Gnosticism And Western Esotericism

Christianity is divided into thousands of denominations across the world, each denomination has a specific set of beliefs and norms which contribute to, and sometimes challenge the overarching themes of Christianity and The Bible. Christopher M. Moereman in his book, Beyond the Threshold explains Normative Christianity, and the specific beliefs and practices within. Kyriacos C. Markides in this book, The Magus of Strovolos uses the teachings of Dr. Stylianos Atteshlis, also known as Daskalos, to further illustrate the specific beliefs and practices within Esoteric Christianity. After reading and understanding the writings of both Moreman and Markides, it is clear to see there are ideas which distinguish Esoteric Christianity from Normative Christianity. This essay will explore these ideas which include the idea soul, the idea life after death, and the teachings of Daskalos.

Christians believe that salvation is a gift from God that is offered through the death and resurrection of Jesus. This gift is accessed through faith in Jesus. The Christian understanding of salvation draws heavily from the Jewish tradition of Moses and the Exodus, where the Hebrew

Stephen Prothero’s “God Is Not One” is a survey of world religions, comprising vital information on a vast array of different sets of belief. As someone who has never studied religion before, nor belongs to a particular faith, the variability within these religions is staggering. One might be satisfied to define religion as “how a person goes about believing in God,” but soon finds that even that definition has its holes. Thankfully, “God Is Not One” does an amazing job of cluing its reader into the nuances that are sometimes forgotten about the religions it approaches.

Last year in a Professor Gutierrez religion class we studied esotericism at the beginning of the semester. I found the topic to be very confusing. When doing the readings for this week I still find it confusing. Escotericism seems to be a complex idea, made up of many different parts, that is seen differently by different people. After looking at the readings for this week I went back to my book for Professor Gutierrez’s class, “Western Esotericism: A Brief History of Secret Knowledge” by Kocku von Stuckrad. Due to all the snows days and the school closing I realize that I seemed to have missed some important parts of the book. From what I am understanding from both the readings from this class as well as the readings I did last semester,

The term Gnosticism originates from the word gnosis, which means knowledge. It is a religious movement that became popular during the first and second centuries. The school of thought behind the Gnostic movement has not been able to be traced to its exact origin. However, some of the influences on this movement go as far back as the second and first centuries BCE. Among those influences would be the early treatises of the corpus Hermeticum and the Jewish Apocalyptic writings. The greatest source for the movement came through the Platonic philosophy and the Hebrew Scriptures (Moore). The movement is a controversial one with scholars being unable to put it in a definitive category. In one instance it is called “the label for an ill-defined category” that is “under heavy criticism” (Olsen). A major problem with Gnosticism lies in the fact that there are very few absolutes where questions and answers are concerned. This makes it problematic to have a dialogue that can bring everyone into agreement on the subject.

Transcendentalism became a popular religion amongst hippies that encouraged individuality and self-entitlement. It was also believed that nature was the true teacher and in order to be a transcendentalist, the unity between an individual’s oneness with nature and God must be present (Chryssides, 2011).

All modern (i.e. post-paleolithic) religions contain the "Gnostic trace" of distrust or even outright hostility to the body and the "created" world. Contemporary "primitive" tribes and even peasant-pagans have a concept of immortality and of going-outside-the-body (ec-stasy) without necessarily exhibiting any excessive body-hatred. The Gnostic Trace accumulates very gradually (like mercury poisoning) till eventually it turns pathological. Gnostic dualism exemplifies the extreme position of this disgust by shifting all value from body to "spirit". This idea characterizes what we call "civilization".

