DeConick A.D

184
GNOSTIC ALTERED STATES
As he follows instructions and withdraws into himself, the initiate comments
that he actually feels the stillness of silence bodily within himself. As
he does this, he notes that he comes into direct contact with his true self.
In this way, the unknown God is revealed to him gradually, at higher and
higher, deeper and deeper levels. His spirit is transformed into a divinity
like the one he is contemplating (59.26–60.19, 61.25–31).
These texts and others suggest that Gnostics of all stripes cultivated
intentional stillness by standing for long periods of time in a prayer posture.
In Corpus Hermeticum (XIII.16), the Hermetic instructor tells the
initiate that the hymns sung in the transcendent realm by the powers
that reside there are something that cannot be taught but instead are
concealed in silence. Then how is this hymnody revealed to the initiate?
He is instructed to stand motionless and then to bow in adoration to the
setting sun. He is to be still again until dawn, when he is instructed to
bow second time, facing the rising sun. In the Gospel of the Egyptians
(NHC III.2 67.15–20) we have mention of a silent prayer beginning with
the hands folded to the breast, then moving to an outspread position, and
finally circling back.
Standing prayer postures were quite common in antiquity. Catacomb
frescoes and ancient literature suggest that ancient people commonly performed
prayer by standing with outstretched arms, in what we call the
orans position. The standing prayer posture among Jews and Christians
appears to be mimetic, in imitation of the angels who stand in God’s
presence, who have no use for knees but stand praising God for all eternity
(1 Enoch 39.12–13, 40.1, 47.3, 49.2, 68.2; 2 Enoch 21.1; Testament
of Abraham 7–8; see Fossum 1985, 55, 120–25, 139–42; DeConick 1996,
89–93). It is the posture of the deceased righteous, who stand in God’s
presence and participate in heavenly cultic services (Ascension of Isaiah
9.9–10). Later Christian monks and hermits did the same thing, believing
themselves to be like the angels standing in rapture next to God’s throne.
Simeon, a Syrian monk, was so convinced of the efficacy of devotional
standing that he built a series of ever-higher pillars upon which he stood
for his entire adult life, contemplating God. These types of parallels go a
long way toward explaining why the Sethian Gnostics called themselves
the Immobiles or the Standers, traditionally translated by scholars as the
Immovable Race (Williams 1985).