I think I am as guilty as any other Gnostic;  Sometimes we get so caught up in intellectualizing how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, that we push to the background the author of our faith.

Christmas gives us a much needed splash of water.     Here is a Sermon that I did back in 2007 for a radio show, maybe you caught it then, or when it was rebroadcast in 2008.   Anyway, this sermon is as much for me as it is for you dear reader, so without further adieu, here it is:

Merry Christmas!

Saturday, December 22, 2007

My Christmas Sermon
There is a subtle difference between the “orthodox” and the “gnostic” views on christmas, or the day credited to the birth of Jesus. It may be helpful to review the “orthodox” version first.

According to christian teaching and tradition, God took flesh and was born to a virgin in bethlehem, wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger. This baby was God in the flesh from birth.

We have a slightly different(heretical!) view, but it hold no less significance. First let me explain that the Gnostic holds to pre-existence. If not to ourselves then at least for the Christ Spirit, or Crestos. This may appear pantheistic at first, but it is only a matter of perception.

Just as the spirit of love that is in each of us is not our entirety, but still part of our makeup, the Crestos is the name we have given to the spirit of love that is part of the makeup of God.

In the years that preceded the birth of the baby in Bethlehem, the world was in awful shape. Mercy was rare, something to be bought or sold. The world thought that they knew what righteousness was….they would bow down to their one true God several times a day in public, make great long prayers of devotion and servitude, and perform ritual acts of contrition. Then they would perform horrible acts of mutilation on those they considered unrighteous, maybe throw a coin into a beggars cup, or a stone at his head, depending on the mood.

Sinners were somebody to be punished, with zeal and happpiness, a chance to practice cruelty in the name of God!

Then that day in Bethlehem, when God had had enough. No thunder, no lightening bolts, no everlasting fire. Not this God, Not this Alien God that the world had never known!

A Son was born to a young woman. A son born not just of a fleshly virgin, if you subscribe to that mythology, but of the Virginal Spirit. A Spirit never contaminated by hate, never contaminated by joy of suffering. A spirit made up of the great invisible Light.

This Light took flesh, and we gave it a name. We gave it a human name, Jusus. Jesus would grow up to be a man. Just a Man, but a very special man! He was born a Gnostic, in the only definition of the word “Gnostic” that truely matters. He remembered who He was, Where he came from, and Why he was here!

It is recorded in some of the older versions of Luke, that when Jesus was baptized, a voice came out of the heavens, and the True God spoke, saying “In thee I am well pleased, this day I have begotten thee!”. Later on, Jesus would tell Nicodemus, that no one would see the kingdom of heaven unless he had been born again! Jesus himself, marking the path, leading the way, setting the example, showed what it meant to be born again!

Jesus represented the Father. Not the Father of old, the destroyer of the flesh of sinners, but the Alien God, so called because the concept of Divine love was so alien to human thought. The Gospel of Thomas credits Jesus with stating “I will give you what no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, what no hand has touched, what has not arisen in the human heart.”

This concept of the True God was so foreign to the human heart, that His own disciples had a hard time comprehending it; The Amplified bible records Luke writing of this in chapter nine, when Jesus was rejected by the Samaritans: 54And when His disciples James and John observed this, they said, Lord, do You wish us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them, even as Elijah did ?

55But He turned and rebuked and severely censured them. He said, You do not know of what sort of spirit you are.

This is the complete human malady! “You do not know of what sort of spirit you are”! What a saying! What a Marvelous, True saying!

We can find out what Spirit we are from though. This is available for the whole world! The Gospel of Truth says: “He became a guide, quiet and in leisure. In the middle of a school he came and spoke the Word, as a teacher. Those who were wise in their own estimation came to put him to the test. But he discredited them as empty-headed people. They hated him because they really were not wise men. After all these came also the little children, those who possess the knowledge of the Father. When they became strong they were taught the aspects of the Father’s face. They came to know and they were known. They were glorified and they gave glory. In their heart, the living book of the Living was manifest, the book which was written in the thought and in the mind of the Father and, from before the foundation of the All, is in that incomprehensible part of him.”

I wish you all, the Love and Joy, of knowing the Alien God, the Father of Jesus, my Father, and your Father.

Gnosis, as understood in our church, is the knowledge of the character of God derived from direct experience. That experience never really ends, though at some times it is more clear than others, just like any relationship.

