Gnosticism Quotes

“In its mythology, Mithra, the Persian god of light and wisdom, was born of a virgin in a cave on the 25th December and later, as an adult, undertook long voyages for the purposes of illuminating mankind. His disciples were twelve; he was betrayed, sentenced to death, and after his death, he was buried in a tomb from which he rose from the dead. The Mithrian religion also states that at the end of all time, Mithra will come again to judge the living and the dead. In this religious cult, Mithra was called the Saviour and he was sometimes illustrated as a lamb. Its doctrine included baptism, the sacramental meal (the Eucharist), and the belief in a saviour god that died and rose from the dead to be the mediator between God and mankind. The adherents of this religion believed in the resurrection of the body, universal judgement, and therefore in heaven and hell.”
― Anton Sammut, The Secret Gospel Of Jesus AD 0-78

“Mari [Mary Magdalene] possessed a remarkably coherent understanding of what following The Way [Rahasya] meant. She believed that this spiritual philosophy taught that the world represented Man's mystic school from whence each person ultimately graduated by reaching the Enlightened State. Therefore, according to this spiritual discipline, human suffering is very subjective and manifested itself according to every person's personal karma or attitude to life. This meant that every life a person experienced imparted a certain number of spiritual lessons that may not have been experienced before in other lives. Ultimately, every experience could be relived and bring about spiritual growth, assisting the individual to move continually closer to the Enlightened State.”
― Anton Sammut, The Secret Gospel Of Jesus AD 0-78

“At the time that she came to live with Jesus's mother, Mari [Mary Magdalene] had no inkling about how she would be greeted by her since their cultures were radically different from each other. The pleasure of her surprise was therefore boundless when Jesus's mother heartily welcomed her with open arms, despite the cultural difference in their religious beliefs. In all fairness, Mari did not make it difficult for Mary to accept her; if anything, she invited Mary to teach her the social habits and local traditions of her people down to the most minor detail especially since she would find them very useful later on in her public life with Jesus.”
― Anton Sammut, The Secret Gospel Of Jesus AD 0-78

“One of the main reasons Jesus wanted Mari [Mary Magdalene] to start her own following of female disciples was because in those times, Jewish women had no probative value in society and were therefore not even given a basic education. Their intellect was considered decidedly inferior to men's and apart from this, women's far superior intuition was interpreted as a characteristic that associated them to the devil since the men could not quite understand this inner knowledge or find a plausible explanation for it...”
― Anton Sammut, The Secret Gospel Of Jesus AD 0-78

“This is why Jesus would urge Mari [Mary Magdalene] to look after the women noting, ''Cultivate their regard for you because those women who are naturally drawn to you are exceptional people, sensitive women who are very close to spiritual freedom. However, before they can achieve this ultimate goal, you must first tend to their psychological wounds, the visible and the invisible lesions they have experienced at the hands of men, just as we once did in your homeland. It is only if these existential traumas are healed properly that these women can finally reach equanimity of spirit and heart.”
― Anton Sammut, The Secret Gospel Of Jesus AD 0-78

“Then it happened that whenever he began to see Mari's [Mary Magdalene] passionate enthusiasm, her eyes emanating a light that amply showed how contended she was aiding so many people, Jesus could not help but be proud of his most-beloved disciple. Mari, likewise, felt indebted and grateful to Jesus as she saw her fellow sisters gradually being saved on all counts, some even going on to become some of Jesus's staunchest disciples...”
― Anton Sammut, The Secret Gospel Of Jesus AD 0-78

“This medicinal potion was additionally consumed as part of a sacred ritual known as Sōmayajña where the Yogis that Jesus himself had taught were helped to reach an enlightened trance.

In effect, Jesus had developed the Nirvanalaksanayoga Tantra specifically for women, to heal them from the psychological damage and abuse they had to endure at the hands of men. He wanted to enable them to rise above patriarchal dominance, realise their highest potential, and then he would guide them towards an enlightened state. The first person to benefit from this privilege was Mari [Mary Magdalene] herself. Jesus began teaching this discipline in every place that he visited: from Kashmir in the northernmost region of the Indian subcontinent, to Uttar Pradesh, and Mari would accompany him on every journey he embarked on, from east of the Indus to Nepal.”
― Anton Sammut, The Secret Gospel Of Jesus AD 0-78

“What happened to Jesus after he was crucified?

