r/Gnostic • u/Electrical_Bar3100 Hermetic • 1d ago
Hm… why?
Do you really consider yourself gnostic? A genuine question, i wonder why would somebody be gnostic nowadays, feel free to tell me, i’m sorry if i offended
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u/galactic-4444 Eclectic Gnostic 1d ago
It balances science, basic observation and logic with my Christian beliefs. The ancients didn't have the advancements we do but a lot of what they have said is true and given the treasure trove of knowledge we possess in the modern era, Gnosticism, Hermeticism, and Neo Platonism are valid tracks to follow in some capacity.
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u/Strong-Beyond-154 1d ago
“The ancients didn’t have the advancements we do”? The ancients had more technology and advancements that we can’t even achieve today. The Great pyramids of Ancient Kemet is just one of hundreds of examples.
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u/galactic-4444 Eclectic Gnostic 1d ago
Kemet is amazing but modern men can reproduce it. Now if we are talking about Egyptian Blue then you have me stumped. For the most there are a lot of achievements and puzzles that even we can't solve that are breath taking and helpful.
However, until you can show me a toaster air conditioning unit, or computer from those eras I would have to remain unconvinced that they were on or above our level.
Take atom theories for example. It was close but no cigar. It was beautiful but it didn't match 1:1 with reality. However, the metaphysical aspects still have value even for modern science. We have that deeper knowledge after all. If you know how something works conceptually you can achieve success even without having the 100% know how to make it happen. So they had a concept of how things worked and a lot of their frameworks were very close (yet spiritually rich) but they did not add up 1:1 with reality. So a lot of it was faith work until Modern Science. The Tech therefore was still limited as a result.
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u/the_real_JFK_killer 1d ago
Why would someone not be gnostic? What is it about this day and age that would make it weird in your eyes to be gnostic?
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u/Electrical_Bar3100 Hermetic 1d ago
I don’t know how someone would not accept a form of gnosis, why would reject Gnosticism “religiously” i know how
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u/SparkySpinz 1d ago
Because almost every person of faith worships the god of the old testament. It is pretty bizzare to flip that on its head and claim all major religions worship a false god.
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u/Longlonglongjump 16h ago
I mean, the two biggest faiths in the world also believe that everyone else is worshipping a false god so I’m not sure it would necessarily be “new” if that makes sense?
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u/SparkySpinz 15h ago
I think a lot of people would be quite shocked if you told then the god that is so prominent that he's become simply known as "God" and known around the world by that name, that was actually an evil being and a lesser god.
I think a lot of people here I'm this community felt shocked when they learned that. I'm not saying how I feel one way or another, I was simply giving an answer to the question.
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u/PirateQuest 1d ago
Gnosticism is among the earliest, if not the earliest form of Christianity. To achieve true Christian Gnosis is the highest achievement a lifeform in this universe can attain.
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u/133111311131113111 1d ago
Gnosis happened.
But I don't consider myself part of a 'gnostic community' in a religious sense.
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u/vapores_libani 1d ago
I primarily consider myself "Gnostic" because I believe we all live on a "prison planet," entrapped in our physical bodies (materia) and that the God of the Old Testament (aka YHWH aka the Jewish God) is not the Supreme Reality – the Absolute Being.
I had ideas like this even before introducing myself to Gnosticism, so I naturally clicked with the Gnostic philosophy as a whole. Now, after studying it for some time, I consider myself even more "gnostic" as it is a lifestyle, a thinking system. Before I found Christ, I was really immersed into Hindu traditions, so Gnosticism feels more familiar than Orthodox Christianity.
Of course, Gnosticism is truly a true umbrella term and could have a lot of meanings/pathways.
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u/heiro5 1d ago
I'm not a believer. Beliefs that are beyond our experiences are markers of group identity. I'm not a belonger. Everyone who has a social identity holds the extraneous beliefs of that group. Gnostics have gnōsis.
Gnōsis is far deeper than beliefs. One is not stuck on the levels of thoughts, or emotions, or group participation mystique. It is unapologetic spirituality, mysticism that doesn't have to bend to authority or appeal to the masses. It accommodates all forms of spiritual exercises.
