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.

From Experience to Ontology

The first frame is getting hit in the back of the head by something unseen, in case that is unclear.

Approaches to Gnosticism - 2: The Search for Authenticity in Gnostic Practice

The online abstract debates about sacramental forms, and the arguments that are best described as “the Reformation on replay” that get aimed at long established forms, are really about the basic underlying question of authenticity. In looking at this, I'll try a more narrative approach.

Authenticity in Gnosticism is something that interests all who identify as Gnostics. “What is Gnosticism?” And, “what is Gnostic?” Are questions that, frankly, we as Gnostics haven't explored adequately. And, as the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy reminds us in a humorous way—the questions are much more important than the answers.

Well over a decade ago, after studying Gnosticism voraciously for years, I received a very sure calling to “Gnostic ministry.” What popped into my mind after that had sunk in for a moment was the very important question—“how?” How does one go about ministering in a way that is Gnostic?

I share this because I have gone through the same process that many have. You recognize that you are a Gnostic, and then... now what? This is a bigger issue if you feel a vocation to ministry. At the time, I had no idea that there were any practicing Gnostics. And much later, when I read an odd account of the Ecclesia Gnostica I assumed as many do today, that something that looked Catholic “couldn't be Gnostic.” Where does this attitude come from? The formation of the shadow projection on Christianity through a dualistic story of Orthodox vs. Gnostic.

“Christianity” in the modern mind is usually a gravely polarized thing. This points to a psychological state more than an actual one, in that “Christianity” in actuality is a hopelessly diverse category, while “Christianity” in most considerations is a thoroughly 'known' and describable thing. It comes down to unconsciously identifying with, or unconsciously rejecting identification with. To use Jung's description, it either becomes a part of one's ego complex or one's shadow complex. The stereotype (if not more of an archetype) of Christianity in the West is Roman Catholicism.

This gets further complicated with issues of “Authority.” We are accustomed to think of authority in only a negative sense, that is, of having it imposed by force. We have also become accustomed to assuming that “Hierarchy” is synonymous with this improper use of power. This is why the lottery-style service described by Ireneus is such a compelling story, it seems to remove all hierarchy leading to a radical equality. (This misconstrues the real radical equality that Gnostics prize that is a deeper equality of potentiality regardless of form, that fits within the framework of a hierarchy of achievement.)



This leaves us with a common pattern of where to look to for authenticity in Gnostic practice, one that will not consider what is not rejected out of hand for unconscious identity-reasons, or what is in the personal or collective shadow complex. The last place many look for authentic Gnostic practice is to historical hierarchical Christianity. I and others have been attacked for daring to do so, as if this contemporary mind-set is the only possible and “one true” one.

When I attended my first Ecclesia Gnostica service, it was two or three years after I received my vocation, and it never entered my mind that this might be an authentic Gnostic practice. I actually went for the talk on the Templars, and brought a few friends along to hear as well. I was initially disappointed that it was going to be a full religious service, embarrassed in front of my friends to some extent. Yet, in spite of all of my preconceptions, ideas, and expectations, the Eucharist service effected me deeply.



I didn't learn the history of the Ecclesia Gnostica, with its ties back to the Gnostic Restoration of the nineteenth century, for years to come. But, I came to understand that we as modern Gnostics are heirs not just of a few fragmentary texts, but also of a highly developed, and richly symbolic, living religious tradition—historical Christianity. Taken out of the context of dogma and literalism, these practices had been developed over centuries as a way of preserving the Canon of the Mass as an experience. With the layers of symbolism being added and refined over a millennia as a means of reaching that psycho-spiritual experience.
­
In seeing this I was aided with a strong background in Depth Psychology. And the experience of having sought effective symbolic ritual practice for years previously in different settings, including creative eclectic neo-Paganism. In this highly developed symbolic form I found a depth that had been missing before.

In many ways I won a lottery in having an opportunity to experience and then participate in the oldest living Gnostic church on the continent. Being able to learn from and go through formation in a tradition that in specific ways went back decades, in particular ways, into the Nineteenth Century, in ritual form, for almost a millennium; and, in essence, back to the Classical Gnostics and to the ministry of Christ.

Most are not so lucky. They have go through many attempts, and find their way through many ideas, to find something that will “work” on any level. There is no completely original “Gnostic only” form of practice today. What we have that works, works because it is based upon something that worked before. But this is the way it has always been. The ancient Gnostics practiced sacramental mysteries, and in the texts we have no distinction is made between “Gnostic” forms and any other form of these practices. Some waste time looking for an authentic specifically “Gnostic” hammer, others pick of any hammer and build a chapel for services devoted to Gnosis.

