A Great Gnostic Teaching

MBM   Friday, March 15, 1929

 

Pre-Christian as well as Christian sects.  The pre-Christian sometimes were swallowed up in the Christian.  And (there were) those who, from all times, sought truth, sometimes in areas where the Christian influence never touched them.  The non-Christian gnosis (was) loftier — makes a greater demand on the mind.

The Gnostics were those who sought for the knowledge of those things which are Realities; which are not ephemeral; and sought them with their heads.  They were incidentally concerned with this world, primarily with the drama beyond this world.  The science of a cosmology.  A mind approach, not a sense approach; athletes of the mind.  You may begin by being a kind of an athlete.  The supreme athletes have a gnosis of which no man speaks.

Greece, Syria, North Africa and Egypt were saturated with those who were seeking for the knowledge of things that ARE, – and long before the Christian era.  Ptolemy Soter from Northern Greece – became pharoah of Egypt.  Alexandria came to be the center city of the world; in terms of all? the findings in Gnosis.  The Ptolomies carried it out.  The best minds were bidden to that country.  So the leading Greeks came to Alexandria; the leading Jews from Jerusalem.  The great Egyptians were already there.  Syria was the high road from the East to Egypt.

Alexandria was a hotbed of intellectual philosophy.  Much of it went further than the mere intellectual.  Many groups in Egypt.  The Christian stream added to this welter of activity.  The Christian drama was played largely in Syria.  Simple folk.  Fine minds when they went into the backgrounds of Christianity.

The background of Christianity (in?) the Old Testament had gradually to make the Old Testament a Christian Book, or else the Christian tradition could not exist.  You would have to allegorize the Old Testament.  Those looking for a philosophical background of Christianity began to make allegories of the Old Testament stories.  Those interested in the purely Christian tradition could not abide with that — could not believe that that which preceded Jesus should be universal.

Syria, being a mixture of races, added fuel to the fire.  Conflict.  Traces in the words of those who were the first followers of Jesus.  Harnack speaks of three main groups: center gnostics; right literalists; and, on the other side, all sorts of magi.

Semitic, Hamitic and Aryan races; Egyptian, Syrian and Jews.  The Egyptians, the oldest on the trail.  Conflict for hundreds of years before the solidification of the Christian tradition.  Heresies, not in bad repute then.  (Means) taking up a point of view for yourself that is in conflict with the familiar order.  The heretics were the Gnostics.  They tried to make of Christianity a universal religion.

The Church Fathers resisted that.  Their writings concerning the Gnostics are almost all we have on the Gnostics; (what was said by) Irenaeus, Justin Martyr(2nd century), Clement, Tertullian (Carthage), Hippolytus, Origen.

Three friendly sources; one, a recently found manuscript, show their fine minds: the Askew Codex, containing the Pistis Sophia (Questions of Mary?) and extracts of the Book of the Savior, 346 pages.  Two: the Bruce Codex: the papyrus contains the Book of the Great Logos, According to the Mystery.  Three: the Akhmim Codex, in Berlin, from Egypt (The Gospel according to Mary), The Wisdom of Jesus Christ, and The Acts of Peter.

     This is the Christianized Gnosis.  Also in the Apocalypse of the New Testament.

(Other sources?)  The Gnosis via Simon, the Magician.  (and?) The Gnostic tradition of Basilides.

The main points in all the Christian gnostics:

1. An Infinite Being, beyond all thought or form.This is the Supreme God.

2. They see matter as opposed to being.Hence, they see in matter the source of all evil.

3. They conceive Potencies, sometimes called Aeons, or Powers, who move, in gradation, from the Source, and who are, in a sense, a manifestation of the Supreme; and, in another, the medium through which the will of the Supreme passes.

 

4. The Kosmos, which is a mixture of matter and the being state emanation from the Supreme.Light spark, or spiritual essence.

5. That the world we know was not made by the Supreme God.

Here they were in conflict with the orthodox Old Testament.  The God described by Jesus differed from the God in the Old Testament.  Concluded that Yahweh, or Elohim, was not the Supreme God, but one, and low down, in the rungs of Aeons, from whom comes a Creative ability.

