Neo-Gnosticism reframes Classical Gnostic concepts to align them with modern science and spirituality. The embrace of the physical world as a place of beauty and holiness retains the mystical character of the gnostic experience, but frees us from limitations and restrictions that impede the expression of our authentic selves.
GNOSIS: This is the Greek word for knowledge. It refers to direct personal experience of the divine that is cultivated by sustained spiritual practice. It does not refer to the sort of knowledge that you can learn from reading a book or attending a class, or secret esoteric modes of recognition.
RELIGION: All true religions are codified systems for producing gnostic experiences. Throughout history, mystics have engaged in practices that lead to divine realization. Those mystics or their immediate followers wrote down instructions for these practices and taught those instructions to others. Over time, enough people following the instructions and getting similar results leads to the creation of an entire religious tradition. Religions that are simply a collection of rules with no practical spiritual instructions are remnants of such traditions. A religion that does not give any real instructions for practice is pointless at best and actively opposing our spiritual evolution at worst.
SPIRIT: Neo-Gnosticism defines Spirit as Consciousness. There should be no confusion whatsoever regarding the existence of Spirit. We experience it every day from moment to moment as conscious beings. Spirit is not some supernatural substance separate from our personal sense of awareness, but rather the foundation of our subjective selves.
CONSCIOUSNESS: Neo-Gnosticism is a Holistic Panpsychist system. This means that Consciousness is not limited to personal awareness, but rather pervades everything in the universe and exists at scales far beyond the personal. It is also fundamentally interconnected at the highest scale.
PLEROMA: As in Classical Gnosticism, this term refers to the fullness or completeness of the divine. In consciousness terms, the Pleroma may be envisioned as consciousness at the cosmic scale. It shares some characteristics with traditional notions of God but not all. It is omniscient because it includes all knowledge and omnipotent because it is involved in all phenomena, but includes benevolent and malevolent perspectives because it is essentially a summation of every possible point of view.
SUBSTANCE: This term is borrowed from Stoic philosophy, replacing Matter as a term for that which makes up the physical world. Neo-Gnosticism is substantialist rather than materialist. The difference is that materialism defines matter as fundamentally unconscious, whereas consciousness is a key component of Substance. Substance has three components – matter/energy, quantum information, and consciousness. All three operate at the same time and influence each other in specific ways. The amount of consciousness in a particular object is based on its complexity. For example, a simple experiment involving a ball rolling along an inclined plane will not be influenced in any significant way by the minimal consciousness residing in the ball or the plane. But experiments with living things are entirely different because the complexity of their consciousness is much higher and more capable of influencing their circumstances.
DEMIURGE: In some Classical Gnostic systems, the physical world was believed to be the creation of a false god called the Demiurge. This idea arose from literal reading of the Old and New Testaments. In the Old Testament God was portrayed as jealous and wrathful, whereas Jesus taught forgiveness and compassion. Taking the two account at face value, it seemed logical to separate these disparate portrayals of the divine into separate characters. However, modern Biblical scholarship has shown that literalism has little foundation. It makes more sense to interpret Biblical accounts in a literary fashion with the understanding that they represented different interpretations of deity in the context of different cultures and periods. As such, Neo-Gnosticism rejects the concept of an evil false god that created the material world along with the notion that the material world is fundamentally a place of sin and evil.
ARCHON: This the Greek word for ruler. In the Classical Gnostic systems that accepted Demiurge Theology, the Archons were conceptualized as the minions of this false god tasked with keeping humans enslaved to the material world and unaware of gnostic states of consciousness. Neo-Gnosticism contends that Archons exist, but as people in the world rather than spiritual entities. Church leaders who support intercessory theology immediately come to mind, since convincing people that they do not need to do their own spiritual work is a good way to keep them docile and ignorant. Political leaders who seek to prevent the exercise of basic human rights also qualify, since freedom and particularly religious freedom is vital for the cultivation of personal practice.. Finally, oligarchs who hoard wealth and economic resources force people to struggle in order to make ends meet financially. This makes time for spiritual practice a luxury that many cannot afford. Defeating these three classes of Archons – religious, political, and economic – is necessary if we hope to cultivate a liberated and awakened world.
METANOIA: This Greek word from the New Testament is poorly translated into English as “repentance.” A better translation would be meta-mind or meta-awareness. It refers to the shift in consciousness that corresponds to the gnostic experience. This shift happens in two distinct phases. The first is from personal consciousness to transpersonal consciousness, the realization that our field of awareness does not end at the boundary of our skin. The second is from transpersonal to cosmic consciousness, the realization that our personal consciousness is a subset of the overall cosmic whole and connected with all other manifestations of consciousness. Cosmic realization corresponds to direct experience of the pleroma and alignment with it.
RIGHTS: Neo-Gnostic ethics are based on respecting the fundamental Rights of all individuals as we respect our own. In practice this winds up being similar to the ethical codes of many religions, but with a deeper justification for why they are the way they are. The pleroma itself contains all possible perspectives, so it is not meaningful to think of any action as pleasing or displeasing to the divine. All actions are simultaneously both and neither. At the same time, murder is wrong because it violates another’s right to life, theft is wrong because it violates another’s right to property, and so forth. The differences show up when dealing with actions that affect you and no one else. Sexual activity between consenting adults is the classic example here. Most religions have prohibitions around it, but in terms of Rights it is nobody’s business but that of the individuals engaged in it. Use of mind-altering substances or whatever sort is another similar example – though it should be noted that drug use is considered unethical when it causes violence or property crimes that violate the rights of others.
MAGICK: The Thelemic tradition revived the Elizabethan spelling of “magic” in the early 1900s “to distinguish the Science of the Magi from its counterfeits.” While this may seem a bit pretentious, in the modern age of search engines and keyword-based results it does serve the practical function of helping to filter out articles on stage magic when you are looking for the real thing. The Thelemic definition of Magick is “the science and art of causing change in conformity with will.” As such, it has much in common with the “manifesting” methods of New Age practice. The difference is that while both employ psychic abilities, magick is a formal, highly optimized system for obtaining superior results. The forms and rituals of magick are akin to the katas of Karate, standardized actions that have been found to be effective by many practitioners over a long span of time.
COHERENCE: This term refers to a quality of consciousness that is (A) consistent, (B) self-referent, and (C) resonant with the structure of the Pleroma. The cultivation of coherence is an essential practice to prepare the mind for the apprehension of the gnostic experience. This is accomplished by proficient, diligent meditation combined with active self-reflection. Coherence allows Metanoia to take place, which sets the stage for the direct experience of the divine.