TGT-ULC Article

Gnostic terminology has long been used in the field of psychology and in theology. Why couple Gnosticism, which is highly approachable, with the difficult and complex world of Tantrism?

Firstly, I am of the opinion that they are at heart two forces bent on the same goal. Furthermore, history tells us that pilgrims have long traveled between the shrines of India and the Parthenon of Greece. There is too much evidence to describe. Many scholars can't resist the temptation to consider whether Jesus might have had some sort of Far East education. True or not, the ideas of the Far East are prominent in Meditteranean. The cult of the bull and phallus are very early Vedic practices, which spread in the earliest pagan days to become the great Cretan bull sacrifices to Poseidon. Essentially, I would be shocked if the Library of Alexandria didn't stock a large number of Sutras and other sacred Eastern documents.

The early Gnostics are perceived as the losers in a theological battle to Catholocise the church. Catholikos means 'true', and in the end the strict control of succession and ritual won out over the mystic-oriented Gnostics as being the ultimate truth.

What is left to us, then, is virtually nothing. In historic order, the razing of the pagan temples, the Christianization of the Roman Empire, the burnings of the Alexandrian Library and the Inquisition all resulted in an effective annihilation of the Gnostic church. Until the discovery of the meagre Nag Hammadi documents, they were mere figments of Catholic conquest in the form of notes scribed by haeresiologists. Even the Nag Hammadi material was food for the stove until the right collector guessed at their value correctly.

For an individual looking to somehow practice Gnostic religion, there is little tradition to follow. There is a Gnostic Church headquartered in France, but on close inspection it appears for the most part to a Lutherized approach, meaning that the distinction is a re-writing of Catholic liturgy. Besides organisations such as this Gnosticism is a dead tradition.

Tantra, on the other hand, is very much alive. It is my belief that as these approaches are allied, Tantra can provide techniques, imagery and philosophy to no end. To no end, for as a living practise it continues to be written, danced and performed. Did Basilides teach meditation? Are the strange letter fragment on Gnostic amulets in fact Greek mantra? Did St. Anthony take a vow of compassion? It is not necessary to truly know the answer to these questions. The world is alive with teachings, requiring only the correct hearing.

The Temple of Gnostic Tantrism is not a religion. It is a forum, which provides space for deities, practices, rituals, ideas, whatever is necessary to keep this process alive, to achieve knowledge of one's Higher Self, one's Angels and one's Daemons.

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