Gnosticism Books - Page 6

Beloved Disciple: The Misunderstood Legacy of Mary Magdalene, the Woman Closest to Jesus

Robin Griffith-jones

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Editorial Review:

Mary Magdalene was the woman healed of her possession by seven devils and was the first to see the risen Jesus on Easter Day. Was she also the reformed prostitute who washed Jesus's feet with her tears? Was she the sister of the raised Lazarus? Did she marry Jesus? And did she become a leader of the early churches, despite the opposition of Simon Peter (who later became the first pope)? For centuries Mary Magdalene has been shrouded in mystery, but in Beloved Disciple renowned scholar Robin Griffith-Jones cuts through the confusion to bring this extraordinary figure back to startling, fascinating life.

Griffith-Jones examines New Testament accounts, ancient Gnostic sources, such as the Gospel of Mary, as well as medieval and Renaissance accounts of Mary's life and travels in the years following her discovery of Jesus's empty tomb on Easter morning. Beloved Disciple addresses questions about Mary and Jesus that have long stirred passionate debate, exploring the roles and power of men and women in the early churches—issues that still haunt the Church.

Illustrated with some of the most beautiful images of this enigmatic figure ever produced, this book puts the tantalizing fragments of information we have of Mary back into their original context: the vital stories in which Mary plays a part. Beloved Disciple shows us Mary as a model of discipleship and, through the lens of her life, offers a fresh perspective on the New Testament gospels and the Gnostic stories, to reveal them as we have never seen them before.

The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Christian Myth

John Marco Allegro

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 9 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

A gripping read 5 out of 5 stars.
25 of 26 people found this review helpful.

One of the most fascinating books I've ever read.

I definitely give this book a 5 star rating.

I spent 9 months of the last year researching Allegro's personal history, communicating with his family, etc., verifying accusations against Allegro, and investigating the personal history of those, like John Strugnell, who spent their lives in attempt to destroy Allegro's career. I've spent 12 years researching this field in total.

John goes deep into pre-Christian Essene/gnostic history, and shows us how the fanatical Essene political leader the 'Teacher of Righteousness' was applied the attributes of more ancient theology such as astrotheology and shamanism/drug use talked about in our own research (search Pharmacratic Inquisition for a free demo video). From this "Teacher of Righteousness" we begin to see a three tear system of the current pervading religious dogma, and how, like ancient kings, the Teacher of Righteousness, who died in 88 BCE, was considered holy because he was closest to god's word, the semen and drugs, and labeled the anointed "Christ."

Quote:
"Essene or Essenoi or Essaoioi means `physician'.
Although the name `Essene' was known only in its transliterated Greek forms, Essenoi, or Essaioi, there seemed good reason to believe it represented an Aramaic, ie Semitic, word meaning `Physician' (`asa', plural `asayya'), and reflected the popular idea that these pious people, like Jesus and his followers, exercised power of demons, an essential part of folk-medicine." Pg 12


Though he does not go as in depth into the drug use of these groups as he did in (the contested, and fabulous work) / The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross, / he does make many references to drugs, and he does delve deep into the sun/Morning-star worship (the Morning-star was Venus and named Lucifer) of the Essenes (meaning 'Physicians'), and their fertility rites. He explains in depth just how the name 'Christian' (Christ) is derived from chrism (semen anointing), and the correlation of the Sun and the Morning-star and their correlation to morning 'dew', and rain as being the Sky Gods' semen, which impregnated the mother earth--from which the most powerful drug plants had the most of God's seed.