6. That Christ saw (?) in Jesus a chosen man, and that he came down on Jesus at the time of the Baptism (descent of the dove, or Holy Spirit.)

     In the Docetic tradition there are two Beings – Jesus one, Christ another; and that they met at various times.  Many stories about it.  They saluted each other, and merged.  That two-fold concept brings about a tremendous conflict in the Christian Church.

Simon  A reference to him in the Acts.  According to tradition, he was a magician (according to the Christian Fathers) and did many evil things.  Other stories, not in the Christian tradition, tell very different things.  No one knows just who he was.  He had a tremendous following at the time of Jesus, and not far away.

Simon Magus (magus = wise one)  Did extraordinary things.  Raised from the dead.  (Effected) at a distance.  Peter was one of the literal followers of Jesus; he had not yet learned the lesson.  Could not see anyone who was outside the domain of Christianity.

Simon made an amalgam of Persian and Egyptian teachings.  As a gnostic, he was electrified by the comng of Jesus.  He first met Philip, a gentle, kindly soul.  An encounter with Peter.  There were many vile stories about Simon.  The “prostitute of Tyre” (spoken of by Simon) was really the soul.  The Great Announcement, a gnostic book, really tidings of the way back home: typical of the gnostic expression for the return.  It shows what Simon really did teach.

He is called the first heretic in the history of the Church.  He taught that there was the First God; that from Him emanated the Logos; that from it came the World Soul, or Sophia, the Mother of All; that from this leapt forth Thought, or Activity, which, knowing the Will of the Father, descended ever lower into the lower regions; and there created various levels of angels, archangels, powers, etc.

Sophia went down into the lower worlds because she knew the will of the Father.  A contract to the Old Testament and the “evil” powers that drew down Adam and Eve.  These lesser orders presently hold her prisoner — resist her trying to go back where she came from.  (Later Christian tradition says the World Soul is rescued by Christ, who comes down.)  Partly a cosmological story, partly in everyone’s life.

The world soul represents the light spark, or spirit, which is drawn down into matter, and which, by experiences in the lower world, is caught here and there by a variety of interests — dismemberment.  The situations you yourself create possess you; or your appetites; hence they may be said to be envious of us.  The light spark cannot get up.  Needs an awakening.  Does not know for a while that there is a higher region.

Pistis Sophia, another book, is the description of the way up.  (She is) originally spirit, but has become soul, in its descent into the lower worlds.  This light spark, which has become each of us, is the Helen whom the Son has to rescue.  The spirit releases the soul via the help of the mind; Logos-worker, a worker for mind.  Simon’s Helen, the “prostitute”, seen as the soul, who commits adultery with the things of earth.  Mixes the bloods.  Other Greek stories used Helen as the light spark, like Goethe.  The Church Fathers didn’t understand that.

Another teaching in Simon’s Great Announcement; that the great root of all things is Fire.  (Representing the Persian tradition.)  It is two-fold, concealed and manifest. The concealed part is hidden in the manifest; and the manifested, an expression of the concealed — wound one about the other.  This Fire is the great Tree.  The manifested side is what you see and know; but it is there only for the fruit which the Tree is to bring forth.  Then the Tree is to be returned to the Fire.

 

Fire is the Persian interpretation of the Life principle.  Life is concealed and manifested.  The manifest part of it is there only for the sake of the fruit.  The whole manifestation of the things we apprehend through our senses is there only for the result which our contact with manifestation will bring about.  When that is over the Tree is returned to the Fire; that is, the Tree is released to the Source from which it came.

Modern physics is describing matter as energy, and they see it possible to release matter back to energy.  Shows that Simon was a profound thinker.  By knowing and obeying the Laws.  That is what Gnosis meant.  The Christian who followed Jesus was content with the immediate teaching. (Ebionites.)

