Gnostic Insights Podcast Por Cyd Ropp Ph.D. arte de portada

Gnostic Insights

Gnostic Insights

De: Cyd Ropp Ph.D.
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Gnostic Wisdom Shared and Simply Explained Desarrollo Personal Espiritualidad Éxito Personal
Episodios
  • Gnosis or Not Gnosis?

    Gnosis or Not Gnosis?
    Mar 2 2024
    We Gnostic Christians are in a very funny position as far as Gnostics and Christians go, because we fall into neither camp and we fall into both camps. And this is what I mean. I realize that the last couple of episodes have been very, what people would call, Christian, except the Christians don’t call it Christian. It’s a funny, funny position to be in. Those of us who call ourselves Gnostics believe in the Father. We believe in the Aeons of the Fullness. We believe that one of the Aeons “fell” out of the Fullness and, for most Gnostics, they call that Aeon Sophia, and Sophia is considered to be a female character. For those of us who are interested in the Tripartite Tractate we call that fallen Aeon Logos. And, Logos is neither female nor male, because in the Gnosticism according to the Tripartite Tractate of the Nag Hammadi, there are no females and males. Or, there may be females and males, but their gender is not important. Gender is irrelevant. The folks who follow what is called Sethian Gnosticism, as I understand it—who prefer to follow Sophia rather than Logos—believe in a system of male-female bonding. They’re called syzygies, and for every male Aeon there’s a female Aeon and they are like a married couple. And that between the two of them there is balance. Well, now that’s kind of a funny thing at this point in our social development, don’t you think? All of this idea that genders are unimportant or that you can change the gender you were born with—this transgenderism that’s going on in society. Now, I am a female. I was born a female. I remain a female. And yet I have always felt within myself that gender was unimportant. It’s irrelevant other than our reproductive functions. But as far as my actions on the social stage, as far as my actions on the academic stage, as far as the way I read and interpret material, gender has nothing to do with that. I’m a Libertarian. I believe in freedom and personal responsibility and liberty to be able to make the decisions we want to make. I don’t believe in power and control. I think that power and control, particularly centralized authority, is demiurgic because that’s the way the Demiurge operates. The Demiurge is the puppet master. It has always been said, even in conventional Christianity, that every person must come to God for themselves. Every person must make their own decisions regarding whom they will follow, and I don’t think that has anything to do with gender. I think it has to do with the Demiurge versus the Father, or the Son, or the Fullness, or Logos. Bob Dylan had a song—remember back in his evangelical phase? The lyrics had to do with you have to choose somebody. “It may be the devil or it may be the Lord, but you’re gonna have to choose somebody.” That is a black and white decision that is a bilateral decision. You’re either going this way or you’re going that way, you’re going in or you’re going out, you’re going up or you’re going down. The Demiurge controls through strings of power. Now, the culture that we’re living in, it’s mostly demiurgic. It’s mostly being controlled by centralized authority. And whether that is political, corporate, media led, or religion led, it is centralized authority that takes away your freedom of choice. It says, No. You have to believe this. You have to believe the way we believe. And if you don’t, you’re an outsider. You’re bad. That isn’t the way true choice works. That’s not the way liberty works. Liberty says, Here are all the facts of all the matter, and you can choose this or choose that, or choose that. That is up to each and every person. And indeed, we all are responsible for our own karma, for our own lives. We can’t shuffle that responsibility onto another person or onto a religion or onto a corporation, or onto a political system. We have to make our own decision for ourselves, because it’s only us that’s going up or down. So, the past couple of episodes have been very Christian. If you’re not familiar with Christ and Jesus, you’re gonna think it’s very Christian. Here, I’ll read you a letter that I got off of Substack this week from one of my paid supporters. He has unsubscribed. He is no longer paying to listen to the Gnostic Reformation. And here’s what he says: “I’ve really enjoyed getting your take on gnosticism. What I’ve enjoyed most is just how different your perspective is from my own—mine, alas, being increasingly un-Christianized and more focused on Sophia. Of course, to paraphrase Shaw’s quote about economists, If you laid 1000 gnostics end to end, they would not reach a conclusion. Such is the nature of heretics, I think. Gnosis is, imo, different for each of us. It was my honor to help support your work for a time. Best wishes!” So that was very kind of him. He said it in as kind a manner as he could say. And yet it points out the divide within Gnosticism of those who consider ...
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    20 m
  • The 23rd Psalm