Perhaps it is all but impossible for modern minds to tease out the differences between ancient individual striving and modern individualism. But it is our individual striving and succeeding that matter, and what helps with that is what is of most value to us.

Your Scholarship Can Win Cash & Prize Award

Remember, Remember
The Fifth of November...

One of the ways the Gnosis Institute will be encouraging scholarly work in the field, and work on Institute projects, is through Awards that include actual money. As we only have two basic memberships to work with, the amounts will be small to begin with, but I'm throwing in a special award version of the 2007 Gnostic Wall Calendar.

So, brush off those papers, or polish them up, or write a new one! The criteria are that the work has to meet the standards of scholarship: use and note references, track assumptions, be explicit about arguments, etc. It also has to fit into one of the project areas of the Gnosis Institute, of which there are many. If you have a question on that, just ask.

The award for best submission for October will win $50 and an award version of the 2007 Gnostic Wall Calendar. As the Institute grows, the wider variety of awards that are listed at the site (and more) will be granted, and the amounts will be increased.


The contest will be void if there are fewer than two entries that are considered to be up to standards. In that case, the contest will be extended for another month. The award will be made by vote of all Gnosis Institute Community members. Submission for publication to the Gnosis Institute grants the Institute perpetual rights to publish the work electronically without consideration or remuneration, and, in print for a standard post-sales percentage as set by the board of directors.

Approaches to Gnosticism - 1: Contexts for Understanding Gnostic Texts

We understand everything in a context. The problem is not that we do this, but that it is so often a context that we are unconscious of having. Instead of seeing it for what it is, we generally think of it as the “neutral” or “one true” framework for understanding something.

This has been very apparent in online discussions of Gnosticism, yet it is a difficult concept to get across. What follows are the standard approaches to Gnosticism looked at from the contexts through which they approach Gnostic texts. These patterns are typical and as such risk being stereotypical.



The top three are the top three approaches that seem to be favored by those online who self-identify as Gnostics (with connections to the historical tradition). The contemporary approach is largely Protestant in form: the individual approaches the texts by themselves, through their understanding of religion from the current religious and cultural contexts. The most common of these within this largely Protestant approach are Protestant in nature. This leads to a type of “Sola Scriptura Gnostica” approach, a severe limiting of meaning to scriptures identified as Gnostic understood through standard theological reasoning.

The idiosyncratic approach can lead to wild eclecticism and to orthodoxies of one. We will be looking at this in different contexts to show the difference between idiosyncratically approaching Gnosticism and personally approaching Gnosticism.

The Polemical approach, when it isn't simply name-calling, is a repeat of ancient arguments that were based upon ancient propaganda only slightly modified, if at all, for contemporary use.

The academic approach also includes an understanding of religion from the current religious and cultural contexts. These are presented as models and definitions of religion that are based upon Protestant understandings of Religion. This is the standard “beliefs & practices” model of religion, and the definitions of religion as involving “supernatural beings.”

The Depth Psychological approach was the first that recognized Gnosticism beyond the beliefs & practices model. Seeing the Gnostic texts not as abstract theological treatises or as guides to winning a salvation game. The Depth Psychological approach grounds Gnosticism within the human being, not just human ideas.




So, what's a Gnostic to do? The approach I am familiar with, and originally assumed other Gnostics used, combines the elements of the Depth Psychological and Academic approaches. It rejects the model of religion as beliefs and practices, or as an external or abstract thing. But as something with real inner Psycho-spiritual transformative effects on human beings. This gives us more than a few fragmentary texts understood from a Protestant perspective: a few ideas that are identifiable as “Gnostic” from the texts, understood in a modern religious context. But rather, a rich tradition of Gnosis in which we can use the ancient Gnostic texts as guides, mirrors, and community.

Gnosticism isn't Ideas, Theories, or Personal Preferences

This is something I feel obligated to write even though it will have no effect on almost all of the self-identified Gnostics of the moment. Yet, there are those, perhaps, who can join in seeing what I am discussing: those very few who are not dualists about everything, for whom the real is a consideration.

The online forms in use at the moment do not bring people into a community. Oh, you get to encounter on some level people who identify with the same things you identify with, with people who are interested in the same things you are interested in. But that isn't community. In many ways it is vanity. There are connections, there can be a lessening of the loneliness that is a part of being on a real path. But in regards to the aloneness, there isn't much.