The experience may come in any form, mystical or otherwise. However, the experiential knowledge of the Goodness of God remains a constant. That is what we call Gnosis. It is the pearl.

When I first started this little adventure, I never dreamed where it would take me.  (I would have chosen a much less mystical sounding nick, believe me!).   I did not start out to pastor a church;  I don’t even remember consciously choosing to become a Gnostic.    I think rather,  that the path chose me.   Sometimes I feel so inadequate to the task, and in a world full of fakes and scammers cashing in on the name “Gnostic”,  I sometimes feel very frustrated at the numbers of books and webpages promoting this that and the other thing as “Gnostic”.   It doesn’t last too long though.  I recognize that I am not responsible for the things beyond my control.

I would like to clear up a little misconception;  this one may generate a little heat in some quarters, but it doesn’t matter.  It will reach those who will understand, and those who it angers may understand someday.     I get questions and statements about all types of sexuality.   Sometimes they come as quiet confessions, and sometimes they come as an angry statement of challenge.    My answer-  Why do you identify yourself with a physical desire?    What happens to you when that desire is sated, do you just dissolve into non-existence?   We are more than our bodies, more than our sexuality, more than our hunger pangs, our hair color, more than our strength and vigor,  and more than our illnesses.    This is the world we were born in to, this is the hand we were dealt, and we will leave in a short while.

I know you’ve heard this before, at least in regards to money;  you can’t take it with you.   Nor will you bring with you your illness, your strength and vigor, your hair color, nor your sexuality.    There is an old saying –We all live between the four mountains.    We have great diversity, and sometimes pride in our diversity.    Rubbish.   You should be happy to be who you are, but whatever circumstance we were born into, was beyond our control.   Pride is for accomplishment.   Let our mothers be proud for giving birth to us.

Let us take pride in the accomplishments that we can take with us.   Stop identifying yourself with the cravings of your body…it’s just an unreliable and very temporary and very noisy vehicle to drive from point A to point B.   Point A is when the doctor first slapped your bum, and point B will be when your vehicles heart stops beating.   It’s not you, so any identification with your vehicle is entirely misplaced, except for maintenance purposes.

Yes, a noisy vehicle.   It all the time sends messages to our brains, saying “I want, I want, I want”, and it doesn’t care what fulfilling those “I wants” will do to our waistlines, pocketbook, social status, or spirituality.  Give it what it needs, but hates.   Exercise and the proper fuel….errr..food.  Don’t be so hung up on sexuality, yours or anybody else’s.   It’s just another “I want”, and there are “I wants” from other parts of our beings that can be equally destructive.   Let’s concentrate our efforts on the genuine needs that are evident in the world all around us.

When I first became a pastor, I had absolutely no idea of the needs that are out there.   There are people with illnesses that need comfort and care, people with loved ones who are devastated by fear or loss.   We can’t stop bodies from aging, and laying down for the final time.   We can learn about God, so that the survivors or the ones waiting for the final drum, can hear genuine words of comfort.   What I am trying to get across, is all of these spiritual exercises that we do, our meditations and practices, our prayers and rituals….it ain’t about us.    It’s helping us get our stuff together so that we can help others.    Only when we are the fingers and lips of God are we worthy to be called the children of God.   Jesus said others would know us by our love for each other.

Help someone see that God is real and lives in you.  Care for them in their hour of great need, or in stopping and smiling and buying a lemonade at the little lemonade stand, and don’t even let on they forgot the sugar.   Let God shine through you, and really begin to live.   Don’t listen to those “I wants”, but live your genuine potential.   No, you’re not going to wake up and be Ghandi tomorrow, but every journey begins with a single step, and purposeful intent.   If we do everything we are training ourselves to do properly, and we go where the Holy Spirit directs us, maybe the light of gnosis will light up a face, one person at a time, and finally the promise of peace on earth, good will toward men, will be kept through us.

For the last few weeks, everywhere that I have gone, I have read innumerable instances of people holding extremely fixed and rigid viewpoints, almost to the point of being myopic.   Now, sometimes I suppose I am guilty of this also, I mean, I bristle every time someone says that we Gnostics believe that the Archons are lizard men from Mars, or that we don’t believe in Jesus, or what have you.   I mean, what the hey, I am right here, and am more accessible than most people on the planet, so instead of telling me what I believe, why not ask me, and I’ll share my beliefs?

