gnosticism | The Blog of Baphomet

For the Gnostics, our relationship with our body has not always been an easy one. The problems of pain and impermanence that played such a central role in the development of Gnostic dualism, most likely originated in their experience of the body within the natural world. In previous posts we spent time thinking about how theodicy, or the problem of evil, contributed to the evolution of Gnostic cosmologies. If disease and death demonstrated the imperfection of the demiurge’s realm, then it would seem likely that the strategies of either asceticism or antinomian excess were evidence of a potentially hostile attitude towards the body.

Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, will you join the dance?

While we may concede that many Gnostics viewed the divine pneumatic spark as being trapped within the material realm, as contemporary magical practitioners exploring what we might learn from them, I believe that it is wise to pay attention to what they did as much as what they may have believed. Often the ‘lived experience’ of what people actually did can help us gain insights into the complex relationship that they had with apparently straightforward ideas.

Dance like the Pleroma’s watching

In the Gnostic scripture “The Acts of John” we have a really interesting description of ritual dance and liturgy that is alleged to have taken place during the last supper:

So he commanded us to make a circle, holding one another’s hands, and he himself stood in the middle…..

I will pipe, dance all of you! Amen….

An eightfold power is singing with us. Amen

The whole universe takes part in the dancing. Amen

He who does not dance, does not know what is being done. Amen.

The Acts of John Section 94-95.

Some scholars believe that this is most likely a ritual text that was part of the style of worship employed by the Johannite community. In seeking to fathom the myth of incarnation, it is hardly surprising that we are met with the possibility of Jesus and the apostles using their bodies to move, both in celebration, and to dissipate the mounting tension of what was to come.

It may seem like a somewhat obvious point to make, but generally as human beings the realisations and ecstasies of the mind and heart bubble over into these bodies we inhabit. Personally I would question the true depth of any revelation that did not impact upon all dimensions of our being.

Even if we chose to limit our attention to phenomena within the Christian tradition, we can consider traditions such as those of the Shakers and the Pentecostals, and the role that movement and dance had as people sought to express a form of gnostic experience that moves through and beyond intellectual insight alone.

As someone exploring the Gnostic material through the less orthodox route of a Chaos Magically inspired form of Witchcraft, I find that dance and improvised movement have been highly beneficial in helping me process what might be going on:

“One of my personal routes to accessing such gnosis has been through the use of dance and shaking states. In seeking to loosen the tensions and defenses that often get located in what Wilhelm Reich described as “body armour”; I often have a sense of a deeper instinctive knowing emerging in and through the body. When I move in response to the music my self-consciousness slowly melts away. This type of “shape-shifting” may well relate to the way in which the body allows us to process aspects of the self that the conscious mind struggles to make sense of. Interesting research is beginning to explore this territory, and it may be the “darker” more instinctive drivers of the early or “reptilian” brain get processed more effectively when we actively engage the body. As I dance I often feel that in my messy embodiment, I am making sense of my early and deepest drives (for more on this see “The Compassionate Mind” by Paul Gilbert and Peter Levine’s work on trauma).” SD, What We Find Ourselves Doing…

For those interested in exploring this territory further I would recommend Bradford Keeney’s book “Shaking Medicine”. Also worth checking out is Alkistis Dimech’s site which provides a brilliant example of a contemporary magician making use of dance and movement.

Ritual Space

The very act of ritual speaks to and through our bodies via symbol and movement, set within space and time. By making use of colour, light and sound we engage the senses, and vibrate words through our flesh. Even the most apparently dualistic Gnostics made use of baptisms and the Eucharist as a way to bring God into the body. Rarely do we rely on cognition alone, rather we anchor experience through the sensual. Perhaps part of the answer lies in bringing a greater degree of awareness to what we experience in the body?

The type of alchemical process that I’m seeking to describe at a microcosmic level is similar in many ways to the dynamic interaction that occurs between the Pleroma, Sophia and the demiurge within Gnostic mythology. However much the Gnostic myths might highlight the dilemmas experienced by inhabiting human form, we must also remain mindful to the reality of a sensual ritual praxis that provided a more creative and lateral approach to exploring how the mysteries of the divine might be experienced right here and right now. Often the rich theatre of a ritual and the items on an altar reveal as much about a tradition’s theology as does a ‘scriptural’ text.

Hopefully such reflections will link in nicely with the third part of this practice series which will look at working with the heart within a Gnostic context.

Having spent some time musing over creative ways for seeking to understand Gnostic mythology, I thought it was time to get down and dirty with some practical means for experimenting with the current.

The ways of awakening are, of course, manifold! No one should place a limit on the way in which we as humans are able to gain greater insight into the nature and purpose of our lives. If this were to happen for you while surfing or drinking excellent coffee then all-the-better! Please bear in mind that these are serving suggestions only; read the primary texts for direct inspiration, and tune in to your gods and inner allies as to how to integrate any new insights gained.

