5 of 38 | Initial Teaching | Gnostic Sacred Sexuality

  5 of 38 | Initial Teaching | Gnostic Sacred Sexuality

There is no religion in the world that has the connection to Spiritual

BDSM as Gnosticism. 

This is part of the foundation that tells us the sort of 

ceremony that was used.

 I fancy there was an Eucharistic side, and that the Baptism of

Light was connected with the mystic crucifixion alluded to so often in

the notes.  Possibly in the midst of the sacred dance, at the breaking

of the Bread, there was a certain laying on of hands by an adept

Master, one who had himself attained to the autoptic vision, 

( Autoptic defined;

Seen with one's own eyes; belonging to, or connected with, 

personal observation. autoptic testimony or experience.

and then the candidate was left alone to immerse himself 

in the Dark Ray of the

Divine Mind.

I think also that the original MS. was based upon the 

work of one Master, whose name, like that of the order to which he 

belonged, is lost in the night of time, but that it also contains amplifications 

and additions by at least one later hand.  It will thus represent the mind

of a grade of teaching, and possibly contains material dating back to

the period of the Therapeutae that Philo knew.  In other words, the

community may have been an old one before it was Christianised.  In any

case, it remains the record of a stupendous spiritual adventure, the

attempt to produce a race of Divinised men, that is not without the

splendour of tragedy, for at some time, like the Holy Cup of Legend,

the presence of Masterhood departed, and the external house fell into

ruin and its place knew it no more.  Perhaps, in the desire to

propagate, it admitted unworthy candidates; perhaps it turned to the

by-ways of magic in an attempt to arrest the external course of nature

and to defy necessity; perhaps there came a day when none could

understand the inner meaning of the high and far-shining mysteries, and

so amidst party strife the building word was lost.  Many a man, no

doubt, who called himself a "Gnôstic" was but a sorry rogue; many

another was but a student of the letter, not of the life; many another

was but a spiritual swashbuckler, pompous in his demeanour and cryptic

in his utterance; some, led by an abhorrent fantasy, may have wandered

along the path that goes to the Venus-berg and have striven to lisp a

formula that would transform the earth into Gehenna rather than into

Heaven.  But, beside this mass of imposture, of folly, of elegant

idleness and of corruption, the _à rebours_ of a spiritual outpouring,

there was a real mysticism that could present the Authentic Spectacle

and could utter comfortable words in tongues not of this world utterly.

There was a Gnôsis that strove to give the Peace of God to those within

and to those without, because in Peace all things were made, that

yearned to bring forth children, quickened fiery souls, æons, gods, in

bodies of light for the love of God; that saw in all things Grace, the

Sponsa Dei, the Mother most pure and immaculate.  "No creature was ever

wronged of Thee," no spark ever quenched, no hope defrauded and hurled

eternally from the sky with shattered wings by Thee.  Such is the fair

Faith that chanted its prayer beneath a heaven set with such strange

galaxies, and whispers to us now through the disremembered symbols of a

forgotten book.

It is pleasant, in these days of strife, to be able to quote Dr

Schmidt's appreciation of the _Untitled Apocalypse_ with a cordial

agreement: