A Series of Handbooks for Infiltrating the Church

An analysis of the potential usefulness of the Gnostic Notebook series for the conversion of Christian believers. 

The first four books in the Gnostic Notebook Series.

While writing the books that make up the Gnostic Notebook series, I've often felt that I was being guided. I do not mean this in any supernatural sense. Rather it was as though the author of some particular text was more akin to the designer of a game who must anticipate the steps that the player will follow in order to successfully complete some challenge within the game. The designer also uses the design of the game to teach the player techniques that may form the basis for more advanced solutions to more complex puzzles that the player will eventually encounter.

As I progressed through the set of seven parables that would lead the seeker to the secret teachings of Jesus when properly understood, it seemed as though I was actually accessing an ancient and forgotten cache of information. The secrets revealed felt somehow both alien and familiar.

Now that I have finished with the series, for the most part, I have to ask myself what is the purpose of this information? I think that it is probably meant to be whatever comes after Christianity. It solves many of Christianity's weaknesses: It is in agreement with the basics of evolution, it explains the changing nature of Jehovah, and it even addresses transsexuality.

When I have attempted to share my views with Christian believers they often tell me that, while they do not agree with my conclusions, they really appreciate the way I present my findings as compared to atheists. I believe this preference is based on my method of presentation which centers around the citing of Biblical or extra-Biblical texts. This is the same technique employed by Biblical apologists. 

Atheists, on the other hand, attempt to reason with the believer from outside of the framework of belief. This approach is usually doomed to failure thanks to a design feature of the Bible. Consider the following verses:

5 We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. (2Co 10:5 NIV)

24 And the Lord's servant must not quarrel; instead, he must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful. 25 Those who oppose him he must gently instruct, in the hope that God will grant them repentance leading them to a knowledge of the truth, 26 and that they will come to their senses and escape from the trap of the devil, who has taken them captive to do his will. (2Ti 2:24-26 NIV)

25 At that time Jesus said, "I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. (Mat 11:25 NIV)

The Bible has been designed to repel attacks from the outside. Atheism runs up against this barrier. Often times it is unable to breach this defense. 

Is atheism the answer anyway? Yes, it frees the former believer from an outdated belief system. It discards the Bible as excess baggage. But what if hidden somewhere in that baggage was a treasure, hidden and forgotten?

I am not confident that atheism is the future, for the simple reason that every new generation is born innocent. They will be educated and/or indoctrinated, either at school or at home. If they are at least indoctrinated with a religion that has a positive view towards science and the world, then perhaps their fervor could be turned towards saving the Earth and its inhabitants.

The solutions to the mysteries unlocked through the use of the Gospel of Thomas and other apocryphal texts seem to form the basis of a new religion for the present age. Christianity shaped the consciousness of those living under its influence for the last two thousand years or so. Despite its claims of embracing eternal and unchanging Truth, its age has passed. A greater Truth awaits.

The books that form the Gnostic Notebook series seem to have been written precisely to assist would-be agents of gnosis in their task of slowly exposing selected candidates to the inner mysteries of Thomasine Gnosticism.  

Johannine Versus Thomasine Gnosticism

Exploring the war of texts 

between two ancient 

schools of Gnosticism.

Thomas pokes Jesus in the ribs.

In my last post, I wrote about the earliest text to discuss the creation of memory systems The Rhetorica ad Herennium. I also pointed out the striking correspondence between the text's description of an idea memory tableau and the scene from Mark known as the Scourging of Jesus. Based on the similarities I suggested that perhaps the Synoptic Gospels themselves may have been created so as to serve as a form of literary memory systems encoded with hidden information.

The Synoptic is made up of three individual Gospels. Mark was written first, followed by Matthew and then finally Luke. Each Gospel was written by a certain community at a specific point of time so each is focused on different concerns which are reflected by the different texts. However, above and beyond that, the three Gospels were designed with a hidden purpose. The three texts, when brought together and studied in a special manner, could be unlocked and their secrets revealed. We will explore how to do so in a future post, but for now, it is enough to know that the system exists.

So sometime after 80 AD, all three were in circulation. When all three were grouped together it was possible for those familiar with the process to unlock the hidden information. Then, sometime between 90 and 110 AD, the Gospel of John is written. John is written in such a way that it apparently supplies answers to many of the enigmas raised by the manner in which the Synoptic Gospels are written. 

