The Secret Knowledge
Enmity Between Flesh and Spirit
"There is no kingdom to be awaited from above or in the future, the spiritual kingdom is already within them and surrounding them, if only they open their inner eyes to see it. The material world and physical body are rejected as evil, and one abstains as far as possible from things material. Sex is seen as an evil, and the female role in bearing new spirits imprisoned in bodies is especially deprecated. By asceticism the spirits already triumph in principle over the body, which will be totally left behind at physical death." - John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew - Rethinking the Historical Jesus, Vol. 1. "...Certain sects of the early Gnostic Christians...taught that to propagate the human species was to increase and perpetuate the power of the Demiurgus; for the lower world was looked upon as an evil fabrication created to ensnare the souls of all born into it - hence it was a crime to assist in bringing souls to earth. When, therefore, the unfortunate father or mother shall stand before the Final Tribunal, all their offspring will also appear and accuse them of being the cause of those miseries attendant upon physical existence." - Manly P. Hall, Masonic, Hermetic, Quabbalistic & Rosicrucian Symbolical Philosophy "Judas said ‘You have said this to us from the mind of truth. When we pray, how shall we pray?’ The Lord said ‘Pray in the place where there is no woman.’ Matthew said ‘He says to us "Pray in the place where there is no woman." and "Destroy the works of femaleness" not because she is another [...] but so that the works will cease.’ Mariam said ‘Will they never be destroyed?’ The Lord said ‘The Mother is the one who knows that the works of femaleness will dissolve and be destroyed in this place.’" - The Dialogue of the Savior "To the Christians he [Judas] was the greatest of traitors, to the Gnostics he ‘alone knew the truth better than the other apostles {and thus} he accomplished the mystery of the betrayal’." - Maged S. Mikhail, "The Gnostics, A Survey of Gnostic Beliefs and Gnostic-Christian Ties"