Now why was Simon, who was an enlightened one, able to accept Christianity?  The Teaching he first contacted through Philip gave him the earmarks by which it was possible to recognize a validity in the claims of Jesus.  Though not in the same literal sense as his followers took them.  He was seen as a carrier of the power which came from the Logos.  The Gnostics could never make God, or even the Only Son of God, of Jesus.  That was the demand of Christianity, the literalists.  The Gnostics had to see how what was true in the Christian tradition was reconciled with their knowledge; and they did.

Re the question of the “rising from the dead.”  They recognized this as a thing of consciousness.  When we have become again disentangled from the forces which we have created about us; when we have again the higher consciousness, we are awakened, and risen from the dead.

The Gnostics stole the thunder of the Christians.  That is the significant rising.  That, the Gnostics claimed, cannot be done without Gnosis; you must know something of the geography of the Larger; it is not enough to be good, and follow literally the mandates of Jesus; but a profundity which enables the soul to find the way itself.  Not to be saved by (but) to save itself.  Ebionites (?) of the way to the highest philosophical conception.

Simon saw the “resurrection of the dead” as a philosophical saving — the saving of the soul from the brothel conditions; not houses.  From these, Simon sought to release the souls immersed in matter.  A conflict with the Christian Church.

 

 

A Great Gnostic Teaching

Lecture II

MBM   March 22, 1929

 

We do not know if Basilides was of Greek, Aryan or Egyptian origin.  He is usually classified as Egyptian.  He taught in Alexandria.  Was very learned and had studied all the philosophies of that time: Greek, Syrian, Egyptian, also Jewish.  Wrote 24 books of exegesis, the science of explanations.  His books had to do with the explanation of the Christian tradition.  (Was taught his doctrines by) Glaucus, (disciple of Peter); also a disciple of Matthew.

Matthew was said to have been taught a secret teaching by Jesus after the Resurrection.

The Christian Gospels were baaed on a book, now lost, The Sayings of Jesus, and was written by a Matthew.  The supposition is that the Matthew with whom Glaucus studied was the same as the one who wrote these Sayings.

Basilides was also said to have written a Gospel which contained the inner tradition of the Christian tradition and that also was called The Sayings of Our Lord.  The missing link has not been found.

Basilides gives perhaps the sublimest interpretation of the Christian tradition that we have.  He and Valentinus are the two greatest Christian Gnostic teachers.  Basilides (?) had almost no disciples, except his son, Isidore  (It is (?) frankly accepted that the teaching of Basilides was too lofty to be carried on long.  The outer schools following him died out.  He taught in the second century, in the reign of Hadrian.

The significance of the Christian Gnostic: to hold tho middle ground between what is an inner teaching and what is directly the proselyting of those who are working with some church.  For a time they tried to convert the Christians to gnosticism.  But the Gnostic never really proselytes.  The object of the Gnostic was to assimilate the teachings of Jesus into his cosmology.  If we remember that he was in the pattern made by Jesus  – something he already knew and could adapt readily.  If you remember, the Christians did not have a cosmology, you will have the main points.

The early Christians, who were largely Jews, had no cosmology, but prophecies.  The Gnostics also had prophecies, but they were cosmological prophecies.  The Gnostics were the true cosmopolitans, and their background took in the world.  Hence the prophecies of the two clashed somewhat.

The experience of those who contacted the Pattern-maker was such that the immediate blocked out their capacity to see any more.  And they were not trained for it.  They were sensitive enough to see that here was a great Mystery taking place.  In their devotion to it everything else was blotted out.  Both types were passionately active.

     Basilides had both his Gnostic and Christian teachings; the latter probably through Glaucus, who was a disciple of Peter and also of Matthew.  He was probably a follower of the Antioch tradition.

     His work may be divided into two parts: 1) Cosmology, 2) Soteriology.  Soteriology, the science of salvation.  Ptolemy Soter.  (roots in such words as) salute, salvo, sage; healing, return, recovery.  The first part, the descent; the second, the return.

     Basilides has so large a scheme of things that at first there seems to be nothing of Christianity in it.

It starts with the Immensities.  In the negative — begins with the Nought – something which cannot be discussed as condition, place, or anything that is known.  Therefore, that the Beginning cannot be known by man in his present state.  Nevertheless, it is the fount of all else.