In time, the Gospel of John came to be seen as the most esoteric of the Gospels. It is certainly the best written and the most spiritually symbolic. Its glamour came to overshadow the Synoptic Gospels that seemed tawdry and redundant next to the glory of John's Gospel. 

These two schools of Christianity were in perpetual conflict. As I see it, based on the evidence of the texts, the school of Thomas was given the mission of preserving and concealing this secret knowledge in such a way that it can be accessed by those who know the proper techniques. 

The school of John, on the other hand, was given the was given the task of ensuring that the knowledge being protected by the school of Thomas never saw the light of day. It was to do everything in its power to eradicate any trace of this hidden data.

The Synoptic texts were too well known and had spread too far. There was no way that they could be completely destroyed. So the Gospel of John was written. It was designed in such a way as to mislead those seekers who assumed that it had been written with the same intention as the Synoptic Gospels, which is to convey a secret message to the diligent seeker. Instead, John was designed with the opposite purpose, to obscure the hidden message by providing a false alternative.

So first there were the Synoptic Gospels, then the Gospel of John was written which essentially obscured the Synoptic Gospels with its lyrical beauty and mystical imagery. 

The school of Thomas responded by creating the Gospel of Thomas. This text of 114 sayings serves as a key to the various mysteries hidden with the Synoptic Gospels and the Old Testament. Once again the focus shifted back to the mysteries encrypted within the Synoptic Gospels.

The school of John responded with the Secret Book (Apocryphon) of John. This text was their ultimate weapon. It created an entire secret heresy. This served two purposes. It swallowed the Gospel of Thomas by creating a hidden secret theology that seemed to align with the views found in the Gospel of Thomas. It also created a secret group with mystical views that would attract seekers looking for esoteric information. 

Rather than finding the actual mysteries hidden within Thomas, the Synoptics, and the Old Testament, students of esoteric Christianity are given the Platonic based theology of the Demiurge and fallen Sophia. There are no enigmatic sayings to unlock, the text just lays it all out, explaining the plot points before throwing in a whole lot of jargon in the form of demonic names and terms from the Greek art of rhetoric.

Eventually, the war between the schools ended with the quiet defeat of the school of Thomas with the last traces of the Gospel of Thomas eradicated or buried beneath the sands of time.

Memory Systems and the Synoptic Gospels

What are Memory Systems and what, 

if anything, do they have to do with 

the Synoptic Gospels? 

Simple peg system for remembering up to ten things in a numbered list.

The title of this article may strike you as strange. What do the Synoptic Gospels have to do with memory systems? More importantly, just what are memory systems?

Suppose that you want to remember a list of ten things in order. Let us suppose that it is a to-do list which must be followed in order. The first thing on your list is to wash the dog. Looking up at the diagram, you see that the item for 'one' is a bun. This particular example is a Rhyming Peg System because the items rhyme with each corresponding number.

So now you need to create an image that will help you to remember the association between washing the dog and a bun. Let us say that you create the image of giving your dog a bath while using a hamburger bun as a sponge which the dog partially eats during the process. 

The second thing on your list is to take your car for an oil change. This is to be combined with the item for 'two' which is a shoe. In this instance you visualize yourself driving your shoe to the garage where it is put on a lift and its oil drained.

The third thing on your list to do is to buy a lamp for your living room. You combine this with tree for 'three' as this is the third thing on your list. Instead of a lamp, you make an image of bringing home a potted tree which lights up its leaves when you pull a string connected to a branch.

In each instance, you try to make a memorable image in order to recall the original information. The system I have shown here is said to have been invented by Henry Herdson (c. 1611–c. 1651?). Still, the origin of the basic principles dates from much earlier. 

According to Wikipedia: "The Rhetorica ad Herennium, formerly attributed to Cicero or Cornificius, but in fact of unknown authorship, sometimes ascribed to an unnamed doctor, is the oldest surviving Latin book on rhetoric, dating from the late 80s BC, and is still used today as a textbook on the structure and uses of rhetoric and persuasion."

The Rhetorica ad Herennium provides the earliest instruction into the creation of memorable imagery:

We ought, then, to set up images of a kind that can adhere longest in memory. And we shall do so if we establish similitudes as striking as possible; if we set up images that are not many or vague but active; if we assign to them exceptional beauty or singular ugliness; if we ornament some of them, as with crowns or purple cloaks, so that the similitude may be more distinct to us; or if we somehow disfigure them, as by introducing one stained with blood or soiled with mud or smeared with red paint, so that its form is more striking, or by assigning certain comic effects to our images, for that, too, will ensure our remembering them more readily. 

