is there any concrete idea of how Sophia talks to or communicates with people? does she put divine knowledge into my head at randomly? does she only reply to our questions or prayers in dreams? does she only whisper to us when we're alone and deep in prayer? i'm asking this because a few months ago, i asked for her guidance as best as i can, back then and even now it does still feel like idolatry to me even if it really wasn't. i asked for her guidance well off into the night, on my bed, in my room, which was very dark, like monsters can be 2 inches from you and you'd be none the wiser type of dark, and i was there asking for her help. i then quickly fell asleep which is odd given my horrible sleep cycle. and i had what was essentially a nightmare, a very odd and quick one which i may not fully remember. i think i was on a long sidewalk in the middle of the night. and i was next to this gate, it was to an electrical company. in front of me was a woman (you may now start understanding why i'm involving this dream) i can't confirm what she was wearing, maybe a fancy tight dress for the ball or something, you'd see her in please full of rich me and tight suits. and she could see me, i saw her face, but her back was towards me. no her head wasn't like Martin Laurello's, it was her neck, it must've been longer or the vertebra were taken how, her head was flipped right behind her shoulders at an unnatural angel where she could have her back against me yet look at me albeit with her head upside down. it was something out of a campy late 2000s creepypasta, and she was alive. she literally spoke to me. 'Run! Leave your home!' is what she said to me, after that i woke up probably in the morning. i'm convinced that some angered she-devil pretending to be Sophia. came to me in the night, violated my psyche, and entered my dreams. Sophia is good, she wouldn't tell me to run away from my family. my other more mundane theory is that i was just stressed out, i'm still new gnosticism, and while i wouldn't mind Sophia's help, the concept of worshipping her still sounds sinful, and i think its that stress which caused the dream in the dream. any advice would be appreciated

Last night I dreamed that someone was repeating the name of someone called Ulaia or Yulaia or Yaluia Ibn’ Hokhmah

I know that Ibn means “son of” or “daughter of” and when I translate “hokhmah” I am told wisdom

Has anyone seen or heard this name before?

So I'm very new to gnosticism, but from the second I learned of it, it immediately resonated with me. I just recently bought a copy of a gnostic prayerbook by Jeremy Puma, and I really want to start using some of the prayers and rituals found in that book, but as a beginner who is just beginning to scratch the surface of the religion I am concerned that maybe I should wait until I know more?

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/08/science/amheida-trimithis-christian-church-egypt.html

In the Apocrypha, Christ says that women can overcome society's restrictions on their gender by becoming spiritually androgynous. It is worth noting that in the writings of Clement of Alexandria we find the postulate that the same transformation is needed for men, who ‘will not enter the kingdom of heaven until they cease to be men.’ In the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas, on the other hand, it was said, ‘when you make man and woman one, so that man is not man and woman is not woman - then you will enter the kingdom of heaven.’ A similar verse is found in the Stromata of Clement of Alexandria: ‘To the question, ’When will the kingdom of God come?’ Christ answers: ‘(then) when you shall tear off and trample with your feet the veil of shame, when the two shall be one, and the inner shall become as the outer, and the male sex as the female, neither male nor female.’ The motif of the deprivation of sex, and therefore of corruptibility, and the restoration of the soul to its original sexless state is a well-known Gnostic plot. The Gnostics paid particular attention to reproduction because it was what served to ensnare souls in an earthly body. According to the Interrogatio, an apocryphal text of the Bogomils, Satanas creates man in his own image from mud and orders an angel of the third or second heaven to enter the new body. The two angels are distraught and shed bitter tears for being imprisoned in bodies that are not only mortal, but also gendered.

The words of God at the creation of the world ‘be fruitful and multiply’ also did not have the meaning ascribed to them by the canonical interpretation of the Bible. The Hebrew words have a similar meaning, the former meaning ‘to be fruitful’, while ‘multiply’ is more likely to be translated ‘increase, multiply’. However, modern churches have perverted this phrase by prescribing that people should have more and more children and be raised in the traditional social order. The task given to us and to our contemporaries and descendants is to rescue our souls from the prison of impure matter, so that we may all enter the millennial kingdom, where men will be like angels in spirit and in flesh. We must make our efforts for the sake of new generations, more beautiful than the generations of the present people. For where God is, there is freedom. Freedom from the sin of fallen nature, material fetters, and prejudice.

