurge
muh manichaeism
muh hermes trismegistus

[Anonymous No.10940442]

Best book to start with is Michael Pauen's, but it's in German. Otherwise, read Grimstad's book on gnosticism in Thomas Mann, as it will give you a tour d'horizon of the phenomenon of gnosticism in the 20th century. Then optionally read Eric Voegelin's shorter works on gnosticism.

Before delving into gnosticism, you really want to understand two things:
1) The intellectual history of the conceptual framework of "gnosticism" in the 20th century, beginning with figures like Hans Jonas and spreading like goddamn wildfire so that everyone is using the term non-critically and no one is making the necessary historical distinctions when they say things like "Western philosophy is all gnostic" or "Kant is platonist" and don't explain any further.
2) The lay of the land of various commentators on gnosticism, so that even if you DO end up deciding that gnosticism is a transhistorical category worthy of your study, you can at least pick your starting places intelligently rather than getting lost in the thickets of six dozen thinkers who all use it in vague, overlapping, and misleadingly and subtly different ways.

Don't make the mistake of most people and assume at the get-go that it's a transhistorical. The real things you want to get at might be buried beneath a catch-all category of "gnosticism" that you set up in your mind, and you'll spend your whole life chasing down more and more manifestations of this phantom gnosticism without ever realising you should be penetrating the ideal type and getting at more essential realities.

[Anonymous No.10940452]

>>10940441
u mad?

[Anonymous No.10940456]

>>10940077
Enneads 2.9 - Against the Gnostics

start and finish there

[Anonymous No.10940468]

>>10940077

I would suggest reading Coulianu's The Tree of Gnosis before diving into the primary documents. It's academically rigorous but still very readable, and will give you a concrete understanding of Gnosticism's foundational myths and concepts, as well as a breakdown of the differences between its various sects.

[Anonymous No.10940469]

>>10940077
Gnosticism is the beginning of trouble. If you believe the creator of the universe is evil, you'll be given over to the worst satanism. Don't get too much into the occult either. If you're a Christian who is too smart for mainline Christianity you'll find satisfactory answers in Orthodoxy.

[Anonymous No.10940660]

>>10940452
forgot muh jesus banged mary magdalene, muh sexual liberation and muh dan brown novels

[Anonymous No.10940673]

Trigger happy mod deletes religion/philosophy thread in 5,4,3,2,1

[Anonymous No.10940693]

>>10940077
Kurt Rudolph's Gnosis is a pretty good overview of the history and systems of gnosticism.

[Anonymous No.10940700]

>>10940422

>its worth noting that many gnostics did not think Christ was god at all

many """gnostics""" also thought unclean sexual practices (orgies, semen and menses cookies a la Crowley) were the way to enlightenment
many """gnostics""" were not only world-denying but also life-denying and had their groups die out because no new initiates and no children

>scared little christfaggots don’t realize the church is incompatible with gnosticism and this is why it was banned

valentineus was almost pope. origen, augustine and other early church fathers had heavy gnostic leanings.
the doctrine of the Trinity was taken from a gnostic sect.

>oh don’t look at this anon its DANGEROUS!

more like the internet has allowed any pseduo-occultist idiot to put whatever they want under the label of whatever they want out there and pass it off as "gnostic wisdom" to people

the archonic influence is strong in this board tonight

[Anonymous No.10940710]

LSD helped me
Your mileage may vary

[Anonymous No.10940726]

>>10940469
>>10940700
>implying not all roads lead to God

brainlets itt

[Anonymous No.10940730]

>>10940726
>wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the way that leads to life, and only a few find it.

[Anonymous No.10940736]

reminder

>Romans 11:32
>For God has bound everyone over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all.

[Anonymous No.10940741]

mystics avenged, denominationfags btfo

[Anonymous No.10940742]

>>10940077
>How does one start with Gnosticism?

By crushing it beneath one's boot heel as one crushes the head of a snake.

[Anonymous No.10940748]

>>10940742

[Anonymous No.10940749]

>>10940097
i second what this brilliant fuck said!

[Anonymous No.10940797]

First, read the Catechumen of the Gnostic Church.

Second, attend your local Gnostic community and ask about attending RGIA classes in order to more fully understand the Gnostic dogma.

Finally, when you feel prepared to let Gnosis into your heart, you can go and be confirmed into the Gnostic faith by accepting Jesus is your path to salvific knowledge and that Mary Magdalene and her successors head the One True Church of Insight.


Or you could just read the Nag Hammadi library and meditate, either one.

[Anonymous No.10940842]

Read the papers collected in Neoplatonism and Gnosticism edited by Harris. There are a lot of crackheads out there writing about Gnosticism, but these papers show where each of Gnosticism’s features came from (Neoplatonism) and shows how and why Gnosticism revised these features the way they did. You can follow reason from there to conclude correctly as to which school of thought provides us with a better framework for understanding reality

[Anonymous No.10940876]

>>10940842
Wallis, not Harris, Harris does Neoplatonism and Indian thought. My bad

[Anonymous No.10940879]

>>10940797
>RGIA classes

kek, you cheeky bastard

[Anonymous No.10941118]

>>10940077
The Gospel of Thomas. The opening logia set the method in plain words, and it is a good bridge between the everyday exoteric advice of the canonical gospels into the method of salvation.

I hope your troubles find peace, brother – may you ascend the ogdoad before the powers spot you.

>>10940442
Gnosticism is historical as a belief system but transhistorical in its insights. It required a certain milieu to come about, which was ignited by the descent of Christ, and this special series of events makes it uniquely insightful among the world's belief systems.

[Anonymous No.10941138]

>>10940726
yes but some of them are indescribably painful

[Anonymous No.10941181]

>>10940700
>early church weren't literalists
>obviously they were wrong (and gnostic because why not) unlike Ken Ham and Kent Hovind

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdtRpA8xQk0

nice theology, douchebags

[Anonymous No.10941207]

>>10940700
this post is such cog diss, half the teachings are explicitly world-denying and life-denying for a reason. You schizophrenically invoke Crowley as if we’re all supposed to fear what you fear. Pedophile priesthood has nothing to do with Gnosis and Christ wasn’t God, or Jesus was not Christ itself.

[Anonymous No.10941390]

>>10940077
plato, plotinus

[Anonymous No.10941918]

By playing Persona 5

[Anonymous No.10942041]

>>10940077
>2018
>being a gnostic

[Anonymous No.10942046]

stop stacking turtles

[Anonymous No.10943137]

bumping old dudes wicked hair