Gnosticism - Ritual, Cosmos & Salvation - The Holy Book of the Great Invisible Spirit

Gnosticism is famous for its diagnosis of existential suffering: a primordial cosmic tragedy in which physical reality comes to be and we become trapped in it. Though, just how do we escape such a cosmic prison? The classic answer is gnosis or knowledge of the origins of that suffering but we forget that Gnosticism also consisted in ritual practice and liturgy as well. In this episode I explore the Holy Book of the Great Invisible Spirit (formerly called The Egyptian Gospel) to better understand gnostic cosmology, theodicy and the rituals that accompany and ensure salvation.
#gnosticism #naghammadi #gnosis
Meyer - The Nag Hammadi Scriptures - 9780061626005
Layton - The Gnostic Scriptures - 978-0300208542

[@TheEsotericaChannel]

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[@beepboop204]

Id love to know what these people would be doing in the age of Alex Jones, DMT, and the internet

[@volvo507]

Justin, the way you inject humour into such dense academic work is always a delight!

[@nhelm823]

I started watching this channel due to a fascination with early western magic. Absolutely amazing how much you've taught me about this subject. Thank you very much!

[@aaronenglehart5551]

I am a practicing Magician. If you want to know more, I can teach you

[@jonathanochoa3768]

I want to go deeper in this. I have studied Christianity all of my life but in this gnostic theory I find it more realistic and contemporary explanation

[@siddhartacrowley8759]

Read Nag Hammadi and Pistis Sophia

[@keithrosenthal4757]

Biggest issue with this channel is not knowing which AMAZING VIDEO to watch first! Amazing CHANNEL. Thanks

[@davieboy3814]

I wish we knew more about Gnostic rituals and daily life. Thank you for sharing your knowledge with us!

[@pauliedibbs9028]

One Of My Favorite All Time Topics :) THANK YOU, DR SLEDGE!!!!

[@nono9543]

You're one of the most legitimately academic sources I've found on KZbin consistently. You delve into the exotic and intriguing nature of the esoteric and occult without being seduced by it and going into crazy conspiracy theories.

[@dkcarey1]

I know in modern gnostic groups, IAO along with other groupings in practice tend to be for intoning each vowel for a few seconds in a magical/meditative method kind of way. Unsure if historic Gnostics practiced this way, but the screenshot of the text about halfway through, with like 5 “O”s followed by multiple “E”s etc, may be another way of expressing those sounds being intoned….. or not 🤷‍♂️

[@naglastuden39]

Just Crowley's adaptation of the three Hebrew/Arabic vowels.

[@naglastuden39]

Most Arabic "Black Magic" employs endless strings of Aleph (Elif)-Yod(Ya)-Waw(Wa), thereby invoking the Jinn, or Genii in Latin.

[@notfancy2000]

@@naglastuden39 No, not “just Crowley”. IAO and its permutations make prominent appearance in the PGM IV Steles, not to mention several intaglio amulet rings.

[@dkcarey1]

Yeah people have been using a long long time before Crowley.

[@scivi7060]

Probably sounds a lot like Tibetan monks chanting mantras.

[@WorldEverett]

Amazing quality video. Your channel is s gem, and you set the bar so high when it comes to knowledge and research. Huge respect!

[@WK-47]

William Blake makes for an instantly blessed episode. That first image especially (The Ancient of Days?) is just... wow. Gets me every time.

[@TheMainemetalman]

I love your channel Justin! You should make merch! I want to sport an Esoterica t-shirt!

[@TheEsotericaChannel]

Seriously thinking about it !

[@edenicawakening]

Amazing! Especially interesting today, my love of all things gnostic translates into a great appreciation for your channel.

[@starfate5060]

Thank you! I've been into your videos on Gnosticism lately so this was great.

[@pauloansiaesmonteiro7987]

Thanks a lot Dr Sledge, seriously the best about esotericism and the occult on you tube . Salut from Oporto Portugal.

[@bluefrog8670]

Thank you!

[@sarahmazoch9162]

Keep up the Good work Justin, it's hard to explain how much your channel has helped me.