---
Quotes:
"In any fertility religion it is the god who is responsible for impregnating Mother Earth and the wombs of women and animals. This life-giving force was then, naturally enough, associated with rain and with sperm, and the god within the thunder-storm also motivated the sexual urge in man and beast. It was thought that menstrual blood had a similar potency to that of seminal fluid, and that it was the combination of the two in the womb that produced offspring." Pg. 118

"The semen of the fertility god could be seen spurting as rain from heaving during an orgasmic thunderstorm; in concentrated form it appeared in certain powerful plants like the Mandrake, or Holy Plant, identified in many cultures with the sacred fungus, Amanita muscaria, or in the aromatic gums and resins that formed part of the traditional unctions of priests and kings. Such functionaries thus became `holy', that is separated to the god's service, being smeared, or `anointed' with his divine substance. They were therefore called `the anointed ones', that is, `messiahs', or christs, more specifically in the Old Testament, `those anointed with Jehovah/Yahweh'. (I Sam. 26:11; Ps. 2:2)"

"Since this divine essence, the Light of the Pleroma, was also the source of the Knowledge of God, the gnosis, anyone thus anointed was granted special insight, as the New Testament says:
...you have been anointed by the Holy One and have knowledge of all things...the anointing which you received from him abides in you, and you have no need that anyone should teach you; as his chrism teaches you about everything, and is true, and is no lie, just as it has taught you, abide in him. (I John 2:20 &27)" pg. 124

"The man and woman take the ejaculated sperm in their hands, step forward, raise their eyes aloft, and with the defilement still on their hands, offer up prayers...They present to Him who is essentially the Father of us all, what lies in their palms, saying, `We offer unto Thee this gift, the Body of the Messiah.' They then proceed to it it in their infamous ritual, saying, `This is the Body of Christ, and this is the Pascha [ie, the Passover Meal] through which our bodies suffer and are made to acknowledge the Passion of Christ.' They behave similarly with a woman's menstrual blood: they collect from her the monthly blood of impurity, take it, eat it in a common meal, and say, `This is Christ's blood.'"
---

By reading this book, we can begin to see clearly how symbology such as the caduceus has been applied to modern medicine through religion, and it's direct cousin, the crucifix has been applied to its related religion which stemmed from the same source, the Essenes 'Physicians', and much earlier shamanic (drug) and star knowledge. Physicians were considered both spiritual and physical healers because all health problems were thought to be caused by personal demons of that person's personal issues.


Quote:
"Knowledge and healing were merely two aspects of the same life-force. Gnostic Essenes, a descriptive phrase which incorporates both functions, `knowing' and `healing', symbolized and effected their calling through their anointing. Thus the epistle-writer James in the New Testament suggests that anyone of the community who was sick should call the elders to anoint him with oil in the name of the Master (5:14). The Twelve are pictured as driving out demons and anointing the sick with oil (Mark 6:13). Healing by unction persisted in the Church until the twelfth century, and the anointing of the dying, a relic of this practice, has remained a custom among Roman Catholics to this day." Pg. 129


Through this we also begin to see how the cap of the Amanita was related to the mensus, and the stipe to the white, male semen.

Allegro goes into depth on how the Essenes believed in repetitive history, and how the Teacher of Righteousness was but one of 3 'Joshuas' that had this same ancient story applied to each.

This book is very deep, and its implications are powerful. This is absolutely required reading. Buy it while it's still in print, as it is one of Allegro's few books that still remains available.

A MUST READ! Though I must admit, I am not completely convinced against the pure achaeoastrological / shamanism origins of the Jesus anthropomorphism. (See Acharya S, Morton Smith, etc.).

One day soon, John Marco Allegro's research will be the accepted norm, and not the current literal interpretations put forth by those who sought to destroy his reputation...nearly all of whom were Catholic fathers and priets: Father De Vaux and Father Josef Milik of the École Biblique, Father Jean Starcky, Father Maurice Baillet, and Monsignor Patrick Skehan. They were joined by Frank Cross of the McCormick Theological Seminary and the Albright Institute, Claus-Hunno Hunzinger from Gottingen and later John Strugnell from Oxford.

John Allegro was the ONLY researcher involved with the scrolls who didn't attempt to apply his personal dogmatic beliefs to the scrolls, and sought to translate them as he saw it, not how he wanted it to be.

Another excellent scholar, who supports many of Allegro's ideas, is Dr. Philip Davies of the University of Sheffield. His books are highly recommended reading as well.

