My Vows

I've taken my vows into the Order of Esclarmonde. On September 19th I read them to my wife and have endeavored to practice the rule everyday.

For me this has been one of the grandest adventures of my life and in some sense dangerous; self discovery can always be a little unnerving.

A lot has happened in the last month since I joined the order as far as non-ordinary experiences go. I'm mostly in processing mode, trying to grok or make sense of my understanding of the world. It's amazing how something experienced in five seconds can change the way one looks at reality.

Another thing that is extraordinary is the fact that meditation really works. I mean it works like a freakin recipe book. The results are unpredictable and always unexpected, but the way one sees the world always is subject to change.

I don't consider myself wise by any stretch of the imagination but a movement towards wisdom is the light I follow.

"Heorte" - the Heart of the Oldest English Epic

From Beowulf

"hige sceal the heardra heorte the cenre

mod sceal the mare the ure maegen lytlath

her lith ure ealdoe eall forheawen

god on greote a maeg gnornian

se the nu fram this wigplegan wendan thenceth"

The mind must be the firmer, the heart must be braver, the courage must be the greater, as our strength grows less. Here lies our lord all cut to pieces, the good man on the ground. If anyone thinks now to turn away from this war-play, may he be unhappy for ever after.

Pre-Nicean Gnosticism Summary

The last Dallas Gnostic Meetup went very well!

I want to thank Daniel and Dart for their presentation on early Gnosticism. They spent over forty hours weaving threads from all sorts of sources to bring to life the context in which early Gnosticism came to life and putting into an hour.

There is really too much to put in this small summary. Hopefully I can get their paper up on the meetup site soon. I took a timeline from the meeting that fills two pages. We learned the original meaning of the word "zealot" and that Platonism influened Gnosticism heavily. Another tidbit I'm personally interested in following up is "Who were the Essenes and what was their role in Gnostic development?" Daniel and Dart's research shows that this question is pretty tricky.

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There's Something About Mary

Mary, one of the most prominent women in the Bible and arguably the most prominent female in the New Testament has been a living legend since her introduction. Despite various attempts to suppress her importance, somehow she manages to make her way into the hearts and minds of devotees throughout the Christian world.

This yearning to grow the legend of Mary has resulted in all sorts of fantastic stories involving Mary and Jesus as lovers. The idea of the holy grail being the womb of Mary and the bloodline of Jesus was beginning to circulate around the thirteenth century. On July 22nd, 1209 the small town of Beziers was torched by Crusader dispatched by the pope as punishment for the heretical teaching that Christ and Mary had sexual relations

Compared to all the legends and myths surrounding Mary, truly there is almost nothing known about the actual Mary besides the small number of verses she is found in the Gospel Canon and early Gnostic writings. Whether or not she enjoyed existence as an actual person will probably never be known. This doesn't seem to matter as the myth of Mary has a life of its own and the breath that breathes life into her is the imagination looking for expression for its anima archetype.

The anima archetype, a term coined by Carl Jung represents an unconscious tendency toward expression of the female principle. Jung developed a theory regarding the union of opposites in the psyche. There are many conscious objects that have no meaning in the mind without their opposite counterpart, for example he says:

The whole nature of man presupposes woman, both physically and spiritually. His system is tuned into woman from the start, just as it is prepared for a quite definite world where there is water, light, air, salt, carbohydrates etc..

"Two Essays in Analytical Psychology" In CW 7: P. 188

When tendencies in the psyche are repressed they exibit themselves in a dark way or as part of a shadow self. Mary thus somehow became the patron saint of flagellents - those who abused themselves to scourge away sexual desires and tendencies.

It seems that she makes the whole spectrum of the anima archetype in Christianity. She is known not just for penitence, but for devotion and sensuality. She anointed Christ's feet before his death and was the first to see him risen.

Summary of "Is Gnosis and Enlightenment Real?"

Here is a quick summary of the last Dallas Gnostic Meetup:

Six attended. The discussion regarding whether Gnosis is real or not lasted five minutes as Dart made the point none of us would be showing up if we thought to the contrary and we all agreed.

Further, the discussion went, what is it?

Daniel voiced his thoughts on the distinction between transcendance and enlightenment. A lot of what makes these discussions tricky is language and meaning so it was good to have the meaning of transcendance put out there. For more on transcendance look up Emerson who has written several essays on transcendance one of which is "Nature".

Some members of the group were interested in meditation and what it was and how to do it. Daniel, who has a background in Zen and some meditation gave some pointers.

He made a fantastic analogy - one I think I'll use from now on - but it requires pink and white sugar packets ;) Honestly, you had to be there.

At the end of the meetup, we took up Christin's concern about the noise level at the Cafe Brazil and agreed that we should pick a different location.

I'm going to visit a couple of places this upcoming week. One idea put on the table is the Half Price Book store on the 75 in Dallas - the really big one.

There was another place in Garland Stevi recommended but I can't remember. Stevi, maybe you can remind me and I'll go have a looksee.

All suggestions are welcome. Hopefully we'll be meeting in a more quiet atmosphere next time.

Apostolic Succession

A lot of "modern minded" people looking into Gnosticism get creeped out by the idea of "Apostolic Succession" in many of the modern Gnostic churches. I, for one, have been one of them. I now see it as something symbolic as well as magical in the sense that Dumbo's feather was magical. He held the feather in his trunk and did what he thought he couldn't. I'm not sure completely what it means to those who are a part of that tradition and I suppose I may never.

I do remember when my uncle laid his hands on my head and with oil on his hands, he conferred the melchizedek priesthood to me in the LDS church. Although I was really struggling at the time with huge doubts about the validity of the whole thing, there was something very warm about being brought into a tradition that my family grew up in.

My uncle immediately asked that I give him a blessing to help him recieve guidance regarding an upcoming business trip. This caught me completely by surprise. Given that I doubted that God even existed and I shouldn't have even been there, I did the best I could. I don't remember my words, only that my hands were shaking and I studdered a bit. He didn't seem to notice and seemed quite satisfied with the blessing. So that was that.

Given this background, this post by Reverend Troy Pierce+ of the Ecclesia Gnostica struck a chord with me.