How to Think Like a Gnostic Quotes

“what you do unto even the least of humanity you do unto the Christ within because what you do unto even the least of humanity you do to yourself.”
― Jeremy Puma, How to Think Like a Gnostic

“So what, then, of our relationship to God? What is a totally reasonable way to look at our place in a theistic cosmos if God itself is imperfect? Perhaps the most reasonable way to look at God in relation to us is to ask the question, what if God is, like us, imperfectly striving towards self-knowledge?”
― Jeremy Puma, How to Think Like a Gnostic

“The idea that an Evil force opposes this good God, and is responsible for the suffering in the world? Totally unreasonable, if, indeed, this God created everything. Why would you go and do something like that? There isn’t a single good argument one can make for giving one’s self an opponent if one knows very well that one’s opponent will cause others to suffer. I suppose if one wanted to challenge one’s self, one might come up with an archenemy, a super-villain who could test one’s abilities and self-worth. But if this super-villain could spread misery around, and if you couldn’t do anything to prevent that misery, wouldn’t the act of creating this super-villain be wildly irresponsible? The idea that the God who created the universe as we currently experience it is imperfect? Totally reasonable.”
― Jeremy Puma, How to Think Like a Gnostic

“What it means is that individuals should be judged solely on their own merits, keeping in mind that all we can ever really perceive of a person is his or her doppelganger.”
― Jeremy Puma, How to Think Like a Gnostic

“What it means is that we should see the cause of the problems politics generates as the intersection of the individual Counterfeit Spirit and the Archonic Power that is “Politics.”
― Jeremy Puma, How to Think Like a Gnostic

“We do the same thing when we are overly self-critical: “I wish I weren’t so fat/short/tall/dumb.” These are all aspects of the counterfeit spirit, not the essential Self.”
― Jeremy Puma, How to Think Like a Gnostic

“As we tend only to interact with the False Self, we perceive the accidents as the real deal– we tend to mistake a person’s counterfeit spirit for his or her essential self. Thus, when we generalize individuals based on any externality or expression we aren’t really coming to any kind of truth about that individual, but instead to whatever Archonic feature of the World of Forms has contributed these accidents to that person’s being.”
― Jeremy Puma, How to Think Like a Gnostic

“Regardless of the tradition, the idea is that as we accumulate experiences during life, we also accumulate roadblocks to the Pleromic worldview in the form of an aggregate of accidents. Let’s think of this aggregate as a False Self, or, as the Sethians might have had it, a Counterfeit Spirit. This doppelganger is the way we present ourselves to the World of Forms, as determined by the World of Forms.”
― Jeremy Puma, How to Think Like a Gnostic

“They are, instead, the impermanent things that impede one’s ability to experience the psychospiritual state we call “dwelling in gnosis.” They’re the roadblock on the path to self-knowledge, and through mindful contemplation on them, one doesn’t discover that there is no self, but instead discovers that essential spark of the Universal Self that exists under the surface of the World of Forms.”
― Jeremy Puma, How to Think Like a Gnostic

“Of course, there is no indication within Sethian thought that the Self doesn’t exist. Indeed, the Archons involved in the creation and perception of the ephemeral world serve to occlude the Self at their center.”
― Jeremy Puma, How to Think Like a Gnostic

“When discussing generalization in relation to cause and effect, if we begin using this perceived cause and effect for value judgments, we do things like start wars, initiate pogroms and start political parties, all of which are as detrimental to our continued survival as Ogg’s berry.”
― Jeremy Puma, How to Think Like a Gnostic

“What I eventually realized is that if, indeed, ‘conspiracies’ exist (and I still maintain that the most powerful conspiracy is the confederacy between power, money and stupidity), and even if the political scene is designed as a control system to keep the lower classes supporting the upper classes, there’s not a whole lot that I can do about it.”
― Jeremy Puma, How to Think Like a Gnostic

“What I eventually realized is that if, indeed, ‘conspiracies’ exist (and I still maintain that the most powerful conspiracy is the confederacy between power, money and stupidity), and even if the political scene is designed as a control system to keep the lower classes supporting the upper classes, there’s not a whole lot that I can do about it. The”
― Jeremy Puma, How to Think Like a Gnostic

“Accept that you will be cut off, that jerks are out there who are asshole drivers.”
― Jeremy Puma, How to Think Like a Gnostic

“The Gnostic Way works for me, because it gives me a reason for everything that happens (i.e. the default state of the World of Forms is imperfection, the Archons screw stuff up, the proper application of Wisdom and Reason helps deal with the Archons), and gives me a way to react to it (be really skeptical of everything, be nice to other people as much as possible, be bone-shakingly honest about everything). Some days are wretched and stressful and nasty, but if I live this philosophy and make sure it’s always on in the background, that’s OK.”
― Jeremy Puma, How to Think Like a Gnostic

