The Universal Gnostic Church: Gnostic Lesson 1

[ecosophia]

The training program the Universal Gnostic Church offered for its lay members and aspirants to monastic and priestly vocations alike was a set of six Gnostic Lessons, which also involve preparation and ritual entry into the Minor Orders of the UGC. (The minor orders of most established churches tend to be highly selective, but in the UGC and most other independent sacramental churches, it's normal for the laity to receive them.) Each one other than the first will take a month of study and practice.

The Gnostic Lessons

The six Gnostic Lessons are a lightly revised version of the training that was provided to aspirants to the Minor Orders in the Universal Gnostic Church (UGC). During John Gilbert’s day, the Gnostic Lessons were made freely available to anyone who was interested, and completing them was a prerequisite for advancement to the higher grades of initiation in several of the orders and organizations under the UGC’s umbrella.

In the Universal Gnostic Church there are five Minor Orders and two Major Orders. The five Minor Orders are Cleric, Doorkeeper, Reader, Warder, and Acolyte. The two Major Orders are Priest or Priestess, and Bishop. Ordination as a priest or priestess and consecration as a bishop can only be earned by extensive study and practice, but it was normal during the heyday of the UGC for most active members to receive one or more of the Minor Orders and to exercise the functions and spiritual gifts of those Orders under the supervision of a priest, priestess, or bishop.

The Major Orders can only be passed on by personal contact through laying on of hands and anointing.  It has been traditional for many years in the UGC, however, for the Minor Orders to be conferred through study and practice of spiritual disciplines, followed by a ceremony of commitment which may be performed by the aspirant alone or by a priest or bishop for the aspirant. That custom is followed in these lessons.

In the Universal Gnostic Church, the Minor Orders have a threefold function. First, they pass on certain spiritual gifts of their own.  Second, they form part of the preparation for ordination to the Gnostic priesthood or priestesshood. Finally, it was also standard for postulants to the Order of the Universal Monk, the Order of the Universal Nun, and the other monastic orders that once exixted in the UGC, to complete the Gnostic Lessons as part of the preparation for taking vows. It is not necessary to commit to either the second or third of these functions in advance. If you feel that studying the Gnostic Lessons would be valuable to you, for whatever reason, you may proceed with them.

If you have already decided that you intend to seek ordination to the Gnostic priesthood or priestesshood, or to take vows as a monk or nun, it is important to perform the five ceremonies of commitment for the Minor Orders, and to practice the sacraments that are assigned to each Order. If you have previously studied the Gnostic Lessons and did not perform the ceremonies of commitment, you should plan on reviewing the Lessons and performing the ceremonies as part of your preparation for ordination or monastic vows. In the meantime, of course, the books listed in the prospectus for this course should be on your reading list.

With that said, we can proceed.

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Gnostic Lesson One

WHAT UNIVERSAL GNOSTICISM IS NOT:

1.      Dogmatic

2.      Dictatorial

3.      Prejudicial

4.      Rigid

5.      Inflexible

6.      Impractical

7.      Opinionated

WHAT UNIVERSAL GNOSTICISM IS:

1.      Moderate

2.      Sensible

3.      Tolerant

4.      Reasonable

5.      Flexible

6.      Humane

7.      Open-minded

WHAT UNIVERSAL GNOSTICS GENERALLY BELIEVE:

1.      The Divine is everything that is

2.      The Divine created everything

3.      Everything that exists is a part of the Divine

4.      The Divine is more than the creation

5.      We have free choice to determine our life

6.      We have the right to commune with the Divine

7.      Everybody incarnated now chose to be incarnated now

 

The following document, which was written by John Gilbert, summarizes some of the teachings of the UGC. As with other teachings given in this course of study, these are not meant to be accepted blindly as articles of belief, but rather used as a basis for your own reflections and meditations.

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Some Universal Gnostic Teachings

In the beginning there was the Divine and nothing but the Divine.  The Divine thought.  As the Divine thought, the Divine became aware creation was possible.  The Divine intended to create the universe of worlds and everything in them; and the Divine believed this was possible based upon previous experience in creating things with the Divine mind.

Thus the Divine created this world and everything in it.  At the same time, the Divine created untold billions and trillions of worlds and everything in them.  We are, each of us, a unique Child of the Divine living at this time in this world.

The Divine had a purpose when the Divine created the worlds and everything in them.  The Divine had a purpose when the Divine created each of us as a living and unique Child of the Divine.  Discovering our own unique purpose is one of the goals we can choose while living in this creation. 

According to most mystics and great spiritual teachers throughout history, our primary purpose is to learn how to love one another more and more.  If you think about it, this makes great sense.  We're all brothers and sisters living, thinking, breathing, breeding and loving within the Divine.  The Divine is the One Commonality that we all share.  To love another person is to love the Divine.  To love the Divine is to acknowledge that the Divine loves Itself. 

To love ourselves is to love the Divine, and loving the Divine is loving everything within the creation including all other people.  There's a basic psychological law that says you can love others only by loving yourself first.  You must love yourself in order to love other people.  Many of us find this difficult, but if we sit in communion with the Divine we will come to love the Divine as the Divine loves us.  Since we are a part of the Divine, by loving the Divine we learn to love ourselves and everything else within the Divine.

