Ecclesia Gnostica in Nova Albion

Blog Continues Here...

2008-03-10T08:45:00.000-07:00

Human Rights Commissions Debate in the Globe and Mail

For updates to this blog, and for an archive of greatest hits, update your bookmarks to jordanstratford.blogspot.com/

NT Wright Hates St. Ratford, Heaven

2008-02-08T12:49:00.000-08:00

Arch-Anti-Gnostic But Really Smart Bishop NT Wright (who took a public swing at me in US News & World Report last year, as you'll recall) declares a jihad against Catholic schoolchildren, Governatrix Maria Kennedy Shriver Schwarzenegger and HEAVEN ITSELF.

We don't go to heaven, we chill in our graves after death 'til Jesus shows up and makes us all ZOMBIES. So why do we tell Timmy that Fluffy is heaven with Jesus? Because Jesus lied to that guy that time...

Wright: There is Luke 23, where Jesus says to the good thief on the cross, "Today you will be with me in Paradise." But in Luke, we know first of all that Christ himself will not be resurrected for three days, so "paradise" cannot be a resurrection.

So Jesus was JUST KIDDING about the whole Heaven thing. Anyway, the upside to getting rid of Heaven (I wonder what the listing price is and if this has something to do with the subprime mortgage crisis?) is that it proves the Leftbehindists are wrong wrong wrong.

TIME: That's very different from, say, the vision put out in the Left Behind books.

Wright: Yes. If there's going to be an Armageddon, and we'll all be in heaven already or raptured up just in time, it really doesn't matter if you have acid rain or greenhouse gases prior to that. Or, for that matter, whether you bombed civilians in Iraq. All that really matters is saving souls for that disembodied heaven.

I love this article so much I think I may have peed my pants.

Dianne Sylvan Gets It Right

2008-02-01T09:31:00.000-08:00

Dianne over at Dancing Down the Moon has an excellent list:

Here are the things I don't care about:

What do I care about?

Go read the whole thing

Wiccans Need Not Apply To Judge Toronto Beauty Contest

2008-01-29T15:12:00.000-08:00

So a Wiccan who also practices reiki (gasp!) and reads tarot (horrors!) wins beauty contest A and is invited to judge beauty contest B. And then is uninvited...

not acceptable by God, Jews, Muslims or Christians

I wonder how many Jews and Muslims they consulted on this issue.

Source

Blog Moving Soon...

2008-01-28T14:47:00.001-08:00

So this blog shall disappear shortly, to be replaced elsewhere by a more "column" style format and an archive of the "Top 40" highest-ranked and most-commented articles from the last three and a half years. Stay tuned for the new URL.

I think it's fair to say that blogging has been very good to me.

The Magdalene Prayerbook

2008-01-24T09:08:00.001-08:00

... has turned into a total re-write. I am currently looking at a bucket of random paragraphs. Oh, editorial narrative arc, why have you forsaken me?

Care about the environment? Eat less meat

2008-01-23T08:58:00.000-08:00

livestock production creates more greenhouse gases than all forms of transport combined.

The Globe and Mail

How long before the spin on this story is blamed on;

The Gay Agenda
Islamofascists
Zionists
"liberals"
Al Gore
Xenu

Twenty Two Songs for Mary Magdalene

2008-01-21T20:22:00.000-08:00

we are together Achamoth

the word poured out on this barrenness

in the flourishing of infinite love, consecrated

and now wisdom, restored and enthroned

and husband, anointed from alabaster

brought deeper

heiros gamos; Logos, Sophia

for The Merkabah

the weight of silver coins

the hidden riches of secret places

is the roar of their machines

for yearning

for a hanging man

in the place of skulls

we catch the blood in the cup

and beg for the body

stones torn at death's own failure

a star in the heavens, where perhaps stars should stay

but the moon knows no blood

for the invincible sun

for the raising of the veil

to the Pleroma, the Fullness

Harry Potter Teaches Gnosticism, Vatican Continues Whining. Also, The Golden Compass.

2008-01-15T08:18:00.000-08:00

gnosticism

Catholic News Service

They're still going on about this. And yet somehow every time a Vatican half-wit claims that Harry Potter, with its themes of loyalty, self-sacrifice, commitment, friendship, and the triumph of love over death = Gnosticism, I want to kiss these guys on the lips. Plus, they call us a select elite, which is tremendously silly, but I'll take what I can get.

In other childrens-lit-that-annoys-the-brocaded-elderly news, I went to see The Golden Compass on the weekend and thought it was fabulous. Again, the story is about courage, loyalty, commitment, and pluck-in-the-face-of-totalitarianism. The film is VERY careful to not make the Magisterium look like the Church (in fact they're more wizardly, even occult). If Catholicism as a whole (and I don't believe it is, mind you) is pointing at the screen saying "These evil guys are cutting off the souls of children and want to control the universe with ignorance! That's exactly us!!" and getting their vestments in a bunch, then so be it.

So I have to ask, Mr. Dumb Vatican Secretary To Whom They Always Pass The Microphone, do you really think that rank and file Catholics are this totalitarian cliché that you seem to want to present them as? Okay, granted, for most of its history Catholicism has been a totalitarian cliché, but that's only because the Empire collapsed and there was a job opening. If Paganism or Judaism or Gnosticism took over the Absolute Power Corrupting™ job, I doubt we would have done any better. Regardless, during the last century the RCC has proved it can use its powers for good instead of (okay, as well as) eeeevilll, and you, Mr. Dumb Vatican Secretary To Whom They Always Pass The Microphone, are making the people who house the poor and feed the hungry look bad, which I'm pretty sure is not your job.

[Personal note to "JoJo": Call me for another PR pep-talk, my usual rates apply]

Update:

Best His Dark Materials Review yet.

Gnostic Mass: January 20th 3 PM

2008-01-14T12:06:00.000-08:00

The Regina Coeli (Queen of Heaven) Parish of the Apostolic Johannite Church in Victoria, British Columbia will be performing the AJC Sophianic Eucharist at the Church of Truth, 111 Superior Street in James Bay. All are welcome.

Number Six!

2008-01-07T08:35:00.000-08:00

Living Gnosticism is number six on Amazon under "Gnosticism", ahead of Pagels and Williams.

UPDATE: Moved up to number five as of 10:30 this morning.

Priests clash at Church of Nativity

2007-12-27T10:08:00.000-08:00

The Associated Press

Christians, man, what are you gonna do? Haven't these guys discovered pointless flame wars on the Internet like the rest of us?

Archbishop of Wales' Anti-Fundamentalist Christmas Message

2007-12-24T08:36:00.000-08:00

Solstice: Gloria In Profundis

2007-12-21T16:32:00.000-08:00

Little light shining,
Little light will guide them to me.
My face is all lit up,
My face is all lit up.

And Dream of Sheep

Christmas Present Spoiler: You're Getting a Chicken

2007-12-18T13:27:00.000-08:00

Or maybe a goat, if you're good. Or a radio. Or a bucket. Or a water filter.

We're giving our family and friends proxy gifts this year: we're donating to Oxfam, who will in turn buy a vet-checked chicken and a year's feed to a family in a developing nation. It's a great thing for kids, because they can name the chicken and look up the country on a globe and learn about how important their chicken will be to the family who's looking after it for the child. A great opportunity to tell them what Christmas is really for, and how incredibly easy it is to change the world.

And corporate gifts? Who needs yet another whatever? Tell your clients they got a $58 goat named after them in Chad, and the milk will keep 4 children healthy while saving their eyesight. Or a $20 water bucket that keeps mosquitos out, or $22 worth of water filtration to provide potable water for an entire village?

How about $39 worth of tools? Or a $105 bike that will create a small business and connect villages? Or a $15 radio that can act as a virtual school, promote democracy AND coordinate emergency planning?

Oxfam Unwrapped

A View From The Cheap Seats of the Anglican Train Wreck

2007-12-18T09:55:00.000-08:00

As some of you may know, The Episcopal Church in the United States has been weathering tremendous pressure over its openness and acceptance of gays and lesbians to Holy Orders, just as it did decades ago with its decision to accept women to the same roles. A few weeks ago, most of the clergy and laity of a conservative diocese in California – let's call them the Joaquinites – decided to schism away from the Episcopal Church. (A diocese can't leave, as it's a jurisdiction; a chunk of territory. TEC will replace the bishop and clergy and keep going with its fine work in the area, actually taking care of people).

The bishop and folks of the breakaway group have aligned themselves with the ultra-conservative fundamentalist "Southern Cone" region of the Anglican Communion, which is breaking all the rules by operating outside of its territory. In the meantime the openly homophobic and misogynist Archbishop of Nigeria has set up a kind of parallel-universe-Anglican-Church on American soil.

[While I'm aware both of these unkind epithets are overused, the Archbishop in question advocates for imprisonment of those who even openly *support* gay rights, let alone those who seek them for themselves. Same guy who whipped a Christian mob into rioting against Muslim families, killing 70. So yes, the Archbigot wins the overused epithets. He's a freakin' monster. Deal.]

Here's the thing. The Episcopal Church is the only legitimate branch of the Anglican Communion in the United States. The only one. So the new AmeriNigerian bishops, while certainly valid bishops, cannot be understood as Anglicans anymore. Ditto for the breakaway Joaquinites. After all, Anglicanism was founded on the basic principle of praying next to people who disagree with you – and these guys certainly aren't doing that anymore, despite the invitations by the progressive/liberal/inclusives to keep praying together. And unlike several fringe groups (cough, goes the Indie Cath priest) who allow bishops "in general", the Anglicans have always had "landed" or territorial bishops. The breakaways aren't doing that anymore either.

In comes the ref, by which I mean the way-too-late UberArchBishop of Canterbury. He blows the whistle and says, yes, The Episcopal Church is the only legitimate branch of the Anglican Communion in the United States. He's throwing a party later and everybody's invited, but the crankies (and the Nigerians and their friends) aren't going to come if there are any legitimate American Anglicans there. They plan on throwing their OWN party later on, and guess who's not invited? High school much? Oh, and the UberArchBishop also said, and quite rightly, that the crankies weren't legitimate, which really made them 31 flavours of hissy fit. Like, totally, OMG!

I would go even further, and question whether or not these guys, who clutch their KJVs (so what if the translation is pants? It has the best poetry) mightily to their righteous chests, are even Christian anymore. I can do that, because I'm not one. Relax, kiddies, this is an outsider perspective, remember? It does seem to me that the "historic faith" has, as I've blogged before, has three columns; scripture, tradition, and reason. Certainly, they have scripture. They're thumping the bible in ways that would do a baptist proud. I mean, their women aren't keeping silent in church, which makes the baby Jesus cry, but they're sure as hell working on that one (Women's Ordination is next on the chopping block for the Joaquinites). But they reject the tradition of their own communion utterly with this whole non-local bishops thing, and certainly any sense of reason has long flown out the stained glass window with these guys. So all they have left of their Christianity is their soteriology (salvation-mechanism) and a kind of literalist bible thumping that had zero to do with Christianity for its first millennium-and-a-half-and-then-some. Anglicans have always bent over backwards to be "catholic" in the broader sense: these new guys seem, by comparison, roadside snake-handlers.

Their response is of course that the Anglicans in America aren't really Anglicans; Anglicans in Canada are no longer Anglicans, and hey, even the Anglicans in the UK aren't Anglicans anymore (because the UberArchBishop won't let them throw their tantrum unhindered).

Right, well. Setting all that aside, what I really want to say to the new folks who find themselves in self-exile, is, Welcome. You've found what is the ecclesiastical equivalent of the Island of Misfit Toys. Take a seat. Not that one, it's John's. The first thing you're going to need to do is pick up a copy of The Many Paths of the Independent Sacramental Movement, because that's what we call our little island, and you're pretty much marooned here. This is the land of bishops who aren't bishops of anywhere in particular, Catholic bishops who worship ancient Roman gods, Anglican priests who are also druids, GLBT clergy, and even the odd Gnostic priest who is also a Witch who worships Sophia, Goddess of Wisdom. Go figure.

