Master Hamid Bey was trained by Coptic masters in Egypt during the early 1900’s. His early education was focused on fundamental principles of self mastery leading him to the ultimate goal of complete mastery on the physical, mental and emotional levels. His early testing put him in life situations where he taught humility, the foundation of spirituality. Eventually he was taught how to put pins through his body without pain and how to be buried alive for hours at a time.
In the mid-1920’s, he was sent to the United States to teach the laws of balanced living. He was told one of his early missions in America was to challenge Houdini, who had indicated he was the only one on earth who could accomplish his memorable feats. By the time Master Bey arrived in the U.S., Houdini had passed away.
In the late 1920’s, he met Paramahansa Yogananda and they traveled together throughout America. They were two of the earliest and greatest pioneers of the metaphysical movement. Paramahansa would give the lecture and Master Bey would be buried alive in public, demonstrating the many skills of self mastery he learned during his early years of training by the Egyptian Coptic Masters.
The Mandaeans of southern Iraq are the only remaining Gnostic sect from ancient times. They began their history on Sri Lanka when the island was part of the land-mass of Lemuria and home of the primeval Goddess Culture. Eventually migrating west they became part of the Sumerian, Persian, Egyptian and Jewish Essene civilizations. Finally, retracing their steps, they returned to their present location. In the tradition of the ancient gnostic sects descended from the Goddess and the Left Hand Path, the Mandaeans are dedicated to the achievement of gnosis for all their people, which they know involves the balance and union of the polarity and the alchemical force that results from that union.
To engender the balance and union of the polarity in their culture, the Mandaeans provide equal rights for both men and women. They are governed by their priest/priestess class, which is composed of both men and women. The centerpiece of their religion is the rite of baptism which is observed daily, during which is invoked the presence of the ancient Dragon Enki, the embodiment of the alchemical Kundalini, under his contemporary name of Manda d’Hiya. Enki is the “Water of Life,” the subtle alchemical force that moves within the physical water of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. When activated it purifies Mandaeans on all levels and can awaken their “inner Enki,” the Kundalini power at the base of the spine.
The daily baptismal immersion of a Mandaean, known as the “Rishama,” a prayer is repeated while each part of the body is sequentially cleansed. At the end of the rite, the power and wisdom of ancient Enki as Manda d’Hiya is invoked with the words: “The name of the Life [the Divine Power] and the name of Manda d’Hiya [the Divine Wisdom] are pronounced upon me.”
The most powerful of baptisms are observed on Sunday under the guidance of a Mandaean priest and incorporate much more ritual than the Rishama. They include the sacraments of oil, bread, and water, and end with the sacred kiss upon the head from a priest, a rite known as “giving Kushta.” Possibly the most valuable part of the ceremony for a person’s spiritual progress is a special transmission of energy given them by the priest or preistess, who after the water immersion transmits the Water of Life or Kundalini power into a baptized Mandaean by placing their right hand upon his or her head and calling forth Manda d’Hiya.
At the conclusion of their life, all Mandaeans rise up to Mshunia Kushta, an etheric dimension where they merge with their etheric-body double that has been waiting for them during their earthly sojourn. When asked the location of this etheric world, the priests give the description of an etheric world that apparently overlays the planet Venus and mimics the Earth when it was the Garden of Eden. One Mandaean priest has stated: “There is a star inhabited by men, the descendants of the Hidden Adam [the etheric double of Adam], but they are semi-spiritual in nature, and not gross like ourselves. This star is called Merikh, the star of the morning.” The Mandaean baptismal purifications continue on this “star” until each Mandaean is ready to shed his or her etheric forms and live exclusively in their most refined bodies of light as pure luminaries of gnosis. They are then eligible to return home through the Pleiades stargate to the highest Pleroma worlds of light.
From Mark Amaru Pinkham – Author : THE GNOSTIC CIVILIZATION OF THE MANDAEANS (Excerpted from World Gnosis: Coming Gnostic Civilization)
PHOTO: A Mandean baptism in the Tigris River, May 2003. Credit : Oleg Nikishin/Getty Images
The Cathars recognized Jesus Christ as a model Perfecti (a “perfected” priest). He was, however, not the one and only Son of God but an angelic Christed spirit. They maintained that it was necessary for Jesus to come to Earth to receive redemption through purification for his past sins, thereby implying that he had previously incarnated on the planet.
The Cathars’ philosophical leanings regarding Jesus, along with their other heretical revelations, including the belief that Mary Magdalene had once been married to the Christ, eventually got them in trouble with the Catholic Church. But they were deemed harmless until they began to baptize Catholics into their heretical faith, including previously anointed Catholic priests and bishops. Eventually entire dioceses began to defect, and to add insult to injury, the new Cathar converts stopped paying their tithes to the Church.
The Church also became very jealous of the Cathar Perfectis’ ability to soundly defeat leading Catholic theologians in philosophical debate. As heirs to the intellectual Manichaeans, the Cathars nourished both hemispheres of the brain in order to eventually unite them in the production of Gnostic Consciousness.