[@TheEsotericaChannel]

Helped how? Also thanks so much for the kind words !

[@trveheimer6360]

your sincerity empowers your humour and vice versa, always a pleasure to listen to you! i bought "Gnostic Religion in Antiquity" and it helped me a lot enjoying your videos even more

[@mwbgallery]

Wonderful, great share.

[@luisdmarinborgos9497]

I always see great content being discussed in your channel. You’re doing God’s work 💯

[@jasonmorello1374]

I find this an interesting bridge concept form for the original to modern baptist form, as that is the key focus here. Not only that, but the focus on the sinful world in both places, and that the baptism is the release from same, and for both temporary until "soiled" by the world, meaning for the process to be repeated regularly, as a spiritual bathing. Often with a literal one.

[@jamiescott1080]

Thoroughly digging this channel. Nice to see some academic rigour in this kind of subject matter.

[@SciPunk215]

So good !

[@scottydees2748]

Thank you

[@Iknowknow112]

Thank this does help quite a bit as I have always found this text IMPENETRABLE! Your video has a least given me a hammer to chisel with.

[@daryllschmidt7419]

Thanks!

[@realmwatters2977]

Me too I binge-watch this channel till mid day 😁

[@zhao6865]

Great work as always :D

[@nooneinparticular3370]

Very cool stuff! The Gnostics were real wacky, and I find their connection to some of the alien conspiracy theories very interesting.

[@danindeed]

I've made this suggestion before, but I'll make it again.. Esoterica + Randall Carlson + Dr. Joseph P. Farrell (Patristics, Oxford). :-) Thanks for the upper most echelon content and production, Dr. Sledge. Cheers.

[@11kravitzn]

If only Christianity was less repressive and we could have some gnostic churches reading this stuff as scripture and writing sermons and commentary about it around today.

[@Tobarius]

That would be a good thing?

[@investigate711]

hey man no one is stopping you from becoming devoted to christianity, everyone is creating their own church nowadays

[@11kravitzn]

@@investigate711 The point is to have a historically embedded and genuine tradition. Not religious fanfiction. But you're right that I could start today and try to get it going again.

[@Tobarius]

@@11kravitzn "The point is to have a historically embedded and genuine tradition. Not religious fanfiction." If that is the standard you are going by, I am confused about why you would desire a world where gnosticism was prevalent.

[@johncollins211]

Honestly gnostics might have been even more repressive than others forms of Christianity. Everything in this existence was considered demonic. That's not really the group of people you want as spiritual leaders. If someone chooses to practice gnosticism that's totally cool. but if they became a bigger sect of Christianity with financial and political power that might not be so good. Just because the gnostics we're repressed by the church doesn't make them the good guys. We just think that because the sects that survive today have been completely unaccepting and repressive that it means the sects who were destroyed must have been the opposite and that's why they were targeted. Honestly the gnostics seem like hardcore radicals to me. Everyone seems to think gnostics we're some ancient free loving accepting hippies and that's why the church couldn't tolerate them. These people were extremely dedicated disciples who probably lived by very strict rules. While there ideas are fascinating and worth contemplating im glad they aren't the dominant sect.

[@nonameronin1]

Other than the similarity in the Greek pronouncation of the names, is there any connection between the Hebrew Seth (שֵׁת) and the Egyptian Seth (Sutekh)?

[@franciscosifuentes3007]

Thank you, Iam new to your channel. Any lectures on health or books just wondering plus I love mysticism, occult and magic. I love your work so far

[@gregcampwriter]

This had a particularly spooky effect after watching a video about what a Federation transporter does.

[@juliavanrun-kilic1744]

🙏🏻

[@joecaicco577]

The ritual baptism in luminous water was not only a ritual but a true scientific process that allows the individual to pass over from man to an angelic being, and be recorded in the book of angels, the luminous water is different in each baptism, requiring different types of angelic light. The requirements are very strict to ensure survival and successful transformation of the individual.

