The Gnostic Alliance is just that, an Alliance of Gnostics.
Our individual beliefs may vary, somewhat, from member to member, but we are each of us on the path to enlightenment (or a personal relationship with God the Father (or Goddess), our Creator).
Many of us are Christian's who have become dis-enchanted with the political agenda of the traditional christian church and/or who realize that there must be something more than what the traditional christian church teaches.
Some of us are Pagans, others of us are Buddists and we even have a Muslim Gnostic in our group.
Choosing to join the Gnostic Alliance is a personal choice and each individual member has his or her own reasons for becoming a member. Perhaps the one common thread is Our Continued Spiritual Growth outside of the traditional religious organizations.
Gnosis is Knowledge. Suggested Reading:
The Gnostics by Tobias Churton
The Secret sayings of Jesus by Robert Grant and david Freedman.
Kabbalah and Jewish Mysticism by Perle Besserman
Heavenly Powers By Neil Asher Silberman.
The Secret books of the Egyptian Gnostics by Jean Doresse
The Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels
A Dictionary of Angels by Gostav davidson
This is required Reading for the initiate of the first order, Title: Acolyte
Gnostics Defined:
"Gnostics" is the name usually given to a group of religious sects which prospered in western Asia and Egypt between 250 B.C. and A.D. 400.
All of these sects claimed that they possessed gnosis (knowledge) but that knowledge was of a highly transcendental and spiritual nature.
According to some of the adherents this knowledge was obtained by a series of revalations, visions and dreams which were made possible by the One great God. This God was the Creator and Sustainer of the universe, to men who had vowed to receive gnosis by discipline, fasting and prayer.
The oldest history of Gnosticism and the motifs of its followers will be found in the work of Hippolytus in his Refutation of all Heresies. The Coptic works, "Pistis Sophia" provides us with original first hand information.
The tenets of some of the Gnostic sects were derived from India and they traveled westwards through Persia to Syria, Palestine, Egypt and Greece.
Modern research has concluded that the pictographic writings of the Indians and Sumerians were almost identical in character, and it may be that there is Sumerian influence in Gnosticism.
Evidence has also shown that the astrological element in Gnostic amulets, came from Babylonia, which to many scholars is the home of astrology.
The vestiges of the Gnostics now available for contemplation show that viewed as a whole, their knowledge was influenced by the teachings of the Zend-Avesta, The cult of Mithras, Manichaeism, Hebrew books like the Book of Enoch, the Jewish Kabbalah and early Christian Literature.
The Church during the 1st and 2nd centuries damned Gnosticism tenaciously. This is ironic because the honorable part of Gnosticism declared victory over the forces of evil by the forces of good and it was instructed esoterically.
REGARDS
ARATRON