In the history of Gnostic revivalism over the past 150 years, much emphasis has been placed on ecclesiastical structure and the role of sacramentalism within the churches birthed from this impulse. In my view the form that these groups adopted partially relates to the French Catholic context from which this revival emerged, but it is also connected to a belief that the sacraments of the church provide a powerful and established means through which gnosis can flow (cf. the work of Leadbeater and the Liberal Catholic tradition).

While I might personally struggle with some of the aesthetic and structural aspects of such an approach, far be it from me to criticise the rich tradition such churches embody, and the benefits that others might gain from it. We must remain awake to not allowing fine robes and titles to distract us from the true work of gaining gnosis, but as a Chaos magician I more aware than most that all of our spiritual traditions are ‘made up’ at some point in response to our encounter with Mystery!

My own approach to Gnosis has been decidedly less wordy and formal than either the ceremonies of Sacramentalism or the pseudo-masonic rubric of the Golden Dawn tradition. In contrast I have sought to utilise a form of “deep listening” practice, that has its origins in both contemplative prayer and Buddhist inspired mindfulness practices. It’s probably fair to observe that my own approach and ecclesiology resemble that of the early Quaker and Shaker traditions (though sadly with less furniture construction involved!).

Working with Stillness

In my view, both the gnostic cosmologies and the insights of the Buddha’s Four Noble Truths were born out of a profound unease regarding the pain of human experience. Mindfulness practice is far from imagined utopias or having to adopt beliefs that jar with our experience of reality. In contrast it lays down the rather stark challenge of staying with the present moment and what arises for us in that moment. In my own experience, in being attentive to what arises and the dynamic of that process, accessing greater insight or gnosis becomes possible.

Paying attention to Comtemplation has its attractions

Contemplating one’s position in the world

What stillness-based approaches allow us to do par excellence is create a sense of distance between ourselves as thinkers; and the thoughts we have. For the mindfulness practitioner such a challenge is less about the suppression of unwanted thought, rather it seeks a more neutral ‘just noticing’ that acknowledges that as thought arises, so eventually it will dissipate. This stuff gets kicked-up because it is in the nature of the human mind to do so; we can get caught-up in trying to construct a coherent narrative from it, or we can wait to see if a deeper, less reactive wisdom emerges.

In recent studies focused on positive psychology much has been made of the role of flow or fluidity as an optimal state in which a person is able to access a greater sense of personal happiness and creativity. Somewhat paradoxically mindfulness practice appears to enable this through a greater acceptance of life’s unpredictability and the sense of uncertainty that this can cause for us. With its historic roots in a Buddhist philosophy that saw the challenging nature of life as being unavoidable, mindfulness practice seeks to provide us with skills for managing our internal struggles more effectively. With its insights with how to work with both impermanence and our sense of existential dissatisfaction (Dukkha), the Buddhist tradition has much to offer those of us seeking to evolve a contemporary gnostic pathway.

While both the Buddhist and gnostic perspectives sought to grapple with how we humans respond to our experience of suffering, the Buddha’s teachings do highlight the danger of trying too hard to locate cosmic causation. As Illustrated by the parable of the soldier injured by an arrow, we should focus less on who shot the arrow and more on our need to deal with the reality of being wounded! Those of us trying to engage with gnostic creation myths should probably heed such sage advice. The teaching stories of the Gnostics may help elucidate our human experience, but sometimes the truly wise realisation is that there might be limits on what we can truly know and that we have to learn to live with uncertainty.

Gnostic Pathworking

As well as utilising more passive, receptive states of consciousness, it can also be helpful to have some more active, change focused strategies in one’s personal magical armoury. In seeking greater access to the type of spacious stillness that we might associate with the Pleroma, the Sethian Gnostics sought to employ a type of active pathworking technique that enabled them to explore the internal terrain of the psyche in the belief that it paralleled the aspirant’s journey up and through the various Aeonic strata:

“The human mind is a kind of miniature representation of the aeons that emanate from the ultimate God… For this reason, the Gnostic could also contemplate God by contemplating his or her own intellect…” (Brakke, The Gnostics, p.80)

This seems to reflect something of the Hermetic insight, “as above so below”. What I also find interesting (and encouraging!) is that such an approach makes few grandiose claims of access to immediate mind blowing epiphanies; rather it recommends repeated and reflective exploration of this territory as a preparation for full union with the divine.

In working with such cosmic schema we allow the construction of an internal psychogeography. These maps can become constrictive over time, but at best they provide a means for making greater sense of incoming gnosis, and tools for integrating new insights more effectively.

These big, beautiful brains of ours can be realms of both joyous discovery and confusing torment and in parts two and three of this practice series I will spend some time considering how bringing together work with both the body and the emotions is critical in seeking balance. As the mighty Gurdjieff before me has observed, it is only in the integration of all aspects of our being that we can live most skilfully.