[@BojoPigeon]

All those vowels got me thinking about how at the end of a lot of old plainchant melodies, the last few notes would have the text "E u o u a e" which, from what I can find, was supposed to be a kind of abbreviation for "Saecula Saeculorum, Amen" (taking just the final vowels), but now I'm wondering if just the vowels themselves were ever intoned for some purpose.

[@bgp001]

Always love your work, especially on Gnosticism!

[@zelenisok]

im a gnostic dualist and i support the modern "gender ideology", and i have to say - wtf are babbling about lmao.

[@zelenisok]

the fact that trans people exist has nothing to do with dualistic gnosticism, or gnosticism at all.

[@zelenisok]

Those things are totally unconnected.

[@williamfields8452]

i would be interested in hearing more about the two fish.

[@andrewdunton6304]

Hello Dr. Sledge, I was wondering if you could do a video on the Essenes and how they are different from the gnostics by contrast? I am not sure if you have done a video on them before but the garb of Christ does seem similar to the Essenes holy angelic clothing they would put on. Thanks Andrew

[@kirkmarshall2853]

Everytime I hear the word Pleroma I sing in the tune of that bad The Knack song My My My My My Pleroma, I should probably talk to someone about this problem but I fear no one can help me…. Btw I just got the meyer translation and am getting into studying the nag hammadi texts. Thanks for your scholarly insight.

[@themonkeysaddle5545]

Will you do an episode on the Pistis Sophia someday?

[@TheEsotericaChannel]

Yep!

[@johncollins211]

With the mystery of doxomedon does the spacing of the lines of code Carry meaning or was that just a typo? I just noticed there seemed to be random sized spacing.

[@user-lc4xh7ts7h]

I find reading about Gnosticism is fascinating. Though not universal in all Gnostic texts, I like reading about the ones that paint the Abrahamic God as actually Evil. It was those Gnostic texts that got me thinking about a philosophical question that was growing in the back of my mind. And the question is could it be possible that if there is a God, could that God actually be evil? As a kid, I was exposed to the Spawn Comics, Early Nine Inch Nails, and the Legacy of Kain Video Games that also posed those same types of questions that stayed with me into my adult years. When I read the Stephen King horror novel Revival that posed a Cosmic Horror perception of God being this soul-hungry monster. It's gnostic questions that always come back to me asking could it be possible that the reason the Human Soul exists is to be the food source of a Lovecraftian version of God?

[@Cavirex]

You've used the word evil and Lovecraftian and yet you should recall that Lovecraft's Great Old Ones were amoral, rather than evil. By the premises you've set up, are we evil for farming and eating animals? Are we evil for chopping down a tree or rooting out weed? Are we evil when we squash a bug? The whole good and evil thing is a typically Christian and Islamic thing (not so in some forms of Judaism) and that's why I tend to dislike these religions (Gnosticism is a bit of a different story, depending on the various sects, but it still relies on a good vs evil worldview). They have unrealistic expectations and dichotomies. "Paganism" (an inaccurate term to describe a wide variety of religions) on the other hand had no such qualms with the duality of nature.

[@johncollins211]

I think it's a pretty simple line of logic. If the supreme god created everything and without a doubt evil exist or if you think evil is just a human concept then we can still say without a doubt that pain exist. Everywhere you look there is mass amounts of evil or suffering. Would a truly omnibenevolent god create such a place? Probably not. But yet we do exist so how can we explain that we come from a supreme god and yet still explain all the suffering that exist? How do we explain that even though the forces of pain and suffering are great within our world yet we can overcome it. We can decide to not participate in all the suffering to not add to the suffering of others. That is god's gift. The human will.

[@firatmengi5715]

Great stuff to create a origin to a fantasy world.....

[@okasa64]

I'm nervous about doing this, but here goes... #SESENGENBARPHARANGES

[@helenbostock2350]

🙏

[@andrewmarkmusic]

Salvation via vocal lessons! Okay, that aside...there seems to be a flip going on here if we understand that these myths have their roots in Egypt (primarily) in that Seth is clearly taken from SET (Satan)...The god of the underworld or the god of the nighttime sky devoid of Horus’ light. A modern interpretation likely leads us to shadow and the unconscious--understandable, but I also am leery of psychologism, or the tendency to reductionist interpretations of these myths.