Esoteric Buddhism (Shingon in Japanese) “refers to the mantra words and syllables that convey the essence of the Buddha-teaching (Symbols).” Esoteric is about the word of presence, the word of God, a divine word, a

The religion of Christianity is one of the prevalent forms of religion, and it is most widely spread. There are over three billion followers and has many sects around the world. While each sect has different customs, all Christians believe that there is only one God and creator of the universe. Within this God, there is God the father (creator of the universe), God the Son (Jesus or Christ, the Messiah), and God the Holy Spirit (The actual presence of God that is in us or around us but is not visually apparent). The people of this religion believe Jesus, born of a virgin mother, and died on the cross for our sins, and resurrected three days later. Followers of Christ believe that Christ was God’s son and the true Messiah, sent to earth to free us from our sins through salvation. Achievement of Salvation by believing in Christ’s life, death, and resurrection. When a person reaches salvation, they are safe from the grasp Hell and will spend their afterlife in heaven with God. The Holy Bible, a book created by Jesus’s followers, explains Jesus’s life and teachings. All Christians believe the Holy

The first part of this paper will explore the mystery-religions, the reasons behind their popularity, and the Hellenistic world in which they grew that began with Alexander the Great. Next, their characteristics and connections first with Judaism and later with Christianity will be more deeply discussed. In the second part it will be shown that the mystery-religions helped to clear the pathway for the Christianization of the Greco-Roman world by men such as Paul the Apostle. Finally, the Emperor Constantine’s role in this story will be mentioned, during whose reign the mystery-religions declined and Christianity became the major religion of Europe and the near east. The paper will conclude with a brief speculation about the significance of

This lecture has got me shocked. I have never heard of the Gnostic ideas and I don't know how to wrap my head around it. I am someone who wants to know all of the story and the background of it, especially something that I have believed in since day 1. In a way I kind of feel betrayed by my Catholicism classes for not letting us explore the other side of Catholicism, i.e. the core of it all. From day 1 all I knew was Adam and Eve, God being the best of the best and thats it. That the “victorious” form of Christianity today is the one I learned. Yes, I am confident I would have still believed in the “traditional” form that is taught to day, but it would have been nice to learn about Gnostic ideas. Like I feel this has made me to grow stronger

Their idea of salvation is that God sent a “spiritual redeemer” to teach those humans that will listen where their true home is and that they can obtain their salvation through self-knowledge. Gnostics held to the idea that Jesus was the “spiritual redeemer” sent from God to teach humans about their true home. However they did not believe as Christians do that Jesus was the incarnate of God because they believed that all material is evil and that God could not take on the form of a human who died and rose bodily. To justify that Jesus was indeed their spiritual redeemer they claimed that whoever entered Jesus at his baptism left him before his death on the cross. So while Gnostics identify themselves as Christians many of their doctrines are not biblically based.

Gnosticism, which was viewed as a threat to early Christian beliefs can be defined as the “thought and practice especially of various cults of late pre Christian and early Christian centuries distinguished by the conviction that matter is evil and that emancipation comes through gnosis (King, p.5).” Besides the dictionary’s condensed definition summarizing Gnosticism, “Gnosticism” is a much more complex belief composed of numerous myths defining humans and God and viewed as an ancient Christian heresy. Gnosticism is rather a term invented in the early modern period to aid in defining the boundaries of normative Christianity. Yet, it has been mistakenly come to be thought of as a distinctive Christian heresy or seen as a religion in its own

Both Islam and Christianity have practices or duties that are central to the life of there religious community. Catholics are expected to take part in as many of the Seven Sacraments as possible, while Muslims are expected to practice all of the Five Pillars Of Islam. Both Muslims and Christians are monotheists, believing in the same god, referred to as “Allah” by the Muslims and “God” by Catholics. In this sense Islam and Christianity are considerably intertwined, appearing to come from the same beginning. Both Islam and Christianity are based primarily on the lives and teachings of men sent by God. In Christianity, Jesus was the son of God, sent down to earth to spread the word of the Lord to the people, and ultimately die a brutal death so that this people may reach eternal peace in heaven. Christians praise Jesus’ suffering for them as well as for his teachings and for the miracles he performed to assist the needy. Despite the fact that Islam and Christianity share a mutual God, Muslims do not believe that

Although religions today take on many shapes and forms, and may seem so dramatically different from each other, in order to study and understand these religions, their similarities must be identified. This paper will first present a definition of religion that will connect to all religions at the simplest base. Then this paper will examine the common practices and experiences that are present in both the primary religions of the world, as well as the indigenous religions. Finally, this paper will discuss the issues that are critical to the academic study of religions.