The Christian student comes across this word in St Paul’s writings and it is used occasionally in the Gospels; and in one account by Jesus (Luke 11:52). To the Christian, Gnosis indicates the true knowledge of God. Whatever a sect or religion makes out of this can be purely speculative based upon personal concepts of what one believes the text matter to mean. This can have many variations according to how one has been brought up (programmed) to think in one’s youth or to what ethnic group one belongs – such is the complexity of a true interpretation of the Gnosis. Modern scholarship tends to separate the meaning of Gnosis from what is popularly understood to be Gnosticism – in just the same way as the true student of the Gnosis separates the true meaning of Christ from Christianity. It was in fact the institutionalised Church which classified any teachings other than their own particular doctrines and dogmas as Gnostic, and any teachings or practices they did not like they regarded as heresy, they labelledGnosticism in order to perpetuate a campaign of hatred against them, especially those groups which taught their people to be self-reliant or were conversant with the so-called occult practices, irrespective of whether or not these groups knew or taught the Gnosis or not.

The true Gnostic is not really interested in complicated hypotheses or theological debates on matters which can only be pure speculation. The True Gnosis does not entail elaborate rituals, nor a belief in a dogmatic or in a crystallised philosophy. The quest is for genuine truths, no matter what ridicule or rebuffs one gets from society in the seeking. The aspirant also seeks to live by the evidence he or she can prove by personal experience and application or proven truths given by the great teachers themselves – the supreme understanding that Love transcends every law and dissolves all whims and fancies of the human habit of supposing or debating on mere hypotheses. It could be said that the correct interpretation of the word Gnosis is ‘the knowledge of the things that are.’ To understand this statement places one in a position to be sure of life, and faith and purpose are strengthened.

Institutionalised religions in persecuting the Gnostic groups forfeited their entry into the deeper mysteries of God and in the process they destroyed the intuitive heart of their religion, and now they find themselves grasping at straws to attract congregations – in the many cases using quite unusual methods in this struggle. They forget that God rules the Earth – not man – they forget the basic tenets of tolerance and forgiveness – they also forget that man’s policies and philosophies come to naught and that the meek will inherit the earth.

The great institutions with their archbishops, bishops and learned doctors; their vying with politics of a doubtful nature, mean nothing to God. Jesus foretold a new priesthood – a priesthood wherein every man and woman will serve in purity and simplicity as pure channels for God’s Love to be shed abroad upon the world. Everything will be accomplished according to God’s law and those that do their own thing, or that which they think best, will be forgotten when Love Rules. ‘Fabric Funds’ and missionaries are shackles to society and the soul, organised ‘charities’ will need to disappear to enable the true spirit of man to emerge.

The use of scriptures in Gnosticism is mainly empirical. The adherent to the Gnosis is taught to rely fully on his, or her, inner light rather than in the literal content of written material. After all, no great teacher actually wrote anything down; records are written from observation according to the degree of accuracy of the observers. Those who try to understand the Gnosis from the outside cannot really comprehend the truth of the matter for these people are under the illusion that the Gnostics actually believed what was written. This view is illogical since, if the Gnostics are relying on their own inner knowledge, then the Gnostic Gospels are secondary and are in fact only materials from which to introduce speculative discussion. The problem to the outside researcher is his own degree of religious or social indoctrination, falsely believing that because ‘Christianity’ taught belief in an historical Jesus he cannot comprehend that this selfsame Jesus takes on a greater dimensional meaning in the true Gnosis.

Over the last century more information was made available to the general public about the origins of the Christian Church and it is known that it was at the Nicene Council in 325 A.D that certain dogmas were arranged at the behest of the Emperor Constantine who gave authority to beliefs put together by those Bishops who were present at the Council. It was an attempt to create a ‘religion’ to which all people should subscribe to bring harmony to the Roman Empire – but many of the Bishops withdrew before the final plan was drawn up. Thus a system was brought in which made all the European Christians slaves to an invented dogma, and subject to the ‘absolutes’ that the Church pronounced in the way of religion and science. We find that the idea of original sin did not enter into the Church until this time – meaning that before the fourth century the idea of sin and the devil was not taught and we find no such indications in the first-fruits of the teachings of Jeshua, and much earlier teachers.

The ancient teachings from the myths and legends of the dying and resurrecting god were crystallised into a dogma of a man in time and space and the grand mythos of the soul was thus materialised and foisted onto the people as history, and the True Light was subsequently persecuted for not holding to this invented religion. Thus the Church was enabled to rule the people by fear of the consequence of death or torture, and any intelligent person can see here that the teachings of true Christian values had been raped and twisted into a way by which the people were forced into subjection by despotic authority. If Paul were still alive he would have nominated this as the Church of Worldly Values, and not after Christ.

Because most churches the world over survive by the dogmas and traditions handed down from this fabrication of the Truth nothing will change until an honest appraisal of these dogmas is made and the western churches become aware of the inner truths – the Gnosis. Unfortunately the legacy from false indoctrination is that most of the clergy within the established churches will not examine the Gnosis, or Gnosticism as it has been called, because they have been taught that it is of the ‘devil,’ and thereby miss the real meaning for their ‘deliverance from evil’ It is through these ‘false vestiges of truth,’ as it has been described, of the established Christian Church that we have found many Christians who are afraid to mention or even try to understand the meaning of the word gnosis. The devil has done his work well! The whole worldly church is built upon fear whilst the true Church of Christ is built upon Truth and Love.

The True Christ is symbolised as ‘The Anointed of God’, and not after man. From the writings of the ancient teachers, and also from our hidden guardians, Christ is an in-built principle of our solar system and it cannot be interfered with neither can any human alter it. The Gnosis of God represents that knowledge which is gained by following a discipline of self-purification and right thinking and living – it is the knowledge that is known within a person who follows the Secret way of enlightenment and no other can come to know unless they follow the same path. Paul in his Epistles in the New Testament frequently uses the word gnosis to denote this inner knowledge, and the Master Jeshua uses it in St. Luke’s Gospel, Chap:11 – the word gnosis appears here in the original Greek from which the English version is translated. From a study of Paul’s writings one will readily see that Paul differentiates between the worldly teachings and the teachings of the Christ.

In 1953, Richard, Duc de Palatine began the restoration of the Gnosis in this century under diverse designations culminating in The Brotherhood and Order of the Pleroma; first in England and then in the United States. Therefore, The Pleroma can rightly claim to be the moral and legal successor of the ancient Gnostic Philosophy beginning with Pythagoras.