Not-so-new member intro!

[poorwendy]

Hello everyone!  Name's Lena.  Sadly I don't have an awesome magickal name like you cool kids.  I am very, VERY excited about this community, as my ideas about my spiritually have evolved heavily over the past few years, and sometimes I feel like I don't have anyone to talk to about them other than my husband.  I'll try to keep my summary of that

Comments

[poorwendy]

Well, I started out looking at some of the alternate Gnostic scriptures. My sister-in-law is more into it than I am. I have The Gnosis of the Cosmic Christ, which I've been dying to read. I read Gnosis by Phillip Gardner and The Laughing Jesus by... Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy? I think that's right. Ultimately, that book turned me off of Gnosticism because it seemed very elitist and took the route of needing to destroy the three mainstream western religions before touting their own way. None of their work was cited, and so I just didn't like the feel of it anymore.

But, lately I've been thinking that I shouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater and will be reading my Cosmic Christ book soon, and I think more by Tau Malachi afterwards.

I agree that the spark is in everyone. That comment brings me back to the sort of elitist air that self-proclaimed Gnostics seem to have. ("I have special secret knowledge that you don't, haha, your religion is SOO inferior...") But, just like everything else, I need to just take what resonates with me and leave the rest.

[dealeonessa]

I actually haven't read any of those books, but I can see why so many of them turned you off to Gnosticism -- they would have turned me off too! A wonderful researcher of Gnosticism is Elane Paigels. She is very well researched and usually presents both sides of any topic she discusses. She has had several books published, but I have only read a few. I need to find time to read some more!

Let me know what the Cosmic Christ is like! I'm always interested in learning new things about Gnosticism, preferably from a variety of authors.