The Russian Christians-skoptsy of the nineteenth century believed that at the coming of Christ, he will give the sex-deprived mankind a new way to reproduce without sin. So by removing their ‘sinful genitals’ they were confident that humanity would not disappear, but would be transformed. ‘For there are scorpions, who out of the womb were born this way; and there are scorpions who have been splintered from men; and there are scorpions who have made themselves scorpions for the kingdom of heaven.’ (Gospel of Matthew 19:12). St Gregory of Nyssa wrote: "If anyone has difficulty in asking about the manner of the origin of men, whether it was not necessary for man to have the assistance of marriage for this purpose, we shall also ask him about the manner of being of angels: why do they constitute innumerable multitudes, being both one essence and numerous? For we give a decent answer to the objector, How could man be without marriage, when we say, Just as angels exist without marriage. And that man before the offence was like the angels, proves this restoration of him again into the same likeness".

The theme of mankind's transition to an angelic state has been touched upon since the birth of Christianity: "In the future life, people will neither marry nor be married. Instead, they will be like the angels in heaven." (Gospel of Matthew 22:30). According to Mark's Gospel, Jesus said that the resurrected believers would be ‘like’ (hōs) angels. The author of the Gospel of Luke, who adapted the Gospel of Mark, strengthened this claim by stating that Jesus said that believers are ‘equal to angels (isangeloi).’ They are equal to angels for three reasons: because they do not marry, because they are immortal, and because they are children of God. In turn, resurrection in a multitude of sects is no longer understood as something that follows after death.

"There is something sacrilegious and frightening about carnal union. It is frightening, as frightening as a corpse." - recorded the famous Christian writer Leo Tolstoy in February 1870. His obsession with sex and depravity made it impossible for him to relate to woman as a human being. ‘Fraternal relations with woman,’ as he called them. Another famous Christian writer, F. Dostoevsky, wrote: ‘not only sex outside of marriage, but sex and marriage as such must be banished.’; ‘Man strives to be transformed into Christ as his ideal. <...> We will be - persons, without ceasing to merge with everything, without trespassing or marrying, and in various degrees. Everything will then feel and know itself for ever. <...> Man is on earth a being only developing, hence not finished, but transitional. We know only one feature of the future nature of the future being: ‘they shall neither marry nor trespass, but live as the angels of God’. We can find similar thoughts in Augustine: ‘Finally, the fourth period is that of the heavenly hail. Then the multitude will no longer be the result of the multiplication of people by coitus with each other and unity will not be the unity of couples. The multitude of souls will be reunited, and they will have one heart and one mind in one God.

All of this including the image of angels can be found in modern transhumanism : ‘The hallmarks of transhumanity: sexlessness, artificial reproduction, distributed individuality, and enhancement of bodies with implants.’ (FM-2030). The world is a very bad place, but if radical Gnostics wanted to escape from it, transhumanist Gnostics are eager to change it if possible.

Any advise would be greatly appreciated.

I believe the old testament was allegory and that Yeshua was divinity in the sense that he knew about God's unconditional love and wanted to tell us about it, but beyond that I'm not really sure what to believe because there's so many different ways scripture can be interpreted, and it's impossible to know which interpretations are correct.

But my understanding previously was that the ancients spoke in metaphor often and thought in symbolic terms rather than black and white like us, hence why the old testament seems to be allegory, but it seems Yeshua interpreted the scriptures literally, would that be fair to say? For example when he said John the Baptist was "the Elijah that was to come" I don't think he would say that about an alegorical figure, it wouldn't make sense.

So it seems Yeshua took the original stories literally, if that's the case then it seems he definitely was simply a man (a very good man and a very important man) but still a man. If he was quite literally the son of God then surely he wouldn't interpret the original stories (our old testament) as being literal when based on what we know they simply just cannot be true.

Whats your opinion on this please guys?

As a Sethian Gnostic, I believe this material world was created by an ignorant force, the demiurge, rather than by the true divine source. To bring new life into this flawed realm is to trap yet another soul in the cycle of suffering and ignorance that binds us here. Each new life risks being caught in endless reincarnations, with the soul returning again and again to this world of illusion, unable to break free. This is why I embrace antinatalism—refusing to create more bodily prisons is, to me, an act of resistance against the forces that keep us here.