I want to explore for a moment the mechanism being employed. Some bit of emotionally neutral information is being encoded into a striking image which requires some emotional charge in order to make it memorable. So there is the original information and then there is the bright and striking image wrapped around the original information. The wrapping is not the data, the wrapping is designed to ensure that the internal nugget of information is not forgotten.

With that out of the way, I want to now take a look and see what, if any, relevance this digression into memory systems has on our study of the Synoptic Gospels. Consider the following section from Mark:

They put a purple robe on him, then twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on him. And they began to call out to him, “Hail, king of the Jews!” Again and again they struck him on the head with a staff and spit on him. Falling on their knees, they paid homage to him. Mark 15:17-19

Now let us take a look at the section above from the Rhetorica ad Herennium again with certain key terms highlighted:

And we shall do so if we establish similitudes as striking as possible; if we set up images that are not many or vague but active; if we assign to them exceptional beauty or singular ugliness; if we ornament some of them, as with crowns or purple cloaks, so that the similitude may be more distinct to us; or if we somehow disfigure them, as by introducing one stained with blood or soiled with mud or smeared with red paint, so that its form is more striking, or by assigning certain comic effects to our images, for that, too, will ensure our remembering them more readily. 

Now let us look at the verses from Mark again with the corresponding images highlighted.

They put a purple robe on him, then twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on him. And they began to call out to him, “Hail, king of the Jews!” Again and again they struck him on the head with a staff and spit on him. Falling on their knees, they paid homage to him. Mark 15:17-19

I am assuming that being struck repeatedly on the head while wearing a crown of thorns would result in Jesus being covered in blood. Also, the soldiers falling to their knees and paying homage could be seen as comedic, at least from the perspective of the soldiers.

It seems as though the author of Mark had studied The Rhetorica ad Herennium and created this description of the humiliation of Jesus in such a way as to signal to anyone else familiar with The Rhetorica ad Herennium that there is more here than meets the eye. This text is less a description than it is a beacon signaling the existence of a forgotten memory system encrypted into the narrative of the Synoptic Gospels.

Exploring the Four Gospels from the Perspective of Johannine and Thomasine Gnosticism

An examination of the canonical Gospels with a focus on the Synoptic Gospels and their construction.

The New Testament contains four Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. As I have mentioned in previous posts, the Gospel of John belongs to the tradition of Johannine Gnosticism and Johannine Gnosticism is based on the Idealism of Plato.

Consider the qualities traditionally associated with each Gospel. Matthew is the Gospel for the Hebrews, Mark is the Gospel for the Romans, Luke is the Gospel for the Greeks, while John manages to out-rank all three by being the Gospel for Christians. There is also a temporal set of attributes: Matthew is the Gospel of the Past, Mark is the Gospel of the Present, Luke is the Gospel of the Future, and John? John triumphs again by being the Gospel of Eternity! 

My view is that even among the canonical Gospels we have two basic sorts of texts: Thomasine and Johannine. I designate the Gospel of John as a Johannine text, obviously, while I group the three Synoptic texts together and call them Thomasine. Before we get into just why I label the Synoptic Gospels as belonging to the Gnosticism of Thomas we should first examine the word 'Synoptic' itself.

The word 'Synoptic' means 'to see (optic) and together (syn).' It refers to the fact that near-identical parallel passages can be found in all three texts. Books have been printed up with the various parallel passages arranged on a single page in separate columns. This allows for the three versions to be compared as they can all be 'seen together.'

Synoptic parallels of the 'man with a withered hand'.

According to Biblical scholars, the first of the Synoptic Gospels, Mark, was probably written between 66–70 AD. The second, Matthew was written between AD 70 to 110, while the third, Luke, was written between 80–110 AD. Matthew and Luke both copied from Mark. In addition, it is believed that The authors of Mathew and Luke had access to a hypothetic collection of sayings which they independently drew from in order to add to the material taken from Mark. This document is called Q named for the German word for 'source' which is 'Quelle.'

The two-source hypothesis.

