Gathering a Circle

Thanks to everyone who attended the Inner Sea Gnostic Circle gathering on the 22^nd. Nine people at one gathering is a new record. There were a number of new faces, although a majority had attended a gathering before.

It was an interesting and diverse group. With so many people multiple conversions start and I didn't get a chance to spend as much time as I'd like with everyone. So, after Holy Week, I'll try to schedule time with all of you individually, or in pairs as the case may be.

Gatherings will be scheduled monthly, as well as, movie nights and other activities. Thanks again, I look forward to seeing you all soon.

Last Chance for 2007 Gnostic Calendars

There will be one last opportunity to order a 2007 Gnostic calendar. Holy Week begins on April 1^st this year so orders will be taken only through March 31^st.

Each year's calendar is quite unique, and will not be offered at a discount at a latter time. If you would like a copy of the 2007 calendar, make sure you order it before March 31^st.

Walk on the Ocean

Today the conference started. Yesterday I walked out the front door of my friend's apartment building in the Sunset area of San Francisco, crossed the street, and walked onto the beach. I miss the ocean when I am away from it for too long. Which is odd, because I had only been to the ocean once in my childhood, something I can barely remember.

The first time I really remember was riding with two other reservists from summer camp at Fort Lewis in Washington out to the ocean, almost two decades ago. My experience then really was sublime. Raised in a valley, my mind is not used to seeing expansive horizons. It likes to turn distant fog and mist into distant hills and mountains. When I lived down the coast in Pacifica I finally got to a point where my mind wasn't filling in the blanks like that, but it took months. Yesterday when I wasn't thinking about it, there they were, mirages of land on the distant horizon.

In a famous experiment, subjects were shown playing cards and asked to name them. The trick was that there where odd cards, like red spades. Most often the card was reported without hesitation, yet given more time there was uncertainty, and given even more time most subjects could point out the oddity. Some subjects, however, simply could not see the oddities in the cards. Instead they experienced anxiety and felt that they didn't know what a playing card was anymore.

Our minds work like that, we don't notice it very often. Sometimes they simply can't handle something so far beyond the familiar. As Gnostics we often are beyond the edge of the familiar, and perhaps we most often see what we expect to see rather than what is there before our eyes. We must be careful and flexible. In our desire to see and to know, we must not merely 'see' what we expect to see, or 'know' what we merely think we know.

Back to School, Back to San Francisco

I'm heading back to graduate school, the one I wanted to attend originally. I'll also be going back to San Francisco for the first time since I moved back to Salt Lake six years ago.

The school I'll be attending is primarily distance learning, but includes conferences twice a year. This has always struck me as a good model, and is one of the models that has influenced the Gnosis Institute (with annual conferences planed). The school is Saybrook Graduate School, and it has been using this model for 35 years. It was founded as an institute for humanistic psychology in a time when academic psychology was much more influenced by behaviorism.

What kept me from attending Saybrook years ago were concerns about becoming licensed as a therapist. I had once planned on pursuing my interest in C. G. Jung's work to the point of becoming a Jungian Analyst, a process of study and formation that begins after one is a licensed and practicing therapist. However, the American Psychological Association had been working for years reforming licensing, seeking more of a medical model than an academic one. This resulted in Doctor of Psychology and Marriage and Family Therapy programs to follow the new models and meet the new requirements. This was a factor in my moving to the bay area years ago, to get employment and eventually to attend a school there.

I found employment there. I tend to do well when the work is the emphasis of the job, and not so well when it is on perception and company politics. At that point in the bay area in the technical field, it was mostly about the work, and I succeeded and excelled. So much so, that I stayed with a pioneering and (momentarily) successful company in silicon valley, which lead me to take the graveyard shift to avoid the traffic (and to use more than two gears), leaving me out of sync and far from campus. When my father's health worsened, and an opportunity to transfer in my company opened up, I didn't even think about not being able to attend the school after I moved, because I hadn't been able to do so anyway.