Another type of rigidity is the keyboard (insert religion here).    I want to narrow this down to the keyboard Gnostic…..I will let the keyboard Catholic, or keyboard Muslim be for now.   All of you keyboard Gnostics, and you know who you are, it’s time to get off you duffs.  Back away from the computer,  take a deep breath, and ask yourself if you really want to be a Gnostic, or just play one on the internet?    Join a church, join a group, get some live voices in your ears.  Find out that being a Gnostic is more than just arguing with a fundamentalist on the internet;   there is a loving caring family out here waiting for you.   Get your weekly dose of hugs, and then go back to arguing with your fundamentalist friend.

There is a whole bunch more examples of rigid thinking, but I don’t want you to think that I think being rigid is bad—I mean, no kids, you can’t play in traffic, and I am going to be pretty inflexible about that!  However, there is a type of rigid that comes about when somebody has found their comfort zone, and they don’t want to leave this comfort zone because they are afraid.   That’s bad.

“What d’yer mean afraid, I ain’t afraid o’ nothin’!”

Liar. As long as you wear the flesh, you’re afraid of something.  Being a Gnostic does not mean that you have to be a recluse, though I suppose that being a recluse would predispose someone to be a Gnostic.   Come on, fess up— you’ve been attempting to be a Gnostic for a couple years now, and you’ve stalled;  you can’t seem to get a leg over that hurdle of introversion.  Gee, am I a psychic or what?  Never fear, that’s what we are here for.

Give your soul a slap shot

No more excuses.  “I’m too busy”, or “there are no groups in my area”, or “this is the only rationalization I have at the moment to stay in my comfort zone”.   Folks, the graveyard is full of people who didn’t have time to die.

Get un-busy.   Start a group, or join our Skype group, we don’t bite.   Face those inner Archons, and defeat them(They are not lizardmen from Mars).   Just do something that get’s you out of that shell.

Come join with us

Every Sunday morning a small group of us meet on the internet.   All you need is a microphone and an internet connection.

This has been such a wonderful gift in my life.   Every Sunday morning we come together and share what is in our hearts, our lives, and our prayers.

Do you have a deep insight that you would like to share?   Or maybe just silently listening?     Ever wish that you could meet with practicing Gnostics for deep, warm,  personal discussions?

You have no reason to be shy.

We are currently using “Skype”.    This is currently a free download available here:  www.skype.com
A)
1) download “Skype”

2) Purchase an inexpensive microphone or set of headphones with a built in microphone.

3) Use our E-mail address in the Skype contact search.   ”alphaomega.church37330@gmail.com” Save the church address in your contacts.   Skpe will automatically notify us.

B)
1) Sunday mornings, make sure your Skype program is “On” prior to 0900 central time.   Alpha Omega status will remain hidden, but your name will have already been added to our conference call directory.

2) At 0900, your Skype will “ring”.   Answer it!

Technology is not perfect,  and our membership is understanding that if someone is dropped, we will make every effort to re establish contact.    If asked, please “hang up”, and the call will be made from here, and the conference will pick up from the point where the person dropped.

If for some reason you are not called Sunday morning, by all means, drop us an E-mail!

“Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world.”

How can I tell if someone’s Gnosis is genuine?

This is a question that is asked of me quite a lot.   The short answer;  You can’t.   Well, at least not right away.  But you have to, for there is a lot of genuine garbage being spewed forth that smells worse than the compost that is spread on our garden.   We Christian Gnostics as a community are far more tolerant of mistakes than other denominations, but to preserve our identity, we cannot be insensitive to the One that we have gnosis of in the first place.

Gnosis is the knowledge of the Father based on personal acquaintance with Father.   The stronger and longer your relationship with the Father is, the more you know of His character, the less likely you are to be impressed by false gnosis.   Let’s examine some of the characteristics of false gnosis first;  though we are heading into dangerous territory here, so we always want to examine ourselves first, to make sure that we are approaching  the situation without prejudice or judgment.  We want to be sure no one is led astray, not to start a public stoning.

False Gnosis may be generated by enthusiasm, misconception or desire.  Genuine gnosis, once again, is based on a strong relationship with the Father.   Is what is being said or preached consistent with the character of the Father?   Let’s make an analogy.    Someone just snuck up to your best friends house, and in the middle of the night, painted the front door of his/her house florescent pink.    You know your best friends reaction without even being told!