Editorial Review:

The late John Allegro, the only humanist scholar given access to the scrolls, presents translations and analyses of the manuscripts in his charge, and expounds upon his controversial ideas regarding the historical authenticity of Jesus, and the role played by the myths of the Essene community in the development of Christianity.

The Major Mysteries: The Gnostic Jesus and the Path of Initiation

Samael Aun Weor

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Editorial Review:

"Christic Esotericism, the secret Jewish Kabbalah, and the Holy Alchemy united would have completely illuminated and transformed the entire world. Yes, the mysteries of Levi would have shone with the Light of Christ." (Samael Aun Weor)

Arranged in three parts, this unprecedented text answers the cries of centuries of pain and ignorance.

In the first part, Samael Aun Weor explains in practical terms how to return to Eden: through the door we exited so long ago. This is the ancient science of Alchemy, also known as Tantra, or the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

In the second part, the reader will be amazed by a detailed revelation of the initiatic life of Jesus of Nazareth.

And in the third part, the author discusses the Gnostic Movement, the terrors of the coming days, and many practical tools anyone can use to relieve their suffering and the suffering of others.

Topics include: The Esoteric Path; Eden; The Labarum of the Temple; The Swans of Paradise; The Sexual Act in Eden; Jehovah, Lucifer, Christ; The Tree of Life; Initiation; Astral Traveling; The Hill of Chapultepec; Clue for the Awakening of the Consciousness during Normal Sleep; The 22 Major Arcana and Astral Projections; Meditation; Initiatic Preparation; The Two Witnesses; GAIO; The Sexual Problem; The Seven Churches; Fearmongers; The Church of the Holy Spirit; The Seven Temples; The Seven Serpents; The Birth of Jesus; Origins of the Human "I"; The Guardian of the Threshold; Jesus in Egypt; The 33 Chambers of the Temple; The Ancient of Days; The First Divine Couple; The Seven Double Columns of the Temple; The Bat God; Jesus and the Angel Ehecatl, the God of the Wind; Shambhala; The Gnostic Movement; Gnostic Tradition; Practice and Not Theories; Jinn State; Imagination, Inspiration, Intuition; World Karma; How to Charge Talismans & Cleanse Our Sanctuaries; High Magic's Ceremonial Procedures; Invocations; Sexual Transmutation for Bachelors & Bachelorettes; and much more.

The Great Rebellion: Gnostic Psychology and the Path to Liberation from Suffering

Samael Aun Weor

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

"Happiness is not achieved by running away from the Me, Myself, the Ego. Instead it would be interesting to grab the bull by the horns, to observe the "I," to study the "I" in order to discover the causes of suffering."

This book is essential for anyone who is brave enough to face the reality of the current situation of humanity and the reflection of the symptoms of its illnesses within ourselves. This book gives in direct and simple explanations the necessity of applying the psychological tools given by the world s great spiritual teachers for the benefit and regeneration of the spiritual human being.

Topics include: Life; Harsh Reality; Happiness; Freedom; The Law of the Pendulum; Concept and Reality; The Dialectic of Consciousness; Scientific Jargon; The Antichrist; The Psychological I; Darkness; The Three Minds; Work Memory; Creative Comprehension; The Kundalini; Intellectual Norms; The Knife of Consciousness; The Psychological Country; Drugs; Inquietudes; Meditation; Return and Recurrence; The Intimate Christ; The Christic Work; The Difficult Path; The Three Traitors; The Causal "I's"; The Superman; The Holy Grail; and more.

