I just thought I'd add a couple more excellent resources on Gnosticism.

www.gnosis.org

Also, here is a better listing of early church fathers (w/the text of their works) who spoke against the heresy of Gnoticism from the above website.

Ish

Thank You Ish
wolf

Toto

Yes, Ish, www.gnosis.org is an interesting site. I did not know that there was a serious effort to revive Gnosticism, or that Tolkien was a gnostic.

I didn't either until I stumbled upon this website, but they do have some excellent and relatively accurate information on gnosticism.

Ish

Tolkien a gnostic?
I don't know whether to gape or laugh. You're not serious... Right???

Toto

I haven't listened to this lecture:

http://www.gnosis.org/lectures.html
J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings: Gnosis for Our Day.

Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings stands as one of the great myths to arise from the creative imagination of our epoch. It is a myth which also echoes to our age many of the great eternal themes of Gnostic vision. Come visit Middle Earth and listen again to the timeless songs of the Elves. (The journey takes about 75 minutes. Order cassette tape "10/2/98".)

The current lecture features Harry Potter.

Since the subject came up about Tolkien's
"Lord of the Rings", I am in the process of
reading some work dealing with that very
subject, and it's importance historically.

I dont know if you guys know of Sir Laurence
Gardner's work, but he is an internationally
known Sovereigh and Chivalric genealogist.
He holds the rank of "Grand Prior of the Celtic churches Sacred Kindred of Saint Colomba."

He is also "Chevalier Labhrand of Saint Germain."
He was the Presidential Attache to the European Council of Princes.

He is now a member of the Nobel Household Guard of the Royal House of Stewart, founded at Saint Germain-en-Laye in 1692, and the Jacobite Historiographer Royal.

Sir Gardner has spent many years tracing the blood lines of European kings and royal families. He was attached to the Royal Ecclesiatical Seat of the Celtic church.

Gardner has written several books in which
he has traced the geneology of Messianic
descent.

His books outline the blood lines of the royal House of David, which include Jesus.

In his works he points out several reasons
that a great deal of the written history of
Jesus in non-canonical books have been stored away from the eyes of the public.

His purpose at first, was to trace the bloodlines of the "Dragon Kings" of Europe
in order to establish the heirs to the royal families. The term "Messiah" was actualy translated to mean "anointed one" and refered to the practice of Egyptians
anointing royalty with the blood of the Nile Crocodile named "Messeh". The Holy Dragon.

The Dragon, emblematic of wisdom, was the epitome of the Holy Spirit, which according to Genesis " moved upon the waters of time".

He says that he was given access to many books and writings that had been locked in vaults away from the public, by the early Catholic church.

He refers to the "Dark Ages" in Europe, and the efforts of the church to remove all material from public domain that would have an adverse effect on the church. Gardner
says that Tolkiens "Lord of the Rings" was
a veiled reference to the Gnostic beliefs
and the clandestine and underground activity
that if known could cost your life at the hands of the inquisition.


Gardner says in his books that many of the oldest written accounts of the Hebrews were
"lost" by the church.

The first book in his series was "The Bloodline of The Holy Grail".
He identifies the "Grail" not as the chalace
from the last supper, but rather the bloodline of the House of David and the written documentation that was concealed indicating Jesus in fact survived the cross,
and lived in Southern Europe with his wife
Mary M. and that he found documents indicating that the blood line is intact even
today, kept alive by the generations of
Jesus and Mary's offspring.

Gardner says that there was a book of "Jasher" refered to in Joshua and in 2nd
Samuel. This book was hidden away from the Christian world, because it contained direct
conflicts with Biblical accounts in key areas that the catholic church did not want
anyone to know about.

He says that Jasher was the staff-bearer to
Moses. He was a learned man who documented
his life and times, and told a story that was in conflict with what the church wanted to teach to Christians.
He said that "Jasher" was a 9 foot scroll, and was held away from public view by
Charlemagne, until it was "lost".

Jasher told the story of Exodus very differently than is told in the KJV.
The book says that Moses was NOT the leader
of the hebrews during the Exodus.

Gardner indicates that the ancient texts
were modified to allow Moses to be the spiritual leader of the Hebrews but in point of fact, the actual spiritual leader was
Miriam.

The early church and some of the early writers would not tolerate a woman being a spiritual leader of "Gods Chosen People", so the exodus story was changed to allow Moses
to become the spiritual leader.

I wont bore you with anymore of this now,
but The reference to "lord of the rings"
was right inline with my reading subject.

Sir Gardner has written several books on ths subject based on his being able to gather information not available to the general public.

As a royal geneologist, he was given free access to investigate all the information available to establish the royal bloodlines of Europe, and his conclusions and research uncovered some extremely interesting information.