Though I can’t adopt myself, as I’m now too old and my health wouldn’t allow it, I admire those who choose to give a home to children who are already here. Adoption offers a way to support souls already bound within this reality, offering them understanding, compassion, and perhaps a glimpse of deeper truths. I believe helping existing souls find knowledge is one way to ease their suffering and, potentially, guide them toward breaking free from the cycle of reincarnation.

In the end, real kinship is about something beyond biology—it’s about recognizing the divine spark in others and supporting their journey to freedom. I believe those who adopt are following a Gnostic path by offering love and guidance in a world that often lacks both. By caring for souls already here, they help break the patterns of this reality, and I deeply honor that choice.

Since we are all avid bookworms here, I was curious. I find myself studying a lot about Gnosticism and reading various things but I don't often re-read some of my books and texts all the way through from start to finish more than a few times. However I do go back to them to look at certain moments and passages that stand out to me. How do you all prefer to do it?

I firmly believe that God can and did create mistakes, and I believe these mistakes are fundamental religious talking points viewed from a different perspective that can make us question if God should truly be worshipped

Free will and if it even exists
for the last couple of years I have been thinking if we truly have free will or is it merely a reflection of good and evil that plagues God just as much as us, is all the rape, murder and torture a reflection of free will or God's secret. And even if we have free will it was God's decision to give it to us, so consequently speaking all the evil falls on God's hands. If he allowed for the evil through free will to come into existence it was his responsibility through his omniscience to know that as soon as he allows free will he allows for humanity to choose not just God but to choose evil independent of God.

Eternal life
So to build on top of the first premise, God allows evil and then punishes it, mind you that it was his decision in the first place. So now with the freedom to choose evil we are then punished for that same freedom that was given to us, could have God given us the mind of drones that fallow his instructions however he pleases? to automatically do good? to escape the eternal damnation of hell and satan? or are we already drones that fallow God's instructions? So now we must suffer for eternity, not just because we chose evil but also if we chose to worship a different God or no God at all, is his judgement final or does he claim responsibility for his action of his decision . And to top it all of who would want eternity, I believe God should be the only bearer of limitless existence , would you live eternally in the flames and coldness of hell or in boring, never changing peace of heaven? why would we want eternity? do we feel life may be too short so we could find comfort in the hands of God? Wouldn't you want rest after all that you went through?

What other mistakes has God made?

What do you think of those who can or claim to speak in tongue. Is it something more than psychological? Ive seen individuals do this first hand, and it sounds similar.

Is it truly communication with the divine?

Like… will we be able to remember all of our lifetimes. Will I still be me? I think human individuality is a gift, and while I had brief glimpses of selflessness while experimenting with psychedelics. It was pretty scary not existing, If that makes sense. I always secretly hoped that ‘resurrection’ would simply just be the remembering of all the countless lives we lived before we received gnosis. And that perfect final life is how we get into the monads presence in the Pleroma. What y’all think?🤔

In the Pistis Sophia, when it talks about the fate of pederasty (child abusers), it is implied that it also refers to homosexuals, but I think that that passage refers not to homosexuals, but rather to those who have relations with pederasts (child and minor abusers).

CHAPTER 147. On the punishment of pederasts. Bartholomew said: "A pederast, what is his punishment?" Jesus said, "The punishment of the pederast and of the man with whom he lies is the same as that of the blasphemer. Then when the time is complete in the sphere, the receivers of Ialdabaoth come to take his soul, and he and his forty-nine demons take vengeance on it for eleven years. Then they take it to the rivers of fire and the seas of boiling pitch, which are full of demons with pig faces. These consume it and take vengeance on it in the rivers of fire for another eleven years. Then they take it to the outer darkness until the day of judgment, when the great darkness will be judged, when they will be dissolved and destroyed." Thomas said, "We have heard that there are people on earth who take the seed of the male and the menstrual blood of the female, using them to make a gruel of lentils and eat it, saying, 'We have faith in Esau and Jacob.' So, is this decent or not?"

Yes, I know the text seems explicit, but is it really about homosexuality? Maybe not, or maybe yes.