The Gnostic Jung

C. G. Jung

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Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Gnosticism, together with alchemy, was for C. G. Jung the chief prefiguration of his analytical psychology. Jung did not simply interpret Gnostic texts psychologically but also cited them as confirmation of his psychology. An authority on theories of myth and Gnosticism, Robert Segal has searched the Jungian corpus to bring together in one volume Jung's main discussions of this ancient form of spirituality. Included in this volume are both Jung's sole work devoted entirely to Gnosticism, "Gnostic Symbols of the Self," and his own Gnostic myth, "Seven Sermons to the Dead." The book also contains key essays by two of the best-known writers on Jungian psychology and Gnosticism: Father Victor White and Gilles Quispel, whose "C. G. Jung und die Gnosis" is here translated for the first time. In his extensive introduction Segal discusses Jung's fascination with Gnosticism, the parallel for Jung between ancient Gnostics and modern Jungian patients, the Jungian meaning of Gnostic myths and of the Seven Sermons, Jung's possible misinterpretation of Gnosticism, and the common characterization of Jung himself as a contemporary Gnostic.

The Mustard Seed

Osho

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 12 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Inner Transformation 5 out of 5 stars.
7 of 8 people found this review helpful.

This book......Found its way in my hands 2 days prior to my Greek Mandatory Military Service Initiation. And Transformed my life completely. I will never be the same again. For once you get a glimse of the truth...Its impossible to deny it as once before.
I fell in love with Osho the Same moment I so deeply as never before fell in love with Life.

Peace and Love To all! There isnt a book on this earth that can effect you more then this. Christians..Be ware....Be Aware. For this book....Will allow you to love Jesus..in such a deeper way than before.

Jesus the mystic. 5 out of 5 stars.
4 of 5 people found this review helpful.

I was at Rajneeshpuram (Osho's Oregon commune) when this book was first published and denmand for it was very high (I had to wait several weeks to get a copy). And with good reason, too. This book presents a more believable Jesus, a revolutionary mystic whose mission was to put us in touch with our inner selves, rather than a god-man interested in only gettingpeople to worship him.

Editorial Review:

Examining the ancient Gospel of Thomas--a Gnostic text supressed by the early church--Osho paints a portrait of Jesus that is radical and revolutionary, a Jesus who makes demands that run counter to the safe and gentle person of traditonal Christian teaching.

The Gnostic Scriptures: A New Translation with Annotations and Introductions (The Anchor Yale Bible Reference Library)

Bentley Layton

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Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

See reviews in other listing for this book 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

For some reason Amazon has listed this printing separately from the previous printing, where all the reviews are. So follow this link to find reviews: The Gnostic Scriptures: A New Translation with Annotations and Introductions by (The Anchor Bible Reference Library).

Editorial Review:

Presents an introduction to the gnostic scriptures. This title looks at the theology, religious atmosphere, and literary traditions of ancient Christianity and Hellenistic Judaism.

Gnosis: The Mesoteric Cycle (Book 2)

Boris Mouravieff

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Customer Reviews:
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excellent 5 out of 5 stars.
7 of 7 people found this review helpful.

A good overview of a running thread throughout esoteric/gnostic doctrines. It has a christian gloss that I can do without but that is expected with anything "Gnostic". The essential thing in the entire series of gnosis books is the two types of humanity. Moravieff deems the types of humans as Adamic and pre-Adamic. Some misguided bigots will take that to mean one ethnic group or race is "superior" others but it's not about that. It's about conscience and the ability to be fully human by developing conscience and being. It is an easy read too. It covers a lot of similar ground as Gurdjeiff but made less complex. All three volumes are essential reading.

Thought provoking 5 out of 5 stars.
5 of 6 people found this review helpful.

This book is part of 3 books with the title Gnosis, that deals with the fourth way teachings. For those unfamiliar with Gurdjieff and the fourth way I would recommend reading Ouspensky first and in particular "In search of the Miraculous".

Mouravieff brings many of the same teachings up as in the above mentioned book by Ouspensky, but he adds his own insights to certain topics and adds new concepts such as the idea of polar beings. There is a Christian flavour throughout the book with many quotes from the New Testamente. This would have to be taken with a grain of salt, especially after having read Burton Mack's excellent book The Lost Gospel: The Book of Q and Christian Origins, where he raises serious and valid questions to the historicalness of the New Testament.

For any student of the 4'th way I would recommend reading this series of books, but be prepared that it takes more stamina to read as it to me has a more theoretical flavour than Ouspensky's book mentioned above.

