Theos-Talk Archives (March 2004 Message tt00517)

--- In theos-talk@yahoogroups.com, "stevestubbs" <stevestubbs@y...> 
wrote:
> --- In theos-talk@yahoogroups.com, Drpsionic@a... wrote:
> > I just had an idea to consider which may worth something or 
> absolutely 
> > nothing, but there is the Gnostic tradition of Simon Magus 
marrying 
> a prostitute 
> > named Helen as symbolic of the union of the Logos and the 
Sophia, 
> the latter 
> > having been imprisoned by the Archons in the body of a 
prostitute. 
> Could it not 
> > be that the transmorgrification of Mary Magdalene into a 
prostitute 
> was a 

You not only can go back there but you can also go back to Tibetan 
Buddhism and its symbols of highest union in which the female 
principle is shown in congress with her male principle in the 
symbolic expression that humans understand as sexual congress. She 
is sitting in his lap with her legs up and open and he is also in a 
sitting position.

Does that mean that myths do not also have a basis in reality? Or 
archetypes?

Netemara


> > reflection of the Gnostic idea and sort of adopted by the Church 
> and then corrupted 
> > by it for its own ends?
> 
> That is an interesting idea. THE CLEMENTINE RECOGNITIONS has a 
long 
> story of Simon which makes it clear he was actually the apostle 
Paul 
> prior to his conversion. (Blavatsky wrote about that in ISIS.) 
In 
> this version Helene was not a prostitute at all but the wife of 
> Dositheus, who was Simon's original teacher. Simon married her 
after 
> Dositheus died. Anyway in his letters Paul says never to marry a 
> widow (presumably including the widow of your best friend) and he 
> also says his uncontrollable lust was the reason he abrogated the 
> Jewish Law. He just had a problem with the ten commandments, 
namely 
> the one which says do not covet your neighbor's wife. It is also 
> notable that one of the names by which Paul was called was Simeon 
and 
> that there are similarities between the esoteric system of 
Dositheus 
> described in the book and the system of Valentinus, which was 
> supposed to be the esoteric system of Paul, received by Valentinus 
> through Paul's disciple Theudas. Mead said in that terrible book 
of 
> his, FRAGMENTS OF A FASITH FORGOTTEN, that nobody could make sense 
of 
> Valentinus' system but that is not true. It is actually quite 
> elegant, and relates to all sorts of esoteric meanings in Paul's 
> letters. None of them would of course be suspected by the casual 
> reader.
> 
> I am not suggesting that anyone believe amu pf this as a religious 
> system but it is interesting to the student of the history of 
ideas. 
> Especially since none of it is known generally today, despite 
being 
> around for 2000 years.
> 
> Modern scholars tend to dismiss the CLEMENTINES but they dovetail 
> with acknowledged facts in so many ways that I am persuaded there 
is 
> some historic truth in them and that they contain elements of 
> a "secret history" of Paul. It is always a guy's enemies who 
> preserve the most juicy stuff for historians, and the Ebionites 
who 
> wrote THE CLEMENTINES considered Paul "an apostate from the 
[Jewish] 
> law." They would have been motivated to preserve legends members 
of 
> the Pauline school might have wished to have go away. The 
original 
> letters contained references to Paul's wife, but those references 
> have been edited out of the versions that exist today. The story 
has 
> Paul oerfirming some seemingly outrageous miracles, but on 
reflection 
> all the story is saying is that he believed he could perform 
astral 
> projection.
> 
> Anyway, in THE CLEMENTINES Dositheus and his wife symbolically 
> represented Depth (Bythos) and Silence (Sige) which are supposed 
to 
> have ppreceded everything else. Before there was the Word (Logos( 
> there was Silence (Sige), etc. This got a little distorted by the 
> heresiarchs. The inner circle consisted of thirty students, who 
> represented the thirty AEons of the Valentinian system. That 
> Dositheus really did have thirty disciple in his inner circle is 
> confirmed by Origen and others. Another interesting point is that 
> Dositheus was the star student and considered himself the heir 
> apparent to John the Baptist, whose sect made its way to Basra in 
> present day Iraq in response to Jewish persecution and is now 
called 
> the Mandaeans. Blavatsky write about that, although not aways 
> accurately. One of their texts is the CODEX BAZARAEUS, mentioned 
in 
> ISIS, the complete text of which I have in my possession. There 
is 
> another version, different from mine, on the Internet in the 
Gnostic 
> Society Library under the name Ginza Rba if I am not mistaken. 
Mine 
> is the same one referenced by Blavatsky.
> 
> Incidentally, THE CLEMENTINE RECOGNITIONS and all the rest of the 
> ante-nicene literature and apostolic fathers are all on the 
Internet, 
> from whence they can be downloaded free of charge. It was in THE 
> CLEMENTINE REGONITIONS that I found the statement that people 
could 
> harbor parasitis entities withut being visibly disturbed 
emotionally, 
> a statement which lef me to the conclusion that Mary Magsalene, 
> depite her seven "devils" may have been as apparently normal as 
> anyone else. The belief in the existence of these entities and 
the 
> relationship of this idea to the esoteric significance of the 
> beatitutde about the "pure in heart" comes from Valentinus, who is 
> quoted by Clement of Alexandria in his STROMATA. It takes a lot 
of 
> jigsaw puzzle putting together to make sense of the whole thing, 
> though.