Down the hall is the Star Chamber of the SSPX - they ran away from home because their dad didn't hate Jews enough for their liking, just as you ran away from home because your mum didn't hate gays. Buy them lunch, you should get along like a house on fire.

Authority and Dust

2007-12-14T09:35:00.000-08:00

"If there is a God, and he is as the Christians describe him, then he deserves to be put down and rebelled against."
This is from Philip Pullman, author of the very-very-Gnostic-and-not-even-vaguely-atheistic His Dark Materials trilogy, the first volume of which has been made into a children's film. Haven't seen the film, will, loved the books. Pullman is being called an atheist about every minute and a half by the slack-jawed inbred yokels who insist that their Santa-Claus-cum-demiurge version of the Infinite Divine is a person, and one to be both feared and worshipped. Well, he's not. I also utterly reject this Sunday-School-cartoon-character as having anything to do with God. Does this make me an atheist?

I don't believe in God, I Know.

When Pullman kills off the Authority in his books, he's doing us all a favour. Rather than the mad Archon against whom the characters rebel, Pullman sides with the Dust, a barely detectable essence of permeating Divinity; a concept of God far more subtle, demanding more reflection, than pray-n-obey. I can see why the Zeus-worshippers don't care too much for Dust: They want their God throned, bearded and lightning-bolt chucking.

The Magisterium is a metaphor for absolute power corrupting absolutely; to equate that with the Roman Catholic Church is to assert that Rome is exactly that corrupt power – an assertion I reject. I don't deny that the RCC has been this in the past, but certainly not in my lifetime. Get over it.

HDM eschews the cookie-cutter formula for youth fiction, in which only a virgin can break the curse, only the innocent can see the magic. CS Lewis would rather kill off the innocent in a train wreck to keep them innocent forever, rather than have them become mature, sexual, thinking grown-ups. We are to pity the survivor who has to face the adult world and envy the mangled corpses who remain in blissful ignorance for eternity.

Pullman paints a universe in which the children must grow up to become powerful: they must learn and make difficult choices and noble sacrifices. Their courage comes not from blind trust that Aslan* will save them, but rather from an increasing sense of their own maturing integrity. Pullman prizes individuation over innocence, and I can certain see how a culture obsessed with prolonging childhood into one's thirties would react with squeamishness at such an idea.

>*[Don't get me wrong, I love Aslan as a neo-Mithraic archetype and I think he's handled very well by Lewis. It's just that bravery comes easy to a literary character knowing that when they leap off the building, Superman will save them. It's a cheap courage.]

"The Secret" and "Zeitgeist": Revolting, Irresponsible and Exploitive

2007-12-05T12:06:00.000-08:00

Shame on the producers, promoters and, yes, even the supporters of "The Secret" and "Zeitgeist". These are the Gospels of Powerlessness cloaked in a language of power.

(*This criticism from a guy who owns so many red sports cars he just gave one away for free, true story).

People hunger for a liberating message, and are prepared to cast lauds upon the bearers of that message. So with that message comes a real responsibility which "The Secret" and "Zeitgeist" abdicate: no no, we're just here to be clever. Or specifically in the case of "The Secret", we're just here for the merchandising.

What's the takeaway of the Secret? Callousness. If a 4 year old starves to death in Darfur, if a teenager grows up in America without health care or ever learning to read, it's because they "created their own reality". If you have cancer, you deserve it, because somehow you thought you deserved it and were too stupid to realize you didn't actually deserve it, but now you deserve it because you chose it which proves you're stupid.

So much for foreign aid or third world debt relief or Red Cross donations. All those earthquake and tsunami victims "created their own reality", and The Secret says I can save my VISA dollars to buy a new tiny dog for my handbag. How does this not make you a jerk, exactly?

Now I'm not discounting for a moment the power of visualization, the fact of synchronicity, and the tendency of objects in systems to attract like objects in like systems (mangled as "the law of attraction", which it is not) – I'm among other things a Witch and I wholeheartedly subscribe to magic – but you don't create reality; reality creates reality. What you can create are opportunities within that reality, but even then you still need tools with which to leverage these opportunities. Tools like literacy, education, democracy, health, justice, and access to capital. If you want to see change in your (or anyone else's) experience of reality, you have to invest in these tools. It's that simple. Be the change you wish to see in the world, but don't be a materialistic red-sports-car-coveting creep that "The Secret" turns everybody into.

[By the way, the Whitman quotes are forgeries, the "science" isn't even *close* to science, and did Shakespeare really know The Secret? He died impoverished, alone, and unheralded. Nice Secret.]

What's the takeaway of Zeitgeist? Smugness, knowing that the bad guys, "international bankers" (in a time-tested nod to anti-Semitism) run the world and want to implant you with technology, creating a one-world-government. Anyone who thinks this is anything other than a YouTube version of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion is an idiot.

The number of factual errors in the film is staggering, as is the assault on logic throughout. I don't think there's a date in the first half hour that isn't off by centuries. Were there countless pre-Christian templates for the Jesus myth? Absolutely. Did these expressions continue after the Christian era, such as the portrayal of Christ as Apollo and Orpheus? Indisputably. But there are enough real facts to support this that the producers didn't have to go making things up – which is exactly what they did. I have no doubt that anyone with a passing interest in Classics or Egyptology or early Christian history cringed mightily throughout the sloppy and downright stupid first act of the film. (Remember, this is coming from lil ole heretical me, here.)

The "911" chapter of the movie is likewise brimming with factual errors and wild supposition, callously exploiting the victims of that tragedy for brief internet notoriety. The Federal Reserve chapter is such patent nonsense that anybody with access to Google can see what a steaming pile it is. I'm hardly a fan of George Bush, but did he really quote Hitler? Um. No, no he didn't. Is the Fed a private bank unaccountable to a democratically elected Congress? Do I really have to spell that out? For a film that says "the others" are lying to you all the time, this movie is somehow trying to outdo "them" in its ambitious fabrication. I believe the term is "bullshit". The producers think you're stupid enough to swallow it. Are you? Are you really? This vile, lying, nasty little film – Jackass with a real body count – is supposed to make you afraid, make you angry, and make you blame "the elite".

(This is somehow contrasted by a feel-good globalism that says we should all get along. But I guess that "get along" doesn't mean open borders or trade or treaties or travel, because that's the ONE WORLD GOVERNMENT "they" want you to accept. I guess we'll all get along by sulking in our parents' basements and Googling "black helicopter" stories, but, y'know, globally.)

Here's the news flash: If you're reading this, you ARE the elite. If you can read, have access to clean water and a fridge, have ever been immunized, can legally vote, and have possessions totaling in value of a thousand dollars you are one of the richest, most powerful people on the planet and no kvetching about student loans or credit card debt or minimum wage jobs is going to change that profound and basic fact.

Well, now that you're elite what are you going to do about running the world? What are Americans going to do about the Patriot Act and the Department of Homeland Security and the restoration of constitutional democracy, or their declining literacy rate coupled with a soaring infant mortality rate? What are Canadians doing about the appalling conditions on the Rez, or about a Prime Minister who willfully sabotaged Commonwealth carbon talks? What are you, my dear elite world-ruling reader, going to do about climate change, about access to capital for the developing world, about AIDS and malaria and hepatitis and sweatshops and "suicide seeds" and genital mutilation?

Learn. Organize. Act. Vote. Donate. Educate.

Noblesse oblige. You're in charge, nobody else. So suck it up, put down the pablum of these repulsive and exploitive films, and get to work.

Sincerely,

A university-educated upper-middle-class media-literate white male.

Gospel of Judas controversy

2007-12-02T13:30:00.000-08:00

Over on the Palm Tree Garden we've been chatting with Dr. April DeConick of Rice University about her new book, The Thirteenth Apostle. She's been terribly long-suffering and gracious about our non-academic questions.

She's just put an opinion piece in the New York Times about, among other things, the ghastly mishandling of the Gospel of Judas text by the National Geographic Society and the release of an inaccurate and misleading translation to the public.

Readers might remember I took an intensive on both The Gospel of Mary and The Gospel of Judas with Dr. Bruce Chilton last year as part of my DMin. studies, and we walked carefully through the (now admittedly flawed and corrected) NGS translation in its public-release form. So I'm not altogether unfamiliar with the content.

Now I have been trying to get hold of a copy of Dr. DeConick's book, with little success thus far. But in the meantime I do have her comments from her excellent blog, the PTG thread, and the NYT piece. Please understand I do not question her scholarship, but I do question the fact that some of the things I'm hearing don't make any sense. For instance:

Now my good friend and Coptic scholar Jesse has confirmed that, during the period of authorship of this text, daimon did in fact equal demon. The problem that remains is this: that in both previous and later eras, the word "daimon" does mean "spirit"; or perhaps a closer translation would be "intelligence" or "spiritual entity" with neither explicitly positive or negative association. This is how everybody from Socrates to Jung has used the word; everyone except, apparently, the authors of second century Christian and related documents. Like I said, I haven't read the book, but this just doesn't "feel" right, although I acknowledge it as "accepted".

Next problem:

So what does the Gospel of Judas really say? It says that Judas is a specific demon called the “Thirteenth.” In certain Gnostic traditions, this is the given name of the king of demons — an entity known as Ialdabaoth who lives in the 13th realm above the earth. Judas is his human alter ego, his undercover agent in the world. These Gnostics equated Ialdabaoth with the Hebrew Yahweh, whom they saw as a jealous and wrathful deity and an opponent of the supreme God whom Jesus came to earth to reveal.
There are a LOT of contradictory (and clearly personal to the authors) cosmologies in Gnostic literature. Where is the evidence to support that the authors of Judas were familiar with one in which Ialdabaoth was "the thirteenth"?

Because Judas is a demon working for Ialdabaoth, the author believed, when Judas sacrifices Jesus he does so to the demons, not to the supreme God. This mocks mainstream Christians’ belief in the atoning value of Jesus’ death and in the effectiveness of the Eucharist.

While it would, in this assumed scenario, compromise "the atoning value of Jesus' death", how could this in any way diminish the effectiveness of the Eucharist? This simply doesn't follow.

And finally,

Judas is a frightening character. For Christians, he is the one who had it all and yet betrayed God to his death for a few coins. For Jews, he is the man whose story was used by Christians to persecute them for centuries. Although we should continue to work toward a reconciliation of this ancient schism, manufacturing a hero Judas is not the answer.
We have to touch on the fact that there's at least one other document from that era called "The Gospel of Judas" which seems to be unrelated to the one we have, aside from the title. Setting that aside, when I first heard of the "appointed Judas" version, it rang true with me. In fact it always has.

Either Judas was part of the plan all along and integral to Jesus' salvific death and resurrection (which proves that Jesus knew what he was doing) OR Judas was the bad guy, Jesus never saw it coming and the salvific death of Jesus was pretty much an accident. Christianity is going to have to make up its mind.

Why did Christianity vilify Judas, and yet make Pilate a folk hero cum lay-saint for centuries? Without Pilate, so the reasoning goes, there would be no Crucifixion. Well, likewise for Judas.

I look forward to finally getting my mitts on a copy of Dr. DeConick's book and perhaps having some of my questions addressed.

Living Gnosticism Now Available on Amazon.com

2007-11-25T15:55:00.000-08:00

Just click on the cover!

ONE Campaign Succeeds in Liberia Debt Relief

2007-11-19T11:36:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, Masood Ahmed, Director of the IMF's External Relations, posted an open letter on the IMF's website announcing that they finally took the step necessary to move forward. Some key excerpts:

ONE used it's two-and-a-half-million-strong membership to pressure the International Monetary Fund to provide debt relief to Libera, enabling that country's government to actually spend money on its citizens for the first time in 14 years. That means roads, schools, hospitals, sanitation, agriculture and policing. That means hope. That means life.

Extraordinary.