Let’s examine genuine gnosis;   Those of us that have bathed in the light of the Father know that He is Good beyond all human understanding, and that that goodness by it’s very nature highlights our flaws and imperfections, and instills a desire in us to be better.  The very nature of gnosis, generated from a personal relationship with the living God, is that a personal repentence occurs.   Not an “in your face” burn their cities type of repentance, but a genuine desire to be more like the one we love.

This is our key then;   When someone comes around peddling their “gnosis”, look for the Father’s seal of approval on it.   What ever the Father approves of, will never come in a bottle or box, you don’t have to smoke it or drink it or bake it in the oven.   The Father is accessible, and his Love cannot be bought on a store shelf, found in a tv ad, or on the black market.   Nor is it dispensed by a preacher in a colored robe offering pseudo history and sacrificing the blood of social issues on his/her alter.

We are used to praying in secret.    But we hold our meetings in public.   There is nothing like the light of day to reveal flaws or wicked dealings.  If someone offers to teach you “gnosis” in “secret”, you can be pretty damn sure that they are not working for the Father.

Don’t forget!   Gnosis is not a new phenomena.   Though we want to be careful and test each scripture in the same light, Christian Gnostics are in agreement with the Gospels.   If you have been a Christian Gnostic for very long, you know that nothing in your personal experience with the Father has ever been inconsistent with the portrayal of the Father in the Gospels.    So, we “know a tree by it’s fruit”.   Sometimes we have to wait quite a while for a tree to bear fruit.

When being bombarded by someone else’s “gnosis”, first be patient.   Very patient.   We are not privy to that persons relationship with the Father.   The Father may tolerate certain things in this individual that we have already left behind us.   As long as that individual is not preaching to the masses, any aberrations may be tolerated on our part in silence.

We don’t want to be judgmental;  however, we all should remember how overwhelming our religion is to the beginner.   We need to help the beginner with the basics first, then when he/she is ready, teach them what they are ready to know, straightforward truthful and honest answers based on genuine relationships with the Father.

The God of Jesus, is a God for the individual. The God of Jesus is not a jealous God, proving this by also sending us the Comforter, a truly Divine entity in every way. A Jealous God does not share such treasures.

Things really can work out for the best if one says yes to the Comforter. It may or may not be according to one’s plan, but letting go of plans is part of the pain of surrendering the ego. In such a yes, God’s work can be done.

Informed people, within a community of faith, are more empowered to come to terms with the true self, the divine inner seed.  Knowing yourself,(Individuation) within God, requires sensitivity and listening to the the Holy Spirit.

Individuation can open the door to the spiritual. It does involve suffering the consequences. It involves surrendering the ego for the higher values and commits the individual to the greater good. Such a process of surrender involves pain. Such introspection can be agonizing and difficult. It is not the easy path.

Inner individuality faces an inner struggle between pleasure and authority. It is a voice of discernment which empowers the judgment to do good and avoid evil within love. It is a part of human essence which is in the heart.

Christ’s call to “Believe in me”(emulate me) is above all a call to fulfill as completely as possible an authentic image of our humanity.

The privilege and peace of such work is what Jesus called us to be. Jesus was the only human to reach the full capacity for individuation. Yet we each have that same potential, because although Jesus was Son of God, He was also Son of Man, or fully human.

The chance of perfection is only in Christ, It is the call to the individual to say yes, accept the broken areas as gifts that the Holy Spirit can repair and perfect and to walk the path. It may be the best and most difficult path we could choose.

The Father of Jesus is concerned with the root causes  that shape behavior, Spiritual Blindness. Too often, the individual human misses the mark, not because they desire to do evil, but because they simply can not see the target.

The target, is perfection of ones self. To that end, the Father sent his Son, to show the world what the human being is fully capable of. If a person calls themselves a christian, with no attempt to hit that target, then they are not a christian but but a “wicked and slothful servant”.

“Lord, I knew thee that thou art a hard man, reaping where thou didst not sow, and gathering where thou didst not scatter” is the slothful servant’s cry. Expecting the Lord to reap where nothing is sown, or in more modern parlance, expecting God to do all of the work while the “believer” sits on his lazy faith is a sure ticket to zero interest growth.

