Episode Details

Have you ever had a moment where, for a split second, you remembered who you really are? That’s the divine spark. Not your “to-do list self”, nor the roles you play, but the part of you that feels ancient, luminous, and plugged into everything?

I just had one of those flashes, so let me tell you the story.

The Divine Spark

People use the word spark in all kinds of ways such as energy, life force, soul fire. Many meditations invite you to picture a divine spark in the heart. Recently I found myself wondering, where did that image even come from? Who started talking about the spark like that?

Minutes later I flopped onto the couch, opened YouTube, and clicked a video from Ellie Dreams Down Under, who has a fabulous playlist on the Gnostic gospels. And what was she talking about? The Spark. What it means and how it shows up in the Gnostic texts. The timing made me laugh.

(For more about Gospels, check out this episode about the Gospel of Mary -it’s about Mary Magdelene)

When things line up like that, I take it as a wink from the Universe. For me, that’s a moment of plugging into something bigger than my personality.

Sometimes those reminders are gentle, like a video. Other times they’re not subtle at all. A health crisis, an accident, a loss. Something cracks open ordinary life and there’s a fierce knowing, I am more than this physical form.

Buried Wisdom

You can trace the idea of a spark through many traditions, but today I want to focus on one text, the Gospel of Truth. It’s a mystical early Christian writing with a lot to say about forgetting, remembering, and that flash of recognition we’re calling the spark.

This isn’t a sermon but an esoteric deep dive into what the spark means and how it might be moving in your life.

The text was discovered in 1945 at Nag Hammadi in Egypt, part of a buried library of early Christian writings sealed in jars for centuries.

It’s usually connected to the Valentinians, a 2nd century mystical Christian group who cared less about believing the right thing and more about remembering where you come from.

When I first read it, I’ll be honest, some of the biblical language felt dense. Some of it made me roll my eyes. So I’m going to switch out modern words for what I consider the offensive words. I’ll explain as I go.

Belief Vs. Knowing

Belief is information you’ve been told. Gnosis, the word the Gnostics used, means inner knowing. It’s that moment when something wakes up and you think, “Oh. I know this. I’ve always known this.”

One scholar sums it up like this, “I come from God, I share God’s e