Gnosticism

by Jonathan McGregor Bethel

First of all, let me say, this article is not intended to condemn modern Christianity at all or evoke the ire of any of its participants. However, it is my belief modern Christianity suffers, like all old schools of thought, from the accumulation of error, past misinterpretation, and the promulgation of dogma. We think the orthodox theology we have today is the exact theology that Jesus Christ, Yeshua Christos, intended. This is a mistake in my view! A magnificent find in 1947 brought to light the Gnosticism that was being taught in all secret inner orders of the Western esoteric tradition, the finding of the Nag Hammadi Library. For me, Gnosticism has brought me back to a religion that I thought was wrong and had done many wrongs to many primitive peoples.

In my Gnostic research, it became evident that many of the things typical Christians take for granted may have never occurred in the way it is represented. At the council of Nicea, under the "pagan" emperor Constantine, many of the true gospels where thrown out, for they removed much of the power of the Roman Church over the people. With that teaching, people would not have to go to the church authorities to reach God. For instance, in the Naassene Sermon, a sermon purportedly to have come straight from Yeshua's mouth, he teaches of the immanence of God inside each and every one of us; all humans have God inside them, as it says in Genesis, for "God created man in his own image." Well, the early church couldn't have people running around thinking they had god inside them that would take away all their power; people must come to them to reach God! Not so! God made each and every one of us to experience a utopian heaven state, eventually here on earth, and nothing short of that; that is our birthright, and that is the point of all true esotericist, to bring heaven to Earth! We are to walk in the footsteps of Yeshua Messiah and Lady Mary Magdalene and become like them, bringing heaven to this plane. That was his point, but the church turned it into a system of control, guilt, and tyranny.

I was not present when all this went down, but if you really research the subject, it becomes obvious that Lady Mary Magdalene had a special place amongst Yeshua's crew, for she was the disciple of the disciples. I don't know is she was the wife or concubine of Jesus, but the documents we have would suggest such a situation. Having a wife or concubine does not detract from the importance of Yeshua's message one bit, not at all. In his time, it was unlawful to teach or preach in a synagogue unmarried, as he did. According to the Sophian Gnostics, Yeshua was the male embodiment of the Christos, the Logos, and Lady Mary Magdalene was the female embodiment of the Christos, Sophia. Sophia is the basis of the feminine mysteries and means "Wisdom." Together they would represent the male and female embodiments of Christ that way males have an exemplary model for their personality, and females also have a model and example of the female form of the Christos, for we all are to become the Christ and walk in his and her footsteps.

Lady Mary Magdalene was the disciple of disciples, for after the men had dispersed in fear, it was her that was the last disciple to leave Jesus, as he died on the cross, and she was the first disciple to witness him after he was placed in the tomb and ascended. She had more tenacity than all l the men disciples. She was the last to leave after the crucifixion, and she was the first to witness the risen Christ after the resurrection. Not to mention, in the Gospel of Thomas, found in the Nag Hammadi, which was discovered in Egypt in 1947, it states that the male disciples were jealous for they feared Jesus loved Mary more, "for he use to kiss her often on her ......", and the sentence cannot be completed because there is a whole in the original document. Just from what the traditional books of the bible tell us and the books of the Nag Hammadi, it becomes obvious there was a special relationship between Mary and Jesus. We will never know exactly what happened, for we were not there, but from the research it appears that the two were tied at a deeper level than was presented by the male oriented patriarchal church, which hated Mary and Jesus' relationship so much that they turned her into a prostitute as time went on. Despite how the whole encounter went down, I don't think the modern interpretation is even close to the true teachings Jesus was trying to deliver. Sure, a lot of the message got thru, but I do not believe the inner teachings of Jesus and Mary ever had a chance with a male oriented patriarchal church.

Jonathan McGregor Bethel
Writer, Researcher, Lecturer
Founder, Omega Point Institute

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