I considered Saybrook a few times after I moved back to Salt Lake, but it didn't seem like a viable option. Using my technical credentials to satisfy requirements for a technical degree appealed for a short time, and, as my circumstances changed, I considered things I hadn't considered before, like Law school, and a combination of Law and Social Work. Perhaps, if I hadn't spent the previous years learning so many systems—systems of networking, computer operating systems, programing systems—I may have gotten further when I decided to try some of it out. But, I was impatient to get beyond all of these partly arbitrary, partly logical, almost entirely artificial systems, not spend more years learning even more systems, only to then work within their confines.

After I had some time to recover from one of the worst and most cult-like companies I've ever worked for, I started approaching all of this afresh. I had been thinking in terms of professional credentials, but having earned some of the highest and most respected in the technical field, the main result was being essentially unemployable in the area I lived in. Facing mortality also helps with considerations of “what do I want to do in the short term, or eventually, or before I die?” I most enjoy learning and exploring, the process of inquiry, which also includes teaching and writing to further explore, consider, and share. These paralleled considerations that lead to the Gnosis institute: a nexus for a learning community, exploring unimaginably valuable and relatively undeveloped fields.

So, I'm back in school. The book I'm working on will be broken down into smaller projects along the way, and probably have it's first incarnation as a dissertation. The program is one you can do at your own pace, and I plan to pick up the pace. The first year will probably be the hardest. So, I don't know how much time I will have for other things. I plan on producing a calendar for next year, and to still record homilies. The podcasts will have less editing for certain, as that is a task that always takes far longer than I anticipate.

The journey begins with a journey back to San Francisco. Not only is it my first time back, it will be the first trip I've taken in quite a while. The Salt Lake area really is a nice place to visit. But it can be a downright strange place to work, and a fairly odd place to live at times. Visiting other areas regularly has been my strategy for living here, to regularly re-center outside of the isolating tendency of local geography and culture. With this practice, and an unusual employer or self-employment, living in Salt Lake can be quite nice, if still a bit odd. This trip is the first of regular visits to San Francisco while I'm in school, and I hope the first of a few other trips that may be possible.

Anniversary Weekend in Portland, 3/24-25

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the ordination of Rev. Fr. Steven Marshall, pastor of the Queen of Heaven Gnostic Church, the Portland parish of the Ecclesia Gnostica. Many of you will know him as the author of the many homilies on the Gnosistic Society's Gnosis.org website.

This year marks another landmark anniversary as this April marks the 40th anniversary of the consecration of Most Rev. Stephan Hoeller, presiding bishop of the Ecclesia Gnostica.

The dedication required to do this work is laudable in itself, but the dedication to continue this work for decades is hard to imagine. Going through the long and difficult work to become a priest, and then really just beginning. Holding liturgical services when only a few may attend, and doing so year after year. Working with all kinds of people with all kinds of expectations about what Gnosticism, a church, or a priest should be. Being there for people mostly through difficult times, presiding at more funerals than weddings. Seeing many more people start the formation process to become clergy than finish it. Going on after the inevitable conflicts, through the inevitable cycles. Continuing when there is little support, and rising to the greater demands that come with a larger congregation. So that you can be there for those who may benefit from your service. This is not an easy path, and bears little if any resemblance to what people expect it to be. And, it is not a paid job, not a source of income, it costs and you have to do other things to pay for it.

Join the celebration in Portland if you are able. Anniversary Weekend will be held on March 24th and 25th in Portland. Dr. Stephan Hoeller, in town for the celebration, will give a lecture Saturday on the Gospel of Judas. This will be followed by a buffet dinner at a Thai restaurant. On Sunday morning, Bishop Hoeller will celebrate the Eucharist service.

Please, send your donation towards an anniversary gift, as a token of appreciation for such service, to:

S. Poe
QOHGC Secretary
P. O. Box 418,
Gladstone, OR 97027

Make Checks payable to “Queen of Heaven Gnostic Church.”

Death and Gnosis

To know that someone you love is going to die is one thing. It is in many ways provisional. Not that they or we won't die at some point, but the details are uncertain. I have known people who have outlived their diagnoses for decades, for example. It is also a different type of knowledge, in Greek this is episteme. You know it like a fact. It may change things, but it doesn't necessitate a change in you.