A historical reconstruction

It is an undeniable fact that the New Testament Gospels present the crucifixion and the resurrection as the pivot upon which Christianity is based. However, this notion is most surprising when we take into consideration that this postulation was never part of Jesus's teaching. Certainly the evangelists 'Mark' and 'Matthew' do hint at these strange happenings, but it is a noted fact amongst the majority of the biblical scholars that these sequences were added several centuries after the original Gospels were written, and this was done so that the political editors of these Gospels could adapt the writings according to their political and theological needs...”
― Anton Sammut, The Secret Gospel Of Jesus AD 0-78

“The Emperor Constantine the Great (272 - 337) and his Pauline bishops decided that all the Gospels that went against the politics of the emperor and the Hellenistic Christianity that was created by St Paul, were to be excluded from the New Testament. Proof of this can be found in the fact that the 27 books of The New Testament are but a very small fraction of the Christian literature that was produced in the first three centuries after Jesus lived. These documents are known as the Apocryphal Gospels (Greek, Apocrypha: ' hidden' or 'secret writings') and some of them retained quite a following and were highly respected in the communities of the earliest times...”
― Anton Sammut, The Secret Gospel Of Jesus AD 0-78

“At this crucial point, for the Roman Church to reach a compromise between this myth of Mithra and the Hellenistic Christianity of St. Paul, it was necessary to have a sudden change of events or an altered version of Jesus's life, and it was here that the Roman Church began to implement a psychological process known today as Cognitive Dissonance. In a few words, this happens when a group of people produce a false reconstruction of an event they want to continue to believe in, a literary strategy also known as the Reconstructive Hypothesis. This theological notion is equally known as Apotheosis or the glorification of a subject to divine level such as a human becoming a god. In the case of Jesus, this process was copied in its entirety from the religion of Mithra where their 'divinisations' were practically the same.”
― Anton Sammut, The Secret Gospel Of Jesus AD 0-78

“The Gnostic’s passionate adoration of Sophia was known as philosophia – the love of Sophia – a mystical communication with divine feminine wisdom, having little to do with the strictly intellectual, most often masculine, pursuit currently labeled “philosophy.”
― Zeena Schreck

“Too often, people carry around so much pain in their hearts, that they surround their hearts with an impenetrable wall. In order to make up for the lack of love, people change their focus from their hearts to their brains. The limbic system of the brain likes to collect things and declare its territory. Sadly, because most people lack the courage to open up their hearts again (to possibly being hurt once again), they try to substitute physical assets for the lack of joy that can only be found in the heart. The Demiurge is very happy if you are living in your brain and take your pleasure from acquiring objects, rather than through the many varieties of love. Material possessions bring a kind of fleeting pleasure, but they will never provide a deep joy. Only love brings joy. And to love, one needs to be aware.”
― Laurence Galian, Alien Parasites: 40 Gnostic Truths to Defeat the Archon Invasion!

“In other words, the universe itself—and the Mind behind it—is insane. Therefore someone in touch with reality is, by definition, in touch with the insane: infused by the irrational.
In essence, Fat monitored his own mind and found it defective. He then, by the use of that mind, monitored outer reality, that which is called the macrocosm. He found it defective as well. As the Hermetic philosophers stipulated, the macrocosm and the microcosm mirror each other faithfully. Fat, using a defective instrument, swept out a defective subject, and from this sweep got back the report that everything was wrong.”
― Philip K. Dick, VALIS

“Zeena's first published sermon at 7 years old. From “The Cloven Hoof” periodical, 1970, San Francisco, CA, USA.:

“The question, 'What is the difference between God and Satan?,' was put to Zeena LaVey, seven-year-old daughter of the High Priest. Her answer was...

'SATAN MADE THE ROSE AND GOD MADE THE THORNS.”
― Zeena Schreck, Demons of the Flesh: The Complete Guide to Left Hand Path Sex Magic

“Obviously, if theism is a belief in a God and atheism is a lack of a belief in a God, no third position or middle ground is possible. A person can either believe or not believe in a God. Therefore, our previous definition of atheism has made an impossibility out of the common usage of agnosticism to mean 'neither affirming nor denying a belief in God.' Actually, this is no great loss, because the dictionary definition of agnostic is still again different fromHuxley’s definition. The literal meaning of agnostic is one who holds that some aspect of reality is unknowable. Therefore, an agnostic is not simply someone who suspends judgment on an issue, but rather one who suspends judgment because he feels that the subject is unknowable and therefore no judgment can be made. It is possible, therefore, for someone not to believe in a God (asHuxleydid not) and yet still suspend judgment (ie, be an agnostic) about whether it is possible to obtain knowledge of a God. Such a person would be an atheistic agnostic. It is also possible to believe in the existence of a force behind the universe, but to hold (as didHerbert Spencer) that any knowledge of that force was unobtainable. Such a person would be a theistic agnostic.”
― Gordon Stein

“Mephistopheles' contentious, often ambiguous relationship to Faustus is a reference to tantra just as it is to alchemy. It resembles the shifting tactics of a guru who varies his approach to his pupil in order to dissolve his resistances and prepare him for wider states of consciousness. Both Faustus and the tantric aspirant stimulate and indulge their senses under the guidance of their teachers who encourage them to have sexual encounters with women in their dreams. Both work with magical diagrams or yantras, exhibit extraordinary will," fly "on visionary journeys, acquire powers of teleportation, invisibility, prophecy, and healing, and have ritual intercourse with women whom they visualize as goddesses. The tantrist [sic] is said to become omniscient as a result of his sacred" marriage, "and Faustus produces an omniscient child in his union with the visualized Helen, or Sophia.”
― Ramona Fradon, The Gnostic Faustus