He describes it first as a Nought; on the masculine side the first movement; the second movement feminine.  The first is power manifesting; but in the early stages there was not even that.  Then he describes the Nought from the substance side — neither matter nor substance; that is, nothing from the substance side.  For him, the things that are not were more actual than the things that known.  (No thing.)  Then the first movement as Will (#1) the first Activity.  It is the inception, the point, the emergence, the Source of all the Fathers; the First Cause; The Son (One) (or Sun?).

Next: Condition.  The Universal Seed (#2).  Contains everything in itself, potentially.  Like the mustard seed, which contains in it the whole tree.  He does not describe development in terms of emanation – making things via Aeons, or emanations.  They (these) may seem to indicate that the foundation head grows lees as the Aeons go out.  That is not true.  He said it is not by emanations, but like the mustard seed.

This universal Seed is the substance side of things.  Content comes before form.  Will comes before the Seed.  Seed is the Point, on the substance side (#2) also the stuffs of all the planes that are to be.  It was Will which brought forth the Seed; and yet, the Seed was.

In this Seed in the triple Sonship.  In every way consubstantial with the God beyond Being.  Three Sonships in this World, or Seed; that is the power of unfolding, both potential and living, which is presently going to stream out into activity.  The first is very subtle; (then) one less subtle; and one that stands in need of purification.

The first, on streaming forth, was re-united with the universal Seed.  The second, also subtle, but not so subtle as the first.  It also rose away and tried, to hasten back to where it came from, or where it was poured out.  This second Sonship could not quite accomplish it.  It developed a wing, and the wing helped it to rise back to the universal Seed and the Unknown Father, or Nought.  But the wing, which did not come from that Source, stayed in between.  It became the Firmament.

Then the third Sonship.  It was mixed still with the Universal Seed, and could not separate itself; and which is still in this Seed Mixture.

We are dealing with the archetypal worlds.  They are not identical with the Elements, but related to them.

The Son is also a potential father, rather than a result.  The before is hidden in the Nought, and we see the Son as potential (or potentially) the father.

The First is related to the Element known as Aether.  It is the closest to the Source from which it came.  It is the lightest, and can fly back.  (Aether is the lightest of all our substances.)  These outpourings have something to do with making the elements out of which the later worlds are to be made.

The Second Sonship is something like fire-air.  While not quite as light, it follows after the first element.  Can’t quite make it; yet comes from the Source, the great Source of Fathers, or the Nought.  It must help itself in some way.  It makes a wing, a power to move in the air.  It fell into place at a condition which is called the Great Firmament.  Sometimes called the Limitary Boundary.

The Third Sonship still remains in the great conglomerate of the Seed Mixture.  The Seed Mixture is the positive and negative force as seen in the beginning of things.  (from it, the first Great Ruler.  This comes out later. GB.)  This great ruler is the head of a universe.  He is of such beauty and magnitude that nothing can destroy it.  He is sometimes called the Demi-Urge — a mighty Being, so mighty that he is called The Ineffable.  Beyond the known; beyond the speakable.  This was in the Seed Mixture.

His jurisdiction is up to the “Wing”, or Great Firmament.  He remains there, because he thought there was nothing above him.  So he became the most potent power in the universe, save only the Third Sonship.  His limit, the ignorance of the super-Cosmic spaces.

He took to himself the creation of the creatures of the universe.  He brought forth from the Seed Mixture a son, who was on his right hand; that is, a wiser than the Great Ruler.  The Son always is where there is growth.  All this had been pre-determined by the God beyond Being when He deposited the Universal Seed.

The Space over which these two ruled was called the Ogdoad.  The Demi-Urge fabricated the whole ethereal Creation with his own hand, but it was his son who gave him the energy and the ideas.  It was made of etheric spaces — not our etheric spaces.  It was called the Ogdoad.  He ruled from the Firmament to the moon.

