Still Running Off at the Keyboard

UPDATE ON THE THOMASINE CHURCH BLOG

Mar Didymos explains more about the Church here, including the following, which would appear to be the Gurdjieffian method of thought control:

By studying our own minds, we know exactly what emotive buttons to push in others. It is merely a matter of timing, distancing, posturing, and positioning. We allow them to fall into the veritable trap of their own Ignorance which is brought on by Arrogance. These are the “Dark Forces,” the “Demons of the Labyrinth,” or the “Wicked Ones” spoken of in the Hymn of the Pearl.

I guess now we know what the labyrinth business is about. Programming.

The website also tells us:

- These techniques are highly effective yet when practiced improperly, the Initiate can harm himself mentally. In order to avoid these kind of dangers, these practices are kept "secret" outside the teacher-student relationship.

- ...our primary focus is the practice of rigorous meditative techniques...

- ...a Thomasine Initiate attains a state of focused awareness.

- Once you can experience this state you can understand why most Masters have gained enlightenment experiences after having empowered the mind in this way.

If you read through his blog on "Knowledge or Ignorance?" you will get some idea as to the relationship of the Gnostic groups to Catholicism. His many references to the Tridentine Mass used by Gnostics are interesting.

He also refers to the Tridentine in the blog titled "Neo-Gnostics And Their Identity Crisis". Here he explains that:

- The two basic goals of gnosticism and traditional or Pauline Christianity, are mutually exclusive let alone the problem of conflicting cosmologies and resultant theologies.

- The focus of gnosticism according to [the earliest Christian texts] is the seeking and attainment of self acquaintance. It is direct and experiential knowledge of ourselves which brings us to salvation.

- Within the Gospel of Thomas and the Hymn of the Pearl there is verbiage which can be confused as being similar to that of prevailing religious ideations. This is simply not true. They really describe how the universe is constructed in a strikingly similar fashion to what is posited in "M Theory/String Theory."

- What one can clearly see is that Illuminist teachings with its goal of enlightenment, gnosis, or illumination are not deity dependant.

Hmmm. Sort of like "You certainly will not die! No, God knows well that the moment you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods who know what is good and what is bad", I guess. A lot of folks still hanker after taking the trip.

I'm surprised there was nothing about the Enneagram in the Thomasine Church website.