    The 23rd Psalm
    Mar 9 2024
    I’m going to read you some excerpts this morning from one of the listeners. She says a lot of people look at her as if she’s speaking Chinese when she talks about the things she’s learned. She says, “I don’t think the point is who is right versus wrong. But if we can come to a universal understanding that is about love, particularly the Father’s love, the Son’s love, and the Pleroma, the ALL and the Totalities—it’s all love.” And, indeed, it’s about rising above the memes, the particularities, to find the essence that is being conveyed, no matter what people are talking about. Is it love or is it anger and hate? That is a dichotomy. Is it life or is it ignorance and death? Those are dichotomies that cannot be overcome, because they are either/or. But as far as the particularities, those are not as important as where your heart lies. She says, “I see so many people who have podcasts, YouTube channels, and two week $300.00 classes that promise spiritual enlightening,” and it causes her to shake her head. “Other people seem to want to focus on things that don’t have much substance and then try to fill in the lines.” She asks me if there are any, “specific prayers that I would suggest to give glory to the Father, the Son, and the Pleroma. Are there specific prayers for that?” Well, I don’t have a particular litany of prayers. There are really only two prayers that I repeat pretty much daily. [Those two prayers are “The Lord’s Prayer,” and the 23rd Psalm.] Usually when I go to bed, or in the middle of the night if I wake up, if I say the 23rd Psalm, I immediately feel peaceful. It causes me to have a deep and relaxing breath when I’m beginning the very first stanza, and then I’m able to relax. I picture all of the events taking place in the 23rd Psalm, and then I often fall asleep before I even reach the end. So let me go ahead and recite the 23rd Psalm for you. And it’s a good one to memorize, because it’s pretty much all there and it’s very comforting. Here’s how it goes: The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures. He leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul. He leadeth me down paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Yea, though I pass through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. For thou art with me. Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me. Thou preparest a table for me in the presence of my enemies. Thou anointest my head with oil. My cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the House of the Lord forever. That’s the 23rd Psalm. And it’s not a ritualistic thing. It’s not a thing like repeat this 20 times in a certain cadence and all will be well with you. It’s more a matter of putting yourself into the place that’s being discussed. Picture yourself. So, when I say the 23rd Psalm to myself, I do think of myself as a sheep because it’s talking about the Good Shepherd. “The Lord is my shepherd.” So I picture Jesus looking like a shepherd and I’m one of the sheep lying down in the pastures. And it’s a beautiful pasture. I picture it in my mind. And I can stay there for a long time if I want to and look around the pasture at how beautiful it is. There’s a park near here that I call up in my mind because there’s a river that runs through it. And so the green pasture is at that park. And, “He leadeth me beside the still waters.” It’s peaceful water. It’s not a raging storm going on so that river is not flowing fast, but it’s very calm and wonderful. A good, safe place to bathe or to drink. And, symbolically, still waters represent calm. Calm emotions, not being in turmoil, but peaceful and calm. And it says, “He restoreth my soul.” So, whatever is bothering me or troubling me that happened during the day or that caused me to wake up in the night, there’s no need to lie there and to play it over in my mind. That is never helpful. That’s backward and down. You don’t want to replay bad things in the backward direction, which is history, and down, which is the demiurgic direction that stirs you up and makes you feel bad. So, “He restoreth my soul.” “He leadeth me down paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.” The paths of righteousness—another black and white choice is virtue or vice. We don’t dwell in the gray areas. Those cause turmoil. Those cause confusion. There isn’t any gray area between evil and righteousness. Evil is evil. Evil is a lack of knowledge, a lack of life and love. Evil is rooting for death and division. That is not a gray area. That is a bad area to wander through, so my Good Shepherd leads me down paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Now, that sometimes used to throw me. What does this mean? Why am I going down paths of righteousness for his name’s sake and not for my sake? Because when we go down paths of righteousness...
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    28 m
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I was pleasantly surprised that Dr. Ropp was brave to tell this entire encounter with the experience to back it up. A lot of this knowledge has been purposely written off as fantasy and not advertised for many reasons. It is truly her experience and interpretation that has matched thousands of others through out history who have also been ignored.

Knowledge of specific information

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As a Gnostic Christian who was raised within mainstream Protestant Christianity, this podcast seems very inauthentic to me. I'm not saying her faith is inauthentic, only that it isn't actually Gnostic. It seems as though the intention behind Cyd Ropp's "Gnostic Insights" is a bit deceptive, like a Trojan Horse clothed with language adopted from Gnostic tradition but actually expressing mainstream Christianity. As well, beyond her primary focus on the mainstream Christian Bible, she mainly ignores most Gnostic scriptures, except for only one, which is the Tripartite Tractate, perhaps because she finds it easiest to bend to her goal, which is to draw people in with promises of Gnostic teachings, that quickly become a bait-and-switch leading to mainstream Christianity.

Seems inauthentic to me

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