     Now there arose a second Ruler in the Universal Seed, far inferior to the first.  This second Demi-Urgos (Maker of Worlds) is known as the Effable One.  This is the God that man can know.  He rules from the moon down (still etheric conditions) — gnostically, the Hebdomad, (seven).  His son aided the second Ruler as the son of the first Ruler aided the first God.  They rule over the Hebdomad in the archetypal world.

     In this Hebdomad there are 365 heavens, and the ruler of the 365 heavens is Abraxas.  The numerical value of the Greek word is 365.  The powers in this world are summed up in the word Abraxas.  Abracadabra is a degeneration of a low grade from Abraxas.  Most of the Church Fathers, and others, thought it nonsense.

     The first two Sonships bring forth a Son, and the Son is wiser than the father.  The first Sonship rises swiftly to the Source.  The second Sonship could not quite make it, as its nature was different.  It made a wing, and the wing aided it, and it aided the wing.  That wing went up with it as far as what became then the Great Firmament.  The emanation that remained with the wing was richly reminiscent of the One which went up.  That Limitary Boundary is known as the Holy Spirit.  Replicas of the Way on the lower levels.  Not one reflection, but many.

     For man, the Boundary is the Spiritual World.  The Spiritual is the beginning of the Cosmic.  As the Spiritual World is the boundary for man, or the link, it is the lowest reflection which we know of this same thing on super-Cosmic levels.

     The third Sonship we will hear of next week.  In the Immensities called the Seed Mixture grows the Archon, or Demi-Urgos.  His Son begins to create the etheric conditions, super-Cosmic, ethereal conditions.  He rules from the Firmament to the moon (Ogdoad.)  Then, the development of a second Ruler, who rules from the moon down, the sublunary area.  He, likewise, has a son. . . . He, too, created, but those conditions which man can apprehend.  Not yet our physical world.  In these areas of the Hebdomad are the 365 heavens, whose power is summed up in the power known as Abraxas.  Significant to man for the same reason that the God whom man can know is important.

     The Third Sonship is potentially greater than the Rulers and their sons.  It is only potential, in our Gnostic story, but stands in unique relation to the gods; that is, the first Demi-Urgos and his son and the second Demi-Urgos and his son.  An inevitable movement upward to the Source.

     Basilides emphasized the Return.  His philosophy (is) set for a study of the Return.  He sees the Third Sonship as potentially the one through which the Return is made.

 

A Great Gnostic Teaching

Lecture III of this background course

March 29, 1929

 

Soteriology, root savior, is really the science of the way back.  Last week we studied a story of the descent; tonight (of the) ascent, evolution.

The word soteriology is in bad repute because of the outer teachings of the Christian church.  We do not have much of the teachings of Basilides.  Many gaps.  One of the main features of Gnosticism is its frank recognition of a Cosmic process.  They saw whatever occurs in terms of the Cosmic.  Redemption, as they saw it, was not (that) of the Christian church, but of the mystic type; again, a cosmic process, involving many areas – undreamed of by the more personal, or human, interpretation.  It involves a cosmic process, whereas the Christian sees it humanly speaking.

Why a conflict occurred between the Christian church and the Gnostics.  Despite the schism there are signs of where Christianity has taken over some of the contributions of the Gnostics: The feast of Epiphany, twelve days after Christmas (now Jan. 6.)  It was not originally in the Church but was celebrated by the Basilideans, and was the celebration of the Baptism.  Epiphany means manifestation, appearance, illumination.  (In the Christian tradition, it is the coming of the Wise Men.)

The descent has been accomplished.  Now begins the ascent.  The first two Sonships have returned to their relative places.  The third, which is in the sea, now comes in.  It must also return.

Who are the Sons of God?  Or the third Sonship?  They are the Light-sparks – the real spiritual men who have been left in the Seed Mixture.  That is, they are seeds.  They have been left behind in order (?) to individuate (?) and perfect our souls, which have a natural tendency to remain downward in this state of our existence.  The sons of God are these seeds, you and I, in the sense of a point — not the fulfillment.  (We) take benefits, receive benefits, and give benefits.  They too must manifest.