Revised, Expanded, Retitled

2007-11-16T08:51:00.000-08:00

About a year ago I handed a copy of my first book to Dr. Bruce Chilton (author of Mary Magdalene: A Biography), who graciously scribbled all over it and handed it back to me with a look that can only be described as cheerful sympathy. Now, it was a "trade" book, and something of a rant, truth be told, and never meant to be scholarly. That being said, his insight was of course extremely valuable.

One of the most common comments I received about the book (aside from the sensationalist title) was "I loved it, I didn't understand it." Also for a great number of people, the book was difficult to buy. But I was and am encouraged that many connected with it and use it in the manner I'd hoped; as a compass to navigate the shifting waters of a deep and sparkling myth.

So, it's really the same book, better organized, about 2 words a page of edits, with a few new bits and a new title. A tune-up in a new edition rather than a rewrite. And it will be available in bookstores and amazon early in the new year.

In all things I am scattered

2007-11-07T19:15:00.000-08:00

In all things I am scattered, and from wherever you wish you collect me.

– Gospel of Eve

Religious sect fears extinction in Iraq

2007-11-04T08:33:00.000-08:00

Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

Wrap Cover Final

2007-10-25T11:45:00.000-07:00

And that's that, off to John at Apocryphile Press in Berkeley. All going well, it should be available at your local bookstore shortly and on Amazon by Christmas. I'm starting to line up dates in January/February for Vancouver, Seattle, Portland, and the San Francisco area. I'll keep you posted.

Back of the Book Blurb

2007-10-24T21:06:00.000-07:00

The Matrix

The guts of the thing are off to the press, I just need 2 hours of childcare to finish the cover. Flintstones Chewable Valium™ anyone?

At Midnight...

2007-10-13T15:34:00.000-07:00

... I was drinking absinthe in a Bollywood-themed oyster bar surrounded by drop-dead gorgeous women, talking theology and poetry and playing "Barrel of Monkeys".

I love my life, I really do.

Spring 2006: A Phone Call From An Old Associate

2007-10-12T10:21:00.000-07:00

INT. NIGHT: Spring 2006. THE MONSIGNOR's bedroom. Camera pans across a sleeping MONSIGNOR, in the room's dim light we see a mobile PHONE on the nightstand. The PHONE rings, lighting up.

THE MONSIGNOR (answering phone, rubbing eyes): Mmm? Hello?

On the other end is THE SECRETARY, male, mid 30s, Italian accent.

SECRETARY: Bon giorno, Signore. Please wait while I connect you...

THE MONSIGNOR: Um, yeah, okay.

A new VOICE, this one an older male with a German accent

VOICE: Good morning.

THE MONSIGNOR: Well, well, well. Look who's come crawling back.

VOICE: Don't kid around, I'm serious. We have a problem.

THE MONSIGNOR: What is it this time? Another Jesus mummy? DNA samples cropping up in dead French monarchs?

VOICE: Worse. Well, not worse. Annoying.

THE MONSIGNOR: Lay it on me.

VOICE: Dan Brown.

THE MONSIGNOR: You're kidding me. You haven't dispatched the albinos?

VOICE: Our budget is not what it once was. You of all people should know that. I need some advice.

THE MONSIGNOR: What, him, personally?

VOICE: No no, it's the Templar thing. So much attention, so much interest. We have to stop it.

THE MONSIGNOR: But there's nothing there to stop. Everybody loves an underdog. There'll be a movie or two, then the whole thing will blow over once the merchandising revenues tap out. You know that.

VOICE: Yes, yes. It's just a mosquito in the hotel suite with these guys. Reporters calling asking for a tour of the basement, that sort of thing.

THE MONSIGNOR: Say no.

VOICE: I tried that. I need something else, something definitive.

THE MONSIGNOR: I see. But I'm not exactly on your team, Jojo. What's in it for me?

VOICE: Your usual payment, I suspect.

THE MONSIGNOR: (pausing, savoring). Yes. Yes I think we have a deal.

VOICE: What to do? How to make the Templars go avay?

THE MONSIGNOR: It's going to get worse, you know. Next year is the 700th anniversary of the arrest.

VOICE: You think I don't know that? This is why I call you now. There could be marches, people all over the vorld dressing up in armour with red crosses demanding revenge. It's a nightmare. These Templars are poster-boys for sympathetic heretics!

THE MONSIGNOR: Okay, well.... embrace and smother. Why don't you pardon them? Tell everybody they were never heretics to begin with, they were good loyal Catholics and the whole thing was a huge misunderstanding. Blame the French.

VOICE: Bah! Clement the fifth did that already, right after the executions!

THE MONSIGNOR: Jojo. Baby. You think I didn't know that? But what are the odds that Vatican-beat reporters are gonna look that up?

VOICE: (pause) I see.

THE MONSIGNOR: I hope so.

VOICE: The Joan of Arc play?

THE MONSIGNOR: The Joan of Arc play.

VOICE: So you're saying we do a public apology for persecuting innocent, faithful Catholics, maybe a requiem Mass somewhere...

THE MONSIGNOR: Now you're thinking, Joey baby. If you can't thrust, parry. Deflect the whole thing.

VOICE: Yesss.... yessss... perhaps a beatification or two... for the holy martys of the faith. "No heretics here!"

THE MONSIGNOR: That's what I love about you, man. One shove in the right direction and you fly with it. Just make it a pre-emptive strike. I'll arrange a leak that you're doing some digging, and a month before the anniversary you announce you'll pardon them all is if it was news, as if you'd never HEARD of ole Clem five.

VOICE: This is perfect. Danke. Thank you so much.

THE MONSIGNOR: And now there's just the matter of my payment...

VOICE: (clears throat, pauses) Your kung-fu is the greatest.

THE MONSIGNOR: I'm sorry? What was that? I didn't catch that.

VOICE: Okay! Your kung-fu is the greatest! I said it.

THE MONSIGNOR: Aw, sweet, sweet music. Anything else?

VOICE: Ve are done here.

click

THE MONSIGNOR: (chuckling) Anytime, Jojo. Anytime.

FIN

Getting the book out the door

2007-10-10T08:55:00.000-07:00

... always takes longer than you expect. I try to fool this by expecting a very short period of time, thus even if that time is doubled it's still reasonable. But of course the universe is on to me.

So, light posting.

Now, if anybody has something for the Ask a Gnostic Priest I can probably do that pretty quickly.

Anyone?

Buehler?

Save The Gnostics - New York Times

2007-10-06T13:31:00.000-07:00

Nathaniel Deutsch, New York Times

The Gospel According to St. George

2007-10-03T08:40:00.000-07:00

You're not spiritual. You're just high.

– George Carlin

A few things about the book.

2007-09-23T13:32:00.000-07:00

So now the book is "out in the wild" for blurbs, and after that it goes off for line-edits and final proofreading, spellchecking all the typos I made in the last round of edits. I can often do a first draft typo-free, but I always bugger it up with the edits. Ironic.

A few things about the book.

It's quite a short book, about 100 pages. There's not a lot of detail, and there's quite a bit of repetition. Why? Because I didn't write this book for Gnostics so much as I wrote it for Gnostics' moms. It's a very general introduction that takes a quick tour around the borders of "what's going on here" and attempts to answer a few basic questions. What is Gnosticism? What is gnosis? Where does this come from? Do you believe in God? Are you Christian? Don't you guys hate the world? Why is Gnosticism in the newspaper all the time? Stuff like that.

It has no footnotes, and no index. I don't go into a lot of expository detail, so you're not going to learn much about all the dead people. There are lots and lots of really good books about dead Gnostics, and almost nothing about live Gnostics. This is a book about live Gnostics. Footnotes could easily make the book twice as long, and all the footnotes would be citations of who said what to what reporter in what publication in what year, or worse: which academic said what about which dead Gnostic in what book. Now, I happen to care about that sort of thing, but I bet the person you're handing this book to won't.

The book used to have a pretty large glossary and a chronology. But really, does your mom care about the difference between Bardesanes and Basilides? I took out about 40 pages of extra stuff like that. The book still introduces you to ideas such as the Pleroma and Aeons and Emanations, and uses a lot of simple metaphors. There's quite a bit about the what of things and not too much about the why. I wrote this to be "the first book" for those interested, but certainly not "the last book". It's not comprehensive by any means, but it's designed to whet your curiosity.

So the book is chatty and light, stressing poetry and praxis over rationale and dates and theology. Perhaps the next book will be about deeper and tougher questions about the Gnostic take on the nature of reality and good and evil and fate and free will and reincarnation and , but this initial book is a starting point. I wanted to make something extremely accessible.

News: Caitlín Matthews wrote a blurb!

Sophia:Goddess of Wisdom, Bride of God.

Well, yes, she's awfully clever and that's exactly what I wrote the book to do.

Stay tuned.

Living Gnosticism - Cover Art Preview

2007-09-22T12:41:00.000-07:00

Autumn Conclave Photos

2007-09-10T09:08:00.000-07:00

Vesting before Mass

Rev. Stu and Rev. Lance prostrate during Dioconal Ordination

Rev. Mr. Shawn Johnston takes vows of the Order of Ste. Esclarmonde

The new Deacons offer Communion

Msgr. Jordan, Bishop Shaun, Father Scott, Deacon Lance, Deacon Stu, Brother Shawn

Many thanks to all who attended and made this gathering such a joyous success, and congratulations to our new deacons and brother!

A new force in popular culture

2007-09-03T08:15:00.000-07:00

Douglas Todd, Vancouver Sun

Read the whole thing

Gnostic Facebook Thingy

2007-08-31T19:44:00.000-07:00

Did you know that if you go to someone's facebook profile, mine for instance, and click on the word "Gnostic' in the religion field of the profile, you get a listing of all the people in your area network who have listed Gnostic as their religion?

Also facebook has a healthy and growing "Gnosticism" group. Just saying.

Conclave of the Apostolic Johannite Church for the Feast of Sophia: Thursday, September 6, 2007 to Sunday, September 9, 2007

2007-08-23T12:04:00.000-07:00

Queen of Heaven Gnostic Church (Regina Coeli Parish AJC) is delighted to host this autumn's Conclave of the Apostolic Johannite Church in Victoria, British Columbia. Events are to be held at the Church of Truth, 111 Superior Street in James Bay.

All events open to the public unless otherwise noted

Schedule:

Thursday evening:
Clergy dinner, limited space available, please let me know if you'd like to attend.

Friday:

9:00 Blessing and Contemplative Prayer

10: 00 Opening Mass

12:00 Lunch

13:00 Workshop - The Kabala of the Letters with Avielah Barclay

15:00 Mass Workshop (closed)

Friday evening: Dinner out (Location TBA)

Saturday:

10:00 Diaconal Ordination Mass

12:00 Lunch

13:00 Apostolic Council Meeting (closed)

15:00 Presentation and Discussion, St. Raphael the Archangel Theological Seminary

16:00 Presentation: Introduction to Gnosticism by Jordan Stratford

17:00 Evening Mass: Descent of the Holy Sophia

19:00 Dinner out

Sunday

10:00 Brunch out (Chinatown)

Publish or Perish vs. Publish and Perish

2007-08-22T11:37:00.000-07:00

If the CEO of Doubleday or Random House writes a book, is she self-published?

I was on a panel a few years ago debating this issue - I was hired to work with a small publisher whose titles were excluded by the local publishing industry awards because they weren't considered a "publisher" but rather "an organization that helps authors self-publish" – a distinction that doesn't seem to make sense to anybody. Anyway, the industry association decided that, in the above scenario, an author who happens to own or run a publishing company is not, in fact, self-published. The whole discussion struck me as a tad fallacious, if not goofy.

Now, I personally own a small publishing company and have published about a dozen works for other authors over the years. It's been a side-of-the-desk revenue stream, which tends to take a back-seat to other projects, but it brings in enough that it's worthwhile continuing. I've missed some great opportunities because other projects have demanded priority, but I've made some interesting things happen regardless. I have the same resources that much larger publishers have: in-house book design, an ISBN database, a network of printers and shippers (I've used Lulu as a US online-processor and drop-shipper along with different players in the UK and Canada), access to Amazon and Books In Print, barcoding, professional PR strategies, etc.