When that someone does die it is another thing. It is not provisional, not uncertain. There is no going back. There is the fact of it, but there is also more. It is a different type of knowledge, in Greek this is gnosis. It changes you. It is knowledge that changes you.

You cannot explain this to someone who has not gone through it. For them there is only the fact, not the change. Yet for those who have been through this, it is a profound example of the profound difference that is Gnosis.

This Night your Soul is required of You

Gnoscast the Gnostic Podcast Episode 5

Illuminating the Da Vinci Code Seminar 2

Our Stories of Stories: The Nature of Sacred Stories

What stories do we tell about stories, and what do they tell about us?

Stories, and particularly, sacred stories shape our lives. Yet we also shape them. This seminar considered their nature and our relationship to them

Recorded: Sept. 19, 2006

Happy Birthday Philip K. Dick!

His birthday is Saturday the 16th, but why not start early?

Kindred in Spirit

The Mountain Climbing Club: a parable

There is a mountain climbing club at the base of an imposing mountain. The members take pride in their knowledge of mountains, climbing, techniques, gear. They spend evenings in debate over which is the best method for going up a cliff face or a crevasse. They are often well-versed in the climbing exploits of famous and relatively unknown expeditions, and are capable of providing detailed criticisms of them. Those who attend the club as guests, spread the word far and wide that it is the best place to learn about mountain climbing. There is no place remotely like it.

An individual from a distant country hears of this wonderful club, and makes considerable effort to journey to it. There aren't any mountain climbing clubs near his home, there being few mountains worthy of such enterprises in the region. Yet there is the innate desire to climb, to scale to the peak, to pit himself against such a task. He knows he will find all he needs at this club, fellows to learn from and scale mountains with.

When he reaches the club, the first evening of discussions make his head spin. The members know so much, and it is impossible for him to tell where to begin. He stays as a guest for some time, and begins to learn in bits and pieces, things slowly making sense. He begins to ask questions, and finds that the members are quite fond of certain kinds of questions, but don't seem to hear others. But he is learning so much, he doesn't mind such a small eccentricity among foreigners.

He expects that the members use the mountain towering over the club to practice on. Yet no one offers to take him with them. He doesn't hear anyone talking about going. Never sees anyone prepare to go. In fact, he never hears anyone talk about or see them prepare for any expeditions. This strikes him as being odd, but is one of the question areas where the members don't seem to hear out of some polite embarrassment for him. And not wanting to be a fool, he stops asking. He knows that there must be some way that these are arranged, and if he waits he will see it. But he never does.

Gradually he begins to make an acquaintance with one of the servants. Something clearly not done. But he plans on using his status as a foreigner to explain it if anyone learns of it. And so, over time, the servants being well trained in propriety, by kindness and attention he finally gets to speaking terms with one of the servers. At first the servant also does not hear much that he asks out of the same polite embarrassment. But slowly, by way of asking surreptitiously about particular members, he learns that none are planning expeditions.

After puzzling over this for some time, the servant shares a bit of back room gossip, that the members are to extend membership to him. Flabbergasted, he replies that he has yet to set foot on a mountain. The surprised servant says that none of the members have ever done such a thing. Not believing this, he goes directly to members and insists that they respond when he asks them to go on an expedition he is forming. They all decline, shocked at his behavior. And, he is quickly “asked” to leave.

Many explanations are offered for such strange behavior and outright rudeness from someone they were considering making a member. His status as a foreigner is considered, as is the possibility of sudden insanity, but the explanation that settles in is that the poor man never understood what mountain climbing was all about.

GnosCast The Gnostic Podcast #4

Episode 4 - Illuminating the Da Vinci Code Seminar 1

Stories Untold & Half-told: The Surprising Power of a Story

Uncovering the larger issues buried in the Novel & Phenomena

The least interesting position to have on a topic is to be either for it or against it. In this seminar we began to look beyond the easy answers to see why this story has such strong reactions and polarized sentiments.

Questions were asked on many topics related to the DVC and to Gnosticism in general.

Recorded: Sept. 12, 2006

Who's Your Coreligionist?

A profound lesson from the Society of Friends.

Best if read in order.

Who's Your Coreligionist?