Learning to love more and more appears to be the first purpose for all of us.

As we learn to love the Divine, ourselves and others, we learn how to help each other love more and more.  Helping others and wanting to help others seems to be built into our constitution.  It may be a part of our soul.  It may be a natural consequence of learning how to love more and more.  Whatever the cause, it appears our second purpose for incarnating into this world is to help each other.

Helping each other love more and more appears to be our second purpose.

If we have a specific spiritual purpose we want to accomplish in this lifetime, that purpose probably becomes our third purpose for incarnating at this time.  According to ancient Gnostic teachings these are our three spiritual purposes.  Learning to love more and more is our primary purpose and it's assigned to the Mother aspect of the Divine.  Helping each other love more and more is our secondary purpose and it's assigned to the Father aspect of the Divine.  Our own specific spiritual purpose is our third goal and it's assigned to the Creator aspect of the Divine.  (Thus the original trinity is exposed as being Father-Mother-Creator the Divine.)

To these three spiritual purposes for incarnating in this lifetime, the ancient teachings indicate we can add one major purpose for each of the elements.  A Fire purpose might have something to do with developing our intuition, setting and following our intentions and controlling our passions.  An Air purpose might have to do with learning, improving our mind or attitude, teaching or sharing in this lifetime.  A Water purpose might have to do with improving our relationships or managing our emotions better.  An Earth purpose might have something to do with improving health and prosperity or making this planet a better place to live.

These four elements are assigned an aspect of the Divine in many different ways.  One way is to assign the Fire Element to the Warrior aspect of the Divine, Air to the Teacher aspect, Water to the Healer aspect and Earth to the Helper aspect.

Warriors (Element of Fire) are the change agents in life.  They are catalysts for change in one or more of the created worlds.  These worlds are the physical, emotional, mental, psychological and spiritual worlds.  Warriors help us change our physical environment, buildings, places and things.  Warriors help us change how we feel about life and ourselves.  Warriors help us change how we think about things and other people.  Warriors help us change our intentions, desires, needs and wants.  Warriors help us change how we react and commune with the Divine.

Healers (Element of Water) use Divine Love to help us heal ourselves.  Healers help us decide what we must do to heal ourselves.  Healers help us open lines of communication with the Divine (communion) and help us discover the root cause of our illness and separation from the Divine.  Healers help us heal ourselves on the physical, emotional, mental, psychological and spiritual levels of our being.  Healers help us heal our bodies and our environment, our feelings and relationships, our thoughts and attitudes, our desires and intentions and our spiritual being.

Teachers (Element of Air) help us learn the lessons we need to learn to survive, thrive and accomplish our own goals and intentions.  Teachers help us learn what we need to know about our body, environment, behavior and possessions.  Teachers help us learn about how to release and experience our emotions instead of blocking and stuffing them.  Teachers help us learn how to change our minds and open ourselves to new ways of thinking and doing.  Teachers help us learn how analyze and change our intentions and desires.  Teachers help us learn how to commune with the Divine.

Helpers (Element of Earth) serve us in myriad ways as politicians, servants, merchants, providers and servants.  Helpers make our physical life easier by providing services and things for us to use or consume.  Helpers make our emotional life easier by releasing our pain and supporting us in all things.  Helpers make our mental life easier by reducing our stress, depression, anger and anxiety.  Helpers make our psychological life easier by helping us attain our desires, wants and intentions.  Helpers make our spiritual life easier by praying for us and spiritually supporting us on our spiritual path.

We all have the capacity to function in all four of the types of Warrior, Healer, Teacher and Helper, but most of us are called to do one of these four types of work primarily in our present incarnation.

This is one way of looking at our reason for incarnating in this world at this time.  Each of us as Universal Gnostics is free to adopt any other paradigm or create our own system for classifying our purpose for being here.

But according to ancient Gnostic teachings, this is not our primary, or even our secondary, purpose for incarnating into this world.  Our ancient Gnostic brothers and sisters believed our primary purpose was to learn to love one another more and more.  They also believed our secondary purpose was to help each other learn how to love each other more and more.

Our third purpose was to accomplish our life's mission based on what type of person we decided to become before we were born.  Which of the basic types of personality we chose to use in this lifetime defines our third purpose.

According to this ancient tradition we each have four more purposes and these can be accomplished in any order or set-aside until a later lifetime.  These four optional purposes are:

1.      Physical - related to health or finances

2.      Emotional - involving emotions and relationships

3.      Mental - learning new things or changing our attitude

4.      Psychological - setting intentions and subduing desires

Thus humans were said to be seven-dimensional beings.

But none of this answers the question as to what Universal Gnostics believe. The answer is each of us believes what we believe and we are free to share these beliefs, change them, keep them secret or rigidly hold onto them.  Our beliefs belong to us and we may do with them as we will.  We just have to be aware of several Divine Laws that govern our future.  Some of these Divine Laws are:

1.      What goes around, comes around

2.      What we do to others will be done to us

3.      Our thoughts create our own future

4.      Everything is subject to change

5.      We all have freedom of choice

 These and similar principles will become clearer to you as you proceed in these studies.