I decided to publish my first book myself because it had a very limited audience, I doubted I'd crack a thousand copies and most 3rd party publishers will royalty an author less than a dollar a copy. If I'm wearing both hats (author and publisher) I keep both royalties and am not at the mercy of another publisher's slate.

Now, enter the new book.

I've talked with three established publisher's you've no doubt heard of and have their titles on your shelf somewhere. They've all been very supportive and want to see the thing. Of course, none of them will give me an advance or anything, but neither will I if I publish the thing myself.

I have this idea that a different publisher gives the book some credibility – but how much of this is illusory? I mean, most people will buy the book on Amazon and a smaller number will buy it in certain stores. I don't think they're going to say "Oh, this was published by House X, that must mean it's been vetted by professionals and that really matters when I decide to read a book or not." So I'm likely being a little goofy myself here.

Odds are I'll just publish the thing myself, use a local printer for bookstore orders that come in via BIP, and use a third-party fulfillment/drop-ship house for online orders that come in via the website and Amazon.

Or does the third-party cred in fact matter? Thoughts?

Preface to My New Book, Living Gnosticism

2007-08-21T15:21:00.000-07:00

Most modern bookstores will offer a dozen or so works on the Gnostics and their Gospels. Each of these texts will leave you with the understanding that Gnosticism is something odd that happened 1800 years ago or so, and that the Gnostics now belong to the realm of historical curiosity rather than religious experience. You are unlikely to encounter the living, challenging tradition that is playing out in the lives of thousands who will meet this weekend for prayer, celebration, debate and community action.

You'll read elsewhere that Gnosticism is elitist, misogynist, secretive, and world-hating. But the Gnostic scriptures themselves speak of a philosophy that is universal; reveres Eve as the first Saint and Wisdom as a Goddess; is intimate rather than occult; and finds Holy Wisdom under ever stone and within every tree. You'll hear that Gnosticism is dualist, claiming two equal and opposing gods; but Gnosticism has always taught that we are all aspects of an infinite one-ness.

Most baffling of all, contemporary readers will be told that the word "Gnosticism" is so vague and contradictory that it never really existed – despite a rich continuum of seekers, history, and scripture. Part of the challenge in studying Gnosticism is that it has never been a monolith, never had a canon of orthodoxy. It has always been less of a "set" and more of an intersection of overlapping themes. The themes themselves have an elusive, dreamlike quality that presents many challenges for scholars used to tidy classifications.

Most of the confusion arises from identifying Gnosticism with much later, distinct movements: Marcionism and Manichaeanism. While each of these borrowed from earlier Gnostic ideas, they veered vastly from Gnosticism's original course – denying gnosis, the intimate understanding of Divinity that is the core of Gnostic experience – and therefore cannot be credibly regarded as part of Gnosticism at all. The distinctions are as sharp as Buddhism from Hinduism; as Christianity from Judaism. Worldly denial, radical dualism, and disregard for the Old Testament can be found in later movements, but nowhere in Gnosticism per se.

Compare all these contradictions with the abiding reality of Gnosticism; an inclusive, participatory religious context that invites, inspires and nourishes. At the very center of Gnosticism is the enlightened moment of gnosis; an immediate, intimate and unique encounter with the Mystery and our place in it. Many schools of religious teaching in the West have rejected this transformative experience, due in part to the fact that it demolishes both Original SIn and the authority of scripture, setting in thier place the Sacred Flame of our kinship with the eternal. Yet Gnosticism has never been extinguished, surviving in the shadows of orthodoxy, flowering throughout the centuries as myth and mysticism. Gnosticism prizes art over polemic, intuition over theology, curiosity over obedience.

Seeing this contemporary phenomenon, it's easy to categorize Gnosticism as "just another religion", with a core of religious texts, churches, clergy, rites for certain days of the year – and in a very real sense that's true. But Gnosticism is also a way of seeing; a technique for working with a set of tools that begin with a specific myth, but does not end there. Gnosticism is ultimately pragmatic, adapting to the spiritual experience and imaginative daring of each explorer. While this book illustrates a picture of contemporary "organized" Gnosticism, most Gnostics are solitary confreres, contemplating and creating in coffee shops and living rooms. While Gnosticism can express itself via a tradition of incense and candles and sacraments, it is equally expressed in art galleries, in charity, in social action – and in discrete moments of liberating clarity.

What I Did On My Summer Holiday Away From The Blog

2007-08-21T14:57:00.000-07:00

Sorry 'bout the dust. We'll be back in shape shortly.

I finished the new book. I brushed up on my Latin. I caught up on my reading. I revised the liturgy. I renovated the office. I planned for conclave next month. I prepared for my doctoral dissertation declaration next month. Plus work and family stuff.

So, as my Google ranking slips lower due to the neglect, I hereby banish the downward trend by invoking the magic words gnosis, Gnosticism, Sophia, Sophianic, Abraxas, Valentinians, Sethians, and hot nude naked college girls gone somewhat inappropriate.

There, that should do it.

Bruce Chilton Reviews Pagel's, King's Reading Judas

2007-06-27T09:00:00.000-07:00

Dr. Bruce Chilton

Statement of the Apostolic Johannite Church in response to the Anglican Church of Canada’s General Synod Resolution on Same-Sex Blessings.

2007-06-24T17:56:00.000-07:00

Given in Calgary, on the Solemnity of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist, at the Oratory of St. John the Beloved

– His Eminence Bishop Shaun McCann

Midsummer, and Hiatus

2007-06-21T17:54:00.000-07:00

A blessed Midsummer, all.

Last Friday, I was in a minor car accident with my wife and small children. While the car has been repaired, we're still all a bit unsettled by things and Z is suffering some injury (whiplash). As I've had quite the run of health concerns of my own, I find myself stretched thin and as a result I'll not be able to commit to regular services over the Summer months. I'll be taking the time that I do have to finish my book, begin mapping out my doctoral dissertation, catch up on parish paperwork (such as our provincial incorporation that has been ready to go for a full year) and planning for Conclave.

I am always available for private communion, confession, hospital visits, and other pastoral care functions. Just no Mass for July and August. September brings Conclave, and all are welcome to join us in Victoria over the 7th, 8th and 9th for liturgy, acceptance of monastic vows and a few ordinations (!!!) : this promises to be the largest international gathering of Gnostics in quite some time, and I hope you can join us.

Many blessings on this day of the pinnacle of the sun.

Praxis: End Genocide. Right. Now.

2007-06-14T20:08:00.000-07:00

Learn

I've been reading about Africa, an hour or so a day, for the last few weeks. It's a lot like being dropped into the middle of the Lord of the Rings: Gondor? Rohan? Mordor? What the hell are you talking about?

Trodding on, I've discovered a few things, and have committed to action regarding the genocide in Darfur.

The media images of Africa are invariably ghastly: Black Hawk Down, Ethiopian famine, harbours of terrorism, environmental devastation: but the situation is not hopeless. Africa is experiencing a renaissance of democracy and is tackling core issues of health, accountability, education, and human and civil rights. Many of the civil wars that have plagued the continent since the end of colonialism and during the Cold War have ended, and recently.

Despite it's many problems such as desertification and the AIDS pandemic, Africa is healthier, better educated, more democratic and more peaceful than it was ten years ago. There's more farmland, too. Like I said, not hopeless.

Let's learn about Sudan:

Sudan is the largest country in Africa, with a population of around 39 million
The country is dominated by an northern-based Arab-supremacist minority which has waged genocidal war on the black African population. A north-south civil war ended due solely to international pressures, but an east-west civil war in the western region, Darfur, rages on. This is not a war between Muslims and non-Muslims, but a one-way slaughter of Arabs against non-Arabs.
The government pays and arms Arab militias (the Janjaweed) to massacre civilians, burn villages, poison wells, attack unarmed refugee camps, and rape women systematically.
The Darfur genocide has killed 400,000, with 3.5 million refugees fleeing the conflict.
African Union troops patrol the refugee camps but can only observe and do not fire on marauding forces.
International pressure has worked on the Sudanese government before, it will work again.

ENOUGH Project Against Genocide

Save Darfur

Give

There are six thousand of you. Six thousand people read this blog every month. Think about that. Now look around you, at your wallet or your coat or the back of your couch. Think you can find a dollar? If each of you donates that one, single dollar to this the world's greatest current humanitarian crisis, we can keep 100 families alive for one full year. That's clean water, rice cereal, tarp shelters, and vitamins.
We recently hosted a small wine and cheese party and raised $500 for Amnesty International. Just educate yourself, communicate what you're doing to your invitees, and put out a bowl for cheques. It's that easy.

Act

Even accomplishing the miraculous (and relatively effortless) task of sustaining 400 people for a year, at the end of that year those refugees will be unprotected and unable to return to their villages until the root cause of the massacre is addressed. The war criminals must be held responsible and punished under international law; the Sudanese government's corrupt control of southern oil fields (the source of their wealth and munitions) must end; corporations and nations (particularly China) must divest to dismantle the infrastructure of genocide.

A Canadian oil company, Talisman Energy, not only invested in Sudan but is accused of aiding the government in the massacres committed during the north-south civil war. When citizen groups demanded Talisman divest from their Sudan holdings, they folded faster than Superman on laundry day. Pressure works.
The numbers on the next Canadian election are identical to the last Canadian election; too close to call, meaning a riding-by-riding, seat-by-seat battle for a minority government. That means every piece on the board matters and everybody is hungry for your vote. There has never been a better time to get a commitment out of a sitting MP on this issue...
...such as this gentleman, The Right Honourable Peter MacKay, Minister of Foreign Affairs. He can be contacted by this form here.

What he needs to hear is this: Given that Canada has generously supported both humanitarian aid and the AU mission in Darfur, our commitment is certainly honourable. However, food and medical aid to refugees does nothing to end the cause of the suffering: the Sudanese government's use of genocidal tactics against a civilian population on purely racist grounds. What is Canada willing to do to protect the population militarily, punish the war criminals and support a lasting peace? And thank him nicely for his support of the International Criminal Court (the US does not) which is identifying the war criminals and gathering evidence. But, okay, aside from food aid and ICC support, what else you got?

We're listening. We're taking notes. We're calling your riding association with the results. Oh, and local media wants to hear about your response, too.
Americans have really lead the way on this issue, reaching across party divides to form coalitions of action and intent. But only US citizens can demand that the pressure for the Sudanese government be maintained, and to turn up the heat. Before 9/11, Sudan was a critical part of Al Qaeda and harboured Osama bin Laden, his network, and his money. One dirty look from the United States later, the Sudanese booted out the terrorists and handed the money over to the FBI. Pressure works.

The Darfur crisis has been described as "Rwanda in slow motion" - a decade ago 800,000 people were butchered in just 100 days. Many politicians since have stated that they would have acted and supported intervention if they had been educated and if their constituents cared enough to write letters. 100 letters per representative could have saved tens if not hundreds of thousands of lives. But they didn't, because nobody wrote them. And a genocide was allowed to just... happen.

Never again.

Sophianic Religion: Starting from Zero

2007-06-13T11:12:00.000-07:00

Setting aside that I'm a Gnostic: would I believe what I believe if I didn't already believe it?

There were, for me, always dragons at the bottom of the garden. I acknowledged, intuitively, that there were kinds of non-ordinary experiences accessible via imagination and play, and that the line between "real" and "imaginary" events was not always a precise distinction. Just as "real" things could have "imaginary" (mythic/psychological) consequences, so too could imaginary experiences impact and manifest in the "real". This is generally frowned upon as "magical thinking"; a derogatory term which collapses two ways:

"The Secret"-style "wishing makes it so" vapid (and invariably greedy) projection-ism, or
discounted altogether resulting in reductionist nihilism

So the balancing act is to reject both kinds of materialism: magic as a means to an end, and magic as a random chemical event in the brain with no meaning or value. I was always drawn to and liberated by myth. But this path of magical thinking means walking in the verdant strip between two deserts, between flake-ism and radical materialism. It's holding the Mystery. This is not an easy thing to do.

