Publisher's Synopsis
How did Gnosticism begin and how can it benefit us today? Michael Jones shows that the roots of Christian Gnostic thought and practice are deeply embedded in Jewish mysticism. He has also made extensive use of the Bible and has tried to demonstrate that the Jewish and Christian Scriptures are crammed full of Gnostic concepts. There are also some references to apocryphal Jewish literature and to the so-called Gnostic gospels and other Gnostic literature. Christian Gnosticism really came into its own in the second century AD, but we can trace its roots back through the apostles and Jesus himself, and even the Hebrew prophets, who longed for a more direct experience of their God. It is principally the biblical period which this book deals with. Michael says: "I have always been fascinated by the Bible and it is truly inspiring to see how the various biblical authors respond to the idea of direct knowledge of God. In short, you could say that they tell us to do all we can to get hold of it, for without it life has no meaning or value." Part One: Discovering Your Higher Self looks mainly at Jewish mystical thought and how it was later developed. The concept of the Logos-Sophia, the male and female aspects of the divine, is introduced. When we understand the Logos-Sophia, the Word and Wisdom of God, as our higher self, then we have started on the Gnostic path. Part Two: Learning From the Teacher of Gnosis introduces us to the teachings of Jesus. Jesus taught a thoroughly Gnostic gospel, which can still radically change our lives by filling us with the Spirit; the missing element which Christ came to impart. Part Three: Entering the Spiritual Temple shows us how the original disciples, who became the Jerusalem apostles, responded to the Gnostic gospel after Jesus had left them. Part Four: The Secret of the Gnostic Gospel looks at the tension in the early church between the apostle Paul's version of the gospel and that of the Jewish-Christian movement, which was led by the Jerusalem apostles James, Peter and John. This tension was resolved by later Gnostic Christians who retained the best aspects of both approaches.