Beyond Majority Rule

Requiem in Pace my Canine Buddy

His condition worsened quickly. He started to stagger a bit. He did try to eat, but it all came back up. He needed me to hold his head up to sleep Sunday night, and in the morning he wasn't able to hold water down.

We took him in late Monday morning. He had always been a dog that preferred being outside, and he showed interest in the world outside the car windows, so I held him up so he could see. At the clinic he was happy to see some other dogs. And when I let him out of the car he wanted to walk around and sniff. It was a sunny day, and he had been stuck inside for weeks by the cold except when he had to go out. Walking in the sunshine invigorated him for a little while, he enjoyed it while his energy lasted. Then we went inside.

The only regret that I have about the only other dog that I had adopted and had a close relationship with, was that I did not stay with her through the end. This was many many years ago, I was just a teenager. And, when given a choice by the veterinarian, I opted to wait in another room. Yet, I took her body home to bury.

That was one of the points when I became aware of our strange contemporary relationship with death. One of the experiences that lead to years of consideration and study of thanatology. Those years lead to a very Gnostic view, before I discovered Gnosticism and recognized it as my path.

This week, I did the opposite of those many years ago. I stayed with him through the end, then when he was gone, there was an outworn form.

It is still very difficult. I walk several times a day past the door where I let him in and out, or would go out to play, or just peek out the window to check on him. When I am thinking about something else, the thought often intrudes to check on him, or let him in. We grow together when we live together. We become family, regardless of species. I did not call him my dog or my pet, I called him my buddy. And though we did not chose each other to begin with, we chose each other over time, and that is the meaning of family.

Quick Update

It has been difficult to spend time on the net of late, so I thought I'd put up a brief update. I had an infection in my back that required a procedure and then packing the day before my surgery. The surgery on my sinus went well, but started 4 hours late, and ended with my having a reaction to something and staying until 1 AM.


When I got home my dog, was having trouble breathing. I'm currently sleeping on the couch to be able to take care of him. It is probably cancer in his lungs. So, I've had a kind of pet hospice set up while I've been recovering myself. He was doing so poorly that I had planned on taking him in Wednesday to be euthanized. But, Thursday he was doing much better, and even eating again. Now, he has stopped and will probably not make it through next week.

My elderly mother came down with bronchitis, so I've been doing what I can for her in addition to the rest. And my aunt who is receiving hospice care took a turn for the worst.

On top of it all, I've been getting the Gnostic Calendar ready to ship. Already delayed due to my seminars in September and illness since then, I've been working on it when I can to take care of finishing touches, printing color-balances, and so forth. The first batch will ship early Monday. I honestly don't know if there will be a 2008 Gnostic Calendar, so if you are interested, I'd suggest getting one this year.

The GnosCast podcasts have been on hiatus, due to illness and recovery. However, this Sunday, Advent Sunday, I plan on celebrating the first service in a number of weeks. And, plan on getting the podcasts up and running again.

I am applying to graduate school to go ahead and get a PhD in Psychology. The school that I originally wanted to attend, but didn't because it wouldn't lead to licensure as a therapist, still offers the program I should have enrolled in long ago. The PsyD. Program is one I just never cared for, and it will be good to get back to more serious research. There is also the hope of survival through student loans.

The last development I'll share is this: after waiting for the Gnosis Institute tax ID number for quite some time, we did some digging and found out that the paperwork had been lost. We are resubmitting and hopefully it won't go missing this time.

Well, that is all that I have time for right now. The future is uncertain. Big changes need to occur as the course of this past year is untenable. With fewer sinus infections, and some resources through student loans, maybe the direct route forward will be open.

The 2007 Gnostic Calendar is Here!

It's back!
The second year of the first Calendar specifically for Gnostics!
The calendar features the Liturgical Calendar of the Ecclesia Gnostica: the Sundays and Holy days/holidays of the year; with the liturgical color of the day in the upper right hand corner. This year's themes include: Abraxas, Philip K. Dick, the Logos, Philemon, Mary of Magdala, the Holy Sophia, the Ship of Light, the Templars, the Apostle Thomas, and more.

Printed on high-quality thick and durable acid-free paper, the Gnostic Calendar sells for only slightly more than you'd pay for a non-generic calendar at a retail outlet.