Even just accepting that there IS a Mystery, an "event cloud of non-local phenomena", or x-factor or God, is rather terribly unpopular at the moment. This is more of an issue for those who believe there is a Mystery than those who have experienced that Mystery, but still, it puts one on the spot.

Now if you're born into that Mystery, it's suspect - just as being born into any set of beliefs or perception is suspect. If you convert to Mormonism, it probably means you've asked some deep questions and have found something that resonates with you. If you're born Mormon and still are one, it's unlikely you've done any real thinking for yourself. The exception is walking away from say the Catholic Church, embracing atheism or Satanism or Scientology for a while, and returning to the local Parish upon realizing you may have chucked out the baby with the bathwater.

So what made me "convert" to Gnosticism, and what would I be if there was no "Gnosticism" for me to convert to?

This isn't an easy question, as Gnosticism can't be considered the same as any storefront church. Nobody (well, almost nobody) gets to walk past the local Gnostic bookstore or Gnostic Chapel and say "gee, I wonder what goes on in there?" and get handed a pamphlet. The Gnostic Road is profoundly dissimilar from that of a person who attends an Eastern Orthodox service out of curiosity and really likes all the singing. You have to be hungry to go poking about for Sophia.

And that's just it, isn't it? Her, rather. Even without ever hearing the word Gnosticism, I knew in my bones that the Mystery could be understood as both feminine, and as Wisdom. We live in a world defined by data, and is taking baby steps toward information, but the great flower of all this is and must ultimately be Wisdom. That's what I want.

Her.

So far, no churches, no websites, no mailing lists. Just me, the Mystery, and the icon of Sophia. But where to find Her? Glimpses of Her everywhere, but She is the most apparent in Quiet. In forest. All the tent-revivals and Hallefuckingluiahs in the world just make Her step out until you've calmed down a bit. The observant will note She has a Romantic streak: Pre-Raphaelites and Grail romances and groves and small stone chapels. Shhh. Yes, She can be seen among the jeans and tee shirts, but our Girl does tend to go for the velvets. She's the Otherness, and likes to take a step sideways from the mundane. You have to court Her, follow where She goes. That's part of the paradox (and She's rather fond of those as well); She's everywhere, but She tends to bestow Her gifts in some places and not others.

And if my studies and understanding and gnosis stopped there, that would be enough. To see that shimmer out of the corner of your eye, that glimpse into Faerie that is Her throne – to be a Knight of the Lost Queen. That's enough for me.

And yet there's a further blessing, to not be alone in this. To cross the deep water, you step into a boat – and that's what the church is. That's the "nod", the knowing camaraderie, the in-joke of circus freaks chanting "one of us!". And when I see these siblings-in-arms, I want to celebrate them. Champion them. Take care of them, if I can. This Gnostic stuff is difficult – there's not a "faith" option, a "pray 'n obey" option. It's challenging and trying and alienating and bloody miserable some of the time, truth be told. And my vocation, my calling, is to see if I can't make it a little bit easier for these people. And I fail at this all the time, but I keep going.

There is another thread to this: Not just a community of now but of then; a lineage and succession (you then you then you then you then you...) of others who've known, and serving and honouring that is also fodder for ridicule, for charges of elitism and exclusivity and power-over. Just for recognizing and loving something. Even though my Apostolic Succession does not flow from the "apostles" but from John the Baptist, an archetypal figure who is also Oannes and Dagon and "the mind in the waters". All these old stories, half-remembered poems, kept and broken promises. If I hadn't known this, if I didn't wear a collar and have crosses oiled in palms as per the ancient tradition, I would still be a part of this.

If it all falls away – and it may still – into a sci-fi-con of space reptiles and magic mushrooms and New Agers and Merovingian bloodline-ism, I will still be here. Knowing what know. Loving what I love.

Her. And the Mystery.

Jeremy Knocks One Out Of The Park

2007-06-11T13:39:00.000-07:00

Thanksohsomuch. From here.

Question Everything

2007-06-11T08:44:00.002-07:00

ερώτηση τα πάντα
Spurning Allt
вопрос все
問題万端
Afhøre Al

Lanterns Among the Dark Trees

2007-06-09T13:41:00.000-07:00

-Carole Borges

No Services For June 10th

2007-06-08T11:33:00.000-07:00

... as I have family and childcare issues. Sorry 'bout that.

Contraception, Population, Abortion, Labour Shortage, Immigration, Urban Planning, Sustainability and Multiculturalism

2007-06-04T15:49:00.000-07:00

Which seems like a lot to cover in one post. Perhaps I'm over-reaching just a titch. ;-)

Here goes:

- I live in a country with a high education rate, free and universal health care, easy access to contraception and a generally pro-feminist social environment. Reproduction is accepted as "between a woman and her doctor" by practically everybody, and those who say otherwise have a tough time getting elected.

- Because of the almost universal and hassle-free access to contraception, most women can and do choose to "wait until the right time" to have a baby. I suspect some of the issue is a society which perversely looks down on women who raise children when they're biologically optimized to do so, while pressuring women to finish school and establish careers first and put off childbearing until an age with some increased concerns, if not indefinitely.

- This has lead to a record low pregnancy rate in Canada; and despite our relatively small number of abortions (compared to the US), about one out of every five pregnancies in the country last year was terminated.

- I was speaking with a friend from high school, and we came up with a list of about 20 women we'd graduated with. Of those, only 6 had children, and only one had more than one child (2). These women are all in their 40s now, and unlikely to start popping sprogs. Statistically, my generation has contracepted itself out of the gene pool altogether. Poof. Gone.

- In my town of 400,000 people, we currently have 4000 job postings and 1100 unemployed people. While the minimum wage is posted at $8 an hour, average starting wage for service industry (paper hat) jobs tend to offer around $11 an hour. With new malls and big box stores away from the downtown core offering $16 an hour, they're still not getting applicants.

- An aging population, combined with a trend of early retirement (55) leads to both increased pressures on the public medical system as well as the diminishing tax base to support such a system. Clearly, we need more taxpayers. Let's go find some.

- Ask any Vancouverite where the new Canadians are coming from and they'll tell you India and China. They'd be wrong. Number one is the US, then Mexico, France, the UK, Australia, Philippines, Jamaica, Japan and Germany. Problem is, these people are not coming in sufficient numbers to replace our dead Canadians and non-existent babies. We need more immigrants. Millions more.

- If the Republicans keep the White House next year, we'll continue to get a steady stream of Americans. But if the Democrats win the election, the tide will slow and we might even see large numbers of Americans return to the US. [Canada's Globe and Mail yesterday projected that the Canadian dollar will achieve parity with the US dollar by the end of the year. So if our money is worth the same as your money, and we have one tenth the population and buying power... let's just say our dollar is not worth the same because we're doing anything particularly clever – we're just not borrowing 3 billion dollars a day from the Chinese to keep our economy afloat to pay for tax breaks to the richest 5% of the citizenry]. Regardless, we're going to need more people.

- People? Isn't the world overpopulated? Of course not. There is enough food, land, and fresh water for at least double the world's current population... if we put people in cities, which are more efficient and sustainable than rural regions. Let's put it this way: over the next decade the population of Seattle will increase by a million people, and aside from taller buildings and a few hundred more Starbuckses, you really won't notice anything. Compare that to putting a million people in eastern Washington - Hanford, or Spokane. It would be devastating and permanently change the character of the region. This isn't just a "first world" thing; apply the same thinking to rural India vs. Mumbai. Cities are good, countryside should be left the hell alone. People in cities live longer, healthier, smarter, and with a smaller carbon footprint than their country cousins.

- Okay, let's say we convince places that have too many people to send them to us. Ideally, we want educated, English and French speakers with skills in critical shortage areas: nursing, law, financial admin, and people with lots of investment capital. Really, these are the people everybody wants to keep, but I'm pretty sure we can make them a better offer.

- When these people arrive, they won't know anybody, so they'll tend to cluster into neighbourhoods defined increasingly by the origins of their residents: Chinatown, Little India, and no doubt eventually Somaliaville. As France has seen, the ghetto-ization and lack of integration of immigrant populations is a recipe for disaster.

- In my country, these cultural and linguistic silos are blamed on "multiculturalism" by profoundly misinformed critics unaware of the meaning of the term. The silos are a result of "monoculturalism"; real multiculturalism is an artefact of the Trudeau era – where schoolchildren were exposed to Chinese New Year and Ukrainian Christmas and Sikh dances and Thai food and comparative religion. If we successfully exposed new immigrants to true multiculturalism, there'd be less ghetto-ization and truer integration. Right now there's just "man, these Western guys are weird and immoral", whereas what we need is "huh, here my Persian roots are respected but I can't practice Sharia law in my home because there's this Charter of Rights and Freedoms thing I had to take a test on in order to immigrate. Looks like I'll need to give the same respect to my Mexican/Chinese/French/Jewish neighbours as I expect to receive from them."

So while bearing in mind the warning of simple answers to complex questions;

Make babies. Babies are good. If we could hook up the old flux capacitor to the Delorean, go back to about 1985 and make a LOT of babies, problem solved.
Live in (greener) cities.
Bring on the Mexicans!
Save Canada, vote Republican (and we'll get all the smart people)!
Multiculturalism is the sane alternative to people becoming entrenched in their monoculture.

Final bit of strangeness on the "childless by choice" issue: Now, I respect this choice, but I do keep hearing one deeply weird phrase over and over again; "I'm too selfish to have children".

Okay, glad you acknowledge your human frailty, but that's a starting point, not an end point. If I said "I'm too greedy to give to charity" or "I'm too racist to hire Jamaicans" you'd hear that as a very different admission from "My apartment is too small to keep a dog", the way the "selfish" phrase keeps getting trotted out. Is it just me, or is that weird? (Although not as utterly deranged as "my cats are my children"; that's medication time for sure).

A Prayer For Bees

2007-05-31T09:05:00.000-07:00

Pagan Blogger Hecate is doing a Blue Moon Prayer For The Bees tonight. And so will I.

Learn about Colony Collapse, and ask yourself why this is not happening to organic beekeepers.

We need bees.

Jill Tracy: The Fine Art of Poisoning

2007-05-31T08:59:00.000-07:00

Saw goth cabaret siren Jill Tracy last night; seductive, sinister, sensual, lyrical, malevolent, curious, macabre, clever; a chanteuse who would cheerfully murder you in your sleep, then tuck you in after and kiss your forehead.

Pentecost News: Our Church is Growing! St. Francis of Assisi Gnostic Community, San Francisco

2007-05-27T09:22:00.000-07:00

The Reverend Ms. Juliana Carnes has kickstarted a new Narthex for the AJC in San Francisco. Father Scott from Wisconsin is coming out to do an inaugural Mass at the Presidio Interfaith Chapel on June 9th, click here for details.

[A narthex, architecturally, is the porch or antechamber in a church. In the Apostolic Johannite Church we use the term to describe a study group led (usually) by a seminarian, and not by a priest (which makes it a parish).]

The God Fuse

2007-05-26T10:04:00.000-07:00

honestly

has

The God Fuse

Very worthwhile article... but the best part:

Is This Sort Of Thing Helpful?

2007-05-26T08:44:00.000-07:00

[DISCLAIMER: Very difficult to do this sort of thing without resorting to clichés, so bear in mind that most "orthodox" perspectives are extremely well reasoned by some of the greatest thinkers of Western Civilization over millennia and are not to be dismissed out of hand. This is merely a shorthand for pointing out some of the key differences between Gn interpretation and "traditional" interpretation.]