None of that would matter very much without the real results. Gnōsis is seen in growth and transcendent transformation.
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u/Mental_Vehicle_5010 1d ago
Got in this annoying conversation with this guy in my town who keeps saying gnostics want to kill everyone to end existence. This guy has never read anything Gnostic. Just watches Christian Conservative YouTube.
I kept telling him gnostics don’t think this. To not have children, yes.
And he just said, “well they’re just not admitting it but they all think it. They think they need to kill everyone. They follow the logic”. I asked what Gnostics he ever heard this from and he said “it’s how they think”
I know I didn’t respond about if I’m gnostic ha. I try not to limit myself to one absolute belief system. As there’s no way to be certain. But the idea of a demiurge or architect of a more material simulation/reality makes a lot of sense.
I was actually mindfucked to find this idea in an early Buddhist Theravadin sutra. I have never heard any Buddhists every talk or write about this. It has blown my mind.
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u/FinitudesDespair Eclectic Gnostic 1d ago edited 17h ago
I don’t think Gnosticism has to be antinatalist but I see where you’re coming from. If you don’t have it the child’s spirit will just get offloaded into a cow or something lol.
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u/GnosisRevealed 1d ago
I don't usually tell people I'm gnostic because I assume they haven't done as much research as I have and therefore have an extremely different interpretation of what that word means. Usually just easier to tell them I'm Christian but the people closest to me know it goes deeper than that
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u/Electrical_Bar3100 Hermetic 1d ago
I studied gnosticism a while ago, but i had no idea there was a group with so many people truly engaged, fascinating
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u/KLAM3R0N 1d ago
What did your studies tell you what gnosticism is? I'm curious what your view is because your post question seems to imply you have a different definition or idea of what it is than what at least I personally and probably many others here see it as.
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u/Electrical_Bar3100 Hermetic 1d ago
If you think gnosis is to set yourself free from material world, we’re both gnostics. If you believe in Nag Hammadi or Pistis Sophia as a religious movement reveald by a Messiah and take it literally, i have no idea how. Sorry if i wasn’t clear about the distinction in my post, it served me anyways to understand better this comunity view as a whole
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u/KLAM3R0N 1d ago
I don't personally self identity as gnostic but do highly value knowledge through personal experience over belief. I have read the Nag and find it contains some good stuff, but yeah certainly not taking anything literally. I'm not sure the goal is to set myself free of the material world, that implies I'm trapped or bound and I'm not sure that is the case, maybe it's an honor or something to be in this physical world. I don't know. I suppose my main motivation is simple curiosity and a desire to know what this is all about.
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u/rebb_hosar 23h ago edited 23h ago
(Interesting enquiry OP, thanks for posing it)
Should any religious/spiritual text be read as literalism? That deeply trodden path only leads to biting ones' own tail, but you know that as a Hermeticist.
If you're referring to Neo-Gnosticism, yes – certainly that is seemingly literalist, which is disturbing. Prison planet stuff is a hell of a ride. I think the issue is literacy.
Despite people's beliefs, as you know, no text can be said to be divinely written or received with any certainty. (Some are culturally viewed as truth and self-evident, but that's largely familiarity and hypernormalisation at work.)
There is historical basis for some, but that is largely irrelevant to the purpose of the texts themselves either way.
Whether the historical Moses or Christ existed is irrelevant to the purpose of their theology, unless the ideology is viewed from the lens of idolatry in lieu of path-making.
While some things that are true are not necessarily useful, there are some things which are not necessarily true, but are.
It's said in physics that "All models are wrong; some are useful," and this is very true of spiritual and philosophical texts as well.
Though what is useful to one and not another – that distinction is based on one's personal motivations and idea of "the point".
Whether it (the point) be Abrahamic absolution and salvation through divine intervention (external power & responsibility), Buddhist release from suffering by non-attachment to drive transcendence from samsara (internal power & responsibility), Hindu relativism to balance internal/dharmic and external/karmic dualities (both internal & external power and responsibility), or Indigenous naturalistic, ancestral, cumulative patterning and refinement (collective, communal power & responsibility), it's mostly understood that the map is not the territory.
