Let me try...

Personal question, if you don't mind my asking .....what is your background (religious/spiritual) ?

-Kash Ottawa too =)

Umm.. baptised and confirmed catholic, but that doesn't mean anything. I hadn't even read the bible til long after I walked away from that.

I do have a lot of what would be considered 'gnostic' texts, and other extrabiblical 'books' on my harddrive, but I haven't read any gnostic interpretation in my life.

I read texts and make the connections and interpretations for myself.

I am not at all 'religious' in any modern sense of the world, and I think all organized religions are full of shit, altho I do like Jesus, Mohammad, Buddha, etc.

Hi Greg,

Your efforts to stimulate conversation are appreciated, so what the hell? Here we go!

I have real problems with the notion of Christ Consciousness. First, because I think the esoteric ideas of direct relationship with the Divine within a Western framework greatly predate Christianity, and that the Christian trappings of 'classical' gnosticism are merely Hermetics with a Christian veneer that grew heavier with time; but because I have a real problem with myth, which is mostly what Jesus is all about, in either exo- or esoteric form. I believe that Christ Consciousness is something like an attempt at a personal relationship with IAO Eloach ve-Da'ath, i.e., Tifereth; and finally, because I have a problem with the notion that there is a shift in the level of functioning of the Collective that can be demarcated as pre-/post Christ.

While I hold the esoteric Christian movement to be as legitimate as any mystical movement out there, I find it so easy and useful utterly to reject that particular slant to the symbolism, simply because it is NO LONGER MANDATORY, and might be profitable eschewed as a golden fetter that might now be cheerfully cast off.

Comments?

Regards,