Introduction

I didn’t come to Gnosticism looking for a new religion. I didn’t come to it wanting to find a lost or rejected school of Christianity. I didn’t come to it looking for God. I embraced Gnosticism because within it I found something that I didn’t even know I was looking for; a viable way to synthesize the religious complexes within me, and a usable way to process my continuing mystical life.

I have had a real, intimate, and personal relationship with God since I was a child. God was who I could turn to during the difficult years. I cried to God during the years of physical, sexual, and emotional abuse. And God was always there. Through dreams and visions, and in a myriad of other ways, God was always there.

My religious convictions have changed over time, but my relationship with God has only deepened. My concept of God has evolved with my maturity, but the relationship has been constant. I have loved and resented God. I have needed and tried to reject God. Through it all, God has always been there; constant, faithful, understanding.

I didn’t come to Gnosticism looking for something new. I found it when I needed a solution. My relationship with God had completely transcended religion. It was constant, beyond peak experiences, beyond the need for active cultivation. God was the ocean I swam in. I thought that my visions would stop. I thought that since I was living in the stream of the mystical life, I would no longer need a “structure” or “system” to process revelation and growth. But the visions did not stop. The need did not stop.

The nature of my experience was still primarily Christian, even though my relationship had long ago transcended those boundaries. I came to understand that this was the pattern of my soul. The Christian structure and system was so much a part of me that it was through this language that God and I communicated. But there were contents of this relationship and my experiences that (as far as I knew) had no basis in Christian myth or doctrine. Then I read the Secret Gospel of John, and Allogenes, and Zostrianos, and Marsanes. In them I found an echo and a mirror of my own visionary experiences.

I saw in them, from SGoJ through Marsanes a virtual guidebook of my own visionary evolution. I found in them an expanded Christian language that expressed my experiences which had transcended what I knew of Christianity. I found that as I processed these new scriptures, my communication with God became clearer. My ability to understand the nature and expression of my own relationship with God increased. My understanding of my own nature and programming also increased. Gnosticism gave me back my religion.

I have made many mistakes along the way. I have been hurt, and I have hurt others through these mistakes. I have learned from them, but I regret the pain that these lessons have caused. That is why I teach. That is why I am determined to be open and honest about my own relationship with God, and the mistakes I have made. There are people out there who struggle with their own evolving relationship with God. I know better than to assume that their experiences will mirror my own, but I also know how much easier my own path could have been if I had adequate tools to understand and process my own spiritual evolution.

I don’t expect that what I will teach will be a perfect fit for everyone. But I am hopeful that someone will have an easier time of it, than I did. So, I offer you my lessons. In the way that I believe is most useful to learn them. There are dangers on this road of self-knowledge and relationship with God. I hope to point some of them out to you, and help you avoid them.

You will not get a lot of theory about the historicity of Gnosticism or its validity as a religious path. I have no desire to mire my-self or my practice in the often vitriolic controversies surrounding the historic validity of this or that path. I am not concerned about reconstructing the practices or path of Classical Gnosticism. I don’t believe it is possible to do so. I am concerned with what works. The application of what I have found in the Nag Hamadi Library has worked well for me. The manner in which I interpret that content, and make it applicable is primarily what I am going to give to you.

We will begin with vocabulary.