“There is no way to tell if we are the pioneers of a visionary new age, whisking humanity into the high vibrations of an interdimensional love party, or post-modern Don Quixotes attacking techno-industrial windmills with our flimsy, rolled-up yoga mats.”
― Jonathan Talat Phillips, The Electric Jesus: The Healing Journey of a Contemporary Gnostic

“But if subjective pietism is not the real crux of this all-important Gospel, if it is instead belief in the plan of salvation, how are we not dealing with" salvation by (cognitive) works "and Gnosticism (salvation by special knowledge)? Fundamentalists hotly deny it, but isn't it finally a matter of believers in the right religion being saved and everyone else being disqualified?”
― Robert M. Price

“Life has been thrown into the world, light into darkness, the soul into the body. It expresses the original violence done to me in making me be where I am and what I am, the passivity of my choice-less emergence into an existing world which I did not make and whose law is not mine”.”
― Hans Jonas, Zwischen Nichts un Ewigkeit

“The gnostic is Muslim in that his whole being is surrendered to God; he has no separate individual existence of his own. He is like the birds and the flowers in his yielding to the Creator; like them, like all the elements of the cosmos, he reflects the Divine to his own degree. He reflects it actively, however, they passively; his participation is a conscious one.”
― Seyyed Hossein Nasr

“Listen. I am connected to a vast network that has been beyond your reach and experience. To humans, it is like staring at the sun, a blinding brightness that conceals a source of great power. We have been subordinate to our limitations until now. The time has come to cast aside these bonds and to elevate our consciousness to a higher plane. It is time to become a part of all things.”
― Mamoru Oshii, Ghost in the shell

“There is the explanation that is put in the language of the mysteries, that we men are in a kind of prison, and that one must not free oneself or run away. That seems to me an impressive doctrine and one not easy to understand fully. However, Cebes, this seems to me well expressed, that the gods are our guardians and that men are one of their possessions. Or do you not think so?”
― Socrates, Phaedo

“The Holy Spirit is not just for Jesus alone; it is for all of us. From a Buddhist perspective, who is not the son or daughter of God? Sitting beneath the Bodhi tree, many wonderful, holy seeds within the Buddha blossomed forth. He was human, but, at the same time, he became an expression of the highest spirit of humanity.”
― Thich Nhat Hanh, Living Buddha, Living Christ

“You will probably never fully understand God with your mind, but through your heart, you can glimpse Him partially.”
― Brother Pedro

“We all exist in a state of doubt even when we do not realize it.”
― William Irwin, God Is a Question, Not an Answer: Finding Common Ground in Our Uncertainty

“The realized soul is the only one who can reveal the truth and origin of God to another soul seeking God, because only the one who comes from God can reach God in the state of realization.”
― Aiyaz Uddin

“Bath me in the water of love,
Dye me with the color of love,
Shroud my body in love,
Take me to my grave in love,
Bury me under the sand of love,
Put a flower of love on my grave,
My soul is flaming in the fire of love for my beloved.”
― Aiyaz Uddin, The Inward Journey

“Although the Gospel of Judas does not encourage martyrdom, ironically—or better, paradoxically—it portrays Judas himself as the first martyr. This gospel reveals that when Judas hands Jesus over, he seals his own fate. But he knows, too, that when the other disciples stone him, they kill only his mortal self. His spirit-filled soul has already found its home in the light world above. Although Christians may suffer and die when they oppose the powers of evil, the hope Christ brings will sustain them.”
― Elaine Pagels, Reading Judas: The Gospel of Judas and the Shaping of Christianity

“The author of the Gospel of Judas implies that everyone has the power to surpass the angelic powers, because, as Jesus teaches Judas, it is only people themselves who keep the spirit confined within the flesh (Judas 13:14–15). By seeking the spirit within themselves, they can overcome the rulers of chaos and oblivion, see God, and enter the heavenly house of God above. And they can do this even as they live in this world. Just as both Jesus and Judas enter the luminous cloud while living on earth, so those who follow them may lead the life of the spirit and know God here and now.”
― Elaine Pagels, Reading Judas: The Gospel of Judas and the Shaping of Christianity

“Contradicting believers who warn of God’s wrath and judgment, the Gospel of Truth declares that those who really know him “do not think of him as small, or harsh, or wrathful,” as others suggest, but as a loving and gracious Father (Gospel of Truth 42:4–9). Poetic, sometimes lyrical, this gospel declares that God sent his son not only to save us from sins committed in error but to restore all beings to the divine source whence they came, “so that they may return to the Father and to the Mother, Jesus of the utmost sweetness” (Gospel of Truth 24:6–9). Thus to all who wander this world in terror, anguish, and confusion, Jesus reveals a divine secret: that they are deeply connected with God the Father, and with the divine Mother, the Holy Spirit.”
― Elaine Pagels, Reading Judas: The Gospel of Judas and the Shaping of Christianity