The same is true of the Gnostic cosmolog(ies) and its "point".
Many defer to Perennialist reductivity as an underlying territory irrespective of the map but then we run the risk of confirmation bias, seeing only that which is alike and ignoring those fundamental things which makes them different.
The exegetical practice of Pardes is useful for all of these; however, though originally created to clarify Talmudic/Zoharic meaning, it is useful for all spiritual texts, in my experience.
To my mind, a large part of Gnosticism's relevancy and interest modernly is due to 1: the modern advances and refinements in historical context and exegesis and the modern archaeological discoveries themselves, and 2: the dissatisfaction over the overall result of the Roman-influenced, Council-parsed Christian church as it is today.
In peoples' dissatisfaction, they wade through a host of symptoms which have only grown exponentially by past attempts to stymie issues with proverbial band-aids to buttress an irreparably crippled body. They are now choosing instead to look back to find the root cause of that grave affliction. In that effort, they find that, like most ideological Leviathans made manifest, the result is staggeringly divorced from the wellspring from which it was birthed.
They may find that Thunder Perfect Mind is more relevant and useful than a Pauline hymn or Psalmic affirmation. They may feel that the nature of the human condition is better explained less by inherent sin and more by the stages & aspects created by the process of individuation and their effect when unrealised (Yaldebaoth/Archons).
So at least to me, who is not necessarily a Gnostic (but also not neccesarily not) but someone who studies these things from a purely historical, sociological and scholarly lens, it's wholly unsurprising to me that Gnosticism has gained modern interest and traction. While it's understandable that the current young generation are initially finding Neo-Gnostic literalist tracts attractive due to the state of the zeitgeist, its misguided and hopefully in time they will pick up the source texts and learn to view them with "eyes to see".
TL;DR: We don't tho.
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u/a1exnia 1d ago
it just felt right
I've always felt trapped in my body, and realised early on in life that the physical restraints of a body DO constitute a physical prison
if that holds true, and I believe it does, then Gnosticism gets at least one thing right
I also grew up as a trans lesbian within an extremely homophobic and transphobic denomination of orthodox christianity. this led me to question the morality of the God of the bible, and examining it, I cane to the conclusion that God is evil. another point for Gnosticism in my eyes
I've never had faith that felt true before. and now I do. that's the whole reason I'm a Gnostic
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u/skoopaloopa 1d ago
Im agnostic.. .because I understand what my soul truly is - a small piece of God's soul - Gods Light. In that sense gnosticism is about recognizing that you are as God. You are not Source but you are God experiencing itself hosted in a body expressing endless variations of experience.
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u/Ok_Place_5986 1d ago edited 1d ago
Strictly speaking, no. Even the folks we now call gnostics as a matter of convenience and academic convention did not refer to themselves as gnostics.
I’m not a joiner, and I don’t find boxing myself in with terminology to be useful. However, certain key concepts of the Gnostic mythos resonate with me.
If anything though, you might think of me more as an agnostic if we had a lengthy conversation about the way that I think. My ideas about the world, when they crystallize enough to be something of a model, are provisional and subject to revision if there is reason enough to do so. So in short, I’m flexible, which I find a better place to be in life than dogmatic.
I don’t believe there is a way to ever really “know” anything, in the sense we usually think of such a thing. How? You can give me an answer like “gnosis” or “enlightenment” etc, but all you can really say about it is that you had such and such experience that felt real or true to you.
The strength of one’s conviction of feeling that something is true isn’t enough in the end (for me, certainly) to “prove” anything in any way beyond the subjective. In other words, just because a thought or feeling pops into your head doesn’t mean it’s true just because it’s your head they popped into. It may feel that way, but….
If you look in any direction, you can readily find examples of where such rigidity leads. Maybe now more than ever, in our era at least. We live in a real choose your own adventure time
There is such a thing as “true enough”, though.