The hypothesis of Q is meant to explain the structure and content of the various Synoptic Gospels. Mark is the shortest Gospel. It contains the basic story told in a simple and direct manner. This is one indicator that it is the earliest because as a story is retold it tends to become longer and more elaborate. So someone whom we will call Matthew, for convenience only, got ahold of Mark's text and rewrote it, adding in additional material he had discovered in a copy of Q. Coincidentally another someone, whom we will call Luke, found a copy of Mark as well and, as fortune would have it, Luke also happened to have a copy of Q to refer to. Then Luke, independently of Matthew, decided to go ahead and rewrite Mark while adding sections from Q.

For some reason, that scenario strikes me as improbable. Yes, it explains the structure and content of the Synoptic Gospels but for two authors to independently decide to modify the same text using the same external and hypothetical source seems rather unlikely.

My own approach is identical to the Farrer–Goulder–Goodacre hypothesis, which is that first Mark was written, then Mark was used, along with some additional material, to create Matthew. Finally, both Mark and Matthew were drawn from to create the Gospel of Luke. 

The Farrer–Goulder–Goodacre hypothesis.

The one question that remains is why are there these nearly identical clusters of parallels. Was their creation accidental? Did each author of the Gospel envision his version of the Gospel story being packaged and read independently of the rest? Surely the author of Mark thought this but perhaps the authors of Matthew and Luke had some inkling of the triadic structure they were in the process of creating. 

This is the crux of the matter if these clusters of parallels were created intentionally then what is their purpose. To understand that we will have to delve into a subject that may seem terribly off topic. However, make no mistake, we will never grasp to the true nature of the Synoptic Gospels without first understand the mechanism beyond the creation of memory systems. 

We will examine memory systems and their relevance to the study of the Synoptic Gospels in my next post.

Is Gnosticism a Positive Belief System?

An examination of what Johannine Gnostics believe concerning several religious topics.

If your son or daughter was to tell you that they were considering becoming a Gnostic, should you be concerned?

Now, before I go any further I should clarify that I will be talking about Gnosticism of the Johannine sort in this article. This is classical Gnosticism, from the foundational text The Secret Book (or Apocryphon) of John. There are other types of Gnosticism, but this is the primary version. If someone tells you that they are a Gnostic, chances are, they mean this sort. (Full disclosure: I consider myself to be a Gnostic but of another type of Gnosticism called Thomasine).

Okay, right. So rather than me telling you that this belief system is positive or not, as that is a very subjective quality, I will instead explore a few hot religious topics and see what the Johannine Gnostics believe concerning these issues.

Do Gnostics believe in Evolution or Creationism?

In Gnostic cosmology, the creator god is called the Demiurge. The entire concept of the Demiurge was taken from Plato's Timaeus, where the process of creation is quite clearly laid out. The Demiurge imprints the simulacra of the Forms onto matter. The Forms themselves are eternal and unchanging. This philosophy is essentially anti-evolutionary because evolution requires variation. Yet as the Forms are already ideally suited to their environment there is no place for evolution.

When we look at the Apocryphon of John we find that man was created by 365 demons many of which contributed a single body part or component. This is not development by evolution, but rather construction in the manner of a Frankenstein.

Answer: Johannine Gnostics believe in Creationism.

Do Gnostics believe in a flat Earth? Here, one would think that the fact that Plato believed the Earth was round would make this an easy no. In Phaedo, Plato wrote, If man could soar high above the clouds, Earth would resemble "one of those balls which have leather coverings in twelve pieces, and is decked with various colors, of which the colors used by painters on Earth are in a manner samples."

However, many of the Gnostics I have encountered believe that the Earth is, in fact, flat, and that the masses have been deceived by the all-powerful archons, arch-demons directly beneath the Demiurge.

Answer: Johannine Gnostics believe that everything we learn from the mainstream media is a lie.

They believe that the experts and the scientists and the politicians struggling to hold the liberal international economic order together are all controlled by the archons. They understand that evolution is a lie, there is no global warming, and the moon landings were faked.

Is Gnosticism Anti-Semitic?

The original Gnostics of the Johannine school also created the Gospel of John. The Gospel of John is considered the most anti-Semitic of the canonical Gospels.

In John 8:44 we read where Jesus accuses the Jews: You are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father you will do.

The Apocryphon of John continues this tradition. In the Apocryphon, we learn that the God of the Jews is the mad Demiurge named Yaltabaoth. This book has been attacked by Irenaeus as Gnostic heresy, but make no mistake, this text was produced in house by members of the Johannine school.

Let’s take a quick look at The Infancy Gospel of Thomas, an apocryphal collection of stories about Jesus while he was growing up.