The American Religion: The Emergence of The Post-Christian Nation

Harold Bloom

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 19 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

The worst of the worst. 1 out of 5 stars.
16 of 93 people found this review helpful.

This book is nothing but a politically-driven, left-wing, anti-Christian polemic.

Books like this are a gathering place for atheists, agnostics, anti-Christians, anti-Mormons, and hate mongers of all types. This book is written by a left-wing Jewish professor who obviously despises Christianity in any form. Because of this fact, reviews on books like this become sounding boards for the ignorant who hate everything that does not agree with them, or that they do not understand. It's rather odd that the respect and tolerance that most Christians have for Jews is not returned by many of the very same Jews that suffer persecution themselves. If a Christian were to write a book about Jews and Judaism with the same snide remarks and disrespect for the Jewish religion that is contained in this book about Christians, the "politically correct" would have no end of nasty criticism.

What may be even worse is that Bloom represents what seems to be becoming the majority of professors of his ilk. Many college and university professors have complete freedom of speech in their classroms, as long as they agree with the student and the student agrees with them. What is contained in this book is representative of what can be found in the classrooms of our colleges and universities.

In the small section on Mormonism Bloom has managed to write the worst and most ignorant comments on the Church I have yet seen.

I know this is mostly a book Mormon-bashers, and those intolerant of any religion other than their own, are most likely to read, but possibly there is a sincere person who will read this and wants to know the truth from the members of a religion that Bloom apparently knows nothing about.

As the review in FAIR says, "Bloom habitually characterizes those who disagree with his politics as dangerous fanatics: so Bloom calls Baptists and Mormons a "dangerously strong coalition of American Religionists that now guarantee the continued ascendancy of the Reagan-Bush dynasty" (p. 269). More pernicious is Bloom's op-ed column in the New York Times; promoting the book, it updates the last few pages, identifying Mormons with a combination imperiling American liberties.

My review follows:
Only the ignorant can be impressed by this vituperative garbage. I suggest those with any doubt read the 12th Article of Faith of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints: The Articles of Faith - #12:
"We believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers, and magistrates, in obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law."

Or, perhaps it could be made clearer by quoting a former Church President, David O. McKay: "We warn our people in America of the constantly increasing threat against our inspired Constitution and our free institutions set up under it. The same political tenets and philosophies that have brought war and terror in other parts of the world are at work amongst us in America. The proponents thereof are seeking to undermine our own form of government and to set up instead one of the forms of dictatorship now flourishing in other lands............"

Maybe this quote will make it clearer: "......I established the Constitution of this land, by the hands of wise men whom I raised up unto this very purpose....." Doctrine and Covenants 101, Verse 80

And, from the Journal of Discourses, "....Joseph (Smith)....declared...that the time would come when the Constitution...would be in danger of an overthrow; and, said he, If the Constitution be saved at all it will be by the Elders of this Church." Orson Hyde, 1858. Journal of Discourses, Volume 6, Page 152

There is almost no group more threatening to the Constitution than college professors. A liberal group, at best, and probably more socialist/Marxist than liberal, as a group they support almost every left-wing politician in American politics. These are the people, and their ilk, which threaten the Constitution, and strive for power at every level of government, not Mormons. These are the people, as demonstrated in this last election, who are looking for the overthrow of a free America, as we know it. These are those that threaten every part of the Constitution they don't agree with, but use parts they agree with, like free speech, to burn the flag and condemn our present way of life. These are the anti-Americans who preach tolerance, but practice intolerance towards anything they don't agree with. And, or course, right in line with their bigotry, hatred, intolerance, and ignorance, these are the people who will mark "NO" this review didn't help them. Of course, it didn't; if you come to review a book that you know contains ammunition to hatefully shoot down beliefs other than your own, what would you say? Blind hate and intolerance are two big reasons for the holocaust. This book is an example of why that happened. If we really want no more holocausts, then maybe it would be a good idea not to write inflammatory, ignorant, and hateful books. But, that's a no-brainer isn't it? Well, of course it is, but then the book and the author are "no-brainers", too.