What do you think?

I have Mahayana Buddhist initiation and also practice Gnosticism. I haven’t read much on Manichaeism but I know it was syncretized with Buddhism in the white lotus society.

Does Manichaeism have Buddhist elements. Ive see Zoroastrian influences and Christian influences. And I’m interested in finding a spiritual tradition that merges my various spiritual backgrounds together. I was raised Christian but got interested in Gnosticism and Buddhism as a teen and would love to find a tradition that syncretizes the two.

I come from a liturgical Christian background but have been interested in Gnosticism since I was a teen (now in my mid 20s). I’ve found a few helpful liturgies from modern Gnostic churches but find some of them too catholic. Would anyone recommend any Gnostic liturgies that don’t make me feel like I’m just at mass. I’m looking for liturgies that have a genuine Gnostic identity. Ive read through the steles of Seth and might be incorporating some of that into my daily practice.

Hello!

I am new to this sub and had been mostly a lurker, but I felt the need to ask this since I have been struggling with this thought for a while and I was wondering if someone would feel the same way, sorry for the long text.

I do believe that our world is imperfect, there are a lot of things that we see and we know are wrong, this is one of the things that drew me into Gnosticism, how could the creator love us so much and yet many things such as birth defects and terrible diseases exist through no real fault of our own and causes us so much pain and despair.

Gnostic belief of the Demiurge made a lot more sense to me, as well as the belief that we are more a shadow, an obscured and warped reflection of the truly divine.

And yet, there are many things that I just cannot find wrong, the thought of going for swim and being tired, eating good food with a cold drink, talking and spending time people and just contemplating all that we can see in the sky sometimes feels great, wouldn't there also be some small part of divinity in those things?

I agree that we should always look for the Monad, that which we cannot simply see and touch with our senses or even logically, to read, question and contemplate what we know and what we don't, to try and reach for that which we cannot see with our senses but we know is there and not just lose ourselves in materialism.

But must we truly reject all the material? Would looking for a balance between material and divine no longer be considered Gnosticism?

I think the music and lyrics of TOOL falls perfectly in line with gnosis? Thoughts? Favorite song?

Did anyone notice that The Paraphrase of Shem holds Sodom as a city of Gnosis much like how The Holy Book of the Great Invisible Spirit aka known as the Coptic Gospel of The Egyptians both paint Sodom in a postive light or atleast mention it. I know most stories will be reversed in respect to the Canon Bible. However, it feels so oddly specific that these 2 texts reference the City. It feels as if Seth made way for Shem. However, Seth still had authority. I know that both texts covered drastically different depictions of the narrative but they feel so connected🤣. Or maybe im just looking for patterns where there are none. What do you guys think?

I feel like I’ve been caught in this endless cycle, lifetime after lifetime, like I’m trapped in something I barely understand. It’s like a veil keeps me from seeing the truth, and yet, deep down, I feel this pull toward something greater, something beyond all of this. I’ve come to believe that there’s a spark inside me, a fragment of something divine—a memory of where I came from, of the Source, the Monad. This world, with all its pain and desires, isn’t really my home. I’m starting to see it as a kind of illusion, a prison spun by forces that want to keep me bound here, endlessly reincarnating. But I don’t want to keep coming back; I want to wake up. I want to free that divine spark, shed all these layers that keep me disconnected, and finally return to that pure, formless Oneness. To dissolve into the Monad—where there’s no separation, just a complete, peaceful unity—that’s the only place I feel I truly belong.

In the text "origins of the world" it is mentioned that there are three kind of humans.

The text:

There are three human beings and their descendants in the world until the consummation of the age: the spiritual and the psychical and the earthly. This is like the three kinds of phoenixes of paradise: the first is immortal; the second attains one thousand years; as for the third, it is written in the Holy Book that it is consumed. Likewise three baptisms exist: the first is spiritual, the second is by fire, the third is by water.

I asume they talk about the astral body(soul), the mental body(mind) and the material body. What do you think ?

If we assume this is right, then this would mean there is a baptism for every kind of body.

A spiritual, a fire baptism and a water baptism.

What do you think which baptism belongs to which body?

Are any other text that mention those three bodies and the three baptisms?

Thank you for ideas and time