Sister Pamela, OSE

2007-05-25T11:05:00.001-07:00

Congratulations to Sister Pamela upon taking her vows as a nun in the Order of Ste. Esclarmonde.

In the Name of the Fullness, of the Fallen Word, and of of the Lost Queen who is Holy Wisdom + . Amen.

AJC Gnostic Mass Sunday May 27th 3PM

2007-05-25T09:59:00.000-07:00

St. Nicholas The Wonderworker Ukrainian Catholic Church 1112 Caledonia Avenue, Victoria (Cook Street and Caledonia, enter off the Cook St. parking lot in the back of the building) on Sunday May 27th at 3 PM.

Yes, I Did In Fact Go Shopping

2007-05-25T09:15:00.001-07:00

The Gnostic Aesthetic

2007-05-23T14:31:00.000-07:00

Auguste Rodin, Fallen Angel: Illusion Being Received by the Earth, 1895

I'm standing before a small bronze by Rodin, made in the same era and same neighbourhood as the salons of the Gnostic Restoration (with which both Rodin and his circle were familiar).

At once brutal and elegant, the piece speaks non-judgmentally of the tragedy of the human condition; here is Sophia Achamoth, errant Wisdom, being received by an alien world. There is an erotic surrender to the fait accompli, both divine and flawed, presenting an almost welcoming tension.

This is the true aesthetic of the living Gnostic religion. Unapologetic, engaged, erotic, tragic, brave, numinous; hinting at the other with both resignation and hunger, grief and hope, humility and bravado.

Atopia

2007-05-23T13:54:00.000-07:00

The stench of stale cigarette smoke is ubiquitous and staggering. The food is unfathomably awful. Las Vegas is a simple machine; insert a dollar, get back 97 cents. Insert a dollar, get back 97 cents. Insert a dollar, get back 97 cents. Want to go again?

As for its reputation as Sin City, Vegas' renown is undeserved. Even in my sleepy little retirement-government-university town, the strippers get naked, the casinos never close and you can drink at 19. 18 if you're female and buxom.

Fake Ancient Egypt, Fake Olde Englande, Fake New York, Fake Hollywood, Fake Paris, Fake Venice, Fake Rome, Fake Caribbean. No real Las Vegas. No real "there" there. But fascinatingly, this placelessness creates an opportunity to explore and celebrate the inner landscapes and dreamscapes so beautifully exemplified by successes like Cirque du Soleil, and likely why it is the epicentre of stage magic and illusion. The lack of the real opens wide the gates to the parallel.

Beer and Gnosis in Las Vegas

2007-05-16T11:59:00.000-07:00

I'm leaving for Vegas tomorrow; any LV Gnostics want to meet me for a drink Friday or Saturday?

"Faith is for sissies"

2007-05-14T17:46:00.000-07:00

Alan Moore

Congratulations to Alan Moore on his nuptials this weekend!

Anniversary

2007-05-13T10:42:00.000-07:00

– Pablo Neruda

No Services For Mother's Day

2007-05-11T16:09:00.000-07:00

Love your Mommy. Or somebody else's Mommy. It's all good.

Volume 3? Or something else?

2007-05-09T09:23:00.000-07:00

Do'a Khalil Aswad

2007-05-08T09:17:00.000-07:00

Her name was Do'a Khalil Aswad. I want to start with that. To say her name. To make her real in this space.

I forced myself to watch the jumpy, pixelated footage. The girl, so like my niece (both seventeen), her dark hair. The crowd in "sports jackets" and brown shoes. I was sick as I kept my face to the screen, to give witness when I could give nothing else. I will not look away from this.

I was surprised to find that what so sickened me was not so much what was happening, but what was not happening. No one stepped forward to face the crowd, to insert themselves between girl and stone. None to kneel and shelter and draw strands of hair from her bloody face. I would have done that. I know a hundred people who would have done that. It's not such an extraordinary thing, to risk one's own life for another. Somewhere in the world this will happen in the next second, and the second after that.

I can fathom anger. I can understand rage. Heartbreak, betrayal, and their grotesque insanities. I know my own anger: and I know I could raise a stone to build a wall or to tear one down; I could raise a stone – futile though it may be – against a tank or an icon or a building.

I cannot understand raising a stone against this girl.

I cannot understand a bystander, choosing not to intervene but rather choosing to reduce the final moments of a young woman's life to captured cellphone pixels. A screenful of others, scrolling past voicemail and ringtones and games and screensavers and MP3s to select "video record".

And pulling back there is a screen, the wrench in my gut, and my witness. All I could give her. My witness and my horror at it.

I do not pray for the dead. I have the certainty of her peace and dissolution into the eternity of love, the Pleroma. I pray for the living; those who will wake to see this woman, this girl, who was a husband's bride, a parent's child, a mob's sacrifice. I pray that they will know what they have done, what they have not done. I pray that they will cry for forgiveness from a bloodstained street, and that they will lead the call to renounce violence, renounce retaliation, renounce bronze-age legalism that renders life and promise into stripped and bruising corpse.

Make no mistake: this is what scripture looks like. This is sola scriptura, without dialogue, without engagement, without challenge or education or humanity. Without spirit. This is scripture rendered as lifeless as a cooling pool of blood from a teenage girl.

I am reminded of a holocaust story: the Germans hanging a young boy, maybe ten, eleven, while the men, assembled, look on as life is wrested from the boys glossing eyes.

"Where is God to prevent this?" cries a man from the crowd. "Where is God?"

"He is there on the gallows. He hangs there dying with us." one man replied.

Amnesty International

The Feast of St. Ratford

2007-05-04T10:19:00.000-07:00

As we all know, this Sunday marks the unholiest day of the Gnostic liturgical calendar, requiring each of us to go shoe-shopping and drink mojitos. I'll be celebrating the day by going to see George Carlin, Discordian Prophet that he is. Also there's something about growing older, which is this annual fight I have with my driver's license.

Beltane

2007-05-01T09:59:00.000-07:00

I am She
that is the natural
mother of all things,
mistress and governess
of all the elements,
the initial progeny of worlds,
chief of the powers divine,
Queen of all that are in the otherworld,
the principal of them
that dwell above,
manifested alone
and under one form
of all the Gods and Goddesses.

Lucius Apuleius

I Know You're Out There

2007-04-28T08:03:00.000-07:00

I know you're out there. I can feel you now. I know that you're afraid. You're afraid of us. You're afraid of change. I don't know the future. I didn't come here to tell you how this is going to end. I came here to tell you how it's going to begin.

Vesica Piscis, Sunday Mass

2007-04-25T12:28:00.000-07:00

A new vesica piscis for the parish.

A special Mass for Beltane will be held at St. Nicholas The Wonderworker Ukrainian Catholic Church 1112 Caledonia Avenue, Victoria (Cook Street and Caledonia, enter off the Cook St. parking lot in the back of the building) on Sunday April 29th at 3 PM.

He thought I was a ghost, Mother, for I was all in white,
And I ran by him without speaking, like a flash of light.
They call me cruel-hearted, but I care not what they say,
For I’m to be Queen o’ the May, mother, I’m to be Queen o’ the May.

On the Silver Anniversary of My Death and Resurrection

2007-04-19T19:56:00.000-07:00

On April 19th, 1982, I was dead for a little bit. "Flatlined" is the term since coined. The culprit was eco meningo viral encephalitis, a virus in my spinal fluid that crept up the brain-stem and ballooned, crushing the brain against the skull and turning most of my temporal lobe into pudding. This was of course after two days of unconsciousness and continual convulsions from a 105°+ fever. I was, in the words of the immortal sage Tarantino, a fish flopping on the carpet, and then a fish not flopping on the carpet. About four minutes later I resumed flopping. A cup of coffee's worth of death.

Earlier that evening my mother received a call, suggesting she return to the hospital as I was not expected to make it through the night. Prophetic, if incomplete. I deeply and sincerely apologize to my poor mother for ever getting that phone call.

Every breath, every heartbeat, every kiss and moment of my life since that night has been on borrowed time. I am so, so terribly grateful. I got Paris and San Francisco and Florianopolis. I got my children. There have been irises and snow, sisters and sailing. There has been drunkenness and idiocy, bravado and sweetness, the Southern Cross over my lover's bare shoulder. Bounced cheques and eviction notices and parking tickets and dying pets and friends fallen and mourned. Gallery shows and beaches and hot tubs and wine and starlight and her raven-black hair on white sheets. The belly-laughs of babies, sand dunes, ancient forests, old books, antique weapons. Oil on my palms in crosses.

I just read my daughter The Cat in the Hat and put her to bed. Maybe you know what that's worth.

Thank you, life. And thank you, death, for stopping by. I suppose I'll see you later.

The Dark Legacy of Carlos Castaneda

2007-04-16T10:05:00.000-07:00

The dark legacy of Carlos Castaneda

Carlos Castaneda was evil in a way that Anton LaVey or Aleister Crowley only pretended to be because they thought it was funny. Castaneda misrepresented and exploited the spiritual cultures of First Nations, resulting in the shockwave of exploitourism that broke open the fragile and intimate traditions of ancient peoples with a tenuous grasp to their past. All spilt open like rotten fruit at the literary machete of a self-aggrandizing, predatory egomaniacal millionaire cultist.

Taken as fiction, Castaneda's work can be seen as an inner Hero's Journey with much to offer. Instead, he presented a fraud and insisted on the authenticity of his books. He could have had the legacy of Blake or Tolkien, champions of imagination and inner landscape. Instead he chose the path of Samael Aeon Weor, L. Ron Hubbard and Sylvia Browne; exploitation, megalomania, and cultism. Rather than insight and liberation, Castaneda himself encouraged dependency, pyschosis, suicide, and murder.

This is reminiscent of the debate in our own community, of "literalism" vs. "inspirational poetry". It is Castaneda's demand that his work be regarded as the former which renders it the spiritual toxin it is.

Bishop Hoeller has produced a lecture series devoted to Castaneda, in which he seems to be quite complimentary. Lovely. It reminds me of people who wear Che Guevara tee shirts; while Guevara's early writings showed compassion and even glimmers of gnosis, in his later life he argued for the necessity of starting a nuclear war against American cities. Nice guy, very tee shirt worthy. Practically Gandhi.

The Face of the Sky and Earth

2007-04-13T08:47:00.000-07:00

"A deeply personal, unique journey through the Gospel of Thomas... Puma approaches the text with reverence, wit, and humility to illuminate the contemporary spiritual message for those seeking an intimate connection with God. At once gentle, quirky, and sincerely curious, it is a heartfelt exploration of the relevance of timeless themes. A must-read for anyone with a connection to early Christianity and Gnostic inquiry."

217 pages, paperback
$16.95

Pictures From AJC Conclave

2007-04-09T08:59:00.000-07:00

Photos courtesy Rev. Mr. Anthony Silvia. Thank you!
Above: Bishops +McCann and +Behun ordain Father Scott+ in St. Gabriel's Parish, Madison WI
Below: Father Scott performs Mass aided by Anthony of St. Sarah the Egyptian Narthex, Lowell MA.

Congratulations to Father Scott Rassbach+

2007-04-08T09:02:00.000-07:00

...who was ordained at St. Gabriel Parish in Madison Wisconsin yesterday, at the hands of both Bishop +Shaun McCann and Bishop Dr. +William Behun of the Apostolic Johannite Church.

Most Holy Logos, whose strength is in silence, grant that these your servants whom now you join unto yourself in the holy bond of the Priesthood, may hence forward minister faithfully of the priestly power to those who ask in your Name.

Amen.

Corinthians 2:6-8

2007-04-07T15:13:00.000-07:00

"Yet among the mature we do speak of Sophia, though it is not the Sophia of this Aeon or of the Archons, who are doomed to perish. But we speak of the Holy Sophia, secret and hidden, which God decreed before the Aeons for our glory. None of the Archons understood this."