There is no more patriotic American than those among the members of the LDS Church. This book reads like a paranoid adolescent afraid of the dark. This author should be ashamed of his duplicity.

Editorial Review:

The author of The Book of J analyzes the American religious imagination to produce this brilliant examination of a national soul. His consensus: America is a nation of Gnostics, believers in a pre-Christian tradition of individual divinity.

Echoes from the Gnosis: 100th Anniversary Edition of the Spiritual Classics by G.R.S. Mead

John Algeo

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Pioneer translations of Gnosis by competent Theosophist 5 out of 5 stars.
10 of 11 people found this review helpful.

Echoes from the Gnosis: 100th Anniversary Edition of the Spiritual Classics by G.R.S. Mead edited by John Algeo, introduction Robert Gilbert, Commentary by Stephan Hoeller (Quest Books) Long before the mid-twentieth-century discovery of the Nag Hammadi Library, G. R. S. Mead had translated ancient Gnostic texts. Here in one book is the entire collection of his eleven volumes first published between 1906 and 1908, including "The Hymn of Jesus" and "The Wedding Song of Wisdom."
Each Gnostic text has added historical background, source information, literary comment, and spiritual interpretation. Mead, who devoted his life to esoteric studies and was a pioneer in the Gnostic revival, uniquely understood the complex symbolism of his subject. The reader may be surprised to learn that some of these texts were originally not books, but instead initiatory mystery rituals.
Editor John Algeo preserves Mead's own inspired language. To enhance the texts for today's readers, the volume includes new explanatory essays by contemporary Gnostic Stephan Hoeller and a biography by Robert Gilbert, a world authority on Mead.
Newcomers, as well as those familiar with Gnosticism, will treasure this definitive edition for its accessible, deep insights into the visionary religion that is once more attracting spiritual seekers.

