Corbin on Kabbalah — Frank, Cardozo, and the Limits of Gnosis — Kater Moggin continues his analysis of Henri Corbin's essay on Gnostic cosmogonies, examining Corbin's treatment of Kabbalistic Gnosticism — focusing on Jacob Frank, Abraham Miguel Cardozo, and the Sabbatian movement. Moggin argues that Corbin omits Frank (Kabbalah's closest approach to Gnosticism) and misreads Cardozo's revolutionary theology.
Corbin on the Valentinians — A Scholarly Correction — Kater Moggin's two-part scholarly correction of Henri Corbin's essay on Gnostic cosmogonies, demonstrating that Corbin systematically misrepresents the Valentinian demiurge and misapplies the word 'gnosis' to Islamic mysticism and Kabbalah.
Did Tertullian Eat Babies — The Blood Libel Against the Montanists — Kater Moggin examines the ancient blood-libel accusations against the Montanists, collecting and analyzing reports from Cyril of Jerusalem, Epiphanius of Salamis, and Augustine of Hippo, who each claimed the sect practiced ritual child sacrifice or blood drinking — and noting that Jerome himself cautioned against believing them.
Get In To Get Out — The Meditative Death and the Second Birth — Nuvoadam's explanation of Gnostic meditation as the 'meditative death': the technique of sending the Nous out of the body to ascend to the Eternal Now, drawing on Jesus, Rumi, Siddhartha, Kabbalah, and Egyptian mysticism.
Gnostic Priority and Authority — The Textual Sources of Western Gnosis — Nuvoadam's 2003 scholarly post on the authority chains within Gnostic literature: the texts Gnostic writers cited to legitimate their work, the two competing definitions of Gnosticism, and the Alexandrian context connecting Sethian, Valentinian, and Hermetic traditions.
Hermetic Creationism — An Introduction to Alexandrian Gnosis — Nuvoadam's 2003 introduction to Hermetic Gnosticism — its Alexandrian origins, the fall of the souls, the descent of Osiris and Isis, and the Hermetic creation myth preserved in the Corpus Hermeticum.
Introduction to alt.religion.gnostic — A scholarly introduction to alt.religion.gnostic, a Usenet newsgroup that served as a practitioner-scholar community for Gnostic Christianity and Hermetic mysticism from the mid-1990s through the mid-2000s.
Nietzsche, Beatitude, and Gnostic Anti-Cosmism — Kater Moggin examines Nietzsche's hostility to beatitude and the desire for transcendence, connecting his critique of the Christian 'Sabbath of Sabbaths' to the defining feature of Gnostic anti-cosmism — the rejection of this world as a mistake in need of erasing.
On the Intelligence — A Bayani Gnostic Commentary — A Bayani Gnostic commentary on the Universal Intelligence (al-'aql) in Ismaili Shi'a tradition, by Wahid Azal — connecting the Primal Will to the Poimandres of Hermes Trismegistus, Zoroastrian Vohuman, and the Imam-of-One's-Being revealed at Alamut.
The Cross of Light — Gnostic Meditation and the Diamond Within — A practitioner's cross-traditional essay on the Gnostic inner practice of finding the Cross of Light — connecting the Acts of John, diamond-nature mysticism, Rumi's meditative poetry, Kundalini symbolism, and the Hebrew Goddess tradition.
The Docetic Christ — On Historicity and the Transcosmic Scandal — A Usenet practitioner's reflection on the docetic Christ: if Jesus never inhabited a real body, why would Paul's crucifixion gospel be a 'stumbling block' to Jews and 'absurdity' to Gentiles? The argument hinges on the nature of scandal.
The One and the All — Gnostic Meditation and the Gospel of Mary — Nuvoadam's cross-traditional essay on the unity of all things, arguing through Whitman, Thoreau, Gospel of Mary, Gospel of Thomas, Plotinus, and Heraclitus that the Gnostic 'dissolution of the All' refers to the meditator's dissolution of the illusion of duality, not a literal end of the world.
The Schism — False Gnostics, True Gnostics — A practitioner-scholar's essay on the Alexandrian origins of the Gnostic schism, arguing that the heresiologists were themselves Gnostics attacking rival Gnostic schools, not orthodox Christians condemning heresy.
The Tale of the Occidental Exile — One of Suhrawardi's great visionary recitals — the Gnostic soul's journey through the prison of matter into the Orient of Light. Shared on alt.religion.gnostic in 2006 by the practitioner known as Abraxas.