Eastertide: Greatest Hits

2007-04-05T15:00:00.000-07:00

Sorry nothing new for this year, but with new job and recent health challenges, not much time for new stuff, and not quite up to Easter Mass. Anyway, if you're new to all this and looking for a Gnostic take on Easter, here are a few past musings;

Palm Sunday

Good Friday

Easter Monday

שָׁלוֹם

Galloping Decrepitude Update

2007-03-29T10:00:00.000-07:00

Racing Heart, get it?

For the last month or so, I've been experiencing cardiac arhythmia (boom chicka boom squish boom boom chicka) to an increasing degree. Over the last ten days this has become daily attacks of chest pain, shortness of breath, pressure, nausea, dizziness, and blurred vision. Like a panic attack, only without the panic. It's been bloody awful.

Now "anxiety" – even though I'm not anxious at all – is one of the possible sides of my anti-seizure meds (which ironically has an off-label use as an anti-anxiety med as well. Note to self, meds are weird.) so I thought it might be that, but I've been on them for 4 months now so any sides would've presented by now. Other than that, btw, this is a great drug with very mild mild sides and is keeping my seizures down about 95%. Which means I'm still having some fairly nasty breakthrough seizures. But as I remind myself, it beats being dead, which I was briefly during the Reagan administration. And my back-from-the-grave-ness bestowed me with the Gift That Is Epilepsy, just like Caesar and Alexander the Great and Byron. Anyway, back to the ticker.

I went to the doctor and yesterday had an ECG (EKG) and a chest x-ray. This morning I had a fasting blood test which was mercifully located next to Starbucks so I didn't have to drive my starving blood-drained (sugar free!) self to the nearest pastry. So we shall see if the problem is hardware (muscular mechanics, structural) or software (chemical/signal/meds-induced). And yes, I'm a pretty low stress person, healthy eater (by North American standards anyway), and my coffee intake is at a quarter century low. Anyway, upshot is I'm not firing on all cylinders at the moment, prayers are always appreciated, and I'm just laying low for a while.

Services for Sunday will be cancelled, as I'm doing a funeral and regrettably won't have the oomph to do Mass after. I'm sorry! Holy Wisdom, send our parish more clergy!

Not Doing So Well

2007-03-27T15:42:00.001-07:00

Bear with me. I'll be back.

St. Sarah the Egyptian Narthex

2007-03-18T12:58:00.000-07:00

An overdue announcement regarding the St. Sarah the Egyptian Narthex of the Apostolic Johannite Church, under the care of St. Raphael seminarian Rev. Mr. Anthony Silvia in Massachusetts.

Saint Sarah is a patron saint venerated by the Roma (Gypsy) people. She is also known as Sara-la-Kali (Sara the black) . The center of her cult is Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, a place of pilgrimage for Roma in the Camargue, in southern France, where legend identifies her as the servant of the two saints Mary commemorated in the town. An alternative legend has her as a pagan of noble birth and being converted to the faith of Abraham.

The Order of Saint Esclarmonde

2007-03-16T17:09:00.000-07:00

On this day of the Martyrdom of the Holy Cathars of Montsegur, March 16th

The Order of Saint Esclarmonde is a Gnostic, monastic lay Order open to women and men, sponsored by both the Gnostic Church of Mary Magdalene and the Apostolic Johannite Church. Novices are not required to be members of either church.

The purpose of the Order is to provide structure to committed, solitary, traditional spiritual practice. Nuns and Monks of the Order commit to mindfulness, daily contemplation, and community action through charitable works. During daily prayer, nuns and monks wear the traditional white alb and white cincture as both a reminder of their connection to others undertaking this work, and as a symbol of purification.

Saint Esclarmonde was an early 13th century Cathar mystic. She is traditionally identified as the woman who successfully debated the virtues of Catharism against the founder of the Inquisition, St. Dominic. Legend has it that when the Inquisition finally came to take her to her execution, she turned into a dove and flew away. Her legend was romanticized during the Napoleonic era to the point where she became a kind of Cathar Joan of Arc and patroness of the revival of art and mysticism of the 19th century.

The Proctor for female novices is Reverend Mother Marsha Emrick+ of the GCMM, while male novices are Proctored by Monsignor Jordan Stratford+ of the AJC. Aspirants are required to provide the following:

A photocopy of government-issued picture identification
A criminal background check
A 1000 word essay on their spritual journey
A curriculum vitae
A letter of reference
A commitment to a donation to charity of either $99 or 10 hours volunteer service to a charitable organization within 12 weeks of vows.

I. Rule

0. In the Name of the Fullness, of the Fallen Word, and of of the Lost Queen who is Holy Wisdom. Amen.

1. Listen. Attend with the ear of your heart, enlightened by the Wisdom of the Mother, the Holy Spirit

2. Every time you begin a work, intentionally pray most earnestly to bring it to perfection

3. Let us wake. "It is high time for us to arise from sleep. Run while you have the light of life."

4. Be mindful. The Fullness who is at once Mother and Father of us all resides in the cell of our own hearts.

5. "Be still and know that I am God"

6. Therefore we intend to establish a school in Wisdom's service. In abiding by this code, we hope to set down nothing harsh, nothing burdensome. We know the universe is the image of our own selves — we create as we recreate life. Do not be daunted and run from compassionate Presence. It is bound to be narrow at the outset. As we progress in this way of life, we shall run on the path of the Commandment of Love. As we surrender to the Infinite, our neighbor, and ourselves, our hearts will overflow with the inexpressible delight of love, and through patience share in the Presence of the Divine. Amen.

II. Vows

All the Monks and Nuns shall annually renew their either on Montsegur Day (March 16th) or the Sunday closest to said date.

In the Name of the Fullness, of the Fallen Word, and of of the Lost Queen who is Holy Wisdom. Amen

Be it known that on this day before God and my fellow companions that I avow:

To abide by the common Rule of the Order of Saint Esclarmonde; in listening, intention, waking, mindfulness, stillness and compassion

To contemplate scripture that I may deepen my understanding.

To practice hospitality to all I meet.

To treat each member of the Community of Esclarmonde with love and respect as a brother or sister in Gnosis.

To be accountable for my actions and to make amends to those who I cause harm.

All these things do I vow In the Name of the Fullness, of the Fallen Word, and of of the Lost Queen who is Holy Wisdom. Amen+

III. Prayer

Holy Father,
Rightful King of faithful souls,
Who never erred,
Who never lied,
Follower of the rightful course,
Who never doubted
lest we should accept death
in the realm of the wrong god;
as we do not belong to this realm
and this realm is not ours –
teach us Your gnosis
and to love what You love.

*traditional Cathar prayer, 13th century

Innocent Until Proven Guilty

2007-03-15T09:54:00.000-07:00

Here's an interesting thing about scriptural scholarship: we know that the authors' words are a fairly accurate account of the authors' take on the subject, because the authors are contemporary to themselves. Here is me, writing down what I think. Do I really mean that, I ask? Oh yes, I answer, because I'm still around to ask for clarification. What we don't know is if the author has an accurate take on something that happened before they were around - unless they have primary sources on which to draw.

When the authors of "The Gospel of Judas" sat down and wrote the thing, they were under no illusions that any such events had taken place. It was an obvious parable. So the characters are speaking words that the authors themselves were speaking. This makes GoJu a "primary source", and written at the same time, albeit a different setting, as the material it deals with. It's like Shakespeare asking himself if Puck just mentioned a particular something to Oberon. Midsummer is a primary source into Will's mind. Both Puck and Oberon are creatures of Shakespeare's imagination, as is his Caesar, even though there was a real Caesar who likely never said the things that his Shakespearean counterpart did. So too we have a Jesus and a Thomas and a Judas etc. who are not their historic inspirations. What we're left with though is a safe assumption that when we read Judas or Thomas, that the Gnostics are speaking for themselves.

The canonical Gospels, on the other hand, are secondary sources. Written generations after the events they describe after all the participants were dead, there was nobody around to ask for clarification. But these accounts are taken to be historically factual, which is problematic given the long period between the stories' origins and their textual codification, so we can't safely assume that the early Christians are speaking for themselves: It's their great-grandchildren (metaphorically) speaking on their behalf. The canonical Gospels are innocent until proven guilty, that is to say, hearsay with no contemporary supporting evidence to indict Jesus as saying, well, anything specific.

So we have the curious circumstance where the fiction is more reliable than the history, because the fiction was written by the fiction's creators, but the history was not written by history-makers. There's too much time and too much trauma – the war and the destruction of the temple – between the Gospel events and their textual depiction. So we can know what the Gnostics of the second century were thinking, and we can infer what the Christians of the second century were thinking, but we can't be sure of what the Christians of the first century were thinking, because the Gospel authors didn't have any primary sources.

Ask A Gnostic Priest: Anthology

2007-03-13T15:04:00.000-07:00

I collect and read scripture, kind of as a hobby, and have been trying to slowly build a small library of scriptural classics from around the world for the past few years. I'd like to include a volume or two of Gnostic scriptures in my collection, as well as a reference book or two so that I can actually understand them in context when I try to read them. What (3 or 4) books would you suggest for someone who is primarily interested in knowing about your religion for curiousity's sake, as opposed to exploring it in a more personal/spiritual way?

At $18 for the paperback, the above (click on pic for amazon and/or publisher info) is the best and most readable anthology by far of Gn and related scripture.

Now I've just finished reading Jeremy Puma's excellent soon-to-be-published manuscript The Face of the Sky and Earth, which is his own personal journey through the Gospel of Thomas. I'll be posting a link to it here once it's available.

Pope Chelsea XII: Are Jesuits Catholic?

2007-03-12T11:22:00.000-07:00

that of Pope Chelsea XII, perhaps

I read this quote months ago and regretted not keeping it, just found it again. Conservatives are funny!

Priest Tees

2007-03-12T11:12:00.000-07:00

Inspired by the infamous tuxedo tee

I like to wear this one to Jesuit bars. And tent revivals.

Why did you decide to become a priest?

International AJC News

2007-03-12T10:17:00.000-07:00

His Excellency, The Most Rev. Mar Calixto Andreas, Jesus Arco Garcia, Archbishop and Primate of Spain

Congratulations to Father Rene Miramontes+ of Mexico on his Ordination to the priesthood of the Apostolic Johannite Church. Fr. Renee+ was ordained this weekend by +Jesus Arco Garcia at the Parish of San Juan y San Andrés, Madrid.

We hope to hear news of an AJC parish in Mexico soon. Road trip!

A Leading Conservative Catholic Theologian and the Tarot

2007-03-06T08:50:00.000-08:00

mysticism, gnosis and magic

Hans Urs von Balthasar

Rilkean Heart

2007-03-05T17:00:00.000-08:00

Rainer Rilke

Proclamation from the Gnostic Papacy Concerning Jesus' Tomb

2007-02-27T16:11:00.000-08:00

Ahem.

Thank you, Jesse, for letting me borrow the Gnostic Papal Tiara, which you fairly won in a haiku contest on my blog.

The Pronouncement is as follows:

Hey, stupid journalists! This tomb phenomenon has ZERO to do with Gnosticism, ancient or modern. Stop using the "g" word in your idiotic reporting!

Also, we took a poll, and all the cool Gnostics think the tomb thing is bullshit anyway.

Thank you, and I now return you to your regular Gnostic Pope, at least until this year's haiku contest.

[My favourite quote from all of this fiasco is from the Israeli archaeologist who made the discovery in 1980: When asked, on a scale of one to ten, ten being "this is Jesus' tomb" and one being absolutely impossible, he replied "One, one and half maybe."]

The Gnostic World View

2007-02-25T08:52:00.000-08:00

1. Who we really are is eternal and immortal; we're not defined by our bodies or our gender or our horoscopes or our nationalities. Our responsibility is to be integral to this infinite core of being, in ourselves and others. The material universe is temporary and limited, but our real selves are ultimately unconstrained by it.