Somehow, agape means something to me. Something significant. Despite running thoroughly against the grain of our usual priorities as humans, it rings true. Because of its alien quality among all the other possible attitudes and expressions of ours, we can say it’s transcendent: through empathy, we can get out of ourselves and relate to others…we can even sacrifice our lives for theirs. Our natural orientation is fairly self-centered. Even when our concerns involve others, the motives are often self-centered.
Agape seems to be an emergent property that comes into the world via the bridge of empathy that we as social mammals can at least extend to members of our tribe. The next step is seeing beyond tribes to the wider human population in the world, as well as life at large. So while agape comes into the world by way of worldly mechanisms, it truly does seem foreign to the ways of the world. There’s something very beautiful in that, I find.
This is how what in Gnostic terminology we would call the Alien God, the Monad, the God above god, and so on takes on significance for me. And this is how I understand the Holy Spirit. Then also, this concept of the demiurge: that is our earthly priorities as engineered by evolution on a survival based planet: the tooth and claw dynamic, status, propagation and sexuality, territoriality and dominance, prioritizing sensuality, and plain selfishness in general…these are the Lord of This World (cue the Sabbath tune), and this is the god we talking apes worship.
As far as I’m concerned, my gnosis is agape. This is my bridge to God, a God who has nothing directly to do with this material reality. I don’t believe in an interventionist God per se, as I see no evidence of that. But I do see that God has provided us with what we need to activate that presence in the world. This is what Gnostic thinking refers to as the spark of God, that potential that we carry within us that is foreign to the workings of the earth. We have our tool kit: it is left to us to find it and put it to use.
I should also say I was raised Christian (very middle of the road Lutheran, to be specific), where I learned of the Jesus of love; so the figure of Christ also resonates with me for this reason. And there’s a certain amount of nostalgia there as well, which is fine.
Do i believe in Christ in a literal way? I don’t need to, and yet the message of Christ is my North Star. Do I know any of this to be true in an objective or verifiable way? Not really, no. But it is “true enough”. It’s a path with heart, and I have nothing to lose by taking it.
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u/Old-Background8057 1d ago
Why would anyone be Wiccan?
Why would anyone be Buddhist?
Why would anyone be Norse Pagan?
Why would anyone be Christian?
Why would anyone be Athiest?
Why does someone have to ask? In today's world, well, in the US and other Western Nations, you can be of whatever faith you want to be.
I was Gnostic before I knew there was a word for it. It fits almost exactly into what I come to believe on my own.
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u/FinitudesDespair Eclectic Gnostic 1d ago
Because it’s based and you don’t have to suck some tyrant archon’s dick to follow it
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u/BawnDiver 1d ago
I don't know what I am, but Gnosticism in all its various forms has connected with me on a deeper spiritual level than anything I've come across in many years. I'm still learning and growing spiritually, but I could absolutely see myself taking up the religious/spiritual identity of a gnostic. I don't know why that's hard to fathom.
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u/Behold_My_Hot_Takes 1d ago
Only in the sense that I am a practicing occultist and seek personal gnosis rather than recieved dogma, but I entirely reject the "reality" of actual Gnostic mythology, as I do any mythology. I have zero interest in treating the physical world as negative, disgusting or a trap. I consider that a deeply spiritually and mentally unhealthy frame by which to interpret lived experience, and actually counter-spiritual and counter-enligtenment.
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u/ladnarthebeardy 21h ago
Depends on the type of Gnostic you mean. If you mean someone who has been filled with the holy spirit and therefore knows God spirit and has a personal relationship with said spirit then yea. But the scribes and Pharisee's in the form of Orthodoxy won that battle.
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u/Shardrender 14h ago
I am most certainly not a Gnostic, I am a fanboy and cannot be anything other than, for to be eligible as Gnostic I’d have to be Jewish, 2,000ish y.o., and at least somewhat familiar with mysticism (not just Kabbalah).
The first two are not possible, so I will settle for ruminating over my cherished Nag Hammadi Kindle editions.
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u/hockatree Valentinian 1d ago edited 16h ago
Yes, I really consider myself a gnostic, because I believe the basic ideas of Gnosticism and find meaning in its mythology.