I don’t care if you bow to “God” twelve times a day. If there is no attempt to model your humanity after the pinnacle of human perfection, you are going to fail, and fail miserably, to know the Father. Note that in the above parable, each faithful servant turned in a differing amount. They were not perfect. But they tried, and each was praised and rewarded.

Christ came to save the world, by showing the way. “I am the way, the truth and the light”

We, as Gnostic Christians  have a duty to find that Light, not our own self light, but the Light that comes from the mature Divine Seed that we have carefully tended and nurtured with the Living Water of the Holy Spirit.    We also have the duty of sharing that Light, for as Thomas recorded, there is a Light within a man of Light.  If it does not shine, then it is dark.

Yes, I really do.   I love reading Gnostic blogs, and some of them are so good, that I just want to give up.   I really can’t do that though, so don’t worry!

Being in a position where so many look to me for guidance is pretty humbling.  There are so many things inside of me that I need to learn to better express.   To have someone come to you with a genuine Spiritual problem, something that just a tweak of consciousness on their part would fix, puts me in a moral quandary.

I cannot live somebody’s life for them;   nor am I in a position to judge what is right or wrong for that person.   The best that I can do is help them find the voice of the Holy Spirit.   Sometimes I have to take on the authority of the clergy that has been vested in me in order to do that.   Sometimes I have to stand back and let that person find that same authority within themselves.   I try never to be impatient, but when something happens before my morning cup of coffee, I realize just how imperfect I can be.

Jesus Christ was perfect.   One of my absolute favorite sayings is from the Gospel of Philip:

Blessed is the one who on no occasion caused a soul distress. That person is Jesus Christ. He came to the whole place and did not burden anyone. Therefore, blessed is the one who is like this, because he is a perfect man. For the Word tells us that this kind is difficult to define. How shall we be able to accomplish such a great thing? How will he give everyone comfort? Above all, it is not proper to cause anyone distress – whether the person is great or small, unbeliever or believer – and then give comfort only to those who take satisfaction in good deeds. Some find it advantageous to give comfort to the one who has fared well. He who does good deeds cannot give comfort to such people, for he does not seize whatever he likes. He is unable to cause distress, however, since he does not afflict them. To be sure, the one who fares well sometimes causes people distress – not that he intends to do so; rather, it is their own wickedness which is responsible for their distress. He who possesses the qualities (of the perfect man) bestows joy upon the good. Some, however, are terribly distressed by all this.

Wow.  How am I ever going to reach that point in the short time remaining in my life?   I envy you youngsters who have found genuine Gnosis so soon.   It came to me so late, that I feel inadequate to the task that the Holy Spirit has given me.    I know that I have been given what I have been given, at the time it was given, for a reason.    Maybe because I am so innately lazy that only last minute pressure brings out my best!

You know, especially some of my brothers and sisters in gnosis out there, how wonderful it is to be in the Heavens, how awesome it is to witness first hand all that God has in store for us.  The sum total knowledge of the universe, there in you, around you, and you stretch out into the joy of the ineffable.

Then you return to the jail, and it is just as hard as it was before.   Only more so, because now we have the responsibility of knowing.  “To whom much is given, much is expected”.   Isn’t that hard?   It makes it impossible to slip into the enjoyment of an old sin, doesn’t it?     Oh, to be an angry young man again!   LOL!

Yup, I wish I were a better author.  A good author could tie all of these disjointed ramblings together so that they made perfect sense.

As a Christian Gnostic, I treat the Gospels as authoritive……not necessarily factual, but True.
I can only base my belief system upon what I have experienced.   I have read many things attributed to Jesus, how He turned water into wine, and how He calmed the seas.

I don’t KNOW if Jesus existed, or if He did exist, if He did everything that was written about Him.  Now don’t get me wrong;  I am not saying that He did not do any of these things.    I am saying that I was not there to see it, and I can only base my belief system on things that I have witnessed or experienced.

Jesus may very well have calmed the seas, but in any event, that is something that transforms the hyle, material realm.   It would cause any witness to believe either in Jesus or in coincidence.   Seas go calm all the time;  people witness that all the time.

To me, people could argue these events all day long and miss something a bit more important.  There are seas and then there are seas;  the human spirit is a pretty vast turbulent sea.  We tend to give things importance that are of little eternal consequence, and perhaps overlook some things that are of paramount importance.

