Gnosis as self-knowledge

&

The Astro-Psychology of the ancients

 

Cliff Carrington 1993-1996

 

“I am a child of Earth and Starry Heaven.

But my race is of Heaven alone.”

 

INTRODUCTION

 

“The glorification of the heavenly body is a cult which all Greek philosophers celebrate... It is the intellectual solar system. Hence the Greek philosophers, in worshipping the heavenly bodies, worshipped their own mind.”[1]

 

This work is an anthology of ancient sources and my own contributions to the understanding of these sources. There are two sections: one deals with Gnosis As Self Knowledge; the second section is on the Planets and the structure they give to the gaining of Gnosis. Combining these two subjects allows us to see their inter-relationship and to follow their influence in the Western Tradition. It will be seen that the ancients intertwined Gnosis with the Heavenly Ascent from a very early period. I am not arguing this thesis - I am stating it.

 

The material has been confined to the Western Tradition. This is not to say that the Eastern Traditions neglected the concept of Gnosis, or the Planetary Ascent. The Upanishads, the Holy Scriptures of India, are essentially about Self Knowledge and union with the One. The Islamic world has a tradition of planetary symbolism which is exemplified by the planetary dance of the Whirling Dervishes. But, as these are parallel to our own Mystical tradition I hope that the reader may pursue further study in these other traditions in the light of this work.

 

My contributions date mainly from 1984 to 1988. The majority of the quotations have been collected during this same period of reading. I have used extensive quotations to illustrate the subjects under consideration. Perhaps, some would say, I should have included more of my own material. My reply is, “Why redo what has already been done so well by the ancients themselves?”

 

To my detractors I dedicate the following:

 

THREE LAWS OF NOTION

 

1. Once an opinion is set in mind it will remain unchanged, until an outside opinion changes it, which will then remain in that state until changed by another opinion.

 

2. An opinion will change in proportion to the force of another opinion and in the same direction.

 

3. For every opinion there is always an equal and opposite opinion.[2]

 

 

 

Reading Hints

 

In this work some words will be given an initial capital. These are key words which have both a normal and a Specialized meaning. The capitalized words are to be understood in their specialized meaning. Words such as; Knowledge, Experience, Reality, and Self, are used in this manner.

 

If we speak of something that can be intellectually learned, a skill, or scientific study, we will use knowledge (episteme). However, when we mean that which is intellectually Experienced, like an emotive state, personal insight, or enlightenment, we use Knowledge (Gnosis). Further, by Experience we do not mean experience like walking the dog, or going to work, we mean Experience which is intellectual, internal, the ground of our beliefs about Reality. Reality, again, is not the mundane reality of the everyday, the streets, buildings, or even nature in general. Reality is that which is, just IS, Real eternally. ie. Knowledge, through Experience, of Reality is what the Self attains.

 

This convention is not used by all of the authors in the Anthology. Their spelling has been left as it is. The readers will soon, through reading, come to understand the specialized meanings by themselves.

 

Now, inevitably the concept of God will enter into our discussion. ‘God’ is the particular name for the particularly unnameable. A pronoun, as it were, used in place of the unknown proper noun. When there is mention of ‘God’ in the following pages we must have no dogmatic preconceptions in mind, this must remain an open question as far as definition is concerned.

 

It may be assumed that the maker and the made are intimately related, and perhaps are the same in ultimate Reality. But, as God is essentially unknowable, according to those who seem to know, we will use ‘God’ in the abstract sense without a concrete meaning. There seems to be an evolution, or involution, from inert matter, to life, and then to conscious thought. We will assume self-conscious thought to be highest in our order of things. By thought all else can be known, in some way or another, but we must not assume that the ‘conscious mind’ is the ultimate source of knowledge. It is from the ‘depths’ of the unconscious that inspiration comes, or ‘from on high’ in the upper reaches of the mind. Wherever the inspiration comes from it alone is responsible for all that is best in our culture, the source of our Humanity.

 

Note:

“   ” Quotations are indented.

 

Italics have been used for titles of books, transliteration of foreign (mostly Greek) terms, and sometimes for emphasis. Also, some poetry is separated from prose by italic text.

 

Square brackets [ ] contain my comments, or inserts to the quotations.

 

Ellipses... are used to show where I have omitted parts of a passage - or moved through a text selecting important ideas to demonstrate the thesis.

 

In the quotations used, the authors’ original conventions have been retained throughout.