Aeon: Greek “emanation, divine power, cosmic time cycle.“ “Reefs of Aeonic dreaming.” (Gaia Mythos)

An Aeon is a god understood in terms of the physics of consciousness. They are processes, great living currents, both self-aware and in possession of sense abilities. The Goddess Sophia, who becomes embodied as Gaia, is an Aeon, hence the Aeon Sophia. Aeons are gendered. In some Gnostic scenarios the male counterpart to the female Aeon Sophia is the Aeon Christos.

Gnostic’s, in first century Christianity, were a prominent segment of the new Christian community. They were the early followers of Christ, and held strongly to the beliefs of Christ and his message, and experienced a “special witness” or the revelatory experience of the divine as experienced in the Ein Solf of the ancient Kabbalistic mystery tradition. This spiritual experience is called “gnosis” by the Gnostics, which is believed by them to be the true way of Christ. Stephan Hoeller explains that these Gnostic Christians held a “conviction that direct, personal and absolute knowledge of the authentic truths of existence is accessible to human beings, and, moreover, that the attainment of such knowledge must always constitute the supreme achievement of human life.”

In December 1945, near the town of Nag Hammadi in Upper Egypt, Gnostic studies were reborn. A collection of ancient texts were discovered hidden away since the year 390 A.D., by monks of St. Pachomius, to escape destruction by order of the growing Christian Church that was at that time violently eradicating heresy. These thirteen papyrus codices containing fifty-two sacred texts are now called the “Gnostic Gospels.”

We learn from reading Mary Magdalene: Beyond The Myth (1993), by Susan Haskins, that there was a concerted effort on the part of churchmen of the early church to destroy the knowledge of any female contributions. Mary Magdalene’s may well have been victim to this legacy of deceit and repression. This book renders the theory that the Fourth Gospel, believed to be authored by John of Zebedee is really written by Mary Magdalene. Is the Beloved Disciple of the Fourth Gospel and founder and leader of what has come to be known as the Johannine Community really Mary Magdalene? According to Haskins there is more evidence pointing to Mary’s writing the Fourth Gospel than John writing it. The following are not official gospels that are included in the Bible, but to the Christian mystic they are important indeed and could be considered part of the Bible.