DeConick A.D

175
GNOSTIC ALTERED STATES
performances were not pretend. These initiations were virtual realities created
so that the initiates experienced utter transformation, the emergence
of a new sense of themselves as mortal gods. These initiations involved the
staging of otherworldly journeys along secret initiatory routes through
the underworld, skies, and transcendent realms. The dark lords were confronted
and the transcendent divinities were embraced along the way.
The Structure of Gnostic Initiation
Each Gnostic community prided itself on owning the “real” map to eternal
bliss, the map that would guide the lost spirit back to its transcendent
home, where it would merge with God in a bath of Being or in an embrace
of the sacred erotic. Only then could it be healed of the terrifying
aftereffects of its initial separation. Each Gnostic group defined itself by
offering its own variation, its own esoteric spin on this magical mystery
tour that actualized the divine human potential and led the spirit home, to
a hidden place beyond the underworld purgatories and endless spinning
of the stars in our cosmos.
In the next chapter, we will learn about five different second-century
Gnostic groups and their particular initiatory paths to immortality. Before
learning about the wild diversity of their stories and their regional programs
of initiation, however, it is important to understand that they are
not as diverse as they appear on the surface. Although there are wild local
variations across Gnostic groups in terms of mythologies, doctrines, and
ceremonies, there also are structural similarities, especially when it comes
to ritual. There is a sense of sameness in the ceremonies performed across
the vast spectrum of second-century Gnostic groups, a deep structure that
stabilizes the variety, a scaffold that secures the difference.
This sameness is dependent on the deep cognitive structures that help
us orient our bodies to our world, including our sense of being vertical
creatures with standing, sitting, and lying postures (DeConick 2014). This
means that for human beings up is associated with good things like God,
health, weightlessness, light, and virtue, while down is demonic, death,
heaviness, darkness, and depravity. The Gnostic initiations are structured
to move the spirit back up to the transcendent realm of the Good Father
from which it fell down . This means that the spirit has to be taken ritually