Gnostics ARE fucking weird. I can tell you why since I attended a Rosicrucian(Not the RORC one, either) temple around here for a while, I'll probably shoot around between regular gnosticism and regular other religions and crazy rosicrucian stuff:
Their belief system is essentially derived from gnosticism, with the added benefit of "Science". They believe in the "Heart atom" which is like your "True" soul(the common 'soul' is actually just our blood). I guess they talk about it in the bible and call it the "Mustard seed", or the diamond in the lotus in buddhism(it appears in every religion). It is the only part of us that is eternal, because it is a part of divine man before he fell(basically, it's a piece of adam and eve).
The way the fall(in the bible it's being casted out of the garden of eden) supposedly came to pass is by Narcissus. You see, they claim man was originally an inhabitant of the sixth or seventh sphere(I can't remember because I usually compare their spheres with the Sephira of the Qabalists), for now we'll say the sixth sphere. Qabalistically this represents "Beauty" or jesus christ(same in gnosticism), essentially it's Divine man, the highest state "Man" can ever reach; the position God created us to fill
(it's funny to see how symbolical maps, since that's what the tree of life is, can fit into so many religous/philosophical beliefs. There's even an entire book of comparisons by aleister crowley called liber 777, it's basically a map so you can understand any religion or belief system, based on the idea that they all tell the same story in different ways so all you have to do is get the placement correct. If you've ever compared the mythology of ancient countries you'd notice a dastardly indifference between their God's).
Originally we were creators under God, and we created this world. Apparantly we fell in love with our creations, and desired to become a part of nature. According to them and their unscientific science, we sort of stared inwards at ourselves, and became too hot and one of our "heart atoms"(it has three components) shot out from the "Pressure". Anyway, there's alot of stories(many religions and mythologies) about this too, man trying to become one with nature; How he/she had to give up pieces of himself to become low enough to enter the earthly sphere(I recall the story of someone giving up their various articles of clothing).
Anyway, that's the story of the fall. As I said, it all relates to the fall within the bible of adam and eve being kicked out of the garden of eden, paradise, into the world of dialectics, suffering and death. This is a pervasive theme in all religions, and it's been argued and 'proven' on many occasions that genesis was actually taken from other religions. Either that, or they are all divinely influenced and thus have the same stories. Take your pick.
The rosicrucians interpret the above similarly to any other religion. They believe our purpose here on earth is simply to return to "Heaven" or to "Union with god" or to become christ or enter the sixth sphere. Through this, however, they take the rather dire approach to life on earth as being pointless; it's a dialectical world so there's nothing that can be done here. There will always be death, pain, suffering and whatever other ailments exist here, so there's no use being here or putting any effort towards life on earth. It can never be perfect or better, because it is dialectical; and in dialectics there is no "perfect"; just mediaries between perfect and entirely flawed. Even if perfection(or better) were somehow acheived; it's a dialectical universe so eventually it's going to balance out again.
They allow that sort of philosophy to enter their entire personality, to pervade it with dogma and thoughtlessness. In my opinion they are just trying to hide from life here(oh so much suffering and pain withdrawl withdrawl), and I find it to be rather pointless. If you look at christ's example you'll see he transcended and acheived union with god by direct involvement with and sacrifice for the Earthly sphere. Same with buddha and anybody else who supposidely transcended; boddhisatva perhaps ;(.
There's some ideas in gnosticism that are interesting. You have to realize, with alot of religions they are merely describing psychological functions(which could sometimes be called 'nature', keep that in mind). They have this thing called the 'Auric Being' which is essentially our "Higher self". This isn't to be confused with the divine man, rather it's the psychological state that we set on a pedastal. For example, for Christians it could be the virgin mary, it could be jesus, it could even be George Bush or anybody else; essentially the important part is that it's a state of being we strive to acheive(or that which effects us). According to them, transcending the auric being is the first step to acheving transendence(which makes sense, since it's basically saying to overcome your attachments and boundaries since they
limit your scope of understanding and you thus have a less likely chance of finding 'truth').
There's also a Worldly Auric Being which is the same as the individual auric being except that it relates to the entire world. This is why many stupid gnostics have the belief that God is evil; because of the Worldly auric being. Really, though, the worldly auric being should be considered stupid and evil, simotaneously, for one could consider it the natural state(like in nature) of all humans and animals, combined, rolled into a sweet Godly figure whom we worship as survivor; god of malkuth. Anyway, that is just one aspect of the auric being, but I thought it would be easiest to understand it in that fashion. Just so you know, that's not the REAL gnostic god. It's the fake one, which is exactly what they claim, and exactly why they claim it; "it's fake, don't follow it-- that's the problem with the world".
Anyway, take all that and roll it into paraoia and you have a rosicrucian.
On top of that, we attended their temple one night and we were horribly stoned. The temple essentially went like this: She plays music(can't see her) she rises and gives a lecture on sir galahad and the quest for the holy grail(union with god, what we were talking about above). Then she lowers again and plays music. Then she turns the music off and rises again, and starts talking about Harry potter(brrmmp). Anyway, she did this time and time again, and everytime she rose and fell I imagined slide whistle noises and I started laughing and my girlfriend started laughing because she thought she was playing the music herself because the first two instruments were solo music then the third was an orchestra, and I guess she was imagining her playing all the instruments by herself ;(
Anyway, they all got really embarassed because we didn't stop laughing and we never went there again because they talked about harry potter seriously.
I wanted to throw this in at the end for food for thought:
Nirvana means "Extinction" or "Oblivion".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirvana
Moksha is the hindu equivalent of nirvana.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moksha
I consider it all the same thing as Union with God.
Also, according to the gnostics, buddhists and alot of other people; 'heaven',as people commonly believe, is actually a lie. They attribute it to two things; first off they relate it with the Tibetan wheel of life and death, which is essentially a simple diagram of life and death. During life we live, then we die; in the death phase we go through a similar process of life, except the actual goal is dissolution of our old selves. Basically, at first we're in "Heaven" or Hell or wherever we believe we should be, then we begin to discover it is fake. Yada yada, eventually we get brought back to earth. Let me find a picture of the wheel...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Wheel_life_01.jpg
Anyway, basically in the world of dialectics we are shot back and forth between life and death and rebirth until we acheive transcendence or union with god. If we don't acheive union with god, we die, suffer from delusions created by our auric being(sort of), wait for it to dissolve, then are sucked back to earth so we can try to transcend again. Union with God=True Heaven. I don't know why people would assume union with god entails them running around heaven on golden streets(which would have no value as gold I might add) being happy as hell about everything, seems like a pretty thick lie you tell to children.
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