The Cathar’s heresy and their distaste of everything related to the Church was eventually distilled and summarized by one famous Catholic saint who publicly stated: [T]hey [the Perfecti] talk to the laity of the evil lives of the clerks and prelates of the Roman Church…they attack all the sacraments of the Church, especially the sacrament of the Eucharist, saying that it cannot contain the body of Christ. Of Baptism, they assert that the water is material and corruptible…and cannot sanctify the soul…they claim that confession made to the priests of the Roman Church is useless…. They assert, moreover, that the cross of Christ should not be adored or venerated [having been an instrument of torture]…”
In 1209, Pope Innocent III issued a bull authorizing a Crusade against the Cathar heresy. This was the beginning of the final, sad chapter in the Cathars’ short history. Over the next thirty years an estimated 500,000 Cathar men, women and children would be tortured and slaughtered. Through much of this time their only protection was the gnostic sympathizers that came to their aid, especially the Johannite Knights Templar who, it was said, were “the secular arm of the Perfecti.”
On the night before the fateful day of March 16, 1244, when 225 Cathars marched down from hilltop fort of Montsegur and into the hands of the Catholic authorities, it is believed that one or more versions of the Holy Grail they had possessed, along with some priceless gnostic manuscripts, were lowered from the mountain and hidden in a local cave.
Finally, with their sacred work in Earth complete, the Cathars chanted songs of thanksgiving for their impending release from the shackles of Rex Mundi and the material world. Then, upon reaching the foot of Montsegur, they joyfully entered the lapping flames of a roaring bon fire and began their ascent to their eternal home in the Pleroma.
From: World Gnosis: The Coming Gnostic Civilization by Mark Amaru Pinkham
Mark Amaru Pinkham is the author of nine books detailing the mysteries of ancient humanity and their civilizations, and the spiritual wisdom derived from them. Listed below in order of publication, beginning in 1997… 👉 The Return of the Serpents of Wisdom 👉 Conversations with the Great Goddess: The Secret Doctrine of the Fifth World 👉 From the Green Man to Jesus: The Origin and Evolution of the Christ Myth 👉 Guardians of the Holy Grail: The Knights Templar, John the Baptist and the Water of Life 👉 World Gnosis: The Coming Gnostic Civilization 👉 Sedona: City of the Star People 👉 Sacred Geometry and the Creation of the Universe 👉 An Initiate’s Guide to The Path of the Dragon 👉 The Complete Seven Rays of Healing System 🌟 And The Sedona Vortex Video
IMPORTANT GNOSTIC SECTS OF THE WEST 🐉 The Gnostic Manichaeans
Beginning in the 3rd Century a virtual explosion of Gnosticism took hold of Asia and Europe through the “Religion of the Prophet Mani.” Known as Manichaeism, this planetary gnostic faith would endure for 1000 years and bring gnosticism to countless people living in the lands that stretched from China to Britain.
The Prophet Mani was born in 217 CE to a father of the Gnostic Mandaeans and a Persian Princess. His mission began when his guardian angel, who identified itself as the Paraclete, the “Comforter” promised by Jesus, appeared to Mani and instructed him to complete the work of all the great prophets who had come before him, including Zoroaster, Moses, Buddha and Jesus. They had all brought pieces of the gnostic “puzzle” on Earth, and now it was time for Mani to synthesize all these pieces into one all-encompassing universal faith designed for everyone.
Mani’s religion encouraged the development of both the right and left hemispheres of the brain through both intellectual and intuitive training, thus supporting the development of gnosis. The teachers of his sect were from both sexes; they were highly educated and intuitive, and most were adepts on the gnostic-alchemical path. Besides committing themselves to studying, translating and copying all the available spiritual writings of their era, the priests of Manicheaeism also observed a celibate lifestyle, a vegetarian diet, and long days and nights of meditation, fasting and prayer. They embraced a traditional gnostic ideology which maintained that all humans were divine spirits imprisoned in physical forms, and they followed Mani’s guidance to extricate their souls from the shackles of dense matter. Until their release from matter was permanent they knew they were destined to continue to revolve on the wheel of reincarnation indefinitely.
Manichaeism was composed of lay persons known as Auditors or “Hearers,” and their teachers, priests and adepts were known as the Pure or “Elect.” The Pure lived an intensely austere lifestyle that allowed only one meal per day and required at least 100 days of fasting over the course of a year, with at least one of those fasts continuing for a period of 30 days. They were required to daily chant eight very long hymnal prayers, and when not meditating or studying texts they were enjoined to enroll in service work to benefit their communities. The Elect were supported materially by the lay persons, who lived normal, worldly lives until they were ready to surrender to the life of a Pure. At the time of his or her advancement a Hearer would be absolved of all sin and have the Holy Spirit power transmitted into them by a facilitating Elect to catalyze the awakening of the inner Serpent Power or Kundalini. Any future sin could be rectified with mentanoia, “repentance,” except for one, observes the gnostic author Kurt Rudolph: “Unforgivable is only the sin of the conscious resistance against the redeeming knowledge, the illumination by the light-nous, the Holy Spirit….”
Mani was supported early in his ministry by the Persian King Shappur, but when the King died, his son Bharam colluded with the Persian high priest Kartir to cleanse the world of all “heretical” sects, including Manicheanism. Mani was sent to prison, and after years of torture he died an agonizing death in his cell. In the year 277 his dismembered and flayed corpse was put on public display, which at the time was the traditional fate of all condemned heretics.
From: “World Gnosis: The Coming Gnostic Civilization” by Mark Amaru Pinkham 🐍
Life Coach, Entrepreneur, Social Media Expert, Musician, Yoga Teacher, World Traveler