The Christ Spirit is that Spirit that we identify as coming from the outside Divine to help us find the inside Divine;  It is the Spirit of Love and Mercy, compassion based not on convenience but on conscience.   This is something that anybody could witness, with not much effort.  It is the Pharisatha of Christ; “The one who is spread out”.    Some call it Christ, some call it something else, but a rose is a rose.

…..Philip wrote “”Messiah” has two meanings, both “the Christ” and “the measured”.    The One who was measured stands as a yardstick for those of us seeking to be more than we thought we were;  awake, responsive, and seeking to do the things worthy of an heir to a Deity.

Let’s go back to the man Jesus; Jesus, just like us, had a choice.   He made his choices, and we make ours.  The man Jesus, some will argue, is just a legend.   Okay.   I try to pattern my choices after the ones that the legendary Jesus would have made.   More than that I follow the teachings attributed to Jesus both in biblical parable and Gnostic writings.

Now, I would not just do this to fill in my time.   Following a legend takes a lot of commitment and hard work;  I expect a semi immediate payoff or I’m moving on to something else;  Buddah perhaps or Mohammed.   But you see, I don’t have to do that;  following a legend in this case has paid off handsomly, and not with earthly coin.

Maybe some day there will be a Gnostic preacher on television, convincing millions of home viewers to dig deeply into their aunt Edna’s cookie jar to finance his mission of driving around in a luxury car that he parks in the garage of his multimillion dollar estate;  but I doubt it.   Once you’ve had a taste of the other side, those things are just small and petty, meaningless, compared to the sea of searchers clinging to one empty promise after another, dashing themselves against the shore of disappointed faith and baseless dreams, a tidal wave of humanity clinging to one guru after another.

I am not saying that I know it all;  There are times when I cross the veil and I do know it all, but to bring it back is impossible.   What you really bring back is the knowledge of how much we really do not know, how uncertain this realm is, how we cling to belief for the sake of belief.   Salvation is Gnosis of the Father.   That Gnosis, that experience,  has disturbing elements to it;  like how insignificant and baseless belief really is.    We as humanity, have built an elaborate reality of tissue paper.

The human version of reality absolves itself of all responsibility, always.   There is always a reason, preached from pulpits and podiums, why we are immune from personal repentance.   Yes, I believe that Jesus died for our sins.   To me, that means that Jesus died to open our eyes.   I don’t care if it’s politics or organized or personal belief;  the living Christ cannot carry our wrongdoings, He can just point them out, and point them out only in the way that an outsider can.   We have a choice at this point;  do we continue in what we know to be wrong; or do we seek to change how we do things?

You know, somehow, deep inside of you that we are all one humanity, sharing dreams and hopes, hurts and hatreds.   People are loving each other, hating each other, helping each other, and killing each other.    Christ, calm this sea.   If you can.

But then when you have that heart knowledge, what do you do with it?

I myself, don’t think we are allowed to sit on it, but must invest it in the Divine Central Bank.

Matthew;{Jesus Said}:25:14For it is as when a man, going into another country, called his own servants, and delivered unto them his goods. 25:15And unto one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one; to each according to his several ability; and he went on his journey. 25:16Straightway he that received the five talents went and traded with them, and made other five talents. 25:17In like manner he also that received the two gained other two. 25:18But he that received the one went away and digged in the earth, and hid his lord’s money……………………….

We can’t change humanity.  Christ cannot change all of humanity, or He would already have done it.   It can only be done, one person at a time, one act of charity at a time.   A person wakes up, here and there, from the deep sleep of death.   Sometimes those people look around, and go back to sleep.   Once in a while, once in a precious while, someone will wake up, look around and start to question the reality of their existence.    They start to seek, and occassionally they find, and when they find, they are disturbed, and when they are disturbed, Christ would not have it any other way.

Human beings are a trinity.   Humans are made up of three different and distinct substances which combine to make the whole;

Each person has a material body, a mind, and a spirit. Similarly, the cosmos itself is viewed as having a tripartite structure. It consist of spirit (pneuma), soul (psyche) and matter (hyle).

The Hyle may be male or female or hermaphrodite.   The Hyle is matter based, and therefore imperfect.  The Hyle represents not only the physical body, but also the animal instincts that drive it, such as hunger, thirst, reproductive and sexual desires.  The hyle is the place of DNA and birth defects.