George Robert Stow Mead was born at Nuneaton, Warwickshire, England, on March 22, 1863. He came from a military family--his father was a colonel in the Royal Army Ordnance Corps--but he chose to follow an academic career instead. From King's School, Rochester, he went up to St. John's College, Cambridge, to study mathematics but changed to classics, in which he graduated with a B.A. degree in 1884. In that same year, he joined the Theosophical Society and determined to devote his life to the cause of Theosophy. As a first step, he took up postgraduate study of Oriental philosophy at Oxford, but mundane necessity then led to his teaching classics at various minor "public schools" (which in England are exclusive and expensive private schools).
During his vacations, Mead worked as a volunteer at the London headquarters of the Theosophical Society, at 17 Lansdowne Road in Bayswater, and on one of his visits, in May 1887, he first met H. P. Blavatsky. He was at once captivated, and two years later HPB repaid his devotion by giving him her absolute trust and appointing him her private secretary. Mead recalled after her death, "She handed over to me the charge of all her keys, of her MSS., her writing desk and the nests of drawers in which she kept her most private papers; not only this, but she . . . absolutely refused to be bothered with her letters, and made me take over her voluminous correspondence, and that too without opening it first herself" ("Concerning H.P.B." 135).
In addition to handling HPB's correspondence, Mead also edited most of her later published works, and acted, without acknowledg¬ment, as assistant editor of her magazine Lucifer, for which he had written anonymously since the first volume. His first credited con¬tribution, "The Vivisectors: A Story of Black Magic, Founded on Fact," appeared in December 1889. It is not a memorable tale--fiction was not Mead's métier--but it was followed by a stream of scholarly papers, even though Mead had, in July 1890, also taken on the role of General Secretary of the newly formed European Section of the Society.
This new duty involved considerable administrative work, much traveling and lecturing, and, after HPB's death in May 1891, the edi¬torship of the Vahan, "A Vehicle for the Interchange of Theosophical Opinions and News" and effectively the official organ of the Theosophical Society in Britain and Europe. The Vahan had first appeared in December 1890; originally a biweekly, the first fifteen issues were edited by W. R. Old (Sepharial). Under Mead's editorship it became a monthly.
Even without Blavatsky, the Theosophical Society continued to flourish. In the course of 1892, Mead edited her posthumous Theosophical Glossary. He also published his own first book, Simon Magus, and edited the papers of the European Section's "Oriental Department." During the following year, in addition to his existing and exhausting workload, he and Annie Besant edited the revised and much improved edition of The Secret Doctrine, but then storm clouds began to gather.
H. P. Blavatsky had left no heir apparent as the public face of the Theosophical Society; but its rising star, especially in Europe and India, was unquestionably Annie Besant. In America, however, the preeminent Theosophist was William Quan Judge, who, after HPB's death, claimed to have received letters from the Mahatmas with private revelations to himself. Eventually, in July 1894, Judge was summoned to appear before a judicial committee of his fellow Theosophists, including G. R. S. Mead. The outcome was unsatis¬factory, but Judge escaped public condemnation -- only to have the charges of fraud against him made public in a series of satirical articles in the Westminster Gazette. As a consequence, the pro- and anti Judge factions became more entrenched; a bitter pamphlet war followed, and Mead attempted, without success, to keep the peace. The result, in April 1895, was the first major split in the Theosophi¬cal Society, effectively dividing most American Theosophists from those in the rest of the world.
Throughout this affair, Mead had held private conversations with Judge, but these led him to mistrust Judge. "If Mr. Judge's party," he wrote, "should by any chance get the upper hand in the Society, then we shall be within measurable distance of a spiritual papacy and an official tyranny" (A Letter to the European Section 4). Mead gave his total support to Annie Besant and for more than ten years remained utterly loyal to her, although he refused to be associated with the posthumous third volume of The Secret Doctrine (1897).
The 1890s were a decade in which Mead's career as a writer blos¬somed. By 1896 he had published four more books: The World-Mystery (1895), Plotinus (1895), Orpheus (1896), and Pistis Sophia (1896), of which Pistis Sophia was the most significant but Orpheus the most rewarding, for it brought him the respect of W. B. Yeats, who had previously maintained that Mead's intellect resembled that "of a good-sized whelk." Mead now decided to concentrate on literary work and lecturing, and so in April 1898 he resigned from the post of General Secretary of the European Section. He remained as editor of the Vahan for another year, but in September 1897 he had already effectively become sole editor of Lucifer, immediately renaming it The Theosophical Review. Mead's name first appeared as coeditor with Annie Besant in September 1894 (volume 15), and her name remained on the title page until 1906, but she left the journal entirely in Mead's hands.
By virtue of Mead's contributions and editorship, the magazine had gained a modicum of academic respect. As early as 1893 Max Muller, the best-known Orientalist of his day, had thanked Mead for his long and detailed review of Theosophy, or Psychological Religion, Muller's Gifford Lectures for 1892. Mead later remembered that Muller was puzzled, however, that Mead should waste his talents on Theosophy when, as he said, "the whole field of Oriental studies lay before me, in which he [Muller] was kind enough to think I could do useful work" ("Concerning H.P.B." 139). This comment pinpoints Mead's most lasting and important contribution to the Theosophical Society--scholarship. Throughout his time in the soci¬ety, Mead was the best scholar in its ranks.