“A good philosophy should be a constant background noise, an ambiance that one can detect behind everything you do and say. A good philosophy is just as present when you’re driving to work or watching a movie as it’s at church. It’s just as present when you’re shopping for clothes or riding the bus as it’s during meditation. It gives you a reason for most things that happen to you, and gives you a reaction to them, as well.”
― Jeremy Puma, How to Think Like a Gnostic

“So, when you’re comparing yourself to someone else, you’re really only comparing yourself to your false image of that person, and when that happens, you’re starting to tickle the fancy of the archons!”
― Jeremy Puma, How to Think Like a Gnostic

“Your self- comparisons to that guy aren’t going to make you rich or famous or house-ier, and whether you think you’re better than someone won’t change their behavior one bit.”
― Jeremy Puma, How to Think Like a Gnostic

“One of the worst things you can do is compare yourself with other people– that’s one way the archons can really get you! It’s very easy to do, but it’s almost always a bad idea; you’re the one your self-image impacts, so what do those people matter?”
― Jeremy Puma, How to Think Like a Gnostic

“It doesn’t, of course, mean you get to be an obnoxious jerk, or that you can stop putting up with their nonsense. Your toe will still hurt when you kick something hard. You’ll still catch that cold, and your computer will still crash at the most inopportune moment. You can’t escape that, not while you’re still living in this World of Forms. However, it does mean that you can be comfortably skeptical. You can realize that it’s all a bunch of tricks, and you can get out from underneath that Kenomic Worldview and start recognizing the illusion. You can start to recognize that there is a lot of total bullshit out there, and you don’t have to feel bad or guilty or wrong for calling it out as bullshit. That’s GNOSIS, people, and it can be yours for FREE!”
― Jeremy Puma, How to Think Like a Gnostic

“Remember, the Limitless Light is differentiating itself until it has experienced all of the potentialities that it contains. This means that the process of metempsychosis allows the Limitless Light to experience each of its aspects as a single consciousness. There is only one consciousness—it’s the one you are experiencing right now, as you read this. It’s also the consciousness that I’m experiencing right now as I type this. This is the Limitless Light learning about itself, and it literally means that everyone is everyone else. I might be reborn as you, you might be reborn as me. Gnosis is the personal realization and experience of this fact. This is a huge secret that I’ve just let you in on.”
― Jeremy Puma, How to Think Like a Gnostic

“The goal of each one of us is to break free of the Black Iron Prison and have as many valid experiences as possible. This breaking free is what we refer to as gnosis.”
― Jeremy Puma, How to Think Like a Gnostic

“There are forces in the world that recognize the illusion, this general insanity of the World of Forms. These forces seek to control the World of Forms for one reason or another. So, taking advantage of our inability to discern reality, they seek to shape our realities for us via control systems. These systems are generally intricate webs or networks of invalid experiences designed to control the illusions or hallucinations of individuals, in order to further the goals of whomever designed the system.”
― Jeremy Puma, How to Think Like a Gnostic

“Jacques Vallee and John Keel).”
― Jeremy Puma, How to Think Like a Gnostic

“The easiest way to recognize the works of the Archons is by noticing whether they’re intended to instil a sense of fear in someone in order to control that person.”
― Jeremy Puma, How to Think Like a Gnostic

“Truly, fear is the power [of the Rulers]. So if you are going to be afraid of what is about to come upon you, it will engulf you.”
― Jeremy Puma, How to Think Like a Gnostic

“I want to repeat that: It’s a huge mistake to think that any single organization (“the Church,” “Government,” “The X Political Party”) is Demiurgic or Archonic.”
― Jeremy Puma, How to Think Like a Gnostic

“This principle is the Great Androgynous CHRISTOS, the perfected Son/Daughter of the Limitless Light as God the Father.”
― Jeremy Puma, How to Think Like a Gnostic

“Some Gnostics are totally atheistic, and see the whole thing as a myth describing psychological processes (one of my friends doesn’t believe that Jesus even existed, a position called “mythicism,” with which I personally disagree).”
― Jeremy Puma, How to Think Like a Gnostic

“1. Life is imperfection. 2.      The origin of imperfection is separation from the Fullness of the Pleroma (the realms of Perfection). 3. It’s possible to reconnect to the Pleroma. 4.      Reconnection to the Pleroma is possible via this Way, the cultivation of gnosis. There’s a story that goes along with this, similar to other religious stories. It has to do with the fall from grace of Sophia, or Wisdom, an aspect of Divinity, and her production of a being called the Demiurge, a misguided oaf of a deity who ended up creating our universe, but who didn’t do a very good job. It’s kind of a theory of “Unintelligent Design.”
― Jeremy Puma, How to Think Like a Gnostic