The Universal Gnostic Church: Prospectus

Ever since I started posting material on the traditions I inherited from John Gilbert, some readers have expressed interest in the Universal Gnostic Church (UGC), the religious body at the center of those traditions. After much reflection, I've decided to go ahead and set out the course of training that leads to ordination in the UGC. One of the reasons that this took quite a bit of reflection is that I've had bad experiences with this in the past. A lot of people treat ordination to the priesthood or priestesshood as a matter of getting a certificate that allows them to tell other people what to do. I've dealt with people who said all the right things to my face, and then turned around the moment they got ordained, and jumped up on a self-manufactured pulpit to play little tin god to anyone who would listen.

Ordination in the UGC is not an excuse to pretend to be a little tin god. It's not a license to tell anybody else what to do. It's a tradition of spiritual practice, right action, and the pursuit of personal experience of spiritual realities. Pursued in the proper spirit, it's also a whale of a lot of work. Consecration as a bishop -- the rite that permits you to ordain and consecrate others -- is even more work. The prospectus below will give you some idea of what is involved. In the weeks ahead, I'll clarify the rest of the details. First of all, though, we should review some history.( Read more... )