Gnostic Book of Hours: Keys to Inner Wisdom

A truly inspirational Gnostic prayer book that will keep you connected with the Limitless Light, Christos and Sophia throughout your day. This book is a well-researched system of Gnostic worship. This book beautifully asserts the Unity of All That Is, the Inner and the Outer. So many "spiritual" people want to pretend that the Gnostics had a disdain for the physical body. Why would Jesus and his followers then place such great significance on the resurrection of the body? The Resurrection of the Body is the single-most important argument for the great importance that God places on our physical existence."And we who are living will also be transformed. For our dying bodies must be transformed into bodies that will never die; our mortal bodies must be transformed into immortal bodies. Then, when our dying bodies have been transformed into bodies that will never die, this Scripture will be fulfilled:Death is swallowed up in victory.O death, where is your victory?O death, where is your sting?”1 Corinthians 52-55

I enjoyed reading Singer’s excellent treatment of how Gnosis supports Carl Jung’s understanding of human nature. However, I have recently finished writing a manuscript that includes the origin of two groups holding ideologically opposed Gnostic belief systems which the Christian Church tried to destroy by making them a heretical movement within Christianity. Scholar Kurt Rudolph, one of Singer’s sources, testifies to this destruction of historical truth, but Singer doesn’t mention it. I am very familiar with many of her sources and many that she didn’t consult.The Church’s effort might have been successful if the Qumran and Nag Hammadi materials had not been discovered. The Church reacted defensively because there was no place in either belief system for the Church’s Christian God and its Jesus Christ. Both groups of Gnostics believed that the true salvivic force was their Gnostic God acting through his Holy Spirit. One group’s system limited salvation to chosen individuals who were led by the Spirit within them to join the group. The other group, whose beliefs were embodied in the Christianized version of the Gnostic Apocryphon of John, taught that everyone would eventually be saved by the Spirit within them through the process of reincarnation. But Singer doesn’t mention this when she uses the Apocryphon to support certain aspects of Jungian psychology. So, Singer was mistaken when, on page xxi, she writes that “gnosis enables us…to understand that an individual life is brief. We fall like leaves from a tree, but the tree endures.” She was also mistaken when, in her historical notes, she claimed that the Nag Hammadi Library contained “…a very large and representative corpus of original Gnostic writings…” (My underlining). In fact, only four of the forty-five writings are original; the others reflect Christian efforts to make the Church’s Jesus Christ the Savior of those who believe in him.Nor would either group have subscribed to the meditative practices in the Book of Hours because one of the groups was composed of Jews and converted Gentiles dedicated to obeying their God’s dogma and ritual. The members of the other group didn’t need to meditate in order to “maintain the presence of the divine mystery within the everyday world.” The Spirit within each member had taught them the Hindu belief that we are not our bodies and that we do not die when our bodies die.Each of us is a self, a spirit being. When it becomes embodied in matter, it forgets that it is the Self, the Deity from which it came. It identifies with its body and engages in wrong action. I learned from my study of Hinduism that the highest aim of all thought and study was to get an embodied self to recognize that it is a mere limited reflection of the Highest Self, to know itself in the Highest Self, and through that knowledge to return to it, and regain its identity with it. This is the original Gnostic message in a nutshell.

It was an easy read and helped relate parts of the NHG to today's life.

not usable for hours . really bunch of fluff w pictures. a table book

Love this book!

Excellent contemplation

This is a book that I keep loaning out and it's never returned. This is my fourth purchase and a "must read again" near my desk. I pick it up and go to a comfy chair for a return to the center of my being guided by these remarkable insights.

This book is a jem. I very much recommed this book who has trancended the intellect to see intellect as a car so important to operate correctly. Perhaps best for advanced Jungian like minded souls and those touched by God (ie handicap of some kind inducing infused knowledge)or those not yet having yet heard the call to life.

easily readable, a good effort for those wanting to incorporate following this well known spiritual path with the experiential Gnostic way of being..Great to see books like this becoming more widely available to the general public.

A brilliantly written, clear and interesting book which explains so much in such a short space. A really interesting read - worth every penny!

Interesting read for those studying gnosticism.

Excellent devotional book for the gnostic faith system that reaches beyond the senses.

a different point of view, very interesting