Episode Details

Welcome back to Gnostic Insights and to the Gnostic Reformation on Substack. Last week was part one of my interview with Bishop Nathan Wilson of the Gnostic Union, and he explained to us a bit about who the Gnostic Union is and what they believe in.

At the beginning of that episode, I read from the Gnostic Union website their history and mission statement. And my brother Billy called me up and said, “Oh, but there’s a point of their theology that’s all wrong. I know they’re ecumenical and all, but we mustn’t fall into the error of wrong teaching.” And, you know, I totally agree with that concept, not teaching anything that is incorrect or that doesn’t make sense, according to the Gnosticism that I share with you here. And it created a very large discussion between my brother and me. And I don’t even have enough time in this short introduction to go into the point that Bill brought up out of their statement of beliefs. So we’ll wait and we’ll do that when these interviews are all over and that way we can go into depth and give the topic the attention it deserves.

You see, the Gnosticism that I share with you here mostly comes from the Tripartite Tractate of the Nag Hammadi. And the Tripartite Tractate is a very unusual book. It is not a book of mythology. It is not a book of ancient myths concerning angels and demigods and great battles in heaven and so forth. It’s not that kind of book. We think of it as physics. It’s literally a book that describes the cosmology and the cosmogony, that is, how consciousness came to be transmitted from the base state of consciousness that we call the Father or the Source, and all the way downstream into, ultimately, us. We’re sitting here talking and thinking about it.

This is pure consciousness we’re talking about. It’s not particularities. You understand? Gnosis itself we think of as that river of consciousness. That’s what gnosis is. So, I often say, if my dog can’t understand the gnosis, it’s not really gnosis—it’s a knowledge claim. If a blade of grass or a tree in the forest can’t bask in the gnosis, then it’s not really gnosis. It’s a human knowledge claim. This is the reason why here at Gnostic Insights and on the Gnostic Reformation, we do not dwell in the history of things. We dwell in the understanding or the gnosis itself.

The cosmogony and cosmology of Gnosticism that I share with you here is a logical step-by-step rollout of the consciousness of the Father or the Source. It doesn’t really matter what you call it. It’s the base state. It’s the matrix of consciousness itself and how it flows down to us. There are necessary steps described in the Tripartite Tractate for how that consciousness is diff