[@mooshoofasa]

I had to pause halfway through and listen to System of a Down's I-E-A-I-A-I-O ¬_¬

[@chrislaflamme1]

🙏🎉👌

[@jacquiecotillard9699]

14:53 Let us look upon the transcription of all sounds of the mouth which make up aspects of the voice - do we not see the path which these sounds take, in a line around the cavern which gives its image to the mouth? We see from here to there, from beginning to end- and so we follow the will as it was caused to move- as it was called to move in alignment with the will, the voice, the path through the treasuries as well as their contents except for those who are only passing through, following the trail of the will through the word which contains all words in it.

[@conniestone6251]

Okay now I’ve listened to this 3 times…and I am More confused after each! Perhaps I should back up and look for the earlier videos (re: this gnostic topic) ?

[@boneyjensen]

Maybe a good idea. I can recommend watching the new video on Let's talk religion about gnosticism.

[@aerynmusick4548]

I wonder if Nebro is the root of Nebiros in the Grimorium Verum?

[@NullStaticVoid]

I used to think that Eastern Orthodox Christianity had a Gnostic influence. Mostly due to the mortification of the flesh and all that about this corrupt world etc. But the more I learn about that which we label the Gnostic sphere of thought, the less this seems possible. Eastern Orthodox and related churches are just too normal and boring to have been influenced by any of this. I do wonder if the Yazidi faith or Coptic churches have "Gnostic" heritage? Also can I just say how much I appreciate this channel? So much stuff on YT regarding faith is either of the new age or proslytizing Christian variety, or from a pointed atheist stance. There seems precious little academic or discursive content on these subject. Even among Buddhist channels I have a hard time finding any which just discuss the source material and philosophy. Most seem intent on accruing merit through Yourtube. Bikkhu Bodhi being one exceptional teacher and translator. His brief digest of the Pali Canon is essential for anyone studying Buddhism. It's only a few hundred pages, not dozens of volumes!

[@saraphicseer5982]

hiya, great vid...small technical issue that i'm not sure you can remedy but the captions (which i need for clarity due to apd) are stuck on Vietnamese. I mean there's an option to then translate that into English but uh...it's just gibberish left. thanks for your vids!

[@godwillrise5442]

It sound like those people were on the right path.

[@annikajohansson9171]

Great Invisible Spirit- Equivalent to Ain Soph?

[@zbeer570]

I comment on every new video until Esoterica does a video on Goral HaGra- Pt 1

[@TheEsotericaChannel]

like bibliomancy?

[@TheEsotericaChannel]

Nah using the tanach to tell the future

[@zbeer570]

Yeah basically. Although Goral HaGra is a more contemporary example thereof

[@siddhartacrowley8759]

How are the names of both demiurgs spelled?

[@khristanne]

The devine Seth wears a jesus skin suit. Pretty metal.

[@ArtyFartyBart]

...where we explore the arcane in history, philosophy, and the flavors of the 18th century.

[@TheEsotericaChannel]

l o v e townsends ;)

[@harryhoofcloppen]

Got it. Jesus is a holy mechsuit worn by Seth.

[@markcobb7040]

What does salvation even mean in today's world? Salvation from what?

[@ohamatchhams]

From the world self-sabotaging itself

Now, why does KZbin think this video is in viatnamese? It does many uncomforable things to the subtitles

[@Shoop...]

It can't be a true hermetic cameo unless it's thrice said

[@frankiep.5827]

@14:48 Tries to jokingly sound out the vowels in a playful rendition, if u will. Literally within seconds of finishing, drops phone (maybe 8 inches from my face) that lands so perfectly on cheekbone under the eye that it splits it open & is now bleeding pretty good! Looks like I got socked in the face pretty bad. Mental note: Maybe not joke around w ritual incantations of the Gnostics......like EVER AGAIN😳😳🤦🏻‍♂️🤦🏻‍♂️🤦🏻‍♂️sorry Big Seth🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼

[@Iamtherodlight1453.]

Thank you