The condition of the Seed Mixture at first, that the Light-sparks never (or in them?) can manifest.  When the time comes they begin to move.  They are not yet moving for most people, although they are in the Mixture.  When the Mixture is ready for the spark to work, it works almost by a process of catalysis.  While the spark changes this soul, and does not change its character as a catalyst, it does receive benefits from the soul.  The “leaven in the three measures of meal” — the three areas of meal in which the kingdom of heaven is placed, and begins to leaven the whole.

The three Sonships issue out directly from the Source.  Where there is kinship there is a corresponding rhythm felt throughout that relationship.  When that movement begins to work in the Seed Mixture, where the third Sonship is, there is a correspondence up above.  When the gospel of the third Sonship came it spread the glad tidings throughout the whole universe, – when the third Sonship was ready for manifestation.

The “glad tidings” are that there is a way of return — out and up, out of this melee.  Not yet that the way has been made, but that there is such a way.  Spread through all the principalities.  That there is a movement on the waters, which is the anticipation of the return, throughout the Cosmos, but the ultimate reach of it is the lower regions.  As it passes it makes a channel — a scientific premise, as a requirement for it to pass through.

This presentation of the “glad tidings” makes a condition, a wave, like mowing down grass in a field.  Makes it possible for the next step to take place.  Makes both a movement away, and a change of condition.  Just as the vapor of naphtha can catch fire, so the formlessness of man catches fire.  That is, the fire which comes from the Source never has to leave its place in order to ignite.  (as with?) naphtha, which may be far away.

The powers in the Son of Man, or the third Sonship, begin to feel the effects of the movement from above.  It came and yet it was.  Some could be affected by this flame, – sufficiently vaporized by the fire.  The son of the Great Ruler (Ogdoad); and with it he laid hold of the ideas of the principles and concepts inherent in this “great”, or “good” tidings.  And so, this son of the Great Ruler became affected by this movement on the waters; shares the thoughts of the Supreme Sonship.

As this contagion continues within the Ogdoad, that son of the Great Ruler passed on his understanding to his father.  Presently, that whole area of the Ogdoad is permeated by the new realization, and the Ruler learned that he was not God over all, but a generable deity.  Above him was set the Treasure of the Ineffable — the THE THAT; and he repented and feared!  This meaning: the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.  Repentance is a turning back.  Turns back again to where he came from: that is, the fear, awe, knowledge, insight, understanding, reverence, humility.

Sin is a relative term, depending upon your condition.  Each, in turn, becomes sin, according to your status in the evolution.  Ignorance in the same way.  As it becomes insight, the fear, and understanding and reverence grows on you.

When our Ruler of the Ogdoad realized areas beyond him, he understood, recognized, and followed the Pattern.  He began to grow wise, through the instruction of the Christos, the Anointed one, sitting by him —learning of the THAT beyond, and of the restoration — soteriology.  This is the wisdom, in terms of other planes than any of those down below; when the Great Ruler confessed the sin of his boasting.

After the instruction of the Great Ruler the whole space of the Ogdoad was taught.  Then the gospel came to the Hebdomad.  By the son of the Great Ruler to the son of the lower space.  And this Ruler, too, feared, and confessed.  And all the spaces in the sublunary spaces were taught.

Now the time was ripe for illumination in the formlessness of our own world (or worlds? GB); formlessness, philosophically — all that which is not ordered by the mind: earth-water, until fire and air work upon it.  Waiting for the condition.  Like leaven that could not function because of lack of warmth.  The dough was now warm enough.

Then, from the Hebdomad the light descended upon Jesus, the son of Mary; and he was an illumined being, in harmony with the Light that streamed upon him.  A channel being made — that wave movement, passing through all conditions.  That helped to bring about right conditions in the formlessness below.  It descended — yet did not descend.  No movement, in our sense, at all; but a swift changing of conditions, which is more rapid than anything we know in earth.  The impression to us is one of movement.  The higher we go, the less space and the more condition, rules these things.

Jesus was so ready, in the story of Basilides, that when the movement came down he was able to receive it.  The power in this man, being sufficiently developed; the three measures of meal being of the right quality, warmth, etc, the Light-spark, man, or the third sonship, was able to work.