Learn more and order your copy at http://gnosis.org/calendar

Another Kind of Reality Thinking Through Us

We had to share some of the responsibility in the matter as through we, through our deeds of omission, where the accomplices we were fighting. Only by understanding how we were all a part, however opposite, of the same terrible contemporary medal could we defeat those dark forces with the true understanding of their nature and origin which was vital if they were to be over come in a manner to make us all free to embark on a way of peace that would not lead to a repetition of the vengeful past.

I had a feeling that even our capacity for thinking our own thoughts shrank into painfully humble proportions compared with another kind of reality that was, as it were, thinking through us. The typically French “As I think, so I am” seemed to me so much less true, and so static as to be petrified, after the Arabian axiom that as a man dreamt, so he was.

Yet even these reservations about human self-capacity for thinking were trivial against my conviction that we were utterly incapable of inventing the content of symbols, however much we helped to shape and express them, in the limited means available to us in our own little ration of reality. I was somehow convinced that issuing straight out of our deepest nature, like starlight out of the night, the material for symbols, whether we liked it or not was inflicted on us as a spur to a widening vision of ourselves. I had never seen so clearly as during this kind of war in which I was engaged how symbolism infected not only the human spirit and imagination, not only expressed something of itself in words, poetry, art, and religion, but when all these and other sources failed it, as our seemed to have done, how it compelled human beings to act it out in blind, ritualistic behaviour.

- Sir Laurens van der Post writing of his considerations during World War II in Jung and the Story of our Time (p 26)

Gnosticism is a genesis

Beneath the complexity, the tortuousness of the Gnostic myths lies hidden this obvious truth: we are all premature births.

I believe that the whole of the Gnostics' ulterior attitude to man, society, the human race, and the mechanism of the cosmos, is founded on this primary vision (one could even say this imago) of the origin of man, forever scarred by his inherent immaturity. We are chrysalids snatched prematurely from our protective cocoons. Besides, the very term Gnosticism—gnosis—is very close, in Greek, to genesis, which means birth and origin. Gnosticism is, in essence, a genesis, it restores to man his true birth, and overcomes his genetic and mental immaturity.

- Jacques Lacarrière, The Gnostics (p 35)

Thread by thread

I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they have delighted in explaining to colleagues, which they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabric of their lives.
- Leo Tolstoy

National Novel Writing Month

This came along right when I was considering writing some fiction again after quite a few years. Tens of thousands of people sign up to write a 50,000 word novel during the month of November. How cool/capricious/insane is that?

Line 1: "She had always been a dreamer, and it was terrifying."

Day 1: 1844/50000 words (Slightly ahead of quota, but lead probably won't last through tomorrow.)

Writing something just for fun (and possibly profit)—not quite priceless, but keen. ;)

Getting a Large Chunk of Life Back, (I hope)

One of the large banes of my existence have been frequent and long lasting infections in my sinus. They come at least two times a year and last for at least a month. It is sometimes hard to function at all physically when I have these. Simple tasks can become monumental. Projects have to be abandoned for the duration. They are the major reason for the closing of the Gnostic Shop. They have kept chapel related remodeling and construction at a near stand-still. They make it difficult to conduct serious mental work. Things get put on hold and I just want them to go away, but it always takes weeks and weeks. I am in week four of the current one.

I even took my last job at what can only be described as a corporate cult in order to get this taken care of. The initial consultation I had indicated another source of the problem. It was wrong. They continued. A more potentially serious problem was found, which then became my focus. Yet the sinus thing kept going. And as I look back it has indirectly exacerbated the other.

So, sick to death of being sick to death for months out of the year. I went in and kept pushing until I got the missing piece of information that put the puzzle of symptoms together and convinced the Doctor to do the surgery. I am going in November Ninth for out-patient surgery to clear out a sinus. I truly hope this will clear up a major reoccurring difficulty, a major bane of my existence. Because, there will be plenty left, but I will be able to at least work on the others without more than a month-long illness striking me down at any time.

The 2007 Gnostic Calendar Coming Soon

The 2007 Gnostic Calendar will be available for ordering in November.