By any objective canon of criticism, G. R. S. Mead's twin literary monuments, Fragments of a Faith Forgotten (1900) and Thrice-Greatest Hermes (1906), are his two major works. They exemplify all that is best in his dedicated, scholarly, but eminently readable studies of the spiritual roots of Christian Gnosticism and, more generally, of per¬sonal religion in the Greco-Roman world. But while his work encom¬passed much more than this--Mead was equally at home with Sanskrit texts, patristic literature, Buddhist thought, and the prob¬lems of contemporary philosophy and psychical research--he devot¬ed his intellectual energy to the complex interplay of Hellenism, Judaism, and Christianity. And for Mead, the subtle and ever-shifting patterns of that intricate dance of praxis and idea were summed up in one word: Gnosis.
Gnosis, however, is a deceptively simple word. In its essence it means simply "knowledge"; but what kind of knowledge? It does not refer to the accumulation of facts by means of observation, experi¬ment, and deduction, for it is not concerned at all with the empirical world. For the Greek philosophers, Gnosis was a "higher knowledge," a "deeper wisdom," acquired not by sense experience but by inner illumination. The followers of the Mystery religions and of the Christian sects labeled Gnostic saw it in a subtly different light; for them Gnosis was a secret knowledge of the way in which the true believer can attain salvation. Such knowledge comprised both a reve¬lation, giving an immediate vision of the truth, and an interpretation of the vision, leading to full understanding, which was given by a teacher who had received it himself from an earlier teacher as part of an ancient and secret tradition.
For Mead, the basic nature of Gnosis was spiritual science or wisdom, the lack of which was spiritual ignorance, "the root of all bondage with which man is bound" ("On the Nature of the Quest," in Some Mystical Adventures 297). However, it is in the nature of human beings to seek escape from such ignorance. Always they are seeking the way to the eternal, and it is this quest that distinguishes mankind from the rest of creation. Mead wrote (288):
That Quest is final and complete; when found it is the begin¬ning and end of all things for man. It pertains to the depths and not to the surfaces of things, to life and not to death, to the eternal and not to the temporal. No matter what route of research is tra¬versed, no matter how many steps along the innumerous paths of the ever becoming, the final result is in no way affected; for it is something "more," something "greater," something "other" than the product or total of any series.
This one Quest is the search or call of the soul for That alone which can completely satisfy the whole man, and make him self-initiative and self-creative.
And that Quest drove Mead in his ceaseless probing of ancient wis¬dom. It is what led him from purely objective historical study to inner experience--but without ever compromising his fine critical faculty--and it informed his decision to give to the world those trans¬lations of ancient texts that became his Echoes from the Gnosis.
By 1906, when the series began publication with The Gnosis of the Mind, Mead had published eight works on various aspects of the early Christian world and on "The Theosophy of the Greeks." These, together with his remarkable translation of the Hermetic books, had established his reputation as one of the foremost English scholars in his chosen field--at least in Theosophical eyes. Over a period of four¬teen years, his books had introduced Theosophists and others with an interest in esoteric pursuits to the obscure and difficult religious literature of the Greco-Roman world. What he had not yet done, however, was to provide a basic introduction to that literature, an omission that the Echoes from the Gnosis was designed to remedy.
That this literary motive was neither the sole nor most important purpose of Echoes from the Gnosis was recognized from the begin¬ning. A. R. Orage, reviewing The Gnosis of the Mind (466), noted that "we have been waiting for such a series from Mr. Mead for a long time" and commented:
For every student, however, who will be led from them to the first¬hand examination of the more difficult literature, there will be, it is to be hoped, a hundred who are inspired to the first-hand exam¬ination of the nature of their own minds as well. And it is this intention quite as much as the first that Mr. Mead has kept very clearly in view.
But Mead's good intention came at the cost of his good name in academic circles. Contemporary authorities in the fields of Christian origins and classical paganism, whether theologians or classicists and whatever their faith or lack of it, tended to look askance at Mead. This was not because they doubted his skill as a translator or his abil¬ity to understand the texts, but because they saw him as an occultist and thus flawed as an objective interpreter. A typical expression of their attitude is that of J. P. Arendzen in his article on "Gnosticism" in The Catholic Encyclopedia. Condemning the portrayal of Gnosticism as "a mighty movement of the human mind towards the noblest and highest truth," Arendzen regretted that Mead should have renewed such an approach in Fragments of a Faith Forgotten, which he described as "an unscholarly and misleading work, which in English-speaking countries may retard the sober and true appreciation of Gnosticism as it was in historical fact."

Editorial Review:

The fully revised complete collection of eleven seminalk works on Gnosticism, the first of which orginally appeared in 1906.