You can successfully opine and proclaim, and then tune in to those who agree with your opinions and proclamations. It is a medium where we are all not only our own publishers but also the only judges of our own work. We can successfully misunderstand one another for months if not years, be happily oblivious to the nature of our assumptions, dismiss or ignore all real critiques—and not even notice. It happens more often than not.

In that environment it comes down to marketing. Which in turn comes down to sales, and recruiting, and all the other things I loathe about what passes for religion.

Don't get me wrong, this has nothing to do with the forms you may or may not choose to use on your path. This has never been an ecclesiastical vs. street preacher debate, or any other kind of idea-dualism. It is something so much more fundamental, that I won't be able to explain it to most of those who read this.

My great disappointment with online “Gnosticism” is that it is primarily concerned with ideas and theories brought in from other contexts that are used to create abstract doctrines and dogmas. The only difference I see is that the doctrines and dogmas might be more of a negative or proscriptive form rather than of a positive or prescriptive form. That is why I don't see much that I recognize as Gnostic online. It isn't that their ideas aren't the same as mine, but the entire approach and understanding of Gnosticism isn't Gnostic at all. The approaches and understands are often easily identifiable from a specific mainstream tradition. Notice, please, that I did not say forms, but approaches and understandings.

There are many who equate Gnosticism with an aesthetic style: it is Gnostic if it has Gnostic elements—if it is “painted” Gnostic. This runs the gambit from needing everything to somehow “look Gnostic” to simply sprinkling terminology into what they would be, (and will be) doing under a different name if they didn't identify with Gnosticism at the moment. And so we see the endless repeat of cradle creeds recast to use Gnostic elements, and the insistence that “Gnostic” equals rebel. Both ignore the sage advice to not put your trust in the rulers or rebels of the world.

I find that I don't even know how to begin to talk to someone for whom Gnosticism is just a theory in their head. They, obviously, don't realize that there is a distinction. The discussions, if they can be said to begin, go nowhere. If Gnosticism is inside your head, then you are quite right to be certain that you are right in your understanding of it. But, I don't care about Gnosticism in your head or in mine except as it might be an incomplete or dim understanding of what is real.

It isn't that I haven't ever been in love with ideas, or suffered greatly from the delusion that my ideas matter greatly. I have. One of the flashes of impersonal wisdom I had fairly early on was the understanding that I wouldn't find what I was seeking through that method, but that I had to go through it and exhaust it to truly realize it. I know of no other way to work with the limitations of our methods than by gaining that exhaustive gnosis of them, except, perhaps, through community.

I know that there are more than will ever admit to it that have never gotten over the “I can do it all by myself” stage that begins in toddler-hood to a greater or lesser degree. The “anxiety of influence” shapes more than we can imagine. But it isn't the only alternative to slavishly being someone's disciple. We can come together in community, learn from one another, and help each other. Another way of describing this is as a “school,” as in a school of art, or literature, of thought. But that is a description of the result, not of the process. It is the result of influence, not the kind that proscribes or stifles, but the kind that challenges, that evokes, that requires one to measure up against the external, and against the eternal.

Minor schools and schools long forgotten are those that were insular. They measured themselves only against one another, a mere happenstance and moment in history. These are the fads that grow and fade. The schools that we still look to are more, they are not insular, they do not measure themselves against one another—they measure themselves against the ages with the aid of one another.

I yearn for this challenge. The Gnosis Institute has that selfish goal, to present that challenge that will make our work more than a fad, to do the hard work of measuring up outside of our beliefs and ideas, outside of a small circle, outside of our time and place. For this is not the best of times or places for serious work, but it is far from being the worst as well. We live in a dim age that seems bent on becoming a darker one. Yet our lives are as important and as precious as those of any other time and place. We may be obliged to try to change things on a larger scale than we can effect, but ultimately success or failure on that scale isn't the point. Providing a place where we can live our lives towards their potential is all we can ever hope for as human beings. And that doesn't require a perfect world, or even a supportive one—but it does require a community. A community that extends through the ages, but also a community that can respond to us, that can help us see what we would miss on our own, that can challenge our complacency, that can show us that there is much more to strive for.

We can have this, but we must rise up out of the unmarked graves that history would bury us under. We must rise up out of the currents and ideas that we simply take for granted, or just want to believe. There is more, there is so much more. Gnosticism holds a key to that, if you are willing to engage with it beyond the safety of ideas and theories, beyond the comfort of personal preferences. “Rise up and stand upright, you who where once brought low.”