cathars Archives - Sakshi Zion

Gnosticism, as a broader movement, typically emphasizes asceticism, the rejection of materialism, and the pursuit of spiritual enlightenment. The material world, including acts of violence such as killing animals, is often seen as the creation of the demiurge (a lesser, corrupt deity). Many Gnostics sought to transcend this world through non-violence and spiritual purity, which is why vegetarianism was widely practiced among various Gnostic sects.

Animal Sacrifice as Violence: Most Gnostics viewed the material world as inherently flawed and violent. Acts like animal sacrifice were often seen as perpetuating this corruption. Instead, Gnostics advocated for spiritual practices that aligned with non-violence, inner purity, and the rejection of worldly desires, including the consumption of meat.
Gnostic Scriptures and Teachings: Texts like the Gospel of Thomas emphasize direct spiritual knowledge (gnosis) and inner enlightenment, rejecting the need for external rituals like sacrifices. Similarly, early Christian Gnostics often cited Jesus’ opposition to the temple’s sacrificial system (e.g., his cleansing of the temple in Matthew 21:12-13) as evidence of his rejection of such practices.
Jesus and the Sacrificial System: Jesus’ identification as the “Lamb of God” symbolizes a spiritual sacrifice that replaces the need for physical sacrifices. This aligns with the Gnostic view that true spiritual transformation comes from within, not through external rituals.

“Consuming God” in Gnosticism

Metaphorical, Not Literal: The idea of “eating and consuming God” in Gnosticism is primarily metaphorical. It represents spiritual communion, enlightenment, and the assimilation of divine wisdom, not the literal consumption of animal flesh.
Eucharistic Symbolism: Early Gnostic interpretations of the Eucharist (the symbolic eating of Christ’s body and blood) emphasize its spiritual, not material, significance. Gnostics often interpreted this act as a mystical union with the divine, rejecting the physicality of consuming literal flesh and blood.
Non-Material Spirituality: The Gnostic worldview consistently prioritizes the spiritual over the physical. The idea of literally consuming God through animal sacrifices would contradict their fundamental belief in transcending materiality and rejecting the violence of the physical world.

Historical Evidence of Gnostic Vegetarianism

Ebionites and Nazoreans: Many early Christian Gnostic sects, such as the Ebionites and Nazoreans, explicitly rejected meat consumption and animal sacrifice. These groups saw vegetarianism as a way to embody Jesus’ teachings of non-violence, mercy, and compassion.
Essenes and Similar Groups: While some Essenes practiced animal sacrifice, other ascetic Jewish sects, including those with Gnostic leanings, rejected it altogether. The diversity within these groups highlights the broader trend of rejecting animal sacrifice among those pursuing spiritual purity.
Ethical Vegetarianism: Gnostics often tied their rejection of meat to ethical concerns, viewing the killing of animals as an unnecessary act of violence that perpetuated the corrupt material world created by the demiurge.

Vegetarianism was superior in many Gnostic groups because it aligned with their rejection of the material world’s violence and corruption. Sects like the Manicheans and Cathars practiced vegetarianism as a reflection of their commitment to spiritual purity, non-violence, and detachment from the material realm. Unlike sacrificial traditions in other faiths, Gnostic thought often viewed abstaining from meat as essential to transcending the physical world’s base desires, making vegetarianism a natural extension of their cosmology and ethics.

Thanks for visiting my blog! To learn more about this Esoteric Wisdom and to start your own journey with a team of like-minded and inspired Wisdom Seekers, forging a way to make the world a better place for all, just like you…

Click here & listen to our Daily Mastermind Call (recorded live Mon-Fri) & also I invite you to work directly with me. I’m here to help! Send me a message to discuss your interests and questions.

~Sakshi Zion

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