I. The stories of Thomas the Israelite, the Philosopher, concerning the works of the Childhood of the Lord. I, Thomas the Israelite, tell you, and all the brethren that are Gentiles, the works of the childhood of our Lord Jesus Christ and his mighty deeds, and all that he did when he was born in our land:

II. 1. This little child Jesus when he was five years old was playing at the ford of a brook: and he gathered together the waters that flowed there into pools, and made them clean, and commanded them by his word alone.

2. Having made soft clay, he fashioned twelve sparrows. It was the Sabbath when he did these things. And there were also many other little children playing with him.

3. A certain Jew when he saw what Jesus did, playing upon the Sabbath day, departed and told his father Joseph: Your child is at the brook, and he has taken clay and fashioned twelve little birds, and has polluted the Sabbath day.

4. Joseph came to the place and saw: and cried out to him, saying: Why do you these things on the Sabbath, which it is not lawful to do? But Jesus clapped his hands together and cried out to the sparrows and said to them: Go! and the sparrows took their flight and went away chirping.

5. When the Jews saw it they were amazed, and departed and told their chief men that which they had seen Jesus do.

III. 1. The son of Annas the scribe was standing there with Joseph; and he took a branch of a willow and dispersed the waters which Jesus had gathered together. 2. When Jesus saw what was done, he was angry and said to him: O evil, ungodly, and foolish one, what harm did the pools and the waters do you? Now you will be withered like a tree, and shall not bear leaves, neither root, nor fruit.

3. That lad withered up completely. Jesus departed and went to Joseph's house. The parents of the boy who was withered took him up wailing and brought him to Joseph, and accused him 'for you have such a child which does such deeds.'

In the apocryphal tale, we have Jesus forming a pool. Then he fashions twelve sparrows from clay. Finally, the son of Annas lets the water out of the pool which Jesus had formed and Jesus causes the boy to be dried up like a tree with no water.

Clearly, the pool is to represent Christianity. Concerning the tree, it must be remarked that, according to Luke, Annas was the high priest during the time of Jesus. Hence the tree represents the Jews.

Keeping those givens in mind, the tale appears to be a veiled threat to the Jews. If the Jews let the water out from the Christian pools, the end result will be that the Jews themselves shall dry up and whither.

Indeed, what we have is an ecological parable. Christianity is a pool of water which supports the tree of Judaism. Notice that the son of Annas uses a willow branch to disperse the water. Willows grow only in close proximity to fresh water.

This tale can be seen as referring to an uneasy alliance between Christianity and Judaism, the pool and the tree which the pool supports.

My belief is that the Secret Book of John was written to serve as a prototype for a Christianity severed from its Judaic roots. Mainstream Christianity is the result of an early marriage between Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians. Johannine Gnosticism is essentially pure Gentile Christianity. Forget the Old Testament, the god of the Jews is Samuel, the blind mad god.

The Secret Book of John was the ax that was set to strike at the roots of Judaism. As though to say, “Things might not be that great for you now, being as how the Bible describes your people killing Jesus. However, if you should decide to reveal the truth concerning Jesus, we will declare the God of the Jews a demon and hunt your kind to the ends of the Earth,” or something to that effect.

Answer: Yes. Johannine Gnosticism is by its very nature anti-Semitic.

There we have it. Johannine Gnosticism is essentially Evangelical Christianity on steroids. There are, of course, differences of doctrine. Gnosticism is concerned with the bits of light that are hidden within our evil bodies. This light is spirit and it comes from the true God that exists outside of time and space. This light has become trapped in matter and certain redeemers such as Seth and Jesus have been sent to deliver the knowledge necessary for freeing ourselves at the time of our deaths.

So the story isn’t that we are born into sin and must be saved by believing in Jesus Christ. No, instead we are sparks of light that have been trapped in material bodies and we must be freed by learning the secrets revealed by Jesus Christ. Different in specifics while being the same in function. One has merely replaced faith with knowledge, the knowledge likely consisting of little more than the rote memorization of ritualized phrases.

Complications arise where one considers the possibility that some people might have more light in them than others. When light is painted, one uses colors such as white and yellow. Isn’t it likely that people with lighter complexity would be considered possessing more spirit, while people with darker skin might be thought to have less light within them, or perhaps none at all? 

But again, I am talking only about Johannine Gnosticism. I myself an a Thomasine Gnostic and we have quite different views on all of these issues.