And it worked perfectly, because the condition was perfect.  When the condition was perfect we have what is known as the Baptism.  That is why the followers of Basilides celebrated, as the great feast, what was later called Epiphany — illumination, or lighting from within.  It radiates from a readiness of condition from inside out, yet appears to come from above.

This being the Illumined One, he made (or met?) the Pattern and carried through the Pattern of the Return, from the third Sonship, which is still largely dormant, to the Height, or First Sonship, and The THAT.  So that the power which came down from the THE THAT came through the Ogdoad, through the Hebdomad, through the areas of the Rulers; that is, down to Mary.

     And that means many different things — body, psyche — until this Being ripened and matured enough through (?) (see?) the way of the Return.

The entire Sonship must follow after, and imitate, Jesus.  Must become purified — the philosophic opposite of adultery: a mixing of what should not be mixed.  In the lowest sense, our mind; philosophically, mixing of what should not be mixed (the lowest rung of what purification is the topmost rung).

Purification is the leaving behind of the lower conditions, into which the third Sonship had fallen.  It is the release from the investing of the Light-spark of the substances, attitudes, conditions, which have come about in its pilgrimage in the lower worlds.  Then the whole Creation becomes the object of the Great Mercy, or end of the great Cosmic Day.  End of the Great Rhythm; when all that is entitled to it is returned Home: the physical part, the psychic vestures, which is restored to the Hebdomad; the vehicle is restored to the Great Ruler; and that part which belongs to the third Sonship, now purified, raises itself back to the Great Father.  Not merely making the channel but taking on the qualities of the areas through which it passes.

On the Return we discard the vestures of the states through which we have passed.  When we come back without them we are purified.  The purification acts as the liberation.

That changed condition of purification gives power of another kind.  So that you put on other vestures.  A paradox.  The putting on of that which belongs to the higher.  It was thus, through the Pattern, that Christ was purified.  Putting off impure states for the purpose of helping, and of being helped.

The Fourth Gospel, the Christian record of the Return.  Its remarkable Prelude comes from another source than the main body of the Gospel.  The Prelude is distinctly of a Gnostic tradition: “All (that was) Created has come (or came) into existence through Mind.  What has come into existence was life; and life was the light of the true men.”  (Light sparks.)  What is light on one octave is life on the next…..”And the Light shineth in the darkness.”

Two sayings belonging to the Lost Sayings of Christ, in the Oxyrynchus Fragments, which are pertinent:

One, about the condition which that consciousness found when it looked upon the world about it.  After the Baptism — the coming of the “dove” that did not really come down — if that being has an intensive consciousness, he will differ from you and me, tragically.  Jesus said: “I stood in the midst of the world, and in the flesh was I seen of them.  I found all drunken, and none found I athirst among them.”

     “Drunken” — if you have become involved in the things of earth, excited, concerned with that which goes on in the earth, you are drunken; athirst, is craving water which comes from above.

“My soul grieveth for them, because they are blind and see not.”

The second is constructive: “Blessed is the man who knoweth the Word” (Logos, Son, who is the Pattern-maker in this case.)  Not in the sense of Jesus, but as Jesus was the great exemplar of it.  The Logos is greater than Christ; Christ is a messenger of the Logos (this is still part of the saying) “and hath brought down heaven, and borne the earth and raised it heavenward.”

In all the great traditions it is recognized that, whatever the conditions that you meet from beyond, the work to accomplish them is yours, and you become your own savior.  You bring the blessing on yourself.  And in order to get it you bring the heaven down and the earth up.

In the Gnostic tradition, heaven represents the third Sonship, which is down, but is not manifest; and is as if it were not.  It makes it manifest, and potent.  “Lift earth heavenward” means: transform those areas which are below, so that they mingle.

To mingle those two is to master the lesson of human evolution, and to be “blessed.”  To do that is to be “in the midst”, where there is nought — that is, nought of the things we have known, because we have accomplished the solution of heaven and earth, and the task for which we are here is accomplished.  That is done through the work in the self, following patterns.  You must find the patterns — each in himself.