2. The system is not the world; the daily waking reality of economics and politics and bureaucracy, of cruelty and injustice, was not created by the Divine, but by the forces of ignorance and greed. We don't reject rocks and trees and flowers and sex, we reject an unjust system imposed upon these things. This system forces us to feel separated from God, when the reality is that this separation is just an illusion. The system doesn't like to be understood in this way; it thinks it should be in charge, and our divinity and our humanity should take a back seat to "the way of the world". In this way the system is adversarial to the Gnostic. We see others "worshipping" this system, as though it were the true God.

3. Faith will not save us from the system; we have to first have gnosis – enlightenment – and then understand how our own Divine Spark relates to the world around us. Gnosticism is an experiential, not creedal, religion - you can't simply announce that you agree with a list of ideas and be saved from the illusion of our separation from God. Real salvation requires a critical, inquisitive mind and a compassionate and accommodating heart. We need wit and sorrow and joy and silence and deep questions.

4. Wisdom is in the world and wants to be known; the gifts of our intuition and imagination are not secondary in our efforts to remember our connection to the Infinite Divine. So the practices and approaches of what has generally been referred to as "mysticism" are at the heart of the Gnostic's journey. Dreams and fairy tales, myth and metaphor, secret and cypher, symbol and poetry comprise the language with which the Gnostic interprets the constant signal from the inbreaking Divine.

- Carl Gustav Jung

The Problem of Paul

2007-02-22T16:29:00.000-08:00

excerpt from: The Mythmaker: Paul and the Invention of Christianity  by Hyam Maccoby

Paul was advocating a doctrine that seemed to have far more in common with pagan myths than with Judaism

Gnostic myths of heaven-descended redeemers

Paul was never a Pharisee rabbi

Jesus and his immediate followers were Pharisees.

in all their beliefs they were indistinguishable from the Pharisees...

Paul derived this religion from Hellenistic sources, chiefly by a fusion of concepts taken from Gnosticism and concepts taken from the mystery religions

The Problem of Paul

Fascinating stuff, and I'm not edumacated enough to comment...

The Quest For Chinchin's Brain

2007-02-21T18:18:00.000-08:00

In November, my 2 year old son, Sebastian ("Sebas-chin", hence "Chinchin") had a febrile seizure resulting from a 42° temperature. Scary stuff, 911 call, ambulance ride. Exhausting, but mercifully "common" in that this is what happens when infants get too hot; they seize. But due to the family history of epilepsy, the neuros wanted to have a look. Just to rule out epilepsy.

So we make the appointment for Chinchin's EEG - and I take him to the wrong hospital, the hospital where I just had mine done. So we rebook. A few weeks later, we take him to the right hospital, where they give him a sedative to make him drunk and fall asleep. You know, wine drunk.

But he doesn't react quite that cooperatively. Rather than the "drowsy wine drunk", he became "crazy tequila drunk"; climbing shelves, pulling things off counters, pulling the fire alarm at the hospital. Little things like that. We gave up, rebooked, and ordered a larger dose of tranq for next time.

Today was next time. Problem is, bigger dose, bigger tequila crazy. For two hours Z watched him zip round the lab like a ferret on crack. Z's strategy was to stop singing him lullabyes and keeping him on the hospital bed, strap him into the stroller and just talk with the tech and ignore him. Bore him into unconsciousness, really.

Then the lab tech glued 22 electrodes to his head while he snored away, resulting in an entirely uneventful and perfectly normal infant EEG.

Compare the pic above with this one of me a few months ago.

Dies Cinerum

2007-02-21T13:26:00.000-08:00

Two quick stories:

At my grandmother's funeral, there were tears and frustration over words unsaid; there was mourning and sadness and sorrow and regret. My pall-bearing cousins and I, in ill fitting teenage suits and flat soled shoes, lifted the enormous and ostentatious casket from the service hall and up the wet grass to the gravesite. My grandmother was never a tall woman, but she was, shall we say, a substantial woman. And the casket's weight was roughly equivalent to that of a small car. With the surprising weight, the slick terrain, and the inappropriateness of our footwear, the procession was less than graceful and solemn. We were slipping around like geese landing on a frozen lake. And we got the giggles. The cartoon was playing in our heads of the lot of us going arse over teakettle, the casket flopping over and my poor, freshly-laminated ancestress rolling down the hill – a scenario mercifully but narrowly avoided.

Another story: At my daughter's birth, the labour seemed longer than the pregnancy. The scare was that the placenta was dangerously close to the exit sign, and that tearing could occur during delivery, disrupting blood / oxygen flow at a critical moment. To complicate matters, there was mec (a dangerous radioactive toxic goo from outer space) in the amniotic fluid, which means a risk of infection to both mother and babe. There was horror and blood and screaming and precious new life.

So there is life in death, and death in life.

At Christmas, the land is barren, the world frozen. And there is this tiny little solar spark, so distant it is just one shining star in the heavens rather than the full light of day. Life amidst the death of winter.

At Easter, the land is lush and green and scented, wet and open and nourished from rain. The sun has triumphed over its banishment. And yet amidst this abundance and fertility there is the Sacrifice. Death amidst the life of spring.

At Palm Sunday, before Easter, palm fronds are the "red carpet" welcoming the Divine into the House of Peace ("Jerusalem"), preparing a path as the Logos ascends His throne. Solar crosses are made from the fronds and kept for almost a year, to be burned today, on Ash Wednesday. The palm ashes are drawn on the congregants' foreheads in the shape of the cross; a public declaration of atonement 40 days before the Ascension and Divine Sacrifice – dirt as a sign of purity. Part of this act of purification involves personally fasting or relinquishing –sacrificing– something of ourselves. A habit. A routine. A treat. Just as we did at Advent, we're reminding ourselves that something magic is coming and we need to be ready, to be more attentive, to be more pure.

The part of ourselves that is to be nourished by the coming magic doesn't need that hour of TV or that latté or that gossip. We're identifying the addictively trivial, and committing ourselves to put it in its place for 40 days. That's what Lent is; reminding ourselves that some things pass and don't matter, and that some things are eternal and DO matter, and we're taking that message to our bodies, our behaviours. It's worth the attentiveness, the mindfulness.

Remember that we are clothed in ashes; but

Resplendent and unfading is Sophia, and she is readily perceived by those who love her, and found by those who seek her.

[I'm giving up coffee. It was either that or blogging. Wish me luck.]

Acolyte

2007-02-18T19:18:00.000-08:00

Some Guy, Newly-minted Acolyte Reverend Mr. Shawn Johnston (with chrism still burning a hole into his forehead), and Rev. Mr. Stu Berry at Regina Coeli (Queen of Heaven) Parish. Photo: Mrs. Wife Lady

Congratulations to St. Raphael seminarian Rev. Mr. ~~John Shawnston~~ Shawn Johnston of St. Julian of Norwich Narthex on his Baptism, Chrismation, and Admission to the Acolytate of the Apostolic Johannite Church.

Shawn is one of those brave souls who wakes up in the morning, looks up to the Infinite Divine and says, "You want me to be a what?" and goes and gets himself on the road to the priesthood anyway.

These sacraments, the lunar initiation of Baptism, the mercurial initiation of Chrismation, are always a celebration of life – and as Shawn's life is loud and messy, numerous parish children celebrated his rites of passage by serenading us with howler monkey calls and by throwing raisins at the floor. Joy comes in many forms.

And no, we are not getting a kickback from Gaspard and Sons for appearing in matching flax albs. Although we should at least get air miles. I mean, c'mon.

Gnostic Celeb Watch: We Got Joni Mitchell

2007-02-17T09:45:00.000-08:00

"A self-described Buddhist-Gnostic hybrid..."

The Globe and Mail

Gnostic Mass, Baptism, Chrismation, and Minor Orders, Sunday February 18th 4PM

2007-02-16T09:03:00.000-08:00

A special Mass this Sunday will include the Rites of Baptism, Chrismation, and Minor Orders for the Rev. Mr. Shawn Johnston of St. Julian of Norwich Narthex in Vancouver.

The Reverend Mr. Johnston is a seminarian at St. Raphael the Archangel Theological Seminary, and his admission to Minor Orders are part of his path to the Gnostic priesthood.

Please note change in time.

On the Feast of the Holy Valentinus: The Hot Pleroma of Love

2007-02-14T07:03:00.000-08:00

The Holy of the Holies is the bridal chamber – The Gospel of Philip

gnosis

love

God came and destroyed the division, and he brought the hot Pleroma of love

St. Valentine

The Gospel of Truth

[Happy V-day, gentle readers. Consider yourselves all <3'd and dipped in chocolate]

Passion Play

2007-02-12T11:10:00.000-08:00

– Joni Mitchell

The Iguanodon Problem

2007-02-04T09:24:00.000-08:00

In 1822, an English geologist (with the aid of his wife) unearthed a fossil tooth of a large horse-headed reptile. They had discovered one of the first animals now classified as dinosaurs. Along with the tooth was a fossil that looked decidedly like a rhinoceros horn. Now the scientist, Gideon Mantell, had seen a rhino, and knew exactly where the horn went: right on the nose.

He drew pictures of the iguanodon with the nose horn. He had a huge model built that toured England – head horn and all.

As more iguanodon skeletons were unearthed, it was discovered that the pokey thing was not a head horn at all, but a thumb. Yes, Mantell had in fact discovered evolution's first hitchhiker. Science, being good and proper, admitted its mistake and issued new drawings with the thumbs on the iguanodon's hands and not its head.

In a similar archaeological field, 19th century scholars of Gnosticism too had their limited fossil records. The thumb they erroneously glued to the head was "world hating Manichaean dualism" and drew pictures and built models of world-hating Gnostics accordingly. All good biblical scholars knew that Gnostics were world-hating dualists and considered matter and the flesh evil, just as every good 19th century paleontologist knew the iguanodon had a thumb on his head.

The difference is that paleontology learned from its mistake as new evidence came to light. Gnostic scholarship has not. It is not too much of an exaggeration to claim that many big-ticket Gnostic scholars - the translators of the most popular editions that you either own or are in your local library - accurately read the Coptic translations of original Greek manuscripts, and upon reading that Gnostics did NOT hate the world, shake their heads and say "that can't be right" and force a translation to comply with the world-hating dualist assumption. In other words, upon finding a complete iguanadon skeleton, they are snapping the thumb off the hand and gluing it to the head. Over and over and over.

The metaphor may be further extended by pointing out that scholars are mixing in the skeletal remains of a completely different dinosaur by constantly equating Gnosticism with Manichaeanism. Bishop Hoeller does this too, and it's both wildly irresponsible and academically indefensible.

Even last year, with the unveiling of Judas many scholars were bellowing "behold the world-hating dualism!" when it is not only an obvious misreading but a ham-fisted and forced misrepresentation.

It's just not in there. Nor is it in The Gospel of Truth, The Gospel of Thomas, The Naassene Psalm, or Thunder: Perfect Mind.

So if the overwhelming majority of Gnostic scripture shows a reverent care for the material world , clearly contradicting Manichaean dulaism while stressing the eternity of the Spirit, why is it that Meyer, Robinson, Barnstone, Williams, King, et al are all still touring with the horn-headed iguanodon model?

I don't know of any other branch of science that would tolerate this.

I Guess It's Just Our Turn To Be The Homicidal Conspiracy

2007-02-04T08:07:00.000-08:00

...despite our lack of albino zealots.

lamed vovniks

The Book of Names

nefarious offshoot sect of the ancient Gnostic tradition

set about assassinating them to hasten the end of the world.

systematically murdering.

Spiritual thriller flying off shelves

Just a refresher: It was bigotry when the Protocols alleged that a Jewish conspiracy goes around murdering people. It was bigotry when The da Vinci Code alleged that a Catholic conspiracy goes around murdering people. It is bigotry when The Book of Names alleges that a Gnostic conspiracy goes around murdering people.

It's even bigotry to allege that a Satanist conspiracy goes around murdering people, although they probably appreciate the PR.

[ PS: There is a damp cell in the low-rent district in Hades for Vogelin who invented this "Gnostics hate the world so much they want to end it" thing. Idiot. ]