The Psyche represents mind and intellect, which is trained from birth to respond to the Hyle.  The Psyche may also be male or female, or any combination, and is dependent upon the physical brain and it’s wiring and storage capacity, it’s ability for imaginings and scheming to fulfill the desires of the Hyle.

The Psyche is what is able to hold a job, earn money go grocery shopping, plan a meal or a sexual encounter, providing the Hyle with the basic needs of the body, food, water, shelter, comfort and physical pleasure.  The Hyle reciprocates by sharing the physical pleasures with the psyche.

The Pneuma is androgynous, having neither male nor female, but is the animating spark from God that moves us into the higher ideals.  As we move further into Spiritual training the Pneuma allows us the observer position, where we step outside of ourselves to watch.   Even in non-spiritually minded persons, the phenomena of separation in a crises is pretty well documented.

The pointer for where we center ourselves in this circle of three is free to move, but requires a lot of training.   We must learn to be able to take the observer position at will, moving our center into the pneuma, transcending,(not fighting, but transcending)  the hyle and psyche.  This is also the same position we take when bringing healing, or using our other spiritual gifts.  A person centered in the pneuma is nearly immune from pain or desire, and may then engage in any rewiring of the Psyche, to overcome any personal issues.

There is absolutely no difference between persons who have centered themselves in the Hyle.   Straight or gay, teetotaler or drunkard the Hyle is matter centered and predestined for dissolution.   The same goes for drug abuse or other addiction problems, anger issues, or hyper appetites.

“He called out, saying: “Whoever has ears to hear about the infinities, let him hear!”; and “I have addressed those who are awake.” Still he continued and said: “Everything that came from the perishable will perish, since it came from the perishable. But whatever came from imperishableness does not perish but becomes imperishable. So, many men went astray because they had not known this difference and they died.”~Sophia of Jesus

Archon simply translates as “ruler”.   We never translate it though because an Archon is different than a king or a president.

Archons rule over our lower selves, and are dualistic in their very nature.   They are the psychological manifestation of the very real human need for order, but they rule with random precision.  Archons are present wherever there are human beings and they are both inside of us and outside of us.  Gnostic scripture identifies Archons as minions of the demiurge.

Rather than talk about what Archons are, let’s examine some of the things that Archons do.

If a man is driving at three am through a small town in a blizzard, and comes upon a red light, he will instinctively stop due to the presence of an inner Archon.   That is obeying the law, and it is a good thing.   Now, when the light turns green again, by the time he gets traction it turns back to red.   There is not another soul on the road.   Common sense would dictate that he maintain traction and proceed.  The same inner Archon demands that he depress the brake peddle again.

It is an inner Archon that makes a pretty little schoolgirl purge.   It is the same Archon that ensures that she makes it to her classes on time.

Archons seek to maintain order and conformity first and foremost.  They apply Newtonian law to the human condition, making sure that as many people as possible are walking in lock-step, keeping the machinery of the lower creator well greased and turning at all times.

When seeking gnosis in a meditative state , we have to lift ourselves out of the realm of the demiurge, and learn to identify and reject these inner Archons.   The demiurge has left them strict orders to maintain his god-hood at all times, and an Archon is nothing if not obedient!

The demiurge does not want to lose his power base,you and me, and the Archons will fill you with fears and doubts, “you shouldn’t be doing this”, “you are not worthy to seek God”, “there is no God”, “you’ll burn in hell for this”, and on and on and on.   Yes, when you encounter an Archon, give it the boot, send it packing, but a thousand more will take it’s place.   There is no end to Archons, until you teach yourself to reject the entire realm of the demiurge.

Gnostic scripture records that Archons are very powerful spiritual beings also;  they can take the form of Angels(at least in the mind of the beholder).   Again, their agenda is always conformity, attempting to unify the human race under the banner of the demiurge.   They use the carrot and stick approach, but sometimes, as in the case of Norea, drop the carrot and go straight for the stick.

Be aware of anything that puts you in uniformity or attempts to make you subservient to another human being.  That is an Archon, hard at work doing what he does best, shaping society into a machine.   Religions, Governments, Institutions are all under the same banner, even when they appear to be at odds with each other.   The cogs in the machinery, those parts that seem to clash with each other, are the very things that keep the wheels of the demiurge turning.

Society would be a mess without Archons.  But Archons will also steer you toward the wrong god.