Witches Haven

By
Dark Lillith

For the past couple of years, I have been working extremely hard on the concept of Gnosis. Examining it from as many different sources as I can. The search for Gnosis is as old as man.

We search for it via the various faiths - from Judaism to Catholicism to Wicca to Thelema. All of us in search of the same thing...that ultimate mystery. The Vatican claims to be the one and only way. (I have to use Christian reference from here on in because, well, that's the frame with which I am most familiar).

The early church battled bitterly, violently and with quite a bit of success, the Gnostics. The church claimed to be the ONLY way to God, through their interpretation of Jesus. They needed, wanted, slathered after it. At any cost. And for a while? They succeeded. Perhaps no one was really ready for gnosis, perhaps mankind as a species was unprepared or unwilling to accept the responsibility that comes with gnosis. The complexity, the burden to the individual. No one to tell you where to squat or lean, so to speak. We do love our "AUTHORITY" - we do love to rely on someone else to make our decisions, to choose OUR WAY for us.

The alternative is simply too terrifying. ACCEPT PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY!!!???? Oh god, where is Tara's blankie????

Accept the responsibility that comes with the search for gnosis? Shocking, pee-in-yer-pants scary...

Well, as a species, we grew. People began to turn away from CHURCH AUTHORITY, particularly when we all began to realize...the emperor (Pope/Cardinal/Bishop & Priest) has no clothes. They could talk the talk but seem completely incapable of walking the walk.

They must long for the "olden days" - these men who haunt the halls of the Vatican. The old days where people who questioned articles of doctrine became the "disappeared." How much easier it was for them, then. The great masses of the ignorant could be easily cowed by terror into accepting whatever was placed before them. Swallowing the ashes with relish. Better to choke on the ashes than to become the ashes.

Comfort in ritual by rote. Comfort in placing immortal souls in the hands of the naked emperor and his merry band. That? To me is terrifying. To place my faith, my soul in that hands of anyone.

We discussed the devotions that seem to be de rigeur for the post-Crowley Thelemites. We discussed how neither of us do them any more. We dicussed their redundancy in the life long search for personal Gnosis. And that's what it is, you know..gnosis? It is as personal as it gets. It is more personal than your fingerprints, more personal than your DNA.

Nobody can show you the way. Not one goddam (pardon the pun) person is capable of teaching you how to find gnosis.

The search for gnosis is the most difficult task place before any man or woman. We think we can find it through ritual. We think we can find it through books, the teachings of others. But we can't. We can only learn what gnosis is for them. One size don't fit all, friends and neighbours.

Suddenly, in 1945 - a time of rude awakenings for mankind - a wonder was found in a cave, in northern Egypt. The Nag Hammadi Library. Crowley told us we are experiencing the birth of the New Aeon.

Perhaps, along with the Liber Al vel Legis - this library also heralded the dawn of the New Aeon. In the texts were books that were forbidden as heretical. Books that no one wanted found. The early Christian church thought all of these books were destroyed, leaving them free to dominate, subjugate and generally control the new Christian world.

Well, son of a gun...didn't a few early thinkers take major issue with the suppression of free will, the concept that a few could control the gnosis of the many. They hid the books away in a cave where they remained until 1945. A time when mankind desperately needed to be shown that the few cannot control the many.

These books? They are a marvel. They DO contain truth that the Vatican would not allow us to examine, under threat of death. Why would that be?

Well...let me tell ya...

The books run contrary to everything taught by the Roman Catholic church. The books teach that no one can show us the way to the godhead. The books teach that, essentially, every man and woman is, INDEED, a star. We all have the capacity for godhead within us all. They teach that we all must find our own way to gnosis.

The books teach there is no church - no physical structure is capable of providing sanctuary of the soul. In fact, it runs directly contrary to their Jesus' teachings.

The books teach (shock, horror, disbelief!!) that both men AND women are capable of achieving gnosis.

The Nag Hammadi books themselves are very, very hard going but there are enough scholars out there who have taken the books for us and helped to clarify the language, as best they could. The general principles are there. We have only to read them to understand, the emperors truly are nekkid. We are the ones with the robes of gold and silver. They've been hanging in our closets all along.

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